Cloudburst - Chapter Two
Cloudburst – an unexpected heavy downpour of rain, usually brief but with devastating consequences.
Long awaited sequel to Down Came The Rain.
An unconventional friendship blooms into something stronger and Lexa prepares to navigate a web of lies so that her parents will approve of her rebellious new girlfriend. The two girls from opposite ends of the spectrum try to find a middle ground to become an ‘us’ and Lexa puts all of her efforts into trying to give Clarke a better life, only to neglect the storm brewing on the horizon of her own. And then comes the cloudburst…
Read on AO3.
They’ve been together for three and a half weeks now and Lexa wonders if she’ll ever tire of kissing Clarke.
Nothing could have ever prepared Lexa for just how soft Clarke is. Not just her soft lips moving leisurely against Lexa’s, or her soft hair between Lexa’s fingers, or the soft curves of her body melting into Lexa’s as they lie almost on top of each other on Lexa’s bed, but how soft she is in the way she makes out with Lexa, never pushing for more, as if she is content to just kiss Lexa for the rest of eternity.
Which of course, Lexa is more than happy with.
Except that sometimes, she wonders what it would be like to push Clarke down onto the bed and kiss her senseless, before stripping them both of all clothing and having her wicked way.
But Lexa doesn’t think she has the kind of bravery in her that she needs to go through with that idea at all. She doesn’t think that she has a wicked way.
It’s not that Lexa doesn’t want to, in fact quite the opposite. Despite never really considering herself as a particularly sexual person – she always thought that sex would be one of those things that she’d do more to please a partner than because she had a deep desire to do it herself – she’s really quite into the idea of getting intimate with Clarke. So into the idea, in fact, that she’s probably touched herself more in the last three and a half weeks than she has in the previous almost seventeen years, and imagining that it is Clarke’s hand bringing her to climax instead of her own sends her over the edge far quicker than she’d like to admit.
The problem is that beyond her own imagination, Lexa worries that she has very little idea of what to actually do when it comes to sex. She has limited knowledge of what to do with regards to any physical aspect of her relationship with Clarke, and everything that she’s done so far has been on pure instinct alone (a small part of her brain tries to reassure her that if instinct has gotten her this far, then why shouldn’t it be able to take her all the way?), but she feels wave after wave of anxiety course through her body every time she thinks about taking it to the next step with her girlfriend.
She’s not scared of sex, she’s scared of her own incompetence compared to Clarke, who has almost certainly progressed further than making out with people before. They’ve never really discussed it, but Lexa’s heard Clarke talking about an ex-boyfriend before (some guy called Finn than she and Raven seem to hold in equal contempt) and Lexa assumes that she probably did at least something with him. Besides, Lexa thinks that Clarke doesn’t seem like the kind of person to be shy about her own sex life, whether that’s with boys or girls or both.
Regardless of Clarke’s sexual history, the fact remains that it would be very difficult for Clarke to have less experience than Lexa, who had never so much as kissed another person before she met Clarke, and so while the idea of pushing things further is a very appealing one, it also terrifies Lexa to the core that she somehow won’t be good enough to meet Clarke’s expectations.
And yet the soft little noises of contentment that escape Clarke’s lips between kisses make Lexa want to move things along to the next level even more.
She detaches her lips from Clarke’s, pulling a disappointed little whine from Clarke, who tries to chase after another kiss. She relaxes again though, when Lexa’s lips touch her cheek and start trailing a path along the sharp plane of Clarke’s jaw, and a hand buries itself in Lexa’s curls to keep her mouth in place, letting out another gasp of pleasure as Lexa’s lips meet the skin of her neck.
With all the noises that Clarke is making, Lexa is glad that neither of her parents are home from work yet.
It spurs her on and she gets an idea in her head, a bold idea that makes her blush slightly just thinking about it, but thankfully Clarke’s eyes are blissfully closed and the pink tinge to her cheeks goes unnoticed. Pressing a hot open mouthed kiss to Clarke’s neck, she decides to incorporate her teeth, giving a soft little nip that elicits another gasp, at the same time as she manoeuvres their positions on the bed until Clarke is lying fully on her back on the mattress.
Lexa swings one of her legs over Clarke’s hips to straddle the blonde’s thighs, reaching up to sweep her long hair out of her face with nimble fingers. Clarke’s eyes blink open, pupils dark and her eyelids heavy with what Lexa thinks might be lust, and she raises a single eyebrow at Lexa’s sudden display of assertiveness.
“So that’s how you’re playing this game, huh?” Clarke teases her, her hands seeking out Lexa’s hips, while her fingertips dance beneath the hem of Lexa’s top and brush the bare skin she finds just above the waistband of Lexa’s jeans.
Hoping that she comes across as way more confident than she feels, Lexa replies, “I wasn’t aware this was a game.”
“It’s whatever you want it to be.”
Clarke still has the teasing smirk on her face and her hands continue to toy with the soft skin at Lexa’s hips, but Lexa knows that her words are sincere. It’s Clarke’s way of telling Lexa that the ball is in her court, that it’s up to her what happens next and how far they go, and that Clarke isn’t going to push her to do anything that she’s not comfortable with.
In another uncharacteristic display of boldness, Lexa answers the silent question that Clarke is asking her with each brush of her fingers against Lexa’s skin with a movement of her own. She reaches down with both hands to the bottom hem of her t-shirt and lifts it up and over her head in a swift movement, exposing her bra-covered top half to the girl beneath her.
Clarke’s eyes widen in surprise and she lets out a little noise of wonderment.
Before she has a chance to second guess herself, Lexa nudges at the bottom of Clarke’s own top with her hand and asks softly, “Your turn?”
Clarke pushes herself up into a seated position, causing Lexa to shuffle back a little bit so that she is now straddling Clarke’s upper thighs instead of her hips, and reaches down to the hem of her t-shirt, pulling it up to reveal the expanse of creamy stomach that lies below. The shirt gets briefly caught around Clarke’s head, a tangle of arms and stray bits of hair that has Clarke huffing, but just as Lexa reaches out a helpful hand to assist, Clarke triumphs over the unwanted garment and tosses it onto the floor beside Lexa’s bed.
