Chapter Text
"I don't think I can do this Anya," Lexa repeated for the tenth time that morning as she paced around her kitchen.
"You have to go," Anya spoke over the phone, relaying the fact that Lexa knew all to well. "You're Jackson's godmother, not to mention the fact that Octavia would actually kill you if you missed her son's wedding. And then there's the fact that explaining why you aren't in the family photos would be entirely awkward."
"I don't see why it would be awkward, it's a very straight forward explanation."
"Actually, it's not straight at all, it's quite gay," Anya sniggered as she played off the pun. Lexa ignored it as she continued to pace. "And honestly, I don't get what the big deal is. You raised three kids together!"
"No," Lexa spoke matter-of-factly, we raised the twins together for fourteen years. We've been divorced for more than half of Dylan's life, that doesn't exactly constitute us raising her together."
"Regardless," Anya interrupted. Lexa could hear the exasperation in her older sister's voice. "My point was that I don't understand how the fact that Clarke is going to be at the wedding is such a big deal. You have three children tohether, you see each other all the time."
"Three years," Lexa admitted. It was the first time she'd admitted the fact to her sister. "I haven't seen Clarke since the twins' graduation. Three years ago."
There was silence on the other end of the line, causing Lexa to pause mid-pace. She was so focused on the silence, that she didn't register the fact that the shower upstairs that was previously running, no longer was. "I'm sorry, what?" Anya finally spoke in shock. "How is it that you've been keeping this information from me? How does that even work? Dylan alternates between your houses every week, she's thirteen and can't exactly drive herself."
"Mondays is switch day," Lexa explained. Because they'd decided to put Dylan in private school following the divorce, it didn't matter that she and Clarke lived in different towns. "Dylan simply takes different school buses home each week. There's no need for us to ever see each other."
"That's bullshit. Jake and Willa might be in college, but surely you need to talk about Dylan, and there's no way phone calls cut it."
"Emails," Lexa dropped the next bomb. "We only communicate through email."
"You are actually ridiculous," Anya scoffed. "I thought you got lunch together twice a month to discuss the kids?"
"We did," Lexa confirmed as she left the kitchen and sat down on the couch in the living room, unaware of the set of ears listening in to her conversation at the top of the stairs. Lexa took a deep breath before admitting to the reason why she hadn't heard her ex-wife's voice or seen her in three years. "At the twins' graduation when she suggested that I sign up for a dating website and I told her I didn't want to. She pressed me on it, and I told her why."
"You're such an idiot. You and Clarke somehow managed to become friends after your divorce and you went and fucked it up."
"Yes Anya I'm aware!" Lexa ran a hand through her brown curls. "I told her that even though we were done, that there would never be anyone again because she was it for me. I made a fool of myself. There's a reason why most people don't stay friends with their ex-wives. It doesn't work. So now we email and that's it. And it's worked for us."
"I now better understand why you are so worked about this wedding," Anya relented.
"Yeah."
"You still love her, don't you?"
Lexa laughed out loud at the question before providing it the most honest answer she could. "I will never not love Clarke Griffin. I am incapable of not being in love with her. But me not loving her was never our problem. Some times love just isn't enough."
Anya made a gagging sound on the other end of the line and Lexa rolled her eyes. "You sound like a sappy rom-com. And now you're stalling even further. Don't you have a wedding to get ready for?"
Lexa groaned in response. "Yes. Fine. Bye An."
"Bye little sis. Let me know how it goes, and try not to fuck anything up even more."
"I'll try."
Lexa had just hung up her phone and was trying to gather the energy to get ready when a loud, high-pitched voice echoed through the house. "Mom! Can you come do my hair?"
Taking that as her cue, Lexa got off the couch and headed upstairs. "Dylan!" She reprimanded as soon as she entered her daughter's room, "What have I told you about yelling in the house? It's totally unnecessary."
"I wasn't sure if you were still on the phone with Aunt Anya or not," the thirteen-year-old shrugged.
Lexa's stomach dropped, could her daughter have heard the conversation she'd been having downstairs on the phone? The last thing she wanted her youngest to hear was her confession of love. She didn’t want the girl getting any wrong notions in her head.
"How did you know I was talking to Aunt Anya?” she asked, hoping to gauge the girl’s reaction.
“Because I told you she called and you told me you’d call her back while I was showering. Duh.” Dylan had gotten particularly sassy in the past year, Lexa chalked it up to her finally becoming a teenager.
Lexa nodded, trying to hide her relief, and took in the fact that her child was still wearing a robe and that her long brown hair was still sopping wet. “You know I can only do your braids once your hair is dry Dyl.”
“I know,” the girl nodded before lifting up the hair dryer in her hand, "Can you blow dry it for me?”
