Blinding light infiltrated Clarke's senses as she woke up, even though her eyes were not yet even open. Her hands jumped up to cover them, and she let out a sigh of relief. Her next thought came in a rush of realization, and her eyes shot open, staring at the darkness of her palm and the slight lines of light leaking through her fingers. She was naked, she could feel her body pressed against the soft sheets. The previous night was a blur, but what she did remember still didn't leave very much up to imagination. Her breathing quickening, Clarke forced her hand away from her face, turning to look at the other side of the bed and finding it empty.

Surprisingly, Lexa's absence calmed her down, and she squeezed her eyes shut again as she exhaled. She and Lexa had slept together. Honestly, she shouldn't have been surprised that her drunken self would initiate something like that, but she was a little bit surprised that Lexa had gone along with it. After all, didn't Lexa think that she was straight? Though, the brunette had said herself that she didn't like to assume people's sexualities, so maybe she hadn't thought about that at all when Clarke had kissed her.

Deciding that she needed to get up and find Lexa, Clarke let out a long breath and sat up abruptly, wincing when a head rush limited her senses for a moment. "Come on, Clarke," she mumbled to herself. She forced her eyes open and got herself out of the bed, escaping into the guest bathroom to ready herself to leave the room.

Clarke took about ten minutes after getting ready to make sure that she wasn't going to vomit, and then she threw on her clothes from the previous night, grabbed her phone, and finally left the room. She heard noises downstairs, and recalled that Lexa was usually up early making food, so she started down the stairs. When she reached the landing, she became aware of two voices from the kitchen, and she leaned against the wall that divided the stairs from the kitchen to listen.

"No, I had fun," Lexa was saying.

"Where'd you disappear to then?"

"Clarke saw Finn, so we left early."

Anya hummed, clearly interested all of the sudden. "You came back here with Clarke, huh?"

"Yes. Is there a problem?"

"Did you sleep together?"

"No."

"Don't lie to me, Lexa, I opened the guest bedroom door late last night to see if you guys were in there, and I was greeted by your naked ass," Anya snapped. Clarke's face flushed dark red, and she felt like she should be escaping back upstairs. She wasn't meant to be listening to this. "So you finally slept with her?"

"Don't say it like that, it's not like I was trying to sleep with her." Lexa sounded suddenly very defensive.

"Fine, okay, you weren't trying to sleep with her. You just shoved her up against a counter and took a body shot off of her and then came back here less than twenty minutes later to fuck her."

Lexa let out a frustrated noise. "Anya, you don't know what you're talking about, okay? I wouldn't have done anything without Clarke doing something first, got it? I'm not a fucking predator."

"Jeez, fine," Anya mumbled. "I just thought she was straight."

Lexa huffed. "I'm trying not to think about that." Clarke swallowed thickly, feeling now as though she violated a very personal conversation, even though it was about her, and she took a slow step backwards toward the stairs.

"Well, I guess we don't know that for sure," Anya suggested positively, and Clarke hard Lexa let out a deep sigh.

"I guess. You wanna go get everyone and tell them I made pancakes?"

Clarke's eyes widened, and she bolted back up the stairs as quietly as she could, reentering the guest bedroom and going to stand next to the bed. She had a matter of seconds before someone was knocking on the door. "Clarke, you awake?" Sure enough, it was Anya.

"Yep," she called back, sounding slightly panicked.

She heard something like a chuckle from the other side of the door. "Cool. Lexa made pancakes."

"Okay, I'll be down in a minute!" When she heard the footsteps heading upstairs, Clarke let out a relieved breath. She wanted to wait until other people were downstairs before going down herself – what was she supposed to say to Lexa otherwise? She knew that she needed to have the sexuality conversation with the brunette, or at least the discussion about Clarke having feelings for her. Even though she was sure that sleeping with Lexa had been a mistake, she felt like that was true more so because of the time of it taking place rather than the actual action itself. Clarke really liked Lexa, and Lexa... well, she hadn't told Anya that she thought sleeping with Clarke was the wrong thing.

When the herd of feet could be heard coming back downstairs, Clarke cleared her throat and pushed open the guest bedroom door, joining her friends. "Morning, Clarke," Harper chimed happily. "Why did you leave early last night?"

