Chapter Text
"Just because you're my partner, does NOT mean our baby is riding in your backpack."
"What?" Lexa asks. Clarke Griffin had marched up to her on her way to gym class - she was going to be late now. Lexa hated being late. The last time she was late was the day of her birth and not a single time since then. She had a reputation to uphold.
"Take him out!"
Lexa sighed, wondering how Clarke found out. "How did you even-"
"Tris told me. You guys have Stats together. Idiot." Clarke mumbled.
Lexa scowled at the seething blonde in front of her. "He's not even a real baby, Clarke, it's not like he actually needs air!"
Clarke stared her down. "If Mr. Gurdwin sees you-"
"He'll just assume you have the baby," Lexa interrupts. She briefly imagines Mr. Gurdwin the health teacher (the most bored-looking man on earth) caring about anything other than the magazines he reads during class. She can't.
Clarke presses her fingers into her eyes and groans.
Lexa observes her. This is about as much as she and Clarke Griffin have spoken since their brief candy-sharing-based friendship in Kindergarten. And that was twelve years ago. Before Lexa can reminisce any further, Clarke lunges.
"Give me him!" Clarke screeches.
Lexa, on instinct, recoils and side-steps. This, unfortunately, causes Clarke's flailing hand to crack into the concrete wall Lexa had been standing against.
"OW! Fuck!" Clarke yells, attracting the immediate attention of everyone else in the hallway.
Lexa winces. Partly because that had to hurt and partly because now she fears for her life.
Clarke, shaking her hand intensely, turns to Lexa.
If looks could kill, Lexa is sure she'd have just suffered a death of 1,000 cuts. "That...was your own fault."
"It was your fault. Idiot!"
Lexa reaches into the side pocket of her backpack and pulls out the little container of painkillers she keeps there for when her shin splints act up. "Uh...I have these..."
Clarke ignores her offer and, instead, smacks the bottle out of Lexa's hand. "Just give me the baby," she growls.
Lexa watches her pain pills roll around on the floor and shakes her head. Looking back at Clarke, she can't help but mock her. "You know...you sort of seem too unstable for parenting right now."
Clarke rues the day that Mr. Gurdwin, their health teacher, paired them together for their end-of-year health project. Which was today. She rues today. "Me?!" Clarke exclaims, stepping into Lexa's space. "I'm not the one who is suffocating him in a backpack!"
Lexa shrugs, still nonplussed by Clarke's continuous outburst. She slowly bends down to retrieve her pain pills, keeping her eyes on Clarke the whole time. She wouldn't put it past the hot-headed blonde to kick her in the face while she's bent down. Lexa couldn't handle a bloody nose right now...she's wearing her favorite shirt today and she does not want to get blood on it. "He doesn't actually need air, Clarke. Plastic can't breathe. He does, however, need two stable parents to guide him through his first week of life. And...you...need to work on that." Lexa finishes her mocking and smirks to herself. She turns around to walk away, half-expecting Clarke to tackle her to the ground. Instead, she feels nothing.
"Don't think I won't murder you if we get anything less than an A on this project, Woods." Clarke calls out.
Lexa, still walking away, laughs. "Looking forward to it."
Clarke watches Lexa leave, standing her ground until the brunette passes through the double doors that lead to the school gym.
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"Heard you punched Clarke Griffin in the face. Didn't know you had it in ya," Anya says as she stands over Lexa.
Lexa is struggling to catch her breath. They had all been forced to do the mile run in class. Most of her fellow students were not even halfway through but Lexa and Anya, as always, had tried to beat each other and both wound up running six-minute miles.
"I did...not," Lexa wheezes. She usually can keep up with Anya but today she had struggled. She suspects it has a lot to do with the sleep she didn't get last night.
"Head you punched her in the face and then laughed about it," Anya continues as Lexa splays out in the grass. She takes a seat next to her friend.
"Okay," Lexa manages. She gulps in more air. "Who are you even hearing this from?!"
Anya picks at the grass near Lexa's left shoulder. "Heard it from Atom who heard it from Tris who heard it from Bellamy who saw you guys in the hall."
Lexa groans. High School never failed to be the worst game of 'telephone' ever played. "That is not what happened."
Anya sighs. "So you didn't? That's...kinda disappointing."
Lexa has only enough energy to turn and look at Anya incredulously.
"Woulda been pretty badass of you."
"And have gotten me expelled, An." Lexa stares up at the blue sky in silence for a moment. She can her the quiet snap of Anya's fingers breaking grass blades. "How did you even think for a second that I would ever punch anyone?!"
Anya doesn't say anything.
"Besides you," Lexa adds, weakly lifting her fist and swinging it at Anya's right thigh. She barely brushes her.
"Now you're just embarrassing yourself," Anya laughs, and picks up some of the grass that she'd ripped from the earth. She scatters the grass pieces all over Lexa's face.
