Chapter 8
"How was he?" Lexa heard a voice behind her while she was fixing up the fire. She turned around to look at Lily's pale face, eyes big with worry flying from her to the two fading shadows that were walking away in the distance.
"He's alright. Come get warm." she motioned her closer to the fire. "He's going home, Clarke's with him."
"Man, his eyes went huge with terror, like he was staring straight at Lord Voldemort himself. Pale as sheet too. It freaked me out." Lily stood next to Lexa, stretching her hands out to the fire. "I didn't come out before cause I didn't want to overcrowd him. Thought he needed some space..."
"Good thinking. Even though psychology is not one of your countless majors." Lexa winked and rubbed Lily's back reassuringly.
"I only got two majors as of yet, but maybe I should consider psychology." Lily smiled. "And aren't you cool as a cucumber? You come across that kinda stuff often?"
"Well, lets just say this wasn't my first rodeo and leave it at that." Lexa replied and started gathering some dry beach towels and a few candle from around the fire.
"Lexa Elwood: A mystery wrapped in a riddle." Lily said and turned around to warm her back. She watched Lexa as she carried and placed the towels a few feet from the water, making a circle around them with the candles.
"To whom it may concern..." Lexa yelled towards the sea, "...this is where you may get a towel to cover yourselves up. Also known as, the dignity circle. You're welcome!"
"What's dignity?" she heard Raven yell from a distance, followed by a loud chuckle which she assumed to have been Anya's.
"Nothing you would know, Reyes!" Octavia yelled back, not missing a beat, from somewhere on the left. Lexa smiled and shook her head. She walked to the cooler, mixed a couple of drinks and sat next to Lily, who had gotten dressed, offering her one. It wasn't until they had finished their drinks that Lincoln and Octavia joined them outside. They had spent quite some time in the water and they were both shaking slightly from the cold. But judging by the love-struck smiles of their faces, they might as well had been sitting in the sunshine, in a tropical island, drinking margaritas, just the two of them. They went closer to the fire to dry up and Lexa watched them look at each other, like the rest of the world didn't really exist outside of that moment between them. They smiled, blissfully unaware of anything and everything else.
Lexa felt her stomach jump with what she recognized as jealousy and bitterness. She immediately felt horrible about it. She should be happy for Lincoln. She was happy for him. If anyone deserved to go all gooey with love and have the silly look on their face to match, it was him. He was an amazing individual but he always thrived around other people. He was always better as part of something. But, of course, it had to be something special. Something that would elevate him as a separate being as well. It was a mystery to Lexa who was the polar opposite, a lone wolf, but she felt glad to be getting that part of her friend back. It was good to see him rise to his best possible self once more, after dealing with a horrible loss and everything that comes after that.
Lincoln had met Rebecca in high school. They had gotten together around the same time Lexa had started seeing Costia. Of course they had the privilege to be able to be a lot more open and public about their relationship, but they always made sure they spent time with the girls, to make them feel that they at least had two people in their corner, who valued them both individually and as a couple. They would have movie nights and double dinner dates at Lincoln's, where Rebecca would cook amazing Costa Rican or Indonesian meals for them. She was quite literally the only person Lexa knew, of their age, that could cook something more than fried eggs and plain white pasta. Costia who was about as challenged at cooking as Lexa was, had joked that she should probably marry Bex instead, if she didn't want pasta trees to grow in her stomach. Of course it would be a sham marriage, she had explained and Lexa would be her side chick, enjoying all the good food as well. Lexa had argued that they could just adopt Rebecca. A full-grown adult, whom somebody else had raised as an amazing human -so not chance of them screwing that up-, they also would not have to deal with stinky diapers and potty training. And the best part, Lexa had concluded, was that they would get to be Lincoln's mothers-in-law and make his life difficult just for the fun of it. They had all laughed at Lincoln's passionate objections to both plans and then all agreed to meet halfway, when Rebecca had offered, "Guys! We can always, you know, just remain friends and we will be having you over for dinner whenever you'd like. Or whenever you feel those pasta trees growing in.". Lincoln had smiled and wholeheartedly agreed to the proposition, looking proudly at his girlfriend. She had walked over to give him a taste of the sauce she was making and had placed a gentle kiss on his forehead, before going back to the kitchen saying, "You don't have to marry me or adopt me to keep me close, girls. I'm not going anywhere!".
It was early on a cold Halloween morning when some random guy ignored a Stop sign and hammered his semi-truck on the passenger side of Rebecca's car. She had taken up a part-time job as a cook at a local Bed and Breakfast and was heading to work at the time. She had always been a morning person and loved waking up early, even though at the time she had to get up for work there was barely even any light outside. She loved the chill of the morning dew, it made her feel refreshed and wide awake. She would often say that there was something magical about the sunrise, something that made it even more beautiful and special than the sunset, which people had for some reason romanticized so much. And she liked starting her day when most people were still asleep. Driving along quiet, empty streets; long stretches or mazes of asphalt all to herself. But not that morning. That morning somebody's carelessness had claimed her streets and her life.
She was rushed to the hospital with severe blunt-force trauma to the head, among a plethora of other injuries. She was kept in a medically induced coma for about a week, until the swelling in her brain would subside enough for the doctors to assess the damage. Lincoln had been beside her through all of it, basically making camp next to her hospital bed, never leaving her side. He would refuse to give up hope. He would talk to her every day, telling her to keep on fighting through it, waiting for her to wake up. He had to keep on believing that she would indeed wake up because she could not even fathom the alternative. Life without Rebecca stretched to the realms of the unimaginable. They had made so many plans together. Every time he thought of his future, she was there, right beside him. All those long nights in the hospital, he tried to picture a future without Bex, but he would come up blank every time. He did not even know who he was or who he could be without her guidance. All he could manage to see of that future was the black void of Rebecca's absence. So he kept on hoping.
When doctors started lightening up the coma to see if she would come out, Rebecca suffered a stroke and was declared brain-dead soon thereafter. Lexa had been there for Lincoln, though there was little she could do or say to make him feel even the tiniest bit better, on the worst day of his life. And it was going to be a long, dark, twisted way before he would somewhat recover from the loss. But Lexa was there, every single time. Even when he would push her, along with everyone else, away. She was there. And down the road, that's what made all the difference. Slowly, step by excruciating step, the black void would get cut into smaller, more manageable pieces. In time, it would be molded into something else; something less terrifying, less consuming, less powerful. It would always be there, but maybe it could turn into something that would not reek of finality.
It was hard for someone who hadn't seen Lincoln at his absolute lowest, to appreciate that genuine smile on his face; how much it meant, how much he had fought within himself to get it back. Lexa looked at Octavia, standing next to Lincoln, her eyes gleaming with the reflection of the flames. She was grateful for her. She didn't know what it was exactly, that brought people together like that, chemistry maybe? And she did not know what journey Octavia had been on up until this point, but she was glad her path crossed Lincoln's. And as fate would have it, she thought, because of them, her path stumbled upon Clarke's and Anya's met with Raven's. It was strange how life worked. How the most horrible thing to happen to a person could set them on a course that they would never had been in, lead them to meet people they would never had met. And it's not only that person's life that is affected by that change in course, but the lives of those around them as well. And with a ripple effect, those changes might end up being monumental for everyone involved.
