Chapter Text
An hour later, Clarke stood on the front porch of a small but very well-maintained house in the suburbs, with a one bag full of antibiotics and another filled with groceries. There were nicks and scratches all over the place that spoke to a lifetime that Bellamy had spent in here, first with his mother and sister, and now on his own, but it felt like a home in a way the mansion her mother owned never could.
She hesitated only for another moment and finally rang the bell. When no-one answered at first, she followed Octavia's advice and rang it again, longer this time and more insistently. For a moment, the house stayed just as quiet as ever but finally, she could hear some faint barking and the unmistakable sound of nails scratching on the hardwood floor. She smiled to herself.
"Why the fuck to you even insist on keeping a key, if you're not using it?" Clarke could hear Bellamy complain from behind the door as the locks rattled. He sounded ill alright. Congested, for sure, with a throat that must've felt like sandpaper. Then, he yanked the door open, clearly ready to yell at his sister some more, pain be damned, but he stopped abruptly when he realised who she was.
Silly didn't have such reservation, though, she ran out of the house and jumped at Clarke, who at the last moment put the bags on the ground and bent her knees, so she could catch the dog. After a loud, happy bark and a litany of yips that were surely meant as a greeting, Silly ran past her to the front yard and after checking the length of the front gate, she came back looking rather disappointed.
"Sorry, babe, Picasso's not here," Clarke explained, scratching Silly behind her ear, which seemed to earn her a little forgiveness.
Bellamy coughed horribly behind her. Clarke turned around quickly and had to bite her lip in order not to grin at him—too much. He must've been absolutely miserable but damn if he wasn't the cutest. He was wearing a pair of fleece pyjama pants with Santa's hats on them and an old college t-shirt, so washed-off that she could barely recognise the emblem. His eyes were a little blood-shot and his nose red, the glasses perched on it crookedly. His hair looked like a bird's nest and never before in her life did Clarke want to run her fingers through it so badly.
She quickly picked up her previously discarded bags, hoping to distract herself and stop herself from doing something stupid, like actually following up on that desire.
"I come bearing gifts," she said when the silence between them stretched.
Bellamy finally snapped out of his daze.
"Don't take this the wrong way, but what are you doing here?" he asked, the question ending with a wheeze and Clarke's shoulders shook in a barely contained chuckle.
"Your sister called me," she said and Bellamy's eyebrows shot up into his hairline. "She said she had to go back to Polis, to work, and asked me to pick up your meds."
"You didn't have to do that," Bellamy started to protest but a loud cough contradicted him, so he just took a step back and waved his hand inviting her in.
Clarke followed him down the corridor and to the back of the house, to the living room where he told her to sit down while he took everything to the kitchen. She tried not to openly ogle every single thing she saw but she suspected she failed miserably, too interested in the childhood pictures hanging on the walls. She followed Bellamy to the kitchen, too, saying that she came to help him, not to be treated like a guest.
Bellamy rolled his eyes at her insistence but when she pushed him down onto a chair, he slumped against it, visibly tired.
Clarke unpacked the groceries and prepared his medicine, talking the whole time. About meeting Octavia the day before, about the unexpected phone call she got from her this morning, about the ridiculously long line of people in front of her at the pharmacy. She was a little bit nervous about being here, at his home. Bellamy remained mostly quiet, aside from the occasional grunt of acknowledgment, and Clarke told herself that it was simply because he was unwell, not because he didn't want her there, invading his privacy.
After he'd taken his medicine and Clarke was done with the fridge, she went into what Wells called her 'I-was-supposed-to-be-a-doctor' mode. She looked Bellamy over, put the kettle on so she could make tea and moved on to the living room, where she opened up the windows to let the fresh air in. She took one quick look at the pile of blankets and pillows that Bellamy must've laid in, grabbed one of the blankets and after giving it a firm beating, took it to Bellamy so he could cover himself with it. She flipped the pillows, closed the windows and went back to the kitchen to finish making the tea, telling herself all the way that if Bellamy wanted her gone he would've said something.
Finally, Clarke led him back to the living room, sat him down on the couch, placed the tea on the table in front of him and explained how to take his meds throughout the day, while Bellamy fell sideways onto the couch and curled himself into a ball, the blanket wrapped around his shoulders like a cape. Clarke smiled at him fondly and spread the other blanket over his legs.
She was about to step away, grab her things and go, when his hand shot up from under the blanket, his thick, warm fingers wrapping around her wrist weakly.
"Stay," he croaked. Clarke crouched in front of him, his hand now closed over hers, his thumb rubbing at the vein on the inside of her wrist. His eyes were unfocused but he was looking straight at her.
"Are you sure?" she asked quietly. "I can leave, if you want to rest."
"I never want you to leave, I hate seeing you go," Bellamy said, easy, completely unaware that Clarke’s world just shifted on its axis.
Clarke looked at him, at his beautiful, tired face and her heart jumped right up and lodged itself in her throat.
So she stayed.
