first week
The next day was spent preparing for their first week of classes. As they sat on the couch eating breakfast Clarke mentions that they should clear off the kitchen table (which had half of the kitchen supplies on it) and eat breakfast together every morning before class instead of sitting in front of the TV so that they can spend some time hanging out since they won't have much time together during the week because of coursework and classes. They all looked at each others schedules to see which of them could meet up for lunch or just to hang out between classes, there was only one day when they would all be able to have lunch together but there were a couple of days where at least two of them would be able to spend time together.
Their first week had gone well so far, they had managed to keep up with their agreement to eat breakfast together every morning, even on Wednesday when Octavia and Raven didn't have any classes until the afternoon they still dragged themselves out of bed just to have breakfast with the other two girls. Raven and Lexa had free time between their classes on Tuesday and they spent that time together, they had lunch at a nearby park and Raven taught Lexa how to take off her brace which had surprised Octavia and Clarke because Raven never really liked drawing attention to her injured leg.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Wanna show them what we learned today?"
Lexa nods and sits on the coffee table, Raven lifts her leg and rests it on Lexa's lap. Lexa looks at Raven for confirmation that she is happy to let her to do this and when Raven nods she gets to work following the instructions Raven had given her earlier in the day. She hears a small gasp from the two other girls when she starts but remains focused on her task. She takes off her brace and then puts it back on when Raven asks her to.
"Good job Woods." Raven removes her leg from her lap, sits up and holds her fist out to Lexa for a fist bump, Lexa happily bumps her own fist against it.
"This is major Rae, you never let anyone touch your brace other than me, Clarke, Bellamy and Mama G."
"Yeah, well, I trust Lexa." Raven says quietly, she fixes her gaze on the floor, feeling vulnerable.
Lexa places her hand on Raven's knee so that the girl will look at her, when she does Lexa holds eye contact with her for a while before nodding trying to show her that she appreciates her trusting her.
Raven's eyes started to sting with tears, she always worries about trusting people but that one simple gesture from Lexa made her believe that she made the right choice.
"Who's hungry?" Clarke asks when she sees that Ravens starting to get emotional.
Lexa stands up and walks around the couch towards the kitchen, she puts her hand on Ravens shoulder as she passes behind her and gives it a light squeeze.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Everything was going perfectly which is why it wasn't a surprise to anyone when something went wrong.
It was Friday afternoon, all four girls had their last class of the day at the same time and decided they would go for a meal together afterwards to celebrate getting through their first week. Lexa was on the other side of campus for her last class so the other girls were waiting for her at the main building. They spotted Lexa approaching before she had noticed they were there and watching her. The Lexa that they were looking at was not the same Lexa they were used to seeing, this Lexa had a stoic expression on her face, her eyes didn't have the same light in them as they usually did, her posture was rigid, even the way she walked looked different, she looked very intimidating and if they weren't aware that underneath that stoic exterior there was a nice, friendly girl then they might have looked away for fear of being caught staring, Clarke thought she looked like a warrior walking into battle and scaring off her enemies using just the way she looked as her weapon, it wasn't difficult to imagine Lexa as a warrior, the words 'silent but deadly' came to mind as she continued watching her walk towards them.
She looked up as she got closer to the building and thats when she saw the three girls waiting for her, Clarke waved at her and suddenly the Lexa she was used to seeing was back a beautiful smile on her face as she waved back and started to walk towards them at a quicker pace.
There was no time to prevent what happened next, unable to warn their friend they could only watch as the body of a familiar boy collided with Lexa causing both of them to fall flat on the ground.
Lexa falls face first down onto the pavement but manages to shield her face with her hands preventing any serious injuries before she hits the ground, knowing that scraped hands will heal easier than a broken nose would.
"What the fuck?! Why didn't you move out of the way?!" The boy spits as he pushes himself off of Lexa to stand.
Lexa flips herself over to look at the boy but doesn't stand up.
"Oh I'm sorry, I didn't realize you were so beautiful, my names Finn I'm sure you've heard of me, I'm very popular in this college, especially with the female students, I understand that it's very difficult for them not to obsess over me." He offers his hand to her and she can't tell if he's offering to help her up or waiting for her to shake his hand.
She doesn't take his hand but decides to get up from the ground just as she slips slightly while getting up she feels an arm wrap around her waist helping her steady herself, when she's fully standing she turns and finds a worried looking Clarke standing behind her.
"Are you ok?"
