Origamis

You’re sitting in the emergency waiting room, Aden sitting on your lap, head buried in the fabric of your shirt while he holds his injured wrist in his tiny hand. No one had been able to help you so far; no matter how much Aden cried, none of the nurses had been able to register you so that they could give him some pain medication. Of course, you gave him some Tylenol before coming to the hospital, but as long as his wrist isn’t put in a cast, the pain will subsist.

You try to soothe him the best you can by caressing his hair and humming lowly some pop songs you know he likes. It seems to work for now, as the crying has stopped. There’s still a few sobs escaping his throat once in a while, but you guess the Tylenol is giving him some release.

The hospital seems to be buzzing. It had to happen today, of course, on a Saturday night. Aden being the daredevil he is, he didn’t hesitate to jump from the couch. It’s something he has been doing since he can walk, but you recently bought a new carpet, and when he landed the fabric slipped on the floor and Aden fell backward, catching himself up with both his hands behind him. The cry of pain that followed his landing had you running to the living room, and not even ten minutes later you were flying off your apartment to go to the hospital.

But on a Saturday night, in a town full of students, there’s no way you could go as fast as you’d wish. The nurses are overwhelmed by the number of patients coming in and are having a hard time following the motion. There are not so many doctors, you notice. You’ve only seen a few interns and maybe two residents.

You haven’t hope for it in more than two years, but now, you kind of wish your mom was here.  Working at least - things would have gone way faster if she were. Last time you saw her, your mom was an orthopedic surgeon – she probably still is, workaholic as she is – and she was fast. You kind of wish she would have been the one to take care of Aden tonight (but since she kicked you out when you told her you were keeping the baby, almost three years ago, you guess there’s no way that would happen).

You’re focused on Aden, on playing with his hair, when the E.R door suddenly opens and someone shouts that they need help. Aden and you both turn your heads to see what’s happening.

A young woman is holding another one in her arms, seemingly unconscious from what you can see from here. You see a doctor running toward her as soon as she ends her sentence and you recognize him - Thelonious Jaha. He was the chief of surgery three years ago. 

With your mom working here, you almost grew up in this very hospital. You would go to the childcare of the hospital, eat with the nurses once in a while, go to the intern’s break room, and more than once sleep in the chief’s office while waiting for your mom. Sometimes, a two hour surgery would turn into a four or ten hour one and the childcare would close before your mom could pick you up. So Jaha would come and bring you into his office, letting you sit in his chief’s chair. Wells was often here, too. His mother being out of the picture, he would stay with his dad. You two would draw on the chief’s desk and then fall asleep on his couch until your parents could bring you back home.

The lady holding the other one puts her on the ground and Thelonious is checking her vitals while listening to the first one.

“I was biking my way home when she showed up out of nowhere. I think she’s highly intoxicated. She has been unconscious for ten minutes at least.”

“On my count,” Thelonious calls, and two nurses and one intern gather around the unconscious body. “One, two, three.” They lift her up and put her on a stretcher before rolling her toward the examination room.

“Miss,” the intern says to the other woman, “you need stitches. You’re bleeding too much.”

That’s when you notice that she’s injured, too. Her jeans are torn out and you can see the beginning of a cut on her leg. The rolled up sleeves of her shirt allow you to see that both her elbows are bruised and bloody, a thin line of red going from there to her hands.

“I can wait. Take care of the people that were here before me.”

And with that, she grabs a registration form from the Home Office and walks her way to the waiting room. Focused on the way she is walking, like she can’t feel any pain while being hurt and bloody, you don’t notice Thelonious coming out of the examination room, his phone at his ear while looking in your general direction.

Aden is captivated by this woman probably as much as you are, as he watches her sitting more or less in front of you on one of the only vacant chairs.  She taps both her jean pockets and her shirt’s before sighing to herself with a shake of her head. No pen, you guess, and you guess right. She lifts her glance to look around her and that’s when she catches Aden’s eyes right before she sees yours. She raises a brow at you, as to ask you why you’re looking at her, and while holding Aden with one hand, you grab your pen on the chair next to yours, on your register form, and hold it up for her to see. She sighs again and stands up from her chair, nodding to the chair next to yours. You free it from your belongings and the lady sits. You give her your pen without any words, and she takes it without saying anything either.

Aden shifts a little on your lap, turning himself so that he can see her better. She has a sharp jaw covered in mud and a little blood. Her left cheekbone is bruised, a little sharpened but not bloody, and her lips are pink and plump. She has piercing green eyes mixed with some soft blue, and she bites on her lower lip when she reads the registration form and tries to think about what she needs to write on it.

Her hair is a masterpiece, though. Brown and long, with braids of all size and kind, pulled back on her head so that there is none falling on her face. There’s a least twenty braids in there, and it’s kind of crazy to think that she takes the time once in a while to braid her hair in that intricate way.

“Thank you for the pen,” she says in a low deep voice, smaller than when she was speaking earlier, as she hands you your pen back.

“The nurses aren’t really free right now to record new registration,” you tell her, and she nods.

