Archive of Our Own ^beta

I’ve been teaching for 7 years, 4 of them spent here. Not a lifetime, by any means, but definitely a veteran. I’ve seen boys and girls alike do stupid things; pull fire alarms, bullying, cheating, crushing on inappropriate people, vandalism, sleep in class, you name it, it’s been done. So by now, I only needed 30 seconds at the start of the semester to tell you exactly how the year with my homeroom was going to go.

Kids just move a certain way, you see. They hunch or shift or stand too tall. They’re fragile things, these kids, who pretend they’re made out of some kind of iron. In reality, they haven’t even been heated to melt and mold.

That’s where I come in.

I always get to my classroom a little earlier than usual on the first day of school. It’s just a ritual of mine. My heels click softly on the ground as I make my way up and down the neat rows of desks. 7 years teaching, and I still get small flutters at the prospect of a new homeroom class. I allow myself to smile a bit, pleased I got landed with Freshmen this term.

I love my job, I do. Some might say that it’s a mystery as to if I don’t like students or my job or not, but it’s not true. I love teaching.

I made my way back to the front of the classroom and taped the seating chart to the front of the teacher’s podium. There were 30 minutes until the homeroom chime, and students would start to hesitantly make their way in any minute. I fixed the chart to parallel perfection and left, thinking about one last cup of shitty coffee from the teacher’s lounge before another year.

I’ve spent 4 of my 7 years as a teacher in this school, Arkadia Girls’ Academy. It’s a privilege to attend here, and an even bigger one to teach.

At three minutes till, I pitch the weak coffee and glance in a mirror.

I haven’t changed my style much over the years. Same white collared shirt, same black vest, same black pants, and you guessed it- same black heels. I sigh, but wind up pulling a wistful smile.

 I used to be a bad ass.

Through the corridors, and I found my homeroom once again. Excited chattering was heard, and I simply smiled in anticipation. This was one of my favorite parts of the whole year.

-RRRRRIIIIIIIIIIINGG-

I stepped through the door, clipboard in hand, and the entire room goes silent. It will be a good year.

A month in, and the year could be going smoother.

My classroom’s door shut decisively, and the girl forced her breathing to steady. The deadness of the empty room contrasted sharply with the heat of the commotion we had come from, and it seemed like even the air was holding still. She was avoiding eye contact with me at all cost, eyes darting anywhere but at me.

“This is the second fight you’ve started at this school,” I told her bluntly. “In one month. You realize that I’m now going to have to meet with your parents?”

The girl sent me a look so loathsome I had to marvel at it. What exactly had happened to this adolescent?

“Are you going to give me detention or something?” She bit acidly in my direction. I paused.

“No.” I replied evenly.

We fell silent.

“Antalya,” I started, only to be cut off.

“It’s Anya,” the dishwater blonde shorted out. I didn’t let it sidetrack me.

“Anya,” I began again, unmoved. “I know you realize that I’m trying to help you,” I looked for her vivid brown eyes. “I want to help you,”

She sent me a bitter glare.

“You get paid to help me,”

I tilted my head. The girl should have been too young to be able to look at me the way she was. Like someone, somewhere, had done her wrong, and she had learnt a terrible lesson.

“You’re right,” I shrugged. “And frankly, I don’t get paid enough to deal with this.” Her eyes snapped to my nonchalant expression, and she studied me carefully as I leaned down to hold her eyes, my face falling in seriousness.

“But I want to help you because I might know what you’re going through.” The girl immediately tightened her jaw and looked away, presumably to tell me that I didn’t. I quickly dodged to catch her eyes again, and surprisingly, she let me.

“You can stand here all day and call me out on not knowing shit, Anya,” something in her body shifted at hearing me curse, and it made me want to smile. “But like it or not, I think you’re too smart, and I actually believe in you.”

I didn’t look away from her as her eyes drilled into me, assessing, judging, evaluating, to see if I deserved her trust.

“Why?” she slipped out suspiciously.

I leveled with her. The girl was 14 years old, for fuck’s sake. I don’t know what happened to her, but surely a teacher had tried to help her before, right?

Right?

“Because,” I replied unceremoniously, “You honestly remind me of myself a long time ago. “ I gave her surprised expression a once over, “But you’ve done something I didn’t do very right.”

The slight frame twitched, like she wasn’t quite sure what to do with herself.

“And what is that?” she asked carefully, caramel eyes narrowed.

I smiled gently, “I don’t know how or why, but you’re the top of your class, Anya,” I straightened, “You’ll go to much better places than I did just because of that.” I watched her closely, because this remark apparently hit closer to home than anything, I think, because she looked away.

She made no comment on this, and I leaned backwards to sit on the edge of a desk, folding my arms and letting her simmer under my gaze.

 The girl sort of sneered at me weakly and popped up to sit on top of the desk behind her. I raised an eyebrow, and she crossed her ankles, managing to look a little more delicate while she broke class rules.

 Moments passed by in silence, and she looked around the classroom in thought.

 “How old are you?”

 I scoffed.

 “Where were you going today?” I countered.

 She sneered.

 “My job,”

 I smirked back at her.

 “You’re 14, you can’t have a job,”

 “Well you’re 40, and you shouldn’t have one!”

 I laughed.

 “I’m 33,”

 “Whoa,” she crooned, looking like she had won something. “You’re old enough to be my mama.”

 I glared at her.

 “No, I’m not.”

 She smirked at me, thinking she found a chink in my armor somewhere. I rolled up my sleeves at the same time I rolled my eyes. I pushed off the desk and walked to the chalkboard.

I started to scrawl on it in quick strokes. The girl’s eyes watched my movements closely, and I could practically feel her sharp gaze on my back. I stepped away and let her read what I had written there.

She frowned, and I approached her with my hand in my back pocket.

“The Catcher in the Rye?” she reads. I nod and hand her a 20-dollar bill. Her eyes blew wide, and the expression looked so young on her pretty face.

Because she is young.

“I want you to go to the bookstore, and buy a copy.” I pulled another $20 from my pocket and held it up for her to see. “If you finish it in one week and tell me what you thought, this is yours. I’m offering this opportunity every week from now on.”

Her mouth parted in awe, and then her eyes narrowed.

“Just like that?” she edged out.

I shook my head.

“Some conditions,” I stated. She studied me carefully in askance. “You have to quit your job, stay awake in my class, and for the love of God, stop fighting.”

She studied the banknote in her hands as her mouth tweaked. It had to have been what she made in a full week at whatever crap, off-the-books gig she had landed, and I was offering to double it.

“If you accept my offer, your job will be to go to school.” I never looked away from her, “Understand?”

She looked up at me, her eyes flashing between that too-grown up look of mistrust, and the expression her true age wanted to show. Something tender and sweet.

“You’re serious?”

Her eyes flickered between my own, that same sort of soul capturing look in her eyes that screamed, ‘I’ve been hurt before, by someone just like you’.

I nodded firmly.

The girl stayed quiet, eyes re-reading the title behind me. I tried not to laugh as an expression of pig headed resolve made its way onto her girlish features. She cast me a judgmental and challenging look, like I was personally betting against her.

“Okay then, you’re on, Woods,” she said evenly. Hopping agilely off the desk, she stuffed the note in her pocket and spun toward the door. I tried not to laugh at her dramatic display of dignity.

When she got to the door, I couldn’t contain myself.

“Oh, and Anya?” I called sternly. She turned to eye me warily.

“Tell your folks I’ll be over next week for the Parent/Teacher conference,”

Her jaw dropped, and she gaped like a fish out of water. I watch with no small amount of amusement as a pretty shade of pink spread along her cheeks, and I let a smile escape.

Apparently my outward sign of mirth was just too much for the girl’s ego, and she wrenched the door open, strode out, and snapped it back shut in quick succession.

My smiled stayed on my face for a long while after that. What a ridiculous, smug, jaded creature the girl was. My smile slipped. What had happened to make her so? I frowned. Maybe she didn’t have a stable life at home? Maybe something had happened directly to her?

I shook my head. That sort of thinking leads to very strange emotions.

Sort of like the emotions that drove you to this deal?

Was my little arrangement even ethical? I’m sure if it was discovered it would be heavily frowned upon, but still not a firing offence. Hopefully. Exchanging money with a student for anything is a bad light to be seen in.

I sigh and turned to erase the board, my mind tumbling. I wouldn’t normally try so hard to help a student. I’ve always tried, sure. But there was just something about Anya that made me want to believe in her.

I kept returning in a loop around the same thoughts; I really did love teaching, and I wondered what sort of family could produce the spitfire that was Antalya Griffin?

I don’t want to say I was shocked, but I’d be flat out lying if I said I saw this coming. Anya just always seemed so… Superior.

Obviously, Lexa. This is why.

Anya sat next to me, anxiously twitching her grasp around her standard issue school skirt, patent black shoes scuffing the floorboard. She had found me after school and lowly told me to hurry or we’d miss the bus. I had frowned at her then. She wanted me to go home with her?

The girl had looked at me bashfully.

“It’s… sort of a ride,” Was all she said. I remember waving her off and telling her I had a car, and she was welcome to join. What I didn’t realize was that “sort of a ride” was an hour and ten minute ride each way to D.C. from Polis. Not to mention the 30-minute walk to the bus station from her house, I later learned.

“You live in Polis?” I had asked, the distance quite impressive.

She had tilted her head in acknowledgement.

“Yeah.”

I had run a hand through my hair.

“Well, I suppose it’s true, ‘It is not down on any map; true places never are.’ Right?”

She gave me a strange look and I had straightened immediately.

“It’s Melville,” I explained. She continued to look at me. I sighed once more. “I’ll get you there,”

I was very grateful for deciding to drive myself that day, as our commute was only 40 minutes now.

I had gotten very curious behaviors from Anya on the drive to her house. She switched from being tense and ignoring me, to pensive and staring at me. On one such occasion, she had actually found it in her to speak.

“You know how you told me you were 33?”

I raised an eyebrow at the question, but nodded.

“Was that you,” she bit her lip. “Ya know, like, sharing?”

I glanced at the brown-eyed girl.

“I suppose it would count,” I said slowly. Where was she going with this? “I wouldn’t give my age away to just anyone, if that’s what you’re asking,”

Somehow, I think my answer pleased her a great deal because she quickly faced away from me. I smiled at the road.

“Why?” I asked easily, trying to break the silence.

The girl turned back to me hesitantly.

“Well,” she licked her lips. “I just, uh, probably need to share something with you too before we get to my house,” I think she realized how she sounded because she flicked her hair away from her eyes, immediately clamped her jaw down, and turned a volatile expression on me. “And don’t you dare make fun of me for it,” she grit.

I glanced at her calmly, and she seemed to know she had overcompensated.

“I won’t,” I said anyway.

She nodded.

“Don’t ask my mom about being married or a husband or father or any of that shit, okay Woods?”

“Anya, the entire purpose of this trip is for me to discuss your academic and social standings. A very ‘teacher’ thing to do, don’t you think? That being said, why in the hell would you swear at me?”

She rolled her eyes.

“Right, okay. Try not to mention half my DNA, Ms. Woods, you hypocrite?”

I only readjusted my grip on the steering wheel and laughed lightly. Glancing at the dirty blonde, I wondered just how far I could push her.

“Is your mom married?”

Apparently, I couldn’t push far. The girl instantly bricked back up, her spine still and her face set.

“She was,”

I nodded my head. There was something very wrong here. I could practically feel the barrier between student/teacher relationship and student/something else. If I pushed, I’d cross the barrier. It was a decision I made in a millisecond.

“And?”

It was the most noninvasive question I could ask, and I think Anya appreciated the autonomy of the prompt. She looked out the window for so long I thought she wasn’t going to answer. Then, she twisted in the passenger seat, tossed her hair, and fixed her eyes on me steadily.

Somewhere in my heart, I knew that this was where Anya put both of us on the line, where she would decide if she really could trust her teacher.

“He died when I was small. Really small.” Her sharp gaze was locked on me. “And no, you don’t have to be sorry for me because he was a bastard. An asshole. He overdosed on some kind of street drug. I don’t know which one, Mom won’t tell me.”

I wanted to tsk at her for her language.

“I see,” is what I had said instead. Another beat and I carried on, trying to show her that she wouldn’t scare me off. “Was he,” I tightened my fingers on the wheel, “A bully?”

Anya seemed to consider my word choice.

“I don’t remember him like I probably should,” was what she eventually replied. Completely dodging the question, I noted. But the girl was 14, and I’m sure whatever happened wasn’t so long ago in her short life span.

“But it doesn’t matter,” she shrugged off, “It’s always been Mom and me,” her tone was almost proud.

I glanced at her with an eyebrow raised.

“What?” She asked.

“Mom and I,” I corrected with a smirk, “And don’t swear.”

She had thrown her hands up.

“You do it!”

“I’m much older than you,”

The girl huffed air and mumbled something under her breath that I would have missed if the car weren’t so quiet.

“I am not!”

She had merely grinned.

But her grin was gone now, and in spite of the moment we had shared in the car, she was once again nervous about my judgment of her. But she didn’t need to worry. I turned to face her and smiled a full, bright smile with a full gentling of my eyes. I couldn’t help it. Anya’s home was absolutely-

“Beautiful,” I told the anxious girl. “Your home is beautiful, Anya.”

She seemed to hesitate in her relief. I merely nodded to signal that we should exit the car. My sensible heels didn’t much like the dirt driveway that we had driven over for a couple kilometers, but it was hard packed enough. I removed my briefcase from the backseat and handed Anya her bag as well. My heart warmed slightly as I spotted a battered copy of The Catcher In the Rye peaking out of a pocket.

I straightened and still couldn’t believe it. She lived here?

The Griffin house was honestly nothing to write home about. It was a small, low building without many rooms to the eye, obviously incredibly inexpensive, but it was painted and cleaned well. A ranch style house, no upstairs to speak of. The house though, was surrounded on every side but the driveway, by fields of flowers.

Beautiful, fragrant, so vivid in color you could taste them, flowers. It brought to mind my favorite poetry and afternoons with tea and cake. There was at the very least a square kilometer of meticulously planted, cared for, and loved, flowers. The last noticeable feature of Anya’s home was a greenhouse. Low, yes, but large. It was easily twice the size of the house, and looked to be 100 meters into the backyard.

“This is amazing, Anya,” I repeat, still blown way.

She led the way up the two steps of the porch.

“Mom’s the best florist in all of D.C.,” she grinned, allowing herself to be smug. I smiled softly in return. Maybe it was the setting that let her loose, maybe it was my genuine admiration of her home. Who knew?

She opened the door and stepped inside, leaving it open for me to follow suit. I shut the door behind me and faintly heard her mild shout into the house. I only half way paid attention because the Griffin home was beautiful.

Dark woods furnishing, with open areas instead of categorized sections made the house seem larger. The front room was the largest and seemed to be Anya’s bedroom and the lounging area combined, open and fresh. There was a hallway to my right, and a doorway on the perpendicular wall.

It was this doorway that Anya’s mother exited from.

My God, is everything in the Griffin home unbelievably beautiful?

I saved face from the embarrassing thought by, oddly enough, Anya’s grace. She had turned to her mother.

“Mom, this is Ms. Woods,” she tossed her caramel eyes to me, something odd flickering in the clear depths. “Woods, this is my mom.”

I dipped my head, barely able to keep eye contact with the woman. The gesture let me collect a breath.

“Had the price of beauty been blindness, I would have looked.”

I rightened.

“Ms. Griffin, it’s a pleasure to meet you. Lexa Woods,” I managed. The woman laughed, a sound that recalled to me the soft harmony of an orchestra.

“Well, the pleasure is mine, Ms. Woods,” she spoke with a distinct rasp to her voice, and it wanted to echo down my spine, “And please, call me Clarke, or Juliet might get confused,” she laughed again lightly.

I smiled. Clarke Griffin was the most beautiful woman I’d ever laid eyes on. She resembled Anya in only the level of symmetry in her perfectly contoured face, though Anya’s features were more stiletto’d than her own. She had shimmering blonde hair that carried layer upon layer of sunshine; spun sugar, honey, corn silk, butterscotch, wheat, gold. She had the eyes of a million orchid petals thrown into a pool of sky. Her skin was tanned in a way that told you she was naturally fair, but tended flowers all day outside. Still, it looked smoother and softer than buttermilk. She wore faithful blue jeans and a loyal checkered shirt, and still seemed to radiate a gentle beauty. And she was so young! Maybe even a year or two younger than me. But here she was, with a 14-year-old daughter. I could do the math. Anya’s mother must have been, what? 16? 17?

My mind raced back to the present, and I arched an eyebrow at Anya, who was biting her lip strangely.

“Your name is Juliet?”

She seemed to choke for a moment, her face instantly flaring pink. Clarke laughed brilliantly, and I shared a smile with her.

Anya, or Juliet, unlocked her jaw and growled at me.

“It’s my middle name, Lexa.”

I only smirked at her without malice. In truth, I had no idea she didn’t know my first name until just know.

“Both beautiful names, are they not?” Clarke broke smugly. She stepped backward halfway. “Now, will they both not come in from the entrance?”

I laughed openly.

“Ms. Griffin, manners? It seems you’ve forgotten to teach your daughter the same knowledge,” I mentioned teasingly. Anya snorted next to me as we took our shoes off and followed her mother into the kitchen.

Which was equally as charming.

“It’s not my fault Literature and Modern Politics make no sense,” she quietly whined. Clarke smiled at her daughter and kissed her on the head.

“Would you make Ms. Woods and I some tea, J-Cakes?” She looked to me, and gestured for me to sit. Anya flushed slightly but nodded. I sat myself down into the well-worn chair, one of four, and Clarke copied me to my left.

Anya went about fixing the tea, and I looked to the woman.

