it's soft. i'm soft. one thing at a time.

now, read, ponder, and enjoy!

A full eight hours of sleep. Imagine that. Eight hours uninterrupted. Eyes closing and the mind drifting off to unconsciousness and staying there. Phone silent. Pager not going off. Blanket protective and comforting. Nothing but rest.

How ironic that she could only dream of sleep when dreams should only occur while sleeping, Clarke bemoaned inwardly as she seeped on her coffee and padded down the lobby to the elevator bank. She could have slept, though. The last two days had been…invigorating, to say the least. She had never realized sex could be so vitalizing to the soul until Lexa showed up at her door and kissed the living sense out of her.

It was that exact revitalization that pushed Clarke to finally finish up the email that she had deliberately left sitting in her draft for the last two days; the excuse being that Lexa was right there and honestly, there was no way Clarke could ever resist those lips and those eyes and those everything. And with just a push of a button, Clarke had sent herself down a spiral of anxiety and wakefulness, resulting in her sleeplessness for the whole night.

Clarke was fully aware that she had sent her email after working hours, therefore, no one at the office would be reading her email until this morning. But she couldn't help it anyway, because what if someone just felt like checking the feedback email? What if it was the chairman of the council? What if they decided to reach out to her at one in the morning?

What if they were doing it right now?

Her hand jerked a little that the dark liquid almost sloshed over the edge of her paper cup. After having pressed the button, she elected to drain the whole cup to avoid any possible sloshes. Her hands were very important, especially in her line of work and her recently undried sex life.

She had just tossed the cup and barely felt the caffeine hitting her brain when a pair of sneakers ran up to her and skidded to a halt just a few inches away. She looked to her left and frowned at Raven's wide eyes and heavy breathing.

"What's wrong with you?" she mumbled, still not feeling the coffee yet.

"Did you know?"

"Did I know what?"

"The princess."

"What about Lexa?"

One of the elevators dinged and opened its doors. She went inside, Raven close on her heels. She was still fidgeting about whether she wanted to go to her floor and risk running into Marcus Kane when, suddenly, a phone was forced into her vision. Right up to her face. Like so close that her nose was almost touching the screen and her eyes could barely make out the screen.

"Jesus, you are so rude," she complained as she smacked Raven's hand away.

"Look!"

Clarke threw her best friend a dirty look before obeying. Her breath shortstopped and pulled into her lungs that she actually could not breathe for like two seconds as she read the headline. Instead of pressing a button, her hand reached out to pull the knob that would stop the elevator all together.

It was at hour five of her shift that it all finally caught up to her. She was okay being nervous about things – Clarke Griffin was a good multitasker, Abby Griffin had made sure of that; she was capable of worrying about multiple things while making sure that her patients acquired the best care possible.

But when two things were very big things; she discovered that she didn't have the mental capacity to think about both while also suturing up a kid's ass because he sliced himself on the kitchen knife. She blinked away her thoughts and finished up the suture, making sure to smile at the kid before slinking away and finding the nearest emergency exit to hide at the stairs.

No one from the Council had reached out to her yet – she knew, because she did not turn off the ringer on her phone and she had been religiously checking her emails and call logs every five minutes. That, in turn, also made her aware of the fact that Lexa also hadn't reached out to her, and it had been five hours since she saw the news.

Not only that. There were no press conferences. No replies to press enquiries. Neither confirmation nor denial. The palace was essentially silent about the whole thing.

In the elevator, Clarke had to stare at the headline for close to fifteen minutes, completely quiet and feeling almost as if she had lost the ability to understand the English language. She could read the headline, but what she could not do was understand what it was supposed to tell her. And then she had returned Raven her phone, punched the knob back in, and fled the hell out of the car before Raven could pursue her further.

For the last five hours, she did four things in rotation: treating patients, checking her emails, thinking about the haunting headline, and avoiding Raven and Octavia. Hour five was the breaking point, and here she was.

How ironic, when just two days ago, she was having the best sex of her life and wondering if she would ever be happier than realizing that the princess was sleeping peacefully next to her. Now, she was worrying about her job, whether she had ruined a man's career, and whether she would still have sex.

Something vibrated in her coat pocket and she literally jumped and almost tumbled down the stairs, only catching herself by holding on to the railing. She fumbled in her pocket and produced the vibrating object, unsure of whether she should be relieved that it was her phone and not her pager.

