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“No.”
It was final. No negotiations. It was a hard negative, absolutely no room for discussion. Clarke had enough experience to know this would be a dead end, but she had promised to try.
“No?”
“No.”
That was it, then. Clarke pursed her lips and nodded. She settled her fists on her hips and considered the small girl in front of her, who was wearing a paint stained dress and a grim expression. Nobody blinked. Clarke nodded again and pulled out her phone.
“Can’t make it,” she said when Lexa answered.
“What?” Lexa already sounded exasperated.
“Anya said no.” There was a pause.
“Which Anya? My Anya?”
“No, our Anya.”
“Clarke, that is ridiculous. Our Anya is four.” Clarke nodded into the phone, shoving it between her ear and shoulder so she could scoop the little girl up in her arms. She settled her on her hip and shrugged.
“She made some good points.”
“First of all, I am still mad at you for naming our daughter after my sister.”
“It’s been four years, Lexa. And you knew that bet was risky when you took it.”
“I had no intention of following through, and you know that.”
“You know I take bets seriously.”
“You can’t let Anya tell you what to do.”
“Your Anya?”
“No, our Anya.”
“She made some good points.”
“Put her on the phone,” Lexa sighed. Clarke tapped the speaker button on her phone and held it flat between their faces. “Hey, Ahn,” Lexa’s voice was soft, and Anya crossed her arms against Clarke’s side. “Don’t you want to hang out with your Aunt Octavia?”
“No,” Anya said simply.
“But you love her,” Lexa tried. “You told me this morning that you missed her.”
“I don’t anymore.” Clarke was trying her hardest not to smile while her daughter stared very seriously at the phone in her hand. Honestly, the hardest part of parenthood was not laughing through their bad behavior.
“Anya, your mother and I are going out tomorrow night, and this is not up for debate,” Lexa turned very stern, and Anya’s arms tightened around her middle as she sucked in a gulp of air and pouted. Clarke had to bite her lip. “Are you still there?” Lexa’s voice came after a moment of silence. “Clarke?”
“She’s holding her breath.”
“Oh, for -” Lexa cut herself off. “I’m on my way home. This conversation is over, young lady.”
Clarke clicked the phone off and tossed it onto the counter. She nudged Anya’s shoulder and half-sang, “Ohh, you’re in trouble. You got young lady’d.” Anya turned her face away and wiggled down to the floor.
“I need to finish my painting,” Anya grumbled.
“Can I come?” Anya turned her kind of intense eyes up to her and paused.
“Okay,” she nodded eventually. She grabbed Clarke’s hand and dragged her down the hall towards the designated art room, and Clarke couldn’t help her grin as she watched Anya tug her socks off and totter onto the clear plastic that lined the floor. She rubbed her foot into a puddle of paint and kicked at a canvas propped against the wall. She sent a smile over her shoulder at Clarke, and there were flecks of paint across her forehead. Clarke settled in front of her own canvas and, really, why would she even want to go out when she could hang out with this girl covered in paint?
---
“We’re going,” Lexa leaned against the doorframe of the bathroom while Clarke washed a streak of green paint from her cheek.
“Okay, but Octavia hasn’t watched her before,” Clarke sighed and dropped her hands into the sink.
“Yes she has.”
“Not alone.”
“So do you want me to find her a babysitting buddy?”
“What about Anya?” Clarke grabbed a towel from the hook beside her and leaned her cheek into it.
“What about Anya?” Lexa squinted at her.
“No, your Anya. She could handle her.”
“No,” Lexa shook her head, and Clarke was struck by how similar her wife and daughter could be without sharing actual DNA. “Absolutely not. Do not call my sister.”
“Lex,” Clarke sighed.
“No,” she said again. “The last time we left the Anyas alone together, the four year old covered all of the toilets with plastic wrap for a week. And the time before that, we came home to missing doors. Every door! I still don’t know where they went.”
“I think our Anya has a calming effect on your Anya.”
“No. Octavia will be fine. Why are you freaking out about this?” Clarke hesitated and took her time folding the towel in her hands.
“Octavia will be fine,” Clarke finally sighed. “Ahn is just clingy this week. It makes my ovaries ache. And she likes me better than you right now.”
“That’s because you’re letting her paint the walls of the art room with her body. Just wait until I wake her up for midnight ice cream this weekend.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“How do you think I won her back after you let her dye part of her hair pink?”
“I don’t know,” Clarke stepped forward and wrapped her arms around Lexa’s waist. “I didn’t expect you to stoop to my level of bribery.”
“I can stoop pretty low,” Lexa smirked.
Clarke grinned as she pushed her backwards into their bedroom.
“Can you, now?”
---
In retrospect, following her daughter into the kitchen after she was dressed was her first mistake. Clarke had allowed herself to be led from her bedroom, heels on, hair curled, still holding a mascara wand, by the girl, who was clad in a lion onesie pajama set and very insistent that if she didn’t get a snack immediately, she would probably die. By the time Clarke found herself in the middle of cutting a sandwich into dinosaur shaped halves, her middle had been splashed with water, Anya had tugged out the curls on the left side of her face, and the counter was filled with vetoed snack options, but Clarke didn’t fully realize her series of poor choices until her foot skidded through a puddle on the floor in front of the sink and her heel cracked right in half. Anya cheered as Clarke’s arms pinwheeled, and reached across the counter to grab one of the dino-sandwiches. Not cursing - that was the second hardest part of parenthood.
“You look gorgeous,” Lexa’s voice came from behind her, and of course she would walk in at this exact moment.
“Mom!” Anya cheered again, holding the dino above her head. Lexa moved smoothly into the kitchen and scooped Anya up in a hug, careful to avoid bits of sandwich getting in her hair.
