#finally done!!!

“Take us to my place,” Lexa exhaled quickly as she fell into the backseat with Clarke wrapped around her. 

“You got it,” Stonefield replied with complete understanding, then rolled the partition up and took off into traffic. Clarke straddled Lexa’s lap and had her lips on her neck before the door closed behind her. 

“You are irresponsibly hot in this tux,” Clarke exhaled heavily against Lexa’s neck as she crushed the lapels in her fists. Caught somewhere between holding back and charging forward, Clarke’s thighs trembled with nerves and anticipation. She struggled to keep herself steady on Lexa’s lap as the car hurried through green lights and made hard turns. 

“Not wearing a bra in that dress is downright reckless,” Lexa chuckled low in her throat as she ran her hands up Clarke’s back, taking extra time to linger on bare skin that the lowback dress gave her access to. 

“I make rock n’ roll now, so the label lets me have visibly hard nipples,” Clarke taunted, brushing her lips along Lexa’s sweaty jaw. She looped her arms around Lexa’s neck and pressed their chests together.

The car slowed rapidly and came to an abrupt stop at a light. Instinctively, Lexa grabbed a hold of Clarke to keep her from falling forward, but with Clarke in her lap with her arms around her neck, the most logical thing to hold onto in the moment of rapid inertia was Clarke’s ass. Lexa took two heaping handfuls and pressed Clarke against her to keep her safe. 

It surprised them both, but they both loved it. Clarke pushed herself back, her hands braced on the seat on either side of Lexa so they could see each other. 

“You really are so fucking smooth, aren’t you?” Clarke tsked and shook her head. She was a blend of almost shy, very turned on, and totally and comfortably herself. She looked like the Clarke from the white party. The Clarke from Arizona. The Clarke that knew what she wanted. The Clarke that felt so good about herself. 

“I’m not doing it on purpose,” Lexa shrugged modestly and accompanied it with a sweet little grin. “It just comes out around you,” she added honestly and reached up to push some of Clarke’s wayward 70s curls behind her ears so she could see her face better. 

“I love it,” Clarke admitted, her cheeks flush with anticipation and emotion. “Don’t ever stop.”

“I won’t,” Lexa leaned up for a tentative kiss. 

The light changed and the car took off quickly pushing Clarke into Lexa and Lexa into the seat. The resulting forceful kiss pushed both of them over the edge into a heavy surge of kisses that they’d been trying to avoid for weeks. Giving in to one another and to themselves brought with it a sweet relief that carried a slight and lingering feeling that it was temporary.

Convincing themselves it was just for the night gave them the power and freedom to let go. For now, it was their little secret. Living the truth inside of the lie that dictated every facet of their lives provided a lull in the stress to be themselves. The connection between their bodies and souls made every single other thing in the universe just shut up. Tonight belonged to the two of them.

The rest of the ride was full of deep kisses and heavy breaths and half words as they avoided talking and avoided the real world and let themselves have each other and have the safety of the actual reality of their love and connection. 

When they got to Lexa’s, Clarke ran up the stairs pulling Lexa by the hand like she was headed for her own home. The assurance and strength and total resolute confidence made Lexa’s swimming brain pause and zero in on the way their hands looked intertwined. It felt so right. All of the combined literal and figurative sensations of coming home made Lexa trip on the last few stairs. 

They reached the landing and Clarke grabbed Lexa into a primal kiss full to the brim with need. Lexa fumbled in her pocket for her keys without taking her lips from Clarke’s. The sound of the lock turning momentarily broke the spell and they pulled slightly apart to search the other for confirmation and validation as the anticipation of finally being alone, finally having what they wanted, and finally giving in fully reached its apex.

A warm and inviting sense of peace welcomed them through the door. Any hesitation either held on the ride over in the back of her mind got left on the doorstep when Lexa guided Clarke into her home and closed the door behind them.

“I love you,” Clarke whispered between increasingly urgent kisses. 

“I love you, too,” Lexa said quickly, her hands in Clarke’s curls and her back against the door. 

“I just want to say it again,” Clarke exhaled. She felt the relief she’d been craving when Lexa held her close and kissed her jaw in a silent, dark, empty place that expected absolutely nothing from her. 

“You can say it as much as you want,” Lexa grinned against Clarke’s neck. “I won’t get tired of hearing it.”

Clarke tightened her hands on Lexa’s shoulders to close any gaps in their embrace. She couldn’t get enough. Couldn’t get Lexa close enough to her. It all felt simultaneously final and still new with the sensation that this was stolen lingering over their heads. This was one night they could have each other, and they didn’t know when the next would come. They both pushed aside the fear of what came in the morning and let their burning need for each other yank them out of space and time to be alone together and exist simply as two people in love that owed the world nothing.

Lexa stepped out of her heels and kicked them aside to steady her footing and gain a proper grip on Clarke’s waist. The certainty and strength that bubbled up from inside Lexa any time she got to take Clarke into her arms and kiss her for real made Clarke’s knees weak. Every soft touch, every brush of Lexa’s lips, every slight movement had a firm faith in it that shut out any question as to whether or not they were doing the right thing.

The way Clarke’s body changed every time they came together and meant it was palpable. She moved with ease and assurance, her stiff joints melted, and her constant vigilance and defense dissolved in the sweet solace of Lexa’s embrace. 

“I love you,” Clarke murmured against Lexa’s lips, unable to find any other words to say that could sum up how she felt. Deft fingers made quick work of unbuttoning Lexa’s jacket and dancing across the sweaty, bare skin of Lexa’s lower back. “I love you so much and it feels gigantic.”

“That’s because it is gigantic,” Lexa couldn’t help a lovestoned grin from forming in the middle of the wet and hungry escalating kisses. She let go of Clarke to quickly tug at the sleeves of her jacket. Disappointed in the lack of contact, Clarke met her halfway and slid her hands gently across Lexa’s collar bones into the jacket’s shoulders and continued on to wrap her arms around Lexa’s neck to press their bodies together when Lexa tossed the tux aside.

