Carry The Blame
Song : Earth by Sleeping At Last
Tuesday morning. Lexa jolted awake when her phone buzzed somewhere in the loft. She sighed, and tried to get off the couch without waking up Clarke who was still sleeping in her arms. She searched for her phone on the kitchen table, where she had left it yesterday after the dance party. Lexa chuckled, thinking about it, and watched the screen of her phone. She had six missed calls from Anya.
“Shit” Lexa cursed, tipping Anya’s number.
Her cousin picked up immediately, much to Lexa’s worry.
“Why the fuck haven’t you picked up your phone the first thousand times I called you?” Anya shouted into the phone.
“I’m sorry Anya, I didn’t have it on me” Lexa explained, and she could almost see Anya rolling her eyes.
“You always have your phone on you, what were you doing?”
“Anya it’s six am right now, I was sleeping!” Lexa said, starting to be annoyed by her cousin because she was feeling it was not that important, “so are you dying?”
“What? No!”
“Did you kill someone?” Lexa asked again.
“No I did not, why are you...”
“So why are you calling me this early, Anya?” Lexa snapped at her cousin, angry at her to awake her for nothing.
“I met a girl” Anya said, and Lexa could hear the stress in her voice.
“hum ok Anya” Lexa raised a brow.
“Yeah, I mean, she’s intriguing, she has a beautiful laugh, and I don’t know and...”
“Anya what’s the problem?” Lexa asked, not understanding a single thing.
“She texted me! I spilled hot chocolate on her the other day and she texted me!”
Lexa frowned, because nothing was making sense. “Listen Anya, I have to get ready for work, and I still have to take care of Ayden and Clarke before I go. Meet me in my office?”
“Your office, yeah, ok, I’ll see you there” Anya said, hanging up.
Lexa put her phone back on the kitchen table, gently massaging her temples. Anya was usually a self-confident person, why did she sound so stressed and panicked and unsure over the phone?
But Lexa didn’t have time to think more about it, because suddenly Clarke was screaming into the loft.
The brunette rushed to her side in a second; Clarke was completely untangled into the blanket, fighting against herself, still asleep. Lexa gently rested her hands on Clarke’s cheeks to wake her up and help her focus on reality.
“Clarke, wake up, it’s me, you’re having a bad dream” Lexa said.
But Clarke jumped when Lexa touched her, trying to get rid of her hands. Lexa then shook her more willingly.
“Finn let me go!” Clarke shouted, punching Lexa in the face who winced in pain but did not let go of Clarke.
“It’s ok, it’s Lexa” Lexa repeated. Seeing it had no impact on the blonde, Lexa put both her arms around her.
“Feel me Clarke, I’m not him, you’re ok, you’re safe with me now” she said, whispering in Clarke’s ear.
Clarke suddenly jolted awake, gripping Lexa’s arms hard, her eyes seeing everything and yet nothing at all.
“Lexa!” she screamed again, “Lexa where are you?”
“I’m here, I’m right here” the brunette answered, pulling Clarke a little closer without crushing her.
A sob escaped from the blonde’s chest, reassured to be safe and with Lexa.
“I’m sorry....” she managed to say, trying to get her emotions back under control.
“It’s ok”, Lexa cut her apology off, “everything is ok, and you’re safe”.
Clarke nodded against Lexa’s chest, letting herself be held while she was regaining her composure.
“I’m sorry” Clarke repeated after a while.
“I’m the one to be sorry”, Lexa said while Clarke was looking at her with interrogating eyes, “you don’t deserve all this”, Lexa whispered.
Tears began to fall from Clarke’s eyes. “Maybe I do...” She murmured, trying to shush her cries.
Lexa’s heart broke, and she properly got on the couch, tugging Clarke on her and burying her in her strong and protective arms. “Clarke, listen to me. You’re a good person. You’re a good mother. I don’t know what you went through, but you can’t blame yourself every time something bad happen. Accidents happen. People die”, Lexa said, thinking of the ones she had lost, “people change, and not always for the better. Life is life, and you can’t be held responsible for everything”.
Clarke weakly nodded in Lexa’s neck while putting her arms around Lexa’s torso. Lexa passed her hand under Clarke’s shirt, and the girl didn’t shiver. She began to draw circles on her back to calm her down, and soon Clarke wasn’t crying anymore.
“I know we still have a thousand things to talk about” Lexa spoke again, “but first, you have to stop blaming yourself. Not everything is you fault. You’re a human being. You’re not perfect, Clarke, nobody is. You can make mistakes, as I do. But don’t let those mistakes drag you down. Learn from them. Get up stronger”.
