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Clarke is on her way home from a twelve-hour shift when she sees him, face down in a snowbank. Her first instinct is to crouch down and check for a pulse but she is all too aware of the dangers that lurk in the shadows of New York City so she makes sure to have one hand on her pepper spray as she bends down to shake the man by his shoulder in an attempt to rouse him awake. The man stirs slightly and for a moment she freezes, thinking this might just be a ploy to get her to let her guard down and attack her while she's vulnerable under the cloak of the night sky. She really needs to stop watching reruns of ‘Dateline’ at two a.m.
A groan muffled by the snow provides her with some relief. ‘At least he's not dead,’ she thinks. That would bring about a whole other set of issues she really didn't want to deal with.
“Sir, are you okay?" she asks tentatively.
She receives another groan in response and is beginning to get impatient. Her feet ache and her stomach is begging for food, but she buries her own issues in favor of helping this man because doing otherwise goes against her nature as a nurse and she's pretty sure she would never be able to get her mother’s judgmental tone out of her head if she just left him here.
When she crouches down once again to try and check his pulse she is met with a severe stench of alcohol, possibly vodka, which she only knows because anytime she smells vodka she’s transported back to that time in college when she drank her weight in vodka cranberries. The smell is enough to make her stand up and take a step back just to be able to breathe some fresh air, though she wouldn’t exactly call the air wafting through the streets of New York fresh. ‘So he’s not dying, just drunk,’ she thinks.
Clarke isn’t naive, she knows not everyone enjoys the holidays, hell she doesn’t even like them much herself. She’s not a complete scrooge, but there is always a regular flow of idiots through the E.R. around this time of year which means she ends up being overworked and more tired than usual.
"Are you an angel?"
She looks down to where the voice came from and sure enough the man that was once face down had rolled over onto his back and is looking at her through squinted eyes. He’s actually kind of hot, despite his current drunken state. He’s got that tortured look about him that tells Clarke she should probably steer clear, but then again she had never been one for following rules.
"What?" she asks.
"I was trying to make a snow angel, I thought it'd be fun and the snow looked so soft, but who needs a snow angel when I've got the real thing?" He is looking up at her with this goofy smile that tells her he probably doesn’t realize how dorky he sounds, or if he does he is too drunk to care and he thinks it might charm her somehow. If that’s the case it’s definitely working.
“Thanks, I think,” she says unsure. It’s not the worst pick up line she’s ever heard. “Do you live around here?”
“Where’s here exactly?” He sits up and looks around as if he’s trying to figure out where he is.
The dark curls on his head are tangled and sticking out haphazardly and it might just be the cutest thing she’s ever seen. She tries her best to stifle her laugh, but it escapes her anyways.
“Manhattan,” she says after she’s able to get some sense of composure back.
“Manhattan? We’re not in Brooklyn?” he slurs.
“Definitely not,” she replies. She doesn’t try to bite down her laugh this time and when he hears it he almost looks offended.
“What’s so funny?”
“Nothing,” she chuckles.
“You should lay down and make a snow angel with me,” he suggests with a smile.
He tilts his head slightly and she is able to see a cut on his forehead she didn’t see before. It looks superficial enough not to cause any real concern, at least not enough for her to make the trek back to work to give him an MRI. She really doesn’t want to go back to the hospital, not with her apartment so close she can practically feel the softness of her comforter wrapped around her shoulders.
“You’ve got a cut on your head,” she says practicing some self-restraint to not reach out and touch him. Had it not been for the cut on his forehead she might not have been able to say no. One look at him and she knows laying down next to him would be enough for her heart to break out of her chest.
“You’re not a serial killer are you?” She kneels down so that she is eye level with him. Inspecting his cut further she can see it’ll need stitches.
“I don’t think so.” Now he’s the one who sounds unsure.
“You don’t think so?”
“I don’t even know how I got here,” he replies.
With as much alcohol as she smells on him, she doesn’t doubt that. “Do you remember your name?” she asks.
