Origamis

Aden is three and sleeping at his grandmother’s.

Lexa and Clarke both decide to enjoy the night and go on their first real date.

It’s a disaster.

They’re late to the restaurant for no real reason – Lexa was on time at Clarke’s place, and the blonde was all ready when she arrived, but somehow they didn’t make it in time. Clarke then spills her drink on Lexa’s white shirt, and when the moment to pay comes, Lexa realizes she forgot her credit card home, resulting in Clarke having to pay for the meal. Of course the blonde doesn’t mind, but that doesn’t seem right to Lexa, who promises to pay her back next time. Then they decide to go for a walk in town and it starts raining. Everything is shit, and when they finally reach Clarke’s place after minutes and minutes of walking under the pouring rain, they’re drenched to the bones.

No really, if Clarke were to rate the date, it would be a one out of ten. Thankfully, though, the company is a fucking twelve out of ten, so like, it was almost perfect – classic Lexa to make something that bad that great, really.

They share a deep kiss on Clarke’s doorstep, one that Lexa initiates much to Clarke’s pleasure, and after a few minutes of heavy making out, Lexa leaves Clarke with a promise to check the weather before she plans their next date. That leaves Clarke drenched on her doorstep with a dreamy smile on her lips.

A perfect disaster.

Aden is three and Clarke kind of didn't expect him to tell his grandmother how often Lexa comes over to he and his mom's place.

But now, she's screwed.

Abby comes by on a Saturday afternoon, Aden in her arms, bringing him back home after a night at her place. The boy quickly hugs his mom before running off to his room and his toys, and Clarke offers a cup of coffee to her mother, asking her how the day and night went.

“I didn't know Lexa gave him the dream catcher,” Abby simply states, and Clarke goes silent for a second. As far as her mom is concerned, after their first meeting at the hospital, Clarke and Lexa never saw each other again.

Maybe, just maybe, Clarke should have told her mom.

“She gave me her number back at the hospital,” Clarke explains. “We kind of stayed in touch after that.”

“Kind of stayed in touch,” Abby muses, an amused smile dancing on her lips.

“Don't give me that look,” the blonde groans, but her mom just keeps looking.

“You know, Lexa is a great kid,” Abby says then, not really surprising Clarke. Everybody thinks highly of Lexa, herself first. She's more than just a great kid. She's a freaking amazing woman, if Clarke were to state her point of view.

“I know.” Clarke nods. “Actually, we're -”

A familiar jingle of keys is heard in the corridor, and before Clarke finishes her sentence, the door opens and Lexa's voice calls after her from the entrance.

“I got the avocadoes and Aden's cocoa pounder,” she says as she walks in the kitchen before stopping dead in her track at the sight of Abby.

“Kind of stayed in touch,” Abby repeats as she looks at her daughter and then looking over at Lexa.

The brunette freezes in the middle of the kitchen door, holding a plastic bag full of some groceries – more than just avocadoes and Aden's coca pounder.

“Well Lexa, I'm glad to see you out of my hospital.”

“Uh, me too, Doctor Griffin, me too...”

Lexa shots an awkward smile at Abby, and Clarke just sighs.

“Mom, please meet Lexa, my girlfriend. Lexa, please meet my mom, Abbigail Griffin,” she says as she comes next to the brunette and takes the bag of groceries from her hands and sets it on the table. She starts unloading the bag, and Lexa kind of snaps back into reality.

“I also got him a new pacifier, same as his lost favorite one.”

“You're a god send,” Clarke says as she gets said pacifier out of the bag, right before turning around and kissing Lexa's cheek quickly.

Bedtime had been hell for the past few days because of that lost pacifier, honestly. Clarke couldn't be happier as she was ripping the package open to retrieve it and wash it with hot water. Abby is about to ask something when Aden comes barging in the kitchen, jumping at Lexa who catches him under the arms to lift him up against her hip. The question dies right in Abby's throat as Aden tightly claps his arms around Lexa's neck and she drops a kiss on his head, rocking him back and forth, before asking about his day. Her question answered itself without even needing to be asked.

“I'm gonna go,” Abby says as she sets her cup of coffee by the sink. “I'll see you later. Call me if you need anything.”

She's out the door in no time after a kiss on both Clarke and Aden's heads, and when the door shuts, Lexa lets out a breath.

“Holy duck,” Lexa sighs. “I was kind of worried there.”

“She has yet to give you the talk,” Clarke reminds her, and Lexa shudders a bit at the thought.

Aden is three and it’s his first day of school.

Lexa is not here, so instead of crying on her shoulder, Clarke is crying on Raven’s, who freed herself to accompany her best friend and godson to the boy’s school. It’s his first day. He will not remember it, but Clarke will, and she definitely needs someone to wipe the tears away from her cheeks.

When it’s time to go in, Raven bows down so that Aden can drop a kiss on her cheek before Clarke crouches down before him. The blonde boy lets out a sigh before he hugs his mom and starts reassuring her. Clarke almost laughs at herself because, seriously, it’s her boy’s first day at school and he’s the one telling her that they’ll see each other by the end of the day when she comes to pick him up. Still, she can’t help but hug him tightly before he drops a kiss on her wet cheek and waves at her and Raven one last time. He then enters the school and Clarke is crying even more.

She shouldn’t even be crying right now. It’s not really a big deal for Aden to be going to school, but somehow now she understands why her parents were always complaining about her growing up too fast. Aden is already three and he won’t stop growing up. Soon enough he’ll be a teenager, then a young adult, and before she even realizes it, he will be leaving the house to go off to college, and that makes her crying even worse.

She takes reassurance in the fact that she’s not the only parent who is a crying mess right now, as other people are wiping off their cheeks in front of the school. Raven sighs at her but holds her nonetheless, waiting for her to run out of tears before complaining about her poor, sensitive self.

“Fuck you,” she groans between sobs, and the brunette smiles at her.

“Glad to know you still have it in you, Griffin.”

Aden is four and Clarke and Lexa have been dating for almost a year.

Clarke is exhausted when she gets home from work. All she wants is to curl up in her bed and sleep this entire day off, but things don’t go according to plan.

When she gets home, Aden is standing up in one of the corners of the living room, facing the wall. When you ask Lexa about it, she explains calmly that she had to punish him because he didn’t listen to her. You don’t let her finish.

She knows she’s being unfair because really, it’s not Lexa’s fault if she hates her job and that her manager is an asshole, but the brunette just gave her the perfect reason to snap at her and things exploded rather quickly (Clarke had the presence of mind to send Aden to his bedroom before things went to shit, thank god). Words are exchanged and voices raised in between the walls before the blond ends up yelling at Lexa that Aden is not her son.

The words are out of her mouth before she can even think of them, and she regrets them immediately. But she knows it’s too late as she sees the way Lexa’s eyes darken when she hears them.

“Right,” she huffs before gathering her things and leaving the apartment. The door is shut closed before Clarke can even start formulating an apology, and a heavy silence suddenly surrounds her. Fuck.

“Mommy?” Aden’s tiny voice asks from the corridor, and Clarke plasters a smile on her face before walking toward him.

She opens her arms to him and he is fast to get in so that she can lift him from the floor and hold him against her hips. Clarke drops a kiss on his cheek before he lets his head fall on her shoulder, his tiny arms around her neck, hugging tight.

“I’m going to cook dinner, okay?”

“Where’s Lexa?” he asks then. “You were shouting…”

“It’s okay, love, it happens sometimes between big persons.”

Clarke can’t see his face from the way he is hugging her, but the kid is thinking deeply. After a few minutes of silence, he finally opens his mouth again. “I didn’t listen three times so she punished me.”

His voice is small, and if it weren’t for the closeness between his mouth and Clarke’s ear, she probably wouldn’t have heard him, especially when he adds that what he did three times is drawing on the wall of his bedroom.

Clarke soothes Aden’s back with one hand, holding him against her with the other. “Well, we will both have to do something when Lexa gets back. Do you know what that is?”

“What?”

“We will have to apologize to her, okay?”

“I have to apologize because I didn’t listen but… why do you?” he asks, confused.

“I said really mean things to Lexa, and when you are mean to someone, you have to apologize.”

Aden nods and tells you about something that happened at school. The teacher made Ontari apologize to Artigas for kicking him, but really, “it was Artigas’s fault because he pulled at Ontari’s hair but the teacher didn’t see.”

Lexa comes back a few hours later, ten minutes after Aden’s bedtime, and Clarke is surprised to see her back this early after the fight. She’s sitting on the couch, phone in hand, trying to figure out a text to send to her when she hears the familiar sound of keys jingling before the door opens and closes. It’s quiet, followed by sounds of shoes being taken off. When she walks into the living room, Clarke immediately stands up, but Lexa stops her dead in her tracks by simply raising her hand.

