Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Some secrets are not meant to be kept, they demand audiences, and some secrets are too beautiful to hide.

Clarke Griffin walks into Gallery 2149, wavy blonde hair only half tamed in a messy bun, carrying the last of her paintings to be hung for her first big solo art show. Sunlight shines through the floor to ceiling windows along the front of the gallery that look out on the busy downtown mainstreet. Temporary three quarter walls divide the space, breaking up the expanse of concrete floor into a horseshoe shape around the gallery edge. Her friends are at the center of it, their laughter and conversation echoing off the high ceiling.

It’s been a long morning but the bulk of the work is done, the largest pieces are on the walls, and all that are left are these last three paintings in her arms. She stops short at the sight in front of her because despite the nerves eating at her insides; this is perfect. Right now she doesn’t have to worry about being anything but herself and her heart is full to bursting because today is more than she ever dreamed it could be. After years of organizing countless gallery openings and being the one who fills up the empty corners of the room she finally has her own solo show.

Tonight is all about her art, and everyone that matters is here. It’s as perfect as it can be. The excitement is intoxicating and heady, and none of it would be happening without everyone else in this room. Most importantly, it wouldn’t be happening without her three girlfriends; her secret, which isn’t as much of a secret anymore, thanks to an accidental outing at their holiday party last December. At least Octavia’s brother had only made a scene in front of their friends, Bellamy had at least kept the spectacle out of the public eye.

Clarke watches from the edge of the gallery floor. Her mother and Anya are cleaning up packing materials littering the center of the gallery space. It’s like trying to clean up on Christmas morning with a pack of children tearing into presents. Abby ties off another garbage bag and tosses it into the pile. Jasper and Lincoln are sipping on water, lounging on the benches that run down the center of the horseshoe as they wait for another wave of instructions, though their job for the day is mostly finished.

Raven is leaning back against Lexa as she explains what their plan looks like for the last wall of paintings. Lexa's hand rests on Raven’s hip as her eyes follow Raven’s gestures, tracing the shape and substance of the plan in the air, pointing to key spots and explaining the complexities. They’re relaxed into each other, and sometimes Lexa watches Raven more than the explanation, a soft smile on her lips.

Clarke’s fingers itch for a pencil and a sketchpad.

Octavia interrupts Raven with a light kiss on her cheek, “What’s next?”

Raven leans back against Lexa, dark brown ponytail spilling over Lexa’s shoulder, mixing with Lexa’s lighter curls. Raven turns to look at Octavia, taking in the sight of her, tiny denim shorts and an oversized black t-shirt that long ago lost its sleeves to a pair of scissors at two in the morning. Octavia pushes a thin line of sweat on her forehead. Even in the air conditioned gallery space they can’t escape the July heat because Kane refuses to turn the units up any higher until they get closer to the show tonight.

Raven fans herself with the paper she’s been sketching notes on all morning, “I need to see what Clarke has for the last wall, I can’t remember which series she decided to finish.”

“I think it’s the trio of dancers,” Lexa steals the water bottle from Octavia’s hands and drinks half it down.

“Is that the-”

“-the one she drug me out of bed at three in the morning to pose for?” Lexa laughs. “Yes.”

“Oh good, that’s easier to hang than the other series.” Raven takes the water bottle from Lexa and finishes it off, drawing an exaggerated eye roll from Octavia. “Would you see what’s taking Clarke so long to get back here with the paintings?”

Clarke shifts the trio of canvases in her arms and sighs. “I’m back,” She calls out as she crosses the last few steps into the center of the gallery.

The images on canvas are seared into her mind, so even though right now the paintings are wrapped in brown wrapping paper, she can still see them clearly: Lexa, the curve of her neck, her back, her leg, three separate paintings, but all together they are one. She doesn’t want to let these ones go, but she knows tonight will be worth it.

They just have to get there. It’s a tight turn around from set up to opening the doors and popping the champagne and it all has to be perfect.

Every detail has been planned out to the flowers on the catering tables, white orchids, and the double sided tape she’ll need to keep the suit Lexa’s sister had picked out for her in place after her first glass of champagne. She had joked about hiding a flask of whiskey in the pocket of her suit jacket until Anya had gone off about lines and threatened to sew the pockets shut. Lexa had gently reminded her that maybe being drunk at her first big solo show wouldn't garner the kind of press she wanted. Octavia had chimed in with how perhaps that was exactly how the night should end, and aren’t artists supposed to be eccentric? Raven had later shown her a garter belt she was going to wear that could carry a slim flask.

They all made incredibly compelling arguments.

Clarke wishes she could just keep all of them by her side all night, but they’re in the closet. It’s one thing to be openly queer, it’s another entirely to be openly polyamorous. Being public figures makes their lives complex in ways they hadn’t anticipated. At first emerging from the metaphorical closet might lose Clarke a few patrons, but long term being seen as eccentric would probably earn her more money. Art scenes are weird like that. The others don’t have that luxury, for everyone else it could burn their career down overnight.

Lexa oversees cases that make the news often enough on their own, without her own life getting thrown into the mix. Raven works at the university teaching aerospace engineering and has to face a wall of bigotry from the older white male staff on a daily basis as it is. Octavia has always been an easy target at work, being slight and female and openly bisexual. One wrong move in front of the wrong person could make an already tenuous situation worse for any one of them. Then again, maybe people are better than that.

They don’t risk it though, as far as the rest of the world knows no one outside their ever growing inner circle knows. If they aren’t careful, soon there won’t be an inner circle. The more public their jobs make them the harder it gets to keep their relationship private and it’s only a matter of time before the secret spills out. It's easier to masquerade as roommates and close friends that act as dates on important nights, that meet for drinks after work, that sometimes rent out private back rooms at restaurants, and evade questions about their personal lives.

It’s messy and complicated and some nights it hurts, but it’s safer this way.

And they have their moments like this one when they can just be, when they’re surrounded by the people they trust. There’s no sidestepping around answers or evading topics. There’s no having to remember how they’re allowed to touch. Or questioning their own actions and impulses.

Second guessing her own actions has become second nature.

Octavia moves from Lexa and Raven to Clarke. She can see the line of worry splitting Clarke’s brow and she wraps her arms around Clarke’s waist, her head resting in the hollow between Clarke’s neck and shoulder, arms wrapped around Clarke’s waist, palms splayed flat against her back. Clarke relaxes into her arms, their frames shifting and folding together with an intimate familiarity. Octavia nuzzles against Clarke’s neck and breathes in her lavender perfume– the same one she’s been wearing since she turned sixteen.

“You have that face.”

“Clearly, Octavia, this is my face.”

Octavia rolls her eyes as she pulls back, poking Clarke in the side and causing her to squirm away in laughter. “You know what I mean.”

Clarke presses a quick kiss to Octavia’s lips, “I’m fine, O. Really. You’re all here and we’re almost done so we can go home and get ready.”

“And eat. I’m starving.”

“Yes, that too.”

“Speaking of getting ready, what’s the plan tonight?” Abby looks up from where she’s meticulously folding the crumpled pile of brown wrapping paper.

Octavia tosses a ball of wrapping paper and tape to Abby, “Clarke is taking Lexa. I’m taking Raven.”

“Lexa’s a more impressive date than either of us.” Octavia adds by way of explanation. “And tonight is important.” She smiles up at Clarke, but there’s a hint of sadness in her eyes.

Clarke nudges Octavia with her foot, “I’d be proud to have any of you on my arm.”

Anya chokes back a gag and Lexa elbows her in the side even though she can see the laughter in her foster sister’s eyes. Anya’s known about them the longest, present for the entire saga that led to the four of them together.

There’s a thud and the front door swings open as the gallery owner, Marcus Kane, backs into the shop hands full of boxes obscuring his vision. Lexa takes a step back from Raven, nudging Anya to help her with a painting. Raven gestures for Jasper to grab a hammer and starts talking to him about where she needs nails and how deep. Clarke kneels on the ground to start unwrapping the paintings she just brought in, and Octavia rushes over to Kane to help him with the boxes he’s carrying. The separation is like an explosion, a rift between them. The space, once safe, is no longer, and they have to take precautions.

It’s too much of a risk.

They’ve gotten good at this, going through their public lives like none of them are dating. No holding hands, no kisses on cheeks. Instead always measuring their reactions wondering if what they do can be read as more than friendship, especially Octavia, her impulse control is the worst, but then again, without her they wouldn’t be together.

It’s a balancing act.

“It’s almost looking like a real art gallery in here,” Kane jokes, breaking the moment of silence as he sets the boxes down on the buffet tables along the front windows. A chorus of hellos sound.

“It’s almost like you invited a real artist,” Octavia jokes, turning around to stick her tongue out at Clarke who returns the gesture.

“Help me with this?” Kane asks with a roll of his eyes.

Octavia takes one of the boxes and starts unpacking. It’s the last of the decorations for the night, vases and shiny rocks and little sprigs and things to be arranged by the catering staff. Her stomach rumbles. Hopefully they have time for dinner and she won’t just be trying to survive on hors d’œuvres all night.

She’s done that before; it isn’t fun, not when you’re trying to keep straight who you’re allowed to touch and who you’re allowed to kiss and the alcohol is more plentiful than the food. The alcohol is always in abundance when money and art are being consumed.

“Want to go get that girl of yours for me?” Kane asks as he passes by Octavia, empty boxes in hand.

Octavia’s head snaps up and she can almost feel the color drain from her face. It’s not like she and Clarke hadn’t been together when Clarke started working for Kane, and they’d never officially, publicly broken up, but there’s something in his voice that makes her think he almost said more. She glances back at everyone, knowing he means Clarke, but Clarke isn’t the only one that’s hers.

“Sure thing.”

_______________________________________

Clarke closes the door to Kane’s office behind her as she enters. There had been a look in Octavia’s eyes as she had relayed his message that brought up the worrying feeling from earlier. Their secret is getting too big to keep.

His office is simple, bare of decoration, a desk, a computer, piles of paper, three chairs including his own and the couch they moved in here one time because they needed the floor space and refused to ever try to fit through the door again. Kane doesn’t use the room for anything but essential paperwork, preferring the lounge in the back corner of the gallery for meetings, anything to keep him out of this little closet. Their work is about people and space and art, and all of that happens in the open area they transform for each new show.

“So tonight, which one of…” Kane’s voice trails off and he waves his hand at the gallery, still rifling through papers. “Them are you bringing.”

Clarke’s heart drops into her stomach and she fights down the rising panic. She smiles, trying to channel Lexa’s cool calm exterior that doesn’t betray her, and leans back in the chair, one arm across the back of it so she can lean her head against her hand. Clarke crosses her legs before letting out a small laugh, because at the very least she can play this off as nothing. She’s brought each of them in the past, tonight would be no different.

“Lexa agreed to be on my arm tonight, as a friend, as always. She said it might help me sell a few pieces as several of the clients at the firm have mentioned they were attending tonight.”

“You know you don’t have to bring them as your friends.”

Clarke tenses and her gaze darts to the floor before her eyes can betray the tight panic gripping her. They’ve been careful. So careful. She hates outright denying their relationship, even though in some situations it’s for the best.

She hears Kane shift in his seat waiting for her answer. His voice is low and even like he’s trying his best not to startle her, “I hope you know you can trust me after the two years you’ve worked here. This gallery is a safe space.”

“Of course!” Clarke tears her eyes from the floor and looks back to Kane, “What makes you think I have anyone to bring as more than a friend.”

What she doesn’t expect is a slight reddening of her boss’ cheeks, or the way he averts his gaze. “Abby let something slip over drinks the other night.”

“Oh- oh. ” Clarke looks away because all she can think about is why Kane and her mother were getting drinks together, and she really doesn’t want that image in her head.

Awkward silence stretches between them because they both know more than they should know about each other’s personal lives. Clarke’s head spins. Kane took her mother on a date, and her mother hadn’t said anything about it yet. Or that she accidently spilled the only secret Clarke has asked her to keep. The only one that really mattered. That would have to be dealt with later.

“Well, whatever my mother may or may not have said, if you could not repeat it to anyone we would appreciate that.” Clarke stands up and turns to leave, she needs to get out of this office before he says it outright, before she’s knows without a doubt that he knows she’s in a polyamorous relationship she’s been working hard to keep a secret. She needs air. She needs to breathe. “Unless there is anything else?’

Kane shakes his head, but he’s smiling, “No, Clarke. Just, they’re lovely, and I meant what I said. It’s safe here. You’re safe here. I understand tonight is stressful, and this is your biggest show yet, but I wouldn’t have given you the show unless I thought you could sell it. The number of RSVPs we have is impressive.”

Clarke nods, not sure if that makes her feel better or not about Kane knowing about the nature of her relationship. “I’m sure then, you understand our need for discretion?”

“I can see why you want it, if not for yourself, then, for them. Whenever the public becomes involved things can sway in unanticipated directions.”

“Even when the public isn’t involved,” Clarke mutters half to herself.

Kane chuckles. “Don’t be too hard on Abby. I plied her with wine and leading questions.”

“Right,” Clarke stands suddenly not wanting to hear anymore and not certain of where this conversation will end up. “If that’s all,” Clarke nearly trips over the chair she was just sitting in as she bolts out of Kane’s office. Their carefully constructed charade is starting to unravel.

_______________________________________

“You know, I never heard how the four of you ended up together,” Jasper glances down at Raven who is handing him nails while he hammers them into the lines she had him draw earlier.

“Are you certain those lines are straight, Jasper?” Raven cocks her head to the side.

“Straighter than half the people in this room,” Jasper mumbles.

“Excuse you?”

Jasper grabs the next nail from Raven and turns back to the wall, “Nothing, prof.”

Raven smacks Jasper’s leg, “Check them again before you start hanging the paintings.”

“What is this, class?”

Lincoln picks up the laser level with a silent laugh and hands it to Jasper. “It’s more important than that. This is your first art show, you’ll learn.”

“Don’t scare Raven’s minion. He doesn’t have his other half with him,” Octavia teases. “Where is Monty anyway?”

“He’s got to keep an eye on the lab today, make sure the undergrads don’t blow anything up.”

“That’s actually a risk,” Raven deadpans and glances up at Jasper.

She watches him stammer for a moment, fear flashing across his face, as his attention turns to her prosthetic. Raven lost half her leg in a lab explosion in her third year of grad school, some idiot undergrad punctured an oxygen tank sending it rocketing across the lab and shattering her knee. She’s wearing shorts today and the resulting reality is hard to miss. Raven laughs, “I’m joking, Jasper. Mostly anyway… but calm down, dude.”

Jasper nods rapidly and turns back to checking to make sure his lines are level. There’s a shift around the room as Abby and Anya return from their trip to take out the trash and recycling. The gallery is almost clean and they’re that much closer to being done with the set up. Octavia helps Lincoln hand the first painting to Jasper. He takes it carefully, clearly nervous and not wanting to let it drop as he hangs the wire carefully across the nails.

“If I'm giving up my Saturday to hang paintings for my boss’ girlfriend’s art show, I at least want to hear the story behind how the four of you got together. Because if that hadn’t happened I wouldn’t be fearing for my life while I try to help hang a painting worth more than my tuition.”

A mixture of groans and laughter echo throughout the room because many of them were privy to the dramatics of the courtship. It was a long two years before Clarke, Octavia, Lexa, and Raven settled in to each other and their relationship, and it wasn’t without tribulation.

Anya sets down the piece she and Lexa are working on hanging and drapes herself over one of the couches with an exasperated sigh, “Sit down, kid. You're in for a long story.”

“How did it start?” Jasper asks, finally letting go of the painting with what is a clear prayer that it not fall.

Clarke walks back into the center of the gallery, heart still pounding from Kane’s admission. She slides back into the group silently, trying to not look panicked, and trying not to drag her mother off to discuss what are and aren’t appropriate topics of conversation. She lets out a breath and tries to shake some of the tension from her limbs. Raven tries to catch her eye but Clarke isn’t ready for the wordless conversation that follows Raven’s raised eyebrow. Before she can decide what she wants Raven is by her side, wrapping arms around her waist.

She whispers in Clarke’s ear, “Everything okay?”

Clarke nods and smiles, pressing a small kiss to Raven’s cheek. Raven tilts her head to the side, questioning, but not arguing, knowing that normally Clarke would have already found a way to slip out of her arms by now with Kane nearby.

“It starts with Octavia and me nearly breaking up because of Lexa,” Clarke rasps, leaning against Raven.

Lexa rolls her eyes, “Through no fault of my own.”

“You’ve never met you,” Octavia adds defensively.

Jasper climbs down from the ladder and plops into a chair next to Anya, reaching for a bottle of water. “Wait, so you nearly broke them up because you existed?”

“This pretty face cannot be tamed.” Lexa gestures to herself with a laugh, “It’s not my fault O fell head over heels in love with me the first time she saw me.”

“You were an incessant flirt.”

Raven snorts, “Were?” and Lexa smacks her ass with a length of cardboard.

“Me?” Lexa straightens up with mock indignation as she glances over at Octavia, “Do you even remember who seduced whom? And terribly I might add.”

“It worked, didn’t it?” Clarke says with a wry smile.

Chapter Text

Octavia leans heavily against the counter, her hands curled around a styrofoam cup filled with bitter coffee that’s too hot to actually drink, hoping that inhaling caffeine will be enough to wake her up. Fixing her gaze on the off-tan colored linoleum she tries to think about work and not how her relationship is slowly coming undone. She has a debriefing in fifteen minutes and her brain still hasn’t wrapped around the idea of being awake.

Neither she nor Clarke had slept much last night, too busy arguing to go to bed until an obscene hour in the morning. Lately that had become the norm, which wasn’t all that abnormal. This was her yearly exercise in patience, Clarke was rarely herself around the anniversary of her father’s death, and this one was no exception. They just had to make it through the storm.

So far they’d always found a way, but this year it was worse, different. Everything Octavia did set Clarke off.

“Good morning, Officer Blake,” the words are a soft purr and Octavia doesn’t have to look up to know the newest district attorney, Lexa Woods, is walking towards her. Or that there’s a hint of a smile on Lexa’s lips, because she only uses that voice with people she actually likes, and so far Octavia is fairly certain she’s the only one on the list.

Octavia can’t stop the smile that plays on her lips. Her heart speeds up and she sinks her teeth into the inside of her cheek. She can count on one hand the people that have caused this kind of reaction in her. The list should have ended with Clarke, but it doesn’t anymore. She shouldn’t want to see if Lexa is smiling at her. Octavia looks up anyway because there’s a quiet beauty in the way Lexa smiles and even half asleep she wants to see it.

Her stomach twists as she realizes she’s only ever felt this way about two other people in her entire life: Lincoln and Clarke.

“District Attorney Woods,” Octavia fights a grin and hides behind her cup, composing herself as Lexa pours her own cup of over brewed coffee before settling in next to her against the counter. The room is empty except them and she’s glad for it. On some level they just get each other. They don’t need to fill the silence with small talk, and Octavia is very glad they share that trait.

Because it’s still too early for conversation, and she can’t help but notice how attractive Lexa is, or how her heart seems to stop when Lexa smiles at her. And how Lexa seems to keep stealing glances and looking away again just as Octavia’s gaze shifts to her. Lexa twists and reaches behind Octavia for a packet of sugar, her arm brushes against Octavia’s and they both freeze, closer to each other than they should be.

Octavia licks her lips and bites down on her bottom one to stop the involuntary reaction. Lexa’s eyes are a shade of green she could lose herself in and Octavia doesn’t miss how they flick to her lips.

Octavia turns back to her coffee and sips at it even though it’s still too hot. She reminds herself her girlfriend is at home, hiding underneath their duvet, because they were up until stupid o’clock fighting. Her girlfriend that she loves more than anything.

As Lexa settles back in next to her against the counter Octavia finds herself incredibly glad Lexa doesn’t mind drinking terrible coffee in silence.

The silence doesn’t last long.

“Well, what do we have here?” Officer Atom saunters into the break room, and Octavia is certain it’s too early for both Atom and sauntering. “The tiny little detective and her protective robot, I mean, lawyer,” he sneers.

Octavia takes half a step forward, but Lexa stops her with a hand on her arm.

“You probably spent all night coming up with that, you should be proud,” Lexa smiles, but her eyes are cold. There’s something incredibly unnerving about it.

Octavia nearly snorts hot coffee out of her nose trying to hold back a laugh.

_______________________________________

Lexa glances back into the dimly lit supply closet at the brunette woman pulling up her pantyhose and zipping up her skirt and sighs. She’s already forgotten the woman’s name - all she can think is that thigh highs are infinitely more practical, and however pretty, the mail clerk isn’t who she wanted. It’s better this way. It doesn’t hurt when they don’t call her back because she never gives them her number. They can’t break her heart if she never lets them in.

She can’t be left if she’s the one that leaves first.

Lexa smooths down her shirt again, ruby colored silk, and steps out of the supply closet, shutting the door behind her without a word. Someone clears their throat and Lexa tightens every muscle in her body as she stays rooted to the floor, refusing to show whoever is behind her that they startled her. She squares her shoulders, pressing her lips into a thin line, and narrowing her eyes as she slowly turns. Anya, her foster sister, best friend, and endless pain in her ass.

Lexa rolls her eyes.

“Really, fucking in a closet? Isn’t that a bit... cliché ?”

“Keep your voice down.” Lexa glances behind them but the hallway is empty.

Anya snorts, “Why? She didn’t.”

Lexa sighs dramatically and falls into step next to Anya. “Her loss, it won’t be happening again. What are you doing here?”

“We had a lunch date, remember?”

“Fuck. I’ve got a new case and I’ve got to go debrief the detective in charge of the case.”

“Which one?”

Lexa doesn’t answer because she doesn’t want to have the ensuing conversation with Anya that she knows will follow when she mentions Octavia.

Anya stops, her arms folded carefully across the front of her cream silk blouse. Lexa keeps walking but pauses and turns when she realizes Anya isn’t beside her. She nods her head towards the elevator and keeps on down the hall. After a moment she hears the click on Anya’s stilettos on the tile floor as she catches up just before the elevator doors close.

She’d rather not have this conversation.

“Just so I’m clear. You decided to fuck the random mail clerk in the closet before the meeting with the hot detective you have a thing for because that way you wouldn’t be tempted to bend her over the interrogation room table?” There’s an edge of a laugh in Anya’s voice, and Lexa hates that she’s right, because she’s always right.

“It isn’t like that with Octavia.”

“You’re on a first name basis now.”

“I think she has a girlfriend.”

“With the way she flirts with you? Poor girl.” Anya nudges Lexa’s shoulder with her own.

Lexa frowns. She doesn’t really want to think about this because she likes working with Octavia and there’s no point in ruining it with a tumble in a closet that won’t even turn into drinks after work. It’s not that she couldn’t take someone, or even Octavia, out for drinks and bring them home, she just doesn’t see the point when all they bring is pain when they stick around longer than it takes to get off - and there’s really no point in paying for drinks when she can convince someone to get her off with a couple of well placed smiles and the light touch of a hand.

“Don’t make her one of your girls of the week. Screwing the secretary pool doesn’t make you feel better about what happened with Costia, it never does, besides, the way you talk about Octavia, she sounds like she has potential.”

Before Lexa can respond Anya is already through the open elevator door and halfway down the hall. She checks her watch: fifteen minutes to clean up before her meeting, and there’s no time to take care of what the mail clerk didn’t.

_______________________________________

Octavia opens up three beers against the counter, two for her and one for her brother, Bellamy, though he isn’t home yet. She tips one of the beers back, finishing it in one go. It’s been a hell of a day: she nearly died.

Reaching into the back of the cabinet above the fridge she grabs the bottle of whiskey and pours herself two consecutive shots. Her hands are shaking still from her almost crash at work this afternoon.

Nearly dying might be an exaggeration, but it doesn’t feel like it.

She falls onto the couch, hooking her feet up over the armrest. This week has been too much already, she and Clarke have been fighting and not talking and not touching and not sleeping, and work has been hell. She can still feel the whiskey burn in her throat and she almost gets up to pour herself another shot just to revel in the warmth blossoming through her.

The ceiling in Bellamy’s apartment is old and gross, popcorn textured like in the seventies. Even though he claims to clean, it’s riddled with spiderwebs and dangling bits of spackle.

Clarke is going to kill her once she finds out about the high speed chase. If she finds out. Maybe it’s for the best that they’re in the middle of a fight, she can gloss over the fact that she nearly wrecked her motorcycle doing more than one hundred on the highway. Clarke tends to panic when Octavia goes off adrenaline seeking and she understands why, it’s just that sometimes she can’t help it, and it isn’t always a guarantee that her little adventures will set Clarke off on a downward spiral. It’s a calculated risk she takes.

It’ll probably never come up; there are bigger problems than Octavia not crashing her motorcycle that they have to get through first.

She just feels like she came a hair’s breadth away from it all going terribly wrong. She’s wrecked before, but never going so fast. The scrape of the concrete and the blinding clarity of pain. Her world flashed by when that wobble of her front tire nearly sent her horizontal against the pavement. She didn’t wreck though, and the adrenaline coursing through her veins makes her feel more alive than she has in weeks.

Octavia Blake is fucking up her personal life spectacularly.

She’s restless. The more restless she feels the more she needs to feel adrenaline pumping through her to feel even remotely alive, but every time she does something too risky Clarke panics. That’s not entirely fair. Clarke doesn’t panic, but the worry adds up and Clarke starts acting not like Clarke. Except it’s exactly like her because this is what happens when she starts spiraling out of control.

And Octavia doesn’t know what to do to stop it.

And when Octavia can’t fix her problems she seeks out adrenaline. It’s vicious cycle. This one is compounded though by the fact that the whole cycle started when a certain District Attorney started picking up all of Octavia’s cases at work.

Lexa Woods, District Attorney, is going to be the final reason Octavia screws things up with Clarke and she has a feeling there is nothing she can do about it because the flirting has already happened. She isn’t sure if it even matters that it’s been nothing more than that. It doesn’t. All she can do is try to make things right and hope that Clarke forgives her. There’s no reason Clarke should forgive her.

She had been sent out on patrols after a lunch meeting with Lexa who was looking mildly dishevelled with her hair wild like someone had been burying their hands in it, when the near wreck happened. She had been distracted, her thoughts flitting between Clarke and Lexa. Octavia breathes out and takes a sip of her beer. It doesn’t matter who Lexa is or isn’t screwing because it can’t, it won’t, be her. Closing her eyes her hands fall to her stomach resting on the small patch of skin where her shirt has pulled up.

Patrols had started out calmly enough, but she’d been called in to pursue a subject fleeing a hit and run. Her motorcycle rumbling between her legs as she pushed it faster on the highway trying to catch up, eighty, ninety, one hundred. Any moment, one wrong move and everything could be over. The adrenaline pushed into her system and the potential for death excited her. She was alive and nothing else mattered. It was a sort of aphrodisiac feeling that close to death, being that alive.

Her fingertips slide against the soft skin just behind the button of her jeans and she knows she shouldn’t take care of the ache between her legs because this is Bellamy’s apartment and he’ll be home from work at any minute, but the idea of being caught excites her and the beer and whiskey she’s already finished buzzing around her head nudges out any reservations she has.

Deftly she flicks open the button of her jeans and slides her hand into her underwear, finding herself already slick with arousal. She isn’t surprised; the fear and panic of the unknown turns her on and it’s not like she and Clarke have had sex recently. Or done anything intimate. She slips a finger in tighter circles around her clit then adds a second, biting her lip.

Octavia isn’t certain how any of this happened. She isn’t one to get crushes on people, and if she does they’re accompanied by very real feelings, which is why Lexa has her so confused. For years Clarke has been the only person Octavia wanted. The only person she needed. And now she’s aching for two people and she doesn’t know what to do.

That’s probably why she took the chance and almost wrecked her motorcycle taking that turn today.

That’s why her fingers are slipping furiously around her clit as she feels that tendril deep inside wind tighter and tighter drawing her closer to climax even as she knows Bellamy could come home at any minute.

It’s why she plays with fire, because it makes her feel in control.

The sound of a key in the lock and the door creaking open registers too late for her to stop. It’s like she’s sixteen again, trying to find a moment alone in their one bedroom apartment, because the ache between her thighs is too much. She can’t stop her orgasm already tipping over the edge as the door opens. Octavia throws her arm across her mouth and bites down to keep from crying out as her body convulses. At least she’s hidden from view and Bellamy can’t see that she has her hand down her pants.

“Hey, Bell,” Octavia breathes out, forcing herself to sound calm while she slips her hand out of her underwear and licks her fingers clean, because it’s not like she can wipe them on the dark brown couch. With her other hand she zips up her jeans.

“O, what are you-” Bellamy stops as he comes around to the front of the couch and looks down at his sister. “Seriously? Don’t you have your own apartment to do that in?”

He’s walked in on her enough times to know what she looks like when she’s trying to hide the fact that she’s been masturbating. Truth of it was, he probably knows more about her sex life than any brother ever wants to. She’s always had a thing for risking being caught. It’s led to a lot of interruptions over the years.

Octavia shrugs and sits up handing the last beer to Bellamy as she does, he takes it and folds into the recliner.

“Clarke and I are fighting.”

“That’s not exactly news.”

“I nearly wrecked my motorcycle and I wanted to calm down before I went home.”

“What the fuck were you doing?” Bellamy sits forward, leaning his forearms on his knees. Octavia tries to ignore the evident anger underneath the surprise.

“There was a high speed chase.” Octavia curls into the corner of the couch, the euphoria and high from the orgasm receding quickly like a the tail end of a wave being pulled back into the ocean.

“Do you ever stop to think that maybe it doesn’t have to be you that saves the day?” Bellamy stands up in an explosion of movement, pointing at her as his voice gets louder and louder, and pacing around the coffee table. Octavia sips on her beer and stares at the floor to avoid eye contact.

“You’re always running after the things that could get you hurt or killed. Bungee jumping, parachuting, base diving, parkour. Do you even think about what your little stunts do to Clarke? To the rest of us? And then at work, all I hear is how you caught the criminal that was twice your size, you were the one with a gun at your head, you were the one that nearly got in a wreck taking down a man in a high speed chase.”

“You realize it’s my job to do that?” Octavia’s voice is quiet but cutting.

“When things get hard at home you take risks you shouldn’t!” Then quieter, “And when you get scared you start drinking just like-”

“-I’m paid to take risks no one should have to take!” Octavia yells. She doesn’t want to hear what Bellamy has to say. She doesn’t want to think about the possibility that maybe she’s turning into their mother.

Octavia finishes off the beer in her hand and pushes to her feet. She’s unsteady and can feel the alcohol starting to swim in her head. This isn’t the first time they’ve argued about her job, or her need for adrenaline, or her drinking habit. Right now she doesn’t need this.

“Where are you going?”

“Home, at least Clarke will just ignore me.” Octavia blinks back tears as she puts on her jacket and clenches her teeth, her jaw tight as if she can hold herself together by clamping her mouth shut.

“I’ll take you.”

“I’m fine, Bellamy.”

“I said I’m taking you. I’m not letting you drive like this.”

Octavia doesn’t bother to tell him she’d gotten a lift from Lincoln after work, too shaken to get on her on motorcycle and ride home.

_______________________________________

Clarke rolls over, turning to look at the back of Octavia’s head instead of the wall. In the tiny double bed they are barely six inches apart but it feels like a canyon between them. Clarke doesn't know how to cross it. Something drove a wedge between them and no matter how hard she scrambles they keep sliding further and further apart.

She was asleep when Octavia came home, Bellamy’s voice at the door and the smell of cheap beer told her exactly where her girlfriend has been all night. At least Octavia was safe. Clarke presses herself up tighter against the wall and it’s cold against her bare back where the duvet pulls up, she shivers and curls her knees up to her chest, one hand outstretched, a finger hooked around a strand of dark brown hair that’s fallen loose from the bun on top of her girlfriend’s head. It’s nearly four in the morning and Clarke should be asleep, but she can’t sleep, not with this heaviness in her heart, not when they’re fighting.

She’s envious of Octavia; she could sleep through the nuclear apocalypse and not notice.

Rain pounds against the window above her head, a storm raging outside, but that isn’t what woke her up. Her stomach tightens and constricts the pang of hunger fading into pain and then discomfort. She squeezes her eyes shut and pulls her hand back into her little ball of safety, her teeth working on the dry skin around her nails rough from paint and cleaner. Octavia has been keeping something from her, lying, distancing herself and the worry that their relationship is over creeps up on her, that after all these years of friendship and being together, giggling at two a.m. and taking naps at one p.m., burnt dinners and takeout in front of the TV, getting lost in forests and art galleries, but never having to be alone, this is the end.

She’s tried to talk to her but Octavia brushes it off, says it’s nothing, but Clarke hasn’t slept in three days because this isn’t nothing.

She’s almost certain Octavia is falling for the district attorney she never stopped talking about until two weeks ago the first night Clarke felt this clawing in the pit of her stomach. Lexa or something like that, apparently ninety percent legs and one hundred percent deadly sass. Octavia has never been good with math.

Clarke slips out from underneath the duvet. If she isn’t going to fall asleep again she’ll paint. Maybe she can finish the piece she wants to take to her meeting with the owner of Gallery 2149, he asked to see three pieces and right now she only has two. If she doesn’t have a third by next Friday she might as well not even go, but she needs this chance because Gallery 2149 is the biggest gallery downtown and a show there could make or break her career, even if right now, she’ll just be set up in a corner of the gallery, her name in small print.

This is the last week she needs her relationship to be falling apart, or maybe it’s the perfect week for it, there’s no reason to spend any extra time in bed.

_______________________________________

Two and a half hours later there’s a knock on her studio door, Clarke glances at it only long enough to see Octavia slide into the small room before turning back to her painting. She hasn’t moved since she sat down and she’s wearing as much paint as the canvas is. Her arms and shoulders ache and there’s a crick in her neck. Outside the sun is coloring the sky in cotton candy streaks of pink and orange and there’s frost on the thin single pane glass of the window. A car horn blares down on the street below and Clarke closes her eyes, it’s decidedly too early for the city to be awake, but maybe that’s because she never really went to sleep.

Octavia’s hand wraps around hers and she gently takes the paint brush away, cleaning it before setting it to dry, in its place she places a mug of hot coffee. Her fingertips skitter over Clarke’s bare arms and she purses her lips because Clarke is cold to the touch and the dead look in her eyes and the empty bed this morning are more than enough to tell Octavia that Clarke didn’t sleep again. She knows it’s her fault, and she can’t change the way she feels but she’s trying so hard to just get over the treacherous fluttering between her ribs because Clarke has been all she’s needed for so long now since even before they got together.

There’s been something missing for a while, but somehow they’ve always made it work.

They’re falling apart.

There are a hundred things she wants to say but she doesn’t even know where to start, and deep inside her silence feels like a betrayal. The look on Clarke’s face tells her it is.

“Can I kiss you?” Octavia takes a small step closer and runs her hand up Clarke’s arm.

Clarke nods and tilts her head up as Octavia closes the distance between them. As much as she wants to be angry she isn’t, she just hurts and ever since she can remember Octavia has been the one who can make the pain stop. Octavia tastes like coffee and there’s a sad apology in her kiss. She doesn’t pull away, instead wrapping her arms around Clarke’s shoulders and leaning her forehead against her girlfriend’s. This is the first time they’ve touched in days. Clarke closes her eyes and sighs. She wants to ask what happened, what she did, or maybe what she needs to do but she doesn’t want to fight. She just wants them to be okay again.

Octavia is trembling even as she holds Clarke. She shouldn’t have come in here, she’s going to be late for work for the third time this week, and if she is she’ll have to meet with her boss, which means she’ll be late for the meeting with the D.A.’s office… which means by lunch time this entire situation will be even worse because Lexa Woods, District Attorney, will most definitely not let her tardiness go unnoticed. And Lexa paying attention to her is precisely why everything is falling apart right now. Octavia takes a step back from Clarke, even as her body protests, missing the familiar warmth the second she does.

“Can we talk when I get home?”

Clarke looks down at her coffee and shakes her head. She’s been begging Octavia to talk to her about whatever is happening for weeks now. “We’re talking now.”

“I don’t want to leave after I tell you this.” Octavia reaches out to lift Clarke’s chin so she can see the look on her face but her hand falls short, for the first time in years she’s started feeling unsure about if she can touch Clarke because she doesn’t know if the touch is wanted. It breaks a little part of her and she turns to walk out the door. It takes all her strength because she wants to fall into Clarke and make them forget that their fighting. As long as they're crashing against each other and not sliding apart maybe they still have a chance.

The fight will still be there when they pull apart.

“Then don’t leave.” Clarke’s voice is quiet, the harsh edge that was in it a minute ago gone.

“I can’t call in sick.” Even to her own ears it feels like a thin excuse and she’s fucking this up so spectacularly. She can only imagine what Clarke thinks she’s going to say, and honestly she’s probably mostly right, which only makes it worse. “Please, Clarke, babe, I feel like I’ve fucked up. I know I have.”

Every word that falls out of Octavia’s mouth is wrong.

“You can’t just tell me you fucked up and then leave and ask me to be waiting when you get home.” The anger and hurt in her voice is back and Octavia can’t blame her. Clarke’s eyes are cold, the same blue of a deep lake frozen in the depths of winter when the sun comes out, beautiful and deadly.

“This is why I didn’t want to talk about it until I got home.” Octavia crosses her arms. She didn’t want to have this fight until later, until they had the weekend to recover. It didn’t have to be a fight. She wanted to be the adult her brother is always yelling at her to be, telling her to grow up, take responsibility. Trying to have a respectful adult conversation about her relationship is about the most responsible thing she can think to do. So of course she’s messing it up. There really is no right way to go about this.

“You brought it up!” Clarke slips off her stool, her arms crossed over her chest. All she can feel is the anger rolling through her like a train without breaks. She’s going to crash and she’s going to take everything around her down in a fiery blaze. Octavia is curled in on herself where she’s leaned against the door as if she’s waiting for Clarke to lash out, and maybe she is. Their foundation is slowly crumbling as they refuse to talk about anything but talking. Clarke turns back to her painting picking up a dry brush and half-dried palette.

“Clarke, I’m worried,” Octavia is halfway across the room before she stops herself, her jaw trembling. She’s watching Clarke spiral out of control, not sleeping, not eating, not talking, not that she’s helped at all on that last point, and the last thing she should do is leave her alone but she has to go to work. If she wants a chance at a promotion she has to be better than everyone else in her department, which means showing up every day and giving more than she has even on the days when she has the least. She’s just afraid of what she might come home to.

“I’m fine, Octavia,” Clarke snaps. If Octavia won’t talk neither will she.

“Please eat something today.”

Octavia clenches her jaw and swallows down her tears. Nine hours and then she can make all of this right.

_______________________________________

The last thing Octavia needs is a lecture on tardiness from the chief, so she slips in the back door and heads straight for the meeting room where she knows Lexa is already waiting for their eight a.m. meeting. She’s had two texts, one asking about picking up coffee and another asking where she was with said coffee. Octavia takes a deep breath and presses the door open with her shoulder, her hands full with hot coffee from the little beanery down the street that she likes to meet Clarke at for lunch. She swallows and tries to push everything out of her head because she can’t let her guard down.

Not when Lexa looks like she just stepped off the runway. Her long chestnut hair is mostly straightened, hanging down over her shoulders, framing her face that looks like it’s been chiseled from marble. She’s wearing a deep green form fitting button up tucked into high-waisted white slacks and all Octavia can think is that her eyes look like polished jade. Lexa Woods is the eye of the storm, in her wake she leaves destruction, taking down her enemies but no one can ever touch her.

Then she sees Octavia and a small smile pulls at the corner of that perfect mouth, and whether it’s because Octavia is there or because Octavia has coffee is unclear but none of that matters. In another world Octavia would kill to know what those lips tasted like, how that smile feels pressed against her own. But in this world she is deeply in love with Clarke Griffin and she doesn’t know how to reconcile the duality of the feelings in her heart, she just knows that she has to before everything breaks. The world insists that you can only be in love with one person at a time, but the older she gets she wonders if that’s really true. Love only lasts when you make the choice to nurture it, why couldn’t she make that choice twice.

Lexa steps away from the papers she’s been laying out on the desk, trying to prepare herself for the morning meeting with Octavia, knowing she’ll never be able to make it through without extra caffeine. Octavia has an energy about her most days that from anyone else she would find insufferable, but Octavia is intelligent and driven in a way most of the police she has to work with aren’t and she feels driven to keep herself a step ahead so she can steer Octavia towards a better path than the rest of her coworkers. She can see the potential in the woman and sometimes she regrets that she doesn’t allow herself the time to make friends. She has Anya, and that is enough. Most days anyway. There’s the slightest brush of fingertips when Lexa takes the coffee from Octavia and they both step back as if shocked, allowing there to be a proper, respectable, distance between them. Lexa reminds herself she’s almost certain Octavia is in a relationship with the gorgeous blonde in the photo on her desk, even if Octavia never talks about her.

“Thanks, Blake.” Lexa’s voice is clear but quiet. As she sits down at the table, sipping at the coffee while she waits for her brain to engage. She can’t help but notice the dark circles under Octavia’s eyes and the way she presses her lips together in a thin smile as if it’s a decision instead of a reaction. Or the way she nearly collapses into her chair before leaning forward to start going over the file with Lexa. Once again, all work, leaving her no chance to ask if she’s okay.

Not that she would have taken it.

_______________________________________

Clarke walks past the precinct doors four times before she walks in. She spent most of the morning feeling terrible about everything and angry with herself over having shut Octavia down when she finally said she was willing to talk. She still hasn’t slept, and she knows that maybe this is just one of her plans that’s going to backfire because it’s too impulsive or not thought out enough, but she needs Octavia to know she’ll still be at home when she gets off work. Somehow a text just didn’t feel like it was going to cut it.

So she walks past the doors one more time, hoping none of the cops that know her have seen her pass by carrying coffee and a sandwich from the little bakery on the corner while she gets up the courage to go in. She usually doesn’t meet Octavia at work, they try to keep their relationship out of the station because it makes things easier for Octavia. It isn’t that some of her coworkers don’t know, it’s just it’s easier sometimes if some of them don’t.

There’s only fifteen minutes left on Octavia’s lunch break when Clarke finally finds it in herself to walk inside, having convinced herself that she’s already showered, dressed, walked across downtown and interacted with other people, she can’t back down now. Besides the coffee in her hand is black with sugar like Octavia likes it, and she’d never be able to drink it.

Octavia isn’t at her desk, but a woman that looks more like a modern day greek statue is perched on the edge of it, hands clasped lightly in her lap as she looks around the office. The high waisted white slacks she’s wearing only accentuate how long her legs are and Clarke is nearly certain that this is the woman she’s probably going to lose Octavia to. Her heart jumps into her throat and she nearly runs over Lincoln, Octavia’s long ago ex, and one of Clarke’s only friends in the precinct.

“Clarke!” Lincoln wraps his arms around her in a bear hug before she can respond practically picking her up off the ground. She lets him without protest, and holds onto him tightly. Lincoln has been around so long he’s practically family. He’s the reason Octavia even realized she’d make a good cop. “Everything alright?”

“Of course,” Clarke flashes her brightest smile. It’s not that she doesn’t trust Lincoln with the truth, she would, but it’s not her place to start drama at work, and something tells her there might already be enough drama surrounding the leggy brunette sitting on her girlfriend’s desk. “Who’s the Aphrodite lookalike?” Clarke nods her head in the general direction of the woman.

Lincoln looks over his shoulder. “That would be District Attorney Lexa Woods. She’s been dealing with most of Octavia’s cases lately. She’s quiet, mildly terrifying, but mostly harmless unless you have to face off against her in court.”

“And hot, you forgot hot.”

“I thought you had that covered with Aphrodite lookalike.”

Clarke rolls her eyes and shoves Lincoln playfully. “So where’s O?”

He glances at the clock, “She probably stepped out for a walk to one of the food carts down the street, should be back soon.”

“Thanks,” Clarke sighs and walks towards Octavia’s desk, figuring that she should at least try to talk to her before running back home, even if her peace offering in the shape of lunch would be pointless by the time Octavia gets back. It wouldn't hurt to get a feel for this woman anyway. She can pretend to be civil for ten minutes.

The office is open and high ceilinged, the windows along the street side wall extending at least a story in height, leaving the room bright on even dark days. It’s busy and most of the other police officers barely spare her a glance as she weaves through the desks, they’ve seen her before and aside from a few people, like Lincoln, they don’t have much reason to say hello.

Clarke stops in front of Octavia’s desk. Usually she would just plop down in the chair and put her feet up on the desk but Lexa is perched on the edge of it, still looking the other direction, and Clarke isn’t about to give her any advantage by letting Lexa loom over her. Even if she does look like she might be a few inches taller. It really is all in the legs and with the way she’s sitting and the heels Clarke put on, she’s just the slightest bit taller at the moment.

She clears her throat slightly and Lexa’s head whips around to look at her. Clarke isn’t ready to meet the piercing green eyes staring into hers, or the way she can feel the exasperation and ennui rolling off of her. Lexa is above it all and Clarke is almost sure it has nothing to do with her and everything to do with the officers she can see blatantly staring at her even as they give her a wide berth. Power rolls off her.

Lexa doesn’t smile, and there’s a moment where they both wonder who will break the silence first. “You are?” Lexa’s raises an eyebrow.

Clarke’s eyes flit to the single framed photo on Octavia’s desk, the one of Clarke and Octavia on New Year’s Eve a few months after they had started dating. It is old, but one of Clarke’s favorite pictures of them. Octavia had jumped on Clarke’s back and was draped over her, a ridiculous New Years tiara on her head, neither of them were looking at the camera. They were happy.

“Clarke, the girlfriend of the person who owns this desk, and you are?”

Lexa purses her lips, and Clarke only sees the barest hint of surprise line her eyes, her face remains impassive, as if the news has no effect on her whatsoever. Inside though Lexa is cursing herself for even entertaining the idea that Octavia had been flirting with her. She’s noticed the photograph on the desk, but since Octavia had never mentioned a girlfriend - and the photo is quite a few years old if the silly tiara with the year emblazoned on it is any indication - she didn’t ever think much about the hot blonde in the photo. Except now the hot blonde in question is standing in front of Lexa looking vaguely haughty, a little exhausted, and she has a name to go with the face.

Lexa wonders how much she’s managed to ruin between them as she remembers the bags under Octavia’s eyes for the past few days. She stays silent for a moment too long, only speaking again when she sees the question still lingering in Clarke’s eyes.

“Lexa Woods,” she holds out her hand. “I’m the district attorney assigned to several of Officer Blake’s cases.”

Both of them go in for a firm handshake and there’s an immediate challenge to it. Lexa’s hand is cool and dry in Clarke’s but she likes the way her thin fingers feel wrapped around her palm and that Lexa doesn’t back down when she tightens her grip, doesn’t blink as she stares her down. The handshake lasts longer than it should and Lexa wonders if Clarke knows that she’s been flirting with Octavia for the past month. It’s not like she had known Octavia is taken. Lexa lets go, letting her hand fall back into her lap.

“I’m supposed to be meeting her to discuss a case, but she’s running late.” A hint of a smile flickers on her lips but it dies before she lets it manifest; Lexa wonders if she can make up for something she’s afraid to admit to in case she made it all up in her head.

Clarke feels the corner of her mouth tug towards a smile in response even as she doesn’t want to. “Yeah, O has never really been all that great at punctuality.”

Lexa holds back a laugh, but it spills into her eyes, and Clarke watches as she melts from a beautiful marble statue into someone warm and soft for just a split second before the mask goes back up, cold and immovable. “No, it definitely isn’t her strong suit in the morning.”

“So you’re the reason for all her early morning meetings she’s been whining about?”

Lexa lifts her shoulders in a slight gallic shrug. She’s heard the other end of the complaints, but they always come accompanied with a cup of coffee so she finds it endearing. And she knows Octavia probably hasn’t actually been complaining about her, but she does feel bad that Clarke has heard so much about her and yet Octavia’s never felt comfortable enough to mention Clarke or even a nameless girlfriend. She thought maybe there had been a chance they might become friends one day. “That, however, makes you the one that keeps her up all night and therefore unprepared for eight a.m..”

Clarke hums an assent, trying not to be thrown by Lexa’s directness. It really isn’t any of Lexa’s business what she and Octavia do or do not do. When they’re not fighting they’re doing a lot of each other, but that’s rather beside the point, and not something she needs to affirm out loud.

“Yeah, but which one of us is having more fun keeping her awake?”

Clarke freezes because she didn’t exactly mean to say that aloud, and she doesn’t want to know if there’s actually been something going on between Octavia and Lexa. She doesn’t think there is, but Lexa is twice as gorgeous as she had imagined. It takes all her willpower to keep from bolting, and Lexa’s silence does nothing to assuage the mortification bubbling up inside her.

She glances at her watch, as if she has somewhere to be. She does, just about anywhere but here, but nowhere specific. “I have to go, otherwise I’m never going to make it back to the museum before my next class. It was great meeting you.” Clarke barely finishes before turning and power walking out of the precinct making a face at herself as she does because she has no idea how what just happened, happened, only that Lexa is far more attractive than Clarke had bargained for and she needs to get sleep and step up her game if she’s going to have any chance at this.

Lexa watches Clarke’s blonde hair bounce over her shoulders as she retreats quickly not sure which of them is more embarrassed by the exchange. Now she has a list of things she needs to talk to Octavia about, the first being what exactly Octavia thinks she’s doing flirting with her when she has a girlfriend, even if Clarke is a bit intense. The last few years since that photo were taken have done well by Clarke though.

It doesn’t take much longer before Octavia shows back up, and Lexa is almost thankful Clarke took off before Octavia returned. There’s only so much drama she can handle and both of the women have proven to be enough on their own. That doesn’t mean she’s going to let this encounter slide. Clarke definitely tried to intimidate her, and maybe rightfully so. Still, Lexa Woods does not back down from a challenge.

“Hey, O.” Lexa raises a perfectly arched eyebrow as she watches Octavia stride toward her, a small bounce in her step. No one else at work calls Octavia by the nickname and she watches as panic flashes through her eyes for just a split second. “I met your girlfriend. She brought you lunch.”

Chapter Text

Lexa sprawls across Anya’s oversized sectional couch. She’s stripped off her suit jacket and her heels and ignored any protests from her foster sister about her shirt wrinkling. It’s the end of the day, I’m going home next, not going out . Of course Anya’s reply to that had been, well maybe you should be going out .

In one hand dangles a glass of rosé that she’s been sipping on for the last twenty minutes because Anya knows better than to try to force Lexa to do anything. Her other arm is thrown across her eyes, blocking out the apartment, which feels more like home to her than her own place, and the view out the floor to ceiling windows. Down the hill the city spreads out below, the river cutting a winding path through town. Downtown rises in the distance, a handful of skyscrapers and old brick buildings surrounded by green.

Lexa’s heart is heavy and she hates that she let herself feel a moment of hope. It comes at a price, and like all other four letter words, hope is a terrible, regrettable thing.

“It can’t have been that bad.”

Lexa fixes Anya with a stare, peeking out from underneath her arm to do so. She squints against the sunlight streaming in through the windows, giving the cream and burnt orange room life. Right now she just wants to sink into the oversized couch and pretend nothing exists outside this loft on the hill. She had been completely unprepared for the blonde from the photo to show up and announce that she was Octavia’s girlfriend. Not while she was waiting for Octavia to see if she wanted to grab lunch. It had been foolish and meeting Clarke only proved that. “She knows.”

“Knows what, that you’ve got a thing for her girlfriend?”

“She tried to bruise my hand when we shook. I’m causing problems in a relationship I’m not even in.” Lexa sits up just enough to finish the glass of wine and sets it down on the mahogany coffee table, careful to make sure she uses one of the marble coasters. “This is why I don’t get close to anyone, why I hate dating. Love is weakness and distraction and pain. It isn’t worth it.”

Lexa curls up on her side, clutching a cream colored throw pillow to her chest, and watching Anya’s reaction as she continues. Anya fixes her with that stare that she has, the one that Lexa knows means you’re an idiot .

“You aren’t a part of this. You’re a constant, a given. I know what to expect from you.” Lexa tosses the pillow at Anya, quickly replacing it with the red afghan that hangs over the back of the couch.

“Good, then I won’t have to say it.”

“I’m not going on another blind date.”

Anya rolls her eyes, “It’s been three years since you let me set you up on one.”

Lexa raises an eyebrow as if to say that her point has been proven.

“You can’t just keep fucking mail clerks and secretaries in the supply closet, Lexa. As fun as it is, you need someone to come home to.”

“I have you.”

“We live on opposite sides of the city.”

“We video chat every day, what more do I need?”

Anya sits back in her chair and sips at her wine. She isn’t looking at Lexa; instead she’s studying the view out of her bay window. Her house is situated on the side of one of the hills on the edge of downtown, so the city is spread out before them, bright lights slowly moving in the growing dark. The view is worth more than the house itself; Anya did pretty well making a name for herself in the fashion industry and could probably retire now if she wanted to, but she’s having too much fun making an even bigger name for herself.

Their parents would be proud if they were still around; they’re not though, killed in a ski accident only a few years after she and Anya had been officially adopted. Lexa adds another bullet point to her argument that relationships of any kind only leave you in heartbreak and pain. Too many people in her life have died and too many have walked away. She tells herself life is easier when she’s alone.

Anya’s voice is almost a whisper, “You aren’t living, Lexa. I hate to see you like this.”

_______________________________________

Octavia sits on the edge of the bed gingerly, almost afraid to be there. When she opened the front door everything was wrong. The smell of burnt toast hit her first. Clarke’s shoes and jacket were crumpled in a heap on the floor, her bag dropped carelessly a few steps later. The refrigerator door wasn’t quite closed and there were several things removed, but left uneaten. The kitchen rag was in the middle of the floor underneath the smoke detector. Blankets they kept folded on the couch were strewn from the living area toward the bedroom. It was, in short, a mess.

She took a few moments. Slowly picking up things and straightening out the apartment. Octavia hadn’t known what kind of mood Clarke would be in when she got home but she knows she should have expected this. She knows Clarke almost better than she knows herself. No one tells you what to do when you fall in love with more than one person, when you’re so full of love it’s almost impossible to keep it to yourself. It spills out in the corners of your life and makes a mess.

It doesn’t help that Octavia’s heart comes alive around Lexa and it feels like falling in love.

Clarke is burrowed deep under the covers on their bed beneath a massive pile of blankets, only a few strands of blonde hair lying across the pillow give her away.

Octavia is used to chaos, but Clarke has a very organized sense of chaos about her which Octavia has learned to read, and this disaster is not that. This is what happens when things get bad inside Clarke’s head; usually only around the anniversary of her father’s death, but they’re several weeks past that.

“I met Lexa today,” Clarke’s voice is muffled as her face is still pressed against the mattress. After she left the precinct her afternoon had spiraled out of control, leaving her drained, exhausted, and questioning everything. She’s all but convinced herself Octavia is going to leave her and right now she can’t really blame her if it happens. Clarke is a mess and she knows it.

“She mentioned meeting you.” Octavia chooses her words carefully, because in reality, Lexa had teased her mercilessly about Clarke and never mentioning that she had a gorgeous girlfriend to go home to every night. If I had known I would have at least pushed our meetings to eight-thirty . Lexa had seemed more amused than angry, which is good considering Octavia was certain that had they ever met Clarke would have gone off on Lexa.

They’ve all just been tiptoeing around what hasn’t happened but everyone thinks is going to, or at least might, happen. They still were. At the very least Clarke pulled herself together long enough to be civil, to be a better person than Octavia has been. “Thank you for lunch.”

“You’ve never mentioned me to her. She didn’t even know my name.”

“We don’t often talk about our personal lives.”

Clarke wills her body to respond, muscles to contract, combatting the deep-seated desire to never come out from under the duvet again. She bites back a groan as she sits up and the cooler air of the room hits her skin, warmed from hiding out underneath the blankets for the majority of the afternoon. Her gaze trails over Octavia who looks tired and sad, like she’s waiting for Clarke to lash out. Part of her wants to. She wants to hurt Octavia as much as she’s been hurting, but that’s childish. She wants so much to just give in to the impulse. Instead she flops back on the bed and stares at the ceiling. “She was sitting on your desk. The picture of us from our first new years together is on your desk. Do you know how awkward that was?”

“Clarke, I want to make this right.” Octavia reaches out to Clarke, to touch her arm, take her hand, anything, because she can’t not be touching her right now. She expects the touch to be rebuffed but Clarke is still underneath her fingertips ghosting over the back of her forearm. Octavia lets out a breath she was holding.

Silence settles between them and Octavia watches Clarke as Clarke stares at the ceiling. This conversation should have happened sooner, it should have happened before everything got this far. But it didn’t and Octavia can’t take the omission back. She feels the way she feels and that is her burden to bear. No one else should have to hurt for her mistakes.

Clarke turns her arm over, letting Octavia tangle their fingers together, but she doesn’t move, doesn’t speak. Octavia may not have the words to articulate it yet, but this is what she’s choosing, she’s choosing the hard fight of staying put, and braces herself for the anger she expects. Whether she meant to or not she’s made a mistake, she chose to hide how she felt instead of confronting the issue head on, creating a rift between her and Clarke,.

The anger never comes. Instead Clarke breathes out in an exasperated sigh, “I get it.”

“What?”

“Lexa, I get it.” Clarke pushes up onto her elbows and looks Octavia in the eye for the first time in days as she continues. “I get why you like her. She looks like a greek goddess and is kind of a pain in the ass, but it’s hot . And fuck, never tell her, but that smart mouth of hers is attractive , not just in a I want to kiss you and shut you up sort of way, but I just want to sit next to her and listen to her slay all the idiots you work with. So, I get it, O. I just wish I didn’t have to lose you to her.”

Clarke flops back down on the bed and curls onto her side, looking at the wall instead of Octavia. The shock and fear on Octavia’s face is more than she can take right now. Her stomach flips over and she hates this feeling, because she understands, she really does. There’s something about Lexa and she can’t be angry at Octavia for something she’s half guilty of herself. She settles in on her side wishing she had grabbed the duvet before laying back down.

Her next words are nearly lost they’re so quiet, “This would be so much easier if we could just both date her.” She doesn’t know if her words really are as sarcastic and biting as they sound, or she actually means them, but she lets them stand without explanation.

“What?” Clarke’s words are echoing in Octavia’s ears, that Clarke thinks she’s going to leave. After everything they’ve been through she’s going to walk away from all of it for some crush on a woman that barely deigns to give half the people she knows the time of day. She pushes onto her knees and leans over Clarke trying to get her to roll back over. “Clarke,” she tugs at her arm but Clarke resolutely stares at the wall, unwilling to be moved. “Babe, look at me.” She’s pleading because she feels panic welling up in her chest and she hates this feeling, but she can’t not push through it.

“Lexa is hot but I am not leaving you for her.” That was never what she wanted. Clarke won’t look at her though, won’t roll back over, and she knows she’s partially dealing with the unreasonable side of Clarke that comes out when things get bad. And maybe it’s a terrible idea but she’s done being ignored about this because Clarke isn’t listening and she needs her to listen right now before she breaks them up. Octavia crawls over Clarke and pushes herself into the small space between her girlfriend and the wall. She shivers as her back touches the cold, but Clarke is looking at her, and seeing her and the fear gripping her heart eases just a little. “I am still in love with you. I want you, Clarke. I picked you a long time ago and that hasn’t changed.”

“Are you sure?”

“More than anything.” A small smile flickers at the corner of Octavia’s mouth and she reaches out to lay her hand on Clarke’s waist. Octavia doesn’t want to imagine her life without Clarke, the thought is too painful to even entertain. Their knees bump together as Clarke stretches out and scoots closer, their legs tangling. “Talking with Lexa just reminds me how much I want to always come home to you.”

“Yeah?” Clarke bites her lip. She feels hopeful, thankful, grateful, but underneath it all is a current of doubt she can’t shake. This isn’t over yet, there will still be work to do but Octavia isn’t running off. She isn’t retreating, however much Clarke feels like her attitude lately deserves it.

Octavia nods, a grin spreading across her face as she leans in to kiss Clarke. It’s soft and they melt into each other, a gentle exploration of lips, not rushed or hurried but it feels like it’s been a small forever since they really kissed each other, something more than just a routine press of lips. Maybe, just maybe, it’ll all be alright. Clarke pulls back and hides her face against Octavia’s neck pulling them flush together. Their legs tangle together until there is no space left between them as the cling tightly to each other, the immensity of the almost break up riding over them.

Clarke’s words keep rolling through Octavia’s mind. If we could both just date her . It’s a crazy idea. She knows polyamory is a very real thing that very real people do, but no one she knows. Are they even the kind of people that could make it work without breaking everything apart? Maybe not.

When it’s just the two of them they manage to nearly combust at regular intervals. Clarke forgets to take care of herself because she’s so busy taking care of everyone and everything else; Octavia is an impulsive adrenaline junkie. Together they’re just a bit of disaster but most of the time they manage to make it work out, just barely. Another person though could balance them out.

Or blow them up spectacularly.

This isn’t the first time they’ve come close to breaking up, it’s just the worst.

This thing with Lexa could just be a passing fancy, an infatuation spurned on by Clarke’s recent downward spiral. The last thing Octavia wants to do is ruin them. They’ve struggled for years to keep afloat, doing everything they can think of to make it work. Clarke has been her best friend since the fifth grade and her girlfriend for three years now, ever since Octavia glanced at her over a bowl of popcorn and a late night Netflix marathon and realized she was in love.

Sometimes love alone hasn’t been enough to keep them together, but they’re both stubborn and their relationship is not something they’re likely to give up on easily. She knows though that the fluttering feeling that’s wriggling its way into her heart when she thinks about Lexa is more than just some passing infatuation.

Still, if being with Clarke has taught her anything it’s that staying in love is a choice.

Octavia feels her heartbeat speed up because the idea won’t leave and it’s going to come tumbling out of her mouth. She isn’t sure she wants to stop it. She kisses Clarke on the lips, then the nose, hands gently holding Clarke’s face as she pulls back, “How serious were you about that us both dating Lexa thing. Not like some swinging thing, but like, actually dating her. All three of us, together.”

Clarke tenses and she feels Octavia’s fluttering heartbeat. She thought her words had gone unheard or ignored, that maybe they were going to move on from this stumble in their relationship without talking about Lexa again. She knows they would have talked about Lexa again, even if not in this way; it’s foolish to believe they wouldn’t.

The air drains from the room and reality crashes around Clarke.

“What the fuck, Octavia?” Half an hour ago she thought she was breaking up with her girlfriend, then that maybe they had a chance to patch up this fight, but the tighter she holds on to hope the further it slips out of her fingers. Clarke pulls back from Octavia who looks like she’s been slapped. She can’t touch her right now, can’t look at her, can’t be in the same bed as her.

The floor is cold beneath her feet and Clarke just wants to leave. Walking out is the one thing she can’t do, all it does is hurt everyone and she isn’t that angry, yet. She keeps her back to Octavia opting instead to slam dresser drawers as she tries to find socks and sweatpants, wishing that their apartment wasn’t always cold. It never seemed like a bad thing when she had a girlfriend to curl up with; right now it’s terrible.

Octavia is right behind Clarke, refusing to let her walk away from this even as Clarke keeps turning her back. “You keep saying we need to change something.”

“Not like this.” Clarke slams the dresser drawer shut and only pauses to put on the socks she found as she glares at Octavia before brushing past her.

“This is something, and it’s not like either of us saying we need to change has actually done any good.” Octavia grabs Clarke’s hand.

Clarke wrenches it free, “Yeah, you don’t change.”

“Neither do you!” Octavia shouts back. She clenches her jaw and forces the next words out, quieter, calmer, “Lexa’s rational, which is what we need.”

“Clearly, because you’ve lost your mind.” Clarke pauses at the door one hand on the door frame and she almost looks back at Octavia, but if she does she knows she’ll lose any resolve she has. And right now she doesn’t want to back down. She hadn’t been serious about them both dating Lexa, although she’s wondering why she said it at all.

“Then we try.”

“No!” The word echoes around their apartment like it’s a cavern instead of barely enough room for two people to coexist and pierces Octavia’s skull like a hot knife.

She collapses onto the bed as she hears Clarke’s studio door slam shut.

That blew up spectacularly.

_______________________________________

Octavia paces outside the door to Clarke’s studio, she’s fairly certain Clarke hasn’t left it since she slammed the door shut on Friday night and it’s now Sunday afternoon. She can’t decide if she’s more worried or angry because Clarke has been begging her to talk and now she’s the one refusing to talk. It’s fair, but it isn’t. Octavia just needs to know that Clarke hasn’t done something drastic before she leaves for work tomorrow morning.

Of all the things she hates the most about their relationship it’s Clarke shutting her out when it gets too tough.

She’s spent the last two nights on the couch, not wanting to miss Clarke opening the studio door, just for the chance to see her. Octavia isn’t angry enough to try to force a conversation right now. Still, all she has to show for the last two nights is a sore neck. The only reason she knows Clarke is still in the studio is because Clarke has been crying for the last half hour, hiccuping sobs that she’s clearly trying to hide.

The sound is a knife at her throat and Octavia trembles with it. Clarke has been her best friend for longer than not and she feels lost at the prospect of not having her around. That isn’t a future she wants to entertain. She would do anything to make things right if only Clarke could help her figure out what she needs to do.

Clarke has always been the one to help her through the hard times. She was there every time Octavia fought with Bellamy, when she broke her arm, when her mom disappeared, when she panicked about dating Lincoln, when she decided to join the police academy, and when she fell apart after she broke up with Lincoln. There wasn’t one moment in her life in the last fifteen years that she hasn’t faced without Clarke beside her, encouraging her, sometimes not always in the right direction, but she was always there, always willing to help her put the pieces back together.

Octavia sizes up the door to Clarke’s studio like it’s a mountain she has to scale.

Maybe it is.

She doesn’t knock, her hand sliding down the wood instead, caressing the door knob before she turns to go back to the couch, not even glancing at their room, which will be empty for a third night. Octavia can’t bring herself to sleep in their bed when Clarke refuses to join her. She has to find a way to fight for them, but she can’t go back to Clarke until she figures it out.

_______________________________________

Clarke tucks her knees up to her chest and presses her shins against her desk as she leans back slightly in her chair. Her office door is closed, though it only blocks out sound from the rest of the office at the museum, she still has a comprehensive view of the office and the vaulted ceilinged entrances below through the etched glass that makes up that wall of her office. Instead of working on next term’s schedule of classes she’s been trying to figure out how to save her relationship.

The only way she can see forward is to try this thing with Lexa that Octavia wants and see if they survive. It’s a tentative hope because this is not how people work through their relationship problems. She’s not even sure she wants this.

This is possibly the worst idea.

If it works, she’s afraid that Octavia will still leave her in the end for Lexa, because she isn’t enough. If she were enough Octavia wouldn’t be looking elsewhere. And if it doesn’t work, Octavia will leave because Clarke can’t give her what she needs. That’s the short of it: no matter what happens she will feel inadequate.

Clarke can’t swallow past the lump in her throat.

This thing with Lexa is her only chance.

Her thumb hovers over the call button and yet she still can’t bring herself to hit it. She doesn’t know what she’s going to say. It’s not like she can just tell her mother that she suggested to her girlfriend that they try to date a second woman. Abby had been surprised enough when Clarke and Octavia sat her down to tell her that they had been together for the last six months. That had been more than two years ago and while Abby was nothing but supportive Clarke doesn’t even know how to explain what is happening in her life without sounding crazy.

Simply put, Clarke knows that she and Octavia are still in love, but their relationship, no matter how hard they try, is unbalanced. Octavia takes too many risks, and Clarke loves feeding into her impulsive nature. It doesn’t help that sometimes Clarke falls apart and doubts everything. Then they fight over the stack of bills on the doorside bookcase, because even though they’re always paid on time, they’re never paid soon enough, or they forget to get groceries for two weeks, or Clarke forgets that time is a real thing and spends two days in her studio completely ignoring the world. They are a relationship of extremes and stubbornness keeps them together.

Stubbornness and love.

Clarke hits call and takes a deep breath as she waits for her mother to answer.

“What’s wrong?” Abby answers on the second ring. Her tone is enough to remind Clarke she doesn’t call nearly often enough, and only then when things are getting bad.

“I just wanted to talk,” Clarke doesn’t know where to start.

“You never just want to talk, Clarke.”

She almost hangs up because she doesn’t need another fight but decides to just start talking because for once, she does just want to talk. She needs to know what to do. First though, a peace offering. “I have a meeting with the owner at Gallery 2149 Friday. He wants to see three new pieces.”

“Is he going to give you a show?”

“I doubt I’ll get my own, not for years, but it’s a step.”

“Maybe you can get a second job managing the space, you and Octavia aren’t still struggling with rent are you?”

That would be the dream. Managing a gallery and putting on her own shows. It seems like a far off untouchable reality. “Octavia and I have been fighting again.”

There’s a pause and Clarke listens to her mother’s breath fill the silence. She flexes her calves to gently rock her in her tipped back chair.

“You and Octavia always work through things.”

“It’s different this time,” she almost says something about Lexa but bites the inside of her cheek to keep from speaking her name. “We talked and… it isn’t going to work out unless something drastic changes.”

Abby hesitates, “Are you going to tell me what the fight is about?”

“I’d rather not.”

“Relationships require compromise, Clarke. You know that.”

“I know.” She sighs and rubs at her face with her free hand. “It’s just, she came up with something to try that might work out, but it might backfire, and I don’t want it to because I can’t lose her, mom.” Clarke hates the way her voices cracks.

“Is it something you can live with?”

Clarke lets her chair fall forward onto all four legs and her elbows come to rest on her desk, her head falling into her hands. She doesn’t know, she just doesn’t. She doesn’t know if their plan will work, or if they’ll want it to once things are in motion. It’s such a slim chance that any of it will work out at all. Her stomach sinks and her throat constricts. “I don’t know,” she whispers.

“Some things just aren’t meant to be, sweetheart.”

Chapter Text

The Trading Post Bar is halfway between the police station and Clarke and Octavia’s apartment and they’ve been regulars for the last five years. Octavia runs her thumb along the groove in the bar from a bar fight she stopped four years ago, her nail catching along the edge that has yet to wear smooth. The place is ragged and dark, but it’s clean and familiar and right now it feels more comfortable than home.

Niylah is bartending, like she is most nights since she practically runs the place nowadays, and she sets two shots in front of Octavia without a word. The woman just has a way of knowing . She and Clarke have spent countless evenings on these bar stools, their stories have lived and died inside these walls. For a while Clarke and Niylah had been a not so serious thing, which had meant a lot more free drinks, but that was years ago, before even Octavia realized she had feelings for Clarke.

She wonders briefly if this bar will see the end of her relationship.

Octavia watches Niylah move to the other end of the bar, chatting, smiling, filling drinks in a smooth practiced manner. Her blonde hair is tied loosely back and littered with thin braids, some strands wrapped in colorful thread, others sporting beads.

Niylah has a way of reading the room, almost anticipating what will happen before it does. This is her domain. Octavia misses feeling that in control.

Everything with Clarke has her off kilter. It feels like any semblance of home she had is being stripped away from her. Since they met Clarke has been the one person Octavia felt safe with, felt at home with aside from her brother. She can’t lose Clarke. Octavia takes the shots in quick succession, only hissing slightly at the burn of the alcohol. Before she can look back up Niylah is in front of her clearing the shot glasses and setting down a pint of Octavia’s favorite beer.

She sets down two more shots, one for herself and one for Octavia. They clink the tiny glasses and down them in silence.

“No Clarke tonight?” Niylah asks like she knows the answer.

Octavia frowns at her beer before downing a mouthful. Her skin is crawling and she needs the feeling that she’s flailing and falling and everything is out of her control and that ultimately she’s about to lose the one person that’s always, unquestionably, felt like her safe harbor. For too many years everything in her life was dictated by her brother, Bellamy. He raised her as their mother fell apart, but he never let her live , she had no control, and now she’s a wild thing, afraid and alone and not knowing how to fix her relationship.

Please don’t let it be over.

Octavia shakes her head, not quite meeting Niylah’s penetrating gaze. She doesn’t try to hide, knowing that Niylah will have whatever she wants out of Octavia by the end of the night anyway what with the speed of the drinks that keep coming her way. All Octavia wants is Clarke’s arms around her again and she’s almost certain that’s the last thing that will happen tonight.

She finishes her beer and signals Niylah for another which is placed in front of her with a sigh.

Octavia isn’t even certain Clarke will be home when she finally stumbles down the street, up the stairs to their little apartment where she’ll have to wrap up in extra blankets just to keep from freezing. The heater breaks in the winter and the air conditioner won’t turn off in the summer, but when that happens Clarke just pulls Octavia tighter against her and they laugh. Octavia runs her thumb nail along a groove in the bar top.

“Thank you for texting me, Niylah.” Lincoln murmurs just loud enough to be heard as he slides up to the bar on Octavia’s right. She can feel his eyes on her and there’s a disastrous level of shame welling up inside her and the side of her face feels hot where she knows he’s watching. At least Niylah didn’t call Clarke, but Niylah always knows who to call when one of them shows up alone.

Niylah probably knows them all better than they know themselves.

Octavia’s head snaps up, and she feels the alcohol slow her reaction, muddle her words, even as she’s thankful it isn’t Clarke on the stool beside her, the shame boils inside her, “You called him?”

Calling Lincoln is probably only slightly worse than calling Clarke today. Work had been a disaster and she’d left in stoney silence, Lincoln furious with her. It wasn’t the first time, it wouldn’t be the last.

“Where’s Clarke?” Lincoln asks as he slides the pint glass out of Octavia’s hands. He isn’t asking her though, he’s asking Niylah.

Octavia presses her hands into the bar, wishing for a shot or another drink even though she knows she’s had enough for the night. She wants to be numb and she can still feel. Home is a heartbeat she can’t press her ear to. The thought of Clarke turns her stomach in knots, worry and fear and hurt rising in equal measure as she tries to quell them. Hunching her shoulders she pushes out the world; she can take this on by herself. She doesn’t need Lincoln or Niylah to watch over her, she has to take this on by herself.

She has to get this right so Clarke doesn’t leave.

Octavia misses the way Niylah shrugs at Lincoln’s question, too wrapped up in trying to calm her mind. She misses the way Niylah’s only answer a raised eyebrow and a pointed nod toward Octavia like she knows if she just waits Octavia will tell them what she’s been refusing to talk about all night.

“Good luck getting Clarke to talk to you or leave her studio.” Octavia mumbles, tracing the grain of the wood with her fingernail. She wants to get out of here, to do something. Talking about Clarke is not what she wants.

Niylah reaches out and tips up her chin, pale brown eyes warm and searching as they flit across Octavia’s face, “How many days?”

“Three.”

“We’ve weathered worse,” Niylah turns back to cleaning down the bar, seemingly unconcerned.

Octavia is itching to move but Lincoln is standing behind her and she can't get away instead stuck between him and Niylah, forced to continue this conversation. “I fucked up and I don’t think I can make it right.”

Lincoln pulls up the stool next to her, leaning his forearms against the bar, his hands clasped lightly. They had been together for three years and managed to remain friends and partners at work in the ensuing four years. If anyone thought it strange it wasn’t them. No stranger than taking advice from your girlfriend’s ex.

Octavia glances up at Niylah, waiting. One of them will ask, it’s just a matter of which one will break the silence first. Lincoln and Niylah exchange a look because they’ve heard variations of this before from her, from Clarke, about others and about each other. She doesn’t know how to convince them that this really is different, this really is it, not unless she tells them why, and she’s not ready to tell anyone about Lexa.

“Are you going to tell us what happened.”

“Nope,” the word smacks between Octavia’s lips and she can feel it heavy on her tongue like regret.

Niylah shakes her head sadly, but she slides another shot over to Octavia when she hands her back her credit card not bothering to say on the house as she shifts back to her other customers, Octavia’s been coming around long enough to know what the gesture means, that today is a broken day.

Octavia’s fingers dig into the bar top and there’s a fine tremor in her arms. Sitting around and hurting does her no good. She needs action. She needs this energy gone.

“I’ll be right back, but then we’re getting you home.” Lincoln stands up, his hand rests on Octavia’s shoulder for a moment as he passes.

“I’m fine, Lincoln.” Octavia rolls her eyes. If he takes her home she’ll just be alone on the couch and she can’t face the silence.

“No, you’re drunk. Just stay here until I get back.”

Lincoln isn’t gone five seconds before an argument at the other end of the bar catches Octavia’s attention. She doesn’t really process what the fight is about just that it’s about to turn into a physical fight and she doesn’t let that kind of thing happen, not here. This is her bar, and she’s a cop. The regulars know that and the ones causing trouble are not regulars.

Niylah is yelling at them to take it outside. They aren’t listening, words flying back and forth louder and louder as if that makes them right. She watches as Niylah vaults over the bar and starts to usher the men out. One of them shoves her back and the itching need to act burns through Octavia like wildfire on a dry prairie. Octavia doesn’t remember leaving her barstool as she presses between the men and they tower over her, not that she really notices. She never cares; she can hold her own when sober.

She isn’t sure about drunk, but also, she doesn’t care when she’s drunk.

The yelling continues over the top of her head until one of the men steps forward taking a swing. Octavia shoves him back against the bar, fumbling for her badge in her pocket as he protests threatening to call the cops.

“I am a cop,” she spits, her words too slurred to sound convincing.

That’s about the time she feels a blinding pain in her shoulder and registers the sound of the shattering of glass. A sharp white hot pain cuts across her chest. She glances down to see a blood stain spreading across her ripped green shirt like a garish holiday design. Any movement from her left arm makes her grit her teeth and hiss in pain.

That’s a lot of blood.

_______________________________________

Terror throws reality into sharp relief. What matters. What doesn’t. The instant you believe a decision has been made for you it becomes abundantly clear what you really care about and what you really want. There’s no denying the feelings as they run rampant. The truth always wins out, even against better judgement.

It’s been four hours since the clock struck the hour Octavia typically arrives home from work and she still hasn’t shown up, hasn’t called, hasn’t answered her phone. In fact her phone is uncharacteristically off and Clarke is terrified of exactly two things. One, that Octavia left her, and two, that something terrible happened at work and it’s only a matter of time before she gets the call , the one where she has to go down to the station to break down in a cold interrogation room, or to the hospital to fall apart on sterile plastic chairs, the one that tells her Octavia is dying or dead.

Her cell phone rings.

Clarke dives for her cell phone before the first note of her ringtone has finished sounding, nearly taking out the lamp on the end table in the process. She’s answered the call before she registers that it isn’t Octavia calling, but her mother.

“Mom, I can’t talk right now.”

“Honey, I need to-”

“I’m waiting for Octavia to call me back but her phone is off.”

“Clarke-”

“Can we talk la-”

“I’m calling about Octavia,” Abby blurts out in an attempt to get Clarke to listen.

Clarke closes her eyes, twisting,  slowly sinking down onto the couch, her knees giving way and her stomach drops, a heavy, acidic feeling in it’s place. This is what she was waiting for, what she didn’t want: the call . Everyone who’s ever been with anyone who works in law enforcement dreads the call, and she’s never really had much reason to worry, Octavia’s always been careful, even on the worst days, she always narrowly misses trouble, but today she’s four hours late and Clarke doesn’t know why because she was too stubborn to open her studio door this morning when Octavia knocked. She was too stubborn to kiss her goodbye and now she isn’t certain her heart remembers how to beat it hurts so much.

“Clarke, Clarke .”

She isn’t sure how long her mother has been saying her name, just that it feels like her heart has been broken in half. “Yeah, mom?” She breathes out, trying to sound normal, the words are harsh on the back of her throat like talking is a foreign idea.

“Did you hear anything I said?”

“No.”

“I just wanted to let you know, because of your call earlier-”

“She’s not?” Clarke can’t keep the edge of panic out of her voice or stop the way her breath is coming in short sharp inhales.

“Clarke, no. Sweetheart, I need you to calm down. Breathe,” Abby pauses waiting until she hears Clarke let out a long exhale. “Octavia is fine; she’s with Lincoln. I just know you worry when she’s late and you know I shouldn’t even be telling you this much, but she’s fine.”

“I know.”

“Are you okay?”

“No. I need to go. I- Thank you for calling.”

Clarke doesn’t stop pacing until she hears keys in the door. She had called Lincoln’s phone no less than six times, and Octavia’s another four, without a single answer. Another two hours and five minutes have passed when the door finally swings open.

“Octavia!”

Clarke runs to Octavia only just stopping short of crashing into her as she pulls her up in a hug. Octavia is alive and mostly unscathed and home . She smells like alcohol and the hospital and it takes her a few moments to wrap her arms around Clarke, hissing in pain as she does.

“Ease up a bit, stitches, twelve of them right underneath my collar bone.”

Heart racing, Clarke pulls back to examine Octavia’s injuries. Her shirt is torn and bloody around the left shoulder, and there’s an abrasion under her left eye. Clarke untangles Octavia’s arms from around her waist and inspects her knuckles, one of which is split and bandaged.

“Clarke, I’m fi-”

“You have stitches .” Clarke carefully peels back the shirt to reveal a fresh white bandage and sighs in frustration because it’s probably less than necessary and she can’t see the damage with it in the way.

“Abby said I was fi-”

“Fine. I know. She called.”

“I told you, you needed to call.” Lincoln says from where he’s still standing in the hallway.

Octavia glances over her shoulder, “You’re not helping,” her words slur slightly.

Clarke is picking at the edge of the tape on the bandage, taking in the ragged edge of Octavia’s shirt, and the straight cut where Abby peeled it back, damp and bloody to stitch her up. And there’s so much dried blood. She presses the palm of her left hand flat against Octavia’s sternum just to feel her heart beat more soundly, fingers on one edge of the bandage while her right hand rests lightly against Octavia’s shoulder. Her stomach is twisted in knots and all she can think about is how she thought the call from her mother had been the call .

She doesn’t realize she’s crying until Octavia brushes a hand against her cheek, catching the trail of tears.

“Clarke?” Octavia whispers like she’s afraid Clarke is going to snap at her again. Instead, Clarke throws her arms around Octavia’s neck, ignoring the grunt of pain.

Now that Clarke is conscious of her own tears she can’t stop crying and her sobs keep getting bigger, taking her over until her chest heaves, and she’s holding onto Octavia like their lives depend on it. She only barely hears Lincoln say goodbye and the door shut as Octavia shuffles them a few steps into the apartment.

Clarke presses a kiss against Octavia’s unbandaged collarbone and another to her neck, her jawline, the corner of her mouth. She holds steady there, sniffling, trying to calm the storm inside her head with her cheek against Octavia’s.

Octavia is whispering to her, comforting things, her hands running up and down Clarke’s spine slowly, caressing her. She starts walking them backwards, and they’re halfway to the bedroom before she stops.

“Clarke?”

She hums against Octavia’s ear.

“Can we lie down in our bed? I know I fucked up, the barfight, not calling, and-”

Clarke kisses her cheek, “We can go to bed.” She runs her fingers through Octavia’s hair, “As soon as we get you cleaned up.” She wrinkles her nose. “You smell like hospital and cheap beer.”

“Some drunk thought it was a good idea to break a beer bottle on my shoulder.”

“At least it wasn’t your face.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Me, too.”

The apology is about more than the twelve stitches and the hours of worry.

Clarke sits Octavia down on the edge of the tub, making short work of her ruined, bloody clothes before taking a damp cloth to her skin. She’s careful not to disturb the wounds, the gash in the hollow just below the bone on her shoulder that had it been four inches higher could have ended her life. It’s not the first time she’s touched this spot with tenderness, wishing for a way to stop the pain before it started. Last time they were younger and Octavia had a broken collar bone, the only thanks she received for defending her mother.

