Archive of Our Own

December 26

Murphy is still in bed, not asleep, when his roommates return home in the early afternoon. He hears the slam of the door, which always sticks in winter, and then the stomping of feet in the entranceway above his head. Sounds like two sets. Raven and Bellamy, most likely: they’re both from Jersey, probably took the train back into the city together. He does not immediately get up to greet them, not even when he hears Raven’s voice sounding down the stairs: “Hello? Anybody home?”

By the time he stomps upstairs, still sluggish in his bare feet, Clarke has returned home, too—recently, he’d guess, noting her winter coat slung across the back of a chair, her scarf still around her neck, her cheeks flushed pink from the cold and wind—and everyone has gathered in the kitchen. Bellamy is making tea. Raven and Clarke are sitting at the table, and both turn to look at him as he comes in.

“So you are home,” Raven says, feigning annoyance, and Murphy shrugs.

“Did I scare you, Reyes?”

“Do I look scared?”

He is tempted to stick out his tongue, but before he can retort at all, Bellamy pulls down a fourth mug from the cupboard and asks, “Want some?”

Murphy glances at the kettle, at the three other mugs arrayed on the countertop: Bellamy’s with the NYU seal sketched across the side; Clarke’s plainly stolen from the hospital where her mother works; Raven’s a simple black, chipped near the handle.

“Only if it’s spiked,” he answers.

Clarke tilts her head back, looking at him upside down. “It’s a holiday hangover tea,” she says. “The last thing it should be is spiked.”

The first thing it should be, as far as Murphy can tell, when Bellamy grabs up the whistling kettle and starts pouring water into the mugs, is peppermint. Apparently.

“I’ll pass.”

Bellamy leans against the kitchen counter as he drinks, while Murphy stands by the door to their tiny balcony, feeling the cold seep in around the edges of the glass. A gust of wind knocks over one of Clarke’s empty flowerpots and rolls it up against the railing with a hollow thud. The kitchen is so narrow, crowded with their thrift store table and the tall recycling bin, that the four of them barely have enough room to gather there at once.

“So,” Clarke says, after a long moment, as she reaches for one of the cookies, baked by Bellamy’s sister, left sitting out on the tabletop. She has to sneak her hand under the plastic wrap that still half-covers the plate. “How was everyone’s Christmas?”

No one is quick to reply. Bellamy shrugs, answers, “Octavia flew in from California. Mom has this new fake, white Christmas tree now.” His brow furrows. “It’s really weird.”

“My mom’s AWOL again,” Raven puts in. “And my aunt and I burned Christmas dinner, and ended up eating fast food because the burger place was open and we were starving.”

“Christmas Eve with my dad, Christmas Day with my mom and Marcus,” Clarke rattles off. “Surprise—” She raises her mug, a brief gesture toward a toast. “This was not the year when they decided they were ready to spend the holiday together.”

Bellamy and Raven make low, commiserating noises, Murphy nodding along absently from his spot by the door. He does not notice that the others have all turned to look at him.

“What about you?” Clarke prompts. “You went to see your uncle, right?”

“Yeah. Yep. Out in Queens.” He shoves his hands deep in his pockets, hopes that no one will press him for details, even as he’s sure that no one will. “It was fine. Got home early.” All of this is a lie, except for the existence of an uncle in Queens. Clearly none of them is going to be winning any prizes for Most Jolly Christmas but nothing gets less jolly than hanging out at the apartment alone, drinking the last of the coffee, scrounging leftovers out of the fridge.

And he doesn’t want to contend with their sympathy.

Clarke is leaning back in her chair, giving him a narrow-eyed look. But she doesn’t say a word. She has that way about her, an understated sly quality, familiar and disconcerting all at once: like he can almost read her thoughts, and she can definitely read his. He turns away before she can see too much.

Octavia’s cookies stand in for lunch, and by the time the sun has set, they’re hungry again. Bellamy suggests going out to eat, walking down the street to the Thai place on the corner perhaps, and ordering enough for leftovers, and the others readily agree. Murphy pulls a pair of socks out of the couch, rather than run downstairs; Raven searches for her hat in the depths of her coat pockets. Clarke, always prepared, makes sure to put on chapstick before they head outside.

Bellamy is out the door first, Murphy locking up behind. The days are so short now, and the light fades so early, in the cramped, bleak ending of the year, that not-quite-six feels like not-quite-midnight. The air has the sharp and stabbing clarity of night air, crystalline and frozen. The streets are dirty with old snow turning to slush, collecting in jagged, pock-marked hills along the road and across the sidewalk edge. When cars drive past, the thin yellow beams of their headlights cast tall shadows over the buildings, splashes of light to compete with the streetlamps’ defiant glow.

Clarke stands on the second step, her hand curled around the railing, her head tilted back to search out the sky. “Can I tell you something?” she asks, sudden words in a wistful voice, and the other three stop and turn to look at her.

“Um, sure,” Raven answers, after a beat.

“I would have had a lot more fun this Christmas if I’d spent it at home with all of you.” She’s still looking up at the sky. Murphy thinks he can discern the slightest smile at the corner of her mouth.

Bellamy follows her gaze, eyes narrowed. “This year was pretty grim. Are you looking for a shooting star? To get us a do-over?”

“Wishing on a star is a ridiculous superstition,” Clarke answers. “I think there’s supposed to be a full moon tonight tho—”

The word extends into a drawn-out cry, then cuts abruptly short, as Clarke takes a blind step down, misses, and slides down to the curb—all so quickly that, though all three jump toward her, no one catches her in time. The back of her head hits the cold stone of the step, and just like that, she’s out.

*

Murphy does not join the group on their frantic journey to the emergency room. Instead, he piles them into a cab and then orders an obscene amount of Thai food, all by himself, and brings it home, because it’s easier than thinking about the heavy way Clarke’s head lolled back against her shoulder as Bellamy lifted her up, or the unresponsive limpness of her body as they settled her in the backseat. He and Clarke aren’t close anyway. He’s lived with her for almost a year, knows what songs she likes to sing in the shower, that she keeps late nights, that she almost never eats breakfast, even when she has the time—weird little intimacies, but little more.

He knows she’s bossy and disorganized, a science nerd with an artistic streak, that she can do math problems quickly in her head. She likes chore wheels and hates doing dishes. She never brings her dates home, but always texts her roommates, even Murphy, when she’ll be gone the night.

