Chapter Text
“Clarke, is that true?” Bellamy asked again, placing a hand on her shoulder and looking at her very seriously.
She was so frustrated with everything. It had all been building and building and building ever since she and Bellamy decided to host Christmas at their new house. Wells was right, this kind of stress was no good for the baby.
“Bellamy,” she said as calmly as she could managed, closing her eyes in attempt to steel herself. “Can I speak to you outside for a moment?” he nods and then follows her out onto their front porch, grabbing a jacket of his to drape across her shoulders.
“I just don't think I can handle this much longer, Bell. I'm going fucking insane. I love all of our friends and family more than life itself but they're so intense! And I just wanted this Christmas to be perfect but we have a burnt turkey, a body count, no power, and a baby bomb I was nowhere near ready for! It's like one of those movies where everything goes wrong! We’re on the brink of becoming an actual madhouse Bellamy. I'm going insane, almost as insane as Thelonious Jaha for believing his fucking cat was a saint.” she was tearing up at the amount of frustration she was feeling, and her arms were flailing wildly as she yelled in every direction, not particularly caring if they disturbed their grouchy neighbor Indra.
“Clarke! Hey, babe, breathe with me, okay?” He told her, hands coming up to rest on her shoulders in attempt to calm his frantic wife. “Slow down. So is it true?”
Clarke sighed, reaching into her pocket that still held the little red bow and strings Octavia had gifted her with that morning, and haphazardly tied it around her stomach.
“Surprise?” She shrugged, watching his face slowly turn from confusion into awe. “We're having a baby,” she smiled. “We're going to be parents, Bell,” she said with a tearful chuckle.
“Oh- holy shit. Oh my god, really?” He asked, tears of joy filling his eyes as he scooped her up into his arms and lifted her up off the ground. “This is fantastic!”
“I wanted it to be special,” she told him with a smile when he placed her back onto the ground. “But Dr. Doolittle in there kind of spoiled it with his stupid fucking cat speech,” she laughed wholeheartedly.
“It was perfect,” he chuckled, nuzzling his nose into her neck with his arms still wrapped tightly around her. “It certainly took me by surprise,” he confessed, dropping to his knees so that he was eyelevel with her stomach. “Hello in there,” he smiled brightly. “This is your daddy speaking,” he announced, pressing a sweet kiss over her shirt. “And I'm really sorry to inform you that this family you're going to be born into is absolutely insane.”
“Let's go deliver the good news,” She beamed, tangling her fingers in his hair.
Bellamy rose up from his knees slowly, taking a good look at his wife. Her cheeks were tinged with pink, whether from the cold or from all the chaos, but she was smiling at him. And they were having a baby.
God, they really were. He wrapped his arm around her waist, gently steering her inside. The noise died down and when they stepped into the living room, it was weird.
It was really weird.
Clarke’s eyes flicked to him and Bellamy shrugged because he couldn’t exactly explain why everyone was politely seated (well, except for Jasper - still knocked out, with an embarrassed-looking Maya shooting the two of them a remorseful look), their voices never rising above a whisper and with Abby at the head of the table, as general-looking as Clarke can get sometimes.
When they noticed them entering, Abby cleared her throat, shooting Thelonious one final angry look. Bellamy had never loved his mother-in-law more.
“We are really sorry,” she started. “Aren’t we, Theo?”
Thelonious nodded, scowling at the table in front of him. He murmured, “We promise to behave.”
Bellamy could feel Clarke trying to keep herself from laughing right next to him and she nodded, biting into her cheek. “Thank you.”
“Alright,” Abby said. “Now, like we practiced -”
The whole dining room erupted into a roarious shout of “Congratulations” and clapping, rising their noise levels into unimaginable heights, but Bellamy felt a smile tugging on his mouth and maybe their baby would be born into a totally crazy family, but.
It’d be loved.
Miller and Monty were the closest ones to them and the first ones to wrap them into a hug, with Miller saying, “Congrats on the baby, guys. That’s so much cooler than our surprise.”
