Chapter Text
“It’s not fair!”
“Life isn’t fair.”
“Why do I have to go?!” he screams more than asks.
“Because!” Lexa exclaims, finally losing her calm. She rubs the space between her eyebrows, the hints of a headache coming on.
“That’s not a f- that’s not an answer!”
Even in the midsts of a discussion, she’s at least glad her son won’t curse. There’s that. Lexa sighs.
“Aden, please. Just pack your bag, or I’ll do it for you.”
He huffs and slams the bedroom door, but a few minutes later Lexa can hear him angrily packing -if there’s such a thing. At least, she hears the sound of drawers opening, and she hopes it is to find his swimming trunks and not set his clothes on fire in one last ditch attempt to skip the trip.
Lexa walks back to the bedroom, checking on the little ones in front of the TV first. She doesn’t like arguing with their brother in front of them, and she’s glad that the re-runs of Go, Diego, go! have kept them entertained.
“He never fights with me,” Clarke mentions the minute Lexa walks in the room.
“Do you want him to fight with you?” Lexa asks, sitting down on the edge of the bed. She twists her neck from side to side, feeling a few kinks. Aden is usually a good kid, incredibly well behaved. Not tonight.
“No, I mean…It’s like he doesn’t even bother, you know? To fight with me,” Clarke says, putting down her tablet. “It’s like at the end of the day you’re his mother.”
Lexa turns around.
“We’re his mothers, Clarke.”
“You were his mom before I showed up,” she says. “I’ve known him for only half his life.”
“The better half. The best half.” Lexa leans down and presses a kiss to the nearest part of Clarke -her knee. “Our family wasn’t complete without you.”
“You are a real sweet-talker aren’t you?”
“Mmhn.” Lexa nods, and lays down her head on Clarke’s thigh. “He only fights with me because he knows I’m the one who’s going to ground his pre-teen ass if he steps out of line,” she says, and even from her spot she can see Clarke bites her lip, though it fails to hide her smile. “You’d just tell him to ask me. Or take him out for ice-cream after I ground him.”
“That was one time,” Clarke says, running her hand up and down Lexa’s back. Lexa melts into Clarke’s body, and Clarke smiles openly now. She itches to sit up and kiss the impish smile off her lips. Lexa has never been able to be close to Clarke like this, and not touch her, not kiss her. Her affection spills out of her even after nearly a decade together.
“Where did that come from?” Lexa asks quietly, and Clarke’s body stiffens up beneath her.
“Clarke?” she asks again, sitting up. Clarke sighs.
“Jake was asking Aden about his school project, the one with the family tree?”
“Yeah.”
“Aden told Jake that I wasn’t his mom. That he hadn’t been in either of our tummies like he and Milla. And we haven’t kept the fact he’s adopted a secret, but Jake’s five, I could tell it confused him.”
“Why didn’t you tell m-”
“You were busy with work,” Clarke says, and it almost manages not to sound reproachful. “Jake and I talked about it, he’s good. And, I mean. It’s the truth. But I’d hoped that after so long-”
“That’s always going to be part of his story,” Lexa says. “It doesn’t mean he loves us any less.”
“I know,” Clarke says, but she still looks over Lexa’s shoulder. Her conflicted expression is one of the few she doesn’t like on her wife. “…He’s been calling me by my name for the past couple of weeks.”
“I noticed it this morning,” Lexa says quietly. “I’m sorry I was so busy that we haven’t really talked-”
“It’s okay,” Clarke says.
“It’s not.”
Clarke looks down at the mattress, and grabs Lexa’s hand.
“It’s not,” Clarke concedes, rubbing her thumb over Lexa’s knuckles. “But we’re going on vacation tomorrow. We can talk then. I’ll get you to myself for two whole weeks.”
Lexa smiles.
“Mama!” A shrill little voice sounds from the hallway, and Lexa knows it means in a few seconds they’ll be overrun.
“I think you might have to share.”
//
It’s true what she told Clarke, she never felt as complete as she did until she met her.
