Four months. It has been almost four months since the pretty brunette moved into apartment 4B, across the hall, and Clarke is still a mess.
It started the day the former New Yorker and all her boxes magically appeared in Polis, MD. The fourth floor of the building Clarke has been living in for the past three years was never the same after that. On a beautiful evening of Spring, the graphic designer got home after another long day at the office. She had survived her meetings with demanding clients after meetings with over-egotistical bosses by thanking all the gods out there for the discovery of the coffee plant. Lost in thoughts, she did not immediately notice the boxes of various sizes lying in the hallway when she exited the elevator. The discreet "Hello", though, got her attention. She lifted her head and her jaw dropped at the sight of the medium-height, lean, beautiful brunette standing near her front door. Clarke is not particularly known for "having game", as her best friends Raven and Octavia love to remind her on a weekly basis, but she is no virgin either. Trying to make a good impression on the new neighbor, she sported her nicest "Griffin grin", waved — and face-planted on the floor after tripping over a box full of books, or rocks, whichever.
"Oh my God, are you OK?" shouted the chestnut-haired goddess, coming to help her get back on her feet. "I'm so sorry! I just moved in, and my friend couldn't stay and help me get everything situated, so it's still a mess out here."
"Green," replied Clarke, lost in the forest eyes of the rambling woman.
"Excuse me?" said the woman, confused.
"I mean, good evening. I'm Clarke, Clarke Griffin, apartment 4G," she corrected herself, pointing at her door. "Welcome to the building I guess."
"Well, thank you, Clarke Griffin. I'm Lexa Woods."
And the small one-sided smile on the pouty lips was Clarke's death sentence. Since then, she has had the biggest crush on her beautiful neighbor. Which would not necessarily be a problem, if she could keep her cool around her long enough not to make a fool of herself.
Alas, as fate would have it — or a particularly nasty karma inherited from a previous life where she had burned hundreds of people alive or something — their first encounter was only the beginning of a series of incidents with Clarke-the-klutz as the main protagonist. For the last three months, two weeks, six days, and twenty-something hours, Clarke has repeatedly found herself either tongue-tied at the sight of Lexa, or in awkward situations when the way-too-cute woman is around. Not that it happens so often, as Lexa seems to keep strange hours and travels more often than most people, but still.
There was the time Clarke came home after celebrating Octavia's birthday, so drunk that all she could think of was saying "Open sesame" over and over to her non-cooperative door. Lexa, hearing the ruckus, had to rummage through the blonde's handbag to find her keys and help her inside. Two days later, Clarke found a copy of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves by Antoine Galland in her mailbox.
A few days after that, Clarke was down to her last panties and rushed to the laundry room. As the two machines were occupied, she noticed that one was already done, and started removing the now clean items from the drum and put them aside. Again, it would not have been a problem if Lexa had not shown up to collect her clothes precisely when the blonde was holding her lace pair of panties that almost fell on the floor. The blush on both women's faces that day could have lit the whole building.
And the most embarrassing moment of all happened about a week ago. Too lazy to cook, Clarke ordered pizza before jumping into the shower. Naturally, she was not dressed when the delivery guy arrived, and she covered herself with a towel before answering. After realizing that she tipped him wrongly, she ran after him in the hallway, and the wind shot the door closed behind her. She had to wait, clad only in a towel, for the super to come up and unlock her door. Of course, Lexa chose to return home with large bags full of groceries before the smelly 50-year-old man could locate the spare key. She dropped her bags with a squeaked "Clarke" at the sight that greeted her. The super saved them both from further embarrassment by showing up not long after, and the blonde has since managed to avoid the flustered occupant of apartment 4B. When she told the story to Raven over the phone, the engineer called her a "useless bisexual" and laughed so hard that she was close to peeing herself.
On this warm summery day, Clarke is working on an important project for one of their top clients. She is too focused on her work to pay attention, and her hand hits the mug located near the screen. Before she can do anything, coffee runs all over her laptop, sending it to an early grave.
"Fuuuuuck," she exclaims, cursing at her usual clumsiness. After several minutes of praying and threatening the black screen, she is forced to admit defeat. Monty, her engineer friend, might be able to repair the device, but right now, she needs to finish her presentation and send it to her boss ASAP. Grabbing her flash drive that, thankfully, survived the coffee flood, she does the first thing she thinks of and knocks on the 4B apartment door.
"Hi Lexa," she says when the brunette opens the door, confused. Their interactions have been limited to random encounters so far, and the blonde is breaking the pattern. Her reaction makes Clarke realize that she still knows next to nothing about the woman that haunts her daydreams. "I'm so sorry to bother you, but my laptop just died, and I have a very important presentation that I need to email to my boss. Could I use your computer? It shouldn't take more than half an hour."