He is worried. But he’ll do no one any good pacing around a hospital waiting room. Someone had to be thinking about what happens after: when everyone is tired and hungry and there is nothing left to say.

Fifteen minutes before eight, Raven texts him.

On our way home. Clarke is okay.

The message should bring him relief, but it only makes him more aware of the dark and quiet apartment, the bare glow of the kitchen light: as if time itself had stalled and now, with a sudden jolt, it has started up again, leaving him motion sick.

Okays a little vague Reyes

Conscious. Confused. Headache. 

He wants to write something back about bad refrigerator magnet poetry, but decides against. He re-heats dinner instead, and when he hears a car pulling up outside, the rumbling sound of it idling by the curb, he rushes down the hall to open the door for them.

“I’m fine, really. I just want to sleep,” Clarke is saying, as Bellamy guides her up the stairs. She’s being polite, Murphy guesses, in letting him help; as soon as they cross the threshold, she untangles his arm from around hers and offers a wan smile. “I’m not even dizzy anymore—hey Murphy.”

“Hey.” He gestures vaguely toward her, his other hand still in his pocket. “You feeling okay?”

Clarke shrugs. “I mean, could be better. Splitting headache still. But otherwise all right.”

He opens his mouth again, not sure himself just which one of the myriad and jumbled questions tumbling around his own brain will come out first—she seems unduly fragile in the poor hallway light, small in her fluffy winter coat—but Clarke cuts him off with a gentle pat on the arm.

“I just need some rest. That’s all.”

She ducks around him, into the living room, and a moment later he hears the quiet sound of her bedroom door clicking shut.

Bellamy and Raven, both looking haggard and spent, have already slid past him and down the hall. Murphy turns sharply on his heel, for a second unsure where to look—no answers forthcoming from any quarter—then half-jogs the short distance to the kitchen to catch up with them.

“She didn’t look very confused to me,” he says, and Raven, apparently baffled by a reference to her own text, pauses in her weary examination of the chicken pad thai.

“Clarke,” Murphy clarifies. “She seemed fine. For someone who knocked herself unconscious and spent two hours in the emergency room.”

Bellamy sighs, and lets himself topple backwards into one of the kitchen chairs. “She has a concussion,” he says. “A minor concussion.”

“About what I figured—”

“And amnesia,” Raven adds.

Okay, that one he did not predict.

Raven doesn’t look up, intent on transferring the pad thai to a plate, and seemingly unaware of Murphy’s eyes boring a hole into the back of her head.

“Amnesia. She didn’t seem like she had amnesia to me.” He runs over their conversation again in his mind, searching for hints that she was only politely pretending to remember who he was. But no— "She went right to her bedroom. She remembered my name.”

“Not that type of amnesia,” Bellamy answers, sounding weary. He appears more interested in the takeout containers on the counter than in the concept of Clarke losing her memory. “Is there any soup?”

Murphy hands him a container, then tosses over a spoon. He is being much more considerate, he thinks, than is warranted, given the circumstances, and the batshit ridiculous story they’re only half telling him.

“How many types of amnesia are there?”

Bellamy sighs, cracking open the lid on top of his soup, as Raven puts her pad thai in the microwave. “Basically, she remembers most things—her identity, who we are, stuff like that—but when the doctor asked her what day it was, she said it was Christmas.”

“And she seemed really confused and disappointed when he told her it was the twenty-sixth,” Raven adds. “She said the last thing she remembered was visiting her dad on Christmas Eve. She even asked if she was still in Connecticut.”

“Okay, so,” Murphy says, “you filled her in on the last forty-eight hours, and now she’s fine.” 

“Well, kinda.” Bellamy hauls himself to his feet, taking over the microwave from Raven after she pulls her dinner out. “She did lose almost two days. Plus she was really… reluctant to admit it wasn’t Christmas.”

“Which was very weird,” Raven adds. “Anyway, the doctor said we should humor her, not press her too hard, and hopefully the lost time will come back.”

Murphy snorts, throwing himself down with ease into Bellamy’s abandoned chair. “Yeah, those fun times with Abby and Marcus? Hopefully it won’t.”

December 27

Morning again, judging by the color of the light skimming along the curtain edge. Murphy blinks his eyes open and listens as a once-distant jingling sound, like a series of tiny bells being shaken, grows louder and louder. Building, as it comes down the stairs.

Like a sound out of a dream, he thinks, still groggy, and unable to piece together his thoughts.

“Wake up, wake up!” Clarke’s voice calls, as the jingling reaches a violent crescendo. “Time to wake up!” She starts knocking loudly on Bellamy’s door, and Murphy, sensing trouble ahead, rolls over onto his back and starts to disentangle himself from his sheets. He can just make out an exchange of voices, somewhere in the great beyond outside his door, and then footsteps, skipping merrily, and the attendant, manic jingling of the bells. Knuckles rapping on wood.

Before he can answer, Clarke has cracked open his door and stuck her head inside. “Merry Christmas, Murphy!”

“Fuck—Griffin! Some of us aren’t decent!”

He scrambles to pull his blanket up to his chin, but Clarke just laughs. She’s wearing a green and red striped elf hat, with pointed elf ears on the side, and a string of bells as a necklace, which she lifts up and jingles forcefully in his direction. 

“Oh, heavens, I saw your bare shoulder!” She mimes a scandalized face, and Murphy grumbles. “Come on! It’s the merriest day of the year and we have plans!”

And then she is gone, just as quickly as she arrived, the door shutting behind her and the ringing of bells receding again up the stairs.

Murphy throws his blanket off of him again, stares blankly up at the ceiling.

“It’s December twenty-seventh,” he corrects. “And I have no plans.”

*

“So Clarke thinks it’s Christmas again.”

Bellamy shrugs, refusing to meet Murphy’s eye. The question, deadpan enough to pass as a statement, was obviously rhetorical, anyway: the jingle bell necklace, elf ears, off-key singing of Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, and increasingly ominous references to ‘fun holiday plans’ were all fairly significant clues.

“It’ll all come back,” Bellamy says, with an admirable attempt at confidence. “Eventually. We just have to be patient.”

“Anyway, does it matter?” Raven asks, leaning forward until she can catch Murphy’s eye. “She’s happy, and the rest of us get a Christmas do-over.”