“Bellamy. Bellamy Blake.”
‘It’s an interesting name,’ she thinks. She looks into his eyes and narrows her gaze to see if he’s lying. She doesn’t think he is, but if he happens to be a serial killer it’s not the worst way to die.
“Okay Bellamy,” she says trying out how his name sounds, she likes it maybe a little too much than is appropriate, “are you dizzy? Is there a ringing in your ears or do you feel nauseous at all?”
He shakes his head no.
She sighs hoping she isn’t going to regret what she’s about to do. “Alright, it doesn’t look like you have a concussion, but that cut on your head does need stitches. I have a medkit in my apartment which is just the next block up and if you promise not to kill me, I’ll stitch you up.”
“I pinky promise not to kill you,” he says holding out his pinky as if he expects her to take it. He must sense her skepticism. “Oh come on, a pinky promise is basically an unbreakable oath.”
She hooks her pinky around his and takes note of his hands, how they are rough and calloused, raw like he had to work twice as hard for everything in life, yet the warmth of his touch coats her like a shield, the only thing to keep her safe.
“Alright, let’s get that head wound stitched up,” she says.
Her hands rest under his arms and she helps guide him into a standing position and when he throws an arm around her shoulders, she tries to ignore the way her stomach flutters. They don’t talk in the five minutes it takes to get to her place, she just listens to him breathe and commits the time between his breaths to memory. She could blame it on the fact that she’s a nurse, that it’s a force of habit or that she’s just trying to see if maybe there is more to his head wound than she initially thought, but that would be a load of shit.
When they get to her front door she struggles a bit to remove her keys from her pocket. He must take note of her struggle because suddenly he’s removing his arm from around her shoulders and a chill trails down her spine at the loss of his touch. It’s a difficult task, but eventually, they make it into her apartment. By the time she makes it into the bathroom to grab her medkit after helping him settle on the couch, she is able to catch a glimpse of herself in the mirror. She takes note of her flushed cheeks. It’s not like her to get affected by a stranger, albeit a hot one, like this. She prides herself on being composed and being able to mask her emotions, it gives her an edge and it’s why she’s the one her coworkers go to when they need to deliver bad news. There’s obviously something about him that barrels through her defenses like they’re made of sand.
‘Splash some water on your face and pull yourself together, Griffin.’ She does, or at least she tries to.
By the time she makes it back out to the living room his hand is propping up his head and he’s resting peacefully in a sitting position, she almost hates to wake him but she does.
“Okay, I’m out of anesthetic so this is probably going to hurt, just try not to move too much okay?”
“Anything you say, angel,” he says with a lopsided grin.
She rolls her eyes and hopes he’s drunk enough that he won’t remember the whole ‘angel’ thing in the morning.
It takes longer than she would like to stitch him up because she has to stop every so often when he flinches. Admittedly she’s thankful because it allows her enough time to fully take in his tan complexion and the way his freckles dance across his skin. She doesn’t dare look him in the eye, for fear she’ll get lost in the depth of them, so instead, she looks at his lips, soft and pink. Close enough to really take in all his features and she thinks maybe she’ll try to sketch him on her day off.
‘Jesus, Clarke, focus,’
“So, what’s got you drinking yourself into oblivion three days before Christmas?” she prodded.
If he were to ask, she would tell him she was just trying to distract him from the pain, but the reality was she was the one that needed a distraction. His brow was furrowed and not in the way that would indicate he was in pain, it looked more like he was confused. He was probably too drunk to notice the way her eyes lingered on his lips so there was no way he could possibly know she was thinking about how his lips would feel on hers. She remembered vaguely about asking him a question that was probably too personal to ask a stranger.
“Sorry, you don’t have to answer that.”
She startles at the sound of his voice.
“My sister told me she isn’t coming home for Christmas. My friend, Murphy, said I was moping too much and suggested I get drunk instead,” he says.
His voice is deep and gravelly. It puts her at ease in a way she’s not familiar with, she hasn’t been at ease since the day she was born
“Your friend sounds like an idiot,” she says. “No offense.”