Her family didn't feel whole. It didn’t matter if Lexa had adopted Aden before she ever met Clarke, back then she was just drifting, trying her best. She was just a lawyer who got a child abandonment case she couldn’t let go off. She spent so long pretending to be a mother or a sister or whatever a scared three-year-old boy might need. After Clarke it didn't feel like pretending. She made Lexa brave.
They were together for only two years before Lexa got down on one knee and asked her to become her wife.
They’d only been married for a few months when they decided to go through with IVF and Clarke got pregnant with Jake. With Aden around, it had never been just them, and there was no point in waiting. Clarke was an only child, and she wanted more than one kid. Lexa wanted to give Clarke everything she wanted.
Clarke was a natural.
She breezed through her pregnancy and had a quick, easy delivery at home, and she got breastfeeding on the first try. Lexa didn’t. Jake was three when they decided to try again, and Lexa wanted to carry the baby. She saw Clarke through her pregnancy and for the first time felt that stirring of what if.
It wasn’t the same.
Lexa hated being pregnant. She was always too warm and always nauseous, and she’d felt robbed. There was no glow. She was tired, and she missed her more intense exercise routines in the mornings and sharing glasses of wine with Clarke and it all made her feel guilty. It convinced her she wouldn’t be a good mom to their daughter, and that the tiny squirming thing inside of her could feel it.
She’d never been more scared than while she gave birth, and only Clarke’s hands on her cheeks and her constant reassurances that ‘you’re doing so well, baby. I love you. I promise you’re doing so well’ were what got her through. Lexa gave birth kneeling on a mat in the floor of the birthing center, her head on Clarke’s shoulder. Clarke caught their daughter and laid her down on Lexa’s chest, and it was one of the best moments of her life.
Afterward Clarke would tell her, time and time again, that it wasn’t a competition, that she was an amazing mother, but Lexa still doubted herself whenever their baby girl wouldn’t calm down at once when put in her arms. Clarke would hold her through nights like those, rub her back and she’d apologize for being like that because they’d just had a baby, she was supposed to be happy. Clarke understood. And a few months later, when Milla was a little bigger and smiled at Lexa for the first time, all those doubts went down the drain.
Lexa loves her family, she lives for them. Clarke teases her for being a softy, but she couldn’t help but cry when Aden graduated from elementary school last year. Her heart positively clenches whenever Milla or Jake call her ‘mama’. It’s something she never knew she wanted, never thought she would get.
//
“What are you thinking about?” Clarke asks later that night, once Lexa is sitting a their vanity, calmly undoing her braid.
“How much I love you and the kids,” Lexa says simply, and she’s never been more honest.
It took half an hour to put everyone to bed, and she relished every goodnight kiss and extra glass of water her five year old son and three year old daughter asked for.
“Sweet talker,” Clarke says, walking behind her and pressing a kiss to her jaw.
Lexa smiles at her in the mirror.
“I’m not sure it counts as sweet talk if it’s true.”
Clarke smiles back.
“Wanna take a bath?” Clarke asks softly, kneading Lexa’s shoulders with care. LExa begins to feel the long day at work and her fight with Aden and carrying Jake on her shoulders. If anyone knows when she’s stressed and needing a little pampering, it’s her wife.
She nods.
“I’ll go get the water running,” Clarke whispers, pressing one last kiss to Lexa’s cheek.
//
It’s more about feeling close and relaxing than getting release.
They have a plane to catch in the morning and precious hours of sleep to get before that. It’s not them asking Raven to take the kids for a day so they can get away with not leaving the bed for hours.
They bump mouths a few times and Lexa yelps when Clarke presses her again the cold wall tiles. Clarke shushes her, pressing her fingertips to Lexa’s lips before grabbing the nape of her neck and bringing her down for a long kiss.
They’ve gotten down the art of loving each other quietly.
Quickly, too, when the time it takes for the bathtub to fill with warm soapy water is enough for them to bring each other to climax with mirroring hands between each other’s legs.
When they finally slip into the tub Lexa has a hard time not falling asleep.