Clarke’s fingers tremble, thinking how many times she’s nearly lost Octavia over the years, and her lungs freeze in her chest. She can’t think about that now, but the more she pushes the thought away, the more the cold fear of it creeps up her spine. So she focuses on making her girlfriend smell like the lavender soap they share instead of antiseptic.

“You know usually when you’re washing me it’s a lot more fun, and there’s a lot more nudity,” Octavia smiles, her fingers curling around the edges of Clarke’s open collar. She’s still slightly tipsy even after the trip to the Emergency Room. Her voice is light, but she’s shaking, wondering if Clarke’s gentle touch is going to push her to tears.

Clarke looks up focused on Octavia’s pale green eyes, trying not to look at the gentle swelling, or the bruise beneath her left eye, and instead at the life and light and trembling hope she sees. Clarke’s hands shake, her fingertips tracing the stitches. “This was too close. I keep almost losing you and I don’t know how many more times I can survive it.”

Octavia wraps one of her hands around Clarke’s, stalling the gentle rubbing on the raw skin held together with sutures and moves it over her heart. “I’m here, I’m alive.”

She leans forward and the kiss is little more than a gentle press of lips followed by another. Relief washes over her as Clarke kisses her back, lips parted slightly. The kisses that follow are tender and soft, barely there, but profoundly important. If they’re talking, if they’re touching, they aren’t over.

Octavia slips her hands to the buttons of Clarke’s shirt slowly undoing them one by one.

“Not tonight,” Clarke whispers against Octavia’s lips, her hand holding Octavia’s in place. “You’re injured and we still need to talk.”

“Then we’ll talk, I just want you to be pressed against me without all of this in the way.” Octavia tugs at Clarke’s shirt. “Can we just be?”

Clarke nods, tilting her head to kiss Octavia gently, and lets her hands fall to Octavia’s lap.

They leave a trail of clothes behind them as they move slowly to the bed and Clarke lays Octavia back on it gently once they’re both down to nothing but their underwear. She shivers in the cool air and crawls in after, pulling the duvet over them both. The landlord is always swearing he’ll fix the heat in the building but he never does, and the windows are too old to keep in any heat the old system manages to generate. Usually it doesn’t matter because they have each other to keep warm.

Clarke runs her fingertips along the edges of Octavia’s face, memorizing the shape of it again, the high arch of her eyebrows, the soft rise of her cheekbones, and the sharp angle of her jaw. She knows Octavia’s face better than she knows her own. And she hates that she has to break this perfect moment, but waiting won’t make their fight go away. They can’t just fall into bed and forgive each other like they do every other time they fight.

This fight will come back and break them.

“Lexa,” Clarke breathes out her name like a sigh.

“We don’t have to talk about her.”

“We do though,” Clarke closes her eyes, steeling her resolve.

Octavia catches up Clarke’s hand where it rests on her cheek, twining their fingers together and kissing her palm. She breathes the words out like a prayer, “I’m yours, Clarke. No matter what, I want to come home to you. You are my home.”

“Good,” Clarke breathes out and squeezes Octavia’s hand. “You should ask Lexa to come out for drinks with us.”

There’s a hint of a smile at the corner of Clarke’s mouth and Octavia isn’t sure how to respond. She watches Clarke for a sign of where this is going, afraid to respond for ruining whatever is happening. Afraid to break this tentative peace settling between them.

“As friends only. I don’t even know her yet. Maybe she’ll end up hating me and it would never work out and we’ll come home and wallow in the whiskey that your brother gave us last Christmas.”

Octavia nods slightly, not quite certain she believes the words that are coming out of Clarke’s mouth.

“You’re right. We need a change and we have to compromise. So this is me compromising because I can’t lose you.”

A slow smile spreads across Octavia’s face and her heart feels like it’s going to burst. Just a chance at her half thought out plan is all she wants, because she’d do anything to make things okay between her and Clarke. If she sees the flicker of doubt in Clarke’s eyes she doesn’t recognize it for what it is, that despite Clarke’s offer to try she's hesitant to believe that things with Lexa will work out.

“You’re not getting rid of me that easily.” Octavia pulls Clarke to her in a gentle kiss. “I love you,” she whispers, her lips ghosting over Clarke’s.

“Love you too, O.”

Maybe love will be enough.

_______________________________________

Octavia wakes up wrapped in Clarke’s arms to a throbbing pain in her left shoulder and she doesn’t care because Clarke is holding onto her like she’s never going to let go. There’s a tenuous truce in their relationship, a promise and a hope that maybe they can make things better between them. They love each other and they’re fighting for that love.

She presses a kiss to Clarke’s forehead, then her nose, slow soft kisses across her face until she feels her girlfriend stir. Clarke smiles sleepily at her and nuzzles into her side. Octavia should be getting ready for work, but she can’t bring herself to try to move, and unwrap herself from the safety of Clarke’s arms. It’s been a lifetime since Friday and she’s afraid to break the spell of this moment.

Clarke is curled around Octavia’s side, one leg tossed over both of Octavia’s, her hand flat against her stomach and her head resting in the crook over her arm. She’s looking out across the expanse of her girlfriend’s bare chest and out the window, watching the sky turn from dark blue to pink and orange.

“O?”

She feels Octavia hum a response as Octavia trails her fingers lazily up and down Clarke’s spine. As long as they keep falling together like this they won't fall apart. Clarke traces her fingers around the bandage just underneath Octavia’s collarbone. I can’t lose her , like a mantra on repeat in the back of her mind.

“How would this even work? With Lexa.” The question has been bothering her all night and she still doesn’t really know how she feels about the prospect other than she knows she isn’t opposed to the idea in theory. Scared, excited, worried, and to be honest a little turned on at the thought of someone else in their bed, but there’s no one prevailing feeling that she has yet, except an undercurrent of desperation. She’s only entertaining the idea because Octavia asked and Octavia is right, things have been rocky between them even without the drama caused by the greek goddess.

“I don’t know. I’ve dated precisely two people for any significant period of time and neither of you at the same time. So my experience with threesomes is sorely limited.”

Clarke continues, only half acknowledging Octavia’s comment, too wrapped up in trying to figure out the answer to her question. “I mean, beyond the logistics of kissing and sleeping arrangements and sex there’s-”

“Whoa. Hold up, Clarke. I thought we were inviting Lexa out for drinks as friends.”

“Well, yes, but I mean, what if it goes well? You’re the one who brought up threesomes. How do we even approach this?”

“I thought maybe you could figure that out.”

Clarke arches up, leaning on her arm so she can look at Octavia’s face. “Why me?”

“Because I tend to blurt out really intense things before anyone else is ready, and I want you to be able to say when things stop or move forward for us.” Octavia turns her head and kisses Clarke’s cheek. She really means it, if they’re doing this she wants Clarke to take the lead because she doesn’t want to push anyone towards something they aren’t comfortable with.

“You mean like ‘You’re my best friend, can I kiss you?’ and ‘Can we ask out the girl you thought I was leaving you for’ .” Clarke teases and leans down to press a kiss to Octavia’s neck. There's a pang in her chest like a hand clenched tight around her heart. It's too soon to be making jokes but she has to pretend she isn't hurting.

She has to pretend this is okay.

“Precisely like that.” She leans forward her lips brushing against the shell of Clarke’s ear as she whispers, “I’m sorry.” This is mostly her fault.

When she pulls back there’s a mischievous glint in Octavia’s eyes and she pushes Clarke onto her back before straddling her, the movement only serving as a reminder to them that neither ever put clothes on last night, needing to feel each other alive as they held each other close. Octavia runs the palms of her hands down the valley between Clarke’s breasts, biting her lip and taking in the sight beneath her. “But look how well the first one turned out.”

“Don’t push your luck, Blake.” Clarke grabs Octavia’s wrists and pulls her downward gently so she’s close enough to arch up and kiss. She knows exactly how to distract Octavia but she has to be careful that they don’t pull out any stitches.

“I see how it is, Griffin.” Pushing against Clarke’s hands she grinds her hips down, but the grin on her face betrays the seriousness of her next words. “You’re my best friend, can I kiss you?”

Clarke nods and lets out a small moan as Octavia presses a trail of wet open mouthed kisses up her neck. She loses herself in the feeling for a second. She doesn’t want to get out of bed yet, but Octavia has work and is injured and they’ve already spent too much time this morning lying in bed instead of getting ready. She pushes feebly at Octavia’s good shoulder, “Don’t start something you can’t finish.”

“Who says I’m not gonna finish this?” Octavia growls as she kisses down Clarke’s sternum, a clear challenge, ignoring the hands only half heartedly trying to stop her.

“The clock, if you don’t leave soon you’re going to be late for your eight a.m. meeting with the greek goddess. And I don’t need to be redoing my mother’s stitches; she’ll know and you won’t like it.”

Octavia glances at the clock and sighs heavily letting her head fall onto Clarke’s chest.

“Don’t forget to ask her about drinks on Friday.”

“Why do I have to be the one to ask again?” she mumbles.

“Because it was your idea… and Octavia?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you for letting me call the shots on this.”

“Always.”

_______________________________________

“What happened?” Lexa raises an eyebrow as Octavia walks up to her in the hall between the District Attorney’s offices and the police station. When she saw Octavia on her way out of work yesterday she had been fine. A little bubble of worry spills out in her tone and she hates the weakness of it. Octavia is nothing more than a colleague and will probably never be more than that.

Octavia shakes her head but there’s a small smile on her lips, “The details are a bit fuzzy, but I tried to stop a bar fight after having a few more drinks than I should have.” She glances down at the back of her hand, “It could have gone better.”

Lexa takes a step toward her, gaze flitting over the black eye and the split knuckle. “Is that the worst of it?”

Octavia winces as she shrugs with just her right shoulder. “Twelve stitches, broken beer bottles cut deep.”

Lexa purses her lips, she wants to tell Octavia to be careful, that she shouldn’t be taking risks like that, but it isn’t her place. So she says nothing only giving a curt nod which Octavia returns before continuing down the hall.

Octavia pauses at the door to the precinct, hand wrapping around the doorknob even as she stops and turns back to Lexa. Her heart is beating frantically in her chest like it does right before she takes a running leap off a base jump.

“Lexa?” She calls, pushing down the nervous lump in her throat and finding herself smiling at Lexa’s mildly confused stare. “What are you doing Friday night?”

Lexa pauses and takes in a slow breath because that was possibly the last question she expected Octavia to ask. Her heart skips a beat and she doesn’t know why she feels hopeful because Octavia has a highly attractive girlfriend and she should not want this. If her instincts are correct she’s probably part of the reason Octavia has twelve stitches in her shoulder.

“Clarke wants to apologize for how things went when you two met. She’s insisting on drinks and inviting you on a private tour of the museum. I told her you like to go sometimes and she’s a resident artist there, you guys probably have a lot in common and so-”

“Yes.” The word tumbles out of her mouth before she can stop it. She instantly regrets it, but she doesn’t regret the smile on Octavia’s face as she ducks into the precinct.

_______________________________________

They started out the evening on opposite sides of the couch. Octavia curled up under a blanket with the TV on low while she plays Halo, Clarke on the other end of the couch with her sketchbook balanced on her knees. Octavia glances over at Clarke as her character respawns again. She isn’t feeling the game tonight, she just wants to be with Clarke. These last few weeks have her feeling heavy even as she has moments where her heart sores. Lately those moments have been with Lexa.

Octavia scoots closer to Clarke and resumes her game, but her mind isn’t really on taking down the Covenant. She wants to be with Clarke, not just quietly enjoying time spent side by side. She misses being spontaneous and having adventures. Her limbs are restless and her skin is crawling. Her character dies again and she scoots closer to Clarke again.

Clarke notices, half glancing up from her sketch and raising an eyebrow at Octavia.

Octavia suppresses a grin and shrugs.

Clarke shifts so she’s leaning against Octavia’s side instead of against the arm of the couch and Octavia presses a kiss to Clarke’s hair as she jumps back into her game. This is closer to what she wants but they’re still on this couch, inside these walls that have only seen heartbreak for the past month. It doesn’t quite feel like home anymore and she wants to make things right.

Another character death. Octavia tosses the controller aside and rests her chin on Clarke’s shoulder like she does when she’s trying to get Clarke’s attention and her girlfriend is ignoring her. Clarke reaches up a hand and scratches her fingers through Octavia’s hair even as she continues to work on her sketch.

It’s one of Octavia, mouth open wide in disappointment as she plays video games. Clearly this is the moment she’s been unexpectedly fragged. She presses a kiss to Clarke’s shoulder and glances from the drawing to Clarke’s face, waiting for Clarke to look at her. It doesn’t take long.

Clarke leans in and kisses Octavia even as she tosses her sketchpad and pencils to the floor, shifting so she can tug Octavia into her lap. Their lips meet in a soft caress and Octavia smiles. This feels like they’re on the mend. Octavia presses a flurry of kisses to Clarke’s face, her neck her shoulders, coming back to her face, tracing her jaw and nose and eyebrows with soft, quick, kisses. Clarke is squirming, laughing underneath her and Octavia feels her heart flutter.

She missed that sound.

She missed this feeling.

Octavia kisses Clarke soundly pouring the joy in her heart into the press of her lips and the swipe of her tongue. Clarke responds fervently and it feels like they’re younger again, hopeful and falling in love for the first time.

Clarke’s hand finds Octavia’s and she intertwines their fingers. She pulls back from the kiss and Octavia swallows down a whimper as Clarke stands up. For a moment her heart sinks thinking she pushed too far, too soon, until she sees the mischief in Clarke’s eyes, that familiar sparkle that’s often followed by some of her favorite memories.

It’s the same one she’s always had, hand outstretched, wry smile asking, follow me?

Octavia jumps up from the couch without a question. No words are passed between them but they don’t need them as Clarke opens up the living room window and shimmies out onto the fire escape. Octavia watches her girlfriend and best friend crawl barefoot out their window, a smile breaking across her face, completely ignoring the cold night air. Octavia doesn’t know where they’re going or what they’re doing, and she doesn’t care. She’d follow Clarke to the ends of the earth if it meant she got to see that smile and hear that laugh and hold her tight at the end of the night.

_______________________________________

Lexa has circled her living room six times debating whether or not she should call Octavia and cancel.

She walks along the line between the thin black carpet of the living room and the black hardwood floor of her kitchen, carefully, one foot just in front of the other as she weighs options in her head. She pauses in front of the low shelf at the base of the windows that make up one wall of her apartment, kneeling before the row of floating bonsai trees she keeps. Orange light from the setting sun streaks in through the windows, as she tends to her tiny planets. Magnets keep the rocks afloat and her little garden reminds her of the novel The Petit Prince, which Anya used to read to her when she was little. A world of advice and life and love and hope. She sets one of the trees spinning.

Lexa is entirely uncertain what to do.

Octavia insisted that Clarke wanted to get to know Lexa after their run in at the precinct and wanted to make up for awkwardly running out. Lexa isn’t sure if she should be wary of the whole premise of drinks with Octavia and her girlfriend, or if it really is just a friendly invite of drinks as a way to apologize for all the awkwardness that ensued.

Either way she is nervous and Lexa hates feeling nervous. She’s on her way to being a powerful lawyer precisely because she’s in control and she doesn’t let her feelings dictate her actions...` influence, inform, perhaps, but never are they a deciding factor. Not since- Lexa pushes at the thought not even want to bring up the memory. She wipes at her eyes carefully trying not to smudge her makeup, because she isn’t really crying.

A long time ago she learned that deep intense feelings only lead to more pain that she is willing to risk. Anya insists she’s just a hair too jaded for twenty-seven but shuts up about the time that Lexa points out Anya has exactly as many serious relationships as she has, which is to say, none beyond each other. Anything more is a distraction from success. At least as far as Lexa sees it.

After meeting Clarke she just wanted to throw herself back into work. She would be lying if she didn’t feel disappointed but Lexa doesn’t feel like putting herself in a position where she can be hurt again. There are too many things she wants to do before she turns thirty and another broken heart is not on the list, and friends just distract her from work.

She was determined to stick to the plan, then Octavia asked her out for drinks, saying Clarke had asked her to extend an invitation, rambled on about how Clarke was an artist in residence at the art museum downtown and she knew that Lexa liked spending her lunch breaks at the museum so they all had a lot in common.

The words what, like finding you both attractive? had burned the back of her throat as she held them back and instead she had found herself accepting the invitation. Her apartment is clean and warm but it is empty and void of any life but her own. Going out for drinks would be nice even if she had to spend the entire night keeping herself in check. It’s not like she could relax after how much she had been flirting with Octavia. The last thing she needs to do is cause a problem between Octavia and her girlfriend.

On her next circle of the immaculate, minimalist room Lexa snatches her iPad off the glass coffee table and hits redial, pulling up the video chat app as she does. She comes to stop in front of the floor to ceiling windows that look out over downtown and pinches the bridge of her nose while FaceTime rings. She props the iPad up on the tall corner table so she doesn’t have to hold it while she talks.

Lexa glances at the screen as Anya’s face comes into view, “This is a terrible idea.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Anya takes a sip of red wine.

“Going for drinks with Octavia and Clarke.”

“Oh, I know you’re talking about that. I just don’t think it’s a terrible idea.” There’s a hint of a laugh in Anya’s voice and Lexa rolls her eyes. “You aren’t trying to back out are you?”

“Perhaps.” Lexa leans her forehead against the glass and looks down at the street twenty-two stories below watching life rush by en miniature, wishing the immensity of the city could just swallow her whole and push her back into obscurity.

“You really need to get out more.”

Lexa purses her lips and turns her head to look at Anya, her forehead squeaks against the glass and she winces at the sound. “I have more important things to deal with than my social life.”

“Your lack of social life, you mean.”

She sticks her tongue out, “Just because my job doesn’t require me to go to parties twice a week doesn’t mean my social life is lacking.”

“When was the last time you went on a date?”

Lexa doesn’t answer, instead looking down at the world beneath her feet again. Mostly she stays silent because she can’t exactly recall the last real date she went on though it was probably something Anya set up. And if she brings up Costia they’ll be here all night discussing how she needs to move on and Lexa will insist that she has and Anya will insist that she prove it and she’ll end up with another blind date that she doesn’t want to go on.

“Well, you can fix that tonight.”

“Anya! This isn’t a date,” Lexa nearly jumps to standing and walks toward the iPad, horrified. “I’m meeting a coworker and her girlfriend for drinks.”

“It totally sounded like a date when you told me about it on Wednesday,” Anya winks.

“Oh my god, Anya. I’m never telling you anything again.”

“What, you said they were both hot, is it too much to hope that my little sis gets some before she winds so tight she snaps at someone in court and gets disbarred.”

“I am not wound tight,” Lexa crosses her arms across her chest.

Anya makes a noise that sounds like a stifled snort of laughter. “You aren’t wearing that are you?”

Lexa glances down, she’s still in work clothes, slacks and a modest button up, though she did slip off her heels when she got home. It’s appropriate for a cordial night of drinks with a coworker, maybe a bit too formal for drinks with a friend. Anya picks out most of her wardrobe anyway. She sighs. “I hadn’t decided if I was even going yet.”

Anya purses her lips and Lexa knows there will be no debating whether or not she is or is not going or else she’ll never hear the end of it. “Wear the white dress, the one with the zipper down the front and the pockets.”

Lexa finds herself mumbling thanks before she hangs up. That was not at all how she wanted or planned that conversation to go and now she only has an hour and a half to get ready and get back downtown to the bar.

_______________________________________

Clarke slides in next to Octavia in the booth in the back corner of The Trading Post. They’re early and after a ten minute discussion of whose fault it is they decided they’re entirely a disaster when left to their own devices. Clarke is a bundle of nerves and Octavia is feeding off her energy, channeling her excitement into an inability to sit still and a deconstructed beer label.

Niylah leans on their table, a second round of beers in her hand. “You two alright?”

“Definitely.”

“Of course.”

Clarke stares at the table unable to meet Niylah’s gaze, afraid to give away the fear underlying her nervousness. She nudges Octavia under the table.

“We’re just waiting for a friend of mine from work.”

“A newbie?”

“Nah, one of the DAs from across the hall.”

“You should bring more of them in, they tip better,” Niylah winks and slides away from their table.

Clarke forces herself to breathe again as she takes a sip of her beer.

The bar is quiet, the post work rush is over and it isn’t quite time for post dinner drinks, only a few other patrons dotted around the dimly lit space. The place is friendly, but not overly fancy, and it’s usually a good place to meet up and start a night out. Clarke glances down at her beer wishing she had something stronger. A small handful of dread has taken up residence in the pit of her stomach and she can’t shake it.

She isn’t enough for Octavia.

Clarke swallows thickly, trying to clear her head. She can do this. It’s only drinks. Nothing has to happen past tonight. Things have been getting better, bit by bit. Still, she’s afraid of what will happen to her relationship after tonight is over. It’s already been irreparably changed.

Octavia spots Lexa walk in first and nudges Clarke out of her reverie. She’s excited but trying to follow Clarke’s lead. All she wants is to make things right between them and find a way to stay together. Clarke is her best friend, has been since Clarke snuck her a cookie in detention after they’d gotten in a fight on the playground in the fifth grade. She means more to Octavia than anyone else in her life, she’ll do anything to keep Clarke by her side, even if that means setting aside the growing warmth in her chest she gets whenever she thinks of Lexa.

Lexa is wearing a white knee length babydoll dress underneath her red peacoat. Her hair is down in a half curled wavy mane and she looks so much less intimidating like this. The stoic greek goddess is still there but the young woman underneath is peaking through. Her eyes light up when she spots them.

They slide out of the booth, standing to say hello. Clarke can’t take her eyes off Lexa and even though she’s dressed nice she feels dull next to Lexa’s shine. In her heels Lexa is close to half a foot taller than either of them and Clarke hates how it makes her feel small.

Octavia moves first and pulls Lexa into a quick hug, “I’m so glad you could make it.”

Watching Octavia hug Lexa feels like a hand squeezing Clarke’s heart. She forces out a breath and smiles, extending her hand and taking Lexa’s lightly when she does the same. “Me too.” She tries to mean it.

“I’ll go get us a round. Lexa?” Octavia slides her hand to the small of Clarke’s back and guides her toward the booth.

“Red wine?”

She nods. “Same?” Octavia turns to Clarke who nods her head yes. The look in her eyes is sad like she’s trying to hold it all in, Octavia wants to ask her if she’s okay but Lexa is here and there’s no privacy now. She presses a firm kiss to Clarke’s lips and hopes that it’s enough before pulling away and almost running to fetch their drinks.

Silence envelopes the table. Clarke wants to sink into the cushioned seat, instead she blinks back tears and smiles at Lexa, reminding herself that this is for Octavia. This is their chance. She lets out the breath she’s been holding.

“O said you go to the museum on your days off.” Clarke fiddles with the pieces of label scattered next to her empty beer, trying to hide her nervousness.

Lexa nods, “You work there, yes?” It’s clear that Clarke is uncomfortable with this situation, even if Octavia had told the truth and it was her idea, it wasn’t because she wanted it. She should have called and cancelled. There’s a reason she doesn’t do this.

“I teach art classes, mostly kids, sometimes I help with exhibits.”

Lexa glances back up at Clarke, “I want to work with kids too.”

“I thought you were a lawyer.”

“The foster kids, custody cases. Hopefully I can help someone.” Lexa stops, not wanting to talk about her time in the foster system, or how old she and Anya were when they finally found a family, only to have it taken from them again. How home had never been four walls and a roof, or even an adult, but another scared girl’s arms. Clarke might be attractive and sharp witted and interested in working with kids, but she hasn’t earned that story.

Silence falls between them again and Clarke can’t help but notice how Lexa almost smiles when Octavia slides back into the booth with their drinks. Clarke takes hers and tries not to drink it too fast. The way Lexa looks at Octavia hurts, because she’s supposed to be the only one that looks at her like that. Like she’s the one person that matters.

Octavia reaches under the table and lays her hand on Clarke’s thigh, it does nothing to dissuade the knot in her stomach from growing. She kisses Octavia on the cheek. She can get through one round pretending everything is okay.

Nothing about the rest of the night is okay.

_______________________________________

Monday morning Clarke decides to bring Octavia coffee from the cafe down the street on her way to work, another peace offering left on an empty desk. She’s nearly out the precinct doors when she hears her name and Lexa grabs her wrist, pulling them into the supply closet. She hastily turns on the light and shuts the door behind them before Clarke’s really had a chance to register what’s happening.

Lexa didn’t really think this through. Except that she’s spent all weekend thinking about drinks on Friday night and the hurt look on Clarke’s face and knowing it was her fault in a way, and she needs to fix it.

“Lexa?” Clarke pulls her arm back but she can still feel Lexa’s hand on her. “I have a class I have to go teach.”

“Friday was a disaster,” Lexa blurts out. She needs to apologize and she can’t do that if Clarke doesn’t want to listen to her.

Clarke snorts and crosses her arms. “You pulled me into a closet to tell me that?”

“Wait!” Lexa holds up a hand but doesn’t move to grab Clarke or stop her from leaving. It’s a relief when Clarke stops moving for the door and turns back to face her. “What I mean is that it’s clear I overstepped proprietary and I’ve caused problems between you and Octavia which was not my intention. I would never knowingly come between a couple.”

That is the last thing Clarke expected to hear from Lexa: a blatant acknowledgement of feelings that took Octavia weeks to admit to herself and even longer to admit to Clarke. It doesn’t make it hurt any less, or change how she feels about what has already happened. “Okay.”

“Clarke, I’m asking to be transferred off Octavia’s cases and to be reassigned to another office in the city. If I stay I feel I’m just going to complicate the situation further.”

Lexa looks entirely earnest. Her eyes are wide, vulnerable, and her breath is coming quicker than normal, but only by a little. Clarke can only tell because the supply closet is a small cramped space and she certain this is the closest they have ever stood. She can smell Lexa’s perfume: petrichor and mint. It’s unique and vaguely mysterious.

“Thank you.” Clarke reaches for the door but turns one last time, “Lexa?” She glances up through a curtain of wavy chestnut hair. “It wasn’t all your fault, so don’t think it was.”

Lexa nods, pursing her lips and watches Clarke slip into the hallway. Her heart is heavy and she blinks back tears. She tried, she can tell Anya she tried. Maybe now her sister will drop this relationship nonsense.

Chapter Text

Clarke turns over in their little double bed. It’s too small, Octavia is too close, and she can’t sleep.

Everything keeps coming back to Lexa. Every moment in the past few months, the downward spiral of her and Octavia’s relationship, it all comes back to Lexa. Everything that’s come together has been because of Lexa too. Clarke knows the anxiety wrapped around her spine is driving this, twisting her emotions, leaving her bowed and weak, but she can’t stop the thoughts assaulting her. Lexa is a better person than Clarke wanted her to be, had she been cruel or uncaring, every bit as hard as the marble statue she looks like, this would be easier, but there’s a softness underneath her stoic exterior.

This would be easier if Clarke hated Lexa, but she doesn’t, she likes her.

Lexa is everything she can’t be for Octavia.

Tears are rolling down her cheeks and her head is screaming. It’s too hot and too cold and her half of the bed is too small. Her skin itches from staying still. Clarke kicks off the covers unafraid of waking Octavia, because Octavia sleeps through everything, and scoots off the end of the bed. She can’t be here.

Her heart is tied up in knots even though she’s trying to hold it together instead of letting it break.

She stumbles to the door, shoving her feet into shoes, grabbing her sweatshirt and keys and before stumbling outside she rescues the half empty bottle of whiskey from the kitchen. She slams the door, not caring that it’s two in the morning. Clarke doesn’t know where’s she’s going, just that she can’t breathe as long as she’s inside their apartment. The more she watches Octavia sleep the deeper the thought creeps inside her and she can’t escape it.

This is the end.

Four years of being everything to each other and it’s over. Seventeen years of friendship shattered.

The whiskey burns.

The night air is cold but it doesn’t wake her up, it only makes it hurt more. She walks quickly, brushing up against the brick wall, she needs to find distance. An invisible hand is clutching her throat, squeezing tight. Her stomach is full of nails and she’s shaking uncontrollably. She takes a drink of the whiskey trying to push back the feeling of falling. She presses a hand to a building, trying to keep herself upright as her head spins.

The sidewalk is full of drunk people walking home as the bars start to close. Everyone else seems steadier, more real, more alive. Clarke feels like she’s fading. Someone crashes into her shoulder, cursing at her and she’s not sure which of them is more unsteady as she takes off down the road again.

Octavia is the only person she’s ever really been in love with, the first person that chose her, chose to stay, to make things work, and now she’s halfway to choosing someone else. If Lexa is who Octavia wants she knows she has to step aside. It feels like she’s going to come apart. She takes another drink. They’ve always made it work before. Octavia holds her together when the world crumbles around her.

The world is crumbling and Clarke is alone.

In the back of her mind she knows that maybe this isn’t true but she can’t escape this feeling inside her, that’s overtaking her every waking thought. This is her anxiety, her depression, the remnants of trauma that cling to her. Still, she feels alone and that’s what drives her on, whiskey in one hand and bad decisions in the other.

The road is dark and the parking lot is empty and she collapses onto the curb. It’s cold and wet beneath her thin pajama shorts but she doesn’t care. Her skin is numb in the chill night air but she can’t bring herself to worry. It doesn’t matter that she’s freezing, her heart is breaking and the whiskey is burning away any thought but the one that hurts the most.

Octavia deserves to be happy; Clarke isn’t enough to give that to her.

Lexa might be that person. Clarke lets out a bitter laugh because in another life she could see herself falling for Lexa. She gets it, why Octavia fell for her. If she had met Lexa first it would be Octavia falling apart because she finally understands how it’s possible to have feelings for more than one person. She’s loved Octavia for years, and she probably always will, and there’s a spark, an impulse of emotion when she thinks about Lexa. There’s the potential for love. She wants both of them, but it could never work out like that even if they want it to.

Life doesn’t work out like that because life doesn’t work out, tied up nice and neatly.

She takes another mouthful of whiskey, coughing violently as she swallows. Clarke examines the nearly empty bottle, she’s had enough but if she keeps a hold of it she’ll finish it off. She tips her head back, taking one last mouthful before chucking the rest across the parking lot and watching the glass shatter.

_______________________________________

“Clarke!” Octavia chokes out her name as she throws her arms around Clarke’s neck as she’s barely two steps into their apartment. They stumble backwards against the door, slamming it shut. Octavia’s breath is coming in ragged gasps as she chokes down sobs. Her face is wet and slick against Clarke’s neck and she doesn’t care where she’s been. Clarke is in her arms again and that’s all that matters. She’s okay.

Well, she’s alive.

She’s alive and she came back.

“I- I thought you were gone.” Octavia’s words are rough and broken and quiet. Her heart is in a vice, Clarke has never left like this before and she’s terrified of what it means. She’s loved her since the day they became friends, and she’s been in love with her for longer than they’ve been together. Clarke is the only person she always wants this deeply.

Three hours ago she had woken up to an empty bed and not thought much of it because Clarke always gets up to paint, but a feeling of doubt had pulled her from her bed. The apartment was too quiet. The air was too still. Clarke’s studio was empty. Her panic had grown steadily trying to figure out where Clarke had gone in the middle of the night.

Octavia ran back to their room, only to find both their phones on the nightstand.

She’d woken the neighbors with her scream.

She sinks against Clarke as Clarke’s arms finally wrap around her, hesitant and careful. Octavia can smell the whiskey on her breath and she pulls her closer. Now that Clarke is in her arms she can’t let go. She can’t breathe. She can’t stop crying.

The relief running through her is tied up in fear.

Clarke is trembling and exhausted and she can hardly remember the last time Octavia broke down crying. She’s had too much to drink though to hold them both up and they slowly sink to the floor. The wood floor is hard against her numb skin.

She didn’t expect Octavia to notice she was gone. Her fingers run across the stitches on Octavia’s shoulder and the nearly healed cut. This is her fault. She’s ready to give her up, because Lexa is a better person than Clarke. She’s who Octavia needs. Clarke is a mess and she knows it and no one should have to deal with her.

Except Octavia is holding onto her like she’s everything. Her arms have worked their way inside Clarke’s sweatshirt, her nails are digging into her skin as she clings tighter and tighter. Clarke runs her hands clumsily up and down Octavia’s spine trying to calm her down, trying to coax her to breathe. She tries to remember what Octavia does for her when she breaks down but her head is muddled.

She’s a terrible girlfriend.

Octavia presses hard against Clarke. She’s shaken, afraid and terrified that nothing will be okay between them again. Clarke left without trying to talk to her, without even saying anything might be wrong. Instead of talking like she tries to do even when Octavia fails to communicate, Clarke gave up and walked out.

Her heart breaks because she doesn’t know how she gets through this without losing her best friend, the person she loves most in this world. They’re both cracking apart and no matter what Octavia does it isn’t enough this time.

She just wants to go back to the days when they would climb onto rooftops, and hilltops and treetops and kiss in the light of the setting sun or underneath the stars, when their adventures ended in fits of laughter. She wants burnt toast with her coffee in the morning because Clarke tried to make breakfast.

The harder Octavia cries, the harder it gets for Clarke to hold herself together until they’re both sobbing, clinging to each other on the floor just inside the door of their tiny apartment, great heaving sobs that leave them aching and exhausted.

This is their last fight, their letting go. In the back of Clarke’s mind there’s a nudge of hope that maybe still they can get through this, that they can survive this mess. Somehow they can survive Lexa.

It’s a long time before either of them try to speak. Octavia’s face is puffy and red from crying, Clarke reaches out a shaky hand and rests it on her cheek, brushing her thumb gently over the tear swollen flesh and the scrape that’s almost healed. She scoots closer and Octavia does the same, tangling their legs together. Octavia’s hand is on her waist.

Each time Clarke tries to open her mouth her jaw trembles and an invisible hand squeezes tight against her throat. The words are just there, waiting to be spoken, but the idea of asking the question forming in her mind begging to be asked, cuts at her.

Still, Clarke has to know even if it breaks her completely.

“Am I ever going to be enough again?” The words fall from her lips and her hope is swallowed by the darkness around her.

Octavia’s heart breaks. Clarke has always been enough, she is enough, no matter how rough things are between them she has never felt that Clarke wasn’t enough. Fresh tears prick her eyes.

Octavia sits up to look at Clarke, pulling her with her. “You always are,” the words wrap around them tenderly, too soft to hold them together but enough to cling to them like hope.

Clarke looks away, “I want you to be happy.” Her voice is small like Octavia’s never heard it and she would do anything to make it sound strong again.

“You make me happy.” She reaches out but Clarke flinches away from her touch and she lets her hand fall to the ground. Clarke has never recoiled from her touch before. Octavia looks down, looks anywhere, but at Clarke because if she does she will break.

Clarke pulls her knees to her chest and wraps her arms around them. She wants to disappear into the floor but the only way she can do that right now is if she pushes through. She has to know, or else she’ll leave and forever be wondering if she made the right decision. “Then why is this happening? How can I be enough for you but you want her too?”

Octavia doesn’t answer. She doesn’t have a good one. Because I do isn’t fair to her or Lexa or to Clarke. It’s the only answer she has. Maybe if she had any sort of impulse control, if she could have left Clarke’s sarcastic comment alone this never would have happened. Clarke wouldn’t be trying to leave her.

“Would she make you happy?” Clarke looks up and meets Octavia’s searching gaze, waiting for a hint or a confirmation. All she sees is pain.

“I need you.” Octavia scoots closer to Clarke but can’t bring herself to reach out, she couldn’t take it if Clarke flinched away from her touch again. Clarke’s pain is her fault. The thought makes her sick. This is her fault. They agreed things had to change and she hasn’t changed.

“Octavia, you deserve someone who can give you everything you need, and if I’m not that person. I- I’ll-” Clarke’s voice cracks. “I love you, but I’ll step aside.”

“Clarke.” Octavia nearly lunges to her, desperate, “Stop.” She sits forward on her knees, reaching out to cradle Clarke’s face in her hands. “No.” Gently she coaxes her to lift her chin and look at her again, “Look at me, please.”

Trembling jaw tense Clarke holds back tears as she lifts her chin to see the frantic look on Octavia’s face.

“You’ve been drinking and you’re upset. You aren’t thinking clearly. Don’t give me that look, you know I know you well enough to say that.” Octavia collapses forward, her body almost touching Clarke, but not quite. “I need you, Clarke. I love you, I am in love with you, okay?”

She needs Clarke to understand, she needs Clarke to hear her, and she’s afraid Clarke is too far lost in the voices in her head telling her she isn’t enough and that she should just give up. That’s the last thing Octavia wants.

Clarke nods her head slowly, “Okay.”

Octavia’s breaking heart feels a moment of fleeting hope at that one word. “You will always be enough. We’ll work this mess out, but I need you to stay with me.” Her hands fall from Clarke’s face, to her shoulders, gently brushing down her arms until she’s holding her hands. “And this thing with Lexa, we can let it go, forget it, because I can’t lose you Clarke, no matter how I feel about her.”

For a moment Clarke watches Octavia, the pain, and confusion echoing across her face. She doesn’t know if she could stand walking away from her. They’ve been everything to each other for so long. If Octavia says she’s staying no matter what Clarke believes her, but this mess with Lexa isn’t so simply resolved. Not anymore. “We can give it one more try.”

“Don’t do this thing with Lexa for me.”

“I’m not.” Clarke lets out a huff of air because she can’t quite believe herself, after all this, “I like her too.”

Octavia reaches up and brushes a shaking hand across Clarke’s cheek. “Together?”

Clarke nods turning her head to kiss Octavia’s palm.

Octavia pushes Clarke back gently onto the floor slowly following her down. She hovers over her, not quite touching, still afraid to touch. A tremor runs through her arms as she holds herself up. Clarke’s hands are on her hips, not quite holding her in place, but holding her, waiting for Octavia to move. There’s more that she needs to say than there are words in the English language to use.

She dips her head and kisses Clarke lightly. Her heart is thudding against her rib cage so hard it hurts and adrenaline is running through her fuelling the nervous terror in her stomach as she waits for the kiss to be returned. She almost pulls back when she feels Clarke’s hands on her hips pull her down and Clarke deepens the kiss.

Their touches are light, exploratory, timid for how well they know each other’s bodies, but this is about forgiveness and trust. Gently Octavia lowers her length against Clarke feeling the warmth come back into the woman beneath her. There is nothing expectant about their kisses or touches, no greater drive than to be there right in that moment, soft and pliant in each other’s hands.

Her broken heart feels lighter. And even if things between them are still rocky, they’ll be okay. They’re choosing to continue to fight for each other. They aren’t giving up. Octavia pulls back slightly, just enough to whisper against Clarke’s ear and press a soft line of kisses along her jaw as she talks.

“Let’s go back to bed. I’ll call in sick tomorrow, we’ll play hooky and spend some time on us. If you want.”

“Are you sure?”

“More than anything.”

_______________________________________

Octavia bounces in her seat next to Clarke. She has too much energy and they’ve spent much of their time lately in bed. Resting, recovering, rediscovering each other. It hasn’t all been about sleeping, most of it hasn’t, but it’s the weekend again and her shoulder is getting better and she wants to be with Clarke having adventures again. Adventures outside of the bedroom, which is exactly why they're on a cross town bus first thing in the morning. First stop a local park, next stop Abby’s for lunch… or dinner, depending upon how long they’re out.

She had tried to talk Clarke into letting her drive them on her motorcycle, but Clarke’s nerves had gotten the better of her. Octavia decided to pick her battles. Riding she could live without. It was already starting to get cold anyway. Spending time with a smiling Clarke is definitely worth being cooped up on a slow moving bus.

Octavia sighs and leans her head against Clarke’s shoulder. She has a feeling this upswing in Clarke’s mood won’t last long, worried that one wrong move on her part will trigger her back into her depression. These things take time she reminds herself. Clarke will come back to her for longer periods of time, again and again, until for a while, she’ll be okay. Throughout it all Octavia knows she’ll be by her side. Helping, waiting, offering up whatever she can give. She takes Clarke’s hand and squeezes it.

Her heart aches thinking about all the times Clarke has fallen apart and she’s been powerless to stop it. How many times she’s wished she had someone she could fall into while she holds them both afloat. Now the answer seems clear. Lexa could be that someone. Octavia can only offer support and encouragement and a strong shoulder for Clarke to fall against, a warm set of arms to wrap around her, but that strength isn’t infinite. How many mornings had smiling over terrible coffee with Lexa already kept her going?

Clarke nudges her, “Where are we going? And why are we not enjoying our bed? The sun is barely up.” She presses a kiss to Octavia’s hair and Clarke smiles sleepily before resting her chin on Octavia’s shoulder.

Octavia grins and lets her head dip down. She loves Clarke like this, warm and soft and cuddly, following her on adventures at stupid o’clock in the morning just because Octavia asked her to. She kisses Clarke’s forehead.

“If I told you it wouldn’t be a surprise anymore.”

“Will there be coffee?”

She hums slightly and laughs, “If someone had gotten out of bed when I woke them up they would have already had coffee.”

Clarke pouts and Octavia rolls her eyes, but she reaches up and pulls the cord to signal the bus to stop.

“First stop coffee.”

Clarke’s face lights up and she kisses Octavia on the cheek, “You’re good to me. Even when you drag me out of bed before the sun.”

Octavia would do anything to see that smile every day.

_______________________________________

“Lexa!” Clarke calls out and takes a couple quicker steps down the hall to catch up with the other woman. It's been two weeks since they had drinks and true to her word Lexa has pulled back and barely talked to Octavia outside of work.

Clarke had just finished lunch with Octavia and was hoping to catch Lexa since her office was so close to the precinct. Even if they haven't been talking, Octavia and Clarke had been trying to find a time to at least make one last effort.

Life is a series of choices. Love no less so.

“Hello, Clarke.” Lexa nods at her.

They fall into step together. “I was wondering if you’d had a chance to think about letting me take you on a tour of the museum.”

“Are you certain?” Lexa’s eyes flick back toward the main offices where Octavia’s desk is. Drinks had been a painful event. The conversation with Clarke the following Monday was the only proof she needed that she had hurt more than just herself by acknowledging her own feelings. She’s wary as to why Clarke even wants to speak with her, let alone offer to spend more time with her.

“Yes.” She pauses, trying to gauge the tension between them. There is none of Lexa’s normal fierceness, only a quiet reservation. “My friend is setting up the Diaghilev exhibit and I could get a key from him. Octavia mentioned you used to dance.”

There’s a flicker of excitement in Lexa’s eyes, even though she doesn’t smile. “Okay.”

“Seven on Sunday night?”

“I’ll meet you there.”

_______________________________________

Clarke slips the key out of the lock and presses on the oversized door, holding it open to let Lexa and Octavia inside the room. She closes the door behind them and the darkness envelopes them all for a few seconds before Clarke finds the light switch. She shoves her hands in her pockets nervously. They aren’t really supposed to be in here but her friend who’s been helping construct the exhibit gave her the key and told her when they could sneak in. She also tipped off Monroe in security that they’d be along and she promised to double check the doors when they left.

Lexa wanders into the center of the first room, a black and white construction, reminiscent of a deconstructed piano is the backdrop for the music scores. They’re in the unopened exhibit for Diaghilev & The Ballet Russes that she’s been dying to see when it opens and she’s in awe barely ten paces into the room. Her hands flit over the glass cases careful not to touch but fingertips trace music scores she knows the sounds of by heart.

Her foster parents put her in ballet lessons when she moved in and she had danced for years before college became too time consuming to allow her to continue.

Clarke presses a switch hidden behind a panel and the first strands of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring pour out of hidden speakers. A lone basson is joined by clarinets. The music is eerie and alive, a bass clarinet cutting a rhythm underneath the melody. Lexa whirls around and there’s a smile on her face, it’s bright and alive and full of wonder.

“Not everything is set up, but this room is so magical when you can hear what you’re seeing.” Clarke glances over at Octavia who’s toying with something she probably shouldn’t be touching, and tries to get her to stop with just a look. Octavia nods her head toward Lexa and turns back to the exhibit she’s fiddling with.

Octavia watches as Clarke crosses the room back to Lexa and starts talking in hushed tones about what else is planned for the exhibit and how the pieces fit together. Her eyes are alight and she can hear just by the tone in her voice that she’s ecstatic to have a captive audience in Lexa.

She smiles to herself because it’s good to see them like this, getting along. Even if they’re only all friends this is more than she hoped for after the past few weeks. It’s good to see Clarke like this again. She was losing her light. Maybe even if they just stay the two of them things will be okay.

Part of her wants to cross over to them and listen in but art isn’t her thing, she just wants to be a part of the friendship that’s building. She’s only here because Lexa seemed nervous about spending time with just Clarke, though it barely showed through. Octavia could only tell by the tiniest hesitation in her voice and the rigid way she held her shoulders when the museum adventure had been brought up. She’s glad she gets to watch this unfold, knowing full well that Clarke is still undecided if she just wants to be friends or if she wants to flirt with Lexa.

At least she had been this morning.

Clarke laughs and Lexa rolls her eyes, biting back a smile. She’s half in teacher and tour guide mode, and half pure excitement over finally seeing what came of the concept drawings, and that Lexa seems to know as much as she does, if not more, about The Ballet Russes, is only fuel to the energy running through her.

The next room is the part she’s most excited to see just because of it’s scale and concept, even if it isn’t finished, it will still be impressive.

“This is the best part. I mean later on there’s a bunch of Picasso’s work, which is fascinating in its own right, but there’s something special about this.” Clarke starts walking backwards and takes Lexa’s hands in her own, glad when Lexa lets her.

“What is it?”

“Close your eyes.”

They stop walking. Lexa purses her lips. Clarke raises her eyebrow. Neither is willing to move. Octavia watches from the other side of the room transfixed. Lexa waits for an explanation as Clarke waits for her to accept the terms. From where she’s standing she isn’t sure if anyone breaks eye contact.

“You have not told me why I’m closing my eyes, Clarke.”

Clarke matches Lexa’s stare and purses her lips.

Lexa’s hands are cool in Clarke’s. She knows she should have dropped them by now, the way Lexa stopped the moment she told her to close her eyes, but Lexa hasn’t moved to let go either and that thought sends a small thrill through her. This woman is enigmatic and Clarke wants to peel back her layers to see what she is made of, but first there has to be an understanding between them.

“You can trust me, Lexa.” Clarke gives Lexa an earnest smile and squeezes her hands. Lexa rolls her eyes and breathes out through her nose, but she closes her eyes.

Clarke walks Lexa into the next room and stops her just inside the doorway. “Keep your eyes closed.”

She hurries back to the wall and turns on the lights overhead illuminating the room and the massive piece of artwork in it. Clarke’s progress back to Lexa is slower and she takes in the sight of her waiting patiently. She’s starting to enjoy Lexa’s presence, her seriousness, and the slow apprehensive smile that sometimes tugs at the corner of her mouth; she has a dry wit and seems so entirely put together. She knows art too, which is exciting. Octavia tries, but doesn’t understand half of what Clarke rambles on about when they visit museums. Her stomach flutters with excitement as her eyes roam over the tapestry and the woman standing before it. It wasn’t her intent to stand back and stare but she loves this room, the sheer scale of it, the juxtaposition of the small human versus the huge canvas.

She stops just behind Lexa, close enough to feel the heat radiating from her but not quite close enough to touch.

Lexa tenses as Clarke stops behind her. She isn’t used to anyone but Anya being in her personal space and even that isn’t entirely common. She doesn’t move though, Clarke was just holding her hands and is clearly more relaxed with platonic intimacy than most people. There’s an energy that draws her in from Clarke and Octavia tonight that she didn’t expect. Even with the continued promise of wanting to apologize for the way they met Lexa isn’t prepared for the change in energy she feels from Clarke. She’s gone from challenging and angry, to, no less challenging, but softer somehow, curious.

Lexa lets out a steadying breath, her body betraying her mind, because she feels the need to lean into the warmth behind her but she knows that is the last thing she should do.

Clarke is not hers.

“Can I open my eyes?” She lifts an eyebrow but keeps her eyes shut.

“Go ahead.” Clarke’s breath tickles the back of Lexa’s neck.

Lexa opens her eyes, her gaze scraping up from the floor to the ceiling as she takes in the canvas before her. Firebird . She standing in front of the original backdrop for Firebird . Slowly, carefully, deliberately she walks forward and stops just short of the massive tapestry. In her head she can hear the frantic notes of Stravinsky’s music bringing to life the magical realm of Koschei the Immortal. Before she quit dancing she learned variations from the ballet, it was always one of her favorites.

She reaches out but doesn’t let herself touch the tapestry, her fingertips tracing the weave and detail as if that’s enough. If she can get close enough to the thing, the reality of the dream, maybe it will be real.

Clarke is beside her, closer than last time but still not touching.

So many things in Lexa’s life are like this tapestry. There’s the dream right in front of her, she’s almost touching it but she refuses to reach out and let it be hers.

“Stunning,” Clarke whispers.

Lexa glances at her, but Clarke’s eyes aren’t on the tapestry, they’re on her.

_______________________________________

Lexa can’t sit still. Normally she can hold herself calmly immobile long enough for nearly anyone to crack, but Anya has known her for most of her life and knows exactly how to get under her skin. She knows exactly how to push her when she wants to get Lexa to talk. Usually when she feels like she needs it.

This is the last thing she wants to talk about.

“Anya, this is ridiculous, just drop it.”

“No.” Anya leans back on Lexa’s couch watching as she paces around the living room. “This the first time you’ve admitted feelings for anyone since Costia left.”

She didn’t mean to admit that her feelings for Octavia had somehow extended to Clarke. Even if she doesn’t want to acknowledge that the way Clarke looked at her as they stood in front of the Firebird tapestry sent butterflies through her stomach, she can’t deny it, even if she’d rather digest the butterflies than acknowledge them. Just like she can’t deny the visceral pain she feels when Costia is mentioned. “Can you not bring her up?”

“You have got to move on.”

Lexa whirls around, “I have!”

“No you haven’t,” Anya scoffs.

“Who exactly am I supposed to be moving on with? Octavia? Clarke? ” Lexa crosses her arms, her hands in fists tucked protectively between her biceps and body. There is nothing she can do about her feelings so they’re about as useless as sunglasses under a new moon.

“Yourself!” Anya gestures at Lexa and at herself. “She left you, we’ve all been left.”

“She didn’t just leave me, Anya.”

“I know Lexa.”

They’ve been over this a hundred times. Anya practically lived it when it happened. She doesn’t really need the reminder but Lexa can feel the anger and pain of it all boiling just beneath the surface like it was yesterday and she has to let it out. She stalks towards Anya, her voice cold and harsh.

“I bought a ring, I was in the process of transferring schools. We were falling apart because she decided to do her research at the Sorbonne and I was fighting for us and she kept telling me she would too, that she would never leave me.”

“Lexa-”

“She let me get through my entire proposal and she turned around and told me she couldn’t let me uproot my life for her because she had a crush on some girl she’d just met. She left for Europe and cut me out of her life without another word, Anya.”

“Lexa-”

“I know for a fact that girl didn’t even go to Europe with her. It’s been five years and I haven’t heard a single word from her.”

Anya stands up, putting her toe to toe with Lexa, they’re the same height and Lexa nearly takes a step back as she feels the frustration roll off her foster sister.

“Alexandria!” Anya follows her half a step back, her eyes devoid of any sympathy. They’ve had this fight too many times. “You and Costia, it’s over. Let it go.”

Lexa takes another step backwards and Anya lets her retreat. Her hands are trembling and she knows Anya is right. It’s been too long and even if she never planned a future that didn’t someone account for Costia coming back one day it’s time she stop letting herself indulge in that dream.

“She was supposed to be everything,” her voice almost cracks and tears threaten to spill down her cheeks. She looks up, avoiding Anya’s gaze which has softened. If she makes eye contact she’ll break, she’ll cry.

“And for a while she was.” Anya takes a step forward, her thin arms folding around Lexa and pulling her close. She presses a kiss to her hair like she did when they were young and Lexa was scared. “Maybe that’s all she’ll ever be, someone who was for a while. And that’s okay, not everyone is forever.”

Lexa turns her head to hide her face against Anya’s neck, nestling into the hug, as hot tears spill down her cheeks. “What do I do now?”

“What do you want?”

_______________________________________

They've seen Lexa three times since the museum. Each time she seemed a little brighter to Clarke, her smile reaching beyond her eyes, her impassable face breaking open and coming alive. She started to look at Clarke the way she looked at Octavia.

It’s intoxicating, and confusing.

“Clarke?” Octavia’s voice cuts through her thoughts. “Are you coming to bed?”

“Yeah in a few.” Clarke sets down the drawing she stopped working on an hour ago and leans back into the couch. She’s distracted lately. Nothing is coming together like she needs it too, she's too overwhelmed to focus long enough to create anything.

“Everything okay?”

“Of course.” Clarke lies, there’s an uneasy feeling in her stomach that she’s trying to ignore that has everything to do with her girlfriend’s crush on another woman. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

“Are you still alright with us hanging out with Lexa?” Octavia curls up next to her on the couch, nearly laying on top of Clarke as she does. Her face is pressed into the curve of Clarke’s neck and Clarke can feel her breath warm on her skin.

When Octavia is like this she feels like they might make it through together. When she can feel her girlfriend’s heartbeat and feel her warm next to her. When for a moment they are the only two people left in the world and she just wants to get lost in the feeling of their bodies next to each other.

Except there’s the gnawing feeling in her stomach like she’s just deluding herself, that no matter what she’ll lose Octavia to Lexa.

“Yeah.” Clarke’s voice sounds smaller than she likes so she nuzzles her head against Octavia’s, and presses a kiss to her forehead.

Octavia knows that timbre of Clarke’s voice, knows she isn’t saying what’s on her mind. She pulls back and turns Clarke’s chin so they’re eye to eye. “You know, you’re enough for me, Clarke. If you want to stop this we can.” Her heart speeds up, afraid Clarke’s answer will have changed, but knowing she can't ask Clarke to do anything that would make her uncomfortable.

“Do you want to?”

Octavia shakes her head no, biting her lip to try to keep from smiling. After Clarke’s breakdown they’ve been okay, and things with Lexa have been nice, even if all they are right now is friends. It’s fun and exciting and she likes it. Having Clarke with her in this makes it that much better, that much more worth it.

She only has a moment to register the flash of sadness in Clarke’s eyes before Clarke kisses her. It’s a heady, passionate, distracting kiss and Clarke bites Octavia’s bottom lip, tugging at it for a second before pulling back. Octavia whines slightly when she does.

“It’s decided then.”

Clarke pushes Octavia down onto the couch, any thought of going to bed gone.

_______________________________________

Lexa chews on the inside of her lip, mindful to not smudge her lipstick as she walks past the rows of tables in the open office and towards Clarke’s glass office. Lunch at the museum had been an impulse, she wanted to see Clarke and to say thank you for the private tour, but couldn't quite convince herself that getting lunch, alone, with Clarke would be a good idea, so she’d walked around downstairs until her stomach insisted she put something in it. Bringing Clarke coffee had also been an impulse. Even if Clarke had never found out she stopped by today she would feel guilty for not trying. Anya must be finally wearing her down.

She almost turned around when she was stopped at the front desk but talking her way past the secretary had been as easy as a slight smile and a well timed laugh. Lexa can see Clarke hunched over her desk, a pencil twitching between her fingers and another few tucked into her hair which is barely secured in a wild bun. She pauses outside the glass door and watches her for a moment, awestruck, trying not to get lost in how stunning Clarke is.

Clarke looks up and Lexa hurriedly pushes into the room as if to not be caught staring.

“I stopped by the museum on my lunch break and thought I'd bring you coffee,” Lexa smiles and crosses the room. She holds out one of the paper cups from the cafe downstairs. “I texted Octavia to see how you take yours, one sugar, a splash of soy? Right?”

There’s a flicker of a smile on Clarke’s lips as she takes the coffee from Lexa. “Yes, I- Thank you,” Her fingers wrap around the warmth as if it’ll seep into her bones and make her feel alive. Even with all of Octavia’s promises that she is enough she’s stopped feeling like she is and it's left her hollow.

A fluttering between her ribcage makes her look up again at Lexa leaned casually against one of the chairs on the other side of her desk in a white pantsuit. She’s just as gorgeous as the day they met, but Clarke can't compare her to marble any longer, there's a warmth to Lexa now that she knows where to look. All the soft lines of well worn stone, the tenderness so carefully guarded, it’s all directed at Clarke right in that moment.

“Thank you,” the words come out again. Lexa raises a questioning eyebrow. “For thinking of me.”

Lexa smiles. Clarke feels a smile of her own break across her face as she stands up to make her way around her desk. She perches just in front of Lexa, their knees nearly touching.

“So you're just bringing me coffee?” Clarke can't remember the last time Octavia stopped by for lunch or coffee just because. The last time she did the little things. She remembers every time though that she came back from a meeting to an office full of roses and a giggling assistant. It's different though.

Lexa is different.

“Yes, just coffee.”

“Why?”

“I wanted to.”

Clarke sets the coffee down and stands, wrapping her arms around Lexa before she’s had a chance to think the action through. They both freeze, neither breathing but in tiny shallow breaths. Slowly Lexa’s arms come up to return the hug for only the briefest moment before Clarke pulls away and retreats back around her desk to sit in her own chair.

She isn’t entirely certain what possessed her to hug Lexa but she is glad she did.

If she’s honest she wants to again, but not now. Now would be incredibly awkward.

Lexa clears her throat, “I should get back to work. It was good to see you, Clarke.”

“You too, Lexa.”

Clarke watches Lexa’s retreating figure and wonders what the hell just happened.

_______________________________________

“It’s freezing up here!” Clarke blows on her hands and rubs them together.

“It’s beautiful,” Lexa leans on the railing, “Maybe you’d be warmer if you had joined in the race.” She winks at Clarke before turning back to look out over the city with its handful of skyscrapers and highrises, and endless sprawl of 150 year old suburbia. Portland opens up beneath them, a soft sprawl of brick and green, the roads veins running north and south, east to west. From up here it’s calm.

Octavia pauses and watches Clarke and Lexa, ignoring how the cups of coffee are starting to scald her bare hands. The crisp November air tugs wisps of hair free from her ponytail, and she can tell that she’s lost feeling in her nose. She doesn’t care; her heart is warm and full.

The hike to the top of the hill had taken longer than Lexa’s research had told them, but that had probably been Octavia’s fault as she scampered off the trail more than she stayed on it. Clarke had happily chased after, climbing fallen trees and scrambling over rocks. Lexa begrudgingly trailed behind, rolling her eyes at Octavia’s antics, until Octavia had issued a challenge. After that all bets were off. Lexa laughed as she ran past Octavia, a quarter of the way up the embankment by the time Octavia realized her challenge had been accepted.

The race had ended with them both winded and gasping for breath as they leaned over the railing, shoulders brushing together. Her heart had soared with it, the brightness in Lexa’s eyes as she smiled, the soft earnest moment of hope and happiness. It was one of those moments where kissing crosses your mind and the thought won’t leave. She pushed off the railing instead and offered to go buy coffees and water because of course there was a little coffee cart up here.

There’s coffee everywhere in this city.

Octavia smiles to herself and watches Lexa take Clarke’s hands between her own rubbing them quickly before bringing them to her mouth and blowing on them. Clarke is looking at Lexa like she doesn’t know what to do but she doesn’t want to stop this moment. Lexa’s mouth is upturned in the barest of smiles. There’s an innocence to it, something pure and good and Octavia can’t bring herself to interrupt.

She wants her hands free so she can grab her phone, capture this moment, the pale blue winter sky and low hanging afternoon sun making everything glow warmly even as they freeze. That kind of cold where you feel alive. Right now she feels so incredibly alive. Octavia breathes in and wonders how she ended up here. She spent so much time believing she would never find anyone, never feel forever in someone’s hands, and now she doesn’t want to think about what will happen if Lexa doesn’t love them back, or if this breaks up her and Clarke.

She pushes the thought of this failing aside because right now Clarke is smiling and Lexa is more relaxed than Octavia has ever seen her and this is what they were missing.

A million moments like this one would never be enough. It feels like what she’s been searching for since she was too young to understand what she needed. What she wanted. When Octavia had started dating Clarke she thought that was it, she had her family, her home, her everything. With Lexa though they’re more. It’s everything. Just like Clarke was everything, so is Clarke and Lexa.

This feels a lot like falling in love.

Octavia takes a few more steps forward, bumping her hip against Clarke’s as she stops between her and Lexa.

“It’s hot,” Octavia says as she offers up the paper cups.

“Perfect,” Clarke reaches out for a coffee, snatching it into her hands and huddling around it.

“Thank you,” Lexa smiles.

This feels a lot like belonging.

_______________________________________

Lexa still isn’t quite sure what’s come over her even as she’s cooking dinner for Clarke and Octavia and herself, sipping on a glass of wine and waiting for them to arrive. It's been a long time since she entertained company. Aside from Anya she hasn’t had any close friends since undergrad… since Costia. Lexa shakes her head trying to clear the thought because every time she thinks about Costia she’s reminded of the pain of it all and tries to push everyone away. She’s good at it too.

Too good.

Nerves flutter in her normally iron stomach. Her apartment is too clean, too sterile. It looks like a magazine photoshoot and not some place that someone lives. No one ever visits her here. It’s too intimate, too personal having people here. Lexa has become so adept at keeping everyone at arm’s length that she's forgotten how to do this. She's forgotten all the reasons it's worth risking the hurt. She knocks back the last of her wine.

There's a knock on the door, and Lexa can hear a giggle from the other side. When she opens the door Octavia crashes into her with a hug as she has taken to doing.

“Lexa!”

The wind is nearly knocked out of her, “Hey, O.” She smiles at Clarke over Octavia's shoulder, “Clarke.”

“Hey.”

Octavia slides into the apartment leaving Lexa and Clarke to regard each other. Lexa starts to step back, a shy smile as she turns to usher Clarke in, but as she takes half a step back Clarke takes half a step forward and wraps her arms around Lexa. It’s a brief hug, but in it Lexa feels a quiet tight desperation and she holds Clarke as close as she can for the briefest of seconds before it ends.

She shakes her head as Clarke follows Octavia. Her job is to understand people, figure out what motivates them so she can bring justice into the world. For all she understands she doesn't see how she fits into what is happening between the three of them, or even what that is. Threesomes are usually little more than a passing night of fun, and this is much more than that. She’s making friends, she reminds herself, that’s all.

Octavia crosses the room and stands in front of the floor to ceiling windows. The sun is setting, casting the sky in purples and oranges as darkness brings on the night and the lights of the city start to glow below. “This view is amazing.”

“You should see the view from my sister’s place.”

“You have a sister?” Clarke asks from behind her where she’s hanging up their jackets.

Lexa clenches her teeth. She hasn’t talked about herself with anyone in a long time, but the more time she spends with Clarke and Octavia the more she feels a pull to open up, just a little bit. “Foster sister, actually.”

“Does she live around here? If she does you should invite her for drinks one of these times.” Clarke crosses the large open room to Octavia and can't help but notice how empty sterile the room is, how unlike their apartment it is. When Lexa had invited them over she had hoped they might get to see a bit more about who she is, but this place just looks like a magazine shoot, all sleek black and stark white, a few burned out candles carefully cleaned of melted wax.

Clarke leans her head on Octavia’s shoulder watching the setting sun before turning to press a kiss against Octavia’s neck.

“She’s often in demand.” Lexa turns back to the stove. “She’s a designer for Station Designs.”

Clarke turns, excited, and makes her way into the kitchen. “No way! I've been eyeing one of their dresses for months.”

“You should let me know which one and your size,” Lexa glances at Clarke and offers her a smile. Truth is she could probably easily get the dress on discount or if they had one with a tiny flaw Anya could get it free. It's the least she could do. She still feels like she owes Clarke a debt for looking past the problems she's caused.

“Is there anything we can help with?” Octavia slides into the kitchen and jumps up onto the counter nearly placing her hand on the stove.

Both Lexa and Clarke lunge toward her to keep her from burning herself. There's an awkward moment where Lexa steps back and Clarke picks up Octavia's hand to inspect it.

“Are you accident prone or do you just prefer to live dangerously?” Lexa purses her lips and motions for Octavia to scoot further away from the stove.

Octavia shrugs and grabs a carrot from the salad bowl, snacking on it as she talks. “What can I say I like the adrenaline rush.”

“It's a wonder you haven't wrecked your motorcycle, I still can't believe you almost crashed during that high speed chase the other week, and you’re so calm about it.” Lexa sighs and hands the bowl of salad to Octavia, “Start taking things out?” Turning to Clarke, she drops her voice, “I don't know how you deal with worrying all the time.”

Clarke is pale and she's watching Octavia bounce into the dining area as if she might disappear and never return. It's clear to Lexa that Clarke never heard about the almost wreck that could have taken her girlfriend's life. Grabbing plates and a few other things she hurries out after Octavia to give her something to do for a minute while Clarke composes herself.

Lexa walks back into the kitchen, and starts finishing up the chicken on the stove.

“Lexa?” Clarke’s voice is quiet as she leans on the counter. “When was this almost accident?”

“The day before we met.”

Clarke purses her lips, and nods several times like she's putting something together. Lexa takes a step toward her and they're nearly shoulder to shoulder.

“I'm sorry, Clarke.” Her voice is low, barely crossing the small space between them. “I assumed she would have told you. It wasn't my intent to upset you.”

Clarke looks over at Lexa, meeting her green eyes, wide and searching, and is surprised to see worry etched on her features. The way the fine arch of her eyebrow runs against the furrow of her brow. She can't say she's surprised Octavia never told her, but it hurts. There's nothing to be done about it now. She swallows down the panic selling in her chest and nods to Lexa. “It isn't your fault.” She knows sometimes Octavia doesn't tell her about work because it worries her to hear about all the moments in which she could have died, but usually the story comes out before this long has passed. “Let's finish up getting dinner on the table. It smells amazing.”

She smiles at Lexa, bumping their shoulders together. Dinner is a cabbage and kale salad and lemon chicken with a fresh loaf of bread warming in the oven. Somehow it doesn't surprise her that Lexa is a skilled cook.

Clarke glances to Octavia, who is uncorking a bottle of white wine, oblivious to the conversation she and Lexa just had in the kitchen. Setting the chicken down in the center of the table she stalks across the room and kisses Octavia soundly needing to feel her alive, even if it’s been a month and she can’t get into the why of it now, she needs it. If either of them notice Lexa retreating quickly back into the kitchen they don't show it. Clarke’s fingers tangle in Octavia’s hair and for a brief minute they lose themselves in the kiss.

Octavia pushes back breathless and mildly confused. She glances quickly at the kitchen to see Lexa with her head buried in the refrigerator, and then back to Clarke who looks nonplussed by the entire exchange.

“What was that?” She hooks her hand around Clarke’s waist and pulls her closer, her eyes searching Clarke’s face for any indication as to why she's just kissed her so intensely. Not that Octavia is complaining.

“Nothing, just, I love you, you’re an idiot, but I love you.”

Clarke pulls away and moves back to help Lexa with the rest of the food, thankful for the truth and the distraction from it.

Chapter Text

Clarke picks up her phone as it vibrates, pulling her from her daydream. She should be working on the proposal for next season’s classes anyway. She needs to rearrange her schedule to accommodate more hours painting for Gallery 2149. She’s also trying to convince the owner that she should continue coordinating shows and galas now that his assistant isn’t coming back.

That’s a long way off. She still has to start selling paintings, and prove she knows her stuff.

Lexa 11:45am: Hey Clarke, movie night tonight, yes?

Clarke 11:45am: yep. 7?

A few minutes pass before the next text comes in. It’s strange, texting with Lexa. She’s even more to the point than she is face to face and no topic ever seems too in depth or too complex for her to tackle. Usually though it’s just confirming plans, or asking if she wants to meet for an impromptu cup of coffee in the museum cafe.

Lexa’s shown up more than once to buy her coffee and Clarke would be amiss if she said it wasn’t pleasant to have someone pay her that kind of attention. Sometimes Octavia gets wrapped up in work.

Lexa 11:52am: Seven is fine.

Lexa 11:53am: And Clarke? Is everything okay?

Clarke 11:55am: of course! why wouldn’t it be?

Lexa 11:56am: You just sound sad sometimes.

Lexa 11:56am: I think you’re quite amazing, let me know if I can do anything.

Lexa 11:56am: If you need to talk I’m here.

Clarke doesn’t know how to respond because Lexa is right. Even if she’s been trying to hide it, trying to keep this feeling to herself, it’s leaking through. But nothing is wrong anymore, her girlfriend is devoted, and they’re spending time with someone new, who happens to be pragmatic and kind and thoughtful and beautiful and adept at stealing hearts just by breathing.

Clarke doesn’t know why, but she trusts Lexa.

Lexa 12:08pm: Also, you can tell me to mind my own business if I’m overstepping propriety again…

Clarke 12:09pm: no! you’re fine!

Clarke 12:12pm: you’re right

Clarke 12:12pm: i’ve been sad for a while,

Clarke 12:12pm: i don’t know if i want to talk

Lexa 12:13pm: Thank you for trusting me, Clarke.

Lexa 12:13pm: I’ll see you tonight.

And that’s it.

No questions.

No prying.

Just acceptance.

Clarke breathes out a sigh of relief. The ache in her chest is ever present but she isn’t the only one who knows it is there and somehow that makes it lighter even if the pain doesn’t dull.

_______________________________________

The clock has just turned seven when there’s a knock on the door. Octavia bounces up off the couch, pulling open the door and Lexa into the apartment with it. She hugs her quickly, barely giving Lexa time to return it before scurrying into the kitchen to pour wine and start making popcorn. She’s been excited about this all day.

Getting to spend time with Clarke and Lexa at the same time is the best part of her week, and each time they’re together it feels like they’re moving closer. She hopes she isn’t the only one that feels like this, that these feelings aren’t one sided.

Lexa shuts the door behind her smiling softly as she watches Octavia flit across the kitchen area. Leaving her boots by the door with her jacket, she moves over to where Clarke is drawing at the coffee table. The apartment is tiny, the couch barely inside the front door, the kitchen looking out over the living room with no wall in between. Lexa kneels down next to Clarke who had barely muttered hello when she came in.

She’s engrossed in her work, a close up detail of a woman’s neck. The work is incredibly lifelike, a graphite sketch that looks like a photograph. Clarke is a talented artist.

Lexa reaches out and brushes a stray lock of hair back from Clarke’s face so she can see her better. Her brow is furrowed, and her face smudged with graphite. The intensity of her gaze never wavers even as a smile twitches at the corner of her mouth at Lexa’s touch. She’s working on the woman’s ear, and the intricate curves of the auricle.

Lexa waits, content to watch Clarke work.

With a burst of movement and an exhale Clarke sets down her sketch pad on the table and her pencils with it. She stretches her arms high overhead and her arms crack with the stretch.

“Hey, Lexa.” Clarke’s voice is heavy and rough.

“Hey,” Lexa takes the acknowledgement as an excuse to scoot closer. She searches Clarke’s eyes for any indication of how she feels now, how steady a hold her sadness has on her. What she sees tugs at her heart because Clarke doesn’t hold back in her gaze and Lexa knows she’s the cause. So she takes Clarke’s pain and sees it, lets Clarke know she does. It’s all she can do.

Wordlessly Clarke falls into Lexa’s arms as they encircle her and hold her firmly, for just a moment she is Clarke’s strength.

Clarke’s heart is pounding and she simultaneously wants to run away, and to never let go. This woman is part of the reason she feels sad, but also, she’s the one who’s acknowledging that sadness, and the conflicting feelings she has about that leave Clarke feeling uncertain. Lexa’s heartbeat is steady against her cheek, her chin curving protectively over the top of her head, and it feels a bit like home. Clarke inhales sharply, pushing down tears and pulls back.

She wants this but she isn’t ready.

“Okay so we’ve got all the Harry Potter movies, and the Pirates of the Caribbean ones too… then Clarke’s got a bunch of space documentaries...” Octavia sets a giant bowl of popcorn next to Clarke’s art supplies, oblivious to the profundity of the exchange she just missed.

Thank you , Clarke mouths to Lexa when Octavia steps away.

“Now we’ve just got to choose which one to watch, or do we want to risk scrolling through movies on Netflix for half an hour?” Octavia returns, setting down a bottle of wine and three glasses on the table.

Clarke moves her things, tucking them into the bin underneath the table where she keeps them.

“I’m in the mood for a comedy,” Lexa announces in such a matter of fact way as she moves from the floor to the couch that Clarke feels like a laugh will burst from her chest if she only lets it because she knows Lexa’s declaration is for her benefit.

Clarke slides up next to Lexa and pulls Octavia down on her other side. Octavia falls back with a shriek and a laugh. In an instant the mood in the room changes from divided to synchronous, all three of them content as they arrange themselves on the couch. Octavia hands out glasses of wine, Clarke commandeers the popcorn bowl, and Lexa opens up Netflix to find something to watch.

They let themselves be sucked into the cheap jokes and the ridiculous plot, slowly falling further together and sinking into the couch as the movie progresses.

Clarke leans against Octavia whose arms are wrapped around her protectively. She has her knees tucked up and Lexa is leaning against them, one arm thrown across Clarke’s lap. If it weren’t for the occasional shake of near laughter she would think her asleep.

As the end credits roll none of them are quick to move, afraid to break the calming trust that has blossomed between them. Lexa rubs her thumb across the seam of Clarke’s jeans and knows she should get home, but she’s warm and doesn’t want to lose this feeling of belonging by leaving.

She glances over as Clarke turns her head to kiss Octavia and she feels a blush creep across her cheeks; she’s still touching both of them and they’re kissing. Lexa sits up, trying not to disturb their moment, but Clarke pulls back from Octavia and even in the darkened room Lexa can see the hesitation in her eyes.

“Are you going?” Clarke rasps.

A smile tugs at the corner of Lexa’s voice because she’s starting to love the way Clarke’s voice gets rough when she doesn’t speak for a while. “It is late, and two of us have an eight a.m. meeting.”

“You know you could change when we meet to go over cases.” Octavia leans her head back against the arm of the couch, burrowing down further.

“Yes, but I won’t.” She stands up in one fluid motion, patting Clarke’s knee and placing on a hand on Octavia’s shoulder as she passes. “See you in the morning, Octavia. Goodnight, Clarke.”

“Night,” they both answer in unison as Lexa slips out the door.

_______________________________________

Once a week dinners quickly turned into multiple nights a week. Each passing day their interactions doubling exponentially. They fell into a rhythm, comforting as it was confusing. Having secured the leftover Thai food in the fridge, Clarke leans against the wall and watches Octavia and Lexa on the couch. The bottle of whiskey they’d all been nursing all night securely dangles between her fingers. It’s strange watching Octavia curled up with Lexa, but there’s also something right about it.

Every time the three of them are together they fall a little bit further into each other, and Clarke feels that somehow this thing might actually work. Impossibly she might not lose her girlfriend to another woman, but instead find herself in an even more unconventional relationship than the one she already has.

Her head is fuzzy and she tries not to think too hard about it or how she feels about the sight of Octavia cuddling with Lexa, both now horizontal on the couch. Octavia’s laugh is enough to pull a smile to her lips and she doesn’t quite want to interrupt but she also doesn’t want to be left out. She takes another sip of whiskey and pads back over to the couch, standing at the end of it and wondering exactly how three grown women can fit on a couch laying down. There’s exactly one place that she can see, but she isn’t sure she’s ready.

“Where do I fit in this?”

Clarke’s voice breaks through the moment and both Octavia and Lexa look up from where they’re curled into each other lying down on the couch. Octavia’s nose brushes Lexa’s cheek. Lexa takes a sharp inhale and pulls back slightly because the ache behind her ribcage mirrored in the ache between her thighs is being coaxed on by the whiskey in her blood, and this is not the time for that. These are her friends, and their relationship is precarious.

What she wants doesn’t matter.

Lexa settles further onto her back and Octavia presses against her side as she shifts to stay on the couch. Clarke frowns slightly taking a sip of whiskey from the bottle dangling between her fingers, but there’s a hint of mischief in her eyes. Lexa raises an eyebrow because she’s certain what Clarke is thinking, because it’s what she’s thinking, and she doesn’t know if she’ll be able to handle it.

She lifts her hand and curls a finger, beckoning Clarke to come lay down on top of her. Her heart speeds up as she does because there are so many things that could go wrong with this moment. She blames the whiskey. Clarke could lay down on top of her, but her girlfriend is right there. Octavia is already curled up against Lexa and her girlfriend is right there . Lexa isn’t sure how she ended up in the middle of this. She isn’t complaining. Except she’s also worried what it will mean for their friendship if anything happens.

There are too many thoughts rushing through her head for the amount of whiskey she’s had.

Every single one of them stops as Clarke crawls over the arm of the couch, continuing forward until she is hovering over Lexa. She’s staring up into Clarke’s eyes lost in the blue crystalline structure just barely visible around her pupils which are large from the alcohol and the dim light, and maybe something more.

Clarke sits up, straddling Lexa. She closes her eyes and takes another sip of whiskey straight from the bottle. Lexa is transfixed by the sight above her. Clarke’s tank top hangs off one shoulder, the fabric loose with wear from the day and Lexa can’t decide who is more distracting, Clarke above her or Octavia beside her with her arm tucked under Lexa’s neck and her fingertips lightly brushing down her arm. No one has held her like this since Costia left and it’s all at once overwhelming and welcomed.

They’ve had too much whiskey for this to be happening. They’ve had too much whiskey, that’s why this is happening.

Lexa swallows down a moan as Clarke lowers herself on top of her staying propped up on her elbows as their torsos press together and their legs tangle. It feels like a lifetime since Clarke was still standing at the end of the couch and nothing will be the same after this because Lexa knows some feelings, once felt, are not so easily pushed aside. Clarke’s face is inches from hers, she turns her head slightly only to be reminded that Octavia is equally as close.

Her heart thuds wildly in her chest.

Clarke raises an eyebrow and wiggles down just a little bit, “Is this what you had in mind?”

She grins as Lexa only nods, her eyes dark, and her normal easy composure, strained. Clarke is drunk enough that she doesn’t stop herself, instead indulging in the feeling of feeling warm and safe and wanted. Everything about tonight feels right and she wants to hold onto this fleeting moment because by morning this will be all but a drunken memory.

Octavia’s arm has curled around her waist and Lexa has a hand on her hip and it sends a thrill through her.

Kissing Lexa would be easy right now.

If she kissed Lexa though they could all brush it off as whiskey induced, friends getting too close. Clarke closes her eyes and rests her forehead against Lexa’s, noses brush against cheeks, and Clarke wants to lean in, close the last remaining distance between her and Lexa who is trembling beneath her. She can feel Lexa’s breath on her face and it’s too much because even the slightest touch leaves her wanting.

Octavia tugs gently on Clarke’s waist and pulls her over and into a kiss. Clarke presses into it, her brain vaguely registering that her hands are on Lexa still even though she’s kissing Octavia, and that maybe this isn’t the best way to try to seduce someone. Maybe it is. All she knows is that she likes this and she thinks they might all give in to the desire that is building between them, tumbling together in a heated tangle of limbs when Lexa lets out a frustrated huff of air beneath her.

Clarke pulls back from Octavia, cheeks hot with alcohol, burning hotter with embarrassment. That kiss was entirely more involved than it should have been.

“Sorry,” Clarke whispers against Lexa’s collarbone, her lips brushing the soft skin there as she hides her face.

A hand tangles in her hair as she settles down, laying her head against Lexa’s chest. Clarke realizes it’s Lexa’s fingers, not Octavia’s that are softly scratching against her scalp. The three of them are breathing heavier than they should be, full of almosts and want. If one of them were to lose their carefully constructed control they would burn gloriously bright in an alcohol fuelled bacchanal.

It’s a choice to stay still just like love is a choice. It comes to her in that drunken way that thoughts do when the brain is too full of feeling and emotion and alcohol that there’s a resounding echo as everything else falls away. She doesn’t think she loves Lexa, not yet, but she likes her, and she wouldn’t, except she chose to try.

The world spins, dipping beneath her even as the only real movement is the gentle rise and fall of Lexa’s chest.

Clarke only has a second to react, her stomach twisting and clenching as she scrambles to untangle herself from two sets of arms and legs. She isn’t sure how she grabbed the sac their takeout had come in, or managed to only throw up in it, but she did. Any sense of accomplishment in that is marred by the pounding in her head and the knowledge that she’s heaving into a plastic bag still half tangled up in two beautiful women.

Hands hold her hair back and someone is rubbing her back as her body tries to expel the contents of her stomach. She hates throwing up.That last sip had sent her over the edge. Her head throbs as her head fills with pressure from the force of it. For a moment it calms, and her breath comes again in gasps. She needs something cold. She needs a wash cloth.

Octavia takes the sac from Clarke gingerly, and shoots an apologetic tight lipped smile at Lexa. She knew Clarke had been drunk, but not quite this drunk because she had eaten with the rest of them. Tying the bag shut she hurries to the kitchen to deposit it in the trash before it starts leaking everywhere and creates an absolute mess in Lexa’s pristine apartment. This is bad enough. She feels the room spin as she crashes back into the couch.

“Lexa, I’m sorry,” Octavia tries to help Clarke to standing but she’s curled up on herself and adamantly drunkenly refusing to move. “I’ll get her home and-”

“Neither of you are going anywhere.”

Octavia has no idea how Lexa sounds so entirely sober because there’s no way that she is.

Clarke is making a high pitched whine as she slowly edges towards the floor and Octavia stands quickly knowing what is coming next. “I should probably get her to the bathroom.”

“I’ve got her.” Lexa picks Clarke up easily, since she’s still half in Lexa’s lap anyway. Clarke is mumbling, slurring her words and they can only pick up a few sorry, drunk, mess . The walk to the bathroom takes longer than it should as Lexa stops to lean against the wall, more intoxicated than she had anticipated and Clarke’s body is dead weight in her arms: a drunken, whimpering, adorable, dead weight, even though she just nearly threw up on her livingroom floor.

“I can walk,” Clarke murmurs against Lexa’s neck.

“No you can’t,” Lexa glances at Octavia who is walking down the hall in front of her, one hand on the wall to keep her upright.

“Neither can you, we’re not moving.” Clarke nudges her head against Lexa and moans in pain as her head spins.

Lexa rolls her eyes and pushes off the wall. It’s going to be a long night.

_______________________________________

“Lexa, last night,” Clarke crosses her arms across her chest, her heart pounding as hard as her head. She’s standing in Lexa’s kitchen in an oversized shirt and a pair of running shorts that aren’t hers making pancakes and it isn’t lost on her how much this seems like a morning after, except it isn’t, even if they all shared a bed.

“It’s fine, Clarke.” A small smile twitches at the corner of her mouth but she doesn’t move to cross any of the distance between them. If last night showed her anything it’s that maybe they’re all getting too close. It doesn’t mean she doesn’t want to, but Lexa is anything if not adept at controlling her actions. “It happens to all of us.”

She doesn’t want to know if Clarke was talking about nearly kissing, or vomitting. In the morning light both are hard to think about and she can’t focus on the memory of Clarke hovering above her, or the feeling of her lips pressed against her skin as she whispered. She doesn’t want to think about how it only happened because they were all drunk.

This is why Lexa doesn’t drink with people she doesn’t trust.

Clarke nods, not entirely sure which incident Lexa is referring to, but not sure that it matters. They all remember what happened last night even as there are parts Clarke wishes she could forget.

Lexa watches as Clarke turns back to the stove and the pancakes she’s cooking at three in the afternoon because none of them could make it out of bed until now. Clarke is wearing an old shirt of Lexa’s and so is Octavia, though she’s curled around a mug of coffee at the table. Lexa wonders idly when her life got away from her because if someone had asked her a month ago if she thought this would be happening she would have laughed in their face.

“Here,” Lexa lays down a few ibuprofen on the table in front of Octavia with a glass of water.

