Epilogue
You wake to the quiet, to the gentle exhale of a breath and the cold of an empty bed. It takes you a moment, long enough for your thoughts to barely grace sleep once more, but you wake. The next breath comes with a strength that you often find yourself relieved to feel. It's an expansion of your lungs, a fleeting recollection of thoughts of days past, of times lived and loved and lost. But you know yourself awake.
And so you sit carefully, quietly, silently, your eyes tracing the solitude of the bed you sleep in. Your gaze finds the window, the barely there wisps of a soon to be winter only just breathing against the cool of the glass. Your eyes trace the flickering of a light, and it takes you only a moment to register the red, the frightful strength in its intensity. But it fades quickly, it bleeds into the brightness of a green, the liveliness of memories not wanted, of moments wished for and experiences yet to be had. And then it turns to amber once more, to a yellow, a soothing colour, a warm colour. Something that lets you think yourself in a cycle, in a time loop.
But perhaps this time it isn't so bad. If only because you remember the moments, however brief they may be.
And so you slip from the bed, your toes meeting the cold bite of the floor and you find yourself shivering, hands clutching a blanket around yourself as you feel your way to the door. It only takes you a moment before you begin padding your way through the hallway, a light bringing sight to your tired eyes and so you follow it.
Your eyes find a picture, you see the flash of a smile, the brightness of blonde hair in a morning sun and you see the brown of a wild mane and the glint and fierceness of green eyes that squint as the sun touches across a happy face.
You feel a smile bring the corner of your lips up though, the sounds of a quiet grumbling meeting your ears and so you step carefully over the rising chest and you tread evenly over the tail that swishes back and forth ever so slightly in sleep. And maybe you can be forgiven for bending down just once, your fingers patting the warmth of the fur for a moment.
You find her though. You find her, back to you and she peers out into the world that exists beyond the warmth of the apartment you share. And you think it always the same, you think it may never be any different. But, if only because she is here, if only because she allows the once more, you think you would endure anything. Perhaps you know you already have.
And doesn't that mean it matters? That it's important? That it's worth suffering for?
"Sorry," she says, her gaze meeting yours in the reflection you know she sees, her gaze focused somewhere outside, her eyes finding the drops of rain that patter and wend their way down the pane of glass. "I didn't mean to wake you," she finishes, a cup coming to her lips, the green of its colour muted, sombre, lonely.
"You didn't wake me," you lie, and you know she knows from the frown, from the pursing of lips and the way she makes space for you to join her by the window. "Can't sleep?" you question, but you know the answer after all these times.
"No," she says, her head coming to rest against your shoulder, the fingers of her free hand threading through yours as you sit by her side. "It's this month," and she shrugs just once. "Bad memories," she finishes into the cup.
And so you let her lose herself to the thoughts she must have, to the memories she must relive, to the pain and the hope and the comfort she seeks. You stay quietly by her side, and you find your own eyes tracing the raindrops as they race down the glass, your eyes chase the flashes of colour, of lights that sparkle and refract before your gaze.
But perhaps above all, you count the beats of your heart, you count the rhythm it sings, and you keep count to the thumping of her chest that you feel through the touch you share.
"How's Frank?" she asks after a moment, her head turning to look up at you. "Still asleep?"
"Yeah," and you smile for a moment. "He sleeps through anything," you finish.
"I can't believe you called a dog Frank," she laughs quietly, her voice just a breath and an exhale.
"You got to choose the breed. I got to choose the name," you counter, your finger prodding her thigh quietly, the prickling of her skin catching your eye for a moment.
"You would have chosen a toy dog," she says, conviction finding its way into her voice.
"You would have loved it," and you know she would have.
"Yeah," she smiles quietly, her fingers squeezing yours once. "I would have."
And so you find yourself thinking of the metal against her finger, and you find your eyes tracing the gold around your own. And you know she must do the same because her hand squeezes yours, and her head leaves its place against your shoulder.
"I love you," and she makes sure her eyes find yours before she continues. "You know that right, Clarke?"
And so you smile once more. And you are sure the memories that surface, however faint, however shallow, will continue to grow, will continue to take root and you know that they will linger long enough for you to grasp this once more you find yourself living.
"I love you too, Lexa."