Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

We are travelers on a cosmic journey, stardust,
swirling and dancing in the eddies and whirlpools of infinity.
Life is eternal.
We have stopped for a moment to encounter each other,
to meet, to love, to share.
This is a precious moment.
It is a little parenthesis in eternity

Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

5^th Avenue is busy as usual, and Clarke has to weave between cars when the light finally turns green, bumping into other pedestrians on her way across the street.

She loves New York, really, she does, but these days she often finds herself missing the city as it had been when she saw it for the first time, over a century ago. There were already tall buildings, but no automobiles, instead plenty of horse drawn cars and trolleys, and you could stroll down the street without having to constantly battle the other inhabitants for space.

Of course, there are many benefits to today’s New York too – Chinese food delivered to your door in the middle of the night, any show you can dream of as long as you’re prepared to go off off Broadway, the light twinkling in the many glass skyscrapers on Manhattan when the sun sets over the East River, which she has an amazing view of from her apartment.

She can’t complain too much – she has the privilege to live in her absolute favorite city in the whole world once again.

Continuing into the park, she finishes the last of her coffee and tosses the empty paper cup in the trash.

Central Park is never empty, but at just after ten on a Monday morning in late October, it’s certainly not very busy, either. The morning joggers are long gone, safely ensconced in their fancy offices downtown, and the lunch rush won’t be along for another two hours or so. A couple of dog-walkers are doing their best to keep their charges from getting each other – and any innocent passersby – tangled in their leashes. Two older gentlemen are perched on one of the park benches to her right, reading The New York Times. As she passes them, they fold their respective sections in half simultaneously – one has the news, the other features – and switch, continuing their perusal of each other’s sections in silence. To her left, four young women pushing strollers talk animatedly in a language that Clarke quickly identifies as Russian. She doesn’t speak it herself, but she does have a basic understanding of it. Apparently one of the girls is unhappy with her employer, who forces her to work too many hours in the day and too many days in the week. Au pairs, Clarke concludes.

She continues up the steps to the memorial and leans against the railing, looking out over the reservoir and the park beyond.

Fall has finally come to the city, putting an end to another long, hot summer. The air has turned crisp and clear and the park is putting its best foot forward with a color show of every shade of yellow, orange and red imaginable – from palest gold to darkest burgundy.

It’s Clarke’s favorite time of year in the city.

She pulls her phone from her pocket, opening her assignment app to make sure nothing’s changed since she left her apartment about an hour ago. She clicks the first Transfer of the day – she has another one in the afternoon, though it’s closer to home – and checks the info.

James Henry Wilson, male, 53. October 29, 10:32 AM. COD: cirrhosis. She clicks the coordinates to open a map, and it’s still the same spot, just a short walk along the reservoir, by South Gate House. She can see the little blinking dot indicating her position, and in the bottom right hand corner – Time to destination by foot: 3 minutes.

It’s only 10:15, so she’s not in any hurry, but she doesn’t like cutting it too close when she’s working, so she starts slowly making her way along the path.

The sun has finally broken through the clouds and water drops lingering on the leaves in the canopies overhead, left over from a shower in the early morning, glitter in the light. The morning started out grey and wet, but Clarke has a feeling it’s going to turn into one of those amazing fall days that can only be appreciated to its fullest in the park.

Halfway to her destination, she meets a group of teenage girls, looking to be around fifteen or sixteen – definitely high school age, so they’re probably from one of the nearby private schools, either on a break or, more likely, cutting class. As always, her eyes travel to their foreheads of their own accord, noting their Numbers. Most of them will have long lives, she’s happy to see, but the last girl, trailing a little behind the others, eyes fixed on the phone in her hand as she taps away at the screen… barely three years.

This is the part of her ‘job’ that Clarke hates, the part that she never really gets used to. The only thing she knows about this girl, who definitely can’t be older than sixteen, is that she won’t live to see her twentieth birthday. She doesn’t know how it will happen, doesn’t know if the girl will be able to even say goodbye to her loved ones, if she’ll get to do at least some of the things she dreams of before her time is up. Maybe there’s already something taking root in her body that will slowly drain her of life, or maybe she’ll just be in the wrong place at the wrong time, getting hit by a bus or shot in a drive-by, another innocent victim of the city’s gangs.

Over the years, Clarke has at least managed to suppress the urge to grab strangers in the street and lecture them about appreciating life, about always chasing their dreams and not putting off the things that they really want to do for another day. Because that day might not come.

She can’t help glancing over her shoulder, though, her eyes following the teenager as she catches up to her friends, saying something that makes all of them laugh. She hopes that the girl will still have a good life, despite it being cut much too short.

With a sigh, Clarke shakes her head to clear it so she can focus on the task at hand. There’s no point lingering on the girl, there’s nothing she can do about it. There never is. You can’t change a Number, it’s set the moment you’re born, maybe even before, as far as she knows. That’s just the way it is.

She’s managed to shake off the blues that always grip her in these situations by the time she reaches the open space in front of the Gate House. At first, she thinks she’s alone, but then she realizes that the heap she took for a bundle of blankets on the first bench is actually a man wearing a ragged, too large overcoat and a black, knit beanie, slumped over on the bench.

She pauses at the information board for a moment before continuing past the man and taking a seat on the last bench before the stairs. She tries to study him as inconspicuously as possible, but soon realizes that she doesn’t need to bother – he’s either asleep or, which seems more likely considering the brown paper bag with a bottle that’s dangling precariously from his hand a few inches off the ground, passed out drunk.

If she had met him in the street, she never would have thought he was only 53 years old, he looks at least ten years older. The too-large overcoat looks like he’s gotten it from a shelter, she knows at least one in Brooklyn that hands out this type to the homeless. He’s wearing thin sneakers that have definitely seen better days, she can see several holes from where she’s sitting. She can’t actually see the fading zero on his forehead, the beanie pulled down too low, but there’s not a doubt in her mind that this is her assignment.

She checks her phone again – 10:23. Nine minutes.

Laughter alerts her to a young couple climbing the stairs before they reach her, and she opens a social media app on her phone, so she looks like she’s doing something other than just sitting around waiting. Which is such an odd thing, she still thinks – what’s wrong with just sitting and enjoying a moment of silence with yourself as your only company? But she’s long ago learned to adapt to the customs of the day and age.

She has a reminder from Raven about her Halloween party on Wednesday, and knows that she won’t be able to get out of it this year. She managed to claim she was busy last year, but Raven does not accept a no two years in a row – Clarke knows this from experience. It’s always easier when they’re not in the same city, but since she doesn’t have that excuse to fall back on, she might as well admit defeat.

With a sigh, she clicks the event and then the button to say that she will be attending. At least Raven will be happy.

She keeps scrolling through her feed for a moment longer, liking a couple of posts from friends around the world, before switching to a news app and reading up on the latest news.

Nothing good. There hardly ever is anymore.

By the time she closes down the app, the clock reads 10:30, and she puts the phone away. She might not be as affected by Transfers these days as she was when she first started out, but she still prefers to be prepared. You never know what’s coming, and she doesn’t want to draw attention to herself by dropping her phone.

She knows the moment James Henry Wilson’s heart stops beating and his breathing ceases. The memories invading her mind are instantaneous.

The cupboard is dark and smells bad. Like dirty socks and old milk. Why would there be dirty socks in the kitchen? She wraps her arms around her knees and pulls them to her chest. Mom’s yelling through the door.
“Just wait until your father gets home! He’ll teach you not to take things without asking.”
She was just hungry…

The belt hits her back with a sickening sound and she fights to not wince at the sharp pain. He likes it when she does, likes it even more when she cries out. It’s more fun like that. If she’s still and quiet, it’ll be over quicker.
“Did you finally grow a backbone, boy?”
Dad’s hot breath hits her in the face. It smells like whisky.
She hears the belt whining through the air again and then there’s another slash of pain.
“Maybe next time you’ll keep your mouth shut.”

The warm shower feels nice on her aching body, but she can’t stay under the spray for too long. If she uses up too much hot water, Dad’ll see it as another excuse to take his anger out on her.
She pushes the shower curtain aside and dries off before stepping out of the tub. Wipes the fog away from the bathroom mirror and meets her own eyes. Brown. Mom sometimes sings to her when she’s happy, an old song – “Beautiful, beautiful brown eyes”. That hasn’t happened in a while…
The bruise around her left eye is starting to turn from purplish to yellow. It’ll be gone soon. She knows how long it takes for a bruise to disappear by now, knows how to brush off the questions they sometimes lead to, how to look just the right amount of embarrassed as she mumbles about tripping going up the stairs or bumping into a door. She’s had seventeen years to learn.

“Is this seat taken?”
When she looks up, a girl is standing next to her, waiting expectantly for an answer. A smile showing off straight, white teeth, green eyes, glittering with joy, amber curls framing a beautiful face.
She opens her mouth, but nothing comes out. Clears her throat. “No, you can have it.”
The smile widens. “Thanks.” The girl sits down next to her. “I’m Sarah, I haven’t seen you around before.”

Sarah’s eyes are intent on hers, her smile radiant.
“Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today…”
She tunes out the priest and focuses on Sarah. When she raises her eyebrows, she looks at the priest. “Sorry?”
He smiles at her. “Do you, James, take this woman, Sarah, to be your lawfully wedded wife?”
“I do.”
“And do you, Sarah, take this man, James, to be your lawfully wedded husband.”
“I do.”

“I hope you know you’re never coming anywhere near me again.”
She just nods, pushing a strand of sweaty hair out of Sarah’s face, trying to ignore the pain in her hand from Sarah’s tight grip when she cries out again.
The nurse laughs. “Don’t worry, they all say that. The epidural should kick in any moment now, she’ll be a lot happier then.”
“Nope, I mean it.”

“She’s perfect.”
She wants to say something, agree, but there’s a big lump in her throat that’s preventing any words from coming out.
“Look at her tiny fingers.”
She reaches out hesitantly and the baby wraps her entire hand around her pinkie.
“OK, fine, maybe we can have another one… in a few years.”

“Daddy, Daddy, look at me!”
Rose is trying to do cartwheels on the lawn, her chubby legs only staying in the air for a few seconds.
“That’s great, Rosie, but Mom said that dinner was ready. Come on.”
“I’m coming!”

The sound of screeching brakes makes her look up from the paper. Then there’s a scream.
“Rosie! Rosie!”
She moves like through water, somehow making it to the garden. Sarah’s kneeling in the street, a car diagonally across it, front right wheel on the sidewalk. She can’t see Rosie. If she doesn’t move, if she doesn’t confirm what her mind already knows, maybe it won’t be true.

The coffin is tiny. There shouldn’t be coffins this small. There’s a single, pink rose on the lid. She had wanted to cover the whole coffin in them, but funerals are expensive. Rosie loved roses, said they were her flowers because she was named after them. She loved pink…
Sarah’s next to her, a few inches of space between them in the pew, carefully not touching. She wants to reach out, but knows that Sarah will just pull away. So she focuses her eyes on the priest and swallows hard.

The weight on her shoulder is too heavy. Rosie was so little, hardly weighed anything, she could pick her up with one arm… she loved hanging onto her arm and dangle her feet as she lifted her as high as she could, pretending that she was on some grand adventure in the mountains, hanging precariously off a cliff. How can the coffin be so heavy?

“Sarah?”
No answer. The house is quiet. It always is these days. No laughter, no chattering voices, no music from the radio Sarah always left on so she and Rosie could start dancing in the kitchen whenever one of her favorite songs came on.
She climbs the stairs slowly, tired. On the fifth step, there’s a squelching sound and she looks down. The carpet is wet. Why is the carpet wet?
She hurries the rest of the way up. The bathroom door is closed, ted tinted water streaming out under it.
No. No no no no.

The neon sign flickers every now and then – LIQUOR, it says, in capital letters. The U has gone out and part of the R, so it looks more like LIQOP, blinking in a vicious red color. Red like blood.
A bell tingles when she opens the door. It seems wrong, too cheerful for a place like this. A place dreams come to die. The clerk behind the counter looks up but doesn’t say anything, eyes empty.
“Vodka.”
Dad hated vodka. At least she’s not completely predictable.

The first gulp burns her throat. The second goes down easier, and the third barely registers. After half the bottle, the numbness she wants starts setting in. Numbness is better than grief. Better than pain. Better than the images flashing through her mind, a never ending movie of Rosie and Sarah, happy and laughing. Until they’re not. Until they’re gone. Until she’s left behind, all alone.

It ends as quickly as it started, and Clarke finds herself on the park bench again, breath coming in ragged gasps, cheeks wet with tears for someone else’s loss. She can still feel the ghost of the belt against her back, the weight of the tiny coffin on her shoulder, the sharp taste of vodka sliding down her throat…

She tries to catch her breath, using a technique she’s perfected over the years – breathing in through her nose, holding her breath for three seconds, breathing out through her mouth, waiting three seconds. Repeating. She doesn’t need to use it much these days, though. You get used to a lot when you’re exposed to it enough.

Some of her friends say that children are the worst Transfers. And she can see that, definitely. The circumstances of those assignments are always the most painful, a life snuffed out almost before it can begin. But the actual Transfers are usually pretty easy – children haven’t had time to form many memories.

To Clarke, assignments like this one are worse. The ones where someone has been dealt blow after blow through their life, over and over again had their dreams crushed or their loved ones taken from them.

Almost everyone has some bad memories by the time they die. They’ve lost grandparents, parents, siblings, friends, sometimes even children. But the truly heartbreaking ones are the people who have lost hope. Like James obviously had.

There are worse Transfers, of course. Many souls at once is always tough, even if the individual memories are dampened in those situations. They’re tiring, draining, and can take days to recover from. Clarke has done a few of these, they’re as evenly distributed among Soul Keepers as possible, so that nobody has to do more than one every few decades. Most of the time, there’s also more than one Keeper working these assignments, depending a little on the total number of casualties. There is a limit to how many souls one Keeper can handle at a time.

Clarke has also done Transfers for rape victims, people who have been physically or sexually abused as children, prisoners of war who have been tortured, Holocaust survivors, kidnap victims, reliving their most horrible memories with them. But even these people usually have other memories, happy memories that take precedence at the moment of death. They don’t linger on the bad ones, the way James’ subconscious did, almost skimming over the happy ones. It’s usually the other way around, brief glimpses of sad and painful experiences and more time spent on happy times. Maybe that’s why she’s more affected than usual.

Taking one final, deep breath, Clarke gets up, knees a little shaky. James is still slumped over on the bench, the bottle now on the ground below him, spilling its contents onto the ground. She knows it will be some time before anyone picks up on the fact that he’s not just sleeping or passed out in a drunken stupor. Most people keep their distance to drunks and homeless people.

She closes her eyes briefly, touching her closed fist to her chest, right over her heart. “May we meet again,” she mumbles, a prayer of sorts she picked up from Raven in her early days, when her friend had also been her mentor. She doesn’t know where Raven might have gotten it from, but she likes leaving her charges with some sort of parting regards.

As she turns to walk away, she stumbles slightly, legs almost giving out under her, and she pauses for a moment on the stairs, hand gripping the railing.

It’s been a long time since she was this affected by a Transfer. In the beginning, almost every assignment had reduced her to tears, something Raven told her was completely normal, but with experience, things got better. She would never disregard someone’s pain, but everyday bad memories don’t affect her the same way anymore.

She had been planning to stroll around the park for a while, enjoy the fall day, but instead, she takes the path to the 86^th Street Transverse, which will bring her to 86^th Street Station where she can catch the A train back home to Brooklyn. Maybe a few hours on her couch, with her cat Bastet purring in her lap, some Home Sweet Honeycomb and a feel good show playing on the TV, will make her feel better.

There’s a street vendor on the corner of the park, selling roasted chestnuts and hot cocoa, and since she’s still feeling a little shaky, Clarke buys a cup. She leans against the stone wall for a moment, letting the drink cool down a little before taking her first zip.

The sugar practically explodes in her veins, calming her still racing heart and stilling her shaking hands.

It was just a bad reaction to a Transfer, that’s all. It happens. She’s had a bunch of easy ones lately, people passing from old age with long, mostly happy lives behind them. It’s not that strange that she’s feeling a little rattled from the first tough case in months.

Just as she’s finished her chocolate and decided that she’s going to take a long walk home (OK, so she’ll probably take the train from Times Square, but still), her phone buzzes in her pocket. When she pulls it out, Raven’s face fills the screen.

“Hey, Rae,” she answers.

“Hey, babe,” comes her friend’s voice over the line. “I saw that you finally caved and responded to my Halloween party. Getting sick of me nagging you all the time?”

Clarke laughs. “You know me too well.”

“That’s what being friends for a hundred odd years will do.”

“True…”

“You OK?”

“Yeah…” She sighs. “Just had a bad Transfer. It kicked my butt.”

“You need me to come over?”

That’s one of many things she loves about Raven – it doesn’t matter what she’s doing, where she is, if her friends need her, she drops everything to be there for them.

“Nah, I’m at the park. I feel better now, anyway, I was thinking I’d take a walk, it’s a nice day.”

“You could always stop by on your way, I’ll be home for another… hour and a half or so.”

In a way, it’s tempting, but… “Honestly, I just want to curl up on the couch before my next one. But thanks for offering.”

The line’s quiet for a moment. “If you’re sure. Movie night at our place tonight though? Get you out of the post-Transfer funk? Or do you have work late?”

“No, I should be done by six. But only if I get to pick the movie.”

Raven heaves an exaggerated sigh. “Fine. But no musicals, I’m still recovering from La La Land.”

Clarke can’t help but laugh. “I promise, no musicals.”

“Good. OK, just stop by whenever, we’ll order take out from some hole-in-the-wall place in Chinatown. Love you, babe.”

“Love you too.”

Clarke ends the call and stuffs her phone back in her pocket, turning left on Central Park West and starting her walk.

There’s more people out and about here on the street than there were in the park, cars honking every now and then, sirens wailing somewhere in the distance, the subway rumbling past underneath her feet. All sounds of the city that are ingrained in her bones by now, the music of her soul. She lets herself get sucked into the mass of people on the sidewalk, becomes one of many faceless people in the crowd, and feels the city’s spirit start to sooth her mind.

The lights at 81^st take forever to turn green, and Clarke checks her phone again, which she felt buzz once a moment ago – a text from Raven, just a bunch of hearts and then, for some reason, an octopus. She shakes her head, sending a single heart back, and has just put the phone away again when she feels someone bump into her from behind. There’s nobody in front of her, nothing she can grab onto, and she stumbles forward into the street. There’s a loud honking to her left, and she just has time to think “well, this is going to hurt” before a strong hand closes around her wrist and she’s yanked backwards, onto the sidewalk again.

The yellow cab that almost hit her whizzes past, the driver yelling something through the open window and leaning on the horn. Like she deliberately stepped into oncoming traffic just to piss him off or something. The light finally turns green, and everyone around her cross the street.

That’s New York for you, Clarke supposes. No time to worry about the girl that was just almost run over.

“Are you OK?”

The deep voice reminds her that her savior – sure, getting hit by the car wouldn’t have killed her, like it probably would Norms, but it would have hurt like hell for a couple of days – still has her wrist in a death-like grip.

Clarke turns to respond, looking up into dark brown eyes in a striking face, freckles dotted over a strong nose and distinctive cheekbones and chin. Now, Clarke’s never been struck by lightning, but she’s pretty sure it would feel something like this – electricity buzzing through her veins, making her heart race, palms tingle and shivers run up and down her spine.

She’s heard people talking about instant attraction – she refuses to call it love at first sight, she knows it’s all about pheromones and chemical reactions in the body, love is a concept invented by humans – but she’s never experienced it before herself. Sure, she’s met beautiful people that she’s known within moments that she wants something with, has had a couple of relationships, not to mention flings and one night stands during her long life, but it’s never hit her quite like this before.

“Miss?”

The question pulls her out of her musings and she makes an effort to focus.

“I’m fine, thank you so much,” she says, hoping that she doesn’t sound as out of breath as she feels. If the handsome stranger does call her out on it – which she seriously doubts – she supposes she can just pretend it’s the adrenaline rush of almost getting hit by a car and not the fact that she’s practically salivating over him.

“Are you sure?” he insists, eyebrows furrowing and drawing Clarke’s gaze to the spot that’s usually the first thing she notes when meeting someone new – his Number. But instead, she finds a baseball cap in a violent green color pulled low over his forehead, hiding it from view.

She takes a small step back, to be able to take him in more completely, and realizes that he’s wearing the same shade of green from head to toe, except for black work boots. There’s a logo on the chest of his jacket, which tells her that he’s a delivery driver for a local company. The color isn’t exactly attractive, and maybe the outfit should calm her suddenly raging libido, but it doesn’t.

“Just a little shaken up,” she replies, smiling to put him at ease.

He relaxes a little, releasing her wrist and stuffing his hands into his pockets. He doesn’t move away from her, though, and despite her own step back a moment ago, they’re really still in each other’s personal spaces. Not that she minds…

“Good.”

His eyes stay locked on hers too, brown meeting blue in a piercing stare that makes Clarke feel almost naked on the bustling city street. Like he can see right through her skin and into her very soul, uncover all her secrets in an instant. Which is ridiculous, of course, but that’s how it feels in the moment.

A car honking nearby makes them both jump and finally break eye contact.

“Well…” Clarke starts, glancing at him again, unable to keep her gaze away. “Thanks again. I should…” She reluctantly nods towards the intersection, the direction she’d been going in, knowing that they can’t just stand here.

“Yeah, I have to get back to work,” he replies with a half-smile. He doesn’t move, though, so maybe he’s as reluctant as her to part.

“Important deliveries?”

He frowns at her question, and she indicates his outfit with a nod. He looks down at his clothes and huffs a laugh.

“Right, I’m not exactly inconspicuous in this get-up.”

“Not exactly, no,” Clarke agrees. “Good luck with the rest of your work day.”

“You too… assuming you’re working or on your way to work or… actually, just have a good day.” Despite the ramblings, he winks at her – actually winks – and his smile turns into more of a smirk, one corner of his mouth lifting a little higher than the other. She can imagine that smile getting him into all kinds of trouble… “And be careful so you don’t get run over. Next time there might not be a knight in… fluorescent green armor to save you.”

She laughs with him, raising a hand in a half-wave goodbye before forcing herself to turn and join the new group of people waiting at the street, just as the light turns green again. She feels his eyes on her back, though, almost like a magnetic pull, and when she looks over her shoulder after crossing the street, he’s still in the same spot. She tears her eyes away reluctantly and forces herself to focus on the path ahead of her, while her mind is still stuck on warm, brown eyes.

Chapter Text

Clarke shifts her hold on the bag full of snacks before reaching out to knock on the door in front of her.

For a moment, there’s no response, then barking starts up inside the apartment, followed by footsteps and, finally, the click of the lock opening.

“Hey, Griffin,” Zeke greets her, moving aside to let her into the hallway.

“I come bearing gifts,” she replies, handing him the bag before closing the door behind her and unbuttoning her coat.

Lola’s jumping up and down excitedly a few feet in front of her – the little French bulldog knows she’s not allowed to jump at people, but that doesn’t stop her from imitating a rubber ball, bouncing up and down whenever she meets someone.

“Thanks, I’ll take this into the kitchen,” Zeke says. “Rae’s in the living room, you know where it is.”

Clarke hums her agreement as she hangs her coat up and toes her boots off. “Come on, Lola, let’s go see what Mommy’s up to.”

The dog barks once, excitedly, and then takes off in the direction of the living room. A slight commotion tells Clarke that she probably runs head-first into the coffee table, as usual, before scrambling onto the couch.

“God, you’re annoying,” Raven’s voice meets Clarke as she enters the large, open space with amazing views of Jersey City to the right and Ellis and Liberty Island straight ahead. She doesn’t want to think about what Raven and Zeke must have cashed out for this place when they moved in almost two years ago, even if she knows they can obviously afford it – the benefit of being able to save money for decades is that it has a tendency to accumulate. And Raven’s always been a whiz at picking out up and coming companies to invest in, something that’s benefited both Raven herself, Clarke and their friends over the years.

“Gee, nice to know I’m welcome,” Clarke teases, slumping down on the huge, U-shaped couch next to her oldest friend.

“I was talking about the dog, babe, like you don’t know that.” Raven leans over and smacks a wet kiss on Clarke’s cheek. “How are you feeling?”

Clarke steals the remote from Raven’s hand and opens Netflix. “I’m good. You?”

She flips through the new movies, trying to find something all three of them might actually enjoy.

“I’m fine…” Raven replies a little tentatively. “So you’re not still agonizing over that Transfer? I know you can sometimes get a little obsessed.”

“The Transfer…” It takes a moment before Clarke realizes what Raven’s talking about. Right. The Transfer. The one she was recovering from when Raven called earlier. “Yeah, no, I’m fine. It was a little rough at the time, heavier stuff than I’ve had in a while and the memories got to me, but it passed pretty quickly.”

“Right…”

Clarke focuses intently on the screen, reading the plot of some new action movie without really taking in the words, to avoid meeting Raven’s eyes. The truth is, the Transfer this morning hasn’t crossed her mind since her close encounter with a car and subsequent rescue. Her mind’s been returning to brown eyes, freckles and a teasing smirk all afternoon, if she’s being honest. Which she’s not particularly keen on being with Raven at the moment.

“What do you think of this one?” she asks, nodding at the screen, in an attempt to distract Raven.

Not that she expects it to work.

“Fine. But getting back to the fact that you’re avoiding something…”

Clarke sighs and forces herself to turn from the TV to face her friend. “I’m not, though. I’m sorry if I worried you, it was just a rough Transfer but I’m fine now. There’s no need to talk about it.”

Raven watches her intently for a moment before her eyes light up as if she’s figured something out. Clarke’s seen it before, usually when her friend is tinkering with something mechanical that Clarke would be afraid to touch and finally solves whatever problem it was she took the thing apart to fix. She calls it the lightbulb moment. “There’s a guy!”

“Raven…” Clarke sighs.

“Girl?”

Clarke knows that the battle is lost so she decides to surrender with at least some grace intact.

“Fine. There’s sort of a guy, but just barely. I was on my way home from the park earlier and someone bumped into me and pushed me into the street, right in front of a cab…”

“Shit, are you OK?”

Clarke nods and squeezes Raven’s knee reassuringly.

“I’m fine. Someone grabbed my wrist and pulled me back, out of the way. This guy, a delivery driver… I don’t even know, it was just this… moment. You know?”

Raven wags her eyebrows suggestively. “Nice. So did you get his number?”

“I didn’t even get his name,” Clarke replies. She’s been jumping back and forth from cursing herself for that oversight – if nothing else, he could have been good for one night or even a couple of weeks of amazing sex (she just has a feeling that he knows what he’s doing in that department) – and being relieved that she at least doesn’t have to resist the urge to reach out to him, since she can’t. Because there’s a nagging voice at the back of her mind that keeps insisting there’s no way she would be able to let him go if she did get him into bed, or into her life in general… “It was just one of those chance meetings, I guess. Ships passing in the night or on a busy New York street in the middle of the day or whatever.”

Raven’s quiet for a moment before speaking again. “You’re really hung up on this guy, though. Like, in a way I haven’t seen you before. And you met him for all of, what, five minutes?”

“I’ll get over it,” Clarke says with a shrug. “It was just instant attraction or something.”

“Love at first sight.”

She rolls her eyes. “There’s no such thing and you know it.”

“God, you’re so un-romantic,” her friend complains. Considering her analytical nature, Raven really is surprisingly romantic. “This could be fate, you know. One of the great loves of your life. And you’re not even going to try to find him?”

“Even if I did, it wouldn’t be some epic love story,” Clarke replies. “You know I don’t get involved with Norms for more than something brief. There’s no happily ever after in this scenario.”

“He’s a Norm? Number?”

“Didn’t see it, he had a baseball cap on.”

“So he could be a Keeper, right?” Raven notes.

Clarke shakes her head. “He would have seen that I was, though.”

She doesn’t know all Soul Keepers in the world, of course, there are tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of them, she’s not really sure. But she does know all who are stationed in and around New York at the moment, at least well enough to recognize them. They have quarterly get-togethers in a community center in Brooklyn. He could be new, she supposes, but even so, there’s an unspoken rule that you acknowledge another Keeper when you meet them, even if it’s just in passing on the street. If he was one of them, he would have said something when he realized that she was too.

“So what?” Raven insists. “It’s been ages since you had more than a quick fling, and there’s obviously something there, even I can see that. Why not make an exception?”

It’s not like she’s wrong.

Clarke has had a total of two long term relationships in the past century and a half – three if she’s using the term lightly – which she can admit isn’t much. Neither of them were easy, for different reasons.

She met Lexa the second time she was stationed in New York, in 1913, and they were a couple for twenty-five years until Lexa suddenly decided to go to Australia, even going so far as to request an early reassignment, without discussing it with Clarke.

New York had been progressive even back then, but two women were still not accepted as a couple in most circles, and they had been forced to keep their relationship behind closed doors. After they left New York, it had gotten worse, the people in the smaller cities they were stationed in suspicious of two young, single women living together, and rumors started up before long whenever they moved. Neither of them cared what people thought, really, but it still wore on them both, and affected their relationship as well.

Now that she has some distance to both Lexa and her own feelings for the woman, and can look at the situation with neutral eyes, Clarke can admit that they had been drifting apart for months, maybe years, before Lexa’s sudden departure. They’ve crossed paths a few times since – she knows Lexa has long since settled down with a woman she met in Europe in the sixties, Costia – and they can even carry civil conversations when they need to, but Clarke knows that they will never be friends, even if they at some point find themselves in the same city for an extended period of time. There’s just too much baggage there.

Her next long term partner had been Wells. They first met way back in 1885, through Raven, but didn’t begin their romantic relationship until the mid-fifties, when they found themselves stationed in London at the same time, both in the country for the first time and not really knowing anyone else in the area. They were accepted by most of their British acquaintances, but when they returned to the US and Houston seven years later, they quickly learned that an interracial relationship was frowned upon at best in that part of the world. After Wells was attacked by some men in their neighborhood on his way home after dark a few weeks after their move, they realized that they couldn’t stay there and were quickly relocated to New York. The tolerance was much higher here, but they still caught looks when they kissed or touched each other in the street.

Their relationship ended amicably in the early seventies, when they realized that they had just developed into different people who didn’t fit together romantically anymore, and they’re still very close friends, keeping in touch regularly and spending time together as often as they can when they’re in the same area. Wells has been in Europe for a couple of years now, though, so they’ve mostly been skyping lately.

She’s had a couple of shorter relationships since, all with other Keepers – Niylah’s the one who lasted the longest, and even that was just two years and never really got serious.

But Clarke has always been very insistent on not starting anything long term with someone who isn’t a Soul Keeper. She’s had one night stands and even short flings, but never more than a few weeks, a month, tops. She’s never let herself fall in love with a Norm, because she doesn’t want to put herself through the heartbreak that a relationship like that would inevitably lead to, one way or another.

Raven, on the other hand, had a couple of longer relationships with Norms before she met Zeke in the late eighties. Being with a Norm has its problems, which is the main reason Clarke has always avoided it, but there’s no rule against telling them about Soul Keepers, and somehow, Raven’s managed it. She and Finn were together when Clarke became a Soul Keeper and their relationship lasted for over forty years, until he died a few weeks before his seventieth birthday. Clarke saw first-hand what that did to her best friend, and had actually been extremely surprised when Raven introduced her to Wick, another Norm, in the forties. They were together for around twenty years before he eventually ended the relationship, having a hard time with people thinking Raven was his daughter when he turned fifty and she still looked twenty-five.

“I just… it’s not a good idea,” Clarke says, snapping back to the present. “And it’s not like I could find him even if I wanted to. This is New York, it would literally be like looking for a needle in a haystack.”

Raven’s eyes narrow in a way Clarke knows means trouble.

“You said he was a delivery guy? Which company?”

Clarke shakes her head. “No, Raven. Please, just let it go.”

“Let what go?” Zeke asks as he enters the room, carrying a tray with a few bowls filled with the snacks Clarke brought and two glasses which Clarke suspects – and hopes – contain his delicious fruity cocktail.

“She met a guy,” Raven replies, and Clarke rolls her eyes.

“For, like, two minutes. And he’s a Norm, you know I don’t do Norms.”

Zeke sighs. “Just leave her alone, Rae. If she doesn’t want to go for this guy, you can’t make her.”

“Fine.” Raven huffs as if it’s a huge sacrifice for her personally. “Don’t come crying to me the next time you’re lonely and horny.”

“No, the next time I’m lonely and horny, I’ll go to a bar and pick someone up who can help me take care of that,” Clarke shoots back before sticking her tongue out at Raven, who throws a potato chip at her in return.

“Yeah, yeah, you’re an independent woman who don’t need no man or whatever.”

But thankfully, Raven lets the subject go as they settle in for the movie, and after a while, Clarke finds herself relaxing.

-100-

She ends up staying a little later than she had intended, Raven putting on another movie when the first one ends, but she doesn’t have a Transfer until early afternoon tomorrow, so it’s not like she has to get up at the crack of dawn or anything. And she knows she needs to unwind now and then, get out of her head and just be. Raven’s always been the best way for her to do that.

When the end credits of the second movie start rolling across the screen and Zeke’s low snoring fills the room, though, she stretches and gets up.

“I should head home,” she says.

Raven yawns and pushes herself off the couch as well. “Sure you don’t want to spend the night? Guest room’s all set up as always.”

“Nah, you know I prefer waking up in my own bed. Besides, Bas will kill me if there’s no food in her bowl in the morning.”

At the mention of the cat, Lola growls low in her throat and Raven laughs. “Stupid dog. OK, let me at least walk you to the train, she needs to go out anyway if I want to sleep later than five tomorrow.”

“Fine.”

They stroll along Battery Place at a leisurely pace, Lola sniffing every single street lamp and post before deeming one of them acceptable for doing her business against.

“So, about the Halloween party,” Raven says after a couple of quiet minutes. “First off – there will be absolutely no backing out, I will personally drag you here if I have to, and you know I mean it.”

Clarke rolls her eyes. “No need, I’ll be there. Who else is coming?”

Raven’s parties have a tendency to turn huge and slightly out of control, and Clarke prefers smaller gatherings where she only has to interact with her friends, people she already knows, and maybe one or two new faces. Big crowds full of strangers she’s never met before have always made her a little uncomfortable, despite Raven dragging her into them regularly through the years.

“There will be people you know, don’t worry,” Raven assures her, probably realizing what she’s thinking about. “The usual suspects will be attending, of course, plus some people I’ve invited from the museum and Zeke’s friends from work.”

Raven works as a volunteer at NYSCI, the science museum in Flushing, which is perfect for her scientific mind, and Zeke helps out at a charity that runs community centers throughout the city, offering disadvantaged kids a place to hang out after school to keep them out of gangs and off the streets.

“So what you’re really saying is that this will turn into one of your regular monster bashes?” Clarke summarizes.

Raven shrugs. “Possibly. With emphasis on the monster part. Do you have a costume?”

“Shit, no,” Clarke realizes. “And it’s probably too late now to get anything better than slutty nurse or something.”

“Well, you’re in luck,” Raven says. “I happen to have a spare costume.”

Clarke narrows her eyes suspiciously at her friend. “What type of costume, exactly?”

“You’ll just have to show up a little early to find out. I promise it’s better than slutty nurse, though.”

“Fine.” She figures she can just bring a black dress and some red, liquid lipstick and claim she’s a vampire if Raven’s costume is too much. Vampires are still cool, right? She’s almost positive they are.

They reach Bowling Green and pause at the entrance to the subway.

“Take a cab from Borough Hall?” Raven asks.

“You know Brooklyn is perfectly safe,” Clarke argues, rolling her eyes. Sure, the area has had its up and downs since she bought the top floor of an old building with views over Manhattan before the end of the Second World War and turned it into an apartment, but Clarke loves the neighborhood, which is the reason she’s kept the place, even if she’s only lived there for about fourteen years in total. “And I have my pepper spray, I can take care of myself.”

“I know you can, babe. OK, at least text me when you get home, so I know you’re not lying bloody and beaten in a ditch somewhere?”

“Kind of hard to find a ditch along my route,” Clarke teases. “But I will, promise.”

“OK, night.” Raven gives her a one-armed hug, her other hand holding the leash and preventing Lola from taking off into the street – the little dog seems to have picked up an interesting scent and is whining and straining to follow it. “Love you.”

“Love you too.”

The train’s only half-full, it being after midnight on a Monday, and just as she knew, her walk from the station is uneventful. She pauses in front of her building for a moment, admiring the lit bridges on either side.

When she finally unlocks the door to her apartment, nudging Bastet inside with a foot to keep her from dashing out into the hallway, she lets out a long sigh. She always loves coming home, no matter if it’s after a few hours at Raven’s like now, or after twenty years of being stationed somewhere else. This is home, the one place that’s been a constant in her life for over sixty years, no matter how many other places she’s lived.

She sends a quick text to Raven – Home now, loser – getting a poop emoji in return, and grabs some ice cream from the freezer before making herself comfortable on the couch, cat stretched out along her left thigh and purring up a storm, to watch the lights in Manhattan twinkle across the water. Yeah, this is why she loves this place.

-100-

Despite her promise to Raven to be at the Halloween party, Clarke almost backs out when she gets into the elevator on Wednesday night.

She’s just not a party girl, she never really has been. Sure, she’s had her share of fun at The Viper Room, CBGB and Studio 54 through the years – usually dragged along by Raven, but still. She danced all night at Woodstock and saw The Beatles in Liverpool back in 1960, when they were still called The Silver Beetles. She can have fun.

Right now she’d just rather take the train back home and spend the night on the couch with Bas, watching reruns of So you think you can dance and eating her weight in popcorn. She’s allowed to want that.

But she knows Raven, and knows full well that if she doesn’t show up in the next half hour, she will first get a bunch of annoyed text messages, then a call and finally a personal visit during which she will be wheedled and convinced and, if all else fails, physically dragged to Raven’s apartment.

Really, it would be such a hassle, and she’d end up at the party anyway. Might as well go voluntarily and save herself the trouble.

So, instead of riding the elevator back down and heading home, like she really wants to, Clarke takes a deep breath and gets off on Raven’s floor.

As usual, her friend has gone all out and even decorated the hallway – there are fake cobwebs here and there with dangling plastic spiders, silhouettes of bats taped to the walls and spooky laughter coming from somewhere.

The door opens almost before she can knock, a huge smile spreading on Raven’s face.

“You came!”

“You did threaten me with bodily harm if I didn’t, so here I am…”

“That’s the spirit. Come on.”

Clarke barely has time to kick off her boots and call a hello to Zeke, who she spots in the kitchen, before Raven grabs her by the arm and pulls her along down the corridor leading to the three bedrooms.

“Take your clothes off,” Raven orders before going into the huge walk-in closet in the master bedroom.

“You know, Rae, I’m flattered, but not with your boyfriend in the other room,” Clarke shoots back, but obediently starts unbuttoning her shirt.

“Yeah, yeah, you wish.” There’s some rustling and then Raven’s voice again. “Are you done?”

Clarke looks down at her underwear, which is all she has left on. “Depends on how naked you want me.”

“I’ll take that as a yes. OK, close your eyes.”

“Seriously?” Clarke sighs, but does as she’s told again. She’s learned long ago that the fastest way to get out of a situation with Raven is to just play along. “Fine, they’re closed, let’s get this over with.”

There’s some more rustling, the sound of the closet door closing and then something is placed on Clarke’s head.

“Ta-da!”

She takes that to mean she can open her eyes again, so she does.

“Really, Raven?”

Her friend is holding up something that is most easily described as a replica of Cinderella’s ball gown – the entire dress is a beautiful powder blue, the bodice covered in thousands of tiny, glittering stones, even on the narrow shoulder straps, and the skirt layers and layers of tulle, at least four feet in diameter. Before she even reaches up to touch what Raven placed on her head a moment ago, Clarke knows it must be a crown of some kind and, sure enough, it’s a silver tiara with stones matching the ones on the dress.

“What’s wrong with it?” Raven asks innocently, looking between Clarke and the dress.

“It’s huge, for one!” Clarke complains. “I won’t be able to move.”

“It’s actually a lot lighter than it looks,” her friend insists. “At least try it on?”

Clarke sighs but holds out her hands for the dress. She knows from experience that the best way to get Raven to let something go is to show her it’s not actually a good idea. Not that she’s been able to do that more than a few times during their long friendship, but she’s absolutely positive this will be one of those times – she’ll look ridiculous in the dress.

Thanks to the shoulder straps, she can keep her bra on, which she supposes is something. She pulls the zipper down and steps into the dress before lifting it up and maneuvering her arms through the straps.

“Zip me up,” she says, turning her back to Raven and pulling her hair over one shoulder.

“See?” Raven says when she’s pulled the zipper up. “You look amazing.”

Clarke reluctantly turns to the full body mirror next to the closet door to take in her reflection.

It’s… mesmerizing, really. Raven’s right, she does look amazing, the dress hugging her in all the right places and accentuating her natural curves. But still…

“This is not a Halloween costume, Rae, it’s a dress for a… a debutante ball in the deep South or something,” she argues. “A masquerade at a castle in a faraway land.”

“Come on, Halloween’s a night for being someone you’re not… haven’t you ever wanted to be a princess?”

She actually dated a prince once, for all of five minutes – it was the summer after Grace Kelly married the prince of Monaco and somehow – she can’t really remember, but she has a strong suspicion Raven was involved – Clarke had found herself on a huge yacht somewhere off the French Riviera. She’s pretty sure the prince had thought she was some famous Hollywood star. The fling had fizzled out quickly when he found out that she wasn’t, and she, in turn, realized that he was nothing more than a spoiled brat who was making the most of being the second son of a king with not many responsibilities but a lot of money, free time and pretty girls falling over themselves to be the next conquest on his arm and in his bed.

“I don’t know… what’s the other costume? You said you had two, right?”

Raven disappears into the closet again, emerging a moment later with something black and shiny.

“Catwoman.”

Clarke shudders. “I am not wearing that.”

“Those are your options, babe.”

“Actually…” Clarke rummages around in the big purse she brought, grabbing the dress and red lip gloss. She even found a pair of fake teeth in a bathroom drawer, not that she can remember when she used them. Probably at another of Raven’s Halloween bashes.

“No,” Raven says before she can even explain. “Princess or Catwoman, take your pick.”

They stare at each other for a long moment, a silent stand-off that Clarke knows she won’t win. And, just like she knew, she’s the first to cave.

“Fine.”

“Yes!” Raven crows, throwing a hand in the air. “I’ll fix your hair and make-up, trust me, you’ll look like a million bucks when I’m done with you.”

And, Clarke has to grudgingly admit when she’s finally allowed to look in the mirror again 45 minutes later, she does. Raven’s curled her hair, so it’s hanging in ringlets halfway down her back, nicely accentuated by the silvery, sparkling tiara, and done a natural but striking make-up with smoky eyes. She also adds sparkling earrings and a matching necklace that pulls attention to Clarke’s cleavage – not that it really needs any help, her boobs are definitely more on display in this dress than she’s used to.

“Damn, Griffin, you clean up nice,” Zeke compliments her when she comes into the living room where he’s getting the bar in one corner set up.

“You say that like it’s the first time you’ve seen me out of sweats or something,” she replies, gratefully accepting the shot glass he hands her and downing it in one go. Tequila. Not her first choice, but it’ll get the job done. “Keep ‘em coming.”

He laughs but fills her glass again and she knocks the second one back too.

Soon enough, people start arriving – first through the door is a group of Soul Keepers that Clarke’s close to, which she’s grateful for, since it means she can hang out with Harper and Maya instead of being dragged around by Raven and introduced to everyone she doesn’t know.

She switches from shots to regular cocktails after her third tequila – she wants to be pleasantly buzzed, so she’ll forget that she doesn’t really want to be here and can have fun, but not so drunk she won’t remember what happened when she wakes up tomorrow. It’s a fine line but she’s mastered it over the years. It probably helps that her tolerance is much higher than Norms, so it takes a lot to actually get her really drunk.

Harper’s boyfriend, Monty, and Maya’s boyfriend, Jasper, initiate a game of beer pong in the kitchen an hour or so into the party, and since Clarke and Raven are the reigning beer pong champions in their little group, they of course have to defend their title. Murphy happily takes on the role of trash talking both teams, but nobody pays him much mind since they’re used to him by now.

She’s in the middle of a great run – she hasn’t missed a single shot yet and has only had to drink twice, despite being more than a little tipsy by now – when a familiar voice makes her miss the entire table.

“Well, well, Princess. Fancy meeting you here.”

Chapter Text

For a second or two after she lets the ping pong ball fly, Clarke is frozen.

Which Raven, of course, notices immediately. She raises her eyebrows in a silent question, but Clarke just shakes her head discretely before turning around. Her head spins slightly as she does, which she blames on the alcohol – it’s definitely not her heart racing.

And there he is, minus the fluorescent green this time, instead wearing a… football uniform?

“And what are you supposed to be?” she asks when she’s gotten her voice working again. “Unfulfilled college dreams?”

He looks down at himself before shrugging. “Kind of last minute, I didn’t have a costume so I had to make do with what was available.”

“Which was, what? Your old American football uniform from school?” she continues amusedly. “Reliving your glory days?”

She seriously does not know where the snarky comments are coming from, but he shoots her a smirk in return, so she doesn’t think she’s offended him, at least.

“Actually, my roommate’s boyfriend’s, but close enough.”

“Hi there,” Raven cuts in with one of her razor sharp smiles, unashamed as always. “Welcome to the party. And you are?”

He looks a little confused for a moment, eyebrows furrowing slightly – which makes Clarke realize that she still can’t see his Number, this time because he’s wearing a helmet, minus the grill. Damn it.

“Sorry, I’m Bellamy Blake,” he says after a moment, holding out his hand to Raven. “Miller’s roommate, I’m pretty sure he told Zeke I was coming.”

“Of course, sorry, yeah, Zeke said a friend of Miller’s might be stopping by.” She looks between him – Bellamy, Clarke tries out the name in her mind and finds that she likes it, a lot – and Clarke, eyebrows again shooting up. “So… this is your delivery guy?”

There have been many times in Clarke’s life when she’s wanted to sink through the ground – funnily enough, most of them with, and usually because of, Raven – and this is definitely one of them. She can feel the blush creeping up her neck and tries to tamp down on it before she turns into a tomato, knowing full well that it’s a lost cause.

“Delivery guy?” Bellamy repeats amusedly. “Glad to know that’s the part you took away from our encounter, Princess.”

Clarke raises an eyebrow at him. “Like ‘Princess’ is any better?”

He gives her a long once over, eyes trailing slowly from hers down her entire body and back up, definitely lingering a little too long in certain places. If she hadn’t already been blushing, she sure would be by the time his eyes finally reach hers again.

“Well, if the glass slipper fits…”

Right, she’s wearing Raven’s ridiculous ball gown, she had actually almost managed to forget that.

“You caught me, I’m really a princess in exile. My gown was just at the drycleaner the other day.”

He lets out a surprised laugh at that, and Clarke can feel the corners of her mouth curl up in response.

“Right…” Raven drawls next to Clarke, reminding her that they’re not alone but actually still in Raven and Zeke’s kitchen, surrounded by people. “If you’re out, I’m going to have to call in reinforcements.” She scans the room, spotting Zeke just entering with some empty bottles. “Babe, come help me beat these losers. Clarke’s too distracted by Miller’s roommate to be of any use to me.”

Clarke squeezes her eyes shut for a moment, making a mental note to strangle Raven as soon as there aren’t any witnesses around. When she opens them again, Bellamy is watching her intently, a half-smile on his face.

“Guess I’ve been kicked off the team,” she says lightly.

“Sorry if I… distracted you,” he replies, obviously amused by the whole situation.

“She’s exaggerating,” Clarke tries, and he chuckles.

“So you didn’t miss not just the cups but the whole table a minute ago?”

Of course he saw that.

“Don’t worry,” he continues before she can say anything. “I almost walked into a pole the other day because I couldn’t take my eyes off you even when you were three blocks away.”

The admission makes her stomach swoop in a way she hasn’t experienced in much too long.

“Really?”

He shrugs, as if it’s nothing.

“Let’s just say you made a… an impression. Now, normally at this stage, I would offer to get you a drink, but seeing as I just got here and you seem to be a bit more at home than I am…”

“Right. Follow me.”

She moves past him, brushing against him in a not-at-all deliberate way as she does, his arm firm and warm against her. Before she reaches the kitchen door, she feels his hand wrap around her wrist and his mouth close to her ear.

“Don’t want to lose you in the crowd,” he says, voice low, making a shiver run down her spine. She turns her head, putting them only inches apart.

“We wouldn’t want that.”

His fingers slide down to interlace with hers instead, his lips parting slightly, but she quickly turns back around and tugs him along out into the hallway and onwards to the living room, which is much more crowded than the kitchen was. Jasper, the eternal bartender at these things, has set up shop behind the bar, and when they reach it, Clarke leans against the counter. She’d try to climb one of the barstools, but she’s pretty sure it’s not physically possible in this dress.

“What will it be, your highness?” Jasper asks with an exaggerated bow.

Clarke rolls her eyes. “Something fruity that doesn’t contain your moonshine. And you know I’ll know if it does.” She turns to Bellamy. “What would you like? Zeke’s a beer snob so there’s like, fifteen types of beer, plus basically every type of liquor you can imagine. Take your pick. Though I would recommend staying away from the moonshine, too much of that stuff could probably make you blind.”

He considers her question for a moment. “Whiskey, neat,” he then tells Jasper, who salutes him before turning to the bottles on the shelves against the wall.

Clarke turns so she’s leaning her elbow against the bar and Bellamy mirrors her position a few feet away, glancing down at her poufy skirt that fills the entire space between them and brushes against his legs. He says something, but the music and general sound volume in the room is too loud so she can’t hear.

“Sorry?” she says, leaning in closer.

“I said, I’m glad I ran into you again,” he repeats, his warm breath hitting her neck. “I’ve been kicking myself for not getting your number the other day.”

His words make the butterflies that have taken up residence in her stomach flap their wings wildly. “Oh, yeah?”

He nods slowly, eyes intent on hers, and Clarke again forgets that they’re surrounded by people. When he leans forward another inch, she does too, and…

“There we go.”

Jasper’s voice makes Clarke jump back and quickly tear her eyes away. Damn, if he can do that to her with just a few words and a look… she is so screwed. And not in a good way. Well, possibly in a good way too, but still.

To have something to do with her hands, she grabs the tall glass with something red and fizzy in it that Jasper just put down on the bar and takes a long drink. It might be free of Jasper’s infamous moonshine, but there’s still a lot of alcohol in it, which adds to the buzz she’s been building for the last hour or so. Bellamy seems to have the same idea, because he lifts the tumbler of whiskey to his lips and downs the amber liquid in one go.

“Damn, that’s good whiskey,” he notes when he’s put the glass down. “Zeke’s not just a beer snob, I guess.”

Clarke puts her own, still half-full, glass down as well. “Actually, whiskey’s Raven’s domain,” she says, squinting at the bottle Jasper’s put down behind the bar. “I think that one’s… yup, Glenmorangie, ‘The quarter century’.”

“That sounds expensive.”

“I’m not an expert – I prefer mixed drinks, you don’t need twenty-five-year-old whisky for that – but five, maybe six hundred,” Clarke says with a shrug, and Bellamy gulps.

“A bottle?”

“Does that make it taste better or worse?”

He considers her question for a moment. “I honestly don’t know. I might need another one, just to check.”

Clarke laughs and waves Jasper back over. “Refill, please, barkeep.”

He dutifully pours a good amount of whiskey in the glass before once again returning to Maya at the end of the counter.

Bellamy takes a small zip. “That’ll last me for a while. Is there somewhere a little less… rowdy around here?”

She shouldn’t. She really, really shouldn’t. She’s pretty much certain that he’s a Norm and she just knows that she could fall so easily…

“Come on.”

There’s a large balcony off the living room, but it’s already full of people smoking and laughing, so she leads him out of the room, in the opposite direction of the kitchen. His hand finds hers, interlacing their fingers again, and she feels a burst of electricity rush up her arm at his warm touch.

Halfway down the hallway, she reluctantly pulls her hand out of his grasp so she can open the linen closet and grab two blankets.

“Trust me,” she says at his confused expression, handing him one of the blankets.

He just nods and follows her further down the hallway, to the non-descript door at the end that hides stairs leading up to a private roof terrace.

“Wow,” he mumbles when they step out into the open air, turning in a circle to take in their surroundings.

“Pretty cool, huh?” she says, sitting down on one of the lounge chairs that occupy the space and wrapping the blanket around her shoulders. She takes another zip of her drink before putting the glass down on the ground next to her lounger.

“Amazing,” he agrees, taking a seat on the other chair and putting the blanket to the side before turning to her. “You’re not worried you’ll ruin your pretty dress, though?”

Clarke shrugs. “Don’t care. Raven basically forced me to wear it, so it would serve her right if it did get ruined.”

Bellamy laughs at that, a deep, rumbling sound that seems to reverberate in her bones.

“So…” she starts when his laughter trails off. They’re in downtown Manhattan, so it’s never quiet, but the sound of the party downstairs is limited to some noise floating up from the balcony and the traffic rumble is about as distant as it ever gets here. “Delivery driver by day, football player by night… what else is there to Bellamy Blake?”

He laughs a little. “I’ve never actually played football, to be honest,” he replies. “I was a huge nerd in high school.”

Clarke tilts her head a little, giving him an evaluating once over. “I’m having a hard time believing that.”

“Seriously,” he insists. “I had braces until, like, tenth grade and these totally out of style glasses… and I loved history and mythology, that’s really all it takes to get placed in the nerd category at any high school. I’m actually getting my Bachelor in history at the moment.”

“Really?”

“I know,” he says with a grimace. “I’m too old to still be in college.”

“That’s not what I was thinking at all,” Clarke replies. “I just didn’t really peg you as a history buff.”

“You mean based on the, what, twenty minutes total we’ve spent together?” he asks with a chuckle.

“Touché,” she replies with a laugh. “So how come you’re going to school now?”

He’s quiet for a moment, taking a sip of his whiskey. “My mom died a few months before I was supposed to start college,” he finally says. “I had a scholarship, full ride, so I could have still gone, but my little sister was just thirteen… I couldn’t let her get sucked into the foster system, so I put off school. A family friend got me the job at the delivery company and I’ve been there ever since. I guess I got used to earning money, it took a while before I even thought about school again, even when it was a possibility, but I’ve been taking night classes for… five years now. It’s slow going, since I work full time, too, but hopefully I’ll have my Bachelor in the spring.”

“I’m sorry,” Clarke offers. “That can’t have been easy for you, having to step up and take care of your sister right after losing your mom like that. How is she now? She must be… five years younger than you?”

“Yeah,” he confirms. “She’s twenty-five, doing well.”

She thinks he might continue, but he doesn’t, instead looking away from her and out over the city. Clarke might not be the best at reading people – Raven’s much better at it, interpreting little nuances in someone’s expression that Clarke doesn’t even spot – but she’s fairly sure there’s more to the story. It’s also obvious that Bellamy doesn’t want to talk about it.

“So, history,” she changes the subject, and she can see the relief on his face for a brief moment when he meets her eyes again. “I have to admit, I was never good at names and dates. How did it peak your interest?”

He shifts on the lounge chair, turning fully towards her and leaning his elbows on his knees, his entire posture giving away how excited he is about the subject.

“It’s been a big part of my life since I was little,” he explains. “My dad died when I was just a baby, and my mom struggled a lot, financially, but she always made sure to read to me whenever she could. We barely had any books, so she made do with what we did have – my favorite was a huge book of Greek myths that used to be my dad’s. By the time I was, I don’t know, four, I demanded she read me stories from it every single night, it didn’t matter that I’d already heard them probably a hundred times. I taught myself to read with that book, when my mom didn’t have time to read out loud. And then when Octavia – that’s my sister – was little, I started reading to her. It became a… an escape, I guess. From our crappy, one bedroom apartment with drug dealers down the hall and only one working radiator.”

His voice goes from wistful, when he mentions his sister, to hard by the time he stops talking, and Clarke can’t help but reach out and squeeze his hand.

He glances down at their joined hands for a moment before clearing his throat.

“OK, enough about me. Tell me about you.”

Oh, no.

It’s not like Clarke doesn’t have a background story she uses for situations like these, she just… she doesn’t want to lie to him.

Which is not an option, of course.

“What do you want to know?” she asks, putting it off just a little.

He turns his hand under hers and runs a finger from the heel of her hand, across the palm and up her middle finger, sending sparks of electricity through her arm.

“We can start with your name. Do you even have a last name? All I’ve got is Clarke, and even that was from Raven, not you.”

He’s right, she realizes.

“Well, let’s rectify that, shall we,” she says, taking his hand in a handshake. “Clarke Griffin, lovely to meet you.”

He gives her a half-smirk. “Bellamy Blake. The pleasure is all mine.”

He holds onto her hand for a moment longer than necessary, and Clarke’s overwhelmed by an urge to pull him down on top of her on the lounger, get a taste of his lips against hers, feel his skin on hers.

Instead, she pulls her hand away and tucks both hands into the blanket, to avoid the temptation.

A flash of disappointment, if she’s not completely mistaken, crosses Bellamy’s face before he smiles again.

“And who is Clarke Griffin?”

She hesitates for a moment, which she thinks is perfectly normal in the situation. “That’s a good question,” she finally says. “I guess… I’m an artist.”

That much is the truth, if not the whole truth.

“Really? What do you do?”

“Paint,” she reveals. “Not professionally or anything, I mean, I sell some stuff on Etsy, but it’s more of a hobby, really. What I do when I need to unwind.”

He considers her for a moment. “But it’s the way you identify yourself. I asked who you were and that’s what you said. Not what you do for a living or something else.”

It’s true. The artistic side of herself has been one of few constants in her life, something she could always take with her, wherever she went. Drawing, painting, she’s even tried sculpting and pottery a time or two. It’s always been her way to escape from the world, to just be, if only for a little while.

“Yeah, I guess so,” she says. “As for what I do for a living, I work at a library.”

It’s not a complete lie – she volunteers at a library in Brooklyn, reading for younger children and helping older kids with their homework a couple of times a week. It’s just not a real, paid job.

“Really? That was my dream job when I was, like, ten.”

She has to hold back a laugh at that, not wanting to insult him. “Seriously? Ten-year-old Bellamy wanted to be a librarian? Not a firefighter or an astronaut, but a librarian?”

“Absolutely! That’s where all the books lived.”

She lets the laugh out now, and he joins her, the sound floating up towards the stars that are barely visible above them. Clarke lets out a sigh and twists in the lounger, stretching out so she can gaze at the night sky.

“I love this place,” she says after a moment, just loud enough for the words to carry over to Bellamy.

She hears his lounger squeak a little and when she glances to the side, she sees that he has also lain down on it, mimicking her position.

“No roof terrace at the princess’ castle?” he asks jokingly, turning his head to meet her eyes.

She stretches a leg out to kick him lightly in the shins.

“Well, there is a shared one for everyone in the building,” she admits. “But it’s used a lot by the other tenants, so it’s never really private. I do have access to a patch of roof by the elevator shaft, though I think it’s probably for maintenance and not supposed to be used for anything else. It is nice when I want to get some air, but it’s tiny, just enough space for a couple of folding chairs, really.”

“Oh, well, that just won’t do.”

Clarke rolls her eyes. “Shut up.”

“I was obviously spot on with my assessment of you as a princess,” Bellamy continues, but there’s a teasing look in his eyes. “So where is this mansion? Upper West Side? Soho?”

“Brooklyn, actually.” She can tell that he wasn’t expecting that. “And I inherited the apartment when my parents died, my grandfather bought it back in the eighties.”

He immediately looks horrified with himself. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to…”

“It’s fine,” Clarke assures him with a smile. “It was years ago, not that I don’t still miss them, of course, but…”

“Time does help you heal,” he finishes for her with a knowing smile.

She returns the smile, but there’s an unpleasant feeling in the pit of her stomach. This is what she tells strangers if it comes up, but with Bellamy’s own background, it feels… dirty, somehow, to make him think that they have this shared experience of losing parents.

“It does,” she still agrees, but quickly changes the subject. “So, when you’re not delivering packages or studying, what, ancient Greece or World War II…”

“Right now it’s the industrial revolution,” he interjects.

“Right, so when you’re not busy with all of that, what does Bellamy Blake enjoy doing during the five minutes he has off every week?”

He laughs at that, turning so he’s once again looking up at the sky.

“Time off, yes, I remember that vaguely,” he retorts. “I don’t know… I usually sleep, to be honest. Try to keep up with my school work. My roommate drags me out of my room to play video games a couple of times a week and forces me to go out with him and his boyfriend at least once a month. He claims it’s so I won’t completely lose touch with the real world.”

Clarke laughs. “So he’s your Raven, basically,” she notes. “She usually bullies me into going out with her and Zeke when she decides it’s been too long since I left home for something other than work.”

“If she’s anything like Miller, I am genuinely sorry.”

“Nah, she’s not too bad… if it weren’t for her, I’d probably spend most of my time on my couch, eating Ben & Jerry and watching Netflix with my cat.”

Bellamy chuckles. “That actually sounds like the perfect Friday night to me. Minus the cat, of course, but just because our landlord doesn’t allow pets.”

“You can borrow mine for some cuddling whenever you want,” Clarke replies, realizing a second too late what she’s said.

The moment turns charged and she can feel his eyes on her, but resolutely keeps hers on the sky, even as he speaks. “I might take you up on that.”

They both stare up at the barely visible stars above them in silence for a while.

“That’s the one thing I miss in the city,” Clarke then says. “Being able to really see the stars.”

“Small town girl?” Bellamy asks.

“I guess so, I grew up in Arcadia, California,” she replies. Again, not a full-blown lie, she did live there her first years as a Soul Keeper.

His eyebrows furrow for a moment while he probably tries to figure out where that is. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard of Arcadia, California,” he finally admits, and she chuckles.

“I’m not surprised, it’s a tiny town close to the Nevada border, about ten minutes from the I-15,” she tells him. “I had the best star-gazing spot right in my own back-yard.” Of course, it had helped that there was no electricity in Arcadia, or anywhere nearby, at the time. Literally no light pollution.

“Me and Octavia used to go up on the roof of our building,” he says. “It was nothing like this, of course, just a normal roof. I don’t even think we were allowed up there, the door from the stairwell was supposed to be locked, but it was broken… we’d bring a blanket and pillows and spend all night up there, in the summer. I learned all the constellations so I could tell her about them.”

Ignoring the incessant voice in the back of her mind that tells her it’s a bad idea, Clarke sits up so she can move the head of her lounger closer to Bellamy’s before lying back down.

“Will you show me?”

They glance at each other at the same time, heads only a few inches apart now, and for a moment, Clarke thinks he might kiss her and wonders exactly how awkward that would be with that damn helmet. But then he turns back to the night sky above them.

“I can try…”

He points up at the sky and Clarke inches closer, so she can follow his finger.

“That’s the moon.”

She elbows him in the side, getting a chuckle in return.

“Seriously, though, hang on…”

He pulls his phone out of his pocket and unlocks it – the screen is one of those standard backgrounds that comes with the phone. As she watches, he opens his app store and writes something, clicking install on the first free app that pops up. When he clicks the icon to open the app, the screen turns black and small dots appear and disappear, words written next to them.

“You seriously downloaded a star map?” Clarke asks incredulously when she realizes what it is.

“You wanted me to tell you about the stars,” he replies with a shrug. “We can’t see them here, this is the next best thing. Now, are you paying attention?”

She rolls her eyes but focuses on the phone when he holds it up at arm’s length, turning it on the side. With his other hand, he points beyond the phone, at the actual stars.

“So, that’s Ursa Major, the Big Dipper…”

That’s how Raven finds them, Clarke has no idea how much later.

“There you are!” she exclaims, and Clarke pushes herself up into a sitting position, squinting against the harsh light coming through the open door. “I was starting to wonder if you’d decided to take the train home in that dress.”

“Funny,” Clarke replies.

“Sorry, we must have lost track of time,” Bellamy says, closing down the app. The clock on the home screen says that it’s after one in the morning. “We should get out of your hair.”

“No, there’s no rush. Miller and Jackson already left, so you’re on your own anyway,” Raven catches Clarke’s eye and winks. “Take your time, Clarke can lock up when you leave.”

“No, we’ll go,” Clarke insists, getting up from the lounger. “I should get home anyway.”

“Yeah, me too,” Bellamy says, getting to his feet next to her.

They follow Raven down the stairs and even though she knows the party’s over, Clarke’s still surprised by the silence.

“I just need help to get this thing off, Rae,” she says when they reach the master bedroom.

Raven gives her a smirk. “Oh, I’m sure…”

“Now, please, Raven,” Clarke cuts her off before she can suggest that Bellamy helps with that instead.

Raven sighs but follows Clarke into the master bedroom and pulls the zipper in the dress down when Clarke turns her back.

“So… have fun?”

Clarke knows very well that the question is a lot less innocent than it might seem. “Not the kind of fun that you’re implying. You do know there are buildings around here, right? Anyone can see what you do up there.”

“It’s dark out, babe, and people are out trick or treating, I doubt anyone would have seen. Besides, this skirt would be perfect for hiding more… interesting activities.”

Clarke doesn’t reply, instead stepping out of the dress and pulling her own clothes back on.

“I noticed he’s still wearing that helmet, I’m guessing that means you still haven’t gotten a look at his Number?”

“I decided against asking him to remove it so I could find out,” Clarke replies drily. “Figured it might sound a bit weird.”

“There are other ways to get him to take it off, you know,” Raven says, wagging her eyebrows.

“Night, Rae.”

Bellamy’s leaning against the wall when they emerge from the bedroom, a smile pulling the corners of his mouth up when he sees her.

“Ready to go?”

“Yup.”

Raven walks them to the door, giving Clarke a hug and telling her to text when she gets home, as usual.

When they exit the building, Bellamy stuffs his hands into the pockets of the leather jacket he grabbed on the way out.

“So… Brooklyn, you said?”

“Yeah, down by the river.”

He nods. “Nice… fancy a post-midnight stroll?”

“It’s, like, an hour’s walk,” she argues, but he just shrugs.

“I don’t mind. I actually have tomorrow off, and I can just take the train from York all the way to Forest Hills.”

“Still…”

He starts walking backwards along Battery Place. “You know, the more you argue, the longer it’ll take.”

Realizing she’s fighting a losing battle – and one she doesn’t even want to win, to top it off – Clarke just shakes her head and hurries to catch up with him.

“Tell me about your cat,” Bellamy says when she loops an arm through his.

So she does, and he in turn tells her about a stray cat he sort of adopted growing up, and the injured animals – birds, rabbits, even a squirrel, once – that his sister seemed to attract like a magnet and that he ended up taking care of.

They talk their way through the city, switching topics easily, and next thing Clarke knows, they’ve crossed Brooklyn Bridge and are almost at her place.

“So…” Bellamy starts when they stop outside the door to her building. “I’m glad Miller made me go to this thing tonight.”

Clarke takes a step forward at the same time as he reaches forward to tuck a still curled strand of hair behind her ear, his hand lingering on her cheek.

“I’m glad Raven forced me to go,” she admits, her eyes dropping to his mouth.

They lean in at the same time, Clarke’s forehead bumping against the helmet he’s still wearing.

“Hang on,” he says with a chuckle, his fingers leaving her cheek and she knows he’s taking off the thing she’s spent all night waiting for him to remove, but she can’t force her eyes to leave his. She hears the thump when he drops the helmet to the ground.

Then he’s kissing her, and Clarke’s lost.

It’s soft at first, almost chaste, but soon enough, he traces the seam of her lips with his tongue, asking her to let him in, and she willingly does, wrapping an arm around his neck and pressing herself closer at the same time.

She feels his hands slide around to her back, one coming to rest just below her waist, pulling her even tighter against him, the other tracing up her spine and finally stopping between her shoulder blades.

She loses track of time completely, it’s just them in that moment, Bellamy’s lips on hers, his warm body pressed against her, the low moan she draws from him when she pulls his bottom lip into her mouth, his hand moving lower, slipping into the back pocket of her jeans.

He’s the one to pull away first, looking as dazed as she feels.

And that’s when she finally sees it. His Number.

268.

Chapter Text

268. Bellamy’s Number is 268.

He has less than nine months to live.

The look on Clarke’s face must reflect the shock she’s feeling, because Bellamy frowns at her, reaching for her hand and squeezing it.

“What’s wrong?”

This was a bad idea. She knew that all along, she just didn’t know how bad of an idea it actually was. She couldn’t even imagine this…

She has to get out of here. Has to put some space between them, has to think so she can make a rational decision, and she can’t do that when he’s looking at her like that.

She puts on a smile that she hopes he’ll buy. “Nothing, I just realized that it’s getting pretty late and I have a shift at the library at ten tomorrow.”

It’s not true, she doesn’t have anything tomorrow until two in the afternoon, and even that’s a Transfer. But she can’t tell him the truth.

He still doesn’t look convinced, so she reaches up to give him a quick kiss, pulling back when she feels his hand sneak around her waist again.

“I really do have to go,” she says, trying to sound reluctant and not like she can’t get away from him fast enough.

He sighs. “Fine, I can take a hint.”

He doesn’t sound too upset, though, just a little  disappointed, so it seems like he’s buying her excuse and not thinking he’s getting ditched all together. Hoping that he won’t remember that they haven’t exchanged numbers, Clarke quickly pulls her keys out of her purse and moves to the door.

“I’ll call you, OK?” she says, shooting him a smile before unlocking the door and slipping inside.

The door closes before he can say anything else, but she can still feel his eyes on her as she crosses the lobby. They burn into her back, and she has to force herself to not turn around. Thankfully, the elevator is already waiting and she slumps back against the wall when the stainless steel doors close.

Damn it! As the elevator shoots upwards, she bangs her fists against the wall and squeezes her eyes shut, trying to keep the tears gathering there from falling.

She knew it was a bad idea to let him in right from the start, even when all she had to worry about was that he was a Norm who would eventually grow old and die. But this…

She’ll just have to stay away from him from now on, she decides. It can’t be that hard, New York is a big city. She can totally do that. She hopes.

The elevator doors open with a ding and she trudges down the hallway to her apartment, feeling like every limb weighs about a ton. She unlocks the door with sluggish motions, drops her purse and coat on the floor just inside, kicks her boots off and continues straight into the bedroom where she flops face first onto the bed.

When she feels the pillow getting wet against her cheeks, she realizes that the tears she was fighting to hold back have escaped anyway, and rolls onto her back, staring up at the ceiling instead. She hasn’t bothered to turn the lights on, so she can just make it out in the faint light coming from the street lamps outside.

A soft thud announces Bastet’s presence, and soon the cat pads onto Clarke’s chest, turning once, twice and plopping down facing her. She blinks slowly, her bright green eyes only a few inches away.

Clarke reaches up to scratch her behind the ears and she immediately starts purring.

“I still have you, Bas, huh?” she murmurs, using her free hand to wipe away the tears.

And for so long, that’s been enough. Bas, her friends, the occasional one night stand or short fling when she started feeling a little lonely, it’s been all she’s needed.

But now she knows that there’s something, someone, more out there, and she’s not sure she can let that go. Even if she knows it won’t be her decision in the end.

She apparently falls asleep at some point, because the next time she cracks her eyes open, grey light is streaming in through the windows.

Bastet has moved off her chest and curled up on the pillow on the other side of the bed, her little purring snores a comforting presence in the room.

Clarke pushes herself into a sitting position, blinking to get her eyes open properly despite the dried-in mascara. She knows, without even glancing at the mirror, that she must look like a raccoon, so she just strips off her clothes, tosses them in the hamper on her way to the bathroom, and steps into the shower.

She feels marginally better when she emerges fifteen minutes later and wraps herself in her fluffy robe before venturing out from the bedroom.

She’s not particularly hungry, but she knows she hasn’t eaten anything in over twelve hours, so she opens the fridge to see what might be on offer.

Not much, as it turns out. She really needs to go grocery shopping… She pours a glass of orange juice and toasts two slices of bread which she spreads some Nutella on before bringing everything into the living room.

A glance at the clock on the wall tells her that it’s after eleven in the morning. She’s not sure exactly when she got home, but she must have slept for eight hours or so. She really should feel more rested than she does…

A noise from the hallway makes her pause with the last piece of toast halfway to her mouth. It takes her a moment longer than it probably should to realize that it’s her phone, ringing in her purse where she left it last night.

Shit, Raven. She’d promised to let her know that she got home OK, but it had completely slipped her mind.

Not that she had been exactly OK when she got home, but still…

She stuffs the rest of the toast into her mouth and hurries into the hallway where she digs around her purse and finally finds her phone.

“I am so sorry!” she answers after swallowing down the last of her breakfast.

“I hope you realize that there is only one acceptable reason for ignoring my texts last night and my calls this morning,” Raven says. “And that is that you dragged your delivery guy home and have spent all night getting good and laid.”

The reminder makes Clarke wince.

“No, just slipped my mind,” she says as she returns to the living room, flopping down on the couch.

“What’s wrong?”

Damn it, how can she tell just from those five little words?

“268.”

The line is quiet for a long moment.

“Fuck.”

It’s pretty much the reaction Clarke had been expecting but she still feels her stomach drop and realizes that part of her had been hoping that Raven would offer a solution, even if she knows that there isn’t one.

“Yeah,” she agrees.

“What are you going to do?”

“Avoid him, I guess. I mean, what else can I do? He doesn’t have my phone number… unless you or Zeke gave it to him?” The thought makes her stomach turn. Yes, she might be able to handle staying away from Bellamy if she doesn’t have to see him or talk to him again, but she’s pretty sure that resolve would crumble if he called her or if she ran into him. But really, what are the odds of that happening again in a city the size of New York? Twice is already unlikely.

“Of course not, and I’ll tell Zeke not to give it to him if he or Miller asks, either, if that’s really what you want,” Raven assures her. “Just… are you OK?”

“No.” Clarke feels tears rise in her eyes again and squeezes them shut. “But I will be, I just need some distance.”

“If you say so.” Raven’s doubtful voice doesn’t exactly improve her own faith in that. “I’m here if you need me. To eat your feelings or get wasted… or, you know, talk.”

“I know, but I think it’s better to just get a clean break,” Clarke says. “You know, not talk about him, try to get him out of my head.”

“Whatever you need, babe.”

“Thanks, Rae. OK, I’ve got to go, I have a Transfer in a couple of hours and I need to pull myself together before that.”

“OK, call if you need me. Love you.”

“Love you too.”

-100-

Clarke can’t really throw herself into work to keep herself occupied – she’s assigned Transfers on a predetermined basis which she can’t affect herself, all she can do is activate the unavailable status in the app, in which case she won’t get any at all, or change the areas she’s willing to work in, but even that wouldn’t really give her more to do, it just might mean she’d have to travel more for her Transfers, and more time on public transportation isn’t really what she needs. She doesn’t want to take on extra library shifts only to have to cancel if she ends up double booked either, so instead, she dives head first into her art. She stops at her favorite art supply store on her way home from her Transfer the day after Halloween to stock up on canvases, a new sketch pad and some oils and charcoals.

She sometimes takes commissions through her Etsy store, and she has one of those waiting, so she starts with that. This one happens to be one of her favorite types of work, just a basic request – I want something that captures the feeling of the beach – and a couple of color preferences, no strict instructions or photos for her to turn into drawings or paintings.

She finishes the commission in a couple of days and sends it off, and then she just starts painting as an outlet.

Her canvases are angry, vicious slashes of red, black and other dark, murky colors. Her strokes are so violent she almost slices holes in the material more than once as she pours all her sadness, disappointment and anger at the universe into them.

She’s never sold anything so quickly in her store as these paintings. She supposes a lot of people can relate, she’s not the only one mad at the world.

Her sketchbook, which she only gets out late at night when she’s curled up in bed or on the couch, looking out over the twinkling lights beyond her windows, is a whole other story. It’s filled with page after page of Bellamy. A snapshot of the day they met, his eyebrows raised under the baseball cap and a smirk pulling one corner of his mouth up. His hand wrapped around her wrist, freckles dotting his skin, even though she’s not sure he has freckles on his hands. Close ups of his eyes, mouth, nose… A full body drawing of him at Halloween, in that stupid football uniform with the helmet on his head. His hands reaching up against the sky, pointing out stars to her.

On the last page, she does a more in detail portrait. She works on it for days, getting every little aspect just right – the angles of his jaw and cheek bones, the slightly raised eyebrow, every single freckle sprinkled over his face… The only time she’s ever seen him without something covering his hair was when he took the helmet off for their kiss, and at the time she had been much too focused on his Number to be able to note anything else, but she still tries to capture his hair. She remembers that the strands sticking out from under his baseball cap were dark, almost black, and curled a little at the end, so she draws him with unruly, dark curls. She leaves his forehead blank, doesn’t want to be reminded of the reason she can’t see him, because God, does she want to. Not seeing him, not talking to him or about him has done nothing to alleviate the intense feeling deep inside her that this is wrong. That something crucial is missing from her life, and it’s her own fault.

When she’s not working or painting, she takes Raven and her other friends up on every offer of going out, even going so far as to pick up people on the dance floor or at the bar at whatever establishment they end up at. She manages to push the thoughts about how they’re too tall or too short, too soft or too rough, too different away for at least a little while, but she always finds an excuse not to leave with anyone, backing out at the last minute when something inside her starts screaming that this is all wrong!

On Saturday morning two weeks after Halloween, Clarke is woken up by banging on her door – much too early, in her opinion. She was out with Jasper, Maya, Monty and Harper last night and honestly can’t remember when she got home. Her head is pounding, so she must have gotten way too drunk – her body’s ability to recover from anything much quicker than normal people’s usually means she doesn’t get hungover, but apparently today is an exception.

She considers ignoring whoever’s at the door, but she has a sneaking feeling that it’s Raven, and she knows that out of the two of them, she’ll be the one to cave first. Besides, Raven has a key for ‘emergencies’, and with the way she’s banging on the door, if Clarke doesn’t open, she might just decide that this qualifies.

Grumbling, Clarke gets up and pulls an oversize sweatshirt over her head before following the incessant knocking to her front door.

Just as she suspected, when she opens it she finds Raven, arms crossed over her chest.

“OK, this has got to stop,” she announces, pushing past Clarke into the apartment.

“Good morning, Raven, how are you? Come on in, I was just going to make some coffee to get my head to stop pounding, would you like some?” Clarke says drily as she closes the door and follows her friend into the living room.

Raven stops in the middle of the room and waits until Clarke has taken a seat on the couch before she continues.

“Look, I get that you’re trying to deal with this crappy situation, but I refuse to just stand by and watch you make yourself even more miserable than you already are.”

“I’m fine,” Clarke argues half-heartedly because, really, she’s not.

Raven snorts. “Is that what you call going out every other night to get drunk and hook up with random people in seedy bars?”

“The Dead Rabbit’s a seedy bar now, is it?” Clarke questions.

“That is not the point and you know it.”

Clarke rolls her eyes. “The best way to get over someone is to get under someone else. Isn’t that what you said after you and Wick broke up?”

It’s a bit of a low blow, and she knows it, but Raven takes it in stride.

“And I stand by that. But you’re not, are you? Getting over or getting under.”

Of course Raven has her all figured out. Clarke averts her eyes, focusing on a loose thread in the cuff of her sweatshirt.

“I’m trying, OK?” she says after a moment, and even she can hear how small her voice sounds.

Raven sighs and sits down on the coffee table in front of the couch, forcing Clarke to look at her.

“Just tell me this,” she asks. “You’re clearly already miserable. Would it really be that much worse if you just…”

“If I what?” Clarke interrupts. “Let myself fall for him, get eight amazing months and then watch him die? Yes, Raven, I’m pretty sure that would be worse.”

Raven’s quiet for a long moment. “I hate to break it to you…” she then starts, “but you’ve already fallen for him. That much was blatantly obvious on Halloween. You’re just in denial.”

She’s right, of course, except about the denial part. Clarke is very well aware of her feelings, she’s just working really hard to push them down.

“It doesn’t matter,” she insists, shaking her head. “It’s just a crush at this point, I’ll get over it.”

“God, you’re so stubborn!” Raven exclaims, rising to her feet and starting to pace around the room. “Look, I get that it would be hard for you when he… I get that, OK? Trust me. But maybe…”

“If you say that it’s better to have loved and lost, I swear, I will kick you out,” Clarke cuts her off.

Raven runs a hand through her hair in frustration. “Please, babe, just listen to me for a moment, OK?”

Clarke nods reluctantly.

“You were there after I lost Finn, you remember what that was like for me,” her friend starts, voice softer.

Of course Clarke remembers that. They had known it was coming, obviously, so Clarke had requested to be stationed in Boston, where Finn and Raven were living at the time.

She hadn’t been there when it happened, Raven had wanted to be alone with Finn at the end, but she had been there after, holding Raven as she cried for days. Coaxing her into eating something, sleeping, eventually leaving the house. Helping her get back on her feet, eventually.

She remembers thinking that she never wanted to experience anything like it, which might, if she’s honest with herself, be one of the reasons behind her no Norms policy.

“But did I ever, even once, say that I regretted it?”

She can’t say yes to that question, because Raven never actually did. Clarke had just assumed that she must have… but then again, she hadn’t hesitated when she met Wick half a century later.

“That’s because I didn’t,” Raven continues. “I never regretted loving him, being with him, not even when his death almost broke me. Because that’s life, babe. I know it might not seem like it considering we’re eternally young and basically immortal, but real life is fleeting. And most people don’t even realize when it’s about to end.”

The room is quiet for a long moment. After a while, Raven sits down next to Clarke on the couch, reaching out to take her hand. Bas jumps up on the armrest on her other side, rubbing her head against her arm as if she, too, is trying to be a comforting presence.

“It’s not the same,” Clarke finally says, voice rough with unshed tears. “You and Finn had forty years together, of course that would be worth it. Bellamy and me… we wouldn’t even get a year.”

“I know,” Raven admits. “But still… just think about it, please? I can’t stand seeing you like this.”

Clarke nods slowly. “I will.”

“Promise?” Raven pushes. “You know I won’t just let this go.”

“Promise.”

“OK!” Raven claps her hands together and gets up from the couch. “I have done what I came to do, and I have a Transfer in half an hour, so I’ve got to go.”

Clarke walks her to the door, leaning against the wall as her friend stuffs her feet into her boots and puts on her coat.

“And just…” Raven pauses, biting her lip as if not completely sure she should say whatever it is she’s about to say. “Just remember that you’re not the only one this concerns.”

“What do you mean?”

Raven sighs. “He’s miserable too, OK?”

Clarke’s stomach immediately plummets. She’s been so focused on keeping herself busy over the last two and a half weeks, on not thinking about Bellamy, that Raven’s words feel like knives twisting in an open wound. She can make herself miserable if it means avoiding even worse pain in the end, but making him miserable… the thought makes her entire being revolt.

“How… how do you know that?” she asks, voice shaky. “Did you…”

“I haven’t seen him,” Raven answers the unfinished question. “He asked Miller to talk to Zeke about you, but Zeke just said that he couldn’t give him your number without asking you first, and that you were still getting over a bad breakup so he didn’t know if you’d want to get into something new right now.”

Good excuse, Clarke notes absentmindedly. Not the truth, but then again, it’s not like that’s an option.

“He hasn’t said anything since, but according to Miller, he’s in a constant bad mood, Miller complains to Zeke every day at work that it’s like living with Oscar the Grouch.”

Raven is trying to make light by joking, but Clarke just feels worse. It honestly hadn’t even occurred to her that their meeting affected Bellamy as much as it did her and that her doing what she thought was best for her and staying away from him would make things worse for him too.

He deserves better than that. What right does she have to make his life miserable, especially when he has so little of it left?

“So try to really think about this, OK?” Raven continues. “From all perspectives.”

Clarke just nods, and with a quick hug, Raven’s gone.

She returns to the living room in a daze, almost sitting on Bastet, who’s stretched out on the couch in her absence.

“Sorry, Bas,” she apologizes but the cat just gives her an offended look and struts off to her favorite spot by the large windows, where the sun has warmed the floor.

She is going to think about this, she definitely is. But right now, she’s hung over, her head is pounding and she feels slightly sick – though that part is probably more from the conversation with Raven than her hangover – and basically everything hurts.

So she gives herself a day. She doesn’t have a Transfer today, and no work scheduled until five in the afternoon, so she’s going to veg out on the couch until she has to leave, eating all the ice cream in her freezer and binging Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

And then, tomorrow, when she’s feeling like herself again, she is going to sit down and look at the situation from all angles and make a decision about how to move forward.

She knows, somewhere deep down, that the conviction that she’s been doing the right thing has already crumbled. But she pushes that thought away for now and lives in denial for a little longer.

-100-

She has every intention of going home after her shift at the library the next day and making a decision about the Bellamy situation. And yes, she is about 99 percent sure that the decision will be to try to get in touch with him to at least assess the situation. It is possible that Raven was exaggerating to get her to do something, or Miller might have been blowing the situation out of proportion when he was complaining to Zeke. Or, a tiny voice somewhere in the back of her mind says, Bellamy might have decided that he’s not that interested in her and moved on. It is the normal reaction to rejection, after all.

The thought makes her stomach twist.

In the end, though, she doesn’t get a chance to think the situation through, because half-way through the story she’s reading for the group of four-year-olds gathered around her, she spots him between the stacks.

Their eyes meet across the room and Clarke trips over her words, her heart racing in her chest. She looks away resolutely, focusing on the book in her hands. He will just have to wait, she’s in the middle of Sunday Storytime right now.

She manages to focus on the book, at least well enough that the kids don’t notice anything. By the time she’s hugged the last of them goodbye and waved them off with their parents, Bellamy’s gone.

She should probably be relieved – she’s had no time at all to really gather her thoughts and decide on a course of action since Raven’s intervention yesterday morning – but instead, she feels a surge of disappointment.

She pulls her phone out of her pocket and sends a quick text to Raven.

Did you tell B I would be at the
library today?

Raven must have had her phone in her hand, because the little speech bubble indicating that she’s typing pops up almost immediately.

“You’re quite the story teller, Miss Griffin.”

The deep voice coming from behind her almost makes her drop the phone, and in an instant, her heartrate picks up while the butterflies in her stomach that had started flapping their wings wildly when she thought he had left finally calm down.

“I thought you’d left,” she admits as she turns around, getting a raised eyebrow in return. It draws her eyes to his Number – 251. She forces her eyes back to his.

“No, that’s your specialty,” he replies drily.

Clarke looks down, busying herself with closing down her message app and putting her phone away for a little longer than is strictly necessary, ignoring the buzz that announces the arrival of Raven’s response. “I am so sorry about that,” she apologizes. “I just… I don’t know, everything was just moving a little too fast for me.”

He doesn’t respond for a moment, but she can feel his eyes on her.

“It’s OK, I get it,” he finally says, and she looks up again. There’s a half-smile on his face, a little sad around the edges, she thinks, and his eyes are soft. “Zeke explained that you got out of a relationship recently. Just… tell me it wasn’t just me? There was… there is something here, right?”

She can’t do anything but nod quietly, Bellamy’s eyes piercing as he watches her silently.

A loud thump makes Clarke jump and look around, remembering that they are still, in fact, at the library – the noise was a little girl trying to reach a book on the top shelf a few rows over and instead knocking it to the floor.

“Listen…” She turns back around just as Bellamy drops his eyes and stuffs his hands in his pockets. “It’s almost time for lunch, do you want to get something to eat?” he asks, eyes fixed on the floor between them.

Clarke realizes that he’s preparing to be shut down.

She has a Transfer in the East Village at four, but it’s only half past twelve, so she has plenty of time before she needs to take the train over to Manhattan.

“I’d like that,” she replies, smiling when Bellamy quickly looks up at her again, a slightly surprised but happy expression on his face. “There’s a place just around the corner from here with the best brunch in Brooklyn, maybe New York, that you can get until four on weekends… and if you’re really set on actual lunch, they do great sandwiches too.”

He gives her a smile that’s so bright it’s almost blinding.

“Lead the way.”

Chapter Text

They leave the library and emerge into the weak fall sunlight. Another beautiful day. For the first time in over two weeks, it doesn’t annoy Clarke because now, it doesn’t feel like the weather is mocking her and her dark mood. She takes a moment to breathe in the crisp air, turning her face to the sun.

“It’s this way,” she then says, nodding towards the crossing over Eastern Parkway.

“Is this your go-to place when you’re working?” Bellamy asks while they wait for the light to turn green.

“I guess you can say that,” she replies. “I usually treat myself to their brunch at least once a week, either Saturday or Sunday, depending on my schedule.”

She has four shifts at the library a week, two homework sessions during weekdays and two story sessions on the weekend, alternating morning and afternoon, so when she has a morning shift on Saturday, she does brunch on Saturday, and same on Sunday. She’s in no way addicted to Cheryl’s amazing food. Nope.

“I haven’t been in this part of the city a lot, so it’s not that familiar to me,” he admits as they cross the street. “I usually stick to Forest Hills and the surrounding areas, even though my work does take me all over the city.”

“No work today?” Clarke asks, and he shakes his head.

“I worked yesterday, I always have one day off during the weekend and one weekday off.” He grimaces a little. “Though most of my free time is sucked up by school work, to be honest.”

“Then I’m extra honored that you took the time to see me,” she says with a sideways smile. “Though, speaking of… how exactly did you know I was here?”

She has a sneaking suspicion that Raven might have had something to do with it, not trusting Clarke to actually re-evaluate the situation like she had promised. She would have thought her friend would give her a little more time before taking things into her own hands, but then again, this is Raven.

Bellamy gives her a sheepish half-smile and she’s almost sure she detects a hint of a blush at the tips of his ears. “Well, I didn’t want to come off as an actual stalker to your friends, so I didn’t want to ask them,” he starts. “So I kind of… I called a couple of libraries to ask if they had someone by your name on the payroll.”

Clarke digests that information for a moment. She’s glad Raven obviously has a bit more faith in her than she thought. And weird as it may seem, it’s kind of flattering that Bellamy would go to all that trouble, that he thinks she’s worth it… even if it is kind of borderline stalker behavior.

“I’m not sure you’re doing all that well with the whole not acting like a stalker, if I’m honest,” she says eventually, but loops her arm through his to show that she’s only teasing him. “Can they even tell you that? It seems like it must break some sort of confidentiality law.”

“They couldn’t, no,” he replies. “But I think the woman I talked to at this place took pity on me. I had already called, like, five different libraries, getting the standard ‘we’re not at liberty to tell you that’ answer from all of them and I was getting a little desperate… she didn’t really tell me anything, though, she said something like she couldn’t confirm or deny that, but if I wanted to find out for myself I might want to stop by between two and three thirty on Saturday or eleven and twelve thirty on Sunday. I would have come yesterday, but I had work, so…”

Clarke can’t help but laugh at that. “That’d be Vera, she’s a sweetheart but a busybody and gossip like you wouldn’t believe. She’s been trying to set me up with every single man and woman between the ages of twenty and thirty-five since I started working there.” She pauses. “But I’m actually surprised this hasn’t gotten back to me – a boy calling about Clarke Griffin? That’s big news around here.”

Bellamy joins in her laughter, sounding more than a little relieved.

They manage to get a table at Cheryl’s, which isn’t a given on a Sunday – Clarke has had to get her food to go more than once. The waitress takes their drink orders and then leaves them to peruse the menu. Not that Clarke needs to, she has it committed to memory by now. So instead, she watches Bellamy, noting the way his eyes move over the page, how his brows furrow just a little when he stops at something and his lips move, almost like he’s reading quietly to himself.

“Anything look good?” she asks after a few minutes.

He looks up from the menu. “Everything looks good. What are you getting?”

“I have a couple of favorites that I alternate between, today’s pancake day,” she tells him. “But, yeah, everything is good, you really can’t go wrong no matter what you pick.”

He closes the menu and puts it aside. “Well, the pancakes look very tempting but I think I’ll get the eggs, bacon and toast.”

“Good choice,” Clarke replies with a smile.

The waitress returns with their drinks at that moment, and they put in their order for food as well.

“So…” Bellamy starts when she’s left again. “Considering you’re sitting here with me, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that I haven’t completely scared you off by showing up unannounced at your place of work after invading your privacy and quite possibly committing a felony to find you?”

She considers him for a moment, a slight tension still obvious in the way he’s fidgeting with the napkin and only meets her eyes briefly before looking down at his drink.

“Nope,” she finally says, watching his shoulders relax. “I know you probably won’t believe me, but I was going to get Zeke to ask Miller for your number.”

She hadn’t actually come to that conclusion yet, but considering Raven’s little speech already had her resolve wavering, she’s pretty sure she would have, so it’s not really a lie.

Bellamy raises an eyebrow. “You’re right, I’m not sure I believe that.”

“That’s fair,” she says with a grimace. “I was just… like I said, it felt like things were moving a little too fast. It’s not that I didn’t want you to kiss me, I really did, but in the moment… I think I was a little overwhelmed. Not by you, just… it’s been a while since I felt like that.”

That much is true, it’s been decades since she’s felt the way she feels about Bellamy, if she ever has. She loved both Lexa and Wells, but this… this is already on another level. Which scares her, and not just because of his Number.

“I get that, and I really don’t want to be some rebound,” he says. “So if that’s what this will be to you, just tell me now.”

Clarke quickly shakes her head. “No, that’s not… no. I freaked out, yes, but not because I’m not over her, because I am.”

Even though her relationship with Lexa is the one that’s furthest away timewise, she can’t imagine using her relationship with Wells as a difficult breakup. Plus, it’s a nice test to see if Bellamy has some sort of reaction to the ‘her’ part. Maybe he’s completely biphobic and she can write him off after all.

But he just nods.

“The breakup was rough?” he asks.

“It wasn’t easy,” Clarke replies with a shrug. “I thought things were fine and then she just told me, completely out of the blue, that she’d accepted a job offer in Australia and was leaving in a month.”

He freezes with his orange juice halfway to his mouth. “Did she expect you to just up and leave everything to go with her?”

“No, she thought we could use some time away from each other, that we’d been drifting apart,” she says. “Which, OK, now that I can look at it objectively, she was right. But at the time, it was hard to hear.”

“I’m sorry,” Bellamy offers. “So she’s in Australia now?”

Last she’d heard, back in the seventies or something, Lexa had been in South America somewhere. Clarke definitely hasn’t been keeping track of her, but they have common acquaintances so she does hear about her now and then.

“I would think so, but we haven’t actually had any contact since she left,” she hedges a little, hating to flat-out lie. It’s a difficult balancing act, trying to be as truthful as possible without revealing too much. Another reason she never really gets too close to Norms – it’s so much work to just maintain a normal relationship.

He nods slowly. “I can’t say I’ve been in that kind of position, but breakups are never easy.”

She wants to ask about what is obviously a personal experience, but the waitress brings their food and distracts them both.

“Wow!” Bellamy exclaims when she’s left. “This looks amazing. But those pancakes… I might be having second thoughts here.”

Clarke cuts a piece of pancake and pops it into her mouth along with some berries and cream. “Mmmm…”

His eyes narrow at her, and she laughs.

“Tell you what – I’ll trade you one pancake for some eggs and a slice of toast.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. I should eat something a little less sugary, so really, you’re helping me out here.”

They shift the food on their plates around a little, making enough room so Clarke can move one of her pancakes and some berries to Bellamy’s plate, and get a slice of toast, some scrambled eggs and a couple of pieces of home fries in return.

“I swear, their scrambled eggs are to die for,” she says after swallowing a mouthful.

“I’m with you on that one,” he agrees, soaking some of the toast in the fat from the bacon before taking a bite. “This is definitely worth the forty minute drive.”

“And here I thought I was the main attraction,” she retorts, teasing.

“Sorry, you’ve been demoted to second place,” Bellamy shoots back without missing a beat.

“Well, I guess I can take that, if it’s for this food… as long as I’m still up there.”

“Top three reasons to come to Brooklyn, for sure.”

Clarke smiles at that, and their eyes meet and lock for a long moment, food temporarily forgotten. She swears she can feel the electricity surge between them, and she thinks he does too, because his eyes darken and she can see his fingers tightening around his fork.

She’s the first to force her eyes away, looking down to cut another piece of her pancake.

“So, Forest Hills,” she says after swallowing, hoping her voice doesn’t sound as shaky as it feels, and tries not to think about what he’d be able to do to her if he actually got his hands on her, considering just a look has her this worked up. “Born and raised or how did you end up there?”

Bellamy seems to have snapped out of the moment as well, focusing on his food again.

“My mom’s originally from Chicago, but she left when she was eighteen. I was born in Detroit about a year and a half later and then we moved to New Jersey when I was… four,” he says. “Paterson. I lived there until… seven years ago, when my sister moved out. I could have stayed, I guess, my commute to work wasn’t that much longer than it is now, but an old high school friend asked if I wanted to move into his place, since he had a spare bedroom. His grandfather had just moved into a retirement home, and Miller had been living with him for a while so he would be able to take over his rent controlled apartment in Forest Hills. It was a no brainer, really, considering how much the same type of apartment would cost somewhere else.”

“That’s, like, a pot of gold,” Clarke notes, voice full of awe. “A rent controlled apartment in New York City… I thought they were a myth.”

She lived in a rent controlled apartment before she bought her current place back in the forties, but these days it’s basically impossible to get them.

Bellamy chuckles. “Yeah, that’s what I thought too. I figure I used up a life-time of luck on that apartment.”

“Are you sure you didn’t sign a contract from someone with a pointy tail and horns?” she jokes. “Perhaps giving up your soul, or your first-born?”

“I knew the landlord looked a little odd!”

They both laugh for a moment.

“How about you? You said you inherited your apartment from your parents, so you didn’t really pick Brooklyn, I guess?”

Clarke shrugs, taking a sip of her coffee to be able to think through her answer. “I mean, I could have sold the apartment and kept my childhood home, or sold both and bought something else entirely. But I always loved that apartment – when my grandpa bought it, it was the top floor of an old factory, and he turned it into an apartment but it still has that feel, you know?”

He nods. “Your grandfather must have been ahead of his time, doing a New York style loft apartment in the eighties.”

“I guess so,” she replies with a shrug. Actually, Raven has told her the same thing as a joke more than once, how Clarke’s the originator behind that type of living and should get credit for it. “After I graduated from college, I didn’t really know what I wanted to do… I was lucky, in a way, I could sell the house my parents left me and live in my apartment. It gave me some time to figure out what I wanted to do with my life.”

“Which you have?” Bellamy asks.

She laughs. “For now, at least. I mean, in the long run I’d like to work with art, but it takes time to get there… I’m happy where I am right now.”

“That’s a good place to be,” he agrees with a half-smile.

“It is… and you? History degree, so what’s your dream?”

Bellamy pushes the last pieces of eggs around his plate for a moment.

“I don’t know,” he then says. “I’m not sure what you can actually do with a history degree, to be honest. I’ve been considering getting a teaching certificate, actually. I don’t know if it’s a dream, but I think I’d like that, teaching kids about history… maybe I can help someone in a difficult situation, offer them an escape the way history and mythology offered me when I was a kid.”

The fact that he’ll never get to find that out cuts like a knife into Clarke’s chest. It’s just not fair – why shouldn’t Bellamy get that? She just knows he’d make an amazing teacher, why should the world be deprived of that?

“That sounds nice,” she manages to get out, swallowing down the lump that’s formed in her throat.

“We’ll see,” he replies. “I still have a year and a half left before I get my Bachelors, I might have changed my mind by then.”

You won’t, she almost blurts out. You’ll never get your degree, because you won’t live long enough.

“You’ll figure it out,” she says instead.

Her phone, which has been buzzing on and off since she sent the text to Raven, gives an extra long buzz in her pocket – the alarm she’s set for when she would need to get ready to leave for her four o’clock Transfer – and Clarke glances at her watch. Two thirty. It’s about a ten minute walk to the station on 7^th Avenue, then maybe twenty minutes on the train to Broadway-Lafayette and finally another ten or so to the restaurant on East 2^nd Street where the Transfer is.

“You need to get going?” Bellamy asks, having spotted it.

“I need to be in the East Village by four, so not for half an hour or so,” she replies with a smile. “No need to rush.” Still, she nods at the waitress so they can pay and not have to worry about that when she has to leave.

“Another library shift?”

He already thinks that’s her job, so why not? “Yeah, I read to younger kids at a couple of different libraries in the city on the weekends, and then I help older kids with their homework in the afternoons on the weekdays. It doesn’t quite add up to full time, but I have time for my art, and since I don’t have to pay rent, with the pieces I sell I get by fine.”

“What kind of paintings do you do?”

“It varies a lot,” Clarke tells him. “I take some commissions, so then I usually get either a general spec, or an actual image people want reproduced – photos of family, friends, pets…”

Bellamy nods. “And if you just paint for you?”

“It depends on my mood. I prefer abstract motifs – when I’m happy I usually pick bright colors, and when I’m not I tend to lean more towards darker.”

“Do you have anything in the store now?”

“I do, actually. Do you want to see?”

“I’d love to,” he says with a smile.

Clarke moves her chair around the table so he can see the screen easier and pulls out her phone. She has five texts from Raven, but she ignores them for now. She’ll already be pissed, she can wait a little longer. She opens her Etsy page and Bellamy leans in closer.

“So that one’s a happy painting?” he asks, pointing at the first painting.

It’s one that’s been in the store for a couple of months – bold brushstrokes in bright blue and green, which makes Clarke think of the ocean.

“Yeah, it is.”

“But not that one?”

The second painting is one she finished just a few days ago and the difference is striking – the strokes are still bold, but angrier in this one, and the color palette is black, grey and blood red.

“That obvious, huh?” she says with a chuckle.

“They’re both beautiful, though,” Bellamy replies, scrutinizing the third painting on the screen. “Not that I’m an expert or anything, but I like them. You’re seriously talented.”

Clarke feels herself blush a little, like she always does when someone compliments her art. “Thank you.”

Their waitress pops up with the check and they spend a few minutes arguing over who’s paying – in the end, they split it down the middle.

