Chapter Text
Finn Collins looks the same as the day Clarke last saw him.
The same tousled brown hair. The same expensive clothing. The same posture. Right down to the smile, he looks no different.
She doesn’t even realize she’s stopped walking. The people around her jostle and brush her shoulders as they pass by and she’s numb to it all. She just stares at the ghost of her past as he leans against the wall and talks to the last person on earth Clarke wants anywhere near him. He stands there, a very real and tangible nightmare that’s gripped and pulled itself out of her past and all Clarke can think is that this can't be happening.
It was just a few seconds ago she had been laughing. A bubbly feeling inside her from an intoxicating combination of alcohol, the party, and predominantly the girl she’d been anxiously making her way back to. And now she just stands there, continuously jostled by careless drinkers that hold onto cups with liquid sloshing over the sides due to loose fingers.
For a moment it’s like she’s right back there. Gravel pushing sharply into her knees, vision swimming. The panic, the helplessness, all of it. She shakes herself out of it quickly and pulls a shaky breath in. The pounding music reaches her ears again, loud and relentless.
Finn hasn’t seen her standing there yet in her stalled state.
But Lexa has.
It’s a sea of moving bodies between but they stand like rocks in the current. Lexa's must have felt or sensed her there because she meets Clarke’s eyes easily despite the crowd. Clarke knows her own eyes must be wide and probably not a small amount afraid. And Lexa just looks at her. Really looks at her for probably the first time since they met.
Clarke immediately knows that he’s told her. She knows even before Lexa turns away and pushes through the crowd in obvious search of an exit.
“No, no, no, no,” Clarke hears herself saying as her feet finally start moving again. She pushes her way across the space between, panic and fear making her move faster.
Lexa is gone when she finally breaks through the fray, but Finn is standing with a pleased smirk that brightens when she appears before him. Anger floors through her unbridled and hot. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. She wasn’t supposed to find out like this.
“Hey, princess. How’s it going? Been a while,” he says. He smiles and his teeth gleam in the strobing lights and firework flares.
“What the hell did you say to her?!” she yells, muscles rigid and tense. He ignores her and brings his cup to his lips.
She hits the drink from his hand, its contents flying across the floor followed by indignant shouts from those nearby. She’s angry and there are sparks jumping and crackling across her knuckles as she takes a grip on his shirt and shoves him back against the wall. She should know better, but can’t find it in herself to care right now.
“What did you tell her?” she asks again, daring him not to answer this time. He seems unphased, both by her anger and the electricity sparking and charring holes into his shirt. Like the reaction is what he wants.
“What you didn’t, apparently” he tells her, smiling at the destruction he’s laid out.
And then she’s already gone, shoving him away and following after where Lexa disappeared.
Lexa’s head is a mess.
Caught manipulating humans. Clarke was caught manipulating humans. Those words echo over and over and over, refusing to be unheard.
Thoughts swirl and twist, too large for coherence in a space that’s already failing to comprehend so many things. She puts a hand to her forehead as she stumbles out into the night.
She wishes she hadn’t taken that last drink. She wishes she were home. She wishes she were anywhere where something is normal and ordinary for five seconds. Somewhere where she knows what’s real.
It plays on fast forward in her head. Each moment, touch, word spoken, all of it blurring and swirling. Her mind scrambles and fumbles with them all, trying to find reality between the seams. Trying to find where she she might have missed something, where something doesn’t align.
There’s nothing. Nothing to differentiate between any of the moments. They all feel just as overwhelming, just as real , and the realization makes her nauseous.
The cold bites at her skin and ice cracks beneath her feet and she keeps moving. Part of her is begging her feet to turn around, talk to Clarke, but a much larger part, the part that keeps her feet moving forward and is driven by her fears and confusions, overwhelms it.
Along with the confusion she feels angry and embarrassed and humiliated, but most of all she just feels so so stupid. She walks faster. She just needs to leave, needs space, needs something. Even the open night isn’t enough space to help alleviate the crowding in her mind that the alcohol is doing nothing to help alleviate. Lexa is good at thinking, good at analyzing, and rationalizing, but it’s too much so she does the only thing she can think of: run.
She hears her name from far away and the way it’s shouted tells her that she missed it the first few times. There are running footsteps behind her somewhere but she doesn’t turn around.
She feels so stupid for never having considered it before. Considered that what had felt like a dream could be exactly that. It doesn’t make any sense in the first place. Was she just gullible? Easily tricked? Too trusting? Why her? How much of it was fake? Her vision is blurring slightly and she doesn’t have the presence of mind to know whether it’s the alcohol or unshed tears.
“Lexa!” the shout comes closer now.
She doesn’t know what she’s thinking or feeling or what she believes and she curses everything that’s making it hard to latch onto a single coherent thought.
“Lexa wait. Please , just -- just wait,” her voice is right behind her now, pleading and slightly breathless.
Lexa spins on her suddenly, causing Clarke to stop short, surprising both of them. Clarke reaches out to her. Lexa steps back.
“Is it true?” She cuts straight to it.
Clarke’s mouth opens and nothing comes out. She seems lost. Looking to either side as if the answer is hidden somewhere. Hands slightly splayed out beside her, as if in supplication. But then she looks at Lexa for a moment and whatever she sees makes her swallow hard and nod.
“Yeah.” The words are quiet, defeated. ”It’s true.”
“So what, here I thought maybe you were just ashamed of me for not having magic and now I find out that I’m--I’m probably just some sort of source of amusement to you? Is that it? Is that what I am?”
“No! Lexa, listen to me please -- ”
“How am I supposed to believe anything you say? For all I know you’ve had me under some sort of-- of spell this whole time!”
People say stupid things when they’re angry and confused.
Lexa doesn’t think she’s ever seen someone so quickly and thoroughly gutted. Clarke’s mouth opens and closes but no words escape as she stares at Lexa. For a while the only noise is the distant muffled bass of the party and voices shouting into the night.
“Is that...is that really what you think?” The words are whispered, vulnerable, horrified, afraid. Afraid of what it means.
Lexa doesn’t answer, fingers gripping her shirt from where they’re crossed over her chest protectively. The wind blows sharp and relentless, biting into her skin.
Her silence is the final blow that does it. The one that breaks it.
