∞ Clexa Week ∞

She's fifteen and nervously flirting over a single milkshake with two red and white straws. She's seventeen and blushing in the back of US History class, remembering everything they'd done together in the cabin of her dad's old pickup while parked out by the lake. She's eighteen and the world feels like it's made just for her. For them. Like nobody has ever felt as happy as she does in that moment, riding down the highway with a soft hand her hers while music blares from the radio.

Clarke's hair seems a little lighter than she remembers.

If she can even trust her own memory now…

But those eyes.

God, those eyes.

There's no forgetting the exact shade, the exact shape, the exact electric snap of their boundless energy when Clarke looks up from the pear grasped loosely in her hand and locks onto Lexa too.

It truly feels like a fucking punch.

She's pretty sure it only lasts a few seconds. The entire exchange of energy certainly imperceptible to the untrained eye, but in those elastic seconds and moments between seeing her and hearing Costia calling her from the next aisle over… Lexa relives an entire lifetime in them.

The intensity of their love.

The intensity of their fights.

Promises made.

Promises broken.

Two girls on the mere precipice of adulthood, swearing oaths of devotion neither were remotely mature enough to give.

It rattles her for the rest of the day and the day following two days after. Walking through work and chores and kisses from her wife as if in a haze from someone else's life.

And then the note.

Plain powder blue and unassumingly tucked safely under her windshield wiper.

‘Milkshakes at Mary's in Clayburn. Friday, 3pm. If you want.’

The haze continues for the next three days.

Three days of chewing her lip and picking at her nails. Driving home from work just to park in the sloped lane of her own driveway, starring blankly at the dash for ten too-short minutes before forcing herself to go inside.

Because Clarke wants to meet up.

For milkshakes, of all things.

Two entire towns away.

//////////////////

It feels like a brick in her stomach when she tells Cos she'll be working late, only a few hours after getting the okay from her boss to leave early. The drive takes forever, and yet is entirely too short, when she parks in front of the half empty diner.

Because in no way has Lexa prepared herself for this.

This feeling.

The way her heart slams itself so violently against her ribs at the first sight of Clarke framed in the diner's window. She has not prepared herself for the rush of emotion that consumes her—somehow more intense and debilitating than it was seeing her in the grocery store.

Because Clarke looks beautiful in the slanted afternoon sun, head bent forward as if she's staring at the table. Waiting. Waiting for Lexa to show, or not show, looking prepared to accept either of the outcomes…

Clarke has always been so much better at this than Lexa ever was.

She practically has to peel her hands from the steering wheel and take several deep, calming breaths on the walk in, because the last thing Lexa needs is for Clarke to see just how badly her hands want to shake. She takes all the nervous energy swirling and spiraling in her belly and buries it down deep, snuffing it into silence with a forceful flex of her jaw.

It's hard to breathe in the few steps between the door and the booth. Her feet shuffling like across the worn down tiling while her limbs feel like lead. The knocking hammer of her heart doesn't ease for one second as Clarke finally looks up and sees her, shoulders relaxing her chest deflating in what looks like a sigh of relief.

She really must have thought Lexa wouldn't come.

As if she could have kept herself away…

“Would it be weird to hug you?”

And of course the first words Clarke says to her in over five years make Lexa laugh. A weak, airy laugh that sends her stomach squirming with something bright.

“No, of course not. It could never be weird.”

And she means that.

Touching her. Holding her. It never could be anything other than welcome.

She just hates that it feels so stiff.

But Lexa accepts it, and returns it with an awkward warmth of her own, slipping into her side of the double booth the second she's released and settling in like a defendant taking their place on the witness stand.

“I wasn't even sure if you'd…”

Lexa can't help the way her face pulls tight when Clarke gestures toward the table that separates them. “Of course I came,” she says, low and quiet.

Clarke's weary huff of a laugh is not lost on Lexa.

She knows she's earned it, anyway.

It's strange being back in Clarke's orbit like this. How she can't stop herself from tracing every line of Clarke's face; mapping and remapping every dimple, dip, and contour. Burning this newer, more mature… inexplicably more breathtaking version of Clarke over the images that still take up so much space in Lexa's mind. Fuller cheeks being replaced by clean lines of adulthood. Delicately pink lips looking more rouged in the waning afternoon sun.