Lexa remembered the way she used to blow dry Willa and Dylan’s hair every night after they showered while Clarke took the dog for a walk. Up until the months leading up to the divorce they hadn't strayed from their nightly ritual. After dinner, Clarke and Lexa would clean up while the kids showered. Then, Lexa would blow dry hair while Clarke took the dog for a walk. And once the kids were in bed, the couple would take a relaxing bath together. After the divorce, Willa started high school and never asked Lexa to blow dry her hair, but Lexa had kept up the ritual with her younger daughter for the first few years until Dylan insisted she could do it herself.
“Of course,” Lexa smiled as she sat on the girl’s desk chair and gestured for Dylan to kneel in front of her. It took a long time for the girl’s mane to dry entirely, but Lexa enjoyed it. Even when the kids were little, Dylan's always took longer than Willa’s. Dylan had Lexa’s hair, thick, curly, and often unmanageable. By the time she finished drying it and putting delicate braids throughout it though, it was nearly time for them to leave for the church. “So have you decided what you're wearing yet?” Lexa asked as she looked at her watch. She still needed to do her own hair and make up and get changed as well.
After admiring her braids in the mirror Dylan opened the door to her closet. One of the perks of having divorced parents who had equal custody was that she had two full closets of clothing so that she would never have to be a suitcase-kid, trekking clothes between both her homes the way her older siblings had the first years after the divorce. She’d grown up with her moms divorced and hardly remembered the time before it. She was in first grade when they split.
“I was thinking of wearing my suit,” the girl admitted with a sheepish smile.
Lexa remembered how excited her daughter had been when she'd asked for the suit for her birthday several months earlier. She remembered the way the girl had reluctantly admitted to the fact that she had only asked Lexa and not Clarke for it because Lexa was the one who wore a suit to their wedding and she wasn’t sure if Clarke would approve of her wearing one.
“Then I guess we'll be matching then,” Lexa smiled at her daughter. “Now I better go get ready. I think your brother would murder me if I missed his debut as best man.” Even though Jackson was two years older than Jake, the two had grown up effectively as cousins and were best friends.
Clarke and Willa were one of the first to arrive at the church. Both women liked to remain on a schedule and hated being late. The two were more a like then they cared to admit, but it was obvious to anyone that knew them both, and not just because Willa was currently studying pre-med in hopes of becoming a doctor like her mother.
Even though they were early, the church started to fill up fairly quickly. Both Jackson and Tris came from large extended families, especially when you counted Octavia’s friends and their children as family members.
“Shouldn’t they have been here by now?” Willa asked her mother, finally voicing the concern that Clarke had been dwelling on for nearly an hour. “I mean, it’s not like Lexa lives very far away from here.”
Clarke was taken off-guard by her daughter’s use of her ex-wife’s first name. She’d heard Willa use it several times in the past few years, but it still shocked her each time. Despite the fact that her relationship with Lexa had been a failure, she’d never wanted their children to pick one parent over the other in the divorce. Unfortunately though, that was what had happened. Willa had blamed Lexa for the divorce and had convinced her twin to do the same. Luckily, Dylan had been young enough to not be able to form her own opinion despite her older sister trying to convince her to. Dylan had remained neutral throughout their seven years of divorce.
“Is there a reason why you’re calling your mom Lexa and not Mom?” Clarke asked, diverting the conversation away from the fact that her ex-wife and youngest child still hadn’t arrived. She didn’t want to think about seeing Lexa. She’d been trying not to think about it all day. She’d only seen her once in the past three years, and that had been on accident. She wasn’t even sure Lexa had realized they’d both accidentally gone to the same night of Dylan’s dance recital the year before.
“It’s not that big of a deal,” Willa shrugged, “And don’t worry, it’s not like I call her that to her face, it’s just easier to say Lexa rather than to clarify which of my moms I’m talking about. And at school when people ask, it makes more sense to just say that Lexa is my mom’s ex-wife.”
Clarke abruptly turned in her seat to face her daughter. This was not the way she’d raised her daughter to act. In fact, if she really thought about it, Willa was acting more like a college version of Lexa than Clarke. “Lexa is your mother just as much as I am. And I better not hear you talking like that to your sister, do you understand?”
“Whatever,” the younger blonde crossed her arms across her chest and slouched in her seat. She then sat up a little straighter as she remembered something. “Why isn’t Finn here by the way.”
Clarke blushed as she realized that she hadn’t actually thought to invite her boyfriend to the wedding. They’d met at one of Dylan’s parent nights, he was also a divorced parent at the school. They had been seeing each other for the past couple officially for a few months, but Clarke didn’t think it was going to last. There was no real spark with him. “It seemed too soon,” she spoke, offering up an explanation. “Besides, I’m not really sure how much longer it’s going to last with him. There’s no real spark.”