“Sure.” He crosses his arms on the railing in front of him, tapping his fingers briefly, with agitation, against the plastic underneath. “Except you’re assuming I would ever choose to spend Christmas—”

He gestures at the rink, crowded with families, kids and teenagers, college students, twirling in circles and falling over their feet. Before he can say ice skating, Clarke pops up again behind them, holding up four sets of rental skates as if they were prizes.

“Merry Christmas!” she announces. “I hope I got the sizes right.”

Murphy takes his time fiddling with the skates, pretending the laces are knotted up, and that he has to untangle them, until the other three are on the ice. Then he gives up the ruse, and stands in his socks just behind the barrier, and simply watches. Bellamy is a passably good skater, as long as he’s moving forward, while Raven, unsurprisingly, excels. Murphy can’t help but be impressed as she describes a wide, backwards turn at the outer edge of the rink.

For the most part, though, he can’t help but stare at Clarke. She moves with grace and ease across the ice, sliding out of the way of less confident skaters, her arms lightly balanced out to either side. As he watches, she turns neatly at the bend in the rink, settles her hands behind her back and gently coasts. Her hair falls in loose waves over her shoulders and even from a distance, he can see the rosy pink color of her cheeks. She radiates a simple, calm happiness, unselfconscious and complete.

He’s never truly noticed it before (except, as just a passing thought, when Bellamy introduced them on the day Murphy moved in) but Clarke is really beautiful.

Not that it matters.

He is so caught up in watching her, transfixed by her and at ease with the distance between them, that when she looks up and happens to glance his way, he startles—embarrassed, as if he’d been caught doing something wrong. Her brow furrows. She skids to a halt. And then her moment of confusion clears and she turns, instead, giddy: alive with the precise sort of giddiness that always comes across Clarke’s features when she has decided to implement a plan.

She waits for a group of teenagers to pass out of her way, then glides over to him, stopping herself with a succinct little movement of her skates just before she reaches the barrier. “I see you’re still struggling with those laces.”

“What? Oh—yeah.” He gives an exaggerated shrug. “I guess so.”

Clarke’s expression softens, and her tone, too. “Do you want some help?”

“No. Not really. The thing is, Clarke, I haven’t been ice skating since I was seven. And I spent most of my time falling on my ass.”

“Everyone falls on their ass when they’re seven. Come on—”

He wants to argue again, but she’s already sliding along toward the gate. Somehow he finds himself walking along with her, like space debris unrelentingly attracted to her gravitational pull.

“If you hold on to me,” she’s saying, “you won’t fall.”

He retains to a stubborn belief that he will not let Clarke Griffin talk him into ice skating, even as he’s lacing up his skates. But his resolve has already crumbled. He walks awkwardly up to the edge of the rink and sets his right foot carefully down on the ice. His first step is shaky, his second a near-disaster—and his attempt at a third sends him careening right into Clarke. His hands grip like talons into the soft material of her jacket, and only her innate strength and an accident of balance keeps them from toppling onto the ice. Murphy’s legs flail uncontrollably, grappling for purchase, and by the time he finally gets them under control, he’s struggling to catch his breath. He stands very still, hardly daring to breathe. One of Clarke’s hands is holding on to his arm, the other curled at his waist. Their situation feels dangerously precarious, unsustainable, but Clarke’s confidence never wavers. After a few moments, he feels safe enough to transfer his weight to his feet.

“See?” Clarke says. “Not so bad.”

“Sure. Just, uh, don’t let go, all right?”

With some effort, Murphy manages to balance himself well enough to slide slowly, uneasily across the ice. He leans most of his weight against Clarke, his arm twined through her arm, his hand grabbing her hand in a death grip. Up close, he can smell the light, citrus scent of her hair, feels the distinct softness and stability of her body against his. The effort of keeping his balance on the slippery surface makes his face burn with an uncomfortable heat, and distracts him often, as Clarke tries to instruct him on the proper method of maneuvering his legs and his feet.

“So, be honest,” he says, as a passing twelve-year-old skates circles around them, “am I absolutely killing it or what?”

“A hundred percent,” Clarke answers, biting back the smile that threatens her serious face. “Dead and buried.”

“Haven’t fallen on my ass once.”

“A new record.”

They spend the rest of the day at the rink, during which time Murphy gains enough skill to skate on his own, with only Clarke’s hands lightly holding on to his hands as a safety net. And he only falls down three times for all his trouble. Clarke is there to help him up after each spill, and at the last and most disgraceful fall, he almost brings her toppling down with him. The ensuing confusion of flailing feet and misplaced limbs ends with him crushed against the side of the rink, on wobbly legs, his arms around Clarke’s waist and her body pressed awkwardly against his chest.

“Are you okay?” she asks.

I think I’m having a heart attack sounds like the wrong thing to say, so he just says, “I’m fine.”

They stop for lunch at a fast food place nearby, during which Clarke breaks out the elf hat again, and admits, “I’m surprised there are so many people out skating today. I kinda thought most people would be at home for Christmas, with their families.”

Murphy, Raven, and Bellamy exchange sidelong glances. “Huh,” Bellamy says. Raven takes a long drink of her soda, slurping loudly through the straw.

“Yeah,” Murphy answers, “it’s pretty weird,” and reaches across the table to steal one of Clarke’s fries.

December 28

Clarke is on Murphy’s mind, floating through his thoughts as if from the remnant of a dream, when he wakes up on Saturday morning. Is the adventure over? She has had real Christmas with her family, fake Christmas with her friends. They have humored her. She has rested. Time has passed. So have her memories returned by now—some of them, all of them?

Does she remember, is she thinking about, yesterday at the rink, the warmth of his hand in her hand, the easy way they joked as she helped him flounder across the ice?

He passes his hand down over his face, hides his feet more securely beneath the blankets. A bitter chill has seeped into his room, harbinger of a mean and frigid day. And Clarke, asleep in her room upstairs, perhaps just waking up: does she think it is the twenty-sixth? How long will they have to collectively pretend that today is not today?

He finds her alone in the kitchen, sitting at the table with her heels up on a chair, quietly eating cereal from a large, yellow bowl. She looks up when he enters, waves a slight hello with the hand holding her spoon. He waves back, then shuffles to the counter to put the coffee on. The kitchen air feels stale with creeping cold, its all-encompassing and almost-awkward quiet disturbed only by the sound of Clarke chewing and the tiny clinking of her spoon.

“I see you’re eating breakfast,” Murphy says, glancing back over his shoulder in time to see Clarke nod.