Time and decisions and structured thought faded away as hands and lips and bodies found their own way. All of the fake make outs, all of the real, desperate kisses, and all of the touches and grabs and stolen moments that lived somewhere in between paved the way for the spectacular feeling of knowing exactly what to do and having full permission to give into one another’s bodies, and their own.

“Take me to bed,” Clarke begged against Lexa’s ear. Lexa kissed at Clarke’s neck as her hands pushed up the hem of Clarke’s short dress. The breathy plea made her grip Clarke’s thighs and abruptly brought her head up to catch Clarke’s lips with her own in a kiss that told Clarke she could have anything she wanted. “Now,” Clarke tacked on before letting out a shaky sigh.

Before Lexa could respond, Clarke pulled her down the hall to the bedroom. The heels of Clarke’s boots punctuated every sure step closer to getting Lexa on top of her and drowned out the labored breathing of Lexa trying to keep up. At the foot of the bed, Clarke stopped, spun around, and clutched Lexa close to her in a frantic kiss.

“Hey, Love, wait,” Lexa whispered softly and pulled back just enough to take in the view of Clarke’s glassy, emotional eyes in the dim light of the city that filtered through her bedroom windows. Panicked that Lexa was calling things off when they were so close to the edge, Clarke stared back with eyes that darkened with the threat of confused and anxious and overwhelmed tears at the ready. 

“Please don’t ask me to leave,” Clarke pleaded in a strangled whisper as she dipped her head, pinched her eyes shut, and tightened her desperate grip on Lexa’s waist. 

“I’m not going to,” Lexa couldn’t help but smile in the dark. She touched two gentle fingers to Clarke’s chin and lifted her gaze up to meet her own.  “I was going to tell you to slow down cause we have all night and I wanna make sure I savor every single bit of you. If this is all we get for a while, let’s make it last.”

Explosions went off in Clarke’s brain and chest and guts. The kiss she pulled Lexa into was thank you and I love you and I’m yours all rolled into one. 

“I don’t deserve you,” Clarke got out through a rising lump in her throat.

“Yes, you do,” Lexa replied earnestly, then silenced Clarke’s doubts in a strong, slow kiss.

Clarke became willing putty in Lexa’s expert hands while she slowed them down with the most excruciatingly slow removal of Clarke’s dress full of kisses and licks and caresses as more and more of Clarke’s bare body came into view. The sheer moments of sequins getting between Lexa’s lips and Clarke’s skin when Lexa finally pushed the dress up over their heads and pitched it away made Clarke’s hips jerk forward in anticipation. The way Lexa guided Clarke onto her back on the bed with a solid hand behind her head and the other behind her thigh to settle on top of her knocked Clarke’s breath back.

“Hang on,” Clarke gasped. “These boots are like, a whole thing,” Clarke tried to reach for the zippers on her thigh highs, but Lexa had her pinned to the sheets. 

“Leave ‘em on,” Lexa murmured low in her throat from her place between Clarke’s breasts. Clarke let out a delighted little laugh and dropped her head back onto the mattress. She completely let go of everything else and gave herself over to the night ahead. 

Lexa made good on her word and made sure they took their well-deserved sweet time with each other all through the night. Every touch, every kiss, every thrust and deep breath lasted and lingered longer than usual to give them both that crucial extra moment to feel it, memorize it, live forever in it, to really drink it in before it was gone. There was nothing attached to them that night. Each time they brought one another in for a deeper kiss made the real world slip further and further away.

Both fully outside of herself and acutely aware of herself in every cell of her body, Clarke stopped fearing how good she felt and let herself ride every luscious wave of it. Lexa lauded over every inch of her with her hands or her mouth or both, and Clarke, secure and grounded in the power of how sure it felt to love Lexa and be loved the same in return, released everything in the world aside from her lover on top of her. 

The love they made until dawn would be with them both for the rest of their lives. Spent and the best kind of exhausted, Clarke dropped her head onto Lexa’s chest, the two of them a heaving, sweaty pile of relief as the sun rose over the city.

***

A symphony of notifications coming from both of their phones in the next room stirred them awake slowly. It started faintly with one or two chimes, and the distinct differences in their alerts made them each open their eyes slowly. The confusing clash of the pure delight of seeing the other across the sheets first thing in the morning against the sounds of reality from the next room dropped an unsettling cloud over both of them. 

“Is that me?” Clarke cleared her throat as she squinted in the morning light. 

“It’s both of us. I got it,” Lexa croaked and let out a little grunt as she untangled herself from Clarke’s sleep-heavy arms. She shuffled through the apartment with her eyes mostly closed to stay in the sweet and perfect dreamland of waking up and cozying back into bed with Clarke. A blissful smile snuck out at her stiff and sore body as she recalled all of the reasons for her aches and pains.

Flashes of Clarke on her back, eyes closed, letting herself completely go sparked in Lexa’s brain. Recalling the sensation of Clarke digging her nails into Lexa’s back while Lexa worshipped what she knew was being taken from her sent a delicious shiver down her spine. Excited to take advantage of the last few dwindling moments before they went back to the real world, back to their break up, and back to suppressing the biggest feelings they’d ever felt, she grabbed their phones off the counter and climbed back into bed. Both phones chimed and vibrated away, and the increasing and relentless notifications gave them both pause. 

“What the hell’s going on?” Clarke asked as she sat up against her pillows, nerves sneaking into her voice. 

“I don’t know?” Lexa shrugged innocently as she settled in and reached for her glasses on the nightstand then slid them on to take a look.

They opened their phones in unison and were met with a wall of notifications from every social media network and entertainment news site on the planet boasting loud claims with so many exclamation points, italics, and emojis that Lexa Woods and Clarke Giffin’s entire relationship was totally fake. 

Their stomachs sank and they both shrank in on themselves and instinctively reached out for the other. Every day they spent hiding it, all of the stress, all of the sleepless nights and days full of endless choices that all carried too much weight pounded down on them as the one thing they worked tirelessly to avoid that would ruin everyone’s lives screamed at them from every possible angle.

“What the fuck?” Clarke’s whisper was barely audible. 

“Oh my god,” Lexa’s jaw hung open as headline after headline after headline crashed into their perfect little corner of the world to destroy everything they had.