“You should give it time,” Willa rebutted, “He’s a nice guy.”
Clarke knew that all of her children actually liked Finn a lot. He’d made an effort to make sure that Dylan and his daughter got along and spent time with them as well as the twins after they’d come home from college for the summer. He hadn’t even questioned why it was that Dylan spent every other week with Lexa while the twins only went over to their second mother’s house every other weekend. Finn was a nice guy, but Clarke always wanted more than that. She wanted a love that wasn’t just with someone who she got along with, but someone who challenged her and made life more exciting. She knew what it was like to have that kind of love though, and she knew it didn’t last. That it wasn’t enough.
When the music started to play, Clarke turned around just in time to see Lexa and Dylan sneaking in a side door and sliding in to the last pew on the groom’s side of the aisle. Her heart raced at the sight of them. Lexa looked like she’d barely aged in the three years since the last time they really saw each other. Meanwhile Clarke had begun to find her share of grey hairs. The first thing that she noticed though, was the fact that Lexa and Dylan were wearing coordinating suits. The sight of Lexa in a suit used to make her hornier than anything, but the sight of her ex-wife and daughter in the suits just made her heart ache. Dylan was like a smaller version of Lexa. She’d always known that of course, but it became more apparent actually seeing the two together.
“Of course she made Dylan wear a suit. Dylan has so many gorgeous dresses. I literally took her shopping last week and she got the most gorgeous blue…”
“Willa,” Clarke held a hand up, interrupting her older daughter. “Dylan looks great. I highly doubt Lexa forced her to wear that suit, Dylan doesn’t exactly do well with people telling her what to wear.”
Willa rolled her eyes, but as the music swelled she turned back around to watch the wedding procession. Clarke withdrew her camera as she started to take pictures. She smiled brighter at the sight of Lincoln and Octavia proudly walking down the aisle, ready to watch their son marry the love of his life and the entire wedding party, especially her son Jake who walked with Lincoln and Octavia’s daughter, Aurora, the maid-of-honor. She’d had an inkling for a while that Jake and Aurora had gotten past being raised almost as cousins and that they were secretly dating. And seeing the way they were so comfortable simply heightened her suspicions. She’d asked Willa about it earlier that week, but Jake’s twin had refused to comment on the matter.
The ceremony was beautiful and Jackson and Tris’ vows brought Clarke and Willa both to tears. Maybe it was because Lexa was only pews behind her, or simply because she was at a wedding, but Clarke couldn’t help but think about her own wedding. Despite how their relationship ended, Clarke only had fond memories of her wedding day and the majority of her marriage to Lexa. And even though Jackson and Tris’ vows were heartfelt, she still believed her and Lexa’s had been better. She just hoped that the newly married couple would keep their vows better than she and Lexa had.
After the ceremony, everyone gathered outside to wait for the shuttle that would take them the forty-five minutes to Polis Inn where the reception would be held and where the majority of the guests would be spending the night. Even though there would be photos taken at the Inn, the photographer insisted on getting photos of the wedding party in front of the chapel, so Clarke decided to take some of her own as well.
After the wedding party finished their photos, the shuttle still had not arrived. According to Lincoln it was only a few minutes delayed though.
“Mom! Willa!” exclaimed a cheerful Dylan as she came hustling over to her mother and sister, a dapper looking Jake behind her as well as a more reticent-looking Lexa in her trail.
“Hey Dyl!” Clarke greeted her younger daughter, “I love the suit!”
“Really?” Dylan asked, her eyes wide with appreciation. Being a young teen she craved approval, even if she didn’t want to admit that her mother’s approval mattered to her.
“Of course,” Clarke nodded, “And the best man is looking pretty nice himself.” The blonde brought her only son in to a hug.
“I was thinking maybe we can get a family picture?” Dylan asked sheepishly. “Of all of us.”
Clarke could never deny her daughter anything that made her feel more secure in their family unit, so she relented. “Of course,” she nodded.
“Hi Lexa,” she finally greeted her ex-wife with a soft smile. Any hatred that had come between them as a result of their divorce had passed before the divorce had even been finalized. Not that Clarke could ever hate Lexa anyway.
“You look nice Clarke,” Lexa smiled in return. Clarke ignored the way ancient butterflies began to waken in the pit of her stomach at the sight of the smile.
“So do you,” Clarke nodded honestly in return.
“So where do you guys want the photo?” Aurora asked, appearing from behind Jake. Clarke hadn’t even noticed her arrival, but she was holding up a professional-looking camera as she gestured to the church behind them.
“In front of the church maybe?” Clarke suggested, causing her family to nod in assent and walk towards the steps that led up to the building.
Clarke remembered the last family photo they had taken. It was at the twins’ high school graduation. Positioning themselves for that photo had been easy. The twins had stood in the middle with a parent on each side and a shorter Dylan in front of them. But now Dylan had grown and was even wearing heels and the twins weren’t the cause for the picture. The arrangement would have to be different.