“Mmm. Special occasion.”

The words, innocuous as they are, still give him pause, stop him up short as he opens the cupboard next to the sink. He pretends that he is only hesitating over his choice of mugs.

“Merry Christmas, by the way,” Clarke adds, which settles that.

“You too. Merry Christmas.” He takes down Bellamy’s NYU mug without thinking, tries to shake the feeling that he’s no more than an extra in Clarke’s amnesiac version of Groundhog’s Day. That this is, somehow, normal. That he is not wondering, the thought like an invasive little jingle in his ear, what she thinks yesterday was. “So, do you have any plans—?”

“Do you know if Raven and Bellamy are home?”

He turns around, resting his hands on the counter behind him. Clarke has set her empty cereal bowl aside, and is now carefully pulling the sleeves of her sweater down over her knuckles. The sweater has a giant, friendly looking snowman on the front, wearing a top hat, and waving with one of his stick arms. Murphy’s never seen her wear it before.

“Yeah, as far as I know. Why?”

“Just because—I was thinking it would be nice to have a quiet Christmas in, you know? Just the four of us. I’m so tired today, for some reason.” She scrunches up her nose, wiggles her shoulders like she’s working out a knot between them. Murphy feigns an innocent face. “All I want to do is lie on the couch, eat a lot of food that’s bad for me, and watch Christmas movies all day.”

Behind him, the coffee starts to bubble cheerfully, filling the room with a rich, familiar scent. Clarke has wrapped her arms around herself, her oversized sweater pulled down over her knees. Her sleep-tousled hair and patient gaze, fixed on him, briefly cause Murphy’s mind to blank.

“Actually,” he admits, “that sounds like a plan I could get behind.”

Murphy volunteers to collect Bellamy and Raven—which gives him time to explain the situation to them, out of Clarke’s earshot—while Clarke sets up the living room. She brings in extra pillows and fuzzy blankets, clears off space on the coffee table for what she correctly predicts will be an excess of plates and mugs. Bellamy provides the entertainment, from a hidden but not entirely surprising stash of Christmas movies in his room. Raven and Murphy gather food and drinks. They bring in mugs of hot chocolate with mini-marshmallows (and Raven’s coffee, crowding up against Murphy’s at the table’s edge); a plate of leftover Christmas cookies, starting to turn stale; a selection of candy canes; bowls of popcorn; and for variety, a tray of crackers, and the fancy cheeses that Clarke buys for herself and never lets anyone else eat.

Clarke does not object to the presence of the fancy cheeses.

She settles on the couch, with Murphy next to her and Raven at the far end, Bellamy on the futon to the left. Clarke tosses him an extra pillow, then shakes out a soft, fleece blanket, dark blue and patterned with stars, for her and Murphy and Raven to share. They start a mini-marathon of stop-motion Christmas movies from the seventies—Bellamy turns out to be a connoisseur—and once Murphy gets over the creepiness of them, he starts to enjoy them and their weirdness.

By the time they switch to How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Raven has slid down to the floor in front of the couch, in order to better reach the food. Clarke is curled up in her corner, her feet tucked under her, her mouth already turning green from the spearmint candy cane she’s only started to wear down.

“A green candy cane,” Bellamy says, in a tone of sorry disbelief, slowly shaking his head. “What are you thinking, Clarke?”

“I’m thinking that they taste better than the red ones and I’m not sorry,” she answers, and sticks her green tongue out at him.

Bellamy pretends to be grievously affronted, even scandalized, pressing his hand to his chest. Raven turns all the way around, her jaw slack with judgment and disbelief. “Are you hearing this, Murphy? This Christmas slander?”

Murphy just holds up his hands in a show of innocence, as if he were staying out of this fight. “I’m with Clarke on this one,” he says. “Does anyone really like red candy canes? Or do you just feel like you have to, because of Christmas propaganda?” 

“John Murphy, asking the real questions,” Clarke adds approvingly, and holds up her hand for a high five.

Raven shakes her head. “We live with two weirdos,” she says to Bellamy, and Murphy, slightly distracted with trying to remember if he has ever high-fived Clarke Griffin before, asks, seriously, “You’re just realizing this now?”

The tv has been playing the menu screen to The Grinch for several minutes. As Bellamy searches for the remote to start the movie itself, Murphy takes a sweeping view of the couch and notes, “You know, now that Reyes is sitting on the floor, I have almost enough room to lie down.”

He gives Clarke a pointed look. He’s only joking, really, doesn’t mean for her to actually move to the futon or the floor. But she calls his bluff, uncurling her legs from underneath herself and patting her lap. “So? Lie down.”

Animated white snowflakes are falling gently on the screen, across a field of dark blue. Murphy hesitates. Clarke pats her lap again. She glances at him, but there is nothing of a dare in her look. The invitation, he realizes, is an honest one.

So he settles down, his legs half-curled toward his chest and his toes shoved safely between the couch cushions, and his head on Clarke’s knees. She rearranges the blanket so that it is covering her legs and his, but pushed out of the way in the middle so as not to fall over his face. The material is soft and worn beneath his cheek. And the room has grown warm, and the familiar vista of Whoville and the bitter green Grinch above play out like old memories made real, and all of this returns a sense of safety to him that has been gone so long, he’s forgotten even to miss it. Clarke rests her hand on his arm. The gesture feels natural, easy, as if the only proper place for her arm to be is curled around him, just like this. He stiffens beneath her touch at first, and then relaxes into it.

Just like the Grinch, he feels his heart, long frozen and small, start to thaw, and as it warms to grow, and grow, until it feels as if it could burst out of his chest. 

December 29

The kitchen has become a disaster area. Murphy stands in the doorway, taking it in: every mixing bowl and baking dish they own, a variety of ingredients that should rightfully be in the cupboards, and at least two unfamiliar cookbooks, all stacked without reason across every narrow surface.

“Good job redecorating,” he says. “All it’s missing is a couple of orange traffic cones and some caution tape.”

Clarke, standing in the middle of the mess, next to the table, is so engrossed in flipping through yet another cookbook that she startles at the sound of Murphy’s voice. She jumps and presses her hand against her heart. She’s wearing a fuzzy red Santa hat, Murphy notes. Another hat is sitting on the table, on top of a bag of flour. He thinks he can guess where this is going.

“Oh, hey, Murphy.” She holds up the cookbook and grins. “Would you like to help me make Christmas dinner?”