“Did you-”

“No!” Lexa cut Clarke off immediately with indignant and confused eyes. “I would never do that to you!”

“I know! I know, of course you didn’t, I’m sorry!” Clarke clenched her teeth and pinched the bridge of her nose. “I’m freaking out, that was stupid. I didn’t even mean it. Is this real?!”

“It can’t be,” Lexa chewed her lip as she scanned more and more headlines. Her heart sank deeper with each one. 

All the work they did, everything they sacrificed, every night they went to bed scared of what would happen, every moment together they gave up, the levels of loaded and layered stress, the weight of carrying every single secret and half truth pressed down on them sitting quietly in bed watching the world find out their deepest darkest secret. 

“We’ve been so careful,” Clarke muttered as she glanced between her phone and Lexa’s as the mounds and mounds of accusations grew. Lexa didn’t respond, just slid open one of the videos from a more reliable source. 

“You’d have to be dead to not know about this summer’s hottest couple, Clarke and Lexa. They are everywhere. Their music has the world in a chokehold and their love has been touted by many as literal hashtag goals, but you might want to update those visionboards, y’all, because the romance in the song of the summer might not be as magical as it seems. We sat down with an anonymous source from Polis Records who filled us in that the relationship that’s so perfect it made every single one of us reconsider our worth and want an upgrade IS FAKE!” came out of Lexa’s phone.

They both froze with wide eyes and slack jaws as the video kept on. 

“If you felt like this relationship came out of nowhere, then you’re right, because it did. The whole thing has been manufactured to sell you songs. Our inside source claims that everything surrounding Clarke and Lexa’s careers since the news came out that they’ve been dating in secret happens behind closed doors, is only accessed by super high level employees, and the circle is tight and the lips involved are tighter,” the video continued. 

“Shit, this might actually be legit,” Clarke blurted out. 

“Who the hell did this to us?” Lexa sputtered. 

“They were able to snatch this snippet of a voice recording of our two fake lovers discussing that their love isn’t real, and what they do for the cameras and how their lives do not match what you see,” came through, then cut to a transcribed audio recording of Clarke and Lexa speaking to one another over a video of the floor outside of their practice rooms. 

“I can’t wait until this is all blows over and you can just be mine for real and we don’t have to do any of this,” Lexa’s voice on the video said.

“Do you think we could pull off keeping it a secret?” Video Clarke replied. 

“Do you honestly think you could hide that from the cameras?” Video Lexa asked

“Well?” Video Clarke paused and they both held their breath as they watched. “You’re right. We’d fuck that up so badly.”

“SO badly,” Video Lexa sighed and got interrupted by her phone. “We need to get back to work,” 

“I know,” Video Clarke huffed.

“Is Polis Records lying to you? Are Clarke and Lexa actually dating? Are they in on the scam our insider claims is going on? What are they hiding from the cameras, and more importantly, what are they hiding FROM YOU? Over the next half hour, we’ll give you the play by play of what our insider told us is really going on between these top forty sweethearts, and it isn’t good!” 

“Jesus Christ,” Lexa swallowed hard. Her throat dried and her chest tightened up. 

“What do we do?” Clarke asked, her voice somehow empty and frantic at the same time. “That’s actually us. No one faked this. That’s the floor outside our practice rooms.”

“I remember that conversation and we’re lucky that’s all they recorded because the rest was extremely incriminating,” Lexa blew out a big breath. “Whoever it was must’ve heard the rest and only recorded this.”

“Why would someone want to ruin our lives like this? If it’s someone on the inside, this thing is almost over! Why would they do this now?” Clarke’s voice cracked.

Both of their screens lit up with a facetime conference call from Ali.

“Shit,” Lexa spat out. They met eyes and the thundering dread between them pulsed with the call tones. They both scrambled and tugged the blankets up to their chests and backed against the headboard apart from one another and winced before answering the call.

“What in Satan’s red hot tit did you two fucking do?!” Ali screamed once the calls opened.

“I-” Clarke tried.

“We-” Lexa joined her. 

“I’m going to ruin you both!” Ali cried at the ceiling. “I’m gonna grind you both into a smooth paste and spread you on fucking toast and eat your colassol fuck up for breakfast! What part of ‘devastating consequences’ was un-motherfucking-CLEAR?!” 

“We had nothing to do with this!” Lexa blurted quickly. 

“Why the hell would we do this?” Clarke chimed in. Her voice echoed on the call as it came in from both phones and Lexa flinched out the tiniest wince that caught Ali’s attention. 

Clarke and Lexa watched in painstaking agony as Ali squinted at her screen. Ali’s gaze was clearly bouncing between their two windows and went from curious to furious when she noticed Clarke’s dress from the party on the headboard behind Lexa and a strap and dildo in the exact same shade of Clarke Griffin pink behind Clarke’s head on top of a stack of classic literature. 

They were both naked in bed, their sheets and lighting looked exactly the same, and they both looked extremely guilty. 

“Alexandria,” Ali began as a threatening calm washed over her. Lexa’s eyes bugged out even wider. “Will you please rotate your phone to your right?”

Lexa didn’t think before glancing to the right to catch Clarke’s eye to make sure it was okay, and the gesture alone officially gave them away. Clarke hung her head and nodded, all totally visible to Ali on both screens. Lexa slowly turned her phone to show that Clarke was in bed with her. 

“Oh, for FUCK’S SAKE!!!” Ali grabbed her monitor with both hands and shook it, and the maniacal view made Clarke and Lexa huddle closer together, visibly cuddled and holding each other in both of their windows in Ali’s screen”. “Screw me sideways with something serrated, you two actually ARE fucking?! NOW?!”

“Well?” Lexa grimaced as she reached out and put a reassuring hand on Clarke’s thigh. A strange sense of serenity washed over Clarke in being able to finally just say it. 

“Big time,” Clarke answered calmly and too confidently for both of them. Lexa bit her lip and tensed up waiting for Ali to reach through the screen and rip her throat out. 

“Since WHEN?!” Ali barked. Her jaw rippled with tension and her grip on the edge of her desk showed all bright white knuckles. 