Clarke nodded more frankly this time.
“I have to go to work in a while” Lexa said without removing her hand from under Clarke’s shirt, “will you be ok?”
“Yes” Clarke murmured.
Sincerely, she was calmed down, thanks to Lexa, and she could handle being on her own in Lexa’s loft during the day. During the night, it was another story.
“I will be back at four in the afternoon max. Maybe you would like to tell a friend or two to come visit you?” Lexa suggested, attentively observing Clarke’s face to see her reaction.
But Clarke just nodded. “Ok. Maybe Lincoln and Octavia. Or Raven, if Octavia is on mission”.
“Ok then” Lexa murmured.
The both of them sighed as they stayed in each other’s arms a while longer. But then Ayden was watching them from a few feet away, his bottom lip shaking. He had heard his Mommy’s screams, and he had been afraid Finn had been back. But he had heard Lexa’s voice too, which had reassured him; Lexa would never have allowed Finn to be here, he knew that.
“Mommy?” he asked, because he had seen her Mommy’s red eyes and figured she had cried.
“Come on honey” Clarke said, opening her arms so he could snuggle between Lexa and her.
Ayden didn’t need to be told twice, and jumped between the two women, taking a piece of each shirt in his fists.
“I’m ok Ayden” Clarke whispered, “Just a bad dream, but Lexa made it go away”.
“She did?” Ayden said, his eyes widening.
“Yeah, she did” Clarke nodded.
Lexa silently watched the exchange between the two of them, and she couldn’t help but fall more in love with the scared humans she had in her arms. They are my humans, Lexa decided, my scared and broken favourite persons in the whole world, and I’ll protect them.
Anya was pacing into Lexa’s office, waiting for her. Late last night, she had received a text from the gorgeous woman with a brace she had run into twice, and Anya didn’t have replied yet. Why the fuck was she even nervous? Woods were never nervous about anything.
Finally, Lexa was walking into her office, a light smile on her face.
“Hey, Anya, how are you?” The brunette said while removing her coat.
“Fine but why is there an annoying smile written all over your face?” Anya huffed.
“I see you’re having a good day” Lexa mocked, a bit surprised about her cousin’s reaction, “I talked to Clarke yesterday. And this morning. I think we are making progress” The brunette explained.
“So shy girl does speak!”
“Her name is Clarke, Anya” Lexa said with a firm voice.
“Yeah whatever” Anya said, waving Lexa off with her hand.
“What’s the matter with you anyways?” Lexa finally asked her cousin.
Anya dropped herself on the couch in the corner of Lexa’s office.
“I seriously don’t know” Anya huffed again.
Lexa raised her brow; what was going on with her cousin? She hadn’t seen her like this for a long time, all emotional. She took a sit next to Anya, encouraging her to explain more.
“I ran into this girl the other day, I spilled coffee on her, and then she had a meeting so I lent her a top of mine, and I gave her my number so I could pay for the one I had spilled coffee on, but then she ran into me at Trikru and she spilled my coffee on me, so we laughed a little and I love her laugh and then Lincoln was waiting for her outside and...” Anya rambled before Lexa could finally cut her off.
“Wait, what? That’s how you knew Lincoln, right?” Lexa asked, remembering about her own confusion when Lincoln had come into her loft and found out Clarke was here, and how Anya seemed to know him.
“What? No, Lincoln is a friend of mine, from before you came to live with us” Anya said frowning, because she was confused too, “How do you know him anyways?”
“He is my taxi driver!” Lexa said.
“This is so fucked up” Anya sighed, leaning on the couch.
Lexa hummed, totally agree with her cousin. “So, what about that girl then?” She asked.
“I don’t want to talk about it” Anya said.
“Anya, you were rambling about her five minutes ago” Lexa raised her brow.
“I don’t know what to say! Yesterday she texted me, asking if we could meet, and I didn’t text back” The older cousin sighed again.
“Why not?”
“I don’t know why, Lexa! I just... I don’t know”.
“Do you like her?” Lexa then asked.
“Yeah, I think I do… She’s funny” Anya said, a tiny smile rising on her face.
Lexa got up, because she had seen Titus coming towards her office. “So go for it! What do you have to lose anyways?”
“Yeah, you’re right” Anya said getting up too, “and since we are at it, go for it with Clarke too! Same question, what do you have to lose?”