When the waitress has left with the money, Clarke again glances at her watch. Two fifty-seven. She groans.

“Now I really do need to leave,” she says with a frown.

“Right, let’s go.”

Bellamy helps her put her coat back on and holds the door open for her. They head back the way they came and paus at the parkway.

“I’m going that way, catching the train on 7,” Clarke says, nodding to their right. “You drove? Where did you park?”

“Over on St. Johns,” he replies. “So we’re going the same way for a little longer.”

“Come on, then.”

She loops her arm through his and they head off through the chilly afternoon – the sun has disappeared behind a thick layer of clouds while they were at the diner.

They walk in silence, again stopping when they reach the corner of Plaza and St. John.

“I guess this is my exit,” Bellamy says with a half-smile, making no move to go.

“Guess it is.”

“So… can I call you this time?”

Clarke rolls her eyes at the teasing tone in his voice. “Give me your phone.”

He takes a step away from her, instantly making her miss his warmth pressed against her side, and pulls his phone out of his jacket pocket, unlocking it before handing it to her. She puts her number into his contacts before giving it back.

Instead of putting the phone away, he clicks the screen and a moment later, Clarke’s phone starts buzzing in her pocket.

“You really don’t trust me, do you?” she says amusedly, pulling the phone out and clicking to reject the call.

Bellamy just raises an eyebrow. “Can you blame me? We have this amazing night and then you run off as soon as I kiss you, literally leaving me standing in the middle of the street.”

Clarke can’t help but blush. “Right… touché. What can I do to make it up to you?”

He starts walking backwards, maintaining eye contact. “Answer when I call you.”

Clarke laughs. “I can do that.”

“You better.”

Bellamy raises a hand in a half-wave, which she returns, and then turns away from her, disappearing into the parking garage after a moment. She takes a deep breath before turning around herself.

Her phone, which is still in her hand, buzzes just after she’s crossed the street and she expects it to be another text from Raven. Instead, it’s from an un-known number.

I had a good time today. Thanks
for not calling security on me.

She smiles and is just about to click to add the number to her contacts when another text comes in.

This is Bellamy, by the way.
In case that wasn’t clear.

Of course he texts with perfect grammar and punctuation. She sends a message back before finally adding his number.

I kind of figured that out

Just wanted to make sure.

She crosses another street before typing out her reply.

I had a good time too

I’m glad I didn’t call security ;-)

She closes down her messages, still ignoring the ones from Raven, and opens her work app to make sure there hasn’t been any changes to her Transfer.

Margaret Jones, female, 87. November 18, 4:05 PM. COD: cerebrovascular disease. The coordinates haven’t changed, and Clarke closes the app down.

Bellamy hasn’t responded, and she assumes it’s because he’s driving, so she’s surprised when her phone buzzes a few minutes later, just as she’s reached the subway station.

The impression every guy wants
to make on a first date.

She actually laughs out loud as she reads the message, getting a weird look from a couple of teenage boys coming up the stairs.

I hope you’re not driving and
texting

His reply comes a moment later.

Red light.

She types out a final response before descending into the station.

About to hop on the train, might
lose service. Drive safe!

She gets a thumbs up in return and puts the phone away to be able to swipe her MetroCard.

Once she’s on the train, she finally opens Raven’s messages – she’s sent seven in the last two and a half hours.

no, Y?

he there?

hello???

srsly, w@s happening?

u can’t just send that and
disappear >_<

i’m assuming ur ignoring me
bc ur getting laid :-P hf

call me when u can

Raven’s big on keeping her text messages short and loves using emojis and abbreviations – especially ones that Clarke doesn’t get. She’d like to think she’s getting better at it, though, she understands everything in these messages… except maybe hf.

Sometimes she suspects that Raven makes up new abbreviations just to mess with her.

Instead of replying to all the messages, she taps to call her friend.

“Well, finally!” she answers after half a ring.

“Sorry, lost track of time,” Clarke apologizes.

“Having sex, I hope? Though it’s been over two and a half hours… so if you were, congrats.”

Clarke snorts. “God, you’re seriously way too obsessed with me getting laid. Sorry to burst your bubble, we just went for brunch.”

“We being you and Bellamy at least, right?”

“Yeah,” she confirms with a sigh.

“So… how’s that resolve doing? Will you be able to stay away from him or did he manage to change your mind?”

Clarke remembers the way her heartrate picked up when she saw Bellamy at the library earlier, and the way her stomach dropped with disappointment when she thought he had left. No, she knows it’s best to just admit defeat and embrace the situation.

“No resolve left,” she admits. “I mean, your little speech yesterday already had me wavering, and I can’t… just thinking that I might not see him again makes my stomach hurt.”

It’s true, she has a lead weight in her stomach just talking about it.

“Aw, babe…” Raven sighs over the line. “No matter how this turns out, I don’t think you’ll regret taking this chance.”

The train’s approaching her stop, so Clarke moves through the cart to the doors.

“I’m not so sure about that…” she replies after a moment.

“Whatever happens, I’m here.” Raven’s promise is unnecessary – Clarke already knows this – but it still makes her feel better.

“I know.”

“So did you make plans, or are you just going to continue bumping into each other all over town?”

The switch to a slightly lighter topic is a relief. “We didn’t make any plans, no, but he insisted on calling me this time, and we’ve been texting since we split up.”

“OK, good start. Listen, babe, I’ve got to run but keep me posted. And try not to overthink this, please.”

Clarke knows that there’s no way she won’t do that, but she still promises Raven before hanging up the phone and getting off the train.

She has a new message from Bellamy when she emerges onto the street again, sent a few minutes ago while she was speaking to Raven.

Why is everyone and their uncle
out driving today? Been stuck at
the light on Jamaica/Pennsylvania
for ten minutes!

She giggles at the annoyed tone that somehow comes across even in the text and quickly types back.

Hang in there :-) At work soon,
talk later?

It’s started raining a little by now, and Clarke pulls her hood up over her hair as she sets out on Houston. She has fifteen minutes to spare, so she picks up her pace a little, weaving between people and ducking for umbrellas.

The block where her goal is located is a standard New York residential area with fire escapes climbing the brick facades as far as she can see. The restaurant is housed in the bottom floor of one of these buildings, and Clarke tries to peak through the windows discretely as she passes. She doesn’t see much, but it’s fine, it’s not like she needs visual confirmation of her assignment. She does prefer it, but that’s just a personal hang-up, it doesn’t actually affect the Transfer in any way.

There are no benches close to the restaurant, so she leans against the wall just past it instead. She would ideally like to be sitting down, but she figures it’ll look suspicious if she sits down on the sidewalk, so this will have to do.

She pulls her phone out of her pocket to check the time. 4:03. Any minute now.

Just as she’s about to put the phone back, there’s another text from Bellamy.

Definitely :-) Home now.
Have fun at work.

The smiley makes Clarke smile too, and she stares at the message for a moment before finally putting the phone away.

Just in time for the memories to wash over her.

Chapter Text

Margaret has lived a happy life, as far as Clarke can tell from her memories. Most of them are tinged with joy – bright summer days from her childhood, meeting her husband, her wedding, the birth of her children, Christmases and birthdays and anniversaries, family holidays and, eventually, grandchildren and even a couple of great-grandchildren. And her sad memories – a brother lost in the Vietnam War, various funerals for grandparents, parents, aunts and uncles – are the normal, every-day sad memories that Clarke has mastered over the years. Even if they do tug on her emotions, they don’t get to her the way they used to.

When the memories fade, she’s still leaning against the wall of the building next to the restaurant. She can hear the vague sounds of commotion inside it – Margaret’s friends or family, whoever she was having an early dinner with, have obviously realized what’s happened. Sirens blare in the distance, but considering this is New York, Clarke doubts they’re for Margaret. Even if someone’s had time to call 911 already, it will be a while before they get here.

She mumbles her little prayer before taking a couple of deep breaths, letting her mind settle back into itself, and pushing away from the wall. For a moment, she doesn’t remember exactly where she is or which way she has to go to get back to the subway that will take her home, but then the light fog clears and she starts heading back in the direction she came from. Transfers are always a little discombobulating, going from your own mind to someone else’s and back again, even if this one was about as easy as they come.

The rain is starting to come down harder now, so she sets out at a quick pace towards the subway station. It’s quickly turning into one of those fall days when all you want to do is curl up under a cozy blanket on the couch, light some candles and drink hot coca. Clarke goes through the contents of her pantry in her head and she’s pretty sure she has all the ingredients she needs for that, so at least she won’t have to stop at the store.

When she’s on the platform, away from the rain, she pulls her phone out of her pocket, but apart from some Facebook notifications, there’s nothing new. She opens the message thread with Bellamy and starts typing, before realizing that it’s only 4:20. She said she had work at four, so it would be odd if she was already done, twenty minutes later. She’ll have to give it at least another hour.

Sighing, she instead opens up Spotify, pops in her headphones and starts one of her playlists. She scrolls through Instagram lazily, liking a couple of posts, and then checks her schedule for tomorrow. Just two Transfers, both in Brooklyn. She also has a homework session at the library in the afternoon, so quite a busy day, at least for her.

When she emerges from the subway, the rain is really pouring down. Despite her somewhat waterproof jacket, Clarke’s completely soaked by the time she gets home.

It’s not like she can get sick, but being cold is never fun anyway. She hangs her jacket up carefully, so it won’t get anything else wet, and heads into her bathroom, which is one of her favorite spots in the whole apartment – there’s a huge window and from the big tub she has an amazing view of the East River and Manhattan beyond. Wells once asked if she wasn’t worried someone might be able to see in, since there are no blinds or curtains she can close, but really, the only ones who might are people with telescopes on the other side of the river, and Clarke reasons that what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her.

She starts the water running, turning the heat up until it’s almost too hot for her to stick her finger under the flow. When she’s happy with it, she pops in a strawberry scented bath bomb before going into her bedroom to get undressed and put her damp clothes in the hamper. She resolutely leaves her phone on the nightstand – she is not going to think about Bellamy, or try to compose a text in her mind, for the next hour. She’s not. She’s going to put him out of her thoughts completely, so she grabs the book she’s reading at the moment and brings it with her into the bathroom.

Once the water’s high enough, she turns the tap off and gathers her hair in a messy bun on top of her head. She puts her book on the little table next to the tub – which usually holds a glass of wine, but not today – hangs a towel on the peg on the wall and finally sinks into the steaming hot water.

Once she’s fully submerged, the bubbles tickling her chin, she closes her eyes and lets out a deep sigh.

It feels like the day has been much longer than it actually has been, probably in part due to her having slept restlessly last night. Raven’s words were running through her head as she went to bed and eventually seeped into her dreams. She doesn’t remember the actual dreams – she rarely does – but the uneasy feeling that had permeated them stayed with her when she woke up.

And then, seeing Bellamy… it had shaken her initially, and it still does, on some level. A part of her is stubbornly insisting that this is a bad, bad idea and that she should run in the other direction. And she knows this, logically, but emotionally… it’s too late. She’s already in too deep. Which scares her so much. But the alternative, not seeing him again, trying to stay away from him like the last couple of weeks, is even worse.

Clarke’s definitely not convinced that Raven was right, that eight months will make eventually losing him worth it, but she is starting to see that she might get there.

Right, she was going to not think about Bellamy for an hour. That went well.

She opens her eyes, gazing out at the grey November afternoon for a long moment before drying her hands and picking up her book.

She manages to get engrossed in the plot, her thoughts only straying a couple of times over the next half hour. When the water’s starting to cool into lukewarm, she pulls the plug and dries off enough so she won’t drip all over the floor before stepping into the shower to rinse off.

When she leaves the bathroom, she pulls on her comfiest sweatpants and a too big Oxford sweatshirt that she stole from Wells last time she visited him in England. She finishes the outfit off with a pair of thick, fluffy socks and grabs her phone, deliberately not looking at the screen, before going out into the living space.

She grabs milk from the fridge and the other ingredients from the pantry before putting a pot on the stove and pouring milk into it – it’s quicker in the microwave, but the taste just isn’t quite the same.

Soon enough, she has a steaming mug of cocoa in her hands and brings it to the couch. The sun had already set by the time she got home, and darkness has wrapped the city in a soft blanket by now, the heavy rain making the lights across the water flicker.

Bastet jumps onto the couch with a purr and curls into a ball pressed against Clarke’s thigh. She scratches the cat behind the ears for a moment, before raising the mug to her lips.

Heaven, as always. The recipe is Raven’s originally, and according to her, the secret is just a pinch of salt to go along with the cocoa powder, sugar and vanilla extract. Clarke has tried to find a better combination over the years, experimenting with everything from cinnamon to hazelnut syrup, but so far she’s been unsuccessful.

She finishes half the mug before finally caving and pulling her phone out of the large front pocket on her sweatshirt, where she stashed it earlier. It’s almost 5:45 by now, so realistically, she could be on the subway heading home after an hour and a half shift at the library.

To her surprise and delight, there are several messages from Bellamy, delivered while she was in the bath.

I bet you’re having more fun with
the kids than I am with E.A. Wrigley.

Clarke frowns at the odd sentence before moving onto the next text.

That looked much weirder in writing
than it sounded in my head – he
(she? No idea) wrote the book
I’m supposed to read for class.

What I meant to say is that I am
spending the rest of my Sunday
catching up on school work and
I’m bored out of my mind.

And you’re still at work.

Hope you don’t drown on the
way home ;-)

She smiles as she finishes reading. The last message came in just twenty minutes ago. She taps to write a reply.

I don’t think it’s hard to have more
fun than reading about, what,
steam engines and the Spinning
Jenny?

Made it to the subway with minor
water damage, but I still have to
get home…

She ignores the swooping feeling in her stomach when the speech bubble pops up immediately.

Glad you survived the treacherous
journey to the subway. At the
moment I’m on cotton mills,
so much fun… Work good?

Yeah, it was fine

She doesn’t feel that bad about the response – work was fine, it just wasn’t the work she told him she was doing.

Wrigley kicking your butt?

The reply takes longer this time.

I love history, I really do, but this
course is one of those where I
need to keep reminding myself
that I love it. Not my favorite subject,
it’s too… modern.

Give me Hannibal’s invasion or
the Trojan War any day.

Clarke actually laughs out loud at that.

It takes a real history nerd to have
actual favorite historical events :-P

History buff, thank you very much.

She considers her reply for a moment, debating pointing out the double meaning of the word ‘buff’… she has a sneaking suspicion he might fill both criteria, even though she hasn’t gotten a good enough look to really make a judgement on the more physical aspect. She wouldn’t mind investigating this further, though…

I don’t know about that… I kind of
thought most of your Halloween-bulk
came from the football gear ;-)

It takes a while for the speech bubble to appear. Then it disappears… and appears again. When it disappears for the second time, Clarke puts the phone on the table and goes into the kitchen to rinse out her mug and put it in the dishwasher. She hears the ping of an incoming message just as she closes the door to it and does in no way hurry back to the couch.

Well, well, miss Griffin… I’d be
happy to prove you wrong.

She lets out a breath she didn’t know she was holding, relieved that her little innuendo didn’t scare him off, and sinks into the couch again, pulling a soft blanket over her legs. The one downside of the huge open space in her apartment is that it’s a little tricky to get warm.

Promises, promises…

It’s been a long time since she’s experienced this easy, teasing banter with underlying sexual tension. They didn’t even have text messaging back when she was dating Wells, and she and Niylah didn’t really do it much. This is… fun.

How’s your week looking?

A sense of anticipation – which is surprisingly similar to the butterflies she felt earlier today – spreads in her stomach as she opens her job app to check her schedule. She has the two Transfers and the homework session tomorrow, a Transfer around noon on Tuesday and one just before midnight, a homework session on Wednesday afternoon, one Transfer on Thursday morning and two in the evening, two storytimes during the weekend, plus a Transfer on Saturday and two on Sunday evening. Friday she doesn’t have anything booked, which isn’t all that uncommon, but usually only happens a couple of times a month

Work Monday-Wednesday and
Saturday-Sunday, and a thing with
Raven Tuesday evening

When do you get off on
Wednesday? I don’t have any
classes that night.

Her shift at the library on Wednesday is from three to five, most kids come straight from school, and she’s usually out of there a few minutes after five, since they want to get home too and she doesn’t have to stay to help the library staff clean up after them.

Should be home by 5:30 at the
latest. What did you have in mind?

You’ll just have to wait and see ;-)
Pick you up at 7?

Clarke’s not big on surprises, but she supposes she can make an exception.

Great :-) Can you at least give me
a hint so I know what to wear?

Nothing too fancy… I’m afraid
my budget doesn’t stretch to
five star restaurants.

Despite the complete lack of facial expressions and conversational clues offered by body language in a normal conversation face to face, she can almost hear the contrite note in Bellamy’s voice.

Good, five star food is the worst!
We’d just have to stop by Emmy
Squared on the way back ;-)

Again, the answer takes a while.

I had to Google what that was…

I did tell you I’ve barely spent any
time in Brooklyn, right?

The idea that anyone in New York City doesn’t know Emmy Squared is mindboggling to Clarke. She’s about to say as much when another message pops up.

But at least I know what I need to
live up to ;-)

She huffs.

Yes, my expectations are huge

:-) Home yet?

She checks the time. 6:10. She could be home by now if she was on the subway half an hour ago.

Just walked through the door.
Completely soaked, stupid rain

You better warm up, don’t want
you catching a cold. And I should
get back to this book, still have
almost 100 pages left :-(

For a moment, Clarke considers replying with something along the lines off ‘wish you were here, the best way to warm up is shared body heat’, but in the end, she decides against it. It feels just a tad too forward at this stage.

Is that your nice way of
telling me to stop texting ;-)

Not because I want to… but I
should probably try to focus.
I’ve been reading the same
sentence over and over for
the past half hour.

She didn’t really think he wanted to stop talking to her, but hearing him actually say that he doesn’t – or, well, type it – still makes a warm feeling settle in her stomach.

I’ll try not to take it personally ;-)
seriously, do your study thing
I have Jessica Jones to catch up on

Really? Have you been living
under a rock? You’re
waaaay behind :-P

Clarke rolls her eyes.

I know, shut up and study!

Yes, ma’am. Enjoy the show.
Talk tomorrow?

The warm feeling spreads to the rest of her body.

Sure thing :-)

She does have Jessica Jones to catch up on, she only discovered the show recently and has a bunch of episodes left, so she gets Netflix up on the TV and starts the next one.

She manages to follow the plot well enough to know what’s going on, even though her thoughts keep straying. She heats up some leftover Chinese food from yesterday after a couple of hours, and has just decided to finish the current episode and then call it a night when her phone beeps again.

It’s 10:47 and she half-expects it to be Raven, who usually scrolls through her Instagram before going to bed and almost always sends some weird post from one of the workout enthusiasts she follows to be able to make fun, but it’s not.

OK, I’m having trouble keeping my
eyes open, so I’m calling it a night.

Jessica still keeping you
entertained?

She smiles as she replies.

Got about 10 min left on this
episode, then I’m turning in too

OK. Just wanted to say goodnight :-)

Night :-)

She looks at the screen for a moment longer before closing the message app down and locking the phone.

She can still feel the smile on her face right before she falls asleep.

-100-

When she wakes up the next day – she didn’t bother setting an alarm, since she doesn’t have a Transfer until half past eleven, which means it’s after eight – there’s a message from Bellamy waiting.

Morning! Hope you slept well :-)
Have a good day.

It’s nothing much, but still a nice start to a grey Monday and it makes a warmth settle in her stomach that counteracts even the rain pouring down outside.

She takes her time with breakfast, making an omelet with some ham and cheese – breakfast is one of few things she can make without setting off the fire alarm – and a peanut butter sandwich, and settles at the bar counter separating the kitchen from the living room with her food. She still has a good view out the large windows, but at the moment, she can barely make out the buildings on Manhattan, the heavy rain almost completely obscuring them.

She sends a reply to Bellamy – Slept very well, thank you :-) hope you did too. Stay dry and have fun at work – and tries not to be too disappointed when there’s not an immediate response. He’s working, most likely driving, and shouldn’t be looking at his phone anyway.

Still, when her phone pings an hour or so later, her stomach does a little swoop.

They text more or less regularly over the next couple of days. Sometimes it’s an hour or more before one of them replies – usually Bellamy, while he’s driving or in class in the evenings, but Clarke has to keep him waiting while she’s at the library – and sometimes they go back and forth in an intense discussion for as much as hours at a time. They talk about everything from hobbies to travel experiences – Bellamy’s never been out of the country but dreams about going to Rome or Greece one day, to see the ruins of the ancient societies he loves reading about, something that Clarke makes a mental note of – from favorite foods to favorite movies and TV-shows.

He texts her when he’s annoyed because he’s stuck in traffic, or when a client is especially ignorant, and she texts him when she spots a couple of guys moving a couch on the subway. Really, it’s New York, she shouldn’t be surprised.

They always say goodnight in the evening, and there’s always a message waiting for Clarke when she wakes up in the morning, since he usually starts work at eight and leaves home early.

By Wednesday, she’s already gotten used to this new routine, even though it’s only been barely three days.

They’ve only texted, though, so she frowns when her phone actually rings just moments after she’s sent a response to Bellamy’s question about favorite concert experience – in reality, it would probably be Queen at Wembley Stadium, but since that was in 1986, she can’t exactly say that, so she went with the only one of her top ten that’s from the last ten years, Fleetwood Mac in Madison Square Garden in 2014.

The image on the screen makes it clear that it’s Raven calling, though, and she quickly answers.

“Hey, Rae.”

“Hello, stranger,” Raven’s voice comes over the line.

“Stranger?” Clarke questions. “We talked on… Sunday.”

“Exactly!” Raven exclaims. “When was the last time we went more than two days without talking or texting?”

Clarke opens her mouth to say that she’s overreacting, but then she realizes that she’s actually right. They usually text a couple of times a day and talk every day or every other day.

“Sorry, I guess I’ve just been a little busy,” she apologizes.

“I would hope so. OK, spill.”

Clarke rolls her eyes, picking up on Raven’s innuendo without a problem. “Not busy like that, Rae. We haven’t even been on a date yet, we’ve just been… texting.”

It’s quiet for a long moment. “Oh my God, you’re so lame!” Raven then exclaims. “What are you waiting for?”

“It’s not that easy, he has work and classes, today’s the first evening he’s had off since the weekend.”

“So you’re going out tonight?”

“Yes, Mom, we’re going out tonight.”

Raven ignores the jab. “When? Where?”

Clarke has to start getting ready if she’s going to make her shift at the library, so she puts Raven on speaker and leaves the phone on the nightstand while she opens the closet to find something to wear. “He’s picking me up at seven and I don’t know. He wanted to surprise me.”

“We all know how much you love surprises…”

She grabs a pair of jeans and a sweater – it’s not raining today but the temperature’s dropped to the low forties.

“Shut up, they can be nice,” she says before pulling the sweater over her head to the sound of Raven’s laugh.

“I still remember the surprise party Wells threw for you in sixty-eight, I thought you were going to dump him right then and there.”

In her defense, she’d just gotten home from a particularly grisly Transfer – an entire family killed in a house fire – so when Wells, Raven and a bunch of their friends had jumped out from behind the couch, she’d just about had a heart attack. That is the main reason she’s not too fond of surprises these days, though.

“There were extenuating circumstances and you know it,” she grumbles, buttoning her jeans.

“Yeah, yeah. OK, so checklist.”

Clarke groans. “Do we have to?”

“It’s been, what, five years since you went on an actual date?” More like seven, but she’s not going to tell Raven that. “So yes, we have to. I won’t let you scare this guy off because you’re out of touch with proper dating etiquette.”

Clarke pulls her hair into a ponytail and turns the speaker phone off as she leaves the bedroom. “Fine.”

“Shaving?”

“I need to shower when I get home from the library, so I’ll do it then.”

“Nice lingerie?”

She actually did go shopping yesterday. “Check,” she just says. No need to tell Raven all the details.

“What are you wearing?”

She puts the phone down for a moment, to pull on her coat, before answering. “He said nothing too fancy, so I figured jeans and that black shirt with the silver buttons.” It’s one of her favorites.

“No, do the purple top with the low cut and gold details,” Raven says. “It really makes your eyes pop.”

Clarke rolls her eyes as she locks the door behind her. She doubts Raven’s main reason for wanting her to wear that top is that it brings out her eyes. “He’s already seen me in your stupid princess dress, I don’t really think it matters what I wear.”

“That doesn’t mean you should just not make an effort,” Raven insists.

That’s true… and Raven is way better at fashion and coordinating outfits than Clarke is herself.

“Fine, I’ll try it on, but I make no promises.”

“Good. I have a Transfer at six, but send me a pic of the finished product so I can approve.”

Clarke considers refusing, but it’s not like Raven will let it go until she agrees.

“Will do. Now I really have to run, my library shift starts in half an hour.”

“OK, fine. But I want all the details tomorrow!”

“Yeah, yeah.”

She hangs up before Raven can say anything else, just as the elevator doors open. Her phone buzzes a moment later, and she finds a text from Raven.

4got Y I called – Thanksgiving
2moro, when R U coming over?

Right, tomorrow is Thanksgiving, Clarke had nearly forgotten. She and Raven always celebrate together when they can.

Got a Transfer in Battery at 8:30
in the morning, so I thought I’d
come straight over after that

Watch the parade

She watches the speech bubble as the elevator descends.

Gr8! help w food appreciated :-)

Clarke’s not really much of an asset in the kitchen, which Raven knows very well, but she sends a thumbs up back to say that she’ll at least be there for moral support before putting the phone in her pocket and leaving her building.

She’s more than a little distracted during the homework session, which the kids of course notice. Somehow, Charlotte – a bright sophomore at the nearby high school that Clarke’s been helping get ready for the pre SAT’s during the fall and who is now anxiously waiting for her results – figures out that Clarke has a date. This, of course, means that all the kids – luckily, only about a third of them showed up today since tomorrow’s Thanksgiving and they got off early from school – are teasing her by the end of the session.

But before Clarke leaves, Charlotte gives her a big hug and wishes her luck, which sort of makes up for it.

She has about an hour to get ready when she gets home, so she immediately jumps in the shower and yes – she does shave.

Better safe than sorry.

She puts on her new lingerie – a navy blue bra with pretty lace details, and matching panties – and her favorite pair of jeans, before trying on both tops. After scrutinizing herself in her full body mirror, she has to grudgingly agree that Raven’s suggestion does look better.

She does a light makeup – she doesn’t want to look like she’s trying too hard – and braids some of her hair away from her face. She’s just topped everything off with a pair of gold hoops and sent off the requested text to Raven when there’s a knock on the door.

Chapter Text

Clarke unlocks the door and opens it to reveal Bellamy on the other side, a bouquet of flowers in fall colors in his hand. A smile spreads on his face when he sees her and despite the fact that she knew it would be him, she feels her stomach do a little flip.

“Hey,” he says, holding out the flowers. “You look amazing.”

“Thank you,” she replies, taking them from him and stepping aside to let him into the apartment. “Let me put these in water. Do you want a quick tour before we leave, or do we need to hurry?”

He passes her and steps into the hallway that’s a sort of anteroom before you get into the apartment proper. Since it’s so open, Clarke wanted to have some sort of divide so you didn’t step right into it. Plus, she’s always hated arriving at someone’s home and being directed into a bedroom to drop her jacket.

“I’d love a tour, I’ve been curious about this place.”

She gestures at him to go ahead of her and watches his eyes widen when he takes in the open living area.

“Wow…” he says, looking around. “You have the whole floor?”

Clarke nods. “Yeah. When my grandpa bought the place, it was all one open space. He wanted most of this to stay open but didn’t want the elevator to go into the actual apartment, so he just put up a wall along the whole floor to make the hallway outside and the cloak room in here. When I moved in, I had some work done out in the hallway too, so half is a sort of storage room now.”

The whole floor is about 3,600 square feet, though 600 of those are the hallway and storage area outside the actual apartment, and the open plan living area takes up about 2,000 square feet. The kitchen is in the middle, against the only wall, though it’s open on three sides. The other side of the wall, which faces the Brooklyn side of the building and the entrance, where they’re currently standing, is lined with book cases. On this side, there’s also a secondary living room with a bunch of cozy, winged armchairs grouped around a fire place with an electric fire, and a sort of home office, with a huge desk with Clarke’s computer. The kitchen is state of the art, even if Clarke doesn’t cook much – gleaming appliances and wooden work tops over white, high gloss cabinets line the wall, and the kitchen island stretches along the entire space, dividing it from the main living room. On the side facing Manhattan, which is glittering in the distance at the moment, there’s a large dining table, seating ten, in the middle and to the left of it, the huge, comfy U-shaped couch that Clarke practically lives on at times, complemented by a 65 inch TV hidden away in an entertainment center. To the right, where there are windows in two directions, is her ‘work corner’, with a currently empty easel as well as a few shelves for her supplies. A couple of paintings in various stages of being finished are leaning against the wall.

The left third of the apartment is taken up by the two bedrooms. The guest room is first, with windows facing the building across the street, and has a walk-in closet and a bathroom that can also be accessed from the main living area. Clarke’s own bedroom is next to it, with windows on two sides and, in her opinion, the best view in Brooklyn.

She leads Bellamy along the left wall, letting him peak into the bedrooms, before continuing into the living/dining room and then the kitchen, where she finds a vase in one of the cupboards. She fills it with water before arranging the flowers in it and putting them on the dining table.

“Didn’t you say you had a cat?” Bellamy says, looking around the large, open space. Clarke mimics his movement before shrugging.

“She’s not very social, it takes her a while to warm up to new people,” she explains. “She’s probably hiding somewhere, she usually does when there’s someone at the door. Want to get going?”

He nods and follows her back out into the entryway.

“And I thought your friend Raven had an amazing apartment,” he says as he waits for her to put her boots on. “This… this is… I don’t even know. I’m not sure how, since it’s so huge and open, but it’s cozy somehow.”

That’s the feeling she had been going for when she had the place renovated earlier in the year, before she moved back in for the first time since she left New York last time, just before the turn of the millennium. She’s rented the apartment out during the nineteen years since – she hates to leave it empty and loves being able to let other people, who might not be able to afford a place like this normally, get a taste of this kind of life.

“Thanks,” she says with a smile before locking the door behind them. “It’s my… escape, I guess you could say, from the hustle and bustle of the city. A safe haven, sort of.”

“I can definitely see why.”

They take the elevator down to the lobby, where Clarke waves to the night doorman, Mike, before they step out into the cold November evening. Bellamy leads the way right and then around the corner, before stopping by the passenger side of a beat up truck and opening the door for her.

“You actually managed to get a parking spot?” she asks when he’s rounded the car and climbed into the driver’s seat. Her phone buzzes in her pocket and she checks it to find a text from Raven – a thumbs up and an emoji with an erupting volcano, which she assumes means Raven approves and she looks hot. Of course, knowing Raven, it could have a completely different meaning with more sexual connotations.

He laughs as he starts the engine. “Yeah, I was thinking of stopping and buying a lottery ticket on the way or something, that just doesn’t happen.”

“Exactly,” she agrees. “So… are you going to tell me where we’re going?”

He glances at her out of the corner of his eye. “Can’t wait another fifteen or twenty minutes?”

“So somewhere in the city,” Clarke concludes.

“Your powers of deduction are extraordinary.”

She tries to wheedle him a little more but gives up by the time they cross the Manhattan Bridge. It’s a clear night, so she can see the lights on the Williamsburg Bridge further up the river. The moon, almost full, hangs heavy in the sky above them, illuminating the night in its silvery glow. The lights of the city make the stars almost invisible though, she can only make out a few.

“You give up?” Bellamy asks next to her, and she turns from the window. His eyes are on the road ahead, but she can see that his mouth is quirked up a little in a half-smile.

“I know when to quit,” she replies with an exaggerated sigh, and he laughs.

“You’re not great with surprises, are you?”

Clarke shrugs. “Let’s just say I’ve had some… not great experiences with surprises in the past.”

Bellamy frowns and glances at her. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have assumed. I can tell you if it would make you feel better?”

“No, no.” She shakes her head. “It’s fine. It’s just a hang-up, I’m being silly.”

They’ve passed Broadway by now and Bellamy indicates to take the exit.

“We’re almost there, so you won’t have to put up with not knowing for much longer,” he assures her, turning right onto Canal before taking a left onto Eldridge.

Somehow, there’s an open parking space between Grand and Broome, and Bellamy quickly pulls the car into it and turns off the engine. Clarke immediately jumps out, scanning their surroundings and trying to figure out where they’re going.

They’re not technically in Chinatown anymore, but there are a couple of Chinese beauty salons on the other side of the street, and on the side they’re on, there are a couple of restaurants.

“We’re headed this way,” Bellamy says, nodding in the direction they came from.

Clarke loops her arm through his. “Lead the way, Mr. Blake.”

He chuckles as they take off down the street. It’s almost eight in the evening on a Wednesday, but there’s still a lot of people out and about, probably since tomorrow’s a holiday. Little old ladies hurrying along with their shopping, young couples strolling in the cold but beautiful evening.

They stop again after only twenty yards or so, and Bellamy glances at the façade of the building to their left. She turns her attention to it, reading the name of the place.

“Paniq room… we’re going to an escape room?”

The excitement in her voice must be obvious, because he laughs as he nods. “I take it this is a good surprise then?”

“I’ve been wanting to go to one of these again for ages,” Clarke replies, which is true. “Me and Raven and a few other friends did one in San Francisco a couple of years ago, and we’ve been talking about doing it again since then but never gotten around to it. I didn’t even know there was one here, how did you find it?”

“My job’s actually just a couple of blocks from here, so I sometimes pass it if I grab lunch in Chinatown or Little Italy between deliveries,” he explains as he holds the door open for her and they enter the building.

Bellamy’s booked a crime puzzle, and Clarke can honestly say that she hasn’t had this much fun in ages. There’s a family in the room with them, two teenage boys and their parents, and they manage to solve the murder well within the time limit. The kids cheer as they’re let out of the room again, and Clarke can’t keep the smile off her face.

“That was so much fun!” she gushes as they leave.

“Good first date?” Bellamy asks, slipping his hand into hers and interlacing their fingers.

“Great first date,” she replies with a smile. “Eight out of ten.”

“Only eight?”

She shrugs. “Well, no date’s complete without food, wouldn’t you say?”

She can feel him relax next to her. “Any preferences?”

“Not really.” Clarke shrugs. “How about we stroll around and see what catches our fancy?”

They turn right onto Grand Street and talk about the escape room as they pass through the recreational area that stretches between Chrystie and Forsyth Street. There’s loud cheering and laughter coming from their right, where there seems to be a full blown soccer game going on.

Neither of them seem to be interested in the restaurants serving Chinese food that they pass, and it’s not until they’ve reached Little Italy – the iconic sign lit up in the darkness – that Bellamy pauses.

“This looks nice.”

It’s a classic Italian restaurant, the only thing missing the red and white checkered tablecloths. They’re given a table by the large windows overlooking the street outside, and left alone to decide what they want.

They both settle on pasta – spaghetti carbonara for Bellamy and risotto finghetti for Clarke. When the waitress has taken their orders and left, Bellamy leans back a little in his chair and meets Clarke’s eyes, a small smile on his face.

“What?” she asks, returning the smile.

“Nothing,” he replies, shaking his head. “I’m just glad you’re here.”

Clarke can hear what he’s not saying and realizes that he was probably at least partly expecting her to come up with an excuse to cancel tonight.

She wants to reassure him, but they’re seated opposite each other and the glasses and flower vase on the table would make it awkward to reach over it, so she has to settle for making her smile speak for her.

“So am I.”

His smile widens at her words, lighting up his entire face and – for the first time today, she realizes with a jolt – drawing her attention for a brief moment to his Number. 248.

She quickly forces her eyes back to his, determined to not let the reminder destroy her good mood.

“So,” Bellamy starts, “do you have any big Thanksgiving plans tomorrow?”

“Not big plans, really,” she replies. “Raven and I usually celebrate together, when we can, so I’ll just head over there in the morning, watch the parade, ‘help’…” she makes air quotes, “… with the food and then some other friends will be over later in the day to eat and basically lounge around.”

“What’s with the air quotes?” he asks with a chuckle.

“I’m not really a great cook,” Clarke admits. “I’m usually on chopping duty, Raven won’t let me near the stove since the Thanksgiving incident of… 2012.”

She hopes he doesn’t notice her slight hesitation – the Thanksgiving in question was in reality back in 1964, and she had to quickly figure out when it would be logical that she and Raven spend Thanksgiving together based on their supposed age. She figures she would have been in college six years ago, so it’s not out of the question.

“What did you do?” Bellamy asks amusedly.

Clarke rolls her eyes with an exaggerated sigh. “I might have almost set the turkey on fire… but it wasn’t my fault, there was something wrong with the oven!”

She can tell that he’s trying very hard to keep from laughing. “Uh-huh, I’m sure there was.”

“What about you? How’s your Thanksgiving looking?” she asks in an attempt to switch the attention from her lack of cooking skills. “Do you usually get Thanksgiving off from work?”

He shakes his head. “We never close, even if our capacity isn’t that high on holidays, so unless someone volunteers, which doesn’t happen that much, everyone gets two holidays a year. I worked New Year’s Day and Fourth of July this year, so I get the other holidays off.”

“I guess that makes sense,” Clarke notes. “So what’re you doing tomorrow? Is your sister in town to celebrate with you?”

A shadow crosses Bellamy’s face and he quickly shakes his head. “No, she’s… out of the country right now, and she couldn’t get back for this. I’m going with Miller and Jackson to Miller’s parents’ place. I’ve known Miller since we were kids and I’ve spent holidays with them before, they’re practically family, so it’ll be fun.”

“That sounds nice,” she agrees. Again, she has the feeling that there’s something he isn’t telling her. Maybe he and his sister had a falling out but he doesn’t want to talk about it. She decides not to push, but files the information away for the future.

“Yeah, Miller’s mom makes the best mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie I’ve ever tasted, and she always sends the leftovers with us, so we probably won’t need to cook for a week.”

They both laugh for a moment, before Clarke continues. “That’s not usually a problem at Raven’s place, Jasper never leaves any food no matter how much there is. I have no idea how he stays so skinny, I suspect he’s secretly into the dark arts.”

“Which one’s Jasper?” he asks. “Assuming he was at the Halloween party, of course, if not I’ll have no idea.”

“He was the bartender, actually.”

Bellamy’s eyes narrow for a moment as he tries to remember.

“Right, the mad scientist,” he finally says, making Clarke frown in confusion before she remembers that Jasper had been wearing a lab coat and a pair of goggles on Halloween.

“That’s him,” she confirms as the waitress arrives with their food.

“So you must be pretty close, if you spend Thanksgiving together,” Bellamy notes when the waitress has left, taking a bite of his food.

She shrugs. “I guess so.” It’s not like she can tell him that she’s known Jasper and Monty since the roaring twenties in San Francisco, Maya for almost fifty years, ever since she acted as the other girl’s mentor during her first few years as a Keeper, and Harper for almost as long as Raven, or how exactly they know each other. “There’s a bunch of us that met during college and then somehow ended up in New York. Whoever’s not going home, or doesn’t have family to go home to, are welcome at Raven’s.” She pops some of her pasta into her mouth – heaven.

He nods thoughtfully at that. “I guess that’s what the Millers were back in Paterson,” he says. “Miller’s dad was the police chief, still is, even though he could have retired years ago, and his mom was an accountant, so they were pretty well off. Lived in the nice part of town, unlike us. Octavia and I usually ended up there for holidays when my mom had to work, or if she… didn’t have enough money to do something special.”

Clarke has a feeling that he had been about to say something else than what he ended up saying. She already knows that he and his sister didn’t have the best childhood, based on what he told her on Halloween, but she wonders if there’s not more to it…

She wants to ask him, wants to know every little detail there is to know about him, but this isn’t the time or the place for that. She has to let him open up in his own time.

“I’m glad you guys had somewhere to go,” she just says. “And family isn’t just blood, it’s who you choose. I might not have any close relatives, but Raven’s like a sister to me, and I know that Zeke and Jasper and Monty, maybe even Murphy, would fight over who got to defend my honor if they thought it was necessary.”

Bellamy chuckles. “Was that a subtle warning?”

“Oh, no,” she exclaims, eyes widening as she realizes how he interpreted it. “That’s not what I meant at all.”

“Relax,” he tells her. “I was just kidding. Besides… they have nothing to worry about.”

His words hang heavy in the air between them, their eyes locked together. Clarke feels her heartrate pick up and wonders if Bellamy is having a similar reaction.

The moment’s broken by the rattling of dishes as the door to the kitchen swings open, and they both look down at their plates.

“How’s your food?” he asks after a beat.

“It’s delicious,” she replies with a smile. “Yours?”

He nods. “It’s really good.”

They eat in silence for a few minutes before he clears his throat.

“So, you suck at cooking,” he says with a half-smirk.

Clarke rolls her eyes. “I told you it was the oven.”

“Right. So in reality you’re an iron chef?”

“I didn’t say that,” she grumbles reluctantly. “Fine, I’m a terrible cook. I’ve seriously burned water once.”

Bellamy chuckles at that.

“So if you offer to cook for me, I should run the other way?”

“I never would offer to cook, so you don’t have to worry about it,” she assures him. “Why would I, when there are so many amazing restaurants in this city? And that deliver, too.”

“Good point. So that’s how you survive – take-out?”

Clarke shrugs. “Mostly that and frozen meals. Sometimes Raven or another friend takes pity on me and invites me for a real home-cooked meal. But I mean, take-out’s not just pizza anymore, there’s a lot to choose from, especially here. It’s not like I’m at risk of developing scurvy or something. What about you? Something tells me you’re a good cook.”

“I guess,” he says. “I cooked for myself and my sister when we were kids, since our mom worked a lot, so I’ve picked up a few tricks along the way.”

“What’s your piece de résistance?” she asks, pushing her empty plate to the side and leaning her chin in her hand.

Bellamy finishes off the last of his own food before answering. “Well, my dad was from the Philippines originally, and the only food he apparently knew how to cook was chicken adobo. Mom said it was his mother’s, so my grandmother’s, recipe. She taught me to make it when I was twelve, so I’ve had time to perfect it over the years.”

Clarke has a vague memory of eating something with chicken when she, Wells, Raven, and Zeke were in Manila back in the early nineties, and the name does sound familiar.

“I think I’ve had that,” she says, and Bellamy’s eyebrows shoot up.

“Really? I mean, there are a couple of pretty good Filipino restaurants in the city, but it’s definitely not as popular as some other cuisines.”

Can she just tell him that she’s been to Manila? Maybe, but she remembers that they talked about traveling at Halloween, and she’d tried to downplay it a little – it’s just not normal for someone in their mid-twenties to have visited most of the countries in the world.

“Raven and I went on a bit of a gastronomic journey through New York a couple of years ago,” she half-fibs. They did, actually, or tried to, at least, back in the nineties when they both lived in the city last time. Normally, though, they remembered the idea after an all-nighter out at a club, which meant they were far from sober, so apart from a couple of horrible experiences and finding an amazing Thai restaurant that has unfortunately closed since, Clarke honestly doesn’t remember much. They might have tried Filipino food, but she has no idea. She’s not even sure there was a Filipino restaurant in New York back then. “I think that’s what I had, anyway, it was a chicken dish with rice and vegetables.”

He nods. “Yeah, the basics are really just chicken marinated in vinegar and soy sauce, but apart from that, everyone makes it in their own way. I usually make it with onions, garlic and jalapeños and serve it with rice.”

“That does sound delicious.”

Their conversation is interrupted when the waitress returns to take their plates.

“Would you like to see the dessert menu?” she asks with a blinding smile directed at Bellamy. He raises an eyebrow at Clarke in question.

“Why not?” she says with a shrug, and the waitress disappears for a moment before returning with the menus.

“OK, there are too many options here,” Bellamy complains after a minute.

Clarke chuckles. “When in doubt, go with chocolate has always been my strategy,” she replies. “I think this is one of those situations where I need to apply that.”

“But there’s more than one option with chocolate,” he counters. “However will you chose?”

She scrutinizes the menu for another moment before deciding and snapping it closed. “I’m going for chocolate fondant cake. I’ve made up my mind.”

“That does sound good,” he agrees. “I think I’ll go with the cheesecake with strawberries, can’t go wrong with cheesecake.”

They put in their order and get their desserts quickly. Clarke takes a bite of her chocolate cake, her eyes sliding closed as the taste explodes in her mouth.

“Good?” Bellamy asks, and she opens her eyes to find him watching her, a bite of his own cheesecake halfway to his mouth.

“Amazing,” she replies. “You planning on trying yours or just watching me enjoy mine?”

He raises the fork to his mouth slowly, closing his lips around the prongs before pulling it back out.

Yeah, Clarke can definitely see the upside of watching someone else enjoy a delicious desert.

“Good?” she echoes.

“Really good.” He picks up another bite with his fork. “Want a taste?”

The way he’s watching her, eyes intense and lips slightly parted, and the way his voice drops on the question makes her swallow hard before nodding and leaning forward. Their eyes stay locked as she opens her mouth and takes the bite of cheesecake from the fork he holds up, letting her tongue dart out to lick a few crumbs off her upper lip. It’s hard to tell with Bellamy’s dark eyes, but she’s almost positive she sees his pupils dilate.

She chews in silence for a moment. “That is really good,” she then agrees, voice slightly shaky. She clears her throat before scooping up some of her own dessert and holding it out for him. He copies her movements from a moment ago, leaning forward to accept the fork. Clarke bites her lip as she watches him chew and swallow, and for a moment she thinks he’s going to lean further over the table and kiss her.

“Is everything OK over here?”

The waitress’s cheerful voice interrupts the moment, and they both lean back in their chairs.

“Just fine, thanks,” Clarke says. “Could we have the check when you have a moment?”

“Of course!”

She flounces off again, throwing a final smile over her shoulder before disappearing into the kitchen.

They finish their desserts in silence – a comfortable silence, though. The waitress returns just as Bellamy’s swallowing the last of his cheesecake, putting down the little leather folder in front of him. Clarke quickly reaches over and snaps it away.

“Hey,” he objects.

“Nope,” she says, shaking her head. “You paid for the escape room, I’ve got this.”

He looks like he’s about to argue, but apparently thinks better of it and nods. “Fine, be all modern.”

Clarke just rolls her eyes as she gets money from her purse. The waitress, again, appears out of thin air and takes the money with a fake smile.

“Time to get out of here?” Bellamy asks, sounding reluctant, and Clarke sighs and glances at her watch. Just after eleven.

“Probably a good idea,” she agrees. “I do have to get up kind of early tomorrow.”

He gets up and hurries around to be able to pull her chair out and she has to smile – it’s been years, maybe decades, since anyone pulled out a chair for her.

He helps her put her coat on and then holds the door open for her as well, and soon they’re back in the November evening, where the temperature has dropped further. She can see her breath as she exhales and pulls her sleeves down over her hands to keep them warm.

Bellamy loops his arm through hers and they set off at a leisurely pace in the general direction of where they parked earlier.

“So, you had a good time?” he asks when they’ve crossed Mott Street.

“I had a great time,” she assures him, squeezing his arm.

“Did I manage to get a perfect score?”

She’s pretty sure he’s at least partly joking.

“Eleven out of ten,” she concludes, making him chuckle.

“And a gold star?”

“Absolutely.”

They walk in silence for a while, and soon Bellamy’s truck comes into view. He unlocks the car and holds the passenger door open for Clarke to climb in.

The cabin’s cold, and he cranks up the heat as soon as the engine’s on. “It takes a little while to warm up, the heater’s not the best,” he apologizes.

“It’s fine, it’s not that cold,” she replies, scooting over in her seat to be able to lean her head against his shoulder as he pulls away from the curb. He shifts a little so he can put his arm around her shoulder and pulls her closer, or as close as she can get with the console between them.

There’s about as little traffic on the streets as there ever is in New York, and it’s not long before they’ve left Manhattan Bridge behind and are turning onto Clarke’s street. Bellamy parks just outside her building, next to a fire hydrant where there’s not technically a parking spot, and jumps out of the car before she’s even unbuckled her seatbelt. He opens the door for her again and helps her get out of the car.

They cross the sidewalk and she stops outside the doors to her building, turning back to him and trying to figure out how to invite him up without it sounding too much like a sexual invite. Which it is, obviously, but still. You don’t have to be obvious about it.

“I had a great time,” he says before she’s managed to come up with anything.

“Me too,” she agrees with a smile.

He nods, shoving his hands into the pockets of his coat, and his eyes drop down to her lips for a moment before he meets her gaze again.

“Hope you have a good time at Raven’s tomorrow,” he continues. “I should probably head out, let you get some sleep.”

“Um…” Clarke starts, a little confused, but before she can say anything more, he gives her a quick kiss, much more innocent than she was hoping for, and takes a step back.

“Night,” he says with a half-smile and turns to go back to his car.

She’s frozen in place until he pulls away with a wave through the passenger window and disappears around the corner. Then she snaps out of the daze, pulls her keys out of her pocket and unlocks the door to the building.

She waits until she’s closed her own door behind her before she rummages around in her purse, finding her phone and calling Raven.

“Hello?”

“He kissed me goodnight,” she exclaims, voice probably more annoyed than the situation really calls for.

There’s some ruffling on the other end before Raven’s voice returns. “Clarke? Why are you calling me at a quarter to midnight? And aren’t you supposed to be on a date?”

“I was. We had a great time, there was a ton of sexual tension, then he drove me home, walked me to the door of the building, kissed me goodnight – and not even a proper kiss, just a peck, really – and drove away!”

“Riiiight…” Raven drags the word out. “Let me just get something straight here. Zeke told him that you were still getting over a bad breakup to explain your disappearing act on Halloween. I assume you went along with that?”

Clarke kicks off her shoes and manages to get her coat off without putting the phone down. “Well, yeah. I mean, I told him it’s not that I wasn’t over Lexa, just that it felt like things were moving a little fast and that I was overwhelmed.”

“Lexa, not Wells or Niylah?” Raven notes.

Bastet comes up to wind around Clarke’s legs and she picks the cat up with one hand, depositing her on the couch before flopping down on it herself. “Wells and I are still friends, and Niylah and I ended things amicably, I figured it was better to use the actual bad breakup. What’s your point?”

“Just… did you consider that maybe Bellamy’s just trying to take things slow, to not scare you off again?”

She didn’t, no. Which… OK, it makes sense.

“Why are you always so smart?”

Raven chuckles. “I’m on the outside, babe, it’s always easier to be objective in that position.”

“I suppose… so what should I do now?”

“I guess that depends on what you want. If you want to hurry things along, you might just have to make the first move yourself. Or you could let him take the lead and take things slow.”

It’s not like she’s a stranger to taking things into her own hands when it comes to her sexual relationships. She can do that now too. But at the same time… she sort of wants to get swept off her feet. She wants him to show up at her door, push her up against a wall and tear her clothes off.

She might have a problem.

“Babe?” Raven’s voice reminds her that they’re still on the phone.

“Sorry, spaced out. I guess I’ll have to figure out what I want then.”

“You do that. See you in the morning?”

“Yup. Thanks for talking me down. Love you.”

“Love you too.”

Clarke hangs up and hovers over the message app for a moment, before opening her conversation with Bellamy. It’s only been fifteen minutes since he left, so he’s not home yet, but she types out a message anyway.

Let me know you get home OK?

Then she leaves her phone in the bedroom before going into the bathroom to get ready for bed.

She’s just finished a chapter in her book when her phone buzzes on the nightstand.

Home now :-) hope I’m not
waking you up.

She smiles.

Nope, just reading a little.
Drive OK?

Fine, barely any traffic at all.

It’s not a sentence that invites a follow-up, really, and Clarke’s stumped for a moment, not sure what to say. Before she can come up with something, the speech bubble appears again.

I just realized that I forgot to ask
you something.

Huh.

And what’s that?

Do you have plans on Saturday?

She feels the smile making its way back onto her face and quickly checks her job app before responding.

She has storytime at the library from ten in the morning until eleven thirty, and then a Transfer in the early afternoon.

Free from around three

What did you have in mind?

The bubble pops up and stays up for a while before a response comes in.

I thought maybe I could cook for
you? All that talk about chicken
adobo today made me realize
it’s been ages since I made it, but
it’s no fun to just make for myself…
save me?

Well, cooking would mean going to his place, or have him come here… definitely more intimate than going out. Maybe she won’t have to make a move after all.

Well, you did make it sound
absolutely delicious… fine, I’ll
save you ;-)

Thank you so much :-P my place?
I have no idea what kind of stuff
you have in your kitchen, but
considering your cooking expertise
I’m not holding my breath.

Shut up!

But yeah, probably not
everything you need… time?

Seven-ish? I can pick you up
if you want?

She remembers that he lives with Miller… but maybe he won’t be home? Can she ask? No, that would be weird…

I can just take an Uber, don’t
want you to have to drive all
the way here and back again

If you’re sure… let me know if
you change your mind.

Will do. Should probably sleep
now… have a good Thanksgiving!

You too! Night :-)

Chapter Text

Clarke’s woken from a nice dream by an incessant chiming sound on Thanksgiving morning. At least she thinks it was a nice dream, she can’t remember what actually happened in it but she’s feeling all warm and fuzzy.

Grumbling sleepily, she blindly fumbles for the offending item – her cell phone – on the nightstand. Coming up empty, she pushes herself into a sitting position with a huff.

Right. She put her phone on the floor on the other side of the room last night after setting the alarm, so she wouldn’t just hit snooze and go back to sleep. She’s definitely not a morning person…

Knowing that she really should get up, she reluctantly throws the comforter off, shivering when the cool air in the room hits her bare skin. She pauses for a moment on the edge of the bed, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes before standing up. Her toes are immediately buried in the fluffy rug she picked especially for that purpose, and she enjoys the feeling for a beat.

The alarm’s almost painfully loud by the time she finally slides her finger across the screen to turn it off.

“I’m up, I’m up,” she mumbles as she heads into the bathroom, turning the shower on and twisting the knob as hot as it can go before pulling the t-shirt she slept in and her panties off and tossing them in the hamper. She twists her hair into a messy bun before stepping under the spray of water.

She’s feeling marginally more human by the time she leaves the bathroom, wrapped in her fuzzy robe. She gets the coffee going before going back into the bedroom to get dressed and then treats herself to two large mugs, which gets her all the way to properly awake.

She doesn’t have the time or energy to make breakfast, so when she’s done, she just refills Bastet’s food and water bowls and makes sure the litter box is clean before grabbing what she’ll need for the day and heads out. To her relief, Gregory’s is open, and she grabs a New Yorker sandwich and another coffee, promising herself it’s the last one until at least noon, before descending into the subway station.

The Transfer’s a standard job – Eric Atkins, male, 85. COD: cardiovascular disease – with normal memories, and she’s knocking on Raven and Zeke’s door with fifteen minutes to spare before the start of the Thanksgiving parade.

“Hey, babe,” Raven greets her while Lola yips at their feet. “You look tired, rough night?”

Clarke shrugs, kicking her shoes off. “Slept fine, but I didn’t get to sleep until after one and then I had to get up way too early, so didn’t get my normal eight hours.”

Raven is already heading back to the kitchen, so Clarke follows her, ignoring Lola’s over-excited whines for cuddles.

“And what kept you up so late? It wasn’t even midnight when we hung up.”

Raven goes to check on something in one of the stainless steel, built in ovens and Clarke climbs onto one of the stools at the breakfast bar.

“I might have texted Bellamy after we hung up…” she starts, hurrying to continue when Raven throws her a smirk. “Just, you know, hey, let me know you get home OK, that’s completely normal. He was driving home in the middle of the night.”

“Sure,” Raven agrees, leaning against the bar across from Clarke, but there’s a slight teasing tone in her voice. Not that Clarke’s not used to that. She’s frequently on the receiving end of it and has gotten quite good at ignoring it by now.

“And then he replied when he got home, and we texted for a bit.”

“OK. So did you decide what to do about your little… crisis?”

Clarke rolls her eyes. “It wasn’t a crisis, just… I don’t know.”

“You called me in the middle of the night,” Raven says, eyebrows raised. “If it wasn’t a crisis, you would have waited until now to talk about it.”

“OK, fine. Maybe it was kind of a crisis,” Clarke admits. “Not a big one, but… fine. And no, I haven’t. But I might not have to.”

The timer on the other oven beeps, and Raven turns her back to take out a baking plate with steaming rolls. Yes, she makes them from scratch, because buying ready-made rolls just ‘isn’t Thanksgiving-y’ or something.

“How’d you reckon that?” she asks as she puts them down on the counter, covering them with a kitchen towel to let them cool slowly.

“He asked if I wanted to come to his place on Saturday, said he’d cook me dinner,” Clarke replies, another smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

Raven gives a low whistle. “Yeah, you’re right. That’s like code for ‘want to get naked?’.”

“Right? I mean, he does have a roommate who might be home, but I’m going into this expecting sex.”

“Going into what expecting sex?” Zeke asks, coming into the kitchen. “Because I don’t remember putting that on our Thanksgiving invitations.”

Raven elbows him in the ribs when he tries to steal one of the rolls and he steps back, chuckling. “Those are for dinner! And not today, obviously. Bellamy’s making dinner for Clarke at his place on Saturday, I was just telling her that’s basically like asking her to come over for a booty call.”

“Definitely,” Zeke agrees. “Just a little more polite than coming out and actually saying it.”

“See?” Raven says with a smirk. “OK, come on, the parade’s about to start!”

“You know, considering the two of you have been in a monogamous relationship for the last few decades, I’m suspecting I have a better grasp on dating etiquette,” Clarke notes as she follows Raven into the living room. “Just saying.”

Raven huffs. “Please. When was the last time you went on an actual date and didn’t just go home with someone from a bar that you never saw again after the one night?”

Clarke actually has to think about that one, so Raven might have a point.

“Niylah,” she finally realizes. Raven doesn’t seem impressed, though.

“That was, like, ten years ago.”

Clarke frowns. “No way. It was while I was in LA, so no more than… OK, maybe ten years.” Actually, it’s more than that, she left New York in 1999 last time and met Niylah four years into her placement in Los Angeles, and they dated the last few years they were both there, before Clarke left for Paris and Niylah for… Seattle, she thinks. That was in 2005.

“Face it, babe,” Raven says, grabbing the remote so she can turn the TV on and leaning forward on the couch. “Time flies. We’re getting old.”

Clarke can’t help but laugh. “Good thing we’re really not, then.”

“OK, shut up, it’s starting.”

Clarke squeezes her lips together to stop the laugh coming out and glances at Zeke. They both know that it won’t be long before Raven starts commenting the parade herself, but she demands complete silence as it begins.

Making sure that Raven’s focused on the TV, Clarke quickly holds up five fingers behind her back for Zeke, who’s sat down on Raven’s other side. His eyebrows furrow for a moment and then he’s holding up three fingers in return.

It’s two and a half minutes before Raven starts laughing at a float, and Clarke rolls her eyes at a smiling Zeke but makes a mental note to sneak him a five dollar bill when she can. It’s their own little Thanksgiving tradition.

As usual, the parade evolves into Clarke and Raven commenting on and laughing about everything from the balloons and floats to the people the camera zooms in on, Zeke staying mostly quiet but shaking his head amusedly at the two of them from time to time. He disappears into the kitchen now and then, to keep an eye on the food, but it seems like everything is under control.

It’s a little after ten when Clarke feels her phone vibrate in her pocket – Raven has a strict ‘no phones during the parade’ rule, so she’s turned off the sound – and she feels her heartrate pick up a little before she even knows who the text is from. Glancing at Raven, to make sure her friend is still engrossed in the parade on the TV, she subtly slides her phone out of her pocket and opens the message.

Morning, Princess :-) enjoying the
parade?

She ignores Zeke’s raised eyebrows and turns away slightly to hide the phone from Raven as she replies.

Morning :-) it’s great, of course!

Wait…

Are you trying to tell me
you’re not watching it?

How very un-American of you!

She watches the speech bubble as she waits for his reply.

Didn’t feel like setting an alarm
on my day off, just woke up.

Sounds like Miller’s got the TV on
though, so I’ll go be very American
in a moment ;-)

Which means he’s still in bed… and that brings a whole bunch of images to Clarke’s mind. Rumpled sheets, messy bed-head, bare chest… or maybe he sleeps completely naked…

“What does Loverboy want?” Raven’s voice pulls her out of her musings, and Clarke gives her friend a guilty look.

“Just saying good morning,” she mumbles back, getting an eye roll in return.

“God, you two are nauseating, and you’re not even in the same room.”

She doesn’t, however, tell Clarke to put the phone away, which she takes as a good sign. She’s gotten another message in the meantime.

Tell Raven and Zeke Happy
Thanksgiving, by the way.

“He says Happy Thanksgiving,” she relates.

“Yeah, yeah,” Raven grumbles, eyes back on the TV.

“Tell him Happy Thanksgiving back,” Zeke says.

Happy Thanksgiving back
from them :-)

So what’s the plan on your end,
heading out soon?

There’s no immediate response, so she tucks the phone between her thigh and the couch, away from Raven’s immediate view. No need to be too obvious about it. When it buzzes again, a few minutes later, she surreptitiously pulls the phone out again.

Probably not for a couple of
hours at least.

Miller’s trying to avoid having
to help…

Clarke manages to turn a laugh into a cough, but Raven still shoots her an annoyed look and she realizes it’s probably best to wrap things up.

That’s horrible Thanksgiving spirit!

You should drag him out to the car…
as soon as the parade’s over

This time the reply comes almost immediately.

I know, that’s my plan, shhh ;-)

Again, she holds back a laugh, but she can tell she’s not very successful from Raven’s huff next to her.

“If you’re going to talk to him all day you should have just invited him,” she complains.

“Sorry,” Clarke apologizes. “I’ll stop.”

I won’t tell a soul!

Raven’s giving me the evil eye…
she has a strict no phones rule
during the parade :-(

Uh-oh :-O I definitely don’t want
get on Raven’s bad side… not
a good starting point for this
relationship.

Clarke feels the corners of her mouth turn up at the last word.

Probably a good ground rule
in general, to be honest ;-)

Noted ;-) enjoy the parade, and
I’ll talk to you later, when the
phone ban has been lifted?

Of course :-)

Clarke can feel Raven’s eyes on her as she sends the last message and demonstratively holds up the phone when it’s gone through.

“Putting it away, see?” she says, making a show of putting the phone back in her pocket. Raven’s eyes narrow for a moment, but then she turns her attention back to the parade on the TV.

-100-

They watch the rest of the parade without incident, and soon after it’s over, the other Thanksgiving guests start joining them.

Harper and Monty are the first to arrive, bringing Harper’s famous pies. Clarke and Raven have been trying to get the recipe for her apple pie out of Harper for decades, but she still refuses to tell them more than the fact that she has a secret ingredient. Which of course doesn’t help one bit. The handful of times that Harper and Monty have spent Thanksgiving somewhere else since they started their little Friendsgiving tradition, Clarke and Raven (mostly Raven) have tried to replicate the recipe, but have yet to find that elusive secret ingredient. Last year, a frustrated Raven suggested that Harper must put a piece of her own soul in there… Clarke’s not convinced she’s wrong.

Jasper and Maya turn up fifteen minutes later, Jasper with a big bottle of what Clarke assumes – and fears – is his moonshine, which has somehow become tradition on the Thanksgiving table, and Maya clutching a large bowl with her amazing garlic mashed potatoes, covered with aluminum foil.

Last through the doors are Murphy and Emori – Clarke’s still not completely sure how Murphy ended up as a constant at these things, but he has been for the better part of fifty years. Emori’s the latest addition to their motley group, it’s only the third Thanksgiving since she and Murphy became a couple – another thing that Clarke’s not sure how it happened. Though she supposes it should be comforting – if anything, it proves that there really is someone out there for everyone.

“Hey, Griffin, heard you finally fell off the wagon and got a Norm boyfriend,” is Murphy’s greeting as he holds out a bottle of wine to Raven, probably picked up on the way and at Emori’s insistence.

“Hello to you too, Murphy,” Clarke replies with an eye roll, returning Emori’s hug. “And I wouldn’t call him my boyfriend, we’ve only been on one date.”

“Three,” Raven says, and Clarke frowns.

“How on earth do you get three? I could stretch to two, counting our brunch on Sunday, but not three.”

“Halloween.”

“OK, first off, that was a party,” Clarke objects. “Which we didn’t even go to together.”

“Oh, please, you were at the party for, like, an hour before he showed up and you both went MIA for the rest of the night,” Harper pipes in.

“Exactly,” Raven adds. “You spent almost four hours hidden away on the roof, just the two of you, ‘stargazing’.” She actually makes air quotes around the word. “I don’t care if it was technically at a party – that’s a date. Plus, you left together.”

“And that ended so well,” Clarke grumbles, throwing Harper a look through narrowed eyes that she hopes relays how betrayed she feels at her friend taking Raven’s side – Harper is usually the person in their friend group who tries to stay on everyone’s good side and mediates in situations like this – but she only gets an unremorseful shrug in return.

“Why?” Murphy asks, pouring himself a glass from the wine bottle Zeke’s opened. “He couldn’t get it up?”

Raven elbows him in the side. “Clarke spotted his Number and bolted. Left him standing in the middle of the street – literally.”

“And he still came back?” Murphy’s eyebrows shoot up. “That’s dedication. Or insanity. There’s a fine line between the two.”

“You’re missing the point, babe, as always,” Emori says mildly, shaking her head. “So he has a low Number?”

“268,” Raven says, and a collective wince goes through the room.

“Actually, 247 today,” Clarke corrects.

“Well, that sucks,” Murphy says, handing her the wine he just poured for himself.

Clarke wouldn’t say she knows Murphy very well, he’s sort of been a part of their little group for the past half century but she barely knows anything about his personal life. The way his mouth twists into a grimace makes her wonder if he might have personal experience on this matter, though.

“It really does,” she agrees, raising the glass to him in a silent toast before taking a sip. “I don’t suppose any of you have heard of someone being able to change a Number?”

The others glance at each other, the expressions on their faces telling her everything she needs to know.

“That’s not… you know it’s not possible,” Monty finally says, voice gentle.

Clarke sighs. “I know. I figured it couldn’t hurt to at least ask.” To her enormous relief, Maya hurries to change the subject and that’s the end of the Bellamy discussion, at least for the moment. She has no doubt they’ll circle around to it again before the day is over because, well, most of her friends are assholes. She loves them, but that doesn’t make it any less true.

Now that there are more competent cooks in the kitchen, Clarke is happy to watch the action from the bar counter, sipping her wine.

As usual, Murphy questions everything Raven’s done and tries to ‘fix’ whatever he can get his hands on, until Raven physically kicks him out of the room. Maya and Harper join forces to finish the sweet potato pie, Emori starts whipping cream for the desert, Monty oversees the Brussel sprouts and green beans, and Jasper – who, if possible, is worse than Clarke when it comes to cooking – manages to burn a pot of mac and cheese. Luckily, Raven has extra, since Jasper always tries to make it and always ends up burning it, so soon enough, Zeke is ladling up a perfect batch of the pasta dish into a bowl.

Since nobody’s really paying her much attention, Clarke takes the opportunity to pull her phone out of her pocket again, sending off a text to Bellamy.

Did you know that cooking
can be a spectator sport?

She doesn’t expect an immediate answer, it’s almost two in the afternoon so he and Miller and Jackson might very well be on their way to Miller’s parents, or already there. But he didn’t say anything about not being available, so…

She checks her job app, just to make sure nothing’s happened to the Transfers she has later in the evening, but everything’s still the same for both.

She’s about to open her Instagram when her phone buzzes with an incoming message, and she quickly switches to the message app, butterflies flopping a little in her stomach when Bellamy’s name fills the screen.

Aw, poor Princess! Been benched?

She rolls her eyes at his insistence of using that stupid nickname… even if it is a little cute.

And I’m not even the only crappy
cook here! Jasper burnt mac and
cheese so bad just now he set
off the fire alarm!

Please tell me there’s at least
one person there who can actually
cook? And someone watching
the rest of you so you don’t burn
down Raven’s amazing apartment…

A laugh escapes her as she reads the message, and she quickly looks up, but nobody seems to have noticed.

Relax, Mom ;-) Raven’s a great
cook and Zeke’s pretty good

I’m almost positive Murphy’s secretly
a gourmet chef too, though I’ve
never been able to prove it…

It’s really just me and Jasper who
need supervision

That’s a relief!

So you’re allowed outside
communication now ;-)

At the reminder, Clarke glances at Raven, who’s busy checking on the turkey. There’s no spoken rule about no phones during the cooking and eating part of the day – not that there really is during the parade, either – but she’d still rather not get caught.

Technically, yes

Though I don’t want to face the
Spanish inquisition over turkey,
so I’m keeping you on the
down low ;-)

So I’m your dirty little secret?

“Hey Clarkey!”

Jasper’s loud voice makes Clarke look up just as he literally jumps onto the bar stool next to her. It sways for a moment, but then he grabs onto the counter to keep it from toppling over.

“Did you already start on the moonshine, Jas?” she asks amusedly, putting her phone down on the counter.

He waves his hand in the air in what is probably, in his mind, some sort of explanation. “Just a tiiiiny bit. But this is not about me. How are you?”

“I’m fine, Jas,” she assures him. “Just enjoying spending the holidays with my best friends.”

“Aw, you’re my best friend too!” He frowns. “After Monty. And Maya. You’re definitely one of my best… est friends. For sure. Like, top ten, easily.”

“Good to know, Jasper.” She catches Raven’s eye across the kitchen, nodding discretely at Jasper. Raven picks up on her meaning and pops a pod in the coffee maker next to the stove. “How about we get you some coffee, huh? Get you sobered up before dinner.”

Jasper frowns adorably. “I didn’t drink that much.”

He probably didn’t. “I know, but your moonshine’s way too strong, you know that.”

He really should know better by now, but in a way, Jasper getting a little drunk as they wait for Thanksgiving dinner has become a tradition.

Raven puts a steaming mug of coffee down on the counter before returning to the oven, and Clarke nudges it closer to Jasper. “Come on, drink up.”

He obediently drinks some of the hot liquid.

“So how is the new boyfriend?” he then asks. “Why didn’t you invite him to this thing? You should have invited him! We want to meet him!”

She doesn’t even bother trying to correct him on the whole boyfriend thing, she knows there’s no point. It might even hurt her case – Jasper is a firm believer in the theory of ‘the lady doth protest too much’. “We had our first official date last night, I think it’s a little soon to officially introduce him to all of you lunatics. And you already did meet him, at Halloween, remember?”

Her phone buzzes as she speaks and she turns it over to read the message.

That might be fun, actually…
all cloak and dagger, sneaking
around… kind of hot ;-)

“Is that him? Hey, guys, Clarke’s texting with her new boo!”

“Jasper, for the love of all that is holy – never use that word again,” she says absentmindedly as she types out her answer.

Sorry, Jasper caught us! The cat’s
out of the bag… not sure it was
ever in it, but you know what
I mean

“Yeah, Jasper, don’t try to be hip, it doesn’t work anyway,” Murphy pipes in from the doorway to the hall. “And you’re wasting a perfectly good opportunity to snoop and see what they’re talking about.”

Jasper eagerly leans towards her at that, but Clarke pulls the phone away from him and gives him her best stern look. He immediately shrinks back.

“Sorry, bro, I’m way more scared of her than I am of you,” he says and Clarke awards him with a smile.

“Good choice.”

And here I was looking forward to
slipping in through your window
in the middle of the night…

A little disappointed, I have to say.

She can’t hold back the laugh that bubbles up in her throat, and Jasper gives her a look with raised eyebrows.

Tell you what – if you manage to
climb the building, you can still
sneak in through my window ;-)

When she looks up from her phone, everyone in the kitchen are watching her.

“What?” she asks, suddenly self-conscious with all the attention on her.

Raven shrugs before turning back to the oven. “It’s just been a while since I’ve seen you smile like that,” she says in a deliberately off-hand voice.

Clarke rolls her eyes before focusing on her phone again. “Yeah, yeah.”

Hmm, didn’t think about that part…
possibly not the best idea I’ve
ever had.

OK, we’re here, think I have to
go be social for a while :-/

Oh, no, you mean like actually
talk to people?

I know, crazy concept, right? You
should try it too ;-)

I don’t know… these people look
kind of weird…

:-D Need new friends?

Pretty sure I’m stuck with these
losers by now…

OK, go be social, I’ll survive…

If you insist… OK, tell everyone I
know hi.

Talk to you later :-*

It’s silly that three little symbols arranged in a specific way to indicate pouting lips can make her stomach swoop and her heart stutter, but they do.

“Ooh, they’ve advanced to kissy emojis.” Jasper’s voice pulls Clarke out of her musings and she finds him leaning in close, reading the messages on her phone. She immediately turns it over to hide the screen.

“Hey! I thought you were scared of me?” she says, pushing him away from her, but grabbing onto his arm as the movement makes him stumble off the stool and onto the floor.

“Well, yeah.” He shrugs. “But I’m also too curious for my own good.”

“He really is,” Maya agrees, crossing the kitchen while she wipes her hands on a towel. “Leave her alone, Jasper.”

“Your wish is my command, my lady,” he says, giving an exaggerated bow and kissing Maya’s hand. She giggles and blushes, and Clarke is reminded of why they’re some of her favorite people – despite having been together for almost three decades, they still act like teenagers with a first crush sometimes.

“God, you’re corny,” Clarke says with a laugh. “Stay away from my phone!”

She turns it back over and sends two more messages.

Will do :-)

Have fun and talk to you later :-*

She hesitates for a moment before hitting send on the second one – what if he didn’t mean to send a kiss emoji? But so what, she decides, resolutely hitting the send button and then putting the phone back in her pocket. Even if he didn’t, she can do it first. It’s the twenty-first century, damn it!

“OK, people!” Raven claps her hands together, drawing everyone’s attention. “The turkey is coming out of the oven. Everyone knows their task – get the table set and everything out there. Go!”

They’ve done this so many times by now it’s like a well-oiled machine – everyone grabs something from the kitchen cupboards or counter and practically march into the large living room, where there’s a huge table seating twelve. This year, there’s just nine of them, but they have had to add extra chairs a few times over the years.

It takes a couple of rounds to the kitchen, but soon everyone’s seated around the table and Zeke is carving the turkey.

It might be a cliché, but Clarke doesn’t really care – when it’s her turn to say what she’s grateful for this year, it has to be her friends.

Chapter Text

Black Friday dawns grey and wet, the mist rising over the East River in swirls of silvery white. Since Clarke has the whole day off, she doesn’t immediately get up, instead just ventures out to the kitchen to make some coffee and a few slices of toast that she takes back to the bedroom.

Bastet is stretched out at the foot of the bed, blinking at her sleepily when she crawls back under the covers. She brings the mug to her lips and takes a long sip of the wonderful, hot beverage before caving and picking up her phone.

She and Bellamy texted on and off during the afternoon yesterday, and then some more when both of them got home in the evening, somehow ending up in a discussion about Brooklyn 99 that lasted hours. Time really got away from both of them, and when they finally said goodnight, it was after one in the morning. She knows that Bellamy started work at eight today, so she hopes he managed to get some sleep and isn’t too tired.

She’s starting to get used to the swooping feeling in her stomach when there are messages waiting for her when she unlocks her phone.

Good morning Princess :-)

Getting up today was no fun,
hope your day’s off to a better
start than mine – thank God for
coffee!

Though talking to you was worth it ;-)

Enjoy the day off and I’ll talk to
you later :-*

She lets the ending emoji warm her along with the coffee, and sends off a couple of replies before moving onto her toast.

Good morning :-)

Just woke up to your messages,
so my day’s starting great ;-)

Hope you got at least some sleep,
sorry for keeping you up so late…

Have a good day at work :-*

She puts the phone away and focuses on her breakfast, absentmindedly watching the rain that’s started pouring down on the other side of the windows as she chews. Bas comes closer, stretching out on her back asking for a belly rub, her body bent in a way that should be impossible, and Clarke happily obliges. Purring soon fills the air, the perfect soundtrack to a lazy morning in bed.

She’s just swallowing the last bite of toast when her phone buzzes, and she quickly grabs it from the nightstand.

She’d like to say that the smile spreading on her face in anticipation doesn’t fall slightly when she sees Wells’ name on the screen, but that would be lying.

Not that Wells has to know that, of course. She opens the message.

Skype?

They try to Skype once a week, but it’s been over a month now because Wells and his girlfriend Sasha have been traveling. They’ve still talked a few times, but it’s not the same as actually seeing each other, even if it is just through a computer screen.

Give me 10

She pulls on a pair of sweats and a comfy sweater, finger combs her hair – Wells has seen her looking way worse, so it’s not like she needs to put in much effort – and then starts up the computer before going into the bathroom to brush her teeth. When she’s done, the machine has finished booting up and she clicks on the little blue logo with the white S to open the program.

She knows Wells is sitting at his computer, waiting for the ten minutes to pass, so she clicks on his profile and then the little camera to call him instead.

It only takes a moment before the screen changes to an image of Wells in front of the window behind his desk, the grey sky in London mirroring the one in New York.

“Hey there, Griffin,” he greets her with a smile.

“Hi Wells,” she replies, her smile matching his. “How was China?”

His eyes shift from the camera to something behind the computer, and then Sasha pops into view. “Hi Clarke! How are you?”

“I’m great, Sash, you? I was just asking Wells about China.”

“China was amazing, I can’t believe it took me almost sixty years to finally get there!” Sasha gushes. “Wells can tell you about that, though, so I’ll leave you to it. But hey – you should take some time off soon, come visit, yeah?”

“That sounds wonderful, I could use a break.”

She probably could, she hasn’t had more than two consecutive days off since June. And she hasn’t seen Wells and Sasha since early spring, when she spent two weeks at their place. But she knows that – unless Bellamy has a change of heart and decides he doesn’t want to see her anymore – she won’t be going anywhere in the next eight months or so. She’s planning on spending all the time she can with him before it’s too late.

The thought brings a lump to her throat and she swallows hard, trying to push the sudden wave of sadness away.

“What’s wrong?”

Wells clearly knows her too well if he can pick up on her slight change of mood over a pixelated Skype connection.

“Nothing,” she assures him, forcing a smile back on her face. “So tell me more about China.”

He gives her a long, scrutinizing look but eventually obliges, giving her a detailed description of everything he and Sasha did while they were in China. Clarke’s quite frankly impressed that they had time to squeeze so much in during just a month, especially since it seems like they’ve seen every corner of the country, from Beijing and the Great Wall in the north to Hong Kong in the south and Lhasa with its amazing palace in the west.

“God, that sounds amazing,” she sighs when Wells finally finishes. “It’s been way too long since I did a trip like that…”

“So why don’t you?”

Clarke sighs. “It takes some planning, Wells, you know that. I can’t just up and leave.”

“Right. So this doesn’t have anything to do with the boyfriend I had to learn about from Jasper?”

Damn it, Jasper. She should have known that he wouldn’t be able to keep his mouth shut.

“You mean the boyfriend I specifically told Jasper isn’t my boyfriend? And when did you have time to talk to Jasper, I thought you got back last night?”

Wells laughs. “That one, yeah. And we did, I had a snap waiting for me when I turned my phone on after getting off the plane.”

Clarke raises her eyebrows. “Since when do you use Snapchat?”

He shrugs in response, grabbing his phone from the desk next to the computer and tapping the screen as he speaks. “I don’t really use it much, but I do check the snaps people send me, and apparently, you made heart eyes at your phone as soon as it beeped all day yesterday.”

“I did not!”

Wells just holds up his phone so she can see the screen, where there’s a photo of herself looking down at her phone with, OK, a slightly mushy expression on her face. Jasper’s used some animation that makes stars rain over her and captioned it ‘Clarkey’s in loooooove’ followed by a bunch of hearts.

“So you want to try another explanation for not wanting to go travelling?”

For a moment, she considers trying to brush it off. But this is Wells – he might be the only person in the world who knows her almost as well as, or maybe even better than, Raven does. There’s no way she can fool him, even long distance.

“I mean, yeah,” she finally admits. “I’m not really interested in going off on a month long adventure right now, and it probably does have a lot to do with Bellamy.”

Wells eyebrows furrow and he shakes his head slowly. “Leave it to you to rule out Norms for a century and a half, and when you finally give one a chance, he’s dying in a few months.”

Clarke balls up a post it note and throws it at the screen, making Wells laugh.

“It’s not like I planned it, you know,” she grumbles. “He just… I don’t know, there was something there right from the start, something I’ve never really felt before.” She winces as she realizes what she just said to her ex-boyfriend. “Sorry!”

“Don’t worry about it,” he brushes off with a wave of his hand. “I was there, I know we didn’t have a love-at-first-sight thing. I wore you down!”

She ignores the little jab. “I figured I’d never see him again, but then he somehow ended up at Raven’s Halloween party, which was when I saw his Number for the first time… I tried to keep my distance after that, but obviously I suck at it. And now here I am, falling for someone I know will be gone by this time next year.”

It actually feels good to say it, to get the words out there. Like a weight has been lifted off her chest, letting her breathe more freely.

“And still you’re not considering running,” Wells notes, almost conversationally.

Clarke shrugs. “Raven says I’m already in too deep. And she’s right. I can’t… I know it’ll probably be so much worse when the time comes, but just thinking about never seeing him again when I could, at least for a while… I’m not that strong.”

“I think you’ve got that backwards,” he says gently. “It takes someone very strong to go into a situation like this with their eyes wide open, knowing what’s coming.”

“Sometimes I forget,” she mumbles, looking away from the screen and down at her hands. “We were texting all evening yesterday and I just… I didn’t even think about it once. But just now, when Sasha mentioned me coming to visit, it hit me all over again.”

“And you’ve talked to Raven about this, obviously?” Wells asks.

Clarke understands why he thinks it’s obvious, and it is – Wells has had a few relationships with Norms over the decades too, but never any longer than a few years, and he’s never gotten to a point where he’s told a Norm partner about his ‘line of work’. As far as Clarke knows, Raven’s the only one of her friends and acquaintances who has had a long term relationship with a Norm that didn’t end until death.

“I have, not that she’s much help. She just said it was worth it in the end, which… OK, but they had over forty years, you know?”

Wells mouth turns up in what looks more like a grimace than a smile. “Yeah, I don’t know what to add to that, to be honest. But something tells me it wouldn’t matter if I had the most compelling argument for ending this thing now, before you get seriously hurt. Am I right?”

“Yup.”

“Then all I am going to say is this – I am always here when you need me.”

She wishes that Skype would have invented virtual hugs, because she wants one right about now. Or maybe teleporting, that would be useful. Just pop over to London for a few minutes, get some much needed physical contact, and pop back.

“I know. Knowing that you and Raven will be there is… it’s everything.”

“Good, I’m glad.” He fixes her with an unimpressed look. “Now, let’s move on to the fact that I had to hear about this from Jasper.”

Clarke holds her hands up in the universal gesture of surrender. “Hey, it’s not my fault you have crappy timing! What’s the longest conversation we’ve had in the last month, five minutes? And it was all you going on about ‘oh, this and this is so amazing, you wouldn’t believe… got to go, we’re on our way to so and so!’. Excuse me for not being able to get a word in edgeways.”

This is completely true, even if she has to admit that she hasn’t tried very hard to tell him.

Wells just laughs. “Fine, you’re off the hook.”

To Clarke’s relief, he then changes the subject and they spend another hour or so talking about everything from Wells’ job at an animal shelter (he’s the reason Clarke ended up with Bastet in the first place, as a kitten she was found abandoned in a garbage bag along with her siblings and brought to the shelter he volunteered at in Chicago before he left for the UK) to Clarke and Raven’s Thanksgiving celebration yesterday. Wells usually says that it’s one of few things he misses about the US – Thanksgiving. Especially the food. He makes her describe every dish in detail while he stares dreamily somewhere off screen.

“Careful, you’ve got a little drool right there,” Clarke tells him amusedly when she’s finally done.

Wells rolls his eyes. “Funny, Griffin. OK, I have to go, I have a Transfer in a bit. Just jumping right back into the day-to-day life.”

“OK. But don’t think that you’re getting out of our Skype sessions now that you’re back in good ole’ England. I expect you to follow our regular schedule from now on!”

“Of course,” he laughs. “Same-ish time next week, scout’s honor.”

“Like you were ever a boy scout.”

“But I did volunteer at that summer camp once, remember?”

“Yeah, yeah. OK, go, talk to you later.”

“Of course.” He hesitates for a moment. “And I’m here, whenever, OK?”

She’s managed to push the previous rush of feelings off during their talk, but now she feels a small lump in her throat again. “I know.”

Wells nods once, as if in confirmation. “OK. Love you.”

“Love you too. Bye.”

He gives a sort of half-wave, and then the screen goes dark.

Clarke spends the rest of the day painting. She has two commissions waiting, and makes quick work of the first one – an oil painting based on an adorable but pretty boring photo of a schnauzer with a bow tie. It’s a new client who, apart from the photo, has sent detailed instructions on color choices and a whole bunch of other stuff. Her least favorite type of client, really, but she still enjoys the actual painting process.

The second commission is more up her alley – it’s a client that has bought a couple of paintings from her before, all for his wife, and this one’s a Christmas present for her. All he’s sent is a few photos of the room where it’s meant to go and the measurements. Clarke sits for a moment, just looking at the canvas, now and then letting her gaze drift through the windows behind it where the sun has finally decided to make an appearance and is reflecting off the glass buildings across the water.

Eventually, she picks up the brush and makes one bold stroke across the canvass, pausing to get a feel for it before making another, and another.

Normally, she gets completely engrossed in her painting, and it’s not unusual that a call or text or Bastet pulls her out of it hours later, making her realize that she hasn’t eaten since breakfast. Today, though, she takes regular breaks when her phone buzzes with a new message from Bellamy.

He starts sending her photos of funny things he comes across while working – a grumpy looking cat giving him death glares through a window, a guy wearing a minion outfit riding a unicycle at Times Square, a bunch of corgis with Santa hats. In return, she sends him updates on her progress, getting encouraging replies or questions back.

The heavy feeling in her chest and stomach that the conversation with Wells left her with slowly lifts as the hours pass, in favor of the warmth that she’s started to connect with Bellamy. In the early afternoon, he asks what she’s had for lunch, and when she admits that she hasn’t eaten yet, he keeps sending messages that only consists of FOOD, each time followed by more exclamation points, every thirty seconds until she sends a photo of herself taking a bite of meatloaf with roasted potatoes (so what if it came in a box and was microwaved?).

She finally wraps up the painting a little after eight in the evening. She hasn’t gotten a message in a while, since Bellamy has a class from seven to eight thirty, and she tries to not glance at the too quiet phone. And fails miserably, of course. She calls in an order for Chinese food before taking a hot shower, scrubbing away all the paint that didn’t end up on the canvas.

When her phone buzzes again, a few minutes before nine, she’s just put the steaming containers of food down on the coffee table and is flipping through Netflix to find something to watch.

Finally home.

How are you?

It’s almost like they haven’t texted all day and he doesn’t know pretty much everything she’s been up to. It’s only been a little over two hours since his last message.

Well, nothing major’s happened
in the last two hours :-P

Just got my dinner, trying to
decide what to watch… what
goes best with Moo Shu chicken,
egg rolls and Chow Mein?

The speech bubble pops up immediately, but the answer takes a bit.

Well, that depends on what you’re
looking for. I would recommend an
earthy drama with a hint of berries,
or maybe a fruity comedy with
creamy undertones.

Clarke lets out a laugh at the ridiculous descriptions.

I didn’t know you were such a
connoisseur ;-)

There’s a lot you don’t know
about me yet, Princess :-P

That’s the downside of texting – the lack of context, body language. Still, she doesn’t think she’s imagining the flirty undertone.

Oh, really?

Most definitely.

Want to find out?

More than anything. She wants to know every single little thing there is to know about him, wants him to know everything about her… really, everything. Which might be a problem…

She doesn’t say that, of course.

I thought that was the point of
this whole dating thing ;-)

Oh, so that’s what it’s about?

Seriously though, what are you
in the mood for? I’ll put on the
same, we can live text.

So they do. They end up watching some new sci-fi movie about an apocalyptic future, complaining to each other about plot holes and things that don’t make sense.

It’s one of the best dates Clarke’s ever been on, and they’re not even in the same place.

-100-

The Uber drops Clarke off at the intersection of two streets in the heart of Forest Hills, brick apartment buildings stretching in all four directions. She quickly checks Google Maps and determines that her goal is the building to her left, so she crosses the street and stops in front of the door. There are names with buttons to the left, no Blake on there but she quickly finds Miller on the fifth floor.

“Hello?”

She leans towards the little speaker thing.

“Hey, it’s me.”

“Hey, come on up.”

The door buzzes and she pushes it open, stepping into the lobby. The elevator’s waiting for her, and when she gets to the fifth floor, she immediately spots Bellamy leaning out through an open door at the end of a short corridor. A smile spreads on his face when he sees her.

“Hey, you found it,” he says, opening the door wider and stepping aside to let her in.

“Yes, there’s this little thing called satnav these days,” she teases, moving past him and into a long and narrow hallway. There’s a small side table just inside the door, and she puts down the two wine bottles she brought on it. “You should try it.”

He closes the door behind her and she toes her boots off before unbuttoning her coat.

“I don’t trust all this newfangled technology,” he retorts. “Didn’t you read about that guy who ended up in a lake because he followed the directions from his satnav?”

He holds out his hand for her coat, and she hands it over.

“Well, that’s the thing about satnav,” she notes. “Must be paired with common sense.”

He chuckles a little at that, hanging her coat up before turning to face her again. “Well, that rules out most people, then.”

“Unfortunately, yes,” she agrees, suddenly feeling almost shy under his intense gaze. “Hi.”

His smile turns into a more serious expression and he reaches for her hand, running his thumb across her palm, causing goosebumps to erupt all along her arm. “Hey.”

Their eyes stay locked for a long second, before his drop down to her lips. Clarke takes a small step closer and their breaths mingle for a moment before he leans down to close the last of the distance between them.

She meets him halfway, rising up on her tiptoes to reach better, and feels his hand slide around her waist to her back, pressing her closer.

The kiss is far from as chaste as their goodnight kiss on Wednesday, but not quite as heated as their first one. All too soon, Bellamy pulls away from her, clearing his throat as he takes a step back.

“The food,” he says, voice sounding almost a little guilty, gesturing behind him. “Don’t want to burn it.”

Clarke shakes her head a little, to clear the fog from her brain. “Right. See, I must really suck at cooking, it’s even rubbing off on you.”

He lets out a relieved laugh at that and then tugs on her hand, grabbing one of the wine bottles while she takes the other. “Come on.”

He leads her down the hallway, passing three doors on their right. The first door is closed, but the second one is slightly ajar and Clarke catches a glimpse of white and grey tile. The last door is almost completely open, revealing half of a tidy room. The wall that’s shared with the bathroom is covered with bookcases and under the window across from the door there’s a desk with a laptop that looks like it’s seen better days and a couple of open books. Through the crack between the door and the jamb, she thinks she catches sight of a bed made with a dark blue bedspread.

“Miller’s bedroom, bathroom in the middle, and my bedroom,” Bellamy narrates. “The kitchen’s up here on the left, and the living room down at the end of the hallway.”

It’s obvious that the apartment is old – none of the open plan living areas that are a constant in modern buildings – but it’s also clear that someone’s done work on it in the last few years. The floors are hardwood, or very nice laminate, not a carpet in sight, and all the walls are painted some shade of white or grey.

The living room, which she peaks into before following Bellamy into the kitchen, isn’t huge, but there’s enough room for a comfy-looking L-shaped couch and a recliner facing a big-screen TV. There’s even some art on the walls, which is something she always looks for – force of habit.

The kitchen’s a decent size, split down the middle by a breakfast bar with a couple of stools. The cooking area’s on one side – basic, white cabinets that have been spruced up with modern, stainless-steel knobs and somewhat dated but still obviously functioning appliances – and a small dining table on the other, currently set with a nice, white tablecloth, plates, cutlery and glasses, and two candles in the middle, not yet lit. Bellamy takes the wine from her and puts both bottles next to them, and she’s almost sure she catches a faint blush on his cheeks as he spots her looking at the table. He quickly turns away and rounds the counter, though, stopping in front of the stove, where there are two pots bubbling.

“Do you need help with anything?” Clarke asks, more because it’s the polite thing to do than anything else, leaning against the counter.

He gives her an amused look before lifting the lid off one of the pots. An amazing aroma immediately fills the room. “No offense, but I think it’s best if you stay right where you are,” he replies, tasting whatever’s in the pot. He’s apparently happy with what he finds, because he puts the lid back on and turns the knob to lower the heat.

“I should be offended by that,” she says, climbing onto one of the bar stools as gracefully as she can in her tight, faux-leather leggings. “But I’m used to it by now.”

Bellamy chuckles and opens a cupboard where he finds two large bowls that he places on the counter, before taking the other pot off the stove and transferring its contents – rice – into one of them.

“You look amazing, by the way,” he notes after he’s put the pot into the sink and poured water into it. “I should have said that right away, but you…”

“Distracted you with my wonderful sense of humor,” Clarke finishes the sentence for him, getting another laugh in return. “Thanks. You clean up nice too.”

Nice might be an understatement – he clearly knows what works for him, if the grey-blue button down, rolled up to his elbows, and dark wash jeans are any indication. The top two buttons on the shirt are undone, giving her a peak at smooth, bronzed skin that makes her throat a little dry. She quickly averts her eyes, before he catches her.

“Thanks, I think,” he replies drily. “What’s with the two bottles of wine, by the way? Trying to get me drunk, Princess?”

She raises an eyebrow at him. “Would two bottles be enough if I were?”

He tilts his head to the side, watching her for a moment, eyes darkening slightly. “Maybe not, but it’s a good start.”

Clarke feels a tug low in her belly and decides that a change of topic is probably a good idea. He seems to have some sort of hang-up about the food not burning, after all, so the scene that just played out in her mind, of sweeping everything off the counter and pulling him down on top of her, will probably have to wait.

“Good to know. Honestly, I just wasn’t sure what you liked, or what would go best with the food, so I got one bottle of red and one of white.”

He nods and turns back to the stove. “I’ve never been good at the whole food/wine pairing, but either’s fine with me.”

Silence fills the room for a moment, but not a tense silence, more the type of silence that Clarke’s used to from spending time with Raven or Wells, a comfortable silence.

“So, no Miller tonight?” she asks after a while. She figures if she’s going to jump him in the living room later – which is looking like a distinct possibility – it’ll be good to know if she needs to worry about the roommate walking in right in the middle.

“He and Jackson both managed to get yesterday off, actually, so they’re visiting Jackson’s parents on the west coast,” Bellamy tells her, turning the stove off and using some tongs to move the chicken pieces to the second bowl before pouring the rest of the content in the pot over them. “It’s the first time Miller’s meeting them, he was really nervous when I drove them to the airport yesterday morning.”

“Yeah, first time meeting the parents, never fun,” she notes, though she actually has no experience with it. Every romantic drama she’s ever watched, though, tells her that the first time meeting possible future in-laws is a big deal that’s almost always preceded by a lot of nerves and often involves very awkward conversations where the main character does their best to get on the parents’ good side.

She wonders if the trip was a last minute thing, or if Bellamy knew he’d have the apartment to himself when he invited her over… she hopes it’s the second one.

“Exactly,” he agrees. “One bonus of not having any left, I guess.”

Clarke snorts. “Ouch, that was dark.”

He pauses, hands reaching for the two bowls, and catches her eyes. “Too dark?”

“I’ve been told my humor can go pretty dark at times,” she replies with a shrug. “Actually, morbid is the word Zeke sometimes uses when Raven and I get going, so you really don’t need to worry about offending me.”

“Good,” he says, grabbing both bowls. “Right, I think this is all done, let’s eat.”

Chapter Text

Clarke watches as Bellamy brings the food over to the table, before going back around the kitchen counter and returning with two ladles and a corkscrew.

“You open the wine, I’ll light the candles?” she asks, and he nods. “Do you have matches or a lighter?”

He opens a drawer in the counter and rummages around among bits of string, keys and rubber bands for a moment before producing a box of matches, which he hands her.

“Want to start with red or white?” he asks as she strikes a match and holds it to the wick of the first candle.

“Hmm… I want to say that there’s some rule about white wine with white meat, but I honestly have no idea,” she replies, moving the match to the second candle. “Let’s go with white.”

“Sounds good,” he agrees, stripping the foil off the cork. “And I was going to make hot fudge chocolate pudding cake for dessert, red probably works better with that than white.”

“I’m sorry, hot fudge chocolate pudding cake?” Clarke asks, feeling her mouth watering at the mere thought.

“Yeah,” he replies, pulling out one of the chairs for her. “I wasn’t sure what to do, but then I remembered your motto about chocolate.”

“That sounds absolutely heavenly,” she says as Bellamy rounds the table and sits down across from her.

“I’ve never made it before, so I make no promises,” he warns her. “It could end up a complete disaster. But it looked great, so hopefully it’ll taste just as good.”

“I’m sure it will.”

“Go ahead,” he says, nodding at the food. “Ladies first. Or guests first, whichever one you prefer.”

The chicken is cooked to perfection, and the spice that the sauce brings to the dish really complements it. They eat for a moment in silence, but then Clarke feels his eyes on her and looks up.

“So?” he asks, eyebrows raised.

“This is amazing,” she assures him after swallowing down the mouthful she’d just taken. “Seriously, I’ve had chicken in restaurants that didn’t taste half as good as this.”

“Good,” he says, looking relieved. “And it’s not too spicy? I mean, I did say that I put jalapeños in it when we were talking about it the other day, and you didn’t say anything about it at the time, and I didn’t think that you might not want it too spicy until after I had added them, so…”

She can’t help but smile at his rambling and lets him continue until he trails off. “I love spicy food, don’t worry. It’s perfect.”

“OK, good.”

They keep talking food as they eat, discussing their favorite cuisines – Clarke is currently on a Mongolian spree, though she also has a soft spot for Mexican, while Bellamy has only recently discovered an Indonesian restaurant close by and swears by their soto padang soup.

By the time Clarke spears the last bit of chicken on her fork and pops it in her mouth, the wine is gone and she’s so full she’s seriously starting to regret her choice of leggings.

“Oh my God, I can’t get one more bite down,” she announces, dropping the fork and leaning back in her chair.

Bellamy chuckles. “So should we just skip the dessert, or…?”

She raises an eyebrow at him. “There’s always room for chocolate.”

He shakes his head, amused. “My sister used to say that about ice cream, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard it about chocolate before.”

“Oh, it totally applies to chocolate too,” she confirms, pushing her chair back and grabbing her now empty plate. “Any desserts or snacks, really.”

“Hey, no, I’ve got it,” Bellamy says, immediately jumping to his feet and taking the plate from her.

“I might not be good at cooking, but I can still carry dishes from the table,” she replies drily. “It’s not like vampires and churches or something, I don’t bounce off an invisible barrier when I get within five feet of a stove.”

“No, it’s not that, I just… you really don’t have to help, I’m just putting everything in the dishwasher.”

“And if I help, it’ll be faster, and there will be chocolate sooner,” Clarke reasons, picking up the rice bowl while he places their plates on the kitchen counter.

He considers her for a moment. “OK, fine, I’ll start loading the dishwasher, you grab the rest.”

“Thank you.”

It only takes one more round, since it’s just the bowl with the chicken left, and within a minute, Bellamy’s closing the dishwasher and moving to the stove again.

“It shouldn’t take long to whip this up, why don’t you go in the living room and find something on Netflix for us to watch while I do this?” he suggests, leaning down to extract a plastic mixing bowl from a cupboard. “It’s supposed to go in the oven for about half an hour, so it’ll be a little while.”

“Or I could keep you company,” she retorts, climbing onto the same stool she occupied before they ate. When he gives her a suspicious look, she raises her hands. “I promise I’ll stay on this side of the counter.”

“OK, fine,” he surrenders, turning to open a cupboard that apparently works as a pantry. He finds the ingredients he needs and puts them down on the counter before pulling his phone out of his pocket and unlocking the screen. “I downloaded the recipe,” he explains.

It’s nice to watch him work, he’s obviously very at home in the kitchen and never hesitates about where something is. Before long, he’s sliding the pan into the oven and closing it before straightening up.

“Right, now we just have to wait for 35 minutes or so and it should be done.”

“Enough time for another glass of wine and maybe agreeing on something to watch,” Clarke concludes, sliding down from the stool.

She’s only had three glasses of wine, which isn’t that much considering how much she’s eaten, and she doesn’t feel drunk in any way, but she still stumbles when her feet hit the floor, her hand going out to grab the counter. Instead, Bellamy’s hand closes around her wrist, holding her steady.

“You OK?”

When she looks up to respond, she finds that he’s much closer than she thought, just inches away, and for a moment, as their eyes lock, all words elude her.

She can tell that he’s having the same kind of reaction she is, his pupils dilating and his lips falling apart slightly. But he releases her and takes a step back, so she clears her throat.

“Fine. But maybe just one more glass of wine for me, or I’ll be the one getting drunk,” she half-jokes.

“We wouldn’t want that,” he says, placing one hand on the small of her back to usher her out of the room. “Grab the glasses, I’ve got the bottle and corkscrew.”

She obediently brings the two glasses with her into the living room, where she puts them down on the coffee table. Bellamy opens the bottle of red and pours some in both glasses, though barely filling them to a third. She decides to really take it easy on the wine from now on, because she has a sneaking suspicion that he’ll be afraid of taking advantage of her if he thinks she’s too drunk, and she really doesn’t want that.

He puts his phone on the table as well, and she sees that he has the timer counting down for the cake in the oven, before sitting down next to her on the couch, not quite as close as she would have liked, but they can work on that.

“Anything you feel like watching?” he asks as he turns the TV on and starts up Netflix.

“Anything but sci-fi,” Clarke replies. “Had enough of that last night.”

He chuckles a little at that and hands her the remote. “Pick something.”

She flips down the page aimlessly, stopping when she gets to a recent thriller that she’s been meaning to check out. “Have you seen this?”

When he shakes his head, she hits play and leans back on the couch, putting the remote down between them.

