Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

GRADUATION DAY

What the fuck.

The first thing that comes to mind when she spots not one, not two, but three of her former bedpartners. Four! Fuck. This has to be a nightmare. She's had the waking up and going to class naked nightmare before, the all my friends and my kid secretly hate me nightmare and the being brutally murdered just for being blonde and female and not interested nightmare. Every other nightmare combined, this one's definitely the worst.

What the fuck.

Clarke takes one look at Madi's face—staring across the yard at that barman the mother has literally spoken to for five minutes of her life—and she knows this was her. She knew something was up during the ceremony when Madi kept looking out at the crowd, almost missing her own name being called in the process. Just like she knows something is up now.

She drags her daughter over to the kitchen and demands an explanation for the free showing of Ghosts of Boy- and Girlfriends Past in her backyard. Which Madi gives her. And really, Clarke is listening to her but she is also trying to not have any murderous thoughts. How could that son of a bitch even dare to show up? After all this time? The nerve?

She doesn't get how Raven—who is actually also in the kitchen with her husband, Clarke just now notices—is so calm about this. Then again, the baby inside of her isn't Finn's. It's different for her. She got a clean break. A cleaner break.

So there she is, standing in the kitchen with a knife in her hands, listening to her daughter explain how she literally invited all of her exes to her graduation party without even so much as a warning. Her exterior might be calm (besides the deathgrip on the blade), but inwardly, she is panicking. She wants to get out of here, but where is she gonna go?

Eventually, she manages to find her voice, forces it to be steady even though she is on the verge of a mental breakdown. She loves her kid, she really does, but right now she just wants to bury her alive. Figuratively. "Have you met them yet?"

"Yeah, I saw Roan, and then Finn. I wanted to go over and say hi but then you noticed them as well I think," Madi admits, sheepish and that's so unlike her, Clarke is starting to wonder if she even knows her daughter at all. "I don't think Bellamy is here."

Clarke had been so focused on Finn, she hadn't even let herself think about the fact Bellamy was technically one of her exes, too. One of three potential dads, what a joke. Her chest feels too small for her heart all of a sudden, like the organ wants to break free but her ribs won't let it.

If anything, just because he isn't here yet, doesn't mean he won't be. If he's still —if he's still Bellamy, her Bellamy, he'll be here. Come hell or high water.

The corners of her mouth turn up, because Madi is looking at her like she might throw up any second, and more than anything, she wants her feel okay. "He'll come," she muses, catching Raven's eye for a second—her friend smiles at her, apologetic maybe, that she can't hold her hand now like she did back then, not with Madi here—and then she brushes some of her daughters brown hair behind her ear. "He always comes."

Madi nods, slowly, then starts to walk out of the kitchen. She turns back on her heels at the last moment, hand on the door handle. Her knuckles are white. Nervously, she asks, "Are you coming?"

"I'll be right behind you," she promises, mustering together a smile, even if it fades back into a frown as soon as the door falls shut behind her daughter. She opens the fridge, yanks out the closest bottle of wine and pours herself a glass. She doesn't stop pouring until the glass almost flows over.

"You okay, Griffin?" Zeke checks, his eyebrows raised as he watches her chug down half of the glass in one gulp. She takes a breath, then downs the other half in three seconds. Wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, she bites, accusatory, "Why didn't you guys warn me?"

Raven snorts, unimpressed. "So you could freak out about Finn coming and ruin her graduation party?"

Clarke can't help but snap. "If he's here it's already ruined." Zeke reaches out to put his hand on top of her shoulder, as a comforting gesture, and she shakes her head, pinching the bridge of her nose and forcing herself not to cry about this. Not again. Not now.

"You never told any one of us," her friend counters, and it sounds just as vindictive, like she's been waiting a while to bring this up. "That he was really the father."

"But you assumed, right," Clarke retorts, no heat to her voice. She doesn't want to fight with Raven. They've had one too many fights about Finn in the past and she doesn't want to have him that power over them fifteen years in the future.

They never asked, so she never said anything. She always thought the baby was Finn's, right from the get go. The universe's way of screwing her over one final time. Doesn't mean she didn't wish for something—anything—else for the entire eight months that followed. But she took one look at that baby cradled in her arms in the hospital bed, fussy and tiny and pudgy Madi, and she just knew. She was Finn's.

He didn't want her, not like she deserved, so Clarke figured she shouldn't give him any of the credit. She carried Madi for nine months, she gave birth to her, and she continued to raise her for the next fourteen years. She figured that as long as she didn't say it out loud, not to anyone, she could still pretend. And Raven's given her countless of her Looks over the years, like she wanted to say more, breach the subject of Finn, but she never did.

"I did," Raven counters, softer this time, one hand on top of her protruding belly. Clarke smiles wistfully, faint. "I figured that was why you never told Bellamy either. So it was anyone's guess." To keep her options open, she means.

Because Clarke was afraid. Afraid he would screw her over too, and she'd be alone and devastated all over again, but this time with a baby. A baby who deserved a mom who wasn't just going through the motions.

Clarke swallows tightly, pressing her fingernails into her sweaty palms until red crescent-shaped welts appear in the flesh. "I don't know how to tell him now."

Zeke stays quiet, lets them talk it out as he focuses on assembling the fruit skewers she pulled from Pinterest. He didn't meet Raven until after she got her scholarship back and finished college, so he was never there for any of it. It's different, learning about the facts after they happened, than actually going through them.

"I hate to break it to you, babe," Raven smirks, crossing the distance between them and putting her arm around the blonde's shoulders, "but I have a slight suspicion he already knows about your fourteen year old baby who send him an invitation to her middle school graduation party."

Clarke narrows her eyes at her, but it's only half hearted, a smile on her face that she can't suppress. "That's not what I mean."

Of course he knows about Madi. If he's here, he knows. She's just not sure how to tell him why she never tried to stay in contact. Why she couldn't even bother to tell him she made a human. That might be his, because that's what he thinks now, right? That Madi might be his. But maybe, if he's here—he's willing to listen.

"I know," Raven confirms, eyes softening. She does that a lot now, because of the hormones, Clarke thinks. Gets all gooey and soft. "But I think he'll understand. He was always good like that."

FRESHMAN YEAR

"You're such a fucking jackass," she yells over the steady EDM beat pumping through the dormitory and making her ears ring, poking him in the chest with her finger nail. Vodka swishes over the edge of her red solo cup because of it and seeps down her wrist, but she doesn't care.

He snorts, but it's more malicious than humoured. He has to lean closer to her to be audible over the music. He smells like cologne and beer. "Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't realize you were actually interested in that Ice Queen. Pretty sure she tried to date-rape Monroe last week, but whatever, right? Divine right and all."

She grits her teeth together. Of course she wasn't interested in Ontari. She has Finn. He knows that. "You're one to talk. Echo? She spat in your face for speaking without being spoken to! She's the girl who challenged your sister to a bar fight—"

Nevermind the fact she screwed over Clarke with that fucking stunt she pulled in the campus parking lot and got the blonde her first mugshot. Bellamy doesn't care about Clarke, they all know that. But he is supposed to care about his sister at least.

When their mom got sick, he postponed going to college for three years for her, even giving up his academic scholarship. He works two jobs next to school so she is able to take out less student loans. He braids her hair and threatens her potential boyfriends and cooks her favorite dinner when she's feeling down. He is supposed to care more about his sister than that, that—Echo.

He doesn't get to try and pretend he's some fucking hero here. She might be a little buzzed, but she was just talking to Creepy Ontari That's Under Campus Police Investigation about Professor Wallace's art class. That they share. She would've found a way out of the conversation soon enough, faking sick or waving over at a person she barely knows to have an excuse to go talk to them. He didn't need to pull her away mid-conversation like they were, like he and she, like—that's just, just plain rude. She doesn't need him to be her knight in pompous armor.

"So? Octavia won," he boasts, cutting her off as he takes a swig of his beer, fingers wrapped around the bottle tightly. She catches herself staring at the way his adam's apple bobs up and down, quickly turns her head and writes it off as her brain being alcohol-hazed. That second shot of tequila Octavia forced on her really was too much, the brother she's forcing on her was even worse.

She throws up her hands, shaking her head to clear her head a little. He is un-fucking-believable. "Whatever, Bellamy. Have a nice night. Enjoy sucking face with that demon!"

Saccharine sweet, he calls after her in that dumb deep voice of his, "I will, princess. Thanks!"

Her blood is boiling; her entire body freezing up because that fucking nickname but she forces herself to keep walking. Not stopping until she's face to face with Monty—the best bio lab partner a girl could ever wish for—who immediately frowns. It looks unnatural on him. "You okay, Clarke?"

She forces herself to take a deep breath, form a convincing smile on her face. The truth is, she doesn't even remember why she and Bellamy don't get along, it's kind of just always been like that since they met and she figures they're too far into their compulsory eight-month antagonistic extracurricular acquaintanceship to rehash any of it now. She decides to no longer be bothered by it, him, his stupid cocky smirk—breathing out a casual, "I'm peachy." She actually does feel better.

Apparently, it isn't nearly convincing enough because Monty wraps his fingers around her forearm, panicky, looking around and lowering his voice conspiratorially. "You didn't eat more than one of my brownies, right?"

Clarke laughs, and she catches Bellamy's eye across the room, leaning against a wall casually and talking to a girl. Not Echo at least. She quickly looks away. "What? So I can try and make-out with a broom?"

His hand drops to his side, and he purses his lips in disdain, flipping his bangs out of his eyes a little as he points an accusing finger at her. "That was one time."

"Oh, Harper, why are you so stiff—" Clarke starts, faux-lovingly pressing a hand to her heart and using the one holding her drink to imitate holding a stick.

Harper, the girl who sits next to Zoe at the science desk on their right at Bio Lab. Harper, with the elaborate plaits, who shit-talks professor Pike under her breath for his tough love approach and brings freshly baked cookies to each class and always gives Monty two. Harper.

Monty shoves her in the shoulder, shushing her loudly as his neck gets a splotchy-red that's an entirely new look on him. "Clarke Jacobina Griffin, I will hack into Ark U's database and triple your debt."

Jacobina? Really, he's pulling that card? In public? She still hates her parents for choosing Jacobina over Abigail. They really wanted a son that badly, huh?

"You'll get caught and will have to serve time." She pouts mockingly, reaching out to tug on a piece of his bangs but he slaps her hand away before she can actually tug. He hastily checks her face for any signs of pain before forcing back a brick wall of annoyance on it. "You're too gentle to survive prison."

"It'll be worth it."

Later, when she's sitting down on the steps in one of the stairwells leading to the roof, it all comes back to her. She was feeling a bit suffocated in the common-room, especially when a kid named Jasper started to try and smoke Monty's batch of brownies to a soundtrack of cheerful Eurovision songs. She hates ABBA.

She pulls out her phone, deciding to send a quick text to Finn to see if he's still awake. It's moments like these that she really misses him. During the day it's surprisingly easy not to think about him, but during stuff like this, the hangouts, the parties—having to watch couples kiss and dance and make heart-eyes at each other. It's hard. She misses the physicality, the intimacy.

Clarke [12:03 AM]:

hey, you up?

She's still staring at the screen, like a message will someone magically appear, when the door to the common room opens. The line 'I'm the first in line, honey I'm still free, take a chance on me' reverberates through the air—accompanied with some very off-key, slurred singing by Jasper and, is that Octavia's voice?—before it fades as the door falls shut behind them. Bellamy. And—two girls.

He looks surprised at the sight of her, like he might actually just step past her and take those girls up to the roof and leave her to it. Then, he leans closer to the girl on his right—Bree, Clarke thinks—and whispers something in her ear. She giggles, nodding along, then smiles at him like he just personally revealed the cure to cancer to her.

Stupid, stupid Bree, Clarke thinks. She's seen one too many girls fall for his stupid charm. This isn't his first rodeo.

Bree takes the hand of the brunette that Clarke barely recognizes—maybe they have Calculus together?—and they disappear up the stairs, laughing angelically, the door to the roof slamming shut loudly and bringing the room to an abrupt silence.

"Hey princess," he says, sitting down beside her casually. Her fingers tighten around the red solo cup she's still cradling in her hand as she stuffs her phone back in her pocket. She can feel her cheeks heat.

"If you're looking to make your threesome a foursome—" He can keep walking, she means to say, preferably to the roof and off the ledge, but then he interrupts her.

"Wow, Clarke, I'm flattered. I didn't know you felt that way about me."

She narrows her eyes, head snapping to look at him, casually draped over the steps like it's a fucking fashion show. His elbows leaning on the step above them, long limbs stretched out below them, nonchalant smirk plastered on his face. Fuck. She's drunk. She's absolutely fucking drunk, there's no other way she would be noticing the way the light reflects of his bronzed skin, highlighting every freckle. She shakes her head, more for herself than him, focusing her gaze back on the wall in front of her. "You know I'm—"

"With Finn," he finishes for her, rolling his eyes. Is he… Is he bored? "You really always want to be that boring girl at the party who's moping around and staring at her phone because she misses her high school boyfriend?"

