ON MY MIND
Part 2, number 2. Saturday, two.
Happy clexa day! ❤️
You can also read on AO3, here!
Fifteen years ago
While waiting by the porch for her boss to call her, Lexa felt uneasy like never before. Her jaw was locked, painfully. Her fingers, digging at the hat’s brim she held at her front (a vicious manner she had learned from her father, “always take off your hat when around the big house, child”), and holding herself to do not tap her foot nervously on the ground.
Abby never had anything serious enough to hold against Lexa and call her to pay a visit to the farmhouse. She knew that whenever the boss called someone privately into there, it wouldn’t be good. She remembers the times she saw some of the crudest cowboys leave the house with a hat in hands and tears on the verge of falling or puffing air through the nostrils as a brazing bull.
She also remembers when her old man, Gustus, the farm’s watchman, said to her to work hard and keep her head down if she wanted to be a good ranch hand at the Griffin’s.
(She missed Gustus like hell. He was the closest thing she had to a parent. He gave her a shelter, food and education – he was the responsible into convincing Abby to let Lexa work at the Farm besides being underage. He gave her everything she had now.
Before he’s passing, she told Gustus about her… “Preferences”. He would be silent when she broke the news to him, severe and unmoving. But by the next day before the sun rise, when he came back from his night shift, he hugged her tenderly and shared the first meal of the day with her – black coffee, warm bread, tomatoes and a generous slice of cheese – along with the summary of how things went during the night.
She wonders if Gustus would scold her for being in love with the boss’ daughter.)
While she waited nervously, she wished that the old man was there to comfort her. The ranch hand girl couldn’t help but wonder what he would say to make her calmer… Would he say that she did her best? Would he ask her to stop acting like a child? Would he-
“- Good afternoon, Lexa.” – Abby’s firm voice calls her out of her reverie, as she holds the front door open. The brunette looks up and gives a firm nod to the older woman, her hands in a vice-grip on the hat’s brim. Before Lexa could say anything, Abby enters again without looking back. “- Close the door after entering, please.”
“- Mrs. Griffin.” – Lexa whispers more to herself than to the woman. She spends a little time taking off her dirty boots to enter the house (Gustus said to never enter the boss’ house with dirty boots). As she took the enormous house in - which she was quite familiar with the parts that concerned about Clarke (the back window and the blonde’s room) – she felt like giving herself willingly to a trap. Smaller and weaker, without her boots and her hat, ready for the worst.
And to thought that she was still recovering from the night before. Eyes sore from crying to sleep.
She followed Abby to the big table in the dining room. While seated, Abby gestured for Lexa to also sit at the table, but the girl politely declined. She kept herself rather distant from her boss. In her mind, Gustus' baritone voice echoed: “Mind your place, child.”.
Abby didn’t insist though. She chose for starting calm, doing somewhat of rehearsal instead of going straight to the point: “Look, Lexa, I called you here because I trust you a lot and I respect your job. Your father, God rest his soul, taught you well, and I have no interest of dismissing you.”
Lexa let out the breath she didn’t know she was holding. But the relieving sensation didn’t last long.
“- However.” – A pregnant pause, Lexa could see how Abby’s eyes seemed to wave around an issue. Damn. “- I also know that you and Clarke were… good friends, since Gustus started bringing you here.”
Lexa’s heart almost flipped inside her ribcage. Her mouth went dry. Suddenly, a bunch of memories of all those nights that Lexa sneak inside Clarke’s room through the window left open, only to stay a few hours before and go back to herd the cattle; the secret kisses of them hidden in the tractors barn, the thrill of looking twice to check if anyone was looking, the traded vows and promises with only Orion as witness… She felt that her world was about to crumble again after Clarke’s farewell.
As if it wasn’t hard enough to be without her. Now this.
Abby’s figure turned into a blur while Lexa held bravely the tears.
She already lost Clarke.
Now, she is about to lose everything she got.
Her job.
Her life at the farm.
The cottage Gustus lived in and now she lives in.
Orion and all the memories the three of them built together, their names carved on the front yard tree, the drawings, the cows she liked the most and everything she knows about the fields and-
“You were her only friend in here and I know that she might be feeling the absence of her old life here in the farm even if she doesn’t admit.” – Abby scoffed, eye rolling at the thought of her daughter saying absurdities about the life in the farm. “- But I do understand that she wants to build her own life without my help.”