She has some trouble focusing on the screen, Bellamy’s presence just a few inches away from her extremely distracting. Every time he moves, she catches herself glancing at him out of the corner of her eye, and for the first time since they met, really, the room is charged with an almost tense energy.

Clarke’s done her share of dating, sure. But with her longer term partners, the relationships have always grown out of friendship, and even the Norms she’s had more than a one-time thing with in the past have usually started as hook ups and then evolved into dating or some sort of arrangement involving sex.

She’s never actually been on a date like this before, where she’s not sure where things are going, not totally comfortable sliding closer and leaning her head on her date’s shoulder.

She’s not completely convinced she likes it.

Right, she needs to get her nerves under control.

“Can I use the bathroom?” she asks, turning from the screen to face Bellamy.

“Of course.” He hits pause on the movie. “It’s… well, you saw where it is earlier. There are clean towels on the shelf above the toilet.”

“Got it,” she says with a smile as she gets up. “Be right back.”

Once she’s closed the bathroom door behind her, she leans against the wood and takes a deep breath.

The bathroom’s nice and, more importantly, spotless. To her right is a large, walk-in shower – she would guess there used to be a bathtub at some point, possibly removed once Miller’s grandfather got older, for easier access – straight ahead is a toilet with a shelf above it with a bunch of the promised clean and fluffy towels, and to her left is a vanity, built into an alcove in the wall. She turns the tap on cold, letting the water run for a moment as she scrutinizes herself in the mirror that takes up the entire wall behind the vanity. Her cheeks are a bit rosier than normal, and she can feel her heart beating too fast in her chest.

“OK, get a grip,” she tells herself quietly, leaning toward the mirror to give herself a stern look, her hands on the counter next to the sink. “There’s nothing to be nervous about, it’s just a date with a guy that you know is into you. So what if nothing happens tonight? You’ve got time… OK, not all the time in the world, but still. There’s no immediate rush. You do not need to get laid tonight.”

Oh, but she wants to…

She would love to splash some water on her face, but she doesn’t want to ruin her makeup, so she settles for running some over her wrists before leaving the room again.

Bellamy looks up when she enters the living room, a smile tugging the corner of his mouth up. She notes that he still has the remote in his hand, and that his other arm is stretched out along the back of the couch, behind her previous spots. She takes this as encouragement and sits down closer to him than before, not quite pressed up against him but still close enough that she feels the heat from his body all along her side, and leans back against his arm. He slides it down from the couch and wraps it around her shoulders loosely and immediately, the slight awkwardness from a little earlier is gone.

He starts the movie again, but Clarke still has trouble following along with the plot, instead preoccupied with the way his fingers move against the skin on her upper arm, just below the edge of her short sleeve, the way his breath makes a few strands of her hair move every time he exhales.

When the timer on Bellamy’s phone goes off, she jumps a little, earning a chuckle from him.

“Time for dessert,” he notes, voice a little rough. He clears his throat as he pulls his arm from around her and stands up.

I wouldn’t mind a different kind of dessert, Clarke thinks, but of course doesn’t say. She gets up too and follows him back into the kitchen, where he pulls the pan from the oven and puts it down on the counter. A wonderful chocolatey smell fills the room and she almost licks her lips in anticipation.

“There’s ice cream in the freezer,” he tells her. “I got vanilla specifically for this, but I think there’s rocky road too, and maybe chocolate fudge brownie, if you want a real chocolate overdose.”

She pulls the freezer door open with a laugh. “I might like chocolate, but that’s too much, even for me. Vanilla is perfect.”

She finds the ice cream and puts it down on the counter next to a tray that Bellamy’s produced from somewhere. He’s putting some of the cake in two bowls and spooning the gooey sauce in the bottom of the pan over it. “Enough?” he asks, holding out one of the bowls for her.

“More than enough,” she replies, glancing at the pan. “Did you split it down the middle or something? I’m pretty sure that’s supposed to be more than two servings.”

Bellamy just shrugs and scoops some ice cream into both bowls before placing them on the tray. “I doubt it’ll taste as good tomorrow, so we might as well eat what we can now.”

She shakes her head amusedly as she puts the ice cream back in the fridge and then follows him back into the living room, accepting one of the bowls before sitting back down on the couch.

The first spoonful makes the flavors explode in her mouth and she has to hold back a moan. “Oh my God, this is amazing,” she exclaims when she’s swallowed. “And I’ve explored New York’s chocolate scene extensively, so I know what I’m talking about.”

Bellamy laughs. “I’ll take that as a compliment, then. I have to admit, it is good. I’m not usually that big on chocolate, but this might just convert me…”

Try as she might, though, there’s no way Clarke can finish the whole bowl, and there’s still about one third left of the cake when she finally surrenders, though she’s finished the ice cream.

“OK, I admit defeat,” she announces, putting the bowl down on the table and letting out a big breath.

“I thought you said there was always room for chocolate?” he says with a chuckle.

“I was wrong,” she admits. “If I eat any more I might actually be sick, and nobody wants that.”

“Well, in that case, I’m calling it too,” Bellamy says, letting his spoon clatter down in the bowl and putting it down next to hers. “It was amazing but I think next time I’ll have to save some room and not eat as much dinner.”

The mention of next time, though it can definitely be interpreted in connection with the chocolate cake and not her, causes a warm tingle in Clarke’s stomach and she turns a little on the couch so she can look straight at him without having to turn her head.

“That sounds like a good plan,” she agrees, eyes falling on some chocolate on his cheek, right next to the corner of his mouth. “You have a little…” She gestures at the spot, and he sticks his tongue out, trying to lick it off.

“Did I get it?”

She shakes her head, reaching over to wipe the chocolate off with her thumb. When she withdraws her hand, she sees him follow it with his eyes and without thinking too much about it, instead of wiping it off on her napkin, she sticks her thumb in her mouth and sucks the chocolate off.

Bellamy’s eyes lock on hers as she does, midnight dark and blazing, and she feels her own heartbeat pick up.

She’s not sure who makes the first move, but a split second later, they both surge forward, colliding in the middle with a clash of lips and teeth. It’s a little awkward for a short moment, but then he slides a hand into her hair, tilting her head a little to the side, and they both moan as she parts her lips for him, letting him deepen the kiss.

They kiss like that for what feels like hours, but eventually, Clarke’s neck starts to complain at the odd angle, and she desperately wants to get closer, so she pushes against his chest to get him to move backwards on the couch. He does, pulling her along, and after some maneuvering – she doesn’t want to break the kiss but it’s tricky – she manages to move so she has one leg on either side of his hips, straddling him on the couch.

He wraps one arm around her waist, pulling her flush against his chest, the other hand resting lightly against her hip, and she in turn buries her fingers in his hair, earning a groan as she drags her nails lightly against his scalp.

She really needs to catch her breath, though, so reluctantly, she pulls away a little, looking down at him. The slightly wrecked look on his face, pupils dilated, lips open and slightly bruised from their kisses, goes straight to her core and she grinds down against his lap, feeling the effect she’s having on him.

“Fuck, Princess, you have any idea what you’re doing to me?” he gets out through gritted teeth, nosing at her chin until she lifts her head to give him better access to her throat.

“I think, oh God…” She trails off for a moment when he latches on to a sensitive spot right below her ear. “I think I might.”

Bellamy growls, actually growls, low in his throat and she feels his fingers hesitating at the hem of her top before slipping under it. His hand is large and warm against her back, and she moans at the combination of that and his teeth lightly grazing the junction between her neck and shoulder.

She inwardly curses her choice to wear these pants – the material is thin, and she can feel every inch of him through them, but they’re not exactly easy to get off in this position. The skirt she discarded would have been much more… practical in this situation.

Bellamy seems happy enough to stay where they are, though, at least for the moment, his hand sliding up and down her spine, sending shivers through her. He trails wet, open mouthed kisses back up her throat and then down again, continuing past her collar bone to the swell of her breasts, right above her neckline, and she can’t help but arch her back against him when he sucks a bruise into the sensitive flesh there. He keeps going a moment later, and when she feels the wet warmth of his mouth over her nipple through the material of her top and bra, she doesn’t even try to hold back the whine that rises up in her throat.

It feels like the blood in her veins is on fire, and she desperately wants to get closer, so when he pulls away slightly, she immediately tugs him up for another kiss. She releases her grip on his curls to pull the front of his shirt free of his jeans, and slides both hands up his stomach. His abdominal muscles twitch at her touch, and his fingers dig into the flesh on her hip for a moment before abandoning it completely. A second later, she feels his hand tangle in her hair, pressing her impossibly closer.

She lets her hands wander as high as they can get, but the shirt limits her movements considerably, so with a huff, she instead starts trying to unbutton the top button, to get the shirt off completely.

When he realizes what she’s doing, Bellamy breaks the kiss and pulls back so he can look up at her. Clarke frowns in disappointment, but takes the opportunity to finally get the button she was working on undone and continue with the next one.

“You sure?” he asks, voice rough and breath matching hers, just as she gets the second button undone and moves onto the next. “There’s no rush, that’s not… I didn’t…”

She cuts him off with another, shorter, kiss.

“Relax,” she tells him with a smile. “I know you didn’t have some sort of master plan to get me into bed, OK?”

He looks relieved

“Good. I mean, not that I don’t want to… obviously, I just don’t want you to think that…”

“Bellamy?” He immediately snaps his mouth shut and nods. “Stop talking.”

He does, pulling her down and putting his mouth to better use instead.

Clarke has finally gotten the last of the shirt buttons undone, and he leans forward so she can push the garment off his shoulders before he pulls his arms out of the sleeves and immediately wraps them around her again. One hand slips back under her top and continues north until he reaches her bra, which he gets undone with impressive speed.

She can’t get the bra off without either taking the top off first, or doing the little under-the-shirt routine to get the straps off her shoulders. Still, since it’s no longer clasped in the back, it’s not as tight anymore, which Bellamy takes immediate advantage off by pulling down her top and the cups of her bra, palming her right breast in his hand while his lips close around her left nipple.

“Oh, fuck,” Clarke manages to get out at the feel of his teeth grazing the hardening bud. The sensation travels through her entire body, and she presses herself closer to him, desperate for some friction.

He hums against her breast, his hot breath fanning across her already overheated skin, and slides his right hand around her waist, hesitating for just a split second before slipping it into her pants and underwear, squeezing her butt.

She lets the sensations take over, her head falling back and lips parting slightly, and for a long moment, the only thing in the entire world is Bellamy, his hands and mouth on her, the wonderful though not completely satisfactory friction as she rocks slowly against him, the muscles of his shoulder flexing underneath her hand and his hair curled around her fingers. It’s sensory overload in a way she’s never experienced before.

When his lips leave her breast – minutes, hours later? Clarke really can’t tell – she’s about to object, but then he kisses his way up her throat, eventually reaching her lips. She moans into his mouth as he deepens the kiss, their tongues battling lazily with each other.

Getting more and more impatient, she reaches between them and quickly gets the button and zipper of his jeans undone. At the same time, he pushes the hem of her top up, and they break the kiss briefly so he can pull it all the way off. She lets the straps of her bra slide off her arms and tosses it aside before leaning down once more.

She feels Bellamy’s hand, big and warm, slide down along her spine and then around to her ribcage, the other hand joining it on its journey up, and a moment later, he swallows her gasp as he tweaks both her nipples at the same time. In retaliation, she slips one hand into his jeans, cupping him through the material of his boxers, squeezing lightly, and is rewarded with a hiss. His hands abandon her breasts and he hooks two fingers in her leggings, pulling them down.

He doesn’t get far, of course, and when he can’t get any further, he pulls away from her, a small frown on his face.

“Yeah, that’s not going to work,” Clarke says breathlessly, a little impressed that she can actually string together a complete sentence right now. “Maybe move this somewhere else?”

Bellamy shakes his head, though she’s pretty sure it’s not a no, more a way to clear his mind a little. “Good idea.”

She half-reluctantly climbs off him, swaying a little when she’s upright. He notices, of course, and reaches out to steady her as he gets to his feet himself. Clarke uses his grip on her wrist to pull him along towards the hallway, but they don’t get far before he spins her around, pulling her flush against him again and kissing her, hard. He’s leaning down, so she doesn’t have to stretch up to be able to wrap her arms around his neck, which is a relief when he starts maneuvering her backwards.

Somehow, they make it into the hallway without breaking the kiss or knocking into something. Instead of continuing through the door to his bedroom, though, Bellamy pushes her up against the wall just outside. He pulls away slightly, giving her a smirk that can only be described as devious, and then drops to his knees in front of her. This time, he’s successful in pulling her leggings, and underwear, off, and she steps out of them when they pool around her ankles.

She expects him to get back to his feet, hopefully remove the rest of his own clothes and finally, finally fuck her, but instead, he drapes one of her legs over his shoulder and presses his lips against her stomach, just below her bellybutton.

“Bellamy,” she half-whines, not sure what she actually wants. Her hips jerk against him of their own free will, and she buries her hand in his curls.

“Just want to taste you, Princess,” he murmurs against her thigh, sending shivers of anticipation through her entire body. “Can I?”

“Please, please.”

He doesn’t heed her pleas right away, instead kissing and nibbling his way along her inner thigh, almost reaching the spot where she wants him most before switching to the other thigh. Just as Clarke opens her mouth again to beg him to stop teasing her, he finally does, his tongue sliding along her slit before circling her clit.

“Yes, fuck, like that,” she pants, fingers probably painfully tight around his curls, her head falling back against the wall.

He hums against her sex, which makes her gasp, and then repeats the motion.

It doesn’t take him long to get her to the edge – she was already really keyed up – but he doesn’t let her tumble over it right away.

“Please, I need… I need…” she babbles when she’s right there for the third time.

To her frustration, he actually pulls away completely, but before she can do anything, he slips two fingers inside her, curling them just perfectly, and sucks her clit into his mouth.

She falls apart with a cry, the leg that’s hooked over Bellamy’s shoulder locking him in place. The orgasm washes over her in waves, and after a moment, the only reason she’s upright is that he has her pressed against the wall.

When she finally comes down, he’s placing feather-light kisses against her thighs, stomach, hips. Clarke draws in a deep, shuddering breath and untangles her hand from his hair, letting it fall to his shoulder instead.

He looks up at her, an almost smug smile on his face. Which, OK, he has earned. “Good?” he asks, voice pitched low.

“Like you don’t know,” she says, though her breathless voice makes it less of a grumble than she was going for. Bellamy chuckles against her stomach, squeezing her thigh before lowering her leg back to the floor.

He rises to his feet in one fluid motion, his hands sliding up her sides, and leans down to kiss her. She can taste herself on his lips and tongue, and if anything, it turns her on even more.

“One of us is wearing too much clothes,” Clarke complains, pulling away briefly and slipping her index finger inside the waistband of his boxers.

He raises a challenging eyebrow. “So do something about it.”

Not breaking eye contact, she hooks her thumbs in his jeans, which are still unbuttoned but somehow have stayed up, and starts pushing them down his hips. He quickly reaches behind him, pulling a condom out of the back pocket, and she pauses.

“I thought you weren’t planning on seducing me?” she notes, amused, and gives the jeans one final push to make them fall to the floor.

Bellamy shrugs as he steps out of them and kicks them to the side. “Not planning, but a guy can hope.”

“Oh, yeah?”

Clarke slides her hand down his stomach and continues into his boxers, finally wrapping her hand around him. His eyes fall closed at the feeling and he leans his forehead against hers, letting out a harsh breath.

She sets a slow pace, swiping her thumb over the head of his dick before sliding her hand along the shaft and back up. His hips jerk in time with her movements, and she adds a little more pressure.

But Bellamy grabs her hand and pulls it away. She frowns.

“Did I…”

“No,” he cuts her off. “But we don’t want this to be over before it even starts, do we?”

“Definitely not,” she agrees.

He leans in to kiss her, and she hears the rustle of his boxers joining his jeans on the floor, then the sound of the condom packet being opened, before he steps closer and pushes her up against the wall.

They kiss for a long moment before he hooks his hands behind her thighs and lifts her up so she can wrap her legs lightly around his waist. Without pulling away, Clarke reaches between them to position him at her entrance and he slowly lowers her until he’s completely buried inside her.

“Fuck, Princess,” he groans, fingers digging into her thighs almost painfully.

“Uh-huh,” is the most articulate thing she can get out.

She wraps her arms around his neck, to get some purchase, and manages to rise up a little before sinking back down.

Bellamy meets her movement, thrusting up into her, and they moan in unison.

He takes the lead from there, shallow thrusts making her slide against the wall. It takes a moment, since she’s focused on the pleasure he’s giving her further south, before she realizes that the wall is covered in some sort of textured wallpaper that is less than comfortable against her back.

“Wait, wait,” she gets out, and he immediately stops moving.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Clarke quickly assures him. “Just… the wall…”

Bellamy understands immediately, wrapping an arm around her waist and pulling her away from the wall.

“Bed?” he suggests, and she nods quickly.

She wraps her legs more securely around his waist as he takes the few steps needed through the door to his bedroom and kicks it closed behind him. He kneels down on the bed and then lowers them both down carefully, managing to get them horizontal without even pulling out of her.

“Better?” he asks, sucking one of her earlobes into his mouth and letting his teeth graze the skin at the same time as he pulls out, almost all the way, and pushes back inside.

“Yes, yes, just like that.”

They find a rhythm quickly, Clarke pushing up to meet each of his thrusts, her nails digging into his back in a way she’s sure must be painful but he doesn’t seem to notice. He trails kisses down her throat until he gets to her breast, where he sucks her nipple into his mouth, hard, drawing a gasp from her.

He slides an arm under her hips, changing the angle of his thrusts just a little and making his pelvic bone drag against her clit on each thrust.

“Oh, God,” she moans, her toes curling into the soft bedspread beneath her.

She wasn’t sure she’d be able to come again, it sometimes takes her a while to get worked up again after an orgasm, but the position soon has her teetering on the edge again. She’s not sure if Bellamy can tell, but he pushes up to kiss her again.

“You close, baby?” he murmurs against her lips, and she nods frantically, a whimper escaping her as he slides a hand between them, finding her clit. “Then let go. Let me feel you.”

And she does, flying over the edge into oblivion, stars exploding behind her eyelids.

She’s vaguely aware of Bellamy hooking one arm under her knee and pulling her leg up, opening her up further to him, and by the time she’s coming down again, his thrusts have turned erratic. Clarke slides a hand up his back, tangling in his hair, and reaches up to kiss him, sucking his bottom lip into her mouth and biting lightly.

He comes with a groan, pulsing deep inside her, and she wraps her legs around his waist, keeping him there.

They kiss lazily as their breathing and heartbeats slowly return to normal. After a few minutes, Bellamy breaks the kiss and makes a move to roll off her, but she tightens her legs around him. “Not yet.”

He chuckles but obliges, burying his head against her shoulder and putting most of his weight on her, and they stay like that for a little while longer.

When she releases her hold on him, he kisses her deeply before rolling onto his back and sitting up. She follows, turning onto her side and watching him as he gets rid of the condom in a trashcan under the desk and returns to the bed.

He lays down next to her, on his side too and facing her, just a couple of inches apart. The only light in the room comes from the crack in the door and a streetlamp outside the window, and his face is cast in deep shadows. Reaching out a hand, he lets a finger trail up her side, from her thigh to her shoulder and then down her arm.

“Stay?” he murmurs quietly, eyes intent on hers.

Clarke almost says no without even thinking about it, a knee-jerk reaction. It’s been a while since she’s had more than hook-ups and one night stands, and she has two rules when it comes to those – always go to their place, and never stay the night.

But with Bellamy… she wants to stay the night. She wants to wake up with him in the morning. The thought is more than a little scary.

“OK,” she agrees with a small nod, and he leans forward to kiss her.

“You don’t have work in the morning?” he asks when he’s pulled away.

“Nope, not until the afternoon.”

“And the cat’ll be OK without you?”

The fact that he thinks to ask about Bastet makes Clarke’s heart melt a little. She can’t remember the last time someone she hooked up with did. Though, in all fairness, she doesn’t usually give them the opportunity to, since she doesn’t exactly engage them in deep conversations about their lives. But still. It’s nice.

“She’ll be fine, I gave her a little extra food before I left.”

Bellamy’s eyebrows shoot up and a smirk tugs at the corner of his mouth. “Really? Were you planning on staying out all night?”

She scoots closer and slides her arm around his waist, nudges his nose with hers. “Not planning…” she starts, repeating his earlier words back to him. “But a girl can hope.”

He laughs at that and kisses her before pulling away completely.

“Do you want a t-shirt or something to sleep in?” he asks, getting up from the bed and rounding it.

The sweat is starting to cool on her skin, and she realizes that she’s actually a little cold, so she nods. “Yeah, that would be great.”

He opens the second drawer in the dresser next to the door and rummages around a little before pulling out a t-shirt and tossing it to her. She holds it up – it’s grey, with the text ‘How was the Roman Empire cut in half? With a pair of Caesars’ on the front. Clarke can’t help it, she laughs out loud.

“Gag gift from Miller last Christmas,” Bellamy explains, before disappearing into the hallway. He returns a moment later, now wearing his boxers, and holding her leggings and panties. He hangs the leggings over the back of the desk chair, and holds out the panties to her. “Thought you might want these.”

She takes them and pulls them on before tugging the t-shirt over her head as well.

“Do you want to use the bathroom first?” he asks. “There should be an extra toothbrush in one of the drawers.”

“OK, thanks.”

She leans up for a kiss as she passes him, pulling away with a laugh when he reaches for her in an attempt to deepen the kiss, and then heads to the bathroom next door.

She uses the toilet before going on her toothbrush hunt. The first drawer seems to function as a medicine cabinet, with a couple of boxes of Tylenol, DayQuil and NyQuil, some bandages and Neosporin. She finds the toothbrush in the second drawer, but there’s not just one, there’s an eight-pack with two missing. She quickly pushes away any thoughts on why that might be there – it’s none of her business.

She pulls out one and brushes her teeth, deliberately not opening the remaining two drawers or the cupboard under the sink. She doesn’t want to snoop, even though he technically gave her permission to by not specifying exactly where the toothbrush was… She washes her face as well, cleaning off her make-up, and pulls her hair into a messy braid before leaving the bathroom.

Bellamy’s sitting on the edge of the bed when she returns to the room. He’s turned on a bedside lamp, closed the blinds and removed the bedspread from the bed while she was gone. The comforter that was hidden underneath is dark grey, and there are two matching pillows as well as a bunch of other, mismatched ones, at the head of the bed.

“There wasn’t just one toothbrush,” she says. “There was an eight-pack. Who needs that many toothbrushes?”

He chuckles. “It’s Miller, he has a bulk buying problem,” he explains.

Clarke raises an eyebrow at him. “Seriously?”

“Seriously. Jackson took him to Costco on his birthday a couple of months ago, and he said it was the best one he’s ever had.” He gets up from the bed and crosses the room to her, sliding his arms around her waist. “Why, did you think it was for all the girls I pick up at the bar on weekends?”

The thought had crossed her mind…

“Go get ready for bed,” she tells him in lieu of answering, and he leaves the room laughing.

There’s a book on the nightstand on one side of the bed, so Clarke gets in on the other side, fluffing up a couple of pillows and settling in. The mattress is just the perfect combination of soft and supportive, and the huge comforter is feather light but warm.

Bellamy returns a few minutes later, now sporting a pair of glasses with black, chunky frames.

“You wear glasses?” she asks as he pulls back the comforter and gets in bed next to her.

“Contacts, usually,” he replies. “I can technically sleep with them but my eyes are always really dry in the morning, so I normally don’t.”

“Hmm…” she hums, reaching out to push a few curls away from his forehead, her eyes sliding over his Number. She absentmindedly realizes that it’s the first time she even notices it tonight. 245. “I like them.”

“Good,” he replies, wrapping an arm around her waist and pulling her closer. “I’d hate for my glasses to be a deal breaker.”

Clarke slides a hand into his hair before pulling him in for a kiss, and he hums contentedly against her lips.

It’s not a kiss that’s leading anywhere, really, just a drawn out goodnight, in a way. After a few minutes, she pulls away and places one last, chaste kiss on his lips before turning around, so her back’s against him, and scooting backwards until her back is against his chest. She feels Bellamy shift away from her for a moment, probably taking off his glasses and then turning the light off, before he returns to his previous position and slides an arm around her waist, resting his hand against her stomach.

“This OK?” he murmurs into her shoulder, breath warm against her skin even through the t-shirt.

Clarke places her hand on top of his and interlaces their fingers.

“Perfect.”

Chapter Text

Clarke is sure they must have moved during the night, but when she wakes up the next day, cold morning light seeping in through the drawn blinds, they’re in almost the exact same position as last night – her on her side, Bellamy right behind her, close enough that she can feel body heat radiating off him but not quite pressed against her back. The only difference is his hand, which is now resting on her thigh.

His breathing is deep and slow, so she assumes he’s still asleep, but when she shifts a little, his hand slides down her thigh and then back up, settling on her hip. He pulls her tighter against him, grinding his hips against her butt, and she lets out a low moan at the feel of his morning wood.

“Morning,” he mumbles, voice raspy with sleep, into her ear, making her shiver.

“Mmm, morning,” she replies, pushing back against him. “Someone’s up.”

He chuckles against her throat before placing an openmouthed kiss below her ear. Clarke reaches back to slide her fingers into his hair and twists her head to be able to kiss him. It’s not the most comfortable angle for her, but by the time she breaks the kiss to let her neck rest, they’re both breathing hard.

Bellamy’s hand abandons her hip, trailing up her stomach and under the t-shirt, finally reaching her breast where he flicks a nail over her nipple, making her gasp, before palming her breast and squeezing lightly. She arches her back into the touch, but too soon he moves to her other breast, repeating his motions, and then slides his hand back down her body, all the way into her panties.

“Fuck, Princess,” he groans against her skin as his index finger slides easily between her already slick folds. Clarke angles her hips slightly and he immediately takes the hint and pushes the finger inside her, easing some of the tension coiling in her body.

Their position doesn’t let her do much more than move in time with his finger sliding into her and his hips grinding against her back. Their bodies are pressed too closely together for her to be able to get a hand between them and wrap around him, but she still reaches back under the comforter, finding his thigh, and lets her nails drag along it up to his boxers. The hiss in her ear tells her that he likes it, so she repeats the motion, this time continuing to the waistline and tugging, trying to tell him that she wants them off.

He pulls his finger out of her – which was so not what she wanted – but then he tries to push her panties down. She abandons her attempt at removing his underwear to help him get hers down her legs. While she’s kicking them and the comforter off, the sudden exposure to the air making her skin break out in goosebumps, he shifts away from her for a moment and when he returns, his boxers are finally gone. He’s fully hard now and when he pushes forward, his dick easily slides between her butt cheeks.

Bellamy stills for a moment, his fingers digging into her hips. Then he pulls back, sliding against her wetness with ease, and pushes forward again. Clarke gasps as the head of his dick bumps her clit, her fingers curling into the sheets. He slides his hand up her stomach, this time pushing the t-shirt up until it’s bunched underneath her arms, and pinches her nipple, making her arch against him.

She needs more, though, so she meets his next thrust with an angling of her hips, which pushes just the tip of his dick inside her. He lets out a ragged breath against her throat, but instead of pushing all the way in, he pulls away completely.

For a moment, Clarke’s confused, but then she hears the drawer in the nightstand opening. Right, condoms. She doesn’t technically need to worry about them, since she can’t get pregnant or catch an STD – both curtesy of being a Soul Keeper – but it’s probably too soon to pull the ‘I have an IUD and I’m clean’ card.

She rolls over, wanting to be face to face, and snaps the little foil packet out of Bellamy’s hand when he turns back to her. He watches her open it and roll the condom on, his breath hitching as she squeezes a little before letting go. Then he pulls her towards him, taking her mouth in a deep, dirty kiss. She happily returns it while shifting her hips forward a little and hitching her leg around his waist, her heel digging into his back and urging him closer. His hand slides along her back, across her hip and down her thigh and then he’s lining himself up and slowly pushing inside her.

They both pause, breaking the kiss when he’s completely buried inside her, their eyes locked for an infinite moment. Then Clarke moves her hips back just a little, letting him slide out an inch or so, and then forward again, pulling him back in.

Bellamy’s hand flexes against her back before sliding down, coming to a stop at her hip. The next time she moves, he meets her, keeping his movement slow but pushing deeper inside her, and she lets out a gasp at the feeling, wrapping her fingers around his bicep to have something to hold onto.

It’s slow and lazy, perfect morning sex, and Clarke realizes that she’s missed this, the intimacy of waking up with another person, of taking the time to enjoy each other’s bodies without hurry. The room is quiet, the only sound their bodies moving together and the occasional gasp and moan, the quiet of a Sunday morning like a heavy blanket over them.

For a long moment, their eyes are locked, their shallow breaths intermingling in the few inches of space between them, but then Bellamy closes the distance and kisses her, soft at first but when she parts her lips to let him in, it quickly turns dirty. His fingers dig into her hip for a moment, before he slides his hand around, up her stomach and finds her breast. When he pinches her nipple, she lets out a moan that he swallows, and he then repeats the motion in time with his thrusts. It’s not long before Clarke has to break the kiss to gasp for air, the first hints of her orgasm starting to build deep inside her.

He doesn’t let her catch her breath, though, sliding a hand down her stomach and rubbing tight circles against her clit at the same time as he pulls a nipple into his mouth, sucking hard. Within moments, she’s tumbling over the edge, eyes falling shut and mouth opening in a silent cry.

It’s not an explosive orgasm, like last night, no fireworks going off. Instead it washes over her in warm waves, slow ripples of pleasure rising and waning over and over. Bellamy keeps up the slow pace of his thrusts and a light pressure against her clit through it, though he abandons her breast to kiss and suck at the sensitive skin of her throat and neck, whispering things in her ear in between. Clarke only picks up bits and pieces here and there – beautiful Princess, feel amazing, good girl.

It feels like ages before she finally comes down, opening her eyes to meet Bellamy’s gaze. His mouth quirks up at one corner.

“There you are,” he murmurs, leaning in for a kiss.

She hums contentedly and wraps an arm around his neck, deepening the kiss for a moment before pulling away and pushing against his chest. He raises an eyebrow but secures an arm around her waist before rolling onto his back and taking her with him.

Clarke pushes herself into an upright position, which makes the t-shirt – that she had honestly completely forgotten that she was still wearing – fall down over her chest and stomach and pool slightly at her hips. She quickly pulls it over her head and tosses it to the side before leaning down for a kiss.

She stays still for a moment, focusing on the kiss and adjusting her position so she has better purchase, before she rises up slowly, almost letting him slip out of her completely, and then sinks back down in one fluid motion, twisting her hips a little.

“That’s it, Princess, feels fucking amazing,” he breathes against her mouth, his hands settling on her hips.

She rises up again, and back down, setting a quicker pace than earlier. Bellamy’s hands on her hips guides her lightly and he meets her movement with upward thrusts, but apart from that, he lets her take the reins.

She breaks the kiss after a while, bracing her hands against his chest and throwing her head back. On her next rise, she experimentally squeezes her internal muscles, and is rewarded with his fingers digging into her hips almost painfully.

“Oh, fuck, do that again.”

She does, eyes intent on his face as he squeezes his shut and grinds his teeth together, breath coming in quick gasps. It’s exhilarating, seeing that she can do this to him, having that kind of power. She leans down, letting her teeth graze his nipple and picking up the pace a little. The next time she sinks down, his hands tighten on her hips, preventing her from rising back up, and a moment later, she feels him pulsing inside her.

Clarke’s own orgasm a little while ago exhausted a lot of her energy, so she lets herself collapse on top of him, pressing a kiss against his shoulder. His hands move up from her hips, one arm circling her waist and holding her close, the other hand trailing up and down her spine.

“Now, that’s a good way to wake up on a Sunday,” Bellamy notes after a long moment, when both their heartbeats have finally returned to normal.

Clarke laughs at that and turns her face in against his neck, nosing at the skin beneath his ear. “Oh yeah. Wouldn’t mind that kind of wake-up call in the mornings. Way better than my alarm.”

His hand continues further north this time and he tugs a little on her braid.

“That can be arranged.” His voice is light and she’s not sure if he’s serious or if it’s just one of those things you say. Luckily, she’s saved from answering by her stomach rumbling loudly. Bellamy chuckles. “Breakfast?”

“Mmm, yeah. But maybe a shower first.”

“Good idea.”

She reluctantly moves off him, rummaging around at the foot of the bed to locate her panties as he ties off the condom and throws it in the trash. Before they leave the bedroom – neither of them bothering to put on any clothes – she opens the drawer in the nightstand and grabs another condom. He raises an eyebrow at her. “Really, Princess? Insatiable, are we?”

“You better get used to it.”

He just chuckles as he follows her into the hallway and then the bathroom. The harsh light makes her blink a couple of times, breaking the gentle haze of the morning.

Bellamy steps into the shower first, turning the water on and twisting the knob to hot. Clarke drops the condom on the counter before following him, closing the glass sliding door behind her and sticking a hand into the spray. It seems that he, like her, likes the water borderline scalding, which she appreciates.

“I’m afraid we don’t really have a lot of options here,” he says, gesturing at a shelf in one corner, where there are a few bottles of shampoo and body wash, all for men, which makes sense.

“That’s OK,” she says, taking a step closer to him, into the spray of the water. “I don’t mind smelling like you.”

He steps closer too, so her breasts are pressed against his chest. “Oh yeah?”

“Uh-huh.”

She doesn’t particularly want to slip and break her neck in his shower, so instead of reaching up on her tiptoes, she wraps an arm around his neck and pulls him down to her for a kiss. Bellamy’s arms immediately goes around her waist, pulling her closer.

They kiss for a long moment, the water beating down on both of them, steam forming in the enclosed space. Then he pushes her up against the shower wall, and Clarke hisses as the cool tiles hit her back.

“Cold,” she complains when he pulls back with a frown, and he chuckles.

“Maybe we should wash up?” he then suggests. “You know, what showers are for.”

“Oh, is that the only thing showers are for?” she questions, letting her hand slide down his chest and across his stomach, her nails scraping over his abs. Bellamy bites his lip as she continues further down, but she stops before she reaches her goal, backtracking the way she came.

“Tease,” he murmurs in her ear before taking a step back, and Clarke laughs.

“Come on, I’ll scrub your back if you scrub mine,” she offers, turning away from him.

He does, squeezing some shower gel into his hands and running them across her shoulders and down her back, massaging the lather into her skin with firm movements. He then moves onto her right arm, even scrubbing the palm of her hand before switching to the other arm and repeating the routine.

As he finishes, Clarke’s breathing picks up in anticipation, and when she hears him kneel down behind her, she’s almost disappointed. But then he wraps both hands around her left ankle and slowly works his way up her leg, all the way to the juncture between her thighs. His hands disappear briefly, and then one returns, rinsed off, and he cups her sex for a moment, sliding one finger along her slit, before he gets some more shower gel and starts massaging it into her right thigh, this time working his way down.

By the time Bellamy gets to his feet and slowly comes around to face her again, her legs are shaking slightly. He leans in to kiss her once, deep but short, before squeezing some more shower gel into his hands and rubbing them together to make it lather. He then places his hands on her shoulders, his thumbs rubbing circles against her collar bones for a moment before he slides his hands down her chest. He makes no move to stop at her breasts but continues all the way to her hips where he rubs the soap into her slippery skin, slowly moving upwards. When he finally reaches her breasts again, she’s panting, and when he uses one finger to circle her left nipple, she has to squeeze her eyes shut.

“Fuck,” she breathes, and he chuckles.

“You like that, baby?”

She just nods, limply letting him guide her under the spray of the water again to wash the shower gel off. A moment later, she feels his lips against hers and eagerly opens up to let him in. His hands slide down her back, all the way to her butt, and he pulls her closer.

Clarke hums into the kiss, wrapping her arms around his waist and pushing her hips against his. She feels his dick, half-hard again, twitch against her stomach.

When she pulls away, she gives him an innocent smile.

“Your turn.”

Bellamy watches her through hooded eyes as she finds the bottle of shower gel and squirts some into her hand. She starts the way he did, with his back, rubbing the soap into his skin and digging her fingers into his muscles at the same time. He lets out a content breath, his head falling to one side and she presses a quick kiss to his neck before continuing with his arms.

Clarke takes her time, massaging the shower gel into every inch of his back, shoulders, arms and legs. When she moves around to his front, she glances down to confirm that he’s at full attention before she starts on his chest. The muscles in his stomach jump under her hands, and when she sinks to her knees in front of him, he opens his eyes and looks down at her.

She maintains eye contact as she wets her lips and then drags her tongue along his dick, from the base all the way to the tip, and relishes the sharp intake of breath she gets in response. When she wraps a hand around him and sucks the head into her mouth, his fingers tangle in her hair.

She takes him as deep as she can, hollowing her cheeks when he hits the back of her throat and sucking hard for a moment. He lets out a string of expletives and his grip on her hair tightens. Happy with this reaction, she pulls back, swirling her tongue around the head before again sucking him into her mouth.

This time, she doesn’t pause as long but instead moves her mouth over him at a faster pace, using her hand at the base. After a few minutes of this, she feels Bellamy tugging at her hair more insistently than before.

“Fuck, babe, stop, I’m close.”

She reluctantly releases him and looks up. “Isn’t that the whole point?”

His hand leaves her hair and he tugs her up, kissing her hard.

“Maybe I want to come fucking you,” he whispers in her ear, the words going straight to her core.

“Well, I guess if you insist,” she replies, stepping away from him and sliding the shower door open.

“What’s wrong with right here?” he asks, tugging her back against his chest and grinding his hips against her butt.

“Do you know how many shower sex related injuries American hospitals see every year?” Clarke retorts. “I for one don’t want to be just another statistic. Wash off and join me.”

He laughs at that but does step under the spray to rinse off and then follows her out of the shower, obediently taking the towel she holds out and drying off haphazardly.

“Bed?”

“I said no shower sex, I didn’t say no bathroom sex,” she replies with a smirk, hopping onto the vanity across from the shower. The space between the wall and sink is wide enough that she fits without a problem and the counter seems to be the perfect height.

Bellamy hesitates for a brief moment before stepping between her legs. “Good thing Miller’s not home, that lock’s been broken for ages.”

She runs a hand down his chest and stomach, wrapping around him lightly. His eyes slide closed and he leans heavily against the counter, hands on either side of her thighs. “So what I’m hearing is make the most of the time we have before he gets back.”

“Good idea.”

He leans down to kiss her, hands moving to her hips and pulling her forward, to the edge of the counter. Clarke fumbles around next to her and eventually finds the condom she brought earlier, eagerly ripping the package open. He takes over from there, rolling the condom on before sliding one finger inside her, making sure she’s wet enough. Which, really not a problem, she’s been practically dripping since he finished cleaning her off in the shower. Still, he pumps his finger into her a few times, curling it just right, before lining himself up and pushing all the way inside her in one thrust. Not pausing, he pulls almost all the way out and then pushes back inside, a little more force behind it this time, which has her crying out as he hits a spot deep inside her.

“OK?” he asks with a frown, slowing a little but not stopping.

She nods frantically, using her heels to urge him on. “Yeah, yeah, keep going.”

He does, not quite as forcefully but definitely with enough power that she would have been pushed backwards on the counter if he hadn’t been holding her still. His mouth finds hers again, demanding, and she returns the kiss with just as much fervor, wrapping her arms around his neck to get even closer.

The tile underneath her butt is cold, a perfect contrast to the heat radiating off him, and she loses herself in the rhythm of their bodies moving in sync, their tongues sliding together, his hands on her hips and her fingers tangled in the curls at the nape of his neck.

When he breaks away from her to trail kisses down her throat to her breast, she throws her head back to give him better access and leans back against the counter. Only her right hand doesn’t find the counter, but the sink, sliding down into the bowl, making her tilt to the side.

Bellamy immediately stops moving and straightens up, a confused expression on his face for a moment, before they both burst out laughing. Clarke pushes herself out of the sink and places both hands on his chest. “OK, let me down.”

He nods and takes a couple of steps back so she can hop down on the floor. Her legs aren’t as steady as they might have been, but she doesn’t collapse in a heap, so she takes that as a win. Instead of pulling him along out of the bathroom and back to bed, which Bellamy probably expected, she turns on the spot, placing her hands on the counter she was sitting on a moment ago, and meets his eyes in the mirror behind it, raising her eyebrow.

A smirk tugs at the corner of his mouth and he steps up close behind her, one hand going around to cup her breast while he uses the other to position himself at her entrance and pushing inside her again. Clarke lets out a sigh and lets her eyes slide closed at the new angle this position gives him.

“No,” he murmurs in her ear, pinching her nipple, hard, making her moan. “Open your eyes. Look at me.”

So she does.

She’s not sure what it is, but watching herself in the mirror, Bellamy right behind her, is incredibly erotic. The bathroom counter hits her just below her belly button, so she can’t actually see him fucking her, but she can see the expression on both their faces, the way her breasts bounce with each thrust, his fingers digging into the flesh on her hips.

She can tell by the way his jaw is clenched together that he’s close, and it’s not like she minds not coming during sex, it’s not a must for her and she’s definitely enjoying herself, but still… she keeps her eyes locked with his as she uses one hand to push away from the counter a little, enough so that she can get the other hand down between her legs, finger immediately finding her clit.

But Bellamy won’t have that – she had almost suspected as much – and he pushes her hand away and takes over, his other hand sliding up from her hip to her breast, thumbnail scraping over her nipple a little harder than he probably intended, pulling a high-pitched whine from her.

Clarke leans forward a little more, not breaking eye contact, and braces her elbows against the counter instead of her hand. “Faster,” she gasps, pushing back against him.

He doesn’t need telling twice, immediately picking up the pace, using his thumb and index finger to tweak her nipple and applying more pressure against her clit, almost too much. Another thrust and his mouth on her throat, teeth nipping at her skin, and Clarke comes hard, squeezing her lips together to not scream out loud. As if he had been waiting for her release, Bellamy thrusts once more and follows her, groan buried against her skin.

She collapses against the counter, the only thing preventing her from sliding all the way down to the floor his arm tight around her waist, holding her against him.

Bellamy recovers first, straightening up behind her and pulling out. He presses a kiss at the base of her neck before releasing her, and Clarke slowly pushes herself up into an upright position, still leaning heavily on the counter and trying to catch her breath.

“You good?” he asks, nuzzling her neck and squeezing her hip.

“Fucking amazing,” she replies. “Just give my legs a moment to start working again.”

He chuckles, moving away from her to grab their discarded towels off the floor. He wraps one around his hips and drapes the other over her shoulders, making Clarke realize that the bathroom has cooled down considerably since they got out of the shower and she’s actually shivering a little.

“I’ll go get started on breakfast,” he tells her, his lips pressing against her temple briefly, and she nods.

He closes the door behind him and she waits a little longer, until her breath has returned to normal and it doesn’t feel like her heart is going to beat out of her chest, before lifting the toilet seat and sitting down. When she’s finished, she wraps the towel more securely around herself and looks in the mirror.

She has a hickey at the junction between her neck and her left shoulder, and she touches the spot, remembering Bellamy’s mouth there just a little while ago. She’ll have to remember to wear high neck tops over the next week or so, to avoid comments from the kids at her homework sessions, but she kind of likes it.

Her hair is starting to dry in an attempt at impersonating a bird’s nest. There’s a comb on the counter, so she works through the tresses, getting out all the tangles. The end result isn’t fantastic in any way, but it’s the best she’ll be able to do at the moment. She splashes some water on her face and then leaves the bathroom.

There are sounds coming from the kitchen, telling her that Bellamy’s already at work making breakfast. When she enters the bedroom, she finds that her bra and top have joined her leggings and panties on the back of the desk chair. The blinds have been opened slightly, letting in more light while still giving her privacy, but apart from that, the room looks exactly the same, the sheets still rumpled and the comforter kicked to the foot of the bed.

She pulls on her panties and leggings and puts on her bra, but instead of her top, which feels a little too flashy in the morning, she grabs the shirt she slept in off the floor and tugs it over her head.

There’s a clock on the wall over the dresser, and the time – only ten fifteen – surprises her a little, since they must have been up for a couple of hours by now. Then again, she supposes they probably went to sleep fairly early last night. She definitely wasn’t keeping track of the time, but she arrived at seven, so they probably finished dinner around eight thirty, then dessert… The intense make-out session on the couch felt like it went on for hours at the time, but that was probably just her mind playing tricks on her. All in all, they were probably in bed – and asleep – by midnight.

It’s so different from what she’s used to, picking up virtual strangers at a bar or club, stumbling into bed well into the small hours and slipping out again before first light. But the domesticity of last night and this morning – having dinner together, watching a movie (or at least trying to) and falling asleep together after amazing sex, waking up and doing it all over again – is something Clarke hadn’t even known she was missing.

And something she could definitely get used to.

She determinedly refuses to linger on the thought that it won’t last long enough for that.

Chapter Text

When Clarke enters the kitchen, Bellamy is at the stove, a large but still empty pan on one burner and a bowl in his hands. The toaster is plugged in on the counter, two slices already in it, and there’s an empty bread basket waiting next to it.

He looks up when he hears her, a smile appearing on his face when their eyes meet. “Hey there.”

She returns the smile, pulling out one of the bar stools and climbing onto it. It’s starting to feel a little like her spot, which she likes. “Hey. I hope you don’t mind, I’m commandeering your shirt a little longer.”

He lets his eyes run down from hers, taking in the shirt in question, before meeting her eyes again and raising an eyebrow. “Feel free to wear my clothes whenever you want. In fact, I encourage it. It definitely looks better on you.”

She laughs and shakes her head, pushes down the flash of desire his intense gaze and the words caused to shoot through her. “OK, good.”

“Scrambled eggs and toast OK?” he asks, opening a drawer and finding a whisk. “We don’t have much else, to be honest, so keep that in mind when you answer.”

“It’s perfect,” she assures him.

He shoots her another smile before starting to whisk the eggs that she assumes he’s already cracked in the bowl. She watches him work in silence, pouring the eggs into the pan and removing the finished toast when they pop up, putting another couple of slices in the toaster.

“You said you have work this afternoon?” he asks after a while, glancing up from the stove and Clarke nods. “When do you need to head out?”

She considers it for a moment. It’s Sunday, so traffic shouldn’t be too bad, but she still needs to go home first. “Probably in an hour or so? I have a story time at two thirty, but I need to stop at home and change, and probably grab a light lunch before my shift, I won’t be done until around four. Actually, I should probably get an Uber, there might not be any nearby…”

“Hey, no, I’ll take you,” Bellamy says immediately, continuing when she opens her mouth to argue. “Seriously, I need to get out of the apartment anyway, stop by the store for some provisions before I hunker down for an afternoon in front of the computer. Plus, it’s completely selfish – I’ll drive you home, wait while you get changed, and then I’ll take you to the library. You don’t have to leave as early, and I get to spend more time with you.”

His little speech is really cute, and she’s already convinced before he even stops talking. “Are you sure?” she still asks, holding back a smile.

“Positive,” he tells her, leaving the stove and leaning across the breakfast counter towards her. “And maybe we can grab something to eat at that diner you took me to last week? I mean, if you’re going to that library and not different one.”

“It’s that one,” Clarke confirms.

“Yeah? So, what do you say? Unless you were planning something else, of course.”

His eyes are intent on hers, his thumb rubbing against her arm as he waits for her reply.

“I didn’t have any plans at all, so that sounds great,” she replies with a smile, noticing how his shoulders seem to relax.

“Good,” Bellamy says with a nod, reaching up to cup her neck and pull her in for a kiss.

She returns it for a moment, but then pulls back. “The eggs,” she reminds him when he frowns slightly at her, and he quickly returns to the stove.

“Fine, prioritize getting fed,” he says, voice amused. “I see how it is.”

She watches him for a little longer, noticing that he seems lighter than a moment ago, standing taller somehow. Almost like a weight has been lifted off his shoulders.

She wonders if he was actually worried that she was just going to take off, if he’s still expecting her to bolt at any moment. The contrast between this insecure side of him and the guy that fucked her until she could barely stand just a little while ago is stark and makes her heart ache a little, since she knows it must be because of her disappearing act on Halloween.

Not that she can really blame him.

Before she can second guess herself, she slides off the stool and rounds the counter, coming up behind him silently. She wraps her arms around his waist and leans her cheek against his back, breathing in the scent of the shower gel that she knows she must smell like herself.

Bellamy freezes for a moment, but then he relaxes, one hand coming up to squeeze hers.

Clarke knows, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that she’s in this, until the bitter end, even knowing it will come much too soon. Now she just has to make him believe that.

The moment stretches on, her cheek pressed against his back, his heart beating softly in her ear. She closes her eyes and just lets herself exist, the heat from his body seeping through her shirt and into her skin, warming her from head to toe and right down to her bones.

The sound of the toast popping up in the toaster makes them both jump, and Bellamy clears his throat.

“The eggs are almost done, you want to grab juice and butter and stuff for the toast from the fridge?” he suggests. “I think we have at least strawberry jam, I hope that’s OK.”

“It’s fine,” Clarke replies, pressing her lips to his shoulder blade before reluctantly letting him go and opening the fridge.

She finds orange juice and apple juice and brings both to the kitchen table. As Bellamy thought, there’s strawberry jam half-hidden behind a carton of milk, and she also finds an almost empty jar of blueberry jam that she sets out on the table as well.

“Glasses?” she asks, and Bellamy nods at the cupboard above the sink.

She gets glasses and cutlery for both of them and sets all of it on the table before grabbing plates as well, which she leaves by the stove for the eggs. Remembering that Bellamy got ingredients for the dessert last night from one of the cupboards, she opens it and surveys its contents.

“Hey,” she says when she spots a jar of Nutella on the top shelf. “You were holding out on me!”

She has to stand on her tiptoes to reach it, but she manages to wrap her fingers around it without dropping it and holds it out almost accusatory. Bellamy just shrugs and turns back to the eggs.

“That’s technically Miller’s, not that he’ll mind if you have some. I’m not much for Nutella, to be honest,” he says, and Clarke’s jaw drops.

“How can you not like Nutella?” she asks incredulously. “That’s like not liking… kittens or ice cream or world peace!”

He snorts at the last one. “I’m pretty sure that’s a slight exaggeration, but fine – I’ve never actually tried it. We never had Nutella when I was a kid, couldn’t afford it. Octavia used to complain that all her friends had sandwiches with Nutella for lunch in middle school, when it started getting popular, and I had to explain to her why she couldn’t have it… I guess I developed some sort of grudge against it, almost.”

Clarke instantly feels bad and takes the few steps needed to cross the kitchen to where he’s standing by the stove, taking his hand in hers and squeezing. “That sucks, I’m sorry. But seriously, you have to try it. I promise you that the first bite will be… a revelation.”

He rolls his eyes at her exaggeration, but doesn’t argue, just squeezes her hand back before letting go. He grabs the bread basket and moves it to the kitchen table before returning to the stove and dividing the scrambled eggs between the two plates.

“Breakfast is served, your highness,” he says with a bow after setting the plates down on the table.

“You know, this whole Princess thing is getting a little old,” she complains as she sits down.

“Oh please,” he replies. “You love it.”

She shakes her head but he’s right, really. She does kind of like it when he calls her Princess… especially during sex.

Instead of admitting it, though, she busies herself with taking a bite of the eggs.

“These are amazing, maybe even better than Cheryl’s,” she compliments him. “How do you get them so creamy?”

He pours himself some orange juice and holds the carton up to her in question, filling her glass as well when she nods, before answering.

“The trick is to cook them really slowly,” he explains. “Lowest heat, don’t rush it. Some milk or cream is good too, but not really necessary.”

“Huh.” Clarke takes another bite, really savoring the soft, gooey eggs before swallowing. “I guess I’m too impatient.”

Bellamy pauses with the fork halfway to his mouth and raises an eyebrow. “You make scrambled eggs?”

She kicks him lightly under the table. “Yes, actually, I do.”

“Sorry,” he apologizes. “It’s just, I thought you were completely lost in the kitchen.”

“I am,” she admits with a shrug. “Except when it comes to certain breakfast foods, for some reason – scrambled eggs, omelets, pancakes, hash browns, that I can do.”

“So what I’m hearing is let you make breakfast next time?”

The reference to future breakfasts – and nights – together makes Clarke’s stomach flip and she looks down at her plate to hide her smile.

“Sure, I can do that.”

They eat in silence for a moment, until Bellamy reaches for a slice of toast.

“So, this Nutella thing… do you put butter under it, or just the Nutella?” he asks, looking up at her.

She shrugs. “It’s a matter of taste, I guess. I prefer just Nutella, but Raven can’t eat it without butter. I’m sure there’s an ongoing war about it on, like, Tumblr or Twitter, neither side giving an inch. Try both.”

He nods absentmindedly, buttering half his toast before sticking a knife in the jar of Nutella and spreading it over the entire slice. He then takes a bite out of the side with butter and chews thoughtfully.

“That’s pretty good,” he admits after swallowing. “Not entirely sure about the butter, though.”

“Try without.”

Bellamy turns the toast and takes another bite, nodding appreciatively. “Definitely better. But it’s a little rich for me, I don’t think I would be able to eat more than a slice with this stuff.”

Clarke laughs. “No, one’s usually enough, even for me. But see, you did like it! Aren’t you glad I made you try it?”

“Yeah, yeah,” he says, rolling his eyes, but he then takes another, bigger bite of the toast.

Clarke finishes every last bite of her eggs, using her final piece of toast to soak up the last of it, despite the big portion. She hadn’t realized she was actually pretty hungry until she started eating, really, but she supposes it’s not strange considering how many calories she must have burned during last night’s and this morning’s activities.

They don’t linger when they’re done, deciding to just head back to her place and then to the diner, in case there’s a lot of people. She somehow manages to convince Bellamy to let her clean up in the kitchen and puts everything away and loads the dishwasher while he disappears into his bedroom to get dressed. She tries to hide her disappointment when he returns a few minutes later, in jeans and a long sleeved, dark green t-shirt sans glasses. She really likes those…

They spend the drive discussing music, after Bellamy practically stabs at the radio buttons when Chained to the Rhythm comes on.

“What’s wrong with Katy Perry?” Clarke asks. Not that she’s a huge fan herself, but she can listen to the music without having to change the channel.

“Nothing, technically,” he replies. “My sister played her album on repeat nonstop her whole sophomore year of high school, kind of ruined her music for me.”

Clarke files that away as one more interesting fact about Bellamy Blake, another piece of the puzzle she’s trying to put together that will give her the whole picture of him, leaves the radio on the classic rock channel he changed it to and asks about his favorite music. She’s happy to find that they seem to have more or less the same taste, even though he tends to lean towards the harder end of the rock scale, slipping over into metal at times, while she usually places herself somewhere in the middle, with a penchant for early grunge and Britpop.

It takes a while to find parking when they get to her place, but eventually, they come across a man jumping into a car on a side street, and Bellamy immediately pulls into the parking space once it’s open, turning off the engine but not unbuckling his seatbelt.

“Do you want me to wait here, or…?” he asks, turning to her.

She shakes her head. “No, come on up, you can go cat hunting while I change.”

He chuckles, but jumps out of the truck and follows her around the corner and into her building. They ride the elevator up to her floor in comfortable silence, and soon they’re standing in her living room.

“Bas,” Clarke calls. “Come on, be social for once.”

“You named your cat Bass?” Bellamy asks in an amused voice. “Like the fish?”

She rolls her eyes and goes into the kitchen where she finds a bag of cat treats in a cupboard.

“No, it’s short for Bastet, you know, the…”

“Egyptian goddess,” he finishes for her. “That’s cool.”

“She’s a cool kitty.” She opens the bag of treats. “Come on, Bas, I have treats.”

“Can you actually call a cat?” he questions, just as Bastet jumps onto the kitchen counter next to Clarke, letting out a questioning meow. “I guess you can.”

“She’s smart, I swear she understands the word T-R-E-A-T-S,” she says, dropping a couple of treats onto the floor for Bas. “Right, keep Bellamy company while I get changed, OK, Bas?”

The cat, of course, ignores her in favor of the treats on the floor, and she shrugs and hands the bag to Bellamy.

“You can give her a couple more if you want to bribe her to not go hide under the couch again,” she says, reaching up to give him a quick kiss before heading into her bedroom.

She changed into her own top before leaving Bellamy’s place, so she pulls it off and throws it into the hamper before going into the walk-in closet. After some rummaging around, she finds a soft cashmere sweater in a deep ocean blue, with a high collar that covers the love bite on her neck. She pulls it on before shimmying out of her leggings and stepping into a pair of jeans instead.

Satisfied with her outfit, she heads into the bathroom where she quickly applies a tiny bit of make-up, just enough to make her feel human, and pulls her hair into a messy bun – she doesn’t have the energy to do anything more elaborate with it.

When she returns to the living room, Bellamy’s sitting on the couch, Bastet curled up next to him, purring as he scratches behind her ears.

“Looks like you have a new fan,” she notes, and he looks up.

“She has a soft spot for treats and ear rubs,” he says, giving her an appreciative once-over. “That was quick.”

She shrugs. “Sorry to put a long time stereotype to death, but not all women take ages getting ready.”

“I grew up with a sister who could spend an hour in the bathroom before school in the morning at the age of thirteen, so you can see why I’m impressed when you come out looking like that after just five minutes.”

She soaks up the half-spoken compliment. “Well, teenage girls are a breed of their own, I’m not sure that’s a fair comparison.”

Bellamy laughs at that. “Maybe you’re right. Ready to head out again?”

“Yup, just need to grab my charger, my phone was at seventeen percent earlier, it won’t survive until I get off work later.”

He gives Bastet one final scratch and then gets up from the couch, letting Clarke lead the way around the kitchen to her desk, where she digs her spare charger out of a drawer, before they leave.

Cheryl’s is packed, as usual on Sundays, but two stools by the counter are free and they quickly claim them. The waiter behind the counter immediately takes their order, and they both opt for sandwiches today – Clarke a Heidi (boiled eggs, avocado, greens, tomatoes, sprouts and herbed vinegar) and Bellamy a Bruce (grilled chicken, greens, tomatoes and chipotle mayo).

He helps her off with her jacket, hanging it and his own on a hook underneath the counter. His hand lingers on her back, sliding down and around her waist, and she leans lightly against him, careful not to jostle the stool too much.

“God, this sweater’s like touching a cloud,” he says after a moment.

“Mmm, that’s cashmere, super soft,” she agrees. “And bonus – high neck.”

“Why’s that a bonus?”

Clarke glances around to make sure no one’s paying too much attention to them, before pulling the neck down to reveal the hickey.

Bellamy winces. “Sorry about that.”

She leans into him, closing her eyes for a moment and breathing him in. She feels his fingers flex against her side and he tightens his hold on her. “I don’t mind, I’m pretty sure I returned the favor. Still, don’t want the three-to-five-year-olds to come home from story time asking why the nice lady reading had a big bruise on her neck, you know.”

“Yeah, might not make the best impression,” he agrees with a chuckle.

“Nope. And the kids at my homework session were already teasing me on Wednesday when they somehow figured out that I had a date… need to nip that in the bud.”

“Mmm, I promise I’ll try to keep any marks contained to places that can be more easily hidden in the future,” he murmurs in her ear, low enough none of the other patrons hear him. Clarke feels her heartrate pick up at his words and retaliates by sliding her hand along his thigh and squeezing lightly. She gets a sharp breath in return. “Behave.”

“Or what?” she retorts, meeting his eyes with a challenging smirk.

Bellamy’s eyes narrow slightly and she feels his thumb slide higher, grazing her breast through her sweater and bra, but it’s not like he can do much more without drawing attention to them… or getting them kicked out. Which might have been worth it if they were somewhere else, but she really likes Cheryl’s.

At that moment, two glasses are put down on the counter in front of them, followed by their sandwiches, and he pulls his arm from around her seemingly reluctantly.

“How about we table that for later?” he suggests, giving her one last, long look. The heat in his gaze makes her stomach swoop.

“I’ll definitely hold you to that.”

The corner of his mouth quirks up a little. “Good.”

Clarke picks up their music conversation from the car earlier as they eat, which turns into one about sports – Bellamy still holds onto his ‘nerd background’ (his own words, she’s not sure she believes him without some sort of proof) and refuses to get into sports on principle, even though he and Miller play both Fifa 18 and Madden NFL on Miller’s PS4, while Clarke loves basketball and immediately vows to drag him along to the Knicks next home game, because ‘quite frankly, it should be a requirement to go to at least one of their games before you’re even allowed to call yourself a New Yorker’. This somehow leads them into the topic of politics, where she’s relieved to find that they share most opinions.

By the time they’ve finished their sandwiches, it’s already after two.

“Crap, I should probably get going,” Clarke says when she spots the time on the TV behind the counter, which is turned to CNN. “I need to pick out which books I’m reading today before the kids arrive.”

“Oh,” Bellamy replies, a small wrinkle between his eyebrows, but he hands over her jacket. “Yeah, come on.”

They parked a few streets over, and he should be heading in the opposite direction to Clarke, but when they step out onto the sidewalk, he turns in the direction of the library.

“I’ll walk you,” he says and she smiles, looping her arm through his.

“So…” she starts after a minute or so. “Lots of studying to get done today?”

He shrugs. “Not a lot, just a paper due tomorrow. The topic’s not much fun – technical innovations that changed the textile industry in the 18^th century – but it’s half finished, so I should be able to wrap it up in a couple of hours. I hope.”

“So that’s your Sunday plans?”

“And I promised to pick up Miller and Jackson from the airport later,” he adds. “They’re flying into La Guardia at six thirty, so hopefully it won’t take all evening. At least I don’t have to cross the whole city to get to Newark.”

“Right.” They continue in silence.

“How about you?” Bellamy then asks. “Work and then what?”

“Going to the movies with Raven at six,” Clarke says. She is meeting Raven, but not for a movie – she has a Transfer at six and another a little before eight, both in Greenwich Village, and she and Raven have plans to grab a coffee in between so Clarke doesn’t have to wander around for two hours with nothing to do.

“That sounds fun. What are you seeing?”

She racks her brain for a moment, not wanting to mention some movie she hasn’t seen in case he has seen it and wants to talk about it the next time they (hopefully) see each other. But she and Raven and Harper did go to the movies last weekend and saw Bohemian Rhapsody, so she goes with that one.

“Haven’t seen it but I heard it’s supposed to be good,” Bellamy says when she’s told him the name of it.

Personally, she loved the movie, and not just because she was a huge Queen fan back when they were active. “I’ll let you know.”

They’ve reached the library by now, and Clarke glances at her watch. Twenty minutes left, she doesn’t have to run right away.

If she’s reading him right – and she’s fairly sure she is – they’ve both been circling around what they really want to ask during the last few minutes, so she decides to just jump in. It feels like it’s her move to make.

“I should be home by nine or so,” she says. “You know, if you’re done with your paper by then and want to… I don’t know, come over or something. Watch a movie, have a late dinner…”

God, she sounds like a teenage girl with her first crush from one of those annoying high school movies…

But then Bellamy smiles and she feels warm all over. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. I mean, unless it’ll mess up your morning tomorrow, getting to work and stuff.”

He pulls his phone out of his pocket and checks something. “OK, so the train takes forty minutes from my station, plus a five minute walk to the station, and the train from York Street takes six minutes… how long would you say it takes to get there from your place?”

She thinks about it for a moment. “Around five minutes too, probably. So you’d be saving at least half an hour.”

“Yeah, that’s the draw here, a shorter commute, not getting to spend more time with you,” he says with a smirk, and Clarke punches him lightly in the shoulder.

“Good to know where I rank.”

He chuckles and puts his phone away again. “So, yeah… why don’t you let me know when you’re on your way home? I can pick up takeout on the way, unless you and Raven are grabbing dinner too?”

She’s planning some sort of late second lunch/early dinner before her first Transfer and just something lighter later, so she should be hungry enough by nine. “Nope, just the movie.”

“OK, great.” Bellamy nods, a smile still playing on his face. “I’ll let you go, but I’ll see you tonight.”

“Yeah.”

For a moment, it seems like he’s about to turn away, but then he swoops down and kisses her, his arms going around her to pull her tight against him.

“OK, now I’m going,” he says when he pulls away and Clarke laughs as she tries to catch her breath.

“OK. Good luck studying,” she tells him. “Oh, and there’s a parking garage in my building, one of the spaces is mine but I never use it. I’ll text you how to get there, it’s on one of the side streets, and the code for the door so you don’t have to park on the street.”

“Great. Now stop stalling and go read to the kids!”

She stays there watching him as he walks away, still feeling the ghost of his lips against hers. At the street, he turns back just as the light turns green, and raises his hand in an almost wave. She returns it, and he turns away again, joining the others crossing the street. Clarke finally turns away too, opening the door and entering the library.

God, she as it bad.

Chapter Text

Clarke thinks she does pretty well not getting distracted during her story time at the library that afternoon. She even answers random questions and spends five minutes after the session in a serious discussion about one of the books she read with her favorite (she knows she shouldn’t have favorites, but she’s only human) listener, a little boy named Ethan who always has a million questions.

Eventually, though, Ethan’s mom manages to lure him away with the promise of stopping for ice cream on the way home, and Clarke quickly heads out. She has almost an hour and a half before she needs to be in Greenwich and the train shouldn’t take long, but she wants to get home and clean up her bedroom a little, maybe get out the vacuum (and scare Bas half to death in the process), just generally make sure the place is date friendly.

She stops on the way to buy some condoms – since she doesn’t bring hook-ups home, she normally doesn’t have any – and grabs some beer at the same time. She’s no expert, but she finds a type that Zeke sometimes buys and that she likes herself, so hopefully Bellamy will approve too. At the register, she also grabs a toothbrush since she, unlike Bellamy, apparently, doesn’t keep a stash of those in her bathroom cabinet.

When she gets home, she quickly tosses the few pieces of clothing that have ended up on the floor in her bedroom over the last couple of days into the hamper, changes the sheets, gives the bathroom a quick clean while she’s at it, and then brings the vacuum out. Bas gives her the evil eye from her perch high up on one of the bookshelves, and refuses to come down even when she’s done.

The first Transfer is run of the mill – ninety-five-year-old Hester Jones, resident at a nursing home that looks very nice from the outside. She’s had an interesting life, her memories ranging from happy moments like her own birthdays, weddings of friends’ and siblings’, baptisms for nieces and nephews and eventually great-nieces and great-nephews, to amazing experiences in what Clarke thinks must be the rainforest in the Amazon.

A pretty cool woman, she concludes.

Raven’s waiting for her when she pushes the door open to the coffee shop on University Place where they’d agreed to meet.

“Finally!” she exclaims.

Clarke raises an eyebrow and looks at the clock above Raven’s head.

“I told you I had a Transfer down on Houston Street at six, it’s not even half past. You do know we don’t have teleporting abilities, right?”

“Oh.” Raven glances at the clock too. “Sorry, I assumed you’d be late because you were busy sexting Loverboy or something, so I took out my annoyance in advance.”

OK, so she did text Bellamy on the walk here… but she can multi-task. It didn’t delay her, and it was definitely not sexting.

“Well, I would appreciate if you wait until I actually do something to annoy you before you’re annoyed with me, just for future reference.”

“Yeah, yeah, sit,” Raven orders. “I know you have to run in, like, an hour, and I want all the dirt on your hot date last night.”

“You know,” Clarke starts as she takes the chair across from her friend, “I don’t think it’s fair of you to rib me about him just to turn around and want to hear everything.”

“Life’s not fair, babe,” Raven replies with a shrug. “You should have gotten used to that by now.”

Clarke sighs, but she does tell Raven almost everything about last night and today. The other girl has no problem sharing – in Clarke’s opinion – way too intimate details about her own sex life now and then, but Clarke just doesn’t feel comfortable revealing every little thing. She gives her friend the broad strokes, and admits that, yes, the sex was amazing, better than she’s had in a long time, when pressed. But that’s it, that’s where she draws the line, no matter how much Raven wheedles her to reveal more.

She’s almost relieved when her phone beeps, announcing that she has thirty minutes until her next Transfer, and she has to leave.

This one goes off without a hitch too, and Clarke’s stepping onto the train a few minutes after eight. She texts Bellamy as it leaves Canal Street.

On my way home :-)

Should be 30 min tops

The speech bubble pops up and his reply comes a moment later.

OK, I’ll head out too :-)

What are you in the mood for?

She’s sorely tempted to just text back you, possibly influenced by Raven’s many innuendos during their hour long talk, but she resists.

Honestly, I’m totally craving
pizza from Juliana’s, that OK?

Of course, I’ve never tried it
but I’ve heard it’s the best
in Brooklyn.

Best in NY, trust me ;-)

But it’s out of your way, so I
can just get it delivered?

Sounds good.

Anything you don’t eat?
Allergies? Or anything special
you want?

Well, I’m allergic to kiwi, but
I don’t think that’s relevant…

No, ew, kiwi on pizza?

Nothing else?

Nope, I’m good with what
you’re having, as long as it’s
not liver or something :-/

Yes, my favorite pizza toppings
are liver and tripe :-P

I knew it ;-)

I usually just get extra mozzarella,
mushrooms, onions and prosciutto

He sends a thumbs up to that.

OK, I’ll order, it should get here
around the same time as you ;-)

Great :-) getting in the car now

See you soon :-*

She sends a kiss back before calling the pizza order in, adding a couple of cannoli just because they’re delicious.

When she gets home, Bas has finally deigned to come down from the bookcase. She’s curled up on the couch, seemingly fast asleep, but when Clarke drops her phone on the coffee table, she opens one eye and gives her a suspicious look.

“Don’t worry, the vacuum’s not coming out again today,” Clarke assures her.

Bas still keeps one eye on her as she darts around the apartment, lighting a couple of (cat friendly) candles to set the mood and clearing off the coffee table.

When she’s happy with the space, she goes into the bathroom to take a quick look in the mirror. The make-up she applied earlier still looks fine, and she doesn’t see the point in changing, but she lets her hair out, detangling the knots with her fingers. Since it’s been in a bun for so long, her natural curls are intensified.

She’s just put her bottle of body mist back into the bathroom cabinet when there’s a knock on the door.

She knows it’ll be him, but when she sees Bellamy on the other side of the door, her stomach still does a little swoop. He has a duffel bag over one shoulder and a six-pack in his hand. Clarke can’t help but laugh when she realizes that it’s the same kind that she bought earlier.

“What?” he asks with a small frown.

“Great minds think alike, I guess,” she says, taking the beer from him. “I picked up a six-pack of this earlier, too.”

“Ah.” He closes the door behind him and drops his bag on the floor before reaching for her hand and pulling her closer. “Hey.”

She can’t help the smile tugging at her lips. “Hey.”

He leans down for a quick kiss before straightening up again and pulling his jacket off, revealing a casual, dark grey shirt instead of the t-shirt he put on this morning. He hangs the jacket on one of the hooks under the coat rack and picks up the duffel bag again.

“Clothes for work,” he explains. “Didn’t feel like blinding you with my fluorescent uniform tonight. Brought the stuff I’ll need for school tomorrow too, so I won’t have to stop at home before class.”

“Great, just drop that in the bedroom.”

He heads towards the bedrooms while Clarke takes a right into the kitchen, putting the beer in the fridge and taking out her six-pack, which is nice and cold by now.

“The food should be here in ten minutes or so,” she says when she hears him leave the bedroom, putting the beer down on the kitchen counter. “You want to find something to watch on Netflix while we wait?”

She feels Bellamy come up behind her, and immediately, her heartrate quickens. He sweeps her hair over her shoulder, exposing the side of her neck, before placing one hand against the counter on either side of her, effectively caging her in. Not that she wants to get away from him…

“We could do that,” he agrees, voice low, before placing a kiss just below her ear. “Or…”

Clarke turns in the circle of his arms, leaning back on her elbows against the counter. “What, a quickie before the pizza guy gets here?”

He chuckles at that, stepping closer so they’re just barely an inch apart. “Trust me, Princess – we’re going to need more than ten minutes for that.”

The words send shivers of anticipation through her and she closes the last of the distance between them, pulling him down for a kiss that quickly turns dirty. Her fingers curl into his hair, holding him to her, as his hands slide under her sweater and up her back, warm and rough.

The counter is digging into her back, but she barely notices it, her entire being focused on Bellamy, his lips on hers, his body pressed against her, the scent that she’s getting used to surrounding her.

She lets the feeling fill her mind, pushing everything else aside, and when there’s another knock on the door, it feels like it can’t have been more than a few minutes.

They pull apart, blinking at each other for a moment, both breathing hard. Then there’s another knock on the door and Bellamy takes a step back, clearing his throat.

“Food’s here,” he says, unnecessarily, and Clarke can’t help the laugh that escapes her.

“No kidding.”

She steps around him, yelping when he pinches her side, and grabs some money from her purse on her way to the door.

The delivery guy, a bored looking boy that can’t be older than eighteen, hands over the pizza box and paper bag with the cannoli and takes her money without more than a ‘that’ll be 54 bucks’.

“Well, it definitely smells amazing,” Bellamy notes when she returns with the food. He’s taken a seat on the couch, Bas stretched out next to him.

“Just wait until you taste it – even better,” Clarke promises, grabbing the beer from the counter and placing both that and the food on the coffee table. “I would recommend using your fingers, but I can get you a plate and cutlery if you want.”

“Nah,” he replies, opening the box and peeking inside. “But maybe bring a kitchen roll? This could get messy.”

She does before flopping down on the couch next to him and grabbing the remote.

“I was thinking of starting Parks and Rec from the beginning,” she says, starting up Netflix. “Does that work or do you want to watch a movie or something else?”

“That’s fine,” he replies, opening a bottle of beer for each of them before grabbing the first slice.

“Great.” She starts the first episode before grabbing a slice of her own.

“OK, yeah, this is really good,” Bellamy admits a little later.

“Told you.”

“We usually order from Rosa’s in Maspeth, have you been there?”

Clarke shakes her head and swallows the mouthful of beer before answering. “Nope.”

“We’ll have to try it next time we’re in my neck of the woods then. I’d say it’s basically on par with this, but I might be biased.”

By the time the pizza’s gone (Bas is still cleaning her paws after Bellamy caved under her pleading gaze ten minutes ago and gave her a few pieces of prosciutto) the third episode has just started and Clarke is finishing off her second beer.

“OK, I’ve been dying to ask,” Bellamy starts, tossing the used paper towels into the now empty pizza box and closing it. “What’s in the paper bag?”

She grabs the bag and holds it open for him. “Dessert.”

He gives her a long look. “Not the kind of dessert I was hoping for.”

It’s such a cliché thing to say that she can’t resist rolling her eyes. “Keep it in your pants, Casanova, there’s plenty of time for that later.”

He laughs, sticking his hand in the bag. “I guess I’ll have to settle for this for now then.”

She just shakes her head and accepts the cannoli he hands her.

“You might regret those words, the cannoli from Juliana’s are almost more famous than their pizza and the best in the city, I promise.”

He eyes the cannoli for a moment before taking a big bite.

“OK, yeah, this time I have to agree with you. These are amazing.”

“Right?” She takes a bite of her own, closing her eyes as she chews and swallows. “Delicious.”

“Best thing you’ve had in your mouth all night?” Bellamy asks, voice seemingly innocent.

She gives him a look through narrowed eyes, suspicious of where he’s going with that question. “Maybe…”

The corner of his mouth lifts up in a smirk. “Night’s still young.”

Clarke can’t help but snort out a laugh at that. “God, where do you get these?” she asks. “Cheesy pick-up lines 101?”

“What, I need to pick you up?”

She elbows him in the side. “You’re lucky you don’t.”

Bellamy just laughs, popping the last piece of the cannoli in his mouth, and she follows suit.

“Let me just get rid of this stuff, back in a sec.”

Clarke gets up from the couch and grabs the pizza box, the bag the cannoli were in and the roll of paper towels and rounds the kitchen counter. She stuffs the trash in the trash can and puts the paper towels back on the counter.

“Hey, when do you need to get up tomorrow?” she asks over her shoulder. “I can program the coffee maker so it’ll start on its own, that way the coffee will be waiting for you.”

“Probably seven?” he replies. “Just need a quick shower, really.”

Clarke turns to give him a frown. “No breakfast?”

He shrugs. “I can’t eat first thing in the morning, I usually grab something about an hour into my shift. I can pick up coffee on the way too, you don’t have to go to any trouble on my account.”

“Don’t be silly, it’ll take me, like thirty seconds.” She turns back to the coffee maker and loads it with coffee powder and water, punching a few buttons to get it to turn on at seven the next morning. “There we go, all set for some fresh coffee goodness in the morning.”

When she gets back to the couch again, Bellamy has moved to one of the wide chaises and stretched out a little more, one arm along the back of the couch. She settles in next to him, stretching her legs out as well, and his arm comes down around her shoulders.

“Thanks, Princess.”

“Of course.”

Bas jumps onto the couch on his other side, immediately flopping onto her back and stretching her legs in four different directions.

Bellamy gives Clarke a questioning look. “Is this a trap?”

She chuckles but shakes her head. “Nope, Bas loves belly rubs. She’s the exception of the rule.”

“So I won’t lose a hand if I fall for it?”

To demonstrate her point, she leans across him and runs her nails up and down Bastet’s belly. Loud purring immediately fills the room.

“Huh,” Bellamy notes when she straightens up again. His arm slides lower, wrapping around her waist and pulling her closer, while he takes over the petting of Bas with his other hand. “That’s a first. Our neighbor had a cat that used to climb the fire escape up to our floor and howl until we let it into the apartment, the one time I actually tried to pet it like this I ended up going to the ER to get a tetanus shot.”

“Poor baby.”

Clarke settles in against him, sliding down a little more on the couch to get comfortable, so that they’re both half-lying on the chaise, and leans her head back against his shoulder.

She tries to follow the plot, really, but she’s failing miserably. Bellamy keeps trailing his fingers up and down her arm, and even though she’s still wearing the long sleeved, high neck cashmere sweater, the touch sends sparks through her. Bas decides she’s had enough belly rubs after a few minutes and jumps off the couch, and then he moves his other hand to Clarke’s leg, thumb rubbing circles on her thigh, and it’s frankly extremely distracting.

She glances up at him, but his eyes are trained on the TV and he seems completely unaffected. Well… two can play that game.

Under the pretense of checking her phone on the coffee table – not that she needs to – Clarke sits up straight for a moment, and when she leans back, she shifts just slightly, so her arm’s not squished between them but resting over his stomach. This way, her hand lands naturally on his leg. There’s no discernable reaction, and she just lets it rest there for a moment, before running her nails up and down once.

This time, she feels Bellamy tense against her, the hand on her leg stilling and his fingers digging into her arm just slightly.

“Something wrong?” she asks innocently, and he coughs once.

“Nope, all good.”

They settle in again, neither of them moving their hands but both keeping perfectly still. Then Bellamy ups the ante and slides his hand down her leg, to her knee, before running it back up, this time sliding his fingers around to the inside of her thigh. When his thumb grazes the seam at her crotch just briefly, Clarke can’t help but suck in a sharp breath.

His hand stills, just half an inch or so further down on her thigh. “You OK?”

She has to swallow before she can answer, and even then she can tell that her voice is a little strained. “Just great.”

He hums and slides his hand back down. She grinds her teeth together to not let on that he’s really getting to her and tries to figure out how to turn the tables on him again.

She manages to keep her breathing more or less normal as he continues trailing his fingers up and down her inner thigh. The next time he goes a little too far north, she retaliates by lifting her hand to interlace with his against her shoulder. He squeezes her fingers and she squeezes back before moving hers a little to be able to wrap her thumb and index finger around his middle finger, moving them back and forth slowly. To really drive the point home, she licks her lips and then bites the bottom one.

Before she can react, she’s on her back on the couch, Bellamy looming above her.

“Are you trying to drive me crazy, Princess?” he asks before leaning down to nose at her throat.

She tilts her head to give him better access and feels his finger slip inside the neck of her sweater, pulling it down so he can place a kiss on the hickey he left there this morning.

“You started it,” she replies, reaching up to undo the first button in his shirt.

“I did,” he admits, running a hand up her side and squeezing her breast lightly. “Wanted to see how long it would take for you to break.”

Clarke lets out a chuckle at that, which quickly turns into a moan when he grinds his hips against hers.

“You broke first,” she notes breathlessly, moving on to the second button. “So I win.”

He lifts his head, dark eyes locking with hers. “I’m OK with that.”

His mouth descends on hers and she eagerly returns the kiss, opening up for him when he traces the seam of her lips with his tongue. She continues her work on his shirt, getting all the buttons she can undone before sliding her hands down his chest and then dragging her nails up his stomach.

Bellamy groans into her mouth and slips a hand under her sweater, up her stomach to her breast, where he pushes her bra to the side and pinches her nipple lightly. She bucks against him, relishing the feeling of his hardening dick against her, even if it is through double layers of denim and cotton. But no clothes at all would be better, so she moves her attention to the button of his pants and quickly gets that and the fly undone, impatiently pushing the pants down his hips.

She can’t get them further than to mid-thigh using her hands, though, so she switches to her feet instead, getting the pants to his knees, which are of course pressed against the couch. Bellamy breaks the kiss and raises an eyebrow at her.

“Eager, Princess?”

“Shut up.”

Clarke takes the opportunity to push his shirt off his shoulders and he shrugs out of it completely, tossing it on the couch next to them. He somehow manages to get his jeans off the rest of the way too, leaving him in only his boxers above her.

“Someone’s overdressed,” he notes, leaning down to kiss her again.

She feels his hand at the button of her own jeans, popping it open and sliding the zipper down. She lifts her hips a little, to help him get them off, but instead he slips a hand into her underwear. She gasps into his mouth when he pauses at her clit, circling the nub with one finger briefly before continuing.

A moment later, Bellamy pushes one finger inside her, and her hips jerk against his hand of their own accord. As he sets an infuriatingly slow pace, she buries her fingers in his hair, scraping her nails lightly against his scalp in time with his finger moving inside her.

When he presses his thumb against her clit, she finally breaks the kiss.

“Fuck…”

He chuckles against her ear. “Soon, baby.”

Clarke lets out a breathless laugh too, lifting her hips a little more next time his finger sinks deeper into her, and manages to get her jeans off her hips. He realizes what she’s trying to do and pushes himself off her, slipping his finger out of her and making her whine in protest, before he pulls her jeans off. He trails kisses up her thigh, placing one against her sex, through the panties she’s still wearing, before crawling up her body again.

She hooks her heels behind his thighs and pulls him down on top of her. “Better.”

Bellamy hums in agreement before moving his hips a little so she feels him right at her entrance, two thin layers the only thing separating them. He shifts slightly, his length rubbing against her clit, and she squeezes her eyes shut against the intense feeling.

A moment later, she feels his hand slide down her thigh and hook just above her knee, pulling her leg up. She takes the hint and wraps both legs around his waist at the same time as his hands close around her waist, and the next thing she knows, they’re both upright.

Instinctively, Clarke wraps her arms tightly around his neck. “You’re lucky you didn’t drop me!”

Bellamy just chuckles. “I know what I’m doing, Princess, trust me.”

He pushes the hem of her sweater up, enough so he can bend down and run his tongue over her breast, along the edge of her bra. His hands move down to wrap around her waist again, and she releases her grip on him to pull the sweater over her head. He hums happily, trailing wet kisses up her chest, nipping at her collar bone.

Clarke manages to shift her hips a little, grinding against him and getting a groan in return.

“Bed,” she orders, running a hand down his back and up again, her nails scraping against his spine. “Now.”

Bellamy pulls away from her with a chuckle. “Bossy Princess.”

She doesn’t reply, just pulls him in for a kiss.

He does heed her request, though, maneuvering them around the couch in the direction of her bedroom. She keeps one arm wrapped around him while she uses the other to unhook her bra behind her back. The garment remains in place though, squished between their bodies for now.

Bellamy doesn’t stop until his legs hit the side of her bed, and then he leans forward to put her down gently on the mattress. She scoots backwards so he can join her, pulling her bra off completely and throwing it in the general direction of the hamper.

She’s stretched out sideways over the bed, and for a moment the thought that she’s glad she went for the grand king size, despite not technically needing the extra space herself, flashes through her mind.

Then he’s on top of her, pushing her panties down just enough so he can slide two fingers inside her easily. At the same time, his mouth closes around her nipple, and Clarke lets out a loud moan.

She tries to pull her leg up, so she can get better purchase and push back against his hand, but that makes her panties slide up her leg. Bellamy pulls away from her impatiently, removing them completely, and before he has a chance to return to his previous position, she pushes him onto his back and straddles him on the bed, grinding down on him and probably soaking the boxers that he’s still wearing.

“Oh, fuck,” he groans, his hands finding her hips and his fingers digging into the flesh.

Remembering his earlier teasing, Clarke leans in close, teeth almost grazing his ear. “Soon, baby.”

He slides one hand into her hair and tugs her up until he can claim her lips in an almost aggressive kiss, teeth and lips and tongues clashing together without much coordination for a moment, before he pulls her bottom lip into his mouth, biting down lightly and drawing a gasp from her. Bellamy releases her lip and slows the kiss down, the hand that was buried in her hair trailing down her throat and chest to palm her breast before he tweaks her nipple, making her arch into his touch.

She feels his other hand leave her hip and hears the rustle of fabric, and when she slides her hips against his again, she feels his hard length against her core, nothing between them finally. Clarke grinds down on him again, angling her hips a little so the head rubs against her clit, sending sparks of pleasure through her, and breaks the kiss to gasp for air.

Part of her wants to move this along, get him inside her, but the other part wants to stay right here, because the slide of his erection against her clit is bringing her closer and closer to the edge and she just wants to…

“Come on, Princess,” Bellamy murmurs against her throat. “I’ve got you, just let go.”

The hand covering her breast slides down, pressing against the small of her back to pull her tighter against him, and he noses at her chin to get her to move. She does, arching her back so he can reach her breast, and the next time she grinds down on him, he pulls a nipple into his mouth at the same time as he bucks up against her, increasing the pressure on her clit and that’s it. Clarke soars over the edge, fingers closing around the bedspread underneath him, a long, high-pitched whine that she vaguely realizes must be coming from her filling the air.

When she finally comes down, Bellamy’s still beneath her, hands running up and down her sides and lips pressed to her temple. She pulls in a ragged breath. “God, that was…”

He chuckles, a rumble that goes through both of them, and squeezes her hip. “I think that was a first for me, honestly, but fuck, babe, that was hot.”

“Yeah?”

Clarke pushes herself up on an elbow before leaning down to kiss him, moving her hips against his and finding him just as hard as a few minutes ago. She jumps a little as his length brushes against her clit, still sensitive from her orgasm, and moves up a few inches, so he’s just at her opening. What she really wants to do is just push down, pull him deep inside her, but she manages to resist.

Bellamy breaks the kiss after a few minutes. “There are condoms in my bag, outside pocket,” he tells her and she nods, kissing him once more before reluctantly getting up.

Instead of his bag, though, she opens the drawer in her nightstand and grabs the box of condoms she picked up earlier, pulling out one and climbing back on the bed, settling against his thighs.

He raises an eyebrow. “You just happened to have the kind of condoms I prefer?”

She shrugs, opening the foil packet and wrapping her fingers around him, smiling when he jerks into her hand a little. “Didn’t have any, so I had to pick some up anyway, figured I might as well get these,” she says before slowly rolling the condom on, eyes intent on his the whole time. “Are you complaining?”

He immediately shakes his head. “Fuck, no. Now come here.”

Clarke obediently crawls up his body until she’s back in the position she was in a moment ago. This time, when she feels his dick at her entrance, she shifts her hips a little to pull him inside her at the same time as he thrusts up. He pushes inside her with a bit more force than either of them had anticipated, and she squeezes her eyes closed at the feeling, just this side of painful, as he bottoms out.

“Oh fuck,” she breathes shakily.

“OK?” Bellamy mumbles, a hint of worry in his tone, and she nods quickly.

“God, yes, don’t stop.”

His arm comes up to wrap around her waist and then she’s on her back with him on top of her. She feels his teeth graze her throat and then his mouth at her ear. “Wasn’t planning on it.”

He pulls out of her slowly before pushing back in with a snap of his hips, making her cry out.

“Good?”

Instead of replying, she pulls him down for a kiss and bends her legs, pushing up against him. He takes the hint and keeps moving, setting a fast pace, thrusts harder and hands rougher against her skin than last night or this morning, but exactly what she wants right now. It’s not long before she feels him tense, both above her and inside her, and she squeezes her inner muscles to show him that it’s OK to let go. He surprises her, though, grinding his pelvic bone against her clit on his final thrust, and just as she feels him start pulsing inside her, she’s pushed over the edge for a second time.

He collapses on top of her, his weight pushing her into the mattress, but Clarke kind of likes it, feeling him pressed against her, inside her, around her… too soon, though, he pulls out of her before rolling them so he’s on his back and she’s on top instead.

She sighs and buries her face against his throat, the stubble there a little scratchy against her skin.

“You OK?” Bellamy asks quietly after a moment, pressing a kiss against the top of her head.

She hums. “Way better than OK.”

“You sure? I wasn’t too… rough?”

Hearing the hesitation in his voice, she pushes herself up a little so she can meet his eyes. “You want to know a secret?” she asks, and he nods. “Sometimes I like it a little rough.”

The corner of his mouth lifts up in a smirk. “Is that so?”

Clarke nods. “Uh-huh.”

“I’ll have to keep that in mind.”

She kisses him before pushing off him completely and getting to her feet. “Please do.”

She feels his eyes on her as she pads into the bathroom, pushing the door almost closed behind her but not completely. She brushes her teeth, washes her make-up off and pees before leaving the room again.

Bellamy hasn’t moved in the time she’s been gone, still stretched out the wrong way on the bed. She raises an eyebrow at him.

“You might want to turn ninety degrees or so,” she suggests, moving to the side of the bed that she usually sleeps on. “Unless you have something against pillows.”

He pushes himself into a sitting position and pulls her to him, tilting his head up for a kiss. She happily obliges.

“I was getting to that,” he says when she pulls back, and she rolls her eyes.

“There’s a toothbrush on the counter in the bathroom,” she tells him. “Though my selection isn’t as good as yours.”

He gets up with a chuckle. “I think I’ll live.”

He disappears into the bathroom and Clarke strips the bedspread off before pausing in front of the door to the walk-in closet. She usually wears a tank top and shorts to bed, but she doesn’t particularly want to put on any clothes right now… instead, she crawls into bed, pulling the comforter up enough so it covers her breasts, and turns on the light on the nightstand.

Bellamy returns a few minutes later, the fresh scent of her toothpaste hitting her when he gets into the bed next to her. He scoots closer, sliding an arm around her waist and pulls her to him, so her back’s against his front.

“Hmm…” He buries his nose against her neck. “You always sleep in the nude?”

“Nope,” she replies, enjoying feeling his naked body pressed against hers. “You mind?”

She feels more than hears the chuckle he lets out, a puff of warm air against her neck. “Definitely not.”

Clarke reaches out to grab the remote off the nightstand, pushing the button to close the blinds on the windows facing the building across the street.

“Fancy,” Bellamy notes as they appear at the top of the windows and start sliding down.

“I usually don’t close the ones facing the river, especially not in the winter,” she says. “I can if you want?”

“No, that’s fine, not like anyone can see in or anything.”

She puts the remote down again, turns off the light and settles into her pillows.

“You have work tomorrow?” he asks after a moment.

She has a Transfer at eleven, but he’ll be at work then so she doesn’t have to come up with an excuse for that.

“Yeah, homework session at three.”

Bellamy hums behind her. “I need to leave for my class at six thirty, probably, will you be back in time to let me in? I can always put my stuff in the car.”

The homework session runs to five and unlike the story times, the kids are usually out the door on the dot.

“I should be back at five thirty at the latest,” she says.

“OK, that works,” he replies.

“When do you get off work?”

“Four, but I can grab a coffee or something while I wait, don’t worry about it.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, there’s a spare key in the bowl on the table by the door, just take that,” she tells him.

“Are you sure?”

“Of course. You have to lock up when you leave anyway, I don’t really want to sleep with the front door unlocked.” Suddenly, she realizes what it might sound like in his ears and continues. “It doesn’t have to be a big deal.”

His arm around her waist tightens. “No, that’s not… OK.”

She relaxes again. “OK. Goodnight.”

His lips brush against her shoulder. “Night, Princess.”

Chapter Text

Clarke’s not sure what wakes her the next morning, the buzz of Bellamy’s alarm going off or the sudden and not at all pleasant lack of a warm body behind her.

She rolls over, finding him sitting on the bed with his phone in his hand.

“Morning,” she greets him, voice gravelly with sleep.

He turns to her with a frown. “Did I wake you? Sorry.”

“The price of my forgiveness is a good morning kiss.”

He rolls his eyes but does turn around all the way to be able to lean down and kiss her. When she wraps an arm around his neck to pull him closer, though, he gently disentangles her hand and moves back.

“It’s not that I wouldn’t love to get back in bed with you,” he says when she pouts a little. “Trust me. But if I do, there’s no way I’m getting up in time to make it to work.”

Clarke flops dramatically onto her back again.

“Fine, leave me here unsatisfied…”

Bellamy just laughs. “That’s exactly what I’m going to do. Go back to sleep.”

She sighs and watches as he crosses the room and disappears into the bathroom, and a moment later, she hears the shower turn on. She burrows into the bed again, pulling the comforter up to her chin and burying her nose in his pillow to get a lungful of his scent, and closes her eyes.

She doesn’t fall back asleep, though, instead follows his movements on the other side of the wall based on the sounds – the shower continues for another few minutes, then the water turns off and the shower door slides open before there’s silence for a few minutes during which she assumes he’s toweling off. When Bellamy emerges from the bathroom, she opens her eyes and takes him in, a towel around his hips and a few water drops still glistening here and there on his chest and shoulders.

“I thought you were going back to sleep,” he notes, bending down over his duffel bag and unzipping it.

“But then I’d miss the show,” Clarke replies with a still sleepy smirk.

He straightens up, clothes in one hand, and raises his eyebrow at her for a moment before dropping the towel to the floor. She lets her eyes run all the way to his toes and then back up, lingering perhaps a little longer than absolutely necessary in certain areas.

“Like what you see?”

She licks her lips slowly. “Mm-hm.”

To her disappointment, Bellamy steps into the pair of boxers he’s just grabbed and pulls them on.

“I’m afraid that’s it for now,” he tells her with a smirk of his own, pulling a green t-shirt over his head before finishing off the outfit with the green cargo pants.

“Party pooper,” Clarke complains, earning another laugh as he pulls the final piece of his uniform, the green jacket, out of the bag.

She thinks he’s just going to leave the room, but instead, he crouches down by the bed.

“How about if I promise to make it up to you later?” he suggests, running a finger along her hairline before pushing a strand of hair behind her ear.

“I guess…” she pretends to grumble. “Are you coming back here tonight, or…?”

He considers the question for a moment, eyes intent on her but the expression in them unreadable. “Do you want me to?”

“Mm.”

His mouth quirks up in a smile. “Then I will.”

“Good.”

For a moment, she could swear that he’s about to say something else, but then he just kisses her softly and rises to his feet.

“See you later, Princess.”

“Have fun at work.”

He leaves the room, pulling the door almost closed behind him, and Clarke once again relaxes back into the pillows.

She listens to the sounds of him moving around the apartment for a while. A kitchen cupboard closing, then another one – he’s looking for mugs, probably, she forgot to tell him where they are – but not a third. She imagines him laughing quietly at the mug Raven got her for Christmas last year – Sarcasm loading, 74%, please wait… – before pouring coffee into it and leaning against the counter as he drinks it.

Five minutes later, she hears the front door open and close, and knows that he’s gone. It’s quite frankly unreasonable how empty the apartment immediately feels.

She knows she won’t be able to go back to sleep, but she doesn’t particularly feel like getting up yet either, so she grabs her phone and starts scrolling through her social media. After a little while, Bastet saunters into the room and jumps onto the bed, demanding some morning cuddles, and when the cat moves to the foot of the bed and curls into a ball fifteen minutes later, Clarke decides that it’s time to face the day.

-100-

They settle into a routine over the next couple of weeks. Bellamy spends every night at Clarke’s place, just going home to grab some more clothes and books for class every few days.

Considering she hasn’t lived with another person in over forty years – she and Niylah never got that far – it’s surprisingly easy to get used to having someone around a lot. Of course, he works during the day and has class in the evenings three or four times a week, but it’s still a lot more time not being alone than she’s used to.

At first, Clarke’s worried that her Transfers might lead to awkward situations where she has to come up with believable explanations as to why she disappears now and then. But so far, most of her assignments have been while he’s been at work or in class, and none at odd hours of the night. The few times she’s had to come up with something, she’s been able to use Raven and say that she’s meeting her friend for lunch or coffee or something. Bellamy hasn’t questioned this – possibly because he’s also studying for finals – until now.

It’s his day off and they haven’t gotten out of bed for more than bathroom visits and breakfast, and even that they just cooked together in the kitchen and then brought back to bed. It’s a little after noon and Clarke has a Transfer at one, so she knows she has to get going soon.

But Bellamy is being very distracting.

“I really have to go,” she tries again, pushing half-heartedly against his chest.

“You can’t see Raven later?” he asks, leaning down to brush a kiss against her throat at the same time as he trails a hand down her side and slips it between her legs. “I have class tonight.”

“She and Zeke are going out tonight. It’s just lunch, I’ll be back in two hours, tops.” She can’t help but gasp and lift her hips when he pushes one finger inside her, though.

He doesn’t say anything more, just leans down to kiss her as he adds another finger. He curls them just right on every stroke and when he adds circles against her clits with his thumb, he has her falling apart in just a few minutes.

“See?” he murmurs into her ear as she comes back down. “I’ll make it worth your while if you stay here…”

“I know,” Clarke says breathlessly. “I just don’t want to be one of those girls who ditches her friends because she has a new boyfriend.”

She realizes what she’s said a split second before Bellamy’s eyebrows shoot up and she has to force her lips together to keep from trying to backtrack. Not that she really wants to, but it’s way too soon to be talking about labels…

“Boyfriend, huh?”

“I don’t know why I said that, it just slipped out, I…”

He cuts her off with a kiss. “Relax, Princess,” he says when he pulls back, a huge smile on his face. “I’d love to be your boyfriend.”

“Yeah?”

“Absolutely.”

He leans down again and she returns the kiss for a moment before pulling away. “I still have to go.”

Finally, he rolls off her. “It was worth a shot.”

“You gave it your best,” she agrees, patting his chest reassuringly and quickly getting out of bed before he can come up with some other way to convince her to stay. She’s pretty sure he could if he really put his mind to it.

Still, she just makes it to the Transfer in time.

She does meet Raven for lunch a couple of days later, because she really is trying to make an effort to not get lost in her and Bellamy’s little bubble.

“So,” her friend starts when she’s plopped down at the table Clarke snagged for them before the lunch rush started ten minutes ago. “How goes the co-habitation?”

“It’s fine,” she replies, avoiding Raven’s eyes and focusing on her water glass.

“You know you can’t lie to me.”

Clarke sighs. “I… almost said it the other night.”

“Said what?”

“The L word.”

It hadn’t even been anything special. Bellamy got home from his night class much later than usual, not until almost midnight, due to getting stuck in the aftermath of a car accident – he texted to let her know, so she wasn’t worrying or anything, but she fell asleep on the couch waiting for him. When she woke up, he was laying her down carefully on the bed, and her sleep-addled brain figured out that he must have carried her from the living room. When he realized that she was awake, he placed a soft kiss on her forehead before straightening up.

“Go back to sleep, Princess,” he whispered. “I’ll join you in a moment.”

She burrowed into the bed but was still half-awake when he crawled in next to her a few minutes later and pulled her closer, and she buried her face against his neck instead of in her pillow.

“I missed you tonight,” he mumbled into her hair.

“Mmm,” she agreed. “Me too. I…”

She fell asleep mid-sentence, and that should have been the end of it, really. But in the morning, the moment came back in full clarity and she knew beyond the shadow of a doubt what she had been about to say.

She’s expecting Raven to be shocked, or at least surprised, but all she gets is, “Oh.”

Clarke finally looks up at her friend again. “What do you mean ‘oh’? You’re… not surprised?”

This gets more of the reaction Clarke was expecting to begin with and Raven’s eyebrows shoot up. “You are? You really didn’t know that you were in love with him?”

“I…” She pauses, really thinking about it for a moment. “No. I mean, I knew I was falling, but I hadn’t realized I was already so far gone.”

“Oh, babe.” Raven reaches across the table to pat her hand. “I knew that way back at Thanksgiving.”

Clarke almost chokes on the sip of water she just took. “Thanksgiving?”

Raven just shrugs. “Yeah. I’ve never seen you like that, not with anyone. And I was there for both Lexa and Wells, remember? So yeah, I knew. I really thought you did too, or I would have said something.”

Had she known and just not wanted to face it? It’s not impossible, her subconscious still clinging to Bellamy’s Number and how it’s a bad idea to get involved with him… never mind that it’s clearly way too late to avoid that. God, she’s in so deep.

“Anyway, why didn’t you just say it?”

It’s Clarke’s turn to raise her eyebrows. “It’s been less than a month, I can’t drop the L bomb on him.”

“Why not? I can say with at least ninety-nine point nine percent certainty that he’ll say it back.”

Her heart rate picks up a little, remembering the smile on his face when she’d accidentally called him her boyfriend. “You really think so?”

Raven does one of her famous eye rolls. “I know so. That boy is head over heels, follow you to the end of the world, start wars in love with you. It was beyond obvious during game night.”

Whenever Clarke and Raven are in the same general area – which is most of the time these days – they do monthly game nights. Sometimes it’s just the two of them and Zeke, sometimes it’s the whole gang plus some extra people when someone brings a friend.

This Monday had been Clarke’s turn to host, and as luck would have it, Bellamy’s class was cancelled, so he got the full experience, which included Raven turning over the Monopoly board when Zeke bankrupted her, Jasper getting high and spending half an hour insisting that P-A-C-L-I-P-E-G-O – which was really just all his letters and two already on the Scrabble board – was a word, and Harper throwing the candle stick at Monty when he won Clue.

