After what had seemed like an eternity, Lexa was finally setting foot on French soil. Having spent the entire trip racking her brains for ways to find her missing love in a big foreign city, the first thing she did upon her arrival at the hotel was sleep. She woke up covered in sweat from a recurring dream she'd been having: She would be sitting on a park bench, contemplating the sky, when she would see Clarke falling down from it. When she would go to rescue her lost friend, she would find no trace of her.
Lexa dedicated the first few weeks of her Parisian life to settling down at her school and in her new, rather small apartment. Once she felt she had things under control, and with the knowledge that she had been pushing this moment back for fear of facing a certain blonde who had lived in her fantasies for so long, the young professor found a well-renowned private investigator, and with Abby's help, hired him to find Clarke, vowing to help him any way she can.
Before she knew it—an expression which Lexa found unbefitting of her situation, because really, she felt the passage of every second— two months had passed, and there was still no sign of Clarke. The detective told his client that "her girlfriend" (evidently, Lexa furiously blushed at the term) either didn't want to be found, or had left the country. And so, Lexa did what she does best; repress her emotions and go on. Once again, she made herself get used to the everyday routine, aided by the Parisians' cold nature and zombie-like way of living. She worked more, felt less. She even claimed to herself that she couldn't feel her heart beating anymore.
On a night like every other of the 134 nights she had spent in Paris, monotonous and grey, Lexa didn't feel she had the strength to walk the ten blocks between the school campus and her apartment, so she thought it was about time she got acquainted with the French métro. A few minutes later, she was inside the station waiting for her ride, ticket in hand, fantasizing about being in bed and surrendering herself to oblivion for the night, when something ricocheted off her head; an empty water bottle. She picked it up and turned towards its source. That's when she saw her. Sitting on the floor with a guitar in hand, thick sunny braids and a set of angry blue eyes, was none other than the girl of her dreams, whom she had resigned herself to seeing only in her dreams. She was mouthing off at a teenage boy, who seemed to be the intended target of the water bottle, and was so worked up that she didn't even realize that the bottle had missed its mark, nor where it had ended up. She looked so full of life that she was radiating it around her. Lexa would know, because just like that, her heart had started beating again. Next thing she knew, the shell-shocked commander was now standing face to face with her sky princess.
"Hey there! Not sure what you just threw at me, but it must have been light, because I didn't feel a thing!"
As soon as Lexa uttered these words from a past life, and before she could smirk for having thought of such a clever opening line when her brain was in jumbles, she was being squished by her friend in the most intimate hug she had received in a long while.
"What took you so long?"
Suddenly at a loss for words, Lexa simply laid her forehead against Clarke's, letting their tears flow in unison through the huge smiles they both had on. Then she went to get the artist's guitar, put it back in its open case full of coins, and held her hand out to Clarke, who took it without a moment's hesitation.
Thankfully, there was no ticket control on the ride to Lexa's apartment, because neither of the girls had thought to buy Clarke one. Back at Lexa's new home, the first thing she did was draw the exhausted-looking blonde a bath, before anxiously waiting for her outside her room to give her some privacy. Her mind must have shut off during the wait from the onslaught of emotions it had to process in such a short time, because she had dozed off; only to be awakened by a stark naked Clarke gently caressing her (now dark red) cheek. It was the blonde's turn to guide her host by the hand, to her room, where she slowly and vehemently undressed her.
What Lexa felt that night went beyond the sexual, the physical or even the mere human connection. She could only describe it as a spiritually transcendent experience.
The next morning, Lexa's first thought upon waking up—or technically, the second, the first being the need to touch her lover immediately—was that they needed to talk. After all, they had barely said one sentence each since their subway reunion! She had so many questions, even more plans, and most of all, confessions of love and promises of a life together that she needed to share with her princess. "Hers." Lexa beamed at the thought. But she then realized she was alone in bed. Refusing to succumb to the romantic comedy trope of thinking her lover was gone, only to find her in the kitchen, she decided to keep a cool head, put on a robe and go check the rest of the apartment. After a careful inspection, she had to admit it: Clarke had left. Lexa didn't know how to react to that. She couldn't shut herself off again, not this time, not anymore. The pain was threatening to take her whole, when she heard a faint knock at the door. She half-heartedly answered it, which was easily the best decision she ever made. Standing there was Clarke, dragging two suitcases and grinning triumphantly:
"Well if it isn't miss Pouty!"
Before Clarke had the chance to smirk for having thought of her own witty retort, Lexa had drawn her into a kiss, only breaking it when her smile got too big for a proper make out.
"Je t'aime, Commandant," Clarke sheepishly said.
And for the first time in her consistently tragic life, Lexa thought that maybe she would get a happy ending after all.