Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Thump. Thump. Thump.

Clarke felt her heart start to match the beat of the music flowing through her ear pods, each foot step falling with the bass as she ran.

Thwick. Thwick. Thwick.

She breathed through each foot fall, the comforting swish of her ponytail brushing her shoulders as she rounded the corner in the park - her running path almost instinctive to her after months following familiar trail.

In. Out. In. Out. In. Out.

It was calming, the dark. The underlying buzz of the night that seeped through, under the music, as she began to slow her pace. The bench near the public water fountain that marked the halfway point of her nightly run was in sight. Just a few more paces, before it was time to check her heart rate, rehydrate, and start back to her townhouse.

One, Two, Three.

Clarke mentally counted her breaths, eyes on her watch while she counted her pulse - watching carefully as the cracked clock face ticked. Her friends mocked her relentlessly for years for not splurging on something newer. After all, smartwatches have been on the market “forever” at this point - they can sync to your phone and track all of this information with little to no user interaction. Why rely on such antiquated practices? But this is how she always ran with her father when he was alive, and somehow this made her still feel that closeness with him. 

Leaning down to take a drink from the fountain, Clarke heard a crack of a twig behind her. She turned her head sharply to look over her shoulder, a habit of spending the last five years constantly looking over her shoulder - desperately trying to make sure that the past wasn’t following her any more. The sigh of relief that escaped her when she saw a doe - looking just as surprised to see Clarke as Clarke felt to see the deer - washed through her veins. At least no one knew she was back. The draw of a stable income was so much more tempting now that she - well. Now. 

The first few years had been rough, and the constant belittlement of her mother the first few months she after she packed a bag and left everything behind took a toll. But sooner or later Abby had realized that distance was something Clarke needed. How else was she going to wrap her head around how every self-detonating decision she’d been making had dragged Clarke deeper and deeper into a depression Clarke had no idea how to pull herself out of.

For months after she’d first left, Clarke attributed the near constant nausea to her heartbreak, the desperate loss she felt - she’d cut herself off almost completely from her friends and family. Blocked nearly everyone’s numbers except her mother before changing her number completely. But after a few weeks it was clear there was more to it. The chill in her bones as she looked at the two pale blue lines was almost enough for her to charge her old phone to get his number. If only she called - he would answer, he would be happy, he would tell her how much he loved her, they would be the family he’d always wanted. 

But that wasn’t Clarke’s reality. He’d made perfectly clear that he’d made his choice, and Octavia had reinforced that with her words.

“Just get the fuck out of our lives.”

Those eight words still haunted Clarke five years later. But it wasn’t that she didn’t understand. She did, but that didn’t change how desperately it hurt. They’d always felt inevitable, unchangeable, unbreakable - Bellamy and Clarke - it was almost funny how Clarke had taken that for granted, and she could see that now. That she hadn’t appreciated how much of his life he’d put on hold to make her happy. 

Clarke’s reality was that she’d taken that moment to remember that he had a family now. By now Bellamy would have proposed, and he and Echo would be married. They probably had a kid of their own, maybe two. The house would have a fresh coat of paint, maybe even a new fence. Hell, if Bell had his way the couple would have a dog by now. Picture perfect.

In reality, she had made the decision to leave that life behind her - knowing that if she stayed, eventually everyone would find their own way to forgive her. Even if she never forgave herself. But Clarke also knew that the time would come that everything happened again. She wasn’t strong enough then to stay away. Clarke honestly couldn’t be sure that she was strong enough now. 

But now she had time. She had distance. She could do this right.

.o.o.

Thirty minutes later, Clarke turned her key in the lock of the small two-story brownstone she now called home. She wiped the sweat from the back of her neck as she called out into the living room, “Mom! I’m back. Thanks for watching Mads for me!”

The light foot falls on the stairs, made her turn, smile on her face. Her mother would be coming down the stairs after putting Madi to sleep for the night, playing babysitter for a couple hours each night for the few months she’s been back - “I’ve got four years to catch up on with my granddaughter. You couldn’t pay me to stay away.” 

And Clarke had tried, she’d kept Madi a secret until the month before she’d given birth. Complications had forced her hand. Otherwise, who knows? Maybe she’d be here. Maybe not. But once Abby had learned of Clarke’s pregnancy, the near constant digs and subtle insults had stopped. It was like she had finally understood why Clarke couldn’t and wouldn’t come home. There were days that Clarke wished that Abby didn’t have to have tangible proof that Clarke’s life was outside of her mother’s control, that Clarke was her own person and made her own mistakes, but life rarely did what one wished.

Which is why when Clarke turned to face the stairs, her smile fell completely when she not only saw her mother but a familiar head of dark curls, eyes glaring hatefully as he quietly followed Abby down to the first level of her home. Suddenly, Clarke felt her heart beat in her fingers, a tingling as an emptiness pulled through her, and it was impossible to swallow. She barely heard her mother speaking, she was so focused on the man behind her.

“-rke, please-“ 

Thump. Thump. Thump.

“-at the store, and we ran-“

Thwick. Thwick. Thwick.

“-couldn’t explain why there was a toddler with-“

In. Out. In. Out. In. Out.

“-insisted on following me to wait with us-“

One. Two. Three.

“Clarke.”

One word. That’s all it took for a single tear to escape, sound suddenly rushing back to Clarke’s senses. His voice hadn’t changed. Still deep, gruff, and questioning.

Flashes of moments from their lives before flashed through Clarkes mind, threatening to make more tears fall down her cheeks. A cacophony of emotion rushed through her body, knees weak from the pain of seeing him again. She’d known that eventually she would need to call him, but she’d hoped she had more time. She wasn’t ready. All the love she’d managed to convince herself was dead, all the anger, the pain, the frustration, came to her all at once before she found her voice.