Pretty much a normal game night.

But Clarke hadn’t picked up on anything special from Bellamy, so she’s not sure where Raven gets that.

“How do you mean obvious?”

Raven lets out an exasperated sigh. “You really don’t see it?”

Clarke’s phone dings and she rummages around in her purse for it. “I guess I just don’t want to jump to conclusions. I mean, I did accidentally call him my boyfriend the other day and he actually calmed me down when I freaked out about it and said that he wanted to be my boyfriend, so at least that covers the whole ‘what are we’ thing. But love, that’s…”

She finally finds her phone and can’t help the smile on her face when she sees that the message is from Bellamy.

Hey, what are you doing tonight?

She hesitates for a moment.

You, hopefully :-P Why?

Good answer ;-)

Miller’s complaining he’s barely
seen me for weeks.

And he wants to “officially” meet
you, whatever that means.

He’s promised to make his
amazing spaghetti and meatballs.

Would you mind spending tonight
at my place?

I apologize in advance for any too
personal questions and obscure
grew-up-together, practically-
family, in-jokes.

But at least you’ll have Jackson
to roll your eyes at for those.

She’s trying to type out a reply, but the rapid stream of texts make it hard.

Stop rambling!

Sorry…

Thank you :-)

I would love to have dinner
with Miller and Jackson
tonight

Oh, great, my ranting didn’t
scare you off ;)

So I’ll tell him we’ll be there?

Yes!

Go back to work you dork :-P

OK, OK!

See you later :-*

Yes you will :-*

When she puts the phone down and looks up again, Raven is watching her with amusement.

“See? That, right there. You’re completely gone.”

Clarke sighs. “Yeah, I guess…”

“And he’s the same way. He can’t keep his eyes off you, it’s like… some sort of magnetic pull. Seriously, trust me – just tell him. I promise he’ll be over the moon. He’s probably been worried about saying it too soon too.”

“Maybe.”

She thinks she might give it a little longer, despite Raven’s assurance…

“What did he want, anyway?” Raven asks.

“Apparently, Miller thinks I’ve been hogging him lately, so we’re having dinner with him and Jackson tonight,” Clarke tells her with a shrug.

“Ah, so kind of like meeting the family, right? You said that he grew up with the Millers as a sort of extra family, and it’s not like you’re going to meet his parents.”

Trust Raven to turn a simple dinner into something to get nervous about.

“I guess…” Clarke agrees reluctantly.

“OK, topic change,” Raven announces, thankfully. “Christmas. I’m picking up everything I can next week, before the stores descend into complete chaos, so I need to know numbers.”

Since Raven hosted Thanksgiving they’re doing Christmas at Clarke’s place, even though Raven and Zeke will be doing the actual cooking. Clarke offered to do the shopping, but Raven just rolled her eyes and said that she’d rather do it right from the start instead of having to go back to the store to get everything Clarke forgot. Which was a little insulting, really. She does know how to follow a shopping list, thank you very much.

“Well, Jasper, Maya, Harper and Monty are going out of town together, and Murphy doesn’t celebrate Christmas, so I guess we’re on our own.”

Raven hesitates briefly and then nods. “OK then.”

But Clarke knows her, and she knows that there’s something her friend’s not saying.

“What did you do?” she asks sternly, because it does go both ways – she knows she can’t lie to Raven, but Raven can’t lie to her, either.

Raven keeps her eyes firmly on the menu in front of her, even though Clarke has already ordered for both of them. “I didn’t do anything.”

“What are you not telling me then?”

Raven’s quiet for another long moment, then she sighs deeply. “You’re going to have to tell him that you forced me to tell you.”

“Who? What on earth are you talking about?”

Finally looking up again, Raven meets her eyes with an almost defiant look that Clarke recognizes very well on her face.

“Wells and Sasha are coming over for a couple of days around Christmas,” she says. “He wanted to surprise you, but, well, you obviously refuse to be surprised.”

Clarke gives her a sheepish look. “Sorry.”

“Whatever. So that makes it five… what about Loverboy?”

“Are you ever going to use his actual name?”

“To his face? Sure. Talking to you? Not likely.”

Clarke supposes she’ll have to content herself with that.

“And you’re avoiding the question,” Raven continues. “You don’t want to spend Christmas with him?”

Of course she does. It’s the only Christmas she’ll have the opportunity…

“It’s like the L word – isn’t it too soon?” she wonders, and Raven shrugs.

“Do you know if he has plans?”

“We haven’t actually talked about it. I don’t think his sister is coming to town – there’s definitely something there he doesn’t want to talk about and I don’t want to push – but I know he spends holidays with Miller’s family sometimes, so he’ll probably be going there.”

A worrying smile spreads on Raven’s face. “That’s your chance, then! You don’t have to ask him what he’s doing for Christmas, just ask Miller.”

As most of Raven’s ideas, it’s actually pretty smart.

“OK, fine, I will.”

And she’ll have to, too, because Raven will not let this go until she has an answer, and if Clarke just says that she’s asked and Bellamy has plans, she wouldn’t put it past her friend to ask him herself.

-100-

“Why are you so nervous?”

At Bellamy’s question, Clarke turns around to find him lounging on the bed, already dressed and ready to go. She’s standing in the walk-in closet, only wearing panties and a bra, and it’s a testament to his self-control that he hasn’t joined her in there and backed her up against a wall yet. Though they do have to leave in ten minutes to make it to his place in time for dinner with Miller and Jackson, so that’s probably why.

“Who says I’m nervous?” she replies, though she is, of course. Stupid Raven.

“The fact that you’ve tried on and discarded three different outfits – all of which made you look absolutely amazing, by the way,” he says.

She sighs. “Fine, maybe I am. Raven said something about this dinner basically being like meeting your family, since you grew up with Miller as a sort of extra brother. And I don’t know why that made me nervous, but it did, OK?”

She half-expects him to laugh, but he doesn’t. Instead, he gets up from the bed and crosses the room to the closet. He takes both her hands in his and waits until she looks up at him.

“You have nothing to be nervous about, OK?” he assures her. “Miller already loves you – you’ve made me leave the house voluntarily for something other than work and class for the first time in ages. You’re already off to a flying start.”

Clarke can’t help but laugh a little at that. “Yeah?”

“Yes.” He squeezes her hands once before letting her go. “Now put on that green dress you tried on first.”

She turns to pull it off the hanger again. “Not the blue one?” she asks. “I thought you liked that one more.”

She sees his eyes darken at her words. “I do, but if you wear that one, I won’t be able to keep my hands off you.”

She feels her stomach swoop at that.

“Well, we can’t have that, can we?”

“Exactly.”

“But I will keep that in mind for the future.”

A wonderful smell greets them when Bellamy unlocks the door to his and Miller’s apartment barely an hour later.

“We’re here,” he calls as the door closes behind them.

“Kitchen!” someone calls back.

He helps her off with her jacket and hangs it up before putting a hand on the small of her back and half-pushing her ahead of him down the hallway.

“Just in time,” the guy standing at the stove says, glancing at them over his shoulder. “Ten more minutes and dinner will be ready.”

“What he means is welcome,” a voice comes from behind them.

Clarke turns to find a tall, dark haired guy that she remembers from Raven’s Halloween party setting the table. “Hey, Batman!”

He laughs. “Eric Jackson, actually, most people call me Jackson. And you must be Clarke. Nice to officially meet you.”

She accepts his extended hand.

“I am, nice to meet you too.”

“And that’s Nathan over there, but he doesn’t respond to anything but Miller,” Jackson continues, nodding at the guy at the stove.

“Hey,” he calls, waving a spatula in the air.

“Hey, Robin,” Clarke replies, remembering his outfit from Halloween as well.

Bellamy chuckles next to her. “Is that how you want to play this, Princess?”

She just rolls her eyes. “You already call me that all the time anyway.”

That gets a laugh out of Miller and he turns halfway around to give her an appreciative look. “I like you.”

And just like that, all her nerves are gone.

Bellamy joins Miller at the stove while she helps Jackson set the table. They quickly realize that they both have a membership to The Guggenheim and like to stroll around the modern, minimalistic halls, and get engrossed in a discussion of the latest exhibition.

The food is delicious, just like Bellamy promised, and the conversation flows easily at the table. Clarke discovers that Miller loves embarrassing his friend, and she happily listens to all the stories of crazy things the two of them got up to in junior high and high school, before they both ‘got their shit together’, as Miller puts it.

Bellamy seems torn between being annoyed at Miller for revealing all his youthful mistakes, and happy that he and Clarke are hitting it off. He settles for giving Miller exasperated looks now and then and retaliating with stories of his own, and smiling at Clarke.

“So, Clarke,” Miller says when they’ve settled onto the couch with dessert – just ice cream, but she’s so full she doesn’t think she could get anything else down anyway. “Bellamy said you spent Thanksgiving with Raven and Zeke, are you celebrating Christmas together too?”

Excellent, he’s giving her an opening to find out about Bellamy’s Christmas plans without having to bring it up herself.

“I am, yeah,” she confirms. “I’m actually hosting this year, we’ll see how that goes. And a couple of other friends I haven’t seen in a while are coming in from out of town as well, so it should be fun. How about you?”

Miller and Jackson exchange a look.

“Well, Nathan’s parents won four tickets to a Christmas cruise and invited us to go with them,” Jackson says after a moment.

“But they don’t want to go and leave me all alone over the holidays,” Bellamy finishes with a roll of his eyes. “I’ve told them that it’s fine, but do they listen?”

“And I’ve told you that you don’t abandon family on Christmas,” Miller retorts in a way that makes it clear it’s not the first time they’re having this discussion. “Dad’s trying to get another ticket, but if he can’t Aunt Marjorie and Uncle James will go instead of us, it’s not a big deal.”

Clarke sees her opening. “If you’re worried about this one brooding in his lonesome all Christmas, I can drag him along to my place.”

“You’d really do that?” Miller asks, though she’s pretty sure that’s what he was fishing for when he brought it up. She hopes he’s had some sort of indication from Bellamy that he actually wants to spend Christmas with her, and that it’s not just that Miller and Jackson really want to go on that cruise.

“Of course,” she assures him. “That way you won’t miss out on the cruise, and I’ll get some reinforcements against the couple invasion I’m facing.”

That seems to settle the conversation, as Miller switches topics.

It’s late when they finally go to bed, after one in the morning. Bellamy has tomorrow off, but Clarke has a story time at eleven, so they can’t sleep in, unfortunately.

Bellamy waits until she’s returned from the bathroom and crawled under the covers before he brings up the topic of Christmas again.

“I’m sorry about Miller ambushing you with the whole Christmas thing,” he says quietly when she’s settled in with her head on his chest, his arm sneaking under her so he can wrap it around her waist and pull her closer. “He’s been nagging me to ask you about it for a week, I guess he decided to take things into his own hands.”

She reaches across him to intertwine their fingers. “Don’t apologize, I was going to ask if you wanted to spend the holidays together myself, he just saved me from having to figure out how to bring it up.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” She pauses. “But, I mean, if you just want to have a quiet Christmas on your own and not subject yourself to the madness that is Raven in holiday spirit, I totally understand.”

Bellamy chuckles. “I actually kind of like Raven. Sure, she’s intense, but she seems like she’s a good person to have on your side.”

“The best. So Christmas at my place with my crazy friends?”

“If you’re sure you want me there.”

Clarke shifts so she can look up at him. “I always want you there. I thought that much was obvious since I’ve basically refused to let you leave for two and a half weeks.”

“It’s not like I tried very hard.”

She settles down again, letting out a deep breath.

“So we’re doing Christmas?”

Bellamy squeezes her hand. “Looks like it.”

“Just a heads-up – one of the friends from out of town that’s going to be there is my ex.” She figures it’s best to put that out there, in case someone says something about her and Wells’ relationship in front of Bellamy. Come to think of it, she should probably discuss this with Wells before he and Sasha actually get here too, make sure they have their stories straight…

“Oh. Alex, right?”

“Lexa. But no, not her, Wells,” Clarke clarifies. “We dated our senior year of high school and made it all the way to the Thanksgiving break our first semester at college before we realized that long distance wasn’t going to work. We stayed friends, though, and his girlfriend, Sasha, is a close friend of mine too, even if they live in the UK these days.”

“That’s nice, that you stayed friends,” Bellamy notes. “I’ve never really managed that with exes.”

“Yeah, it can be hard,” she agrees. “So you’re OK with that? You don’t want to back out of Christmas?”

“I think I can handle seeing you with a guy you broke up with, what? Eight, nine years ago?”

Bellamy thinks she’s twenty-seven, so that’s about right.

“Good.” She burrows further into the mattress and shifts a little so she can bury her face against his throat. “Because I really do want you there.”

He places a kiss on top of her head. “Then I’ll be there.”

She hums contentedly, feeling the first tendrils of sleep tugging at her mind.

“I love you.”

At first, she’s not sure she heard him right, but then she realizes that he’s tensed beneath her, and pushes herself up a little to be able to look at him. His eyebrows are furrowed and he looks like he’s afraid she’s going to run out of the room screaming.

“I’m sorry, I know it’s way too soon to say that, I just…”

She silences him with a kiss before pulling back and meeting his worried gaze. “I love you too.”

She can both see the relief in his eyes and feel it in the way his whole body relaxes.

“I almost said it the other night,” she reveals.

“When?” Bellamy asks.

“That night when you got home late and carried me to bed.”

“Really?”

Clarke just nods.

“I’ve been trying not to blurt it out for a while,” he admits.

“Since when?” she asks, curiously. Not that it matters who wanted to say it first, it’s not a competition or anything.

“That first morning at your place. You were lying there in bed, all sleepy and soft, and didn’t want me to leave… I was so close to just saying it then.”

She remembers that morning, remembers thinking he was about to say something and then didn’t.

“Really?” she repeats his earlier question.

“Really,” he says with a half-smile. “I was worried I’d scare you off.”

Her eyes flit to his Number for a moment. 224. It’s after midnight, so it’s already counted down one more day.

“You couldn’t scare me off if you tried,” she tells him truthfully.

The universe has already tried and failed, after all.

Chapter Text

Bellamy brings up the Christmas thing again a few days later, when they’re lounging in bed having breakfast one morning. He has the day off, and yesterday was his last final, so even though he does still have work tomorrow, he says that he’s feeling free since classes won’t start up again until after the holidays.

“So, Christmas,” he starts.

Clarke swallows the mouthful of coffee she just took. “What about it?”

“What do you guys do about presents?”

She frowns. “Well, we usually exchange them, but you don’t have to worry about that. You hardly know Raven and Zeke, and you haven’t even met Wells and Sasha.”

“I know, but… it feels wrong to just show up empty handed,” he insists.

“You can always get in on my presents if you want,” she suggests, but he shakes his head at that idea.

“Then they’d probably feel bad they didn’t get me anything,” Bellamy reasons. “I was thinking just something small. Symbolic.”

“Hmm.” She thinks for a moment. “Chocolate always works for Raven and Sasha, most specialist chocolate stores do holiday collections, you could get a box or something for each of them. It’s not too expensive but still nice. And… actually, the guys might be more your area of expertise.”

“Normally I would probably go with alcohol, but since Zeke’s some sort of expert on that…”

The discussion reminds Clarke that she has to pick up presents for Wells and Sasha herself… though, really, if they’d gotten their way, she wouldn’t even have known they were coming. She does usually get them presents, but they’ve come to a sort of agreement where they wait for the season sales after Christmas, which both means they get better deals and that they don’t risk the presents getting delayed or even lost due to the heavy load on the postal systems before the holidays, which did happen the first year after Wells and Sasha moved.

But she’s already talked to Wells, to fill him in on what she’s told Bellamy about their relationship, so he knows that she knows they’re coming.

“I actually need to pick something up for Wells and Sasha too,” she says. “I didn’t know they were coming until just the other day, apparently they wanted to surprise me.”

“That’s nice,” he notes. “Are they staying here with you, or with Raven?”

“Neither,” Clarke replies. “They always stay at the Four Seasons when they’re in town. But Raven and Zeke will stay here on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, we usually do sleepovers.”

“The Four Seasons? Jesus, are all your friends millionaires or something?”

She’s never really thought about it like that, but she supposes most of them actually are. It’s not hard to build up a small – or pretty big – fortune when you’ve been alive for over a century. Soul Keepers get paid very well, considering the actual work doesn’t take up much time, and while she does have her apartment in New York as well as a house in San Francisco that she managed to snap up before the housing market over there went completely haywire, Clarke usually takes advantage of the free accommodation Keepers can get if they want in most other cities. At the moment, she’s only volunteering at the library on the side, but now and then, she’ll take paid work instead, if she finds something that feels right. Add the income from her Etsy store and she sometimes has the equivalent of two full-time salaries with barely any expenses. Over time, it adds up. Also, it doesn’t hurt to have Raven as a best friend – she seems to have some sort of sixth sense when it comes to technology, and ever since she discovered the stock market, she’s made a lot of money, both for herself and for Clarke and their other friends, from investments in up-and-coming tech companies.

“Wells dad invented something back in the eighties,” she makes up on the spot, making a mental note to mention this to Wells so he’ll back her up if Bellamy asks about it, not that she thinks he will. “Something technical for computers or something, I have no idea. Wells inherited everything when his dad died, plus both he and Sasha have great jobs, so yeah, they’re pretty well off.”

“It’s a good thing we didn’t meet when I was, like, seventeen,” Bellamy muses. “Though you would have been, what, fourteen then? So it wouldn’t have been an issue either way, but I was pretty pissed at the world in general back then, and at rich people in particular…”

She can absolutely understand that, with his background. She offers a small smile. “Then I’m glad we didn’t meet back then too, and I’m sorry society gave you such a hard time. But no more distractions – how about we head out in a couple of hours, grab some lunch and go present shopping? I’ll help you find something for Zeke and Wells, and maybe we can find some Christmas spirit in the process.” So far, December has been mostly sunny, with only a couple colder days and hardly any snow at all.

Bellamy lets out an exaggerated sigh. “And here I was looking forward to not getting out of bed all day.”

“Well, we don’t have to,” she says with a shrug. “I mean, you have Sunday off and get off early on Monday, right? I’m sure nobody else will be out doing last minute Christmas shopping in New York City on Christmas Eve…”

He rolls his eyes at the sarcasm before pouncing on her, pinning her to the bed.

“Fine,” he agrees, sliding a finger slowly all the way from her thigh up her side to her breast, where he circles her nipple slowly. “But if we’re spending all afternoon shopping, we’d better make the most of the next few hours…”

And, boy, do they…

-100-

Clarke actually loves Christmas shopping, and especially in New York – there’s just something magical about the city with all the lights, the holiday windows, the Christmas trees and ice rinks…

They take the train all the way to 57^th Street and grab lunch at a hole-in-the-wall Indian place before strolling down 6^th Avenue, stopping for a while to watch the skaters and the tree at Rockefeller Center. It’s still light out, so the Christmas spirit isn’t quite there, but it’s still nice. Bellamy picks up a couple of season inspired chocolate boxes for Raven and Sasha at La Maison du Chocolat, and they sample everything they can in the shop as well.

After that, they take a detour to Times Square where Clarke gets her presents – a book on brewing your own beer for Wells, who has just picked up the hobby, and a cute little charm in the shape of a snowflake for Sasha, who has a bracelet that Wells gave her for their anniversary a few years ago that she’s slowly filling with charms.

They continue towards Bryant Park and in a little game shop that most people wouldn’t even notice in the hustle and bustle of New York, Bellamy finds his last two gifts – a quiz game about beer for Zeke and QI – the board game for Wells, since Clarke knows he’s been obsessed with the show for years.

Happy with their finds, they wrap up their little outing at the Winter Village. The sun has finally set and both the huge Christmas tree and all the lights have been lit. They stroll around the little holiday shops for a while, perusing everything from knitted hats and gloves to hand-woven baskets and unique artworks. Clarke always buys one new tree ornament for Christmas, and she just can’t resist a beautiful, red one with New York written in black and the city’s skyline.

When they’ve made the rounds of all the shops, they buy some hot chocolate, since the early evening has turned a little cold, and lounge on the bleachers by the ice rink.

“So, a Clarke Griffin Christmas,” Bellamy says, blowing on his paper cup before taking a sip. “What can I expect?”

“Well, the first thing you need to know when spending Christmas with me and Raven is that it’s a three day event.”

He pauses with the cup halfway from his mouth and gives her a questioning look. “Three days?”

Clarke chuckles. “Well, not three full days, but almost.”

She and Raven have spent Christmas together a lot over the years, not all of them but well over a hundred, for sure. Their traditions have evolved and merged and changed to accommodate new ones, and at this point it can only be described as an amalgamation of different cultures and times and people. Clarke loves it.

“Well, we usually start on Christmas Eve,” she tells him. “My great-great-something grandfather was from Sweden, so I like to incorporate some of those traditions, and over there Christmas Eve is the main day for celebration – that’s when families gather for the holiday meal, exchange presents, all that. We usually get together at some point early in the afternoon, order way too much Chinese food and then spend the rest of the day watching Christmas movies and eating and then everyone gets to open one present in the evening.”

She actually picked up the Swedish Christmas traditions when she was stationed there back in the late eighties and early nineties. Her first Christmas back in the States after those six years, she and Raven added them to their current Christmas traditions. To be perfectly honest, it was at least partly to be able to extend Christmas and make it last longer.

“Swedes eat Chinese food on Christmas Eve?” Bellamy asks a little incredulously.

“Oh, no,” Clarke replies. “They usually eat either roast ham, but we have that on Christmas Day, or something called lutfisk, which is dried whitefish treated with lye. I like it, Raven doesn’t, but it’s not that easy to come by here, and none of us know how to cook it properly anyway, so we’ve fudged that part a little.”

“Ah, I see. So it’s Swedish Christmas Eve Clarke and Raven style.”

She lets out a short laugh. “I guess you could say that. OK, so then on Christmas Day, it’s obviously presents in the morning. Then we cook breakfast together, and we really go all out – pancakes, waffles, scrambled eggs, bacon, toast… everything. After that, nobody obviously has any energy to do more than lounge around, so we either watch whatever’s on TV or continue our Christmas movie marathon. Sometimes we play board games or video games, especially if someone’s gotten one as a present. Do you have any favorite Christmas movies, by the way? We usually go around the group and everyone gets to pick one, then we start over, if we have the time.”

Bellamy frowns. “I’ll think about it.”

“Great. Preferably something that’s on Netflix, but DVDs are fine too, as long as you either make sure I already have it, or you bring it yourself. OK, so that brings us to the Christmas dinner – roast ham, mashed and roast potatoes, roasted vegetables, latkes… I’m probably forgetting something, there really is a lot of food, but you get the picture. And a bunch of desserts.”

“So basically, you eat all day?”

“Of course, that’s the whole point!”

“Right, how could I forget?”

There’s a teasing note to his voice and Clarke gives him a look through narrowed eyes. “Are you making fun of me?”

Bellamy gives her an innocent look. “I would never.”

She’s not entirely sure he’s telling the truth. “Hm. Well, then it’s Boxing Day… which isn’t actually a holiday, do you have work?”

He shakes his head. “No, it’s my day off that week.”

“OK, good, wouldn’t want you to miss the last part of our big Christmas celebration. So Boxing Day we usually go to a shelter and donate a few boxes of things – clothes, we buy some hygiene stuff like toothbrushes and toothpaste, soap, shampoo, and a bunch of Raven’s amazing Christmas cookies.”

“That’s a nice tradition,” he notes. “Where did it come from?”

“It’s a British thing,” Clarke explains. “The whole concept of Boxing Day has its origin in the UK, possibly coming from the tradition of giving servants that day off after they spent Christmas working, and then they were given a Christmas box with gifts or some money or leftover food to bring home to their families. I guess that sentiment evolved over the years into wanting to help those less fortunate… though these days it’s probably more about the sales that start everywhere on Boxing Day, but we choose to stick with the older traditions. I have a box of stuff if you want to add some things you don’t need or want anymore, and then we’ll stop by Walgreens on the way to pick up the rest.”

“I’ll stop by the apartment tomorrow after work,” Bellamy says. “I can drop off all the school books and go through the back of my closet where all the things I haven’t used in ages live.”

“Sounds good. Then we usually wrap up the festivities with hot chili, which is a Mexican tradition, possibly one last Christmas movie, and that’s it.”

He slides an arm around her shoulders and squeezes. “I like your Christmas traditions.”

They sit in silence for a little while, watching the skaters and finishing their hot chocolate.

“So how do you usually celebrate Christmas?” Clarke eventually asks.

“Well, I’ve spent it with Miller and his family the last few years,” he starts. “Unlike Thanksgiving, which is just the immediate family, Christmas is the whole clan, basically. Miller has three uncles and two aunts, plus their significant others, and, like, fifteen cousins or something. Some of his older cousins have started getting married and having kids of their own, too, so last year I think there were… thirty-five adults and eleven kids.”

“Oh my God!” she can’t help but exclaim. “I’m guessing that was pretty intense?”

Bellamy chuckles. “That’s one word for it. Honestly, it’ll be nice to be able to relax a little…”

“Yeah, you should definitely get to do that.”

He lets out a deep sigh. “Before that, growing up… Mom usually worked, she got double time on holidays. But she always made sure to wake us up with hot chocolate in bed on Christmas morning and watch us open the presents in our stockings, which were usually second hand clothes and games or toys from the thrift store down the street, but still. When Octavia got older and started realizing that Christmas was a big deal, I tried to make it special for her. I made her things at school, little wooden toys in shop class when she was little, and then other stuff as she got older, boxes for her jewelry, pen holders and other stuff for her desk… I even made her a bookcase once.”

This is the most he’s talked about his sister since Halloween, and Clarke wants him to continue, wants to know what it is that puts that undertone of sadness in his voice whenever she’s mentioned, but she also doesn’t want to push.

“That’s nice,” she just says. “I’m sure she appreciated everything you did for her.”

He’s quiet for a moment. “Yeah, I think so. She was never very good at saying it, but I think she did.”

She reaches for his hand and squeezes it tightly. “Of course she did.”

“The Christmas after she left… that was probably the worst Christmas ever,” Bellamy continues after a beat, eyes intent on their joined hands. “I didn’t even leave the house… that’s when Miller suggested I move in with him.”

Clarke scoots closer to him and leans her head on his shoulder. “I’m glad you had him.”

He huffs once. “Yeah, he’s definitely the reason I got through that period of my life more or less unscathed.”

He goes quiet again and she thinks this is probably it, he’s done sharing for today, so she’s surprised when he clears his throat after a few minutes and continues speaking.

“I told you my mom died right before I was supposed to go to college, right? And that I put off school to get the delivery job and be able to take care of O?”

“You did.”

“It was hard on Octavia. I mean, it was hard on me too, obviously, Mom had just died and suddenly my whole life changed, but O was just thirteen… a thirteen year old girl needs her mom, you know? I wasn’t… I couldn’t fill those shoes, no matter how hard I tried. It didn’t matter that I had been the one to basically raise her even before Mom died, since she was working all the time… It still never felt like I did enough, you know?

She started acting out – cutting class, smoking, staying out past her curfew… one day, she got caught shoplifting and social services almost took her away, but somehow I finally got through to her, told her that she could end up in a group home or the foster system, and she straightened up. She focused back on school, did almost everything I told her to…

When she graduated high school, she got into NYU. Not on a scholarship or anything, but she qualified for some financial aid and I had been saving, too, so I knew we could do it, as long as she lived at home and we cut back on some things. I thought we were in agreement on the whole college thing, she was really excited when she got her acceptance letter. But then she came home the day after her high school graduation and told me that she wasn’t going. She had gotten a job on a cruise ship, I don’t even know what she was supposed to be doing, and it was leaving from Miami the next week.

I admit that I lost it a little. I yelled at her, told her she was throwing her life away, that Mom would be disappointed in her… in the end, she stormed out of the apartment. I let her go, figured I’d give her a few days to calm down. By the time I tried to get a hold of her again, her phone had been disconnected. I called her best friend, but she said that O had left, gone down to Florida early. I discovered that she had been home at some point when I was out, packed up a bunch of her clothes and some other stuff.

I didn’t know what to do. I called every cruise company I could find, but of course they wouldn’t tell me if she was working for them. She was eighteen, I wasn’t technically her guardian anymore, so legally, she could do whatever she wanted. I even thought about going down there, trying to find her, bring her back… but in the end, I realized that doing that would probably do more harm than good. Really push her away. So I let her go.”

Despite the noise from the rink and the stores around them, the silence seems deafening when he stops speaking.

“And you haven’t heard from her since?” Clarke asks gently after a moment.

Bellamy shakes his head. “No. I always figured, she was the one who left, you know? I was here, always here, not in our old apartment but still in the area. I have the same phone number and email address, Miller was already living in our apartment back then, she knew where he was… I’m not hard to find… she’s the one that has to want to come back. But it’s been seven and a half years of nothing now, I don’t… I think somewhere along the way, I accepted that she’s not coming back.”

She feels her heart break for him and has to blink away a few tears. “I’m sorry you had to go through that. But she could still come back. And no matter what you think, her leaving is not your fault.”

He snorts. “Sure it is. If I hadn’t yelled at her, maybe she wouldn’t have taken off like that. I could have been supportive, told her that she’d always have a place with me whenever she wanted to come back.”

“OK, yes, you could have handled it better,” she agrees. “But so could she.”

He leans his head on top of hers and lets out a shaky breath. “Maybe.”

Clarke wants to push it, but she has a feeling it won’t do any good. He’s just not ready to forgive himself. She turns her head so she can bury her face against his throat and breathes him in,

“Thank you for telling me. I love you.”

“I love you too. I didn’t want there to be any big secrets between us.”

The words make a lump of ice settle in her stomach. Because there is a big secret between them. A huge secret.

-100-

Clarke starts having trouble sleeping in the days after Bellamy tells her about his sister, her conscience nagging at her whenever she lets her mind rest. He notices, of course.

“What’s wrong, Princess?” he asks her when he gets up on Friday to find her already seated at the breakfast bar, drinking coffee. Her third cup of the day, but he doesn’t need to know that. “And don’t say nothing, you’ve been tossing and turning all night for days, and now you’re up before me? Didn’t I tire you out last night?”

He definitely did… and she’d been able to fall asleep without problem. It was when she woke up at four thirty in the morning that she couldn’t go back to sleep, her mind churning.

Should she tell him? And if so, what should she tell him? If she just reveals the Soul Keeper thing, how can she justify telling him about that? She just got to New York, she won’t be reassigned again for at least five or six years, unless she asks for it… Sure, she could say that she doesn’t want to have to lie to him about such a big part of her life anymore, but that would actually feel like more of a deception, since there would be this huge part of it that he still wouldn’t know. And if she decides to tell him everything, then what? She has no idea how he’d react…

“It’s nothing,” she says as he turns his back on her to pour himself some coffee. “I promise. My brain’s just a little wired this time of year.”

She can tell from the look in his eyes that he doesn’t buy it. He joins her at the counter, leaning his elbows against it and sipping his coffee.

“Promise to tell me if something’s really bothering you?” he asks, eyes pleading.

“Of course.”

Clarke takes another sip of coffee, trying to give him a reassuring smile but probably failing.

“Hey,” she says after a moment. “Weird question. If you found out you had seven months to live, what would you do?”

Bellamy frowns. “Seven months? That’s weirdly specific…”

“Six months then,” she amends, berating herself for not saying that from the start. “Or a year. What would you do?”

He’s quiet for a moment, thinking she assumes. “Well, considering I only have a couple of grand in my savings account and I’d still have to live during that time, I wouldn’t quit my job. Might drop out of school, though, no point wasting my nights on classes if I’m never going to get that degree anyway.” He pauses, takes another sip of coffee. “Make things right with Octavia and then just… spend time with my friends, with her, if I could, with you. Try to make the most of the time I had left.”

She probably should have expected something like that. There’s no way responsible Bellamy Blake would drop everything to go on one last adventure…

“And if money wasn’t an issue?” she presses. “Say you win the Powerball, a hundred million dollars, and the day after you find out you have a year to live. Then what would you do?”

“This question is getting weirder and weirder,” Bellamy notes, giving her an odd look.

“Just humor me. My brain is sleep deprived, it comes up with weird things.”

He takes a deep breath. “Well, in that case I’d probably want to travel. See the places I’ve been reading about most of my life… Rome, Athens, Pompeii. Other places too, London, Paris, the pyramids, the Great Wall, Machu Picchu, Grand Canyon. And the Philippines, I’d want to see where my dad came from.”

Would he let her do that for him, if she were to tell him the truth? If there’s one thing she knows about Bellamy after these last few intense weeks together, it’s that he’s proud. He doesn’t like to accept help. But this… it’s not like she really needs the money, it usually just sits in her accounts. She makes donations to charities regularly, but she doesn’t do much for herself, and no matter what he might think, making this dream of his come true would be just as much for her as it would be for him.

“The adventure of a lifetime,” she notes, and he chuckles.

“I guess. But this is all just hypothetical, so while it’s nice to dream, I’ll probably never get to see those places.”

He will if she has anything to say about it.

-100-

Raven and Zeke are the first to arrive on Christmas Eve. Bellamy has work until one and Wells and Sasha are probably doing some last minute shopping – Raven picked them up at the airport yesterday, and Clarke asked her to tell them that Bellamy had insisted on getting them both a little something, which made Sasha immediately decide that they had to find something for him as well, so he wouldn’t feel left out. Clarke texted them a couple of hints, so hopefully they’ve been able to find something that he’ll like.

“Hey, I need your help,” Clarke greets them when she opens the door.

Raven raises an eyebrow. “You mean apart from the fantastic Christmas feast we’re going to be cooking for your guests tomorrow?”

“Exactly.”

“I think what she means is ‘of course, Clarke, it’s Christmas, naturally we’ll help you with whatever it is you need’,” Zeke interjects and Raven rolls her eyes.

“I really didn’t.”

He ignores her. “What’s up, Griffin?”

“Well, my head’s been all over the place these last few days,” she starts, leading them into the living room. “And I completely forgot to check my assignments for this week. I only had one Transfer this morning, which wasn’t a problem, but it turns out I have two tomorrow afternoon. They’re pretty close together, two thirty and three fifteen, both on the Lower East Side, but there is absolutely no way that I can justify leaving for over an hour. Could either of you take them? I promise I’ll make it up to you.” She slumps down on the couch, giving them both hopeful smiles.

“Of course,” Zeke says immediately, pulling his phone out of his pocket and sitting down next to her. “I have one myself, at four, so maybe we can just say that there’s something I have to do for a couple of hours in the afternoon? The community center is open for the kids all day, doing dinner and games and stuff, we can say I need to stop by there… though I’d probably have to actually do that, with Miller working there it could get back to Bellamy if I don’t.”

“You’re an angel,” Clarke tells him, smacking a kiss on his cheek. “Seriously.”

“Don’t worry about it, just send it over.”

It’s a pretty new feature in their app, the ability to send a Transfer to another Keeper. That person has to accept it, of course, you can’t just send assignments around all willy-nilly, but Clarke really prefers it to just declining assignments, which they can technically do – it’s not like they’re paid based on how many Transfers they do or anything, and they still get paid if they take time off. Still, she tries to have enough foresight that she registers any time she’s planning to take off, so she won’t have to decline assignments, but this is a good option in a pinch.

She opens her own app and sends the two Transfers to Zeke, making his phone ding a moment later. He clicks a few times before putting the phone away again. “There, all done. They were even in the same basic area as the one I already had, so shouldn’t take too long.”

“Phew, that’s a weight off my shoulders.”

Raven’s been quiet during their exchange, but now she pipes up. “What’s got you so distracted you’re not keeping track of your assignments, anyway?” she asks. “Loverboy got you all hot and bothered?”

Clarke sighs. “Sort of. Remember I said I thought there was something with his sister that he wasn’t telling me?” Raven nods. “Well, he told me… and then he said that he didn’t want there to be any big secrets between us.”

Raven winces. “Ouch.”

“Tell me about it.”

“What are you going to do?” Zeke asks.

At that moment, the doorbell rings. “I don’t know,” Clarke replies, getting up from the couch. “I hate lying to him all the time, but I just… I don’t know.”

She expects it to be Wells and Sasha, but when she opens the door again, she finds Bellamy on the other side.

“Hi there,” she says, reaching up to give him a kiss. “I’ve told you to just use the key.”

He’s been insistent on only using the spare key he still has when he has to, like when he locks up after himself in the morning or when he gets back when Clarke’s not home. She’s been trying to get him to just use it all the time, but he still rings the doorbell when he knows she’s there. It’s both adorable and, at times, a little frustrating.

“Force of habit,” he replies, following her into the apartment. “Hey, guys.”

Raven and Zeke look up. “Happy holidays!” Raven exclaims. “Are you ready for Christmas extraordinaire?”

“I hope so,” he replies, claiming a spot on the couch next to Zeke. “Not sure I’ll be able to keep up with all the eating, based on what Clarke’s told me, but I am going to do my very best.”

“You’ll be fine,” Zeke assures him, clapping him on the back.

“It’s not like we’ll force you to eat anything,” Clarke adds. She’s about to join the others on the couch, but before she has a chance, the doorbell rings again. “And that should be Wells and Sasha.”

Sure enough, it is, Wells laden with bags full of presents and Sasha carrying a huge bouquet of flowers.

“Hey guys!” Clarke exclaims, stepping aside to let them in. “Here, let me take those.”

She grabs the flowers from Sasha, who helps Wells put all the bags down on the floor so they can both take off their shoes and coats.

“Hi, sweetie, it’s been much too long,” Sasha says, pulling Clarke into a one-armed hug. “We’ve missed you.”

“Well, that’s what you get for moving half-way across the world,” Clarke teases, pulling away from Sasha to hug Wells too.

“Yeah, yeah, it’s all our fault,” he grumbles, his arms tight around her. “How’re you doing?”

She takes a deep breath before letting him go. “I’m good. It’s… you know. But it’s too late to turn back now.”

He gives her an understanding smile and squeezes her hand before grabbing the bags again.

“Hey, Jaha, Walgrove!” Raven’s voice comes from the living room. “Stop hiding out in the hallway, some of us haven’t eaten all day!”

“I’m pretty sure that’s an exaggeration, but better not keep her waiting,” Clarke notes, heading into the kitchen to find a vase for the flowers before continuing to the living room, where Bellamy’s gotten to his feet to greet the new arrivals. “We are complete. This is Wells and Sasha, guys, this is Bellamy.”

Wells holds out his hand first. “It’s nice to meet you, man, Clarke’s been talking about you a lot the last few weeks.”

“Don’t tell him that!” Clarke stage whispers, making the others laugh.

“Nice to meet you too,” Bellamy replies, shaking Wells’ hand. “And you, Sasha.”

Unlike Wells, Sasha can’t help but glance at Bellamy’s Number, but she quickly moves her eyes to his and smiles. “It’s so good to meet you, I’m glad you could join us for this.”

“Me too,” Bellamy agrees.

“So, Clarke tells me that you study history?” Wells says. “I’ve always been fascinated by history. What’s your favorite time period?”

And just like that, the two are off discussing ancient Greece and the Roman Empire, and Clarke breathes a small sigh of relief.

Chapter Text

With the greetings over, Raven draws everyone’s attention back to the matter at hand – food.

“OK, seriously, I really am hungry, guys. Can we order, please?”

So Clarke grabs the menu for Fortune House from the take-out drawer in the kitchen and they pass it around, eventually deciding on what they want. Raven calls in their order, doubling everything as usual, while Wells arranges his and Sasha’s presents under the tree in the corner.

“Right,” Zeke says when Raven plops down beside him again. “First movie, Clarke’s pick since we’re here.”

Clarke grabs the remote and starts up Netflix. “You know we have to start with a classic.”

She scrolls through the Christmas category until she finds what she’s looking for, getting cheers from Wells and Sasha, and booing from Raven, when she starts It’s a Wonderful Life.

She puts the remote down on the table and pulls her legs under her before curling into Bellamy’s side. He wraps an arm around her shoulders.

“Favorite Christmas movie?” he asks her quietly.

“One of them,” she replies. “I’m pretty sure Sasha will pick one of the others, and hopefully we’ll finish at least one round so I’ll get to pick again.”

He huffs a laugh.

They’re almost halfway through the movie when the doorbell rings, signaling the arrival of the much awaited food, and Clarke jumps to her feet.

“No need to pause, be right back,” she says, heading into the hallway.

They really did order a lot of food, and the poor delivery guy seems to almost buckle under the weight of the two huge bags. He’s probably not used to delivering this much food at once. Clarke tips him more than generously, though, and he leaves with a smile.

Bellamy appears behind her when she closes the door, holding his hands out for the bags. “Let me take those.”

She hands them over and goes into the kitchen to grab plates for everyone, along with some forks, for those who don’t want to use chopsticks, and serving spoons. When she puts everything down on the table, the movie has been paused and the others are unpacking all the paper containers from the bags.

“What does everyone want to drink?” she asks as she heads back to the kitchen.

“Wine!” Raven and Sasha call in unison, so Clarke opens the wine fridge and grabs a bottle of white, knowing that Sasha prefers it while Raven doesn’t care.

“Guys?” She puts the bottle on the counter and opens the cupboard with wine glasses.

“I’ll take a beer,” Zeke replies.

“Make that two,” Wells adds.

“I’ll have wine too,” Bellamy says from next to her, and she gives him a quick smile.

“Here.” She hands him four wine glasses. “Bring those in, I’ve got the bottle and the beers.”

He nods, leaning down and stealing a quick kiss before heading back to the living room. Clarke grabs the wine and gets two bottles of beer from the fridge before following him.

She hands out the beers and pours wine into the four glasses, then takes the paper container that Wells offers her. They pass the food around, everyone scooping what they want onto their plates, before starting the movie again.

“There’s so much food left,” Bellamy notes when everyone’s settled in with plates in their laps.

“Never fear,” Raven tells him, waving her fork in a dismissive motion. “It’s only two thirty, we have hours and hours to finish the rest of it. Trust the experts.”

He still gives Clarke a doubtful look and she pats his knee comfortingly. “Don’t worry, we’ve done this before.”

By the time the credits roll across the screen and everyone’s leaning back on the couch, practically bursting at the seams, almost half the cartons are still unopened on the table.

“OK, ten minute bathroom slash putting away food break,” Raven announces, pushing off the couch and grabbing some of the still full food containers.

“We get bathroom breaks?” Bellamy says quietly and Clarke has to hold back a laugh.

“Don’t worry,” she assures him. “You’re allowed to go to the bathroom in the middle of a movie… just don’t block Raven’s view.”

He gives her a long look. “I honestly can’t tell if you’re joking or not.”

She just shrugs, stacking the empty plates.

“When in doubt when it comes to Raven,” Wells pipes in. “Always err on the side of caution.”

“Oh yeah, I’ve already figured that out myself.”

They all laugh at that before Wells takes the plates from Clarke. “Sit,” he orders her. “We’ve got it. Help this guy pick out the next movie.”

“It’s my turn?” Bellamy asks, reclaiming his seat on one of the chaises before moving into the corner and stretching his legs out in front of him.

Clarke sits down next to him, mirroring his position and sliding down a little so she can lean back against him. “Apparently.”

He hums and starts scrolling through the titles on the screen, but waits until everyone else has returned to the living room – Raven and Zeke claiming the opposite chaise while Wells and Sasha sit down in the middle of the couch and put their feet up on the table – before he clicks on A Charlie Brown Christmas.

“Really?” Clarke asks, glancing up at him.

She feels him shrug. “Mom recorded it when I was, like, five or something,” he says. “We used to watch it on Christmas every year until our VCR broke the year before she died. It was a nice tradition.”

She reaches for his hand, interlacing their fingers and squeezing.

After A Charlie Brown Christmas, it’s Zeke’s turn to pick and he, unsurprisingly – to everyone except maybe Bellamy – chooses Miracle on 34^th Street, which gets them through another two hours. Clarke’s starting to realize that they probably won’t get around to everyone today, but there’s always tomorrow.

“Sash, you’re up,” Wells announces when the last scene fades to the credits, and she pushes herself into a sitting position from where she had been laying down with her head in his lap.

Raven groans. “Like we don’t all know which one she’ll pick.”

“You mean like we know which one you’ll pick?” Clarke counters in a teasing voice. Raven doesn’t respond, just sticks her tongue out.

Hugh Grant’s voice soon fills the air. “Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport. General opinion’s starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don’t see that. It seems to me that love is everywhere.”

A moment later, she feels Bellamy tense behind her and half-turns to look up at him.

“You OK?”

He’s staring straight ahead at the TV but at her question he shakes his head. “Fine.”

She frowns at the tense look on his face. “Obviously not. What’s wrong?”

The others have picked up on their conversation and are watching them instead of the movie, Sasha with the remote still in her hand.

Bellamy sighs. “Octavia borrowed this movie from a friend the Christmas before our mom died,” he explains. “They both loved it, I don’t know how many times they watched it…”

“I’m sorry,” Sasha apologizes, a frown on her face. “We’ll switch.”

“No, no,” he quickly replies. “It’s fine, I just wasn’t prepared and it brought back some memories. I’ve actually never seen the whole movie, I was seventeen back then, way too cool to watch some romantic Christmas drama with my mom and kid sister.”

Sasha still looks hesitant. “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” Bellamy tells her determinedly. “I want to watch it.”

And he does relax, leaning his head against the top of Clarke’s and wrapping his arm tighter around her, his hand coming to rest against her stomach. He laughs at Bill Nighy’s cringe-worthy cover of Love is All Around, snorts when Kris Marshall tries to flirt but ends up insulting the wedding caterer, and Clarke thinks she hears him sniffle a little when Liam Neeson starts crying while talking about his stepson and dead wife with Emma Thompson.

“OK, this might be the most star-packed movie I’ve ever watched,” he mumbles as Keira Knightley opens the door to reveal Andrew Lincoln with his boom box and huge flash cards. “That’s the guy from The Walking Dead, right? I thought he looked familiar…”

“Yes, shhh, this is the best part!”

When God Only Knows starts playing on repeat and the loving reunions become hundreds of little squares that eventually turn into a heart before the screen fades to black, it’s almost nine thirty.

 “What do you say, babe?” Wells asks Sasha when Raven announces a break and heads in the direction of the bathroom. “Time to head back to the hotel soon?”

They aren’t joining the others for breakfast in the morning, since Sasha doesn’t want to miss the special Christmas buffet that the hotel offers, but they do still have to get up pretty early to get back for the gift exchange.

“Yeah, that sounds like a good idea,” she agrees. “Christmas Eve present time?”

“Definitely,” Clarke agrees, getting up from the couch to sit down next to the tree. At Bellamy’s questioning look, she explains. “Since I’m the host, I’m in charge of handing out gifts. So I’ll pick at random until everyone has one each tonight.”

“Are we doing presents already?” Raven asks, returning from the bathroom. “It’s not even ten!”

“Some of us are still a little jetlagged and have more than fifty feet to their beds,” Wells replies, and she sighs.

“Fine.”

“Anybody want some leftovers?” Zeke wonders, getting to his feet.

“Are you seriously hungry again?” Raven gives him an incredulous look, but he just shrugs.

“Not starving or anything, but I could eat.”

“Heat me up some egg rolls and spinach dumplings, please,” Clarke says.

“I could go for some of the chicken with cashews,” Bellamy adds.

“Wells? Sasha?”

They look at each other for a moment and then Sasha shrugs.

“We can share a plate of Moo Shu chicken,” Wells says, and Zeke nods before heading into the kitchen.

“Nothing for you, babe?” he calls over the counter, but Raven shakes her head.

“OK, I’m getting started on this while you do that,” Clarke announces, reaching for a bright pink box under the Christmas tree. “For… Sasha from Zeke.”

Sasha holds out her hands and Clarke throws the gift across the room.

“Oh, if there’s something fragile that shouldn’t be tossed around,” Wells tells Bellamy, who’s eyes have widened, “be sure to say that.”

He thinks for a moment. “No, I think everything should survive that.”

By the time Zeke returns with the food – carrying two plates in each hand, waiter-style – Clarke has returned to her spot on the couch and everyone has a present in front of them.

“Here we go,” Zeke says, putting the plates down on the table. “Where’s my present?”

Raven gives him a smirk. “You snooze, you lose. It’s mine now.”

He sits down next to her before wrapping one arm tightly around her and using his other hand to tickle her mercilessly.

“Say you give.”

Raven squirms for a moment, determinedly clamping her mouth shut to not let out the laughter that’s obviously bubbling up, but does surrender after less than a minute.

“Fine, I give!”

Zeke lets her go and holds out his hand for the present, which she hands over with a huff.

“Babe, this is your present to me,” he notes, and she shrugs.

“Maybe I want it back?”

Zeke just shakes his head and starts unwrapping the gift, which works as a sort of starting signal for everyone else.

Clarke is just pulling the paper away from her gift – from Wells and Sasha – when Bellamy lets out a laugh next to her. She looks over at the mug he’s just unwrapped. “History buff,” she reads out loud.

“I’d find you more interesting if you were dead,” Bellamy finishes. “Thanks, Raven, I love it.”

Raven beams at both of them across the table. “I thought it would go well with Clarke’s little mug collection,” she says.

“What do you think of yours, Clarke?” Sasha asks, a smug look on her face.

Clarke looks down at her own present. “I… what is it?”

She turns the clear plastic packaging over in her hands. Inside are what look like narrow, purple sticks that appear to be plastic. There looks to have been a label on one side, but it’s been peeled off.

Wells and Sasha are both smiling impossibly wide.

“I was hoping you’d pick that one tonight,” Wells says.

“Seriously, what is it?”

“You’ll just have to wait to find out until you open the other part of the present,” he tells her.

Clarke shoots him an annoyed look. “No fair.”

Sasha laughs. “You should have picked the big green box instead.”

“Now I’m going to be thinking about this all night,” Clarke complains, putting her present down on the table in front of her.

“Promise I’ll distract you,” Bellamy says in her ear, and she feels a shiver run down her spine in anticipation.

“Good.”

“OK, we should really head out,” Sasha says, getting to her feet. “We’ll be back bright and early tomorrow, don’t start opening presents without us!”

“We make no promises,” Raven says with a smirk and Zeke rolls his eyes.

Clarke gets up too and walks Wells and Sasha to the door. “Come on, Wells, tell me, please?” she wheedles. “It’s seriously going to drive me crazy.”

But he just laughs and wags his eyebrows at her. “I’m sure you can find something to keep your mind off it.”

She sighs, considering pushing the issue a bit more, but she knows that when Wells has made up his mind, there’s no changing it.

“Your boyfriend sucks,” she tells Sasha instead, pulling the other woman into a hug.

Sasha laughs and hugs her back. “I promise you’re going to love it.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Clarke hugs Wells too and they leave.

When she returns to the living room, the wrapping paper has been cleared away and Bellamy, Raven and Zeke are lounging on the couch, talking about board games. Bellamy’s present for Zeke, the beer game, is sitting on the table.

Clarke slumps down in her old spot.

“You’re not calling it a night yet, are you?” Raven asks. “It’s not even ten.”

“Maybe not quite yet,” Clarke replies. She’s tired, but she also knows that she probably won’t get a lot of sleep anyway. “But I don’t think I’m up for another movie.”

Raven thinks for a moment. “Christmas episodes of Friends?” she then suggests.

Clarke lights up. “Yes please. The one with the holiday armadillo?”

“Obviously,” Raven snorts. “And night of the living dead Christmas trees?”

“Do you have any idea what they’re talking about?” Bellamy asks Zeke, who laughs.

“Unfortunately, yes, but I do have a bit more experience with these two than you,” he says.

“Come on, you must have watched Friends?” Clarke insists.

“Of course,” Bellamy confirms. “That doesn’t actually help.”

“It’s different Christmas themed episodes,” she explains. “The episode where Ross can’t get a Santa costume for his Christmas with Ben, and shows up dressed as an armadillo…”

“Oh, yeah, I remember that one. And Joey’s Superman.”

“Exactly. And then the episode where Joey works as a Christmas tree salesman and Phoebe feels sorry for all the trees that get sent to the chipper and they all end up at Monica’s apartment.”

His brow furrows. “I don’t remember that one.”

“Then it’s a good thing you’re about to get a reminder,” Raven says, grabbing the remote and flipping through the episodes of season three. “Let’s start with that one.”

She laughs along with the others, but soon, Clarke finds her eyelids drooping and she has to fight to keep them open. She’s vaguely aware of the TV turning off, silence spreading for a moment before Raven speaks.

“Why don’t you get her to bed? We’ll clear up the plates and stuff.”

She forces her eyes open. “It’s fine, I’m awake.”

Raven gives her a doubtful look. “You want to try that standing up?”

Clarke huffs and pushes herself to her feet. Sure, she wobbles slightly, Bellamy’s hand closing around her wrist to keep her steady, but she’s upright.

“Yeah, no,” Raven says, shaking her head. “Go to bed. Sleep.”

For a moment, Clarke considers arguing, but she really is tired… maybe she can actually sleep.

“Fine. See you in the morning.”

Bellamy wraps an arm around her shoulders as they head off in the direction of the bedroom, and she happily leans against him, letting him more or less lead her.

“Those sleepless nights finally catching up with you, huh?” he asks after closing the door behind them. “Think you can stay upright long enough to brush your teeth?”

She tries to elbow him in the side, but it probably comes off more like a nudge. “Of course.”

He chuckles. “OK then, bathroom is all yours.”

Clarke steps out of his half-embrace, instantly missing his warm body against her side, and goes into the bathroom.

She immediately dims the lights, but still feels them waking her up a little. The fresh toothpaste and warm water against her face adds to that, and by the time she leaves the bathroom, she’s more or less awake.

Bellamy has removed the bedspread and closed the blinds towards the street in her absence, and she tugs off her dress and leggings as she rounds the bed, not even bothering with her bra before sliding between the sheets.

“Ah, heaven,” she sighs as she sinks into the mattress.

He laughs quietly. “Go to sleep.”

She just hums in reply and rolls onto her side, making sure her phone’s plugged into the charger on the nightstand. She’s already feeling the underlying hum of anxiety that’s been keeping her awake the last few nights, even though she’s still so tired her limbs just want to sink into the bed and never move again.

She gets rid of her bra and panties just as the water turns off in the bathroom, and a moment later, Bellamy’s back in the room, unbuttoning his shirt. He hangs it up on one of the hooks on the back of the bathroom door before discarding his slacks as well and climbing into bed next to her.

“I thought you’d be out like a light,” he notes when she scoots closer to him.

“Nope,” she replies, sliding a hand across his stomach and throwing one leg over his.

He turns his head to meet her lips, but keeps the kiss infuriatingly chaste. “You need to sleep,” he tells her when he pulls back.

Clarke hums. “I’d sleep better after a couple of orgasms…”

He laughs at that. “Just a couple, huh? No pressure?”

She lets her hand slide lower, palming him through his boxers. “I’d settle for one.”

He’s still soft under her hand, but he jerks his hips against her once before rolling onto his side and pulling her flush against him.

“I think I can do better than that.”

He kisses her again, their tongues sliding together lazily at first, but then Clarke buries her fingers in his hair, holding him to her, and he trails a hand up her side to cover her breast, palm coarse against her nipple. She moans into the kiss, her back arching against his touch, and then it turns into a battle for dominance that neither of them can, or really want to, win.

She pulls him with her as she rolls onto her back, loving the feeling of his body pressed against hers, and when he grinds down against her, she can tell that every part of his anatomy is definitely getting with the program.

Bellamy breaks the kiss after a little while longer, giving her a smirk as he hovers above her.

“Now, about those orgasms…”

She can’t help but laugh as he starts moving down her body, but it quickly turns into a gasp when his tongue circles her nipple before he pulls it into his mouth. He doesn’t linger long, soon moving to her other breast where he repeats the motion at the same time as he slides one finger up her slit. She arches her hips against him and he takes the hint, pushing the finger inside her.

Clarke whimpers when he releases her nipple a few minutes later, and he presses a kiss to the underside of her breast.

“You want me to get you off like this?” he mumbles against her skin, curling his finger inside her and grazing her clit with his thumb, making her jerk against him. “Or you want my mouth on you?”

Honestly, she’ll take anything at this point, and she knows it’ll be beyond good whatever he does… but she does love coming with his tongue inside her or his lips wrapped around her clit.

“Mouth,” she gets out as he sucks a mark into her ribcage, and Bellamy chuckles.

“Whatever my Princess wants.”

He continues down her stomach, excruciatingly slowly, exploring every inch of her. When she finally feels his hot breath against her clit, she’s so keyed up with anticipation that she thinks she might come just from that. Then he circles the nub with his tongue before pressing down just lightly, and her hands close around the sheet.

“Oh God…”

He huffs a laugh. “Just Bellamy’s fine, no need for titles.”

Clarke chooses to ignore that, instead sliding her fingers into his hair and arching her hips against him.

Normally, he likes to take his time eating her out, tease her. He can bring her right to the edge just to let her cool off and then repeat it again, over and over. It’s extremely frustrating, but secretly she kind of likes it, likes that he can play her body like a finely tuned instrument.

Now, though, he’s pulling out all the stops, using every little trick he’s picked up over the last few weeks to have her shaking within minutes, and with a final press of his thumb against her clit, his tongue pushed as deeply inside her as it can go, she falls apart with a loud moan.

She’s still trembling when he moves up her body and kisses her deeply.

“Good?” Bellamy murmurs against her lips, and she nods, wrapping an arm around his neck.

“You’re seriously way too good at that.”

He must have removed his boxers at some point, because she feels his now fully hard dick slide against her curls when he sinks down further on top of her.

“Hope we didn’t alert your guests to our… activities,” he notes, pressing a kiss to her collar bone.

“They’ve stayed here before, I’ve never heard anything from their room,” Clarke replies. “The closets and guest bathroom are between the bedrooms, I think we’re good.”

He hums against her throat before pushing himself up on one elbow and reaching for the drawer in the nightstand.

“Wait,” she blurts out before she can really think, her hand closing around his wrists. He raises an eyebrow at her. “I… I have an IUD. And I’m clean…”

Bellamy just stares at her for a long moment. “Me too. I mean, not the IUD part, but… are you sure?”

She nods in response, hooking a heel around his thigh and pulling him closer. “Please, I just want to feel you…”

He nods once before leaning down and kissing her, and then he’s pushing forward, slowly sliding into her without any barriers between them for the first time.

He breaks the kiss once he bottoms out, leaning his forehead against hers. “Oh, fuck.”

“OK?” Clarke asks.

“Fucking amazing,” he assures her. “It’s just been a while since… don’t want this to be over too soon.”

“Definitely not,” she agrees, pulling him down for another kiss.

For a long moment, they stay like that, bodies still, mouths moving together in an ancient dance. Then Bellamy shifts, pulling out halfway before pushing back inside, and they both moan at the feeling.

He sets a slow pace, his lips only leaving hers to press against her throat, shoulders, wrap around her nipple, and then returning to her mouth. It feels more intimate than anything they’ve shared before, and not just because of the lack of a condom – there’s something in the air, a bubble wrapped around them, feelings washing over them with each thrust and kiss.

They’ve had sex since they said those three little words, of course, but somehow, this almost feels like the first time.

When he breaks the kiss after what feels like an eternity, pulling out of her and sitting back on his knees, Clarke can’t help but whimper.

“Turn over,” he tells her, eyes dark.

They’ve done doggy before, and while she usually gets off pretty easily in that position, it’s not one of her absolute favorites, simply due to the lack of other interaction it means. She loves watching him, seeing his emotions and reactions on his face, loves that he can see what he does to her.

She does as he asks, though, getting on all fours and giving him a look over her shoulder. Instead of moving into position behind her, though, Bellamy places a hand on her lower back and reaches for a pillow with the other.

“Lay down.”

She frowns but lowers herself to the bed, the pillow bent double under her stomach. He moves between her legs and leans down above her, one elbow against the bed next to her. She twists her head around, but she can’t really reach to kiss him like this, so she pushes herself up a little, wraps a hand around his neck to pull him to her and he meets her lips eagerly.

As they kiss, she feels his hand slide down her back, over her butt, and then he’s positioning himself at her entrance and pushing into her. The slight downward angle is apparently great for hitting her G spot, and when he does, she has to break the kiss to gasp for air.

“I thought you might like that one,” he mumbles against her throat before kissing a spot beneath her ear.

He sets a faster pace now, hips snapping against hers in time with the kisses he peppers her neck, shoulders and back with. He leans down further, so she’s almost flat against the bed, only her stomach and hips raised due to the pillow. He’s not quite pressed against her, but she can feel his body barely an inch above her, the warmth cocooning her between him and the bed.

It’s not long before the continuous stimulation of her G spot has Clarke teetering on the edge again.

“Please, I need, I…”

She can’t form an actual sentence, but Bellamy seems to realize what she wants anyway, since he slides a hand up her thigh and between her legs, pressing down on her clit at the same time as he thrusts into her with a bit more force.

She flies over the edge with a cry that she’s sure must carry to the guest bedroom, no matter the rooms between them. She buries her face in the pillow beneath her, letting it muffle the rest of her scream as her whole body feels like it quakes with the force of her climax. He curses above her, thrusts into her once more and then he stills, spilling deep inside her as her walls continue to convulse around him.

He knows by now that she likes to remain close for a little while after, so he stays where he is, moving slightly so he’s pressed against her back, burying his face against her throat as they both come back down.

“Can you even breathe?” he asks, voice shaking slightly, after a moment, and she turns her head to the side, sucking in a deep breath.

“No problem.”

He chuckles and shifts so he can kiss her. The angle is awkward and her arm, which is bent under her, is starting to fall asleep, but she returns the kiss anyway.

When she breaks it after a few minutes, he presses his lips to her shoulder briefly before finally pulling out of her and getting up, disappearing into the bathroom.

Clarke has no energy to get out of bed, so she just rolls over, throws the pillow onto the floor and cuddles into the mattress. She hears him return a moment later and then feels him behind her, one arm sliding around to wrap around her waist.

“Think you can sleep now?” he asks quietly, just a hint of teasing in his voice, and she nods.

Though really, she’s far from sure.

Chapter Text

Despite the fact that her limbs feel like they weigh about a hundred pounds each and her mind is fuzzy, Clarke just cannot sleep.

When Bellamy rolls away from her and onto his back, his deep, even breathing indicating that he’s sound asleep, she quietly slips out of bed. She pulls on a robe hanging on the bathroom door before leaving the room, closing the door slowly behind her.

The apartment is dark, the only light coming from the Christmas tree in the corner, the streetlights outside and the buildings across the water. She goes into the kitchen and pours some milk into a mug before popping it into the microwave. Maybe some warm milk can help her sleep.

She opens the microwave door a second before it beeps, not wanting to risk the sound waking up anyone else, and brings the mug with her to the couch. Bastet is curled up in one corner, and she sits down next to the cat.

“There you are,” she says quietly, running a hand over the soft fur. “Where have you been hiding all day, huh?”

The last time she saw the cat, she dashed out from under the couch just after Wells and Sasha arrived.

“Under our bed,” Raven’s voice comes from the kitchen, making her jump a little, despite her friend keeping it low. “She shot out from there when we came into the room.”

“What are you doing up?” Clarke asks, getting up from the couch and moving over to the breakfast bar where she leans her elbows against the cool wood.

Her friend shrugs and opens the fridge, pulling out a carton of Chinese food. “Wanted a late night snack,” she says as she dumps the content onto a plate and opens the microwave.

“I thought you weren’t hungry,” Clarke notes.

Raven turns, leaning back against the counter next to the microwave, and smirks. “I wasn’t, now I am. Burned a bunch of calories, so.”

Clarke sighs. “I did not need to know that.”

“Oh, please,” Raven snorts. “Don’t think we didn’t hear the two of you earlier.”

She feels heat rise up her throat. “Oh God.”

“Relax, babe,” Raven tells her, grabbing the warmed up food and rounding the breakfast bar. “You know this stuff doesn’t bother me, I’m just glad you’ve obviously found a guy who knows what he’s doing. Twice, huh?”

Clarke buries her face in her hands for a moment. “Any way we can not talk about this?”

Raven laughs quietly as she sits down on the couch, and Clarke joins her.

“Fine. What are you doing up anyway? You’re really having trouble sleeping?”

She nods. “Yeah. I mean, I am so tired, but it’s like my brain just won’t shut off. As soon as I relax even just a little, the thoughts start churning…”

Raven hums as she chews. “All because of the whole no secrets thing?”

Clarke shrugs. “I think so. It feels like all I do these days is lie to him, and I hate it. When I have a Transfer and he’s home, I say I’m meeting you, when we were talking about Wells, I told him we dated back in high school, even when I told him about our Christmas traditions, I lied and said I had an ancestor from Sweden to explain that part.”

Raven rubs her back. “I know it sucks. You need to do something about it, this won’t hold in the long run.”

“I know.”

They sit in silence for a while, Raven eating her food and Clarke sipping her warm milk.

“I know that there isn’t but…” Clarke starts eventually, “do you think there’s a way to… trick the Number?”

She keeps her eyes on her hands wrapped around the mug, avoiding Raven’s scrutinizing look.

“No,” her friend finally says. “You’ve heard the same stories I have, babe – people locking themselves up, not leaving the room, not interacting with anyone, not even eating or drinking anything for fear of choking or something… it’s always pointless.”

She has heard those stories, of course. But still…

“I can look into it, if you want,” Raven offers after another silent moment. “I didn’t, with Finn, for several reasons… but there’s a lot of information out there, these days. If there’s anything to find, I’ll find it.”

Clarke reaches out to squeeze Raven’s hand. “Thank you.”

She nods, teeth worrying her lip a little. “Just… don’t get your hopes up?”

“No, I know, I won’t,” Clarke assures her, pausing before somewhat switching the subject. “Have you ever thought about telling someone?”

Raven’s eyebrows shoot up. “You know I have.”

“No, not the Soul Keeper thing. I meant telling someone that they, you know… that they’re dying. As in soon, not at some point in the distant future.”

Raven watches her intently as she finishes the last bite on her plate.

“I have,” she then says. “And I did, actually.”

“You did? What happened?” Why doesn’t she know this? She thought they told each other big things like this.

Raven moves over on the couch so she’s facing Clarke and pulls her knees to her chest. “Remember Chicago in the seventies? I was working at that charity that helped kids with parents in prison?”

Clarke nods to show that she does.

“There was this little boy, his dad was in jail but his mom was, like, a supermom, she was working two jobs, making sure her kids were clothed and fed, that they worked hard in school… I met his older sister first, she was thirteen. Had over seventy years to live. But the first time she brought her little brother… he was just ten, and only had two years left. I mean, I had, like, a hundred and fifty years of experience by then, there wasn’t a lot that got to me, but this kid… he had so much energy, he was so alive… he dreamed of becoming a lawyer to help other kids’ dads stay out of prison…”

She trails off and Clarke can see that even now, more than forty years later, the memory affects her. She reaches out to squeeze her hand, and Raven smiles.

“So what did you do?”

“Well, I was there for a while, got to know his mom, we became sort of friends… I think you might have met her, actually, not that I expect you to remember that. When I was being relocated, Ty, that was his name, had just turned twelve and had three months to live. I knew pretty much everything about him and his family by then. I knew the one thing in the world he wanted more than anything – apart from his dad getting out of prison which wasn’t going to happen since he was guilty of the crime he was convicted for and wasn’t getting parole for at least thirty years – was to see Kareem Abdul-Jabbar play for the Lakers. He loved basketball.

So a few days before I was leaving, I sat his mom down and told her everything. I honestly had no idea if she believed me at the time… I gave her three plane tickets, return trip to LA, for her and the kids, as well as VIP tickets to a game with special backstage access to meet the players. I had booked a hotel room for them too. I didn’t see her again before I left, but I got to say goodbye to Ty and his sister. I called the hotel after, to ask if they had checked in, and they had. I got a letter from his mom a few months later, after he had passed, where she thanked me for telling her. She sent me a picture of Ty on Kareem’s shoulders, his whole face one big smile…”

She lets out a deep sigh.

“You did a good thing,” Clarke tells her.

“No, I know that,” Raven replies. “It just… it sucks, you know, that we can’t do that for everyone. I don’t know about you, but when I meet someone, even just in passing on the street, who only has a few months or years to live, especially if it’s someone young, I just want to grab them and tell them to do what they want, not put off all their dreams for later, because they might not get a later.”

Clarke completely understands that, her thoughts going to the teenage girl she passed in the park the day she and Bellamy first met.

“I know what you mean.”

“But this?” Raven waits until she looks up. “This is different.”

“You think I should tell him.”

“I can’t tell you what to do, but if it was me, I would.”

Clarke considers that for a moment.

“Did Finn know?” she then asks. “Did you tell him when he…?”

Raven shakes her head. “Not for a long time. After I told him about the Soul Keeper thing, he actually asked me not to say anything about it. He said he didn’t want to live his life just waiting to die, or something. But at the end… I think he noticed that I was acting strange, and he actually asked me outright. So he knew.”

Silence stretches between them again, each of them lost in their own thoughts.

“I asked him,” Clarke starts after a long moment. “The other day, I asked Bellamy what he would do if he only had six months to live.”

“Whoa.” Raven’s eyes widen. “What’d he say?”

“Well, at first he was like, I don’t have any money, I still have to live so I can’t stop working. So he said he’d just spend as much time as possible with his friends… me… probably drop out of school.”

“Standard answer.”

“Yeah. So I pushed, said that if money wasn’t an issue, you won the lottery, then what? And he said he’d want to travel, go to Italy and Greece, all the places he’s read about… and the thing is, he could. I could do that for him, I have more than enough money for it…”

“You want to try to convince him to just take six months off and travel the world with you?”

“I don’t know, I really don’t think he’d go for that, not with me paying for everything. Not without a reason.”

“And if you tell him the truth?”

Clarke leans her head back against the couch and stares up at the ceiling. “I honestly don’t know. Now do you see why I’m not sleeping?”

“I feel you, babe,” Raven says, and a moment later Clarke feels her head come down on her shoulder. “I think you should just tell him everything.”

“Yeah?”

She wonders if that’s what she actually wanted to hear, because she feels lighter, somehow.

“Yeah. You’re not going to make it another seven months with him not telling him, this secret is killing you. Metaphorically speaking, of course. And I know there’s absolutely no way you’re walking away from him.”

Clarke lets out a humorless laugh at that.

“I think you’re right.”

“I’m always right. It’s nothing new.”

They sit in silence for a long moment, Clarke watching the lights twinkling on the other side of East River without really seeing them.

“He’d want to make things right with his sister too,” she says eventually.

“They had a falling out, right? Also pretty standard, making amends or whatever.”

She hasn’t actually told Raven what Bellamy said about Octavia, since it’s not her story to tell, but her friend isn’t stupid. “Yeah. He hasn’t talked to her for over seven years. Doesn’t even know where she is.”

“Ouch.”

“I’ve found her.”

Raven sits up straight so she can look at her. “You have?”

Clarke shrugs. “It wasn’t even hard, actually. She’s on Facebook, her name’s not exactly common… she’s in Dublin.”

“Huh. That could play into your hands, what with the whole travel thing.”

She considers that for a moment, realizing that Raven is – again – right.

“I guess so. If he does agree to the trip, I can just surprise him with his sister, and if he doesn’t, I can tell him I know where she is and we can hopefully plan to at least go see her, then I can just… tell him we’re not going home until we’ve been to every single place he wants to go. You know, assuming he doesn’t run the other way when I tell him I’ve been lying to him.”

Raven ignores the last bit. “So basically kidnap him?”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

“Good plan. So when are you going to tell him? Right away? Not now, obviously, but tomorrow?”

Clarke immediately shakes her head. “I don’t want to ruin the holidays for him… maybe after New Years?”

“Probably a good idea,” Raven agrees. “Just don’t wait too long, he might need some time to get used to the whole thing, and with the travel plans and all… the clock is ticking.”

“I know… hey, how did you tell Finn? Or Wick?”

“Well, in both those cases, we had been together, or at least known each other, for six or seven years by the time I told them,” Raven says. “So it probably wasn’t that much of a stretch to believe.”

“Yeah, that’s not going to be any help for me.”

“No… you have photos, though, right?”

Clarke nods. “Yeah, but these days, anyone with a computer and basic Photoshop skills can fake photos.”

“Hmm… do you have any Transfers coming up that’ll be out in the open?”

“You want me to take him to a Transfer?” Clarke asks incredulously.

Raven shrugs. “Desperate times call for desperate measures. I’m not saying start with that, but if he really doesn’t believe you. So anything that might work?”

Her phone’s still on the nightstand in the bedroom. “I don’t know, I’ll check in the morning. But that’s an absolute last resort.”

“I can be there if you think it’ll help,” Raven offers. “And Zeke. Strength in numbers?”

Clarke squeezes her hand. “I’ll think about it.”

“So are you good? Worked through everything?”

Clarke considers the question for a moment. “I think so.”

“Good. Then you need to sleep, because in eight hours or so, I am going to be dragging your ass out of bed.”

She laughs but lets Raven pull her up from the couch and along towards the bedrooms. Outside the doors, she pulls her friend into a hug.

“Thank you.”

Raven hugs her back tightly for a moment. “Always, you know that.”

With a final squeeze of her friend’s hand, Clarke sneaks back into the bedroom. Bellamy hasn’t moved from the spot she left him in and she quietly slips between the sheets again, scooting over so she can curl up against him, tucking her head in underneath his chin. He turns towards her in his sleep, one arm coming around her, and lets out a sigh.

Clarke’s asleep within minutes.

-100-

Despite Raven’s promise (threat), Clarke wakes up all on her own the next morning. It’s already light in the room, and Bellamy’s side of the bed is empty. She stretches leisurely for a moment, relishing the feeling of being well rested for the first time in a week, before throwing the comforter off and getting up.

She’s already picked out today’s outfit, so she pulls on a pair of panties and puts on a strapless bra before stepping into the soft, black leggings and taking the gold knitted sweater dress off the hanger. It has a bardot neckline with a slight V that emphasizes her collar bones. She completes the ensemble with a red belt at the waist and a matching set of earrings and necklace shaped like snowflakes.

When she opens the bedroom door, she’s hit with the smell of breakfast – eggs, bacon, pancakes… she makes her way into the kitchen, where Bellamy is cutting up fruit and Raven is laying the finished bacon on a plate. Zeke is setting the dining table on the other side of the breakfast bar.

“Why didn’t anybody wake me?” Clarke asks when nobody notices her.

They all look up, a smile spreading on Bellamy’s face and a smirk on Raven’s.

“Morning, Princess,” he says. “Did you sleep OK?”

“I slept great,” she replies, joining him at the counter and reaching up for a morning kiss.

“I wanted to wake you up,” Raven pipes in behind them. “But he wouldn’t let me.”

“She needed to sleep,” he defends himself. “You actually looked peaceful when I got up, I didn’t want to disturb you.”

“I did need to sleep, so thank you for keeping Raven away.”

“If you hadn’t gotten up by the time breakfast was done, I probably wouldn’t have been able to stop her,” he admits, and Clarke laughs.

“Definitely not,” Raven agrees. “You have perfect timing, actually, because breakfast is done.”

They all grab something off the counter and settle in at the dining table.

“Seriously, how none of you weigh three hundred pounds is beyond me,” Bellamy says as Raven starts loading her plate with pancakes, scrambled eggs and bacon.

“Good metabolism,” she replies with a smirk.

“Plus we spend, like, an hour a day in the gym in our building,” Zeke adds, passing the bacon to Clarke.

“Yes, thank God for that place, I would never have the energy to actually go outside to find a gym,” Raven says.

“And it’s not like we eat this way every day,” Clarke notes. “Back to normal on Thursday.”

“Don’t remind me,” Raven complains. “I wish it could be Christmas every day.”

“No you don’t,” Clarke retorts. “Because then you really would weigh three hundred pounds.”

That makes them all laugh, and they continue eating, occasionally launching into some other topic.

They’ve just put away the leftovers and loaded the dishwasher when the doorbell rings.

“Present time!” Raven exclaims as Clarke goes to let Wells and Sasha in.

“Hey guys,” she greets them, accepting a hug from Sasha.

“Morning,” Wells replies. “So how did it go last night, did you manage to get your mind off your present?”

Clarke just stares at him for a moment, before she realizes what he means. Sasha starts laughing.

“He did say you’d be able to forget it,” she notes.

“Yeah, yeah,” Clarke grumbles. “But now that you’ve reminded me, I really need to know what that thing is!”

“Then let’s get this show on the road,” Wells suggests, ushering the women into the living room ahead of him. “Morning, all.”

A chorus of ‘morning’ meets them.

Wells and Sasha settle down on the couch with the others, and Clarke reclaims her spot by the Christmas tree to continue her duty of present distributor.

“OK,” she says, reaching for the closest box under the tree. “For Zeke from Wells.”

She throws the box to Zeke, who catches it easily, and grabs another one.

Soon enough, all the presents from under the tree have made their way across the room to their respective recipients, and Clarke gets to her feet again.

The present opening and subsequent tossing of crumpled up wrapping paper brings Bastet out from her hiding spot, and Bellamy plays with her, throwing paper balls for her to chase in every direction. After a while, to Clarke’s surprise, the cat jumps onto the couch and stretches out in the small space between her own leg and Bellamy’s, seemingly falling asleep.

Clarke deliberately saves the other part of Wells and Sasha’s present for last, wanting to draw out the excitement, but soon, her other presents have been opened – a beautiful bracelet from Bellamy that she’s sure was much too expensive, a pretty dress and another mug for her collection from Raven (with a sad looking T-rex and the text If you’re happy and you know it… oh…), and the box set of a book series that she’s been meaning to read from Zeke.

She finally picks up the big green box and weighs it in her hands. It’s not too heavy, but definitely heavier than a perfume gift box, which is what it brings to mind.

“Just open it!” Raven exclaims, and Clarke looks up to realize that everyone else has finished opening their presents and are watching her.

“Fine, fine,” she agrees, sticking her finger under the taped down flap on one edge. Inside is a black box with the image of a bulky pen on the front. “3Doodler Pro…” she reads on the label.

“We thought it was about time you made your art three-dimensional,” Wells says with a smile and Clarke’s mouth drops open.

“It’s a 3D pen?”

Sasha laughs. “Yup. And those sticks you opened last night are the things you load it with. There are four more packages of those in the box, but we wrapped one individually, hoping you would open that first and get really confused.”

“Evil,” Clarke tells her, but she’s still smiling as she opens the box and peeks inside. “This is amazing, thanks you guys.”

Bellamy leans over Bastet to be able to see, too. “So you can just… draw in air?”

“Here,” Wells says, handing over his phone, which is open to a video on YouTube. “This is how it works.”

Clarke takes the phone and they watch as people draw everything from a basic square to a working pair of scissors and a model airplane that actually flies.

“Yeah, that is seriously cool,” Bellamy says when the video finishes. “But it might take you some time to get the hang of it.”

“Oh yeah,” she agrees, taking the pen out of the box and turning it over in her hand.

“How about you play with that later?” Raven suggests. “I still haven’t gotten to pick a movie!”

So Clarke reluctantly puts the pen back and closes the box up, putting it away on the dining table so she won’t be tempted.

Meanwhile, Raven is flipping through Netflix, and when Clarke slumps down on the couch again, curling up next to Bellamy, the opening credits of Die Hard are playing.

“Did you like your present?” she asks him quietly.

“I loved it,” he replies with a smile. “How did you even know that was the book? And how did you find it?”

When they had dinner with Miller and Jackson a week and a half ago, Clarke managed to ask Miller if he knew which book that Bellamy’s mom had read to him as a child, while he was in the bathroom. Miller had showed her the dog-eared copy in Bellamy’s book case, the cover barely sticking to the book anymore and a couple of pages missing. She wrote down the title and author, and managed to find a first edition copy at a used book store online. It arrived just two days ago.

“I might have had some help,” she admits. “I asked Miller.”

A look of realization spreads on his face. “So that’s what you two were whispering about when I got back from the bathroom?”

Clarke just shrugs. “I’m glad you liked it.”

He leans in for a soft but quick kiss. “It was perfect. And how about you? I mean, I know I obviously can’t compete with that awesome pen, but…”

“I love it,” she assures him, raising her hand to look at the bracelet that glitters against her wrist. “But it’s too much, really.”

“Come on, you can’t tell me that book was cheap,” Bellamy says. “And it’s just silver, it’s not that expensive.”

The book hadn’t been cheap, but she knows that she can afford it.

She doesn’t want to argue about it, though, especially not today.

“Well, I love it either way,” she says, turning around a little so she can see the TV and leaning back against his chest. His arms come around her, pulling her closer, and he leans his head on top of hers.

“I’m glad.”

After Raven, it’s Wells turn to pick a movie, and as usual, he goes for How the Grinch Stole Christmas. About fifteen minutes into the movie, Zeke makes his excuses about needing to check in with the community center and leaves. Clarke watches Bellamy closely, but he doesn’t seem to question it. And why would he? He doesn’t know that everyone in the room has a sort of secret life that he knows nothing about.

With Wells’ movie, they’ve come full circle, and it’s Clarke’s turn again. As Wells hands over the remote, Raven gets to her feet.

“We all know what you’re going to pick, so I’m getting started on dinner,” she announces, heading into the kitchen.

“Do you want help?” Bellamy calls after her, but she shakes her head.

“Wells will help me, right Wells? You don’t want to watch this one either.”

Wells seems to hesitate for a moment, probably because the movie is also one of Sasha’s favorites. She rolls her eyes at him, though. “Go, it’s better you make yourself useful than spend the next two hours grumbling next to me.”

“What on earth are we watching?” Bellamy asks incredulously as Wells joins Raven in the kitchen.

In response, Clarke clicks to start the movie.

“The Holiday?” Bellamy says. “What’s so bad about it?”

“Nothing,” Raven calls from the kitchen. “But we’ve had to watch it every Christmas for the last few years, so we’re kind of sick of it by now.”

Bellamy shrugs. “Well, I like Jack Black, so I like it.”

Sasha lets out a sigh at his words. “Perfect boyfriend, right there.”

He ducks his head at the praise.

“Hey!” Wells indignant voice comes from the kitchen.

“Sorry, babe,” Sasha tells him. “You know I love you, but it’s true.”

By the time the movie’s over, Zeke’s back and it’s time for dinner.

“It’s a good thing you have a big dining table,” Wells notes as they gather around it, the entire surface filled with bowls and platters of food, plates, glasses and cutlery, and a couple of bottles of wine.

“Why do you think I got it?” she asks him with a smirk. “I knew you lot would invade at every opportunity… and everyone’s not even here.”

“Thank God,” Raven adds. “There is absolutely no more room at this table.

The table is technically supposed to seat twelve, so there are empty chairs, but no, there isn’t space for a single more person today.

Clarke’s not sure exactly how, considering Jasper’s not there, but they manage to finish almost all the food, the only thing remaining a few slices of ham and a couple of latkes. She’s extremely glad that she decided to wear leggings with an elastic waist, and she took the belt off somewhere before her second helping of mashed potatoes.

Bellamy’s leaning back in his chair next to her, looking like he might pass out at any moment.

“I cannot get anything more down,” he announces, and Clarke nods in agreement.

“Come on, guys,” Raven says from across the table, though she does look about as stuffed as they are. “We have dessert.”

Clarke glances at her watch – almost seven thirty.

“How about we hold off a little on the dessert?” she suggests. “One more movie, what do you say? Then whoever wants can have some dessert.”

“As long as there’s no more romance,” Raven half-grumbles.

“It’s Bellamy’s turn to pick again, he did alright last time,” Wells notes, getting up from the table and grabbing a couple of dishes before heading into the kitchen.

“How can you move?” Clarke asks him, voice a little whiney even in her own ears, when he returns.

He just laughs and pats her on the shoulder before grabbing her and Bellamy’s plates. “I didn’t take thirds.”

“Shut up…”

She does manage to get up, though, and soon enough, they’re all curled up on the couch again. She pulls her favorite blanket off the back of the couch and spreads it over herself and Bellamy after they’ve gotten situated in the by now familiar position with him leaning against the couch and her against him, both their legs stretched out on the chaise.

“OK, take your pick,” Zeke says, handing Bellamy the remote before claiming his own spot on the opposite chaise next to Raven.

Bellamy opens up Netflix and starts scrolling through the titles in the Christmas category. He goes right to the end before flipping back again, eventually settling on The Nightmare Before Christmas.

“Yes!” Raven cheers. “Good choice.”

Zeke wraps up the evening with The Muppet Christmas Carol, everyone forcing down one of Raven’s Christmas cookies and a slice of her eggnog cheesecake as they watch the little furry guys on the screen.

When Wells and Sasha finally say their goodnights, Clarke can’t help but think that it’s been the best Christmas ever.

-100-

Boxing Day is a bit more low key than Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. After another good night’s sleep, Clarke wakes up to actual sunshine streaming into the room and Bellamy warm against her back.

“Morning,” he murmurs into her hair when he realizes that she’s awake.

“Mmmm.” She turns around in his embrace. “Morning.”

He blinks at her slowly, obviously having just woken up himself, and closes the inch or so between them to kiss her. She returns the kiss, scooting even closer and sliding an arm around him. He in turn trails a hand up her leg and under the t-shirt she wore to bed last night. Just as he’s running his thumb over her ribs, the sound of something falling to the floor comes from somewhere in the apartment, and they both freeze.

“Cat or guests?” Bellamy asks quietly after a moment.

Before she can answer, Raven’s muffled voice comes through the door as well. It’s impossible to tell what she’s saying, but at least it answers his question.

Clarke sighs. “I guess we should get up.”

“We could,” he agrees, though instead of doing that he rolls them over and pushes her into the mattress. “Or we could wait a while… it’s not like they know we’re awake.”

“We could… but apparently the walls aren’t as thick as I thought.”

Bellamy stills above her. “You mean they…”

“Heard us, yup.”

“Great.” He groans and drops his head to her shoulder.

“Rain check for tonight?” she suggests, running a hand through his hair. “We’ll have the place all to ourselves again…”

He sighs and rolls off her, flopping onto his back. “I’m going to hold you to that.”

Clarke laughs as she sits up on the edge of the bed. “You’d better.”

When they leave the bedroom a little later, they find Raven on the couch, watching cartoons, while Zeke rummages around in the fridge.

“Morning,” Clarke says in greeting, bypassing the kitchen to join Raven.

“Morning,” Zeke replies. “Toast and eggs OK for everyone?”

“Absolutely,” Bellamy replies, joining the other man in the kitchen. “I’ll do the eggs, you do the toast?”

“Deal.”

Clarke looks at Raven, who seems completely engrossed in the TV show.

“So that thud a little while ago, was that Zeke physically kicking you out of the kitchen?” she asks after a moment.

Raven snorts. “No. He scared Bas, and she did a sort of Road Runner impression on the hardwood before taking off into the hallway, where she bumped into the side table by the door and knocked that bowl you keep keys in to the floor. It didn’t break or anything, but the cat might be traumatized. I think she’s hiding under our bed again.”

“She’ll be fine, you know she’s jumpy sometimes.”

“So…” Raven starts, glancing over her shoulder at the guys in the kitchen. She lowers her voice before continuing. “Did you find a Transfer you can take Loverboy to if he refuses to believe you?”

Clarke hasn’t actually had a chance to think about it, since yesterday was so busy.

“Not yet, let me check now,” she says, grabbing her phone from where she put it down on the coffee table just a few minutes ago.

She opens her work app and goes to her schedule. The current day is always the first day on the screen, and then they can see six days into the future, so a week in total. It’s possible to open a larger schedule for the coming month, where all available Transfers are listed, if someone for one reason or another wants to claim a specific Transfer.

She has nothing today, then two a day the rest of the year. Still no weird times, and the ones on Saturday, which is Bellamy’s day off this weekend, are close enough together that she can claim she’s meeting Raven for a coffee in the city. New Year’s Eve might be a bit trickier, she has one at two thirty and then another at five… but Miller, who’s getting back from the Christmas cruise on the 29^th, is having a New Year’s party that he’s been trying to rope Bellamy into helping with, so she might try to play to his conscience and get him to spend the afternoon with his roommate, preparing for the evening.

The last day in her current schedule is New Year’s Day, which is technically the first day after the holidays, and Bellamy isn’t working. Like Raven pointed out, she doesn’t want to wait too long… she’s definitely not looking forward to the actual conversation, but she does want to get it over with, so she can hopefully start working on getting Bellamy to agree to let her take him on the trip she’s been planning somewhere in the back of her mind since her talk with Raven.

She knows that there’s a chance he won’t believe her at all, maybe even think she’s crazy or something, possibly decide he wants nothing to do with her anymore… but she tries not to linger on that fear.

She opens the one Transfer she has scheduled on January 1, at four in the afternoon.

“This should work,” she says quietly. “COD: road traffic accident.” She clicks on the coordinates to open the corresponding map. “In the middle of the street at Madison and East 26^th.”

“Perfect,” Raven agrees, peaking down at the map on the screen. “That’ll be fairly obvious, even if the victim is in a car. And there’s the park on one side, you shouldn’t look too conspicuous if you hang around for a while before.”

It feels wrong to talk about someone’s death so clinically, but Clarke supposes that’s what happens when you deal with it daily for years and years. You have to distance yourself from it.

“Yeah. OK, unless something changes, I’ll talk to him that morning – not too early, don’t want him to think I’m still drunk or something – and then I’ll take him along to this if I need to. Will you guys be available if I need backup? Or someone to spring me from the loony bin?”

Raven rolls her eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous, there’s not enough money in the mental health field to deal with every crazy person who claims to know when people are going to die.” Then she nods and squeezes Clarke’s hand. “Of course we’ll be here if you need us.”

They wrap the conversation up just in time, because a moment later, Zeke and Bellamy bring the breakfast over.

Wells and Sasha show up at noon, and they quickly organize the boxes of clothes and things that have been kept in the hallway closet the last few days. They stop to pick up some hygiene products as well as a few multipacks of underwear and socks – which are always needed but not often donated – before heading over to a shelter close by. The woman taking the boxes is all smiles, and Clarke thinks they all leave feeling like they’ve at least done something for others this holiday season…

Chapter Text

In Clarke’s experience, time has a tendency to drag when you’re looking forward to something, and skip by in big chunks when you’re dreading what’s coming.

Somehow, both of these seem to coincide over the next few days. Sometimes, it feels like she blinks and a whole afternoon has just flown by, other times she actually has to double check the time on her phone, because she’s convinced the clock on the wall above the TV must have stopped.

Bellamy’s working again, but without his classes and her homework sessions, which are on hiatus while the kids are on Christmas break, they still get to spend more time together during the days, which she loves. He usually gets home around four thirty, which gives them hours in the early evening to just lounge around, watch movies, or… well, do other things. It seems that telling her about Octavia opened some sort of floodgates in Bellamy and they spend hours and hours talking, exploring each other’s bodies in between.

He tells her about his sister’s first day of school, when her teacher brought her into Bellamy’s classroom in the middle of second period, tears streaming down her face because some kid had teased her about her clothes, which as always came from the thrift shop and were a little too big and too worn. And about how he pushed the little nine-year-old that had done it up against the brick wall behind the school during lunch and calmly, though he was shaking with rage on the inside, told him that if he ever made fun of O again, he’d have to eat his fancy lunch through a straw.

She learns about Octavia’s first real boyfriend, a fifteen-year-old named Atom, of all things, that she brought home in ninth grade. Bellamy spent the entire evening when the couple were watching a movie on the couch in their living room glaring at him. The day after, Octavia furiously yelled at him that Atom had broken up with her because she had a ‘scary brother’, and then she didn’t talk to him for a week.

He talks about his mom for an entire afternoon one day – her dark sense of humor, the clothes she made herself, how she squinted whenever she read but still refused to get glasses, the cloud of flowery perfume that sometimes surrounded her when she was in a good mood. How he, at fourteen, realized that the men that came around late at night and locked the door to her bedroom weren’t her boyfriends…

“I probably should have figured it out sooner than I did,” he admits, fingers busy with a loose thread on the blanket that’s draped over their naked bodies. Their clothes are scattered around the room, neither of them bothering to get dressed after collapsing on the couch an hour or so ago. “It only happened during the periods when she was home during the days, which of course meant that she didn’t have any regular work, so… and it explains why she always brushed off the question whenever O asked about her dad, she probably didn’t even know who he was.” He sighs, his head falling back against the couch. “But who wants to admit that about their mom, you know?”

Clarke wants to comfort him, needs to, so she does the only thing she can think of – crawls into his lap and wraps her arms around him, letting him bury his face against her shoulder. He doesn’t cry, but she feels his breath hitch now and then against her skin, and he stays there, arms wrapped tightly around her, for a long time.

When he pulls away, it’s only to kiss her, hard and demanding, and when she rises up to take him inside her a little later, there’s a kind of raw need to the act that she hasn’t felt with him before. He clings to her, grip painful on her hips – she knows she’ll have bruises tomorrow but she doesn’t care – and for the first time, he finishes without making sure she does first.

He rectifies that right away, of course, by pushing her down on the couch, mouth hot and wet against her breast, two fingers buried deep inside her and thumb rubbing insistent circles against her clit until she’s a panting, writhing mess beneath him as waves of pleasure wash over her.

He slumps down next to her and pulls her half on top of him as she struggles to catch her breath. She reaches behind her to grab the blanket on the floor, where it ended up at some point during the last half hour or so, and pulls it over them again.

Bellamy’s silent until she’s finally breathing normally again, his hand constantly trailing up and down her back under the blanket.

“It was me who found her,” he then says quietly, and Clarke moves a little, propping her chin against his chest so she can look at him. He meets her gaze for a moment before closing his eyes. “I mean, I’m forever grateful that Octavia didn’t have to go through that, but… I’ll never forget that moment, seeing her on the floor in the kitchen…”

“Do you know what happened?” Clarke asks gently when he trails off.

“The doctor said it was a brain aneurysm,” he replies. “He said it would have been over in seconds, that she didn’t feel anything… for a long time after, I was convinced he was lying to make me feel better. I mean, who would tell an eighteen-year-old that just found his mother dead that she’d been in excruciating pain, you know? Or that he could have saved her if only he’d been home when it happened?”

She can absolutely understand that feeling.

“I don’t think he was,” she still says. “Aneurysms are really quick, she might have had a bit of a headache but nothing more than that.”

“I know. I think it was a defense mechanism, to be honest,” Bellamy admits. “To keep the guilt away… I was mad at the doctor instead of being mad at myself for not being there, not getting home earlier… I was just hanging out at Miller’s playing video games, not doing anything important…”

“Hey,” she says, a little sharper than she had intended, and he opens his eyes to look at her. “It wasn’t your fault, you have to know that. You couldn’t have done anything even if you had been there.”

He offers her a half-smile, one hand coming up to cup her cheek and she leans into the touch.

“I know that now,” he assures her. “I went through this crazy guilt trip after O left where I tried to blame myself for every single thing that was wrong with my life. Miller finally snapped, dragged me to his uncle who’s a neurosurgeon and had him explain it in great detail to me. Even if I had been there and she complained about a headache or nausea, I probably wouldn’t have called an ambulance, and even if I did, odds are it wouldn’t have made it in time anyway.”

“Good.” She realizes what she’s said. “Oh God, not ‘good’ that your mom died, ‘good’ that you realized it wasn’t your fault and stopped blaming yourself.”

Bellamy chuckles a little. “I know what you mean, relax.”

She lets out a relieved breath. “Good, I managed to avoid putting my foot in my mouth at the very last second.”

He just rolls his eyes before hiding a huge yawn behind his hand.

“Tired?” Clarke asks, brushing a lock of hair away from his forehead, her thumb grazing the Number – 210 today – there briefly.

“Is it too early to call it a night?”

She looks up at the clock. Just a little after ten thirty.

“Who cares?” she says. “So what if we want to go to bed before eleven on a Saturday.”

“Yeah, you’re right. Screw it.”

“Besides, we both have work tomorrow.”

Bellamy nods thoughtfully. “So we’re really just being responsible adults.”

“Exactly.”

She pushes herself off him and gets to her feet, turning towards the windows to take in the night-time view of Manhattan, which she will never get tired off. She hears him get up too and senses him behind her, so when she stretches her arms over her head to work out some kinks in her shoulders and back from the less than comfortable position on the couch, she doesn’t quite jump when she feels his chest press against her back and his hands come up to cup her breasts.

He presses a kiss to her shoulder. “Do you have any idea how hot you look, Princess, buck naked in the middle of the living room, stretching like that? You know what you do to me?”

Clarke leans her head back against him, tilting it to the side to give him better access to her throat. “Hmm, not really… you might need to show me.”

And dear God, he does.

In the end, it’s well past midnight when they finally succumb to sleep.

-100-

On the afternoon the day before New Year’s Eve, it actually snows, not quite for the first time this year but close enough. Clarke’s on her way home from a Transfer that she’s told Bellamy is a second story time at the library and is just rounding the corner to her street when the first flake lands in her hair. She pauses for a moment, turning her head to the skies, and when a few more flakes get stuck in her eyelashes, a huge smile spreads on her face.

“It’s snowing!” she exclaims as soon as she opens the door to the apartment. It’s Sunday, so Bellamy’s only worked a half-day and has probably been home for a couple of hours by now.

“Hello to you too,” she hears from the living room, and when she rounds the kitchen, she finds him on the couch, Bastet stretched out on her back next to him. Some game show is playing on the TV, the sound turned down, and there’s a box from her favorite bakery on the breakfast bar.

The domesticity of the scene in front of her makes a lump form in her throat, and she swallows it down hard before putting the smile back on.

“Did you hear what I said? It’s snowing!”

He chuckles. “I did hear you. What’s so amazing about that? This is New York, it has been known to happen.”

Clarke huffs impatiently. “It’s the first snow of the year, it’s magical.”

“It’s not, it snowed, like, two weeks ago. And we practically had a snowstorm back in November, I remember because I actually didn’t have to go into work.”

“OK, fine, not the first snow of the year, but the first snow when we can actually go outside and enjoy it.”

He watches her for a moment. “Yeah, I’m going to pass. But have fun.”

She narrows her eyes at him as he turns back to the TV. Well, if he won’t believe in the magic of snow, she’ll just have to show him.

She goes into the kitchen and grabs everything she needs for Raven’s hot cocoa. She pours milk into the pot and sets it on the stove, the other ingredients waiting on the counter next to her.

Apparently, her unusual presence in the kitchen grabs Bellamy’s attention, and before the milk has even started boiling, he’s come to investigate, leaning against the other side of the breakfast bar.

“What’re you up to?” he asks, a slight note of suspicion in his voice.

Clarke rolls her eyes. “Relax, I’m just making hot chocolate. I won’t burn the kitchen down.”

He still climbs onto one of the bar stools. “If you say so.”

“What’s in that?” she asks, nodding at the bakery box on the counter.

He opens the box and shows her – six delicious looking cupcakes.

“You went all the way to Buttercup just to get those?”

He shrugs. “My last delivery was in that area, so I stopped by.”

She leans across the counter to give him a kiss. “Thank you. They’re perfect.”

“Perfect? For what?”

The milk starts boiling at that moment, so she ignores his question to finish the hot cocoa, pouring it into two large mugs.

“Grab a blanket and those and come with me,” she says before heading back into the hallway.

“Why are we having hot chocolate and cupcakes on the roof?” Bellamy asks as she opens the door to the stairway leading up to the little patch of roof by the maintenance for the elevator.

“I told you – it’s snowing.”

She hears him sigh behind her but he does follow her up.

It’s still snowing, she’s relieved to find, and has actually picked up a little, the flakes larger and coming down faster. She puts the mugs down on the brick half-wall that acts as a railing to unfold the chairs and then sits down on one of them, patting the other for Bellamy to do the same. He sinks down on the chair and puts the bakery box next to the mugs.

“Yup, it’s snowing alright,” he notes, warily watching a snowflake land on his arm.

“It’s not dangerous!” Clarke exclaims, grabbing the blanket from him and wrapping it around both of them.

She takes the mugs and hands them to him before grabbing the box and stretching her legs out to rest against the wall – it’s just the perfect height. She opens the box and puts it in her lap before taking one of the mugs back, bringing it to her lips to take a big sip.

“Mmm, wonderful.”

Bellamy raises his mug too and takes a tentative sip.

“It’s really good.”

“Raven’s recipe,” she admits, grabbing one of the cupcakes. “See, this is nice?”

He rolls his eyes but takes the cupcake she offers him. “It is.”

He doesn’t sound overly enthused, but she can work on that.

They sit in silence for a while, eating their cupcakes and drinking their chocolate. When both the box and the mugs are empty, Clarke puts them down on the edge again before pulling Bellamy to his feet and wrapping her arms around him. She leans her head against his chest and looks out over Brooklyn, soft snowflakes slowly making their ways through the cold air.

“I always thought the city changed when it snowed,” she says quietly after a moment. “It’s softer, you know, less harsh.”

“I guess I can see that,” he agrees, wrapping the discarded blanket around her like a cape.

“So…” she starts, looking up at him. “Can you see the magic of snow yet?”

There are snowflakes in his hair, a few clinging to his eyelashes, and his eyes are intense as they meet hers.

“I think I’m starting to,” he says before leaning down and capturing her mouth in a kiss.

His lips are cold and taste like snow and chocolate and vanilla frosting, and it’s the best thing she’s ever tasted.

-100-

Of course, the snow doesn’t stay, and New Year’s Eve is grey and dreary, clouds hanging low and threatening some sort of precipitation, though Clarke suspects it’ll be rain. This turns out to be right – the first few drops fall a little after noon, and by early evening, it’s pouring down outside.

It only took a little bit of hinting that Miller might not have time to get everything done by the evening for Bellamy to suggest that maybe he should head over early to help out. He left just after they’d grabbed some lunch, just in time for Clarke to make it to her first Transfer.

Now, she’s getting home from the second one and has about half an hour to get ready before Raven, Zeke and the Uber taking them to Forest Hills will be there. The six of them are having dinner before the rest of the guests arrive.

She’s had some foresight, so the dress Raven forced her to buy the other day is laid out on the bed along with underwear and a pair of pantyhose, and her favorite heels are on the floor, completing the outfit.