She nods.
"Oh I didn't realize you were friends with this bitch."
"Fuck off Finn."
"No, I was talking to this pretty girl, I'm not going to stop talking to her just because you're jealous, so you're the one that should fuck off Clarke." He took a step towards Clarke as he spat the last few words at her.
Lexa jumps in front of Clarke, her face barely an inch from Finns, shes shaking with anger, directing a glare at the boy that could frighten even the toughest people in this world, a deep growl begging to escape from her throat but it never does, even without releasing the sound Finn still gets scared, he falls back and lands on the pavement with a howl. Lexa still doesn't calm down when he's on the ground still glaring at him, the only thing stopping her from attacking him is the knowledge that Clarke is watching. Finn pushes himself off of the ground and starts running like his life depends on it.
Lexa feels a hand on her shoulder and her expression softens as she turns to look at Clarke, she starts to worry Clarke might have been hurt and she hadn't witnessed it so she looks over Clarke's whole body checking for any sign of injury.
Clarke watches Lexa's eyes look all over her body and starts to blush needing it to stop before she starts to resemble a tomato she speaks up. "Lex, don't worry, I'm not hurt."
Lexa looks up and then launches at Clarke enveloping her in a tight hug, surprising both Clarke and herself she usually didn't initiate hugs but she's glad she did, she needed to show how relieved she is that Clarke is safe and unharmed.
It took Clarke a moment to realize Lexa was hugging her, when she did she quickly leaned into her embrace and wrapped her own arms around her.
They stayed like that until the two other girls came over and Raven spoke. "That was awesome Woods, Finn looks like he shit himself and I recorded the whole thing so we can watch it over and over again." She turns her phone towards the two girls to show them the video.
"I didn't think you could get any cooler but you just did." Octavia raises her hand to high five Lexa but lowers it when she notices the damage done to her hands from the fall, she gasps at the sight. "Lexa, your hand is bleeding."
Clarke takes Lexa's hand in her own and turns it over to examine it. "I'm gonna take Lexa home and clean these cuts."
"We'll get the food and bring it home, you take the car and we'll walk back." Octavia tells her.
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah, it's not too far and we don't want those cuts to get infected so the quicker you get home the better." Raven responds.
"Thanks, we'll see you at home."
Back at the apartment.
Clarke had helped Lexa wash her hands before she guided her over to the couch and went off in search of the first aid kit that her mother had given her.
She comes back a few minutes later with antiseptic cream and sits on the coffee table across from her taking one of her hands in her own to start spreading the cream on them.
"I should probably explain what happened between me and Finn."
Lexa shrugged to say that she could if she wanted to but didn't have to.
"Finn and I were in a relationship when we were in high school. We were together for a little over two years and I thought that our relationship was perfect, Raven was the one to finally open my eyes and see that he wasn't who I thought he was."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Clarke you've got to listen to me, he's cheating on you." Raven pleads from her spot on the bed.
"He's not cheating Raven, our relationship has been better than ever the last couple of weeks, why would he cheat on me when we're happy?" Clarke says as she paces around in her room.
"Because he's a fuckboy, Clarke. He doesn't care about anyone but himself."
"Maybe the girl you saw him with was a friend and you just jumped to conclusions."
"Clarke, that was not a friendly kiss and I've had my suspicions about Finn for a long time."
"I have too Clarke, I'm sorry but I believe Raven." Octavia adds with a sad expression.
"Fine, if you're both so sure Finn's such a bad guy then prove it."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Later.
"Hey, is Clarke here?"
"She's not home yet but you can hangout with me until she gets here if you want?"
Finn looks her up and down lingering on her cleavage for far too long, Raven has to stop herself from rolling her eyes at him. "I'd like that, you and I never get to spend any time alone."
'That's because I hate you asshole.' Raven thinks before moving out of the way to let him in.
Raven sits on the couch and Finn sits down next to her, despite there being plenty of free space he sits close enough that their arms are touching.
"You know Raven I really don't understand how you're single, I mean you're so pretty and funny there should be a long line of people hoping to be the lucky one you want."
"I never knew you were so charming Finn."
"I'm sure there's a lot you don't know about me." He places his arm on the back of the couch behind Raven.
"Oh yeah? Like what?"
"How good I am at keeping secrets."
"What kind of secrets?"
"Secrets that Clarke never needs to find out about." He leans a little closer.
"She'll never know?"
"Never." Closer again.