Clarke seems to gather a resolve of some sort and nods, seemingly to herself. A small self-deprecating smile on her face as she looks upward, eyes shining. It’s like she saw this moment coming, every gesture, every word of it. Like it had been laid out in cards snapped down one by one by one long before. She has no reason to feel blindsided.
“I just,” Lexa starts, clearing her throat around everything that’s caught there. “I think...I just need to think.”
Clarke nods but Lexa can already tell that the damage is done. Clarke doesn’t try to say anything else to convince her.
She stays another moment. Just long enough to gather enough resolve to be able to take a step back, and then another, until she’s turning around and trying to forget the look in Clarke’s eyes.
When Lexa gets home she unlocks the door in a haze. She’s not even quite sure how she got there. She doesn’t remember any of the walk even though it must have been long. Anya looks up at the sound of the door closing.
“Did you have a good time at your rich kid par--,” The humorous smirk drops from Anya’s face when she catches sight of Lexa. “Hey, you alright there, kid?”
Lexa drops her stuff onto the floor and then herself into her chair. For a moment she just stares at nothing. And then her eyes catch on the small potted plant sitting on her desk. The plant she had bought because of Clarke. The plant that puts a smile on her face every morning when she sees it.
She stares at it, takes a deep breath, and then promptly begins crying.
“Oh, shit.”
She hears the sound of Anya’s chair scraping back from her desk. Anya doesn’t seem to know what to do so she settles for a firm hand on Lexa’s shoulder. Lexa pushes her glasses up so she can wipe at her eyes before giving up and tossing them on her desk.
“Hey hey,” Anya starts, crouching in front of her, worry pinching her brow. Her eyes search Lexa’s. “What happened?”
Lexa looks at her roommate and friend and sees the concern in her eyes. She opens her mouth to tell her. To tell her all of it. About the magic. About Clarke. About how stupid Lexa was to be so trusting with something that was so beyond her. Trusting of something that was so dangerous. How she can’t tell what’s real right now. How the thought that everything with Clarke might not be real is more crushing than the idea that she might have been taken advantage of.
Anya is still crouched in front of her. Her concern appearing without a single snide or sarcastic comment an indicator of how bad of a state Lexa must look. She’s sure she looks like a half-frozen and drunk mess.
She should tell her. It would be nice to not be carrying the secret alone anymore. She considers it for an extra moment.
She can’t do it. She closes her mouth and shakes her head. Anya releases a breath but doesn’t push.
“Alright, come on, let’s get you to bed. You’re going to have one hell of a hangover tomorrow if I’m any judge.”
Anya is an excellent judge, it turns out. In the morning Lexa rubs at her eyes and tries to pretend that it doesn’t feel like someone took a sledgehammer to her frontal cortex. Sleep had been slim to nonexistent, the deep purple bruises beneath her eyes a testament to the tossing and turning. Her mouth feels like sandpaper and she clenches her eyes shut trying to block out the world.
She doesn’t have a shift this morning but she’s still out of her apartment early, tugging her coat on before she realizes she has no idea where to go. She settles for anywhere as she closes the door behind her. She can’t sit in her room and see Anya giving her sympathetic looks every five minutes.
She ends up just wandering. Putting one foot in front of the other until she’s lost in part of the city she doesn’t recognize and has to work out how to get home. She should be thinking about it, analysing it, questioning it all to death. Anytime she lets a fleeting thought settle, however, the feelings that rise up to meet it make her stop.
By the end of the day there are no missed calls or messages on her phone and she tells herself that it’s good. After all, she had been the one to walk away.
The next morning when she has her shift it’s almost a blessing. Mechanically she ties on her apron and goes through the mindless movements of the job. Filling the espresso filter, starting the machine, pouring out the shot, handing it over to the customer, repeat, repeat, repeat, ad infinitum. She doesn’t let her mind fill with anything other than the direct action in front of her. Just lets her hands move and plasters on her customer service smile and carries on. She’s apprehensive the whole morning and watches the door every time the chime rings.
“Okay, I know we’re not exactly close, but you look like shit,” comes Raven’s voice when the morning rush has dwindled. Lexa thinks that’s probably as close to being concerned and comforting as Raven gets.
“I’m fine,” Lexa grits out. She returns the filter to the espresso machine with slightly more force than necessary and it clangs in protest at the rough treatment. The second sleepless night in a row is starting to make her feel frayed and pulled apart.
Raven gives her a look that tells her that she looks anything but fine. Whatever she sees on Lexa’s face, however, must tell her to drop it. With an eye roll that she doesn’t know Lexa catches, she turns to tinker with one of the machines on the back counter that had been acting up lately.
Lexa takes a deep breath, squares her shoulders and, with a smile she doesn’t feel, greets the next customer that approaches the counter.
“He wasn’t supposed to be there.”
Clarke doesn’t say anything. She feels numb.
It wasn’t Octavia’s fault. It wasn’t even Finn’s fault, not really.
It was hers. It was always hers.
“He wasn’t supposed to be there,” she says again, almost to herself.
Octavia doesn’t seem to know what to do with her in this state.
“She hasn’t called?”
Clarke just shakes her head no.
“She’ll call.”
She turns to her friend. “Would you?”
Octavia doesn’t answer.
Lexa doesn’t have any classes to distract her so she takes to spending her time off from work in the library, trying and succeeding in drowning herself in textbooks and notes for next semester. She stays there late into the night sometimes, long after other students have left, burning herself out and startling awake with her cheek pressed against the pages laid out before her.
She’s not sure if she’s seeking normalcy or reality or distance or something else entirely. She just knows that none of it’s doing anything to help her. She feels just as confused and lost as before.
Sometimes it’s Anya that comes and finds her tucked away among the books, shakes her awake, worried but knowing better than to try and offer any advice. The first time she had tried Lexa hadn’t even let her get a word out.
Lexa knows she must look like a mess on the days when Anya comes to find her, so she just accepts the helping hand in packing up her books.
In the mornings her alarm clock is relentless and she drags herself to work. She works her shift and pretends her eyes don’t linger on the empty burgundy armchair in the back.
Finn’s arm is tucked in hers. She’s laughing. It’s hollow sounding and she almost doesn’t recognize it as her own. The memories comes through in flashes.
Her magic flowing from her palm into his, willing and trusting.
His laughter, sharp and grating as he says, “Watch this.”
Gravel crunching beneath her feet as she runs.
A rough hand grabbing and pulling her to her feet as her hands continue to shake.
