Work Text:
I think I must have known you
In another life
I think our rocking chairs
Used to rock together all night
“Hands Remember” - Seabear
“Tell me again about Washing- TonDC.” Lexa requests as she leans into Clarke, her head resting on the other leader’s chest as they both lay in the grass. The two had started the day on a walk around the outskirts of Polis, enjoying the day before the end of harvest celebration that night. The sun was surprisingly strong for mid-September and Lexa had convinced Clarke to give swimming another chance so they could cool off. It was hard to say no to Lexa when she bodily carried you into the lake, but she was adamant that swimming was an invaluable skill to have on the ground and Clarke couldn’t deny her request. After a couple of hours of splashing around, they decided to rest and dry off in the waning afternoon sunlight.
Clarke pushes up on her elbows and smiles down at the relaxed commander, twirling a damp braid through her fingers. “I think I may have exhausted my knowledge on the executive branch of the American government system.”
“No, not the Commander in Chief- about all the places. You said they honored their warriors and leaders, the stone people and... memorials?” The last word feels awkward in Lexa’s mouth, but she turns her head in anticipation of Clarke’s response.
It’s moments like this when Clarke is most in awe of Lexa. Lexa, a commander who has led and united thousands of people since she was fifteen years old, a warrior who is arguably the most lethal human on Earth, a girl who carries the weight of the world on her shoulders.
But for Clarke nothing compares to the the way Lexa’s eyes light up in wonder at each new story Clarke tells of the past. It’s this rare display of Lexa’s innocence that Clarke cherishes beyond all else. They’ve spent hours this summer, days even, going over all the things Clarke knows about the world before the bombs. Society, culture, schools, wars, games, books- anything and everything she can think of. And every time Lexa questions and pushes with such wonder, such passion. It blows Clarke away.
So Clarke takes this moment to watch Lexa- cradles her face in her hand, slowly brushing her thumb over Lexa’s cheek, and tries to memorize the way Lexa’s eyes are wide and curious and trusting. She wants to hold this memory secure in her mind because she knows there are days ahead when the sun won’t be shining and this girl won’t be clean of war paint and in her arms gazing at her like she holds all the answers to the world.
“Clarke…” Lexa starts, her mouth curving in a smirk as she lightly pinches Clarke’s side, “perhaps you truly have exhausted all your knowledge.”
Clarke pulls her hand back from Lexa’s cheek and tugs lightly on a braid pulling a face at Lexa before she speaks. “There were a lot of memorials. And monuments and stone people, mainly dudes-”
“Dudes are men?” Lexa interrupts.
“Dudes are men.” Clarke affirms. “They carved giant statues and built buildings to remember and honor them.”
“Because they were important to the tribe?”
“Many of the monuments were for specific people that did great things to help others. And some were for the wars and the soldiers, to mark their bravery and sacrifice.”
At this, Lexa shifts her body off Clarke and looks off into the forest, setting her jaw. Clarke has seen this reaction to certain aspects of the past before, the descriptions of cemeteries or holidays. To traditions that sparked a fear in Lexa’s mind that maybe she wasn’t doing enough for her people, wasn’t being enough. And Clarke waits for Lexa respond to that worry the only way she knows how, defensively.
“The sacrifice itself was not enough to remember? The tribe’s safety and existence does not bear the mark of these warrior’s bravery?” Lexa questions.
Clarke pauses, choosing her next words carefully. “They were different, things were different Lexa. This was how they honoured those who defended their country.”
“Do we not honor our dead?” Lexa asks, keeping her voice neutral.
Clarke pauses. “You honor them differently. You carry them with you, you mark them on your body- they wrote the names on stones, on statues, on a wall. It’s different, but the same.”
Lexa is silent for a while and Clarke watches, fidgets with blades of grass. She’s learned that sometimes, most times, it’s best to let Lexa work things out in her head.
“I fear that if we started writing their names we would never stop.” Lexa swallows and Clarke scoots closer, rubbing her arm. “We would be writing forever.”