She takes the fastest shower she can, not bothering with her hair – it’ll need to be washed tomorrow anyway, with all the products she’ll have to put in it to get it to behave the way she wants – and gets dressed before putting on her make-up and fixing her hair.

She finishes with about a minute to spare before her phone dings with a message from Raven, saying that they’re downstairs.

She makes sure all the blinds are closed in her bedroom and leaves the door to the walk-in closet open – most of the time, Bastet doesn’t even care about fireworks, but sometimes she’s terrified and her favorite hiding spot is in the deepest corner of the closet.

There’s not too much traffic – it’s only a little after six, most partygoers won’t be leaving their homes for a while. The door to the building is propped open using a wooden wedge, maybe by Bellamy or Miller, maybe by someone else having a party who doesn’t want to be buzzing people in all night.

Jackson opens the door when they ring the doorbell.

“Hey, guys, welcome.”

“Hi Jackson,” Clarke greets him and then frowns. “I was going to introduce you guys, but I assume you actually know each other better than we do, so I’ll just skip that.”

Jackson laughs. “We probably do, yeah. Good to see all of you, thanks for coming.”

All four of them exchange hugs and handshakes before Jackson leads the way to the kitchen, where Bellamy and Miller are arguing about… garlic?

“That’s enough!” Miller says as they enter the kitchen. “It says eight cloves of garlic, I put in eight.”

“They always go easy on garlic in recipes,” Bellamy replies, popping another clove in the garlic press. “We can use at least two more.”

“Just in time to defuse the Great Garlic Grapple of 2018,” Jackson stage whispers, drawing both cooks’ attention to the new arrivals. “They’ve been going at it for ten minutes.”

“Just because you refuse to act as a referee,” Miller shoots back, wiping his hands on the ‘Kiss the cook’ apron he has on and rounding the breakfast bar.

“I’m biased,” Jackson says with a shrug. “But look, two completely neutral people right here.”

“Perfect.” Miller gives Raven a kiss on the cheek. “Hey, thanks for coming. How do you feel about garlic?”

Raven pulls away with a laugh. “Thanks for inviting us. And I’m afraid I have to side with Bellamy on this one – the spicier, the better.”

Miller’s eyes narrow slightly. “Right then. Zeke,” he says, turning his attention to the man in question. “Same question for you. Keep in mind that I handled clean-up duty after the holiday party at the center. Someone had spiked the punch, there was vomit all over the bathrooms. I saved you from that.”

Zeke shakes his head as he gives Miller one of those guy hugs. “And I really appreciated that, man, but I’m afraid I am of the same opinion as the lady.”

Miller sighs. “And I don’t even have to ask you what you think,” he says to Clarke, leaning down to kiss her on the cheek as well.

“Sorry, Miller, looks like you’re outnumbered. How was the cruise?”

That pulls a laugh from him. “Apart from the fact that Jackson and I lowered the average age by about twenty-five years, it was great. All you can eat buffet every night, lounging by the pool all day… heaven.”

“I’m glad you had a good time then, despite the age difference.”

She squeezes Miller’s hand before going to join Bellamy by the stove.

“Hi,” he greets her with a smile.

“Hey,” she replies, realizing that she barely needs to reach up to be able to kiss him in these shoes.

He returns the kiss, hand sliding around to land on her lower back, warm against the bare skin there. “Mmm, I like this dress…”

The dress is much more daring than anything Clarke would ever pick on her own. It’s long sleeved with a high boat neck in the front – which luckily means she can wear a stick on bra – but her back is almost completely bare. There’s just a narrow strap across the top of her shoulders and neck, and then the bottom of the dress starts about half an inch above her panties, before ending about two inches below her butt. It’s very tight, which is probably lucky since it means it should – theoretically – stay in place and not ride up, and entirely covered in royal blue sequins.

“Raven made me buy it,” she admits.

“Remind me to thank Raven.”

Someone clearing their throat reminds them that they do in fact have an audience, and Bellamy takes a quick step back.

“Go sit down, food’s almost done.”

Even Miller has to admit that the extra two cloves of garlic made the shrimp da friavolo just perfect.

When they’ve finished the dessert – raspberry panna cotta with grated chocolate – they all help to set out snacks and drinks in the living room, just in time for the first guests to arrive.

Clarke’s not normally a big fan of New Year’s Eve parties – it’s just an arbitrary day, after all, that someone at some point decided was the last day of the year and deserved to be celebrated. Personally, she prefers the Chinese tradition of instead celebrating the first day of the new year.

But tonight, she really does have a great time. Bellamy barely leaves her side, an arm around her waist or shoulders at all times, and introduces her to everyone he knows with a ‘this is Clarke, my girlfriend’, which makes her feel all warm inside even though it’s been over two weeks since they had the whole relationship talk.

An hour or so after the other guests start arriving, they’re sort of half hidden in a corner of the living room. Miller and Jackson just left to get more drinks, and the room is starting to fill up quite a bit. Bellamy’s in the middle of telling her about last New Year’s, when Miller ended up falling asleep in the bath tub, when he suddenly trails off and takes a step to the left, so she’s between him and the rest of the room.

“What is it?” Clarke asks, glancing over her shoulder.

“Nothing, just… Echo.”

That doesn’t actually explain anything. “What?”

“She moved in across the hall in the spring,” Bellamy explains. “She came over at least once a week asking for some favor – ‘could you help me move this’ or ‘oh, I can’t reach to change this light bulb, could you help me’, stuff like that. I mean, I knew she was flirting or whatever, I just… wasn’t really interested. Then Miller invited her to his 4^th of July party and, well, I was pretty drunk and we ended up hooking up. I tried to sort of let her down gently or whatever but she can’t seem to take a hint.”

“Hmm…” Clarke glances around the room again, trying to spot the woman in question with barely anything to go on.

“It was just the once, I promise,” he hurries to add. “I even told her I was seeing someone, back in August or something, which I obviously wasn’t, but she wouldn’t back off and I didn’t know what else to do… either she didn’t believe me or she just didn’t care.”

“Relax,” she tells him with a laugh. “It was months before we even met.”

He shrugs. “Well, yeah, but…”

“Oh, I think I’ve got her.” She’s spotted a tall, skinny brunette looking around with purpose, obviously in search of something… or someone. “Your eleven o’clock, red dress?”

Bellamy nods. “Yup.”

“Yeah, she doesn’t need any help changing light bulbs… You want me to help you get through to her?”

“Would you?” The relief in his eyes is obvious. “I mean, I haven’t seen her in a couple of weeks, since I’ve barely been home, but Miller told me she stopped by the other day.”

Clarke’s already making a little plan in her mind. “Of course. Did you tell her anything about the person you were supposed to be dating back in August?”

He thinks for a moment. “No, just that I was seeing someone.”

“No names, timeframes, nothing like that?” He shakes his head. “OK. Be right back.”

She turns away from him and starts weaving through the crowd to the other side of the room. She sees the moment Echo spots Bellamy in the corner, her eyes lighting up with an almost predatory glint, but Clarke fights the urge to turn right back around. Instead, she gives it a few minutes.

Honestly, she can’t believe that the other woman can’t tell how uncomfortable Bellamy is when she’s leaning in too close, touching his arm, laughing at something he said that obviously wasn’t funny…

When she thinks she’s given them enough time alone, Clarke makes her way back across the room.

“Hey, babe, sorry, there was a line to the bathroom,” she says, easily sliding in between Echo and the wall to wrap an arm around Bellamy’s waist.

He lets out a relieved breath, arm sneaking around her to pull her closer. “No worries.”

She turns to focus on Echo, smiling brightly at her. “Hi! I’m Clarke, Bellamy’s girlfriend, I don’t think we’ve met.”

Echo hesitantly takes her hand, the flirty smile slipping off her face.

“Echo, nice to meet you.”

Clarke lets the bright smile fall a little, hoping Echo will think that she’s heard of her. Which is technically true, even if it was only a few minutes ago. “Nice to meet you.”

Echo’s eyes turn calculating. “So how long have you two been dating?”

She’s clearly not ready to give up… Clarke can work with that. She turns to look up at Bellamy, putting on a dreamy smile that she sincerely hopes will never again appear on her face. “How long has it been, babe, five months?”

He nods. “Something like that.”

She turns back to Echo. “We met the weekend after 4^th of July but it took a week or so before he got around to actually asking me out. You know how guys can be, they want to be absolutely sure you’re interested before they make a move.”

The other woman’s eyes turn cold. “Sure do. Well, I should probably…” She nods at the room in general. “It was nice meeting you.”

“You too!” Clarke replies with another bright smile as she turns around and starts heading in the direction of the hallway.

When she disappears from view, Bellamy lets out a relieved breath. “You are amazing,” he announces.

She just shrugs. “Sometimes it takes a woman to get through to another woman, you know.”

“Thank you.”

“Oh, please.” She leans in for a quick kiss. “It was just as much for my benefit. Not like I want some woman who can’t take no for an answer sniffing around my guy.”

He chuckles a little. “Yours, huh?”

“Damn right. Now let’s enjoy the rest of the party.”

And they do. Clarke doesn’t want to drink too much, since she really doesn’t want to be hung-over during their talk in the morning, so she just sips her drinks. But she’s never been one to need alcohol to have fun, and over the next few hours, she has a blast talking, laughing and dancing with her friends. When midnight approaches and someone turns the TV to the broadcast from Times Square, she’s still pleasantly buzzed though.

She’s leaning against the wall by the window by the fire escape, which is open for people who want to smoke or just cool down a little. It’s empty at the moment, though, everyone having come back inside to not miss the countdown, which should be starting any moment now. Bellamy went off to get them champagne to toast a few minutes ago, and she looks around for a moment, spotting him crossing the room towards her.

“Here you are.” She accepts the glass he holds out to her, and he glances over his shoulder at the crowd in the living room. “Want to get some air?”

He nods at the open window, and she hums in agreement. She has to sit down on the sill to avoid showing everyone her underwear, and then carefully set her feet down on the fire escape, to avoid her heels going through, but she manages.

“Are you having a good time?” he asks when they’re both leaning against the railing. It’s cold, but Clarke’s overheated from the crowded living room and it just feels nice.

“I am,” she assures him.

“Good.” Bellamy takes a zip of champagne. “Raven said she and Zeke have an Uber booked for half past midnight, I was thinking maybe we could piggy back with them and head home? You said Bas is sometimes scared of the fireworks, right? Check to make sure she’s OK.”

The combination of calling her apartment ‘home’ and worrying about her cat hits her right in the feels, and for a moment, she can just nod.

“Are you sure?” she then asks.

“Yeah.” He frowns at her. “You OK?”

Of course he picks up on her emotional moment. “Fine. Just nostalgic, I guess? Another year gone, you know.”

He nods. “Well, yeah. But a new one’s beginning, too. And I have a feeling this year is going to be the best year ever.”

Despite the way her stomach falls at his prediction, Clarke forces a smile onto her face. “Absolutely.”

“Ten!” comes from inside the apartment at that moment and they both look through the window at the people gathered around the TV.

“Want to go back inside?” Bellamy asks, but she shakes her head.

“Let’s stay out here. We can still hear the countdown.”

He takes a step closer, wrapping an arm around her waist and she leans against him.

“Seven!”

“You know, I’ve heard that what you do on New Year’s Eve is what you’ll do for the year to come,” he says.

“Oh yeah?”

“Three!”

“I would love to spend all of 2019 with you.”

She feels a lump in her throat at that but tries to brush it off.

“I would spend every single day with you,” she says honestly.

“Happy New Year!” Excited voices burst through the window, and Bellamy smiles down at her.

“Happy New Year, Princess.”

“Happy New Year,” she just gets out before his lips are on hers.

Chapter Text

Clarke is happy to find that she has no signs of a hangover when she wakes up on New Year’s Day. She did try to limit her alcohol intake, and they did call it a night pretty early, but still.

She’s never seen Bellamy drink more than a few bottles of beer or some wine with dinner or on the couch in the evenings before, so she’s not completely sure exactly how drunk he was last night. He’d been able to carry a conversation on the way home in the Uber without a problem, and hadn’t had any trouble getting her out of her dress once they got home – the stick on bra had put a slightly confused frown on his face for second or two, though – before he proceeded to give her a very nice start to the new year.

He’s still sound asleep next to her, but Clarke is too antsy to stay in bed, so she gets up as quietly as she can. She grabs a couple of aspirin from the medicine cabinet in the bathroom and puts them next to the glass of water on the nightstand on Bellamy’s side of the bed, in case he needs them, before she leaves the room and goes straight to the kitchen, where she puts on some coffee.

Hangover or not, she’s going to need caffeine for the conversation that’s coming.

Her stomach is grumbling angrily, so she pops a couple of slices of bread in the toaster while she waits for the coffee to be done. She’s not sure she’ll be able to eat for a while, depending on Bellamy’s reaction, so better safe than sorry.

She’s finished two large mugs of coffee and four slices of toast with Nutella (she needs the sugar rush, OK?) when the bedroom door opens and Bellamy appears in the room, rubbing sleep out of his eyes.

“Hey,” he greets her, slumping down next to her on the couch and closing his eyes as he leans his head back. “You’re up early?”

Clarke glances at the clock and realizes that it’s only a little before eleven. She’s been up for almost an hour, and the last time she checked the time last night, it was almost three. So yeah, she was up early.

“Woke up and couldn’t go back to sleep,” she says with a shrug. “How’re you feeling today?”

Bellamy gives her a one-eyed look. “I wasn’t that drunk. Didn’t even need the aspirin, but thank you.”

“I wasn’t sure. First time we’re partying together, you know.”

“No, it’s not.”

For a moment, Clarke has no idea what he’s talking about, but then she remembers. Halloween.

“Right, but as far as I can remember, you had a total of two whiskeys that night,” she says.

He smirks at her. “True. You, on the other hand… I think I dare say you were at least tipsy.”

She had been borderline drunk when he showed up at the party, but she’d sobered up during their little star gazing session.

“I definitely was.”

“But not last night? You seemed almost sober by the time we got home.”

There it is again. Home.

“Yeah, I wasn’t really in the mood to get wasted,” she says with a shrug.

Bellamy watches her intently for a long moment. “How come?”

Right. She could take that as an opportunity to get ‘the conversation’ started, but… he really should have breakfast first.

“You hungry?” she asks instead, jumping to her feet. “I’ve just had some toast, but I can make you something else if you want?”

She feels his eyes on her as she goes into the kitchen.

“Just toast and coffee is fine.”

She loads the coffee maker again and pops some more bread into the toaster.

“Nutella or strawberry?”

“Strawberry, please.”

Clarke half expects him to come into the kitchen as she lingers, waiting for the coffee and toast to be ready, cornering her and asking what’s wrong, but he doesn’t.

She spreads strawberry jam on four slices of toast and pours coffee into his Christmas present from Raven before going back into the living room.

Bellamy’s in the spot where she left him, Bas next to him on the couch.

“You know,” she says as she sits back down. “I’m starting to think she likes you better than me.”

He laughs before grabbing the coffee and a slice of toast. “I’m just more patient with petting her than you are.”

“I guess.”

She tries to busy herself with her phone while he eats, checking her social media and the news. Nothing good, as usual.

Bellamy’s finished three slices and all the coffee when he pushes the last piece of toast away and turns to face her on the couch. “OK, what’s going on? You’ve been on edge ever since I got up.”

She takes a deep breath before meeting his eyes.

“I need to talk to you.”

Clarke has never fully understood the expression that somebody’s face falls – it can’t really, it stays where it is – but suddenly, she does, because that’s what happens. At her words, Bellamy’s entire expression changes, almost like he slumps in on himself.

“Oh.”

She frowns. “What do you mean ‘oh’?”

“Just… as far as I know, there are only two sentences that can follow your girlfriend saying that you need to talk.”

Huh.

“And those would be…”

“Either ‘I’m breaking up with you’ or ‘I’m pregnant’. And you might not have been drunk last night, but you did drink, so…”

She can’t help but laugh, which makes his expression lighten just a little.

“And you’ve had a lot of experience with the second one?”

Something flashes in Bellamy’s eyes and he looks away from her. “Just the once.”

This time, Clarke is sure that her face must fall. Is he saying…

“Oh. I didn’t know you had…”

“No, no,” he cuts her off quickly, looking up at her again. “No, it… we were nineteen. It was about a year after my mom died and I had just about managed to figure out how to juggle Octavia and my job and, well, life in general. My girlfriend at the time was just starting her sophomore year at NYU. We talked about it a lot and in the end we agreed that it just wasn’t the right time. It was the right decision for both of us, and I wouldn’t say that I’ve ever regretted it, but… you do think about it sometimes, you know?”

She doesn’t, actually. She has no idea.

Not being able to have kids is an aspect of being a Soul Keeper that Clarke has never much thought about. She’s not sure if it’s just a natural consequence of the not aging thing, or if it’s a conscious… design feature, so to speak. Either way, it’s just how things are. She’s never wanted kids – sure, they can be cute, but they’re also a lot of work. She’s never missed it, never longed for it.

Until now.

The knowledge that someone out there, she doesn’t even know her name, got to have that part of Bellamy, even if just for a little while, makes a kind of envy she’s never felt before rise inside her.

Why shouldn’t she get that? She knows that she’s going to lose him much too soon, but if she could have this, a small part of him, then maybe it would all be worth it.

Maybe she could. She can’t get pregnant herself, but there are other ways…

Before her mind can run away with her, she pushes the thought down firmly. There’s a reason Soul Keepers can’t have kids. What kind of life could she give a child? Moving is one thing, but having to uproot your whole life, become an entirely new person, every six years or so? You can’t expect a kid to understand that. And she’s already dreading losing Bellamy when the time comes, she can’t even imagine what it would be like to lose a child, no matter how long it got to live.

No. It’s not in the cards for her, and she’s fine with that. Really, she is.

“I’m sorry,” she offers, and he shrugs.

“No need to be. It was a long time ago and, like I said, it was the right decision.”

“Right… well, I am not pregnant, and I’m not breaking up with you,” she says. He might want to break up with her once she’s told him everything, though… “Just so we’re clear on all of that.”

“OK, so what is it?”

She’s tried to come up with a good way to say it, but she hasn’t been able to.

“I’ve never done this before so I don’t really know how to start… It’s going to sound really strange, OK?” she say, and Bellamy frowns at her.

“OK…”

“You’ll probably have trouble believing me but just… try to have an open mind, please?”

He gives her a long, worried look. “You are seriously starting to freak me out here. Just tell me, whatever it is, I promise I’ll believe you.”

He says that now…

“OK, OK.” Clarke takes a deep breath, looking away from him and down at her hands resting in her lap. She interlaces the fingers on one hand with those on the others, to avoid picking nervously at her cuticles or a loose thread on her leggings. “Right, so, when someone dies, that person’s… soul, essence, spirit, whatever you want to call it, it leaves the body.”

She looks up at him briefly, noticing the furrowed brows indicating that he’s confused as to what she’s getting at. No wonder…

“OK.”

“To be able to move on to whatever it is that’s after this life, the soul – I’ll just call it that, OK? – has to pass through a sort of passageway.”

“Right.”

Clarke winces a little at his dubious tone but pushes on. She knew that he wouldn’t just instantly believe her, no matter what he said a moment ago.

“There are people whose job it is to do that, to help souls pass from this world to the next. They act as a doorway, sort of, guiding the souls on their path.”

“You mean like that TV show, what was it called… Dead Like Me? Grim reapers?”

“Well, not exactly like that, but sort of.” Clarke had wondered, briefly, if a Soul Keeper had been behind that show, but in the end, the differences were just too many. Which, of course, could have been intentional. But this isn’t the moment to think about that. “The souls don’t walk around like ghosts or anything, you can’t see them, and they don’t need to find the light or whatever. They just leave the body in the moment after death, and pass through the Soul Keeper assigned to that particular case. A lot less dramatic, honestly.”

It’s quiet for a long beat after she stops talking, before Bellamy clears his throat.

“OK, so why are you telling me this?”

“Well, that’s what I do. I’m a Soul Keeper.”

“You’re a… Soul Keeper. Who goes around… transporting souls of people who die?”

“We call it Transferring,” she corrects him. “But yeah, pretty much.”

He looks at her for a long moment, as if expecting her to laugh and yell ‘got you!’ or something. Which, of course, she doesn’t.

“So what’s with that name?” he finally asks. “I mean, you don’t hold onto the souls, so shouldn’t it be Soul… Transferrer or something?”

She’s tried to prepare herself for any questions he might have, but this one hadn’t even crossed her mind.

“I don’t know, honestly,” she admits. “As far as I’m aware, that’s always been what we’re called in English. I know the Swedish name is more along the lines of… Soul Carer. Which is a term they also use for a priest or someone in the church who offers spiritual guidance, actually, but I’m not sure where it originated, which came first. There are some languages where it’s more like you said, Soul Mover or Transferrer or something similar, and others where the focus is more on the passage part, like Spanish, where it’s basically Passage of Souls.”

“So let me get this straight… you’re a Soul Keeper, you don’t work at the library?”

“No, I do. Well, I volunteer there, I don’t get paid or anything,” Clarke clarifies. “Being a Soul Keeper is my actual job.”

Bellamy lets out a laugh at that. “Right, I’m sure the pay is great.”

“It is, actually,” she tells him with a shrug. At his raised eyebrows, she continues. “We do have to actually live, you know. We might not age like the rest of you, but we need a place to sleep, food, the basic stuff everyone needs.”

“Wait, wait, wait – you don’t age?”

He’s looking at her like she just revealed that she’s really an alien, which, she supposes, is probably right up there with not aging.

“We don’t. I think it’s out of practicality, so new Keepers don’t need to be recruited as much.”

He sighs. “I am trying really hard to give you the benefit of the doubt right now, but you’re not making it easy.”

“I know, sorry.”

“Let’s just say I do believe you. How long have you been a Soul Keeper?”

“Since 1868.”

Bellamy’s eyes widen almost comically. “Seriously?” She just nods. “So that means you were around during the Civil War.”

She raises an eyebrow at his statement. “Please, we both know the Civil War ended in 1865.”

A ghost of a smile flashes across his face. “Good save.”

“But I was there at the opening of Yellowstone,” Clarke says. “I saw the Statue of Liberty go up. I was technically around for both World Wars, but I was here in the US during that time, so I can’t say it affected me that much. I was at Woodstock, I’ve seen The Beatles and Elvis in concert. I watched the moon landing in real time. I was at the fall of the Berlin wall.”

“That’s… that’s a lot to take in.”

“I have pictures,” she offers. “I mean, I know it’s really easy to fake those these days, but I can still show you. If you think it would help.”

Bellamy just nods, so she gets up and goes to get a photo album from one of the bookcases. She has a ton of pictures, of course, but a lot of them are just her with Raven or one of her other friends with nothing that really indicates the time it was taken, apart from the clothes, so she went through them the other day, trying to find photos to show him that would actually be useful and put together them in one album.

She sits down a little closer to him when she gets back to the couch, to be able to show him the photos better, and she’s relieved that he at least doesn’t move away from her. That’s something.

“OK, so a lot of these aren’t exactly obvious, time wise,” Clarke says as she opens the album to the first page, a photo of her and Raven in front of Raven’s house in San Diego in 1912.

“That’s Raven,” Bellamy notes with a frown.

“Oh, yeah, she’s a Soul Keeper too.”

“And Zeke?”

“Him too,” she confirms. “And Wells and Sasha and Jasper and Monty and Harper and Maya.”

“Do you have any friends who aren’t Soul Keepers?” he asks incredulously.

“Well, the whole not aging thing makes it hard to form lasting relationships with Norms…”

“Norms?” he cuts in.

“Normal people who aren’t Soul Keepers. They tend to start questioning why you look the same ten years down the line… so yeah, I do only have Soul Keeper friends. And you… I hope.”

If she was looking for reassurance on that part, she’s disappointed. Bellamy just nods and looks at the photograph again.

“When is this from?”

Clarke tries not to let the lack of response affect her, but her stomach, which has been churning ever since she started talking, drops a little, and she has to swallow before she can answer.

“1912, San Diego. Raven’s always been all about technology, she got a camera as soon as they were commercially available. I mean, the year isn’t clear in the photo or anything, but…”

“It’s obvious that it’s old,” he notes, hesitantly touching a worn edge of the picture.

“Yeah.” She turns the page, revealing one photograph of her and Lexa from Grand Canyon and one of her and Raven with the Golden Gate Bridge in the background. She remembers the photo of the Grand Canyon being taken by the El Tovar Hotel at the ten year anniversary of its opening, so it must be from 1915. The cars in the background of the second photo, and the fact that the bridge wasn’t opened until 1937, make it obvious that it’s from the late thirties.

“Who’s that?” Bellamy asks, pointing at the photo of the Grand Canyon and pulling her back to the present.

“That’s Lexa.”

He takes his eyes off the album to level her with a questioning look. “You mean the ex-girlfriend who took off for Australia a while ago?”

“Yeah. Not so much a while ago, more like… eighty years?”

She’s not sure why it comes out as a question. He’s quiet for a long moment, eyes back on the photos.

“So what you’re saying is that everything you’ve told me is basically a lie?” he eventually says, voice flat, completely devoid of any kind of emotion that could let her know what he’s thinking.

“No!” Clarke exclaims, a little louder than she had intended. “I mean… technically, a lot of the specifics – years and stuff – I had to fudge a little. I mean, what would you have said if I told you Lexa and I broke up in 1936?”

Bellamy ignores her question but does look up at her, eyes hard. She almost wishes that he would look away again. “What else have you been lying about?”

She closes her eyes for a moment and presses the heels of her hands against her lids. She knew there was a big chance he’d react like this, if he even believed her – that he’d be angry she’s been lying to him. She thought she had prepared herself for it, but apparently not.

“I don’t know… sometimes I’ve said I have a double shift at the library or that I’m meeting Raven when I have a Transfer. It’s not like I could tell you what I was really doing, could I?” He nods once at that, whether in agreement or just acknowledgment she doesn’t know. “Wells… we weren’t a couple back in high school, we started dating when we were both in London in 1955 and broke up in 1971. I didn’t inherit this place from my parents when they died, because they didn’t, I’ve never actually had parents. And, obviously, my nonexistent grandfather didn’t buy it, I did, back in the forties. I… I don’t know, there are other things, but please, I never wanted to lie to you, I had to. If I told you the truth from the start, you would have run the other way.”

He doesn’t look appeased. “I guess you may be right about that,” he does admit though.

“And nothing I have told you about how I feel about you has ever been a lie, OK? Please, tell me you believe that.”

He looks away from her. “I honestly don’t know right now.”

Clarke has to bite the side of her cheek to not say anything else, and her fingers itch to reach out to him, but she doesn’t, instead fists her hands so hard she’s sure her nails are going to draw blood. Not that it matters. It’ll heal in a moment.

“Is this from the opening of the bridge?” Bellamy asks, pointing at the photo.

“No,” she replies after a moment, voice shaking a little. She swallows before she continues and actually manages to sound pretty much normal. “I was in New Orleans at that time, so I couldn’t make it out to the opening. I think this one’s from that summer, so a couple of months after. Lexa left for Australia in November the year before and Raven decided we needed a girl’s trip to take my mind off it or something.”

He nods and turns the page, which reveals several photos from Las Vegas in the late forties or early fifties. Most of them are of buildings that have long since been torn down, but in one, she and Raven are standing in front of The Golden Nugget, arms around each other. The sign isn’t quite as glittery as in real life, since the photo is in black and white, but it’s still clearly identifiable.

“Las Vegas?” he asks, and she nods.

“Yeah. Nothing like it is today, of course, but it was quite an experience back then.”

They continue flipping through the album, Clarke explaining each photo – most of them aren’t obvious, though some, like the ones from Woodstock, are.

The last page is from the last time she was stationed in New York and Bellamy stares at one of them for a long time – Clarke, Raven and Zeke at the foot of the Statue of Liberty, the Twin Towers clearly visible in the background.

“This was before…” he starts, but doesn’t finish the sentence.

She nods.

“Did you… were you here when it…”

“No. The last time I left New York was in 1999, and I was in LA when it happened, so not close enough to get called in,” she tells him.

“So you weren’t… assigned to that?”

“No. Monty and Harper were, though… they’ve never talked about it.”

“I can’t even imagine…”

It’s the last page of the album, so she closes it and puts it to the side.

“Disasters with a lot of victims are always hard,” she says with a sigh. “I mean, all Transfers are more or less emotionally draining, but that’s worse. We don’t get them too often, luckily.”

“You’ve done others?” Bellamy asks, looking up at her. His eyes have softened a little, which she chooses to take as a possibly good sign.

“I have,” she confirms. “I was in San Francisco during the earthquake in 1906. Hartford in 1944, a large fire during a show of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. And Chicago in 1979, the American Airlines Flight 191 crash.”

“But usually it’s just one at a time?”

Clarke nods. “Yeah, the majority are single Transfers, some doubles, occasionally smaller groups. Anything over three at a time you have a partner for.”

“How does it work?” he asks, and she thinks that his tone of voice has changed a little, not as harsh or disappointed anymore, more… curious. “I mean, you obviously don’t just go wandering around the streets of New York, waiting for someone to drop dead. You said you were assigned cases, who does the assigning?”

“I don’t know, someone higher up, I suppose.”

Bellamy gives her an incredulous look. “You’ve never wondered about that?”

She has, of course. In the beginning. But it’s just the way it is, she’s gotten used to it over the years.

“I used to, but there’s no point. It’s just the way it is.”

Clarke can tell from the look on his face that he doesn’t buy it.

“And what happens to the souls after you transfer them?”

“They move on to whatever’s next, I suppose,” she says, earning another incredulous look.

“You don’t actually know what that is?”

She shakes her head. “No. I mean, there’s obviously something, but as to whether it’s heaven, hell, reincarnation… I have no idea.”

He huffs at that.

“Considering how long you’ve been doing this, there sure are a lot of things you don’t know,” he notes.

“I guess so,” she agrees, because it’s true. “When I became a Soul Keeper, I already knew what I was supposed to do, I knew how everything worked. But nobody knows what’s behind it all or what happens to the souls we help. Sure, I was curious in the beginning, but after a while you just… accept it, I guess. You just can’t go around questioning and second guessing everything you do, year after year after year.”

“I guess I can understand that,” Bellamy grudgingly agrees. “So how do you become a Soul Keeper? What’s the recruitment process like? Do they have, like, posters like the army – ‘I want YOU for the… Soul Keeper Brigade’ or something?”

Clarke can’t help but chuckle at that. “Of course not. It’s… OK, I don’t want to say that I don’t know again, but I honestly don’t. I woke up on June 6^th in 1868. Like waking up in the morning, nothing strange about it. I knew my name, I knew how old I was, I knew I was a Soul Keeper. All the information I needed – what that meant, how it was done, what was expected of me – was already in my head.”

“So you just… came into existence like this?”

“Well, not exactly. My hair was longer, I think I was a little skinnier… but other than that, yeah. Just like this.”

“So you guys aren’t frozen in time, like vampires? You can still change?”

She raises an eyebrow at him. “You did see the photos, right? Yeah, my hair grows – I have to shave my legs and armpits – my nails grow, I gain and lose weight… I put on, like, fifteen pounds when the first Dunkin’ Donuts opened in New York.”

“So the only thing that’s different about you is that you don’t age,” Bellamy summarizes.

“Well, not exactly. We don’t get sick, for one. I mean, we’re affected by our surroundings to a certain extent, so we don’t get out of everything, but we don’t catch colds or other communicable diseases. We don’t get hurt as badly as Norms and we heal much faster. And we’re not… fertile.”

“You mean you can’t have kids?” he asks with raised eyebrows.

“Nope. Though on the plus side – no periods.” Clarke tries to laugh but it sounds more like a huff than anything. “I mean, forget once a month for thirty-five years, I’m pretty happy I don’t have to deal with that every month for all eternity, you know.”

“Yeah…” he agrees thoughtfully. “So if you don’t get sick and don’t get hurt the way we do and heal really fast, you’re basically immortal?”

“Basically,” she replies with a nod. “Not completely.”

“Explain, please.”

“Well, we can die, it just has to be… by our own hand.”

She watches his face closely as he takes in that piece of information.

“So to die, you have to kill yourselves?”

She nods. “Yeah.”

“And there are Soul Keepers who do that?”

“There are, yeah.” Clarke shrugs. “I haven’t known any personally, but the oldest Soul Keepers that are around at the moment are only about 700 years old. I know that sounds ancient, but considering how long the world and humanity has been around, it’s really not. Raven says she knew someone who was over a thousand years old, but he… he was gone before I became a Keeper.”

Bellamy frowns a little as he lets that sink in. “I suppose that sort of makes sense,” he says after a moment. “It must be hard in the long run. I can imagine it’s difficult to adapt to the times after a while, you start feeling like you don’t belong. Out of place.”

That’s what Clarke’s thought, too, when she’s considered it. It hasn’t happened to her yet, but who knows what the future might hold?

“But what about before?” he then asks, making her frown.

“Before what?”

“Before you became a Soul Keeper? I mean, did you have a life before and just don’t remember? Did you die, but instead of moving on to whatever’s after, you were recruited or picked for this or something?”

“Like I said, nobody really knows,” she says with a shrug. “I think most of us believe that Soul Keepers start out as normal people who, when they die, are either chosen to become Keepers or get to make that decision themselves. It only makes sense, considering we’re all different – different ages, appearances, genders, ethnic backgrounds… But it could be something else entirely, there are other theories. The craziest one I’ve heard is probably that we’re all sculpted out of wood and then brought to life somehow, kind of like Pinocchio.”

Like she hoped, Bellamy snorts a laugh at that.

“Yeah, that’s pretty out there,” he agrees, then sighs. “But then again, so is everything else you’ve just told me.”

“I know.” He doesn’t say anything else, just stares at the closed photo album on the table in front of them, so eventually she continues. “But you believe me?”

He looks up at her then, and she can see the conflict in his eyes.

“I don’t know, I… I think I need some time to think.”

Clarke quickly nods. “Of course. Do you want me to… I can take a walk or something, leave you alone for a while.”

“No, you don’t have to do that,” he immediately replies, getting to his feet. “I’ll just…”

“You don’t have to leave!” she interrupts him, terrified that he’ll walk out the door and never come back, that she really has scared him off. “I won’t bother you, I promise. I’ll give you all the time you need, just don’t… please stay.”

“I’m not leaving,” he assures her, voice calm, giving her just a tiny bit of hope that maybe he will be able to forgive her. “I’ll just be in the bedroom, OK?”

She lets out a relieved breath. “OK.”

He offers her a smile that looks more like a grimace before leaving the room. Bastet, who’s been curled up next to Bellamy the whole time they’ve been talking, stretches and gives Clarke a look that can only be described as reproachful before jumping off the couch and strutting after him. Traitor.

She slumps back against the couch, squeezing her eyes closed against the hot tears that are building behind her eyelids.

Just give him some time, she tries to tell herself. It’s a lot to take in, he just needs a little time to wrap his mind around everything. It’s going to be fine.

Still, as the first few tears escape, she can’t help but think that she’s just ruined everything.

Chapter Text

Clarke stays completely still until the tears stop streaming down her cheeks. She opens her eyes, takes a shaky breath, and goes into the kitchen to splash some water on her face.

When she gets back to the couch, she turns on the TV in hopes of finding something to distract her, and picks up her phone from the coffee table.

Not going great

It’s only a few minutes after noon, and Raven was pretty drunk last night, but her reply still comes in almost immediately.

he bail?

No, he’s in the bedroom, said
he needed to think

r u surprised?

Clarke pauses, thumb hovering over the screen. She’s not, really, but at the same time… yes, she expected him to have trouble believing her and, if and when he did, to be angry. But somewhere deep down, she had also expected them to be able to talk about it right away, work it out…

Yes and no

I didn’t think he’d believe me
right away, and I don’t know
if he does

And I expected him to be angry
that I’ve lied to him

But I guess I thought we’d just
talk it through until he realized
that I was telling the truth and
that I never wanted to lie to him…

still there tho

rmb wick?

didn’t talk 2 me 4 a week

Of course she remembers when Raven told Wick, she had been there. Well, not during the actual conversation, but in the week after, when Wick had gone MIA and Raven had been furious on the outside, to hide that she was really worried that he would leave her and incredibly sad, because Raven doesn’t show those kinds of emotions.

She also remembers when Wick came back, full of remorse and begging Raven to forgive him. How she had given him a long look, arms crossed over her chest, before caving and throwing herself in his arms.

God, she hopes she’ll get that. Her phone buzzes in her hand again.

need me 2 come over?

She has to smile at the question.

No, I’m OK

I’ll let you know if things change

Raven sends a heart emoji and Clarke sends one back before turning the ringer off and putting the phone away, trying to focus on the TV.

She finds a channel doing a marathon of Jeopardy and forces herself to pay attention, saying the answers out loud when she knows them. She keeps the volume low, constantly listening for sounds from the bedroom, but there’s nothing.

After an hour or so, she needs to go to the bathroom, but instead of disturbing Bellamy, she uses the guest bathroom. It feels wrong, but she just can’t bring herself to face him before he willingly comes to her.

A while later, she puts on another pot of coffee and drinks two mugs in rapid succession. It does nothing to help with her nerves, only makes her more jittery, unable to sit still without tapping her foot against the floor or drumming her fingers against the arm of the couch.

She loads the dishwasher when she’s finished her coffee, but it’s not full so she doesn’t start it. Instead of going back to the couch, she crosses the room to one of the windows facing the river, leaning her forehead against the cool glass and gazing out at the grey day.

The first day of the new year. 207 days left for Bellamy.

Will she get to spend any of them with him? Right now, she’s not so sure…

She sighs and curls up on the couch again, pulling her legs up under her and wrapping a blanket tightly around herself. She glances at the clock – twenty minutes before two. She’ll need to leave in about an hour and a half to make it to the Transfer at Madison Square Park by four. She knows she should probably eat something before that too, but just the thought makes her stomach turn over.

With an enormous effort, she manages to push all other thoughts from her mind and focus only on Alex Trebek. The first question is easy.

“What is Wild Wild West?” she says out loud to the empty room.

“Yes.”

“Quotable women for six, please.”

“On August 10, 1945 this former first lady wrote ‘the times now call for mankind as a whole to rise to great heights’.”

“Who was Eleanor Roosevelt?”

Clarke turns her head so quickly at the sound of Bellamy’s voice that she’s surprised she doesn’t get a crick in her neck. She fumbles for the remote and turns the TV off when she finds it.

“Hey.”

He offers her a small smile, but it’s a real smile, and sits down next to her on the couch. Not right next to her, a few inches away, but at least he’s there.

“Hey.”

She doesn’t know how to ask the question, so she just watches him, fingers tightly wrapped around the blanket that she’s clutching to her chest. He’s quiet for a long moment too, eyes intent on hers, before he sighs.

“God, you look like a puppy that’s just been kicked.” He lifts one arm and rests it against the back of the couch. “Come here.”

Clarke scoots closer until she can bury her face against his neck, and his arms go around her like always, holding her tight. She feels new tears in her eyes and tries to blink them away, but they escape anyway.

Bellamy’s lips brush against her hair. “I’m sorry I overreacted, OK?”

She shakes her head against him before turning just slightly so he can hear her. “You didn’t overreact at all, you have every right to be mad. I’m sorry I’ve been lying to you, I really didn’t want to but I didn’t know what else to do.”

He starts rubbing her back in a soothing motion and Clarke feels herself relax, if only just a little. There’s still more to this that he doesn’t know, but maybe, just maybe, they’ll be OK.

“I get it, OK?” he assures her. “You were right, I wouldn’t have believed you if you told me right after we met. I probably would have thought you were crazy.”

“And you don’t now?”

“No. I believe you.” He lets out a chuckle. “Honestly, I don’t see why you would go through the trouble of coming up with all of that, faking those photos, if this is just some sort of big hoax.”

“It’s not, I promise. I wouldn’t do that to you.”

“I know.” His hand slides into her hair, nails scraping lightly against her scalp in the way she loves, and she lets out a deep sigh. “I love you, Princess.”

For some reason, the declaration makes her tear up all over again, and she shifts slightly, so she can wrap her arms around his neck. “I love you, so much, I’m so sorry.”

“Hey, no. Stop apologizing.”

She nods mutely and tightens her grip on him, feeling his arm wrap more securely around her waist too.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, she does remember that she has a Transfer to get to, so after a few minutes of letting her senses calm in the circle of Bellamy’s arms, she reluctantly pulls away.

“I actually… I have a Transfer a little later today,” she tells him hesitantly.

“Oh. Do you need to leave now?”

“Not for an hour or so.”

He nods. “You know, we got sidetracked earlier and you never told me how you get your assignments.”

She realizes that he’s right.

“I have an app.”

He just stares at her. “I’m sorry, I thought you just said that you get assigned souls to send to the afterlife through an app.”

“Maybe because that’s what I said.” She grabs her phone from the table, figuring it’s easier to just show him. “Here.”

She opens the app and hands the phone to him.

“So this is your schedule for the week?” he asks, and she nods. “What happens if I click on one of them?”

“You open that particular Transfer,” Clarke tells him, clicking a Transfer she has on Thursday. “This is all the information I get: name and age for the person in question. Date and time of death, and cause of death.”

“How do you know where it is? There’s no address.”

She clicks on the coordinates at the bottom of the screen and it changes to a map. “There you are.”

“This is, like… high tech,” Bellamy notes, handing her back the phone.

“We’re hip, we move with the times,” she tells him with a smirk.

He raises an eyebrow. “I’m fairly certain no person has ever said that who actually did move with the times.” Before she can think about it, Clarke reaches out and shoves his shoulder lightly, but to her relief, he just laughs. “How did you get assignments before the app?”

“Email. And before that, good old fashion snail mail, which is how I got them when I started out. It took a long time for things to change on that front.”

“And you got physical maps back then, or what?”

Now he really does sound curious, like he wants to know more about it.

“Usually just an address, sometimes maps, if it wasn’t in a town or something. Getting coordinates and interactive maps has really made everything easier.”

Bellamy considers her for a moment. “Could I download that app? I mean, is it in the app store?”

“It is, and you could. But it would just look like some sort of abandoned beta version of a game, I think, you have to log in using your fingerprint.”

He whistles quietly. “You really are high tech.”

“Told you.”

“So this Transfer you have today, where is it?” he asks, changing the topic slightly.

“It’s on the corner of Madison and East 26^th.” She hesitates for a moment before charging ahead. “Actually, Raven suggested I take you to it. If you didn’t believe me. Apparently, it’s going to be a car accident, she figured it would be a way to… give you visual proof, I guess.”

He considers that for a moment. “I… I can go with you, if you want?”

“You don’t have to.”

“No, I… I think I want to. I mean, I do believe you, really, but it’s still…”

“A lot to take in,” Clarke finishes for him. “I get it. But just if you’re absolutely sure.”

He nods determinedly before glancing at the clock. “I am. How about if we head out now, maybe grab some lunch on the way?”

The idea of food still makes her stomach grumble in an unpleasant way, but maybe she’ll be able to work up an appetite on the way.

“OK.”

They both change before leaving the apartment, bundling up against the cold day. The train is pretty empty, despite it being well into the afternoon by now. Clarke supposes most people just lounge around on a day like this, ordering take out, enjoying the last actual holiday before they have to go back to work.

She’s still not particularly hungry when they emerge onto 14^th Street, but Bellamy is insistent, so in the end, they compromise and grab Subway to go. She manages to finish almost all of her sub, at least enough for him to be happy.

They get to the spot with about ten minutes to spare, and Clarke leads the way to a bench just a little ways along East 26^th. There’s traffic, because there always is in New York, but not as much as there would be on a regular weekday. Pedestrians hustle up and down the sidewalk on each side of the street, but they don’t have to dodge out of each other’s way.

“So what do you know about this person?” Bellamy asks quietly after a few minutes, glancing around as if he’s expecting someone to be eavesdropping.

She pulls her phone out and opens the app.

“Sarah Horowitz, female, 34,” she reads. “January 1, 4:01 PM. COD: road traffic accident.”

“So there’s not really any way to tell who she might be,” he says.

She hesitates for a moment. She could tell him about the Numbers, how she can tell who it is she’s there to Transfer if she can see their forehead. But then he might ask about his own, and she doesn’t want to have that conversation out here.

“Not really, no,” she replies, which isn’t technically a lie – she’s spotted a few Numbers since they sat down, but none of them have been zeros, so she hasn’t been able to identify Sarah.

“You don’t need to, like, touch her to be able to transfer her soul?” he asks after a moment, eyes widening. “With you not being, you know, invisible, that might be tricky…”

Clarke can’t help but laugh at that. “I told you it wasn’t just like in Dead Like Me. No, I don’t need to touch her. I don’t even have to be that close to her, sometimes we can’t be, like if someone dies in their home in a high-rise or something, or in buildings there’s no way for civilians to access.”

He nods. “Right. Makes sense.”

The time on her phone changes to 4:00 and she shuts down the app and puts the phone away, scanning the intersection to their right.

She doesn’t spot Sarah until a few seconds before she’s gone. A bike zips past them, weaving in between the cars, the red uniform of a messenger company flashing between the vehicles. Moments later, there’s the screech of brakes and a loud thud.

She has just enough time to grab Bellamy’s arm before the memories flood her mind.

When her eyes focus on the street in front of her again after the images have stopped, she can feel Bellamy watching her. She takes a deep breath before turning to face him. Behind him, in the intersection, traffic has stopped and people have gotten out of cars. Someone’s yelling about calling 911.

His eyes are wide, boring into hers. “What the hell was that?”

“That was a Transfer,” Clarke replies. “I guess I never got around to telling you how they actually work.”

“No kidding? It was like you… went into a trance or something. I tried to get your attention, but nothing, you were just staring straight ahead, but like you couldn’t see anything, you know.”

She’s been with Raven and other friends when they’ve done Transfers, so she knows what it looks like to an outsider, but it’s still odd to hear Bellamy describing her during one.

“Come on, let’s get out of here,” she says, getting to her feet, a little shaky but not too bad. He stands up next to her and slips his hand into hers, which makes her heart soar in her chest.

“So she’s… gone?” he asks, glancing over his shoulder.

She nods. “Yeah.”

They head in the opposite direction, along the park on East 26^th.

“OK, tell me what it was that I just saw,” Bellamy says when they’ve turned the corner onto 5^th Avenue.

“You know how people who have had a near death experience sometimes say that they saw their lives flash before their eyes?” she asks.

“Yeah?”

“Well, that’s basically what a Transfer is like for me. I see flashes of the person’s life, their most… powerful memories, I guess.”

“Like a movie or something?”

Clarke shakes her head. “No, it’s like I am them, you know? I see their memories the way they did, experience those moments as them – what they see, hear, smell, feel.” She shudders a little at the memories of the births of Sarah’s two kids that she just had brief flashes of a moment ago. “It’s hard to explain.”

He doesn’t respond immediately. “That must be intense,” he finally says, glancing at her.

“Yeah, that’s why Transfers are emotionally draining. How much they affect you depends on the person, their memories, your own experiences.”

“So bad memories are harder?” Bellamy rightly concludes.

“Yeah. I mean, at first, I was a mess after every single one, experiencing people’s happy and sad moments, especially the sad ones – the loss of loved ones, especially. These days… well, you get used to everything, you know? So standard Transfers, like this one, they don’t affect me as much anymore.”

“But there are still difficult ones?”

“Yeah. The day we met, I had just done a Transfer in Central Park. A man, 53 years old. His dad was an alcoholic during his childhood and he was beaten and locked in closets and cupboards when he didn’t behave the way his parents wanted him to. He got out, though, met a nice girl, got married… then their daughter was killed in a car accident, and his wife took her own life… in the end, he started drinking too. That one was hard.”

He squeezes her hand. “I’m sorry. But this one was… better? Strange word, maybe, but you know what I mean.”

“I do,” Clarke assures him. “And yes. Not a lot of sad memories – she lost her grandparents in her teens, that was about it. Birthdays, graduations, her own wedding, the birth of her two kids… she had a happy life.”

“That’s good,” he says with a sigh. “Earlier, you were talking about when you have a lot of souls to transfer at the same time, like during disasters, how that was harder.”

“It is. You don’t get the individual memories the same way you do with single Transfers, it’s more like… you know when you’re in the middle of a large room with dozens of people around you and everyone is talking at the same time? You can’t really make out what anyone is saying, it’s just a murmur of different voices and words, but it’s all these impressions fighting for your attention, pulling it in different directions. It’s kind of like that, and it’s really tiring. I couldn’t get out of bed for days after the earthquake in San Francisco.”

Bellamy nods thoughtfully at that, but doesn’t ask anything else, and they continue in silence to the train.

In fact, he doesn’t say anything more about it until they’re back home again.

“Do you ever…” he starts when they’re seated on the couch. “I know it wasn’t possible this time, but sometimes you must be able to tell who it is that you’re there for. Do you ever think about… intervening?”

Clarke frowns. “Intervening?” She thinks she knows what he means, but she wants to be sure.

“Yeah. Like, say someone’s supposed to… I don’t know, drown in a lake. It’s obvious who it is, do you ever think about warning them?”

God, it’s the opening she’s been both dreading and hoping for. She takes a deep breath.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because it wouldn’t make a difference, they would still die.”

“Well, yeah, everyone does, eventually. Except you, apparently.”

She shakes her head. “No, I don’t mean eventually. Say that I did warn someone who was going to drown not to get into the water or whatever. I would just be delaying the inevitable. They would stay out of the water and instead they’d get hit by a bus on the way home. Or fall in the shower and break their neck. Or have an allergic reaction during dinner. There would be something else, and they would still die, because that’s their day.”

Bellamy’s brow furrows at her words. “Their day?”

“Their day to die. Everyone has a day that they’re going to die, there’s nothing me or anyone else can do about that.”

“You mean like fate?”

She shrugs. “I guess you could call it that, yeah.” She pauses, taking a deep breath before she continues. “Fate, destiny, kismet, call it what you want. The point is, everyone has a Number.”

“A number?”

“Yeah.” This part she has prepared, even practiced to herself, so she just launches right into her explanation. “When you’re born, you get a Number, which is the number of days left until the day you’re going to die. With each day, this number counts down, until it gets to zero on the day in question.”

Clarke watches as he tries to wrap his mind around the concept.

“So it’s sort of like an internal clock, counting down?” he finally asks.

“Well, it’s just days, not hours or minutes or seconds,” she replies. “And it’s… not really internal.”

“What do you mean?”

OK, this is it. No turning back.

“Normal people can’t see the Numbers, so you won’t be able to, but… Soul Keepers can.”

She can’t help but glance at his forehead when she says it, and Bellamy of course notices. His hand flies up to press against the spot, covering his Number.

“It’s here?” She just nods quietly. “So what’s… what’s my Number? I mean, you don’t have to tell me the exact number if you don’t want to, I don’t know if I want to know the day I’m going to die but… ballpark figure. You know, how many years do I have left.”

She knows what he means – he just wants a rough estimate, not an exact timeline. She squeezes her eyes closed for a moment before speaking. “Two oh seven.”

His hand falls into his lap and he just looks at her for so long that Clarke almost starts worrying that he’s gone into shock or something. After a while, though, he clears his throat.

“Two oh seven as in two hundred and seven days?”

She nods. “I’m so sorry.”

“That’s… when is that…?”

He trails off, but she answers anyway. “July 27.”

“Well… fuck.”

Silence falls over them, interrupted by a meow from Bastet as she jumps onto the couch and butts Bellamy’s leg with her head. He reaches out a hand almost absentmindedly and pets her.

Clarke wants to ask what he’s thinking, somehow reassure him – which she knows is impossible – but she forces herself to stay quiet and wait for him to take the lead.

“Is that why you’re telling me?” he finally asks after a few long, silent minutes. Then his eyes widen. “It’s OK that you are, right? You’re not going to get in trouble for telling me about this whole thing?”

She chooses to focus on his second question first, mainly because she wants to think through her answer to the first one. “No, no, it’s fine,” she assures him. “It happens… OK, not all the time, but definitely pretty regularly, and there aren’t any rules or anything against it.”

“So other Soul Keepers, they tell… Norms?” he asks, hesitating a little at the last word.

Clarke nods. “Some do, yes. Usually when they’re in some sort of long term relationship with someone, either a close friendship or a romantic relationship. It’s… really inevitable, after a while, once it starts to get obvious that we’re not aging.”

“Is that usually when you’d tell someone? When you can’t get out of it?”

It’s not like she has a ton of knowledge on the matter – apart from Raven, only Harper in their friend group has done this, as far as Clarke knows, and her boyfriend broke up with her when she told him.

“I don’t know if that’s how everyone does it, but the people I know who have told their partners have waited until then, yes. Six, seven years or so is usually when we’re reassigned to a new city, since we can’t stay too long in the same place without people starting to notice that we don’t age. I don’t know, really, but maybe they wait until then to make it easier if the partner can’t handle the situation. A clean break if it goes badly.”

“But that’s obviously not what’s happening here,” Bellamy concludes. “So the reason you’re telling me is that I’m… dying.”

Hearing the words out loud is like a knife being twisted in her gut and she has to take a deep breath before she can answer.

“It’s part of it,” she agrees.

“And if I hadn’t been, you wouldn’t have told me?” he pushes. “You would have waited six, seven years, until you had to leave New York? Kept lying to me the whole time?”

His voice is calm but Clarke can sense the anger just below the surface.

“I honestly don’t know,” she admits, holding up a hand when he opens his mouth to say something. “Just listen to me, OK? I don’t know. Because I’ve never been in this kind of situation before. I’ve never told anyone about being a Soul Keeper, because I’ve never had any kind of relationship with a Norm. So yeah, maybe I would have waited. I really can’t tell you because that’s not the way things are and I can’t just… magically know how I would be thinking or feeling if it was.”

“Fair enough, I guess,” he says.

“But for what it’s worth, I really have hated lying to you,” she continues. "Even the little lies, like when I’ve had Transfers and you’ve been home and I had to say something to get out of the apartment. It’s been slowly eating me up inside and then when you told me about Octavia, and you said you didn’t want us to have any secrets…”

Bellamy gives her a scrutinizing look. “Is that why you were having trouble sleeping?” he asks. “I didn’t even realize, but that’s when it started, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah.” She shrugs. “It felt like you were making an effort to be open and honest with me, and I was just lying through my teeth almost every time I opened my mouth…”

He reaches out to squeeze her hand. “I’m sorry it was my fault you had trouble sleeping.”

“No, it wasn’t.”

“It sort of was, though.” He pauses, lets out a sigh. “I just… the whole thing with O, it felt like I had been deliberately hiding it from you, brushing off questions about her when you asked, and I hated it. But it’s not the same thing, so I am sorry it made you feel that way.”

Clarke offers him a smile. “It’s OK. It gave me the kick in the butt I needed to actually figure out a way to talk to you, tell you everything.”

“Well, in that case, I’m glad… I think. I am glad you told me about the Soul Keeper thing, just… not sure about the rest yet.”

“I get that.”

They both go quiet for a moment, but she can tell from his furrowed brows that Bellamy’s thinking hard. After a little while he clears his throat.

“I’ve been trying to figure out what made you bolt on Halloween, since it obviously wasn’t getting over a rough breakup.” He pauses to look at her, eyebrow raised. “Or was it? Just not Lexa? But why wouldn’t you just use the actual breakup as an excuse instead of claiming it was one that happened… decades ago?”

Clarke shakes her head. “No, the breakup thing was just the excuse Zeke came up with when Miller asked for my number to give to you. I guess it was the most reasonable one to him, which I get. I’ve been single for over ten years, so no rough breakup recently. The reason I used Lexa was that she’s really the only bad breakup I’ve had, strange as that may sound. Me and Wells, we just sort of grew apart, we’re more like siblings these days than anything. And Niylah, even though we were together for a couple of years, it was never really serious, so when it was time for both of us to move on and we didn’t want to be posted in the same city, we just sort of called it quits, no hard feelings.”

Bellamy nods thoughtfully. “Those are the long term relationships you’ve been in?”

“I know it doesn’t sound like a lot, considering how long I’ve been around… it took me a while to get into the swing of things enough to even consider a relationship. And, well the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries weren’t exactly ideal for dating, it was all courtship and marriage, even among us Keepers… I met Lexa here in New York in… 1912 I think, and we became a couple in 1913.”

“And you broke up in 1936, so… wow, twenty-three years.”

“Yeah. Not that long when you live forever,” she notes with a half-smile. “The breakup was hard, at the time, she did actually just leave pretty much out of the blue, and it took me a while to let anyone in after… Wells and I had known each other for… over seventy years when we were both posted in London at the same time, without knowing any of the other Keepers there at first and we sort of just gravitated towards each other. We ended things in 1971, and after that, I guess I wasn’t really interested in anything long term for a while. With the sixties and seventies came the sexual revolution, so suddenly it was fine to date casually or have flings that didn’t lead anywhere. It was over thirty years before I even considered a relationship again, and Niylah and I never really got past the semi-serious dating in the two years we were together.” Clarke takes a deep breath. “But you were asking about Halloween.”

“Yeah.”

She wants to tell him, doesn’t want to hide anything anymore, but like with everything else, she’s not sure how he’ll react. Could this be the final drop?

“That was the first time I saw your Number,” she reveals, watching him carefully for any kind of reaction.

But Bellamy just nods. “I kind of figured. And you panicked.”

“Yeah. I told you I’ve never been involved with a Norm before, because I just… I’ve seen how these things go. Some people really can’t handle finding out and end things right away, while others might think they’re fine with it only to realize that it’s not that much fun to have a partner who looks thirty years younger. And even if that doesn’t happen…” She trails off, a lump forming in her throat.

“If that doesn’t happen,” he takes over, “we eventually die.”

“Exactly.”

“Just not usually this quickly.”

Clarke lets out a laugh that sounds more like a sob at his attempt to joke about it.

“So yeah, I panicked. I had already been doubting whether it was a good idea to get closer to you, and that was basically confirmation that my first instinct to stay away had been right. But even so, I think I knew, somewhere deep down, that it was already too late at that point. I wouldn’t have been able to stay away from you if I tried… which I obviously did.”

“And I messed that up by showing up at the library.”

“No.” She reaches for his hand, a little tentative, but he interlaces their fingers and gives her hand a little squeeze, which she takes as encouragement. “You just… sped up the inevitable. After this last month or so, I have no doubt whatsoever that we would have bumped into each other again if neither of us had done something at that point. I think maybe the universe is trying to tell us something.”

Bellamy smiles at that. “You know, I figured that one out when I pulled you out of the way of a cab.”

“Yeah, well, you’re obviously the smarter of the two of us.”

He laughs briefly before his eyes widen a little. “Hey!” he exclaims, as if something major has just occurred to him. “That’s why you were being all weird, asking what I would do if I…”

“Yeah,” she cuts him off, not wanting to hear him talk about dying again. “I mean, my brain really was sleep deprived, I’d had, like, a total of eight hours of sleep in three days. I think maybe I wanted something concrete to focus on, you know? Like, ‘oh, I’ve always wanted to… drive Route 66’ or whatever. Something that I could make happen without having to actually tell you. It’s stupid, I know.”

“No, it’s not,” Bellamy disagrees. “It’s really sweet.”

She looks at him for a moment before continuing. “So will you let me do that?”

His brows furrow. “Do what?”

“You said you’d want to travel, remember?” she reminds him. “If money wasn’t an issue, you’d want to go to all the places you’ve read about – Italy, Greece, China…”

“If money wasn’t an issue, yeah.”

“And it’s not,” she tells him. “I have the money to do this, more than enough.”

He just stares at her for a long moment. “You’re serious.”

“Yes.” Clarke gets up from the couch and pulls him up too. “Come on.”

She drags him to her desk, where she powers up the computer and opens a browser.

“What are you…?” he starts, but trails off when she navigates to her internet bank and logs in.

She opens her debit account.

“This is the account I mainly use,” she says. “It’s where my salary goes, where I get payments for the paintings I sell on Etsy, where the rent from my house in San Francisco or this place, when I’m not living here, comes in.”

“You have a house in San Francisco?”

“That’s not the point right now, but yes. Can you just look at the numbers?”

Bellamy sighs but does as she asks him to, and she can see his eyes widen when he takes in the amount in the account, then even more when he sees what she gets paid.

“That’s more than I make before taxes,” he notes, trying to keep his voice light but not quite succeeding.

“Maybe that’s one of the draws during recruiting,” she says with a shrug. “Good pay and not a lot of work. Emotionally draining, sure, but not so much physically.”

“Plus, you don’t pay taxes,” he notes.

“Yes, I do,” she retorts. “Don’t ask me how it works, but I’m ‘employed’ by SK Ltd. and me and other Keepers pay taxes like everyone else.”

He just stares at her for a moment before shaking his head. “I still don’t see how you don’t question all of that more. Where does that money come from? It’s not like you earn money for a company by doing those Transfers.”

She considers his words for a moment before replying. “Maybe they have other sources of revenue? I honestly have no idea, but there’s no point thinking about it, it’s not like I’ll get any answers.”

He shrugs. “I guess that makes sense. You can’t just go around questioning your entire existence all the time, you’d go crazy.”

“Exactly,” she agrees, turning back to the computer. “So… what do you say? Round the world trip, ancient Roman ruins, the Parthenon, Great wall of China…”

He sighs. “I just… OK, so you make a lot of money, I don’t see why I should let you spend a huge chunk of it on taking me on some trip.”

She doesn’t respond, just clicks to open her savings account.

“It wouldn’t be a huge chunk,” she says as he stares at the screen.

“That’s… a lot of numbers,” he says after a long moment.

Clarke turns her back to the computer so she can face him, waiting until he looks up at her before she speaks. “I’m not showing you this to make you feel bad, OK? I just… I want you to see that I can do this, if you let me. I honestly don’t spend that much money, it’s not like I pay rent on this place. I donate money regularly, but even so, I have way more money coming in than going out. I also have a stock portfolio, but Raven’s in charge of it and I can’t access it on my own. I can get her to show you, though, there should be quite a bit of money in that, it’s been a while since I sold anything and reinvested.”

He runs a hand over his face. “No, that’s… it’s OK.”

“So will you let me do this for you?” she asks, voice pleading. “And it wouldn’t just be for you, either, it would be for me. I’m being selfish here, really. Getting to do something to make the next six months or so the best they can be, getting to experience all of these things with you… I want that for me, too. OK?”

Bellamy looks away from her, back at the screen behind her, and then closes his eyes. “Can I… can you give me a little time to think about it?” he asks. “Just a few days. I need to really wrap my mind around all of this.”

She takes a tentative step towards him and, when he doesn’t move away, another, so she can wrap her arms around him and lean her head against his chest. His arms go around her too and she feels his chin against the top of her head.

“Of course.”

Chapter Text

Somehow, they manage to let the whole topic of Soul Keepers and upcoming death go and spend the rest of the day curled up together under a blanket on the couch, watching Netflix. They order take-out for dinner and Clarke digs some ice cream out of the freezer for dessert, and they eat it right out of the carton, their spoons clanging together when they try to scoop up another bite at the same time.

They’re in the middle of a Parks and Rec episode, Bellamy stretched out on his back along the couch and Clarke on top of him, her cheek against his chest, when the screen on her phone lights up. She reaches for the device but it’s about an inch too far away, so he grabs it for her.

“Raven,” he notes as he glances at the screen before handing her the phone.

“Crap,” she says. “I must have missed a bunch of texts, she doesn’t usually call first thing.”

“Go ahead,” he tells her, grabbing the remote to pause the show.

Clarke reluctantly pushes herself off him and slides her finger across the screen to answer the call.

“Hey, sorry, I’ve had the sound off all afternoon,” she says as a greeting.

“Right,” Raven’s voice comes over the line. “So I take it things are OK?”

Clarke glances at Bellamy, who’s now sitting up on the couch, running a hand through his messy hair.

“Yeah, we’re OK,” she confirms quietly, moving into the kitchen. “We’ve talked some more, he came with me to the Transfer and then I… told him the rest.”

“How’d he take that?”

She sighs. “About as well as can be expected, I think. He’s agreed to think about the whole trip thing, so that’s good.”

“Yeah, good. So we don’t need to be on standby anymore?”

“No. But thank you, I really appreciate it.”

“Always, babe. OK, let me know if you do need anything.”

“I will, promise. Love you.”

“Love you too.”

“Everything OK?”

She turns at Bellamy’s voice, finding him leaning against the other side of the breakfast bar.

“Everything’s fine,” she assures him with a smile. “Raven and Zeke were sort of backup today, in case I needed help.”

“Did you expect to?” he asks with a frown.

“I had no idea,” she replies. “Again, I’ve never actually done this before. But I figured it couldn’t hurt to be prepared, and Raven actually has done it before, so…”

He nods thoughtfully before raising an eyebrow at her. “Hungry?”

Clarke looks down and realizes that she has one hand on the handle on the fridge door. “Not at all. You?”

He shakes his head. “I was actually thinking of maybe calling it a night,” he says. “Pretty tired.”

“Yeah, it’s been a long day,” she agrees, silently wondering if he’ll want to share the bed with her or if he’ll decide to sleep in the guest room. The thought makes her entire body feel cold.

But when she rounds the counter, he wraps an arm around her waist and presses a kiss to her temple. “Come on.”

They get ready for bed in silence, taking turns in the bathroom as they always do – it’s only been a little over a month, when did that start feeling like always – and while he’s brushing his teeth, she pulls on a t-shirt and slides between the sheets.

A few minutes later, the faucet in the bathroom turns off and a moment after that, Bellamy enters the bedroom again.

She stays completely still, flat on her back, as he gets into bed, unsure of whether he’ll stay on his side, keeping space between them, or lay down right next to her, like he usually does.

When he moves into the middle of the bed and wraps an arm around her to tug her against him, Clarke lets out a breath. She relaxes in his embrace, wrapping her own arm around his middle and pressing her nose against his throat.

He pulls the comforter up to cover both of them before tightening his hold on her, one hand trailing down until he finds bare skin on her hip. He brushes his thumb back and forth a couple of times before placing a kiss on her forehead.

“Sleep.”

And somehow – maybe because she’s completely exhausted emotionally – she does.

-100-

Clarke jolts awake the next morning when Bellamy literally jumps out of bed.

“Shit, shit, shit,” he mumbles under his breath as he hurries around the bed and opens the door to the walk-in closet.

“What’s wrong?” she asks dazedly, trying to blink the sleep out of her eyes.

“I forgot to set my alarm,” he calls from somewhere inside the closet. “Overslept.”

She rolls onto her side and grabs her phone from the nightstand and, sure enough, it’s a little after seven thirty.

Bellamy appears in the doorway to the closet, work pants in one hand while he tries to pull his green polo shirt over his head with the other, and bumps his shoulder on the doorjamb since he can’t see where he’s going.

“Ow,” he complains when he emerges from the opening.

“Hey,” Clarke says, reaching out to grab him by the arm before he can disappear into the bathroom. “Slow down.”

“I can’t, I’m already late, I have to hurry,” he tells her, but he does stop, his whole body sagging a little.

“OK, but just hear me out,” she insists. “Yesterday was… a rough day, OK? Emotionally and mentally and… maybe you need to take some time to just let everything sink in.”

He frowns at her words. “You want me to take a sick day?”

“Yes. I mean, you forgot to set the alarm, have you ever done that before?” When he shakes his head, she continues. “So that was probably your subconscious trying to tell you that you need to take it easy today.”

Bellamy gives her an extremely doubtful look at that. “I’m not sure that’s how it works.”

“OK, but tell me this,” she says, changing tactics. “Did you sleep OK?”

She can tell by the way he looks away from her that the answer is no.

“Maybe not great,” he admits. “I had some trouble falling asleep, and then I kept having weird dreams that woke me up… but I’m fine, honestly. Nothing a cup of coffee or three won’t fix.”

“Nope.” She shakes her head. “You’re staying home today, that’s final.”

“Oh, is it?” he counters, one eyebrow raised, and Clarke knows that look. It’s a look that makes her entire body tingle with anticipation. “Tell you what – I’ll take a sick day today if you promise that we won’t leave this bed.”

She can feel her heart rate react to his words immediately, but still pretends to think about it. “I guess I can agree to those terms.”

“Then we have a deal. I just need to call in, back in a moment.”

She lets him go so he can grab his phone and leave the room to make the call. He doesn’t close the door and she picks up bits and pieces of the conversation – cold, been coughing all night, should be fine tomorrow. He hangs up soon enough, returning to the bedroom and pulling the shirt he just managed to get half on earlier off again.

“Now…” he says when he’s closed the door behind him, and then he literally pounces on her, somehow managing to not actually land on top of her. “Whatever are we going to do with all this spare time?”

“Hmm…” Clarke licks her lips slowly, pleased when she sees his eyes dart to her mouth. “I think I might have a few ideas.”

He leans down slowly, until they’re just inches apart. “Oh yeah?” At the last second, he bypasses her mouth and instead brushes his lips against her ear. “Do share.”

“Mmmm,” she hums as he pulls her earlobe into his mouth, teeth grazing the skin. “That’s a good start.”

Bellamy doesn’t linger, instead placing a quick, chaste kiss against the side of her throat. “And how about this?”

“Also good.” She trails a hand up his arm and around to slide her fingers into his hair, just as his tongue darts out to run along her collar bone, making her gasp.

“Good?”

“Uh-huh.”

He shifts his weight a little, onto one elbow, to be able to pull the collar of her t-shirt down and place an open mouthed kiss half an inch from her nipple. She whines a little and arches up against him, hoping he’ll take the hint and move just a little bit. Instead, he sucks on the spot, hard enough to leave a mark – not like anyone but him will see it there, though.

He sooths the spot with another kiss before placing another one a few inches further down, and then another one a little to the right. Not until he’s completed a full circuit around her nipple does he finally pull the already hard nub into his mouth, and Clarke can’t hold back a moan. Her hips jerk helplessly against him, trapped under the comforter by his knees on either side of her thighs. He seems to sense her frustration, though, and moves to lay down more fully on top of her, one leg wedged between hers, and she wastes no time in pushing up against his thigh, getting some friction even though the fluffy comforter is still between them. She tries to push it down, but it’s trapped between them and she soon gives up, trailing her hand up Bellamy’s side, nails scraping lightly against the skin, feeling him shiver a little when she reaches his ribs.

She manages to kick the comforter off her leg – the one not still trapped between his – and wraps it around his thigh to pull him tighter against her. Finally she can feel the beginning of his erection against her stomach. In response, he groans against her breast before abandoning it and searching out her lips for a searing kiss instead.

A moment later, he tugs on her shirt until he finds the hem and can slide a hand under the material, pushing it up as far as it will go. Goosebumps appear on her skin when it’s exposed to the cooler air of the room, but Clarke’s soon distracted from the slight chill when his warm hand covers her breast. He flicks her nipple with his thumb and she retaliates by biting lightly at his bottom lip.

“Feisty today, are we, Princess?” he asks amusedly, pulling away from her and repeating the motion. She squirms under him, letting out a moan when he pinches her nipple a little harder, and sees his eyes darken at the sound.

She doesn’t respond, just keeps her eyes locked on his as she pulls her shirt over her head. It gets stuck under her, since Bellamy’s still pinning her to the bed, but at least it’s all the way off. He hums his approval before leaning down and kissing her again.

The comforter is still between their lower bodies, though, but finally, he lifts himself off her for a moment and manages to pull it out of the way. The friction when he sinks down on top of her again goes straight to her core and she arches her hips against him. He groans into her mouth, fingers flexing against her side.

What she really wants to do is get rid of the last scraps of clothing separating them and get him inside her, but he seems to want to slow things down, his mouth and tongue moving lazily against hers, the hand not propping him up trailing all over every part of her that he can reach, never lingering long, just enough to set her skin on fire.

After what feels like hours, Clarke breaks the kiss to get some much needed air, and he moves to pepper kisses over her throat and chest. His mouth closes around one nipple at the same time as he tweaks the other with two fingers, and she arches off the bed into his touch.

“God, you can be such a tease,” she gets out before gasping when his teeth graze her pebbled nipple.

Bellamy chuckles against her skin. “Oh please, you love it and we both know it.”

Well… yeah. But she also loves what comes when he stops teasing her…

He kisses his way up her chest again, latching onto a sensitive spot on her neck and grinding his hips against hers.

“You feel what you do to me?” he murmurs into her ear and she whimpers in confirmation, pushing up against him. His hand trails down her ribcage and stomach, pausing at the waistband of her panties. “Do I have the same effect on you, huh?”

Clarke has to bite her lip when he slips his hand inside and trails a finger up and down her slit a couple of times before pushing it into her.

“Like you don’t already know that.”

“Mm, I do,” he agrees, adding another finger and curling them just right.

“Oh, fuck.”

“Doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy feeling just how wet you are for me.”

His lips cover hers and she eagerly opens up for him, the kiss turning deep and dirty as his fingers continue sliding in and out of her. He doesn’t put any pressure on her clit, so she knows he’s not trying to get her off, at least not yet.

When she feels like she can’t stand not having him inside her for another second, she fumbles for his boxers and tries to push them down, but she doesn’t get far. She expects Bellamy to maybe chuckle, call her eager and tease her a little longer, but to her surprise, he abruptly breaks the kiss and moves off her. A moment later, he tugs on her panties and she willingly lifts her hips to help him get them off.

Then he’s back on top of her, propped up on one hand, the other between them to guide him inside her, and finally, finally they’re joined.

He pauses for a moment when he’s fully buries inside her, the way he almost always does, and their eyes lock. He maintains eye contact as he pulls out of her, but when he thrusts back inside, a little more force behind the movement, Clarke has to squeeze her eyes shut against the overwhelming feeling.

She wraps an arm around his neck and pulls him down, the kiss deep and needy. He groans as her nails dig into his shoulder, sinking down further so they’re almost skin on skin. The new angle makes his pelvic bone drag against her clit on each thrust, and before long, she’s falling over the edge.

Bellamy kisses her through it, slowing his thrusts a little as she comes back down. When she can think straight again, she wraps her legs around his waist, pulling him deeper inside her and getting a moan in return.

She loses track of time for a while – the only thing in the world their bodies moving together, his lips and tongue against hers. Then he breaks the kiss, gasping for air as his movements turn sloppy, and a few thrusts later, he pulses inside her. He slips a hand between them, pressing down on her already sensitive clit, and she cries out as a second climax washes over her.

She’s still shaking from the power of it when he rolls them over and wraps his arms around her, holding her against his chest. She feels his lips against her temple.

“Love you.”

Clarke can’t quite form a complete sentence yet, so she just hums in agreement and presses her lips to his chest.

-100-

Bellamy goes back to work the next day, and apart from him asking about her Transfers when he gets home in the afternoon and her not having to lie about what she’s doing when she has one, things pretty much go back to normal.

Clarke decides to give him a week before she brings up the trip thing again. If he does agree to it, they need to start planning – flights and hotels need to be booked, not that she cares if she has to pay more for business class and five star hotels because everything is full, and he needs to either get a leave of absence or give his two weeks’ notice at work. She just needs a week heads up to note her unavailability in her work app, but still, she wants to get going. She’s already writing down places she wants to show him and things she wants to suggest doing. And if he doesn’t agree… well, she has her plan B.

She hasn’t contacted Octavia yet, but she’s keeping an eye on her Facebook – in a completely non-stalkerish way – and knows that she spent Christmas with her boyfriend’s family in some quaint village in the English countryside, since he’s apparently from Derbyshire, and then New Year’s with friends in Dublin. She’s back at work now, which is a gym where she’s a PT and holds classes in Piloxing and Ryde. Clarke has no idea what either of those are, but judging by the official photos on the gym’s website – Octavia’s Facebook photos are locked – she’s one of those way too athletic people that always make Clarke feel like a complete amateur whenever she ventures to a gym – which, granted, doesn’t happen that often.

Bellamy surprises her, though, on Saturday when he has the day off.

He has lunch ready when she gets back from her story time, and when both their plates are empty, he puts a notepad down next to his.

“What’s that?” she asks, nodding at it.

“It’s my list.”

She frowns. “Your list?”

“Yeah.” He nods slowly a couple of times. “I’ve decided to take you up on the whole trip thing.”

It takes Clarke a moment to really understand what he’s saying, but when she does, she throws her arms around him.

“Thank you!”

“I think I should be thanking you,” he objects. “But I have one condition.”

“Anything.”

“Nothing too… extravagant, OK?” He gives her a stern look. “I know you can afford first class flights and five star hotels, and I’m not saying we stay in hostels or anything, but can we maybe settle for economy seats and three stars? It would make me feel much better about the whole thing and less like I’m taking advantage of you.”

It’s not like she was planning on them staying in luxury hotels or anything… at least not everywhere.

“Can I get a couple of fancy hotels?” she asks carefully. “There’s this place in Paris that Raven stayed at a couple of years ago that’s just… it’s amazing. And there are a few places I’ve been wanting to go to but haven’t gotten around to yet.”

Bellamy watches her through narrowed eyes for a moment. “OK, a couple.”

“Great. And I promise I’ll stick to economy unless it’s not an option, OK? But I might get seats with extra leg room on the longer flights – trust me, you’ll thank me.”

“Fine, I can agree to that,” he says.

She glances at the notebook again. “So what’s on the list?”

“Oh.” He opens it to the first page, which isn’t even full. “Places I want to see. I don’t know if we’ll be able to do everything, so I put them in order of how much I want to go there.”

Of course he did.

“Well, that would depend on when we can leave, really,” Clarke notes.

“Right. Well, I gave my two weeks’ notice at work yesterday and I have a couple of vacation days I can use, so my last day will be the 14^th. I called the school and told them I’m taking a semester off…” He trails off, but they both know what he’s not saying – that he’ll be gone by the time the fall semester rolls around, so it wouldn’t have mattered if he just dropped out. But she can see why saying that he’s taking a semester off would feel better. Bellamy Blake is not a quitter, and dropping out of school, no matter why, would be quitting. “And I talked to Miller, apparently he and Jackson have been thinking about moving in together and his lease is up at the end of the month, so he said they’d use this as a sort of trial run so I won’t have to pay rent.”

He’s really thought of everything.

“Do you have a current passport?”

Bellamy nods. “Doesn’t expire until 2022, so I’m good. I’ll swing by the apartment while I’m at work tomorrow and pick it up, I’m guessing we might need it for plane tickets or visas or something.”

“Plane tickets, definitely, visas, that depends on what’s on your list. So let’s have a look.”

The list has two levels – first either a city or a country, and in case of a country there are two or more cities listed under it. There are also some bullet points that are single places and also experiences, like Northern lights, which is number five on the list.

Philippines
Manila
Taytay

“My dad was from Taytay,” he says. “It’s a pretty big city not too far from Manila, about an hour, so I figured we could maybe do a couple of days in each city.”

“Do you have any info on your dad?” she asks. “Name, some sort of ID number, an old address, names of relatives?”

Clarke is already going through a mental list of Keepers she knows, wondering if any of them are in the Philippines at the moment and can help her out on the ground. Maybe they can find other family members, though she’s not entirely sure how well the population register over there works.

“The only thing I have is a sort of scrap book that Mom put together, with the handful of pictures she had of him,” he replies. “There’s some other stuff in there, his old passport, I think, so there might be something.”

“Do you know when he was born?”

He frowns. “I know Mom was nineteen when they had me and I think he was maybe two years older, so… 1967 or thereabouts.”

So there might even be grandparents still alive… “Get the scrap book when you pick up your passport and I’ll see if I can do some research before we get there.”

Bellamy nods at that.

Italy
Rome
Pompeii

Greece
Athens
Sparta
Crete

Cairo – pyramids

Northern lights

“I think Iceland is the safest bet for Northern lights,” she notes when she gets to that one.

“Yeah, I’ve heard that too,” Bellamy agrees. “And I know that there’s no guarantee we’ll be able to see them, but I figure it’s at least worth a shot.”

“No, you can never be sure with nature… but I’ll look into it and give us the best possible premises, OK?”

“Sounds good.”

Petra?

“Why is there a question mark after Petra?” Clarke ask curiously.

“I just wasn’t sure if it’s even possible to get into Jordan,” he replies with a shrug. “Considering the situation in the area.”

Neither is she, to be honest. “We’ll see.”

China
Beijing
Great wall

American road trip
San Francisco
Las Vegas
Hoover Dam
Grand Canyon
Route 66
San Antonio – the Alamo
Houston
New Orleans
Williamsburg + Jamestown

“That’s a pretty condensed version of the Great American Road Trip,” she notes.

Bellamy shrugs. “I’ve been to all the places I want to see in the north east. Miller dragged me along to Florida on his last spring break in college, we even went to Disney World – I know, a little creepy for two twenty-one-year-old guys – and we were in LA just last spring, we started saving up as soon as the Harry Potter World opened up at Universal. Trust me, I’ve gone through the whole country in my head, these are the places I want to see that I haven’t already.”

“OK.” She reaches out to take his hand and interlaces their fingers. “Why Houston and New Orleans?”

He plays with her fingers a little, seemingly intensely focused on them. “I’ve always wanted to see New Orleans, not sure why, and I have a… an old friend in Houston that I’d like to see one last time.”

Clarke thinks there might be something there he’s not telling her, but she’s not going to push. “OK.”

UK
London
Stonehenge

Paris

Machu Picchu

Chichén Itzá

Angkor Wat

Taj Mahal

Auschwitz

Sydney

New Zealand

“No specific places in New Zealand?” Clarke asks when she reaches the end of the list.

“Honestly? I kind of just want to see the settings for all the Lord of the Rings movies,” he admits with a half-smile.

“OK,” she says with a laugh. “I’m sure there are tours and stuff, I’ll look into it.”

She looks the list over once more. She figures the road trip – which will be the final leg of the journey – might take three or four weeks, if they want to stay for a few days or maybe a week in San Francisco and Las Vegas. If they can leave by the 20^th, that still gives them six months for the other… twenty-one places. Some stops might just be a day or two but others will definitely require at least a week. Still, she thinks it should work fine, and she’ll even be able to fit in a visit to Dublin to see Octavia, and maybe a week or two on a white beach somewhere with crystal clear water, as a bit of a break…

“Is there anything in particular you want to do?” she asks.

“Like what?” Bellamy replies.

“I don’t know, a bucket list – skydiving, bungee jumping, swimming with sharks… though please don’t take those as suggestions, I’m just brainstorming.”

He laughs quietly. “No, I’ve never been much of an adrenaline junkie, so I’m good. There’s nothing that really comes to mind immediately, but I’ll think about it.”

“That’s a relief. OK, I will start planning, but maybe you can write down the specific things you want to see and do in each place? I mean like the Colosseum in Rome and whatever ruins there are in Greece, for example, just put down everything you can think of. It might be a good idea to book tickets to some things in advance so we don’t end up missing out if something’s fully booked the whole time we’re there.”

“OK, I will. So do you think we’ll be able to go everywhere?”

“Well, I’m not sure about Jordan either, but the other places shouldn’t be a problem. Time wise, we should be fine, I might even be able to add a couple of things too, if that’s OK?”

“Of course, I would love to see your favorite spots.”

“Well, I’ve lived in a few of these places and visited others, though far from all of them… I think I can come up with a couple of things away from the regular tourist traps to take you to.” She glances at him. “When… when do you want to be back in New York? I mean, assuming you do want to…” She pauses again, because she cannot say ‘die’, she just can’t. “Finish up the trip here. We don’t have to, we can do, like, a paradise beach in the Caribbean or something, if you want.”

He considers her question for a long moment. “No, I think… I think I need to be back here. New York’s always been home, you know?” Of course she does. New York has been her home even when she hasn’t lived here for decades. “So maybe on the twentieth? I want to… just so we can settle down and spend some quiet time together, you know. Maybe have everyone over for dinner or something on the… the twenty-sixth.”

Clarke’s pretty sure he almost brought up his sister but changed his mind at the last minute. Should she say something? No, she decides. He’ll probably plan to look her up when they get back, it’s OK to let him think that for a couple of weeks. If she hadn’t already found Octavia, she might have pushed just a little to get him to do it before they leave, instead of putting it off to the last minute, but as it is, she feels OK leaving it be for now.

She deliberately does not linger on the last part of his statement, because if she does, she knows she won’t be able to think about anything else.

Chapter Text

The next morning, after Bellamy has left for work, Clarke sits down at her desk and starts planning.

The first thing she does is write to Octavia. She knows it’s possible, maybe even likely, that she won’t even get a response – who reads a random message from a stranger on Facebook? Clarke definitely doesn’t. But she puts Bellamy’s name early in the message, hoping that the younger Blake will see it and at least be curious enough to find out what’s in the message.

Hi Octavia!
You don’t know me, but my name is Clarke and I’m Bellamy’s girlfriend. I know it’s strange for me to contact you out of the blue like this… especially since I know the two of you had a falling out years ago and haven’t spoken since. But I know Bellamy misses you every day and really wants to see you and make things right between you again. I hope you do as well.
We’re going on a trip to Europe very soon and I was hoping that we could get together while we’re there? Sorry about the Facebook stalking, by the way, but I didn’t know how else to find you… please don’t hold it against me (or him).
Hope to hear from you soon! Clarke Griffin

She has a couple of backup plans if she doesn’t hear anything. First, she’s going to see if she can find a phone number, either for Octavia or for her boyfriend, a guy called Lincoln that looks more like a wrestler or gang member than the photographer that he apparently is. There has to be some sort of directory service in Ireland. If that fails, she’s already checked out the website for the gym where Octavia works and knows there’s a phone number on there. She’ll call and ask for Octavia, or pretend there’s a family emergency or something if they won’t let her talk to her for some reason. And if that fails… well, she doesn’t want to show up unannounced on Octavia’s doorstep, but she will if she has to. She’ll just have to come up with something to keep Bellamy occupied for a while and allow her to sneak off, because she’s not going to bring him along on a surprise visit to his estranged sister only to have her slam the door in their faces.

She really hopes it doesn’t come to that, though.

Next, she registers the time she’ll be unavailable in her work app. She puts the 15^th as her first day off, not that she thinks they’ll leave that soon, but to be able to focus on last minute things. She hesitates when she’s picking a last date, though, remembering Raven after Finn died, how she hadn’t even gotten out of bed for over a week and then been almost a zombie for the next month… before her mind can delve too deeply into that rabbit hole, she puts August 31^st as the last date of her leave. If she does feel like she can’t handle going back at that point, she can always extend it. Her shifts at the library are only on a volunteer basis, and she has to approve them beforehand, so she can just let them know that she won’t be able to do anymore for a while when she goes in later in the afternoon. She doesn’t have any outstanding commissions – January is usually pretty quiet – but she turns on vacation mode on her Etsy shop.

She also calls Harper and asks if she and Monty would mind house and cat sitting while they’re gone. She knows that Raven would never say no to having Bastet stay with them, but the cat and Lola really don’t get along and Clarke doesn’t want Bas to spend months hiding out on top of shelves and cupboards. And Harper is one of very few people that Bas actually seems to like, apart from Clarke herself and, now, Bellamy. Luckily, she agrees immediately, seemingly happy to get out of the apartment she and Monty share in the Soul Keeper building on the Upper East Side. Clarke suspects she might think that moving away from Jasper, who lives just next door to them with Maya, might mean less time that Monty and Jasper spend playing video games and more time for Harper with her boyfriend. Personally, Clarke’s not sure that’ll work out the way her friend hopes.

With all the practicalities of leaving New York for six months out of the way, she starts working on an itinerary that won’t mean they have to go back and forth too much. Since the road trip across the country is the natural end, it only makes sense to start by heading east, making Iceland their first stop. She quickly googles the Northern lights and is happy to find that the best chance of seeing them is from September to April. It all depends on the weather, of course, which they can’t exactly do anything about, but at least they’ll be there during the right time. She also finds a company offering two different tours that both end with a night in a see through bubble out in the countryside, perfect for spotting the dancing lights, and bookmarks the site to hopefully be able to book one or both of them in a couple of days when she has a better picture of their plans.

By noon, she has an itinerary that incorporates everything on Bellamy’s list as well as a week in Dublin. She’s given them more time in the places where she knows they’ll want to do a lot of things – like Iceland, to maximize the chances that they’ll catch the Northern lights, Rome, Greece and the Philippines – and less in other places, like just a full day each to see Petra, Taj Mahal and Angkor Wat. At the moment, though, they’ll be back in New York at the end of May.

She goes back over the itinerary, adding a couple of days to a few cities and some new destinations entirely. Edinburgh and Glasgow before they get to London and a detour to Barcelona for a few days after – just because she loves the city and is sure that Bellamy will find La Sagrada Família fascinating – Berlin between Paris and Kraków, a couple of days in Venice, Tokyo and Hong Kong, and finally brief stops in Rio de Janeiro and Panama City. Still, there are more than two weeks left… For a moment, she considers maybe a cruise from Mexico, some paradise islands in the Caribbean, but she’s not sure how Bellamy feels about cruises, especially considering the reason Octavia left was that she started working for a cruise company. In the end, she puts in a week in the Seychelles and another in Bora Bora, which seem like good opportunities to recharge their batteries during the trip.

She briefly thinks about maybe keeping the entire trip to Dublin to herself, along with the Seychelles and Bora Bora, letting them all be surprises. But Bellamy’s going to realize that they’re not going to Edinburgh when they board the plane in Iceland, and that will make him suspicious. It’s probably better to tell him that she wants to show him the city and then surprise him with just Octavia. So instead of writing down an altered itinerary, leaving out those three destinations, she just puts together a list of all the stops with plenty of room in the margin for Bellamy to write down all the things he wants to do in each place. She’s just finished it when her phone dings. When she picks it up, she sees that Octavia has replied to her message and with her heart beating wildly in her chest, she quickly opens Facebook on the computer to see what she says.

Hi Clarke!
It’s nice to “meet” you :-) No hard feelings about the “stalking”, if anything, I’m glad – I’ve been wanting to reach out to Bell for a long time, years, really, but considering how I left things, I’ve been afraid to…
Knowing him, he probably feels the same way. I’m sure he blames himself for what happened back then, even though it was all my fault. I don’t know how much you know, and it’s not my place to tell you if Bell hasn’t, but I know now (and realized pretty quickly) that he was just looking out for me
So to be honest, your message felt like a way to finally get my brother back. I’m not sure we would have ever gotten to that point on our own, Bell’s too much of a martyr and I’m too stubborn…
Of course I would love to see you guys! Though I can hardly believe you managed to convince my brother to do something as selfish as travel… When would you be coming? We do have a spare bedroom and I would love it if you stayed here, but if you prefer a hotel, that’s fine, of course. Maybe you can give me a call when you have a chance and we can figure out the details? I’d love to show you both my new home town!
Octavia

There’s a phone number at the bottom of the message, a short string of numbers that’s a connection to the other side of the Atlantic, and for a moment, Clarke considers calling right away, instead of just replying to the message. But it’s after one which means that Bellamy should be home soon. Besides, it’s probably better to wait until she has definitive dates and they can make actual plans, so she just saves the number in her phone, hesitating for a moment before putting it under ‘Spencer’, so she’ll remember which contact it is without the risk of Bellamy spotting his sister’s very unusual name in her contact list.

She lingers a little on one part of the message – I can hardly believe you managed to convince my brother to do something as selfish as travel. She wonders if Bellamy will tell Octavia the truth, or even just a version of the truth… either way, it’s not her place to tell, so she clicks in the text box and starts writing her response.

Hi again!
First of all, thank you so much for getting back to me so quickly, and for not shutting me down. I was a little worried, since Bellamy seems so convinced that you would reach out to him if you wanted to, but I’m glad he was wrong!
I know he will be so happy to see you… I actually haven’t told him that I know where you are, or that I’ve contacted you, I was thinking I might surprise him with you when we get to Dublin. But you probably know him better, maybe that’s a bad idea?
At the moment, I don’t have any dates, but around the end of the month or possibly early February. I’m hoping to finalize everything in the next few days, though, so I will give you a call when I have and maybe we can talk about the details? I think Bellamy would love to stay with you, and if he for some reason doesn’t, there’s always last minute hotel bookings!
I’m putting my phone number below, so you can call me if you need to, and I’ll get in touch as soon as everything’s arranged on my end.
Clarke

She double checks that she’s written down everything on the itinerary, shuts down the computer and goes into the bedroom. She has a story time at the library at three, and then a Transfer sort of on the detour home. Bellamy said he’d bring lunch with him so they have time to eat together before she has to leave, but she might as well get ready before he gets home.

She’s just wrapped a hairband around the end of her braid when her phone dings again, and she opens Messenger.

It breaks my heart to know that he’s been waiting for me to reach out when I’ve been hoping he would, but I’m not really surprised… I really messed up, huh? But thanks to you I can make everything up to him, I hope
I think a surprise sounds great! I can’t wait to see the look on Bell’s face when he sees me… so yeah, let’s do that :-)
I don’t have anything planned for the next couple of months, just work, so we’ll be home at least. I have some overtime saved up, so hopefully I can take a few days off while you guys are here
OK, just get in touch when you know what dates you’ll be coming. And now you have my number and I have yours, maybe it’s better to stick to calls and text messages? I seriously doubt my brother has gotten the hang of social media, but I don’t want him to accidentally uncover our little plot by spotting our conversation
Octavia

She’s probably right, better to stick to texts or calls. Clarke’s about to type out a short reply to say as much when she hears the front door open and close, and she quickly shuts down Messenger and makes sure there’s nothing on the home screen giving away that she’s been talking to Octavia.

“Food’s here!” Bellamy calls from the hallway as she stuffs her phone into her pocket, and she leaves the room to meet him in the kitchen.

“And you, bonus,” she notes with a smile, taking the bags from him before standing on her tiptoes to get a kiss. He happily obliges.

“I figured the food was the biggest draw at the moment,” he replies, following her to the couch in the living room.

“Well, I am hungry…”

He just chuckles as they dig into the food.

Clarke only has a few minutes to spare when they’ve finished eating, so she quickly grabs the itinerary from the desk.

“OK, so I have a tentative plan here,” she says, putting the piece of paper down in front of Bellamy on the coffee table. “Leaving on the 20^th, getting back on July 17^th. I haven’t checked any flights yet, so I left a few extra days at the end, just in case. Why don’t you have a look at it, see if there’s something else you can think of, and put down what you want to do in each place? If you think it looks good, I’ll start looking into flights and hotels and visas and all that stuff tomorrow.”

His brows furrow a little as his eyes trail down the list, and for a moment, she’s worried he doesn’t like it at all, or that he’s changed his mind completely. “You had time to do all this today?” he then asks, and she relaxes.

“Well, yeah… it’s really just organization, figuring out which would be the best route to take… I’ve also talked to Harper, and she and Monty will stay here while we’re gone, that way Bas won’t have to go to Raven and Zeke. I’ve registered my time off, and I’ll talk to Vera at the library after my shift, after that we should be good to go.”

He lets out a breath and puts the paper down on the table again.

“Wow… I mean, I know I agreed to all of this and I did quit my job and everything but now it just… feels more real.”

Clarke can understand that. She moves the paper out of the way and sits down on the table in front of him.

“I know you’re still taking all of this in,” she says gently. “But maybe just… try to focus on the trip? Don’t… don’t think about anything else, just try to enjoy this, OK?”

Bellamy nods slowly.

“I’m sure I’ll have some sort of… break eventually, when it all sinks in, but I’ll try, OK? And I really appreciate you doing all of this, don’t ever think that I don’t.”

“I know,” she assures him quickly, leaning forward to pull him into a tight hug.

“I love you,” he mumbles into her hair after a moment.

“Mmm, love you.”

She really should leave, but she lingers for a little moment longer. Just as she’s about to pull away, she feels his hand slip under the back of her shirt.

“You know… you made me call in sick the other day…”

He lets the words hang in the air as his fingers start inching up her spine.

Reluctantly, Clarke moves back, earning an adorable pout.

“And disappoint the children?” she asks seriously, eyebrows raised.

Bellamy slumps back on the couch in defeat. “No…”

She laughs as she gets up.

“Promise I’ll make it up to you when I get home,” she says as she quickly heads into the hallway, to avoid temptation.

“You better!”

-100-

With her own and Bellamy’s passports in hand and his neat notes on her itinerary, Clarke really gets to work the next day. She checks and double checks visa requirements before applying for the visas and visitor permits that they’ll need for a few of the destinations and is relieved to find that they can indeed get into Jordan, and every other country. Her own passport is new, since her current identity is technically only about nine months old, and Bellamy has only been to Canada, so while she doesn’t get all the confirmations right away, she’s not expecting any problems with visas.

Next, she starts booking flights. She’s left travel days between all destinations, and most seem to work fine, but she does have to amend a couple of dates, booking flights that leave in the evening the day before she had originally planned for them to depart a couple of the destinations, just to avoid getting into a downward spiral that ends up costing them days at the end of the trip. She prints the confirmations as she goes – yes, she knows she can do everything digitally and doesn’t really need to – and starts spreading them on the breakfast bar, in chronological order. It works as a good overview and makes her feel like she’s in control.

When she gets to the end and puts down the flight confirmation for the final leg from Mérida on the Yucatan peninsula to San Francisco on June 22, she lets out a long breath. She still has to book the hotels and look into tickets to sights and stuff, and book the rental car for the road trip part, but step one is complete.

Clarke decides that she deserves some Caramel Chocolate Cheesecake for a job well done, but first – actual food. It’s after two, and she hasn’t eaten since a rushed breakfast of toast before an early Transfer, so she heats up some of the leftovers from yesterday’s dinner and settles down on the couch with her lunch.

When she’s done, she checks the time and deliberates whether to call Octavia or continue with hotel bookings. She did say she would get in touch when she had the flights figured out, and she has to admit that she’s very curious about the other woman… It’s almost eight in the evening in Dublin, so she should be home from work, and Bellamy won’t be back for another hour and a half or so.

The decision made, Clarke opens her contact list and clicks to call ‘Spencer’.

“Clarke!”

She’s a little taken aback by the greeting, but quickly pulls herself together. “Octavia, hi.”

“Hi! It’s so good to hear from you, Lincoln says I’ve been jittery ever since I got your message yesterday and I suspect he’s right.”

The rapid stream of words give the impression of a whirlwind of a person, which is pretty much what Clarke was expecting, based both on what Bellamy’s told her about his sister and the messages she sent yesterday.

“Well, I’m excited about this trip too, so that makes two of us,” she assures the other woman, who laughs at that. “Anyway, I have just finished booking all our flights, so I have the details of when we’ll be in Dublin.”

“Great! I should be able to get at least three days off, and I’m sure you guys want some time to explore the city on your own as well.”

Clarke checks the itinerary in front of her. “Well, we’ll be arriving in the morning on the 28^th, and then we’re continuing on to Edinburgh on February 4^th, so depending on how you work on the weekends, that should work pretty well.”

She hears the sound of papers being turned and assumes Octavia’s checking her work schedule.

“OK, I work every other weekend and that one’s mine, unfortunately, but I have a few favors to call in at work so I can switch it around, no problem. How about if I take Monday through Wednesday off, give you a bit of a tour to get you acquainted with the city? Then you’ll be on your own on Thursday and Friday, if there’s something you want to do just the two of you, before we get the weekend together as well? And I don’t have a class until noon on the 4^th, so I should be able to take you to the airport as long as you don’t mind getting there by eleven.”

The flight leaves at 12:35, so that’ll probably be just perfect. It’ll be a lot of time with Octavia, but Clarke is sure Bellamy will appreciate it. Maybe she can come up with something to do on her own as well, give the siblings some time alone together.

“That sounds absolutely perfect,” she announces.

“Great! So how do you want to do the whole surprise thing?” Octavia asks.

Clarke’s been thinking about that a little. “I figured I’ll tell him that we’re not staying at a hotel but with a friend of mine, which we actually are doing in London, so he should buy it,” she starts. “And then we basically just show up at your place and you open the door.”

“Simple but effective,” Octavia notes. “And… you’re sure he’ll be happy to see me?”

The confidence that’s been so obvious in the other woman’s voice since she picked up the phone disappears abruptly, and for a moment, Clarke can imagine her as the thirteen-year-old girl that just lost her mother.

“I am a hundred and ten percent positive that he will be over the moon,” she replies honestly. She knows she’s right, there’s no doubt in her mind whatsoever.

“OK, good.” The relief is evident. “Now, tell me about yourself!”

Somehow, they end up talking for over an hour. It’s not until Bastet jumps onto the couch next to her that Clarke realizes that it must be getting close to when Bellamy usually gets home, and she glances at the clock. Sure enough, it’s almost four fifteen.

“Listen, Octavia,” she says when the other woman comes to an end of a story about how Bellamy tried to get her to eat carrots when she was five by telling her that it was what horses ate – she’d been going through an intense horse phase. “I’m going to have to go, your brother will be home any moment and I don’t want to have to lie to him about who I’m talking to.”

“Oh, OK,” Octavia agrees easily. “So I take it you two are living together?”

Clarke hesitates. She’s tried to give a more or less accurate version of her and Bellamy’s relationship, without getting into the time frame of it too much – it would probably sound odd to be embarking on a round the world trip with someone you’ve only been dating for a month and a half, after all.

“Well, not officially or anything, he’s still technically living with Miller,” she says, settling for the truth. “But he does spend most of his time at my place, it’s closer to work.”

“Closer to work, right.” Octavia’s tone has changed a little and Clarke wonders if she’ll get the ‘what are your intentions towards my brother?’ talk when they get to Dublin. “Well, I’ll let you go. I’m sure we’ll touch base before you actually get here, but I’m really looking forward to it. Thanks again for making this happen, Clarke, really.”

“Of course.” The fact that it was for Bellamy’s benefit originally doesn’t change the fact that Clarke has come to care for his sister as well during the last hour or so, and she’s glad she can bring the two of them together when it’s so clear that they have both been missing each other.

She ends the conversation with just enough time to gather all the flight confirmations together and turn on an episode of Brooklyn 99 on Netflix before Bellamy walks through the door.

He calls a greeting before detouring into the bedroom to change out of his work clothes. A few minutes later, he slumps down next to her on the couch and Clarke immediately snuggles up to him.

“Long day?” she asks when he leans back and lets out a long sigh.