“Saturday nights are crazy, with all the students parties, so many drunk people going around the streets. I had to force myself to fall from my bike to avoid hitting the one I brought.”

“Did it hurt?” Aden asks with curiosity while eyeing the bruises on her.

“Just a bit,” she reassures him with a warm smile – and okay, that’s some shiny smile she has there – “but what happened to you?”

“I jumped!” he exclaims excitedly, and he tries to speak with his arms like he does all the time. He may have forgotten about the pain for a few minutes but as soon as he tries to raise his hands, he winces, and it only takes a few seconds for tears to sparkle in his blue eyes.

“Hey, hey,” you say as you caress his head, “you’re okay, love, I promise someone is going to take care of that soon.”

“It hurts,” he groans, and you check the time on your watch. You can’t give him Tylenol again so you take a look at the desk. No nurses back. Shit. You rock him back and forth slowly on your chest as you take your phone out of your pocket.

“I have an idea,” the woman next to you says, and she takes her phone out as well. She unlocks it in a few movements and gets into her video folder. Before you realize what’s happening, Aden has the phone – way too big for his tiny hand – on his leg and a cartoon is playing on the screen. You’re kind of shocked, because who the hell has cartoons on their phone, but this is honestly the best idea you’ve seen all day.

“If you focus on that, you won’t feel the pain, promise,” she says to him in a soft voice and he nods at her before looking back at the screen.

“If he’s focused, he won’t try to move. I have a few; I hope it’ll be enough.”

“Thank you, you’re a life saver, uh…”

“Lexa.”

“Lexa, right, I’m Clarke and this is Aden,” you say with a caress on his head. He’s not even paying attention, too focused on the cartoon playing on the screen.

“Nice to meet you two. How did he hurt himself?”

“As he said, he jumped. He tends to jump from everything he can, but I put a new carpet in the living room, and that was a bad idea. It slipped when he landed and he fell backward on his hands.”

“It’s probably just a sprain; he’s going to be okay soon.”

“You forgot to tell me you were a doctor,” you say with a little sarcasm, and she smiles warmly again.

“I’m not, I’m not even studying medicine. But I work part-time as a biking delivery person, and the amount of accidents I've had since I started is kind of crazy. I almost deserve a loyalty card. I think I came at least three times in the past two months, four with today.”

“And you can’t, like, avoid coming? I mean, I’m definitely one to avoid the hospital when I know I can; it’s expensive.”

“It is, but my work insurance covers it all and my boss won’t take any risks. And I often need stitches, so it’s kind of hard to avoid.”

You go on with the conversation, asking her what kind of things she delivers, until the door of the E.R opens again, a tall blond woman you don’t pay attention to coming in. She takes a brief look at the waiting room and goes to the desk, noticing no one is here, she sighs and walk towards you.

“Clarke,” she says, and you have to leave Lexa’s eyes to look at the newly arrived person. You stop breathing for a second there because it’s your mom, and she blankly looks at you, and you have no idea what to do right now.

“Give me your registration form.” You hand it to her without a word, and Aden looks at her before leaning a bit into you, his back against your chest, becoming shy.

“Miss Woods,” she says, turning to Lexa, “I am sure I told you not to come back in my hospital any time soon two weeks ago.”

“Someone jumped in front of me. I had to avoid her,” the brunette says with a shrug.

“Registration form,” she holds her hand out to her and Lexa gives her the paper. “I’ll call Indra for your stitches.”

“I might need an x-ray. I think I injured my ribs.”  

Your mom sighs loudly and hurries you to stand up and follow her. “Woods, you too”, she says when she notices Lexa not standing up, and the brunette gets up from her chair and follows you.

“Examination room 5, Clarke. I’ll take care of the forms and get changed, be back in a few.”

You nod and go to the room in question without even thinking of the road you need to take to reach it.

“Well, it seems like I’m not the only VIP here.”

You sigh a bit as you open the door of the fifth room, coming in and sitting Aden on the examination table.

“This woman,” you say to Aden more than Lexa while you cradle the little kid’s hair, “is my mom. So she’s your grandmother,” you explain and he makes a face.

“Yes, I know I never told you about her before, and that you never met her, but she’s an amazing doctor. You’ll see, she will take great care of you.”

“You’ll be with me?” he asks with a shy voice, and you smile with a nod before dropping a kiss on the top of his head. “Of course, love.”

“And I’ll tell you, little one,” Lexa ads as she kneels a bit in front of the table so that she’s at his height, “Doctor Griffin took care of me on my last visit here, and she’s really great and sweet.” As proof, she lifts the fabric of her pant on her left leg and shows him the still angry red scar she has on her calf. “Of course, you won’t need stitches, but when she did mine, it didn’t hurt one bit.”

“What happened?” he asks curiously, and you and Aden both listen to Lexa’s tale. She was on her bike, working the evening shift after a crazy day at college. She had to go to a restaurant on the far north of town to retrieve the food her customer ordered before going straight to the South.

“… As soon as I receive the food, I have thirty minutes to deliver, so I had to go really, really fast to be on time, and it was raining, so it wasn’t really helping. At a crossroad, I slowed down slightly and got up on my pedals to check on the traffic, to see if I could go without stopping, and as I couldn’t see or hear anything close by, I sped up. That’s when that asshole on his bike came from my right and we crashed into each other.

