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February 2009
When Clarke is eleven years old, she sits on the floor of her best friend’s bedroom, moving closer to Octavia to peer over the young girl’s shoulder. They huddle close together and gossip quietly about the marks that cover the pages in front of them.
“Why doesn’t Bellamy let you look at these?” Clarke asks the brunette beside her.
“He thinks soulmarks are stupid,” Octavia scoffs and rolls her eyes.
“Yeah, but look at how pretty that one is!” Clarke says, pointing to the glittery silver rose on Emma Watson’s shoulder blade. Its lack of inky black lines indicate that she hadn’t yet found out who her soulmate was at the time the picture was taken. “I wonder how they covered it up in Harry Potter.”
“I don’t know. Mom has tried all the stuff they sell at the drugstore to cover up soulmarks, and nothing works.”
“Do you think we’ll get one?” Clarke asks, whispering as though the marks are a big secret.
“Clarke, everyone gets a soulmark.”
“No, not everyone! My dad doesn’t have one, remember?”
“Do you think your parents will stay together forever, even though they’re not soulmates?”
“I don’t know. They love each other. Dad always kisses Mom when he comes home from work. It’s gross. Oh, my god,” Clarke laughs. “What if Bellamy gets a soulmate.”
She and her friend burst into a fit of giggles. “Ew,” Octavia says, screwing up her face. “Then someone will have to kiss Bell.”
Clarke falls over in her laughter, tears pooling in the corner of her eyes. “But he’s always so angry! No one would want to spend their life with a grump like him!”
Octavia sobers. “Why do you think my parents didn’t?” she asks, a hint of sadness in her voice.
“I don’t know, O. Sometimes things don’t work out, even if people are soul--”
She doesn’t get to finish her sentence as the door to Octavia’s bedroom opens. Bellamy is the only other person home, keeping an eye on his younger sister and her friend while his mother finishes the midnight shift at the diner down the road. Clarke looks up at the fourteen-year old boy, and tries to stammer out a coherent sentence as he glares at the magazine that Octavia his quickly tucking away.
“Were-were we being too loud?” she tries sheepishly.
“O, give me the magazine,” Bellamy says, ignoring Clarke and holding his hand out.
“But we’re not doing anything wrong!” Clarke protests.
“Octavia,” Bellamy demands again, his voice flat.
“Bellamy, come on! It’s just a magazine!”
“Octavia, we’re not having this discussion again,” her older brother snaps. “You know Mom’s rules. No soulmate crap in this house.”
“You’re not Mom!” Octavia shouts. “Just because she wasn’t happy with her soulmate doesn’t mean that we don’t get to be excited about ours! You’re going to get one, too, Bellamy! Why are you always so stupid about this?”
“Did you just call me stupid? I’ll call Mom, and we can end this sleepover right now if you don’t give me the magazine.”
“Bellamy! Stop it! You’re not in charge of us! You’re just fourteen!”
“Octavia Marie Blake. Give me the magazine. Right now.”
To Clarke’s chagrin, Octavia lowers her eyes and sighs, handing over the magazine to her brother.
“You know the rules, O,” Bellamy says quietly. “Mom doesn’t like it when we talk about soulmates.”
“It’s dumb,” Octavia says petulantly.
“You’ll understand one day.”
“No, I won’t, because my soulmate is going to love me, and I’ll love them.”
“It’s not always that easy,” Bellamy says sadly.
“It can be.”
July 2011
The first time that Clarke realizes that she has a crush on Bellamy Blake, she’s thirteen and at the beach with her best friend. She lies in the sand next to Octavia, eyes closed and face turned upwards towards the sun. Bellamy is sixteen and suddenly not as lanky as she remembers him. His voice is deeper, muscles more defined, and his wild curls fall into his eyes. He and his friends are swimming, out of earshot, so Clarke asks the question that’s been on her mind since the moment Bellamy took off his shirt and her mouth went dry.
“Do you think it’s okay to date someone before you find out who your soulmate is?”
The topic has always been a controversial one. Many believe that you should wait until your twentieth birthday, when you get your soulmark, to even consider being in a relationship with someone. To have sex with someone who isn’t your soulmate, even to date someone who isn’t your soulmate, is frowned upon. A lot of people are of the belief that the universe knows who is perfect for a person, so you should save yourself for the person that you’re meant to spend your life with. To be with someone who isn’t your soulmate, even before getting your mark, is considered unfaithful.