For several awkward moments they tried to figure out the best way to position themselves before Dylan finally took charge. “Mom and Mama go next to each other on the second step, Willa and Jake go on either side of them and I’ll stand on the first step in the middle.”
Glad that someone had organized it, they all got in to position, but not before Willa could make a remark under her breath, “I don’t think Mama really appreciates standing next to Mom.” With the increase in the amount of times Clarke had heard Willa call Lexa by her name, there had also been a decrease in the amount of times Willa called Clarke ‘Mama’. Lately the only one who called her that was Dylan while Willa and Jake had started calling her simply ‘Mom’.
They smiled for the picture, but as soon as it was taken, she heard Willa say something under her breath again. Clarke couldn’t make out what Willa had said, but it was easy enough to figure out the general meaning behind it as it elicited a glare from Dylan. “Willa, apologize to your mom for being rude to her.”
“Why should I?” the twenty-one-year old demanded, acting more like a teenager than an adult.
“Because she’s your mother and you need to respect her,” Clarke explained simply.
“You mean like she respected you and the rest of our family by leaving you and completely rejecting us, leaving two high school freshmen and a six-year-old to pick up the pieces?” Willa’s voice had raised, bringing to argument the fight that they’d never had, not in the seven years since the divorce.
Clarke stood there in shock for several moments before her eyes darted to Lexa's. They always had when confronted with a difficult situation. But when they saw the pain that the green eyes had failed to hide Clarke knew that she had to repair the situation. It had been at Lexa's insistence that they didn't tell the children the cause of the divorce. She hadn't wanted the kids to treat Clarke any differently. It may have been Lexa who filed for divorce, but it was Clarke's fault. And it was because of Lexa's selflessness that Willa had blamed Lexa for the divorce, the divorce that hadn't been Lexa's fault at all. Clarke knew she had to fix that though.
"Stop blaming Lexa!" She exclaimed, her voice raised louder than she'd anticipated. "Lexa didn't leave us. She didn't break our family, I did. I cheated on her, and that's why we got divorced."
Clarke hadn't realized that Lincoln had just approached them to let them know that the shuttle had arrived and that many of their friends were standing close by. She had always assumed that Lexa had told their friends of her indiscretion, or at the very least that she’d told Lincoln, as he’d been her best friend since college. But the look on Octavia, Lincoln, Raven, Bellamy and Echo’s faces along with the faces of their children told her otherwise. They told her that Lexa hadn’t told anyone. It made her wonder if Lexa had told Anya, or if Lexa had dealt with the burden of knowledge by herself. All around them everyone instantly went silent. Everyone waited to see who it was who would break the silence.
In the end it was Dylan who broke it. And while it seemed like eons to Clarke before she spoke, it was only several prolonged moments of silence. “Uncle Lincoln, did you say that the shuttle was here?” Clarke would have to remember to thank her younger daughter later, for bringing normalcy to the conversation. She wondered how it was that the young teen had managed to remain unfeathered by the bombshell that Clarke had just dropped.
“Uh, yeah it is,” the father of the groom confirmed. This statement seemed to spur the bystanders in to motion as they all set about making their way to the shuttle bus.
It seemed like none of the Griffin-Woods family knew how to respond by the reveal that was seven years in the making. They all stood there silently, waiting for someone else to bring up the elephant in the room until they realized that they too needed to board the shuttle. The children boarded first and took three seats together in the back of the bus, leaving only two other seats available. Two seats next to each other which Clarke and Lexa reluctantly took.
When the shuttle set in to motion, the bus started to titter with conversation, everyone talking to their seat mates. After several minutes of incredibly awkward silence, Lexa finally broke it. “You shouldn’t have done that,” she spoke. “We decided that we weren’t going to tell them.”
“I was tired of Willa acting like a bitch to you.”
“She’s not that bad, and it’s not even like you ever see the way she acts to me anyway.” Even though it had been three years since Clarke had heard Lexa’s voice, she could still read her like an open book and she knew that she was trying to hide pain behind snark.
“Maybe not,” Clarke relented, knowing that she was in the wrong, “But I do know the way she talks about you and it’s not right. We didn’t raise her to act that way.”
“If she had to find out, I would have preferred it to have been in a more controlled environment,” Lexa explained. Clarke knew by the way Lexa was speaking, in perfect, controlled sentences, that she was trying to gain control over not just the conversation, but the situation as a whole.
“Clearly things don’t always go as planned,” Clarke returned, starting to feel annoyed. Obviously she wasn’t happy with the situation either.
