A/N: Happy Monday! Enjoy the update!
Clarke had been so entranced by the lights of yellow and red waving through the room that she hadn't even noticed the brunette, already awake, leaning against the corner of her bed.
They made eye contact for an instant, but broke it simultaneously. Clarke swore she saw fear in the other girl's eyes, but brushed it off. She had never seen the brunette show any emotion- any sign of weakness- and, surely, a few forest fires wouldn't make the girl's stoic exterior crack.
When she brought her hands to her eyes to wipe the stray tears falling from them, a shudder erupted from her arms, breaking her from her thoughts and reminding her of the frigid wall and floor that she sat against. Again she looked towards the brunette, snuggled warmly in excessive amounts of blankets. Envy swept through Clarke's body, willing her to give anything to not feel cold.
Unfair. That was the only word for it. Clarke got cold cement and ripped blankets while the other girl got thick mattresses and puffy duvets that probably didn't get cold if she moved too much.
Surprisingly the fires outside did not provide any heat inside. Instead they just grew menacingly, making the air tense with fear and... something else Clarke couldn't quite put her finger on.
The fires reminded her of a bad accident; the kind that are hard to look away from. As if an overpowering sense of awe or amazement prevented her from looking away.
That's the feeling that the flames gave her.
Her squeezed shut eyes betrayed her and sneaked a look at the brunette, only to find the girl was already looking in her direction.
At this point Clarke could either look away and deal with the awkwardness that would ensue after, or hold the girl's stare and hope her pathetic shivering would convince the girl to spare another blanket. She decided on the latter option when she saw how warm-how incredibly cozy- the other girl looked.
Their eyes locked for a few moments (Clarke forced herself to shiver extra hard, just for emphasis).
It must have worked because the brunette stared a bit longer before nodding her head towards the wall behind her bed.
Clarke was to her feet, running to the bed before she was aware of what the gesture meant. She pushed back some blanket on the edge and climbed in, struggling not to collapse when her knees came in contact with the cushiony mattress. She flipped around and sat down, back against the same wall as the brunette, but still an arm's-length or so from the girl's shoulder.
Clarke pulled the plush blanket around her shoulders and almost moaned at the warmth resonating through it from the other girl. The idea of sharing the bed with the girl made Clarke feel some sort of way, but she didn't think long on the sensation, overwhelmed by how quickly she had stopped shivering.
The room fell still once again, tension filling the space between the two. Clarke looked over occasionally to see that the brunette looked surprisingly calm to be in the midst of a nuclear apocalypse. Perhaps she was just better at handling stress than Clarke.
Or much better at hiding it. Clarke hadn't forgotten the look of fear that had been in the brunette's eyes, earlier.
When Clarke stole an exceptionally long glance at the girl, she found the girl's eyes fallen shut, her chin tilted upwards in thought. It was a good angle for her. Clarke's hands itched to draw the girl's face again, suddenly believing her previous sketches hadn't done the brunette much justice.
Another loud explosion made the walls tremble and broke Clarke from the thoughts. For a moment, Clarke was thankful the explosion prevented that idea from going any further. This time when she looked at the brunette, she sat in the same position but her eyes were snapped open. This close, Clarke could see the girl's eyes, but flames beaming in through the window warped their color, tinting them neon orange. Clarke knew the girl's eyes were green, anyways. Which wasn't weird. She had just noticed. She didn't purposely discover the girl's eye color so she would know what color to make them in her sketch. Definitely not.
"Not what I imagined an apocalypse to sound like."
The voice made Clarke gasp in surprise, as if she had forgotten that speaking existed. She recovered well, however, hiding her shock and hurriedly thinking of a response that wouldn't embarrass herself or get her into trouble.
"What did you think it would sound like?" It was the perfect response. Simple, but kept the conversation going. She would have patted herself on the back for it if she could have.
The brunette scoffed at this, pulling at her fingernails and avoiding eye contact. Again, it was silent (aside from the ever-present hissing of flames and the occasional explosion) and Clarke had almost decided that she wouldn't get an answer, when the brunette spoke again.
"I guess I expected it to be like they are in movies." The girl paused for a long moment, allowing her normally stiff neck to fall to one side. "There's always people shouting and cars honking, but this," the girl started, lifting a hand to motion to the outdoors. "This just feels too quiet."