“We slept together in Arizona,” Lexa admitted quickly.

“There was some other stuff before that,” Clarke muttered into her hand.

“Why the fuck didn’t you two say anything?!” Ali cried and threw up exasperated hands that fell with a defeated slap on her desk. It made them both flinch in unison.

“We’re breaking up soon and you said you were gonna kill us if we did anything to fuck up the plan!” Lexa yelped.

“Which part of tenderly topping Clarke while you promised her she’s better than all this and whispered in her ear that you can’t wait to give her the life she deserves was not messing with the plan, Lexa?!” Ali shouted. Clarke coughed in shock at the accuracy.

“Do you have cameras in my room?!” Lexa scoffed, caught off guard. 

“Just an educated guess, since I’ve been observing you two bitches for the past ten years and watched every single fucking moment that the two of you were LYING TO ME!” Ali screamed at the ceiling. 

Lexa instinctively wrapped an arm around Clarke to protect her from Ali even though they were ten miles apart. The urge to keep Clarke safe went from something Lexa was forced to learn to something she felt a deep and earnest responsibility for, and happened naturally all the time now.

Ali let out a huge cry before taking several dramatic, steadying breaths and switching back to her planning voice. 

“We’re well past fucking up the plan at this point, ladies. I assume you heard the clip? Where the fuck is this that you two got recorded?” Ali snapped back into business mode. They could tell by the movement of her eyes that she was looking at multiple screens in a hectic effort to get the situation under control and get her house back in order. 

“That’s the floor outside my practice room,” Clarke spoke up. Ali’s eyes narrowed and she got strangely quiet. 

“I’m gonna have a car outside of Lexa’s place in ten minutes. This is DEFCON 1 shit, do you understand me? Get dressed and get your asses down here, and do not speak to ANYONE until I see you. Security will bring you straight to me when you get here. I’m putting Polis on lock down. No one gets out of this building until I know who did this, you got it?” Ali spoke deliberately and with imminent threat. 

“We got it,” Lexa replied nervously. Ali screamed in rage as she ended the call. 

“What do we do?” Clarke broke the tense silence they both sat still in for too long. 

“I don’t know,” Lexa admitted through a strained sigh. 

“I’m trying to think of anything we’ve done, somewhere we might have slipped up,” Clarke trailed off.

“Honestly, I’ve been so focused on making sure the label doesn’t know we’re actually in love that I forgot about making sure no one else found out it was fake,” Lexa scoffed. “It hasn’t been fake for a while now. I kind of lost track of that because I was so focused on keeping how much I love you quiet. It felt impossible.”

“God, that is so friggin’ honest and sweet. How are you like this? How are you real?” Clarke broke from the tension and quickly cupped Lexa’s cheek to bring her in for a few quick kisses. 

“Clarke! Our lives are falling apart!” Lexa yelped after letting herself get too caught up in Clarke’s kisses.

“I know! I’m sorry!” Clarke shouted and clamped her hands over her face. 

“I can’t believe someone would do this!” Lexa whined. “Who even could? If anything, I thought we were gonna get caught by someone on the inside for lying about actually being together.”

“But it was someone on the inside,” Clarke massaged her forehead and the pulsing headache behind it. “Why the hell would someone put themselves in that position?”

“We’re kind of a big deal right now,” Lexa grumbled and gestured at the steady flow of notifications streaming across their screens. “Whoever did it probably sold the truth for a ton of money.”

“But the truth is a lie now,” Clarke perked up.

“Let’s hope that saves us. Come on. We’ve gotta get ready,” Lexa pulled Clarke in and kissed her forehead. 

They dressed in heavy silence and waited on the sidewalk to meet their fate. Stonefield got out of the car and wordlessly gave them each a warm hug before opening the back door for them to climb in. They cuddled together in the back seat with defeated and confused eyes and anxious shoulders.

“Are you two okay?” He asked from the front after they all sat in silence for a few minutes. 

“I’m not,” Lexa sighed.

“Me either,” Clarke’s voice wavered.

“I can accidentally take the wrong exit and hit some traffic if you need a few extra minutes alone with each other,” Stonefield offered. They caught each other’s eyes and had a brief flicker of hope as they considered it. Clarke looked away first and took a sobering breath in. Lexa knew it in her heart, too, that they had to just get there and face it all. 

“I appreciate that,” Lexa leaned forward and clapped him on the shoulder sincerely. “But we’ll take the fastest way.”

“Whatever you need, girls,” Stonefield nodded. “I’m gonna give you your space for now,” he added before rolling the partition up and leaving them alone. 

“I’m sorry,” Lexa cleared her throat and gripped one of Clarke’s hands after a few somber minutes of watching New York brag in the morning summer sunshine through the windows.

“What are you sorry for?” Clarke asked quietly. 

“For what this is going to do to you,” Lexa’s voice hitched. “It’s gonna suck for me for sure, but I’ll ultimately be fine. What this is going to do to your life,” Lexa trailed off, too scared to say it. “I’m just so sorry.”

“Thank you,” Clarke sighed and rested her head on Lexa’s shoulder. 

“I promise I had nothing to do with this,” Lexa stated firmly. 

“I know you didn’t,” Clarke softened up. “I’m sorry my subconscious even suggested it earlier. I wasn’t thinking, I was panicking.”

“It’s okay, I know that,” Lexa leaned down and put a soft kiss in Clarke’s hair. “I can afford the legal hit. It’ll be pretty brutal, but I’ll make it out and I would still get to have you. If it comes down to it and they need to pin it on one of us, it’s not going to be you. I’ll-”

“Stop,” Clarke interrupted and gently touched her fingers to Lexa’s mouth. “Absolutely not.”

“Clarke,” Lexa tried again.

“It’s not going to come to that because neither of us did it,” Clarke reiterated. 

“There’s some twisted relief in being able to love you out loud while we defend our honor that the reason we never told anyone our relationship was fake is because we loved each other too much,” Lexa said after some thought. 

“Can you please just hold me until we get there? I’ve got a feeling this is going to be awful,” Clarke curled up into Lexa and they sat quietly for the rest of the ride. 

