Chapter Text
The last thing Clarke saw before Picasso pulled on his leash and she landed on her arse in the snow was a black labradoodle chasing after a ball. And then, it was just a vast expanse of the sky above her and the chilling sensation of snow getting behind the collar of her coat.
She took a long, deep breath before hoisting herself up onto a sitting position. She did a mental check up of herself to see if nothing hurt more than it was supposed to and then, she finally got up, rubbing her side that took the brunt of the fall.
It was then that Clarke finally remembered that the reason she fell was because her dog ran to parts unknown, so she whipped around calling his name. Running around wasn't happening at the moment but she stumbled slowly towards where she'd last seen Picasso. Finally, after a few moments, Picasso blasted from between the trees, covered in snow and grasping something colourful between his teeth.
When he reached her, Picasso dropped what turned out to be a rubber ball with something jingling inside it, at her feet and sat at his haunches, happy as he'd ever been, his tail thumping at the snow. Clarke bent down to pick up the toy, grunting on her way down.
"Where on earth did you even find that, dude?" she asked with soft exasperation. "And by the way, next time you wanna chase some tail, give me a little warning. A sock on a door handle or something. Just because you were swiped off your feet doesn't mean I had to be, too."
As Clarke grumbled, mostly to herself because Picasso's attention was elsewhere already, the labradoodle pranced towards them and plopped herself inelegantly right next to Picasso, her long legs sticking out at her side.
"Wow, must be love if you're already bringing your date home to meet the mother," Clarke joked and rolled her eyes with a huff when all that answered her were enthusiastic stares, completely focused on the ball in her hand and not appreciating her wit.
Clarke was reaching towards the labradoodle's collar to check for a name or owner's info, amused by how eagerly she let a stranger pet her, when a man jogged from between the same trees the dogs did. There was something strangely familiar about his form and the way he moved but Clarke couldn't quite place him, not when he was bundled in a thick scarf and a fuzzy hat.
But as he came closer and she was finally able to see his face, Clarke froze for a second and she could see very clearly the moment he recognised her, too, because he halted mid-step before shaking himself lightly.
“Mr. Blake,” Clarke said tightly when he finally arrived at her side. His dog finally noticed him, too. She rolled over and jumped to her feet, running the couple of steps towards him, bumping against his knees.
"Ms. Griffin," he acknowledged with raised eyebrows and a question in his voice. Which, okay, fair. They were the only two people standing in the middle of the forest, nearly 10 miles away from Arkadia, where they both lived and taught in the town's only high school, she was curious what he was doing there, too. And a little annoyed that of all the people, she had to bump into him, on a Saturday, when she had enough of him at work, during the week.
It's not that she hated Bellamy Blake, oh no. She was a mature adult and she refused to lower herself to the level where she would say that she hated this cocky arsehole who enjoyed bickering with her and riling her up with stupid comments. So no, she didn't hate him. But damn, if she didn't feel her heckles rise every time she saw a smirk on that face of his. That stupidly attractive, freckled face that always made her fingers twitch in search of a sketchbook.
Crap.
No, she didn't really hate Bellamy Blake. If she were frank with herself, she would admit that the bickering was exciting, his comments and jokes weren't as biting and mean as they used to be and she always paid him back in kind. And whenever she did, he smirked at her in that ridiculous way of his, like they both knew this was some strange game that they were playing and at it never failed to pool heat at the bottom of her belly.
They stared at each other in tense silence for a while, long enough for Clarke to start wonder if maybe she shouldn't be here, that maybe he was about to snap at her and they'd be right back where they started when she joined the staff of Arkadia High nearly a year and a half ago.
Picasso's happy bark, coming from way farther than she expected, snapped them both out of the haze. They both looked towards the sound and saw that their dogs, clearly deciding that they were way too busy with each other to play with them, ignored the ball still in Clarke's hand and took off towards the tree line, chasing and tripping each other in the snow.
Clarke's head snapped sideways when she heard him chuckle at her side. He looked down at her and smiled lightly which put her at ease, a little.
"At the risk of sounding rude, what are you doing here, Mr. Blake?" Clarke asked with a small smile of her own. But she'd been coming here for months now, to those acres and acres of fenced forest where she could let Picasso run freely without worrying about him, and she'd never once met another soul, much less her colleague.
"Monty told me about it a couple weeks ago, when I mentioned there was some construction next to my house and I didn't want to walk her there," Blake explained and Clarke nodded in understanding. After all, this is exactly how she found out about this place as well, seeing how it belonged to Monty's parents. He offered her directions when Clarke had told him that Picasso was missing the long walks they used to have before they moved and there wasn't anywhere she could take him, where they lived now.