It all comes back. Comes back like it happened yesterday.

It was in the mesh hall—no, the library. Yeah, the library, she remembers because there was a stack of books in front of him on the table and a lady tried to shush them a few times. Octavia spotted Bellamy and she ran over to him like she hadn't just seen him at breakfast earlier that morning, wrapping her arms around his shoulders from behind and swaying them from side to side. "Big brother!"

She had met Octavia on the first day of classes and she had decided she was going to stick with Clarke, whether she liked it or not. Clarke got the feeling she wasn't very used to hearing the word 'no' so she just kind of rolled with it. She was a force of nature, but she had a big heart, liked her coffee the same way as Clarke and didn't so much as blink when the blonde offhandedly mentioned she was bi.

"O," he said, surprised, craning his neck to look at her over his shoulder. Next, he ducked down to grab something from his bag and handed it to his sister. "Here, I found my old flash cards for Cultural Anthropology." Then he noticed Clarke, fumbling with the strap of her backpack awkwardly, curious look on his face.

"Bell, this is Clarke, my new best friend," Octavia beamed, stashing the flashcards into her tote bag distractedly. They were already crinkling and ripping at the edges because she was trying to push them in between two hardcover books and Clarke inwardly flinched. They looked like a lot of work went into them. "CG, this is Bellamy, my dumb brother."

When he didn't stick out his hand, she just did this uncomfortable little wave, an even more uncomfortable polite-ish smile on her face. He was definitely, one-hundred-thousand percent judging her. He didn't even bother trying to hide it.

"Nice to meet you, too," she muttered under her breath, annoyed and a little embarrassed. Who just… openly judges someone? Why?

He was obviously a little older than them. Mature and cool in a way that her fellow freshman male classmates had yet to grasp. Broad shoulders, defined bone-structure (that jaw!), skin significantly darker than his sister's and his hair a dark curly mess on top of his head, but he just owned that. It just seemed right. Like people with curly hair who did not have it messy like that were doing it wrong.

Octavia—hardly noticing the heavy tension in the air or worse, used to it—waved at some tall guy standing by the shelf of non-fiction and decidedly disappeared over there, basically telling Clarke to stay put 'for a minute'. She went back to fumbling with her backpack, shouldering it higher.

Clarke found his eyes on the watch hanging loosely around her wrist. It was her dad's, a going-off-to-college present so she wouldn't forget the old man while she was away, but she had yet to have it altered to fit her.

"Rolex, huh?" The patronizing sneer on his face did not go unnoticed by Clarke.

She scoffed, dropping her hand and unconsciously stuffing it into the muff of her soft pink hoodie. "And what about it?"

"Nothing, princess." She visibly reacted to the nickname, which was a grave, grave mistake on her part because his smirk only widened. Chewing on his gum, he nodded over at his sister, just a single, controlled jut of his jaw. "You know who that is?"

She glanced over at them, barely, crossing her arms over her chest. It's Atom Dalton (distantly related to that Dalton, yeah), a boy who his sister had been texting obsessively whenever she had the opportunity. "Why?"

"Just wondering," he said, dismissive, probably figuring out he won't get an answer from her and cutting his losses as he turns back to the book in front of him. It was mostly pictures, pictures of people with snakes for heads and wings for arms.

"What? You're gonna find him after classes end and beat him up on the parking lot?"

"I might, actually," he responded, monotone, paging through the book. "Thanks for the idea." What a fucking jerk.

For some reason, she cared that she couldn't get a rise out of him the way he could get out of her. His whole attitude had her steaming. Octavia was not a little kid, and neither was she, even if he was treating her like one. "You know she's an adult right? She can date whoever she wants. Maybe you should stay out of her business."

He looked positively pissed, and for a second he looks like he might start cursing her out in the middle of the library. Then, that cool, calculated smirk returns. "Actually, I can do whatever the hell I want."

A screaming match about familial responsibility and accountability and 'screw you and your high horse' and toxic masculinity and 'who the hell do you think you are' followed and they both got kicked out of the library after the fourth shush.

That was why. Why he hates her and she hates him. He was judgemental and self-righteous and arrogant. Clarke was stubborn and easily offended and a little condescending. (A lot condescending, he would later tell her).

Then, the following week he turned out to be the new TA in Art History and paired her up with fucking Paxton McCreary—Ark U's resident psychotic asshole who thinks yelling 'free speech' exempts him from societal consequences—for a semester-long project out of spite and things just kept escalating from there. Octavia gave up trying to mediate between the two of them after two months.

"You have no idea what kind of girl I am," she snaps, back in the present, narrowing her eyes at him as she puts the cup down at her feet.

He quirks an eyebrow, unphased. "I know you seem incapable of ever having fun at these things."

Was he watching her? Offended, she counters, dumbly, "I can be fun."

Like she is such a downer. She's a pro at Quarters. She might not like Eurovision songs, but she enjoys karaoke. She loves dancing. She teamed up with Octavia for beer pong just last week and they totally obliterated everyone else!

He stifles a laugh. "You look like you're making a list in your head right now."

She sputters for a response, cheeks reddening and he laughs, throaty and loud and brazen. "It's a party, Clarke, lighten up."

She pushes her shoulder against his, mirroring his grin, catching his gaze with hers. His eyes are nice, she notes, not just brown. Also, gold. Warm, like chocolate milk. His grin widens, and her brow creases, sure he's about to say something to ruin it all.

A door creaks open in the distance. "Bellamy," somebody—Bree—singsongs, breaking the moment between them. Clarke shakes her head, trying to clear some of the vodka-induced fog from her brain, leaning as far away from him as possible.

"Duty calls," he smirks, sitting up and resting his elbows on his knee. She rolls her eyes, but it feels lighter between the two of them for some reason. Like he's not too bad. She's sure it'll fade once the alcohol is out of her system. "You're disgusting."

"You're breaking my heart over here, princess," he counters, and the nickname, it's not as venomous as usual. He pats her knee as he gets up, giving her one final smile. It's different from his usual smirks. Softer. Her phone buzzes in her pocket and she finally breaks eye-contact, listening to his fading footsteps up the stairs as she tries to still her loudly beating heart.

Finn [12:36 AM]:

hi sorry baby was busy. hanging with some friends x

"John Murphy," she squawks across the entire backyard, not caring who hears. So what she's doing everything to avoid having to confront any of her exes—Anya, seriously? The most they ever did was angrily make-out in a janitor's closet and pull each others hair a little too roughly.

She stalks across the yard like a woman on a mission, finding Murphy and his wife at one of the fold-in-half tables she had Zeke set up earlier. Their chairs are close together, so close, Emori can lean her elbow on his shoulder and drape half of her body over his. The perfect position to make fun of her other guests together.

Clarke catches the back-end of Murphy's heinous rant, "...at all these kids running around. Society needs a good old fashioned culling."

"Seriously, Niylah and Anya?" She whisper-shouts, crouching down beside his chair to make sure she's out of view from any of her possible exes, her thirty-second-earlier IDGAF(about any of my past lovers) grandeur long forgotten.

"I tried to find Luna, too, but I think she lives with some hippy commune in South America." He sneers, giddy almost, rubbing his greedy little havoc-wrecking hands together like the snake he is. If Murphy doesn't have something to do, he likes to ruin their lives instead. Just for the fun of it. "Don't tell me you have a few love letters stashed away somewhere, because that would be even funnier."

She narrows her eyes at him, quickly ducking further underneath the table as Roan passes it, before shifting her head to look back at her supposed-friend. "You spend a lot of time watching teen romcoms now, Murphy?"

"Shut up," he snaps, eyes turning into sliths but Emori, at the same time, slaps him on the chest and reveals, "He read all three books."

Clarke momentarily lets herself enjoy the humiliation on Murphy's face before slouching her shoulders, leaning her forehead against the side of Murphy's arm rest. It was fun to take her anger out on him, but there's really no avoiding this. No matter how badly she wants to. "God, what am I going to do?"

"I say we all band together to try and collect some of their DNA as discreetly as possible." Emori shrugs, non-committal. "I know a guy."

"I don't think that's necessary," Clarke sighs, peeking over the table carefully to find her daughter and her actual father talking. She can tell by the tension in her posture Madi is uncomfortable. "Finn is her father."

Murphy tilts his head back to look at her, almost tipping over his chair if it wasn't for his wife. "I for sure thought it was Bellamy. I mean, the odds were definitely in his favor."

"Murphy," she bites, warningly, pulling a napkin off the table to slap him in the stomach with. He winces, which she thoroughly enjoys. So she does it again.

"What?" He bites back, yanking the cloth from her grip and discarding it back on top of the table roughly. "I read your blog. Chances were definitely Bellamy, Finn, Roan—80-10-10. In that order."

"90-5-5," Emori adds, helpful as ever.

Before she has a chance to make a dig at Murphy's reading skills, something makes the hair on the back of her neck stand up straight. Finn's laugh. Another cautious peek over the table confirms it. Confirms he's still talking to her daughter, too.

"Excuse me," she mutters under her breath as she pushes herself back onto her legs, wiping her grass-stained hands on the side of her dress and stalking over there.

What happens next is something she can only describe as an unpleasant meeting that's the equivalent of having to explain to the devil why his new residence was below ground and not up there with the humans or way, way up there with the angels.

"Once upon a time, we started something and I—I was young and stupid, but that was then," Finn declares at one point and she almost spits in his face. They did start something. She finished it. "I would like to try and be someone who shows up for her."

He hurt her. He cheated on her. Is it irrational to still feel so much anger about it? After all these years? Back then—was she supposed to forgive him? Was she supposed stand there and listen to him justify himself saying he did it because he missed her? He missed her so bad he didn't think it would matter. Because he loved her, not Raven. He never loved Raven. Raven, who he saw for a year behind her back. Raven, who he just used to get through the days without her. Was that supposed to make it better?

The fact is, that wasn't what hurt her the most. A cheating boyfriend, she would've gotten over that eventually. But the father of her child not loving their baby enough to stick around? She could never forgive him for that.

It's not like she's wrapped right back around his finger like that, blinded by his charms and his sweet-talking ways. He wants to show up for her. No, try and show up for her. Parenting isn't selective, it shouldn't be. You don't get to pick and choose when to be there for your kids. She doesn't buy one fucking word of it. And if he thinks she does, he's sorely mistaken because—

"For Madi," he adds, pleading and hearing him say her name like that, that shy smile on his face that she recognizes all too well, in that moment all her defenses come down and she knows. She knows she can't get in between the two of them, can't keep Madi away, can't make that decision for her. He is her father. Like it or not. She guesses maybe it was never up to her to forgive him. It was always up to Madi.

She would do anything for her daughter. So she has to at least try.

But it'll be on Clarke's terms. Not his. She has to… process this, even if it's just for a day. LA is just a few hours away, he could come visit any day. "I'll think about it, okay?" She swallows, tight, taking in a sharp breath. "For now. Please, just—leave."

He opens his mouth to say something, but then at the steely look on her face, smartly closes it and settles for a nod instead. He leaves, and she finally feels like she can take a fucking breath. She scrubs a hand over her face, and then rubs her temples to release some of the tension. She could us an Advil.

Suddenly, somebody is pulling on her sleeve and towards the lawn chairs. They come to a halt behind one of the trees, hidden from most of their other guests. Talking out of the corner of her mouth, nodding just slightly to a spot over her shoulder, Raven mutters, "Look who just showed up."

Clarke's brow is already creasing as she stands on her tip-toes and peers over Raven's signature sleek ponytail. She forces her face to remain neutral even though her heart is aching something fierce. Bellamy. After all these years—he still looks exactly the same.

"I'm making up for what I said last time, just humour me."

"Last time?"

"Yeah, when he left and you were depressed and asking me if you should call him."

Clarke raises an eyebrow, amused. It's been so long, so much of everything between her and Raven, it's hard to hold grudges over something as futile as a could've been or should've done. "When you told me 'absolutely fucking not' you mean?"

"Yeah," she confirms, earnest, and she turns to stand beside Clarke, so they can look out at the party together. The trees are only providing minimal coverage at this point but she no longer cares. He's here and they're going to talk. It's inevitable. "I didn't understand."

Her eyes find Zeke in the crowd and he waves over to her excitedly, a blonde barbie in his hand until Kyra proceeds to yank it away from him and hit him in the stomach with it. Hard. She's feisty that one. Over the music, while she's brushing the barbie's hair back from it's face, they hear her growl, "She doesn't like to be shaked! God."

Raven grins with laughter, then shifts her head to look at Clarke. "Finn was the first person who I let get close to me and then hurt me like that. I was convinced it was better to just push everyone away."

Clarke snorts, unattractive. Raven saw her give birth, there's not much to be embarrassed about after that. "He hurt you so badly you literally pushed Wick into incoming traffic?"