Clarke sits up from her couch with a gasp. She doesn’t even remember falling asleep. Didn’t know she could anymore. She can’t tell how long she’s been out or even what time it is, probably early afternoon if she had a guess by the shade of the light.
There’s a missed call on her phone and she tries not to let her expression crumble when she sees it’s from Bellamy.
The day continues to pass like the others, slow and relentless. At some point she finds herself stepping through the glass greenhouse doors at the end of the room. Her fingers trail over wilted leaves as she walks through.
“I’m fine.”
Octavia just crosses her arms and doesn’t say anything. Clarke can tell by the slight pinching of her lips that she doesn’t believe her. She tries harder to be more convincing.
“I’m fine, ” she puts more feeling into the words, placing her hands on the counter, fingers spread wide to avoid clenching them.
She turns away after a moment and resumes placing things on the shelves behind her. She hasn’t been in the shop in days and the work has built up while she hid away.
“Have you considered just going and talking to her?”
“She doesn’t want to talk to me.”
“Well how do you know that? Have you tried calling her? Maybe you should-”
“She doesn’t want to talk to me, ‘O! Just...stop,” she insists.
Octavia doesn’t. “So she just walked off? Even after you explained?”
Octavia notices the way Clarke avoids her eyes.
“Clarke, you did explain right?”
At Clarke’s silence Octavia looks gobsmacked.
“Clarke! For fucks sake! Why?!”
“Because she didn’t want to hear it!” Clarke says, spinning on Octavia again. “And it doesn’t matter anyways!”
“You’re not the same person.”
Clarke isn’t convinced.
“Just tell me what you did say to one another.”
“Oh, shit .”
Raven turns to her quickly. She’s probably never heard Lexa swear before. She finds Lexa starting with wide eyes at the girl that’s currently storming towards their counter. Raven takes a step back at the sight but Lexa is rooted to the spot.
“Bro, what did you do ?”
“I didn’t do anything.” She’s fairly certain Octavia is about to educate her on precisely why that is exactly untrue.
“Are you sure? Holy shit. She looks like she’s about to mess you up. Should I have the paramedics on standby?” She probably intended it as a joke but the look on Octavia’s face as she comes towards the counter tells her that that might actually be a valid idea.
“You and I are going to talk,” Octavia says, pointing her finger and loud enough to draw the attention of the few customers that had previously been trying to enjoy their coffee and pastries.
“Well, I’m just gonna go clean those tables over there,” Raven says, gesturing with her thumb towards the perfectly clean tables over her shoulder. If she wasn’t still so surprised by Octavia’s presence it probably would have drawn Lexa’s attention. Raven never cleaned voluntarily.
Octavia doesn’t look away from Lexa, just stands and waits with a glare. Lexa rubs at her forehead and turns to Raven who’s looking between her and Octavia with burning curiosity as she pretends to clean the tables, fooling no one. “Can you watch the counter for a bit?” Raven nods and Lexa knows she’s going to be on the receiving end of a lot of questions later to pay her back for the favour. She doesn’t bother untying her apron, just waves for Octavia to follow her.
She doesn’t even get a chance to get a word out once the door to the side alley clangs shut behind them before Octavia starts talking.
“What did you say to her that night of the party?”
“She hasn’t told you?”
“She has, but I didn’t want to believe her.”
Lexa leans against the solid brick of the building at her back, arms crossed and fingers tucked into the straps of her apron. Octavia takes a long look at her. She’s angry and Lexa thinks she should probably be more afraid. At Lexa’s silence she surprises her by rolling her eyes and tossing her arms up into air.
“Christ, you’re both idiots.”
“She lied to me,” Lexa says indignantly.
“No, she just didn’t tell you everything.”
“That’s the same as lying!”
Octavia goes in a different direction. “What I can’t get, out of this whole damn thing, is that you- the person that Clarke says never ever stops with the questions - just walked away!” Her hands are waving with each word, underlining her disbelief.
“There was nothing to talk about,” Lexa grits out, disliking the feeling of shame creeping up the back of her neck.
“I think you just ran away because you were afraid that she might tell you it isn’t real. That she’s tricked you somehow. Because not asking is a hell of a lot easier than dealing with answers you don’t actually want. And Clarke, being the stupid, selfless person that she is, let you walk away probably thinking that you’re better off without her or some bullshit like that!” Octavia is hardly even talking to Lexa anymore, just venting her frustration. Lexa fidgets slightly, there’s truth in her words that she doesn’t want to acknowledge.
Octavia makes a sound of exasperation and shakes her head. “Fucking Finn Collins. Asshole gets off on ruining people’s lives.” Lexa gets the feeling that she’s said those words many times over the years. A few people pass by the mouth of the alley, paying no attention to the two girls talking about magic and other impossible things just a few feet away.
“What did she do?” The words are out before she realizes what she’s said.
Octavia turns on her, seeming to finally remember she’s there. “Oh no, you are not asking me that.” The anger is back in her eyes and Lexa would step back if she weren’t already against a wall. “If you want to know you’re going to have to ask Clarke.” Octavia leans back against the wall opposite and appraises her, arms crossed over her chest.
For a while they stand there and suddenly Lexa just feels tired. All of it seeming to finally catch up with her at once. She sucks in a deep breath and releases it, watching as it spirals into the cold air. She breaks the silence first and the words are hesitant. “How do I know?”
Octavia raises an eyebrow, puzzled by the question. “Know what?”
“Whether it’s real.” Understanding dawns in the other girl’s eyes.
“You don’t.” Octavia’s quick, matter-of-fact answer makes Lexa’s stomach twist. “But I can tell you, as someone that’s known Clarke through the shitfest of the last few years, including through Finn, she is the last person that would ever hurt you. And I think you know that.”
Lexa crosses her arms tighter and shakes her head. “But that could all be part of it! How do I know that any of it is real? If anything I’ve felt since meeting her has been my own and not something else?”
“If you truly believed you had been manipulated by magic and that we’re all playing some giant joke on you, you would have made a break for it the second you saw me ten minutes ago,” Octavia tells her, eyebrow raised as if daring her to deny it.
And it’s true. Lexa hadn’t once felt afraid or concerned about Octavia’s presence. She had just led her outside without a second thought. She groans and leans her head back against the brick. She hasn’t learned a damn thing. She pushes out a deep breath, knows Octavia is watching her.
