Hello! I am so, so sorry that it took so long to update this chapter, my usual excuse is obviously attributed to school since it's really taking up a lot of my time! I also went through some heartbreak (and that really doesn't help with the writers block) but I'm back up to schedule now and hopefully the next chapter won't take such a monstrous amount of time to update! Really hope you enjoy this chapter, things are going to get interesting from here on wards.


Today was not going to be an easy day.

She knew it, the alarm clock blaring to her right bloody knew it and the pulsing pain trailing down her leg was going to make it harder for her to avoid that fact.

Perhaps the fact that she knows she'll have to out-live this day with the addition of a twelve hour shift makes the whole idea all the more unbearable. Still, she closes her eyes and tries to shake off all the frustration that begins to make its way inside her like clockwork.

The only person she could even dream of telling was off somewhere, furious with her and ultimately seemed to want nothing to do with her. She hates the way it draws a different type of pain in her, a sullen drop in her chest that instantly makes her day progress from bad to worse.

It's not her fault that she cares, she knows she can't help it but somehow she feels like this could be her doing. Maybe Octavia was right about her, maybe it really does get tiring being around someone who only knows how to pull away.

And yet, she knows that she can't think about this. Not now, not when the very real pain started growing into more than just a nuisance. She trails off to the kitchen and finds the Advil in one of their cabinets, pops one in her mouth and hopes that it would somehow tame the sharp sting growing and growing with every step she took.

She spots the little pink sticky note and notes Clarke's characteristic dishevelled handwriting;

'Went out for brunch with Wells, he's back in town for a couple of days. Made you something to eat just in case you get hungry at work. Please take care –Clarke x'

The corners of her lips turn upwards and she feels gratitude wash over her. If there was one thing that Raven knew how to do, it was most definitely; appreciate the small things. For a second, she wishes she could conjure some kind of way to explain exactly what was going on in her mind, except that would mean coming to terms with it herself – and there was no way she would be willingly do that.

Her brief bus ride to Grounders only worsens her mood and by the time she's behind the counter serving the needs of some needy ass people, she realises people are staring.

Namely, one of them being Lexa.

She learns to ignore it, albeit being slightly weirded out by that haunting stare. (Maybe Clarke was right about her?)

The hours pass by and it does little to distract her from the throbbing in her leg, and even though she catches herself clutching it a couple of times she tries to ignore it either way. Her mind is riddled with thoughts and questions that cease to ever stop and it makes her eyes all the more heavily lidded.

She can feel the heat creeping upon her like a deathly plague and she hastily wipes away the beads of sweat that begin to form at the tip of her hairline. Grinding her teeth does close to nothing to take her mind away from everything it seems so determined to stay focused on, and she grows tired of the struggle altogether.

Deciding she needed a break, she walks past Tris and tells her she's going out for some air. She can feel everyone's eyes on her and she closes her own to avoid the budding concern they probably all want to show and all she can feel in that moment is the animosity that she so desperately needs to reciprocate. Raven doesn't want their concern, and she certainly doesn't want their pity either.

It is in that moment that she's all the more grateful for Clarke's attempt at a salad. (She may have put in a bit too much vinegar for her liking but it was the only food she was getting, and she was going to take it.)

Footsteps find themselves near her and she reluctantly looks up to see Lexa looking at her with the slightest furrow in her brows. "Are you alright?"

Raven scoffs and shakes her head in disbelief, feeling the spark of frustration fire through her in one simple blow. She stretches her hands in display of this vexatious anger and looks up at her, "Oh I see, so when I look like utter shit you decide to exchange the semblance of a sentence with me?"

Lexa does nothing but keep the same expression on her face, followed by a shrug. "Pretty much."

She looks at her straight in the eye and feels a chuckle escape her mouth. "I guess I can expect nothing but the truth from you, right Woods?" She sighs, more to herself than anyone else and breaths in again. "I think I need someone like that right now."

She'd like to know her reaction, so she looks back up at her and is almost in awe at the small non comital smile she receives from her. Raven all but watches as she walks back into the building and decides she could deal with the last couple of hours left of her shift.

And somehow, even though she knows that all she wants is for this ghastly day to be over – she finds herself leaning against the counter next to Lexa, with the smallest hint of a smirk starting to show.

"Yes?"

"I'm expecting you to say no, since you're all but a hint shy of a mystery to me – but I'll ask anyways. Do you, your highness wish to accompany me whilst I make it incredibly hard for my liver to keep functioning? I know a pretty good bar five minutes away from here." She finds herself wanting Lexa to say yes more than she ever would have expected.

Lexa sighs, "It's almost ten o'clock in the evening Raven."

"Exactly!" She raises an eyebrow suggestively at her, "That's the prime time to hit the bar."

