y'all are gonna like this

now, read, ponder, and enjoy!

At the slightest whiff of nicotine, she whirled around and didn't even hesitate to reach out and tug the cigarette from Gustus' mouth, tossing it on the ground and stamping it out with her sneaker. When he glared at her halfheartedly, she just raised a brow, practically daring him to do something to her for preventing him from being one stick closer to dying.

"Does Penelope really condone this at home?" When he remained quiet, she hummed. "Maybe I'll have a conversation with her. Talk to her about how it's not healthy that she's allowing her husband to –"

"She doesn't know," he finally grunted, cutting her off with an exasperated tone.

"Better. I'll just tell her about her husband who's been chain-smoking behind her back."

"I haven't been chain-smoking," he protested with affront.

She narrowed her eyes, lifted her foot, and pointed down at the wilted cigarette. "I'm pretty sure that's from your third pack today."

"It's –"

He huffed and shifted uncomfortably. She hid her smirk at that. Gustus was known for his stoicism and overprotectiveness – people had even speculated that he was Terminator in real life, unmovable but fiercely defensive over his ward, which was Lexa.

She loved that she was the only one who could do this to him. Get him to speak. Get him to simply react. Lexa was certain that the only other person who could do this was her father, and that was only because Gustus had been Richmond's bodyguard before he was Lexa's.

She pointed a finger at his face, almost poking into his left nostril. "One pack a day, or I'm gonna tell your wife."

He narrowed his eyes at her before pushing her hand away from his face. "You are a blabbermouth," he complained as they began meandering down the path that led to the usual park that she went to.

"Consider it payback for telling my father about my former nightly habits," she replied easily and threw him a wink when he shot her a glare.

They had reached the benches and went on autopilot as they took seats on their respective benches. Yards away from him, she could see his fingers twitching in a habit to take out the pack of cigarettes in his jacket.

She made sure to keep staring at him, daring him to do it. She kind of wanted him to do it, because she'd been thinking of a way to pay him back for blabbering off to her father in the first place. Plus, she wanted him to be healthy, and he was awfully subservient to his wife, for some reason.

"Jesus, are you kidding me?"

She snapped her head around to find Clarke standing a few yards away from the both of them, half glaring and half gaping at her. Lexa blinked, suddenly uncertain as to how to react to this unwarranted animosity from the blonde. She had sounded so excited on the phone just twenty minutes ago.

And how did Lexa not notice her coming anyway? Christ, she was losing her game and alertness. All in the face of a pretty blonde doctor and the desire to keep teasing her robot of a bodyguard. Speaking of which, she turned back to Gustus, who looked expressionless to just about any stranger, but definitely not Lexa, because she could see the slight uptick of the left corner of his beard and the prominent lines at the corner of his eyes.

Traitor.

Looking back to Clarke, the blonde was still gaping at her, but Lexa was finally catching onto the appreciation in those blue eyes, thanks to the streetlights that had been newly installed just last week.

Ah, she got it now, allowing the flattery to surface in a rare appearance. Then again, she didn't quite get it – due to the suddenness of this McDonald's run, Lexa had opted to head out in her pajamas, which was just a set of T-shirt and a pair of short, along with a grey hoodie. It wasn't the most outstanding of outfits, in her opinion.

Clarke groaned, dramatizing her displeasure by throwing her head back, and headed towards Lexa after offering Gustus a perfunctory nod. "This is ridiculous. Whatever. Where's my Big Mac?" Clarke demanded once she had sat down next to Lexa on the bench. "Also, you're kind of obsessed with this bench."

"What is ridiculous?" Lexa goaded, ignoring Clarke's dig about the bench and gesturing at the McDonald's takeaway bag.

The blonde began to dig into the bag and surfaced with a Big Mac and a big Coke. "Just you and your entirely ridiculous good looking thing going on," she said airily as she unwrapped the food. "And aren't you cold? What were you thinking coming out in shorts?"

"You think I'm good looking?" Lexa asked, humming in thanks when Clarke handed her the other Big Mac in the bag.

Clarke threw her an unimpressed look. "I think we've established that very early on."

"I just wanted to confirm."

"Don't be smug."

"I got you Big Mac and this is how you talk to me," Lexa said as she shook her head. "Don't do good deeds, is what they say."

"Your face simply upsets me," Clarke retorted while munching on bits of the Big Mac. "This whole thing –" she made circles with said Big Mac at Lexa's face "– is absolutely offensive. Should be illegal."

"Careful. Next thing you know, you'll be telling me you want to kiss me." It came back out before Lexa could stop herself. And once it was out, it was out.