“Would you like to run that generous offer by Raven and Bellamy first?” he counters, but the response is mostly rote. “Just to be fair.” The thought of spending the day teaching Clarke how to cook is not terrible. It is appealing, in its own strange way. (He’s seen the expert way she handles dishes like spaghetti, or toast, and thus that she is asking for instruction more than assistance. And even that is all right.)

“I could,” Clarke admits. She sets the cookbook down on top of a mixing bowl, picks up the Santa hat instead as she walks closer. “But you’re a better cook than either of them.” She waves the hat in front of him. “Don’t you want to get in the festive spirit?”

The festive spirit is beginning to feel like a state he may never leave. But also one from which he had previously been absent for a very long time. Clarke is looking up at him with a cheery, optimistic smile, and he fully believes that she would cook an entire Christmas dinner by herself, if he decided to refuse, and maybe make a disaster of it—or maybe not, because she’s Clarke, and full of surprises.

“All right,” he relents, and the first syllable is barely out of his mouth before Clarke is pulling the hat onto his head and reaching up on her toes to kiss his cheek.

“Thank you, thank you!” She steps back, clapping her hands together once. The gesture reads as equal parts celebratory and determined, and her gaze has taken on a narrow, focused look. “To be honest, I’ve never cooked a Christmas dinner before, and I think my plans got too ambitious.”

“You don’t say.” He takes another glance around the room. He’s never cooked on this scale before either, but he’ll figure something out. Then he turns to the fridge, hoping to grab a drink before they start and—

“Clarke, is there an eight-pound turkey in the fridge?”

“Yes.”

She slides up beside him, peering in over his shoulder.

“Yes, there is. I told you I got a little too ambitious.”

*

Clarke's kiss lingers much longer than it should, as if it had left an imprint on his skin. He can't quite forget it, any more than he can shake from his mind the memory of her arm resting against his arm last night, or her fingers briefly carding through his hair, absently, softly, as the Grinch took part in the Whoville feast. That he should remember all of this, and Clarke nothing at all of the last three days, seems cosmically unfair—but to her or to him, he isn't sure.

Sometimes he thinks he sees a spark of recognition in her, when they bump into each other, crossing paths in the tiny kitchen; when he stands behind her, holding her hands in his to demonstrate how fast to beat the eggs. And he wonders if some part of her feels innately as if she has been here before. He feels something akin to deja vu himself: the sense of something large and looming, yet undefinable, just beyond the limits of his perception.

Clarke is humming Christmas music, dancing in place as she peels the potatoes. The turkey, safely in the oven now, has filled the apartment with a deep and multi-layered scent, the smell of homecoming and harvest and abundance. “You know, you’re a really good cook,” she says, all of a sudden, slicing a potato cleanly in two.

Murphy lifts his gaze from the cookbook he was reading. “Yeah,” he answers. “It’s one of my most appealing qualities.”

“I mean it.”

“So do I.”

“Yeah, well—having a nice dinner tonight is important to me.” The two potato halves drop into the bowl with overlapping hollow thuds. “Like a real family dinner.”

“Minus the family.”

She doesn’t answer right away, and when he looks up, he sees that she’s paused in her work, knife edged pressed hard against potato skin. “Well—maybe. Or maybe not.”

He’s never heard Clarke sound so uncertain, and he’s neither surprised nor ungrateful when she changes the subject again.

By the time Bellamy and Raven arrive home, Murphy and Clarke have set four places at the kitchen table and taken over every spare inch of the countertop with their feast: turkey and stuffing and mashed potatoes, a bowl of gravy, a variety of vegetables, a basket of rolls just out of the oven. “Merry Christmas,” Clarke announces, with a flourish, when they come in, as if she were yelling surprise. And appropriately, Bellamy and Raven look incredibly surprised.

“Again,” Murphy mouths silently, from behind Clarke’s back and Raven bites down hard on the edge of her smile.

Bellamy, clearly still stunned, peers at the turkey, then the basket of fluffy, still-warm rolls. “Did you two make all of this?”

Murphy nods. “Isn’t it amazing what teamwork can do?”

“This is all really something else,” Raven says, as she takes another sweeping look at the room. When her eyes land on Murphy again, her lightly disbelieving smile turns into a smirk. “Nice hat, by the way.”

He does not immediately know what she means—then he does, reaches up to run his hand along the soft red fabric on top of his head. “Thanks. I’m just cementing my status as a fashion icon.”

“It’s all the rage in Paris,” Clarke kicks in, as she hands Bellamy and Raven their plates. “Now eat! Murphy and I didn’t work on this all day for it go cold.”

Perhaps that is it: they worked together all day, created something significant and undoubtedly good, and that is why he feels an intangible bond between them, a sense that they are in sync. Perhaps that is the source of all the rest: private jokes shared across the table, stories of disastrous sugar spills and illegible, stained recipe pages, the way he never takes off his Santa hat, and thinks that Clarke looks cute in hers.

December 30

From upstairs wafts the rich scent of fresh-brewed coffee, accompanied by small, shuffling morning sounds. Murphy pauses on the steps to pull his sweatshirt over his head and to wonder, for a moment, what sort of holiday today will bring: a Christmas road trip, perhaps? Somewhere with real snow, for the making of snowmen and snow angels and snow forts? Will Clarke be creating Christmas art? Might there somehow be dancing involved?

He has no doubt that he'll meet her in the kitchen, wearing a headband with blinking lights or a sweater with reindeer on it, carefree and happy with holiday cheer. But when he reaches the doorway he finds, instead, only his other roommates: Bellamy, searching the cupboard for his mug, Raven sitting at the table, eating turkey and mashed potatoes with a fork.

"Oh, hey," she says, when she sees him. "Want some leftovers?" She lifts up her plate, tilting it slightly toward him to reveal a mess of dark meat and gravy, half-consumed. "We have so much, we'll probably still be eating turkey for Valentine's Day."

"I put some in the freezer last night," Bellamy says, offhand, as he pours his morning coffee into his mug, "so it'll keep longer."

"That's good because I'm going to get tired of—"

"Where's Clarke?"

The question comes out sharp and embarrassingly urgent. Bellamy and Raven both snap their mouths abruptly shut. Murphy shoves his hands into the front pocket of his hoodie, and stares back at them, and waits.

Bellamy gestures with his mug toward the fridge.

