Chapter 14

"She seriously thought you and my brother were together, behind her back? That you of all people were cheating on her?" Clarke nodded as she saw the rage build in her best friend. "I'm going to kill her, I'm actually going to kill her. How fucking stupid is she? Did we not know her at all?"

Clarke shook her head as she sipped on her beer on the patio. "I have no idea, I'm just so mad. She's been mad at me for years, literally years because she thinks I cheated on her and yet she's the one that ran off with that fucking girl that I knew was after her! I only have a PhD so I'm a complete moron apparently."

"Did you say you threw a ring at her?" Both Octavia and Clarke looked over at Raven who was staring at Clarke like she was a two-headed deer.

"Yeah hold up, you did say that!"

Clarke smacked herself on the forehead. "Fuck, I didn't mean to tell you that. Stupid rambling." Both her friends were staring at her now. "Yes, I was going to propose when finals were done. I was tired of being apart, I love my life in New York, loved me life in New York but there was always one piece of the puzzle missing. It took me a long time to figure it out and I was the one that left, regardless of whether or not it was the right career move. She deserved to know how much I loved her."

"Clarke I'm going to ask you something and you're going to get pissed at me for it but I'm having a hard time figuring it out."

"What is it Octavia?" Clarke looked at her friend, unsure of what she was going to ask her.

"Did you come back here for Lexa? Is that what taking this job was about deep down?"

Clarke's eyes felt like they were going to pop out of her eye sockets. "Are you fucking crazy? No, I did not come back here for an engaged woman." Raven and Octavia looked between each other. "Seriously, she didn't play a part in me coming back here at all. We hate her right now!"

"Yes we do babe but we also love her." Raven said with a shrug.

"No we," she motioned to all of them, "don't love her anymore, not even a little bit."

"Funny because she still loves you." Octavia spit out without thinking, she had a tendency of doing that sometimes.

"Excuse you?" It is too early in the day to be day drunk but I feel like I'm going to need to be. She's engaged, to someone who isn't me. She thought I could cheat on her so she really doesn't know me at all, I highly doubt she's in love with me."

"Except for the fact that the only reason she didn't get on her bike to get to her father was because O told her that you'd be royally pissed off."

"I would have been that would have been incredibly fucking stupid but clearly she already is."

Raven shook her head. "Okay fine, if that's how you want to see it we won't argue." Octavia shot her a look. "We won't argue but I do want to know why you've been wearing a $5000 ring around your neck and how we haven't noticed." She shot a look back at Octavia. "Especially since some of us are supposed to have an eye for detail."

"I'm sorry, she kept that shit under sometimes at all times."

"It was a constant reminder to move on and then I just sort of liked wearing it. I knew when I could stand to look at it that I was over everything, over her."

"I'm still pissed she thought that you and my brother were a thing, that's gross." Clarke couldn't help but laugh at the utterly disgusted look on her best friends face.

XOXO

"I am the worlds biggest fucking idiot!"

"I take it you finally met Bellamy." Anya smiled as she sat walked through the backdoors of Lexa's family home and sat down next to her best friend.

"At my mom's birthday party."

Anya smacked her friend on the arm. "And I'm only hearing about it now?"

"A lot's been going on. I need a vacation."

"You look like you've been crying? What's going on? Is dad okay?" Anya started to panic a little before Lexa held her hand up.

"Dad's doing much better, he's upstairs resting. Clarke and I finally had it out. She never cheated on me."

Anya nodded. "Yeah, I know. You think her and I would still be friends if she had."

"How did you know she didn't?"

"That girl was so in love with you, the kind of love that movies and books are written about. The healthy kind, the kind that meant she'd do anything for you without giving up herself. She was the best thing to ever happen to you and your player ways."

"That was high school. I should have talked to her, I should have done a million things differently, what the hell was wrong with me?"

"I can't answer that because I've never been able to come up with an answer. Maybe it wasn't meant to be, that's all I could think of and that's not a very good answer oh but beware, Octavia may kill you. I just got off the phone with her and girlie is pissed."