“He was working too, for another delivery company, and we were both running out of time so we just insulted each other before apologizing and getting back on our bikes. I did my delivery on time and the customer had noticed my torn out pant. It was my last delivery for the night so I just biked to the hospital right after and Doctor Griffin yelled at me for a solid five minutes before stitching me up.

“She’s really good at lecturing people,” you mention and Aden pulls at your shirt for a second. “She going to yell at me?”

“Of course not, love, she will take care of your wrist and only that. But she might yell at me.”

“I’m pretty sure she’ll yell at me first,” Lexa says with a smile, and when your mom comes in the room, she eyes the three of you suspiciously. “Woods, you speak first, what happened to you?”

“As I said, I was biking home when some drunken girl showed up out of nowhere. I had to avoid her so I kind of jumped from my bike, but I was going at full speed. The landing wasn’t pretty.”

“Still not planning on stopping biking? It’s going to kill you someday.”

“It pays well for a student job.” Lexa shrugs and your mom sighs. “Where does it hurt?”

“It doesn’t really hurt, it’s just uncomfortable when I breathe. The cuts don’t really hurt either.”

“We’ll run the x-rays before I call for Indra. Clarke?”

“He jumped from the couch but there’s a new carpet in the living room and it slipped beneath him. He fell backward on his hands and hurt his wrist.”

She writes in the patient chart what you just told her as soon as she finishes filling Lexa’s.

“Let’s look at that,” she says before putting the chart down and walking towards the examination table. Aden holds tighter on your shirt and you soothe him by drawing circles on his back with your hand. “It’s okay love, she’s not going to touch anything, just look. That look will determine if you need x-rays.”

“Okay…” he nods as he lifts his head higher and opens the hand hiding his wrist until then. The sight of his hand pains you, as he pays extra attention to not move it under the eyes of the doctor. It’s swollen from his wrist to his fingers and you feel guilty for putting that carpet in the living room. Hell, you don’t even need a carpet.

“I don’t think it’s broken”, your mom says after looking from a few angles, “but we’ll run an x-ray just in case.”

A sigh of relief escapes your lips and you kiss the top of Aden’s head. “Do you remember Superman from the cartoons you watch in the morning?” you ask him and he nods. “Sometimes he does that thing with his eyes that allows him to see inside walls?” He nods again and you keep going, “that’s how x-rays work. It’s going to look inside of your wrist and take a picture of it, just to make sure nothing is broken inside. Okay?”

“That cool!” he says excitedly. “I wanna see the picture!”

“You will,” your mom promises with a warm smile, “now let’s do those x-rays.” 

You take Aden down from the table and put him on the floor. You crouch in front of him to be at his height. “Would you mind walking with Lexa to the x-rays? I’ll be right behind with the doctor, okay?”

“Right behind?” he asks, worried.

“Yes love”, you say with a nod and a caress to his cheek, “right behind you, I promise.” 

He nods his understanding of the situation and you look up to Lexa, realizing that you didn’t even ask her if it was okay. You’re about to when she smiles to Aden, “Come, little one, I’ll tell you a story about Superman.” She starts walking out of the room and Aden follows her happily as she starts talking about Superman and all of his awesome super powers. You exit the room a few seconds after them, your mother hot on your heels, and you gulp loudly. You thought of speaking to her, asking her why she was here, but you kind of want to yell at her first. Because she kicked you out and now she shows up out of nowhere, and this is too much for you to take.

“Thelonious called me,” she says before you even start speaking, “he said you were in the E.R with your boy and that there were too many people for him to be able to take care of you.”

“Late, much,” you mumble and she stops walking. “Clarke, listen.”

You take a look at Aden and Lexa, who are waiting for you at the corner of the corridor, and stop walking too, turning your attention back to your mother.

“I shouldn’t have reacted the way I did. I am the one who taught you to love every life and I got mad at you when you told me you couldn’t get an abortion and I truly, truly am sorry for that.”

She stops talking for a second, trying to collect herself, to find the right words before she opens her mouth again.

“My real problem wasn’t the baby, honestly, it was... Finn.”

“Well you’ll be glad to know you were right about him, he left to weeks after Aden’s birth, he couldn’t handle the crying. I don’t even remember him holding him once…”

“I am not glad, Clarke, I am sorry. Sorry I kicked you out when you needed my help, sorry Finn doesn’t realize his loss, sorry for all the time I wasn’t here. For you and for him.”

You don’t really know what to say. That is not really how you expected your night to go; you expected watching a movie with Aden, him falling asleep in your lap. Then you would have tucked him in his bed, warm under his covers, before going to bed, too. You would have read a few chapters of whatever book you’re reading at the moment, texted Raven and Octavia to update them on your life, and then you would have fallen asleep.

