Are You Gonna Hit My Mommy Too?
Song : Bayou by Mountains Of The World
Anya took Ayden by the hand, and they both went into the kitchen.
Once they had both disappeared from the living room, Lexa took a better look at the blonde. God, she was such in a bad shape.
“Clarke”, she called her, trying to get her attention, “You need to get warmer” she said worried.
But Clarke didn’t respond, and began to shiver more. Lexa’s mind was racing; she wasn’t a doctor, she didn’t know what do to. Should she cover her up with blankets? Should she give her medicine? Maybe a warm bath. Yeah, a warm bath was a great idea.
“Clarke“, Lexa shook her a little.
Clarke started to protest faintly, whining, but stopped when Lexa put both of her arms around her, trying to calm her down, and Lexa’s eyes widened when Clarke tried to snuggle closer to her.
“I’m gonna put you in a warm bath, okay?” Lexa tried again.
The blonde didn’t react, and let Lexa put her closer to help her get to the bathroom. Seeing Clarke wasn’t going to help herself, the brunette put her arms under Clarke’s knees to support her weight and carry her to the bathroom. Clarke’s body was very cold, and her lips were blue. Lexa could feel her shaking against her own body.
“Hang on Clarke, you gonna be better soon”, Lexa whispered near Clarke’s ear while she was walking towards the bathroom, “Just stay awake for a little while longer”.
Lexa was afraid Clarke would black out from the sickness, but luckily she didn’t. She sat Clarke on a chair before turning the tap to run a bath for the frozen woman.
“I’m going to take your clothes off”, Lexa warned, testing Clarke’s reaction. She went to took Clarke’s sweater off, but the girl opened her eyes a little, making Lexa stop.
“That is all the game you have? Using a bath as an excuse?” Clarke asked, whispering.
Lexa frowned, not understanding.
“You said you were gonna take my clothes off”, the blonde explained, still half-asleep.
Lexa lightly smiled, happy the girl was able to joke. She helped Clarke get up, and she noticed how much the girl seemed dizzy. She slowly began to take off Clarke’s clothes, leaving her in panties and top. Lexa didn’t want to embarrass her, but she knew she wasn’t able to protest now. Clarke did try to do it on her own of course, but she had to let Lexa help her because her head was spinning like hell.
The brunette put her hand on Clarke’s forehead, frowning when she felt how hot Clarke was. Hot because of the fever she had, of course. Even though Clarke didn’t need a fever to be hot. Damn it Lexa get your shit together, she’s sick.
Lexa almost had to carry Clarke into the bathtub, because Clarke wasn’t doing a thing to help herself anymore. Lexa felt relieved when the blonde started to shiver less, and letting herself be held by Lexa in the warm water, with Lexa’s strong arms keeping her from drowning.
“Are you comfortable, Clarke?” Lexa asked.
Clarke hummed. She was already starting to feel better, but her head was pumping, and she felt like something was rubbing against her throat, irritating it. She wasn’t that cold anymore, and with Lexa holding her, she was capable of thinking some things straight. Ayden and her were in Lexa’s house. They were into the apartment of a girl they had seen like three times. It should have make Clarke worried, but she was not. Right now, she was just tired. Very, very tired, too tired to fight Lexa’s attempts to help her. Maybe that girl really wanted to help them.
Half an hour later, Lexa noticed that the water was beginning to turn cold.
“Clarke”, she said in shaking her gently to wake her up, “you should get out of the water now”.
The blonde didn’t say anything, and barely felt Lexa carrying her out of the bathtub. Lexa quickly wrapped her in a towel, and kept Clarke against herself to steady her.
Sitting in the bathroom with a half-unconscious Clarke on her lap, Lexa didn’t know what to do next. The only thing she knew was that Clarke couldn’t stay in her soaked underwear. Soaked with water obviously, not that Lexa was thinking about another reason why Clarke’s underwear could be soaked. Shut the fuck off Lexa.
Lexa put her arms under Clarke’s knees for the second time, and carried her to her bedroom. She carefully laid Clarke on her bed, and quickly went to her dressing to pick clean clothes for her to wear.
“Come on Clarke”, she said trying to awake the girl, “you need to change or you’re gonna be sicker than you already are”.