"You and Octavia are friends now?" Anya grinned and it makes Lexa sigh. "Great. More sarcasm."

"Shut up you love Octavia you're just pissed that Clarke got her in the breakup."

Lexa stuck her middle finger up at her friend. "Not making me any better. For four years I've been pissed at Clarke for cheating on me when it turns out I'm the one that cheated on her. How fucked up is that? How fucked up am I?"

"Fucked up, no… fucked… yes." Lexa shot her friend a look. "Sorry but you are. You made a huge mistake and it cost you really big. All you can do now is try and make up for it though I don't know how you're going to do that. Have you told Costia about your giant screw up yet?"

"Yeah the other night but there's something I left out."

Anya looked down at Lexa's closed hand. "I take it whatever it is, is in your hand."

Lexa swallowed the lump in her throat and opened her hand so that Anya could take the chain out of it. She held it up and examined the ring that hang down from the chain. "Holy shit, it's beautiful, this isn't the ring is it?"

Lexa shook her head and looked out at the water. "No, it's the one Clarke bought for me."

"What?" Lexa nodded. "Yep, all the extra hours, and time spent at the hospital. It wasn't her cheating on me it was her working her way towards that. Towards our life together and I threw it all away. In return she threw that at me."

"It's perfect for you and I was definitely right when I said that you are the worlds biggest asshole."

"Not helping."

"I'm sorry but you are." She handed the chain back over to her friend and took a deep breath. "It was four years ago and it's biting you in the ass because you didn't deal with it then. You were both young and stupid, four years is a long time, we've all come a long way from where we were to where we are." Lexa nodded, she knew Anya was right but it didn't take away the guilt. "Are you happy with Costia?"

"Yeah…shit what time is it?" Anya looked at her watch before giving the time to Lexa. "Shit, she's going to kill me, I need to be at the venue in a half hour. God damn it. I'm sorry, we'll talk later." She slipped the ring in the pocket of her jacket as she and Anya walked outside.

"Lex, Clarke will get over it but you have to give her some time. Don't push her, she deserves her space."

"Take care of her?"

Anya nodded. "Make sure they have good food." Anya laughed as she watched her friend get onto her motorcycle.

XOXO

"I'm going to kill her Anya, it's really that simple!"

"Not before I do it myself. I just had the shortest conversation with her but for the time being she is beating herself up far more than we could."

"How does someone so smart get to be so stupid?" Raven asked as she sat down with everyone's coffees.

Anya shook her head. "I seriously don't know! I want to run her over, with her own motorcycle. I thought me always disliking Costia would tell her something but it doesn't. I genuinely can't stand her, she makes my skin crawl and the way she talks is straight up valley girl." She cringes at the thought of her best friends fiancé. "How's Clarke doing?"

Octavia and Raven both shrugged as Octavia pushed her sunglasses up onto her forehead. "She works a lot, which isn't unusual. Did Lexa tell you about the ring?"

"Yeah, can we talk about that for a hot damn minute?! How did you never tell me about that?" She looked at Raven with a somewhat pissed off expression.

Raven put her hands up in the air. "I swear I had no idea! She never even mentioned going shopping for a ring. Mind you I barely spoke to her because she was always at the hospital."

Octavia nodded in agreement. "I barely saw her and we live together. She would come home, sleep for a couple hours, get up and do it all over again. She had a really competitive class but I think it was more her way of proving herself. They were always pushing each other to be the best doctors they could be. I can't even tell when she found the time to go shopping. My shipper heart wanted to believe she came back here for her but after all of this, I'm really not sure."

"Have you asked her about it?" Anya questioned.

"We both did, on different occasions, her story never changed and between her investigative skills and my sheer intelligence we'd know if she was lying."

Anya raised her eyebrow. "Basically you'd know if she was lying because you're her best friends?"

"Exactly." Octavia laughed as Raven gave her a bit of a glare.

"My answer was cooler." Both cops rolled their eyes.

"For a rocket scientist you are still the same ol fool you've been since preschool." Anya laughed.

