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Clarke Griffin is twenty-seven years old and she's sitting in her car in front of the church. Chances are, she's going to be a married woman before the day is done.
There's just one tiny little problem.
Her fiance is a cheating scumbag.
No sermons from her mother on good men making mistakes can't change the fact that she doesn't want to get married anymore.
Finn Collins lost his chance when she caught him red-handed with the pretty brunette mechanic two towns over, and he only had the decency to say:
"I love you both, baby."
Well, Raven Reyes keyed his car and Clarke has half a mind to take a knife to the leather seats where he first kissed her.
The church bells are ringing and Mrs Green peeks out through the door, calling to Clarke.
"Clarke, honey, come on! Can't start the wedding without our bride!"
"Sure thing, Mrs Green! I'll be right there!"
She even waves for posterity but there she is, sitting in her beat up truck in a pretty white dress, feeling like she's just been in a fight. Three broken ribs and all.
Then a switch flips inside of her.
"No, honey, don't go! Clarke!"
Now there's a whole ruckus in the church and she's motoring it out of there, speeding like a bat out of hell. In the rearview, she sees Finn run out into the street.
She doesn't have any money on her, but she's got a 250k ring and enough gas to take her out of the state, which counts for something.
It isn't until she's blown past Polis that it hits her.
He cheated on her.
They've been together for three years. She brought him breakfast in bed. He told her he loved her every night. They met each other's weird second cousins. He popped the question in the most romantic place on Earth: the top of the Empire State.
But as soon as they'd come to their hometown to get married, he went ahead and screwed it all up.
The music on the radio is blasting loud enough and she's swearing with tears in her eyes, so she can't hear the sirens at first.
"Fuck."
The cop is right on her tail so she pulls over, turns the engine off and stares right ahead with her hands on the wheel.
"Ma'am, are you aware you were driving 150 on an 80 road? License and- Clarke, is that you?"
When she turns, she gets an eyeful and she thinks she should've stayed in the church because letting Bellamy Blake see her ugly crying is not how she imagined this day going.
"Clarke, what-"
Then he sees the dress, the mascara tracks under her eyes, and the diamond glinting in the passenger seat.
"I heard you were in town for the wedding. Guess that didn't work out, huh?"
That's an understatement so she laughs, pulling out the documents she keeps in the glovebox.
"He fucked a mechanic in TonDC. I ran away."
Bellamy still looks like he doesn't know what to say.
Behind them, she can hear honking and shouts which can only mean they're coming to get her.
"Listen, Bellamy," she tries, swatting away at the tears making her vision fuzzy, and addressing him like she would in high school, "I know you're a cop and all, but I'd really, really appreciate it if you could let me go. I've got a posse of angry families comin' after me and if you don't mind, I'd rather not see the lying dirtbag right now."
When he doesn't say anything and the noises come closer, Clarke adds, "Write me a ticket and take my license but please, help me."
It takes him two seconds flat to tap the hood of her trusty Ford, adjust his hat, and then say: "Alright, here's what's going to happen. You're gonna put that ring back where it belongs, and you'll back the truck on up. Then you're coming with me and I'll drive you wherever you need to be."
Beaming, she says, "Yes, sir."
She shoves the ring in her bra, much to Bellamy's amusement, puts the truck in reverse and makes sure it's hidden behind the abandoned gas station building.
Then she comes to sit in his car and it's a good thing, too, because right then they're passed by an army of BMWs and Chevys on their way to retrieve a runaway bride.
She and Bellamy start laughing as soon as they're out of sight, the kind of laughter that makes her forget she's sitting in a cop car in her wedding dress.
Finally, Bellamy turns to her and in a moment of euphoria turned honey, wipes tears off her cheek, lingering to twist a curl or two.
"I'm really sorry, Princess. Where can I take you?"
It hits her like a two-ton truck. She doesn't have anywhere she could go. She's lived with Finn for the past couple of years, has virtually no friends who weren't at the church and whose houses he wouldn't think to look.
She's alone and it makes her start crying again.
Bellamy panics, whipping a handkerchief out of somewhere, and she blows her nose loudly.