Without a word, the brunette walks into the next corridor and straight to Aden’s bedroom. The boy is already asleep but she goes and drops a kiss on his head nonetheless before coming back to the living room. She sits on the far side of the couch and crosses both her legs and arms.

“I’m still upset,” she says as she looks at the black TV screen facing her. “I’m still upset because you yelled at me for doing what you made me promise to do a few months back. You made me promise to get involved in Aden’s education just as much as in my relationship with you. I’m doing just that and you yell at me so I’m upset. But I’m also not running away, so I’m going to be upset here.”

Her jaw is clenched and her fingers are holding tightly on her arms, her knuckles slowly becoming white.

“I’m sorry,” Clarke says eventually. “I wasn’t mad at you, I just – It’s not an excuse, but I’m mad at my job and my superiors and I can’t yell at them so instead I yelled at you and I’m sorry, Lexa. Really.”

Lexa is still stiff, still looking at the screen, still tensed.

“He told me about drawing on the wall three times so I know you were right about punishing him. I’m sorry I snapped at you.”

Clarke lets the silence fill the room after this one sentence, knowing that she doesn’t need to remind Lexa what she said. It is true that Aden is not her son; she is well aware of it and doesn’t need to be reminded.

Silence fills the room for several minutes, with Lexa sitting stiff on her side of the couch and Clarke sitting on the other side, fidgeting with the sleeves of the hoodie she is wearing. After a while, and a lot of debating with herself, Lexa finally uncrosses her arms and legs and even lifts her right arm toward Clarke. It only takes half a second for the blonde to snuggle against her side, her head on her neck and an arm flung around her belly to hold her against her.

“I’m sorry,” the blonde repeats, and Lexa just sighs.

“It’s okay.” To emphasize her words, the brunette drops a kiss on Clarke’s hair before she rests her head against her. “It’s okay.”

Aden is five and Clarke never really explained to him what was happening between her and Lexa.

He never saw them kiss, she is sure of that. Lexa isn’t really one for public displays of affection, and when she stays over, she either sleeps on the couch or makes sure to be awake before him.

Clarke always thought he had no idea of what was happening between her and Lexa. Until today.

It’s Sunday and Clarke is off, doodling in the living room while Aden plays in his room. When snack time rolls in, Aden comes into the living and Clarke asks him to sit on the couch as she goes to the kitchen to get him a cookie. When she gets back, the boy has his deep thinking face on, and that makes his mom raise a brow on her face.

“Everything ok, love?” she asks as she sits next to him and hands him his cookie.

He doesn’t take the cookie right away but instead lifts his eyes toward his mother. “You know it’s okay, right?” he asks, and Clarke raises her second brow on her face, confused as hell.

“What is?”

“That you look at Lexa like auntie O look at Linc. It’s okay.”

She opens her mouth to reply, but she’s at loss for words right now. Her own son is giving her the talk. How smart that kid can actually be is a freaking mystery.

“Are you telling me that she can be my lover?” she asks him when she finds her ability for speech again, and the blonde boy nods as he takes his cookie from her hand.

“If you want her to be,” he shrugs.

He then explained to Clarke how they talked about family earlier during the week at school, and how there are different kinds of love. Sometimes it’s between a man and a woman, but sometimes it’s not. Tris, one of his schoolmates, has two dads, and Ontari only has her mom, but she’s more often with her brother than her. They talked about love then, and how some people will like men and others women and how that’s okay.

“Sometimes there’s even people who don’t like anyone and that’s cool too,” he shrugs again, and that makes Clarke smile even more. What she did to deserve such a smart kid, such a caring little boy. It’s crazy. He is only five and he already understands things she wouldn’t even have thought of when she was that age.

When he finishes his cookie, he stands from the couch and Clarke calls after him, opening her arms. “Come here.”

Aden looks at her for second before he replies, “No.”

It’s not the first time. Unless he asks for it, the boy isn’t one to give hugs.

“Aden Jacob Griffin, you will come here and give your mother a hug,” Clarke scolds, but she has a smile on her face, which Aden mimics rather quickly before he sticks his tongue out to his mom.

“No,” he repeats before he runs off toward his bedroom.

When Lexa arrives about ten minutes later, just off her delivery shift, she finds them in the most intense tickle fight ever, with Aden trying to escape his mother’s grip but always failing. She raises a brow at first but can’t help a smile from appearing on her face when Aden finally escapes Clarke and comes hiding behind her legs. Before she knows it, she becomes Aden’s bodyguard and Clarke attacks them both, the sound of laughter filling the place.

Another day in paradise.

Aden is five and Lexa is a stressful mess.

Today is the big day. She has her final presentation for her masters today, and thus far – it’s only eight in the morning – she has only spilled her coffee twice. What a day.

Aden is awake, eating his breakfast in front of his morning cartoons in the living room, and Clarke is still asleep. It happens some mornings, when Clarke is exhausted from work, that Lexa will let her sleep in. She simply drops Aden at school before she goes to college. Today is one of those days, or so Lexa thought.

By ten past eight, Clarke comes into sight through the kitchen door. Lexa watches her as she drops a kiss on a really focused Aden’s head before she heads to the kitchen, only to find Lexa spilling her third cup of coffee.

The brunette curses, and Clarke just smiles softly before she walks to the brunette and hugs her. “Hey.”

Lexa just sighs, arms lose along her body as Clarke surrounds her middle and rests her head on her shoulder. The taller woman closes her eyes for seconds, breathing the blonde in and relaxing at her touch.

“You should be sleeping,” Lexa says as she finally moves, resting her head on Clarke’s and bringing her arms around her shoulders.

“I’m fine,” Clarke replies, even though she yawns on Lexa’s neck. “How are you feeling?”

“I’ve spilled three cups of coffee,” the brunette replies with a huff. “I haven’t been this stressed in my entire life.”

Clarke lifts her head from Lexa’s shoulder, and her hands come up to cup Lexa’s face, locking her gaze with hers. “You’ve been working on this for ages, Lexa. You’re ready. You’re gonna nail this, and next year, you’ll be a teacher.”

Lexa smiles a bit and brings her head down to rest her forehead against Clarke’s. “May the gods hear you.”

Clarke smiles softly before she drops a kiss on Lexa’s lips.

It became usual for them now. After Clarke’s little talk with Aden a while back, they sat him down and told them about their relationship. Aden wasn’t really surprised; basically, the five-year-old gave them that one look he probably got from Raven, the one asking if that’s supposed to be a surprise. Of course, they asked if he was bothered by it, and the boy simply stood from the couch he was sitting on, went to his mom, and kissed her cheek before mimicking his action toward Lexa.

“I love you both,” he said with a shrug, “and Lexa makes mommy really happy. Gram says that being happy is the most important, so no, I don’t mind. Can we order pizza for dinner?”

Clarke smiles fondly at the memory, before she shifts her attention back to Lexa.

“How about we drop Aden at school together?” Clarke asks, and Lexa nods.

“I’m gonna pour some coffee in a travel mug and then we can go.”

Clarke smiles before dropping a new kiss on Lexa’s lips. Then she leaves the kitchen for the living room. Aden ate his full breakfast already, but he’s still sitting on the couch, really focused on his Steven Universe episode. He is almost fully dressed, which is good. All he still needs to put on are his shoes and hoodie, and he’ll be good to go. When the episode ends, Clarke turns the TV off, taking Aden out of the trance he usually gets in while watching the show, and the boy stands up from the couch. Clarke lays out his hoodie on the couch for him to take as soon as he’s ready, and the blonde goes to put something other than her PJ pants on before they all head out.

They walk to the school, the three of them, with Aden holding Clarke’s left hand and Lexa holding her right. It actually calms the brunette down. It’s only a ten-minute walk, but it helps Lexa remember why she’s dragging herself through this, especially when they reach the school. It’s buzzing with families dropping their children at the entrance, with all the kids already in the school yard playing, screaming. Lexa smiles to herself; this is it, this is what she wants to do.

Both Lexa and Clarke crouch down in front of the boy, and he drops a fast kiss to their cheeks before he runs off. Ontari has been waiting for him at the entrance for minutes, and he can’t wait to play with her already. Once he is out of sight, probably running after his friend in the school yard, Lexa brings the hand she is still holding to her mouth and kisses the back of it.

“Thank you,” she says, and Clarke just smiles once more. “I should go,” Lexa says as she looks at her watch. “The jury isn’t going to wait for me.”