Then there are those like Clarke’s parents, those who believe that everyone deserves to have a choice, regardless of what the marks say. Some people never get their marks, and even experts can’t explain why that happens sometimes, but those who are like her parents believe that everyone deserves happiness and love, even if they don’t have a mark. That’s how her parents ended up together. Jake Griffin never had a mark, and Abby Griffin never found her soulmate, but they did find each other, and they have yet to find a love stronger than the love that they have for each other.
Octavia rolls onto her stomach and turns her head to the side to look at Clarke. “You mean, do I think I want to save myself for just one person?”
“I don’t know. What if I meet my soulmate and I don’t like them. Or what if I find someone that I like right now and just don’t want to wait to find out if they’re my soulmate or not.”
“Clarke Griffin,” Octavia says, trying her best to look aghast. “Do you have a crush?”
Clarke can feel the blood rush to her cheeks as she tries her best to not look at the boys out in the water. “No, I just mean-”
“Clarke. You’re my best friend. And you’re bright red. Tell me! Who is it?” Octavia asks excitedly.
“It’s no one,” Clarke grumbles. “I was just wondering what you thought about all of it.”
“Yeah, sure, I bet it’s no one. I don’t know. If I really liked someone, maybe I’d do some stuff, but I don’t think I’d let it become serious, because I’d want to be with my soulmate.”
“But what if you try to not let it become serious and you get feelings anyways?”
“Is that what you’re afraid of?” Octavia asks.
“Yeah, because what if I really end up liking this person now and they’re not my soulmate? Maybe I wouldn’t leave them for my soulmate, but what if they leave me the second they find theirs? We could both end up with broken hearts. It would suck.”
“Wow, you’re really in deep with this guy. Does he go to our school?”
“I’m just trying to think of all the options before I go and get a stupid crush. How do you know it’s a guy? It could be a girl. My soulmate could be anyone.”
“I don’t know how I’d react if my soulmate was a girl. I’ve never pictured myself being with a girl before.”
“Yeah, but if the universe knows that she’s the best person out of absolutely everyone that could make you happy, then you should trust it, right?”
“I guess so.”
November 2014
An almost seventeen-year old Clarke sits around Octavia’s kitchen table with Harper and Monroe, each studying for a different midterm. Dates and names swirl around in Clarke’s mind in an incomprehensible mess as she stares at the history notes sprawled out in front of her on her portion of the small table.
“Ugh, this is useless,” she groans.
A feminine laugh trickles down the flight of stairs behind her, and all the girls turn to glare as Roma races down the stairs, followed closely by Bellamy, who’s now almost through his second year at the state college across town. Clarke watches as Bellamy catches Roma’s waist and pulls her against him, devouring her mouth in a hungry kiss.
“Your brother is gross ,” Harper says, her voice low. “It’s like he doesn’t even care that he’s going to get his soulmark soon.”
“I think that’s the whole point,” Octavia says, waving her pen dismissively. “He’s having a pre-soulmate crisis, trying to convince himself he can do whatever he wants, soulmate or no.”
“Exactly,” Bellamy says with a smile, reaching around Octavia to grab a cookie off the plate in the middle of the table. She swats at his hand.
“Shoot me,” Clarke mutters, letting her head fall against her open textbook. “I hate history. Its dumb, and all these people are dead. Why do I even need to learn this?”
Someone tugs sharply at the end of her braid. “History is important, Princess,” Bellamy says indignantly.
“Is not,” she snipes back. “They’re all dead. It’s over. Literally nobody cares.”
“I mean, I was going to offer to help you study, but nobody cares, so you can fail your midterm all by yourself.”
“No! Please! Help me!”
“Fine. Roma was just leaving, anyway,” he says, looking away from the blonde to glance at the girl in question, perched against the wall that separates the kitchen from the living room.
Roma scoffs haughtily and turns on her heel, not saying a word as she leaves. The teens sitting at the table look between Bellamy and Clarke, and Clarke tries not to focus on the way all the attention is turned towards her.
