Chapter Text
Clarke wants to hate California. She wants to hate it because the only reason she’s even here is that her father died, leaving her mom, the constantly busy doctor to raise Clarke alone. California, Abby promises, will be different. Abby is one of the local hospital's department heads, meaning less emergency surgeries and more time to spend with Clarke.
Clarke hates California right up until they start driving on roads that boast a view of tree covered mountains on one side and stretches of sandy beaches on the other side. There are deer grazing in someone’s front yard and Clarke admires them as they pass. The most wildlife she’d gotten in Manhattan was the pigeons. The road twists and turns a few more times before Abby is pulling their car off the main road onto a bumpy gravel road. The driveway seems absurdly long but finally, after a hard right turn, Abby pulls up in front of a large two story house.
Clarke raises her eyebrows in disbelief, “You know that it’s only the two of us living together right mom?”
“I know honey, but this was the only house in the area that was close to your school and the hospital. And it’s only a fraction of what we paid for the brownstone,” Abby says as she grabs her purse from the back seat.
Clarke doesn’t reply but dutifully opens the trunk and begins to unload some of their boxes. Together, she and her mom stack the boxes in the living room next to the other boxes that the movers have already placed there. They spend most of the day unpacking the kitchen ware so that they can cook.
When Abby goes out to get groceries, Clarke decides to move her boxes to her room. She turns to the first room she encounters on her left. Her bed is already there, along with her bookcase, and drafting table. Clarke is still putting away her books in her bookcase when the doorbell rings.
Clarke is set to ignore it, thinking that her mom accidentally bumped the bell on her way into the house but the doorbell rings again. Clarke grumbles as she makes her way back down the stairs and through the maze of boxes in their hallway. She flings open the door, fully preparing for her mother, but instead she finds a girl, her own age, standing in front of her.
“Hi, sorry about that. I thought you were my mom,” Clarke explains.
“I’m Lexa, from next door,” Lexa gestures towards the left, “my mom wanted me to welcome you and your mother to the neighborhood. She baked cookies, muffins, and a couple of loaves of bread.”
Lexa hands Clarke the basket of baked goods and Clarke takes the basket and notices that it’s still warm.
“I’m Clarke. Thank you for the baked goods.”
Lexa replies, her face still stoic, “of course.”
Clarke opens her mouth to invite Lexa in but she’s interrupted by her mom driving the car around the corner.
“Hi! Lexa right? From next door? I met your mom last week when I came to close on the house,” Abby sticks her hand out enthusiastically.
Lexa shakes her mom's hand, “Hello Mrs. Griffin.”
“Please, just call me Abby.”
Lexa gives Abby a polite smile and nods.
Abby walks up to the door, groceries in hand and sees the basket that Clarke is still holding, “what’s this?”
“My mother likes to welcome new neighbors with food, ma’am,” Lexa answers.
Abby beams at her, “Thank your mom for us. And thank you for bringing it over.”
“You’re welcome ma’am.”
“Your mom said that you were going to Tondc Academy.”
“Yes ma’am.”
“Clarke is starting there on Monday.”
“It is a great school.”
They all stand there in silence for a moment before Abby speaks up again, “well thank you again for the baked goods.”
“It’s no trouble at all. I’ll see you on Monday Clarke.”
Lexa turns and walks back towards the road. Clarke follows her mom back into the kitchen with the basket and places it on the counter. Clarke opens the bread basket to reveal three different loaves of bread, a dozen muffins, and a dozen cookies of varying types.
“I guess I didn’t need to go grocery shopping after all,” Abby muses as she stares at the pile of food.
“You really didn’t.”
//
They spend the rest of the weekend unpacking their things and assembling some new pieces of furniture. By Sunday afternoon, their house is pretty much put together and after her mom goes to unpack the master bedroom, Clarke decides to take a sketchbook and head into their large backyard.
The backyard is mostly dried dead grass, but there are a couple of lone oaks that stand in the middle of the land. Clarke heads towards the back of the yard, where the forest meets the fence they previous owners put up.
She leans up against one of the oaks in the yard and starts sketching the forest. Clarke gets so caught up in her drawings that when she hears a snap and then a heavy thunk she jumps up from where she’s been sitting. She hears the sound again and looks around her.