“Out,” Clarke felt like she was on the outside of her skin, looking down as she continued, “I can’t talk about this right now. Not here, go home. Both of you.”

Abby looked almost sheepish as her eyes darted between the two. She quickly moved forward and grabbed her coat and purse off the back of Clarke’s couch, before she moved to her daughter.

“I’m sorry about this, really, I am. But you really ought to have told him sooner. I’ll leave you two to - I’ll leave you alone for now. I’ll see you tomorrow,” and the older woman was out the door.

Clarke willed her walls back up, each brick had it’s place and the mortar that held everything in place needed to be strong before she looked at Bellamy. Dealt with his anger, the betrayal for keeping something like this from him for so long. When she finally pulled her eyes from the floor to look at him, he still hadn’t spoken.

He looked like sin, in a dark blue t-shirt and dark jeans, hair longer but still wild. He had a beard now, scruffy and light, but distinctive. He had one hand limply hanging by his side, and the other clenched tightly around the newel of the bannister - tight enough that it had to be hurting him. He hadn’t taken his eyes off of her, the anger in his eyes almost hurt Clarke. But she could handle that. She had prepared herself for his resentment. Prepared herself to give up a part of her daughter’s life so that he could be part of it, without her. 

That was one of the reasons it had taken Clarke so long to come home. At first it was fear - why go back to a place where the only thing waiting was derision and loneliness. But slowly that fear changed. What if he’d fought her for custody? Surely no courts would side with her, a semi-nomadic graphic arts designer - even one that came from family money - was no match for a white picket fence, stable family with married parents and the one point five kids that came with that stability. With his mother, and raising his sister while he himself was still a child, Clarke had always known that Bellamy would fight to be a part of Madi’s life. She just hadn’t been ready to share her baby girl yet. And wasn’t that the biggest problem? Suddenly, Clarke realized that she still wasn’t ready. She couldn’t let her go. 

Somehow, Clarke managed to make eye contact with the one person who used to know her better than she knew herself and find her voice, “I said get out.”

.o.o.

Clarke spent the rest of the night drifting. In her mind she replayed every first she’d experienced with her daughter. The first time Madi laughed, the stumbles of her first steps, the giggles of her first birthday cake, the sleepless nights of being a single parent, the terror that struck with Madi’s first fever, the overwhelming relief when said fever broke, the cuddles, the child’s wonder with stories from Clarke’s old life, and her love for the people in them she’d never met. The memory of telling her daughter about this move pushed it’s way to the forefront of her mind.

“Sweetie, what do you think about going somewhere new? Mommy got a new job opportunity, and it’ll take us closer to Grandma? Would you like that?” 

Squeals of excitement escaped the tiny child at decibels someone that small should be incapable of, “Gamma, gamma, gamma!”

Clarke chuckled with the image of her bouncing toddler clapping enthusiastically before she continued and scooped the girl out of her high chair, “And maybe Mommy will get her stuff together huh? Finally get you to meet all the people from Mommy’s stories? Would you wanna do that?”

The sweet smell of her daughters brown curls filled her senses as Clarke hugged her daughter close. She could do this. She had to.

Clarke had never lied to Madi, never shied away from the pain and the hurt, but she’d always tried to answer the toddler’s questions in a way that proved how much love there was in the world, that the girl didn’t have to be afraid of anything - because Mommy would never let the bad things hurt her if she could stop them. If it hadn’t been for her own mother offering Clarke the use of one of her rental properties, she never would have given in to Madi’s burgeoning questions about her “Daddy.” How do you explain to a four year old that her father had no idea she existed. So in lieu of explanations, Clarke had merely diverted. But, you couldn’t run from your past forever - no matter how much you wanted to.

When Abby had told her about an opportunity Marcus had learned about in his company’s design department, it had seemed like the perfect way to prove she was ready. Over five years, Clarke had been sure that her emotions had leveled, that she was stronger now. 

After all, she had Madi to live for now - and no amount of pain and regret could keep Clarke from giving that little girl the world.

It had taken one look from Bellamy - not even a word - for her to doubt everything. Most of her brain was telling Clarke that it wasn’t too late. She could throw what they needed in a bag and go tonight - drive and drive until the pair was far away from this town and all of the judgement Clarke didn’t want to face.

But another look at Madi’s sleeping face, content in dreams, told her that for every reason Clarke had to run, there were two more to stay. How much longer could she divert Madi from asking about her father? How long until the bright spot in Clarke’s life started resenting her mother for keeping Madi away from half of her family?

She turned away from her daughter’s door way with a sigh and stepped towards her own room before she flicked off the hallway light. In the safety of her own room, door firmly shut behind her, Clarke felt her body go through the motions of getting ready for bed. Mindlessly she crawled under the covers and grabbed her phone off of the bedside table to message her mother before bed.

It had been rude of her to kick Abby out of her own house just because she was upset to be forced into a potential confrontation she hadn’t been prepared for. Her mother had been right in that eventually one of her old friends would see Madi in public - be it with Abby or with Clarke herself. She only wished that Abby had been forthright, that her mother had warned her what was waiting for her at home. Clarke started to feel the anger bubble up inside of her again with that thought. What right did Abby have to force this on her before Clarke had felt it was right? But she pushed it back down just as quickly. Her mother had been asking for the three months she’d been back when Clarke was going to take the leap and reach out to her former friends. Every time Clarke had had some excuse. We need to settle into the house first. I’m still so new at the office, I just need a little more time. Madi’s just getting used to her new school, next month I’ll start slow introductions, promise. We need a routine, it’ll be soon. With every excuse Clarke should have realized that soon would never come. Her old fear was always going to be in control. Abby had done what she thought was right. Clarke didn’t like it, but she could respect it.