To be fair, Wick was a self-proclaimed 'nice guy' and it was just a single bicycle. Still. Shaw was actually the first person Raven dated for longer than half a night or a quick 45 minutes of her lunch break. And Clarke still suspects it's because he promised her—knowing she never backed down from a challenge—that if she made it to the fifth date, he would show her his Harley Davidson. Which was apparently both a motorcycle and an euphemism. Gross.

"Kyle deserved that for implying I owed him sex for being a decent human being to him." Proudly, arms crossed over her baby bump, she boasts, "And it was just a broken arm. Didn't even need to be set."

Her eyes narrow all of a sudden. "Just to be clear—this is the only time I will ever admit I was wrong, don't ever dare to try and bring it up again."

Clarke purses her lips, unimpressed and expectant. "I'm waiting."

Raven sighs apprehensively, acting like Clarke is making her do this and she's oh-so gracious for going along with it. "You should definitely, absolutely fucking go talk to him."

"Okay." Clarke takes a deep, calming breath, eyes trained on her feet. Then, she nods, trying to lift her own spirits. He wouldn't have come if he didn't want to talk to her. He knew Clarke came with Madi. It was kind of implied. "Okay. I will."

Raven tugs on the skirt of her dress, stomping her foot a little, like Madi used to do in the grocery store when she badly wanted Sour Gummies. "Promise you'll drag him off to the nearest secluded area the second he even shows the slightest of interest in you?" Clarke sends her an appalled look and Raven scoffs, offended. "What? I might be pregnant, but I'm still a slut for visually pleasing men first."

As Clarke is walking away, to make a statement mostly, she calls after her, "Besides, it's been literal years! I'll be surprised to find out there aren't cobwebs manifested down there." She refuses to turn around and giving Raven the satisfaction of seeing Clarke flushed, and instead just flips her the bird.

She hasn't even talked to him. It's too soon to be thinking about any of—that. If it's even still option, if she even still wants it to be an option.

"Can I get you something to drink?" She asks him, when she's stared at his back for a full minute and finally finds her voice. She's proud of herself for being able to keep it steady and casual.

He turns at the sound of her voice, and for some reason his face is completely unreadable. He raises his eyebrows. "I don't know, can you?"

Time has been more than kind to him. His hair is a little shorter, there's a full-on beard now, he's traded his never-ending collection of black racer jackets for a simple maroon v-neck sweater and he has some wrinkles where he used to be smooth, but like always, he just owns it. This is who he is. She almost wishes she would've just admired him from afar, so he could always stay in her mind like this. Untouched. She's scared to find out what else might have changed.

She clears her throat, opting to go with the whole cool and nonchalant approach to this whole debacle like there isn't almost fifteen years, three states and a possible kid between the two of them, pursing her lips. "So you went into teaching after all, huh?" The 'I don't know, can you' gave it away.

For a split second, she feels absolutely unnervingly and terrifyingly panicked. Maybe she should've have just hid in the house until he left. Then, he smirks, like old times, and she's immediately grounded. "Guess I wasn't being as enigmatic as I thought."

"High school?"

"High school," he confirms, and there's a stupid moment where they just stand there, smiling at each other like there aren't a million things left unsaid and yeah, she definitely wants it to be an option. Abruptly, she turns and starting pouring herself a glass of sangria. He follows her movements, so their backs are both facing the crowd behind them. He drums a knuckle against the counter. "Hey, sorry for being late."

"Oh, no," she waves him off, swallowing a sip of her drink, wondering who the hell actually used her Cobbler cocktail shaker. It was supposed to just be for decor. "You were always one for a dramatic entrance. Just couldn't share the spotlight with her two other dads, huh?"

"Please," he brushes her off, shifting his head so he can look at something over his shoulder. Clarke follows his gaze over to her one-night stand from fifteen years ago, talking to her daughter and being glanced at by almost every woman and some of the men around him. Yeah, that's happening. "We can all cleary see Roan didn't need a dramatic entrance. He ended the competition before I even got here."

Agree to disagree, Blake, she almost says, in that easy-going flirty way that comes natural to them, the fight hasn't been fought yet, but then she remembers why he's here. She clears her throat again, fidgeting with the straw in her drink as she builds up the courage to look him straight in the face. She at least owes him that.

"Bellamy," she starts, serious, all teasing gone from her voice. She should really address the elephant in the room before it tramples all over Bellamy's feelings. She remembers he has a lot of those, and she wasn't always very good with them back then.

"What?" He teases, and she's not sure it really is as light and simple as he's making it out to be or if she's just reading too much into it. "No 'congrats, dad, it's a girl'?"

She's already opening her mouth, sending him an apologetic look to end all other apologetic looks, but to her surprise, he cuts her off, stifling a chuckle and holding up one of his large, deep bronze hands. There's something darker buried in his eyes, underneath the facade of carefree Bellamy. "Clarke, chill. I know she's not mine."

Relieved, she lets out a deep, heavy breath and he laughs, deep and warm, and with the arm not draped over the bar, he reaches out to squeeze her bicep. "I'll try to take that as an compliment."

To her credit, Clarke doesn't flinch. He's always been tactile. Always. Even when they were ripping each other's head off, and then especially when they were ripping off each other's clothes. Which, in retrospect, just, might make it a tiny bit worse. She remembers what else he can do with those hands.

"That smile, that's all Finn," he muses, and his hand drops back down to his side, the loss of contact almost making her gasp before she reigns herself back in. Get a grip, Griffin. "And I know you. Knew," he corrects himself, and she pretends not to care, that it doesn't sting just a little, "I figured you would've at least told me by her sixth birthday." He's grinning by the end of the sentence, teasing and a little cocky, and it's all so familiar Clarke feels her heartbeat starting to pick up.

Clarke was never really good at making friends. Wells was kind of just stuck with her since childhood, Octavia befriended slash picked her more than anything, Monty was too nice to say no when she asked him to hang out after class so she's not sure that started out completely consensual. Even with Raven, it happened exactly like this:

It had not even been a full day since she found out about Finn, but she forced herself to drag her ass out of bed and get to class. No matter how much of mess she was. She was not going to be the girl hung up over some high school boyfriend. She missed enough days when her dad… She missed enough classes last month.

She turned the corner of the quad, only to be face to face with Raven. Later she found out she was there for a tour of the premises. The brunette winced, almost turning on her heels before stalking over to Clarke instead. "Yikes. So this was literally the only in-state college that offered additional financial support on top of my scholarship so I'll be going here next year." It was not an apology or a quest for permission, just, maybe, at most, an explanation. "Let just not make this awkward, okay?"

If Clarke was a little bit more vain, she would have cared that last night's mascara was stuck to her under-eyes, that she was in yoga pants and a sweater with coffee-stains on it, and that her hair was pretty much a birdnest on top of her head. She would have cared that Raven was obviously winning the non-existent level of hotness competition between two love interests without even trying, in her casual bomberjack and dark skinny jeans attire, the obviously make-up free face and the neat braids on the side of her head going over into a sleek ponytail. Instead, Clarke took one look at her and said, "Okay. You want to get wasted tonight?"

"Definitely."

Zeke, Harper and Gaia just kind of had to deal with her because she and her friends were a package deal at this point. Like a parasite, really. Like Murphy is to her, but with less malicious intent.

Bellamy might be the only friend she's ever made on her own. The one she had to work for. It took a few months (nine, or ten?) before it really stuck, but it really stuck. She messed it all up after that, but it's good. The base was founded strong enough that it still feels right, now, between the two of them. Easy.

"Does she know?" He checks and Clarke shakes her head. "I don't think so." Not yet, at least.

"I'm sorry she dragged you over here," she hears herself say, even if she's not sorry he is here. More that he had to take time off from his job, and she didn't even turn out to be his.

She wished she was. Lying in her bed at night, feeling Madi's strong little kicks against her belly, not being able to sleep because she had the hiccups or decided to roll over onto her bladder. So many times, she thinks, and immediately hates herself for it. It's not fair to him, to either of them.

"It's okay," he counters genuinely, and there really is nothing else to his voice, like resentment or anger. "It was a good excuse to come see my mom. Haven't taken a day off since my divorce so three weeks feels like a small luxury."

She should ask about his mom, how she is doing, but instead she hears herself dumbly say, "Oh." Then her brain kicks back in. "You and Gemma didn't…"

"Gina," he corrects her, but he's grinning. She kept tabs on him, here and there, through Octavia, or Monty who still speaks to Jasper on the regular. Just. Just never too much. "We love each other. Just… Not like that." She might imagine it but his eyes turn a little softer, a little yearning. "Not anymore."

"What about you?" He juts out his chin. "Is there anyone in your life?'

"No," she admits, and that sounds more pathetic than she was willing to admit to her sort-of-ex-boyfriend. She smiles, like it's a joke shared between the two of them. "My first boyfriend knocked me up and never bothered to mention he was a cheating son of a bitch." She conveniently skips everything in between, everything between them. She squints her eyes, pensively, voice more serious this time. "My last girlfriend, well... I trusted her with Madi, let her into her life. She promised me she wouldn't do anything to hurt her and then she still left us." She exhales heavily, rubbing the back of her neck. "I stopped trying after that."

He wets his lips, trying to hide a smile. "Same old Clarke with the trust issues, then?"

"Yeah," she laughs, because he makes it all sound less heavy than it feels. "Something like that."

"Bellamy." Clarke hears a voice from behind her, and they both turn to find her daughter blinking up at them. Well, mostly up at him. Madi's almost her height now. "Mom said you would come."

"Did she now?" He grins, glancing over at Clarke, who feels like she might die any second now. What follows next is what she can only describe as seeing Bellamy's natural talent for kids come alive in front of her own eyes.

Madi is still avoiding eye-contact, and it makes Clarke's heart ache in the most unfamiliar way. She doesn't know what's wrong, or how to fix it, because everytime she opens her mouth to say something to her, or join their conversation, her whole body just goes rigid. They never fight. They have disagreements about curfews and leaving red socks in the washing machine and Madi's big mouth in front of her grandma. Not like this. Not too long ago, she needed Clarke for everything. Skinned knees, and homework, and arguments with her friends, and figuring out what outfit to wear to a party, and hugs after a bad day. Now she invited three strangers to her graduation because she wanted to know who her dad was. It's a whole new dynamic.

Madi is talking to him, and her heart aches in the most unfamiliar way. She's talking to Bellamy—like Clarke wasn't the connection between them, like they're just fine friends on their own—and mentions her baking skills, or lack thereof. Bellamy brings up the whole sophomore year toast debacle.

This was about a week into the strictly-platonic-and-sexual turn of their relationship. When once, turned into twice, and then twice turned into every night, and every night turned into every day.

She was on his bed, in one of his old threadbare shirts, their legs tangled together as he forced her to watch a documentary on the Ancient Greeks, or maybe it was the Second World War. Either way, something decidedly not sexy. At all. She felt hungry from all the exercise that morning, so got out of bed to pop some bread into his toaster.

When she started to hop back in, he caught her by the waist and pulled her into his chest. Before she knew it, they were kissing and she was already on top of him, one hand slipping into his boxers when the sprinklers turned on.

He hurried over to his laptop, stashing it under his desk and she ended up running over to the toaster, using her fingers to try and pluck out the lumps of coals stuck in the toaster with a hiss. They heard a bunch of yelling and screams coming from all around the building as the fire alarms started to blare, the free rainfall obviously not limited to Bellamy's room.

"I'm so sorry," she said, close to crying as he returned from opening his window to try and get some of the smoke to disperse. She was always close to crying these days. He took her hand, kissed the angry red tips of her fingertips gently. Too gently.

"It's fine," he said with a grin, a small crease between his brow, waving her off. Water dripped down his temples, down his jaw and the collum of his neck, and his bare chest. "This is a boys' dormitory. Some of the residents here were in dire need of a shower anyway."

"Just helping the people out," she countered, ears still brimmed with tears, the sprinklers gradually decreasing in volume of water and then turning off completely. She knew he was only doing it, this, being kind, to make her feel better—after her dad and Finn and her mental breakdowns—because his thesis was on that laptop, which she knows because he made her read it three times already, and she possibly caused a few thousand bucks of property damage just now.

He smoothed the wet hair that was stuck to her forehead away from her face, echoing, "Just helping the people out."

She leaned up to kiss him but just as their lips were almost touching, a door slammed shut loudly and a voice resonated through the walls. "JORDAN, I TOLD YOU NOT TO SMOKE INSIDE—"

She snorted, resting her forehead against his shoulder. "Is that... Monty?" She wasn't aware he ever raised his voice.

Bellamy wrapped his arms around her frame, chuckle muffled by her hair. "I've never heard him so angry."

Back in the present, she's positively not blushing. "Yeah. Well. I was distracted."

His eyes linger on hers for just a second, but he doesn't drag it out, just goes back to talking to her daughter. Her daughter, who for the longest time was just an extension of Clarke. Now she's her whole own person.

They're talking like they've known each other forever, and Clarke wonders if that's just how he is with everyone. Like she was just too stubborn to see at first, and they went through that whole hate-phase of their relationship because of her, and her alone. After that, after they gave in, it'd been like this between them, too—easy—and maybe she shouldn't have felt so special because of it. Maybe that was just who he was.