Unknown number.

"Oh shit," she muttered. "Hello?"

"Good afternoon. Am I speaking to Dr. Clarke Griffin?"

She gulped. "Yes, this is she."

"Hello, Dr. Griffin. My name's Rachel Phang. I am Princess Lexa's secretary." Clarke's heart leaped into her throat; maybe falling down the stairs wasn't such a bad idea. "Her Royal Highness is indisposed at the moment. However, she has instructed me to contact you and tell you to not, and I quote, 'listen to anything the Sentinel says. It's rubbish.'"

Okay, thank god she didn't fall down the stairs. Clarke pulled herself back more so she could lean against the door, effectively blocking anyone from entering. Let's just hope that no one set off any fire alarms during this phone call.

"She has also asked me to inquire whether she could call or meet you tonight. Whenever and wherever you prefer," Rachel continued.

"Right, I –" Clarke gulped again. Her throat had gone impossibly dry at hearing the voice of a girl who worked at the palace. Sure, she was sleeping with a woman who was born in the hospital, but this was a pretty big deal. This actually made everything seemed…realer. "I have 36-hour shift today," she proclaimed, cursing at herself for picking up the shift in the first place.

"Oh, okay. Of course. I'll just tell the princess that and see if –"

"Can she come to the hospital?"

There was a pause. "Perhaps the hospital isn't such a good idea, given the publicity recent news have garnered her."

Clarke closed her eyes. "I – okay. Maybe just ask her that and see what she says. If not, then she can call me. Anytime. I'll just – my phone will be with me the whole time. Tonight. Whenever she want. Whether she comes or not."

When had she become so pathetic? Since her first boyfriend in high school, she had never gone so far as to desperately sit by the phone and wait for a call; it wasn't necessary, because they always came to her. She was a catch, and they knew that.

God, of course it would take a fucking princess to drive her back down this road. This desperate, foolish, and kind of pathetic road, where she was just waiting for a pretty girl to call her or text her or something. Her head was a mess. Her heart had gone so haywire she was thinking of getting Wells to perform a cardiac checkup just to be safe.

"Certainly. I will inform the princess right away. Have a good day, Dr. Griffin." The call was cut off instantly.

The doctor lowered the phone slowly and looked at the blank screen.

"Yeah, fat chance, Rachel."

Just because things were hanging on a thread did not mean she could not do her job. Somehow, in a weird way, that call had managed to calm her enough to let her continue to do her job without the sense of disruption from earlier. It wasn't even Lexa, but the fact that she had found even a minute to tell her secretary to call her told her something; told her that she was important; told her that Lexa saw her and remembered her.

At hour sixteen, a patient came rolling in that required ortho, cardio, and trauma in the same OR. But as she scrubbed in, she didn't forget to instruct her resident to hold on to her phone and pick up Lexa's call, if it ever came in. The other two surgeons had looked at her weirdly, because it was against some unwritten protocol to never allow distractions such as a phone in the OR – she had chosen to ignore them.

Whatever, Clarke Griffin was going to ace this multitasking bullshit.

"Dr. Griffin, an Alex is on the phone for you."

She was elbows deep in the patient's abdomen. She nodded and allowed the resident to place the phone to her ear.

"You have a secretary?" she said first thing.

"I'd be dead without her."

"No, you'd be dead without me."

Lexa chuckled. And odd as it may, that sounded good. "Where are you?"

Clarke lifted her gaze to find Wells' eyeing her weirdly. She raised her brows in a challenging manner before saying, "Never mind that. What the hell was that?"

Lexa sighed into the phone, so loudly that Clarke could practically feel it in her ear. "That was a dirty and political move pulled by the most useless Defense Minister this country has ever had. I've been up to my eyeballs trying to talk to my parents about fixing this farce. Where are you?"

Pausing for a moment, the doctor glanced at the vitals monitor and nodded to herself, continuing her work. "Wait, Thelonious Jaha? My mother likes him." This time, both Wells and Murphy looked up from their work to stare at her momentarily. Clarke waved them away.

"Maybe I should educate your mother on how a minister is supposed to function before she likes another useless one," Lexa grumbled. "Where are you?"

"Okay, so are you leaving?" Clarke asked the most important question.