"Don't I always?" Lexa smiles, around grass pieces falling into her mouth.
"Remind me why we're friends again?" Anya asks, seriously.
"Because." Lexa says, like always.
"Good enough for me." Anya states, easily standing up. She only waits five more seconds for Lexa to move before she starts comparing her to a litany of large zoo animals, most of which have blubber.
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"Oh no," Lexa mumbles as she walks to her car after track practice. She had spotted the shadowy figure out of the corner of her eye. At first, she had been frightened. The figure gets closer. "Really holding up your murdering end of the deal, huh?"
Clarke comes to a stop right in front of the driver's side door of Lexa's car, blocking her entrance.
Lexa drops her track bag in frustration and looks at Clarke. "Have you even stopped glaring since I last saw you?" She suspects Clarke's eyes to be at least a little tired of that by now. Apparently not. Apparently, Lexa was going to die a very unnatural, probably painful death, at the hands of Clarke Griffin. "Just...send my regards to my family. Also, give me five minutes to write a will. I don't want my large collection of diamonds to go to just anyone." She barely finishes before Clarke throws her hands in the air.
"Why are you like this?!"
Lexa thinks Clarke sounds every bit as exasperated as she feels. And Clarke's not the one who just ran around a track a million times and then promptly spilled an entire bottle of water on her shorts. "Hey, you're the one out here stalking me. How did you even get here? Did you walk here? How did you know where I'd be? You're kinda creepy, ya know."
"Just give me our baby, and I'll be on my way." Clarke says.
Lexa looks around the parking lot. "You think it maybe sort of looks like we're doing a drug deal?"
"What?" Clarke asks. "No. Stop distracting me. Hand over the baby."
"I'm scheduled to have him until tomorrow, Clarke."
"We'll I'm letting you off the hook a little early," Clarke reasons.
"He only cried once," Lexa tells the blonde. "And I dropped him on his head until he stopped," she jokes. She must have said it with too straight a face because she thinks she can see the moment all the blood drains from Clarke's face. "I'm kidding." She sees Clarke exhale. "Jeez, Griffin, do you really think I suck that much?"
"Well I wouldn't really know." Clarke tells Lexa. "I don't really...know you."
Lexa puts her hands on her hips. The sweat from practice is making her shiver. "Well, I don't suck. And I think that's all you need to know."
"Is that all?"
"Yep."
"Wow, I'd love to read your biography some day," Clarke states dryly.
Lexa smirks at her. Conversations with Clarke, although unpredictable and rife with discussion of bodily harm, are quite entertaining. "Shortest book ever written," Lexa promises.
"Seriously, though..."
"Seriously, though, get out of the way. I'm sweaty and want to go home."
"Then give me what I want."
"Are you sure this isn't a drug deal?"
"Lexa!" Clarke shouts.
"Look," Lexa says, placatingly, "Just leave him with me until tomorrow, like we agreed, and you'll see that I don't suck."
Clarke sighs.
"And, to be fair, this is extremely insulting," Lexa tells her, "I have a perfect GPA..."
Clarke takes her chance to interrupt. "All I know about you is that you do every single sport, for some ungodly reason, and you dated Costia Green last year. Oh, and your friend Anya is probably the most terrifying person I've ever met."
Lexa steps closer to Clarke. "And all I know about you is that your mom is a doctor, you like art, and you have a strange romantic attraction to river trolls."
Clarke rolls her eyes. "River trolls?"
"What?" Lexa asks, shrugging. She picks her track bag back up off the ground. "Finn was a total river troll."
"Finn isn't a river troll," Clarke quickly retorts. "Also, we broke up like a month ago."
"Oh, I know," Lexa says. Clarke and Finn's 'epic' breakup was the talk of the school for a good day and a half. "I heard he gave you mono because he got it from another girl."
"I had the flu!" Clarke protests violently. "And I broke up with him because he was an idiot."
"Fair enough," Lexa tells her. "Can I be going now? I'll give him to you first thing tomorrow morning."
"I guess," Clarke says with extreme hesitation. She only moves a foot out of the way, still leaning on the side of Lexa's car. "But don't mess this up. This is 50% of our grade and we're seniors-"
"You don't have to tell me, Clarke, trust me."
"Reluctantly."
Lexa gets into her car after shoving her track bag in. She shuts the door and rolls down her window. Clarke is a few steps away from her car now.
"So. I'll see you tomorrow?" Clarke asks, eyeing Lexa suspiciously.
"Maybe. Maybe not. I've been meaning to run away and join the circus and the weather looks really good for traveling tomorrow so-"
Clarke spins on her heel and starts to walk away.
Lexa laughs to herself. Clarke Griffin will definitely see her tomorrow. Lexa can't help but think that this might be fun...