Octavia smiles up at her and winces with the movement. “Thanks.” Her brain feels like someone ran sandpaper over it. She tries not to think about waking up curled against Lexa’s shoulder, their legs tangled together and how soft she was. She’s certain they won’t be talking about that during their next briefing at work, or how they had taken turns drunkenly trying to take care of Clarke who was in and out of the bathroom until sunrise so none of them really slept until past the time they would normally be awake.

Clarke is making her I’m sorry pancakes, which happen every time she ends up too drunk. Lately she’s been making them a lot. She watches as Lexa moves to Clarke, handing her the same regime: ibuprofen and water, before insisting she take it. Lexa refills their water, pours more coffee, moves around the kitchen cleaning up after Clarke as Clarke tries to insist she’ll do once they’ve eaten.

It’s so incredibly comfortable, and Octavia thinks for the first time that this might work out.

_______________________________________

Lexa collapses onto the couch having just said goodbye to Clarke and Octavia, and dials Anya without opening her eyes. Her head is throbbing still even though she’s had several glasses of water and a full breakfast thanks to Clarke who somehow managed to get out of bed before either her or Octavia. Maybe her headache is due more to the whiplash emotions she’s feeling rather than the night of drinking.

She groans as the phone starts ringing.

She isn’t sure if Clarke and Octavia are just naturally flirtatious and open to platonic touches and cuddling, and nearly kissing, or if they are actually flirting with her, because they are dating, but sometimes one of them looks at Lexa like she’s important, like she matters, or they touch her like they’re waiting for her to say it’s okay. She isn’t sure what they’re waiting on because deep down she's waiting to fall into their touch.The way they look at her isn’t a way you look at a friend, not when your girlfriend is watching you nearly kiss a friend from a few inches away.

You don’t brush your fingertips down your friend’s arm.

Or rest your hand just underneath the hem of their shirt.

Or curl around them in the middle of the night.

It doesn’t help that their touches send shivers through her, or that she wants more. She came close enough to breaking them up before she knew they were together she isn’t about to ruin them now. She has to stay strong. They seem happy, it isn’t her place to change that.

“...hello?” Anya says, for what Lexa realizes isn’t the first time.

“Hey,” Lexa rasps.

“Rough night?”

“Octavia and Clarke crashed here last night.” Lexa rubs the bridge of her nose but she’s smiling. “Clarke made us pancakes.”

“You sound happy underneath that hangover.”

“Nothing happened, Anya. Our relationship isn’t like that.” Her voice doesn’t sound quite as certain as her words.

“But you admit there’s a relationship.”

Lexa lets out an exasperated sigh.

“Things either are or aren’t, Lexa. What happened?”

“We were piled on the couch talking and drank almost an entire bottle of whiskey between the three of us. Clarke got sick, so they stayed over.”

“Back up, because you don’t just start your night piled on a couch drinking whiskey.”

“That’s what it was. We ordered take out and threw on some movie we never watched and by the end of the night Clarke was laying on my stomach and Octavia was curled up against my side.”

Lexa pauses and when she doesn’t hear any response she continues because she knows Anya will wait for the whole story, well, at least until she hears what she wants to hear.

“Up until Clarke got sick it was… really nice” Lexa breathes out sharply trying to hold the tears at bay that are threatening to spill. “They make me feel wanted as more than just a friend, but it can’t be like that. They’re together and they’re wonderful together.” She feels the first tear stream down her cheek but she holds her voice steady. “I don’t see how I fit in with them. I can’t let this continue because I can’t be with them. It’s going to hurt us all when I mess up and take things too far because sometimes it feels like there might be more.”

Anya stays silent for a moment and Lexa holds back the flood of tears because for the first time since Costia left she really wants to move on with someone and it will never happen. It already hurts.

“Lexa?” Anya’s question is soft.

She hums into the phone, only half listening.

“Why can’t it be what you want it to be?”

Because love doesn’t start with nearly ruining a relationship. Love doesn’t start with breaking someone’s heart. How can you fall in love with someone new when you still love the person who left you?

“What if she comes back? What do I do?” Lexa knows she doesn’t have to tell Anya who she’s talking about. It’s always Costia.

She takes a moment to respond and Lexa can nearly see the look Anya has on her face, a sad sigh of resignation. “Nothing. You don’t do anything, Lexa. I know she was your first love, but she isn’t your last.”

“Usually you tell me she won’t be my last.”

“Things change.”

_______________________________________

Octavia nudges Clarke as she stands up to clear the dinner plates. Ever since the night they got drunk at Lexa’s they’ve known that they want to go forward with the half thought out plan they came up with two months ago on a Tuesday morning, to seduce Lexa Woods. Befriend her, kiss her, and then you get her, right?

That’s how it works, isn’t it?

Lexa has become a permanent fixture in their lives. Once a week drinks become dinner, become cuddling. This isn’t the first night they had eaten in, curling up on the oversized couch in Clarke and Octavia’s undersized living room, it isn’t even the first night Lexa had leaned against either of them as they debated what to watch on Netflix. Last week she fell asleep on Octavia’s shoulder and they had discussed how best to tuck her in on the couch without waking her up.

Of course she had woken up as Octavia was trying to lay her down, and Octavia had nearly melted at the softness of Lexa half asleep smiling up at her.

Lexa has said nothing about their incremental advances in their relationship. It’s more than just cuddling on the couch and home cooked dinners, coffee breaks in the early afternoon and crowding around a table meant for two at the back of the cafe or the bar down the street. Lexa has opened up to them, sometimes infuriating herself to the point where she shuts down with her openness, but they’re all in this together. Clarke doesn’t feel quite as lost, and while it will take time, more days seem good than not.

So when Lexa sat back down on the couch close enough for her leg to brush against Clarke’s she hadn’t thought much of it, except every time Octavia nudged her, all she could think about was drunkenly laying on top of Lexa and nearly kissing her. There’s a line of heat from her knee to her hip where Lexa is pressed against her and it’s distracting. It’s only distracting because she’s thinking about kissing Lexa. Nearly every other time they’ve been this close it hasn’t been about this.

This time it is.

Their relationship changed that drunken night on Lexa’s couch and they haven’t acknowledged it. Clarke hopes this isn’t one sided.

Chewing on her lip Clarke and glances at Lexa who is flicking through the Netflix menu intently. She leans her head against Lexa’s shoulder to get her attention; Lexa hums and nudges her. Lexa smells like the earth after it rains and Clarke wants to bury her face against her neck and breath in the scent, she settles for tracing her fingers along the inside of Lexa’s elbow. There’s no point left in subtlety.

She wants this. She wants Lexa, and she really doesn’t know how they got here, but her fingers run down to the inside of Lexa’s wrist and she feels the hitch in Lexa’s breath.

This is a terrible idea; Clarke isn’t sure she cares, being driven by the ache in her heart. Maybe she should be trying to talk to Lexa first instead of just trying to kiss her. Octavia is much better at following her impulses and having them work out and this is like a driving force propelling Clarke forward until she crashes against Lexa’s lips and waits to see if everything breaks.

She sits up just a little so she can study Lexa’s profile, the soft full pout of her lips, the strength of her jawline, the perfect line of her elegant neck.

“What is it?” Lexa turns to Clarke to find her so incredibly close and looking at her like she had the other night, like they might be more than friends, like she wants more. Lexa draws in a slow breath trying to steady her suddenly frantic pulse as her eyes flick to the kitchen where Octavia is washing dishes. This time there is no excuse, nothing she can blame the attraction on. There’s no alcohol in her system breaking down her defenses. She knows she should move, turn away, anything to keep from falling into the magnetic pull between them. She doesn’t.

Her eyes flick down to Clarke’s lips and she sees the tip of Clarke’s pink tongue dart out to wet them. She leans imperceptibly forward and is almost certain time has stood still. Clarke’s eyes are so incredibly blue and she can’t look away, not when in them she sees longing and want and kindness like she hasn’t seen in more years than she wants to count directed at her.

“Lexa,” Clarke whispers her name, brushing her fingertips across her cheek and Lexa can’t breath any more.

Clarke’s lips are soft. She shouldn’t be kissing Clarke; she doesn’t want to stop kissing Clarke.

Clarke pulls back for just a moment, her nose brushing against Lexa’s as she moves in for another kiss. Lexa presses a hand to Clarke’s chest. They can’t do this, they can’t be doing this, not when Octavia could turn around any second, not when Clarke is still with Octavia.

Her heart feels like it’s breaking in a thousand pieces and not just for the fact that she has to walk away now, but knowing that she’s caused so much pain. She stands, stumbling and is nearly to the door before she registers Clarke calling her name. Octavia makes it to her first though.

Octavia doesn’t quite stop her, instead her hands hover out, pleading, but not quite touching her, not quite holding her back but Lexa finds she can’t bring herself to push past her and out the door. She waits for Octavia’s anger, harsh and sharp, to descend on her. She waits for the hurt and the betrayal. With eyes downcast her heart falls farther with each moment of silence.

She should just leave, but part of her wants to feel the anger and the pain. She deserves that much for doing the one thing she promised she would never do.

“Lexa, please don’t go.” Octavia steps in front of Lexa, her voice quiet but firm. Octavia takes in the hunch of her shoulders and the refusal to meet her gaze and her body aches to fold Lexa up in a hug.

“I kissed Clarke, I’m sorry Octavia, I-”

“I know.” Octavia reaches out and tilts Lexa’s face up to look at her. She bites her lip, because all she wants to do is smile at this unnecessary reaction. This is what they’ve been working towards, if only Lexa doesn’t run. “It’s okay.”

“How can it be okay?” Lexa looks between Octavia and Clarke, her eyes wild, talking in their clasped hands.

The words tumble out quickly on top of one another.

“We like you.”

“Both of us.”

“We probably should have told you that sooner, before I kissed you.” Clarke offers her a wry smile and clarity starts to descend upon Lexa. Except even though now she knows this is happening she isn’t any less confused. It doesn’t help that this is what she had thought about late at night when she couldn’t sleep, wishing for a way to find happiness again and thinking, maybe, that it’s too late and she’s missed her chance.

“Lexa, please, come sit down.” Clarke tugs on Lexa’s hand and starts walking back to the couch.

Octavia gives her other hand a squeeze and for half a second Lexa thinks she might lean in and kiss her too. She breathes in through her nose and lets it out slowly.

“I’ll go get drinks.” Octavia lets go of Lexa’s hand.

Octavia and Clarke move around each other like they don’t need words, like they understand each other on a level where the slightest tilt of their head can express a hundred thoughts. Lexa feels it grip at her heart. She misses that. She misses how it felt when she would meet Costia’s eyes across the room and they didn’t have to say anything to say everything. This feeling of longing eating at her is why she’s kept everyone at arm’s length.

This feeling will devour her.

Lexa sinks back into the couch and Clarke sits down next to her, just enough space between them that she can’t feel her body heat but it would only take the tiniest shift on either of their parts to change that.

Clarke leans in, but sits back up before she starts to speak; Lexa looks like a panicked wild thing right now, ready to bolt at any moment and she’s trying to be careful now that everything is so disastrously out in the open. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to-”

“You like me, how?” Lexa sits up straight trying to regain her composure.

Octavia hands each of them a small glass of wine, something for their hands to fiddle with, something to take the edge off the tension in the room that’s making it hard to breathe. She sits down next to Clarke, pressed tight against her side. If they could just be kissing it would all be easier, maybe, but she promised Clarke that she could take the lead and her girlfriend’s hand on her thigh is nothing if not a reminder to sit still.

“We want you to be with us.” Clarke’s voice is steady. “If you want to be.”

“And not in just a please come have sex with us because you’re incredibly attractive sort of way,” Octavia tilts her head and smiles at Lexa trying to lighten the stifling tension.

“Octavia,” Clarke hisses as her elbow connects with her girlfriend’s ribs. “We want to be together with you like we’re together.” She can’t seem to stop talking because Lexa isn’t saying anything, she’s just staring at them. “We want you to be our girlfriend, an equal part of this relationship. Lexa, I’m sorry if I upset you. When I kissed you I wasn’t thinking. I should have-”

“Stop.” Lexa takes a sip of the wine, shaking. “Stop talking.” She stands, pacing around the small living room, trying not to look over at the women sat together on the couch, expectantly waiting for her to say something, to agree or reject their proposal, because that’s what this is. An offer to be in a relationship with the both of them, to indulge in the blatant desire that there be more between them than just friendship. She loses count of how many times she circles the small space but her wine glass is empty when she finally speaks again.

“You, both of you, want to be in a relationship, with me?” Lexa curses herself at her inarticulate words. Her livelihood relies on her articulate nature, to be clear, concise, and sure. She is none of these things in this moment, her head trying to catch up with her heart and the only reason she hasn’t run out the door is because she can’t quite bring herself to leave or give them a resounding no because there’s part of her that wants to try.

It’s ridiculous. Some days it’s bad enough being known as the lesbian lawyer, but being known for this could ruin her. She’s tired of coming home to an empty house, even if she vehemently argues with Anya about it being easier. She isn’t ready to give up dinner and movie nights, coffee shops in the afternoon. They could never be out, but maybe they could be happy.

Octavia moves to her side first, taking one of her hands and intertwining their fingers. Lexa sighs, and she relaxes just a little bit even as her heart speeds up.

“We do,” Octavia whispers. “We want you. We need you.”

“You don’t have to decide anything tonight.”

“How does this even work?”

“However we want it to.” Clarke takes Lexa’s other hand and smiles at her.

Warmth blossoms in her chest, she knows worry will come later, because the chances of this working are so very small. Maybe it will though. Maybe they’ll be worth the risk.

_______________________________________

One week has passed since Clarke kissed Lexa. One week of taking things slow and trying not to run scared. They’re all operating on new relationship jitters and with three of them, three sets of nerves, three sets of worries, three sets of baggage, slow is good. Meeting family is not exactly taking it slow, but currently Anya is the only other person that knows about them, so it seems safe. Whatever that means.

It’s just coffee. Everyone has to run back to work before too long so it’s not like they can have a prolonged awkward interaction. Still in the five minutes they’ve been seated around the table it’s clear that any friendship with the older Woods sister is going to take time. A barista calls out their order, interrupting the small talk chatter around the table.

“I’ll go grab our drinks,” Clarke says.

“I’ll help.” Anya stands up immediately after Clarke before anyone else can offer.

Clarke raises an eyebrow quizzically at Lexa behind Anya’s back, all Lexa does is shrug in ignorance. Great. Clarke is certain that Anya is about to corner her because she knows about the three of them and she’s definitely giving off the protective older sister vibe. It doesn’t help that Anya’s outfit is probably worth more than Clarke’s wardrobe. There’s always something intimidating about a well dressed woman.

It isn’t until Clarke is reaching for the first coffee that Anya breaks the silence between them.

“Don’t let her run off,” Anya’s voice is quiet but clear, even in the noise of the cafe.

“What?” That was not what Clarke expected at all.

Anya turns to Clarke, and for a second the immovable mask she wears breaks and Clarke realizes how much like Anya, Lexa is, and where she learned to be strong. “She cares about you and Octavia even if she- she cares, okay?”

Clarke nods.

They divvy up the coffees and the plates as the barista informs them there’s still one waiting. Clarke turns to walk back to the table, hands full, concentrating on not spilling hot coffee on herself.

“Also, don’t break her heart.”

Clarke turns slowly, anything else would result in a scalded hand, so her retort doesn’t quite have the affect she wants. “Or what, you’ll sneak into my closet and ruin my wardrobe?”

“Well, honestly it could do with an overhaul, I’d be doing you a favor.” Anya gives Clarke a once over and shrugs. “Though, if you’re going to be dating my sister and hosting events at Gallery 2149 I suppose I could do that for you.” She gives Clarke a look as if to say it isn’t her call but her opinion is clearly in favor of it. “If you wanted. Octavia too.”

Clarke hums a non committal answer and makes a hasty retreat back to the table, not entirely certain if that was a positive interaction or not. She didn’t think her clothes were that bad but Anya is a fashion mogul, and, well, if anyone was going to have an opinion like that it would be her. No wonder Lexa always looks like she stepped out of a magazine.

“Clarke?” Lexa brushes her thumb along the side of Clarke’s thigh under the table.

“I think your sister just threatened me, insulted me, and then offered to take me shopping.”

“Sounds about right.” Lexa shrugs and turns to her coffee, completely unconcerned.

Octavia hides a fit of laughter in a cough.

Clarke slumps down in her seat.

“You might want to sit up before Anya gets back.”

“Why?”

“That shirt is going to wrinkle,” Lexa presses her lips together to keep from laughing at the look on Clarke’s face which is half incredulous and half terrified.

Octavia bursts out laughing.

_______________________________________

Clarke glances down at her sketchpad, her hand shaking, and she can’t bring herself to place the pencil on the page afraid of what she will draw. She’s gone cold from sitting still, and she aches with it, but she can’t bring herself to move, heavy with pain and fear as she is. If anything this past week should have eased the racing panic in her mind, but that isn’t how it works; she’s worried now more than ever that Octavia will leave her for Lexa, even if she knows, deep down, that isn’t true. It’s a constant battle with her head to remind herself that everything is okay and that voice of dissent in her head isn’t telling her the truth.

She doesn’t hear the door open, or notice Lexa’s presence until Lexa murmurs her name in a soft question.

“Are you alright?” Lexa knows the answer even before she asks the question, but what she doesn’t know is why Clarke looks like she’s about to fall apart. Last time they talked everything appeared to be okay, but she knows pain has been eating at Clarke longer than she’s known her, and pain like that doesn’t just go away.

Lexa takes a hesitating step closer, wishing Octavia were here, and not still at work. Octavia knows Clarke’s moods better. She would know how to read Clarke’s furrowed brow and glassy eyes. Lexa swallows and takes another step closer, waiting for Clarke to indicate what she should do. As good as she is at reading people, she isn’t a mind reader.

“What are we doing, Lexa?” The words are raw and ragged as they fall from Clarke’s lips like poison.

Lexa flinches slightly, taking a step back. She waits for explanation even though she could guess at the reason. She’s been expecting this since the day she met Clarke.

Clarke stands, throwing her artwork to the couch and stalking halfway across the living room, as far away from Lexa as she can get without actually leaving the space. The room seems to spin, the air heavy and hot. Suddenly the apartment makes her feel claustrophobic. She throws open a window that sticks and shudders with the winter moisture and the cold December air floods in, ice biting Clarke’s skin. She welcomes the sharp relief from the nauseating closeness of the four walls of her living room, and Lexa’s still, barely breathing form.

Lexa hasn’t moved, hasn’t said a word.

Clarke shoves off the window sill, whirling in anger, crossing back to Lexa before she knows what she is doing. “What made us think that this would work? Octavia and I have always been able to work through our problems by ourselves. Why do we- why did we- what did I do wrong?” The last few words spill out half angry half pleading.

Lexa doesn’t move, doesn’t flinch, as Clarke spits the words at her, trying to articulate the pain in her chest. It infuriates Clarke and she pushes forward, getting in Lexa’s face, even though barefoot Lexa is taller and in heels even more so.

“Why you?” Clarke knows why, and she hates that she’s saying these things, but she hurts and she can’t seem to stop, even as she wants to.

Clarke presses her hands to Lexa’s shoulders, not quite shoving her, but testing the pressure, thinking about it. She wants to shove and scream and hit, see how much it will take to break Lexa’s stone exterior. Her nails dig into the exposed skin above Lexa’s collarbone and she doesn’t know if she’s holding on or pushing her away. Tears are spilling down her face, hot with anger and fear.

She looks up into Lexa’s green eyes, so carefully guarded and wishes Lexa would let her in for just a moment.

Lexa’s lips part as she searches for the right words, but she makes no sound. Clarke is wild in her pain and it’s alarming, she’s never seen her like this, so afraid, so angry. She takes it on though, knowing that without her, this particular pain would never have been. Clarke needs someone to blame and Lexa is willing to take that if it helps her. Tenderly she brings her hands up to cover Clarke’s holding them in place, even as she can feel Clarke’s fingernails press deep enough to leave marks that will be there come morning.

They stay there for a moment, Lexa remaining still and calm, even though her heart betrays her, Clarke’s anger wafts off her and her grip on Lexa’s shoulders grows more painful with each passing moment until it breaks.

Clarke sobs heavily and collapses against her, arms folding so she is pressed to Lexa’s chest. At first the hug is a gentle thing, unsure and tentative. Clarke leans into Lexa, a press of her body that keeps her upright, and Lexa gingerly places her arms around Clarke as if she isn’t sure how this works. It is a semblance of a hug, almost a comfort.

Each of their hugs has been something telling and important in the development of how they see each other, this one no less so. But Lexa isn’t sure if Clarke wants this or is merely breaking against the nearest surface, for Lexa was the nearest thing to catch her fall. When one of Clarke’s hands makes its way to the back of her neck, fingers tangling in the small, fine hairs they relax into each other, tension seeping from their muscles, and Lexa tightens her grip, holding onto Clarke as much as she is holding her up.

Lexa can feel Clarke’s sobs in her very core, shaking them both, and she knows there are tears in her own eyes, as much as she fights them. Clarke is crashing against Lexa, quietly losing herself the longer she cries and Lexa wonders if this is the end.

If this is the end it will break her.

“I do care about you, Clarke, and I care about Octavia.” Lexa whispers against Clarke’s hair, fingers tangling in it, and she bites her lip and pushes back the tears threatening to fall. This isn’t about how she feels. It doesn’t matter, not in this moment, because Clarke needs her. “But if you need me to I’ll walk away.” Her hands slip forward so she’s cradling Clarke’s face in her hands and she leans back slightly so they’re eye to eye. The broken look on Clarke’s face, eyes red and swollen, shatters her heart but strengthens her resolve; Clarke and Octavia deserve every chance at happiness, with or without her. Lexa brushes hair back from Clarke’s forehead and swipes her thumb at the tears still running down her cheeks. “I don’t want to be the reason for this pain, but I know I am. Octavia is yours and she always will be. She loves you very much, and if I’m in the way of that, I need to leave.”

Lexa’s heart pounds wildly and she knows Clarke can feel it between them and hear it in her trembling voice. She prays this isn’t over, glancing to the ceiling to blink back tears, imagining the stars in their infinite wonder and wishing for guidance. None comes, but Clarke slips her arms underneath Lexa’s, wrapping them solidly around her middle, leaning her head once again against Lexa’s shoulder, still crying, but fighting the sobs the wrack her body.

Clarke tightens her grip and Lexa wraps her arms around Clarke’s shoulders, holding on as tightly as she can. This is the moment they fall together or fall apart. Neither lets go, pulling the other closer, holding on tighter as if they might chase away the pain with their fierceness of the hug.

“Don’t leave,” Clarke’s whisper is barely an audible sound between ragged breaths that tear her apart. “I need you,” and much later as they lie together on the couch Clarke curled against Lexa’s breast, fingertips trailing lightly over angry red halfmoon marks on Lexa’s shoulder, “I’m sorry.”

_______________________________________

Sometimes everything ends up alright and in the end the heart is still heavy, worry still finds a way to worm its way in, and sadness hangs like a heavy burden on the back. It’s a quiet cold refrain at two in the afternoon when laughter surges all around, a labored breath before a smile. That isn’t to say that there aren’t moments of joy because everything is as it should be and there’s a delicious jubilance in the calmness that brings. There is, it just does little to disquiet the insidious doubt that’s grown silently strong on the turmoil of before.

Clarke’s shoulders sag slightly as she walks back to the couch with her mug of tea, curling up on the floor in front of the coffee table with her sketch pad. Rain hits against the windows a constant white noise underneath the music Lexa pulled up on their little bluetooth speaker. She curls around the sketch pad trying to narrow her focus down to the drawing in front of her, trying to ignore the feeling of fear that crawls up her spine whenever she sees Octavia and Lexa together.

“I swear he did!” Octavia laughs.

“No, I don’t believe it.” Lexa pushes at Octavia’s knees where they rest across her lap.

“He got up on the desk and started yelling at the entire precinct. Clarke, you were there that day,” Octavia nudges Clarke with her foot.

“He did,” Clarke turns her head and offers up a smile hoping it’s convincing because right now she feels like she’s slowly crumbling. Things are okay. They are. At least, she keeps telling herself they are. “It was like a tiny dog barking at all the big dogs.”

Clarke pushes at the jealousy that threatens to tighten around her throat, constricting it, bringing tears to her eyes, hoping it will go away. After everything she’s still worried, because Octavia looks so happy with Lexa and the way she looks at her used to be the way she looked at Clarke and Clarke misses it. She misses feeling like someone’s world.

“I still can’t picture it.” Lexa laughs and it’s a low throaty thing.

The sketch is nothing like what she wants it to be and Clarke tears it out of her sketchbook, balling up the paper and tossing it at the waste bin. She starts again, forcing herself to keep her lines light, imploring that her hand stop shaking.

“Anyone else hungry?” Lexa shifts to stand up, “I think I’m going to start on dinner.”

“Starving,” Octavia bounces up and follows Lexa into the kitchen area.

Lexa busies herself getting things out of the fridge, not quite focused on what she’s making because all afternoon something has been off. It’s been almost two weeks and the sad way Clarke holds herself sometimes hasn’t gone away, if anything it’s been worse since she broke down in Lexa’s arms the other day. She’s watched her shut down even as she sees her try to be open and excited. As much as she likes the direction things are going between the three of them Lexa is worried it will only be temporary if they don’t all work on it.

“Octavia,” Lexa whispers only to find herself caught between the kitchen counter and her girlfriend sporting a mischievous smile. Soft lips press against hers and she loses her train of thought for a moment. She isn’t used to being kissed so often or with no other intent than to kiss. Her hands find their way to Octavia’s forearms and she gently presses her back. She has something to discuss and Octavia’s kisses are distracting.

“What is it?” Octavia asks quietly.

“Clarke.” Lexa tilts her head toward their girlfriend with a worried look in her eyes. “She’s been sad for a while now. It’s more than that though. Last night she broke down in my arms.”

Lexa pulls aside her shirt to show Octavia the nail marks bruised into her skin, uncertain of what reaction the sight will bring. Octavia runs her fingertips across the line of marks, following her fingers with her lips. She brings her hands down to rest around Lexa’s waist, her fingers running along her spine as she pulls her close.

“I’m sorry, this happens sometimes with Clarke, she’ll be okay. She always is.”

Lexa purses her lips, she knows there are things about both these women that she doesn’t know, but she can’t dismiss the way Clarke’s smile doesn’t always reach her eyes when it should be, the way she throws herself into her work or avoids Octavia and Lexa sometimes, or the pain she bore for her the night before.

“I think it’s more than that. And I’m worried this won’t work out if she doesn’t start feeling better.” Lexa untangles herself from Octavia but stays close, her voice low. “She’s still worried, O.”

Octavia gives her a quizzical look.

“About losing you, to me.” The admission constricts something around her heart. This is everything she didn’t want to be, a problem between two people in love. “I know she likes me now, and that she likes all of us together, but I think she still feels like you’ve pulled away from her. She misses you.”

Octavia’s face falls into seriousness and she leans into Lexa. She glances over her own shoulder to where Clarke is. This is just the fallout of the downward spiral Clarke had when this all started, isn’t it? She realizes that was two months ago, that Clarke breaking down and nearly leaving was a month and a half ago, that usually she comes back to herself quicker than this. She’s been so busy, so focused on Lexa that she’s been taking so much of what Clarke says at face value, but Lexa is right. It’s there in the slope of Clarke’s shoulders, and the softness in her voice.

In the middle of the night she promised she would try harder and work on them and then she ran right into Lexa’s arms.

Octavia presses her face against Lexa’s shoulder, her voice tight, “I’m still fucking this up.” She feels Lexa’s arms wrap around her and pull her in close. “I promised her I’d change.” If Lexa hadn’t wanted to be with them, hadn’t stayed instead of running, she doesn’t know if she would have noticed. How many times has she been by Clarke’s side when things get bad? She just gets through each day, but what if the bad days start being normal days?

Pain wraps around her heart and she doesn’t know what to do.

Lexa nudges her until Octavia looks at her, “You know how to take care of her. You’ve been doing it for years. I’ll work on dinner, you go talk with our girl.”

The words our girl wrap around Octavia’s heart and squeeze. She wants to fall into those words and that feeling. It’s like coming home.

Octavia stands on the dividing line of the living room and kitchen watching Clarke sketch, erase, re-sketch and repeat before slowly laying her head down on the coffee table. She curses herself for being blinded by the excitement of pursuing Lexa, of getting everything she asked for. None of it will matter if she loses Clarke.

She moves to sit beside Clarke, nudging her hello, Clarke turns her head but doesn’t lift it.

“Hey.”

Octavia kisses her arm, then her elbow, moving to her shoulder then her neck and her cheek which earns her a small smile and giggle. She nudges her nose against Clarke’s cheek and lays her head down on the table so they’re face to face. The smile on Clarke’s lips is just a twitch of muscle but it’s genuine and it eases the worry in Octavia’s chest a little.

“Can I see?” She tugs at the sketch book under Clarke’s head without actually trying to dislodge it. Clarke nods and sits up and Octavia takes the pad in front of her.

It’s a rough sketch of Octavia curled into Lexa’s side, she can just make out the edges of Clarke’s knees from where she would have been stradling Lexa that night they had all been too drunk, doing all the things friends shouldn’t be doing. They look soft and happy and like they mean the world to each other.

“You’re amazing, Clarke Griffin, and I love you.” Octavia surges forward, kissing Clarke and pushing her back onto the floor, gently laying her down as she lets her weight settle on top of her. She doesn’t know what to say, she never does, but maybe she can make up in actions what she lacks in words.

Clarke’s hands slide down Octavia’s sides, running along her back and settling into stillness as she tucks her fingertips under the waistband of Octavia’s shorts at the small of her back. There are kisses and there are kisses . This is the later, it’s words and feeling in motion, everything Octavia’s failed to say as her tongue swipes against Clarke’s bottom lip as she pulls it between her teeth. She pours her heart into it and hope it’s enough for a start. Enough to let Clarke know she still cares.

Clarke breaks the kiss but holds Octavia tight to her, “I love you too, Octavia Blake.”

Octavia peppers Clarke’s face with kisses until Clarke is begging for mercy and laughing uncontrollably. She teases her, slowing down the assault, and slipping her hands under Clarke’s shirt running her fingers along bare skin. Clarke squirms underneath her and that only makes her want to continue. It’s good to hear Clarke laugh like this, with abandon, shrieking with joy. Even if this is only one moment, it’s a good one. For a second she distracts Clarke with a real kiss as she starts to tickle Clarke in earnest, which is when Clarke retaliates.

It’s been a long time since they were like this, joyful, silly, themselves. Octavia makes a mental note to thank Lexa later because this is what they were missing. This is the feeling that gets them through the bad times. Hope, bubbling like happiness even when it hurts.

They end up sitting, Clarke in Octavia’s lap, facing each other, trading slow luxurious kisses with staring into each other’s eyes and giggling about it because they know they’re acting like two idiots in love but they’re in love with each other so it’s okay.

Clarke catches sight of Lexa walking towards them from the kitchen and smiles up at her. Clarke has a look on her face like she’s looking at something precious and maybe she is. Lexa bites her lip, feeling a blush creep across her cheeks. Clarke presses a kiss to Octavia’s cheek and mouths thank you to Lexa over Octavia’s shoulder. Lexa lifts her shoulders in a gallic shrug but there’s a smile on her lips that betrays her innocent look.

Lexa settles in behind Octavia wrapping her arms around to hold both of them. Clarke feels Octavia shift to lean back and Clarke shifts further into their embrace and in that moment it all falls into place because this is right. There’s a balance between them and they’re each better for the others.

Lexa leans forward over Octavia’s shoulder, pressing a quick kiss behind her ear as she does before pressing a chaste kiss to Clarke’s lips.

Of all the nights Clarke lay wrapped up in Octavia’s arms Octavia never imagined a day where anything else would ever feel quite so much like home, but this is everything they had been and more. Different, balanced, maybe a bit more aware. This is the choice they made and she’s happy that they did because it doesn’t feel like her only choice anymore, the only way she can keep her girlfriend, it feels like the one she wants to make every day because she gets to keep both of her girlfriends.

Chapter Text

Octavia toes off her shoes and pauses inside the door to Lexa’s apartment. It’s strange, being here without her. Lexa had only given her and Clarke keys last week, a full month after they had given her a key to their place. Most nights they spent together they spent at Octavia and Clarke’s small apartment. They’re rarely in pairs, except Clarke and Octavia who have come as some sort of unit since the fifth grade. Rarely Clarke and Lexa, rarer still Lexa and Octavia.

At work they had to pretend nothing had changed. That they hadn’t seen each other naked, that they didn’t stare each other down across the table and think about pinning each other to the wall with a kiss.

Sitting in the courtroom Octavia had to remind herself not to stare at Lexa’s ass. Keep her legs crossed, trying to ignore the ache that would build as she watched Lexa pace back and forth delivering her examination of the witnesses. The way her heels clicked and echoed on the tile, her carefully tailored clothes accentuating her form. The way she dropped her voice and slowed down her speech as she delivered an argument.

Lexa’s voice did things to Octavia, especially when Lexa was winning in court like she had today.

Padding into the kitchen she sets the Pho she picked up on the way over on the counter. Lexa’s apartment is quiet, the only sign of life are her bizarre little floating plants spinning slowly by the window. She fills a glass of water at the tap and hops up to sit on the counter for a moment while she drinks, swinging her feet.

Octavia is restless.

She’s horny is what she is. Normally she’d find Clarke a few minutes after getting home, a few kisses to sate the ache. But Clarke is working at Gallery 2149 tonight, more and more she’s pulling doubles between the museum and the gallery as she tries to find a way to transition jobs without losing income.

Octavia hops off the counter and leaves her glass by the sink. She starts walking around Lexa’s apartment taking in the few minimal decorations, playing with the tiny planet like plants, wondering how fast they can spin as she sets one moving. The sun is setting as Octavia lays down beneath the window, watching streaks of orange and pink stretch across the sky.

One hand rests on her stomach, fingers twitching toward the waistband of her pants. The idea of taking care of herself, alleviating the ache before Lexa gets back is tempting. Especially because Lexa was supposed to get back before she did. She was the one with the errand.

She has the button of her slacks undone and the zipper halfway down when she hears Lexa’s keys in the door.

Octavia doesn’t really process, she just moves.

As much fun as it would be to get herself off while Lexa walks in on her, it would be more fun to have the reason for the ache between her thighs under her hands. She’s up off the floor and pressing Lexa against the door only halting her forward momentum to whisper hello against Lexa’s lips.

Lexa yields into the kiss and drops her bag to the ground. Octavia grins and wraps an arm around Lexa. “You were amazing today in court,” she whispers, as she lightly scratches a single fingernail down the side of Lexa’s neck. Her lips trail down the opposing side, “I couldn’t stop thinking about getting you home and out of your suit.”

Octavia looks up. Lexa’s lips are parted, her eyes dark, a mix of surprise and want lining her expression.

The surprise only lasts a moment and a smirk flits across Lexa’s lips, “Is that so?”

Lexa pushes off the door and walks Octavia back into the kitchen, her hands falling to Octavia’s hips. Even as her steps are steady, Octavia can feel the slight trembling in her hands. Lexa pushes her against the wall in the hallway, the kiss that follows is bruising.

Roaming hands and eager bodies lead to them crashing between the walls until Octavia has Lexa’s blouse undone and her back against a wall. “I thought about dragging you into the closet during that recess, but I wanted more than fifteen minutes.” She kisses down Lexa’s neck and along the edge of her exposed collarbone.

Lexa stills for a moment and her breath hitches, “What exactly did you have in mind?” Her hands stall, fingers wrapping around Octavia’s shirt and settling it back over her exposed shoulder. Her normal bravado is there but it’s hollow.

Octavia doesn’t miss the hesitation thrumming through Lexa. It feels like that first night they all kissed, Lexa trembling and afraid she would ruin what was between Clarke and Octavia. Except they’ve been together for months now, and that hesitation has faded. When the three of them are together they’ve found their rhythm.

This is just the two of them.

Octavia stands straighter, the distance of a breath between her and Lexa. She brushes the back of her hand across Lexa’s cheek.

“It’s never been just the two of us.” Octavia bites her lip and smiles, the thought of her strong, powerful girlfriend, worried after all this time that there could be something wrong.

Lexa shakes her head. She wants Octavia, winning in court is always exhilarating, and she wants to celebrate with her, but for every part of her that wants to tug Octavia flush against her again, there’s another that feels like she did all those months ago: she’s coming between a beautiful relationship. She’ll ruin them.

Octavia’s next kiss is softer, a gentle touch of lips, softly parted and undemanding. Lexa returns it caught between her wants and her fears.

“We’re together, as much as I’m with Clarke, or you are with both of us, you and Clarke are allowed your own relationship, you and I are allowed this,” Octavia slips her hands into Lexa’s open shirt and settles them on her bare sides. She leans forward and presses a soft kiss to Lexa’s sternum.

When she looks back up into Lexa’s eyes she sees a soft wonder there. Octavia slips her hand into Lexa’s and squeezes it gently, “Let me take you to bed.”

Lexa nods, words failing her, unnerved by how easily Octavia could read her hesitation. The way Octavia could turn her on with a few well placed touches, and open her up with words tumbling from her lips before she’s fully thought them through. The way Octavia is scares her because she knows that impulsive intuition will change her forever. No matter what happens between them she will never be the same having been caught up in Octavia’s path.

She lets her tug her toward bed.

“Without Clarke…” Lexa furrows her brow, her words almost too quiet to hear. The ache in her heart is only second to the ache between her legs as Octavia strips leaving a trail of clothes from the front door to the bedroom. “Will it be okay?”

Octavia lets go of Lexa’s hand as she turns to face her. She nods slowly a small smile on her lips. “We aren’t having an affair by being together without her,” she takes a small step forward and links her pinky with Lexa’s. This isn’t the first time she’s heard the hesitation in Lexa’s voice when it comes to her and Octavia being together. The fear that this will all come back and hurt Clarke. “We both care for her, as we do each other, yes?”

Lexa nods.

“Nothing I do is done if I know it would hurt her. Do you trust me?”

Lexa nods once more, a decisive dip of her chin, and takes a step towards Octavia.

Octavia catches Lexa up in her arms, tucking Lexa’s hair behind her ear as she turns them so Lexa’s back is toward the bed. “Lexa Woods, you are my girlfriend.” Her hands are on Lexa’s pants, unbuttoning them, unzipping them, sliding them down over her hips.

Lexa steps out of them on reflex, leaving pants and panties in a pile on the floor.

“And as girlfriends, if we want, we can fuck,” she tugs Lexa against her, and slides Lexa’s shirt off her shoulders. It falls to the ground. “We can do whatever you want. What do you want, Lexa?”

Lexa regards Octavia, the assured stance, the way she’s asserting what she wants but letting Lexa set the pace. Her heart aches with the comfort and feelings budding in it. The beginning tendrils of love thriving and pulsing.

There have been times when Lexa has found herself alone with Clarke, naked and exploring each other like teenagers timid, but burning up with desire. This is the first time she has found herself alone with Octavia and the old fear in the back of her mind that she is skirting into dangerous territory, somehow coming between the relationship of her friends won’t leave her mind. Lexa trembles with the effort to push those fears from her mind. These moments are hers to live, whether she’s with Clarke or Octavia, or both of them. This is what they agreed to. This is the trust they have for one another

Lexa hooks an arm behind her back and unclasps her bra. It falls to the floor with the rest of their clothes.

“I want you,” Lexa says quietly a slight waver in her voice. She wants her in ways she doesn’t know if she can articulate, the words refusing to surface. It's been too long since she slept with the same person more than once, since she took someone to her bed and let them stay, these past few months feel like a dream. Clarke and Octavia have come to her time and time again softly breaking down her walls and asking if they can be the ones that change her mind, and somehow every time she’s allowed herself to say yes.

Octavia grins, cocking her head to the side. “Do you now? How much?”

Lexa’s hands slide around Octavia’s bare waist, she intends to pull her close but Octavia places a palm flat against Lexa’s sternum.

“Tell me,” she whispers, the words little more than air pushing past her lips. Octavia leans closer ever so slightly, hope and desire in her eyes. She brushes her thumb softly over Lexa’s breast bone.

Lexa feels her cheeks flush. Between the soft way Octavia has slowed them down and the insistence on talking through what they’re about to do Lexa is uncomfortably aroused. The heat between her legs grows with each passing moment, damp and pooling. She wants Octavia’s hands on her, one slipping between her legs. Octavia on top of her, focused on her, mouth latched onto her skin.

None of the words she needs make it past the back of her tongue so she swallows them down.

She reaches for Octavia’s hand and guides it between her legs. Pressing her middle finger against Octavia’s she slips their fingers between her folds, dripping already with her arousal. “This much,” she whispers as she reaches up to cup Octavia’s cheek and draw her in for a kiss.

The kiss is a slow exploration, softer than the ones they shared as they crashed down the hallway, but no less intense. Lexa feels Octavia press against her shoulders, walking her backwards, urging her down onto the bed. She lets herself fall back onto the bed, bouncing softly as she lands.

Octavia stands above her and the sight takes Lexa’s breath away. She’s stunning, lithe and toned, and delicate in a way such a powerful person rarely is. The cut of her jawline is sharp, but the bow of her mouth is soft. Her eyes fall to the almost still-pink scar underneath Octavia’s left collarbone and Lexa wishes silently that they never have to go through a scare like that again.

Lexa breathes out and curls her index finger, beckoning Octavia down.

She comes to the bed readily, straddling Lexa, hovering above her with one hand firmly planted next to either of her shoulders. Octavia raises one eyebrow and waits.

Lexa trembles under her gaze, knowing Octavia is waiting for her to articulate what she wants, what she needs.

Octavia traces a finger down Lexa’s neck, letting her hand come to rest in the valley between her breasts. “You’re so articulate at work, but I get you alone in bed and you can barely string two words together,” she smiles, pleased with herself. She’s watched seasoned attorneys wither when Lexa speaks and she can subdue her with a touch, tinge her cheeks pink, break through her walls with nothing more than a chaste kiss.

Turning her head to the side Lexa breaks away from Octavia’s gaze as she feel the blush creep across her neck and chest. Her mouth is dry and she tries to ignore the fluttering in her chest. She looks back to Octavia without moving her head, “I want you, Octavia Blake. I want you to kiss me, and touch me,” she turns her head, forcing herself to make eye contact. “I want–”

Octavia lowers herself onto Lexa, pulling her into her arms, and kissing her like Lexa is her air. Even incessantly drinking down Lexa’s kisses, Octavia is soft. Her touch is light, ghosting over Lexa’s skin. She’s gentle in her questioning exploration. Can I touch you here? Do you want me to? Like this? Each verbalization makes Lexa blush and turns her on more.

Octavia gently turns Lexa onto her stomach, kissing across her side, fingertips tracing the outline of her ribs just pressing against her skin. She runs a finger down Lexa’s spine, tracing the tattoo there, black ink encasing a watercolor galaxy like a shooting star down the center of her back.

She takes in the sight of her lover’s back, familiar to her but still foreign and new. Octavia brushes the pad of her thumb across Lexa’s tattoo before pressing her lips to it. Then higher again, the C7 vertebrae, the side of her neck. She slides one arm around Lexa’s waist.

“How do you want me to fuck you?” Octavia’s teeth graze the shell of Lexa’s ear.

Lexa feels Octavia press closer to her, small pert breasts against her back, the smooth plane of her stomach, their hips curving together. Her breath hitches. It’s not that they haven’t been this close, pressed together, skin flushed and damp, before. Clarke has always been with them. It’s been more intense, less singularly focused.

Octavia smoothes her hand down Lexa’s arm, across her hip. She traces the curve of it, where Lexa’s sex is tucked between the apex of her crossed thighs. Soft touches she means to comfort Lexa with, calm her racing heart before she makes it beat wildly for other reasons entirely. Drawing her fingertips back she watches her hand as it traverses Lexa’s bare side, feeling the warmth of her girlfriend beneath the palm of her hand. She wants to be touching her, fucking her, but Octavia wants to know what Lexa wants. How are they when it’s just the two of them together? Without Clarke their dynamic has changed.

“Lexa?” Octavia whispers her teeth closing delicately around the skin of Lexa’s shoulder as she speaks. She waits for an answer.

Lexa whimpers, her mind racing. Her thoughts barely coherent as she pushes through the haze of her arousal. Words come to her sluggishly, and the ones that spring to mind stick in her throat. She wants and wants and wants. Her skin on fire with each of Octavia’s gentle touches. Too gentle, drawing this out for longer than she anticipated. She feels Octavia’s lips press against the back of her shoulder and all Lexa can think is that she wants to be riding high, she wants Octavia pressed against her, thrusting into her as she comes.

And still the words tremble on the back of her tongue.

She squirms against Octavia and the word please escapes her lips in a gasp.

“Please what?” Octavia kisses along Lexa’s shoulder, brushing aside her hair to kiss behind her ear.

Lexa’s voice is strained, “I want your fingers buried inside me.”

Her next thought is cut short as Octavia presses Lexa’s top leg forward, her knee hits the bed, steadying her on her side, and exposing her sex. Octavia licks her fingers and returns her hand to between Lexa’s legs, slowly pressing two fingers into her without warning. Lexa lets out a soft cry and presses against Octavia’s fingers, trying to arch her back and press against her all at once.

She rolls her hips, rubbing against Octavia, pleading as Octavia responds with a slow caress.

“Harder,” Lexa whispers.

Octavia picks up the pace instantly, fingers hitting deeper, rubbing against the spot she already knows will send Lexa over that edge if she just keeps at it. She slides her free arm underneath Lexa, hand splayed flat across Lexa’s stomach as she holds her closer, holds her tight. Her breath is hot against Lexa’s ear.

Lexa’s eyes flutter shut, she can’t keep them open and focus on the building tension between her legs. Her skin flushes with heat, a thin sheen of sweat breaking out across her skin. Breath coming in soft puffs, soft moans in the back of her throat, Lexa tenses and trembles under Octavia’s touch. The building, twining, tension, making the movement of her hips erratic.

The world is nothing, but heat and tension, and almost , until it’s a burst of stars and back bowing pleasure, emotions wrapping around her tender heart, tears pricking the corners of her eyes.

Octavia whispers in her ear, soft sweet words, as Lexa tenses once more and shudders, muscles tightening around Octavia’s fingers. Lexa gasps, crying out in pleasure, whimpering as Octavia stills inside her, gently bringing her back down. Tenderly slipping out from inside her, wrapping around her and holding her close as Lexa tries to hold herself together, relief and something like love sweeping over her.

The reality of coming undone by Octavia’s hand hits her. This is real. She isn’t just someone they bring to bed, or cling to when the world makes them ache.

Lexa turns in Octavia’s arms, tangling their legs together, pulling Octavia flush against her. The kiss is tender but deep and she hopes it conveys the feeling in her heart. She isn’t sure she has the words for what it means yet.

Chapter Text

Raven slips her phone from her pocket, checking the notifications. She’s barely looked at her phone all afternoon they’ve been so busy. Twenty-five emails, a plethora of likes on instagram, some mentions on twitter, and six un-answered texts from Monty. Today is not that day that she wants to deal with a work emergency. Raven presses her hand against the small of her back, digging into the muscles there, she’s sore from standing all day, helping move paintings, her leg aches and she groans knowing the night isn’t even beginning to come to a close.

She flips open the messages app. One potential disaster at a time.

Monty 2:34pm: Tall blond pretty boy is looking for you

Monty 2:34pm: named Wick?

Monty 2:45pm: shit, is this the ex?

Monty 2:46pm: the girls are way better

Monty 2:47pm: he kept asking when you’d be around

Monty 2:47pm: I told him you weren’t in the lab on the weekends, even though you do check in sometimes, but seems like he’s going to keep coming around. Do you need me to tell campus police or anything?

“ Tá me zoando… ” Raven mutters slipping into Portuguese. She had grown up speaking it with her mother, grandmother… and Finn’s family. Sometimes it comes easier to her than English when her heart turns into a frantic wild thing beating against her rib cage.

She rubs her thumb against her temple, Wick was one part of her life she hoped she’d never have to revisit. They didn’t need this today, or ever. Her heart flutters in a worried panic. He’d followed her for months after they broke up but after all this time she thought maybe he had given up and moved on. That was two years ago. Why was he coming back now, and today of all days? Now that she’s finally happy.

Now she has everything she never had with Wick. She’s not even certain she had anything close to this with Finn. Leaning over she stretches her low back for a moment as she scratches at the top of her prosthetic. For the first time her life is starting to feel like it’s working out the way she wants it to.

She’s loved. It’s complicated and messy and troublesome at times… but she wouldn’t give it up for anything. Not when she has three sets of arms to fall into unconditionally, three hearts that ache for her. Not when they have friends and family that support them. Not when she’s finally found her way back to her own family as she builds a new one.

Octavia is half hidden in the fridge, Lexa leans against the counter sipping on a glass of water as they discuss dinner. Raven can just make out their conversation and she sighs. If only she could just tell Wick she’s taken and there’s no way she’s letting them go. Not one of them. Then maybe he would just turn around and leave. She knows her wish will likely go unanswered.

Life isn’t what she expected it to be; it’s better. Raven leans back as Clarke wraps her arms around her, taking her weight and letting her relax a moment even though she’s still standing. She glances over at the couch and contemplates how much energy it’s going to take to get from here to there.

“You okay?” Clarke whispers against her ear.

“I’m sore.” Raven leans her head back on Clarke’s shoulder. She feels the press of Clarke’s lips against her temple and she just wants to melt into the feeling, forget the messages she just read, forget anything that isn’t the feeling of being home and being safe and being loved. They’re on a schedule though, and there’s no time for indulgences. “So are you going to tell us what Kane said that upset you?”

Clarke nips at Raven’s shoulder, “I asked first.”

“We have leftover fajitas, and I think there’s a fresh avocado.” Octavia calls from the kitchen, her head still in the refrigerator. Her stomach has been growling for the better part of the afternoon and all she wants is real food before they get to the show tonight. Even if she and Raven can’t be there as her girlfriends they can still be there for her. It would be easier if they could just be out, not like out and in everyone’s faces, but she just wants to be able to hold their hands, offer up strength and protection. It’s hard to do that when you have to sit on the sideline.

“That works,” Raven calls back. She leans forward, extracting herself from Clarke’s arms, they can both play the I don’t want to talk about it game. As long as it isn’t something that they don’t need to talk about at some point. Raven glances over her shoulder at Clarke, who all day, has been excited, if nervous, but since she stepped out of Kane’s office she’s been reserved.

“How many tortillas do you all want?” Lexa asks as Raven steps into the kitchen.

“Two.”

“Three,” Octavia replies.

“None, I’m good.”

“Clarke, you have to eat.”

“I will, I’m just-”

Raven turns around and stops Clarke mid-sentence with a kiss.

“-stressed,” she mumbles against Raven’s lips. Eating is the last thing on her mind right now, and she’s not even remotely hungry. It’s a vague thought in the back of her mind that she should eat because she’s been working all day and the actual show is in three hours.

“You’re eating.”

Lexa looks over her shoulder from her place next to Octavia at the stove, “The show is all ready to go, we just have to get you back there.” She catches Clarke’s eye and dips her head, a small gesture of reassurance.

Clarke smiles, moving around the others to set the table, “I know, it’s not- nevermind.”

“What happened with Kane?” Raven pushes.

“He knows, doesn’t he?” Octavia turns away from the stove slowly, hopping up onto the counter as she continues to stir the reheating fajitas.

Lexa nearly drops the fork she’s flipping tortillas with, “We’ve been careful.”

“More than careful enough,” Raven rolls her eyes. With how many people know she can’t believe they’re still trying to pretend they are anything other than what they are. It’s not like she doesn’t understand why they do, she’d just rather not. They aren’t ashamed of who they are but sometimes it feels like having to hide means they are.

“He said the gallery was a safe space,” Clarke slumps down into a chair at the table. She should be happier that it wasn’t a rejection, that he’s supporting them, but she can’t help but feel like she’s failed Lexa who needs them to stay closeted the most.

“What if we all went together tonight?”

“We’ve been over this Octavia, we can’t.” Lexa lets out an exasperated huff of air and squares her shoulders, readying herself for the argument that always comes. It isn’t that she doesn’t want to, she just isn’t willing to risk her career.

“Why-”

“It’s too risky. Lexa’s boss is going to be there tonight,” Clarke’s voice is gentle.

“How did Kane find out?” Raven slides into the chair next to Clarke.

Clarke pauses. She’s been trying not to think about the fact that Kane found out about their relationship over drinks with her mother. It’s been more than ten years since her dad was killed, but she feels like there’s something potentially disastrous in her mother dating her boss, “Mom.”

“Why would Abby tell Ka- oh .” Octavia slips off the counter and leans against it, the look on her face half surprised, half impressed. “Go, Abby.”

_______________________________________

Octavia slips out onto the back porch, her bare feet sliding across the smooth wood. The July air wraps around her skin, warmth pressing in on her, not unpleasantly hot, but enough that she feels just how alive everything around her is. The tension at dinner had been palpable, her and Raven wanting to stop worrying if people know, and Clarke and Lexa arguing that no matter what they want it doesn’t change what they should do.

Octavia can’t make sense of it anymore, not being honest about her love has only ever led to problems. It had broken up what was left of her blood family and nearly cost her the women she loved. She’d rather have a month or a few of rockiness to work through than the pain and anguish of the lie.

She falls into the freestanding hammock underneath the lone tree in their backyard, half in the sun, half out of it, and tosses an arm across her eyes before hitting call on her cell phone.

It feels like the four of them are circling around this, breaking themselves out of fear. Octavia has never been one to stand aside or hide when someone or something scares her. She faces the things that scare her head on. She rubs her shoulder the memory of an ache haunting her. Facing her fears head on hasn’t always worked out for the best, but it’s always worked out in the end.  

“I hear you’re dating Kane now,” she drawls before Abby has a chance to say hello.

“Hello, Octavia,” her words are short but Octavia can hear the amusement in Abby’s voice. Talking with Abby is like what she wishes calling her own mother was like. And maybe in some ways, after all these years, Abby is her mother, even if not officially, and right now she needs a mother’s advice.

“Clarke’s freaking out.”

“About Kane or about tonight?”

“About you telling him about us.”

The line goes silent for a moment and Octavia knows Abby is turning over the words in her head, trying to sort out how to respond. She waits, twirling a dark lock of hair around her finger, rocking herself gently with one foot on the ground. It shouldn’t matter.

It shouldn’t matter that Kane knows, that anyone knows. The four of them fit together like puzzle pieces, complexly interlocking in ways they never thought they would at first to create something wonderful and unexpected. Without even one of them they aren’t whole, they fit, but there’s something missing. All she wants is to be able to be with all of them without reservations, because there are bigger problems in the world than who someone takes to bed.

She loves Clarke, and Lexa, and Raven, and she hates that she has to hold back. She isn’t good at it, and part of her is afraid that in hiding they’ll lose sight of what makes the four of them great together.

“...Earth to Octavia,” Abby’s voice cuts through her thoughts.

“Shit, sorry, Abby.” Octavia rubs her hand down her face, trying to force her thoughts into words, when all she wants is to scream in frustration. “I just hate that it matters.”

“Clarke understands, you all understand, that Kane supports you, that I’m still behind you all, whatever you decide, right?”

“We do. I don’t want things to be like this anymore though. This is it. This is the night Clarke’s been working towards since she was the weird kid covered in paint all the time, that took art class way too seriously. I’ve been there for every art show, every gallery, every award, but this, this is the big one. And-,” Octavia’s voice cracks and she breathes out slowly trying to hold in the breaking trembling tide of emotions rolling through her chest. When she continues her voice is a soft whisper trying not to disturb her heart, “And I can’t hold her hand tonight.”

“You want to be the one by her side tonight.”

Tears prick at her eyes. “I want all of us to be,” Octavia sits up, nearly falling out of the hammock. “Raven’s right, who cares what anyone else thinks.”

“As long as the four of you are happy.”

Octavia softens at Abby’s words. She’s never spoken to her about this, she tries not to come to Abby with problems that would make her choose a side between Clarke and her. It’s always frightened her that she might become a problem between them, having always felt like such a problem to her own mother. The Griffins had been her family since the little blonde weirdo who was always covered in some kind of drawing supply had defended Octavia on the playground and gotten them both thrown in detention.

Things were easier back then. You could punch your problems in the face.

“What’s stopping the four of you from just quietly being yourselves tonight? You don’t have to make any declarations, or defend your decision, just don’t split up, don’t divide yourselves to make everyone else comfortable.”

Octavia doesn’t have an answer, but the tears rolling down her cheeks tell her everything she needs to know. She’s done hiding to make other people comfortable.

_______________________________________

Lexa climbs the stairs slowly giving Raven space to breath before she walks into their room and back into the fight. Even when they’re on the same side they find ways to challenge each other, but when it comes to being public they’re at an impasse, cleanly divided into sides, and no one is willing to give in. There is no compromising in this. They’ve compromised themselves into a dark twisted complicated corner and it’s exhausting.

She refuses to risk her career.

She refuses to lose the loves of her life.

Last time she picked love over work she lost a year of her life, sitting in limbo, waiting for another chance to finish up school. She spent another four years trying not to feel anything for anyone. It broke her. This is the first time she feels like life might come together. She’s finally working the kinds of cases she went to law school to oversee. She can finally try to make a difference to all the kids living in purgatory between parents, between homes.

She won’t risk that. Not when she can still come home.

Lexa leans against the doorframe at the end of the hallway that leads into the master bedroom. Raven is sprawled out on her back on their massive bed, her leg dangling over the side like she was too tired or too frustrated to crawl into bed. Both her hands are pressed against her face and there’s a trembling in her shoulders. Raven looks so much smaller than she actually is.

“Raven?” Lexa pushes off the doorframe and takes a few steps into the room. “I wanted-”

“Wick is back in town.” Raven pushes up to sitting, her eyes are rimmed red but her face is dry. “He’s been hanging out on campus all day, harassing Monty about me.”

Lexa kneels in front of Raven, not yet touching her, even as she wants to reach out and comfort her. She can feel Raven’s anger boiling just beneath the surface, thinly veiled hurt. Lexa looks up into Raven’s eyes, swimming with pain, “Do you need me to call one of the judges, I can get a restraining order pushed through.” She’s already reaching for her phone before Raven has a chance to reply.

“I just want to throw it all in his face,” Raven sets her jaw and glares down at Lexa because Lexa is the reason they try to keep quiet. “Show him how much I don’t need him, but even if he does find me, I can’t .”

The words sting more than a slap and Lexa holds Raven’s gaze. She swallows and waits.

Raven waits for the fight to start again because they’ve been having variations of this particular argument for months. It always come back to Lexa and her career. It’s not like it wouldn’t potentially be a risk for any of them, but they’re willing to face it head on, together.

“How long does it have to be like this? Until we stop being each other’s secrets? You keep saying not yet . A gente te ama... ” Raven takes in a shuddering breath and looks Lexa over. The soft pleading in her eyes against the hard cut of her jaw clenched tight, her hands curled in her lap, waiting patiently, even as every fiber in her body vibrates towards action. Lexa’s silence says more than any of it. The way she doesn’t respond, even though Raven knows she’s understood. It’s the way she takes Raven’s anger and accepts it. Raven wants to scream and have this out, but she can’t when she knows Lexa will drink down her pain like punishment.

Raven can’t help herself from pushing, “You’ve got the job, the dream, your boss likes you, which from what you’ve said, might be a small miracle because she doesn’t like anyone. You’re already working the cases you want, so where’s the line? When do we get to stop having to do mental gymnastics each time we step out that front door?”

Lexa lets her gaze drop for a moment as she builds back up the walls because they don’t have time tonight. They have to be back at Gallery 2149 in time for Clarke to relax and be ready for the opening. They don’t have time to change the plan or fight about it once again. “Once I’m certain.”

“About what? About us? Você não pode ser mais egoísta? ” Raven regrets the words the moment they hit her tongue like a bitter acid. It’s only there for a moment but she sees pain wash across Lexa’s face, her eyes gloss, lips part and for a second Raven thinks she can hear the silent breaking of her heart. Just as quickly Lexa presses her lips together and inhales sharply, any sign of pain, gone.

Lexa stands, stepping back from Raven. She’s halfway to the master bathroom before she responds, pausing her steps, but not looking over her shoulder, not knowing if she could look at Raven, or any of them in that moment, and not break wide open, “You know how I feel.”

_______________________________________

Clarke glances in the mirror and sets the makeup brush down on the bathroom counter as Octavia walks up behind her, wrapping her arms around Clarke’s waist. She leans her head back against Octavia’s, watching their reflection, side by side. It hasn’t been forever, but sometimes it feels like they’ve always been like this and she wonders if she’ll ever know Lexa or Raven quite this well, how all she has to do is feel one touch, take one glance, and she can know if something is wrong.

“You’ve been crying,” Clarke turns and leans against the counter, her hands falling to Octavia’s hips as she settles in. She pulls Octavia closer, feeling her skin still warm from the late afternoon sun as she searches for a hint of what might have caused her to be upset. It isn’t like Octavia to cry over nothing, which means this is something. She reaches up a hand, brushing her thumb along the underside of Octavia’s eye, catching a fresh tear.

Octavia leans forward, catching Clarke’s perfectly lipsticked lips up in a kiss that isn’t meant to be gentle or chaste. Her heart is aching and it feels like such a small thing to be upset over, but it’s more than just the fact that she can’t be the one to hold Clarke’s hand tonight. Ever since they were kids they dreamt and planned this night. The night Clarke knew she’d made a name for herself as an artist, because it was never a question of if, only when. She cups her hands around Clarke’s face as she pulls back. Clarke’s lipstick is smeared and she looks hopelessly confused.

“I just want to be there for you tonight.”

“You will be, we talked about this-”

“No,” Octavia’s hands slip to Clarke’s shoulders and she shakes her once gently as frustration bubbles over. There’s a scream itching at the back of her throat that she won’t let out. “I want to be there for you because you’re my girlfriend and I don’t care who knows, and I want to be able to hold Lexa and Raven’s hands while you give your speech and we help you celebrate. I don’t want to have to live a lie whenever I walk out my front door.”

“This isn’t about what we want,” Clarke tugs Octavia towards her for another kiss but Octavia pulls back and Clarke lets her go. Her jaw trembles, “This is for Lexa , so she doesn’t have to worry about her job.”

“She’s picking work over us. She’s stepping back, again. ”

Clarke slides out from between Octavia and the sink, catching sight of herself in the mirror; she scrubs at the lipstick smudge around her mouth, “That’s entirely unfair. You know it isn’t like that.”

“Isn’t it? She’s the one who keeps pushing for us to stay quiet about how we feel. It doesn’t matter to her that this hurts.” Octavia’s voice is barely above a harsh whisper, but it rings in Clarke’s ears like she’s screaming.

“What the hell, Octavia,” Clarke catches Octavia’s gaze in the mirror, hard and angry. “None of us want it to be like this, but if you haven’t noticed, sometimes the world sucks, and we don’t get to just be who we want to be because we’re okay with who we are. We agreed, until all of us are ready, things stay like they are.” Clarke spins to face Octavia directly, stepping into her space, “ You agreed to this.”

“You and Lexa agreed.” Their shoulders collide as Octavia pushes past Clarke, “Let me know when you’re done in here so I can get ready to take Raven tonight.”

Clarke only watches after Octavia for a moment before she lets out the breath she’s holding, her hands braced against the bathroom counter, fingers digging into the stone. Her head drops down and she breathes in, shaking and shuddering and she tries to choke back a sob.

_______________________________________

Lexa hasn’t said a word since she walked into the master bathroom, and neither has Raven. There was exactly one exasperated exhalation and a soft fwump as Raven threw herself back on the bed, and then, silence.

Lexa presses her palms flat against the expansive counter to keep them from trembling. Raven’s words struck deep, deeper than they were meant to. They had all been so delicate in their disagreement before, do we come out, or do we keep our relationship private. Lexa doesn’t want to scream her love from the rooftops, but maybe, standing at the top, looking out over everything, to hold her loves close and not worry. That would be the thing, to not be afraid.

She can’t risk her career.

Lexa glances out at Raven, good leg planted firmly on the ground, her prosthetic propped against the bed as she massages her thigh, and her already fragile heart trembles.

She can’t lose them.

She stretches back, trying to drain the tension pulling on her spine from between her shoulderblades. It only settles in tighter because she knows she is the reason that everyone is angry and hurt. Her own selfish fears from a love she lost long ago that she just can’t let go of are threatening her chance at happiness. She’s chosen to be with Clarke and Octavia and Raven, loving each one insurmountably in different ways, but she hasn’t let herself trust them with her future.

She slides to the cold tile floor, back pressed against the wall, blinking back tears as she watches Raven. Raven who doesn’t have to speak to break through Lexa’s walls. Raven who makes her tremble with the lightest of touches. Raven who makes her forget that she’s afraid.

Because, in the end of it all, she still has her career, carefully built up over the years. Ever since Costia walked out of her life it’s been her focus. And now she’s made it, a secure position at an esteemed law firm. She kept her personal life a secret so it didn’t hinder her advancement. All they know about her at work is that she’s ruthless and fearsome in court, cunning and highly tactical. But no one knows her because she’s kept the best part of herself locked away.

Lexa balls her hands into fists. Her career doesn’t matter if she pushes them all away.

“Lexa?” Clarke steps into the master bathroom from the main hallway and Lexa glances up slowly, taking in the sight of her girlfriend standing above her before working her way to her feet. This is it. The moment of choice. She can feel it press on her, the weight of the enormity of her decision tonight, their future rides on it. Lexa’s jaw is clenched tight as she holds back tears. They study each other, measuring in the pain in each other’s eyes, and the weight of the hearts they’re responsible for.

None of them are alone in their pain, and they’re all responsible for this, but they have to choose to take care of each other and trust that everyone else will do the same. Lexa has to choose to trust.

Lexa breathes out, and she wants to step into Clarke’s arms, but she has to try to fix this first, hold it together with tape until she can make it up to them. “You can’t take me tonight,” Lexa pauses, trembling as pain flashes across Clarke’s face, “You can’t take only me.”

“What do you mean?” Clarke leans against the wall, her gaze flicking from Lexa and then out into their bedroom where Raven has propped herself up on the bed to watch them. Raven shrugs. Not an hour ago Lexa had been steadfast that they keep their relationship a secret and as much as Clarke would love to be able to have her girlfriends by her side tonight she had stopped believing it was a possibility. She doesn’t want to let the warm sprig of hope blooming in her chest grow, but Lexa’s gaze is soft and earnest and there’s a tremulous edge to her words as they fill the space between them.

Lexa leans against the counter, half sitting, her hands falling to rest in her lap. She watches them intently, as she sits as still as possible, trying not to fidget and break her courage, “I mean that you should take all of us, if that’s alright with you.” Lexa looks up at Clarke with hope, the last of her walls no more than dust at her feet, and she prays their love is strong enough to keep her safe, “I’ve made us wait long enough.”

Chapter Text

Nine months after Clarke first kissed Lexa and Lexa rarely returns home at night to her sparse apartment with a view of the city. She's found she prefers to be in the middle of it, crammed into a double bed with the women who have changed her life, given her hope again. They spend weekends at the coast or in the mountains, Octavia convincing them to get out and explore the world. Together it feels like they're unstoppable.

Lexa takes quiet pride in their relationship even as she wonders when the day will come that they find the courage to tell their friends and family. Only Anya knows what they mean to each other. Most days that's fine… sometimes it's tricky, like when you're seated next to your girlfriend’s mother at dinner and she doesn't know you're a part of the family yet.

“It’s quite nice of you to extend the dinner invitation to me, Abby.” Lexa takes a sip of water and offers up a small smile now that they’re all seated around the dinner table.

“Well, considering the way these two go on about you I didn’t know if I’d see them if I didn’t.” Abby gives Lexa a wink and hands her the salad bowl. “It’s been just them for so long I was wondering if they even had any other friends anymore.”

Clarke gasps in mock horror, holding a hand to her chest. “We have friends. There’s Bellamy-”

“-Octavia’s brother.”

“-and Lincoln-”

“-who might as well be family.”

Clarke falters a little bit, “... and Niylah-”

“-my point exactly.”

Octavia glances sideways at Clarke, they have other friends, and yet, all Clarke can come up with is her brother and their exes. Then again, it’s not like they’ve seen any of them lately. They’ve been busy figuring out how Lexa fits into their lives, which is exactly why they’re here at dinner, pretending to be friends to see if Clarke’s mom even likes her. One day maybe they’ll be able to tell her.

“Well, they are quite the handful to deal with. I can certainly understand why you would be worried.” Lexa’s tone is serious, but there’s laughter in her eyes and a smirk pulls at the corner of her full lips. The look on Clarke and Octavia’s faces is worth it though, horror, indignation, and a hundred retorts that die to keep the nature of their relationship secret.

Abby looks less certain, hands hovering over the dish she was reaching for. Clarke tilts her head and raises an eyebrow. She nudges Lexa under the table. The longer they hold eye contact the harder it is to keep a straight face until Clarke lets out a bark of laughter before dead panning,“You’re quite the ball of sunshine yourself.”

The tension around the table melts.

“I am an absolute delight, I have no idea what you’re referring to, Clarke.”

Octavia tries to unsuccessfully hold back a snort of laughter and nearly knocks over her water glass. If this is any indication of how the night is going to go, it’s going to be just fine.

_______________________________________

Lexa wakes with her back pressed against the cold wall, only half covered by the duvet, someone’s elbow is poking her in the side, and someone’s hair across her face. As she brushes the hair out of her face she realizes it’s her own that has come loose from the bun she usually sleeps in. That definitely isn’t her elbow though. She’s certain she hasn’t been asleep too long having spent at least an hour turning over the dinner in her head, at least it seemed to have gone well.

This isn’t the first time she’s woken up like this, unable to reposition herself and unable to wrestle the covers back from Clarke, because it’s most definitely Clarke who has stolen all of the blankets, again. Lexa is cold and uncomfortable and in a double bed that is far too small for three people, especially when one of them demands all of the space.

“Octavia scoot over.” Lexa nudges her half heartedly hoping that at the very least she wakes up enough to reposition herself. She tugs at the blankets again and sighs, finding them firmly tucked around Clarke who is on the other side of Octavia. Cracking one eye open she glances at the old alarm clock by the bed, the one that they have to use, because apparently a long time ago Clarke smashed her phone trying to turn off an alarm. It’s 3:04a.m., and tomorrow is going to be hell at work if she doesn’t get back to sleep.

“I can’t.” Octavia mumbles, simultaneously rolling into Lexa and spreading out across the bed.

“Why?”

“Because Clarke will end up on the floor.”

“Noooo. No floor. Scoot over, O.” Clarke is still mostly asleep and she rolls slightly, pulling the covers further off Lexa who shivers as the cold night air hits her.

Octavia lays out on her back, her limbs spread as wide as she can make them. “I can’t, I need space, or I can’t sleep between you two.”

Lexa rolls her eyes and tugs at the covers again. “Also, Clarke, blankets, release them before I freeze.”

“But then, I’ll freeze.” Clarke whines from within her cocoon of blankets.

“Octavia switch spots with Clarke.”

“But I want to sleep next to both of you.” Octavia nuzzles her face against Lexa’s neck, and reaches out so she’s also touching Clarke.

“Your elbows are pointy, it’s three a.m., and I’ll sleep next to you tomorrow night, and Clarke can take the wall.” Lexa’s just about done with this conversation, she wants to be warm and asleep and right now she is neither of those things. She rubs at her side, fairly certain Octavia has managed to leave her a bruise by digging in an elbow while they slept.

“As long as I get enough blankets.”

“Clarke, that’s never a problem for you because you always steal them.”

After a few more sighs and grumbles she feels the bed shift as Octavia and Clarke switch spots, only pausing long enough to kiss as they make the transition. Lexa tucks the blankets behind her huddling down in them to get warm again and pulls Clarke into her arms; she comes willingly, incredibly compliant in her half asleep state as she wraps her arms around Lexa’s middle and rests her head on Lexa’s chest.

“Warm enough?” Lexa whispers against her hair.

Clarke nods and kisses Lexa’s sternum, humming in appreciation, already halfway back to being asleep as if the whole ordeal has done nothing to disturb her.

“Octavia?”

“I’m good.”

“Enough room?”

She feels the blankets shift as Octavia shrugs. Lexa reaches out a hand, and squeezes Octavia’s shoulder as she holds Clarke tighter. They need a bigger bed, and soon.

_______________________________________

Octavia rubs sleep from her eyes as she crosses over the living room and into the kitchen area. The bitter richness of coffee brewing has already filled the apartment and she needs it in her system if she’s going to make it to work on time, she needs it if she’s going to do anything today.

One of her favorite things about Lexa spending the night, after the sex, is waking up to a pot of coffee already brewing. The scent pulls her out of bed and across the apartment, narrowly avoiding tripping over the couch, before she leans her weight against the counter and breathes it in her hands fumbling for a mug in the cupboard. There’s no playing rock/paper/scissors with Clarke to see who will get out of bed first; there’s just life giving coffee.

She isn’t quite sure how Lexa manages it.

She holds the mug beneath her nose, blowing on the coffee, waiting for it to be cool enough to drink. She’s impatient though, taking a sip and burning her tongue in the process. Octavia whimpers and tries to breathe around the hot liquid before swallowing.

“You know if you just waited you wouldn’t burn your tongue.”

Octavia rolls her eyes at Lexa as she walks across the kitchen in nothing but a towel, hair still damp from her shower. Lexa takes Octavia’s coffee and sets it on the counter and Octavia catches her around the waist, pulling her in for a soft kiss, just a light press of lips that elicits a small gasp from Lexa before she leans back in for another. Every morning should start like this.

Lexa hums happily. “You taste good.”

“Just ‘cus your coffee does,” Octavia mumbles, feeling a blush creep across her cheeks.

Lexa bites her lip and glances down the length of Octavia’s body, only clad in a tank top and underwear, her eyes wide and wanting. Her hands slide up Octavia’s legs to rest on her hips and she leans against her, fingers digging in softly as she pulls them together, hip bones pressed to hip bones. Octavia’s hands slide under the edge of the towel Lexa has wrapped around her torso and Lexa knows from the catch in Octavia’s breath that Octavia’s realized she’s nude underneath.

These past several months have been everything Lexa thought she’d never have again and she can’t seem to get enough of either Octavia or Clarke. Leaning in she whispers against the shell of Octavia’s ear, lips just brushing the skin there, “I know for certain you taste fantastic.” Her fingers twist around the waistband of Octavia’s underwear and she gives them a sharp tug.

Octavia lets out a surprised squeak, her brain not quite awake for this level of flirtation, but she’s not about to complain. She slips her hands further underneath Lexa’s towel, enjoying the feeling of the soft bare skin underneath her fingertips and dips her head to press kisses against Lexa’s neck.

Coffee is definitely second only to the sex.

Lexa kisses Octavia on the cheek and steps back, “Time to get dressed.”

Octavia groans and lets Lexa go knowing already it’s going to be a long day. She takes another sip of her coffee which has cooled off just enough to drink, almost frowning as she watches Lexa walk away, but she can’t. Lexa distracted her from her coffee just long enough to keep her from burning her mouth a second time. Also, Lexa has legs that go on for days and they only own incredibly narrow towels, a combination of which Octavia will never tire.

A glance at the clock tells Octavia she’s already running behind when she hears the shower start up again. She sighs and downs the rest of her coffee before walking back across the living room. Cracking open the door Octavia pokes her head into the bathroom, “Hurry up, Clarke!”

“I’m in the shower.”

“I know, but I need to shower before work.”

“I thought you already showered.”

“That was me,” Already dressed, Lexa nudges Octavia into the bathroom, and pushes in after her. She rubs at the mirror, trying to get a spot clear enough to do her makeup.

Clarke curses softly and pulls back the shower curtain holding it so it covers her, as if it matters, both the women now vying for space in the small bathroom have seen her naked more times than any of them can count.

“Just join me, O.” Clarke steps back under the stream of water, obscured once again by the opaque curtain decorated with Van Gogh’s Sunflowers. This isn’t the first morning they’ve all tried to get ready at once, every other time someone has been late for work. Never Clarke though, since she doesn’t ever start teaching until ten in the morning, the perks of being able to set your own hours.

Octavia rolls the hem of her tank top between her fingers debating if she wants to risk it or if she’ll just skip her shower this morning and grab one when she gets home. She’s already pulling it over her head when she replies, “I don’t want to be late.”

It’s usually Clarke’s fault Octavia or Lexa are late; not that she’ll admit it.

“I promise I’ll behave.”

Lexa snorts in amusement.

Clarke pulls back the other end of the shower curtain, one eyebrow raised in question. “What?” The word is an amused challenge of indignation.

“I said nothing.” There’s a hint of a smile at the corner of Lexa’s mouth as she applies mascara. She swipes her hand across the mirror again to try to clear the fog from the shower. Clarke flicks water at Lexa across the tiny bathroom and sticks out her tongue. Lexa frowns, as water droplets splatter across her shirt. She presses her lips in a thin line and gives Clarke a pointed look, though it’s hard for her to keep a straight face. “This is silk, Clarke. I’m going to have to change now.”

“I’m sorry,” Clarke holds out one of her hands to Lexa and wiggles her fingers expectantly as she waits for Lexa to take it. “Kiss?”

Lexa raises an eyebrow but takes Clarke’s hand and lets herself be tugged across the tiny bathroom, filling the space Octavia was just in before she stepped into the shower. She wrinkles her nose, amused as she leans in towards Clarke, “You know, it’s quite good you’re cute, even when you forget to take your makeup off and you get raccoon eyes in the shower.”

Clarke flicks water at Lexa again and pulls her in for a kiss that means she’ll have to redo her makeup and change her silk shirt for one that won’t have water stains on it. Lexa can’t find it in herself to complain though, not this morning. Even if they could use a bigger bathroom, maybe even a second one. Even if they don’t have room for three full wardrobes, or a bed that means they don’t have to sleep piled on top of one another. Even if the air conditioning only ever understands the setting arctic circle, and the heating system is so old it keeps freezing in winter. Even so, she wouldn’t trade this for anything. So she kisses Clarke back.

“O, I’m leaving in fifteen if you want a ride.”

Octavia doesn’t have a chance to respond to Lexa before Clarke turns around and pulls her close for just a moment to press a flurry of kisses all over her face, whispering morning against Octavia’s lips.

“What time do you get off tonight?”

“As soon as I get home, I hope.”

Clarke shoves Octavia’s shoulder lightly as they switch spots and tosses the washcloth at her. Behaving is so very hard.

_______________________________________

Lexa turns the empty paper cup in her hand, watching the last dregs of coffee swirl around the bottom of the cup, not even enough to for a full drop of the tepid liquid. Last night’s interrupted sleep is dragging on her mind and the only saving grace is that she doesn’t have to be in court today. Even waking up warm with Clarke still in her arms, and, inexplicably, Octavia curled around Clarke so the three of them were pressed tight together, even waking up like that wasn’t enough to make up for not sleeping the first half of the night.

“I think I’m in need of another cup of coffee.” It’s nearly lunch and she should be awake by now.

“Get me one?” Octavia tosses an empty cup in the compost.

Lexa glowers at Octavia over the rim of her empty cup.

“Right,” Octavia smiles and rolls her eyes. “You’ve decided to be a grump because-” Lexa nearly crumples the paper cup in her hand and Octavia cuts herself off mid-sentence. Anyone could walk in at any moment. She likes that idea of risking being caught, but also, everyone at work thinks she’s only dating Clarke, and getting caught could get complicated quickly. “I’ll get you coffee,” Octavia crosses the empty break room to where Lexa is leaning against the wall and she can’t help but smile at the angry pout she knows is a cover for how Lexa really feels. There’s a crinkle in the corner of Lexa’s eyes and they sparkle when she isn’t really angry. Octavia wants to kiss that pout off Lexa’s lips but she can’t even touch her. Not here.

She stops and they’re almost toe to toe, it’s so tempting to close the distance with the break room empty.

Lexa glances at the doorway and she hands Octavia the mangled paper cup. With a sigh Octavia turns and shoots it across the room and into the trash, not taking the bait to step back. She steps forward instead. Her hands itch to reach for Lexa.

“There just needs to be a bigger sleeping space,” Octavia moves to lean against the wall next to Lexa who is giving her a wide-eyed look. “What? This isn’t the first time there’s been a problem.”

“But, this conversation now? Here?” Lexa whispers. Octavia just shrugs and Lexa rolls her eyes, “Besides a bigger bed would never fit.”

Octavia knows Lexa is right, their room in the apartment is barely large enough for the double bed they have, and Lexa’s apartment isn’t much larger. They could never fit all their things in one place. There just needs to be more room, “Maybe other things need to be bigger too.” Octavia bites her lip looking over at Lexa as she nudges her shoulder. Lexa practically lives with them already. It would be nice to make it official.

“Enough room for-” Lexa brushes the back of her hand against Octavia’s. Her heart flutters and trips in her chest.

“Yes.” Octavia says definitively and Lexa simultaneously wants to kiss her and run away.

She lets her hand fall back to her side breaking the little contact she had allowed them, “Have you talked with-”

“No.”

“Okay.” Lexa’s mind is reeling. This was just an impulsive musing of Octavia’s, she has a lot of them. The idea that she would ask Lexa to move in without thinking about it, or talking with Clarke, it’s almost expected. Even so, the question terrifies her. After Costia she never thought she would allow herself this kind of relationship again. It just leads to heartache and pain.

Everything can go from just fine to not with a single word. An entire sentence can change your week, a conversation your life. The more times the offer turns over in her head the more it scares her. Lexa feels her world drop away and she’s left with what Octavia has very clearly not actually said. Move in with us .

Octavia leans over and presses a kiss to Lexa’s shoulder, “But you should. You two are better at planning things than I am.”

Lexa nods and slips out of the break room, muttering something about how she needed to prepare a deposition.

Pulling her phone from her pocket Octavia shoots off a quick text to Clarke.

Octavia 11:56am: may have just asked Lexa to move in with us because we need a bigger place so we can get a bigger bed so we can all get some sleep… love you

_______________________________________

Nothing is ever as nerve wrecking as waiting. Clarke glances at her phone as she passes by her desk and continues to pace around the room, there hasn’t been a single message since Octavia texted her and Lexa still hasn’t shown up for lunch. She slumps down into her chair ignoring the fact that her shirt will wrinkle and she still has a meeting this afternoon with the board. This is has never been her strength.

She’s worried what Octavia’s impulsivity will cost them.

When Lexa walks into Clarke’s office she’s only just calmed her runaway thoughts, reeled in her panic and decided to wait to bring the idea up later. She isn’t ready to talk about this. It’s inevitable if their relationship keeps moving forward, but the need of a bigger bed is hardly the reason they should be moving in together.

Lexa watches as Clarke practically leaps out of her chair, rounding her desk until she’s stopped just in front of her. She chews on the inside of her lip; it’s clear from the expectant look on Clarke’s face that Octavia told her.

“Hey,” Clarke whispers, reaching out to brush her fingers against Lexa’s. “Ready for lunch?”

“She told you.” It isn’t so much a question as it is a disappointment because if Clarke knows there is no avoiding this conversation. Lexa works her jaw, sucking her bottom lip between her teeth.

Clarke reaches out and tugs at Lexa’s button down shirt to bring her a couple steps closer. Lexa moves reluctantly, glancing over her shoulder at the glass wall. There’s no one looking now but that doesn’t mean they won’t.

“Everyone’s already at lunch.”

“Not everyone.”

“Lexa, relax. You’re wound tightly, and not in a good way,” Clarke smiles her hands slipping to Lexa’s waist. She shakes her gently from side to side, trying to get her to loosen up.

Lexa purses her lips but she doesn’t step out of Clarke’s arms, even moving with her as she walks backwards to lean against her desk.