“While ‘Ms. Woods’ is charming from my students,” I began, “It would ease me for you to call me Lexa,”

She tilted her head at me in a wonderful show of challenging humor.

“Ah, but I’ve already made that request, and you yourself denied me,” She smiled keenly. I couldn’t help by copy the expression.

“I apologize, Clarke, as soon as I stretch I’ll beg for forgiveness,” I replied.

Something in the pit of my stomach started to warm when she pealed out a delighted laugh. Still giggling, she eyed her daughter who was setting down a modest white tea set.

“Now, why can’t my daughter be so quick to apology? Hm, J-Cakes?”

Anya merely smiled at her mother.

“Mom, if I were that quick to plead, I’d never look up from Woods’ floor,”

I couldn’t help it, I laughed, and Clarke laughed with me. Even Anya spared a grin at her self-deprecating jest as she served tea.

“It’s not like it matters so much,” I added dryly, “You spend enough time studying the inside of your eyelids,” Anya seemed to feel a small hint of remorse for that one, as she only focused harder on pouring.

Clarke laughed.

“Well, that may be my fault, Lexa,” I don’t know why, but the syllables of my name on her tongue made my neck tingle, “I’ve never kept many books around here,”

I smiled easily,

“A morning-glory at my window satisfies me more than the metaphysics of books,” I quote lightly, bringing Anya’s teacup to my lips.

Clarke smiles brightly, her tones dulcet in the small, wonderful kitchen.

“O, To behold the day-break,” she completes for me.

I almost dropped the teacup.

“You like Whitman?” I ask, delighted beyond self-control. The ocean eyes nod gently, swimming in passion of common ground.

“Although as far as American poets go, I greatly favor Millay,” she said with reigned alacrity.

I looked to Anya across from me, who seemed to be lost in either the conversation or her own thoughts. I glanced back at a smiling Clarke.

“Pity you really are forgetting to spread that particular passion,” I sigh, faux affected. Clarke laughs.

“Juliet excels at maths and science, Lexa, and she can memorize maps at a minute’s glance,” The pride in the woman’s voice was apparent. She reached a mothering hand out to smooth the darker locks of her daughter, and Anya accepted the contact with an adorably doting smile.

It made me want to smile.

Who knew that Anya was such a momma’s girl?

“She is incredibly adept,” I complimented. “One of my best students,” Anya seemed surprised at that, but she chose not to reply. It seemed that in the presence of her mother, she was tame as a kitten. But my current thought process was already back on the professional tracks.

I straightened my posture, and cleared my throat, trying to recover the purpose of my visit. Clarke looked at me, half amused, and half curious at the shift in demeanor. Still, I was getting much too comfortable. I swallowed reflexively and turned my gaze to Anya, who had actually managed to look a little nervous, her eyes flicking from me to her mom.

“Anya, would you mind very much letting your mother and I speak alone?” She bit her lip and moved to get up.

“Why don’t you go and feed the cats, darling?” Anya still looked hesitant, but at Clarke’s reassured look she seemed to relax and merely nodded, shooting me a look as she left. A couple of doors slammed and the house was quiet.

“So, Lexa, what has my daughter done?” Clarke finally broke the silence, and I tried to be Ms. Woods once more, despite the warmth her focused blue eyes put under my collar.

“Last week marked the second fight Anya’s gotten into since school began,” I told her flatly. “I’m not sure what they’ve been about, but the second one wasn’t declared a ‘fight’ so much as an ‘argument’, so she’s not really in too much trouble,” I ran a hand through my hair.

“I’ve spent the past two months trying to get through to Anya, Ms. Griffin, and if you’ll excuse me, she can be more stubborn than an ass,” I looked to the woman next to me, who only smiled widely at me.

I gave a faint smile back.

“I meant what I said, Anya’s one of my brightest students, and I see so much potential in her,” I frowned lightly. “She’s just got a way of finding the hardest way of doing something, and diving into it headfirst,”

Clarke laughed openly. I gave her a curious look.

“Lexa,” she took a breath. “That is exactly what my daughter does.” Her eyes shimmered at me and I couldn’t help but chuckle with her.

“So,” she continued, “What happens to her now?”

I smile a little sheepishly.

“I really only needed to meet with you because the school says I have to after any altercation with one of my homeroom students. I just need your signature on some papers and I’ll be out of your hair,”

Clarke smiled, a particular look crossing her face momentarily. It passed, and she tilted her head.

“That is good to hear,” she smiled mischievously. “Though maybe we’ll take this as a time to let Juliet steep in worry? As an educator yourself, you can’t fault a learning opportunity?”

I smiled largely, biting back a laugh.

“I wouldn’t dream of it, Ms. Griffin,”

The woman smiled at me with glittering blue eyes.

She poured me more tea and I thanked her, asking how she knew Whitman. And so we carried on that way. For well over three hours, by my watch. We spoke of books and music and literature. She challenged my intellect and I tested her wit.

At some point, we had shifted out of our stiff teacher-parent postures and into a much more relaxed seating arrangement, both of us drawn to the corner of the table we shared. I told her stories about Anya from school, and she laughed long and hard. I got to listen, enraptured, at her tales of the fiery girl as a child.

Her glittering laughter punctuated the anecdotes, and the toss of her hair distracted me. The conversation turned a little more personal, as she asked me how I liked my job. From then on, it was free reign to speak on a more casual plane, as if we hadn’t been doing so already.

I found out that she actually might have really been one of the more popular floral arrangers in the D.C. area, though she most frequently did work in Polis. She got frustrated around Christmas time in an adorable fashion, and she loathed arranging weddings because of the insufferable mothers, sisters, cousins, brides, grooms, and almost anyone else invited.

“Did you arrange your own wedding?” I asked before I could stop myself.

Her blue eyes snapped to me, and she smirked at the panic I’m sure had dawned on my face.

“I-I mean,” I grasped at straws. “I’m sorry,” my face heated under her stare and I curse my own stream of consciousness. “Shit, I’m sorry, Cl-Ms. Griffin,” I toyed anxiously with my teacup. “Anya may have mentioned it, and I didn’t think,”

Shit, this was the one thing Anya asked you not to do!

“Lexa,” Clarke toned out, a hand cupping her neck and a smile on her face. “It’s really alright,”

I breathed deeply and rolled my eyes at myself. The beautiful woman only smiled wider.

“To answer your question, no, I did not,” I nodded, relieve, before she carried on, “Are you married?” she asked me interestedly.

I snorted unattractively and remembered myself. I glanced at her curious face.

“No,” I managed, my cheeks still burning lightly. “I’m, uh, single,”

For some reason, the air changed pressure in the kitchen and I knew Clarke felt it too. I met her eyes keenly.

“I’m glad,” she hushed out, and I cocked my head gently.

“Are, uh,” our eyes had locked and I didn’t feel any inclination to look away, “Are you seeing anyone right now?”

She shook her head.

“There was someone, briefly,” she carried in that sweet, low tone, “But Juliet didn’t feel comfortable and I didn’t feel it was appropriate anymore.”

My heart had thumped and constricted simultaneously at her careful use and strategic stress on the gender ambiguity of “someone”. But I nodded like I never took note.

“Of course,” I agreed. I thumbed over the long cool ceramic of my cup, long since empty. “Though I don’t know how Anya would react to just anyone,” I smiled teasingly, “A foreign royal probably wouldn’t pass her test,”

Clarke laughed relaxedly.

“Though I couldn’t agree more, what test are you talking about?” she wrinkled her nose at me, “because I absolutely believe my daughter makes them up on the spot,”

I laughed.

“Then I think it would be more appropriate to ask you that question,” I replied easily, “What test didn’t this someone pass?”

My question was innocent, but I knew my eyes were not. Still, the beautiful woman didn’t look away.

Her eyes were deep and wonderful as her beautiful mouth twisted in a smile.

“I really couldn’t tell you the answer to that, Lexa,” Her eyes stayed on me, “I asked you because whatever test it is, you seem to have passed with flying colors,”

I hesitated, and then smiled fully.

“Clarke, you’re playing with me,” I accused.

The woman only grinned back at me, clasping her hands on the table.

A moment.

“Although,” I flexed my jaw and glanced down at the cup in my hands, my pinky no more than a couple inches from her slim fingers, “I’m glad, too. That you’re not with someone,”

When I glanced up, Clarke was looking at me in a hard, hopeful way, and I knew the feelings boiling in my stomach weren’t one sided.

Jesus, how did I get here?

“Oh?” Clarke intoned, her voice ribbed with mirth and interest.

I smirked and nodded. I opened my mouth and hesitated. As it turns out, that hesitation was my downfall, because a soft knock broke the tense quiet between us.

“Mom? Woods?” Anya’s voice was soft and slightly worried. I shared a satisfied smile with Clarke at the nervous tone. Looks like she knew exactly how to handle her wild daughter, “It’s uh, dinner time?”

“Come on in, J-Cakes, it’s all right,” Clarke returned.

Anya slid the door open and looked from me to her mother. I put on my best poker face. She shifted her weight unsteadily and scratched a cheek self-consciously.

“So, are you staying for dinner?” the girl asked me, trying hard to look unaffected. Instantly, I felt my spine straighten. These parent/teacher meetings would normally take about 30 minutes. Since stepping on the property, around 4 hours had elapsed. It was really time for me to go.

I turned to Clarke, and she smiled slightly.

“Well, J-Cakes, I’m sure Lexa’s got a lot to do. We don’t want to keep her here just for our entertainment,”

I nodded at her gratefully. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to stay. It was the opposite. I wanted to stay too much, and the only reason I was here was because I was Ms. Woods.

“Well,” Anya started and stopped, tossing her hair in the way she did when she wanted to prove something. “You should come back sometime and eat then,” She bit her lip, looking at me look at Clarke. The woman only watched me carefully.

I glanced at Anya.

“I’d like that,” I said quietly. She grinned largely for a nanosecond then nodded, nonchalant.

Clarke stood with a smile on her face, and I followed her lead. She asked Anya to do something or another to prepare for dinner, but I was too busy admiring how she was shorter than I was by maybe 6 centimeters.

She escorted me to the foyer, and I turned to open the door. My mind was racing with anything I could say to her. I just… Didn’t want this to be goodbye. But she saved me, and placed her hand over my wrist on the door. I swear electricity jumped through my veins.

I turned to her and watched the indecision play over her beautiful features. She opened her mouth, and I cut her off.

“Ms. Griffin?” I began quietly. She looked up at me, eyes full of cunning hope. I ran a hand through my hair and cleared my throat, “It was very nice meeting you,” I looked her in the eye, “And it would be my pleasure to have dinner with you and Anya sometime,”

She smiled, her eyes jumping between mine.

Her daughter does the same thing.

“Would next weekend work for you?” Her voice smoked out. I tried hard not to let the smile eclipse my face.

I failed.

Instead of embarrassing myself by speaking, I merely nodded. She bade me a goodnight and I left.

The entire drive back to my apartment in D.C. was spent thinking of nothing but the Griffin women. And what to wear next weekend.

I constantly tried to act in a way my Mom would be proud of. It’s not like I worried about it - my mother loved me. Still, I’ve got a natural skill, I’d say, for seeing the red light, and finding a way to make it green.

Call me devious, mischievous, scheming, whatever. But I do things the way I see is right, and I apologize to nobody for it. So that’s why when I decided to set my mom up with my teacher, I didn’t feel bad about it.

I remember sitting on the hard wood floor of my house, eyes closed, head leaning against the wall, and listening to something I don’t recall happening in my lifetime.

“Well, and you just walked out?” Mom laughed, her voice still the lovely smooth I’d always known, but rippling with mirth.

Ms. Woods’s chuckle was free and unbridled.

“I didn’t know what else to do!” She exclaimed, more animated than I’d ever heard her be in class, “It was my first job where a faculty member had tried to ask me out, in the middle of class!”

Mom made some comment about detention that sent both of them into full bouts of laughter, and even I smirked a little. It was a funny story. Woods was funny. She had to be, because Mom didn’t laugh like that for just anyone. By my count, she had only ever laughed like that for me. We had a good life, and I loved every second I spent with my mom. And she did too.

But I’ve seen the moments she thinks I didn’t. I’ve seen the soul-deep melancholy every Father’s Day. I know she’s sorry I never had another parent, even though I’ve never wanted one. I’ve seen the polite refusal of every disgusting business man who thought they could hit on the beautiful, widowed, flower woman.

And I did everything I could to make our lives a little bit easier. From not openly being a little shit, to getting a job without telling her. I’ve spent my whole life trying to find someone good enough for my Mom, and no one has measured up. Once, Mom had introduced me to some nurse named Niylah. I remember it clearly.

“Nice to meet you, Juliet,” Niylah had offered me sweetly. And I remember seeing my mother watching me, biting her lip. And I remember thinking to myself, “It’s not right. This isn’t right.”

And it wasn’t. After a subdued dinner where Niylah desperately tried to get me to talk about anything – school, hobbies, friends, anything – I never saw the woman again.

But Woods – Lexa – I think she might be right. Lexa does this thing when she isn’t really thinking, or maybe when all she’s doing is thinking. She quotes poetry. I mean, how fucking lame is that? Well, it’s not, really, if I were ever honest with myself. I thought it was amazing. Woods was passionate, and grounded, and intelligent. And a huge fucking dork. But strong. Maybe as strong as Mom. She was an enigma, that’s for sure.

And I respected her. Something I can’t say I’ve ever felt towards an adult. I trusted her. She treated me the way she would probably prefer to be treated, a golden rule purist, I’d say. But she was fair and rational.

And when she did that dorky quote thing, my Mom had thought it was adorable. She was excited. I saw the way she had responded, the tone, the look, the face that she usually held in. And I knew. This could be right.

And it was. It was more right than I ever hoped to be. So I kept away for a long time, just smiling and listening to my mom be happy for once. And when my butt started to hurt I gathered my courage and asked Lexa to stay.

Next time, she said.

Well, that was all right. Because it gave me time to plan. And plan I did. There was an event at the city aquarium coming up next weekend, and I made sure that my Mom knew I wanted to go. So it was scheduled for us to take the rickety truck we used for deliveries into town, and I made sure Woods was there at least 30 minutes before we were set to leave.

I’ll laugh for the rest of my life about the look on Mom’s face when she saw who was at the door. A temporary hiccup, as Lexa realized what had happened, and my mom fled back to her room to redo her hair. Woods gave me the best growling earful about manners, trust, respect and consideration I’ve ever gotten.

But we all wound up going anyway.

See? Red light, green light.

And we had the most fun I can remember having with someone besides my Mom. Maybe even more. Lexa was smart and quick as a whip, teasing and trading remarks with me. She made my mom laugh, and was generally relaxed and great. In school she’d always be so tightly controlled, but letting her hair down was my favorite thing about her.

We ate a grease-covered lunch and tackled another level of the aquarium. It was a lot of firsts; the first time I ever saw my teacher blush. Mom had learned Lexa was bilingual and jokingly said Lexa’d be a babel fish when it came time to assign spirit-fish, and proceeded to call the woman ‘babe’ for the next three hours. Lexa blushed every time.

Another first – the first time I’d called her Lexa instead of Woods or ‘my teacher’. She had mocked me with J-Cakes and Juliet one too many times, and so she was decidedly Lexa.

And it was the first time I had fantasies.

Of a life with Lexa in it. Of Mom and Lexa falling in love and getting married or something. Where we could come to the aquarium and be this happy, but everyday. Of course, this was just a fantasy. They didn’t even hold hands, even though the glances they shared would have electrocuted anyone standing in between them, they were so charged.

But call me devious, mischievous, scheming, whatever. By the end of the night, I had made sure that Lexa would be coming back next weekend. And I will be sure to guarantee that I won’t be there.

Oh, Anya is a scheming little girl. Well, relatively a girl. I had learnt that her 15^th birthday was next month. But still, all the more devious. When I arrived at the Griffin home for the third time, I found that Anya had gone to her friend Ontari’s house for the weekend.

And so it left Clarke and I together. We had dinner in complete ease, and a sense of wellbeing was spread through every comment we made to one another. It was strangely domestic, but I didn’t fight the comfort that came. She was the most confusing mix of thrilling contentment. It didn’t help that the woman was breathtakingly beautiful.

When I had fought her to wash the dishes, she invited me to walk through the fields around her house, and I agreed eagerly. We made our way out of the house and back into the fields of flowers, where she loaned me some sandals to stroll in. She went barefoot.

We walked for a while down a worn dirt path, and I was grateful she finally let me marvel at her life’s work in relative quiet.

She took an inquisitive glance over me, her gaze all at once interested and confused, “Lexa, can I ask you something?”

I tilted my head curiously. The sun was starting to die, and the woman stopped walking to focus her full attention on me.

“Why are you so kind to my daughter?” Her voice was soft and honest.

Immediately, I opened my mouth to protest the basis of the question. She held up a hand.

“Please, don’t deny it. She speaks so highly of you, you know,” I tried desperately not to let my face warm. Clarke sort of smirked at me.

“For some reason, she comes directly home after school now, and she talks about Melville and Salinger. She has stacks of books under her bed that she can’t explain,” Her sky blue eyes were lit clear by the sun, and I felt more rooted to the ground than the flowers beside me while she continued.

“Arkadia Girls’ is a very prestigious academy, Lexa. I’ve gone through a lot of pain to send her there. And I know for a fact that any real fighting should result in immediate suspension, at the very least,” she tilted her head at me. “The only person able to prevent that would be a faculty member,”

Her voice was still that light, solemn, and scratched soothe.

“Juliet has never really liked school, but she went because I asked her to,” she glanced at the ground, “I don’t know how much she’s told you, but I haven’t been able to give her an… easy life, per say,” Her blue eyes didn’t apologize, but they begged understanding. True understanding. “And it’s resulted in her taking on this sort of rugged exterior,” She smiled slightly.