Eyes holding ghosts of things Lexa’s too cowardly to face…

It's strange how easily they drop into civil, companionable conversation. Chit-chatting about the weather, about benign aspects of politics happening around the world, sharing disbelief at how much the area has changed.

How much of it hasn't changed one bit.

They move into more personal topics with the grace of a panther slowly stalking its prey. Lightly sharing details slipped as if they're nothing; Clarke moving to a town a little further south and enjoying the proximity to the city, Lexa mentioning the nursery she'd painted in anticipation of their incoming son.

If she'd rushed to explain that really it was Costia who was actually gaining custody of her own nephew—and that Lexa was happy, but also just committed to be along for the ride—well… she'd just wanted to be clear about the situation.

It feels like a death waltz of mutual self-destruction when Lexa lightly asks how Finn is. How Clarke's husband is. Still remembering how she'd read the marriage announcement in the paper over her morning coffee a little over a year ago.

She excludes the memory of barely making it out to the blind spot in her backyard before the contents of her stomach had emptied themselves out.

She very much keeps that part to herself.

Because… Clarke seems… happy. And that's what Lexa wanted. Wants. So she does her best to force the smile to reach her eyes as she listens to stories of a rainy ceremony and a lopsided cake while determinedly nodding along.

And she's fooled herself so well, for so long, that she hadn't even noticed she'd fallen into such a false sense of security.

“And you?” Clarke asks after a too many beats of silence. “How was your—you and Costia's…”

“It was good. Sunny. Lots of bugs,” Lexa offers. Soft, but trying. Feeling her skin crawl at the topic as she stares down at a single bead of sweat making its way down her untouched milkshake and remembering the day of their commitment ceremony with a twinge in the pit of her stomach.

“Where did you guys…?”

“Cos's parents backyard. It was just a little thing… Nothing fancy. Her parents. A few friends…. Rings... A couple toasts.”

Clarke's lips press in tight as she nods. “Sounds… nice.”

Lexa's heart feels entirely too hollow for how painfully it beats against her ribs. She hums to fill the silence.

“Did your parents go?”

The question has the first genuine laugh jumping from Lexa's mouth. “No,” she snorts in amused dismay.

Clarke's turn a rosy shade of pink as she shakes her head, her gaze never drifting away from the compulsive stirring of her straw. “Well, that's a shame… They should've been there. To see you marry the girl of your dreams.”

Beyond herself, beyond her rational brain and the wedding band sitting snug and impossibly heavy on her finger, Lexa lets out a quiet scoff and looks out the window.

“I've never called Costia that.”

“You know what I meant.”

“Oh, I know what you meant,” Lexa mutters, because Clarke apparently will never lose the gift of getting under her skin.

“I wasn't trying to—”

“Yes, you were.”

“Don't tell me what I was trying to do.”

“Okay.”

Clarke scoffs and sits back in her seat. “God, how are you always so arrogant?”

Lexa leans forward against the table, face stony. “Arrogant? I'm arrogant?”

“That's what I said.”

“You are unbelievable.”

All Lexa can do is grind her teeth in frustration, feeling her jaw tick to the side as Clarke shoves up from the table and walks out of the diner without a backwards glance. Her hands turn to fists as she just sits there, hearing the bell above the doorway chime shrill and angry in Clarke's wake.

Chest feeling as if it's caving in half and eyes burning with acidic sadness, Lexa tosses a five and two-one's on the table next to their untouched milkshakes that pool and puddle with mid-July sweat. She clings to her steering wheel the second she slams the truck's door shut. Lays her head between her fists without a care for the blistering plastic against her skin. She never should've come here. Shouldn't have opened this damn door again. But she just—

Lexa nearly jumps out of her skin at the slam of fists against the hood of her truck, jerking upright in startle and meeting a fiery face of wrath snarling at her from where she's pressed against the grill.

“Ya know, this was always our problem! You take a simple question and turn it into a reason to be an ass!”

Lexa's already flinging the door open and whipping around to the front of the truck before Clarke's sentence is even finished. “Our problem has always been that you have to needle everyone. Everyone. Over everything. You can't just accept a person at their word! It's like you have to question everyone—”

“Not everyone. Just you.”

“Oh, well, thank you. In that case, I suppose I should feel special."