Still, she is met with a very doubtful look across her and it doesn't seem to want to budge. "Okay." Raven grunts, "One drink, and if you realise my company is just as horrible as you probably already think it is, you can drive me home and never speak to me again. Until our next shift, at least."

She knows, that she's won her over when Lexa rolls her eyes.

"Fine." She takes off her apron and folds it neatly into her bag. "One drink."

Raven pats her on the back and skips off towards the door, "You're going to have to drive, by the way. It's a five minute drive, not a five minute walk."

She can hear the remnants of a grunt as she walks out of the door and she smiles at herself. Lexa was strange, and everything about her made her want to forget about herself for a couple of seconds and unravel the 'mystery' that Lexa seemed to indulge herself in.

It isn't long before they arrive at the bar, and she can tell Lexa is already regretting her decision to join her.

"Trust me." She comments as she watches Lexa's grimace take over her whole face, "Its way better than it looks, I promise." She clears her throat as she opens the door and embraces the warmer atmosphere, "Plus they don't water down the drinks here."

She wants to say that she could acknowledge some of the faces that glance up at her for a gracious second, but the truth is every time she entered the place, she'd never really exit it the same way. This is the bar she goes to when all else fails, and it's the bar she somehow finds herself always forgetting. As to why she's dragging Lexa with her today; she has no clue.

"Scotch on the rocks, please." She smiles at the bartender politely, looking away quickly because she doesn't find it within herself to know if her face is familiar or not.

"And for you?"

Raven watches Lexa intently, eager to hear her answer. "Coke, please."

"What?" Raven looks at her incredulously. "You're going to order a soda at a bar? Seriously?

Lexa gives her such a glare that it almost sets Raven back. Almost. "I don't drink."

"That's not what Clarke told me."

She catches Lexa rolling her eyes, and once again she knows that she's won her over. She gives the bartender an apologetic look and sighs, "I'll have a Gin and Tonic."

"Better." Raven comments, "I was about to lose all my faith in you Woods! Not a great feeling on the very first day we actually share more than five sentences with each other."

Lexa ignores the last comment and frowns at the bartender. "How do you get them to sell alcohol to you in here? You don't exactly look like you're shy of 18."

"I guess they don't really care." Raven shrugs and thanks the bartender for their drinks. She twirls the scotch in her mouth for a while before really contemplating that she was going to want more than one, way more than one.

The pain in her leg hasn't even dared to subside, and in one quick moment she clutches her leg and closes her eyes abruptly. She's aware that Lexa is staring at her, she can feel it boring into her skull and it irks her that she knows she'll have to explain. With certain people, there was just no point hiding it.

Looking back up at Lexa with a sheepish smile earned her a raised eyebrow and she sighed as she heaved her perhaps overdue explanation. "A month before my 17th birthday I had the smartest idea to get into a car with this guy, who was quite obviously drunk out of his mind."

She finishes her scotch and orders another one, and in that moment she can't really care less about the look that Lexa was giving her. "I told him you know, I told him that I should probably drive and that it wasn't safe; not for me and not for him. Not for anyone really." Her grip on the newly refilled glass is tighter than ever, and she is immersed in the memories of that utterly dreadful night. "I can't really tell you why I got into that car with him, he was offering and well, I was just so eager to get home I couldn't care less. He was just a common face in the crowd, someone you exchange a couple of greetings with until you realise your best friend's in a bathroom puking her guts out."

"His driving was impeccably horrible and I just prayed that I'd get home sooner than later." She shakes her head, "He swerves, and before I could even register what was happening I remember this white hot pain rush through me, and screams. Blood curdling screams."

A shiver runs down her spine and she's eager to finish this whole conversation up, "Next thing I know, Clarke's mum is in the hospital telling me that I hit my back so hard on impact that I lost the use in one of my legs." Another gulp of scotch and she welcomes the burning sensation that flashes on through her throat. "I hated it. Every moment of it. I was determined enough to actually get a small percentage of my leg working again, but I've got to walk with a brace, and there are days it hurts just as much as it did the day I found out I'd never really be the same again."

She doesn't want to say more. She doesn't think that she can.

"I'm sorry."

Raven hated those words. Meaningless, she always thought. Except, the way Lexa spoke them said volumes about what she actually meant. There was no way to explain it other than the fact that Lexa was a deeply expressive person, and only ever in the moment that mattered.

"What happened to the other guy?" She clears her throat, "Did you ever see him again?"

She shook her head and pursed her lips. "No. He died. Instantly." A bitter laugh escapes her, "We crashed into a tree. A fucking tree." The rest of her scotch is gone in one swift swoop and she's prepared to ask for another, "I could never really be angry at anyone or anything. The guy who got me into this situation in the first place lost his life, and the only person I could ever be truly angry at was myself."

"His name was John." She swallowed what felt like bile coming up her throat and blinked rapidly. "Murphy. That's what his friends used to call him. I couldn't attend his funeral and honestly even if I could I don't know if I even would have gone."