“And she hasn’t been known to go easy on educators,” she grinned at me, and I could only grin back because I know, “But you seem to genuinely care for Juliet. So again, Lexa, why?”

I stood to my full height and looked at the woman. I felt like I knew her. But still I knew almost nothing about her. Except for the fact that she was widowed to apparently an abusive drug addict, and that she loved her daughter more than anything.

“Clarke,” I started, stepping toward the concerned parent. I wanted to take her hands in mine and make the crease between her eyebrows disappear. Instead, I let my hands fall safely in my pockets and cleared my throat.

“You’ve been honest with me, and so I owe it to you to be honest as well,” Past scars long healed over and forgotten were brushed in my mind. “I did not make my own life easy, just as Anya sometimes has a tendency to do,” I chuckled.

“I never had parents, really. I was given up for adoption because I was born different and passed around the foster care system,” Clarke’s eyes remained locked on me. “I was filled with… hurt, I suppose. But I made it look like anger. I was lost,”

I smiled weakly and shrugged.

“I lived as a being of ‘barelys’. I barely scraped by without being arrested, I barely graduated high school, I barely had relationships, and even then I was told they were wrong, and I barely lived, honestly. I finally found a last resort and enlisted in the Navy. Four years of that will shape a kid right up,” I smiled and observed the fields of wonderful brilliance, “But during my time overseas I found an inner peace and grew up, for lack of a better word.”

My attention went back to the woman in front of me.

“The Navy paid for me to go to school and get my teacher’s certification. I taught for a bit and kept going to school, and I somehow worked my way into Arkadia Girls’, where I thought I might do some good. And I have,” Clarke clasped her hands in front of her and watched me.

“I think I try so hard with Anya because she reminds me of myself,” I frown a little and tuck my bottom lip into my teeth. “I see now that she’s cared for and loved, so I know she’ll never make my mistakes,” I glance at her.

“I only hope you don’t think me too forward in my attention to her. It’s only… I just know that if I can find her something to be passionate about, she could do anything,” I admitted.

And I didn’t lie. Part of being a teacher was the feeling of having such potential in my midst, and I loved trying to cultivate it. But Anya was the most promising student I’ve ever seen. She really was just so intelligent, so humorous and kind. She was just a great kid. A special kid.

Clarke was quiet, ensuring that I was finished. I merely looked at her, her beautiful face three feet from mine. Her eyes shifted between my own.

“Thank you,” was all she said.

I nodded.

Why does this feel so… big?

“So, now you know Ms. Lexa’s story,” I continued a bit more lightly. She turned laughing blue eyes on me, a small smile curling her lips. I turned my body, and we started walking once more, albeit much slower than before.

“Well,” she smiled fully. “Indeed I do,” she glanced at my clothes, a soft green button up with skinny jeans, “at least, parts of it,” she continued mysteriously.

I laughed.

“Then, it is my turn, huh?” She ventured on, seeming perfectly at ease, strolling in the deepening sun. I glanced at her coolly, and she returned the eye contact warmly.

“Only if you want to,”

She looked away, but smiled.

“I was disowned by my family and told to pack my things and leave when I was 16,” her cello’d voice started. “I stayed with a friend for a week, and she brought me to a party with some local fraternity.”

Dread clenched my stomach. Clarke merely walked on, head high.

“I don’t remember the night, but what wound up happening was a court case and a shotgun wedding,” she laughed humorlessly. “I was in no position to afford to take care of myself, much less a baby, so I really had no choice.”

I stared at her in focus as she continued.

“Finn wasn’t a kind man,” was all she said. “But at least he never took out his frustrations on Juliet,” She shrugged, “I was a widow by the time she was 5, and by then I had gotten an education and could afford to move away from Baltimore, to here,” She ran her eyes over the field of flowers.

“I worked to send Juliet to good schools, and she let me do it. Though she never made it easy on others. That is, until she met you. And the rest, as they say, is history,” She finished lightly.

I nodded in silence.

“So that makes you, what, 31?” I asked.

Clarke sent me a playful glare.

“Well, a lady never reveals her age,” she teased, looking for all the world like Demeter among her harvest.

I smiled and tilted my head at her.

“Why were you disowned in the first place?”

She raised an eyebrow at me and I scoffed.

“You tell me all that, and now suddenly I’m over the line?” I shook my head good-naturedly and she grinned.

“Why were you born different?” Clarke countered.

I missed a step, coming out of my shoe and Clarke laughed gently beside me. We had been walking toward the greenhouse, and were rounding it to walk the far side. The glass was wet with condensation.

If it counted, this was our third time meeting each other, and I’ll be damned if it hasn’t felt like a date every time. It was almost laughable neither of us had brought the subject of our sexuality, and my physiology, up earlier.

“See?” she hummed, halting her walk to let me readjust, “Not so forthcoming anymore, are we?”

I laughed self consciously, running a hand through my hair as I tried to fix the shoe. I stepped forward without looking up and almost ran the beautiful woman over. On a reflex, I held her biceps to ensure she didn’t fall.

Her eyes showed surprise and then immediately relaxed. She didn’t move out of my grip. Then again, I didn’t move either. I really just couldn’t look away from her. She was so strong, so vibrant, and full of life and humor. Never in my life had I felt a pull like this to another person. Nothing in my logical mind could tell me that Clarke wasn’t the most attractive being on the planet.

She spoke to a piece of me that required no thought or rationale, and I found my ever so organized heart beat with a force that could be measured on the Richter scale. Her eyes were liquid pools of cyan and passion, and not once did she look away from me.

Her arms lowered, and I couldn’t find it in myself to let go of her soft skin. The pads of my fingers skimmed that silky surface and lingered at her wrists. Who knew that entire galaxies could fit in a human being’s eyes?

All the poetry I have read, analyzed, memorized. Every stanza, and every essay by a romantic went to hell in a hand basket. I couldn’t think, couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. Not unless Clarke did it first.

The space between us had shrunk in distance, but grew exponentially in temperature. It felt like being injected with some sort of toxin, and the antidote was right in front of me. My chest was heavy, and I breathed deeply. Even the depth of air I had obtained brought us closer yet.

When my face had descended, and hers inclined, the roaring inside of my body ceased. Her lips were softer than any I had ever imagined, and even as I felt them on mine, I didn’t know how I would be able to kiss any but hers. My eyes slid shut, and the sensations in my body maximized. I only realized I had wrapped my hands to the small of her slim back when hers had slid around my shoulders and into my hair.

I couldn’t let this end.

I breathed Clarke’s air in through my nose and gently pressed her body into mine. She tilted her head and deepened the kiss. I felt her lips part, and I instantly anticipated her request. Her lips were so full, so soft, and her mouth was warm and wet. I traced the inside of her lips with reverence, and she responded by twisting her fingers gently into my hair. Softly, I bit on her bottom lip and she suckled my top one with care. The light vacuum seal broke and she returned to explore my mouth with equal tenderness, and my tongue met hers in sliding synchrony. She tasted like tea and an underlying honey sweetness.

Clarke pressed herself further into my arms, and I held her securely to me, her body firm and soft in all the right places. She was driving me crazy, and I knew she could feel my length hardening against her. We kissed for long, long minutes. It made my heart thump wildly in my chest, but it also sent heat sliding down my spine.

I’m 33. I’ve been with many women in my lifetime, probably more than I should have. Kissing women wasn’t knew for me – but this, this was something I had never thought I’d think of. Kissing Clarke was indescribable. And somehow, through the haze and fog of lust, she was still able to communicate.

The nip of perfect teeth on my bottom lip.

You excite me more than anything has in a long time.

A curling of fingers against the finer hair low on my head.

Please, take charge. Let me feel you.

A slow lick against my tongue.

I want you. But I also want you to be careful with me.

I did everything in my power to speak back to her. And when it all got to be too much, too hot, too fast and too slow all at once – I carefully took her hands from my hair and held them in my own. A last kiss, and I was once again staring into those cerulean eyes.

I breathed heavily, searching her expression for hesitation, second thoughts, cold feet, anything. And I found none. I dipped back down to kiss her lightly, and she met me.

I didn’t know it then, but she would always meet me halfway.

She took me by the hand and opened the greenhouse. I didn’t have time to admire the more temperamental flowers, because Clarke had a purpose. And a destination, more like. I found out that it was a pile of throws and pillows she later explained as the bed she used for when a particular species needed constant supervision.

I didn’t question it then.

But who would? Who in their right minds would when the most beautiful woman in the world was looking at you the way she was looking at me. And when that beautiful woman reached out to unbutton your shirt, a lip tucked into her perfect mouth, who would think of questions?

Unless it was, ‘Is this room soundproof?’

We fell together in an easy collapse of clothing to the dirty floor, followed by ourselves. As carefully as I could, I laid Clarke down on the blankets, never leaving her mouth. Kissing Clarke just felt so good. Kissing her skin tasted just as wonderful.

She hummed and arched into me, rocking her pelvis against my dick as naturally as if she had always known it would be this way. Clarke breathed my name into the humid air as I laved over her breasts, my hands sweeping every inch I could reach.

Clarke gasped and hissed when I dropped down to kiss her from calf to thigh. I grinned at the flush of her cheeks, and she scoffed and chuckled at me. Her smile split and I felt my heart rend in two at my first taste of her. She coated my tongue like buttercream, and I shut my eyes as I relaxed into the flavor of this woman.

I moaned in relief, and Clarke’s breath rattled as she breathed in, a hand grasping at a blanket under her, the other rolling her own nipple skillfully. Quickly, I burrowed my tongue inside of her and Clarke’s hips jolted in surprise. Softening my tongue, I drew large figure eights up and outside her clit teasingly, only to stroke back inside her in rhythm. Clarke seemed to love and hate this, and she glared at me with lust written deep in her eyes.

Ruining my pattern, I replaced my tongue with a single digit, and finally suckled her clit and hummed. The woman arched her spine and whined lowly, and with a flutter of a pointed tongue, she came.

Before it was even over, she had taken my jaw into her hands and pulled me to her lips once more. She kissed me deeply, and the scrape of her heated inner thigh against my cock had me groaning.

“Clarke,” I whispered deeply, my jaw aching pleasantly, “I’m clean, but I'm fertile,”

The blonde’s eyes seemed to heat inexplicably, before continuing our heated kiss briefly and breaking away.

“Jeans,” she grunted, twisting and reaching for her pants. She searched easily, and I raised an amused eyebrow at her when she came back with a foil package. The woman winked at me and I outright laughed.

“How?”

Clarke practically purred, “You adjusted your hard on at the aquarium,”

I bit my lip, remembering the exact moment in time. Still, I ticked an eyebrow at her skeptically.

“You’ll need to explain yourself later,”

“Later,” Clarke breathed against the condom as she tore it open with her teeth. My breath caught as she reached down and stroked my cock easily, her eyes flat with want, “Much later,”

She rolled the condom on carefully, and I found myself a strange sort of restless amid the heated ease of the moment. Involuntarily, I bucked my hips against her hand, and she drew me into another kiss as she bracketed my hips with her legs, the arches of her feet on my calves.

I settled over her, and she reached to position me correctly. A hum of my name, and I finally pushed inside of her. Immediately, we shared groans, and I felt the selfish want to come instantly.

“Clarke,” I moaned, “You feel so good, Clarke,”

For her part, the gorgeous woman simply keened and pressed her nails into my back. Steadily, I pulled out and pushed back in. When Clarke’s eyes opened, I nearly fell into the burning depth of them. I’d never made love to a woman, but as I stared at the heaving beauty underneath me, I knew this was close.

Watching each other, without words, I sped up slightly. My thrusts grew sharper, my intervals quicker, and my abs started to ache. As satisfying as sitting up and watching Clarke’s gorgeous breasts bounce would be, I didn’t want anything else than the press of our skin together. Bracing on my elbows, Clarke ran her hands over my cheeks, my hair, my shoulders, and we rarely separated our lips.

When she came, it was in sporadic, unintended moments, and I had never felt so warm. My back ached, and Clarke eventually gently pushed us over until we lay side-by-side, her thigh cradled high in the arch of my hip.

“Clarke,” I rasped, “Clarke, I’m so close. I need-,”

The blonde simply heaved against me, rocking in time, “Come, Lex,” she whispered lowly, stroking my hair, “Come on, tiger,”

I felt a blazing ice roll from the base of my spine, down into my hips and explode outward. I gasped as my orgasm rolled through me powerfully, and I felt Clarke’s insides coil and tighten around my hardness one last time. Emptying out in soothing, electric streams, I panted harshly as Clarke watched me with a deeply satisfied smile.

I grunted a laugh at her, and laid a kiss to her smug lips. Gently, I eased out of her, the woman only humming. I rolled onto my back and set about removing and tying off the condom.

Two hours, and we were slick with perspiration. The greenhouse helped none to cool us, and I couldn’t decide if I loved or was obsessed with the way Clarke’s naked body slid against mine as she found strength to prop herself on an elbow, tracing patterns on my chest.

Once I caught my breath, I could only swivel my head to look Clarke in the eye and ask peculiarly, “Tiger?”

The women settled over me and chuckled, kissing my shoulder, “Definitely. I’ve never seen stamina like this. That, and you did this hot little growly thing every time I came,”

Something in my heart purred in satisfaction at Clarke’s account of our exchange, and I couldn’t help but kiss her deeply. She hummed a pleased sort of sound, and pulled away smirking. I smiled, rolling my eyes, completely entranced by this woman.

It felt like she were practically writing a script on my skin as she traced patterns into it,

Say something. Say it.

“Please, go out with me?” I asked huskily, my eyes never leaving the perfect features of her face.

A revised script, but good things to those who wait.

Her red, red, redder than normal lips, pulled into a smile, and I didn’t resist the urge to kiss those lips. She didn’t stop smiling, even with my mouth over hers. I smiled back.

“I’ll ask Anya, of course,” I added breathlessly. Clarke shook her head.

“There’s no need to ask permission, Lex,” Her eyes sparkled at me. “She’s been asking me to get to know you since we met.”

I had raised an eyebrow at the start of the sentence, and was laughing by the end of it. I smiled.

“Well, kitten,” I mocked her recent pet name for me. “Making a suitor wait for an answer is just as bad mannered as saying no,” I teased.

Please God, don’t say no. Because I’m a smile away from falling in love with you, and I honestly couldn’t take it.

But Clarke smiled, and I smiled back.

She smiled, and I’m not sure if my heart can take that either.

A quarter of the way into my sophomore year was the first time I ever saw Lexa and my mom fight. If they’d had arguments before, I didn’t know about them. And I’m sure they had. My mother was stubborn as a weed, and Lex was obstinate and determined to a fault. Luckily, they agreed on mostly everything, but I’m sure they’ve had conflicts. Still, this was incredible.

Do you know what a clusterfuck is?

Allow me to enlighten.

It started like a typical Saturday; I woke up to Lex in running shorts and a t-shirt, grinning and wafting a plate of bacon under my nose. I groaned and rolled over.

“Evil,” I moaned out.

Lexa laughed and walked back into the kitchen. She was a disgusting amount of a morning person, but I honestly didn’t mind. Mom had a habit of sleeping in without Lexa for a few hours more on weekends, and for those couple hours it was just Lex and I.

Which I liked.

Today it was raining, and Lexa had opened a window like she always does to let the sound and smell in. I sat at the table and she gave me a plate, a kiss on the head, and a choice between coffee and tea. I picked coffee, like I always do when it’s just her and I.

Some times we talked, some times we read in silence. Some times a mix of both. This time though, Lexa obviously had something to say. I raised an eyebrow at her and blew on my coffee.

“Today, is your mom and I’s year anniversary,” She started in that eloquently clumsy way of hers. I nodded, interested, “And I’ve been thinking for a long time about this-“

I gripped the cup.

“Are you going to propose?”

My voice was high and girlish, not at all the usual sulk and silk. Lexa merely laughed at me, the sound rich and deep. I scowled and continued to blow on my beverage.

“No,” she chuckled. I rolled my eyes, “But I did want to ask her a large question of that sort,” she furrowed her eyebrows, “And I’m only going to if I know your thoughts first,” she fixated on me. I only tilted my head, my curiosity heavy.

Lex sighed, running a hand through her hair in that particular way of hers.

“I was wondering how you’d feel about the three of us living together – permanently,” she watched me closely.

I frowned.

“Seriously?” I almost tsk’d at her. “I honestly thought you’d already moved in,” I shrugged, “So no worries there. Where would we live?”

Lexa’s mouth parted minutely before she refocused, her smile growing wide.

“I, uh, don’t know. I hadn’t gotten that far,” her deep green eyes beckoned for the truth. “Do you think she’ll say it’s alright?”

This time, I did tsk.

“Don’t be dense,” I tossed out, drinking my coffee to give me something to do. “Of course she will.”

Lexa only nodded her thanks, looking toward the closed bedroom door. I was glad for the lack of supervision, because I was grinning my face off.

We’re going to live with Lexa!

Suddenly, she jolted from her chair and poured a cup of tea and threw some food on a plate. The plate went on a tray with the tea and she was off, walking toward the door. She placed her back against it, a hand turning the knob, smiled, and pushed inside, closing the door behind her.

I sighed and smiled largely.

Today will be a good day.                                          

The next time I saw Lexa, she was red in the face, watery in the eyes, and trembling from head to toe. Her jaw was locked, and she was swallowing every other breath. She had stepped out of their bedroom and shut the door behind her forcefully. I had run to see what was the matter.

Today was not a good day.

My jaw hit the floor at the anger I saw in her. Some people have hot anger, but Lexa has cold anger. It’s icy and furious, and twice as deadly. It also meant that there was no asking ‘what was the matter’.

Instead, I just saw her look over me, an expression of unbridled, agonized, apology and self-loathing on her face. At my bewildered look her viridian eyes I had thought so impenetrable, started to tear up even more.