Clarke massages her back with care and washes her hair, before letting Lexa rest against her front. Clarke wraps her arms around her, and she sinks until her chin is just above the water.
She runs her hands over Clarke’s thighs at either side of her, with no intent other than feeling her wife, so soft and yet solid beneath her, around her. Years and motherhood have only made Clarke more beautiful.
They only step out when the water has gone cold.
They get dressed on the same side of the bed, and it might be silly but it’s those moments that Lexa cherishes, the fact that even in the same room, the same bed, doing something as inane as drying themselves off -they have to be close.
She pulls on a pair of worn pajama pants that she’s not sure who they originally belonged to.
“I’m making the rounds,” she tells Clarke softly, kissing her shoulder before she tugs down a shirt and leaves their room.
Her first stop is the bedroom on her right at the end of the hall. White fluorescent light slips out through the crack beneath the door.
Lexa knocks softly on the door.
“Aden, it’s 1 am,” she says. “Please, go to bed.”
She waits, but the light doesn’t turn off.
“Aden, I know you heard me.”
She doubts he’s awake for a second, but then hears grumbling coming from inside.
“What was that?”
“I don’t want to go to Thailand. The least you could do is let me talk to my friends before I leave.”
Lexa sighs, and then pushes the door open.
“Mom! Can you knock?”
He sits on his bed, the glow from his laptop illuminating the whole room.
“Aden, it’s 1 in the morning.”
“You’re awake,” he argues. Lexa doesn’t have it in her to sigh again. She knows he doesn’t want to go, that spending Christmas and New Year away from his friends and his city doesn’t sit well with him, but she needed this vacation. Clarke told her if she didn’t leave the city she’d just get sucked into work like the year before, and Lexa knows that to be true. So she and Clarke agreed a family vacation is what they needed, just the five of them. Her 13 year old son disagrees.
“You’ll have wi-fi there, you know?” She tells Aden. “We’re not going to the middle of nowhere.”
“Feels like it,” he mumbles.
“Go to bed. Now.”
He shuts his laptop with a groan before getting under the covers.
“Good night,” she tells him before closing the door. Aden doesn’t answer.
Her next and last stop is the kids’ room. The faint purple glow of a night light illuminates part of the room. Jake is out like a light, his shirt riding up his tummy as he lays spread out like a starfish.
Lexa smiles at the sight.
She pulls his shirt down and pulls the covers over his body again, though she knows he’ll probably kick them off before it’s morning.
She straightens up, getting the odd feeling of being watched.
From the bed on the other side of the room, a pair of green eyes follow her movements.
“Are you awake?” Lexa asks softly, walking toward the other bed. She lays her hand on the safety railing. Milla doesn’t answer. She’s a quiet girl, much like Lexa was, and she has trouble sleeping through the night sometimes.
“Do you want to sleep with your mommies tonight?” Lexa asks.
Milla nods, her big eyes blinking slowly. She extends an arm softly toward Lexa, a plead to be picked up.
“Okay. Come here, baby.”
Lexa grabs her under her armpits and hoists her up, and Milla wraps her legs and arms around Lexa like a tiny koala.
“It’s okay,” she coos as she walks back to the master bedroom, where Clarke is now under the covers, waiting for her.
“We have a visitor,” Lexa announces.
“Hey, monkey,” Clarke greets Milla, who Lexa lays down softly on the bed. The toddler crawls until she’s at Clarke’s side, plopping down on her side. She immediately moves to suck her thumb, but Clarke holds her small hand and firmly pulls it away.
“No, okay?” Clarke says, patting her hand. She’s been trying to get the three year old off the habit. Milla is too sleepy to protest.
Lexa lays down next to them and rubs up and down Milla’s back, slowly lulling the child back to sleep. Eventually, her eyes fall closed.
Clarke turns around to turn off the bedside table lamp.
“Love you,” Clarke says trough the dark.
“I love you too,” Lexa tells her, and even after ten years together it doesn’t get old. “Goodnight.”
Their hands touch where they lay over their daughter, and Lexa feels so, so lucky.