“She should have told me.” And there’s still some residual anger in her words.
“Yeah, yeah she should have. And that was a stupid move on her part. But can you blame her?”
“What do you want from me, Octavia?” Lexa asks, running a hand over her face, suddenly bone-weary.
“Me? Nothing,” she says, pushing off from the wall. “But you’re the best thing that’s happened to Clarke since that asshole came and ruined her life. And she’s hurting right now. She won’t admit it, but she’s really hurting.” Something in Lexa’s chest pulls against her will at the words. “What kind of best friend would I be if I didn’t try and fix that?” She shrugs, feigning casualness.
Lexa is silent.
“Just, talk to her. Because it’s probably not what you think.”
Her shift had finished hours ago and Lexa once again finds herself sitting in the library, pretending to study. She’s at one of the tables on the fourth floor. Choosing it because she’d known she’d be less likely to run into other people and sitting undisturbed is what she thought she wanted. Now she's not so sure.
It’d started snowing again when she had first placed her stuff down, the weather heavy and relentless outside, an indicator that Winter intends to stay for a while. Now, fat flakes whirl by and stick to the glass, piling up quickly in the corners and building a wall that today makes her haven feel more like an enclosure.
She’s staring blankly at the books on the shelves across from her, the labels old and peeling, the pages yellowing and ignored. She came to study, really she did, instead she just finds herself thinking. She thinks about everything. About magic, about what Octavia said to her (yelled, really), and, most importantly, she thinks about Clarke.
She taps her pencil against the desk beneath her hand and chews on her lip. Her phone sits beside her, the screen dark. For the first time, she wants it to light up.
The first few days with no calls, no messages, nothing, had made her feel relieved. She had been too afraid that she’d answer it. Afraid of the answer to the question she knows she’d have to ask. After a while though, the relief from no attempt at communication had slowly and almost unknowingly sunk into a hollow feeling that she hadn’t realized was there all along until this moment.
She picks it up. Even goes so far as to unlock the screen and let her finger hover over her name. She drops it back down to the table, lets it go dark.
She was being given exactly what she wanted, what she had asked for. For distance, for time to think. So why did she want that phone to ring so bad?
She knows exactly why. “Fuck,” she says, covering her face with her hands and leaning back in her chair, it creaks and groans against the strain.
It's coming in at her all at once and she rubs at her tired eyes. She realizes that she was stupid to think that she could just go on without thinking about it. About her.
It doesn’t take long for the ache in her chest to grow, having been pushed aside and ignored for days it was now determined on making its presence known. Like a dam fractured, she feels the cracks splintering wider under the pressure and soon everything will be trying to pour out at once. She knows it has the potential to overwhelm her again like it did that night but this time she doesn't let herself run from it.
‘Okay, just think about it methodically.’
She picks up her pencil and tears an empty page out of her notebook. Smoothing it out twice on the table in front of her she hesitates only slightly, tip of her pencil hovering over the page before it begins to move.
1. At some point Clarke manipulated people with her magic.
The pencil places the words with a feeling of finality, of accepted fact. Filling the page in with her neat and even handwriting.
2. She hid that fact from Lexa.
She frowns as the words appear, but she keeps going.
3. There is a possibility that she is still manipulating people with her magic.
She thinks that that’s it. That the list is complete. And for a moment she sets the pencil down and leans back in her chair again, peering down at it, satisfied that she has all the important things laid out. Everything she needs to consider. But there's a small voice in the back of her mind calling her a liar.
It takes her a second to realize what it is, but it rushes to the surface all the same. It’s the last fact, the final fact on the list, the most important fact. The one that she didn't write, didn’t think about, before this moment, because some part of her knows it has the ability to obscure all the others. She leans forward, and with sure strokes writes down number four.
4. Lexa doesn’t know if being in love with her is a result of those manipulations or if what she feels is real.
The word itself and the realization that accompanies it should come as more of a surprise, she thinks. But she also thinks she’s probably known for a while. Somewhere along the way she fell and she fell hard and there really wasn’t any coming back from that. It had settled solidly in her chest, taken root and spread outward, permanent in a way like the tattoo of a bird on her arm that she hasn’t looked at in days. And it’s like an anchor to her thoughts, giving her something solid and grounded to cling to. She looks at the fourth fact and it becomes clear in a way it previously hadn’t. And in the end Lexa can’t know, not really, that what she feels is real. But at the same time she does. She does know. She has reasons not to, things she still doesn’t understand, but in this moment it seems to be the one thing that she is absolutely sure of. The conclusion settles with a startling amount of clarity.
She thinks about what Octavia told her and she almost hates that she was right. That Lexa had been stupid for not asking questions that night or any subsequent opportunity because she was afraid of the answers. That the idea that Clarke doesn’t actually feel the same way and has been using her had made Lexa turn tail and run.
But she knows Clarke. Knows her well enough to know that she’s not the kind of person that would do what she let Lexa believe she did. That she shoulders blame that doesn’t belong to her.
And then she’s suddenly angry. Angry at the whole situation. At Clarke for letting her just walk away, for hiding it from her in the first place, for thinking that Lexa is better off without her. Because how could she think that? But above all she’s angry at herself for so many reasons, for what she said, for letting herself believe for a moment that it wasn’t real.
She doesn’t even stop to collect her books when she gets up from the table.
There’s a knock at the door, insistent and sharp.
Clarke ignores it. Hands folded on her stomach, laid back on her couch, she stares as the light crosses from the window to the overarching ceilings, cutting sharp lines and deep shadows. She isn’t sure how long she’s been laying there, just knows that the light had been at a completely different angle when she had first sat down.
The knocking comes again, louder this time, brash and demanding. Still, she tunes it out. She had put wards up days ago after Octavia had kept popping inside when Clarke wouldn’t open the door.
When the knocking comes a third time she grumbles and rolls off the couch.
“For fucks sake, Octavia. I’m not in the mood for this,” she says to the door as she storms over. Flipping the bolt, she swings it open, “I told you, just leave--”
Lexa glares at her from the other side.
Clarke stares back, wide-eyed.
“We’re going to talk,” Lexa tells her, leaving no room for argument. She doesn’t wait for Clarke to say anything, just brushes past her into the apartment and then the kitchen. She’s pacing when Clarke finally catches up with her.
