Broken Soul (Clarke And Lexa AU)

when the soul broke

"You've got to be fucking kidding me!" Lexa exclaimed when she entered the hotel room and realized who she was meeting. But the woman looked completely shocked.
"Are you stalking me?!" Lexa demanded. Clarke stood up.
"I swear I had no idea, Lexa, honestly," Clarke answered with the most disarming voice and stance possible. She wanted to assuage Lexa's anger. The green eyed woman looked into her eyes long enough to see she was telling the truth.
There were a few moments of silence in which Lexa took in the scene. There was a notebook opened to a blank page, a pen and a tape recorder on the table Clarke had just stood up from. The bed was perfectly made. There was no champagne or wine set up as she was accustomed to. The only area that seemed to show any signs of being disturbed was the small table with a chair on either side.
"So what is all this?" Lexa finally asked gesturing toward the table. Her anger had calmed. She was now just curious.
"Oh," Clarke's eyes lit up. She was very excited all of a sudden. "I'm writing a story about female escorts who serve exclusively female clients. So I'm doing research...ya know, to make sure I'm not writing nonsense about things I know nothing of." Clarke gave Lexa a moment to take in the information. The brunette seemed to be very calculated with her words. Clarke smirked.
"Why?"
"Why what?
"Why are you interested in this topic?" There was a pause in which Clarke seemed to be searching for the right words to say.
"Perfect Ending..." Clarke finally said, to which Lexa began to laugh.
"You're kidding, right?" Lexa chuckled. Then her laughter intensified. Clarke flushed with embarrassment. This made Lexa stop laughing.
"I'm sorry," she said, seriousness entering her expression. "That's actually kind of sweet." This seemed to remove the redness from Clarke's face.
"Great movie," Lexa added. Clarke forced a smile. More silence followed.
"I just hope you don't expect to fall in love with one of them, cause you know how that ended..." Lexa said with a half smile. Clarke actually laughed this time.
"Oh, no," Clarke responded, smile lingering. "Actually," she chuckled. "I don't date." Lexa laughed loudly.
"I'm gonna leave that alone for now. I've given you enough shit for one day." Lexa smiled reassuringly at Clarke. But she only looked briefly into her eyes.
"Still not looking at me?..." Clarke asked. Lexa shrugged slightly. More silence.
"So, you have some questions you wanna ask?" Lexa diverted attention to the table. The excitement returned to Clarke's face. She gestured for Lexa to sit as she herself sat in front of the notebook.
"Do you mind if I record this?" Clarke asked. Lexa shook her head with an amused smile. "And can I use your escort name?"
"May I."
"What?
"May I use your escort name."
"Jesus, Lexa!"
"You don't want to sound ignorant of grammar when you're supposed to be a writer..." She flashed her coy half smile again. Clarke chuckled.
"I thought you weren't going to give me any more shit today..." Lexa just raised her left eyebrow and raised the half smile further up her cheek.
"Damn! I see why you're so popular with the ladies."
"You didn't see it before?" Lexa asked with a serious face. But there was a twinkle in her eyes. Clarke blushed a little then cleared her throat.
"Great. Ok. So what is your escort name?"
"Jett Black." Clarke blushed.
"I'm going to press record now." She did so and straightened up in her chair.
"This is Clarke Griffin, March 24, 2016. I'm here with Jett Black, a female escort that caters to all female clients. She is one of the top 5 most expensive escorts in the LA area."
"Top 5 in California, actually," Lexa corrected with a smile.
"You're proud of that, aren't you?"
"Hell yeah I am! Why wouldn't I be?!" There was a hint of being offended in Lexa's tone which Clarke picked up on.
"I'm just clarifying verbally what I see. The tape recorder can't pick up that beaming smile." Lexa looked up at Clarke for a moment which seemed like minutes. She felt the air escape her lungs which told her she had lingered too long in the blonde's eyes. She averted her gaze to regain control of her breath.
"So what got you into this business?" Clarke asked, changing the subject.
"I was actually approached by a woman in a bar. Her exact words were, 'How would you like to get paid for all these one night stands you keep having?' I was intrigued to say least. So we chatted for awhile and I ended up making $700 my first weekend." Lexa's words were all business. No hint of emotion could be found.
"So do you always sleep with your clients or do you offer other services?" Clarke asked seriously. Lexa laughed.
"I offer many services but none of them include sleep. That's actually one of the only services I don't offer. No sleepovers."
"And what do your girlfriends think of this job?" Clarke asked nonchalantly. Lexa laughed again.
"No."
"I ask everyone this question, Jett."
"I don't date, Clarke," Lexa scoffed.
"And why is that?"
"No."
"It's a reasonable question."
"Yes it is. But that doesn't mean I have to answer it." Lexa was about to close that conversation down when Clarke's quick wit kicked in.
"Wow! She really did a number on you, didn't she?"
"Excuse me?" Lexa knew where this was going and got on the defensive.
"The one that broke your heart," Clarke answered. Lexa felt her heart start to pound. "What did she do that was so devastating that you completely shut yourself off from love?..." she asked innocently. The energy in the room changed drastically then. Lexa felt like screaming. Panic seized her; the walls started to close in. She stood and inhaled sharply. And though their eyes didn't meet, Clarke could see the pain. She immediately regretted saying what she did. She struck an exposed nerve that was more sensitive than she realized. She was about apologize when Lexa turned to face Clarke. She looked the blonde directly in the eyes.
