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A month into her clinical genetics class Clarke breaks up with Finn. Two weeks later she drops out.
SORRY she scribbles in big blocked letters at the top of a Halloween card she bought at the gas station two blocks from campus. She thinks about writing had to get away or it was too much or even fuck you but the pen hovers above the bright orange stationary and she can't bring herself to do it, signing her name instead. The tail of the e streaks across the bones of a dancing skeleton as it smiles up at her with a cheeky grin. Clarke writes her parents address and mails it off, not bothering to look back.
She calls Wells from the bus station, one bag hanging from the crook of her elbow and the other tucked between her feet. The plastic blue seats creak underneath her as she scans the departures board. She doesn't know where she wants to go - there is only the overwhelming urge of away.
Wells tells her to be safe and promises to tell everyone else about her impromptu vacation.
Clarke doesn't bother correcting him.
*
The bus hums under her feet. She has sunglasses sliding down her nose and headphones jammed in her ears as she watches the desert roll past the window. Her phone has only just started to ping with worried texts from parents and classmates that haven't seen her in two weeks. She types out a response for nearly everyone before she deletes the message and goes back to looking out the window.
Clarke too tired to care. She doesn't stop and think about the people she is leaving behind, simply watches the shifting sand and allows herself a small grin instead.
Away, away. Yes, this'll do.
*
She rides all the way to Texas and back up to South Dakota, across the prairies and into Chicago.
Her parents call her by the hour, their voicemails worried, then angry, and then finally desperate to get her attention. I'm fine, she texts her mom from the underside of the city, the noise from the bar spilling into the back-alley. The buzz in her head and the slur in her words make it remarkably easy to pretend that it's nerves settling in her belly and not guilt. Clarke has always been incredibly good at pretending.
She rents a cheap motel room that smells like cigarette smoke and spends the next three days watching shitty cable tv, living off vending machine snacks and complementary breakfasts. She tries to draw on the little memo pads they provide but the pen keeps dying half way through her lines. Clarke balls her ruined attempts in frustration and tosses them in the trash.
None of it this quite as grandiose as she imagined it to be - lying on a beach, sipping mimosa's and fucking exotic strangers. They are exotic in the simple fact that they don't know or care about Clarke Griffin and her place in this world. They don't know about the crater she's left behind and they don't care enough to ask. She can't think of anything else that sounds quite so appealing right now.
The next bus out of Chicago leaves at seven am the follow morning. Clarke buys the first ticket.
*
She doesn't know why she ends up here. (Lie.) The address is scrawled on the top of an old bus pass - Sioux Falls to Minneapolis - from when Lincoln had texted it to her before her phone died. He didn't offer up much of an explanation other than a quick 'L apt' at the end of his text, but it wasn't very hard to figure out, not when she had mentioned she was passing through DC.
But it's not as if Clarke had planned for this, to be standing in front of Lexa's door with greasy hair stuffed in a pony and the stink of public transportation clinging to her as a second skin. Well. Maybe she did think about this, fleetingly, but never in great detail and never very seriously.
She has a surgeons steady hands when she raps her knuckles sharply on the door of apartment 3B. One of her bags lurches off her shoulder and she can tell herself that is what causes a jab of restless nerves to stab in her throat. (It's another lie, but - )
"Clarke?"
*
Lexa doesn't look much different from how Clarke remembers. She's lost her tan after being away from the unforgiving California sun for so long and she has her hair done up in some complicated braid, but otherwise it's the same Lexa. Her Lexa, almost, if Clarke was still allowed to say that.
The couch squeaks when Clarke shifts and Lexa pins her with a look, part confusion, part worry. "Clarke," she says, rolling the name around in her mouth, tasting it with the sharp pronunciation of the k. "What are you doing here?" Lexa asks, not unkindly.
"I - " Clarke starts then stops. She swipes her tongue across her top lip and closes her fingers over the bunched up fabric of her jeans at her knees. It would be too easy to let the words spill from her and burden Lexa with her troubles. There was once a time when Lexa was the one who knew her completely, from the mole on the back of her neck to between each and every rib.
But.
That was too long ago.
"I'm passing through," is what she finally decides. It's certainly not a lie. "I thought maybe we could catch up? We never really did talk much. I mean, after."
"A call could have just as easily gotten you the same results," Lexa says.
Clarke recoils, just slightly, although the words were not intended to sting. "Yeah, sorry. My bus just got in like an hour ago and I wasn't really thinking to be honest."
Lexa's tongue clucks in understanding even as her eyes shift past Clarke, focusing on the frayed, worn edges of an old blanket spilling to the floor. She rises, takes the material in hand and folds it carefully. "Would you like to stay here for the night? Then we can talk all you'd like." she asks carefully, smoothing a hand across a crease.