Clarke has no response because she feels the same. Some days it feels like the names of everyone she’s lost, everyone she’s killed, are branded on her body. Weighing her down and slowly tightening around her neck. “Maybe that’s why they did it. Maybe the only way to move on was to give it away, give it to stone and let everyone share it.”
Lexa pulls Clarke’s hand into her own, scooting closer until their shoulders bump. She has no words to offer and they sit like that for awhile. Both staring off into the forest, squeezing the other’s hand as their own lists of names weigh heavily in their hearts. This is how they’ll honor all the names they carry today; together in the quiet field as the sun begins its descent.
It’s Clarke who eventually breaks the quiet.
“Can you imagine having all that time?” She asks, pulling her knees up to her chest and resting her cheek on top of them as she turns and looks at Lexa. “They had time to plan and build, to go to schools, to play games. To be innocent.”
Lexa looks over Clarke’s face, sees the glint in her eyes, the longing. There are lives they can never imagine, and yet dream of far too clearly. Lexa does not usually allow herself to indulge in such fruitless hoping, a practice she learned to shut down many years ago. But here with Clarke, here in this field as the sun begins to set after a truly enjoyable day, here as summer’s last rays dance in Clarke’s drying hair Lexa allows herself this dream. She looks carefully over Clarke’s face and gives in.
“How would we have met?” Lexa asks quietly, surprising herself with the slight hitch in her voice.
Clarke swallows back her own surprise, her appreciation of Lexa’s offering. She takes a moment to think and is collected before responding. “We would’ve lived in houses next door to each other, growing up together in a neighborhood. In the winter we would build snowmen and go sledding, the summer would be spent barefoot running through the sprinkler, riding bikes, catching fireflies at night.”
Clarke isn’t confident Lexa is familiar with all these customs, but that doesn’t prevent the smile that breaks free on her face. “That sounds perfect.”
“Well, it wasn’t all fun and games,” Clarke continues, really getting into the story now, “As we got older, our parents didn’t get along. Their feud started with an old tree on our shared property line, each thought the other should be responsible for it. Then they started arguing more and more about other things- trash cans left on the corner, dog poop in the lawn, stolen newspapers.”
“What trivial things to fight about, did they use weapons?”
Clarke laughs lightly. “No, no weapons. Maybe a passive aggressive note now and then.”
“The does not seem effective.”
“It wasn’t. But we stayed out of their fights.”
“That sounds… peaceful. It would be nice not to be party to the fight.”
“Well, we had our own fights.” Clarke admits. “We’d fight about what game to play or movie to watch or pizza toppings. As we got older, we’d fight about that boy who kept asking me out or your proclivity for getting into fist fights. We’d argue about anything and everything and not know why. We’d even argue about that old tree, just like our parents.”
Lexa’s face falls in confusion. “We felt the other’s parents should cut down the tree?”
“No. My parents finally agreed to pay to have the tree cut down, but I didn’t want them to.”
“You liked the tree.” Lexa nods, scooting to sit directly across from Clarke, fully facing her.
“We met under that tree.” Clarke sighs. “We were seven. You had just moved in and I was in my backyard trying to build a fort in it. I had a few planks of wood, some nails, and a hammer and you marched over from your backyard and told me I was doing it wrong.”
“Were you?”
Clarke rolls her eyes. “We spent our first summer together under that tree and all we built were four steps leading up to the branches. When we were ten we carved our names in the trunk. When we were thirteen you ran away from home once a week and I’d always find you in the branches. When we were sixteen the tree started to die.”
“You did not want to lose the tree.”
“It was our tree.”
“I did not agree?”
“You didn’t think it was safe. You were always more practical than I was, less attached. At least outwardly.”
Lexa smiles wryly. “What happened to our tree?”
“One night we got in a big fight. The tree was scheduled to be cut down the next day and I was freaking out about it and you were trying to calm me down, trying to get me to see the logical side. I told you that you didn’t have a heart, you said I gave mine out too freely.”
Lexa nods slightly. “It seems like we were arguing about more than the tree.”