“I told Dylan two years ago.” Lexa’s words hit Clarke like a punch in the stomach. “I never told anyone, not even Anya, but two years ago Dylan was upset to find out that Caris, you know her best friend? Well she was really upset that Caris’ parents were splitting up, especially since her Dad cheated on her Mom. She couldn’t understand why it had happened. And hell our daughter really catches on quick to things, because she must have figured out from my reaction that it was a sore subject.”
“So what happened?” Clarke asked.
“She straight out asked if that’s why we’d gotten divorced. And I couldn’t lie to her, so I told her the truth.”
“Why didn't you tell me?” For two years her younger daughter had known about her infidelity, but hadn’t treated her any differently.
Clarke watched as Lexa took a deep breath before answering her question. “She promised me not to tell you that she knew. I explained to her that I didn’t hate you and that I’d gotten past it and that even if it ruined our marriage, that it was just the straw that broke the camel’s back and that I still respected your role in the lives of our children. I asked her not to treat you any differently and she promised she wouldn’t. She said that if I of all people could forgive you, that she could too.”
“She’s something special our Dylan,” Clarke sighed. She dwelled for a moment on the fact that Lexa had admitted to forgiving her. Even though she knew it to be the case based on interactions she’d had with her ex-wife, she’d never actually heard her say the words before.
“All three of them are,” Lexa added, to which Clarke nodded.
Not knowing what to say next, the exes sat in silence the entire remaining ride to the reception. Meanwhile, their children sat in the back of the bus, discussing the the new-found knowledge and what it meant to them going forward, discussing things that the children of all divorced parents did at some point.
Not knowing how many of Lincoln and Octavia’s college friends had been invited to the wedding, Lexa had been concerned about the seating arrangements. While it was a given that she would have to interact with Clarke, she’d really wanted to avoid sitting at the same table as her at the reception. Luckily though, Jackson and Tris had had the forethought to separate them and while Clarke was seated with Raven, Wick, Bellamy, Echo, Jasper and Maya, Lexa was seated at a table with Harper, Harper’s husband, Monroe, Murphy, Monty and Miller. Both she and Clarke were the only single ones at their respective tables, but Lexa did find it to be a relief that they weren’t at the same table.
After the toasts were made and everyone got through their dinners, Lexa falling in to an easy conversation with Monty and Miller about their son’s desire to go to college for tennis, Lexa felt a soft hand on her shoulder. She put down her cocktail and turned around to find her son there.
“Hey Jake,” she smiled. “Your best man toast was great.” It was. He’d managed to both embarrass Jackson and bring up some of the best memories he had of him. Many of them involving them going on family vacations together.
It had surprised Lexa that references to old family vacations actually made her smile and gave her a familiar feeling in her heart that wasn't unpleasant at all.
"Thanks Mom," Jake smiled genuinely in response. While Lexa's relationship with Jake wasn't as bad as hers was with Willa, it had certainly suffered as a result of the divorce. When Jake had been growing up, Lexa had been his baseball coach and had been the one he turned to when he needed help with anything. In the years following the divorce though, he'd sort of gone into a limbo, failing to have a close relationship with either of his mothers.
"Rora and I were going to go do Jager bombs, you want to join?" He offered an olive branch.
Grateful for the offer, Lexa nodded and said goodbye to her college friends, following her son to the bar where the sister of the groom was waiting for them.
"So you and Rora, huh?" Lexa grinned, not oblivious to what was in front of her.
"Yeah," he shrugged sheepishly, admitting to his relationship to one of his parents for the first time.
"How long?" Lexa asked.
"Almost a year." The length of his secret relationship surprised Lexa, but she tried not to let that show on her face.
"Don't fuck it up," she laughed, knowing that her son was like her in his tendency to avoid acting emotional when he didn't have to. Willa was the same, though his twin would never admit to being similar to Lexa at all.
"I won't," he conceded as they made it to the bar.
Lexa greeted Aurora with a hug, telling her how much she looked like her mother. She had many of Octavia's features, but in personality she was much more like Lincoln, a stoic teddy bear.
They took their shots, but before they had a chance to ask for another, they were joined by the girl who looked painfully like Clarke.
"Can I talk to you for a minute Mom?" Willa asked, looking like a puppy who'd just been caught with her head in the toilet.
"Of course," Lexa excused herself from her son and his girlfriend, following Willa to the other side of the bar where they took seats beside each other.
"I'm sorry," the blonde spoke. "I've pretty much been a bitch you for seven years straight because I thought you left Mama for no reason."
"It's not entirely your fault," Lexa offered, grabbing her daughter's hand and squeezing it reassuringly. "Mama wanted to tell you guys so you could learn from her mistakes, but I didn't want you to treat her any differently. You three are the most important people in the world to us and we didn't want you to hurt any more than our divorce was going to hurt you in the first place."