"Yes, of course. Come in. Would you like something to drink?"
"Coffee please," responds Clarke, before realizing what she said and correcting herself. "Actually, scratch that. My last cup of coffee ended up on my keyboard and fried my laptop so that's not such a good idea."
"Maybe not," replies the brunette, a smirk planted on her face. "My laptop is in my office. Please, make yourself at home, and let me know if you need anything."
"Thanks, Lexa, you're a lifesaver!"
Clarke sits in front of the computer and plugs her flash drive. Luckily for her, the device contains the most recent version of her work. She does not have much editing to do before she can open Gmail and send it to her slave driver of a boss. Wanting to make a nice gesture for a neighbor, she starts to type, "How to say thank you in flowers?" in the search bar, when the predictive search catches her attention. Based on what she has seen of Lexa so far, she would have expected things like "How to be more confident", "How to sew my own flannel shirts" or even "How to make my own candles". But instead, the first results are "How to amputate a leg", "How to cut through bones", etc.
Her eyes like saucers, Clarke decides that there must be a logical explanation for this. She starts to inspect the browser and notices a "work" folder. When she drags the mouse over it, the bookmarks inside are enough to make her jump. The list, full of items such as "amputation techniques", "decapitation and exsanguination", and "bury a body" seems to come from Hannibal Lecter's personal library. Closing the window with a shaking hand, she exits the office and strides to the door.
"Did you manage to send your email?" she hears Lexa shout from the kitchen.
"Yes, I did. Thank you so much. I—I'm sorry, I have to go and get my laptop fixed. Bye Lexa!" she blurts out before leaving.
Once back into the safety of her place, Clarke locks the door and leans against it, shaking. What the hell did she stumble upon? Is her cute, quiet neighbor secretly a serial killer? It sounds ridiculous at first, but how else to explain the search history and bookmarks? Now that she thinks about it, she has never seen anyone else visit Lexa. The woman leaves a solitary life, she keeps very irregular hours and often goes on short trips. Sure, she always seems nice and well-mannered, but so was Ed Kemper according to Netflix. Unsure what to do, the designer decides to call Octavia. If someone should be able to give sound advice, it is her.
"Hi, Clarkey," answers the police officer. "What's up? Have you finally managed to woman up and ask your cute neighbor out?"
"No O, I haven't. But I'm calling about Lexa, though," Clarke replies. She then explains to her friend how she broke her laptop, used the neighbor's, and found out the strange bookmarks. Octavia, to her credit, listens to her carefully and does not interrupt except to laugh at the coffee story.
"I don't know what to tell you, Clarke, I'm sure there is a rational explanation for this. But I'll look into her, I promise. In the meantime, it might be best if you could abstain from being alone with her."
"I will. Thanks, O!" replies the blonde before hanging up. All she has to do now is to avoid the beautiful brunette who lives across the hallway. Easy-peasy.
And Clarke does manage to stay away from Lexa, at least for the first few days. When they cross paths in the hallway, she smiles briefly at her but pretends to be in too much of a hurry to chat. After a week, the other woman seems a little dejected but does not insist.
About two weeks after the laptop incident, Clarke is finishing her laundry when the door behind her opens. Lexa enters, her eyes glued to her phone before she notices the other woman in the room and freezes.
"Clarke, hi. How are you doing? Have you replaced your laptop already?"
"H—Hi Lexa," the blonde stutters but tries to keep her composure. "No, one of my friends is a computer genius, he managed to fix it."
"Oh, that's good."
Grabbing her laundry basket, Clarke is heading towards the door when the voice stops her.
"I—hmm. I was wondering if you'd like to have coffee with me today. Or tomorrow," asks the brunette, her ears turning a light shade of red and her eyes staring at the floor.
"Oh, I—sorry, I'm very busy with work at the moment."
Clarke cringes at her own reply. For obvious reasons, going out with a potential killer is not a smart move. But Lexa looks so defeated at that moment that she cannot help but amend her previous statement.
"I mean, today is not good. Can we try Saturday?"
The brunette nods eagerly, a bright smile on her face. Clarke might end up being murdered, but at least she has made the pretty girl smile, and without making a fool of herself, that's a start. Besides, it is not like Lexa is going to kill her in the middle of a café, right?