After the meds kicked in, he seemed more awake, so they pulled up Netflix and started watching some comedy show which title she might’ve remembered if she paid any attention to it—it quickly became just a background noise as Bellamy started telling her about Octavia’s surprise visit and how he probably got ill when some kid kept coughing at him the whole way on the bus when he and Octavia went to the movies.
Later, Clarke heated up the soup that she’d bought for him, fed and walked Silly, and when she came back, Bellamy had already dozed off on the couch, snoring lightly.
Clarke crouched in front of him again, her fingers brushing the curls away from his face.
“Bell, I gotta go home,” she whispered. Bellamy hummed but didn’t open his eyes. Clarke was glad he didn’t or else she would never leave.
She ran her thumb over his forehead and places a gentle kiss there. She froze for a second when Bellamy moved but he didn’t wake up, so she got up, left him a note saying she was taking his keys so she could lock up the house and went back home, where she spent the rest of the night trying very hard not to overanalyse how soft his voice sounded when he said he wanted her to stay.
***
The next morning, Clarke arrived at his doorstep with his keys in hand and Picasso in tow. The dog pranced around her legs restlessly but Clarke hesitated before coming in, playing with the keys instead.
Did Bellamy mean when he said last night? And if so, did that mean he actually had feelings for her? Hell, Clarke wasn’t even sure if he would remember that he said anything at all. Or that it was anything more that fevered ramblings.
She groaned and shook her head, once again feeling like a teenager, agonising over a boy. Spending all her days around high school students really took its toll.
Clarke blew a raspberry, rang the doorbell and let herself in, Picasso running past her inside the house with a whine. She called out when she came in and a groan answered her from the living room. When Clarke reached him, he was sitting on the couch with both dogs on top of him, demanding attention. He laughed at them and Clarke notice with relief that he looked so much better than he did the day before.
Coming further into the room, she smiled lightly.
"I brought you back your keys," she explained lamely and clenched her teeth, hoping it stopped her from rolling her eyes. She was tense as fuck, not sure how to talk to Bellamy. Which was ridiculous, she knew. Nothing changed between them, he didn't make some grand confession that could explain her nerves. But it was—something.
After all those months of wondering if touching her was an accident or if he wanted to make a move, Bellamy outwardly asking her to stay was a milestone. Or it would've been if Clarke had any idea what Bellamy meant by it. He'd never done anything that she couldn't have explained to herself as platonic affection, never once made an obvious move. Which meant that if she pushed towards something romantic herself only to find out she was misinterpreting things, she would open herself for heartbreak and loss she wasn't sure she never knew how to handle.
It was a startling realisation that she'd had a while back, that she'd never actually been friends with any one of her exes. Wells may have been her first kiss and she'd loved him for almost her entire life but she was never in love with him and they never took things any further. The closest she ever came to that was Niylah because they'd known and liked each other for a while before they started sleeping together but that was neither much of a real friendship, nor a romance. Any other romantic relationship she'd ever had started out as with passion and attraction, and as sad and depressing it may be, they all fell apart once they got to know each other better and figured out they didn't work at all.
Though it didn't seem to make any sense, Bellamy was somehow all of those things and none of those things.
Passion, they'd had an abundance of, that one was clear to anyone who'd ever seen them together. And if she could trust her own judgement when she would sometimes catch Bellamy's gaze lingering on one part of her body or another, attraction wasn't an issue either. But there was so much more than just that between them.
Although it took her by surprise, he was now, without a doubt, her best and closest friend. The one person in the whole world with whom she felt like she could talk about anything and actually wanted to do so.
Well, anything except the fact that she was falling for him like crazy.
It's been way over a decade but Clarke still remembered how awkward things got when Wells confessed his feelings for her and after one uncomfortable kiss, she was forced to shoot him down. It created a distance between them that took months to close and she no longer had that teenage recovery time and this wasn't some puppy infatuation. She didn't think she'd know how to get over that rejection, especially if it meant she wouldn't be able to turn to the one person she'd need.
The sound of Bellamy’s laughter turned into a coughing fit pulled Clarke back to reality. The dogs jumped off the couch and raced to the door, bumping into each other playfully. Clarke let them out into the yard and went back to the living room, bringing a glass of water for Bellamy.
“Thanks,” he choked out between coughs.
“You shouldn’t let them jump on you like that, Bellamy.” Clarke dropped onto the armchair on the opposite of Bellamy and shook her head as he wrapped himself in a blanket and hummed. He looked at her then, his expression suddenly serious.
“Thank you for taking care of me yesterday. I’m sure you had better things to do during the summer, so ‘m sorry that my sister just dumped it all on your head like that.”
Clarke frowned.
“It wasn’t a problem, really,” she assured him, a tiny crinkle forming between her eyes. She hesitated then, for a second. “I—I was glad your sister called. I wanted to see you.”
Bellamy leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. A small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth and he looked—hopeful. Clarke looked at him for a moment, at the soft look in his eyes, and made the decision.