“Go,” Clarke nods, and Lexa drops a kiss to her lips before their hands untie from each other, and the brunette walks off toward the university. One last time, she turns to look over her shoulder at the blonde who watches her go with a confident smile on her lips. Clarke isn’t even entertaining the thought that she could fail. She can’t. Lexa has been working way too hard, way too much, to fail. She is born for this job and she will make it. Everybody who has ever seen the brunette with a kid agrees – well, everybody but Lexa who can’t help but doubt herself every day. Everything is going to go perfectly fine and Clarke knows it.

When Lexa reaches her examination room, she sucks in a deep breath and decides to look through her notes one last time before they call her. She takes her bag down from her shoulders before she sits on the floor, the backpack on her legs. When she opens it, the first thing that comes into sight isn’t the one that she expects. Like, at all.

Here, in her bag, are stuffed animals. Aden’s stuffed animals.

Lexa takes the first one out, his tiny lion he never sleeps without, the one that represents Clarke in his collection. Under that is his Captain America plush, the one that Monty offered him years ago. It’s damaged from the years of playing and flying around the apartment, but it’s still holding well. It’s one of Aden’s favorite. Lexa puts the two on her legs before she opens her bag wider, afraid to find a new one, but the only other thing she sees that is not supposed to be in there is a piece of yellow paper. Face scrunched up in confusion, the brunette takes it out and holds it up to see what this is about. She recognizes Aden’s scruffy and unstable handwriting instantly, and she reads “Good luck Lexa” written in capital letters.

God. She loves that kid. That kid is the best.

In the end, when the door opens and they call after her, Lexa hasn’t read anything from her notes. All she has done is hold the lion and Captain America against her as she went through pictures on her phone. Pictures of Aden and Clarke; about a thousand that she gathered in the past two and a half years.

When they call for her, all the stress has vanished. She’s ready.

Clarke didn’t expect for Lexa to be back early, but around half past ten, the door flies open and closes with an almost bang. The blonde is about to tell her girlfriend to be careful with the door from where she is standing in the kitchen, but before she can stutter anything, Lexa is in front of her and kissing the air out of her lungs.

Honestly, Clarke wasn’t ready. It takes her a few seconds before she replies to the kiss as she lets Lexa push her against the kitchen sink. Soon enough, the blonde is pinned and the brunette has one hand on each side of her face as they kiss deeply and roughly.

After what feels like a lifetime, Lexa breaks away. Clarke is short of breath and feels Lexa lean in and rest her head on her forehead. The blonde sucks in a deep breath, still shocked by the intensity of what just occurred. “What the–“

“Move in with me.”

Lexa is looking at her with her head resting on her forehead. She has both her eyes open and she sees the sudden shift in Clarke’s face. The blonde’s jaw drops as her eyes open wide.

“What?”

“Let’s move in together,” Lexa repeats. “My lease comes to an end soon, and I thought – we could find a flat for us. The three of us. Something bigger. I mean, I basically live here anyway.”

Clarke laughs because, true, Lexa still has her own flat, but more often than not, she is here. A few of her clothes and books are here already, and her bike is resting on the bike rack in the basement of the building. Basically, they live together.

“Something bigger,” the blonde approves as she bends down and pecks the brunette on the lips.

“With a real bathroom,” Lexa says, and Clarke laughs.

Her current bathroom is kind of small – so small that Lexa can sit on the toilet, wash her hands in the sink, and put her foot in the shower all at the same time. She tried, she succeeded.

“Let’s move in together,” Clarke approves again, and she kisses Lexa again, open mouthed kisses as she lets her hands slide under the brunette’s jacket along her sides.

“How much time before you have to go to work?” Lexa asks between kisses.

“More than enough.”

Lexa smiles as her hands leave Clarke’s face. They slide down until they reach the small of the blonde’s back. They rest there for seconds as their tongues dance together. And then they go down again until they reach the back of Clarke’s thighs, and Lexa is lifting her from the ground. The blonde yelps a bit before she closes her legs around Lexa’s waist and lets her carry her through the apartment and to her room.

Soon, it’ll be their room they’re going to, and the simple thought of it is enough to make Clarke into a smiling mess.

Aden just turned six and they’re almost done moving in. Almost, because Clarke can’t find her waffle maker.

“Clarke, I’m not going to the basement, it’s a mess of boxes.”

“We need the waffle maker,” the blonde whines, and Lexa sighs.

“I’m taking the bike and buying a new one.”

“Why would you buy a new one while we already have one?”

“Because the basement is a mess and I do not want to go there. It’ll take us less time to buy a new one.”

“It’ll take us less money to find the one we already have.”

The two women glare at each other silently. The first one that wavers will be the one to lose, and Lexa is not going to the basement. When Aden steps in the kitchen, he asks – of course he does, his stomach is directly connected with Clarke’s and if one of them wants something, so does the other one – if he can have a waffle for snack time. Of course.

It’s three in the afternoon and Lexa lost. She knows she did. As soon as Aden asked for waffle, she was a lost cause. Clarke knows too, as a devilish grin takes up her facial features. The brunette groans.

“If I still haven’t found it in thirty minutes, I’m buying a new one,” the woman stats with a heavy sigh and Clarke jumps excitedly before she walks toward her girlfriend and drops a kiss on her lips.

“I’ll make it worth your while.”

“Gross,” Aden mutters as he makes a face before he exits the kitchen.

They both glance at him before shaking their heads with bemused smiles.

“If I’m not back in forty, assume I’m dead.”

“You’re so dramatic.”

“You love it,” Lexa shrugs before she exits the kitchen.

Soon enough, she is in the basement and, not that she wants to repeat herself or anything, but this is a mess. A huge mess of boxes and things she’s never seen before.

And dust. A lot of dust.

Where is she even supposed to start looking to find that waffle maker? She doesn’t know. Honestly, she’s one second away from simply sitting here for thirty minutes and then claiming she couldn’t find it so that she can just go buy a new one. With her phone as an extra light – the basement’s lightbulb isn’t the brightest – the brunette looks around at least, just a bit, to see if any box catches her eye, but none of them do. All she notices is that, in the back of the tiny room, the paper protection on one of Clarke canvases got torn in half. Well this is not good. She’s never seen any of Clarke’s paintings before, only her doodles in her notebook and on napkins from work, but she knows that Clarke will not be pleased if it gets dusty, or worse, damaged.

It takes some effort and a lot of walking over boxes full of useless stuff and Aden’s baby clothes, but after a full five minutes of intense focus so that she doesn’t trip, Lexa manages to reach the paintings. There are a few canvases here, all covered in brown paper. The one that caught her attention, the ripped one, mostly shows green paint from what Lexa can see. Honestly, she’s curious. Clarke’s doodles are great, not to say amazing, and Lexa still wonders what the blonde is doing working in a coffee shop – that is to say, Clarke’s self-confidence is below zero and that didn’t help her trying to make it in art. And with Aden, what she needed was a secure source of income. Art wasn’t one. That didn’t stop the blonde from working on her art; she has a studio at her mom's, which she uses each time she goes there, and she draws whenever she can.

Lexa looks through the opening in the paper, lighting it with her phone, and after a few seconds of trying to figure it out, she all but decides to rip the entirety of the paper open. It doesn’t take long before the painting is on full display and Lexa has to take a step back to look at it properly.

For seconds, it takes her breath away.

Green and dark brown are representing a forest in the background, and in the front, a double-headed deer is looking right at the brunette. It’s kind of weird, like, why the hell does that deer have two heads, but the way it looks, the detail in its eyes and the way the forest surrounds it is astonishing.

Clarke is talented as fuck and shouldn’t be working in a coffee shop.

After what is like a full minute of staring at the painting under the dim light of the basement, Lexa switches her phone into photo mode and snaps a rather shitty picture of the painting. She hopes it’ll be clear enough as she sends it to Anya. Lexa then sits on a box, still looking at the painting, at the details in the forest, at the way she can clearly see each leaf on the trees and at the way the four eyes of the deer are full of a worry and fear she can’t quite understand.

When Anya still hasn’t replied after five minutes of waiting, Lexa simply dials her number and brings her phone to her ear. It takes a few seconds before her sister’s ever-so-joyful voice rings through her ear, with a “it better be fucking worth it, Lexa, I was getting somewhere here.” It doesn’t take long for the brunette to make out Raven’s voice in the background, as her sister’s girlfriend groans a “coitus interruptus” that almost makes Lexa chuckle.

“I need you to check your text, I sent you a picture.”

“And it couldn’t fucking wait?”

“No. Hurry up.”

Anya groans before she announces that she’s putting her phone on speaker. It takes some seconds before the woman finally opens her message conversation with Lexa.

“If it’s one of Aden’s drawing again I will –” Anya starts, but she suddenly goes quiet.

Lexa can picture her right now, looking at her phone through every angle, turning it in her hands to see every detail of the picture.