"I don't have anywhere, Bellamy. You can drop me at the motel, but we gotta hit the pawn shop first so I can trade this," she produces the ring out of her bra as Bellamy gentlemanly looks away, "for some cash. It's not stealing, right?"
"Not when the fucker cheated on you it isn't." Then he bites his lower lip, a crease forming between his brows, mulling something over. "Look, I don't feel comfortable leaving you in a motel. How about you stay with me for a few days? Just until all of this blows over."
"You still have that house above the Grounders?"
Bellamy smiles. "I sure do. Octavia left, mom died five years ago, but the homestead is still alive and kicking."
"Then don't mind if I do. I make a mean margarita. Can't cook for shit, though. Sorry." She throws him an apologetic glance. Finn always hated her cooking. Said she was like a toddler with an Easy Bake oven.
"It's alright," he smiles back at her, soft, and then turns over the engine. "Can't believe Clarke Griffin's offering to cook for me."
She beams back at him, tears long forgotten. She's gotten away and that's all that matters.
***
By the time they make it to the Blake homestead, Clarke is aching and shaking and it takes half a bottle of whiskey to make her feel better again.
All the while, Bellamy does his best to help but between his tacos and some good old heartache-relieving whiskey, she's always going to choose whiskey.
You can chase a girl out of the South but you can't chase the South out of a girl.
"You still drink like a cowboy," he teases when she's calmed down enough to flash him a watery smile.
"You still have the best whiskey."
"We make it ourselves."
The Blakes were always a family of strong headed women. All their husbands went off to die in wars and they were left holding down the forts, and hold them down they did.
Aurora Blake has been the talk of the town ever since she chased a fox out of the chicken coop with a shotgun. When she was ten years old.
The Blake women (and Bellamy) made their own food, whiskey, and luck.
Clarke's always loved them.
"Right, Princess, you wanna get out of that dress?" Then, realizing what it must've sounded like, Bellamy Blake blushes right down to his neck. "I mean, I still have some of Octavia's clothes lying around."
"I'd love that. Thank you, Bellamy."
She takes the bottle to the bathroom where she starts crying again because her mother promised she would be happy with Finn ("They're a good family, Clarke.") but she wasn't, and she was running away, and the fucking corset was pressing on her lungs-
She lets out an anguished scream that makes Bellamy come running.
"What's wrong? Clarke? Are you alright?"
"No! Can't take this," she pulls at the straps and they don't budge, "fucking," she pulls at the front and nothing happens, "bodice," she takes a swig of whiskey, "off."
She tells him to come in when he knocks and there they are, standing in the bathroom where she was last when she was seventeen and drunk on moonshine and Bellamy's cockiness.
This time, though, he doesn't smirk when he sees her.
"You need help?"
"Please."
He undoes the straps swiftly, leaving her staring just a little with her hands full of her breasts. Bellamy looks away anyway, even though it isn't anything he hasn't seen before.
"You sure know how to undress a girl, Bellamy Blake."
At that, he does laugh and Clarke slides one of Octavia's old sweaters on her, as well as a pair of booty shorts. Hasn't worn that kind of clothing since she was in high school and running charity car washes.
"If you're hungry, I'm cooking. I'll need that whiskey, too."
She follows him down, already feeling much better. The dress is still crumpled in the bathroom, her phone thrown down the toilet when it wouldn't stop ringing and there'll be hell to pay but not today.
Today, she sits on the Blakes' kitchen counter and pours whiskey into Bellamy's pot whenever he tells her to.
He's changed out of his uniform, too. In a T-shirt and jeans, he looks like a regular cowboy Casanova.
He's aged but not much; still has that same glint in his eye that makes her trust him. There's always been something honorable about him, even when they were stealing Jaha's horses in the dead of night.
"You can cook. Didn't know that. Didn't know you'd become a cop either."
He smirks this time, stirring the pot and adding some cardamom to the chili. He brings a wooden spoon to her mouth to taste and she makes the mistake of looking him in the eye as she does. He swallows heavily and she mumbles, "Great" with her mouth full.
The dinner is easy, but then his phone rings.
"It's Miller," he mouths. "Clarke Griffin ran away from her wedding? Well, I'll be damned! That bastard must've done something bad to deserve it. Yeah, I'll let you know if I see her."
