A/N: Hey! I'm back from the dead to bring you this fic. I've joined this fandom and as of late, have been obsessed. I've never written for this fandom before, so I hope I don't disappoint. Please be gentle with me.

Chapter 1 – The Witch in Apartment B

Clarke Griffin ran down the steps of her flat, cursing herself for being late to work. Her boots echoed loud clomps as she willed her feet to move faster downward. Holding the lid to her cup of coffee tight, she took a risk on the second-to-last flight, skipping the last few steps with a jump. She landed with a thud at least three times louder than her boots had previously made, and she felt a sharp ache shoot through the bottoms of her heels.

She cursed again but barely paused longer than a second to assess the damage. Ignoring the pain radiating up her calves, she kept moving down the steps as fast as her feet dared to take her. She could mourn the proper use of her ankles at a later date; there were more important things to worry about this morning.

Her passion for art, while lovely, had its downsides. Finishing up college as an art student, her wallet was not particularly big. Clarke's part-time job at a coffee shop only made up for so much of her lack of funds. Her boss was gracious enough to take her in for the few hours she could spare during her schooldays and intended to let her keep the job after she finished up school if she wanted it. It was her last semester and though her workloads weren't particularly heavy, the amount of time it took to finish her works certainly left her with little time to do much else.

Of course, things had been turning up lately. Quite the opposite from what she usually did her entire college career – party the whole semester, procrastinate, and then rush to do her assignments the week before their due dates – Clarke had taken the initiative to start her projects the day they were assigned. She'd been so proud of herself. For once, a rare thing had happened where she'd experienced the gumption to work hard along with a burst of creative inspiration, and by the end of the first month of the semester, she'd had all but one final project finished. So, for once, her school life was properly balanced with her work life.

Clarke's boss had noticed her better focus at work and, fortunately for Clarke, had decided to make her life easier yet. She'd almost cried when her boss offered to sell a few of her side works at the coffee shop – something that had greatly helped her finances. And, most importantly, Raven had hooked her up big time. And Clarke meant big time.

Raven Reyes also worked at the coffee shop and was, as her best friend, the greatest supporter of her artistic talent. There for her when her mom was pushing for a degree from a medical school, Raven was practically the only reason Clarke had had the guts to defy her mother and do what she wanted for a living. She was always her most supportive friend, and was still supporting her in ways Clarke never expected but always needed. Clarke did her best to make sure that favor was returned in full.

Unbeknownst to Clarke, Raven had served an art director of a major gallery in the city at the coffee shop one day. Never one with much reserve, Raven had eavesdropped on a conversation he'd had on the phone with a colleague and decided she should point out the artwork placed around the café when she returned with his order.

As Raven had been retelling the story to her later, Clarke had expected Raven to tell her that he'd looked at them to be polite.

"He glanced around, did he?" Clarke had asked. She'd hoped the smile on her face looked more real than it felt. As thrilled as she was about the prospect of someone big in the art industry looking at her art with his own eyes, she didn't dare to hope for more than that he might compliment a piece. It wasn't that Clarke wasn't proud of her own work, but she knew it was useless to get her hopes up.

"You bet your ass he did," Raven smirked, and had leaned her arm around her best friend. "You'll never guess what he did." She only continued smiling, waiting for Clarke to ask.

Clarke frowned, furrowing her brow. "He didn't actually buy one did he?"

At Raven's suppressed laugh, Clarke's eyebrow raised. "Did he buy two? What? Raven, come on-"

But Raven cut her off with a hug and told her how he was more than interested and had offered the artist a spot in his gallery's new exhibition featuring undiscovered artists. "Naturally, I accepted his offer."

"What?" Clarke had went through a brief period of disbelief, acceptance, and then extreme jubilation accompanied with a profuse amount of thank-yous. They'd started to make so much noise that Clarke's downstairs neighbor had started knocking a broom on their ceiling to reach her kitchen floor, a sound that almost threatened to quell her excitement.

"SHUT IT," Raven had yelled and stomped back. The broom-knocking had stopped, so their jumping and squealing continued for a short time more before they collapsed onto Clarke's couch. Out of breathe and full of smiles, they laughed together at the prospect of Clarke's pieces being shown off to half the city and being bought by millionaires.

When they got carried away with their noise level once more, they heard another three thuds of a broom knocking against their floor.

