SHE(clexa)

Chapter 1: Part One

It's her own fault, really.

They sent her the reminder emails and all her friends told her that she had to hurry but, for some reason, she thought she'd be okay.

But here she is, on the first day of semester, not entirely sure where the hell she'll be living for the next year.

And maybe she should have checked her school emails or something, but she didn't really want to do that between her odd jobs here and there and her summer of road trips and couch surfing. She's still not entirely sure she's even brought her laptop back with her, but that's what her savings are for.

"Griffin!" A familiar voice calls and before she can turn around, she's stumbling forward as Octavia climbs on her back over her huge backpack. She laughs in Clarke's ear and Clarke somehow manages to shrug her off and turn around to hug her. "Where the fuck have you been? We woke up in New Orleans that morning and you'd gone!"

Clarke smirks and shrugs her shoulders coyly. The morning in question was over two months ago, during the long weekend they were supposed raising hell in the Big Easy. They'd met there about a week or so after last semester finished with plans to get incredibly drunk and have careless fun. There had been about a dozen of them but, on their last morning, Clarke had found alternative plans to heading home to California.

She'd spent the next few weeks working at a bar in Key West.

"You're fucking unbelievable," Octavia states but she's grinning like she expects no less. Clarke smiles back innocently, knowing exactly what kind of shit her best friend thinks she got up to.

It's probably not the scrubbing floors and sketching pictures of boats that Clarke actually spent her time doing. Octavia probably thinks that she was sleeping in the bed of some beautiful god or goddess when really she was sleeping in a cot in the mudroom of some old lady's house. From Key West she'd followed an offer to work for a weeklong barbeque competition in Charleston. After that, she'd managed to wangle a couple of weeks work in Myrtle Beach. She'd bypassed all major cities and traversed the east coast, working here and sleeping there, to end her summer in Cape Cod before coming back to school.

"Which residence hall did you get matched to?" Octavia asks and Clarke groans, rolling her eyes and shrugging off her backpack.

She drops down onto a nearby wall. "I have no idea," she admits. "I left it to the last minute so I've got to head over to the residency director's office to find out."

Octavia gives her a knowing, disappointed look. "Clarke, we told you—"

"I know, I know," Clarke grumbles, picking up her bags again and hoisting them onto her back. "Don't bother. I fucked up and I'll figure it out."

Octavia gives her a disbelieving look. Clarke kisses her cheek before wandering away.

//

"You got everything?"

Lexa looks around the room and finds the usual three duffle bags and backpack she takes everywhere. They're sat beside her box of school books and stationery, and she gives Anya a look before the older girl snorts and rolls her eyes.

"Right, of course," she says as she slips her hands into the back pockets of her jeans. She gives Lexa the same look she always does but doesn't say anything. "Did you want me to help stay and unpack?"

Lexa shakes her head. "No, I'm good." Anya gives her another knowing look but she quickly ignores it. "Thanks for letting me crash this summer."