//
“Are we all packed up?” Lexa asks, rolling the last of her and Clarke’s luggage to the living room.
“Mommy, up! Up!” Milla asks, chasing after Clarke. Clarke picks her up, settling the little girl on her waist.
“Are you ready?” Clarke asks. Lexa looks around, going over her mental checklist to see if they’re missing anything.
“I want Bunny,” she hears Milla plead.
“Okay, let’s look for him,” Clarke says.
“Clarke, have you seen my headphones?” Aden asks.
“I think I saw them on the couch, Aden.”
“How about you, Jake? Have you picked a toy to take with you already?” Lexa asks, looking around the floor for that damn stuffed animal. It’s always getting lost.
“I’m looking!”
“Okay, hurry please,” Lexa tells him. She catches sight of an off-white ear underneath the couch. Bingo.
“Bunny!” Milla squeals from her place in Clarke’s arms when Lexa approaches them with the beaut up stuffed bunny in hand.
“Are we all set?” Lexa asks Clarke, taking Milla from her arms.
“Aden can’t find his headphones-”
“I got them!”
“Jake?”
The little boy runs back to the living room, a superman plush in his hand.
“The car is here!” Aden calls out, and Lexa shares a look with Clarke. On days like this it almost feels like they can’t keep up.
It takes another 20 minutes to buckle in the kids and load up the luggage but finally, they’re on their way to the airport.
Lexa takes a breath once she’s inside the car.
Her fingers tangle with Clarke’s on her lap. It’s for moments like this for which she lives. In the midst of all their hectic days, regardless of how stressed she is or how hard work can get -Clarke is her constant. She’s her safe haven.
She doesn’t let go until they arrive at the airport.
//
“Mama. Aden is being mean to me.”
Jake looks up at Lexa with big blue eyes. Apart from the light brown hair, he’s a dead ringer for Clarke, right down to the pouty lips that he knows will get him anything he wants from her.
Lexa opens her arms and Jake climbs in. She hopes it’s a long time until he thinks twice before doing that.
Milla is asleep on her harness beside her, in between she and Clarke, who is also asleep. There is definitely more to children and parents than biology, because Clarke and Milla have the same expression when they sleep.
“What did he do?” she asks her youngest son.
“He won’t talk to me,” Jake whines. Lexa smiles and presses a kiss to his forehead. Being ignored is the worst offense their children can imagine, and she’s not okay with it but she’s glad. Jake sits up suddenly, his eyes lighting up. “Mama, the plane was shaking!”
“I know, it’s just a bit of turbulence,” she explains. “It’s okay.”
“I thought it was going to fall,” he says, the thing with Aden apparently forgotten.
“It won’t, I promise.”
Jake nods.
Lexa can tell her son believes her.
It was terrifying at first, when it was just her and Aden, knowing that he depended on her alone and what she said and how she acted would shape his world and even him. She’s slightly more used to it now, but it still catches her by surprise. Her son really believes she can keep a plane from falling, and that sort of innocent trust is something Lexa never takes for granted.
“Why don’t you sit here with mommy and Milla while I go talk to your brother?” she asks Jake, and he nods again.
She presses another kiss to his forehead before giving him her seat. She pulls down the tray and sets him up with one of Milla’s coloring books and some crayons.
“You could paint mommy a picture for when she wakes up,” Lexa suggests, running her hand through his hair. She walks back two, three rows until she finds Aden’s and Jake’s.
She wanted her whole family to be together in a row, but couldn’t manage it.
“He won’t stay still,” Aden says before she’s even sat down.
“He’s five and he’s never flown on a plane before, okay? He’s your brother, Aden.”
Aden looks out the window, moving his head in time with the music coming from his earphones.
“Aden. Are you going to be like this for the whole trip?” She asks, then reaches over and pulls an ear bud out. “Take those off, I’m talking to you.”
Aden looks insulted.
“I didn’t want to come,” he grumbles, the same litany Lexa has heard about a hundred times before.