“None taken, he is an idiot.”
He smiles at her and it takes everything in her to keep her hands from shaking.
“Because I got to see her on Thanksgiving, she decided to spend the holiday with her fiance’s family,”
“So you got drunk?”
“So I got drunk.”
“Are you and your sister close?”
“Yeah, well we used to be anyways,” he huffed. “But she has a new family now so you know to hell with me.”
For the first time since meeting him she finally looked into his eyes, really looked into them. There was something solemn about the way he looked at her. They conveyed a type of despair that made her feel heartbroken, she looked away unable to bear the sight of his anguish any longer. She wonders if he is always this forthcoming or if it has something to do with the alcohol and the way two a.m. tricks you into thinking any secrets you share won’t see the light of day. She hopes it’s the former.
She ties off the last stitch and her heart contracts at his words, she knows all too well what it feels like to be abandoned, especially around the holidays. Her parents were always working crazy hours, always on the brink of a breakthrough, always in the respective offices until she had to drag them out for dinner. Even then seated at a table together it always felt lonely so eventually, she stopped trying.
“I’m going to grab you some Tylenol and water, just stay right there,” she said as she got up and made her way to the kitchen. She might have heard him mumble an ‘okay’ but she isn’t entirely sure because she is focusing too hard on figuring out what to do next. Would it be weird if she let him sleep off his drunken stupor on her couch? Or would it be even weirder to kick him out on the street? Granted he is a stranger, but he’s injured and the thought of kicking him out makes her uncomfortable.
By the time she makes it back to the living room with a glass of water and a couple of Tylenol in hand, he’s fast asleep. It shouldn’t surprise her considering she found him face down in a snowbank passed out, but she hadn’t been able to see his face then. She sees him now. The creases in his forehead likely formed by years of worrying have softened and suddenly he looks more beautiful than before, something she hadn’t thought was possible. She set the pills and water down on the coffee table to carefully reach over him to grab the blanket from the back of the couch and lay it on top of him. With any luck, she’ll wake before he does but on the off chance she doesn’t she scribbles out a quick note explaining what happened and where he is to relieve any confusion he may have when he wakes.
When she collapses onto her bed the day's events tug at her muscles causing them to ache in a way she knows all too well. Her exhaustion weighs her down further into the mattress until sleep claims her completely.
The smell of freshly brewed coffee rouses her awake. It confuses her for a moment before she remembers the stranger on her couch. Bellamy. She repeats his name like a mantra in her head and images of his freckles and lips and eyes flash through her mind. She sits up rubbing the sleep from her eyes before she steps out of bed. She should probably look over her appearance in the mirror before she walks out of her bedroom but she’s too tired to care what she looks like.
She can hear the coffee maker running and it’s so loud she thinks she’ll probably need to replace it soon. When she enters the kitchen he’s got his back to her thankfully. She didn’t notice how broad his shoulders were before, but now she’s able to fully drink him in and she can’t help but think how much he looks like he belongs here in her apartment.
“Hey,” she says softly to avoid startling him.
He turns around and smiles sheepishly when he sees her. “Hey,” he replies.
“How’s your head?” She is standing awkwardly at the entrance of her kitchen like she’s not sure what to do.
“Good, slight headache, but I guess it could be worse.”
“Yeah…” she trails off.
“I made you some coffee as a thank you,” he says as he slides her favorite mug across the countertop. “Also as an apology, I don’t normally drink that much and everything is still a little fuzzy so I hope I wasn’t too out of line or anything.”
She thinks about him calling her angel and her stomach flutters. “Oh no, you were fine, kind of comical actually.” Taking a sip of her coffee she contemplates telling him about the nickname. Part of her wants to hear it fall off his lips, just once more, but there’s another part of her that wants to keep it to herself afraid that he might try to take it back if he knew.
“I made a complete fool of myself didn’t I?”
