Chapter 9 – A Fainting Spell

Lexa had decided to go into the shower like Clarke had suggested. She desperately needed to feel clean – the amount the fever had made her sweat during the night had left her feeling rather grimy. And she didn't need to be grimy in front of Clarke.

She reached her shaking hand out from underneath her blanket to turn the faucet and wait for the water to heat up, busying herself with undressing.

Lexa hated being sick. Everything felt foggy in her brain. Her body felt sluggish and hot, and at the same time, the cool air in her apartment was giving her goosebumps. She half wondered if she could just crawl back to bed with Clarke and cuddle underneath the blankets again.

Lexa paused and caught her own look in the mirror. A raised eyebrow was staring back at her, an expression of doubt – her reflection was unimpressed.

Oh so what, Lexa told the reflection. This was a safe space to think any stray thoughts she shouldn't necessarily be thinking. She was sick, and for the first time in the past twenty-four hours, she'd felt relaxed and at peace in her best friend's arms. Clarke's comforting hold had lulled her back to sleep after she'd shifted closer in her sleep, and with her inhibitions lowered, Lexa had buried herself closer into Clarke. She'd allowed herself an indulgence.

She had the flu, after all. A nasty one, at that. She deserved all the comfort she could find.

Lexa had faced toward the shower again and pulled aside the curtain so she could step in. Her skin usually hurt when she had fevers like this; constantly feelings pins and needles whenever anything brushed against her. It hadn't felt uncomfortable when she was curled up with Clarke, she noted, and thankfully she'd found no such prickly sensation when the hot water touched her skin either. She sighed and dipped her head and neck under the stream, feeling her neck muscles unwind and letting the water cascade down her freezing body. It felt just a tad colder than normal, so Lexa turned the nozzle left for more heat.

It was nice to be alone with her thoughts in the shower. The very moment she stepped in, she decided that her tub would be a safe haven, a place where she could always allow herself to think about this morning's events (and future possible happenings alike) freely without having to face that judgmental reflection in the mirror. Events like this, with her very close best friend. Her very best friend that did strange and wonderful things to her stomach, like give it butterflies when an arm was slung around her waist at sunrise.

Her fevered brain couldn't help but fixate on Clarke's decision to stay the night. Lexa tried to remember going to bed, but she couldn't even recall that much. The fact that Clarke had stayed so long was surpising, but she was pleased nonetheless that her friend had stayed and taken care of her. No one had ever done anything like that for Lexa, and she was truly touched. She made a mental note to thank Clarke, and especially her mother, again.

She reached down and turned up the heat of the water again, finding it had gotten cool, and watched as the steam rose above the shower curtain. She washed her hair with shampoo and conditioner and rinsed her long, brunette locks thoroughly.

Lexa had only been in the shower for a few minutes, but long enough that thoughts were on loop – she kept daydreaming about returning to bed, thinking about how comfy it had been this morning. Her legs felt so weak that she had half a mind to sit down in the tub for the remainder of the shower, but felt it would be hard to rinse her body wash off that way. Not to mention, Lexa hardly doubted she'd be able to convince herself to stand up afterwards, since all she was looking forward to was returning to Clarke's arms.

Er – bed. Returning to bed. Yes. Clarke would probably leave.

Would Clarke leave?

She wondered if she should let Clarke know she could stay. Just, you know, so Lexa wouldn't get bored. She supposed it was Clarke's choice.

Lexa reached down to turn the knob further left, but found that it wouldn't go any further. She furrowed her eyebrows. Had she really been taking a shower on full heat? It felt, at best, lukewarm to her. Lexa wondered for half a second if perhaps the pipes were broken. Remembering once more that she was sick and had trouble feeling warm, she doubted that it was anything other than her own body fighting this increasingly-annoying illness.

It was useless to try and boil her body back to a comfortable temperature, she decided, so she shut the water off and rung out her wet hair. She stepped out of the tub and tugged a towel securely around her, immediately feeling the difference in air temperature. The cold air stung, and Lexa wished she'd given in to her desire never to leave the bed.

The wave of cold washed over her, a stark difference from the intense heat of the shower. An overwhelming feeling of weakness seemed to come over her. Lexa's legs felt like lead, and her stomach felt a little sick. She tried to ignore it and looked at the steamy mirror, wiping away the build-up so that she could see herself.