"She died." The words were soft, simple, but hit hard. Clarke felt the breath leave her lungs. For a moment, she felt that inescapable ache of loosing someone you love. Her grandmother's face popped into her mind and before she knew it, she was crying silently.
"We were married....had a five-year old daughter. But her ex-" Lexa stopped. She sat back down to continue. "I was getting out of my car when I heard yelling in the house." Clarke knew where this was heading. She also felt that it was really big that Lexa was telling her these things.
"Then I heard a gunshot and my daughter screaming. As I ran to the door there was another shot." Lexa took a deep breath in. "She stopped screaming and there was a thud." Clarke closed her eyes and let the tears roll down her face.
"I opened the door and there he was, standing over my wife's body. He looked to me and said, 'if I can't have her, no one can.' Then he blew his brain all over my wall." Clarke was crying full on at this point. Lexa, however, was devoid of emotion. She couldn't let anything in or she would break apart. Several silent minutes passed.
"Who did you loose?" Lexa asked. Clarke looked up.
"You were crying even before I told you what happened. You know the loss of death. I can see it in your eyes." Clarke took a deep breath in.
"My grandma," Clarke said quietly. "Alzheimer's."
"Aw fuck. That's rough." They both stopped talking then. It was a comfortable moment of shared grief.
"Tell me about her," Clarke asked after the silence.
"What?" It wasn't that Lexa didn't understand the question, she was just startled by it.
"It sounds like her story needs to be told. And who better to tell it than someone that loves her the way you do."
"Loves," Lexa repeated.
"You're always going to love her. Just because she isn't physically here doesn't mean you love her any less." Clarke's words hit Lexa harder than she expected, harder than she wanted. She closed her eyes and tears rolled down her face. She kept her eyes closed as she started.
"I remember the first time I looked into her eyes, deep green like emeralds. What I saw can never be put into words." Clarke felt her heart start to beat more rapidly.
"I knew she was different that moment... I saw her strength, her beauty, her incredible grace. And it was like nothing I had ever felt before." Clarke's breath quickened. There was something about Lexa's words that touched her in a way that she hadn't felt in a long time.
"And every moment after that was confirmation that she was my soul mate. Each day she became more beautiful, each kiss made me fall even deeper in love with her." Lexa opened her eyes. There was a pause.
"Costia was the only one that made me feel like I am enough. I didn't need to censor myself at all. My true self is what she loved about me. And I didn't need to be anything more than who I was... But she inspired me to be more, to do more. She inspired me to be the best possible version of myself." Lexa was smiling now, as the memories flooded back; memories that hadn't surfaced in years. So she wallowed in them for a moment.
Clarke took a ragged breath in. Lexa looked at her. She knew that look and for a moment it didn't scare her. But only for a moment. She closed her eyes again and lost herself in the memories.
"She was undeniably beautiful. The kind of beauty that drove men to do insane and sometimes illegal things. But more than that, she had a brilliant light. So many wanted to own that beauty, to extinguish that light. But her strength...." Lexa exhaled loudly. "Her courage was so much stronger. She kept that light glowing through such terrible darkness. I met her when she was getting out of that darkness and starting to see that light again."
"You were her mirror, weren't you?" Clarke said more than asked. Lexa opened her eyes. "You helped her see that light as she reminded you of yours." Lexa was startled by Clarke's insight. The words left her speechless. She started crying.
"She gave you that safety that you rarely had but longed for." This is when Clarke's voice faltered with impending tears. "She was your home and you were hers. They were your home." Both women were now crying. Lexa allowed herself to linger a moment in Clarke's eyes. Then she let out a grunt-sigh combo and stood up.
"I-" she started. Clarke followed her with her eyes though Lexa had looked away.
"I can't -" Lexa walked halfway to the door and stopped. She turned around and met Clarke's penetrating blue eyes. No one had seen through her so well since...
"I can't do this," she finally said and walked out of the hotel room. She immediately erected those thick walls that normally protected her heart. The walls that Clarke had somehow broken down momentarily. And she kept those walls up until she got home, where she just lost it. She wailed, letting the pain wash over her. She got lost in the heartache until the crying hurt her head so bad that she had to force herself to stop. Then she passed out.
Back in the hotel room, Clarke was raw. "Fuck!" she whispered loudly. "Holy shit!" She was in a sort of shock. It took her another few moments to become aware of her surroundings. "Wow!" she said aloud. Realizing the tape was still rolling, she pressed the stop button. "Oh, wow..." Her voice wavered. She put her head in her hands and started crying. She cried for her grandmother. She cried for the man she had to break up with because of his heroin addiction. She cried for Lexa's loss. But mostly, she cried because she hadn't been that emotionally intimate with anyone for so long that she thought it wasn't possible anymore. It was obviously possible. And if there was any doubt that she loved Lexa in some way, that was gone. What that love was and what it meant was unclear. She just knew that Lexa was different. And she was determined to figure out how and why.