Chapter Text
If anyone were to tell you that Lexa Woods didn’t know how to do anything but homework and classes, it would be a lie. You don’t get into the kind of college she’d gotten into, from the kind of background that she was from, without doing a lot of extracurriculars in high school (handwaving and assuming, of course, the perfect GPA, the glowing recommendations from seemingly every teacher who had ever had the glory of having her in their class, and the ridiculous slog of 5s on her AP exams). And so she had. She had done them, and she had done them well. She’d been captain of the debate team in high school (though at the kind of school she went to, she’d also basically been the debate team in high school). She’d volunteered with community organizations. She’d done the whole song and dance and hullabaloo. No, no one could say that Lexa didn’t know how to do anything outside of her academic responsibilities.
Change the question just a little, however, and there was quite a bit that they could say. And Lexa knew this, too, because she was a history major, and if there’s one thing you learn in history class, it’s that the way you frame a question makes a giant difference in how you answer it.
Take the question above, for instance. Did Lexa Woods know how to do things outside of classes and homework? Definitely.
But did Lexa Woods do anything outside of classes and homework?
Well, she certainly had.
But did she?
Well, opinions were divided on the point. This, too, was something that Lexa was very familiar with. She could tell you, for instance, that there was a whole set of historians who were very invested in the idea that the English Reformation had ushered in a whole new set of cultural, political, and social conditions—and another set who were equally certain it had done nothing of the sort. She could tell you in minute detail which scholars were on which side of the debate, and how the debate had changed over time, and where they made different interpretations of common evidence (as opposed to where they looked at completely different evidence entirely). Yes, Lexa was very familiar with divided opinions about historical evidence.
Like, for example, the divide between her and her friend Anya about the historical evidence of Lexa’s activities.
Anya, a senior who very much liked lording her seniority over Lexa (and it was only two years, get over yourself, Anya) was the last person to graduate from Lexa’s high school and come to this same particularly prestigious college, and she had made it her mission in life to make sure that Lexa “lived a little” on campus. And while Lexa argued that she did do other things (like eating and walking to and from class), according to Anya’s survey of the available evidence, Anya was firmly in the camp that pointed out that Lexa did not, in fact, do anything outside of classes and homework. She marshalled her arguments repeatedly and with vigor, pointing out unfair details like “we literally room together and you’re always here with your nose in a book,” “I know that the movie you said you went out to last week was a required viewing as part of your Racial Justice in Film course,” and “the last three times you went to a party it was just to walk me home and you didn’t come until I texted you.”
Lexa had to admit that these were accurate arguments, but they still seemed rather unfair. After all, she had gone to parties the last three weekends, even if she had only been there to save an obviously inebriated Anya from puking in the bushes outside of one of the dorms. And yes, the movie was a required part of class, but it still meant she had to give up her precious study time for other classes to trek out to a movie theater two stops down the subway line and back and wait out in the cold.
OK, maybe calling it her ‘precious study time’ was a giveaway that Anya might be right.
A little.
In some ways, at least.
And maybe she was always in their dorm room reading, but that was because if she went to the library there were always people there, and that wasn’t her scene.
Shit.
Yeah, she could see where Anya was coming from, honestly, if you put it like that. Just like the best historiographers could see a little bit of the perspective of the better historians on the other side of the debate about the Reformation.
Maybe it was that moment of weakness (definitely not of self-awareness) that had led her to agree to do “just one thing that takes you out of this godforsaken dorm,” as Anya had put it (which was very unfair. Sure, she mostly ate in the dorm, and the fitness area that was her actual release from the intensity of studying was also in the dorm, but her classes weren’t! Which was, perhaps, also a weaker argument than she would have liked it to be).
What she hadn’t expected was for Anya to not only take advantage of that agreement, but to go as far as she had. She’d expected to be dragged to a party and handed a sketchy Solo cup filled with unidentified liquid that smelled like some kind of cleaning fluid, or forced to third-wheel a pseudo-date with one of the women that Anya kept perpetually orbiting around her in a manner that reminded Lexa that her roommate/friend/only actual acquaintance was indeed an astronomy major. She had not expected Anya to grin and hand her a flyer for the drama club.
TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE WANTED
NO EXPERIENCE NECESSARY
(JUST DON’T KILL ANYONE)
Following the last line, seemingly handwritten, was an asterisk and the words “unless absolutely necessary.”
And yes, if she’d thought about it Lexa would have remembered that Anya was involved in one of the theater groups on campus—she couldn’t remember which at the moment—and that she had mentioned that they were having trouble finding people, and so she should perhaps not have been as surprised as she was.
But she didn’t have time to think about it before Anya was dragging her downstairs from the comfortable (safe, protected) environment of her dorm room into the cold New England night, then halfway across campus and down into the basement of a building she vaguely recalled as next to the women’s studies library.
“I’ve got fresh meat!” Anya yelled as they barged through a door to reveal another woman (another student?) carrying an alarming-looking device with a jagged blade and the word (words?) SAWZALL printed on it.
“Sweet.” The woman took off the safety goggles she was wearing (on top of her head, not over her eyes, Lexa noted with concern) and put them and the SAWZALL down on a table next to her. “Hi, I’m Raven.” She stuck out a hand and Lexa took it and pumped it, once, hard, like she’d learned to before a debate. “What’s the matter, cat got your tongue?” She grinned. “Or does only Anya get that?”
“Shut up, Reyes, she’s my roommate.” Anya shoved Raven in the shoulder.
“Wait, this is Lexa? The one who thinks the library is too loud?” Lexa winced. Of course Anya told everyone about the time she’d complained about that.
“Yup. Don’t worry, she only gets that way when she’s studying.” Anya winked, though Lexa wasn’t sure which of them she was winking at. “And for the next semester, she’s your assistant technical director.”