"How long was she cheating on you for?" Willa asked. Now that she knew the root of the divorce, she needed to know the whole story and Lexa wasn't in a position to deny her that knowledge. "I can't believe she had sex with someone else while you were married. You always seemed so happy until literally the month before you told us you were getting divorced."
"She didn't have sex with anyone else," Lexa needed to clear the air. "There was another doctor in the same department as her, it doesn't matter his name. She didn't realize she was emotionally cheating until one night they were out for drinks and he called it a date. She went back to his apartment with him and they kissed, but she stopped it before it went any further. She told me about it that very night when she came home."
"But why?" Willa was practically pleading at this point.
"I don't think even she knows. It was hard though at that time. You and Jake were starting high school at the same time as Dylan was starting elementary school. I was in my first term as mayor and she had just gotten new responsibilities as an attending surgeon. We were both stressed and hardly had time for one another. Sometimes things just happen and they're shitty, but you can't change the past."
"You've forgiven her, haven't you?" Willa asked, shocked, "You even stayed friends with her. For the first four years anyway."
"I stopped hating her the moment I realized how much worse it was to hate someone who would always hold your heart," Lexa blamed the overly emotional response on the mix of cocktails and the Jager bomb.
"Something happened at my graduation, didn't it? And that's why you haven't seen each other in three years." Willa was finally putting the pieces together in her head. "I know you haven't seen each other since then. I know I've been away at school, but Dylan told me."
Lexa was currently in the longest conversation that wasn't an argument with her older daughter for the first time in seven years and that wasn't something small. If she wanted to repair her relationship with the girl, then she needed to tell her the truth. So for the second time that day, she explained what happened that day. "She suggested I sign up for a dating website. I was somewhat drunk at the time and told her that I would never be able to have a relationship with anyone. She would always be it for me. I never asked for my heart back from her. She still has it and she always will."
"Oh shit," Willa muttered, "I could see how that would ruin your friendship."
"You sound like Aunt Anya."
"She has a boyfriend you know," Willa offered. "His name is Finn. He's nice, not a bad guy, but she doesn't love him."
Lexa's heart sunk at her daughter's words. It's not like she hadn't thought about Clarke dating again, but being told that she really was fractured the heart she had promised to keep only for her children. "Well I wish her luck then," Lexa was aware of the dejection in her voice, but she couldn't care enough to hide it.
"Okay, that sounds like we need more to drink," Willa stood up with a look of determination in her eyes and gestured for her mother to do the same. After standing, Willa pulled Lexa in to a hug, one they stayed in for several long moments before the younger girl pulled Lexa back to her brother and his girlfriend.
They took shots together while they watched Dylan dancing with the newly married couple. Lexa remembered when she and Clarke first decided to get pregnant for the second time. They knew there would be a large age gap between the youngest and the twins and hoped that the three would still be able to have a good relationship. The age gap was what they were more worried about, not the fact that the twins were biologically Clarke's and that the youngest would be biologically Lexa's. They'd left their worries behind though when they realized that Dylan would be turning thirteen at the same time the twins would be able to legally drink, that they would be far apart in age that they would likely not get in to as many arguments. Clarke had joked that they'd be drinking with the twins around the same time Dylan would start having her first crushes. As she stood at the bar with Willa, Jake and Aurora, Lexa couldn't help but feel that Clarke was missing out on exactly the things they'd spoken about wanting to enjoy together.
From across the room, Clarke watched has Lexa drank and laughed with their twins and Aurora. She felt a pang of jealousy, but also a slight feeling of content. After everything that had happened, Lexa deserved the opportunity to reconnect with their older children. It made her miss all the time they had spent together as a family. She’d been missing that time more and more every time the twins came home from college. When they were home with Dylan, she knew that she was supposed to see that as their completed family, but without Lexa, nothing would ever be complete.
If only she’d realized that sooner. If she’d realized that sooner, then maybe she wouldn’t have spent the past three years communicating with Lexa only occasionally via email. Maybe they could have kept some semblance of a family structure. Instead, she’d freaked out when Lexa had effectively told her that she would always love her. She’d thought it wasn’t fair. Lexa shouldn’t have been the one suffering just because she’d fucked up.
It wasn’t until she saw Lexa drinking and bonding with the twins that she realized that Lexa wasn’t the only one who’d never asked for her heart back. And that was why she couldn’t love Finn. She couldn’t love Finn because she’d given her heart away the summer she spent in Lexa's hometown on the beach the summer before she started college. She’d given her heart away and had never thought to ask for it back.
Clarke continued to stare at her ex and her older children, not noticing their youngest recognizing the way Clarke was looking at Lexa. She didn’t know that Dylan had overheard Lexa and Anya on the phone. She had no way of knowing that Dylan had realized that Clarke still loved Lexa before Clarke even realized it herself. And she certainly didn’t notice Dylan excusing herself from the bride and groom to request a song from the DJ. Because if she had, then maybe she wouldn’t have been so surprised to hear the first few beats of Rachel Platten’s song, “Fight Song”.
