fragile | clexa

chapter eighty four

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Clarke's life was quite perfect, but it didn't change the fact that she lived in hell not even a year ago. She did love waking up every morning to her new life, but that didn't erase the memories of all the years where day and night had been nothing short of terrifying. She might have been all new things and dreams and happiness, but that didn't take away the moments where she realized something had been taken from her and she couldn't get it back.

She was mostly okay with these moments. Lexa and Clarke both knew they happened, it wasn't necessarily a sign that things weren't going well. In fact, although new and old things resurfaced now and then and it made Clarke feel miserable, it gave her an opportunity to work through them and leave it behind.

Well, she was mostly okay with it. She wasn't okay with it at all when it made situations look different than they really were just because she thought of something stupid, especially if that affected Lexa.

So Lexa was being the sweetest girlfriend like always and thought she had to make up for neglecting Clarke the last few weeks. They spent the afternoon with Clarke's parents playing games, then Lexa ordered dinner to her chambers, let in a bath and offered Clarke a massage.

Although it started off without a second intention, they hadn't spent time like this in days, weeks, perhaps, and Lexa's warm hands gently digging into Clarke's soft skin became hands wandering and sweet kisses on Clarke's back became lips on her breasts.

Clarke was only partly ashamed of having craved just that kind of touch ever since the last time she had gotten it, of having waited for Lexa to have enough time and energy to take care of Clarke like this again. Everything felt tender and warm and pleasure seeped through Clarke's veins inexhaustably.

Maybe it was that. Maybe it was that and the feeling of safety as soon as Lexa touched her, the anticipation for Lexa's teasing fingers to do what Clarke wanted them to and the relief and pleasure when they did. Maybe it was the way everything was naked skin and moans and crumpled blankets, arching backs and straining hips and being together, the most beautiful definition of the word sexual.

Maybe it was that that made Clarke fall apart in Lexa's arms entirely. Her body gave its last strength to pleasure, trusting that after falling over the edge Lexa would catch her, trusting that Lexa would hold her and tug the blanket up her body when she wasn't hurrying the process of gathering herself.

Instead, she fell apart further. Lexa came to rest next to Clarke and her heartbeat, which had just been coming back to normal, stopped completely upon seeing Clarke crying.

It wasn't a simple cry, either. Sometimes Clarke cried when she was happy or tired or in a state where her brain was shut off and her body just eased into the kind of relaxation that allowed some tears (like after they had sex).

It wasn't an impassive, tired cry. Clarke was fully conscious. Her body had curled up to protect itself and her shoulders began to shake, her ribcage rising up and down with breathless sobs that grew audible as the crying turned into something painful.

Lexa didn't have to ask. The way Clarke guarded her bare breasts, had her knees drawn to her stomach and cried so hard right after they had sex- yeah, she knew that she shouldn't have let it happen casually out of an otherwise normal situation. She knew that she had taken it too far with thinking just because they had slept togeher a few times, it could be a regular part of their relationship.

Guilt flooded her and she was pretty sure she was going to cry and never touch Clarke again. She didn't know why she had let herself go there- she had told Clarke she didn't need sex in their relationship and she meant it. Why had she taken the opportunity anyway?

"Clarke," Lexa croaked, eyes glassy, threatening to overflow with tears only held back by the fact that she didn't get to cry right now. "I'm sorry."

Clarke looked up and her shaking body calmed a little when she saw Lexa. Despite her sight being blurry, Clarke didn't miss the expression, the shiny eyes. She managed to tear her arms away from her body to open them, let Lexa scoot just a few inches closer hesitantly so that Clarke could reach up to Lexa's face and wipe away a stray tear. She opened her arms again, invited Lexa for a hug or maybe asking her for it more rather, and thankfully Lexa accepted ever so carefully.

"I'm sorry," Clarke hiccuped, voice weak, close to Lexa's ear as her head rested on the other woman's shoulder. "I didn't mean to think about it but I did and- and nothing makes sense anymore."

Oh God. Not good.

Lexa's heart was racing and she was afraid her tense body wasn't offering much comfort to Clarke.

"This is beautiful," Clarke whispered. "Sleeping with you is so beautiful. It's breathtaking. I just want to keep painting you and feel you closer and have you kiss me more, but- but how can they make it so terrifying? Why would they do that to all these women? I always thought it made sense, but it doesn't. It's so massively ugly like that. Their sexual need cannot possible have been strong enough to get them to assault someone who never wanted them too. Most of the men had wives, why couldn't they love their own wives and consider them enough? It couldn't have needed slaves."

She cried harder into Lexa's shoulder and Lexa managed to weakly hold her closer. "Their lives can't have improved so terribly by taking us, and still they thought it was worthy to ruin hundreds of lives to improve their own by a few half-hearted orgasms? All that pain and all that trauma and all these stupid scars and impairments and all that death, only so they could get off? I didn't deserve that," she sobbed and now, Lexa let Clarke curl up against her so that Lexa could hold her entirely.

"No, you didn't," Lexa said softly, brushing through Clarke's hair and feeling her relax into the touch.

"And now I'm crying after sleeping with you and I'm making you feel bad and I hate it," she mumbled and Lexa smiled, pressing a kiss to Clarke's temple.

"I was scared I made you feel bad and you cried because I touched you. You can cry as much as you want my love, God knows you deserve it and I don't have any plans but holding you tonight."

So that's how they spent the time until they fell asleep; Clarke cried a little more and Lexa just held her.

-

Lexa fell asleep first and even though being out all day, the sex and all the crying had exhausted all of Clarke's energy resources, she couldn't follow up.

She had always thought that the abuse must've been worth it in the eyes of the abusers. But had it been, really? They had to pay for the slaves, was a forcedly submissive person really worth it?

The Chosen of the Light might have had the motive of money, but they only sacrificed it to the cause. Sure, their religion motivated them, but how?

These questions had been lost in worrying for Lexa and everyone else, meeting Jaha again and not failing when she had saved the army from the bunker, but now they arose again and wouldn't disappear.

There was something about that cult that wasn't just entirely paradoxical, but that had been left unexplained to the slaves in training.

Their god had been a goddess. They had had two female teachers. They were all about women being useless and weak and undeserving yet they worshipped one. How did they make sense of killing and selling women when they followed a female?

How did the level system they'd taught make sense?

It didn't let Clarke go again. For what seemed like an eternity, she turned and twisted in bed and couldn't find sleep. Instead, she remembered that Lexa had told her where all of the sacred stuff from the cult went until it was sorted out and someone found new use for it and she got out of bed.

Clarke considered waking Lexa, but knew ultimatively that Lexa wouldn't like the idea of Clarke going into the dungeons to find a room full of things soaked in trauma. But Clarke needed to. Something told her that she would find the answers to the endless questions that now found themselves a way into her head. And if the answer was just that the cult didn't make sense and no one questioned it because of fear or lacking intelligence, Clarke would be satisfied.

In the end, she had no idea of the answers she would actually find.

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