Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"I'm not crazy, I'm a long way from crazy.

Doing one crazy thing does not automatically define a person as being crazy.

Though, I have to admit, this wasn't exactly how I was expecting to spend my Christmas, and I'm sure it's not how Bellamy Blake planned on spending his."

Clarke drove down the snow covered roads behind the wheel of her might-as-well-be-ancient Toyota Camry. Her "boyfriend" had escaped from the house in the middle of the night and she was on a mission to find him. When she's just about ready to just give up on finding him, she spots a figure in a dark coat wandering along the side of the road. She pulls up beside him and rolls down her window.

"So, you've been walking out here for, what? About an hour or so?" Clarke calls out her passenger window to the dark haired man walking beside her car. "You've barely gone 2 miles and the nearest gas station is roughly 20 miles away. You figure that out," she pauses and waits for an answer and when she's supplied with silence, she continues.

"Why don't we head back to the cabin and we'll make you some hot chocolate or coffee, okay?" Clarke still receives silence but notices his steps slow to a stop so she touches her brakes. Outside the car, Bellamy Blake, or in this case known as Finn Collins, hesitates before reaching for the handle and clamoring into the car. His teeth chatter once he's inside the warmth of the vehicle.

"Are you okay?" she asks him and takes notice that he still hasn't said a word to her. "Nothing smart to say? Is your face frozen?"

He inhales sharply. "You." Breath. "Are." Breath. Breath. "The devil."

From his place next to her, he glares at her and all Clarke could think as she started to move forward was 'If looks could kill…"

Chapter Text

Clarke Griffin was not a morning person.

This morning, she woke to the sound of her alarm going off at 7:00. A groan fell from her lips as she slams her hand down on the snooze button, not even bothering to open her eyes to look at the time before rolling over and curling herself back into her blankets. It wasn’t until fifteen minutes later that she decided to roll herself out of bed and face the rest of the world, despite her longing to just cuddle up in her bed and sleep until the new year.

It was the day before Christmas Eve and the last day of the work week for Clarke before she had the long weekend to go off to her parents’ house to celebrate the holidays. ‘Good grief,’ she thought as her bare feet made contact with the cold tiles that covered the floor of her bathroom. She made quick work of fixing up her hair to make herself look presentable before heading back out to the main area of her studio apartment.

She drowsily tore open the curtains to let the light shine in and squinted her eyes at the bright sunlight. This was a day just like all the rest. Clarke would wake up, get dressed, go to work, then come home and sleep – rinse and repeat.

As Clarke was just finishing up getting dressed, her phone rings from its place on the counter in the kitchen and she saunters out of her bedroom to answer it.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Clarke! It’s your dad.”

“Hey dad,” she answered.

“Your mother and I are up at the cabin right now, making sure that everything is in order. You have directions to get up here, right?” her father, Jake, asks and Clarke hears her mother muttering something to her father in the background.

“I do,” Clarke confirms.

“Well, your mother just wanted to make sure that you were still bringing Finn. She’s making up seating arrangements for dinner and wanted to double check with you. You know how she can get.”

Clarke heard her mother make an unintelligible comment to her father.

“Yes, I’m still bringing Finn.”

“Okey doke. She also wanted me to make sure that you’re here by six o’clock. Sharp.”

“Alright, alright. I’ve got it. Six o’clock.”

“Your mother is really excited to meet Finn, I am too.” Another shout directed at the man on the other end of the line in the background. “Your mother wants me to ask if you think he could be the one?”

“I don’t know,” Clarke answers honestly before hearing her mother sigh on the other end of the phone. “Can we not talk about this right now, I’ve got to get ready for that interview down at the hospital that Mom set up and if I don’t leave soon, I’m going to be late!”

“Alright, see you soon kiddo,” Jake chuckles before she disconnects the call.

She quickly finishes getting ready before she grabs her phone and wallet, throwing them into her bag, and then grabs her keys and locks the door before heading outside into the cold.

{Faking it} - {Faking it} - {Faking it}

When she arrives at the hospital, its 8:37 and she was supposed to be here at 8:30. Clarke wasn’t typically one to be late to things. Maybe the stress of the upcoming holiday was finally getting to her and totally frying her brain. She wasn’t sure how she was going to survive the weekend.