“You're welcome, you arrogant ass!” Clarke snaps, her voice continuing to rise with each word.

The argument escalates so fast the words all bleed together; a ready-set-match volleyed back and forth only broken by the occasional turning her back to gather herself, just to whirl around and engage all over again. Lexa works keep her frustration in flexes of jaw and curls of her lip. Walking in circles and squeezing her fists, because she never wanted it come back to this.

“Why did you even come here, Lexa?!” Clarke hurls in a stilted break of their onslaught. “Why even show up if you're just going to act like this over an innocent fucking question?!”

“Because it wasn't just a question, Clarke,” Lexa says with a harsh click if the name, her face barely an inch from Clarke's face, eyes boring into fiery pools of blue that still manage to make her legs weak.

Clarke's face twists with a sneer as she manages another step closer. “Right. I forgot your history with me asking you for anything.”

The insinuation hits Lexa in the chest exactly where it was meant to.

Lexa fills her lungs as deeply as she can to calm herself. To yell back. To bark every angry thing that passes through her mind.

They both freeze in the heat of the moment at the sharp clang of a bell, each looking to find the waitress staring at them with a distinctly displeased expression, before she waves to the row of plate glass windows littered with faces watching the entire parking lot argument unfold.

Releasing a strangled sound of annoyance, Lexa storms back to her truck in a crunch of gravel. She slams the door closed behind her grips the wheel, pressing her forehead to the scorching plastic again.

She hadn't wanted it to go this way. Hadn't wanted to fall back into the same pattern that had plagued them their entire—

Their entire everything.

All the bickering and the squabbling. Rolling eyes and huffing chests. Miscommunications and too-fiery tempers clashing in stubbornly butting head. From their whirlwind courtship to being so in love with Clarke it made Lexa physically ache, all the breakups and the makeups and letting lips mend the bruise of words slung back and forth in adolescent anger… it was as if for every ounce of love they shared, they had to balance it out with an equal amount of fury.

She's spent years broken up by far, far too many idle moments in the calm, stillness of her wife, wondering if such a volcanic kind of passion as the one they'd shared is ever meant to be sustainable.

Is it always meant to hurt quite this much?

And if not… why is this the only thing that makes her feel this alive…

Lexa's wrenched from her thoughts and startles for the second time when the passenger side door opens and closes with a thunk. The air is thick and stifling with the scent of late afternoon summer, and an intoxicating haze of everything Clarke.

The adrenaline pumps through Lexa's veins and she sucks in deep breath after deep breath, staring at the rigid set of Clarke's body sitting in her passenger side of her truck's bench seat.

And when Clarke opens her mouth to continue their fighting, all Lexa can think of is how Clarke smells exactly the same.

Lexa—so tired of listening and fighting and denying herself, of lying and running from everything—leans over and cuts Clarke's words off with a kiss. She slips her hand to Clarke's jaw and pulls her firm against her lips, sighing into the feeling—the yearning—that'd been buzzing through her body since second she saw Clarke again.

It's sweeter, softer than she'd intended in the intensity of her emotions, all the fire dying into a pleasantly warm smolder as they each sigh into the kiss. Lips unfamiliar with the give and take of the other's long forgotten rhythm, yet both seeming content to slowly relearn the feel of how they alone move together.

Head spinning and heart sinking with the steady creep of guilt, Lexa pulls back with one last kiss, and drags herself back to her own seat to sit as stiffly as before.

Why is this—this woman and her passion—the only thing in the entire world that makes Lexa feel this alive…

“I rented a room.”

Lexa blinks out of her spiraling thoughts, skin suddenly feeling on fire and heart pounding itself right out of her chest, but still, she cannot make herself move. Can't breathe. Every fiber of her body frozen in time with nauseating guilt, and a terrifying feeling of hope.

She watches Clarke take a deep steadying breath from the edge of her periphery. “There's a motel just outside of town,” she says quietly. As if uttering any of this too loudly might ruin everything. Everything. “I rented a room there before coming here, because I knew that no matter w—… no matter what happened here today… I knew I didn't want to see you, and touch you… and then have to go home and see him.”

The guilt in Lexa's stomach turns to something more intense; something hot and liquid that threatens to slip down between her legs. Her eyes slip closed and she's nearly shaking with the question that tumbles from her lips in a whisper—

“Which way?”