When Saturday comes, Clarke is both excited and a ball of nerves. Distracted by her neighbor's suspicious search history, she did not realize at the time that she has a date with the beautiful woman she has been crushing on for months. And now, her stomach feels like it is trying to tie itself around her esophagus. She can only hope that she will be able to swallow her coffee without puking, or spilling it.
As agreed, she meets Lexa at the café Grounders, five minutes away from their building. The brunette is already sitting when she arrives, her nose in a book. She smiles and puts it away when the blonde sits in front of her, before offering to order for both of them. Once she comes back with their drinks, a latte for Clarke, and a tea for herself, the conversation flows easily. It might be the different setting or the smile that will not leave Lexa's face, but Clarke feels relaxed in her presence.
"And that's how my first novel got published, and then from there I decided to become a full-time writer," explains the brunette in a soft voice, finishing the story of her studies.
"Wait, you're a writer? What genre?"
"Oh, I thought you knew." Lexa's cheeks turn bright pink. "I mean, it's under my full name, and I am not that famous, but I assumed everybody googled everybody nowadays."
Seeing the look of confusion on the blonde's face, she continues. "I write detective novels. Maybe you've heard of Long Into an Abyss or Bodyguard of Lies."
"Well, yes, those got a lot of press attention—wait! You're Alexandria Woods?"
The mysterious writer is famous for her attention to detail and her captivating crime stories. So far, she has refused interviews and no one knows how she looks. That hasn't stopped her from getting even more recognition now that one of her recent novels, Blood Must Have Blood, might be adapted into a movie.
Lexa nods quietly and opens her mouth to reply when Clarke groans and lets her head bump against the table.
"Your stories involve amputations, bodies being buried, and all, right?" she mumbles. At the lack of answer coming from Lexa, confused by this turn of events, she explains. "When I used your browser, I saw your bookmarks and search history. I—I was kinda worried that you might be a serial killer?" she squeaks the last word, too embarrassed to look at her interlocutor.
Lexa stares at her for a solid 10 seconds before bursting into laughter. Her body is shaking so hard that Clarke worries she might fall from her chair. When tears start running down Lexa's cheeks and she is close to hyperventilating, the blonde decides that this is the most beautiful sound she has ever heard. It is definitely worth the humiliation she feels coming her way. She cannot help but giggle too at the misunderstanding.
"So—," wheezes Lexa after a few minutes, still trying to catch her breath, "that's why you were all weird and avoiding me?"
"Well, yeah. I was afraid you might add me to your list of victims." The brunette is having a hell of a job not losing it again.
"And what made you decide to go out with me then? That doesn't sound particularly safe."
"I figured you wouldn't kill me in a public place," shrugs Clarke. "And you looked so sad when I declined your invitation, I felt bad."
"Oh, good to know. I have to keep that in mind for my next novel." Lexa might not be a serial killer, but her smirk will be Clarke's end for sure.
The rest of their afternoon flies by, now that the elephant in the room has been addressed. Clarke talks about her parents, her job as a graphic designer, her dreams. Lexa mentions her next project, her sister Anya, and her former life in New York. By six o'clock, the two women feel like they have known each other for years, all awkwardness was finally gone. They are walking back to their building side by side, their hands brushing, when Lexa starts to speak again.
"You know, I'm really glad you accepted my invitation. I—I've been trying to catch your attention since I moved in."
"Well, I might have noticed if I hadn't been so busy trying not to trip every time I saw you," replies Clarke before linking their fingers.
"Yes, I was kind of wondering if you suffer from some neurological disorder, but I was too scared to ask."
"No! It's just that—well, you've seen you, right? I'm a bit of a klutz on a normal day, but it's like 10 times worse when you're around."
"That's OK," smiles Lexa, "I'll just have to make sure you don't come anywhere near my laptop with a drink in hand."
"Oh fuck! I have to call Octavia."
Noticing the brunette's puzzled expression, Clarke explains. "My friend, she's a police officer. I may have told her about the whole laptop incident, and that I thought you could be a killer."
"Oh my God!" Lexa starts laughing again. "If she breaks down my door, you are so paying for it."
"Shut it, Woods," groans Clarke playfully. She tugs on the woman's hand so they are face-to-face and silences her by placing her lips on hers.
And yeah, she should have done it weeks ago. She might be clumsy, and Lexa is definitely shy, and there was a funny misunderstanding between them, but this, this is perfect. They fit like two pieces of a puzzle, their mouths moving against each other in a synchronized dance older than the hills. And when they finally come up for air, their mirrored smiles are so precious, Clarke knows she will have to immortalize them on canvas. But not today. Today, she has the most beautiful girl in her arms, and she will be damned if she lets her escape.