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Lexa takes a small step forward before she catches herself and stops her momentum. It's not the first time she's had to physically restrain herself from seeking contact with the sky girl, but it seems like every time she thinks she's in control of her faculties she's taken aback.
Clarke's shoulders are tight, her posture a relaxed kind of rigid that Lexa recognizes from her early days in command. Back then she paced in her tent, mind racing and exhausting her faster than her hurried steps.
Watching Clarke in these moments is an indulgence she allows, a peculiar kind of pleasure that buds witnessing these unfiltered moments, curiosity at every caveat, pride at every conclusion.
There's something about Clarke that presses against Lexas skin, distracts her, itches.
She openly admits that there’s a mystery in the dichotomy of Clarke's personality and her beauty, in how she arms herself with knowledge and wields her words.
Something unyielding in Clarke’s ability to selflessly manipulate and maneuver people like horses under reign. Yet, somehow, incomprehensibly, she is completely oblivious of her ability to enchant, and completely unwilling to fan the flames of the devotion she so effortlessly ignites.
She does not wish to lead.
She does not want to be feared or worshiped.
But she deserves to be.
There's a warmth radiating from Lexa’s belly, it shoots sharp rays through her chest and extremities and she's sure that everyone can see it shining through her eyes whenever she looks at Clarke.
It feels like she swallowed the sun and It seems impossible to shake. Unfathomable.
Clarke rocks forward in her position in front of the war table, a silent deliberation that Lexa takes a break from following and continues to observe.
The way Clarke's hair falls and sways with her calculated movements are wholly distracting, it's how her hair quickly became one of Lexa’s favorite things to ponder.
Of course, it is what most people notice about Clarke first-- How it is a platinum so pure that it is incapable of being replicated on earth. That it is aesthetically pleasing, beautiful, but Lexa wonders if anyone else has taken the time to really contemplate its magnitude.
If anyone else has considered the fact that Clarke’s hair-- like her skin- is untouched. That It’s never cracked from dry air, or chapped from cold winds. It's never burned in the sun or been stripped by minerals in tainted waters. Her hair has never been knotted in tree branches as she's climbed, or grabbed like a harness during battle.
This girl, clean and untainted and SOFT... fell from the sky a formidable force, embodying everything they’ve tried for generations to nourish and produce on the ground, everything that made Lexa special, but alone.
Yet, no one appreciates her properly. Clarke exceeds the expectations her people have no right to have.
A protective ferocious instinct overcomes her for a moment. She yearns to close the distance between them though she's not sure what she'd do within the other girl's space.
She settles on some kind of medium, a step to the side, enough to see the side of her face.
“There’s gotta be something I’m missing here.” Clarke’s fist clenches and Lexa can see the conscious effort it takes for her to once again flatten her palms against the wooden table and let out a deep breath, “Lexa, I just- “
“You need rest, Clarke.”
“I need to find another viable contingency plan.” Clarke throws a meaningful look over her shoulder at Lexa, then proceeds to navigate placeholders on the battle map.
“If we can’t blow the doors, we’ll have to find another way in. I’m thinking fire, we smoke them out, taint their oxygen faster than they can replenish it... They’ll need to allow more air in to filter.” She grabs a few more pieces and moves them around the map, meticulously placing them in battle formation, only to pick them up and move them back, or to another area entirely.
Lexa watches Clarke's ideas form with a glint in her blue eyes and then die with the furrow of her brows and the quick release of her bottom lip-- Lexa makes a mental note to teach her to hide her emotions better.
“Clarke--”
Lexas lips pull into an amused smile when Clarke doesn't acknowledge that she’s heard her. It’s so familiar and warming that Lexa doesn’t remember why it’s something that should offend her.
“Come here.” She says stronger.
Clarke sighs but her pivot is automatic, she turns to meets Lexas eyes and closes the small distance between them.
The swoop low in Lexa’s belly as Clarke walks to her is decidedly not nothing. She shifts as she hands Clarke a cup of water. “You need spaces in a sentence to decipher words, Clarke.”
She takes an obligatory sip, “I can see the forest for the trees just fine, Lexa.”
“Good. Then you recognize that you’re being foolish.”
“I’m keeping busy. I can't just sit here and do nothing.”
“You can, and you must. You are exhausting yourself over questions already posed and answered.”
Clarke gulps the rest of the water, ”Yeah, well. ”
Lexa’s focus doesn’t waver, “Well?”
“I used up all of my patience in the skybox.”
Lexa remembers their conversations about the delinquents, a small smile curves her lips, “Quite the contrary I believe.”
She is rewarded when Clarke smiles back.
“You cannot expect to lead well without rest and nourishment.”
Her shoulders seem to slump and she exhales loudly, “Okay.”
“Okay.”
Lexa leads her to the partition separating her bed from the rest of her quarters.
There is no hesitancy in Clarke's movements, she sits on the regal layout swiftly, undoing her boots and kicking them off haphazardly.
Lexa watches the way she folds onto the bed, how her body stretches as she crawls to the furthest side and plops down onto the pillow.
Lexa’s swallow is loud to her own ears. She's infinitely grateful that Clarke has remained oblivious to her. To the war waging inside of her, to the growing ache and dependence on the other woman's presence.
To the growing attraction.
Lexas-- investment--in Clarke is entirely selfless and selfish.
Clarke was born to lead. Just like her. And that means the part of her that believes she was born to be Heda, to lead her people with the knowledge and compassion necessary to evolve, the part that believes she is in this alone--has been irrevocably altered.
Clarke wants her people safe. The ones that fumble and rage like infants, rash and impulsive and disgustingly self-serving. The innocent and ignorant. The hopeful and optimistic, all of them.
Clarke views them as her responsibility. She would kill for them and die for them, and she understands that she must do the hardest thing of all--live for them.
Lexa climbs onto the bed after Clarke--though she doesn't feel nearly as composed or graceful.
She aches with the need to see what Clarke's love looks like reciprocated. To see her gaze at someone the way everyone looks at her. To be one of the people Clarke is so devoted to.
It's been so long since Lexa has let herself want anything, But she wants Clarke.
She just hasn't figured out in what ways.
“I can hear your thoughts from here. If I don't get to over analyze, you don't either.”
Lexa smiles, “Sleep well, Clarke.”