You didn’t expect Aden to hurt his wrist and to meet Lexa and to face your mom. You gulp, holding back tears you’ve been holding for a while. All the nights you thought you would never be a good mom, all the times Finn proved himself as an asshole and the night he left, Aden’s first teeth and your sleepless nights, all the tears you held for the good of your boy threatening to fall down in that very moment. You look down at your feet for a second, breathing heavily to regain control over yourself and finally, without looking at her, you open your mouth, “He could use a grandmother. I mean, if you want to know him, he could use a grandmother.”

Abby puts a hand on your cheek softly and makes you lift your head. She smiles warmly at you, before bowing down and dropping a kiss on your forehead, like she would always do. “I would love to,” she says, looking at him, “he seems to be a very great boy.”

Then she looks back at you, eyes shining bright, “I am really proud of you, Clarke.”

You let your head fall down again, a single tear running down your cheek as your mom gets closer to you, putting your head on her chest. You lift your hands and hold tightly on her blouse and she surrounds your back with her arms, a firm hug for you to share. A few other tears roll down your cheeks, salty on your lips, but it feels good to let go so you let them. You stay like this for a few seconds, a few minutes maybe, before your mom reminds you that you should really go get those x-rays done, and you nod against her chest before lifting your head again. You make quick work of wiping your tears with the back of your hands. She smiles warmly at you again, and you share a nod before turning your head towards Aden. Your little toddler found his way in Lexa arms, she’s holding him against her chest, her head turned to the side so that he can see her braids. You smile at the sight, one more tear running down as you think of all the things Aden will be able to share with your mom now that she’s back in the picture.

You start walking, Abby right behind you, and it doesn’t take long before you’re next to Aden. “Hey buddy,” you say as you hold your arms toward him and take him from Lexa. “Thank you,” you mouth to her, and she just shrugs before Aden takes a closer look at you. “You cry?” he asks in a tiny voice and you smile at him, kissing his cheek. “Happy tears, love, happy tears. I’ll explain it to you later. Let’s take the pictures of your wrist first.”

He nods, and your mom leads the way to the x-ray room. Lexa insists that Aden go first, assuring you that she can wait, and your mom is the one to take him inside the room. You stay in sight so that he doesn’t worry too much, but you also keep an eye on Lexa. She’s pale, really pale, and she seems to be leaning against the wall so that it holds her. You take a look at her pants, remembering the intern earlier, the one that told her she was losing too much blood. It has been at least an hour and a half since then… and the end of her jean is bloody red. She suddenly lifts her hand to her head, massaging her temple and breathing in and out slowly but heavily. She’s trying to keep in touch with what surrounds her, but it’s not working, and soon enough you see her losing strength and her legs failing her.

You’re quick to catch her; just before she falls on the floor, your grab her by the side and hold her against you, easing her slowly on the floor, back against the wall.

“I think… I think I’ve lost too much blood…” she says in a whisper, and you honestly want to punch her in the face.

“Of course you have, you idiot.” You rip her pants more than they already are to get a proper view of her injury and, oh lord, that cut is deep and large and you have no idea how she kept herself together until now. Her pant absorbed one liter of blood at least and there’s still more going out, not on a too fast rhythm, thank god.

“You could have gotten this stitched up when you arrived. Why did you refuse?”

“I am fine, Clarke…”

“The hell you are,” you groan as you take the first thing you find – your scarf – to apply pressure on the cut.

“That’s where I’m going… according to my ex's grandmother…”

“Excuse-me?”

“She believes gay people are, like… going to hell.”

“Well fuck her.”

Lexa makes a face, as to say that this is a horrible thing to think of. “Spiritually, Lexa, not physically.”

“Oh thank god…”

A nurse walks rapidly past you, and you call after her. When she sees Lexa, she immediately stops everything she is doing, no matter what is was, and crouches next to you. “I think she lost too much blood.” The nurse nods and stands back up. She grabs the first wheeling chair she finds and rolls it next to you. “Help me lift her,” she says, and on her count you stand Lexa up and sit her on the wheeling chair. Aden chooses that exact moment to get out of the x-ray room, and he walks to you with worried eyes. “Mommy?” he says, and you immediately take him in your arms.

“It’s okay love, Lexa is a little bit too hurt to walk by herself, but the doctors are going to take good care of her.”

“She gonna be okay?”

“I am,” Lexa says with a breathy yet steady voice. She looks at Aden with that warm smile of hers. “I am, little one, don’t worry.”

“One pack of A positive and a room, right away,” your mom tells the nurse as she takes control of the wheeling chair and the nurse nods. “Yes, chief.”

The nurse runs out and your mom starts pushing Lexa in a fast motion in the direction of the E.R. where the nurse made quick work of freeing a bed. Lexa is still conscious, weak but conscious, and you put Aden on the floor so that you can help her out of the chair and on the bed. She lies down there, and you take Aden again, this time to sit him on the bed, face turned to Lexa so that he doesn’t see your mom suturing the brunette.

“Do you think you can tell a few stories to Lexa? She needs to stay awake,” you tell him and he firmly nods, ready to help as much as he can.

The nurse comes back a few minutes later while Aden is telling a story about a dinosaur on a boat to the brunette and your mom is cleaning her wound. “There’s glass in there,” your mom groans, and you stop Aden from turning his head to see what she is talking about. “Focus on the story love, everything is okay.”