Clarke unlocked her phone swiftly and opened her messaging app - as expected she had a couple texts from her mother.

Abby: I know you weren’t ready Clarke. And I’m sorry for that. It wasn’t my place to introduce them.

Abby: But you should have seen him at the store. The way he looked at her, it was like he knew instantly.

Abby: I couldn’t have kept him away.

Clarke felt her body relax, the fight leaving her as she began to respond. She typed out a quick response that everything was fine. They could talk tomorrow, and hash through the how and the why, etc. She had barely hit send, already geared to put her phone down and attempt to find a dreamless sleep when Clarke felt the device vibrate in her hand.

Unknown: I’ll be by in the morning. Alone. See you at 9.

The tingling sensation that had spread through her when she had laid eyes on Bellamy again for the first time in five years iced through her veins for the second time that evening - her fight or flight instincts screamed at her to run. This was exactly what she had dreaded. The inevitable. Quickly, Clarke texted her mother - she begged Abby to come pick up Madi to take her to the park in the morning before nine. She didn’t want Madi home for whatever might happen - and no matter that her mother had already taken the decision of how to introduce Bellamy to his daughter away from Clarke, she would make sure that from now on nothing would happen to upset the toddler. 

Madi was Clarke’s everything now. And nothing would change that.

.o.o.

Clarke wasn’t sure how much sleep she’d gotten, if any, when Abby arrived the next morning to pick up Madi. Clarke was struggling to brush the tiny girls wild curls into pigtails when she heard the key in the door downstairs.

“We’re in Mad’s room Mom. Come see the beautiful monstrosity of an outfit our little one has picked out for today!”

The four year old was restless as she kicked her tiny feet, covered in clear sparkly plastic, already excited to go play at the park with her grandmother. When Abby finally made it up the stairs, the woman gave an exaggerated gasp of delight as she looked at Madi, “Well don’t you just look darling! Give me a spin!”

The child in question giggled as she pulled away from Clarke’s grasp, twirling a little to display her garish bright green shirt dress with equally bright orange leggings, complete with dark blue knocker ball hair ties for her pig tails, “Gamma - I pretty and ready to play!”

Clarke was in love with this bundle of energy - more so than she’d ever felt before in her life. How could anyone not be? This small girl had more compassion and love in her tiny four year old heart than Clarke had experienced in her entire life. Whatever happened today, Clarke knew that she had to reach some understanding with Bellamy in order to preserve that. She just hoped it wouldn’t break her heart to do it.

The next fifteen minutes passed quickly as Clarke put together a go-bag for Abby to take, complete with goldfish, pretzels, and cheese cubes in individual plastic baggies for when Madi inevitably got crabby and needed snacks to keep up her energy. Kisses were placed on her daughters head and mothers cheeks when the two got to the front door. By the time the door shut behind them, a silence overwhelmed Clarke’s ears as she glanced to the small digital clock in front of the television in her living room. 

8:37 A.M.

Nervous energy raced through Clarke, and she ran up the stairs to her room to stop in front of her vanity mirror. The curls around her face were wild, half straight from sleep - half standing upright. There were slight bags under her eyes from not enough sleep the night before, and there was a weird stain on her shirt from god knows what. Quickly, Clarke stripped out of her threadbare t-shirt, and threw an oversized Mickey Mouse hoodie on over her bralette and leggings, before throwing on the first pair of clean socks she could pull out of her drawer. When she turned back to the mirror, she had just enough time to put some hair oil in her palms and finger comb her hair before she heard the doorbell echo through the two story townhome. 

It was time to face the music of her own making.

Chapter Text

Clarke could feel Bellamy’s impatience, sense his shifting through the door as her hand hovered over the doorknob. It wasn’t hard to shift the deadbolt, turn the handle, open the door. She could do it. She’d prepped for this moment the last few months. It was easy. Just a simple flick of the wrists, and she would finally have a sense of closure.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

Everything flew out the window the second the door opened though. Clarke hadn’t thought her heart would stutter the way it did when she met Bellamy’s dark, angry eyes. Nothing could have truly prepared her for this moment. No words were spoken as he pushed past her into the entry way, the room felt cramped as she shut the door behind him. She had to lean against the door, with the overwhelming oppression as he silently searched the room and he quickly glanced upwards towards their daughters room. He soaked in every detail he could find before he found Clarke again.

“Were you ever going to tell me?”

The question was as oppressive as the silence, as tinged with hurt as much as it was an accusation. Shame filled Clarke as her mind pulled her back to the moment she left. The visceral memory of the weight of her curls falling off of her shoulders feeling like all the pain and torment she’d put the people in her life through drifting away. An anxious scoff pulled her back to the present, and Clarke pushed herself off of the door, and glided through the room towards her kitchen, with a slight gesture for Bellamy to follow.

“Honestly? I’m not sure. If it weren’t for Abby, probably not,” Clarke held up a hand instinctively, knowing that he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from interrupting her before she continued, “I wrecked your life once. But, I also knew that if you knew you wouldn’t be able to stay away. And then? None of us would have been able to handle it well - give Madi the home she needed, needs, so we stayed away.

Clarke pulled open the fridge door, an open bottle of wine in her grasp before she knew it and breezed through cabinets until she had two glasses in her fingertips. She set the two glasses down and uncorked the wine as she felt the words spilling out of her lips - pouring as easily as the wine into the crystal.

“After everything that day, between Raven and O - I hated myself. I ran. And I know it wasn’t the smart thing, the responsible thing to do. But I didn’t have it in me to stay. Maybe some of our friends found a way to ‘forgive’ me or not to think any less of me, but until I could look at myself in the mirror and not loathe the person looking back… there was just no way.