“Okay first off,” Anya starts again after a few minutes, “we need to get you a better phone. That picture sucks. Secondly, where the fuck did you find this and who do I have to kill to get it in my gallery?”

“It’s one of Clarke’s.”

“I’m fucking sorry? Your girlfriend can paint and you never told me? Clarke can paint and you never told me?”

Lexa knows the second question is addressed to Raven and she can almost see the brunette shrugging it off.

“I can bring it upstairs for you to see it, but I have a condition.”

“What’s your price?”

“Be at my place in twenty with a waffle maker.”

It takes fifteen minutes for Lexa to bring the painting back upstairs. Who would have thought climbing stairs with an oversized canvas in hand would be that hard. When she opens the door of the apartment, Clarke almost jumps happily, expecting her girlfriend to have found the waffle maker.

“This... is not my waffle maker.”

“Sorry. I didn't find it, but Anya is bringing a new one.”

“So you brought this up instead?”

“I should have probably asked before but I sent a picture to Anya, but she wants to see it.”

Clarke makes a face, because she doesn't understand why the fuck Anya wants to see the painting.

“You never really talked with Anya, did you?”

“Hmmm not really. I mean, we usually talk about you and Aden more than each other.”

Lexa is about to talk again when a knock on the door is heard and the door opens wide. Anya and Raven both show up at the door and come right in without being invited, closing the door behind themselves. Aden shows up from the living room and immediately runs up to Raven, who has to balance her equilibrium when the boy jumps at her. Anya doesn't even look in her direction before she puts her hands behind her back to keep her steady as the brunette lifts the boy up from the ground.

“Here's your waffle maker,” Anya states as she hands a brand-new box to Lexa. “Now let me look at this.”

Lexa takes the box and Anya crouches down in front of the painting. Clarke is a little bit anxious, to say the least, because she’s never seen Anya this serious in her entire life, and this is one of her paintings she's scrutinizing with her hazel eyes. She's quiet for minutes, and the more it goes, the more Clarke feels anxious. Ever so quietly, Anya reaches out for the painting, touches the paint, above the two-headed deer, the leaves and the trees, and she hums at the touch.

“How much time did it take?”

Clarke thinks for a second. “A year and a half. I was never satisfied with the colors.”

“I must say, I'm impressed,” Anya muses as she stands from her spot on the floor and faces Clarke directly.

“Can I snap a picture of it to show my boss? I work at Polaris Gallery, and I think he'll want it for our next exhibit. The theme is 'green'.”

“I – What?” is all Clarke can say as Lexa moves to the kitchen to start the preparation of the waffles along with Raven and Aden, giving some privacy to the two others.

“This is going to take a while,” Raven says. “She won't stop until she has it fair and square, signed on papers and all.”

Lexa nods, taking Aden from Raven's arms and sitting him on the table.

“Wanna help fix the waffles?” The boy nods with a happy grin.

Aden is eight and craving ice-cream.

The nearby 24/7 shop doesn't sell any, and even if it did, it is not the one he craves. He wants the one from the parlor, a ten-minute drive from home. Clarke told him that he could get it if he wanted to, only if he managed to convince Lexa to drive him there because Clarke doesn't have her driver’s license.

And well, Lexa is in her pajamas already, and not really in the mood to put her shoes back on and drive for some ice-cream that might give him a belly ache. That's when it happens. They're arguing in the living room, Aden pointing out the fact that the ice-cream parlor closes soon, and Lexa telling him that he can get some another day. Which won't do, because Aden is a Griffin, and what a Griffin wants, a Griffin gets.

“But moooooooom,” he whines and Lexa lifts a brow at him.

The brunette points out to the living room, to show him where Clarke is and Aden frowns a bit.

“Not that mom,” he says. “That mom,” he adds as he points a finger at her.

It's Lexa's turn to frown and Aden sighs.

“You're mom too,” he says as an explanation. “Mom said I should ask before calling you that but it kind of slipped out. I still want ice-cream, though.”

Lexa stays quiet for a minute or so, looking at the blond boy facing her. He's so much taller than he was the first time she saw him, so much bigger. He is quieter than what he used to be, but he knows how to stand up for himself. His favorite super hero is still and will probably always be Captain America, and he likes Harry Potter as much as his mom does. Moms.

It hits Lexa hard and she honestly has to do everything in her power not to cry.

She closes her eyes for a few seconds and rubs her forehead to regain some composure, but she’s lost. She knows she has.

“Go put your shoes on,” she sighs as she re-opens her eyes and Aden's face lights up almost immediately. He jumps at Lexa and hugs her quickly before running to the door and grabbing his shoes.

The Griffins are absolutely going to be the death of her.

Aden is twelve and Ontari, as far as he remembers, has always been his best friend.

From childcare to middle school, she has always been around, sleeping over more often than not, tagging along to Octavia's Tae Kwon Do classes when they were four and earning her red belt just at the same time as him, about six months ago.

Honestly, both Clarke and Lexa know at this point that if Aden ever needs to bury a body, he would call Ontari over anyone else, and the same goes for the girl. After all, the Griffin-Woods household still remembers the nasty fight the two best friends got into about a year ago when some guy – “jackass Dax” Ontari had muttered as the three kids where facing the school's principal along with their parents and/or guardian – insulted Aden.

Turns out, Dax had insulted both Clarke and Lexa, using “the D word” as Aden calls it, and Aden threw the first punch out of instinct almost immediately after he heard the word. The second punch was thrown by Dax square into Aden's face, and before anyone could do anything, Ontari threw the third one right into Dax's stomach, and the fouth one right into his face, before grabbing him by the collar of his jacket – he was taller than her by inches, but she made him lower his face down to her level before snarling that if he were to ever look at Aden the wrong way again, she would slit his throat.

It shouldn't have made as much noise as it did. It shouldn't have.

Aden was pretty much a nobody at school. Nobody beside Dax even cared about him having two moms; sure, a few teachers like Mr. Jaha and Mr. Kane regarded him with fondness for being Clarke's son, as they had her in their early years of teaching, but that was pretty much it.

Ontari, on the other hand, was the shit. The only freshman who made it as a regular on the football team, and on her first tryout. She was almost popular – almost because she had a shitty personality and didn't care for parties and sociability.

No one really knew about them being long-time friends because they never had time to hang out together at school. Whenever Aden had free time after school, Ontari had football practice, and whenever the girl had free time at lunch, Aden had an extra class. Since the beginning of the year, the two teenagers had only managed to squeeze in a few lunches together in the art studio Aden would stay in every Friday, and that was pretty much it.

So of course no one, absolutely no one save for some of Aden's art studio mates, knew that Ontari 'the-next-fucking-quaterback-imma-tell-you' Queen was the best friend of Aden 'why-the-fuck-are-you-so-tiny' Griffin.

Needless to say, the two were seen as an item after the fight, and no one dared come close to Aden ever again. Ontari's aura kind of worked as a shield around the small boy, and nobody was crazy enough, not even Dax, to come bother him again.

In their second year of middle school though, something went to shit.

Aden doesn't really know what it is, although he has a feeling that Ontari's mother being back in the girl's household has something to do with it. He’s never met the woman, but Ontari told him enough about her all throughout their years of friendship for him to know that it is not exactly a positive thing.

Sure, he knows that all Ontari has ever asked for was her mother's recognition. The girl is a star on the football court, going to Nationals for the second time this year after getting silver the year before, and with pretty good grades. Sure, she's not valedictorian, but she holds her own pretty well for someone who has Titus in math – a B- with him is a A+ with anybody else, anyone with common sense can tell – but it never seemed to be enough for her mother to see her, for her mother to remember her birthday, or for her mother to come home for more than a week every six months.

Now, however, things are different. Out of the blue, her mother is home and home she is staying. Aden hasn't heard from his friend, hasn't seen her in the school's hallways nor in the art studio on Friday – for two weeks now. He's starting to worry. So of course, when he finally sees her in the hallway in front of her locker as she collects her books for her next class, he walks over her and asks her if she's okay.

That's when shit really hits the fan.

Aden can tell that something is wrong from the way she talks and guards herself. Her body language is closed off and she makes sure to turn away from him, not letting any kind of feelings slip through her.

Words are exchanged, bad ones, and it ends poorly, with Aden telling her to go fuck herself before he storms away to his own locker and retrieves what he needs for his next classes.

When he gets home that day, it only takes four minutes for Clarke to realize that something is wrong with her son.

The blond boy is huffing in the kitchen, not even getting a snack as he usually does when he gets back from school. He's just pacing and fuming and so pissed.

“Is everything okay?” Clarke asks as she walks into the kitchen and opens the top counter above to stove, grabbing some of Aden favorite snacks and placing them on the kitchen counter.

“No,” Aden all but groans, and he keeps pacing.