“And please, it’s Bellamy," he added, looking straight at her, making her a little dizzy. "Mr. Blake makes me feel like you’re about to ask me if any of what I’m about to say will be on the test.”
Clarke snickered and pulled out a gloved hand for him to shake. "Clarke," she said and when he took it, his large palm covering hers entirely, she swallowed and smiled weakly. He had an intense look in his eyes, almost too serious for the occasion but Clarke knew what it meant. They were starting over.
She cleared her throat when they let go and looked away, pretending that she was focusing on the dogs and not the way her hand still felt warm where he held it.
"Okay, so we’ve got you covered, what about her?” Clarke asked, looking at his dog, currently nipping at Picasso's ears, which he seemed to enjoy greatly.
“Her name’s Silly.”
“Oh, come one, I promise I won’t laugh,” Clarke said, her face split by a wide grin.
“No, I mean she’s named Silly,” he explained, putting an emphasis on the name, making Clarke raise her eyebrows in amused confusion.
“Doesn’t sound like you’ve got much faith in your dog.”
“It’s my sister’s fault, I swear,” he insisted. Clarke just stared at him with a curious expression until Bellamy continued.
“A couple of years ago, when my sister was working at a vet’s office, they had a client with a pregnant dog, and she had a big crush on him. They guy, I mean. Obviously," Bellamy stuttered."After the puppies were born, she figured she needed an excuse to keep hanging out with him, so she told him she wanted to buy one of the pups for me and since they were too young to be taken away from the mother, she offered to help raising them, too.”
Silly pranced over to where they were standing and in her enthusiasm, tripped over her own feet and ploughed the snow with her muzzle. Bellamy snorted.
“This one right here,” he said, pointing at the dog with his hand, “was the smallest and the most awkward of the lot, so they all called her silly. So much so, that she apparently decided it was her name and when I finally got her, she wouldn’t answer to anything else. So, now she’s officially Silly,” Bellamy finished.
Clarke’s lips were pressed together as she tried to stop herself from laughing but she couldn’t hold off any longer and when Bellamy was done, she let out a laughter so loud that Picasso jumped up from where he was rolling in the snow and let out a bark.
Finally, Clarke remembered the ball she was holding and threw it to Picasso who caught it easily but instead of bringing it back to her, he ran to Silly and presented her with the ball. Silly opened her mouth, her tongue hanging out to the side and Clarke could've sworn she was smiling.
"Must be love," Bellamy declared with a solemn nod and Clarke grinned at him.
They stayed in the forest for another hour or so, alternating between idle but pleasant small talk and just watching their dogs play with one another. Soon though, it started to go dark and Clarke could feel her stomach grumble in hunger. She enjoyed herself so much, that she almost asked Bellamy if he wanted to grab something to eat with her and the only thing that stopped her was Bellamy calling Silly to him and then she remembered they had their dogs with them.
As they walked back to their cars, parked side by side at the gate, Clarke couldn't stop herself from stealing quick glances at Bellamy. For a year and a half now, her quote-unquote relationship with him escaped every definition she threw at it. There were moments when she really wanted to say that she hated him because he frustrated her to no end but then he'd say something that genuinely made her laugh and all of the sudden, she was reminded what it felt like when she was 16 and had a crush on that cute senior at her high school. And then, there were those small moments at staff meetings when he would back up her ideas, and those never failed to blindside her, no matter how often he'd done it. He had mocked her enthusiasm for her job from the moment she started as Arkadia High's new art teacher and that was what he teased her most about at the beginning, so having his support for some of her plans and ideas always felt like a fluke.
And now, here they were, chatting and laughing like old friends, like he didn't spend twenty minutes complaining about her covering up the corridor windows to his classroom with posters her students made, barely a week ago. It was yet another thing that confused her about Bellamy but what surprised her most of all was not his cheery attitude towards her but the fact that for the first time since they'd known each other, Clarke couldn't wait to see him again on Monday.
***
Over the next few months, for all that their behaviour at work stayed mostly the same, everything shifted between them since that day in the woods and it both relaxed Clarke and also messed with her head, just a little bit. And that in itself was starting to get a little frustrating.
Sure, they still traded quips and complaints but with time, Clarke realised they were both smiling the whole time. She still groaned and stomped when he stole her coffee mug and Bellamy kept taking it shamelessly but now neither one of them was able to keep the scowl for long and they both always ended up smiling about it.