She was only making it worse, however, and it wouldn't clear up. The more she wiped, the more she only saw white. Confusingly before her, her vision before her seemed to worsen as if the steam was getting in her eyes, and she could only see white spots – everywhere she looked. Lexa felt sweat dripping down her forehead… she needed to lay down –

Thud.

Clarke threw the blankets aside and ran to the bathroom door.

That thud could not be good, and images were flashing through her mind of Lexa having slipped and fallen in the tub, a gash in her head, bleeding out, or worse. Her feet couldn't carry her fast enough.

She stopped short just outside the bathroom, hand hovering above the door knob. She curled her fingers into a fist instead and knocked tentatively on the frame.

"Lexa?" she asked, worry filling her voice, tilting her head so as to hear any small sounds coming from the other side. "Lexa are you okay? Do you need help?"

There was no reply. No sounds that she could hear otherwise, either. The silence was anxiety-inducing.

She knocked again. "Lexa? Please give some indication that you're not dead?"

She thought that Lexa would at least respond to a little humor. She wanted nothing more than to burst through the door, but she certainly wasn't about to embarrass both herself and Lexa if she was naked. "Lexa! Come on, if you don't respond I'm going to have to open this door."

She pressed her ear up to the door and sighed. A faint groan could be heard from the other side.

"Lexa! Okay, you're not dead. Are you decent?" Clarke asked, this time louder.

The responding groan sounded like an affirmation, and knowing full well Lexa hadn't brought extra clothes, she opened the door with a hand over her eyes. "Lex, I'm coming in now."

"Ow," Lexa moaned weakly. "Clarke?"

"Right here," Clarke answered, hand hovering over her eyes just enough so that she could only see downward, allowing her to locate the general direction of her friend without tripping over her. "You good?"

"Everything hurts," Lexa pouted. Well, Clarke couldn't see the pout, but knew it was there all the same. "What are you doing?"

"You're naked, aren't you?"

"No?"

"Oh," Clarke said, laughing a bit in relief. That laughter was quickly stifled when she lowered her hand and realized that Lexa was leaning very uncomfortably against the tub on the floor, looking in pain. Thankfully, her friend was still wrapped in a loose towel that covered everything it needed to. She kneeled down next to Lexa and put a hand on her shoulder, and upon finding her skin scorching, raised the back of her hand to rest on Lexa's forehead.

"Lexa, you're on fire," Clarke remarked, finally noticing how steamy the bathroom was. It was almost unbearable, and so she reached behind her and opened the door so that it would filter out. "Are you okay?"

Lexa shuddered. "I'm too cold. And too hot."

"What happened?" Clarke asked as she helped Lexa sit up, noticing a spot of blood on the tub where Lexa had been leaning. She urged the girl to sit forward a little more and saw a small cut on her back from the fall, and several dark red spots that would not doubt turn to bruises "Aw, Lexa…"

Lexa seemed to respond to the tenderness in her voice. "I turned the shower a little too hot and I think I nearly passed out."

"Nearly?"

"I was trying to sit down so that I felt less dizzy and, well, my body wanted me to go a little faster I think," Lexa pouted again. Her eyes looked watery and cheeks flushed, and something in Clarke's chest clenched. A fierce need to protect Lexa and take care of her overcame Clarke, and she nodded and brushed Lexa's wet strands behind her ear. Lexa was shaking a little, big green eyes boring into her soul, looking for comfort, and by god Clarke was going to do anything it took to make her feel better.

She let her go for a moment to clean up the cut on her shoulder blade with a cool cloth and seemed satisfied that the cut was clean. "When I said a warm shower, I didn't mean you had to turn up the water that hot, Lexa. You probably raised your body temperature a little too much."

Lexa shrugged. "I didn't think it would make me faint." She looked pitiable, and Clarke handed her a cold washcloth to put on her forehead so that she could cool down properly when she got back to bed.

"Let's get you up, okay?" Clarke offered, and stood up with Lexa, aware that the taller girl was feeling a little helpless and didn't like it. Lexa finally stood properly and leaned on Clarke for support, legs unsteady. She tipped forward into Clarke's space a little, threatening to go down again, but Clarke held her steady and secured her hands on the towel around Lexa.