"I appreciate you telling me Raven." Lexa gives her the most innocent of smiles and she feels at ease again. "You always have the support of your friends though, I'm sure. You seem like a closely knit group."

"That's the thing." She sighs, "I don't want to burden them every time I have a bad day. It worries them, and I just don't want the responsibility of calming them down. Sometimes I just want to keep it to myself, you know?" She rubs her hands against her eyes and puffs, "I must sound like a real fucking jerk, I know."

Lexa scoffs, "Trust me, I understand that feeling more than you think."

She nods in agreement, "We've all got our baggage, I guess."

Venting like this, to someone who was ultimately a stranger – felt good. Lexa was easy to talk to, she didn't have her unnecessary input, really she just listened, and it felt damn good for someone to listen for once. "I love Clarke. I really do. But there's this thing that Octavia and I have. I can't explain it without sounding like I'm in love with her." The words are flying out of her mouth, and she's possibly already too drunk to stop them. "I just can talk to her about anything, about everything. It's not that I just can, it's that I want to, you know?"

Lexa nods and frowns at herself for a second, but seems to shake it off. "Then why don't you now?"

"Because." She exhales roughly and downs the last bit of her drink, "I fucked up. We fought about something recently. Well, really someone." Knowing that she shouldn't have another drink didn't stop her from actually having another one. "Anya actually. It's kind of hard to explain but I just pull away too much, and it hurts her. I think that I keep hurting her and maybe she's done with all of it now. She's done with me."

Lexa shakes her head vigorously, "That's not how it works. When you love someone, platonic, romantic – whatever it is. You're never really done with them, not unless you have closure." She tilts her head towards Raven and shakes her head again. "She's not done with you Raven, she just wants an explanation. And you owe it to her - you know you do."

"Yeah." She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. "You're right."

"What are you and Anya doing anyway?" Lexa puts down her drink and plays with the strange carvings on the table in front of her.

She shrugs. "I don't know. We both agreed it was casual. It's just sex, I guess."

"As long as you both know what you're doing."

Raven's eyes trail off somewhere at the back of the bar and she watches as one of the girls practically drools over Lexa. She's passing her all these seductive looks and all Raven can think about is how oblivious Lexa is to most of them.

"Psst." She drunkenly whispers into Lexa's ears, "Girl at the back of the bar, brunette, gorgeous brown eyes and from the looks of it one hell of an ass has currently been staring at you for the last-"

"I know." Lexa cuts her off very quickly, almost too quickly. "I knew that a while ago, Raven."

She frowns at Lexa, quite frankly because if someone that beautiful was looking at her right now – she'd forget Lexa existed altogether. "Yeah? So why aren't you doing anything about it?"

"I'm not interested."

Raven's head jerks back, and for a second she is reminded that she might have been making unfair assumptions. "Oh, I get it." She chuckles, "You're more of a Jared Leto type of girl."

"What?" Lexa folds her arms and gives her a stern look, "What the hell are you saying?"

She rolls her eyes at Lexa and sips the last of her whiskey, "I'm saying." She burps and excuses herself, "You like dick."

Half of the inhabitants of the bar are looking at them now, and Lexa shakes her head in disbelief. There's a hint of a smirk on Lexa's face and Raven cannot for the life of her, truly understand why she was choosing now of all times to smirk. This damn girl was more confusing than she thought. "Raven." She clears her throat, "Not that it is any of your business, but I have never ever in my life been attracted to a man. Or anyone with a dick for that matter, at least so far."

"So you're asexual?"

Lexa throws a hand over her face and rubs her eyes. "Jesus!" She tries to hide the budding smile on her face but Raven can see it anyways. "How drunk are you?" It's a rhetorical question, of course. "I'm telling you I'm gay, Raven."

All of a sudden everything clicks in her mind. So she was right! Lexa is super gay, and besides being super gay she's a total IDIOT. "So why the hell aren't you pursuing that girl? Do not even try telling me she isn't your type because I'll have to reassess your ability to visualise the fucking obvious."

"She is beautiful." Lexa agrees, silently nods her head along to the song and breathes in. "I'm really just not interested in that kind of thing right now. Do you get that?"

Raven nods in understanding, even though she was still looking at Lexa like she was the worst lesbian she had ever witnessed in her whole entire existence. She watches as Lexa looks at the time on her phone and knows she needs to bring up something that would make her stay; at least for a little longer. "So, what were you and Clarke up to last week?"

"What are you insinuating, exactly?"

"Nothing actually, but jeez your mind took you there pretty quickly Woods." Raven smiles at herself for a while before continuing to gratify herself in the relentless teasing of Lexa. "She told me she got the two of you locked up at Grounders last week, and I thought it would be a fun topic to bring up."