Lexa sighed, “Everything”, because it was true. Right now, she already had a lot of things to lose if Clarke and Ayden were to disappear from her life.
Anya didn’t have time to ask more questions about what her cousin meant, because Titus was coming into the office.
“Good Morning Heda, the ambassadors are waiting for you in the meeting room.” Titus announced, eyeing Anya who was Trikru’s ambassador and yet not waiting for Lexa in the conference room like everybody else.
It had been a coincidence really, for Anya and Lexa to work together. Before coming to Polis, the both of them had lived in France while Anya’s parents had still been alive, for Lexa to not leave the country she knew after her parents’ death. Then, Anya’s parents had died, and she had seen her boss offering her a job overseas, here back in Polis where she first lived before Lexa came into the family, and because they were on their own and France was too painful for Lexa, they had moved here.
A week after, Lexa had saved an old man’s life, and a few years later, this man had died leaving his whole fortune and company to Lexa who was almost still a child. She had become Anya’s boss, but Anya hadn’t minded. Lexa was meant to be CEO. It was written in her blood, and she was doing an amazing job. Of course, Titus had disagreed with making Anya Trikru’s ambassador first, because she was sharing blood with Lexa, and it could be a great distraction. But Lexa had managed to convince him otherwise.
Titus got out of the office, quickly followed by Anya and Lexa. The ambassadors from the eleven other companies rose in front of Lexa, and they started the meeting.
It was 3.30 pm, and Raven was getting ready. Today, Clarke had said Lincoln and her could visit the blonde at Lexa’s place, and for some reasons, Raven was getting nervous.
“Calm down, it’s just Clarke” Raven muttered to herself.
It shouldn’t be a big deal, because Clarke and her had been friends for so long now, but Raven was still apprehending meeting her. Lincoln had said she had been hurt baldy; what does that even mean? Raven knew there was more to her stress than that; she was feeling responsible for what had happened and she was blaming herself. After all, she was the one to know Finn the better, and she was face-palming herself everyday for not seeing Finn was turning crazy. Of course she had seen him changing, but she had closed her eyes, believing he just needed some time, and now she was regretting her decision not to watch him more carefully. Maybe if she had not been this blind, maybe she could had seen something was off about Finn, maybe she could have seen Clarke was building walls around her.
“Rae you’re ready?” Lincoln asked, interrupting her thoughts.
“Yeah” she sighed, and Lincoln didn’t try to help her get down the stairs. Raven had troubles with the stairs and her brace and her stupid stupid fucked up leg, but what she hated even more was people rushing to help her like she was disabled. Well, she was, but she wanted to be able to handle herself on her own. Of course, she knew well that if she needed help, Lincoln would gladly give that to her, but he had never tried to help her if she hadn’t asked for help in the first place. Raven was thankful for that, and seeing him like this was making her miss Clarke even more; because Clarke was always acting the same way.
They got into the car, and headed towards Lexa Woods’ place.
“Octavia is so going to kill us when she will learn we went to Woods’ place without her” Raven joked.
“Yeah, we are going to hear about this for the next ten years” Lincoln sighed with a smile on his face.
Raven smiled back; she knew it was true. After all, Octavia and her were adulating Lexa Woods, ‘cause this girl had everything. And now, Raven was going to enter her home! Of course Raven knew Octavia should have been there with Lincoln instead of her, but since she was on mission, the group didn’t even know if Octavia knew Clarke had been found, because she hadn’t reply on the app.
Lincoln parked half an hour later in front of a tiny building. “This is the place”, he said, removing his belt.
But Raven didn’t move. “Rae, is everything ok?”
“What if she doesn’t want to see us? What if she doesn’t care about us anymore?” Raven asked in a tiny voice. Raven had never been sentimental or anything, but Clarke was her best friend. Clarke had been there, all the way. Clarke had supported her when she had been in the hardest place, and she couldn’t handle being rejected by her.
“Rae she asked for us to come” Lincoln said, smiling to Raven, “she wants to see us, and I think she needs it too. And you know Clarke. She will never stop caring about us. And if Clarke was dead, she would still annoy everyone up there to be able to help us down here”.
Raven chuckled, because she knew it was true. “OK. Let’s go see our friend”.
Lincoln nodded, and they got to Lexa’s front door.
