I honestly wanted to put much more into this chapter, but our two favorite ladies took over and ran with it.

So here you have the longest chapter of this story to this date completely filled with Clarke and Lexa.

Enjoy.

Chapter 10

After many years of getting little sleep during the nights Clarke was used to getting up way before the sun rose for a new day. Sleep was only something she had to endure to keep functioning. If she hadn't looked after her sleeping schedule she would have died a long time ago. Too much time spent sleeping meant losing precious time she needed to take care of her latest assignment, while too less sleep meant a chance of inattention and slow reflexes. Something she couldn't accept.

Now, after her time as a hostage in Africa the few hours she spent sleeping were disturbed by nightmares and restlessness, which annoyed her to no end. It hadn't been the first time in captivity after all. She had been in equally bad situations before and never once did she let it get to her. Clarke just couldn't understand why she had troubles finding sleep now. What was different this time?

Every night Clarke turned the lights off, laid down in her bed and closed her eyes she was back in this hell again, with too much sun and itchy sand all over her from laying down on the hard ground of the shed she had been kept in. The urge to get up to take a run in the cool night air followed by a satisfying shower and a big bottle of water was never as strong as it was during the night. The fact that she couldn't lock her damn door didn't help either. Her gun was always close-by, ready for whomever might dare to sneak into her room without her permission.

Honestly, Clarke was convinced that she'll end up shooting one of her team members who were just too curious for their own good.

All of those facts led to Clarke getting even less sleep just so she could get up and take her run in the morning. Of course the rational part of her knew that she couldn't run away from her problems, though she always felt better. During the day she could keep herself occupied enough not to think about these things.

Was it healthy? Probably not. But until she could figure out how to deal with those things this was the new normal for Clarke.

Opening her door as quietly as possible Clarke silently made her way over to the elevator and pushed the button to open the door. The blonde was happy that this model was one of the ones working without making too much noises. She wasn't eager to wake the others in the middle of the night. Reyes was annoying enough if she wanted to be, she didn't want to meet a cranky Reyes anytime soon.

It only took her a few seconds to reach the base and moved through the dark space. She already knew the room well enough to move around without needing some light to guide her. Darkness had never bothered her. Some might say that she was a shadow herself, melting into the darkness. Some of her victims had never even noticed her until it had been too late.

"You get up later than I thought."

Clarke whipped around and instinctively reached for the knife secured in a safe place who no one could see it without searching actively for weapons. Before she could react further and maybe do something drastic to the other person a small light was turned on, her fingers letting go of the handle of the knife and her muscles relaxed a bit when she noticed that it was just Commander Woods sitting on one of the chairs in the corner of the room, looking like she waited for something.

Or someone.

"Still way earlier than the others." Clarke shrugged, hoping that Lexa hadn't noticed that she had been about to be attacked by a highly skilled assassin. Not that she faulted the commander for her lack of knowledge, but Clarke would advise anyone to never surprise an assassin. The chances that it wouldn't end well was high.

"True. You ready?"

Okay, did she miss something? Had she gotten some memo about a meeting which might have gotten lost on the way to her? Probably appearing more confused as she liked to let the brunette know, Clarke couldn't help but ask. "Ready for what exactly?"

"For our morning run."

"Our morning run? You're joining me?"

This time it was Lexa who shrugged matter-of-factly. The brunette got up from the chair and closed some of the distance to the blonde. "I could use the work out." Clarke couldn't hold back a scoff at that. Commander Lexa Woods was certainly one of the last persons who could use a work out. Clarke may be closed off and hadn't spent a lot of time with the brunette, but the blonde did have eyes and prided herself for her mindfulness to even the smallest of details. "Besides, like Ryder said the route is a nice one. I've been gone for a long time. I'd love to use this chance to get familiar with Polis again."

