Beep.
She heard the text alert coming from her phone on the dresser. A quick glance at her bedside clock told her it was 6:47 AM. There was only one person who would text her this early. And it was not because that person was an early riser. No, it was quite the opposite. Raven had probably stayed up all night last night working on one of her wayward projects, now high on caffeine and adrenaline and needing attention and interaction. Either that, or she needed to be picked up from her engineering lab after it was shut down due to an exploding gadget, for the third time. Clarke chose to assume the former, because she really, really wanted to sleep in a little bit more this morning.
Her phone remained silent for the next five minutes, allowing her to gently doze off again, before suddenly beeping several times in rapid succession, jolting her awake again.
Letting out a heavy groan, she turned over in her bed, grabbed the phone from her dresser and looked at the screen.
R: Clarke.
R: Clarke, wake up. It's me, Raven.
Clarke rolled her eyes. I have your number, Raven. She scrolled down.
R: I made a breakthrough in my project and I need to share it with someone.
R: Guess what? You're the lucky someone! Congrats!
R: Come pick me up. I'll buy you breakfast and tell you all about it.
R: Do it.
R: You might as well. If you're reading this, you're up already.
R: I know you want to see my face. This face:
Clarke clicked on the thumbnail and it opened to a picture of Raven sticking her tongue out at her. She found herself reluctantly smiling as she typed her reply.
C: You do know it is illegal to text someone before 7 AM on a weekend, right?
R: Well, Blue, not if you love them very much and want to share your happiness with them.
C: I am definitely not coming if you're going to call me that.
R: Haha, just trying out new nicknames!
R: Don't you get tired of being called "Clarke" all your life?
R: I mean, doesn't it get boring for you?
R: Hmm, how about Arty? Haha, get it? Because you art and stuff.
R: And it rhymes with Clarke!
R: Wait, does it?
Clarke was still half asleep, so it took her several seconds to process all of Raven's rambling texts. She shook her head to clear the morning haze.
C: Wait, what?
C: No, just . . . Don't answer that.
She fought a weak internal battle with herself, already knowing she would lose, before typing again.
C: I'll be there in 30 minutes.
She threw off her soft, warm covers, silently cursing Raven as the cold air hit her body, hauled her legs over the bed, and painstakingly pushed herself up. Just before she made her way to the bathroom, she stopped and picked up her phone again.
C: Also. No more coffee for you.
Clarke arrived to Raven's lab said 30 minutes later. She had visited there frequently enough for the security guard at the front desk to let her in without needing her to be signed in. She pushed open the door to the lab, stepping into a large room filled with small clusters of metal tables distributed unevenly throughout the room. There weren't any windows in the room, since it was located in the basement of the building, which, in addition to the abundance of metal and hardware and assorted tools in the room, made the place look like the hull of a spaceship.Fitting, Clarke thought, since many of the projects there involved equipment Clarke didn't recognize from the real world.
She saw Raven hunched over her table in the corner fiddling with some complicated gadgets. She also noticed the multiple overturned coffee cups scattered around the table as well.
"Knock, knock," Clarke said, rapping on the nearest table to get Raven's attention as she made her way over.
"Clarke! You're here!" Raven stood up to give her a bear hug. "You chose me over sleep. I'm so touched."
"It's not like you gave me much choice," Clarke grumbled.
"You know you love me. Just admit it."
Clarke rolled her eyes, lightly bumping Raven's shoulder with her own, smiling in the process. "Yeah, yeah." She glanced over at what Raven was working on. "Now what's this amazing discovery that you couldn't wait until a more humane hour to show me?"
"Ah, okay, okay," Raven began excitedly. "Let me walk you through it. So this is what Monty and I have been working on for the past 3 months. He helped me with the programming part of it. You just missed him actually. He said something about needing sleep. Weakling." Raven scoffed. "Who needs sleep? Anyway, make sure you pay close attention and follow along. Hmm, maybe you should take notes." She started glancing around her messy table for a notepad and pencil. "Clarke, do you need to take notes?"