He hangs up and then they're laughing hysterically again, feeling like they're getting away with something.
"Are you harboring a fugitive, Mister Blake?"
There's a glint in his eye when he says, "I might be."
They take their dessert - whiskey and homemade ice cream - to the porch. Clarke sits on the highest step and looks on towards the purple sunset.
"They don't get this kind in New York," she whispers, pulling at her red cowboy boots. Boots she kept. Boots she wore as she hit the gas pedal so hard her truck roared.
The homestead isn't as huge as she remembers it being, but there's enough room for at least twenty people working hard to be self-reliant.
They don't have that kind of people in New York, either.
"The stables are still there," she says, smiling at the memories. They slept off too many drunken nights in the hay. They'd find them the next day, her mom showing up to load her into her Camaro and take her home for a ball or something.
"No horses, though. After Octavia left, there was no point in keeping them. The Millers have Cindy Lou and Hillbilly Joe."
The names have always been Clarke's favorite part. Leave it to Octavia Blake to make a graceful horse sound goofy.
"You a sheriff now?"
"Might become one in a few years. Pike's retiring as it is, and I have to put my law school to use somehow."
"You went to law school?"
Bellamy grins. "Harvard. Graduated summa cum laude."
"And you still came back to Arkadia?"
"So did you," he reminds her and she knows the feeling. The world was all well and good, but there was no place like home. If it weren't for Finn, she'd be running a store right by the market.
They don't speak for a while. It begins to sink in for Clarke, that she actually ran away. She doesn't do these kinds of things but it was just the straw that broke the camel's back. Finn was always too sharp on his tongue and too quick on his eye to be as good as everyone was making him out to be.
And she may have sounded like she came straight from the South, but she had a good mind on her. Plenty of common sense and business savvy. There wasn't a deal she couldn't close.
Still, she knew she'd have to leave the fancy C-suite titles to Finn. He always minded that she earned more than him and, from what his mother told her, Clarke would have to fight tooth and nail to hang on to her ambition.
It was these little things that pricked at her even before she saw him with Raven.
"Bellamy, you wouldn't mind if your wife earned more than you, right?"
He stirs from deep thought, leaning back on his elbows, and shakes his head immediately. "No. More power to her. Why?"
"Just somethin' I was thinking. Don't worry."
"Did Finn mind?"
She purses her lips but she nods. It's not like she has to keep secrets in front of Bellamy. She never has.
"How the hell did you end up with him, Princess? Doesn't seem like your type."
It's a long story but when she really thinks about it, it all comes down to two Arkadians being lonely in the big city. She tells Bellamy, ready for him to laugh but the sound never comes.
He just looks sad.
"Three years, huh?"
"Yup. Not all of them were bad." There was the time when he flew all the way from Panama to visit her because she said she missed him. And the time he slept in the hospital until she was discharged after an accident.
She tells Bellamy everything because it's Bellamy.
She's always told him everything.
"Those are some fine memories, I agree. But sometimes they're just that - memories. And when you hold on to the person from them, Princess, you lose sight of the person in front of you."
"A no-good cheating asshole?"
Bellamy chuckles, running a comforting hand down her calf. "Something like that, yeah. Come on, let's get you to bed."
She sleeps in Octavia's old bedroom, all the keepsakes from their childhood right there, plastered on the walls.
Bellamy lingers at the door, like he wants to say something but Clarke is tired, tired and small and full of aching so she asks: "Could you stay with me? Please?"
"I was never the one to say no to you, Princess."
He climbs in the bed with her, like he did so many times when they were young and for a second, nothing has changed. They are seventeen and halfway done falling in love. When he wraps his arms around her, she still fits.
***
In the morning, he leaves coffee for her on the kitchen table and a note saying:
Found the phone in the toilet. Getting you a new one. Food is in the fridge, the homestead is yours for the day. Call me if you need anything.
They have a landline phone so she calls just to tell him she got the message and to apologize for the phone.
"If my phone rang to the tune of Old Town Road, I'd have thrown it down the toilet, too."
She keeps herself busy unlocking and locking all the buildings. His grandma's tractor is still parked in one of the stables and Clarke remembers him teaching her how to drive it.