Clarke starts moving towards the sound when she hears it yet again. It’s definitely coming from the neighbor’s yard. Clarke stacks up a couple of errant logs and branches she finds in the yard and makes a shoddy step stool. She carefully peers over the fence and she can see Lexa standing in her backyard, with her back to Clarke, shooting arrows from a bow into a tree trunk with a target painted on it.
Another woman, presumably Lexa’s mom, is standing behind Lexa critiquing and correcting Lexa’s stance and form. Lexa sends another arrow straight into the center of the bullseye but the other woman still finds things to correct. To her credit, Lexa doesn’t let it bother her and continues shooting arrows straight into their targets.
After a couple of minutes, Clarke hears her mother call for her and she jumps down from the stack of logs and trots back towards the house.
“So it turns out that I’ll have to go to the hospital early tomorrow and I can’t drive you to school.”
“Really mom?”
“But I talked to Lexa’s mom Anya and Lexa is going to drive you. She’ll be here to pick you up at 7.”
“I need to learn how to drive, mom.”
“What car are you going to drive?” Abby snaps back before sighing, “I’ll take you out this weekend okay?”
Clarke nods and they go back to eating in silence.
//
At 7 sharp, Lexa is outside with the car running.
“Hey, thanks for driving me to school.”
“No problem.”
Lexa doesn’t say anything else for the rest of the ride to school and Clarke is unsure of how to start a conversation with her. They pull into a nearly empty parking lot and Lexa parks the car near the front of the school.
“I can take you to the dean’s office.”
“Thanks.”
The dean’s office looks like it was converted from a closet. It’s small and smells a bit musty. The dean himself looks a bit like an older white-haired version of Popeye the Sailor and Clarke can’t stop seeing him as Popeye the entire time he talks to her.
When Clarke exits the dean’s office with her schedule and map in hand, there are students everywhere. It takes a couple of minutes and some asking around to find her locker in the central hallway. She’s grateful to finally put away some of her heavier textbooks.
A bell rings and all the students who were standing around start moving to their classes. Clarke shuts her locker and tries to use the map to get to her homeroom. She ends up walking into the room just after the second bell has rung and as a result, she’s stared down by all the students sitting in the room as she finds a seat.
“Alright class, we have a new student this year, Ms. Griffin would you like to stand up and introduce yourself?”
Clarke rises and all the students’ eyes turn towards her, “I’m Clarke. I’m from New York.”
“Thank you Clarke.”
The teacher takes attendance and then drones on about various first week of school events. After five minutes another bell rings and all the students get up. Clarke turns to the girl next to her,
“Hi, do you know where the art annex is?”
“Don’t you have a map New York?” the girl asks as she walks right past Clarke and into the hallway.
Clarke sighs and walks into the busy hallway. She follows the crowd and heads down a random hallway, only to find a dead end and not the art annex. She looks again at the useless map which doesn’t even have the annex label. She tries another pair of double doors in another hallway which leads her to the girl’s locker room.
A couple of girls look over at her curiously and the one closest to the door speaks, “Are you in this gym class?”
Clarke shakes her head, “No. I’m looking for the art annex?”
“Other side of the building, past the dean’s office,” the girl gestures in the vague direction of the dean's office.
“Thank you,” Clarke smiles gratefully.
“You better hurry, you have two minutes to get there.”
Clarke looks down at her watch and with a grateful wave at the girl, runs through the hallways towards the art annex. She actually gets to this class on time and finds a seat before the teacher even gets there. She’s panting and a little bit sweaty but she’s on time.
//
Clarke ventures into the cafeteria and she’s instantly overwhelmed. There are rows and rows of long picnic benches where all the students are sitting. Clarke looks around for anyone she would recognize. But she can’t pick out any familiar faces in the crowd.
“Hey, new girl, come sit with me.”
Clarke turns around to find the girl from the locker room standing behind her, “thanks. I’m Clarke.”
“Octavia.”
Octavia leads Clarke through the throngs of students while dodging trays held at nose height. When Octavia finally sits down, Clarke slides her tray to the other side of the table and takes a seat across from Octavia.