"I swear, that neighbor of yours is asking for a well-crafted, imitation eviction notice," Raven said, with a knowing look at Clarke. She swept her dark hair up in a ponytail, exasperated.

"I'm not that cruel," Clarke looked thoughtfully down at the floor. But then, she thought of the strange countless times in the past month she hadn't even been terribly loud and had received a noise complaint from her downstairs neighbor. "Well, maybe I am.

"Could she be any ruder, though?" Raven asked, crossing her arms. Having come over at least weekly to visit the upstairs apartment, she knew what Clarke had to deal with. "My friends have a few classes with her and I tell you, she's weird."

"How so?" Clarke furrowed her brow. The blonde had met with her downstairs neighbor several times, but had never had any classes with her. She had noticed, however, that her neighbor seemed especially sensitive to the faintest sounds coming from her apartment, and that had been ticking off just a bit lately. Neither of them were especially rude to each other, but it was getting a little weird.

"I don't know. She wears all these dark clothes and makeup. She's so tall and kind of scary. Well, that's what other people think," Raven added.

Clarke had ignored largely what she'd said. "Of course she's taller than you, most people are taller than you."

She'd earned a glare. "I personally don't care that much what she looks like. It's just that she never talks to anyone, just sits there all broody like she's about to hex anyone who crosses her."

"Yeah, she is kind of dark," Clarke leaned back on the couch and stretched her legs out on Raven's lap. She didn't entirely agree with her friend's opinion on her neighbor's fashion taste. It didn't look all that bad on the girl. However, Clarke had definitely noticed the broody, hex-casting vibe.

"I don't know, I mean that image combined with how she looks? Maybe she's a witch," Raven frowned mockingly.

"Oooh, terrifying," Clarke agreed. "Maybe she has special powers and can hear what we're saying right now."

"Do you think?" Raven's eyes widened, but she was smiling this time.

Clarke was sharing the grin while she'd nodded.

Raven whispered and looked below her to the direction of the downstairs apartment, "Hey, you know that broom you hit the fucking ceiling with all the time? Do you get a kick of riding around on it after?"

Clarke clamped a hand over her mouth and tried hard to contain the laugh threatening to escape her lungs. Raven was not silent about laughing and her cackles echoed the walls.

At that moment, three thunderous blows hit the floor directly below them, causing both girls to jump out of their bones, Clarke yanking her feet back to her own side of the couch and failing to suppress an involuntary noise from her mouth.

As terrifying as her neighbor's timely response had been, Clarke still found it very hard to speak through her silent laughter. "She heard you."

Their giggles emanated quietly through the room, the attempt to be quieter somehow making the whole situation funnier.

That day had been two weeks ago, and Clarke had reminisced about the memory the night before she was to meet with the art director and deliver her art to the gallery to be reviewed and selected for.

However, she was lying in bed that very morning when she had opened her eyes, looking at her phone with a startling realization. It was Saturday.

"March 11th," Clarke whispered to herself when she was turning her alarm off. Almost immediately after, she sat upright in bed, eyes widening in horror, reading the other personal notification on her screen.

She'd forgotten about daylight saving's time.

Her meeting was supposed to be within an hour and a half, but according to her clock (which hadn't yet been switched to the proper time), the meeting started in thirty minutes. That gave her 10 minutes to get ready, 10 minutes to take the 25-minute subway ride from her place to the center of Manhattan, 10 minutes to actually get through the building and find the director – there was no way she was going to make it.

"No," Clarke whined aloud. In her panic, she was starting to sweat through the old t-shirt she'd worn to bed. "Oh my god, oh my god." She was really terrible when she was in a rush, usually somehow taking even longer to get ready (or so it seemed when she was late) and being an anxious mess in general.

But getting into this art exhibition was extremely important to her. So, she'd scrambled to get ready faster than she'd ever done so in her life, and was presently clomping down the stairs, portfolio in hand, ankle throbbing from the jump, boots thumping.

When she'd reached the last landing, she took a last risk and skipped more stairs than should have been possible – and that's exactly what it was. Impossible.

Clarke already felt the impact coming as soon as her boots twisted from under her. She braced herself and abandoned her coffee cup and portfolio, desperately hoping they went in opposite directions so that at least her art would be saved some stains. That's exactly what this already-mess-of-a-morning needed.