Lexa felt confused about the direction that the conversation was taking. What was that all about?
“- She wants to be alone and focus on her career. You know she went to Arkadia to start the med school.”- Another pause. Abby dismissively waves her hand to clean some invisible dust from the table. “- So, I called you here to ask a favor, for Clarke’s sake.”
“- Yes, ma’am.” – Lexa says firmly, although she feels her insides shaking as leaves during a windstorm.
“- I want you to forget her.”
----***----
Clarke was still trembling by Lexa’s response, incapable of forming any logical sentence under that gaze that told so much with so few words, when she heard a loud whistle coming from the maternity corral, followed by a loud calling of “Heda!”.
Saved by the bell. But Clarke didn’t know who was in danger in the first place.
“- I have to go, Ms. Griffin. Lincoln is calling me and I guess there’s a cow about to give birth.” – Lexa nodded shortly after, passing through Clarke in a jog towards the maternity. She looked back and waved briefly.
Clarke stood in the same spot without even looking at Lexa’s direction.
----***----
Seventeen years ago
Lexa and Clarke were best friends. At that time, they had spent most of their free time laughing and following each other steps like two bouncy calves. During summer, they rode around the farm, having races and talking about everything and nothing at the same time.
Lexa shared her knowledge about the plants, animals and the fields. Clarke told her stories about her trips around the country and the big cities she visited.
One day, everything changed.
“- I want to take you somewhere.” – With that and saddling two horses, Orion and Quasar, Lexa convinced Clarke to follow her towards the far north of the Griffin’s property, to the woods near the Mount Weather valley.
As they followed through the forest trail, horses walking side by side in a nice and slow pace, Clarke talked about her problems with her mom and how it made her feel dislocated in the countryside life; how she wanted to move to Arkadia to live a life of her own, without being constantly watched and protected for Abby and her employees. Except for Lexa, since they were friends when the girl arrived at the farm with Gustus by the age of ten, the blonde had a pretty much lonely childhood.
(Clarke liked Lexa, at first, because she didn’t treat her like a princess, but as a regular human being.
And Lexa saw in Clarke a person like anyone else, even though she was the daughter of the wealthiest rancher in the region.)
When the ranch hand girl asked about what Clarke wanted to do in Arkadia, she spoke about her dream of opening an Art Gallery. She wanted to be an artist, instead of a physician as her mom wanted to.
“- I’ve never been in an Art Gallery.” – Lexa admitted that day, looking shyly at her own hands, calloused by the hard work, holding firmly Quasar’s reins.
“- I’ve been into a few and I loved it. It’s something like a warehouse but with divisions and walls and there’s various artworks; they can vary according to the exhibition’s theme and-“ – Clarke doesn’t finish her line of thought. She notices that Lexa is visibly embarrassed about her lack of knowledge about places that are so common in bigger cities as Arkadia. So common in Clarke’s world. She looks down and hears quietly.
The blonde felt silly and selfish. Again. Here and there, situations like that would happen between them – when a thing that Clarke says or does sounds completely alien to Lexa, and the difference between them in a matter of economic circumstances and privileges shows it immenseness. The ranch hand girl never complained about it, most of times just saying nothing. But Clarke hated that feeling.
Selfishly, she was terrified of losing her friend for such differences.
But then an idea pops into her mind.
“- I’ll take you to my favorite one in Arkadia and you’ll see it for yourself.” – The blonde simply determines, holding her gaze towards Lexa.
The brunette nods, answering with her well known timid, lopsided smile.
----***----
At sunset, Lexa finally reached home. She didn’t mind closing the door, even – just took a few large steps towards the fridge and got an ice-cold bottle of water, taking large gulps to refresh her fuming mind.
She was so nervous she could throw up.
The reunion happened so fast and so unpredictably, Lexa felt silly for being caught taking a fucking nap by nothing less but Clarke Griffin after fifteen years.
She wanted to dig a hole in the corral and bury herself there.
After all this time.
Fifteen years – not days, years.
She daydreamed about meeting Clarke again for what felt like a lifetime. She cried and prayed and yelled at no one until she buried this feeling alive and never said anything to anyone.