“Yeah,” Monty agreed, pecking Clarke’s cheek again. “We were just going to tell you guys that we’re engaged.”
“You are?” Clarke asked, incredulous. It was a long time coming and everyone knew that if anyone would get married, it’d be Miller and Monty. “Congratulations!”
“Yeah, well,” Miller said, the tips of his ears going a little pink, “Monty finally popped the question.”
Their mothers apologized for being overbearing in unison, Kane clapped Bellamy on the back, Vera offered them a butterscotch, but Murphy congratulating them was their personal favorite.
John Murphy, ever the lovable asshole, just approached them with a crooked smile and said, “Let’s just hope the kid won’t be a dick like you two are.”
Coming from Murphy, that was as close to a heartfelt statement as it got and Bellamy may or may not have gotten slightly teary-eyed at that.
After being congratulated by anyone and everyone and Jasper startling himself awake to say “I ship it!” (completely unnecessary, actually, but still kind of cute), Bellamy cleared his throat and announced in a stern voice,
“I don’t care what the rest of you do, but my wife and our baby are gonna go take a nap now. If anyone,” he scanned the rest of the room, everyone swallowing hard and slightly afraid, “dares to wake them up, they’ll have to deal with me. And I won’t be disobeyed.”
With that, he took Clarke’s hand and whispered, “Get out while you still can”. Predictably, the rest of the room erupted in chatter but by the time they made it upstairs, everything went quiet.
“I’ll make sure no one disturbs you,” he told her, as serious as she’d only seen him when Octavia was giving birth and Clarke had to stop both him and Lincoln from smothering Octavia with worry.
“Bell, seriously, I’m fine,” she explained, but to no avail. Bellamy settled her back onto the pillows, brought another five of them and three blankets. “I’m not freezing, I’m pregnant.”
“Well we don’t exactly have any power right now, do we? And no power means no heat. So cover up and like it.”
She shot him a glare.
“Please?” He tried again, tucking the blankets in at the sides. She smiled and shrugged.
“I’ll allow it. Come wake me if things get too out of hand?” She pleaded with him, reaching up to push his curls out of his eyes.
“Don’t count on it,” he chuckled, leaning down to press a kiss to her forehead. “Now rest.”
She smiled at him and watched him go, closing the door behind him.
By all means, it should have been easy to fall asleep. Everyone was relatively quiet, she was warm, finally resting after what seemed like eons of nothing except for stress, but.
It was weird. Not being called to put out a fire or stop a catastrophe from happening was weird, out of the usual, and Clarke let out a long-suffering groan before throwing the covers off and setting off to see what’s going on with the rest of her family.
When she came downstairs, Wells was sitting on the bottom step with Raven’s feet in his lap. She seemed to be dozing off and Wells was absolutely shocked to see her.
“Clarke? What are you doing?”
“Making sure no one sets anything on fire,” she stated, stepping over Raven’s legs and grabbing onto the railing so as to not get hurt in the process. The house was still in the darkness but at least it wasn’t as cold as it could have been.
Wells frowned. “Bellamy won’t like it.”
“Wells, you’re my best friend and I love you, but you have no idea what the hell you’re talking about.”
“I’m serious, he ordered us to keep it shut and already threw Murphy out because he coughed.”
“Yeah, okay,” Clarke rolled her eyes, “I’m pretty sure it isn’t that bad.”
But it was. By the time she entered the living room, she was taken aback by the disturbing amount of silence. Petra and Percy were quietly being read to by Lincoln in the corner, Octavia was sleeping sprawled across their laps, Clarke’s mom and Marcus were patiently accepting a butterscotch from Vera, Miller and Monty were exchanging looks of worry and Thelonious was glaring in -
Bellamy’s direction. Bellamy, who looked as stern as Clarke had ever seen him, stood on the opposite side of the room, surveying the crowd with his arms crossed at his chest. Whenever someone moved an inch, his eyes flicked towards where they were.