Lexa grunts, "I'm not stupid."

"Never said you were."

"Then how about we drop this topic and get you home?"

Raven squints at Lexa, because even in her drunken stupor she can tell. She just knows it. There has to be reason behind her avoidant eyes and the grip that tightens and tightens on the bottom of her chair. It's like instinct, really. "Sure, but only before you admit that you care about her."

She watches as Lexa inhales air from her nose, quite ferociously. "We've known each other for-"

"Yeah, yeah a month." She shrugs, "I don't care. I know you care about her, and I need to know that you actually do because I don't want Clarke to get hurt, do you understand me?"

Lexa frowns at her and tenses her jaw, "Clarke and I are friends. That's it. I don't know if you have some kind of warped up image of friendship and maybe this goes hand in hand with the undeniable fact that you're drunk." She exhales, "We got off the wrong foot, but we're alright now. I'm not going to hurt her, because there's nothing to hurt her with – and there never will be."

Raven grins, "Thanks for proving me right." She pats a confused Lexa on the back and exits the bar, knowing that if there was one thing she wasn't going to be forgetting; it was this conversation.

The drive home is silent, but somehow it's a comfortable silence – and she was going to revel in it for the next ten minutes, at least.

"Thanks Lexa." She's sheepish in her admission; strip away all your individuality for a night and what are you left with? Vulnerability. "I needed someone to talk to tonight."

She's greeted with a soft smile back, "I know."

Raven climbs out of the car and struggles to find the correct key in her apartment, stumbling in as she finally found the right one.

The lights are on, and she shies away from it instantly.

"Where the fuck were you Raven?" It's Clarke. She knows it, because when Clarke is angry there's a deep insistence in her voice, like a husky rumble, demanding – only because she cares. This is the brash anger Clarke saves for her loved ones, and she knows this because she knows her all too well. "It's one o'clock in the fucking morning and I was expecting you here at ten." She sighs, "Octavia's off somewhere with Lincoln and I'm here trying to patch up these stupid fucking fights you two keep having and I'm fed up! Don't you know how to answer your phone for Christ's sake?"

Raven looks at Clarke, right at her. She'd never shy away from Clarke, and really she's too drunk to fully accept the gravity of the situation. "I was out with Lexa. We went to a bar."

"With Lexa?" Clarke's demeanour changes for a second and her whole face takes a darker twist. "What the hell were you two doing at a bar?"

She tires of the incessant nagging and walks past Clarke, "Relax, I'm not trying to steal your girl. It was purely platonic."

"I didn't mean it like that."

"Sure." She collapses on her own bed, (it was difficult – to say the least – to get used to the hard rebound of her own bed. She missed Octavia's bed, and most of all she missed her.)

Clarke just shakes her head, hugs Raven tight and whispers in her ear.

"I'm worried about you."

And in that very moment; the moment before total black out, Raven realises that there is nothing more in the world she'd like to tell Clarke – because truly, she wasn't the only one who was.


"Head up, chin high my love." Octavia whispers silently into Clarke's ears, "A new day has arrived and there's no way you can miss out on it because Wells specifically told me you need to be awake by ten thirty."

She grunts; being awake was not something she wanted to be right now. "He better still be here by the time I get back."

"Where are you off to?" Clarke rubs her eyes and tries to wash away any semblance of sleepiness.

"Brunch." She watches as Octavia primps herself up in front of the mirror, "With Lincoln."

"Aha." Clarke nods to herself, "So that's why you're staring at that mirror incessantly."

Octavia rolls her eyes at Clarke and purses her lips, "Oh don't start."

Clarke smiles at her and hugs her from behind, resting her neck on her shoulder. "I'm just teasing." She pulls her tongue out and gives her a funny face, "You know that I'm happy for you, right?"

"Yes." She hugs Clarke briefly, "I'm happy for me too."

The smile she gives Clarke is somewhat pained, it doesn't light up her eyes and it certainly doesn't tell Clarke that she really means it; but she must remind herself yet again that she cannot let her mind take her there. It just wasn't her place.

"I'm leaving." She gives Clarke a chaste kiss on the cheek and puts her phone in her bag, "Please don't cook, and if you absolutely have to just let Wells do it. I like this kitchen and you simultaneously setting fire to it is not something I want to come home to."

"That was one fucking time, O!" She flips her off and grunts.

"BYE." Octavia shouts back at her and once the door is shut, Clarke is left on her own once again.

A part of her knows that Raven won't be in her room, but she checks none the less; and when she sees the bed empty in all it's dishevelled glory she is reminded of the discontent feeling of being utterly alone. She isn't used to this, she's used to being surrounded by Raven and Octavia – watching her every single move. She's used to them joking about, making fun of her; hell she even misses the times they piss her off to no end and don't even budge to give her some space.

