Hook(er) Up - A Clexa Fic

Chapter 31- Been a while

Hey, are you free this week?

Clarke reread the message fifty times. She just couldn't believe it was real. She didn't know if she wanted it to be real.

Her whole body filled with conflicting emotions every time she read the message. She wanted it to be true. She wanted- needed to see Lexa again. She needed to hold her close and feel her alive and breathing. She needed to hold her and never let go, promising to keep her safe. She needed to remind herself that Lexa was going to be okay. That she was okay.

But she was terrified. She was terrified of getting too close. Getting too close and caring about her too much and getting her heart broken. She didn't want to be so attached to someone she couldn't reasonably get that close to. She couldn't love someone she could so easily lose. She didn't want to end up like her mother.

She couldn't end up like her mother.

Clarke wouldn't live past it.

Seeing Lexa that day, she felt every ounce of her soul leave her body. It was like a spitting image of the childhood memories she pushed so far back. It was like watching her father die all over again. It was being utterly helpless and frozen and confused. It was being completely broken inside out. Only this time she wasn't a child asking why her father wasn't waking up. This time she was her mother, staring at the lifeless corpse of someone she once knew. Still knew. Still loved more than anything else. Just watching the life leave her beloved's eyes. Just watching everything she knew escaping her and not being able to do anything about it despite being one of the best doctors in the field. Regretting never saying enough "I love you's" and spending every day with them. Thinking of all the times she wasn't good enough or should've been nicer. Wishing she could've done more- should've done more. Afraid of letting go. Not believing what her two eyes were showing her. Not being able to say goodbye.

She hated spending time with her mom after her father passed because she would always bring him up when Clarke didn't want to think about it. But her mom would never stop talking about him. Now she knew why.

...

She hated being scared. She hated people leaving her. She hated getting so close to people that they become so much of who she was that without them she felt nothing. And she hated strokes.

...

But she missed Lexa more.

She swallowed her nerves and paranoia, stopping herself from insistently rubbing her thumb against her knuckles that were bound to bleed if she continued.

She really shouldn't. She shouldn't respond. She would just get fixated on a dream-Lexa again. She would just obsess over the thought of being with her, the feeling of being around her. She would obsess too much and it would break her.

But sometimes Clarke was just stupid and irrational, letting her body follow the pinching in her chest rather than her conscious mind.

And clearly, it was a dream she couldn't get out of her head regardless.

Well, that's an awful way of saying 'hello, it's been a while'

She stared at the phone for just a bit longer, watching her hands type on their own.

Depends. When?

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Clarke set the speaker volume far higher than usual, a Friday ritual to accompany her cleaning. Most people, including Maddi, hated cleaning, but Clarke never really understood why. Having an hour or half to just listen to her favorite songs and dust or sweep on autopilot was such effective use of time without the boredom of a plain, mundane task.