/////////////////////

One day she'll have to remember exactly how they got here. Will have to scour and scrounge through her lust addled brain to piece together the sequence that from the diner to the motel. When she writes about this in her journal and tucks it away safely with all the others, she'll absolutely have to answer for just how many times she kept this going.

But as it is, all Lexa knows is right now and this feeling. The pressure of her hips against Clarke's. All she knows is the taste of skin along the exposed line of Clarke's neck as they stumble through the door.

Lexa turns Clarke to her and takes her face in her hands. Leans in, brushing the tip of her nose against Clarke's, eyes hooded with the feel of her hunger as she murmurs, “Come here,” and pulls Clarke into a kiss.

It doesn't matter how many times they've done this through the years, stripping the clothes from Clarke's body never ceases to feel like a revelation. The tugs to her shirt that free delicate collarbones and each button undone exposes more creamy skin. She pops the clasp of Clarke's bra and helps pull it off in a tangle of hands racing each other for purchase. Her palms slide up the curve of Clarke's ribs and cup the weight of breasts, Lexa's breathing growing heavier at good it feels to touch Clarke like this again.

And blessedly Clarke is so patient while Lexa slows enough to take her time with reacquainting herself to the contours of Clarke's body. Lets her eyes fall closed and head tip back when Lexa wraps her lips around one nipple and then the next to suck and lick in greedy laps.

Lexa never meant for any of this to happen. Certainly never meant for their first time after so long to lack any sort of poetics. But when her shirt joins Clarke's on the motel's floor as she backs her against the desk, there's simply no stopping it. No stopping this. Them. The inevitability of them and the draw that sits so strong between them. Not when Clarke guides Lexa's hand to slip inside her pants and moans at the first brush of her clit.

Lexa never meant to be the kind of person who fucks her ex-lover against a motel desk. To shiver at feeling just how wet Clarke is. How warm. But she is that person, because she does, thrusting her fingers into Clarke in one fluid motion, churning out panted sounds of her pleasure at being inside Clarke again.

She doesn't care that the curtains aren't quite drawn or that Clarke's moans get louder when she adds a third finger. All Lexa can do is press the bare expanse of her chest tight against Clarke's, shaking at the drag of taught nipples against her skin as she works Clarke up higher with every curl of her fingertips.

When Clarke comes, it's not enough. Not even close, they both know, to sate every moment of yearning that's gone unanswered for too many years. Even the moments when Lexa has to slip out of her just so they can shed the rest of their clothes feels like it's too much; too long not touching. Each kicking free from their shoes and pants to lay forgotten on the floor and instantly reaching out for each other again.

Falling into bed with Clarke's weight pressing down over her body must be the universe's sweetest sin. She wonders if Lucifer ever felt this kind of euphoria in his downward rapture, the same as she feels Clarke's mouth suckles bruises across her skin.

The hours pass in haze of sex—desperate, soft, intense, and painfully real. They make love like there's no world outside those four walls. Fuck like the world is surely ending tomorrow.

Lexa sat in Clarke's lap, legs wrapped loose around her waist as she swivels her hips against the shallow thrust of Clarke's fingers; lips shaky and slick as they exchange moans and panting breaths.

Clarke's thighs straddling Lexa's head, hands gripping the cheap headboard above. Mouth slack and blue eyes staring down at her as Lexa traces circles with her tongue.

A part of her had forgotten that sex could be like this.

Could be so… freeing.

Freeing, yet all consuming, Lexa amends, when Clarke reaches her for again. The sheets cling to her skin, body still slick with sweat and heart still thumping from her orgasm. But she rolls over anyway. Slots her thigh between the spread open offering of Clarke's legs, groaning at the evidence of their last round painting itself across her skin as she meets Clarke's mouth with her own.

/////////////

Afternoon turns to night. And night into dawn.

Mutual exhaustion sets in, though not enough to convince either of then sleep. Just enough to leave them holding each other in the tangle of sex-damped sheets.

“Do you love Costia?” Clarke asks through the silence, long after they've both managed to catch their breath. Her cheek nestles further into the cradle of Lexa's shoulder as they snuggle close, soaking up the feeling of being bare and pressed together impossibly tight while waiting for the strength to go again.

“Yes,” Lexa admits quietly. “Yes, I do love her.”