God knows how she cried with only the poor Orion to comfort her. She asked God, on her knees, to take this awful sensation of being the traitor from inside her chest.
And when she was finally sure that everything that happened in her youth was just that – a memory – and Clarke would never comeback to claim her inheritance.
There she was. In flesh. Alive and breathing.
Beautiful and cheeky as always.
----***----
By the end of the forest trail, they reach a waterfall near a forest glade. It was breath taking and Clarke didn’t have the slightest clue that such scenario was part of Abby’s property. The midday scorching sun was high in the sky, its rays invading the glade causing the waters and wet rocks to shine as tiny crystals floated on its surface. They dismounted the horses and took off the saddles so the animals could rest a little and graze around the place.
Clarke loses herself in nature’s beauty. Birds chirping freely on the high tree branches. A blue butterfly hovered around them, batting its wings over Quasar’s and Orion’s mane.
Lexa had everything planned: she brought a backpack with water, snacks, extra clothes and an old blanket, arranging the things neatly while the blonde observed her surroundings.
(Secretly, the ranch hand girl had planned this day for weeks. She wanted so badly to be around her friend… Without any concern, nor any person to watch them.
She knew it was a selfish thing to feel, but she wanted Clarke all to herself for at least for one day in her life.)
“- It is beautiful.” – Clarke comments while looking around, bewildered. Lexa gives her time to take the view in, meanwhile taking off her own boots and unbuckling her knife from the belt.
When the blonde looks back, looking for Lexa, she sees that there’s a grin in her face that she doesn’t remember seeing before – which makes the girl even more beautiful. It makes Clarke’s heart warm and gallop inside her chest. She knew, that behind all that rough worker posture and reservations, there was a beautiful young girl that loved to meet new places and show the blonde’s some precious details of her perspective in the farm.
Maybe it was the thing Clarke loved the most in that place.
Lexa.
“- What is it, Clarke?” – The brunette calls her out of her reverie, noticing that the blonde’s gaze suddenly went too far.
She blinked and shook her head once, twice. “- Oh? No, no, it’s –“ She stumbled on her own words, feeling suddenly embarrassed for being “caught”. She breathes in, trying to control her racing heart. “- It is nothing, Lex.”
She just wanted to be around Lexa.
That’s all.
----***----
Left alone near the horses' barn, Clarke felt as if the time was standing still.
She spent a couple of seconds trying to process this so short yet so intense dialogue.
It felt childish, in a way - Lexa just took an opportunity to run for her life; but it also felt like a scar being opened with a sharp knife.
Actually - it felt less than a scar, more to pouring salt into a wound that never actually healed. Clarke just got used to it.
In Clarke’s defense, is not like she never wanted to be back. Life got in the way.
She spent her first five years in Arkadia building a career in med school, only to drop everything she got without her mom’s knowledge to start studying art. She never asked for a single dime from Abby’s wallet and built everything she got with her own sweat and money, working day and night to open a gallery and make her name into the art world of Arkadia. She had achieved that and beyond, even.
In that gap, there were some years that her and Abby didn’t speak to each other.
Clarke built a whole new family in Arkadia, with her friends and colleagues. She had even found a long-time partner, Finn. They stayed engaged for a couple of years until the moment Clarke decided to end it.
She loved him, yes, although she never felt like being “in love” with him. It felt “correct”, being with him. If felt… comfortable.
And Clarke Griffin didn’t want things to be “just comfortable”.
She had left a comfortable life on the farm to achieve her dreams and personal goals. Hell, she chose her life over a lover.
And it didn’t take long for Clarke to realize that choosing career over love would be the best choice possible since that very lover, a.k.a. Lexa Woods, betrayed her as soon as she had the chance.
However, something was off.
When she saw those same green eyes shining in her direction – she felt that same pang hitting her unmercifully. That wave of love and warmness that came from Lexa’s body without her saying a single word – maybe without her even controlling it. Because, well, Clarke Griffin could see right through her.
Since ever.
Before this reunion, Clarke thought that the brunette wouldn't even address her. Hence the fact that Lexa herself denied to her mom that they had anything and even said that she "never bonded with someone during work". A blatant lie that hurt Clarke after all what they've lived together on that very farm.