Clarke didn't buy it one bit. Her eyes narrowed as she took in the other woman before her. She was dressed in clothes suiting for a run in the cool air. Not too thick but not too light either. The blonde had no idea how long the commander had sat here waiting for her. Alone the fact that she had waited for her told Clarke that her boss had some ulterior motive. But she couldn't do anything but wait and see what the other woman might do.

"Alright. Though fair warning, if you lack behind I won't wait up."

There was a little purse of those full lips as the brunette's left brow lifted, staring almost challengingly back at her. "Fair warning, if you lack behind I won't wait up."

Alright, challenge accepted.

The run started at a normal pace, Clarke wasn't in a hurry seeing as she did this every morning to enjoy the feeling of freedom she got every time she ran. On her runs, the journey itself was her reward and not some best time. Hearing all the different noises on her run, the smells of nature when she entered the park while feeling the difference in the terrain under her feet, her accelerated heartbeat and the slight burn in her lungs towards the end of her run. All those things that made her feel alive.

Though the ever steady presence of a certain brunette was a tad irritating.

Since they started with their run the commander had yet to say anything to her. The other woman just kept up with her pace, not directly running next to Clarke but she always stayed just two feet behind her. She was giving the blonde the lead. If not the puffs of air and the sound of the second pair of feet behind her, Clarke may think that she was running on her own.

Strangely the whole thing didn't bother Clarke as much as she had thought. She wouldn't say she liked it, but she didn't hate the brunette's presence either. The only thing that she still mused over however were the reasons for her boss accompanying her. The fact that this was a way to get the blonde alone without the others listening in was the only thing she could think of. But the brunette had yet to signal the blonde that she'd like to have some choice words with her.

As much as she enjoyed this run Clarke picked up her pace around the half of the route wanting to push the commander. The blonde never once glanced behind her, not that she needed to as she had felt Lexa picking up her pace to.

After a beat however Lexa obviously wanted to return the favor and made good on her threats from before as she once again picked up her pace and passed Clarke, certainly trying to push her. Lips curling slightly upwards the blonde pushed herself to keep up with the commander now running in front of her. There was no mistaking, Lexa wanted her to eat her words.

Clarke thought about letting the woman stay ahead and just follow her, but that wasn't what she wanted. This was certainly a challenge and she had never been one to back down from one. She didn't know how well Lexa knew her way around Polis Park. It had sounded like she grew up here as well but hadn't been here in quite a while. However Clarke had spent the last few mornings memorizing her way around the park.

With that in mind she let Lexa gaining on the distance to her, slowly edging towards her right. There was a little path further ahead Clarke was aiming to. It wasn't used as much as the other one causing it to be more uneven and not as clean. There were more stones and branches laying around but Clarke was used to improvise. If she stayed focused she shouldn't have any problems staying clear of those hindrances and keep her current pace, if not push it even more.

The path itself wasn't a short cut per se but more of a hiking trail. While Lexa continued on the path made for running as it was an evenly trail, Clarke's one first went up before it will go downwards later on. If she was able to keep her pace upwards and also manage the downwards part with this pace, she should enter Lexa's trail again just a beat before her. Of course only if Lexa didn't further speed up her pace.

The blonde felt every step in her bones, the ground was even more uneven as she remembered. Perhaps her fast pace was at fault for this as she hadn't been this fast when she had used the trail the last time. When she finally reached the highest point of the trail Clarke's legs burned due the extra exertion of going up instead of at ground level. But while the upwards part was the more exhausting one, the downwards part was more dangerous. She had to watch the terrain even more carefully to avoid stumbling or even falling. Clarke wouldn't give Lexa the satisfaction of knowing that it took only one run with the commander to end up sidelined for some time – especially not without even having worked on a case yet.

More jumping over things than running she made her way down without any incidents. She had to slow down a little or else she would have rolled down. The blonde could already see the other path Lexa was using ahead of her. Finally having the steepest part of the trail behind her Clarke didn't waste any time picking up her speed again. She couldn't see anyone walking or running on the path since the view was mostly covered by bushes. Hoping that no one was around the corner Clarke rushed onto the path and took a sharp turn to the left and towards the exit of the park.