“Sorry, Scout,” was all she said, her voice cracking slightly.

I stepped forward at the same moment she turned, grabbed her car keys from the key holder, and left the house with a slam. I gaped after her.

Wh-what?

I ran to the front room and watched Lexa slam the door to her car, dash a hand over her cheeks, start it up, and leave. I ran back to their room and pressed an ear to the door. Soft choking met my hearing, and my eyes widened and mouth fell open.

A minute of standing and listening, I hesitantly lifted a hand and knocked softly. An even softer missive for entrance met me, and I slowly pushed the door open.

My mom sat on the end of her bed, wiping the last of her tears from her eyes. I’d seen her cry before, but not like this. Somewhere in my long-forgotten memory, I can hear Mom sobbing and loud, male shouting. But that’s long since faded from being a nightmare. Now, her beautiful blue eyes were rimmed red, and it made my heart clench painfully.

I didn’t know what to do.

So I went to her and folded myself into her arms, which opened and closed instinctively. I felt her press warm kisses to my hair, and I hugged her tightly. We stayed for a moment like that, and I pushed away gently, my gaze wide and searching.

“Mom,” I started, my throat dry. I couldn’t shake the feeling of… fear. I was scared, and I wasn’t really sure why, “What- what’s going on? Lex left,” mom’s eyes widened slightly and then slid shut at that piece of information. I shifted and she opened them, inviting me to get it all out.

“Lex left, and, is she coming back?” I swallowed, “Did she say something stupid? Cause sometimes she thinks really hard, but she doesn’t say anything. So it looks like she’s ignoring you, but she’s really just coming up with something brilliant,” I was rambling, “And- and you know how long it took her to tell you she loved you? Which was stupid cause she told me like, ages before,” I swallowed, “And she practically lives here already, mom, so it’s not even a big deal for all of us to move in. And we all love each other so…” I fell silent.

“She told you?” my mom’s raspy tone glided out.

“Well, she sort of more like asked me,” I smiled, thinking about the massive dork move, and my smile fell at my Mom’s hard and confused look. Then, she smiled sort of sadly.

“Of course she did,” she whispered. Mom fell quiet, then readjusted to look at me squarely, “J-Cakes, we had a disagreement. A- a rather large one,” she started softly.

I nodded, my voice taut, “About what?”

Mom shook her pure blonde tresses.

“Never you mind, darling,” she refocused and pet my hair affectionately, “But just know, no matter what happens, Lexa loves you,” I nodded, “We had a fight, my darling. But it doesn’t mean anything’s changed, okay? Just give her some time. It’s going to be okay,” she said soothingly.

My forehead crinkled.

What if it isn’t?

I almost asked it, but I held my tongue. Instead, I nodded, and hugged my mom harder. She held me in equal pressure, pressing a kiss to my temple. The rain came down, and my mind was whirling.

Lexa didn’t come back that day. Or the next. So when the final bell rang on Monday, I sprinted to her classroom and waited for her homeroom to file out. Some useless girls were asking stupid questions they could have asked their classmates and I rolled my eyes. Goddamn fan club.

The girls left, and I stepped into the classroom and snapped the door shut behind me. Lexa whipped her head up and relaxed when she saw me. A second later, she tensed. I narrowed my eyes at her and stalked across to her desk.

“Listen, I don’t know what the fuck happened,” I started in, “But that was not okay. You were- yelling!” I huffed, “I’ve never heard you even back talk Mom. And- and she was crying. You made my Mom cry, and then you just left? I mean, it takes a fucking jerk to start a shouting match but who the fuck just doesn’t even end it?” I was switching from sounding sad and bitter to heated and mad. I think I was just hurt.

Lex had this hard, conflicted look on her face. It was such an adult expression, that I almost didn’t want to grow up. Her strong and sharp features were mature and complex. A sort of necessary hurt, a tired anger lying on her heart. But I pressed on.

“We’re supposed to be – I don’t know – a family or some shit!” I threw my hands up, and my throat got hot. When Lex’s eyes snapped up to mine, I looked at the ground, “I can’t believe you’d just change your mind and walk out like that,” my face burned and my hands clenched, “Mom’s so sad, and you didn’t even say goodbye,” My throat started to close, “You- you’re a bastard, you know? You’re supposed to love us, and-“

Lex’s sharp glacial scent washes my senses clean, and I let my head rest on her chest. Her arms went around me fiercely, and I unclenched my fists only to clamp down on her shirt. I choked a shaking breath, and head butt her strong shoulder joint lightly.

She guided me in backwards steps to her desk and forced me to sit in her chair. Her knees bent as she crouched to see me clearly, and I felt my heart beat regularly at her familiar, earnest green eyes. I waited through her habitual silence. Lexa had a thing about words. She found great weight in them, I think. I remember I had asked her about it once at dinner.

“Why do you do that?” I had questioned, fork in hand.

Lexa looked away from whatever she had replied to my mom, and raised an eyebrow and a smile at me.

“Do what?” She asked, “Be hilarious and good looking at the same time? I’m not sure. It’s natural, I think,”

I rolled my eyes and Mom laughed.

“No,” I blunted, my lips curling despite my efforts not to smile. “Why do you always take such long periods of time to think before you reply to someone?”

She tilted her head at me.

“When are you thinking about?”

I shrugged.

“At school, usually.”

She nodded, thinking.

I smirked, “And right now.”

Mom laughed.

Lex smiled, but let me have my fun.

“It’s because what you say affects others so much,” she told me plainly. Mom put her fork down and reached for her water. “I remember when I was overseas, I had fought some girl over a bunk and lost. On the same day, I was justifying that same fight to my friend, and the words he reprimanded me with lasted a lot longer with me than my black eye,”

I nodded slowly.

“S o you’re saying you weren’t always able to be hilarious and good looking at the same time?” Mom teased. Lex laughed loudly and complained winningly, but I was lost in thought.

I had smiled at my dinner, thinking the world of Lex.

But now, I could only frown, waiting for her words to either help or hurt.

“Anya,” she annunciated clearly, those eyes piercing in their seriousness, “I love you and your mother very much,” She intoned lowly, sincerity in every syllable. “I am more sure of that than anything in my entire life. And I cannot have you doubting it,” She placed a warm hand on my leg, and I let myself be comforted. Lex wouldn’t lie to me. So I nodded, biting my lip.

“As for what happened the other night,” she sighed. “It just got out of hand,” I leaned forward.

“Well pick it back up!” I half pleaded, half demanded, “It’s not fair of you to just-“

“Anya,” Lexa sharped. “It was not my decision. Your mother said no,” Her face was crumpled in worry, fear, and sadness. I gaped.

“What?” I asked in disbelief.

She heaved another deep sigh.

“It is more complicated that just yes or no,” she began, thought, then shook her head, “But what it amounts to is money.”

“You have plenty of money!” I yelped. It was true. Arkadia had to have paid the equivalent of a college professor’s salary, and Lexa owned almost nothing except for a car and motorcycle long paid off, and a hovel of an apartment in D.C. that she never stayed in anymore.

Lexa never flinched when I called her out on things I had no business talking about, so she just nodded like usual. And then it clicked.

“But mom doesn’t…” I trailed off slowly, all the fight going out of me. I chuckled weakly, meeting Lex’s tired, conflicted eyes, “And she’s so stubborn. I see,” was all I said.

Lexa nodded, and stood up.

“It’s all going to be okay, Anya. I promise,” She flexed her back, “Although I think it will get worse before it gets better,” she said with a slight accent of... guilt?

I narrowed my eyes.

“What did you do?”

She ran a hand through her hair sheepishly, her professional bun only allowing her to smooth the stray hairs back in place.

“I-,” she started, “Can you keep a secret?” Her green eyes plead. I snorted.

“What’d you do, buy Mom a ring or something?”

Lexa didn’t reply. My eyes grew wider at every passing millisecond. And then I flew at her, wrapping my arms around her trim waist.

“Did you really?” I practically screamed, love and pride and excitement galloping my heart out of my chest. Lexa laughed and squeezed me back affectionately.

“I did,” She said in that subdued, joyful, way. Lex was grinning widely. And then she sort of hiccupped a cough and added, “I also bought the land your mom is renting, and put it in her name.”

I broke away from her and laughed long and hard.

“Mom’s gonna be so pissed at you,” I sang gleefully. “But she’s gonna say yes, you know,” I grew a little quieter, a little more serious, “And then you’ll have to spend the rest of your life with us,”

Lexa nodded, her eyes sparkling.

“I know, ‘Sette,” She was smiling gently. Her nicknames for me were pure dork. They were almost little riddles. She called me children from literature’s names. Scout, To Kill A Mockingbird. Mowgli, A Jungle Book. And my favorite, Cosette, Les Miserables. I liked Cosette, because she was adopted. Like I was about to be.

My smile was hopeful. This was everything I had ever dreamt of. Well, almost everything. I swallowed, and took a chance.

“So,” I started nervously and flicked my head to clear my hair from my eyes. “Remember a long time ago, when I said that you were old enough to be my Mama?” I trailed off and cleared my throat, my eyes leaving Lex’s bright and gentle eyes. My spine lost the iron. This was too embarrassing.

Then, there Lex was, down on one knee, a little black box in one hand.

“Antalya Juliet Griffin,” she said lightly. “I love you more than all the world, and I love your mother even more. I don't want a day to pass where you both aren't in it. Would you do me the honor of being your Mama?”

I laughed joyfully and went to her level to hug her. My head buried in her neck, and I couldn’t stop smiling.

“You’re a dork, Mama,” I said. Nothing had ever felt so right.

She kissed my temple, right where Mom always did.

I separated from her and we both stood. She said something about driving home after a meeting with the principal and I agreed. I waited for a little over an hour and read a book Lex had given me.

In all honesty, I’d have to re-read what I had gotten through, as I was smiling and thinking of the perfect life I had. Me, my mom, and my mama. I shook my head, trying to clear the smile.

Mama.

Lex walked out of the office, telling me she was through. We drove back home in relative silence. I glanced at her.

“You know, every arrangement she’s made for the past two days has looked like a funeral arrangement,”

“Eyes on the road,” Mama replied. I rolled my eyes.

“This road is a straight away for 30 kilometers,”

Lexa had been teaching me to drive for about 7 months. I’d be turning 16 in a short 3 weeks, and I was trying to convince Mom if I could learn to drive a car, I could learn to drive a motorcycle.

It’s a work in progress, but Lex- Mama- has been with me every step.

“Are you going to tell her?” I asked.

“Yes,” she answered my question simply.

I smiled largely and refocused.

When we got home, I opened the door and called out my arrival. I was met with silence and assumed Mom must be out back. I crossed to the kitchen and opened the sliding door.

“Mom?” I called, stepping out.

“I’m here, J-Cakes.” Mom replied. She appeared, arms weighed down with a tray of compact soil enrichment pods. “You’re home late,” she inquired lightly.

I grinned.

“Sorry,” I let her kiss my head. “I was getting you a present,” I baited. She bit with a smile.

“Is that right?”

I nodded, and half turned back to the house.

“Mama!” I shouted.

Like we had rehearsed it, Lexa appeared, lean and long, like a sharpened knife. I heard, more than saw, the tray of soil slip through my mom’s fingers and hit the ground hard. Whether from shock at my identifier or from Lexa’s arrival, I didn’t know. But Lexa never took her eyes off of my mom, and Mom couldn’t look away from my soon to be Mama.

“Anya,” Lex’s strong and smooth voice was a request and an asked command all at once. Didn’t have to tell me twice. Mama and Mom had shit to work out.

“I’ll be at Ontari’s,” I said quickly, scampering around Lexa and shutting the door behind me. But I didn’t leave. Not yet. I ran to the kitchen and grabbed a small black case. I sprinted to the bedroom and looked out the window, peeking through the blinds.

Lex and Mom. Mom and Mama. They spoke. In short bursts, and long pauses. At the end of a particularly dead span of time, I saw Lexa breathe, state something incredibly plainly, and then breathe again. Then all at once, Mom was shouting, her expression livid.

I smirked.

She’d never hit Lex, not ever, even if she wanted to. Badly. But Mama stood like a sentinel, and Mom eventually ran out of steam. She was tearing up, but from what emotion, I think only Lexa knew.

And for the second time that day, I saw Lexa bend and kneel to one knee. I fumbled hysterically with the case and whipped a camera out. I caught the look on both their faces. And what I saw was beautiful.

No hesitation.

No falling of the mouth in disbelief.

No pause to collect thoughts.

Lexa knelt, her mouth moved, and her eyes shone. Mom was nodding before Lex finished speaking, and she was smiling so largely I felt bad for her cheeks. Tears streamed from her eyes, and I knew exactly why this time. I felt my own eyes water when Lexa stood and gathered every inch of my mom in her arms and they held onto each other like the wind was pushing them together.

When they separated, they were crying and smiling and Lexa’s hand was still the steadiest of still as she put that ring on my Mom’s finger. Mom reached around and held Mama close. Their foreheads touched and traded whispered words, smiles stealing across their faces. When they kissed, I looked away.

I bit my lip and shook my head. I put the camera away and left the house, smiling all 4 kilometer’s to Ontari’s.

When I got there, she answered the door with a cocked head and a frown.

“What’s with you?” My best friend started innocently. I turned to her, my smile turning mischievous. In movement so fast she couldn’t track it, I swooped in and kissed her flush on the mouth.

I broke away still grinning.

“Nothing,” I whistled, showing myself inside.

I laid my head on the pillow and closed my eyes, my arms wrapping around the cushion. Next to me, Clarke purred like a cat. I heard her roll over and felt her splay herself over my back, heavy breasts pressing into me sensually.

We had just finished and I could already feel my dick hardening, arousal building back up.

She pressed kisses to my shoulder and I smiled into the pillow.

“Hey Tiger,” she kissed my ear, “My love,” Clarke beckoned sultrily. I groaned and she allowed me to roll onto my back. She settled on top of me, and I slid a hand through her thick blonde hair to pull her into a smoldering kiss.

I rolled her onto her back and trailed kisses to that spot just under her jaw, below her ear, and I smirked at the moaned complaint from the pliant woman. I kissed the spot and pulled back to smile at Clarke. She copied my move and pushed agile fingers through my hair.

Insatiable.

I didn’t think I’d ever get enough of this woman. Her cerulean eyes were orchid petals and liquid diamonds.

“I love you,” I murmured for probably the hundredth time that day. She smirked and kissed me lightly. Her reply was one hundred and one.

I leaned back and supported my head on a fixed hand, trailing my fingertips over her softer than silk skin. I tracked her stomach to the familiar 8-centimeter ridge of slight scar tissue over her pubic bone.

Soft hands tilted my chin up to meet her amused blue eyes.

“What’s up, stud?”

I peered at her inquisitively.

“Do you ever think about it?” I asked honestly. She smiled softly, officially amused. I stroked the transverse caesarian scar lovingly. The palm I laid flat over her womb told her exactly what I was referring to, but she wanted to talk about it.

“How do you mean?”

“Think about having another?”

Clarke thumbed my cheekbone.

“Only in the past year or so,” She said cheekily. I smirked gently. I kissed the hand, “Do you?” her throaty tones asks me.

I thought for a moment.

“I’ve thought about it,” I said slowly, “But never seriously,”

“Why?”

I loved Clarke. I loved her complexity. I loved her simplicity. I loved that she didn’t need many things. It made me want to give her everything.

“I don’t think I’d be a good mother,” I said easily, “I never had one, and never really knew what a good one looked like,” I smiled and kissed her, “Until I met you, that is,”

Clarke laughed, pushing me away from her and onto my back. She swung a leg over me, and I rose up to hold her trim waist gamely. She grinned down at me.

“Well, now we both know that’s not true,” she kissed me sweetly. “My daughter couldn’t ask for a better parent. Heavens knows she chose you even before I did, hm, Mama?”

I chuckled against her lips. Anya had surprised even me with that one. Still, my chest had flamed with love and pride at her almost-request. In truth, I loved it. I never thought I’d be anyone’s Mama, much less Anya’s.

“Careful, Mama,” Clarke laughed against me, her hands steady on my shoulders. “Your smile might stay that big, and then what would your students think of you?”

I laughed, kissing her collarbone.

“Let’s get married first, kitten. Then,” I switched sides, “then, kids.”

“Always so proper, Ms. Woods,” she giggled.

I growled.

“Always so playful,”

I lifted her up by her thighs to let her knees be relieved. She wrapped her legs around me and played with my hair. “Always so gentle,” Clarke said quietly. She kissed me lightly. “I’m 32, my love. Almost 33.” I interrupted her innocently with a reciprocating kiss.

“I’m 32, and I love you. I want to have a child with you, Lexa.” Her blue eyes were deep enough to fall into. I suppose it’s a good thing I fell a long time ago, “If it’s not a health risk to the child, and if you want it too,” she scratched my scalp, low and loving, “I’d love to have that with you.”

I swallowed.

“I-“ Clarke smirked, like she found me cute. “We’d uh,” I hadn’t properly thought my words out, but I tried anyway. My chest was hot and tight. “We’d need to ask-“

“Juliet?” Clarke was smiling.

I met her eyes.

“Yes,” I said hoarsely. Her eyes above me were sparkling, shining, swimming. I didn’t realize that the swimming was because of me until Clarke’s cool fingers wiped the few hot tears that had escaped. She unhooked her legs from around me and guided me backwards into the bed.

“But we’ll wait, sweetness,” she kissed me, love in every minute movement. “Married first, I promise.” I nodded, letting my mind relax. “But in the mean time, Mama,” her voice turned teasing and flirting.

“I love you with all my heart,” she smiled. “And I’ll spend the rest of my life telling you,” Her slim fingers traced my chest, then my stomach, and continued their merry decent. “Telling you every way I know how,” Clarke purred.