"Sorry," Lexa whispered, face somehow flushing more. It was something about her cheeks blushing from the shower along with a deeper reddening of her ears that was somehow inexplicable adorable. As close as she was, Clarke was hyper aware of Lexa breathing in her air, and was about to move back when she noticed Lexa staring. Was Lexa staring at her lips?

"It's fine," Clarke whispered back, and noticed her eyes still watching. She couldn't possibly be doing what Clarke thought Lexa was doing. If she could stop blushing over these things herself, that would've been great. It wasn't fair that she was close enough to delight in the strongly enticing aroma of a freshly-showered Lexa, lavender shampoo and the water droplets on Lexa's eyelashes suddenly consuming all of her thoughts.

Really, it was unfair that her best friend could be as beautiful as she was, objectively speaking. It was extremely noticeable in this proximity, and Clarke could hardly believe she hadn't noticed Lexa's striking beauty at such a distance earlier. It seemed practically criminal.

And the way Lexa's eyes never left Clarke were causing all sorts of strange reactions within her. She wasn't sure if it was normal for her heart to skip like that, and was positive it wasn't healthy. She stole her own glance at the brunette's lips that were parted not too far from her own. Oh, something felt so unfair about all this. But she couldn't be imagining it. She just had to test something.

Clarke bit her lip. Just a small flick of the tongue and the tiniest sucking in of her lip, so as not to overdo it. Just to see if it would cause any reaction.

Of course, this was ridiculous and would probably prove to be futile and she would go back to her normal self, helping her poor sick friend and definitely not taking advantage of her.

But Lexa swallowed.

Oh this was bad. Personal space was especially necessary right now. Especially if Clarke were to tear her own eyes away from Lexa's mouth again and remain with a shred of her dignity intact. Whatever was happening right now needed to not happen right now.

"Uh, let's get you into bed." She cringed at her wording, but Clarke took a deep breath and stepped towards the door, turning so that Lexa could move with her. She ignored any more looks in her general direction, as she was positive there was no way she could handle them.

What was it about a girl in a towel that was making it impossible to remember what she'd been telling herself about not coming onto Lexa?

That's right, Clarke reminded herself suddenly. She'd told herself she could at least look for signs that Lexa wasn't one hundred percent straight. Not that Clarke would take advantage of that sort of information. *Cough.*

But, well, the way Lexa was looking at her this morning certainly served to be driving her crazy. And Lexa had been staring, right? At her lips, no less. Not like many straight girls stared at other girl's mouths unless they had food sticking in their teeth, but again, it hadn't been a food-in-your-teeth sort of stare. It seemed awfully damning, but the fact that Lexa had been acting so loopy with the flu lately wasn't selling her on it. Clarke might've been seeing what her mind wanted to see, anyway, and that wasn't to be trusted.

That was what Clarke thought she was settling on, at least, until she decided to help Lexa get dressed.

Lexa had flopped down lazily against her pillows again, waiting until Clarke turned around to get under the covers and transfer the towel to her soaking wet hair. The cold cloth was set down until she would clothed. Clarke didn't dare look behind her to get any more fuel for her obviously-maxed-out-on-hormones brain, so she focused instead on searching through Lexa's dresser.

"So shirts are where?" She asked, hands resting on the smooth wooden furniture.

"Second drawer," Lexa answered, and took the shirt Clarke threw behind her. "Thank you again. Sweatpants are below that."

"Uh," Clarke started as she opened the drawer below, voice higher than normal. "I'm guessing the drawer with sweatpants is not the one with underwear that I opened instead," Clarke dared a glance back at her friend, who'd thankfully put on the shirt.

Any other day, Normal Lexa would've turned ten different shades of red and yelled at Clarke to shut the drawer, but this was Fevered Lexa. Fevered Lexa was a whole different brand of dangerous, apparently fazed by nothing and braver than she'd ever seen. Clarke half-wondered if drinking all that cough syrup had permanently altered her brain.

Lexa sat up and winked at her. "Rifling through my unmentionables, are we?"

