Chapter Text
“Uhm, can you pick something up on your way home?”
Lexa frowned and pressed the receiver closer to her ear.
“Clarke, are you… crying?”
“No, no. I’m fine. I just,” Lexa heard a shift of fabric through her engine’s idle, and Clarke’s voice was high and breathless, “I just need you right now. And preferably you with a really soft blanket,”
Lexa nodded at no one, “Okay, Clarke. You need me to get a blanket?”
“Yeah,”
“Alright, I can do that,” she swallowed, “Is everything alright?”
The line went quiet, and Lexa’s heart double-timed in the spaces between.
“I don’t think so,” Clarke whispered, “But they’ll be better when you get home,”
“I’m on my way. Just hang on, okay?”
“Yeah, Lex. Don’t forget the blanket,”
“It’s literally the only thing you’re asking me for,”
Clarke managed a laugh down the line, and Lexa nearly sighed in relief.
“I’ll see you,”
“Mm. Bye,”
Lexa swallowed and cast about for where she could get a soft blanket. Their sheets were soft. Clarke had thought the jersey knit sheets were fun and smooth against her skin. But apparently they were the wrong kind of soft. And it left Lexa worried.
She knows when Clarke isn’t alright.
They have been living together for three years - Clarke, the friend of a friend who needed a roommate to split rent with, anyone would do, and Lexa in the same boat. They were polar opposites, but eerily similar. For a year, they had been the typical roommates, skittering around each other with passive grievances and differing preferences. Clarke was wild. Not in a destructive sense, in a habitual sense. Lexa was stoic and calm, the rock in Clarke's storm. But two years later, and they had simply fitted together. Lexa was blunt and honest in confrontation, but would rarely initiate, where Clarke would initiate, but bow to sensitivity. Neither one really knew why, but when their two-year lease had run up, they moved to a new apartment together.
A better location, bigger floor space, higher windows, but only one bedroom. They had glanced at each other, then, shrugging. Neither were big on dating, Clarke in med school, and Lexa following law, but it wasn't odd for Clarke to casually have coffee every so often. It had been a freak happening that led to a pretty blonde leaving Lexa's room one early morning. Clarke had smirked at the taller woman, who rolled her eyes and claimed nothing had happened. Still, sharing a room meant sharing a bed.
"I'll make a chart," Lexa had offered.
"You would," Clarke had scoffed.
Now, half of her was strongly opinioned to drive straight home. The other half rolled its eyes and told her to focus. Even if she wasn’t alright, Clarke had asked her for something.
Lexa gripped the wheel and turned around.
Lexa walked into their apartment, confused and slightly concerned. The feeling only deepened when she saw Clarke sitting at their poor excuse of a kitchen table. Lexa placed her bags by the fridge and lifted an eyebrow at the shut door to their bedroom. In her memory, that door had never been shut without one of them in it.
“Lexa,” Clarke started, worry and panic written into her face. She was still in scrubs, her hair up and out of her eyes. She breathed shallowly, and Lexa’s expression went active as she stepped forward to take Clarke into her reach of reassurance.
“Clarke, what happened?”
“Shh,” Clarke hushed, Lexa’s brows shooting upwards. Clarke swallowed, taking one of her hands and leading Lexa to their bedroom door. A deep breath, and she pushed it open gently.
Clarke breathed through the twists of Lexa’s surprise, alarm, confusion, fear, and then deep apprehension. There, on the two stacked queen mattresses she and Clarke shared out of pure, graduate study-induced poverty, was a baby.
A sleeping, but very much alive and breathing, baby.
Wrapped in Lexa’s Georgetown sweatshirt and swaddled in their sheets, there was a baby.
“Clarke,” Lexa managed, her brows furrowed as she finally looked back to her roommate. She couldn’t help it, her first thought being if Clarke had snapped and stolen a baby from the hospital. None of their friends had recently had babies, so this wasn’t a sitting job. Tens of possibilities, and Lexa dismissed them all in a split second.
Clarke nearly smiled as she saw Lexa’s thoughts spool out, and pushed her friend out of the room gently, twisting her fingers together as Lexa softly shut their door and followed to the living room.
Lexa watched as Clarke pulled the whiskey off the shelf, hesitate, and replace it. The woman turned, looking like she wanted to pace. Or run. Or cry. Lexa simply sat on the edge of their couch and waited. Clarke paused.
Of course Lexa would wait.
She swallowed.
“I was walking home from work,” she breathed, Lexa’s earnest eyes confused but willing. Clarke sat next to her roommate, tense, and continued, “I can’t explain why I walked, I just didn’t feel like taking the bus. – God, what if I had taken the bus?”