She got up from the armchair and moved closer, to sit on the coffee table in front of him. Bellamy looked up at her, surprise painting his features. Clarke sat down, her knees knocking against Bellamy’s. His hand moved and he rested it on the side of her leg, his thumb tapping lightly against her patella absentmindedly. His fingers were rough against her skin and it sent a wave of warmth straight to her core. His eyes never left her face, though, and Clarke wasn’t sure he even knew he was doing it.
She cleared her throat.
“I—uh, I wanted to see you, see how you were doing, I mean,” Clarke said. Bellamy’s eyebrows shot up and she frowned. No, she wasn’t saying it right.
“Um, I missed you,” she stuttered out, suddenly very interested in the pattern on the pillow behind his back. If she had been looking, she would’ve seen how his lips parted in silent awe, how the corners of his mouth twitched upwards for a moment, before he closed his mouth and swallowed. But instead, she dropped her head slightly and sighed when he remained silent. “I like you,” she mumbled into her knees and chanced a look up when she felt his fingers twitch and close around her upper calf.
Bellamy had a tiny smirk on and a delighted expression on his face but Clarke still groaned before burying her face in her hands. She ran her fingers through her hair.
“Ugh, listen to me! I sound like a 13-year-old.” She finally looked straight at Bellamy who was now smiling at her in full. “I really spend too much time with the kids.”
Bellamy chuckled, took his hand off of her leg and grabbed her hand instead.
“That’s okay, cause I like you, too,” he admitted.
Clarke felt herself deflate, tension leaving her and causing her shoulders to drop slightly in relief.
“You never said anything!” She argued. Her fingers moved inside his grasp and she wrapped them more firmly around his.
“Neither did you,” Bellamy countered. He screwed up his face, his expression growing a little more serious. He shrugged his shoulders and the blanked slipped down his back. He didn’t notice. “I didn’t know how to tell you that. Both my serious relationships started when I picked them at the bar for a hook-up and we decided we actually enjoyed our company. And that was—I mean, there wasn’t much need for talking at first, you know?”
Bellamy slumped down and coughed into his elbow. Clarke moved to get up and get him something to drink but he shook his head instead and squeezed her fingers. She must’ve still had an alarmed look at her face because Bellamy waved his other hand to reassure her that he was fine.
“You wanna know the funny thing—I wanted to talk to you about it. I mean, who’d know better how to tell you how I felt, right?” he said with a grimace. Clarke pressed her lips into a thin line, so that she wouldn’t laugh. It worked for a breath but then a snort and a high-pitched belt of laughter escaped her.
“We’re both really brilliant, aren’t we?” Clarke asked, still giggling a little. Bellamy let out a long breath of air and leaned forward. His free hand moved up her body, brushing against her arm, which sent a spark to the tips of her fingers. Bellamy tucked a stray tendril of hair behind her ear. Clarke bit her lip, her eyes dropping momentarily to his mouth before snapping back up.
Bellamy groaned.
“What’s wrong?” Clarke asked and Bellamy sent her a helpless look.
“I really want to kiss you right now, but I don’t think it would make a good impression if I infected you with something right now,” he explained. “I mean, you probably shouldn’t even be here at all right now.”
“I could leave,” she teased.
“Trust me,” Bellamy said, his hand resting around the side of her neck. “That is literally the last thing I want.”
Clarke could feel a blush spreading across her cheeks. She bit her lip and Bellamy looked at her pleadingly. The hand holding hers closed even tighter. They stared at each other for what felt like forever, Clarke but a step away from surging forward and kissing him, illness be damned. But before she could actually do it, they heard whining at the front door, nails scratching at the door.
“Saved by the bark,” Clarke joked lamely but Bellamy still let out a low chuckle.
He let go of her, so she could go and let the dogs in. When Clarke came back, he was lying on the couch, tangled in the blanket. His eyelids were dropping.
“I think that was all the energy I had for today,” he said when Clarke sat back down on the table. She smiled at him and ran her fingers through his hair, rubbing her fingers against the back of his neck. His eyes closed slowly, his breathing evened out and soon he was asleep.
Clarke took her hand back but stayed bent forward slightly, just watching him for a while. Bellamy let out a soft huff in his sleep and Clarke’s heart swelled with affection. She was still a little afraid to call it love already. She worried about how will this relationship work when they go back to their jobs in the autumn and they’ll end up spending almost all of their time together. But as Bellamy shifted and buried half of his face into his pillow, she realised that she didn’t care about that, not really. He was worth trying.
A loud yawn distracted her from her thoughts and away from Bellamy. She look to the side, to where Silly laid nestled into Picasso’s side. He yawned again, quieter this time, and put his head right next to hers. Clarke smiled to herself, picked up the spare pillow and went back to the armchair. She sat down with her legs thrown over the arm rest, her head pillowed against the back of the chair. She closed her eyes and slowly dozed off, lulled by the familiar sound of Picasso’s light snores.
Leaving was the last thing she wanted, too.