Clarke whined, but with Lexa’s help, she changed herself into Lexa’s comfortable clothes. Lexa pulled out the covers, made Clarke lie on the bed and brought the covers up to the girl’s chin. Lexa quickly went back into her bathroom, grabbed medications and made Clarke swallow them. A few minutes after, Clarke seemed to be asleep, and Lexa sighed, exhausted but glad the blonde had finally stopped fighting her and had accepted her help.
Just when she was about to go, Lexa felt something tugging at her hand. She looked back, intrigued, and her heart stopped. Big blue eyes were looking right at her, glowing because of the fever, but Lexa swore she could see tears menacing to fall down on the blonde’s eyes.
“Lexa....” Clarke whispered.
Lexa sat down on the edge of the bed, bringing herself closer to the girl, a questioning look on her face.
“I am sorry to bother you”, Clarke said with the tiniest voice possible, “and I don’t want to bother you”.
Lexa frowned, and put her fresh hand against Clarke’s cheek.
“You’re not bothering me. I offered. Clarke you need help right now. You’re not going to be better if you don’t do anything. Let me help you.”
Clarke slowly nodded, and Lexa saw the single tear rolling down her face.
“Now, sleep, okay?”
Clarke closed her eyes. Lexa stayed a few more minutes with her, drawing small circles with her finger on the back of Clarke’s hand. Once she was sure the other girl was asleep, Lexa carefully got out of her bedroom, and headed towards the living-room.
When she came into her living-room, she found Anya and Ayden sitting on the couch, away from each other. Lexa noticed the pout on Ayden’s face and his sad eyes, his arms crossed on his chest. She looked at Anya questionably, suspecting her older cousin to be the reason for Ayden’s bad mood.
“Ayden what’s wrong?” Lexa gently asked, getting closer to him.
“I am not hungry, and I don’t like omelette”, he said with a teary voice without looking at her.
Lexa’s heart almost broke in hearing his voice. She knew he was probably very worried about her mother, and seeing Anya, a perfect stranger, couldn’t reassure him. She saw Anya rolling her eyes behind him.
“Thank you Anya, you can go now”, Lexa said.
She saw Anya ready to protest and demand an explanation, so she cut her off:
“I’ll explain everything Anya I promise. Just, not right now, okay? I’ll call you, I promise.”
Anya seemed to understand, because she just nodded, took her coat and her car’s keys and went out of the loft.
Anya got into her car, not believing what was going on. There were a woman and her child in Lexa’s apartment. She knew she had said it to herself already, but why on fucking earth were there this two people into Lexa’s loft? She sighed, and started her car, remembering Lexa had promised to call her soon.
Once Anya gone, Ayden couldn’t hold back his tears any longer and started to cry. Lexa frowned. She didn’t know how to handle a five years old kid crying.
“Yexa is mommy dead?” He asked, crying in his sleeves.
Lexa rushed to kneel next to him and take the kid in her arms without thinking, by instinct, and Ayden put his arms around her neck, sobbing.
“Oh no, Ayden, no she’s not dead, look!”
She got up, picked up the crying boy and carried him in her arms to go to her bedroom, pointing a finger toward his sleeping mother.
“See? She’s very much alive; she just needs to sleep under a real blanket to get warmer. You understand? “She whispered, not wanting to wake up his mother.
Ayden nodded and rested his head against Lexa’ shoulder, tightening his grip on her neck. Her heart melted once again. How could she already feel that? Her heart was usually as cold as stone, and she had sworn to herself not to care about anyone almost a year ago.
“So, are you really not hungry?” Lexa asked.
“I am, he confessed shyly, but I didn’t want to stay with the other girl. She scares me. I wanted to stay with you and mommy, but you were gone and I was not hungry anymore.”
Lexa couldn’t help herself and brought the boy closer to her, stroking his hair to soothe him.
“So, how about this omelette now?”
Ayden nodded with a shy smile, letting Lexa sit him on a chair and put a plate with food in front of him. He politely waited until Lexa also had a plate, and he ate his meal in less than five minutes. Lexa couldn’t help but laugh when he looked at her, pleading with his eyes to have more.
Thirty minutes later, they had finished eating, and Ayden had even helped Lexa clean the dishes.
“Do you want to watch something on TV?” Lexa asked, “I’m just going to see if your mom doesn’t need anything, and I’ll be back.”