“You were pretty adamant about making a snow angel, it was kind of cute actually.” She looks at him apprehensively trying to gauge if he remembers calling her angel, but his face is void of any recollection so her curiosity gets the best of her. “You also, uhm, you kept calling me an angel.”
Mild shock flashed across his face and his cheeks flushed bright red. “Well you did stitch me up and save me from freezing to death so technically you are my guardian angel,” he recovered quickly.
A blush crept it’s way up her neck and colored her cheeks. She could chalk it up to being a nurse or just a good samaritan, but if she was honest with herself what she did went beyond that. A good samaritan likely would have just dropped him off at the hospital but instead, she stitched him up herself and let him sleep on her couch. Something about his demeanor caused her to abandon all reason for the sake of taking care of him.
“I should probably get going, I don’t want to impose on you more than I already have.”
She wanted to ask him to stay, maybe make breakfast together, but that was far too domestic for someone she just met and besides she saw no inclination that he was even remotely interested in her and she wasn’t willing to endure rejection this early in the day.
“So, if I have any other medical concerns could I call you?”
With a chuckle, she turned to grab the pad of paper and pen she used the night before to write him the note. She scribbled her number down and tore the piece of paper off the pad, handing it to him with a smile.
“You don’t need an excuse to call me, you could just ask me out like an adult, albeit one that drunkenly tries to make snow angels and proceeds to pass out in a snowbank.”
“You’re never going to let me live that down are you?”
“Probably not,” she teases.
“Well, I can’t say I blame you. I probably wouldn’t let me live it down either.”
He rinses his coffee cup and turns around stuffing his hands into his pockets. She watches as he shifts nervously from one foot to the other almost like he doesn’t want to leave. Truth be told she’s not ready for them to go their separate ways yet, sure he has her number now and he asked if he could call her but after being ghosted one too many times there’s a little voice in her head that tells her it’s just a formality.
“I’ll call you,” he says.
She nods, bids him goodbye and tries not to think too much about how long it’ll be before he calls her.
ONE YEAR LATER
This is one of the crazier ideas he’s had, not the craziest, but definitely top five. He hopes, prays to whatever gods are out there that it’s crazy enough to work. Of course, with a plan this extravagant he had to begrudgingly enlist the help of Murphy, the only person he knows who’s dramatic enough to help pull it off. He was currently regretting it.
“Dude, calm down it’ll work,” Murphy said reassuringly.
“Yeah, ‘cause it’s not like there are a million and one ways for this to go wrong.”
Today marked a year since he met Clarke and it was the best year of his life. Their first date was on Christmas day under the guise they both didn’t want to spend the holiday alone. He cooked dinner for both of them while she queued up the movie and kept his wine glass filled. They spent the evening filling the silence with stories from their childhoods.
He hastily texted his sister as Murphy tried to convince him for the umpteenth time to nix the special effects makeup and let Murphy hit him in the head for real.
A slam of his front door startled them both. The second he sees Octavia he breathes a sigh of relief. She’d be able to reign in Murphy’s crazy while he figured out which of the four versions of his proposal he was going to go with.
“Thank god you’re here, please tell your brother-”
“No. Whatever it is Murphy, just no,” she says brushing past him.
A string of expletives could be heard from across the room where Murphy was standing, but he tuned it out in favor of hugging his sister.
“Thank you for coming.”
“Of course, you really think I’d miss the opportunity to watch you embarrass yourself in front of an ER full of people?” she joked.
“Gee thanks, O.”
“Anytime big brother,” she says as she lightly punches him in the arm. “So let’s get started on the makeup.”
Octavia pulled out a bag of makeup and began to meticulously paint what looked like a cut on his forehead, similar to the one Clarke stitched up a year prior. She chastised him several times to stop shaking, but as the minutes ticked closer to the proposal he found it hard to contain his nerves. Eventually, she finished and with a little bit of fake blood for the finishing touch he had a hard time remembering it was fake.
“How many drafts of your speech did you write?” she asks as she starts to put away the makeup. He hates that she knows him so well.