For weeks now, the apartment has been empty. Cold and brash in it's solitude, with only Clarke there to try to put some kind of order to the mess they leave behind them. It stopped getting on her nerves, and started to really sink in that this wasn't getting any better; it was getting worse.

Octavia was off with Lincoln almost every single day, and Raven wouldn't even indulge her in her activities. Sometimes she'd come home drunk, other times with a neck laced with the marks Anya had left behind, and all she could do was watch their increasingly odd behaviour.

She was stuck in the middle, and only now was she realising that she might always have been.

Either way, she had to put it all behind her – at least for the next couple of hours. Wells was coming over, and he was the one friend she could count on to not leave her live in this kind of altered reality.

She got everything ready, made herself look semi presentable (considering the bags under her eyes were not leaving, she looked pretty good) and waited for his knock on the door. Clarke missed Wells, and she missed him with every fiber of her being. He was the family friend, her best friend and also the only sensible person in her group of friends.

Going from seeing him every day, to being limited to once a couple of months was not something Clarke was coping with very well; and even though their skype calls kept them somewhat in touch it didn't take an abundance of intelligence to know that it was in no way the same thing.

But that was life, and that was growing up for you. Things change, more often than not for the worse rather than the better and you need to know how to adapt; how to survive.

Their brief meeting yesterday wasn't enough to cover everything; he had told her all about his college life – the girl who he's not sure is flirting with him ('Of course she is Wells, don't be so dense.') and his struggle to escape his over bearing father.

"CLARKE!"

She looks at the door and realises she didn't hear the door being knocked on for over five minutes, and grimaces at her sheer insistence to get lost in her own thoughts.

Rushing to the door (in an awfully ungraceful manner) and seeing Wells' annoyed face brough about both a bout of joy and embarassment. "I thought I told Octavia to make sure you woke up."

He takes of his shoes and settles on her couch as he smirks at her very obvious dishevelled appearance. "She did." She sits down next to him and rests her legs on his lap, "I was getting caught up in my own thoughts and you know that thing I do when I-"

"Block out everything else?" He looks at her and shakes his head, "Yes I know."

She gives him a sheepish grin and shrugs, "Do you want something to eat?"

He pulls out two brown bags from his own bag and hands one to Clarke, "I got us take out." He laughs, "We both know you suck at cooking, sorry."

Clarke narrows her eyes down at him playfully and pouts, "I'm going to forget that you said that because you got me my favourite wrap." She contently bites into the chicken coleslow wrap and is reminded of how much she misses his unasked favours. "Son of a bitch."

He chuckles and bites into his own wrap. "You know you'd think after everything I do for them, Octavia and Raven would do something like this, but no the only goddamn thing they bring home is tequila."

"What do you expect, Clarke?" He yawns, "We're talking about the people who drink alcohol like it's fucking water." He puts the wrap down in the bag and wipes his mouth, "Speaking of, what's up with those two?"

Oh god.

Well now she absolutely has to talk about it.

"I don't know, Wells." She truly doesn't. Or at least she thinks she doesn't. She'd prefer to keep on not knowing somehow, because the truth might be far too bizarre for her to take in.

He scoffs, "Oh come on, we've always known."

"That's unfair."

"No." He picks up the wrap again and takes a bite, "It's simply the truth. You just don't want to accept it because you feel like you're being disrespectful when you think about it."

"It is disrespectful!" She takes the last bite of her wrap and sighs contently. "They're my best friends and I'm just there making assumptions that, for all I know are complete bullshit."

He rubs one of his eyes and clears his throat, "The only difference is that those assumptions aren't complete bullshit." He finishes his wrap and licks the mayonnaise off of his fingers; "Have you got some juice?"

She nods and chuckles as she walks to the kitchen, "You still love drinking juice after anything you eat, don't you?"

"Duh." He wiggles his eyebrows playfully, "Old habits die hard."

"Clearly." She pours two glasses of juice and walks over to the couch once again. "Seeing as you still think that Raven and Octavia have been pining for each other since the day they met."

He gulps the juice faster than he could come up with a counter argument and it makes it hard for Clarke to stifle her laughter. "Every single one of our friends thinks so too."

"Yeah well they're dumb."

"No you're dumb." He places the glass back down on the table in front of them and eyes her own carefully. "You're sure you want that?"

She rolls her eyes and hands him her own glass, "Take it."

He gratefully takes the glass from her hands and gulps it down in another couple of seconds. (Sixteen years of friendship and she still found his love of juice extremely strange.) "They'll figure it out Clarke, don't worry. They just need some time."

"I just don't understand." She bites her lip, "How can you not know that you're in love with someone? Isn't it supposed to be obvious? I mean I'm pretty sure they'd know by now, they're not kids anymore."

He shrugs, "Who's to say they don't know? Haven't you ever heard of denial?"