Clarke hums as she opens the fridge and gets the bottle of milk out before closing it again. She grabs a glass and pours some into it before setting it on the counter next to the snacks.

“What's wrong?” she demands as she puts the milk back in the fridge.

“You know the only two things I can't forgive, right?” the blond boy asks his mom, and she nods almost immediately.

“When there's no Nutella for breakfast and when someone uses the D slur to talk about your Ma and I.”

Her son nods in reply before he grumbles something and Clarke has to raise a brow at him for him to repeat what he just said.

“Ontari,” he almost snarls and Clarke has never seen her boy so hangry before. “Ontari used it!”

Clarke's face opens in full surprise and she's glad she's not holding anything because she would have probably dropped it.

Ontari has been Aden's best friend for over ten years now, and she never ever made any kind of comment about Aden's family situation, about his parents being two women. Hell, she even brought them presents more than once for Mother's Day, as she had known both Clarke and Lexa for a while now and started considering them as her own family, or so Clarke thought. It honestly doesn't sound like the girl she knows.

“Did anything happen?” the blonde woman asks, and Aden shakes his head.

“I don't know, it doesn't make any fucking sense!”

Clarke can forgive him for his language at this moment and doesn't chastise him. She stays quiet and waits for her boy to keep going.

“I mean, seriously, one second everything is good, and then I get a text saying that her mom is back for good and then, what? Nothing, for two weeks? And when I confront her about it, she blows me off and tells me she doesn't wanna be friend with- with-”

Clarke is fast to understand the rest of his sentence and instead of letting him stew in his hanger, she walks over to him and drapes her arm around his shoulders, offering a hug that he almost immediately gives back. He's clutching at her top, knuckles turning white, and Clarke soothes him by drawing circles on his back. She can hear his heavy breathing and she doesn't doubt for a second that the wetness she feels on her neck is due to the tears rolling down his cheeks.

As previously stated, Ontari has been Aden's best friend for the past ten years, and Clarke has no doubt that what just happened today broke her son's heart.

“I just – I don't get it,” he says after a while, sniffling in his mother's neck. “Something felt so wrong about her saying it, but I...”

Clarke makes him lift his head from the crook of her neck and looks at his face, bringing her thumbs to his cheeks to erase the few tears that are left.

“I can't forgive her, mom. I don't care what the hell happened to her, I can't. She knows I don't joke with the word.”

“I know, love. No one is asking you to forgive her,” she says as she slowly caresses his cheek.

“But something's wrong,” he says as he untangles himself from his mother's embrace to go to the counter and get his glass of milk. “Ontari is by far one of the least homophobic people I know. It doesn't make sense.”

“You said something about her mom being back, right?”

Aden nods and Clarke hums as she thinks about it for a few seconds.

“If her mom is still the bitch she told us about, I wouldn't be surprised if it has something to do with her, what do you say?”

The boy thinks about it as well for a few seconds before he sighs heavily. “Whatever it is, I can't forgive her.”

Clarke nods her understanding – Aden is pretty stubborn, and she knows he's not going to back down from it – before she walks up to him again and drops a kiss on his forehead. “Eat something before starting your homework, okay?”

Aden is fourteen and almost rushing into his home to talk to his mom before Lexa gets back.

“Mom!” he calls out as soon as the door closes behind him, and Clarke's raspy voice answers him from the kitchen almost immediately.

“Shouldn't you be in class, young man?” She points her spatula at him, clearly interrupted in the middle of some serious cake baking.

“Not important. I know what I want to give Ma for her birthday.”

“Aden, Lexa's birthday was, like, two weeks ago,” Clarke points out with a raised brow and Aden nods. He knows, he was there, thank you very much.

“For the next one,” he explains.

“And it couldn't wait until the end of your, what, chemistry class?”

“I'm basically Monty Green's nephew, I'm pretty sure I know everything there is to know.”

Clarke thinks of calling bullshit, but she knows she can't. The kid has her there. She can only blame herself for having surrounded her son with the smartest people on earth from early on.

“Alright, tell me about it then.”

Aden is fifteen and it's finally Lexa's birthday.

Everybody is here in their apartment, Octavia and Lincoln chatting with Raven and Anya on the couch, Monty up against Miller’s chest as he listens to Jasper talking about his on-going crush on a girl from work, Bellamy bothering Clarke in the kitchen as she gets the cake ready. Everybody is happy, even Lexa, herself in the living room next to Aden as she huffs because she got denied the access to the kitchen.

Clarke lights the candles on the cake before calling out for everyone to gather around the table and they all start to sing a very off-key rendition of “Happy birthday.” It’s a mess, if Clarke is being honest, but a mess that makes Lexa smile shyly every year, and she wouldn't trade it for the world.

“Make a wish!” Aden calls right before Lexa blows on her candles, and Lexa thinks about it before she blows hard, putting out every candle in one go.

“What did you wish for?” Clarke asks as she drops a kiss on her head, and the brunette shrugs.

“Nothing. I already have all I need.”

The blonde smiles at her partner of twelve years now before she kisses her, and Aden groans from his spot, muttering a “gross” as he looks away from his moms kissing.

“Alright,” Clarke laughs, “present time.”

Way too soon for Lexa to be prepared, the table she's sitting in front of is a mess of wrapped boxes and envelops from everyone, and Octavia insists for hers to be the first one she opens. Lexa does as she is told, unwrapping the box and not paying attention to Clarke, who walks away from her up to Anya and whispers something in her ear. The taller woman nods at her and exits the living room for a few minutes, then comes back with her smartphone in hand.

Anya is fast to switch it to camera mode and she starts filming without her sister noticing anything.

Lexa goes from one present to another: a new crankset for her bike (Octavia), a few very old Korean poetry books (Monty, from his grandmother's), a full encyclopedia of Greek mythology (Bellamy), and so on. It goes for a solid fifteen minutes because Anya and Raven had a lot of fun wrapping their gifts (“How to Be a Mother for Dummies”) into a big box full of confetti and nothing else.

Lexa raises a brow at them both. “In case you guys haven't noticed, I am already a mother.”

“Some theory can never hurt,” Raven explains before Aden walks over to Lexa and hands her an envelope with nothing but her name written on it.

“If it's a parachute jump again, I will start to believe you want to kill me.”

Aden smiles, fond memories of last year's present in mind, before he shakes his head.

“It's better,” he promises and nudges her to open the envelope with a hand motion.

Anya suddenly gets really serious about filming her sister, and she stands straighter, holding her phone with both hands. The room fills with silence and Lexa raises a brow at all of them before she carefully opens the envelope.

“Why are you offering me your-” she starts when she gets Aden ID card out of the envelope, but she stops midtrack, noticing something that wasn't there before.

She has seen this card numerous times, she basically knows it by heart now, so it doesn't really take more than five seconds for her to realizes how long his name is. Carefully, Lexa drags her eyes to the top of the card, on the right of his picture, right under his identification number, and she reads it. Once, twice, three times in her head. It doesn't really hit her until the sixth time she reads it and her mouth suddenly goes ajar.

Lexa lifts her eyes to the boy standing next to Clarke, in front of her, a table apart. She closes her mouth and opens it again to say something, but the words die in her throat on the first try. She closes her mouth again and looks at the card once more, before taking a deep breath to regain her composure and looking over at Aden.

“Aden Jacob Griffin-Woods...?” she gets out with a shaky voice, “as in, me Woods?”

Aden stops himself from making a sassy comment and nods, smiling warmly. “You kind of spent the past twelve years raising me along with mom here,” he says, throwing a hand in Clarke's general direction. “It felt weird not having your name already.”

Aden shrugs awkwardly under his Ma's gaze, but before anyone can add anything else, Lexa is on her feet and hugging Aden with everything she has, hiding the tears falling down her cheeks in the boy's shoulder. Lexa's hand blindly reaches for Clarke and the blonde joins in the hug, dropping a kiss on Lexa's shoulder and ruffling her son's hair along the way.

And then, everything gets messy, and someone is hollering at them before everybody else follows, and there's clapping and screaming and Clarke can only make out Jasper's voice suddenly shouting “GROUP HUG” before the Griffin-Woods family gets swallowed into a massive group hug that makes them all fall on the ground, laughing and crying messes.

Aden is sixteen and high school is kicking his ass.

Well, not exactly.

The young man handles all his classes like a champ, always working ahead on his projects and homework, 3.7 GPA and all. But something's still kicking his ass, namely Dax, who happens to be in the same class as him and never forgot about their middle school incident. And just like anybody else, Dax heard about Ontari and Aden's fight and doesn't fear the consequences anymore.

