Chapter Text
Clarke wasn’t having a good day. She had known things were going to be a bit rough until her mother left but she hadn’t been expecting this level of a mess. Half the staff of the Ark had already asked her if she thought she was having a boy or a girl. Clarke had stopped responding after the fifth person and just glared.
The worst part of it was Finn. He was being supportive and helpful and had even somehow told the canteen employees that she needed a pick-me-up so they had her favorite lunch ready when she showed up. Clarke had even seen Finn take some super glue away from Raven and give her a meaningful look. Which was insane because in no way was she prepared to be the reason a truce was called in the great Bellamy and Raven prank war.
But who did that? Who was that perceptive and caring for a friend? Just once Clarke wanted Finn to really mess up. Not just forget to tell her something and then come back with a well crafted apology and a willingness to accept her choice. He would be easier to hate if he was actually the fuck up most of the town thought he was. But he wasn’t. He was stupidly good in every way and it upset her to no end.
“Did the chicken do something wrong?” Bellamy asked after Clarke had stopped moving while eating her on-shift dinner and started staring down at it instead.
“No, the chicken is fine.” Bellamy gave her an incredulous look.
“You sure about that?” He tilted his head. “You have the look of someone about to make an arrest.” Clarke huffed.
“The point of moving way out here was to get away from all the drama,” Clarke grumbled as she stabbed at the chicken just so it did know that it was in trouble.
Bellamy fell over laughing. “That’s rich,” he managed as Clarke turned to death glare her partner. “You actually believed all that city bullshit about small towns.”
Bellamy kept laughing all the way to the fridge to get more ketchup only to find that his hand wouldn’t come off the handle. “That sneaky witch.” He tried to yank his hand away but it looked painful.
“I thought I saw Finn take away the super glue this morning,” Clarke mused as Bellamy tried to reach for the sink to get hot water.
“Raven always has extra super glue.” Bellamy was now trying to get to the sink with his foot.
“Want me to get Monty? You know he has that glue dissolver stuff in his office.”
“No. I’m fine,” Bellamy insisted with his foot in the sink.
Jasper walked in, saw what was happening, took a picture of Bellamy with one hand glued to the fridge and the opposite foot in the sink and then walked out of the room without saying anything. Either he’d been sent to get pictures by Raven or he’d been so distracted that he’d forgotten what he’d come into the room to do and was now intent on showing the pictures to Monty. Or so Clarke assumed.
“Joke’s on Raven,” Bellamy continued as if Jasper had never appeared. “I am going to win this round.”
“You do know that plant graffiti doesn’t actually count as a prank.”
“I didn’t spray her wall. I sprayed her sofa.” Bellamy struggled before his foot fell from the sink. “And her car interior. Ughf. Also her, arghl, base- funghdck-ment.” Bellamy was now on the floor with his hand still glued to the top of the refrigerator door.
Finn walked in. Blinked twice. “She had extra glue,” he whispered and then turned around and walked out.
“Enough about me. How goes operation payback?” Bellamy had wiggled and grabbed his plate off the table and was back to munching on his sandwich. Even after witnessing similar scenes many times in the past Clarke was constantly amazed at Bellamy’s agility in situations like this.
“It’s not payback,” Clarke pointed out.
“Sure it isn’t. No, you just are dating someone your mother doesn’t approve of. After she tried to force you into dating someone you kinda hate.”
“We are not dating,” Clarke said through clenched teeth, hoping no one had heard him. Especially not Finn.
“See, I know that, and you know that, but does he know that?”
“Yes, we talked about it this morning.”
“Was that before or after you defended his honor in front of the whole town?” Bellamy had a piece of lettuce stuck in his teeth, she didn’t mention this. “When you break his heart it’s going to be a real pain to keep working with both of you. Because you are going to get weird and avoid him and he is going to just end up remodeling half the Ark into a more green building…..actually, you should break up with him. We use way too much fuel around here. I give him a weekend of heartbreak to come up with a way to use pond scum to power the entire building.”
Clarke gave him a meaningful look. Bellamy was teasing about Finn’s house of course. He had spent a year redoing every aspect of his home to be more eco friendly and cost effective. The entire time Finn had lived out of his car.
“What? I care about the environment.” A grunt. “Enough.” Clarke left Bellamy struggling. Eventually Kane or someone will come along and ply him free with hot water and soap.
