AN: Sorry about leaving you guys hanging last chapter. I promised a lot of people that I would update today, so as promised, here is the next chapter! Enjoy!
The next day, Clarke was sitting on her bed, trying in vain to finish her biology homework. She had just started the worksheets that were due in tomorrow's class, but she had been staring blankly at the second question for almost five minutes now, and she was starting to think that this homework might take her all night. She wished that Lexa were here. She and the brunette normally always did their homework together, and while Clarke missed her roommate's intelligence, she missed the other girl's company even more. However, she hadn't seen Lexa since this morning, so she had resorted to the fact that she was doing her homework alone today. She grabbed her biology book and began flipping through the pages in search of the answer.
Not much time had passed before Clarke lifted her head at the sound of her door opening, smiling when she saw Lexa stride into the room. However, the brunette did not say a word to her, walking silently over to her wardrobe, and Clarke's face fell at the obvious sign that her roommate was going out again. She knew that Lexa probably just needed some space after what Clarke had done yesterday, but the blonde couldn't help but wish that her roommate might stay.
"Hey, Lexa, do you want to work on this biology assignment with me?"
"I can't, Clarke," Lexa said, pulling on her boots. "I'm going out with Octavia."
The blonde's nose wrinkled at the statement, thinking that this was most definitely a lie. "No, you're not. Not too long ago, you were telling me how you didn't want to hang out with my friends because they hated you. You expect me to believe you're suddenly best friends with Octavia?"
Lexa sighed in exasperation. "I'm not best friends with her. She asked me to hang out with her tonight since Raven's going out with Bellamy, and Lincoln is working on a project, and I said yes."
Clarke was about to protest more because she knew that her roommate was most likely just making this up to avoid her. The blonde wanted to call her out on it in the hopes that she might stay here, where Clarke might be able to convince her to talk about what had happened. She didn't want one stupid mistake to ruin the beautiful friendship that had grown between them. Before she could even get a word out though, the door to their room opened again, and this time it was Octavia who stepped inside.
Clarke's eyeballs almost rolled out of her head at the sight of the girl. "She wasn't lying," the blonde said before she could stop herself. Octavia shot her a confused look, and Clarke quickly explained herself. "You two really are hanging out tonight then?"
"Um, yeah. Lincoln's doing some kind of project, and Raven and Bellamy are going out on a date, so Lexa and I were just gonna hang out at the arcade down the street." Octavia paused for a moment, taking in Clarke's shocked look, unsure what to make of it. "Is that a problem?"
Clarke realized that she must have been making a strange face, and she tried to relax her features and stay calm. Inside though, Clarke was not calm. She was hurt that Lexa would rather hang out with Octavia than with her, and she was also slightly upset that neither one of them had asked her along. Clarke cleared her throat. "No. You're fine. I just thought Lexa was lying, that's all."
Octavia's brows furrowed, and Clarke realized that the brunette didn't know that there was anything wrong between the blonde and her roommate. "Do you want to come with us?"
Clarke wanted to scream out yes, to jump off her bed and grab her wallet and follow the two of them out the door. She was two seconds away from saying she would go, but she noticed Lexa out of the corner of her eye when Octavia had spoken. Lexa had tensed up a bit, eyes widening at the prospect, and Clarke's shoulders slumped. She had been right. Lexa was trying to avoid her, and the blonde knew that if she ever wanted things to work out between the two of them, then she needed to give her roommate the space that she so clearly needed.
Clarke gestured to the biology workbook that was lying open in her lap. "Not tonight. I really need to get this biology homework done. Maybe next time though."
Octavia simply shrugged. "Suit yourself. You ready, Lexa?"
"Yeah, let's go," said the girl in question.
As Lexa followed Octavia out the door, she nodded to Clarke, clearly appreciating the blonde's understanding. Clarke just wished that she understood a little bit more. She wanted to understand what it was that had set Lexa off, why it was that the brunette needed this space. She just wished that her roommate would stop pushing her away.