“And before you ask, I didn’t know before I left,” Clarke took a long drink of the pale wine as she pushed the other glass towards the man before her, “I found out in a dirty hotel room half-way across the country, after a long night of Abby telling me that I was throwing away my entire life, and I don’t know. Something she said that night, I had this fleeting moment of terror as I realized that depression, anxiety, and fear might all cause a sense of nausea, but it wouldn’t be as constant for so long… I went and got a test from the store up the street.

“Those two blue lines? It was a turning point I didn’t know I needed. Suddenly I saw what I think you had for the years before. What we were doing, to each other - to our others - was so extraordinarily toxic. I couldn’t do that to our kid. You know? I told myself then, that I had the next seven months or so to learn to like myself. To teach myself how to be human, so that I could give them the world. Does that make sense?”

She could see Bellamy struggling to find the words he wanted to express himself. It was interesting to Clarke - her Bellamy had never been one to think before he spoke, think before he acted. They both had tended towards action before words, before thinking. The way Lexa had found them proved that.

Bellamy brushed his hand over his mouth, fingers combing slightly through his beard before he grabbed the previously untouched glass of wine in front of him. Clarke took the moment to grab her phone, pulling up Venmo and sending Abby thirty dollars with a popcorn and a camera emoji before texting her, asking her to take Madi to the newest Disney movie in theatres. 

She turned her gaze back and watched, almost wistfully, as the man in front of her took a large sip of the wine - carefully eyeing it in approval before setting it down carefully on the counter. There was so much different about Bellamy, but so much the same. The restless energy was still there, like he couldn’t imagine being confined to one place for too long, but there was also an emotional weight to his features that she’d never seen before. 

The silence between them stood, pointed and tense, with neither of them able to find the words to break it. He sat on the barstool at the counter, with her standing on the opposite time for uncounted minutes before he spoke, “Clarke-“

She hadn’t even realized that her eyes had shut until they snapped open at the sound of her name on his lips. The way he said it, the pain, the hurt, the anger, all interlaced with so much meaning in one word. Clarke swallowed slowly and turned away to find something to do with her hands, anything not to look at him as he spoke. As he said everything she’d dreaded for the last five years. He was happy, he didn’t need her, he wanted his daughter in his life, that he and Echo would fight for split custody, that she’d have to share all of Madi’s hugs and kisses, that she would call another woman ‘Mommy.’

“Clarke, I don’t blame you for leaving. But I don’t know how to forgive you for keeping our kid from me.”

“Bellamy, I -“

“No Clarke,” he interjected, “I let you talk, and now it’s my turn. For just a minute, I need you to listen to me.” Bellamy took another long drink of his wine before he stood up and continued, “I get why you left. Raven and Octavia told me a little bit about what happened from their perspective, and Raven… she regretted what she said pretty immediately, but you disappeared. We waited for weeks before Abby finally told Raven to stop asking, that you would reach out when you were ready. But you never did. You didn’t just leave me Clarke, you left all of us. And I haven’t… I haven’t told anyone else yet.

“But, you can’t keep this to yourself forever. I don’t know why you felt like you had to cut yourself off for so long, but-“ Clarke braved a look to Bellamy as she heard him choke off mid-sentence, his jaw clenched with a strange melancholy, “I never wanted you to leave. Especially not. Not on the worst day of my life.”

Bellamy went silent for a moment, the slight circle he’d paced had brought him back to the stool he’d been sitting on. He reached out a shaky hand and took another drink of his wine before he finished it in the next. He looked towards Clarke as he set the glass back down on the counter and grabbed the bottle of wine to top off her barely touched glass and refill his own. She met his eyes carefully, a practiced mask covered her features as she felt herself take a sip of her wine and waited for him to continue.

It was only when his jaw clenched again, took another long sip of his drink, and looked away that Clarke felt able to speak, “Why… why was it the worst day? I thought, I don’t know what I thought, but I figured that you would be able to finally move on with Echo when I was gone. Your voicemail made it pretty clear to me how you and Octavia felt about me being a part of your lives.”

She heard the anger return to his voice with a scoff, “Are you fucking kidding me? I leave you a voicemail - desperately trying to tell you that I’m in love with you, and that Echo - that she, fuck-“ He stopped himself as his voice had risen with the expletive that escaped him before he buried his face into the palms of his hands. It was then that Clarke found herself focusing on his left hand, desperately searching for a ring or a tan line to prove that the stories she had woven in her mind the last five years weren’t a weak fiction made to justify her absence, only to come up empty. 

“What?” Clarke’s voice felt small as the word escaped her with seemingly all the breath in her body. Her entire body was shook with each uneven breath she took, “But, no. That’s not. O said to get the fuck out of your lives. She. That’s where it ended.”

Clarke saw more than she heard the sardonic laugh shake through Bellamy’s body across the counter. When he finally looked up at her there was a strange mirth on his face, “What you heard was the tail end of a fight. One of many, endless fights where Echo continually told me how little I was worth without her. How she was the only one who could possibly understand me. What you heard was Octavia telling her to get out when she walked in to comfort Echo only to find her destroying Mom’s crystal bowl -“

“What-“

“And then you wouldn’t answer anyone’s calls Clarke?! What were we supposed to think. Eventually we realized you had blocked us, that our calls were never going to be answered. Jesus Christ Clarke.” Bellamy had grabbed his wineglass and gone into the living room, setting it down carelessly on the coffee table before sitting down on the couch and sinking back into his palms, elbows rested on his knees.

“Bell - I’m sorry. I… I didn’t know.” 

