heda | clexa

seven

That night, Clarke does not sleep.

She has to plan, and after her disastrous nap this afternoon, she won't make the same mistake twice.

She waits until Lexa is asleep, curled on her bed facing the wall, and then gets a candle to light up a small corner of the room. It's a primitive wooden hut that Clarke would not want to stay in in winter, but at least, there are no mosquitos and the walls are thick enough to have a little quiet and peace. It smells of old wood and smoke from the fireplace downstairs.

The bedroom consists of nothing more than two twin beds, bedsheets of rough brown canvas, and a small nightstand for each of them. There's a wardrobe on the far side of the room, but neither brought an array of clothes. Lexa has a few clothes to change into and Clarke, well, she relies on washing what she has regularly.

Besides the basic necessities, there's not much space on a ship for fashion, after all.

A small desk stands in front of the window, right by the foot of Clarke's bed, and Clarke makes sure the candle is no hazard to the wood or the curtains before she sits down and starts doing what her people rely on her to do; thinking.

The parts of a blurry plan fall together in her mind like puzzle pieces of young children to play with. She scribbles into a small notebook she picked up from Raven's house, no doubt something her teacher will be missing tonight, but he should have the resources to get another one. Her brainstorming of solutions is interrupted soon though, and said interruption nearly kills Clarke.

Clarke doesn't like sleeping- especially in front of others- for a reason. When you spend time in the army, on battleships and fields, there's no rest. There's no friend and no noise is harmless. She grew to know every sound, to hear every footstep, every breath, every rustling and to identify it. Who is approaching, what mood they're in, what their agenda is- Clarke knows it all, always.

So when suddenly, Lexa hoists herself up on the windowsill right by Clarke's desk, in absolute silence, Clarke's heart nearly stops. She has her knife at the ready in a matter of seconds, but luckily her eyes are faster than her reflexes and she retreats before she does Lexa any harm.

"Did I scare you?" Lexa asks, brows adorably furrowed.

Clarke rolls her eyes. "No, Lexa, just practicing knife drills. For all that's sacred, what are you doing? Why are you so quiet? How did you even get up and walk across the room without a single noise?" she asks, closing the notebook in the meanwhile and subtly sliding it out of immediate sight.

Lexa shrugs and pulls her knees up to her chest, back leaned against the window frame, her dark nightgown becoming one with the flimsy curtain. "I don't know why you would expect me to be a gorilla," she deflects skillfully.

What on Earth is a gorilla?

Clarke sighs and sits back down on the desk chair, waving her hand dismissively. "I don't care for what you are or are not, but if you would like to be alive, I advise you not to sneak up on me."

Lexa hums, non-saying, as if she wasn't committing to a promise just yet. Her eyes drift from Clarke to the darkness outside, to the few lit torches along TonDC's small main path and the other houses similar to this one, where Clarke's friends are staying. Lights are still on in some of them, but most are dark.

"Why are you still up?" she asks.

"None of your business."

"Did no one tell you the schedule? That you have a mandatory bedtime?"

Clarke can't help it; she bursts out in laughter. "A what?" she asks, grin huge, and begs for Lexa to repeat that ridiculous idea of a bedtime.

The whole town would sooner be dead than Clarke Griffin following a bedtime. She didn't do that when she was four.

"You seem to be amused."

"That barely covers it."

Lexa hums again, in that strange way of hers that Clarke can't decipher. "I know you and your people are... stubborn. And I don't understand why I was sent, because my superior must know that I do not have the same things on you that, for example, teacher Pike has on his student. I cannot command the army to kill or torture you."

"Damn right, and if you try, we'll have your army dead for it. We might not fight our way out of this alive, but if you insist on warfare, we'll die by killing as many of your people as possible."

Lexa seems unfazed. She sits on her windowsill, somehow perfectly balanced on the thin board, and lets the wind blow some lonesome strands of hair into her freckled face. The outlines of her body are unclear and dark, swallowed up by her nightgown, her face golden in the candlelight, eyes two dark pools with wide pupils, focused on Clarke and unbelievably soft.

"I know," Lexa says and Clarke is a little taken aback.

'I know'?

What does that mean? Clarke was fully prepared to be tied to the bed to reinforce her bedtime.

"You don't need to assert your dominance, Clarke, it is already well-established. You're stronger, faster, more skilled with weapons, and you have a team. I'm here due to unlucky fate, but I have nothing to make you obey me."

Clarke, trying to be as satisfied about this admission as she should be, smiles. "See?"

It feels empty.

"So maybe I have to try another way. Maybe I can't make you, but I could ask you to."

"What?"

"You're not here to learn about God, I understand as much. Whether you're here to conquer the world or to get people to sell their souls or for some other reason altogether, will you give me a chance to teach you? It means a lot to me. It doesn't have to be much. I'll read to you while you can sleep, or do whatever else you want. All I ask for is a little bit of attention. And if you don't want to, no bedtimes." After a short amount of silence, she adds, "Plus you'll get pancakes for breakfast."

"Pancakes for breakfast?" Clarke perches up and Lexa smiles.

Gods, Clarke wants this, over and over again. She wants to see Lexa smile, wants to see her teeth gleam white as the corners of her pillowy lips turn up into the prettiest shape.

What the fuck is even wrong with her? She needs to take an ice bath to straighten her head.

"Worth a try. Usually works with my sister," Lexa justifies her attempt.

Clarke raises a brow and scoffs. "You're ridiculous."

Lexa shrugs.

"Ridiculous to assume it wouldn't work with me. Do you grow berries here?"

"Of course. Pancakes with berries?"

"Please."

In reality, that's not really what convinces Clarke, but it may or may not have been part. Most of it though? Possibly, most of it is Lexa's soft, pleading eyes. Possibly, most of it is the imagination of spending another few afternoons on that couch downstairs and have Lexa read to her. Posssibly, a tiny little bit of it is the terrible thought that having fallen asleep in front of Lexa was comfortable.

"But only under one condition," she says then, to try and scramble together some dignity.

"Hm?"

"I teach you in return."

Lexa's eyebrows raise. "Teach me what?"

"My culture. You teach me yours, I teach you mine."

"Why?"

"Because I want to. If you insist to introduce your God, I want this to be an exchange. I want you to remember that I'm not a blank canvas your people can put anything on and I'll believe it."

Lexa smiles. "I would be delighted to learn about your culture, but I never believed that in the first place."

"Good. And besides, I might just convince you that I'm not a demon. Or that demons make some mean garlic bread and are great at flower crowns, you take your pick."

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