“Okay,” Bellamy says, “what’s the exam on?”
“No way,” Monroe interrupts. “I need to focus on my calculus. This is silent studying.”
“Fine by me,” Bellamy says, taking Clarke’s textbook and going to lounge on the couch in the other room. “Coming?” His eyebrow is raised in a challenge.
Clarke looks at her friends and shrugs before going to sit opposite Bellamy on the couch, ignoring the way her heart thumps at their proximity.
November 2014
Bellamy comes into the living room just as Clarke and Octavia are settling in to watch a movie.
“Bellamy!” Clarke shouts excitedly, jumping to her feet.
“Clarke!” he shouts back, mirroring her voice. “What are we shouting about?”
She laughs. “I got my grade back for my history midterm!”
“How’d you do?”
“Aced it,” she says, her eyes raised, teasing him.
He comes over and pulls her into a hug. “I knew you could do it,” he says into her hair.
Clarke hesitates but wraps her arms around him after a beat. “Thanks, Bell.”
“What are we watching?” he asks once he’s let go of Clarke, dropping down onto the couch between his sister and her best friend.
“Don’t you have plans with Roma and Bree tonight?” Octavia asks him.
“Nah, don’t feel like it. I’d rather hang out with you two dorks,” he says, throwing an arm around each of them and pulling them into his sides.
“Jerk,” Octavia says, pushing him away. “We’re watching Pitch Perfect.”
“Sweet,” he says.
Clarke doesn’t miss how he doesn’t pull away from her.
After that night, Clarke doesn’t know if she goes to the Blake house to spend time with Bellamy or Octavia. The three of them become closer than Clarke could have imagined, even with the three-year age difference.
March 2015
Clarke is seventeen when she runs from her car, tears streaming down her face and blurring her vision. She takes the steps up the Blake porch two at a time, throwing open the front door without even bothering to knock.
“Octavia?” she calls, her voice shaking.
“Clarke? What the--” Bellamy says, pulling away from the curly-haired brunette sitting in front of him on the couch. His hand is still up her shirt. “Shit, Princess, are you crying? What’s wrong? Are you okay?”
“Where’s Octavia?” is all Clarke can ask.
“She’s out running errands with Mom,” Bellamy says, coming over to her. “C’mere.”
He pulls Clarke into his chest, and Clarke buries her face against his shoulder, crying in earnest. Bellamy rubs his hand up and down Clarke’s back, making soothing noises and running his hand through her hair.
“I’m here, Clarke. It’s okay,”
Distantly, she can hear someone shuffling around the room and the front door closing, but she doesn’t care. She fists her hands into Bellamy’s shirt and holds him tight when he tries to move away.
“I’m not going anywhere, Princess. Come sit down.”
He drags her to the couch where he lets her tuck her legs under herself and curl against him, her face hidden against the crook of his neck. His fingers run through her hair until her tears run dry and she’s left sniffling in the silence of the living room.
“What happened?” he asks, his lips moving against her forehead.
“There was an accident,” she hiccups. “My dad, he… he didn’t…”
“Oh, Clarke,” he says, his arms going around her and holding her tightly.
Octavia comes home half an hour later and finds her best friend fast asleep against her brother as he rubs soothing circles on her back. From that moment on, Clarke and Bellamy are inseparable.
July 2015
Even though Bellamy is the best friend that Clarke has ever had, Octavia included, his twentieth birthday passes without much fanfare.
He doesn’t mention his soulmark. They celebrate his birthday quietly at the Blake house with a few close friends. There’s no loud music, no excessive drinking, no Bellamy leaving with a random girl. If not for the pattern of constellations that had appeared on his forearm when he’d woken up that morning, it could have been just any normal day.
Clarke looks up from a conversation with one of Bellamy’s friends, Miller, and finds him standing outside on the back porch, already watching her through the glass door. He smiles at her and looks away.
“I’ll be back in a minute,” she tells Miller, excusing herself and walking out through the patio door.
“Hey birthday boy,” she says, wrapping her arms around Bellamy’s torso from behind. “Look who’s old.”
“Just because I’m older than you doesn’t make me old Clarke.”
“Whatever you say, old man,” she teases before letting him go.