"Did you, uhm," Madi's voice pulls her back to reality, and for some reason she just tenses up. "How did it go? With Finn, I mean?"

Not some reason. Finn. She sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose as she tells Madi she sent him home. A frown appears on her daughter's face instantly and Clarke knows she's mad. She does that thing where her breaths only come out short and sharp, tips of her ears turning pink.

Then Jordan appears out of nowhere, Super Soaker under his arm and fires off right into Madi's face. She chases him until she has him pinned on the grass, Kyra jumping on top of her back. Madi whispers something in his ear while trying to throw his sister off. He nods, panic-stricken look on his face.

Madi disappears into their gardening shed, then ten minutes later, appears back in Clarke and Bellamy's respective faces. It might as well just have been Bellamy, because he's the only one she actually makes direct eye-contact with. Eventually she shoves a water gun Clarke's way, informing her, obviously against her will, "You can be on Jordan's team."

"You can be on Jordan's team? Ouch. That was cold," Bellamy snickers, putting his soaker down on the bar behind them, and she elbows him in the ribs. She doesn't rail in her laugh on time, though. "Glad you find my familial troubles amusing."

"Your familial troubles are nothing compared to mine," he notes, pausing to pull his sweater over his head, so he's just in a white v-neck t-shirt. Clarke decidedly does not stare when it rode up a little, revealing a treasure trail and abs that somehow might even be flatter than the last time she saw them. He starts folding it, and eventually ducks down to safeguard it in his messenger bag. "When me and Octavia fought, even just about something like laundry, she would literally tell me to go die in hole somewhere."

She almost feels bad for laughing. That's exactly how she remembers Octavia. Her way or the highway. "Well, I think it's better if I sit this one out for now. But, I'll be sure to root for the team you two aren't on."

"Gee thanks," he jokes, fixing his hair. Then he tilts his head, a disappointed look on his face that only a teacher would have mastered. "Don't tell me you forgot how to have fun."

"I know how to have fun," she snaps, only partly heated. They would have this argument all the time. Clarke took everything too seriously, according to Bellamy. For good measure, she adds a pointed, "Bell—" and then psyches herself out and adds the, "—amy," as well. It sounds a little weird, but he luckily doesn't mention it.

He takes the water gun back off the bar and raises his eyebrows, a challenge in his eyes. "Then I guess I'll see you out on the field, Clarke."

It's all a stupid mistake on her part, because once her masterplan to take out Team Madi is set in motion and she basically has the upperhand and the definite prospect of winning on her side, she comes face to face with Bellamy. A soaked, dripping Bellamy, curls a mess and shirt sticking to his skin like that one night in Becca's Diner—a warm feeling spreading across her chest. She's pretty much fucked.

MAY, SOPHOMORE YEAR

Her phone is blowing up. There's at least twelve voicemails, and more than forty texts. She thinks Wells even tried emailing her. Monty starts a search party, recruiting all of her friends, but she makes sure to avoid all of her usual places. She just wants to be alone.

She drives through the rain until her phone runs out of battery. She looks up to find herself in a parking lot she's been a million times before. She sits down at her father's favorite booth and not-so-politely orders a coffee and nothing else. Or what was his favorite booth, she corrects herself bitterly. She is going to have to get used to that.

It's been at least two hours, cold coffee cradled in her hands as she stares out the window and goes over all the times she's been here before. The bell dings as the door opens, and she doesn't even look up when somebody slides into the booth across from her.

"What are you doing here?"

She hears him open his mouth, then it closes again. Thunder rumbles in the distance. Finally, he settles on, "Just in the neighbourhood."

She shifts her head to glare at him, and what he sees must scare him, because his face immediately drops. His henley is drenched from the rain outside, sticking to his skin. "You mentioned this place before." He folds his hands together on top of the table, looking around the diner. It must be the first time he's ever been here. "I thought I should check, just in case."

"Well, you checked. I wasn't here," she snaps, heated. Why did he have to remember? Her jaw clenches as she tries to keep from crying, but they fall anyway, and her voice breaks on the next sentence. "Please, just go."

"You're out of your mind if you think I'm going to leave you here by yourself," he counters, decided, but gentler than his usual replies. They'd been treading into amical waters lately, which was new from the usual yelling and personal insults. She guesses that is who he is, who she signed up for. He can't help but show up. Still, Clarke didn't really feel like they were at this point yet—of comforting each other after one's parent's died.

A freak accident, her mom told her at the hospital, tears in her eyes, still in her scrubs. She tried to hug her, but Clarke pushed her off and ran out of the building. Her mom must've called Wells, smart enough not to come looking for Clarke herself. Her dad wouldn't even have been in that car if it wasn't for her mother, demanding a divorce, demanding him to go live in a shitty apartment on the other side of town. Last text she read, Wells was driving over here from his college two states away. It was at least an eleven hour drive so he must've called Octavia or Monty, too, informing them of what had happened.

What had happened.

"I just," she starts, already too tired, too drained to finish her sentence as her eyes rake his face. He already said he would stay, but she's not sure if he really means it. If you really can mean something like that. How can she ever be sure of something like that again? "I don't understand."

He doesn't say anything, just looks at her, his brown eyes only on her, understanding, letting her process her thoughts, letting her unravel them so he can make sense of them. She sure can't.

"My dad is dead. He's dead," she states, angrily. She doesn't even know who she's angry at. She pulls her sleeve over the watch hanging from her wrist. She still hasn't had it taken in. "He's dead, and I don't know what I'm—" She shakes her head, because she doesn't want to cry, she really doesn't, but then the first sob comes. She tries to make it through another sentence, vision blurry, voice hoarse. "I don't know what I'm sup-supposed to, to—"

She always has a gameplan. Always. Thinks over every little detail and possible alternative and what if. Twice. She prepares for everything. She hadn't prepared for this. Who prepares themselves for this?

Before she even sees him move he's sliding into the booth beside her, arm wrapping around her shoulder as he pulls her into his chest. "You're not supposed to do anything, Clarke. You don't even have to talk about it." He rubs her arm soothingly, and he's warm, solid, even though his shirt is still damp. "We can just sit here, okay?"

She nods against him, keeps nodding like that's the only thing that's keeping this heavy emotional dam from breaking, but then it does anyway. She's sobbing, whole body shaking, mascara staining his shirt, but he doesn't care. Doesn't say a word. Just tightens his grip around her frame.

After the sobs subdue, and she feels like there isn't a concrete brick on top of her chest anymore and she can take a breath again, she manages to croak out, "Thanks." She wipes at her eyes with the sleeve of her sweater, even if it's no use. He smoothes her frayed hair back from her face with his free hand carefully, shifting her in his arms so he can use his other hand to tighten her messy ponytail for her.

God, he's being so nice. So nice. And her friends, they're probably worried out of their minds, looking for her. Finn. He probably knows by now, too. And her mom. She should talk to her mom at one point.

"I should call Finn," she adds, as an afterthought, to remind herself, mostly, looking up at him from the junction in between his neck and shoulder. Something strange washes over his eyes, but then he nods, body moving against hers as he pulls out his phone. Instead of handing it to her, he slides it over the table into her direction. "Go ahead."

She looks at him a little too long, at his dark brown eyes, the almost betrayed, pained expression of his face. But that's the difference between Bellamy and the person she shouldn't be comparing him to. He would never say it out loud. She almost wants to ask him to get up so she can call her boyfriend and avoid this whole mess, avoid all the conflicting feelings, avoid the way he's looking at her, why he's looking at her like that, but then she shakes her head. He showed up, and she's not ready to leave the comforting bubble he's created for her in her dad's favorite old dinner, with his strong arms and unadulterated understanding and soothing voice. She doesn't know what's out there, what's going to happen next, but she knows what's right here beside her. "Maybe just five more minutes."

A literal bomb explodes after the water fight. Not just a waterbomb, but an actual bomb. Madi is upset, and Clarke is not exactly sure why, because the kid refuses to talk to her.

Or Clarke doesn't exactly give her the chance, because she doesn't want to go up to Madi's room. Not when she isn't sure that's what Madi wants her to do, that she wants to talk about it. It should be on her terms. Clarke hasn't done enough of that lately, in fear of letting her go, of losing her, but she figures now is as good of a day to start as any other.

She send most of the guests home, including what's left of her exes (so, also, Roan, which is one hell of an uncomfortable 'you're not the father' conversation), cleaning up the yard with Zeke and Bellamy. Monty offered to stay and help as well, but she tells him to take his eight month pregnant wife who's been on her feet all day home before she collapses all together. Raven's been inside, getting a headstart on wrapping the leftovers.

Bellamy holds open a trash bag while Clarke picks up disposable plates, cups and napkins of the fold-in-half tables and discards them inside. 

"I can talk to her," he offers, offhandedly, like he didn't even think about it. Hastily, he adds, "If you want, of course. I've dealt with my fair share of teen angst."

She pauses, pushing out a loud breath as she straightens her back, stretching the sore muscles. She catches Raven's gaze, who's standing behind the kitchen window and is currently making an obscene gesture that utilizes her hand, tongue and cheek. Bellamy is luckily busy tying the ends of the trash bag together so he can throw it into her dumpster and she can avoid mortal humiliation. Clarke mouths a quick 'what the fuck' to her friend, who just points over at Bellamy again and repeats the gesture.

Completely red in the face, she turns back to Bellamy, who's talking, and she barely catches the back half of his question, "...do you think?"

"I'm…" She starts, then catches Raven's eye again. She's now bracing herself against the counter, rocking her body back and forth, pulling faces that Clarke was not meant to see in this lifetime. Bellamy tries to turn to follow her gaze and see why she's so distracted, but she grabs him by the shoulder. Hard.

"No!" She yelps, and then she forces her heartbeat to calm down, clearing her throat lightly. She musters together an encouraging smile. "I mean. You should do that. Talk to her. I think—I think that would be good."

He smiles, saying something else, but she's too busy checking to see if the coast is clear and he can go inside. It isn't. Raven is moving her hips forward, slapping her hand in the air and looking like she's enjoying it to.

Zeke steps in front of her view, dropping an empty paper cup on the grass as he holds his palms up at his sides, shouting, "Rave, what the hell?"

Serves her right.

JUNE, SOPHOMORE YEAR

"I'm just saying, Clarke. I know he has a big dick, I just know it."

"Then you do him! Want his number?" Knowing him, he'd probably be up for it, too.

"Baloney isn't my type." She grimaces as she downs her shot of tequila in one go, putting it back down on top of the bar with a loud slam. "Too much feelings." She makes a circular movement with her hand in front of her head, nose scrunched up in disgust. "It's all over his sexy face."

"His name is Bellamy," Clarke corrects her, with lack of something better to say. Their quest to get wasted was faring a hell of a lot on Raven's part. The blonde was barely sipping on her bacardi cola. Her stomach was still too much in knots.

It's not like she was sad. She was at first, but then she realized it hadn't what it had been in a long time. She was just going through the motions and Finn was convenient and he made her relatively happy. Not too happy, so she would be missing him all the time, just regular happy. Still, it sucks that he couldn't just break up with her and tell her the truth. He wanted to keep them both.

She was mostly mad. If she had to put a label on it. Confused, also.

"Potayto, potahto," Raven rolls her eyes, holding up her hand for the bartender to order another round of shots. It was a slow night for the Dropship until they showed up. "He's hot."

Clarke makes a non-committal noise in the back of her throat. Bellamy was there for the first five minutes of their visit, then his shift ended and he went back to his dorm to crash because he had an early class the next morning. Raven however couldn't stop talking about him. If he ever found out, his ego would grow infinitely bigger and the whole universe would probably collapse on itself just by the sheer weight of it.

Raven swallows down a burp, softly knocking on her sternum with a fist. She narrows her eyes at her, suspiciously. They're already glazed over from the alcohol. "You like him, or something?"

"Or something," Clarke responds, dry, finally picking up one of the shots. She puts it to her lips and tilts her head back. Does she think Bellamy is hot? Sure. He's tall and broad and he has nice hands. But they were barely friends. She could not let herself go there.

Her laugh bolsters through the entire bar. "Then prove it!"

"I don't have to prove anything," she counters, annoyed, but she already finds herself looking around the room for a possible love interest. There's a cute girl in one of the booths, with wild curly hair and a kind smile. She's wearing what looks like handmade beaded jewelry.

"Oh," Raven gasps, her eyes widened, draping her body over the bar dramatically. God, she is going to be hungover as hell in the morning. "I know it. Are you in love with him?"

Up until a few months ago, her and Bellamy didn't even talk. They just fought. Just because they shared a couple of amical moments does not mean she's fallen head over heels for him. She's starting to regret this night out.

"Jesus," Clarke exclaims, eyebrows pinched together, as she helps Raven sit back up on the barstool before she falls off. She slides off her own, glancing over at the girl one more time. She seems sweet and if she ends up being a homophobe, there's always a round of shots waiting for her at the bar. "I'm going, I'm going. You'll be alright?"