Her Big Mac was frozen halfway to her mouth, and she kept her gaze on the ground as she could feel Clarke stiffen next to her at the remark. Shit. Shit. Shit. Fuck, she should have kept her mouth shut. There must be something in the air of this park when the sun had set. She just kept saying or doing ridiculous shit, and that was always in Clarke's presence.

"Do you actually want an answer to that?" This time, there was no sign of joking around or humor in Clarke's voice.

When Lexa looked at her again, all the teasing was gone from the blonde's expression, only curiosity and preparedness. For a moment, the princess wondered what it was like to be this brave. She definitely didn't miss the way the blonde's eyes flitting down to her lips for a second and then back to her eyes. It wasn't like Clarke was trying to be subtle about it either.

Her heart stuttered in her chest at the thought of actually kissing Clarke. God only knew how many times she had dreamt about it, including that time she woke up in the morning after a particularly savory one, which caused her to be late to therapy because she spent half an hour getting herself off and then added on to the swimming to expend her reserved energy.

That was a good morning.

Lexa wanted let herself go, restraint be damned, and just do it already. Fulfill her fantasies and take this very odd non-friendship one step further. The both of them were very much aware that they were definitely not just friends.

But she couldn't. She had a problem. She was ill. This illness could be dangerous, from what she had seen amongst her former comrades and the research she had done. Her family was already inevitable subjects to her bouts – she wouldn't subject Clarke to it as well. She refused to be so selfish, despite the blonde's reassurances that she was there to stay.

"You wanna tell me about this decision that shouldn't be hard?" she deflected.

She could feel her resolve breaking a little at the flash of disappointment crossing Clarke's azure irises before it was replaced with acceptance and hesitation. "No, not really." Lexa raised a brow, not quite used to Clarke shutting her off like that, and Clarke must have seen it on her face, because she hurried to add, "It's just – it's kind of complicated and the less people who know, the better. I just don't want to involve…people."

The soldier in Lexa wanted to pursue further, especially when she heard the slight inflection in Clarke's voice that probably didn't mean anything. Except Lexa was smart enough, had handled enough subordinates, somehow knew enough of the doctor's tonal shifts, to know that there was something more. Something that troubled Clarke so much that she didn't want to tell Lexa about it.

She could easily invoke her status as royalty to force Clarke to tell her about it, but she remembered her promise just a little over a month ago, when they saw each other again in this park after six months of being apart. She was Lexa with Clarke, and not the princess. And Lexa, just a girl who was half in love and wanted to be the best friend she could be to the blonde, wasn't going to be one to pressure Clarke into saying anything.

"Alright," she offered with a nod.

If Clarke wanted to talk, she would listen. If not, she would sit here and remind Clarke that she was here. It was that simple.

Lexa (11:49p.m.): Can you wait?

Clarke (11:50p.m.): wait 4 wat?

Lexa (11:50p.m.): To give me an answer if I get better.

Clarke (11:58p.m.): lexa, WHEN u get better, im gonna do it rather than just giving u an answer
Clarke (11:58p.m.): thx for the big mac btw – its the best big mac ive evr had

Lexa (12:02a.m.): Goodnight, doctor.

Clarke (12:03a.m.): good night, your highness.

"Oh, good god!"

Lexa covered her eyes with a hand and slammed the door close the other, moving to the side and leaning against the wall as she rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands. Inside the room, she could muffled giggles and words, the people seemingly unfazed by her intrusion of their…activity. Yeah, it seemed like no matter how much scrubbing she needed, the image would forever be burned into her brain.

Talk about traumatizing.

A few moments later, the occupants of the room finally came out, smug looks on their faces, as if they hadn't just been caught half naked and almost doing the dirty behind an unlocked door. She crossed her arms and made sure that her sister and her fiancé were at the receiving end of her patented glare. Then again, they were so used to her that they wouldn't be fazed in the least.

Anya had the audacity to shrug at her, while Roan just stood behind her sister, following her cue, as he always did in this building. At least he was smart enough for that.

"My study," Lexa bit out.

"Have you seen him?" Anya said and scrunched her nose as she reached behind her to touch Roan's cheek. "I couldn't resist."

Lexa followed Anya's hand and took a long look at her future brother in law. "I'm too gay for this," she whispered and shook her head. "At least have the decency to feel ashamed that you almost had sex on my couch, for the love of god," she chastised and headed back in, eying the couch in disdain. "Now I'm going to burn it. Mom wouldn't be happy."

