Chapter Text
“Are you awake?” Clarke whispered. She tried to turn around, to see Bellamy’s face as she asked the question, but she was planted too firmly in her bed to properly do so. Truthfully it was almost stifling, the heat from the fluffy down comforter and Bellamy’s body wrapped closely behind her own, but she couldn’t find it in herself to be frustrated at it, not when this felt so close to getting what she had always wanted.
The things she had always wanted, she had found, didn’t come nicely packaged. They were rough, unexpected, not entirely what she had asked for but when it all came together it was surprisingly good. She hurt, still felt more roughly sewn back together than whole, but Clarke had realized recently that even broken she was capable of doing a lot more than she had ever anticipated.
“No,” Bellamy grumbled behind her, and she could feel the answer rumble through his chest with its proximity to her own.
“You’re very cognisant of the world asleep,” she replied, finally nuzzling her way so her face was at least lying on his chest, his sleepy form half visible as she looked up through her eyelashes at him.
Bellamy opened his own eyes slowly, taking her in below him with a sense of skepticism, narrowing his eyes before his rough demeanor was shattered by an obnoxiously loud yawn. Clarke giggled, biting her lip to stifle the laughter, but it ripped out of her anyway. She couldn’t even remember the last time she had actually giggled. It was such a ridiculous gesture, so juvenile in her eyes, but something felt so puerile and exhilarating about it.
“Why are you keeping me from sleep, Griffin? You want to have pillow talk at eight in the morning?”
“You’re acting like eight in the morning is really early,” she shot back, raising a single eyebrow. Bellamy’s arms finally loosened as he shifted in the bed, and Clarke took her opportunity to spread out, continuing to rest her head on his chest but finally capable of fully seeing him. Him with his tousled hair and dark brown eyes fighting to stay open, his chest raising and lowering slowly with each casual breath. Beautiful, she decided as she released a soft sigh, absolutely beautiful.
“It is when you go to bed at four in the morning.” Though his words held the littlest bit of bite, Clarke could tell from the lopsided smile he was shooting her way he wasn’t actually upset.
“You don’t think Raven is going to be like… heartbroken or anything when we leave, do you?”
Bellamy groaned, throwing his head back into the pillows and shutting his eyes. “This is about Reyes and fucking Wick? You do know your best friend, right?”
“Hey! Don’t get all insult-y.”
“I’m sorry, but we’re having this ridiculous conversation when I could be sleeping right now. It’s in my DNA to be rude.”
“I know Raven doesn’t really get upset over guys, especially when she barely knows them, but I’d just feel so horrible if I somehow loosely messed up her plan, you know? I don’t want to hurt her.”
“Raven has control over her life, trust me. She doesn’t make a move she hasn’t thought through, and if she does, she deals with the consequences of her actions like she always does. Not your job to worry.”
Not her job. Clarke wanted to slap herself in the face. There she went again, worrying about something that wasn’t in her control, something she shouldn’t have to worry about. Obviously Raven knew what she was doing, she was one of the most confident, capable, in control people Clarke had ever known. If Raven really didn’t think doing something was smart she wouldn’t have done it, simple as that.
“You’re right.”
“Of course I’m right,” Bellamy replied, and Clarke rolled her eyes as his lips slipped into a smirk. “Plus, it’s not like they’re in love, they just fucked.”
“Wait!” she exclaimed, pushing herself further up and looking curiously at Bellamy. “They slept together?”
“I’m sorry, you didn’t hear them last night? Why were you worrying if you didn’t know they had sex last night?”
“Because I’m a concerned friend who saw them doing the arguing eye sex thing that we used to do and look how fucking awesome that turned out-”
“Aw,” Bellamy interjected, leaning forward and placing a sloppy kiss on Clarke’s cheek, “love you too, babe.”
