Grounders
Ten minutes until elven Clarke found herself rushing out the door, silver clutch and keys in hand. She silently cursed herself when she realized she only had ten minutes to get to Grounders and it was a good 20 minute drive from her apartment. As she hurried down the few flights of stairs and out to the parking lot she shot a quick text to Raven saying she’d be little late. Putting her phone back in her clutch she pushed the unlock button on her car key and jumped in her driver seat. The one thing Clarke was more than happy to splurge on was her baby, a 2017 deep grey Audi A4. It may have cost her almost a years rent for the down payment but she had fallen in love with the moment she saw it and it was defiantly worth it.
As Clarke relaxed into the plush leather seats she hit the keyless start button and proceeded to back out and glide out into the busy LA traffic. While driving, Clarke’s thoughts kept going back to the night she had met Lexa and was wondering what exactly the beautiful detective was doing right now. What she didn’t know was that if she would have left on time she would have seen the brunette driving off into the same direction she was currently driving.
Twenty-five minutes had passed when Clarke finally parked her car in the crowded parking lot of Grounders. Making her way past the long line of young adults waiting for entry to the club she gave a big smile to the large bouncer who moved to open the door for her.
“Hey Gustus. Busy night?”
“Good to see you again Clarke. And we’re always busy. Not a night goes by where I don’t have to throw someone out onto the pavement,” Gustus gave her a pat on the back as she made her way through the door and down the short hallway and out into the club.
Clarke and her friends had been hanging around Grounders for years and had come to know the intimidating looking man. Gustus was a rather tall and large man with two identical tattoos running up both sides of his face and long black hair and a beard and mustache. They had grown close with him after about a year of outings to the well known club. Between him pulling drunken male patrons away from the women and the occasional escort to their cars they had come to trust the man like a father of sorts.
Clarke’s blue eyes scanned through the crowded club before finally seeing her close knit group of friends hanging by a rather large table in a back corner. Pushing her way through the masses of bodies she walked up to stand between an already swaying Raven and Octavia. When Raven caught sight of the blonde she threw an arm around her shoulders and gave her a hug.
“Griffin! So glad you could finally join us! I swear you would be late to your own funeral, but at least you followed my orders to make yourself look hot,” Raven gave a tipsy laugh and removed her arm from around Clarke.
“I lost track of time while finishing a painting, and you know how Los Angeles traffic can be! I didn’t leave my apartment until ten minutes before elven!”
Before Raven could make another remark Octavia, Clarke and Raven’s best friend of ten years, handed Clarke a large glass of Long Island Iced Tea while laughing at the two girls.
“She’s got a point Clarke. You’re always late to everything. I remember during our high school graduation you came running in as soon as we were all walking out to take our seats and almost broke your ankle in the process.”
“Hey, I blame my mother for that one. She kept taking picture after picture and wouldn’t let me go until she was satisfied. She was the reason I was so late.” Raven let out a snort at the words.
“Yeah. Blame your mother. Last time I checked you were late because you kept texting me saying you couldn’t fit your boobs in your dress.”
Both Raven and Octavia let out a loud laugh at the horrified look that Clarke gave the tan brunette. Clarke thought back to the time when she had first met both of her best friends.
During her first day of high school Clarke had been wondering the halls looking for her locker when she had smacked straight into a girl carrying a large bin of what looked like robotic parts which caused said girl to go tumbling back and sending parts from the bin to fly over the girls head and hit an unsuspecting girl coming out of the restroom. Clarke had profusely apologized to both girls before running around and picking up fallen robotic parts. Before Clarke knew what was going on both girls were on the floor laughing.
“Oh my god. That was the absolute funniest thing in my life. There’s no way that wasn’t planned. It felt like a scene from a movie,” The robotic-part-carrying girl had laughed out.
“Did you see poor blondie’s face? Oh lord that was the most priceless thing I’ve ever seen.” The girl standing in front of the bathroom whipped a tear from the corner of her eye.
Clarke looked at both girls like they had each grown two heads before laughing along with them. After Clarke had helped both girls pick up the fallen parts they all stood in a small circle and looked at each other.
“I am sorry again. I wasn’t looking ahead of me. I was too busy trying to find my locker number,” Clarke blinked at both girls hoping neither was mad.
“It’s no problem. I probably should have been watching to but this damn bin is big its hard to see around sometimes. My names Raven by the way,” the girl holding the large bin said.
“And I’m Octavia. And no harm done. I was waiting for something remotely interesting to happen at this school, I just didn’t expect it to happen to me when leaving the restroom.” Clarke and Raven let out a small laugh at the girl.
“Well I’m Clarke. I’m just a big klutz with two left feet. There’s no excuse for me.” Clarke rubbed the back of her neck with her hand while looking at both girls with a sheepish expression. Both Raven and Octavia let out another laugh at the blonde before all the girls started walking down the hallway and getting to know one another. After that day all three girls had come to grow as close as sisters.
Clarke was pulled out of her musings as Raven and Octavia laughed at something she had clearly missed. After a quick catch up in the conversation she took another look around the club to see Bellamy and Lincoln sitting at the table they currently stood in front of. After a quick bye to the girls Clarke made her way over to the two men and taking a seat between the two.
“How’s it going boys?” Clarke looked at Bellamy and Lincoln with a large smile before Bellamy wrapped an arm around the blonde in a quick hug.
“It’s been too long princess. You need to come out with us more often. They running you dead over at the hospital?”
“You have no idea, Bell. Just yesterday I had a patient trying to pull their stitches out while I examined them and was getting paged to do a surgery at the same time. It’s safe to say that I barely have a social life anymore.”
Both men laughed at the poor blonde as she hung her head and sighed at the memories. After finishing med school Clarke had become a doctor at UCLA Medical Center, one of the best hospitals in LA. After her first year things had started to get very busy for her. Going between being an ER doctor to helping in surgeries was taking more of the blonde’s time than she had recently thought possible, but none of that mattered as long as she was helping save lives. Lincoln took a long swig of his beer before putting a hand on Clarke’s shoulder and giving her a small shake.
“You just need a couple days to catch up with everyone and you’ll be fine. Raven told us you’ve got a few days off this week. Maybe we can all plan a short trip to the beach house like old times.”
“That actually sounds like a good idea Lincoln. I’ll just have to get the keys from mom and make sure all of us are free. I’m off until Tuesday so that should be plenty of enough time for a small get away.”
As Lincoln and Bellamy started to discuss what would be needed for the weekend Clarke looked over to the dance floor to see both Raven and Octavia dancing to the electronic dance song that pumped out through the clubs speaker system. Shaking her head at both women’s crazy antics she stood up and made her way to the bar to order herself another drink. About more than half way to the bar Clarke looked at the multitude of people standing at the bar before her eyes landed on a brunette woman that stood at the middle of the bar talking to another dirty blonde haired woman who sipped on what looked to be a gin and tonic. The brunette laughed at something the woman said before looking over to where Clarke stood about two feet in front of her. Clarke felt like all the air had left her lungs as she stared into the green eyes of the woman who she had met yesterday.
“Lexa,” Clarke let out a whispered breath of the woman’s name as the brunette walked right up to her.
“Clarke. It’s good to see you again.”