“Stupid people,” he replies, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and pulling her closer.

“Ah. What did they do now?”

“The usual. Some woman booked a delivery at 11.30, but nobody’s home when I get there. I ring the doorbell, try the phone number she left, nothing. I wait for twenty minutes, until I really have to leave to make it to my next delivery, and then leave the standard notice that she can pick up her parcel at the depot tomorrow, or book another delivery at an additional cost. I call it in, so everything’s in the system. Then I get a call an hour later, maybe, that she’s just called and is furious that I didn’t A) wait for her or B) leave the parcel on her porch. Out in the open, close enough to the sidewalk that someone walking by could literally reach over the fence and just take it. If I had and it had gotten stolen, that would have been on me.”

“Aw, poor baby.”

Bellamy chuckles. “How about you, how was your day?”

“So far, so good,” she replies. “I’ve checked the visa requirements and applied for those we need, and all the flights are booked.”

She reaches for the stack of printed confirmations on the coffee table and hands it to him.

“Really? God, you’re efficient!” He flips through them a little, pausing here and there, before putting them back on the table.

It’s Clarke’s turn to laugh. “You do know that you can do all that stuff online these days, right? It’s not like I had to call every single airline or even go down to a travel agent.”

“Really? I had no idea.” He’s quiet for a moment. “What’s ‘online’?”

She pokes him in the ribs, making him squirm. “Shut up!”

To keep her from doing more damage, he grabs her hand. “Seriously though, thanks for taking care of it.”

“Of course.” She gives him a scrutinizing look. “How are you doing with all of that? Better?”

Bellamy nods. “Yeah, I’m trying to do what you said, just focus on the trip. The adventure of a lifetime. Literally. And who knows, this might have been your master plan from the start – maybe you made up the whole ‘oh you’re going to die in six months’ thing to get me to travel the world with you.”

She scoots even closer, burying her face against his neck and breathing him in. “I wish I did.”

“I know.”

They remain like that, Brooklyn 99 playing in the background, until Bellamy’s phone dings. She pulls away so he can check it, focusing on the TV even though she hasn’t been following the plot for the last hour or so.

“Hey, it’s almost half past five,” he says after a moment. “Don’t you have a Transfer at six?”

Clarke sighs. “Six fifteen, yeah… it’s only down at Coffey Park, I was planning on walking since the weather is nice, but all my energy just – poof.”

He presses a kiss to her forehead before standing up.

“Come on, I’ll go with you, we’ll take the truck and pick up some food on the way back.”

“Take out again?” she questions with a raised eyebrow. “You giving up on cooking altogether?”

Bellamy rolls his eyes. “Pretty soon we’ll be living off hotel breakfasts and eating out twice a day, so why fight it?”

“Ooh, fancy hotel breakfast! The best part about staying in a hotel.”

He gives her a dubious look. “Anyone ever tell you that you’re a little weird?”

Clarke just shrugs. “What’s so great about being normal all the time?”

Chapter Text

Bellamy has Tuesday off, and asks Clarke over breakfast if she’ll take a road trip with him. She’s a little suspicious, since he won’t tell her where they’re going, but in the end, she agrees. She’s fairly sure he’s not going to bring her to some abandoned industrial lot and bury her in wet concrete at this point.

When they emerge from Holland Tunnel, he glances at her.

“I’ve been feeling a little nostalgic,” he admits. “Going through my mom’s old scrap book, thinking about what I want to do before… anyway, it got me thinking that I’d like to go back. Not home, Paterson hasn’t felt like home for a long time, but I did mostly grow up there. So that’s where we’re going. I don’t know why I didn’t tell you right away, to be honest, it’s not like I was trying to keep it a secret or surprise you or anything.”

She reaches across the console to squeeze his hand.

“It’s fine, don’t worry about it. And I’d love to see where you grew up.”

The drive doesn’t take too long. There’s barely any traffic, only a couple of areas with road work that slow them down a little. They get off Christopher Columbus Highway a little before noon, and a few minutes later, Bellamy pulls up at the curb on a tree lined street. Most houses have wooden siding, a lot of them reminding her of San Francisco, and look to be old family homes probably split up into smaller apartments at some point. On the other side of the street, there’s a fenced off parking lot and what looks like a church. The house they’re stopped by is white with brown trimmings.

Bellamy’s looking past her at that house, making her assume that must be where he used to live.

“Do you want to get out, look around a little?” she asks. “Maybe an old neighbor still lives here?”

But he shakes his head. “No. The area wasn’t great when we lived here and as far as I’ve heard, it hasn’t gotten any better. Besides, the only neighbor I ever really liked was Mrs. Allen, and she died a couple of years before I moved into the city.”

So they just sit there for a while, until Bellamy clears his throat and starts the engine again.

“OK, next stop.”

He navigates through the back streets easily, still knowing them like the back of his hand, and soon, he pulls into a parking lot by a laundromat.

Clarke stares at the building for a moment. “Not much to do for the teenagers around here?” she finally asks, and he laughs.

“Well, no, but we didn’t hang at the laundromat,” he replies, taking the keys out of the ignition. “My old high school’s across the street.”

“Ah.”

The school is surrounded by a high fence, but even though the spring term hasn’t started yet, the gates are open. Bellamy comes to a stop just at the edge of a large parking area and Clarke stops next to him, sliding her hand into his.

“So this is where you went to high school, huh?” she asks, looking around. There’s not much to see, to be honest, just the standard, brick building you might find at any high school in the US.

“This is it, yeah,” he confirms.

“Bringing back memories?”

He chuckles. “Well, not a lot of great ones, but yeah.”

She already knows that he was, in his own words, a nerd in high school, so she assumes he didn’t have a great time.

“Want to show me around a little?”

He nods and tugs her along towards the building, guiding her around the side of it. When they round a corner to an area that’s more secluded, due to a few buildings hiding it from the street and surrounding houses, they surprise a small group of teenagers who are leaning against the wall of the school, smoking. They hurry away when they spot the intruders, quickly disappearing from view.

“I guess some things never change,” Bellamy notes.

“Is this where you used to hide out and smoke?” she asks.

“Well, not me, but the cool kids, yeah.”

Clarke looks around. “You didn’t have a football field with bleachers to hang out under?” She might not have gone to high school herself, but she has watched a lot of movies and she knows that bleachers are a popular hang-out, especially for football players and cheerleaders looking for a quiet make-out spot.

“Sure, down here,” he replies, pulling her with him along the path until they reach the street. “I don’t know why – maybe it was put in after the school was built and there just wasn’t room for it – but it’s a block over.”

They cross the street and head down a side road until they reach some stairs leading to a fence with a gate that’s already hanging open.

They climb the stairs and enter the track running around the field itself.

“Is this what you had in mind?” Bellamy asks, gesturing at the field ahead of them and the bleachers running along the opposite side.

“Exactly,” she replies with a roll of the eye. “This is living up to the hype from all the high school movies I’ve seen.”

“I figured.”

They follow the track in a semicircle until they reach the other side of the field where he pulls her along behind the bleachers. There’s a chain link fence running behind it, separating the bleachers from a walkway, and he releases her hand before leaning back against it.

“So this is it, the infamous make out spot for all teenager’s graduating from Eastside,” he tells her.

“Oh yeah?” Clarke stops in front of him and grips the chain link on either side of him. “Including you?”

He shrugs. “I did get my first kiss back here sophomore year,” he says. “Roma Bragg, she was a junior. I found out later that she and her friend had some bet going on who could kiss the most guys during the homecoming game, but I still got kissed, so I didn’t really care. It’s not like I was in love with her or anything, so I wasn’t heartbroken when I figured out she wasn’t really into me.”

She can’t help but laugh at that before stepping closer. “Feel like a repeat?”

His mouth twist up into a soft smile and he leans down, meeting her halfway. She lets him set the pace for a moment, just a chaste slide of their lips, before using the fence to pull herself closer to him and deepening the kiss. He hums into her mouth, hands sliding around to slip into the back pockets of her jeans and press her against him.

A dog barking somewhere in the distance reminds her that they are still in a public place, and after a few minutes, she reluctantly pulls away.

“You know I would love to keep this going,” she says with a sigh. “But contrary to what the teenagers at your old school believe, this place isn’t actually very private. Or, you know, at all.”

Bellamy chuckles as he pushes himself away from the fence. “You’re right,” he agrees. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

They start heading back slowly, entering the school grounds again once they get there. They take a left, rounding the building on the opposite side to earlier, Bellamy pointing out different spots of importance – where he threw up after getting drunk for the first time during another homecoming game, where his first real girlfriend, Bree, broke up with him because the school quarterback had asked her out, where he and Mel, his second girlfriend, used to sneak off to make out during their free periods, where Miller and his boyfriend at the time, Bryan, got caught making out by the principal and expelled, which led to a huge protest by almost all kids at the school against the blatant discrimination of gay students.

“Where to next?” Clarke asks when they’re back in the car.

“Just one more stop,” he tells her. “But I thought we’d take a bit of a scenic route there, if you don’t mind?”

“Of course not, give me the grand tour.”

So he drives, turning here and there, taking her through most of the area where he grew up. They skirt the river for a while before turning down another residential street, passing a baseball field, where a few brave boys are defying the cold and seem to be practicing their batting, and a diner that looks almost like a railway cart. Bellamy shows her Miller’s house, where his parents still live and where he spent Thanksgiving just over a month ago, the gas station where he changed his first tire ten minutes after taking his mom’s car out for the first time after getting his license, and the bus station where he found Octavia when she was running away from home at age eight.

He talks the whole time, telling her about the street they’re on or a building they pass, or one that has been torn down at some point over the years.

Eventually, he turns through a set of gates and into what Clarke quickly realizes is a cemetery. They park by a large building and she hesitates with her hand on the seat belt.

“Do you want me to wait here?” she asks, not wanting to impose if he wants some time alone.

But he shakes his head. “Not unless you want to.”

“OK.”

So she gets out of the car too, taking his hand when he reaches for her, and they start weaving through the tomb stones.

His grip on her hand tightens when he stops in front of one.

“Hey, Mom.” He reaches out to brush some snow off the top of the stone.

Clarke’s not sure if she’s supposed to say hello as well, but Bellamy’s focused on the stone and not her. She reads the text on it.

Aurora Blake
Beloved mother
1969-2006

“Your dad’s not buried here?” she asks, voice hushed.

“No, Mom said his parents wanted to bury him back home, and she didn’t really have anything to say about it since they weren’t married.”

She wonders how Aurora had felt about that. For some, a grave is a way to stay connected to a loved one they’ve lost. Had she felt robbed of that? Clarke remembers how hard it had been for Raven the first time she moved away from the area where Finn is buried, how she had felt almost like she betrayed him by leaving. On the other hand, a lot of people say they keep their loved ones with them and don’t need a physical place to be able to remember them.

She wonders which type she will be.

Before she can linger on that thought, Bellamy’s voice brings her back to the present.

“Remember the girl I told you about last time, Clarke? I brought her today.”

“When was that?”

He glances at her. “Thanksgiving.”

She can’t help but smile at that. “You told your mom about me the day after our first official date?”

“Yeah.” He shrugs. “I guess I had a… good feeling about you.”

For some reason, his words have her blinking back tears, and she pulls her hand free so she can wrap her arms around him instead, leaning her head against his shoulder. He wraps an arm around her as well, leaning his chin against the top of her head, and starts telling his mom about their upcoming trip.

Clarke listens to his voice, which is so soothing she knows she would fall asleep if she wasn’t standing up, as he talks about the places they’re going and everything he hopes to see and do.

If she’s ever doubted that she did the right thing by telling him everything and convincing him to let her do this for him, they definitely disappear now.

-100-

Clarke keeps herself busy over the next few days, finalizing the travel plans – booking hotels, buying tickets to different sights, googling cities and areas that she doesn’t know well to find others, looking up tours and experiences. She books a rental car that they’ll pick up at the airport in San Francisco, and after some thinking, decides to get a rental in Edinburgh as well. Originally, she had planned on them taking the train from Edinburgh to Glasgow and then on to London, but this way they can see some of the countryside as well. Once they’re in London, they can use Wells’ car, she knows Bellamy wants to check out Stonehenge and Bath, and there’s this little fishing village on the Devon coast that she and Wells used to visit when they lived in London that she would just love to show Bellamy… stone and white-washed cottages lining winding streets and colorful fishing boats balancing on their hull down in the harbor at low tide.

She emails all the information Bellamy has about his dad to Anya, a Keeper she sort of knows through Emori and who’s in Manila at the moment, and she promises to look into it and see what she can find.

Raven comes over on Saturday to help her go through the final itinerary and make sure she hasn’t forgotten anything obvious. She lets out a whistle when she puts the now (hopefully) complete itinerary down.

“You’re really pulling out all the stops, huh?”

Clarke gives her a look. “It is sort of the trip of a lifetime, you know.”

Raven winces. “Of course, sorry. How are you doing with all of that, by the way? We haven’t really had a chance to talk since you told Bellamy everything.”

“I don’t know,” Clarke admits. “I’ve been staying busy with all the travel planning, trying to avoid thinking about… everything else too much, to be honest.”

She’s taken the advice she gave Bellamy and focused on their upcoming trip, fighting hard to not let her mind wander to what she knows is coming eventually.

“I don’t know if that’s so smart,” Raven notes. “If you just push all the feelings in front of you, they’ll end up hitting you all at once at some point.”

Clarke sighs. “Well, hopefully I can keep pushing them away until after… you know. I’m pretty sure some extra emotional stress won’t matter at that point.”

“Right, that was probably a stupid thing to say.”

She reaches out to squeeze Raven’s hand. “I know you’re just looking out for me.”

“I am. But maybe I should have done that back in November…”

Clarke knows what she means, and part of her can agree, to a certain extent.

If she had never seen Bellamy again after their run-in at Central Park, she’s pretty sure she would have been fine. She might have wondered about him from time to time, imagined what could have happened if they’d had a chance, but that would have been all. But, really, the moment he showed up at Raven’s Halloween party, that had been it. She had denied it at the time, even to herself, but by the end of the night, she was already more than half in love with him. The shock of seeing his Number shook her enough that she thought she could ignore those feelings, but now, she’s certain that if he hadn’t showed up at the library when he did, she would have taken Raven’s advice and contacted him within days. She had already been so close to breaking, she just hadn’t wanted to see it.

“Don’t say that. I’m glad I’ve had these last few weeks with him, and I know the next six months are going to be the most amazing of my life.” She pauses before continuing. “So in the end, even though I know that I will be heartbroken and probably in more pain than I can even imagine right now, I think you were right. It will be worth it.”

Raven gives her a long, scrutinizing look. “I hope so. But promise me you won’t shut me out?”

“I promise.”

“Good. Well, this looks great, I don’t think there’s anything you’ve missed, really.” She taps a finger against the paper on the table. “I assume you’ve asked him about a bucket list? He doesn’t want to go skydiving or mountain climbing or something else crazy like that?”

Clarke shakes her head. “No, I did ask. He said he’s never been much of an adrenaline junkie, so he isn’t interested in any of that. He was going to think about it, though, so I’ll probably check in at some point, see if he’s come up with anything.”

“OK. Then I think you’re all set. Honestly, it sounds absolutely amazing. I don’t suppose you want another travel companion or two?”

“I’m going to have to say a big no to that,” she says with a laugh. “And honestly, I don’t think you want to go with us. I’m planning on joining the mile high club and having sex in…” she runs down the list of destinations quickly, “… twenty-four countries. Maybe more, if we can swing the Vatican or an airport during a layover.”

“OK, yeah, I don’t want to be there for that,” Raven agrees. “But good for you! Though you might want to look into the laws in the Vatican, it might be a deadly sin to have sex there. Or at least a punishable offense.”

“Only if you get caught… Feel free to steal the itinerary if you want, though. Or just some of the hotels, I guess, it’s not like you have to do a six month trip, you can just do one or a couple of places at a time. You guys haven’t had a proper holiday in a while.”

“I might just do that… I mean, the place on Bora Bora? That’s my idea of heaven right there.”

Clarke has to agree. “I know. I booked a suite in one of the overwater bungalows, they’re supposed to be pretty private. I’m thinking skinny dipping after dark…”

“Careful, though,” Raven says. “Ocean sex has a tendency to lead to sand everywhere. And I mean everywhere.”

“That’s a risk I’m willing to take.”

“And the Seychelles, is that a private island?” Raven asks, flicking through the papers until she finds the confirmation for the hotel with some pictures.

“No, there are ten villas on the island, so not completely private.”

“And Bellamy’s really OK with all of this, you paying I mean? You said you weren’t even sure he’d agree to the trip, this seems like… a lot.”

Clarke shrugs. “He did make it a condition that we fly economy – which we will – and don’t stay in too flashy hotels, but I managed to get him to agree to a couple of those.”

“I’d say… does he have any idea how much all of this costs?”

To be honest, Clarke doesn’t even know the exact number herself… but she does know that there’s still more money than she can ever spend in her accounts, so it really doesn’t matter.

“God no, he would have a fit.”

“So where else did you splurge?” Raven asks curiously.

“Paris and Vegas,” Clarke tells her. “Shangri-La in Paris, remember the amazing view of the Eiffel tower you had from there? And, of course, Caesar’s Palace in Vegas. They actually have rooms and suites called Augustus, I just couldn’t pass on that.”

“Why?”

“Bellamy’s sister is called Octavia. His mom let him name her, and he was in an Ancient Rome phase at the time, obsessed with Emperor Augustus.”

Raven chuckles. “OK, that’s actually kind of adorable.”

“Right?”

Bellamy knows that they’re staying at Caesar’s Palace – he actually laughed when she told him – but the only thing she’s said about the room is that it overlooks The Strip and the fountains at The Bellagio, which he seems excited about.

-100-

Clarke manages to hold it together and focus on the practical details of the trip until two days before their departure.

They’ve both been completely free the last three days and have spent them mostly lounging around the apartment, but a while ago, Clarke panicked a little when she realized that she hasn’t even started planning what to pack. Bellamy laughed it off, but now they’re sitting on the couch, trying to make a list of what they’ll need to bring. Six months is a long time to be traveling, no matter where you go, and add to that the fact that they’ll be going from Iceland, which is bound to have temperatures below freezing, to Las Vegas in July. Major temperature differences, to say the least, so they have to pack for every type of weather, pretty much.

“I’m really considering just packing the basics and buying whatever we need along the way,” she says, letting out a sigh. “Or sending stuff ahead somewhere, I mean, we have all the hotels booked, we could do that. Do a switch once we get to warmer climates.”

Bellamy chuckles. “You just have to be practical. Everything you need in warmer places, you can use in the colder places too.”

She raises an eyebrow at him. “Somehow, I doubt I’ll get much use out of my favorite mini summer dress with spaghetti straps in Reykjavik.”

“And here I was hoping you wouldn’t wear anything but,” he replies with a smirk.

“Oh, so you want me to freeze my ass off?”

“I would never let you freeze your ass off, Princess,” he promises solemnly. “I would keep it warm, you have my word.”

Clarke can’t help but laugh at that. “That’s very generous of you, but not going to happen. I plan on wearing thermal underwear, a thick sweater and some sort of winter jacket the whole time we’re in Iceland.”

“Really?” He gives her a pointed look. “The whole time?”

She punches him in the arm. “You know what I mean.”

“Yeah, yeah. And it’s probably easier for me – throw in a couple of pairs of jeans and shorts, a bunch of t-shirts, some sweaters and shoes and I’m all set.”

“Don’t forget swimming trunks,” she reminds him. “I mean, I’m all for skinny dipping, but everyone might not agree. And socks and underwear.”

“Those sort of go without saying.”

She focuses on the list in front of them for a while – jeans, shorts, tops, sweaters, bikinis, underwear, socks, winter boots, sneakers. She adds dresses and sandals, since they’ll probably be going out to dinner somewhere nice at some point.

“You should probably pack at least one nice shirt and some slacks,” she tells Bellamy. “And a pair of dress shoes. Just in case.”

“In case we’re forced at gunpoint to attend a banquet or something?”

“No, just…” She looks up at him to find a smirk on his face and realizes he’s just messing with her. “You could help me instead, you know.”

“OK, give me the list.”

Clarke hands it to him suspiciously and he looks it over before adding something at the bottom and giving it back.

“Blue lace Victoria’s Secret set… seriously?” He just shrugs at her questioning look. “I’m not bringing fancy lingerie.”

“Why not? It’s not like it takes up a lot of space.”

Well, he has a point. “Nope. Practicality over aesthetic appeal.”

“I guess I do prefer you without lingerie, anyway,” he muses. “But the process of getting you out of it can be fun.”

She snorts. “Fine, I might pick up something for a special occasion.”

“Oh yeah?” His eyes light up. “Like my birthday?”

“Sure.” She frowns. “When is your birthday? And why don’t I know that already?”

“I guess it’s never come up. It’s March fourteenth. I don’t know your birthday either.” He hesitates for a moment. “Do you have one? I mean, as far as you know, you weren’t actually born and even if you were, you don’t know when.”

She can understand the confusion. “We usually say the day we become Soul Keepers are our birthdays,” she explains. “So mine would be June sixth.”

Bellamy grabs the basic itinerary with just their different stops from a folder on the table where Clarke has gathered everything relating to the trip. Yes, she can be a little over organized.

“We’ll be in Rome on my birthday – nice – and in Bora Bora on yours.”

“Then I know what we’ll be doing on mine – hammock under swaying palm trees overlooking the crystal clear water.” She can almost see it. “Ice cold drinks, exotic fruit for lunch, room service for dinner, skinny dip after dark…”

“Nice. Do we have anything booked on mine?”

She grabs the notepad where she has the more detailed itinerary written down, with all the sights they have already bought tickets for, the tours they’ve booked and a couple of shows.

“Nope, nothing. We’ll just get in from Venice the night before, I thought we could both use a day to just chill and settle in. Everything we have booked in Rome is on Friday through Monday, and then we have two more days of nothing before we continue onto Pompeii. So whatever you want to do on your birthday.”

“Maybe just a day on the town?” he suggests. “There are remnants of the Roman empire all over the city, ruins here and there, lots of places you don’t have to buy tickets to or that even charge an entry fee.”

“Yeah, that sounds good,” Clarke agrees.

“And if we were to find a lingerie store, well…” he trails off, and she laughs.

“I promise I will pick up something very special for your birthday, OK?”

He pulls her in for a quick kiss. “It’ll be the best birthday ever. And not just because I’ll actually be in Rome.”

“Good.”

She goes back to her packing list and adds a few more items before she decides that she’s done.

“I think the main problem is going to be the winter jacket,” she announces, slumping back on the couch.

Bellamy frowns. “I figured we’d just wear those on the plane? I mean, it’s probably colder in Iceland, but it’s not like it’s spring here or anything. Plus, you can roll it up and use it as a pillow.”

“Well, yeah,” she agrees. “But by March, we won’t need them anymore. You know what, I’ll just bring an old jacket I don’t use anymore and dump it once we get somewhere warmer.”

“Good plan.”

“Do you have an old jacket you wouldn’t mind losing along the way?” she asks. He doesn’t answer for a while, and eventually she looks up at him to find him giving her an incredulous look. “What?”

“I don’t really think it matters, it’s not like I’ll need it next winter anyway,” he finally says.

And it just hits her. Out of the blue.

He really won’t be here next winter. Or even next fall. He’ll be gone.

Clarke can tell that she’s starting to hyperventilate, can feel her hands shaking and her eyes tearing up, her vision going blurry.

“What’s wrong?”

Bellamy’s voice sounds like it’s coming from far away, through the rushing sound that’s filling her ears. She just shakes her head, unable to get anything out.

“Hey, hey, hey, shhhh.”

His arms are suddenly around her and then he’s pulling her into his lap. One warm hand starts rubbing soothing motions up and down her back, the other cupping her head and pulling her to him. She buries her face against his chest, letting the tears that have started streaming down her cheeks soak his shirt.

Clarke doesn’t know how long they sit like that. He doesn’t try to ask her what’s wrong again, maybe because he understands, just keeps rubbing her back and making soothing noises in her hair.

Eventually, the tears dry up. She can barely breathe because her nose is so stuffy, but she drags in air through her mouth before lifting her head from Bellamy’s chest. She tries to move out of his lap, but he holds her still.

“Feel better?”

She’s not really sure, but she nods anyway.

“Sorry about that,” she apologizes, wiping at the tear tracks on her cheeks. “Raven did warn me that just pushing everything away would come back to bite me in the ass eventually. I was kind of hoping it wouldn’t be for a while.”

He reaches out to tuck some hair behind her ear. “Don’t apologize. Raven was right, it was probably just a matter of time. I’m sure I’ll have a breakdown at some point too.”

“And then I’ll be there.”

His mouth turns up a little at the corner. “I know you will.”

Clarke takes another deep breath and leans her forehead against his. “I love you.”

“And I love you.”

“I just… it sort of feels like this is all my fault.”

He pulls away to be able to look at her. “What? That’s crazy, how could any of this be your fault? You’re not the one who decides when people die.”

“No, I know, but… if it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t have to deal with any of this.”

To her complete surprise, Bellamy actually laughs at that.

“Are you serious?” he asks incredulously. “I mean, OK, I wouldn’t have to think about everything I want to do before I die, but that would just be because I’d have no idea it was coming. Do you really think that would be better?”

She honestly doesn’t know.

“And I also wouldn’t get this,” he continues when she doesn’t answer. “I wouldn’t get you, I wouldn’t get to see the world with you, go to places I’ve only ever dreamed of… so never, ever think that I would rather not know, OK?”

Clarke nods. “OK.”

“OK. Good.” He lets out a sigh. “And just… I don’t know what’s coming. Yes, I’m bound to break eventually. Maybe I’ll be angry, I have no idea. That’s a step on the road to acceptance, right, anger? But not at you, never at you. So just know, no matter what happens, that I am so beyond grateful that you’re giving me this opportunity. Even if I might not be good at showing it all the time.”

She finally feels the niggling doubt ease up a little.

“Now, come on,” he says, nudging her until she gets up. “How about if I help you pack now, you go with me back to Miller’s place and help me pack tomorrow morning?”

She gives him a look through narrowed eyes. “Are you going to try to sneak unnecessary lingerie into my bag?”

Bellamy just shrugs innocently. “I make no promises.”

Chapter Text

Raven drives them to the airport, insisting on parking and going with them into the departure hall. She waits as they drop off their bags and then pulls Clarke into a tight hug.

“You have fun, OK? Don’t think about anything else, just enjoy this time. And call me if you need me. Anytime, I don’t care if it’s the middle of the night, OK?”

Clarke hugs her back. “Will do, on all accounts. Love you, Rae.”

“Love you too, babe.” Raven pulls away and turns to Bellamy. “And you.”

His eyes widen slightly at her words, but then she’s throwing her arms around him as well. It takes him a moment, but he hugs her back.

Clarke can’t hear what Raven’s saying, but when Bellamy pulls away, he’s laughing and nodding.

“You’ve got it,” he promises Raven, who leaves with a wave of the hand.

“What did she want you to do?” Clarke asks curiously as they make their way to security.

“She said you suck at taking pictures, so I’m in charge of the camera she gave you.”

She rolls her eyes but does have to admit that Raven is right. Well, sort of – she loves taking a lot of photos of the places she visits, but Raven always complains that she wants to see her and the beautiful sunset or amazing waterfall or dramatic mountain range.

“Fine by me. There are way too many buttons and knobs on that fancy camera anyway.”

Zeke gave Raven a new camera a couple of months ago, and she insisted that Clarke take her old one, at least for this trip, so she wouldn’t have to depend on the camera on her phone.

“I’m no expert, but I’m sure we can figure it out,” Bellamy says. “So I take it Raven wants a lot of photos?”

“A lot of photos of us,” Clarke corrects him. “I take a ton of photos when I travel, I just somehow manage to take a hundred pictures of beaches and cool buildings and statues and… stuff, and maybe one where I’m actually in the frame.”

“Ah. So my job is to make sure you make it into the pictures.”

“And you. But she’s right.” She does realize what Raven is doing – making her take a lot of pictures of herself and Bellamy so she’ll be able to look at them and remember this trip, the wonderful time she had with him, years down the line. “OK, how about this – we take turns taking photos so one of us is always in them, and then we make sure to get at least one of both of us in every place we go.”

They both have their carry-ons slung over their shoulders, but he still manages to wrap an arm around her. “That sounds like a great plan.”

While Clarke has followed Bellamy’s instructions to book economy seats for all their flights, she has paid extra when needed to be able to pick a seat before checking in, so they almost always have seats in the first row or by the emergency exits, meaning they have more leg room. She’s also used a little trick she’s learned and booked the aisle and window seats, leaving one seat in the middle. If a flight’s not full, odds are the middle seat will be left empty, and if it’s not, they can always just ask the person sitting there if they would mind switching since they were split up during check-in.

This particular flight is apparently not full, because when the plane starts taxing out and the flight attendant launches into the safety run-through, the seat between her and Bellamy is still empty. As soon as the fasten your seatbelts sign is turned off, she pushes the two armrests between them up so she can move to the middle seat and curls up against him when he lifts an arm to let her scoot closer.

“Lucky nobody had this seat,” he notes, shifting a little in the seat to get more comfortable. “Hopefully we’ll get seats next to each other on most flights.”

“Oh, I picked these seats when I booked,” Clarke tells him. “Unless a flight’s full, single middle seats are usually left unoccupied, so we get the whole row to ourselves. A little trick I’ve picked up.”

“Well, that just goes to show who’s done more traveling of the two of us,” he replies with a chuckle. “And what do we do when the flight’s full? I mean, it’s bound to happen at some point, how many flights are we taking on this trip?”

She sighs. “I have honestly lost count. But that’s easy – just say that we were split up when we checked in, and would they mind terribly to switch with one of us so we can sit together? Nobody wants the middle seat, so people usually don’t mind, but if need be, I can do a little lip tremble and teary eyes.”

“I didn’t know I was dating some sort of mastermind.”

“Yeah, I’m a regular Moriarty,” she agrees drily.

“Moriarty from Sherlock or Elementary?” Bellamy asks, seemingly completely serious. “I mean, if I get to pick, I’d definitely go with Natalie Dormer, but… ow!”

He tries to get away from her elbow, but really, there’s not that much room.

“Another pro tip – don’t get on your girlfriend’s bad side ten minutes into a five hour flight,” she tells him with an innocent smile.

“Duly noted.” He rubs his ribs a little. “Want to watch a movie?”

They settle in under one of the thin blankets, watching some comedy on the same screen. After half an hour or so, they’re served a standard plane meal, and when the trays and trash have been collected, the lights are dimmed so those who want to can sleep.

It’s only a little after nine, New York time, but Clarke always has trouble sleeping the night before she travels – it doesn’t matter if she has to be at the airport at the crack of dawn or not until late afternoon, like today. So she’s pretty tired, and they’re landing at six in the morning, local time, so a few hours of sleep wouldn’t be a bad thing.

“You want to try to get some sleep?” she asks when the end titles roll across the little screen.

Bellamy sighs. “Probably should, I guess. I mean, we’re landing at six and don’t want to sleep the whole day away, right?”

“No, it’s usually best to try to get into the new time zone right away. Or we could watch another movie,” she adds, glancing around the cabin. “Or… lots of people are sleeping, you know. There are… other things we could do.”

He’s quiet for so long that she has to look up at him to try to figure out what he’s thinking. His brows are furrowed but when he meets her eyes, they shoot up. “You’re serious?”

Clarke shrugs, keeping her voice low. “You’ve never wanted to join the mile high club?”

“I haven’t thought about it, honestly,” he replies, running a hand through his hair. “I mean, I always figured, you know – cramped airplane bathroom, people banging on the door, everyone knowing what you’re doing… not exactly sexy.”

“I guess,” she agrees. “Maybe it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. I was sort of hoping to join at some point during this trip, though.”

“You’re not already a member?”

He sounds so surprised that she has to elbow him again, but since they’re so close, he barely notices.

“No! What did you think, that I go around hooking up with random people on planes?”

“Of course not,” he quickly assures her. “Just… you’ve obviously been traveling a lot, and for years, I figured you must have been on a plane with someone you’d want to… you know.”

It’s kind of adorable how he can’t say the words out loud just because a flight attendant passes their row at that moment.

“Well, I haven’t,” she tells him. “But I am now.”

“Can I think about it?” he asks. “We have more overnight flights, right?”

“We do, but not for a while, Europe’s mostly short flights or drives or train rides.”

Bellamy presses a kiss to her temple before whispering in her ear. “Good, then I’ll have some time to work up the courage to not care that a whole plane knows I’m fucking my girlfriend in the bathroom.”

His words send a shiver through her, and she has half a mind to just drag him off right now, but… no. They have time. For this, at least, they have time.

So she just snuggles closer, letting her eyes slide shut, and tries to focus on the way his chest rises and falls with his breaths.

Clarke really wasn’t expecting to fall asleep, but what feels like five minutes later, she’s being gently shaken awake. When she opens her eyes, the cabin is much too bright and she finds Bellamy blinking at the harsh light.

“Hey,” he murmurs with a smile when he sees that she’s awake.

“Hey,” she repeats. “I fell asleep.”

He chuckles. “We both did, I just woke up myself when we touched down, but you managed to sleep through that.”

She becomes aware of people moving down the aisle and realizes that they’re already disembarking. But they’re not in any hurry, so they remain seated until the plane has mostly emptied out.

It’s still dark when they leave the airport, the sun won’t rise for hours yet, but it’s not as cold as she had been expecting. In fact, she’s pretty sure it was colder in New York.

“Come on,” Bellamy says, hand closing around hers. “Taxis are this way.”

She tries to get her first impression of Iceland as the taxi drives them towards Reykjavik, but there’s really not much to see at this time of night. The sky is overcast, so no chance of spotting the Northern lights today, at least. She’s kept an eye on the forecast, and at the moment, it looks like it should clear up in a few days, so hopefully they’ll get a chance to see it before they leave on Monday.

So instead, she leans her head against Bellamy’s shoulder and dozes until they come to a stop in front of the hotel.

The concierge must be used to half-asleep people arriving early in the morning, because she has them checked in and in the elevator within a few minutes. When they finally get to their room, Clarke just kicks off her shoes and gets undressed, dropping everything on the floor before she crawls under the thick, fluffy comforter on the bed.

She feels the bed shift as Bellamy sits down behind her and moves into the middle of the bed so he’ll have enough room. A moment later, his warm body is pressed against her back and his hand slides around her waist, but that’s the last thing her mind registers before she’s pulled under once more.

-100-

The next time she opens her eyes, dull, grey light is streaming in through the curtains neither of them closed before falling asleep, and something is beeping behind her.

After a few disoriented moments, her muddled brain finally realizes that it must be the alarm on Bellamy’s phone, and she’s just about to reluctantly detangle herself from the warm comforter to be able to turn it off when she feels him shift behind her. The sound stops.

“Morning,” he mumbles, voice thick with sleep, as he buries his face in her hair.

“Morning,” she replies, letting the warmth seep through her skin and into her bones. Her mind is starting to shake the tendrils of sleep off, though, and she kind of wants to get out and explore this new city. Despite having traveled a lot, especially over the last thirty years or so, she’s never been to Iceland before.

Plus, she’s hungry, which her growling stomach soon makes Bellamy aware of too, and he chuckles behind her, rolling onto his back and stretching.

“Exploring and maybe some lunch?” he suggests.

“Sounds good,” Clarke agrees.

The bed dips a little under her when he sits up on the edge, and she rolls over onto her side to enjoy the view.

“Let me just grab a shower,” he says. “Wake up all the way.”

She slides her hand up his back and then drags her nails lightly along his spine, smiling when he shivers in response. “I could join you…”

Bellamy turns around to grab her hand and leans down, pinning it to the bed by her head. “We both know we wouldn’t get out of this hotel room for at least an hour if you do that.” He brushes his lips just lightly against hers before getting up and disappearing through the door that must lead to the bathroom.

Clarke huffs, a little disappointed, but takes the opportunity to inspect the hotel room – she was so intent on the bed when they arrived a few hours ago that she didn’t take in much else.

The room’s not huge, but very modern and clean. A king size bed, a desk, a flat screen TV, and large windows on two walls, overlooking a futuristic glass building across the street as well as the water and mountains beyond.

Her bag is still where she dropped it earlier, just inside the door in the little hallway, and she brings it over to the bed to be able to grab a change of clothes. She also finds her hairbrush and a hairband, and quickly pulls her hair into a messy bun. When Bellamy leaves the bathroom, she resists the urge to pull his towel away and convince him to stay in the room for just a little while longer and instead hops in the shower herself.

They grab some lunch at the hotel’s restaurant and then spend the next few hours, until the sun sets, exploring the city. Clarke has looked up the main sights in the downtown area and after a few wrong turns, they make it to the main commercial street. It’s lined with two and three storey buildings, most of them in stone or wood, home to little shops and bars and restaurants. Since it’s early afternoon on a Monday, there aren’t that many people out and about, but they do encounter other tourists doing sightseeing of their own and a few locals hurrying by, probably on their way back to work after lunch.

They wander up and down the narrow, snow covered streets, eventually ending up at a square with a statue of what looks like a Viking and an oddly shaped building that she quickly identifies as Iceland’s largest church, Hallgrímskirkja. They pause next to the statue, which Bellamy studies for a moment.

“Leif Erikson,” he notes, sounding the name out carefully. “The first known European to discover North American, contrary to popular belief.”

Before he can get started on Columbus and everything horrible he did, Clarke pulls his attention to the church instead.

“It’s definitely impressive,” she notes, looking up at the grey façade.

“What is it?” he asks next to her.

“A church. Come on, let’s go inside. The tower has a viewing platform with amazing panoramic views of the city.”

The interior is almost austere – high, clear windows stretching towards a domed, white ceiling, grey stone floor, and simple pews. Even the organ is almost plain, all wood and steel, none of the gilding or intricate details Clarke’s used to seeing on similar instruments in other churches.

They take the elevator up to the tower, where Reykjavik stretches in all directions under them. On a clear day, you can probably see for miles, but at the moment, it feels like they could reach up and touch the low-hanging clouds.

By the time they leave the church, after getting some photos together at the top of the tower with the city sprawled out under them, big, fat snowflakes have started gently floating towards the ground. The sun is starting to set as well, and they slowly make their way back through the city center, stopping to buy some gloves in a store that sells local knitwear, since they realize that they have somehow managed to both overlook packing some.

When they reach the hotel again, it’s almost dark and Clarke realizes that they’re going to have to save the rest of the sightseeing for another day. She knows Bellamy wants to check out the Alþingi (Clarke has learned that the funny Icelandic letter þ is pronounced ‘th’, which makes the name much easier to say) Iceland’s parliament which is the oldest in the world, and there are a couple of other things on her list as well. The only days that are fully booked, though, are Thursday and Saturday, when they have two day tours ending with a night in the bubble hotel she found early on during her planning and hopefully Northern lights – since the tours were so different, she couldn’t pick one and ended up booking both. Apart from that, they have a Northern lights bus tour booked tomorrow night, with the option of going out again the night after, if they don’t see anything, and then a boat tour with whale safari on Wednesday.

So they have three full days to continue exploring the city and, for now… well, there are lots of fun things to do in their hotel room for the rest of the evening.

-100-

They spend the daylight hours on Tuesday exploring some more, before returning to the hotel to prepare for the Northern lights tour. Unfortunately, though, it ends up being canceled because it’s just too cloudy. It’s a bit of a disappointment but, like the tour operator explains, there’s no point in going out when there’s no chance at all to spot the lights. Tomorrow night is supposed to be clearer, so they’re rebooked for that tour.

The whale safari on Wednesday is a lot of fun, though, and despite the cold weather – it stops snowing just as they board the boat but the temperature remains below freezing – they get to see humpbacks, dolphins and even a couple of orcas. The Northern lights tour goes ahead later in the evening as well. The skies are clear, and they get a glimpse of the lights at one spot, but only for a minute or so. It’s impressive, no doubt about it, but not what either of them had been hoping for – lights in a multitude of colors dancing across the skies above.

“The forecast is better for tomorrow,” their guide, Jón, tells Clarke as they get off the bus back at the hotel. “Do you want to come on that tour too? Today was not so good, we will include it in the price.”

“Actually, we have another tour booked tomorrow,” she tells him with a smile. She waits a little, until Bellamy has gotten off the bus and is out of earshot – he doesn’t know the details about the tour they’re going on, she’s just told him that they’ll be gone over night – before she continues, lowering her voice a little. “We’re going on a day tour to a couple of places and then spending the night in a see through bubble somewhere out in the countryside. They’re supposed to be great for catching the Northern lights.”

Jón lights up at the mention of the bubble hotel. “Oh, yes, I have heard of that. I do not know where they are, exactly, they are very secret, but you should be able to see the lights very well from there. If you do not see them, you can call us and come with us on Friday night.”

She thanks him before leaving the bus and joining Bellamy on the sidewalk, brushing off his question by saying she just wanted tips from an insider on what to do in the city.

They’re picked up at the hotel at noon the next day and quickly leave the city behind. The entire group is only eighteen people, max capacity for the bubble hotel, but they’re divided in three groups. The people in their car is another American couple in their sixties and, to Clarke’s delight, a Swedish couple around thirty. Since Bellamy’s attention is on the landscape they pass, she takes the opportunity to freshen up her Swedish and get to know them a little better.

The first stop is in the national park called Þingvellir, which is famous as the site where the Icelandic parliament was founded back in the year 930, and also as a place where two tectonic plates meet. They get forty-five minutes on their own, and they wander around a little before returning to the car and enjoying the sun for a bit, which has finally come out as the cloudy sky is starting to clear.

“So, are you going to tell me where we’re sleeping tonight?” Bellamy asks.

Clarke sighs. She had been hoping to keep it a secret until they actually get there, but the Swedish couple have already mentioned it, and even though Bellamy obviously didn’t understand that, it’s only a matter of time before someone else brings it up.

So she pulls her phone out of her jacket pocket and opens the photos she has saved from the website.

“Here,” she says, handing him the phone to let him scroll through the pictures.

His eyes widen as he takes them in. “Seriously? This is so cool.”

“I know, right? And the forecast for Northern lights is supposed to be better today, so I’m really hoping we get to see them at the hotel, it would be amazing.”

Bellamy nods thoughtfully. “It doesn’t look particularly… private, though.”

She laughs. “The bubbles are some ways apart, so you can’t see the others.” She gives him a smirk. “Why, what were you thinking about?”

He rolls his eyes. “Well, I wasn’t thinking about that, but now I am.”

“Good.” Clarke moves closer to be able to hook her arm through his and lean her head on his shoulder. “I mean, it’s really a once in a lifetime opportunity – well, twice, since we’re staying in another one of these on Saturday – and I for one want to take full advantage of it.”

“I didn’t know you had a thing for public sex,” he notes in an amused voice.

“I wouldn’t go that far,” she replies. “I mean, I don’t want people watching or anything… but the idea that someone might hear or see is a little… exciting? I don’t know if that’s the right word.”

Bellamy chuckles at that. “Don’t worry, I think I know what you mean.”

They’re rounded up by the tour guide then and get back in the car for the second stop along the way, which is an area with hot springs and geysers.

It’s definitely an amazing show, but Clarke, who has seen the geysers in Yellowstone, has to admit that it’s not as impressive as she had thought. Bellamy is fascinated, though.

Next up is a beautiful waterfall, Gullfoss, with rushing water and large pieces of ice dropping over the edges here and there. There’s a low fence of sorts, stopping them from getting too close to the edge, and since the ground is covered in snow and a little slippery, Clarke is actually glad for this.

They amble along the edge of the falls, Bellamy insisting on taking pictures with her in them every few minutes. The Swedish couple offer to take one of them together, and he happily hands over the camera so they can pose in front of the water.

The fourth and final stop – and the one Clarke has been looking forward to the most, apart from the bubble hotel – is a hot spring where they get to swim. The short walk from the changing rooms to the pool is freezing, but once they’re in the water, it’s definitely worth it.

“This feels so wrong,” Bellamy notes as they settle in against one edge, both of them sinking down so only their heads are visible above water. “There’s, like, three feet of snow but the water has to be a hundred degrees or something.”

“I know,” she replies. “It plays tricks on your mind, doesn’t it?”

He hums in agreement before sneaking an arm around her waist under the water and pulling her against him.

“Too bad there’s so much people here,” he murmurs in her ear and she feels a shiver run through her.

“Good thing the hotel’s up next then.”

They do make one more stop, at a restaurant for dinner. They’re joined at their table by the Swedish couple and two Norwegian girls in their mid-twenties, and Clarke has fun, talking to them and getting tips on what to do before they leave Iceland. But as soon as Bellamy finishes his food, she feels his hand on her thigh, and it remains there as they talk for another hour or so, now and then sliding along her jeans. Needless to say, it’s a little distracting and all she really wants is to get out of there.

After a short gathering in the kitchen at the bubble hotel, during which they’re briefed on how everything works, they’re finally shown to their bubbles, a short walk from the house with the toilets – Clarke really hopes she won’t need them once they’re in bed – and given a flashlight.

The sun set before they reached the restaurant, so it’s pitch black outside now, the only light coming from the stars above – the moon hasn’t risen yet – and a faint glow coming from the bubbles that are closest to them.

It’s surprisingly warm, once the door closes after their guide, which she’s very grateful for.

“I’m really not sure about the privacy in these things,” Bellamy notes, dropping his thick jacket against the rounded wall, followed by his knit hat and gloves. “It feels like everyone in a two mile radius can just see right in.”

She laughs at that and follows suit, taking off her jacket, hat and gloves before unlacing her winter boots. “I mean, there are trees all around, but we need to turn the lights off, nobody will be able to see a thing then.”

“Including us,” he replies, taking a seat on the bed. “This is comfy.”

She sits down next to him and starts unbuttoning her cardigan. “I don’t know about you, but I’m thinking it might be a good idea to remove as many layers as possible before we turn the lights off.”

He nods at that, pulling his sweater over his head and tossing it at the growing pile of clothes. “Good idea.”

Once they’re both down to their long johns and long sleeved t-shirts, Clarke removes the bedspread and pulls the comforter down. “Here, I’ll turn the flashlight on if you turn the lamp off,” she offers, grabbing the flashlight off the small table with the lamp.

Bellamy waits until she has turned it on before he switches off the light, and immediately, the bubble feels more private.

“That’s better,” he notes, pulling his shirt and long johns off before getting into the bed.

She hands over the flashlight so she can get rid of the rest of her clothes as well, and when she’s down to her panties and bra, she slips between the sheets. Once she’s covered, she quickly takes off her bra as well, as he turns off the flashlight, plunging them into almost total darkness.

“Wow, look at the stars.”

She turns her eyes to the sky at his words, and it really is amazing. She realizes that she’s been living in cities for too long, she’s forgotten how truly mind-blowingly beautiful the night sky can be out in the country.

“This beats that star map thing on your phone any day,” she notes, getting a chuckle in return.

“You remember that?” he asks, sounding surprised.

Clarke scoots closer, until his hand comes around her waist to pull her against him. She lets out a sigh. “Of course I do.”

Her eyes have adapted a little to the darkness and she can make out his face a few inches from hers.

“Did you have a good time today?” she asks, voice dropping due to the darkness and silence surrounding them.

His warm hand slides up her back once and then down to rest at her hip. “Of course I did, it’s been amazing.”

“It really has been, right?” she agrees with a smile.

He hums, inching closer so their noses brush. “The only thing that could make it even better would be seeing those Northern lights.”

As one, they turn to look at the sky above, but apart from the stars, it’s dark.

“It is still early,” she notes. “It could start later in the night, I guess.”

“Yeah,” Bellamy agrees, his hand trailing down her hip to squeeze her butt. “Whatever will we do until then?”

She slides her foot up his leg. “I think I might have a few ideas.”

“Oh yeah?” he asks, lips hovering a fraction of an inch from hers.

“Uh-huh. You know, you were driving me crazy at the restaurant earlier.”

He chuckles, pulling her leg up over his hips and grinding against her. “Good, that was the point.”

“Evil.”

But he finally kisses her, so she supposes she can forgive him, just this once.

He still tastes like the hot chocolate they had in the communal kitchen before everyone retired to their own bubble for the night, and she eagerly deepens the kiss, sliding one hand around his neck to keep him in place.

For what feels like hours, it’s just a lazy slide of mouths, hands exploring what they can reach without having to move, little gasps and groans when one of them finds a sensitive spot.

Then Clarke digs her heel into his back, pushing him harder against her, and he breaks the kiss to roll them so he’s pinning her to the bed, deliciously heavy on top of her.

“Trying to move things along, Princess?” he asks before kissing her collar bone.

“Well, you were taking forev…” she trails off in a gasp when his lips close around a nipple, arching against him.

He doesn’t linger, letting his teeth graze the hardened bud before moving down her belly.

“Then I guess I better get a move on.”

And, boy, he does. Within a few minutes, his fingers and tongue have her right on the edge. When he curls his fingers just right and sucks her clit into his mouth, she comes with a cry.

Bellamy guides her through her climax, pressing kisses to the inside of her thighs and her stomach as his fingers continue moving slowly inside her. When she finally lets out a deep breath and practically sinks into the mattress, all of her bones seemingly turned to liquid, he moves up her body again until they’re face to face.

“You think these things are sound proof?” he asks with a smirk. “If not, I’m pretty sure you just alerted the neighbors to what we’re up to.

Clarke can’t help but giggle. “I guess we’ll find out on the way back tomorrow.”

She realizes that she’s also completely naked with nothing but the see through bubble between her and the rest of the world, but honestly, she can’t bring herself to care if the other guests see or hear them. It’s not like she’ll ever meet those people again, and if it means amazing sex under the stars, she can take a couple of awkward looks during the drive back to the city.

Bellamy doesn’t seem too bothered by it either, leaning down to kiss her. When she slides a hand down his stomach to wrap around him, he nudges her legs apart to be able to settle between them and slowly pushes into her.

She lets herself get lost in the feeling of his lips on hers, their tongues battling, his dick moving deep inside her. With the stars above them and the snow covered trees around them, it’s almost like they’re the only people on earth.

After an infinite moment, he breaks the kiss, leaning down to suck her nipple into his mouth as his hips snap against hers. Clarke lets out a gasp at the feeling, one hand sliding into his hair to hold him in place and her eyes going to the see through ceiling above them and the sky beyond.

And that’s when she sees it.

There’s no way to really describe it, it’s like… colors dancing across the sky. Greens and yellows, but also reds and purples, shimmering against the star studded blackness. The small glimpse they got yesterday was nothing in comparison.

It takes Bellamy a moment to realize that something’s going on.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, stilling in his movements above her.

She releases her grip on his hair to point behind him. “The Northern lights.”

He immediately cranes his neck around to be able to see. “Wow…”

“It’s amazing,” Clarke agrees, gaze fixed on the light show.

He turns back to her, the expression on his face torn, and she can’t help but laugh.

“How about we watch the show for a while and pick this up a little later?” she suggests.

But he shakes his head. “Nope, not going to happen.”

He leans down and kisses her again, one hand sliding under her waist, and before she can really react, he’s rolled them over so he’s on his back.

“Hey,” she half-complains as she pushes herself up a little to find a better position. “Now I can’t see.”

Bellamy’s hands slide up her thighs to her waist, holding her steady. “Lean back,” he tells her.

Hesitantly, she reaches behind her with one hand to find that he’s bent his legs to form a sort of backrest for her. His hands are firm on her waist as she slowly leans backwards until she’s propped up against his thighs, a perfect position to look up at the sky without having to move too much. It’s not going to be comfortable for any extended period of time, but it should be fine for a little while.

“OK?” he asks, moving his hips to thrust up into her, the angle sending sparks of pleasure through her entire body.

“Yes, oh fuck,” Clarke moans, fighting the urge to squeeze her eyes shut. “Do that again.”

He chuckles but obliges, this time guiding her a little with his hands on her hips.

It takes a moment to get into a rhythm, but soon, their bodies are moving together almost in time with the undulating colors above them, and when he pushes her over the edge for the second time a few minutes later, they continue to play on the inside of her eyelids as her orgasm washes over her.

Chapter Text

The next morning, Clarke’s about ninety-five percent sure that nobody heard what they were up to last night. She doesn’t get any knowing or awkward looks during the improvised breakfast, anyway. Everyone’s too busy talking about the Northern lights, showing the photos and videos they managed to capture on their phones. After they had sex, Bellamy actually went outside into the freezing night to take some pictures with Raven’s old camera, so he has the best ones by far and everyone gather around to look at them.

On the ride back to Reykjavik, she’s further assured that they must have managed to not raise suspicion, at least. She’s fairly sure that the older American couple, who seem very conservative, would be unable to hide their discomfort if they had heard or seen anything, and the Swedes show no sign of it either. Despite her excitement at the possibility, she is kind of relieved that nobody actually caught them.

They’re dropped off at their hotel again, making plans with the Swedish couple to meet up for dinner on Sunday, the last night before they leave for Dublin. After that, they spend the rest of the day in the hotel spa, trying out the hot tubs – one inside and one outside – and the sauna.

The second day tour on Saturday is just as amazing as the first one, with stops at two more waterfalls – one of which they get to walk behind, which is an interesting experience – and an almost otherworldly beach. There’s hardly any snow here, possibly washed away by the water, so they can see the black sand clearly.

“Wow,” Bellamy says quietly, dragging the toe of his boot through the sand. “I’ve never seen a black beach before.”

“I’ve been to a couple,” Clarke replies from a few feet away. “If you want to see one with slightly better conditions for swimming, I think there’s one about an hour from Auckland, we should have time for a visit.”

“Sure, that sounds good.” He stops to reach out a hand for her. “Come on, let’s walk along the beach down to those sea stacks the guide was talking about.”

They set off at a safe distance from the edge of the wet sand, which indicates how high the roaring waves reach. At one end of the beach is a cliff top that the guide called Reynisfjall, part of which has been shaped by waves and erosion into almost square pillars, giving the entire cliff an odd, man-made look. When they round the cliff, they quickly spot the cave they were also told about and go inside for a moment, admiring the rock ceiling which is also shaped in the form of columns.

A bit further along, the sea stacks that locals call Reynisdrangar rise out of the sea – three huge basalt columns some ways from the beach, reaching for the sky. Clarke can kind of see where the myth of their origins came from – a battle between two trolls, who turned to stone as the sun rose, and a three-masted ship, which was trapped with them.

They round off the day with dinner before they reach another bubble hotel, where they’re shown to a bubble more or less identical to the one they slept in two nights ago.

The sky is still clear, and they have an amazing starscape above them when they turn off the lights, but no colors dance across the sky tonight.

They find other things to do to make the most of their last night in a bubble, though. And with less distractions, this time.

They get back to the hotel around noon on Sunday and just drop off their things before grabbing a quick lunch and heading out again, mainly because Clarke realizes she hasn’t picked up any souvenirs for Raven, which she knows from experience will not be appreciated. Whenever she goes somewhere that Raven hasn’t been, she always brings something back for her.

They meet the Swedish couple, Emma and Simon, at a traditional Icelandic restaurant in the evening. The food isn’t as out there as Clarke knows some local dishes can be, but Bellamy’s eyes still widen at some of the options.

“Cod’s head?” he questions quietly.

“Yeah, I’m not adventurous enough to try that,” she agrees. “But at least there’s no fermented shark.”

His eyes snap to her at that. “Shark, seriously?”

“Apparently it’s a local delicacy,” she explains with a shrug.

The food they do end up ordering is delicious, though.

All in all, when they board the plane on Monday morning, Clarke feels like they’ve really gotten the full Icelandic experience.

“Who is it that we’re staying with in Dublin again?” Bellamy asks a little sleepily when they’ve settled into their seats – her little trick has worked again and they have the row to themselves.

Her brain’s not working fully yet – they didn’t get back to the hotel until almost midnight, and had to be a the airport at six, so neither of them have gotten much sleep – so she has to think for a moment before she can answer.

“Monroe,” she finally remembers. “We were in San Francisco together back in the fifties, we’re not as close as me and Raven or Wells, but she’s a good friend.”

A good friend who is currently in Los Angeles, not Dublin.

“Right, first name Zoe,” he says before closing his eyes and leaning back in the seat. Clarke does the same – it’s only a two and a half hour flight, but a couple more hours of sleep can’t hurt.

Only she can’t doze off. She can tell that Bellamy has, his deep, even breaths soothing in her ear, but she just can’t relax enough herself.

She’s getting nervous, she realizes. She knows, she’s a hundred percent certain, that Bellamy will be ecstatic to see Octavia. But still, somewhere deep down, is a tiny voice insisting that maybe he won’t. Maybe he’ll be furious that she’s intervened, that she went behind his back and lied to him…

By the time the plane touches down in Dublin and he stretches next to her, she’s worked herself into some sort of half-frenzy and can’t stop fidgeting as they leave the plane.

“What’s wrong?” he finally asks when they’re in the back of a cab, the driver armed with Octavia’s address.

“Nothing,” Clarke tells him, forcing a smile onto her face. She can tell by his expression that he’s not buying it. “I’m just tired, I couldn’t sleep on the plane.”

He doesn’t seem convinced. “Are you sure?”

“Absolutely.”

Bellamy still shoots her the occasional questioning look during the rest of the drive, but fortunately – or unfortunately, she’s really not sure yet – the drive into the city is only half an hour, and soon, they’re getting out of the cab at an intersection.

Clarke’s not all that familiar with Dublin, she hasn’t been here in decades, but she studied the map before they left New York and knows that they’re not far from the city center. Across the street is a fenced in playground, and brick buildings line the streets in all directions.

She checks the address on her phone while Bellamy pays the cab driver and points to a building a couple of doors down when he joins her.

“I think that’s it,” she says, slinging her backpack over her shoulder.

“Well, come on then,” he replies. “I’m dying for something more substantial than a breakfast croissant.”

Octavia told her that she’d make sure the door from the street was open, and it is, so they don’t have to ring the buzzer for the apartment. Clarke hurries into the building, hoping that Bellamy won’t study the board with the residents’ names too closely.

The elevator is waiting for them and soon they’re getting out on the top floor, and her heart is seriously making a valiant attempt to beat out of her chest.

There aren’t any names on the doors, but she knows which one is their goal. After she knocks on it, she sucks in a deep breath and holds it.

At first, there’s no sound from inside the apartment, and for a split second, she thinks that Octavia has changed her mind.

Then she hears footsteps approaching, and a moment later the door opens.

If she met the woman she finds herself face to face with in the street, she probably wouldn’t have seen the resemblance between her and Bellamy. But knowing their relationship, she picks up on the small similarities – something in the shape of the eyes, if not the color, their postures, and, if Octavia had been smiling and not looking like she might throw up at any moment, the way their mouths quirk up first on one side and then the other.

Clarke meets the younger Blake’s eyes for a moment, a silent greeting, before the other woman’s gaze flits to her brother.

“What… what’s going on here?” Bellamy asks, voice incredulous. “Octavia?”

Possibly encouraged by the fact that her surprise appearance isn’t met with anger, Octavia smiles tentatively. “Hi, big brother.”

Clarke finally dares to look at Bellamy again, and is relieved to see that he looks confused and a little gob smacked, but not upset in any way.

“I don’t understand…” he starts, meeting her eyes with a questioning look. “Clarke? I thought…”

“I’m sorry I lied,” she apologizes quickly. “I, we, wanted it to be a surprise.”

He lets out a disbelieving laugh. “Well, mission accomplished.”

Octavia seems to snap into action suddenly, stepping aside and waving them into the apartment. “You can’t stand out there all day, come on in.”

Clarke lets Bellamy lead the way into the apartment, where Octavia goes into what is obviously a living room. The space is full of natural light streaming in through three large windows and sparsely furnished – a large couch, a coffee table and a flat screen TV mounted on the wall.

A man that Clarke immediately identifies as Lincoln is sitting on the couch, but he gets up when the three of them enter the room, reaching out to squeeze Octavia’s hand when she stops next to him.

“This is my boyfriend, Lincoln,” she introduces him. “And this is my brother, Bellamy, and his girlfriend, Clarke.”

Lincoln holds out his hand and Clarke takes the lead. “It’s nice to meet you, Lincoln. Thank you for letting us stay here.”

“It’s nice to meet you too,” he replies with a warm smile, surprising her with his obviously American accent. “And of course we wouldn’t have you stay in a hotel, family is family.”

Bellamy is still looking a bit like he’s not quite sure that he isn’t actually dreaming, but when Lincoln turns to him, he accepts the other man’s outstretched hand and shakes.

“It’s a pleasure to finally meet you,” Lincoln says. “I’ve been hearing a lot of stories about you.”

“I… it’s nice to meet you too.”

Octavia seems to realize that her brother’s completely overwhelmed and doesn’t know what to do, because she takes a step in the direction of the hallway.

“Why don’t I show you the guest room, let you settle in a little?” she suggests. “Did you eat before the flight or on the plane? I thought we could take you out to lunch and then show you around the city a little bit? We’re only about five minutes from the city center and the weather’s nice…” She trails off as if she realizes that she’s rambling, and Clarke gives her an encouraging smile.

“That sounds good, right?” She reaches out to interlace her fingers with Bellamy’s and squeezes lightly, snapping him out of his slight daze.

“Yes, that sounds great,” he agrees with a nod.

“OK, come on.”

Octavia leads them back out past the front door to a room at one end of the hallway.

“Here we are,” she says, stopping on one side of the bed. “It’s not much, but the bed’s really comfy, it was mine before Lincoln moved in. Just… unpack or whatever you want to do, the top two drawers in the dresser are empty and there’s space in the cupboard. There are clean towels in the guest bathroom next door, if you want to take a shower or freshen up. We’ll be in the living room, just come on out when you want to get going.”

“We will,” Clarke assures her. “Thank you.”

Bellamy nods, eyes intent on his sister. “Yeah, thanks, O.”

Clarke thinks she sees some emotions flash in Octavia’s eyes at her old nickname, and her smile widens before she leaves the room, closing the door behind her.

The moment she’s gone, Bellamy slumps down on the bed, falling backwards and letting out a breath.

“You OK?” Clarke asks tentatively, sitting down next to him.

“I’m… I’m good, I think,” he replies, staring at the ceiling lamp above him.

“You’re not mad at me?”

At her question, he pushes himself back into a sitting position and gives her an incredulous look. “Mad? Why on earth would I be mad at you?”

She shrugs. “Because I meddled. I went behind your back and looked up Octavia and contacted her. I lied to you when I said I wouldn’t do that anymore.”

“And I’m glad you did all that,” he insists. “I mean… yeah, I would have been excited if you told me that we were meeting Octavia here before we left New York, but I think… maybe I would have worried and obsessed over it, thought about it all the time. I don’t think I would have been able to let that go while we were in Iceland. So thank you.” He takes both her hands in his. “Thank you for giving me my sister back.”

“I wouldn’t go that far… I mean, you were thinking about looking her up, right?”

“Yeah.” Bellamy nods. “I was going to do that when we got back to New York, but I thought she was in the States, maybe still in Florida… I might not have had time to see her if I had waited until then, with her all the way over here.”

“Maybe not,” she agrees, squeezing his hands.

“So again, thank you.”

Clarke leans forward to brush her lips over his in a brief kiss.

“I love you,” she says quietly when she pulls away, the smile on his face radiant.

“I love you.” He looks down at their joined hands for a moment before continuing. “So what have you told her?”

He doesn’t need to spell it out for her to understand what he means.

“Nothing about that,” she replies. “I just said that we were going to Europe and I knew you really wanted to make things right between the two of you.”

Bellamy nods thoughtfully.

“I don’t know if I… should I tell her?”

“That’s completely up to you.”

“But if I wanted to tell her, I could?” he asks. “I mean, about the whole Soul Keeper thing. It might be hard to explain how I know otherwise.”

“That’s true.” She supposes they could come up with something, some disease, but she can see why he wouldn’t want to do that. “And yes, you can tell her everything, if you want.”

“OK.” He takes a deep breath. “I honestly don’t know if I want to tell her or not. On the one hand, it feels like it would taint the time we do have together, if that makes sense? But on the other hand…”

He trails off and Clarke takes a deep breath before speaking, trying to keep it together. “Do you want her there? I mean… when…”

He shakes his head immediately, understanding what she means without her finishing the sentence, which is a relief since she doesn’t really want to. “No. Just you. Unless it would be easier for you if…”

“Don’t think about me,” she interrupts him. “That’s completely up to you, OK? You don’t have to worry about anything but what you want.”

Bellamy gives her a long, scrutinizing look but eventually nods. “OK. Then I don’t think I’ll tell her. But I might change my mind.”

“Of course.” She desperately needs to change the topic, and it seems like he’s done discussing it for now, so she gets up from the bed. “I think I’ll take a quick shower before we head out, OK?”

“Sure, go ahead. Just… one more thing.”

“Yeah?”

He hesitates for a moment. “Octavia, did you get a look at her Number?”

Ah. Clarke knew this question was coming. “I did, and she is going to have a long life.”

“Really?” he asks with a half-smile.

“Yup. She’s twenty-five, right?” At his nod, she continues. “Then she is going to see her ninetieth birthday, she has 23,812 days left to live.”

“Twenty-three thousand… wow.” Bellamy pauses for a moment. “And you’re not just saying that?”

She shakes her head. “Of course not, I wouldn’t do that.”

“No, I know, I don’t even know why I asked that. And Lincoln?”

“19,875.”

He sighs. “So if they end up staying together, she’ll be alone for about ten years after he’s gone.”

She just nods, having to swallow down a lump in her throat. Sure, to a Norm, ten years is a long time, but to her… it’s nothing compared to the time she’ll be alone.

“I don’t know why I haven’t asked about this before,” he continues. “I guess it took my brain a while to catch up to everything. What about Miller and Jackson?”

Clarke doesn’t go around memorizing people’s Numbers, not even the people she knows, it just wouldn’t be possible considering the amounts of Numbers she sees on a daily basis. In this case, though, she has a pretty good idea.

“I don’t remember the exact Number, but it was somewhere around twenty thousand,” she says. “And they have the same Number.”

His eyebrows shoot up at that. “The same?”

“Yeah. It’s not very common, even among couples, that’s partly why I remember it, actually. Normally, I would assume it means an accident of some sort, but considering they’ll both be pretty old, that’s not necessarily the case.”

“Twenty thousand, that’s…”

“About 55 years,” she finishes for him, having mastered the calculation over the years.

“So Miller will be around 85 and Jackson 88.”

“Long – and hopefully happy – lives.”

Bellamy nods thoughtfully at that. “Good.” He looks up at her with a sort of smile. “Go take your shower so we can get out of here!”

She leans down for a chaste but long kiss before obliging.

Forty-five minutes later, they’re back out in the weak January sunshine, Octavia and Lincoln leading the way into the city center.

“So what are you guys in the mood for, lunch wise?” Octavia asks over her shoulder.

Bellamy gives Clarke a questioning look and she shrugs to indicate that she’s good with whatever.

“You’re the locals,” he says. “We’re happy to go with whatever you recommend.”

They end up at a burger place on O'Connell Street that Octavia swears has amazing burgers and the best milkshakes in the city.

Once they’ve ordered, the silence turns a little tense, and Lincoln immediately takes the lead on the conversation.

“So Iceland?” he starts. “That must have been quite an experience.”

Clarke shoots him an appreciative smile. “It really was. Just the nature, once you get out of the city, it’s so completely different from anything I’ve seen.”

She delves into a description of everything they saw and did, Bellamy jumping in when he thinks she forgets something. Once they get to the night in the first bubble hotel, he pulls out his phone to show some of the photos – the best ones are on the camera, of course, which is back at the apartment, but he got a couple of amazing shots on his phone as well.

“Wow,” Octavia mumbles as she hands the phone back to her brother. “That must have been amazing.”

Bellamy’s mouth turns up in a half smile. “It really was.”

“Remember how Mom used to talk about seeing the Northern lights?” she continues, a matching smile on her face. “Because she was convinced she was named after them.”

He laughs at that, but Clarke can see the hint of sadness in his eyes and reaches under the table to squeeze his hand. “I doubt her parents had any idea what the Northern lights even were.”

“But Mom was so sure,” Octavia adds. “I’m glad you got to see them, even if she never did.”

It occurs to Clarke that maybe that’s why he wanted to in the first place, and her heart aches a little.

“Me too, O,” he says with a sigh. “You should really check them out, if you can. It’s out of this world, really, definitely worth the trip.”

“Yeah.” Octavia glances at Lincoln, who offers a smile. “Maybe someday.”

This time, it’s Clarke who breaks the silence that falls over them.

“So how did the two of you meet?” she asks curiously.

At her question, Lincoln ducks his head and Octavia laughs. “That’s a funny story, actually,” she says. “It was, what, around two years ago? I had just moved here because the gym I worked at in London opened a new branch and wanted me to sort of oversee that, and I knew absolutely nobody in the city. Then, like, two weeks or something after we had gotten the new place up and running, I started noticing this guy in almost all my classes. He always sort of lingered after class was over, but there were always people asking questions and stuff, and by the time everyone left, he was gone too.”

“I was trying to work up the courage to actually talk to her,” Lincoln pipes in. “Octavia might not be aware of it herself, but she can be a little… intimidating before you get to know her.”

Bellamy snorts at that. “She can be pretty intimidating when you do know her too.” He jumps a little in his seat. “Ow. Did you just kick me, O?”

She just gives him an innocent smile. “Anyway, so after a month or so, I had finally had it, so I marched right up to him after a class and asked what he was doing.”

“Which of course had me tongue tied,” Lincoln says with a laugh.

Octavia joins in before continuing. “And, OK, I might have overreacted a little, I started going on about how he was being creepy, that it’s not OK to stalk people and that I was working and stuff, and then he just sort of blurted out ‘will you go out with me?’.”

“I think it’s the only time I’ve ever rendered her speechless.”

Bellamy pauses, his half-eaten burger in midair. “Wow. That’s impressive, man. I don’t think I managed to do that more than a handful of times in eighteen years.”

Octavia elbows Lincoln in the side and sends her brother an annoyed look. “I wanted you two to get along but I didn’t think you’d gang up on me.”

“We’re just messing with you,” Lincoln assures her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders.

She lets out an exaggerated sigh, but doesn’t seem too bothered. “Right, that was our story, what about you two? How’d you meet?”

Clarke glances at Bellamy, trying to tell him that it’s up to him what exactly he wants to tell his sister.

“I think we have you beat, actually,” he starts. “The first time we met, I actually saved Clarke’s life.”

Both Octavia’s and Lincoln’s eyes widen. “Really?” Octavia asks.

“Really,” Clarke confirms. “Someone bumped into me on the sidewalk and pushed me into the street. If it weren’t for your brother, I probably would have been run over by a cab, but he pulled me out of the way.”

“Wow, that’s like, super romantic,” Octavia notes with a slightly dreamy expression that surprises Clarke. “So was it love at first sight?”

A couple of months ago, Clarke would have denied that automatically, but now… “It was definitely something at first sight,” she settles on, getting a snort from Bellamy.

“Did I dazzle you with my charm during the, what, thirty word conversation we had, Princess?” he asks drily.

“I was sort of pre-dazzled by the whole almost getting hit by a car thing,” she replies with a smirk.

Their eyes meet and for a moment, it’s like everything around them melts away and they’re back on that street, cars whizzing past them and people bustling around, but none of that breaking through their little bubble of peace.

Octavia’s voice brings them both back to the present, if the way Bellamy shakes his head slightly is any indication. “OK, so what’s with the princess thing?”

“That’s from the second time we met, also completely by accident,” Clarke tells her.

“Yeah, I didn’t have the presence of mind to ask for her number the first time,” Bellamy picks up the narrative. “But then Miller dragged me along to a Halloween party at one of his co-workers’ place, and there she was – dressed as Cinderella or something.”

Octavia raises her eyebrows. “Seriously? I honestly have a hard time picturing that.”

“It’s true,” Clarke confirms. “It wasn’t by choice, but I was wearing a huge princess ball gown and a tiara. And he will not let it go.”

Bellamy laughs. “Oh please, you know you love it. And then I did dazzle you with my amazing knowledge of the constellations.”

She just shakes her head at that, a smile on her lips, and watches an incredulous look spread on Octavia’s face.

“You picked up a girl using star gazing?” she asks. “Only you, Bell. I guess you two really are perfect for each other if that worked.”

Clarke already knew that, but hearing someone else, someone who, despite the years they haven’t had any contact, knows Bellamy better than most, is still a little overwhelming.

She feels Bellamy’s hand search hers out under the table, his thumb brushing against her palm before he interlaces their fingers.

“Yeah, I guess we are.”

After they finish their lunch, they stroll around Dublin, Octavia and Lincoln showing them different sights. They cross the Liffey and head right, weaving through the streets and passing the Molly Malone statue, the castle and Christ Church cathedral before reaching the Guinness brewery, where they turn around and head back towards the center of the city along the river. In the heart of Temple Bar, Lincoln stops outside what looks like an art gallery.

“Octavia’s told me you paint,” he says, directed at Clarke. “A friend of mine is showing some pieces here at the moment, I thought we might check it out?”

She realizes what he’s trying to do without him having to say anything.

“I’d like that,” she replies, turning to Bellamy. “You two will be OK on your own for a while, right?”

He looks a little terrified at the thought, but nods all the same. “Of course.”

Lincoln and Octavia seem to be having some sort of silent conversation that ends with Lincoln raising his eyebrows and Octavia sighing.

“Come on, big brother, let’s leave these two to their cultural education,” she says. “We’ll grab some coffee and then I can maybe show you Trinity College campus? It’s really nice, I think you’d like it.”

Clarke knows that Bellamy has already been checking it out online, and they’re planning on visiting the Book of Kells exhibition on Friday.

“That sounds great, O,” he happily agrees.

“I’ll give you a call when we’re done here,” Lincoln says. “Depending on where you are, we can meet up for dinner somewhere, or one of us can pick up food on the way home.”

“Good plan.”

They say their goodbyes and Lincoln and Clarke wait until Bellamy and Octavia have turned a corner before entering the gallery.

“So I don’t think I was very subtle just now,” he says when they’re in the main exhibition hall. “I mean, my friend Nyko is showing here, but I mainly wanted to give Octavia and Bellamy some time alone.”

Clarke chuckles. “I picked up on that, yeah. I was hoping to come up with a way to give them some alone time myself, actually, I think it’ll be good for them to really talk things through.”

He lets out a breath. “That was my thinking, yes.”

They move around the gallery slowly, perusing the artwork on display. Still, by the time they’ve seen everything, it’s only been an hour since they parted ways with the Blake siblings.

“Do you want to grab a cup of coffee before we meet up with the others?” Clarke suggests when they’re back on the street, and Lincoln readily agrees, leading the way to a little café a couple of streets over.

“Listen,” he says once they’re seated at a table in a corner, huge mugs of coffee in front of both of them. “I wanted to thank you.”

She frowns. “For what?”

“Well, I’ve been trying to get Octavia to reach out to her brother ever since she told me about what happened between them,” he elaborates. “So about a year now. Without success, obviously. So I’m really glad you contacted her and made this happen.”

Clarke can feel her cheeks heat up a little. “I don’t know if I made it happen… I just hope they can make up and move past this, you know?”

He nods. “I do. And I think they will. I know Octavia has been blaming herself for their falling out, and I can guess that Bellamy has too?”

“Yeah. And both of them have been hoping the other will make the first move.”

“Exactly.” Lincoln chuckles. “So thank you. I know Octavia will be happier with her brother back in her life.”

Clarke feels a pinch of guilt at that, because, really, she won’t have him back for long. But hopefully she’ll be grateful that they at least got to make up before it was too late.

Chapter Text

Clarke and Lincoln spend an hour and a half at the coffee shop, getting to know each other a little better. Clarke hasn’t told Octavia a lot about herself, they mostly talked about Bellamy during their phone conversations, so she sticks with her standard background – what she told Bellamy initially – hoping he’ll tell Octavia the same thing, if she asks.

They talk about their shared love of art, eventually getting to their own works. Lincoln photographs weddings and similar events and also does some portrait photography to get an actual income, but his passion is on the more artistic side and Clarke immediately loves his more abstract pieces. Considering he does this for a living, she’s a little nervous about showing him her own paintings, but Lincoln insists he would love to see them, so she pulls up images of some pieces that have already sold in her Etsy store.

“This one is amazing,” he notes, pointing at one of the angry pieces she did after meeting Bellamy and discovering his Number. “It’s so full of emotions…”

Clarke remembers her state of mind during those few weeks and full of emotions is really spot on, even if she hadn’t wanted to actually face those emotions at the time. “Yeah, it was a… difficult time for me,” she half-explains. Lincoln gives her a long look but doesn’t ask anything else.

When they finally leave the coffee shop, Lincoln calls Octavia to find out that she and Bellamy are already home, so he calls in an order at an Indian restaurant a few blocks from the apartment and he and Clarke pick it up on their way.

When Lincoln opens the door, they’re greeted by laughter coming from the living room, and Clarke feels like her whole heart swells three sizes, Grinch-style, when they follow the sound to find the Blake siblings on the couch watching some sitcom on the TV.

“I hope you’re not continuing our Santa Clarita Diet marathon without me,” Lincoln notes lightly, putting the bags of take-out down on the coffee table, where there are already plates, cutlery and a couple of beers waiting.

Octavia rolls her eyes. “I wouldn’t dream of it. We were talking about… something, I don’t even know, and somehow we ended up on That ‘70s Show, which Bell refused to let me watch until I was thirteen, by which time it was just going off the air, and it’s on Netflix!” She gestures excitedly at the screen, where Fez and Hyde are doing something.

Clarke is sure that the affectionate smile on Lincoln’s face is mirrored on her own.

“Did you have a good time at the gallery?” Bellamy asks, reaching for the nearest bag and transferring the boxes in it to the table.

Clarke sits down next to him, Octavia on his other side and Lincoln next to her. “We did,” she confirms. “There’s some serious artistic talent in Dublin, that’s for sure. Nyko’s work is amazing. And I’ve convinced Lincoln to give us a private viewing of some of his photos.”

Lincoln shakes his head at that. “I said I would think about it,” he reminds her.

“He’s such a baby when it comes to his photography,” Octavia complains, scooping some chicken biryani onto her plate. “He almost never lets me see his pictures either.”

Bellamy shoots Clarke a look with raised eyebrows. “Where do I know that from?”

She elbows him lightly in the side. “It’s an artist thing,” she says with a shrug. “I never feel like I’m finished with a piece, so it’s hard to show it to someone, I guess.”

“Exactly,” Lincoln agrees with a nod.

“Well, I love your art,” Bellamy continues, sliding an arm around her waist to pull her closer and press a kiss to her temple.

“Flattery will get you everywhere,” she tells him with a smile, stealing a quick kiss before grabbing a box of food.

“Hey, no fooling around at the dinner table,” Octavia says, throwing a balled up napkin at Bellamy. “Oh, and do you want something else to drink, Clarke? Bell said beer was fine, but we have soda and maybe some cider if you’d prefer that?”

Clarke accepts the box of tikka masala that Bellamy holds out for her as she shakes her head. “Beer is absolutely fine.”

It’s probably one of the best evenings Clarke’s had in a while – they keep watching the show, which she never really got into while it aired so it’s all new to her, and eat way too much food. The best part, though, is probably when Bellamy and Octavia revert to insider jokes from their childhood. Neither Clarke nor Lincoln get them, but they exchange looks now and then, both relishing the moment of the siblings being reunited and enjoying spending time together.

She waits until she and Bellamy are in bed, hours later, before she asks him about his afternoon with his sister.

“So you and Octavia worked through everything?” she starts as he slides between the sheets.

He doesn’t answer until they’ve settled down in the middle of the bed, him on his back with an arm around her waist and her on her side, head on his chest and one leg thrown over his.

“We did. It was basically ten minutes of both of us trying to apologize over each other, until we realized that there was no point in re-hashing the past… we both regret how things turned out back then, but trying to assign blame won’t change anything. We both could have handled the situation better and we’re both sorry and want to move past it, that’s what’s important.”

“I’m glad.”

He hums in response and silence settles over them for a long moment, before he speaks again.

“I might have accidentally let her believe that we met a year ago and not this fall, by the way. Just in case it comes up.”

Clarke pushes herself up on one elbow to be able to look at him. “How come?”

He half-shrugs. “I don’t know, she said something that made me realize that’s what she thought, and I didn’t correct her. I mean, it’s not exactly normal to head out on a six month long trip around the world with someone you’ve known for three months, you know?”

She chuckles before lying back down. “Yeah, that thought crossed my mind when I talked to her on the phone, too. I deliberately kept the time frame of our relationship a little vague. As long as you’re fine with that, we can go with it, I don’t mind.”

Bellamy joins in her chuckle for a moment.

“What else did you tell her?” she asks. “I didn’t really say much about myself when we talked, and I basically told Lincoln the same story I gave you when we met.”

“Yeah, I stuck with that too,” he replies. “Octavia was pretty curious, asking question after question, and I’ve never been good at coming up with stuff on the spot, so it was just easier to use your story.”

“We should be fine, then.”

He runs a hand down her back and then up again. “We should, yeah. So tell me about Lincoln. Is he good enough for my baby sister?”

Clarke has to laugh at the question. “Would anything I told you make him good enough for Octavia in your eyes?”

He ponders the question for a moment. “Probably not.”

“That’s what I though.” She lets out a sigh before continuing. “But he really does seem like a great guy. He’s passionate about his photography, but he’s realistic about it too, he has a business photographing weddings and stuff that’s doing well and he does his more artistic work on the side.”

“I know, O told me that too when I asked about him,” Bellamy says with a snort. “After she gave me a ‘don’t you butt in and try to scare him off’ speech. Which I’m not going to, of course… I just want to know that she’ll be OK when I’m not…”

She places a kiss on his chest when he trails off. “I know. And I really do think that she will be. It’s painfully obvious how much he loves her, there’s no way he would ever do anything to hurt her. I think she found one of the good ones.”

He lets out a long breath. “Good. I trust your judgment better than mine in this case, to be honest.”

“I am a little more impartial in this situation, I guess,” Clarke agrees.

“You definitely are,” he says with a chuckle. “She told me about the last seven years too… I’ve spent so much time thinking the worst, worrying that she was barely getting by, struggling, so it was nice to know that wasn’t the case.”

“What’s she been up to?” Clarke knows some things, but Instagram posts and Facebook statuses only tell you so much about a person’s actual life, beyond the flashy photos and upbeat commentary.

“Well, she started on that cruise ship,” he replies. “She did some waitressing, basic jobs here and there. Then during a cruise a couple of months after she started, half the staff in the fitness center came down with food poisoning so she offered to fill in and lead some of the classes, and the next time they were in port, she was offered a promotion to that department instead. At the end of her second season, she got the opportunity to do a couple of months on a ship in the Mediterranean, and the company helped her with the visa and stuff, so when a friend from the ship decided to head to London the year after, she was able to get a work permit and go with her. She worked at a gym there for about two years before moving here, getting more experience in the business and apparently becoming pretty close with the owner of the chain, Indra, because she specifically asked if O wanted to be in charge when they opened the branch here. She seems to really enjoy it, and I can actually see that it would be a good fit for her. She always had way too much energy as a kid, this gives her an outlet. I think it’s mellowed her a little, if you can believe that.”

‘Mellow’ is not a word that Clarke would use to describe Octavia, but she supposes it’s relative. From Bellamy’s stories about his sister as a kid, she knows the girl was a bit of a whirlwind so maybe she really has calmed down a little.

“She’s quite the world traveler then,” she notes.

“Yeah, she’s been all over the Caribbean, parts of South America, Europe…”

She trails a hand over his chest, tracing patterns against his skin. “Would you have wanted to do that? The cruise thing, I mean. I did think about it when I was planning the trip, but in the end, I decided against it, partly because of the whole Octavia situation… we can probably fit it in if you want, though, even if something else would have to go.”

He’s quiet for a moment, thinking. “I don’t think I would have been very open to the idea a few weeks ago,” he finally says. “Because of Octavia, like you said. Now, I wouldn’t mind… but I like the plans we have, I don’t want to change anything at this point. Besides, there aren’t any historical sites on a cruise ship.”

Clarke lets out a chuckle at that. “I guess not.”

His arm tightens around her for a moment and she feels his lips against the top of her head. “OK, we should probably try to get some sleep, O was talking about everything she wanted to show us and do tomorrow, and it sounds like it’s going to be a long day.”

Octavia sent a list of suggestions for activities to Clarke a couple of weeks ago, so they could coordinate a little and not book the same things, and she remembers wondering how on earth they were going to be able to squeeze everything in during their week, so she can imagine.

“Good plan,” she agrees, reaching behind her to turn off the bedside lamp before settling in again. “And you’re still good, still happy about being here, seeing Octavia?”

“Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?”

She shifts so she can bury her face against his throat, his body heat warming up her chilled nose immediately.

“No reason, just my subconscious still worrying.”

“Well, you can tell your subconscious to cut it out,” Bellamy tells her, voice amused. “Love you.”

“Mmm, love you.”

-100-

The next couple of days really are busy. After an amazing breakfast on Tuesday, courtesy of Lincoln who turns out to be a great cook, they start at Guinness, where they take an audio tour of the brewery that ends with a pint in the Gravity Bar, high above Dublin. Clarke’s never really been a fan of Guinness, it’s a little too heavy for her, but she has to admit that it tastes absolutely amazing here.

When they leave the brewery, instead of leading them back towards the city center, Octavia heads in the other direction.

“Where are we going, O?” Bellamy asks and she gives him a secretive smile.

“You’ll see,” she replies. “But please know that this part of the day is just for you, Bell. I hope you appreciate it.”

He frowns at that, giving Clarke a confused look, but she just shrugs to indicate that she doesn’t know either. Though she does have an inkling.

Which turns out to be right – after twenty minutes or so, they reach a two-story stone building and pause in a small court yard, just inside a cast iron fence.

“Kilmainham Gaol,” Bellamy reads out loud from the information sign, stumbling a little over the pronunciation. His eyes light up. “This is an old jail?”

“Yup,” Octavia confirms. “I basically googled ‘boring historical stuff to do in Dublin’ and this was one of the top hits, so I figured you’d enjoy it even if none of us do.”

Bellamy ruffles his sister’s hair affectionately. “Thanks for the sacrifice, O.”

They grab some lunch in the café before their tour of the old prison, which turns out to be really interesting – Clarke catches even Octavia listening intently to their guide.

They finish their tour a little after five in the afternoon, and the sun sets while they’re on their way back to O’Connell Street. They take a detour, passing St Patrick’s cathedral and strolling around Trinity College, which is beautifully lit up, for a little while before Octavia once again leads them across the river and comes to a stop outside a hotel.

“Um… is this your way of telling us you’re kicking us out of your place?” Clarke asks, eyeing the façade.

Octavia laughs, pushing the doors open. “Don’t be silly. We’re having dinner here, they’re supposed to have one of the best Irish dance shows in Dublin.”

The last time Clarke was in Ireland was in 1973, and this type of shows weren’t really a thing back then. She’s seen Riverdance on TV, of course, but the actual live show is still an amazing experience. Judging by the awed look on Bellamy’s face every time she glances at him, he’s enjoying himself too.

They stay at the hotel until well after midnight, Octavia insisting on trying different local drinks on the menu, claiming this is her chance to be a tourist in the city, something she never really got to be when she moved here.

By the time they stumble home through the empty streets – it is Tuesday, after all, most people have work in the morning – all four of them are pretty buzzed.

Which doesn’t stop Octavia from banging on the door to the guest room way too early the next morning, making Clarke jerk awake.

“Rise and shine, lovebirds!” she calls through the door. “I have big plans today, breakfast in ten.”

Bellamy groans next to her, burying his face in a pillow.

“How is she not half-unconscious still?” Clarke grumbles, pulling the comforter up to her chin.

“Deal with the devil?” he replies, voice still gravelly with sleep.

A few minutes later, there’s another bang on the door, and they reluctantly drag themselves out of bed.

Today, they’re apparently going further, because instead of leaving the building, they continue one floor down to the underground parking garage. When Octavia clicks a key fob, a green Ford blinks invitingly in a corner.

“You drive?” Bellamy asks, a little wary.

“Yes, shut up,” Octavia retorts brightly.

He holds up his hands in a placating gesture. “I didn’t say anything. Though if I were going to, I might point out that you swore up and down that you would never get behind the wheel again after the squirrel incident.”

“Squirrel incident?” Lincoln pipes in curiously.

“Octavia hit a squirrel the day she got her learner’s permit,” Bellamy expands. “She said she was never going to drive again because she didn’t want to kill any more innocent animals.”

Octavia lets out a huff. “It was traumatic!”

Lincoln squeezes her hand before opening the driver’s door for her. “I’m sure it was.”

But as he rounds the car, he sends Clarke an amused look.

The sun breaks through the clouds as they leave the city, and they get the first true glimpse of why the island is called the Emerald isle – despite it being mid-winter, the hills around them are green, dotted here and there with sheep and cows.

“OK, so I know you’re going up to Belfast tomorrow, but since it’s a bit of a drive, I figured you’d want to head straight there so you get as much time in the city as possible,” Octavia says when they’re on the highway Clarke recognizes from their ride from the airport. “So we’re doing a bit of a Bellamy tour today.”

The man in question chuckles next to Clarke in the backseat. “Seriously, O, you didn’t have to come up with all these things that I would want to do,” he tells her affectionately.

She waves a hand dismissively in the air. “Who knows when you’ll be able to come here again? I wanted to cram as much into this visit as I could, so here we are.”

Clarke can feel the conflicting emotions practically radiating off him and reaches out to take his hand in hers, squeezing comfortingly. He sends her a grateful smile.

Octavia’s really done her homework – their first stop is Newgrange, a site with Neolithic burial mounds that, according to their guide, is a millennium older than Stonehenge, before they continue to the Hill of Tara, an area that was the island’s capital for thousands of years and is now only marked by ring forts and ruins.

After that, instead of getting back on the highway, Octavia turns onto a smaller country road.

“We have one more stop,” she tells them. “We could go back through Dublin, but I figured the scenic route would be more fun. And we can stop somewhere for lunch on the way.”

They do, at a cute little stonewashed cottage called Hollywood Café, of all things. Clarke feels like a real tourist, but she can’t help but ask Octavia to take a picture of her and Bellamy in front of it, the sign clearly visible behind them. She just knows Raven will get a laugh out of it.

Another half hour later, Octavia pulls off the country road, eventually coming to a stop in a car park. “We’re here,” she announces, killing the engine and getting out of the car.

“And where is here, exactly?” Bellamy asks as he gets out as well.

“Glendalough,” Octavia replies, as if that explains everything. “We’ve actually been here before, Lincoln did a photo shoot with a newlywed couple last summer, and it’s pretty cool. There’s a bunch of ruins, an old monastery, I think, and some other buildings, I figured it would be right up your alley.”

Bellamy rolls his eyes but Clarke can tell that he really is excited.

Octavia leads the way to a large, stone archway, beyond which they can see withering tomb stones of all shapes and sizes. They stroll around, reading names and dates on the stones that are still legible and venturing into the ruins of the monastery, where there are more graves, these with the stones set into the ground. Thousands and thousands of feet, as well as the elements once the building started to fall into decay, have worn them down and it’s almost impossible to tell what might have once been written on them.

Clarke’s favorite building is probably the Round Tower, a circular stone tower stretching over a hundred feet into the air. Lincoln, who apparently did some research before his photo shoot, tells them that the tower is almost a thousand years old and was used as a clock tower at one point.

After an hour or so, it starts raining, and they head back to the car. The drive back to Dublin follows more narrow country lanes, eventually offering glimpses of the Irish Sea in the distance.

By the time they get back to the apartment, it’s almost eight in the evening. Octavia suggests going out for dinner, maybe a few drinks, but to Clarke’s relief, Lincoln manages to convince her to stay in and let him cook instead.

The next morning, Clarke’s alone in bed when she wakes up. She finds Bellamy and Lincoln in the kitchen, scrambled eggs and toast in front of both of them.

“Morning, Princess,” Bellamy greets her with a smile when he spots her. “Sleep well?”

“Uh-huh,” she confirms, taking a seat next to him and stealing a slice of toast. “Octavia at work already?”

Lincoln nods. “She has a morning class today, so she left early. I’m heading out soon too, and I’m guessing you want to get going as well?”

Clarke glances at the clock on the wall behind him. Not quite nine yet, but they have an almost two hour drive ahead of them. “Probably, yeah. I just need some coffee and a shower and I’m good to go.”

Half an hour later, she and Bellamy are walking down the stairs to the garage, the keys to Octavia’s car in her hand.

“Do you want to drive?” she asks, glancing at him.

He gives her a horrified look. “On the wrong side of the road? And the wrong side of the car? I think I’ll pass, if you’re OK driving.”

She laughs. “I’m pretty sure it would be even more difficult if you were on the other side of the car. But I’m fine driving, I drove quite a bit when I lived in Clovelly, since it’s out in the country.”

“Thank God.”

It takes a little getting used to, since it’s been a while, and the first roundabout they get to is terrifying for a brief moment, but soon enough, Clarke’s more or less comfortable behind the wheel again.

It’s raining when they leave Dublin, the countryside grey on either side of the highway, clouds hanging low over the treetops, but the closer they get to their destination, the clearer the sky above them becomes. There’s not much traffic, and they make good time, so it’s only a little after eleven when she pulls into a car park close to the center of Belfast, where the sun is actually shining.

They don’t really have anything specific planned for the day, so they just stroll around the city, taking in the different sights – parts of the Peace lines with beautiful murals, numerous old buildings and monuments. Clarke has never been to Belfast before, the last time she was in Ireland, in the seventies, the city was still very unsettled with bombings by the IRA and the INLA, so everything is new to her as well. After a late lunch they head down to the dock area, pausing to admire the futuristic building housing Titanic Belfast, before returning the way they came.

Friday is once again spent in Dublin, where they start at the Book of Kells exhibition and then explore the eastern parts of the city, around the docks. Octavia has an evening class – the only way she could get out of her Saturday morning class – but joins them halfway through dinner at a Chinese place close to her gym.

Saturday morning, all four of them take an Uber through the cold but sunny city to the Jameson Distillery, where they get a tour and do some whiskey tasting. It feels wrong at half past eleven in the morning, but it’s not like they get drunk off a few sips.

Octavia seems hell bent on correcting that, though.

“OK, so tonight we’re doing a pub crawl,” she announces when they leave the distillery. The weather’s still nice, and it even feels like the temperature might have risen, if only by a degree or two.

Bellamy raises an eyebrow at his sister. “Really, O?”

“You cannot come to Dublin and not go on a pub crawl,” she insists. “It’s, like, in the law or something.”

Clarke’s almost positive that’s not actually true, and she can tell that Bellamy’s about to argue, but she squeezes his hand and gives him a look that she hopes says ‘just humor her, it would make her happy and you don’t have to drink much’. He seems to understand, because he lets out a sigh before agreeing.

“Great!” Octavia exclaims, looping her arm through Clarke’s. “I don’t know about you, but I really have nothing to wear tonight, so we are going shopping.”

It’s Clarke’s turn to balk, and she gets a half-smirk from Bellamy.

“We’re trying to travel light,” she tries. “I don’t really have room for some fancy party outfit.”

Octavia doesn’t seem bothered, though. “So leave it here, I can mail it to you once you’re back home again. Besides, I know we got to know each other a little over the phone, but we haven’t had any one-on-one time yet, just us girls.”

Clarke wonders if the ‘what are your intentions towards my brother?’ conversation that she got a hint of during their first phone call is coming and sends Bellamy a pleading look, but the traitor just smiles at her.

“Great idea, O,” he agrees. “That gives me and Lincoln a chance to get to know each other a little better, too.”

Clarke’s pretty sure Octavia didn’t think about that, because, for a brief moment, she looks like she might change her mind, but Lincoln squeezes her hand and she relaxes again.

An hour later, Clarke finds herself in a changing room trying to squeeze her boobs into a much too tight dress.

“This isn’t going to work,” she calls through the curtain, and half of Octavia’s face appears in a crack at one side.

“No, you’re right,” she agrees. “Try this one on instead.”

She holds out another dress, which at least looks like it might fit, even if it’s much shorter than what Clarke is used to. Not wanting to argue, she dutifully takes the dress and puts it on.

“Well… it fits,” she says, since that’s really the best thing she can say about the garment. It’s not her style at all – too short, too tight and too embellished. Besides, the temperatures are in the thirties, she’ll freeze her butt off in this.

“Yeah, that one’s not for you,” Octavia declares when she peeps into the changing room again. “How about this one?”

Her next suggestion is actually really cute…

It’s the one Clarke ends up getting, Octavia promising to lend her some tights and a pair of boots, since they’re somehow the same size in that department, if nowhere else.

Clarke keeps waiting for the other shoe to drop, for Octavia to corner her and give her the third degree, but it never comes. Finally, she can’t take it anymore, so she brings it up herself as they’re finishing lunch at a cute coffee shop.

“So, I kind of thought this girl time was an excuse for you to interrogate me,” she says, getting a snort from Octavia.

“Honestly, I was planning to,” she admits, playing with the spoon in her coffee. “But I just… seeing you two together, I don’t really feel like I need to. I mean, Bell’s always worn his heart on his sleeve, I knew the first time he had a crush and I was just eight back then, so I was expecting to know the moment I saw him. But you’re the same. The moment you relaxed and stopped worrying about him being mad at you for not telling him about me, it was completely obvious to me that you’re just as crazy about him.”

The proclamation actually takes Clarke by surprise. She’s never seen herself as a person who projects her feelings, and nobody has ever told her that she does… well, except for Raven, but she doesn’t count since she knows Clarke better than she knows herself.

“I am,” she confirms. “I didn’t know it was that obvious, though, especially not to someone I barely know.”

Octavia laughs. “Oh, sweetie, you’d have to be deaf, dumb and blind to not see it.”

Clarke feels the heat rise in her cheeks, even though she doesn’t have anything to be embarrassed about.

“So, no. I’m not going to give you the third degree or ask what your intentions towards my brother are,” Octavia continues. “Even though I’m sure he’s having that conversation with Lincoln. I don’t need to. Because I know that neither of you would do anything to hurt the other. If things don’t work out… well, that’s just the way life is sometimes. I know it wouldn’t be because you didn’t love each other. But I have a good feeling.”

The words make a small lump form in Clarke’s throat. “Well, I’m glad I won’t have to defend myself,” she says after swallowing. “And for what it’s worth, I do love him. I’m in this for the long haul.”

A big smile spreads on Octavia’s face. “Good. He deserves someone good. OK, we should get back out there, I still haven’t found anything to wear.”

Clarke plasters on a smile in return and gets up from their table, trailing behind Octavia out of the coffee shop.

The long haul is just six months, but Octavia doesn’t know that.

Chapter Text

Clarke really does try to keep her alcoholic intake to a minimum during their pub crawl, but by midnight, she’s come to the conclusion that Octavia is some sort of booze wizard. Every time she puts down an empty bottle or glass, another full one appears in her hand, and the other woman’s enthusiastic babbling and insistence on dancing to every other song has some sort of almost hypnotic effect on Clarke where she keeps drinking without even really noticing.

“Was she always so…” she half asks as she slumps down next to Bellamy in a booth, tripping over the words a little and waving her hand in Octavia’s general direction – to her extreme relief, Lincoln stepped in a moment ago and pulled Octavia to the dance floor for a slow song.

“So… what?” Bellamy asks, and she turns her head and squints at him, realizing that he’s probably just as drunk as she is, if the way he’s swaying slightly, even sitting down, is any indication.

“So… enthi… enthust… en-thu-si-as-tic,” she enunciates slowly. She’s almost sure she gets it right.

“Yes,” he confirms. “But I think it’s exax… worse with alcohol.”

“Mmmm,” she hums, leaning her head against his shoulder and closing her eyes. “I was not going to drink this much.”

She feels his hand sneak around her waist to pull her closer. “Me too.”

The music in the bar isn’t too loud – Clarke strongly suspects that the ‘dance floor’ she and Octavia have been occupying on and off for the last hour or so is in fact not meant for that specific activity – and they’re in the corner furthest from the sound system, so it’s actually pretty nice and quiet here.

“Hey, no sleeping!”

Clarke jerks up at Octavia’s voice, blinking confusedly. “I wasn’t.”

“Could have fooled me,” the other woman smirks, sliding into the booth on the other side of the table. “I want to do some real dancing, let’s get out of here.”

Bellamy groans. “We just want to go home and sleep,” he tells her.

“Oh please.” She tuts disapprovingly. “It’s not even late yet. You’re getting old, big brother.”

“Yup, that’s it,” he agrees. “You hit thirty and it’s all downhill from there.”

Octavia rolls her eyes before focusing on Clarke. “So what’s your excuse?”

On a logical level Clarke knows that she’s not supposed to tell Octavia that she is in fact over a century older than Bellamy. She really wants to, though, if it would get her out of going dancing.

“Out of practice,” she says instead, which is kind of true. “I don’t party much.”

Lincoln joins them at that moment, having apparently gotten everyone’s coats from the coat check. Clarke accepts hers and follows the others out of the pub, hoping against hope that they can convince Octavia to call it a night on the way to wherever she wants to go now.

“OK, how about if I promise no more drinking?” the younger Blake suggests as they set off along the street. “But there’s this great club on the way home, can we just stop by there for, like, an hour? I promise I’ll have you tucked into bed by two, in plenty of time before you turn into pumpkins.”

“It was the carriage that turned into a pumpkin, O,” Bellamy corrects her, nitpicking despite his level of intoxication. “And it was midnight, not two in the morning.”

Octavia elbows him in the side. “Whatever. Come on, please.” She drags the last word out, giving all of them puppy eyes.

Maybe she just has a soft spot for Blakes in general, but Clarke finds herself sighing and agreeing.

The cold night air has a rousing effect on all of them, and by the time they reach the club, they’ve all sobered up a little.

To her surprise, Clarke actually finds herself having a good time. She and Bellamy haven’t really gone out much, the closest probably being the New Year’s party at his and Miller’s place, and even then, they didn’t really dance much.