They were escorted through Polis Records by high level security with wide eyes and gapes and pointed fingers thrown their way through every room they walked through. The lockdown had everyone on edge. Everyone had seen the video several times and everyone wondered if they were standing right next to the anonymous source. There were whispers behind hands, some impressed looks, some hateful. They both tuned out as much as they could, gripped the other’s hand, and walked with their heads held high until they reached the executive conference room.

Everyone was already there. Ali’s manic rage spilled off her tailored, red lines in gushing streams. Raven and The Grounders all stood up straight when Clarke and Lexa were escorted in. Ali whistled at them to sit back down. Every seat at the massive conference table was taken and the walls were lined with any and every single person in the company who knew. 

Marketing, legal, the one from accounting who approved the budget for the stunt. Anyone that worked in the building and signed the NDA that knew the truth was in the room. The entire security detail was spread out through the building at any point someone might make their way to the executive floor. 

All of them stared at Clarke and Lexa with a blend of curiosity and shame as they walked in. 

“Now that the women of the hour are finally here after we dragged them out of bed, we can get started,” Ali began through gritted teeth. It was apparent that she was using everything she had to stay calm enough to command the room without completely self destructing. Her project and plot broke containment and she was nearing a full on nuclear meltdown. “No one leaves this room until we have a way out of this that clears all of us and I know whose neck I’m wringing!” Ali barked and slammed her fist on the table. 

“I want to go on record to say that when you asked me if they were fucking and I said no, I had NO idea they actually were!” Anya blurted at Ali and pointed at Clarke and Lexa hand in hand by the door. 

Whispers of ‘Holy shit, they’re actually fucking?’ ripped around the room alongside oos and coos and snickers.

“Why, yes, another delicate layer to this sloppy shitshow that is the real time destruction of all of our careers is that these two actually are fucking each other,” Ali continued on in an erie calm. “Go on. Tell them,” Ali flicked a lazy hand at Clarke and Lexa who held each other’s gaze and debated how to respond, then shrugged when they both came to the same conclusion that the truth was the best option now that everything was on fire.

“We’re in love for real,” Lexa spoke up. She wrapped her arm around Clarke’s waist and pulled her close, and the sheepish little smile that spread on Clarke’s lips told more truths than her words ever could. “We have been for a while.”

“Nice!” Echo sent a supportive smirk across the room. 

“So, not only do we have the arduous task of figuring out which one of you blabbed so I can orchestrate your swift and gruesome murder, we’re also dealing with this shit,” Ali pointed casually with her thumb at Lexa and Clarke wrapped up in an honest embrace. “I’ve got our cyber team working on this with a tech load that makes the NSA look like a preteen girl slumber party stalking a celebrity crush with a first generation blackberry! I will find out who did this, and they will pay!” 

“What are you two even talking about in that video?” Raven asked boldly. All anxious eyes in the room zeroed in on her confidence. 

“What does that matter, Reyes?” Ali shot daggers across the conference table. 

“Their conversation isn’t particularly incriminating,” Raven shrugged.

“No, it’s not,” Ali kept her stone stare on Raven as she clicked on screen after screen after screen all around the room to show different sections of the articles and videos where the informant exposed all kinds of internal secrets around Clarke and Lexa and how they were managed, and it was all way too incriminating and accurate surrounding Polis’ inner workings and manufactured images. “But a lot of this is pretty fuckin’ incriminating.”

“We were talking about trying to secretly date after you have us break up,” Lexa chimed in. 

“Double nice!” Lincoln nodded in appreciation. Ali shot him a look to be quiet. 

“Oh, swell!” Ali turned to them with a crazed, sarcastic grin. “Since you two have a propensity for LYING TO ME, why should I believe you didn’t leak this so you could get on with your adorably quaint happily ever after?!”

“What’s quaint about being broke and unable to work again?” Clarke snapped. The room’s gaze bounced quickly and timidly to her as she took back the power. “If I stop working, my parents are gonna die. Fast.”

“What about Lexa?” Ali challenged, a raving brow raised as she tried to keep herself in check and tried to stay in control. She could feel the energy changing around her, and it favored Clarke.  

“What ABOUT Lexa?” Clarke pushed out of Lexa’s protective embrace and took a firm step forward with square shoulders and a stiff back.

“It could’ve been her twisted way to get this over with so she could run away with you,” Ali snarled at Clarke’s bravery. 

“No it could not,” Clarke scoffed and grew more courageous as the room ebbed with anticipation. She could feel Ali backing down. She could feel a shift in the air, and it encouraged her to keep pushing. “She would never do that to me.”

“She agreed to lie with you to everyone in the world, and proved to be a little too good at it. How can you be so sure she’s not lying to you right now?” Ali folded her arms across her chest and stood toe to toe with Clarke. 

“I’ve never been so sure of anything in my life,” Clarke spoke evenly and stood up straighter to meet Ali’s intimidating eyes with her own. 

The room held its collective apprehensive breath waiting for Ali to steamroll Clarke right in front of them.

“Tough talk coming from a girl like you,” Ali twitched. Her robotic exterior was covered in cracks and her human emotions started to seep through. She believed Clarke, but she didn’t want to, because it would mean she had lost total control over all of them. 

“I trust Lexa. She didn’t do it. She loves me way too much to do something like this to me. Our entire ability to even do this thing? It came from her!” Clarke cried and gestured at Lexa behind her. “She kept me steady and stable the whole time. She put up with so much shit from me. She’s been the true north of this whole thing, reminding me who I am, pulling this out of me. I can’t do this! I never should’ve been allowed to do this! I’m way too unstable for this and you all know it,” Clarke made eye contact around the room at all of the staff that had dealt with her over the years. A few of them chuckled discretely. “If anyone was gonna ruin this thing, it was going to be me, and I would have if she wasn’t right there to catch me every single time I fell,” Clarke’s strong voice cracked. 

“Hell yeah, go off!” Anya called out enthusiastically. 

“Then maybe it was you,” Ali growled. 