She groaned and lay there on the floor painfully, finally conceding to wallow in her failure to make it on time, planning to just call the director and blame it on traffic. Clarke mentally assessed the damage, rolling one ankle after the other, sighing in relief when neither gave her a significant amount of pain enough to worry her. She tried to sit up on the arm that she'd used to brace her fall with, however, and yanked it back from under her weight, hissing a bit.

Clarke barely had time to think anything more about her arm, when all of a sudden she heard the creaking of a door open. She hadn't realized it at all, but Clarke had landed right on her downstairs neighbor's doorstep.

Clarke sat up fully now, moving blonde hair out of her face, eyes meeting first with black Doc Martins. Her embarrassed eyes made their way past black high waisted jeans and an old band t-shirt. Brunette hair was spread messily across shoulders and perfectly arched eyebrows looked down at her. Clarke felt the heat on her cheeks, only a little (a lot) mortified by the scene laid out before her neighbor.

Finally meeting a familiar pair of green eyes, Clarke sighed and greeted, "Morning Lexa."

She was met with silence for a moment longer, until her towering neighbor unexpectedly kneeled down next to her.

"Are you alright?" Lexa asked. Her head cocked to the side, green eyes inspecting blue ones. Clarke noticed she'd must've been in the middle of her makeup routine, as her lips hadn't yet taken on their usual dark color yet. It was almost refreshing to see the light pink, light pink that was presently speaking to her.

"Huh? Yes. Just peachy, really." Clarke answered. Sarcasm her only defense for the disappearance of her dignity. Why did it always seem that she needed to make a fool of herself in front of people she never met?

"Really?" Lexa droned. She looked at Clarke, then at the portfolio (which was now strewn all over the place), then at the coffee cup (which's spill had started to touch the edge of the portfolio folder), and then back at Clarke again with pressed lips and raised eyebrows. "My mistake, then. You look perfectly in order."

Clarke smirked. "I always start my morning like this. I feel the dirt on the floor really acts as a sort of seasoning for the coffee."

The limitation of their interactions usually included nodding at each other while passing by in the hall. Clarke never really took it further than that, though sometimes she found herself looking forward to their brief hellos to see whether the other girl would actually smile. She was annoyingly aware of the fact that her neighbor was all dressed perfectly and prepared for the day, face already done beautifully even halfway through her makeup process. All Clarke had done that morning was throw on clothes nice enough to look professional for the art director, clothes, which she now realized had also started to absorb the coffee spill. She looked pitifully at the stain and whispered "Oh, fuck me."

"Looks like your routine is working for you." She started wordlessly gathering Clarke's portfolio together and handed it back. Lexa then stood quietly and offered out a hand to Clarke so that she could stand. She gratefully took her neighbor's hand, but hissed again when Lexa's fingers inadvertently pressed on her hurt arm.

"Clarke are you okay?" Lexa asked again, dark brows furrowing. She supposed that the most they'd ever talked was when Clarke first moved in. They'd exchanged names and improperly placed mail, but Lexa hadn't seemed nearly as talkative or, dare she say friendly, as she had today. They were by no means close, but the girl still hadn't released her. Clarke didn't expect her to turn the arm over in her hands and push the fabric away, revealing the wound. "Clarke you're bleeding."

"It's alright, I'm extremely late to a meeting and it'll really have to wait to get looked at," Clarke shrugged, feeling that this was more than she and her neighbor had ever actually talked before. It was kind of refreshing, but given the circumstances, she felt like she was too stressed out to make conversation that well.

"I'd be happy to help you patch it up really quick for you," Lexa offered. Her fingers grazed the wound again and Clarke flinched when they touched the bruise that was already forming around it. "It'll take two seconds, tops."

"It's really fine," Clarke pushed, nerves jittery at the ticking clock. With a self-depreciating laugh, she added, "It's already 10:30 and if I don't make this meeting, it might kind of ruin my art career." She was sure Lexa was judging the bags under her eyes despite waking up so late, as well as the colors stuck on her fingers from last night's late painting endeavor. Lexa's nails were polished and painted light pink to look healthy as ever. If Clarke had to describe Lexa's fashion, it was a most certainly a darker aesthetic look (dare she say a witchy-vibe, thank you Raven) that somehow still came across as elegant. And it was really a wonder anybody could get their eyebrows shaped that perfectly by themselves.

"10:30?" she realized Lexa was saying, and brought her attention back to the present. The other girl was glancing at the watch on her wrist. "No, it's still 9:30."