“Miss Woods, I’m sorry, I have to take the glass out before the pain killer kicks in; the sooner the better.” Lexa nods, in a haze - you’re pretty sure she didn’t understand what your mom just said. In the meantime, the nurse holds the transfusion and takes Lexa’s arm. She’s fast enough for Aden not to notice the needle she’s putting in her arm before linking it to the blood bag. She puts a plaster on the needle so that it doesn’t leave her arm and then she’s out of the room, trusting your mom to do the rest.

Using a tweezer, your mom gets inside the wound and Lexa groans at it, scaring Aden a little, but he takes her hand with his uninjured one and holds it tight, keeping on with the story like you told him to. Two small pieces of glass later, your mom grabs the suture kit and opens it. Now that some blood is running in, it would be stupid to let it go.

She waits though, for a few minutes, for the pain killer she injected Lexa with to kick in before she starts closing the wound. When she’s sure it’s all right for her to start, she gets to work and starts closing on the brunette. A sigh of relief escapes your lips and you take a look at Lexa - she’s slowly falling asleep, but now with the bag of blood running empty on a slow motion, you’re not worried. You go to Aden and cradle his hair with your hand and drop a kiss on his head.

“You did well buddy. Lexa can sleep now.”

“Don’t go yet. I need to write a prescription for him. The pharmacy is probably still open, so you’ll get what you need from there,” your mom says without looking away from Lexa’s wound, still closing it up. It takes seven stitches to close it all, and when she’s done she takes a deep breath. “She’ll be fine, and the scar shouldn’t be too ugly. We all did well,” she says as she stretches her muscles, “especially you, you were really helpful,” she says to Aden, and he shots her a bright smile.

“Let’s go,” she ads once she has removed her gloves and thrown all the used materials into the nearest bin, “she won’t wake up for a few more hours at least.”

The decision to stay at the hospital at Lexa’s bedside wasn’t a really hard one to make. It only took a few seconds for Aden to convince you, not that you needed any convincing. Of course, the toddler spent the biggest part of the night asleep against your chest, and you, you used every free moment your mom had to catch up with her. She’s the new chief of surgery, after Thelonious stepped down to focus on research. She doesn’t spend that much time in her office, though, as she’s more an action kind of woman. She is definitely one to cover the E.R every time she can - she loves to be near her patients. She’s thinking of stepping down from the job, too, leave it to Marcus Kane, cardiologic surgeon who proved himself to be a caring mentor toward his interns, caring toward the nurses’s needs as well. He’s worthy of the job, and she feels like letting him take it – she will have to if she wants to spend time with you and Aden. 

It’s around seven in the morning when Aden wakes up with a few grumbles and a huge yawn, and you realize you have nothing for breakfast. Your mom enters Lexa’s room just a second after, and she proposes to take him to eat something – she can definitely steal milk and cookies in the cafeteria. You nod and tell Aden that you’ll stay with Lexa and that, if she wakes up while he eats, you’ll ask for the nurse to page her mom’s beeper so he’ll know. In his not-so-fully-awake state, he agrees, and your mom crouches to take him in her arms, smiling warmly at him. You smile too, glad that this is happening, glad to see your mom holding against her chest your two-and-a-half-year-old boy while, the day before, you wouldn’t even have imagined it. You guess fate has its way of bringing people together in the way they expect the least, when they expect it the least.

You wave at Aden as your mom carries him out of the room before getting comfortable on your chair.  From what your mom told you about Lexa, she’s not one to rest much. She’s quiet, too, but Abby managed to take a few words from her on her last visit. How she works five nights a week, four hour shifts on her bike, and how she gets back to studying as soon as she gets home. You want to believe you would be as hardworking as her if you had gone to college, but there’s no way in hell you’d work that much. You know yourself - you would be working hard in the very first month, but then you’d reward yourself for so much work by taking a break, and the break would last the entire semester.

You would have loved to go to college, though – well, for longer than a month, that is. You don’t regret keeping Aden - god, he’s the best thing that has ever happened to you - but maybe, when he’s old enough, you’ll go back there, to university, so that you can finish your art degree. That would be nice.

Your fingers start itching. Thinking of college always makes you think of drawing, and the next thing you know, you want to draw everything. You grab your purse and take a ball pen out of it along with a notebook you always keep in there. It’s little bit torn out, and old, as it’s always in there, but you don’t really mind. There are already a few sketches in there, so you pass a few pages before getting on a new one. You lift your leg from the floor, setting it on the corner of your chair so that you can hold your notebook against it, and ball pen in hand, you start drawing. You don’t really know what you’re drawing, going from one line to another, but soon enough, you realize it is Aden, and you’re not really surprised. While drawing the little blond strands of hair that fall on his forehead, you take a look toward Lexa’s bed; the brunette is fast asleep, snoring lightly. She didn’t move one inch since she fell asleep hours ago, and you have a prefect view on her jawline from where you’re sitting. So sharp it could probably cut, so well-drawn it was probably sculpted by the gods themselves, whoever they might be. Your eyes go from Lexa, to your sketch, to Lexa again, and you do that so much that in the end, you don’t even know what your hand is doing on the paper. You’re not really paying attention to it anymore, but when your hand stops moving, you guess you’re done. It happens sometimes, for you to doodle without really knowing what is happening. It’s like your hand takes control and you have to let it happen or this wicked thing won’t let you live; it would itch and itch until you give in.