"Seriously, where the hell are you? I'm literally sitting inside the lobby of your hospital and I'd really like it if you could find a place for me to hide before someone figures out who I am."

"Wait, what?"

"You told me to meet you at the hospital."

"Oh my god." Clarke stopped working and raised her bloody hands in the air as she ran the words through her head, staring blankly at Wells' bloody chest. She glanced at him in panic, a look he returned cluelessly. "Oh shit. Okay. Just – hold on. Give me a minute. Fuck. Hold on." She pulled away from the phone and looked to her resident. "Call Raven. Or Octavia. Whoever's still in the hospital. Call her now. Call!"

While the resident dialed, she placed her hands back into the cavity of the patient whose life three surgeons were saving.

"Wanna fill us in on what that was about?"

Clarke turned to Murphy, who literally just opened a skull flap and was working on an actual brain. Working synapses and nerves. Getting a patient's brain back to full function. She turned to Wells, who literally had a heart on bypass so he could ensure that it wouldn't be under too much stress, who was renewing bags of blood every fifteen minutes, who was literally holding a heart in his big dark hands. She glanced back down at her hands, removing remnants of glasses and suturing wounds as she went.

Unable to help herself, she heaved a chuckle. Her life had become so fucking wild since she met a princess at the park.

The feeling was so hard to explain – the moment she opened the door, walked in, and found Lexa sitting on the very cot that she had so often occupied during these late hours after long surgeries. There were no words to explain it, but the room did not seem so dark and the exhaustion did not feel so heavy and the anxiety did not feel so constricting.

She saw Lexa and she wanted to float. Clarke was so fucking done for, for this very woman who hadn't even the slightest idea of what she did to the blonde just by being there. She closed the door behind her, leaned against it, and breathed for a few seconds, unable to resist from smiling at Lexa, who was smiling back at her, albeit gingerly.

"So," Lexa started as she stood up and stuck her hands in her back pockets. "How was your day?"

Clarke stared, and then she heaved a chuckle, which elicited a responding chuckle from the princess. She pushed away from the door, one hand reaching behind to lock it, and strode the short distance towards Lexa so she could sling her arms around the woman's neck and pull her close. Visibly surprised, Lexa still did not hesitate to respond by encasing Clarke to her around the waist.

In grade five, when the Griffin family had been intact and the house by the cul-de-sac used to be filled with daily bouts of laughter, Jake Griffin had once saved Clarke from drowning in their backyard pool. For some reason, the float had been punctured, and the little girl had yet to grasp the technicalities of using her arms and legs to keep herself afloat. She hadn't even sunk really low until her father had come rushing out, leaped into the pool, and saved his daughter from drowning to death.

But she knew how it felt like to sink. It was horrible. Everything was blurry and her eyes stung; she hadn't gone into the deep end of a water body since then.

But she sank right into Lexa's arms, right under her embrace, down through the depths of everything warm and sweet. She had hugged many people throughout her twenty-seven years of life, and yet this one – this was the hug of strong arms and confident affirmations, capable of telling the target who they were, body, brain, and soul. This was a breathing duvet.

Before she knew it, Clarke released a low hum into the material of Lexa's silk shirt. Comfortable and unwilling to let go. The brunette didn't complain. She hummed in return and just tightened her arms, as if she knew just how protected Clarke felt under this trance.

"Yeah," Lexa sighed. "Me too."

Around them were…plates. Plates of government and press and careers and superiors and close family friends. Plates and plates that had gathered over a whole day of lack of communications, anxiety, and the inability to see the future. They were unsmashable. There was no pushing these plates aside to hide them from grandmother.

For now, though, they could have these plates all around them. And they could stay where they were. Just for a little while.

"Wait, so you are going back?"

"I'm not going back."

"You said you're going."

"For a trip."

The moon had long since made her appearance and hung up there for all to see, illuminating the path for the lost as best she could, alerting people of their needs for rest and some of their times to start working, watching over everyone.

Throughout the entire day, time had been so lost on Clarke, so lost in her thoughts of probably ruining man's career and her own career and whether or not she would even have a career by the end of the day. And she had been so surprised, once extracted from Lexa's embrace, to see that it had gone dark and the on-call room was unlit.

Lexa was sitting on the bed, while Clarke had pulled a chair over to sit in front of her, their hands tangled together and firmly on top of Clarke's lap. There was no way she was going another minute without some sort of contact unless absolutely necessary.