"What? But – daylight's savings time?" Clarke mumbled. In March, she was sure the clocks jumped forward, and not backwards. But then, it would be eight o' clock instead, right? She was too tired to think very hard about it.

"That's tomorrow," Lexa shook her head, and with an unexpected smirk added, "Maybe it's your head that's been hit." She still had yet to release Clarke's arm and was suddenly, gently, tugging said arm into her apartment. Tone a little teasing, she continued "What's so important about this meeting that it decides the future for you?"

Clarke had never stepped foot in the apartment, and hadn't expected it to look as big as it did. She supposed it was the same size as her own apartment above, but it had a significantly less amount of furniture in it. It was a mirror image of her place, but classier, and whatever clutter Clarke had lying around was equated with decorative pieces in this apartment. The whole place smelled like lavender incense, and she took a deep breathe, feeling a little calmer. Lexa walked her to the kitchen and sat her down upon chairs pulled up to the kitchen island. Clarke's arm was released and Lexa moved wordlessly to retrieve a first-aid kit from a cabinet above the refrigerator.

"I'm meeting with someone who might show my art in an exhibition. I know I shouldn't hope for much, but it has the potential to help me make some money, or at least get my name out there," Clarke explained. For some reason, it felt easier to talk when her neighbor was distracted with things other than caressing her wound.

"That sounds really interesting," Lexa remarked, and made sure to look Clarke in the eyes. "Congratulations." Clarke smiled in return at her sincere compliment.

"I hope I wasn't interrupting you from anything," Clarke decided to say. It was only a little awkward being there, and, as nice as she was being, Clarke was honestly waiting for Lexa to comment on how loud she'd been upstairs in general at any minute. She wasn't used to her neighbor appearing so amicable. Or really, appearing at all. It really wasn't often she was seen in the building, and she realized it was ridiculous how they'd been seemingly avoiding a real conversation. If they'd ever had a chance to converse more after their first meet, Clarke was sure she would've remembered the way Lexa's lips stretched when she smiled. "What is it?"

"Nothing," Lexa said, and her smile vanished as quickly as it'd come. It seemed as though she was fighting to keep it from resurfacing, though, when she said, "I just heard loud sounds coming from the stairwell and went to check it out, and-"

"Yes?" Clarke dared her to continue. She knew what she looked like; she knew the image of her limbs sprawled out, half-on the stairs with coffee covering her everything was probably frighteningly attractive.

"Please excuse me, Clarke," Lexa told her and tried (but failed) to frown. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't laugh. Especially when this looks so terrible," she said and gestured to her arm.

"It's fine," Clarke hummed as the girl cleaned her wound and tenderly applied a bandage to the cut. "It was probably hilarious, actually," she said and laughed a little. "I can swing by the hospital later and have my mom check it out."

"Your mom's a nurse?" Lexa asked. She was soothing the bandage and making sure it was stuck on Clarke, and then her hands were gone. "That's a good idea."

"Doctor, actually. But yeah, it comes in handy for someone as well-coordinated as myself."

Lexa nodded, grin still present. "I'm sure."

Aside from finding amusement in Clarke's clumsiness, Lexa was currently smiling more than she had ever been seen doing so by her neighbor. Nine out of ten times, she'd seen the brooding look Raven was talking about, hex-casting frown and all. However, that kind of atmosphere, as compared with the delicate way she was now patching Clarke's arm up, really didn't match up at all.

"You seem like you're in a good mood this morning," Clarke remarked. "Not to say that you don't regularly seem happy-"

"Please," Lexa snorted. "My sister tell me I have resting bitch-face, whatever that's supposed to mean."

Clarke didn't know whether to laugh along or protest, so she did both. "It's not that bad."

But Lexa only gave her the same Please look again. "Anyway, my sister has finally moved out. I think I'm feeling less stressful without the constant nagging that only comes with having an older sibling - as much as I love her. That, and, you know, Clarke, we've never actually had a chance to talk. It's nice having someone other than Anya to talk to - if only for ten minutes."

"Well, yeah. You're like, extremely nice?" Clarke blinked and mentally back-tracked. "I didn't mean that to end with a question mark, sorry. Uh – Wait, did you say your sister moved out? When did she move in?"

"She was in-between places, and her new apartment was being renovated," Lexa sighed. "Basically, she just vegged out on my couch for a few weeks. She was here practically more than me, but rarely left."

"Ah."