Putting your ball pen behind your ear, you lift your notebook to take a proper look at your drawing. Aden is in the front, giving a toothy smile, and when you look at his hair, you notice the hand in it. In the background, connected to that hand, is Lexa’s arm, and her face is on the top right of the page, giving that small yet warm smile of hers. You drew a few braids and then a few messy strands of hair around her face, but you didn’t get it quite right. Drawing Lexa is not like drawing Aden, not at all. You’ve been drawing him since he was born, and even if he grows every day, you know exactly where the lines have to be when you draw him. With Lexa, it’s different; her jawline, her lips, her eyes, they're all new lines, sometimes sharp, sometimes soft, but it’s a great exercise. It has been a while since you came around a new model, and you want to get it right. You turn to the next page and take a new look at Lexa, at the way the dim light of the room shines on half her face, brightening her sun-tanned skin.  God, that girl is a goddess. A goddess that grunts.

You toss your notebook aside as soon as you realize she’s waking up and sit straighter on your chair. When she opens her eyes, she blinks twice before getting used to the light, and when she finally seems to see clearly, she looks around her. She doesn’t see you at first, but she seems to realize it’s not her room and she groans. “What the…” Shoving the covers off her body, she struggles to get access to her phone, but when she finally gets it out of her pocket, she checks what time it is and groans again. She puts it on her belly with a heavy sigh and then looks around the room again. When her gaze locks on you, she raises a curious brow. It takes a few seconds, but finally her lips turn upward in a small tired smile.

“Clarke.”

“Lexa,” you greet in exchange. “You didn’t have to stay,” she says then.

“Well good morning to you, too,” you smile. “I wouldn’t have slept well if I hadn’t. And Aden wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“Because you certainly slept well in that chair.”

“Aden did,” you shrug and she sighs. “Where did he go?”

“First ever breakfast with his grandmother in the cafeteria.”

Lexa nods at that, and when she’s about to speak again, a nurse enters the room to bring in breakfast for the brunette. She thanks her as soon as she settles everything on the nightstand next to her bed. You ask her to page your mom and she nods before exiting the room.

“Want something?” Lexa asks you as soon as the nurse is out. “I’m not really a breakfast kind of person.”

“You’ll have to eat at least half of it if you want me to eat something.”

“I’m sorry?”

“You haven’t eat shit since yesterday lunch at least and you almost collapsed yesterday. Eat.”

Lexa gives you an unimpressed look and you’re as unimpressed as she is.

“It’s either me suggesting you to eat or my mom forcing you to do it. The choice is yours. But she won’t clear you unless you eat.”

Lexa sighs again, but she grabs the cup of milk that has been seated on the nightstand and a piece of bread. You give her a proud smile and she just rolls her eyes. That’s when your mom enters the room, holding Aden against her chest as he eats a croissant.

“Lek-faa!” he exclaims, mouth full, and you give him a look. “Aden, your mouth before you speak.”

He’s fast to swallow the remaining part of his food as your mom sits him on Lexa’s bed, and when there’s nothing left in his mouth, he starts again. “Lexa!”

“Hey, little one.”

You smile as they exchange a few sentences while your mom goes to the side of Lexa’s bed, checking on her leg. “How are your ribs?” she asks in the meantime, and Lexa shrugs. “Less uncomfortable than yesterday.”

“Okay. Aden, can you go with Mommy for a second please?”

You stand and open your arms out to him, and he stands on the bed to get against your chest. “Your grandmother needs to take a look at Lexa’s ribs,” you explain to him, and he gives you a look. “What are ribs?” Holding him with one arm around his back, you lift your other hand on his side. “Do you feel all those bones?” you ask as you slide your index finger above his shirt. He nods. “That’s what we call ribs; you have them on both sides of your body.” Out of curiosity, Aden touches his side with his own hands and feels the bones. “That weird”, he says. “Why here?”

“Well that’s a good question, love, I don’t know.”

“Why?” he asks again and you shake your head before propping a kiss on his cheek. He smiles and drop his head on your shoulder.

“I don’t think it’s broken,” Abby finally says after checking Lexa’s side, and the brunette exhales a sigh of relief. “But you will take a week off from work. And I’m not clearing you until someone comes to pick you up.”

Lexa is about to say otherwise when your mom speaks up again. “This is about your health, Miss Woods. You can say whatever you want, I won’t change my mind. I’m going to get a few papers filled and I’ll be right back,” she informs the three of you before she leaves the room.

“You said she’d clear me if I eat something.”

“Yeah, well, food and friends, I guess.”

Lexa takes her phone from her belly and unlocks it in a few seconds. She opens her contact list and takes a sheepish look at it. “Guess I’ll go with Lincoln…” she says after a few seconds, and she clicks on the contact and puts her phone against her ear.