The song had become popular the year she and Lexa had gotten married and it was the song to which they’d choreographed their first dance. It was an unconventional dance, highly choreographed with lot’s of fun moves. And Clarke still remembered every move.
Across the room, she made eye contact with Lexa, ignoring the looks they were both getting from those who had attended their wedding. She ignored the way Dylan stopped Octavia from approaching the DJ to ask him to change the song.
Lexa never forgot anything and Clarke knew that. She knew that Lexa remembered every move just as well as she did. They didn’t have to say anything to know that for three minutes, they would be going back twenty-five years to their wedding. They met in the middle of the dance floor just as the chorus started for the first time.
Three years without talking, and seven years since their divorce and twenty-five years since the last time they danced to the song all disappeared as their bodies moved in sync. Clarke felt the smile on her face widening to match Lexa’s as their bodies remembered the way they never had to work to find sync with one another. She had no eyes for the crowd that had circled around them to watch them spin one another and duck under arms. She had eyes only for the green-eyed girl she’d fallen in love with all those years ago.
The three minute song ended much too quickly for Clarke’s liking. It seemed like only a second after she first grabbed Lexa’s hand to spin over her shoulders, they were reaching the last sequence of choreography.
“Cause I’ve still got a lotta fight left in me,”
Lexa spun out of the turn and Clarke kissed her hand, just as tenderly as she had the night of their wedding.
“No I’ve still got a lot of fight left in me.”
Clarke spun in to Lexa, just as the choreography dictated. And the last beat of the song rang out. It was all exactly how it had been twenty-five years previously, but without the dip and kiss Lexa had improvised that night.
The circle that had formed around them burst out into cheers, Dylan grinning proudly at her accomplishment. It was at the sound of the cheers though that Clarke knew exactly what would happen next. It was too much, it was all too much. Even before Lexa pulled away from her, she knew it was going to happen. Lexa fled away from her through a gap in the circle, surprising everyone except her ex-wife.
At Lexa’s escape, the crowd quickly dispersed and Clarke’s children quickly approached her. “Stay here,” Clarke insisted, knowing that Lexa would not take kindly to their entire family following her out of the reception hall. The three nodded, but exchanged looks of confusion as Clarke ran out in search of her ex-wife.
“Lexa!” Clarke called out as she ran out in to the garden lit only by fairy lights. When Lexa didn’t turn around, Clarke swore under her breath, shedding her heels the were only getting caught in the soft grass. “Lexa, stop!”
It wasn’t until they reached the far end of the garden, when there was a nowhere else to go, that Lexa finally stopped and turned around. Her eyes were watery and reflected the fairy lights around her, and if they were in a different situation, maybe at a different time, Clarke would tell her how beautiful she looked.
“Lexi, please talk to me,” Clarke pleaded.
Clarke’s use of her nickname seemed to spark something in Lexa, because suddenly she wasn’t sad, she was angry. Clarke couldn’t remember the last time she had seen Lexa angry like that. Even after she’d told her about cheating on her, Lexa had just been sad. During the divorce proceedings, Lexa had never once raised her voice. It was like she’d been broken. She’d never acted angry towards her. Until now.
“Why?” Lexa demanded. Clarke opened her mouth to speak, but was interrupted by the bitter brunette. “No, I’m talking. Why? Why did you do it? I told myself I’d never ask, because really, I didn’t want to know, but now I do. We were so happy, even when things were hard. I loved you so much, hell I’m not sure how, but I still do. Back in there dancing with you just now made me realize how easy it was supposed to be. We were the couple everyone compared themselves to. We were supposed to drink together with the twins and tease Dylan about her crushes together. We promised to be forever. Why? Why Clarke? What did I do that made you want to throw it all away? What happened to us?”
Even through her anger, Lexa’s eyes spilled over with the tears that had been welling in her eyes. She knew that Lexa was waiting for her response, but Clarke didn’t even know the answer to half her questions. She didn’t know why she cheated with the other attending. All she knew was that she and Lexa had been more focused on their children at the time and hadn’t spent enough time together. “I was lonely,” was the only answer she could muster.
“You were lonely?” Lexa scoffed, her anger rising back within her. “You fucked it up all because you were lonely? Well guess what? I’ve been lonely for seven years.”
Lexa’s statement broke Clarke’s heart even more than the divorce itself had. It was proof that she had destroyed the person she’d cared most for for the longer amount of time. But if she thought that was hard to hear, Lexa’s next statement broke her even further.
“Why wasn’t I enough?” The brunette’s voice cracked and the anger fell away as tears fell down her face.