"Fair enough but still, it doesn't add up."

"How doesn't it add up Clarke?" His eyebrows are furrowed, and she's pretty sure he's about to try to make his point even more plausible. It was hard to argue with Wells, considering he was almost always right. (And sometimes pretty fucking annoying about it too.) "They're best friends, inseparable almost. Except now they're fighting more often and you can tell that it just gets worse every time. Haven't you ever wondered why? It's coming up to the surface; everything is."

"That's my point!" She can't help but exclaim at this moment in time, "They're best friends. It's supposed to be so much easier for them, why would they be scared?"

"Imagine you were in love with your best friend, how would you feel?"

Clarke sighs, because automatically she knows that he's won. "Whatever. Either way, I'm not going to interfere. It's their business."

"Indefinitely." He smirks, "You should focus on your own love life, don't you think?"

She abruptly puts her hand up and fiercely tenses her jaw. "No, Wells."

"You knew this was coming."

"No I hoped you wouldn't stoop to that level." She folds her arms and does her best to look visibly pissed off. "Don't even bring up her name."

"Who?" He feigns confusion and pouts, "Lexa?"

"Shut up."

"Are you finally going to admit that you obviously like her?"

"No." She clears her throat, "Because there isn't anything like that to admit."

"Really?" His question is doubtful at most, and she winces at the expectation of his next few brash words. "Is that why she comes up in most of our skype conversations? Or any of our conversations whatsoever?"

Clarke rolls her eyes insistently and huffs indignantly, "You're a filthy liar, Wells."

"That, I am." He smirks and rubs one of his eyes after he yawns. "But, not about this – and you know it."

"Look." She sighs and begins to wish that the whole topic would never have existed, almost wishes that Lexa never existed – but she finds that that thought only makes her sad now. "I know why everyone thinks there's something going on between us, we went from hating each other to somehow becoming friends. I guess some of you can't understand that two adults can do that now, but we both do and that's all there is to it. It's simply us enjoying each other's company."

He gives her a short laugh and shakes his head, "Clarke, I'm not asking you if there's anything going on between you and Lexa; I'm asking if you like her." He gives her a knowing glass and raises his eyebrow, "And you're immensely avoiding the question."

"I'm not!" She retorts and frowns right back at his face, getting slightly frustrated.

"You are." He clears his throat, "It's okay to like someone else, there's nothing degrading in it, it's totally normal."

"Jesus, Wells." She rubs her head in her hands, "I barely know her, and this shouldn't be an actual conversation right now. It shouldn't."

"Why's that?"

Clarke doesn't have an answer to that, and the less of an answer she has the more of an answer it is for Wells.

"You don't have to know someone incredibly well to like them Clarke, come on," He gives her one of the softest looks she had seen from him in a while, and she's yet again left to wonder why this girl has proven to be such a catalytic corruption in her life. "I think a part of you just can't admit it right now, and I also think I know why."

"Do you now?" She deadpans.

He looks at her square in the eye and squints, "You're scared. Fear is the one thing that holds most of us back, and it's holding you back right now as we speak. You feel like anything after Finn is bound to fail, a relationship is out of bounds for you because what is love if one of you doesn't feel it anymore?" Clarke wishes that she could stop him speaking, she wishes she could shut his mouth and scream at him to stop. She doesn't want to hear these things when each word hits a note in a chord of endless tragedy. It hurts. No one wants to hurt. "But you're back here, feeling things that you didn't think you could feel again. It's different this time, it's new but it's also old. She makes you feel vulnerable, she makes you say things you don't talk about and it simply scares the fuck out of you and who wants to admit that they feel these things for someone who is in as much torment?"

No one.

She rolls her eyes and pretends that his dramatic lecture did nothing to hit the deepest parts of her. A part of her worries about why she's pretending in the first place. "Okay Wells. No need to go all 'psych major' on me."

He swats his hand in her direction and shrugs, and finally decides it best to drop the subject. She's more than happy about that, to say the least.

The rest of their afternoon is enjoyable, they spoke about things that made them nostalgic – all the Christmas's they spent together, and all the times their parents would argue about the silliest of things. She notices, of course how skilfully Wells evades even the mention of Clarke's dad. Sometimes, she wishes she could hear someone say it, just so she could know that his memory isn't dead.

Jake.

She remembered when her mum would say it, not enough however – to drown out the re-emerging thought of how she will never say it again.


Octavia bustles through her apartment door quickly, hoping dearly that she got to see Wells in time.

And she definitely did.

She doesn't spare Wells even a second to breathe her name and engulfs him into such a large hug that it squeezes the breath out of his own very lung. She doesn't care, she misses him more than she misses home sometimes – he kind of was her home.

"God I missed you."

"Wow." He coughs as she apprehensively lets him go and looks at Clarke sardonically and licks his lips. "Now that's a way to greet your long lost best friend who lives miles away."