"No, Raven. No."
Clarke listened and watched Raven describe and demonstrate her project enthusiastically for about 45 minutes before she decided that she could not go on much longer without some caffeine herself. Truth be told, she had really only been paying attention to about 50% of what her friend was saying, and then only understanding about 20% of that. But there had been some practical demonstrations that were interesting and allowed her to play with the gadgets, so she did enjoy that.
Luckily for Clarke, it seemed like Raven was just winding down. Just in time, too, because as soon as she finished her sentence about being able to harvest energy from movement of tectonic plates (Tectronic? Tectionic? Clarke wasn't sure), Raven's stomach rumbled. That seemed to pull her from the science-focused haze she was in.
"Well, so that's the project. What do you think?"
Clarke took a second to think about what to say. She knew that Raven was passionate about this subject and had been working particularly hard on this project. Clarke was very proud of her engineering friend, even if she didn't understand most of it.
"Okay, I'm going to be honest with you because you're one of my best friends, Raven. I only understood about a third of that (Clarke lied), but what I got from it is that you're brilliant, and your project is brilliant, and you're going to change the world." Clarke beamed proudly at her. "Also, I, along with I'm sure the rest of your lab, really, really appreciate the general lack of explosions. Plus . . ." She then gestured her arm over the table. "I liked the pretty lights."
Raven laughed just as her stomach rumbled again.
Clarke put her arm around Raven's shoulders. "Come now, you mad scientist engineer you. I bet you didn't even eat dinner last night. Let's get you some breakfast."
"Yes, please. And you're right. I am famished." Raven looked at the clock, which read almost 8:30. She remembered what day it was. "Should we go to Jasper's?"
Clarke smiled gratefully at Raven, touched that even in her no-sleep-and-high-on-caffeine state, she still remembered where Clarke had to go every Sunday. She nodded, "Let's go."
The two friends walked out of the lab with their arms around each other.
It was a little warmer than when she came the week before, but still chilly enough for her to appreciate a warm cup of coffee. "Mmm," Clarke sighed. "Seriously, Jasper, do you put crack in this coffee? There is no other way it can be this good."
Jasper laughed. Then his face turned serious and he said, "I do, actually. It's the secret ingredient. And it's also why that cup is going to cost you 75 dollars."
Raven snorted. "Serves her right for not letting me order any coffee." She went right back to digging into her mountainous plate of scrambled eggs, hashbrown, bacon and toast. She was already calming down from her earlier caffeine rush, and the comfort food was definitely helping as well.
"You'll thank me when you get home later and can actually fall asleep," Clarke said. She turned to Jasper, eyes narrowed and riddled with mischief. "And as for you, funny sir, why don't you ask Raven about her breakthrough today?"
Raven looked up from her food at the mention of her project, but she couldn't say anything because her mouth was stuffed. Jasper saw his chance and took it. "Oh no, it's fine. I . . . uh . . . I heard it all from Monty already. Great job, Raven. Uh . . . go science!" He glanced at the café doors. "What's that?" he called out to no one. "I'm needed inside? Okay, I'll be right in!" Turning back to the girls, he said, "I'll talk to you guys later. You know, business." He shrugged in a what-can-you-do kind of way, and quickly walked back into the café.
"Well, that was subtle," Raven said after she swallowed her mouthful of food. Clarke just laughed.
Raven smiled at the sound of Clarke's genuine laughter. It was such a lovely sound, and these days, a rather rare one. She knew Clarke was trying her best to be happy around her friends because she didn't want them to worry, and it worked on most of them. But Raven could always tell when her friend was too quick to smile, and too quick to laugh. Especially when that laughter didn't reach her eyes.