"Oh, definitely," she slurs, her arm swaying as she points a finger into her direction, squinting at Clarke through half-lidded eyes. "I'll en-enjoy the sh-ow."

Her name is Luna, she's twenty-three, a Leo and she's a Oceanography major. They spend thirty seconds hashing out Clarke's previous romantic encounters—the list mostly consists of Finn. It's physically exhausting to get to know someone. Soon enough, they're kissing. Luna might notice Clarke is just there to prove a point, because she pulls away after two minutes of awkward fumbling and close-mouthed pecks and having to whisper in her ear to 'relax'.

Her fingers tighten around Clarke's arms, and there's an amused smile on her face. "Look, I'm definitely into you, but this kind of feels like necrophilia at this point."

Clarke leans back in the booth, pressing her forefinger and thumb into her eye sockets. "I'm sorry," she says, with a sigh, not even sure how to explain it. Luna was so pretty, and she was obviously willing. Clarke is just broken, that's it. "I guess I'm just—"

She offers her a small smile, understanding. "Thinking of someone else?"

God fucking damnit. Not this again. Did Raven put her up to this with some kind of telepathetic message shit? She doesn't have feelings for Bellamy! He is the farthest thing from her mind. He is the last fucking person on this fucking earth that she would ever fucking—"Your ex-boyfriend maybe?" Luna adds, raising her thick eyebrows. Oh.

Clarke laughs nervously, fuck, and then makes up a quick excuse to leave the table ASAP. She goes over to Raven, throws a few bills on top of the bar and makes up another excuse to leave this entire night behind completely.

It's a ten-minute walk home, forty now that she has to half-carry Raven and she keeps stopping to pick fights with the streetlights. They make it there eventually, and Clarke tucks her into her own bed, telling her to keep her voice down to keep from waking up her roommate, Roma. She was still giving her the cold shoulder for walking in on her dressing with Finn two weeks ago and somehow Clarke thought bringing in a strange drunk girl on a Monday night wouldn't really be helping the situation.

"I hope Finn suffers from early onset baldness," Raven mutters sleepily as she snuggles into Clarke's pillow. The blonde stifles a laugh from knelt down beside the bed, making sure the blanket covers her shoulders. "He really loves his hair, huh?"

Raven scoffs, soft, like she's about to start a rant but Clarke can tell she's already dozing off. She sighs, slouching onto the floor with her back to the bed and looking around her room. Luckily, Roma is still asleep. She really should've thought this through. Her back is going to be killing her in the morning.

She's not ready to go to sleep, so she decides to take a walk. That's what she tells herself, just a walk. Before she knows it, she ends up in front of his single-dorm, knocking on his door.

She goes over it in her head. Before—before people start assuming anything, Bellamy is easy. Compared to Luna, or, or any other girl or boy she would have to get to know first. She knows Bellamy, there's a mutual attraction and there's no risk, no getting attached, because soon, he'll be moving and she'll never have to see him again. It'll be a one time thing and an easy, clean break. She craves easy. Normal. Familiar.

He finally opens the door, shirtless, squinting at the sudden light. It takes him a second to recognize her. "Clarke?"

Before she loses her nerve, she pushes past him and starts to take off her jacket. You see, Clarke has seen the way he looks at her sometimes when he thinks she's not looking. He's obviously attracted to her. He's with girls all the time. He would do it just to stick it to Finn, who he hates. He won't say no—that's another argument she's gone over in her head. "You wanna do this or what?"

"Do this?" He closes the door behind him with a soft click, turning around to look at her as his hand blindly searches for the light switch. He finds it. "Do what?"

"Me," she states, frustrated, crossing her arms over his chest. In the bright lights she's suddenly not feeling as brave. His brow furrows together as he steps closer to her. He opens his mouth, eyes raking her face. When he finds she's serious, his face hardens. "If you're looking for someone to talk you down—"

She kisses him, hard. He tastes like toothpaste. He pretends he isn't that kind of guy, but he is. If he keeps talking, he's not going to follow through because he'll want to have a conversation about it first.

For a moment, she's the only one kissing. Then he leans further into her, his tongue brushing against the seam of her mouth until she willingly opens up, sliding her hands up his chest to connect behind his neck. He pulls away abruptly, dodging her mouth as she tries to chase his lips. "Wait, you're not drunk, right?"

"No," she confirms, but he still looks unsure. She pushes out an annoyed breath."You want me to walk a line and count to ten? Stand on one leg? Touch my nose with my finger?"

She demonstrates the latter mockingly, acing the test, because she aces every test. He lowers her hand, rolling his eyes. "Fine."

"Fine?" She huffs, only half-humoured. She's a tiny bit offended, too. "Way to be enthusiastic, Blake. Sorry to add another chore to your list."

He groans, resting his forehead against her collarbone. "Clarke, this is not… I've—" His fingers flex on her hips, and there's a sharp intake of breath. "I've thought about this a lot. Believe me."

Her heart lurches strangely in her chest, like it wasn't expecting that, like it's shortcutting to make sense of it. She weaves her fingers into his hair, guiding his head back up to face her and then forces her voice not to shake. "Then show me what you've thought about."

She knows he is that guy, because he checks to see if she's sober. She knows, because when he pulls her shirt over her head and her hair gets caught in the collar, he gently tugs it lose. She knows, because when she reconnects their lips, he pulls back again. She tilts back her head to look at him curiously, and he brushes a loose strand of hair away from her face. His voice is soft as he asks her, "you absolutely sure?" She knows, because when he's on top of her, supporting his weight with his elbows to keep from crushing her, he grins down at her and presses a kiss to her neck, so light, so gentle she could almost cry.

He says he isn't to safeguard his own feelings. Which is fine, is mostly the reason why she's doing this. There's no way she'll end up developing feelings for him. That's why she chose him.

She cups his jaw, runs her thumb over his cheekbone and then leans up to meet his mouth in the middle. To be sure, she checks to see if they're on the same page, muttering against his lips, "Just this once, okay?"

"A one time thing," he concludes—shifting onto one elbow to delicately run his finger down her nose, absentmindedly, like he's been waiting to do that and his body is just moving out of muscle memory—but he doesn't look very convinced.

She nods, very convinced. "A one time thing."

She really does believe it at the time. But then the next day, Octavia cancels their study plans at the last minute to go to a movie with a boy named Ilian and Clarke finds herself back at his door.

He just raises his eyebrows, unimpressed. He looks good, in his tan t-shirt and dark boxers. There's some opens books on his bed, so he must have been studying. "I take it you're not here for a tutoring session?"

"Please, I'm taking over your TA position next year." She waves him off, already slipping off her shoes beside his door. She shrugs out of her jacket and hangs it over his chair. When she looks up, hands busy unbuttoning her jeans, he's already staring at her.

She stares right back at him, expectant. He scoffs, flicking his eyes up to the ceiling, obviously irked. Then, like he physically is unable to let it rest, "I thought you said it was a one time thing?"

She lets out a small groan, putting her hands on his neck and mockingly pushing him like she's strangling him. "Now it's a two time thing."

He doesn't laugh, like she expected him to.

"I just," he starts, unsure, wetting his lips, but then stops himself. He sighs, conflict all over his face. It's too soft, too gentle. She's starting to feel anxious, almost. It feels hard to breathe, like her chest is too small for her lungs to expand. "I guess I thought that—"

"What?" She snaps, jerking her hands away from him. She doesn't need him to ruin her carefully thought out plan with touchy-feely stuff. It's just sex. He, of all people, should be able to understand that.

"Nevermind," he says, face hardening. She almost feels bad. He gets enough shit from his mom and sister and his long list of things he feels responsible for, he doesn't need her to pile on top of him, too. Like his feelings don't matter.

They do. God, they do. Just not—not when it comes to his feelings for her. Soon, he'll see. That it's better this way.

She gives him a challenging look, starting to collect her hair so she can put it up in a ponytail for the activities that are hopefully about to follow. It's up to him. He sighs, already pulling on her hand. "No, keep it down."

The next morning, Madi stumbles down the stairs in one of Clarke's sleeping shirts, slides into a seat at the breakfast table and promptly tells her, "I'm going to invite Bellamy over to my next game. Is that okay?"

Clarke pauses pouring milk into her cereal to shoot her daughter a surprised look, which is not a good thing to pause on, because the bowl overflows and now she has to lift herself out of her chair to get some paper towels and clean that up.

"I mean," Clarke starts, wiping off the surface of her kitchen table. She isn't opposed to it, and what is she supposed to tell her daughter? That it might be uncomfortable for the two of them because they had a two-week sexcapade fifteen years ago? At least she asked this time around. Kind of at least. She didn't sound like Clarke's answer would make very much of a difference. "Sure?"

That's how she ends up on the bleachers beside Bellamy that Saturday, arms pressed together tightly because Aden's mom keeps knocking into her excitedly and Charlotte's mom was trying to sit next to her kind-of-friend a little too close for comfort. Creepy, 'I'm recently divorced' close.

She keeps smiling apologetically his way, but he's a good sport. Such a good sport, he's actually loudly cheering for their team, lets Charlotte's mom talk his head off for a good fifteen minutes, gets Clarke a pretzel at halftime and Madi some tactical offense advice her mom barely understands, and takes them out for celebratory ice cream after.

"Mom works at a private art school. Uncle Wells' dad is the principal, but actually mom should have the title. She does everything. She makes the schedules and she orders the supplies and she organizes the meetings and—" Madi never grew out of the reflex that allows babies to drink breast milk and breathe at the same time, she just evolved. She can talk and inhale food at the same time instead.

"Mads," Clarke chuckles, embarrassed, picking up a napkin to dab some ice cream off her daughter's soccer shirt. "That's enough."

"Didn't you want to be a nurse?" Bellamy inquires, an absent grin on his face as he scoops some of his strawberry sundae on his spoon.

Right. He remembers. That is what she wanted. To help people, heal them. Just not from a distance. She wanted to be hands on, guide every patient, have actual conversations with them. Nevermind that was one hell of an awkward sit-down she had with her doctor mom who expected her to follow in her footsteps, only then to have to take it all back because she was pregnant. 'I'd rather you'd just become a nurse than have that baby,' were her exact comforting words. Clarke can see where she gets her occasional superiority complex from. She was raised on it.

Before Clarke even opens her mouth, Madi is already talking, mouth full of ice cream. "She couldn't because of me."

Some ice cream falls from her mouth and dribbles down her chin, and it's disgusting but they all laugh. Clarke beams at her, but then reveals, off-handedly, "The truth is, I probably could have done it. I mean, lots of moms go through nursing school. It wouldn't have been easy, but I would've gotten that certification eventually."

Madi looks surprised, but she doesn't ask. Bellamy does, curious. "Why didn't you?"

Clarke shrugs, pushing away her half-eaten cup of frozen yogurt. She glances over at Madi, who shakes her head, and then at him, who nods, so she slides it over to him. Their hands brush as he takes it from her.

"Because for my mom it was either med school or the highway," she explains, lighthearted. Her mom and she were on better terms nowadays, but that mostly started out on behalf of Madi's sake. "My student loans were piling up, Monty already advanced me way too much money and for me to become a registered nurse would have taken at least another three additional years of racking up bills." That all seems like a lifetime ago. In the end, it was never a difficult decision. "And I couldn't justify that to myself."

She smiles, wrapping her arm around Madi's shoulders and using her free hand to squeeze her nose in between her thumb and forefinger teasingly. "Because I had you."

Her daughter slaps her hand away, mostly out of habit because she's a teenager now, mom, but is avoiding her mom's gaze guiltily. Clarke just pulls her closer. "I wouldn't take it back for the world. Any of it. I love the job I have now. I love you."

Madi just lifts a shoulder indifferently, but Clarke notices the smile she tries to hide. Smoothly, she changes the subject, "You teach history, right?"

"Sure do," he grins, proud. Clarke is happy for him. It couldn't have been easy for him either. Not many would still try and go back to college after having to defer for more than three years. He's still the same old nerd he always was.

Madi leans her chin on her fist, elbow on top of the table. Clarke might imagine it, but she looks like she's profoundly batting her eyelashes. "Do you like Arkadia High?"

He stacks the cup of frozen yogurt into his empty sundae cup, digging in. "I went to Eligius High actually, so I have no idea."

Madi frowns, and Clarke isn't sure why she's cross-examining him on work, but it's entertaining and probably founded on a romcom she recently saw. "But you like the high schools here? Think they offer quality education? In general?"

"I kind of have to like high schools, on principle. They employ me." Bellamy shoots Clarke a confused but amused look, that Madi misses because she's pushing the last of her ice cream around with her spoon. She straightens, eyes huge and innocent as she blinks up at him. "Can I blackmail you into making my tests next year?"

He snorts, dry. "Cute. I'm certain they won't notice a half-filipino male adult come in to take your freshman level tests." She sticks her tongue out at him and he finishes off Clarke's frozen yogurt, resting his arms on top of the table. He has on his serious face. "Call me crazy, but you could also just study."