“If I’d known you were going to be seeing me like this, I would have worn my nice bra,” Clarke quips.
Her words bring Lexa’s attention to the fact that Clarke has just taken off her top for Lexa and holy shit, what a sight it is. Lexa’s eyes widen as she takes in the sheer amount of skin that Clarke has just exposed for her, covered only by a plain navy bra that despite Clarke’s words, Lexa thinks is actually very nice indeed. It’s maybe a size too small (Lexa guesses that getting a decently fitted bra isn’t too high up on the agenda when you’re homeless) but Lexa quickly decides that if there’s one fault that a bra can get away with having then this is definitely it. Clarke’s breasts are bigger than Lexa’s own and they strain against the dark fabric that contains them, and it’s all Lexa can do to not drool at the sight of them.
Her hands itch to reach out and touch them, but the feminist within Lexa rears her head and sends a shameful blush across her face. She knows that Clarke is her girlfriend and if anybody is allowed to look at her topless with hunger and desire it’s her, but Lexa forcefully drags her gaze away from Clarke’s chest, feeling guilty for objectifying the beautiful girl beneath her.
As if sensing the internal struggle in Lexa’s mind, Clarke lays a reassuring hand on Lexa’s thigh and says, “It’s okay, I wouldn’t have taken it off if I didn’t want you to look at them.”
Lexa hesitantly lets her eyes drop back down to Clarke’s breasts and she gapes at them for a few long moments. Trying not to behave like a drooling teenage boy (but okay, she finally understands the obsession that men seem to have with boobs because wow), Lexa’s eyes stray further down, across the soft skin of Clarke’s stomach. It turns out to be a bad idea too because when her gaze reaches the waistband of Clarke’s jeans she finds herself wondering what might lie beyond that too.
As Lexa blushes furiously at this latest train of thought, Clarke reaches up to tuck a loose strand of Lexa’s hair behind her ear, a knowing smile on her face.
“You’re so gay.”
“I’m so gay,” Lexa concedes, even as she slides a nervous hand up Clarke’s torso until it hovers over a clothed breast, and though she is barely making contact with it, her brain somehow still manages to short-circuit and her hand forgets what it is doing.
Clarke laughs softly under her breath and reaches up with one of her own hands to cover Lexa’s, encouraging her to apply a bit more pressure until her palm is full of soft flesh.
There is only one word that Lexa is coherent enough to gasp out.
“Wow.”
She finds herself briefly wondering whether removing somebody else’s bra is any harder than taking off her own, whether the angles and the distractions created by the proximity of a half-naked girl make what should be a simple flick of a clasp into a monstrous challenge.
And then she internally berates herself for being presumptuous enough to assume that she might get the opportunity to find out.
“Stop overthinking everything,” Clarke whispers, reaching up a hand to caress Lexa’s cheek, and then pulling her back down for another heated kiss.
It’s a little easier to fondle Clarke’s breasts when she’s got Clarke’s kisses to distract her because the brain space that would otherwise be spent worrying that she’s doing it wrong is too busy marvelling at the way that Clarke’s kisses somehow seem infinitely better than they were just a couple of minutes ago, which Lexa didn’t think was possible. She thinks it might have something to do with the two items of clothing that now lay discarded somewhere else in the bedroom, or perhaps the way that Clarke arches her back ever so slightly, pushing her chest up further into Lexa’s exploratory hand.
It happens subconsciously, but the second time that Clarke moves her body to give Lexa better access, Lexa’s hips move with her, and the seam of her crotch rubs against Clarke’s lower belly as she does so. The action does two things; it elicits another little moan from the girl beneath her, but it also alerts Lexa to just how turned on she is.
She removes her hand from Clarke’s breast, letting it drop slightly to her ribcage, and nuzzles her face into the blonde curls that cover Clarke’s neck, hoping that Clarke won’t notice how red she’s just turned in embarrassment at the unintentional movement of her hips.
But instead of picking up on Lexa’s desperation and laughing at her for it, Clarke’s hands seek out Lexa’s hips and give her a reassuring little squeeze, encouraging Lexa to move once more.
“Yeah?” Clarke asks breathily.
“Mm hmm,” Lexa nods as she leans down for another kiss in an attempt to distract Clarke from the way that she once again grinds against Clarke’s hips.
Clarke’s hands drop slightly so that they are resting over Lexa’s denim covered butt, grasping a cheek in each hand and giving a gentle squeeze as she urges Lexa to roll her hips again, which is counterintuitive to Lexa’s own personal mission to try and ignore the growing ache between her legs. She kisses Clarke messily - a casual flick of the tongue here, an urgent nip of the teeth there – drawing out gasp after moan from Clarke until Lexa knows that she can’t be the only one going out of her mind with pleasure.
“You’re so beautiful,” Lexa whispers between kisses.
There’s truth to Lexa’s words but it’s not exactly what she wants to say. What she wants to say is something about how good Clarke is making her feel, how enjoyable her kisses are and how every encouraging squeeze of Clarke’s hands sends another little rush of arousal to the area between Lexa’s thighs. But all of these ways that Clarke is making her feel like she’s floating high above the world are the exact reasons why she can’t verbalise any of it; it’s all far too overwhelming in the most incredible of ways that Lexa doesn’t want to ruin it with words, even if she were able to form a coherent sentence.
She grinds her hips down again and is reminded of just how wet she is. Embarassingly so. She’s almost glad that she’s still got her jeans on because she’s certain that her underwear must be ruined and is grateful for that extra layer that hides from Clarke just how aroused she is.
Clarke pulls away slightly and then immediately dives into Lexa’s neck, assaulting the skin there with fresh kisses that both tickle and burn. Lexa gasps at the briefest scrape of Clarke’s teeth and circles her hips once more, wondering momentarily just how far this is going to escalate.