I grinned wickedly and threw her underneath me, with her squealing and laughing at my ministrations, until the only sounds out of her were moans and breathed screams.

Thank God Anya wasn’t in.

Anya was in. And she’d been in for two weeks. Now, I didn’t teach maths, but that was 14 days. It was officially the start of the warmer months, and Clarke and I figured it was a good time to start construction on the new house.

But that meant we needed somewhere to stay while it was being built on the land I had bought Clarke as an engagement present of sorts. At least, that’s how we liked to think of it now. Still, the only option we had was to cram into my one bedroom apartment in D.C. during the wait.

Clarke commuted back to Polis everyday to tend her flowers and make arrangements and deliveries. Anya and I drove to school separately. The only reason for this was because as her parents, Clarke and I made a joint decision and bought her a motorcycle for her 16^th birthday. Nothing nearly as powerful as my Ducati Monster 1200 S, darling that it was, but it got her from point A to B.

Anya was thrilled.

Still though, I wondered why it didn’t get her out of the apartment more often. Clarke was gone from 6 in the morning until 9 at night going to Polis, and on the days she took off, I was still at work. On the weekends and in the evenings, Anya stayed home, sleeping two feet and a paper-thin wall away from us.

It was 9:30 at night, and Clarke had just gotten home. She kissed Anya on the head and I on the lips in greeting where we were seated on the couch/Anya’s bed, and I was helping her with her homework.

“Mama, that should count as cheating,” she lightly reprimanded when she looked over our shoulders.

I growled, showing her the literature worksheet Anya had been assigned.

“Clarke, look at this,” I honestly was irritated. “Jordan is a lazy piece of shit who doesn’t even know his Keats from his Shelley. He assigns the sophomores essay questions for homework that I didn’t have to consider until graduate school, and then grades them as if there are actual answers,” I stood, and turned on the stove directly behind us to warm up dinner, “Not only is that not fair, it’s impossible.”

I crossed my arms, ignoring my fiancée’s amused expression.

“There aren’t ‘correct’ answers to introspection and interpretation, especially to ideas and themes of that depth,”

I huffed once more.

“Yeah, Mama!” Anya shouted, pen in hand, “You tell ‘em!”

I rolled my eyes and looked at her pointedly.

“Don’t repeat that,”

Clarke smiled and shook her head, kissing me in a second greeting. Instantly, my irritation melted away and I smiled into the slightly drawn-out kiss. She smelled of lilacs and lilies. She didn’t immediately pull away, and I wrapped my arms around her waist, my whole world going dim but focused.

“Mamaa,” Anya complained, “This is so wrong,”

I sighed and let Clarke pull away from me, her blue eyes bright. Her hair was up and out of her face, and I just now noticed the smudge of dirt on her forehead. She took my hand and started to walk to our bedroom.

“Sorry, J-Cakes,” she said easily, “Tell me when dinner is warm, okay?”

Anya nodded and turned back to her reading.

“Don’t worry about that,” I added, brow furrowing. “Just do your government homework.”

Anya whooped and threw the book away from her.

Clarke led me to the bedroom and started stripping her clothes off.

I grinned wolfishly, enjoying the view immensely.

“Kitten, if you greet me like this every night, I’ll marry you a second time,” I teased.

Clarke laughed, letting her hair down and starting the shower in the en suite bathroom. The only one in the apartment. I sat on the bed, and leaned backwards on my hands, watching her test the water temperature.

“I’m glad to know your path down the aisle is paved in sex, my love,” she said playfully.

I scoffed.

“If that were true, we’re well on our way to annulment.”

Clarke, still gloriously naked, fetched a towel from inside the bedroom closet.

“Feeling the heat, are we, tiger?” She cast a seductive blue eye my way, mouth curling sensually. She was baiting me.

I returned a dry look her way.

“It’s been two weeks. Forgive me if I’m a little tense,” I grinned. “Care to help me relax?” I looked her up and down shamelessly. She didn’t even blink, apparently immune to my dogged observance.

Instead, she cocked her head, wrapped the towel around her, and stalked over to me. A smile was curving her beautiful red lips and I felt my mouth dry out. The look in her eyes reminded me of all the other places those lips could be.

“Darling, if you think you’re aching now,” her face descended over me, her nose skimming mine, “Just imagine the difference between 14 days,” every time her lips moved, I could feel them glide so barely over my own, “14 days, and 14 years,”

With that, she straightened, leaving a puddle of Lexa flavored jelly, and flaunted to the bathroom. I cursed as I glared at my hardening dick and listened to the water pitter and patter over her and onto the tile floor.

“You did not go Anya’s entire life,” I accused into the bathroom, leaning on the entrance doorway. My head rested on the frame. I heard Clarke laugh, and just picturing it set a smile on my face.

“What about that Niylah woman?” I asked, playful reproach in full swing.

“Juliet told you about that?”

“Of course,”

A pop, squelch, and click signaled the start of her shampoo routine.

“Niylah was a distraction,” she answered, “albeit a convenient one,” I tilted my head, all of a sudden a slight bit more attentive. Clarke and I had never really discussed the exes.

“Oh?” I drew out. I could almost see her practical nod in my mind.

“Niylah liked me a lot more than I liked her,” Another pop and click. Conditioner, I think. “We slept together for a couple of months, but it was never anything serious,”

“I see,” I said.

Clarke went quiet and I knew she was silently waiting to see if I would add more while simultaneously wondering if she went too far.

I stepped back onto the bedroom’s carpet floor to muffle my sounds and checked my watch. It should take about 30 minutes for the stew to warm with the temperature I set it on.

9:40:35

I optimistically had about 20 minutes left until Anya knocked on the door to signal dinnertime.

I stripped my tshirt and socks off, shimmied out of my sweats and boyshorts and unclasped my bra. Lastly, I threw my hair up to keep it from getting wet in record time.

9:40:52

On the way to the shower, I carefully removed the simple gold band on my left hand and set it next to Clarke’s diamond ring on the bathroom sink. Clarke lived in perpetual fear of her engagement ring finding its way down a drain. She had left a small break in the shower curtains and I stealthily extended a leg through and stepped into the melting warmth of my fiancée’s shower. Luckily, she was facing the showerhead and rinsing the soap from her water-darkened locks.

I smirked and prepared my pounce.

Swiftly, I reached one hand over her shoulder, and another under, grabbing her midsection and mouth in one fell swoop. Predictably, I scared her so much she let out a shriek and jumped. She would have screamed and leapt away if I hadn’t held both places so tightly.

Always so clever, she quickly regained her wits, turned around, and glared at me. I quickly raised a single finger to my grinning lips, reminding her not to yell lest Anya come investigate.

“Lexa Woods!” she whisper-screamed, eyes narrowed. Then those eyes glanced at my smirked lips, and everything below that distractedly. My smile widened. I gripped her hips in my hands, and pressed her slick skin flush against me. I stepped, and pushed her until her back hit the cold tile wall and she hissed, her hands steadying herself on my shoulders.

I bent to her lips, thumbs rubbing deep circles into the taut muscle at her abdomen.

“Feeling the heat, kitten?” I taunted. Her eyes were deep blue as they glanced at my smug ones in irritation and lust.

She pulled my face to hers powerfully and we kissed deeply, doing a decent job of muffling each other’s moans. And simply with the power of my fingers, I proceeded to show her just how much more convenient I could be than the ghost of this Niylah person.

“To jealousy, nothing is more frightful than laughter.”

When she was red-faced and blushing to a degree that had nothing to do with the heat of the shower, I kissed her one last time, smirked, and left to towel off. I put my clothes back on, ring included, and joined Anya before she could interrupt Clarke’s thank you.

9:51:26

Damn, I’m good.

I frowned lightly.

Still haven’t gotten laid in two weeks, but hey. This is better than nothing.

“Food ready?” I asked, seeing Anya sip at a spoon. She shook her head.

“Almost though,”

I nodded.

“So the book Mr. Jordan wants us to read and analyze, I think I want to try anyway,” I only nod at her again.

“That’s good,” I reply evenly. “I didn’t mean to insinuate you couldn’t do it, only that Jasper shouldn’t expect you to,” I grimaced. “Especially with girls like Octavia and Zoe Monroe in your class,”

Anya snickered.

“Zoe’s so dense,” Her caramel eyes turned to me. “But Octavia’s the most popular girl in our year, Mama.”

I merely glanced at her, picking the worksheet back up and scanning it.

“She also failed my mid-term last year.”

Anya’s jaw dropped and she howled with laughter.

“Mama, your tests are a joke, you know that, right?”

I smirked.

“Not to Octavia,”

Anya laughed again, and she broke off into a sigh. I raised an eyebrow at her in askance, looking away from the paper.

“It’s just,” she pursed her lips. “I wish you were still one of my teachers. Mr. Jordan sucks,”

I smiled.

“Oh, didn’t I tell you?” I turned to her and smiled. “You’re looking at the new English and Moral Studies teacher for the junior and senior classes. Headmistress Porter just told me.”

Anya jumped up and practically flew at me in a hug. She released me and grinned.

“Awesome!” she shouted. “I’m never doing homework again!”

I rolled my eyes.

“We’ll talk about that more next year, J-Cakes,” Clarke glided into the room with a pointed glance at our daughter.

Anya shrugged.

“Nice sweatshirt,” I called to the woman. Clarke was wearing an old hoodie I forgot I had in the closet from my alma mater.

“Thank you,” She sang back, fingers caressing the stitching of ‘Trigeda University’. I glanced in Anya’s direction to find her entirely focused on the book again. Clarke crooked a finger at me, and I moved to her side.

“Plates?”

I nodded, and reached to get them. I froze as I felt warm hands scampering up, under my shirt. I almost dropped the ceramic disks. Clarke carefully slid in between the counter and I, and flexed on her toes to whisper in my ear.

“Don’t you dare think you’re getting away with your little stunt, darling,” her voice was low and honeyed. One of her hands reached to my sweats, pulling slightly, the other slid and cupped my just now calmed cock through my underwear. She started to rub me sensuously, firmly, and my mind derailed, “Tonight, you’re going to be paid back in full, and if I have to duct tape your mouth shut to do it, I will,”

Her hand delved into my underwear, stroking me bare, and I shuddered.

“I’m done listening to you jerk off in the shower, and want you to know right now that tonight will be entirely your fault,”

She dropped a sweet kiss up to my cheek.

“Love you, stud,”

And then she was gone. It wasn’t until Anya nudged me that I realized she had taken the plates with her.

Yeah, I’m gonna marry that woman twice.

When I started my junior year, Arkadia got four new faculty members. Ms. Greene, Mr. Blake, and Mr. Thomas. A woman named Ms. Winters took over as the school’s second on-hand nurse. Only Mr. Blake was teaching the juniors, and I was bummed because I heard Ms. Greene was hotter than hell.

Which is why I freaked out when she became the new advisor to the Literature Club.

“Mamaaaa,” I bemoaned to my mom one weekend probably a month or so after school started. “You don’t understand,” I twisted over on the couch in our brand new front room, “She’s crazy hot.”

Mom looked at me in amusement.

“I thought Mama said that girl asked you out over the summer?”

I thought.

“Who, Octavia?”

Mom shrugged gently. I guess Mama had only mentioned it. And she had probably been laughing, I bet.

I rolled back over and propped my book above me, finding my page once more.

“Octavia's a bitch.”

“Anya,”

My Mama’s strong voice cracked like a whip while the front door shut. I sat up straight, a smile over taking my face even as I was reprimanded.

“And?!” I shouted excitedly. Mama leveled a viridian glare at me, “Fine, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t say things like that,” Mama relaxed and put her keys in the bowl by the door.

“So?” I begged. She sighed.

“The Literature Club has a spot in the School Fair this year.”

“Yes!” I cheered.

Mom smiled warmly and rose to greet her wife. I made a show of it, but I honestly didn’t mind when my parents made out in front of me. It sounds fucked up, but it’s not like that, I swear. It reminded me of something I had read once, "In all the world, there is no heart for me like yours. In all the world, there is no love for you like mine.”

Oh God, I’m my Mama.

I wasn’t exactly horrified at this discovery. In any event, seeing my parents’ affection for each other didn’t freak me out. Contrarily, it made me happy. Mom was happy, Mama was happy, I was happy. Our lives were perfect.

Still, though. I had a line. Walking in on Mama holding Mom by her ass and making out on the kitchen table was not alright. More than once, I had heard my mother whisper the name ‘tiger’ to Mama, and I’ve since considered bleaching my ears. My musings were interrupted by Mom tapping me on the head and asking what I wanted for lunch.

Over pasta salad and iced tea, I asked what the Literature club had to do to be able to be in the Fair.

Lex swallowed her tea and cleared her throat.

“Basically,” she started in her usual, low, rational way, “Headmistress Porter wants to show that the Literature club is a serious academic endeavor, and not just a book club,” she sighed, “Which is a problem,”

“Why?” Mom asked curiously.

“Because it is just a book club,” I added helpfully. Mama nodded.

“And they just got a new advisor who has fresh ideas, and at the same time, has no idea what she’s doing,”

“Ms. Greene?”

Her dark head nodded, her expression grew troubled, and she ran a hand through that silky, mahogany hair.

“So Ms. Greene took it upon herself to volunteer me as co-advisor to put on a play during the School Fair.”

A beat.

“WHAT?”

“Juliet,”

“Sorry, Mom,” I whipped my head around, “You’re going to be our advisor?”

“Temporarily,” she heaved.

“This Ms. Greene, Darling,” Mom asked interestedly, “Are you friends?”

Mama shifted slightly uncomfortably.

“Not necessarily. She seems like a nice enough woman, and the students like her very much, though I’ve never sat in on one of her classes,” she paused. “I’ve spoken to her once, in the teachers’ office, but that’s all,” she winced, “I haven’t tried very hard to get to know the new staff,”

Mom smiled.

“Anti-social, my love?”

Mama glared.

“Well I can help you with Mr. Blake. He’s the new maths teacher,” I added. Mama nodded at me to continue, “He’s – and I know I’m at the table, Mom, I’m sorry – but he’s a prick,” A dark eyebrow rose.

“Why?”

“Well, some girls like him because he’s supposedly good looking,” I frowned, “But he quite honestly doesn’t like me,”

Mama furrowed her brow. I tried not to smile at her protective reaction. Mama doesn’t know it, but her thoughts are loud. Mom asks for her.

“Explain, J-Cakes,”

“Like, I never do his in-class assignments in class. I dunno why, I just don’t like to. But they’re due the next day so whatever, right? I usually just sit and read or work on something else. And I always feel him sort of watching me,”

Mama had sat forwards in her chair, clasping her hands and covering her mouth, listening intently.

“When he does have instruction days, he asks me so many questions. Like, he goes all in order in the rows, and then he’ll jump to me suddenly, and then go back to the rows. He held me back twice in class to ask if I cheated on a test. And once, he gave me four extra homeworks because I turned in an assignment while the bell rang. Tris did that like, yesterday, and he didn’t even say anything!”

I fell silent, my rant over.

Mama kept staring at me.

“Why haven’t you told us before this, darling?” Mom asked me, looking concerned.

I shrugged.

“I’m really good at maths, so it’s never been a real problem,”

Mama nodded.

“’Sette, I’m glad you’re handling it well,” her voice was lower than usual in seriousness, “But if this presents any more of a problem, I’d like you to tell me about it. I haven’t met Mr. Blake yet, so I’ll reserve judgment until then.”

She tilted her head, smiled slightly, and reached out to stroke my cheek affectionately.

“Still, I’m proud of you for not letting him get under your skin,”

I wrinkled my nose, trying not to smile at the praise, and nodded.

The next day, I sat in Mr. Blake’s class and looked out the window the entire time. It felt a little vindictive, but I smirked the whole period.

Basically, fuck this guy.

When school let out, my friend Tris and I went to club with a spring in our steps. Firstly, because it didn’t seem possible, but every girl in Lit Club was hot. Every. Single. One. Secondly, because the new advisor was Ms. Greene, and thirdly, the newest advisor was my Mama. But no one in school except Tris knew that.

After the club had been called to order, and the squeals and shouts about the Fair, Ms. Woods, and the play, had died down, we immediately began debating what play to put on.

I refrained from rolling my eyes when the overwhelming consensus was Romeo and Juliet. I shot Mama a glare filled with promises of twat swatting for weeks if she dared mention my middle name.

She only watched me with mirth in her eyes and mimed locking her lips with a key stealthily. I breathed a sigh of relief. In the end, I as voted to play Tybalt, since I’m apparently a hothead. Who knew?

The subsequent weeks were spent with Mama being more busy than average. Mom was available all the time now, working at home as usual, and we had been doing well enough to hire a guy who did deliveries for us. But with the extra class, being voted onto the staff executive board, and the Literature Club’s upcoming performance, Lex rarely was around at reasonable hours to breathe.

The Club loved my Mama though.

In my research, the student paper had voted her Arkadia’s hottest teacher 4 years running. Also among her past accolades were Arkadia’s Most Eligible, Best Teacher, Best Homeroom, and let’s not forget, Best Legs.

Damn her skirt days.

But who seemed to love my Mama most of all was Ms. Greene. They quickly became fast friends. Or so it looked like. But this is Lex, and I knew my Mama. I saw the uncomfortable quick step away from the blonde she did when the woman came up to look over her shoulder. How in the teachers’ lounge, she would always be at Mama’s table and never the other way around.

I quickly grew suspicious, and that was from being around them at school. Mom was much quicker.

At dinner one night, we had been talking about the play, and Mama had carelessly prattled off,

“… another revision of the script, but I made sure Costia didn’t run away with it,”

“Oh?” My mom had interrupted uncharacteristically. I froze, spoon halfway to my open mouth and looked between Mom and Mama.

“What?”

“You’re on a first name basis?” Mom was perfectly calm.

