heda | clexa

twenty-one

When they wake up the next morning, it’s strange; they stay in bed for a little longer than necessary, all entangled, and Clarke hates it.

She hates it because Lexa’s hair is a mess and her nightgown is all wrinkled and her eyes are still puffy from the crying. She hates it because she’s clearly not supposed to see Lexa like this, but for once they woke up together, in one bed, and so she does, she sees Lexa be her own, tired sunrise, all drowsy green eyes, sheepish smiles and sleepy yawns. 

She’s so, so gorgeous. 

Clarke lets Lexa use the bathroom first while she makes the bed. The bed, as in one single bed, because the other is still perfectly made.

Five minutes later, Lexa exits the bathroom like a new person; her dark blue robes are buttoned up and without wrinkles, her hair is in a tight bun and the dark rings under her eyes have disappeared under a subtle layer of paint the color of Lexa’s skin. 

Clarke washes up quickly, throws on a change of clothes (she desperately needs new clothes, Lexa’s are getting tiring with the dozens of buttons one shirt has), and carefully washes and untangles her hair. 

When she comes back into the bedroom, Lexa is kneeling on the bare floor by the window, head bent, hands folded. Clarke quietly picks Clarke Jr. off her bed and moves downstairs, trying to creak as few stairs as possible so as not to disrupt Lexa.

She starts making pancake dough in the dark kitchen; the fire under the stove is lighting up the shadows, and the sky is starting to color orange, but the sun doesn’t shine into the kitchen for another while.

And it could have been any time.

The sun could have chosen any time to round the corner of the window. 

It could have been endless minutes before, or endless minutes after, but the first rays of sun peek into the room just as Lexa enters it.

It fucking ruins Clarke. The sun is divine to her people and of all times, it arrives in the kitchen the same moment Lexa does, as if the two events were connected, as if the sun was merely coming from the window and the doorway both. 

Clarke’s heart is already fluttery and weak, okay? It’s really, really fucking hard to keep her sanity when she looks at Lexa, bathed in morning gold, as if the sun had chosen to bow to Lexa, because her eyes are sage and breathtaking, and her freckles stand out on her warm skin. 

“Hey,” she says as nonchalantly as possible.

“Hey,” Lexa manages in return, because if she’s being lit up by the sun up front, then that means the sun is shining on Clarke’s back. Her hair looks like it’s on fire and it’s like the sun is one big halo drawn once around Clarke.

What a cruel joke of her God, to keep making Clarke look so unbearably holy. 

“I may not be as fantastic at it as you are, but I’ve been making pancakes.”

“Mhm, that sounds amazing,” Lexa hums and joins Clarke by the stove. “Can I help?”

“Sure, you want to flip them?”

“Of course.”

So they make pancakes together and have them around the kitchen table. Clarke throws small bits on the floor to feed Clarke Jr. once in a while, when she thinks Lexa isn’t looking. “Stop feeding the raccoon,” Lexa scolds at some point and Clarke lowers her head to hide her smile.

“My bad.”

“They eat trash, not pancakes.”

“So you’re saying you want her to dig up our trash?”