Her mother was waiting in her office. Clarke realized immediately that this was karma for leaving Bellamy glued to a fridge after he had tried to give her good advice. Or his version of advice. Years of trying to keep Octavia out of trouble had warped his idea of advice. Still, it was occasionally good.
“No cameras?” Clarke asked stiffly.
“No. I wanted to clear some things up without double speak.” Ah yes, good old mom. Who just wanted what was best and hated the game. Clarke wasn’t buying what Abby was selling anymore. “Care to explain why I spent this morning having to deal with questions about your pregnancy and my thoughts on family values?”
“Your campaign managers aren’t doing their jobs properly.” Clarke shrugged and went to her desk to shuffle paperwork. She felt better with her hands moving.
“Well, seeing as the story is being properly crushed and now I have a much better statement prepared on family values I would say they are doing fine. I meant about this boy.” Clarke hated that. The way her mother talked about some people. She didn’t even say anything bad, it was all in the tone of voice. Oh sure it was fine that these other types exist and even be treated as equals but god forbid Clarke bring one home as a friend or worse boyfriend.
“His name is Finn.”
“I am aware. What I can’t understand is why him?”
“I like him.” Clarke tasted the bile in those words. She did like him. She did want him. But trusting Finn was dangerous, she’d learned that lesson all too well, even if it made her sick inside to play this game. But it was better than being a puppet.
“Think about this please,” Abby said as she pulled out a packet from her purse. “This is the voter research and the focus groups we did. I can win, Clarke. I can get into the game and make a difference. But for that to work I need some target demographics to approve.”
“Ultra conservatives not a big fan of an unmarried woman?” Clarke knew the answer of course. “Maybe you should have thought that before you ruined your marriage.”
“That’s not fair.” Abby looked like she wanted to stand. Like she wanted to start this fight that she and Clarke had already had over and over again. “All I was asking was for you to take Wells to the benefit in three nights.”
Abby had always been good at reframing everything to make it look like Clarke had completely overreacted and to put herself in the best light. It was the reason she’d made it so far in politics. Clarke hated it.
“Thank you, but I will be taking my boyfriend, Finn.” Clarke opened a file and gave her mother the air of being dismissed, something she had learned from her mother.
Abby left then but Clarke couldn’t stop thinking about the conversation. After an hour of doing nothing but staring at the same report she opened the packet her mother had left. The cold logic was a better argument than her mother could ever give. It was hard to argue with the numbers, until of course she got to the focus groups about Wells and Finn. The Wells one had clearly been done a long time ago and was fully detailed. He was the kind of man that women loved and men at least didn’t find threatening. Not to mention apparently the public loved the idea of childhood sweethearts.
The focus group on Finn was shorter, more hurried. It had been done in a rush. The people involved were slightly less diverse than the one conducted about Wells but the campaign team had still gotten the same kind of information. He was popular with young women and some young men but he alienated the majority of the donors and voters. His record was technically sealed at this point but everyone in town knew and now half the country did as well. Sure he was charming and liked national parks, but Finn was vocally anti-gun and his social media leaned towards socialism when it came to political views.
Her mind tried to think of options. Say she “broke up” with Finn and took Wells to the benefit, say they took smiling pictures and helped her mom out, when did it stop? Did it stop when she won? That was months from now. Could Clarke really pretend to date someone she didn’t trust, or at least trusted less than she trusted Finn? But then what? Would she have to stay with Wells because her mom wanted to keep her approval rating and go for a higher office? Would they expect her to marry him if her mother suddenly wanted to become President?
Clarke was trying to think about all the possible futures while she walked out to her patrol car, when a hand reached out and pulled her into a broom closet.
“Finn?” Clarke gasped in the gloom when she recognized his smell. That made her feel worse. That she knew how he smelled and could tell it was him with just a puff of air. It felt like her sense were betraying her, knowing more about Finn than she thought she knew.
“There are reporters outside,” he hissed in the gloom.
“What?”
“One of them has a big camera with lights on top and I think I saw a microphone.” That’s exactly what Clarke needed right now, local news.
“Why are we hiding here?” Clarke stage whispered, she wanted to just regular whisper but she ended up also wanting to shout which is how this came to be.