“Clarke,” a soft prompt.
“Right. And I had to pee like crazy two minutes into it. Which, figures, right?”
Clarke has always tried to deflect with humor. It fell flat even to her ears, and Lexa didn’t dignify it with indulgence.
“I went into the McDonalds on 34th and Vine to pee, and –“ Clarke’s face contorted, her eyes filling with tears, “- and I found her in the trash can,” she broke.
Lexa’s chest vacuumed, and her eyes blew wide. A freeze cracked into her heart before a firey type of pain flashed hot with affection and empathetic misery for the blonde girl next to her. She didn’t hesitate to cover Clarke’s hand with her own, and the woman cried harder as she latched back.
It was the first time she had allowed herself to consider the horrific implications. Clarke held her face in her other hand, leaned forward in curling wretchedness.
“I just don’t understand what kind of person would-“ she cut herself off. Lexa’s jaw wired shut, her face crumpling.
It was an evil thing.
Criminal at its definition. Lexa couldn’t help but watch the statutes stack up behind her eyes. To leave a child – a baby – abandoned, so clearly alone and unwanted, it was atrocious. A revolting idea, much less something to be discovered.
“Clarke,” Lexa croaked, her throat closing.
Clarke gave a harsh, wet exhalation, moving with painful sloth to climb into Lexa’s lap and cry into her neck. Lexa circled her arms around the blonde and rocked minutely.
They stayed locked that way for a few long moments, Clarke simply mourning the cruelty humans were capable of. Clarke had always felt emotions with such depth. It was what made her such a good friend. What will make her such a good doctor.
Lexa stroked over her hair, and Clarke breathed normally, disengaging. She wiped at her face while Lexa watched her, expression set in concern and a deep resolve in her vivid green eyes.
“We’re going to help her,” Lexa said, her voice the steel-edge Clarke heard her use to answer the phone. She could have cried all over again. Lexa was so very much a ‘we’ kind of person.
“I want to,” Clarke swallowed, standing. She crossed to the kitchen and poured water into two glasses. Lexa watched her carefully, the same steady concern on her face.
It was a new reality to adjust to. There was a baby on the other side of their bedroom door. In their apartment. A helpless, tiny human who needed someone. And since there was no one- there was them.
Lexa breathed.
And started to plan.
When Clarke brought her a glass of water, she sat on the coffee table in front of the couch, directly facing Lexa.
“We need to call the police,” Lexa started, her fingers itching for a pen and paper. Lists would help them. Lists always helped, “I once read a case from California about how it’s illegal to keep anything you find abandoned worth more than $100,” Clarke’s heart broke over again at the word ‘abandoned’, but she nodded.
“And I need to find my last vaccination record if I need to re-up my foster parent status. If I don’t, it’ll just be tossed around the system,” Lexa’s teeth grit, her eyes focusing on the glass in her hands.
Clarke breathed.
“I gave you your flu shot this year in October. I got mine too,”
Lexa nodded, thinking hard.
“Lex?”
“Hm?”
Clarke bit her lip.
“Do you want to help with this?”
Lexa refocused, pulling out of her own head. She looked over Clarke’s stressed features. The shadows under her eyes from where her clinical shifts were already strenuous. The slight mat to her blonde hair, letting Lexa know she hadn’t showered today. The swim of red around her shining, worried, beautiful blue eyes.
“Yes, Clarke,” she nodded firmly, “I spent years in the system before Indra and Anya. It’s not going to have to do the same. Not while I can save someone from that,”
Clarke’s heart constricted, but for the first time today, not painfully. She repressed the urge to reach out and touch Lexa.
“Her,”
Lexa tipped her head. Clarke smiled.
“It’s a ‘her’,”
Lexa reviewed her own words and ducked briefly, a punch echoing in her chest, “Of course,” she said softly, worrying her lip with her teeth. Clarke smirked, placing her thumb against her roommate’s bottom lip to stop the action.
Last year, Lexa had been so stressed for her finals she had started to chew her lip in her sleep. She had woken up one day with a deep split, and Clarke had nearly panicked at the blood on her pillow. Since, it had become Clarke’s personal vendetta to quit Lexa of the unconscious habit.
“Do you know any more about what’s about to happen?” Clarke asked softly, removing her hand.
Lexa sighed, nodding.
“I’m not entirely clear on how to get – get her – here. But there’s a list somewhere of all of the requirements foster parents need to meet in order to take in a child,”
Clarke nodded.
“Alright, well,” she closed her eyes in an elongated blink, rousing her heart, “I’m going to shower and change and then we’ll go to the police station, alright?”
Lexa nodded.
