Chapter 7
LEXA: “I googled you address. You’re basically my neighbor!”
CLARKE: “Yes, I know. Isn’t it weird that we haven’t seen each other before?”
LEXA: “Not really. You’re working when I get my coffee and I don’t go out that much.”
CLARKE: “How come?”
LEXA: “ … I don’t know. It’s not fun when you’re on your own, I guess.”
CLARKE: “You didn’t go out with Costia?”
CLARKE: “Sorry, you don’t have to answer that.”
LEXA: “It’s okay. … It’s also no fun to go out and be recognized by everyone.
Fans, photographers … It kills the mood.”
CLARKE: “I understand.”
LEXA: “I should probably warn you that it is possible that people recognize me when we go out. It’s usually not that bad – I am only a writer –, but it could happen. Is that a problem?”
CLARKE: “I haven’t thought about that, but I guess it’ll be fine.”
LEXA: “Are you sure?”
CLARKE: “Yes, I am sure.”
LEXA: “Good. … You should probably go to sleep now. It’s late.”
CLARKE: “I probably should. … Are you still writing?”
LEXA: “Yes.”
CLARKE: “Killed anyone yet?”
LEXA: “I might have …”
CLARKE: “Have you ever written anything else? Anything without people dying?”
LEXA: “Like a love story?”
CLARKE: “Something like that.”
LEXA: “… I might have written … fanfiction at some point.”
CLARKE: “WHAT? Tell me it was smut!”
LEXA: “You’re making me blush, Clarke.”
CLARKE: “I am sorry! I am completely calm now. What kind of fanfiction?”
LEXA: “Still blushing … Okay, it might have been … smut.”
LEXA: “Clarke? Are you still there?”
CLARKE: “I am sorry. I’m still recovering from this. … Can I read it some day?”
LEXA: “Hell no!”
CLARKE: “Please?”
LEXA: “… Maybe one day. If I am drunk enough … Now go to sleep!”
CLARKE: “Yes, Ma’am! … Sweat dreams, Lexa.”
LEXA: “Sweat dreams to you, too.”
----
“Come on, Griffin! You’ve been texting Lexa for three days now. You will see her tomorrow. Can’t you just put down your phone for a minute and honor us with your presence?”
Clarke sighs and puts her phone face-down on the table.
“Okay, O. I put it down. Now what’s so important that it couldn’t wait?”
Octavia looks at her and Raven and beams.
“I’m getting married!”
“O! That’s fantastic!”
Clarke gets up to hug her immediately.
“It was about time Lincoln proposed!”
Raven grins.
“Why do you think that he proposed?”
“Octavia?!”
“What? I was tired of waiting.”
Raven slaps her on the back.
“That’s my girl, all grown up and feminist. … Have you set a date yet?”
“No. It was all very … sudden.”
“So you don’t have a ring either?”
“Raven, which part of sudden didn’t you understand?”
Clarke laughs.
“Jeez, Rae, let her breath and stop the interrogation. … But really, O, what did Lincoln say when you asked him?”
“Not much. … He might have cried.”
Octavia laughed and Raven stared at her.
“Soldier boy cried?”
“Yes.”
“Wow!”
Clarke looks at her friends and while she knows Raven loves Octavia and is happy for her she can also see the same pain she had seen in her eyes a few days ago. Raven feels lonely and she completely understands. She’s been feeling lonely for quite some time, too.
“So are we going to celebrate now or what?”
Clarke puts one arm around each of her friends, trying to lighten the mood and get Raven out of the place she’s in right now.
Raven nods.
“I’d be down. O?”
“I’m always up for a beer or two.”
----
Clarke sits on her bed. It’s late, but she can’t bring herself to sleep.
She doesn’t know what is keeping her awake. Maybe it’s the fact that Octavia is getting married or maybe the fact that Raven is so sad.
She opens the drawer of her nightstand and picks up the picture frame.
She hasn’t looked at it in months, but can’t bring herself to throw it away either.
Finn is smiling at her in the photo. It was taken in Central Park about a year after they had met. The sun is shining, the sky is blue and everything looks perfect, especially the boy with the kind eyes.
She feels a tear roll down her cheek.
The day Finn died had been as perfect as the one in the picture. They had been out to dinner and on their way home they had stopped at one of the 24/7 stores to get a carton of milk for breakfast.
Clarke didn’t see the guy come in. She didn’t realize that Finn had stopped and placed himself between her and the man with the gun. She didn’t understand what was happening until the shooting began.
The store owner had a weapon and when he reached for it, the robber shot him.
Then he turned around and shot Finn who was standing there with his arms raised.
Clarke has no idea why, but when the man looked at her, gun still raised, something had changed. He stared at her for the longest time and Clarke couldn’t move. It felt like everything around her was frozen in time. She doesn’t remember breathing.
It felt like an eternity until she heard the sirens and then man turned around and ran.
Finn had already been dead when she knelt down to check his pulse.
The tears are falling freely now. She knows she can’t stop them so she doesn’t try.
She has no idea why she is the only one in the store who survived that night.
Just as she has no idea why her father died in the car crash and she didn’t.
She has no idea what is so special about her.
Sometimes it feels like parts of her did die on both occasions.
But while the car crash left her marked by scars the night Finn died left her intact … at least physically. Nobody knows about the nightmares, about the days she has to force herself to get up, about the anxiety that sets in when she has to enter a store.
It’s been four years and she can still smell the gun powder.
She puts the frame back into the drawer and closes it. Some day she will have to deal with this, but not now. She has to sleep now. She has to stop crying or her eyes will be all red and puffy and she will make a hell of an impression on Lexa.
Lexa. There is a small sigh coming from her mouth and she has no idea what it means.
Raven asked her if Lexa was the one and she has no idea. She can’t dismiss the thought though.
There have been … lovers … in her life in the last years, but never for more than a few nights. She never had the urge to get to know them. But Lexa … She feels different and the thought makes her smile.
She lies down and closes her eyes. Maybe it's not to late for her to love again. Just maybe ...