It was honest. Too honest for a conversation between a girl she'd only known less than a week, Clarke thought. Still, she allowed it since it was, truly, their first conversation together.
Clarke couldn't see how deafening explosions were quiet, but understood what the girl meant by the observation.
She nodded, wondering if the girl had purposely responded with a depressing reply to make it so much harder for Clarke to think of something else to say.
"I always thought I would be with my mom." Clarke sighed. Well, they were being honest. The conversation seemed to stop there and Clarke couldn't complain. Maybe light conversation and the end of the world didn't go well together. Clarke finally broke eye contact, readjusting the blankets around her shoulders.
"Where is she now?"
Again, Clarke was caught-off-guard, both from the content of the question and the fact that it was being asked at all. Clarke had assumed their morbid small-talk was over. She had also assumed that the girl, who seemingly hated her presence just minutes before, didn't want to chat with her.
"I- uhm- she's on a- army base." Clarke replied, not expecting to stutter so much. She knew the stuttering was only because she truly didn't know if her mom had made it to an army base. She knew very little about her mother's well-being.
The brunette seemed to recognize this, narrowing her eyes as if she were trying to read Clarke's actions.
"You don't really know where she is, do you?" The girl concluded, making Clarke's mouth fall agape in defense.
The question enraged Clarke. The effortless cynicism that it was said with, the trying smirk that followed it. It was unfair that the brunette could read her so well- interpret her words and convey them as facts.
"Yes, I do. She's on an army base." Clarke reiterated, sounding more like she was convincing herself of the fact.
The brunette simply hummed at this, seemingly more unconvinced. Clarke suddenly felt too hot under the blankets, anger fueling the extra heat.
It was infuriating. The brunette always seemed to take any casual conversation and turn it to irritation in just a few words. Their conversations always ended with more annoyance towards the girl, and it made Clarke want to pull her own hair out.
Determined not to let another conversation slip into that irritation, Clarke forced herself to say something else.
"Where're your parents?" She assumed that the question was acceptable to ask (she secretly hoped it would get a rise out of the brunette for her own satisfaction).
"All gone. Not apocalypse related." She answered anticlimactically. Clarke rolled her eyes. Of course she would have a simple answer.
The room succumbed to silence yet again, both girls staring up at the skylight. Trees fell to the ground with loud booms, crackling when they hit the fiery earth. The sounds were oddly relaxing, like listening to the gentle popping and crackling of a fireplace, but as soon as Clarke remembered that the entire world had become a fireplace, she suddenly felt less relaxed.
"You never told me your name." Clarke said suddenly, unaware that she had subconsciously decided to say it. She was glad she spoke, though, needing a distraction from the destruction outside. Their eyes met again until the brunette turned and nodded slowly as if she didn't understand the meaning behind the statement.
"I'm Clarke, in case you wanted to know." She continued, hoping to get the point across that she should share her name, too.
"I didn't," the brunette responded curtly.
Of course you didn't. Clarke's head hurt from how hard she rolled her eyes at the words. The brunette must have received the reaction she had wanted because the same smirk perched smugly on her lips when she saw Clarke's annoyance.
"I'm Lexa, since I know you wanted to know."
Again. Unfair.
Clarke pushed this injustice aside when the name was said. There was nothing polite or social about the way she said it. Instead it was as if someone had forced the response, despite the brunette's disinterest in wanting to tell.
Still, Clarke was taken aback.
Lexa.
She'd never heard the name before, making her question if she had heard it right. Maybe it was Alexa? Alexis? Perhaps it was a nickname for a longer name such as Alexandra. Either way, Clarke nodded slowly, allowing the name to bounce around her thoughts, momentarily. She looked at the girl- Lexa- and narrowed her eyes. The name truly suited her. It was unique and the fact that Clarke had never heard it before seemed to add another layer of mystery to Lexa's whole story. Not that Clarke was interested in her story. Sometimes she just... wondered, and this was a crucial piece to the 'Lexa puzzle.'
Clarke knew Lexa was definitely foreign; the strange language and unique name confirmed this. However, the details of her previous locations were still unknown.
At this point, Clarke was staring at Lexa for far too long to be considered normal. Every response that Clarke could think to make seemed to have flaws. She opted to keep the conversation going with more questions.
"Is that a Spanish name?" She settled on and watched Lexa's head tilt in confusion, confirming that it was probably not Spanish.