Clarke stood, settled a hand on Lexa’s shoulder, and walked to their bedroom. Lexa stared after her. She could only imagine what was going on behind the door. She swallowed and leaned to lay on the couch completely.
Her head threatened to spin with thoughts.
This was a life-changing decision. It was irrational. Taking a child in? A baby? Lexa was in her final year of law school, Clarke about to graduate and take her boards. Lexa didn’t have money. The time? This wasn’t like a stray dog. Children needed.
But the alternative. Lexa’s thoughts rolled black.
She had been relatively lucky. Indra had taken her in when she was 8. It was old, too old for most, but she got out with only mild emotional cuts. Anya had been 14 when Indra saved her, and then shoved in therapy for the next 14. Anya has been a strong proponent for the field since her first session. Still, Anya had scowled at the foster system ever since. It had taken Costia to turn the scowl into a salivating fury.
Lexa opened her eyes.
Costa would never happen again. She rolled onto her feet and retrieved her phone, Googling frantically. She found Washington’s foster parent page and frowned, reading the lines. One of the vetting requirements was a home inspection, to ensure a variety of things as well as a delineated space for the child.
Her eyes skimmed around their living room. It was cramped already. With a simple couch, a coffee table, bookshelves, an armchair, a desk and chair and a houseplant by the window. She crept to their bedroom. She breathed deeply.
The baby was still sleeping on the center of the bed, Lexa’s gaze immediately locked on the infant. She distantly heard Clarke in the shower, but for now her heart beat was in her ears, and overwhelming drum.
The baby had a shock of chocolate-wheat hair over her bald little head. Light brown flirting dirty blonde. She watched the little girl breathe in sweet, shallow expirations. Her chubby hands were curled into light fists, and Lexa wondered if they were large enough to even wrap around her whole thumb.
And that’s all it took, she thought to herself. She was gone.
Lexa backed out of the room with her heart in her throat. She shut the door and leaned against it, fighting the urge to sprint or cry or run into the room and figure out how to hold that tiny, precious baby.
She thought of Clarke’s near-panicked eyes, and breathed. Her head lowered and she set to work, her mind made up.
A while later, Clarke emerged from their bedroom, the baby on her hip awake and alert. Lexa rose from the couch.
“Ready?” she braced, her eyes not leaving the girl. Lexa paused. She had blue eyes. Lexa cleared her throat.
“She’s beautiful,”
Clarke merely smiled. Lexa was everything she needed sometimes.
“Yeah, she is. But she also poops, so we need to – Lex, where’s your desk?”
Lexa turned to the now-empty space.
“The curb next to the garbage,” she replied blankly.
Clarke cocked an eyebrow, trying to stride gracefully through Lexa apparently losing her mind.
“Okay then. You’ll explain that on the ride over?”
“Yes,”
“Great,”
Clarke pressed a kiss to the staring, quiet baby in her arms.
“C’mon, sweet girl. Be strong for just a little while,”
The police station took her away. Clarke had looked like she wanted to vault across the counter when a kind, elderly secretary had moved away with the child. She assured her she was only going to take the baby into their childcare lounge and change her while they filed paperwork.
“And you found nothing around her?”
Lexa looked to Clarke in deference.
Clarke shook her head, pressing her shoulder more firmly into Lexa’s.
“All she had were the clothes she’s wearing,”
The officer nodded, typing with a grim expression. He was trying to look unaffected, and Lexa sympathized. Even the hardest of people would crack at this.
“And you said you’re living at a different address than the one in your foster parent registry, Ms. Woods?”
“Yes, we moved,”
“Could I get that address then?”
Clarke rattled it off. Lexa, a woman exceedingly brilliant, for some reason could never remembered their zip code.
“Okay, I can probably guarantee a DSHS worker to be at your place in a day or so for the inspection. Nothing wrong with your file, so your license is up to date,” he flipped through a few pages on his screen.
“But you, Ms. Griffith-“
“Griffin,”
“Griffin, sorry,” he made a few clicks of correction, “You’re living in the same domicile?”
“Yes,”
“Okay, then we’ll need to get you started on a background check and then you’ll need to get with the DSHS office with your immunizations,”
“Of course,”
Clarke was wire-tense, and Lexa pressed a hand to her friend’s thigh, Clarke immediately covering it with her own in thanks.
The officer spent some more time clicking and typing, and Lexa held Clarke’s hand like an anchor. It was an odd period to take time to reflect in, but Lexa couldn’t help but look at herself from the outside in.
She must look like a worried parent.
