a/n: so, after a period of writer's block, the deeply upsetting finale motivated me to keep this fic going (and to pursue writing as a long-term goal with the hopes of eventually being considered good enough to write for things well-known enough to make a real difference so that i can help stop anything like the 100 from happening ever again)

anyway here's a bunch of snarky text conversations and screaming

Clarke practically tackled Lexa in the hallway the next day, waving and chasing her down until the other girl turned around and looked at her with those eyes (oh, god, those green eyes).

"Is there something you wanted?" Lexa asked.

"Well, first I wanted to say thanks for the dinner last night. It was fun."

"I'm glad you enjoyed it. Aden seemed to have had a good time as well."

"Anyway, I was thinking last night, and I realized that we still don't have each other's phone numbers." Well, that didn't sound weird and forced at all. Great job, me.

"I suppose you're right." Lexa reached into her pocket for the phone, only to be loudly interrupted by someone yelling from down the hallway.

"Oh, Woods!" Ontari stood at the other end of the path, illuminated by a flickering light overhead.

"Great," Clarke muttered.

"You thought that you could escape me, you human pile of slime? It won't be as easy this time. Nobody's watching us now." Clarke looked around, and sure enough, it seemed as if everyone had already gone to class. "I doubt your knight in shining armor will be able to save you, either."

"Is she talking about me?" Clarke whispered.

"I would assume so," Lexa whispered back.

"There's no time to waste with this drivel!" Ontari yelled. Clarke noticed that she was now brandishing a plastic fork, holding it in front of her like it was a dangerous weapon and not the cheap utensil it actually was. "Face me, Lexa, and we'll see who is the superior." Lexa tensed.

"I don't have time for this," she said, after a moment of deliberation. "You can take your false victory if you'd like."

"Y-you . . . you . . . you're just a coward!" Ontari sputtered.

"This is a meaningless thing to debate. What would happen if I actually fought you with that fork? We would end up sent to Principal Kane's office, tending to any minor wounds somehow contracted in the fight, and still neither of us would have anything to prove. Participate in the student election, Ontari, run against me, and perhaps we can truly decide on whatever it is you've been arguing." Ontari huffed and stalked away, still holding the fork high above her head.

"I should go to class now, I'm probably already late," Lexa muttered as she ran off in the opposite direction, leaving Clarke to wonder about what had just happened.

Lexa: were you the one who said the thing about ontari planning to destroy me

Raven Reyes: yeah.

Raven Reyes: what, did she actually do it?

Raven Reyes: are you a gay ghost texting me from the afterlife?

Lexa: no

Lexa: but she threatened to stab me with a plastic fork

Raven Reyes: oh my god.

Raven Reyes: that's the stupidest yet most hilarious thing i've ever heard.

Raven Reyes: a /fork?/

Raven Reyes: she was going to stab you with a /fork?/

Lexa: a plastic fork

Raven Reyes: you can't see me right now but i'm cackling in the middle of the garage.

Raven Reyes: holy - that's beautiful.

Raven Reyes: stupid monty, hacking into my phone and somehow censoring swears.

Raven Reyes: "raven it's rude to call finn a - - -"

Raven Reyes: finn can go - - - for all i care.

Raven Reyes: anyway.

Raven Reyes: what happened after that?

Lexa: i told her to run against me in the student election

Raven Reyes: why?

Raven Reyes: that thing's a popularity contest, and the student government doesn't even have any power.

Raven Reyes: "oh we're gonna have free tampons in the bathrooms" at least one candidate says that every year and guess what?

Lexa: what

Raven Reyes: we still don't have free tampons in the bathrooms.

Raven Reyes: or an actual school nurse.

Raven Reyes: abby's a pretty good stand-in though.

Lexa: i planned on settling this in a more mature way with the students as the deciding factor for who is the "superior" considering how hell-bent ontari is on fighting me

Lexa: personally i don't care very much about it

Raven Reyes: weeeelllll i mean that doesn't sound like an /awful/ idea.

Raven Reyes: but if you win, it might end badly.

Raven Reyes: she could get really - angry or something.

Lexa: i'll take that into consideration

Lexa set down the phone, blearily rubbing her eyes after ten minutes of staring at the tiny screen in the dark. She wasn't afraid of Ontari, not really - she was just a relative with a superiority complex, not an actual threat, but she was concerned for Aden's sake. Her brother was young, vulnerable, and an easy target overall. It would be all too easy for Ontari to hold that against both of them, and Lexa wasn't going to let him get hurt because of something she didn't even care about. Besides, she thought, there were more pressing issues to think about, such as the never-ending butterflies struggling to escape her body every time she looked at Clarke.

"A crush," she muttered aloud. "I have a crush on my classmate, this is a cliche teenage love story that seems to be begging me to carry it out, except I can't. How could I? I hardly know her. I don't even have her phone number, thanks to Ontari, not to mention the fact that this would entirely go against the attempts at a 'fresh start' that I've been making."

"Lexa? Who're you talking to?" Lexa flinched.

"Aden?"

"Who else?"

"Who taught you to be that sarcastic?"