“I know that, and I'm sorry,” she tells him. “But this is a family vacation. We needed this, okay?”
“Why do you two get to choose that?”
“Because we’re your mothers, Aden, sometimes we have to choose for all of us.”
“Clarke’s not my mother,” he says under his breath, looking away from her, and the words hurt Lexa-she can’t ever imagine Clarke having to hear them. She remembers every date Clarke insisted she take her son to when he was 5 and didn’t like sitters, every night Clarke was woken up by a six year old and welcomed him to their bed, how Clarke promised Aden they’d be a family after they married when he was 7. She remembers Clarke officially adopting Aden and making him Aden Griffin-Woods when he was 8.
Clarke might have come into their lives two years after she adopted him, but she was as much a mother to him as Lexa.
“Aden…”
“Ladies and gentlemen, we have just been cleared to land at the Ranong airport. Please make sure one last time your seat belt is securely fastened. The flight attendants are currently passing around the cabin to make a final compliance check and pick up any remaining cups and glasses. Thank you.”
“Please fasten your seatbelt, ma’am,” a flight attendant asks Lexa. “We’re about to land.”
She nods, looking to the rows ahead. Jake’s head is sticking out into the hallway, and she can just see Clarke looking at her over the rows of seats. Clarke gives her a thumbs up from afar -one of the many signs they’ve adopted to let each other know things are good in a house full of noise. Lexa nods.
Jake disappears from sight, and she knows Clarke must have told him to sit upright and fastened the seatbelt. Lexa checks Aden’s before fastening her own.
“Do not say things like that,” she tells Aden.
“It’s not a lie, is it?” he ask, a forced bite behind his words.
“So I’m not your mother either?” Lexa asks, because in her eyes there’s no distinction between her and Clarke, there never has been. They’re the same to their children, where they give birth to them or not, whether they adopted him first or not -or at least so Lexa thought.
Aden shrugs and looks away
Lexa nods, swallowing through the knot in her throat.
//
“Sorry I left you with the little rascals,” Lexa tells Clarke once they’re unboarding.
“Is Aden okay?” Clarke asks, Milla on her hip.
“Yes, he’s just…being a teenager,” Lexa says. “Now you two…” She touches the tip of Milla’s nose before picking up Jake with a groan. “Never grow up, please.”
Aden walks around the rooms, eyeing the large space. A man from the hotel walks around with his moms, explaining everything.
“This is the children’s room,” he says, opening a door. Aden bristles up. He doesn’t like being called a child.
He steps between them to peek inside the room. There is a bed on either side, and another one on the other wall.
They leave, and Aden drags his suitcase inside. He picks the bed closest to the window and walks back out.
“What do you work on?” the man asks his mom.
“I work at a company, back in the states. We live in D.C.” she answers.
“The capital, very nice,” he says. He turns to Clarke. “And you?”
“I’m a doctor,” Clarke says quickly, “though I’m not working at the moment.”
The man nods.
“The kitchen is fully equipped, and there is a 24-hour store downstairs, just beside the lobby. We hope you enjoy your stay.”
The man leaves, and his moms start unpacking, while his little brother and sister run around, touching absolutely everything.
Aden thrums with energy, because while he might not have wanted to come, he can hear the ocean from where he’s standing, and the urge to just go explore is uncontainable. He walks back to the room and quickly goes through his suitcase to find his swimming trunks.
“Can I check out the pool?” he asks once he’s changed.
“Not without us,” Lexa says. “Please wait.”
“Did you put sunscreen on?” Clarke asks.
“Yeah, some.” He didn’t, but he’s not in the mood to be nagged. “Why can’t I go?”
“Can you wait until we get the kids ready?” Lexa asks.
“I won’t drown,” he says exaggeratedly. “I promise.”
“All right. Just the children’s pool! Aden!”
//
Their room is on the second floor, and after going down a short flight of stairs, Aden is faced with an ample garden. He can’t see the ocean, and with a look at the building behind him, he wonders if he can risk running there and back before his moms -before his mom and Clarke are back.
He decides not to do it, and rather goes around to find the pool.