“Excuse me,” she says the receptionist at the front desk. “I’m Clarke Griffin. I’m here for an interview with Thelonious Jaha.”

“You’re late,” the woman behind the desk sneers.

“I know I’m a little bit late but my parents and Mr. Jaha are neighbors and my mom set up this appointment so it’s important that I see him.

“No, I can’t let you in. If it was so important, you should have showed up on time. He’s in an interview with his next appointment.”

Angry tears formed on the brims of Clarke’s eyes. “I can’t miss this interview!” she tells the woman sternly. She looks over at the solid window door to Jaha’s office, which was a couple rooms down the hall from her current position. An idea forms in her head as her eyes dart from the door to the secretary and back to the door a couple of times before the woman in front of her finally catches on.

“Don’t even think about it.”

The woman barely even spits out her last word before Clarke darts for the office door, pounding on the glass to get the attention of the older, dark-skinned man inside. When the man saw her, he moved to pull the shade that covered the door and Clarke sank to the floor. ‘I thought maybe just one time I could actually have things go my way,’ she thought.

Chapter Text

This was hopeless.

Clarke knew that now she’s screwed up her chance at finally making her parents, or rather her mother, proud of who she is. She’s tired of constantly having to conform to the person that her mom wants her to be.

Once she walks out of the hospital and out to the parking lot, she unlocks her car and gets in. Tears threaten to spill as she turns the key in the ignition and makes her way to the cafe she works at to squeeze in a couple hours of work before heading off to Christmas with her parents.

Clarke somberly walks into the little hole-in-the-wall of a building to find her best friend, Wells, stanfing behind the counter taking a customer’s order. When he’s finished, he notices her slouched shoulders and upset look and pulls her aside.

“You okay?” he asks her and she just shakes her head to tell him no. She knows that if she tries to say anything then the tears she’s been holding back will spill over and she doesn’t want people to see her cry, to see her as weak. Wells understands what she’s implying and gives Clarke a nod before getting back to work.

Once Wells walks away, Clarke makes her way into the break room to grab one of her aprons from her locker. She pulls on the ugly orange colored thing that has a tear in one of the pockets and coffee stains spattered randomly from her past battles between coffee machines and syrup pumps. She sneaks into the employee bathroom to check over her appearance, pasting a smile to her face, before thoroughly washing her hands and making her way out to help Wells and a couple of the other employees, Jasper and Monty, with the sudden rush of customers that have made their way in from the bitter cold outside.

About an hour or so into her shift, she spots a familiar head of dark hair making his way up to the counter. A real smile spreads across Clarke’s face with the appearance of her boyfriend, Finn. She grabs a towel and walks out to wipe off some of the vacant tables. Clarke approaches her boyfriend, needing to talk to him about their plans for going out to spend time with her parents for Christmas.

“Hey,” she says as he turns to face her, cup of coffee in his hand.

“Hey,” he answers smiling down at her.

“I need to talk to you,” she states. “You’re still coming home with me for Christmas, right?”

“Well,” he begins to respond before he’s interrupted.

“Finn!” A voice calls from the doorway and Clarke turns to see a dark haired woman making her way over to them. The woman finally makes it over to them and pulls Finn’s face down to meet hers in a kiss. Clarke can’t help but feel the hurt bubble up in her chest as she witnesses what is happening before quickly looking the other way.

“Oh, sorry. Where are my manners? I’m Raven, Finn’s girlfriend.” The woman introduces after detaching her lips from the man next to her.

They shake hands as Clarke responds, “Nice to meet you. I’m Clarke, uh,” she pauses. “I’m a friend of Finn’s. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to work now. It was nice meeting you, Raven, and bye Finn.”

Clarke makes her way back to the counter, ignoring Finn calling after her and trying to avert her attention from the feeling of her heart being ripped out of her chest. She couldn’t believe that Finn was cheating on her, right in front of her face, no less. So much for bringing someone home for Christmas, her parents (actually, mainly just her mother) were going to be so disappointed in her for screwing this up, just like how she screws everything else up.

‘This day has just turned to complete shit.’ she says to herself. It’s that moment that Clarke notices an attractive looking man walking through the door, talking on his cell phone, that an idea sparks in her head. Maybe she wouldn’t have to go home alone for Christmas after all.