“Oh,” Mama sort of winced, “It was at her insistence,”

“I see,” was all Mom said. I suddenly found myself wishing I had never told Mom that the whole school thought Ms. Greene was hot.

It was the final rehearsal a couple hours before the play went on that the line was blown to smithereens.

And not even the line between two houses divided. Well, kind of, actually. Our Romeo was being played by my senior friend Luna, and Juliet was the buxom but still wholesome Alie. And Ms. Greene was not letting Act 1 Scene 5 have a break.

“You’re not feeling it, Luna!” she said for the third time, her voice high and clear. Her outrageous heels clicked across the stage, trying to position the girl in the right place.

“This is Juliet, Romeo’s true love! The one he’s willing to throw away house and home for! Put a little sexual tension in there!”

“Costia, this is a Girls’ Academy,” Mama put in, a small smile playing around her mouth, “A little conservative acting is called for,”

Ms. Greene waved her off, “Nonsense. This is only the beginning!” Her co-advisor shrugged, and waved the script for another run through. Which was interrupted again by the unsatisfied blonde.

“Er, Ms. Greene?” Luna started awkwardly, itching her neck where the intricate costume rubbed, “Do you think you could act it out for us like you did that one time? It really helped,”

She nodded, a weird light in her eyes.

“Lexa?” She called, “Care to be my Juliet?”

My Mama laughed nervously, looking like a decisive ‘no’ was forthcoming, but was drowned out by various girls begging her. She grimaced, smiled tightly, and gave in.

The two clambered on stage, and the scene began. Gotta hand it to her, Mama can actually act fairly well. But the scene continued and something struck me as odd. I flipped through the script.

Oh no… She wouldn’t. Right?

“O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do;/They pray – grant thou, lest faith turn to despair,” Ms. Greene bemoaned as Romeo.

Mama recited from memory her lines for Juliet.

“Saints do not move, though grant for prayers’ sake,” she said coyly.

The other teacher slid closer to Mama like a snake on an oil spill. She clasped one of Lex’s wrists in her hand, and stage whispered, staring into Mama’s eyes.

“Then move not, while my prayer’s effect I take,”

And then Ms. Greene kissed my Mama. Flush on the lips. I saw the more mentally quick girls snap readied phones to take pictures. My stomach bottomed out and I instantly felt like crying and throwing up. The entire Literature, Art, and Theatre Club gasped.

Even more instantly, Mama wrenched herself free of Greene’s grasp, and gave her a look so scathing I felt like asking later if she could do me a favor and never look at me that way.

Her jaw worked, and I was reminded of the time I had taken her Ducati out for a spin without asking while she and Mom had gone to their anniversary dinner in the city. They had come back earlier than I expected.

She had been on the porch, sitting on the step, hands clasped tightly together. I knew I was fucked. I rode the bike into the open garage, parked it next to my little Honda CBR 250-R, and walked to face the music.

The gravel crunched under my feet, and it felt more like a death march than anything. Mama hadn’t moved, her eyes shut serenely, mouth covered by her joined hands.

I waited.

Cleared my throat awkwardly.

“Listen,” I had started shakily, “Mama, I know you’re mad, and I’m sorry. I should have asked. I just thought, I dunno. That you’d say no. And you’d be so justified in taking my keys or, or not feeding me, heh,” I swallowed, “But see, the bike is fine! I swear, there isn’t a scratch on her. I’ll clean the whole thing! And I didn’t even drive over grit or anything like that. Still beautiful and perfect and- and-“ I shut my mouth.

Because Mama had stood, her eyes open and blazing even in the dark, her jaw moving, teeth occasionally gnashing. She shook slightly in her anger, fists curled tight.

And then she exploded.

“I don’t give a fuck about the bike, Anya!”

I stood, stupefied.

“Uh...”

“You could have been thrown off, that thing is so powerful!” She was outright yelling, her expression and gestures wild, “It’s dark as hell and you weren’t even wearing your fucking helmet! Are you kidding me, Anya?! Do you know what happens if you fall off at those speeds? What if you had hit a pothole? These back roads are all gravel, what if you slipped turning?” Mama wasn’t slowing down, and I felt my heart sinking into my stomach.

“You could have been thrown into a ditch! Or-or had the bike fall on you!? That fucking bike is over 200 kg! You think you could pick that up yourself?! And how were your mother or I even supposed to find you if anything had happened?” Her eyes were tearing up and she breathed hard.

“Why did you not just come talk to me about it? You know you can talk to me about anything! Do you think I’m unreasonable? Do you think that I wouldn’t have a great fucking reason for saying no?? That I just want to keep my bike from you, maybe? You think me so selfish? Do you think we haven’t shared everything with you? How about that I honestly feared that you weren’t experienced enough for that thing, and that it could fucking kill you?? Am I so irrational?”

I wasn’t really meant to answer, but I did anyway.

“No,” I whispered. My heart felt twisted in my chest, aching and burning in shame. Absolute and total disgrace and regret.

“Are you not happy with the bike your mother and I gave you? The bike we bought you before saving up for my own goddamn wedding ring? Do you not like it? Are you better than that bike? Why-“

She broke off, covering her mouth with the back of her ringed left hand, her other on her hip. Mama turned away and paced to the step on the porch again and sat down hard. She buried her face in her hands. A soft click of the screen door later, and Mom draped herself around Mama. My gut twisted as I heard soft, muffled sobs.

“Juliet,” Mom had whispered, her voice tight. She didn’t look up from where she had begun stroking Mama’s dark hair soothingly, “Go to your room.”

I was in high school. Way too old for the command, but I practically ran there.

I shut the door to my room and stared inside. Mama had helped me decorate. She had come to me with designs for my room before the new house was built, and it was probably the coolest place in the house. I had one entire wall as a bookcase, and cut out of the middle of the wall was a window nook to read in. The rest of the room held a new dresser Lex had built, complete with a new full sized bed and bedframe. She had remodeled the old shed to use as a workspace to build it all, and I’d never heard that colorful of language in my whole life.

I was the lowest of the low. I showed my Mama just now that I was inconsiderate, ungrateful, reckless, and selfish. And for what? I had honestly scared myself a couple of times. The Ducati 1200 was just so powerful. Opening the throttle was frightening.

The bed didn’t even creak as I sat down tensely on the edge. I felt miserable. Gripping the edge of the bed, I stared at the clock and the seconds slowly turned into a full hour. A knock on my door startled me, and I had croaked out a welcome.

Mama pushed the door open, stepping inside haltingly. She looked like she’d been crying, and my throat closed up. She stepped into the room, and I stood from my bed and crossed the two steps to her. She enveloped me in her icy cool scent, but her arms and heart were warm.

“You scared your Mama, Anya,” she said, her voice pitched oddly high.

And that’s when I started crying in earnest.

I apologized for hours and she held me safe in her arms. Mom still made me wash the bikes everyday for two weeks in punishment.

But I highly doubt any amount of washing was going to save Ms. Greene from Mama’s, or worse, Mom’s, wrath. The dark-haired woman shut her mouth with a definite click, and stalked off the stage. My feet longed to run after her, but I had to finish the rehearsal. We were running out of time.

The last scene closed, and we all clapped for ourselves. All in all, it was actually a pretty good play. There was a 30-minute break where we should clear the stage and wait for people to come filing in the auditorium. I longed to look for my Mama, but unfortunately, Tybalt was a title character and I had to stay.

I could hear the oceanic echoes of the milling crowd outside as I went to costume and make up, and tried to get my breathing under control. I wasn’t scared of the stage or anything, but I was just a bit nervous. I pulled myself to my feet and went to peek out the gap in the curtain wall and frowned majorly.

Well, at least I knew Mom made it. But what else I knew was that she wasn’t happy. She stood, dressed elegantly in heels and a pretty dress, hair flowing free around the intricate twist she had braided in. She held a cup of concession punch in one hand, speaking in a circle of other parents and one faculty member.

Mr. Blake.

I fucking hate this guy.

His posture was a broad puff of the chest, one hand in his pocket, one gesturing as he spoke brashly to Mom. I didn’t know what he was saying, but I recognized the smile Mom had. It was the one she reserved for the businessmen who used to hit on her when they came to collect flowers. I frowned. Except… it was different.

Mom is usually so elegant, so genuine. This looked… forced. She was crossing her arms in front of herself, with her body half turned. Fidgeting. She wanted to leave. I looked away wildly.

I needed to find Mama. Right now. I stalked to Alie.

“Hey, have you seen Ms. Woods?”

The dark-haired girl twisted her head around, “I swear I just saw her, uh, go that way?”

I nodded my thanks and went ahead. I finally found her in the alley behind the auditorium. I had also inadvertently found Ms. Greene in the afternoon light. The two looked like they were locked in combat, Mama’s expression frustrated and a hair away from irate, and Ms. Greene frustrated and pouting. They both had turned to look at me, their eyes hard.

“Uh,” I said, “Ms. Woods, Maya has a question about one of the light fixtures and wants to know if you could help,” I lied.

Mama nodded and quick stepped to me, not even glancing at the blonde woman behind her. As soon as the door shut, she pinned me with a slightly desperate look.

“Anya, I-“

“Something’s wrong with Mom,” I cut her off. Immediately, her features hardened again.

“What?”

I nodded, my forehead crumpling.

“I don’t know what, but it’s just a hunch. I found her in the crowd out there, and she was talking to Mr. Blake, and she just looked… uncomfortable,” I ended rather lamely.

Mama’s brow had furrowed deeply in consternation. My Mom doesn’t really do outward expressions. If something were wrong enough for it to be visibly present, it was very wrong. She nodded her dark head.

“I’ll take care of it,” Mama carried confidently. She checked her watch, “In the mean time, it’s almost show time,” she smiled gently, “I’m proud of your work, Scout. Have fun tonight, okay?”

I forgot about Mr. Blake and smiled at my Mama.

“Thanks for making it possible,” I accepted easily. She glanced emerald eyes around our secluded part of the backstage and hugged me, delivering a quick kiss to the temple. She released me, and walked away with a wink.

“Knock ‘em dead,”

I smiled.

After I killed Mercutio, and Luna had slain me in revenge, I watched from the rafters for the play to continue its remaining two Acts.

“For ever was a story of more woe/ Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.” The Prince proclaimed. The curtains drew, and the auditorium filled with cheering and applause. I grinned. A total success. It was a lot gayer than it probably should have been but whatever. It’s an all girls’ school.

When the cast took their bows, I saw Mama and Mom standing in ovation, proud smiles on their faces. That really had been tons of fun. I got to be a Shakespearian actor. Drama, romance, valor, swordfights – who wouldn’t have a blast? All in a language so confusing it was practically gibberish.

Soon, actors, staff, students, and parents alike had filed into the auditorium’s welcome way to either chat or leave to explore the remaining cultural festival.

“Juliet!”

“Mom!” I answered, excited to see my mom among the crowd of students and their parents. She was so much noticeably younger than the other parents, some people were confused. Still, Mom had never been bothered by it, so I wasn’t either. She hugged me and presented me with a simple arrangement of congratulatory flowers. I laughed at her and she continued to tell me how wonderful she thought I had been.

“Let’s go to the car and see if your Mama will buy you dinner somewhere nice,”

I laughed and looked around, “Where is Mama?” I asked, but followed Mom’s walk.

“There,” she replied and gestured to where Headmistress Porter was speaking with Mama. They seemed to be in serious conversation.

“Uh oh,” I said seriously. Mom smoothed my hair.

“I’m sure it’s fine, J-Cakes. Although you and Mama forgot to tell me just how kind the Headmistress looked,” she teased. I laughed. Porter was old, and stood with a strict bearing. No one was super friendly with her for fear of her love of detention. We exited the building and started to trek across the parking lot.

“Well, there’s a reason no one calls her ‘Headmistress Gran’. After her whole long career, you have to stop Lex from getting like that.” I answered. Mom stifled her laughter behind a hand.

“I doubt there’s a danger of that, but I’ll do my very best.”

“Ms. Griffin! Excellent performance!” A heavy hand fell on my shoulder and I jumped, immediately tensing and spun around. It was my maths teacher. I didn’t even hear him walking behind us. Mom froze; our walk paused in the middle of the car park.

“Thank you,” I said quietly. I half-stepped closer to Mom.

The man grinned winningly; like he was showing my mom how easily we interacted. “Did you know, Antalya, that your mother and I are old acquaintances? I was good friends with your father back in the day!” He laughed, and I froze completely.

“It certainly has been a long time,” Mom replied, easy as ever. Her hand slid up my shoulder protectively.

“Say, where might your new husband be, Mrs. Griffin?” he asked brazenly.

“I fear I do not have a husband,” Mom’s tone was still melodic, but with an undercurrent of ice. She was too tactful and sophisticated to call the man on his obviously inappropriate assumption. Not to mention that her last name wasn’t even Griffin anymore. I was still working on legally changing mine through the courts.

“Ah, never remarried, I see. That’s excellent,” he smirked, just the tiniest bit, and the Anya who didn’t have Lexa for a Mama would have started cursing the guy out. Instead, I bit my tongue and waited for him to go the fuck away.

“I actually am married,” pure steel.

“Yes, yes, poor Finn, right?” He let his face fall in a poor representation of remembered dismay. My fingers curled into a fist.

“Mr. Blake,” Mom started, her voice icy in its frustration.

“Oh no!” the dark-haired man waved off. “I insist, call me Bellamy.”

Mom smiled tightly.

“I don’t want to be rude,” she countered.

“No, don’t be stupid,” he refuted. “It wouldn’t be right between such old friends like us, don’t you think, Antalya?”

“…Right,” I replied numbly.

“What’s right?”

Mama! I could have jumped and hugged her, I was so glad to see her beautiful visage. Her sharp green eyes took in every detail of the situation in front of her. I think she understood, at least part of it, because her eyes narrowed.

“Mr. Blake was explaining how he and Mom knew each other,” I started carefully.

The maths teacher smiled warmly, sensing nothing.

“Antalya’s father and I were good friends in college. I was even at the original Mrs. Griffin’s wedding, if you can believe it!”

My heart throttled in my chest, and Mama’s eyes blew wide. The green pools of disbelief flickered toward my Mom.

“Is that so?” Mama said calmly.

“Damn right! And to find each other again here, it has to be fate!” Mr. Blake declared, “I had no idea that Antalya Griffin was Clarke Griffin’s daughter in my class,” he laughed, white teeth on full display, "Though I guess I recall Finn saying something about naming his kid something Russian back in the day. Fate indeed,” He sighed.

Mom merely smiled tightly as he charged on, “We have to get together and about the good old days, Clarke. Drinks? Or, a dinner together would be wonderful. Are you free this weekend?” He turned his carefully gelled head towards his fellow teacher.

“Speaking of dates, Woods, I hear you and Greene are shacking up?” He smiled lecherously. “One of my students showed me a picture. Some kiss, eh?”

Mom’s eyes grew wide, and Mama jerked.

“Oops, pardon me, Antalya. Hope you don’t mind if I borrow your mother for a bit?” He looked at me, obtuse and idiotic. I was having a hard time listening. My brain honestly wasn’t cataloguing his stupidity quick enough.

“Wow, ya know, I’ll tell you. Now that I think about it, you look a lot like your father!” My insides twisted, and he swung back to my mom.

“So, Clarke, what do you say?”

A loud flesh-on-flesh sound, a crunch, and then he hit the ground.

My Mama was looming over him in a second, watching with furious eyes as he stood shakily.

“Your ignorance is astounding, you pompous, overgrown, arrogant shithead,” Her voice was low death and rage, “How dare you speak to my wife in that disrespectful manner? Trying to goad her with your egotistical show of ostentatious over compensating? What woman in their right mind could overlook your… short comings?”

Blake stood fully, and nearly shook in anger.

“And don’t ever talk to my daughter about that bastard again. You know exactly what kind of man he was,” Mama was positively growling, body taught as a bowstring, “I know all about how you’ve picked on Anya, tried to humiliate her in a classroom setting, and given test answers to students. Yes, I know about that. And I’m telling you now, come Monday, your ass is fired, you despicable sack of shit.”

Blake charged with a snarl.

I jumped to join the fight, but my Mom held me back tightly. Jesus, throwing bags of fertilizer and soil around for a living wasn’t just for show, I suppose. Her grip was like iron. But it also meant I could only watch as two of my teachers brawled.

And I was suddenly grateful Mama had served so long in the Navy. Because she definitely could hold her own. Blake wound up, aiming back at Mama’s midsection. But he surprised her with a jab to the face with the other hand that split her lip. After that, it was over in seconds. Lex hit him hard and fast, control in every movement. He was sent reeling and she got behind him quickly, wrapping a chokehold around his neck.

“Lexa!” Heels clicked across the parking lot and I groaned.

“Costia, not now,” Mama said through clenched teeth. Blake suddenly relaxed completely, unconscious.

“Jesus Christ, Lexa!” Ms. Greene reached us, a lovely hand on her pretty mouth. Mama rolled her eyes, bent to Blake, and hefted him on her shoulder fireman style. She grunted under the weight but stood strongly, blood still on her lip, face and shirt.

Greene quickly stepped forward on instinct, as if to catch the man, and effectively put herself in Mama’s personal space. She glanced at the face above her and placed a hand on Lex’s chin. She looked like a soap opera star.

“Are you alright?” she said worriedly.

Mama snapped her head away.

“Yes,” she finished deliberately and turned to Mom, “I’m taking him to the Abigail,” I nodded lamely, remembering that we had school nurses here. When I refocused, Mama was halfway across the lot, a body slung over her shoulder. The picture was almost funny.

“I’ll go with her,” Greene said quickly, taking a step toward the building.

“Actually, I think it would be better if we talked, Ms. Greene,” My Mom’s voice washed over us like the sea. It was clear, powerful, sure and strong. And it could potentially kill you when played with the wrong way.