It's not surprise when Clarke doesn't answer. Doesn't do anything other than continue tracing her thumb in back and forth sweeps over the thump of Lexa's heart.

Lexa turns her head and presses her lips to Clarke hair, hoping to bury the words and truth of her heart there. “But I'm in love with you.”

/////////////

The bubble had to burst some time. That much she knew. But the selfish, terrible, awful pieces of herself had hoped it would wait just a little longer.

Lexa picks up their food in two identical to-go boxes ordered from the diner after a whining protest of Clarke's stomach in the midst of yet another round. It had been hard to extract herself from the spell of those arms, lips, and tongue just to drive fifteen minutes to grab two double stack pancake orders with a side of bacon to share, garnished with little more than a pointed, “nice wedding ring,” along with an unwelcoming and stern-faced message from the waitress, “that needs to be gone by Monday.”

A silent nod is all Lexa can manage after glancing at Clarke's car still parked in the lot.

The drive back to the motel feels heavier. As if the walls of her beat up truck are shrinking in around her, not letting even a breathe of the cooler night air in. The glint of her wedding band against the pale evening light seems to taunt her. How it gleams with every passing streetlight above.

The smiles don't come as easy when she gets back, though she can't help feeling distinctly lighter the second she's back in Clarke's space. Breaking easier with the sight of Clarke's open smile, the mischief in her eyes when she grabs Lexa by the collar of her shirt as soon as she's within reach and pulls her down into a consuming kiss.

Her whispered, “I'm glad you're back, I missed you,” against Lexa's lips tastes sweeter than syrup. It's what has Lexa stripping back out of her clothes and climbing back into bed.

But the guilt that curdles low in Lexa's stomach makes her shuffle the food on her plate around more than actually eat. Cut her pancakes into smaller and smaller pieces between feeding bites to Clarke, despite them both having ordered the same thing.

“Bet you don't get pancakes and boobs served fresh in bed everyday,” Clarke jokes with bump of her shoulder.

Lexa breathes out a laugh. Bumps her shoulder right back. “No,” she admits. “Cos hates food of any kind in the bedroom.”

“That doesn't surprise me.”

“Don't say that.”

“I only meant that the little I've seen her, she seems very clean,” Clarke gestures with a vague wave of her fork. “I wasn't trying to be rude.”

“I know,” Lexa assures, because she does. Knows every single thing there is to know about Clarke, and being needlessly cruel isn't one of them. “But still. Just… we shouldn't talk about her.”

Clarke pauses the forkful of pancake halfway to her mouth. Lowers it back down. “Why not?”

“Because she hasn't done anything wrong,” Lexa says quietly. She drags the tines of her fork across the destruction of her dinner, and forces herself to speak around the lump in her throat. “… Because she's my wife.”

When the silence stretches on far too long, she looks up to find Clarke just sitting there, watching her. Brows furrowed and expression guarded. Hard and steely. Her lips pinching into a line.

“Are we really back to that?”

Lexa hates that she can't make herself look Clarke in the eyes.

“Are we back there?” Clarke repeats. Firmer. She carelessly tosses her plate on the table beside the bed and slips from the bed. Lexa's pleading whisper of, ‘Love,’ goes ignored as Clarke grabs up her pants and begins putting them on. “What about this? What about last night? And today?”

“It's been the best day of my life,” Lexa tries. “But, Clarke, it's not this simple—”

“So why aren't you going to stay with me?”

“It's not as simple as just doing whatever we want.”

“So you spend the day fucking me, and kissing me, and telling me that you're in love with me, just to go back to your wife?”

Lexa closes her eyes against the roll of nausea, because no. No, that was never the point of any of this.

“I do love you, Clarke. I meant every word. Everything. But she's a good person, and she's sitting at home right now, wondering where I am—”

“And I'm standing right here! Why isn't that enough?” Clarke barks, her face crumbling with emotion that clashes with every ounce of her anger.

It seems the anger wins out when Clarke lets out a strangled growl of frustration and snatches up a shirt from the floor. It barley registers to Lexa that it's actually her shirt that's Clarke's grabbed, too much of her focus taken up by the terror currently slamming through her heart.

“Please, please stop—.”

“Go to hell, Lexa,” is Clarke says as she storms out of the motel room.

Lexa shoots from the bed and yanks on the few pieces of clothes left strewn on the floor and races out of the room.