Clarke didn’t even realize she was crying until Lexa’s form became blurry in front of her.
“I’m so sorry,” Clarke croaked. “You were always enough, I was just stupid and let all the stress we were both facing get ahold of me. You’ll always be enough. I just…” she trailed off. She wiped her eyes and saw that Lexa was looking at her expectantly, waiting for her to bring up the conversation that had led to their three years without seeing each other. “You told me at the twins graduation that I still had your heart and that scared me because I didn’t want to hold on to something so precious, knowing what I’d done to it. And I’ve asked myself many times over the years why we’d never done this, really fought and yelled. I asked myself why it was that you never asked for your heart back. But I never asked for mine back either. I’ve tried dating, but I can’t bring it in myself to fall in love again, because I never really fell out of love in the first place.”
Clarke watched as a dawning of understanding fell across her ex-wife’s face.
“What I’m trying to say is that I’m sorry. I’m so goddamn sorry that I broke our family. I’m sorry that I left you to be lonely. And I’m sorry that I let Willa and Jake hate you for seven years. I’m sorry I didn’t pressure you to let me tell them the truth. I’m sorry that you still trust me to hold your heart. And above all, I’m sorry that I still love you, because I don’t deserve it, and you deserve the world.”
For once, Clarke didn’t know how Lexa would react, but if she had to pick a reaction, it wouldn’t have been the one that Lexa gave her. The brunette closed the distance between them, backing Clarke up against the fence. For a brief moment, Clarke registered the way Lexa’s eyes glanced down at her lips. Then they were on hers.
The kiss was natural, easy and it was as if they hadn’t spent seven years without kissing. Their bodies had always been so in sync. They’d never had to worry about their physical attractions. Life had been their problem, not each other. But they had never mixed a kiss with the salt of tears before. That was the only thing that set it apart from others in their past. Clarke knew that it was a kiss that came in the heat of the moment, that it couldn’t have meant anything, but she couldn’t bring herself to pull away. She couldn’t pull away, not when Lexa swiped her tongue across Clarke’s lower lip, asking for entrance. Not when kissing Lexa felt like coming home after wandering around in the abyss for seven years.
When they finally pulled apart minutes later, both in need of air, they rested their foreheads together. They stayed like that for several long moments as they regained their breath, bodies flush against each other, arms wrapped around one another.
“I should have fought for you,” Clarke broke the silence. “I never even tried to save us.”
“I didn’t either,” Lexa relented, pulling away so that while they were still holding on to each other, they could now see each other’s faces.
“I miss you.”
“I miss you too.”
“I’ll always love you,” Clarke repeated her sentiment from earlier. “I am just as in love with you now as I was on our wedding night.”
“I still love you as well,” Lexa nodded in agreement. “But is that enough? Can loving someone really be enough?”
“I don’t know,” Clarke sighed. It hadn’t been enough in their past, who was to say that it would be enough now.
“Dylan thinks there’s still a chance we’ll get back together,” Lexa admitted, “She thinks she’s subtle, but she’s not. She was the one who requested our song. Willa knows we both still love each other. And Jake is dating Aurora and we’ve been a horrible example for what a healthy relationship looks like.”
“What are you trying to say?” Clarke, trying to latch on to her ex-wife’s train of thought. She seemed to be all over the place and Clarke didn’t know what it was that Lexa was trying to tell her.
“What I’m trying to say is that I don’t know. I don’t know either if love is enough, not when we have three kids who are more important than our relationship. They need to come first. I don’t want to give Dylan false hope, or risk ruining either of our relationships with Willa, or being an even worse example to Jake. And I…”
Clarke took a leap of faith and quieted Lexa by pressing her lips against hers. She immediately felt the tension fall from the other woman’s shoulders. “You’re thinking too hard,” Clarke sighed after pulling away from the kiss. “We can do this slowly, or not at all. It’s up to you. If we decide to try being us again, we can keep it private for as long as we think is necessary. Whatever you want to do Lexa, I’ll do it. I can’t lose you again, and even if that means I can only have you as a friend, I can live with that.”
Lexa looked hard at the blonde before pulling her close again, in to a strong hug. “Okay,” she spoke in to the woman’s neck. “I’m ready to try. I want to fight for us.”
“I’m glad we chose Fight Song as our song,” Clarke smiled, placing a kiss against the brunette’s neck.
“Me too,” Lexa agreed.
“We should probably head back inside,” Clarke pulled out of the hug and gestured to the inn behind them. She grabbed Lexa’s hand and intertwined their fingers. “They’re probably about to cut the cake and I heard it has coconut icing on it.”
“That’s my favorite.”
“I know,” Clarke grinned as she pulled her girlfriend back inside. There were many things she knew about Lexa, her favorite type of icing was - so to speak - simply the icing on the cake.