He turns to face her. “Having fun?” he asks genuinely.
“It’s your birthday. Are you having fun?”
He only smirks.
“Ready to meet your soulmate and fall in love?” she tries again.
He meets her eyes. “You don’t need a soulmate to fall in love.”
September 2017
When Clarke is nineteen, Octavia turns twenty and gets her soulmark. It’s silver and almost sparkles under the sunlight. Spirals and swirls cover her right shoulder and decorate her collar bone. Paired with the girl’s olive skin, it makes Octavia even more radiant.
Clarke is sitting at the kitchen table in the apartment she now shares with Octavia, her head bent over a textbook, pen tapping absently on the table as she takes in her syllabus and all that comes with her sophomore year of pre-med. The front door flies open.
“Clarke!” comes Octavia’s excited voice.
The first thing that Clarke notices when she looks up is the sharp contrast between Octavia’s skin and the newly black mark she boasts.
“Your soulmark!” Clarke gasps. “Who is he? She? They?”
“Him,” Octavia says softly, a delicate smile gracing her features. “I ran into him at the gym after class. His name is Lincoln, and he’s working on getting his teaching degree so that he can work with kids. He works part time at that cute cafe a couple blocks over, but he gave me his number, and he wanted mine, and we’re going out for dinner tonight to get to know each other.”
The excitement and happiness were so visible, written clearly all over each of Octavia’s features. Clarke couldn’t help but feel ecstatic that her friend had found the other half of her soul so soon after turning twenty. She’s known people who have gone their entire lives without meeting their soulmates, not for lack of trying.
She helps Octavia pick out what to wear, assuring her that her soulmate will love her regardless of what she looks like. Octavia insists on Clarke doing her hair nonetheless, and the girls make an afternoon of it.
Bellamy comes by not long after Octavia’s left. They’re both lounging on the couch watching Friends reruns when Bellamy speaks.
“How much did she tell you about him?” he asks.
“About as much as she knows,” Clarke says, running her fingers through her friend’s hair. “Stop worrying. It’s a first date. He’s her soulmate. It’ll be fine.”
“Just because they’re soulmates, doesn’t mean nothing can go wrong.”
“Bell,” Clarke sighs, but he’s right. Having someone who completes them doesn’t stop some people from being inherently bad people. Bellamy’s father was proof of that. “I’m sure she’ll be fine.”
“Thanks, Princess,” he says, bringing their laced fingers up to his mouth and kissing the back of her hand.
“What do you think it’s…” Clarke starts, but stops herself. “Nevermind.”
He sits up to look at her. “What do I think about what?”
“No, it’s nothing. It’s stupid.”
“Clarke,” he says softly.
“I was just going to ask you what you thought it was like to kiss someone, but then I remembered that you found out a long time ago.”
He hesitates. “You haven’t…? You’re waiting?”
“No,” she admits. “I wanted to wait for my soulmate.”
“But you and Lexa?”
“Why do you think she broke up with me?”
Bellamy looks away. “You never said anything.”
“It felt silly. I knew what she wanted, and I knew that I would never be able to give it to her, but I wanted to try anyway. I thought that we could be happy in the meantime.”
“Wait, you said that you wanted to wait. Have you changed your mind?”
She pulls away from him, looks down at her hands folded neatly in her lap. Bellamy reaches out to tilt her chin back up with his index.
“Clarke?” he asks quietly when she meets his eyes.
“What if I’m bad at it?” she whispers.
“Your soulmate won’t care,” he chuckles. “Besides, you’ll practice, and you’ll get better.”
She doesn’t say anything, tries to look back down.
“I’m scared,” she admits. “I want my first kiss to be with someone I trust.”
“You’ll get to trust your soulmate,” Bellamy says, his hand coming up to play with the ends of her hair as they both sprawl across the sofa.
“But what if they want something from me that I’m not ready to give yet?” she asks, moving closer to him so that he can hear her whispers.
“What if--” he starts, his hand resting on her cheek. Her breath hitches when his thumb skims her upper lip. “Clarke,” he breathes.
Clarke nods, swallows thickly.