You give her some kind of privacy as you sit back on the chair and turn your attention to Aden, not listening to what Lexa might be saying.

“We’ll be going home soon, love, okay?” He nods and ask you how much time he will have to keep the splint around his wrist. You proceed on explaining to him the complete process of healing and how it takes some time, but that his wrist will be stronger than ever when it’s done.

“Lincoln,” you catch Lexa saying with a sigh, “I can’t call Anya, she’s going to die from a heart attack, rise from the dead and then kill me. And don’t even think of telling me to call Titus. The poor guy is already bald, I don’t want him to lose his eyebrows.”

There’s a silence from her and you can’t hear what the guy named Lincoln says on the other end of the line, but then Lexa speaks again, even more annoyed than before. "Fine, send me your girlfriend, but if she kills me on our way back, it’s on you.”

“… Yeah, a week,” she says after a new silence, “guess I’ll have some time to study.”

“… I don’t know, the doctor went to fill some papers.”

“Yeah, I’ll update you as soon as she gets here.”

She hangs up her phone with a heavy sigh and you can’t help but ask if everything is okay.

“Wonderful,” she shrugs, “my best friend can’t come so he’s sending me his girlfriend who received her driving license from a lucky dip. She can’t drive.”

“She sounds like fun.”

“If I die, Aden gets all my stuff.”

“Well that’s certainly nice, but he’s a bit too young to get on your bike yet.”

“And probably too young to read Korean poetry and philosophy books.”

“Definitely,” you say as you cradle his head, and you notice his eyes are closed and his breath even. “I think he fell back asleep,” you murmur, and Lexa makes some space on her bed before nodding toward said space.

“You’re sure? I can keep him.” 

“He’ll be more comfortable.”

“Fair enough,” you say as you stand up and slowly ease him on the edge of the bed.

Talking with Lexa is easy, you realize. Well, you’ve seen it yesterday, of course, but yesterday was mostly about her work. Now, though, she speaks about college, and about her best friend and his infamous girlfriend who’s picking her up. She doesn’t remember when the two started dating, but she met the girl around two weeks ago and she almost died three times that day. This reminds you that you have yet to meet one of Aden’s godmothers' boyfriend; they started dating four months ago and she has been keeping him secret like he’s an old artifact – for being able to support her, he probably is, now that you think about it.

Aden wakes up about fifteen minutes after he fell asleep, when the nurse comes in to retrieve Lexa’s meal tray. He grumbles a bit, and you take him in your arms right before your mom enters the room with a few papers in hand. She’s about to open her mouth to explain a few things to Lexa, but then someone literally runs into the room, crashing into your mom at the same time, and Lexa has to sit straight to put a hand behind you so that you don’t fall from your mom colliding into you.

“Shit, sorry!” exclaims a cherry voice, and god, you’d recognize that voice between thousands.

“Octavia...” you and Lexa sigh deeply and you both look at each other with a quizzical look.

“Clarke?” the brunette asks.

“Lexa?” you counter back.

“Octavia?” your mom asks to the new one in the room.

“Auntie O!” Aden yells when he finally recognizes her, and he almost jumps from your arms to get into hers.

“What the-“

“Language!” you exclaim in unison with your mom and Lexa, and Octavia looks at you three in utter shock.

“-hap?!” she asks as she holds Aden against her, surprised.

Your life never really makes sense, so you’re not really surprised when Octavia tells you that this is fucked up. It is, but you’re not even shocked about it. At least you got your mom back and made a new friend out of it; you’re certainly not going to complain about it. And Lexa is like Aden’s new hero or something, so this is nice to watch. You’re at the entrance of her room looking at Lexa’s bed, Aden excitedly speaking to her as Lexa is folding some piece of paper. You have a feeling that the piece of paper she’s folding might be the prescription your mom gave her ten minutes ago, and that’s why you ask her for a new one when she comes to drop a kiss on your forehead before you leave. She sighs but writes a new one anyway, which you then hand to Octavia.

“I’ll give it to Anya. If someone can make her do something, it’s definitely her.”

Lexa mentioned someone named that way earlier when she was on the phone with Lincoln, and you can’t stop yourself from asking, “Girlfriend?”

Octavia gives you a look. The look, the one that says that she knows something you don’t.

“No. They’re like sisters. She’s single, in case it might interest you.”

“I just met her,” you say, but you’re not even sure you mean it. Maybe it kind of does.

“When I had just met Lincoln, I was already interested,” she says knowingly. “Oh, shut up.”

A cry of surprise followed by something close to amazement leaves Aden’s mouth, and you take a look inside the room to the bed where he’s sitting. The paper Lexa was folding not so long ago turned into a little space ship, and you’re honestly impressed.

“Mommy, look!” 

You step into the room to take a closer look at the paper. “Lexa made it!” he says happily. “That so cool!” You nod, agreeing at how cool that is, and wonder how she made it. Sure, you know about origamis, but those have always been one of the biggest wonders of the world for you. You can’t even make a plane out of a paper, so a space ship? You’re shocked that’s even possible.