“I can’t believe how lucky I am,” Clarke murmurs just below Lexa’s ear, her warm breath sending a shiver of pleasure down Lexa’s spine. “I can’t believe I get to call you mine. That I get to be the one to kiss you like this.”
There’s something about Clarke’s words – it’s not even what Lexa would count as dirty talk, but it’s still turning her on like hell. She rolls her hips once more and Clarke responds, lifting her own slightly in a way that presses the seam at the crotch of Lexa’s jeans right against her clit through her underwear, and she feels everything building at once. The burning arousal between her legs intensifies tenfold, and she knows it’s coming sooner than she would like, and she knows she should stop for just a moment and cool down, but Clarke’s hands, and Clarke’s lips, and Clarke’s everything, and…
“Clarke, I – oh!”
And then it crashes over her, the kind of mind-numbing pleasure that she’s only even been given by her own touch before, and it is so unexpected that all Lexa can do is cling to Clarke as she comes down, letting the blonde press kisses to her flushed neck and run tender hands up and down Lexa’s bare back.
“Oh my god, I am so sorry,” Lexa stutters out as soon as she has regained her senses enough to comprehend exactly what just happened and to form words.
“Don’t apologise,” Clarke soothes her, and though her voice is low and throaty and just really damn sexy, Lexa is filled with far too much shame to be able to appreciate it. “That was hot.”
“But I didn’t mean to,” Lexa continues, her eyes beginning to prickle with tears. “We were just kissing and … and then you were just there and before I knew it…”
“Shhh,” Clarke hushes her, wrapping her arms around Lexa to pull her into a tight embrace, their almost bare chests pressing tightly against each other. “There’s nothing wrong with what just happened.”
“But I should have warned you, or something. It just … it happened so unexpectedly.”
One of Clarke’s hands finds its way to the back of Lexa’s head, stroking the wild curls there in an attempt to soothe her. She shushes Lexa softly, keeping her arms wrapped around Lexa’s back to keep them as close as humanly possible.
As she tries to concentrate on the deep in and out of her own lungs in an attempt to calm herself down, Lexa can’t help but replay the previous moments over and over in her mind. She doesn’t really understand how it crept up on her so unexpectedly. Whenever she’s touched herself before, it’s always been a slow build kind of thing. Unpractised hands exploring and learning her own body in the darkness of her own bedroom, quiet little gasps as she discovers something that she likes, tentative touches that gradually get bolder as she works herself towards that peak.
It’s never taken her by surprise before.
It’s not like Lexa gets herself off all the time (Lexa’s still ashamed enough of the fact that she does it at all that it’s not a particularly regular thing) but she’s done it enough to know what kind of stimulation she likes. She knows that she does need stimulation in certain places, which is partly why she’s so confused. Perhaps she was so caught up in everything, too busy with kisses, too distracted by the softness and fullness of Clarke’s breast in her hand, to notice that the way that her hips were moving against Clarke’s was providing her with friction in all the right places until it was too late to stop it.
“I can hear you thinking again,” Clarke says softly into Lexa’s ear.
Lifting her head from where it rests on Clarke’s shoulder, Lexa tentatively asks, “You really don’t mind that I … you know … on you?”
“Of course not,” Clarke scoffs, as if it’s a stupid question. “Like I said, it was hot. And the fact that it happened accidentally, that your body had that reaction so suddenly to what was happening that you didn’t even have time to fully anticipate it, makes it kind of even hotter. Lexa, I want to make you feel like that again. I want to touch you and I want to taste you and I want to make you feel that good over and over again until you believe that you’re worthy of being made to feel like that. And it doesn’t have to be now, or even this week, or anytime soon at all, but as long as you’re comfortable with it, I want you to do all those things to me too.”
Lexa doesn’t know what to do with that last offer. Still in recovery from her own unexpected orgasm, her brain really doesn’t know how to comprehend the idea of being the one to gift Clarke with that kind of pleasure.
Her throat dry and scratchy, Lexa croaks out, “I want to make you feel like that too.” She hesitates for a couple of seconds to gather a bit of rational thought, and then adds, “Probably not now, because we don’t have long until my mom gets home from work, but soon. I promise.”
Clarke responds with a kiss, nothing like the hungry kisses they were exchanging mere minutes ago, but a sweet lingering kiss that fills Lexa’s heart with so much affection that it starts to overflow, her tear ducts once again prickling with the threat of incoming tears. She blinks them back just in time for Clarke to pull away from the kiss and speak.
“We have all the time in the world.”
And for the second time, Lexa wonders if she’s in love with Clarke, or whether the warm feeling in her chest is because she’s still completely blissed out from her unexpected climax on her girlfriend’s thigh.
Lexa’s mom arrives home from work forty minutes later to find the two girls curled up together on the couch watching cartoons. Upon hearing the front door slam shut, followed by footsteps that gradually get louder as they make their way through the house and into the living room, Lexa lifts her head from where it has been resting in Clarke’s lap.
“Hey mom.”
“Hello, Lexa,” her mother replies, draping her suit jacket over the back of one of the armchairs and setting her bag down on the floor by the door. “Hello, Clarke. Are you staying for dinner tonight?”
Before Clarke can inevitably protest and come up with and excuse to leave before dinner is served, Lexa speaks up hurriedly, “If that’s not too much trouble.”
“Fantastic,” beams Lexa’s mom. “I’ll go and start the food now. How does spaghetti bolognese sound?”
“That sounds lovely,” Clarke answers.
But the politeness is obviously feigned, and barely a second after Lexa’s mother has left the room in the direction of the kitchen, Clarke’s smile drops into a scowl and she pokes Lexa just below her ribs with a pointy index finger.
“I stayed for dinner on Monday,” she says angrily. “I can’t let your mom feed me again.”
“Of course you can,” Lexa replies calmly. “She wouldn’t have offered if she didn’t mind. And if she knew the truth she’d offer to feed you every day and let you sleep in the spare room, no questions asked.”