Anya made a clicking noise with her tongue as the couple followed her in, sitting back on the couch like it was no big deal. She stroked the fabric gently and smirked at the youngest Woods. "I have a feeling that Mom and Dad got frisky on this couch too. After all, you did get it from their previous collection of bedroom set."

"Oh my god!" Lexa yelped, sticking her fingers in her ears and vigorously shaking her head.

Now, she had to shake not only the images of her sister's side boob and Roan's ass from her mind, but also her parents getting down and dirty on that very couch. Ikea – she was going to Ikea tomorrow. Muffled laughter could be heard and she rolled her eyes at the childish couple, removing her fingers from her hears and making a note to wash out her eyes later.

"What do you want?" she asked, beyond unimpressed.

"So remember when I proposed?" Roan pointed out innocently. She narrowed her eyes, nodding in confirmation. "Yeah, your mother just informed us that apparently we have to actually do something about it." Lexa tilted her head. "Like a wedding, a church, the whole shebang."

She raised her brows at him, kind of at a loss, and then slowly averted her gaze to her sister, who was smirking at the brunette and not offering anything else. Right, because Anya loved making things hard for her siblings. "Yes, isn't that…what an engagement is supposed to lead to?" she slowly worded out, uncertain as to whether they were being deliberately obtuse.

"We were thinking elopement," Anya shot out, her canines showing her mischievousness. Lexa rarely saw her sister smile so widely. "Maybe at Floukru. I heard Luna's ordained."

Lexa's eyes widened and she jumped up so quickly that she didn't gauge the position of her bum leg, causing to bump into the desk and the items to rattle so loudly that even the other two occupants of the room were alarmed. She held up a hand at them and steadied herself, wincing a little at the unnecessary ache that arced through her hip.

She took a deep breath and wondered for a minute if she remembered to take her medicine this morning after breakfast. She should probably check her medication box later when she was left alone.

And then she directed her wide eyes at the twosome. "Dad would kill you," she hissed.

"Yeah, Mom said that."

Lexa inhaled sharply. "You told her?"

"She ambushed us," Roan intercepted, like that was the worst thing in this conversation.

"Yeah, because you ambushed the nation with your relationship and engagement in one go five months ago, and then it's tumbleweeds since then."

"We were enjoying engagement bliss."

"Clearly," Lexa snapped, shuddering when she remembered what she had witnessed mere minutes ago.

"Alright, so, apparently, we have to, like, plan our wedding and stuff now," Anya said with a dismissive wave of her hands, like it wasn't a big deal. Like the crown princess getting married wouldn't be an event of probably decade. Like her wedding wouldn't be the biggest occasion this country had seen in almost fifty years. "And I thought I'd get this out of the way."

"Which is?"

"You as my maid of honor."

Lexa's heart jumped a little at the thought. She looked at her sister, more like gaped, actually. And suddenly, the teasing expression had dropped, and in its place, was a tender looking smile and gentle eyes, a little pleading and a little moving, staring back at her. And the brunette almost felt her heart swell to such fullness it might explode.

Unlike her younger sister, Anya did not lack in the friends department. She had friends everywhere, in every state, in almost every country, in every room in this palace. Anya might put out this façade of toughness and unattainable, but in private, she was the most mischievous and would always say the right words to reach the right people. Among them all, Anya's best friend was Echo Lux, her roommate in college.

And yet, Anya didn't ask Echo. Not any of her friends in her wide social circle. Instead, she had chosen to come to Lexa's wing, ruin her precious couch, and ask her.

To stop herself from crying, Lexa feigned a frown and leaned against the desk. She refused to cry in front of Roan, no matter how much she liked him. "Wait, are you telling or asking?" she prodded.

And then the tenderness was gone. Because they were sisters, and Anya knew her very well, so well that she understood that this was Lexa's way of accepting and her way of blocking her emotions from showing in front of unfamiliarity. Anya smirked and stood up, pulling her fiancé up with her and heading towards the door.

"Telling. You can't escape this." Lexa had expected her to just walk out like that, but her sister surprised her again by pushing the man out the door and closing it behind her again. Anya pressed back against the door with the same expression from before again, shaking her head at the brunette. "You shouldn't be surprised. You're my sister."

"Yeah, I –" Lexa took a deep breath and looked to the ceiling for a long while as she tried to stave off her emotions. For fuck's sake, she was supposed to be a soldier. "I thought after my behavior recently –"

"That doesn't make you my sister any less," Anya retorted, approaching Lexa and placing her hands on the younger woman's forearms. "You're…a little cracked and leaking some sane juice, I won't deny that." Lexa heaved a wet laughter at that. "But you're still my sister. And I love you. And there's no one else I'd want on that altar with me than you, do you understand?"