“Why the fuck would I take any time I get to have with her away from myself?” Clarke swallowed hard. “I agreed to your shitty plan, which means I have to lose her. Soon! So I’m keeping her for every second I get to have her, even if it’s fake!”

Ali shook with rage as too many conflicting thoughts rattled through her skull.  No one else spoke while they waited for Clarke to continue. 

“And Lexa didn’t even need to do this! She’s fine! Lexa will be fine if it all falls apart. She did it for them,” Clarke paused and pointed at The Grounders who all perked up ready to go on Clarke’s behalf. “And she did it for me. She’s too good for all of this, but she stooped down to your level to take care of the rest of us,” Clarke shifted her aggressive point to Ali, her chest heaving as her emotions caught up with her and it sank in that she was bearing it all in front of everyone. 

“Damn, I love you, too, Clarke,” Lexa bit her lip bashfully behind Clarke and the whole room saw her cheeks turn pink. 

“We didn’t do this,” Clarke pleaded and pointed back and forth between Lexa and herself. 

“All we’ve wanted is to be able to make good art and love each other for real,” Lexa stepped up beside Clarke. 

“Which is exactly what the song’s about and that’s why it’s such a hit!” Raven cried from her seat at the table. The communal gaze pivoted back to her. “I’ve been saying it the whole time! That’s the good shit! Let ‘em fuck!” She shouted and cast a hand at Clarke and Lexa.

“As adorable and mushy as this public declaration is, it’s doing nothing to solve who DID do it, and every moment that ticks by that we don’t come back with some kind of counter press release is all of our collective asses sinking deeper into the shit pit!” Ali spat out and banged a fist on the table. Every ounce of her was clenched and she had trouble breathing. “We need to stop this thing from getting any worse!”

Everyone in the room flinched in a giant wave away from Ali who looked ready to self-destruct. 

“So let’s tell the truth,” Lexa spoke up tentatively. A hopeful half smile tugged at her lips.

“What?!” Ali growled, out of patience and ready to rip the conference table in half. 

“The press release we come back with is about how in love we are, and how absurd it is that someone would think our love is fake. That this is obviously a disgruntled employee making things up,” Lexa glanced to the side to try and get her speeding thoughts to come together. 

“Just turn right into the skid!” Echo nodded and shot Lexa a supportive grin. 

“Throw the contracts out and they don’t break up!” Anya brightened, catching Echo’s enthusiasm.

“And how the hell do we explain this?” Ali asked and hit her remote so every screen in the room played the incriminating video. Everyone avoided looking at each other as they listened to it again. 

“They’re obviously joking about something,” Raven rolled her eyes. 

“The masses aren’t spectacular with nuance, Reyes,” Ali clicked her tongue in response. 

“Say we were talking about secretly getting married,” Lexa came back firmly. Murmurs of approval stirred up amongst the suits. 

“Wait, what?” Clarke yelped, snapping out of the excitement of the build of Lexa’s ideas.

“According to everyone else, we’ve been together six months and we’re in megalove. That could easily be what we’re saying in that recording,” Lexa’s self-assured business strategy voice found its way to the foreground and it quelled Clarke’s nervous insides. “We’re talking about hiding something from the cameras, keeping something a secret, that we definitely wouldn’t be able to keep it a secret, and that we can’t wait until something blows over so you can be mine for real,” Lexa glanced sideways at Clarke and had to suppress her lovey grins.

“If you’re not careful with this, we’re going to have to get married,” Clarke warned. 

“We’re not gonna have to do anything other than be our real selves,” Lexa’s eyes twinkled as the idea came into focus. Ali twitched and chewed on all of the half responses she couldn’t get out fast enough. “We can take this thing down twofold and get people to feel for us in so many ways. We come out with it that this couldn’t be more false and there’s no way this relationship is fake because this love is way too huge and way too real.”

“You’d have to be an idiot not to see that,” Raven smirked, following Lexa’s lead. “This is the kind of love you can’t fake.”

“Yes! Then, we tell them that we were recorded having a very private conversation musing about our very private life, which we do not have anymore. Our whole story is that we kept each other a secret for months because we didn’t want exactly this!” Lexa gestured at the screens again.

“You’re right,” Clarke hesitantly brightened beside her. 

“Everyone hates to imagine something like this happening to themselves so they immediately feel sympathy. We’re two lovers trying to get a private moment with each other, and it was recorded without our knowledge. People hate that,” Lexa matched Raven’s rising energy. Ali’s head moved on a delirious swivel around the room to each person adding to the new plot.

“We’re everywhere right now. We never get to spend any quality time together and I miss you all the time,” Clarke’s grin spread wider as she started to see where the big picture was headed. “And we joked about running away to elope, but knew that we’re under such scrutiny and everyone’s on us all the time at every turn that there’s no way we’d be able to pull off secretly eloping without someone finding out and the paparazzi crashing it and ruining it.”

“I’d buy that!” One of the women high up in finance called out from the back of the room. 

“Me too!” One of the guys from legal doubled down.

“The best way to market ourselves against the accusation that our relationship is fake is to go so hard into how real it is that this all looks totally ridiculous,” Lexa pointed at the wall of screens calling her a liar.

“Rip up the break up contracts and write them the new album contracts!” Raven rallied and threw her arm around Anya. 

“Just one album contract,” Anya sat forward. Clarke and Lexa both stilled and waited for Anya to explain. “We do a full collab album and ‘I Wanna Be Yours’ is the single.”

“Yes!” Lexa shouted across the room.

“We could have an EP out before the end of the year. Full album by early spring. The way these two write songs? It’ll be huge!” Raven kept going.

“We play our cards right, you’d be looking at a stadium tour for next summer,” one of the C Level marketing managers pointed at Anya with his pen.

“We can get a full orchestra!” Lincoln grabbed Echo by the shoulder and gave her a shake. A low din of optimistic conversations hummed around the room.

“And we get to be together for real,” Lexa reached for Clarke’s hand and slowly turned to take her in. Clarke’s eyes were so blue as she held in her heavy feelings of hope. “No more hiding it, no more lies, no more curated nonsense.”

“Just us being us,” Clarke’s voice tightened and she gripped Lexa’s hand harder.