“Oh, shut up,” Clarke groaned, the grunt turning swiftly into peals of laughter as he continued to place the kisses all over her face. She jolted out as he grazed her side, accidentally tickling her, and her laughter only flew out of her faster, heartier, as he groaned and rubbed at his abdomen where she had elbowed him. “I’m a little concerned about the fact that you were paying attention to them having sex last night when we were having sex, though.”
Bellamy paused, eyeing Clarke curiously. “Princess… we didn’t have sex last night.”
“Wait, are you serious?”
“You were passed out by the time I came back from the bathroom,” Bellamy explained, a sense of humor laced throughout his words.
“Wow, that was a really good dream I had then,” Clarke responded.
“Was I good?” he teased, leaning closer. Bellamy’s hands roamed to her hips, grabbing soundly onto them and tugging her closer. The action flipped the two of them, Clarke now looking up at Bellamy as he laid slightly over her.
Clarke smirked in response, bringing a hand up to tangle itself among his curls and yanking him closer so she could whisper in his ear. “You’ve got a lot to live up to, that’s all I’m saying.”
“I’ll just have to try my best,” he whispered, hovering over her neck before kissing his way upward, trailing her jaw before finding her lips again, the two of them coming together, still sleepy but pulsing forward with a sudden heat. “I should probably go back to bed.”
“You probably shouldn’t,” she replied, the two of them still close enough to feel the other’s breaths. Their lips were barely inches apart, begging to be pulled back together, as Clarke and Bellamy stared at each other.
“If I don’t I’ll be tired all day,” he teased. “You have to give me a better reason to stay up.”
“If we’re tired, we’ll be cranky, which means fights which means hot, anger sex later today,” she supplied, biting her lip to hide the wide smile that followed as he threw his head back with a laugh.
“You’re perfect.”
“This is true.”
“You just use me for my body,” Bellamy responded, finally conquering the near invisible gap between them. Clarke’s other hand joined the first one in his hair, tugging lightly at his thick curls as he leaned into her. All she wanted was to feel him closer, to have him nearer, and she shifted to the left, letting him lay between her legs as she pulled him flush against herself.
Clarke pulled back, the two of them breathing heavy as she smirked over.
“Also true.”
“You gave me a fucking hickey,” Clarke hissed, narrowing her eyes as they continued on the path.
Raven was 15 or so feet ahead of them, powering ahead and barely breaking a sweat (not that that was a surprise to Clarke or anything, Raven was a beast), Wick and Finn fighting to stay somewhere near her but with a little more evident effort. Hiking right next to her, Bellamy appeared to be taking each step with as much ease as the last, and Clarke spited him and Raven for their innate athleticism.
“Don’t be mad,” Bellamy replied, raising his brows as if expecting an apology, “or do be mad. If you’re mad do we get to have the anger sex you were talking about earlier?”
“I’m not mad, just frustrated,” Clarke clarified. “I just really fucking hate hickeys, they’re so trashy.”
“I just wanted to claim you as my own,” he joked, hitting his shoulder with her own.
Clarke’s eyes practically flashed with vexation, and if looks could kill, Bellamy would have most certainly been on the ground. “Don’t even joke about that! We are not medieval, we are a very progressive and equal partnered relationship!”
“Woah, tiger, I’m sorry. It was a joke made in poor taste, apologies,” he replied, throwing his hands up in surrender.
“How long do you think we have to go before we’re there?” she questioned, letting the situation slide away.
Bellamy shrugged his shoulders, readjusting the hat perched on his head. Clarke tried to keep her eyes forward for the sake of her safety as they hiked, but there was something incredibly tantalizing in the way Bellamy swiped his hand through his hair before setting the hat soundly on his head. “Not long.”
Not long was right. Only a handful of minutes later Clarke was walking her final steps up the slight incline and then there it was, like the scene was all laid out right in front of her just for her, shining bright and beautiful and better than she could have ever expected. It brought a sudden itch at the back of her eyes, like tears might just start up at any moment, and she rushed forward to get closer to everything.