“Clarke, where are you going?” she shouts against the downpour of rain, walking as fast as she can to catch up.

Clarke doesn't bother turning, doesn't pause in her stride even for a step. “Walking to my car.”

“Will you stop and talk to me?”

“Talk to you about what?!” Clarke yells over a crack of thunder as she whips around in a spray of raindrops. “You're right! There's no point in this, is there? I mean we're already fighting, and you love your wife, and I have been an idiot for thinking I could—for thinking anything was going to be any different. I mean, God, Lexa, when are you going to stop doing this?”

“Doing what?” Lexa hurls right back through the thump of the rain.

“Acting like you have no choice in your life! Acting like you have no say in your own happiness!” Clarke pauses in her fury, chest heaving as rivulets of water streak down her face. Soak through her hair. Pool at her lashes. Drip from her lips. When she speaks again, it's softer, but no less intense. “You're bored, and you don't want that life, and you know it because you wouldn't be here if there wasn't something missing. But you keep going back out of this sense of duty! You talk about this— about her, about us—like you've never had any power in it. Like what you want doesn't matter.”

“Clarke, I'm married—”

“Because you chose that!”

“I made a promise!”

“And you broke it!” Clarke thunders over another crash of lightning. “You broke every promise when you kissed me, and made love to me. You break it every time you think about me, just like I do!”

“Clarke—”

“I have broken my vows every single day since I made them, because there is not one day that passes where I don't think about you. Where I don't miss you so much it feels like I can't breathe. Where I don't know, in my heart, that I'd rather be with you.”

Lexa doesn't know where the rain ends and her own measly tears begin. “It's not that easy.”

“It can be,” Clarke argues with a wet shake of her head. “It can be that easy, if you actually let yourself do what you want.”

“We can't just—”

“What do you want?”

“Clarke—”

“What do you want?” Clarke repeats. She steps closer, cupping Lexa's jaw in her hands. Brushes the sodden tendrils of hair from her face. “Forget about I want. Forget about what Costia wants. What do you want?”

“I…”

“What do you want, baby?”

“I don't want to hurt anyone.”

Clarke lets out a sound; something small and desperate that lives between the lines of anger and dying anguish. “Goddammit, Lexa, what do you want?”

Broken and out of excuses—out of corners and shadows she can run to—Lexa fights against the damning tremble of her lip, and says the only thing she knows she has to.

“We're going to have a little boy, Clarke…”

Lexa feels her heart shatter when Clarke visibly breaks.

She opens her arms and accepts Clarke’s weight, holding her close as she rests her head on Lexa's chest. The clatter of the rain drowns out the sound of her crying; the washing away tears as quickly as they fall.

“It was never going to be me, was it?”

Lexa shudders through and uneven breath.

There's no question to it all when Lexa meets Clarke's lips in a solemn kiss. When she tips her chin down and melts into the wet slide of Clarke's lips. She opens to the timid lap of tongue to brush it with her own, pouring everything, all of herself into this.

Because she knows she has to let go.

Let Clarke go.

Just…

Not yet.

Lexa's arms cinch tighter around Clarke and pull her impossibly close. The pain and regret mixes with every ounce of her love as she lifts Clarke off her feet in the exultation of passion, and kisses her deeper, still.

//////////////////

When they fall back into bed, it's without the fiery rush of before.

Clothes come off slowly, peeled delicately from rain-soaked skin, to be replaced by hands that touch the other as though in mourning. All the frenzy is gone from their lovemaking, though the flame of their wanting remains just as lethal. Because when Lexa slips inside Clarke this time, it's with the taste of salty tears on her lips that she painstakingly kisses away.

They still don't sleep. Don't waste one moment not touching, caressing, filling themselves with the wonder of each other. The more leisurelypace does nothing to make the seconds tick by any slower, but every touch, taste, and feeling is more burned in Lexa's brain. Imprinted on her memory to carry with her, always. Kisses to navels and heady scents of arousal that Lexa will spend hours trying to describe her journals. They fuck like they want to remember this. As if branding each other with pieces of themselves that would ot fade away come morning.

////////////////

They dress in silence. Only the shuffle of feet and calls of birds in the distance disturbing the unbroken quiet. Not word has passed between them since the moment they climbed from the bed in some unspoken agreement. When the light beyond the window faded from black to brilliant oranges and then to weak, paler blues.