Clarke didn't dare to look back to try and localize Lexa and thankfully she didn't have to as she could hear the unmistakable sound of a surprised intake of someone behind her as well of a set of feet picking up pace. The blonde smiled at that – much to her own surprise.

She, Clarke Griffin, had actually fun.

They slowed down once they left the park and it didn't take much longer until they came to a stop in front of the only diner on their route back home. Catching up their breath, Lexa narrowed her eyes at Clarke and the blonde had to fight off the smile that threatened to form on her lips at the clear look of indignation on her face.

"You cheated!"

"No, I did not." Clarke let out an airy laugh. Okay Clarke, reign it in a bit, the blonde thought. "You need rules to be able to cheat. We didn't set any, Commander."

"You play dirty."

"Oh, you have no idea." Clarke breathed but it was too quiet for Lexa to hear the words as she took in the diner in front of them.

"This is where you get your breakfast every morning?"

"Yeah. Nothing fancy, but the coffee is acceptable and they make a mean French toast."

"Alright, let's give it a try. Breakfast is on you, cheater." Nodding, Lexa pushed past Clarke and opened the door to the diner.

Rolling her eyes Clarke just followed her boss silently into the diner. She learnt a long time ago to pick out her battles. In her mind it would be totally unnecessary to start a discussion over who was paying for breakfast. She'll survive it, after all it was not like this would be a daily occurrence…..right?

Stepping inside the diner they were immediately hit by smells of coffee and breakfast food. It was still pretty early meaning that there weren't a lot of other people here. Actually, there were only three other people in the diner. One man and one woman sat in the far corner, each a huge plate of pancakes in front of them with their own coffee pot on the table. Clarke had a feeling that they weren't used to be up this early in the day and the waitress probably took pity on them.

The third person, a man, sat on one of the chairs at the counter with one big cup of coffee in front of him. The blonde studied him as she walked by him, not once getting a glimpse of his face as he kept his head down and the old and worn-out baseball cap was covering up his face.

The assassin in her accessed the area and rated the two in the back as no possible threats and chose to sit with her back to them, keeping the man and the entrance in her line of view. Old habits die hard, after all. Lexa instantly took the seat opposite of her.

"Cozy."

"Practical." Clarke replied as this was the more accurate reason of her coming here every morning. The diner was on her way back and like previously stated, the food and coffee wasn't all that bad.

"Good morning, Sweetheart. I see you brought a friend today." The waitress greeted them.

"Yeah, she wanted to join me on my run this morning." Clarke replied friendly.

Meghan, their waitress, was a sweet fifty year old woman having worked here every morning since Clarke had started coming here. Meghan had told her that she preferred the early hours as those meant less interaction with customers. People nowadays more often than not forgot their manners at home and were more and more unfriendly while rushing to work.

"How was your run this morning?"

"It was…interesting." Clarke glanced at Lexa at her last word who just replied with an unimpressed lift of her brow, though kept silent.

"That's nice to hear, Dear. Shall I get you your usual?"

Creating habits were always a safety hazard though sometimes Clarke just couldn't help herself, so the blonde just smiled and nodded at Meghan. "Yes, please."

"Great. And what shall I get you, Sweety?"

"I'll take a coffee and some pancakes, thanks."

"Alright, I'll be right back with your drinks. Food should be coming in a bit, too." With that Meghan retreated back behind the counter to work on their coffee and organizing the food for them.

Once again Clarke's eyes flickered over to the man at the counter to take him in. There was something familiar about him but she couldn't put her finger on it. He still kept his face slightly tilted away from them. There wasn't anything in front of him, nothing he may read so Clarke guessed his attention was on the ongoing inside the diner. The blonde's view got blocked by Meghan who smiled at them and put down the coffee in front of them and made her way back to the counter no doubt waiting for the kitchen to signal that their breakfast was ready to be delivered to their table.