"Saw Finn," Clarke replied.

Raven scoffed. "Ugh, we should've pummeled him." That got a snicker out of Anya.

"You mean me and Harper and Lexa? Because when she saw Finn, you two were off in a closet somewhere tearing each other's clothes off."

"Hey, we were drunk, it was a party," Octavia insisted. "I would've been concerned if we hadn't had sex. Everyone has sex at parties."

Anya smirked, and Clarke knew that it was not because of Octavia and Raven, but because of Lexa and herself. Clarke did her best to not appear guilty, and they all headed downstairs and into the kitchen. Immediately, Lexa flashed them all a smile and said, "Morning."

"How the fuck are you so awake?" Raven demanded. Before Lexa could answer, however, she was also demanding, "Gimme some pancakes!"

Lexa laughed, dumping a few pancakes onto a bunch of plates and distributing them. When she gave one to Clarke, the blonde became acutely aware of the fact that green eyes were avoiding hers, and she looked down shyly at her plate, unsure of how she should be handling this situation.

They all ate in a tense silence, as if the others in the room could sense the tension in between Lexa and Clarke. When they were all finishing up, Lexa glanced somewhat nervously around the room and then cleared her throat. "Ah, I think I have some homework I need to get done. I'm gonna head out."

"Okay," Octavia replied nonchalantly.

Clarke bit down on her tongue, and then forced her mouth open. "Could you possibly give me a ride home, Lexa?" Green eyes finally landed on her nervous blue ones and softened.

"Yeah. You ready to go now?"

"I just have to grab my makeup bag from Octavia's room," Clarke murmured, standing up from the bar stool and hurrying upstairs to grab said bag. When she got back downstairs, Lexa had her keys in hand, ready to go.

"See you guys tomorrow," Lexa called back to their friends, and the two of them received a chorus of goodbyes.

The two of them were silent as they left the house and headed for Lexa's car. When they slid into their respective seats, and Lexa started the car, Clarke knew that she should speak first, especially considering that she'd listened in on Lexa's conversation with Anya. However, it wasn't until five minutes into the drive that she finally gathered the courage to do so. When she finally opened her mouth, she hadn't been prepared, and the words that spilled out from between her lips actually startled her. "I'm bi."

Lexa looked at her in surprise, before fixing her gaze back on the road and asking a soft, "Oh?"

"Yeah. I've kinda known for a long while, but I never really... told anyone."

"You... didn't have to tell me that."

Clarke tried not to roll her eyes. "Yeah well... I heard you talking to Anya earlier." At first, she hadn't planned on telling Lexa that, but she figured that it was only fair for the brunette to know.

Lexa seemed alarmed all of the sudden. "Wait, what?"

"When she was asking you if we slept together."

"You normally eavesdrop on people's conversations?" Lexa sounded shaken, and Clarke immediately felt awful.

"No, I didn't... ah, I just came downstairs and heard you guys talking. Honestly." Lexa said nothing, and Clarke sighed, turning her head to look out the window. She thought back to the previous night, and how amazing it had felt. But now she was sure that she had ruined everything, so she sat still and fiddled with the edge of her makeup bag.

Her thoughts roamed during the entirety of the drive, causing her emotions to bounce back and forth between confused, stressed, disheartened, and even angry. When Lexa stopped the car in front of Clarke's house, the blonde didn't say anything, and it was safe to say that she was a little bitter by now. Yeah, she had been the one to start everything the night before, and yes, she had listened in to a personal conversation between Lexa and Anya. But she didn't see where she'd actually done anything wrong. At least, she wasn't the one avoiding Lexa and the topic altogether.

Clambering out of the car, she checked that she had her phone and her bag and was about to just leave when Lexa's voice suddenly said, "I'll see you tomorrow?" Clarke looked over her shoulder at the brunette and nodded, unable to smile.

"Thanks for the ride." Her tone was flat, and she ended the short sentence by somewhat slamming the car door shut. When she trudged up to the front door and pushed into the house, Marcus poked his head out from the kitchen.

"Oh good, you're home," he called. "I think your phone died, I texted you a few hours ago asking when you'd be back."