Clarke almost sputtered. Lexa was giving her a devilish look, ultimately fucking with her to make her embarrassed, but Clarke was horrified to find it was working. She was trying so hard to keep her cool, but it was futile when Lexa was being this difficult. "You said to look in the drawer below!"

"I meant the bottom drawer," Lexa shrugged. Clarke had a feeling Lexa knew what she was doing and saw through her blasé attitude. Clarke wasn't sure how much of this she could handle for once. A Lexa this confident was unsettling.

She pulled a brave face and forced herself to look back in the drawer, refusing to react outwardly, and flung a pair of random Lexa's own underwear at her. Clarke got the satisfaction of watching Lexa's eyes widen at the lacy panties. "What? You'll need a clean pair of those too, yes?"

Lexa nodded and seemed at least a little taken aback, but her mouth was still without filter. "I just thought it would be easier not to wear any, but if these appeal to you."

"Alright, someone clearly has a dangerous fever messing with their brain." Clarke turned around again to give Lexa the privacy to put them on, and once facing the dresser, her mouth opened in disbelief. Had Lexa seriously just said that? If Clarke didn't know better, she would've thought she was being flirted with. Certainly teased.

Yeah, that cough syrup definitely must've caused brain damage.

Clarke reached down into the proper drawer of the dresser so that she could dig out some maroon sweatpants, and threw them at Lexa's face. Lexa made a noise to let Clarke know she was displeased with her aim, but Clarke was much too flustered to do much more than anything childish. Clarke vowed for a while that she definitely needed to stay away from searching through Lexa's drawers, lest she have a gay heart attack. Try as she might to erase those images from her brain out of respect for Lexa's privacy, she thought it still might take a while not to think about the amount of Calvin Klein's she'd seen.

Once Lexa was fully clothed again, she let Clarke know. "Thank you."

"No problem at all." Clarke turned around to meet a face more serious than the one she'd been dealing with moments before.

"No, really, I mean it. I really appreciate you staying and helping me. It means a lot. And please make sure to make your mother know as well," Lexa smiled gratefully.

"It's really no big deal," she offered.

"But it is," Lexa insisted. "I don't have a lot of people close to me. I mean, sure, I have my parents, but they're frequently busy with the law firm and we aren't as close as we used to be." Lexa shrugged. "I have Anya, but she has Raven now, so it just means a lot to have someone close to me that cares enough to make sure I'm okay."

Clarke was speechless. Lexa was giving her whiplash today – one minute she was sassy and teasing, the next sincere and heartfelt. Clarke walked over to sit on the edge of the bed rest a hand on Lexa's outstretched one. It took her a second to come up with the proper words, so she stared at their conjoined hands while she thought.

"I'll always be there for you, okay? Cause I know you'll be there for me too," Clark smiled and matched Lexa's expression.

The brunette was beaming, but her eyes seemed dangerously watery again. It seemed she could only nod in response.

Clarke squeezed her hand. "And part of me being there for you is me being responsible and making you check your temperature again. You're going a little loopy on me," she chuckled.

"What do you mean? I'm acting perfectly normal."

"Ha- Yeah. Okay, loopy."

Clarke disappeared into the other room. She certainly would be there for her best friend, no matter what. Even if that meant dealing with the flirty, fevered, adorable mess that was getting all mushy on her in the next room.

She shook her head and came back to test Lexa's fever, not at all surprised by how high it was. Lexa looked tired as ever, and took fever-reducers and antibiotics as suggested by the Griffin family.

"Time for your potions and elixir of life," Clarke said as she handed Lexa her medication, but Lexa made no indication that she'd heard Clarke's phrasing. She propped up her pillows and brought her blanket up to her chest, looking if not a little miserable.

"When do you have to leave?" Lexa asked, sounding as though she wasn't looking forward to being alone.

"Who said I was going to leave? Didn't I just tell you I'd be there for you?" Clarke smiled and shook her head.

"Oh," Lexa said, smile slowly spreading back on her face. "You'll stay then?"

"Netflix in bed all day?"

"Sounds like a plan."

A/N: I'm glad you guys don't hate me for being on hiatus for so long. I'm totally eating up all your sweet comments I'm trying to fit more witchy references in here, I swear!