It’s not fair.
They don’t go to the beach that often, only when his mom can get time off work a few times a year. And last month when one of his classmates organized a trip there, Clarke didn’t let him go because he was ‘only 13’. That was bullshit. That’s when he started calling her Clarke, because Lexa told him to listen to his mother and he didn’t like what he was hearing.
And now he can’t even go to check out the beach because they’re too busy with the little kids.
It’s not that he hates them; he loves them, he loves his family. He’d never say he hates them. He’s just mad at his mom’s…but most of all at Clarke. It’s weird to call her that, after so many years of calling her mom.
Before Milla and Jake were born they would go out every Friday, just the two of them, but when his brother was born he would tag along and Clarke would be all over him. And then Milla was born and they stopped going out every Friday all together. It’s not that he’s jealous, he’s not, it’s just that it isn’t fair. He doesn’t remember his life before Lexa, doesn’t really have any memory of being in the system, but he knows enough to know that parents forgetting about their adopted kids when they get real ones is a common fear.
He’s not jealous, but maybe his siblings bother him a little, because his moms’ attention are always on them, and they only pay attention to Aden to berate him for having his laptop on too late, or because his room is dirty, or to ask him to babysit.
And he didn’t want to come here anyways.
“Aden, Aden, Aden,” he hears Jake behind him. “Can we play? I brought my ball.”
”Aden, please play with your brother for a bit,” Lexa says before he can even answer.
“I was going to, you don’t have to tell me,” he grumbles. “Come on,” he tells Jake, before jumping on the pool.
//
He laughs so hard during dinner at something his Mom says he snorts soda all over the floor.
He has so much fun he forgets he’s supposed to be mad. He forgets he didn’t want to come at all.
Clarke carries Milla when they return from dinner, while Jake clings to Lexa’s back. Clarke’s skin feels mercifully cool -she’ll never forget the sun burn she got in her honeymoon- while Lexa is already tan. Earlier, at the beach, Clarke rolled her eyes when Lexa batted her hands away and told her to behave. In Clarke’s defense, she really was only trying to protect her wife by re-applying sunblock.
Clarke has missed this, the playful banter, the sneaking kisses. It only cements her belief that a long vacation away from everything is exactly what her family needed.
They settle down in front of the TV once they’re back to their rooms, Jake and Milla nestled in their arms as a Christmas film plays on the screen. With the beach and the sun as opposed to the snow in D.C., it almost doesn’t feel like the year is ending.
Lexa stands up about halfway through, leaving Clarke as sole pillow for two very tired children.
When a good chunk of the movie goes by and she doesn’t return, Clarke stands up, gently letting Jake and Milla lay down on the couch.
“Lexa?” she calls out.
“I’m good,” she hears back. “I’m just using the bathroom, love!”
Clarke walks into the bathroom -after 10 years together and one birth each, inane things like bodily functions no longer matter- but although she finds Lexa on the toilet, the lid is down, and she’s quietly speaking into her cell phone.
Lexa jumps when she notices her, and Clarke crosses her arms.
“I can’t believe you,” she whispers, ever mindful of the phone call.
“Of course,” Lexa says into the phone. “Yes, of course. I’ll get on it. I have to go. Yes, thank you.”
“Who was that on the phone?” Clarke asks the second the call is closed.
Lexa looks guilty as fuck when she meets her eyes.
“…Indra,” she says. “I just needed-”
“You’re working?” Clarke asks, disbelieving. “Even here.” The entire point of this vacation was for them to get away from their responsibilities for two weeks. Apparently Lexa can’t manage a single day.
“It was just one phone call,” Lexa says.
“Mama?” Jake stands in the hallway, looking at them curiously.
“Come here Jake, they’re talking about grown up stuff,” Aden says, putting his hand on Jake’s shoulder and taking him back to the living room. “Milla is passed out on the couch,” he informs them, looking back.
Clarke nods.
“You know I have to be at Indra’s beck and call,” Lexa defends herself. “I -we need that promotion.”