“What, did you put her in the freezer for later, too?” Murphy grumbles. But when he turns around, he sees it right away: a note pinned to the fridge with a souvenir magnet from Las Vegas, in Clarke’s familiar, round script.

Friends,

I’ve decided that I need to spend some time alone today. Don’t worry, I’m all right. If you go to see your families today, say hello from me. Merry Christmas, 

C

Murphy reads the post-it twice, then slowly turns around again.

“It was there when I got up,” Raven says, when he doesn’t immediately speak.

“And you’re not worried?” he asks. “She’s out there wandering the streets alone on Christmas—”

“It’s not really Christmas,” Bellamy reminds him. “It’s the day before New Year’s Eve.”

“Yeah,” Raven adds. “I’m not worried about Clarke taking a walk by herself. But I am a little concerned that she’s still not remembering anything. I mean, this week is like fake time anyway, so it hasn’t really mattered. But we’re all going to have to go back to work soon…” She trails off with a shrug, poking listlessly at the remains of the food on her plate.

“I just think it’s weird that she wants to be alone,” Murphy says. “Does that sound anything like the Clarke of the last few days?”

“Not really. But she’s probably just overdosed on Christmas.” Bellamy shrugs. He looks slightly uneasy, reaching to convince himself of his own reasoning. “I’m surprised you haven’t, though.”

“Me?” Murphy echoes. He would have been surprised too, if he’d stopped and thought about it. But now he treats the possibility as if it were an affront.

“Yeah, you’re not exactly the king of festivity, usually,” Raven says. “We get it, you’re into Clarke, but—”

“I’m not into Clarke.” He makes a face, rolling his shoulders back, as if he were trying to scratch a creepy feeling from between his shoulder blades. “We’re roommates—that’s like saying I’m interested in the two of you—”

“Wrong tree over here,” Raven says, laughing, as Bellamy sets down his mug and says, “Taken, actually.”

“Oh, really? You never mentioned that.”

“Yeah, just because it’s new so I’m not really sure—”

“Hey.” Murphy’s eyes narrow, the attention of the room again on him. “Your concern for your friend is stunning.”

Bellamy looks appropriately embarrassed, and after a moment, he sighs, and says, “Okay. Let’s just give her the day, all right? Maybe this is a sign that her memories are starting to come back. Maybe it’s her way of processing.”

“Yeah,” Raven echoes. “There’s a lot to process.”

Murphy wonders briefly if this is a joke at his expense. But her expression is serious, and he tells himself he’s being paranoid, self-centered—and that, in the end, he doesn’t disagree.

*

Clarke provides them with steady updates over the course of the day: sometimes no more than a quick text (I’m okay; still all right); sometimes photos, sent without comment to the group chat. A pattern of cracked ice in a hollow of uneven sidewalk. A latte in a round, brown mug. A shelf of books, with a hint of bookstore window in the background.

Never any clues as to where in the city she might be. (Murphy checks.) Nor any other sign of what she remembers and what she doesn’t.

Murphy is sitting on the front steps, watching the gray December afternoon fade into twilight, when she sends a final message: On my way home. A few minutes later, he catches sight of her turning the corner onto their street. She's wearing a blue knit hat with a fluffy white pom-pomp on top, her hair loose over her shoulders. As she walks, she tilts her head back, staring up at the tops of the buildings and at the sky.

She doesn't notice him until she's almost even with their building, yet still isn't surprised to see him, under-dressed and huddled on the stairs. He pulls one of his hands out of the pocket of his hoodie and waves. "Hey."

"Hey," Clarke answers, and swings herself down onto the step next to him. "What are you up to?"

"Nothing."

"Same here."

He considers asking her if she'd like to go in, but she seems content enough where she is: hunching her shoulders up to her ears, squashing her hands, palms together, between her knees. Thoughtful, but okay. And all he wants to do is sit next to her, and see if with time he can parse out the soft and distant expression on her face.

"Murphy, can I ask you a question?"

Something in her tone, hesitant and edging into uncertain, sends a nervous, twisting feeling up through the middle of him.

"Yeah. Sure."

"Do you think it's bad—" She takes a deep breath, a sigh not yet released. "Do you think it's bad I didn't want to see my mom and Marcus for Christmas? Or my dad either?"

"No. I don't think that's bad." Especially since it isn't actually Christmas. But that's beside the point: to her, it is. He remembers the way she lingered in the hallway on the twenty-third, hugging each of them in turn, pretending to double check her ticket and her keys—saying she couldn't miss her train, yet idling. He'd leaned against the wall, just waiting for her to leave. She'd seemed harried and stressed and tired, but at least she had somewhere to go.

"You're not even going to think about it?"

"Okay. Fine." He sighs, half-turning toward her and letting her see the serious, focused expression on his face. "I understand the obligation. In theory. But you always put so many expectations on yourself. You shouldn't feel bad for the way you feel." He pauses, frowns and looks down at his feet, stubbing the toe of his boot against the concrete step. "That's what I think."

Clarke doesn't answer for several long moments. But he can feel her staring at him.

"It's just—" She sighs and turns away again. "There's so much pressure around Christmas, you know? To do certain things, to feel a certain way."

"Yeah. To feel happy. The season goes on forever, and then you get to Christmas itself, and it's like... it better be perfect, since you went through all this hype to get here."

"Exactly!" Clarke yells the word too loud, then ducks her head, letting her hair fall down in front of her face. "It's just one day, and sometimes... I just want it to be everything, you know?" She tucks her hair behind her ear, and he wishes he could memorize every movement, every rueful half-smile. "I want to have a Christmas with my family and a Christmas with my friends and a Christmas by myself. I want to rest. I want to have fun. I want to... I don't know, eat and drink and be merry, I guess. And I want it to be easy."

When he doesn't reply, she glances his way again, and he feels as if he has been broken out of a deep and distant trance. His own voice sounds like someone else's voice, speaking from beyond himself. "I know what you mean."

"So—if you could have one perfect Christmas day, what would it look like?" She edges a little closer, their knees almost touching when she turns sideways toward him. He's never had the full force of Clarke's attention trained on him, has never been the target of her open, earnest curiosity. He curls in closer around his knees, feigning cold.

Out above the buildings on the other side of the street, the sky is shot with streaks of pink. Higher up, it fades to darkening blue, a deepening, blurred city night of hidden stars.

"I guess—" The word gets caught in his throat. He has to cough and try again. "I guess it would just be any day I got to spend with people I like."