“How do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Just,” Clarke waved her hands in front of her. “Glide around like that.” Clarke limped to the garbage can to toss out her broken shoe.
“You glide too,” Lexa said, and Clarke glared at her. “Sometimes.”
“We shouldn’t go,” Clarke sighed just as the front door flew open and Octavia burst in, arms full of boxes and bags hanging from her elbows.
“Are you ready,” Octavia called from the foyer, “for the best night of babysitting of your life?”
They were quiet in the kitchen for a moment before Lexa nudged her daughter and said, “She’s talking to you.” Anya wiggled out of her arms and ran to greet Octavia. Clarke and Lexa heard a squeal before she barreled back into the kitchen wearing a tiara and holding a dress above her head.
“Look!” she yelled. “Look!”
“I thought she might like to be a princess tonight,” Octavia grinned as she walked in.
“See?” Lexa raised her eyebrows at Clarke. “Covered.”
“Maybe we should go over some ground rules,” Clarke said, eying the mountain of activities Octavia was unloading onto the kitchen table. “This looks like. A lot.”
“Dinner, movie, bath, bed, I got it,” Octavia waved her off. Lexa grabbed her hand and squeezed before tugging her towards the door.
“No sugar - at all,” Clarke said. “And make sure it’s a Disney movie.”
“What do you think I’m going to watch, Clarke?”
“And bed by nine. Anya, do you hear me?”
“We really have to go, Clarke,” Lexa said.
“I need new shoes.”
“And then we really have to go, Clarke.” Clarke sighed.
“Okay. Fine. Then we go.”
---
“Fine.”
Lexa looked up from her dinner with a small frown. Clarke sighed.
“This is nice,” she said. Defeated. Lexa grinned and ducked her head back down towards her plate as she shifted her chair closer to Clarke.
“Yes,” she said.
“You were right.” Lexa hummed in agreement, and Clarke jabbed a finger into her hip before settling her hand on her thigh. “Don’t be smug.”
“I am no such thing, Clarke.” They both smiled into their drinks as they bumped shoulders. These fundraisers were always nice - Clarke knew she’d have a good time as soon as she pried her thoughts away from whatever trouble her daughter was probably convincing Octavia to get into. The music was soft and they were seated at a table with a group of people who mostly ignored them, and the food was much nicer than whatever they usually had the energy to throw together after work and school activities and art projects and baths. “You look very pretty tonight,” Lexa said quietly, head still ducked, peering sideways at her.
“It is a nice dress, isn’t it?” Clarke nodded, and Lexa nodded back. She leaned in just enough to brush her lips against Lexa’s ear and whispered, “You should she what’s underneath.” Lexa dropped her knife, and Clarke didn’t even try not to laugh as she set her drink down and tugged Lexa’s thigh, sliding out of her seat and gesturing for her to follow. Lexa was half out of her chair when the phone rang. She gave Clarke a pained look, but held up one finger as she pressed the phone to her ear. Clarke rolled her eyes at Lexa’s very serious expression and fiddled with her champagne glass while she waited. Lexa finally nodded and tapped her phone to end the call without a word.
“We have to go,” she said as she set the phone back down on the table very carefully. “It’s Anya.”
Clarke felt herself go cold, and her stomach clenched and curled into a ball and tried to hide behind her spine. “What?” her voice came out as sort of a cough, so she tried again. “What happened?” She leaned one hand on the table beside her while the other curled up towards her chest, looking for some way to ground herself as a dozen scenarios flashed through her mind at once.
“Octavia called Anya,” Lexa growled, shoving the plate in front of her and standing with a huff. Clarke felt all of the air leave her body. She sagged against the edge of the table.
“Oh my god,” she breathed.
“I know, what was she thinking?”
“What the fuck, Lexa?” Clarke snapped, and Lexa stopped gathering her things when she noticed Clarke standing very still and glaring at her.
“What?”
“Are you kidding?” Lexa looked confused for longer than Clarke would consider acceptable before realization broke across her face, and she looked a little guilty, but she pointed her finger across at Clarke and shook her head.
“I told you not to name her after my sister.”
“Get your damn keys.”
---
“Do you want to tell me what happened?”
“Not really, no.”
Clarke stood across from a very sheepish looking Octavia, hands on her hips, full on Disappointed Mom Face in place. Lexa was lecturing both Anyas elsewhere in the house, and Clarke didn’t envy her. She glanced down at the tape burns around Octavia’s wrists, and the girl in front of her squirmed.
“I didn’t think,” Octavia started, but shook her head and started again. “I didn’t know a tiara and that light-up scepter would,” she trailed off again. “She was drunk on power,” she finally finished. “I thought it was a game at first, but she used real duct tape to tie me up.”
“Why did you let a four year old tie you up?”
“I was a prisoner, Clarke,” Octavia explained. “I led a failed revolt against the crown.”
“Oh, well, that explains it.” Octavia nodded.
“Yeah, so when I managed to secure a cell phone, I didn’t want to ruin your night.”
“So you called Anya.”
“So I called Anya,” Octavia nodded. “And it was great, everything would have been fine if tiny Anya hadn’t gotten stuck in that laundry chute and big Anya hadn’t tried to crawl up it from the basement.”
“Everyone is alive, aren’t they,” Anya grumbled as she swept into the room and punched Octavia in the shoulder before sprawling on the couch. Octavia turned to punch her thigh in retaliation. Clarke crossed her arms and glared at both of them.
“Where is Lexa?”
“Are you fucking kidding me,” Lexa stormed into the room, barefoot, still in her dress, hair falling in waves from its updo. She stomped right up to the edge of the couch and grabbed Anya by the collar of her shirt. “Where the fuck are my doors?”