They'd wordlessly washed each other clean in the shower, trading half smiles and lazy kisses as they'd brushed and dried each other's hair. Had gathered clothes and shoes and tracked down wayward missing bras that'd flung free on their arrival.

And every piece of Lexa knows that what she's feeling is entirely backwards. That she shouldn't feel as though she's leaving her entire life behind, when all she's doing is going back her wife.

But she does.

It does.

It feels exactly that way as the door of the motel room clicks closed behind them. The late morning air makes her stomach feel uneasy; the chipper call of songbirds sound taunting.

She drives Clarke back to her car in that same strangled silence, though lets herself smile when Clarke covers her hand on the gearshift and stays there. It's wrong, and she knows it, but Lexa still indulges herself in these final moments, because she's parking beside Clarke's car before she even knows it.

“Write to me.”

Lexa looks over at the sound of Clarke's voice; rough and uneven from lack of use. Squeezes Clarke's fingers for encouragement.

“I know we can't—” Clarke starts again, just to stop and shake away whatever words she'd meant to say next. Instead she continues, “I know it'll be hard, and I know it won't be enough. Not for me. But… I don't want to go back to before… I know I can't have you, but I don't want to not have you in my life at all.”

Lexa clamps her jaw tight. As tight as it'll go without breaking. “It won't be enough for me either,” she says, her words coming out soggy despite her efforts. “I don't think anything will be enough for me… but I'll write to you every day if you want. You just have to promise to write to me too.”

Clarke lets out a wet laugh. “I'm not writing to you every day,” she says through a chuckle. But when she looks to Lexa, all her face shows is sadness. And love. “But I will. I'll write to you.”

With a final nod, she's pulling away with a kiss to Lexa's fingers. She grabs her purse and climbs out, just to pause in the frame of the door.

“Why did you really come here?”

All Lexa can do is smile, heartbroken and sweet.

“Because I break my vows every day, too.”

Clarke nods again with a sniffle and shuts the door.

And Lexa's determined for that to be it. A messy, clean break. A lapse in her judgment and convictions that she'll back on with regret and wonder. Twenty-four hours that she'll hold secret and dear in her heart. Meant for only her to remember; one precious day where she belonged to Clarke. And Clarke to her.

She makes it halfway across the parking lot before slamming on the brakes. Barely remembers to throw the truck into park before she's back on her feet and walking as fast as her legs will take her. Walking fast enough to grab Clarke's arm before she get into her car.

She wheels Clarke around and wraps her tight in her arms, squeezing her to the point it makes Lexa's bones ache. She buries her face in soft blonde hair, and lets one single sob escape.

“The worst part of all this… is that it's only ever been you.”

Lexa presses her forehead Clarke's and sucks in a breath against the burn of her tears. She wont let them fall, not until she's alone in her truck. That much she owes Clarke at least.

Through it all, Clarke feels Lexa staring so ardently. Like she's fascinated by her. The intensity of her eyes that Clarke is painfully, excruciatingly used to. The intensity that she wasted far too many years living without.

And yet... Lexa seems almost afraid of her.

Of this stranger sitting so at ease on the deck chair beside her own. Shy in a way that Clarke can't help but find endearing, and heartbreaking, because she knows why, even if Lexa doesn't.

It's sustainable, and it's bearable, and it's something Clarke can smile at with a warmth in her heart.

It's fine, right up until it's not, because Lexa has a moment of clarity.

"I love you,” she says, quiet and in awe, and sounding terribly afraid.

Clarke closes the book and looks into the grey tinted eyes watching her with fascination. Waits patiently for what comes next. Feeling her heart jump. And squeeze tight. Feeling it fill to the brim just to drop, and rebound again.

“I know that I love you...” Lexa repeats, “I just don't know why…"

It's fine until the spark of recognition that follow her confession of bewildering love. When the fear fades and mixes with the same devoted intensity her gaze has always carried for Clarke.

It's so genuine and so heartfelt, it has Clarke slipping from her chair and painfully kneeling down at Lexa's feet. She looks into Lexa's eyes like she's only thing that matters in the world. Has ever mattered in the world to Clarke. Forcing her face to stay relaxed with that soft, understanding smile she reserves only for Lexa now.

