fragile | clexa

chapter fourteen

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Lexa had no idea what she was supposed to do. She wasn't good at calming people because when did the Heda take care of anyone crying? She had the instinct to brush through Clarke's hair, but she didn't do that. She also didn't hold Clarke closer. How did calming without touching work?

She just kept riding the horse and made sure Clarke didn't fall off it instead, riding it back to the stalls and then picked Clarke from the animal's back.

Her hands were on Clarke's hips unsurely, the girl's legs still around her waist and her face now buried in the crook of her neck. Her breath and soft hiccups tickled Lexa's skin, tears wetting it and Clarke smelled of the soap she had last bathed with. Something of fresh mint and strawberry.

Besides that, Lexa could feel a sharp hipbone even through the shirt and she really, really wasn't sure how to carry her now. Bridal style was okay. She could do that. But how did she hold Clarke when she was clinging to Lexa's body like that and all the while barely had a grip on her?

She just put herself on autopilot and walked through TonDC to her tent, trying to shield Clarke from the view of others. She couldn't help feeling overwhelmed anyway, Clarke felt even lighter like that, like a barely put together shell of a human, and the blonde was still crying.

She had stopped by the time they had reached Lexa's tent. Clarke was so ashamed of herself by then that she didn't want to leave Lexa's arms to face her.

Lexa gently put her down on the bed and somehow, Clarke managed to get her tense, agonizing arms from around Lexa's neck. She didn't even manage to look at the floor, only closed her eyes and curled up into the furs, her face burying somewhere in the scent of flowers.

For a moment, she felt okay again, the feeling rooted somewhere under her thoughts and drying tears. For an instant, it was just these soft furs and the roses (or were it waterlilies now?) and Clarke felt okay that she curled up a little further and started crying again.

-

The next day, Clarke was lying in the bed stiffly, not curled up anymore and still with her shoulders square, only facing the ceiling and her eyes were opened. She looked scared.

"Clarke?" Lexa asked carefully after waking up and the blonde nodded once. "Talk to me."

"About what?"

Clarke's tone was a little too quiet to easily understand, but Lexa got the barely whispered words anyway.

"What's going on?"

Lexa wasn't sure if the question was wrong to ask, the tried to be hidden mortified expressions of Clarke speaking for themselves.

"I'm more than sorry for yesterday. I don't know what happened." Clarke wanted to add a 'You shall punish me the way you think it appropriate', but she thought that either, the Heda wouldn't need her approval for that or she would get another 'Clarke. I'm not going to hurt you', with a face like there wasn't that tattoo of 'owned by the Heda, Lexa kom Trikru' on Clarke's neck.

Maybe she wanted to get the punishment. She wanted to feel her back sore and bleeding from a whip. She wanted to feel so much pain that she'd be on the brink of passing out. At these points, Clarke didn't 'think' or have to worry about saying anything wrong because her owner made habits out of having conversations.

"Don't apologize," Lexa only replied and noticing Clarke's discomfort, she changed the topic. "What do you want for breakfast?"

"I do not mind anything," Clarke said carefully. That was good. Leaving the choices to Lexa. That was who was supposed to have all the choices anyway.

-

Clarke was informed that day that there would be a surgery on her elbow the same morning. "Only if you're sure," Lexa had said. Clarke wasn't sure. She was afraid. But she had become afraid of everyhing and that way or another, wasn't in any place to object. She had told herself not to choose against or for anything that the Heda might've chosen to be different before, or to take her comfort over Lexa's time again.

She broke that rule when she was lying on a chair with a woman feeding her medicine, careful not to hurt her throat. Clarke's throat hurt all the time anyway, so it didn't matter. But then the surgical things came out and her elbow was taken into firm hands and her eyes couldn't help but flicker around and search for Lexa again.

"Do you want me to stay?" Lexa asked and Clarke was too dizzy to remember anything about not looking at the Heda. So she simply laid there drinking in the comfort of Lexa's eyes while the healer talked to her far, far away and a knife somewhen cut into her elbow. She wasn't supposed to feel it too bad, but she thought that the pain might've been worse than the previous elbow pain.

And then Lexa did a weird thing. She took Clarke's hand.

She sat there besides Clarke and just held her hand.

For a moment, right after she had taken it, Clarke thought Lexa was going to take it back again, like she hadn't thought about the mistake she was making. Clarke also thought the reason she hadn't pulled away was that short, unwilling spasm of Clarke's muscles around Lexa's hand, keeping it where it was. Then, Clarke thought the reason why Lexa had taken her hand in the first place was because Clarke was crying again. Maybe she was screaming. She was too dizzy to know anything but the medicine not working as it probably should have.

It didn't matter though. Clarke was looking at Lexa's eyes and the color had that effect that calmed her breath and the hand holding her own made her feel weird in a way that distracted her long enough not to pass out completely from pain. Clarke never thought that surgery like that would be another thing listed under 'okay'.

-

They visited Artigas again later that day. Lexa hadn't talked to Clarke much and she'd seemed hesitant about it, probably because Clarke had started crying so pathetically the last time. On the horse, she tried to keep a little more distance to Clarke's body and then, when she had lifted Clarke off the horse again and sat her on the hay to watch Lincoln clean Artigas, she didn't sit next to Clarke.

The blonde's eyes flickered up, but Lexa's weren't on her and she was gone too quickly behind the stack of hay. After maybe half an hour that Clarke had spent looking at Lincoln and Artigas, the horse laid down in front of her another time. He still had the braids in half his hair.

Clarke waved at him again and somewhen after finishing her braids, she just laid down next to him and curled up a bit. Slaves were supposed to lie straight, but Artigas wasn't a person and the hay wasn't a bed and curling up had become a thing that Clarke didn't think was too bad.

"I don't know anything Artigas," Clarke whispered and the animal moved its head a little, nudging Clarke's arm a little and tickling her skin. "I hate this. I'm not allowed to hate things. I don't want to hate things. I don't want to break all the rules and do and think stuff I'm not supposed to think and do."

Clarke felt really bold speaking that out loud because it might've been the longest entire speech she'd done in forever. That's why she kept lying next to the horse quietly until the sun was about to set, not moving an inch and trying to get the pain out of her every limb. She didn't know if she should lie on her just fixed elbow either, because it was still hurting.

So she closed her eyes for a moment, laid on a mess of soft hay next to a horse with beautifully dark fur in the last rays of sunshine and tried to blend it all out. When she opened her eyes again, it wasn't Artigas' eyes looking at her anymore. It were almond-shaped human eyes, green in candle light and nothing alike Artigas' except the calmness and curiosity that poured out of them.

It was past 3 a.m. by then. 

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hi guys, I hope you enjoyed the chapter, stay safe and awesome :) also check out my new clexa fic called 'It's only Pretend' if you want, it's a modern day one where Clarke and Lexa fake date for two weeks- what could go wrong? (everything and even more)