fragile | clexa

chapter seven

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Lexa had just fallen asleep when a light touch on her arm had her awake again. With alarmed eyes, she looked around, body tense so she could defend herself against any possible person in her room.

It took a while for her to realize it had been Clarke next to her. She really wasn't used to anyone sleeping in her bed.

She looked over to the girl and sighed when she saw the uneasy expressions on her asleep face. With a careful movement, she shook the blonde's shoulder slightly.

Clarke didn't wake up though. She just looked worse.

Lexa shook the light body a bit harder. Eventually, Clarke opened her eyes, hands flying out to grip Lexa's arms. "Get away," she hissed before she was fully awake.

Lexa moved a bit, but Clarke held onto her with a strength the brunette hadn't known was in those arms. If she didn't want to hurt Clarke, she couldn't move further away. "Clarke?" Lexa asked softly. "If you want me gone, you have to let me go."

-

Clarke had only noticed that it was the Heda kneeling at her side on the bed instead of Finn again after a too long while. She found the woman's eyes, which made her immediately let go of her arms. Clarke looked down at her own hands that had just clutched onto the Heda like blood were spilled upon them.

Had she told the Heda to get away from her or had that been the dream?

"I-I'm sorry," she spoke hoarsely. 

"Don't be. I didn't mean to interrupt your sleep, but you looked like you didn't sleep that well anyway."

Clarke nodded lightly, unsure about what to do. Talking with your master had never been a lesson.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Lexa asked. Yeah, right there was the problem. How the hell was she supposed to talk? What was she supposed to say? Would the Heda be insulted if she said no? Would she be if Clarke said yes?

She hadn't been last time.

Lexa watched a pair of dark blue eyes nervously flickering around the room, always kept low, and she put a bit space between their bodies. Sitting next to where Clarke was still rigidly lying, leaning against the headboard and looking at the wall, she spoke again, "You can talk to me if you want to. It doesn't matter if it makes sense or not. But of course you don't have to tell me anything." Lexa shrugged as if saying it all didn't matter anyway.

Clarke kept quiet. Her mind was screaming at her to say something, but with every second that passed, the ideas about what to say reduced from zero to minus hundred. It felt like her body couldn't do any more than lying there with a straight back and keeping her mouth shut.

The girl felt horrible for it. She knew the Heda wanted a verbal answer to the question and silence was pretty much not verbal.

But Lexa just shrugged again. "Okay. Do you think you can sleep again or would you like to do something else? Eat, bath, draw? Read maybe?"

Clarke still wasn't sure what to say. She was still tired, but that didn't matter. "I will do whatever you tell me to do," she opted for the safest thing to say. But Lexa just shook her head.

"No, what do you want to do?"

Clarke unsurely looked up back into Lexa's eyes. She really didn't know what to do. But that soft green somehow didn't seem pushing, however possible.

"Okay," Lexa repeated. "Well, then I suppose I'll try to get back to sleep. If you need me or anything, wake me or ask the guards for whatever it is you need. As I said, you can do everything."

The brunette laid back down and curled up against a pillow, still wide awake and ready for Clarke to say something. But the girl didn't, and Lexa couldn't help her eyelids from dropping shut again after a good while. She was back asleep at around three in the morning. Clarke didn't sleep, her body physically refusing to give into that state of vulnerability again if it wasn't needed a 100 percent.

She took the time to think about the offer of TonDC the Heda had made her instead.

It could all be a big trap. That was something she hadn't thought of before, although it should've been her first thought. People moving her to another place never ended up well.

Maybe it was a dirtier, worse place the Heda was just trying to persuade her to going.

The thing was just, if the Heda wanted that, she wouldn't have waited. Right? There was no reason to nicely ask her and give her the option no if it was a trap. Traps were basically never needed, her masters could just tell her what to do and Clarke had to obey it. Especially if that master was the Heda.

What she thought to be more likely was the Heda wanting her healthy and fine to sleep with or just her being the little girl the Heda could take to clean her kill marks. Like someone who didn't matter anymore anyway to be nice to to make up for bad things done in the past.

So, concluding, it was better to just obey that wish of the Heda and say yes to the therapy. That would do it.

The hope that she would become her own person again, like the Heda had said, that she would meet her family again, with an improved mental and physical health, that that was the intention of the Heda, it was like a tiny plant the Heda had set in a place where there was neither enough sun nor enough water for it to grow.

-

When Lexa woke up the next morning, Clarke was lying awake next to her, body as straight and rigid as it seemed to always be.

"Good morning," Lexa said and suppressed a yawn.

"Good morning."

"Would you like breakfast?"

Clarke's eyes flickered through the room nervously. Her mind was again racing at such a simple question.

"I um- would of course like to eat with you if you want that," she said. Lexa sighed internally.

"Okay. Next time, you can leave the 'if you want that' out of your sentences," she replied. "Anything you'd like in particular?"

Clarke shook her head. "I am fine with everything."

Of course she would be, Lexa thought. She got up nevertheless and ordered 'a bit of everything'. When the food had arrived and Lexa had sat down on the table with Clarke to eat, Lexa asked the blonde whether or not she had decided about TonDC.

She was rather surprised to hear a, "I would like to take your offer if it still stands."

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