Lexa leans her head down on Clarke’s shoulder and reaches out with lazy fingers to take her girlfriend’s hand. Clarke jolts at the contact and then relaxes into it slightly, though she remains noticeably tense.
“We’ve been through this before,” Clarke says softly, as if she is worried that Lexa’s mom might overhear their conversation from the other room. “We’re not coming clean to your mom. We don’t need to. Everything is fine as it is.”
“In which case you need to accept that we will be feeding you a couple of times each week,” Lexa argues back. “I have dinner with you at Bellamy’s sometimes so it’s no big deal.”
“I know,” sighs Clarke. “I just … I don’t want you to think that I’m only with you for your money.”
Lexa actually snorts when she hears the sheer preposterousness of Clarke’s words, and she lifts her head up and uses one of her fingers to tilt Clarke’s chin until they are face to face.
“Do you honestly believe I could ever think that?”
“Well, no…” Clarke admits, hanging her head in shame.
“Exactly,” says Lexa, giving Clarke a warm smile. “I really care about you, Clarke, and that means that I care that you’re eating well and that you have somewhere to sleep but it also means that I really hope you care about me too.”
“I do,” Clarke insists.
“And I know that,” Lexa continues. “I know that if you were only interested in me for my money then you would have taken the two hundred dollars I tried to give you back when we first met and scarpered. But for some reason you’re still here. I trust you and I want the best for you.”
It’s Clarke’s turn to cuddle up into Lexa, pressing herself into the brunette’s side and giving Lexa’s fingers a grateful squeeze where they sit interlaced on Clarke’s lap.
“I don’t know what I did to deserve you,” she mumbles.
“Clarke…”
“No, listen,” Clarke continues. “When I lost my dad and then my mom grew distant and I lost everything and all my hope for a future, I thought that I’d never be happy again. And of course I’m happy with my friends, or at least they help me forget to be sad, but then I met you and … and I don’t think I’ve been this happy since before my dad died.”
Lexa feels a lump form in her throat and it takes a lot of effort to keep herself together in front of Clarke. She feels a rush of affection for the girl leaning against her side, and though she’s obviously heard all about Clarke’s past, and seen the defensive walls that Clarke puts up to protect herself from further pain, it only really hits Lexa now just what her girlfriend has been through – loss, grief and suffering, crippling loneliness – despite which Clarke is still making an effort to try and rebuild her life again.
Thinking aloud, Lexa muses, “Have you thought about getting in contact with your mom again?”
Clarke jolts up, no longer soft and affectionate, but with a dark scowl on her face.
“Why would I -? Lexa, she killed my dad.”
“She didn’t kill …” Lexa trails off, the glare on Clarke’s face telling her that she needs to know better than to try and speak as if she knows more about Clarke’s parental situation than Clarke does. “Clarke, it’s been three years. She’s probably worried about you.”
“She’s probably forgotten I exist. Which is good, because I don’t care about her anymore either.”
Lexa can see it written all over Clarke’s face that it’s a lie, but she decides not to point that out for Clarke’s sake. She has a point that she’s trying to get across here and the less agitated Clarke is, the better reception Lexa’s words will get.
“Of course she cares about you, Clarke. You’re her daughter. I know that you lost your dad and that was a terrible, terrible thing, but she lost her husband. She lost the love of her life, and that will have been hard for her. And yes, I know there aren’t any excuses for neglecting you like she did but people aren’t themselves when they’re grieving.”
“Speaking from experience, are you?” Clarke scorns. “What, did your goldfish die when you were younger, or something? Did you bury it in your back garden and hold a little funeral for it?”
Lexa slumps back against the cushions of the sofa. She knows it’s a touchy subject, but Clarke has been showing so much enthusiasm for getting her life back on track recently that Lexa had been hoping that she would at least be receptive to the idea of speaking to her mom again.
After a minute of not saying anything, the only sound in the room being the bright music and slapstick sound effects coming from the cartoons on the television, Clarke says in a much softer voice. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have snapped.”
“No, you’re right. I can’t even begin to imagine what it must be like to have lost your father. I just don’t like to see you hurting.”
“I’m hurting a hell of a lot less than I would be if I was still around my mom,” Clarke says with a shrug. “Anyway, I’ve got you now. You’re my family. You and Raven and the Blakes and all my other friends. I don’t need parents.”
Though she’s entirely unsatisfied with both the way the conversation panned out and Clarke’s attitude towards reconnecting with her mother, Lexa decides to let the subject drop.
Except that she doesn’t really.
She doesn’t bring it up as forwardly as the first time, learning from experience that Clarke a) doesn’t like to be told what to do and b) will shut down a conversation about her mother as soon as it starts. But Lexa decides that she’s going to subtly inject the idea into a conversation every so often in the hope that keeping Clarke’s mom close to the front of her girlfriend’s mind might guilt her into taking some initiative and making the first move into getting back into contact with her mom.
Clarke, as observant and quick-witted as she is, sees right through Lexa.
“No,” she says adamantly, when Lexa mentions Clarke’s mom for the third time in two days, while the two are out for a weekend brunch at a quiet little cafe not too far from Bellamy and Raven’s apartment. “I see what you’re doing. She’s out of my life and it’s for the best, Lexa, and the sooner you can understand that the better.”
“I’m not asking you to move back in with her,” Lexa sighs. “I just think it would be nice if you maybe at least let her know that you’re still alive.”
Clarke wipes at her mouth with a napkin and pushes her chair back from the table, getting up to her feet.
“This conversation is over. I’m going to the bathroom and when I get back we’re talking about something else, okay?”
Lexa nods apologetically and watches as Clarke walks over to the bathroom on the other side of the restaurant.
But Clarke has left her phone on the table, and with the previous conversation not yet pushed from her mind, the temptation to reach over and take it in Clarke’s absence is too strong, and Lexa knows that she shouldn’t, she really shouldn’t...