“Okay, Ms. Woods, since you’re the foster parent here, DSHS will be contacting you within the next 24 hours to get an inspection set up. But in the mean time, there’s nothing wrong with your license so Baby Woods will go home with you tonight,”
Lexa froze at the words, at the name. At the idea that the police would just hand over such a precious thing to a perfect stranger. But Clarke was much more composed, relief evident in every syllable as she thanked the officer. He smiled and went to retrieve some documents.
“Lex,” Clarke prompted, squeezing her hand.
Lexa swallowed, and dipped her head, “I’m okay,”
Clarke pursed her lips, running her thumb against Lexa’s slowly.
“We need to name her,” she murmured in measure.
Lexa hummed distantly.
“Lexa,” a question; a call.
Lexa breathed a little deeper and nodded, rallying. She looked to Clarke’s careful eyes.
“I’m here,” she squeezed back, “I’m good,”
Clarke’s expression eased, her head falling to Lexa’s shoulder.
“We need to name her,”
“I’ve always liked Amelia,”
“How about Quinn?”
“Maybe as a middle name,”
“Hm,” Clarke sat up, stretching her back in her seat, “Amelia reminds me of my mother,”
Lexa smirked, “I’ll take that as a no, then. Elizabeth?”
Clarke smiled back and rolled her eyes.
“Lexa, every little girl’s middle name since 1980 has been either Elizabeth or Marie,”
“We could call her Eliza,”
“Lexa. No,”
Lexa scrunched her nose, until Clarke smiled, falling against her shoulder again, “Though I do like the idea of a long name shortened to another. Like yours,”
“We are not naming this kid Alexandrine,” Lexa said in near-disgust, “I sound like I should be waging war on Empires in a toga made of spun gold,”
“Or doing shots of $400 bottles of tequila,”
Lexa lifted a grand eyebrow, “And what makes you think I’m not?”
Clarke grinned, “Because you could barely afford me a Christmas present last year,”
Lexa tried not to fidget, “I thought you liked it,”
Clarke huffed a laugh, “Of course I did. But I know exactly how expensive art supplies are, and I know exactly how you approach gift-giving,”
Lexa let it lie. She had a tendency to be thorough in all things. But with the budget she had poorly planned that year, Clarke’s presents had resulted in an eclectic selection of a very few, but very nice, selection of charcoals, canvases, and oils.
If she had approached it correctly, she’d have taken Clarke to the orchestra as well, but had to settle for the ice rink.
She smiled.
“What?” Clarke gave a reciprocal twitch of her lips just looking at Lexa. The police station bustled behind them, visible through the glass.
Lexa gave a self-conscious shuffle, “You know that coffee place that got us through finals a few years ago? Where the owners kept giving us free gingerbread scones?”
Clarke smiled, “Eve and Lynn’s, yeah. I had to think of new ways to dispose of yours,” she recalled fondly. Lexa didn't like gingerbread.
“Well,” Lexa tipped her head, “What do you think about that?”
“Eve and Lynn?” Clarke furrowed her brow.
“Evelyn,”
Clarke smiled, liking it immediately, “Evelyn,”
“We could call her Eve,”
“Or Evie,”
“Or Evie,”
Lexa found herself smiling with measured joy at the lightness in Clarke’s eyes. It was a frightening thing to try to come to terms with, to bestow a name. The identifier that a whole person would carry for the rest of their lives. But the woman she was looking at was named ‘Clark with an e’, as all coffee shops were informed of, and her own name was something so pretentious she had tried to legally change it at 17.
Still, Clarke’s expression gave her hope. And security. And when the officer helping them re-entered the room, Clarke had stood and collected the baby from him as naturally as anything Lexa had ever seen. A press of Clarke’s nose to the girl’s, and a whispered, “Hi, Evie,” and Lexa felt like her heart might explode.
The officer handed over a startling amount of documentation, and then they were free to go.
The first stop had been the store.
A crib, a high chair, car seat, towels, diapers, wipes, binkies, the works. Clarke was patient as her arms ached with Evie’s weight. Lexa was frantically searching on her phone for articles pro/conning baby formula brands and types, and Clarke only smiled indulgently.
It was a very Lexa thing to do, and it was a very good sign.
An entire cart’s worth of baby things went to the register, and Lexa handed over a credit card, Clarke watching in worry. Lexa shot her a significant look.
“Just let me do this,” she demanded in a pleading tone. Clarke sighed and nodded, rocking Evie and getting her to release a piece of her hair.
They put everything in the car and Clarke spent twenty minutes staring at a street light while she let Lexa worry over the proper adjustments and bucklings of the car seat.