Clarke looked down at her phone and clicked the lock button. Sure enough, the screen stayed black. "Oh yeah, I'm sorry. I'll make sure to charge it next time while I'm out. Was there anything you needed from me?"

Marcus smiled softly at her. "No, only to make sure that you're okay. Did you already have something to eat?" Clarke nodded, relaxing. "Okay well, I'm going to make something for dinner tonight, so make sure you don't miss it. It's one of your father's old recipes – did you know that he was actually a really good cook?"

Clarke lit up slightly. Even though she had only a few years' worth of memories with her father, they were all quite nice, disconnected as they may be. They were all she really had to remember her father by, considering that her mom never really talked about him, so it was nice to have Marcus, who wasn't opposed to mentioning him. "I remember that. I'll definitely be down for dinner. Right now, I think I'm going to go finish up some homework." Marcus nodded, and Clarke headed upstairs.

As soon as she got into her room, her eyes settled on her school work, sitting neatly on the desk in the corner of the room. It would take her a couple of hours to complete, and since her head still hurt, she decided to do it all later. For now, she grabbed her notebook and sprawled across her bed, opening to a clean page, dating it, and beginning to write.

She started by writing what events had passed last night and this morning, but she expressed it from her character self, not her own person. Her narrator was braver than she, better at sorting through feelings. Her narrator's story could go pages and pages past the current moment, and it did, and by the time Clarke's hand began to ache, tears were rolling down her cheeks.

Finally giving up, Clarke pushed the notebook away from her and let her head fall weakly into her pillow.


"Hey Clarke!" Octavia called, waving the blonde over as she approached the school. "I texted you like five times yesterday, what happened?"

"Oh," Clarke said in surprise, grabbing her phone and unlocking it. Sure enough, she had many missed text messages from her friend. "My phone was dead yesterday and when I got home I went back to sleep, and then did homework. So I only plugged it in late last night."

Octavia shrugged. "Did you have fun at the party on Saturday? Sorry about the whole Finn thing..."

"It's fine, I did have a lot of fun," Clarke promised. "It was nice to just relax for a little while, and let loose, you know?"

Octavia nodded with a wide grin. "Awesome, just wanted to check. Have you seen Lexa yet, by the way? Or Raven?" Clarke shook her head, and the first bell rang, leaving the brunette to sigh in annoyance. "Well, I guess they're all still hungover or something. See you at lunch."

The beginning of the day was fairly awful, what with Clarke having to see Finn in two classes before finally getting to English. Her teacher gave them a reading day for the book they were meant to have finished by the end of the week, and Clarke happily settled into her seat to read it. As someone who rather enjoyed reading, it didn't take her long to get tens of pages into it, and she barely even registered that the bell rang when it did.

She went to her normal lunch table, finding Octavia, Raven and Anya already seated. "Hey, Clarke!" Raven greeted. "Guess it's down to just us four. Harper's sick, and I think Lexa skipped today."

Clarke frowned. "Really?"

"I'm surprised she didn't tell you," Octavia admitted. "Don't guys like, talk to each other a lot lately?"

Anya smirked, and Clarke immediately narrowed her eyes at the girl, who seemed caught off guard by the fact that Clarke seemed to know that she knew about Saturday night. "She didn't tell me."

Suddenly, Miller was approaching their table with a paper bag in his hand. "You guys mind if I join you?"

"Go right ahead," Raven insisted, flashing a smile at their friend. "Ditching your normal table?"

"Yeah, Finn's just being kind of an asshole right now, and there's really no one over there on my side right now."

Anya furrowed her eyebrows. "Bryan?"

"Oh, he's home today. He forgot about some homework he was supposed to do over the weekend, so he decided just to skip and finish it today. So yeah, would rather not be sitting over there right now. Where are Harper and Lexa?"

Clarke zoned out as her friends continued to speak, and it wasn't until she caught a familiar figure approaching the table did she sit up a bit straighter. Lexa had her backpack slung over her shoulder and no lunch in her hands. "Hey, guys."

"Lexa!" Anya exclaimed. "Where were you all morning?"

"Accidentally slept in," Lexa replied with a shrug. "It was a long weekend."