In the loft, Lexa had come home from work early, and with Anya. Lexa had been happy to hear that Clarke and Ayden had been ok since the morning, and was glad they were still there. Clarke had even taken care of herself; her hair was clean and into a French braid. Lexa had noticed she had also used the washing machine to wash some clothes, because Ayden was back into his iron man shirt and pants which suited him, unlike Lexa’s sports short he had been wearing the whole time he had been here. Clarke was back in her own clothes too, and damn she was pretty like this. She was even wearing a smile when Lexa came back, and Lexa instantly had one on her face too.
Ayden had been happy Anya was back, and after hugging Lexa and following her everywhere the first ten minutes she had been back, he finally let her go to go play with Anya.
“Hey, Lexa” Clarke said, a shy smile on her face.
“Hey”, Lexa smiled back, “did you have a good day?” she asked. She didn’t ask if the blonde was ok, because Clarke surely didn’t want her to constantly ask that question.
“Yes. I, hum...” Clarke said, pausing a little to gain assurance, “I asked for Lincoln and Raven to come, you know, my friends, I hope you don’t...”
“Lincoln the taxi driver and Raven the brunette one”, Lexa nodded, “I’m sure they are great”.
Clarke weakly smiled, because she didn’t know; well, she knew her friends were great, but she wasn’t that sure about meeting them again. What if they didn’t understand? What if they tried to take her to Arcadia? She wasn’t ready. She was barely ready enough to stay with Lexa and accept help...
Of course Lexa must have noticed Clarke’s nervousness, because she got closer to the blonde, and carefully put her hand on her shoulder.
“You’ve got this Clarke” Lexa gently said. Clarke nodded, and the door bell rang.
Clarke froze, and crushed Lexa’s arm. “Clarke, remember to breathe, ok?” Lexa said, slowly freeing her arm to go open the door.
Clarke offered the tiniest nod, and put her hands in her pockets instead while Lexa was heading to the door.
“Hello Lexa” smiled Lincoln once Lexa had the door open.
“Hi Lincoln” she smiled back, “and you must be Raven!”
Raven was open-mouthed. Lexa Woods knew her name. What was going on right now?!
“Close your mouth Rae, or you’re gonna catch flies...” said a voice from behind Lexa.
Clarke appeared, tugging at the bottom of her shirt.
“Clarke...” Raven whispered.
Lexa stepped back to let Lincoln and Raven enter the apartment, and Raven carefully approached the blonde.
“Hi, Raven” Clarke said shyly, a small smile on her face.
“Can I hug you?” Raven murmured. She really wanted to hug her, because now that she has Clarke in front of her eyes, she understood how much she had missed the girl.
Clarke didn’t answer, but slowly opened her arms so Raven could hug her. The girl almost fell into the blonde’s arms and hugged her tightly, but with care; Lincoln had warned her Clarke could b triggered by touch.
“You’ll be proud of me; while you’ve been gone, I didn’t blow your place up” Raven said, releasing her embrace.
Clarke laughed at her dumb friend, so did Raven. “I’m happy to see you too, Raven” Clarke smiled.
Raven smiled back, and a running Ayden came into the living-room, crashing into Lincoln’s legs.
“Uncle Yincoln!” he shrieked, “And Aunty Rae is there too! Awesooooome!” The boy exulted, jumping in excitement.
Of course Anya had to come into the living-room too, following the boy who had run off the room they were playing in.
“Ayden don’t run you’ll...Raven” Anya said, her eyes’ widening when she noticed the girl’s presence.
Raven’s face did the same. “Anya?”
Once again, Lexa was left to stare at the two of them with a shocked expression; but this time, Clarke was kind of shocked too. She didn’t know Anya well, but enough to know those two didn’t share the same world, and if Raven had been friend with a Woods, everyone would have known about it.
“Hum yeah, we ran into each other the other day...” Raven tried to explain. Why was Anya at Lexa’s? Was she her girlfriend or anything? Because Raven was pretty sure Anya had flirt with her, they had even texted each other today, so if she already had a girlfriend, why would she flirt with Raven? That wasn’t making any sense.
Lexa too was confused, because every stranger who was coming through this door was somehow related to a person she knew. But Lexa was smart, and she didn’t need an hour to figured out Raven was the girl Anya had talked about earlier in the day.
“Anya, is she the girl you...” Lexa began, only to be cut off by Anya abruptly.
“Yes”. Anya didn’t want everyone to know what they had talked about, did she?
Those kinds of situations were too frequent, these days.
“I should have known you knew Clarke” Anya then said, trying to regain her composure, “when I saw you with Lincoln the other day”.