Finally calming down from her earlier hectic rush, Clarke sank back in Lexa's chair for a moment, "Well, I should thank you for helping me out here. There's nothing really I can do about this," she said, gesturing to the coffee stain spread awkwardly around the front of her shirt and pants. "But at least I won't get my blood all over the place. I'm going to get there just on time now."

Clarke cursed the strange architecture of their building. What should have been two flights of stairs between them was actually several sets that wound around the walls of the building like a square, spiral staircase. Without an elevator, it was essential hell to climb.

"I've never really been upstairs before, but I assume it takes time," Lexa guessed. She moved her hair away from her neck but twisted it in thought with eyes focusing beyond Clarke, biting her lip. "Doesn't look fun."

"I can tell you right now that those stairs are anything but fun," Clarke huffed. "I wouldn't have minded an elevator over whatever M.C. Escher bullshit that is." Why her apartment building had never put one in, Clarke would never know. It was frustrating that mornings like this couldn't be prevented with such a machine. She may still trip and spill coffee on herself, but her ankles might ache less from thudding all over the place.

"You know, let me save you the trip," Lexa suggested. "You can borrow one of my shirts."

Clarke was about to protest, but Lexa walked quickly out of the room with long legs and soon returned with a silky dress shirt in hand, the perfect replacement that would come down long enough to cover the coffee stain on her upper pant leg as well. "Lexa, I- Thank you! Are you sure?" Clarke stared at her.

"It's no problem," she answered. "You look like you're having quite a morning." She turned around, facing the refrigerator so that Clarke could change without having to move. "I know you're in a rush, too."

"Yeah, I think I'm a little nervous. Makes my limbs harder to control," Clarke started to explain, and then huffed. She moved her injured arm precariously out of her old shirt and into the new, still so anxious about the meeting that she hadn't even stopped to think how awkward it was to be changing in a near-complete stranger's kitchen. Heat touched her cheeks, thought there really wasn't an immediate threat to her dignity. Lexa hadn't turned around until Clarke said something, however, so she didn't think to feel any more uncomfortable until Lexa assessed her new wardrobe.

"How do I look?" Clarke asked, finding herself endlessly nervous when her neighbor's eyes looked her up and down, considering the shirt.

"It works," she said and nodded. Clarke felt Lexa's eyes on her, but realized she was only checking to see if it really did stretch over her stain. She nodded and met Clarke's eyes with a satisfied smile. "I won't keep you. Get the shirt back to me when you can, it's no problem."

Clarke might've asked if she was positive about three more times had she not glanced at the clock again. At this point, if she left now, she'd be perfectly early enough to walk around and practice what she was going to say to the art director when she met him. So, she settled to thank Lexa profusely as she walked towards the door.

"I really can't thank you enough," Clarke told her, forgetting about her stained shirt left on the counter. Her portfolio was securely tucked under her arm. "Sorry about everything."

"You have nothing to apologize for," Lexa replied and shook her head. A hint of a smile formed on her lips again and Clarke found that it somehow really complimented her look (though the brooding one could have easily matched as well).

"I'll make it up to you, you know; I feel like I owe you one."

"Honestly, Clarke, it's nothing."

At the risk of making her further late, something in Clarke rooted her feet to the ground just outside of the door. "Seriously though, you've practically fixed my whole day. You busy tonight?"

"Not particularly," Lexa lifted one shoulder. The light smile on her lips changed to one of question.

"You like pizza? Wine?" Clarke asked head tilting forward. "I'm making you dinner."

"First of all, who doesn't like pizza?" Lexa asked, green eyes wide in mock-disbelief. "And wine, for that matter. You're on."

"Lexa," Clarke crooned. "This is the start of a beautiful friendship."

And that was how she'd gone from feeling anxiety-ridden and stressful to feeling light as a feather. She'd found her once-standoffish neighbor to be terribly amusing, and felt the budding friendship between them almost immediately. How she hadn't become friends with her earlier would forever elude Clarke for the rest of the morning, leaving her wondering harder about the mysterious life of her downstairs neighbor than her anxiety about showing her art to the gallery.

Clarke smiled, thinking of how she would break the news to Raven that Lexa was, indeed, not a witch.

A/N: There you have it! The first chapter. Thank you all so much for giving it a read – I really appreciate it. For my first Clexa fic, I think it's going alright. Let me know what you think, and please be gentle with me. Love you all for taking the time to read this. :D This will also be posted under my AO3 username, bright_gay_of_sunshine.