Clarke loops her fingers through Lexa’s belt loops and pulls her another step closer so Lexa is nearly standing between her legs. Her hands rest on Lexa’s hip bones and she tilts her head up, wanting nothing more than to sooth the hardness in Lexa’s eyes and the sharp set of her jaw.

“We can’t, not here.” Lexa dips her head, closing her eyes. She wants to give into Clarke’s unasked question, press their lips together and forget for a moment that she’s fighting not to run away. Life is so much more when they’re all together, but she’s terrified that it will end.

“You know, she’s impulsive but she’s right.”

Lexa lifts her head slightly to look at Clarke and raises one eyebrow in a perfect arch.

Clarke reaches out to trace a fingertip against Lexa’s jaw but drops it soon after. “A bigger bed makes sense. We’d need a bigger place to get a bigger bed. If we get a bigger place it should be yours too.”

Lexa breathes out through her nose, crossing her arms over her chest. Clarke reaches out and tries to get her to untangle herself but she steps away with a small shake of her head and Clarke leans back against her desk again. Lexa can feel an unwelcome panic rising in her chest, clouding her judgement and she wonders why she kept this lunch date after what Octavia said.

“Hey,” Clarke says softly. “Lex,” she pauses waiting for Lexa to look back at her. “This isn’t something we have to do today, or tomorrow, or at any point before we’re all ready.”

“Obviously,” Lexa snaps.

“I know O is impulsive,” Clarke pushes off her desk but doesn’t press into Lexa’s space. She needs to move, to think. “She gets an idea in her head and it just comes out of that wild mouth. It’s infuriating.”

“Quite.”

“We got you out of that infuriating mouth, after a while anyway,” Clarke teases and reaches out her hand to gently squeeze Lexa’s forearm.

Lexa softens a little, she doesn’t want to blow this up, but she feels like she’s being backed into a corner. It’s all so serious, so sudden. Octavia sprung the idea on her when they couldn’t even discuss it properly and then Clarke just agreed without an argument. She isn’t quite sure why that upsets her, she should want her girlfriends to want her around; except she knows exactly why it upsets her.

“Regardless, she shouldn’t have brought it up in the breakroom at work,” Lexa hisses.

Moving in together is serious and she hasn’t done serious since… Costia. Six years of avoiding this feeling in her chest. This is the first time she’s allowed herself close enough to anyone for them to break down her defenses like this. She’s vulnerable and it’s entirely uncomfortable.

“I can read you, Lexa. That isn’t what this is about.”

Lexa purses her lips in a thin line. She’s not doing this here, not now, not when Clarke’s coworkers can see and probably hear them through the glass wall. They have boundaries in place about their relationship for a reason. It isn’t for the public.

Clarke stalks towards Lexa, not ready to be shut down on this, Lexa is adept about not talking about things that make her uncomfortable, but this isn’t something that should be one of those things. “This isn’t about Octavia being impulsive, or that she asked you at work.” Lexa takes a step backwards as Clarke advances. “You’re just afraid of what it might mean, that you might have feelings beneath that tough exterior.”

Lexa backs into the wall and lets out a small muted squeak of surprise. Clarke doesn’t reach out to touch her but she can see the energy thrumming through her like she’s holding it in. She takes a shallow breath and then another, and another. She refuses to let Clarke see her shake, see her weak, and clamps her jaw shut tightly forcing her breath into a slow, even, rhythm.

“I know how you feel, Lexa, and I know it scares you-”

Clarke’s words are cut short but the shrill ring of her telephone that causes both of them to jump.

Lexa watches as Clarke crosses her office in three long strides, efficient, determined. Her hello is clipped and annoyed and she finishes the conversation almost before it’s begun. Whatever fight was starting between them has fizzled though by the time she turns back around; Lexa has stayed backed against the wall, waiting, unwilling to move.

Clarke’s tongue darts out to wet her lips and Lexa knows she’s thinking.

“Lex…” She leans against her desk, hands flat against the wood, fingers pressing down as if she can draw strength from the surface.

“Clarke,” her tone is even, cold, guarded. Lexa says her name like a warning.

Clarke opens her mouth to speak and shuts it again shaking her head. Lexa waits, she can wait, wait for Clarke to snap or leave, wait for Clarke to resend the invitation, wait for whatever will happen. She has nothing but patience and she’s made up her mind that she needs time, so it matters not where she takes it.

“I have to go help with a class, small kids, paint, vomit, chaos. Can we talk tonight?” She takes half a step towards Lexa as she moves around her desk once more.

Lexa inhales sharply, “I need time.”

Clarke nods once, sadly, and crosses her office unhurriedly. She doesn’t want to leave Lexa, not like this, but this is quickly becoming a conversation that can’t be had over lunch. Sometimes there isn’t a right choice to make, just bad and maybe not quite so bad. Trailing her hand down Lexa’s arm she looks up to meet her eyes, when Lexa doesn’t flinch away she takes another step closer and cups her hand against Lexa’s cheek, searching Lexa’s green eyes for a hint of what her words mean. All she finds is apprehension and Clarke is uncertain how to ease Lexa’s fears.

Lexa turns away breaking the contact between them.

“Don’t stay away too long. We lo- we’re here for you, in this together.” Clarke steps back and turns to walk out of her office, heart pounding, knowing the words that were on the tip of her tongue and not knowing when she knew they became true.

She glances over her shoulder, back through the glass of her office to Lexa, eyes closed, head leaning against the wall. Lexa looks open and raw in a way Clarke has never seen her. It takes all she has to keep walking and give Lexa the space she asked for.

_______________________________________

Lexa glances out at the near half-million dollar view of Anya’s apartment as she makes another circuit of the room and frowns at the setting sun. The past six months have been wonderful, difficult, trying, but something she wouldn’t trade the experience of for anything. She’s had moments of being truly happy for the first time since Costia left and even if she hasn’t found a way to let that hurt go she finds herself wanting to.

She wants to be free of this hell she’s buried herself in.

Of course, now everything is tenuously terrifying what with the proposition to move in together and Clarke backing her up against a wall softly demanding Lexa acknowledge the real reasons she’s lashing out. Lexa hates being called out almost as much as she hates being wrong, and this time she is both.

She picks up her pace just slightly, tearing her gaze away from downtown as she tries to trace the streets from the museum to the precinct, to Clarke and Octavia’s apartment, wondering where they are today. Her phone buzzes on the table and she lets out a small huff of air.

“If you wear a hole in my carpet because of this relationship, you’re paying to have it replaced.” Anya doesn’t even look to Lexa, instead settling further into her favorite chair.

Lexa flops down on Anya’s couch, crossing her arms and narrowing her eyes at her foster sister. She thinks better when she’s walking, it’s why she’s so good in court. All she has to do is glide across the tile floor while she judiciously chooses her words and she has the jury in the palm of her hand, with a change in tempo, the sudden stop and click of her heels on the floor she makes a witness question what they’re saying and tell the truth, the real truth. All of that power and her foster sister reduces her to a petulant teenager slouching and scowling.

“Are you going to talk about it or are you just going to glare at me?”

Lexa moves to speak but snaps her mouth shut and hunkers down just on the principle of the matter. Anya rolls her eyes and sips at her wine.

“I have dinner at seven with a client, so you’ll have to start talking sometime if you want my help tonight.” Her voice softens and Lexa can hear the concern peeking out behind the faux boredom.

Lexa succumbs to the couch and lays down, spreading out, one arm flung over her eyes, the other reaching for her wine on the table. “Octavia asked me to move in with them. I don’t know if she meant to. And then Clarke said it was a good idea.”

Anya laughs softly, “What did you think was going to happen? The two of them are head over heels for you.”

“I just wanted a bigger bed and now they’re talking about maybe getting a bigger place all together.”

For a moment Anya doesn’t speak and Lexa thinks she might not say anything. This is the moment of truth, the relationship is unconventional at best, and Lexa is constantly worried what kind of backlash it will have to deal with if she pursues it seriously. Even though Anya has been supportive the entire time, Lexa still worries that one day she’ll see her as something less.

Anya’s words are weighted, careful, “It’s not a bad idea.”

Lexa lifts her arm off her face and presses up to a half sitting position. She raises an eyebrow.

“I’m just saying, there’s nothing wrong with being happy and comfortable. The three of you don’t have to continue to cram yourselves into that miniscule excuse for an apartment just to be together.”

“Are you happy, Anya?”

“I am. You’re changing the topic.”

“You live in this huge apartment alone.”

“Yes, but I like it like this. I have you, and I have my paramours, and I have my work. For me, that is enough.” Anya stands fluidly and offers out her hand to Lexa who lets herself be pulled from the couch. “You, however, thrive when you have someone.” Anya tips up Lexa’s chin with a single finger. “It isn’t weakness if it makes you stronger, and you, little sister, are fierce.”

“I’m not ready.” Lexa sighs. She’s been avoiding feeling for so long that she doesn’t know what to do anymore.

“No one is ever ready.”

_______________________________________

“Anya?” Clarke answers her phone on the fourth ring, both terrified and worried. It’s ten o’clock on a Saturday night and Anya has never called her before. She isn’t even sure how Anya got her number.

“What did I tell you the first time we met?” Anya’s words are decidedly crisp.

At least some things don’t change. “That my wardrobe sucked.”

“Aside from the obvious.” There’s a slight slur and Clarke can nearly hear the accompanying eye roll.

Clarke sucks in a breath trying to remember that day. Anya is always intimidating and it makes it difficult for her to focus on much of anything aside from not being verbally eaten alive each time they talk. She isn’t even sure Anya likes her. Octavia doesn’t seem to incur the same wrath.

“I told you to not let her run.”

“She asked for time, Anya.”

“That girl has had all the time in the world. You need to talk to her.”

“Are you going to tell me why?”

There’s a pause, just a beat, and Clarke thinks for half a second that Anya might actually tell her.

“Are you still wanting that dress from the warrior line?”

“Yes, but wh-”

“I have a factory mistake I could have fixed and altered, text me your measurements.”

The line goes dead and Clarke stares at her phone. She’s never going to figure out this woman. More importantly what did Lexa say to Anya.

_______________________________________

Clarke paces in front of Lexa’s apartment for five minutes before she finally walks past the doorman who thankfully recognizes her and slips into the elevator. It’s late and she’s starting to draw attention to herself, which is the last thing she wants right now. She just wants to make it to Lexa’s door without anyone questioning if she lives in the building.

She’s only used the key Lexa gave her a handful of times, usually when she and Octavia are coming back to Lexa’s apartment they’re with Lexa. They don’t sleep over here often, usually Lexa is at theirs. Clarke hesitates, wondering if she should just go in or if she should wait. She has an open invitation but this feels… different.

Clarke knocks three times quietly on Lexa’s door and waits. She probably should have called, but she isn’t sure if Lexa would have answered. Octavia said she should just wait - but Clarke couldn’t bring herself to. There was something in Anya’s demand that made it sound more like a plea.

“Lexa,” Clarke’s voice is a breathy whisper as she takes in the sight of Lexa clad in nothing but a tank top and skin tight boxer briefs, half hidden behind the door. It’s not like she hasn’t seen Lexa in her sleep clothes or less more nights than not over the past seven months, she has, it’s just that Lexa never fails to take her breath away and tonight she had prepared herself to meet Lexa head on, hard and fighting, not soft and sleepy and yearning.

“Clarke, it’s nearly midnight.” Lexa chews on her bottom lip and holds onto the door to keep herself from reaching out.

“Anya called me.”

Lexa lets out a sigh but she doesn’t move to let Clarke into her apartment.

“She said something about not letting you run, I figured there’s a story in there I haven’t heard.” She holds up the bottle of bourbon she picked up on the way over, shaking it lightly. When Lexa doesn’t move she rocks back on her heels, “Can I come in? Or are we going to do this in the hallway in the middle of the night?”

Of course Anya had called Clarke, at least she hadn’t actually said anything. It really wasn’t her place. Lexa swallows thickly. She isn’t ready to let Clarke and Octavia go and the promise of hope they give her. Lexa presses her lips together and lets out a long breath through her nose but she steps aside to let Clarke pass. She takes the bottle from Clarke’s hand as she does.

Clarke wastes no time making herself at home, toeing off her shoes and hanging up her light jacket. She’s tempted to strip off her jeans and borrow a pair of Lexa’s yoga pants but right now they’re on rocky ground and she doesn’t want to assume too much. She’d even left Octavia strict instructions to come over in two hours unless she heard otherwise to pick her up.

She isn’t sure why they didn’t both come. Then again, if this went south, someone had to be sober enough to get her home.

Lexa has already made her way across the apartment to the row of floor to ceiling windows that look out over downtown. She’s not looking outside though, her eyes are closed and her head is tipped back and she downs a few mouthfuls of bourbon as the softly pulsing light from the city below makes her look like a silhouette of a sad song.

The bourbon burns Lexa’s throat and hits her empty stomach in an explosion of warmth. She hates that Anya has put her in this position. Maybe, with time she would have chosen to tell Clarke and Octavia about what had happened; she doesn’t have that choice now because she isn’t ready to give up yet.

“Costia.” Lexa rasps. Her jaw trembles around the name as it pulls from her throat. She can feel tears forming in the corners of her eyes, but she won’t let them fall. Lexa breathes in and takes another sip of bourbon.

Clarke doesn’t say anything but comes to stand shoulder to shoulder with Lexa looking out over the city. She takes the bottle from her, matching her mouthful for mouthful and hands it back.

Lexa takes another drink and turns to walk back to the couch, setting down the bottle on the coffee table as she does. Her body aches with the memory of the first time she lay on the couch with Clarke and Octavia, before they were dating, before she understood what was happening between them all, before she had realized she could love again.

The feeling of it burns in her chest, though maybe it’s just the bourbon.

“The story you wanted, it’s about her.”

Clarke takes two quick steps towards Lexa and then slows her pace, afraid to startle her. She kneels down in front of her so she can meet Lexa’s downturned gaze. Her eyes are glossy with tears already.

“I didn’t come here for a story, Lexa, I came here for you.”

“Just you?”

“We didn’t want to overwhelm you, corner you.” Clarke reaches for her phone, in her back pocket. “I can call Octavia though and she’ll come over.”

Lexa opens her mouth and closes it again without speaking. She wants to lean into Clarke’s touch and feel Octavia wrap around her, be safe between them. Tonight though she can’t let herself fall into that, Costia’s memory demanding she feel the pain of it. Lexa shakes her head no.

Clarke sets the phone face down on the coffee table.

“It’s not that I don’t want her to know,” she whispers. “I don’t talk about what happened.”

“It’s okay, Lexa.” Clarke covers Lexa’s hands with her own. “I can leave if you want.”

“No.”

Clarke nods and reaches for the bottle of bourbon and takes another sip. “We all have our darkness, Lexa.”

“And how do you deal with yours?”

Clarke hands Lexa the bottle of bourbon and turns to lean back against the front of the couch.

Lexa slides down so they’re sitting side by side, shoulders touching, knees falling against each other. Clarke next to her, warm and quiet; she’s waiting for Lexa, giving her the time, the control, everything she asks for and that realization wraps around Lexa’s heart like a gentle caress. Silence grows between them and neither moves to break it. The room is black save for the glow of the city and silent except for their small movements as they exchange the bottle.

It’s comfortable even with the weight of it all heavy between them.

For the first time since Costia turned and walked away, getting on a plane a month earlier than planned and never looking back, Lexa feels like she’s found someone aside from Anya she can trust. More than one someone. She should have let Clarke call Octavia. Her heart pounds in her chest, a thudding drum beat between her ribs, until she’s sore with feeling. Lexa threads her fingers through Clarke’s, tracing her thumb along her knuckles. It isn’t enough, she wants more, but she’ll never get these words past her lips if she takes more.

Everything she wants to say catches in her throat.

Clarke squeezes Lexa’s hand, “Who was she?”

“She was mine, until she wasn’t.” Lexa looks away from Clarke, unable to meet the blue eyes, soft, worried, and searching, desperate to offer comfort. “Seven years. Seven fucking years,” she slurs.

The story sits in her mouth too long, it’s been building in her mind for too many years, the harsh truth of it, the heartbreak, pieced together word by word and still the words are not enough, because the words sound hollow, failing to capture the profound despair of the moment Costia turned around and left. The story comes out slow and deliberate, thick with the bourbon clinging to her tongue, “We were moving to France so Costia could study archeology at the Sorbonne- I didn’t even speak French. I asked her to marry me. She let me get through this whole long proposal, we’d been high school sweethearts, you know, let me get through the whole fucking thing, professing my growing love after all those years and how with her beside me I wasn’t afraid, how together we could take on anything, and she tells me she doesn’t love me anymore, that she has feelings for someone else.”

Clarke grips Lexa’s hand, unsure what to say. She should have words for this but she doesn’t. Her heart breaks for Lexa, and she understands why Lexa is running scared, why Anya called her late at night, why they’re sitting in the dark with a half empty bottle of bourbon. She understands, but it still hurts because she wants Lexa to believe that she and Octavia are worth the risk and she doesn’t know what more she can do. All she can do is think that Costia is a fool because Lexa is not someone you walk away from.

Lexa opened up to her and she’s just holding onto Clarke’s hand like a lifeline.

“Where is she now?”

“No idea. Probably still in Europe somewhere. I never heard from her again.”

“Shit.”

“Articulate, Clarke.”

“I have my moments.”

Lexa snorts with laughter as she tries to take a sip of the bourbon and ends up coughing it up, still laughing. It isn’t that funny, but she’s sad, and she’s drunk, and Clarke sounds so damn serious. She feels Clarke’s hands on her back as she laughs and coughs, until the coughing fit gives way to uncontrolled laughter.

They both shake with it, falling together. Clarke’s hands find her face, her hips. Lexa trails her hands up Clarke’s spine before laying her down on the narrow strip of carpet between the coffee table and the couch, carefully, clumsy as only the tipsy can manage. Lexa feels a small weight lift and even through the laughter breathing feels a little easier. She presses into Clarke, her lips press against bare skin, a shoulder, collarbone, neck, jaw, until her lips press against Clarke’s. She feels her girlfriend yield into the kiss, tender and unhurried, lips joining together, parting softly, exploring without preamble. They kiss like it’s the only thing that matters.

It’s impossible to tell when laughter gives way to tears or who cries first, but it does and they are, shaking and crying and kissing and more than anything hoping that this isn’t goodbye. They end up wrapped up on the floor, limbs entwined. Lexa’s head rests on Clarke’s chest as Clarke holds her tightly. They trade of fits of sobbing and silent tears.

“I don’t want you to leave us, Lexa.” Clarke whispers against Lexa’s hair as she runs her fingers through it.

“I know,” comes her soft reply. “I don’t want you to leave me either,” her words are quiet, almost lost against Clarke’s shirt damp with tears.

“I know.” Clarke whispers and she holds Lexa tighter. Nine months ago she thought Lexa would tear her life apart if she came into it, and now she knows her life will fall apart without her in it.

Don’t leave is as close as they can get to I love you . I need you . I will never leave you.

“I need time, and space.” Lexa presses up onto her forearms so she can look down at Clarke. She doesn’t want to make this hurt any more than it already does but she isn’t ready, not yet. And she needs to be ready this time. She needs it to be right.

Clarke nods shakily, holding her breath and fighting back tears. She pulls Lexa down on top of her, holding her softly, cradling her. They’re together but so very far apart in that moment.

Later, there’s a sharp soft rap on the door and Lexa bolts to standing. She wavers, head spinning with the sudden movement, more drunk than she thought she was.

Clarke moves slower. “It’s just Octavia. I told her to come pick me up after a few hours if she didn’t hear from us.” Her words mesh together as they tumble out of her mouth that’s already starting to feel like cotton.

Lexa nods but doesn’t move.

“How long?”

Lexa shrugs.

Clarke makes her way slowly to the front door, leaning heavily on the walls as she does. Octavia has knocked twice more since the first. She pulls the door open, blinking rapidly in the bright light of the hallway.

“Octavia,” Clarke sucks down a breath trying to keep from starting to cry again, trying to sound sober, and failing at everything.

“What happened?” Octavia tries to push past Clarke into the apartment and Clarke tries to push them both out into the hallway.

“We should just go,” Clarke leans into Octavia, her arms fitting around her girlfriend’s waist. “She needs time.”

“No. Lexa. What the-”

Clarke slaps a hand over Octavia’s mouth imploring her to keep her voice down.

“Lexa,” Octavia calls again, her voice cracking. Half words and sentences tumble out of her mouth in a quiet panic and her mind can’t quite wrap around any one thought long enough to finish it, not with Clarke, drunk, pressed against her, crying softly into her tee shirt, not with Lexa, mascara and eyeliner in tear tracks down her cheeks standing in the middle of her empty apartment.

Octavia walks into the apartment, nearly picking Clarke up to do so. “Lexa…”

Lexa trembles at the sight in front of her. She didn’t want to hurt anyone, but they’re all aching with this, and still Lexa can’t bring herself to say she’ll stay even as she doesn’t want them to leave. Even after six years she’s afraid to let herself care for anyone the way she cared for Costia.

There’s never been anyone else she wanted to love, until Octavia, until Clarke, and she’s so terrified that they will leave her that she’s considering leaving first.

She can’t make this decision right now.

Her steps are slow and deliberate as she walks toward Octavia and Clarke, determined to hold herself together. She leans into Clarke, her face inches from Octavia’s. Clarke’s breathing is soft and shaky between them and Lexa feels fresh tears on her own cheeks.

“What’s ha-” Octavia never gets to finish her question as Lexa’s mouth presses harshly against hers. Lexa parts her lips, deepening the kiss, and Octavia threads her fingers through Lexa’s hair. She tastes the bourbon and sorrow on Lexa’s tongue and the kiss feels a bit like a sad plea. They cling to each other, desperate, needing, and breaking.

Lexa breathes her words against Octavia’s lips. “I just need time, please.”

Chapter Text

Life goes on, time keeps passing, and mostly Clarke is okay with that. She and Octavia have been holding tighter to each other but they’ve been steady while they wait. Then again they’ve been avoiding talking about Lexa, avoiding talking about the idea of buying a house, one doesn’t matter much without the other. So Clarke’s thrown herself back into work; she’s still learning how to balance two jobs. Even if she only needs to produce a few paintings each month to fill the gallery space, she’s always amazed by how much time it takes to create something she feels like is worthy of selling.

She likes it at Gallery 2149, and the owner, Marcus Kane, is a pretty decent guy most of the time. One day she’d like to work in a gallery instead of the museum, but they need the money, especially if Lexa comes back.

Clarke checks the door to the gallery and is relieved to find it open. Kane isn’t always around during the day, especially this close to lunch, but she’s meeting her mother and she has the car with her and that means she won’t have to carry paintings back to the apartment this month because they didn’t sell.

“Hey Kane,” she calls as she steps inside. The front reception is empty, usually his assistant Miller sits at the desk, but she hasn’t seen Miller in a while. She hears Kane call out from his back office as she heads for the storage. “I’m just picking up the last of the paintings from last month’s show, I know there were a few that didn’t-”

“Don’t worry about that,” Kane steps out from his office as Clarke passes. “We’ll put them up next month. I’ve actually got some space I need you to fill. I was wondering though if you might be able to help me out - my assistant took some unexpected leave and I need someone to help with admin and intake and setting up, all the things he took care of.”

“You mean all the things you don’t know how to do.”

“When you put it like that, yes.” Kane laughs and leans against the wall. “I know you’re working at the museum teaching all the rugrats how to cover themselves in paint-”

“-Usually it’s me that ends up covered in paint-”

“But you had mentioned being interested in running a gallery sometime.”

Clarke smiles because this is the long term plan. Owning her own gallery one day, earning her way into it. Her mother might have money but she wants this to be something she gets of her own merit. She bites her lip trying to contain her excitement, even though her voice betrays it, “I’ll see what I can do; I might have the time.”

“Good. Why don’t you send me an email with some times you could come in next week.”

“Clarke?”

Clarke turns at the sound of her mother’s voice coming from the front of the gallery.

“I thought you were just grabbing a few paintings. Do you need- hello.” Abby walks past the half-wall that separates the reception from the gallery and stops beside Clarke.

Kane pushes off the wall and extends his hand, “Marcus Kane.”

Abby takes it, “Abby Griffin.”

Clarke takes a step back, looking from her boss to her mother and wondering just how late their late lunch is going to be.

_______________________________________

Octavia glances over her her shoulder at Lexa, her slacks cling lightly accentuating her long legs, and while she doesn’t hate watching her walk away… she hates watching her walk away. They haven’t talked in six days and she wants little more than to run after Lexa and press her for answers but she knows Lexa needs time.

“Hey, Blake! You coming to work today… or am I going to need to find a new partner?”

She shakes her head biting down her worry and hurries into the bullpen towards her desk and Lincoln. One day she wants to be able to tell him about everything. He’s been one of her closest friends for more years than she can count. Today is not that day. Their relationship is complicated to everyone but them because really it’s everyone else that makes things complicated. Clarke, Lexa, and Octavia know exactly what they are.

They did anyway.

Octavia keeps herself from glancing over her shoulder again, hoping to see Lexa.

“I know that look, Octavia.” Lincoln pushes off the desk where he’s been waiting.

“What makes you think there’s something going on between Lexa and me?” Octavia ducks her head as she grabs the rest of her things from her desk.

Lincoln looks surprised and Octavia mentally curses herself.

“I never said anything about Lexa, but I know that look. And you’ve started calling her Lexa instead of District Attorney Woods.”

Octavia rolls her eyes even though Lincoln is behind her and can’t see, it’s not like she can hide much from him, he can read her almost as well as Clarke. She heads off for the front door, “Fine, what look?”

“You look at Lexa like you look at Clarke. You used to-” Lincoln cuts himself off and takes a few longer steps to catch up with Octavia. “I don’t want to see you make a mistake you can’t fix.”

“I can promise you don’t have to worry about me and Clarke.” Everything at home was good, it had been good, and maybe they were still kind of stuck in the honeymoon period with Lexa, but it never stopped feeling right when she was with them.

“Alright. Quick lunch on our way out? I was thinking about the sandwich shop around the corner, the one with the good bread.”

“Sounds good to me.”

They walk out of the precinct and into the hot August noonday sun. Octavia groans inwardly at the sudden change in temperature and wonders idly if they could convince their friends at the fire department to open up a fire hydrant.

Octavia glances over her shoulder thinking about her conversation with Lexa the other day and knows she’s done it again, the impulsive asking where she opens her mouth without thinking and pushes things too soon. It’s only been seven months, but she has nothing to compare it to. She and Clarke had already been living together for four and a half years by the time they got together. What was the appropriate timeframe to move in with your second girlfriend anyway?

It all feels right so why shouldn’t they.

_______________________________________

Clarke sits underneath the open window with her sketch pad, hoping for a favorable cross breeze. The air conditioning unit in their apartment had busted completely, no longer even sending them into the frozen hell that they had become accustomed to, but instead sending in the suffocating hot, humid, August air. Every window in the apartment had been flung wide open and they had dug an old fan out of the closet.

Nothing helped.

“Anything?” Clarke falls to her back, waving her sketch pad like a fan and hoping for some kind of relief from the stifling heat, her pencil skitters across the wood floor until it hits the area rug between the couch and TV. It doesn't really have far to go.

Octavia glances up, cracking one eye open, but not moving. She's clad in nothing but underwear and a tank top, and has one leg thrown over the back of the couch, wishing more than anything that they could go back to this morning when it still felt like Siberia in their apartment. “Still, no, Clarke.” She doesn’t need to check her phone to know Lexa hasn’t messaged her.

“Maybe I should call…” She rolls onto her side, her skin sticking to and sliding across the floor in equal measure.

“Lexa said she needed time-”

“-what if we don’t call and she’s waiting for us to reach out to her?” Clarke leans up onto her elbows, half sitting up. A bead of sweat runs down her neck and between her breasts. “And because we don't call she-”

“Lexa doesn’t play games, Clarke. After what she told you… I don’t blame her for being scared.” Octavia nudges Clarke with her foot but she closes her eyes. It's too hot for this - it's too hot for much of anything really, and it isn't really fair at all that Clarke has stripped down to nothing but her bra and panties. She’d kill for a smudge of air conditioning so she could do half the things that have crossed her mind in the past hour since Clarke gave up on clothes. She’d kill for it to be cooler so she could think of a way to help Clarke feel better until Lexa makes up her mind.

Octavia isn't worried about Lexa’s silence. Not yet. Lexa is the kind of person that needs to process before she makes a decision, but once she has, there's little anyone can do to change her mind. She and Lexa are alike in that way.

Another breeze wafts through the apartment but it’s neither cool nor pleasant. Sitting up, Octavia makes her way into the kitchen, opens the freezer, and retrieves the ice trays. “All we can do is give her time, and be here for her when she comes back.”

“I’m not good at waiting. There has to be something we can do.” Clarke lays back against the wood floor wishing it was cooler.

“Well you can start by coming over here.” Octavia cracks one tray to loosen the ice. She slips a cube into the the palm of her hand and presses it to her chest, sliding it up her neck and holding back a moan at the cold.  “You still have one of your girlfriends you know.”

“Yes, but I’m mildly upset with said girlfriend for scaring the other girlfriend with talking about moving in.” Clarke’s eyes track Octavia’s movements and she tries to suppress a smile because she knows what Octavia is doing. She doesn’t want to be distracted yet, the heat has her in a mood to complain. “It’s been seven days, O.”

“Exactly, it’s only been a week , Clarke. She was with Costia for seven years . That kind of heartbreak is going to take time.” Octavia continues across the small living room, swaying her hips from side to side as she does. She can hear the waver in Clarke’s voice, the way she hasn’t really put her pencil to paper for the past hour, just held it there, waiting, and the last thing Octavia wants is for this to be something that sets Clarke back off down the dark path. She’s been doing so well lately and Octavia would do anything to keep it that way. “Do you want her to move in with us?”

“Yes.” Clarke sets her sketch pad down glancing up at Octavia. She’s as certain now as she had been when she was lying drunk on Lexa’s floor with her at two in the morning. That felt like a lifetime ago.

“Good, then try to be patient.” Octavia slips her tank top over her head leaving her bare from the waist up and crosses the last few feet to Clarke before dropping to her knees, the ice cube in her hand melting and dripping onto the bare wood floor. “She’ll come around.” She uses the melted ice to draw a line of cold across Clarke’s bottom lip. “For now, why don’t we focus on cooling down?”

“Are you sure?”

“It’s hot as hell in here, Clarke.” She presses forward catching up Clarke in a kiss before she can protest and reaches down for another ice cube. Her hands gently cup Clarke’s jaw drawing the ice across the delicate skin underneath it, down her neck and between her breasts. Clarke gasps as she yields into Octavia’s touch. “And, yes, I’m sure.”

Clarke lays back on the floor, taking Octavia with her. The ache of Lexa being gone and the heat of the day being pushed aside for just a moment as they tangle together on the living room floor. Octavia runs melting ice over her skin, droplets pooling and running across the curves and valleys of her body. Clarke doesn’t know what she enjoys more; the feeling of Octavia’s hands on her or the cold press of the ice on her overheated skin.

Her head tips back, a series of sharp moans drawing from her throat as Octavia runs her hands, chilled from handling the ice, over her sides, her stomach, her hips. She closes her eyes, revelling in the feeling. Her skin feels alive with nerve endings, both overheated from the summer heat and frozen from her girlfriend’s touch. Octavia’s hands slowly warm as she continues her gentle exploration of Clarke’s skin.

Octavia picks up a new ice cube, as she straddles Clarke, her knees resting just inside Clarke’s elbows. She starts at Clarke’s jaw this time, methodically trailing the ice along her neck, across her jugular, following the cold sting, with cool, damp, open mouthed kisses, wanting to touch and kiss every inch of Clarke’s skin leaving her wanting and begging before she lets her come. She repeats the same on the other side of Clarke’s neck. Her shoulders, her collar bones, dipping her tongue into the hollow where they meet at the top of Clarke’s sternum.

Cold fingers coax Clarke to arch her back as she slips a hand behind her to unhook her bra. Octavia runs the ice down Clarke’s arms, one by one, tongue swirling around the soft skin in the crook of her elbow. She slips Clarke’s arm out of the bra strap, kissing her palm and each of her fingers, sucking on them, into her mouth cooled by the remnants of the ice cubes. By the time she finishes Clarke’s other arm, Clarke is writhing and keening underneath her.

“Octavia,” Clarke begs, arching up her hips to press against the heat of Octavia’s center. “Please, babe.”

“Please what?” Octavia grins as she presses featherlight kisses to Clarke’s sternum.

Clarke reaches up for Octavia’s hands, anything to move her to start touching Clarke where she needs to be touched. “I need…” she whimpers as Octavia pulls her hands away.

“Close your eyes.”

Clarke whines, defiantly watching Octavia.

Octavia picks up a new ice cube, “Well, if you won’t follow orders...” Octavia sighs heavily before gasping as she presses the ice to her own heated flesh, swirling it around one pert breast and then the other before teasing her nipples into stiff peaks. The ice melts quickly against her hot skin, running in thin rivulets down her toned stomach, dripping from her and onto Clarke. She tosses her head back, moaning open mouthed as she rolls her hips.

Clarke squirms underneath her, hands pressed to the inside of Octavia’s thighs, inching higher. Octavia grabs Clarke’s hands, pinning them to the ground above Clarke’s head. “No touching.”

“Please…” Clarke rolls her hips, her breath becoming labored.

“No touching, and close your eyes.” Octavia dips her head down and sucks Clarke’s earlobe into her mouth, running her teeth across it, before letting it go with a wet smack. “Do as I say and I’ll touch you again.”

Clarke arches her back, overwhelmed. Her eyes flutter close and she needs Octavia to be touching her now . She balls her hands into fists determined to do anything to feel hands on her. The hot  August air presses against her skin. She whimpers the longer Octavia waits. Her body is equal parts heated desire and ice cooled skin, every nerve pulsing straight to her core. Even the heavy breeze from the open window makes her squirm as it swirls languidly through the room.

Octavia slips the remains of the ice cube into her mouth and dips her head down capturing Clarke’s nipple in her mouth and rolling the ice cube around the sensitive bud with her tongue. She feels it stiffen as she sucks harder, pressing the rapidly melting ice hard against the tender flesh. Clarke lets out a throaty moan, followed by a series of breathy expletives.

Digging her nails into Clarke’s hip, Octavia trails cold damp kisses down Clarke’s stomach as she tucks her fingers under the band of Clarke’s underwear, tugging it down the further down her kisses go. She brushes her lips over the edges of Clarke’s tattoos that run down her side, tracing the lines with the tip of her tongue. A sunflower, a compass rose, and a butterfly done in paint brush strokes and splotches of color. A small collage of tribute, remembrance, and thanks.

Octavia nips at hip bones, sucking thin, soft, heated flesh into her mouth. Clarke’s underwear is lost as Octavia tosses it away.

A fresh ice cube drips cold down Clarke’s inner thighs making her squirm and jump. Octavia presses the palm of her hand flat against the plain between Clarke’s hip bones and she growls against her skin, “Stay still.”

Clarke whimpers, “Please…”

“Please what?” She nips at the silky skin at the apex of Clarke’s thighs as she pushes her legs open wider.

“Touch me,” she begs.

Octavia runs the ice cube down Clarke’s slit, swirling it around her clit before pulling back.

Clarke’s hips jump up, “Fuck!” Her voice is breathy and low.

Her body trembles, on the edge. The air is hot and thick around her but Octavia’s touch is cold and the conflicting input has her trembling. Even the barest of touches twists inside her, pushing her closer towards orgasm. Clarke wonders if she’ll break before Octavia lets her come.

Then Octavia’s tongue is on her, cold from sucking on ice as she draws circles around her clit, long broad strokes between her legs, briefly dipping inside her before returning to the overly sensitive bundle of nerves.

Clarke scrambles to find something to hold onto on the hardwood floor, writhing and moaning as Octavia holds her against the ground, keeping her hips in place. She can feel nothing but her girlfriend’s mouth between her legs, nothing exists beyond the building pressure, gasping breathes, the desire for release. Her muscles strain, back bowing as she tries to press further into Octavia’s mouth.

She whimpers, high pitched breathy moans between labored gasps of thick humid air that leave her breathless.

Octavia flicks her tongue over Clarke’s clit, and Clarke crashes over the edge. Her muscles spasm as her orgasm rides through her body. She sees stars burst behind her eyelids before they fade to black. Slowly her voice comes back to her, but not the capacity for words, but noises that sound more like they might have sense and meaning. With each slow brush of Octavia’s tongue her body jumps, nerves deliciously raw.

Clarke tangles her fingers in Octavia’s hair, tapping a single finger on the top of her head… enough .

Octavia presses a kiss to her inner thigh, her hip bone, her sternum, the corner of her mouth, and Clarke captures her lips in a messy kiss, tasting herself. She feels Octavia laugh, more than hears it.

“That was hot,” Octavia giggles to herself, “Or should I say cool?” She mimes a drum, complete with sound effects.

Clarke cracks one eye open and looks at Octavia, lazily pulling her into her arms, patting her softly. “Sssshhhhh. I haven’t returned from my ascension yet.”

Pressing a kiss to the crest of Octavia’s head, Clarke snuggles closer despite the heat. Having Octavia in her arms she feels calm, whole and the flicker of hope in her chest calms and settles. She trusts in Octavia’s faith that Lexa will decide to come back to them and that their strange little home that they’ve found in each other won’t be broken apart.

_______________________________________

Lexa glances up as the drink is placed in front of her.

“Bourbon and Coke, right?” Niylah smiles. Lexa gives her a curt nod. The bar is nearly empty, but that isn’t unusual for a Wednesday night, they aren’t exactly on the main strip downtown, and most people who live around here work around here, except Lexa, and it’s still too early for the locals to start showing up. Lexa was on her way to Clarke and Octavia’s apartment, but never quite made it.

She hasn’t seen either of them since Clarke showed up at her apartment with a bottle of bourbon and waited patiently for her to crack open. She’s still aching from that night.

It isn’t that she hasn’t wanted to see them, it’s just easier to pretend she isn’t afraid when she doesn’t have them in front of her. It’s easier to pretend she’s making the right decision when she doesn’t feel influenced by the feeling of them. She’s been alone for so long that it’s the only way she knows how to be.

Lexa glances up as Niylah crosses in front of her. She swirls the dark liquid around the glass before taking a sip. Liquid courage, that’s what they call it. Maybe it’ll be enough to get her to walk the final few blocks and three flights of stairs.

Niylah leans against the bar across from Lexa, seemingly run out of things to do. The bar is clean, stocked, and there’s only so many times she can wipe it down Lexa concludes. Lexa raises an eyebrow and waits. She wasn’t planning on a cheap questionable therapy session but the way Niylah is looking at her suggests that might be what happens.

A smile pulls across Niylah’s lips and Lexa can’t help but think that Octavia had once mentioned Clarke and Niylah had been a thing, a long time ago, and that, in all honestly, she can see why it might have happened. She’s attractive and attentive and adaptable. The woman is looking at Lexa like she’s holding onto a secret but she knows better than to open her mouth. Niylah reaches for a bottle of whiskey and two shot glasses, pouring the amber liquid to be brim and sliding one across the bar to Lexa.

“You never come in here alone.” She lifts her glass indicating Lexa should do the same. Lexa hesitates but follows suit, clinking the shots together before tipping it back. “How did you meet Clarke and O?”

Lexa swallows. She doesn’t need to look around to know that the bar is completely empty except the two of them. Not even the music is loud enough to cover the silence when she hesitates with her answer.

“I work with Octavia.”

“You’re a cop?”

“Lawyer.”

Niylah makes a noise like it all suddenly makes sense now which Lexa only finds mildly annoying; Lexa rolls her eyes, but there’s an amusement to it. Niylah takes it as an invitation to continue. They talk about nothing much of consequence and for a few minutes at least Lexa finds herself distracted from the infuriating indecision in her head. It’s what she needed.

“What do you do when what you probably should do and what you want are different things?” Lexa chooses her words carefully avoiding anything that would give away her relationship.

“I don’t believe in regretting not doing something. I would rather have taken the chance.” Niylah picks up the empty glasses and walks to the end of the bar, Lexa watches as she flips long blonde hair over one shoulder, wondering why she’s even half confiding in a bartender she’s only met a handful of times. It must have been the shot.

She steps off the barstool, leaving more than enough cash to cover the drinks and making sure she has her things as she makes her way out of the dim bar and onto the still bright street. She knows she’s made her decision, even if she wants to fight it. When it comes to Clarke and Octavia she has really only had one choice.

Lexa slips on a pair of sunglasses and glances down the street toward the apartment, then down the other way toward the underground line that runs to her place. Her heart and her head have been at war too long; she’s done with this fight.

Tomorrow she’ll make it all right.

_______________________________________

Two days turned into almost two weeks since Octavia asked Lexa to move in with them and now Octavia is starting to get worried, not quite that Lexa has left for good, but what her silence will do to Clarke. She’s seen glimpses of Lexa at work but hasn’t pressed the issue; Lexa asked for time and she intended to give it. This morning Clarke curled around Octavia like she was the only thing holding her together and Octavia’s decided they’ve waited long enough without a word, even if the words end up being not yet , that’s something.

Octavia isn’t about to let Clarke spiral into another depression right after she had recovered from her last.

She’s taken twice as many breaks as normal and done everything short of walking into the DA’s office herself trying to run into Lexa. The day is nearly over when she spots Lexa slip into the break room. She still hasn’t decided what she’s going to say or do but her she leans against the wall just outside the door and waits. Lately she’s gotten better at waiting.

She’s still impulsive.

Octavia nearly tackles Lexa when she exits but manages instead to pull her down the hallway and into one of the supply closets when all she wants to do is shove her up against a wall. She’s angry about the silence and her body aches with it, if she’s honest she also aches for Lexa. Her skin misses Lexa’s touch, the steadiness of her hands and the soft, reverent, unfaltering way she touches Octavia. She falters for a moment, realizing she isn’t just doing this for Clarke, she’s doing it for herself too, because she misses Lexa. Still, Octavia doesn’t relax her grip, she needs Lexa to understand the severity of what is happening.

Lexa turns to see worry lines etched on Octavia’s face and she barely waits for the door to be closed behind her or for a single word to start to pour past Octavia’s lips before she presses into her, hands coming to cup Octavia’s face as she leans in and kisses her. It’s been twelve days and that’s far too long.

She doesn’t want to regret not taking this chance.

Just like she doesn’t regret asking Costia to marry her, even if that didn’t turn out the way she had hoped. She regrets not fighting and not trying. She doesn’t want to regret not giving this everything she has.

Octavia’s back slams into the door and Lexa leans into her, their bodies flush. The kiss tastes like lipstick and coffee and she doesn’t want it to end, she wants what kissing like this leads to. Heated, and unrestrained, she wants to satisfy the need between her legs. Octavia presses back into her, conflicted, wanting, and angry.

Lexa searches Octavia’s face for a hint. Smudged lipstick from uncareful kisses, most of it Lexa’s, outlines her mouth which is turned in a small thin frown. Octavia’s arms, however, are linked firmly around Lexa’s waist, not letting her step back. It isn’t no, it isn’t stop, it’s wait. Lexa traces a finger delicately underneath Octavia’s bottom lip.

There’s a fierceness in Octavia’s eyes and she doesn’t flinch even though she’s the one who’s been pinned. “You need to talk to Clarke before she goes crazy waiting for you to come back.” Octavia’s fingers dig into Lexa’s sides for a moment and she lets out a steadying breath. “She thinks you’re going to leave us.”

Octavia steps forward, pivoting them, slamming Lexa back against the door. The breath goes out of her and Lexa is left staring into Octavia’s eyes, chest heaving as she relearns what it feels like to have air in her lungs. It burns and makes her feel alive again, and she knows she made the right decision, as soon as she can make things right again.

Lexa sucks in a breath, trying to keep her expression neutral. Her intent had been to come back after work, talk with Octavia and Clarke, apologize, because for the last week she had done her best not to think about what her actions had meant to anyone else. Now that this has started though she has to face the consequences of her actions. She keeps her voice soft, letting Octavia hold her in place, “And you? What did you think?”

“You’ve been avoiding me at work; I’ve been focused on Clarke and making sure she’s okay.”

“I do have actual work to do, Octavia, I can’t always see you every day when I’m here.” She keeps her tone even because it’s a flimsy excuse.

Octavia relaxes her grip and brings one hand up to play with Lexa’s collar. The kiss had taken her by surprise, she’d expected a protest, a fight even, to draw out the conversation and get Lexa to talk to her. Instead Lexa had kissed her without so much as a hello. She tugs at Lexa’s shirt, “So, are you…”

“What?”

Octavia looks up to meet Lexa’s gaze without lifting her head, gazing at her girlfriend through long lashes. Her heart is beating wildly against her rib cage and she’s afraid Lexa’s answer won’t be the one she came searching for. “Are you coming back to us?”

Lexa reaches behind her and locks the closet door before shutting off the overhead light, “Yes,” the word is half-breath, half a promise that Lexa never wants to break, as much as it terrifies her. She can’t walk away and she doesn’t want to.

Octavia’s kiss is a firm clash of teeth, demanding and needy. “I have a meeting in twenty, and you better come home after work,” she presses the words into Lexa’s mouth, her hands already pulling up Lexa’s skirt. Lexa is with them and Octavia doesn’t want to waste time missing her. She needs Lexa like she needs air and her fingertips drink down bare skin as she swallows down Lexa’s gasps.

“I will.”

Thigh highs are infinitely more practical than tights.

_______________________________________

Clarke intended to spend the afternoon in her studio, but it was too hot in their apartment with the air conditioning unit still broken. She should be painting, Kane has three more spots he’s asked her to fill in the gallery and she doesn’t have anything she’s ready to part with yet. Lately she’s been a bit distracted, but she wouldn’t trade the time for anything.

Lexa has changed her life and not in the way she expected. She sighs and pushes at the worry that’s trying to eat away at her because she knows Lexa won’t just walk away, she just needs time, and Clarke is trying her best to be good at giving it to her when all she wants to do is take action.

Which is why Clarke is sitting here at the bar with Niylah on a Thursday afternoon, sipping on whiskey and avoiding questions about what’s really on her mind. Niylah has always been good at distracting her, then again, when you’ve known someone for more than five years, things like that become second nature.

A lot of things become second nature.

Niylah glances at Clarke and raises her brow in question, when Clarke doesn’t respond she sighs and sets down the whiskey in front of her. “You know, I still know what that look means, Clarke.”

“It isn’t fair that you can still read me.”

“Like you don’t still know me that well.”

“Fair enough,” Clarke sighs and takes a sip of the whiskey. It’s not like Clarke even had to say something was bothering her for Niylah to know. She always does.

“Last time I saw you and Octavia things seemed fine, though your friend Lexa was here the other day, she seemed upset. You want to talk about it?” Niylah shrugs as if it doesn’t matter to her, but Clarke knows better; Niylah won’t let it go until she feels Clarke has talked through whatever she needs to talk through.

Clarke purses her lips and rolls her eyes, even if she’s not upset with Niylah, she has an infuriating way of knowing things, and usually being right. Clarke hopes though, at least, that Niylah’s intuition hasn’t cracked open their secret. It wouldn’t be so bad if their friends knew, but all their careers are based on reputation and Clarke doesn’t want to be the one responsible for that public relations nightmare.

“She gave me that look, too, though it’s more intimidating when she does it.” Niylah shrugs but fixes Clarke with a pointed stare before turning back to cleaning up the bar. And like that, she’ll wait. Clarke checks her phone and shoots off a quick text to Octavia to meet her after work. There’s no point in going home until it actually cools off. Clarke figures she can keep her mouth shut for long enough for Octavia to show up. A bell jingles as the front door opens.

“Speaking of,” Niylah gestures over Clarke’s shoulder. “The intimidating one is here.”

Clarke glances over her shoulder to see Lexa walking toward them. Her phone buzzes but she ignores it. She bites her lip and covers her nervousness with another sip of whiskey. Two weeks is forever when you’re waiting for someone, when your heart is on the line. Lexa dips her head, her long wavy hair falling over her shoulders and she tries to hide a smile, but Clarke catches it and it makes her heart skip a beat. Everything about Lexa takes her breath away; it always does.

Today it’s the jeans hugging her curves, and the loose, clearly ironed band t-shirt she has half-tucked in, the way a smile tugs at the corner of Lexa’s mouth like she wants to say something or do something and she has to keep it inside. And maybe she does.

Clarke has to talk herself into staying on the stool and not launching herself into Lexa’s arms.

Twelve days and she still can’t shake the worry settled in the back of her mind, but all it takes is the sight of Lexa for her to want to forget and forgive. It isn’t just her pretty face though, or the hope that Lexa will choose to stay. There’s a light in Lexa’s eyes that Clarke can see even in the dimly lit bar, something in the way she walks toward Clarke slowly and Deliberately that tells her the answer, and in that Clarke realizes they’ll work through whatever they need to, because she’s here, and they’re choosing to do this.

She hopes she’s reading this right.

Lexa stops just shy of Clarke and slips onto the bar stool before she lets herself reach out to embrace her. This is not the place, there’s nowhere for them to hide for a few moments, it would be too obvious in the nearly empty bar if they were to sneak off to the bathroom for a few moments. And as neat as Niylah keeps the place, Lexa really doesn’t want to make things up to Clarke in a dingy bathroom.

Lexa tries not to think about her tryst with Octavia in the closet at work earlier because all it does is make her want Clarke more.

“You’ve returned.”

“I wasn’t gone that long, Clarke.”

Lexa watches Clarke’s gaze drop, her tongue darting out to wet her lips, and she wants to reach forward, cup Clarke’s face in her hands and tip her gaze back up so she can drink in whatever pain she knows she caused before she leans in for a kiss. She can do none of that right now. Instead she reaches for Clarke’s whiskey, taking a sip.

She weighs her words carefully, “I am here.”

Lexa slides the tumbler back to Clarke, briefly letting their fingers touch as Clarke’s hand wraps around the glass. Lexa inhales sharply at the touch, her eyes transfixed on where their fingertips barely touch, even that gentle contact sending a wave of desire through her. It’s terrifying.

“Are you?” Clarke raises an eyebrow, even though Lexa’s here in front of her, she doesn’t trust it to mean that she’ll stay, all the fear she felt when she thought Octavia would leave her for Lexa comes flooding back in, except it’s different this time. If Lexa leaves she’s afraid they will always feel the loss, a Lexa-shaped hole in their life. She and Octavia would survive, they always do. They would love and be happy, but it wouldn’t be everything their life could be if only Lexa stays. Clarke holds her breath, trembling.

“Yes.” Lexa says firmly. She meets Clarke’s gaze, dark blue eyes black in the dim bar. Maybe it’s her own desire she sees reflected in them, or maybe Clarke is feeling the same desperate need.

“Good.” She wants to believe it. Her focus flicks to Niylah at the end of the bar and she wishes they could just stay where they are and finish this discussion. “Our air conditioning is busted, we should go talk at your place...”

Lexa tips back the rest of Clarke’s whiskey and slides off the bar stool putting herself in Clarke’s space. She nods, registering the surprised look from Clarke for a moment, lingering longer than she should before spinning abruptly, her heels clicking across the floor calling for Clarke to follow.

_______________________________________

Clarke crosses Lexa’s barely furnished living room, stopping in front of the windows looking out on downtown. Everything seems so small from up here, clean, easy, organized, like everything is playing out as it should. Just a few moments ago they were those people down there, walking through the grid, another piece of the puzzle. Everything fit together.

The subway ride had been taken in silence, neither daring to talk or to touch the other. Lexa kept giving Clarke these looks like she would offer her up the world if only Clarke would allow it and Clarke wasn’t certain she could do that yet. The softness in Lexa’s eyes will break her and to break there in the subway car would be all too public.

Now though, in the calm of Lexa’s apartment the silence stretches between them and Clarke doesn’t know how to break it.

Lexa pauses just behind Clarke watching her shoulders tense as she senses her come close. She runs her fingertips along Clarke’s spine, feeling the muscle tighten underneath her touch and she traces the outline of Clarke’s shoulder blades, the slope of her neck, memorizing every inch of her from this angle as she moves closer moment by moment until they’re just barely touching.

She gives Clarke every chance to pull away.

“Clarke,” Lexa breathes her name on the delicate skin behind Clarke’s ear following the caress of air with one of lips. “I don’t need any more time,” she wraps her arms around Clarke’s waist and pulls her close. Clarke gasps at the contact but she leans into it, her head tipping back to lean against Lexa’s, and Lexa presses into her, hiding her face against Clarke’s neck, breathing in her scent once again. She smells like the shampoo they all share.

She smells like home.

Lexa’s heart hammers in her chest and she knows Clarke must feel it and so she tightens her hold. She isn’t going to run this time. Even if she’s scared she’s right where she wants to be.

“We want you to move in with us,” Clarke brings up a hand to wrap around Lexa’s, holding onto her as much as she is holding her there. “I know what Costia did was terrible, but don’t run out on Octavia and me because of it.” Her fingers dig into Lexa’s arm for a second before releasing. She turns her head to press a half kiss to Lexa’s hair. “We need- I need you,” Clarke whispers.

Lexa nods against Clarke’s shoulder. If she could stay here wrapped up around Clarke in this moment she would. Right now they’re safe and they’re almost okay. The fear of being left plays on her heart, brings it into her throat and all the things she should say right now she can’t bring herself to, how she cares for both her girlfriends, how she feels hopeful, how she wants this. She presses a kiss to Clarke’s neck and rests her chin on her shoulder.

“If we only end up having room for one couch we should keep mine, we all fit on it better.”

Clarke turns in Lexa’s arms, her world slowing down to that single moment, because all she can hear is the things that Lexa isn’t saying and what they mean. Lexa’s face is open, soft, and hopeful, her eyes wide with anticipation as she waits for Clarke’s response. She could get lost in Lexa’s green eyes, and she realizes she has the rest of forever to. Clarke’s hands fall to Lexa’s hips and she starts to walk them backwards.

“It is much more comfortable than ours.”

Lexa lets out a small gasp as her knees hit the couch and she falls into it. Clarke isn’t far behind her, legs straddling Lexa’s lap as her hands find Lexa’s face. They’ve fallen together like this a hundred times but this is different. Like the first time they hugged it gives them pause, but instead of a fluttering of feelings, panic and uncertainty, they sink into a calm silence, hearts beating in sync, expectant but steady.

Clarke catches her fingers in Lexa’s hair at the nape of her neck as she leans in to kiss Lexa. Soft lips part as the kiss intensifies. Even though it’s only been little more than a week it feels like it’s been too long since their last kiss, since the last time they held each other, felt each other come alive under the other’s touch.

Maybe this works out and maybe it doesn’t but right now they’re fighting to stay in each other’s lives because however unlikely they are this works. Relationships are a series of choices. Clarke grins into the kiss, glad that this is the choice Lexa made.

Lexa slips her hands underneath Clarke’s shirt and she runs her hands up Clarke’s back, down her sides, revelling in the feeling of her skin. She presses her hips up into Clarke’s and she pulls her closer, kissing her harder. There’s a delicious ache building in between her thighs and Clarke’s hand tangled in her hair, pulling gently, is driving her wild. Clarke’s hand cupping her cheek, running down her neck, fingertips skirting under the edge of her t-shirt. Lexa moans into the kiss even as she flicks open the clasp of Clarke’s bra.

She isn’t sure where her shirt ends up, or her bra, or Clarke’s, just that they’re gone, and as she lays Clarke back down on the couch, slowly hovering over her, Lexa feels so entirely certain that following her heart is the right thing to do. Clarke is warm beneath her as she lowers her weight onto Clarke, settling between her legs.

“I missed you,” Clarke whispers between kisses.

Lexa nudges Clarke’s face to the side, kissing down her jaw and down her neck. Her heart swells at the confession and she doesn’t know how to respond. She missed Clarke and Octavia but it was her fault she was gone. It doesn’t feel right to complain about the pain she caused herself. She sucks on Clarke’s neck, taking the delicate skin between her teeth, revelling in the soft breathy moans that her girlfriend makes. Lexa licks across the red skin, soothing it.

“Thank you for taking me back.”

Clarke nods and arches up to kiss Lexa. Her hands are incessant on Lexa’s back, trying to pull them closer. “Have you talked to Octavia yet?”

Lexa hums and affirmative into the kiss and slips a hand between them to palm Clarke’s breast. Clarke slips a hand between them as well, but she flicks open the button of Lexa’s jeans. Lexa moves her hips so Clarke has more room to manoeuvre. “Please,” she begs, excitement already sending shocks through her. Clarke doesn’t waste any time circling her fingers around Lexa’s clit before sliding one inside her, hooking it to reach that spot.

Lexa moans.

They nearly miss the sound of keys in the door.

Clarke surges up and kisses Lexa, whispering to her to keep quiet.

The sound of the door shutting is followed by that of shoes being taken off, things being hung up, a plastic sac filled with takeout containers from the Thai place down the street being dropped on the coffee table behind them follows. Octavia is standing over them but they haven’t bothered to move, still kissing, hands still exploring. Clarke hasn’t moved her hand, still gently caressing Lexa, slowly sliding in and out of her.

There’s something hot about their girlfriend watching them.

Octavia clears her throat trying to get their attention. It’s not that she minds watching them making out. When it comes to Clarke and Lexa, she finds it impossible to not enjoy. Even so, being this close to them watching their bodies roll together, half naked, listening to the small moans as they kiss, she feels that familiar ache start building and she wanted to join in. She nudges the couch with her knee.

Clarke pulls down on Lexa’s hips with her free hand and slips a second finger in with her next thrust as she brushes her thumb against Lexa’s clit.

“Oh, fuck,” the words rip from Lexa’s throat. “Clarke,” she breathes out.

Clarke picks up her pace, because there’s no hiding that Octavia walked in on them, and she can feel from the way Lexa is moving against her hand that she’s close. She sneaks a glance up at Octavia standing over them and catches her eye as Lexa lets out another moan against Clarke’s lips and she’s shuddering in Clarke’s arms, clenching around her fingers, breath hitching and breaking in her quiet undoing. Lexa collapses against Clarke kissing her languidly.

Octavia knocks her knee against the couch again and Clarke breaks the kiss, laughing. It doesn’t take long for Lexa to start laughing as well, hiding her face against Clarke’s neck as she slides off of Clarke, wedging herself between her girlfriend and the back of the couch. Clarke wraps her hand, still sticky, around Lexa’s waist.

Lexa reaches out a hand for Octavia who comes readily to them, even as she grumbles about being excluded.

“You enjoyed it,” Clarke teases.

“That is not the point.” Octavia retorts as she leans over to kiss Lexa soundly. It’s only been a few hours since their tryst in the closet but it feels like forever since they kissed like this. When it’s the three of them it’s different; it’s more.

Clarke laughs and pushes at Octavia’s shoulder. “Point made.” She snakes her free arm around Octavia’s waist and relaxes contentedly into the couch, wishing for a moment that every day could end like this. “So what do you say, O, when we move, we keep Lexa’s couch?”

Octavia grins and nods, “I’m down. It’s comfy and we’ve got some good memories here.” She presses a quick chaste kiss to Clarke’s lips, “Also, you haven’t actually thrown up on this one.”

Chapter Text

One week to the day and Clarke has made them look at nine houses already. Nine houses in between three diverse work schedules including court schedules, and early morning detective work, and teaching small children how to cover the canvas, instead of themselves, in paint.

After the preliminary tour the realtor had disappeared to wait in the kitchen while they explored the house on their own. Upstairs, Clarke had already claimed one of the rooms for her studio, deciding the wooden floors and large bay windows were absolutely perfect and one hundred times better than the tiny closet I’m in right now .

Octavia had muttered something about how their entire apartment was a tiny closet and could probably fit in the living room downstairs.

Lexa hangs back a little, watching Clarke and Octavia moving together through the house, excited by each discovery, discussing how they could possibly fill the space. There is so much of it, more square footage than both their apartments combined. In a way it warms her to watch them together, exploring and feeding off each other, Clarke wrapping around Octavia when she wanders close, but letting her go again as Octavia finds something new that excites her and makes her pull away as she sticks her head into closets and cabinets.

The view from the second floor isn’t bad either. It’s not as good as the view from her loft, or as intimate as the one from Clarke and Octavia’s apartment, but the city skyline is there, impressive and spread across the northern horizon.

She’s not paying attention when she feels arms wrap around her waist and Clarke slides in front of her, leaning against the window sill and pulling Lexa against her.

Lexa starts to pull away and she glances quickly at the doorway, “Clarke, the-”

Clarke doesn’t let Lexa pull away, tightening her grip just enough to give Lexa pause, but she keeps her voice low. “The realtor is downstairs and letting us see how we feel in the space,” she grins. “And I want to know what it feels like to kiss you in this room because there’s going to be a lot of kissing in this room if this ends up being the house.”

Lexa feels Octavia’s hands run down her back and sides before she wraps around her from behind. Octavia’s lips brush against her neck, “I like how Clarke thinks.”

She doesn’t really have time to form a retort because Clarke is kissing her softly, and Octavia is running featherlight touches up her spine, lips pressing against her neck, and she knows they’re right, for the moment they’re alone and this would be their room. If it doesn’t feel right here, this isn’t the right place. Lexa closes her eyes and reaches a hand back to tangle in Octavia’s hair as she winds her other hand around Clarke to the small of her back. The delicate touches of hands and lips turns into a slow dance like it always done when it’s the three of them together, nothing more between them than being in that moment.

Octavia shifts to Lexa’s side and she and Clarke open up their arms to bring her in. It’s amazing how quickly they’ve all adjusted to having a third person in a relationship, figuring out how to navigate limbs and read cues. Lexa breathes in and lets the feeling of being between them settle over her as she watches Clarke kiss Octavia fully, passionately, without abandon. She feels the hope of the future and for the time being it doesn’t feel as daunting as it does when they aren’t wrapped around her. Octavia’s hands move to her face, pulling her in for a kiss, as deep as the one she shared with Clarke. She takes Lexa’s bottom lip between her teeth, hinting at more.

Lexa moans into the kiss even as she pulls back from it. “Not here,” she whispers.

Hands fall from her and they pull apart, slowly scattering to varying places in the room. Lexa stays at the window, looking out at the yard. It’s wonderful to imagine, but it’s so much more than they need. When still, all they really need is a bigger bed, and to be only paying rent on one place.

“It’s too big.”

“It’s only a bit bigger than we had talked about,” Clarke counters.

“What are we going to do with all that extra space? It’s not like we’re going to start dating anyone else.” Lexa rolls her eyes at her girlfriends. The master bedroom alone could easily fit a California king and still have room for multiple dressers. She runs her hand along the window sill, looking down on the small back yard and out to the city behind them, downtown rising out of the thin edge of suburbia between them and it. All of their things combined would hardly fill the space and Lexa doesn’t really want anything more. It seems like excess because it isn’t something they need. She’s never understood extravagance.

This house is the kind of thing she never let herself dream about after the whirlwind few years that was life with her and Anya’s adopted parents. She was nine, Anya, fifteen, when they were adopted. Anya had refused to be separated from her after they had shared so many foster homes, small trundle beds, never having more than they could stuff in a few garbage bags at a moment’s notice. The Woods’ house had felt like a mansion to them; it had been the first place she remember calling home.

This is a home. Her last home had left her with nothing but heartache and money she hesitates to touch. She’d stopped dreaming about ever having one again.

Octavia’s voice breaks through her thoughts, “What about kids?”

Lexa stills, eyes fixed on the skyline downtown, willing the twin bubbles of panic and hope that are threatening to burst inside to calm down. It’s not like she hadn’t thought about the possibility for herself one hypothetical day, even if she didn’t have that answer yet. Kids are a permanent fixture, they change your life forever. You can’t give them away when it doesn’t work out.

Clarke hisses Octavia’s name and Lexa hears a small grunt and whoosh of air. She can only assume Clarke elbowed Octavia. The thought brings a small smile to her lips. They’ve both been careful lately with conversations about their future together.

“We’d have room; it was just a thought,” Octavia mutters ruefully.

Lexa turns, shoving her hands into her pockets in lieu of crossing her arms. Even if they haven’t discussed it yet, the idea implies there’s a future for them all. That they want to be together, with her, for years, for enough time to have a family and a life. She doesn’t want to look closed off from that. “It’s a good thought,” she whispers.

Octavia smiles and dips her head before turning and disappearing into the walk in closet, still rubbing at her side. “I think we could even fit all of Lexa’s clothes in here,” she calls.

“We could have lots of guest rooms with the extra space, and we’re pretending one of them is your room anyway, at least for now.” Clarke offers crossing the room and leaning into Lexa, she holds back just enough so they can look at each other, “And think of the parties we could host in that downstairs.”

“It’s out of our budget.” Lexa counters even as she links her hands behind Clarke’s back to hold her in place.

“I could ask my mom.”

Lexa’s eyes widen in surprise but she keeps it out of her voice, instead opting to keep her voice even, “I thought we weren’t asking Abby because that would require telling her about us.”

“Maybe somebody besides Anya needs to know about us.” Clarke leans in and presses a soft kiss to Lexa’s lips before turning her head to rest in on Lexa’s shoulder as she continues, her nose brushing against Lexa’s neck. “I’m not saying we tell everyone. I’m just saying we tell my mom and ask for her help with getting the house.”

“Do we have any other options?” Lexa rests her chin on Clarke’s head. She’s only met Abby a handful of times, and while she seemed to like Lexa well enough, she wasn’t certain yet how she would respond to knowing that her daughter was in a relationship with two women.

“Exorbitant bank loans?” Octavia chimes in, emerging from the closet. “We should think about it. This place has working heating and air conditioning.”

“I’m sold,” Clarke laughs.

“Do we really need this much space?”

“ Lexa, air conditioning. ”

“My apartment has a working air conditioner.”

Clarke tightens her arms around Lexa and presses a kiss to her shoulder, waiting for Lexa to relax.

“Abby does like you, Lexa.” Octavia shrugs and moves across the room to wrap her arms around Clarke from behind.

“Mom thinks you’re an excellent influence on us.”

“You make me sound like the token responsible one.”

Clarke raises an eyebrow suggestively and pushes Lexa up against the wall, with the help of Octavia, fully intent on stealing more than a single kiss this time. Her words are a challenge, “Aren’t you?”

Lexa can’t back down from a challenge.

_______________________________________

They left the house behind a little later than planned, pulling themselves apart before they made too much noise, took too long, before they did anything that would make the place theirs. Lexa still wasn’t sold on this option, insisting they didn’t need all the space, even if she wanted what it meant. Clarke and Octavia love it though, and of all the houses she’s seen, it’s been the best option.

Lexa has hope, and she can’t really process that right now because they’re heading out to meet Anya for dinner and they have to start decoupling before they get to the restaurant. This is always the hardest part, pretending that they aren’t together, second guessing every action, is this touch platonic or is it too friendly. Am I looking at my girlfriends like they mean the world to me, or just like my best friend is the most wonderful person ever?

It hurts if they’re honest, which is why they rarely go out. Not being able to show the way you feel for someone you’re with is a double edge sword. It cuts you all, and when you’re only together behind closed doors sometimes you wonder if you’re really together at all because the feelings are so profound it does them a disservice to keep them secret.

Lexa reaches for Octavia’s hand as she drives and places it on her thigh before moving her hand back to the steering wheel. She wants the touch right now to remind her that they’re together in this. Octavia continues rattling on to Clarke about something at work, but she runs her thumb against the side of Lexa’s thigh and it’s all the strength Lexa has to keep her eyes open and on the road.

She wishes they were driving home instead of out to dinner with her sister.

Instead she finds herself seated around a table at the back of a fancy Italian restaurant surrounded by her girlfriends and Anya, and it’s pleasant, even if it feels like they’re all pretending. They order quickly and turn back to catching up.

“How’s house hunting going?” Anya asks. She doesn’t really do small talk.

She’s met with three dead eyed stares because they’ve been to nine houses in the last week, three of them today. It’s only been a week and they’re kind of over it, maybe it’s that they just left house number nine and they really don’t feel any closer to knowing what to do or which house to pick.

Lexa sighs as their waiter walks away with their orders. “They’re trying to talk me into this huge house just outside of downtown.”

“It isn’t that big, Lexa.”

“It’s two stories, O.”

“Yes, but I could have a real studio space for once.” There’s a hint of pleading in Clarke’s voice and Lexa knows that is what will make her give in if they insist on the last house.

“I’m sure we’ll find a smaller, less expensive, place that will allow for you to have a studio.”

“Not like that one,” Clarke nudges Lexa under the table, smiling. She knows they haven’t talked about this yet, but she wants Lexa to agree to that house. There’s a future in that house. “We could borrow the money from my mom.”

“Isn’t that,” Lexa pauses, “Complicated?”

“Only if we make it. We could just talk to her about the situation.” Clarke reaches across the table and starts pouring water for everyone, as if suggesting they come out to her mother as polyamorous and asking for a huge loan in the same breath is no problem at all. She knows it shouldn’t be, it’s not like they’re taking out an ad in the paper, and right now, she wants to keep the truth about them quiet almost as much as Lexa does. She’s lost enough students to parents who can’t handle their precocious preschooler being taught art by an openly bisexual woman.

“You realize that your gi-”

Three sets of eyes dart to Anya’s face and she stops mid sentence.

Anya rolls her eyes and sets her glass down. “That, Lexa , has a trust fund and inheritance money, our adopted parents were fairly well off.”

“She’s mentioned it.” Octavia answers.

Lexa looks down at the table, her voice is soft, “They were rich.”

She and Anya have had this conversation many times. While Anya had never had a problem spending their adopted parents’ money it had always felt wrong to Lexa. They had only been with them for three years and she had never felt like anything of theirs belonged to her, even if she had felt at home with them. Anya was her family. Anya was the one that raised her while she had gone to college and started work, she was the one that set her life aside to make sure Lexa had a home.

Lexa only wants to use what Anya gave her; those are things she earned.

“Well, because of them we’re rich too,” Anya says with a shrug.

“You’re rich because you’re a famous designer,” Lexa counters as she stabs a fork in Anya’s direction before spearing a piece of bread from the basket in the center of the table. Anya tilts her head as if to say she won’t argue that.

Clarke glances to Octavia, because it’s rare they get to see Lexa like this except when they’re alone. And even this is more. They still aren’t quite use to the dramatic sarcasm Anya and Lexa spit back and forth. Octavia nudges Clarke as the moment of silence continues.

“My mom’s a surgeon, and she’s said before that she’d help Octavia and me out with a place if we ever needed it.”

“Yes, but this is you, and Octavia, and Lexa-”

“Anya!” Lexa hisses.

“It’s not like anyone is paying any attention. Breathe, Lexa.”

Octavia grabs Lexa’s hand under the table and Lexa snatches her hand away in a huff, only to reach back out a moment later when she actually starts breathing again. This isn’t Octavia’s fault.

“It’s just us, why can’t we say that-” Octavia pauses as Lexa squeezes her hand. She rolls her eyes, “Why can’t we even say the truth?

“We’ve been over this,” Lexa says, but she won’t meet anyone’s stare. There are repercussions to what they’re doing.

“This is what we all decided was best,” Clarke adds.

“So what? You’ll be the office gossip for a week if anyone overhears.” Anya leans back in her chair and sips her wine. “Then everyone will get distracted by the next horny assistant pulling the secretaries into the closet and the world will move on.”

Lexa lets go of Octavia’s hand and leans back meeting Anya’s impassive stare with one of her own. She isn’t backing down on this and she won’t let Anya throw her past decisions, however questionable they were, in her face. “You know it will be more than that. My future as a lawyer is based on my reputation.”

“Instead of hiding from it, why don’t you just embrace it?”

Tearing at the bread in her hands Lexa puts the pieces on her plate instead of eating them. She hadn’t even entertained the idea, not before she was working somewhere she could actually grow, and the district attorney's office was not that place. It was bad enough being the only out queer at work. Even after almost a year she still had a reputation, she heard the secretaries and the mail clerks talking, even if she never flirted with them anymore.

Until she found a new office she would continue to be the promiscuous lesbian lawyer. It wouldn’t matter that she was in a serious relationship. The details of her relationship would never be taken seriously, not with her history.

“It’s not like we can stay in the closet forever, Lexa,” Octavia pushes. Of the three of them she found the least reason to stay hidden. She hated not being able to show affection and it wasn’t like she was even the most affectionate of the three of them. The whole plan would blow up in their faces one day, or ruin them.

Clarke glances from Lexa to Anya and back, only shifting focus to Octavia for a moment. Octavia bites her lip and shrugs her shoulders, no help at all. Clarke sighs, they’ve talked about this. They aren’t ready for the potential backlash from strangers, not when they don’t know how their own families will react, or which of their friends will stand by them.

“It’s too much of a risk right now,” Lexa crosses her arms.

“What’s the risk? That they know you’re happy?” Anya raises her brow in a challenge.

Lexa deflates a little because Anya is right but so is she. They aren’t in a position to expose their relationship. What if they come out and then break up? That would almost be worse. Then again, losing her chance at a future because she forced them all into the closet would be unbearable.

“It isn’t time yet,” Clarke sets her wine glass down on the table firmly. She’s had about enough of this conversation. Lexa is clearly uncomfortable, and Octavia still doesn’t comprehend why they’ve made the decision they did, even as she complies with their agreement.

Anya purses her lips, but she drops the topic, “So what’s your plan to talk to your mother? You do have one, don’t you?”

“Dinner, next week” Clarke takes a sip of water and meets Anya’s stare, determined to not be deterred. “My mother is reasonable, and she already likes Lexa.” Clarke purses her lips, refusing to blink or look away. Anya holds her gaze, one eyebrow raised in curiosity. Clarke doesn’t want to let her win. As much as she wants her mother to approve of her relationship, she also wants Anya to respect her and Octavia. “I can’t have Lexa in my life and not have her be a part of my family, completely, whatever that means.”

There’s more to making this work between her and Octavia and Lexa than the three of them holding on to each other and holding each other up.

_______________________________________

“Lexa?” Octavia slows her pace as she walks into Lexa’s bedroom because Lexa is standing transfixed, staring at the wall, slight terror in her eyes, even though her expression is guarded.

Lexa is staring at a black spider crawling across the wall above her bed. There are few things that freeze her to the spot, make her incapable of moving or making a decision. If she’s alone it’s easier to deal with, but Octavia is home from work, now that they’re calling Lexa’s apartment home so they can all survive the heat wave. But Lexa would almost rather deal with the sweltering temperatures than the poisonous menace on her wall.

Her gaze flicks to Octavia for a split second who has finally figured out what has Lexa glued to the spot.

“You want me to deal with it?”

Lexa nods slowly.

Octavia chokes back a laugh, “Okay.” Lexa glares daggers at her and Octavia’s expression sobers. She reaches for a couple of tissues from the bedside table and quickly squishes the spider before wiping the remains off the wall and tossing it in the trash can.

“So does this mean I’m on spider duty in the new house?”

Lexa unfreezes and slowly starts to move again, “Absolutely.” She crosses to Octavia and presses a kiss to her cheek. “I don’t even want to know that they got into the house.”

_______________________________________

Lexa doesn’t fail to notice the way Anya avoids disturbing her once she sits down at the baby grand piano in the corner of Anya’s living room. It’s the one that used to sit in their parents’ place. It’s the one she learned to play on. She tries not to think about how much Anya spent to have it moved into the apartment.

She trails her fingers across the ivory keys, feeling their cool weight but not moving them enough to produce noise. Years have passed since she played; it hasn’t been in her to, the music far away and muted. Had she started earlier she might have been one of those child prodigies, but no one thinks to give a little orphan girl piano lessons, no one tells the little kids without a real home that they can learn anything and be anything.

Her hands tremble as she thinks about what she’s about to do in a way that they haven’t since the first day their adopted parents sat her and Anya down side by side on the piano bench and told them they were taking lessons. Anya never took to it, her artistic talents lay elsewhere, but Lexa learned quickly she could play nearly anything by ear, just never ask her to read music. The notes and lines no more than chaos to her, symbols without meaning.

Stretching her fingers she places each one gently on a key, she does the same with her other hand, wrists loose. She sits, waiting for something to come to her, willing herself to remember what she used to play. Trying not to think about who she would play for, or why she might want to play now.

Their faces all flash through her head.

Her fingers travel over the keys and it’s like she’s never forgotten this feeling for a moment. Like it hasn’t been years since her fingers travelled this plane. Each crevice, each rise, an intimate familiarity. There’s a world of possibility underneath her fingertips and still she hesitates.

It’s the fear in her heart that still hasn’t let go. The one she thought had ruined her for all other relationships. Costia. How long will it be until her name no longer feels like a cursed prayer as it wraps its way around her tongue, the sound dying on chapped lips.

The first chord is a dissonant mess, ugly and intentional.

She doesn’t want it to be pretty. Doesn’t want the memory to taint the pleasure that she takes.

Anya lets out a squawk of surprise in the silence that follows, and Lexa holds her breath to keep from letting out a laugh. Their foster mother would shriek and shake her head each time one of them would lay into the keyboard.

A piano is not a percussion instrument, Lexa. She can’t remember her voice but she remembers the way she felt when she heard those words.

Oh, but it could be .

Lexa lets out a long, slow, steady, breath and presses the keys gently, a soft lilting melody drifting out of the piano slightly out of tune. Soft turns frantic turns soft again, and before too long Lexa has lost herself in a memory.

_______________________________________

Octavia sits on one side of the loveseat and Lexa on the other while they wait for Clarke and Abby to come back into the living room. Lexa’s spine is rigid and she’s more perched on the small couch than sitting on it as if she’s ready to spring up and run for the front door at any moment; Octavia doesn’t blame her, this night has been more stressful than the one where Clarke and Octavia told Abby they were together. She’s tempted to close the distance and try to calm Lexa down but they all agreed they would wait to reveal they were together.

Even though they hadn’t been hiding anything all night, helping each other off with their coats, small touches as they moved from room to room, reassuring smiles. Still, they were waiting for Clarke before they touched, before they comforted each other and tried to release the nerves that were building between them, tension so thick it was another presence in the room, awkward and elephant like.

Clarke comes back first, moving across the living room with purpose. She sits down between Lexa and Octavia thankful they had the wherewithal to sit on the loveseat and not the couch because that made it much easier to reach out for both of them at the same time, and that’s all she wants right now as she tries to find the right words. She had meant to bring up the discussion with her mother in the kitchen, but no matter what she said, she couldn’t seem to steer the conversation in that direction without blurting out their secret. They deserve more than a blunt tumble of words.

They haven’t told anyone else yet. Anya only knew because she had been somewhat witness to the disaster that was the way they came to be. No matter how quietly supportive she’s been they know not everyone will react, or fail to react, as she has.

“Are the three of you going to breathe anytime soon?” Abby leans back on the couch and meets Clarke’s eyes which are wide with surprise. She smiles gently, lazily swirling her glass of wine.

They’ve been alternately avoiding touching and acting like there’s nothing odd about their relationship, which has made for a stressful evening because at least once each of them has said something or done something to imply that they are more than friends. Now that they’re sat practically on top of each other it’s harder to keep from falling into familiar comforts.

Clarke decides to stop fighting the impulse.

She reaches out for Octavia’s hand first, slowly threading their fingers together, and then does the same with Lexa. She meets Lexa’s eyes and gives her a small reassuring nod. She know her mother wants nothing but her to be happy and Clarke knows there’s nowhere else but between these two women that makes her happier. They’re good for each other and she doesn’t know if it’s even possible for Abby to not see how they fit into each others’ lives so seamlessly. Lexa makes her and Octavia better than they would ever be on their own.

She runs her thumb across Lexa’s knuckles as she finds herself lost in thought staring into Lexa’s green eyes. This is their moment. And she wants to turn to her mother and tell her how she’s in love, her heart full to bursting with it, how this past year has taught her that love is more than just a feeling, it’s a constant choice that starts the moment you realize the pain is worth having that person in your life. They aren’t all ready for that though, not after what they’ve only just been through with nearly losing Lexa. Until she hears the words spill from Lexa’s lips she’ll show her every day how she feels.

Tightening her grip on Octavia’s hand she brings Lexa’s to her lips, letting it linger there, feeling the soft skin with a chaste kiss. Lexa blushes and dips her head but her eyes never leave Clarke’s.

Octavia presses into Clarke’s side watching as Clarke and Lexa lose themselves in the moment. Watching them together gives her hope, even more than when that gaze is turned on her. She knows how they feel about her and how she fits in. She flicks her attention to Abby for a moment before pressing a kiss into Clarke’s shoulder; there’s no going back now.

Abby sips at her wine to hide the smile on her face. “You three look very happy together,” she says softly. A smile tugs at the corner of her mouth, mirroring that satisfied smirk Octavia has seen so many times on Clarke’s face. “I had wondered when you came over for dinner. I know I don’t know you well yet, Lexa, but you light up around them. And even when they’re trying to hide it, I can tell when my girls are in love.”

Somehow, impossibly, Lexa tenses further at the mention of the word love, squeezing Clarke’s hand so tight she might bruise it. At least for all of a moment. The tension doesn’t fade but Clarke feels it recede into Lexa, walls thrown up high, so their hands linked together are just that, intertwined fingers and a warm pulse, the comfort and strength is gone.

Octavia listens to Abby with wide eyed wonder, her heart aching with feeling loved. Abby’s been family for most of her life, she’s like a second mother, one that got to stick around. Being claimed, and noticed, and accepted by her is more than she ever thought she would find in a family.

“You’re okay with us being together?” Octavia fights to keep her voice even. She needs Abby to be okay with the choice they’ve made, because this is her home, where she belongs and to have a rift, to have it break apart, would destroy her. She switches which hand is holding Clarke’s and lays her arm across the back of the love seat until her fingers find the warm spot on Lexa’s neck just underneath her hairline. Lexa inhales sharply but doesn’t move away from the touch.

“Octavia, you know I love you dearly, despite everything, and you’ve always been there for Clarke, made her happy.”

Clarke wants to run her hands down Lexa’s face, stroke her back, anything to take away the tension she can feel in her girlfriend. Lexa’s hand in hers is still loose and she gives her hand a squeeze hoping the pressure at least it offers her a modicum of comfort. This is okay.

“You’re really okay with us… our relationship?” Clarke shakes, not realizing until the tension started draining from her that she was worried about her mother’s reaction. Not believing for a moment that her mother wouldn’t love her, no matter who she chose to be with. But Abby’s words about knowing when she’s in love, when Clarke is only just realizing how deeply she feels for Lexa cut deep. This is real.

“Lexa, sweetheart, take a breath before you pass out.”

Clarke feels Lexa nod, followed by an exhale of air. She turns her head and presses her lips to Lexa’s shoulder.

“You care for my girls?”

“Yes, Mrs. Griffin.”

“Abby.”

“Yes, Abby. I do.” Lexa looks to Clarke and Octavia and lets herself relax into their touch just slightly. She doesn’t know what she would have done if she had been the reason for problems between Clarke and her mother. Sometimes she wonders if she manages to bring anything but grief to them.

“Why do you all still look like there’s something else you haven’t told me?”

“We need to borrow money?” Octavia shrugs her shoulders apologetically and looks to Abby with hope written all over her face.

“Octavia!” Clarke and Lexa hiss in unison.

“What? We do, that’s why we’re here.”

Lexa watches as Clarke and Octavia start a staring contest, they’ve barely gotten through coming out to Abby, the words barely finished sounding and Octavia is already asking the next difficult question. She does know Abby better than Lexa does, but that doesn’t make this the right protocol. Lexa scoots forward on the couch and slips her hand from Clarke’s as she meets Abby’s surprised gaze.

“What Octavia is failing to say is that we’re looking to buy a larger place - a double bed is quite impractical for sleeping three, and neither of our apartments can really fit a larger bed.”

“We found a house actually.” Clarke chimes in, still staring Octavia down.