"That would be - Yeah. Thanks."
The blanket falls on the cushion next to Clarke and Lexa nods. "Alright. Why don't you go clean up first? There's towels in the cabinet next to the toilet."
Clarke agrees, stands, and says, "Thank you, Lexa." She can only hope Lexa understands the weight the words carry.
Lexa opens her mouth like she is going to respond before she shakes her head, just slightly, letting it fall closed. Clarke pauses under the archway to the front door, turning back. "You look really good," Clarke says, mouth in a smile. She taps her fingers against the wall and watches Lexa flush under her gaze. She leaves for her bags before Lexa can thank her.
*
SORRY she wrote once, but that doesn't really cover it does it?
(I don't know how to love like I should, she wanted to write across that skeleton with his cheeky grin. I don't know how and I can't fix it.
Sorry is always easier to say.)
*
The morning of her fourth day in DC Clarke has her duffel bag stuffed with clothes next to the front door and a thankful goodbye on her lips. There are scrambled eggs burning on the stove and a rerun of Seinfeld playing in the background. Lexa stills and blinks at the bags piled neatly, looks up at her, and licks her lips.
"One more night," she murmurs before Clarke can open her mouth.
The space between her eyebrows crinkle. Lexa sets the stack of plates on the edge of her table before digging her fingers into Clarke's wrist. She thinks Lexa might be able to feel how hard her pulse is hammering on her fingertips. Clarke's eyes slowly return to Lexa's face.
"There's this really good sushi place I want to bring you to," Lexa says. It's aweak excuse that causes Clarke's stomach to tighten in a horrible breathless way she can't explain. She wants to go, but Lexa is tracing Clarke's wrist with the tip of her thumb and Clarke could stay.
"Okay," she agrees, slowly, softly. Lexa smiles.
*
It happens quickly.
Lexa is smiling, cheek pressed to her elbow on the back of the couch and looking at Clarke with such soft eyes Clarke thinks she could cry from the weight they carry. This is why they never worked, Clarke thinks, Lexa gave too much and Clarke never could be bothered to give enough.
It's broken, I'm broken, but Clarke can be selfish enough to hope Lexa might be the one to fix the parts stripped by the load of Clarke Griffin and all that might contain. Clarke settles her knees on either side of Lexa's hips and skates her lips across Lexa's face.
"Clarke," Lexa says lowly. Her hands are on Clarke's waist, tugging her forward like she wants to keep Clarke grounded and here with her. It does funny things to Clarke's chest, an unsettled feeling of hurry sinking heavy on her lungs. Her breath stutters when Lexa whispers her name again.
She kisses Lexa. "It's okay," she murmurs, her fingers seeking the edge of Lexa's shirt, pulling it up and over her head. Her hands are shaking and she doesn't know why. They tremble at Lexa's shoulders, her neck, and she presses them against warm flesh until she can trace goosebumps and taste longing on Lexa's tongue.
"You're going to leave again, aren't you?" Lexa asks when they are both breathing hard and Clarke is pushing off her bra.
Clarke looks at her, eyes wide, and grins ruefully.
"You left first."
Lexa kisses her to swallow the words.
*
"We can make this work," she had told Lexa years earlier, with the threat of medical school hanging over her and Lexa's new job out on the east coast. We can, she had said, but that doesn't necessarily mean we should.
"I'm sorry," she had told Lexa four months later, through a grainy image on her computer screen and an overwhelming sense of freedom filling her, head to toe and every place in between. I think we should break up, she had said and watched Lexa's face fall and freeze. Was she really sorry?
Clarke has always been incredibly good at pretending.
*
"You could stay in DC, you know," Lexa says at one point. She's got hair spilling off her left shoulder and she's dressed in one of Clarke's worn sweaters.
You could stay with me, is what she really means but Lexa isn't stupid enough to say so out loud.
Clarke wants to explain that she doesn't remember how to stay still. Wants to explain how her skin itches when she thinks about all the same houses sewn in a neat little line like the one she grew up in. Clarke wants to be able to look Lexa in the eye and tell her about how much her chest still aches with that feeling of away.
She doesn't.
Instead, she kisses Lexa. Instead, she peels her sweater from Lexa's body and tugs her pants down to her ankles. Instead, Clarke bites the insides of Lexa's thighs and swallows the gasps Lexa gives when she curls her fingers roughly.
And maybe she doesn't have to explain, not when Lexa grips her arm hard enough to leave bruises. Not when each kiss she gives feels like it could be their last.
Clarke doesn't say anything.