“Do you want me to--”
He can’t finish his sentence, but Clarke knows what he’s asking, and she knows that she’s powerless to say no to the man that’s kept her company in endless dreams throughout the years she’s spent alone. She leans into his touch, and his other hand comes up to cradle her face. He looks into her eyes, and the proximity is so intimate that Clarke isn’t sure how she’s still breathing.
“I need you to say it, Clarke. I’m not going to kiss you if you don’t tell me to. You can still wait.”
She shakes her head between his large palms. “I want it to be you.”
He shifts on the couch to hover over her, leaning her back against the armrest, and slowly closes the distance between them, touching his lips softly to hers. Clarke’s hands go to his back as she lets herself taste him, feel the way his mouth moves sweetly against hers. His tongue darts out to brush against the seam of her lips, and Clarke gasps, opening to him, and meeting his tongue eagerly with hers.
Bellamy pulls away, gasping for breath.
“Clarke,” he says between heavy pants.
“Don’t stop. Not yet,” she says, stretching up for another kiss.
He presses her into the couch with his body, lets one of his hands find its way down to her waist as she reaches up to tangle her fingers in his hair. She sighs into his mouth when he nips at her lower lip, and lets herself get completely lost in how Bellamy is everywhere. He’s all that she can see and smell and hear and feel and taste. Everything in this moment begins and ends with Bellamy Blake.
February 2018
They don’t talk about the kiss after it happens. Bellamy left her apartment that night in September, and the next time he saw her, he acted as though nothing had happened, as though he didn’t know that Clarke’s heart was hammering so hard in her chest that she thought it might just break through her ribs. Octavia had always suspected that something had happened, but the look of sadness on Clarke’s face whenever Bellamy was brought up kept the boy’s sister from asking.
“It’s your birthday tomorrow!” Octavia says excited, bounding into the kitchen. “You excited?”
Clarke laughs. “It’s just a birthday.”
“It’s not just a birthday! It’s your twentieth birthday ! You get your soulmark tomorrow!” Clarke doesn’t say anything and goes back to the dishes she’s watching. “Clarke?”
“I’m just nervous,” Clarke admits. “I don’t know what to expect. Did you feel any different when you got yours?”
Octavia stops to think about her question. “I don’t think so. It was more when I met Lincoln that I felt something change.”
At the mention of her soulmate’s name, Octavia smiles softly and blushes. She’s so in love it would be sickening if Clarke didn’t care about her so much.
“ Octavia’s in love ,” Clarke singsongs.
“Would you hush?” Octavia says but can’t stop the ridiculous grin that spreads across her face. “You’ll be fine, Clarke. You might not even meet your soulmate right away. Nothing has to change tomorrow.”
Clarke dries her hands and turns to face her friend, refusing to meet her eyes. “What if… what if I’m already in love with someone, and they turn out to not be my soulmate?”
Octavia looks at her friend sadly, pulling her into a hug. “You know he feels the same way about you. The mark doesn’t have to mean anything.”
Clarke wraps her arms around Octavia’s small frame, tries to ignore the tears stinging her eyes. She sniffles before finding her voice. “How long have you known?”
“About you and Bellamy? Just since I met Lincoln, but I’ve known about his feelings for you for years.” Clarke pulls back to wipe away her tears and look up at her friend. “Come on. Let’s go get you ready for your party.”
Octavia has the entire apartment, not just the living room, decorated for Clarke’s birthday party in the same amount of time that it takes Clarke to shower, get dressed, and do her hair and makeup. Music pumps through speakers, and the kitchen table has been moved and rearranged to fit endless bottles of booze, more food than anyone can eat, and a cake in the center, decorated with sparkling silver icing.
She dances with her friends well into the night, laughs at Jasper’s ridiculous jokes, hoots and hollers with the others when Lincoln dips Octavia down for a kiss, but never for a second forgets that the one person she wants to spend her night with doesn’t make an appearance.
Monty finds her in a corner staring at her phone and waiting for an answer to her fifth unanswered text message.
“You okay?” he asks.
“Fine,” Clarke says, locking her phone and putting on a fake smile.
The more time passes, the more her good mood disappears. Bellamy doesn’t show up. He doesn’t text or call. The party dies down a little past midnight when others start to pick up on how withdrawn she is. She thanks them all for coming when they come say goodbye, and by one in the morning, it’s just her and Octavia left cleaning.