Clarke looked back down at her food, frustrated that it was almost gone, which would leave her with no convenient way to escape the conversation around her. When she finally finished, she found herself excusing herself to the bathroom, grabbing up her trash and tossing it in the nearest trashcan on her way to said bathroom.

Staring herself in the mirror, Clarke let out a long sigh. She couldn't help but beat herself up, because she was sure that she had royally fucked herself over by sleeping with Lexa over the weekend. At the same time, she was pissed at Lexa for ignoring her, and for her getting mad about the blonde accidentally overhearing the conversation between Lexa and Anya.

When the bathroom door opened, Clarke expected it to be some random, but she was surprised to see Lexa entering the room. Green eyes were trained on her, and Clarke tried not to scoff at the fact that now Lexa wanted to talk to her. "You okay?"

"I'm fine," Clarke answered shortly. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"Uh, because I got here and you right off to the bathroom?"

"So you thought it would be a good idea to follow me here?"

Lexa crossed her arms over her chest. "Look, Clarke, we need to talk."

"Yes, I know," Clarke snapped, "which was what I was trying to do yesterday when you decided that it would be best for you to just not say anything." Lexa opened her mouth to say something, and then snapped her jaw back together, as if realizing that Clarke was right. Sighing, the blonde leaned against the edge of the sink she was standing next to. "Look, Lexa, I felt obligated to tell you that I overheard you talking to Anya. I wasn't trying to be an awful person or some shit like that. I'm sorry for listening."

Lexa sighed. "It's fine, I just... I guess I just didn't think you heard any of that. And I'm sorry for ignoring you a little bit. I didn't really know what I was supposed to say to you."

"Well... if you don't want to talk about Saturday night right now, you don't have to. I don't really know what to say either. Just... we don't have to stop talking completely..."

"You're right," Lexa agreed, letting out a breath. "Okay so... we're good now?" Clarke nodded, and the bell rang just as she did. "Can I walk you to class?"

"Well, we're both going to the same place anyway."


"What's up with you and Lexa?" The question caught Clarke completely off guard, and she looked up with concern at Octavia. It was Wednesday, and Octavia, Raven, Anya and Clarke were all in the former's bedroom working on math homework. Lexa had taken a day trip down to Tampa to help her sister out with something, and Harper was still sick, so it was just the four of them.

"What?" Clarke asked quickly, not missing Anya's snort of laughter.

"I don't know, you guys just seem really back and forth lately, like you were talking a lot last week and then you guys seemed a bit tense for a few days, and now you're back to regular talking. Did something happen?"

Anya snickered. "Something happened alright."

Clarke swung her head around to glare at her. "Anya, do you mind?" Clarke turned her head back toward Octavia in time to see her and Raven exchange looks of concern, before looking back to the blonde.

"What happened?" Raven asked carefully.

"Nothing, it's not... um, we're not... talking about it," Clarke murmured, looking back down at her homework and hoping that conversation would end there.

Anya scoffed. "You guys haven't even talked about it? What the fuck, Clarke?"

Clarke slammed her pencil down on her paper and turned to face Anya fully. "What do you mean 'What the fuck, Clarke?' Lexa doesn't want to talk about it, so we're not talking about it. It was either that, or she was going to keep ignoring me forever."

"Lexa? Ignore you forever?" Anya demanded. "Yeah, no. That girl could never."

"Well it was clearly her intention until I started ignoring her."

"Can someone please tell us what's going on?" Octavia pleaded. "I'm so confused."

"Nothing, it's fine," Clarke huffed, but Anya spoke at the same time, "Clarke and Lexa slept together after the party on Saturday."

Clarke's breath caught in her throat, and then she groaned, biting down on her tongue and pushing up off of the bed. "I have to go." She grabbed her math binder and took off out of the room and downstairs. It was only when she reached the first floor that she realized that Raven had given her a ride over after school, so she had no way home. Frustrated, she entered the living room and collapsed onto one of the couches there, staring up at the ceiling.

She heard feet pounding down the stairs, and Raven demanding, "Anya, chill the fuck out. You're not Lexa's keeper."

"I might as well be," Anya growled, coming into the living room just as Clarke slammed her hands over her eyes, hoping she could somehow block out the world this way. "Come on, Clarke, they know now, so you might as well talk about it."