“Yeah, and what are you doing in Lexa Woods’ home?” Raven asked then grimaced, “too direct?”
“Anya is my older cousin” Lexa answered, “She’s a Woods too”.
Raven’s eyes widened, and looked at Clarke, who had a big smile on her face; the blonde knew all too well what was happening into Raven’s head.
“You could have told me there were two hot Woods on the planet” Raven whispered to Clarke when the others were busy speaking.
Clarke chuckled. “I’m sorry, I don’t know Anya that much”.
Raven then laughed too, “don’t worry Princess, I didn’t need your help to meet her anyways”. Clarke laughed at Raven’s comment, and then noticed the package Raven was holding.
“Rae what’s this?” she asked.
“Oh, I almost forget, this is for Ayden!” the brunette exclaimed, calling Ayden and giving him the present.
The boy didn’t take long to open it, and his mouth curved into a o shape when he saw what was inside.
“Mommy look it’s a Spiderman suit! It’s awesome! Rae you’re the best!” the kid jumped at Raven’s neck to kiss her on both cheeks.
All grown-ups laughed, and Lincoln helped Ayden remove his shirt so he could put the suit instead. But Raven then noticed something she hadn’t seen before; Ayden’s back had a huge scar, almost as big as him. Lincoln had noticed too, and frowned. He didn’t say anything in front of the kid though, and once he was dressed, Lexa suggested Anya and him to go into the other room to play. Raven went with them, under three amused stares.
Once Lexa Clarke and Lincoln were alone, Lincoln finally asked his question.
“Clarke, what happened to Ayden’s back?”
At those words, Lexa froze, because she already knew the answer and was waiting for Clarke’s reaction. But to her surprise, Clarke just frowned.
“He fell when he was with you and Octavia a month ago”, Clarke said, not understanding why Lincoln was asking the question. Lincoln had been here when Ayden had injured himself, had he not?
Lincoln frowned too, because Ayden had never hurt himself under their watch. “Did he tell you that? Because he never fell with us, Clarke. He didn’t have that scar when you came back to pick him up last time we saw him”.
Clarke frowned first, searching her memories. Suddenly, her eyes widened, because she remembered. She was remembering she had discovered Ayden’s injury. She had picked Ayden up from the Blakes’ apartment, and had come home with the boy. But later that night, Finn and her had a fight, a big one, and this night, Ayden had put himself between the two to protect Clarke. Clarke remembered that well, because she had been so afraid of Finn, and then she had seen her five years old boy shouting at Finn to protect her, fearless. Clarke’s heart then stopped. After Ayden had shouted, Finn had pushed him, and her son had fallen on the ground. This is when he hurt himself, Clarke thought, and tears began to fell from her eyes when she realised her boy had lied about how he had gotten the injury. Finn had pushed his son on the ground, and he had fallen on broken stuffs Finn had thrown all around the house.
Clarke’s knees suddenly dropped underneath her sending Clarke on the floor. Clarke didn’t see Lexa rushing to her side and Lincoln running to the kitchen to grab some water.
Ayden had hurt himself because of Finn. Because of her. This was her fault. She had thought Finn had never hurt his son, and she had hanged to that fact, the fact that Finn would never harm him. Except he did, and now Ayden had a huge scar to prove it. And Ayden had lied about it, the scar was ugly because Ayden had probably been terrified to speak to her about it. Clarke’s head was spinning.
“Finn did this, didn’t he?” Clarke whispered her voice breaking.
Lincoln clenched his teeth, because he had figured that too. Lexa tried to steady Clarke and get her to get up, but Clarke stopped her, looking the brunette directly in her eyes.
“Lexa, I need to know”, Clarke murmured, scanning green eyes, “I know you gave Ayden a bath once, you had already seen the scar before today, and I’m sure you asked about it. What did he tell you?”
Lexa shook her head, not wanting to say anything.
“Lexa please...” Clarke begged, tears beginning to roll down her cheeks.
“He told me...” Lexa began, “he told me Finn had pushed him and he had fallen on something sharp”, the brunette said.
Clarke’s eyes widened even more, and suddenly got up, running off into the bedroom. Lexa didn’t even try to keep her from going. Lincoln sighed as Raven was coming back into the room.
“What happened? Where is Clarke?” Raven asked, confused.
Lincoln sighed again, and began to explain everything to Raven, whose eyes widened when she heard about Ayden’s scar part, when Lexa kept looking the bedroom’s door where Clarke was.
What were they going to do now?