Ayden nodded, a bit afraid of being left alone in the living room, but Lexa didn’t notice and turned on the TV before heading to her bedroom where Clarke was. The girl was moaning random words, but Lexa was glad to see that the fever was already starting to go away. She woke up Clarke just enough to make her swallow a glass of water, and Clarke drift back to sleep immediately.
When Lexa came back in the living room, Ayden had his face buried in the pillows, not looking at the TV anymore. Lexa frowned, and noticed the boy was shivering a little. She quickly went to her dressing, and took a sweater and sport shorts, bringing them back to Ayden.
“Ayden, would you like to change into clean clothes?” Lexa asked running her hand down and up his back, “I don’t have clothes your size but I do have some things which will do the job”.
Ayden weakly smiled at her and nodded. Lexa noticed the boy had his eyes red probably from crying. He let Lexa dress him when she sat next to him, and to Lexa’s surprise, he snuggled closer to her when he was dressed up.
“Thank you for saving my mommy”, he said in a tiny voice.
“You’re welcome”, she smiled to him.
Ayden suddenly buried his face in Lexa’s chest, and Lexa could soon feel tears soaking her shirt. The boy was shaking.
“Ayden? Are you ok?”
Ayden looked up at her with teary eyes.
“Are you going to hit my mommy too? Or are you going to protect us?” He asked, his voice broken.
Lexa’s eyes widened and she sat properly to be able to look the kid eyes to eyes. What did he just say?
“What? No Ayden, I don’t want you no harm, I’m not going to hurt your mommy, why do you say that?”
“Because he does”, the boy responded, sniffing. “Sometimes he hit mommy when he is angry.”
“Who, Ayden? Who does this?” Lexa was having trouble breathing. Who could possibly hurt someone such as Clarke?
“Finn”, he shrugged. “Mommy says he is my father, but I know he is not. Fathers are kind, and lovely. Finn is not kind”.
Lexa didn’t know what to say and was completely taken aback by what Ayden was saying. She wasn’t expecting to hear that at all, but she was slowly starting to understand.
“Ayden, is that why you and your mommy are always outside, in the streets?”
She didn’t want to tell the kid he was homeless, because it was a very strong world for a little boy, but she needed to know the truth to be able to help them as much as she could.
“Yes”, he said almost whispering. “Mommy says we have to wait until he is not mad anymore. But I know she doesn’t want to go back. Finn is mean. I don’t like him, and I don’t like when he hits mommy and makes her cry. “
His bottom lip began to shake again, and Lexa hold him close in her arms, trying to hush his cries.
“You’re ok Ayden, Finn is not here, he can’t hurt you, it’s ok. You’re safe. You’re ok. “
Lexa let the little boy cry, and she understood all too well the pain he was bearing on his little shoulders. He was too young to already know things like that, he didn’t deserve this. When Lexa thought he was sleeping, he spoke again.
“You’ll protect us?” He asked with a sleepy voice, still sniffing.
“Yes. I’ll try my best”, Lexa answered.
And she knew it wasn’t anything what Ayden was asking; she knew it had a real meaning, for her as for Ayden. Please someone help us. And at this very moment, she took the biggest decision of her life. She was going to give her life for them. She didn’t even know them, but she had heard enough; no one would ever touch them without their consent, and she was going to do anything in her power to help them.
“You have to promise, Yexa”, he yawned.
“I promise”, she whispered back, “I promise.”
Ayden nodded, and snuggled impossibly closer to her after that, not letting go of Lexa, his nose buried in her neck and his tiny arms wrapped all around her. Lexa put a cover on top of the both of them, and kept a hand on his hair and the other on his back, rubbing small circles to make him feel safe; Anya used to do that with her, when she felt like she couldn’t breathe and everything was too much. And it seemed to work on Ayden too, because soon he was sleeping on top of Lexa, snoring a little.
Lexa took a moment to look at the kid. Lexa had known from the start that there was something about them, and now, she was figuring why. Clarke wasn’t on the streets because she didn’t have enough money or a proper job. She was on the streets because she had chosen to. She had chosen to sleep outside, even if it was December and it was snowing half the time. And if she had chosen to be homeless rather than staying at home with that Finn guy in order to protect herself and Ayden from him, then it was something bad. Something really bad, and Lexa couldn’t help the bad feeling which was rising in her chest.