Lexa nodded and didn't even hesitate to make the first move this time as she leaned forward and engaged Anya in a strong embrace, eliciting a surprised yelp. They hugged for a long time, Anya letting Lexa take the reins this time.

When they finally let go of each other, both couldn't keep their eyes from the couch. Lexa didn't miss out on the opportunity to reach out and slap her sister's arm.

"You're telling Mom that I'm burning that couch."

"What? No!"

"Yes, or I'm telling Dad about your elopement plans."

"Lexa, dear sister, the army has changed you."

One of the things that Niylah had advised her to do more often to mend her relationship with her family was to start joining them for breakfast, rather than having her own breakfast extra early and retreating to her study just as everyone else was staring to wake up. Apparently, breakfast was the most important meal of the day, and for the royal family, breakfast was probably the only moment for the day where the conversations wouldn't involved much, if any, of work or duties.

Lexa had remembered to point out to them that she wanted no part in the planning of the wedding. If it were up to her, she'd just invite the important people and make sure the main couple of the day would show up at the church with their rings. She would do away with the carriage and the broadcast and the whole ridiculousness of planning a wedding. She had often thought that weddings were only for the people watching rather than the two people actually getting married.

And then, after breakfast, she excused herself and went down to her study, listening to her secretary tell her about the calls and emails she had gotten and working together to organize meetings for the week to come.

"And Service Day is next Friday," Rachel sheepishly offered once they were inside her office.

Lexa groaned at the reminder. "Okay."

"Mr. Jaha called yesterday when you were out of office."

The princess stilled in her seat, the letter opener frozen halfway in the air – if they didn't know better, it would almost seem like she wanted to stab her secretary. She eyed the younger woman warily and asked, "Why?"

"Um," Rachel drifted off and began to look more pensive, if that was even possible. Telling this to Lexa was obviously the last thing she wanted to do. Otherwise, she wouldn't have made it the last item on her list. "He wanted you to give a speech. On Service Day. It'll be broadcasted to our soldiers overseas. He thought it would raise morale and –"

"Absolutely not," Lexa cut her off sharply and curtly, not even caring that the woman jumped a little. "You can tell Mr. Jaha that I will not be involved in his greed or allow him to turn me into a capitalistic commodity on a day that is supposed to respect and be grateful to our soldiers within and without this country." With a vicious snap, the opener had sliced open the flap of the first letter rather ungracefully. She pulled the paper out, paused, and added, "Verbatim."

Rachel nodded and scuttled out as quickly as she could.

Lexa wouldn't claim to know that she knew all the ins and outs of the Parliament – given that she was fourth in line for the throne, and probably would be demoted when Anya and Roan finally decided to reproduce, she didn't think it was necessary for her to be entirely familiar with the way the government worked. But she had taken a special interest in women's initiatives, military issues, and veterans' affairs.

And after her honorary discharge, she had gotten even more involved with the Veterans' Agency and Defense Department in order to dispatch her program smoothly. That consequently meant increased interactions with the heads of both organizations. While she liked Callie Cartwig of the Veterans' Agency just fine, she found herself very much at disdain with Thelonious Jaha of the Defense Department.

It was obvious from their first meeting that he was just the man behind the desk and had only two years of experience on tour before he himself was honorably discharged. They called it a heart condition; she would like to call it cowardice. Certainly, national security was the top of his concerns, but he was also a man who sought profits and victory with no regard to the soldiers that were deployed on his command. He wanted to win more than he cared about the welfare of the men and women who were driving the tanks and shooting the rifles.

And since that first meeting, she had decided that talking to him would not do anything to help her initiative, which was why she decided to move her target to his deputy, who was much more amicable and understanding. Becca Franco also served to be the buffer between her and Jaha, which was just the way she liked it. Plus, Lexa had a feeling that Jaha was even halfway as supportive of the program she had initiated with regards to the veterans was because she was the princess – otherwise, he wouldn't have been so generous with the current funding towards the program.

Regardless, there was no way she would allow Jaha to use her as a mouthpiece to further his agenda. The solders deserved better than that. They didn't need a mouthpiece. They didn't need her to show up on television to boost their morale. When a soldier was out there, they didn't care about their King's daughter on a tiny screen telling them how grateful she was.

They cared about their mission and their goals. They cared about surviving the desert and the polluted water. They cared about sneaking in just a little bit of smile, if only to ensure that their sanity stayed intact enough for them to go home to their families. They cared about going home.