“Thank god we got a carrier,” Clarke sighed, twisted in her seat to wave a plastic donut at Evie, who seemed absolutely riveted, “my arms are tired as hell, and my shirt is drenched in slobber,”
Lexa glanced at her and laughed loudly.
“That’s a good look for you,” she said smugly, “Very under-appreciated Mom,”
Clarke tried with every fiber of her being not to feel anything at the title.
She only huffed a laugh.
“Yeah, well, you’ll get your turn. You get to put the crib together,”
Lexa scoffed, “How hard could it be?”
“I’m telling you, it’s bullshit, Clarke!”
“Lexa!”
Clarke glared at the woman, and Lexa actually flushed with guilt as Evie’s round eyes rolled over her in alert acknowledgement. She gave a jerking wave of her arm and looked back to Clarke. Lexa exhaled.
“Sorry,” she cleared her throat, “But this trap is bull-you-know-what,”
Clarke pressed a smile into her teeth.
“Well,” she breathed, bracing, “Maybe we should call Raven,” she looked away from Lexa to innocently put the bottle back to Evie’s mouth, “or Bellamy,”
Lexa felt her heart flame with indignation. She narrowed her eyes at her friend.
“I know exactly what you’re doing,” she seethed pettily, “And it’s not going to work,” she straightened proudly and scoffed, “But there isn’t a chance in he-ck,” she coughed, “There’s zero chance of that man stepping foot in this apartment while Evie is here. No,”
“Okay, Lex,” Clarke smiled, watching Evie’s sweet face as she pawed at the bottle awkwardly. She heard Lexa return to the crib’s instruction manual, and grinned at the string of fluent mumbling. They had pushed a few shelves in their bedroom into the living room where the desk used to be. Lexa had re-arranged the entirety of their apartment and was determined to make room in their bedroom for the crib. Now, it was a matter of putting leg A to side B, using bracket C and screw D, with tool E, which is not included.
By the time Clarke had bathed, dressed, and burped Evie, Lexa had figured it out and proudly addressed the bedding. Clarke rolled her eyes and rained sarcastic praises. She leaned down and peeled Evie off of her shoulder, the precious girl having fallen asleep after burping.
They stood then, side by side, staring down at the baby.
“I’m so scared,” Clarke whispered. Lexa pulled a deep breath and swallowed.
“Me too,”
“I want this, though. Is that weird?”
Lexa understood. Looking down at Evie, she felt it. The want. The maternal want to protect, and love, and teach, and nurture. It made her heart beat sideways and called for the whole of her being to lay down on a wire just so this beautiful little girl would have a flat place to curl up on.
“No,” she said lowly, “Not weird,”
Clarke dashed a traitorous well of a tear, “We’re going to love her so much, okay?”
“Yes,” Lexa swallowed, “We’re going to love her,”
“We have to be a team,”
“I know, Clarke,” Lexa turned to her friend, her best friend, the woman she would do anything for; give anything; be anything, “I’m in this. I know it’s sudden, but I’m all in, Clarke,”
Clarke nodded.
She loved Lexa. And part of Lexa was her habit of saying only exactly what she meant. Precisely and only exactly what she intended. It was a honesty issue for her, something borne out of good intentions but had landed her in trouble more often than not. But it surprisingly helped her as a litigator, able to smell bullshit a mile off.
And Clarke loved it about her. It was the part of Lexa that lead to conversations in the dark and on Sunday mornings, the part that drove Lexa to careful deliberation before speech. The part that made communication easy and free when organizing dinner plans.
And it was the part that Clarke was going to take refuge in during the months to come. Lexa was solid. Dependable. If Lexa said she wanted this, she did. If Lexa said she would be here, she would.
And as Lexa stood next to Clarke and softly suggested Clarke should go to bed, Clarke knew she was worrying her.
“Social worker tomorrow,” Lexa reminded her.
“Yeah,”
Because Clarke needed it, craved it, wouldn’t be able to sleep without it, she stood on her toes and wrapped her arms around Lexa’s neck. Without hesitating, Lexa folded Clarke to her chest and held her.
They hugged for comfort, and safety, and sanity.
Clarke pulled away slightly, pressing a kiss to Lexa’s temple.
“Love you,” she whispered. Lexa nodded. It wasn’t something they said to each other with frequency. It was generally understood. But Clarke was tired, and stretched to an emotional thin.
“Love you,” Lexa echoed, smiling warmly, “I’ll be right there, I’m gonna,” she waved a hand over Evie, and Clarke nodded. Lexa’s eyes softened even further, and she pressed Clarke’s hand before dropping it.
The blonde walking away, Lexa looked down at her charge.
“You’re going to change it all, aren’t you?” her lips twitched, “Evelyn Quinn Woods,”