Blue eyes focused back on the woman in front of her and found the green eyes of the commander staring back at her. "What?"

"Nothing," Lexa shrugged nonchalantly. "It's just that I couldn't picture you like this."

"Like what?"

"Nice, chatting friendly with the waitress. Things like that."

"I'm not a monster. I do have manners, and I do talk to people – contrary to popular belief."

"Well, you had yet to prove me otherwise. Good to know that you don't seem like a lost cause, then."

Ouch, okay maybe she deserved this. She did keep her distant to the others after all. Clarke didn't reply and chose to let the current topic come to an end as she picked up her coffee and took a sip of the hot beverage. Her eyes focused on the precise work of Lexa's long fingers as they neatly tore off the closed sugar bags and put quite a bit in her coffee. Lexa must have noticed her surprised expression and just shrugged. "What? I like to start my mornings with some sweetness. Any problems with that?"

"No, just didn't peg you to belong to the kind of people who drink sugar with coffee instead of their coffee with sugar."

"Please, it wasn't that much."

"Yeah, right." Clarke replied sarcastically.

"There're you go, girls." Meghan said, putting their food in front of them.

Clarke immediately attacked her French toast, engulfing in one of her few guilty pleasures. What was more surprising however was that Lexa equally enthusiastically dug in into her breakfast. The brunette let out a satisfied moan after the first bite that was almost bordering on sounding dirty.

"Pancakes was definitely one of the things I dearly missed while being on tours."

"Sometimes the simple things are the best ones in life."

"That's true."

At the rate they were eating their food it didn't take long for them to finish. Clarke paid for their breakfast and followed Lexa towards the front door. She made a quick stop at the counter to hand Meghan a generous tip, trying one last time to get a glimpse on the man's face sitting directly next to where she was standing but he coincidently was just drinking from his cup. She did see a little more of his face and the feeling of knowing in the pit of her stomach grew, though she still couldn't place him.

They walked the short way back to the shared building, neither interested in running with full bellies. There were more people walking by than when they had started their run. The whole time there wasn't much talking between them and Clarke once again thought about the reasons of Lexa's decision of joining her on her run.

As it was, Clarke didn't had to wait too much longer as the brunette stopped short after entering the base. The commander didn't have to say anything for Clarke to know that this was it, the whole reason their shared morning will come to light and Clarke just thought about why she had waited this long. She could have just waited for her upon her return after her run instead of joining her.

Lexa exhaled and squared her shoulders, slowly turning around to face the other woman. "I'd like to talk to you before disappear again."

"I already guessed that there was something behind all this."

"I don't think you fit into this team."

Well, at least the commander didn't beat around the bush. Clarke preferred directness instead of stumbling over words. And even if this statement irked her, Clarke could see the truth in it. She had never once given the impression that she was a team player or as social as the others. She was the lone wolf the brunette obviously had troubles to reign in.

Instead of responding to Lexa's statement the blonde remained silent as she felt like there was more to come.

"You're closed off, wrap yourself in secrets and I honestly have no idea how I should deploy you as I have absolutely no information about your skills. And overall you don't really seem interested in being part of this. If someone would ask me, I'd have you pack the little belongings you have and make you leave."

Clarke just stared at the other woman, her face void of any emotions. Just like the brunette, Clarke had her mask perfectly in place and took in every word the brunette said. She tried to find some incorrectness yet everything Lexa had said was right and her reluctance of the blonde's role in the task force was understandable in Clarke's mind.

But Clarke had lots of experience with people and she could sense a but coming from a mile away.

"But I briefly spoke to Governor Jaha about you and he seems to think highly of you. In his opinion you're perfect for this job and I trust his judgement." There was a small beat, a break for Lexa to collect her next words, maybe even thinking about how to voice them out. "So, this is how it'll be from now on. You'll be more involved with this team. You'll train together and you'll listen to my command when we work on cases. And I don't care about where you are or what you are doing at that moment, when I call you I expect you to answer. At any time. You'll drop everything. Work comes always first."