“You should go to bed,” Clarke tells her friend. “You did so much today. I don’t mind cleaning up.”
“Don’t be silly. It’s your birthday.”
Clarke means to say something else, but a knock at the door interrupts her.
“Wanna get that? Someone probably forgot their phone or something,” Clarke says, carrying food into the kitchen.
She’s wrapping up a bowl of nacho dip when footsteps follow her into the kitchen.
“So? Who was it?” Clarke asks.
“Uh… me,” a familiar gruff voice says, and Clarke turns to face Bellamy.
He’s wearing a heather gray t-shirt and jeans, his hair a ruffled mess as he runs his hand through it nervously. He looks down at his feet, won’t meet her eyes.
“Party’s over. You missed it,” she says dismissively and turns away from him.
“Clarke,” he sighs. “I’m sorry.”
“For what? It was just my twentieth birthday party. No big deal.”
“Clarke,” he tries again, catching her wrists as she walks back from putting a bowl in the fridge. “Please.”
She looks up into his eyes, and he looks sad, defeated. “What, Bell?” She’s not ready to forgive him yet.
“I should have been here. I wanted to come, but…”
“But what?”
He reaches up to hold her face between his palms, and Clarke sucks in a breath, steps back until her hip bumps the edge of the counter. He follows her, and she leans into his touch.
“It’s after midnight. Do you have your mark yet?”
When she shakes her head, he leans down and kisses her softly. Clarke sighs and melts against him, her arms locking around his neck as she pulls him closer. He runs his hand down her side to her hip and squeezes it affectionately before pulling back.
“I haven’t been able to stop thinking about doing that again since the night you let me kiss you,” he admits. He slides one hand into her hair and scratches lightly at her scalp. Clarke closes her eyes and leans into his touch. “I didn’t want to be here tonight to watch you get your mark and realize I’d never be able to have you.”
“Bellamy,” she breathes, pulling him down for another kiss, a gesture he happily obliges.
They trade sweet kisses in the quiet of Clarke’s kitchen until she has to pull away and catch her breath. Bellamy uses his thumb to swipe away tears she hadn’t realized were falling. She finds his hand and links their fingers together, pulling him towards her room.
“Wait,” he says.
“Remember how you told me that you don’t need a soulmate to fall in love?” she asks him, and he grins before following her.
They lie awake talking for half the night, legs tangled together under the blankets, trading whispered confessions and secrets, making sure to keep virtually no space between each other.
“What are we going to do when my mark shows up?” Clarke asks as she’s falling asleep.
Bellamy kisses her shoulder. “It doesn’t matter,” he says, wrapping his arm around her and pulling her against his chest. Clarke laces her fingers through his. “You’re my best friend, and I love you. We’ll make this work.”
“Promise?” she asks sleepily.
“I promise.”
She smiled and tucks herself against him, falling asleep almost instantly.
February 2018
Clarke wakes up the morning after her birthday party to Bellamy tracing his finger absentmindedly across the tops of her shoulders, focusing on a divot in her spine just below the base of her skull. She giggles.
“That tickles.”
He doesn’t answer her. Instead, he lets his palm splay overtop of her spine, his fingers massaging her neck.
“Good morning, Princess,” he says, kissing her neck.
“Good--”
Her words die in her throat, interrupted by what she sees on Bellamy’s forearm. She pulls their joint hands away from her chest so that she can better look at his mark. She watches as the sparkling silver color retreats and the constellations are remarked in black as dark as night.
“Your mark!” she gasps.
He kisses her spine just under where his hand had been a moment ago. She turns in his arms to face him.
“My--?”
He grins, nodding. “They match.”
“We’re…?” He smiles broadly, nodding. “We’re soulmates?”
“You’re my soulmate,” he confirms, pulling her tightly against his chest.
Clarke lets out a loud, ecstatic laugh as she flings her arms around him. “You’re my soulmate,” she says happily.
He lies her back down on her pillow and kisses her despite the smiles neither can keep off their faces. It’s messy and both are laughing, but it’s better than all of the kisses she’s ever had. The realization that she’s been with her soulmate since she was nine years old warms her heart, almost as much as Bellamy telling her that he loves her does.