Chapter Text
The air inside the greenhouse was thick and stifling, and the humidity made Clarke’s ponytail frizz where it escaped out the back of her baseball cap. She’d owned Arkadia Floral & Garden Supply ever since she was 21, but even though she was on her fourth season, she hadn’t quite gotten used to the constant moisture needed to keep her plants alive.
Arkadia Floral had belonged to her father; it was one of his side projects that had kept him busy while he wasn’t working his usual government job. Even though he wasn’t in the same department as her mother, her father had never had the dedication her mother had. He didn’t discuss policies over dinner, and when he left the office, he left his work with it. The nursery was his true love, his way to put all his work for the environment into practice. He’d left it to Clarke when he passed away, knowing that Abby would never give it the care it deserved. Clarke hadn’t considered doing anything else with her life since. Arkadia Floral was all that was important to her, and she loved her job.
It was early in the season still, only mid-March, so she had minimal staff on hand. Raven was up in the front, organizing displays and manning the registers, and she had Jasper and Monty puttering around cleaning the flood tables for the new plants and organizing the seedlings. All in all, it was looking to be a good season. She’d just hired a new girl that morning, a sweet thing named Maya, and the girl was a natural with plants. Harper would be starting later in the season, and Raven had just recommended a new girl to look into, as well.
Clarke was in the potting room, getting some of the annuals transplanted from their growing trays into bigger pots to go out for sale when the radio at her hip crackled and Raven’s voice came through the static.
“Hey, Clarke, there’s a customer at the cash asking to speak with the owner,” she said.
Clarke groaned. Arkadia might have been a small country town, but the residents knew surprisingly little about gardening. She always found herself educating her customers on the plants they were choosing to buy, constantly having to explain that they need to go on more than just “they look pretty”. It was probably a customer looking to complain about something he’d bought that had died. That happened a lot. The previous week, she’d had a customer come in asking to return an open package of carrot seeds because they were defective. The customer said that his carrots weren’t growing. He’d purchased the seeds a week before, and Clarke had to explain that even if the ground had been warm enough to not kill his seeds on contact, it would take at least until August for him to be able to harvest full-sized carrots. The man had left in a huff saying he’d just go buy organic at the grocery store because it was a lot less work. She and Raven had had a good laugh about it.
“Got it,” she said into her radio. “Be right there.”
She wiped the dirt from her hands onto her apron and walked back into the main greenhouse, the one open to the public. Rather than finding an irritated customer standing at the counter, she spotted a familiar face, one that she hadn’t seen in more than seven years. She took advantage of the fact that he hadn’t seen her yet as she walked up to take in how much he’d changed since high school. His shoulders had gotten broader, more muscular, even until his thick flannel. His hair had always been tamed, gelled back into perfection, but now it hung in loose curls, down around his ears and to his eyes. As she watched, he swiped a strand out of his face. His freckles had stayed the same, spanning across the bridge of his nose and his high cheekbones.
“Bellamy Blake,” Clarke said with a slow smile as she came into view. “I haven’t seen you since high school.”
He looked taken aback. “Clarke!” he said, not meeting her eyes. “I didn’t know you ran this place.”
“I didn’t know that you knew anything about me,” she said with easy confidence. “You were kind of a dick back then.”
“Octavia says I still am,” he said with a laugh.
Raven walked away with a smirk clear on her face, though Bellamy’s back was turned, and he couldn’t see. “What can I do for you?” Clarke asked, going back to familiar turf.
She really looked at him then, and took in his bloodshot eyes, the dark crescent that showed that he hadn’t had a good sleep in a long time, the lines on his face that made him look older than twenty-seven.
“I just moved back to down. My, uh, my mom,” his voice trailed off.
“She passed away,” Clarke filled in, having seen the obituary in the newspaper not long ago. Her heart had ached for her friend that she hadn’t seen since graduation and her older brother. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” he said, but Clarke knew it was a lie. No one was ever okay when they lost a parent. “I’m getting used to it. But she left me her house, and she was always gardening. There are these flowerbeds in the front and a huge vegetable garden in the back that I have no idea what do to with, but they were her pride and joy, so I’d really love to keep them going. I know she used to start around this time, but I have no idea what she’d do or what I need, so I was hoping you could help me out.”
“Okay,” Clarke said. Plants she could do; talking about losing a parent with Bellamy Blake, not so much. “So, flowerbeds. Do you know what kind of plants she has out there already? Any perennials, or are they all annuals? I know it’s a bit early to tell, but do you have any idea?”
He huffed out a laugh. “I don’t even know what those words mean.”
She smiled. “Do they die every year and she plants new ones in the spring, or do they grow back on their own?”
“Both, I think.”
“Okay, that’s a start. It’s a bit early for the perennials to start coming up, but in a few weeks, you should start to be able to see what you have going on and where you need to fill in some spots. Do you have any idea what you might want?”
“I was a jock in high school, Clarke, and now I have a history degree. Do I look like the kind of guy who knows flowers?” he said jokingly.
“I guess you don’t. It’s still early in the growing season, so we don’t have much out, but in about a month, we’ll have a lot of flowers in bloom, and you can come in and see what you like, or bring Octavia and have her decide.”
His smile faded. “I think it’s best if Octavia stays away. She’s not really taking this well.”
“I’m sorry,” Clarke said again. Even after losing her father, she didn’t know what else to say, because there was nothing anyone could say to make it hurt any less. “If I remember right, Aurora used to start her plants from seeds herself, so that’s probably why she would have been here this early. If you want to give it a try, I can show you everything that you’d need to start the plants – it would be vegetables at this time of year – if you’re up to it, but it’s a lot of work, so if you don’t have all the time to dedicate to it, we grow a lot of plants from seeds here in the greenhouse, so you can always pick up seedlings in May and put them right in the ground.”
“I think that would be best. I don’t know if I’m that great at keeping things alive.”
Clarke chuckled. “You’d be surprised how often I hear that in here.”
“Yeah?” he asked, leaning against the counter, his arms crossed loosely over his chest.
“So often,” she said. “You’d also be surprised to hear how many people think pumpkins are ready to harvest in June.”
“I might not know much about gardening, but I know that pumpkins are definitely a fall thing, if only because Octavia starts bugging me about pumpkin spiced lattes in September.”
Clarke smiled at the memory of her friend. A customer walked in then, and Clarke gave her a welcoming grin. “Hi, welcome to Arkadia Floral. My name is Clarke. Let me know if I can help you in any way.”
“I should let you get back to work,” Bellamy said, sounding a bit sad.
“If you find any pictures of her garden set-up in the last few years, bring them in, and I can get you a list of some of the things you’ll need.”
Bellamy brightened back up. “You’d do that?”
“It’s kind of my job,” Clarke teased.
He rolled his eyes. “I’ll look around and see if I can’t find anything. Thank you, Princess.”
Clarke groaned at the nickname Bellamy and his friends used to call her when they made fun of her for being Senator Griffin’s daughter, though the name didn’t hold any malice anymore.
“I’ll see you, soon,” he said as he reached the door.
“See you soon,” she answered, but he was already gone.