It had been four days since Lexa had really spoken to Clarke. The brunette was continuing to avoid her roommate by hanging out with Anya and Emori every night, and Clarke found herself feeling worse and worse. She truly missed this girl that she had come to care about so much, and she really wished that Lexa would stop acting this way over a stupid cheek kiss. If only Lexa wouldn't be so stubborn and would just talk to Clarke.
The blonde was sitting on her bed, holding her sketchbook on her lap. She was supposed to be working on a drawing for art class, but her sketch had very quickly turned into a picture of Lexa's face, smiling brightly with that smile that Clarke had come to love so much. The one where her teeth just barely peeked out from underneath her lips. It was the smile she had worn on her face when Clarke had brought her flowers. The smile that Clarke hadn't seen since.
When she finished the drawing, she took a moment to admire it, trying her best to imagine that Lexa was actually there in front of her, wearing that exact smile on her face. The good mood that Clarke had been in from drawing the picture instantly dropped when she realized that she might never that smile again. At least, not directed at her anyway.
She slipped her sketchbook into her nightstand when she couldn't bear to look at the drawing anymore, and she pushed through the door, deciding to head across the hall and find out what Octavia and Raven were up to. That was, until she saw Anya in the hallway, and it looked as if the older blonde was heading downstairs.
Clarke looked at her with a confused frown. "Hey, Anya. Where's Lexa?"
Anya shrugged. "How am I supposed to know? Is she not in her room?"
Clarke's face morphed into an irritated scowl. "You should know because she's supposed to be hanging out with you and Emori tonight."
"Emori's out with her boyfriend tonight, and I haven't even seen Lexa," Anya told Clarke. "She lied."
"Has she hung out with you at all this week, or has she been lying to me about that as well?" Clarke asked sullenly.
"She hasn't hung out with us since the night of the kickball game," Anya said.
Clarke couldn't keep the hurt out of her eyes at that statement. What was so horrible about a ridiculous cheek kiss that called for this kind of behavior? Clarke felt like every bit of progress that she had made with Lexa was completely gone and that Lexa was back behind her impossibly high walls. The truth was that Clarke didn't know why Lexa was acting like this, and she wondered if Anya might be able to help her figure it out. "Why would she keep lying like this?"
Anya didn't even look worried, fixing reassuring brown eyes on Clarke. "Look, I don't know what happened between you two, but whatever it was, she won't stay mad at you forever. Lexa really cares about you, Clarke, and I think it's obvious that she just wants some space right now. If you just give her a while, I'm sure she'll come out eventually."
Clarke picked up on the lack of worry in the older girl's eyes, and she realized that Anya knew exactly where it was that Lexa was hiding. "You know where she is."
Anya's eyes widened for a moment, seemingly wondering how it was that Clarke had known that, but she didn't try to deny it, nodding in response. "I do."
"Tell me," Clarke said immediately, desperate to know where it was that Lexa kept disappearing to. Desperate to find the brunette and convince her to talk things out.
Anya did not look as if she was going to tell though, shaking her head immediately. "I can't. That would be a violation of Lexa's privacy. When she wants to be alone, Clarke, she wants to be alone."
"Please, Anya," Clarke begged with pleading blue eyes.
Anya crossed her arms over her chest, clearly not wanting to give up her best friend's secret location. "She obviously doesn't want to see you."
"I know, but I just want to talk to her." Clarke wasn't giving up. "I need this, Anya. I promise that if I can't get through to her, I'll leave, and that will be that."
Anya finally gave in, and Clarke had to stop herself from throwing her arms around the other girl in a hug. "Fine. She's probably up in the attic. That's where she always goes when she wants to be alone."
"The attic?" Clarke echoed in slight confusion.
Anya raised an eyebrow at her. "Don't question me about it. You can ask her why she does the things she does later. Just get your ass up there and talk to her."