“I made one for you, too,” she says as she hands you a folded tissue. It’s not a space rocket that you get, but a lotus flower, neatly folded and honestly really pretty. “As a thank you for staying the night.”

“I should be the one thanking you,” you say, but you take it anyway. She gives you a puzzled look as why you should thank her, and you nod toward Aden as a reply. Your little boy is holding his rocket ship by the bottom and flying it all around him while making motor sounds with his mouth, and Lexa gives a small warm smile.

“My pleasure, Clarke.”

You shiver a bit at the way she pronounces your name, articulating each syllable and making the ‘a’ almost sounds like an ‘o’.

“Let’s go,” she tells Octavia as she sits on the side of the bed and slowly stands up. If she feels any pain in her leg, she doesn’t show it. She pats Aden’s head as a goodbye and he gives her a toothy green. He thanks her for the rocket ship and waves her goodbye, and while telling him he’s welcome, she turns to you and gives you a smile. “Goodbye Clarke. For now.”

You don’t really get the reason of that last part, but you nod and wish her a safe trip with Octavia on the wheel. “First off, eff you all, I made a lot of progress, second, tonight is movie night,” she reminds you. “I’ll be there around seven. I’ll bring pizza.”

“Pizza!” Aden cheers and Octavia smiles at him. “See you tonight, buddy.”

She high-fives him, and then both her and Lexa are out of the room.

Aden keeps playing on the bed Lexa was previously on, and it gives you some time to think. To think about the night you just spent and the way shivers ran through your spine when Lexa said your name. And all that remains of that night is the lotus flower in your hand and Aden'a rocket ship. Nothing else. And, of course, your silly ass didn’t think of giving her your number, of fucking course.

You shake your head at yourself with a heavy sigh and turn your attention to Aden. “Time to go, love.”

Four days since everything had happened and you still haven’t managed to get her out of your head. Whenever you find yourself alone, or bored at work – that happens a lot – her face comes back to your brain and you feel the urge to draw her from every angle. Like now.

It’s past ten in the evening and Aden is sleeping soundly in his room, tired of the day he had at the childcare. You’re sitting on the couch in the living room; the TV is running in front of you but you don’t even pay attention to it. All you can focus on is the sketch drawing itself on your knees. You’re still not getting it right - her jawline is still not perfect and it’s almost driving you crazy. You’ll do it over and over again until you get it right because, hell, if you managed to draw Octavia’s jawline, you can draw Lexa’s.

You’re turning to a new page when your phone buzzes next to you, and you take it without looking at the name on the screen. At this hour, there are only three people that could be calling you – namely, your mom, Octavia, and Raven - and those are voices you can recognize easily.

“Hello?”

“How much of a dumbass can you be?”

Octavia. What the hell, though?

“Dude, why are you insulting me again?”

“Clarke," she says, and she has that voice, the one she uses when she wants to teach you the way of life. “First of, why didn’t you give your number to Lexa?”

“I forgot. It’s not like I might never see her again, though - she’s your boyfriend’s best friend.”

“So you actually want to see her again, right?”

“Well… I’m not against the idea?” It’s more of a shy question than a statement, but Octavia knows you well enough to know what that means.

“Why didn’t you text her?”

“Uh, well, for you information, she didn’t give me her number either, so unless I’m medium and you never told me about it, I can’t.”

“Oh my, fuck, Clarke, what am I going to do with you?”

“Excuse me, but –“

“Clarke,” she stops you, and you want to tell her that it’s rude, but she’s too quick for you to follow. “Where’s the flower she gave you?”

“On my nightstand?”

“Go get it, right away.”

You stand up without giving it any more thought and go to your bedroom quietly, making sure to make as little sound as possible. Aden can be quite sensitive sometimes when it takes him more time to reach the deep state of sleep, and you don’t want to take any risk in waking him up. You get the flower from your room and get back to the living room equally silently.

“What now?”

“Unfold it.”

“What? No I-“

“Clarke, unfold that fucking flower or, Satan hear my words, I’ll be at your door in ten to do it myself.”

“Fine, fine!” you urge her, and push the bottom of the flower. From there it’s easy; you just have to take the four corners in the middle and open them - piece of cake - but you still go slowly and carefully, afraid of tearing the tissue down. There, in the middle of the tissue, in neat handwriting, blue ink, a number. A fucking phone number – Lexa’s fucking phone number!

“Shit.”

“Text her. Right about now.”

“Forty-eight hours rule?” you ask, and Octavia sighs loudly.

“It expired two fucking days ago. Text the shit out of her or I’m calling Raven.”

“I’m hanging up now.”

You don’t pay attention to the ‘fucking finally’ she mutters right before you hang up the phone, and you immediately go to your texting app and type Lexa’s number in. You give it about five seconds though before typing away a message and pressing the send button.

[ 10 : 27 ]             To: New number

                             Subject: You couldn’t give your number like any normal person, could you?

[ 10 : 30 ]             From: Lexa

                             Subject: Well, where’s the fun in that?

Your lips turn upward without you realizing as you type away your reply to her. This might be interesting.