She tilted her head at Lexa's statement, seemingly casual and non-impactful. Looking away from the brunette, she wondered if they had gone far enough in their relationship to say the stuff she was thinking, or whether she should leave it up to Niylah, the actual professional.

Though Clarke might have taken two psychology electives in college, those were just the basic stuff – there was a reason she had referred Lexa to Niylah instead of taking it on herself. She took an oath to do no harm.

"What?"

Clarke looked back to Lexa, who had ducked her head to get a good look of her expression. She shook her head with a strained smile and leaned back in her chair, stroking the skin of Lexa's knuckles with her thumb.

Furrowing her brows, the princess placed another hand on top of Clarke's. "What is it, Clarke?"

"It's just –"

Clarke sighed heavily and keeled fully forward for her forehead to fully touch their clasped hands. She breathed in Lexa's skin, taking in the distinct cologne and forcing herself to stop being so fucking insecure. If she kept this up, there would soon be a day when even the ever patient and kind Lexa Woods would be done with her.

"Hey," Lexa whispered, jostling her hand just a little to push the blonde to lift her head. "You can tell me anything." Then she added, "Even if I don't like it."

The blonde sat upright and adjusted her position on the increasingly uncomfortable chair. "I know enough soldiers to know that everything that happened in the warzone will do something to the veterans that make them want to go back even if they can't," she said as succinctly as she could manage, eyes locked onto their hands.

What came after was discomforting and quite probably yet another one to the list of the many things that made Clarke anxious. Lexa was hushed and unmoving, but maybe the fact that she didn't remove her hand entirely from Clarke's was a good thing – or maybe she was too frozen in rage to move anything at all.

God, she knew it. She should have left this to Niylah. Who the fuck was she to offer an opinion like that? She was just a doctor who sewed people up and touched actual hearts and saw the insides of the princess' absolutely hot body. She was no expert on mental health or psychological synapses. She probably wasn't even correct in her conclusion.

Nice job, Clarke. Way to let your insecurity get ahead of you.

"God, am I really so bad at this that everyone just thinks that it's not possible for me to just want to stay here?" Lexa finally broke the silence with a broken whisper, triggering an immediate response from the blonde by way of an immediate locking of eyes and an open mouth.

"What?"

At the edge of Lexa's eyes were shimmering but unshed tears. Those lips that gave Clarke the best of kisses tugged with a self-deprecating smile.

"I mean, what am I not doing right? What can I do?" Lexa started asking, voice shaking. "I'm here, aren't I?"

"Lexa –"

I'm going to therapy. I swim every morning. I have meals with my family. I spend time with you. What else can I do?"

"Hey, baby –"

"Why do you all keep assuming that I don't want to be here with you? Is this – am I not enough?"

"Lexa," Clarke urged in a stern whisper, one hand already slithered behind the brunette's neck and head bent forward to press their foreheads together. "Take a deep breath, Lexa. Just follow me, okay?" she instructed as she practiced the breathing exercise with the brunette.

The last time she saw the brunette so vulnerable was when they were both sitting in her living room and she had practically made Lexa spill her heart out about what being in the war had done to her and how her entire life had culminated into this. It broke her heart last time; it was breaking her heart this time.

Simultaneously, she inhaled and exhaled with Lexa, and hated herself for being the one responsible for this bout of attack – as minor as it was. She did this. She blinked rapidly to force back her own tears. Lexa didn't need her to cry right now; she needed an anchor, and Clarke was the only other living person in this room with her. She definitely couldn't let Lexa run out of the room in full view and bring down the whole institution with her presence.

When it seemed like Lexa had stabled enough to be able to breathe on her own, Clarke didn't relent on her grip on Lexa's neck. One thing she had learnt from Niylah was to maintain physical contact to keep a reminder that they were in the present, wherever they were, and not the location of trauma.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I didn't mean to make you think those things." Lexa frowned. "I shouldn't have pretended like I'm an expert in these things. I'm not," she reaffirmed to both herself and Lexa. "If you say it's just a trip, then it's just a trip."

"It is just a trip."

"Okay."

"I am involved with the Veterans' Agency and the Defense Department to work something consistent and sustainable for our country's veterans and their families."

"And I'm always in awe with you for that."