It became a habit at the beginning of the year. Dax would drag Aden behind the bleacher and make his life a living hell for a solid ten minutes, and it's not that Aden couldn't take him – he recently got his black belt and could definitely kick Dax's ass – but he promised his moms not to get involved in a fight ever again at school and he needs a perfect record if he ever wants to get an art scholarship.

So here he is, face into the ground as Dax throws the last punch of the day with his foot, directly onto Aden's ribs. The blond boy doesn't give in to the pain and doesn't make a sound, only sighing lightly once Dax is gone and turning to lay on his back.

It takes a few minutes for him to catch his breath, but he's used to it now. He knows how to handle himself, how to stay calm whenever Dax hits, how to protect his face. How to not look suspicious when he gets back to class and home later on. Honestly, at this point, he could score a scholarship in acting instead of art and wouldn't even be surprised.

Today, however, Dax made a mistake. On this sunny Wednesday afternoon, he didn't think twice before acting and he left without noticing that Wednesday is training day for the football team.

It's Tris, one of Ontari's fellow members on the team that makes the brunette realizes what is happening. At first, when Ontari sees Dax walking onto the court, freshly out of the bleachers, she doesn't really think much of it. But, five minutes later, when Aden walks out of the bleachers, limping his way off the court in the direction of the school's building, she freezes.

Aden. Dax. Limping.

Aden.

“What the hell?” Tris asks and Ontari's hands ball into fists, knuckles turning white.

When the brunette huffs, Tris turns her head toward her, raising a brow. “You okay there, Cap?”

“Go make sure the kid is fine,” Ontari orders more than asks, and Tris knows better than to argue, so she jogs toward the limping boy and stops only after passing him.

“Hey,” she stops him, “you okay?”

“Ecstatic,” Aden replies without missing a beat before he looks up at the girl, noticing the jersey and the sweat running down her forehead.

“Shouldn't you be training?”

“Sassy I see. What are you, a freshman? What about respecting your elders?” She has an easy smile and Aden can’t help but smirk back.

“I'm a junior, thank you very much.”

Tris raises a brow at him, obviously not taking his word for it. “Why the fuck are you so tiny then?”

Aden shakes his head, used to it, and starts walking toward the building again, still limping, and Tris walks alongside him.

“Did Dax bully you?” the girl asks, straight to the point, and Aden doesn't even stop walking, just shrugs.

“I've heard about the football team captain's reputation. Maybe you should get back on the field.”

“She ordered me to make sure you were fine. Are you fine?”

“I'm good, thank you, uh...”

“Tris. And you're…?”

“Aden.”

“Well Aden, since I believe you won't let me walk you to the nurse’s office, please try to avoid the bleachers.”

“I'll try my best,” he nods, and as Tris turns back to jog off to the field, he raises his voice toward her. “And tell your captain I don't need her help!”

The day after, the news spreads like wildfire. Dax Mulligan, resident asshole at Arkadia High, got himself into a fight too big for him to handle and gained a stay at the hospital. Aden doesn't pry much, doesn't ask any questions, and almost feels bad for being relieved that he won't have to deal with him for a few days.

Currently, he’s in the library, reading a book for his history project, not paying any mind to his surroundings, up until Tris takes the chair opposite his and sits in front of him. She's quiet at first, opening her bag and grabbing her English textbook to work on her homework, but it doesn't last very long.

“You've heard, right?” she asks after ten minutes of studying.

“What?” Aden asks carefully, moving on his seat to get a little more comfortable, still sore from the day before.

“Dax literally got his ass handed to him in a fight after school. They say he might never recover fully from his broken arm.”

“Oh,” is all Aden says before he falls quiet, and Tris sighs.

“Listen, I don't know shit, alright. I don't know shit except for what Ontari says when she's drunk at parties.” Aden looks at her and she keeps going, visibly annoyed by all this. “And while Ontari sucks at sociability, I’ve come to understand that, at some point in her life, she had a best friend and that she screwed it up for some obscure reason. But she swore, drunkenness and all, she swore to me that if anyone were to touch just one hair on this whoever-he-is guy's head, she would destroy them.

“While she never said that guy's name in her drunken rant, I remember her saying how tiny he is for his age and how awesome his moms are.”

She goes quiet for a second, watching Aden with careful eyes. The boy frowns before rubbing his hand against his face, sighting heavily.

“What do you want me to say? Ontari and I go way back, but as she said, she screwed up.”

“Just a head’s up, she was really pissed when she saw you limp your way out of the bleachers.”

“Wait, you think-”

“You don't?” Tris asks, and Aden sighs again.

“For fuck's sake.”

Dax comes back after a week out, and it takes only ten minutes for Aden to know that he is back.

While Aden had been thinking about it, about if Ontari had done it, he had come to the simple explanation that this was ridiculous and, honestly, didn't make much sense. They haven't talked to each other for years, don't even share a class in high school, and while, sure, she may have said some stuff while drunk, there’s no way she'd get herself in that much trouble just for this.

Or so he thought.

On Thursday morning when he walks to his locker to stuff some of his books inside before his first period, the regular crowd of students suddenly separates away from him, and Dax Mulligan appears out of nowhere, yelling out a “Griffin!” that almost startles the boy.

Almost. “It's Griffin-Woods,” he corrects the taller, heavier boy walking toward him at a fast pace.

Aden has enough time to look him over; he’s in a bad state. Broken arm and broken nose, black eyes and some stitches above his left eye. He seems to be limping a bit as he walks toward the blond boy as well, but before Aden can say or do anything, Dax's good hand grabs him by the collar of his jacket and throws him into the lockers.

“This is all your fault!” Dax accuses, and some people launch themselves at him to stop whatever his next move is.

Aden's breath catches, and he coughs at the sudden pain in his back. He sure as hell didn't expect for Mulligan to attack him with so many people as witnesses.

And then the atmosphere turns cold. Like really, really cold, and everybody freezes. Once again, the crowd of students opens itself, and this time, Ontari appears, walking at a measured pace toward the scene.

She looks merderous.

Draped in her letterman jacket, a tad bit too large for her, and with her hair braided on the back of her head like his Ma taught her to do years ago, she looks like some fierce commander ready to descend into battle.

“Mulligan,” she calls out, voice sharp as ice, and the tall boy stops moving, stops trying to untangle himself from the people who jumped at him. He freezes, literally, and Aden can see fear in the boy's brown eyes.

Ontari gestures for the people holding him to let go, and they all move at once, freeing Mulligan from their hold and moving to the side of the scene while Ontari walks up to him, calmly putting herself between Aden and Dax.

“Did you really think this through, Mulligan?”

He holds her gaze for seconds, frozen, before his eyes finally drop to the ground, and he lets out a shaky breath.

Aden doesn't really pay attention to the rest of the conversation. Still on the ground, he is at the perfect height to see Ontari's hands, and more importantly her knuckles. Bruised knuckles, recovering well, but still pink from the new skin growing.

She did it. He has no doubt about it anymore. She's the one who made Mulligan the poor bruised thing he is now.

“Get out of his hair or I will have more than yours,” he hears Ontari threaten, and before he can say anything of his own, Dax leaves, pushing people out of his way to get out of there as soon as he can.

Ontari turns her attention to the crowd of people, bigger than the moment she arrived, and gives them all a pointed look. “Shouldn't you all be in class?”

That's all it takes for everyone to dissipate and go on with their days as if nothing happened. The brunette then turns around, looking at the ground over the blond boy. Her eyes soften and she crouches down, facing him. “Can you stand?”

“I don't need your help,” Aden groans as he helps himself up with the lockers behind him.

Ontari throws her hands up in surrender. Aden is stubborn like that, and she is certainly not one to pick a fight with him.

“Tris,” she calls out as she stands up from her spot, and out of thin air, Tris materializes next to her.

If they were into a warzone, Tris would probably be Ontari's general. Both juniors, both on the football team, both draped into their letterman jackets and hair braided out of their faces. Tris is shorter than Ontari with lines softer than the brunette’s, eyes clearer. Next to Ontari, she looks ridiculously small and soft.

“Walk him to class,” is all she says to the shorter girl before she turns on her heel and leaves.

“What the fuck,” Aden groans once she is out of sight, and Tris just shrugs.

“Let's go.”

When he tells his moms about it – not about the entire bullying thing from the start, because it's a bit too much - about how Ontari stood up for him earlier that day, Clarke and Lexa share a look and invite Aden to maybe, they don't know, talk to her or something. The boy shakes a no because he won't talk to her unless she apologizes and that doesn't seem to be happening anytime soon.

He also talks about Tris, and while he doesn't say much about her, just bits and bobs of what happened in the past weeks or so, his moms share a look again, both smiling fondly when they look back at him, but he doesn't really pay it any mind and just keeps talking happily.

Aden is fifteen and has a 4.0 GPA when Tris comes to him at the library.