It’s kind of exciting to feel him behind her on the dance floor, his hands on her hips, the heat from his body making her skin tingle. They move together to the beat of music she’s unfamiliar with, the bass making her heart pound in her chest. Or maybe that’s just Bellamy’s fingers on her skin, pushing her hair back so he can place a kiss at the base of her throat. She lets a hand slide into his hair, holding him to her, and he wraps an arm around her waist to pull her flush against his chest.

Time moves strangely under the pulsing light, and she’s not sure how long they keep dancing like that. The beat changes, again and again, though always the same pounding bass.

After a while, she catches the eye of a tall, skinny brunette at the bar a few feet away, who’s giving them an evaluating look. She’s not sure who the woman is looking at – herself or Bellamy – but it doesn’t matter. She turns around so she can wrap her arms around his neck and pull him down for a kiss that’s probably just a bit too dirty in public, but he happily returns it, his hands sliding down her back to her butt to press her closer to him.

“OK, let’s keep things PG here, alright?” Octavia’s voice comes from next to Clarke, making them pull apart. She can’t help the pout on her face, and Octavia laughs. “Maybe it’s time to call it a night.”

Clarke’s not really drunk anymore, but she still stumbles when they get out onto the sidewalk, and Bellamy quickly steadies her. “You OK there, Princess?” he murmurs in her ear, which really does nothing for her balance.

“Fine,” she tells him anyway, sliding a hand around his waist to hook her thumb in one of the hoops on his jeans. Not a huge amount of support, but better than nothing.

He chuckles lowly and mirrors her, slipping his hand under her jacket to rest against her hip. There are three layers of material between his thumb, which starts tracing patterns against her dress, and her skin, but somehow, she can still feel his warm touch right down to her bones.

Maybe it’s because they haven’t actually had sex since they got here – Bellamy’s gotten her off a couple of times, but he has some sort of hang-up about having sex with his sister nearby – but by the time they finally make it back to Octavia and Lincoln’s apartment, Clarke’s more turned on than she’s been in a long time. Judging by the dark look Bellamy gives her after he helps her off with her jacket and she innocently leans back against him to get her boots off without falling over, he’s on the same page and she’s almost positive his resolve has already cracked.

“Right, we’re off to bed, night,” Octavia mumbles through a yawn. Lincoln offers them a smile before leading her in the direction of their bedroom.

Clarke feels Bellamy’s hand close around her wrist and willingly follows him in the other direction towards the guest room.

She barely has time to react after he’s closed the door behind them, before he pushes her up against the wall and covers her lips with his.

She moans into the kiss and he immediately deepens it, his hands sliding up her thighs to push her dress up.

“You know how hot you look tonight, Princess?” he murmurs in her ear before kissing his way down her throat.

“Why don’t you show me?” she retorts with a hint of a dare in her voice, and he pulls away to give her a look with raised eyebrows.

“Yeah?” He lifts her up so she can wrap her legs around him before grinding his hips against hers, making it more than obvious that he’s already hard under his jeans. “You mean like that?”

She doesn’t respond, just pulls him in for another kiss.

It’s heated but sloppy, both of them still slightly buzzed from the alcohol, and when Bellamy pushes the straps of her dress down her arms, so it ends up in a sort of roll around her waist, they both start giggling.

Once she’s stopped laughing, Clarke pushes against his chest to get him to let her down, and he reluctantly takes a step back to let her slide down onto the floor. He brightens when she quickly steps out of the dress, though, and by the time she’s stripped off her tights, he’s already down to his own underwear.

His eyes rake over her for a long moment before he hooks a finger in the waistband of her panties and pulls her closer.

She comes willingly, following him as he backs towards the bed slowly and climbing into his lap when he sits down on the edge.

“You do know Octavia’s still down the hall,” she points out when she feels his hand on the clasp of her bra. Maybe she should just go with it, but A) she doesn’t want him to remember in a few minutes and stop right when she’s ready to combust and B) he was pretty adamant about it a few days ago and she doesn’t want him to freak out about it in the morning.

“I know,” Bellamy assures her, leaning down to place a kiss just above her nipple once her bra’s out of the way. “But you’re right, she’s all the way on the other side of the apartment. Plus, she’s an adult, and she probably already thinks we’re having sex in here, so why not?”

Clarke laughs at that, a bit more high pitched than normally, trailing off into a gasp when his mouth closes around her nipple and his hand slips into her panties to slide along her slit. “You couldn’t have figured that out sooner?”

He chuckles against her breast before letting his teeth graze her nipple and pushing one finger inside her. “Better late than never… also, I might be just a tiny bit drunk.”

“Oh yeah?” She makes a conscious effort to focus, despite the delicious feeling of his finger inside her. “Then maybe I shouldn’t take advantage of you in your vulnerable state.”

She almost objects when his mouth abandons her breast and his finger slips out of her, but then she’s flat on her back and he’s kneeling above her, pushing her panties down her hips.

“Not that drunk, Princess,” he assures her as he settles between her legs, the head of his dick just barely brushing her curls.

“If you’re sure,” she says, arching her hips against him. “As long as you’re not about to back out, because if you do, I will kill you.”

He lets out a huff of a laugh at that before leaning down to kiss her. A moment later, she feels his hand slide down her side and across her hip and then he’s slowly inching inside her, and really, nobody can blame her if all rational thought flies out the window after that.

Still, when her orgasm washes over her some time later, she does bite her lip to keep from alerting their hosts to their activity.

It’s only polite.

-100-

To Clarke’s surprise, she wakes up of her own accord the next day. The blinds are closed, but the faint light that still makes it into the room tells her it must be pretty late in the morning.

She rolls over to find Bellamy’s side of the bed empty and a glass of water along with some painkillers on the bedside table. Her head is pounding a little, so she swallows them down and drains the glass before getting out of bed and pulling on some clothes.

She finds her purse on the dresser and checks her phone before leaving the room. 10:23.

The apartment almost seems empty when she opens the door, no sound alerting her to where the others might be. A few steps down the hallway, though, low voices from the kitchen reach her and she heads in that direction.

“Morning,” she greets from the doorway, and two Blake heads snap up at the sound.

Octavia’s leaning against the kitchen counter, facing the door and looking much too chipper considering how much she had to drink last night. Bellamy’s back is to Clarke, but she can tell that he tenses a little at her voice.

“Morning,” Octavia replies with a dazzling smile. “Did you sleep OK?”

Clarke keeps her eyes on Bellamy, though, who shifts a little before turning to face her, an almost natural smile on his face. “Morning, Princess.”

“Morning,” she replies, convinced that she must have interrupted some sort of private conversation. “And I slept fine, thank you.”

“Not too hung over?” Octavia asks, turning to the oven and pushing a couple of buttons. “Lincoln made his famous hangover breakfast before he left, we were just waiting for you to get up.”

“A bit of a headache but nothing too bad,” Clarke tells her. “But food sounds good.”

“I’ll be right back,” Bellamy says, moving towards her. “Bathroom.”

He presses a kiss to her temple as he passes her and then he’s gone. Clarke frowns as she focuses on Octavia again. “Is everything OK?” she asks.

Octavia looks up at her with a confused expression that only looks a little fake. “Of course, why wouldn’t it be?”

Clarke shrugs. “I kind of feel like I just interrupted something.”

“No, you didn’t,” the younger Blake assures her. “We were just talking, you know, taking a trip down memory lane… Bell got a little emotional, I think he just needed a moment.”

That could be it, she supposes… “OK. Can I help you with anything?”

“Nope,” Octavia says, popping the P. “This just needs to be heated up for ten minutes or so and we’ll be good to go. Sit.”

So she does, watching Octavia set the table. When Bellamy returns a few minutes later, he looks completely normal and joins her at the table while his sister grabs juice and some other stuff from the fridge.

Lincoln’s hangover breakfast turns out to be pancakes, bacon and French toast, and Clarke eats until she can’t get another bite down.

Luckily, they don’t have anything booked in today – maybe because Octavia was planning last night’s pub crawl all along – so they just lounge around, watching a QI marathon until Lincoln gets home mid-afternoon, at which point they order pizza and watch some more TV.

Monday is another beautiful, sunny day, in stark contrast to Bellamy’s mood. He tries not to show it too much, but Clarke knows him by now and can tell that he’s not looking forward to leaving his sister. Maybe she should have planned for a longer stay, but then that might have been even worse.

“You OK?” she asks as they pack the last things before heading to the airport.

He sighs. “Yeah. I just… I want more time with her.”

“We don’t have to leave yet,” she tells him, squeezing his hand. “Edinburgh and Glasgow were my things, we can stay here for another week and then fly straight to London, if you want.”

He immediately shakes his head. “No. I want to go, I want to see those places too. I’m just…”

“I know,” she assures him when he trails off.

He nods once, zipping his backpack and standing up straight. “Right, let’s get going before I change my mind.”

The drive to the airport is mostly silent, Octavia probably picking up on Bellamy’s mood too. She parks the car and goes with them into the terminal, waiting while they check in and drop their bags off and then following them to security.

They stop a little to the side, out of the way, and Bellamy pulls his sister into a tight hug that she returns just as fiercely. Clarke tries not to eavesdrop, but she’s right there so she can’t really help it.

“Love you, O. I’m so proud of you, you’ve grown into an amazing woman, OK? I just want you to know that.”

Octavia chuckles a little, but the sound is slightly watery. “This isn’t goodbye, big brother,” she assures him. “You’re both welcome back whenever you want. Besides, I haven’t been back in the States in years, and don’t even get me started on New York… maybe it’s time to make the trip.”

“I’d like that.”

They cling to each other for another few minutes, before Octavia finally pulls away and pulls Clarke into a hug as well.

“It’s been so wonderful getting to know you,” Octavia says quietly. “Thank you for… everything, really.”

“I’ve enjoyed getting to know you too,” Clarke replies. “And thank you.”

Octavia’s arms tighten around her for a moment before she pulls away. “Take care of him, OK?”

“I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself, O,” Bellamy complains, but Clarke just nods, a silent understanding passing between her and Octavia.

“OK, I’m going to go before I really do start crying,” Octavia announces. “Have a safe flight and enjoy… everything you’re doing. I’ve already friended Clarke on Facebook, so I expect daily updates with fabulous photos, OK?”

Clarke laughs and tells her that they’ll do their best, and then she’s gone.

Bellamy doesn’t move for a long moment, staring after his sister until she must have left the airport area altogether.

“Come on,” Clarke finally says, interlacing their fingers and pulling him along towards the queue to security.

He’s quiet as they wait, as they place their bags and things into the trays, as they go through the scanners… once they’re at their gate, with half an hour until boarding, he clears his throat.

“Can you promise me something?” he asks, voice earnest. Clarke hesitates, not knowing what he might say and not wanting to promise something she won’t be able or willing to do. “It’s nothing bad,” he continues when he sees her frown, reading her mind.

“OK.”

“Just… will you keep an eye on her?” he says. “When I’m… will you make sure she’s doing OK?”

It’s not a hard promise, since she’s already made it to herself before he even brought it up. “Of course.”

Bellamy reaches out to take her hand in his. “Thank you.”

“You know…” she starts, moving a little so she can lean her head against his shoulder. “You could see her again. I mean, she seemed open to coming to New York and I’m sure she gets some vacation time in the summer, we could see if they want to spend a couple of days in the city when we get back.”

She knows they’ve already discussed Octavia not being there when the time comes, but her being in New York should be fine.

“Yeah, maybe,” he agrees, eyes shifting to the floor and brow furrowing, as if he’s thinking hard about something. Clarke just squeezes his hand again and lets him be.

-100-

Edinburgh is much as Clarke remembers from the last time she was here. Which isn’t odd, since that was just a couple of years ago during a visit to Wells and Sasha. That’s the downside of living as long as she has, she supposes – things get jumbled in her mind sometimes.

Bellamy was mostly quiet during the short flight, eyes trained on the window beside him, but as they get closer to the city center, his mood seems to lift.

“I can see why you like this place,” he notes when the cab has dropped them off at the hotel on Castle Street. He turns in a slow circle, taking in the buildings lining the street, most of them in the distinct sandstone of the area, turned greyish with time and wear, and finally the castle on its hill in the distance. “If it weren’t for the cars it would almost be like stepping back in time.”

“Wait until you see the Royal Mile,” she tells him with a smile.

It’s already darkening out when they’ve checked in and dropped their bags off in their room, so they decide that checking out the area around the hotel and getting something to eat will have to do for now.

The next two days are spent exploring Edinburgh. Showing Bellamy her favorite spots gives Clarke a new view of the city and makes her fall in love with it all over again, through his eyes.

“This is so cool,” he breathes in her ear when they follow their guide around tight corners in Mary King’s Close, a small alleyway under new buildings along the Royal Mile that has been preserved as a historical site.

“It really is,” she agrees, just as fascinated as him – she’s heard about this place but never visited it before.

Another high-point is the castle, with all its exhibitions, artefacts and rooms. After the visit, they wander up the Royal Mile to Holyrood Abbey at the other end of the long street, admiring the numerous old buildings and churches along the way.

On Thursday, they pick up their rental car early in the morning and set off out into the Scottish countryside, having decided a little last minute the night before to take a really long detour passing Loch Ness on their way to Glasgow.

“Come on, what if it’s in the paper tomorrow that someone finally spotted the Loch Ness monster,” was Bellamy’s argument. “You’ll be sorry we didn’t go then.”

“You know that’s not going to happen, right?” Clarke replied, rolling her eyes.

He just shrugged. “I’d still like to see it.”

She squeezed his hand. “That’s all you had to say.”

So around noon, Clarke turns into the parking area at Urquhart Castle. The day is cold and while it did snow at one point during the drive, the ground here is bare. They decide not to go into the castle itself, instead wandering around the area and down to the water.

“See?” Clarke says, kicking at a stone. “No monster.”

“And what do you call that?” Bellamy replies.

She looks where he’s pointing and snorts. “That’s a log.”

“OK, fine… what about that?”

She looks again before giving him a questioning look. “You mean the duck?”

He pokes her in the ribs and she takes a step to the side to get out of his reach. “If you want to have absolutely no imagination, I guess.”

They grab some lunch at the visitor’s center, and then take the slightly longer route from the lake, to avoid going back the way they came and take the opportunity to see some more of the striking Scottish landscape. They’re technically in the Highlands, and all around them, heaths, lochs and hills stretch in all directions. Even now, in winter, with little to no vegetation, it’s an impressive sight.

The first twenty miles or so, the road follows Loch Ness and Bellamy entertains himself – and Clarke – by claiming to spot Nessie every couple of minutes, describing everything from a boat to some large birds bobbing on the water. When they leave the loch behind, he switches to trying to pronounce all the towns they pass as badly as possible, and by the time they get to Druimarben, she has some trouble focusing on the road because she’s laughing so hard.

It’s after six when they finally reach Glasgow, and Clarke just collapses face first on the bed when they get to their room, not even bothering to check out the view over a lit up George Square.

“Tired?” Bellamy asks, and she hears him move around the room before the door to the bathroom opens and closes.

“Mmm,” she hums affirmatively. “Don’t know why driving is so mentally draining.”

The bed dips when he sits down next to her and he slides a hand into her hair, rubbing her scalp. “You should have said something, I could have taken over for a while.”

She makes an effort to roll over onto her back without dislodging his hand and looks up at him. “On the wrong side of the road and the car?”

“I’m sure I can figure it out,” he replies with a shrug. “How long is the drive to London, like seven hours? Let me do some of the driving for that one.”

She considers it for a moment. Most of the time they’ll be on the M6, and the rental’s an automatic, so it should be fine. “OK, if you feel up for it you can drive for a while. It’s mostly highway, so no oncoming traffic. We’ll just pull over at a rest stop or something and switch.”

His fingers slide out of her hair to push a few strands out of her face instead and she leans into the touch. “Good. Now, how about we go grab some dinner and then call it a night? Keeping an eye out for Nessie was surprisingly tiresome too.”

Clarke can’t help but laugh at that and pushes herself to her feet.

They end up at an Italian restaurant just across the square, and somehow, she gets some energy back from the delicious Calabrian chicken, so they stroll around a little on the way back to the hotel, checking out the square and the streets around it a little more.

Friday morning, they take their time in the on-site restaurant, really enjoying the delicious Scottish breakfast, before they leave the hotel for a day on the town. The weather’s not exactly ideal for sightseeing, the sky cloudy and threatening rain, even if it’s not raining now, but they still decide to set out for their first stop, the cathedral, on foot.

The church itself doesn’t take too long to explore, but they continue to the museum next door and then stroll around the Necropolis, the old cemetery, behind the cathedral, for a couple of hours. Apart from the fascinating old tombstones – yes, Clarke likes visiting old graveyards and reading names and dates, she knows it’s a little weird – the spot offers an amazing view of the city below.

When their stomachs start rumbling, they head off back towards the city center for some lunch and a bit more exploring in daylight.

Saturday is still rainy, and after breakfast they take an Uber to the Kelvingrove Museum. It’s a fascinating place that Clarke has been to a couple of times before, but she’s always just as amazed by the many exhibitions. Bellamy’s eyes widen as soon as they step into the entrance hall and she can’t help but smile – there’s so much more to see.

“Come on,” she says, tugging him along into the first exhibition hall.

It would probably take days to look at every single item in the museum, which they don’t have, but they spend a good four hours slowly advancing through the grand halls, up and down the stairs, through door after door.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Bellamy says when they finally leave, to find that the rain has let up, even if the skies are still a steely grey.

“Yeah, it’s definitely one of my favorite museums,” she agrees. “Do you want to head back to the hotel, or are you up for a bit of a walk?”

He happily agrees to a walk, so they set out through the park surrounding the museum, taking a detour before they reach the other end, up a path and some stairs that lead them to the University of Glasgow. The late nineteenth century building could be taken from one of the Harry Potter movies, in Clarke’s opinion – all towers and pinnacles, leaded windows and parapets.

“So did you enjoy my little detour?” she asks when they’re in bed later that night, both on their backs still catching their breaths from their previous activities.

“Of course,” Bellamy assures her. “If I had known there were so many amazing historical places here, I would have put it on the list myself.”

She rolls onto her side so she can cuddle up to him and his arm goes around her waist. “Good, I’m glad.”

Chapter Text

They get an early start on Sunday, just grabbing some breakfast before checking out of the hotel and hitting the road, Clarke behind the wheel to maneuver them out of the city and onto the M6. Once they’re on the highway, though, they take turns driving, switching at rest stops. Bellamy is a little tense the first few minutes he’s behind the wheel, but seems to get used to it pretty quickly.

It’s the weekend, so there’s more traffic than there was during their drive from Edinburgh to Glasgow, but they still make good time. Even with a couple of bathroom stops and a longer stop for food somewhere a few miles after the greater Liverpool-Manchester area, it’s not quite two in the afternoon when Clarke spots the first sign for Stratford.

“Hey…” she starts, unlocking her phone and opening Google Maps. “You want to make a quick stop in Stratford-upon-Avon? You know, where Shakespeare was born?”

Bellamy’s driving but glances at her at the question. “We have time for that?”

“It should be fine,” she assures him, checking the time the app says it should take from there to Wells and Sasha’s place in Notting Hill. “It’s only another two hours to London, if we spend an hour or so here we should still arrive by seven, even if the traffic’s horrible the last bit. Wells promised to make sure there’s food if we give him a heads-up before we get there, and we don’t have anything else planned tonight. Or we’ll be passing Oxford a little further on, if you’d rather stop there.”

“No, I think Stratford would be more interesting,” he decides. “So am I getting off soon?”

“Not for a while, just stay in the left lane, maybe there’s a rest stop where we can switch before the exit.”

There isn’t, but Bellamy handles the turn-off and subsequent roundabouts fine, only pulling into a driveway on the side of the road when they get onto the narrower A439.

“Maybe we’d better switch before I turn into oncoming traffic,” he suggests, giving her a sheepish look.

Clarke laughs a little at that. “Sure.”

She’s not sure when she was in Stratford last – she does have a vague memory of having visited Shakespeare’s birth place at some point with Wells, probably when they lived in London back in the fifties and early sixties, and wants to say that there were a lot of half-timber cottages with thatched roofs, but honestly, that could describe any village in the British countryside at the time. Besides, the town has probably changed since then, so she sets the satnav to a public parking lot in the center of town before she pulls onto the road again.

It turns out her memory is pretty spot on. While some of the houses lining the pedestrian street in the middle of town look new-ish, there are still a lot of half-timbered buildings, though most of the roofs are tile these days.

They stop outside the old building where William Shakespeare was born and raised, but decide against going inside, since they don’t know how long the tour might take and they want to get going soon again. Continuing down the street, they stop for a coffee before returning the way they came. Outside the coffee shop are two old-fashioned red phone booths, and Bellamy refuses to keep going until Clarke takes a photo of him in one of them.

“There’ll be a lot of these in London too, you know,” she tries to tell him, but he’s adamant, so she gives in.

The traffic picks up a little as they get closer to London, and when the satnav says they have half an hour left, Clarke calls Wells.

“Hello?” his voice echoes in the car.

“Hey, Wells.”

“Hi, you getting close?”

She glances at the satnav. “The system says twenty-eight minutes, but there’s some traffic, so probably make that forty-five minutes to an hour, at least.”

“Anything in particular you’re in the mood for your first night in London, or will Sasha’s cooking do?”

She considers for a moment. “Think she can make her chicken enchilada casserole?” She glances at Bellamy. “It is so good.”

Wells chuckles over the line. “She did pick up the ingredients for that earlier, so you’re in luck.”

“Yes! How’s parking looking?”

“The driveway’s available for you guys, I moved the car to the street earlier.”

“Great, see you in anywhere between half an hour and, I don’t know, two hours then. You never know with London traffic.”

“Drive safe.”

They continue on their way and soon enough turn off the highway and onto Holland Park Avenue. Clarke knows the way, of course, but she leaves the satnav on anyway, so when she takes a left before the system wants her to, it of course objects to the detour.

“You made the satnav lady angry,” Bellamy notes amusedly, reaching out to turn it off. “I’m guessing you have a reason?”

“There’s usually a lot of traffic on Ladbroke Grove,” she tells him. “This way’s a little longer, but it’s almost always faster.” He hums in agreement and within minutes, she’s pulling into the off street parking space in front of Wells and Sasha’s house. “Here we are.”

Bellamy gets out of the car and looks around. “I feel like I’m in Notting Hill,” he notes.

“You are,” she tells him with a frown.

“No, I know. I meant the movie.”

“Oh. Well, one of the houses further up this street was used for exterior shots, I’m pretty sure,” she says. “And there are those little private gardens all over the place. Wells should have the key to the one behind this house, remind me to ask him so we can take a look at some point. Unless you want the full movie experience and prefer climbing the wall?”

“Key’s fine, thanks.”

Clarke freezes in the middle of reaching out to grab her bag from the trunk of the car. “Hang on… you’ve seen Notting Hill?”

He sighs. “Not voluntarily. O had a Hugh Grant phase when she was, like, twelve,” he explains. “I don’t know how many times I saw that damn movie, it was her favorite.”

“Aw, poor baby,” she teases with a laugh. “So you want to go looking for the blue door?”

He gives her a withering look. “Funny.”

She grabs her bag, slamming the trunk closed and looping her arm through Bellamy’s. “Don’t worry,” she assures him. “It’s not actually there, anyway.”

He groans but lets her pull him along towards the front door.

Wells opens before she can even knock, a big smile on his face.

“Welcome!” he exclaims, stepping aside and waving them into the hallway. “Let me take those.” Clarke hands over her bag and he grabs Bellamy’s too before heading towards the stairs. “Sasha’s in the kitchen, you know where it is. I’ll just put these in your regular room.”

She offers him a smile. “Thanks, Wells.” She opens the door to the hallway closet and they both hang their jackets up and remove their shoes before venturing further into the house.

“This is… not what I was expecting,” Bellamy notes quietly.

“No? What were you expecting?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know, more traditional, I guess. Maybe dark wainscoting, heavy velvet curtains, winged leather armchairs…”

She can’t help but laugh. “You just described Wells’ office to a T. But the rest of the house is mostly Sasha.”

Which means light base colors, minimalistic décor but large, comfy furniture and plenty of details in bold accent colors.

“Did I hear my name?” the woman in question asks as they turn into the huge kitchen, which is open to the living room that runs along the entire back of the house. “Hi, guys!”

She comes to greet them in the middle of the room, giving Clarke a tight hug before pulling a slightly surprised Bellamy into one as well.

“Hi, Sash, it’s good to be here,” Clarke says when the hugs are done. “And the food smells amazing, as usual.”

Sasha bends down to check the oven. “It should be another ten minutes. Come on, I have wine – I assume you need it after a day on the road!”

By the time Wells comes into the kitchen, all three of them are seated at the large table with glasses of chardonnay in front of them.

“So, Bellamy…” he starts when he’s grabbed himself a glass and joined them. “Have you gotten over the shock of finding out about Soul Keepers yet?”

Clarke almost chokes on her wine, but Bellamy just chuckles. “I think so. The dying thing might take a little longer though… not that I have that much time to get used to it.” Everyone goes silent for a long moment before he continues. “Come on, it was just a joke, guys!”

Wells and Sasha start laughing, sounding a little relieved, and Clarke tries to join in, but it feels hollow, and she knows she’s a little distracted the rest of the evening.

Which Bellamy of course notices. “What’s wrong, Princess?” he asks as they climb the stairs later. “You’ve been quiet all night.”

She shrugs. “It’s nothing, just… I don’t really like it when you… talk about it.”

He looks confused for a moment but then he grimaces. “Sorry, I should have thought about that. I really was just joking.”

“I know.” She gives him a smile she hopes will assure him that she’s OK and changes the topic. “So what did you think of Sasha’s food? Amazing, right?”

He gives her a long look but doesn’t call her out on her obvious subject change. “It really was, yeah.”

Still, when Bellamy’s fast asleep a little later, Clarke stays awake next to him, trying and failing to push his words out of her mind.

It takes a long time before she finally succumbs to sleep.

-100-

London isn’t quite as intense as Dublin was, possibly because Wells hasn’t planned anything for them and both he and Sasha are working – they both do volunteer work, Wells at an animal sanctuary and Sasha at a sort of group home for teenagers who have gotten into trouble or just need a safe place for whatever reason. They’re taking some time off to go with Clarke and Bellamy on their two-day-trip down to Devon, but for now, they’re on their own.

On Monday morning, they all have breakfast together before Sasha leaves for a Transfer, Wells for the shelter, and Clarke and Bellamy for their first day of sightseeing in London.

“So what’s on the agenda today?” Bellamy asks as they enter Holland Park subway station.

“We’re starting at the Tower,” she tells him. He knows everything they’re doing, but he hasn’t wanted to look at the actual itinerary since he thinks it takes some of the fun out of traveling.

“Nice."

She’s not sure ‘nice’ is the word she’d use to describe the Tower. She’s visited before, while she lived here back in the fifties, and gruesome might be a better description, especially when you think about all the horrible things that have happened there over the centuries.

She watches Bellamy more than she watches the different exhibits, enjoying the way his eyes light up at a particularly interesting piece of historical information.

After a couple of hours in the fortress, they cross Tower Bridge, climbing up to the shielded walkway to admire the views of the city from there, before setting out along the south bank of the Thames.

They pass The Shard in the distance, but decide against its viewing platform in favor of taking a tour in the London Eye later, hoping that the clouds that are gathering at the horizon won’t result in rain. They do stop at the Globe theatre, though, just checking out the exterior and the areas inside that are free to visit.

Clarke had estimated three hours at the Tower, so since they’re making good time, they take a brief detour across Millennium Bridge to check out St. Paul’s Cathedral before getting back on track. They grab some lunch before they reach the London Eye and don’t have to wait too long to climb aboard one of the pods.

“So, what do you think of London so far?” she asks while they’re moving slowly towards the top of the wheel, the city in question spreading out underneath them.

There are only two more people in their pod, a Japanese couple in their fifties or so, chattering animatedly about what they’re seeing and snapping photo after photo with their phones. Bellamy has Raven’s camera raised and has taken a couple of pictures, but seems to prefer watching the view.

“So far, I get why you love it,” he replies, giving her a smile. “I didn’t really see London as a historic destination, to be honest, it was more… I wanted to go here, experience the city, see the Tower, of course, Buckingham Palace… but I could probably keep myself busy for weeks, maybe even months, just exploring the different sites with historical value around the city.”

She understands what he means, she thinks – at first glance, London is like any other bustling, modern city with millions of inhabitants, but as soon as you scratch the surface, you find so much more, layers and layers of history stretching all the way back to the Romans. They actually passed a part of the old Roman city wall on their walk from the tube to the Tower earlier, and they’ll be checking out both an old Roman amphitheater and a temple that Clarke didn’t even know existed while they’re here.

She desperately wants to tell him that he’ll be able to explore all he wants, but she knows it would be a lie. They only have a week here, and she knows they won’t be back. There’s not time for that.

Almost like Bellamy’s read her mind, he comes over to where she’s sitting on the bench in the middle and joins her, pulling her against his side. “Stop thinking so much,” he murmurs in her ear. “Let’s just enjoy this, make the most of the days we have in the city, OK? That was your idea, remember?”

Clarke nods, swallowing down the lump in her throat and putting on a smile. “Of course.”

They take a silly selfie at the top of the wheel, for Raven’s benefit, and then continue gazing out over London on the way down. Bellamy keeps whispering silly made up stories about different buildings they see, making her laugh out loud and startle their Japanese companions, and by the time they leave the pod again, she’s managed to push the sad thoughts away.

For the moment.

They set out along the river once more, climbing the stairs up to Westminster Bridge a few minutes later and crossing the Thames for the second time. Big Ben is wrapped in scaffolding and barely visible, but they do have a nice view of the Houses of Parliament, and Bellamy pauses to take some more pictures.

Soon after, they reach their third stop of the day – Churchill’s War Rooms, a museum housed in underground facilities used by the British government during the Second World War. This is new to Clarke as well, since it didn’t open until two decades after she left London, and she hasn’t gotten around to visiting during any of her trips since. She did experience the war, at least from the American side, so she honestly hasn’t really felt a need to.

It’s interesting, though, she has to admit. Even if the best part is watching Bellamy take in the different displays behind glass walls, the map room, the war cabinet room…

It’s a little after three when they emerge into the fresh air again, and Clarke pauses on the street. She doesn’t really have anything else planned today, but they’re close to Westminster Abbey.

“Do you want to check out Westminster while we’re here?” she asks, giving Bellamy a questioning look. “They close at three thirty today, so we should probably get a move on if you do.”

He just chuckles and grabs her by the hands. “Stop. Breathe. Slow down, OK? We don’t have to hurry, I’m not that interested in going inside, it’s enough to just have a look from the outside.”

She hesitates. “Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

“OK.” She frowns. “Are you tired? Do you want to take the tube back, or we could get an Uber?”

He hasn’t shown any signs of being tired, but they have been basically walking for the past six hours, so it wouldn’t surprise her. Now that they’re standing still, she can feel her feet aching a little.

“I’m fine, Princess, don’t worry,” he assures her with a smile though. “It’s not even dark yet, is there anything else you want to do in this area?”

She considers that for a moment. “Well, Buckingham Palace is pretty close by.”

“Great. Let’s check that out, and then…how far would it be to walk back to Wells and Sasha’s place?”

Clarke’s not completely sure, so she pulls out her phone and opens her maps. “Google says around an hour and fifteen minutes, so pretty far.”

He leans in to be able to see the little map too. “I don’t mind. And look, we’d be going through Hyde Park, I want to check that out anyway. And Kensington Gardens, if we take just a little detour we can cover Kensington Palace as well. What do you say?”

She doesn’t really have to think about it, she loves strolling through Hyde Park, and this way they’re clearing up all of Sunday, which she had put down for checking out both Buckingham Palace and the parks.

“I say that sounds like a plan.”

So they head off, but instead of going back out to Birdcage Walk, they cross Horse Guards Road and enter St James’s Park.

Buckingham Palace is much like Clarke remembers it – the black, cast iron fence with gilded spikes surrounding the huge building and the Victoria Memorial overlooking the area.

After admiring the palace for a bit, they continue up Constitutional Hill, past Wellington Arch, entering Hyde Park through the gate at Apsley House.

It’s been a while since Clarke’s visited London at this time of the year – she prefers spring, when the trees in the park break out in pretty flowers and the sun starts warming up the city. It’s beautiful like this too, though. All traces of the park’s Christmas attraction, Winter Wonderland, are gone by now, but the sun, weak as it is, is shining down on them, lighting their path. They follow The Serpentine and then The Long Water, passing the Princess Diana Memorial Fountain, before taking a sharp left towards Kensington Palace.

By the time they finally turn onto Lansdowne Road again, it’s dark, the first stars already appearing overhead.

“You only now getting back?” Wells asks with a raised eyebrow when they find him in the living room.

“Yup,” Clarke confirms, flopping down next to him on the couch. “Long day.”

Bellamy just chuckles as he continues into the kitchen. “You’d think we’ve been hiking a mountain or something,” he teases. “It was just walking. Anybody want something to drink?”

“Grab me a beer, thanks,” Wells calls back, giving Clarke an amused look which she rolls her eyes at.

“Me too!”

They order Indian for dinner – because Clarke is still of the firm opinion that Indian food is best in London, she has yet to find a restaurant in the tri-state area that do chicken tikka masala half as well as any of her favorite places in London – and basically just lounge around in front of the TV for the rest of the night.

Tuesday, they wake up to rain pounding violently against the windows, and instead of catching the tube, like Clarke had planned, she and Bellamy get a ride from Wells to the Sherlock Holmes Museum. They spend an hour or so exploring the home of the fictional detective, during which the downpour luckily lets up. The sky is still an angry shade of grey, but they get to Madame Tussauds dry, and that’s really all you can ask on a day like this in London, as Clarke knows only too well.

They spend longer in the wax museum, before catching the tube from Baker Street to King’s Cross, to check out Platform 9 ¾ and the Harry Potter Shop. They embrace the tourist aspect of it all and snap photos of each other with the luggage trolley embedded in the wall under a sign for the platform, before leaving the station for some lunch.

Once they’re both completely stuffed, they wind their way down to Oxford Street, passing the British Museum, where Bellamy lingers longingly.

“Don’t worry,” Clarke assures him. “I wouldn’t take you to London and make you miss the British Museum. We’ll have all day here on Friday.”

His eyes light up at that and he willingly lets her tug him along again, and soon they’re in the middle of the hustle and bustle of London’s main shopping street.

They’re not really here to shop, of course, so they just stroll along, Clarke people watching and Bellamy admiring the varied architecture.

They’ve just turned onto Poland Street – on their way to the area around Carnaby Street, which Clarke loves – when they meet another Soul Keeper. It’s not someone Clarke recognizes, but she nods at him almost out of habit, getting a half-smile and a nod in return.

“Did you know that guy?” Bellamy asks, turning to glance at the man over his shoulder. “I mean, nobody we’ve met so far has greeted us in any way, so I’m guessing it’s not a London thing.”

She shakes her head. “Oh, no, he was another Soul Keeper, it’s sort of expected that we at least acknowledge each other when we run into each other,” she explains.

“How do you know he’s a Keeper?” Bellamy continues with a frown.

“No Number.”

He just stares at her for a moment before realization dawns on him. “Of course, since you guys are technically immortal, you don’t have Numbers.”

“Nope,” she confirms.

“So how many Soul Keeper do you think there are in London?”

Clarke considers the question for a moment as they cross Great Marlborough Street. “Well, when I lived here back in the fifties, there were about a hundred and twenty, I think. The population has grown since then, but I’m not sure the death rate has changed much, so I would guess somewhere between a hundred and twenty and a hundred and fifty, probably.”

He takes in the information in silence for a moment. “I honestly don’t know what I was expecting, so I can’t say if I think that sounds like a lot or not. How many are there in New York?”

“Right now, there are a little over a hundred,” she tells him. “In general, the number of Keepers in a specific city or area relates directly to the number of deaths in a year. We’re expected to do on average two Transfers per day, though of course that varies a lot, some days you might have three or four, and others you don’t have any at all. So for every seven hundred deaths or so in a year, there’s one Keeper.”

“What about really small towns?”

“In that case, you’re assigned more than the town in question. When I lived in Clovelly, which only has a few hundred inhabitants, I had the whole county of Devon, along with three other Keepers.”

“Oh.” Bellamy nods thoughtfully. “Is the county large?”

“Not huge, but I did do a lot of driving during my years there.”

“Huh.” With that, he lets the topic go and turns his attention back to their surroundings – they’ve just reached Carnaby Street with its beautiful half-timbered houses and stroll around aimlessly for a while, before eventually finding their way to Regent Street and then Oxford Circus.

At New Bond Street, Clarke once again takes a left, and a few minutes later, they find themselves looking up at Claridge’s impressive façade.

“A hotel, Princess?” Bellamy asks amusedly. “You know, if you’re… in the mood, we can just head back to the house.”

She punches him in the arm for that comment. “Please, if I wanted to have my way with you I wouldn’t pick a hotel with rates that start at over a thousand pounds.”

He abruptly stops chuckling. “Per night?”

“Per hour,” she replies with a wink, stepping through the door when the doorman holds it open for them.

“I’m going to assume you’re joking about that one,” Bellamy says quietly, following her into the hotel.

It’s been ages since Clarke had afternoon tea at Claridge’s, but as soon as their selection is placed on the table in front of them, she remembers why the hotel gets the ‘best afternoon tea in London’ award year after year.

“God, I know we were talking about Chinese food tonight,” Bellamy says as they leave the hotel some time later, emerging into the now dark street, “but I honestly don’t think I can get anything more down today.”

Clarke loops her arm through his and pulls him along in the right direction, back towards Oxford Street. “I know,” she agrees. “Afternoon tea is deceptively filling.”

It’s almost six by now, and the street has filled with people while they were enjoying their food. Soon enough, though, they reach the park and leave Oxford Street and most of the crowds behind.

It’s a surprisingly nice evening, considering the horrible morning, and as soon as they don’t have to weave between people, they slow to a more leisurely pace – it is a bit of a walk back to Wells and Sasha’s place, after all, and they’re not in any hurry.

They walk mostly in silence, Clarke pointing out something they pass now and then, or Bellamy asking about something he finds interesting.

A sense of calm settles over Clarke as they slowly make their way through Bayswater and then Notting Hill, and she realizes that this is all she wants. She doesn’t need a bunch of sights and attractions – not that she isn’t enjoying showing them to Bellamy and watching the amazement on his face at whatever it is they’re currently checking out – all she needs, all she wants is these quiet moments, the two of them simply enjoying each other’s company.

For as long as she gets to.

Chapter Text

Clarke’s secretly glad that Wells and Sasha are going with them down to the coast – it means she doesn’t have to drive. Yes, she’s gotten the hang of being on the left side of the road again, but her instincts are still that she’s on the wrong side, and she has to be on high alert all the time to avoid going with them. Which is probably part of why she was so exhausted after their drive from Edinburgh to Glasgow.

Now, though, she gets to enjoy the trip from the backseat and can focus on pointing out everything interesting they pass to Bellamy.

They set out as soon as they’ve had breakfast on Wednesday morning, and reach Stonehenge with plenty of time to spare for their slot at eleven. They start at the visitor center, where they get some information before being directed to the pick-up place for the shuttle that will take them out to the actual stone circle.

“We can’t get closer than this?” Clarke asks when they get to the roped path that winds its way around the stones. “The last time we were here we could walk among the stones, remember Wells?”

Wells leans in close to her. “You might want to keep your voice down,” he advices quietly. “The stones were roped off in the seventies, to avoid them getting damaged by visitors climbing on them and stuff.”

A middle-aged woman passing them is giving her an odd look, and Clarke quickly looks away. “Oops.”

They follow the path, stopping at the spot where they get closest to the stones to snap some photos.

“I mean…” Bellamy starts, frowning a little at the circle, “it’s cool and all, but I have to admit it’s a little underwhelming.”

Sasha laughs at that. “I know what you mean – the first time Wells and I were here, I had the same reaction. He had been telling me about his previous visit, which I’m guessing Clarke has too.”

Clarke squeezes Bellamy’s arm. “Sorry for giving you unrealistic expectations. I should have done more research when I booked the tickets, but I just assumed it would be the same.”

He presses a kiss to her temple. “Don’t worry about it, it is still a cool experience.”

“Hey…” Wells says, eyes on his phone. “It says here that there’s another stone circle pretty close by. It’s not as well maintained as this one, but you can get closer to the stones, right next to them, in fact.”

Sasha joins him, peaking at the screen over his shoulder. “It’s not that much out of our way,” she says. “Maybe fifteen, twenty minutes? And then it’s about an hour to Bath, so we can still get there in time for a late lunch and some exploration.”

Clarke looks up at Bellamy, who shrugs to say he’s happy either way, but she can see the excitement in his eyes. “We’re not in any hurry. Clovelly’s not big, we’ll have plenty of time to explore the town tomorrow before heading back to London,” she decides. “Let’s do it.”

They head back to the car with the next shuttle, where Wells plugs their new destination into the satnav, and soon they’re on the narrower A360 en route to Avebury.

“This is more like it,” Bellamy notes half an hour later, when they’ve parked and followed the signs to the stones in the small village. He rests a hand against the rough surface of one of the megaliths, tilting his head back to take the whole thing in.

Clarke quickly grabs her phone and captures the moment, earning a raised eyebrow. “That one’s going on Facebook,” she announces, opening the app to upload it right away.

Bellamy sighs. “Seriously?”

“I promised Octavia I’d keep her posted on our trip, remember?” she tells him as she captions the photo. “And Miller, come to think of it.”

“You and Miller are Facebook friends?”

The image finishes uploading and she puts her phone away again, looping her arm through his. “He wanted to keep up with our trip too, and since you refuse to get an account…”

“Yeah, yeah,” he grumbles, pulling her along towards the next stone. “He’s been nagging me about it for years, but it’s not like there’s any point in doing it now.”

Ignoring the underlying meaning of his words, Clarke pulls him around to snap a selfie of the two of them with parts of the stone circle behind them. “All the more reason for me to post a bunch of photos,” she says lightly, pleased when he chuckles at that and drops the subject.

By the time they reach Bath, all four of them are hungry enough that their stomachs are rumbling, so as soon as they’ve parked, they find a restaurant. After some wonderful pasta, they stroll around for a couple of hours, checking out what Bath has to offer – the Crescent and assembly rooms, which make them all feel like they’re in a Jane Austen novel, a quick look in the impressive abbey and then, to satisfy Bellamy’s thirst for Roman history, an hour at the Roman baths.

The sun has already set when they get in the car for the final leg of the journey, and not far outside Bath, darkness envelopes them in a soft blanket. It’s been a pretty intense day so far, so Clarke scoots over into the middle seat of the car and leans her head against Bellamy’s shoulder.

She has no intention of falling asleep, but watching the dark countryside pass by the car window must have a soothing effect on her, because suddenly, she’s being shaken awake gently. When she opens her eyes, he’s looking down at her with a soft smile. “We’re here, sleepy head.”

“Mmm… give me a sec.”

He chuckles but gets out of the car when she leans back against the seat and squeezes her eyes shut again, and she stretches as much as she can in the cramped space before following.

It’s already almost nine, so all they really want is to get checked in and crash in bed, but since they haven’t eaten since they got to Bath, they order some sandwiches in the on-site bar. The woman behind the reception desk promises to have them sent up to their rooms as soon as they’re finished.

Clarke knows they have a view of the harbor and sea beyond, but when she and Bellamy get to their room, the windows are dark, only a few bobbing lights visible in the distance, probably on boats off the coast. She drops her bag on the bed and shrugs out of her coat before rummaging around for the sweats she brought to sleep in while Bellamy disappears into the bathroom. Once she’s changed, she just slumps forward onto the bed, burying her face in the soft comforter. A moment later, the bathroom door opens again and a laugh fills the room.

“Will you make it through dinner?” he asks, sitting down by her head and running his fingers through her hair.

She turns her head to be able to respond. “No guarantees.”

He laughs again just as there’s a knock on the door, and Clarke makes an effort to roll onto her back and sit up while he opens the door for the receptionist.

The smell of the sandwiches does perk her up a little, and she joins him at the small table by the window.

“It’s a shame it’s so dark,” he notes, squinting out the window. “I bet the view is amazing.”

“You’ll see in the morning,” she replies, taking a bite out of her sandwich. “Unless this place has changed completely since I lived here, the harbor’s full of little colorful fishing boats that balance on their hulls at low tide and the cottages look like they’ve all been here for hundreds of years. It’s a beautiful village.”

Bellamy nods. “So when do we need to head back to London tomorrow?”

“The drive’s about four hours without any stops,” she replies with a shrug. “So around three, maybe? We don’t have anything planned in the evening, but it’s still nice to not get back too late.”

“So plenty of time to explore, then.”

Clarke can’t help but laugh at that. “Trust me – we don’t need that much time to explore this place.”

“Still, it’s nice to not have to rush.”

By the time they’ve both finished their sandwiches and gotten ready for bed, Clarke has about enough energy left to crawl under the comforter. She sinks into the soft pillows and lets out a long breath. When she feels the bed shift next to her, she rolls onto her side to be able to cuddle closer, throwing one leg over Bellamy’s and wrapping an arm around him.

“Love you,” she mumbles, burying her nose against his throat. She feels his lips against the top of her head.

“Love you too, Princess. Now go to sleep.”

She doesn’t need to be told twice.

-100-

Since they went to bed early, they’re up by a little after seven, while it’s still dark out. Wells and Sasha join them in the restaurant for breakfast only a few minutes after they sit down, and they admire the sunrise as they eat.

“So what’s on the agenda today?” Wells asks, finishing off his bacon.

“I figured we’d explore the town and surrounding area for a while, grab some lunch and then head back towards London,” Clarke replies after swallowing the last bite of her scrambled eggs. “I doubt much has changed since we lived here, but the weather’s OK so it’ll be nice to just stroll around the town a little. Plus, it’s low tide for the next four hours or so, so if you’re feeling adventurous, we could check out the beach, I used to love walking along it.”

Everyone agrees with the plan, so after they’ve finished the food, they check out and pack the car before venturing out on the pebbled beach. They follow it for a couple of miles, until the odd stone formation called Blackchurch rock comes into view.

“I’m getting flashbacks to Iceland,” Bellamy notes, coming to a stop a few feet from the large stone arch.

Clarke looks up at the rock face, which is indeed very similar to the cliffs at the Reynisfjara beach. “I see what you mean.”

“Can you walk through it?” he asks, looking between her and the archway.

“Only one way to find out.”

They pick their way carefully along the rocky ground, eventually emerging back on the beach on the other side.

The tide is starting to come in when they get back to the harbor, but the beach is still dry, so they continue past the town to check out the waterfall a few hundred yards in the other direction, and then the lifeboat station on the way back.

As if they haven’t had enough hiking, they then head up High Street, which is so steep it’s actually been terraced into a sort of staircase with very long steps. They check out the Donkey Shop, and then the actual donkeys at the top of the hill, munching away at some hay.

Still, by the time they get back to the inn down by the harbor, where the tide has now come in, it’s only noon.

“Do you guys want to just grab lunch here, or go back up to the tea rooms?” Sasha asks, voice a little too off-hand, checking out the board with the lunch menu outside the inn’s entrance.

“I don’t know about the rest of you,” Wells replies, glancing back the way they came a minute ago, “but I’m not that keen on trekking back up that hill, so I vote for the inn.”

Bellamy immediately raises his hand. “Seconded.”

“Yeah, sounds good,” Clarke agrees, looking between the three of them. She’s not sure why, but it feels like she’s missing something… She pushes the thought away as Wells holds the door to the hotel open for them. It’s probably nothing.

Before they reach the restaurant, though, the receptionist intercepts them. “Ms. Griffin?”

Clarke stops in her tracks. “Yes?”

“I’m sorry, but there’s a problem in your room,” the woman says with a contrite smile. “Would you mind terribly accompanying me up there so we can have it sorted?”

A problem in their room? Did they forget something? Clarke’s sure that she checked everything before they left the room, but she supposes it’s possible she missed something, even if they barely unpacked. But why wouldn’t the housekeeper just have brought whatever it is down to the reception? She knows they didn’t break or damage anything.

“Sure,” she agrees with a nod, figuring it’s best to just get it over with. “You guys go ahead, I’ll join you in a minute.”

Wells squeezes her hand before he and Sasha disappear through the door to the restaurant, but Bellamy doesn’t move.

“Go on,” she tells him. “I’ll take care of this, whatever it is.”

“I’ll go with you,” he replies immediately.

She considers arguing that there’s no reason for both of them to go, but just as she opens her mouth, he raises an eyebrow and she knows there’s no point.

They follow the receptionist up the stairs to their floor, where she holds the door to their room open for them. Clarke steps through, scanning the room to figure out what might have happened.

Everything looks fine, the bed’s been made and the window is cracked open slightly, letting in some air and the sound of the waves.

And the small table is set with two covered plates as well as a lit candle and a single, red rose in a vase in the center of the table.

“What the…” she starts, snapping her head around when the door closes behind them.

Bellamy gives her a slightly sheepish look. “Happy Valentine’s Day.”

The way his voice rises a little at the end makes it sound almost like a question and she can’t do anything but stare at him for a long moment.

“It’s…” she then starts, going through their itinerary in her mind and coming to the conclusion that it is, indeed, the fourteenth of February. “I didn’t even remember.”

“I kind of figured.” Bellamy chuckles before going serious again. “You’re not one of those people who think Valentine’s Day is just a commercial holiday designed to sell flowers and chocolate, are you? I mean, I did ask Wells and he thought you would appreciate this, but if you…”

“Hey,” she cuts him off before reaching up for a kiss. “I love this. I can’t believe you managed to pull it off without me figuring it out, though. How did you do that?”

“Well, I had some help,” he admits, leading her over to the table and pulling the chair out for her before sitting down opposite. “I asked Wells to talk to the receptionist last night – thanks for falling asleep in the car, by the way – then the hotel set all of this up after we checked out this morning, and Wells called when we were getting closer so they could get the food ready at the right time.”

Clarke just shakes her head, unable to stop smiling. “Wow.” She lifts the cloche over her plate to reveal baked salmon with roasted potatoes. “This looks delicious.”

He uncovers his plate as well, giving her a hesitant look. “They did offer to do their full Valentine’s menu, with some sort of oysters for starters and homemade ice cream for dessert, but I decided to stick with just the main course, I hope that’s OK?”

“It’s perfect,” she assures him, popping a potato in her mouth. “I’ve never really liked oysters, and it’s a little cold for ice cream.”

Bellamy lets out a relieved breath. “We do have this though,” he says, leaning down to grab something from the floor next to his chair and producing a heart shaped box of chocolates.

“Where did you get that?” she asks incredulously.

“We stopped to get gas while you were asleep in the car yesterday,” he explains. “The gas station didn’t have a huge selection, but they did have this.”

“Well, aren’t you a real romantic?” she says in a teasing voice, and he shrugs.

“I figured it’s our first Valentine’s Day, and, you know…” he trails off, but she knows what he was going to say, of course – that it’s also their only Valentine’s Day together. She refuses to let the thought get her down though, and is relieved when he clears his throat and continues. “I just wanted to do something for you, make the day a little special.”

Clarke reaches over the table to squeeze his hand. “Mission accomplished.”

They have a wonderful lunch, talking and laughing about whatever comes to mind. When they’ve both cleared their plates, Bellamy opens the chocolate box and somehow, they end up feeding the pralines to each other. If it weren’t for the fact that the bed has already been made and it would be only too obvious what they’ve been up to if they leave it in a different state, Clarke’s pretty sure they would have ended up between the sheets.

“Tonight,” Bellamy murmurs in her ear as they leave the room again, his hand trailing down her spine to settle against her lower back and making her stomach swoop, and she knows he must have thought the same thing she just did.

“I’ll hold you to that,” she replies just as quietly, glancing up at him and watching his eyes darken.

They meet Wells and Sasha by the car, both with big smiles on their faces.

“Good surprise?” Wells asks when they reach them.

“Great surprise,” Clarke replies. “But I’m amazed you managed to keep your mouth shut, you’ve always been awful at keeping secrets.”

He rolls his eyes as he unlocks the car. “Maybe I’ve gotten better at it.”

She snorts in response. “Yeah, right.”

To Wells and Sasha, the drive back to London is probably pretty uneventful. To Clarke, though, it’s something of a chicken race where she and Bellamy continuously push the limits of what they can do to turn the other one on without their two friends in the front seat noticing. By the time Wells pulls into the driveway at their house, she’s about ready to pull Bellamy straight up to their room and have her way with him, but it’s only six fifteen. It’s too early to claim to be tired and call it an early night, and though she considers, for just a brief moment, to simply tell Wells and Sasha the truth, she quickly decides against it.

Bellamy disappears into the bathroom as soon as they enter the house, while Sasha heads upstairs and Clarke follows Wells into the living room.

When Bellamy comes into the room a few minutes later, Clarke gives him an innocent look. “You OK, babe?”

His eyes narrow as he slumps down next to her on the couch. “Just fine, Princess, you?”

“Oh, I’m just dandy.”

Wells gives her a confused look and she quickly averts her eyes before she starts blushing. She feels his eyes on her for another moment, then he seems to decide that it’s nothing and turns the TV on to a soccer game.

Sasha comes down the stairs fifteen minutes later, changed into a pretty, red dress with her hair up in a fancy chignon.

“Shouldn’t we get going soon?” she asks, putting on her second earring as she stops in front of Wells. “The Uber will be here any minute.”

“Get going?” Clarke asks.

“Right,” Wells replies. “You guys already did your Valentine’s Day thing, but we actually have reservations at The Ivy at seven thirty.”

“You guys will be OK on your own for a few hours, right?” Sasha adds innocently. Maybe a little too innocently, if her slight smirk when Clarke looks up at her is any indication.

“I think we’ll be just fine,” she says, squeezing Bellamy’s arm. “Right, babe?”

“Of course,” he quickly agrees. “Go, have fun. Don’t worry about us.”

“OK, give me one minute to just change my shirt,” Wells says, hurrying up the stairs.

Sasha shakes her head after him, an amused smile on her face, before turning to face her two guests. “Right, you know where the take out menus are, if you want to order food,” she says. “Or if you want to cook something, just help yourself to whatever you need.”

“We’ll be fine, Sash,” Clarke assures her again.

“I know, I know. Well, we probably won’t be back until at least eleven, so if you’re already in bed by the time we get home…” She winks subtly at Clarke as she says that and Clarke determinedly does not blush. “… I’ll just say goodnight now.”

Wells comes back down the stairs at that moment and Sasha heads into the hallway.

“Bye, guys, have fun,” Clarke calls after them.

Wells sends her a mischievous smile. “You too.”

She rolls her eyes, which he doesn’t see since he turns his back on her to follow Sasha out of the room.

The house is silent for a long minute after the front door has clicked closed behind them.

Then Clarke jumps off the couch and takes off towards the stairs. A moment later, she hears Bellamy’s steps behind her, but she makes it all the way to the second floor and their bedroom before he catches up to her and pushes her up against the door just as she reaches for the door knob.

“What was that, huh?” he says gruffly, breath hot against her ear.

She can’t move much, trapped between his body and the door, but she does push back against him, earning a groan.

“Just thought we should move this somewhere a little more… private,” she replies, gasping when his mouth descends on her throat. “Before things get, you know, out of control.”

He hums against her skin. “You didn’t have a problem with privacy in the car,” he notes, sliding one hand from her hip around to her stomach and under her shirt.

“Me?” she questions, trying to turn her head to be able to look at him, but he’s trailing kisses across her neck to her other shoulder, pushing her hair out of the way as he goes. “You’re the one who was trying to drive me crazy.”

Kind of like he is now, she adds silently as his hand travels north, his thumb brushing the bottom of her breast through her bra. She leans her head back against his shoulder, giving his wandering lips better access, and lets out a breath.

Bellamy chuckles before biting her shoulder lightly through the material of her shirt. “I was just following your lead, Princess.”

And yeah, OK, maybe she was the one who started getting a little handsy in the car. She doesn’t give him the satisfaction of hearing her admit that, though, instead focusing on the feel of his body pressed against hers, his mouth on her throat. He moves his hand to cover her beast through the bra for a moment before pushing the material out of the way so he can twirl her nipple between his fingers, and Clarke lets out a low whine at that.

A moment later, his other hand slides down her side and around to dip into her jeans, and yeah, she’s done being the passive party in this. Fumbling around a little, she finds the door knob and twists it, making them both stumble forward into the room.

She takes the opportunity to turn around, wrapping an arm around his neck to pull him down while sliding her other hand under his shirt, finally finding bare skin. She absentmindedly notes the sound of the door closing behind him and then feels his hands on the button on her jeans. He gets it undone deftly and slides the zipper down as well before continuing in his earlier venture and pushing one hand into her underwear, just cupping her sex for a moment before sliding one rough finger inside her.

She has to break the kiss to pull in air at the familiar but still thrilling feeling, and for a long moment, they just stare at each other, both breathing heavily, Bellamy’s finger working her slowly. When he adds another, though, she snaps out of the slight daze, because she wants more. She wants him inside her, now.

She makes quick work of her shirt and bra, throwing both garments into the corner, and pushes her jeans off her hips before starting on his jeans as well.

Bellamy chuckles. “Eager, are we?”

She finally manages to get the button and zipper undone and slips her hand into his boxers to wrap around him. He’s not quite where she wants him yet, but the sharp intake of breath and the way his hips snap against her hand makes her think it shouldn’t take long.

His fingers have stilled inside her, though, so she pushes against him, fucking herself on them until he takes the hint and starts moving again, in time with her hand around him.

“You spent the last four hours getting me worked up in the car,” she breathes out. “What did you expect?”

He laughs, slightly breathless, before tugging a little on her messy braid, making her tilt her head up for a deep, unhurried kiss.

Clarke knows that he’s trying to slow things down, and any other time, she’d go along with it, but not tonight. She does return the kiss, happily, but also starts working on getting her pants all the way off. It takes a minute or two, but soon enough, she can step out of them, leaving her in only her panties.

Bellamy’s still basically fully dressed, though, so she releases him and takes a reluctant step back, making his fingers slide out of her.

“One of us is wearing way too many clothes,” she notes, giving him a once over.

“Mm-hm,” he agrees, reaching out to hook his thumbs in her panties. “These definitely have to go.”

“That’s not what I meant and you know it,” she complains, but then he’s kneeling down in front of her, pulling her panties down her legs, and, well, it’s very distracting.

“Up,” he directs her, and Clarke lifts first one foot and then the other, to let him remove the underwear completely. Once they’re gone, he slides a hand up the back of her leg, tugging a little when he gets to her thigh, but she shakes her head, getting a raised eyebrow in return.

“I want you inside me.”

He places a soft kiss just below her belly button. “How can I say no to that?”

He pulls his shirt over his head as he stands back up and captures her lips again. When he wraps an arm around her waist a moment later and pulls her closer, she realizes that he’s gotten rid of the rest of his clothes as well, because she can feel him hot and hard against her stomach.

She knows the bed is somewhere to their right, and after a quick glance to ascertain exactly where, she manages to maneuver them around so she can push him down onto the foot of it before climbing into his lap.

“Princess wants to be in charge, huh?” he mumbles when she rises up enough to be able to wrap her hand around him and position him at her entrance.

“Uh-huh,” she replies, sinking down all the way in one quick motion.

“Fuck,” Bellamy grinds out. “Give a guy some warning next time.”

She gives him an innocent smile. “Sorry.”

“No, you’re not.” His fingers dig into her hips, hard enough to leave marks, probably, and he pulls her impossibly closer.

“No, I’m not.”

Clarke leans her forehead against his, maintaining eye contact as she rises up and sinks back down, much slower this time, relishing the feel of every inch of him inside her. His eyes flutter closed when she repeats the motion a second time, and she lets her head fall back, losing herself in the feeling.

Before long, he starts meeting her downward movement with a thrust of his hips, heightening the already intense feeling, and a moment later, his lips close around her nipple, sucking it into his mouth and pulling a moan from her. The first ripples of her orgasm make her pick up her pace a little, chasing that release, and as if he could read her mind, Bellamy slips a hand between them to find her clit.

It doesn’t take long before she’s coming hard, a cry escaping her and her nails digging into his back.

He holds her close as the waves of pleasure wash over her, mouth still on her breast and tongue circling her nipple. Before she’s come down completely, though, he flips them so she’s on her back and thrusts into her, hard and deep.

She wraps her legs around his waist, pulling him even deeper and urging him on, and after only a few thrusts, his movements start becoming sloppy. His lips find hers for a kiss that’s messy and a bit more teeth than is entirely pleasant, and then he stills above her, pulsing deep inside her.

Knowing that he’s about to pull out or at least roll them around so she’s on top, Clarke tightens her legs around him and wraps her arms around his neck, pulling him down completely on top of her.

“I’m crushing you,” he complains breathlessly.

“No, you’re not,” she replies, her eyes sliding closed as she fights to get her breathing back to normal.

She feels Bellamy’s mouth press against the side of her throat and turns her head to get a kiss. He happily obliges.

“Good Valentine’s Day?” he asks after a moment.

“The best.”

Chapter Text

The next morning finds Clarke already in the kitchen when Sasha gets up. They’re heading to the British Museum today, and she knows Bellamy will want an early start, so she’s making breakfast while he showers.

“Morning,” Sasha greets her.

“Morning,” she replies, grabbing a mug from one of the cupboards and filling it with coffee before sliding it along the counter. Sasha happily accepts it. “Did you have a good time last night?”

“We did,” Sasha confirms, taking a long sip. “And so did you, if I’m not mistaken.”

Clarke swallows her own sip before turning to her friend with a confused frown. “Why would you say that?”

A small smile appears on Sasha’s lips. “Well, you didn’t seem to hear us when we got home around eleven,” she expands, wagging her eyebrows a little suggestively.

Clarke immediately feels her cheeks reddening as last night’s activities play in her mind. She didn’t exactly keep track of the time – after their first quickie right after Wells and Sasha left, they got up to watch some TV and a little later, Bellamy cooked some amazing chili before they went back to bed for round two and, eventually, three – but she knows that she glanced at the clock as they were catching their breaths the third time around, and it was a quarter past eleven.

“Sorry,” she apologizes. “I didn’t realize we were that loud.”

“Oh, no,” Sasha immediately assures her, reaching out to squeeze her arm. “We were just passing the guest room at a… an inopportune time, I think. Wells was a little flustered, but you know him – he’s still uncomfortable with that sort of thing.”

Clarke does know that – in many ways, Wells is the complete opposite of Raven, and this is definitely one of them. Where Raven is very open about her own – and everyone else’s – sex life, Wells excuses himself as soon as the topic is raised. Sure, he can tease her about it, like last night before they left, but as soon as it’s an actual fact, he gets extremely awkward.

“I won’t take it personally if he won’t meet my eyes today, then,” she says, only half joking, and Sasha laughs.

Bellamy joins them a minute or so later, and Sasha gives Clarke a little wink before taking her coffee into the living room.

“Hey.” He steps in behind her and pulls her against his chest for a moment, placing a kiss on her temple.

“Hey. Coffee?”

“Please.”

She hands him a full mug before turning back to the stove and turning the burner off, starting to portion out the scrambled eggs onto four plates.

“You ready to let your internal geek out today?” she asks, and Bellamy snorts.

“I’m pretty sure there’s nothing ‘internal’ about my geekiness,” he objects.

She gives him a thorough once over and has to admit that he does look more the part with his glasses – he decided that it would be too much hassle to bring his usual contacts on the trip, with the case and the bottles of solution. He did pack a couple of boxes of daily disposable contacts, but they’re not as comfortable, so he’s wearing his glasses most of the time. And, OK, maybe Clarke encourages him to wear them. She might have a thing for his glasses, so sue her.

“You do have the whole hot history professor thing going,” she says, handing him a plate.

“Oh yeah?” He leans down to kiss her and she happily returns it.

“Morning!”

They almost jump at Wells’ loud and overly cheerful voice, and Clarke glances over at her friend, who is resolutely staring at the floor.

“Morning, Wells,” she replies. “Eggs are just done.”

“Thanks, Clarke.” He looks up carefully, looking relieved when he sees that she and Bellamy are now several feet apart.

“No problem.” She holds out a plate for him as well, and can’t help the smile tugging at the corners of her mouth when he grabs it.

Wells rolls his eyes. “Shut up.”

“I didn’t even say anything!” she objects, chuckling as he quickly leaves the kitchen.

Bellamy’s giving her a look with raised eyebrows. “What was that?”

“Nothing, I just like messing with him,” she tells him. “Wells is easily embarrassed and apparently, we… didn’t hear them come home last night.”

He frowns for a moment, before realizing what she means and letting out a groan. “Seriously? I’m just making a great impression on all your friends, aren’t I?”

Clarke puts her own plate down on the kitchen table, nodding at him to join her before sitting down.

“Don’t worry about it,” she says when he’s sitting next to her. “Wells definitely won’t bring it up, and Sasha had her fun ribbing me a little before you came downstairs. It’s not a big deal. Now eat your eggs, the museum opens at ten and I’m assuming you want to be the first person through the doors.”

They’re not the first through the doors, since there’s a bit of a line when they get there a few minutes before ten, but they’re inside soon enough, and for the next four hours, Clarke happily follows Bellamy from exhibit to exhibit, listening to his excited explanations of what they’re looking at. She manages to get him to agree to a short break when her stomach protests loudly a little after two in the afternoon, and they grab some sandwiches in the Court Café.

“Are you enjoying yourself?” he asks after a moment. “Be honest.”

“Of course I am,” she assures him, because she is. She might not be as excited about the different exhibits as he is, but everything really is interesting. Plus, she loves seeing him so enthusiastic.

He gives her a long, scrutinizing look. “We can head out if you want,” he then says, but she can hear the reluctance in his voice. “We’ve done the lower floor and the ground floor, we only have the upper floor left, and that’s just…” he checks his map “…oh, all of Europe, parts of ancient Greece, Rome and Egypt, and the Middle East.”

“Don’t be silly,” Clarke tells him. “I picked Friday because the museum stays open late. We have the Jack the Ripper tour at seven thirty, so we can’t stay until they close, but I wasn’t planning on going back to the house before that, so as long as we leave by… six thirty, we should be fine.”

Bellamy maintains eye contact for another long moment, as if expecting her to change her mind, but when she doesn’t, he smiles.

“If you’re sure.”

They end up leaving a little after six, catching a cab to Whitechapel to have time to grab some food before the walking tour in the famous serial killer’s footsteps starts.

Clarke’s not completely sure what she expected out of the tour, but she’s riveted as soon as their guide starts his tale, and the projections of Victorian London really makes the story come to life.

“That was amazing,” Bellamy notes when they’re on the tube almost two hours later.

“It really was,” she agrees, leaning her head against his shoulder.

“Tired?” he asks, squeezing her around the waist.

“A little,” she replies. “It’s been a pretty long day.”

He hums in agreement. “Tomorrow going to be better?”

“Not too heavy, no,” Clarke confirms. “Just the Portobello market and then a show in the evening.”

They do end up strolling around the market and antiques arcade for five hours on Saturday, but that’s including a lunch break. Perusing all the small stalls that have popped up along Portobello Road and the side streets is less mentally draining than the British Museum was, possibly because Clarke’s always loved the market, ever since she discovered it back in 1956, shortly after the former food market had been invaded by antiques dealers.

She’s not really looking to buy anything, she just loves exploring, but while Wells and Bellamy check out a stall selling sports memorabilia, she does come across an old men’s watch that she immediately picks up.

The band is metal, the face simple and grey with a little date window that’s showing the wrong date, and the minute hand is missing. It still runs, though, the second hand ticking away through its circle.

“How much for this one?” she asks the man behind the counter.

He takes a quick look at the watch and then raises his eyebrow at her. “It’s got a missing hand, miss, you sure you want it? No returns or exchanges.” He points at the little sign saying just that at the corner of the table.

“I know,” she assures him. “How much?”

He scratches his beard for a moment. “Twenty-five?”

It’s her turn to raise an eyebrow at him. “You just said it’s missing a hand. Ten,” she counters.

“Deal.”

She hands over the note and he puts the watch in a little paper bag for her.

“I thought you said you were just browsing?” Sasha asks as they leave the stall and Clarke glances around to make sure Wells and Bellamy still aren’t nearby before nodding.

“Yeah, I…” She pauses, because she’s not really sure what drew her to the watch in the first place. It’s nice, sure, but there were other nice watches, with all the hands, in that stall. Still, when her eyes landed on this one, she just knew she had to get it. “I don’t know, it was just something about it…”

Sasha just nods. “I get it, sometimes you just know. Are you thinking a present for Bellamy?”

“Yeah.” Clarke nods. “His birthday’s coming up in March, while we’re in Rome.” She hadn’t really been planning on getting him an actual present – apart from his request for some sexy lingerie for her – but something about the watch just called out to her. What, she doesn’t know – she’s never actually seen him wear a watch, he always checks the time on his phone. But an idea is forming somewhere in the back of her mind.

“There’s this watch repair shop close to the group home where I work,” Sasha tells her. “Do you want me to see if they might have a hand for it? Get it fixed before you leave?”

Clarke gives her a smile. “That would be great, thank you.” She checks to make sure the guys are still some ways ahead before handing the watch over to Sasha. “If you have time, could you also look into getting it engraved? I could do it in Paris, probably, but I don’t want him catching on.”

“Of course,” Sasha agrees, slipping the bag into her purse. “What do you want it to say?”

Clarke writes down the phrase that just popped into her mind in the small notebook she almost always carries with her and rips out the page, handing it to Sasha.

“Thank you.”

Sasha squeezes her hand. “Of course.”

They catch up to the boys and continue exploring.

They’re back at the house by four in the afternoon, so they can relax for about an hour before heading to Piccadilly Circus for an early dinner and then the Prince of Wales Theatre for a showing of The Book of Mormon.

Sunday is all free, since they managed to fit in the activities Clarke had planned for that day earlier in the week, so they just lounge around the house, having a long breakfast and relaxing.

Sometime after noon, Wells suggests heading to Covent Garden for lunch, and since nobody has anything against that plan, they spend the afternoon exploring the Apple Market and surrounding shops.

They wrap up the day ordering Chinese and – on Clarke’s insistence, to get in the mood for their tour of the Harry Potter studio in the morning – watching The Philosopher’s Stone.

They’ve both been to The Wizarding World Of Harry Potter, Clarke in Orlando and Bellamy in Los Angeles, so they’re maybe not quite as amazed by everything they get to see during the studio tour as some of the other visitors. Still, it’s more immersive, getting to walk around inside the Great Hall, stroll along Diagon Alley and even step into the Forbidden Forest, and they leave with the memory card in the camera considerably fuller than it was when they arrived.

Since they get back to London in the early afternoon, they decide to tick off the last two stops on their itinerary – the temple London Mithraeum and the roman amphitheater – before calling it a day. When Bellamy’s love of Roman history has had its fill, they head home for one last evening with their hosts.

Their flight to Barcelona isn’t until the afternoon on Tuesday, so they have an early lunch with Wells and Sasha before heading off.

“Take care, Griffin,” Wells mumbles as he hugs Clarke goodbye.

“You too, Jaha,” she counters before pulling away.

He doesn’t let her go completely, instead grabbing her hand and squeezing it. “Sasha suggested coming to New York later this summer,” he says quietly, watching her closely. “I know you’ll have Raven, but still, I’d like to be there for you when…”

“Thank you,” she cuts him off, pulling him into another hug.

“Of course.”

She pulls away a moment later and moves to Sasha, who slips a bag into her jacket pocket before enveloping her in a hug.

“All fixed,” she whispers conspiratorially. “And engraving done.”

“Thank you,” Clarke whispers back, squeezing her friend a little tighter.

They say their goodbyes and are soon on the way to the airport and Spain.

Barcelona is exactly the break that Clarke was hoping for. The only thing they have booked is La Sagrada Família, which they get out of the way on Wednesday morning. The unfinished church is just as magnificent as she remembers, and Bellamy’s head swivels from side to side, trying to take in everything at once.

They spend the rest of Wednesday and most of Thursday just strolling around the city, up and down La Rambla, along the narrow streets of Ciutat Vella and through Parc de la Ciutadella. They explore Passeig de Gràcia all the way from Plaça de Catalunya to La Pedrera, with its curved facade. In the late afternoon, they take a cab up to Park Güell, just making it in time for the last entry at six, and watch the sun set over the rooftops below them before the lights flicker on as darkness falls.

By the time they land in a sunny and surprisingly warm Paris the next day, Clarke’s gotten her energy levels up enough to be looking forward to the coming week, which will no doubt be busy.

“You ready to have Paris sweep you off your feet?” she asks while they’re waiting for their bags.

Bellamy chuckles next to her. “Well, they do call it the city of love.”

“Do I need to worry?”

He snorts. “I think you’re good.”

The cab drops them off outside the hotel an hour later, and for a moment, Bellamy just stares up at the off white façade with its cast iron railings.

“This was one of the hotels you splurged on, right?” he asks, not taking his eyes off the building, voice a little awestruck.

“Yup,” Clarke confirms. “Come on, wait until you see the view.”

His eyes widen as soon as they enter the hotel lobby and when they actually reach their room and finally see the main reason she booked the hotel – the amazing view of the Eiffel Tower – his jaw actually drops.

She decides to give him a moment to take all of it in, moving around him to unpack a little and check out the bathroom.

When he still hasn’t moved when she comes back into the bedroom, she decides it’s time to make sure he’s not in shock or something.

“You OK?” she asks, dropping down on the bench at the foot of the bed to take her shoes off and change out of the comfy pants she wore on the flight.

He shakes his head once. “Yeah, this is just… amazing.”

“Told you,” she says with, OK, a slightly smug smile. “Isn’t just the view worth…”

“Stop!” Bellamy cuts her off, raising a hand. “I know this place can’t be cheap, but just don’t tell me what you actually paid. I think I’m better off in the dark, I’m not sure I’d be able to enjoy it if I know for sure that it cost more than my rent.”

She can’t help but laugh at that. “I wasn’t going to tell you what I paid for the room,” she assures him. “What I was going to say, before you so rudely interrupted me, was ‘isn’t just the view worth staying here’.”

“Oh.” He gives her a slightly sheepish smile before crossing the room to the terrace doors. “Absolutely. Can we go outside?”

“Of course.”

Clarke stands to pull her jeans up and button them before opening the door and leading the way out onto the terrace beyond.

It’s pretty nice, probably mid-fifties, and the sun has started to set to their right, the light reflecting off the metal Eiffel Tower across the Seine. She leans against the railing, breathing in the fresh air, and feels more than hears Bellamy come to a stop next to her.

“So you and Raven stayed here a few years ago?” he asks after a moment, and she shakes her head.

“She and Zeke stayed here when they visited me in… 2010, I think,” she replies. “But my apartment didn’t have views like these, so we spent most evenings on their terrace. It was late spring, a little warmer than now.”

He chuckles and slides an arm around her waist, and she willingly steps closer, wrapping an arm around him as well. “I can see why,” he notes quietly, and when she looks up at him, his eyes are trained on the iron structure, so she leans her head against his shoulder and turns her gaze in the same direction.

They stay like that for some time, until the sun has disappeared behind the rooftops, before Bellamy lets out a long breath and straightens up.

“We should probably try to find somewhere to eat,” he suggests, checking the time on his phone. “It’s almost seven.”

“It is?” She looks down at the screen as well, which reads 6:57. “Let’s wait a little longer.”

He gives her a questioning look. “Why?”

Clarke just turns back to the view. “You’ll see.”

A few minutes later, the tower is lit up by a yellow light, bright against the almost black sky.

“That’s cool,” he says.

“There’s more.”

A moment later, the beam at the top of the tower is lit and then, just after, the entire tower looks like it starts to sparkle.

Bellamy lets out a low whistle. “Wow.”

“I know, isn’t it beautiful?”

He hums in agreement, his arm around her tightening.

“We’re going to the Eiffel Tower, right?” he asks a few minutes later, when the light show has ended and they’re back in the hotel room.

“Yup,” Clarke confirms, not even needing to check their itinerary. “Tuesday, all booked.”

“Good,” he replies with a nod, fingers picking at the outside pocket of his backpack almost absentmindedly for a moment before he grabs his jacket. “Ready?”

For a second, she considers asking if something’s up, but he smiles at her and she pushes the thought aside.

It’s probably nothing.

Surprisingly enough, Paris puts its best foot forward when they leave the hotel on Saturday morning – it’s a little colder than yesterday, but the sky above them is blue and the sun is shining.

Clarke smiles up at the few fluffy clouds that are drifting across the sky. “We’re really having luck with the weather so far,” she notes. “I was honestly expecting rain both here and in London.”

“Now you’ve jinxed it,” Bellamy complains. “It’s going to start raining any moment, just you wait.”

“Not from those clouds,” she counters. “But I promise, if it does start raining, I will take full responsibility.”

He just shakes his head, an amused expression on his face. “That’s all I ask. Come on, let’s get going.”

With that, he holds out a hand for her, and Clarke takes it with a smile, taking the lead when they reach the street. She’s always loved Paris, and strolling around the city with Bellamy, she remembers why.

They start at the Arc de Triomphe, which is just twenty minutes from the hotel, before heading down Champs-Élysées towards Place de la Concorde. They stroll around Jardin des Tuileries for a bit, checking out the different statues, before leaving the well-manicured lawns and trees to admire the glass pyramid of the Louvre.

They grab lunch at a cute little café just beyond the museum, before backtracking and crossing the Seine at Pont des Arts. The thousands upon thousands of padlocks, attached to the bridge by couples visiting the city of love, that she remembers from her last few years in Paris are gone – she does have a vague memory of reading something about it a few years ago – instead replaced by sheets of Perspex covering the metal railing, to keep new locks from being attached.

Some seem determined to get their lock on the bridge, though, and there are locks attached to the street lights around the bridge, as well as to what looks like bicycle locks wrapped around the lamp posts on the bridge itself. There are even a few tiny locks fastened around bolts on the actual structure.

The afternoon is spent exploring the seventh arrondissement, working their way back towards the hotel slowly, past numerous museums and little parks. They take the time to walk around the whole of Les Invalides, admiring the magnificent building from all angles, before continuing to Champ de Mars and eventually reaching the Eiffel Tower. Well, as close to the tower they can get without a ticket, since you can’t walk under the actual structure anymore.

“Fuck, it’s tall,” Bellamy notes, craning his neck to take in the top of the tower.

Clarke glances at him. “Yeah… you ready to climb all the way to the top?”

He pales at her question. “We have to climb the stairs all the way up?”

She was planning on dragging her joke out a little, but she can’t help but laugh at the look on his face. “You can take the stairs to the first and second level, but I did get tickets with lift access,” she assures him. “Though there can be lines if it’s busy. Last time I was here, with Raven and Zeke, Raven got sick of waiting for the elevators and dragged us up the stairs. All 674 steps.”

Bellamy shakes his head incredulously. “I’m fine waiting for the elevator,” he says. “I mean, we won’t be in any hurry, right?”

“Nope, I didn’t book anything else on Wednesday,” she confirms. “So we can spend all day here if we want. Definitely enough time to wait for the elevators.”

They hang around the area a little longer, checking out the tower from all sides before grabbing coffee at one of the little stands by the nearby carousel. A few kids are riding the different figures, laughing along with the cheerful music, and they stop to watch them for a while.

“So, first impressions, what do you think?” Clarke asks after a while, looping her arm through Bellamy’s and pulling him along towards the bridge.

“Definitely the best full day in Paris ever,” he tells her, wrapping an arm around her waist in turn and squeezing.

“It’s your first full day in Paris,” she points out amusedly, earning a chuckle.

“So? It’s been amazing, exactly what I wanted today – laid back sightseeing with my favorite person in the world.”

She gives him a look. “Are you getting sappy? Is that what’s happening here, the romantic idea of Paris making you all mushy?”

“Shut up,” he grumbles, pinching her side, but does join in her laugh as they cross the Seine.

It’s still relatively warm out, so they end up taking a bit of a detour through Jardins du Trocadéro, checking out the Palais de Chaillot, before returning to the hotel.

Sunday is spent in a similar fashion, only this time, they start off in the opposite direction. The weather continues to cooperate, the sun shining down on them from a mostly blue sky, despite Bellamy’s prediction that Clarke’s jinx would lead to rain.

It’s a bit of a walk, but after an hour or so, they reach their first stop – the Panthéon. They spend longer than Clarke had planned here, exploring the crypt with its many graves, taking in Foucault’s pendulum, and climbing to the top of the colonnade to admire the view. Still, it’s only a little after noon when they set out again, this time with Notre Dame as their goal.

They start in the towers – Clarke’s calf muscles are already sore from the climb of the Arc de Triomphe yesterday, but she toughs it out – before exploring the cathedral proper and the crypt across the square, which isn’t a crypt in the traditional sense, with tombs or graves, but an archeological exhibition.

Once Bellamy’s had his fill of the old Roman ruins, they emerge into the sunny afternoon and once again cross the Seine to Île Saint-Louis. Since both of their stomachs are grumbling by now, they quickly enter a café just across the bridge, and enjoy a wonderful brunch with views of the river and the cathedral.

“Where to now?” Bellamy asks eagerly when they leave the café a while later, and Clarke can’t help but laugh.

“God, you’re like a kid in a candy store,” she tells him, squeezing his arm affectionately and pulling him along towards the other side of the island and the bridge leading over to Le Marais.

He chuckles. “I know, I can’t help it. And this is just the beginning – wait until we get to Italy and Greece, I’m going to get even worse.”

She can practically picture it now, Bellamy darting between sights and ruins, her trying to keep up.

She can’t wait.

“Well, we don’t have anything else booked today,” she says. “But I thought I’d show you my old stomping grounds, my favorite part of Paris.”

“Ah.” He glances down at her with a smile. “I’d love that.”

They follow the river for a while, perusing the little stalls set up on the wall, before cutting along Boulevard Henri IV to Place de la Bastille, once home to the famous fortress but now really just a large roundabout surrounding a memorial for the July Revolution of 1830. From there, Clarke leads the way through increasingly narrow streets to Place des Vosges, where she stops in the middle of the little park and closes her eyes, breathing in not just the air but the feel of Paris. The trees are bare, the fountain empty of water and there are no kids playing in the large sandbox, but the atmosphere is still somehow the same as during long, warm summer days. She’s always loved the city, and she’s really not completely sure why she hasn’t lived here more. She might need to rectify that.

“So this is where I lived,” she says when she opens her eyes again to fins Bellamy watching her.

“Here?” he asks amusedly, looking around them.

She rolls her eyes and elbows him in the ribs. “Not in the park, obviously. Over there.” She nods at the building in question, along one side of the park.

He looks where she indicated and lets out a low whistle. “Nice. I’m assuming you don’t still have that apartment, since we’re staying at a hotel?”

“It was never mine, really, it’s the Soul Keeper building in Paris, or one of them, so you get an apartment during the period you’re assigned to the city, and then someone else gets it once you leave,” she explains.

“You have your own buildings?” he asks incredulously, and she shrugs.

“Yeah. All cities and towns with more than a dozen or so Soul Keepers have one or more buildings with apartments that we can claim when we’re assigned somewhere. It’s convenient when you’re new to a city and don’t really know it, and especially in the cut-throat rental market that’s in most major cities these days, it’s really handy.”

He nods thoughtfully while she talks. “I guess that makes sense. Or as much sense as any of this whole Soul Keeper business makes, anyway…”

Clarke has to laugh at the frustrated note in his voice and reaches out to interlace their fingers. “Come on, this is the oldest area of Paris, there are so many historic buildings that I just know you’re going to love it.”

Chapter Text

Experiencing Paris with Bellamy is so different from experiencing it on her own, or even with Raven and Zeke, and Clarke soon realizes why the city has earned the nickname ‘the city of love’. Sure, she’s been able to say objectively that the promenade along the Seine is beautiful and probably romantic, especially at night, with its many bridges lit up and glittering in the darkness, and watching the sun set over the Seine, the Eiffel Tower in the distance, must be the perfect romantic setting, but she’s never really felt it herself before.

Wandering through the narrow streets of Le Marais with Bellamy, though, she finally gets it. Even in broad daylight, their surroundings make the stroll feel more intimate, the many little squares ideal for short breaks with brief kisses and the old buildings and churches that appear every few blocks lending the scene an almost timeless feel.

They don’t have a goal in mind, and not really any time restraints, apart from the fact that they’re leaving early tomorrow morning for a bus tour out to the coast and the beaches of the D-Day landings, so by the time the sun starts setting, they’re only just leaving Le Marais, passing the odd building that houses the Pompidou Centre.

“It’s getting dark,” Bellamy notes, gazing up at the sky where the moon and stars have replaced the sun. “You want to start heading back, maybe grab an early dinner at one of those little places we saw along the river earlier?”

“Mmm,” she agrees, reaching up on her tiptoes to press a kiss to the corner of his mouth. “Early to bed…”

He chuckles and tugs her closer. “That’s what I was thinking, yeah, but not for the reasons you’re obviously thinking.” She pouts a little at that, making him laugh even more. “I thought we had to get up at, like, five tomorrow?”

“So?”

He just shakes his head at her. “Come on, let’s worry about food first, and then we’ll see what you’re up for when we get back to the hotel.”

Clarke accepts his hand and they set out in the direction of the Seine, crossing the river at Pont Neuf and descending the stairs just beyond it to walk along the water. All the restaurants along their route are full, though, which they probably should have expected – even though it is a Sunday evening, they are in a very popular part of the city. Eventually, they end up at a little bistro just a block or so from the hotel, and they’re back in their room by eight o’clock.

They don’t go to sleep for another couple of hours, but still.

-100-

Clarke hadn’t been completely sure about booking a tour with focus on World War Two, considering Bellamy’s historical interest lies more in ancient Greece and Rome. In the end, she decided that she wanted to go on the tour, though, and when she sees Bellamy listening to their guide intently, she’s glad she did.

It’s an interesting day, for sure. The museums, the memorials on the beaches, the American cemetery…

“Did you have any ancestors who fought in the war?” Clarke asks, keeping her voice low, when they’re weaving through the crosses marking the graves.

“Not that I know,” Bellamy replies, looking out over the field. “But I don’t really know a lot about my family. My grandparents kicked my mom out when she was sixteen and they caught her kissing a guy they didn’t approve of. She lived with a friend’s family for a few years, until she turned eighteen and could get a job, an apartment of her own… After that, Mom didn’t have any contact with her family at all, or at least not as far as I know. O asked about them sometimes, but Mom just brushed it off, changed the subject, until she didn’t bother asking anymore. They didn’t even reach out to us after Mom died. Not that… they might not even know she’s dead, I guess, I definitely never told them… They could still be alive, I suppose, but…”

She pulls him to a stop to be able to wrap her arms around him. “If that’s the way they treated their own daughter, they don’t deserve to know you or Octavia.”

His arms go around her and he leans his chin against the top of her head. “Yeah.”

It’s after ten by the time they get back to the hotel, and Clarke has just enough energy left to set an alarm for the next morning, when they have tickets to the Eiffel Tower at ten o’clock, before tumbling into bed and falling asleep within minutes.

After a good night’s sleep and a sturdy breakfast, they head off towards the Eiffel Tower the next day. Clarke has to admit that she’s excited about the visit. She’s been to the tower before, the first time way back in 1957, when she and Wells spent a week in a small village in the French countryside, somewhere between Paris and Orléans – they had only stayed one night in Paris on the way back to London but had managed to fit a quick visit in – and twice while she lived here between 2005 and 2011. But this visit, with Bellamy, feels… different, somehow.

They have tickets to skip the line and are soon in the enclosed area around the tower. The line to the elevator is already pretty long, so they stroll around the Esplanade for a while, getting close to the pillars and snapping pictures from below the tower itself, before joining the queue.

The first floor has changed a lot since Clarke was last here – not least the new glass floor.

“OK, this is a little creepy,” she says when they reach the first section of it. “I don’t know if I like it.”

“Why not?” Bellamy asks, stepping onto the glass and turning to face her with a smirk. “Not like it would hurt you if the floor did give out. Which it’s not going to.”

She takes a tentative step onto the glass as well, eyes firmly straight ahead, and reaches for his hand, which he willingly holds out for her. “It would hurt me,” she retorts. “It just wouldn’t kill me… probably. Not sure where exactly the line between self-inflicted and accident is…”

“Right.” He squeezes her hand. “But you have to look down, it’s amazing. Come on, just for a second.”

She squeezes her eyes shut for a moment and then quickly looks down, which… OK, not as scary as she thought. It’s pretty obvious they’re standing on a pane of glass, doesn’t look like they’re floating in air, like she’s seen in photos from other sights with similar arrangements.

“It is pretty cool,” she admits.

“See? I told you.”

They move on to the cultural path a few minutes later, exploring the tower and its history, before again getting in line for the elevators.

They don’t linger too long on the second floor, just rounding the tower to get photos of the city sprawled out far beneath them from all sides before continuing to the last stop – the top floor.

As soon as they’ve climbed the final staircase and emerge onto the open-air platform wrapping around the top floor of the tower, the wind catches Clarke’s hair and blows it all around her. She quickly gathers it into a ponytail to get it out of her face before following Bellamy to the railing.

“Wow,” he breathes when she joins him, eyes fixed on the Seine below, crisscrossed by bridges and with Île aux Cygnes no more than a narrow, green strip of land.

“I know,” she agrees, sliding an arm around his waist and leaning her head against his shoulder. A moment later, she feels his arm go around her, pulling her even closer.

They stay like that, just watching the city below, for a long moment before Clarke takes a step to the side and looks up at him.

“Come on,” she says with a smile, slipping her hand into his instead and leading the way around the platform.

They move slowly, stopping every few feet to point out something below or wait for other tourists to move out of the way.

“Is that the Arc de Triomphe?” Bellamy asks, indicating the structure in question, when they’ve almost completed their lap.

“Yup,” Clarke confirms, releasing his hand to be able to lean against the railing. “And I think that might be our hotel.”

“Yeah?”

He’s right behind her, the word spoken softly into her ear, making a tingle run down her spine. She turns her head a little, to be able to look up at him, at the same time as he leans against the railing, hands on either side of her.

She knows she was about to say something, but she can’t for the life of her remember what, not when he’s watching her like that, eyes intense and not shifting the slightest from hers. Finally, he breaks eye contact, leaning down and placing a quick kiss on her lips. “Love you, Princess.”

“I love you.”

He opens his mouth again, as if he’s about to say something else, but is interrupted by a shriek coming from a few feet to their right. When they both turn to see what’s going on, they find a man on one knee, a ring in his outstretched hand, and his overjoyed girlfriend nodding frantically with tears streaming down her face.

Clarke laughs lowly. “Another Eiffel Tower proposal,” she notes lightly. “I think there were… three the last time I was here, one up here and two down in the restaurant.”

“Ah,” Bellamy says with a nod, glancing down at her but quickly averting his eyes. “Popular spot, I guess. You want to get going?”

“Sure. I mean, it’s romantic and all…” She pauses until they’re well out of earshot of the newly-engaged couple. “But a little bit of a cliché, you know? Like proposing on Valentine’s Day or putting the ring in a champagne glass.”

He chuckles as he follows her back down the stairs to the elevator.

They’ve taken their time, so it’s almost two by the time they get back to the ground.

“I don’t know about you, but I’m starving,” Clarke says once they’ve crossed the street to Champ de Mars.

“I could eat,” Bellamy agrees with a shrug. “What are you in the mood for?”

She thinks for a moment. “If it hasn’t closed in the last eight years, there should be a place with the best pizza in Paris a few blocks from here.”

“Sounds good. Lead the way.”

It takes a little while, but she does eventually find the restaurant, on the corner of two nondescript streets in the heart of Grenelle, and they still have amazing pizza. By the time their plates are mostly empty, they’re both way too full and decide to head back to the hotel to just relax for a few hours.

They wrap up the day with dinner and an amazing show at the famous Parisian cabaret Moulin Rouge.

Wednesday is another intense day – they’re at the Louvre when it opens at nine in the morning and spend most day strolling through the many rooms and waiting to get close enough to actually be able to see the Mona Lisa. After they’ve had some lunch at the Café Mollien, Clarke half-heartedly offers to call it a day, but Bellamy won’t hear it.

“We still have, like, half this place left,” he points out, which is true.

“That’s OK, we’ve seen the most interesting pieces,” she replies with a shrug.

He gives her a long, scrutinizing look. “Nope, I’m putting my foot down – we’re staying until we’ve seen everything.”

She had been hoping he would say that, but still felt like she needed to at least make the suggestion, since she knows he’s not that interested in art. “You sure?”

“Positive, Princess,” he assures her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and placing a kiss on top of her head. “I am having a good time, really.”

She tries to find any hint of insincerity in his eyes or voice, but there’s nothing. Maybe he really is enjoying himself. She had fun at the British Museum, after all, just watching him enjoy the exhibits.

In the end, it’s dark by the time they leave the museum, and they just stop for food on the way before returning to the hotel for another ‘early night’.

Thursday and Friday they spend out and about in the city once more, exploring Montmartre with the striking, white basilica of Sacré-Cœur, the Père Lachaise cemetery with its many celebrity tombs, Jardin du Luxembourg and the slightly morbid catacombs underneath the city.

“OK, this is a little creepy, right?” Bellamy mumbles when they’re stopped in front of a wall made of skulls and bones, with a cross in the middle.

“Little bit, yeah,” she agrees immediately.

They continue through the humid tunnels but don’t really linger too much, and she has to admit that she sucks in a deep breath once they’re back out in the open air. She might technically work with death, but that doesn’t normally mean skeletons.

The next day, they leave a sunny Paris and, an hour and a half later, land in an equally nice, if colder, Berlin.

“How is it colder here than in Iceland?” Bellamy half-grumbles when they’re waiting for a cab outside the terminal.

“I don’t know, but I can’t wait until we get to Italy,” she replies.

He chuckles a little. “I doubt it’ll be nice and warm, it’ll still be mid-March,” he points out.

“Yeah,” she grudgingly agrees, turning her head up just to catch a snowflake on her nose. “But at least it won’t snow.”

Since they only have two full days in Berlin, Clarke has booked a half-day walking tour on Sunday, which covers the main sights in the city. Luckily, the snow never became more than a few flakes yesterday, and the temperature has risen significantly over night.

The only time she’s been in Berlin before was in 1989. She was stationed in Gothenburg in the south western parts of Sweden when news of the fall of the Berlin wall came. She and Harper, who was there at the same time, had quickly decided to head down there, since both of them somehow had two free days ahead of them, and actually being there, during one of the big moments in history, is something Clarke has never regretted.

Still, she suspects that the day and a half she spent in the city back then is probably not representative of Berlin today.

One of the stops on the tour is Checkpoint Charlie, the old crossing point between East and West Berlin, and they also stop at a few places with remnants of the wall, but that’s basically all Clarke remembers from her previous visit. Everything else is new for both her and Bellamy – the monument Brandenburger Tor, the Reichstag, which houses the parliament, the avenue Unter den Linden… it’s a bit of a fast forward introduction to the city, and there’s a lot of information in the few short hours they spend with their guide, but it gives them a good idea of what they want to go back to tomorrow, and they get some tips about other things to check out as well.

Their hotel is practically on Alexanderplatz, but they didn’t arrive until pretty late last night, so they spend the afternoon checking out the surrounding area – the World Time Clock and TV tower on the square, city hall and Nikolaikirche closer to the Spree, and finally Berliner Dom on the other side of the river.

Monday, the weather takes another turn, the sky a bright blue and the sun beaming down on them, lifting the temperature towards the sixties. After breakfast, they set out on foot in search of the East Side Gallery – the preserved mile or so of the Berlin Wall that’s covered with murals these days – and also check out the Wall Museum before taking a cab back to Brandenburger Tor, where they pay their respect at the Holocaust memorial nearby. A few minutes later, they pass the site of Hitler’s bunker – nothing more than a non-descript parking area and lawn in a residential neighborhood these days. There’s a sign with some information, but that’s it. Clarke’s not entirely sure how she feels about that – on the one hand, she can see why the people living here wouldn’t want to brag about it, but on the other, she’s been around long enough to know that humanity has a tendency to repeat its mistakes. If you try to forget your past, no matter how horrible it is, what’s to say it won’t just happen all over again?

“I thought there would be… more,” Bellamy notes, giving voice to her thoughts.

“I know, me too.”

“I mean…” he continues after a moment. “I’m not saying glorify that time period or anything, but if you just try to forget it…”

“That can be very dangerous,” Clarke finishes his sentence.

“Exactly.”

They wrap up the day – and their Berlin experience – with another visit to Checkpoint Charlie, followed by a long walk through the sunny and surprisingly warm city, back to their hotel. Before Clarke can quite wrap her mind around being in Berlin, they’re on the plane to Kraków the next morning.

“Do you realize we’ve already been traveling for a month and a half?” Bellamy asks once the plane has levelled out at cruising altitude.

Clarke has to think about it for a moment but realizes that he’s right – they left New York on January 20, and it’s now March 5. It’s been six and a half weeks.

“I mean, considering everything we’ve done, it doesn’t sound like a lot of time,” she notes, curling up against him and stretching her legs out over his lap. “But it still doesn’t feel like it’s been that long, and I can’t believe it’s already March.”

His arm goes around her and he pulls her even closer, practically into his lap. “Yeah. Time flies…”

“Hey.” She leans back a little to be able to look up at him. “We still have a lot left.”

She’s not sure herself if she means that they have a lot of trip left – which they do – or a lot of time. Which they don’t, not really, not in the grand scheme of things. Four and a half months, that’s nothing to her and not much more to the average Norm.

The thought makes her eyes dart to Bellamy’s forehead and his Number, which she barely thinks about these days. 144. It had been 271 the day they met – even if she hadn’t seen it until two, technically three, days later. It’s not quite half, but it’s painfully close.

He catches her glance, of course. “What is it today?”

She takes a deep breath and buries her face against his shoulder before answering. “144.” It’s muffled a little, but she knows he still hears her.

Bellamy doesn’t say anything to that, but she can feel the shaky breath he sucks in and then lets back out. Neither of them speak for a while, just existing in the same space.

“I wish I could give you more time,” Clarke then mumbles, squeezing her eyes shut against the swell of emotions threatening to suffocate her. “If there was anything I could do, I…”

“I know, Princess,” he cuts her off, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “I know. I’m OK. Really.”

Maybe he is, maybe she’s the only one fighting back tears and struggling to push down the lump that’s quickly rising in her throat. Or maybe he can just tell that she’s close to snapping and is trying to comfort her.

The thought makes her pull herself together, at least enough so she can look up at him without bursting into tears. He looks calm, eyes soft, even the hint of a smile on his lips.

“Really,” he repeats, pushing a strand of hair behind her ear.

“It’s OK to not be OK, though,” she tells him.

“I know.” He nods. “And I promise I will let you know when I’m not.”

She keeps her eyes locked with his for a long moment, until she’s sure he really means it. “Good.”

“Is everything alright here?”

They both jump a little at the sharp voice and look up to find a flight attendant looking down at them, an annoyed expression on her face. She quickly puts on a fake smile when she has their attention.

“Everything’s fine,” Clarke assures her, sliding back fully into her own seat and pulling her legs out of Bellamy’s lap.

“Great!” The smile widens but the woman still looks like she’d rather be anywhere but here. “We’ll be landing in just a little while, so if you could fasten your seatbelts, that would be excellent.”

They immediately do as they’re told and manage to make it until she’s disappeared through the curtains to business class before they break down laughing.

“Talk about passive aggressive,” Bellamy notes when he’s stopped laughing.

“Yeah, who pissed in her coffee this morning,” Clarke agrees, glancing towards the front of the plane to make sure the woman really is gone before pulling his arm around her and snuggling closer.

The heavy moment is broken, if only for now.

Kraków is another brief stop, they only have one full day in the city which they spend exploring as much as they can on foot. Their hotel is close to the Ghetto Heroes Square, a poignant memorial to the Jews of the old ghetto who were sent to their deaths during the war. It seems even more harrowing in the beautiful and sunny March morning and neither of them say anything, just stand there in silence, hands interlaced, looking out over the square, before Clarke finally tugs Bellamy along.

They slowly make their way to Oskar Schindler’s old factory, which is another interesting but chilling experience, before crossing the Vistula into Kazimierz, the old Jewish quarters. Clarke has downloaded an app for street art in Kraków, which is apparently a big thing, and they spend some time locating all the murals in the area before continuing towards the Wawel castle and cathedral.

Deciding they need a break from being cultural, Bellamy insists they grab some food before continuing, and Clarke realizes that she’s actually hungry. They end up at a restaurant in the castle grounds where they try some local pierogi, which are absolutely delicious.

After lunch, they make their way to Krakow’s old town, Stare Miasto, which is all cobbled pedestrian streets, magnificent churches and little squares, and Clarke immediately loves it. Awnings indicate where there are probably tables during warmer months, and the sun is warming them enough that it’s not hard to imagine enjoying a coffee or drink here.

Eventually, they find the main market square, a huge, open space surrounded on all sides by beautiful old buildings in different colors. In the middle of the square is an ornate building which Clarke quickly figures out is the old cloth hall. They stroll around the stands set up on the open ground floor for a while, perusing everything from jewelry and clothes to art and glassware. Once Clarke’s picked out an adorable, purple plush dragon – apparently a Wawel dragon from local folklore – for Raven, they leave the old town and follow the river back in the general direction of their hotel. For part of the way, the path is interspersed with stars with what they assume are the names of famous people and their handprints, Hollywood Walk of Fame style. They eventually find Michael Jackson, confirming their theory, and then Benedict Cumberbatch and Roman Polanski.

They cross the river once more and spend another hour or so finding the last of the street murals from Clarke’s app, before finally returning to the hotel for an early night.

The next day, they’re on a minibus leaving the city by eight thirty in the morning, en route to the main reason they even came to Kraków in the first place – the Auschwitz-Birkenau memorial and museum.