They made a fucking promise of sharing a life together, for god's sake!
And when she saw those green-gray eyes piercing through her soul straight to the confinements of her heart, awakening memories so vividly in a snap of fingers, she felt in her guts what her intuition whispered to her ears that time:
Lexa was lying. She was a liar and she lied back all those years ago.
—-***—-
Fifteen years ago
After the last day they saw each other, Lexa never answered Clarke's letters. The ranch hand girl didn't have a phone (by her own choice), and Abby didn't give her daughter any other information from Lexa besides "she's working hard as ever".
But one day, unsure and distressed over this unexplained silence treatment, Clarke questioned her mom during a phone call. The dialogue from that day echoed in her mind for years.
"- I do not understand, mom, if everything is fine, why Lexa didn't talk to me?"
"- I don't know, honey, maybe she is just very busy."
Clarke felt confused and left behind – was that some kind of revenge? Was Lexa trying to return the pain she felt? But the girl herself said that they would meet again, for sure. That she would find a way to send news about herself and Orion. The memories of the brunette whispering silly promises such as “I want to be around you forever” and “Don’t forget that my heart belongs to you” felt like a thousand cuts, burning her senses.
Lexa forgot her so easily!
“- You should focus on your life in Arkadia now, honey.” – It was the last advice she heard from Abby before she hung up the phone.
—-***—-
Seventeen years ago
Clarke Griffin herself wasn’t so much of a fan of rose apples.
Abby explained to her years ago that – i.e., these trees - it all started as a trial, a new hope of an agriculture niche that her father, Jake, thought was a good idea – an exotic tree from Asia that would blow the consumers mind by its exquisite taste.
And it was a good idea. At least it was until he died abruptly.
Once being the only farm’s owner, Abby devoted herself to the previous focus of the Griffin’s land: dairy cattle. She abandoned without further explanations all of Jake’s projects for implementing an agroforestry system. And growing rose apples were the starting point of it.
Only a few trees remained over the years, the first samples that Jake plated himself with Clarke still a toddler.
So, whenever Clarke saw one of these trees, she saw, instead of a failed project, somewhat of a monument to a simpler, more hopeful, time. Among the native vegetation of the land, the rose apple tree wasn’t the highest, especially in the forest that grew further at the border of Griffin’s land, but rather a presence, a generous elder in the heart of a garden. Its sturdy trunk twisting upward with a quiet strength, and its flowers and soft perfume reminded her of Jake until she met Lexa.
Lexa, the girl that appeared out of nowhere on the farm, hidden behind the large body of Gustus, the farm’s night watcher.
Lexa loved rose apples, and she was responsible for giving Clarke a whole new significance towards the trees displayed around the farm. When children, they played around them, took naps below their shades, climbed on it to pick the purple and rounded, succulent fruits to eat before lunch, etc.
And during their youth, below its branches, Clarke discovered her own feelings.
And, again, Clarke wasn’t so much of a fan of rose apples, but she ate them with Lexa more for the company and the adventure than for its flavor.
However,
When she kissed the ranch hand girl for the first time – there, by the waterfalls near the glade Lexa took her, she felt in those plump lips the notes of perfume and slightly refreshing flavor of this so meaningful fruit…
She became addicted to it.
The combinations of those elements - Lexa’s lips, the flavor and smoothness of them, the trembling hands (from coldness? Nervousness? She would never know) of the ranch hand girl around the blonde’s hips in a slight hold, yet possessive, - became a powerful memory on her mind that assaulted her senses over and over again. She would look for it – the taste of Lexa’s lips, her hold, her arms, her touch – everyday in that farm ‘til her last day there.
(Although she wanted that so badly, Lexa didn’t realize her feelings were reciprocated until that very moment.
The moment when she kisses Clarke during the comfortable silence that grew between them after they dived in the water, and the blonde kissed her back.
A shiver ran down her spine when soft hands tighten around her neck and pull her back to a new round of kisses.
It felt like breathing the spring breeze of heaven.
It felt like the blossoming of the flowers in the pasture after a good amount of rain.
It felt like the first warm sunrise after winter.)
-----
up next: Sunday (I honestly hope so). The reunion.