"How can I be sure she'll never know?"
"Well I've kept all those secrets for years and she's never found out."
"All those? So there's more than just one secret."
"I'll be straight with you, I've spent a lot of time with girls that aren't Clarke in the time that we've been together so I can guarantee that she will not know about you and me, so can we make out now?" He moves far too close and Raven can feel his disgusting breath hitting her cheek.
"Never, you fucking asshole." She jumps up from the couch and starts walking towards the kitchen as Clarke and Octavia both exit the kitchen.
"I can't believe you Finn, how could you do this to me?!"
"Clarke, it's not what you think, Raven made me say all those things, she was flirting with me."
"You have the nerve to try to pin this on Raven?! I heard everything Finn, I'm not an idiot."
Clarke saw something change In Finn and suddenly his face looked sinister. "Could've fooled me." As soon as he said it he was knocked to the ground by a powerful punch to his right eye.
"Call her an idiot again and I'll rip you to shreds fuckboy." Raven spits the words at him.
"I could sue you for that bitch."
"Sue her and I'll tell your dad about you crashing his car and saying it was stolen."
"You're not worth all this trouble, there's plenty of other girls that want me, I'm done with you Clarke."
"Good, I don't ever want to see you again."
"I hope you get herpes manwhore." Octavia shouts as he leaves.
"I'm so sorry I should've believed you."
"You're sorry? Clarke we're the ones that are sorry." Octavia takes on a much softer tone.
"Sorry for what?"
"That you ever met that asshole, that we didn't tell you sooner about us not trusting him." Raven replies.
"None of this is your fault, it's mine I should've believed you not him."
"You listen to me Clarke this is not your fault, you loved him and he convinced you that he loved you too, you had no reason to believe that he would be cheating on you, you were blinded by love." Raven says the words with such determination that Clarke knows she wants her to believe it's true.
"And now he's blinded by Raven." Octavia states with a proud smile.
"Thanks for defending me Rae." Clarke looks down at Raven's hand. "We should put some ice on your hand."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"He didn't leave me alone after that, he kept trying to apologize to me, asking if we could get back together and blaming all his problems on his parents. He tried to convince me that it was because of the way they raised him but I've met them both and they're good people. Finn's problem is that he's rich and thinks he can do whatever he wants because of that, he even bought his way into this school by getting his dad to donate a huge amount of money to the school. So yeah that's the Finn story, I got my heart broken by a selfish little rich boy."
Lexa is fuming at this point ready to end this selfish little rich boy that had the audacity to hurt Clarke. She leaps off the couch, grabs her leather jacket off of the back of it and makes her way to the door.
"Lex?" When Lexa doesn't stop or turn around to look at her, Clarke worries not knowing what she's thinking or doing. When she walks out the door Clarke jumps from her seat and rushes after her.
"Lexa?"
She can't hear Clarke, she can't hear anything around her, all she can hear is her own angry thoughts.
Clarke finally catches up to her, she wraps her fingers around Lexa's wrist.
Lexa stops and turns her body towards Clarke but her eyes stay focused on the stairs.
"Lex....Lexa, look at me." When Lexa doesn't turn her head to face her she puts her hands on Lexa's cheeks and makes her turn to look at her.
Lexa only realizes now that Clarke was trying to stop her, she feels guilty for not hearing her and she avoids eye contact.
"Lexa, please listen to me." Lexa finally locks eyes with Clarke.
"I don't care about what he did to me anymore but I do care about you and I don't want you getting in trouble because of that asshole, promise me you won't go after him."
Lexa nods reluctantly.
Clarke moves her hands from Lexa's cheeks to wrap around the back of her head and pulls Lexa into a firm hug.
"Thank you for caring so much."
Lexa couldn't understand who wouldn't care about someone as incredible as Clarke.
"You two alright?" Raven asks from the top of the stairs.
"Yeah we're good, I told Lex about Finn and she was going to hurt him."
"Count us in. Finn deserves a beating for hurting our girls." Octavia has a mischievous smile showing.
"Nope, no fighting. Finn will get what he deserves someday but none of you will get in trouble for it, understood?"
Raven nods, having already had the pleasure of hitting Finn she's not too obsessed with beating him anymore, especially since Clarke has Lexa now.
"O?"
"I can't even rough him up just a little bit?"
"I have no way of stopping him from suing you now, O."
"Fine."