Raven had known Clarke since their freshman year in college, when they were paired up randomly as roommates in the dorms. At first the engineering major and the art major didn't get along very well due to conflicts in sleep schedules and visitor policies andRaven, you can't keep getting all of these nails and bolts on my bed and Well, Princess, you always leave your art supplies all over the room and get paint on everything. Eventually, though, after they overcame their minor differences, Clarke grew to become one of Raven's best friends, the sister she never had and didn't know she wanted. After their first year, they moved out of the dorms together with Octavia, another girl they had met and bonded with on their floor.
The three would continue to live together after they graduated college. Raven went to graduate school while Clarke picked up random jobs while working on her art work before gaining enough popularity to focus solely on her art. Octavia found an internship with a big company in the fashion industry and was later hired by that same company. The three only disbanded when Clarke moved in with Lexa and Octavia moved in with Lincoln. Octavia now lived further away, but still always made time to see them at least once a week. Clarke and Raven lived only several blocks from each other, and so were able to continue spending a lot of time together.
In fact, Raven had been with Clarke that very day that she met Lexa in the exact same spot they were currently sitting.
It was a warm, sunny day in the middle of their first summer after graduation. Raven was working in the lab for her graduate studies and Clarke had the day off, so they had decided to meet for lunch at the café where Jasper was working. Raven was late, as usual, having stayed behind to finish up some of her work. Clarke was sitting at one of the more secluded tables on the far end of the outdoor seating area so that she could bask in the afternoon sun with minimal distraction while she waited.
Jasper came out to take her order, looking somewhat flustered. "Hi Clarke," he greeted.
"Hey Jas, is everything okay?"
"Oh, yeah, it's fine. It's just my boss. He's been complaining about the slow business this past month. If only he would listen to me and make the changes I recommended . . ." He shook his head. "Anyway, what will you have?"
"Can I just get the usual sandwich and iced tea for me? And Raven will have her usual as well. She's running a little late, but she asked me to order for her."
"Will do. I'll bring the food right out when it's ready. And I'm sorry I can't talk longer right now. My boss is glaring at me again. But we'll catch up this weekend, yeah?"
Clarke nodded, offering a sympathetic smile. "Can't wait. Good luck with your mean boss." Jasper returned her smile before quickly going back inside to place the orders.
After he left, Clarke put her sunglasses on and leaned her head back to catch as much of the summer sun as she could, smiling as the warm rays hit her face. She kept her eyes opened despite the sun in the periphery of her vision in order to watch the clouds drifting through the clear blue sky, imagining just how she could paint them on a canvas. So when she finally looked down again, her vision was filled with bright halos around everything.
And that's when she saw her.
She was sitting at one of the tables closer to the café doors, with her back to the fountain, facing Clarke. She was deeply engrossed in a book, biting on a pencil she held in her hand, paying little mind to the world around her.
Clarke slowly took off her sunglasses and tried to focus her eyes. The halos were still there, but they seemed to perfectly frame the girl's face, giving her an almost ethereal glow. Even from the distance, Clarke could still make out high cheekbones, small, adorable ears, full lips, and a slender, elegant neck. All very kissable features, Clarke thought to herself. She had also never even realized that ears could be adorable until she saw hers. The girl's long, wavy chestnut hair was loosely held up with a pin and a pencil in a messy bun behind her head, revealing prominent collarbones. Also kissable. A loose tendril of hair dangled over the right side of her face.
Clarke shook her head to try to clear her vision, without much luck, so she just resigned herself to staring at this mystery girl, slowly taking in more and more details of her features as her vision returned to normal. The girl didn't look up from her book once in the several minutes it took before Raven arrived.
"Hey, sorry I'm late." Raven sat down across from Clarke, directly in her line of sight to the girl. "There were some miscalculations at the lab about the energy containment area, and then one of the pressure regulators on the machine broke, so I had to dig in with some elbow grease and a wrench to try to . . ." Her voice trailed off as she realized that Clarke was not paying attention to her at all and was instead just staring at something behind her. She waved her hands in front of Clarke's face, "Hello? Anyone there?"
Clarke finally snapped out of her daze and looked at Raven.
