Douse This Fire

4

Lexa; Saturday, 11:32am

    Lexa finished spooning the dough onto the parchment paper and stuck the cookie sheet into the oven, setting the timer. Then, with nothing more to do but wait until the cookies were done, she went to the living room and sat on the couch between Aden and Tris.

    “You’re baking,” Aden commented, not looking at her as she watched Tris move her avatar on the screen.

    “Yes,” Lexa confirmed, raising her brow as she glance at her brother.

    “Mom says you never bake, not since you were in high school.” Tris glanced at Lexa and raised her own brow. “Why not?”

     Lexa sat still, trying not to squirm under their scrutiny. “Just because.” She shrugged, not wanting to talk about it. She’d done so well over the years just ignoring the whole thing, and now-

    And now all the feelings she had shoved down to focus on training and schooling were floating to the surface with a vengeance. The devastation she had ignored, the feeling of complete emptiness, like a part of herself had died too. She tamped them down for now, again, determined to ignore them as long as she could.

    “I like it when you bake, Aunt Lexa. It makes the house smell nice.” Tris smiled and focused back on her game.

    Aden was quiet, staring at the screen for a moment with a small frown. “It brings up some… not memories. Hazy impressions?” Lexa shifted to look at him, staying quiet to let him speak. “No wait, there’s like, one thing. One memory.” He looked up at her, his gaze distant and brow wrinkled in concentration. “You and Mama are in the kitchen, and there’s music playing, and there’s someone else… She’s sitting at the kitchen table, and I’m in her lap, and we’re all laughing. You and Mama are baking, and you keep slipping me and Cos raw cookie dough, even though Mama keeps scolding you and-” He blinked, focusing his sight. “That was the last time she was there, wasn’t it? She’s why you stopped baking.”

    Lexa pressed her lips together as the memory flashed in her own mind.

    It was her senior year of high school, and she’d been dating her for about a year and a half by then. Every month since school had started the previous year after winter break, she would join the Woods family for a weekend and they would bake. Cookies, cakes, pies, everything they could come up with. It had started out as a way for her mother to get to know her girlfriend better and had quickly become a tradition they had planned to continue for a long time. They’d made plans for future birthdays, future holidays, and had even planned out how to continue the tradition once the girls were in college.

    That Saturday they’d been baking sugar cookies, preparing for the Christmas bake sale at the high school that coming Monday. Lexa had indeed snuck raw dough to her baby brother and girlfriend, earning her a few affectionate smacks from her mother via the spoon she’d been using to mix things with. They’d had so much fun, dancing and singing and baking. One of the rare times Ana Woods-Kourt had smiled so hard her green eyes glowed.

    “Yeah, Ade, she’s why I stopped baking,” Lexa admitted now, blinking back the moisture in her eyes.

    Aden was quiet for a minute again. “It was Christmas music, wasn’t it? And Mama had such a pretty voice, and Cos couldn’t sing but she did anyway, and you smiled so big.” Then with a shaky voice, he whispered, “You look like Mama.”

Clarke; Saturday, 11:39am

    “Clarke, you need to stop overworking your wrist, or it’ll never heal properly.” The scolding tone of her mother made the artist frown.