Abby had been far more excited about meeting Lexa than any of the girls had expected her to be. She had texted Clarke during the week asking her what she had cooked for Lexa so that she could get a rough idea of what she liked. She called twice to make sure that Lexa was comfortable meeting her. Sunday morning Clarke received another text from her mother asking her to text her as soon as they left so that she would know how long it would be before they got there.
When they did get there the three girls were surprised to find Abby waiting on the front porch, Lexa hadn't seen this as unusual since she hadn't known that usually the woman would just greet the girls inside the house.
The three girls hopped out of the car as soon as they stopped and wrapped around Abby in their group hug.
Lexa took her time getting out of the car, unsure of what to do while the four others were hugging, she had made a cheesecake for Abby, Clarke had insisted that she didn't have to but Lexa wanted to do something for her, so she took her time getting it from the car.
"You must be Lexa." She poked her head out of the car to see Abby approaching her with a big smile showing.
Lexa nods in response, a small smile of her own showing.
"It's great to meet you, I'm Abby." She shakes Lexa's empty hand.
Lexa holds out the cheesecake for Abby.
"Did you make this?"
Lexa nods.
"It looks delicious, the girls are big fans of everything you've cooked for them I'm sure I will be too."
Lexa smile grew as she looked over at the girls and then back at Abby.
"Dinners almost ready, come inside and the girls can give you a tour of the house."
Lexa nods and follows Abby into her house with the three other girls following close behind. Once inside Clarke, Octavia and Raven show Lexa all the rooms in the house, each of them taking turns to show Lexa their own rooms.
Abby calls them to come for dinner while Raven is in the middle of showing Lexa one of her experiments, the four of them rush to the table. Octavia and Raven sit opposite to Lexa and Clarke with Abby sitting at the head of the table close to Lexa and Raven.
They eat mostly in silence. After dinner Abby gives them each a slice of Lexa's cheesecake.
"This is incredible Lexa, I'm jealous the girls get to eat like this all the time, would you consider leaving these three to move in here instead?" Abby jokingly asks.
Lexa smiles in response.
"Sorry Mama Griff, you know we love you but we'll fight to the death to keep Woods with us."
"Fair enough, I won't steal her away from you, you'll come back for dinner again next week though, won't you?"
Lexa nods happily in response.
Abby asks the girls about their first week back at college and they all start telling her excitedly about their teachers and classes. Raven tells her about teaching Lexa how to take off her brace and what a quick learner she is, Abby doesn't mention how important it is that Raven had done that, already knowing that Clarke and Octavia would have done that, it makes her realize that Lexa is very special to the girls after only knowing her for a little over a week.
It's only once Raven finished talking about that to Abby that Octavia remembers what had happened on Friday.
"Mama G there was a fight." She almost yells.
"What?! Are you all ok?" Abby asks concerned.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to just blurt it out, I just remembered and it wasn't really a fight more like an argument, Raven show her the video."
Raven pulls out her phone and Octavia explains what happened while Abby watches it. "Finn knocked Lexa down and then he was an asshole to Clarke, when he got too close to her Lexa jumped in front of Clarke to protect her, she gave him this fierce look and he landed on his ass and ran away from her, it was the best thing I've ever seen."
"You did all that Lexa?"
Lexa shrugged shyly, worried that Abby might not approve.
Abby placed her hand on Lexa's shoulder and squeezed slightly to get Lexa to look at her. "Thank you for protecting Clarke."
Lexa nods and relaxes her shoulders.
Abby looks down at Lexa's hands, she had noticed the cuts when Lexa had given her the cheescake but didn't want to question her about it after just meeting her. "Is that why you have so many cuts on your hands? From the fall?"
Lexa nods again while looking at them.
"Oh yeah, I meant to ask if you have anything that will heal them faster, all I could put on them was antiseptic cream."
"I'm sure I have something that might help, come into the kitchen with me Lexa and we'll take care of it."
Lexa gets up from her chair ready to follow Abby.
"Raven will you take care of the dishes?"
Raven nods and gets up from her chair.
"Clarke and O you go relax for a while."
Clarke gets up from her chair to look into Lexa's eyes. "Do you need me to come with you?"
Lexa shakes her head and gives Clarke a soft smile.
"Are you sure?"
"Clarke she'll be fine I'll take care of her."
"Fine, just...be gentle."
Abby chuckles and shakes her head, it's very obvious to her how much her daughter likes this girl. "I'm a damn good doctor, remember?"