"You're a natural," he beamed then, his hands on hers, a lapful of Clarke Griffin as his family cheered them on. He even showed her how to drift, Fast and Furious: Country Edition.
The homestead is full of potential and she has to keep herself in check to stop the idea running from her. Corn and seasonal produce on the slope, a few sheds transformed into cabins, eco tourism, cows they'd milk-
Not her farm, she reminds herself again and goes back to thinking about the ring haunting her from the bedroom.
She'll need to figure out her life now, she knows. She can even give him the ring back, as soon as he hands over her things from the apartment. She can always come back and live in her grandparents' house, she figures. It'd need work but it's a roof over her head - a roof left to her.
She's got a life and a business plan by the time two cars pull into the homestead. As soon as she hears the tires screech on the gravel, Clarke grabs Aurora's shotgun and goes out to meet them.
One of them is a police cruiser and the other is…
Her truck.
She drops the shotgun and runs over to her truck, caressing every inch of its rickety hood with the red paint peeling off.
"You brought it back!"
Bellamy beams at her and she looks at the cruiser then, sees Miller stepping out first and then -
"Mom?"
She turns immediately, glaring at Bellamy. "You promised-"
"I know, but hear her out, Clarke."
Her mom hugs her immediately, patting down every inch of her to make sure she's alive and well. She is, but no thanks to her.
"Clarke, honey, I know you don't want to go back. Bellamy told me everything. I just wanted to see you. I'm so sorry for… For pushing you into this."
Bellamy's jaw ticks and he moves imperceptibly closer to Clarke. She feels safe with her own damn self here, but it's easier with Bellamy here, too.
"Finn was lying. The bank is foreclosing on the New York apartment."
Figures. Finn and his family were always vague about their dealings. Clarke couldn't find a legitimate financial report to save her life.
"So that's why you're sorry? Because his family didn't have money and you told me a prenup wasn't necessary?"
It hits home, even if her mom is keeping her dignity intact. Always a lady. Even when she's looking to grow her investment portfolio with a marriage.
"Clarke, that's ridiculous. We're not talking about that here. I wanted to ask if you wanted to keep the apartment."
"Nope," she pops the p too, crossing her arms at her chest.
"Where are you going to live?"
"I don't know."
"Well, when are you coming back?"
"I don't know."
Her mother purses her lips. "Fine. Blake, keep her safe."
"Yes, ma'am."
As she slides back into the cruiser, her mom adds, "Very unbecoming of you to be living with a bachelor right after calling off a wedding, Clarke."
"You know me, mom. I love shackin' up with random men after my fiances cheat on me."
They're off faster than they came and then Clarke is sliding down the grill of her truck, feeling its warmth seep into her bones.
Bellamy's right there next to her, his arms around her shoulders and his uniform catching stains.
"Hey, Princess, it's going to be alright. You can stay here for as long as you'd like. Propriety be damned."
She wipes her eyes on her sweater and looks at him. "You're sure?"
"It's as much your home as it is mine. Nana wanted to leave it to you. Said, that Griffin girl cares about this damn farm more than you do."
"You could make a decent living with eco tourism here, Bellamy," she sobs out. "People in NY pay forty bucks just to hug a cow."
He runs his thumbs under her eyes, making her vision clear up a little. "See? Nana Blake was right."
He heats her up some of last night's chili and they sit on the porch again. Her truck is looking at her like it has something good to say but the timing ain't right.
"You ever wonder what would've happened if we just stayed here?"
Bellamy hums, lazily tracing patterns on the small of her back. They can just pretend like this, pretend she wasn't going to get married yesterday, pretend that she would've called to let him know.
"We'd have gotten married. I'd have knocked you up right off the bat," he deadpans and she laughs a little hysterically. "I don't know. We'd have been different people."
High school sweethearts somehow always turned into toxic marriages, the poisonous vines curling around their necks until there was no love left anymore. Just resentment and pain.
They'd seen plenty.
When she was a little girl, Clarke even thought the Blake women were lucky. They didn't have husbands to drag them down. They could do as they damn well pleased.
"We'd have a pack of kids, I think."