"While I sympathize," Niylah started as she tapped the butt of her red pen on the glass top of her desk to a random rhythm, "you didn't exactly come back in perfect shape yourself."

Lexa watched as the pen tap and tap and tap – for a moment, she was reminded of the click of cartridges in rifles. She considered Niylah's observation and thought back to the events that had transpired since she came home in a chopper and woke up in an executive suite in a hospital. She looked at the cane that was propped against her chair and thought how much her family had to spend to even afford her the opportunity of using the cane and keeping her leg.

"I still came back in better condition than most."

"Do you think that's true?" Niylah immediately threw back, raising her brows. "Because of your father, we have pretty ideal healthcare plans and insurance policies. Yes, maybe post-deployment treatment is lacking, but I'm sure you and your father are working together to better it." Lexa nodded. "Some soldiers come back with all their limbs intact and their families hold. Some don't. That's just the way it is in military. Meanwhile, you come back with a bum leg and a case of PTSD."

"I'm still the princess. I get better treatment than most. I live in a fucking palace, for the love of god."

"But, at the end of the day, you're still human, are you not?" Niylah pointed out, patient as ever. "Here's something I really don't like about the rhetoric that people come to my office with, which is that you think you're better than a lot of people and that somehow makes you undeserving of feeling the pain you are in. You can't put your problems on a playing field. Yes, you are the princess of this country, but you are also a veteran who suffers from PTSD. That is a fact. Therefore, it doesn't make you any less of a human being for wanting to feel as much as you can."

"What about the people around me?" Lexa almost yelled at the psychiatrist. "I can barely sleep. I lash out at them. What if I hurt them? Even if I don't want to?"

"Your Highness," Niylah sighed, leaning forward from her chair to lean against the desk. The pen had stopped tapping and been abandoned. The psychiatrist's fingers were laced together as she shot the princess a thoughtful look. "The people around you are still around you, aren't they?"

Lexa stilled at the proclamation.

"Once again, yes, you have a problem, but it's not your fault. PTSD is not your fault," Niylah stressed. "You're here because you want to face it and you want to get rid of it as a problem, but if you allow it to hinder you from what you want to do and what you deserve, then you wouldn't have much of a life either way. Then what is the point of you paying me five hundred dollars an hour at all?"

The sun was already setting by the time she had exited Niylah's office. But this time, she didn't feel as lost or heavy as she usually was after a session. In fact, she could hardly remember the last time she felt so purposeful, so much so that she didn't even need Gustus to tell her where to go after they got out to the streets.

By the time they arrived to the apartment building, the sun had already retired for the day and the moon had taken over, illuminating the streets in harmony with the streetlights. There was a light breeze that brushed through grasses and trees, whistling through the particles and singing in her ears. She felt light, but not the bad kind of light. She didn't even wait for Gustus case the surroundings out before she ignored the elevator in favor of the stairs, climbing them two steps at a time until she reached the intended floor.

Her sneakers screeched to a halt outside the door she was looking for. She was panting. Her heart was pounding like never before. Once, she had thought that being invaded by insurgents at two in the morning in the middle of Libya would be the most nerve wracking thing she could experience. That thought turned out to be false, as her fist came to a pause an inch from the door.

If you allow it to hinder you from what you want to do and what you deserve, you wouldn't have much of a life either way.

She closed her eyes, took five deep breaths, in and out, slow and steady. Calm down, soldier. This wasn't a thirteen year old boy with a turban and an AK-47 in his lanky arms. This wasn't a dilapidated cabin that could very well be the base of an LIFG faction. This was an apartment building north of Harley Oaks in Polis. This was no warzone.

Her fist rapped on the door three times. She allowed her arms to hang by her sides as she waited for it to open. Her sharp ears picked up on Gustus finally catching up to her at the end of the corridor, picked up on the crickets harmonizing, picked up on the wind whistling, and picked up on the muffled footsteps on the other side of the door.

The lock rattled. The knob twisted. The door opened.

"Lexa?"

The princess took one look at Clarke, taking in her honey blonde hair cascading down her shoulders and the loose sweater and the sleep shorts and the shining blue eyes that had changed the course of Lexa's life the moment they laid on her. Lexa took one look at Clarke, and she pushed forward, gently cradled Clarke's cheeks in her hands, and captured her lips with her own.

the end.

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kidding, no. there are still some things to figure out - like finn and abby and lexa's ptsd and the whole shebang but yayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy they kissed

also i don't even watch the show anymore but what the fuck how dare jrot use recycled footage to fuck me up what the fuck