Was that her voice? Why did it sound so far away? So tiny? Clarke had spent the last five years building up the fear of the hatred she’d be coming home to, so why did this feel so… wrong? 

“Of course you didn’t know Clarke!” The vehemence laced in his words cut through her, surprised her with how strong it hit, “You didn’t answer the fucking phone for years, and Abby wouldn’t give anyone anything except you weren’t dead! And instead of finding out that I had a daughter with the woman I was in love with for years, I put two and two together after seeing Abby at the damned grocery store with a toddler calling her Grandma in the fucking cereal aisle!

“Fuck,” Clarke watched Bellamy take a deep shuddering breath to center himself, “This… shit. This isn’t how I wanted this to go. I wanted… I don’t even know what I wanted. I need. I have to go.” 

Bellamy quickly stood and pulled his keys from his back pocket. He took three steps towards the front door, hand already outstretched to grab the handle before he turned back to Clarke - frozen in the kitchen - his body tense. 

“That’s my daughter Clarke, I knew the second I saw her that she was mine. When it comes to you leaving, there’s nothing to forgive Princess. But keeping her from me? Jesus Clarke. That was fucked. You know what O and I have lived with - not having a chance to know our fathers. You knew that I always swore that I would be there if I ever had kids. That I wanted to be there Clarke. And I get that you thought that we didn’t want you around. But that is no excuse for keeping a child from a parent. I want to meet her. I want the chance to actually be her father, not just an old friend of Mommy’s that she and Grandma ran into at the store, and isn’t it so nice of Mommy’s friend to help us home with the groceries? Figure out what you need to do to make that happen. Whatever timeline it takes. Figure. It. Out.”

The door was open and almost shut behind him as he drove the final nail into the coffin of Clarke’s psyche.

“Do it. Before I do.”

.o.o.

To say that Clarke felt nothing but overwhelming loneliness in the hours she mindlessly wandered the townhouse after the door slammed behind him would be an understatement. 

Loneliness.

Melancholy.

Devastation.

All accurate terms. 

It wasn’t until she heard the front door open and close, and the little pitter patter of her daughter’s feet that Clarke pulled herself from her anguish and out of her bed. With a quick palm to her cheek, she wiped away the tear stains and painted what she hoped was a happy smile as she descended the stairs to her daughters gleeful laughter.

“Hey bean, did you like the movie?” Her daughter turned, wide eyed, towards her mother as she launched into a very cyclical explanation of a plot that Clarke could never hope to comprehend, and she looked out of the corner of her eye towards her own mother. Abby looked torn, wistfully towards her granddaughter and simultaneously disappointed at the two partially finished wine glasses - bottle half-full and abandoned on the counter. Clarke half-listened to Madi’s rambling excitement as she watched Abby diligently pour each glass into the sink, giving each glass a cursory rinse before placing them upside down in the dish drain to be washed later. As she turned her attention back to her daughter and grand daughter, Abby caught Clarkes eyes, and with a rush of sympathy interrupted the ranting toddler.

“Madi, what do you think about a sleepover at Grandma’s house this weekend? Why don’t you run upstairs and pack an overnight bag. I’ll even take you to pre-school on Monday, hm? Mommy can pick you up after.” The aforementioned toddler stopped talking long enough to think over the proposal, looking hesitantly at Clarke as she considered the proposition before she dashed up the stairs lest any adult take away the offer.

As soon as she was sure Madi was upstairs (and surely destroying her room in the guise of ‘packing,’) Clarke turned to her mother, her smile turned watery as she spoke, “Thanks Mom. I-“

Abby cut her off, having moved towards her without Clarke realizing, and enveloped her in a hug, “Shh sweetie. It’s okay. This was always going to be hard. I’m sorry that I forced this on you sooner than you were ready. It wasn’t my place.” Clarke choked back a quiet sob as her mother’s fingers raked through her curls, “I’ll take Madi for the weekend, you make whatever calls you need to.” Her mothers hands came to her cheeks, and her thumbs gently wiped away the tears that threatened to fall, “Maybe start on the edges? Yeah? Work your way to the middle. It’s all going to hurt at least a little, but maybe with each one it might hurt a little less?”

With her final words, Abby pulled Clarke into a firm hug, brief but strong, before she let go following the noises of an excited four year old’s attempts to fit a much to large teddy bear into a small roller suitcase.

.o.o.

Clarke understood where Abby was coming from when she said to start on the outside and work her way in. It wasn’t that any of her former friends meant more or less than the others, but more that there would be those who wouldn’t necessarily be as judgmental as the rest - at least Clarke hoped. 

Unlimited things could have changed in the last five years.

So, Clarke started on the outside, with a quick text.

Clarke: 1403A W 35th St. I’m back. Talk today?

She tried not to be worried as she bit her thumb. It was midday on a Saturday, he very well could have had plans, he could be working, there was no guarantee he would see her text, let alone assume it was her, she-

Read.

Okay. He’d seen it. Step one. Completed.

She watched as the three dots flicked across her screen. Then vanished. Flicked. Vanished.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

Nothing. 

Clarke threw her phone down onto the couch with a frustrated groan, her head dramatically tipped back onto the cushions.

This wasn’t going to be easy.

She lifted her head with a huff of air and glanced over at the offending rectangle and narrowed her eyes. She’d made first contact. That was good enough for today, right? Yes. Yep. It had to be. Clarke’s eyes scanned across the living room, noting each and every toy, and sign a toddler lived in this home. She puffed her cheeks full of air, and slowly released it through her teeth before she got to her feet.

If she was going to ease any of her old friends into her life, she had to make it as… painless a process as possible. And that meant not throwing a baby in their faces immediately. So, she slowly started to put toys and kid-clutter into various closets and cupboards on the first floor - just in case.