Octavia tells her about which teachers are ‘total hardasses’ and which teachers will let pretty much anything go. She finds out about the traditional post first day of school party for the seniors and the senior prank day during homecoming week. Clarke learns that Octavia is on the field hockey team despite the fact that Octavia is kind of a rebel. Octavia points out people to avoid (the football players, the girls’ soccer team, and the mock trial team).
“Clarke.”
Clarke whirls around to find Lexa holding an empty tray, “Lexa, hey.”
“Octavia.” Lexa nods at Octavia and Octavia returns the nod.
“Lexa,” Octavia intones in the same formal manner of Lexa's greeting.
Lexa turns her attention back to Clarke, “I just wanted to let you know that I have practice after school today so I won’t be able to drive you home until after 4.”
“Yeah. That’s fine. I’ll find something to do,” Clarke answers with a nod.
Lexa studies her face for a moment before replying, “Good. I’ll meet you at the front of the school.”
And with another curt nod at Octavia, Lexa continues on her way out of the cafeteria.
Octavia raises her eyebrows at Clarke, “So you carpool with the Captain?”
Clarke frowns, “The Captain?”
“Lexa’s the captain of the hockey team. She’s a great player, great captain too, if a little cold.”
Clarke winces and tries rephrasing Octavia's assessment, “she’s not talkative.”
Octavia laughs, “that’s an understatement.”
Octavia gathers up her lunch tray and Clarke follows her out of the cafeteria. They head to the lockers, stopping at Octavia’s first then at Clarke’s.
“You should come to the party later. It’ll be fun.”
Clarke shrugs, “I don’t know. I don’t have a car.”
“It’s at the Captain’s house. Her mom is a baking goddess with a drinking problem which means we can party as loud as we want to.”
“I’ll think about it.”
//
Clarke finds the bleachers after school (without much of a problem thankfully) and sits down. She takes out her biology homework, fully intending on completing it while she waits for the field hockey practice to be over, but she can’t help but watch.
Lexa yells encouragement at her teammates as they move through drills. It doesn’t seem like she ever gets tired. Even as they run laps around the field, Lexa yells at the stragglers in the back of the pack to keep up. Lexa jumps higher, runs faster, and moves through the drills with an effortlessness that’s not matched by anyone else on the field.
After a while, the coach forms them up into two sides and tells them to scrimmage. Clarke watches as Lexa darts in and out of defenders and sets up Octavia perfectly for a goal. She watches the way Lexa somehow weasels the ball away from anyone on the opposing team if they come near her.
There’s something beautiful and poetic about the way that Lexa is dodging defenders and outsmarting the goalkeeper at every turn. Before she knows it, Clarke is sketching in the margins of her notebook. First a muscular leg, then another, followed by a slim torso and two powerful arms swinging the hockey stick. When Clarke realizes what she’s been drawing, she shuts her notebook with a snap and keeps her eyes fixed firmly on her textbook for the duration of the practice.
She only looks up again when she hears the blaring of the whistle and the sound of cheers when the coach shouts ‘hit the showers’. Octavia picks up her bag and walks to the bleachers where Clarke is sitting.
“Hey. So are you coming tonight?” Octavia smiles at her and bats her eyes jokingly.
Clarke sighs and grudgingly smiles, “Fine. I’ll come.”
“You’re not going to regret this.”
//
Lexa walks out of the front door of the school, her hair wet and her gym bag slung carelessly over one shoulder.
“Hey.”
“Hi.”
“I hope you weren’t too bored watching our practice,” Lexa says as she slides into the driver’s seat.
“No. I got some biology reading done,” Clarke lies.
They don’t speak for the rest of the car ride. Clarke takes the time to admire the scenery as they drive by. California is so green with the redwood forests lining the roads and grassy fields covering the valleys. It feels like she’s constantly on the scenic route.
“You can drop me off here; you don’t have to drive all the way up the driveway.”
Lexa nods in recognition and pulls over onto the side of the road in front of Clarke’s house. She puts the car in park and Clarke goes around the back to grab her bag from the truck of the car. She shoulders the bag and comes back to the passenger side window.
“Thanks for the ride,” Clarke smiles at Lexa.
Lexa actually lets out a small smile in return, “no problem.”