“And if I could convince these two to let me use my trust fund-”

Clarke whips her head to face Lexa, “-you’re not spending all your money on our house.”

“So you want to spend my money on it?” Abby interrupts, but there's a small smile on her lips.

“We’ll pay you back! I just,” Clarke bites her lip and looks at Lexa. “I don’t want Lexa to feel like Octavia and I are with her for the wrong reasons.” She tilts her head to the side and her heart melts as she takes in Lexa’s carefully constructed walls come down. “We’re equal in this.”

_______________________________________

The only thing they were for certain on so far about the new house was that they were buying a new bed.

“This is the one,” Octavia declares, flopping back onto one of the largest beds in the store, her knees bent at the edge, feet hovering just off the floor. Clarke and Lexa had been circling around the store poking at beds and not trying any of them out for forty-five minutes and Octavia is ready for them to just choose one and then they can finally get home and order dinner. This can’t be another house hunting ordeal, nine stores deep, circling around the same beds while strangers circle around them. She straightens her leg and stops Clarke from walking any further. “Lay down.”

Clarke grins and falls back onto the bed dramatically with her arms wide, letting herself bounce a few times before settling down. She digs her elbows into the mattress and shifts around, testing the bed for firmness. It feels like heaven compared to the small tiny bed she and Octavia have been sharing for the past three years, which had been hers since high school. “Lexa, you’ve got to lay down on this one.”

“I’m certain it’s adequate. It is highly rated.” Lexa turns the details card over in her hand, her back to the bed. She glances around the store at all the couples, hand in hand, leaning into each other, talking to each other about the place where they will spend a third of their lives, perhaps more. They are all different, varying levels of excitement and contentment and overall frustration with shopping, but mostly they’re all just… together.

She glances over her shoulder at Clarke and Octavia, laughing and sighing dramatically, content to stay on the bed, even for just a few minutes. If they were home she would fall between them without a thought, finding herself wrapped up in their arms. If it were only Clarke or Octavia she would lay down, test the bed out, because that would be safe. Instead she slides the details card back into it’s little plastic sheath and glances out the large floor to ceiling windows of the storefront as she waits.

The day is bright and sunny, and wonderful. Clarke’s laughter echoes behind her.

“Lexa?” Octavia asks and Lexa can hear the mischief in her voice a second before she feels the tug on her arm and she topples onto the bed in between her girlfriends.

Clarke lets out a gleeful shriek as she scoots out of the way and Lexa finds herself laughing as she hits the mattress. They aren’t quite close enough to touch, and there’s still plenty of room, and it’s comfortable, which is more than she can say for either of their beds these days. She turns her head, looking from Octavia’s hopeful wide eyes and half bitten lower lip to Clarke’s grin and infectious laughter. Lexa can feel the smile wide on her face and she knows that this is where she wants to be.

“You won’t know if you like it unless you scoot up onto it all the way.” A male voice interrupts and the three of the fall silent. “I’m Sinclair, and if you have any questions I’d be happy to help.”

Lexa starts to sit up and slide off the bed but before she can make it Clarke pulls her back.

“Come on, you’ll be spending enough time on here.” She knows they don’t want to really explain their relationship to a stranger, but also, this is going to be their bed, they all have to like it.

Octavia pats the center of the bed and Lexa nods slowly as she scoots up. It’s not like they could really avoid the implication that they were together, they’re buying a bed together afterall. She forces out a breath and lays back between her girlfriends trying to relax into the mattress, imagine what it would be like covered in cool sheets and with the proper pillows. What it will be like when they curl up at night, when they’re home.

Clarke’s hand slowly wraps around hers and she doesn’t pull away; she realizes she doesn’t want to have to pull away. Maybe it wouldn’t be the worst thing if the sales clerk assumed they were together. It’s nice laying her between them, laughing.

“This is absolutely the one,” Octavia moans as she sinks into the bed. If they could she’d demand they take it home tonight, but there’s no way they could get it into either of their apartments.

Bouncing experimentally, Clarke turns to face Lexa and Octavia, watching them as they taken in the bed. “What do you think, Lex?”

“It’s far better than your poor excuse for a mattress.” She grins, her nose wrinkling as she faces Clarke. She’s met with a protruding tongue and eyes full of mirth.

“This particular mattress is good for back support,” Sinclair adds. “Any of you have low back pain?”

Octavia points at Clarke, her hand brushing across Lexa’s breast. Lexa blushes and moves Octavia’s hand from it’s dangerous location. As much as this moment is nice, she doesn’t want to push it. She breathes out as Octavia moves her hand back to the safety of her part of the bed and Lexa finds herself relaxing. There’s something pleasant about this, listening to Octavia and Clarke as they lie here, discussing the bed, it’s so very domestic.

“I spend half my day hunched over in front of an easel.” Clarke offers up.

“This model is also reinforced through the center, so you would have solid support no matter where you slept. Do you usually sleep close together or spread out?”

Lexa’s grip on Clarke’s hand tightens and she doesn’t know if she wants to hold on or pull away. This is what they all discussed, keeping their relationship private when they were in public, and if they’re being this obvious they need to re-evaluate their approach. No more holding hands. Clarke tightens her own grip and Lexa glances at her. This is okay; it will be okay.

“Well, I, spread out at night.” Octavia says with a laugh as she stretches out her arms and legs, practically shoving Lexa into Clarke’s arms.

Lexa stops herself with a hand on Clarke’s shoulder. “We don’t actu-” Clarke squeezes her hand and Lexa meets her gaze, falling into the soft, reassuring, blue depths. This will be okay, she breathes out.

“If you decide to go with this one, I’d suggest one of our frames over just the box, and I could probably throw in some pillows if you decide to go that route.”

She’s only half listening to what Sinclair is saying, because the look on Clarke’s face is overwhelming. Lexa closes her eyes but she can still see it, pleading, wanting, and yet, holding back. As if Clarke wants to say something, as if she wants to lean forward and kiss her, but she knows they’re already in further than they should be. Lexa opens her eyes and Clarke is still there, but there’s a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth now.

Maybe Anya is right, maybe they’ll get through this, and it really won’t matter if people know about them. Maybe it will all work out. Not denying their relationship at a bed store is a far cry from coming out to their families or to their coworkers, but it’s something, and if nothing the sales associate is being incredibly discreet.

Lexa rolls over, letting go of Clarke’s hand and reaches for Octavia, nudging her in the shoulder. Octavia looks half asleep already as she lazily turns her head. “What do you think, O?”

“This is the one.”

Sitting up, Lexa slides off the bed with a firm nod of her head. “Show us the bedframes.”

Chapter Text

Raven glances around the living room, boxes stacked in front of book cases, a couch haphazardly in the center of it all, a new TV ready to be mounted. The room is open and bright and at least half the back wall must be glass, doors and windows looking out over a small, simple backyard with a single flowering cherry tree, and beyond out over the hill as it drops off to the city not far beyond.

The house and the view are stunning but not half as stunning as the three girls that own it.

When she told Bellamy she’d come over and help his sister move into her new house this is the last thing she expected.

Raven watches the younger Blake as she leans over the back of the couch, back arched slightly as she stretches, her dark hair pulled back in mess of braids and bun, discussing with her brother where the TV should go. Raven didn’t plan to spend today sitting back and enjoying the view but everyone in this house is unfairly attractive, and most of the heavy lifting has already been done and she’s been assigned TV hanging duty, which is one of the main reasons why she’s here. The girls wanted someone who could actually figure out how to hang something on the wall of their new house without ruining it.

Her gaze flits from Octavia to Bellamy and she realizes it’s been entirely too long since she’s been with anyone, especially someone that could handle her, injury and all. Raven tries to shove the thought from her head, it’s pointless to think like that about any of them. Bellamy is a colleague, even if he is a friend, and too full of himself to be good for more than a night or two of fun, and there’s no way she’s going after Octavia. Not when she’s practically common law married to her unfairly beautiful girlfriend, and on top of that she’s Bellamy’s little sister. And there’s Lincoln, and Lexa, and Anya, but everyone seems far more connected than is maybe sane to try to get involved with. The details are still a little fuzzy.

And really, it hasn’t been that long since she broke up with Wick. It’s been two months, but there’s no way she’s going back to him because that ended up being a disaster from the start.

“Are you sure you want the TV on this wall?”

“Yes, Bellamy-” Octavia starts.

“Have you asked Clarke?”

Octavia rolls her eyes and pushes up off the couch. They had spent the better part of two evenings going through every shared room in the house and deciding exactly what would go where. “ And Lexa. It goes there.”

“She’s right you know,” Raven leans back into the couch, her grin cocky. “That’s the only place in the room there won’t be glare from the sun.”

“See,” Octavia gestures to Raven. “Your genius friend agrees. I like her.”

“Don’t encourage her,” Bellamy looks from Raven to Octavia and back and Raven isn’t quite sure which one of them he’s addressing but something tells her he probably doesn’t know himself.

Octavia winks at Raven as she walks past her and Raven grins; she definitely wouldn’t mind hanging out with Octavia again. The younger Blake sibling seems much more relaxed than her older brother.

“Now that that's settled, you do know how to find a stud, right?” Raven asks shooting a pointed look at Bellamy.

“Nope, that's what you're here for.”

“That’s me. Finder of studs.” Raven cants her head to the side with a smirk. “Why don’t you go grab Lincoln and the tools.” She pushes up off the couch reluctantly, her leg protesting. “I’ll figure this out,” she gestures to the wall. Hanging up a flat screen properly is something she could do in her sleep, it’s easy, but she wants to do it right. Her one mission today is to earn the beer that she’s been promised and making sure Bellamy doesn’t break his sister’s new TV will do just that.

She glances over her shoulder at Octavia and Lexa, and wonders where Clarke has gotten to. Shaking her head she tries to clear the thoughts before they form. Now is no time to be thinking about attraction and feelings, even if Lexa might be available... It all leads to heartache in the end anyway. And she needs time to herself after her last relationship.

Octavia slips behind Lexa, catching her attention as she moves to the kitchen. They shift around each other and Raven can’t quite make out what they’re saying, because she’s too caught up in how attractive Lexa is when she smiles. The way Lexa lights up when Octavia talks to her, the soft lilt in her voice which is normally so reserved. The quiet laugh and the lightness it carries even though this is the end of the second day of moving and all of them are exhausted.

Raven lets out a long sigh and turns back to the wall, pulling out a measuring tape and a pencil. Every sixteen inches there’s a stud, she marks them off, light marks on the wall, but her thoughts are on the other women. There’s something about the way the three of them move together, weaving around each other, like an intricate series of cogs and gears that fit together in a complex bit of machinery that sings when wound. It’s more than friendship, and Raven wonders if they’re merely close or if there’s something greater there. Her heart aches at the thought of that much love.

If Bellamy’s gossip is true, Lexa is up for just about anything. Or, she used to be. Raven shakes her head and turns back to the wall. It really is none of her business, and since when has Bellamy been a reliable source of anything?

_______________________________________

Clarke drops the box next to the dryer, arms and back protesting. They’ve been moving boxes for two days now and she’s completely over it. It didn’t seem like such a bad plan when they laid it out. The first day they would move everything over from Clarke and Octavia’s apartment since some of their new furniture had already arrived at the house, and then the next day they would finish up with Lexa’s apartment.

Brilliant plan.

Easy.

Clarke grumbles, leaning against the washer/dryer stack as she tries to stretch out her upper back which seems to have seized up. The muscles are screaming worse than they do when she sits at her easel too long, and that can lay her up for days. She digs her fingers into knots she can already feel forming but it does little to release the tension. What she needs is one of her girls to work on her back, but they don’t have time for that right now, there’s still another truck of boxes on the way. If she never has to carry another box out of that truck she’ll be so very happy.

Clarke rubs at her face, missing Lexa joining her in the washroom.

“I texted Anya about pizza. She said she and Raven would make a run for dinner after they finished emptying my apartment.” Lexa leans next to Clarke. “You alright there?”

“Just sore,” Clarke slides into Lexa, letting the her girlfriend take her weight. “Why didn’t we hire movers like you wanted to?”

Lexa runs her fingers through Clarke’s hair, scratching gently at her scalp trying to coax her into standing again and failing. She sighs and nudges at Clarke who only gives Lexa more of her weight. It brings a smile to her lips, because even though they’ve been together for nearly a year now there’s something about Clarke and Octavia being her’s that will always seem new and wonderful. “Someone was very adamant about not asking for any more money from their mother or letting me dip into the trust fund money again.”

“That money is yours,” Clarke mumbles the words against Lexa’s shoulder.

Lexa lets out a raspy laugh, “Yes, and I’m not fond of carrying boxes.”

“Sorry.”

“I’m sure you will find a way to make it up to me.”

Clarke wraps her arms around Lexa, her fingertips skirting along the line of skin exposed where Lexa’s muscle shirt has ridden up and her jeans have drifted down. She likes Lexa like this, relaxed and warm, not that she doesn’t appreciate the power suits, because she does, but not many people get to see Lexa like this. It feels like a privilege, a gift. She presses a kiss to Lexa’s collarbone nipping at the soft skin with her lips.

She kisses her way up Lexa’s neck, her hands sliding up her back and pressing Lexa close. “I can think of a few ways,” she whispers in Lexa’s ear.

“I thought we agreed we wouldn’t do that until everyone else went home.” Lexa drops her head back giving Clarke better access to her neck. She doesn’t exactly want to get caught and accidentally out them but with Clarke’s mouth on her their friends and family finding out doesn’t really seem like the worst thing that could happen. Still, they decided they weren’t telling anyone else yet.

Lexa puts her hands on Clarke’s hips and pushes her back, “Be good.”

Clarke pouts but there’s a mischief to it. “If you insist.” Her hands come to rest on Lexa’s hip bones, holding the distance between them. “Work a bit on my neck though?”

With a dramatic roll of her eyes Lexa moves her hands to Clarke’s shoulders and starts feeling for tension and knots, working on the sore muscles there. She glances over her shoulder at the open door and hopes that no one has seen them, no one that doesn’t already know about exactly what her relationship with Clarke and Octavia entails, and that she won’t really be staying in the spare bedroom, it’s just a ruse until they can unpack properly. They don’t need the stress of someone finding them out and causing a stir by bringing up the idea that one of them is having an affair. There had been enough drama around that when the three of them started to get together.

It worked out, after a fashion, and she really wants things to stay like they are.

Clarke bites her lip trying to hold back a moan as Lexa’s fingers dig into the sore muscles of her neck, “Fuck, Lex.”

“Too much?”

“No don’t stop.” Clarke whimpers. “Your fingers are magic. I mean, I already knew that, but they really are.”

Lexa shoves Clarke playfully in the shoulder and leans forward to capture her lips in a messy kiss. Her hands never stop working on the knot underneath her fingertips though, drawing another moan from Clarke; this one is unrestrained and she swallows it down. Lexa leans her forehead against Clarke’s, taking a slow deep breath, trying to calm the twist of want starting up between her legs and winding it’s way up.

“I thought you said you were going to be good.”

“It’s hard to be good with your hands on me,” Clarke’s voice is breathy and she slips her hands under the hem of Lexa’s shirt.

“We should go help with the unloading.” Lexa nods, trying to persuade herself to step back from Clarke. “Besides, Octavia will be sorely disappointed if we christen the house without her.”

“Yeah, it’ll be more fun with her here, and besides, our new bed still needs breaking in.” Clarke tugs on Lexa’s belt loops bringing them crashing together for one more kiss.

_______________________________________

Raven follows Anya into Lexa’s apartment. It’s empty and cavernous and so much bigger without the furniture in it. She’s fairly certain they thoroughly emptied it earlier, but this the last sweep, just in case. Making her way across the living room she looks out the windows and over downtown. It’s beautiful and quiet from up here. The city seems peaceful.

It’s the first moment of quiet all day, just the two of them. She’s enjoyed the quiet wittiness of the older Woods girl. It’s a breath of fresh air from all the masculinity she’s normally surrounded by between Bellamy and Jasper and Monty. Not that they all don’t have a special place in her heart… but sometimes it’s nice to appreciate the quiet snark of someone who is clearly going to be a new friend if they can survive moving day together.

Anya bumps her shoulder against Raven’s.

“I can’t believe she’s giving up this view,” Raven whispers.

“People have done stranger things when they realize they prefer a different way of looking at the world.” Anya shrugs and leans against one of thin beams between the windows looking Raven up and down. “I do have to say that the view isn’t the prettiest thing in the room.” She raises an eyebrow and leans closer to Raven. There’s laughter in her dark eyes, inviting and warm, and a smile plays on her perfectly lipsticked mouth.

Raven finds herself drawn in, wondering if anyone would have the power to resist an offer from Anya, and realizing that she needs to find it in herself. As pretty as Anya is there’s a panicked flighty feeling fluttering in Raven’s chest when she thinks about being intimate with anyone. Even the idea allowing herself to kiss someone makes her want to run. After everything that happened with Wick she’s afraid to allow anyone to have that power over her again. Afraid of the way that someone might look at her when she’s at her most vulnerable, like she’s any less than them.

She presses a hand to Anya’s shoulder and holds a safe distance between them. “I’m just - I broke up with my ex two months ago and I’m not ready for anything yet.” Half truths to keep herself from trembling. Raven looks down unable to hold Anya’s gaze any longer.

“Sounds like you could use the distraction… unless you still want them back?”

Raven looks up at Anya, mildly horrified. “Definitely not.”

“Alright then, shall we finish poking our heads in closets and make sure my lil sis didn’t forget something?” She turns and starts to cross over towards what had been Lexa’s room.

“Just like that?”

Anya turns back, “Like what, little bird?” she says with a laugh as if she knows exactly what Raven is asking.

“You’re cool with me turning you down?”

“Yeah, I mean you’re hot, but if you’re not down, you’re not down.” Anya takes two steps back and kisses Raven on the cheek. “Doesn’t mean you can’t change your mind later, but something tells me you won’t.” Anya winks and drags her finger along the underside of Raven’s chin as she walks away again.

Raven watches her go, confused and vaguely turned on.

“Besides, I think you’ll be much more entertaining to keep around.”

Raven laughs, “Is that your way of saying you want to be friends?”

Anya makes a noncommittal sound that might have been a grunt but might have been a laugh. Raven shakes her head and turns back to the empty apartment and scouring it for unpacked belongings. When she agreed to help Bellamy with moving his sister into her new house this is the last thing she expected.

_______________________________________

Lexa watches Clarke as she slides back out into the hallway a small smile on her lips. This is home.

She’s only alone for a few moments, long enough to rearrange her shirt and collect her thoughts, but nothing more. Bellamy slips into the utility room and there’s something in the look on his face that makes Lexa stand a little taller. She uncrosses her arms as he shuts the door behind him.

“What exactly do you think you’re doing, Lexa?” His voice is low and even, but there’s an edge to it. She doesn’t know Bellamy well, only that he’s fiercely protective of Octavia, though she can’t imagine for the life of her that anyone actually thinks Octavia needs protecting. From the furrow between his brow and the thin line of his lips pressed together Lexa can only assume he saw her and Clarke kissing.

She’s not about to admit to it in case he’s got some other problem with her.

Lexa turns back to the boxes on the washer behind her and opens one up, “Sorting out where these boxes go. My sister isn’t adept at labelling things as she packs.”

All of the air has drained from the room as Lexa waits for Bellamy to say something, anything.

“I swear if you’re fucking around with Clarke and you hurt Octavia-”

Lexa drops the laundry soap onto the washer, it crashes and echoes. She clenches her jaw and turns to face him. “Why would I want either of them hurt?”

He’s in her space, leaning over her but Lexa doesn’t step back. She tilts her chin up to hold his gaze and squares her shoulders, not about to be intimidated by someone over her relationship. Octavia has her reasons for not coming out to Bellamy yet and Lexa is starting to understand why.

“You and Clarke were in here-”

Lexa presses a hand against Bellamy’s chest, pushing him back. “-we do both live here.”

“I’ve known Clarke a long time, I saw the look on her face when she came out of here.” Bellamy catches Lexa’s wrist in his hand and twists her arm.

“I don’t appreciate what you’re implying.” Lexa wrenches her arm out of his grasp, and fixes him with a glare, the one she uses to stare down hardened criminals in court. There’s nothing kind in her look and if Bellamy were anyone other than her girlfriend’s brother she would be fighting back with more than just her attitude. She feels off balance because there’s something terrifying in Bellamy’s anger that has nothing to do with nearly being caught.

“If you hurt my sister, I will come after you.”

Lexa raises her gaze from her wrist to Bellamy and stares at him silently, knowing there’s only a slight chance her two terms of judo in college are anywhere to be found in her body. She won’t let him see the fear she feels, or hint at the worry she has. She and Octavia and Clarke will have to talk later about this, when and how exactly they tell him.

He holds her gaze and there’s thinly veiled anger in the look he gives her. Lexa knows she can stand there, unblinking, waiting for him to break for longer than he can hold out, that much she has. This is what she trains for, intimidation. This is her element. Until he throws something at her she can’t refute she can claim a thousand layers of plausible deniability.

His angry huff and the door crashing against the wall as he throws it open make Lexa’s heart stop. She clenches her hands into fists to keep them from trembling and to keep the tears from falling. The fear that her world could so easily crumble.

_______________________________________

Octavia drops the box she’s carrying in the kitchen. They’re nearly done, only a handful of boxes left to move in, plus whatever Anya and Raven bring back from the final sweep of the two vacated apartments. She never wants to have to move into a new house again and they haven’t even begun the unpacking process. This house is going to be so worth it though, living with Clarke and Lexa is going to be worth it. She stretches her arms overhead to ease the tension in her back and catches sight of Lexa standing in the backyard through the sliding glass doors.

A large wooden deck is tucked between the U shape of the house, a green lawn spreading out beyond, just large enough to play in and plant a garden. There’s a large blossoming cherry tree begging for a hammock and she can’t wait to spend summer nights laying out under the stars with Clarke and Lexa. They have to make it through moving in first though.

Lexa’s arms are crossed and she’s facing away from the house. The slope of her shoulders is defeated. It isn’t what Octavia was expecting to see, because, aside from having to carry half a million boxes, these last few days have been pretty much perfect.

She slips out the sliding door and just makes out the sharp inhale of breath before Lexa straightens up. Octavia crosses the deck slowly, her footfalls echoing softly on the raised wood. The air is still warm, but the heat from the summer sun is fading. Still, Octavia finds herself wrapping her arms around her stomach to keep from reaching out to Lexa and chase away the sudden chill that runs up her spine. She stops, bumping her shoulder against Lexa’s.

“Not having second thoughts?” She smiles and bites her lip. They’ve been over this and she honestly thinks that the last thing Lexa wants is to back out now, but there’s a spike of worry in the back of her mind because maybe her own happiness is clouding reality again. She doesn’t want to make the same mistakes with Lexa that she made with Clarke.

Lexa wipes hastily at her eyes even though only a few tears have fallen. It hadn’t been her intent to come out here and cry, but she needed a moment to breathe and suddenly the utility closet had felt suffocating after Bellamy left. Her face feels sticky with the tears and she inhales again sharply trying to push back her emotions and breathe. Moving in with Clarke and Octavia is as terrifying as it is exciting, but she has them and it will all be okay. She had thought it would be anyway. She swallows down the rising anger. “Of course not, O,” Lexa says softly. She bumps her shoulder against Octavia’s. “I wouldn’t dream of leaving.”

Octavia stretches out her fingers, not quite holding onto Lexa’s arm, but brushing her fingertips against it. Right now it’s all she can do, there are too many people in their house that don’t know about them. Lexa mimics Octavia’s gesture so their fingers overlap.

“Bellamy thinks I’m having an affair with Clarke.”

“Well, you are sleeping with her.” Octavia’s grin is infectious.

The small smile on Lexa’s lips falters and she dips her head looking away from Octavia. Her fingers curl back so they’re no longer touching. What Bellamy said, what he did, crawls under her skin, thin white hot anger. “He’s… protective.”

“Who’s protective?” Clarke calls as she steps out onto the back porch.

Octavia spins and takes a step toward Clarke. Lexa turns more slowly, pushing back tears with an unsteady hand. Now is not the time for crying, not when she has to find a way to explain what Bellamy did without causing a rift between Octavia and her brother. She steels her breath.

The three of them meet somewhere in the middle of the porch, not quite in view of the back door.

“Bellamy said something to Lexa.”

Clarke rolls her eyes and Octavia returns the look.

“What? He is protective, O.” She turns to Lexa and her voice softens, as she notices the glossiness of Lexa’s eyes. “What did he do?”

Lexa forces her arms to stay by her sides, hands clenching and unclenching. Still, she doesn’t meet Clarke’s gaze or Octavia’s. “Nothing, yet.” She hates this feeling of fear, not of Bellamy, but of what strain her presence might put on Octavia’s relationship with him. It’s angry, bitter bile at the back of her throat that she has to swallow down. Not being open about their relationship is difficult because this wouldn’t be happening if he knew, but telling him might make the situation worse. Still, this feeling that somehow she’s done something wrong by falling in love is far more painful than anything Bellamy could do to her.

There are too many emotions running through her and she has to make them stop so they can deal with this.

Clarke takes a step forward into Lexa’s space and reaches up to gently cup her hand against Lexa’s cheek. Her eyes are searching as she meets Lexa’s gaze, raw with pain and anger. Clarke may have been joking with Octavia about how protective Bellamy can be but he has, in the past, been too protective. Her free hand twitches involuntarily to brush across her eyebrow.

“What did he say?” Clarke’s hands wind their way around Lexa’s waist and she tugs her closer.

Lexa sighs and let’s Clarke pull her a single step closer, even so she glances over to the sliding glass doors to make sure no one is watching them. The last thing she wants is a repeat of the laundry room. If Bellamy talks to her again tonight she doesn’t know if she can be as civil as she was the first time.

“He insinuated that you and I are sleeping together, which, while not untrue, is none of his business. He then proceeded to threaten, if I were to ever be the reason for breaking Octavia’s heart, that he would come after me,” Lexa’s voice is cold and even, her jaw clenching tight as she finishes.

Octavia’s voice is low and harsh, “You have every right to be here, this is your home.”

“Octavia, it’s-” Lexa stops, she’s about to say it’s fine , but it isn’t. Bellamy’s anger, however well meaning, is startling and she doesn’t want him around her or Octavia if this is how he is.

“It isn’t okay.” Octavia takes a step forward and kisses Lexa without preamble, one hand tangling tightly in Lexa’s hair, the other resting on the small of Clarke’s back. “You’re my girlfriend, too, and even if he doesn’t know that I’m not letting him upset you like this.”

Just as quickly as she moved forward she turns and leaves.

Clarke and Lexa watch Octavia storm back into the house, heading full tilt for her brother with vengeance on her breath. She slams the sliding glass door so hard behind her it bounces open. Lexa winces and wraps her arms tighter around Clarke. The sun is nearly beneath the horizon and the first few tendrils of cool air are mingling in the summer night. The tension between her shoulder blades eases a little with the affirmation. She isn’t on the outside of this relationship, but firmly in the middle of it.

They should all be side by side in this, a united front. She doesn’t trust Bellamy.

“Do we need to?” Lexa tilts her head toward the house, half indicating they should follow, half listening for raised voices or something crashing to the ground.

Clarke shakes her head, “Octavia can take care of Bellamy… and even if he’s angry he’d never hurt her.” The last few words come out barely more than a whisper and Clarke wishes she hadn’t brought that up because fear flashes in Lexa’s bright green eyes and Clarke can feel her start to pull back and follow Octavia into the house, muscles already tense.

There’s a trembling angry note in Lexa’s voice, “Clarke?”

Clarke holds Lexa’s gaze and swallows. There’s no point in not telling her the truth. She taps her index finger to her eyebrow and the thin crooked scar cutting through it. Lexa brushes her thumb across Clarke’s brow as if she’s just noticing the scar there, realizing what it means, how it dips dangerously close to the hollow of Clarke’s eye.

She cups Clarke’s cheek in her hand, her voice hard. “What happened?”

“I kissed Octavia.”

_______________________________________

Octavia storms through the house, and out to the front yard where Bellamy is unloading the last of the boxes from the moving truck as if nothing happened. Her heart feels ready to burst. She wants to yell at Bellamy for threatening another person she loves, for hurting them, even if he didn't put Lexa in the emergency room, he threatened to. She loves him, he's her family, but she doesn’t know if she can forgive him for this. He can't keep attacking everyone who looks her way. This may be his last chance. It doesn't matter that she can't tell him she's as desperately in love with Lexa as she is with Clarke.

“What the hell, Bellamy?” She throws the words like daggers.

He sets down the box and smiles at her with a roll of his eyes, “Usually someone says ‘thank you’ when someone spends their weekend schlepping boxes for them.”

Octavia crosses her arms and glares up at her brother. His smile could charm the panties off a nun, but Octavia is immune to it. Sibling privilege.

“You can't just go around threatening my friends, Bellamy.”

Octavia watches as Bellamy’s cockiness falters. His smile vanishes and he straightens up, mimicking Octavia’s crossed arms and narrowed eyes. He lets out a long breath and curses, before glancing back at the house. His voice is low, “Clarke is cheating on you, O.”

“No, she isn’t.” All she has to do is stick to the truth without explaining. She can keep their secret. Taking in a deep breath she buries the words girlfriend and love down deep in her chest where they can’t escape.

“I didn’t want to tell you like this.” He pauses and takes a step forward, reaching out for Octavia. “It’s just not right what she’s doing, you just bought a house together.”

She steps just out of his reach and shakes her head. “Clarke isn’t cheating on me, Bellamy.”

“I saw-”

“What exactly did you see?” Octavia snaps. No matter what he saw, it's none of his business.

“Clarke had that look on her face, and she was coming out of the utility closet - Lexa was in there.” He runs a hand through his hair, “She apparently has a thing for getting girls into closets with her.”

“I didn’t take you for a gossip.”

Bellamy takes another step towards Octavia but she stares him down. They’ve had this fight one too many times, and all the bruises and scars and threats are a rift between them that has grown too big to ignore. It’s an insidious thought that’s been growing for years: she doesn’t deserve this.

Lexa and Clarke deserve better.

“It isn’t gossip, O-”

“Yes it is!” Octavia turns to leave. The one thing that will shut Bellamy up about Clarke having an affair is the one thing she can’t say. “You’re sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong, again, and you’re not listening to me. I trust Clarke, I trust Lexa.”

“Listen, Gina works with Lexa and-”

Octavia stops walking and breathes out anger, “Who the fuck is Gina?”

“Just this girl th-”

“You’re going to take the word of some random girl. Over mine?” Octavia stretches her jaw to the side, teeth grinding. She breathes out the word like a threat, “Leave.”

She doesn’t stay to watch him go.

Bellamy moves to pick up the boxes he set down, a scowl creasing lines on his face; he grabs Octavia’s arm and spins her around. She’s barely turned when she wrenches her arm from his grasp and she pushes the part of her that wants to turn into a trembling child again down. She’s a police officer, and if she can’t protect her own family how can anyone expect her to be able to protect theirs.

“Don’t do this, Bellamy.”

“I’m protecting you.”

“No, you aren’t.” Octavia presses forward causing him to stumble backwards. “You can’t come into my house and threaten people. I could press charges.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“I’ll call Lincoln back, have him arrest you, if you don’t leave right now.”

“You’re making a mistake.”

Bellamy walks backwards a few steps, nearly tripping over the box he set down before turning and heading to his car, and Octavia watches him go her heart sinking in her chest. He’s her brother, her family, he raised her, and he’s the last person she trusts with her life.

_______________________________________

Lexa wraps her arms tighter around Octavia as she shifts position on the couch, trying to keep her leg from falling asleep any further, what with both Octavia’s and Clarke’s weight pressing into her it’s already going numb and tingly. She reaches out, fingers wrapping around pale yellow curls, and some of the tension ekes out of her body. For a little while they’re alone. For a little while it’s safe.

The quiet settles around them.

Bellamy is gone, but Lexa is certain they haven’t finished that particular fight. Octavia is too quiet, and Clarke feels too protective. He left his mark on them tonight and Lexa wants to make him pay but she’s afraid that would hurt Octavia more than him. Lexa has a feeling they’ve been down this path before, and that ended in blood and stitches. Her anger has faded but in its place is a deep rooted mistrust of the older Blake sibling. She’d be content with never having to deal with Bellamy again.

“We’re home,” Clarke lifts her head from Octavia’s stomach and smiles up at her girlfriends. Her smile has a soft mischievous edge to it as she crawls up kissing Octavia, then Lexa. She could get used to this. They all could.

The front door swings open with a click and the sound of laughter spills into the living room accompanied by the clink of glass and the smell of pizza.

Clarke bolts up scooting to the far end of the couch, wishing for the day that she doesn’t have to and they can all just be together in their own home without worrying about which friend is walking through the front door. Lexa nudges Octavia and she rolls to the floor with a soft thump, coming to rest with her back against a stack of boxes. She lets out an exasperated sigh and clenches her jaw. After everything that happened in the past few hours she doesn’t want to be like this, sitting alone on the floor, unable to be with her girlfriends in their own house. Anya already knows and Raven doesn’t seem like she would care.

It wouldn’t be the worst thing if someone else knew, someone they could trust.

“We’ve returned with sustenance,” Raven calls out as she walks in, heading straight for the kitchen, several cases of beer in hand.

“She insisted on pizza and beer because, it’s moving day tradition .” Anya rolls her eyes at Raven.

“Hey, you gotta be able to indulge every once in a while or it isn’t worth it.”

Lexa offers Octavia a small smile; it’s only going to be a little while longer and then they can relax for the night. She rubs at her thigh as sensation returns to it in the form of pins and needles, blood flowing through it once more followed by a rush of cold.

“I managed to talk her into the good pizza place at least,” Anya follows Raven into the kitchen carrying several boxes of pizza from the little hole in the wall downtown that actually has a stone fireplace in the back. “Where did all the help go?”

“Bellamy had to leave. Lincoln took Abby home.” Clarke slips off the couch starts digging through boxes marked kitchen for paper towels. “Niylah had to deal with something at the bar, said she’d be around to help us unpack this week.”

“I thought you were cleaning out our apartments?” Lexa asks as she pushes up from the couch and weaves through the boxes and furniture towards her sister and Raven.

“There’s a few things in the car,” Anya waves a hand dismissively as she she reaches across the island in the kitchen for a beer. “Bottle opener?”

Raven unhooks her keys from her belt and hands them over.

Clarke grabs a beer and hands it to Anya to open, when she takes it she hands her another until everyone has a cold bottle in their hand. Octavia mumbles thank you around a mouthful of pizza as she leans into Clarke’s side. There’s a slight tremor deep inside her and Octavia feels like it will erupt out of her in a wave of pain and tears if she doesn’t stay close to either Clarke or Lexa. She never imagined standing up to her brother would leave her so weak.

“Is that everything then? Are we officially moved in?” Clarke grins. She slips her hand to Octavia’s waist and gives her a light squeeze before gently pushing at her to take a step away. As much as she wants to be wrapped around her right now they shouldn't. She doesn’t want to see the edge of sadness in Lexa’s eyes when she and Octavia get to touch, and they can’t reach out for her. It’s easier to let the relationship be ambiguous. When they can't even tell Bellamy that they are together it feels wrong to let his friend in on the secret, even if Raven seems trustworthy.

“I think we are,” Lexa smiles at Clarke, it's small and guarded but real. She reaches out the bottle of beer in her hand to cheers with everyone else, not failing to notice the delayed excitement from Octavia or the way she avoids eye contact. For a moment she wishes she would have taken her chances against Bellamy and hit him, anything to make up for the shadows haunting her girlfriend’s eyes. A protective rage swells up inside her again and Lexa slides closer to Octavia, close enough that their hips bump together. This at least earns her a small reprieve from the air of sadness surrounding Octavia as she smiles at her, a hundred words passing between them without a sound.

Lexa breaks eye contact first and blushes when she meets Anya’s gaze, questioning and amused. It's hard to keep to themselves when emotions are running high.

Before too long they've made their way through both pizzas and most of the beer, finding themselves settled on the floor, propped up between boxes and each other. After the stress of moving and of the fight with Bellamy this is the kind of calm they need.

“There is perfectly good furniture not 10 feet away.” Anya gestures with her half empty bottle of beer toward the couches. “Why are we on the floor,”

“Because it's so far away,”  Clarke sticks out her tongue at Anya.

“And covered in boxes.” Raven interjects.

“I'm not moving any more boxes today.” Octavia leans back against a stack of boxes and lets herself slide into Lexa. She leans her head on Lexa’s shoulder and breathes out a sigh of relief when Lexa lets her stay.

“See, plenty of valid reasons we're on the floor. I mean if you're too old and can't han-”

Anya shoots Lexa a death glare and throws a balled up napkin at her.

Clarke snorts and tries to cover up her amusement in a sip of beer, but it doesn't work because soon they're all laughing. Maybe it's just the exhaustion getting to them, or maybe this really is the start of something new. Something better, because they're together. She uses the laughter as an excuse to scoot closer to Octavia and Lexa, leaning back against the same stack of boxes.

Octavia cautiously lets her hand fall next to Clarke’s, their fingers brushing.

As the laughter dies down, Anya glances up from her beer, and meets Lexa’s eyes. “It’s good to see you happy, again.”

Raven watches the exchange unfold. The soft nod from Lexa, The way Octavia glances at Clarke for half a second before lifting her head from Lexa’s shoulder, looking for a moment like she might kiss her before breaking out in a grin. The gentle smile from Clarke and the way her eyes shine like she's looking at her world. Raven wonders how she didn't see it earlier, that they are so clearly in love, and she wonders how they have managed to hide something so deep and profoundly beautiful, when it makes them glow. Even after a long weekend of hard work they're unbreakable.

And she wonders if she’ll ever find anyone that looks at her the way they look at each other, with trust and adoration, so completely in love the intensity of it is as blinding as the sun. She wonders if she’ll ever be enough again to deserve a love like that.

_______________________________________

Clarke leans back on the couch, tossing a cushion to the floor as she stretches and tries to avoid spilling the beer in her hand. It must be nearing midnight, if not already, and she can't say she's entirely unhappy to watch Anya and Raven leave with promises to return throughout the week to help with unpacking. Well, possibly just dinner. Even so, Clarke isn't one to pass up on food.

She closes her eyes and sets the beer bottle on the floor, tossing her arm across her eyes. The weight on the couch shifts and she feels Octavia press down on top of her, a quick brush of lips against lips before her girlfriend rolls to the side, wedging herself between the couch and Clarke. “Alone at last,” she whispers.

Clarke smiles and turns her head to kiss Octavia again, her hand sliding around Octavia’s waist, Octavia mirroring her actions. Even if the three of them had sat leaning together shoulder to shoulder, pressed hip to hip, it wasn’t this. It could never even be comfortable like this. Not yet. Not when they’re afraid of the repercussions and who they might lose. She sighs and smiles into the kiss as Octavia slips her hand under Clarke’s shirt, shivering at her touch.

For eight years she’s been coming home to Octavia, collapsing onto their couch at the end of the day, and even in these last three years when they’ve been together it hasn’t been like this. There’s a sense of forever in tonight. Lexa is with them now, so intrinsically a part of what they are it will always be different.

They only pull apart when they hear the front door shut and lock, Lexa slipping back inside from saying goodnight to her sister. Clarke traces her finger along Octavia’s jaw and she wonders how life finally feels like it’s working out.

“Where do I fit in?” Lexa bites her bottom lip, a soft smile tugging at her mouth. Looking down at her girlfriends, the house empty, knowing she can just be with them, alone , in their house, emotion swells inside her and she takes a deep breath, trying to keep the words on her tongue inside her mouth.

Clarke holds out her hand and Lexa kneels on the edge of the couch.

She can feel the words just behind her lips, burning her tongue. Tonight is too soon, the move leaving them exhausted and emotionally raw in the wake of the fight with Bellamy. They’re just now on steady ground, together in this, and Lexa doesn’t want a single thing to change. Her fingers twine with Clarke’s and she brushes her thumb across the palm of Clarke’s hand, heart feeling like it might burst.

“Lexa?” Octavia’s voice is soft and raspy from a long day. “What is it?”

She breathes in and time freezes because she can feel the words escaping from trembling lips before she can stop them. Words she hasn’t said in six years. There’s been no one that deserved them and now she’s in awe at the depth of her own feeling. She reaches for Octavia with her free hand and her heart is beating so hard she can barely hear her own voice. “I love you.”

The words wash over them and for a moment the only sound is their breathing, echoing against the empty walls of their living room. It’s a soft whisper of a sound, caressing them, softly working its way inside and warming their aching hearts.

Clarke tugs Lexa down catching her waist as she comes tumbling forward. Lexa is soft and hesitant, her arms trembling as she hovers over Clarke. She pulls her down, whispering words of love and promise against Lexa’s lips. When she promised Octavia they could try she never imagined her heart could hold this kind of love for another, but she’s astounded by its elasticity as it stretches to encompass the woman in her arms.

This is what a promise held feels like.

Octavia wraps her arm around Lexa pulling her more firmly on top of both of them as they trade off kisses and touches. Her hand finds Lexa’s and their fingers entertwine. The tender ache in her heart lightens. At the end of the day, she has her family, and she is loved, and it’s enough.

_______________________________________

Lexa wakes slowly, a mane of pale yellow curls in her face. Through the hair she can just make out the sunlight coming in the bay of windows in their room. Their room . A smile curls at the corner of her mouth and she wraps her arm more firmly around Clarke underneath the covers, her hand pressing flat against soft bare skin. Octavia shifts behind her, curling tighter against her back in her sleep so they’re shoulder to shoulder and hip to hip.

Her body aches with the feelings she’s trying to contain and everything that has happened. A tenderness blossoms in her chest, hope where there hasn't been for years warms her and in this quiet moment their future feels real. Clarke’s hair smells of lavender and she thinks that it may be her favorite smell and the way Octavia’s skin feels against hers is her favorite feeling. Nothing hurts and everything is soft.

Most of all she feels loved.

Her heart is healing, and if she touches the edges she can still feel the fear buried deep down, the pain that Costia left her with that she let grow until it took over her life. She built up her walls around that pain, keeping it in and keeping everything else out. Lexa dusts her fingertips across Clarke’s arm, tracing abstract patterns and memorizing the feeling of her skin. Her fingers flit over the tattoo peeking out from under Clarke’s arm, the edges of the ink marked on her ribs, a small butterfly for Octavia that Clarke had drawn herself. There’s a sunflower too, for Clarke, to remind herself that she’s important as well. Lexa runs the edge of her thumbnail over a butterfly wing and tries not to think about the sketch Clarke has been working on, a third tattoo that fits with the others, one symbolizing Lexa. She takes in a breath and closes her eyes feeling the rise and fall of Clarke against her front and Octavia against her back, and lets herself just be.

They haven’t stopped touching since Clarke pulled her down onto the couch, since the words slipped past her lips. I love you . Her heart flutters at the thought and she shifts, scooting down further between her girls, pressing more firmly against them as she replays each gentle caress from the night before. She’s home, for the first time in years, it feels like she belongs. Her breathing slips back into the slow steady rhythm of sleep and she nearly does as well when she feels Clarke shift in her arms, twisting until they’re face to face.

Clarke’s arm slips over Lexa’s bare waist and she presses closer, resting her hand on Octavia’s side. She can just feel the slight rise and fall of Octavia’s breathing. Opening her eyes slowly, her gaze brushes across the unchecked mirth evident on Lexa’s face. The walls Lexa hides behind are gone, and there’s a softening of her features, she smiles easier, bigger. Her eyes bright, searching and hopeful, lock with Clarke’s for a moment and Clarke wonders if this is it, if they’ve really figured out how to stay together and make this life work out.

She wants to stay wrapped up in this moment forever. It’s quieter out here, on the edge of downtown. Even though the sun has been up for a little while there’s no one yelling beneath their bedroom window. The sunlight seems less harsh. And for the first time in years she had enough space to sleep. This for eternity would be perfect. Clarke lifts her head from the pillow and leans forward slightly, “Morning,” she mumbles as she presses her lips to Lexa’s.

The kiss is unhurried, neither moving to make it anything more than a soft hello, as to not disturb the peace that descended on them overnight. Clarke hopes that they’re through the storm. That what happened last night with Bellamy will fizzle and he’ll come to his senses so they can tell him. That nothing will need to change, and they will all be alright. She presses closer to Lexa. Life lately has been ripe with surprises, most of them stemming from the other woman in their bed, and while she isn’t complaining about the outcome it would be nice if this peace lasted.

Clarke traces her hand down Lexa’s spine, revelling in the fine muscle she can feel just underneath her skin. This will always be her favorite place, having one of the women she loves in her arms. Maybe today they can just stay like this, unencumbered by the world. Lexa takes one of her hands, threading their fingers together as she presses Clarke onto her back, one leg sliding over Clarke’s as she shifts closer. Clarke grins into the kiss as Lexa nips at her bottom lip.

Maybe this will be enough.

Maybe she can keep from falling victim to her depression. She wants her life to be like this, late nights with friends, laughing and sharing time, and soft mornings with Lexa and Octavia, wrapped up together. Kisses that fade into more kisses with no more motive than to continue kissing. She doesn’t want to be the cause of their pain anymore. Clarke brushes her thumb across the back of Lexa’s hand where it sits in hers. Maybe she can find a way to heal.

Lexa presses more firmly on top of Clarke, her kisses less languid, more awake, but no more demanding than they were at the start. She revels in the feeling of their sleep warmed skin pressed together and the way she and Lexa are learning each other’s bodies. How they fit and how they don’t. Bumping into each other and missing cues, but finding each other.

Octavia’s voice is groggy and thick with sleep, “So, we’re y’all going to wake me up or just get it on while I slept less than a foot away.”

“You looked peaceful,” Clarke laughs and kisses Lexa’s nose.

“Very peaceful,” Lexa nods in agreement as she presses a lazy open mouthed kiss to Clarke’s lips.

Octavia shifts, coming to rest on her side, tucking her arm up under her head as she watches Clarke and Lexa dissolve into a beautiful mess of tangled limbs and giggles. She chews on her lip undecided if she wants to join or continue watching, because as happy as this moment is, as much as she wants to live in it, her heart is still aching. Bellamy is her family, he protected her when she needed it most, but he forgot along the way that she grew up. He never took the time to see the person she became or the family and the love she found, because she doesn’t know how he doesn’t see how important Clarke and Lexa are to her.

Lexa reaches out, sliding half off of Clarke, full of soft smiles and gentle laughter, and threads her fingers through Octavia’s hair, kissing her, demanding to be kissed. Octavia grins as she obliges, tasting Clarke on Lexa’s lips. She lets herself lose herself in feeling the kiss. The smooth warmth of Lexa’s mouth on hers, the heat of bare skin pressed together.

Lexa pulls back, “Morning, sleepyhead.”

“Waffles?” Octavia asks, hopefully, as her stomach rumbles.

“We’d have to unpack first,” Clarke reaches out and catches Octavia’s hand in her own.

“Maybe not waffles then.” Octavia pouts.

Lexa leans down again and presses a volley of kisses to Octavia’s face, “There’s no pouting in this bed.”

Octavia feels a laugh bubble up in her chest and push past her lips. Clarke presses into her side and Lexa leans her head on Octavia’s shoulder. For now, this moment, it’s everything.

Chapter Text

Clarke picks up the napkins on the hors d’œvres table and straightens them, placing them precisely back down next to the plates before making miniscule adjustments to the place cards in front of each chafer and tray. She had already made several sweeps around the gallery making sure everything was correctly labelled and priced, and needs something to do because nothing is out of place, but she can't shake the feeling that everything is going to come crashing down around her tonight. The feeling has nothing to do with the art and everything to do with the secret they've decided to stop hiding.

She feels a light touch on her arm and turns to see Octavia at her side, eyes hopeful behind smoky makeup and a confident smirk. Clarke’s gaze rakes down her body, taking in the the length of Octavia’s tanned legs exposed by small white dress shorts, and long sinewy arms left bare by a black halter top. Her breath catches in her throat. She resists the urge to pull Octavia into her arms. A smile spreads across her face and for a moment she calms. Tonight, no matter what happens, they're united.

“Your mom’s here.” Octavia doesn't quite meet her gaze as she nudges one of the place cards with a freshly manicured matte black fingernail.

“This is really happening, isn't it?”

“She's talking to Kane. She knows that we know that he knows.”

Clarke shakes her head trying to suppress a smile. “I guess it doesn't matter anymore.”

Octavia raises an eyebrow. She’s hesitant to hope that what they talked over in the few minutes before they left the house is real. She needs it to be real because tonight she doesn’t want to feel someone pull away from her, fear recoiling through them. Their love should give them confidence, not pause.

“All this hiding,” Clarke waves a hand dismissively. The longer they stay in the closet the more complicated it gets, the less she wants to continue doing it, if only it were really as easy as it seemed, deciding the time was now, that to. “We don't have to worry who knows or doesn't, anymore.”

A sly grin teases the corner of Octavia’s mouth as she takes a step closer to Clarke. She wraps her arm around Clarke’s waist and pulls her close to her side. For the first time since they started dating Lexa she doesn't have to worry about who is watching if she wants to hold someone’s hand or throw an arm around their shoulders. She isn't naive enough to think that just because they came to terms on coming out that the rest of the world will be okay with it, but she's proud of her girlfriends and she's tired of hiding.

“So you’re done being mad at me?”

Octavia cocks her head to the side, pressing her index finger to her chin in thought, grinning widely. “I haven’t decided.”

Clarke shoves Octavia playfully and moves towards the end of the table and the champagne, sweeping two flutes up and spinning back to face her girlfriend. They have bruised hearts to mend, starting now. Tonight is just the first step in a long journey, “As long as you’re by my side, and theirs.”

The champagne tickles her throat as Octavia takes a sip. She rocks back and forth slightly, shifting her weight, completely lost in the moment as she smiles at Clarke. She closes the space between them once more. “I like the sound of that.” Octavia leans in, her forehead resting against Clarke’s, closing her eyes and trying not to let the hope soaring in her chest burst free and take over. Her lips brush Clarke’s, smile pressing into smile.

She kisses her every day and somehow this feels like the first kiss in a lifetime.

Octavia pulls back, her fingers tangling with Clarke’s as she steps back. This is how they get to where they want to be, soft and easy. Who can fault them their love when it’s pure and kind, based on trust and choice? It would have been so much easier to walk away a hundred times but not one of them did. Deep down she knows not one of them could say they were not made better for the love that they’ve found in one another. She feels a calm happiness spread through her as Clarke smiles softly at her.

The reprieve only lasts a moment though as she hears someone approach.

“Kane!” Clarke squeezes Octavia’s hand but she doesn’t let go.

Octavia looks Kane over, cleaned up from this afternoon, dark slacks and a button up, freshly shaven. It’s possibly the nicest she’s ever seen him dressed in the two years Clarke has been working for him. A surge of pride runs through her. This really is Clarke’s big break.

“I thought you were bringing Lexa tonight?” His expression is as carefully guarded as his tone.

Clarke is quick to retort, “I see you’re bringing my mother.”

Kane glances away, his eyes searching out Abby across the gallery where she’s deep in conversation with Lexa and Raven. When he finds her his eyes light up and his face softens, as he turns back Octavia can see the hesitation, the fear that his feelings will not be accepted. “Is that going to be a problem?”

“No, just unexpected.” Clarke smiles, “She’s been happier lately. Maybe it’s time this family stopped keeping secrets.”

Octavia pulls Clarke a little closer, “Love shouldn’t have to be a secret.”

“I hope I make her happy. And the four of you, you are as well?”

“Very much,” Octavia grins as Clarke bumps their hips together. She catches the shy way Clarke looks at her, eyes flicking from their clasped hands to her face and back. It’s been too long since they allowed themselves to be carefree like this and it feels like a weight has been lifted. It’s like when they were younger and being in love was the only thing that mattered. It’s more intoxicating than the champagne on their tongues.

With her girls by her side Octavia feels invincible. She hopes they feel even a small portion of her confidence.

Clarke’s voice is quieter and much more serious when she breaks the silence. “You don’t think this will be a problem for the show tonight?” She sips on her champagne, hiding behind the gesture.

“Clarke, you are a talented artist. I wouldn’t have hired you otherwise. And your girlfriends are equally as impressive as you.”

“It isn’t your opinion I’m worried about.” Clarke rolls her eyes and crosses one arm across her chest, wrapping her hand around her elbow. She holds on to keep from crossing her arms completely not wanting to close herself off.

“People who come to art shows are people that like to be challenged. The people that will be here tonight will, largely, already be people who love your work, Clarke. Them finding out that you’re in a less than conventional relationship will probably only give them something to talk about, which keeps you in people’s minds.” Kane winks and raises his glass, “This is what we want. The more they talk about you the more your art sells.”

“But we don’t want people talking about… us .” Clarke takes a sip of her champagne and purses her lips, choosing her words carefully. “I want the discussion to be about my art.”

“You are your art, Clarke.” Kane takes a step and turns to look out at the rest of the gallery, “There’s Raven, there’s Lexa, there’s Octavia,” he points in turn to several of the paintings. “That one reminds me of Lincoln, and what’s the blonde woman, the one who owns the bar?-”

“-Niylah-”

“-that one is her.” He turns back to Clarke who is blushing slightly and Octavia can’t help but grin widely, heart surging with pride as she listens to Kane’s words. There may be a bubbling discussion about their relationship as the evening progresses, but the real topic of conversation will be in each of the canvases that are so clearly windows into Clarke’s heart.

“Even if someone can’t point to one of your paintings and name the influence, it’s there. You pour everything you are into your work, and they are all part of who you are.”

Clarke nods, taking in Kane’s words, trying to let them help calm her rapidly beating heart. She’s letting her head get away from her, trying to fight battles that she isn’t yet facing. Right now, everything is as close to perfect as it can be. She tries to wrap that feeling around her.

“Which pieces do you think will sell first?” Clarke launches back into business. That’s what tonight is about, at the end of the day, this is work, and she can’t let that get lost in her emotions.

Octavia leans into Clarke, pressing her face close to Clarke’s ear and whispering, “Come find us when you’re done talking shop.” She squeezes her arm tight around Clarke before slipping away, twirling a champagne flute between her fingers. The first few patrons were trickling in, friends, and friends of friends and it was now or never. She needed to know coming out tonight is what they’re really going to do or if one of them is going to back out. It won’t be her, and it won’t be Raven, but she’s worried Lexa will run like she has in the past. Too many times has Lexa let her fear of being hurt override her trust in them.

After two years she and Clarke deserve this much.

She walks up behind Lexa, taking in the sight of her upper back, exposed by the thin strapped black dress clinging to her. There’s a slit in her skirt up to the top of her thigh, as high as the one in Raven’s; her tanned leg is just barely exposed. Lexa has her hair is down, soft curls cascading down the middle of the back, hiding the tattoo peeking out from underneath her dress. Octavia bites her lip thinking about all the times she’s traced her fingers down the black and blue ink, feeling the muscle and bone underneath, from shoulder blades to the small of Lexa’s back, and lower to the soft curve of her ass. She reaches out, brushing Lexa’s hair off her shoulders, fingertips trailing over warm familiar skin, shoulder blades, shoulders, triceps, the hollow of the elbow on a straightened arm. She steps closer as her hand traces further down Lexa’s arm; she can feel Lexa tremble beneath her touch.

Octavia rests her chin on Lexa’s shoulder and feels just the slightest bit of tension eke out of her back. She turns her head, pressing a featherlight kiss to Lexa’s neck as to not leave a lipstick mark. Lexa leans into her and for a moment the room recedes down to just the two of them. No one else matters.

Octavia closes her eyes, steeling herself for the question she’s about to ask because she doesn’t want to go into tonight with blind hope. Too many times has she assumed everyone was on the same page and it’s had nearly disastrous results. Tonight is too important to Clarke for them to be making any sort of scene.

“We’re doing this, then?” Octavia whispers.

Lexa turns and takes in Octavia’s piercing gaze. It isn’t malicious, only truth seeking, and it’s a far cry from the pain in her eyes before they left. The scowl and the thinly contained anger. Lexa wants to wrap her arms around Octavia and take away the fear she knows is behind that question. The fear that once again Lexa will make them wait and set aside their feelings for the sake of hers.

She reaches out and links her pinky finger with Octavia’s, swinging their hands gently. “I promise you that we are.”

Octavia nods swiftly and smiles. It cracks through Lexa’s exterior, pushing at the walls she keeps up in public, and she feels a smile breaking across her face. Her heart flutters and she feels lighter even as she worries what coming out might bring. To see the happiness she can so easily give Octavia is more intoxicating than she imagined it to be.

“I am worried though. Not for this,” Lexa squeezes her finger where it’s still linked with Octavia’s, “But Raven mentioned earlier that Wick was back in town and looking for her.”

Lexa glances over her shoulder at Raven and Abby, laughing and lighthearted. She wants to hold onto this moment and make it last all night.

“Do you think he’s going to come after her again? That he knows where we live?”

“I don’t know. She didn’t say much and then we started fighting.” Lexa drops her gaze because in the chaos of managing four sets of feelings and reactions they hadn’t looked past what was happening right in front of them. Until they had a moment to step back and breathe and realizing that they were all still standing together, she had forgotten that her girlfriend’s stalker-ex had returned.

“He’s not getting to her this time.”

“No,” Lexa clenches her jaw, if he does anything at all she’ll draft the restraining order and carry it to the judge herself.

Octavia tugs on their tangled fingers and pulls Lexa close to her, tilting her head to press a quick kiss to Lexa’s lips. Lexa stiffens, reminding herself to breathe, to return the kiss, because she has no reason not to kiss Octavia back. They are done hiding, she reminds herself. Octavia rewards her with a contented sigh as she pulls away, and a smirk that is a promise of more to come later.

She could get used to this.

Guests have started to arrive. Mostly people Lexa doesn’t recognize, though several she does. Small time art buyers, people she’s helped Clarke talk to in the past. She nods to a couple of the clients from the firm where she works. The night has only just begun and there are quite a few people already here. It’s promising. Lexa straightens her back and bumps her shoulder against Octavia’s.

“It’s starting to look like a party in here.”

“Good, does that mean I can get another glass of champagne?”

“Only if you get me one t-” Lexa’s words falter as she spots her boss, the lead partner at Trikru Associates, walk through the front door. Indra cuts a striking figure, intimidating and beautiful, her dress wraps around her like the midnight sky, a shade lighter than her skin. She doesn’t waste any time searching out Lexa and making her way over, picking up a flute of champagne as she does.

By the time she’s standing in front of them Lexa has a small, perfunctory smile on her face. The brevity and comfort stripped from her even as she stays close to Octavia. She may never be ready for this moment, and she’s been putting it off for too long now.

Their hellos are polite and reserved. Lexa has only interacted with Indra on a few occasions outside of work and the uncertainty of the outcome of the interaction has her wavering where normally she would be assured and confident.

“This must be your partner,” Indra holds out her hand to Octavia as she looks to Lexa.

Lexa nods her head with a slow blink, her throat dry. She’s never been one to hide her sexuality, but admitting she is polyamorous feels like coming out of the closet all over again. Her heart thuds wildly in her chest and she swallows down her fear.

“One of them,” Octavia beams and grips Indra’s hand. “Octavia Blake.”

Indra raises an eyebrow but she returns the handshake without a question.

Octavia’s arm slides around her waist and Lexa lets out the breath she is holding as she feels Raven come up on her other side. As much as they’ve been saying tonight is it, this is the moment for Lexa, the one that could change her life or could just be another set of introductions quickly moved on from and forgotten, but Raven smiles at her as if there’s nothing to be afraid of.

Maybe there isn’t.

Raven leans forward slightly, extending her hand toward Indra. “Hi, I’m Raven, Raven Reyes. You must be Lexa’s new boss, she’s told us so much about you… all positive of course.” Raven laughs with a wink.

“Yes,” Indra glances from Raven to Lexa to Octavia and back to Lexa.

Lexa tears her gaze from the ceiling, her hands clasped loosely behind her back to keep them from trembling. Breathe in, breathe out, just keep going forward. It’s the only way through this. She reaches for Raven’s champagne flute and takes a sip, steadying her nerves before she tries to speak again. Because this is the moment. This is the moment she learns if she’ll lose everything she risked to keep her heart intact. When she meets Indra’s eyes again, she can’t read them, her expression impassive.

She clears her throat, “I should really introduce you to Clarke Griffin as well, I think she’s still speaking with Marcus.”

“You really are friends with the artist. I thought you might be bragging,” Indra almost smiles.

Lexa nods swiftly once, but deep in the back of her mind she can feel worry starting to bubble over because she still can’t get a read on how Indra feels about their admission. But this is Lexa’s truth and she doesn’t want to tarnish it by taking back her promise or running. Not tonight. “Yes, we know her intimately,” Lexa takes another sip of Raven’s champagne and hands the flute back, nearly empty. “I’m sure she would be quite pleased to speak with you about the pieces she has out tonight.”

“I was thinking to buy a new piece of art for the office. Do you have any favorites on display tonight?”

“Several, in fact,” Lexa smiles. She squeezes Raven’s hand as she steps out from between her and Octavia. “Clarke talks about them much more eloquently than I do, however. So I’ll let her show you.”

They cross the gallery quickly, few words passing between them, and Lexa reminds herself that it is normal for Indra to be quiet. She doesn’t speak often, instead choosing what she says with care. The silence isn’t a commentary on the reveal of the nature of her relationship.

She slides up next to Clarke, reaching out a hand to gently rest on the small of her back before she speaks, “Clarke, I wanted to introduce you to Indra, one of the partners at Trikru Associates.”

Clarke turns, stepping into the space beside Lexa, their shoulders brushing as she brings her arm up to sit on Lexa’s waist. She reaches out her hand, “Pleasure, Clarke Griffin.”

Indra’s grip is firm but Clarke doesn’t miss how her eyes flick quickly to Lexa before she turns her attention to Clarke. Her gaze is scrutinizing and Clarke can tell she’s putting all the pieces together. How she fits into the picture with Lexa, and Octavia, and Raven, because the hesitation in Indra’s eyes and Lexa’s proximity can only mean they’ve truly stopped hiding. Clarke smiles wider because there is nothing that she can do but be certain in this moment. Her heart and her happiness has been on the line too many times and she doesn’t want to let anything or anyone else take that away from her.

This is what she wanted, her girlfriends by her side, so she presses down the worry and instead takes comfort in Lexa warm and pressed to her side.

“You’ve started making quite a name for yourself in the art world,” Indra nods, just the barest hint of a smile around her eyes.

“I hope so,” Clarke smiles. “Otherwise this is going to be a very quiet evening.”

“Something tells me you won’t have a problem filling the house.”

“Clarke’s never had a problem finding buyers for her art.”

“Is that so?”

Lexa tries to suppress the smile trying to break free, “As long as I’ve known her it is.”

Indra quiets, intent on the champagne flute between her fingers for a moment. Clarke can feel Lexa tense beside her and she brushes her thumb in small circles on her back, trying to offer some comfort. The noise from the room washing around them in waves, bubbling excitement beating against the quiet cove where they stand, waiting to see which way the wind will blow, if it will bring with it a storm or clear skies.

“You mentioned a favorite, Lexa.”

“Yes, of course.” Lexa half turns to Clarke, “The Reflection.”

Clarke grins and steps away from Lexa, leading the three of them into the center of the gallery. “I knew you would be sad to see that one go.”

“Only because it makes me laugh.”

Clarke glances at Lexa out of the corner of her eye, wondering where her girlfriend is going to take this story.

“Every time I see it I’m reminded that you stood barefooted in the rain in the middle of the street for fifteen minutes while you prodded puddles. You were sick for like a week and wouldn’t admit to it.”

Lexa nudges Clarke with her shoulder and Clarke rolls her eyes. “I was not sick because I stood out in the rain. I teach tiny children, they’re like walking germ factories.”

Lexa snorts.

They stop in front of a medium sized canvas stained in purples and blues of the far off night sky, the heart of a galaxy or a nebula, reflected in a puddle. Someone reaching down, disturbing the surface while another figure does the same as if the solid reality is in fact the inverted world caught in the reflection of a puddle, drawing the curious to it. Who is this person that I see reflected instead of myself.

“It’s striking,” Indra takes a step back, settling herself in front of the center of the painting, watching it as if she is one of the figures trapped inside the question. She pries Clarke with questions and Clarke can’t tell if she’s talking Indra into or out of buying the painting. Clarke is almost certain that no one could talk Indra into anything she didn’t already want.

They talk for a short while, but Clarke finds a way to excuse herself, knowing that as much as she wants to stay by Lexa’s side… or Raven’s, or Octavia’s, tonight she is at work. By the time she has a chance to glance back out across the gallery it’s more than half full of patrons and she hasn’t said hello to even a quarter of them. She needs to start making her rounds before she gets so far behind she misses the opportunity to speak to someone important. Everyone is moving around already and it’s going to be nearly impossible to keep track of all the new faces and which ones she’s spoken to and which ones she hasn’t.

“Mom!” Clarke catches Abby as she passes by, “Could you find out when Kane wants to do the speeches?”

Abby turns her wrist to look at her watch, “I think he said in about half an hour. Does that still work?”

“Yes, and Mom?” Clarke lowers her voice and takes half a step closer. “You could have told me, if you’re happy I mean.”

Abby laughs, and it’s loud, drawing attention, but Clarke can tell from the joyous sound that her mother doesn’t care. “You know, I could have said the same to you a few times as well.”

Clarke sighs, and shoos her mother off, even if she is smiling, because this is it. This is happiness. Even with the nervous fluttering in her stomach, tonight is perfect. She’s lost in thought and doesn’t notice Raven approach.

“You don’t mind if I borrow the artist for a moment do you?” Raven smiles brightly, the twitch of her lips, mischievous. She takes both of Clarke’s hands in her own and pulls her away from the others, before anyone can respond. She walks backwards into the crowd, deftly weaving through them even as she keeps focused on Clarke. “You look like you could use a real drink.”

“You brought it?” Clarke’s eyes light up, Indra, and her mother, and the growing crowd already forgotten.

Raven waggles her eyebrows, “You doubt me, Clarke? I’m wounded.”

“Lexa is going to skin you alive.”

“Only if I let you get drunk.” Raven laughs and Clarke joins in as she’s tugged into the back hallway near Kane’s office out of view of the gallery floor and any interested eyes.

Raven wastes no time hiking up her long red skirt, the already impossibly high slit sliding even higher on her thigh to reveal a garter belt that holds a slim flask. Clarke’s eyes trail up Raven’s leg, the prosthetic she’s wearing tonight looks like metal spun into lace, silver and white filigree that looks too delicate to hold anyone up, but Raven had worked with a designer friend of Anya’s to create the limb and it’s as sturdy as the blades she uses to run. The toned muscle of her thigh is bare where it extends out of the prosthetic, and only the barest slip of skin is hidden by the red material of her skirt. Only for a few short inches hug her hips and waist exposing the bare toned plain of Raven’s stomach left visible by the white wrap of cloth pretending to be a crop top. She’s stunning.

Clarke lets out a long breath, watching Raven knock back a sip of what is most likely whiskey. She can’t help but stare because this moment, it’s just them, hiding in the back hall like a couple of teenagers sneaking off to drink and get up to shenanigans. For a moment nothing else matters and Raven is in front of her looking even more stunning than she does every other day. And it’s Raven that is the reason they are all here. It’s Raven that she has to thank for finally pushing them to the point where they aren’t afraid; they’re just in love.

“Earth to Griffin,” Raven holds out the flask and shakes it, a knowing grin gracing her lips.

Clarke takes the flask but she doesn’t take a sip. She instead leans forward, pinning Raven to the wall and crashing their mouths together, kissing her hungrily with teeth and tongue demanding notice. They’ll have to fix their lipstick, but she doesn’t care.

Raven laughs as she kisses Clarke back, her hands sliding around Clarke’s waist and underneath her white suit jacket, finding that she’s wearing nothing underneath.

“Just the jacket?” Raven nips at Clarke’s lower lip. “Isn’t that a bit risky?” She pulls back just enough to trail a finger down the plunging neckline of the jacket, brushing it along the side of Clarke’s breast until her finger hooks around the first button, tugging.

“Tape.” Clarke rolls her eyes. “There’s an inordinate amount of tape keeping me in place and my clothes on tonight.”

Raven grins wickedly, “That’s unfortunate.”

Clarke pins Raven against the wall with her hips, her hands trailing up Raven’s bare waist.

“So that’s what you and Lexa were doing in the bathroom for ages. O and I were taking bets on whether or not you were having makeup sex.”

“Sadly, no. Besides I think we would have needed one of you for that.” Clarke presses a softer kiss to Raven’s lips. She turns her head and takes a sip of whiskey from the flask. “Thank you.”

Raven raises an eyebrow, taking the flask back from Clarke for another sip. Clarke trades another sip before she continues.

“You’re the reason we made it. You’re the reason we’re still together, that it’s all worked out like this. Without you we might be happy, but we wouldn’t be happy like this, and-”

Raven cuts Clarke’s soft words short with a kiss of her own, hands tangling in Clarke’s hair. She could lose herself in the kiss, they could push their way into Kane’s office and onto the couch she knows is there. It’s tempting, the thought of laying Clarke down and slowly undressing her while everyone starts to wonder where they’ve gotten to. Raven presses her palms against Clarke’s shoulders and leans her head back against the wall with a rueful smile.

“We should get back to your party before you’re missed.”

Clarke leans in, chasing another kiss, but Raven stops her.

“When we get home,” she tugs at the top button of Clarke’s suit jacket. “I want to see exactly how much double sided tape it takes to keep you in this thing.” Raven leans forward, her lips brushing against Clarke’s ear, her voice drops down to a whisper, “Because it’s really fucking hot.”

Clarke whimpers slightly as Raven steps back, fixing her own lipstick with a swipe of her thumb and a cursory glance in the glass of a picture frame.

She stands up, straightening out the suit jacket and making sure all the buttons are still done up before she follows Raven’s lead and trails after her back out into the gallery and the throng of people.

Nearly everyone she knows has arrived. Clustered in front of the drinks table are her girlfriends, along with Lincoln, Anya, Jasper, Monty, and Niylah. Bellamy is nowhere to be seen, but that’s probably for the best. After the Christmas party she isn’t sure if they’ll be seeing him around much anymore. Not on purpose anyway.

“We’ve been looking for you!” Jasper opens his arms wide in excitement, and a laugh goes around the group because he’s clearly already taken heavy advantage of the free champagne.

Clarke shakes her head, unable to blame him. She licks the trace of whiskey on her lips, “Raven was helping me with the -”

“Clarke, babe, you’ve got a little bit of lipstick, right, uh, here,” Octavia winks and indicates a spot beneath her lip line.

Clarke rubs at her skin, trying not to meet anyone’s eye as she does.

Lexa steps up beside her, dipping the corner of a napkin in her champagne flute. “Clarke, you’re just making your skin red.” She presses two fingers under Clarke’s chin to lift her face and gently wipe away her smudged lipstick. The look on Lexa’s face is stern, but Clarke can see the tender mirth in her eyes. “Kane said something about doing all the official announcements and things soon.”

For a few moments a series of silent looks pass between the group. Raised eyebrows, small shrugs, nothing too attention grabbing, but just enough that Clarke notices their reactions, even with Lexa’s hands on her.

Lincoln breaks the silence, “Are you going to tell us about the change in plans or were we just supposed to figure it out like every other time?”

“Well, we figured since we’d trained you all so well, we didn’t actually have to say anything this time.” Raven shrugs smugly and leans against Octavia’s side, her chin resting on her shoulder.

Octavia reaches out and wraps an arm around Lexa’s waist.

Lexa slips her hand into Clarke’s.

“But I mean, if you need confirmation-” Octavia starts.

“We’re done keeping our relationship a secret.” Lexa says firmly.

“A toast, then.” Anya raises her champagne flute.

“To love,” Niylah holds up her glass.

“And friendship,” Monty adds.

“I’ll drink to that!” Jasper raises his glass.

“You’ll drink to just about anything,” Clarke jokes.

“True, but this means something.”

The clink of glasses echoes for a few moments and their circle is filled with laughter and smiles. The conversation continues on, as if there hadn’t just been some profound revelation. Love is stronger than fear. It’s a choice they all made together, and continue to make.

Before long Clarke slips away from her friends to greet the other guests. She would rather stay with them and drink and laugh, but for her, tonight is work, and she has to make each guest feel as welcome as her friends do.

She loses track of how many small insipid conversations she’s had about how lovely the evening is and how wonderful it is that such a young artist has made such a large name for herself already. She’s thankful when one of the waitstaff hands her another glass of champagne and wanders off without a word to catch a brief reprieve.

Clarke closes her eyes for a moment as she takes a sip of champagne. Her head is starting to feel fuzzy and she knows she should probably switch to water since they haven’t even made it through half the evening yet and more people are still arriving. Kane had procured the good champagne though for tonight, and she didn’t want to see it go to waste. She smiles to herself and shakes her head lightly. Everything about tonight is falling into place like it should.

For once everything is running smoothly.

“You look good tonight, Clarke.” Anya’s voice is low, and for once Clarke can’t hear the usually mocking tone Lexa’s sister saves for her.

“I was dressed by the best,” Clarke opens her eyes and raises her glass towards Anya. “Thank you.”

“I couldn’t have my sister standing beside you if you hadn’t been.”

Clarke rolls her eyes. Some things never change.

The door opens and a couple enters. Clarke recognizes neither of them but they look excited, and if their clothes are anything to go off of, they have money too. The brunette’s jewelry is easily worth what some of Clarke’s paintings are selling for tonight, and her dark, curly haired partner is wearing a cream silk summer dress. Clarke shakes her head, she’s been hanging around Anya too much.

She moves across the small space between where she stood and the gallery doors, hand extended, welcoming the two. The brunette shakes her hand.

“Hi, I’m Echo, and this is my wife-”

“-Costia?” Anya’s voice is a strangled squeak of surprise, and Clarke isn’t certain she’s ever heard the woman sound so uncertain.

Clarke spins, looking to Anya who looks as pale and uneasy as Clarke is starting to feel. The champagne bubbles fuelling the spinning in her head. This is Lexa’s Costia. This is the woman that was the girl that walked away from Lexa and left her shattered. She turns back slowly trying to mask the emotions running through her, keep them from spilling across her face.

Costia’s hand is still in Clarke’s and she knows she should let go but her brain is trying to catch up to the reveal.

Echo looks confused, clearly having no idea what they’ve just walked into. And Costia is wide eyed, shocked but, pleasantly so. A wide smile breaks across her face crinkling her freckled nose.

“Anya? Oh my god, is that really you?” She steps forward, letting go of Clarke’s hand and breaking the silence, her arms outstretched.

Clarke watches for a moment as she embraces Anya, and Anya returns the hug awkwardly. How exactly are you supposed to greet your little sister’s ex after she broke her heart so thoroughly?

Lexa .

Clarke searches frantically through the crowd for Lexa, the wave of sleek dark brown hair softly curled, but she hears the shattering of glass first, and that’s when she spots Lexa, standing by herself, open mouthed in the center of the room, broken glass at her feet, and thinly veiled terror riding in her eyes.

_______________________________________

All things considered the night has been going well.

Lexa sips slowly at her champagne, only keeping it for appearances and to give her hands something to do. Raven and Octavia had slipped off with the boys and she was making her way over to Clarke and her sister when the front door opened.

It takes her a moment. The tight brown curls, and soft warm brown skin, eyes bluer than a summer sky. She looks like not a day has passed, her arm loops through another woman’s. A tall brunette with high cheekbones. Lexa doesn’t spend long looking at her, only long enough to realize she’s beautiful before her attention turns back to the first woman. It’s been less than a second when her brain finally supplies the name she’s been trying to forget for eight years.

Costia .

The champagne flute slips from her fingers and she doesn’t try to catch it as she watches Costia hug her sister.

Her heart stops as the last time she saw Costia replays in her mind. The bounce of her hair as she walked away, shoulders rigid, as if she had been trying not to cry. Maybe Lexa had only hoped that were the case. She remembers the exact shape of the cluster of freckles under Costia’s left eye. And the way Costia’s laugh felt as it wrapped around her, warm and full of life. The kind of life you found at two in the morning on an empty stretch of road when anything was possible and you were infinite. Lexa tries to breathe in, but she can’t, she remembers how it felt to have that ripped from her. Costia walking away and taking every part of Lexa that wanted to live with her.

She remembers the desperate clawing feeling that ate away inside her as she tried to put her life back together, even as she was nothing more than an empty hollow shell of a human, the best part of her ripped out. She remembers calling and messaging Costia until Anya deleted any trace of contact information from her phone and social media. Fuzzy is the memory where she almost flew to Paris with no more plans than to sit on the steps of the Sorbonne and wait for a glimpse of light brown skin and blue eyes, with a cluster of freckles in the shape of an arrowhead underneath her left.

Lexa remembers what it felt like to love Costia, what it felt like to lose her, and for a second she remembers what it feels like to have her heart ripped out and tossed aside like it didn’t matter.

The glass shatters on the ground, splashing champagne across the concrete floor.

Chapter Text

Two months after they moved into their new house and bit by bit it’s slowly starting to feel like home; the three of them are starting to feel like they might have a life together. They’re settling into routines and finding out what it’s like to live together with space to breathe… and more than one bathroom… and enough closet space for all their clothes and then some. They don’t quite own enough to fill the house, but there’s something about the open expanse of space that feels right, they have room to grow.

Nothing in the last two months has prepared them for Anya though, or more specifically, nothing has prepared Octavia and Clarke for her. Now that they live with Lexa they see her a lot more often. Still the two of them aren’t quite sure why they’re out for coffee with her without Lexa. Clarke still isn’t sure if Anya even likes her.

Octavia shrugs at Clarke’s questioning gaze half hidden behind her cup of coffee. She knows just about as much as Clarke does about why Anya insisted on meeting them without Lexa. And currently that extends as far as the free coffee and muffins sitting in front of them. They’re waiting for Anya to get back from taking a phone call, because of course she asked to meet them and then makes them wait.

Anya makes Octavia nervous sometimes, but not as nervous as she makes Clarke, who is currently sipping on coffee like it’s a life line. Reaching out her foot she rubs her leg against Clarke’s under the table, and that at least earns her a small smile.

That small smile warms her heart, wrapping around it, making her burst with feelings. This past year has been hard but it’s little moments like this when she knows it’s all been worth it. She gets to see Clarke light up again, she gets to see her happy, and she gets to be a part of that, even if, at that very moment they’re wondering if their girlfriend’s big sister is going to tell them off like a couple of kids caught with their hands in the cookie jar.

Breaking a muffin in half she hands the top to Clarke. It’s her favorite part.

“What do you figure she wants?” Clarke glances out the window at Anya’s figure, thin enough to seem taller than she is, clad in a complicated forest green and sand colored wrap that doesn’t seem quite warm enough for the grey fall day. She takes a bite of the muffin top and wonders if they should alert Lexa to the meeting. Everything about meeting Anya without Lexa seems strange. This is new territory, a bit like everything lately.

“No clue,” Octavia says around a mouthful of pastry. “She hasn’t offered to overhaul your wardrobe yet though, so maybe she wants something from us?”

Clarke rolls her eyes. “What could we possibly do for Miss-I-own-my-own-fashion-company?”

“For starters, you can agree to what I want,” Anya says as she slides into the empty chair at the table.

Clarke sucks in a deep breath in surprise and Octavia nearly chokes on her muffin. Neither of them had heard the bell on the bakery’s front door.

Octavia coughs and bangs her fist against her chest. She shoots Clarke a look, how the hell did Anya get back inside without them noticing? Clarke offers up a nearly imperceptible shrug and presses her shin against Octavia’s calf. Whatever it is, united front. They can face their girlfriend’s sister, however intimidating she is.

“And what would that be exactly?” Octavia asks.

Anya picks up her coffee and takes a sip, straightening her back, folding and re-folding a napkin for a moment as if she’s weighing her options. “I have something I want to give Lexa as a housewarming gift, but I’m going to need both your permission and your help to make it happen.”

Octavia shrugs without looking away from Anya when she feels Clarke’s gaze flick to her. What could Anya possibly be planning to give Lexa that would require their permission? Unless it was something to do with the house.

“What is it exactly?” Clarke breaks the silence.

“Our parents’ piano. A baby grand, to be exact. Nothing too ostentatious.” Anya shrugs with a tilt of her head.

Clarke and Octavia stare at her wide eyed.

When they don’t respond Anya continues with a small sigh. “She stopped playing when Costia left, something about how she couldn’t enjoy it anymore, but after she decided to move in with the two of you she sat down at the piano again.” Anya pauses and takes a sip of her coffee, her eyes downcast. “I thought she should have it… I haven’t seen her this happy in years.” When she looks back up her eyes are glossy.

Octavia isn’t sure she’s ever seen this much emotion from Anya before. Mirth, amusement, annoyance, but nothing that bordered on deep seated feelings. She is even more guarded than Lexa had been in that regard. If Anya has a soft spot though, it’s clear that it’s Lexa.

“Well, we have the room,” Clarke knocks back the rest of her coffee, trying to keep her own eyes dry, knowing that they’ve had such a profound effect on Lexa makes it hard. “Now the trick is, how do we get it into the house without Lexa finding out.”

_______________________________________

Clarke snuggles down further into the couch her head resting on Lexa’s thigh, a sketchpad propped on her knees, and her toes tucked up under Octavia’s thigh. She can feel them both gently breathing, the rise and fall of each inhale and exhale. For a moment she just wants the peace of this afternoon to stretch on forever, a calm quiet bubble of love and comfort. Clarke sketches Octavia absentmindedly as she naps and Lexa reads.

Days like this don’t happen often enough, but now that they’re living together they’ve started to happen more often. The soft moments where they’re just together and doing their own thing, sharing their lives without expectation.

Clarke nudges Octavia with her foot as she tilts her head back and pokes Lexa with the blunt end of her graphite pencil. They still haven’t put in motion their half of Anya’s plan and Anya is making arrangements to move the piano next weekend. She smiles up at Lexa as Lexa glances down at her.

“We should have a house warming party now that we’re all moved in.”

A worry line creases Lexa’s forehead just for a moment before it vanishes and she runs her fingers through Clarke’s hair. “Everyone’s already seen the place,” she murmurs, turning back to  her book.

Octavia sits up, shifting so she’s laying across Clarke’s shins, her arms resting on Clarke’s knees, her chin on her arms. “Yes, but they haven’t seen it in all its glory. You and Clarke did amazing. Even your freaky little plants are happy. Besides we have to have everyone over so tha-” Octavia’s words die as Clarke shoots her a withering look. The piano is supposed to be a surprise. She bites the inside of her cheek, now that she’s said nearly said it, it’s the only thing she can think to talk about.

“And it’ll be nice to have everyone around before the holidays and everything gets crazy.” Clarke turns her head and presses a kiss to Lexa’s thigh.

Octavia pushes out her bottom lip and looks up at Lexa through long lashes.

Lexa rolls her eyes, knowing this is a losing battle. It isn’t that she doesn’t want their friends to come over, it’s just that home is the one place they can just be together like this, and if everyone is over she was to pretend she’s just another friend and not falling madly in love. “Alright, who do we invite?”

Clarke and Octavia start spitting out names.

“Lincoln.”

“Niylah.”

“Anya.”

“Raven.”

It doesn’t take them long to exhaust their list of close friends.

“What about your brother, O?” Lexa asks carefully. They haven’t talked much about Bellamy since the day they moved in, only seen him once on a night out with everyone. She tries not to reach for her wrist, still able to feel where he had grabbed her.

Octavia whines slightly and pouts harder. “I suppose we have to invite him. He’ll make a fuss if we don’t.” She reaches out and squeezes Lexa’s knee. “If that’s okay with you?”

