Chapter Text
Clarke made her way through her apartment to hear the sounds of heavy metal drowning the space coming from the far room on the right down the hallway. She dropped her bags and keys on the kitchen counter before she went to investigate.
Clarke knocked before entering although she knew that it would fail to get a reaction. Slowly opening the door, Clarke peaked in hoping not to startle Raven. When they moved into this apartment, a year and a half ago, the extra room was split as a shop for Raven and a studio for Clarke. Right now she found Raven propped up on a stool leaning over some kind of hunk of metal. She was barefoot, which Clarke hated because of the metal materials Raven commonly worked with. Her hands black with grease making it clear she had been in the shop for a while now. She had a towel over her should, but it was still clean. Clarke knew better than to disturb her in this kind of concentration so she snuck back out of the room without being noticed and went to take a shower.
When she got out the music was still blaring. Clarke made her way to the kitchen to make start dinner for the two of them leaving Raven in her zone for the time being. Twenty minutes later, as the chicken was in the oven and Clarke was prepping a salad, the music was turned off and shortly after the brunette made her way into the room. She came around to the kitchen and wrapped her arms around Clarke’s waist burying her head in the blonde’s shoulder.
“How long have you been home?”
“I don’t know an hour and a half?”
“You should have interrupted me.”
“You looked like you were in deep concentration and it seemed to be the project you were stuck on last week. I didn’t want to interrupt.” Clarke turned in Raven’s arms and wrapped hers around the brunette’s neck. She pulls on her neck to bring Raven in for a kiss. “Hi.”
“Hi, to you too. How was your day?”
“Long, but not bad. Back to back surgeries, but luckily no complications. How about your day?”
“Fine. Sorry, I was planning on making dinner tonight, but kind of got caught up in the shop.” Raven quickly got out changing the subject.
Clarke kissed her again, “It’s not a problem, I figured you needed some time. The chicken will be done here shortly and I am almost done with the salad. Why don’t you go and clean up, it will be on the table by the time you are done?”
Raven pulled Clarke in for another kiss, this one a little longer and then left the kitchen to make her way down the hallway to the bedroom.
When Raven reappeared, her wet hair was tied up in a bun and she had on a pair of baggy gray sweatpants along with a loose white tank top. The food was plated at the table and Clarke was just finishing up some of the kitchen clean up about to sit down.
They took their seats and started to dig in. It started in silence with the only talking being compliments about the food. After the almost 4 years they have been together, they have grown accustomed to comfortable silence when it was needed. Raven had quickly finished her meal, making Clarke question if she had eaten all day as she tended to forget meals when she was in the shop. Raven cleared her own plate and returned to the table while Clarke finished her meal. She scooted the chair closer to the blonde and entwined their legs as she sat back down. She leaned over and rest her head on her hands on the table while tilting towards Clarke to watch as she ate. Clarke could sense that something was bothering Raven, but knew better than try and get her to talk. Raven would tell her, but on her own time. Instead, she started rubbing circles on Raven’s back with her free had as she finished her meal. Clarke cleaned up her plate and came back to Raven who was still at the table with her head down.
“Come on, babe, let’s go to bed and watch a movie.”
“Okay,” Raven said as she got up and took the hand Clarke offered and lead her to the bedroom. They both went through their nightly routines ending with Clarke putting a movie in, and they both made it to the bed. Raven curled into Clarke’s shoulder as the movie started. She started to trace patterns into the blonde’s stomach as the movie started.
Clarke kissed the brunette’s hair, “What are you working on in the shop?” Clarke was hoping that some benign questioning may eventually lead to what is actually bothering Raven.
“It’s the project I started last week.”
“Is it for work?”
“No.”
“Did you get it finished? It would have been great way to end your week.”
“Not quite yet. I just have some minor tweaking to do before I can get it to function completely.”
“You didn’t even mention how was work today.” Clarke inquired. It wasn’t as subtle as she hoped, but she just wanted to get to the reason why Raven was acting this way.
“Mmmmm.” Raven hummed into Clarke’s shoulder without turning to look at the blonde.
“What happened?”
“You know how my team is rebuilding those old modeled planes with the new lighter material to make them easier to fly, state of the art, and cost effective?”
“Yeah. You’ve spent over 2 years designing and building it. I’m so proud of you.” Clarke said as she squeezed the brunette a little closer and lowering so she could have her lips meet Raven’s temple.
“Well it has been amazing, and we are just about to start the testing phase which is going to see if all of work will pay off.”
“Okay. So shouldn’t you be excited?”
“I was…” Raven deeply sighed and tried to turn a little away from her girlfriend. “That was until I wasn’t cleared to participate in any of the flight tests.”
“WHAT?!” Clarke blurted before Raven could continue. Clarke turned so she was now face to face with Raven “WHY NOT? Do I have to go down there myself and dropkick someone?”
Raven smiled a little after Clarke’s very protective side showed up. “We had to take our physicals today and I have a heart murmur that will keep me grounded for all of the tests.”
“What? Is this a new murmur? We should take you into the hospital! I will call our cardio surgeon and get you in tomorrow.” Clarke went to grab her phone, when Raven stopped her.
“No need for that. I have always had it. It was first detected when I was ten, but it has always been under control and it has never stopped me from doing anything. That is until today.” Raven paused before Clarke nodded for her to keep going, “Apparently the risk of me actually flying and controlling the planes with the murmur is too great of health risk for Ark to take.”
“It wasn’t a problem when you were testing for NASA and it is government controlled.”
“Yeah, but I wasn’t actually piloting them for NASA, here I would be.”
“Oh, Raven, I am so sorry.” Clarke leaned in and gave her a deep kiss as it was obvious that Raven was now struggling to hold back tears. “I know how much you were looking forward to the flights and the testing.”
Raven was now struggling and couldn’t respond. A tear fell and Clarke immediately wiped it away as she pulled Raven down so the brunette’s head curled into her neck. “Come here, babe. You are perfect just the way you are.”
Eventually Raven’s breathing evened out and Clarke knew she had finally fallen asleep. She knew that after the day and then working most of the night in the shop the brunette had to be exhausted. Clarke flipped off the movie without disturbing Raven and she too eventually found sleep.