“Just two,” he lies. He was an idiot to think she’d believe him. “Okay, four.”
“Of course you did,” she laughs.
“I just have to figure out which one I should use.”
“I’m sure whichever one you go with she’ll end up crying, you’re both giant saps.”
“I don’t want her to cry, I just want her to say yes.” There’s a tremble in his voice that exposes his nerves. He knows that Clarke loves him, but that doesn’t mean she wants to spend the rest of his life with him.
“You’re an idiot if you think she won’t say yes, well actually, you’re an idiot regardless, but she’s head over heels for you and there’s no way she’ll say no. Just trust me okay?”
“Okay,” he says, taking a deep breath. “You ready to put your acting skills to the test?”
“Hey! I thought I was the one taking you?” Murphy interrupts.
“That was before Octavia got here. I don’t trust you enough to not completely fuck this up.”
“Well, can I at least go and watch you make a fool of yourself?”
Bellamy looks over at his sister skeptically and she just shrugs at him in response. “Fine, but you don’t say a word, you are a silent bystander, got it?”
Murphy doesn’t say anything. He just zips his mouth closed before grabbing his jacket off the hook by the door. He’s sure he’ll end up regretting letting Murphy tag along somewhere along the way, but he’s too focused thinking about what he’s going to say to care.
On their way into the emergency room, Murphy leans into Octavia and whispers, “I’ll bet you ten bucks she-”
“Shut up, Murphy,” the siblings say in unison.
He sees Clarke spot him from across the room and her eyes widen in horror. She rushes over to him faster than he’s ever seen before.
“What the hell happened?”
“It was just a little accident, honestly it’s nothing,” he says trying to calm her down. He hadn’t thought through how mad she might be but she stood in front of him like a hurricane of anger and worry and it only made it that much harder.
“You have a giant laceration on your forehead, that’s not nothing.” She led him over to an empty bed and he looked back at Murphy and Octavia to see their shit-eating grins if they weren’t careful they would ruin his whole plan.
“Sit down on the bed,” she commanded. If they weren’t at her work and he wasn’t so focused on proposing he would have thought she was trying to seduce him. She pulled a pair of gloves on and began to gather supplies to clean his very fake head wound.
"When I got drunk with Murphy I had no idea things would end up like this, I-"
"Yeah well, maybe you should stop getting drunk with Murphy. You got lucky last time," she says as she takes some gauze out of the package.
"You're right I did" he smiles. She’s completely oblivious to what he’s insinuating, that meeting her is the reason he considered himself lucky that night. They’d gotten off track from the speech he had prepared, but maybe speaking from the heart is best in situations like this.
"This isn't funny Bellamy, you could have gotten seriously injured, I’m talking more than just a scratch on the head and then what? I don't know what I'd do if you weren't-" She looks down at him from his head wound with confusion. “Bellamy, is that head wound fake? What’s going on?”
“You know we met exactly a year ago today?”
“Yeah, what is this, some weird anniversary present?”
“Something like that.”
“Bellamy, what’s going on?”
“Before I met you, life kind of felt a rollercoaster that struggles to make it to the top and then once it does, it violently nosedives into the ground, but when I met you things slowly started to fall into place, I no longer felt like any second the rollercoaster is going to plunge to the bottom at any second. You are my best friend, the one person I can’t imagine living without, the absolute love of my life, my soul mate and to everyone else my girlfriend… and now… I want you to be my wife. Clarke, my angel, will you marry me?” He stands up from the hospital bed he was sitting on and pulls the velvet box out from his pocket. He can see the tears pool in her eyes and feel them in his. Octavia was right, they’re both giant saps.
“As long as you promise to never scare me like that again, you ass.” She playfully hits him in the chest before wiping away a few rogue tears.
“I pinky promise.”
She pulls him in for a kiss that is unlike anything they’ve ever shared before. It’s soft but passionate, full of want and promise. Strangers around him are applauding but he can’t be bothered to care because his arms are wrapped around Clarke, his fiance.