XOXO

"Mom can I ask you something?" Lexa sat across the table from her mother as they enjoyed Sunday brunch together.

"Of course Lexie, what's on your mind?"

Lexa took a sip of her mimosa and looked out over the patio and got a little lost in the water. "How come you never told me that Clarke came back?" She studied her mother's confused face for a moment. "When I went to Europe after broke up, she said she came back and she told me she was going to propose, I'm assuming you knew about that too."

Her mother nodded. "I did know, she took me and your father to dinner and asked for our blessing. As for not telling you, when you got back from Europe you made it explicitly clear that it was over. I tried to tell you but every time I mentioned her name you shut down. Why is all this important to you now Lexa, you gave Costia a ring, that means something. If you're having second thoughts…"

"I'm not, it's just the past has been biting me in the ass. She's so angry with me and I don't like it."

"You two are both far too stubborn. Clarke will come around and maybe you two can be friends."

Lexa looked at her mother with a slight smirk on her face. "How did you know I was talking about Clarke?"

"A mother knows everything. You and Clarke were never just girlfriends, she was your best friend Lexie, it's hard to handle the loss of a significant other but it's even harder to lose a best friend."

Lexa smiled as she reached across the table and took hold of her Elizabeth's hand. "Having her back here, it almost feels like nothing changed, I don't understand how I can feel so at ease around her, even now."

It was Elizabeth's turn to smile. "You've known each other practically your whole lives. You went through a lot together and not just as a couple. You feel that way because you're an adult and you want to see her do well in life."

"How'd you get to be so smart?"

"Comes with the territory." Elizabeth grinned as they went back to eating their brunch.

XOXO

"It's tradition Lex Luther, we always go to the cottage for the 4th. Smores, fireworks, alcohol." Anya wiggled her eyebrows as she sat in Lexa's living room.

"I don't know if I can get it off work, plus we haven't gone to the cottage in years."

Anya rolled her eyes as she ate some more popcorn. "Yeah because you can never get it off work. But this is different because Echo is home to go, Raven is home to go and I even invited Octavia."

"What about Clarke?"

"She isn't going, she couldn't get it off work."

"Oh but I have?" Lexa raised an eyebrow as she looked away from the TV.

Anya nodded. "Yes, because you run the company you work for, so you are your own boss, Clarke's boss is her mother. That's a little tough to deal with and according to her hospitals never close."

"They don't."

"Exactly, which is why you have to excuse to not go. We can consider it your bachlorette party."

Lexa rolled her eyes. "We haven't even set a date yet and you're already thinking about a bachlorette party?"

"Indeed. It's already taken care of."

XOXO

"Clarke you have to come, it's tradition."

"That tradition went out the window after I moved to New York and we know longer need a reason to get away from our parents and drink. We can go out, we can stay in, we don't have to drive three hours to your cottage anymore."

Raven laughed as she sat on the beach with Clarke as she sketched the nights sky.

"I can't crash cottage weekend, besides I'm working and I have nightshift, do you know how much blood there is on nightshift?"

"Lexa isn't even going, she told Anya that she couldn't take it off work because her father is still healing. Some sort of corporate bull crap, but she's not coming so you have no excuse! Don't make me call Abby myself!"

Clarke shook her head. "I'll think about it, but I want my room!"

"All yours." Raven grinned as she pulled out her cell phone to text Anya.

XOXO

Raven Reyes: She's most likely in.

Anya Sanders: Lexa too! This better work or we're going to need a lot more alcohol.

Octavia Blake: I feel like we should be too old for this but I am so tired of mopey, at the hospital all the time Clarke! And I secretly miss arguing with Lex Luther. All systems go.

If Clarke and Lexa were going to act like they were all still in high school then their friends were going to treat them that way. They wanted everything to go back to the way it used to be, where everyone got a long. Clarke was home and both Lexa and Clarke had to deal with that because it didn't seem like it was changing anytime soon. Thus operation Krypton was now in full effect.

TBC…