“This feels strange,” Bellamy mumbles when they’re standing on a paved parking lot an hour and a half later. It looks just like any other tourist attraction – half a dozen buses are parked along one side of the lot, their minibus and a few others along the other, another group of tourists gathered around an information board. Nothing that gives away what actually happened here. At least not yet. “Just… it’s great that it’s been preserved and that you can experience it, learn about what happened, but it still feels…”

“Morbid?” Clarke offers when he trails off, sliding her hand into his and squeezing.

He lets out a long breath. “That’s probably a good word, yeah.”

The guided tour is… interesting, of course, but it feels wrong to say, somehow. It’s heartbreaking and terrifying and shocking and… Clarke’s not sure there are really words for it.

And the beautiful weather just feels wrong. Not that grey skies and rain would make the stark reality of the place any better, but the bright sun and blue sky somehow makes it even more surreal.

When they pass under the infamous ‘Arbeit macht frei’ sign, she feels Bellamy shudder beside her and slides an arm around his waist.

“You OK?”

He nods. “Yeah, I… just picturing what happened here makes me feel cold all over.”

“I know,” she agrees. “I remember when the first reports started coming after the war, about what happened in these places…” Some of those images have stayed with her to this day, the children in striped clothes behind barbed wire, the emaciated bodies of survivors, the mass graves and piles of clothes…

“Yeah?”

Bellamy’s voice brings her out of her memories and she leans into him gratefully when he pulls her closer. They’re at the back of the group, so she’s not worried about being overheard, but she still lowers her voice a little when she continues.

“I mean, there were rumors during the war, and even before…” She sighs. “Me and Raven and a couple of other friends were at a rally in Madison Square Garden in 1937, this huge protest against Nazi Germany and Hitler… we knew the war was going on, even before Pearl Harbor, but it was distant, you know? But I don’t think anyone could even imagine this.”

He sighs. “Who could? It shouldn’t be possible, people shouldn’t be able to treat other human beings like this…”

They continue in silence, following their guide around the camp for another hour, before they get back on the bus for the short trip to their second stop at Birkenau.

The first thing they see when they get off the bus again is railroad tracks leading through an opening in a brick building, and Clarke has to actually stop for a moment, because she knows this place. She remembers it.

Bellamy has stopped beside her, a frown on his face, so she quickly smiles at him. “I’m OK.”

“You don’t look OK,” he retorts, eyebrows furrowed.

“I am, really. Just a… memory. Not mine,” she hurries to add when his eyes widen. “I don’t even remember her name, it must be… fifteen years ago? Maybe twenty.”

Realization dawns on his face. “Ah, one of your… clients?”

It’s as good a word as any, Clarke supposes.

“Yeah. I’m sure she had other memories from this place, but sometimes those things get a little jumbled, or maybe she had repressed them… I can’t remember anything else, anyway. This was the one thing that was a really clear memory, arriving here…”

“Do you want to skip this part?” Bellamy asks, but she shakes her head.

“No, I’m fine, really. Come on.”

So they catch up with their group for the last part of the tour.

It’s a quiet drive back to the city later in the afternoon, everyone in the minibus deep in their own thoughts, reflecting over everything they’ve experienced.

Clarke curls up against Bellamy and lets his warmth and presence comfort her.

Chapter Text

The subdued mood lingers on Friday morning, but by the time their connecting flight from Warsaw starts its descent into the Marco Polo airport in Venice, Bellamy can no longer keep the smile off his face, despite the fact that it’s already dark out and they can’t really see anything. Clarke doesn’t even try.

“I can’t believe we’re in Italy!” he exclaims as soon as they’ve touched down. “I mean, I knew we were going here, so on a logical level I can, but just… it’s so surreal.”

She can’t help but laugh at his childish excitement. “Are you going to get even worse once we’re actually in Rome, or is this a general Italy enthusiasm? Just so I know what to expect.”

He rolls his eyes at her and practically jumps out of his seat as soon as the ‘fasten your seatbelt’ sign comes off – not before.

Their hotel is by the San Marco Basin, just a few blocks from St Mark’s Square, which means they have to change from a cab to a water taxi at Piazzale Roma. Which is all part of the Venice experience, but Bellamy looks a little hesitant as they approach the little boat.

“Don’t tell me you get seasick?” Clarke half-teases, and he shrugs.

“I’m not sure, really, I haven’t been on a lot of boats.”

“The whale watching boat in Iceland was fine,” she notes.

He raises his eyebrows at that. “And a lot bigger than this one.”

OK, that’s true.

“You’ll be fine, the canals are pretty sheltered, it doesn’t get too rough,” she assures him as she lets the captain help her onboard, switching to Italian and asking him to take it a little slow as her boyfriend isn’t used to boats. He chuckles a little at her request but promises to do his best.

“You speak Italian too?” Bellamy asks once they’re settled in the boat and the captain is starting the engine.

He hadn’t seemed that surprised that she spoke French, but she did use to live there, so it probably makes more sense than Italian.

“I’m not fluent or anything, but I can get by,” she tells him.

“So French and Italian… any others?”

He’s probably trying to distract himself from the way the water slaps against the side of the boat, but Clarke doesn’t mind helping him with that.

“Well, English, obviously,” she starts, and he pinches her side. “Ow, stop it. Um… Swedish, I figured it would be good to know while I was stationed there.”

“But you’ve never been stationed in Italy, right?”

She shakes her head. “No, I’ve been here on holiday, but never stationed here. Italian sort of came naturally from Spanish, in a way. Raven taught me that way back, which was the starting point of my interest in languages, I guess.”

“Well, you certainly have the time to learn any language you want,” he notes drily, and gets a light elbow in the ribs in return.

“Anyway, so English, French, Spanish and Swedish I speak fine, my Swedish is a little rusty since I don’t use it much,” she continues. “Then my level of Italian and Portuguese I would say is ‘get by without having to resort to sign language’, and I basically understand but don’t really speak Russian, Japanese and German. And I’ve been thinking about learning Mandarin, but it seems really hard.” Bellamy’s openly staring at her when she finishes. “What?”

He lets out a huff of a laugh and pulls her closer. “You’re just amazing, you know that?”

“Well, obviously. But like you said, I do have a lot of time to pretty much do what I want, and these days it’s really easy with all the apps and stuff,” she says with a shrug.

“Still amazing.”

She leans into his side and lets out a long breath. “You’re pretty amazing too.”

“Flattery will get you everywhere,” he replies, his lips brushing her hair briefly.

She nuzzles against his throat and squeezes his thigh. “I was hoping it might.”

His arm slips around her, underneath her jacket, and his thumb brushes her ribcage just below her breast, making her entire body tingle in anticipation.

Still, by the time they’ve checked in, grabbed a late dinner and made it back to their room, they both collapse into bed. Bellamy has enough energy left to pull her to him, her back to his front, but after that, they’re both asleep within minutes.

-100-

It’s been a couple of decades since Clarke was in Venice last, and they spend their first day in the city getting acquainted – Bellamy – and reacquainted – Clarke – with it.

The sky is a little cloudy when they leave the hotel the first morning, but the temperature’s in the mid-fifties, so it’s still nice out. There are already tourists out and about, and little stands set up along the water, selling everything from hats and Venetian masks to gelato. All along the quay, water taxis and gondolas are lined up, waiting for their next passengers.

They pause on Ponte della Paglia, like everyone else, to take some photos of Ponte dei Suspiri, the Bridge of Sighs, before continuing towards the impressive Doge’s Palace. After passing the beautiful building, they get a glimpse of Piazza San Marco and its campanile, but continue along the lagoon – they have tickets to the basilica on Monday, so they’ll be back.

They pass Giardini Riali, but soon after have to turn away from the canal, since they can’t get any further. Instead, they start weaving their way through the winding streets, turning at random, passing designer boutiques and souvenir shops and stores selling the local Murano glass, crossing a bridge and then another. Every single street, even the ones so narrow even Clarke can touch the buildings on either side if she stretches her arms out, is lined with shops. It’s a little dizzying, almost. Finally, Bellamy stops in the middle of a small square.

“Do you have any idea where we are?” he asks, looking around them.

Clarke glances at the tall, white building in front of them with columns marking the entrance. “Well, that’s Teatro la Fenice, so I have a general idea.”

“So where do we go from here?”

She shrugs. “I guess that depends on where we want to go. We didn’t really have a goal in mind when we set out, you know.”

“True,” he agrees, frowning. “I don’t know… Rialto Bridge? That’s, like, a big tourist spot, right?”

She gives him an amused look. “That’s what you’ve got?”

“Shut up,” Bellamy grumbles with an eye roll. “But if you want to keep wandering around aimlessly, fine by me.”

“No,” she tells him, looping her arm with his and tugging him along towards one of the streets leading off the little square. “The Rialto Bridge is on the Grand Canal, pretty much straight north from St Mark’s Place, so it should be more or less this way.”

They take a couple of wrong turns, end up on a passage that leads to a wooden dock jutting out into the canal and have to turn back the way they came, but eventually, they find their way to Riva del Carbon with the iconic bridge in the distance.

The street is lined with restaurants on one side, the water on the other, colorful boats of all shapes and sizes bobbing on the small waves cast from the water taxis and gondolas passing by.

They do the normal tourist stuff – even snapping a silly selfie of the two of them with the bridge in the distance – before crossing on one of the two covered walkways.

There aren’t quite as many tourists in this part of Venice, San Polo, but the streets are still bustling. It’s closing in on noon, and the trattorias and cafés are starting to prepare for the lunch rush, signs with today’s specials going up outside the doors, awnings being rolled out against the sun that has finally broken through the clouds.

“So, what’s your first impression of Venice?” Clarke asks as they stroll along, away from the Grand Canal and further into the jumble of streets lined by colorful buildings with wooden shutters and cute little balconies. “I know this was one of my things, and there aren’t that many historical sights, but it’s still a beautiful and unique city.”

“I love it,” Bellamy assures her, squeezing her hand. “Are you kidding? Experiencing one of the most romantic cities in the world with you, that’s… it’s amazing.”

“Are you saying Venice trumps Paris in the romance department?” she asks, giving him a questioning glance.

“I think it might,” he replies with a chuckle. “I mean, we haven’t even taken a ride in one of those gondola things yet, that’s bound to up the romance level, right?”

She can’t help but laugh at that. “What I’m hearing is that we should take one of those gondola rides. You sure your potential sea sickness will be OK with that?”

“Key word being ‘potential’,” he points out amusedly. “But even if I do get seasick, I think I’ll be OK – like you said yesterday, it’s not like the water’s very rough in these canals.”

She had secretly been hoping he might say that – she’s never taken a gondola ride before, and even though it’s a little corny and completely tourist-y, she kind of wants to do it with Bellamy anyway.

“Good. There are gondola stations all over the place, and it’s not really peak season, so we should be able to grab one without a problem.”

“Sounds good,” he agrees easily as they emerge into an open square. “So are we back to wandering aimlessly, or do you have a specific goal in mind?”

It’s clear that they’re getting further and further from the tourist areas, some of the buildings around the square appear to be abandoned, or at least not very well taken care of, and there’s scaffolding in front of one of them.

“Wandering aimlessly,” Clarke admits. “I mean, there are plenty of nice little squares and churches around here, all over the city, but I don’t have anything specific in mind, really.”

“Wandering aimlessly sounds good,” he assures her with a squeeze of her hand. “Maybe look for a nice place to grab some lunch soon?”

At Bellamy’s words, her stomach grumbles a little, making them both laugh. “Sounds like a plan.”

It takes another hour and a half, two bridges, a quick tour of a beautiful church with amazing paintings by Titian and a breathtaking view of the city from the top of the bell tower, as well as countless twists and turns before they settle in at a little trattoria overlooking yet another cute little square with a church.

“OK, so at some point, you have to try Italian pizza,” Clarke says, scrutinizing the options on the menu. “It’s just amazing. But so is the pasta, of course… oh, and risotto, when it’s cooked right, is so good…”

He chuckles a little. “Well, we have, like, two weeks total in Italy, right? I’m pretty sure we’ll have time to try everything.”

“And the gelato.” She’s sure the expression on her face turns dreamy at the mere thought. “Though maybe wait until we get to Rome, hopefully the weather will be a little warmer there. There used to be this little place near Fontana di Trevi that had the best gelato in Rome, but it’s been a while since I was there.”

The smile on Bellamy’s face when she looks up from her menu is both amused and a little teasing. “Sounds like a plan, Princess.”

They put in their orders and the food arrives quickly, considering it’s still the middle of the lunch rush. Within an hour, the waitress is bringing their check and Clarke takes the opportunity to enquire after a gondola stop.

“There’s a gondola stop just a few minutes from here,” she relates once they’ve left the restaurant. “Do you want to continue strolling around a little longer, or head straight there?”

Bellamy considers for a moment. “Either’s fine with me,” he eventually says. “I don’t mind walking for a while longer, if that’s what you want, but it’s up to you.”

There’s nothing that they need to do today, they’ve hit pretty much all the interesting spots in this part of the city, and she’s starting to feel the effects of the maybe a tad too heavy pasta she ended up ordering, her eyelids drooping slightly.

“Maybe the gondola,” she decides. “Relax at the hotel for a couple of hours before we try that restaurant the receptionist recommended when we checked in last night.”

“Lead the way.”

They find the gondola station without a problem, and Clarke manages to talk the gondolier into a private and slightly longer tour than usual, to cover all the sights they want to see. He doesn’t offer any guide services, but she’s familiar enough with the city she can handle that part.

Once they’re out in the middle of the canal, she scoots over on the little bench they’re seated on. “You OK?”

Bellamy wraps an arm around her waist and pulls her closer. “Not feeling any hints of sea sickness, so you can stop worrying.”

“OK, good.”

“This really is something else,” he mumbles after a moment, eyes darting between the buildings on either side of the water. “I can’t imagine living in a place like this.”

“No, it’s definitely a special place,” she agrees.

“I mean, the houses actually have entrances where you literally jump out of a boat and onto their stoop.”

She can’t help but laugh, not at his words but at the amazed look on his face, and he gives her a slightly sheepish smile.

“So this is Canal Grande,” she then explains, nodding ahead of them. “It’s the main canal in the city, hence the name – the Grand Canal. Most buildings along here used to belong to the rich families of the city, which is pretty obvious.”

They’re just passing the beautiful Palazzo Grassi on their left and another old palazzo, Ca’ Rezzonico, on the right, two good examples of the wealth of the canal’s old neighbors.

“Yeah, no kidding.”

They float along in silence for a while, until a beautiful, seemingly wooden bridge, comes into view.

“That’s Ponte dell'Accademia,” Clarke notes, pointing ahead. “On that side of the canal is Gallerie dell'Accademia, an art gallery with Venetian paintings up until the 18^th century. They have some amazing pieces…”

“Do you want to go?” he immediately asks. “I mean, I’m not completely sure where we are right now, but I’m pretty sure we’re heading in the direction of St Mark’s Square, right? So it can’t be too far from our hotel.”

“You’re absolutely right, the square is further up on the left,” she confirms. “We’ll see about the museum, I’ve been before so it’s not really a big deal, but maybe if we have time.”

“OK. What are the big white cupolas up there? St Mark’s Basilica?”

She looks where he’s pointing. “No, that’s another church, Santa Maria… something. It’s on the other side of the canal from the square.”

They pass the church in question, its ornate façade glittering in the sun that’s almost warm by now, before leaving Canal Grande for the narrower Rio de san Moisè.

“We’re not going back to the hotel?” Bellamy asks, looking over his shoulder.

“Not yet,” she replies. “We’re taking a bit of a detour.”

“Nice.”

They both duck, automatically, when they approach a low bridge.

“I think we walked here earlier, right?” he says when they emerge on the other side, looking at the small open space to their right. “I’m sure we passed a Versace store, at least.”

“Did you want to do some shopping?” Clarke asks innocently and he rolls his eyes.

“I was just looking out for Victoria’s Secret,” he teases back. “You know, you did promise to pick something up for my birthday and it’s less than a week away.”

“God, you’re obsessed,” she replies, laughing. “I haven’t forgotten, I promise.”

”Good.” He presses a kiss to her temple. “So this is the back of all the fancy buildings we saw walking, I guess. I’ve heard about the foundations of the buildings here dissolving, and you can really see it from here.”

It’s true – the bottom few inches of most of the buildings are discolored, and in places, the concrete or bricks look almost porous.

They pass under another two bridges before taking a right, onto another narrow canal, and soon after another right. After another bridge, they emerge into a larger, open area, where a bunch of other gondolas are moored.

“St Mark’s Square is on the other side of those buildings,” she says, pointing straight ahead. “I don’t think we’ll be able to see it from here, though.”

They turn left, taking an even narrower canal that runs along the square. Clarke is really hoping they won’t meet another boat, because there’s no way it would fit. It feels like their gondola takes up most of the available space.

Luckily enough, they don’t meet anyone, and a few turns and bridges later, they suddenly emerge into the open on Canal Grande again, the Rialto bridge off to their right.

“OK, that was a lot of twists and turns,” Bellamy notes. “I honestly have no idea how we ended up here again.”

“I know, I was completely lost in there too,” she agrees. “But it should be pretty straight forward from now on, I think, we’re just heading up the Grand Canal for a bit before turning back, there are a couple of buildings I want to show you. Then we’re taking the back canals to the hotel.”

“OK, sounds good. What did you want to show me?”

She shakes her head. “I’ll tell you when we get there.”

They glide under the Rialto Bridge, passing a vaporetto going in the other direction.

“See that building up there?” Clarke asks a few minutes later.

“Which one?”

“The cream one, with the boarded up windows.”

“Oh, yeah.”

“It’s the oldest palazzo on the Grand Canal, maybe in Venice,” she tells him. “Ca’ da Mosto, it was built way back in the early thirteenth century.”

“Seriously? Wow, that’s eight hundred years.”

“I know, amazing, right?”

“How come it’s boarded up?”

She frowns. “I don’t know… last time I was here, it wasn’t, but that was a while ago. Maybe it’s being restored, or something.”

“It probably needs it, eight hundred years is a long time,” Bellamy reasons. “Where’s the other building you were talking about?”

“A bit further up.” They sit in silence for a few minutes, until the building comes into view. “There it is, Ca’ d’Oro. Isn’t it beautiful?”

“The white one, with all the embellishments?” he asks. “Are those crosses on the roof?”

“I’m not sure, but yeah, that one. It’s definitely my favorite building in the city.”

“I can see why.”

The gondolier takes the boat closer to the building, so they can really appreciate the colonnaded loggia and the many columns and arches, before turning back the way they came. He turns left before the Rialto Bridge, onto a canal that’s almost hidden between buildings.

“This is nice,” Bellamy says after another long moment of silence.

“Don’t sound so surprised,” she replies with a laugh. “You did suggest it.”

“I mentioned it,” he corrects her. “I mean, I did want to do it, but I thought it would probably be a little cheesy and really tourist-y. Which it is, I guess, but… I love getting to see all these different buildings and bridges. And sure, lots of other people do it, but it’s still nice, getting this other perspective of the city. So what if it’s tourist-y?”

“Exactly. We are tourists, after all.”

He chuckles at that.

“Have we been in this area before?” he asks a few minutes later, as they pass under another bridge.

“Not really,” Clarke replies. “Our hotel is in the Castello area, which is on our left, but we’ve been in the San Marco area so far, mostly the western parts. We did cross this canal this morning, St Mark’s Square is on the right up here and we’ll get to the Bridge of Sighs eventually, but that’s it.”

“OK, so we’ll be coming out into the basin outside our hotel.”

“Yup.”

The gondolier comes to a stop as they approach the Bridge of Sighs, giving them the opportunity to snap some photos from this angle as well. When the gondola starts moving again, he calls out to them and Clarke rolls her eyes.

“What was that?” Bellamy asks.

“Just a stupid old legend,” she replies, looking away from him and instead focusing on the water. “Something they tell tourists. If a couple kiss while they pass under the bridge, their love is supposed to last forever.”

He’s quiet for a moment, but then he places a finger under her chin, gently making her face him again.

“I’m not saying I believe that, but… why risk it?”

He leans in slowly, maybe expecting her to stop him – not that she ever could – and presses his lips to hers softly. She lets her eyes slide closed and sighs, and he immediately deepens the kiss.

They don’t break apart until the gondolier starts clapping behind them – Clarke had almost forgotten they were still in the boat, if she’s honest.

“There,” Bellamy says, squeezing her hip. “Eternal love, check.”

Neither of them say what they’re probably both thinking – that eternal, in their case, is only a few more months,

Even if Clarke knows that she will love him long after he’s gone.

-100-

They spend the next few hours just lounging around their room, Bellamy reading a pamphlet that he grabbed in the hotel lobby earlier – possibly trying to figure out what they’re going to do on Lido tomorrow – and Clarke just dozing for a while, leaning back against him, before checking the news. Once she’s confirmed that nothing good’s happened, she uploads some photos from the day to Facebook, including their selfie with the Rialto Bridge, before scrolling through her feed. Just as she’s about to close down the app, she gets a comment from Octavia on the selfie.

So cute! Tell Bell I say hi

“Your sister says hi,” she dutifully reports.

He hums. “Is she home?”

She switches to her messenger app and sends the question to Octavia, getting an affirmative response back almost immediately. “Yup.”

Bellamy shifts a little behind her, reaching for his phone on the bedside table, she realizes, so she sits up straight so she’s not leaning on him. He pulls her back against his chest a moment later, leaving his arm around her waist as he, she assumes, opens Skype on his phone.

He and Octavia have been talking regularly in the month or so since they left Ireland, at least a couple of times a week. The first time he called, Clarke offered to give them some privacy, but he insisted that he would rather have her there, so she’s been a witness to the siblings’ relationship improving even more than it already had during their week in Dublin. The first call was still a little strained, at least on Bellamy’s side – she obviously couldn’t hear Octavia’s – but even the second one was more relaxed, and by now, they’re talking like they’ve never been out of touch, both teasing the other, pushing buttons they no doubt learned while growing up together.

“Hey, O,” he now says, his voice rumbling in his chest and propagating to Clarke’s back. “You having a good Saturday?”

She can just make out Octavia’s voice over the line, if not the actual words.

“Yeah, it seems like a really nice place so far. Not as many tourists as I thought there might be, which is a relief. We’ve been exploring a bit, lots of walking, and then we took a gondola back to the hotel… yes, a gondola, one of those boats for tourists… shut up, so what if it’s a cliché?”

Clarke chuckles quietly at the put out note that’s made its way into his voice. “Is she teasing you?”

“Mm-hm. God, you’re a brat, you know that?”

Octavia’s laughter floats from the phone and Clarke has to smile, because she can see the big smile on Bellamy’s face without even having to turn around.

They continue chatting and Clarke focuses on her Instagram feed, liking a few posts from Raven and Harper.

“Shit, O, you can’t just say stuff like that!” Bellamy exclaims after a while, and she puts her phone away and half-turns to look at him. His eyebrows are raised and he’s blushing a little. “Yes, I know you’re twenty-five, that’s beside the point… please stop talking, I don’t need to know this… thank you.”

Clarke gives him a questioning look but he just shakes his head slightly.

“Right, that’s why you have to go,” he then says, rolling his eyes. “Fine… yeah… love you to, O… OK, I’ll talk to you later.”

“Everything OK?” Clarke asks when he’s hung up and put his phone away.

“Yeah, just Octavia being, well, Octavia,” he tells her with a shrug, tugging her back down. She turns so she’s leaning back against him again and his arms circle her waist.

She kind of really wants to know what Octavia said that made him blush, but she decides against asking. It’s still new, this easy relationship with his sister, and she doesn’t want to butt in too much.

“She sort of…” he starts after a moment, voice deep in her ear. “She pointed out that I was in Venice, in a presumably romantic hotel room, with my girlfriend, wasting time talking to my sister when I could be… doing other stuff.”

His thumb grazes the bare sliver of skin between her jeans and t-shirt and Clarke feels a tingle of anticipation.

“Well… she’s not wrong…”

He stills behind her for a moment, before his hand slips under her shirt completely, warm and rough against her skin. “Yeah?”

She likes the direction his fingers are taking along her ribcage, but she also wants to be an active participant in what’s to come, so she moves to straddle him on the bed.

“We’ve been here, in this incredibly romantic city, for almost a full day now,” she notes, undoing the top button in his shirt. “And neither of us have had an orgasm in that time.”

Bellamy chuckles, sliding his hands up and down her thighs. “That is true. We really need to amend that.”

“That’s all I’m saying.”

She finishes getting the last button undone and immediately leans in, pressing open mouthed kisses up his chest and neck until she finds his mouth. He tangles a hand in her hair and pulls her in to deepen the kiss, his other hand trailing up her back, under her shirt, and undoing her bra when he finds it.

Clarke breaks the kiss long enough to pull her shirt and bra off, recapturing his lips as soon as they’re gone. He groans into the kiss, sliding his hand around from her back to cup her breast before squeezing, and she arches her back against his touch. When he twirls her nipple between his fingers, she can’t help the whimper that escapes her, but he swallows it down.

The room is a little chilly – they cracked a window when they got back, to let some air in – and Bellamy’s hands are large and warm, making the contrast on her skin all the more noticeable. He slides the one that was buried in her hair down her back, squeezing her butt before pulling her harder against him, and she can’t stop the shiver running down her spine, whether from the cool air or the friction, she’s not completely sure.

He seems to interpret it as the former, though, and pulls away from her. “Are you cold?”

“I’m fine,” she assures him, taking the opportunity to push his shirt further off his shoulders and get working on his jeans.

“We can close the window,” he offers, still frowning up at her slightly.

Clarke has absolutely no intention of getting out of this bed before getting off at least once. She slides her hand into his jeans, palming him through his boxers, and he grinds his teeth together.

“So not a priority right now,” she breathes out before leaning in again. “Besides, I’m pretty sure we can warm each other up.”

Her position’s not the best, she has to bend her arm in a slightly uncomfortable way to be able to rub him slowly as their tongues battle, and maybe he realizes this too, because before she knows what’s really happening, he’s flipped them over so she’s flat on her back and is looming above her.

“So…” he starts, leaning down to nip at her collar bone, “about those orgasms…”

“Uh-huh,” she manages to get out before gasping when Bellamy circles her nipple with his tongue.

“Any preferences?”

She understands the words he’s saying, but he switches his attention to her other breast and sucks her nipple into his mouth and really, she can’t be expected to form any rational thoughts when he does that.

So instead of answering, she slides her hand into his hair and tries to keep him there. Not that he seems interested in moving at the moment.

He does abandon her breast after a long moment, continuing to kiss and lick his way down her stomach. Once he reaches her jeans, though, he leans his chin against her hip bone and looks up at her.

“What’s it going to be, Princess?”

He at least sounds a little breathless himself.

“Huh?”

He tuts a little, like he’s disappointed in her, but then tugs her jeans and underwear off, so she’s not going to complain.

“What do you want?” he asks once he’s settled between her legs again, placing a soft kiss on the inside of her thigh. “Hands? Mouth? Give me something to work with here.”

At this point, she’ll take anything, she just wants him to touch her, really touch her.

“Mouth,” she decides, and he smiles like he’s won the lottery or something before diving right in.

The first lap of his tongue has her hips jerking off the bed, and he places an arm over her stomach, holding her down, before repeating the motion.

It’s not long before Clarke’s panting and squirming against his hold, desperate for more, and just when she thinks she can’t take it any longer, he shifts slightly, sliding two fingers deep inside her and focusing his mouth on her clit, and she’s gone.

When she’s come down enough to notice her surroundings again, Bellamy’s working his way back up her stomach and then ribcage, mouth and tongue hot and wet against her skin. When he reaches her breasts, he pulls a nipple into his mouth at the same time as he grinds his hips against hers, and she realizes he must have gotten rid of his jeans and underwear at some point.

“Good?” he asks quietly before kissing her softly.

“Amazing,” she replies honestly, wrapping an arm around his neck to pull him down and shifting her hips a little so he just needs to push forward to slide right into her. They both sigh when he bottoms out, eyes locked.

“Love you, Princess,” he murmurs, leaning his forehead against hers.

“Love you too,” she replies, bending her leg to get some purchase and pushing up against him. “Now move.”

He chuckles at her request, but obeys, and Clarke lets out a moan when he thrusts into her again, harder than before. She in turn wraps her legs around his waist, pulling him deeper, and is rewarded with a groan. She pulls him in for another kiss, this one messier, and digs her heels into his back, urging him on. Finally, he starts moving in earnest, pulling low whimpers from her with each thrust, and in minutes – or maybe hours, she honestly can’t tell – she can tell that they’re both close.

“Come on, Bell,” she murmurs into his ear, squeezing her internal muscles around him. “Let go.”

He buries his face against her throat, and she feels a ragged breath against her skin. Then he slips a hand between them, finding her clit easily. “Ladies first.”

Another thrust and she’s tumbling over the edge again, feeling him follow a moment later.

He collapses on top of her as they both struggle to catch their breaths, and she wraps both arms tightly around him.

“So, Venice sex,” Bellamy says after a long moment, nosing at her chin. “Better than Paris sex?”

She can’t help but laugh. “I think it’s a tie.”

Chapter Text

They venture out for dinner a little later, before returning to the hotel for some more sex and, eventually, sleep.

All in all, Clarke thinks, a pretty awesome Saturday in Venice.

The rain is pouring down when they wake up on Sunday.

“The downside of travelling through Europe in the winter, I guess,” she notes blearily, blinking at the window where Bellamy’s just pushed the curtains to the side to let what little light there is into the room.

“It could be worse,” he replies, flopping back onto the bed and throwing an arm over his face. “It could be snowing. Or it could be a hundred degrees outside. I prefer a bit of rain to both of those.”

“Mmmm,” she hums in agreement, snuggling closer and burying her face against his chest. “Still not ideal for island hopping.”

His arm goes around her and he pulls her even closer, half on top of him.

“True. Do we need all day for that?”

They’ve bought two-day travel cards for the water buses and were planning on doing south and south-east – Giudecca, San Giorgio Maggiore and Lido – today and north and north-east – Murano and Burano – tomorrow.

“Probably not,” she decides. “Definitely not if it’s raining, we’d just be hurrying around anyway.”

“Then I vote for staying in bed until the rain lets up,” he says, squeezing her butt.

“And what if it rains all day?”

He pushes her back a little, so they’re both on their sides, facing each other, and hitches her leg over his hip.

“Then I guess we’ll just have to stay in bed… all… day… long,” he replies, punctuating the last four words with kisses, starting at her mouth and finishing at her collar bone.

“Good plan,” Clarke agrees, sliding her hand into his hair when he tugs the neckline of her t-shirt down and places an open mouthed kiss on her breast.

Her stomach chooses that exact moment to growl loudly, and Bellamy pulls back, laughing.

“After breakfast?” he asks, eyebrows raised.

She lets out an exaggerated sigh. “Fine.”

He pinches her side before pushing himself out of bed and she throws a pillow at him before following. Sure, she is hungry, but on the other hand… sex.

Breakfast is nice, of course, and they’re back in their room soon enough, making sure that the ‘Do not disturb’ sign is on the door before falling back into bed.

The rain finally stops around noon, and they – or at least Clarke – reluctantly put on actual clothes and leave the hotel.

“Come on, this is what we’re here for,” Bellamy tells her amusedly as they cross the open space outside their hotel to one of the ferry stations on the basin. “I mean, you know I’m all for sex, but we’ll have plenty of time for that later.”

“Should I be offended that you prefer sightseeing to sex?” she asks, trying to hide her grin.

“Not prefer,” he objects, tugging her in by the hand to be able to wrap an arm around her waist. “Trust me – if I had to choose between sex and sightseeing, sex would win, hands down. But I don’t, so we can do both.”

She heaves an exaggerated sigh. “I guess.”

She ends up having a great time, of course, but it’s still fun to mess with him a little.

The first boat ride is only a few minutes and then they stroll around San Giorgio for a while, checking out the beautiful church they saw from the gondola yesterday, all the – more or less weird – pieces of art along the harbor and a labyrinth hidden between the buildings, before continuing to Giudecca. They get off at the first stop they get to and just wander along the water, admiring the buildings and the view of Venice across the water. When they get hungry, they grab some lunch, and then just continue exploring until they reach the other end of the island.

Lido is a bit further away, and they have to go by several ferry stops both on Giudecca and in Venice proper, as well as switch ferries before they finally reach it half an hour or so later.

“So what do you do on Lido?” Bellamy asks when they’ve gotten off the ferry.

Clarke frowns. “Honestly, I think the beach is the main draw, normally.”

“Maybe not today.”

The weather has improved during the afternoon, the sun has even managed to chase most of the clouds away, but it’s definitely not warm enough for a day at the beach.

“Nope.”

They check out the war memorial close to the ferry station before heading down the main street towards the beach, where they follow the promenade south. She can definitely see why the beach would be a nice spot to visit during the summer, but even though the sun is shining down on the sandy stretch and the water is glittering beyond it, the temperature has barely cleared fifty, so it’s still not very inviting.

They continue until they hit a wall, and then they take a right and eventually find their way to the other side of the long, narrow island, heading back the way they came.

By the time they reach the ferry station again, the sun has definitely started to set, casting a golden glow over the islands dotted in the distance. The ferry arrives within minutes, and they easily find spots in the half-full cabin.

“So… good afternoon?” Bellamy gives her a sideways glance that anyone else would probably miss.

“Great afternoon,” she assures him, leaning her head against his shoulder, and feels him let out a breath.

She’s pretty sure he realized that she was joking about the sex over sightseeing thing earlier, but he’s such a worrywart, it probably bothered him a little anyway.

“Good.”

Still, it seems like he wants to make sure that she really doesn’t feel like he picked an afternoon of sightseeing over staying in bed with her – they don’t leave their room for the rest of the evening, and he insists that they order room service for dinner and doesn’t let her out of bed except to use the bathroom.

And, well, it’s not like she’s going to say no to that.

The sky is still blue and the sun is shining when they get up on Monday, and it even feels like the temperature has risen a little, so they get an early start after breakfast with a nice walk to a ferry station on the north shore of the city.

On a whim, Clarke suggests that they make a quick stop on the island of San Michele, which functions as the main cemetery of Venice.

“Is it weird that we’ve visited…” she pauses to count, “three cemeteries so far?”

Bellamy considers her question for a moment. “Isn’t it four?” he then asks. “The one in Glasgow, the one in Paris, the American cemetery and memorial near Omaha beach, and this one.”

“Right, I’d forgotten the one in Normandy,” she replies. “So that’s even weirder.”

He squeezes her hand as they leave the dock. “I wouldn’t say weird… after Octavia left and before I moved in with Miller, I used to come to the cemetery in Paterson a lot. To visit Mom’s grave, of course, but also… it was a peaceful place, you know? Somewhere I could just forget, for a while.”

She offers him a smile that she hopes is comforting. “I do know. I’ve always found cemeteries beautiful, in some strange way… and, like you said, peaceful. And I like visiting different graves, learning about traditions from around the world. Did you know that in some Buddhist areas, like Tibet, the bodies of loved ones are cut into pieces and left for animals to pick clean?”

He grimaces a little. “That doesn’t sound very nice.”

“They believe that the body is just a vessel, so when the spirit inhabiting it has moved on, it’s empty, and the ritual, they call it sky burial, is an act of charity and compassion.”

“I guess I can see that. I mean, we burn our dead, what’s so much better about that?”

“Exactly.” They continue in silence for a while, before Clarke speaks again. “Do you know what region your dad was from, by the way? I know Taytay is in Rizal, but was he from there originally?”

“I have no idea, actually,” he replies. “I only got Taytay from his passport, it’s listed as place of birth, so he was at least born there, but I suppose his family could have been from somewhere else. Why?”

“Just another odd funeral tradition I remembered, from the Cavite region, just south of Manila. In some rural areas, people are buried in hollowed out tree trunks, which the person chooses before they die.”

Bellamy shakes his head. “That’s just… so weird. And what happens if the person dies in an accident or something, and doesn’t have a chance to pick a tree they like?”

“I don’t know,” she says with a shrug. “I suppose someone else would have to pick one for them.

“Weird…”

There’s hardly any people on the island, not strange since it’s only half past nine on a Monday, and they stroll around the different areas of the cemetery mostly in silence, Clarke now and then commenting on something. There are many different types of graves – traditional ones with tombstones, columbaria, crypts…

Bellamy mostly offers hums of agreement or one word responses, and when they’re heading back towards the ferry, she looks up at him to find his brows furrowed.

“What’s wrong?”

He glances at her and lets out a sigh. “Just… I should probably think about this stuff, right?”

“Why?”

He just raises his eyebrows, which draws her attention to his Number – 138. Her stomach does an unpleasant flop. “Right…”

“I did give it some thought back when Mom died,” he continues. “She didn’t have a will or anything, and she never talked about it, so we had no idea what she wanted. In the end, it came down to cost – Mom’s insurance covered some of it, but not everything, and cremation was just a lot cheaper, it was really the only option… but Octavia insisted on an actual plot, and we somehow managed to get enough money for it.”

“Is it just a single plot, or…” Clarke doesn’t finish the sentence, can’t say the words out loud – is there enough space for someone else?

“Yeah, it’s a single, and I…” He lets out a humorless laugh. “Is it bad if I don’t want to be buried there? It’s my hometown, or the closest I have, at least, but I just… I got out. It would almost feel like going backwards, if I end up there anyway.”

She lets go of his hand so she can wrap both arms around him. It’s not an ideal walking position, but she doesn’t care. His arm comes around her shoulders as well. “It’s not bad,” she assures him. “There’s nothing right or wrong in this type of situation, the only thing that matters is what you want, OK?”

He nods a little. “Yeah.”

“And you don’t have to decide anything right now,” she continues, swallowing down a lump in her throat. “Just… when you figure it out, let me know or… write it down or something, OK?”

She knows that they will have to think about it, talk about it, before he… before. And maybe she should have been prepared for this, should have been thinking about it herself, to be able to help him figure it out, but she’s just… well, she’s been trying to not think about any of this, so she just hasn’t.

Bellamy stops to be able to lean down and press a soft kiss to her lips, maybe sensing the war going on inside her. “I will. OK, time to talk about something else, because this is getting depressing – Murano, is that the one with the glassmaking?”

She’s grateful for the change of subject and tries to push everything else aside during the short boat trip to Murano. As soon as they get off the ferry, Bellamy pulls her along to the lighthouse right by the station, stopping at the foot of the high tower and tilting his head back to take it all in, and she can’t help but smile at the excited look on his face.

They check out glass blowing at one of the factories on the island – Clarke has seen it before, but Bellamy seems fascinated by the process of shaping glass – explore both sides of the Grand Canal and grab some lunch before wrapping the visit up with a tour of the glass museum.

Burano is a briefer stop, they basically just stroll around for a while, check out the colorful houses along the canals, stop to watch some little old ladies making lace here and there, and fulfill the tourist requirement by taking photos of each other pretending to prop up the bell tower of the church, which is leaning slightly – not as bad as the more famous leaning tower of Pisa, but enough to make it fun to play around a little.

They’re back at the ferry station by a little after four, and since the weather is still nice, they decide to take a bit of a detour and hop on the ferry going the opposite way. The trip takes them through more of the Venetian archipelago, past mostly uninhabited islands until they reach Punta Sabbioni, which is actually on the Italian mainland, where they have to switch boats. The second leg of the journey, they follow the shoreline of Lido for a while, and then they’re back in Venice.

“No seasickness today either,” Clarke notes when they’ve disembarked at the station right by their hotel.

Bellamy laughs. “I think we can safely say I am not prone to seasickness.”

“Yup,” she agrees. “So you up for trying pizza tonight?”

“Sure. Know any good places?”

She thinks for a moment. “There was a great place near the Rialto Bridge last time I was here,” she says. “But that was in the early nineties, so I wouldn’t bet on it still being there.”

“Maybe we can ask the receptionist if they can recommend something.”

They do, getting the name of a restaurant just a few minutes away, which has some of the best pizza in Venice, according to the young woman at reception. Clarke’s frankly amazed that she manages to tell them anything at all, with how much she’s smiling and batting her eyelashes at Bellamy.

“Seriously, am I invisible or something?” she asks when they’re climbing the stairs to their room.

“What?” He frowns at her question.

“Did you not notice that she was practically eye-fucking you?”

He snorts. “I think that’s a bit of an exaggeration. She was just being friendly.”

“Right, friendly…” she grumbles.

“Hey.” He reaches for her hand and pulls her to a stop. “I’m sorry, if you say she was flirting, she probably was. I just didn’t notice.”

She raises a questioning eyebrow, because really, it was so obvious.

“No, hear me out,” he continues. “I didn’t notice, because I don’t care.”

OK, that’s a pretty good reason. “I don’t even know why I care,” Clarke sort of exclaims. “I’m not a jealous person.”

“I know,” he replies, squeezing her hand before tugging her along down the hallway towards their room. “Honestly, if I had noticed, I probably would have been pissed. I mean, we’re obviously together, who flirts with someone right in front of their partner? Especially someone in the service industry. Being nice is one thing, but straight out flirting is just bad customer service.”

“Right?” She does feel her annoyance fade, which is a relief. She really isn’t prone to jealousy and doesn’t know where it came from.

“But you know you don’t have anything to worry about, right?” Bellamy asks when they’ve reached their room.

She offers him a reassuring smile before flopping onto the bed. “Of course I do. Like I said, I don’t usually get jealous, I don’t know why I did this time. I feel a little silly, to be honest.”

“Don’t. If some Italian hottie was flirting with you, I’d probably get jealous too.”

She raises an eyebrow at him. “Oh, so she was hot, was she?”

He rolls his eyes. “I was talking hypothetically.”

“Sure you were.” She’s kidding. Mostly.

He joins her on the bed, turning onto his side so he can look at her, and runs a finger up her thigh. “Do I need to remind you how much I love you?”

“Hmm…” She pretends to think it over for a moment. “I suppose it couldn’t hurt.”

And, oh, he does.

They do need sustenance, and despite Clarke suggesting room service again, Bellamy is adamant that they really try the pizza the girl at reception suggested. She grudgingly agrees, dragging herself out of bed and pulling on some clothes before following him out of the room.

Instead of continuing through the lobby and out the door, though, he pulls her to a stop just inside it, in plain view of the reception desk.

“What’re you…” she starts, but is cut off when he leans down and claims her lips in a kiss that is probably just a shade inappropriate for a public space. She returns it anyway, of course, because there’s really not a scenario in which she wouldn’t want to kiss him, stepping a little closer to get a better angle. His hand slides around her waist and settles against her back, and she fists her hand in his shirt.

They finally break apart when someone clears their throat next to them, and find a middle aged couple a few feet away. The man looks ruffled, blotches of red visible above the collar of his jacket, but the woman is smiling at them.

“City of love,” she stage-whispers as they pass, and Clarke has to bite back on a chuckle.

“So what was that?” she asks once they’re out in the open air.

Bellamy shrugs. “Just wanted to make it clear who I’m with.”

It might be silly, but it makes a warmth settle in her stomach. She squeezes his arm. “I love you, you know that?”

She feels his lips press briefly against her temple. “I do. I love you.”

The pizza is just as amazing as she hoped, and they linger at the cozy little restaurant for a while, enjoying some fantastic local wine and even indulging in  dessert, splitting some tiramisu and panna cotta – they are in Italy, after all.

Their final full day in the city, they finally get to St Mark’s Square. They have tickets to the Basilica for eleven in the morning, so they won’t have to wait in line, but still head over as soon as they’ve had breakfast, strolling around the square, checking out the beautiful buildings, the campanile and, of course, the church itself. There are a few little carts selling souvenirs here and there, and they browse a little, even though Bellamy’s already bought a beautiful, heart shaped pendant made of Murano glass for Octavia, and Clarke’s not really looking for anything since Raven’s been to Venice.

The Basilica is just as impressive as Clarke remembers, and the look on Bellamy’s face when he takes in the golden mosaic covering the walls and ceiling just after they enter the church is just amazing.

“This is…” he starts, but doesn’t seem to be able to find the right words.

“I know,” she agrees, tilting her head back to take it in. “There’s a reason it’s called the Golden Basilica.”

“I can see that.” He shakes his head disbelievingly. “I can’t believe it’s… how old again?”

She opens the information folder she grabbed at the entrance and quickly finds the information. “Most of the mosaics in the domes date from between 1160 and 1200, so almost nine hundred years.”

“Jesus.” He snaps his mouth shut, glancing around. “Is it OK to say that in here? I don’t want to, like, offend anyone.”

Clarke pats his arm comfortingly. “I think you’re good.”

They continue strolling around, taking in all the amazing décor in the different rooms. Once they’ve both had their fill, they continue to the museum next door, to check out the original bronze horses, before climbing to the balcony stretching along the front of the Basilica, where reproductions of the same horses keep an eye on the square below.

“Lunch?” Bellamy suggests when they leave the museum and emerge into the sunny afternoon. “When do we have tickets for the Doge’s Palace?”

She checks the electronic ticket on her phone. “Three, so we have plenty of time for lunch.”

Since the cafés and restaurants on St Mark’s Square are known for being ridiculously expensive, they venture away from the square, finding a little hole-in-the-wall place just a few minutes away.

The Doge’s Palace is another hour of amazing art and décor, the gilded and painted ceilings making both of them crane their necks almost continually. The old prison cells are a stark contrast, dank and bare.

Since they’ve also booked the secret itineraries tour, they then get to step behind the scenes and visit the old torture chamber, venture down secret passageways and cross the Bridge of Sighs.

“We were down there the other day,” Bellamy notes when they’re stopped on the bridge, peeking through the small openings in the structure.

“Yeah,” Clarke agrees.

“So do they say something about kissing on the Bridge of Sighs?” he asks after a moment.

She can’t help but let out a brief laugh. “I don’t know but… why risk it?”

He smiles at her reiteration of his words from their gondola tour under the bridge and then leans down to kiss her, nothing too intimate, just a soft press of lips.

-100-

Clarke wakes up with sunlight streaming in through a crack in the curtains on their last morning in Venice. For a moment, she’s confused as to what she’s looking at, but then she realizes that Bellamy’s sitting propped up against the headboard, and she’s sort of snuggling with his hip.

“Morning,” he greets her amusedly when she looks up at him.

“Morning,” she replies. “What’re you doing? You know the train to Rome doesn’t leave until after three, right? We’re not in any hurry.”

“I know,” he confirms, eyes returning to the screen of his cell phone, which he has in his hand and is… writing on? “I’m just checking out some stuff to do in Rome.”

Clarke frowns as she pushes herself up on her elbow to be able to peek at his phone. “You know I already have all that done, right? All the tickets are booked. I mean, we have a couple of free days, so if you’ve found something else, we should be able to fit it in, but not a whole bunch of things.”

“Yeah, but this is none-ticket stuff,” he tells her. “I’m planning my birthday.”

“I thought you just wanted to check out the city, stroll around aimlessly?” she reminds him.

Bellamy shrugs. “I decided I wanted some structure.”

“OK, show me what you’ve got.”

“So this is our hotel,” he says, pointing in the bottom right corner of the map on the screen, right next to the circle indicating the Colosseum. This might be the hotel Clarke is looking forward to the most – apart from the actual luxury hotels – since their room will have an amazing view of the Colosseum, something she hasn’t told Bellamy yet. She can’t wait to see the look on his face when he sees it. “I figure we head along this street, with the Roman Forum on one side. Piazza Venezia is up here, with the Vittoriano. I know we have tickets to that on Saturday, so we’ll just check out the exterior. Then we’ll take a left and eventually get to Piazza Navona.”

Clarke nods. “OK, sounds good. And from there we’ll stroll around aimlessly?”

“More or less.” He skips to another screenshot of a map of the city. “I figure the final goal would be the Spanish steps, up there, with the Pantheon – just the exterior if there’s too much people, if not, we can get that out of the way while we’re there – and Fontana di Trevi along the way.”

“Great.” She looks closer at the screen. “What’re all the red dots? Tezenis… Yamamay… Intimissimi?”

Bellamy blushes a little. “They’re, uh… underwear stores.”

She just stares at him for a long moment, watching as he becomes more and more uncomfortable. Finally, she can’t take it anymore and bursts out laughing, flopping back down on the bed.

“Seriously?” she asks when she’s gotten her laughter under control.

He rolls his eyes, clearly not embarrassed for getting caught anymore. “What? I just wanted to know the lay of the land before we get there. I’m helping.”

“You’re ridiculous, you know that?”

“Yeah, yeah,” he grumbles, focusing back on his phone.

Something occurs to her and she pushes herself up so she’s sitting cross legged on the bed. “How long have you been awake, anyway, if you already have the whole day planned?

“A while,” he admits, looking a little sheepish. “I just, I woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep… we’re going to Rome!”

She sort of wants to laugh again, but he looks so earnest that she bites it back. “I know. So I guess we’re going with even more enthusiastic about Rome, huh?”

“I wasn’t sure but… yeah,” he agrees easily. “Expect full out kid-on-Christmas levels of excitement when we actually get there. Seriously, I won’t blame you if you’re sick of me by the time we leave and want to cancel the rest of this trip.”

“Yeah, that could never happen.” She leans over and steals a kiss before getting out of bed. “Come on, time for our last Venetian breakfast.”

They’ve done everything they were planning in the city, so they take their time at breakfast and then go back to the room to pack and… well, do other things.

Clarke paid for late checkout, since their train doesn’t leave until almost half past three in the afternoon, so they don’t have to check out and figure out what to do while dragging their luggage around, which is a relief. Now, they just head down to the lobby to check out at two thirty and hop on the vaporetto to the train station.

She’s never really seen the Italian country side before, so the train ride is a new, nice experience. And, if she’s honest, the best part might be watching Bellamy get more and more excited the closer they get to the capital. Once they’re actually within the city limits, he can barely sit still in the seat, and he bounds up as soon as the train’s come to a stop at the station.

Fortunately – or maybe unfortunately for Bellamy, who would no doubt love a complete tour of the city – the cab ride to the hotel is just fifteen minutes. They’re dropped off literally across the street from the Colosseum, and for a moment, he just stands there, staring at the lit up building.

“You OK?” Clarke asks, voice only a little amused, when it’s been a few minutes.

He shakes his head, as if trying to snap out of a daze. “Fine, sorry… it’s just… this has been a dream since I was, I don’t know, eight? I think it’s going to take a while before it actually sinks in that I’m really here.”

She slips her hand into his and squeezes. “Then I guess it’s a good thing we have a week to do that.”

Chapter Text

To Clarke’s complete lack of surprise, Bellamy is already awake when she wakes up on his birthday. What she hadn’t expected was that he would also be out of bed, sitting in the padded window seat and gazing out at the view.

“Hey,” she mumbles, pushing her hair out of her face and blinking against the sunlight streaming in through the window. “What are you doing up? I wanted to start the day with some birthday sex.”

He turns to look at her, the sun backlighting him and making it hard to make out his features. She can still tell that he’s smiling, though. “Morning.”

“Morning,” she replies. “Happy birthday. Come back to bed.”

He chuckles but does get up and crosses to the bed. He does not, however, get back in it, instead just leans down to kiss her once before pulling back.

“Not that your idea doesn’t sound amazing,” he starts, “but you’ve actually slept pretty late, it’s almost nine, and I…”

“… want to get started on exploring,” she finishes for him, unable to keep the smile off her face.

“Kind of,” he agrees, the look on his face turning a little sheepish. “Is that OK? I promise I’ll submit to all the birthday sex you want tonight…”

“Oh, is that right?” She heaves an exaggerated sigh. “Fine, I guess it is your birthday, so if you want to turn down amazing birthday morning sex, that’s your prerogative.”

Bellamy just laughs at that, leaning down to press a kiss to her forehead. “Thanks, babe.”

She doesn’t get out of bed right away though, instead relaxing back against the soft pillows and watching as he pulls off the t-shirt and sweatpants he must have put on so as not to sit in the window practically naked. When he’s pulled on a pair of jeans and a shirt instead, he turns around to watch her amusedly as he buttons the shirt.

“Enjoying the show?” he asks with a smirk.

Clarke smiles, unconcerned. “Yup.”

He snorts a laugh before abruptly pulling the comforter off her. “Show’s over, time to get up.”

“Fine,” she agrees, extending her arms over her head and arching off the bed a little, her spine cracking slightly at the stretch. She’s only wearing a pair of panties, and she can see the way Bellamy’s eyes darken slightly at the sight, but then he rolls his eyes.

“Nice try.”

She sighs. “It was worth a shot.”

They grab a quick breakfast at a café just around the corner, since the hotel doesn’t have an in-house restaurant, before Bellamy takes the lead along the street that circles the Colosseum. Clarke keeps her arm firmly looped through his, though, to keep him on the sidewalk since he seems unable to tear his eyes from the – admittedly amazing – building to their left.

“Is it starting to sink in yet?” she asks when they’ve left the amphitheater behind. “That we’re really here?”

He glances over his shoulder, where the building is still visible. “I think it is, yeah,” he replies. “I don’t know if it was the whole waking up here, or what, but it feels… more real today, somehow.”

She squeezes his arm. “Good.”

The walk to Piazza Navona isn’t too long, according to Google Maps it should take half an hour or so, but in reality it’s probably closer to an hour since there’s stuff to see everywhere along the way. Churches, ruins of old buildings, statues, excavated areas right next to the sidewalk with all kinds of architectural finds… Clarke’s really starting to get what Bellamy meant by Rome being full of remnants of the old empire, even away from the ‘normal’ tourist attractions.

“This is so cool,” she notes when they’re leaning over the railing, looking down at one of those areas.

“Right?” he agrees next to her, eyes darting between the unearthed columns and various other stone objects below them. “It’s just… people used to live here, thousands of years ago. People just like us, going about their regular lives, and now, so many years later, we’re here… to me, this is history, this is what makes it real. The fact that we can look at a little piece of stone or pottery or whatever and find out so much about what happened thousands of years ago.”

There’s awe in his voice and when Clarke turns to be able to look at him, he’s not really looking at the site below anymore but staring into the distance, eyes unfocused. She moves closer, and he automatically wraps his arm around her so she can lean her head against his shoulder.

They stay there for a minute longer before Bellamy straightens and takes her hand. “Come on, more to see!”

Piazza Navona isn’t too busy yet. The restaurants won’t open for the lunch rush for a while, some of the street artists seem to have only just arrived and are setting up their easels, preparing for the day’s tourists, and a guy with his face and hands painted gold, wearing gold pants, shoes and a jacket – one of those living statues, she realizes after a moment – is sitting on his pedestal. They stroll from one end to the other, checking out the different fountains and buildings surrounding the square, before leaving it again.

“OK, where now?” Clarke asks, stopping on the corner.

Bellamy checks the map he saved to his phone and turns right. “This way, I think.” They follow the street for a minute or two before he pauses, checking the narrow street to their left. “I think this is the one I looked up.”

“So this is where all the good underwear stores are?” she asks, giving him a teasing smirk.

He rolls his eyes but pulls her along down the street. “No, most of those are after the Pantheon.” He pauses. “You know you don’t have to do that, right? Get something just because it’s my birthday. I know I was all… but it was mostly just a joke.”

She squeezes his hand. “I know that, silly,” she assures him. “But it is your birthday and I want to make it special.”

“It’s already the best birthday I’ve ever had,” he replies.

“Good. I still want to do this, though, and not just for you. It’s a present for me too.”

He gives her a scrutinizing look. “If you’re sure.”

“Positive. And I won’t go out of my way or anything, I’ll just check the stores we pass – if I don’t find anything I like, you’re out of luck.”

He laughs at that. “OK.” They’ve reached the open space in front of the Pantheon by now, and as soon as Bellamy shifts his focus from her, he stops abruptly to take in the building in front of them. “Wow…”

Clarke stops too, her eyes following his to the round structure almost hidden by the columned portico at the front, the fountain in the foreground. It’s certainly an impressive building, in all its simplicity.

“There’s not that much people here,” she notes after a few minutes of silence. “You want to take a look inside, so we don’t have to worry about making it back here if we’re not in the area again?” She’s sure they will be, they have another six full days in the city, but still.

“Sure,” he agrees immediately.

The inside is a bit more ornate than the outside, just like Clarke remembers. The actual dome is basic, coffered concrete, but the walls and pillars below it are decorated and the marble floor is a real piece of art. Bellamy’s eyes, however, are drawn to the opening in the ceiling, through which sunlight is streaming.

“Did you know that the purpose of the oculus wasn’t just to let light into a building?” he says after a moment. “It was also so that you could see the sky when you were inside, so that you could feel closer to the heavens or something.”

She did know that, actually, but she loves seeing him get excited when he gets to explain something. “I didn’t, but that’s interesting.”

He flashes her a quick, beaming smile. “And the floor is tilting a little, so rainwater would run off to the drains. The oculus was never covered, so I can imagine it’s not much fun to come here during the rainier months.”

“Now I’m even happier that the weather decided to cooperate today,” Clarke notes, only half-joking.

From the Pantheon, they head in the general direction of Fontana di Trevi, emerging onto Via del Corso, one of the main shopping streets in the area. They both stop, considering which way to turn.

“I think it’s sort of… that way,” Bellamy says after a moment, pointing kind of diagonally at the building across the street. “So I’m thinking left and then right two streets down or something?”

“Yeah, that sounds about right,” she agrees, looking around. “But didn’t you have a bunch of stores marked in this area?”

He gives her a look with raised eyebrows. “We don’t have to go looking for them, I’m sure we’ll pass one on the way somewhere.”

“I was planning on getting gelato at Fontana di Trevi, if the place I remember is still there,” she explains. “So I’d kind of like to get the trying stuff on out of the way before that. Give me your phone.”

He huffs, but does unlock his phone and hand it over, and she finds the map he saved.

“There’s one just at the other end of the block,” she concludes, handing the phone back. “Do you want an input on what I get, or do you want it to be a surprise?”

He thinks it over for a moment. “Surprise, I think.”

“I’ll try to be quick,” she promises, reaching up for a quick kiss. “You’ll be somewhere around here?”

“Yup.”

The store is fairly empty, two preteen girls giggling over a rack of corsets in one corner while a clerk behind the counter keeps an eye on them and another one is folding panties on a display table in the middle of the store. When she hears the door opening and closing, she straightens up and greets Clarke with a smile.

“Good morning,” she says with a heavy Italian accent. “How can I help you today, signorina?”

Clarke does a quick sweep of the store and decides there are a couple of things she could go for. “It’s my boyfriend’s birthday and I would like to get something to make it… special,” she replies, switching to Italian.

The girl looks a little relieved. “Of course. What did you have in mind?”

“Some sort of matching set, but I’m not picky.” She glances down at her chest. “I might be a little limited by your sizes, so I’ll try on whatever you think would look good.”

The girl gives her a scrutinizing look as well. “Yes, some of our models might not be available in your size,” she agrees. “Come, let me take your measurements and I’ll find something.”

She follows the girl to the changing rooms and lets her do the measuring she needs.

“Any color preferences?” the clerk asks when she’s jotted the numbers down.

Clarke considers the question for a moment. “Blue, maybe?” She knows Bellamy likes her in blue, and the dress she’s wearing tonight is blue. “Not too light or too dark, somewhere in the middle. Oh, and nothing that’s too high in the neck, my dress is cut down to here.” She shows with her hand how low-cut the neckline is, and the clerk nods and disappears.

It doesn’t really take more than fifteen minutes or so, from the time that she entered the store to when she leaves it with her purchase. She ended up getting a beautiful set with a lace bra – a little less support than she normally wears and prefers, but it’ll be fine for one night – Brazilian briefs and even a garter belt in a shade of blue that’s leaning slightly towards purple. She felt amazing in it, and she’s sure Bellamy’s jaw will drop when he sees her.

Part of her wants to just drag him back to the hotel right now, but she knows he’s looking forward to the sightseeing.

He’s leaning against the wall pretty much where she left him, his mouth tugging up into a smile when he spots her.

“Find anything?” he asks, looking for a bag.

“Yup, all done,” she confirms, patting her messenger bag, where she put her purchase. “And don’t even think about peeking – you’ll have to wait until tonight.”

He chuckles and wraps an arm around her waist. “That’s fine, I don’t mind trying to imagine what you might have picked out the rest of the day.” He brushes his thumb against the side of her breast through her clothes, and she can’t help but shiver a little at the touch. Then he leans down to whisper in her ear. “Build up some anticipation.”

It’s really, really hard not to just grab him and physically drag him back to the hotel, but Clarke does have some self-control.

Not a lot, not in this situation, but enough so she can resist.

Fontana di Trevi is just as beautiful as she remembers, and they give in to the tourist hype and throw coins over their shoulders into the fountain. Clarke’s glad that this tradition isn’t the standard, throw-a-coin-and-make-a-wish type of thing, because she knows what she’d wish for and it wouldn’t make any difference.

“So what did the three coins mean?” Bellamy asks when they’re moving away from the crowds right by the fountain towards the edge of the square, where a sign announcing gelato is calling them.

“The first one is to ensure you return to Rome,” she explain. “The second is for a new romance, and the third for marriage.”

“Hmm…” he hums, interlacing their fingers and squeezing. “I wouldn’t mind coming back, but I’m all set with my old romance, thanks.”

They both know that he won’t return to Rome, but Clarke refuses to think about that, especially today, and chooses to instead focus on the second part.

“You sure? This is your chance to pick up some hot Italian girl…” she says, giving him a sideways glance.

He chuckles. “Do you want to pick up a hot Italian girl?”

“Hmm…” She pretends to think it over for a moment. “I think I’m good. Unless you want a threesome for your birthday, of course.”

“Yeah, threesomes are one of those things that sound good on paper but never turn out much fun,” Bellamy replies.

“Is that an educated guess, or do you have some personal experience with failed threesomes?” she asks amusedly.

“Personal experience,” he admits. “This girl I dated senior year of high school, Mel, she suggested it when we had been sleeping together for a while and I was all excited, but in the end, it was basically her and her friend making out while I watched. Which was cool, you know, what straight seventeen-year-old guy would say no to that, but she dumped me the next day and started dating her friend instead, so…”

Clarke can’t help but laugh a little at that. “At least you helped her figure out her sexuality,” she offers as a sort of comfort.

“Yeah, at least there’s that,” he agrees. “So no to a threesome, if that’s OK with you.”

They’ve reached the line to the gelateria by now and she lets go of his hand to be able to wrap her arms around his waist instead, looking up at him. “Well, I’ve had some pretty good experiences with threesomes,” she tells him. “So I know it can be great, if everyone’s on the same page.”

“Really?”

She rolls her eyes. “Don’t sound so surprised, I was at Woodstock. But I’ve never actually done it with someone I’m in a relationship with, which might be different… I’m not really that good at sharing. So just you and me sounds perfect.”

A smile flashes over Bellamy’s face briefly before he leans down for a kiss. “Good.”

They get some gelato before continuing towards the Spanish Steps, where they snap some photos before settling down about halfway up to enjoy the sunshine for a moment. It’s warmed up quite a bit by now, and Clarke even takes her sweater off.

“It’s not even one o’clock yet,” she notes after a while. “What do you want to do the rest of the day?”

He frowns, considering her question for a moment. “I don’t know. Most of the other stuff we’re doing we have tickets for, right? So we can’t just change it around.”

She goes through the activities they have planned in her head. “Most, yeah. I had the Pantheon and Villa Borghese down for Saturday, after Vittoriano. We already did the Pantheon, we could just get the park done today too, then we won’t have to go back to this area on Saturday and could maybe explore Trastevere or something instead? There’s some beautiful architecture in that neighborhood, and the botanical gardens.”

“Is it close by?”

“Yeah, it should be, hang on…” She pulls her phone out and checks Google Maps. “Just a ten minute walk, so pretty close by, yeah.”

“Sounds good. Maybe lunch first?”

She agrees and they grab some food at a nice little restaurant by the square before setting off towards the park.

The sunshine seems to have attracted locals and tourists alike, some of which have apparently decided to celebrate the nice weather with a picnic.

It’s a beautiful park, lots of greenery interspersed with little piazzas, statues and buildings. Clarke’s never really explored the park itself before – she’s visited the museum, which they decide against today, but that’s about it. So they just stroll around, following paths at random, turning when they feel like it, stopping when something catches their fancy. She’s honestly not keeping track of the time at all, so it’s Bellamy that eventually suggests that maybe they should start thinking about heading back to the hotel.

“You said we had dinner reservations for seven, right?”

It’s the only restaurant reservation she’s made for the whole trip, but she found a fancy-but-not-too-fancy restaurant literally a stone’s throw from their hotel, promising views of the Colosseum, and she wanted to make sure they got a table for Bellamy’s birthday.

“We do, yeah. What time is it?”

“A little after four thirty, I’m not sure how long it’ll take to get back to the hotel.”

She thinks it over for a moment. “Walking I’m guessing would be forty-five minutes, maybe, so we should probably get a cab.”

“Good idea,” he agrees. “Plus we’ve been basically walking non-stop all day.”

They make their way out of the park and find a cab fairly quickly, so they’re back in their room by a quarter past five.

“Right, I’m calling first dibs on the shower,” Clarke announces when the door has closed behind them. “Since I have to do my hair and makeup and stuff.”

“Go ahead,” he replies, flopping down on the bed. “As long as I get fifteen minutes in there before we need to leave, I’m good.”

“I think I can promise that.” She leans down for a quick kiss before grabbing the dress she’s planning on wearing, which she hung up when they got here so it wouldn’t be too wrinkled, and fishing the bag with her new underwear out of her messenger bag. “I’m going to lock the door so you can’t peak, you need to use the bathroom before?”

“I’m good.”

“OK, see you in a bit.”

She doesn’t linger in the shower, really, but she does take the time to shave thoroughly – she knows it’s silly, Bellamy sees her naked all the time, but today still feels special – washes her hair twice and scrubs her whole body. When she gets out, she gives her eyebrows a scrutinizing look, but they’re fine, so she just puts on moisturizer and body lotion before starting to blow dry her hair.

The lingerie set looks even better now, away from the harsh light of the changing room, and when she pulls on the thigh high stockings she got instead of the pantyhose she had been planning to wear, to go with the garter belt, she feels a tug deep in her belly.

She can’t wait to see Bellamy’s face when he sees her like this. She can almost imagine it – his eyes widening slightly and darkening, his mouth falling open a little.

But first, they have dinner to get through.

Luckily, her dress zips in the side, so she doesn’t need any help, and after applying a light makeup, she finally unlocks the bathroom door a little after six.

Bellamy looks up at the sound and a light version of the expression she was just imagining appears on his face. “Wow,” he says, looking her up and down. “New dress?”

“Not completely, I got it for some benefit that the organization Zeke works for threw last year, but you haven’t seen it before,” she replies with a smile. “Your turn.”

He doesn’t get up, though. “You know…” he starts after a moment. “We could just order take out and stay in tonight.”

Clarke can’t help but laugh. “Nice try. I’ve gotten all dressed up so you’re not getting out of it.”

“But it’s my birthday…” he tries to wheedle, pouting slightly and giving her his best puppy eyes.

Luckily, she’s immune.

“Nope. We’ll have plenty of time for sex when we get back, now chop-chop.”

He groans but does get up and cross to the bathroom, brushing up against her in a not-at-all deliberate way as he passes her. When she only responds with a raised eyebrow, he sighs and closes the bathroom door behind him.

She only has so much self-restraint, though, so as soon as Bellamy’s dressed – she should have known he’d really rock the whole dress shirt and slacks look, but she’s only seen him more casual so far, even on New Year, and she’s just not prepared – she tugs him along out of the room.

“Our reservation’s not for another twenty minutes,” he notes amusedly. “I thought the restaurant was just around the corner.”

“I thought we could grab a drink before we eat,” she fibs, but the look he shoots her makes it clear that he knows what’s really going on.

But at least he doesn’t call her out on it.

The restaurant is amazing, with delicious food and a fantastic view. They’re seated by the window and every time Bellamy’s eyes drift to the Colosseum across the street, Clarke can’t help but smile.

It was the right call to insist on coming here.

“OK, yeah, as far as birthday dinners go, this is pretty awesome,” he admits when they’ve gotten their food.

“See? Told you.”

Remembering his birthday present, she rummages around in her purse until she finds the wrapped box and places it on the table between them.

Bellamy gives it a suspicious look. “I hope that’s not the… stuff you got earlier today,” he says after a moment. “It’s probably not suitable for a place this public… or at least I hope it’s not.”

She laughs at that. “Don’t worry, I’m already wearing the second part of your present,” she assures him, feeling a flash of desire course through her when his eyes drop. “This is the first part.”

“You really didn’t have to get me anything else, you know,” he tells her, but he does take the box and start tearing off the wrapping paper.

“I know,” Clarke replies with a shrug. “I wasn’t really planning to, but this just… it caught my eye, I guess.”

He’s gotten the paper off and puts the box down again before flipping the lid open. “Wow…” he mumbles, touching the watch face. “I love it.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you actually wear a watch,” she says, unsure. "But it just… it felt like you, I guess. It doesn’t make sense, I know, but…”

His hand on hers cuts her off and she relaxes at the smile on his face. “Like I said, I love it,” he repeats. “The only reason I usually don’t wear one is that my old one broke a while ago and I never got around to buying a new one.”

“OK, good. Try it on.”

He takes the watch out of the box and is about to slide it onto his wrist when he catches sight of the engraving on the back and flips the watch over. Clarke holds her breath as he reads it, blinking back tears at the underlying meaning behind it.

“If we had forever it still wouldn’t be enough,” Bellamy finally reads out loud, looking up to meet her eyes.

“It’s… I don’t know, it felt right,” she offers with a half-smile. “And it’s for me, too, in a way. Something I can…”

He leans over the table to kiss her, probably a little too thoroughly considering where they are, but she takes the interruption gladly.

“I love it,” he says again when he’s pulled back. “Thank you.”

“It’s your birthday,” she replies with a shrug. “OK, no more heavy stuff, let’s eat. This looks amazing.”

It really is, and their desserts – one chocolate soufflé and one vanilla – are even better.

“You want a taste?” Bellamy asks, holding out his spoon so she can try his vanilla soufflé, and when she wraps her lips around the metal, she sees his eyes drop to her mouth. She pulls back deliberately slowly, popping her tongue out to lick the last of the soufflé off the spoon.

“This is amazing,” she says, proud to sound only a little breathless. “You want a taste of mine?”

He just nods, opening his mouth slowly when she holds out a spoonful of her chocolate soufflé.

They finish the rest of the dessert quickly, Clarke waiving their waiter over as she swallows the last bite. “The check, please?”

The anticipation continues to build on the short walk back to the hotel, but they do manage to make it into their room before they crash together, Bellamy’s fingers deftly undoing the button in her cardigan and pushing it off her shoulders. He tastes like chocolate and vanilla and the way he kisses her – soft but deep, an almost desperate undertone – almost makes Clarke dizzy with want.

“I take it you like the dress?” she gets out when he abandons her lips to trail kisses down her throat. She takes the opportunity to get her sweater all the way off and then starts on the top button in his shirt.

“Not that you don’t look amazing in everything, but yeah, I like it,” he agrees, and she feels his hand slide up her thigh.

She knows the moment he reaches the edge of her stockings and the clip on her garter belt, because he pauses, pulling away from her with a slightly awed look on his face.

Clarke decides that she’s waited long enough to enjoy his reaction, so she takes a step back and finds the zipper in the dress, pulling it down.

“Help me get it off?” she then asks, raising her arms over her head.

Bellamy shakes his head, as if to clear it, before gripping the hem of the dress and slowly pulling it over her head. She expects him to just throw it to the side, but instead he just stands there, clutching the dress in one hand and openly staring at her.

If she hadn’t known, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that he loved her and wanted her, she might have gotten self-conscious.

Instead, she just raises an eyebrow. “You just going to stand there, or…”

That snaps him into action and he steps in, leaning down to kiss her again, rougher this time, his hands going to her waist to pull her closer.

She responds in kind, opening up willingly when he traces the seam of her lips with his tongue, and continues to work the buttons of his shirt, pulling it out of his slacks and pushing it off his shoulders once she’s gotten them all undone. He takes his hands off her to shrug out of it completely before tangling one hand in her hair and sliding the other around to her lower back.

Clarke lets her hands trail up and down his back, enjoying the way the muscles play under his skin at her touch, and just lets herself get lost in the feeling for a moment. She would really like to move this to the bed, though, and she’s just decided to do that when Bellamy moves in the other direction, pushing her up against the wall, which… yeah, she’s not opposed to that.

One of his hands come up to her breast, flicking her nipple through the thin material before squeezing lightly, and she lets out a moan that he swallows down. He makes no move to get the bra off, though, and her back’s flat against the wall so she can’t get to the clasp herself. She arches her back into his touch instead, breaking the kiss to gasp when he takes the hint and twirls her nipple between his fingers.

She feels his lips trail down her throat, pause at her collar bone where she just knows she’ll have a hickey tomorrow, and then his mouth on her other nipple, warm and wet through the lace. She buries her fingers in his hair, keeping him in place, and pushes her hips against his. He slides one leg between hers and she grinds against his thigh, sighing at the friction it gives her.

Bellamy lingers for a while where he is, one hand on her breast, his mouth and tongue taking care of the other, before he kneels down in front of her, placing a kiss just above her belly button.

“So the underwear’s a hit?” she asks breathlessly, and he chuckles and looks up at her.

“Fuck, Princess… you look… I don’t even have words.”

“Don’t need words, just need you to fuck me.”

She tries to tug him up to her, but he resists. “All in good time.”

“Please, Bell…” she tries.

But he just shakes his head, leaning back a little to be able to take her in.

“These are definitely staying on,” he mumbles, more to himself than her, it feels like, sliding a hand up her leg. He tugs a little on one of the slings holding the stockings up. “These are separate?”

Clarke assumes he means the panties and garter belt, so she nods. He hums and slides a finger under the garter belt, finding the waistline of the panties and pulling them down. They get stuck at the edge of the stockings, of course, and he slowly undoes each of the clips on one leg, sliding the panties down before attaching the clips to the stockings again. He does the same on the other side and then lifts her left foot to get the panties off, placing it back on the floor before lifting her other foot as well. He doesn’t put this back on the floor, though, instead hooking her leg over his shoulder and leaning closer to breathe her in.

“Oh, God,” she murmurs, earning a chuckle.

“I haven’t even done anything yet,” Bellamy says, looking up at her.

“Yeah, well, after four months I know what’s coming,” she replies, then lets out a gasp when his tongue darts out to taste her.

“Good.” He gives her a look so smug that she opens her mouth to tell him not to get too full of himself, but then he really gets going and, well, maybe he deserves to feel smug. Anyway, the only thing she can do is hold onto his shoulder with one hand, her other tugging on his curls, and let her head fall back against the wall.

He starts with just his tongue, alternating between circling her clit and licking as deep into her as he can get, before he adds two fingers to the mix, pushing them into her at a maddeningly slow pace while placing wet, openmouthed kisses against her inner thighs.

“Please, Bell, I’m so close,” she manages to get out after what feels like hours of this, and he huffs a laugh against her thigh before shifting his attention to her clit, sucking it into his mouth at the same time as he curls his fingers just right inside her, and she comes with a cry.

Clarke’s vaguely aware of him standing back up, and when she opens her eyes again, breathing and heart rate almost back to normal, he’s just an inch or so away from her, a soft smile on his face.

“Good?” he wonders, as if he needs to ask, and she responds by pulling him in for a kiss. Bellamy responds eagerly for a long moment before pulling away. “I’ll take that as a yes. Legs still working OK?”

She briefly considers responding with something teasing, but, well, it’s not like he hasn’t rendered her unable to walk on previous occasions.

“Just barely,” she settles on, and he chuckles a little before stepping closer and pushing her up against the wall again. The scratch of his slacks against her still sensitive clit makes her twitch a little and she slides a hand between them, finding the button in them but unable to get it undone with just the one hand. “Off,” she orders, not quite coherent, but he gets the hint, stepping back to get rid of the rest of his clothes.

She pushes away from the wall and leans up for a kiss, wrapping her hand around him and giving an experimental tug. She gets a groan in return and his fingers dig into her hips, but then he pulls her hand away. She breaks the kiss to give him a slight pout, but he just shakes his head and loosens his grip on her hips before turning her around so her back’s to him.

Clarke didn’t realize that they had moved, but she finds herself in front of the window, the lit up Colosseum glittering on the other side of the glass. She feels Bellamy behind her, nudging her forward, and she kneels on the padded window seat.

“OK?” he murmurs in her ear, sliding one arm around her waist to pull her against him, and she feels his dick against her butt.

“Mmm, good,” she agrees, shifting a little and reaching behind her to try to position him where she wants him. She can’t quite reach, though, and he takes over, sliding the head of his dick along her slit once before pushing into her slowly.

“Oh, fuck,” he grinds out, head falling onto her shoulder.

“Uh-huh.” She places her hand on top of his where it’s resting against her stomach, interlacing their fingers, and he presses a kiss to the side of her throat. “So, is this a turn-on for you? Sex with the Colosseum as a backdrop?”

Bellamy chuckles a little before pulling out and pushing back in, drawing a gasp from her.

“You’re a turn-on for me,” he tells her. “The view’s just a bonus.”

“I’m not completely sure I believe that,” Clarke teases, but then he slides his hand into her bra, pinching her nipple, and picks up the pace a little and she can’t really think anymore.

If she had been able to think, she probably would have figured this was Bellamy’s end game, but soon, his hand abandons her breast to slip between her legs and his finger finds her clit, and when he bites down on her shoulder, she tumbles over the edge for the second time tonight. He pulls out of her, still rubbing circles against her clit as the waves of pleasure wash over her, and this time it takes her longer to come back down.

When she finally does, she slumps back against him, feeling completely boneless.

“Bed?” he asks with a chuckle, and she nods.

“Yes, please.”

So he sweeps her into his arms and deposits her on the bed before kneeling down between her legs, hand wrapped lightly around himself.

“Come here,” she tells him, letting her legs fall open.

“I don’t know, you look pretty worn out,” he replies with a half-smirk. “Maybe I should let you sleep…”

She knows he’s joking, but two can play that game so she opens her mouth wide in a fake yawn. “I am pretty tired…” Bellamy’s eyes narrow a little at that, and she reaches behind her to finally get her bra undone, tossing it to the side. “Come on, would I leave you hanging?”

He shakes his head a little. “Tease.”

“Don’t even try to pretend that you don’t love it.”

It was meant as a joke, but his eyes go serious. “I really do.”

“I love you too. Now get moving, before I really do fall asleep.”

He laughs at that but does finally lean down to kiss her. Only briefly though, to her disappointment, before sitting back up.

“You know, I love these…” he starts, sliding a finger along her leg, “but I think I want you naked now.”

“Go ahead.”

So he unclips her stockings and carefully rolls them down her legs before removing the garter belt too, with a little help from her. Then he’s finally on top of her, sliding into her in one swift motion. He pauses for a moment, leaning his forehead against hers, before starting to move.

Clarke pulls her legs up, getting better traction, and pushes back, urging him on, and he picks up the pace, leaning down to pull a nipple into his mouth and making her moan.

It’s almost too much after the two orgasms she’s already had, and she can feel a third building when he thrusts into her and stills, an almost surprised look on his face as she feels him pulse deep inside her.

“Fuck,” he breathes out, collapsing on top of her. “I was going for a hat-trick.”

She lets out a breathless laugh and wraps an arm around him. “I’m good, trust me.”

Still, when he pulls out and rolls onto his side, he pushes three fingers inside her, his thumb rough against her clit, and has her coming apart within minutes.

“Good birthday?” Clarke asks quietly when they’ve finally settled in under the comforter, Bellamy on his back and her on her side, her head on his chest.

“Best birthday ever.”

Chapter Text

An annoying buzzing wakes Clarke on Friday, and she fumbles for her phone on the nightstand.

“Turn it off,” Bellamy complains behind her, burying his face in her hair.

She finally finds the offending object and does exactly that. “We have to get up, though,” she says before turning around in his arms. “It’s nine thirty and we have tickets for the Colosseum in an hour.”

He just groans and pulls her closer. “Why did we book it so early?”

“Because we have the tour of the dungeons and arena at noon, and so we’d have time for the Roman Forum in the afternoon,” she reminds him, reluctantly slipping out of his embrace and sitting up on the edge of the bed. “And it wouldn’t have been a problem if you hadn’t kept me up half the night…”

She feels the bed dip as he moves behind her and then his arms wrap around her and she leans her head back against his chest. “Are you complaining?” he asks, voice still rough with sleep.

“Not complaining,” she replies. “You know I would never turn down a night of amazing sex. I was just noting that if we had gone to sleep at a reasonable time, we wouldn’t be so tired.”

He chuckles before placing a kiss against her temple and getting up. “That’s what coffee’s for.”

They grab some breakfast – with a large coffee for both of them – on the way, and it does get them all the way to awake, but they still get another cup each to go. Just in case.

The line’s not too long when they get to the entrance to the amphitheater, but it’s still nice to be able to just bypass it and go straight in. They pick up their audio guide and let it lead them around, learning more about the ancient structure. Bellamy’s completely enthralled, Clarke can tell from the look on his face the moment the voice starts talking, and she has to admit that it is interesting. She’s been here before, but it was a while ago and there weren’t any audio guides then.

When that part of their tour is over, they drop the audio guides off to join the small, live guided tour of the areas of the theater that are off limits to regular visitors – the actual arena, the underground areas called the hypogeum and the dungeons, where the gladiators and animals were kept before the shows.

Their guide is an amazing fount of knowledge, and the two and a half hour tour seems to fly by. Bellamy is easily the most invested of their group, asking questions through the entire tour, even getting into longer discussions with their guide a few times when they seemingly disagree about some obscure historic fact, until the other man remembers that he’s in the middle of giving a tour.

They finally leave the theater a little before three o’clock, and with just over an hour until their allotted entrance time to the Roman Forum, they immediately find a restaurant for a late lunch.

“That was… wow,” Bellamy starts when they’ve been showed to a table. He still has a slightly dazed look in his eyes and a probably unknowing smile on his face.

“Worth getting up for?” Clarke asks, her own mouth quirking up as well.

“Absolutely,” he confirms.

“Better than last night?” she continues, biting her lip to keep her smile from widening even more and give away that she’s teasing him.

“God no,” he immediately replies, shaking his head. “I might be a history nerd but that doesn’t mean I would take the Colosseum over sex. No way.”

She can’t hold back a chuckle at that. “Good to know.”

There’s no audio guide for the Roman Forum so they just stroll around at their own pace, Bellamy sharing what he knows about the different ruins. It’s nice, not too crowded, the sun warmer than yesterday but still pleasant and not too hot. After a couple of hours, they continue to Palatine Hill before heading back to the hotel as the sun sets behind them.

Since they got through most of the things Clarke had planned for Saturday on Bellamy’s birthday, the weekend turns out pretty laid back. They check out the Vittoriano, with its exhibits and magnificent view from the roof, a nearby archeological site with a really cool multimedia experience, and then work their way through a number of ruins throughout the Monti area on Saturday.

Sunday, they spend the morning in bed before grabbing brunch at a nice, American style (to Bellamy’s disappointment) diner and crossing the Tiber to the Trastevere area. They wander down narrow streets, check out all the little churches they pass and stumble upon a flea market with everything from antiques and vintage clothing to jewelry and art. On the way back to the hotel, they explore the cute little island Isola Tiberina, before wrapping up the day at an adorable little mom and pop restaurant overlooking the river.

Monday morning, Clarke again wakes up to find Bellamy in the window seat, phone in his hand but head turned towards the window.

“You really like that window seat, huh?” she asks sleepily before stretching.

He turns away from the window to offer her a smile. “I like the view,” he corrects.

She rolls her eyes and pushes the comforter off. “Semantics. Have you been up long?”

“Half an hour, maybe,” he replies after glancing at the phone. “I was just sending some photos to O.”

“Mmm,” she hums, getting out of bed and climbing into his lap. “I don’t like it when you get up before I’m awake.”

Bellamy chuckles, settling his hands on her hips and rubbing circles against her skin with his thumbs. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Please do.”

She leans in, their noses bumping before their lips meet in a lazy morning kiss. He breaks it too soon for Clarke’s liking though, and she lets out a disappointed sound.

“Don’t we have the Vatican today?” he reminds her.

“We do,” she confirms. “But not until two thirty.”

He raises his eyebrows in a questioning way. “Yeah?”

“Yup. It’s a bit of a walk, but as long as the weather’s nice, which it is, I figured we’d start heading over around noon, grab some lunch either on the way or when we get there, and still have plenty of time before the tour starts.”

He nods when she finishes. “Well, in that case…” She barely has time to react before he’s stood up and dropped her on the bed, crawling on top of her a moment later and pressing her into the mattress.

-100-

Clarke has been to the Vatican before, but she’s never actually been inside the museums, the Sistine Chapel or St. Peter’s Basilica, so she’s almost as excited as Bellamy about their tour – just almost, because it’s not possible to be more excited about Rome in general than Bellamy.

Just like during their guided tour of the Colosseum, he pulls her along to the front of the group, so he can ask the tour guide questions and insert his own thoughts whenever he doesn’t agree with him. Unlike the Colosseum guide, however, this one doesn’t seem too happy to have to answer more questions than normal and soon, Bellamy pauses to let a few other people pass them.

“You’d think he would appreciate it when someone pointed out he had something wrong,” he grumbles and Clarke can’t help but smile

“You would,” she agrees, squeezing his hand. “But you can be my tour guide.”

So they hang back, letting their group get ahead of them a little, and then he starts to tell her everything he knows about the place. She adds anecdotes about some of the artwork they pass as well, and it’s nicer, if she’s honest.

When they get to the Sistine Chapel, they both stop for a long moment to just take in the frescoes on the walls and ceiling. The room’s fairly crowded, everyone tilting their heads back just like they are.

“Did you know that Michelangelo didn’t really want to take on the painting of this place?” Bellamy asks quietly after a while.

“I didn’t,” she replies. “Why not? It must have been a great honor.”

“He was mainly a sculptor, not a painter, so it wasn’t really his area of expertise, I guess,” he explains. “Which, you kind of have to wonder how good he would have been if it had been his thing.”

“Yeah,” Clarke agrees. “This is absolutely amazing.”

They wander around a little, getting a closer look at the different parts of the frescoes.

“Another funny thing,” he starts when they’re heading towards the door. “Back in the sixteenth century, The Council of Trent, which was a council of important people in the church back in the day, decided that the frescoes should be more decent, so they hired a painter to cover the naked figures up with fig leaves or loin cloths.”

“Seriously?”

He smiles at her indignation. “Yeah. They remained until 1980, when the frescoes were restored and the additions removed, so four hundred years.”

“Wow… that’s insane.”

“Oh yeah, completely insane.” He pauses. “Or, you know, completely logical considering the church’s stance on anything even vaguely related to sex. Especially back then.”

“Yeah, when you put it that way…”

They catch up to their group outside St. Peter’s Basilica, the guide giving them an annoyed glance. They stay at the back, though, only half-listening to the guide as he launches into his introduction about the church and then leads them inside, whispering little notes to each other and trying to keep from laughing out loud.

“So we have two basically free days before we leave for Naples?” Bellamy asks when they’re on their way back to the hotel, strolling along the Tiber with the setting sun to their right.

“Basically, yeah,” Clarke confirms. “Why, anything you’re thinking about?”

“We’ve been doing all these historical stuff for my benefit all week,” he replies. “I was thinking we could do something you wanted for once.”

The fact that he’s obviously thought about this makes her smile and she squeezes his hand before answering. “You know I’ve enjoyed everything we’ve done too, right? I might not be a history nerd but there’s a lot of art too, and I can still appreciate cool history stuff. It’s not like it’s a hardship, I’m having fun.”

“No, I know that,” he assures her. “But I can appreciate art stuff too, if you want to check out a museum or something?”

It’s true that she mainly focused on things she thought Bellamy would enjoy when she booked their tours and visits, but that’s because the trip’s supposed to be about him, for obvious reasons that she can’t think about right now because even touching on the subject makes a lump form in her throat. She swallows it down.

“You do realize we just came from what’s basically a huge art gallery, right?” she asks, trying to make her voice teasing and probably succeeding. He doesn’t seem to notice anything off, anyway.

“Well, yeah, but that’s, like… historic art or whatever,” he says with a shrug. “There’s the museum of modern art, we could go there tomorrow maybe?”

Clarke knows there’s a modern art museum in Rome, but it’s not like they’ve talked about it, so she’s not sure how he does.

“Did you look that up?” she asks, and knows she’s right when he ducks his head a little and doesn’t meet her eyes.

“So what if I did? You literally planned this whole trip, six months, I can come up with suggestions too.”

She lets go of his hand to be able to wrap her arm around his waist instead, and his arm automatically goes around her shoulders. “Of course you can.”

“So what do you say? You like modern art, right?”

“I like basically all art, to be honest, but yeah, I do like modern art,” she confirms. “I’m kind of curious about how you came to that conclusion, though?”

“It’s what you paint, isn’t it?”

“Well, I do abstract art right now,” she corrects him. “I’ve tried out most art disciplines at one time or another – expressionism, cubism, realism, impressionism… Abstract art is sort of a sub-genre of modern art, but in general it’s not just abstract stuff.”

“Oh.” He nods thoughtfully. “I didn’t actually know that, I’ve always kind of assumed all those pieces where you can’t really make out what it’s supposed to be are modern art. Not that I’m an expert or anything… obviously. I do know cubism, though, Picasso, right? With all the angles and stuff. You have one of those paintings, don’t you?”

“I do, yeah.” She peaks up at him. “I didn’t tell you those were my works?”

She doesn’t keep all her paintings, far from it, but she’s tried to save at least one example of all the different types of paintings she’s done over the years, so the wall in her library that’s not taken up by book cases is full of paintings.

Bellamy’s eyebrows shoot up. “No, you didn’t. Just that one or all those paintings?”

“All of them,” she confirms with a chuckle.

“I’ll have to take a closer look at them when we get home,” he decides. “So modern art museum? Tomorrow?”

“Sure.”

So they spend Tuesday exploring the paintings and sculptures and other pieces at the museum, Bellamy asking about everything he doesn’t immediately get and Clarke trying to explain as much as she can. Which sometimes is not at all – she really doesn’t get some of the more avant-garde pieces either.

The last day in the city, they decide to grab one of those bus tours where you can get on and off where you want.

“This feels like something we should have done on day one,” Bellamy notes when they’ve settled in on the open upper floor. The sun’s nice and warm, though it’s still a little chilly up here in the wind. “Get a lay of the land before we started exploring.”

“I think we did pretty well anyway,” Clarke notes. “But this is a good opportunity to get photos.”

They don’t actually hop off anywhere, just ride the whole route once, listening to the audio guide, and then stay on the bus past their starting point and get off close to the Fontana di Trevi, where they grab some lunch and try another gelateria. When in Rome, after all…

“So did Rome live up to all of your expectations?” Clarke asks when they’re in bed late that night. “Did you get to do everything you dreamed of?”

Bellamy’s checking something on his phone, but at her questions, he puts it on the nightstand and rolls over so he’s facing her.

“Do you even need to ask?” he replies incredulously. “Have I not been completely obvious the last week? Because I feel like I have been.”

She shrugs one shoulder. “Well, yeah, but… I kind of wanted to confirm anyway.”

His mouth quirks up in a half-smile and he reaches out to push a strand of hair behind her ear. “In that case, I have had the most amazing time here with you. It’s been… out of this world, really. Definitely the experience of a lifetime.”

She resolutely pushes away the underlying reminder that it really is the experience of a lifetime, or at least his lifetime, and turns her face into the touch of his hand, which is lingering against her cheek.

“Good.”

“You know…” he starts, hand trailing down her throat to her shoulder and then along her arm. “There is one thing that would be the icing on the cake.”

She’s pretty sure she knows what he’s getting at. “Oh yeah?”

“Uh-huh.” He shifts closer, hand sliding around to pull her against him, mouth finding hers.

And, well, it’s not like she’s going to say no.

-100-

Clarke has never been to Naples before, even though the train ride from Rome is only about an hour. She’s heard about Pompeii before, of course, even thought about visiting it, but for some reason she’s never gotten around to it.

“See, you’re helping me be more… historical or whatever,” she tells Bellamy when they’re on the train on Thursday.

He raises an eyebrow at her. “That’s exactly what I was going for.”

“Shut up.”

There’s a long line of cabs waiting outside the train station and within minutes, they’re en route to their hotel in the historical center of the city.

“This is… different,” Bellamy notes when they’re standing outside the hotel. “It’s nice but it feels much more modern than Rome or Venice.”

The façade of the building behind them is mostly glass, so Clarke can see where he’s coming from. “It does,” she agrees. “Come on.”

They get checked in and drop their bags off before leaving the hotel again. The sun is hidden behind some clouds at the moment, but it’s still nice out, maybe even a little warmer than in Rome.

“Do we have a specific goal in mind?” Bellamy asks, looking around.

“Not really,” she replies. “Honestly, trying to find sights in Naples was kind of tricky, the only given was Pompeii, which isn’t exactly in the middle of the city… there’s a bunch of churches all over the place, obviously, and a castle of some kind down by the water… do you want to just walk and see where we end up? We do have the walking tour on Saturday, we’ll probably hit whatever tourist hotspots there are on that.”

He shrugs. “Sure.”

So they basically just stroll around, exploring the little alleys around the hotel before venturing further afield. They do end up finding the castle more or less by accident, and it’s pretty cool – they can’t get in without tickets, but they walk around it before checking out the harbor area on the other side and then weaving their way back towards the hotel in a roundabout way. When both of their stomachs start rumbling, they pick a restaurant at random which turns out to have great pasta.

“You know, I love Italian food,” she says as they leave the restaurant. “But I’m kind of looking forward to something else when we get to Greece.”

Bellamy chuckles and wraps an arm around her waist, keeping her close. “Yeah, I know what you mean. Just think about it – gyros, moussaka, souvlaki…”

She groans. “I’m completely stuffed but that still sounds so good.”

“Soon, Princess,” he promises, lips brushing her temple for a moment.

They leave Naples a little after ten the next morning, arriving at the archaeological site of Pompeii after a half-hour bus ride. Their guide is absolutely amazing, even Bellamy doesn’t have anything to add to her extensive explanations and descriptions of what they’re seeing. Most of the time, it feels like a normal historical tour, like the many others they’ve already been on during this trip, but occasionally they come across casts of the victims of the volcanic eruption, which are a stark reminder that this isn’t just a historical site – people died here, people just going about their lives.

If she hadn’t been basically immortal, it probably would have made Clarke think about her own mortality but as it is, she loops her arm through Bellamy’s to remind herself that he’s still here. At least for now. She gets a little more time with him.

The mood on the bus leaving Pompeii is a bit subdued, but the tour guide is apparently used to this and manages to get them laughing with stories about past tours and strange requests from visitors.

The second part of the tour is a hike up to the summit of Mount Vesuvius, which is demanding but so worth it when they finally reach the top.

The day started out a little cloudy, but the sky has cleared by now and they have an amazing view of the coastline below, Pompeii some ways away and even Sorrento on its peninsula in the distance.

“So, this is an active volcano, huh?” Bellamy says, leaning against the railing and peeking into the crater.

“Yup,” she confirms. “Last eruption was in 1944, so it could blow any day now.”

He gives her a withering look and she lets out a laugh.

“I’m pretty sure we’re fine,” he decides, pulling her along around the edge of the crater, to get a better look.

It’s after six when they’re finally back at the hotel, and Bellamy just face plants on the bed, letting out a groan. Clarke toes her shoes off before sitting down next to him, sliding her fingers into his hair and scratching his scalp. He turns his head with a content sigh, so he can look at her.

“You OK?” she asks amusedly.

“Long day,” he replies, eyes sliding closed. “Good, but long. Mmm, keep doing that.”

She chuckles but obliges. “I wasn’t going to stop.”

Silence falls over them, the sound from the street outside seeping in through the closed window, and she almost thinks he’s fallen asleep when he finally speaks again.

“You know I’ve loved everything we’ve done so far on this trip,” he starts, opening one eye to look up at her. “But I’m honestly really starting to look forward to a week of relaxing in the Seychelles.”

She hums in agreement. “Yeah, it’s been pretty intense.”

“How long until we’re there?”

Clarke pulls her phone out of her pocket and opens their itinerary. “Two and a half weeks,” she tells him after a moment. “Onto Athens on Sunday, obviously, then Crete, Cairo and Petra.”

He seems to perk up at that. “Right, Greece, that’s going to be amazing.”

“You going to be able to muster up any enthusiasm for that or did Italy exhaust it all?”

“Nah, I’ll be excited,” Bellamy says with a chuckle, rolling onto his back and sitting up. “But it was a good idea to put in these little breaks, thanks for that.”

She leans in for a kiss. “Of course. Dinner?”

They have an early morning tomorrow as well, so they decide to just get room service and call it an early night.

Their last day in Naples, and Italy, they take a guided walking tour, learning more about the city and exploring the underground ruins that date back to the Roman empire. In the afternoon, they take a cab to Herculaneum, another town that was destroyed by the same volcanic eruption as Pompeii, and spend a few hours among its ruins.

Clarke’s pretty sure that, by the end of this trip, she’ll have seen more ruins than the rest of her life put together. She tells Bellamy as much when they’re back in Naples, trying to decide on a restaurant for dinner.

“Sorry for trying to educate you,” he replies with a chuckle.

“Yeah, how dare you drag me to interesting historical and cultural sites,” she teases back. “I expect nothing but sun, sea and frivolity for the rest of this trip.”

His chuckle turns into a full blown laugh and it takes him a moment to pull himself together. “Frivolity? Who even says that?”

“Well, excuse me for not keeping up with all the hip, new expressions.” She knows she uses some old fashioned words sometimes, even though she thinks she’s pretty good at keeping up with the times, but he’s never actually said anything about it before. Not that it sounds like he’s criticizing her or anything.

“No, I love it,” he still assures her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and pulling her closer. “Come on, this looks good.”

-100-

Their flight to Athens ends up being delayed, which… it was bound to happen at some point, and it’ll probably happen again before the end of the trip, considering the number of flights they have booked over the next four months, but it’s still annoying. So they’re both cranky and exhausted by the time they get to their hotel, just before midnight, and only manage to remove the necessary pieces of clothing before collapsing into bed.

“Nothing booked tomorrow, right?” Bellamy mumbles, one arm reaching for Clarke and she willingly slides closer.

“Nope, we can sleep all day if we want,” she confirms.

“Maybe not all day.”

Clarke wakes up first the next morning, blinking against the light streaming in through the window and slowly realizing that they didn’t remember to pull the curtains closed before falling asleep.

She slides out of bed and takes the few steps needed to the balcony doors. The room’s nothing too fancy, but it’s nice and clean and – most importantly – it has a balcony with views of the Acropolis when you’re actually on the balcony and leaning just a little over the railing.

She opens one of the doors and the sound of the city immediately rushes into the room. They’re on the top floor, so it’s not as bad as it could have been, but she’s still grateful that the doors and windows seem to be pretty well isolated.

It’s already petty warm out, probably in the low sixties, and the sky above is an uninterrupted pale blue. It looks like it’ll be a great day.

She sort of expected that either her movement through the room or the sound of the traffic outside would have woken Bellamy up, but when she turns back to the bed, he’s still fast asleep, sprawled out on his back. She checks the time on her phone on the nightstand – 9:42 – before crawling back into the bed and throwing one leg over his. He sighs in his sleep and rolls onto his side, one arm wrapping around her to pull her closer.

“Morning,” she murmurs, rubbing her nose against his, and is finally awarded with one eye opening.

“Mhm,” he replies, only semi-coherent, before squeezing his eyes shut again.

Clarke can’t help but chuckle. “I thought you said you’d be excited when we got here?” she reminds him amusedly. “I was kind of expecting to wake up and find you on the balcony, to be honest.”

“Give me a moment,” he tells her, rolling them so he’s pushing her into the mattress and pressing a kiss to her collar bone. “I definitely want to check out the view but I have other priorities right now.”

She has every intention of letting him take care of those priorities, but her stomach chooses that exact moment to growl loudly, and Bellamy rolls off her with a chuckle.

“Or we could go get some breakfast, I guess,” he says.

“I am kind of hungry,” she agrees ruefully. They got vouchers for food at the airport in Rome and got some sandwiches, but that was at eight last night and neither of them had the energy to find something to eat when they got to Athens. “But definitely a rain check on that.”

So they get up and leave the hotel, finding a restaurant that serves traditional Greek breakfast just a few blocks away, and then spend their first day in the city just strolling around. They start by weaving around the fenced off area with the Acropolis on its hill, getting as close a look at the Parthenon and the other buildings as they can without actually entering the area. They lose themselves among the narrow streets beyond the Acropolis for a while, enjoying some gyros for lunch, before finding their way to Areopagus and Filopappou hills to admire the three-sixty degree view of the city.

“Good start on our Greek adventure?” Clarke asks when they’re in bed later that evening.

“Mm, great start,” Bellamy agrees, putting his phone and glasses on the nightstand before rolling onto his side to look at her. “Sparta tomorrow?”

“Yup,” she confirms. “So we’re getting up pretty early.”

“Ah.” He nods, a solemn expression on his face even as he trails a hand from her thigh, over her hip and up her side, fingers light against her ribs. “So I suppose any… nocturnal activities will have to wait.”

She arches her back when his hand slides around to her front to cup her breast and bites her lip. “Did I say that? Just… maybe not too late.”

He chuckles lowly as he leans in closer. “I’ll do my best.”

Chapter Text

Clarke knew about Sparta and the Spartans before she started planning their round-the-world trip, of course. Her knowledge was basically limited to three things, though – the Spartans (hint in the name) advocated for a simple lifestyle, their army was the most prominent in Ancient Greece for some time, and Spartan women were known for having more freedom and power than any other women during that time.

She also knew that Gerard Butler looked hot on the cover of the movie 300, but that’s beside the point. She did try to get Bellamy to watch it a couple of days before they left New York, but he flat out refused, claiming that it would give her a completely skewed impression of the Spartan people and the battle of Thermopylae. He got so worked up about it – she even caught him muttering about it under his breath a couple of times in the days after – that she didn’t dare bring it up again.

She did do some more research herself, though, and she’s really looking forward to their trip to Sparta, and not just because she knows Bellamy will be like a kid in a candy shop – she really thinks it’ll be interesting.