Madi gasps mockingly, pressing a hand to her chest like it's the first she's heard of it and Bellamy slants his head to the side, squinting his eyes at her and pursing his lips. "Yeah, I know. So weird. History is actually a pretty interesting subject, if I do say so myself. It pulls from many different—"

Madi pretends fall asleep on Clarke's shoulder, snoring loudly. Clarke elbows her away with a laugh. "Full-time?" She asks, conversationally, stealing Madi's wafer roller from the side of her bowl. Her daughter doesn't like those. It's already soggy from the melted ice cream, but she eats it anyway.

"Yeah," he nods, leaning one arm over the back of the booth casually and keeping the other on top of the table. He's so big. If she leans back she can barely touch the edge of the table. "I actually got my licensure completed last fall, and I'm going to be doing guidance counseling for fifteen hours a week starting next semester."

"Wow, that's great," she exclaims, reaching out to cover his warm hand with hers, congratulatory. He grins and then she pulls it back, nodding along to his story about the horrible woman by the name of Diana that he had to shadow to get his certification, and she's listening, she is, but she's also staring.

She stares at his hands just a little too long, because when she looks away Madi is smirking at her, in the process of licking her spoon clean but never taking her little knowing, judgmental eyes off her. That little brat.

JUNE, SOPHOMORE YEAR

She doesn't want to make a big deal out of it. It was just sex after all. It's not like they're tragic soulmates being ripped apart by the universe. His goodbye party was the night before, but she barely saw him—busy doing drinking games, flirting with girls, boasting about his masters—until they met up in his bed in the middle of the night. Strangely enough, nothing happened.

It's not because of a lack of trying on her part, certainly not, but he just kept his eyes firmly closed and groaned every time she even thought about making a move. He just wanted to spoon. Which was, fine, whatever. He was a little drunk and would probably not even remember in the morning and snuggling was nice. She just made sure to leave before he woke up.

Only that meant they hadn't said goodbye—not really. They'd been texting back and forth throughout the day, but he was spending most of it with his sister at his mom's house. He offhandedly mentions he'll be back on campus at 7 to clean out the last of his stuff, and she decides to swing by.

"Hey," she breathes as he opens the door. As an afterthought, she smiles and for some reason that's difficult to do. She manages.

"Clarke," Bellamy declares, surprise written all over his face. He opens the door a little wider, allowing her to step inside. She looks around, stomach lurching. His room is mostly empty now—no more History Channel posters on the wall, a picture frame of him and his sister on the nightstand, an ArkU shirt carelessly hanging over his chair or a neat stack of books on his desk—just a few boxes propped on top of the bed. A bed where she and him—where they—and now. Now he's going to be gone.

She doesn't want to be here. Clarke turns on her heels, biting on the inside of her lip, sees him already watching her. She adverts her own gaze. "Want me to help you carry those to your car?"

He's just standing there, arms crossed over his chest. His face is unreadable, and he nods first, one dip of his chin, before he remembers to speak. "Sure."

He picks up a box, asking her to stack another on top of it, before he gently opens the door with his elbow and foot. She quickly picks up the last box, following him outside. There's a weird tension in the air, and Clarke's not sure what to with it. Even when they were constantly fighting, it was never like this. She always felt at ease with him.

He puts his boxes on top of his car, fishing his keys from the back pocket of his jeans. She stands there, stupidly, waiting for him to put his belongings inside and to take the last one from her. He does, and then closes the door behind him, leaning back against his window.

Clarke wraps her arms around herself, and the wind blows a few lose strands of her blonde hair into her face. She can't be bothered to brush it back, not now, not when for some reason she feels like throwing up. She sees his fingers flex around his keys, like he's trying to keep from reaching out himself. Fuck.

"Good luck," she blurts out, swallowing, stepping closer to him. "I know you'll do great." I'll miss you.

He stares at her, expectant, and then she quickly leans in to wrap her arms around his shoulders. His hands automatically come up to wrap around her waist, keys pressing into to hollow of her back. One hand comes up to smooth out her messy braid, pressing his mouth against her shoulder. He sounds a little hollow, a little broken, when he says against her neck, "Don't forget to have fun every once in a while, okay?"

She pulls back with a nod, taking two steps back as she straightens her shirt and tries not to cry. Any sign of previous emotions is gone from his face as he adds with a cocky, teasing grin, "While you still can." (Which, in retrospect, hadn't been the worst advice.)

She beams, so bright, she almost believes it herself. "Fun is for academic losers."

I'll miss you. Come on. She has to tell him, has to let him know that whatever this is, or was, that he was special to her. That it won't be the same. She at least owes him that.

"Clarke," he rasps suddenly—and there it is again, that pained edge to his voice, that conflicted glow in his eyes—pushing himself off the car. "In case we don't—"

"Bell. Don't be stupid," she cuts him off, sternly. She doesn't want to hear it. She can't. Everything will change. She tries to keep it light, "You'll be around. Your mom lives in town and last time I checked Octavia still goes to this college." She smiles, stretching out her arm and palming his cheek. "We'll keep in touch, okay?"

(Except, they won't. Octavia will meet Lincoln that summer and transfer to a school in LA to focus on her vlogging career. His mom will sublet her house and go to travel across the country with her new boyfriend. And Clarke will never pick up the phone to ask him how he's doing and tell him she's pregnant. Maybe it will be meant to be. Maybe it was always supposed to happen that way.)

His jaw clenches, but he doesn't say anything. He just nods, once slow—like he might still change his mind—and then again, more forceful—like he's finally giving in—keeping his gaze trained on hers. She drops her hand.

I'll miss you. This is her final chance. She has to tell him. She pauses by his front wheel, looking back at him. She leans up, pecking his mouth quickly. Her heart races in her chest. "Bye."

She feels his eyes on her back the entire time she walks down the courtyard, away from him. It takes her at least fifteen minutes to make it from his dorm to hers, even though she's made the walk drunk and in the dark in less than six before.

Raven—who for some reason hangs out in her dorm room more often than Clarke herself (for some different, definitely non-Raven related reason Roma never dares to complain about it either)—takes one look at her before blurting out, "Thank God Wells finished his semester early and is on the way here. I can't do this again. I'm still hungover from last month."

Clarke takes her black elastic of her wrist, gripping it between her teeth as she flips her head over so she can collect her hair and smooth out the knots before putting it up in a messy bun. "You're the one who decided you were going to make it your personal mission to get every guy in that bar to buy you a drink."

"Well, with Finn I kind of owed you," she counters, eyes fixed on Clarke's laptop. She brought a 'sorry for stealing you man' cupcake to the bar and everything. She ate it herself. "Now it's just your heart that's broken."

Clarke, by then, has figured out that's Raven code for 'I was hurt too then so I had an excuse and right now I frankly just don't feel like drinking'. She decidedly ignores the fact Raven is comparing Bellamy to Finn, when it's the last person he should be compared to. Finn was four years of her life, Bellamy's not—they were never—it was never like that. He was just—just special.

The blonde dives into the closet to retrieve a sweater from her pile of winter clothes, to which she only belatedly realizes is a Polis U sweater and is Bellamy's. Octavia gave it to him when they found out he was accepted to do his masters there. She wore it back to her own dorm last week when it was raining and he wouldn't let her leave without it. She did it, only so she could pull the 'but you're not walking me back' card on him.

Whatever. To change the sweater would mean she cared, and she does definitely care. As a friend. Not enough to care about something as stupid as clothing, like it might have some secretive romantic meaning. It doesn't.

"I'm not heartbroken," Clarke argues, stepping out of her boots and flopping down sideways on top of her bed besides Raven, who has the blonde's laptop propped up on her legs, knees drawn up. The screen is split in two, one half playing a muted episode of The Fresh Prince and the other a manual of some sort that has the NASA logo on it.

Clarke's staring at her sock clad feet dangling off the bed, head tipped back against the wall when Raven makes an indecipherable noise in the back of her throat, taking one pointed look at her friend's sweater. "But you could definitely use a drink."

Wells meets her at the Dropship, and rationally, wants to talk about her feelings. Since she doesn't have many of them, the conversation runs short. She orders a pitcher of beer and sits them down at a booth.

They play a drinking game where they try and guess the song that the person walking towards the jukebox will put on. If they're wrong, they drink. If they're right, Wells doesn't have to drink but Clarke still does.

"You've been through a lot these past few months, Clarke," Wells declares, bravely, when 'Country Roads Take Me Home' plays for the third time in a row and a comfortable lull falls over the conversation. He knows her, better than anyone, always has. "Are you sure you're alright?"

Clarke can feel her eyes starting to water, so she reaches for her beer on the table, pressing the thumb and forefinger of her free hand into her eye-sockets. She lets her hair shield her face, keeping her eyes shut. She doesn't want him to see her cry. She's supposed to be stronger than this, smarter. Finn just broke her heart beyond repair, how could she let Bellamy let so close, close enough to have her feeling like a part of her is leaving with him?

Wells reaches over the table, wrapping his dark fingers around her hand holding the glass of beer. "Just tell me what you need. You want to drink until you can't walk? Done. You want to go home, watch a movie and ugly cry? I'm already getting our coats. You want me to let you beat my butt in chess like the good old—"

She lets out a watery laugh, raising her head to look at him. "Let me beat you?"

"I'm a three time consecutive state champion, Ms. Griffin. What are your credentials?" He says, mock-serious, then grins, squeezing her fingers. "There's my favorite smile. It's been a while."

The smile only broadens as she shakes her head to herself. "Shut up." All she knows is that she doesn't want to think about any of it any more. Her dad, Finn, Bellamy. She sniffs, taking a sip of her beer, then tells him, "I know what I want to do."

She gets absolutely fucking wasted and meets a girl named Niylah. She runs the local pawn shop that her family owns, she is part Canadian so speaks fluent French, and she is a Hannibal on NBC fanatic. She's soft and gentle. Cute, with long blond hair. Light, and smooth, and curvy.

She goes home with Niylah, but mostly so she can hold Clarke's hair back while she strangles a toilet bowl and makes meaningless promises to herself to never drink again. In the morning, Niylah fixes her breakfast—pancakes and waffles and fresh fruit—and Clarke kisses her, then fucks her. Twice.

Later, right before she leaves, Niylah gives her her number, and Clarke politely accepts, fully well knowing she's never going to call. She's not going to make the same mistake twice.

That night, Raven drags her and Wells into her truck and drives them over to a bar she read about online, just a few hours away, and that's where Clarke meets Roan.

Whenever Clarke wants to feel the equivalent of being wrapped up in a warm blanket on a hard winter's day in the form of a social visit, she goes over to the Greens.

Their house is cosy and lively, never fails to smell like freshly baked cookies, and there's always an extra plate and serving available at the table for whoever wants to join. Every wall is plastered with equally as many drawings and macaroni art from Jordan as Kyra, and there's family pictures on every vacant flat surface.

One of Jordan's drawings reads 'Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere', with a bunch of stick figures surrounding it, holding hands, the sun smiling down at them. He was six, and spelled it like 'indjustis aniwear iz a tret two djustis evryware'. Harper actually cried when he brought it home, and it's been their favorite thing ever since.

It's funny, because Monty and Harper used to be big political activists. They still are, but they no longer chain themselves to city halls, illegally release chickens from their cages or do hunger strikes. Pre-Harper, in college, Monty mostly did peaceful protests in college—like relatively harmless whistleblowing and hosting shows on pirate radio stations—but she convinced him to go hard or go home. Nowadays they use the kids to coerce people to sign door-to-door petitions, and organize peace marches.

Monty is still at work, so Clarke and Harper are sitting at the dining table, sipping on herbal tea that came straight from their garden, and watching the kids jump on the trampoline outside through the kitchen window. She feels like it's the first quiet, peaceful moment she's had since Madi's graduation party. Harper makes a surprised noise, and then just as she takes Clarke's hand to let her feel the baby kick, all hell breaks loose.

Emori practically kicks open their screen door, hoisting two grocery bags on top of the kitchen counter. She instantly dives into the fridge to pluck out a can of beer, pushes the ring into the tab and starts chugging it like a frat boy. With a hiss, she nods to herself, satisfied smile on her face, and then starts unloading the bags calmly.

Zeke comes in next, not even half a minute behind Emori, tired sigh leaving his lips in lieu of a greeting. He leans one hand on the counter, the other on his hip, hooking his ankle behind the other. He looks out at the window, a thin layer of sweat covers his forehead. "Y'all think it's going to rain today?"

Harper and Clarke just look at him, apathetic and impatient, and what the actual fuck. He shrugs, casual. "Raven hit Murphy with the car." He didn't think that should've been the first thing coming from his mouth the minute he walked through the door?

At the same time as an alarmed Clarke says, "What?" Harper exclaims a weary, "Again?"

Zeke waves them off. "He's fine! You know her brace has been acting up and she just—" He starts, but Emori is talking simultaneously, holding up her hands in defense as she says, "I told him not to moo at her and call her an incubator."