Clarke looks at Lexa one last time before she sighs and walks over to sit with Octavia.
Abby leads the way into the kitchen and tells Lexa to take a seat at the table while she gets her medical kit.
Raven follows them in with a pile of dishes in her hands, she puts the dishes on the counter and is just about to put them in the dishwasher when she spots the photo albums on the table near Lexa. "Wanna see something interesting while you're getting patched up?"
Lexa nods enthusiastically, welcoming any distraction from the sting she's sure she will feel.
Raven sits next to her, she takes the first one from the stack and flips it open before sliding it in front of Lexa. "That's little baby Griff."
Lexa looks at it and smiles seeing the photo of Clarke in her mother's arms in a hospital bed.
Just then Abby walks into the kitchen with a variety of things in her hands, she stands next to Lexa looking at the photo. "She grew up so quickly."
Lexa jumps slightly not realizing Abby had been there, she goes to close the album but Abby stops her before she does. "You can look at them Lexa, I took them off the bookcase earlier so I could show you them."
"It's true, I just beat her to it."
Lexa nods and flips to the next page of pictures.
Abby sits in the seat across from Lexa and takes her hand. When she sees how many cuts there are she realizes that Lexa must have pushed her hands out to stop her fall. "Does it hurt when you close your hands?"
Lexa shakes her hand from side to side indicating that it only hurts a little.
"I can give you a doctor's note for class if you want?"
Lexa smiles but shakes her head, she doesn't know anyone in her class so not taking notes would be a bad idea.
Abby picks up one of the tubes she had brought into the kitchen and examines it for a moment before she pours a small amount of the cream on her hand and starts gently rubbing it on the cuts. "This one should heal them in two or three days, you'll have to get one of the girls to apply it twice a day for you."
"I'll inform the others, back in a minute." Raven gets up and walks to the couch before sitting down next to Octavia.
Clarke is sitting on the armchair tapping her foot nervously. "How's it going?"
"This one has been acting like Lexa's in surgery or something." Octavia rolls her eyes as she says it but a small smile is showing.
"Relax Griff, our girl hasn't even flinched, I think she might have a high pain tolerance."
Clarke breathes a sigh of relief.
"Abby has some cream she said would heal Lexa's hands in a few days if one of us puts it on for her twice a day."
"I can do that." Clarke answered before Raven even finished the last word. "I'll go tell her now."
"Whoa Griff chill, give them some time to bond."
Clarke huffs. "Fine."
Octavia turns the TV on to distract Clarke and Raven goes back to the kitchen to deal with the dishes.
A little while later Abby and Lexa join the others. Raven and Octavia are both looking behind the couch towards the stairs.
"What's going on girls?"
Raven simply points to where they were looking.
Abby walks closer to them and sees what they are looking at, Clarke is standing at the bottom of the staircase with her arms wrapped around herself looking at a picture of her father. Without another word Abby walks around the couch and over to her daughter.
"Hey."
"Hi." Clarke responds without taking her eyes off the picture.
"Something on your mind?"
Clarke stays silent for a moment. "Do you think he would've liked Lexa?"
"Oh honey, he would have loved her, you know that." Abby tells her, when Clarke doesn't respond she decides to tell her what her husband would have done if he were here. "He probably would've pulled her into a bear hug, picked her up off the ground and spun her around as soon as she stepped out of your car today, he would have high fived her for scaring Finn off and he would have battled it out with all of us just to get the rest of that cheesecake to himself."
Clarke hums. "I just wish he could have met her, I'm lucky I did but if I'd met her sooner she could've met him."
"I know honey but we can't change the past, you know deep down how much your dad would've loved her." Abby gave her arm a light squeeze before going back to the other girls, she saw the concerned look on Lexa's face as she turned around and decided to walk over to her. "Lexa, I think Clarke would like to speak to you."
Lexa never took her eyes off Clarke as she nodded and got off her chair to join Clarke.
Clarke turned her head to look at Lexa. "Hey." She gave her a small smile after whispering it, she dropped her arms so that she was no longer hugging herself.
Lexa gave her a worried look when she saw the sadness in Clarke's eyes.
"This is my dad, Jake. I was just thinking about how much he would've loved you, I really wish you could've met him."
Lexa knew then why she looked so sad, she wanted to take the pain of loss away from her but she knew she couldn't. She took Clarke's hand in her own. With her other hand Lexa pointed to her own eyes, pointed towards the picture and then to Clarke.
"I have his eyes?"