Clarke rolls her eyes but winks at Octavia, "How was the date?"

It was great, that's what she wanted to say, she wanted to give her a meaningful smile and gush about the joys of Lincoln but the truth was, something felt wrong. "It was nice." She gives Clarke a pursed smile and sits down next to Wells.

"So." She clears her throat and wiggles her eyebrows, "Have you asked out that girl yet?"

He sighs and glares at Clarke. "Did you tell everyone?"

"No." Clarke, in turn glares at Octavia – probably for selling her out. "But really, did you ask her out?"

He rolls his eyes, "How about you ask Lexa out first, and then maybe we can talk about me asking her out."

Octavia can't help but laugh at Wells and she smirks at Clarke suggestively, "So, Clarke have you finally admitted that you're obviously in love with Lexa Woods?"

Clarke all but rolls her eyes and gives Octavia a death glare for the second time that day. "I already got a lecture from Wells, O. The answer is and always will be no, because there is absolutely nothing to admit to."

"You're so full of shit."

"Excuse -"

Her words are brashly cut off as the door slams open, and a slightly dishevelled looking Raven walks in. Octavia instinctively looks away and swallows what seemed to be a lump in her throat. She doesn't what to look at her, she's scared to know what will happen if she does.

"Hey Ray." Wells soft voice directs itself towards her and she can't help but give Raven's expression a tiny glimpse.

She's smiling. The type of smile you see when you ask someone how their day was, when you ultimately know it was probably horrible. It was the type of smile that burned holes in Octavia's heart because she knew exactly what it meant, and it was hurting her. She was hurting for her.

"Hey Wells." She drops her bags and swiftly avoid Octavia's glance as she goes to hug Wells. "How've you been dude? Did you ask that girl out?"

"Jesus, Clarke!" Wells head spins around and he grimaces. "Did you tell the whole fucking world?"

Clarke smirks again and shakes her head with a slight chuckle.

Octavia expects a silence to fall amongst them and she winces as she awaits the worst – but somehow the conversation keeps on going. Raven sits next to Clarke, and their conversations fly along as if nothing happened.

She wants to crack a joke. She wants to break the ice, but she can't forget why she's angry. She wished she knew exactly why she was so pitifully furious, but if there was one thing she was sure of, it was that she sure as hell knew that she was.

"I'll never forget that time Octavia threw herself head first at that guy just cause he called Raven a nerd in ninth grade." Wells' voice brings her back to reality and she knows exactly what he's trying to do; and in that moment she was far too curious to even consider hating him for it.

"Yeah, me too."

Octavia registers the familiarity of the ever so coaxing voice and her eyes find its way to Raven's. There's a pause, and perhaps even a hitch of her breath as she says the next few couple of words. "To this day, it's probably the most thoughtful thing anyone had ever done for me."

She says it loud enough for everyone to hear, but Octavia knows Raven too well. She knows her well enough to know that those words were meant for her, and that entirely; they meant something different altogether.


"An?"

"Yes?" Her voice is clipped short. They both know that things aren't okay.

"Can you come over? All this fighting…it's just pointless." It was taking a lot out of Lexa to even let those words escape her mouth, but she was being genuine and in the truth of it all that's what really mattered. At least, that's what really mattered to her.

"Alright, be there in five."

She doesn't bother cleaning up her room, or even making herself look semi presentable. She just wants to get the nagging feeling inside her head out, she wants it gone.

There's a subtle knock on the door and Lexa braces herself, because she doesn't know what more she can say to Anya. The rapid onslaught that passes through her mind every day is not easily transferrable to human communication, it never has been.

"Hi." As usual, Anya's face gives away no semblance of emotion. It is blank. It always was whenever she didn't know what to make out of a situation, and it was clear that the both of them had absolutely no solution to this ever-lasting problem.

She watches as she takes a seat down on her chair and closes the door after her. She looks right into her eyes and she frowns inwardly. "Why is it so hard to understand that this is hard for me, An?"

She never liked beating around the bush.

"It isn't hard to understand." Anya sighs and licks her top lip in deep thought. "You just have to try see it from my perspective, from ours." Her hands lie on her knee as it begins to jerk upwards and downwards in an insanely vexatious motion. "Lincoln and I? We want the best for you, we have always wanted the best for you. Don't you get it? You think you're throwing yourself into your studies but one day you'll be so far down in this world of desperation-" She spits the word out like it's a cancer, and Lexa internally winces at its abrasive nature. "That you won't even be able to do that."

"You're turning yourself into a wreck, and it scares the shit out of me, Lex."

Lexa takes a deep breath in and stares at her cousin quizzically, "I don't know how not to be like this."

"Yes you do." Anya frowns at her, "This isn't you."