“So?” Lexa called out to Ali in the center of the room as she wrapped a protective arm around Clarke. “What do you say?”

Everyone stiffened up and the rise of silent hope in the crowd made the air vibrate. Ali hung her head, palms flat on the table as she weighed all of her options. Headlines screamed across all of the screens. Clarke took in a shaky breath that sounded way too loud. Before Ali could give her answer, the door flew open and a high level security guard wearing an ear piece and an all black suit burst in. 

“Ma’am?” He nodded once at Ali who whipped her head up. “We’ve got her.”

“Who is it?” Ali’s ice cold tone blustered through the group. Her eyes darkened with rage and her whole body rose up in seething new mania.

“Mid-level intern. She’s trapped on the studio floor. We shut down all elevators and locked her stairwells. She was dumb enough to record that on her work phone on the Polis network and saved it to her cloud,” he chuckled. 

“Ontari!” Clarke gasped. “She was outside the practice room! She dropped all her stuff and her phone was right there!”

“Shit, you’re right!” Lexa gaped. “I forgot all about her!”

“She HATES you!” Clarke gave Lexa a look.

“That’s correct,” Security nodded curtly.

Ali shuddered and trembled in a violent frenzy before she let out a wild shriek of frustration.

“Legal!” Ali screamed. A few suits and employees along the wall snapped to attention. “Shred the fucking break up contracts and get on new ones ASAP for an 18 month Clarke Giffin & The Grounders mutli-release contract with US and Euro tours. Get with finance and marketing on how you want it all rolled out. Marcus? Indra? Call their lawyers. I’m not taking any goddamn chances with this shit moving forward! Clarke? Lexa?” Ali barked and spun around to face them. They froze in one another’s arms, too overcome with cautious joy at everything falling into place around them. “Get ready to live happily ever after as loudly as you possibly can! We need your googly eyes and big, obnoxious love on every freakin’ wavelength there is right away!”

“Oh my god!” Clarke fell into Lexa and sobbed in relief. Lexa let out a victorious laugh as she clutched Clarke closer to her. She pinched her eyes shut and pressed a long kiss to Clarke’s temple, then squeezed her tighter. Whoops and cheers went up around the room. 

“Marketing and Branding, let’s get them proper media coaching RIGHT NOW! I want these little lovers downstairs recording a rebuttal to this shitshow in the next thirty minutes. I want this thing DEAD BY LUNCH!” Ali shouted and pointed at the screens. 

The room burst into excited conversations and new plans. Everyone talked over each other, clapped each other on the back and rattled off next moves. 

“We did it,” Lexa sighed as she leaned out of the embrace to see Clarke’s face. In the middle of it all, they held onto one another and bathed in the overwhelming relief of every single weight lifted. “We made it though and got the next album.”

“We get to make a record together!” Clarke sniffled through the happy tears that took over. The room erupted all around them with excitement over the new projects and relief that all of the tension had finally resolved. “We get to make real music together!”

“We get to make a life together, too,” Lexa grinned so warmly and so wide she could burst. Clarke yanked her into the most eager kiss. She didn’t care that they were having their perfect private moment in front of everyone. They were on the other side. She had everything she needed, including Lexa, and it didn’t matter who knew. 

“Thank you for believing me in,” Clarke said earnestly when they pulled apart. 

“I always did. I always will,” Lexa beamed back at her. “Thank you for trusting me with all of this. With yourself.”

“I always will,” Clarke’s happiness radiated off of her. “I think maybe I always did.”

“You definitely didn’t, but you really wanted to,” Lexa’s sly, cheeky, flirty grin crept back in and Clarke gave her a mock scoff from their old enemy days. The crew from marketing called their names and pointed at the door as they all made their way to the exits. 

“C’mon,” Clarke nodded towards the group calling after them. “We’ve gotta go tell the entire world how much we love each other.”

“Can’t wait,” Lexa kissed her again and kept her arm around Clarke all the way to the studio. 

The glam and image team’s plan for their looks for their rebuttal video was to tell the very real truth that Clarke and Lexa came into the studio straight from Lexa’s bed to figure out what the hell was going on. They barely touched them up, teased up their bedhead curls and cleaned up their make up leftover from the night before, then snuggled them up on the couch in The Grounder’s practice room. 

Lexa had her glasses on. Wardrobe had a Trikru College Of Music sweatshirt that they distressed to make it look eighteen years old and pretended it was Lexa’s, and they put it on Clarke. They had half finished ice coffees at the ready on their instant fake set that they cluttered with notes and sheet music, and shot the whole thing on an iphone to continue on with the informal aesthetic that this was all a big laugh for the two lovers to address.

The video was too adorable to deny. Clarke’s laugh was honest and full now that she could be her real self. Lexa moved so fluidly and with the grace and poise that came with authenticity. They both spoke calmly and evenly, because they could finally say exactly what they meant from deep down in their guts. Scratchy voices and cracked tones were easily dismissed by hangovers and a late night the night before that had been blasted all over the internet, and showed no signs of stress crying and panic that lasted hours. 

The way their hands moved, the way they touched each other and the comfort they had sitting together on the couch looked all too real because it finally was on every layer and level. The comments came flooding in and a considerable amount of them commented on how big their smiles were and the way they looked at each other. 

Marketing threw them back into makeup and wardrobe to get ready to spend the next twelve hours in public being as affectionate as possible in as many high profile locations as they could cram into one day. Security brought them down to the front exit so they could get very publicly picked up on the sidewalk where paparazzi were always waiting. 

“Well, would you look at that,” Lexa smirked warmly at Clarke who let out a low whistle.

Top level security flooded off the elevator and parted the crowded lobby. In the middle of the crew, Ali held Ontari by the back of her shirt like a lioness dragging a wounded animal back to the pride. The bustling mass of Polis employees froze and watched the whole spectacle.

“You better have one hell of a lawyer because I am going to come so hard for you and everything you stand for!” Ali bellowed as she shoved Ontari right past Clarke and Lexa and out onto the sidewalk. “If your ass isn’t off of Polis Property in the next thirty seconds, I will have half the NYPD down here to haul you away! I’m going to blacklist you into the next fucking century for messing with me!” Ali screamed as she watched Ontari run down the sidewalk.

