Lexa quietly slipped her arm out from under Clarke's and tiptoed up a flight of stars, attempting futilely to stay quiet in the dead of the night. The door creaked as she opened it with the spare key, and as she cauiously peeked into the single, she felt like she was five years old again. She climbed the ladder onto the high-lofted bed and slipped underneath her sister's blankets. Her arm snaked cautiously around Anya's waist, and Anya mumbled, "Lex, baby, issat you?" Lexa tucked her face into the crook of Anya's neck in response, and Anya's hand came to rest against hers. She pressed a light kiss into Anya's temple, as she slowly drifted away to the sound of Anya's heavy breathing.

It was way too fucking early.

Raven didn't say anything but the pace Lexa was keeping was literally hell on her legs. She had made Lexa swear to wake her up and get her to class the previous night at 10 pm, when she actually thought she had a chance at getting to bed on time (ha fucking ha) and she was really regretting it.

"We're late." Lexa hissed.

Lexa was a sunbeam of moonshine most of the time, especially around Clarke, but she did not fuck around when it came to academics.

"It's 8 fucking 23 am, Lex, what do you want me to do?"

"Walk faster..." Lexa's voice trailed off and she became uncomfortably stiff. Raven rolled her eyes. She was not in the mood for this bullshit.

"Literally, just leave me behind I'll be fine."

Lexa's jaw clenched. "I'm not leaving you." She intoned stubbornly. "I suppose it doesn't matter much anyway, we're not missing much other than how Professor Song's day went yesterday."

Raven could not stand Professor Song. He was too bubbly and went on all kinds of tangents, but she needed to go to this class. Not that it would matter, she was screwed in that class anyway. The last month had been tumultuous, to say the least. Her grades had been so good, but ever since the dosage on her pain medication had gone down, her performance had been suffering in class. As much as she loved her friends, none of them seemed to understand the word chronic. As in she was always going to have leg pain.

Aside from that exceedingly depressing reality, she was just going to have to bear Song's incessant storytelling while using the class time to make notes based on the slides.

"I was talking to my colleagues about- you know, this was about 30 years ago -and I was talking to my colleagues about - see back then we didn't have the kind of device- instrume- technology and stuff we have today. And there wasn't any money in this industry. But we were young, fresh out of college, and bright, and we didn't mind the work, so I said- heh- I said - do you really think that's going to get anywhere- we all thought he was crazy, you know? But he kept at it anyway, for ten years just going through experiment after experiment. And that ended up being the foundation for this experiment. He's worth fifty million dollars now. And I say, Craig, we've gotta have lunch sometime, haha. But this was before I retired and got into teaching. I was in the industry before this. Of course, now I'm here and I'm tenured, could never stay off my feet and they can't fire me. Not even if I say fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck haha."

Raven was so ready to fucking murder someone.

Raven was so screwed. She walked towards the library as quickly as she could, cursing as she checked the time. Deja vu, much? She had fallen asleep after her last class, having forgotten that she needed to attend this motherfucking SI session. It was 6:40 and the session had started at 6:30 so she could only pray there were still seats left by the time she got there.

She jammed the elevator button furiously. All the way to the third floor, she huffed impatiently. An elderly professor leered at her in what had to be the most fucking condescending manner ever.

"You're the first person I've seen in here who wasn't on their cell phone." He huffs, as if she was supposed to be proud her battery was less than 50%. She smiled though, and he seemed to buy it even though she was sure if she was Supergirl there would be actual laser beams flying out of her eyes right now.

"I'm glad we can find productive ways to occupy the gaps in our lives, sir. Even if it's just taking a few minutes to reflect on our lives." The second part of that was absolute bullshit, of course, but she needed to temper herself in case she actually had to work with this dickbag at some point.

She barreled out of the elevator as fast as she could, taking a deep breath and realizing it was also probably the claustrophobic aspect getting to her. She wasn't stupid. She knew why she was fucked up in the ways she was fucked up, she just had no emotional energy for dealing with that shitstorm at the moment.

As Raven rushed into the room she immediately realized the session had probably been cancelled based on the hordes of confused students loitering around.

Checking her phone, as she should've when the fucking elevator asswipe made that snarky political commentary about "them dang millennials," she sees the message from her S.I. confirming she has a "work commitment" that she apparently "forgot" about the entirety of the last week this session had been scheduled. Raven felt the pressure of tears build behind her eyes, but swallowed down her frustration and finished the email.

Fortunately, there was an addendum. Raven squinted, because it was in bright green. Why did people think it was appropriate to change fonts mid-email in 2016? If you had time to do that, you had time to teach this fucking class.

So EMAE 360, which was the next level in Design and Manufacturing, also had a session today, which they were free to drop by on. It was in the next room. It was in the next motherfucking room and no one had bothered to put a fucking sign on the door saying, hey! if you need help you should probably come in here?

She was ready to chew someone the fuck out, but the moment she saw Anya, all her anger melted away.

Anya looked away from the board. "Fancy seeing you here?"

"Always the tone of surprise."

"I understood that reference."

"Yesss." Raven crossed the room and high-fived Anya. Marvel and HP geekery warranted it.

"Just working out a problem." She gestured for Raven to sit down, and did the same. "No one ever shows up to this thing because if people are this high level, they probably get this material really well, or know they're going to barely scrape by with a C anyway."

"Oh. That sucks." Raven wasn't sure whether to react negatively or positively, but Anya suddenly laughed.

"It's fine, actually. Gives me more time to work out my shit."

Raven squeezed the sleeves of her hoodie into her fist and balled it up, clenching until it hurt.

"I didn't mean to intrude."

"You're not! Really, they're paying me for this anyway. Though that's probably for campus-wide statistics benefits more than student benefits. Nice to know your tuition money is going somewhere other than the president's dildo fund."

Raven almost choked on her spit. Yeah, she could not have imagined this middle-aged white woman with a dildo until she totally could and it was all Anya's fault.

"Oh my god Anya. You sound like Clarke when she's drunk."

Anya snorted. "Clarke's a fratboy at heart. She would say that shit while sober."

Raven couldn't deny the truth of that statement.

"So, what's going on?"

Raven could physically feel Anya's gaze soften and the concern enter her eyes as she tried not to let every emotion welling up inside her show on her face, from the anxiety to the resignation. She hated that she was so so fucking transparent, even when she tried not to be.

"I haven't gone to lecture all semester and it actually isn't possible for me to get a B anymore so I'm just...trying to work for a C. But I'm so far behind I don't understand anything."

"Whoa, whoa ok. We'll take it one step at a time. Here, we'll start at the beginning, if nothing else, to review it and answer those questions we all have, but dismiss. Got it? I do this all the time, just to figure out where I stopped knowing and understanding a topic."

"Yeah." Raven felt condescend to but also felt her anxiety ease up a little.

"Worst come to worst, we'll just outline what you need to get done. That's still productivity, okay?"

"Thanks for the help."

"I owe you one."

"No, what dude, we're totally good."

"Now we are." Anya's voice, steady and firm, makes Raven feel like only Finn's did, warm and reassuring, and oh god, she was smitten.

"You know if you need help, I'm always here, right?"

While Raven could only wish she believed that was true, she knew it was true in that moment.

She shut her eyes tightly and prayed furiously for a second, not sure to whom and for what, but it was a warning and a thank you. She probably shouldn't threaten a higher power, but she knew she couldn't handle anything else right now, so it was more of a plea.

"God, okay, where exactly is the start?"

It was a start.