“I’ve been meaning to introduce myself to you for some time now,” she released me and stepped closer to the other woman, “And, though pretty exciting, this seems a good an opportunity as any,” Mom smiled prettily. “You see, I’m Clarke Woods, Lexa’s wife,”

Ms. Greene seemed to pale as she gave Mom another once-over.

“I wanted to introduce myself because you seem not to be aware of my existence. But I am painfully aware of yours, Ms. Greene. And I would like very much for you to see what I see when I look at you. This can be explained very simply by your behavior and actions.”

Mom tilted her head.

“You have hit on Lexa since you came to Arkadia. You have had your eye on her all this time. You have badgered her, followed her around, roped her into advising a club with you, and not once did she take her ring off, did she?”

Mom’s voice was hypnotizing.

“You kissed my wife,” Mom sounded like she was smiling, “I give you full marks for however you did so, because I know my wife well enough to be absolutely sure that would never happen in her conscious decisions. So please, Ms. Greene, take a long look at me if you’d like. I don’t mind, in fact, I want you to notice me. And I want you to notice all the places you fall short,”

She was very close to Greene.

“It is necessary, I believe, because those places are ones that Lexa married, and makes love to nearly every night,”

Mom threw a look my way.

“Pardon me for that, J-Cakes,” I gave a shocked wave in forgiveness, “But to summarize, Ms. Greene, I would like to request you leave my wife alone,” Her velvet rasp dropped dangerously, “I demand it, and I will be more than happy to make my complaints known in a more formal manner if necessary. My wife is faithful, my wife is a good mother, my wife will not be swayed, and most importantly, my wife is not interested,”

Mom backed away from the rigid blonde woman, letting her freezing anger wash over the area.

“Well said,” Mama stated helpfully from her silent position behind me, arms folded, smirk in place. Mom smiled.

“Woods!” A huffing and tapping interrupted the scene, and a face I found easily recognizable entered the scene from behind a parked car. She doubled over from her run, white lab coat streaming behind her. The woman breathed laboriously, catching her breath. “Abigail wants me to make sure you’re.. alright…”

The woman straightened up and trailed off, grey eyes going wide.

“Niylah?” Mom said in wonder.

“Clarke?” The nurse asked in shock, “What… are you doing here?”

“You’re the new school nurse?” I practically shouted. Mama looked confused, and then everything clicked into place.

“Well, yes,” the blonde haired woman answered awkwardly. She gave a small nod, “Niylah Winters, I started this year,”

“Well,” Mom said plainly.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” I threw my hands up. This was unbelievable. “Look, Ms. Winters, could you do me a favor and not hit on my Mom?” She blinked rapidly at me, her mouth half open.

“Of course not,” She said confusedly. She then held out a pale, jeweled hand. “I got married last month,”

“Congratulations,” Mom said, something like relief playing in her voice. The nurse nodded. “Lexa and I also were married, just last year,” The grey eyes smiled, glancing at my parents.

“Congratulations to you two as well.” She replied.

“Thank you!” I shouted. “That’s how people are supposed to react!” I grumbled. “You’re not supposed to hit on married people, for fuck’s sake,”

Mama laughed lowly, and turned to the school nurse.

“I’m perfectly fine, Ms. Winters.”

The woman nodded in recognition. Ms. Greene was standing awkwardly to one side, and we paid no attention to her.

“Well, keep in contact if you feel disoriented at all,”

Mama nodded, and walked toward the car, official done with the day’s activities. When we had all piled in, she leaned forward and rested her head on the steering wheel.

“Can you guys, I don’t know,” I started blandly. “Be less hot?”

Mom smiled at me from the front seat, not apologetic in the least.

“Ask your Mama,” she teased, her eyes shimmering, “She’s the one kissing other women,”

Mama shot up, her eyes wide and outraged. She realized Mom was teasing and slumped back over with a groan, starting the car. I laughed myself silly all the way home.

Anya’s senior year, I didn’t sleep. At least it felt like it. Because for Anya’s 18^th birthday, she received a car, and a little sister.

Clarke and I had returned from our honeymoon when Anya was still a sophomore, and the first thing she asked was when she was getting a sibling. She had begged us to get pregnant and then get married, simply because she thought it would be funny to have her lesbian mothers have a shot gun wedding, one of them for the second time in her life.

The irony was amusing, but my wife had been the one to talk her down from that one, because my patience had worn thin of the joke. But at least I knew she was okay with having a sibling.

And even in that instance, I was slightly incorrect. Anya wasn’t just consenting, she was overly encouraging. Without missing a single day, she had asked either Clarke or I about some sort of vitamin, tip, trick, or other un-subtle reminder that children existed in the world, since we got back from the honeymoon.

It took months, and more communication than I’d expected. A lot more. But after a full calendar year, Clarke and I had decided to have a baby. Together. Her DNA and mine. Anya had freaked out more than I had at the little pink plus sign.

But Clarke was pregnant, and that had been the best 9 months of my life. Anya took up cooking these incredibly healthy meals to feed her mom, baby sister and I. They were actually really good, and usually focused on a perfect balance of the food groups. But two months into the regimen, my wife started to wake me up at 1 in the morning like clockwork and beg me for anything with grease in it. I would kiss her lovingly, and leave our warm bed to put clothes and shoes on. She always watched me with trepidation, a hand on her stomach, the apology clear in her eyes.

“Anything, sweetness,” I said to her later. The alarm clock read 2:13 in the morning, and I had propped up on the headboard of our bed, Clarke lying between my legs, back against my front. She was content as a kitten, demurely eating her French fries one by one. I held her, my hands stroking her lower stomach with all the love I possessed.

“Anything you want, and I’ll get it for you,” I kissed her corn silk hair, and she chuckled.

“You know,” she said, “If I had known the kind of pampering you and Juliet would give me, I would have gotten pregnant so long ago,”

I smiled.

“Clarke, I was talking to the baby,”

She had laughed for a long time at that, and I secured her more tightly to my chest. I held in my arms my most precious people, aside from Anya. I loved her very much, but this moment was one that Anya would have called, ‘Too Married’ for her.

“How’s our baby?” I had asked huskily, not wanting my voice to ruin the atmosphere.

“Well, I’m pretty sure she’s asleep down the hall,”

I laughed at my wife’s cheek, and kissed her head.

“Anya hasn’t been a baby for a long time, kitten,” I countered. “I just hope Lucy has less spirit than her, from the baby stories you’ve told me,”

Anya and I were both vying to name her sister Lucy, and Clarke remained neutral. She chuckled.

“Juliet’s spirit kept me sane while she was an infant,”

I hummed deep in my chest. We didn’t really speak about her ex-husband, or the life that had come with him. Our little family was perfectly content just the way we were.

I continued to absentmindedly stroke Clarke’s lower stomach, and she placed a ringed left hand over my own. It was too easy to admire the way our hands looked, married and settled on her slightly distended stomach. I all of a sudden wished Anya were here to lean on the shoulder Clarke wasn’t resting on.

We would talk until she got tired, and I would put her to bed again. The exact time this would occur got earlier and earlier the more pregnant Clarke grew. And my God, was she beautiful.

Anya liked to smirk at me over her coffee when I’d have very small meltdowns when Clarke was still asleep over becoming a mother. It would hit me like a freight train while we were alone, and she once asked me why I was so quiet.

I had looked at her then, feet curled under herself, a book in her lap, dark blonde hair longer than I could remember it being, her bright brown eyes questioning. I allowed my tense muscles to loosen and tried to set a straight face at her.

“I’m worried Lucy will not like me,” I said honestly. I didn’t know if she had even drunk anything, but she choked.

“I’m sorry, but… what?” She looked like she was fluctuating between laughing and growling.

“I’m concerned,” I leveled flatly, “I’ve never had a mother. I wouldn’t know how to take care of a child,” I glanced at her, smiling. “But I’ve got experience taking care of babies,”

Anya laughed and glared playfully. She set her cup down and closed her book, biting her lip lightly.

“Mama,” she began haltingly. I tilted my head. She hasn’t been this cautious around me in a long time. “You… you’ll be fine.” She huffed and looked out the window. I had smiled and let it drop.

But Lucy had been late. Very late. Clarke carried Lucy to full term, plus 3 ½ weeks. My wife was irritated, and Anya was getting nervous. I was, oddly enough, very relaxed about the entire ordeal. I felt prepared, even though I consciously knew I had no idea what I was doing. I had Clarke, and our daughter. What couldn’t we handle?

Apparently, we couldn’t handle Anya’s 18^th birthday.

The day started off really well. Clarke and I had saved enough to buy her an actual car. It was her senior year and she’d be going to University, though she was still deciding where. But Clarke and I didn’t want to take chances.

“So you can come back whenever you want,” I had told her, my smile plain.

“Which will be every weekend at the very least,” Clarke had added, her eyes shining and wet. Anya had nodded like a bobble head, taking the keys I handed her. A modest little Honda Civic sat in the driveway. It was on the sporty-looking side, but still got good mileage.

Anya stopped mid-way down the porch, and flew back to us, hugging us thankfully. She was tall enough to speak to her Mom’s height.

“Thank you, Mama, Mom,” Her voice was soft and grateful. She knew the sacrifices we had to make to afford it, and was truly thankful.

“Happy Birthday, darling.”

“Happy Birthday, ‘Sette. Now go, show off to Raven before school starts,” I teased. Reyes Raven had transferred to Arkadia last semester, and Anya had fallen hard for the fiery brunette girl.

Her face flushed, and she groaned.

“Mamaaa, you said you wouldn’t-”

I laughed, “Go! I’ll be right behind you.”

She smiled, waved, blew a kiss for Lucy, and was off.

Clarke turned to me, “Has she asked her out yet?”

I laughed.

“She wouldn’t unless she felt sure Raven wouldn’t say no.”

“And will she say no?”

I snorted lightly.

“Have you seen our daughter? And she’s got her Mama’s moves. Raven would never even think of it,”

Clarke laughed at me heartily. “Oh, pardon me, stud. I was just remembering your ‘moves’ the night we made Lucy here,” She smirked, and a mental picture of an unfortunate incident involving myself, a torn condom, a mild panic, and a tearful conversation, flashed through my mind.

But I brightened.

“So her name is Lucy, hm?”

My wife laughed heartily, and I leaned down for a kiss, careful of the beach ball of her stomach. She smiled into it, a familiar spark lighting her eyes. I raised an eyebrow.

“Clarke,” I warned.

“How long until you need to leave?”

I checked my watch.

“20 minutes,” I flattened out, unimpressed. Her beautiful blue eyes flashed. “Clarke, I’m already dressed,”

If my tone was unimpressed, my wife’s down right didn’t care. I was 10 minutes late that day. Still on time, but I had always gotten to class much earlier than my students. I started my lecture, and for the umpteenth time, Anya’s voice echoed in my ears,

“Mama, you married one of your student’s parents, and they still want you as the new Moral Studies teacher? Arkadia sure has gone downhill…”

I stifled a smile. I had confessed my sins to Headmistress Porter only after Clarke and I became engaged. She was a strict but fair woman, and she had surprised me when she didn’t immediately fire me. Instead, she had informed me of her soon to be retirement, and to keep up my good work.

I was still stunned.

My lecture was short that day, and the topics I had brought up, I invited the classroom to discuss. As long as I shepherded the conversation to remain constructive and academic, the girls ran the rest of the class themselves. After a particularly rousing argument by Tris, one of Anya’s best friends, I broke up the class to prepare to change periods.

The girls immediately started chattering and I let my mind revolve around what my wife was doing this instant. My gaze flickered toward the small, framed picture of Clarke that sat on my desk and I smiled without meaning to.

Due to good ol’ fashioned discretion, I didn’t frame the photo of Clarke, Anya and I at an amusement park, but kept it in my desk. I’ll need a new one once Lucy decided to make an appearance.

“… the one that’s crushing on Raven?”

My classroom had probably 30 seconds left, but my hearing sharpened at the name, and I found two of my students gathering their things and chatting pettily.

“Yeah! Apparently, he’s asked her like, a million times to go out with him,”

“And she said no?”

“Uh, duh,” one giggled, “She and Anya are totally shacking up!”

“No way!”

“Okay, well that’s totally just a rumor, but this is for real! Kyle Wick’s party tonight is literally all because he wants Raven to show up!”

My brow creased. Hopefully whatever drama was going on, Anya was staying clear of it. I was trying my best to teach Anya that she shouldn’t sleep with just anyone, and she had blushingly told me in painful huffs that she was a virgin.

I had quite literally sagged with relief at her admission. Clarke and I did not need that particular headache. At least our daughter was turning out to be just as much of a homosexual as her Mom. Which was honestly a relief. God knows how I’d deal with Anya bringing a boy home…

I shuddered and waved to the students filing out of my room, welcoming the ones making their way in.

During a meeting with the Headmistress, I had professed my confusion at the beginning of the term about my class roster. But Porter had leveled a cool eye at me, and I knew enough of the woman to know that every time we interacted was a test. But she simply told me she trusted my professionalism.

So, when Anya sat in front of Reyes Raven in my lecture and the two started passing notes back and forth, I took the note and told them both to see me after class.

Really, kid?

My gaze was reproachful when class was over, and she sort of grimaced. My daughter was fully aware that I had no qualms about giving her detention. I’ve done it before. Twice.

“Now, before I read this note, is there anything in it that’s going to surprise me?” I asked the guilty pair blandly after class. I was sitting against the front of my desk and the girls stood in front of me.

Raven shot dark eyes to Anya’s burning face and fiery gaze.

“N-no, Ms. Woods,” Raven looked back to me, and she seemed an uncharacteristic amount of nervous. Her hands twisted, and she was biting her lip. I looked at her critically, and slid my gaze to Anya, thinking. Her face twisted in something that looked like guilt.

It clicked.

Raven knew who I was. Anya had told her. I sighed heavily, and put a hand to my hair, smoothing the escaped locks there. I re-opened my eyes and looked to Anya, who seemed to know what I just realized.

“I told you to be careful,” I said lowly, but not harshly.

Anya almost exploded.

“I am! I swear, it’s only Tris and Raven!” Her eyes plead, and Raven looked deeply sorry for something she had no control over.

“You still should have asked us first,” I told her steadily. The plural, obviously referring to my wife.

Anya grimaced, looked incredibly guilty, and I sighed. Raven just kept her bottom lip tucked into her mouth. I suppose her nerves made sense; she was in trouble with not only her teacher, but the mother of the girl she liked.

“Right,” I said, straightening, “Anya, since it’s your birthday,” her face lit in a smile, “You both can serve your detentions Monday instead of today,”

Anya’s face fell and I watched her open her mouth to protest, but her jaw shut at my look. She nodded heavily and I hummed. I quickly wrote them tardy passes to their next class and they left together.

The day progressed, and when the final bell sounded, I was almost just as relieved as my students. They filed out, and I got to work grading some of their interpretive writing assignments. Raven was actually a very smart girl, and I was lightly amused to note that she and my daughter had written similar responses for a prompt.

After more than a few hours passed, my cellphone went off and I smiled at my wife’s caller ID, “Hello?” I answered.

“Lexa,” her voice hummed intelligently, “Where are you right now, stud?”

“School,” I replied, “I was going to finish grading here instead of bringing it to the house,”

“Well, I appreciate that very much,” my wife laughed, and I smiled with her.

“Why? What are you doing?”

“Oh, I’m actually at the hospital, darling. Do you think you have time to head over? My water broke,”

I sat bolt upright in my chair, “You drove yourself?” I almost shouted.

“Calm down, Lex,” Clarke laughed, “I haven’t had many contractions. I was only wondering if you could hunt down our daughter?”

I sighed, feeling older than I had in years, “Of course. Clarke, we will talk about this later. You know I’m incredibly unhappy with you right now,”

Clarke laughed, “And yet, you’re incredibly happy at the same time, huh?”

I laughed tiredly, “Yes. I love you, and tell me straight away if anything, and I mean anything, happens. If the doctor walks into the room, I want to know about it,”

My wife laughed and called me silly. I told her I loved her and she returned the sentiment, cutting the line. I dialed Anya’s cellphone number and packed all of my things in a rush, heading for the door. It was later than I thought.

I frowned when her phone went straight to voicemail. I tried again with the same result. Clarke would have taken her with her if Anya had gone home at any point between school letting out and now. Which means she didn’t go home.

I frowned and tried to think. If I were a teenager, who had gotten a car for my birthday, where’s the first place I would go? An idea flashed through my mind, and I put my hand to my pocket, withdrawing Anya and Raven’s folded note. I opened it, and paused in my brisk walk to read.

Anya’s tight and neat writing contrasted so perpendicularly with Raven’s easy, open strokes that I could practically hear their voices in my head.

‘~Happy Birthday, Anya! ~’ Raven had written, adding a few smiling faces and stars.

‘Thanks! Couldn’t find you this morning, but my parents bought me a car!’

‘That’s so cool! I thought you said Ms. Woods wouldn’t let you have one?’

‘I keep telling you, Mama’s a big softy when it come to Mom.’ I snorted lightly at that, and grinned at the several-times erased and written over section Anya had added. ‘Anyway, if you wanted to ever need a ride... anywhere. You can call me. Or text.’

Apparently, Anya did not pick up my moves. I’d seriously needed to talk to her about that. Actually, maybe it was for the best she not know how to woo women.

‘Thanks! <3’ Raven had written back. ‘If you wanted, we could go to Kyle’s party together? You could drive?’

‘You’re going to his party?’

‘Well, I’d like to go with you. If you wanted an improvised birthday party? <3’

God, I’m glad I’m not a teenager.

‘Sure, what’s the address?’

Good girl, Anya! I read the address as somewhere close, and booked it to my car. I drove in silence, thinking about Anya, my wife, and my baby girl on the way. I continuously checked my phone, waiting for a call or text from Clarke, but receiving nothing.