She’d seen the bridge as they drove to the hiking trails obviously, seen it as a background earlier in the day as they walked through the city to hunt for something for breakfast (it became abundantly clear as Clarke rifled through Wick’s fridge only to find half a pint of milk and a bag of grapes that he didn’t shop very frequently), but it wasn’t like it was now.
The light revealed it was a little past midday, brightly shining off of the red and leaving the water below it bright and blue. She wondered if this image in front of her was really brighter than the rest of the world or if she had merely imagined it, most likely the latter, but everything in front of her seemed so much more vibrant than any other place could hope to ever be.
It was almost like walking straight into a memory, something oddly familiar about it, like somehow her dad’s old faint fairytales had painted a scene in front of her she had never realized he had been talking about. Half of the time her father had talked, he painted his stories in the most magical of ways, though, so she knew he must have just done the same to his time here, to the things he had seen.
Jake used to come home from medical conferences and his trips and, instead of going straight to sleep, always found Clarke first. He would lay down in bed next to her, painting stories in front of her eyes of mundane things that always seemed so much more beautiful than reality could ever have them be. When she had gotten older he had turned a little more realistic, the stories flung over quick dinners or phone calls when he had been called into work right away, but it was impossible to beat the fantastical tones out of his voice.
Clarke thought she would miss those stories until the day she died, and if she could get even a few words of one again, of the utter excitement he used to spill them with, she would do just about anything.
Reality didn’t fail her this time, though, because as mundane as a bridge should be, the whole scene in front of her felt charged by something unreal. She could feel her dad in the red-painted metal and the wide expanse and the steady flow of vehicles that were as constant as the water below it, though quiet from the distance that laid between the bridge and Clarke; she could feel it all, and for the briefest of moments Clarke could almost swear she felt her dad standing right beside her.
“You ok, Clarke?”
Clarke snapped out of it, turning toward Raven with a watery smile and nodding slightly. “Yea, why wouldn’t I be?”
“Clarke, you’re crying.”
Reaching up to her face, Clarke felt the moistness underneath her fingertips. “Oh,” she exclaimed, laughing softly underneath her breath. “I am. I could have sworn for a moment he was right here, right beside me, but he won’t ever be again, and I really miss him.”
“Not physically,” Raven replied, “but gone doesn’t mean forgotten.”
“No,” Clarke replied, nodding her head, “it really doesn’t.”
Clarke couldn’t forget her dad if she had tried, he was too much of her past, of the person she was today, for anything to ever wash him away from her memories. He would still be there through everything, even if it wasn’t physically, helping to guide her, and the thought in itself was beyond comforting. She still missed him so much, so deeply, but even though he was dead he wasn’t gone, and though that sounded absolutely ridiculous to Clarke, it was also real. He would be there with her, every step of the way, always.
But he wasn’t the only person that would be by her side through everything, and Raven’s familiar weight of a presence next to Clarke reminded her of that. She was so lucky to have her friends, to have Bellamy, to have her mother (God, she couldn’t believe she was even saying that, but sometimes things really do change), and no matter what challenge she would have to face next (along with the challenge she was still facing, the weight that was still prevalent on her shoulders), she wasn’t scared. How could she be? With all of them at her flank, it would take something mighty strong to take them all down.
Something between a squeal and a scream ripped through the air from her left, and Clarke looked over to see Bellamy and Wick in a heavy debate about something, Bellamy’s hat lying several feet away from them and a wipe of dirt down Wick’s shirt. Finn looked on, rubbing a hand down his face as he looked weighed down with a thick desire to be anywhere else. Raven scoffing to her right, Clarke turned back toward her.
“So, you and Wick?”
“Me and Wick?” Raven exclaimed, shaking her head. “God no.”
“The sex that bad?” Clarke joked.
“Truthfully?” Raven replied. “Best sex of my life.”
“You haven’t had sex with that many people,” Clarke reasoned.
Raven shrugged. “Enough to know that he was good.”