“Yeah,” Lexa smiles tight lipped and nods. He isn’t her favorite person, but he’s Octavia’s family, and family is important. “We just have to be careful,” Lexa says, a slight waver in her voice. The last thing she wants to do is make the already tenuous relationship worse, but any hint of anything between the three of them beyond friendship is bound to set Bellamy off again, especially if it’s between her and Clarke.

Clarke tosses her sketchbook to the table and sits up taking Lexa’s book and gently laying it open on top of it. She shifts so she’s sitting in Lexa’s lap and Octavia scoots across the couch nestling with her back against Clarke’s legs. They’re pressed into the corner of the couch, a pile of bodies and limbs, warm with late afternoon lethargy.

Pressing her nose against Lexa’s neck, Clarke snuggles closer even as she reaches out for Octavia. “We don’t have to be anything we don’t want to be.”

“I wish that were true,” Lexa whispers. She tugs Octavia closer so she can wrap her arms around both of them as she tries to push away the fear and sadness that threatens to overwhelm her. If only it were as easy as just being together. If it were as easy to tell people that you’re in love with more than one person as it were to say that person has the same gender as you. Even then, that can be the most difficult thing.

Octavia kisses Lexa’s shoulder and sits up a little straighter, “Why can’t we just tell our friends? Anya knows. I think Raven knows, she’s just waiting for us to say something first.”

“The more people that know a secret the less of a secret it becomes,” Clarke murmurs.

“And I can’t have anyone at work find out, I’ll never find a job at a private firm.” Lexa adds. “Besides, I’ve seen the way some of the guys on the force treat you already. The way they talk to Lincoln about you. You can’t want that to be worse than it already is.”

Octavia straightens, and pulls Lexa’s hand into hers rubbing her thumb across the palm. She kisses her fingertips. “I’d take it all on if it meant I could be proud of you, and us, out loud.” She can feel it bubbling inside her, the need to be who she is, and who she is may not be someone that everyone can accept, but it’s someone she’s proud to be. Octavia leans over and kisses Clarke’s cheek. “I love you, I love both of you,” the words are quiet but steady. “I don’t want to have to hide how I feel.”

“I’m not ready,” Lexa whispers. She watches Octavia’s face fall and her heart aches and cracks with the weight of the pain that sadness causes. She wishes she could take back the words and make them untrue, but she would be hurting herself.

Clarke pulls Octavia against her. “The world is crueler than we like to think it is. I don’t want them tearing us apart.”

“Neither do I,” Octavia says.

“One day,” Lexa starts. “One day we’ll all be ready. Maybe we’ll tell everyone, maybe we’ll only tell a few people. But until that day that doesn’t mean I’m any less in love with you.” Lexa’s hand shakes as she brushes her knuckles against Octavia’s cheek. Every admission of feeling leaves her feeling vulnerable and raw, but she knows she’s safe wrapped up in their arms.

Clarke kisses Octavia’s forehead. “For now, we keep this to ourselves.”

“What if someone finds out?”

“Hopefully it’s someone we trust,” Lexa says.

“If we trust them, why don’t we just tell them?”

“Because this isn’t about them, it’s about us,” Clarke replies.

Octavia settles down in between her girlfriends, finding it hard to truly be upset when she can feel their beating hearts, the gentle rise and fall of their breath. She closes her eyes and tugs at the blanket on the back of the couch, pulling it over the three of them. This is a start, a promise, hope that one day she won’t have to hold her love quiet inside her. She’s never really enjoyed  keeping secrets or keeping quiet, even if she’s learned how to. She doesn’t know how much longer she can not love them out loud. She had hoped that maybe once they were settled in the new house things would change; her heart aches with the secrets it holds.

“As long as we always come home to this,” she whispers.

“Always.”

_______________________________________

Raven looks up from where she’s lounging on Anya’s couch, which is exactly where she’s been most of the morning. Anya sets a mug of coffee down on the table within arm’s reach and goes back to pacing around her no longer pristine living room. Tarps have been spread across the hardwood floors and furniture has been moved to form a clear path to the front door. There’s a pile of padding and straps in place, the movers just needed a few more tools to dismantle the piano.

She had come over early to help Anya prep her apartment, having somehow gotten talked, yet again, into helping people move things. They needed to stop promising her beer and food. She’s too easily swayed into helping her friends.

Raven slips her prosthetic off. Her nub has been bothering her despite not having done much today, and she proceeds to massage what remains of her left leg from a lab accident in college. Lately, more often than not she’s been having problems with it, too much movement in the socket. She knows her skin is red underneath her jeans and there isn’t much she can do right now about it, not without taking her pants off, but she and Anya aren’t quite at that level of friendship yet. Besides the piano movers will be up any moment to get the piano.

Grunting, she sits up and reaches for the coffee.

Anya pauses in front of her floor to ceiling windows and taps her foot impatiently. Raven can tell she’s itching to put things back in their places.

“Maybe you should have made these Irish coffees. You need to chill.” Raven shakes her head as Anya completes another lap around her apartment.

“I am perfectly… chill.” Anya huffs and sits down in her chair. “It just looks like a wrecking crew came through in here.”

“They’ll put it back together once they get the piano out.”

“Your job this afternoon is to help Clarke keep Lexa out of the house until Octavia or I send the all’s clear.”

“You got it.” Raven tosses back half of her coffee. “One question, why do you need me? Octavia will be helping you get the piano in place, and Clarke can take care of distracting Lexa.”

Anya looks up at Raven through half lidded eyes over her mug. The two of them had been up unbelievably late last night discussing life, the universe, everything and nothing. At one point they had debated pizza toppings and whether anchovies and pineapple were valid options - not together of course - but in theory.

Raven sips her coffee and closes her eyes. If there’s one thing Anya can do in the kitchen, it’s make coffee. It puts the burnt sludge she gets for free at work to shame. This moment feels like peace and a little bit like a quiet moment at home. Her heart aches at the thought. It’s been too long since she’s been home, but she doesn’t know how to go back. She has something now though, these new friendships, budding and fragile. She has… something.

“Maybe I just want you here because I enjoy your company,” Anya mutters, sounding vaguely annoyed about the entire idea.

“Then shouldn’t I stay and help you and Octavia clean?” Raven sticks her tongue out and squints at Anya.

“I didn’t say I liked it that much.”

_______________________________________

“Are you ready?” Clarke calls from the kitchen.

Lexa glances around her book, even though she can’t see Clarke from where she’s lounging on the couch, half napping, half engrossed in the book she’s been trying to read all weekend but has barely touched between Clarke and Octavia debating rearranging the living room approximately six times. She still doesn’t understand exactly why the furniture needs to be rearranged. If they want people to get a sense of their house they shouldn’t be moving things around – her argument got lost somewhere between heated whispers exchanged between her two girlfriends, the only word of which she’d been able to make out was her sister’s name.

She could tell there was some kind of plan afoot, but she didn’t want to call Anya and ask only to see Anya take out the spoiled surprise on Octavia who is practically vibrating with excitement. The house party was clearly a cover for something. The question was what exactly. Octavia had been avoiding her all week, nearly let something slip when they asked about having the party, it didn’t take a lot of energy to figure out that there was something, surprisingly she had no inclination as to what it might be.

Clarke pokes her head around the wall separating the kitchen from the rest of the downstairs, one eyebrow raised, a glass of water in hand. Lexa groans into her book and lets it fall to her face. She’s just about at the climax of the story and she doesn’t want it interrupted, even if she promised she would go out and help pick up the last of the supplies for the party.

“Are you sure you need me? Isn’t Raven going with you?” Lexa stretches, it’s the weekend and for once she just feels like being lazy.

“Yep! She and Anya will be here any minute, so we’ve got to be ready to go.”

“Shouldn’t I stay and help Octavia clean? We know Anya won’t do much but point out what needs to be done.”

“Maybe she’ll offer to call in her maid,” Octavia quips, coming into the living room from upstairs.

“Raven and I need you with us,” Clarke says decisively as she pulls on her shoes.

“You should go, Lexa,” Octavia insists. “I can handle cleaning – and your sister. Besides they’ll need someone who can carry things.” She leans over and kisses Lexa’s forehead, grinning.

Lexa sighs and marks her page in her book before tossing it onto the coffee table. She tugs Octavia down for another kiss nearly pulling her over the back of the couch. Octavia falls against the back, bumping her forehead against Lexa’s.

“Someone seems eager.”

“Someone seems eager to get me out of the house,” Lexa teases, prodding, seeing how easy it is to break Octavia’s resolve, and get her to spill the secret.

“It's just, we, uh,” Octavia stumbles over her words, staring into Lexa's eyes. She just wants to tell her, see her light up with excitement, and get to experience one more part of her girlfriend. In all the time they had been together Lexa hasn't talked much about her childhood or the things she did growing up. There is nothing Octavia wants more than for Lexa to trust them with her story. Then again, she can't blame her for not talking about her past. Octavia has her own terrors.

“You should go with Clarke,” she whispers against Lexa’s lips.

“So persuasive, detective.” Lexa murmurs, smiling, her fingers curl around the collar of Octavia’s flannel. “You know that I know that you’re up to something.”

“We’re throwing a party, of course I’m up to something, excellent cross-examination councillor.”

Lexa sighs and kisses Octavia, chastely, one more time before nudging her back towards standing. She trusts her girls and she trusts her sister, whatever they have planned can’t be that terrible. Octavia smiles down at her and she entwines their fingers together. Soft green eyes meet and Lexa lets the rest of her worry melt away. Tonight, after all is said and done she gets to go upstairs with her girls, gets to hold them close; she can let them go for a few hours while the others are here.

With Octavia still hovering over her she doesn’t notice the front door open, or Anya and Raven enter, bags in hand. She doesn’t notice until she feels Octavia freeze under her fingertips, as they set the bags down heavily on the dining room table, and Clarke stammers from the kitchen.

“Guys? We’ve got company.”

“Hey sis,” Anya says brightly.

“Hey.” Raven adds, glancing away from the living room and what she knows was an intimate moment she wasn’t supposed to be privy to. She catches Clarke’s eye on accident and Raven can see the truth written on her face. Her first instinct that the three of them were together was nothing short of the truth. A secret truth. Raven watches and waits, she knows all too well how difficult atypical relationships can be.

Lexa’s heart pounds, flooding her ears. Her breath comes in short gasps. Her grip tightening on Octavia’s hand. Raven came over with Anya. Their secret feels like it’s slipping out of her hands, one person could easily become more, and if it got back to work it could stall out her career before it even started. They had to be more careful.

She can feel the carefully constructed life she’s building crumbling around her, see the things she believes in ripped away from her. This secret of theirs. This marvelous, wonderful, beautiful secret of theirs could ruin their lives and she’s afraid of it.

Lexa closes her eyes wishing she could go back in time just a few moments, wondering what happened to her stoic resolve and vigilance. For years she would never have been caught in anything quite so compromising, not if she didn’t want to be… but being with Octavia and Clarke, her world narrows down to just them.

Her head spins.

There’s a creak and a shift as Octavia crawls over the back of the couch. Knees crash against knees as Octavia half falls, half curls up next to Lexa, holding onto her tightly to keep from sliding off the couch. Lexa grunts with the sudden weight of her girlfriend on top of her.

“It’s just Raven,” Octavia whispers. “This will be okay. We’re in this together.”

Lexa nods and breathes out.

Clarke glances to the couch. She can just make out Lexa trying to hold back tears as Octavia whispers to her, nose pressed to cheek, fingers brushing lightly through her hair. When she looks back up to Raven it’s with fear in her heart, tendrils of it wrapping around her throat. They decided to keep quiet. It isn’t time. Not ready for even their friends to know because secrets are volatile things, completely uncontrollable. Her mother knows, Anya knows… and now Raven knows. Raven who is looking at her like she doesn’t see the need for the panic, who they barely know but seems so nonplussed by the whole reveal that she might as well have already known.

“Octavia and I…” Clarke’s throat is dry. Coming out to her mother had been one thing, nerves running high because she needed to be accepted, but this is all about hoping her gut instinct is real. “We’re both dating Lexa.” She shoves her hands into the back pockets of her jeans and waits.

Raven smiles, at first it’s soft, just a sparkle in her eyes, but when Clarke returns it, her face lights up, and she laughs lightly, dark amber eyes crinkling as she tilts her head. She looks from Clarke to Lexa and Octavia, a curious, almost sad look in her eyes.

She breathes out before grinning wide. “I thought there might be something between you all. I think it’s wonderful.”

Octavia stands up and tugs Lexa with her toward the the kitchen, as they both brush unshed tears away.

“Thank you,” Lexa says quietly as she catches Raven’s eye. Raven dips her chin, a small nearly imperceptible nod, as they hold each other’s gaze. An understanding passes between them. This is private, sacred, and more than anything Lexa is scared what may come of it, but there’s something in the way Raven looks at her that calms her frazzled nerves.

Octavia stands halfway between her girlfriends resisting the urge to reach out for them both. “We decided we’re not quite ready to tell anyone else yet. Anya already knew… and the only other person we’ve told is Clarke’s mom because she helped us with the house...”

“So I’m in on a secret then?” Raven’s grin is infectious and wild.

“You’re incorrigible, Reyes.” Anya rolls her eyes.

“Don’t worry, my lips are sealed. “ Raven winks.

_______________________________________

An hour and a half and two stores later and Raven, Clarke, and Lexa are nearly done with the errands Octavia and Anya sent them on. Octavia had conveniently forgotten to do any of the errands she’d promised to get to after work and so they were left picking up nearly everything for the party. Which is exactly what Anya had needed them to do.

Now that they were out of the house though, they’re trying to cheer Lexa up. Which is increasingly difficult because Clarke just wants to go into girlfriend mode, but out in public that is the last thing she can do with Lexa, especially after they accidently came out to Raven, who thankfully, at least seems entirely unbothered by the entire reveal. As if she thinks three women dating is the most natural thing.

If only more people saw the beauty in love and didn’t get caught up so much in the logistics of who.

Raven tosses a bag of chips to Clarke, “What about these ones? I figure with the guys they’ll want a few kinds. Too bad we can’t sort out having a bar-b-queue on that back porch. Next summer is going to be amazing if you guys start having regular shindigs.”

Catching the chips, Clarke waits for Lexa to catch up to them with the cart. “Right. Even though it’s cold I wanted to, but now it’s raining… and we still haven’t bought a grill. What do you say, Lex? Bar-b-queue parties this summer?”

Lexa looks up as she hears her name. Her gaze has been fixed somewhere in the vicinity of the cart and she hasn’t been paying attention for a while. Not really. She’s been thinking they need rules in place, maybe starting with an always locked front door. At least then Anya will have to deal with getting her keys out and they’ll have a moment of warning if they’re in the living room to decouple.

It would be easier if they could just tell their friends, but she’s afraid if they do, if they let themselves be comfortable in front of the others that they’ll slip up in public. That one of their friends will forget and out them. Deep down she’s afraid they’ll lose someone important. And as much as she dislikes him she’s afraid that person will be Octavia’s brother.

“Earth to Lexa.” Clarke falls into step next to Lexa. “We’re going to be okay,” she whispers before continuing at a normal volume, “What do you think about getting a grill and we can have bar-b-queues all summer.” Clarke grins and catches another bag of chips from Raven.

“We can’t let that epic back porch go to waste when we actually get some sun in this city!” Raven laughs.

Lexa rolls her eyes, but there’s a hint of a smile at the corner of her mouth. “Do I get a choice?”

“Of course, you can help us pick out which grill we buy.”

Clarke’s phone vibrates in her pocket. Three text messages in a row, she can tell from the pattern of it.

Octavia, with an SOS.

Raven and Lexa talking about the best grill options fades into the background as Clarke checks her phone.

Octavia 2:55pm: Can you keep Lexa out another hour?

Octavia 2:55pm: this is a mess. but... it’ll be okay? Fuck.

Octavia 2:56pm: dudes had to take the front door off the hinges

Clarke 2:56pm: how the fuck? How big is this?

Octavia 2:56pm: I can’t believe this is a baby one. surprise in place tho. house not so much

Octavia 2:57pm: Anya is cleaning

Clarke 2:57pm: damn

Clarke 2:58pm: k. gotta cheer Lex up anyway.

Octavia: 2:58pm: how bad did I fuck up?

Clarke 2:58pm: this not your fault. she’ll come around, just be vigilant at the party yeah? even you and me. if one person is there that doesn’t know…

Octavia 2:59pm: got it

Clarke 3:00pm: she’s just so scared about her job

Octavia 3:00pm: i know

Octavia 3:00pm: i don’t want to ruin this. i keep fucking up

Clarke 3:01pm: we’ll get through this, okay? she’s with us. we’ll work through it

Clarke 3:01pm: see you in a hour

While Clarke had her head buried in her phone, paused in the middle of the chip aisle, Raven and Lexa had wandered further on, checking items off their shopping list and waiting for her to catch up. The conversation about grills had quickly fizzled into an amicable silence, but Lexa couldn’t help but feel that she was the reason the conversation ended.

The heavy weight of fear in her heart wouldn’t let go.

“Lexa?” Raven’s voice is cautious and she isn’t quite looking at Lexa, but looking ahead and keeping an eye on her out of the corner of her eye.

She makes a noncommittal questioning sound and leans forward onto the push bar of the shopping cart with her forearms. Taking a step she sets a foot on the bottom rack of the cart and pushes off with her other foot. Raven reaches out and steadies the cart in a straight path, gently coaxing the cart along further than it would have gone alone.

“I won’t tell anyone.” Her hand tightens around the edge of the cart and she slows it to a stop as she turns to face Lexa. She’s met with wide eyes and a blank expression but she can still read Lexa. The fear threatening to turn into pain that is thrumming through her. Raven takes a step closer, even though she isn’t sure why. “This isn’t my secret. It’s yours and Clarke’s and Octavia’s. I’d kind of be a terrible friend if I didn’t keep it.” She tilts her head to the side and smiles softly.

Lexa returns the soft smile and something inside her warms. “I appreciate this, Raven. We’re just not at a place where we’re ready for everyone to know.”

“Even though you live together?”

“Even so.”

Raven places a gentle hand on Lexa’s arm and gives it a slight squeeze. “You aren’t the only ones who have loved more than one person at the same time. I know how hard it can be.”

The look that passes over Lexa’s face is for a moment quizzical but quickly understanding. Of all their friends to have found them out, perhaps it was for the best that Raven learned about them first. She has a hundred questions, but now is neither the time nor the place, and their friendship is only just beginning.

_______________________________________

Raven reaches the door first and turns to look at Lexa. Clarke is still in the driveway wrestling the car doors shut as she juggles the last of the bags from their shopping trip. But Raven isn’t paying attention to Clarke, she’s looking at Lexa.

She had something to ask, but turning around and finding herself eye to eye with Lexa gave her an answer. Lexa knows there’s something waiting for her behind her front door, more than just her other girlfriend and her sister. Raven ducks her head and breaks eye contact, not sure what the rising feeling in her chest means. She shakes her head and chalks it up to nerves.

The front door swings open easily and they’re met with quiet. Anya is curled into one of their chairs with a book, her feet propped on the ottoman. Octavia is sprawled on the couch, the tv turned on low, and she’s playing the new Tomb Raider game. Raven calls out a hello and heads toward the kitchen to set down her bags.

The dining table has been moved to the nook between the kitchen and the pantry to make room for the piano in the center of the downstairs. It sits in front of the windows and the sliding glass door that lead out to the patio. The baby grand is a dark mahogany, nearly black, polished to an impossible shine, a dark mirror that drinks in the light of the room and reflects it back all at once.

Raven hears a gasp behind her and Lexa tightening her grip on the grocery bags.

“Anya?” Lexa whispers.

She can’t quite process the sight in front of her. Their parents’ piano, the one she’s barely touched in years is sitting in her living room. The piano that had been the first thing that made her feel like she was home, the thing that made Anya’s place feel like home after their parents had died. All of that was wrapped up and sitting in her living room. She clutches the grocery bags in her arms tighter crushing the chips. Of all the things she thought might be a surprise today, this is not one that had crossed her mind.

Her little planet plants spin lazily in the windowsill next to the piano.

“I thought it’s time you finally had it,” Anya barely glances up from her book, but Lexa can tell her sister is watching her every move intently.

Lexa isn’t sure where to go first, to the table to put the bags down or if she should move to the piano.

The piano that means home.

That this is her home now.

She looks at Anya again, trying to comprehend how Anya always seems to know how she feels long before Lexa understands it herself. Anya had always said, that for those she cared for, Lexa wore her heart on her sleeve.

Raven takes the bags from her gently and when Lexa looks towards her she’s smiling and nods quickly toward the piano.

“Did you know?” Lexa whispers.

Raven grins. “Who do you think held Anya’s hand while they made a mess of her apartment getting that beauty out of it?”

“You did not hold my hand while-” Anya sputters.

Raven hums. “If you say so.”

Lexa runs a hand gently over the keyboard cover before lifting it. She touches the keys without making a sound. “Does it need to be tuned?”

“It’s not too far out,” Anya says. “I have a tuner coming by later this week to see if it needs to be retuned because of the move. I’ve been maintaining it, so honestly it should be fine.”

Lexa looks up from the piano, still in awe. Octavia walks toward her slowly, hand in hand with Clarke. They both look nervous. “Is it okay that we said yes?” Octavia asks, almost timid.

And then Anya is there, wrapping her arms around Lexa’s shoulders. Lexa leans back against her sister. The girl who had no reason to protect her, to fight for her, but did every step of the way. Their entire life Anya’s been watching out for her, ensuring that she feels like she has a home at the end of the day. That no matter what happens she feels loved.

No matter who else comes in and out of her life, she will always have her sister, their bond is thicker than blood.

Lexa turns in Anya’s arms and embraces her, whispering quiet thanks against her ear. She inhales and sniffles, trying not to let the tears in her eyes fall.

“Hey, now, none of that,” Anya murmurs and moves Lexa to arms length to look at her. “The piano has always been yours, I was just waiting for you to realize that.”

Lexa nods rapidly and turns back to her girlfriends realizing she never answered Octavia’s question. “It’s very much okay. Thank you.”

“You know, you never told us you could play piano.” Clarke teases and leans her head on Octavia’s shoulder, wrapping her arms around her waist. She rocks them back and forth slightly as Octavia leans into her.

Lexa rolls her eyes and settles fluidly down onto the piano bench. “Well, you never told me you could sing either.” She tilts her head, more challenge than motion. Two can play this game. “I’ve heard you sing in the shower.”

Clarke shakes her head and settles more solidly against Octavia. “Nuh-uh. Singing in the shower doesn’t count.”

“The way you sing it does,” Octavia nudges Clarke and kisses the top of her head. “Now you have accompaniment.”

“Who says I’m singing?” Clarke straightens up but doesn’t step away.

“Come on, Clarke, entertain us. It’ll still be a bit before the others get here.” Raven coaxes. She doesn’t want to intrude on the moment, but she can’t help but want this for them. The way she sees Lexa break open with her family and her loves surrounding her, the wonder and awe in glistening eyes. All Raven wants is all of them to know that what they share, that secret, is safe with her. That she cherishes being witness to her friends’ happiness, even as it makes her heart ache that she may never find something this beautiful for herself.

Raven pulls a chair from the kitchen table closer and spins it around to straddle it backwards. She watches as Anya slides onto the piano bench next to Lexa and whispers something to her. Octavia pulls Clarke close for a gentle kiss and a quiet word. They part with a squeeze of their hands. Octavia sinks to the floor, leaning back on her hands; Clarke takes a tentative step toward the piano and Lexa.

For a moment she feels like an outsider, but Octavia glances in her direction and smiles, and Raven remembers that these people consider her a friend as she does them.

Lexa plays a slow series of chords. They’re familiar at once and Raven doesn’t quite place them. Then she switches, another series of notes, all at once familiar, before she changes again. Raven realizes Lexa’s playing songs from memory.

“So what will it be?” Lexa asks, looking up at Clarke.

“What do you know?”

“She can play nearly any song she’s ever heard more than once.” Anya says, and there’s pride in the way she looks at Lexa. Raven’s heart aches, remembering what it was like to have her family around her, supporting her. She settles down further into her chair.

Lexa dips her chin looking down at her hands on the keys, a thin blush creeps across her cheeks.

“Seriously?” Octavia asks.

Lexa shrugs and tries to keep from smiling, but she plays the first few chords of one of the songs Octavia practically has on repeat in the gym they’ve set up in one of the spare rooms.

“I guess the question is, what songs do you know, Clarke?”

“I suppose you know my repertoire as well as I do.”

Lexa smiles, and it transforms her face. The cold beautiful stoicism melts away, becoming playful and warm. Her hands dance across the keys playing an introduction, one eyebrow raised as she waits for Clarke’s approval.

Raven crosses her forearms on the back of the chair and leans her chin on them.

Clarke nods and it seems for a moment Clarke and Lexa exist only for each other as the music spills out of Lexa’s fingertips. At first Clarke’s voice is soft, quiet, as if she’s not quite sure, but Lexa nods to her and her voice gets stronger, low and raspy in ways Raven didn’t expect. Clarke turns to Octavia who is grinning as she watches and listens.

It’s evident the love they hold for each other. The gentle support and the way they look at each other like the only moment that matters is the one they’re in together.

Raven lets the song wash over her.

Settle down with me
And I'll be your safety
You'll be my lady
I was made to keep your body warm
But I'm cold as the wind blows so hold me in your arms
My heart's against your chest, your lips pressed to my neck
I'm falling for your eyes, but they don't know me yet

She rolls her eyes, because only could these girls make her heart sore over a love song not meant for her. Raven tries not to think about the loss and brokenness her own love life has brought her. The trauma that both Wick and Finn brought to her life in vastly different ways. One survivable, the other haunting. She isn’t sure which is which. And then there was the girl, Luna was her name... she loved her, the one she doesn’t talk about, because no one would understand. The one that held her hand as her boyfriend died. The one that held her for a while before she had to leave.

Raven inhales and holds back the tears pricking at her eyes, and does her best to focus on the love and friendship and happiness surrounding her. This is what she has now. And for now this is enough.

Chapter Text

Seven months later and the summer sun feels like bliss in their backyard. Their backyard . Lexa rolls the thought over in her mind and a smile curls at the corner of her mouth.

She drops the hand holding the tattered book she's reading, re-reading really, over the edge of the hammock. She’s half in a sun drenched stupor, half asleep, and half floating. In her hand is her copy of The Little Prince she’s been carrying around since she was seven. If you hold the book one way the story is in English, hold it the other and it's in French. She could practically recite it in either language, the words like a comforting blanket wrapping around her mind and soothing the anxious tick that settles in just behind her ear.

Anya had given her the book, nicked it from a foster house they'd been at for a couple of nights, after she found Lexa on the roof staring at the stars. Lexa had held onto it tighter than anything else she had ever owned. All her life she's tried to keep the words close to her heart even when she kept her heart locked up tight.

I know a planet where there is a certain red-faced man. He has never smelled a flower. He has never looked at a star. He has never done anything but add up figures. And all day he says, ‘I am busy with matters of consequence.’

For so many years after Costia left Lexa had dealt solely with matters of consequence. She had forgotten to live. No, forgotten is the the wrong word. Lexa sighs. She refused to, afraid that she would feel. Even as Anya urged her to listen to her heart she had stayed adamant, refused to even look at the stars.

The sound of Clarke giggling infiltrates her thoughts and sun-warmed haze. She cracks one eye open and watches as Octavia tucks a flower behind Clarke’s ear, weaving it into her hair, an addition to the lopsided flower crown Clarke already wears. Clarke leans forward kissing Octavia, pushing her back into the grass, the two of them laughing and rolling in the sun dappled backyard.

Her heart soars with the sight, and she’s content in her hammock as she watches. This last year has been kind to them and their love, giving it soft places to blossom and grow. She feels safe and has hope for the first time in years, and yet there’s a nagging sensation in the back of her head that there’s something missing from this picture of domestic bliss.

Lexa wishes she knew what it was.

Even as Clarke crosses into her field of vision, blocking out the sun, so she’s haloed in light and flowers, her blonde hair glowing like spun gold, Lexa can’t help but feel the root of something sad hook into her chest. Clarke grins shyly, whispering hey , as she carefully straddles Lexa in the hammock, laying down on top of her with a practiced ease. The first dozen or so times she had tried this they had both ended up dazed and confused in a tangle of limbs on the ground.

This time it’s perfect as they sway slightly.

Clarke takes a flower from her hair and tucks it into the crown braid Octavia had woven Lexa’s hair into earlier. Lexa brushes her nose against Clarke’s. She lets the book fall to the grass below as she wraps her arms around Clarke’s waist, gently tugging her close. Clarke’s kisses are light, one to her lips, another to the edge of her jaw, a third to her neck as she nuzzles her face against the skin exposed by Lexa’s tank top.

Lexa glances toward Octavia, sprawled on the grass, one arm thrown across her eyes to block out the sun, and her heart aches. She’s full of love, bursting with it, and knowing, utterly that her worry is unfounded.

_______________________________________

Raven drops into the ergonomic chair behind her desk, sitting just on the edge and not at all in a way that takes advantage of of the benefits of the chair. She doesn’t care because she just needs to sit for a few minutes before she leaves campus. It’s been a long week. Summer term is always killer, teaching every day, long classes, students that need extra attention because they’re trying to catch up so next year they aren’t behind. Elbows on the desk, she rests her head in her hands. She loves teaching sometimes, but right now she could use a drink.

That would involve calling someone to go out and the last thing she wants to do is check her phone.

Wick texted her this morning, begging her to call him back. Her ex, the one she thought was gone from her life forever. After a few weeks of following her around after the break up he had left her alone. Something had turned him off. She never questioned it, but now his name was showing up on her phone again and her stomach was heavy with worry.

She should just call him and get it over with. Hear him out, turn him down again, then maybe he’ll leave her alone. At least for a little while longer, and perhaps this time he’ll get bored of waiting for her to change her mind, move on. Raven can’t bring herself to see him again, the idea of it gnaws at her stomach, or maybe that’s hunger pangs, she’s barely been able to eat since he started reaching out to her again.

It doesn’t help that the only other person calling her is her mother, who she is also actively ignoring at the moment. Summer is when the annual campaign to get Raven home for the holidays begins, and it’s not that she doesn’t want to see her or her Vovó , it’s just that even after all these years she isn’t ready to face going home again. Not with Finn gone, not after what happened with Wick.

“Knock, knock,” Bellamy leans against the door frame to her office, two cups of coffee in hand, hair mussed from a long day. His grin pushes through the fog in her head, at least she still has her friends.

“Hey, Bell.” Raven slouches back in her chair, legs stretched out in front of her.

“I figured you’d be gone by now, class run late?” He takes two long strides across the room and sets one of the cups of overboiled break room coffee down in front of Raven before slumping down into one of the chairs on the other side of the desk.

“Grading, the usual.” Raven reaches for the coffee, blowing on it for a moment before taking a sip. “I just couldn’t sit still long enough to get anything done. And I was avoiding the new TA.”

“Poor boy just can’t resist your charm, who could blame him,” Bellamy laughs. “You get to the gym at all this week? I hate teaching summer classes, there’s barely time to do anything else.”

Raven shakes her head and sighs. She’s barely slept lately, “Every night this week.” Her physical therapist is going to be furious. If she loses much more weight she’ll need to get fitted for a new socket for her prosthetic, but she can’t quit going to the gym it’s the only thing keeping her sane these days.

“Lucky, I swear I haven’t thought about anything but ancient Greece all week,” he scowls and takes a drink of his coffee.

“That sounds like every week for you,” Raven laughs. “You are the boy who suggested his mother name his sister Octavia, after all.”

“You’re never going to let go of the fact that I named my half-sister after Augustus’ half-sister are you?”

“Nope. You are such a nerd, Bellamy Blake.”

“Guilty as charged,” he grins and tosses his empty cup into the trash next to Raven’s desk. “Want to grab chinese on our way across campus?”

Raven’s phone buzzes twice and she doesn’t bother to glance at it, but the pool of dread in her stomach is more than enough to keep her curiosity at bay for now. She doesn’t want to face another series of texts from Wick right now. Not after the long day she’s had. She hates that she might be missing a text from someone she might actually want to talk to, like Anya, or Octavia, or Clarke, or Lexa. Even a message from Monty or Jasper would be a welcome distraction.

She just wants to be able to focus on her lab and on teaching as this might be a pivotal year. There are rumors that she might be up for tenure soon, which would mean more money for her research, and access to grad students instead of just undergrads for assistants. She’s worked her ass off to get here and she’s not about to let her ex ruin anything else for her.

Raven shakes her head, dragging herself back into the present. Her stomach rumbles and she’s about to agree to Bellamy’s suggestion for dinner when she hears footsteps running down the hall.

Jasper skids pat her door and backs up a few steps until he’s in frame, out of breath, hands on his knees as he signals for Raven and Bellamy to wait a moment. They exchange a look and Raven shrugs.

“You gotta,” he takes a step into the room and doubles over again, breathing heavily, “Come see this.”

Raven is halfway to standing, wondering what the hell Jasper and Monty, who are supposed to be monitoring the engineering lab, have managed to get themselves into this time. Last time they’d modded a roomba to document the science department and it ended up taking a photo up the Department Head’s skirt. It wasn’t their finest hour.

“Nothing exploded?”

Jasper grins, “Not yet!”

Bellamy groans, “I’m going to leave you to your science and go grab dinner. Just, make sure the building doesn’t explode. If the science hall goes down so does history and I really like the view from my office.” He’s in the hall before Raven can reply.

She yells after him, “Office hours aren’t for staring at the co-eds!”

An indistinguishable grunt comes from the hall in response as Bellamy’s footsteps fade.

Raven shakes her head and pushes all the way to standing. “It isn’t going to explode is it?” she tries to hide a grin of excitement. Sometimes she has the absolute best job.

_______________________________________

Raven slows her pace, jogging in place as she hits the crosswalk button before coming to a halt. She bends at the waist, digging her thumbs into her left thigh to ease some of the tension in her hip flexor and trying to ignore the fact that it feels like there’s a blister forming underneath her prosthetic. That would be a problem for later, when she could asses the damage and talk to her physical therapist. She shakes her legs out bouncing back and forth between her foot and the running blade. Raven glances to Octavia next to her, sweat soaked and stretching while they wait for the light. No time to worry about her leg now, not when they were so close to finishing their run.

They had been running partners for almost a year now. Somewhere between sitting on the floor of their new house and teasing Bellamy over drinks the following week she had found herself becoming friends with the other Blake and her girlfriends. Raven is certain she’s one of a very select few people that know the three of them are together, not even Bellamy is privy to that detail of his sister’s life.

She shakes out her leg as they jog, trying to relieve some of the building tension. The running blade slaps against the ground in a steady beat and it lulls Raven back into the run. She’d been told she might not walk normally again… as normally as a person with only half a leg can walk anyway. She hadn’t been a runner before the accident and her physical therapist told her any physical activity would be an uphill battle.

Raven is nothing if not stubborn.

It’s been seven years and she’s probably in the best shape of her life. And slowly, after everything it feels like things are coming together. She’s building her life again, that maybe this strange group of friends will be her family. And maybe one day she’ll feel like she can even face going home.

Raven’s lungs burn with each breath, but they’re only a few blocks from the park as they round the next corner. She grins, watching Octavia light up as she spots Clarke and Lexa sprawled on a blanket in the park two blocks away. The half smile that tugs at Octavia’s lips as she tries to downplay her reaction is echoed in her eyes – the way they sparkle with an unbridled excitement, it wraps around Raven’s heart. She’s happy to see her friend so alive with love, and to know that she’s privy to a beautiful secret fills her with joy.

Their love is like an underground river, hidden, but more powerful than anyone imagines.

Quietly, in the back of her mind, she wonders if she’ll ever find someone who loves her like that.

Raven sucks in a deep breath of air and pushes herself to keep up with Octavia’s burst of energy. Just one more block and she can collapse beside her friends on that blanket. Drink down a gallon of water and maybe pass out for a few minutes. Maybe one day she’ll find that burst of energy from seeing the person she loves. The person that looks at her like she’s the only one in the world that matters. That the strangeness of her leg doesn’t make her less or other but is just part of who she is – why would someone need her any other way?

A screech of breaks cuts through Raven’s thoughts and the world stops. Raven wraps her arms around Octavia and they tumble backwards.

There’s a curse from the driver that he spits out the open window.

And the thud of Raven’s back hitting a parked car.

A scream that sounds a lot like Clarke.

And another set of curses from Raven and Octavia as they tumble to the asphalt.

Time starts again.

The driver speeds up. The road is otherwise quiet, the sidewalk void of people.

Raven doesn’t let go of Octavia, holding her close even as she can feel her skinned arm and bruised side protest. Their breathing comes in heavy gasps, hearts beating a frantic rhythm in tandem. She doesn’t know if she can let go, needing the reminder that they’re both alive.

The car came around the corner too fast. One more step and they would have both been hit. Raven squeezes her arms tighter and presses her face  to the back of Octavia’s neck. They are both sweaty and bloody, but alive. They’ll run again another day.

“Raven?” Octavia squeezes her bicep to get her attention. “We okay?”

“Yeah… yeah.” Raven mutters. She’s acutely aware of Octavia pressed up against her, the press of her back against Raven’s chest as she breathes, the heat and the sweat... Raven realizes it’s been too long since she’s been this close to someone. Her cheeks flush and she quickly loosens her grip on Octavia who scrambles to her feet.

They’re only shaken. That’s all. The blue sky above and warm breeze seem incongruous. Raven holds out her hand, “Help me up?”

Octavia’s hand is slick with blood dripping down her arm. They grip each other’s wrists and Octavia tugs Raven to standing effortlessly.

Raven feels the sharp tug of raw skin across her arm as muscles flex and contract. They may have escaped getting hit but they didn’t escape completely unscathed. She can already feel places where she’ll have bruises come morning. Raven tests her weight on both her legs before bending over to check her prosthetic for damage. Luckily nothing seems worse for the fall.

“Everything in order?” Octavia’s hand hovers over Raven’s shoulder, clearly wanting to help and wondering if it’s okay. “Sorry I fell on you, I didn’t mean to but if you hadn’t of grabbed me that idiot would have run me over… thank you.”

Raven rolls her eyes. She’s fine, she really is. Bending her arm she examines the scrape running from her wrist to elbow. Maybe not entirely fine, but nothing time won’t fix. “Don’t mention it, I didn’t really want to have to break in a new running partner,” she smirks. It’s easier to joke and move on than dwell on the reality.

“Octavia!” Clarke’s voice is harried as she rushes across the street. She’s reaching for Octavia before she comes to a stop next to them, gently prodding and turning her, examining the damage.  Glancing up briefly Clarke turns to Raven, their eyes meet and Raven notices Clarke’s are blown wide with fear, nearly black and white, her pupils engulfing her irises as she tries to process. Clarke lifts Raven’s arm to check out the damage. “Anything broken?”

Octavia shakes her head, “Nothing a few bandages and neosporin won’t fix.”

“And maybe a pint or two,” Raven adds.

Lexa jogs up behind them, the first-aid kit she keeps in her car in hand. “Just blood or broken bones?”

Octavia holds up her hand and wiggles her blood covered fingers, “Just blood.”

“I wish we had been closer. I didn’t catch the license plate number. I can’t believe he didn’t stop.”

There’s a flutter of agreement as they wait for the light to change again, wait to make sure no cars are coming around the corner. Raven is the first to step off the curb and into the street. Lexa’s hand is light on her back as she follows close. Raven trembles with the proximity, the familiarity of it, and the way it doesn’t feel like Lexa is trying to help her because of her leg, but just because it’s Lexa and she’s Raven, so of course she’s there.

Raven’s side feels bruised and her arm is on fire from the scrape, but she’s endured worse. She glances to Octavia and Clarke hovering by her side, hands worrying as they try to soothe, and Raven isn’t sure who needs the attention more, Octavia or Clarke.

Lexa wraps her arm around Raven’s shoulders for a brief moment as they step from concrete to grass. Her breath brushes Raven’s ear and she presses her nose into Raven’s hair, “I’m glad your reflexes are fast.” She holds onto Raven, allowing Clarke to take care of Octavia. Later tonight she’ll hold them both.

“Me too,” Raven whispers.

Clarke’s hands shake each time she lets go of Octavia. They tumble to the blanket, Clarke spreading out the first aid kit, lips pursed in a thin white line. Lexa kneels and helps Raven down to the ground. Silence falls over them as wounds are cleaned. White gauze turns red, as Lexa and Clarke clean debris from wounds, and bandage the raw ragged road rashed skin.

Clarke traces her fingers down Octavia’s arm and refuses to meet her eyes. She was there that day, she knows what is rushing through her head and she doesn’t want to acknowledge the thought, doesn’t want to make it real.

This was just a scare, nothing a week or two won’t heal.

Clarke pulls Octavia into her lap and buries her face against the back of Octavia’s neck, breathing in her girlfriend’s scent, feeling her heartbeat strong, a slow steady pulse that resonates like a drum beat through her.

There’s a trembling in her arms that she can’t stop and she knows she should be fine. She wasn’t the one who was nearly hit by a speeding car. And Octavia is fine, Raven is fine, Lexa is here, and they’re fine, they’re fine . Clarke feels like she’s drowning in memories from ten years past. The car jumping the curb. Her dad pushing the kid out of the way. She can still feel the ache in her knees as she hit the concrete, helpless to do anything but watch her father die.

Clarke breathes in Octavia again, fighting back the sour taste of bile on the back of her tongue that burns as she swallows it back down. Everything will be fine.

Lexa, Octavia, and Raven are talking, but Clarke isn’t really listening until she feels Octavia laughing in her arms. Her girlfriend presses a kiss to her temple, “You alright?” Octavia asks.

“Of course,” Clarke answers trying to sound more certain than she feels.

Octavia kisses her once lightly, cupping Clarke’s chin, then again, deeper, searching, hoping for the truth. She pours herself into the kiss, every part of her that is fine, every part of her that wants to reassure Clarke that she is. Anything to stop the fine tremor running through Clarke. Octavia doesn’t care that the kiss is probably earning them stares from strangers, all she cares about in that moment is the woman she’s tangled up in. She pulls back, her gaze is questioning. “Are you certain?”

“I am.”

She is, Clarke promises herself. She’s okay. She will be.

_______________________________________

It’s been two weeks since Octavia nearly ran out in front of a car, and really it seems like everything is really is okay.

Clarke and Octavia and Lexa have each other and the little life their building together and near accidents aside it feels like for the first time in a long while everything is going right. What’s a few bumps along the way? They have each other, and they have their friends.

Not that all their friends know they have each other, which sometimes gets tricky.

Anya knows, but then again, Anya seemed to have things figured out before they did. They still haven’t told Niylah or Lincoln. And Raven knows because she’s observant, and over the past nine months she’s moved from being Bellamy’s friend to being theirs as well, spending several days a week hanging out with them; it would have been impossible for her not to have figured them out. Bellamy still hasn’t, but no one’s invited him over since he helped them move in and felt he had the right to threaten Lexa.

Bellamy is a point of contention, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t still seeing him regularly. Like at their semi-regular dinners with everyone, or almost everyone, depending upon the week.

It’s Friday night and they’re packed around the largest singular table at the restaurant in one of those circular booths. Bellamy is sitting on one end next to Lincoln. Octavia is squished between Lincoln and Niylah who is next to Clarke. Anya is seated next to her, followed by Lexa, and Raven rounds out the group, sitting on the end of the booth so she doesn’t have to deal with the awkward crawling in and out.

All eight of them packed into a booth made to seat six comfortably. It works.

Raven leans back and stretches out her left leg, trying to get some movement in her hip without standing up. She spent all day hunched over her desk at work, immobile, and she’s paying for it, but she needed to get grades done before the weekend hits. Octavia had promised they’d go running tomorrow morning and that had been the only reason she’d allowed herself to skip the gym. She rubs at her thigh and sighs, pushing at the old familiar aching want in the back of her mind, half her leg is gone and she’ll never be the same.

In some ways her life is a wonderful thing she never expected.

Almost everyone is laughing, talking to someone else, but Anya has her nose in her phone. Raven balls up a corner of her paper napkin and aims it at the blonde. It hits her square in the forehead and Anya glances up, narrowing her eyes at Raven, but Raven knows she isn’t actually angry from the twitch at the corner of her mouth where she’s hiding a smile.

Raven grins, “Yo, I thought we were here to hang out with each other, not, you know, stare cross-eyed at our phones.”

Anya sits up and lets out a long sigh for dramatic effect. “Some of us have jobs to attend to.”

“Anya,” Lexa starts. “It’s Friday night. You have minions to take care of things…”

“Just let me finish this email.”

“It’s Saturday morning in Milan, no one is going to need that email in the next few hours,” Raven teases.

“Wait. I have an idea,” Niylah cuts in. “But everyone has to be game. People do this at the bar all the time. The catch is the loser has to pay the tab.”

Clarke glances up from her phone, hidden in her lap, “I think I know where you’re going with this but continue…”

“Everyone has to put their phone face down on the table,” Niylah grins.

A collective groan goes up, Octavia rolling her eyes, Anya crossing her arms, Clarke pouting. They’ve all watched this game played out by groups of drunks at The Trading Post.

“Who else is going to message most of you anyway?” Bellamy slaps his phone face down on the table and nudges it toward the center.

Several indignant protests pop up.

“I have other friends you know,” Lincoln mutters as he slides his phone out of his pocket and places it next to Bellamy’s.

“You know I’m like the only one that texts you,” Octavia laughs and nudges him. He shakes his head.

“You aren’t the only one,” he quips defensively, but he’s grinning.

“Yeah, sometimes it’s me,” Niylah teases.

Anya takes a sip of her wine, her phone still gripped tightly between her index finger and thumb. “What if I get a work call?”

“First person to pick up their phone, for whatever reason, picks up the tab, if no one picks up their phone, we all pay our own share,” Niylah lays her phone down on the table and pushes it towards the center.

Lexa slides hers into the pile, grinning, “Alright, I’m in. Free dinner, care of sis, sounds excellent.”

“I’m all for Anya picking up the tab,” Raven grins and sets her phone on top of Lexa’s.

Octavia and Clarke lean forward at the same moment their phones hitting the table with a thunk.

“We’re in,” Octavia grins. “Free dinner sounds good to me.”

All that’s left is Anya. Seven pairs of eyes turn toward her and she rolls her own in response, arms crossed. They wait. “Fine,” she sighs exasperated, “But I don’t know why you all think I’m going to crack first.” She sets down her slim gold engraved phone on top of a cardboard coaster to keep it from touching the table.

“Because I don’t think I’ve seen you ever set your phone down for more than five minutes before,” Raven smirks.

“Like you’re any better.”

Raven’s phone buzzes, signalling an incoming text message. Anya raises a delicately arched eyebrow at her. Raven shrugs. “Ah yes, but unlike you I don’t immediately jump to the very beck and call of my adoring fans,” She laughs. It’s too late for it to be anything to do with the lab at the university and there are others on the call list. She takes a sip of her beer deciding this officially means she can’t go in if called.

Only a handful of minutes pass before someone gets a notification, and then another. Then someone’s phone buzzes in quick succession, earning a laugh from the group. It buzzes again, six times, in the silence that follows.

“Okay who the fuck’s phone is that?” Bellamy asks taking a swig of his beer.

Octavia glances around the table, “Anyone who texts me is here.”

The phone buzzes again and Raven glances at the pile, “I think it’s mine.”

As if on cue the phone buzzes several more times, like a flurry of one word texts, sent in excitement, anger, maybe exasperation at the previous texts having gone unanswered. Everyone around the table falls silent, watching as Raven’s phone buzzes again, and again, and again, vibrating so hard it slips off of the pile.

“ Bosta ,” Raven mutters under her breath.

“You can check it if you want,” Niylah offers with a shrug, hiding behind a sip of her drink.

Raven eyes it, wondering who would be so insistent on texting her. Most of her friends are here and it’s too late for either Monty or Jasper to be texting her about a lab disaster. Curiosity gets the better of her and she slips the cold glass phone into her hand. It vibrates again, three text messages in succession light up across the screen. Kyle Wick .

Raven’s blood runs cold and her heart starts pounding. She hasn’t heard from him in almost a month and she was just beginning to feel like he might be backing down now that a year has passed since she broke up with him.

Changed addresses.

Changed her locks, twice.

Changed her phone number.

Her thumb trembles as she flips the Do Not Disturb on. At least she won’t know if he’s still texting for the rest of dinner. She tosses the phone back into the pile and presses her hands flat against her thighs. She scratches her nails along her jeans, her left hand searching out the hole in the pre-distressed material. Raven breathes out again as her nails sink into her flesh, scratching red angry lines.

She rolls her eyes and shakes her head with a laugh that hopefully doesn’t sound as forced as it is, “Dinner’s on me I guess.”

“We haven’t even ordered yet, it’s hardly fair,” Lexa says softly and nudges Raven with her elbow.

“Those are the rules though,” Raven isn’t quite sure why she’s protesting other than she wants everyone to be focusing on something other than the fact that her phone is blowing up with notifications from someone and she doesn’t want to have to explain that her ex-boyfriend is a little obsessed with her and sometimes he gets like this.

She doesn’t want to tell her friends, two of whom are cops, another of whom is a lawyer, and two others who would probably jump into a fight without question that she might have a stalker. Besides, it isn’t that bad yet. It’s not like he’s shown up at her apartment again yet. That hasn’t happened since the time she came home to him sitting on her couch and six dozen roses three months after they had broken up.

“Dude, now everyone’s just going to order expensive shit because they know you’re picking up the tab.” Niylah sets down her menu. “Game starts over now, if you check your phone to read the fifty or so text messages you have, then you can pay.”

Raven shakes her head, laughing and catches Niylah winking at her. She feels a flush in her cheeks before she can stomp it down, and she knows she’s been single too long if she’s letting her friends get to her like this. “Alright, if you say so. Everyone else alright with that?”

“One condition, tell us who the mystery texter is, who thinks they deserve all your attention on a Friday night, when you’re clearly supposed to be spending it with friends.” Anya smiles slyly at Raven across Lexa.

Raven shakes her head, laughing silently at Anya. “No one important,” the words catch in her throat. “Just an ex,” she mutters.

Raven doesn’t miss the way Clarke tilts her head, one eyebrow raised in question and worry, and she knows the other girl won’t say anything, not in front of everyone. It’s clear though that Clarke hasn’t missed that Raven is worried about the influx of text messages.

Lexa reaches under the table and squeezes Raven’s arm for a brief moment. “In that case, you’re definitely not paying for dinner.”

Raven misses Anya slip the waiter her credit card after they order their food, but Clarke doesn’t. She sees Anya reach behind Lexa, giving the waiter all he needs to know with a single look. No one else is paying tonight, no arguments. So when Anya conveniently reaches for her phone absentmindedly at the end of dinner to check a text nobody noticed come in they don’t realize that Anya just signs the check and puts her card away, all too happy for the free meal and the predictability of Anya’s phone addiction.

Chapter Text

Raven slides into Anya’s car after dinner without a word. She curls into the familiar leather seat, her phone is clutched tightly in her hand. She’s afraid to check her messages, afraid what it might mean, afraid what might be waiting for her at home.

It’s unlikely Wick has been able to find her new apartment.

Still, as she clicks her seatbelt in place, Raven can’t stop her hands from trembling. Wick broke her down and she refuses to go back to him. He stripped her of her strength and the belief she held in herself. He made her into a weak thing, dependent on his version of reality to survive.

The memories crush the air from her lungs.

Anya starts the car, the sleek grey machine purring underneath them. Her long fingers tap against the steering wheel as if she’s debating whether or not to break the silence. The darkness and the silence stretches on for three blocks only broken by the sound of her ring against the steering wheel.

“Was that him?” Anya asks.

Of course she remembers the offhanded comment Raven had made once about an abusive ex. Raven flips her phone over in her hands, not answering. She can’t get the words past her throat, they stick there making it hard to swallow, the pressure of them building up until there are tears pricking her eyes. She sniffs loudly trying to keep the tears from falling, trying to keep herself together.

“Damn Reyes, I just-” Anya glances at Raven and stops short. Her fingers flex and grip the steering wheel. “You should talk to Octavia, make a report.”

Anya reaches across the car and squeezes Raven’s shoulder, her thumb rubbing small circles for a moment.

“You going soft on me?” Raven rasps and raises an eyebrow, tilting her head. Anya lets out a bark of laughter.

“Just making sure you didn’t need distracting tonight.”

The energy in the car shifts. She’ll be okay. They’re okay. Raven has people around her this time, she has friends. This won’t be like last time.

“You wish,” Raven rolls her eyes. They’ve come close a few times on drunken nights, but both of them value their friendship more than a tumble in bed together.

Anya laughs again, and returns her hand to the steering wheel. “Good, thought I was going to have to take one for the team there for a moment.”

Raven gasps in mock horror, offense that sleeping with her would be anything but a gift.

“What is your type, anyway?” Anya asks. “In the past year I’ve not seen you so much as look at someone like you want to take them home for a bit of fun, and yet, I feel like things used to be different for you.”

Raven twists in her seat to regard Anya, trying to decide how seriously to answer the inquiry. They haven’t talked much about before, vague mentions of Wick and Finn and the accident… but never anything too serious. Nothing about Luna, who helped her through Finn’s illness. Anya is good at not prodding unless it’s needed, she’s good at knowing when not to push a subject, and when something needs to be discussed. Rarely does she let curiosity get the better of her. She’s feisty and strong and beautiful… and under different circumstances.

“In another life you’d do.”

Anya grins and shakes her mane of curly blonde hair, light against her naturally bronze skin, even in the dark of the car.

“Oh, darling, that’s no answer at all, you know I’m everyone’s type.”

Raven laughs but her heart isn’t in it as she leans back in her seat and flicks on her phone. In a different life maybe things would be better. In a different life maybe finding someone would be as easy as looking up at a friend.

_______________________________________

To say that this week at work had been long was an understatement. Octavia leans back in their usual booth at The Trading Post bar and closes her eyes as she waits for Lincoln to get back with their drinks. This week alone she’s been assigned to three separate cases, two involving the custody of small children and it feels like she’s being run through an emotional wringer. Her heart aches with each terrible decision she watches the parents and guardians make. At least this week there aren’t any missing children cases. Those are the worst.

Octavia cracks one eye open as she hears heavy pint glasses being sat on the table. Somehow Lincoln managed the walk from the bar without spilling a drop and both glasses are full to the brim with dark amber liquid.

Lifeblood, second only to coffee.

She sits up, pulling her pint closer, breathing it in, but she stops herself before she drinks half of it down. Instead she takes a small sip and lets out a heavy breath as she realizes that what she wants most in that moment is to be home with Clarke and Lexa. She stretches out her arms and examines the almost healed scab on the palm of her hand.

“What happened?” Lincoln ventures, turning the pint glass in his hand. He’s not quite looking at it, not quite looking at Octavia and she knows him well enough to know which direction this conversation is going. And he isn’t asking about her injury because he’s already heard multiple versions of that story. When she doesn’t answer but with another sip of beer he continues. “You and Clarke. It’s not the same, it’s almost like you aren’t dating anymore, but you’re both living in that fancy new house with Lexa.”

Octavia tilts her head to the side and studies her beer, sighing heavily again, remembering the promises she’s made and what they mean to the women she loves. “Nothing happened, per se…”

“Just like nothing is bothering you about the case at work?” Lincoln tosses a balled up napkin at her, teasing.

“That’s an unfair comparison.” Octavia turns her pint glass around in her hand. “You know sometimes shit like this gets personal even when I try to keep my distance.” It’s eating at her not being able to say anything about how her relationship has changed, how happy she is. And as she glowers into her beer she realizes the opposing feelings are waging war inside her. They might tear her apart.

Her love isn’t something that sits well beneath the surface of her skin. She wears it like a protective shield, it colors everything she does, driving her forward in grand sweeping gestures, propelling her towards her best. Even if she is impulsive and has a tendency to nearly destroy the parts of her life that make her feel like living.

Octavia takes a long drink of her beer and sinks into herself, wondering if she can change enough to keep her and Lexa and Clarke together.

“So you going to tell me what’s going on between you and Lexa?”

“She’s my roommate,” Octavia spits out. It feels like the worst kind of lie.

“Or Clarke and Lexa?” Lincoln’s voice is soft and he reaches for Octavia’s hand. His touch is warm and familiar and Octavia can’t bring herself to pull away despite the tears pricking her eyes. “Come on, O. I know you. I know Clarke. I’m getting to know Lexa. And I can tell something happened… You trust me right?”

“Always,” Octavia’s voice trembles and she tightens her grip on her pint glass. She can’t look up at Lincoln, she can’t look him in the face and deny the truth. She can’t lie to him. They were together for years and he’ll always be in her heart, not telling him about Lexa feels like a betrayal, but if she says anything she’ll be betraying Lexa and Clarke.

Her hand spasms around his; she squeezes her eyes shut.

When she feels Lincoln let go of her hand she feels her heart drop into her stomach. And she wonders if this is part of the sacrifice she has to make to keep her relationship. The thought of losing Lexa or Clarke makes her sick. The thought of hurting her best friend only slightly less so.

When she feels Lincoln slide into the booth next to her, wrap his arm around her shoulders, she collapses into him.

“You don’t have to tell me,” he whispers. “But I’m here if you decide you want to talk.”

Octavia nods, her throat tight, and she knows that if she says anything at all the threatening tears will fall. She wants to tell Lincoln. She wants to get to tell him how happy being with both of them makes her. She wants to talk to him about how hard it is for her to not scream her happiness from the metaphorical rooftops. Maybe even actual rooftops.

She wants to run away from the world. Take everyone she loves with her. Forget the pain that they’re leaving behind and find somewhere safe where they can all just be themselves. For now she just wants to burrow against Lincoln’s side and hope, because she trusts him with her life. Every day he has her back. They keep each other alive, and if she trusts him with her life she has to trust him with what makes it worth living.

They’ve told each other everything since they met. He and Clarke are the reasons she didn’t throw her life away and become her mother.

“What could be so terrible you can’t tell me, Little Blake?” Lincoln asks softly, his arm squeezing around her tightly.

He smells a bit like home and she can’t stop the tears that are starting to fall.

“Nothing terrible at all,” Octavia shakes her head. “But I promised we’d keep it a secret, and I tell you everything.”

“Promised who?”

“Clarke and Lexa,” she breathes out heavily her voice raw with unshed tears. Octavia pulls back slightly to look up at Lincoln as she scrubs at her face, hating the weakness. She glances around and drops her voice to a whisper, but doesn’t break eye contact. She has to know what he really thinks about them. “The three of us are dating. Lexa isn’t just my roommate, she’s my girlfriend, and Clarke’s too.”

She sucks in a deep breath, trying to stop the trembling as she waits. Lincoln is quiet. He doesn’t look away, but his expression doesn’t change. His brow knits slightly and Octavia stops her exhale. His dark eyes search her face, looking for the truth before he asks his question.

“Does it make you happy?”

Octavia nods, grinning for a moment as she wipes her nose on the back of her sleeve and sniffles. There’s a gnawing worry in the pit of her stomach though, because she broke the promise. She broke Lexa and Clarke’s trust. Even as she feels lighter for Lincoln knowing she feels heavier for the hurt she will cause.

As soon as she gets home, she’ll make it right. She’ll find a way to make it right.

Still, she grins, because the thought of her girlfriends wraps around her soul like a salve, “They’re my everything. My heart. My home… You just have to promise me not to tell anyone.”

Lincoln nods once and Octavia knows he’ll keep the secret. Just like she knows he’s always got her back when they’re at work.

“Who else knows?”

“Abby - we had to tell her when we asked for help with the house. Anya, because she knows everything. Raven figured it out, she’s just been around a lot, at home. It’s harder at home to keep the secret.”

“Not Bellamy?”

“No,” Octavia’s voice wavers.

“I remember,” Lincoln squeezes her arm, and she’s thankful they don’t have to talk about what happened, and how she’s afraid of what his reaction will be when he does find out. “Is it going to cause problems that I know?”

Octavia deflates. “I broke my word, Lincoln… I had to though. It’s you . You trust me with your life, it isn’t fair if I can’t trust you with the most precious part of mine.”

“You’re secret is safe, okay?” He pulls her in close, pressing his next words into her hair. “Let’s get you home to your girls.”

_______________________________________

Throwing her phone on silent and do not disturb still meant the notifications were there when she went to check Instagram or Twitter, so Raven had turned it off completely two hours ago. It’s been a week and she’s almost ready to give up entirely.

Still, every few minutes she would reach for her phone, flip it over, press the power button, and stare at the black screen. “ Cuzão,” she mutters.

Raven tosses her phone to the far end of the couch as hard as she can. It bounces twice and clatters to the floor. She should just go for a run, get her mind off things, maybe clear her head enough that she can focus on her current project, a new mechanism for biomechanic limbs. With a sigh and a grunt she makes her way to standing, her prosthetic is in the other room and she hops over to her crutches.

She catches her reflection as she passes by the front window and realizes it’s dark outside. This wouldn’t be the first time she went for a run in the dark, alone, but lately she hadn’t been feeling safe. Maybe it was Wick’s texts, or how empty campus is during the summer, especially at night. Raven picks up her foot and balances on the crutches, swinging between the two poles and weighing her options. She bends at the elbows doing some sort of modified dip while trying to keep from needing to put her foot back on the ground. If she wanted she could always just stay in and work on strength training and physical therapy.

Moving to the corner of the living room with her weights she stands gently on her medicine ball thinking about what she wants to do, still distracted, wishing it were just a little bit lighter so she could make an excuse for a run. Maybe Octavia would want to go. But it’d probably be at least half an hour before they started their run… Raven glances at the clock in the kitchen, and it’s definitely too late for a work night.

A sharp knock on the front door pulls her from her thoughts.

“ Quem tá aí? ” Raven half says to herself, half calls out. She runs through half a dozen possibilities as she crutches over to the door.

None of them prepare her for the person standing there when she opens the door.

None of her thoughts take into account the reason she is restless, the reason she keeps three locks locked on her door at all times, the reason there’s a bat sitting within reach, the reason her phone has been off most of the night.

Nothing running through her head prepares her for the pain in her chest as the air rushes out of her lungs and Wick smiles at her, a dozen red roses held out.

“Hey, babe.” His voice is soft and his smile is shy and for a moment Raven almost forgets.

But she doesn’t forget.

The memories press back on her like water in her lungs and she’s choking on them. Drowning in the way he used to treat her, the bruises she would hide and the mental scars no one sees. The fear that runs through her veins when he’s this close.

Close enough to smell his cologne.

She looks down, breaking eye contact, her throat constricting as she breathes in the scent and remembers what it was like to have him pressed against her unable to breathe anything else in. Still, she stands in the doorway, neither shutting the door, nor inviting him in, nor taking the flowers.

He shakes them gently at her, “What, no hello? Where’s that Brazilian hospitality I used to love?”

Raven looks up caught between glaring at him and guilt.

“What are you doing here?” she manages to keep her tone level, but only just. She rocks slightly on her crutches, unable to stay still when all she wants to do is run.

Wick raises up the flowers again, a goofy smile on his face, “I wanted to apologize for being away so long.”

Raven swings on her crutches a little, “Can’t really grab those right now.”

“Right, no leg on. Crutches.” He dips his head and a lock of wavy blonde hair falls across his face. “Long day? Why don’t you let me come in and get these in water for you?” He’s already stepping forward before she can answer, before she can catch the door with her hand and stop him from coming inside.

How did he find her new apartment?

Anyone else and she’d be kicking them out. Anyone else and she’d have already started yelling, her blood boiling. Anyone else and they would have known better. Instead she’s nearly shaking and she can’t find the words to tell him to go. Next to him she’s a weak mess, afraid of angering him, afraid of what will happen if she doesn’t give him what he wants. She loved him once, and throwing him out of her life once was hard enough, because what if he was right about her? What if he’s the only one left who will love her?

Raven follows him slowly towards the kitchen nook on her crutches as he reaches down a vase and fills it with water, moving around her kitchen like he belongs there. Like he knows it. Like he knows her.

Her throat has gone dry and the words stick there, “You should go.”

“I just got here!” He laughs. A small part of her misses that laugh, and the good memories they shared.

Raven lies, “I have work in the morning.”

He smiles at her like he did in the beginning, like she was wonderful and everything, like he might love her forever. There’s a moment of a flash of the anger and possession on his face… the frustration that she hasn’t just welcomed him back with open arms, before he’s smiling again. “Of course, it’s late and you teach during the week.” Wick shrugs like it was a simple oversight and pushes off the kitchen counter.

As he passes by he pauses in front of her, cupping her cheek in one hand as he leans down to kiss her forehead. It’s gentle and sweet and Raven can feel her body yearning to yield into the touch. It’s been so long since anyone held her. No one has since she left him.

His fingers trail down her face and his thumb brushes across her bottom lip and even though every muscle in her body is screaming to move, she’s frozen to the spot, unable to move even the slightest. She feels like she might throw up in the back of her mouth and still she can’t move.

“I’ve missed you.”

Raven nods, unable to form words. Inside her head she is screaming.

His hand is on the door handle before he speaks again, turning slightly, his back rigid. Wick’s voice is lower, deliberate, and she knows the tone means she isn’t allowed to question whatever he asks. “We should get coffee and catch up. It was good seeing you.”

He shuts the door softly behind him.

Raven sinks into one of the chairs at her kitchen table and her crutches clatter to the floor. She’s trembling and her face is wet with tears. It was too easy for him to walk back in, too easy for him to take control again, rip away all her power and leave her vulnerable again like she was when they were still together.

She can still feel his hand on her face, his lips pressed to her forehead, and she recoils at the thought, even as she’s thankful that’s all it was. She rubs frantically at her forehead trying to erase the feeling of his touch from her skin. Raven knows she’s stronger than this. Stronger than him. And yet, she froze. She hates herself for wanting to give in to his touch, but she’s been alone too long.

For a moment she feels like she’ll have no one to blame but herself if he just waltzes back into her life.

_______________________________________

Octavia hovers just inside the door after answering the echoing hellos from Lexa and Clarke reclined on the couch. She can’t bring herself to move. All the strength she’d mustered on the ride home seeps out of her as she watches them, quiet, and happy, somehow able to live with the agreement they came to.

In her hands are dozens of roses, red, and peach, and salmon colored. Nearly an absurd amount but once she got to the flower shop she couldn’t show up with just one rose for each of them. This called for more than just a singular show of devotion.

Octavia clears her throat and steps towards the living room and into their line of sight.

Clarke grins and Lexa looks at her in surprise.

“What are these for?” Lexa asks as she slips off the couch and scoops up one of the oversized bouquets from Octavia’s arms and presses her nose into the flowers, hiding her face. Breathing out she leans over to kiss Octavia’s temple. “Thank you,” she says softly.

“Yeah, what’d you do?” Clarke’s voice is light and teasing as she goes in for a kiss, but Octavia ducks her head, avoiding the kiss. Clarke’s lips brush against her cheekbone.

Words die Octavia’s her throat, tight with fear.

Clarke takes the second bouquet and hands it to Lexa who lays the flowers down on the coffee table. “Hey, what is it?”

Octavia’s heart pounds in her chest and she knows she has to face this, apologize, deal with what she’s done… what she had to do, she reminds herself. “Lincoln and I had a rough day at work. We got a beer after and I- I told him we were all together.” It’s better to just rip off the band-aid than draw out the inevitable pain.

“Why?” Lexa takes a step forward but doesn’t reach out for Octavia. Clarke takes a step back. They’re all equidistance from each other now and Octavia doesn’t know how this is going to go down.

“I’m sorry, but I had to.” She just needs to be able to explain.

“Did you even think about what we all agreed to?” Lexa’s voice is harsh and low. And Octavia knows she’s scared but it doesn’t make it hurt any less. As she continues her voice goes cold, her shoulders square. Octavia’s seen Lexa do this a hundred times in court. “We all agreed! No one else - you didn’t even talk to us about telling him. About what this could cost us!”

“I know. I should have. And I was going to, but I was caught up between feeling like I was betraying him and like I was betraying us.”

“So you chose him?” There’s a tremor in Lexa’s voice that she tries to hide.

“Lexa, he’s been our friend for years.” Clarke starts, but Lexa shoots her a look that could freeze boiling water, and she falls silent. She glances to Octavia but Octavia won’t meet her gaze.

“I didn’t chose him or you and Clarke. I chose me ,” Octavia crosses her arms and straightens, starting to feel like she’ll go down fighting when all she wanted to do was make things right. “We need to re-evaluate our decision to keep this relationship a complete secret. I can’t live like that.”

“This is what we all agreed to, Octavia,” Lexa’s implores. “I hate it, too, but our relationship could end my career!”

“It is, but our decision isn’t working for me. It’s not like I told everyone, I told my partner - the guy who keeps me alive at work!”

“It’s Lincoln, we’ve known him forever. He… we can trust him, Lexa.” Clarke says softly. She reaches out for Lexa’s hand but Lexa pulls away from her touch.

“That’s not the point,” Lexa snaps.

“It's entirely the point!” Octavia snaps back. “He isn't going to betray us.”

“O, we know we can trust Lincoln. You should have come to us first though,” Clarke crosses her arms to keep herself for reaching out for anyone.

“Don’t take her side!” Octavia turns to Clarke, a pained look of confusion twisting on her face.

“I’m not taking anyone’s side!” Clarke tries to get their attention. “But maybe we can take a step back and-”

“The point is that you broke your promise to me, to Clarke!” Lexa’s voice gets louder, still barely above normal, but there’s an undercurrent of hurt and fear driving the anger.

“-talk about this rationally because I think we all want the same things.”

“And I'm trying to apologize for that,” Octavia growls, ignoring Clarke. “I know I should have talked to you both first but-”

“Yes, you should have,” Lexa crosses her arms, clenches her jaw, taps her foot. There’s a finality in her voice that steels something deep inside Octavia.

“It was tearing me apart, him not knowing! I couldn’t stand it. I felt like I was lying to him, betraying him-”

“Octavia,” Clarke takes half a step forward, her voice quiet. “This affects all of us, we have to-”

“I know!” Octavia yells. She’s shaking and furious and scared. This is her fault. It’s always her fault when things break. She looks down, away from Lexa, away from Clarke, one arm crossed over her chest, her other hand taps against her temple as she wills herself to think, to find the words to make this right. She doesn’t trust anyone in the world more than she trusts Clarke and Lexa.

“I’m trying, okay? I’m trying to keep what we have quiet when all I want to do is just love you the best I can and I can’t be quiet. I’m not small with that. I’m three dozen roses before you even know I have something to apologize for.” She gestures to the flowers forgotten on the table. “I’m proud of you and I want everyone to know it. I don’t want to have to temper what I say. But I’m trying . I’m trying so hard to learn how to love you quietly to keep our secret so that everything works out, because I can’t keep messing up and almost losing you. Either of you. I just want someone I can tell how wonderful having both of you is. I want someone to turn to when I need to talk to someone about us.” Octavia forces herself to inhale and sucks in another breath.

“I need a confidant, Lexa. You have Anya. Clarke, you’ve got your mom… and it’s been almost a year and I don’t have my own person to talk to about us. One of my best friends didn’t know that I’m so infuriatingly in love. I just wanted to be able to talk to my best friend.” Octavia starts out snapping but her voice falters and she barely whispers the last few words, equal parts angry and scared.

Despair sinks inside her and she wonders if she can make this better at all.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers.

Clarke reaches out for her, voice soft and hands gentle but Octavia tears herself away from Clarke and turns in a small circle, not yet ready to leave, but unable to be touched.

No matter what she does it hurts. Not telling Lincoln was eating at her. Telling Lincoln cost her Lexa’s trust. She wants to scream and yell find something to blame find the reason she’s such a fuck up. Memories surface in the back of her mind and she gasps, unable to breathe through the pain. Her hand grips her shoulder. She won’t be her mother, she won’t be like any of her mother’s douchey boyfriends.

Octavia sinks down onto the couch, head falling to her knees for a moment to breathe. Anger and rage boiling inside her. Anger that she can’t love them the way she needs to, rage at the world for making them this way. Rage at herself for being unable to love in the ways that seems to come so easy to Clarke and Lexa.

“I don’t know how to love quietly,” she says softly, straightening her back. Octavia looks up at Clarke and Lexa and offers up a sad smile. “I don’t know how you both do it. Why doesn’t it break your heart when we have to pull away in public? How do you keep silent when all I want to do is tell people how happy I am with you?”

Lexa kneels down in front of Octavia, her hands on either side of Octavia’s knees, not quite touching her, but looking up at her quietly, softly, as if the world has narrowed to the three of them. Anything left that matters is at their fingertips. All Octavia can think of is the things that make her heart full to bursting.

Lexa soft and sleepy in the morning, before her coffee, eyes wide and full of wonder.

Clarke hunched over a painting at two a.m. exhausted, paint brush in a death grip, but with an air of perfection about her in her wild mess.

Falling into bed between them at night, so in love and full of belonging.

Clarke sits down next to Lexa, leaning against the couch, looking up at Octavia, but keeping her hands to herself.

“I just wanted Lincoln to know that I’m loved.”

Lexa opens her mouth to reply but Octavia cuts her off, she needs these words outside of her before they burn her up from keeping them inside.

“Every day I go to work, I trust Lincoln with my life. Everything I hold dear, he protects. And I do the same for him. We keep each other alive because we know what’s at stake. How can I ask him to trust me if I don’t tell him what he’s protecting. What if something happens to me? He has to know…” her voice cracks. “He has to know it isn’t just Clarke. He-” she takes in a shuddering breath. “He has to know I love you, too.”

Lexa breathes out steadily and reaches up to cup Octavia’s face in both her hands. There are tears in her eyes and there’s sadness and pain brimming just beneath the surface. She brushes her thumbs across Octavia’s cheeks and Octavia feels wetness on her skin. It’s only then that she realizes she’s been crying for the last several minutes.

Clarke reaches out, a firm hand on top of Octavia’s knee, a solid presence. We’re in this together.

Octavia lets go and loses herself in Lexa’s eyes, bright green pools that she hides behind. All the pain and sorrow and life she’s kept buried for so many years, all the joy she’s found in life again.

“I’m sorry this hurt you,” Lexa whispers, her thumbs continuing to brush at Octavia’s tears.

Octavia nods, letting the weight of her head fall into Lexa’s hands. She reaches out for Clarke, finding her and holding on. There’s a moment where she almost lets herself fall into them, almost lets herself be forgiven. Almost. She breathes out and kisses Lexa’s palm.

“I should have said something before it got to this.”

“Yes, you should have,” Clarke nudges her knee. “We can’t just not talk anymore and hope for the best.”

“I know.”

“This only works if we trust each other, even when we don’t agree.” Lexa tugs Octavia forward off the couch and into her lap. She pulls Clarke close until they’re a tangle of limbs on the livingroom floor. Three bodies, hearts beating together, aching and full of love.

Octavia curls tighter against Clarke, laying her head on her chest. She brushes her hand across Clarke’s shoulder, clearing the blonde hair from her face, and kisses the bare skin left behind. Lexa does the same, tucking Clarke’s hair behind her ear, pressing a gentle kiss to the side of Clarke’s face before kissing Octavia’s forehead. They hold onto each other, hands trailing softly, comforting and wondering where they go from here.

Lexa breaks the silence, her voice soft and breathy with emotion, “Together?”

Octavia nods, never more certain. “Together.”

“Together,” Clarke echoes.

_______________________________________

Clarke hums to herself, slowly making her way through the day, moving some of the smaller paintings to the front of the gallery to hang and sell. It’s tedious and mindless, but that’s what she needs today. No one to take care of but herself. Tomorrow she’ll have to deal with teaching and caring for young artists but right now, right now she can try to turn off the incessant stream of panic in her mind.

For a while it works.

Then there’s a knock on the front door and Clarke is snapped from her reverie to find her mother looking surprised as she feels.

“Clarke, I-” Abby pauses, flustered almost. “I was just dropping by to see if you wanted to get lunch.”

Clarke raises an eyebrow quizzically, “I actually can’t today. I’ve got to get these paintings up before Kane gets in.”

“Oh he isn’t in?” Abby clutches her purse tighter. Clarke shakes her head and her mother sighs slightly. “So how are you, how are the girls?”

Clarke walks back toward the front desk and turns walking back toward the front of the shop before she responds. “Fine,” she exhales with a shrug, “Lexa is good and I mean aside from Octavia nearly dying the other day and telling Lincoln about us-”

“What?!”

“She’s fine, I mean, she almost ran into traffic, Raven pulled her out of the way, but she’s fine.” Clarke can’t stop pacing, if she stops moving her mind will acknowledge the connection she’s been trying to avoid, only glancing at sideways and shutting her eyes to. She keeps reminding herself there’s no real reason to feel like this as if it might help instead of making her feel worse. It just makes her feel powerless as the swirl of tension wriggles its way into her chest.

Abby steps in front of her, grabbing both of Clarke’s shoulders and stopping her forward momentum. Clarke closes her eyes and dips her head unable to meet the look of concern on her mother’s face. “What about this is upsetting you? Raven pulled her out of the way, right?”

Clarke’s eyes snap open but she’s seeing the day at the park again, not her mother and the art gallery. Instead she’s watching in slow motion as the car comes around the corner. “The driver was reckless, too fast, and I was watching. Everything… I saw everything and I thought for a second that I was going to lose her just like… like… dad,” Clarke’s voice breaks and she chokes on a sob that’s been building for weeks. Maybe it’s been there for the last ten years, never really left her, just hiding beneath the surface.

Her head falls forward against her mother’s shoulder and she allows herself to collapse into her her arms. She can’t let go of the thought that she nearly lost someone else to a reckless driver. Another wonderful day shattered by tragedy. The weight of it pulls her down, and she’s trembling and crying and she hates that she feels this weak. That there’s nothing she can do to stop this feeling that control has slipped through her fingers.

“It’s been ten years, sweetheart.” Abby presses a kiss into Clarke’s hair.

The gesture and the words only make her cry harder. She tries to stop, breathing in deep and holding her breath, as if by stopping the flow of oxygen she can stop the flow of tears, but the sob has become something visceral and, like, everything else in her life, escaped her control. Clarke clings to her mother.

She should feel embarrassed breaking down at work, but no one else is here, and the shop isn’t open. This is everything she can’t explain to Octavia and Lexa, even though she’s tried. They haven’t been affected in the way she has by the deaths in her lives and her mother is the only one that comes close.

Though all of them lack real understanding of the loss of stability that comes with the loss of control spurned on by the upsurge of a memory. They can comfort and help her come back to herself but none of them understand how truly frustrating the whole situation is on top of being painfully overwhelming.

Clarke stands up straight, trying to fix her smudged makeup without making it worse, and knowing her eyes are red and watery, and she won’t be fooling anyone. She blinks rapidly to clear out the last of the tears.

“I know it’s been ten years. I shouldn’t still be like this.” Clarke gestures to herself.

“There’s no statute on grieving, Clarke.” Abby squeezes Clarke’s arm and rubs her thumb across her bicep.

Clarke smiles tight lipped. It isn’t about the pain of loss, though that is there. This is about the moment where her plans and her neatly organized life ended in a splash of crimson on cobblestone. The fact that she can’t control the swirling scream inside her head that holds her up for weeks at a time. She smiles and nods slightly, because that’s what her mother needs.

Abby leans forward, her hand on Clarke’s face as she presses a kiss to her forehead. “You and Octavia and Lexa should go to the coast for the weekend. Maybe the salt water will do you some good.”

Clarke nods again because she can’t find the words, she can’t find her voice. How does she explain the splash of crimson to someone that’s never seen that particular shade of pain?

_______________________________________

A week passes and Octavia and Clarke and Lexa are trying to find ways to make everything work. Finding ways to compromise this part out - part in the closet life they have. They’re holding on to each other tighter at night, taking more private moments when they’re out in public, risking behavior that could be read as coupleish. Octavia texts the girls talking about what she wishes she could do, or asking if something is okay.

The house is full of flowers.

Lexa spends her breaks bringing Octavia coffee.

Clarke’s been systematically burning through an entire loaf of bread trying to make breakfast each morning.

Because this is the choice they’re making, hard as it is, they’re in love and for now, this is what it looks like. Half in the closet, half out of it. Complicated and messy. Weekends and evenings feel like the world will be okay, but there’s an encroaching fear. What if someone else figures it out? What if it’s the wrong person? What if one of them loses their job? What if they lose friends?

What if?

What if…

What if.

Octavia presses on the glass door of Gallery 2149 and finds it open, which makes sense since Clarke is expecting her, but doesn’t because technically the gallery is closed. She’s been wondering what if all morning and all she can think is what if it all works out in the end? Does it matter how they get there?

“Clarke?” she calls. The front of the gallery is empty, paintings sit against the walls, ready to be hung, and the makeshift reception area is empty.

She finds Clarke in the small storage area at the back of the gallery sorting through paintings. Octavia watches her for a moment, the way her hair falls messily out of the bun on the top of her head, soft yellow curls trailing down her neck, the way her forehead creases in thought. “Clarke?” she says softly trying not to startle her girlfriend.

Clarke spins, the moment of surprise quickly morphing into happiness as she leans the painting in her hands back against the pile. “Is it lunch already? How are you?”

Octavia wraps her arms around Clarke’s waist as she steps closer to her, “Better now.” She smiles and presses a kiss to Clarke’s cheek.

“You ready to go to lunch?” Clarke nudges Octavia lightly but Octavia tightens her grip.

“I just want to stay here with you in my arms. The world makes more sense when you and me and Lexa can hold on to each other.”

“I know,” Clarke kisses the spot in front of Octavia’s ear. “But we’re meeting Raven for lunch, and we’ll all be home tonight, and you’ll have us all to yourself.” She brushes hair back from Octavia’s face and tucks it behind her ear.

Octavia sighs and releases Clarke from the embrace, her fingertips trail down Clarke’s arm and for a moment their hands link. Stolen moments, smiles, and nights in each others’ arms. She can do this, she reminds herself. As long as she has her girls, she can figure out anything.

Chapter Text

Lexa slides into her chair, setting down two greek salads and two toasted sandwiches. Raven follows a few steps behind with four glasses of water. The deli is filling up with the lunch crowd but they’ve managed to snag their normal table in the back corner away from the door and the line.

Clarke and Octavia are running late which isn’t unusual, but Lexa is hoping they show up before too long, it’s never fun when they only get a handful of minutes because someone is late. Lexa smiles at Raven as she settles in. Things are comfortable between them, quiet and simple. She never feels like she has to explain anything with Raven, they just get each other.

This feeling is new, like she has friends and a chance at a life, one that isn’t going to be snached away from her. Last time she felt like life would work out was when she and Costia were starting college. Anya’s career was taking off, Costia was finding herself, and Lexa was learning what real lasting hope felt like.

Now she has Clarke and Octavia, and a small but growing number of people she trusts… friends, people that care about her, and want to see her happy.

“How goes the lab?” Lexa stabs a bite of salad.

“Decent,” Raven grins. Decent is an understatement, her work is finally starting to get recognition and she might be on the edge of the breakthrough she needs. “I’m skyping with MIT later this week to talk with their biomechanics lab about the designs for my prototype sensor.”

“I want to see this thing in action some day.”

“Definitely, I’m hoping to get some dancers and gymnasts to help me test it out, runners too but I can cover that at least in the preliminary stages. Besides, I couldn’t ask anyone to test out something I wasn’t willing to wear myself. Not with this much on the line.”

The bell on the front door rings as it’s pushed open.

Clarke and Octavia sit down at the table a moment later, Octavia immediately digging into her sandwich, mumbling a thanks to Lexa and Raven for ordering. She’s famished having skipped breakfast after the scent of burnt toast had turned her stomach. There may need to be an intervention in Clarke attempting to cook.

“What is it you’re wearing?” Clarke laughs.

“Nothing special yet,” Raven winks. “We were just talking about the new sensor I’m working on for prosthetic limbs.”