“Okay,” Lexa starts, tossing her stuff onto the counter and pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose with determination. “I have been thinking and re-thinking and overthinking and I finally realized that all this thinking wasn’t doing me any damn good and I realized that that night I was mad and upset and confused and more than a little bit tipsy and I’m still mad and I’m still confused and I didn’t want to think about it because thinking about it could mean that that asshole at the party was right and you’ve just been messing with me this whole time but you know what the stupidest thing of all of this is?” she spins to look at Clarke suddenly.
Clarke is still just staring openly at her, one hand braced back on the counter as she watches Lexa pace with wide eyes, trying to process the outpouring of words. Lexa doesn’t let her answer. Instead she crowds her space and says, “I never let you explain.”
There’s a pause where Clarke’s mouth just opens and closes. “What?”
“I never asked for your side of it. The story, the background, anything, everything.”
“I don’t…,” Clarke starts, not sure how she’s going to end that sentence.
If possible Lexa crowds her space even more and says, “You got kicked out of magic school.”
“...yes.”
“Because they caught you using your magic on humans.”
The word comes out slightly more strangled this time. “Yes.”
“Tell me”
“What?”
“Tell me what happened.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re the kind of person that grows gardens and takes people to winter markets and -- and because you use your magic to warm my hands up when I get cold. Because I’m fairly certain it didn’t happen like you’re making it seem. Because I know you.”
“No. You don’t.” She’s over her initial shock and finds herself slightly angry because Lexa should be far away, forgetting about her and about magic and other dangerous things, but instead she’s here in Clarke’s kitchen looking so determined it has Clarke transfixed.
“I know you.” Lexa tells her, angry too. And her eyes are so green and deep and Clarke is caught. With one hand braced back on the counter and shoulders bent back from where Lexa leans into her she is wholly and completely caught. “Tell me,” Lexa says softly, her eyes suddenly gentle and Clarke hates it because she doesn’t deserve it.
Somehow she finds herself nodding anyways.
Clarke sits on one end of the couch, foot tucked up beneath one leg, absentmindedly playing with a string hanging from the torn knee of her jeans. Lexa sits on the other end, in a similar position. For a while neither meets each other’s eye. Lexa watches Clarke turn the string over and over in her fingers.
“I was eighteen, when I met Finn. Halfway done with my base courses at academy. He was charming and smooth and everything eighteen year old me thought I wanted. His father is a dean at the academy so his family is pretty influential and mine isn’t far behind so the match wasn’t exactly discouraged.” She doesn’t look up from the string in her fingertips and Lexa doesn’t interrupt.
“For a while it wasn’t very serious, off and on thing. But it was...nice.” She frowns as she says the word, mouth twisting. “None of us really thought to look past the charming part. And it was easy. I was doing well at academy, right on track to follow in my mom’s footsteps and become a healer. My dad was a magical engineer, not as prestigious as my mom’s position but important all the same. He used to come and surprise me on campus sometimes, joking about how he’s going to talk me into doing engineering instead.” She’s smiling slightly at the memory. “Things were good, my family was good, we were all happy.”
The string is completely frayed by now and Clarke’s fingers still their movements.
“My dad died a month after I passed my exams. It was an accident, wrong place wrong time, a project gone wrong, and not even magic could save him. I just… my mom and I… we both just sort of fell apart. My mom retreated so far into herself and her work it was like she didn’t want to be near me because I reminded her too much of him. And I just…I just lost it.” Clarke lets out a shaky breath and stands from the couch suddenly. She begins pacing and Lexa watches her brow pinch. “I didn’t understand how magic couldn’t save him and I didn’t know what to do and it felt like my world was imploding and I was sporadic and angry at so much and so many things. At my mom for running away from it and the pity from everyone, I couldn’t take it. And Finn was there , and at the time I think I was so desperate for anyone to just be there and he took advantage of that.” She stops pacing and she’s looking out the window, seeing something that Lexa can’t. “He’s… remember when I told you that there are different kinds of ways that magic can appear in people?”
Lexa nods but Clarke still isn’t looking at her so she says, “I remember.”
“Finn can’t make his own magic. He can only use what people give him. Transfer to him.” Lexa can see her chewing her lip. “Doesn’t make him any less capable at using it once he gets it though.”
Lexa can guess where the story is going but hopes she’s wrong.
“And like I said, I was angry and frustrated and sad and that made me sporadic and sometimes it feels so out of your control you just want to give it away. So I did.” She says it with a bit of a shrug as she crosses her arms over herself. “I’m not even sure how much I gave him by the end of it all. It’s not something I like to think about.”
“I thought I was fine, that everything was under control and that it was my friends that were being ridiculous when they tried to warn me off from Finn. I was so mad at them for trying to take something good away.” She shakes her head and Lexa wonders how long it took to rebuild that friendship.
“I was stupid and reckless when I was with him after that, using magic for everything and anything and giving it to him whenever he wanted it. It felt good to just let all that go. I didn’t question it, I didn’t think about it. We’re not supposed to use magic around humans, it can attract attention. But bending the rules was fun. It started as little things to try and distract me and cheer me up, at first it was just going into town and doing stupid tricks to win money off of ignorant people. And then a one time thing turned into hustling people every other day and we didn’t even need the money, what use would the money have even been to us? We just did it to do it. And then even that got boring and Finn is whispering in my ear how funny it would be to mess with the people themselves instead of just taking their money. It’s not like they’d know, right?” She scoffs and shakes her head, it’s sad and says more than her words do.
“It didn’t even occur to me to think about how far he’d go with it. And each morning I’d wake up and go to my lectures about learning how to be a healer and help people and the irony of all of that never dawned on me. And then I’d go home and we’d go out, usually drunk before long, I’d give him some magic and it didn’t phase me not to do it or to think about how it was wrong, that the whole thing was wrong. I just knew that it feld good to not have it building up inside me and that he could make me laugh and forget and for some reason that was the most important thing to me.” She lets out a breath. “I didn’t know that he’d been storing the magic I’d been giving him.”
Clarke rubs at her arms but a chill persists on her skin despite the friction. She leans against the wall beside the window and stares at nothing.
“I knew it was wrong, what I was doing. And I told myself that it’s not like anyone was getting hurt, that Finn was right, it’s not like they know. It took me way too long to start feeling uneasy about the whole thing.”
Clarke doesn’t look at Lexa. She doesn’t want to see what’s on her face.