Sparing a quick glance to the bathroom door to check that Clarke isn’t returning yet, Lexa reaches across the table and swipes Clarke’s phone up. She unlocks it swiftly – so quickly in fact that she doesn’t even let herself smile at the fact that Clarke’s passcode means that Lexa has to type out her own name into the number pad on the cracked screen to gain access to the phone – and immediately opens up Clarke’s contacts, her teeth anxiously nibbling at her own lower lip as she races to complete her mission before Clarke gets back.
There’s a moment of panic when it takes Lexa far too long to find the phone number that she’s looking for (because Clarke doesn’t have her mom’s number under anything normal like Mom or even the slightly less affectionate Abby) and she worries that maybe Clarke actually is heartless enough to have removed all trace of her mother from her life, but when Lexa scrolls down the list of contacts in Clarke’s phone and spots a number listed under the name Supreme Bitch, Lexa thinks she’s probably hit the jackpot.
She quickly sends the number to herself, and then goes about hastily removing all evidence from Clarke’s phone.
Lexa has barely had time to place Clarke’s phone back down on the table in its original position when Clarke emerges from the bathroom, wiping her wet hands on the front of her jeans and completely oblivious to the way that Lexa has completely violated not only her privacy, but also her desire to stay out of contact with her mother.
Lexa manages to cleanse her conscience, at least for a few days, by telling herself that if she hasn’t yet called the new number in her phone (which she has saved under a false name so as not to arouse suspicion in the unlikely circumstance that Clarke should find herself looking through Lexa’s contacts) then she has no reason to feel guilty for betraying her girlfriend’s trust.
But with each day that passes, Lexa’s phone gets heavier and heavier in her pocket, until finally, when Clarke complains for the second day in a row that she couldn’t afford lunch, Lexa realises that she has the power to maybe help turn Clarke’s life back around.
The problem is that in order to do that, she needs to do something that could make Clarke hate Lexa forever.
She’s in the middle of doing her homework on a Wednesday night when it finally happens, meticulously combing through a literature essay that she needs to turn in the following morning. Her phone sits on top of a pile of books a couple of feet away, just out of reach (from what Lexa understands, Clarke is currently being beaten by Raven and Octavia on Mario Kart on the other side of the city and though the pouty snapchats she keeps receiving from her girlfriend are cute, they are a distraction that Lexa’s near perfect GPA can’t afford), but Lexa still can’t concentrate. It’s like the phone is taunting her from where it lies just in her peripheral vision, never quite out of sight in a constant reminder of the number within that she could be calling.
In a split second, Lexa has snatched up her phone, unlocked it, and opened up the contact information for Clarke’s mom. The number glares up at her from the screen, and her thumb twitches towards the call icon. That’s all it would take, just a little more movement from her thumb and then…
Oh shit.
Lexa didn’t mean to actually dial the number, in fact she had every intention of turning off her phone and tossing it onto the bed behind her in the hope that being out of sight completely would also remove it from Lexa’s mind, but an accidental twitch of her thumb at exactly the wrong moment means that she hears the dial-up tone coming through the speaker of her phone, and one petrifying word stares up at her from the screen.
Calling.
The phone rings three times – five long seconds that feel like hours as Lexa stares at the screen in a panic and her mind flails around uselessly – before it is answered on the other end of the call.
“Hello?”
It’s a woman’s voice, and though Lexa has no way of knowing that she’s taken the right number from Clarke’s phone, she would hazard a guess that the voice probably does belong to an older woman and not one of Clarke’s friends.
“Hello,” Lexa says, her hand trembling as she raises the phone to her ear and speaks into it, “is this Abby Griffin?”
“Yes, speaking.”
Lexa exhales slowly, closing her eyes for a couple of seconds to gain a little bit of composure, then continues with her call.
“Hello Mrs Griffin. I … I’m just calling about your daughter.”
There’s a moment of silence on the line, then Abby’s voice comes back, this time with a nervous edge that wasn’t there before.
“Clarke? Is she okay? She’s not hurt is she?” Another pause, and then, “Oh my, has she been arrested?”
“Don’t worry, she’s fine,” Lexa is quick to assure Abby.
“Oh, thank goodness!” Abby breathes a sigh of relief. “You had me worried for a second.”
“Clarke is perfectly safe, I can promise you that.”
Sounding much calmer after Lexa’s reassurances, Abby asks, “May I ask who is calling?”
“My name is Lexa. I’m Clarke’s…”
Lexa trails off, realising that telling Abby that she’s dating Clarke might not be the best idea. Clarke has never really spoken much about her sexuality and though Lexa gets the impression that it’s not, nor has it ever been, a particularly big deal to Clarke, she doesn’t know if she ever took the opportunity to come out to her parents before her father’s death. She definitely knows it’s not fair for her to out Clarke to her own mother.
(She tries to ignore the fact that it’s not really fair for her to be talking to Clarke’s mother at all.)
“I’m a friend of your daughter’s,” Lexa says, settling for a toned down version of the truth. “I … I’m so sorry, I spent ages planning what I was going to say to you and it’s all gone straight out of my head in the moment.”
“Does she want to see me?” Abby asks, and Lexa’s insides sink at the glimmer of hope she can hear in her voice, even through the speaker of the phone.
“Not exactly,” Lexa chooses her words carefully, afraid of damaging an already broken relationship even further. “She … she’s still hurting a lot after what happened and she’s trying to act tough and pretend that she doesn’t care anymore but I think it would do her some good to have you back in her life again, even if it’s just small steps to start with.”
Abby gives a hum of agreement, and then says carefully, “I know that I wasn’t the best mother to Clarke. I can’t begin to imagine what it must have been like for her. I … I wasn’t myself after Jake died but I should have been there for her.”
Abby’s words do a little to settle the guilty unease that has been bubbling away inside Lexa, reassured that even if she is doing the wrong thing by speaking to Clarke’s mom behind her back, she’s at least learned that Abby understands where she went wrong.
“How is she?” Abby asks, before Lexa can say anything else. “How is she really? I haven’t spoken to or heard from her since she got expelled from school.”