“Because one of the guys with a camera was walking down the hall.” Finn returned the stage whisper volume.
“Did he see us?” Clarke wanted to peek out but years of watching horror movies had actually taught her something so that was not happen.
Which of course meant the door swung open and Bellamy stuck his head in. Clarke found that both her and Finn were now completely frozen in place.
“I am having both of your rations of pudding for a month because I just got rid of a camera crew and played extra nice to the weird anchor lady even though she touched my butt. Are we understood?”
Clarke and Finn nodded.
“Good. Now if you don’t mind I have a med kit to locate and revenge to plan.” Bellamy closed the door.
The air in the closet felt heavy suddenly. Neither of them said anything for a moment and then Finn, always the one to break the ice and make Clarke feel better said, “He will be getting vanilla pudding from me.”
The laughter bubbled out of her without permission but when she was done they were able to leave the closet with a minimal amount of problems.
Clarke wanted to kill Bellamy. Normally he and Raven managed to keep their little war and sexual tension fueled escapades from disrupting work but not this time. This time Bellamy had managed to give both himself and Raven food poisoning. Clarke didn’t know how he’d done it and she didn’t want to know, she was perfectly content being pissed off without the details of the situation being forced on her.
Normally this wouldn’t be such an issue but not this time. This time there was a media presence in the area and a serial killer on the loose which meant that Clarke was not going to be allowed to do her normal rounds alone despite the fact that she could handle herself just fine. Oh no, that would never fly with Marcus Kane. Instead she got stuck with the one person in the park that she really wanted to be avoid being alone with.
“All set?,” Finn asked as he stepped into the tiny office she shared with Bellamy, dressed for going and working outside. “We should head out soon, it’s only going to get hotter out the longer we wait.”
Clarke bit her lip, glad she didn’t blush easily because Finn was wearing a tshirt that was probably a size or two too small and it looked a lot better on him than the loose clothing their uniform usually comprised of. “Yeah,” she muttered, shutting off her computer and grabbing her things. “I’m ready.”
“Great,” Finn grinned at her and she followed him out to where his car was parked.
“We’re taking your car?” she demanded. Normally she was the one who drove and she liked it that way. It was bad enough she’d be stuck with Finn in a confined space after the awkwardness of the past two days since they’d escaped that closet, she didn’t want to be stuck with him with nothing else to concentrate on.
“Just get in, Princess,” he told her and she was hit with the memory of her first day of work at the Ark.
She’d been new, just started working as a ranger and she’d been trying so hard not to act intimidated. Then Finn had seen her walking out of Kane’s office and had smiled at her, a smile that had made her insides feel a little less solid. Kane had asked Finn to give her a tour of the park and he’d agreed and she’d just stood there the entire time, feeling like a love-struck idiot.
She’d followed Finn out to his car that day but had hesitated before getting in and Finn had laughed. He’d laughed in the way that still sent shivers down her spine, the one that seemed purely sexual in origin. And then he’d said “get in, princess” and had killed it.
Whatever attraction had been fizzing somewhere inside of her was dead. She’d hated it more than anything when people tried to nickname her and no one in her life had ever given her one that had stuck. But this was her new coworker, someone with seniority and for all she knew some serious pull with her new boss. So she grinned and bore it.
All afternoon. All through the ridiculous tour through the ridiculous park with the ridiculously beautiful nature that the ridiculously good looking and funny and smart boy she was with knew all about. She’d wanted to scream she was so frustrated with everything.
Then they’d gotten back to headquarters and Finn had given her the grin that he’d been giving her ever since. The one that made her a little weak at the knees and she’d never seen anyone else receive. “So, think you’ll stick around after all this, Princess?”
“My name is Clarke,” she’d told him, in that frosty tone that she’d never managed to control. The one that just seemed to come out even when she didn’t want to be mean. “Not Princess.”
“Whatever you say, Princess,” Finn had responded and she’d cursed herself for thinking the little grin on his face was attractive. “Princess just seems to suit you.”
“Keep telling yourself that and you might believe it but I never will.”
“Princess, I was wrong. Your looks are definitely not the most attractive thing about you,” he’d said, his voice wondering. “That mouth of yours is good for way more than one thing.
That had just cemented her crush. The crush that she’d been denying all afternoon. A hot guy who thought she was attractive both physically and mentally? Clarke had never been able to resist that. So she’d just said the first thing on her mind.