“Besides going into town we used to hang out in this spot on campus, this unused corner crammed between the tower used for astrology and the potions lab. It was just somewhere we could drink and do stupid shit without being caught. And then, one day, I show up and there are these people there. When I asked Finn what the hell was going on he told me that he was just trying out some advanced incantations, that it wasn’t a big deal. I’ll never forget the looks on their faces. Just blank, completely and totally blank. And I realized how much of my magic I’d given Finn because being able to do that would have taken a lot and I think it finally scared some realization into me because it suddenly wasn’t funny anymore. And-- and I decided to confront him about it. To try and get him to stop. And we started fighting and it was my fault, what happened was my fault…” The words are coming out faster and faster and then she can see it, she’s right back there.
---
“Oh come on, it’s funny.” Like on cue the group of people laugh like what Finn has said is gut-splitting hilarious and Clarke feels sick to her stomach.
“Finn, stop, I’m serious.”
“Why? They don’t know what they’re doing.” He makes a gesture with his hand and a man in the group runs somewhere before returning with a can of beer, handing it over into Finn’s outstretched hand.
“They’re not puppets, Finn!”
He shrugs and cracks the beer open. “They kind of are.”
“Finn, stop. I mean it.
“Oh come on, princess. You know it’s funny. Watch this.” And he flicks his hand and the same nameless, expressionless guy is using the fire escape to climb up the side of the tower of astrology, hands pulling him up quickly. “Now come on,” Finn says to her, craning his neck to watch, “how many people can keep a full magic overtake active and get the host to perform actions, even I’m impressed with myself right now.”
But Clarke isn’t listening she’s still telling him to stop, that it’s not funny, telling him that she wants her magic back. And he doesn’t get why she’s so angry all of the sudden. Doesn’t see what’s wrong with it all. And she feels so horrified at it all and at herself for letting it happen. And then they’re yelling, loud, angry words that she’s sure others can hear. She doesn’t care because it needs to stop and she needs her magic back, needs to undo what he’s done, and she’s pulling on his arm to try and take it back and she didn’t know, she should have known that the spell was still active and she sees the movement over his shoulder and “Finn!” she yells, but it’s too late.
In their arguing and struggle Finn had forgotten about what he’d been doing, what he was supposed to be paying attention to. And the guy that had been climbing that fire escape is suddenly falling, falling, falling, and before Clarke can even think to do anything, he’s hit the ground. Clarke’s horror comes out as a gasp and her boots are skidding on the gravel beneath her feet as she runs. And her knees are digging into the ground, the sharp edges of the rocks pressing through the fabric of her jeans. Her hands are shaking and she can’t see straight, the world is spinning and her breath is coming in stuttering gasps and she can hear herself yelling for Finn to help her, to get help, something, anything. He doesn’t answer, he’s already gone.
Her hands are stuttering over broken bones and she can’t focus her magic enough and it’s flickering over her fingers in short shocks of static that bite into her skin and she can’t she can’t she can’t do it and she can’t breathe. She should know how to do this she should know how to stitch people back together with the snap of her fingers but she’s shaking and she’s failing.
She doesn’t know how long she tries but eventually someone is grabbing her arm and shoving her back, her palms pressing back into the sharp rocks and it’s a cut through the haze and she sucks air into her lungs as someone helps the person on the ground.
“Is -- is he going to be okay?” she asks, begs.
They ignore her and she just watches as the real academy healers get to work, doing what she was unable to. She just stares and stares, long after they’ve taken him away. She stares at her hands, shock still racking through her. She sits there with blood on her hands and tries to figure out how she got to this point.
--
Clarke doesn’t even realize she’s slid to the ground until she notices Lexa kneeling in front of her.
“He was in the hospital for three weeks. Usually healers can do quite a bit if they get there fast enough but...it was bad.” She shivers, feels sick. “Even after they were able to fix him they would only tell me that there was residual damage, wouldn’t tell me what. Even with all of that they had to wipe his memories. Just took that chunk from his life to stop any word from getting out. I wasn’t allowed to visit him in the hospital.” She remembers those nights sitting outside the medical center, not allowed in even though she was Abby Griffin’s daughter, even though it was supposed to practically be her home after she finished academy and they all knew who she was. She had already had a place waiting for her there, the two Griffins working side by side and doing great things. Being barred entry she was suddenly an outcast.
“Finn was nowhere to be found. I’m pretty sure he took off as soon as it happened. He knew they were looking for someone to take the blame for the whole thing. It didn’t look good for the school. Usually the academy wouldn’t care about a couple incidences, they’re all about sweeping things under the rug or turning a blind eye with a high enough donation, but this time it was different. Someone had actually gotten hurt, seriously seriously hurt, and enough people saw. They couldn’t just let it go.” Lexa is still kneeling in front of her but Clarke doesn’t look up at her.
She lets her breath out in a whoosh, gathering will to push forward to the end. “Since I was the one people saw kneeling over the guy, it was my magic all over everything, and Finn’s dad is a dean, it really wasn’t a hard decision for them. Finn could have come forward and owned up to it, but we all knew that wasn’t going to happen and my word wouldn’t have mattered for much. Two days later I was kicked out and wards were put up to stop me from coming back to my room on campus. Going to my mom wasn’t an option, she wouldn’t even talk to me after it happened. I was a mess for a long time, don’t think I’ve hated my magic as much as I did then. I ended up crashing on Bellamy’s couch for three months until I could figure out what to do.” She pauses and swallows around a dry throat. “And I guess that’s it,” she says, hating the way her voice cracks. The silence that follows her words is deafening, it feels like a tangible presence that expands and fills the air.
Clarke doesn’t want to look up at her. Doesn’t think she can take the look on her face of distrust and fear a second time.
“Hey,” she whispers when Clarke is too slow in wiping a stray tear from her cheek to stop Lexa from noticing. When Clarke still doesn’t look up she taps at her knee and bends her head to try and catch Clarke’s eye. When Clarke hesitantly meets her gaze, she doesn’t expect the sympathy she sees in them. And she definitely doesn’t think she deserves it. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“It was my magic,” she answers, her breath shuddering slightly.
“It wasn’t your fault,” Lexa repeats again, more adamant.
“But I--” and her voice cracks again, betraying her, and Lexa is shaking her head.
“No, listen. It might have been your magic that led to it, but it wasn’t your fault.”
