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The first shot of vodka was to calm her stomach. The second was to boost her courage.
The first shot of fireball was because Raven asked. The second was because Octavia had been in the bathroom for the first.
Afterward, Clarke stopped. Four shots in and she was ready to nurse her vodka soda for a while. After all, it was barely 7 pm and they were already getting four shots in.
They posed for group shots and clinked canes. Two were props, Raven’s the only real one.
As the ventured into the night, sunglasses made it hard to see, but they were a necessary addition to their costumes. The three blind mice. While Octavia and Raven kept theirs on, Clarke folded her Ray Bans and tucked them into the V of her white t-shirt. It was oddly warm in New York City for Halloween that year. She has no problem walking around in a white t-shirt, leggings, and black leather jacket.
Last year, Clarke had dressed up as Wonder Woman, sans jacket, and had nearly gotten frostbite. She was ready this year though, ready to find her , whatever it took. Even if it was for just one night.
The party was already in full swing by the time the Three Blind Mice arrived at The Ark, a bar they’d found back in their freshman year at NYU and hadn’t yet abandoned six years later. She’d first gone to the bar before Lexa, so it wasn’t tinged with the loss. After Lexa, she was still able to enjoy a night out with her friends there. Unlike the many places across the city that she had been unable to return to since the incident.
Clarke wished they’d ended in a fight. A big, blowout argument about something - anything - that was substantial. Something that meant that they never stood a chance. Anything would’ve been better than the way it ended. She lost Lexa slowly, one day at a time until she finally left. Clarke still felt the pain, the love, like a vestigial limb even three years later.
She really had planned on nursing a vodka soda for a few hours, but Bellamy and Echo had taken the train up from DC and it was hard to say no to them when it came to Jaeger bombs.
She lost herself to the music as she danced with her friends. She let her eyes wander in the lulls between the beats, flashes of colored lights constantly vying for her attention. Every time she saw a glimpse of curly brown hair, her heart skipped a beat. Whenever someone tried to move through the crowd behind her, she tensed up. If any of her friends noticed, they didn’t say anything.
And then she saw her. Clarke was pretty sure her heart stopped for several seconds as her breath caught in her throat. She blinked back a single tear as she watched orange and purple lights dance across Lexa’s face, a smirk curling her lips. It had been exactly a year since Clarke had last seen Lexa, and she hadn’t changed one bit. As beautiful and enrapturing as ever. She was dressed in all black, and even though she was the only one in the building not wearing a costume, she still managed to blend into the shadows of the bar.
Clarke said something to her friends as she left them behind. She wasn’t sure what, but it was enough to make sure they didn’t follow her. Her feet needed no direction as they led her towards the woman waiting for her.
Lexa reached out her hand and Clarke grasped it. One year since the last time they touched, three years of yearning, and it felt like the most comfortable touch in the world. Clarke held on tightly as Lexa led them through the throng of superheroes and fairytale characters, afraid she’d lose her if she were to loosen her grip even slightly.
They passed the bouncer and departed into the slightly crisp October air. Lexa led her just several more steps into a secluded alcove, where to pull her tight into a searing kiss. Clarke returned with equal vigor for several moments, before pulling away.
How do you convey to the one you love how much you ache for them each day? Is there a way to say that the sight of them is both the most painful and joyful experience you can imagine? Why is love so intrinsically linked with loss and heartbreak? Or was that just the curse that Clarke had to bare?
Clarke didn’t know how to bear her soul to the woman in front of her, but she didn’t have to, because she saw it reflected back onto her on the face of the one she loved. Biting back tears, Clarke wrapped her arms tight around Lexa and the two stood there in a fiercely tight hug for what could have been an eternity. She didn’t care if she was imagining the smell of Lexa’s shampoo, which surely would have been lost in the stench of the bar, but Clarke sucked it in, as if breathing her last breath. All that mattered was that right then, and right there, Lexa was in her arms.
“I wasn’t sure I’d see you tonight,” Clarke finally spoke as she pulled away, linking fingers with Lexa. She couldn’t bring herself to stop touching her.
“I’m only here for tonight Clarke,” Lexa responded. What Clarke wouldn’t give to have Lexa say even just her name every day for eternity. Or even just once more.
“Your yearly pitstop in the city that never sleeps, I know,” Clarke responded with a sad smile. It was the third Halloween since Lexa had left her, but they’d spent each of those three Halloween nights together. Clarke had made the mistake of telling her friends about the first, they’d had nothing but concern and love for her, but they didn’t understand. They didn’t understand that Clarke and Lexa couldn’t have every night anymore, but every once in a while, they were allowed just one. There was no real explanation Clarke could give, so she hadn’t told them about last year and the night the pair had spent stargazing in Central Park, and she wouldn’t tell them about tonight either.
“No more dwelling,” Lexa insisted, with a squeeze of Clarke’s hand. When they’d first met the spring of their freshman year, Lexa had always been the one to make the first move. She initiated their first kiss, she planned their first date, but it was always a hesitant gesture as if she wasn’t convinced that a girl like Clarke could ever want her. The insecurity had always shocked Clarke. In every other facet of her life, Lexa was a leader, confident, but when it came to Clarke she’d been so unsure. But Clarke had pushed back against Lexa, forced her to accept her love. Forced her to see how real it was. During the course of their nearly three and a half year relationship, Lexa had changed. She trusted Clarke implicitly when it came to her heart.