“She’s…” Lexa considers fabricating the truth just to appease Abby and give her what she wants to hear, but she settles for being completely honest. “Frankly I think she’s been better.” She adds quickly, “She’s doing well though. Much better now than when I met her. She’s going to school regularly now and she’s got a good network of friends. I think she’s really trying to get her life back on track.”
“That’s wonderful to hear,” says Abby, and Lexa can hear the relief in her voice.
“Oh,” Lexa remembers, “and she wants to go to college. Not this fall, but next year. Art school.”
“College?” Abby’s voice is full of surprise. “Oh, wow. You know, I had all these visions of Clarke being alone out on the streets, or in prison somewhere, or … something much worse.”
Or dead. Abby doesn’t have to elaborate for Lexa to know exactly what she means by ‘something much worse’. And to be honest, this is partly why she called Abby in the first place, to reassure her that her daughter is alive and well.
“You don’t have to worry,” Lexa says calmly. “She’s doing great.”
“Can I see her?”
Lexa is taken aback by the question, and she quickly scolds herself because she should have known that Abby would want to see Clarke again and prepared a response accordingly. She knows what answer she should give – a resolute no until she gets Clarke’s consent – but even though Abby’s voice is slightly grainy through the speaker of Lexa’s phone, she can still hear the hope in Abby’s words, and Lexa doesn’t know whether she can be ruthless enough to outright crush that hope.
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” she starts tentatively. “Clarke would kill me if she even knew I was talking to you right now, let alone setting up a meeting with you.” Hearing a disappointed sigh down the phone, Lexa adds quickly, “I’m working on it though. I’m hoping she’ll come around soon.”
“Can I at least have a number to call her on?” Abby begs. “I won’t tell her that you gave it to me. I’ll say I got it through other means.”
Lexa knows that she should probably say no, for Clarke’s sake, but she can hear the pleading tone in Abby’s voice and if their conversation has brought one thing to Lexa’s attention, it’s that Abby understands her mistakes and is keen to make things right with her daughter.
The only issue is that Clarke doesn’t seem ready for that yet.
“I shouldn’t…” Lexa starts.
“Please, Lexa.”
Closing her eyes, Lexa lets out a heavy sigh and rests her head on the hand not holding her phone up to her ear. It’s taking every ounce of willpower that she can muster up to say no to Abby and it kills her inside that she has to do this, but she know that it’s the right thing to do for now.
“I really shouldn’t,” Lexa repeats. “I’m not sure that I can do that.”
“I just want a chance to talk to my daughter again,” Abby pleads. “I know I messed up, but she’s my little girl and I love her and…”
Interrupting Abby, Lexa says, “I know that Mrs. Griffin. I want you to have that chance too, but I can’t give you Clarke’s number without her permission, I’m sorry. I will speak to her though. I’ll try my best to get her to open up to the idea of talking to you.”
The disappointment evident in her voice, Abby quietly says, “I understand. Thank you for calling me. You’ve put my mind at ease.”
“It’s been nice talking to you, Mrs Griffin. Goodbye.”
“Goodbye, Lexa.”
Lexa finds it even harder than before to concentrate on her homework for the rest of the night.
Lexa’s phone goes off in the middle of history class, vibrating in the pocket of the blazer that hangs over the back of her chair. Glancing around quickly to check that nobody else heard the soft buzzing sound, she retrieves it and holds it under her table, out of sight from any prying eyes, particularly those of the teacher lecturing them at the front of the classroom, should she look Lexa’s way.
Clarke Griffin Hey, you busy tonight?
Lexa glances once up to the front, then quickly taps out a reply, grateful to her past self who chose to sit in the second row from the back at the beginning of the academic year.
Lexa Woods Just the usual, homework etc.
Clarke’s response is almost immediate.
Clarke Griffin Can I see you? There’s something I need to do and I’d like it if you came with me
Lexa Woods Of course!
Lexa locks the screen of her phone, resting it on her lap beneath the table, and picks up her pen, quickly jotting down some of the notes that she missed during her brief texting interlude. But the tone of Clarke’s messages worry Lexa and she drops her pen after only a couple of sentences, picking up the phone once again and typing out another message to her girlfriend.
Lexa Woods Is everything ok?
Clarke Griffin I’ll explain later
Lexa is not convinced. Clarke has been acting a little strangely for the last three or four days, and ever since Lexa’s phonecall with Clarke’s mother just two days ago, and the paranoid part of Lexa’s brain has done a fantastic job in convincing her that Clarke has somehow found out about Lexa’s betrayal.
The rational part of Lexa’s brain tries to remind her that if Clarke had already found out, Lexa would definitely know about it because she would have taken it out on Lexa immediately, but that doesn’t really help calm Lexa’s nerves.
Clarke is just as jumpy when Lexa meets with her after school, and Lexa can tell that there’s something on her mind before she even reaches the bus stop, spotting her girlfriend pacing back and forth along the sidewalk at their agreed meeting point as she approaches.
“Hey, what’s up?” Lexa asks, laying a gentle hand on Clarke’s arm when she arrives. “Is everything okay? Where are we going?”
Clarke reaches up to take the hand that Lexa is comforting her with in her own and leads Lexa over to the wall nearby that lines the sidewalk, perching on the edge of it and encouraging Lexa to sit down beside her. She intertwines their fingers and traces her thumb up and down the soft skin on the back of Lexa’s hand.
“We’re getting a bus,” explains Clarke. “A different bus. There’s somewhere I need to … I …”
Clarke trails off with a sad little sigh and she leans into Lexa’s side, resting her head against Lexa’s.
“What’s wrong?” Lexa asks worriedly. “Is something the matter?”
“Three years,” Clarke says softly, her voice barely more than a whisper, and Lexa can hear a gravelly little croak to her voice that isn’t usually there. “My dad died three years ago today. I want to … I need to go to his grave.”