"The grownups from your school. They're always saying stuff like that, and kissing, and talking about something called se-"

"Alright, that might be enough information for one afternoon. Please don't listen to anything my . . . peers might say in the future. Anyway, why don't you come up here? It's somewhat difficult to talk through yelling across the house."

"Okay!" Lexa could hear Aden scrambling through the house, darting up the stairs until he reached Lexa's room.

"You didn't hear anything I said, right?"

"When?"

"Just now, when I was talking to myself."

"Oh, yeah! I heard you talking about a crush. Are you gonna crush somebody? I hope it's Ontari. She's really mean." Lexa chuckled, trying to hide her relief as she squeezed the soft covers of her bed.

"No, I'm not going to crush her. I'm pretty sure that's against the school rules, in any case. Although I do intend on defeating her in the student election."

"You're gonna be in a student election? Can I help?"

"I suppose there wouldn't be any harm in it."

"Cool!" Aden ran off again, and Lexa was left to remain alone in her thoughts again.

When she was younger, Clarke had always thought that there would be nothing better than spending time at an impromptu dinner out with friends.

Flashing forward several years, sitting at a table near the window with Raven, Octavia, and Lincoln as the passerby came home from work, and she still believed that. There was something so unbelievably warm and nice about the little family the four of them had formed that Clarke couldn't help but revel in the comfort of it. She briefly wondered if Lexa had a friend or a group of friends like that, but quickly pushed the thought away.

"I hope they don't close this place down," Raven offhandedly commented, looking around at the restaurant. A few people milled around aimlessly, shuffling to their tables. The restaurant, despite its lively atmosphere, was hopelessly decrepit, and Clarke could tell that it wasn't going to last much longer in this kind of suburb. She didn't dare say anything about it to Raven, however. There was no reason to, after all, and the mood was just so soft and happy that she couldn't bear to break it.

"I don't think they will," Clarke lied. "I mean, if money was a problem, the restaurant probably wouldn't be buying these fancy new booths every other week."

"They are pretty expensive-looking," Octavia piped up, letting go of Lincoln's arm for a moment to bounce against the cushy booth.

"Anyway, what's the news on your girlfriend?" Immediately, three pairs of eyes were on Raven as a grin spread across her face.

"That's why you called me here, wasn't it?" Clarke sighed.

"Why did you invite us along, then?" Lincoln asked. Raven shrugged.

"Witnesses," she said. "A few more nerds to help Clarke figure out her, ahem, feelings for one Alexandria Woods." Octavia held back a snort.

"What?"

"Her name's Alexandria? What kind of name is that?"

"The name of Clarke's girlfriend, apparently," Lincoln replied, rather matter-of-factly. "I think one of my friends might have mentioned her once or twice. She's in college. You would probably be afraid of her if you met her."

"Can we please get back to the point?" Raven muttered.

"I'm assuming that the point here is my nonexistent love life?"

"Ding, we've got a winner here!"

"You're still not telling me what you're expecting to get out of this. Did you think that I was just going to declare my feelings for a girl I hardly know because you dragged a few of our friends here?"

"I'm just trying to help, Clarke. You joke about Finn, both of us do - I mean, it's kinda hard to not joke about how crappy he was - but something tells me that he's part of the reason why you're being this hesitant."

"Or you're just having way too much fun with this whole ordeal." Raven shrugged.

"Could be both."

"I think that's enough Lexa talk for today," Clarke sighed. "My dinner's getting cold."

September, Lexa thought, was unbearable in this sort of weather. It was hot (so, so terribly hot) in the daytime, but at night a cool breeze blew across the city streets, enough to make any woefully underdressed individual such as herself curl up into a ball inside of her flimsy red sweater.

Still, she had needed a bit of time on her own after hours of alternating between homework and working on her campaign with Aden. He seemed to be having more fun than she was, cheerfully printing out posters and attempting to find a catchy slogan while Lexa puzzled over speeches and the student government structure. She had to leave, if only for a short walk around the shops and restaurants glowing underneath the streetlights. People left the stores with piles of groceries and books in their arms, chatting with each other and humming good-naturedly, and Lexa felt a tug of loneliness in her throat as her mind flip-flopped between the plants on the roof and Clarke's friends, Clarke, everything about Clarke, her personality and her face and the fact that she was standing right there and wait-

That's not her. There's more than one blonde teenage girl in this area. I'm most likely hallucinating because of the cold. This is entirely normal.

"Lexa? Is that you?"

Oh no.

"Er, yes."

"What're you doing here? You look like an icicle, and I'm pretty sure that's the first time I've actually seen you wearing that sweater."

"The stress of campaigning alongside a ten-year-old with boundless energy got to me."

"Ah. You're running for student council?"

"A friend from back home told me that it would be good for me emotionally, or something along those lines. An activity to keep me distracted."

"Distracted from what?" Lexa paused for a moment. She tried to dismiss the fact that Clarke seemed to be getting closer as a figment of her imagination, the wind blurring her vision or the lights getting in her eyes.

You. "The stress of school. The move."