"Were you even listening to anything I said?" Raven asked.
"Yes, yes, I was listening. You made some sort of . . . energy pressure wrench."
Raven gave her a suspicious look before turning around to look behind her. She scanned the area until her sight finally landed on the girl. "Ahh, I see." She turned back to Clarke with a knowing look and smirked. "You had much better things to pay attention to. Or rather, one thing in particular."
Clarke's cheeks reddened as she was caught in her ogling. "Shut up," she said. But she didn't bother denying it. She would tell Raven everything anyway.
"She's cute. You should go talk to her," Raven suggested.
"Really? You think so?"
"Yeah, why not? What's the worst that can happen? It's not like you haven't approached girls before. I don't praise you too often, Griffin, but even I will admit that you have game."
"I don't know, Rae. She's . . . different. I don't think my usual lines are going to work on her."
"Okay, not to burst your bubble or anything, but you do know that you don't get girls because of your crappy pick up lines, right? You get them because you're fucking cute, Griffin. And incredibly lovable."
"Aww . . . Thanks?"
"No problem. Now go. Be cute."
"Okay." Clarke stood up and took a deep breath to steel herself. She started to make her way to the girl's table.
"Cuter than that. Way cuter."
"Shut up."
Raven finished her breakfast in pretty much record time, even for her. Clarke was only halfway through her meal when Raven sat back in her seat and let out a content sigh.
"That was amazing. Really hit the spot. You know, Jasper really turned this place around."
"I know. He almost always has something new for me to try every week," Clarke mentioned off-hand before digging back into her plate.
This made Raven regard Clarke silently for a moment.
"So how long are you going to do this?" Raven finally said.
Clarke put down her fork and sat back in her chair. "Raven," she began warily, "please don't."
"Listen, I'm not going to tell you to stop, because I know you won't. Hell, I've waited here with you on more Sundays than I can count. Jasper would probably go broke without our business. But I just- I just want to make sure you still know what you are doing. Because I love you. We all do. And that's all I need. To know that you're okay, and that you're going to be okay."
Clarke fought back the tears that now threatened to fall. Her eyes glistened as she looked at Raven.
"Thank you, Rae. You know I love all of you too. And I appreciate everything you've done for me. I wouldn't have made it through everything without you and Octavia there." She paused to collect herself. Just the thought of all that her friends did for her was enough to make her cry.
"But I need to do this, Raven. I do. I need to do this for as long as I can. I know the chances of her coming back after so long . . . after how much I hurt her . . . and be willing to forgive me and take me back are very, very low. Miniscule even. But it's all I have right now. This is my last link to her, and if I'm honest, it is what's keeping me going every day. Looking forward to Sundays, when I have a miniscule one-in-a-million chance of seeing her instead of zero chance."
Clarke looked down at her hands, taking a deep breath before continuing, "I know you care about me, so just know that this is enough for me. I'm happy. I am. I'm happy with this little glimmer of hope. Because I don't know what I would do if I didn't have this, if I really had to admit that I'm never going to see her again, that I've lost her forever. I'm not sure I would ever be able to get out of whatever pit of despair that would throw me in."
Tears were falling freely down her face by the time she finished. She wiped at them carelessly; she didn't have to hide them in front of Raven. She looked back at her friend, hoping that she would understand.
Raven observed Clarke silently for long seconds. Her own eyes glimmered with unshed tears before she sniffled and rubbed her nose and looked away. Tears did not fall as easily from her eyes as they did Clarke's.
Long seconds passed again. When she finally turned back and met Clarke's eyes, her expression had changed.
"We should probably bring a board game or something next time then."
Notes:
Hopefully this showed that it's not all bad for Clarke. She has amazing, supportive friends around her and can still laugh and joke. It's not all just Angsty-McAngst town with her. Though I guess we did go there in the ending just now, didn't we? Oh well.
As always, thanks for reading. Let me know what you guys think. I'll try to answer any questions I can if you have any. Have a good one.