“Oh, Clarke,” Lexa sighs, dropping the hands that are linked between their thighs so that she can swing an arm around Clarke’s shoulders and pull her into a tight embrace. Pressing a lingering kiss to Clarke’s cheek, she continues, “I had no idea that was today.”
“Yeah, well I don’t really go around advertising it,” shrugs Clarke. “Raven and Octavia knew it was today. We took the day off school and went into town as a distraction. It was good of them to do that, but I’d like it a lot if you would be the one to visit his grave with me. I’d like to – and I know this is going to sound fucking stupid – but I’d really like for him to ‘meet’ you, so to speak.”
Clarke uses two fingers on each hand to create air quotes as she says the word “meet”, and Lexa smiles reassuringly at her.
“I’d like that,” she tells Clarke honestly. “I know how hard you find it to open up, but I really appreciate you offering to let me into something so personal.”
They catch a bus, a different one to the normal ones that either of them usually catch to and from school, and get off it again after just a quick fifteen minute journey. Clarke takes them down a quiet street with a few independent shops, leading Lexa by the hand into a florists on the corner, but once inside, she stops and stares around with wide eyes.
“I don’t know what to get him,” she admits. “I don’t know what kind of flowers he liked, or if he even liked flowers at all.”
“What was his favourite colour?”
“Blue.”
Lexa immediately jumps to Clarke’s rescue, wandering around the shop knowledgeably and picking out a pretty selection of white and blue flowers, before approaching the counter and asking the florist to create a bouquet from her choices. The display that she creates for them is simple but artful, and when the price pops up in green letters on the front of the cash register, Clarke starts fumbling around in the back pocket of her jeans for some change, but Lexa quickly stops her.
“I’ll get it, it’s fine,” she insists. “A gift to your father from somebody who cares about his daughter very much.”
As they leave the florist’s, bouquet in Clarke’s hand, Clarke scuffs her shoes against the sidewalk and mumbles softly, “You didn’t have to pay for it for me. He’s dead, you don’t need to try and impress him.”
Lexa laughs under her breath at Clarke’s little attempt to lighten the mood with a joke, then reaches out to take Clarke’s free hand with her own.
“It’s okay. I wanted to.”
Clarke gives Lexa’s hand a grateful little squeeze and they continue on their way.
The cemetery is just a five minute walk away but they make the journey in silence. There’s a sombre mood hanging over them, understandably so, and though Lexa wonders whether she should be leading a conversation to distract Clarke from what day it is and where they’re going, she figures that that’s probably what Raven and Octavia have been doing all day, and that she might welcome the silence to be alone with her own thoughts.
“Here we are,” Clarke says as she pushes open the heavy iron gate that leads into the cemetery from the sidewalk. “He’s over by that tree.”
Lexa follows Clarke between two rows of worn headstones until Clarke stops in front of one that is newer than those surrounding it, the polished marble not yet showing any signs of erosion and the gold inscription carved into it still as legible as it would have been the day it was installed in the graveyard.
JAKE GRIFFIN 09.26.71 – 05.10.15
“Hey, Dad,” Clarke says aloud into the cemetery that is empty apart from the two girls who stand at this particular grave. “Um, I brought you some flowers.”
Clarke bends down to place the bouquet at the foot of the marble headstone, and when she straightens, she takes a step back to stand at Lexa’s side, her hand fumbling to take hold of Lexa’s once more. There’s a little frown on Clarke’s face, shown in the tiny line just between her eyebrows, and a look of sad longing in her usually lively blue eyes.
“And I brought somebody to meet you,” Clarke continues, glancing up at Lexa for reassurance, which Lexa gives her with a little nod. Turning back to the gravestone, Clarke says, “This is Lexa.”
“Hello, Mr Griffin,” Lexa says aloud, pushing past the lump that has formed in her throat. She feels a little stupid speaking to what is essentially just a slab of shiny marble, but she knows how much this means to Clarke, how much Clarke does actually believe that her father can hear her right now, and she wants to do this as much for Clarke as she does herself. “I’m honored that Clarke brought me along today. She always speaks so highly of you.”
The little squeeze that Clarke gives her hand, almost indiscernible but not quite, tells Lexa that she’s saying the right things.
“Dad, Lexa is my girlfriend. I…” Clarke pauses, closes her eyes for a couple of seconds, and then after a deep breath, opens them and continues, “I’m sorry that I never had the chance to come out to you before you … well, I never had the chance to share that bit of me with you when you were still here, but I know you wouldn’t care that Lexa is a girl. And … and I really like her, Dad.”
Lexa’s heart can’t help but melt as she hears Clarke’s words, and she quickly reaches a hand up to wipe at the tear that forms in the corner of her eye, not wanting Clarke to see it.
Thankfully oblivious, Clarke continues, “I think you’d really like her too. She’s like super smart, and funny, and just a really good person.” Clarke smiles to herself, then says, “You’d get on with her well. I can just imagine you both at family dinners, sharing jokes between you and ganging up on me.”
Hearing a soft sniffle from beside her, Lexa glances across to see Clarke wiping her own damp eyes with her free hand, slightly smudging her mascara. Lexa drops Clarke’s hand so that she has the arm free to wrap around Clarke’s back, fingers tightening around Clarke’s waist.
Sensing that Clarke might be too emotional to continue, at least for the immediate future, Lexa speaks up, “You raised a really wonderful daughter, Mr Griffin. Clarke is the most incredible person I’ve ever met and I owe part of that to you. And we both know that she can be stubborn and likes everybody to think that she’s always strong, but I promise to be there for her when she can’t be strong. I promise to look after her.”
I promise to look after her for you. Lexa doesn’t say it, but it’s implied, and she knows that Clarke has picked up on it because she leans slightly into Lexa’s side and reaches a hand up to cover Lexa’s briefly on her waist.
“Thank you,” Clarke whispers softly, and Lexa knows that these words are meant for her. “Thanks for coming with me. I wasn’t sure if I could do it on my own.”