“Maybe we don’t,” Clarke fires back. “Maybe it’s just time I went back to work.”
“Is that what you want?” Lexa asks her.
“I wasn’t supposed to stay home forever,” Clarke tells her. Clarke had plans to specialize, and she put them on hold to take care of their children when Lexa went back to work after having Milla. They didn’t want to leave a 3 year old, a 9 year old, and a baby with a babysitter for most of the day, and so Clarke offered to stay home for a while, reeling from how demanding working in the ER was. A year turned into two, and she loves her family, but she misses practicing medicine.
Lexa nods, recognizing the words for what they are.
“Mommy!” Jake screams this time.
“We can talk later,” Clarke tells her wife. “Let’s just get the kids to bed.”
//
Clarke picks up her daughter from the couch, and the toddler is so out of it she doesn’t wake. It was a long day for the three year old, and Clarke thinks their baby won’t have trouble sleeping through the night with how tired she was.
She puts her down on the bed next to the wall, brushing away her hair. It’s the color of Lexa’s own. Everything Milla is a small version of Lexa, right down to her eyes, and Clarke absolutely loves it.
She can hear Lexa supervising Jake washing his teeth in the adjoining bathroom. And she feels a small stab of anger that even now, when they’re supposed to be enjoying time together as a family, Lexa has managed to bring work with her. Clarke managed to put her career on hold to take care of their babies, for two and half years now, and Lexa can’t manage two weeks. But she also knows the only reason Lexa works so much is because she wants to give their children everything, and Clarke can never fault her for that.
Clarke sighs.
She stands up and walks to the bed on the other side of the room, giving a gentle squeeze to Aden’s ankle. He’s already covered up and turned away from the rest of the room.
“Goodnight,” she whispers. “I love you.”
“Night,” Aden says back. Clarke doesn’t like fighting with him, but she’d prefer that to this constant ignoring her Aden has been doing. She knows he’s mad at her, and she hates it.
They’ve always been close, more as comrades at the beginning, when she just started dating Lexa; which then developed into a closer relationship once she moved in. He started calling her mom just like he did Lexa when he was about 6, and it hurts Clarke that a single apparent offense will push him to go back to ‘Clarke’ nearly 7 years later. She believes Lexa when she says he’s just being a teenager, but it doesn’t mean she has to like it.
Lexa walks in that moment with Jake in tow, dressed in pajamas and with drooping lids.
“Hey, baby,” she says.
“Mommy.” He extends his arms to her and Clarke picks him up, only to lay him down on the bed. For a child, she supposes the trip makes sense.
“Can we see fish tomorrow?” he asks.
“We’ll see about that,” Clarke promises. She’s not sure if you can see fish that easily at the beach, but she can ask.
“Mama can take me because she can swim,” Jake affirms.
“Hey, I can swim too,” she says, mock offended. She can swim, just not as crazily good as Lexa. Lexa developed a taste for it when she was pregnant with Milla, and she never quit afterward.
“Not like Mama,” Jake points out. Clarke is aware.
“Yeah, not like Mama,” Lexa says softly before she presses a kiss to Clarke’s cheek. She is still a bit mad at Lexa, and knows her wife is trying to soften her. Their spats never last long.
“We can all go swimming in the morning,” Lexa promises Jake, kissing his forehead in goodnight.
“We’ll have a race?” he asks.
“Of course we’ll have a race,” Clarke tells him. “And I’ll win!” She tickles him and he squeals. Clarke hears Milla start to fuss behind her, but one look lets her know Lexa already has it. They’ve gotten good at that.
“Good night, baby.” She kisses Jake’s forehead, and he closes his eyes.
“Night.”
“Don’t let the bed bugs bite.”
Clarke turn to find Lexa calming Milla back to sleep.
She coos sweet nothings to her while she rubs her back and pushes her hair away from her face.
Lexa is so good with their children. She’s so gentle. Clarke got a taste of it watching Lexa with Aden when he was little, but it was still so different from watching her cradle a newborn in her arms, with all the care of someone who handles glass, yet the fierceness of a lioness in her eyes.