And she keeps repeating it and repeating it until Clarke will hold her gaze. Until the tears slow and eventually dry on Clarke’s cheeks. Until the sun begins to dip beyond the horizon. She repeats it as she moves and sits next to Clarke against the wall. Repeats it again as she takes Clarke’s hand where it rests on her knee, tentative but reassuring all the same.
She repeats it until Clarke almost starts to believe it.
Clarke doesn’t know how long they sit there, shoulder to shoulder. She keeps expecting Lexa to get up and walk out at some point. But she doesn’t, she sits there beside Clarke as the light changes. It’s quiet and comfortable despite the fact that they’ve been sitting on the hardwood floor for who knows how long.
She feels tired as her head leans back against the wall, eyes closing for a moment. She realizes it’s a good kind of tired though. Like her body is giving her permission to lay down and rest because some of the weight from her shoulders has been momentarily alleviated.
“I’m sorry,” Lexa murmurs at some point when the last of light begins to stretch and fade from the room and Clarke opens her eyes again.
“For what?” she asks, head picking up slightly to look at the face beside her curiously, tone just as quiet, just as tentative of disrupting the fragility of the moment.
“For what I said to you that night.” And her eyes are meeting Clarke and there’s sincerity in her expression. Clarke can see the guilt underneath and shakes her head.
“It’s nothing I didn’t deserve.” She can tell Lexa disagrees by look she gives her before shaking her head as well, already opening her mouth to form a rebuttal. “I should have told you,” Clarke interrupts, and then she hears how defeated, how tired , her voice sounds. “I was afraid you’d hate me or leave. Or both. But I should have told you anyways.” Part of her is still waiting for Lexa to let go of her hand and walk away even now.
“Yeah, I wish you had. I like to think I’ve been pretty good about the whole not freaking out thing up to this point.” And there’s this smile teasing at the corner of her mouth. “But I also get why you hesitated. I can understand that.”
Clarke continues to sit there and she looks at her and she almost can’t believe it. At the pure acceptance before her eyes. She just looks at her for the longest time, like she can’t believe that Lexa is here and real, that she’s sitting next to her.
“You’re staring.”
“Sorry.” Clarke shakes herself out of it and can practically feel her hair change colour.
“It’s okay. I’d stare at me too, I’ve heard I’m very easy on the eyes,” she says, and there’s a smile on her lips and it’s been too long since Clarke’s seen it and she wants to memorize it.
“How can you do that?” she asks, wonder creeping into her voice.
“Do what?” Lexa asks, rolling her head toward Clarke once more, eyes quizzical.
“Just sit there are forgive me.”
It feels like deja vu, they’ve been here before, Lexa offering forgiveness and Clarke fumbling with it completely perplexed.
And Lexa just gives her this look, smiling like there’s something Clarke doesn’t get yet. And that smile is still pulling at her lips and it’s tangled in her eyes and there’s magic Clarke doesn’t have any control over in the moment caught between their breaths.
“Stop doing that,” Clarke tells her, huffing out a breath.
“What?”
“Looking at me like I hung the stars in the sky.”
Lexa just grins, her thumb rubbing softly across Clarke’s knuckles.
“So what now?” Clarke murmurs as she watches Lexa’s fingers.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean now you know, you know that I could do it. That I have done it. That I’m capable of doing it again and you’d never know.” She bites at her lip.
“Mhmm, that’s true,” Lexa agrees, her voice considerate. “I guess I’ll just have to trust you.”
Clarke looks up at her. Lets the words soak in. Feels something pull in her stomach at their gravity.
“That’s a lot of trust.”
Lexa considers her words again. Then she nods once, mind made up, and meets Clarke’s eye. “Yes.”
As if it’s simple.
Clarke’s head tilts back to rest against the wall with a ‘thunk’. She lets out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding.
“Why?” she asks, because she still doesn’t understand.
Lexa just shrugs, seemingly unperturbed by Clarke’s confused reaction, but the corner of her mouth ticks up slightly and she knocks Clarke’s shoulder lightly with her own.
“Maybe I just like you.”
The night is pressing in from the windows, outdoor string lights and neon signs competing to light up the emptying sidewalks that are only visible if you look down far enough. It’s dark and late but Lexa is leaning with her shoulder against the frame of Clarke’s open door.
She’s lingering. She has her shift in the morning and a long enough walk home that she’ll probably cave and order a cab before she gets very far. She knows all this but can’t get her feet to move.
Clarke is leaning against the wall just inside, mirroring her but with her hands tucked into the back pockets of her jeans. Her lip is caught between her teeth and she’s looking at Lexa like she’s the one that has the ability to vanish into thin air and Clarke is waiting for it to happen.
“You never asked me.” The words would have stopped Lexa if she had actually made any motion towards leaving.
“Asked you what?”
“Whether I did it to you. Whether I ever used my magic on you like that.”
She gives a small shrug in response. “I don’t need to.”
And Clarke is biting her lip again, staring at Lexa like she still doesn’t get it. Like Lexa is a puzzle she’s destined to never quite untangle. Eventually it settles into a different look, like she’s put the puzzle aside for the moment, having concluded it’s one that’s going to take days or weeks or longer to solve, but that she very much still intends to. That she’s up for the challenge.
“I should get going,” Lexa says, eyes trailing over Clarke’s face, lingering on the lip she’s still biting.
Clarke nods, understanding but solemn nonetheless.
They hear the distant sound of horns honking and the general hum that comes with living in a city. They just continue to consider one another, Lexa making no move to go, Clarke making no move to make her.
“I should really really go.” Because it’s far too late and she has to be up far too early.
Clarke nods again.
But when neither of them move for the second time Clarke’s lips twitch. The corner ticks up slightly. And she doesn’t know that it’s the one Lexa loves best. And she’s staring at it as it grows until it’s a full grin and Lexa can’t help but mirror her.
And then it’s a matter of gravity. Lexa is pulled towards her and is capturing that smile. Her palm coming up to rest against the side of Clarke’s neck, thumb stroking the corner of her jaw as Clarke’s eyes flutter closed.
The kiss tastes like Spring. Like something new and promising. Something thrilling and vibrant. Like potential. Clarke’s pulse thrums beneath her fingertips and she knows it’s real.
“Stay.” The word is whispered against her lips, puffed out quietly when they part. And Clarke’s forehead is resting against hers and she says it again and again until Lexa is nodding.
“Okay.”