“You’re making yourself into a bionic woman and that is wicked cool,” Octavia says as she steals a fry off Clarke’s plate. Clarke tries to swat her hand away but isn’t quick enough.

“What can I say, I earn my name. I am a true Ravenclaw. The pursuit of knowledge above all else. Can I make it work? Or does it go boom?” Raven leans back in her chair, a satisfied smile on her lips. “Though, sometimes, those are the same thing. Sometimes that’s the best.”

“A Ravenclaw, huh? I suppose that does fit,” Clarke tilts her head to the side looking Raven over.

“What house are you in?” Raven asks.

“Gryffindor, obviously. It’s practically a given, just like you. It’s all in the name.”

“Touché, Griffin. What about these two?” Raven gestures to Octavia and Lexa. “My guess is Ravenclaw?” she points to Lexa.

Lexa taps her nose, “That’s what these two say anyway.”

“Did you not read the books?” Raven asks incredulously.

“Only once,” Octavia says shaking her head sadly.

“Can you believe it?” Clarke sighs.

“I was busy keeping my grades up, you try having Anya for an older sister and guardian.” Lexa shifts in her seat but her eyes are shining with laughter. “I just wanted to figure out how the world worked. I didn’t have time for figuring out all of the imaginary ones.”

“Spoken like a true Ravenclaw,” Raven grins and raises her fist for Lexa to bump. After a pause, Lexa mirrors the action and Raven explodes the bump. “What about you, O? I’m not sure yet, you’re secondary is too strong. Your brother is Slytherin through and through, but you…”

“O always has been, and always will be a Hufflepuff. Girl is motivated by her heart and food. Which may or may not be linked.” Clarke nudges Octavia who’s been quiet and shovelling her lunch in her face like she isn’t sure she’ll have time to finish, like she hasn’t eaten in awhile.

“‘puff pride,” she mumbles around a mouthful, fistpumping the air.

“Alright, alright. I see it.” Raven sits forward taking a bite of her salad thinking over the house assignments, wondering how long they’ve known each other to know so well where they all belong. “How did you all meet anyway?”

“Well this one,” Octavia pokes to Lexa with her fork. “Cornered me in an interrogation room when the detective on a case before me failed to give a full report.”

“And then I found her sitting on O’s desk looking like a greek goddess,” Clarke winks at Lexa who rolls her eyes.

“She was so aloof, intense, we never stood a chance,” Octavia stretches out her leg and rubs it against Lexa’s. She hopes it’s Lexa’s, or at least Clarke’s. When Raven doesn’t seem to notice she assumes she’s at least reached out for one of her girlfriends.

Lexa shakes her head, tearing at the bread roll in her hand, “You make it sounds like I pursued the two of you.”

“Well, you were the one with a reputation for getting pretty women in closets.” Octavia smirks.

“And we are nothing, if not pretty,” Clarke pops a fry into her mouth.

“Wait, so you and Clarke had been dating when you met Lexa?” Raven sets down the bite of salad she’s about to take.

“Yeah, about three years,” Clarke raises her eyebrows suggestively as she takes a bite of her sandwich. “Though we’ve known each other since elementary school… Octavia’s got a mean right hook.”

“Clarke’s mom makes really good brownies,” Octavia adds with a shrug. She glances down at her plate, wanting to reach out for either of her girlfriends. Wanting more than stolen glances.

Raven covers up a grin with a sip of water. “That’s almost too precious.”

Clarke shakes her head, “I suppose that’s all you need when you’re ten years old. Little miss I-will-save-the-day punched some kid who was making fun of my art. Somehow we both got detention. I snuck her half a brownie when the teacher wasn’t looking.”

“And they haven’t separated since,” Lexa teases deadpan, glancing to Raven.

Raven makes a faux gagging noise and the table dissolves into laughter. Though Octavia is quieter than normal.

It’s good. Just hanging out with someone, talking about life, laughing. Everything lately was starting to make them feel as if their life would be forever strange and other, hidden away in crevices between moments. Having friends that they could trust, talk to, be normal around, it makes what they have feel possible. There’s only so far that love and hope can take them. Even together they can’t survive as an island.

Home is more to them than the arms that hold them close at night.

Raven can’t stop smiling, watching her friends exchange glances, the way they look at each other is nauseating, but she can’t help but feel happy for them. This is the life that makes them happy. Most of the time. She looks to Octavia, focused on her food, clearly trying to keep the smile on her face, hiding something behind a curtain of dark hair.

It’s the way Raven used to be quiet when someone would mention Finn, and now when Wick comes up in conversation. She wonders what happened to cause Octavia to curl in on herself and hide. It isn’t her place to ask.

“So that means you’ve known Bellamy for ages then?” Raven turns to Clarke.

The table goes still and quiet.

Clarke contemplates her sandwich as she answers, “Yeah, he’s been like a big brother… good intentions, a bit over protective at times though.” She glances at Octavia out of the corner of her eye as the younger Blake sinks into herself just slightly. Things may be working out between the three of them but they still have a long way to go before everything feels right as far as home is concerned.

Octavia’s a Hufflepuff, through and through, her home and her family are what matters most to her.

_______________________________________

The late August sun beats down on Octavia and Raven as they lean and against Lexa’s car, which was borrowed to drive out of town and towards The Gorge for a trail run. After the near accident they had stuck to running in parks or indoors entirely. Even early mornings on the residential streets near the house where the girls lived seemed too crowded with cars – at least for now. Eventually they’d shift back into a running routine that didn’t involve so much driving, but for now it was as good an excuse as any to get out and go for a trail run.

Raven bends over and combs her fingers through her hair, slowly stretching out her hamstrings as she pulls her hair tight to the top of her head, and affixes a hair tie before straightening back up. She shakes her head a few times to make sure it stays in place. The ponytail bounces, but holds tight. Nothing worse than having to stop your run to adjust hair, clothes, or headphones. She slides a thick headband over the top and winds her headphone cord through it, letting the ear buds dangle down her back for now.

She stretches out her arms, loosening up her shoulders. Her pre-run rituals are sacred. Everything in its place and she can tackle whatever the run and her body throw at her that day. Raven hasn’t deterred from the routine since she started running successfully after the amputation. It took a couple years of hard work, harder than she had ever worked before, but she’d gotten there, determined not to let something out of her control make decisions for her about how she would live her life.

The hardest part was that before the lab accident that shattered her tibia was that she hadn’t been a runner. She’d been in decent shape, but all of that had taken second place to her research and her education. One safety oversight on some freshman’s part and her life was being dictated to her by doctors and specialists. Old white men telling her it was unlikely she would walk without assistance.

Raven straightens up and clicks her headphones into her phone. Music and friends and the endorphin high were the only thing that mattered for the next couple hours.

A car door slams and Raven startles, a small scared noise escaping her throat. She grabs onto the edge of the car door, head whipping around toward the source of the noise. It’s just a family of hikers tumbling out of their car, kids laughing, carefree, getting ready for a day sightseeing at the falls. Raven shakes her head and slides into the seat to switch out her regular leg for her running blade.

“You alright there?” Octavia peaks around the side of the car.

“Yeah, totally.” Raven smiles but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes. She clenches her hands into fists to stop them from shaking.

Octavia makes an incoherent noise and turns back to changing into her running shoes. Her arm still aches from the near accident and she shakes it out. She’s just glad the scab is nearly gone, even if the new skin underneath is pale and pink and scarred. Laces tight, she jumps to her feet, bouncing back and forth a few times before doing a few knee highs and stretching out her back. The only problem with trail runs were the drives to and from the trail.

All she wants to do is be moving. Let the world fall away as she loses herself in the pounding of her feet on the earth. Just her and Raven and the fresh air. It took her a while to get used to running with someone else. She and Raven keep different paces, have different goals, and so it took them a while to find a rhythm - the gym at home is a different story, there they’ve always been in sync… There’s something about the way they play off each other that just makes it all work.

Octavia looks over to Raven as she fits her leg back on with the running blade attached. It’s like something out of the future, sleek and crafted to be super-human, and Octavia can’t help but be in awe of her friend. She couldn’t imagine trying to run with only one leg, knowing that Raven works nearly twice as hard as Octavia does just to do the same workout. And still, most days, Raven outruns Octavia, pushing them both harder and faster than they would go alone. Octavia is nothing if not thankful, though she can’t say the same for her legs the day after their runs.

“What?” Raven tosses her towel at Octavia, hitting her square in the face before she snatches it and comes out of her reverie.

Octavia grins and tosses the towel back, “Just admiring your badassery, Reyes.”

Raven raises an eyebrow, and stands. There’s swagger in the way she moves. “Is that so, Little Blake? You think I’m going to go easy on you if you soften me up with compliments first?”

“As if you’re the one that needs to be going easy on me,” Octavia shoots back.

“You think you can beat me, then?” Raven’s smirk is cocky as she steps into Octavia’s space, chest to chest, nearly pressed against each other. She reaches down to finish tightening the strap on her prosthetic and when she straightens she leans forward just enough to make Octavia take a small step back and smack into the side of the car.

“Oh, it’s on.” Octavia nudges Raven and slips past her jogging backwards toward the trailhead.

Raven shuts the car door and takes off after Octavia, “We’ll see if you’re still grinning when we get back.”

The first mile is more of a sprint, Octavia and Raven running neck and neck down the trail, laughter echoing behind them as they dodge over tree roots and around corners, avoiding the hikers pulling their children and dogs out of the girls’ way. By the time they slow down they can’t tell if the day is heating up or they’re just hot from running, but both girls are dripping in sweat.

Octavia peels off her tanktop as they run, twisting it into a rope and tying it around her head.

“Classy, O,” Raven laughs as she picks up the pace. Octavia stumbles and presses into the ground harder to catch up.

For most of their run it’s just them and the water rushing through the gorge below the trail. A light mist dampening their skin as much as their sweat. The steady beat of their feet as they find themselves alone is the driving pulse that propels them forward. Today it’s five miles out and five miles back. A nice long run for their day off.

Lungs burn, muscles warm and sore as they push past exhaustion. The self challenge, how far can I go, can I still go on once we get to that tree? What about that rock? Still running, legs pumping, arms swinging, obliques on fire. There’s never quite enough air but each breath is an aching reminder of how alive they are in that moment.

They round a corner. A dog barks. Raven trips.

Octavia catches her before she hits the ground, pulling her upright, steadying her. She doesn’t let go right away, and notices a fine trembling in Raven’s core. Both of them are breathing heavily. Catching their breath from exhaustion and startled nerves.

“You okay?” Octavia asks around gasps.

Raven nods rapidly and steps out of Octavia’s grasp, her hands on her waist as she tries to steady her breathing.

Octavia bends over to catch her breath, hands on knees. She holds up one finger, signalling wait. “What’s going on? You’ve been jumpy this entire run.” As her breath evens out she straightens up.

“It’s nothing,” Raven shakes her head, jogging in place. “Come on we’ve only got another mile and we’re back to the car.”

The last thing Raven wants to do is think about Wick, or that he still keeps showing up, texting her, knocking on her door late at night. That she’s jumpy because she’s starting to suspect he’s been following her. She wouldn’t put it past him to, but out here, more than a mile from the parking lot, it seems absurd to think that he would be trying to keep up with them. Besides it was a dog barking, not her six foot one ex.

Raven takes off running again, not waiting to see if Octavia accepts what she says or not.

They finish up their run in silence, Raven keeps her head down, not acknowledging the other runners, and letting Octavia take care of the wave and nod that everyone around here insists on. The runner’s solidarity. Usually she’s all for it, they’re all out here, living, making themselves better, enjoying life… she can’t shake the feeling in her gut though that something is wrong now that they’re nearly at the trailhead - the parking lot just coming into view.

Raven glances up, just catching sight of a tall male with long blonde hair slipping into a car. It looks like him. It was probably him. She shakes her head trying to quell the panic in her chest, her eyes close for a moment and she doesn’t see the uneven ground, and trips over the small mound of dirt.

Octavia’s hands close around her arm and waist, keeping her from crashing to the asphalt beyond. She pulls her upright and tight against her.

“Twice in one run, you’re not okay.”

Raven shrugs out of Octavia’s grasp, “It’s fine. I’m fine.”

“The guy in the car, who was that?” Octavia frowns and purses her lips but lets Raven go.

Raven doesn’t reply. The car hasn’t returned and she’s just hoping it was a coincidence, another tall long haired blonde boy. She leans against Lexa’s car stretching, waiting for Octavia to open the door so she can switch out her running blade for her regular leg.

Her head is racing and it has nothing to do with the run. She isn’t ready to talk to Octavia or anyone really. Wick is something she can handle. The last thing she’s going to do is let things become like they were before. Raven refuses to be that weak again.

Octavia isn’t letting it go. “Was that your ex who keeps texting?” She leans against the car, just inside Raven’s field of view. Sweat plasters the little baby hairs to the side of her face and it drips down her neck in the late morning heat. Raven watches a bead of sweat join with another, suddenly gaining speed and running across Octavia’s collarbone, down toward the edge of her sports bra.

Raven looks back up and shakes her head decisively, holding Octavia’s gaze and imploring her to understand. “It’s fine, O, really.”

Neither of them blink or flinch, staring the other down and willing them to give in. Stubborn and strong willed they could be at this a while. Raven can feel a trickle of sweat start up again down her spine thanks to the rising sun. She squirts water into her mouth without breaking eye contact disappointed that the water has warmed over the course of their run. It isn’t that she doesn’t trust Octavia, it’s just that this is something she can handle.

The shift of the car unlocking breaks the weight between them and Octavia turns to move to the drivers side. The purse of her lips is sad tinged with disappointment and Raven doesn’t fail to notice the way it seems she let things go anyway.

“You know, you don’t have to go through things alone.” Octavia opens the car door and looks at Raven over the roof, she tilts her head to the side and Raven knows that look. It’s the one Octavia uses when she’s sizing up a challenge. “I know you’ve had this whole lone wolf, epically busy scientist thing going on… but whether you meant for this to happen or not you’ve got friends now, and we’ve got your back if you let us. I’m a cop, don’t think I don’t recognize the signs of what is happening, but I can’t help you if you don’t tell me.” She drops into the car and shuts the door.

Raven lets out a long breath. Octavia won’t push her, but she knows. Guilt and disappointment in herself churns her stomach. She isn’t the weak girl Wick left her a year ago. She doesn’t want the pity that comes from being a victim. Being a victim is the last thing she’s going to be this time.

_______________________________________

Magnets keep the bonsai trees floating inches above their bases. Little planet shaped worlds, a tiny world made for one large organism. Were someone small enough the could walk slowly around the planet and it would always be sunset. Lexa holds her favorite of the plants gently in her hands, trimming it into shape, taming the wildness, helping it grow.

She’s had this one the longest, and somehow it is more special to her than all the others. It’s the one Anya entrusted to her first, shortly after their foster parents had been killed in a skiing accident. She sets down the small pruners and turns the little tree this way and that, admiring it, loving it. This is something she cares for because she cultivated it, gave herself to it.

Lexa closes her eyes as she sets the little planet back above its base, letting it go in mid air, trusting it will once again float. With a flick of her finger she sets it gently spinning, near perpetual motion. The only thing that will ever stop its spiral is an outside force.

Spiraling steady, slowly.

Clarke.

Lexa lays back on the livingroom floor, pressing the heels of her hands to her eyes. Something has been off kilter in the carefully constructed world that she’s built. Ever since that car nearly ran over Octavia. Clarke is shaky and sad when she thinks no one is looking. Octavia is fighting between herself and her promises. For months it wasn’t a problem… and now, all of sudden, it feels like their life is spiraling. What’s the outside force that will stop them? Will they just naturally slow and stop this madness or do they need to exert an opposite first, a change to save themselves.

She picks up her phone sending a quick text to Octavia.

Lexa 12:24pm: Should we be worried about Clarke? Or is it just me that thinks she’s been more than sad lately?

Ten minutes pass, and Lexa lets herself stay laying on the floor, sunlight warming her through the large windows that look out over their backyard. Part of her is tempted to stay there on the floor but she dislikes biding her time if there is something to be done. Hoisting herself to her feet she’s barely sat down at the piano - just another distraction if she’s honest with herself - when her phone goes off.

Octavia 12:37pm: It’s nearly September. this time of year is always hard… plus it’s been 10 years since Jake died

Octavia 12:37pm: I wouldn’t worry yet

Octavia 12:37pm: besides she’s got both of us, we can handle it

Lexa 12:38pm: Last year she seemed okay. What exactly will we have to handle?

Octavia 12:38pm: nothing crazy, she just crashes for a few days. we make sure she eats, drinks water. that kind of thing, just have to wait it out. driving now, on our way back from the gorge

Lexa 12:38pm: Ok. But we’re talking about this later.

Octavia 12:39pm: sure

Lexa sighs and sets her phone next to herself on the piano bench and drops her hands onto the keys. She isn’t really paying attention to what she’s playing just letting her mind wander while her hands do their thing.

Part of her just wants to believe Octavia that everything will resolve before too long, but this feels like so much more than a seasonal affection. Everything is connected, and it isn’t just Clarke that is hurting. They have to find a way to get over what has happened in the past.

Maybe the biggest change they could make is to work toward not hiding their relationship. Lexa can’t do that unless she has a new job, one that doesn’t rely on the whims of government bureaucrats. One where maybe her boss won’t mind her life existing outside normal. One that can look past the queerness of who she is. Lexa’s hands still on the keys. Maybe she has the power to change the course of things and stop this spiral.

She doesn’t hear Clarke come up behind her until Clarke is wrapping arms around her shoulders and kissing the top of her head. Clarke’s voice is sleepy and rough, “That was pretty, why did you stop?”

Lexa tips her head back and steals a kiss. “Just thinking.”

“‘Bout what?” Clarke nuzzles against Lexa and there’s a sad quality to her voice even as she tries to keep her tone light.

“Just work stuff,” she leans back into her girlfriend. The thought has taken hold, it’s time to try to advance her career. No more working for the District Attorney. If she wants to get where she wants to be both at work and at home something has to give. This time it’s easy - new job, new chances to make things right.

_______________________________________

Clarke can feel it wash over her like a wave, soft and gentle and she almosts laughs at it’s familiarity. The sadness. The weight. She almost laughs because why would she think that she would be anything but this. It always comes back to this. No matter how long she holds steady it always comes back like the tide.

It’s just starting to come in, trickling cold down her spine. Clarke presses the heels of her hands to her eyes and shakes her head to clear it. Maybe she can keep it from happening this time. Maybe this time she’ll have caught it soon enough and she can stop it. Stop the tide rolling over her, burying her in the wet sand. Stop the weight of inexplicable sadness wrapping around her heart.

On her fingers she counts the good in her life. Her girlfriends. Octavia and Lexa have seen her through everything in this past year, and this past year has been so very good. Her friends, both her jobs, her students. The release of stress now that she doesn’t manage the museum, relegated to a teacher of tiny ones. It’s the dream.

Clarke glances up at the little art classroom, messy and covered in paint, floor and easels alike. Chairs stained from oil paints. She can almost hear the laughter of little artists as they discover how to mix colors, how drying paint crinkles on the skin, how they can create whatever they see in their mind on the canvas.

She slumps into her teacher chair in the corner of the room and pulls her knees to her chest, heels pressed to the edge of the seat, forehead against her knees.

Fight . She urges herself. As if she could stop water running through her fingers. Just hold on . This time it will be okay. Life is good. Wonderful. She argues with herself. This will be the time everything is okay. This will be the time she doesn’t fall apart.

One day at a time.

Clarke breathes out and presses her feet flat on the floor.

One day at a time. Each smile, each moment she can choose how she acts. If she just pretends hard enough maybe it will be real, and this time she won’t let her depression eat away at her life. She doesn’t want to lose this time.

_______________________________________

Lexa fidgets on the couch trying to move as little as possible because Clarke’s legs are across her lap and she’s sketching, and Octavia is leaning against her other side from time to time when her video game switches to a cut scene. Lexa can’t move far without disturbing either of them. So she shifts slightly and repositions her laptop on Clarke’s shins. She’s been staring at the lone email in her inbox, ignoring the list of things she needs to be doing, and instead she keeps reading and rereading the proof that the phone call she received earlier that day really happened.

Earlier that day Trikru Associates had called her about an interview. She hadn’t anticipated such a quick reply to her inquiry, only thinking that this initial inquiry would serve to get her name in front of the right person. Apparently one of her former professors knows several individuals that work there. It’s been somewhere she’s thought of working for years. Their client base is troubled families mostly, a lot of it divorces, but Lexa could work on cases involving children almost exclusively. It’s everything she’s worked toward.

She’s been thinking about this for months, longer really, but for different reasons than she is right now. Now that she’s faced with the reality of her choices and needs, and how they affect the people she loves, she wants to try to do what is best for the three of them, and not just herself.

Octavia leans her head against Lexa’s shoulder and Lexa lets her head fall against the top of Octavia’s.

As much as she’s always wanted to move to working in the private sector, there’s something in the prospect of starting a new job - especially a job that she wants so desperately for so long- that she doesn’t know where to being. How does she bring up the prospect to the others so that they understand? She’s doing this for herself because it’s what she wanted but she’s doing it now because of them.

Lexa rubs her thumb across the bare skin of Clarke’s exposed ankle.

It isn’t until Octavia turns her head and sets her chin on Lexa’s shoulder that she realizes she’s been humming to herself in thought for the past several minutes. This is what she gets for living alone for so much of her adult life, she has some extraordinarily bizarre habits.

“Something is on your mind.” Octavia states.

Lexa closes her laptop and leans forward to put it on the coffee table. “I have an interview for a job with Trikru Associates,” she keeps her voice level.

Clarke taps Lexa with her sketchpad indicating she should take it and put it on the coffee table as well. “Isn’t that the fancy firm in the glass building next to the museum?”

“I didn’t know you were applying for new jobs.”

They both sound surprised.

Lexa picks Clarke’s legs up off her lap and stands, walking halfway around the living room while she gathers her thoughts, trying to figure out the best place to start. She pauses at the piano, thinking she might sit down to play, clear her head put things in order. The words need to come out in the right order.

“Lexa?”

She turns to see both Clarke and Octavia turned to watch her, and she knows she needs to start talking.

“I never meant to stay working with the D.A. for so long. And lately I’ve been thinking, since before Octavia told Lincoln about us, really, but that night it became clear, we’re mostly staying in the closet because I’m asking us to. Because I don’t feel my job is secure if we come out.” Lexa glances up realizing she’s saying things they all already know. “If I worked in the private sector the situation would be different. We could come out... if we chose to.”

Lexa stops pacing, letting her hands drop to her sides and turns to face her girlfriends again.

Clarke leans her head on the back of the couch, but she’s smiling as she watches Lexa. “As long as you’re doing what you want with your career.”

“Yes, this was the plan. Trikru Associates has been on my list for a long time.” Lexa crosses back to the couch, pausing at the back of it.

Octavia sits up on her knees so she’s nearly eye level with Lexa, her words are quiet, shy, almost in awe, “You’re doing this for us?”

Lexa dips her chin once in affirmative and Octavia breaks out in a smile so big it takes up her whole face. She tugs Lexa close and presses a sloppy kiss to her cheek in excitement before flopping back on the couch where she settles in between Clarke’s legs, still looking up at Lexa. She hasn’t looked this happy in a while now.

Octavia closes her eyes, drawing in the moment, holding onto it, savouring it. Part of her feels free, like there’s finally light. There’s a way out of this torment that doesn’t leave her feeling twisted inside. She hears Lexa walk back around the couch and reaches out a hand as she cracks one eye open.

“Thank you,” she says softly.

Lexa takes her hand and sits gently on the edge of the couch as she reaches for Clarke.

“I need to do this, because I don’t want to be the reason we can’t be completely happy.”

_______________________________________

When Lexa steps into the front lobby of Gallery 2149 it takes Clarke longer than she’d like to admit for her to realize that anyone else is in the room with her. She’s too entrenched in sorting through the legal speak of a contract for a catering company to hear the tell tale click of heels on concrete, and doesn’t look up until Lexa is practically in front of her.

She’s been caught up in trying to calm her mind, getting lost in the guilt of not being able to focus, or make headway on her endless list of tasks. She felt it start weeks ago, the first gentle tugs of depression, not quite apathy yet, but the fear and hyper awareness, the worry that everyone would judge her failure. Worry that if she didn’t manage to make it through the winter without feeling despair she would be letting everyone down. Last winter had been mild.

Last winter everything had been new, Lexa, the house – there was so much to keep her from ruminating on the feelings building inside her last year, and the sense that they were unstoppable, uncontrollable, that no matter what she did she would be faced with the same pain and despair for no reason at all.

Standing in front of Clarke with a slightly bemused, slightly sad smile on her lips as she holds out an iced latte. Lexa shakes it gently back and forth signalling Clarke to take the drink.

“I had a feeling you might need this today,” she shrugs as if she’s trying to coax a smile out of Clarke.

Clarke takes the proffered coffee and wonders if it’s clear to Lexa that she is lost. Lost in thought lost in the consuming feeling of well, feeling everything. The gratitude she feels for her girlfriends, the small ways Lexa makes sure Clarke knows she cares, stopping by and bringing her iced coffee, catching her eye across the dinner table, pulling her closer as they sleep at night. And Octavia too, the way she’s been blowing up their group chat for days with all the impulse she has, her hopes and dreams that one day she won’t have to put down in words every move she wants to make.

Clarke wonders if she’s seemed lost in the pain of remembering because lately all she wants to do is wander down to the market with her dad and tell him the state of her heart while they pick up organic strawberries and kale, or whisper about her problems while she tries not to inhale the stink of raw fish. She just wants to pour out her soul like what she’s saying is trivial but have him know it’s the grandest of admissions. He had a way of knowing what was really important to her. She wants to hear his laugh as she says something ridiculous. She can remember the way it felt and how it made her feel. She can remember the shape of it, the why of it, but she can’t remember the sound of it, can’t hear it fill her ears or wrap around her. It was just so many vibrations in the air.

She can’t remember the sound of her dad’s laugh or the way her name sat on his tongue when he was proud.

“Thank you,” Clarke says softly, eyes searching Lexa’s face and trying to suss out what her dad would make of her, all the ways he would have loved her. “I thought you were grabbing lunch with Raven and Anya today?”

“I am,” Lexa smiles softly as she leans on the counter, near enough that Clarke could lean in to touch her.

Clarke thinks about it, but she’s afraid she’ll sink into any comfort offered and she has to make it through the day. Lexa fidgets with a pen almost as if she isn’t sure what to say.

“I just wanted to see you. See how you were surviving Octavia’s texts.” The last is said with a small laugh.

Clarke smiles at that and she can feel the warmth of it spread through her. Octavia’s text had been increasingly graphic in their group chat over the morning, not that either of them had done anything to discourage her. If anything they had taken turns egging her on. It was a wonder no one had suggested they all take a sick day to remedy the growing ache they all shared for which there really was only one cure.

Orgasms, and lots of them.

“Mostly, well… mostly. Though work isn’t nearly distracting enough. I swear that girl will be the death of us one day if she doesn’t frustrate herself into oblivion first. There won’t be any getting things done tonight.”

Lexa sighs heavily but there’s a smile on her lips.” Should we just plan to order in for dinner then? Maybe Indian?”

Clarke shifts and leans across the desk, her hands brushing Lexa’s. “So you’ve got plans for us then?”

Lexa leans forward, close enough she can feel Clarke’s breath on her lips. “I feel like Octavia already made our plans for us.” She hooks her pinky finger around Clarke’s, stroking the cool, dry skin.

When Clarke closes the distance between them and catches her up in a kiss Lexa yields, lips caressing lips, mind racing towards six o’clock tonight and walking in the front door of their house. She doesn’t miss the sadness of Clarke’s sigh when she pulls back, knowing it has nothing to do with having to wait, and everything to do with Clarke doing her best to hide how she’s feeling.

Lexa kisses the tip of Clarke’s nose and straightens up. “Text me if you need anything, I’ll be back later to pick you up.”

Clarke dips her head and doesn’t meet Lexa’s eyes. It’s evasive and more than anything it makes Lexa worry. After all they’ve been through together she doesn’t want Clarke or Octavia to feel like they have anything to hide from her. That’s not what they’re in this for. They’re supposed to be each other’s strength, their safe space. She can’t fix this in the next five minutes though so she lets it go, hoping that the feeling that Clarke will come to them when she is ready is more than just a hope.

They whisper their goodbyes, Clarke already focused on her work as Lexa slips out the front door of the gallery.

It doesn’t take her long to walk the few blocks to the sandwich shop and bakery near her office. She checks her watch, five minutes late, which means Anya will be inside waiting and impatient. Just as she suspected her sister is saving their table in the corner. Raven must be running late too.

“I was beginning to think everyone forgot we had plans.” Anya rolls her eyes as she nudges a chair out with her foot for Lexa to sit in.

“I stopped by to check on Clarke. Did you order?”

“Yeah, already put in yours and Raven’s too.”

“Thanks.” Lexa nearly slumps into the chair but catches herself at the last minute. She shakes her head, Octavia must be rubbing off on her.

Anya sips at her ice coffee through a straw. “Everything okay with Clarke?”

“She’s off ,” Lexa slides her chair forward and leans her elbows on the table, fiddling with the little crystal glass of sugar packets. “Octavia says this is nothing out of the ordinary yet. You know, it’s almost the anniversary.”

“Her dad?”

“Yeah.”

“Parents.”

“Seriously.” Lexa shakes her head but she’s glad she and Anya don’t need more words to understand. All parents do is manage to give you things to be fucked up about. It isn’t entirely true but sometimes it feels like it. Maybe they wouldn’t be so cynical if their adopted parents hadn’t died.

The bell on the front door rings and a few moments later Raven slips into the empty chair next to Anya, setting her phone on the table as she does.

“Why the long faces? Did you miss me that much?” Raven laughs but there’s a hollow sound to it. She cringes as her phone buzzes several times in succession. With a quick flick of her fingers she turns her phone onto do not disturb. It’s only when she looks up that she notices identical looks of thinly veiled worry and disbelief on Anya and Lexa’s faces. “What?”

Lexa shakes her head, hiding her face behind her hand, but Raven can still make out a slight smile filled with wonder. Anya rolls her eyes.

“Is that still him?” Anya stares at Raven’s phone pointedly.

“Nope, just work.” Raven dismisses the question quickly. Just because it is Wick and Anya is right and Lexa probably knows doesn’t mean she wants to talk about it. She just wants a pleasant lunch with her friends as far away from all the men in her life as she can get. Right now Monty and Jasper are having a contest to build the most ridiculous robot and she doesn’t want to be on call for when something goes disastrously wrong.

The boy behind the deli counter calls out a number and Anya pushes back her chair to stand.

Raven opens her mouth to ask if Anya had ordered for her but Anya cuts her off with a smirk. “Greek salad, no olives, light cheese.”

“You know me so well.” Raven grins and for a moment she feels lighter, but it only lasts a moment.

Lexa catches Raven’s eye and she arches an eyebrow. There’s everything in that one simple look. Admission that Lexa doesn’t know exactly what’s going on but she’s worried. Her gaze is soft, and doesn’t demand answers. It’s an offer of their friendship. In that one look Raven knows all she needs to know - Lexa understands that something is wrong, and that if anything is within her power she’ll do it. But also, if Raven doesn’t ask, she’ll leave it alone. There’s a trust there that she doesn’t know if either of them have earned.

Raven breathes out and nods, tilting her head to watch Lexa and wondering how they manage to communicate volumes without words. She wonders when soft green eyes became as familiar as her own.

_______________________________________

The room is bright for the middle of the night, the full moon shining in through the open window, they’re far enough away from downtown that the city lights don’t quite light up the night the way they did in Octavia and Clarke’s apartment. The air blowing through the open window is cool, almost cold compared to the heat of day, but night makes it clear that fall is fast approaching.

Lexa curls up tighter in bed, pulling covers and blankets over her shoulders. She reaches one arm back, reaching for… someone, anyone and finds nothing but cold empty sheets. Cracking one eye open she’s squints at the clock on the wall, trying to make out the analog interface in the dark.

It’s past three in the morning.

Lexa turns over and sees Octavia sprawled on the far side of the bed, her back to Lexa. Clarke is nowhere in sight. She must still be in her studio.

Picking up the blankets, Lexa shivers as the cold air rushes in and she scoots across the bed to press up against Octavia. She’s tempted to go back to sleep but she’s worried that Clarke hasn’t come to bed and it’s so late. Not that this is abnormal, but lately…

Lexa runs her fingertips down Octavia’s arm, brushes her hair back from her face, tucking it behind her ear, gently tries to call her girlfriend back from the deep sleep that she’s in. Part of her feels guilty waking Octavia, but she isn’t sure if she should intervene. Last year Clarke weathered the storm of the anniversary of her father’s death just fine. This year, after they’ve all been happy and stable for so many months, it feels like a punch to the gut to not know what to do to help, to not know how to make anything better. Lexa nuzzles against the back of Octavia’s neck and presses a kiss to her spine wondering if she can wake her girlfriend up if she just thinks hard enough about it.

She drums her fingers on Octavia’s shoulder lightly.

Octavia makes a small whining noise in the back of her throat. Lexa nuzzles her nose against Octavia’s neck.

“Octavia,” she whispers.

Octavia whines again, this time deliberately flailing slightly, the sound she makes is almost the word no .

“Clarke still hasn’t come to bed,” Lexa keeps her voice low as she dusts Octavia’s neck with kisses, an apology for waking her.

“She’s...studio...painting…” Octavia mumbles snuggling down under the blankets and against Lexa.

“It’s past three and I’m worried.”

Lexa feels Octavia breathe out, let go of her desire to be asleep, to chose to wake up, and to listen in the middle of the night at the hour when nothing should happen. Octavia rolls onto her back and pushes her hair back from her face, and Lexa is left looking down into eyes she knows are light green but she can barely make out the color.

Octavia’s voice is barely loud enough to hear, even as close as they are, “I have been as well.” She reaches out, twining her fingers with Lexa’s and squeezes her hand as she sits up.

It only takes a few moments to get out of bed and down the hall, not turning on lights, hands still entwined. Lexa presses her palm flat against the door to Clarke’s studio and it swings open. The room beyond is dark, Clarke sat huddled on the floor, an easel before her, but it’s clear that she’s long since stopped painting.

“Clarke?” Lexa asks softly not sure how awake the other woman is. She presses off the door frame and pads across the room, Octavia following behind her.

There’s no response, no movement, not even a twitch or a shrug, just Clarke staring at the canvas on the floor in front of her.

“Clarke…” Octavia murmurs, kneeling down beside her. It’s less of a question more of a sad statement, and Clarke huddles in on herself, the paintbrush she had been holding clattering to the hardwood floor.

There’s a mumbling of sound and Lexa can only barely decipher the words I’m fine .

Clarke is clearly anything but fine. A desperate air surrounds her, paints and tools meticulously lined up on the stained floor. Between the paintbrushes and some other paint tools Lexa can’t name are a line of razor blades. Lexa kneels down next to Clarke, careful not to disturb anything and brushes the hair back from her girlfriend’s face.

Clarke keeps her eyes downcast neither looking to Octavia or Lexa, but focusing instead on the chaos on the canvas in front of her.

Octavia catches Lexa’s eye over the top of Clarke’s head, trying to communicate that this is beyond what normally happens, encroaching on this is bad territory. She hasn’t seen Clarke like this in a long time and she feels like this sudden sharp drop in Clarke’s mood is something she should have seen coming. She knows the warning signs. She’s had ten years to memorize them and learn the nuances.

Lexa had asked, days ago, if they should be worried, and Octavia had brushed it off. A wave of guilt comes over her, souring her stomach and clenching around her heart. They did recognize the signs, but she chose to ignore them because sometimes there are just storms that people have to weather and all someone can do is to help them stay afloat once one sets in.

Sometimes storms come out of nowhere. A bright sunny day turning cloudy in an instant, the pressure dropping so suddenly the storm seems inexplicable, unpredictable. All there is to do is to support that person, hold them, help them keep going, pick up what they can no longer carry.

Some storms are worse than others, and a storm never needs a reason to be.

Lexa tilts her head to the side, holding Octavia’s gaze. What do we do?

Octavia shrugs. They do what they always do when Clarke stays up to late painting. Right now it’s all they can do.

“C’mon, Clarke, it’s late, we should go to bed.” Octavia helps Clarke to standing. She comes slowly, moving on her own when prompted, almost taking the initiative to get herself to bed. There’s a sluggishness to her, as if there’s a layer of fog between her and the world. She’s there, she’s functioning, but she isn’t engaged with anything around her.

Octavia guides Clarke away from her easel and the mess of paints on the floor. This isn’t the first time and each time it happens it scares her. Clarke slips out of herself. She’s there, maybe sad, but she’s there , and then in the span of a breath she’s gone, as if Clarke has somehow breathed out herself along with the carbon dioxide filling her lungs, all that’s left is a shell of Octavia’s best friend and one of the loves of her life.

On the occasions she can get Clarke to look at her she’s met with hollow eyes. It’s haunting and terrible and Octavia can only imagine how horrible it is for Clarke. In all the years that Clarke has suffered this she’s never pressed her to explain what it is that happens, both afraid she won’t understand and afraid that she will.

But this time, tonight, this is the worst that she’s seen Clarke since right after her father died.

Then, it made sense, there was a reason, a tangible event to point to.

Now, it’s almost worse because there isn’t a singular reason.

Lexa doesn’t turn the bathroom light on but she turns on the tap, sticking a washcloth underneath the stream, waiting for cold water to warm. Fear trickles down her spine and she keeps her eyes fixed on the task at hand, wetting the towel, making sure it’s neither too cold nor too hot. They’re on new ground, Octavia has never seemed overly worried before, not outwardly so, and Lexa has never seen Clarke so withdrawn, barely attempting to pull herself together.

She glances up, taking in the dimly lit scene. It feels like a dream with the moonlight filtering in through the windows on the far side of the room, giving everything an ethereal quality. The silence that stretches between them all presses down on them, holds them still. Lexa lets it, afraid to move again, worried what will become of them when the spell around them breaks.

Clarke leans into Octavia hands balled into fists around Octavia’s shirt, fingers clenched tight as if her hold on Octavia is her anchor to the world. That if she doesn’t let go she won’t give in to whatever is trying to pull her down.

Octavia wraps her arms around Clarke, holding her close, hands moving in soothing motions along her spine. Her lips press into the wild mess of blonde hair and she catches Lexa’s gaze again.

They aren’t alone in this. None of them are alone and for the first time Octavia feels more than just love and hope when she looks to her girlfriends. She feels comfort and support in knowing that maybe when things get well and truly bad they don’t have to be the singular pillar of strength.

Together they can be stronger.

Together this storm will be easier to ride out.

Octavia nudges Clarke toward the sink, trying to ignore the wetness pressed against her neck, and Clarke’s uneven breath from silent tears shaking her. Lexa coaxes one of Clarke’s hands off Octavia’s shirt, uncurling her fingers one by one.

Slowly Clarke unfurls. She takes the washcloth from Lexa, scrubbing at her hands and arms, washing off the layers of dried paint.

“I got this,” Clarke murmurs, her lips twitching into a facsimile of a small smile as she catches Lexa’s eye. It’s empty, no more than a muscle spasm.

Lexa runs her fingers through Clarke’s hair, her heart aching at the roughness of Clarke’s voice.

Octavia takes up her position behind Clarke again, reaching around her and taking the cloth from her hands. She wipes away paint as she presses words against the back of Clarke’s neck, “We know you do. You just don’t have to do this alone Whatever is going through your head…”

“We’ve got you,” Lexa presses a kiss to Clarke’s forehead and then one to Octavia’s. “Whatever you need.”

Clarke nods, unable to form words beyond the lump in her throat. She lets herself be held up by her girlfriends. For a few moments she just lets them finish cleaning the paint off her, lets them lead her to bed, not thinking beyond the feeling of their touch, the way it wraps around her like a protective cocoon.

Clarke strips off her painting shirt, letting it fall to the floor, leaving herself in nothing but her underwear as she crawls into bed, Octavia at her front and Lexa at her back. They’re pressed skin against skin, nothing at all between them.

She presses close and holds on, trying to focus on the feeling of their hearts beating, slow and steady, falling into sync. Clarke knows that if she lets her mind wander she won’t find any peace tonight, won’t be able to sleep – and that is all she wants, the sweet darkness of unconsciousness....

oblivion.

Chapter Text

Raven knows she needs to leave to teach class in an hour, but she’s on edge, itching to go for a run, but her body is exhausted. She’s been running herself into the ground and she needs to take a break before she hurts herself, or starts developing blisters on her nub. The skin is already tender, red, on the verge of being irritated enough to cause problems. Her physical therapist is going to have a field day at her next appointment, and it’s going to start the moment she steps on the scale.

The only other thing strong enough to clear her head with a rush of endorphins is masturbating, which given the current circumstances sounds less than appealing. That in and of itself is enough to make Raven feel worse about the whole situation. Everything about sex used to make her feel great, even after her leg - yeah there was a period where she had to get used to things but she had Finn and Luna to help her through that.

Then Wick happened.

Everything got fucked up with Wick. He fucked up everything.

He’s the one who… She shoves the thought from her head and rolls over onto her side so she can reach under the bed. Her fingers move deftly feeling for what she’s searching for until they wrap around a small smooth cylinder no larger than a tube of lipstick. She calls it her two minute wonder and it’s the best vibrator she’s ever owned. And Raven Reyes has owned a lot of vibrators.

Also, the last thing she wants to do is let Wick ruin a day he hasn’t even tried to contact her on yet. It’s still early, but she doesn’t want to waste a whole day worrying about something that may not happen. There’s no sense in letting him get inside her head again. He spent enough time there when they were together.

Raven grabs her laptop and pulls up a playlist, something bombastic and badass to drown out the negativity in her head. Because despite what Wick wants her to think she’s going to find a way to be happy again on her own. Finn may be gone and Luna is who knows where, but she won’t get hung up on Wick just because he had her believing that no one would love her again. That no one could love someone like her.

It makes her sick to think that she let him convince her she was weak. That her leg made her any less of a person, any less deserving. He used her body against her, and she let him.

Raven slips her shorts off and her underwear with it, her hands brush over the scratches nestled between scar tissue on her thigh. Her fingernails catch and for a moment she lets herself pick at the scab, focussing on the pull of it against her skin as she plays at prying up the edge. Her thumbnail drags a hard line across a scar.

She shakes out her hands and presses them to her face. She can fight this, and all the feeling of worthlessness Wick left her with. Raven knows she can, she will.

Still, she’s terrified no one will ever love her again, that she’s been broken one too many times, that she’s loved all the wrong people all these years. Finn, who she loved dearly but was never in love with, Luna, who refused to be tied down, Wick, who only ever wanted to control her. She let them all have what they needed, and none of them loved her like she wanted to be loved.

The press of the vibrator is cold against her skin and the first flash of movement jolting, on the edge of painful. She slides the bullet vibe between her folds, already feeling the building tension as she circles back up around her clit. Glancing to her clock she lets out a sigh, slowing her motions, focusing them in. There’s no time to build this up to something satisfying. She’s not in the mood for that anyway.

Raven tosses her free arm across her face, burying her eyes behind the crook of her elbow.

She can feel the orgasm building, almost clinical. There’s no emotion, no warmth, just nerves on the edge of pleasure. It’s hollow. A tear slips down her cheek.

Muscles clench and Raven gasps as her orgasm hits, a cathartic release that relaxes her, just enough to clear out a layer of fog from her mind, but there’s nothing enjoyable in it. Practically before it’s over she’s sitting up, sliding off the bed, grabbing her phone, her underwear, and her crutches and moving to the bathroom to clean up.

Just enough of something to get her started on the day.

As she stands in front of the mirror, her residual limb propped up on the edge for balance, she notices a streak of red running down the outside of her leg. Blood. She sighs as she bandages the cluster of scratches. She’ll get there. One day. She’ll get there, put everything behind her. Maybe she’ll be able to go home again and face her mom. Maybe she’ll-

Her phone vibrates and Raven nearly falls over as she grips the counter with her fingertips.

Maybe one day she’ll feel like herself again.

_______________________________________

Lexa doesn’t remember the last time she checked her makeup so many times in one day, but she wants everything in the next hour to go perfectly. This is the first step in changing the trajectory of her future. No matter what happens in her personal life, this is her career. This is everything she’s been working toward.

Her eyeliner is sharp, and makeup flawless. Anya raided the racks at work for a new interview outfit for her. Nothing about her appearance is even a millimeter out of place. She breathes out the nerves in her stomach, tamping down the tiny vibrations running through her nerves and steeling her resolve. She’s been over her notes so many times, the questions she’s likely to be asked she has answers for. She’s done her research. If this firm is half the place she thinks it is there’s no doubt that the next hour will go well.

There’s so much at stake though. Her relationship isn’t only one thing she’s trying to fix. She wants to change the lives of kids in the system, the ones who were like her, but maybe they never had someone speak up for her the way she had Anya. Lexa had Anya to fight for her and that has made all the difference in her life. It shaped who she is, gave her the drive to be strong and to fight. There’s an entire generation she wants to pass that on to.

Lexa closes the car door behind her softly and relishes in the way her heels sound like power on the concrete as she makes her way down the sidewalk to the sleek glass doors of Trikru Associates.

Lexa breathes out and pushes the door open, her head is calm and clear and her only focus is on the interview waiting for her because in that moment there is nothing else she can do but be ready for the interview. She can’t reach out to Octavia and reassure her that when they go out later this week it will be okay. That it’s okay to avoid answering people when they ask Octavia if she has broken up with Clarke. That they all know the depth of their love for each other and it will weather this storm. As she steps inside and towards the dark mahogany reception desk she doesn’t have time to think about Clarke and what they’re going to do to help her, because this downward spiral isn’t like previous years. Clarke is struggling and no amount of love is going to keep her afloat indefinitely.

She doesn’t have time for the world of problems she needs to address, so with each step, her heels echoing loudly on the tile, she leaves behind each problem, knowing that as she leaves she’ll pick them back up. And hopefully, as she comes back out, she will have hope that the future looks brighter, less full of stress, that she can turn to the ones she loves and give them what they all want - a chance to love as they are, that maybe their little corner of the world will be safe enough that they no longer have to hide.

The woman at the front desk smiles brightly at Lexa, and picks up the phone to announce her arrival. Lexa moves to sit but is barely to the plush chairs in the waiting area before she hears the sharp click of stilettos on the floor and a low voice says her name like a command. She turns on the spot, and she finds herself face to face with one of the founders of Trikru Associates, a dark skinned woman with short natural hair. There’s a quiet fierceness to her like she is carved from stone by the hands of the old gods. Her eyes hold a light though, a hope and wonder that bolsters the strength. She is stunning and formidable.

Lexa holds out her hand, “Lexa Woods, it’s a pleasure to finally meet you face to face, Indra.” The first name feels strange on her tongue, intimate, as if they are closer than they are. Yet the other lawyer uses no last name. She is, and will be defined always, by that singular sound.

“Likewise, Ms. Woods. It is Ms.?” There is little inflection to Indra’s voice.

“I am not married, so yes, Ms. is fine.” Lexa smiles, not sure what answer would quite be best. A voice in the back of her mind whispers – The Truth – capital letters and all. She shoves the voice into a corner of her mind, locking it away with all the things that she cannot do anything about in this moment. Not yet . She tells it.

First she has to protect herself and her career and her girls. She isn’t sure which is most important, only that she knows her path has always led her here.

“It’s only me this afternoon, the others all had court run longer than expected.”

“I’m just pleased I was able to make this interview work out.”

“Well, when you contacted us, it was a unanimous decision to bring you in. I hope you don’t disappoint.”

A knot of fear catches in Lexa’s throat and she tries to swallow past it, a pleasant smile on her face as she keeps her voice even, “I don’t make a habit of disappointing people.”

The interview starts typically enough. They offer her water, which she accepts. They make small talk about her references, and her recent cases that were large enough to make the news... Lexa’s education, her focus, why Trikru Associates.

She smiles at that, because she spent hours crafting her response. Lexa straightens and tampers down a smile because she will never not be proud of this story and her sister, blood may never bond them but Anya will forever be her family.

“Trikru Associates is nearly unique. An all female law firm, with one of the best track records in the state. It’s not only a prestigious firm, but it’s exceptional at what it does. You and the others have crafted an environment for women like ourselves, driven, passionate, opinionated, to thrive in.” Lexa leans forward taking a sip of water, pausing, gathering her focus and Indra’s full attention before she launches into the story, the real reason why she’s here.

“When I was three I met a girl that would change my life. She was the first person that fought for me, advocated for me, listened to me. There’s power in women protecting women.”

Lexa breathes out, her mind flashing on memories of Anya sticking up for her in the group home, telling her stories at night, teaching her how to read, writing essays about why the two of them shouldn’t be separated even though they’re not related by blood.

“My sister kept us together to give us a chance at a good life. To give us hope.” Lexa sucks in a breath trying to keep the tears from pricking at the corners of her eyes. “She taught me what it means to be strong and how to fight for something you believe in. But most importantly, that anything is possible.”

Indra leans forward ever so slightly, and had Lexa not been watching her she would have missed the movement.

“Not all kids in the system are so lucky to have someone who decides to advocate for them . Even when they have their parents, most lawyers don’t approach things with the child’s opinions and best interest in mind, it’s about the parents. I want to be their voice. I want to do for them what Anya did for me.”

“And what does your sister do?”

“Anya is a fashion mogul, you’ve heard of Ogeda, yes? Your receptionist is wearing one of her blouses from last season.” Lexa shrugs and tilts her head ever so slightly, pleased with herself, and proud of Anya.

Indra raises an eyebrow. “Impressive.”

The other woman doesn’t say anything else, nor does it seem like she will. Lexa waits and watches. She’s satisfied with having stated why she wants to be here. Maybe it was too personal, but it’s the truth, Anya was her voice when she needed one, fought for her when there was no one else that cared to. If she can be that for one child she’ll have started to give back everything Anya gave her. This is why she went to law school, maybe she can help inspire another generation… another generation who will fight for themselves and those that don’t have a voice.

A small smile twitches at the corner of Indra’s mouth and Lexa meets her stare.

“We’ve recently picked up a rather high profile custody case involving a bisexual woman and her partner. The father is suing for custody, arguing the mother is unfit because she’s engaged to another woman. Would you have a problem working on cases like this?”

Lexa can barely suppress a smile. “As a member of the queer community myself, I can’t imagine I would have a problem representing such individuals.”

There’s something powerful in being able to claim her identity so publicly and positively. At the D.A.’s office she skirts around the topic even if she doesn’t keep her orientation a secret. The tension ekes out of her body even as her veins thrum with excitement. Indra asks more questions and with each one she becomes more animated, more passionate. This is where she’s supposed to be and what she’s supposed to be doing.

She just hopes the woman sitting on the other side of the table thinks the same.

_______________________________________

Raven hops up on the counter in the lab despite the clearly posted signs that say not to sit on the counters. She’s the one who put the signs there so she figures she can ignore them, especially when it’s just her and Jasper and Monty. It’s September and all the summer session classes are over, but the new term has yet to begin, it’s zero week and she’s “teaching” an engineering lab, mostly it’s just her and the boys tinkering in the lab on her project. So for another week or so, it’s just them, building robots and fake limbs and trying not to burn the place down.

Her heart isn’t quite in it, and the boys have noticed. They’ve stopped trying to blow things up, and make a mess for one. For another, they’re actively doing work without being prompted. Raven almost feels bad that she’s the one slacking off.

Almost.

Monty is hunched over a small motherboard soldering on connectors, while Jasper plays with calibrating the sensory input of Raven’s new prosthetic design.

“Okay, but how baller would it be if we figured out how to harness the electrical input before MIT?” Jasper nearly manages to pick up a penny off the table with the prosthetic hand.

“We’d be rich.” Monty chimes in.

Raven scratches her leg, reaching a finger underneath the socket of her prosthetic to itch the skin underneath, ignoring that she knows she should be worried that the skin is irritated.

“You know the project is open source,” Raven nudges Monty’s chair with her foot. That’s the whole point of her research - to make high end prosthetics more customizable, and better quality. Right now a lot of more delicate motorized functions are being caught up in patents by larger companies making the price point almost insurmountable for many amputees. Granted it takes years of research and a lot of money to make significant advancements - but Raven just wants to make the technology accessible.

“I know,” Monty says. “It’s still going to be awesome when we figure this out before MIT.”

The outside door squeaks closed and all three look toward the door, waiting to see who’s made their way into the engineering lab on a summer afternoon. There’s a chorus of hey, hello, hi, that goes up when Bellamy steps into the room. He’s probably the only person not in the science department that knows how to find this lab.

“Finally,” he says. “I’ve been trying to get ahold of you all day.” Bellamy pulls up a stool and leans on the counter next to Raven.

Raven shrugs, “I never turned my phone back on after class. I’ve been here since. The new TA knows better than to interrupt lab time, can’t say the same for my office hours.”

“I thought we were getting breakfast, brunch, whatever?”

“ Merda. Damnit,” Raven mutters as she digs through her bag for her phone. “ Será que eu esqueci mais alguma coisa? ”

“You know we understand when your curse in Portuguese, right?” Monty glances up from his soldering. “Not so much the rest, a little, sometimes, but the cursing we understand.”

“Yep, no preserving our innocence.” Jasper grins and waves at her with a mechanic hand.

“That ship sailed long before you met me, meus meninos . I’m sorry, Bell.” Raven doesn’t look up from her phone as the notifications pour in. Twenty-four text messages, nineteen new emails, three voice mails. She shuts the screen off without checking any of it.

“It’s just not like you to miss plans.” Bellamy picks up a piece of lego from the bin of beginning robotics equipment on the counter and turns it over between his fingers. “I thought the school’s golden girl was more on top of it than that.”

Raven rolls her eyes and groans, “Don’t call me that.” It’s what the other professors and PhD candidates call her behind her back, as if she hasn’t earned her position like the rest of them. As if she isn’t one of the leading engineers in biomechanics research in the nation. They act like the university just rolls over and gives her whatever she wants.

“What? You are.” Bellamy tosses the lego back in the bin. “Ever since they settled after your accident you can do no wrong.”

“ Não abre a matraca .” Raven glares at Bellamy.

“You know I don’t understand you when you speak Portuguese.”

Raven ignores him and doesn’t bother to translate. “The department was negligent and that accident changed my life. I lost my leg . Just because the university paid up doesn’t mean that they cater to my every whim.”

“You’ve got a shiny new lab.”

Jasper slides out of his chair and leans against the table across from Raven. “The old lab was falling apart - they needed to rebuild it before someone lost more than a leg.” He shoots Raven an apologetic look behind Bellamy’s back.

“Whatever.” Bellamy turns around and spreads out his arms along the counter as he leans back against it, yawning as he continues to speak. “So what were you doing this morning instead of spending time with your favorite Classics professor?”

Her phone rings and she glances at the screen. Her blood runs cold. “Just you know, getting in some time for self love. Something you’re probably far too familiar with, since.. you know…” Raven slips off her stool only half paying attention to anyone else or what she’s saying.

“Hey! I’ll have you know I met someone.”

“I’ll believe it when I see her, Bell.” Raven scoops up her bag and spins to look back at Jasper and Monty. “ Meninos ? Lock up will you? I’ve, uh, got to go.” Raven gestures to her phone and all but power walks out the door. She needs air and space and to be as far away from where anyone would expect her to be as she possibly can be.

_______________________________________

Clarke huddles down over the bar and her drink, wishing she had chosen a booth before they had all filled up. Now she’s stuck at the bar with her back and sides exposed when all she wants to do is be alone with her thoughts, which is impossible when she’s approachable from all sides. It’s been a rough week… month? She realizes she’s lost track of time and takes another sip of her beer, waiting for the fuzz and the numb to set in so she doesn’t notice the fact that she’s exposed, so that she can stop wishing she was curled into the back corner of a booth where she can watch the world instead of allowing anyone to watch her.

None of it matters though. Not really.

She could list all the reasons that show how much it doesn’t matter.

Every fall she finds herself slipping in some way. Her head made sluggish with the pain of the memories and the accompanying loss, even as more often than not it isn’t a specific loss so much as it is the descent into questioning. How does she move forward when the person she wants to turn to is gone? How does she find herself again when there's’ a hole inside her?

Clarke takes a long pull of her beer. After ten years she should have more of a hold on her life than this. The pain of her father’s death shouldn’t mess her up this much. Knowing that every year this will happen to varying degrees she should be able to slow and halt the downward spiral and it’s all too familiar tug that she’s beginning to think has nothing to do with her father’s death and everything to do with something broken inside her.

Because what else could it be, but her being broken?

Her life is nearly perfect. She is loved in so many ways - more than loved enough. Octavia and Lexa are more than she deserves, supporting her in everything, giving her all that she needs. Except an answer for this. There’s no reprieve for the vicious block in her mind and neither of them understand the opaque wall that erects between herself, her mind, and the world. They support her, they love her, but this has never been their reality.

She finishes her beer and signals Niylah for another as loneliness and isolation gently wash over her; it’s almost comforting in its familiarity. Somewhere in the haze of her mind she decides to close down the bar, even though it’s early now. She doesn’t want to go home and force Lexa and Octavia to face her right now. The last thing she wants is for them to feel like they need to take care of her. As if she is their responsibility. She’s the one who is broken and it’s her responsibility to put herself back together.

Tomorrow.

She’ll figure out something tomorrow, when her head is clear. Tomorrow will be better and it will be fine.

“Earth to Clarke.” Niylah taps her on the top of the head lightly to get her attention, and Clarke bolts upright, swaying slightly on the stool as she does.

“Is anyone meeting you tonight? Niylah asks nonchalantly, but there’s a frown in her voice.

Clarke rolls her eyes waves her empty glass back and forth. “Nope, but I’ll take another.”

Niylah shakes her head, “I’m cutting you off.”

“It’s like five and I’m not even drunk.”

“No, but I’m still cutting you off.”

“It’s not your call if I should or shouldn’t drink.” Clarke slaps down a ten on the bar.

“If you were anyone else I’d throw your ass out on the curb right now and you know it.”

Clarke has the wherewithal to look abashed as she slides the ten off the bar and back into her pocket. She mumbles an apology and hunches over again, not wanting to look at Niylah and the worry and judgement etched on her friend’s face.

“What’s going on, Clarke?” Niylah asks softly. She takes Clarke’s empty glass though, and fills a new one.

“It’s nothing,” Clarke mumbles, wrapping her fingers around the pint glass. She stares at the amber liquid but doesn’t take a sip, not yet. There’s a futility to it.

“Right,-” Niylah starts before she hears someone call for her at the other end of the bar. “I’ll be right back.”

Clarke is too engrossed in her own thoughts to notice Niylah pull out her phone after she’s done pouring drinks and shoot off a series of texts.

_______________________________________

Raven sinks down beneath the mailboxes outside her apartment, she had spent a good portion of the last hour or so wandering through downtown after listening to the voicemails Wick had left her. She had left them on her phone, afraid to delete them, but with them there she keeps listening. Like some sick penance.

Where are you? I’ve been calling for hours. You don’t return my texts. I’m worried about you Raven. This isn’t like you. Please call me back.

Listen. We can’t keep going on like this. I’m not responsible for what happens next. I’m coming over, you better be home when I get there. I know you’re not teaching, it’s between terms. And we’ve been over this before. You can’t just go out without me. I’m just trying to keep you safe.

Wick is there, in front of the building trying to sweet talk one of her neighbors into letting him into the main door. Raven’s heart is pounding so hard in her chest she thinks it might bruise, and she feels like her entire body is shaking from fear, her stomach so uneasy she’s afraid she might throw up. Inside her head she’s arguing with herself that it can’t really be him, but it is. It’s Wick. And he’s been trying to find a way into her secured apartment complex and likely her apartment as well.

She glances over her shoulder and spots him duck around the side of the building to where the fire escape is.

Raven fumbles with her phone and dials Octavia’s number before she can talk herself out of it. She should just call 911, get the police here. Part of her brain reminds her that Octavia is the police, and she’ll know what to do. And she doesn’t want just anyone from the force arriving. She needs Octavia here because she doesn’t have to explain the situation to her. Octavia will just know.

She doesn’t have to explain how she’s weak and needs someone to get rid of her ex.

There’s a metallic crash from the alleyway and Raven whimpers. She hates herself for being this scared.

“Raven?” Octavia asks, the call having connected seconds ago. Raven can hear the confusion in her voice, the worry that clearly states she heard the whimper.

Raven swallows thickly, her voice barely above a whisper. “He’s here.” She forces the words across her tongue, “I think Wick is trying to break into my apartment.”

“Are you inside?”

Raven shakes her head.

“Raven?”

“No,” she breathes out.

“Are you somewhere he could see you?”

Raven hears her turn away from the receiver and call to her partner, to dispatch a unit.

“No.”

“Good. Stay there, and remind me what your address is.” Octavia’s voice is calm and Raven latches onto it like a safety net. The only thing keeping her from shaking apart is her friend’s words on the other end of the line. “I’m on my way.”

_______________________________________

It’s nearly six by the time Lexa settles back down into her car after the interview. She’s riding high and excited. She doesn’t have the job yet, Indra wants her to meet the other partners first, but the feeling she has is that everything will be good.

She turns her phone back on, flicking off the Do Not Disturb . Two hours and she has three missed calls and a myriad of text messages.

Lexa opens the group chat with Octavia and Clarke first.

Octavia 5:08pm : held up at work

Octavia 5:08pm : keep dinner warm for me?

Octavia 5:08pm: xoxoxo ;)

She shoots off a quick reply and wonders why Clarke hasn’t said anything. Clarke replies to everything unless she’s busy at work or teaching… and even then. Lexa pushes her worry aside, she’ll be home soon enough, and opens up the next message.

Niylah 5:41pm : Hey, Lexa. Sorry about this, but Octavia isn’t picking up her phone or answer text messages and I know Clarke isn’t your responsibility - you’re the roommate not the girlfriend, but someone should come pick her up. The bar is filling up and I can’t keep an eye on her and she isn’t herself. I cut her off before I normally would because this just seems worse than it normally gets. If you could just get her home so O can take care of her when she gets in?

Lexa leans her forehead against the steering wheel, her heart aching because Niylah should be reaching out to her because she’s one of Clarke’s girlfriends, not because she’s a second choice. She texts Niylah back and tries to ignore the gnawing worry in the pit of her stomach, tries not to think about how out of it Clarke must be for Niylah to be reaching out to them.

Lexa 5:58pm : I’ll be there soon. Thank you for thinking to text me.

She wipes a tear trailing down her cheek and swallows down the pressing worry as she starts her car and tries not to race toward The Trading Post.

_______________________________________

Clarke spins the empty pint glass in front of her in slow circles on the bar top, wishing she had a way to fill it back up but knowing better than to call Niylah over again. The last thing she wants is Niylah to kick her out. She just wants to slowly collapse in on herself in peace, having accepted that this is what is happening in her head she feels powerless to stop the way the fog builds up between her and the world. She’s too tired to fight it. Maybe another day when she feels a hint of a glimmer of hope and remembers what it feels like to not be trapped like this in her own head.

The fog leeches the color from the world, anything at all seems like too much effort, and she’s prepared to sit on this bar stool until someone insists she has to move. Nothing feels like it has purpose anymore, consumed as she is by the void growing inside her, cavernous and terrible. There’s an emptiness she can’t escape and no matter how close someone is they feel like they’re a thousand miles away. She resists the urge to lay her head down on the bar and instead focuses on the traces of foam still in her glass.

She’s decided that the worst part of all this is that she knows her dad would want her to be better than this. That he would believe she has it in herself to fight back and clear her mind, find the help she needs, but Clarke isn’t sure she knows how. Not anymore. The older she gets the less fight she feels like she has left. Existing is exhausting.

There are options out there, things that are supposed to help, drugs, and therapists, but she’s been down that road before involuntarily and she can’t bring herself to face it again. What if it doesn’t work? What if it takes away the part of her that feels like her?

Clarke lets out a long exhale and slides her glass across the bar as Niylah walks past. A few seconds pass and Niylah slides back a pint glass full of water. Clarke takes a sip, only to realize it’s soda water and lime, like she used to order when she would come to the bar to see Niylah but had class the next morning, or had to camp out in a corner to get her homework done.

Niylah is already at the other end of the bar by the time Clarke looks up to thank her.

That’s when she sees Lexa, one hand on the bar, half a dozen steps away, immaculately dressed, but her eyeliner is smudged. Clarke’s stomach bottoms out, like she’s on a rollercoaster that took a sudden drop. She can’t meet Lexa’s eyes, and the worry etched there so instead she knocks back half of the soda water and lime.

There’s a slow burning fury that starts building. She doesn’t need someone to babysit her. She doesn’t need to be taken home. And in no way should her ex be texting her girlfriend. Not that NIylah knows. Clarke shakes her head and feels the room spin.

Lexa’s hand lands lightly on the small of her back and Clarke nearly jumps but she tenses her muscles and keeps herself firmly rooted on the barstool. She doesn’t want Lexa to have to deal with her when her head is so disconnected.

Rubbing her thumb in small circles on Clarke’s back, Lexa sits down in the stool next to her. She wants to be able to pull Clarke into her arms, hold onto her until this has passed, whatever it takes… but Clarke is ignoring her and they’re in public. Despite the interview she just had, there’s no guarantee they’ll be coming out anytime soon.

Lexa reaches up and tucks a wild strand of hair behind Clarke’s ear and when Clarke recoils at the touch Lexa feels tears sting her eyes. Clarke has a fierce strength to her, to have been hiding this much pain long enough for it to bubble over and out of her in such an all encompassing way.

Clarke glances up at Lexa, just a slight tilt of her head, but that’s all it takes for Lexa to see the despair in her eyes that are normally bluer than the sky, but somehow, in that moment, look like the eye of a storm.

All Lexa can think is that Clarke is infinitely stronger than she knows, despite what she is feeling, and it takes all Lexa has to not pull her close.

She looks up, anywhere but Clarke, just for a moment to gather herself. And Niylah is there, clearing the pint glasses that have accumulated.

“Clarke, sweetheart.” Niylah starts softly.

Clarke flinches at the softness of it.

“It’s time for you to go home. I know she’s not your girlfriend, but I’m sure Octavia will be off work soon. And Lexa’s a pretty good substitute.”

Clarke snorts, her laugh is incredulous and Lexa can feel the truth bubbling on the surface, ready to spill out. Lexa grips Clarke’s arm lightly, enough that Clarke turns to face her and she narrows her eyes, equal parts don’t be an ass, and don’t out us. The amusement on Clarke’s face melts away as if it had never been there.

“Thank you, Niylah.” Lexa places a steadying hand on Clarke as she stands up.

“Just take care of her, yeah?”

“Yeah -”

“-I’m not five . I don’t need to be watched over.” Clarke jerks away from Lexa and makes her way across the bar and out the front door.

“I’m sorry.” Lexa sighs.

“I’ve heard worse from her.” Niylah shrugs and hands Lexa back her credit card. “You didn’t have to pay her tab you know. I’d get it from her next time.”

“Like you said, I’m taking care of her… Thanks for texting me.” Lexa turns and follows Clarke out before Niylah has a chance to say anything else. She doesn’t want another reminder that there are parts of Clarke everyone else knows more about, that everyone else seems more equipped to handle. They’re still learning each other, still figuring out how they fit together, and how they hurt without hurting each other.

_______________________________________

Octavia makes Lincoln drive. Raven wasn’t the only one calling about the attempted B&E on their block, which means whoever Raven saw is in fact attempting to break in. She doesn’t want it to be Wick, she doesn’t want to believe that anyone would really be able to shake Raven this badly… but she also wants it to be him so she can put him somewhere he can never get to her again.

She’s seen her share of terrible things done by terrible people, but Octavia will never be able to reconcile willfully terrorizing another person. Maybe it just hits too close to home, reminds her too much of what life was like growing up. Maybe it’s just that she knows that people deserve better. Most of them are good on some level - however weird and wild they get.

When they pull up in front of Raven’s apartment complex there are already two other squad cars there. She doesn’t see Raven though and that cuts through her calm because she feels responsible. She knew something was going on and she didn’t do anything and it’s her job to protect people.

“Octavia?”

Lincoln hasn’t spoken a single word on their drive from the station instead letting her sit in her thoughts because he knows she would just get worked up. Not that she hasn’t managed that herself.

“Is your head on straight?”

Octavia unbuckles her seatbelt and turns to face him, blurting out the words before she’s really had a chance to think it through, “He’s been stalking her, Lincoln.”

“What?”

“It’s her ex. He’s… she won’t say, but I know he keeps calling and texting her. A few times I think he may have been following us on our runs, but I’ve never seen him and she’s never given me his full name.” Octavia shakes her head and breathes out trying to calm down the boiling rage inside her. “She doesn’t want to talk about it, but I can tell it’s getting to her.”

“You’re staying out here with Raven.” Lincoln says decisively. “I don’t want you going inside.”

“No, we’re taking him down, taking him in.” Octavia isn’t going to sit still when there is something she could be actively doing.

“I need you to get a statement from Raven. You’re head is too wrapped up in this.” Lincoln starts to get out of the squad car but stops short. “Did he ever do anything before they broke up?”

Octavia shrugs, “She hasn’t said. But this is Raven . She’s unflappable.”

“And she’s definitely flapped. Got it. I’ll let the other units know and we’ll make a plan, assume he’s dangerous.”

The next several minutes are a blur. They start with debriefing the other cops on the scene and getting the layout of the building. He’s definitely inside. Octavia wants to bring him to justice, there’s nothing forgivable in what he’s done, stalking someone, making that person fear for their safety in their own home. There’s a part of Octavia, the part filled with rage, that wants to be the one to take him down, her knee to his back and his face on the concrete. She swallows that rage down, knowing it isn’t worth it to release the rage, knowing it will only make her stupid and make her make mistakes. And right now the last thing she wants to do is make a mistake because this is someone she knows.

Cops move into position, covering the exits and moving in on the building; Octavia finds Raven huddled under an emergency foil blanket, leaning against one of the squad cars. She looks small and vulnerable, and even though her gaze is downturned Octavia can tell her eyes are wide and white with shock; she’s visibly shaking. Her skin is ashen.

Octavia takes a step closer to Raven, reaching out to brush hair back from her face before she drops her hand. Raven is already curling in on herself before Octavia can reach her. “Hey, are you alright?”

“I threw up,” Raven’s voice is hollow.

“Has anyone gotten you anything?” Octavia balls her hands into fists, keeping her voice calm, angry that no one has stayed behind with Raven, even just to take her statement.

Raven indicates the foil blanket but doesn’t look up.

It only takes a few moments of rummaging in the back of the squad car for Octavia to find a fresh bottle of water and a packet of trail mix. She leads Raven away from the cars, away from the apartment and over to a bench on the edge of the small park across the street. There are people standing around watching, seeing what’s going on, she glares at them and they start moving again, skirting around the perimeter.

Octavia hands the water over. “Rinse out your mouth.”

Raven does so without comment. No joke, no protest.

It breaks something in Octavia to see her friend like this, the one who has overcome insurmountable odds. Her hands tremble as she tears open the packet of trail mix. She tears off a sheet of paper from her notebook and dumps the contents there, picking out the m&ms before dumping the nuts and raisins back in the plastic and handing it to Raven.

“Thanks.” Raven manages a half hearted smile as she tucks her good leg up under herself and huddles further down under the emergency blanket.

Octavia shoves the m&ms in her coat pocket and pulls out a pen. “I’m sorry, but we have to go over the official report. I know you don’t talk about him, but I need you to start from the beginning and tell me what happened.”

Raven sighs and straightens a little. “The beginning beginning or the beginning today?”

“Let’s start with today, and his name.”

“Kyle Wick.” His name feels like acid in her throat and she’s worried she might throw up again. Taking a sip of water she shakes her head, reminding herself that he’s not getting to her. The police are involved now, and nothing that happens going forward will bring him back into her life.

Some of the tension seems to drain out of Raven as she tells Octavia how she’s been keeping her phone off lately because he won’t stop messaging her. That she had changed her number after they broke up and she isn’t sure how he got this one. Earlier in the day she’d missed plans with Bellamy and turned on her phone to see what else she might have missed. The voice messages he left had scared her and she didn’t come home right away, instead wandering around downtown, avoiding anywhere he might expect her to go, but when she got home, she saw him there, talking to her downstairs neighbor and then she saw him go into the alley and towards the fire escape.

She queues the voice mail messages he left and and hands her phone to Octavia before falling silent and sinking into the bench.

Octavia listens. The strain in his voice, the careful words, how the first message sounds almost civil, pleasant… but she can hear the patterns, the way over months this behavior would beat someone down, confuse them, convince them that they were the ones in the wrong.

“Do you have any more messages from him, ones like this?”

Raven nods.

“Can you forward them to my work email?” Octavia doesn’t want to ask the next set of questions. She’s afraid of the answers, because she knows what they are. “When did this start?”

“Remember when we all went out for dinner and Niylah had us play that phone game?” Raven straightens up, squaring her shoulders.

“That was back in July, right?”

“Yeah, it started a little bit before then. At first he was just texting me, then he started calling. He showed up at my apartment once. I don’t know how he got in downstairs. Someone must have let him in. I think I’ve seen him a few times when I’m out running.”

“That day we went up to the gorge?”

Raven nods, “I’m sorry. I feel like I’ve put you in danger.”

“This is my job, Raven. Is there a reason you have to believe Kyle is dangerous?”

“I… yes,” Raven’s voice is broken.

Octavia grips her pen tightly enough she thinks it might snap. It’s just one of those cheap plastic Bic pens and she can almost feel the plastic giving way. “I need you to tell me what he’s done.” She keeps her voice level, unemotional. She’s gathering more information than just a simple B&E report would need - but this is not just a run of the mill trespassing. This is at the minimum stalking… and at worst… She doesn’t let herself finish that thought, instead turning an encouraging look to Raven. “Whatever you tell me is confidential. This is work.”

“I know. It’s not that. I’ve never told anyone. He hardly ever did anything wrong but it was all so very wrong. Everything was my fault, every fight, he made me believe I could never get along without him. That I was too weak. He cared about me though, in some twisted way. I just didn’t realize until…” Raven takes a deep breath and Octavia can’t keep herself from reaching across the small space between them and squeezing her friend’s hand. “He punched the wall near my head once. Pushed me onto the bed and held me down. He didn’t... “ Raven pulls her hand away and takes another drink of water.

“It wasn’t the first time he’d done that, but he never did anything I could… none of it was bad enough.”

Octavia swallows and her throat feels tight. She wants to scream that any of that is bad enough. Any of that is a reason to fight back. “Did he physically hurt you?”

“Just bruises, but it was my fault, I’m the one who struggled.” Raven spits out, when she continues her voice is softer. “I know it wasn’t my fault.”

“No. It wasn’t. But you left him, yeah?” She’s trembling with not being able to pull Raven close, but she’s at work and she has to finish work before she can be a friend. “You did the right thing. And now he isn’t going to be able to harass you again, if that’s what you want.”

There’s a small commotion across the street. Two cops flank a tall blonde man with blood streaming down his face. Four other cops follow behind. Raven shifts and for a moment Octavia can feel anger thrumming through her, as if she’s a breath away from storming across the street and attacking. And maybe she is, but the other cops are shoving the blond into the back of a squad car already and he’s out of sight. Raven deflates.

“I’ve got to go catch up with Lincoln and make sure everything is squared away. Turn in all this paperwork to the arresting officer. They may call you with questions. They’ll need to know if you want to press charges, but you have about a day to decide that. They’ll be holding him for a while. Your building owner may press charges, since he didn’t just break into your apartment. But if you want to seek anything beyond that… press charges for harassment and stalking. You have grounds for a restraining order.”

When Raven doesn’t respond beyond a small nod, Octavia stands and starts to walk towards her squad car. “I’ll be back in a few moments.”

“Octavia?”

“Yeah?” She turns and Raven is on her feet, right behind her, like there’s an invisible thread between them and Octavia is her lifeline.

“I don’t think I can stay here alone tonight.” Raven straightens up, but she’s trembling, her voice wavers.

“You can stay with us, we’ve got the room, and there’s the bed in Lexa’s room.” Octavia grins because they both know it isn’t really Lexa’s room. “Once I’m finished here we’ll go pack you a bag for however many nights you want.”

Raven ducks her head, a quick nod, “Thanks, O. For coming when I called, for being the one to talk to me instead of some stranger.”

Octavia can’t hold it back any longer and she closes the distance between her and Raven, pulling her in for a hug, trying to find a way to convey that things will be alright. “I just wish you had told me sooner.”

“Me, too.” Raven whispers.

If Octavia feels the warm dampness of tears on her neck she doesn’t mention it, she only pulls Raven closer and hopes that she’s right and that from here on out Raven will be safe from Kyle Wick, that this is the last time he gets the chance to terrorize her.

It breaks her to see the people she’s close to in pain. Especially pain that she can’t fix or take away. There’s nothing she can do to undo what he’s done. She can only try to stop him from doing it again. It’s why sometimes she finds herself at a loss with Clarke, there is nothing there to physically fight. How do you protect someone from a memory? How do you keep someone from hurting when there’s no external force acting upon them?

She pulls Raven closer and tells herself to remember to text Lexa, because tonight their house is going to be full of people in pain, and the night won’t pass by smoothly.

_______________________________________

Clarke leans against the window sill in her bedroom, her forehead pressed to the glass already warmed by the setting sun. The view is west, looking out towards downtown and she can see the outline of it, the bridges and the buildings and behind it the sky colored red and orange, fading to cotton candy pink and purple before descending into midnight blue at the edges of what she can see.

The city descends into night, but even so, it’s still bright and alive inside the grid of downtown.

She wishes she could find a way to feel alive herself in her own descent. All she feels is regret and sorrow, and an overwhelming feeling that she has disappointed everyone who loves her. The passage of time is supposed to heal all wounds but this one refuses to stay closed, instead ripping open with regularity. Except there’s no blood, no sutures to sew, Clarke feels like she is powerless to stop its pain.

Her mother had tried to force it shut when it was raw and fresh, doctors and chemicals that made her feel like her body was not her own, that split her head in two, she felt worse off than she did with the wound gaping in her soul. But the crying subsided, and if she fought she could almost pretend things were normal, that everything wasn’t just out of reach, that she didn’t care. Octavia had made her lists of what she needed to do each day, simple tasks she could cross off, go to class, eat lunch, do homework… some days she needed more than that.

So she learned to live through the healing and ripping open, again and again, year after year. Cherishing the months where she was alright, but also wary of them because she knew they would always come to an end. She learned to function when her head was fighting against her. It was easier to fight herself than to fight the drugs. At least she could still feel like herself.

Clarke sinks heaver against the window, watching as the sky grows dark, completely lost in her head, the rest of the world slipped away as she tries to escape the pain in her heart. Today has been bad and she has apologies to make. Mostly to Niylah and Lexa. Especially to Lexa. She’d been downright mean on their drive home. So much that when they got there Lexa had handed her water and ibuprofen and sent her upstairs. That had been more than an hour ago.

The alcohol is receding from her brain and all that is left is regret and a sense that she is a terrible person.

She doesn’t hear Lexa enter the room, doesn’t know anyone else is there until Lexa’s arms wrap around her waist.

Lexa rests her chin on Clarke’s shoulder and pulls her close. Her heart is heavy with everything that she cannot fix. All she wants to is take away the pain, but she knows that at best, maybe she can make the pain less lonely. When Clarke lets Lexa hold her, she feels like it’s a small victory.

For a moment they watch the sunset together in silence, just holding on to each other. Clarke brings her hands up to hold onto Lexa’s arms.

“ Tu sais… quand on est tellement triste on aime les couchers de soleil .” Lexa presses the words to Clarke’s hair like a prayer, each word soft, breath warm and familiar. They come to her like an old friend and she thinks on what they mean, the forty three sunsets - how we chase the ending of each day when it’s hard to get through, how we count them out and bide our time until we’re ready to see the sun rise again. How sometimes the sadness of the sunset is marked by the fact that another day has passed and something has yet to end.

Clarke turns her head, pulling away from Lexa just enough to meet her gaze and Lexa isn’t prepared for the rawness of that look - the way her bright blue eyes are dull and empty, even the pain she held onto earlier seems muted and grey. The pleading for release buried beneath a layer of apathy. She’s hollow, paper thin, as if the barest touch would shatter her completely.

Lexa pulls her closer as gently as she can, lips soft in Clarke’s hair, on the delicate skin in front of her ear, on the top of her shoulder. She wants to pull her into bed, but she keeps them there in front of the sunset on the edge of the end of the day.

Clarke’s voice is barely a whisper, “Sadness… and sunsets?”

Her voice is soft, “Yes. Those that are really sad love the setting sun. The little prince was sad and one time he walked around his little planet, moving just enough to watch the sunset forty-three times. The sadness overtook him, and compelled him to continue on existing in that pain… until he was ready to move on to the morning.” Lexa presses her nose to Clarke’s shoulder. “I wish you didn’t have this pain.”

Clarke’s voice is hoarse and rough, “I’m sorry.”

“I love you. I’m not blaming you.”

“For what I said earlier, in the car.”

“Thank you.” Lexa stands up a little straighter and tugs Clarke with her, backing them up until they crash against the bed, falling together side by side, and face to face on top of the comforter. She reaches out, brushing her thumb across Clarke’s cheek. All she wants is to help her find a way to cope, to find a way out of this darkness, maybe to stay out of it. “Clarke… have you ever thought about talking to your doctor about this? Maybe finding a tool of some kind to help you get through this? There’s no shame in needing to take something or talk to someone, especially if it helps you clear your head... it seems like something to try perhaps.”

“No.” There’s a flicker of anger across Clarke’s face.

“I just hate to see you hurting.”

“It’s not an option.” Clarke pulls back from Lexa and rolls over, curling up tight, her knees to her chest.

When Lexa reaches out she recoils from the touch.

Lexa’s fingers curl back slowly away from her girlfriend’s side. She lets her hand fall to the bed and slowly she pulls it to her, holding herself close. Clarke flinching away from her felt like a hot copper wire pressed directly to her heart, an electric shock. She isn’t sure how long they lay like that, Lexa watching Clarke try to hide her tears, not touching, not talking, but when she finally brings herself to leave, knowing that Clarke isn’t ready to be comforted by her again tonight, Lexa feels as heavy as the look in Clarke’s eyes while she watched the sunset.

_______________________________________

Usually Raven would insist on carrying her own things, but she’s exhausted and Octavia grabbed her bag and her crutches before Raven had even gotten out of Lincoln’s truck. Lincoln says something about how he’ll get Octavia’s motorcycle out of the back and then take off. He nods toward Raven and Octavia hefts the duffle higher on her shoulder before she’s turning toward Raven, her hand on the small of Raven’s back as they walk up the driveway and toward the front door.

Octavia is whispering to her about how she can stay as long as she needs and that they’ve got an extra key so she can come and go as she wants. It all feels surreal. Like nothing this afternoon happened, that Wick won’t be messaging her tonight, that she won’t have to wonder if he’s going to try to visit her again, that in the morning she can check her phone without fear.

“I’ll be okay,” Raven says, reaching out to stop Octavia from walking in the front door.

“I know.” Octavia offers up small smile. “You’re Raven Reyes, complete and total badass.” She reaches out and squeezes Raven’s arm. “But you don’t have to be okay if you aren’t ready to be.”

Raven nods. Octavia opens the door and pushes inside.

The living room is heavy with silence that is only punctuated by the occasional sniffle from the couch. Lexa bolts upright, rubbing at her eyes and nose. She tosses a tissue toward the waste basket and moves quickly towards the front door.

All Raven has time to think is that Lexa’s eyes and nose are red from crying as Lexa wraps her arms around Raven. She lets herself sink into the embrace, just for a moment, because she can tell the tears aren’t on her behalf. As Lexa pulls away, the words are already past Raven’s lips. “What happened?”