“Mommy. No sleep,” Milla mumbles, and Lexa doubles over to press a kiss to her cheek.
“We have to sleep now so we can have fun tomorrow, don’t we?” she whispers.
Milla twists around, her eyes fighting to stay open.
“Shhh.” Lexa pats her side, and little by little Clarke can see sleep take over. “That’s my girl,” Lexa says.
She’s seen this a million times, but Clarke still smiles at the sight.
Lexa turns off the light in the room when they leave, and then makes her way to the kitchen. It’s apparent to Clarke she’s giving her some space. She walks to their bedroom and gets into bed, the sheets cool and soft around her.
It’s only five minutes later when Lexa appears.
She stands by the doorway, looking at her with these eyes, this particular gaze she gets when she wants something.
“Oh, come here,” Clarke says. She swears Lexa can give their toddler a run for her money when it comes to pouty lips and sad eyes. Lexa climbs into the bed, her arms immediately closing around Clarke’s form.
“Only way you’re getting out of this conversation is if I don't see that work cell the rest of the trip, are we clear?”
Lexa guiltily nods against her chest. Clarke just -she melts into the mattress. It’s true Lexa promised her she wouldn’t work during their vacation, but she can’t be mad at her wife for too long, and she specially doesn’t want to put a damper in their trip. She sinks her fingers in Lexa’s hair and feels her sigh. “And we’ll talk about me going back to work when we go home.”
“Okay,” Lexa says. “It’s your choice, whatever you want. We’ll find a place to take care of Milla.”
“I love our children,” Clarke feels the need to point out.
“I know.”
“I just miss being a doctor and not just a mom. I need to see actual human beings.”
“And our kids are aliens,” Lexa says, no hint of mockery in her tone.
“Yes,” Clarke agrees. She bites at a smile.
Lexa pulls away from her hiding place against Clarke’s chest, her eyes sparkling, and seals their reconciliation with a small kiss.
“I would’ve told you Indra called,” Lexa says.
“I know, you dork,” Clarke tells her. They don’t lie to each other, not about anything, be it small or big. Lexa specially feels awfully guilty when she keeps things from her, and Clarke secretly cherishes that. “Indra is nothing but respectful, though, so if she called it’s because you told her she could.”
“…I’m sorry. I would’ve mentioned it tomorrow,” Lexa promises.
“I know,” she says, kissing her forehead. “We’re in Thailand, Lexa. This is a vacation.” She pushes Lexa’s hair behind her ear, and Lexa nuzzles her palm. “We can hear the waves crashing outside… We had seafood and wine for dinner. Now isn’t that romantic?”
“I’m too tired to have sex,” Lexa confesses regretfully. “But if you want-”
“Me too,” Clarke says.
“Tell me we’re not getting old,” Lexa pleads.
“You’re older than me,” Clarke playfully replies.
“By two years. If I’m getting old you’re getting old.”
“No one I’d rather do it with,” Clarke tells her. She loves these quiet moments with Lexa, when the kids are asleep and the house -in this case, their rented rooms on the other side of the world- are quiet. Lexa burrows into Clarke’s side, resting her head on her breasts, and Clarke smiles.
“I’m 36,” Lexa says quietly. “I’m not old.”
She sounds so dour Clarke laughs, and Lexa whines.
“You’re in your late thirties, I’m in my early thirties,” Clarke teases, lightly tickling Lexa’s side. Lexa pushes her hand away and settles down on her pillow, keeping her arm around Clarke’s stomach. Her eyes close.
“Two…years…”
“I love you, old lady,” Clarke says, kissing her wife’s cheek.
“I love you too, Lexa whispers, cuddling even closer.
Clarke turns off the lamp on the bedside table. The room is plunged in darkness, the only light coming in through the floor to ceiling windows leading out to the balcony. She’s never seen the moon shine so bright. Clarke itches to grab her camera and take pictures of its light on the water, but -settling down on the bed- decides to do it tomorrow.
After all, she has something just as beautiful right here.