"You really don't know where you are, do you?" Lexa's eyes were narrowed, not necessarily in anger, but more of an intense interest in what Clarke had just said. Maybe there was some anger. Clarke couldn't tell. She was bad at reading people.
Clarke's eyes, however, were definitely narrowed in anger. Her cheeks had flushed red, but she refused to break eye contact, in fear that it would only give Lexa more pride (And the last thing that girl needed was more pride). Clarke silently wondered if she would be able to say anything without earning an intimidating response from the brunette.
"No, but the next time I take shelter with a complete stranger, I'll be sure to get the address first." Clarke answered sarcastically, feeling satisfied with the snarky response.
Lexa snorted and shook her head (adding in her signature eye roll that Clarke loved so much).
The conversation seemed to die off after her reply, both girl's focusing on the fire outside, which suddenly felt alarming, again. Clarke had somewhat forgotten it while talking to Lexa, but now that it was quiet, her anxiety had surfaced again.
Her eyes were still felt wet from her previous tears and she thought for a moment on whether or not Lexa had noticed. She probably had, considering she noticed just about everything else about her.
The burning didn't slow down for hours, and when it finally did, it left a thick trail of ash in its wake. The sun that should have been shining through the window was blocked by the smoke, preventing the room from heating up any further.
Both girls stayed under the blankets all morning, until hunger outweighed their desire to stay warm in the bed. Lexa was the first to leave the warmth, considering she had the key to the food cabinet.
Something felt wrong about continuing on as normal. It didn't seem right for Clarke and Lexa to enjoy the luxury of food and water while the world around them crumbled.
Clarke convinced herself that she was too anxious to eat, despite her growling stomach. Lexa didn't mind either way; the less they ate, the better off they would be.
Strangely, as abruptly as the explosions had started, they stopped in the same fashion. When the crackling of embers did finally quit, the room felt too quiet. It was the kind of silence that made her ears ring and she wished again for some sort of conversation to take her mind off of it.
When she looked at Lexa, who was assuming her well-known 'thinking position,' it was obvious that Clarke would need to be the one to initiate the talking, again.
The words sat on the tip of her tongue, but she clenched her teeth to keep them from coming out, unsure if she wanted to say them. Her indecisiveness made her head spin and she felt stupid for letting Lexa get to her so much.
Pull yourself together, Griffin.
The pep talk didn't help.
Eventually, the girls were forced to leave the warmth of the duvets and go about their daily responsibilities.
Lexa had taken to obsessively counting and recounting supplies, marking the numbers and other calculations on the papers beside her bed. Clarke had been given the nauseating job of emptying the 'toilet bucket' into one of the large barrels in the room, as they were supposed to do every couple days, to keep foul smells away.
Clarke always made sure to complain loudly for Lexa to hear, hoping that the laments would annoy the brunette enough to relieve her of the duty. It never did, and only resulted in a slightly more agitated Lexa.
The day progressed slowly, stress from the morning's events still looming in the air. Lexa had retired to her bed fairly early (or what seemed to be early; Clarke couldn't tell the exact time, thanks to the thick layer of ash covering the skylight), leaving Clarke alone in the dimly candlelit room.
She would have gone to sleep, too, if the room hadn't been so cold. Instead she had a candle burning close by, providing just enough light for her to see the sketchbook sitting in her lap.
She sighed heavily when she looked down at the blank page, her 'artist's block' in full swing. After flipping through her previous drawings for the umpteenth time for inspiration, she gave up and allowed her head to fall against the wall behind her.
She rubbed her tired eyes and let out a quiet groan, cautious not to be loud enough to wake the brunette.
Clarke's eyes flicked to the skylight, which was still thickly covered in black. But this time, when she looked, the candlelight shined off in a way that revealed an imperfection that hadn't been visible minutes ago. Her heart sped up at the thought of what the line going across the window could be.
Cautiously, she stood from her blanket on the floor and moved towards the ladder in the front of the room, unable to look away.
Only when she was directly under the skylight, could she see the imperfection that confirmed her fears.
There was a crack in the window.
If she hadn't been able to sleep before, she definitely wouldn't be able to, now.
A/N: Another cliffhanger!? But, hey, at least Clarke knows Lexa's name now!
I didn't want this chapter to be so short, but the next chapter will be longer to make up for it. Thank you all so much for reading and commenting and I hope you will continue to do so. Your comments always brighten my day, so keep 'em coming! Until next week...