"Yeah, I get that. The school part, I mean. I've lived here all my life, so it's kinda hard to imagine anything else, but school's intense as hell." Lexa nodded in agreement. An awkward silence fell over the two before Clarke spoke up again. "Hey, I never got your phone number. Your, uh, cousin sorta stopped us from doing that."

"I didn't bring any paper." If she has my phone number, she would talk to me, and then things could happen, things that would make this entire relationship even more difficult. Perhaps we should just-

"I've got a sketchbook in my bag." Clarke twisted around at an angle that Lexa thought really shouldn't have been possible for any human being to do without causing permanent bone damage and pulled out the sketchbook, scribbling her number on a page and ripping it out with a flourish. She's left-handed, Lexa noted to herself as she took the paper in shaky hands and shoved it in her pocket. "It's your turn now."

"Right." Clarke handed Lexa another sheet of paper, dotted with doodles of flowers and trees and someone's eyes. They were mesmerizing, mysterious and beautiful, and Lexa was so caught up in staring at them that she forgot to write down her number for a moment. "Here."

"Thanks."

"Is there a reason why you were here in the first place? I already told you mine." Clarke smirked, her eyes mischievously twinkling in the light.

"You'd laugh if I told you."

"I wouldn't."

"Promise?"

"Yes."

"Raven dragged me, Octavia, and Lincoln to a restaurant to talk about my supposed relationship with you."

"Your relationship with me?" Lexa sputtered. She desperately hoped that her face wasn't turning red. It was times like this that made her wish that blood was a more subtle color, like gray, so that it wouldn't be glaringly obvious if someone was embarrassed.

"My supposed relationship with you. She's kind of obsessed with this whole thing, and I'm not really in the mood to stop her from having her fun as long as it isn't hurting anyone."

"You're just playing along with her game, then?"

"Not exactly." Clarke shifted her weight to her other foot, scratching the back of her neck. "I've told her that there's nothing between us-" Lexa winced internally. "-But I haven't tried to get her to stop asking me."

"We could pretend," Lexa mumbled, barely audible among the babble of passerby. The sun had gone down, and she could see businessmen getting into their cars on their way home out of the corner of her eye.

"What?"

"For her sake, if that's what you want. We could pretend . . . to have . . . a relationship." Clarke blinked.

"You want to fake-date me? Wow, Lexa, I'm honored."

"That's a no, isn't it?"

"Yep. I'm not going to lie to my friend, Lexa. I've never kept secrets from her, and I'm not about to start now, especially not with something straight out of a bad sitcom."

"Right. Okay. That's fine." Anyone could see the way this is heading. I need to leave now. Thankfully, Clarke beat her to the punch.

"I think my mom's calling me," she blurted out abruptly, straining her words in such a way that it sounded like she was having trouble breathing or attempting to project on a stage in an elementary school theatre class. Lexa couldn't hear a phone ringing, but she didn't question it. "I'll see you later, Lexa!"

This is going terribly.

Clarke doubted that her mother was even concerned that she was out with friends on a school night - she trusted Raven, maybe a little more than she should, and it wasn't even that late in any case - but it had seemed like a good excuse at the time. Now, hailing a taxi with Lexa's number in her pocket, she wondered if it had been a good idea to leave at all. Who just randomly asked to pretend to date someone, anyway? Who did that? If she was going to ask me out, she should've at least just told me instead of coming up with convoluted excuses. Clarke stopped in her tracks. She was asking me out. She might-

"Hey, kid!" A rusted taxi screeched to a halt on the road. "Are ya gonna go in here or what?" Clarke clambered in through the door and tried to regain her train of thought. Requited feelings? Feelings? God, this can't be requited. If she actually . . . felt something, for me, then I'd need to address it, and then what? It's best to just forget about it until I at least get to know her and hope that we both still have these . . . feelings, whatever the hell they are, when that happens. Yeah. I'll just wait. That'll be fine.

"Hey, this is your stop, right?" the taxi driver grumbled. Clarke nodded and pushed the door open, running for the shelter of her familiar front porch. The light was still on in the dining room, and Clarke could see the silhouette of her mother hunched over a pile of mail through the window. Jiggling the key through the sticky old lock on the door, she dropped her bag on the floor and announced her homecoming a bit quieter than she usually would have.

"That was the worst idea in this history of humanity," Lexa muttered to herself as she walked back home with the sweater tightly wrapped around her body. "It would be a better idea to destroy the entire planet than to politely ask to fake-date someone. It would be a better idea to kill off the only beloved character on a television show twice than to politely ask to fake-date someone. I was a fool."

The leaves crunched underfoot as Lexa continued to curse her own split-second ideas.

"She won't talk to me again after that, I'll bet. Who would? Any potential mutual feelings would have been destroyed." Lexa tightened her grip on the edge of her shirt until her knuckles had turned bone-white, and it was only then when she realized that she had arrived at her house.

"Lexa!" Aden yelled from the window, peeking his tiny head from the second floor of the house. "You've been gone for so long! I've been making a bunch of posters, you've gotta see 'em!"

"I'll be there in a moment, Aden!" Lexa yelled back. "I need to do something important first!"

Walking to the nearby conveniently empty park and loudly screaming into the cloudy dark sky, Lexa figured, could be considered important by some.