Clarke said a quick thanks to Anya, and then she practically ran down the hallway to the door that was located at the very end. She pushed it open, surprised to find that it was unlocked, but then again, Lexa probably wasn't expecting her best friend to give up her location. Clarke didn't care though. She needed to talk to her roommate so that they could settle this once and for all.
Clarke ascended the staircase that she found on the other side of the door, trying not to cringe when the floorboards squeaked underneath her shoes, hoping that Lexa hadn't heard it. When she reached the top of the staircase, she looked around the dusty clutter of the attic, wondering why on earth anyone would ever want to come up here, but sure enough, there was Lexa, sitting on the ground beside a few piles of boxes and an old record player.
"Lexa? What are you doing up here?" Clarke asked.
The brunette turned to look at Clarke with obvious surprise on her face. The blonde cringed when the surprise on her roommate's face quickly morphed into anger, fury smoldering in green eyes. "A better question is what the hell are you doing up here? Who told you I'd be here?"
"No one told me anything." Clarke sighed in exasperation. "I looked for you everywhere, and this was the only place in the entire house left to look."
Lexa wasn't even fazed, not believing a word that Clarke was saying. "Yeah, right. Anya told you. She's the only one who knows that I come up here."
"Fine. Anya told me, but I just want to know what you're so upset over. Why are you lying to me to keep me away from you?" Clarke sat down, looking her roommate right in the eyes.
Lexa quickly scooted away from her. "Stay away from me."
"Lexa," Clarke said disapprovingly.
"I'm not trying to keep you away from me, Clarke. I just don't want to hang out with you. Is that such a problem?" Lexa growled.
Clarke tried her best to blink away the tears that were beginning to form in the corners of her eyes. "Come on, Lexa. I thought we were past this. We were getting to be so close, and I just wish that you'd tell me what I did wrong so that we can go back to being friends again."
"You know exactly what you did, Clarke."
The blonde was taken aback by the snarl that was on the brunette's lips. This was the girl that she had met when she first came to Polis, and she wondered if this was all that she was going to get from here on out. She immediately cleared that thought from her head, telling herself that if she had helped Lexa the first time, then she could certainly help her roommate through whatever this was. If she just kept up her gentle reasoning, then she should be able to get through to the brunette. "Since you started acting weird after the kickball tournament, I'm assuming that what I did wrong was kiss you on the cheek, but how do you know it wasn't just a friendly cheek kiss?"
Lexa looked surprised, as if she had never even considered that possibility before, and when she answered, it didn't have as much gusto as she had had before. "We both know that's not true, Clarke. Your feelings for me are more than just platonic."
"And what are your feelings for me?" Clarke dared to ask.
A look of rage washed over Lexa's features at the mere suggestion, and she pushed up off the floor, stepping around Clarke towards the exit. The blonde's mouth fell open in shock. She couldn't believe that Lexa was just going to walk out like this. In that moment, she knew that she couldn't let her roommate get away, so she sprang up from the ground and caught Lexa's wrist before she could go any further. The brunette turned back to face her with pure ire in her eyes. "Let go of me!"
"No," Clarke said sternly.
"Clarke, I do not have feelings for you, and I'm losing my patience. You know who I have feelings for, and I can assure you that she is it for me. I don't like you like that, so back off," the brunette snapped.
Clarke tried not to let her hurt show through at the prospect of being turned down. She couldn't believe that Lexa didn't return her feelings when she had been so sure only a week ago that the other girl did. The almost kiss underneath the bleachers. The smiles that seemed to be reserved just for the blonde. That couldn't just be friendship, could it? Clarke would be damned if she didn't find out. "Okay. Maybe I shouldn't have kissed you like that. I thought that you felt the same way about me, and I'm sorry if I misread things," Clarke said, taking a step closer to her roommate, "but the thing is, Lexa, that I don't think I did. I think you do have feelings for me, whether you like it or not."
Lexa's nostrils flared, and Clarke could see that, true to her word, her roommate was losing her patience quick. "Don't make this harder than it already is, Clarke. I can't have feelings for you, and I don't."