Lexa nods and when Clarke smiles at her she lifts her hand and runs her thumb over the side of Clarke's smile before pointing at the picture again, Clarke has to stop herself from shivering at Lexa's touch.
"His smile too?"
Lexa nods again then moves her hand and places it over Clarke's heart.
Clarke tries to keep her heartbeat steady so Lexa won't notice how fast it is beating now, it took a moment for her to speak, trying to make sure her voice would sound normal so Lexa wouldn't notice the effect she has on her. "He will always be with me."
Clarke takes her hand out of Lexa's and turns her body to envelop her in a gentle but firm hug. "I'm so glad I have you in my life." She whispers in Lexa's ear.
Lexa brings her arms up around Clarke and tightens the hug a little.
"Told you they're disgustingly cute." Octavia says to Abby in a hushed tone.
"I agree, my daughter and her future girlfriend are very cute."
Raven and Octavia smile and giggle a little.
When Clarke and Lexa eventually pull apart Clarke remembers something. "How are your hands?" Clarke pulls her hands into her own to examine them. "I hope it didn't hurt."
Lexa shakes her head.
"Good." They lock eyes and stay like that for a moment. They stop when Clarke goes over to Abby, Octavia and Raven and whispers something leaving a confused Lexa behind. She comes back quickly but now has the other three with her. "There's a place I want to show you, is that ok?"
Lexa nods and follows Clarke as they all walk out the door and get into the car. They drive for five minutes before they reach their destination. Lexa looks in awe of the sight in front of her when she gets out of the car.
"The painting I gave you, this is where I painted it."
Lexa nods slowly without looking away.
"This is where Clarke would go whenever she was having a hard time and needed to clear her head, it's a very special place to her."
Without thinking about it Clarke grabs onto Lexa's hand, interlaces their fingers and walked towards one of the trails with Abby, Raven and Octavia following behind them.
A while later.
Abby, Raven and Octavia were a little bit further down the trail than Lexa and Clarke were. Clarke stopped to take a photo of some flowers she wanted to draw when she got home. Lexa stopped partly because Clarke did and also because of the tree next to them. Lexa always had a fascination with trees, her favourite place was in any high tree she could find, the higher up she was the clearer her mind would be.
While Clarke was taking photos of the flowers Lexa started to climb the giant tree, ignoring the pain in her hands.
Clarke turned to talk to Lexa but she was nowhere to be seen, panic started to set in. "Lex?...Lexa where are you?"
Lexa wrapped her legs around the sturdy branch to hold her up as she hung upside down from it.
"Lexa, what are you doing? That's dangerous."
Lexa holds out her hand to Clarke signifying that she should join her in the tree.
"No way Lex, I'm not going up there and you shouldn't be up there either."
Lexa used her best puppy dog eyes and jutted her bottom lip out to form a pout.
"Fine but you should know it's cruel to use that look against me and you have to promise to keep me safe."
Lexa nods and has a big beaming smile on her face.
Clarke starts to climb. Luckily Lexa wasn't too high up in the tree yet so it was easy enough for Clarke to reach her. Lexa helped her up when she reached the branch below her, they sat facing each other.
"So you're like a female Tarzan?"
Lexa smiles and bangs her hands against her chest like Tarzan would.
Clarke chuckles and Lexa feels a sense of pride for being the reason she did that. Clarke slips as she chuckles and Lexa lunges forward grabbing onto Clarke's waist and helping her steady herself.
It's only once Clarke feels safe enough to let out the breath she had been holding in and opens her eyes that she notices how close they are, she turns her head and can almost feel Lexa's cheek touching her nose.
Lexa goes to retract her hands and sit back to look at Clarke but when she moves her head just slightly her nose grazes against Clarke's, her breath catches in her throat and her eyes lock onto Clarke's, she hadn't realized they were this close.
"Beautiful." Clarke whispers. Lexa's eyebrow raises and Clarke quickly scrambles to cover it up. "I mean...umm...the view up here is beautiful."
"Is there a reason you two are up there or is it just to scare me?" They look down and see Abby standing at the bottom of the tree with her arms crossed looking up at the two girls with Raven and Octavia standing behind her.
"The view is amazing up here."
"I thought you're afraid of heights Griff?"
Lexa feels awful hearing that Clarke had a fear of heights and she made her climb the tree.
Clarke knows Lexa's beating herself up over this. "I'm not scared of heights Raven, I just feel safer being on the ground but I'm starting to like it up here now."