After a massive and theatrical breath in and out, she brought a calm smile up to the rest of the room. 

“Let that be a reminder to you all!” She called out in a sing-song voice before floating back onto the elevator and disappearing up to the untouchable and mysterious executive floors.

“Kinda crazy that we beat Ali at her own game, huh?” Clarke slipped a smug smile Lexa’s way.

“It only worked because we did it together,” Lexa grinned back before wrapping her arm around Clarke and pulling her in for an affectionate kiss on her forehead. Half the employees in the room snapped a photo and had it posted in no time.

They spent the day all around New York having a blast together. They were all over the internet, and all of the comments coming from their fans were encouraging and thrilled that they had squashed the rumor right away.

The positive comments followed them through every interview, every social media post, every podcast appearance and paparazzi photo that followed. The rumor was dead in forty-eight hours. It was too absurd to perpetuate with all of the footage coming out of Clarke and Lexa’s huge, real love. The Grounders were extremely supportive, extremely protective, and made sure to talk up how much their singers loved each other at any opportunity. 

“I Wanna Be Yours” climbed to the number one spot on the charts the following week. The announcement that Clarke Griffin & The Grounders were recording a full album and making plans for a tour the following year was met with explosive enthusiasm. Between interviews and appearances, Clarke and the band were in their practice rooms mapping out ideas and working through the creative process together. It was clear from the first discussion that the collaboration was going to be magical.

Fall and winter in the studio was one of the most incredible artistic experiences of all of their careers. The way they all pushed one another and tried new things and new styles woke up so much more inside all of them. Raven produced the project, and she kept them all on track and reaching for more and pushing themselves well past their old creative limits. 

The album debuted in the spring at the top of the charts and brought in some of Polis’s highest presales ever. Announcements of the US and Europe tours were met with sold out arenas and unparalleled buzz. They were approached for movie soundtracks and appearances of all varieties. Clarke Griffin & The Grounders were household names and just getting started. 

All summer long they toured all over America playing huge shows in stadiums and arenas to sold out crowds having the time of their lives. They had full orchestras on stage, taking different college orchestras on and practicing with them the day or two before. 

The new album was massive and sounded huge and felt like a rock and blues symphony full of passion and fire and excitement. Clarke and Lexa’s voices were made for each other. Anya brought almost every piece she had on tour. Lincoln played new instruments every night. Echo stepped into a much brighter limelight than she wanted when her guitar prowess became widespread knowledge in each new city. 

One year to the day that they finally told the truth had them on the last stop of their USA tour right at home on stage in Madison Square Garden with the entire Trikru College of Music orchestra backing them up. Every seat in the house was on their feet for most of the show. The label set Abby and Jake up with a private video connection so they could watch it live at home, and everyone on their staff found a reason to drop by during the show. 

Clarke and Lexa were on fire that night. Something about being home in New York together after accomplishing so much together had their hearts just soaring. The band hit a groove so hard they were in danger of never coming back out. The lights were perfect. The orchestra was incredible. Everything went flawlessly all night. 

“Whew! Goddamn!” Clarke cried out after a particularly growly, bluesy, full power rendition of ‘Son Of A Preacher Man’ that the band had been known to do on stage. Clarke sat on Lexa’s piano as she belted it out and took a few moments to catch her breath as the crowd cheered.

“That one gets me every time, Love,” Lexa shook her head and caught the eye of a few people wolf whistling in the front row and shot them an exaggerated look of agreement. 

“Mm, me too!” Clarke laughed, still catching her breath as she slid off the piano and picked up her guitar. She slung the strap over her head for the final song of the night.Clarke and Lexa had been eye fucking each other and making moon eyes all through the show. They couldn’t help it. Each song pushed them closer and closer to the breaking point of having to have each other. 

“Quick question, Clarke,” Lexa joked into her mic as she played the first few tell tale notes of their biggest hit and sent a cheeky grin Clarke’s way. The audience cheered knowing what was next to close out the night. 

“Yes, Lexa?” Clarke replied, meeting Lexa’s goofy stage presence. 

“Since we’ve got time for one more, would you by any chance…want to be mine?” Lexa could barely get through the question before the cheering drowned her out. Anya and Lincoln laughed into their mics. Echo plucked a suggestive high note. 

“Y’know?” Clarke said as she strummed one of the opening chords and paused for the cheering to slow down. “Yeah. I think I wanna be yours!” Clarke cried and Anya counted them off, then threw the band and the orchestra into their big hit. 

Any time they performed the song, Clarke and Lexa were flooded with so many memories. Learning to move together in the early days. Late nights awake memorizing fake facts about each other. Struggling through learning to create together. Accidentally making each other laugh too much. Falling in love. Stealing so many kisses. Keeping each other safe and lifting each other up. Standing up for their love. Every sweet and sexy moment of connection between them through every day they had the pleasure of sharing. 

The whole arena erupted in cheers and sang along. It was their biggest crowd yet, the loudest crowd yet, and the most uplifting and electric performance of the song that told the truth about how much they loved each other yet. The final act came to a dramatic close with everyone playing as hard as they could. After the last note rang out, they all eagerly caught each other’s attention with wide, gleeful eyes and grins as the air around them buzzed on. Clarke, Lexa, and the band came front and center and gripped each other’s hands to take a bow. 

“The Trikru College Of Music Orchestra, everybody!” Lexa cried into a mic and gestured behind her to the orchestra, and they all stood up to take a bow. “From the bottom of our hearts, thank you so much, New York!” She added on before the lights flickered out leaving them on the stage as techs poured in to unplug equipment and start packing up. Clarke didn’t let go of Lexa’s hand and pulled her close for a sweaty, amped up kiss. 

“I love you so much,” Clarke smiled against Lexa’s lips, and gasped when Lexa pulled her in even closer for a kiss with a little more patience. 

“I always want to be yours,” Lexa replied with a steadfast smile, keeping Clarke wrapped in her arms.