“Don’t worry, I’m sticking around for a good long while. Maybe I’ll even let you in on all the things my mouth is good at. Telling off boys is just the starting point.”
She’d spun on her foot and stalked into headquarters, angry at the fact that there was a smile working its way onto her face as the sound of Finn’s laughter followed her into the building.
In the present day the memory still made her smile. Things with Finn had gone sour quickly after that but she could still enjoy that first day, back before everyone and their mother had an opinion about them..
The flash of a camera as they pulled out of the parking lot made her groan and wish for those days again. Why was it that everytime her relationship with Finn had any kind of change it seemed like the whole world had to have an opinion about it?
“Care to share with the class?” Finn asked, glancing over at her and catching her eye. “Must be something good to put a smile like that on your face.”
“I think I’ll pass. Wouldn’t want your head to get any bigger than it already is.”
Finn sputtered in protest at that but he was grinning, understanding the underlying message in her words. He’d always understood her. Too bad it seemed that no one could understand them.
Clarke loved arriving back at headquarters after a good patrol. It hadn’t happened often these past few weeks with all of the drama that had been going on, but somehow Finn had made her forget all of that. He’d made her feel like everything in her life was normal again and she owed him for that if for nothing else.
Her smile disappeared as she walked back into her office and was surprised to find not Bellamy but Wells standing there. He looked distinctly uncomfortable and Clarke took a vicious pleasure in that.
“Hi Clarke,” he said and then swallowed as if his mouth was too dry to continue. “I was hoping we could talk?”
For a second she wanted to snark at him if he was telling her or asking her but she shoved that impulse down. Snarking at Wells would only make him think that she was feeling comfortable around him. It wouldn’t get his back up the way his mere presence got hers up.
“I’m not sure we have anything to talk about.”
Chilly calm was definitely the best route to take in this case. She watched in grim satisfaction as Wells winced.
Then he seemed to gather himself, standing up straighter and throwing his shoulders back. She’d watched him do this a million times when they were young, whenever he’d been preparing himself to confront someone. Her lingering good mood disappeared.
“Clarke, we need to talk. I’ve given you all the space you’ve asked for but I miss you. I miss my best friend.”
Frankly, she was stunned at his audacity. “Then you should have thought about that before you kept secrets about my own life from me.”
She’d never be able to forgive him for that. She could forgive him for revealing the affair that had destroyed her parents’ marriage because in the end it wasn’t his fault. What she couldn’t forgive is the fact that he’d never told her anything. He’d watched as she dealt with her parents’ messy divorce, as she’d become more and more withdrawn, believing that she’d done something to cause this. Clarke had gone through all of high school believing that if she’d only been better then her parents wouldn’t have divorced and her dad would never have left.
And Wells had just sat there and watched it tear her apart. He’d known all along that it had had nothing to do with her and he’d said nothing.
“I’d thought that if you knew the truth it would be worse. You’d already lost your dad, I didn’t want you to lose your mom too,” Wells pleaded with her. “I thought I was helping you.”
“You sure have a twisted definition of helping,” she spat back. Then she heaved a sigh, collapsing into her chair. “Go away, Wells. I’m too emotionally exhausted to deal with you.”
He gave her a wounded look but she wasn’t lying when she said she was emotionally exhausted. “Okay, I’ll go. But just so you know I’ll be in town until after the benefit. If you’re ever ready to talk, let me know.”
She let him walk out as she contemplated throwing a parting shot after him, but she let it go. Between her mother and Finn and Wells and Bellamy and all the ups and downs the day had presented her with she had no energy left.
Pulling her cell out of her pocket she dialed Raven. Tears gathered in her eyes as she listened to it ring.
“Clarke?” Raven’s voice was concerned, she knew something had to be wrong for Clarke to actually call her during a shift.
“Think we could have a movie and junk food night tonight?” she asked, her voice catching. She hated this. Hated this weakness because she was already so burnt out that one confrontation with Wells had her running to her best friend for comfort. She just hoped that a night in with Raven would recharge her batteries enough for everything she knew was still to come.
There weren’t as many trails at this park. But it was so much larger than he had hoped. He sat, sharpening spikes, watching the fire glow in the cave and thought about the damage he would be able to do here.