"We wanted to," he says, smiles wistfully. In this light, she can't mistake him for seventeen. They'd done a lot of growing in the last ten years.
There were a lot of things they wanted when they were young. In the end, they realized it was better to go off on their separate paths. No one would be holding anyone back. And if destiny put them back together, well... then they were both there to stay.
They cried a lot on the night of their breakup but it made sense. Clarke felt the wrong kind of free but she felt free still.
Over time, they lost touch.
Her life was moving at the speed of light, she changed phone numbers and at some point they hadn't talked for so long that it didn't make sense to add his number all over again.
When she came into town for the wedding, she never thought to call. He was either gone or married, and both cases meant that they weren't meant to be.
The fact that she knew she'd leave Finn in a heartbeat if Bellamy was there and single only complicated things further.
"We had good dreams when we were younger. Maybe we should've stuck by them."
Bellamy smiles into the skin of her shoulder, presses a featherlight kiss there. "We'll never know. But we're here now so Princess, whichever way you want me, I'm here. If you need a friend, I've got you. If you need…"
He swallows thickly and she watches his Adam's apple bob. It's funny, been ten years and he's still her idea of a dream partner.
But it's too soon and so she only presses a kiss to his cheek, feeling his skin warm up immediately.
"I know. Not now but… someday, definitely. I'll take you on a date and romance you proper, Bellamy Blake."
He frowns. "Those are supposed to be my lines."
"We do everything wrong, don't we?"
***
Clarke's not sure how her life turns into this but there it is:
She finds a job managing the grocery store downtown. It pays a fraction of what she earned in NY but she gets to see people she cares about every day.
Bellamy comes around after months of her begging him to take her money and revive the homestead.
The first week after they bring in the horses, dozens of kids come around to pet them and their parents even say they hope they'll have riding lessons.
Clarke turns her grandparents' house into Arkadia's first art gallery. Murphy, the local car (and other substance) dealer, is the first to buy a piece and say he'd like to take a painting class someday.
She still lives with Bellamy months later and they never comment on it. They don't comment on the fact that they sleep together but never really touch. They know they work together perfectly in every sense of the word so a kiss is just a matter of time, and they're both too patient to rush a moment that's coming down the line.
Her mom asks her when she's coming back home until Clarke tells her she has a job, an art gallery, and a farm to run.
She doesn't ask again after that.
Raven Reyes comes into town a few months after the wedding and Clarke stares at her down the barrel of Aurora's shotgun until she realizes who she is and they get so ridiculously plastered that Bellamy has to confiscate Raven's car keys as an officer of the law.
Finn, Clarke finds out a year later, now builds houses in the North. The authorities caught on to his family and now he's doing community service because it's not like they're left with any money. She sends him the ring back and he cries on the phone.
The world keeps moving but at the end of the day, Clarke's a runaway bride with a farm, friends, solid businesses, and…
"What are we exactly?" she asks Bellamy one night, tucked into his chest. She can feel his heart beating in tune with her own. "Because Mrs Jordan asked me if we're getting married soon."
"What did you tell her?" His voice is laced with sleep, but with humor, too.
"I said yes."
Bellamy kisses the top of her head. "Good."
He gets down on his knee three days later in the stables. Clarke is dirty, up to her knees in horse muck, and he's smiling at her like the sun comes out of her ass.
She loves him so much her heart could burst.
They get married the following month, a small affair that requires Octavia to fly in from China, the sense of adventure still in her hair as she hugs Clarke.
Bellamy teases her mercilessly about running away the night before, even as she shoos him to Miller's. Tradition is tradition.
"If you're so afraid, put a patrol on the roads."
He raises an eyebrow at her. "So someone can steal you away like I did? No way."
Their vows are short because there is so much to say but only to each other. She comes to her wedding wearing bright red cowboy boots and Bellamy laughs through tears when he sees her.
It doesn't occur to her that it will be the first time she's kissed him in ten years but they smile through it, falling together perfectly as she knew they would.
Her life is smaller now, but greater for it. Every part of it fills its shape completely. She has a good man she loves sitting in the truck next to her, and life is good.
Clarke Griffin is twenty-nine years old and she's sitting in her car in front of the church.
Chances are, she's going to live a long and happy life.