At that moment, the door slams back open and Raven waddles inside, rolling her eyes. "I'm telling you, my foot slipped!"

"You could've killed me," Murphy scowls, disappearing for a second when the door slams shut in his face. He pushes it back open two seconds later, moving to stand beside his wife with his arms crossed over his chest. To his credit, there's multiple holes in his clothes. Still, that's his usual attire, so Clarke's not sure it's even from the alleged accident. "Em, help me out here. I almost died."

"Then perish or get out of my face!" Raven yells, stomping her foot, then turns to kitchen table with a sweet smile, resting a hand on top of her belly. "So, what's for dinner?"

Murphy sneers, putting his hands on top of the counter and leaning forward. There's a vicious tone to his voice. "It was our turn to cook, Shamu. I was going to make my famous goat cheese enchiladas, but now I'm thinking I just let you all starve to death."

"Nooooo," Harper whispers under her breath, obviously disappointed as a babel of voices breaks out. She loves Mexican food. Not enough to raise her voice and piss off Raven, but enough. Clarke pats her knee as a sign of moral support.

"You know," Emori starts loudly, putting a batch of carrots in the sink to wash them off, and interrupting what kind of sounded like Zeke threatening Murphy with painful death if he even so much as looked at his wife again, while Raven was aggressively throwing tissues into his direction like she was making it rain, since 'he was such a sensitive little cockroach'. That's going to be one hell of a kid. "If you weren't my friends, I would advise John to sue you and make a few thousand bucks."

It's the first time she's actually called them her friends and not 'Murphy's friends', it's kind of nice. Especially now that she's revealing her scamming ways. Clarke feels more cultured because of it.

"We're loaded, he would get millions," Raven boasts—which is granted, odd timing to brag about something like that—and Zeke sends her a strange look. 'What' she mouths to her husband, who just widens his eyes at her in disbelief.

"You know I would testify to the opposite," Clarke cuts in, hopefully cutting a marital disagreement short, earning a hateful scoff from the man in question himself. "I'll even testify it was Murphy who ran into Raven with his bike."

In a form of unusual silent protest, Murphy pulls one of Monty's cookbooks off the shelf roughly, opening it to a bookmarked page. Harper presses a relieved hand to her heart. Her enchiladas. Clarke smiles, pained. She's not entirely convinced Murphy won't spit in hers out of spite.

That's about the end of her peace and quiet.

After dinner—when the kids have dragged off Monty to turn on the projector in their tv room, Harper's turned in early and they have yet to succumb from the poison Murphy most likely mixed in with the shredded chicken—Zeke conspicuously clears his throat, glancing over at his wife before looking directly at Clarke. "So, how's Bellamy?"

Ah. Bellamy.

He's been over at dinner a couple of times, took them to museum and even introduced Madi to his love of historical documentaries one rainy afternoon. The other day in the grocery store—on a mission to make cereal bars for a bakesale to get Madi's team new uniforms—the three of them ran into one of her coworkers, Diyoza.

She took one judgemental look at the content of Clarke's shopping cart, which, granted, was mostly candy, cookies and other junk food at that point. She smiled over at Madi, polite. "I've seen Griffin prepare her lunch before, I bet you and your dad do most of the cooking at home, huh?"

"He's not my dad," Madi said, barely looking up from her phone. If she was so bored, why did she keep insisting that they hang out?

She shrugged, picking up a bottle of whiskey and putting it in her basket full of—more bottles of whiskey. "On your second husband already, Griffin? At your ripe old age? With the kid barely out of her diapers? I'm impressed."

"Charmaine," she claimed, exasperated, not daring to even do so much as glance over into Bellamy's direction right then. "I'm pretty sure I've told you this before. I'm single."

"Griffin, I have about ten of you little pottery teachers come yap to me everyday about each and all tiny inconveniences in your life. Oh, my old student is stalking me, don't let him on the premises. I'm serious Diyoza, I have a restraining order. I'm a security guard, not a therapist."

"A husband and a kid qualify as an inconvenience to you?" Bellamy checked, just to be sure, one eyebrow raised. Out of her peripheral view, she could see his arms were crossed over his chest, and how unfairly good his biceps looked because of it.

Diyoza started to read the back of another bottle of whiskey like there weren't already ten in her basket. "The kid, no. The husband? Ab-so-fucking-lutely."

Before Clarke can answer Zeke, Madi runs into the room, cheeks red from exertion and hair wildly escaping from the braid down her back. "Cuddle sandwich. Had to fight to the death to get away," she offers as an explanation when she registers the confused look on the blonde's face, before she falls down on the couch in between her mom and Emori. "What did I miss?"

Raven smirks, slow and evil. "Zeke was just asking your mom about Bellamy."

"God, I can't sit through this again." Murphy, getting up from the couch before stretching out his arm to pull up his wife next. It's actually quite a nice gesture. He knows he's unable to refrain from making snide remarks every five seconds, so whenever a serious or uncomfortable topic threatens to be addressed, he excludes himself from the narrative. He's learned over time that the subject 'Bellamy' causes a lot of emotional conflict for Clarke. Something he is physically unable of dealing with. "We're leaving." He goes to the hallway to retrieve their jackets, then pops his head back in. "Oh, by the way," he actually finger guns at them, "I hid a pube in one of the enchiladas. Have fun figuring out which."

Typical Murphy. If he can't do better, he'll do worse.

He's met with a bunch of boos and heckles, which only satisfies him, and Monty, who chose this exact moment to re-enter the room—the opening song of the Little Mermaid following him down the stairs—freezes and puts up his hands. "I'm not even going to ask."

"There were kids at the dining room table," Zeke mumbles to no one in particular, staring off into the distance, temple resting on his fist, elbow supported by the armrest of the loveseat he's perched on top of with his wife. Or, she's stretched out on top of it, and he's squeezed into whatever room was left.

Raven juts her chin out, blindly palming Zeke in the face to get him to stop sulking. "Anyway, back to our original conversation, Clarke—Bellamy?"

She rolls her eyes, having flashbacks to sophomore year in college. Not this again. "What about him?"

Madi groans loudly, rubbing her temples as she calls her mother 'such a disaster bi', whatever that may mean. Then she sits up, grabbing a hold of Clarke's arm and shaking it. "Mom. Seriously? You're into him!"

Clarke just raises her eyebrows, because yeah, sure. She's into him. In retrospect, she was never not into him. That doesn't make any difference though, not if it's one-sided. So, she deflects. "Where do you get these ideas?"

"Mom. Please," she scoffs, offended. "I keep trying to get the two of you alone, but you insist on bringing me along to everything! I'm fourteen, mom. Do I look like I want to spend two hours on the road and then six hours in an museum full of boring art from even more boring, dead people?"

"—watching you two awkwardly dance around the fact you want to bone?" Raven adds, helpful as ever. Monty snorts, and when Clarke glares at him for encouraging her bullying ways he pretends to be very interested in the ceiling.

Clarke turns back to Madi, grabbing her by the chin and sending her a small, unsure smile. "Hun, what are you on exactly?"

"Why do you think I kept asking him about schools here? Please. I got my smarts from you." Clarke is still not sure what she is talking about, but she'll take a subtle dig at Finn at any point. "I was trying to test the waters and see if he would ever consider moving back!"

Raven cackles, impressed, throwing her head back. "That crafty little ho—" One stern look from Clarke shuts her right up. At least she's finally learnt the difference between messing with Clarke, her friend, and Clarke, mamabear.

"Madi," she starts, resigned. "I don't know if I, if we even—"

Madi wouldn't be her daughter if she would be capable of taking no for an answer. "Mom you like him and he likes you."

"Seconded," Monty pitches in, and when she glances over at him—because this is starting to feel an awful lot like an intervention—he raises his eyebrows. "What? I still have recurring nightmares over not speaking up about this back in college. We all kept our mouths shut because we figured you bickering idiots would figure it out eventually. You did, but then he moved and you were too stubborn to admit you missed him. It was a whole mess."

"It's your second chance, mom," Madi muses, ever the romantic, soft smile on her face, and to Raven's credit she doesn't pretend to throw up.

Zeke grins cheekily, dipping his head and holding his palms open. "In the words of a wise woman by the name of Sophie Sheridan: 'finally it seems my lonely days are through, I've been waiting for you'."

Clarke shoots him a humoured glare, ignoring Raven's puzzled 'wasn't that one about a baby', then sighs, turning back to her daughter. Since she is so smart. "How do you know he likes me back?"

Madi clears her throat, hastily pushing herself up to sit up straighter, like she's been over this a thousand times and she couldn't wait to finally tell her mom. "One," she starts, ticking of her finger, "Other dads, especially Aden's, are always talking about how you're a total MILF."

Clarke stiffens. It was just a few weeks ago she taught Madi to write her own name with an 'upside down double-u', right? "You know what that means?"

Madi rolls her eyes like a seasoned pro. "I don't know the exact words, but I know what it means, yeah. You're hot." She ticks of the next finger. "Uhm. Hello? He spends all his free time with you, his ex, and me, an annoying teenager he owes zero things to. He looks at you like—like you're the last piece of pizza! Or, or his favorite boring documentary, even when you're in the middle of an argument. He tolerates your cooking and your insane control freak to-do lists and—and laughs at your jokes! The ones that aren't even funny."

"Thanks," Clarke notes, dryly, even though blood is rushing to her ears at lightning speed and making her feel dizzy. Was she really that blind? It'd been so long, so many blurred lines between them, she couldn't even tell the difference between platonic and romantic anymore.

"Thirdly, or like, whatever, I lost count—" Her eyes soften, tentatively wrapping her fingers around Clarke's hand and squeezing lightly. "He would be lucky to have you mom." She smiles, cautious, and it falters only a little. "We're all lucky to have you."

Moved, Clarke feels her eyes getting watery. For the past fifteen years, Madi's been her life. She couldn't have done it without any of her friends, her family. She didn't get insecure a lot, but in her darkest moments, in most of the them, she felt like a huge burden. But with the exception of Murphy—who just tried to level up his brand of uselessness around her instead—they were always quick to remind her she wasn't.

Madi—always so finely in tune with her mom's emotions—leans in to hug her, pressing her face into the crook of the blonde's neck. Her voice sounds a little muffled, but Clarke can make out the, "And think of how many evenings a week I'm going to get the house to myself!"

"Do it for the kid," Monty teases, knocking his foot into her ankle.

"For us too," Zeke latches on, casual, eyebrow cocked knowingly. "If that helps you justify being selfish for once in your goddamn life."

"Yeah, Clarke," Raven presses with a satisfied smirk. Emphatical, "For the people. Think of all the Step-DILF potential here."

"Where's Madi?" He asks, puzzled, peering over Clarke's shoulder as he shrugs out of his jacket. By now, she would have at least given him a 'you again' nod of greeting.

While he hangs his jacket on her coat rack, Clarke keeps her eyes strictly fixed on the 'a house is made of wood and stone but only family can make a home' plaque with a bible citation underneath, that was a gag-gift from last year's secret santa. It hung beside her front door ironically only. Nonchalantly, she counters, "Uhm, yeah, she forgot she had a sleepover planned with Charlotte. I hope you don't mind."

'Forgot' was a bit of a reach, contextually. Madi orchestrated the whole sleepover on her own, texting Charlotte's mom, going on a snack-run by herself and having Clarke drop her off two hours before Bellamy agreed to come over for a movie.

"In case of emergency, text me, okay?" Madi told her, opening the door of the car and blindly gathering her backpack from between her feet. Clarke send her a pointed look, and with a giddy grin, she added, "And if it's Rated R, I'm sure Aunt Raven—"

"Madi!"

She giggled all the way down Charlotte's driveway.

See, the implication of hanging out with a technically-ex and a kid was way, way different from hanging out with just a technically-ex. It was less safe. She had to give him an out.

"Yeah, because hanging out with you alone would be such a chore," he jokes, stupid attractive grin on his face, as they start walking to her living room, and Clarke decidedly does not think about the last time she implied to him she was a chore.

With flushed cheeks, she excuses herself to heat up some Thai leftovers and to take a breath. He offers to help, but she brushes him off, tells him to get comfortable. "I can handle a microwave. I promise I won't touch any kitchen supplies."

When she figures the food is going to have to be reheated again if she stands in the kitchen with her wrists under a cold stream of water any longer, she returns back to him. They have to sit down in front of her coffee table on the floor because it's too far away from the couch, the Netflix home screen already pulled up on the TV.

"You want to watch a political thriller?" He asks, naive, balancing a container of pad thai on his knee while he flips through the different genres on the television. Their shoulders brush as he reaches for a napkin. "It'll be a lot more fun now Madi won't be groaning the whole way through."

"Actually," she clears her throat, swallowing a bite of khao phat and keeping her gaze trained on the television. "I want to explain to you, what happened." She squeezes her eyes shut, cursing herself under breath. Is she making a mistake, dredging this up? He lives three states away, for God's sake. How would it ever even work? Literally nothing has changed since last time, expect now she has a child that she shouldn't have dragged into this. "In college, I mean."