When he noticed Clarke, he raised an eyebrow. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Oh, good, Clarke’s back!” Jasper chimed, picking himself up from the floor where Maya already looked exasperated to have to contain the ball of enthusiasm that her boyfriend was, only to be shot down by Bellamy’s glare. “Which means we’ll be even quieter.”
“That you will,” Bellamy confirmed, nodding curtly. His attention then shifted to Clarke and where she would normally like it (it was her husband, after all), now she didn’t appreciate him trying to mother her. “Clarke, explanation?”
“Cut it out, Bellamy,” she warned him. “I’m not sick.”
“You’re pregnant!”
“So?”
“Our family is a stressor and you need to rest.”
“Bellamy, I don’t give a shit if I’m pregnant. I will kick your ass. Then I will divorce you, kick your ass again and make your family love me more.”
With that, she entered the room and, with a pointed glare in Bellamy’s direction, sat herself right down between Jasper and her mom. Jasper still had bits of soup on his face and she flicked a broccoli off the top of his head, snuggling closer.
Sure, they were in the dark, the power having been cut out when Eggbert fried the lights, they didn’t have turkey - except for the burned one in the snow outside, and yeah, half of their living room furniture was broken, but.
“It wasn’t so bad, as far as holidays go,” Clarke finally said, smiling. Thelonious was scowling in the corner, muttering something about cats being better than people, everyone was wearing Marcus’ knitted sweaters and Emori even asked for a butterscotch of her own volition.
Maybe she still wanted to deck someone with a curtain rod but Clarke at least had friends who actually did it. And those kind of people were the ones you wanted around.
“Yeah,” Bellamy agreed from across the room, hesitantly going over to where Clarke was sitting and curling up next to her feet. “Not so bad.”
“And at least we got rid of the cat.”
Everyone took a moment to appreciate the serendipitous blessing. Well, everyone except for Thelonious. But it was alright and for the first time this holiday season, Clarke truly believed that everything would be great.
(It mostly came with knowing that everyone would be out of her hair the next day.)
And then, a shriek.
Everyone’s heads snapped towards the tarp covering the window in unison, only to see an ominous shadow and hear another piercing wail.
“We’re gonna die!” Jasper shouted, tugging at Clarke and Maya. “Protect me!”
“No one is dying,” Lincoln assured him, standing up to inspect the tarp and the weird shadow that emitted these ghoulish moans. Even Clarke’s blood ran still as they waited.
Lincoln removed the tarp, exposing them to the chill coming from the outside, and in ran a ball of hair.
A ball of -
“Eggbert,” Bellamy gasped.
Sure enough, there was Eggbert Cornelius, lying in the middle of their living room, his claws out and just shrieking at every single one of them as if they had failed him somehow.
The fur around his mouth looked charred and black, probably from being fried by the severed christmas lights. The rest of the fur on his body stood up at the ends, and he looked pissed. More pissed than usual. He was ready to pounce, and Miller, whom probably hated the cat more than anyone, was right in Eggbert Cornelius’ line of fire.
But then Vera Kane, courageous as ever, stepped forward and knelt down to the demons level of perception, even with her bad knees. She reached into her pocket, pulled out one of her famous linty butterscotches, and held it out to the beast.
Eggbert’s eyes widened in hunger, and he gratefully accepted the offering, and then, much to everyone's surprise he nuzzled Vera’s legs happily.
“Okay, how is that thing even still alive?” Miller asked, gesturing to the scene playing out in front of them.
“Well, you know what they say,” Octavia said with a chuckle.
“What do they say, Mommy?” percy asked, looking up at his mother with curiosity in his eyes.
“Get electrocuted by christmas lights, get back up.”
And Clarke had never related to anything more in her life. This christmas might have seemed like a disaster, but they managed to survive. And she would never dream of spending it with anyone other than the people in this room with her. It truly was a holiday season nobody would ever forget.