“After the fight I stormed out of your house and climbed up the tree, my plan was to stay up there as long as needed so they wouldn’t cut it down. It took you thirty seconds to follow me up and demand I get down because it wasn’t safe.”
“Well if it was an old, dead tree, the branches could break and-”
“We kissed for the first time in that tree.” Clarke smiles, “You wouldn’t shut up about me breaking my neck so I shut you up. I was so angry I forgot how scared I was, especially when you kissed me back.”
“Of course I kissed you back.” Lexa affirms. “Did we stay there and save the tree?”
“No, we kissed until the branch we were on broke and we fell out of the tree.”
Lexa is indignant, almost scandalized. “I would never fall out of a tree”
Clarke stares at Lexa for a moment before doubling over in laughter. “We both did, the tree was old-”
“Clarke, I would know not to have us kiss on a weak bran-
Clarke cuts her off with a kiss, cupping Lexa’s cheek as she chases the response away. It’s successful because when Clarke finally pulls away, Lexa’s eyes are glazed over and she’s quiet.
Clarke pulls back a bit and continues. “The next day the tree was cut down.”
“No.” Lexa gasps.
“It was old and unsafe.” Clarke shrugs.
“But-”
“I didn’t need the tree anymore, I had you.” Clarke whispers, leaning forward to rest her forehead against Lexa’s.
Lexa breathes in sharply at the sincerity in Clarke’s voice. “Then” she pauses to take another breath, “then what happens?”
“Oh you know how it goes,” Clarke smiles softly, pulling back to take in Lexa’s face, “then there’s love, marriage, a baby carriage...”
“I do not know…” Lexa shakes her head slightly in confusion.
Clarke smiles widely at Lexa’s confession before pulling her back in for a quick kiss. “We’ll get to that another day. It’s your turn, how do we meet?”
Lexa pauses, looks up at the darkening sky for minutes before releasing a deep breath and looking only at Clarke. “We meet a thousand ways, in a thousand places, and it is always the same.”
Lexa reaches over, brushing Clarke’s hair behind her ears before she continues.
“I see you. We are walking down the same street and I see you helping a woman who dropped what she was carrying.” Lexa pauses, thinking of the other places of the past she’s learned. “At a park I see you standing up for a boy who is being harassed by bigger kids. On the bus I see you offering up your seat for an elderly member of the tribe. I see you playing a sport- a soccer game, never giving up no matter how tired you are.”
Clarke smiles at the pride in Lexa’s voice, the determination in her eyes as she continues.
“We meet at the market, reaching for the same apple and then I see your eyes and my entire life finally makes sense because it brought me to that moment.” Lexa states strongly, her eyes never leaving Clarke’s even as her throat tightens.
“Would you give me the apple?” Clarke asks quietly.
“I would give you everything.” Lexa admits and then immediately thinks of all the people she belongs to now. Of how little she has of herself to give Clarke in this lifetime. It’s hard to keep the tremor out of her voice when she continues. “It would be just us. Only you and me… And I would see you and be yours.”
Clarke stares at Lexa for a full minute before she lets out a strangled combination of a sob laugh and pushes Lexa in the shoulder. “You jerk, you let me go on about a tree and then write me a freaking poem!”
Lexa is stunned. “I-”
But Clarke doesn’t let her finish and instead moves to straddles her lap, pushing them both back to the grass and capturing Lexa’s lips.
They stay in the meadow until the sun has completely set.
Later on their walk back to Polis through the starlit forest, hands entangled and swinging idly between them, both women are content to enjoy the silence and the solid presence of the other.
They’re halfway back when Lexa breaks the silence, “There is much to celebrate tonight. The market people have been brewing spirits all summer in preparation.”
“Good, I can kick your ass in drinking games.” Clarke smirks, knocking her shoulder into Lexa’s lightly.
Lexa scoffs. “I do not know of these games, but I assure you my ass will not be kicked.”
“I don’t think so Commander, I’m confident no matter where we meet I’ll be beating you in drinking games.”
“This is ridiculous. I excel at all competition.”
The echoes of Clarke’s laughter can be heard throughout the forest.