And she sees it. That moment, when it just... all floods back in.

Like an ember catching fire. Smoke turning to flame. That moment of... Oh.

Oh.

There you are, my love.

It's fleeting, Clarke knows. A moment to grab just as quickly as it demands to be released; the same as every such moment between them has been since the beginning.

But it's there and it's real, and it's just long enough for Lexa to kiss her. To break Clarke's heart all over again as she tearfully says how much she misses her. To choke over the words of how lost she feels all the time. That she just doesn't... she just doesn't understand what's happening.

Who she is.

Where Clarke goes when she can't find her.

Why she looks and tries and never seems able to find her anymore…

But it's better. It's better with Clarke here, Lexa says with a shaky smile. Everything is always better with Clarke near, she assures. Her words tumble out hurried and emotional, as if Clarke can taste her grasping onto this moment of remembering because some part of her knows how transient it will be.

And then... Clarke sees it start to slip. Feels it drifting from her fingertips. She grasps Lexa's hands tighter when Lexa says they should just stop being so stupid and run away together. Start over.

That they've wasted too much time as it is.

That she's ready. That she doesn't care about duty anymore, not if it means not having Clarke. That it'll be fine because Costia will take care of the house and the kids… seeming to not remember that the children in question now have houses and kids of their own…

And Clarke, enduring and steadfast Clarke, does exactly what she does best. She calms her. Assures Lexa that yes, yes she's right. They've wasted too much time. They've earned it now that they owe nothing to anyone.

That now is indeed the time they should run.

And they will.

She kisses Lexa's lips, and twice more on her forehead. Brushes the grey hairs from Lexa's temples and swallows back the sting of unshed tears, while gently wiping away the streaks of Lexa's own. She soothes and she assures that Lexa just needs to wait here while she goes and packs their things. Okay? Just wait here for me, baby. My sweetgirl. Let me take care of everything, and then… then we'll go. Just wait for me right here.

Of course Lexa agrees, because she knows she's safe here, now, with Clarke. Of course she'll wait if that's what Clarke asks of her. How could she not?

Clarke breathes steadying lungfuls of air and slowly makes her way across the rolling landscape. She eases down next to Costia beside the living facility's pond, settling into the little glider swing she'd retreated to to give them some time.

Privacy.

To save herself from having to hear it all, if she were to be honest.

But Costia’s not honest, because she doesn't have to be. Doesn't owe Clarke anything. She's always accepted the truth of her wife and their marriage, and she knows Clarke knows that too. Still, Costia airily says that it's fine and to stop fussing when Clarke apologizes yet again for all of this anyway.

She sighs and reminds Clarke that she keeps inviting her to these family weekends for a reason…

Because, Costia shares as they stare out over the water, even though she has always known she wasn't the love of Lexa's life... Lexa was hers.

And now? At this point, with so much left in memories forgiven and forgotten? The least she feels she can do for the woman who stayed beside her and loved her through everything, is to finally give her Clarke.

Moments of her, at least.

It's the best she can do.

They chat for awhile, there by the pond. Polite, but not exactly friendly. Because they're not friends—never have been and probably never will be—but they do understand each other now. And more than anything, they understand that at core of it all, they're just two women who have loved Lexa more deeply than they know how to say. That they've both made mistakes, hurt each other from afar, but at this point... what else is there to do? Besides continuing to love their girl the best they can…

When they deem enough time has passed they walk back together to where Lexa sits still draped her knitted blanket, calmly looking out over the pond from her deck chair. Neither do more than offer gentle, welcoming smiles when she looks up at them with confusion—with just a hint of that old warrior-hearted challenge in her eyes as she glances between them and asks, "Can I help you?"

Clarke says it's time for her to go, but promises she'll be back the very next weekend. Not minding when Lexa just blinks and visibly tries to recall why that should matter to her, pulling the blanket tighter around herself and nodding at Clarke like it's what she thinks she's supposed to do.

Clarke squeezes the balled up knot of Lexa's hand to silently try and tell her she doesn't need to remember. That it doesn't matter if it makes sense, but she'll back all the same, even if Lexa never pieces together why this person, this stranger, is promising her that...

It's hard to pull herself away, knowing that beyond the collected pages of Lexa's old diaries, she's taking every memory of them along with her.