It's quiet, for just a moment, just the sound of him putting down the container on the table. She watches him wet his lips out of her peripheral vision, shaking his head lightly to himself. Finally, he says, "You don't owe me anything, Clarke."

"You just…" She starts, not sure how to finish. She finally looks at him, mouth feeling dry. "I get you're not mad now, you're here. But, you must have hated me back then."

She forced that relationship into being one-sided, because she never let him speak a single word into existence about their feelings, or their future. He didn't actually like her, he just wanted to take care of her. It was in his blood—Octavia, his mother. She was broken, and she came to him in a moment of need. That's what she told herself all the time, after he left.

He shoots her one of those 'you really wanna do this right now' looks, wiping his hands on his jeans, and she nods, certain. She's never done anything to make up for it. It should be addressed, even if this doesn't end up being something more than just three weeks of amical company and some future exchanging of emails to keep up with each other's lives.

"I was angry. At first," he admits, a crease between his brows. "Then I realized you told me right at the start that it was casual. And well—it was my fault if I made it out to be something more." He shifts his head to look at her, leaning his elbow on top of his knee. "I mean, maybe it was, deep down, something more, for you, too. At one point. But I realized you weren't ready then. After your dad, and that—idiot sandwich," he smiles absentmindedly, and she has to suppress hers, for already censoring his profanities around the house. "It's why I never tried to force anything after. I figured that you would contact me, eventually, if you wanted to."

She never had to explain anything, because he already understood. Already had her figured out.

She wanted to, so many times. But doing that, it would dredge up so many memories, so many pain. What if he didn't turn out to be so understanding, what if he never wanted to see her again? It was better not to know, better to keep it a fantasy, better to let him stay her safe place. Something to look forward to on a rainy day, to hold over her own head, a finish line she would never reach. It was a whole lot like running away actually. With time and some encouragement from her daughter, she's learning to ask herself why. Why am I running?

The truth is, she no longer has any reason to. He's the finish line she wants to get to.

She worries her bottom lip between her teeth, shifting her hand on the carpet so she can lean closer to him. She opens her mouth to say something, then shakes her head, pressing her lips back together. This really is a make or break it moment. There's so much she wants to say, so much she wants to take back, so many things that weigh heavily on her, but her thoughts are all jumbled together. He's so close she can smell his aftershave. Clarke swallows, tightly, leaning her forehead against his shoulder briefly—one last moment before she risks it all—before looking back up at him and just flat out asking him, "Can you forgive me?"

"Well, that depends," he grins, boysish, and she's transported right back to dorm room parties and late night studying sessions with his sister and him. "Does our princess forgive herself?"

Clarke lets out a breathy, relieved laugh, using a trembling hand to push her hair back from her face. More than anything, that weighed the most heavily on her. That he might never forgive her. But he did. Then she catches his gaze and both of their smiles fade, his adam's apple bobbing up and down visibly. The air feels static all of a sudden.

Tentatively, she pushes herself up, so they're on eye-level, gaze raking his face. She can feel his warm breath on her skin, see every shade of brown in his eyes, his long eyelashes and the freckles on his nose. His sharp cheekbones. The scar above his lip. She opens her mouth, to ask permission maybe, but then he's leaning forward, pressing his lips against hers.

"Wait," he says, pulling back to lean his forehead against hers. For a second she is worried that it didn't feel the same for him as it did for her—like coming home—what if he kissed her and realized this was all huge mistake? "Any way we can take this to at least the couch? My back isn't what it used to be."

He opens his eyes, a glow of mischief covering them, and she slaps him on the chest. "Asshole."

"What? You put me through two years of literal emotional torture, Griffin. You can handle five seconds."

She takes it in stride, because it wasn't just her and they both know it. He could've spoken up at any time before her dad, before Finn. He's just being a dick. "Yeah, because you're always dying to spill all your feelings over me like a fuse ready to blow?"

"Hey. I powered through and mostly suffered in silence," he counters, mock-offended, his hand sliding over her thigh to cover her knee. "Well, and I made Octavia suffer with me, because she's my sister and I raised her so she owed me."

"Yeah? You texted her every time you encountered me in the hallway?" She teases, covering his hand with hers. In retrospect, she really could have used an Octavia back then, too. She couldn't use the actual Octavia, because of obvious reasons, she and Monty weren't those kind of friends, Wells would just say I Told You So and she wasn't really going to call up Finn and be like 'hi, just had a screaming match about the alleged superior girl scout cookie that left me a little hot and bothered, wanna have skype sex?'.

"All. The. Time," he exaggerates, but he's snickering also, at his own ridiculousness most likely. "Texting, calling, I even showed up at one of her classes once, like, 'Clarke came to school today with her hair up and I can't stop staring at her neck, help me'. That sort of stuff."

Humouring his dramatic performance she muses, "And then she would say something like 'Bell, she has a boyfriend, reign it in or I'm going to beat your ass, creep'?"

"Spot on," he chuckles, smoothing some hair away from her face. His face lights up all of a sudden. "By the way, that reminds me. Madi asked me if she could one of O's classes sometime. She caught up on her videos, and now she thinks the faith of the entire soccer season depends on my sister's ability to make her a more versatile soccer player." He rolls his eyes, but it's half hearted. Clarke can relate, it's all Madi talks about nowadays. Octavia this, Octavia that. She doesn't even want their usual cereal for breakfast anymore, just disgusting green veggie smoothies.

"It's only a two hour drive, so I thought I could take her on a Friday after practice? My leave is almost up, but I haven't made any plans for summer." He looks insecure all of a sudden, taking the hand that isn't resting on her knee to rub the back of his neck. "She could take O's class and then I could take her to a museum so she doesn't end up being too brawns over brain. We could be back before din—"

She kisses him, fingers grasping his shirt tightly as her heart swells to ten times its size. "Thanks. For being so good to Madi."

"That's not a difficult feat at all," he replies, effortless, pressing a featherlight kiss to her forehead. He grins, and she believes it. "You raised a pretty awesome kid, Clarke."

She starts nodding in agreement, but then makes a surprised noise in the back of her throat as his hands slide underneath her thighs, lifting her into his lap. She feels him smile against her mouth, so she can't help but pull back a little, inquiring, "Didn't you want to move to the couch?"

His hand weaves into her hair, his mouth already making its way back over to hers. "Hmm. I think we've waited long enough."

For Madi, today is a day like any of the other thousands of days she's spent with her family.

It's Saturday, so she has all the time in the world. Bellamy makes pancakes for breakfast—proteine ones for her—and she and her mom catch up on The Good Place while gobbling them down. Late in the morning she meets Ethan and Reese at the Arcade Hall Uncle Murphy is currently employed by. Without even so much as a hello, he hands them a basket full of coins so they can play for free as long as they want. He has to wear a uniform—with a silk green blouse that doesn't do him any favors—the bow tie just hangs around his neck undone, and his name-tag reads 'Fuck Off'.

"Won't you get fired for this?" Ethan asked at first, unsure. He was fifteen already, the oldest out of the three of them, and it gave him a false sense of responsibility.

Madi had snorted, like he cared about that. He hated all of his jobs anyway and would have a different one by next week. "Won't the business lose money?" It was code for 'doesn't this technically qualify as stealing and you've already been to jail'.

"Fuck me if I care," he answered from behind his desk, looking up from his phone. "It's not my money." Then, he came over to her with a grievous look on his face. He bent down, hands on top of her shoulders, like she was still a six year old little kid with a skinned knee, asking her uncle for a band aid only for him to tell her to 'toughen up, the world's a bitch'. Now she was fourteen (almost fifteen!) and he was just lanky. "As long as you promise to never, ever," he emphasized, applying more pressure, and letting a dramatically quiet moment fall between them, "bring that hobit Charlotte here, we'll be fine, okay, little rat?"

She rolled her eyes, slapping his hands away, and proceeded to beat Reese in skeeball for the next two hours. Ethan refuses to work together and rack up their point total in Rampage though, not if it means she'll come out on top, but she likes him even better for it.

She goes over to Aunt Raven and Uncle Zeke next, cycling over there with her friends. They play basketball in the pool until their hair feels like plastic, and try and create an atomic whirlpool until their stomachs are grumbling from starvation. Uncle Zeke grills them some hot dogs while Aunt Raven works on her laptop, balancing their pudgy six month year old on her knee simultaneously. There's a white stripe of sunblock on his delicate nose, and one of those floppy cloche hats perched on top of his bald head and strapped around his chin. It has the NASA logo on it.

Madi might have shot Aunt Raven a slightly judgemental look at the sight of it, to which she just said, "To get him started."

"Of course we'll love him no matter what," Zeke added hastily, pointedly gazing over at his wife as he put his hand on top of her shoulder. A saccharine sweet grin spread across her face, eyes tiny sliths. "You can pry my tech-savvy child prodigy out of my cold dead hands."

Zeke just half-shrugged, lifting his head to meet Madi's amused—but still very judgmental—look as he agreed with his wife. "Jax is going to be the first and youngest person to ever step foot on Mars."

Madi's still eternally grateful they didn't name the baby after a Harley Davidson motorcycle—since that was decidedly Not Cute and she wouldn't have been able to show him off on Instagram every day (not without risking copyright infringement anyway)—so she'll pick her battles. He can wear the stupid hat and face up to their impossibly high standards.

They eat the hot dogs, and then Aunt Raven lets them lie to her mom and say they haven't eaten anything yet so she'll bring some McDonalds with her. Uncle Zeke is asking Mom advice on wall colors for their renovation inside, and Aunt Raven wants to finish her proposal today, so it's Bellamy who holds Jax when he gets fussy, walking around their backyard and rocking him until he stops crying. She and Reese try and throw french fries into each others mouth from across the table and Ethan gives her the last chicken nugget.

Today, Ethan is looking at her like she hung the moon, and she's not sure she minds. He's sweet, and shy, and he's cute, especially now that he's grown taller than her and is a little more build. (She still doesn't understand her mom's hand thing, but she might someday.)

Once the sun starts to set, Reese's father swings by to pick her up and offers to take Ethan home too. Mom looks at grandpa's watch and then shares a cryptic look with Bellamy—they have a lot of those and it's starting to get annoying—and then she suggests they get going too.

They load Madi's bike in the back of Bellamy's truck and drive home. Madi sits in the middle and is in charge of the radio, scrolling through her Facebook feed and absentmindedly texting Charlotte about her day and asking her if she thinks Ethan might like her. It never hurts to check, right?

Her phone buzzes and she finds Finn has tagged her in a meme about the Marvel movie they went to see together last week. She sees him about once a month now. She figured that was enough. As soon as she started missing him, then she could go see him more frequently. Right now, he's just a father to her, not a dad, and that's okay. She quickly likes his comment, stuffing her phone back in her jeans as she catches her mom's eye. Mom just smiles, brushing Madi's bangs away from her face, and luckily doesn't say anything.

When they get to their house, there's a box in front of the door. It has holes on it. Bellamy picks it up and takes it inside, then puts it down on the living room floor. "It's for you," he says, inconspicuous, not even looking at the card attached to it.

She looks up at her mom first, and when she nods encouragingly Madi allows herself to get excited. She falls down on her knees beside the carton box, prying the top open. The first thing she does is gasp. "You got me a kitten?" The second thing is looking up at the both of them with hopeful eyes.

"Well, actually he's my cat, his name is Ajax and he's seven," Bellamy explains as he watches her lift it out of the box and cradle him to her chest. She uses her knuckle to caress his forehead, it purrs satisfactorily. "But I discussed it with your mom and since you're in high school now, we figured you were up for the responsibility."

"And Bellamy really did not want to bring him to a shelter back in Polis." Madi sends her mom a betrayed look, eyes squinted. She can't believe she'd even considered it.

"True. It was either me and the cat, or risking another lonely fifteen years without me."

"So it was an ultimatum, really?" Madi notes, dry, leaning back so can put the cat down on her lap, petting his furry back. Ajax licks her hand in return.

"Something like that," he grins, glancing over at her mom. She snorts, "I got plenty in return."

"Oh my God, gross, you guys," Madi grimaces, scrunching up her nose. Rationally, she knows her mom means she got Bellamy living with them in return for a cat that's not too bad. Still, it's fun to tease them. Or her mom. Bellamy never blinks twice. He pretends to be cool like that.

Clarke smacking the back of her head playfully, "Not like that, brat." Her cheeks are colored a pretty pink though, so it was worth it.

Madi rises to her feet with the cat in her arms, hugging him to her chest. She takes a hold of Ajax's paw, counting his little pink toes. She would already take a bullet for him. Maybe even two. "Thanks for sharing him with me, Bell."

He grins back at her, his arm casually slung around her mom's shoulders. Mom's hand snakes up to connect her fingers with his. It doesn't seem new. He just fits, like he's always been there. "No problem, kiddo. I can tell he likes you already."

A day like any other day, Madi thinks. A good day, with even better people and the best cat that's ever existed. She had plenty of people in her life, but like she predicted, there was always room for one more.

fin