He's working on a biology paper he has to turn in a few days from now when she sits in front of him and sighs heavily. The two became close at some point, exchanging numbers over lunch two weeks ago and talking pretty much all the time from then on.

“What's up?” Aden asks without even looking away from his book.

“I scored a C- in English.”

Aden raises his eyes from his book and studies the girl sitting in front of him.

“You're the perfect stereotype of a jock, you know that?”

“I won't take it as an insult and just remember that you called me perfect.”

Aden smirks a bit at that, cheek going slightly red at the easy smile Tris sends his way.

“Plus, I can’t be that much of a jock if I'm hanging out with the biggest nerd this school has ever had.”

“If that’s your way of flirting with me, just know you're on the wrong road,” Aden jokes, and Tris' face suddenly gets serious. She cocks her brow at him and sighs again.

“I've been flirting with you for the past three weeks, and you only now realize it when I call you a nerd? I should have started with that.”

“I -” Aden laughs, but he stops dead in his track when he understands what Tris just said. “You what?”

“You're pretty slow, you know that?” Tris shakes her head with a grin before she stands from her chair, ruffling Aden's hair when she walks past him. “Ball's in your court now,” she whispers as she leaves the table for good and walks out of the library.

They go on their first date two days later and share their first kiss on Tris' doorstep, like the perfect teen comedy they promised each other they wouldn't be. When Aden gets home, happy smiles and still rosy cheeks, his moms don't even bother to ask how the date went and propose pizza for dinner.

Aden is sixteen and everything couldn't be better in his life even if he tried.

He just got a new smartphone for his birthday, along with some spray-paints he's already using in the studio at his grandmother's. His clothes are ruined and his face is covered in blue smudges when his phone rings. He picks it up the best he can, using his elbow on the tactile screen instead of his covered-in-paint hand before bringing the phone to his ear. Tris starts talking before he can even get a “hello” out.

“Alright, I'm probably gonna get my ass kicked once she learns I did this but – listen up: Ontari just got kicked out of her house by her psycho bitch mom and her brother is away and no one is standing up for her. She refuses my help and I'm pretty sure she's out there sleeping on some bench or something. And it's getting late and it's freaking cold because it's winter and I know you guys haven't talk in years but-”

Aden doesn't reply but he keeps listening to whatever Tris is saying as he opens the door of the studio and runs down the stairs, right into his moms and his grandmother having a conversation over cups of coffees in the living room.

“I'll be right back”, he yells as he exits the house without any kind of explanation.

The three women in the living room look at the opened door the boy left behind him for a few seconds before Lexa looks back at Clarke.

“What the fuck?”

Aden runs down town with his worn off sneackers and covered in paint clothes, Tris still on the phone as he asks for some more information about the situation. At this point, he'll take anything, really.

“I don't know, babe, really. All I know is that she came out as bisexual to the team about two days ago and told me later that she was about to tell her mom.”

“This fucking idiot!” Aden shouts as he speeds up down the street and take a sharp turn on the left to enter a new street. Everything suddenly seems to add up in the blond boy's brain, about what happened back in middle school. Her mom. Her freaking mom.

“Babe?” Tris asks, still on the line.

“Ontari's a fucking idiot! She blew me off four years ago when her mom stopped going abroad for work because her mom is a fucking homophobic bitch!”

Aden takes another sharp turn, on his right, and lets himself be swallowed in a small deserted street. He runs straight ahead, groaning along the way as he exits the small street for a bigger one, taking a right at the intersection.

“Wait, are you running?” Tris asks suddenly. “I'm supposed to be the sporty one of the relationship.”

“Sorry, but I sure as hell can run. I'm a Tae Kwon Do black belt and I'm going to kick Ontari's ass.”

“Excuse my French but what the fuck, dude?”

“Did you just dude me?”

“We're dating, I can dude you all I want. So, Tae Kwon Do, black belt?”

“Remember all the time I told you I was at my aunt’s? She owns a dojo with her boyfriend. I started when I was four.”

“I'm shook.”

“You spend too much time on Tumblr.”

“You love me.”

“True.” Aden sighs with a shake of the head. “I got there, I'll text you.”

“What, where?”

“Wait for my text!”

Aden hangs up his phone and pockets it as he looks at the big gate facing him. Of course it's closed. He’s not really surprised, given how slowly the sun is setting in the sky. But somehow, he knows. He knows Ontari's here from some gut feeling that’s never betrayed him before. For some reason, he knows she's here. Behind the gate is a public park he and Ontari used to go back in time, when Roan would be too busy with class to pick up Ontari right at the end of school, or on weekends when the girl would stay over. It's close to school and has a few benches, along with trees to stay under when rain pours.

With a quick look over, Aden notices no one's around him, and so he jumps at the gate and makes a fast work of climbing it, letting himself fall to the ground on the other side as soon as he reaches the top.

As weird as it seems, it doesn't really take long for him to find her. Sure, the park is closed and no one else is around, so it's not really hard to spot anyone, but Ontari made good work of hiding herself somehow.

Still, Aden finds her after five minutes of walking down the park. She's laying down on a bench, a duffel bag as a pillow, and she's looking at the tree hanging over her, her phone in hand, probably waiting for a phone call from her brother.

Without much thinking, Aden walks to the bench, crossing his arms over his chest as soon as he gets in front of it, waiting for Ontari to notice him. It only takes a few seconds before the brunette gives him a once over then sighs heavily and pockets her phone.

“You look like your mom,” she comments dryly, and he raises a brow but doesn't say a word.

Ontari stays quiet as well. For a minute or so, she keeps looking at the tree and tries to ignore Aden's existence right next to her. It's quite hard to do so when the boy has his pissed off critical eyes on her, and she sighs again.

“I'm sorry for using the D word on your moms back then. I literally have no excuses. I knew my mom was a bitch already, but I just wanted to please her, I guess.”

“Alright,” Aden says then, uncrossing his arms and eyes softening, “get off your ass, we're leaving.”

“I'm not leaving this bench.”

“Don't make me call my moms.”

Of all the people Ontari has ever met in her entire life, her football coach included, Clarke and Lexa are by far the most unsettling, scary duo she has ever met, and also the only two people she has ever really considered as parents. Sure, Roan did a decent job at raising her, and she will always be thankful for him, for all the time he spent with her instead of going out with his friends when he was a teenager, but Clarke and Lexa are parents. Good, scary parents that never hesitated to put her back in her place when she needed it. And she honestly doesn't need those two to show up unannounced and drag her sorry ass back to their home. She can do that on her own, thank you very much.

“I'm so gonna kick Tris' ass at practice on Monday,” she grumbles but stands nonetheless.

“Let her be.”

“I knew you two dating would be trouble.”

“Yeah well, thanks to her, you're not sleeping in the cold tonight or ever, so stop complaining.”

They start walking next to each other as Aden takes his phone again and dials his mom's number before bringing it to his ear.

“Aden?” Clarke picks up immediately, voice worried.

“Hey mom, sorry for bursting out.”

“Is everything alright?”

“Complicated, but yeah, good. Can you ask granny if she can cook for five?”

“Is Tris coming?”

“Ontari is, actually.”

“What?”

“We'll explain everything once we get back, okay?”

“Okay, alright. So dinner for five?”

“Yes, please.”

“Gotcha.”

“See you in a bit.”

They make it back to Abby's place at a slow pace, sharing bits and bobs about their life, what they missed over the past years they didn't talk. It's easy, Aden realizes, sharing again with Ontari. Even after four years, they're still the same toddlers that used to wait for each other at school or race each other at childcare. After a solid ten minutes of football talks, Aden finally brings up the Dax question he's been dying to ask for the past months, and Ontari just sighs, waving the hand that's not holding her duffle bag.

“Honestly, he had it coming.”

“You know he might never get the use of his arm back, right?”

“Like I care. He deserved it. I know that one time behind the bleachers wasn't the only one.”

“And how would you know that?”

“I'm the captain of the football team, I have ears and eyes everywhere.”

They finally reach Aden's grandmother's house and the boy stops dead in his tracks when he reaches the door, face serious.

“They know about how you defended me when he got back from the hospital, but not for all that happened before so, not a word.”

“Got it, chief.” Ontari mock salutes, and Aden smiles.

“Fuck you.”

Aden is sixteen and his moms make the decision before he can even ask.

After they explained the entire situation to them at lunch at his grandmother's a week earlier, the two women talked a bit together, and their choice was made before the sun even set.

Ontari is moving in.

They changed the playroom into a bedroom, using furniture they found here and there.

But of course, when they finally bring up the idea to Ontari, the girl shakes a sharp no and refuses to even acknowledge the idea. She doesn't want to be a bother to the Griffin-Woods household. She's just going to find some student job, put money aside, and find an apartment or go live in a shelter or something. At this point, she's even ready to ask for shelter in a church. She just wants to get out of their hair. They've been bothered enough by her presence for the past week.