That’s how she found herself, ass half sticking out of the hall closet, when she heard a knock at the front door. Then another, and another in an awkward not quite consistent rhythm, that could only be one person. Clarke threw herself upright and shut the door just a little too hard before she ran to the front door. A quick pat and prayer to the hair gods that nothing was too out of place, and suddenly she opened the door in front of her to face the only person apathetic enough to simultaneously never despise but always judge her.

John Murphy.

Chapter Text

There are times when flashes of her life stream through her mind that Clarke can understand why she became so dependent on her friends. How they became more family to her than her own mother.

After the death of her father as a teen, Abby became a shell of the mother she’d been before. Home had been painful, but tolerable. She’d been able to drown her own depression with her best friend, able to find joy in the small moments of her mundane life. On the outskirts of her home town it had been easy enough to bike to her best - only really - friend’s house, saddle up the Jaha’s two chestnut mares and ride away her emotions. 

When Wells had been bucked off his horse only three months after her father’s death, she’d been terrified. But he’d seemed okay, though his leg had definitely been broken. It was easy enough to call the ambulance and his father to explain what happened. She’d gotten the horses led back to the small three stall stable the family had on their property and the reins handed off to the caretaker who lived on property (Clarke would swear that she’d known his name at the time, but after years the memory is fuzzy, blurred with time.) It wasn’t until she was at the hospital, sitting in a stupidly uncomfortable chair waiting for Wells to come back from his X-Rays that Clarke realized something could be wrong.

Something in the back of her mind had nagged at her, told her that bad things always come in threes, and she couldn’t shake it. She’d sat there for hours, the strange, loud silence of the hospital seeped into her brain in a way she’d never forget before Abby had found her.

“Clarke, honey, come here. We… Thelonious and I need to talk to you. Wells is about to be brought back to his room and he’ll need to rest.”

She’d felt hollow in that moment. How dare she have let herself be happy.

Clarke had sat in her mother’s office for hours. By the time Abby had come to take her to see Wells, she’d already cried herself out, sobbed herself to sleep in the small chair she’d curled up in, and awoken again to stare at the slight stain on the wall behind her mother’s degrees with a blank look.

Bone cancer.

Stage Four. Metastasized to his lymph nodes.

Never would have been detected had his bone not broken.

Less than 30% survival rate with aggressive treatment.

Why couldn’t life just be fair?

She’d stopped to gather herself outside of Wells’s door. Painfully scrubbed at her cheeks to make sure the tear tracks were not as evident, because no dying sixteen year old deserved to know that his best friend had cried herself to sleep. Because he needed her.

Three months. She had three more months with him, she painted a smile on her face with every visit. Brought him his homework, like it mattered to get an A in English. Like he was going to get to graduate, go to their dream college, get to do all the things they planned to do together.

Clarke spent three months watching the chemo and radiation leech the life out of her friend, brushing the hair from his pillow as it slowly fell out of his hair. Three months holding him when he cried because he didn’t want to leave her and his father behind. Three months. And she’d never trade a single second of them.

It wasn’t until he’d passed and been buried that Clarke really let her grief overwhelm her. After the funeral, she’d been forced to go to a memorial at their high school, where hundreds of kids who never really even talked to Wells, let alone ever acknowledged his existence talked about how much they’d cared about him. How they’d miss him. 

Her anger then should have clued her in to the fact that bad things happen in threes. 

That was when Abby told her about her new job halfway across the country. Father and best friend dead and buried, and Clarke wouldn’t even be able to visit their graves.

.o.o.

Showing up at a new high school half-way through sophomore year would be hard on any teenager. Roll in staggering grief, and an emotionally distant mother, and it surprised no one that there were almost monthly calls from the counsellors office to Abby regarding Clarke’s apathy towards her school assignments and inability to open up to her peers.

Her mother would handle the counsellor or worried teachers with aplomb and a toothy smile, always with a display of normalcy. But at home, there were only lectures about how Clarke needed to pull herself together or she’d never get into a decent pre-med program. No school wants an anti-social B student with no extra-curricular programs on their resume. 

So she’d started putting on a fake smile, mimicked her mother in public, and let her sadness take over her in private.

If it hadn’t been for Octavia Blake she might never have pulled herself out of her new normal.

“You’re sad,” Clarke heard before she saw the lunch tray clatter across from her at the long rectangular table she’d isolated herself at in the corner of the cafeteria, “that’s cool. My life sucks too. Let’s suck together now.”

And suddenly she wasn’t alone. Octavia took her pain and didn’t make her talk about it. Aurora welcomed Clarke into her home and her small family without any reservations, and slowly Clarke started feeling human again. She’d heard about a brother away at college, but never thought anything of it until their junior year.

It suddenly seemed like death followed her when Aurora was suddenly killed. Clarke shouldn’t say suddenly. But it wasn’t until after her death that Octavia - meek for probably the first time in the year they’d known each other - confessed that her mother’s boyfriend wasn’t a good man. Clarke had never met the man, but Octavia had never really liked to talk about him, so she hadn’t been concerned. 

Sometimes you didn’t see the true colors of people until it was too late.

The guy was a cop.

Nothing happened.

No closure.

She was just… gone.

Octavia stayed with Abby and Clarke for a while after that, and Clarke saw in her what she thought she herself had looked like just a year ago. When it seemed like no one in the world could possibly understand the pain and heartache she was suffering.

That was when Clarke met Bellamy. 

.o.o.

Christmas was a quiet affair that year. Abby had taken a double shift at the hospital, desperate not to be reminded of yet another year without Jake, and the girls were alone watching a marathon of Christmas themed movies in silence. Both alone with their grief, but together in spirit. Loss had bonded them in ways that their friendship never would have been able to. Able to understand each other in ways no seventeen year olds should ever be able to relate to.