Which made the night that much harder to bear on both their parts.
“What do you want to do tonight?” Clarke asked, forcing herself to stay in the moment. She couldn’t dwell on the past. No more of what was. If they only had a few hours, then they would spend those hours wisely.
“Ice cream,” Lexa spoke confidently. “I want ice cream.” Clarke laughed but nodded enthusiastically.
“I can do ice cream,” she grinned as she further entwined their hands and led the brunette down the road.
Lexa picked vanilla, which was so typical of her, while Clarke indulged in her favorite mint chocolate chip. They spent nearly an hour laughing over memories and stories while they ate. Clarke filled Lexa in on everything that had happened in the past year, from Bellamy and Echo’s engagement to the time Raven accidentally drunkenly made out with Monty. Clarke’s friends had tried to fill the Lexa sized hole in her heart, and while they were indispensable, it was just too big a hole to ever fill again.
Why couldn’t it have been easy? Why couldn’t Lexa just stay? Stay with her in New York, in the apartment she shared with Raven. Hell, Clarke would take Lexa staying anywhere that was closer to her than she was now. Distance makes the heart grow fonder, they say. Lexa and Clarke knew that better than anyone.
After an hour, there was no ceremonious decision to head back to Clarke’s apartment. They just knew that’s where they were going next. They took a cab back downtown, Lexa’s head on Clarke’s shoulder the entire time.
When they arrived, Clarke silently led Lexa to her bedroom where she slowly stripped her. She wanted to remember every inch of the woman she loved.
Lexa’s body had not changed since the last time they were together. She was still all muscle with artistic tattoos that Clarke traced with a feather-light touch. She felt each muscle, each crevice, and divot. Each goosebump that rose with the touch of her cool fingertips. And Lexa did the same in return. They fell into each other the way that lovers do, with familiarity and aching desire, and came multiple times each.
After they had their fill, the two women lay with their naked limbs intertwined on Clarke’s rumpled grey sheets. Clarke traced the sharp line of Lexa’s jaw, while Lexa’s piercing green eyes wandered Clarke’s face, refusing to forget it.
“You look the same,” Clarke spoke, breaking the silence. The same as before. The same you’ve been each time.
“You are more beautiful with each passing year,” Lexa returned with a soft grin. “Seeing each year on you has been more than I could’ve ever asked for.” But she had asked, she’d asked a million times.
“Do you remember your twenty-first birthday?” Clarke asked.
“Somehow, yes,” Lexa snorted. “How that is even possible, I have no idea.”
“You drank more than I’d ever seen you drink...possibly combined,” Clarke laughed back.
“You challenged me to keep up with you! Which, I really should have known better...you have the highest tolerance of anyone I’ve ever met.”
Clarke posed as if receiving a trophy.
“What made you think of that night?” Lexa asked.
“It was one of my favorites,” Clarke returned, honestly.
“My twenty-second birthday was my favorite,” the brunette returned with candor. The confusion on Clarke’s face was more than evident. Lexa’s twenty-second was towards the end of their days together. “Do you remember what we did?”
“You were back at my apartment at that point,” Clarke recalled, picturing the day in her head. The memory was tinged in a grey cloud, a time she tried hard not to dwell on. “We marathoned Harry Potter . We started on your birthday and finished the next day, so I told you that you had a forty-eight hour birthday. That was your favorite birthday?”
“Maybe my favorite forty-eight hours.”
“Really? But you...but you were in and out of sleep half the time? And you were...and well, we didn’t do anything?” Clarke was thrown off. She thought she’d known everything there was to know about the woman next to her.
“I had everything I needed. I knew I’d have to leave soon at that point, and I just wanted every moment with you before I left.”
“How much time do we have left?” Clarke asked as she pulled Lexa close again.
“I won’t be here in the morning.”
“And you’ll be back next year?”
“I will be back every year for as long as you still want me.”
“For the rest of my life.”
For the first time all night, Lexa looked heartbroken. All she wanted was to stay with Clarke forever, but the last thing she wanted now was for Clarke to constantly yearn for her. She wanted Clarke’s heart to heal.
“Turn over,” Lexa spoke. Clarke obeyed and became the little spoon to Lexa’s big spoon. They cuddled through the sounds of Octavia and Raven drunkenly returning with pizza. The clasped hands as the last moments of Halloween drifted away.
“I love you,” Lexa whispered into Clarke’s blonde curls.
“I’ll never stop loving you,” Clarke responded. They were silent then, comfortable to spend their last minutes together embraced.
At some point, Clarke must have fallen asleep, because she awoke to light streaming through her window, her back cold - missing Lexa’s warmth. She knew she was gone before she even turned over.
Clarke reached out and felt the spot where Lexa had been the night before. Because she knew she’d been there. It wasn’t a dream. It had been real. It didn’t matter if no one believed her. They would think her crazy, believing in ghosts.
After all, Lexa Woods had died of cancer three years prior at the age of twenty-two.