She turns her face away from her and closes her eyes, afraid of her own transparency. "How do you know that it isn't? People change, Anya." She spits her name out vehemently, "Bad things happen and people change."

Anya stands up, levels herself with her cousin and places her hands on her head; straightening her head so that she could look straight into her own eyes. "Yes, and you know more than anyone that when someone leaves us a part of them remains with us. It's inevitable, we know that. Don't you remember what it was like losing Indra?" Lexa can't not nod, she remembers, even throughout every fibre of her body telling her not to. She could never forget. "I lost my mum, Lexa. You lost her too. You and me? We know more than anyone that death is cruel and unforgiving, there is no silver lining." She sighs, "And you lost Costia. You lost the love of your life, nothing is going to change that – but do you honestly think she'd want to watch you do this to yourself?"

She doesn't reply.

"You know she wouldn't."

Lexa gently shakes her head free from Anya's grasp and closes her eyes, letting herself exhale a deep gust of air she didn't know she was holding in the first place. She knows Anya's right, and it's that fact alone that makes her want to scream in the first place.

Anya accepts the fact that she won't get more out of Lexa, and sits back down on her bed. "Well, since you haven't spoken to us in a while I think you should know that Lincoln literally – for the life of him – cannot stop talking about-" She frowns for a second and itches her head, "O something? Sounds like a Greek goddess type of thing? She's Raven's best friend."

"Octavia." Lexa completed her sentence and raises her eyebrow, "What the hell are you doing with Raven, Anya?"

She shrugs and lets her body hit the bed behind her, "Having fun."

"So it's just casual?" She asks her tentatively.

"Probably." She shrugs again, "Fuck knows."

She gets up again and throws Lexa a smirk, "How're you and blondie?"

Lexa rolls her eyes and clears her throat, "No."

"Oh, yes."

"Anya." She chastises her, "We literally just had a conversation about Costia."

Her tone changes a little bit after that; "I know." She says softly, "You do know it's alright to move on right? It's okay to like someone else."

"I know that it's okay." She says firmly, "I just don't know what there is to move on from, there's no closure it just…happened."

Anya smiles sympathetically, "I understand that, but I just feel like there's something between the two of you, from what I've seen at least."

"What you've seen?" She scoffs, "You were too busy eye fucking Raven."

She rolls her eyes, "You can still see it. Plus, I know you- you deny things until they blow up in your face." She chuckles, "There's something about that girl that's made you make a little bit of an effort, and you can't deny that!" She raises her voice just as she realises Lexa was about to interrupt, "You can't. First you hate her, then you're willingly going to her house without me even having to beg you to get off your ass; you can't deny there's something you like about her."

"And I won't." Lexa says expectantly, "I enjoy her companionship."

Anya groans, "Alright, whatever you say." She gets her phone out and starts dialling a number, "Once I'm here we might as well have a movie night." Lexa can't help but wince at the suggestion; she really did have things to do, "Come on, just like the good old times?"

Lexa wants to object, but finds that there's a bigger part of her that wants her to stay – so she nods. Just this one time. "Tell Lincoln to get some food, I'm starving."

She watches as Anya grins, and tries not to think about the blossoming that ensues in her heart as she witnesses the sheer joy on her face.

Perhaps, just this once.


Running was not Clarke's forte, but getting to English literature was far more important than the soreness she'd have to make up for the next day. She pants, and somehow gets to her class on time. She knows she's going to see Lexa and she smiles hesitantly before going into the class.

There's an empty seat next to Lexa and she worries, for just a second that Lexa wouldn't want her there. "Do you mind?"

Lexa rolls her eyes, but soon after nods in greeting and shares a little smirk with her. Clarke smiles, and she smiles a lot because there's something about seeing Lexa after a whole day that kind of makes her feel refreshed.

The lesson goes by quietly and Clarke finds that she's paying less and less attention to her teacher, and more attention to Lexa. She was slightly enamoured with the way Lexa wrote her notes with such precision – as if the world depended on it. Sometimes she'd get tired of writing so much and would flex her arm, then she'd look at Clarke and give her this ghost of a smile. Somehow, Clarke had started taking that little hint of a smile as something greater altogether.

She watches her scribble down her notes some more, and she laughs inwardly at the way Lexa creased her forehead every time she couldn't understand something. Her hand would fly up, and she'd object and Clarke would just want to roll her eyes in adoration.

It wasn't till the last few minutes of the lesson, where Clarke realised that something was up. That something was definitely not right with the way she was thinking, and that she had been utterly – ridiculously wrong.

You see, normal people don't note the small things their 'friend' does and smile at them, they don't forget that there's a lesson going on and they certainly do not look forward to their presence more than they look forward to anything else.

Clarke Griffin was wrong.

Horribly, wrong.

Wells was right. Octavia was right, hell even Raven was right.

What she most feared, however; was how she didn't ever realise before.