Days later Lexa taps her fingertips against the counter, a non-sensical rhythm as she watches the door. The day is dark outside, the clouds rolled in sometime overnight when no one was looking and unanimously made the decision to stay. Above her head and between the boards advertising new peppermint flavoured everythings, lights blink and twinkle in a pattern more even and consistent than her jittery movements.
There are only a few other people in the shop with her. An elderly man sipping an earl grey and shuffling the paper in his hands intermittently. A student with her head bent over a thick book, going back and forth between writing notes and taking deep pulls from the large coffee sitting next to her. Lexa leans over the counter and watches them for a moment before her eyes trail elsewhere. They move across the mismatched mugs that line the counter, linger on the half-complete chess set on one of the tables, and linger fondly on the teetering pile of books next to the motheaten couch in the back. She thinks there’s more magic here than she originally thought, a different kind of magic, but magic nonetheless. She doesn’t pull out the book she has stashed beneath the counter and instead just takes a moment to enjoy the quiet peace that’s settled after the morning rush has come and gone.
“You still never told me what happened. I want the details, Woods.”
Well, short-lived quiet anyways.
Raven, perhaps the most consistent presence in almost every one of Lexa’s mornings, is watching her with what Lexa is sure narrowed eyes, put off at being left out of the drama. She had been dropping questions now and again about Octavia, and, more cautiously, about Clarke. She seems to know that the questions aren’t exactly taboo anymore but she’s getting increasingly frustrated with Lexa’s answers, or lackthereof.
“I kind of liked that girl though, Octavia, the one that came in and scared the shit out of you,” she says, continuing despite Lexa failing to contribute to the conversation. “Anyone that can put that expression on your face has to be interesting to have around.” Lexa agrees with an absentminded nod of her head as she continues to lean on the counter, it only seems to prompt Raven further. “We might have a lot in common. I feel like she and I could be good friends.”
The idea is enough to still the fingers Lexa drums on the counter and she turns her head to properly look at Raven. Her coworker is leaning her hip against the counter beside her, eyes trailing over the blinking lights strung over their heads. Raven’s eyes seem to catch on the one that’s flickering and broken given by the way they narrow slightly and Lexa knows she’ll see the girl tinkering with it before long. Her words, though, are enough to have Lexa actually thinking about it, because she realizes that Raven’s right. She thinks Octavia and Raven would get along almost too well.
“Yeah, maybe you could,” she murmurs thoughtfully. And the more she thinks about it, the more she likes the idea.
Quiet returns to the room once more after that, settles and sits comfortably among all its inhabitants. Before long she can hear the sound of tinkering from behind her and knows that Raven has succumbed to her inability to let broken things lie. Lexa doesn’t turn to watch her, her eyes are on the door, waiting.
It won’t be the first time she’s seen Clarke since they’ve talked, since she stayed. Far from it actually. But it will be the first time she’s back there, in the coffee shop.
It had been good, what had led from there. Lexa had been sort of re-introduced to Clarke’s friends in the days between then and now, in a much more casual setting than the first time. She likes them, she likes how after a while it didn’t feel so spectacular and strange, and instead felt comfortable and almost ordinary. Octavia had been the quickest to accept her presence, though it was only surprising to those who didn’t know and still don’t know about the conversation between Lexa and her. Overall it had been slow and slightly hesitant at first, but between games of scrabble and trivial pursuit, two of which she even managed to win, she had felt accepted in a way she hadn’t realized she needed or wanted.
But mostly her and Clarke just spent a lot of the days between talking. Clarke telling her more details about her life, about academy, about almost anything and everything. Nothing too small for Lexa’s interest she drinks it all in eagerly. They don’t talk much about Finn besides Clarke telling her that he’s been trying to get in touch with her since she was kicked out. That she had done a pretty good job avoiding him since then but it wasn’t all that surprising that he showed up eventually. Clarke seems set on being an open book and doesn’t wait for Lexa to ask questions but answers them when she has them anyways. In turn Lexa tells her more about her own life, about her classes, what she wants to do after she graduates, about everything really.
It had started off hesitantly, afraid that another page turned in that open book might fracture and break the thing they had carefully put back together. But each day made them breathe easier and less wary and each day Lexa is more sure.
When the chime rings Lexa immediately straightens, pulled out of her thoughts.
As Clarke strides forward, Lexa takes in the sleeves that are pushed to the elbows, the black ink painted across one arm and the still-absent bird from the other. She thinks of the crow’s new home on her own arm, she hopes it doesn’t mind that she intends to keep it for a while.
Clarke’s hands are tucked into the pockets of her jacket as she comes to stand before the counter. Her eyes don’t seek the chalkboards above to figure out what she wants to order. They don’t look anywhere but right at Lexa. There’s a hesitant smile on her face.
“Hi.”
“Hi,” Lexa returns.
And then they’re grinning at each other like they’re back leaning on the door jamb again, and something in Lexa’s chest loosens because it feels easy. It feels easy and it feels good and there are small moments she wants to hold onto, ones that makes her heart flutter and her cheeks heat. She wants to ask Clarke for a spell or a potion, something that can bottle a moment, a lingering look, a feeling, because she wants to hold onto it forever any way she can.
“Hey, Lexa, can you hand me the screwdriver in the top drawer?” Raven says from somewhere above, most likely having climbed on top of the counter to reach the lights. When she doesn’t get an immediate answer she looks and sees Clarke standing there. “Nevermind, you’re going to be useless until she goes away.”
“Nice to see you too, Raven,” Clarke says and Lexa watches her eyes flick up to follow whatever Raven’s doing. Lexa doesn’t see the movement, but she’s sure Clarke has made some gesture with her fingers based on what Raven says next.
“Huh, nevermind, I fixed it.” Lexa turns to see her clambering down from the counter, the persistently broken light now fixed and twinkling in time with the rest. “I think it just needed to be tightened.” Lexa turns back to Clarke and there’s a slight uptick to the corner of her mouth.
Neither of them say anything and instead Lexa gives her a knowing smile and digs her pen out of the pocket of her apron. “What can I get for you? Your usual?”
Clarke nods. “Please.” They both know she’s not there for the coffee. Clarke watches her movements as she writes the order down on a slip of paper.
“And is that to go or for here?” she asks.
She waits as Clarke meets her eyes again.
“For here,” she says, her hair slowly shifting colour as she says the words. “Definitely for here.”