And even though they never really talked about it, they continued meeting at Greens' forest, where Silly and Picasso could run away together, disappearing from their sight for long bouts of time, leaving them free to entertain each other. And left alone in the middle of no-where, what else could they do but talk—about everything. From complaining about some of their shared students, through vet appointments to their families, Clarke opened up to Bellamy like she hadn’t done with anyone in a while.
Even after nearly two years in Arkadia, she still hadn’t been able to find any close friends, nor did she even try particularly hard. It wasn’t easy for her to open up to people but with Bellamy, now that they moved past their animosities, it felt less daunting. And, it seemed, Bellamy enjoyed it just as much as Clarke did. He never said it explicitly, but it wasn’t difficult to figure out that ever since his sister moved away from Arkadia last year, he’d been lonely and yet about as enthusiastic about meeting new people as Clarke was.
Getting to know him now, she was finally able to look past all the bullshit they flung at each other and see the man he really was behind the veneer of a complete dickishness. But no matter how much she softened towards him since they started hanging out together, with their dogs, there was still one thing she couldn't shake, the one insult that cut started this whole animosity between them.
From the moment she started at Arkadia High, Bellamy had been nothing but dismissive about her, her subject and the projects she wanted to work on with her students. He teased her about her excitement, smirked when she mentioned starting a club and in the end, informed her that no-one would take her seriously because every student treated the art classes like the perfect opportunity to catch up on work for literally any other, more important class. History, for example.
Had it come at any other moment, Clarke probably would've brushed him off as any other prick who liked to assert his dominance over the rest of his co-workers and that would've been that. But that first day was different for Clarke, it felt almost monumental because not only had she just started at her first proper teaching position but it was the first time she moved so far away from home, to a town she didn't know, where she had no-one to rely on but herself.
And yes, she did have numerous 'discussions' with her mother about it. Abby seemed to have given up on convincing her daughter to go to med school but did she really have to move? The prestigious Alpha Academy would've welcomed an alumna amongst the staff and headmaster Kane wouldn't mind this small favour, for sure.
Clarke wanted to this on her own, though. So, she moved to Arkadia and on that very first day of work, anxious but excited as she was, she was understandably on edge. Delicately speaking. Which is why when Bellamy shot her down as quickly as he did, Clarke'd had enough. She snapped back at him, barely stopping herself from yelling, and it was decided. Before she'd even known his name, they were on opposite sides.
Their attitudes changed over the months, Bellamy stopped picking at every single thing she did at some point and they both moved on to just generally quipping at each other but Clarke couldn't just forget that look of dismissal she'd seen in his eyes on that first day. It brought up her insecurities right up to the surface and now, she still couldn't quite connect that guy with the person she'd got to know ever since they started taking their dogs out together.
But at the same time, she was wary of starting that conversation. What was the point of dredging up this old grudge if they both silently decided to just move part it? Why risk the companionship, the still-fresh friendship they had now, just to rehash all of that?
And to be honest, the more Clarke thought about it, the more she suspected it was slowly becoming a little more than just friendship. Maybe much more than that, frankly.
As winter turned into spring and that into summer, Clarke had to admit to herself that something else blossomed between them, as well. Sure, she'd grown to consider him one of her closest friends but it wasn't friendship that spread the warmth all throughout her body whenever she heard Silly barking and she knew Bellamy would join her any moment. And it certainly wasn't friendship that, every once in a while, made her want to follow him home and never leave.
There could be no ifs or buts about that, she was slowly but surely falling for Bellamy and that was—really messing with her. She hadn’t felt like that for anyone since Lexa and that didn’t end very happily, so it wasn’t filling her with much confidence now. Especially since she had no idea if her feelings were in any way reciprocated. Sure, sometimes she’d catch Bellamy looking at her with that soft, soft smile that made his eyes crinkle and every time, she had to look away so he wouldn’t catch her blushing but that was hardly a declaration of affection. But just like with their old grudge, Clarke preferred not to start that conversation, either. That could only make things awkward and what would be the point of that?
But anyway, all those romantic musings were pushed to the back of her mind when one Friday afternoon and the beginning of June, Clarke checked the list for the trip to the 20th century art museum she was organising and noticed that one Bellamy Blake signed in to chaperone the trip. Clarke knew he’d already left for the day but tomorrow would be a perfect opportunity to have one of those conversations she knew they needed to have. And she decided that this time she wouldn’t chicken out.