Lexa shakes her head, “Nothing.. It’s nothing.. Just-”

“It’s Clarke,” Octavia supplies, her voice tinged with sadness.

Lexa nods and takes Raven’s things from Octavia, moving them toward the bottom of the staircase.

“She’s not doing well.” Lexa wraps her arms around herself. “I know she’d be down here to see you if she weren’t…”

“It’s okay.” Raven shoves her hands in her pockets, feeling out of place, like she’s stepped into another private moment she shouldn’t necessarily be privy to. “I’m exhausted anyway.”

“I never got around to making dinner, otherwise there would be something warm, but if you’re hungry I can probably find something.”

Raven shake her head. “Maybe in the morning. I don’t want to take up anymore of your time tonight.”

Octavia stuffs her hands into her coat pockets, unsure what to do and finds the m&ms there. She makes a mental note to take them to Clarke once they were all settled. “Definitely, we’d be bad hosts if we didn’t feed you at all. But if you get hungry, the kitchen is yours.”

“Thanks, I’m just going to take my things upstairs and settle in for the night. I’ve already got the wifi password, so I don’t really need anything.” Raven moves away from Lexa and Octavia and reaches for her things.

“Do you want some help getting that all upstairs?” Octavia asks.

“I got it, O.” A smile quirks at the corner of Raven’s mouth.

“I’ll bring you a glass of water when I come upstairs - feel free to use whatever bathroom you want, and you know where the guest room is.” Lexa nods, her voice unsteady.

The three of them stand there for a moment, uncertain, knowing that nothing is right that night. There’s a chance to move forward, move on, but that day. That is a day the sun needs to set, and they need to walk away from, because living through it once has been trying enough.

Raven disappears upstairs and Octavia slips her jacket off, tossing it to the back of the couch before wrapping her arms around Lexa. They hold onto each other, rocking slightly, just feeling each others’ heart beat.

“Was anything okay today?” Octavia asks quietly.

“I had my interview. They want me to come back for another.”

“That’s good, yeah?”

“Yeah, it is.” Lexa says sadly, tightening her hold on Octavia. She pulls back slightly and kisses her forehead. Octavia returns the embrace and Lexa thanks the stars that she has more than one girlfriend in that moment, someone to hold onto her when things get hard with the other one. “I think I pushed Clarke on something I shouldn’t have. I may have made things worse.”

Octavia kisses Lexa’s cheek and rests her head against her shoulder. “What was it about?”

“I asked her if she’d thought about talking to her doctor about medication or therapy.”

“Shit.” Octavia let’s her forehead fall to Lexa’s shoulder and repeatedly hits her with it a few times. “Abby forced that on Clarke right after Jake died. I think it fucked her up almost as much as his death. She’s sensitive to medication… it didn’t go well.”

Tears start rolling down Lexa’s cheeks again, and she is certain she won’t be able to stop them again anytime soon. It had been hard enough to hold it together for the few moments Raven had been downstairs. She holds onto Octavia tighter, wishing there were an easy answer, and knowing that this is going to be a battle they all have to fight together if they’re going to find a way through.

_______________________________________

Octavia sits down heavily on their bed, reaching out toward the lump of blankets that Clarke is hiding underneath. She finds a leg, then an ankle, and squeezes gently. Clarke shifts, not quite pulling away but moving enough that it’s clear she doesn’t want comfort in that moment. Octavia flops back on the bed and presses the heels of her hands to her eyes.

The shower in the master bathroom turns off - Lexa will be out soon and then they’ll be navigating sleep. One girlfriend who doesn’t want to be held and two girlfriends who desperately want to be holding her.

“Clarke?” Octavia asks as she unbuttons her slacks, pulling them down and kicking them off her legs and onto the floor.

The only response she receives is a small grunt of acknowledgement.

Octavia starts again, softly, “Raven is staying here tonight.” She pauses to see if there will be a response, when there is none she continues. “You know all those texts and call she’s been getting but refuses to talk about? Even though… it’s all been her ex - who is apparently a lot of an ass in addition to being a stalker. He broke into her apartment, so she’s staying in the spare room tonight.”

Octavia rolls over wanting to tug the blankets down to look at Clarke, see if she’s really there at all, but she doesn’t. Instead she unfastens her bra and takes it off from under her camisole; she tosses it toward the closet.

The silence weighs on her, so much so that her stomach is heavy with it. She keeps talking to keep from feeling, “Lexa had her interview today, she said it went well. I really hope she gets the job. It seems like a better place for her career-wise, and maybe it will be good for us all too.”

Clarke rolls over, fingers creeping around the edge of the comforter before she pulls it down. Her eyes are swollen and red, her skin blotchy as if she’s spent the day in bed crying. Octavia knows that isn’t the case, and the pain of everything wraps around her, making her feel helpless and left wishing she had a way to protect Clarke.

There’s a harshness in Clarke’s gaze, an anger and pain only kept in check by an unrepentant sadness.

“Is Raven okay?” Clarke’s voice is rough and raw.

Octavia scoots up on the bed so they’re eye to eye. “She’s shaken. We arrested her ex on B&E charges. I’m just glad she wasn’t home when he broke in.”

Clarke nods, closes her eyes, and rolls over; Octavia lets her go.

It feels like a short lifetime before the bathroom door opens and Lexa emerges. She crosses the room, turning the lights off, cracking the bedroom window open. Slipping onto the bed on top of the comforter with Octavia she wraps her arm around her girlfriend and presses as tight against her as she can.

“Is…” Lexa whispers the singular word, letting it hang in the air, knowing her concern needs no explanation, tonight, right now, they don’t need words to decipher the heaviness in the air that clings to them.

Octavia shakes her head no; Lexa presses a kiss to the back of her neck. A few moments later Octavia feels tears drip onto her skin, first on her neck, from Lexa, then her own on her arm. It’s as if something in the world has broken, Clarke in so much pain and closed off, Raven, stoic and hiding in their guest room. And somehow it’s been left to the two of them to put it right.

Chapter Text

Octavia wakes to the sound of the shower downstairs running and Clarke clinging tightly to her front; Lexa is just beyond, close but not touching them, her hand reaching out out toward Clarke, half curled in on itself where it rests in the valley of sheets between them, her eyes are heavy lidded, but open, watching them both sleep.

The sky outside is grey and dark, the clouds not fully backlit by the sunrise yet. Octavia thinks that today would be a good day to stay in bed, except she needs to work on the case report for Raven’s charges, and Lexa needs her to appear in court… and Lexa has court – but at the same time Clarke’s fingers are tangled around the edges of Octavia’s tank top, Clarke’s forehead pressed to her sternum, and Octavia doesn’t want to move, afraid of what might be waiting for them once the day begins. Her heart sinks in her chest as she meets Lexa’s eyes, red and puffy from crying and lack of sleep.

Octavia scootches closer to Clarke and reaches toward Lexa, coaxing her across the bed until she’s pressed up against Clarke. Grabbing the blankets she tugs at them, pulling them over their heads until they’re encased in a bubble of warmth and semi-darkness where nothing can touch them. Nothing else, nothing more than already has.

If only time could freeze.

Their breath heats up the little cocoon giving it an ethereal quality, as if they’re a step out of time with the world. Octavia reaches across Clarke to brush her fingertips along Lexa’s cheek.

Clarke stirs between them, nestling down, demanding contact, but she doesn’t wake.

“What do we do?” Lexa whispers. She twists to kiss Octavia's fingertips.

“I have to be at work today- you have to be at work today.” Octavia shakes her head and buries her face against the pillow. They have to go to work but they need to be home; they need to be right here. And downstairs is Raven, one of their closest friends who is too scared to go home alone. Today is a day for being together and protecting one another.

The real world can wait.

Of course, the real world doesn’t understand; it doesn’t allot for this kind of thing.

Lexa wraps her legs around Clarke’s, inching closer, her hand on Octavia’s waist, tugs on her until she can feel three heartbeats, asynchronous, but somehow together. She moves her hand to Octavia’s neck, twirling the baby hairs at the nape around her fingers, brushing her thumb across Octavia’s pulse.

Alive. Happy. Together… that’s all she wants for them. Not an always happy fake façade, but real happiness, the kind that breathes, up and down in and out so that the emotion is something alive.

“O,” Lexa whispers.

Octavia turns her head, half her face still buried in the pillow and Clarke’s hair.

“What if we ask Raven to stay here today?”

“Neither of them would be alone, and I would feel better if someone were here.” Octavia presses a kiss to the top of Clarke’s head.

“As would I.”

Clarke makes a small noise, waking, groaning, stretching as much as she can as she is still pressed between her girlfriends. The three of them shift, limbs untangling and tangling once more. Clarke moans and shimmies, vying for more space. “Hot,” she mutters. Eyes fluttering, but closed.

Lexa throws the covers off them and they’re hit with a rush of cool air. Octavia curses and Clarke shivers. Reality seeps in like the morning light. Hearts ache, and there are no good answers, only acceptable ones, temporary ones, ones that only get them to the next sunset.

Wrapping her arms around Clarke, Lexa holds back tears as Clarke yields into her. Getting up can wait a few more moments. She reaches out and twines her fingers with Octavia’s, kisses Clarke’s forehead and then the tears that fall on her cheeks, certain that this is the most important thing she’ll do all day.

_______________________________________

Raven wakes before the rest of the house. They had all been up late. In the other room she could hear desperate hushed voices, and heavy sobbing breaths late into the night. She had tried not to listen, tried to sleep, but her own tears and restless aching heart had kept her awake.

Her mind spent the night racing, running through emotions. The hatred at what Wick had made her into, that weak cowering thing that she barely recognizes in the mirror. The fear that when faced by him again she’ll never feel strength, only a churning in her gut and bile in her throat. Memories of his hands on her ghosted along her arms, tightening around her wrists as she fought off the memories of her pleading with him to let her free.

Raven had slept, fitfully, in a feather soft bed, woken to a warm familiar shower, and to a home, while not hers, that was also comforting. She feels almost at ease, even in her loneliness. The shower was just as Raven knew it would be, seeing as she uses it after most of her runs with Octavia. It isn’t outfitted for ease of use and she has to sit, and as much as she hates it, she’s used to it. She can hardly ask her friends to dump a small fortune on remodelling their bathroom for her, no matter how often she takes advantage of it.

Raven runs her hands through wet hair and tugs at her running shorts as she leans on her crutches and surveys the downstairs. No one else is up, at least they haven’t come downstairs yet. Her stomach rumbles. Even with the familiarity she feels out of place and uncertain of what to do. She feels out of place in every aspect of her life, as if the person she has become is unrecognizable. The last thing she wants to do is go home right now, because she isn’t sure what she will find when she does.

Home isn’t a place she has anymore. Not really. Raven hasn’t called her mother in months, dodging calls and replying with pathetic excuses via text. And her apartment, which felt like a sanctuary, has been violated by Wick. This house, these walls, her friends, this is the last safe space she has and she isn’t sure if it’s really hers.

After all this time she still doubts that they really want her around. How much of their offer is genuine friendship, how much is it because she’s Bellamy’s colleague… and disabled. Raven shakes her head trying to dislodge the thought from her head, but it’s persistent and worms its way into her heart. She closes her eyes, trying to hold off tears, knowing that before Wick she never would have questioned this. Even with half her leg gone she had found a way to feel whole, accomplished, worthwhile. Even with Finn dead she had found it in her to love herself.

She stretches her fingers and adjusts her grip on her crutches, trying to suss out what she would do if this were her best friend’s house. What did she do when she would wake up on Finn’s couch before they were together? She would cook breakfast, something to thank him for giving her a reprieve from the nightmare she found herself in.

Raven crutches into the kitchen, moving to familiar cabinets, reaching in familiar directions for ingredients and cooking utensils. Her discomfort dissipates as she cooks and she knows her grandmother would be proud if she knew Raven was taking care of her friends by feeding them. All at once the thought warms her heart and feels like a knife to her gut. She should call home at least.

She should go home. It’s not like she even has to leave the country, just cross the city.

It’s been so long and after everything she worries that she’ll just be a disappointment. That maybe she can never really go back home, because it will never be like it was before. She’ll never be like she was before.

Raven hears footsteps on the staircase. One set quick and clattering, one, barely there, delicate.

“Oh my god it smells good in here,” Octavia crashes against the counter and pulls down coffee mugs from the cabinet. She pours herself a mug and starts to boil water before Raven waves her mug of tea as indication that she’s already gotten something for herself to drink. Octavia clicks off the electric kettle and hops up on the counter to survey Raven’s work.

“Just pancakes,” Raven murmurs, but she can’t help but smile.

“Protein ones or regular ones?” Lexa clicks on the electric kettle and shuffles through the cupboard for the particular green tea that she wants.

“No coffee?” Octavia’s eyes are wide.

“What do you think, Woods?” Raven’s retort overlaps with Octavia’s.

“Raven’s rubbed off on me I think. I don’t want to be jittery for court today so it’s a tea morning.” Lexa leans against the counter next to Octavia and tugs her close to press a kiss to her cheek. “And protein pancakes actually sound good…”

“Okay, but Raven’s actually are good.” Octavia smiles, her toes curling, and she sips at her coffee.

“This is true,” Lexa hums happily.

Raven shakes her head and flips another pancake on the plate she’s keeping warm in the oven. “You two act like a good breakfast is a miracle.”

Octavia pulls a long face, “You have never been subjected to Clarke trying to cook.”

There’s a pause, the only sound is fresh batter hitting the griddle, steaming on contact. Just like that the little bubble of comfort and normalcy is broken, everything that felt right tinted by the heavy reality surrounding them. Clarke, alone upstairs… and Raven, welcome, but here because the world can be a terrible place.

Lexa slides against the counter until she’s pressed to the side of Octavia’s leg, and Octavia reaches out to gently caress her back. They sip at tea and coffee, waiting for just a moment to see if the ache lifts.

Raven turns back to the pancakes she’s cooking, focusing on cooking instead of the building, bubbling feeling in her chest. Her skin crawls with the need to be held and she shoves that feeling down, ignores the trembling ache, accepts that this is how things are now. She watches her friends out of the corner of her eye thinking that nothing that beautiful will ever be hers again and that perhaps she’s used up all her good graces in this life, all her chances at love.

Maybe they died with Finn. Luna left once he was gone, and Wick was who followed.

She nearly burns the next pancake.

“Raven?” Lexa clears her throat.

Raven tilts her head and glances up at Lexa as she opens the oven to put another pancake on the plate to keep warm.

“If you don’t have a class to teach today, do you think you could stay at the house with Clarke?”

The words nearly leap out of her mouth because Raven doesn’t want to leave this house, doesn’t want to leave the safety it provides. She didn’t want to have to ask, just hoped that maybe the extended invitation had been real. Raven tilts her head to the side, “I could make that work.”

“We just don’t want to leave Clarke alone all day,” Octavia leans her head against Lexa’s. “And we can hold your ex for most of the day, but just in case I’m going to see who’s on patrol near here and ask them to keep an eye on the house… unless you decide to press charges.”

Raven flips the next pancake too early and it folds over on itself.

“Just text me about that later.” Octavia murmurs apologetically. She slips off the counter and squeezes Raven’s shoulder as she passes out of the kitchen. She feels like a bit of an ass, having brought up all the pain looming over their day before they’ve even made it through coffee or started on breakfast.

Taking the stairs two at a time she slows before ducking into the master bedroom. Clarke is still curled up in the middle of their bed just where she and Lexa had left her. Octavia leans against the wall just inside the door, wiping at her face, careful not to smudge her makeup. This is the hard part, facing Clarke when she’s like this, when the life is drained from her and her eyes are distant. Octavia takes a calming breath and prepares herself because Clarke will either lash out or ignore her.

She knows it’s just temporary, that this will pass, but she wishes there were a way to make it easier for Clarke. She wishes she understood better so she could help. In all their years as friends, all their years together, she hasn’t been able to make this part of Clarke’s life easier, not really.

Octavia presses off the wall and crosses to their bed crawling onto it and curling up in front of Clarke. She gently pulls the comforter down and Clarke throws her arm over her face and burrows down into the pillow. Reaching out she brushes her fingertips across Clarke’s forehead, tucking the stray hairs back behind her ear.

She scootches closer.

“Raven’s going to stay here today. She doesn’t have class to teach and I don’t think she wants to go home yet… she made pancakes… if you’re hungry.”

Clarke nods and presses slightly against Octavia who kisses her forehead.

It takes all her strength to pull herself out of bed instead of crawling under the covers and holding her girlfriend. Octavia holds her breath until she knows she won’t start crying. All she wants to do is help and fix… and she’s learned that when it comes down to this, that’s the one thing she can’t do no matter how hard she tries.

_______________________________________

A steady silence falls over the kitchen as Octavia makes her exit.

Lexa watches Raven fold back in on herself, shoulders drawing forward, eyes downcast, hands tugging on her shorts and tank top as if she’s suddenly uncomfortable in her own skin. She finishes up the last of the pancakes, flipping the last one onto the plate in the oven. Raven doesn’t look to Lexa as she moves around the kitchen, using the counters instead of her crutches to move herself around. Lexa sips on her tea, watching, heart aching.

In the past year Raven has become her friend, someone she trusts as much as her girls… as much as Anya. She loves the fierce pride Raven carries, the way she lives her truth on her sleeve, her heritage, her sexuality, her disability, her intelligence… everything Raven does is loud and proud and it hurts to know that Raven felt she needed to hide the truth.

At the same time she understands. Lexa understands burying the pain down deep inside and keeping the world from finding out, constantly pretending that everything is fine and that every moment of every day she isn’t withering away deep down inside, questioning if things will ever change or if this is just the new status quo. Accepting truths she shouldn’t have to, living with scars and bruises.

Lexa looks over Raven’s form, seeing one of the strongest people she knows on the edge of breaking apart. She wonders how much Raven’s ex did to make her like this, and she wants to ask, but she knows better, what Raven wants her to know will come out in time. And Lexa can wait. As long as Raven is safe… then she can wait.

Raven glances up and Lexa tilts her head until their eyes meet. Lexa swallows down a trembling breath at the vulnerability in Raven’s gaze. Everything is laid bare in that look, all of Raven’s fear that somehow she’s alone in this. She runs a shaky hand through her hair and tries to reassure Lexa with a smile, but it doesn’t reach her eyes.

Three steps and Lexa is across the kitchen, wrapping her arms around Raven and pulling her close, one arm tight around her waist, the other around her shoulders, hand snaking through still damp hair to press Raven’s head to her shoulder. She presses her face to the top of Raven’s head.

The hug takes her by surprise and Raven freezes. Lexa isn’t openly affectionate with many people… her girlfriends, her sister, of course. She can count on one hand the number of times she’s seen Lexa hug anyone other than those three, and Lexa had rarely initiated any of those hugs. Her heart speeds up and she tries to regulate her breathing, calm her heart through sheer strength of will. It’s just a hug.

But, oh, how Lexa had looked at her like she understood .

Raven leans into Lexa, letting her head rest on her shoulder, lets herself fall against her friend as she feels Lexa arm tighten against her waist to take her weight. Gingerly she wraps her arms around Lexa, afraid that if she lets herself go she’ll hold on too tight, tight enough to bruise and break and isn’t sure which of them will come away hurting more.

Lexa scratches her fingers lightly over Raven’s scalp.

Waves of emotion rush over her and she’s breaking against the shore that is Lexa, a safe cove in this storm.

Her fingers tangle around Lexa’s shirt, gripping it tightly in her fists as she tries to keep her arms gentle yet firm around Lexa. She needs this, and she breathes out trying not to sob, trying not to break.

Breathe in, tightening her fists, wrinkling Lexa’s shirt.

Breathe out, press the bridge of her nose against Lexa’s collarbone.

Remind herself that she’s safe. That it’s okay to need someone. That it’s okay to want to be held.

She can’t let anyone know how desperately she needs to be held, and the sob that wracks her body feels a bit like a betrayal, but Lexa is there to catch her as she breaks.

_______________________________________

The pillow is damp beneath her face but she can’t bring herself to move. She’s kind of used to it at this point and Clarke isn’t even sure it really matters. Not when every breath feels like a knife to her chest, a hand gripping tight around her heart, and her throat is pulled so taut she doesn’t know if she could scream out the pain she’s in.

This is the worst year since that first one. She knows she shouldn’t be this broken up. It’s been ten years. She keeps telling herself that it’s been ten years but she keeps wanting to tell her dad about her girlfriends and all reasons she loves them and how Octavia nearly got hit by a car but Raven saved her, and Lexa brings home mangos and it’s like she’s seventeen again, the cuts on her knees not yet healed.

She can't remember what it feels like to breathe without pain. She knows she did at one point, but it doesn't seem like she ever will again.

Clarke curls up tighter underneath the duvet knees pressed close to her chest, face pressed between the pillow and the mattress, one arm across her eyes and exposed ear, trying to block out what little of the world presses down on her in the empty bedroom. It’s dark and quiet, the curtains drawn, and the door only open the barest of cracks. Octavia slipped out a few minutes ago, maybe it was longer, Clarke isn’t sure, all she knows is that she’s alone in the room.

Alone the guilt of it all starts to weigh down on her.

She’s already cancelled class today, and she can tell that the way she’s acting has everyone worried. There’s a waver in Octavia’s voice when she talks to her that extends to the kisses she places on the top of Clarke’s head, and Lexa’s been so soft and gentle and quiet like she’s afraid of being anything more in case Clarke shatters. All of that presses down on her, knowing that it doesn't matter how good they are to her, she's still all sharp edges, cut and bleeding on the inside where pieces of her soul have been chipped away.

The faintest of voices at the back of her mind tell her she's being a bit dramatic, but what else is there when all she can focus on is the pain?

She should be better for them. She should be better because she has them. Her life is good, really good , and it's going to be her fault if this all falls apart.

Clarke can feel the sob building in her throat, the pressure behind her eyes, but she doesn’t know if she has the energy for it, her face already sticky with dried tears. She’s exhausted.

All she wants is for this pain to be over.

She breathes out.

Then in again, pulling in another breath, counting to three in time with the thud of her heart, holding it steady inside her chest. One. Two. Three. Four. And out… seven. Again. Again. Again… again.

First the covers come down. The air is alive and vibrant, chill against her sleep-warmed skin.

Breathe in. Hold. Breathe out. Fourteen counts. Fourteen heartbeats.

Raven has been charged with watching her.

She sits up, bowing forward to press her head to her knees. She can feel the jagged scar on her left knee press to her forehead and she tries not to think about the day she got it. Every cell in her body is yearning to lay back in bed, pull the covers over her head once more and block out the world. If only they hadn’t left Raven here she could, but she doesn’t want Raven to worry, she doesn’t want anyone to feel like she has to be taken care of. She doesn’t need to be taken care of. Not like this. She isn’t a risk .

Clarke clenches her teeth, she can manage just fine, even if she just wants to stay in bed all day.

All week…

Clarke swings her legs over the edge of the bed and slides to her feet, determined to prove that she is strong enough on her own and the last thing she needs is someone set with the task of taking care of her. She is not an invalid. She is not ill beyond functioning. She has her mind about her however bogged down she is, however much she wants to give in to this insurmountable weight in her head.

The guilt that she has worried her girlfriends enough that they believe Clarke needs someone to watch over her breaks what little is left of her anger. That resignation is the only reason she forces herself to get up.

_______________________________________

It’s the end of the summer Clarke is seventeen and she’s downtown with her dad at the Saturday market picking up groceries and after they’re meeting Octavia and Bellamy for ice cream on the pier. The sun is high overhead and Clarke can feel a thin line of sweat trickle down her spine. This is her favorite time of year, school hasn’t started yet and it’s still warm out, but the nights are starting to get cooler. Right now she’s wrist deep in a fruit stand and she’s fairly certain this is a perfect day.

“Dad, we’re getting mangos too.”

“How much fruit are we getting Clarke?”

“All of it.”

“Then you’re carrying it,” Jake winks and nudges her shoulder. Clarke rolls her eyes. “How much time do we have?”

Clarke leans over and grabs Jake’s wrist to turn the face of his watch in her direction. “Twenty minutes until we need to be on the waterfront.”

“Excellent, I’m going to run and put more money on the meter, you good to pay for things?”

Clarke holds out her hand expectantly, opening her eyes wide and innocent.

“Ah, yes. The money. Remind me why you don’t have a job?” Jake teases.

“I think you said something about, ‘you can build character next summer, this summer we’re going on a road trip’. Which was lovely, my darling father, but I need to pay for the food.” Clarke opens and closes her hand into which Jake deposits enough to pay for their groceries. “You don’t need change do you?”

Jake musses Clarke’s hair, “I’ll meet you on the corner and then we’ll go find Octavia and Bell.”

“You got it, dad-io,” Clarke shoots finger guns at him barely containing a grin at her own actions. Jake laughs and shakes his head as he walks off into the crowd. Like father like daughter.

There’s more produce than their reusable sacks can reliably carry, but Clarke makes it work. The mangos will be worth it - they’re nearly the size of her head and she can tell how juicy they are. Market days are her favorite because that night means they get to have fresh food that practically tastes like it just came out of the garden. Tonight is going to be prawn tacos with fresh salsa, and mango salsa, too. They'll need to stop for tortillas to make chips.

Clarke is practically skipping, or she would be if she weren’t carrying so much, as she weaves her way out of the market and onto the corner that leads down to the pier. She’s just set her bags down on the concrete to wait when she spots her dad halfway across the street. That’s when it happens.

Neither of them see the car speeding toward the intersection until it’s too late.

Jake pushes the person in front of him out of the way, Clarke later learns his name is Atom, but he doesn’t make it out of the way himself. Clarke can’t stop watching, doesn’t turn away as she watches her dad’s body fly up and over the car, before the car crashes through two more people and into a retaining wall.

Two dead and Clarke can’t remember anything.

It’ll come to her in flashes, but she remembers realizing she’s soaked in blood and Octavia having to hold her still while she screams and the paramedics try to clean her up to make sure she isn’t injured because she can’t speak to tell them that she didn’t get hit. She remembers the smell of blood and viscera and it’s six years until she can eat red meat again. She remembers what his body looked like, blood running down the cobblestoned street toward the water, the bridge behind them covered in onlookers. She has scars on her knees but doesn’t remember falling.

_______________________________________

It's been an hour since Octavia and Lexa hugged her goodbye for the day, handed her a set of keys they told her to keep, and rushed out the door, both late for work, and Raven still hasn't seen Clarke. She's kept pancakes in the oven just in case, but before long it'll be lunch and she knows she should probably cook dinner too.

That’s the only thing that makes sense. Comfort food. Comfort for those cooking and those eating. There’s too much pain happening right now.

She glances to the keys still in her hand that she hasn't been able to put on her own key ring yet, and knows deep down she owes them more than just dinner. This is a lifeline they just threw her without a second thought.

Raven scoots her way upstairs, backwards, one step at a time, not wanting to use her crutches.

The door to the master bedroom is still closed and she wonders if she’ll see Clarke at all today.

Raven ducks into the spare room, the one that's supposed to be Lexa's. She slips on her prosthesis, buckling it in place, then digs her keys and her phone out of her bag. Clipping the new keys onto her key ring she tosses it back and flops onto the bed. She’ll think about what those keys mean later, not sure if she’ll ever use them, but comforted by the fact that she has the option. Before too long she should go home, but not now, not just yet, and besides she promised Lexa and Octavia she would stick around for Clarke until they got home. Which means if she wants to cook anything she needs someone else to run to the store for her.

A short series of texts later, after some apologizing for cancelling the last day of labs, and promising them full credit for the day, she’s convinced Monty and Jasper to make a grocery run for her. This probably wasn’t what the university meant when they gave her lab assistants, but this is what she needs. If she wants to get back to a place where she can teach classes in two weeks, be in her home and not afraid… this is what she needs to do. The boys will understand once she tells them.

Once this is over, she can give them the overview. Maybe skip out the terrified part and the… skip out everything he did except these past couple of months. They don’t need to know that, no one needs to know what she allowed to happen. She tries to remind herself that it isn’t her fault, all the things she knows her therapist would have said if she had still been going. Part of her misses therapy, the unassuming therapist that would listen to her and help her put her head in order, that allowed for her to have space so she could come to terms with what happened to her leg… she knows that she should go back, that she never should have stopped going.

He had wanted her to stop, said it wasn’t worth her time that she was fine, and then he broke her down-

Raven nearly jumps off the bed when she hears a soft knock on the doorframe that interrupts her thoughts and Clarke appears in the doorway. She looks like hell, and Raven thinks she probably looks much the same, today isn’t a contest about who has it worse though. Today is about getting through the day.

Clarke leans heavily against the wall just inside the spare room and blinks slowly in the bright morning light streaming in the east facing windows. It hurts and she's tempted to leave her eyes closed, slink back into her bedroom and under the covers. There it's dark and quiet and she doesn't have to rally to convince someone that she'll be okay. She stretches and wills her body to life.

She opens her mouth to speak but she doesn't know what to say. Does she acknowledge that Raven is clearly there to keep an eye on her? Does she bring up why Raven is even there in the first place? Or does she ignore both of the giant elephants in the room.

Clarke opts for the least amount of talking. "Morning," she sounds surly, her voice rough, but she doesn't try to ameliorate the implications of her tone even though she feels a bit like an ass.

Raven sits up, and it's like watching liquid shift and rearrange, yet somehow stay solid. Clarke glowers, feeling like a frumpy sack of potatoes.

"Hey," Raven keeps her voice soft an even and it makes Clarke frown harder. "You're up."

"Clearly."

Raven flinches and frowns before standing. "There's breakfast downstairs if you're hungry. You should probably eat at some point."

Clarke's stomach rumbles loudly enough to be audible and she internally curses the betrayal. This would be easier if she could just convince Raven she isn't needed but all she wants to do is snap and hide and petulantly pout, which will do nothing to plead her case that she is fine and does not need to be watched over.

“I’m going to make brigadeiro , too, and I was thinking about making feijoada for dinner.” Raven tips her head to the side, watching Clarke, trying to find her friend through the hazy mess of pain. The distance between them is thick and uncomfortable, and Raven shifts her weight back and forth as she waits. Waiting because Clarke isn’t flinching, isn’t responding, Raven isn’t quite sure she had even been listening.

Clarke’s instinct is to shrug, roll her eyes, but she lacks the energy, and instead stares straight at Raven. “Make yourself at home.” Her words are scathing and she inwardly cringes at her own insensitivity.

Letting out a loud exhale Raven shakes her head. This is not Clarke and they both know it and right now she doesn’t have the energy to deal with Clarke being a jerk because she’s hurting. “ Ah pelo amor de Deus! When you get your head out of your ass, you can come help.”

There’s an edge to Raven’s voice and Clarke doesn’t blame her.

Raven gives Clarke a wide berth as she walks into the hallway.

Clarke’s face twists, an ugly echo of how she feels, not about the situation, or Raven, but about herself. The thing Clarke hates most is how unlike herself she is when her head gets like this. It’s the thing that worries her the most, that maybe, the rest of the time, she’s just faking it, and this is her, stripped away and raw, that this is who she truly is… and this is not someone she likes.

Her stomach turns and she slams her head against the wall as she sinks to the ground, stars burst to life in front of her eyes and she takes comfort in the sharpness of the pain as it tingles along her skin, the ache radiating. It’s stupid to provoke someone who is just trying to be kind. She feels like an ass, not knowing the details of what happened yesterday, only that it was bad enough that Raven didn’t want to stay home alone last night, and that she’s still here today.

She smacks her head against the wall again welcoming the burst of light behind her eyelids. Whites and reds and pinks and oranges flickering like fireworks, with it is a moment of clarity and a sinking feeling. Her fingers itch to be occupied, as if she might need to paint but she knows that it isn’t paint she wants her hands smeared with. She smacks her head against the wall again and tears well up at the corners of her eyes.

That isn’t what she wants . It’s like a fucking mantra in her head. Everything is just confused. And the clarity of the pain isn’t helping. Clarke sinks to the floor, curling onto her side. She knows this is bad, really bad , but she’s been through this before. She can hold on. If she just stays still she can move on.

If she just stays still.

Tears drip down her nose.

Still. She wills herself.

She cracks her eyes open, letting the tears blur the grain of the hardwood floor. Clarke reaches out and traces the shape of the color. If she just stays here…

It’ll be okay.

It has to be okay .

And she wonders if she’s just lying to herself.

_______________________________________

It’s sometime past noon when Raven finally hears movement upstairs. First the shower, then, half an hour later footsteps on the staircase. The sound is soft, slow, hesitant, almost apologetic.

Raven had nearly gone upstairs a dozen times to check on Clarke. Stood at the base of the stairs, thoughts of calling up to her, or climbing back up, or any number of things to make sure Clarke was okay. Well, not okay, but… alive . She didn’t think things were that bad, but it had been silent since the three distinct crashes. But right then Raven had still been too angry to go back upstairs, knew too well that Clarke would not have welcomed her if she did.

At first her mind wandered to the night before, the last few months, and standing there, in the quiet and the peace she wondered how she allowed it to get so bad again. Marvelled at how easy was for Wick to dismantle her once again and she wondered where the girl she knew herself to be had gone. The one whose strength and stubbornness meant that she never gave up when she had to learn to walk again while all her friends were out partying and going to bars. The one that started running because she didn’t want to give, she didn’t want to just be what she was before, she wanted to be more - as if her stubbornness were trying to fill the empty space left by her missing leg.

After she had gotten away from Wick she had never fully gotten back to being herself. Bits and pieces of her had come back, yes, but there was more still missing. Too much to sort out this morning, not when this peace may be transient.

As time passed though, Jasper and Monty arriving with groceries, and leaving again just as quickly as they had arrived, and Raven prepping everything for the feijoada , and being nearly done with the brigadeiro , she feels more like herself, and less like the scared shell she had been the night before. Wick, is, at least for now, behind bars.

She realizes she wanted to keep it that way, at least for her peace of mind. Even so, her hands shake as she texts Octavia that she wants to press charges.

But the more she feels like herself as she shapes each of the brigadeiro the more she knows she should be checking on Clarke. It was a relief when she heard the shower start up, and another when she heard soft footsteps on the stairs.

The way Clarke steps into the kitchen is shy, as if she's out of place and it's Raven's house she's wandering around in, clad in boy shorts and an oversized flowing tank top, and an old faded, paint stained flannel. Her gaze is downcast, shoulders slightly hunched, and her skin is ashen. When she glances up to find Raven's exactly location before her gaze flicks back to the ground, Raven notices how swollen and red her eyes are.

In short, Clarke looks even more like hell than she did earlier.

Raven sets down the candies she's making contemplating whether she should wash her hands or simply wipe them off. When Clarke moves further into the kitchen and leans against the counter near where Raven is working, picking at the little paper cups holding the finished brigadeiro , but not engaging her yet, Raven moves to wash her hands. They're playing a game, slowly circling each other, seeing how long they can go until someone breaks the silence.

Any other day Raven would spin the kitchen towel between her hands and crack it like a whip at Clarke. There would be a war. There would be welts and laughter. Raven can't bring herself to act as if nothing is amiss because it's etched in the silence that has drawn a gulf between them.

Hands now clean, she doesn't even know if Clarke would allow a hug. Some things aren't entirely about her though, and even though she's feeling better after last night Raven could use the hug, she could use the human contact. Someone she trusts. The brief hugs the night before from Octavia and Lexa weren’t enough. And this morning, when Lexa held her, it only opened her wide up, reminding her how how these past few months she’s shied away from touch, memories of Wick flashing through her mind every time someone would brush her skin… and now she is aching with the loneliness.

She doesn't act on it, instead finding it in herself to care for and protect, because that's easier than asking for help. Anything is easier than asking. Not that it should be , she reminds herself. Baby steps. Everything now is about baby steps.

"I'm nearly done in here." Raven sets a brigadeiro in front of Clarke like a chocolate peace offering.

Clarke reaches for it hesitantly, insecurity written on her features, screwing them up into something familiar and foreign all at once. Raven recognizes that look in herself but this is the first she's seen it in Clarke.

"Thank you," the words are almost a whisper but there a ghost of a smile on Clarke's eyes as she picks up the thin paper cup and takes a tiny bite of the chocolate confection. Her eyes snap up to meet Raven's, pleasant surprise and a hint of joy lighting her up for the briefest of moments.

Raven's always believed in the healing power of good food. Even if sometimes it isn't good for you, it is. There's power in making something for someone else, pouring your thoughts and energy into the process, things that no recipe can replicate. It's why she's never been able to make her grandmother's feijoada just right, but as the tension in Clarke's shoulders releases she realizes that maybe she'll have her own one day. That in making something for someone again and again she'll find a way to pour herself and her heart into the meal.

"When you're done with that you want to help me clean up? I figure I can make us something for lunch as we tidy."

There's a moment of alarm on Clarke's face.

"Something simple," Raven clarifies.

Clarke nods, "Okay. Where should I start?"

"Dishes. I'll bring everything to you," Raven starts to busy herself around the kitchen, scraping, stacking, wiping down.

After a few moments Clarke abandons the half eaten brigadeiro on the counter and moves to the sink. Tap on, water running, dishwasher open. She lets herself get lost a bit in the repetition of scrubbing plates and bowls and cups before loading them into the dishwasher. It's comforting, she doesn't need her brain. She can just keep moving, tumbling forward, feeling useful, capable, because right now she feels the opposite.

Somehow she feels like she almost lost it, lying there on the floor of the spare room. By it she means everything. It’s that feeling of precariousness that leaves her feeling like her life is little more than water cupped in her hands. Any move and it will slip through her fingers. Holding too tightly will only ensure the loss.

And she’ll lose everything… Lexa, Octavia, her mom. She’s so close to that reality, almost pushing them all away in fear that she might hurt them if she keeps them too close. She’ll hurt them either way. No matter what she does, because even if she works to make things better, no matter how good she gets, everything always comes back to this. It’s just a matter of time. So if she pushes them away first it won’t matter when she falls apart.

A plate slips from her hand and crashes to the ground, shattering on the cold stone floor, shards of white ceramic scattering.

“Don’t move!”

Raven’s voice startles Clarke more than the broken plate.

Raven reaches out, almost touching Clarke’s arm but letting her hand fall short. “I just don’t want you to cut your feet.” She nods to indicate Clarke’s bare feet.

Clarke nods and shuts off the water, staying still. She hadn’t even thought of her own safety, only a foggy sense that she should clean up the mess, but her body had yet to react to her mind. Something as simple as keeping herself from getting cut hardly seemed to matter when it felt like her existence was in question, when being upright was a struggle - a fight she wasn’t sure she knew she knew the reason for in that moment, only that she had to fight because she knew she would understand again when her head cleared up.

Raven works quickly, sweeping up the broken plate, and depositing the remains in the trash, but there’s something in her careful nature, as if it really matters to her that Clarke is okay, or maybe it’s in Clarke finally feeling the weight of how far she’s fallen from herself that Clarke beings to feel the first pangs of a potential upswing. It’s just momentum churning up instead of down, but it’s something different even if she’s still falling apart in her head.

“Thank you,” the words feel rough on Clarke’s tongue, her voice unsteady. She knows she means for more than just making sure she doesn’t cut her feet, but the words won’t come to her.

Raven makes a shooing motion with her hands, “Go curl up on the couch under the fleece - I’ll bring us lunch.” Her voice is firm but soft.

“I’m fine, I can-” Raven’s glare cuts her short and she knows this will be a losing battle if she tries to engage. The fight has gone out of Clarke, so she she steps away from the sink with a small nod of her head. As she passes Raven she presses her forehead to the other girl’s shoulder just for a moment, just long enough that Raven brushes her fingers through Clarke’s hair. Clarke isn’t ready for a hug yet. She needs to forgive herself before she’s ready to be forgiven.

Raven blinks back tears and sets to work. Lexa and Octavia should be home to hold Clarke to whisper all the things she needs to hear, remind her how loved she is, remind her of the good things in her life. Whether she realizes it or not Clarke needs someone to hold her right now. Raven doesn't really know how she ended up here, to be the one watching Clarke, but she's glad her friends trust her. That no matter how much her life is messed up and how lost she is with her own problems they still feel she's enough to take care of the precious parts of their lives.

It's been a long time since she felt like enough.

Before long the kitchen is how she found it and she's made tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches because it's gloomy outside and she knows that Clarke would give her the side eye if she tried to feed her a salad right now. So instead she hid thinly sliced grilled vegetables in the sandwich - something she knows Clarke likes and decides to hope for the best.

She's almost certain Clarke would never have given her an answer anyway if she had asked what she wanted to eat.

Clarke was diligent in following Raven’s instructions. She sitting cross legged in the middle of the couch, the fleece blanket half pulled off the back of the couch and across her lap. In a way, she just looks lost, her forearms pressed to her thighs as she leans forward, staring at the floor. One hand cups around the back of her neck, holding pressure, like she’s holding herself together.

Setting the plates on the coffee table Raven sits down next to Clarke, close but not too close. She still isn’t sure if Clarke will welcome her presence or snap, but she’s willing to bet on the former after the moment of contact as Clarke left the kitchen. She’s hoping she’s right because if she’s wrong, the conversation she’s about to have could backfire.

Calmly Raven unbuckles her prosthetic leg, rolls off the sock, and sets both aside. She takes a moment to massage the muscles of the residual limb and then reaches for her own plate without a word as if she does this all the time. Truth is she doesn’t take off her leg in front of many people. Octavia’s seen her do it often, because they run together, and it’s never bothered her to let Lexa see… but Clarke has never been around really. She tries to keep calm even though her heart is starting to beat wildly, missing how her head was before Wick, she didn’t care what anyone thought. Her fingers trace idly along the scars on her leg.

It’s like waiting for judgement to fall. She itches to break the silence herself, but she wants Clarke to be the one that breaks it because then she’ll know then, that it’s Clarke that wants to talk, and not just Raven itching to try to fix something. She doesn’t miss the way Clarke’s gaze flicks to her leg before reaching for her own plate.

The silence that settles over them as they eat is different than the silence of the kitchen. It's less tense, sadder maybe, but it doesn't feel like everything is going to break - it's the realization that it already has.

Raven watches Clarke pick at her food, watching the conflict of wanting to eat because it needs to be done and having no desire to eat even when comfort food is offered. In all the moments and depressive spells Raven has witnessed Clarke tumble into this is the lowest. She's going to need more than love and friends and food.

As much as she wishes those things were enough to be the magic cure, they aren't. She knows first hand that the brain is an organ like any other and it can suffer an illness. Someone asking for help when they're sick should never be hard. Raven pushes aside the voice in the back of her mind telling her she just spent two months letting Wick tear down all her progress so that she's shattered again. That she should have asked for help.

That's a problem for another day, right now Clarke needs her, and Raven will patiently wait.

“Thank you,” Clarke says softly breaking the silence as she pushes a smile bite of sandwich into her mouth.

“That’s the third time you’ve said that this morning,” Raven teases, gesturing to Clarke pointedly with the corner of her grilled cheese and a tilt of her head. It’s not like she’s done much, all she’s done is cook.

Clarke is silent for a while, no longer eating her food, merely tearing it into smaller and smaller pieces and Raven wonders if even that was too much. They have to start somewhere though, they can’t just sit in silence all day, not if they want tomorrow to be any better. At some point they have to face reality, even when it hurts. Raven has to deal with the unsteady ground Wick has left her on and Clarke has to deal with the demons in her head. If they don’t they’ll never really leave this couch.

“It sounds better than I’m sorry ,” Clarke’s voice is so quiet Raven nearly misses her words.

Raven raises an eyebrow.

“I’m sulking, and you’re …” Clarke struggles to find the right word.

“Disabled? A stalker victim? An abuse survivor?” Raven tries not to snap out the words, and not to tremble as she labels herself, figuring this conversation has to be like ripping a bandaid off, better just get to it quickly. It’s so different saying those words out loud, knowing their truth. In her head is one thing. Saying those things out loud is like coming out all over again, the spin of anxiety wrapping around her heart, but worse.

She knows exactly what kinds of things Clarke is struggling with, that she refuses to accept. Looking at yourself and accepting the reality of things is hard.

Clarke purses her lips because those are the things she meant, the reasons Raven has for being anything other than okay. She can’t find any such reasons for herself, just that she’s broken, and she feels hate for how she is well up inside her.

“You have cuts on your thigh,” the words are out of Clarke’s mouth before she can stop them.

Raven’s eyes widen, sharp and hard and afraid before she breathes out and her features soften.

“Clarke. Your mom’s a surgeon, a medical doctor, you should know this better than the rest of us, not every illness, not every disability, is visible.” Raven gestures to her residual limb, cut just above the knee, all that remains of the leg she had ends with her femur. The skin is riddled with scar tissue, some of it from the accident, some of it her own making. Not every illness is a visible one, but sometimes the ones you can’t see leave physical scars. “Sometimes, it’s all up here,” she flicks her finger against Clarke’s temple. “But that doesn’t make it any less real.”

Tears well up in Clarke’s eyes and she tries to swallow them down.

“It’s better if you just let it happen.” Raven sets down her plate and opens her arms, offering Clarke a soft place to land.

Clarke shakes her head and presses the heels of her hand against her eyes.

Raven drops her arms and leans back against the couch, “Have it your way. Let me know if you change your mind.”

“You sound like a therapist,” disdain drips from Clarke’s voice. She simultaneously hates that she’s talking to her friend like this and the direction this conversation is heading but feels powerless to stop it because she knows it needs to happen, she just doesn’t want to admit it.

“Probably because I’ve spent a lot of time with them,” Raven keeps her voice light, feeling the backlash already. Sometimes the only way out is through. “Have you ever seen one?”

“Yeah, bunch of arrogant fucks.” Clarke tosses her plate back onto the coffee table and curls into herself, arms crossed across her stomach. She wonders if Lexa put Raven up to this, not trusting that two people have come to the same conclusion in as many days.

“Not all of them, it’s tough to find a good one though.” Raven tries to sound nonchalant about it. She can tell she’s hit on something rough, but no matter where they go with this conversation, Clarke is hurting and she needs to do something about it or else things will always come back to this. “Can I ask what happened?”

Clarke pulls her knees to her chest, the top of her head pressed to her thighs, hands laced behind her neck. The last thing she wants to do is talk about this, with anyone. But Raven doesn’t know, Lexa didn’t know. None of them know . Shame fills her up, because she doesn’t want anyone to know how weak she is. Only Octavia knows how bad things got after her father died, even her mother’s blocked most of what happened to Clarke out.

She’s rocking slightly and she thinks she probably looks like a crazy person… she feels like it. Her head is reeling, grasping, everything just out of reach so she can’t find steady ground, and she doesn’t even know what she’s looking for, just, not this. Not this. She’s breathing fine but at the same time she feels like she can’t breath, her throat tight, chest aching. If she can just hold on. Hand hold. Foot step. Just make it stop so she can breathe without feeling like she’s suffocating, but that’s not going to happen because this is never ending and it’s just going to keep going and going and it always comes back to this, every year, the anniversary, or his birthday, or Christmas, and every year, multiple times a year, she feels like everything is just spinning out of her control and she needs to ask what she should do because he would always know, but he’s not here and she’s supposed to be an adult about this by now, but nothing makes sense and it feels like she’s drowning and this is going to be the thing that drags her under and finally-

“Clarke?” Raven’s voice is soft and the touch of her fingertips against her temple even softer. She’s whispering to her, trying to coax her to unfurl, to take a breath again, which hasn’t happened in nearly a minute now. Worse comes to worse she’ll just pass out and they’ll start this all again when she wakes up. Her fingers wrap around Clarke’s wrist and she tugs gently, fingertips pressed to the pulse point there. Clarke inhales sharply and Raven thinks for a moment that maybe there will be a respite and they’ll talk. She doesn’t expect the onslaught.

“You want to know what happened?” Clarke spits the words as she sits up. All of the fear and anger at not understanding has twisted up inside her and it’s spilling out. She’s hopeless to stop it, and part of her, the part that still feels like her deep down, broken and bruised, is appalled at how ugly and spiteful she sounds. “Not one of them listened to me. Six psychiatrists and psychologists in a year. She’s acting out, better dope her up.”

Clarke shifts away from Raven’s touch and curls into the corner of the couch. She wants to lash out and she’s afraid she will if Raven is close enough. The moment she moves she misses Raven’s touch, the part of her that still feels like Clarke trembles and she wraps her arms around herself. Tears spill down her cheeks.

“I don’t remember my senior year of high school. So don’t fucking talk to me about therapy.”  

It’s fear more than anger that makes her lash out but it all sounds the same in the end. She doesn’t like not knowing why she feels like this, why the voice in the corner of her mind thinks it’d just be better if things were over. How does she explain how hard it is to just stay still so she doesn’t do something she regrets. She wishes she could stop taking her fear out on Raven, but the floodgates are open and it all keeps tumbling out.

“Octavia could tell you better what happened, she watched it all. My mom denies it was ever all that bad, even after, I just got really fucking good at hiding it. You want to know what I know happened that year, that I don’t just remember because I’ve been told?” Clarke sucks in a deep breath and doesn’t wait for Raven to reply before she continues. “The three months I didn’t care about anything at all, not anyone, not myself, not painting, not school. Or there was the period where it felt like liquid nitrogen was being dripped down the inside of my skull. And then the time I didn’t sleep. And that was all before I tried to quit the drugs they made me take.”

Raven purses her lips trying not to snap at Clarke for snapping at her. She kind of wants to reach out and shake her, but that will just make a bad situation worse. Instead she breathes out and waits to see if Clarke is done with her outburst.

“That sounds like hell.”

“No sh-”

Raven holds up a hand.

“You want to know what else is hell? Wondering if it would have just been better if the accident had killed you, if anyone can really love you now that your damaged, if life is even worth it now that you aren’t whole anymore. Hell is taking a knife to your own skin because the pain clears your head for a few seconds.”

Clarke deflates. She softens into the corner of the couch, her arms loosening a little, and she has the grace to look abashed. The only thing she can think to say is apologies and so she stays silent.

Raven takes Clarke’s silence and the release of tension as an invitation to continue. “It wasn’t easy, and I had help until I found the right therapist.” Raven scoots closer to Clarke before leaning over and grabbing the glass of water on the table. She takes a mouthful and then hands the rest to Clarke. “Drink, you’ve been crying, you’ll get dehydrated… It took me a while to find the right therapist, but the thing is, once you do, you’re not going to have someone pursuing a treatment plan that you don’t want to pursue. This is your life, and your health. So you get the ultimate say in what happens.”

Clarke holds the glass in both her hands, not drinking the water but listening to Raven. The glass is cool in her hands and for a moment she thinks she can just sit there and it’ll be okay. Her head is quiet, the pulsing, the pain, the constant awareness, slipping away, just for a little bit.

“Water. Drink.” Raven gestures at Clarke and Clarke can’t help but follow the command.

Clarke sets the empty glass down on the coffee table. She feels lighter, not okay, not good, better even seems a stretch, but the pressure and the panic are no longer building. There’s breathing room inside her head.

“I’m afraid I’m going to lose my mind again if I go back.” Her voice is small and thin, and she hates it, but not as much as she hates the anger. “If Octavia hadn’t of dumped my pills down the sink at school I don’t know what would have happened… and after the withdrawals were so bad. Octavia would sneak into the house on school nights and hold ice against my neck and forehead so I could sleep, as my feelings started returning, we ran into other problems too. It must have been for months but that first weekend was terrible. She took care of me while I threw up, cold sweats, and shaking… it was worse than being on the drugs.”

Clarke sniffles, tears coursing down her cheeks, and rubs at her face because fuck she’s tired of hurting and crying and trying to hold herself together and pretend she’s alright until there’s a few moments when she is. And when she is okay it’s just the fear of when will this end because there’s no real rhyme or reason when it does sometimes.

“Hey, hey ,” Raven says softly catching one of Clarke’s hands in her own. “I’m here, okay. And you’ve got Lexa and Octavia. You aren’t alone in this.”

Clarke nods and focuses on holding Raven’s hand and trying not to plant herself directly in the middle of her friend’s lap and demand to be held. She focuses on the calming swipe of Raven’s thumb across her wrist.

“Listen, therapy isn’t easy, even without drugs… I was on Zoloft for a little while, I didn’t like it, but it never did anything like what you’re describing to me. It helped enough that I could get started. I had a lot to get through after I lost my leg. I mean, the phrase alone, I didn’t lose my leg, I know exactly where it went. My tibia was shattered when some stupid freshman dropped a faulty O2 canister and it rocketed across the lab and straight into my leg.” Raven mimics a small explosion with her hands, complete with sound effects, she laughs and smiles when Clarke echoes her with her own small watery laugh.

“When I woke up my leg was gone, there wasn’t much choice. I had to figure out how to be me again even though part of me was gone.”

“How?” A million half formed questions race through Clarke’s mind but that’s the only one she can hold onto long enough to articulate.

“When it happened I was dating my childhood best friend, Finn, and back then we were really close with both our families. Brazilian immigrant parents and grandparents, so you know, everyone was there. And the people that loved me helped me stay afloat until I found a really good therapist.” Raven offers up a small smile, “I learned to live with half a leg, doesn’t mean I don’t struggle sometimes but I found ways to cope, an arsenal of mental tools,” Raven smiles wryly. “I started running after the accident, not before. Having that to push myself towards really helped me focus the rest of my recovery.”

Clarke runs her finger across the scars on her own knees, rubbing the seam of her dad’s flannel against them, the only things she has left of him and the day he died aside from her memories. She wonders how talking about anything made anything better, but Raven is probably one of the most badass people that she knows. It doesn’t seem like anything will ever stop her. Maybe there’s a way to approach this therapy thing that doesn’t break her. Just talking to someone doesn’t seem like it would be enough.

Nothing she does ever seems like it will be enough.

“My dad got hit by a car just before I turned eighteen. He was trying to save some kid a couple years younger than me, they both died.” She taps the scars on her knees with her free hand. “Octavia told me later I collapsed screaming when it happened. She only heard it.”

“That’s rough, that must have changed everything for you and your mom.”

Guilt squeezes around Clarke’s heart at the selfishness of her pain. “What happened to Finn?”

Raven feels her heart plummet. Talking about her accident was one thing, but she hasn’t talked about Finn with anyone aside from her therapist who she hasn’t seen in more than a year. Wick didn’t want to know much about him, other than he was dead, and she’d never told Wick about Luna. Really, Luna was the last friend she had talked about Finn with and that was years ago…

Raven takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly, counting in her head, three counts in, hold for four, seven counts out. Again…again… again. The words start tumbling out, quick and jumbled together, as if she’s afraid she won’t be able to say it if she doesn’t say it all at once.

“Finn died of cancer when I was twenty-five. He was twenty-four. The year we both turned twenty-two he had been diagnosed with Advanced Burkitt Lymphoma. About fifty percent of patients respond well to chemotherapy, Finn didn’t. It was like my accident all over again. We were in the hospital all the time. Finn had been there for me, so of course I turned around and looked after him.”

Raven curls her foot up under herself and tries to ignore the ache in her heart. Or the flood of memories, hiding with Finn under the kitchen table, peeking up at her Vovo , while she cooked, getting in trouble because their faces are smeared with chocolate they weren’t supposed to eat. She lets it ache, continuing on as tears start to fall down her cheeks.

“A year after he had been diagnosed a good friend of ours, Luna, she’s a bit of a nomad, landed back in town. Finn barely had good days anymore by then, or well, a good day meant a day he didn’t spend it throwing up or asleep, or doped up on meds.” Her voice starts to crack. “Luna made a lot of things easier… Finn and I,” Raven looks to Clarke, feeling the weight and the weariness, and wondering why it’s this part of the story that sticks in her throat, when one of the few people that might actually understand is sitting in front of her.

“He wanted me to be happy and taken care of, and he knew I was pan, and open to unconventional relationships… and even as sick as he was he could see the potential. If he hadn’t have been so sick the three of us might have been happy together. Luna moved in with me, by the time we were together Finn was living at the hospital anyway. Well, dying, really. It was the longest I’d ever known her to stay anywhere. She left not long after he died.”

Raven had stopped wiping her eyes somewhere in the middle of her story, just letting the tears drip down her face and into her lap.

“It was all so much, my leg, then Finn’s cancer. Having a therapist there to talk to, someone who wasn’t weighed down by what was happening, made it so I didn’t bury us all with my pain. Still, I couldn’t go home after Finn passed. His mom still lives next door to mine. I couldn’t face the idea of home without him there. It’s not like therapy made everything magically better.”

“I don’t know how you managed years of therapy, or surviving all of that.” Clarke tugs the fleece blanket off the back of the couch and lays it over both their laps. Her mind is reeling from Raven’s story, the truth and the pain of it, and she knows that isn’t everything that’s happened. None of that explains what happened last night with Raven’s ex. She wonders how everything seems to get so fucked up so easily.

One second everyone is fine and then the next they have cancer, or they get hit by a car, and then they’re dead.

“I just don’t know how you do it, breaking yourself open in front of a stranger.”

“It isn’t easy, but it helps me. I think… I think I might go back. I stopped going when Wick and I got together, he convinced me I was better and ‘I didn’t need that crap .’ His words, not mine. After that, shit got pretty fucked up. And now I have a stalker.”

“All I have is a dead dad though, it’s not like I have…” Clarke waves her hand around grasping for words.

“Stop.” Raven’s face falls and she glares sternly at Clarke. “This isn’t the pain olympics. Your head processes things in a way that means you need some help, you need tools to cope. There’s nothing shameful in that. I’ve had my share of not coping over the years. As you not so delicately pointed out I have cuts on my leg. I have a stalker , that I let back into my life.” Raven collapses back on the couch, tired with the weight of everything now that the truth was out in plain sight. She wants to make Clarke understand but she doesn’t know if she has the energy. She wants to see them both happier and stronger. “I asked for help, and the world didn’t end, Clarke.”

Clarke curls up on the other end of the couch, clutching a pillow to her chest, trying to figure out where she goes from here. She isn’t sure, but maybe she can figure it out. Like Raven did, she has people, she isn’t alone, and she can figure out the next step. “Okay.” The word is just a whisper, but she feels Raven settle in deeper to the couch and she knows she’s been understood.

A gentle quietness settles over them and Clarke is nearly asleep before she thinks to say anything.

“Raven?”

Raven hums to indicate she heard.

“You aren’t alone in this either.”

Raven nudges Clarke with her foot, “Thanks.”

_______________________________________

The rain is pouring down when Lexa pulls into the driveway with Octavia, the day having stretched on impossibly long, and court running overtime. They were late getting home. Tired in ways they shouldn’t be as they walked up to the front door. It feels like a lifetime ago, finding Clarke in her studio, and bringing her back to bed pliant but surly underneath the exhaustion, but it’s not yet been two days. Neither knows what to expect when they walk in the front door.

Octavia has her keys in her hand, the door nearly open when she feels Lexa lean her forehead against the back of her head.

“How do we do this, O?” Lexa whispers.

“We love her.” Octavia answers softly. She turns so they’re face to face, and the uncertainty she’s met with breaks her heart. “She’s still our Clarke underneath all the pain.”

“I know, but what if it doesn’t get better?” Lexa sniffs, trying to keep from breaking down in tears on her own front porch, knowing that the moment she walks through that door they need to be strong for Clarke and for each other, knowing that they still have Raven to help back onto her feet.

“We find a way, there’s always something that makes it click back into place for her.” Octavia wraps her arms around Lexa’s waist. “There’s always been something, it just takes time.” She’s not sure who she’s trying to convince more that this will pass, that the world will right itself. Nothing feels like it has before.

“What though?” Lexa brushes back strands of Octavia’s hair from her face. “I feel like this is bigger than us.”

“We’ll get through this, okay?” Octavia leans forward and kisses Lexa gently. “All of us.”

Lexa nods and sniffs and wipes at her nose, a small smile tugs at her lips as she watches Octavia do the same.

When the door opens and they step out of the wet and the cold they aren’t expecting the brightly lit living room, or the pungent, mouth watering smell of dinner still cooking, or the peaceful silence, and the sight on the couch. All that’s visible is a mess of brown and blonde hair on opposite ends of the couch poking out from underneath the oversized fleece that they keep on the couch.

Clarke and Raven are breathing softly and in sync, the blanket rising and falling gently with each breath. It’s a soft sight, unexpected in its simplistic beauty. Somehow during the day Raven broke through Clarke’s prickly shield. That’s the only reasons she would be downstairs in the open.

Lexa hangs their coats as they toe off their shoes.

Octavia laces their fingers together pulling Lexa towards the kitchen and Lexa pulls her towards the living room.

“Food.” Octavia whispers, her stomach rumbling. She knows if Clarke is able to sleep things are better, that if she got out of bed and she didn’t hide in her studio all day, forgetting to eat, and hiding from the world, that something shifted today. It’s enough. It’s a tiny ray of hope.

“Shouldn’t we wake them first?”

“Something tells me they both need the sleep.”

Lexa lets herself be pulled toward the kitchen, but not without looking back over her shoulder at her girlfriend and her friend, her heart aching with the need to know how they are, but knowing she just needs to be patient.

“Sit,” Octavia commands.

Lexa barely has a moment be confused before a grinning Octavia pulls out a chair and pushes her towards it, leaning forward for a quick kiss before she slips further into the kitchen.

“Let me take care of things tonight.”

_______________________________________

Clarke leans against the doorway to the spare room. It’s barely been twelve hours since she stood here, angry and hurting and spoiling for a fight. She’d been holding onto her fear like a shield, not caring how much it hurt anyone else. The hill in front of her feels insurmountable but she won’t have to climb it alone, she keeps reminding herself of that. Beside her are Lexa and Octavia, and her friends if she tells them… and once she can face her again, her mother.

Her knees try to buckle at the thought of having to face her mother and tell her about the damage that had been inflicted. She clings to the wall and tries to recall Raven’s voice, how what happened next was Clarke’s choice, which meant that she gets to take this at her pace.

As long as she keeps moving forward.

“Raven,” Clarke whispers softly. She isn’t sure how Raven hears her, headphones on and engrossed in her laptop as she is.

“Hey.” Raven’s smile is small but bright.

“I just wanted to say thank you.”

“That’s the fourth time you’ve said that to me today,” Raven laughs and it’s warm and wraps around Clarke. “You’re welcome.”

“I mean it. You didn’t have to do any of that.”

Raven pushes her laptop off her lap and onto the bed and slips off the side of the bed nearest Clarke. She makes to move to Clarke, a hand on the wall as she hops, but Clarke rushes to her before she can. Raven rolls her eyes and shakes her head but she’s smiling.

Her arms wrap around Clarke’s shoulders, “Yes I did,” she whispers. She grips Clarke tightly and pulls her closer.

Clarke returns the desperate hug, wondering how much of her own pain Raven shoved aside to make room for taking care of her that afternoon. She pulls back slightly and searches Raven’s face for a moment as she brushes hair back from it. For all their talking they didn’t discuss the trauma of the night before.

“You let us know if we can do anything, okay?”

Raven shrugs. “I’ll be okay.”

It’s Clarke’s turn to roll her eyes and she takes Raven’s face between her hands and pulls her forehead down to kiss it.

“Don’t get stuck up here.”

“Not a chance,” Raven grins but it’s a mask, genuine, but something she’s hiding behind. “Got to get back on my game again.” She nudges Clarke’s shoulder. “Fell asleep on a couch with a pretty girl and she wasn’t even in my arms. My pride is wounded.”

“Oh please, as if you couldn’t have your pick of people.” Clarke shakes her head, bemused.

“You’re right, no one can withstand the Reyes charm when I turn it up.”

Clarke laughs and begins her retreat out the door, “Goodnight, Raven. Want me to get the light?”

“Yeah.”

Clarke hits the lightswitch.

“And, Clarke?” Raven asks softly.

“Yeah?” Clarke pauses and looks over her shoulder in the dark.

“Thank you.”

“Anytime.”

Clarke pauses in the open doorway to her bedroom. She’s exhausted and wants nothing more to fall into bed and the arms of Lexa and Octavia but she doesn’t want to carry any more of the pain and anger she’s been holding onto to bed with her than she has to. So for a few minutes she watches her girls sleep and just breathes.

They’re curled up, back to back, not quite close enough to touch, but nearby. Octavia is tangled up in the blankets, her head half buried but one leg hooked out and over the top of the comforter. Lexa is gently curled onto her side, one hand underneath her pillow, the other crooked and reaching out across the top of the blankets. Opposite sides of the same coin, they both look at peace.

Closing the door softly behind her Clarke pulls off her shorts and drops her flannel to the floor as she crosses to the bed. There’s more room in front of Lexa, but she wants to be between them both, needs to having them both touching her, holding onto her. She needs them close so she can apologize.

There are thousand things she needs to say and do, but it starts with loving them as best she can while she tries to find a way to balance out the turmoil in her head.

She kneels on the end of the bed and crawls her way up between Octavia and Lexa. Turning as she tries to sit on the pillows without disturbing either of them she lifts the covers and begins to shimmy down in between them, making room as she goes. A smile tugs at the corner of her mouth as she hears both of them groan sleepily because moments later they both shift and turn over.

Octavia wraps her arm around Clarke’s stomach and nudges her onto her side until Octavia’s face is pressed between Clarke’s shoulder blades. Clarke wiggles backwards and down into the embrace. Lexa tangles her legs with Clarke’s and she uses Clarke’s arm as a pillow, burying her face into the crook of Clarke’s neck, breath warm against her chest.

Clarke breathes out and with that breath fleeing her lungs she lets the tension eke out of her body. The worry and the fear are there still, the anguish that this is to be her lot in life, stumbling with and fearing her own mind, but she’s cradling the hope that Raven gave her, the reminder that she has people, and maybe there are tools out there to make this all work out. Feeling Octavia and Lexa relax into her Clarke is a bit like she’s come home again.

There’s still a long way to go. Clarke kisses Lexa’s forehead, and squeezes Octavia’s forearm. And at the end of the day she is loved, and she loves, and that will make all the difference.

Chapter Text

Raven curls deeper into the oversized chair, her laptop balanced between her thighs. She feels stiff from sitting all day but she needed the day off, and she was loathe to leave the comfort of Lexa and Clarke and Octavia’s house. There’s a half-eaten bowl of leftover feijoada on the arm of the chair from lunch hours ago, and the world seems like a far away worry, an unpleasant dream that can’t touch her.

Everything in that moment is soft and kind, a pulsating warmth. Clarke lays on the couch with her head on Octavia’s lap, face pressed to the crook of her thigh. Earlier she had been sketching but her sketchpad is at her fingertips dropped and forgotten on the ground. Octavia has one earphone in, the other dangling down and she’s frantically mashing buttons on the video game controller. There’s an arrhythmic beat to it. She’s got one foot propped up on the coffee table and the other on the arm of the couch. Lexa sits at the piano noodling through half a memory of a song after another providing a mood to their afternoon.

Any moment now though it’ll be coming to an end because Anya is on her way over to pick Raven up. As much as they all want the magical protective bubble of the weekend to go on forever, it has to end. Raven can’t hide from the things that scare her forever, just like Clarke can’t ignore the way her mind is precariously poised between spiralling out of control and fighting for a chance. Raven sighs and shuts her laptop. Three nights and three days is enough time to put her life on hold for now.

Setting her laptop on it’s edge on the ground she stretches full out, arching off the chair and nearly sliding off the seat. She falls back into it, slouched, with a small thwump , and continues her stretch until her back pops so that she feels that small release of pressure at the base of her spine. If only other tensions were so easily dealt with. Raven sits up and reaches for her prosthetic, trying not to think about the ways in which her life has to start changing the moment she walks out the front door.

How she has to go through with pressing charges against Wick, and filing for a restraining order, and getting back in touch with her therapist, and how each of those actions feels like it will take all her willpower and energy to manage. And of course how life has to keep moving on while she does all those things.

Lexa spins on the piano bench and comes to rest straddling it, facing Raven. “Going somewhere?”

“Kitchen,” Raven holds up the half-empty bowl of food, long past cold, as she stands. “Also, Anya should be here soon to collect me.”

Lexa drums her fingers along the wood of the piano, it’s Sunday night and she gets that Raven needs to go home, they all have work tomorrow, but part of her doesn’t want to see their friend leave. She follows Raven to the kitchen.

“You could stay you know,” Lexa says quietly. Not adding on the thought that if Raven doesn’t feel ready she should absolutely stay.

Raven laughs and shakes her head as she rinses out her dish, “I know, it’s just not the same around here without my wit and my cooking.”

Lexa smirks, leaning against the counter, “It really isn’t.”

“The key is keeping Clarke away from the stove.” Raven brandishes her spoon emphasising each word.

“Hey! I can hear you-” Clarke’s protest is interrupted by a series of short sharp knocks on the front door followed by the sound of a key in the lock and the dooring opening before anyone has the chance to move.

“Look who learned to knock first!” Octavia pauses her game and nudges Clarke out of her lap. There’s a chorus of overlapping hellos.

“Seems someone discovered the lock on their door is functional,” Anya shoots back.

“Yeah, we finally showed her what the little lever does, it took a few tries.” Clarke quips quietly. Octavia shoves her lightly in the shoulder, Clarke grins and tries to look innocent, and fails. Anya raises an eyebrow in their direction but there’s the slightest of smiles on her lips.

“Reyes, you ready to get out of here before we’re subjected to a full on display of affection?” Anya rolls her eyes when Octavia sticks out her tongue. “I don’t know how you survived an entire weekend with the three of them.”

“Yeah, just need to grab my bag from upstairs.”

Raven makes it halfway across the room before Lexa is already coming back down the stairs.

“No need, I got it,” Lexa drops Raven’s bag by the front door.

“How did…” Raven let’s the question trail off and Lexa replies with a wink and a laugh. “Guess that’s my cue then.”

Octavia crosses the room quickly and pulls Raven into a hug, her words pressed quietly to Raven’s ear, “You’re always welcome here, yeah? I’ll call you tomorrow about paperwork about… you know.”

Raven whispers an affirmative and pulls back from the embrace. Clarke catches her eye across the room and they nod at each other, a small strange understanding and solidarity. When she turns to say goodbye to Lexa she practically stumbles into her arms. The last few minutes feel like a whirlwind of something… something bigger than any of them, it’s a sense of belonging and being wanted, of support… home . It’s family and love and not being an outsider, and Raven’s forgotten how much comfort that brings.

Anya hefts Raven’s bag onto her shoulder and is out the door before Lexa’s done hugging Raven, who after they part, grabs her crutches and hurries out after her.

“Don’t be a stranger!” Clarke calls out the door, “I haven’t eaten this well in… ever!”

Raven laughs and promises she’ll be back over to cook dinner soon.

The first half of the drive is in silence. Anya turned down the radio like she wanted to talk and then didn’t. Her grip is tight on the steering wheel and Raven can tell that she’s debating. She didn’t tell Anya why she had been at the trio’s house all weekend, and she doubts any of the others had either. Everyone had been so inwardly focused, the four of them just trying to make a bright spot in the middle of the darkness.

They stop at a red light and Anya let’s out an annoyed breath.

“Are you going to tell me what happened?” Anya asks softly.

Raven turns her attention back to her jeans and picks at the fraying edge of one of the holes above her knee. She can’t outright lie, but she also doesn’t want to talk about it… she doesn’t want to talk about him .

The light turns green and Anya turns onto the street Raven’s apartment is on. They still have several blocks to go.

Raven breathes in sharply and ducks her head.

“I’m driving until you start talking.” Anya threatens. “And I really hate both guessing games and waiting.”

“I know.” Raven sighs and tugs at a loose thread on her jeans. “Remember the ex I said was trying to get back together with me?” She tilts her head to the side and watches Anya not react at all.

“Let me guess, he’s not just an ex who doesn’t understand ‘it’s over’.”

“That obvious?” Raven leans her head against the window and watches the damp grey and green pass by.

Anya grunts and Raven can almost feel the eye roll. Silence settles as Raven struggles for what to say next. With Octavia they were already so far into the narrative it was just a matter of filling in a few details, it had to be done. With Clarke she needed other details, harder details. Thinking and talking about Finn hurt more because she still cared, but Wick… the thought of him made her sick to her stomach with fear.

Raven doesn’t say anything until she realizes Anya has stopped the car in front of her apartment complex. Then the words come tumbling out because last time she went in there she had Octavia with her, and she was shaking, and Octavia gathered her things with minimal direction from Raven who couldn’t bring herself to be in her own apartment any longer than absolutely necessary. She doesn’t want to get out of the safety of Anya’s car just yet, so she talks.

“It always starts out good, you know? The falling for someone. Wick talks pretty, and that smile of his could light up a village.” Raven shakes her head. “Something snapped. He became possessive. He thought he was protecting me, because of my leg, because of everyone I’d lost.”

Her fingertips dig into the flesh around her knee as she continues, her other hand taps against her prosthetic. “He used to take my leg, put it out of reach, somewhere ‘safe’, and if I tried to leave he’d hold me down. He’d tell me how he was doing what was best, and if I struggled he’d tighten his grip. I wore long sleeves for months. When I finally got up the courage to move out he didn’t follow. Started thinking I’d made it up, that he wasn’t so bad. Then one day he showed back up, and he kept showing up everywhere for months. Then just as suddenly he stopped. It’s been a year and now he’s back and Thursday night he broke into my apartment-”

Anya slams the flat of her hand against her steering wheel. Raven jumps. She looks to Anya and there are tears running down Anya’s cheeks. Anya makes no move to acknowledge them, doesn’t wipe them away, makes no noise as she cries, but it’s there in the way she isn’t quite breathing, only taking thin, short, shallow breaths, the way her shoulders are set back and rigid,  the way she’s staring straight ahead and pointedly not looking at Raven.

“Sorry,” Anya mutters before opening her door and slamming it behind her again as she gets out.

Raven sits in shock for a moment, Anya doesn’t get emotional, she’s the epitome of always play it cool. When she manages to get herself together and out of the car, Anya already has her things and is waiting for Raven to let them into the building. The only signs that she had been crying are barely smudged eyeliner and blotchy redness, but even that seems somehow subdued.

She opens the door without question, just lets Anya carry her things because she can feel the anger rolling off her friend and she knows it isn’t directed at her. She knows it’s directed at Wick and all the things that had already happened when she and Anya met. Things that were long past over. Things that Raven was working on getting over.

Raven watches as Anya enters her apartment first, drops Raven’s bags by the door and leans her crutches gently against the wall. She motions for Raven to shut the door and wait and Anya moves around the apartment, inspecting windows and making sure they’re locked, and checking each room to make sure it’s empty, that it’s left how it should be. She eyes the dead roses on the kitchen table for a moment before shaking her head softly and snatching them up. Down into the trash they go, the vase rinsed and washed and set to dry.

Raven hasn’t moved from just inside the doorway when Anya turns back to her.

The look on her face, a mixture of sadness and fierceness, is one Raven has never seen on Anya’s face. And then Anya does something Raven never expected. She hugs her.

Maybe after the tears she should have expected it.

It’s a slow embrace, Anya’s long arms folding around Raven as she steps close. Heartbeats thudding in contrast with the tenderness of being held. A few moments pass before Raven returns the hug, long enough that Anya’s almost let her go when Raven finally wraps her arms tightly around the other woman. She lays her cheek against Anya’s shoulder and loses track of how long they stand there like that. This is going to be one of those moments they don’t bring up again, like that moment in the car a few months ago when Raven nearly broke down over Wick turning back up.

She can feel her blood run cold at the thought, even though he’s in jail and she would be safe tonight.

Anya pulls back and runs her fingers through Raven’s hair before letting her go completely.

“Do you have a clean spare set of sheets?”

“Hall closet… why?”

“You’re taking a shower and then climbing into a clean bed and getting a proper night’s sleep.”

“Taking care of me now, are you?” Raven teases.

“Yes.” Anya says decisively and moves to the kitchen and pulls down two glasses, filling them both with water from the tap. She hands one to Raven.

It’s comforting. Even Anya’s brusque nature is soothing in its familiarity. It’s normal, like they come home together and hang out in Raven’s apartment all the time - which isn’t true, most of the time Raven is drooling over Anya’s view of the Portland skyline, but Anya moves through the little space like she’s been there a hundred times. First finding the right hall closet, and the sheets, and then disappearing into Raven’s bedroom without even asking.

“I don’t hear the shower!” Anya yells after a few minutes.

Raven laughs and pushes off the counter to make her way to the bathroom after grabbing a change of clothes from her room. The shower itself is hot and quick but she steps out clean and refreshed and bone weary all at once. All she can think is that a newly made bed is waiting for her and Anya probably even fluffed the pillows.

She cracks the door open and welcomes the rush of cold air that meets her in the hallway as she reaches for her crutches. It’s only then that she realizes Anya has only rarely seen her in shorts, and never without her prosthetic. Fear grips at the bottom of her stomach, the way it does every time someone new sees her like this. Like she’s laid bare, more exposed than if she were naked. She hates the look that people get sometimes, and she hates that she fears her closest friends will have it.

Anya pokes her head into the hallway, still in Raven’s bedroom. Raven braces for a reaction, but Anya’s already giving her a look that has nothing to do with Raven’s leg.

“My dress is going to wrinkle if I sleep in it.” Anya nearly pouts.

Raven bursts out laughing and it feels good. It feels real and unbridled. Mirth and joy wrapping around her like the tendrils of warm air from the bathroom. She crutches into her room, trying to swallow down laughter as Anya glares, not questioning that she’s decided to stay the night.

“I’m serious, this is expensive silk.”

“What, not up for sleeping next to me in the nude? Don’t think I can keep my hands to myself?” Raven winks.

“You wish, Reyes.” She stalks across the room and Raven tosses a pair of loose shorts and t-shirt at Anya’s face, stopping her in her tracks. Anya catches the garments and leans closer to Raven as she unzips the back of her dress and lets it fall to the floor.

Raven’s gaze darts down before she can stop herself. She licks her lips and curses how incredibly gay she is because Anya is her friend and there’s no way they’re going there.

“Now that we’ve officially determined I’m your type...” Anya winks and taps her finger against the bottom of Raven’s chin, closing her mouth which had fallen open. She turns and walks out of the room slowly, heading for the bathroom. “Hang that up will you?” Anya calls over her shoulder. “I don’t want that dress ruined.”

Raven snatches up the dress, grasping for a retort. “It’s hardly fair when we determined that you’re everyone’s type, Anya.” She yells at the empty space in the doorway where Anya had been. Raven rolls her eyes at herself, and laughs because Anya did exactly what she was trying to do, exactly what Raven needed. She distracted Raven long enough that she could feel something other than miserable fear for just a few moments.

There’s laughter and then the shower starts up. Raven leaves on the bedside lamp and turns down the bed before crawling into it. The clean sheets smell soft and sweet like laundry detergent and there’s a warmth to the bed that only comes when it’s freshly made. Raven curls onto her side and breathes out.

The weight of the weekend, the good and the bad, feels like it’s trying to run through her. She lets it, alone in her room, safe behind locked doors, in the dim half light, she lits it. Tears drip down her nose and she doesn’t move to stop them. Doesn’t try to hide them as much later Anya slips into the double bed next to her. They press to the outside edges, giving each other space.

Raven knows the hug earlier was an anomaly. Anya isn’t often physical with her affection of anyone but Lexa, and those two have a bond that no one can come close to. So she doesn’t seek out comfort, not expecting it, knowing that this is Anya’s way of caring for her. It’s sloppy and lopsided and filled with innuendo, but it’s genuine and it makes her feel less alone.

This whole weekend has given her hope that she can build up her own family… and maybe in the process find herself again. The small voice at the back of her head reminds her that if she finds herself again maybe she can go home, that maybe going home wouldn’t be the worst thing, but maybe the best thing.

When she feels Anya shift and roll over, she doesn’t expect to feel the small warm touch of Anya’s pinky finger linking around hers in the middle of the bed. Part of her wants to laugh because it’s probably the most ridiculous thing Anya has ever done, but then she hears Anya sniffle, and her heart melts, because this is Anya trying to be there as best she can for Raven, knowing that Raven would want to be held, but not being the one to be able to do that yet.

Raven flexes her pinky finger, squeezing Anya’s and settles in so her shoulder isn’t at a strange angle. The last thing she remembers before she falls asleep is Anya returning the gesture.

_______________________________________

It’s early when Raven wakes. The first thing she notices is the length of Anya’s forearm against her back, and a knee pressed to the back of her calf; they’ve both migrated toward the center of the bed in their sleep, seeking out warmth, or comfort, or just both used to being able to take up space as they slept. Raven turns over, careful not to disturb Anya and watches her friend for a moment, the softness of her face in the morning light, undisturbed by plans or people or anything quotidien.

Raven files the memory away, knowing better that to ever bring it up unless absolutely needed.

She slips out of bed, pockets her phone, and makes her way to the living room. For the first time in a long while she feels light. The going is still uphill, but it doesn’t seem insurmountable. Still, her fingers shake as she scrolls through her contact list and places the call.

When the line starts to ring she nearly cancels the call and shuts her phone off, but she remembers Anya’s pinky linking around hers, the way Octavia hugged her, Lexa laughing and leaning against the kitchen counter asking her to stay, Clarke trusting her… and there are the others too, the rest of their circle of friends.

Her heart jumps with each ring.

She isn’t ready for this but Raven’s never really been much about waiting around for things to happen or coming around when everything is good and set. She’s much more about ripping off the bandaid and getting to the heart of the matter.

Raven stops breathing when she hears the line pick up.

“ Minha menina. É você mesmo? ”

_______________________________________

Clarke folds and unfolds the little slip of paper, a list of names and phone numbers that Lexa had helped her find. Therapists. It feels like her fate is written on that paper and she doesn’t quite know what that means anymore. She flattens it out on the desk, pressing the seams backwards so it lays flush once more.

Opening up the call app on her phone she punches in the first number and sets her phone back down.

She grabs a notepad and a pen and sketches out a script. It’s just five voicemails she has to leave, but there’s something in having the little checklist, it’s not in her head anymore, she won’t get distracted and nervous and forget. Five potential therapists.

It’s been almost a week since Raven spent the weekend with them and Clarke hit rock bottom, and while in ways she feels better simply because she finds she does still care enough that she’s not doing well and she wants it to change, she isn’t better yet. There’s still a long climb to stable and happy even when she has moments where she laughs and feels like herself. Those moments are still far outshadowed by the darkness and depression.

Taking a deep breath she makes herself breathe out before hitting call.

Five voicemails later and she’s ready to crawl under her desk but she’s done. She texts Lexa and Octavia to let them know in the group chat and then shoots off another text to Raven thanking her again and letting her know. Now she waits to see who calls her back and she takes the next step. Nothing to worry about until then.

She hears the front door to the gallery open and Clarke crumples the list of therapists in her hand. She’s tossed it into the waste basket before she’s realized it’s her mom who came in.

“I thought we were meeting at the bakery for lunch?” Abby leans on the opposite side of the desk from Clarke. There’s worry in her eyes that Clarke doesn’t want to acknowledge because she knows she’s been stumbling through life and out of it for a while now, and she isn’t quite sure how to tell her mother she’s made the decision to try the one thing that drove a rift between them again.

Clarke flips over her phone and curses at the time. “I’m sorry, I was making phone calls and lost track of time… Do you still have time to go now?”

“Of course.” Abby reaches across the desk and grabs one of Clarke’s hands. She squeezes it briefly and Clarke has trouble meeting her gaze. ”Is everything okay?”

Clarke breathes in and weighs her options, does she tell her mother, or does she keep this to herself? She offers Abby a tight lipped smile. Raven’s words come back to her, that this is her life and she has final say in what her treatment looks like. Clarke breathes out, she isn’t ready yet for her mom to know, doesn’t want to have to keep her from taking over therapy decisions while she’s still struggling to find even footing.

She has her girls though, and she has her friends that she can trust, and for the first time she feels like she might have the power to really make this cycle tell a different story.