No one should have been looking for either of them, the only adult that had any responsibility to them was off to find their own escape from the suffering of death. So to say they were surprised when the doorbell rang would be underplaying it. As a memory, Clarke could viscerally feel the shock roll through her, the popcorn comically flying out of the bowl in her lap when she jumped. 

Did it happen that way? Probably not. 

But memories are sometimes more vivid than the reality. Just like sometimes they were fuzzy. 

The human mind holds on to the strangest things.

Clarke hesitantly went to the door and looked through the peephole to see a stranger in a grey hoodie, tanned where Octavia was pale, with wild black waves where her friends hair fell straight. But the similarities were the same. The two had their mothers striking cheekbones, moved in a restless way that reminded her of the closest thing she’d felt to a parent since her father’s death.

When she opened the door she was fully hit by the man that was Bellamy Blake.

The two stared at each other for what felt like an eternity, both breathless, before Octavia caught a glimpse over Clarke’s shoulder.

“Bell? Oh god Bell, you’re here!” The shriek didn’t seem loud, though the silence had overtaken the white noise of the television in the background. Clarke’s world had tilted on it’s axis, and she barely felt Octavia brush by her on her way to wrap her arms around her brother. “Clarke. This is my brother Bellamy. Sorry. I gave him your address when he texted. I hope its okay.”

“Yeah, yeah, come… come in.”

Clarke can’t remember what she was wearing, what her hair looked like, but until the day she dies she would never forget that first moment seeing him. He looked like home.

The three spent the rest of the night in the living room. The siblings on the couch, Octavia curled up in her brother’s arms - taking comfort from the only real person who understands the exact pain of losing a parent. Clarke watched from an arm chair, near enough that Octavia would never feel abandoned, but far enough not to intrude. 

After all. She hadn’t been ready for an ‘outsider’ for months after her father, and longer after Wells. She could give O as much time as she needed.

Bellamy stayed with them for about a week after Christmas. Funnily enough, Abby didn’t even notice until the day he left for the Blake’s house, and didn’t mention anything until the siblings were gone.

“How dare you have a boy in this house. I trusted the two of you, and you have to pull a juvenile stunt like this. Clarke. Were you even safe?!”

The indignation she felt was overridden by a laughable apathy. Now her mother found it in her to care? 

That was Abby.

Suddenly a parent when optics were concerned.

With no emotion Clarke had been able to explain that was Octavia’s brother. Home from college. He hadn’t been sure he would be able to make it back in time for Christmas with his sister, dealing with the paperwork of his mother’s death as well as whatever his school had needed for his leave of absence. Only one semester and he would have been finished.

She hadn’t meant to eavesdrop the night before the pair had left, but she’d been fresh out of the shower. Towel drying her curls on the quick walk back to her bedroom, she’d caught herself outside of Octavia’s room (however little the other teen had actually slept in it, especially since Bellamy had taken to crashing in there since O inevitably found her way to Clarke in the night - both girls wrapped in their own grief around each other) listening to the harsh whispers of the sibling’s argument.

“You only have a semester left! I’ll be fine. Just because she’s… because mom’s… you don’t have to put your life on hold for me Bell. I’ll be fine. Dr. Griffin told Clarke I can stay here however long. I’m seventeen, no one has to know!”

But the downside to the who had taken Aurora was double-edged. CPS had already been informed that a seventeen year old was technically on her own. They’d only reached out to Bellamy before coming to place her in a group home because of his age. At twenty-two, so long as he could prove he had a stable job he’d be able to ‘take’ her. Aurora had left the house to the siblings jointly, and there had been no mortgage. 

At least there was something like god watching over the pair in that.

Clarke had left the two after that.

It was too much like intruding to stay.

.o.o.

Life had continued pretty much like ‘normal’ or whatever facsimile of it existed after that.

And somehow Clarke could not stay out of Bellamy’s orbit.

And she would never have wanted to.

Chapter Text

“You look awfully alive for a dead person.”

Clarke should have been surprised that those were the first words John Murphy spoke to her in five years. But in all honesty? It should have been far worse.

He brushed past her, with a semi-friendly nudge to her shoulder, as he walked into the living room. He took his sunglasses off his slightly crooked nose and placed them firmly in the pocket of the same beat up leather jacked he’d had since Clarke met him, before shrugging it off with a throw in Clarke’s direction.

She barely managed to catch it as she shut the door behind him.

“Hi Murphy.”

“Not dead-dead you know. Just. Dead to me.”

Clarke closed her eyes at the dig before she took the leather in her arms to the same banister that Bellamy had been clutching just the night before. She threw it over the newel before she went to the kitchen.

“Want anything? I don’t have much. Water and… wine. White.”

“Nah,” he managed to sound cool, collected and calm with every word, so Clarke tried her damnedest to mimic his demeanor, “but I wouldn’t mind an explanation at some point. Cryptic texts from ghosts make me curious.”

When Clarke turned her eyes back to him, he was spread out in the center of her couch, very much like he’d always belonged there. She felt a tear form in the corner of her eye in the split second before she could blink it away.

“Good to see you too Murph. Straight to the point. Feels right,” Clarke took a deep breath before she grabbed a bottle of water for herself. Maybe the wine with Bellamy first thing in the morning had been a bad idea. 

How else had she been supposed to deal with seeing the married love of her life on the day he was going to tell her he was taking her daughter from her.

Not that had been at all what happened, or even reality, but she’d never been able to see anything but the worst in a situation. Life had always dealt her shit hands, why would this be any different?