Clarke turns to walk back towards her house but Lexa calls out after her, “if you’re free tonight, I’m having a party for the entire senior class at my house. You can come. It starts at 9.”
“Uh. Sure.”
Lexa gives Clarke a small smile before pulling back on the road. Clarke walks up the road to her house and finds the house empty. It isn’t as though she expected her mom to be home, but she had hoped that her mom would work less with the new job.
Clarke grabs some cookies from the bread basket and a glass of milk before settling in to get some homework done before the party. When her mom isn’t home at six, Clarke decides to take a break from her homework and cook dinner.
She eats dinner by herself at an empty dining room table while she studies. It isn’t until eight that her mom stumbles into the house with apologies.
“Sorry. Sorry. I got held up. There was an emergency surgery and two doctors were out with the flu and it pushed back my whole schedule. But I’m here now,” Abby pants as she dumps her bag on the kitchen counter.
Clarke doesn’t even look up from her reading, “I cooked dinner.”
“Thank you Clarke,” Abby grabs a plate and piles some food on it before sitting down at the table across from Clarke, “so how was your first day of senior year?”
“It was fine.”
“Just fine?”
Clarke raises her head from her books and huffs, “it was school, mom.”
Abby raises her hands in surrender, “since those two doctors are out, I have to cover for them. So I have an early surgery tomorrow.”
“So you can’t drive me to school.”
“No. I’m sorry honey. But I got you a bike so maybe you can bike there. It’s not that far and there are bike lanes on every road here,” at the disgruntled look on Clarke’s face, Abby rushes to apologize again, “I’m sorry. I wouldn’t unless I had to. You know how it is.”
Clarke does know how it is. She knows that in the aftermath of her dad’s death her mom found solace in working hard. But it’s been three years and Clarke had hoped that her mom would have finally been okay with being without her dad.
//
The party is in full swing by the time Clarke walks up. There are drunk kids and music spilling out of the open front door. Clarke fights her way through the throng of her new classmates and makes her way to the living room. She looks around for Octavia or Lexa but all she can see is a mass of bodies moving together sloppily and off beat.
She finds Octavia in the kitchen taking shots with some of her teammates. When Octavia catches sight of Clarke she runs straight for Clarke and slings an arm around Clarke before dragging her to the group of girls.
“Hey guys. This is Clarke. Clarke. These are the girls,” Octavia slurs into Clarke’s ear.
All the girls nod politely at her and Clarke gives them an awkward wave. Octavia leans further onto Clarke and says, “come on, the keg is this way.”
Clarke finds herself getting pulled into a sitting room where there’s a ring of students surrounding the keg. Octavia pushes through them and comes back with two red cups full of the cheap beer.
“Bottoms up!” Octavia shouts before chugging the entire cupful of beer.
Clarke stares down at the beer and takes a deep breath before chugging her entire cup as well.
“Damn, New York can drink!” a guy Clarke recognizes from her history class yells.
Somehow, minutes later, Clarke finds herself playing beer pong with Octavia against two football players. So far she’s only had to drink a couple times since the guys are so drunk they can’t make shots. Octavia, even drunk, is sinking nearly every shot.
Soon enough, they clear the table and beat the guys. The rest of the room cheers and she and Octavia hold their hands up in victory as they walk back into the kitchen. The people in the kitchen offer them shots and Clarke and Octavia take a couple of shots with them. Clarke barely swallows the second shot she’s handed. It’s jaeger and it is definitely not Clarke’s cup of tea.
She excuses herself and stumbles out onto the back porch. Clarke greedily gulps in the fresh crisp air. She revels in the lack of the stale beer smell and her stomach finally stops churning.
“Could you see the stars like this in New York?”
Clarke turns her head to find Lexa sitting on a plastic chair, cradling a bottle of vodka. Lexa’s looking straight up past the eaves of the house and at the dark sky. Clarke tilts her head up too and she can see the stars shine brightly down at her. She can actually pick out Orion’s belt.
“The lights of the city were always on and always bright. We couldn’t even pick out the North Star if we tried.”
“I used to spend so much time lying in my backyard looking up at the stars.”
“What happened?”