"But my parents told me that being behind the scenes isn't enough. It might work in the beginning, but in the long run, that just won't cut it," Lexa ranted, starting to sound impatient and frustrated. "They told me I have to be at the forefront, to let people see my face, then only will they find credibility in this program I'm building and start showing support for it."

"Right."

"So, you know, maybe Jaha's intentions weren't the best – he was definitely being selfish and trying to force my hand, and my dad and some general or something will deal with him soon. But it could work in my favor. Like, what better way to prove that I am the spearhead of this program than to show up back to my roots as a soldier on fucking Service Day, right?"

"That's a good point."

At this point, it wasn't Lexa simply explaining her situation to Clarke. It was her releasing all her frustration that had been pent up throughout the entire day to Clarke, and there was something about it that melted Clarke's heart almost immediately. Not a lot of people could say that they were who a princess sought after whenever she wanted to talk to someone.

Still, this was no time to feel personal satisfaction over that. She could do that on her own time. Now, when her pager wasn't buzzing and she was allowed this rare reprieve from her job, Lexa could have her. Lexa could have all of her.

"So I'm going to Libya. And it's just a trip. For three days. Showing my face and letting the press take photos and become the worst thing I imagine myself to be."

Clarke frowned at the sentiment.

"The purpose of this program isn't that."

Ah, so that was it. Lexa was camera shy and true to her intentions.

She just wanted to help and bring as much comfort as she could afford, being the daughter of the king and all that. It wasn't about fanfare and publicity. She didn't need the name and the praise. She didn't need people talking about how good she was to be so involved in these affairs. Lexa, because she had the noblest of hearts and the worst of survivor's guilt, just wanted people to be comfortable in their grief.

Clarke massaged the princess' nape, providing more grounding with motion and moving muscles. She wasn't going to say anything, not until she was certain that Lexa had calmed down enough and was rooted enough in this reality to be able to hear her. Earlier was enough of a lesson – she honestly should give Niylah another call just to get a grasp of how to help Lexa work through her attacks, be they minor or major.

Outside, the world had gotten quieter as time passed and it was getting nearer to a time where parents put the children to sleep and doctors called it a night and the night shift janitors put on their headphones to get in the groove of their job. Briefly, she wondered if Gustus was still stuck outside, but knowing him, he probably would be until his charge told him to go home, maybe not even then.

Clarke should probably talk to him too, if she was going to spend as much time with Lexa as she already was. He would know. He went to a fucking warzone because he wanted to protect Lexa, for fuck's sake.

She watched as Lexa came back into focus in the form of alert eyes and slowed breathing and loosening fingers. It was remarkable to see all this in person, kind of miraculous, and all the more special that she was one of the few to get to see this process.

"I know your parents are supposed to know more about this kind of stuff than you, but do you, truly, genuinely, want to go?" she asked gently, still massaging.

Lexa rolled her eyes slightly, withdrawing slightly so they could stop leaning foreheads together. Clarke's fingers stopped kneading and her hand slid away from her neck but stopped at a shoulder. She didn't want to let go yet – this was just selfishness now.

"I'm much bigger than just myself, Clarke," Lexa whispered, sounding rarely tired and worn out.

Almost for the first time since she entered the room, the mere doctor could see the responsibilities weighing down on the royal princess' shoulders. Heavy and unwavering – movable only if Lexa wanted to abandon her post and leave everything be. And from what Clarke knew of her, the brunette would die before she shirked her responsibilities.

"I'm sorry," Clarke repeated. "I shouldn't have said those things."

Lexa shook her head. And then she smiled gingerly. "I guess we still have a lot to learn about each other, huh?"

Clarke returned the smile. "I'm a patient girl."

"Just…" Lexa closed her eyes, like she was afraid to look at Clarke. "Just stay with me, please."

Instead of offering a verbal response, the blonde only shifted from the chair to the bed beside Lexa. She lied down on the bed, pulled Lexa down alongside, and adjusted themselves so that Lexa had lied down with her head tucked into the crook between Clarke's shoulder and neck. She rubbed her hand up and down the brunette's back as she hummed without any rhythm at all.

At this point, she couldn't leave even if she tried.

lexa's healing, but it takes time. once again, if i made any mistakes regarding the attacks and the symptoms of ptsd, please tell me. i don't want to make the accidental mistakes and offend someone. :)