Clarke sways toward him, nudging her shoulder against his. He can hear her in her voice that she's smiling and fond. "Murphy, I think that's the sweetest thing I've ever heard you say."

"Yeah, well. The bar's low."

"No, but that's really what matters—just spending time with people you love."

"I didn't say anything about love."

"Close enough."

Somehow she is holding his hands between her hands. He can see her now primarily by the light of the streetlamp next to their building, and her palms, though cold against his skin, still feel like the only source of warmth left as night descends. And it doesn't matter, he thinks, that it's not really Christmas, that they've celebrated the holiday three times together and also not at all. He'll fall on his ass skating, he'll fall asleep on the couch watching the Grinch, he'll cover himself in spilled flour while trying to balance too many dishes on their narrow kitchen counter, any day of the year—as long as he's with her. Even sitting outside in the bitter, numb evening with her makes him feel a warm spark inside. The sort of spark that nothing, not even the holidays, has kindled within him for years. Like some sort of Hallmark card shit—or maybe a whole damn Hallmark movie.

Like maybe he's falling for her.

Like maybe every strange twisting in his stomach or unexplained burning heat across his skin has just been his way of wanting her, without knowing he was wanting. Now he understands, and the realization comes without fear, as if it has been building for a long time. She is so beautiful. He wants to hold her face in his hands.

"Did you know I used to be really into Christmas?" Clarke says. "Like decorations all over the place, Christmas blankets, Christmas sweaters, Christmas hats?"

"Yeah, somehow I don't find that hard to believe." He smiles, the corner of his mouth curling up. "Did you ever have one of those elf hats? With fake pointed ears on the side? Because I think you would look really good in that."

If Clarke finds this comment suspicious, she doesn't show it, only laughs and answers, "Murphy, you don't even know."

*

After dinner, Clarke and Murphy wash the dishes, while Bellamy and Raven settle down in the living room to watch tv. They talk little, the only sounds the clink of silverware and a few faint bits of canned sitcom laughter, floating in from the next room.

When they're done, Murphy wipes his hands on the dishtowel, then tosses it over to Clarke. "You want to go out there, watch something dumb?"

"Actually, I think I'd rather just go to bed." She hangs the towel up on the handle of the stove, then falls into step with Murphy as they head down the hall and to the living room. "I'm exhausted." She pauses in the doorway, stretching her arms up to the ceiling, barely stifling a yawn. "But—ah, I want to show you something first."

"Show me what?" Murphy asks. Something—he is not at all sure what—is off. Clarke is picking her way nimbly around the coffee table, past the television, toward her bedroom door. Bellamy and Raven are pretending, not very well, to watch the screen.

"Just a book," Clarke answers, as Murphy follows her with a sigh. "I found it when I was out today. Has some cool recipes in it."

She's standing at the door of her room, which has been left open on her messily made bed and still half-unpacked suitcase, rifling through the bag she's left on the bookcase just inside the door. Murphy takes up a station in the doorway across from her, leaning back with his ankles crossed and waiting.

"Um, guys."

He turns. Clarke stops in her movements, too, and follows the direction of his gaze. Bellamy and Raven are staring at them, Raven pointing up to a spot in the doorway just above Clarke and Murphy's heads.

Attached to the top of the doorway above them is a slightly wilted sprig of mistletoe.

Bellamy and Raven are trying their hardest not to grin, like two little kids playing a prank, giddily anticipating the fallout. He glares at them, then glances up at the mistletoe.

He does not dare to look at Clarke.

"It's mistletoe," Bellamy says, helpfully, and Murphy flips him off.

He steadfastly pretends that his face is not burning red as he says, "You know we don't have to—"

"Christmas rules, Murphy," Clarke answers, with a curt little shake of her head. She's already stepping closer. She fists her hands in the front of his hoodie and tugs him away from the wall.

And it's quite beside the point to remind her, or anyone else in the room, that it's two days before the New Year, or that mistletoe kisses are embarrassing. Quite useless to lie to himself and say that he does not want to kiss Clarke, when he knows that he does, when she's already up on her toes and leaning in.

He meets her halfway. The kiss is light and innocent, no more than a peck on the lips, shared between friends. That, he supposes, is all they will ever be. His hands hang uselessly down at his sides as he stands, adrift and awkward, in the middle of her doorway.

But then she pulls back, just enough to meet his eye, and he sees that her smile is warm and bright, gleeful as if at the culmination of a masterful and brilliant plan. Without thinking, he wraps his arms around her and pulls her close. Her mouth opens up against his mouth. Her hands, still trapped between them, crawl up his chest, until her fingertips are pressed just so against his jaw. In his brain only a pleasant buzz: that he never wants to let her go. He wants to feel always the soft press of her body against his, all curves, and the warmth of her mouth, the gentle care of her touch.

The second kiss breaks easily into a third, and then a fourth and a fifth; each time, they part only to smile at each other, to catch their breath. He could almost laugh, the moment is so absurd and so wonderful. He pauses long enough to tuck a strand of her hair behind her ear.

"Hey—you two." From the couch, Raven is snapping her fingers. "The rule of the mistletoe is one kiss." She holds up her index finger. "One."

"Didn't know you were an expert, Reyes," Murphy says, and Clarke, at nearly the same time, retorts:

"The rules have officially changed."

Murphy is about to ask just how the mistletoe got here in the first place, when Bellamy suggests, "Maybe you two should just get a room."

"Great idea," Clarke answers brightly. "I have one right here."

She disentangles herself from Murphy's embrace and tugs him through the doorway after her. He has just enough time to grin at Bellamy and Raven, and give them an innocent little wave goodbye, before she's pulled him inside, and the door has closed safely in his wake.

December 31

Murphy wakes up slowly on the last day of the year, disentangling himself with difficulty from sweet and curious dreams. He is pressed back against a wall, and his arms are wrapped around something soft and warm and familiar, a body that cuddles closer against him as soon as he dares to move. He blinks his eyes open. In front of him, he can see only a confusion of Clarke's unruly blonde hair. He breathes in deep of the bright, citrus scent of her shampoo.

Oh, what he would like to do: run his hands along her body, kiss her neck.

He almost does.

