Everything To Lose

Chapter 27

Lexa knocked on the kid's room door and pushed it open, hoping to find Madi ready for bed, so she could talk to her about tomorrow, get her to understand that she may have somewhere else to be, but Madi should have fun anyway with Clarke, Raven, Anya, Aden and all the other guests who may come over through the day.

But what she found instead when she opened the door, was loud music, Aden and Madi dancing around with Clarke between them in the middle of the room.

"MOMMY! Come join us!" said Madi when she spotted her mom at the door.

Clarke stopped mid move and her whole body got stiff. Awkward. Aden however was still pretty clueless of the new entrant and was jumping around, lost in the music.

"It's late, Madi, you should sleep" Lexa walked in, trying her best to keep her eyes off Clarke.

Clarke looked at the clock on the wall and realized Lexa had a point. She walked on over to where her portable speaker was kept on Aden's bed, turned it off and said

"Mommy has a point"

Lexa felt something shift within her, hearing Clarke refer to her like that. It was so natural, should have felt real. Should have been more.

Lexa was still ignoring Clarke, and Clarke was beginning to notice. Lexa took Madi's hand in hers and led her to her bed.

Clarke carried Aden in her arms then and walked on over to sit with him on his bed. But even while playing around with him and tickling his sides, she couldn't help but listen in to the conversation that had suddenly turned tensed at the other side of the room, where Lexa was tucking Madi into bed.

"I have to honey. There's a lot of work pending and I won't be able to concentrate with so many people here tomorrow"

"Can't you do it another day?" Madi whined.

"No, sweetie. I have to do it tomorrow. But don't you worry, I'm sure you guys are going to have a lot of fun."

"There's no fun without you" Madi frowned and looked away, seemingly angry at her mom.

Lexa then caressed her face gently "Mommy needs to do this baby, I wish I could explain, but I need you to understand"

Madi seemed to realize then that this was important to her mom. "Okay. But what about the gifts we picked out?"

"You can give it to her on my behalf, I don't mind"

"Okay mommy" she said and kissed Lexa on the nose.

Lexa chuckled. "I don't know what I did to deserve you. You're a beautiful, you know that"

"Oh I know" Madi said with a toothy grin.

By now Clarke had kissed Aden goodnight and he was already falling asleep, doused by his mom's fingers playing in his hair.

Clarke was deep in thought. She waited until Aden was fast asleep, kissed his forehead gently once more, and then headed out to look for Lexa.

She knocked on her bedroom door.

"Yea?" came Lexa's voice from inside.

"It's me" Clarke said as she pushed the door open to find Lexa brushing her hair, ready to sleep.

"Clarke, what are you doing here?" Lexa wasn't making eye contact.

"I couldn't help but over-hear..." Clarke began.

"Yea, I'm sorry I was going to tell you tomorrow, uhhh... I have a lot of cases to go through for an upcoming review and being here tomorrow might just distract me..."