“So, why aren’t you into him?”
“I’ve only known him like a day, and he’s cool, but it’s not right for right now. Maybe someday, but not now.” Raven shrugged. “More to life than boys, you know? He’s cool, but I want to be a badass for a while before I worry about all of that.”
“I fully approve.” Clarke stared at the bench sitting a little ways in front of them, the weight of the pack on her back suddenly heavier than it was before. “I’m going to draw.”
Raven nodded once, smiling over at her. “I’m going to go wrangle the boys.”
The two of them crossed paths, high fiving each other with a brief laugh before moving toward their jobs. As Clarke pulled out her sketch pad, her pencil etching across the paper with a practiced ease, she felt strong, capable, like herself. The last few weeks she had been to hell and back, and though she knew she definitely wasn’t out of the gates yet, she finally felt like she truly knew that everything was going to be just the way it should be.
A few minutes later, as the edges of her sketch started to come together, the bench creaked to her right. She grinned over at Bellamy, stealing his hat and placing it on her own head. In response he wrapped his arm around her neck, placing a kiss on her cheek and half laying his head on hers.
“This feels good,” she declared.
“Yea?”
“Yea,” Clarke confirmed. “This feels like it could be the perfect end; after all the twists and turns, we finally made it here.”
“Princess, we still have to drive all of the way home.”
Clarke groaned. “I know. I’m just saying that this moment feels really… good.”
“Well, I’m glad.”
Bellamy stayed right at her side, doing nothing but looking out at the view in front of them. With the safety of his gaze somewhere else, Clarke allowed herself to skim her eyes over him. He felt so right next to her, and Clarke marveled at the fact that sometimes the things you actually deeply need were surprising, and in some ways Bellamy had been the most surprising thing she had ever experienced.
Despite what others had said about the two of them, it had been unexpected for Clarke, but now being familiar with the heat of him cuddled behind her, seeing the way Bellamy laid his eyes on her when he wasn’t aware she knew he was looking at her, she knew how right they were together. Her heart told her she was already half in love with him, but for right now she wanted to keep that happy secret all to herself.
Whatever went down when they got home, Clarke would fight for Bellamy through it all. She refused to touch the sun and pull back her hand to find it burned; she would rather be engulfed in the flames, have her and him go down together then leave something because it felt too dangerously real. Clarke had a sneaking suspicion, however, that she would have nothing to worry about. After the chaos and pain and suffering of the last few weeks, she figured they had maybe gone through some of the roughest moments already, and they had faced it all together.
“Mind if we join you?” Finn asked, sitting himself up on the table top instead of down on the seat with the two of them.
Raven and Wick came to the bench a foot or so away from theirs, sitting themselves down and gazing out in front of them. Clarke desperately wished she could have Octavia, Wells, Jasper and Monty, all of them there so they could see the scene in front of them but also do it together. There was something doubly beautiful about looking at the sun hit the Golden Gate Bridge with you friends at your side.
Clarke looked down at the beginnings of her sketch, the outline of the bridge and the lone figure looking down at it, and closed the book. She would finish it, but for right now she didn’t feel the need to.
“You done?” Bellamy asked. Clarke nodded.
“Yes,” she replied. “But let’s just… enjoy this for a little more, ok?”
“I think that sounds like an excellent idea,” Raven spoke, placing her elbows back on the table and reaching her face up to the sun for a brief second. “Why rush?”
The breeze picked up, blowing Clarke’s hair into her face, and something in the air brought a smile, like a buzz of magic she couldn’t ignore. Bellamy’s hand found her own without her even asking for it, and Clarke smiled briefly up to the sky, letting her father know that she knew he had forgiven her for everything, and letting him know that she had forgiven herself, too.
“Why rush,” Clarke agreed, laying her head onto Bellamy’s shoulder. The moment sat in front of them, unbidden, free, like a fruit sitting right there for the taking.
So they let it sit, ripe and ready, for just a little bit longer.