"Why can't you have feelings for me?" Clarke pressed on.
"Because I love Costia, okay? Not you. I'd be betraying her if I let myself have feelings for someone else, and I will not do that."
Understanding dawned on Clarke's face when she realized what this was all about. Lexa thought that she would be betraying Costia if she ever had feelings for anyone else. The blonde knew that there would most likely be no arguing with her roommate on the subject, but that didn't mean that she couldn't try. "Lexa, you're not betraying Costia. To like someone else would not be a betrayal to her."
That's when Lexa exploded, shoving Clarke away from her. "Yes, it would be! Don't even try to tell me otherwise, Clarke, because you know nothing about this. You may have lost your father, but you have no idea what it's like to lose a lover. You don't understand at all!"
Clarke caught herself on one of the stacks of boxes against the wall and turned her eyes back up to Lexa. The brunette looked wilder than Clarke had ever seen her, and she was suddenly a little afraid of what the other girl might do. She hadn't stormed out of the room, which Clarke took to be a good sign, but maybe Anya was right, and Lexa needed more space than Clarke had given her so far. Underneath all of the fury that was displayed so prominently on Lexa's face, Clarke thought that she could detect an almost tortured look, and she wished she knew how to help her roommate. But Lexa was right. Clarke didn't know what it was like to lose a lover, and she thought that it would be best if she just left the other girl up here for a while to cool down.
Clarke began to walk past the brunette, making her way to the door, but just as she was about to open it, she found herself being spun around and shoved up hard against the wall, and suddenly, Lexa's lips were on hers. Clarke was so shocked that it took her a couple of seconds to kiss back, but when she did, she felt all of Lexa's anger being poured out into the kiss, leaving the brunette bit by bit.
Clarke was overcome by the feeling of Lexa's lips against hers. She grabbed the neckline of the brunette's shirt, pulling her roommate flush against her. Lexa's fingers came up to tangle in blond hair, pulling hard, but Clarke didn't care. She didn't even care when their teeth clashed, and she smiled into the kiss, biting down on Lexa's plump bottom lip, something that she had subconsciously wanted to do since she met the brunette. Clarke wanted the kiss to go on forever, but after a few more seconds, Lexa pulled away.
"I'm sorry," Lexa said immediately, running her hand nervously through her hair. "I shouldn't have done that."
Clarke couldn't stop a teasing smirk from settling on her lips. "So you do return my feelings."
Lexa hesitated, biting on the lip that Clarke had bitten mere seconds ago, which only made the blonde want to bite it again, harder. She brushed this thought away though when she saw her roommate nod ever so slightly.
"Listen, Lexa. I know you think that you're betraying Costia, but you're not," Clarke said sincerely, hoping that her roommate would believe her this time. "I know I don't know anything about losing a lover, but I do know that Costia would want you to move on. She loved you, and she would want you to be happy, which means that she would never want you to be caught up on her for the rest of your life when she can no longer be there for you."
As Clarke talked, she began to run her fingers through Lexa's long brunette curls, and she was surprised when her roommate not only allowed it, but actually leaned into the touch. A relieved smile spread across Clarke's face. It seemed that she and Lexa were through the worst of this fight or whatever it had been that had just gone on between them and that they could go back to being friends again. Clarke hoped that they might be able to be even more than friends now that their feelings were out in the open.
A tear slipped from Lexa's eye when she finally looked back up at Clarke again. "What if I can't help it?"
The blonde gave her roommate a sad smile. "Then, there's nothing that you can do. But I think that you canhelp it. The fact that you kissed me right now proves it to me. You can move on, Lexa, and you and I both know that Costia would want you to. She wouldn't want you to be miserable because of her."
Lexa just leaned into Clarke, and the blonde gently lowered herself to the ground, pulling her roommate with her. Clarke looped her arm around the other girl and simply continued to play with her hair as the brunette rested her head against Clarke's chest in silence. The blonde didn't mind the silence though. She knew that Lexa just needed someone to be patient with her right now, and Clarke was content to just hold the brunette for the rest of the night, if that's what she needed.
