Chapter Text
Being human is having a routine, Lexa thinks. It's true.
She wakes up every morning to train, before heading to a job she doesn't exactly enjoy, but needs, to later train some more before heading out and patrol the dark streets. It's her duty.
Some would call her an insomniac vigilante wannabe, or a trouble-seeker.
She is none of that.
Lexa is a shield, the border between humans and everything else. She is the protector of humanity, the saviour of countless lives so far.
She is the Slayer.
She has but one duty, to make sure the big bad doesn't harm people who have no idea of its existence. And so she collapses on her bed every morning as the sun rises, to get woken up a couple of hours later by her watcher, to practise and train, and then to go to work after a shower.
Routine.
If she didn't have that, she'd be lost. She lets her thoughts wander to what she learned the day before during her morning Tai Chi session. Nothing out of the ordinary again, simply required knowledge for a Slayer. After Tai Chi comes fight practise, first hand-to-hand and then with various weapons. The only two things that were unpredictable in Lexa's life were, the fights she had when training and what she encountered out at night. Anya, her watcher, always changed her attack strategy so Lexa couldn't predict what would happen; if Lexa encountered anything bad at night, she made sure it would be completely taken care of. Which meant that the monsters, whatever they could be, were promptly removed from the face of earth if they had the misfortune to be caught by Lexa.
Of course, some were harder than others, but in case Lexa couldn't manage to get rid of them before sunrise, she'd track them during the day until they were gone, and then her routine would get back to normal. As normal as Lexa's life could be, anyways.
“Lexa. Focus."
“I am, actually. Focused and eager to kick some ass.” Lexa answered, maintaining a gym position, not yet shaking from the exertion of her muscles, though she knew it was coming. She had woken up on the wrong side of the bed today. Memories she’d much rather forget, had shaken her awake even though the tiredness she had been feeling should have been enough to keep her hibernating until Anya came. The lack of sleep and the flashbacks were having a very negative effect on her nerves and even though she knew that Anya would neither understand nor deserve her anger, Lexa didn’t have enough energy to fight it.
“No, you're not,” Anya sighed. “your energy doesn't come from you being focused, it comes from anger, and there is a difference.”
“Will anything I face survive due to that difference?” Lexa snapped. “No. So I don't really care.”
It was true, after all. Her anger would actually make her stronger, the hatred she held now for anything that was nocturnal went beyond the professionalism she used to have. It fuelled her ever move, her every attack, and she was now more deadly than she used to be.
“You're letting your emotions get the best of you,” Anya tried to reason with her. “That's a weakness. A demon clever enough will be able to use it against you and make you lose.”
Lexa sighed, irritated, and quit the position she was in to pace around, throwing her arms in the air, “You're not the one outside fighting demons, Anya! I am. And I'm paying the price for that. Being what I am, it's a burden more than a gift. I can't have a normal life, nor a job I’d truly enjoy. I just have this routine, turning me into a warrior when all I wanted was to be normal! I could have had friends, a chance to have a family, so much! And now, I have nothing. "
Anya looked down. The words “Me, you have me.” burned in her throat, but her lips remained shut.
Anya was right, of course. But it's too soon. Lexa knows that her watcher wants to help her and keep her safe above all, but it's one thing to heal physical wounds and another to mend ones in the heart. Both of them know it, but no matter how hard Anya tried to get Lexa to talk about what happened, it was to no avail. The memory was too fresh, it hurt too much.
And so Anya did the only thing she could do for Lexa; she taught her to distance herself from anything that would make her feel something. If Lexa couldn't feel, then the pain and heartbreak that were bestowed upon her would fade away faster. And right now, Lexa could suppress it. Duty comes before all.
Anya was not happy about that situation, but it was all she had so far, until Lexa decided that she needed to talk about what happened in order to get over it. The quietness of the morning settled in as Anya refused to answer Lexa’s words.
“I'm sorry,” Lexa sighed, breaking the silence that had settled between them.
She didn’t like talking to her watcher that way. However, sometimes the anger that these memories brought when she had too much time to think clouds her mind and she doesn't think as pragmatically as she should.
“It's alright, Lexa,” Anya answered calmly. Lexa needed to feel that right now. Calm. “Better to let it out, so you can work through it.”
Her face was set in stone. No matter how long Lexa had been around her, she still couldn't read that woman. But she did trust her, as hard as it was to admit it sometimes.
“Can we...” Lexa started, hesitantly.
Anya felt the familiar tug of hope in her heart, “Maybe,” she thought, “maybe this was the time when Lexa finally speaks with her, tells her everything?” she waited, raising an eyebrow at her protégé.
“Can we do more fighting today? I'd really like to let that out, as you said,” Lexa continued.
If Anya felt anything, she didn't show it. She nodded her head and went to gather the equipment she needed. The two girls spent the rest of the training time fighting hand to hand, Anya with her protections and Lexa giving it her all. At the end of the session, both were drenched in sweat, and Lexa felt calmer.
“Good job,” Anya said.
Lexa felt her chest slightly swell with pride. Anya was a very demanding watcher, and compliments were rare. She bowed her head towards her mentor, headed inside, and upstairs to take a shower before going to work. When Lexa was done, Anya cleaned herself up as well.
Both worked during the day to afford the place they lived in and the daily necessities. Anya was a bartender and Lexa served tables in a small restaurant. The jobs had been chosen because both jobs required to work amongst people, making it possible for them to listen to conversations, ramblings, and therefore getting information. Lexa would come home in the evening every day to find some ready-to-microwave food Anya had made for her, before she herself would head out to her own workplace. Anya's job would always become more active during the evening so in the middle of the night she'd head straight back home, preparing some food again, reading books and sleeping in short phases. Waking up later when Lexa returned home, always hungry, and sometimes slightly battered and bruised, tending to her possible wounds, and talking about the various happenings of the night.
Routine.