She really should have expected this. It was no secret that the brunette wished for her to be more involved with the team. The rules for the times they were working on cases where fair enough. Clarke herself had always been all about work, so the commander's worry about the possibility of Clarke being unhelpful and constantly missing was unfounded. Though the commander didn't know that and it was obvious that she didn't want to take any chances.

"One more thing." Those green eyes kept staring intensively at her. "I absolutely don't care that you're friends with Governor Jaha. You could be friends with the president for all I care. If I continue to see you unfit for this task force or if you act out, I'll throw you out myself. Am I clear?"

There was a moment were Clarke was almost hoping for the brunette to send her away. Clarke was not cut out for this kind of live. There was always only herself she had to look after. If the woman would throw her out of the task force Clarke could leave while still saying that she had tried. But she hadn't tried, not really. And the moment was gone as quick as it came as she realized that she'd be just running again.

And she was tired of running.

So Clarke just clenched her teeth and inhaled softly. "Crystal clear."

"Good."

"Am I dismissed now, Commander?"

The brunette kept staring at her for a few seconds before she finally nodded, releasing Clarke to go on her way. Lexa hoped that her words got through the thick skull of the blonde and that things will be different from now on.

As soon as the blue-eyed woman disappeared behind the elevator doors Lexa got her cell phone from her pocket and dialed, eyes still on the elevator as if the blonde would re-emerge any second. "Yeah?"

"Any hits on the name I gave you?"

"Geez, you just gave me the name yesterday." Came the protest from the other side of the call.

"I know. Means you had some time to look into it."

"Slave driver. Could have said that it's urgent."

Lexa smirked as she couldn't help herself but tease her friend. "You should know by now that when I call it's always urgent."

"I'll have you know, you were really born to be a commander. You certainly live up to it."

"Did you find anything?" The brunette replied, turning the topic back to the reason for her call.

"As of now? All I can say is that if she's not ten feet under she might as well be."

At that Lexa frowned as she didn't get what he meant by that. Couldn't he just straight out list off all of the facts he had found? "What do you mean by that?"

"There's literally nothing about her. All I can say about her is that Clarke Abigail Griffin was born and raised in Polis. She's been to Grounders Kindergarten, Arkadia Middle School and Polis High. Her childhood seemed pretty uneventful, no records of her ever acting out. Mommy dearest is a successful surgeon and her dad was a well-respected engineer."

"Was?" Lexa instantly picked out this little word.

"Oh, yeah. That's the only interesting thing I stumbled upon on my search. It's actually one of the last things officially known about her. A real tragedy, let me tell you that. At age sixteen there was a break in that went wrong. An unknown man broke into her family home. Killed her father and the neighbor's son. Griffin Junior was shot, too. Barely survived."

Shit, Lexa hadn't seen that coming. She had felt like there was something. There was this underlying sadness in those blue eyes telling her that there was a story deep down and safely tucked away. She felt for the blonde, having had to go through this at such a young age. "….and?"

"And nothing. She recovered for the next few months and it got silent on her."

Lexa shook her head unbelieving. This couldn't be all there was. "There has to be something."

"Look, there's nothing about her after that. At least not officially. She just kinda disappeared."

Lexa could feel the annoyance building inside of her. Sure she finally knew something about the blonde, but this wasn't really the information she was after. The tragedy in Clarke Griffin's youth didn't help her in any way and she didn't want to snoop too much into that. That was Clarke's story and she didn't feel comfortable enough to dig out old wounds. Although this tragedy may explain why the woman was closed off. "Alright, keep looking for information. No one disappears without a trace. Not even dead people do."

"She's a ghost!"

Green eyes once again flickered over to the elevator and the spot Clarke Griffin had been mere moments ago. "No, she's very much human."