"I know she wouldn't." Lexa finally spoke up.
"Good," Clarke said softly, giving Lexa's arm a gentle squeeze. "We don't even have to be anything right now if you don't want to. We can just take things slow and see where we end up."
"Maybe I don't want to take things slow," Lexa said, so quietly that Clarke almost didn't hear her. The brunette paused for a moment before continuing, raising her voice a bit. "This attic was our special place. Mine and Costia's. We used to sneak up here all the time when we wanted to be alone because no one could ever find us up here. No one ever even thought to look. The only reason that Anya knew about it was because she followed us one time, but that's beside the point. Costia and I used to sit up here for hours on end, and that's why I still come up here when I want to be alone. It's the one place that I can still really feel close to her, and that's why I've been spending time up here this week. I wanted to let her know that I might be moving on, but I thought that she wouldn't accept that. Now, I know that it's me who didn't want to accept that because I was afraid to have feelings for someone else, but you were right. Costia would want me to be happy, and she would want us to be together, so will you be my girlfriend, Clarke?"
Clarke couldn't stop herself from smiling and answering right away. "Of course."
Lexa smiled that smile that Clarke adored so much and leaned over to reattach their lips. Clarke immediately deepened the kiss, lying back on the ground and pulling Lexa on top of her, desperate to feel the weight of the brunette against her. Lexa growled into Clarke's mouth at the feeling, and the blonde ran her hands under the other girl's shirt, clutching tightly to her back. When the brunette moaned into her mouth, Clarke rolled them over, knocking hard into a small end table. She pulled back in surprise as a book fell off of it, landing mere inches from Lexa's face and causing the brunette to flinch hard.
Clarke blushed, looking down at her girlfriend with a sheepish grin. "Sorry."
"You're fine," Lexa said, breathing heavily as she stared up at Clarke.
"Maybe we should go back to our room before one of us gets hurt," Clarke suggested. "There's way too much stuff up here."
Lexa nodded, and Clarke rolled off of her, allowing the brunette to get up and extend a hand down to her blond roommate, helping the other girl off of the floor as well. Neither one of them let go of the other's hand as they made their way down the stairs. However, the minute they pushed out into the hallway, Lexa let go. Clarke shot her a questioning look, but the brunette said nothing, walking brusquely to their room, and Clarke hurried after her. Once the door was shut, she turned to Lexa, wondering what on earth the other girl was up to now. "Why'd you let go?"
"I don't think I'm ready for people to know about us yet," Lexa admitted quietly.
Clarke's brows furrowed in confusion. Lexa was the one who had insisted that they become girlfriends, so the blonde was a little lost as to what this could be about. "Why not? What harm would it do? People already know that you're, you know."
Lexa couldn't stop a laugh from escaping though her lips. "It's not that I don't want people to know I'm gay, Clarke. The whole school probably knows that. It's just that I don't want people to know I'm moving on from Costia yet. I'm getting much better, that's for sure, but I'm not perfect yet, and I don't want people to start expecting me to be."
"I don't think that anyone would suddenly have new expectations of you just because you're going out with me now, LW, but it's fine. I don't mind keeping this between us for now," Clarke said sincerely.
"Thank you so much for this. You're the best." Lexa smiled widely and leaned over to place a kiss on Clarke's cheek.
The blonde just nodded in response, and Lexa shot her a teasing smirk. "You're not going to start avoiding me over that kiss now, are you?"
Clarke shook her head, a laugh bubbling up through her lips, and she was relieved that Lexa was joking around with her again. She almost couldn't believe that Lexa was her girlfriend, something she had thought impossible just earlier that day. She was so happy about this new development, even if the brunette wasn't ready to tell anyone about it yet. Clarke was perfectly fine with taking things in this brand new relationship at whatever pace Lexa wanted to, not wanting to do anything that might make her roommate uncomfortable. She was just glad that the drama between the two of them was finally behind them.