Clarke sat up abruptly, glaring daggers. "What the fuck do you want me to say about it? Lexa and I had sex, she doesn't want to talk about it, so we aren't talking about it. That's all there is to say about it."

"Why did you even have sex with her?" Anya asked.

Raven rolled her eyes. "Really, Anya? Why does anyone have sex with anyone?"

"I'm just asking! I can't remember the last time that Lexa voluntarily slept with a straight girl – that's the only reason I'm asking."

Clarke crossed her arms tightly over her chest. "Well I can't help you there, because as it seems, I'm not straight. Now are you fucking happy? Because if so, I would really appreciate it if someone could please take me home."


The doorbell ringing didn't make Clarke think twice, because Marcus was downstairs – he would get it. Clarke just continued to read. She was pages away from being done with Great Expectations , the book that she was reading for English Lit. After Raven drove her home earlier, she had abandoned math homework and picked up where she'd last left off in the book

Raven had been very nice in the car, not mentioning Lexa or Anya, and only insisting that she understood why Clarke hadn't said anything about her sexuality earlier. She eased Clarke's unspoken fear that her friends might be offended that she hadn't said anything about it by promising that everyone went at their own pace, and they would never expect her to tell them anything before she was ready to do so.

The knock on her door was what actually broke Clarke out of her entranced state. She tore her eyes from the book and grabbed her phone to check the time. It was nearing ten at night – who was coming over to see her at this time? "Come in," she called, carefully closing her book and setting it aside. She sat up straight on her bed as the door opened to reveal Lexa, looking rather guilty.

"Hey," she greeted softly. "Your uncle let me in."

Clarke nodded. "How was seeing your sister?"

"Nice," Lexa replied. "Um, Octavia told me about what happened earlier. I'm really sorry about Anya. She and I are really close and well... I guess she tries to be really protective over me. Which I know seems weird, since we also fight a lot... Anyway, I'm really sorry for her being such a bitch. She twisted the minute details she knew into some wild story she got herself believing. I promise I didn't tell her anything after that conversation she and I had Sunday morning."

Clarke shrugged. "Okay."

Sighing, the brunette took another step forward and closed the door behind her. "Seriously, Clarke, I'm sorry. For everything, like ignoring you, and not talking about what happened, everything. I'm an idiot, but I have a legitimate excuse, and when I tell you, you have every right to be pissed at me if you want to."

Light colored eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "What?"

"Everyone – and by everyone I mean our little group or whatever – all kind of... well, they all kind of suspected that I might be, um, interested in you as ah, more than a friend. But I didn't tell any of them except for Anya that I actually do, and that's why she asked if I finally slept with you... It wasn't like I was trying to sleep with you, or trying to get with you, or anything. I just... I have a sort of rocky history with girls, because I was cheated on in sophomore year and I kind of swore myself away from relationships – which you know – and then well... you're like... a really good person, and you're breathtaking, and then when I told you about my being cheated on and whatnot, you made me promise to not give up on relationships forever, and I basically knew right then that I really, really liked you. And I feel like shit, because I wasn't supposed to act on it, and then we slept together on Saturday and it makes me feel fucking awful, because I can't remember more than the basics of what happened, because I was so fucked... so stupidly drunk." Lexa stopped for a breath, swallowing thickly and taking in a very shaky breath. "So I thought maybe if we just didn't talk about it, it would kind of just go away, and then when you told me that you're bi and not straight, I had absolutely no idea what to do, because I had already forced myself to not think about it, and then it was all I could think about again, and I... I'm just sorry."

Clarke pursed her lips for a moment, looking up at Lexa from where she was seated on her bed. She was trying to figure out why Lexa gave her the right to be pissed about what was just said. Had she missed something? Because all she could figure from the speech was that Lexa liked her, actually had feelings for her, and that was why she had been acting so weird about Saturday.

Slowly, Clarke slid off of her bed and stood up, standing in front of Lexa, who looked uncharacteristically nervous. Green eyes were hesitantly searching Clarke's, and the blonde let out a slow breath. She wondered if she should say something, and though she was pretty sure that would be the better way to go, she couldn't get any words from her lips. Instead, she closed the distance between them with a kiss.