Aden shares a look with his moms, and Clarke sighs heavily.

“Alright, listen up, you,” she says as she looks at the young brunette facing her, “you basically grew up in our house. You and Aden not talking for a few years doesn't change that fact. You are a straight A student, captain of the football team, and have an almost perfect record. I am not – none of us are – letting you throw your future in the bush just because your mother is a bitch. So you're going to take your stuff out of Aden's room and put them in your room, right away.”

Ontari, in the end, has no choice but to accept their offer. She doesn't want to depend on anyone, sure, but she also doesn't want to stop high school right in the middle or sleep in the streets – and, honestly, anyone who has the courage to call her mother (she's one hell of a scary woman) a bitch earns her eternal respect.

She moves in, and stays, for the remaining years of high school they have to attend to, promising herself to get a scholarship or make some sort of plans for college. Something that wouldn't need the Griffin-Woods household family to do more than what they're already doing for her.

Aden is seventeen, soon going to be eighteen, and Ontari didn't get her scholarship.

Not that she didn't try, at more than one university, with her perfect grades and amazing high school football career. But it would seem that her mother decided to be a bitch in any kind of possible way, and some university had called and told her that they couldn't give her a scholarship, because someone was againt it.

At least colleges were polite enough to send her a letter announcing that they had already given their scholarships to other promising athletes.

She guesses she should have expected it. After her mom kicked her out, she started to let her name be known around the country. Nia Queen was already a political figure in town, but since she didn't have a teenager on her toes anymore, she could simply go big and make it national. And uses her influence to make Ontari's life some kind of hell.

Roan, himself, didn't give two fucks about it as he left the country and started his own start-up somewhere in Europe. His mom could do whatever the hell she wanted. He cared about Ontari, though, and tried his best for her, sending money every month. Half of the few hundred he could give her went to Clarke and Lexa, and the other half she saved. But it wasn't enough for tuition.

Ontari sighs, laying down on Aden's bed while the boy read the last letter she received. He tosses it away and sighs as well.

“What are you going to do?”

Ontari gives it some thought before she sighs again. She knows exactly what she is going to do, but there is not a single soul in the house who's going to like it.

She got the idea from Octavia. Aden's godmother didn't have a good childhood: her father was out of the picture for as long as she could remember, and her mother a prostitute. Her and Bellamy survived more than lived, and when their mom passed away, Octavia was fourteen and Bellamy barely nineteen. For a few months, they shared Clarke's roof, Abby taking her daughter's best friends under her wings the best she could. But the best she could wasn't going to pay for Octavia's every need. So after three months, Bellamy left, only leaving a letter behind him. He joined the military.

Ontari did some research: if she is to engage herself for six years, she would get a salary, and they would pay for her tuition. Basically, while she would have to stay in the military for six years, she would get out of there with money on the side and enough to go to college. She would be twenty-four, and she would be able to go to college or to find a new job or something. Or stay in the military, if she felt like it.

Now, are the Griffin-Woods family going to let her go, or is Aden going to hold her captive in the garage is a question Ontari is pretty sure of the answer to.

“I don't know,” the brunette says to the boy, “something crazy probably.”

Aden is eighteen and refuses to sleep in his bedroom. The boy has been sleeping with Ontari for the past week.

Him and Tris, after hours of talk and probably as many tears, decided to break things of.

It's not that it wasn't working, nor that they didn't love each anymore, but they were both going to be far away from each other.

Too far away.

Tris is going to study sports science in a small town that's five hours away from home, and Aden is going for an art major and a history minor in a bigger town six hours away from home, in the opposite direction.

They acted the best they could, both smiling and sharing one last kiss, but as soon as Aden was back home, he broke down in tears and he refused to go back in his room ever since.

His room holds too many memories. The first time she slept over, the first time he showed her his paintings, and so many other firsts he could still perfectly picture between those walls. So, he doesn't go there and waits for the day he leaves for college, ready to do something new, to move on from high school and from Tris – well at least he hopes it will help.

The boy is reading in Ontari's bed on a Friday night when Ontari comes in and sits on the edge of the bed.

“I'm joining the marines,” she says, and Aden drops his book on his face.

Her plan makes sense to the boy. She'll join the marines, study on her own a few subjects she has interest in, put money aside, try not to get killed if she has to go on risky missions, serve for six years, and then go to college and major in political sciences. Then, she'll kick her mom's ass.

It makes sense, and Ontari is so sure of herself that Aden can't really say anything against it. So when the time comes to announce it to his moms, the boy backs Ontari up. Just like she did with Dax, just like she did when he broke up with Tris, he backs her up the best he can.

Clarke screams a lot that night, the most Aden has ever heard her. Lexa is calmer but as pissed as Clarke is. It's not that they don't want Ontari to be independent, not at all. Clarke can understand the wish of only depending on yourself, but they both hoped that Ontari would have trusted them more. They can take care of her, of her tuition; they can send her to college.

The younger woman shakes a no with her head and takes a deep breath before she starts talking again, voice confident.

“It has nothing to do with the trust I have in you. Believe me, I trust you more than I ever trusted my own mother. This is about me and the trust I have in me, whether I can do it or not. And about the fact that you have Aden going to college who's going to need money, even with his scholarship. And you did a lot for me already. It's time for me to give back. Use the money you put aside for me and go on some vacations or some shit.”

In the end, Clarke and Lexa accept the situation, defeated. Lexa helps Ontari with the paperwork and everything she needs, and a few weeks later, she enrolls. She hugs Clarke and Lexa together tightly, whispers a quiet “thanks moms” that puts Clarke on the verge of tears, then lets go of them and goes to Aden. She ruffles his hair with a smile and asks him to grow up while she's away for the next fourteen weeks.

“Don't shoot yourself,” he answers as he swats her hand away.

Ontari bobs her head approvingly and they share a quick hug before she bids her goodbye and leaves.

The house has never seemed so empty to Aden before.

Aden is eighteen and moving into his dorm, his moms on his toes as they carry boxes of clothes and books into his room.

It's simple and plain and almost empty. His roommate is not here yet, but he has a good feeling about it – no one can be worse than Ontari when she wakes up anyway.

He has good feeling about this year as well, about college. He picked subjects he is passionate about, has a scholarship, will make new friends probably easily, and while, somewhere in the corner of his brain, he still thinks of Tris, he knows it's getting better and that, sooner rather than later, all that will remain are the happy memories the two shared together. Ontari is just a phone call away, from 7pm to 9pm every day, and they send each other pictures of their lives every day.

What scares the boy, though, is that, for the first time in his life, he is going to be away from his moms for more than a weekend. It's a weird feeling for him. Somehow it's freeing because he will be living alone and making new experiences, but it's also the scariest thing that has happened to him.

All of his memories are full of his moms, of waffle-makers and paint on the walls and a stuffed lion and raccoon. Aden's eyes suddenly open wide because said lion and raccoon were in Ontari's bedroom, and he doesn't remember packing them, and shit.

“Moms!” he calls in the hallway of his dormitory, looking for his parents, and Lexa walks toward him with a box in arms, handing it to the blond boy.

“You okay, little one?”

“My plushes! They were in Ontari's room. I think I forgot them, and-”

“Breath, love,” Clarke says as she reaches the room herself, a bag in hand, “here they are.”

“Thank fuck.”

“You need to stop swearing,” Lexa scolds, and Aden rolls his eyes.

“Ontari needs to stop swearing.”

“You both need to stop swearing.”

“Blame the marines.”

“Sure, who do I address my complaint to?” Lexa asks, and Aden laughs a bit while Clarke takes her hand in hers and squeezes it.

“No complaining to the military. And stop swearing in front of your mom, Aden.”

Aden rolls his eyes again and looks at the room, at the boxes and bags scattered around the floor.

“Is everything here?” he asks, and Clarke nods.

“The last one was the plushes.”

Aden nods and looks over at his mom. He's ready, but not ready yet. He feels weird. He wants to go, but doesn't want them to leave, and Clarke seems to read that on him as she smiles and look at Lexa.

“How about we all go get some ice scream before we leave?”

“Sure.” Lexa nods, and she squeezes Clarke's hand tighter in hers.

Honestly, they are not ready to let him go yet, either.

“Let's goooooooo,” Aden cheers happily and pushes his moms out of the room before closing the door behind him.

Clarke takes his hand with her free one and squeezes it gently as soon as he is walking next to her, and Aden squeezes back, not minding the looks students and parents in the hallway are giving them.

His parents are the best thing that has ever happened to him, and whoever doesn't agree with him can go to hell.