“High school. There’s always something to study, something to practice, an extracurricular to participate in, an award to win…” Lexa trails off and finally looks over at Clarke, “I have to get into college.”
Clarke can tell that Lexa has been drinking. Her words come slower, though still well enunciated, and she’s not sitting rigidly like she usually does. She’s slouched on the chair, her long legs extended casually in front of her. Every so often she pushes with her feet and tilts the chair back a bit to rock it.
Clarke can feel the alcohol rushing through her veins, warming her up from the outside in. And she knows that it’s the alcohol talking but she can’t help what she says next,
“My mom bought me a bike so that she doesn’t have to drive me to school. And I don’t think I’ve had dinner with her in a year.”
It feels so good to tell someone and let it out. Lexa looks over at her with wide bright eyes and then gets up to walk over to Clarke. They’re both leaning on the railing of the porch and Clarke tries not to shudder when she feels Lexa’s shoulder brush hers. They’re standing side by side and they’re so close that Clarke can feel the heat radiating from Lexa’s body.
“I can drive you to school.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I have to drive to school anyway.”
Clarke can’t deny the logic in that, “thanks.”
Lexa sends her a small smile and then tilts her head back, “do you know your constellations?”
“I can pick out Orion’s belt,” Clarke also leans back and looks up at the sky and points at where it is.
Lexa raises her arm and starts moving it so that it’s pointing at different stars. She traces a shape a couple of times, “that’s all of Orion.”
Clarke mimics Lexa’s arm movements and she finds that she can see the shape of Orion. Lexa continues talking, “that star that makes up his shoulder is Bellatrix and the other one is Betelgeuse.”
“You know a lot about stars,” Clarke’s eyes drop to Lexa’s face and she can’t help it when her eyes are pulled down towards Lexa’s lips. She flicks her eyes back up in time to see Lexa meet her eyes.
Lexa turns towards her and Clarke turns her whole body too so that they are standing toe to toe. Lexa’s face is so close to hers that all she can do is close her eyes. She can feel Lexa’s nose brushing hers and she can feel the heat from Lexa’s breath on her lips. Lexa’s lips brush hers for all of a nanosecond before the backdoor opens with a bang and Lexa jumps away from her.
Clarke’s eyes fly open and she stands frozen, her hand on the railing, her lips still parted in anticipation for the kiss that never came. It’s Octavia and some guy who looks like he could be a football player. They’re fused at the mouth and stumbling out onto the porch.
It takes them a couple of seconds to notice that there are other people on the porch and they break apart when they realize that they’re not alone.
“Captain! Clarke!” Octavia shouts, taking drunken steps towards the two girls who are standing about a foot apart.
“Octavia,” Lexa says awkwardly patting Octavia on the back when Octavia decides to throw her arms around her, “Lincoln, you might want to take her home before-”
“Yeah. She thought this was the front door,” Lincoln says as he peels Octavia off of Lexa and lifts her up bridal style.
With a nod at both Clarke and Lexa, Lincoln carries Octavia back into the house. Clarke turns back towards Lexa but the spell is broken. Clarke is feeling a lot more sober than she was five minutes ago. The ‘all-business’ mask has slipped back onto Lexa’s face and Clarke wishes she could see under that mask again.
“I should start kicking people out,” Lexa turns back towards the house and before she re-enters the house she turns back towards Clarke for a second. She doesn’t say anything though and walks into her house.
Clarke stays outside for another five minutes before venturing through the house. It’s surprisingly empty. There are red cups littering every counter and table top though. Clarke starts stacking the empty cups and dumping out extra liquid in the sink.
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I want to.”
She and Lexa clean up in silence for a while. Lexa hands her a garbage bag to put all the cups in and she wipes down all the sticky surfaces. When Clarke has finished stacking cups she helps Lexa move the beer pong table back against the wall. The whole place is straightened up in fifteen minutes and when it’s all done Lexa walks Clarke to her front door.
“I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”
“Thanks for helping me clean up.”
Clarke walks out the door with a smile on her face. Later, when she's staring up at her ceiling in bed, she thinks about how awesome Lexa is when she doesn't have the 'all business' mask on. She feels her stomach flip when she remembers how close they were to kissing. And she goes to sleep excited for the next morning, for once.