And then he imagines her, turning lazily toward him, slinging her arm over his hip, kissing, perhaps, his nose, his mouth, and greeting him in a scratchy and sleep-thick voice with, "Merry Christmas, Murphy"—and he immediately turns cold. Clarke's warm body, still dozing against his, feels now like a bomb, set to explode should he makes even a single wrong move. To her, it is still the twenty-fifth. They never went ice skating, cooked dinner together, sat outside and talked on the front steps. Never kissed, never fell asleep still kissing, cocooned in three layers of blankets on her bed.

He's just her creepy roommate, half-naked in her bed.

Stuck as he is between Clarke and the wall, getting free will be no easy task: something akin to human Jenga, as he carefully untangles his limbs from hers. Amazingly, she doesn't wake, even as he gently, breathlessly sits up, balances himself at the end of her bed, and climbs over her and to the floor. She only mumbles something unhappy and unintelligible, and curls more securely around her pillow.

Clarke's a deep sleeper. Good to know.

He exhales, then readies himself for the next part of the mission: finding his clothes. He pulls on his jeans, gathers up his shirt and socks, and then starts creeping toward safety. Halfway across the room, he looks up, and notices the mistletoe still pinned over the door.

His eyes narrow. There it is, the last bit of evidence, and it could go either way: something to jog her memory and make her want to kiss him again; or something to jog her memory and make her want to knee him in the groin.

He can't risk it. Carefully, barely daring to breathe, he sets his bundle of clothes back down on the floor, then approaches the doorway on quiet feet. If he stretches up on his toes he can just about reach—

"Sneaking out on me, Murphy?"

He freezes in place, his arm still held up above his head. Then slowly turns and glances over his shoulder. Clarke is cuddled up beneath her blankets, only her head and its halo of blonde hair visible, her eyes wide open and her gaze settled squarely on him. He can't read her expression, nor even the dull, groggy tone of her voice. "That's not very gentlemanly of you. And you're stealing my mistletoe."

He drops back down onto his feet. His limbs still feel stiff and uncertain, the pace of his heart not yet slowed. But he thinks she may be biting back a smile.

"I'm not stealing anything," he answers.

"Just redecorating." She sighs, sitting up and letting the blankets pool in her lap. She sweeps her hair back from her face and over her shoulder, so he can see her profile, how as she breathes out, she relaxes, and finally lets herself laugh. "You should. It's not like it's Christmas anymore."

Not Christmas. Hearing her say the words is like watching a princess snapped out of a spell. Or like being snapped out of one himself. At first, he cannot process the notion, simple as it is, and then every question at once floods, and briefly stops, his brain.

"Wait—what? You remember that it's not Christmas?" The words come out half-question, half-statement, awed and confused. He takes a few steps closer to the bed, and Clarke looks up at him, a furrow of confusion across her brow.

"Yeah. Of course. Yesterday was Christmas." The frown deepens, and she shakes her head with a short, clean snap. "I think. Honestly, it feels like it's been Christmas for a long time."

Murphy laughs, can't stop himself even when Clarke glares at him, because the laughter is at his own expense. It’s the only method he has for letting out this giddy, confused feeling, now that the strange loop of the last days has broken at last. “Sorry,” he mumbles, as he sits down again on the edge of her bed.  "No, you're right—half right. It's not Christmas anymore. It's New Year's Eve."

She fixes him with a narrow look, disbelieving and judgmental, slightly uncertain. "That doesn't seem right."

"You lost some time," he admits. "Right after Christmas, you hit your head and—you know what?" He reaches out for her hand, gives it a strong and reassuring squeeze even as he tries to smile. “It’s a long story. I'll tell you the whole thing later.”

She squeezes back and nods. And he thinks that it might be all right. Or nearly so. 

He just needs to know: "Do you… Do you remember anything from this week?"

"Mmm," Clarke hums, uncertain, her gaze fixed down on their linked hands. "Some. It's hazy. I remember events... but not really the order." She laces her fingers through his fingers and adds, softer, "I remember last night."

He smiles, a little rueful, a little relieved. "I was hoping that made an impression."

"Oh, it did." She flicks her gaze up, and her smile turns arch. Then she inches a little closer, leans in toward him so she's close enough to kiss. "But if you wanted to remind me of the most important bits, I wouldn't say no."

He could laugh again, at that; he could joke; he could kiss her with every bit of pent-up, confused, still-new emotion crowding up inside his chest. But he settles, at first, for resting his palm against her cheek, then his forehead against her forehead, only slowly leaning in until his lips meet hers. The kiss is tentative for only a moment, then languid, and long. Without breaking away, Clarke pulls him down again onto the pillows and wraps them up in the warmth and comfort of the blankets once more.

*

Ten minutes until midnight. The very end of the year. Murphy's squashed onto the couch with Clarke and Bellamy and Raven, preparing to watch the ball drop in Times Square. They're drinking champagne out of coffee mugs and wearing sparkly 2020 glasses. Bellamy has a plastic top hat that he swears dates back to '05, and Raven's brought noisemakers to help ring in the new year.

Clarke is pressed so close to him that she might as well be sitting on his lap, curled up against his side with his arm around her shoulders. Being twined up with her feels easy and right.

And he can't help thinking that there is nowhere else that he would rather be as the year chimes to a close and a new decade begins. No one else he would rather be holding than Clarke; no one else he would rather be drinking and laughing with than her and Raven and Bellamy; no one else that he wants with him on the holidays, through the good times, through bad. These people are his family. They mean more to him than blood, because he's chosen them and they have chosen him, and the connections that bind them have been purposefully and carefully forged. Christmas isn't Christmas, and the New Year isn't the New Year, unless he's spending time with people he actually likes. People he loves.

Because now, at last, he's home.

On the tv screen, the flashing, shimmering ball starts to descend. The countdown starts. The other three start chanting along, Bellamy and Raven already holding their mugs up to toast, Clarke sitting up against Murphy's side with excitement.

Five...

Four...

Three...

He joins in too, at the very end, low and under his breath but he knows that Clarke can hear him.

Two...

One...

The ball drops; the new year flashes in digital gold letters up above; the camera pans across the people in Times Square as the TV starts playing Auld Lang Syne. Bellamy and Raven blow on their noisemakers: a series of frantic and cacophonous high-pitched blasts that all but drowns out the slow and melancholy song.

And Murphy and Clarke kiss. Their glasses bump together, as his fingers tangle in her hair. The kiss is a symbol, a good luck charm, and a promise. Everything from the past is left behind. Something new and unknown but full of hope is about to begin.

And they'll be together for each other through it all.