fragile | clexa

chapter twenty six

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Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

Clarke knew the regular rythm of Lexa's heart when she woke up. Her hand unconciously grabbed Lexa, her legs sprawled over another fur as they stretched out the sleep and quickly moved back into their mentally confined space.

She pressed her ear harder on Lexa's breast, not awake enough to think of any inappropriateness, and took in the hearbeat again.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Five.

It kept going, and going, and when Lexa wrapped her arm around Clarke all the while being asleep, the blonde's eyelids dropped and a weak tear left from her nightmare leaked out of the corner of her eye, running over her temple and soaking Lexa's top.

Roses. Waterlilies. Thump. Thump... Twenty-six, twenty- seven, twenty-eight... Warmth. Breathing. A moving chest.

Lexa was alive. Completely and utterly alive, breathing.

Another tear ran over Clarke's face and into the woman's shirt.

The image of pale eyes faded, slowly only, but it faded. A blood stain turned into the simple image of a red canvas in the tent. A headless body into Lexa's completely fine dresser. And the dead girl in the bed was gone completely. She didn't 'turn into Lexa'. The girl was gone and Lexa was there.

Her mind woke up only slowly past that nightmare, figured more and more until her entire consciousness was there with her.

Oh fucking God.

She'd gone on that date with Lexa. And was now lying in her arms cuddling.

Her heart picked up on speed, and the volume of it drowned out Lexa's heartbeat. Cherry blossoms, smiles, green, calmness-

"Lexa," her mouth moved on its own. "Lexa."

The woman moved further onto her side and adjusted her arm around Clarke, but didn't wake up.

"Lexa."

"Mhm," a subconscious, sleepy hum in response. Clarke figured if the woman was that tired, she had no business at all to wake her up. She didn't have that any time, actually.

She couldn't stay in the bed either though. Her body seemed too itchy, too awake for that, and her heart couldn't handle sleepiness anyway that moment.

So she peeled out of Lexa's loose grip, reached for her cane and forced herself up on her legs.

Clarke was able to do enough steps to reach the bathroom without any cane, but she was a little too agitated to trust herself that morning. Once her destiny was reached, she leaned the cane and then herself against the sink and stared at herself in the mirror.

Her hair looked even healthier than a week ago. Her eyes looked, physically, less hollow, just as her cheekbones, and there was something about her back that was somewhat straighter than the hunched, unhealthy and unstable thing it had been two months ago.

Yeah, she looked better. And she couldn't stand looking at herself like that a second longer.

She washed her face and straightened the clothes she had never changed after the date.

Clarke also realized that it wasn't morning at all and that they hadn't slept through the night. It was evening, and not even very late.

Since Lexa was still not awake though, and Clarke didn't know what she should and was allowed to do, she sat down and started painting. That time she was well aware what she was painting, but that didn't stop her from finishing the outline of Lexa's face.