I was sure my appearance at this little shindig would cause a scene, but I was finding very little room in my heart to care. Not to mention that Anya had snuck off to a party with a girl and not told either Clarke or I. And she’d never even see her car again if I found out she’d planned to drive home drunk.

‘In youth we learn; in age we understand,”

I found the house without an issue. It was surrounded by cars and was lit up like a Christmas tree. I exited my car and the dull thumping of music met my ears. This was not going to be fun.

No one even glanced my way when I entered the house, but that just made me one of many. I grimaced. I just saw one of my students with her tongue in some guy’s mouth. I’d never liked her anyway.

I searched fruitlessly for a sign of my blonde-haired daughter, only to have some drunk kid place his hand haphazardly on my ass. Every iota of my control went into containing the shove I gave him from evolving to a right cross to the jaw. This was pointless.

I hunted down the booming sound system, and vaguely wondered if I’d have to ask a nurse at the hospital to check my ears for damage. Nearing it, I identified a phone connected to the complicated machines, and reached for it. I yanked the chord out of the phone, and the music instantly shut off. A couple voices loudly complained, but every head turned towards me. I stepped on top of a coffee table and stood to my full height.

“Dump your cups and leave. Party’s over,”

A lull of silence, and then a small squeak of, “Mrs. Woods!”

The girls littering the party immediately escaped, and their respective boyfriends and interests confusedly left with them. In two minutes flat, the house was empty save for three people. I leveled my eyes to my daughter who looked scared out of her wits. Oh, yes. I was angry. Probably not as angry as she thought I was, but I let her stew in guilt.

“Mama,” she gulped, and I frowned harder at her. My eyes turned to see a boy about Anya’s age standing, scared, his hand wrapped around Raven’s wrist.

“Is this your house?” I asked, and the boy swallowed, nodding. His hair was a stupidly stacked mess of sandy brown, “Where are your parents?”

“Th-they’re away on a trip,” He stuttered, eyes wide. His grip tightened and Raven squirmed.

“Is Reyes your girlfriend, son?” I said lowly, my displeasure evident. His cheeks burned red.

“N-Not exactly,” he said, and I saw Anya grit her teeth from the corner of my eye.

“Then I suggest you get your hand off of her immediately,”

The boy dropped Raven’s wrist like it burned. I turned my eyes to Raven and took a deep breath. I just wanted to get this mess sorted and leave. I switched my gaze between my daughter and my student.

“I read the note you passed in my class,” I began, “And Anya, I need to have a talk with you about how to communicate with women. Raven clearly likes you and you’re being spineless. I’m upset that you’ve been letting a guy like this beat you out,” Anya was gaping at me, and I turned to Raven, “Your mistake was taking Anya to this party as your idea of a date. Anya doesn’t like parties. Especially ones that are traps designed by guys like him to lure you to. She likes books and coffee. Either tell her you like her or don’t. And quit interrupting my class with your flirting,”

I sighed.

“Anya, let’s go. Mom’s in labor,”

“Wait, what?” She yelped, her eyes bright.

“Lucy’s coming,” I said, losing my patience, “Mom’s at the hospital right now,”

“Why are we standing here?” My daughter practically shouted, taking Raven’s hand and pulling her to the door, “I’ll follow you,”

I nodded, not glancing at the boy behind me. I had to race Anya back to the hospital and I smiled somewhat when I saw Raven’s mouth moving in her passenger seat, and Anya’s flushed face. Too bad Raven didn’t save her confession so I could hear it. Anya would have blown an embarrassed gasket. I chuckled.

Arriving back at the hospital, we parked and made our way to the maternity ward. To my immense relief, Clarke was doing just fine, but I still felt my breath catch as I found her in her hospital bed. I crossed to her and immediately kissed her as deeply as I loved her.

My wife smiled into it and touched my face, reciprocating the contact. I felt joy in her kiss, and I let my one of worry melt into remembering why we were here. I stepped back and let Anya hug her Mom.

“You okay, Mom?” she asked worriedly, and Clarke smiled, reassuring the girl. In the mean time, I crossed to Raven whose face held a faint blush, and I tried my hand at a friendly sort of grimace.

“So how’d it go?” I asked, and her dark eyes sharped she smiled slightly.

“If it’s alright with you, Ms. Woods, we’re going out next weekend,”

I nodded, “Good. To where?”

She hesitated, her sweet face for the first time frowning ever so slightly, “Well, I saw a new exhibit for the aquarium?”

I shook my head, “She’s already been,”

“The movies?”

“The movies are for when you don’t want to talk to your date,” I teased gently, and Raven laughed and thought hard. I decided to take pity on her. I really did like the girl. And she made Anya happy.

“Tell you what,” I tried, “I took her mother to a book café downtown off of the river last week. The riverwalk is beautiful this time of year. Anya would love it,”

Raven smiled brightly, nodding decidedly. I shared a small smile with the girl. Our moment was interrupted by my wife’s silken voice.

“Aren’t you going to introduce your guest, Lex?”

I ushered Raven forward, and Clarke flicked her observant eyes over the girl, who nodded respectfully.

“Pardon me for intruding, Mrs. Woods,”

My wife’s eyes flashed, and I knew she liked the girl. Even if it was just because she used the correct last name. Anya stepped forward for a proper introduction, and I smirked at her sudden adherence to formality.

“Mom, this is Raven Reyes, she’s my, uh,”

“Girlfriend,” the cheerful girl supplied, and Anya’s face instantly flamed, her jaw dropping slightly. Raven pretended like nothing was odd whatsoever, and I merely observed as Clarke no doubt approved highly of the girl’s style.

“It’s nice to meet you, Raven. I’d love to get to know you more, but I’ll be a bit preoccupied for a while. J-Cakes, would you mind seating your girlfriend and yourself over there?”

Anya nodded madly, Raven once again apologized graciously for her intrusion, and I went to Clarke’s side.

“Will that be explained further?”

I chuckled, taking her hand and laying a kiss to her knuckles, “Yes. Let’s shorten it and say I scared the pants off of about 60 adolescents and may or may not take Anya’s car away. But we can worry about it later,”

Clarke’s eyes sparkled at me, “I suppose I don’t have a choice,”

I nodded, leaning to kiss her again, “No, you don’t. Clarke, please, tell me how you are?” I begged.

My wife chuckled, sweeping my hair from my face, “Relax, darling. The doctor administered my epidural a bit ago, so I can’t feel my contractions anymore. They’re prepping my operating room as we speak,”

“I’m allowed in, right?” I asked roughly, thumbing a circle on her hand.

“I’d have a problem if you weren’t,”

“Not as much of a problem as I’d cause,” I laughed lowly, and she chuckled, “Clarke, I know too well that you’ve done this before, but I still don’t want to leave you,” my voice was pitched softly, and I brought my face closer to hers. She sent gentle waves of love to my eyes.

“I want to be with you for every step of this. I don’t want you to think you’re alone,” I finished quietly.

I felt my wife squeeze my hand and her eyes were filled with love and devotion as she responded to me, “I know,”

And I knew she did. I didn’t let her hand go the rest of the night. Well, I did twice. Once, when I was outfitted with blue scrubs, and the other time to hold my wailing little girl. She was perfect. In every way you can define perfection. It was right here, calming and wiggling into my arms, the warmest, most amazing pink bundle I’d ever seen in my life.

I had knelt and shown my wife what we made together, and her hazy blue eyes were diluted with drowsy exhaustion. But she smiled. And brought a hand to caress the impossibly soft cheek of our baby.

“Hello, my darling Lucy,” she had said, her mouth still set in that wondrous smile, an infinity of love in her eyes. Those eyes moved to mine, “Lexa,” she breathed, and I nodded, the weight of Lucy so beautiful on my chest.

“I love you, Clarke,” I said seriously, and my wife nodded, her hand lain on my forearm as the doctors prepared her to be transported to a postpartum room. I laid a gentle kiss to Lucy’s small forehead, and she smelled so delicately soft and fragile, I was afraid to use just one arm to support her.

Later that night, into the early morning, I alternated between watching Clarke, Anya, and Lucy sleep. Anya had taken Raven home and come back to the hospital to curl in a chair next to Lucy to sleep. More accurately, she fell asleep on the table closest to where Lucy’s crib was, and I smiled at her already comfortable role of the protective big sister.

Clarke and I had worried that Anya might resent Lucy. It’s possible that she could have interpreted her mother’s pregnancy as a do-over. A new start just as she was going off to college. It worried me, especially as I was granted maternity leave by the surprisingly grace-giving Headmistress, who didn’t seem like a woman to condone homosexual relationships, much less doll out paid leave for them. It left Clarke and I to bask, fuss and bond with the baby as Anya had to go to school.

When our 3 months of maternity and childcare leave were over, I decided to pursue the topic. I entered the living room on a weekend to find Anya lying with a sleeping Lucy on her chest, a book to one side. Lucy was a wonderful sleeper. Something we all were incredibly grateful for. I sat on a couch and tried to formulate my words appropriately.

“’Sette,” I started, and Anya looked up from her book.

“Yeah, Mama?”

“You know that Lucy could never replace you, right?” My tone, I supposed, was on the serious side, and I appreciated her undivided attention. She closed her book and focused on me.

“I know that,” she said slowly, a habit I only just realized she’d picked up from me. Her voice still drawled in her uniquely flippant and carefree way, but her eyes were too intelligent to say she wasn’t thinking critically.

“Good,” I said, “Mom and I would never want you to think anything like it. Especially with you possibly leaving, I just want to tell you that we’ll miss you everyday. Also, Mom is serious when she talks about you coming back every weekend. I am too,” I frowned a little, “I know you’ll be at Uni, but I don’t want your sister to not have you in her life,”

Anya had switched from looking at me to fixating on gently rubbing Lucy’s back. When I was through speaking, she glanced up at me and cleared her throat lightly.

“Actually, Mama,” she reached to fiddle with a lock of hair, “I’ve decided to go to Trigeda. My acceptance letter came in the mail yesterday,”

I blinked.

“Trigeda? In D.C.?”

She nodded, “Yeah. And I was thinking that I would maybe just stay here and drive to school,”

“I didn’t even know you had applied,” I admitted honestly, my tone coloring with guilt. I suppose I hadn’t monitored her too closely for fear of pressuring her to this exact thing. I loved my alma mater, but didn’t dare try and lean her to any one school.

Anya smiled tentatively, “I actually didn’t tell you, sorry Mama. I just didn’t know if I’d get in or not, and I didn’t want to disappoint you if I didn’t. I know you wouldn’t be, relax,” she smirked at me, “And it has nothing to do with the fact that you went there, okay?”

I dared smile a little bit. I was incredibly proud. Trigeda wasn’t an easy school to get into, but my daughter really was brilliant. And she would be staying! With Clarke and Lucy and I. I think my smile was too wide to qualify as ‘a little bit’, because Anya gently rolled her eyes.

“It’s a good school, okay?” she defended, and I only grinned wider, “I like their programs,”

“Uh huh,”

I stood to my full height, my spine buzzing with happiness, love, and pride, and I bent to the couch and tucked my hands under her knees and shoulders quickly.

“Mama!” she shouted, startled. She instantly curled around her jostled baby sister, and I straightening, bringing them both to the air. Anya was laughing uncontrollably, and Lucy’s face split into a huffing smile. I laughed and smiled with my daughters and kept my arms locked securely. My whole world was in my hands, and I set off down the hall to find my sun.

“Mom!” Anya called, giggling, “Mom, help! Some crazy lady’s trying to kidnap Lucy!”

Clarke emerged from the laundry room and broke out into a smile, and my whole being lit up at how beautiful she was. She immediately dropped what she was carrying and I held still enough for Anya to hand over a delightfully squealing Lucy to her mother, and I threw the now empty-handed teenager over my shoulder.

“Anya and I are going to Trigeda,” I cheered, and my wife stretched a wide smile.

“And will my daughter and her incredibly good-looking captor be back in time for dinner?”

Anya struggled to turn around somewhat and I bounced her on my shoulder, smiling.

“Should be,” I said briskly, “Definitely before 7. We’re taking the bikes,”

“We are?” Anya called excitedly, and I bounced her again. She only yowled, and Clarke laughed.

“Be careful,” she leaned forward, Lucy on her hip angled away. I nodded and met her for a kiss, careful of Anya’s legs.

“Always, sweetness,” I responded with a wink.

Lucy was upset. She started first by gurgling in that huffy way she does when Juliet walks away from her. Then, she moved on to the hiccuping whines that hitch in her throat when her Mama sets her on the floor. I knew the next step would be a full force of wailing cries, and lying in bed listening wasn’t going to help quiet my baby.

Next to me, the still form of my wife shifted, and her breathing hitched. I smiled. I was tired, yes. But Lexa was exhausted. Newly juggling an entire Academy, Juliet’s college problems, a new baby, and myself, was pushing her.

But my darling wife was never one to back down. She spent every hour of her day doing what she felt was right. Lexa spent the hours of 6-5 at Arkadia, and left her work there. She was a family woman, and everything else held still for that. I loved my wife an unimaginable amount.

Lucy’s vocals pitched toward the hysterical, and I knew I had to give her my attention. Lexa woke up with a small jolt, rolled slightly, and I placed a hand on her tshirt clad shoulder.

“Lucy?” she slurred sleepily, her voice that low, sexy husk.

“I’ll get her, Lex.” I whispered back. She merely grunted and relaxed once more. I smiled largely. For someone who loved words with a fierce passion, my wife tended to be few on them. It was a level of respect for their impact that she’d unknowingly passed onto Juliet.

I made my way out of bed, and crossed the hall to Lucy’s room. We had built this house with a picture of our future in mind. Outside of the master bedroom, Juliet’s room, and Lucy’s nursery, there were two extra bedrooms, and they sent a thrill through my stomach, even though we hadn’t discussed filling them yet.

Our daughter was crying in earnest by the time I reached her crib, and her beautiful face was streaked in tears.

“Hey, heyy, my darling,” I leaned in and gently cradled my daughter to me, bouncing her soothingly. Her pale face was blushed with her frustration and I marveled for the nth time at Lexa’s gorgeous traits. Lucy’s hair had come in downy tufts of curling, chestnut hair, the ends tight coils of baby softness. Her eyes had taken my breath away when I first found them in the hospital; the viridian green of her Mama.

I sat fluidly to not jostle my baby, and maneuvered her to where I could slip my already off the shoulder shirt under my breast. Moving Lucy to where she was comfortable, she quieted immediately as she suckled softly. I exhaled audibly in relief.

My darling girl hadn’t cared much for dinner, or lunch, for that matter. And my breasts had started to grow tender and heavy. Lexa had frowned at Lucy’s lack of appetite, and cast me a worrying glance. I had laughed at her, and kissed her to reassure her that it was perfectly fine.

Juliet still found her Mama’s skittishness humorous when it came to Lucy. It was rarer, now, but I knew it was only out of the deepest-rooted love imaginable. Lexa would rather die than hurt Lucy. Or Juliet, for that matter, but our elder daughter was much more easily handled for my wife.

If I were honest with myself, Lexa was nothing but amusing during my last trimester of pregnancy. Diet, exercise, mood, and emotional health were all areas she was quite comfortable with. But my wife had grown terrified of intercourse.

Apparently, the slightest chance of vaginal penetration harming our darling girl was too much of a chance for her. It took two different doctor’s appointments and several embarrassing questions answered in excruciating detail to convince her otherwise. Which really was a pity, because my wife was a fantastic lover. Together we were quite fond of each other, to be mild. I was indescribably grateful for her change of heart. Hormones, new stresses, and unbridled affection for Lexa had ramped up my lust for the woman tenfold, and her nobility had almost caused a rather large argument.

But it worked out. A side effect of hormones I didn’t have when pregnant with Juliet apparently showed up in double time while I carried Lucy. I was almost constantly craving sex. My poor wife was happy to oblige me, but I started to tire her out at the very end.

It didn’t help that due to the sheer size of my stomach, Lexa was constantly reminded to be careful with me. Which was the opposite of what I had wanted. But it led to sex in very specific positions, which was nice as far as comfort was concerned. I loved my wife very much, and making love with her turned into my favorite thing to indulge in.

Only when a warmth on my right had settled on the couch did I notice Lexa had joined me. I leaned into my wife and settled against her easily. I didn’t ask why she had come, and I didn’t feel the need to. My wife was so dedicated to the things she found important, and I appreciated her everyday.

She pressed a kiss to my hair and I smiled up at her, twisting around to reach her lips. We kissed gently, a simple token to show our love, and separated when a creak was heard from the doorway. Juliet appeared, a hand rubbing at her face, and she blearily stumbled to sit on Lexa’s other side, not a word spoken.

My wife’s chuckle rumbled through my back, and I had to suppress a laugh as well; Juliet was almost no better than Lucy. Our older daughter immediately curled into Lexa’s side and her eyes slid shut as her head lolled on her shoulder, resting in Lexa’s neck.

I couldn’t help but bask in the scene and count the ways I found myself lucky. When I left the Griffin household, I would have laughed if a stranger had tried to convince me this picture was possible. Probably laughed and cried. And yet, here the impossible was; two perfect, healthy, beautiful daughters, my own business and home, comfort and love in every room. And of course, my darling wife. My beloved Lexa.

She was my guiding light, my heart and my rock. My best friend and devoted ally through any storm. I loved her with all of myself, and I chose her everyday. Her warm, comforting presence was weighted in my mind, and I smiled.

My wife, my daughters, and our home.

“Hey, Lex,” I whispered into the stillness that was our daughters’ sleep.

“Hm?” The press of Lexa’s lips to my neck made me smile, and I tilted my head to let her continue her soft march of kisses.

“Let’s have another,”

Lexa’s lips rested in their mission, and I felt the cool slide of her teeth as she smiled into my skin.