“Of course,” Lexa replies. “I’d do anything for you, Clarke, I…”
She stops herself before she says the words, catching her tongue before it runs away from her. Perhaps it’s the emotion riding high between the two them, charged by the situation and the words that have just been spoken into the early evening air, but Lexa knows that she’d been just about to say it to Clarke.
‘It’ being those three little words.
Clarke, I love you.
Which is ridiculous, because Lexa has been waiting for the moment when it suddenly hits her how much she is in love with Clarke, and it hasn’t happened yet. Unless it has, and she somehow missed it, because she’s pretty sure in this moment that she does love Clarke…
“Clarke?”
Lexa doesn’t get the chance to figure out just exactly what this means because they are interrupted by a third person in the cemetery, a female voice calling out Clarke’s name from somewhere behind them. And though the voice is almost unfamiliar to Lexa, nearly unrecognisable from the last time she heard it coming through the speaker of her phone, from the way that she can feel the way that Clarke instantly tenses at her side, as if somebody has just poured an ice cold bucket of water over her head, Lexa knows exactly who it belongs to.
“Mom?”
The two of them turn around slowly in complete synchronisation, and Lexa’s eyes fall on the woman standing just inside the gated entrance to the cemetery. Lexa recognises her from a few images she’d found in online medical journals during the quick google search she did of Abby Griffin last week when psyching herself up to make the phonecall, but this Abby looks very different to how she had looked in the professional photographs. And Lexa knows that the differences must be down to more than just some good lighting and a decent quality camera, because there are many more lines on Abby’s face and her complexion is pale, exaggerating the dark bags under her eyes.
Perhaps losing your husband and your only daughter in quick succession makes you age much faster.
“Clarke, honey, I…”
Abby starts to walk towards them, but Clarke is having none of it, dropping Lexa’s hand and taking a few steps back.
“No,” she shakes her head, her eyes shimmering with the onset of tears. “No. Stay away from me.”
“Clarke…”
“Stay away from me!” Clarke repeats, raising her voice and choking over the words as the first tears spill from her eyes and cascade down her cheeks, leaving dark trails of mascara in their wake.
Spotting her chance to maybe try and make things right between mother and daughter, Lexa reaches out a hand to steady Clarke, hoping that if she can just get Clarke to calm down and look at things rationally, perhaps Clarke will be willing to have a mature conversation with her mom and takes the first steps towards fixing their broken relationship.
“Clarke,” Lexa starts, “maybe if you just…”
Lexa trails off in fear as Clarke turns her attention to Lexa, the sheer anger in her glare causing Lexa to cower away and forget her own words. There’s something in Clarke’s eyes that Lexa has never seen before, a dark inferno of rage that hasn’t been there when Clarke has been angry with Lexa in the past.
“I bet you’re in on this, aren’t you?” she shouts at Lexa. “It’s a bit of a coincidence that you’ve been asking me to make up with her and then she just turns up here. Did you invite her here? Huh? Huh?”
“Clarke, no, of course I didn’t!” Lexa protests.
“Tell me the truth, Lexa!”
Lexa sighs exasperatedly, not entirely sure why Clarke is choosing to lash out at her but trying not to get too frustrated in retaliation because she knows that Clarke is highly charged with raw emotions right now, the combination of grief along with the reminder of why she ran away from home. Abby’s presence is certainly not going to help keep Clarke in an emotionally stable place, and though Lexa knows that she has nothing to do with Abby turning up here today, she can understand why Clarke might feel the need to lash out at her.
“Clarke, look where we are!” Lexa reminds her, gesturing to the headstones that surround them. “It’s your father’s grave on the anniversary of his death. Has it not crossed your mind that she’s here for the same reason that we are?”
Clarke lets out a lurching sob as tears cascade down her cheeks, a painful noise that seems to rip through Lexa’s chest and tear her heart out from inside her ribcage.
“Clarke, I…”
It’s then that Lexa makes her mistake, in reaching out with one hand to touch Clarke’s arm in what is intended to be a gesture of reassurance.
“Get off me!” Clarke shrieks, as she retracts her arm as suddenly as she would if Lexa’s hand were a red hot poker burning her skin. “I … I need space.”
Before Lexa even has a chance to fully process what is going on, Clarke has stormed right past her, right past her mother, and leaves the graveyard through the same gate they entered earlier, hurrying along the sidewalk and across the road.
Realising that Clarke is not in the right mental or emotional state to be wandering parts of the city alone, let alone safely crossing roads, Lexa forces her brain to start working in a forward gear once more and rushes after Clarke’s retreating form, stopping only momentarily on her way out of the cemetery to apologise to an equally stunned and teary-eyed Abby.
“I’m sorry, Mrs Griffin,” Lexa tells Abby as she passes Clarke’s mother. “I’ll try and get her to see some sense, I promise!”
Lexa chases after Clarke as fast as her legs will carry her, a feat which is much harder in her restrictive school uniform. Her black shoes, flimsy pumps that are open at the top, are hardly made for running, and the bag that hangs from her shoulder, heavy with schoolbooks, is an uncomfortable extra weight that swings as Lexa runs and makes chasing after Clarke just that little bit harder.
Clarke’s headstart has her across the busy road when Lexa is barely out of the gated cemetery and it’s just Lexa’s luck that the lights at the pedestrian crossing turn red when she reaches it, and two lanes of traffic zoom past in each direction as she waits for the lights to change again. With each second that Lexa is waiting on the sidewalk, Clarke gets further away until, when the traffic finally slows to let Lexa cross the road, Clarke has vanished from sight with no indication of which way she might have gone.
“Shit,” Lexa mutters, delving into the inside pocket on her school blazer and pulling out her phone. She opens the text conversation with Clarke, where the most recent messages are the ones of Clarke asking to meet Lexa after school, and composes a quick message for her girlfriend.
Lexa Woods Please don’t push me away Clarke. I’m always going to be here for you xxx
Lexa considers sending a second message, an I love you Clarke, but it doesn’t quite seem right to say it for the first time over text after the day that Clarke has had.