Lexa looks up to see Clarke smiling at her.
"It's great that you've conquered your fear Clarke and thank you for helping her do that Lexa but could you both come down now? I'm worried one of you will get hurt, you're already injured Lexa."
"Alright, we're coming down now."
Lexa goes first helping Clarke down to each branch as she makes her way down to the ground, being extra cautious so they don't scare Abby.
"Come on Lexa, join us." Abby tells her from the middle of the group hug.
Lexa shakes her head not wanting to intrude on their moment.
"You know you wanna get in on this hug." Octavia says from where she's wrapped around the side of Abby with her arms around Clarke and Raven who are hugging Abby from the front and behind leaving one side open for someone else to join in.
Lexa shifts from one foot to the other but doesn't join them.
"Woods get your ass over here and show us some love." Raven demands.
Lexa finally does as she is told and goes to the side that none of them were hugging, she thought it would be awkward and uncomfortable but it was surprisingly nice, cosy even.
When they break from the hug Abby pulls Lexa into a hug on her own this time. "Thanks for coming today."
Clarke smiles at the sight in front of her. "I think it's safe to say mom loves you."
"Yeah I do." Abby pulls back from the hug and places her hands on Lexa's shoulders. "Lexa you are one of my girls now."
Lexa beams in response.
Raven punches Lexa lightly on the arm. "Welcome to the family Woods."
The smile never left Lexa's face that day, she decided that this had been one of the best days of her life, which led to the realization that all the days since she moved in with Clarke have been some of the best days of her life.
Later that night
Clarke isn't sure why she woke up in the middle of the night all she knows is that she has never been as thirsty as she is right now. She slips out of bed and shuffles to the kitchen. After drinking two glasses of water she pads back down towards her room but stops outside Lexa's room. The door is slightly open and she can hear what sounds like kicking. She knocks and waits a moment to see if Lexa will come to the door. When she doesn't open the door and the kicking sound continues she knocks again, louder this time. Again Lexa doesn't respond in any way and the sound has gotten louder so Clarke decides to go in.
"Lex?" Clarke turns the light on, she sees Lexa kicking her legs and swinging her arms on the bed, her eyes are closed and Clarke knows that she's having a nightmare, she makes her way over to the bed and shakes Lexa slightly to wake her but it doesn't work. "Lexa, please wake up." She pleads, shaking her slightly again. This time Lexa bolted up in the bed, tears streaming down her cheeks as she searched for the source of the voice she had heard so clearly in her sleep, when she spots Clarke she grabs onto her wrist and pulls her closer to the bed, looking at her with pleading eyes.
Clarke allows Lexa to pull her down onto the bed so that she is sitting next to her, she pulls her shirt sleeve over her hand and then uses it to wipe away Lexa's tears. Once they're all gone she wraps her arm around Lexa and pulls her into her side, Lexa lays her head on Clarke's shoulder. "It was a nightmare sweetie, it wasn't real." Clarke didn't notice that she used the pet name and continued to comfort Lexa. "Whatever it was it can't hurt you, I won't let it, I'll keep you safe."
When Lexa feels a little better she tries to fall back on the bed again but stops when Clarke takes that as her cue to leave and tries to retract her hand, Lexa grabs Clarke's other hand, shakes her head and looks at her with pleading eyes again.
"You want me to stay?"
Lexa nods and after a moment Clarke flops back down onto the bed, turns so she's lying on her side and smiles up at Lexa.
She waits until Lexa is lying down facing her to speak again. "I'm not going to leave you, I won't go anywhere, I promise." There was no way Clarke could know just how important that promise was to Lexa. A fresh wave of tears start falling from her eyes, she grabs onto the collar of Clarke's shirt, balling the fabric into her fists and shuffling closer to her until her body is pressed against Clarke's, her head tucked under Clarke's chin.
After a few minutes Clarke felt Lexa's grip on her shirt loosen slightly and her breathing sounded much calmer, she realized she had fallen asleep. She tried to slowly get out of the bed to turn off the light but as soon as she moved Lexa tightened her grip on her shirt again, Clarke pulled back just slightly to look at Lexa's face, she saw that Lexa's eyes were closed and she was frowning. Clarke chuckled softly when she realized that Lexa was definitely a cuddler.
After two more attempts at slipping out of the bed and getting the same response as the first time Clarke decided to leave the light on and fell asleep holding Lexa.