“I guess I’ll start with the how? Or I guess the why? It’s a lot.” Clarke took a drink as she looked under her lashes at the man on her couch. He’d changed a lot in five years. Grown into himself. 

He had the grace not to say anything, but the impatience to wave her to continue.

“Well. I guess it starts with Bellamy,” Murphy scoffed under his breath and turned his head away from her, and Clarke took a deep breath and forced herself to continue, “No, I mean. Mom’s boyfriend offered me an interview for a job back here, and with… with my circumstances it made sense to come back home where there was more help. Abby’s been pushing me the last couple months to reach out, stop isolating myself. Bellamy saw her yesterday at the store, and there was something that made him approach her. She brought him here, and yeah.”

Clarke watched John like a hawk, but she felt like she was spiraling. If she didn’t get his out, she didn’t know how she was ever going to be able to. She felt herself sink into an armchair, fingers twirling the edges of a knitted blanket thrown over side, completely unable to make eye contact with the man across the room from her.

“Fuck why is this so hard,” She cleared her throat of the obstruction that suddenly stopped her voice, taking another swig of water out of the bottle in her right hand, “Shit. Well. I’ll just get out with it. Abby had my daughter with her.”

A stunned silence filled the room, and when she finally found the courage she saw nothing but shock on Murphy’s face. He blinked once. Twice. A third time before he shook his head, a finger coming to his ear to clean out imaginary wax.

“I’m sorry there Princess. I heard you incorrectly. She had who’s sprog with her?”

Clarke felt her face squish into a grimace before she confirmed herself, “Mine? My, eh, my four year old daughter.”

The silence returned to fill the room before it was drowned out by a hysterical, shaking laughter.

“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me. Isn’t that just fucking rich. You can never just do anything the easy way can you Clarke?” His laughter was contagious, and Clarke suddenly felt herself start to giggle, the laughter building until she felt herself pulled into a standing hug with her old friend. “You sure know how to make a re-entrance, don’t you Princess?”

The friends spent the next thirty minutes just being, content to be around each other again. No more words were needed.

.o.o.

The next call had been harder.  Because she’d had to actually call.

Harper had never been a big texter, “Why waste time when you can never tell inflection in text. Too easy to misunderstand. Just talk to me. That way everything can just get cleared up, right away.”

Clarke’s hand shook the entirety of the time she heard the ringing of the phone. Murphy had said no one really had a new number, not to worry. But she hadn’t missed the way he winced when she asked about the rest of their friends. But he only said that some things weren’t his story to tell.

It wasn’t until she heard Harper’s voice through the phone that Clarke found her breath, though she couldn’t keep the quiver of worry out of her voice.

“Harper, please, don’t. Don’t hang up. I know, it’s been too long. I can text you my address, or we can meet up somewhere if you don’t want to come here. I just… I’m back and. God. I want to come home,” the tears spilled over as she spoke, one continuous breath filled with the anguish she had realized she’d been suppressing the last five years.

“Clarke? Oh my god. No. Yes. No. I mean, yes we can meet, but Monty’s working on a thing right now. He should be finished tinkering in the next hour or so. There’s a cafe near our house we can get to for dinner? Would… is that too much? I’ll send you the details? We could get there by five-thirty or so?” Harper’s voice had the tinny ring of any phone call, but was still so warm - comforting.

“Yeah. Yeah, five-thirty is good. I’ll see you then?” The small hope Clarke felt was almost extinguished as Harper gave a hum of acknowledgement before she hung up. Her fear was back, but she’d already started her amends. She couldn’t stop now.

.o.o.

Clarke spent the hour getting ready, somehow desperate to prove that she was sane. Normal.

Jeans, plain black tee, and a simple sweater to take the slight chill from the air of the fall, and she was good to go.

When she pulled up to the address Google Maps had taken her to, Clarke wasn’t sure what to expect - but it certainly wasn’t what she saw. The building seemed less of a cafe, and more of a microbrewery that served food and coffee. It had a beautiful patio though, which shocked her for the little strip mall the place was located in. Nerves pulsed through her as she sat in her car, sudden terror flitting through that Clarke struggled to suppress. She stared at the entrance from behind her steering wheel, her instincts screaming to turn and run.

But then she saw the slight form of Monty, head searching the parking lot before his face transformed with the brightest smile she’d seen in years. Clarke let her eyes follow his smile, and her stomach dropped.

Harper looked beautiful, but the biggest surprise was the giggling fussing toddler on her hip. Their wide eyes searched around the area, and Harper expertly caught the child as they launched themselves towards the ground. Clarke felt a whimsy as she remembered Madi around that age - the little one couldn’t be more than two, maybe three, years old. It was a sleepless, wild age, when the kid started coming into their independence and personality.

She wasn’t actually sure how, but the walk towards her old friends was easier somehow. Lighter almost.

.o.o.

It was easy.

Until it wasn’t.

Jordan was two and a half and squirming in his high chair - small plate of ‘organic’ dinosaur chicken nuggets half eaten on his plate, abandoned in the mission to grab the apron off of their waiter’s waist whenever the poor teen was within his chubby arm’s reach.

The conversation had started - stilted and unfamiliar - with vague niceties. The mindless catch up of people who hadn’t spoken in years. Pleasant comments on the weather, the neighborhood of the family’s home, where Clarke was located now, how their jobs were going - mundane and meaningless topics meant to lead the three to a false feeling of intimacy.

It felt wrong, and Clarke couldn’t help but know that there was something unspoken between the couple across from her that they were keeping from her. She spent most of the dinner trying to pinpoint exactly what it was before the gaping absence at the table slapped her across the face.

“So, if you don’t - if it’s okay. How’s Jasper? It’s strange seeing you two without him,” Clarke wasn’t sure how she managed to keep her voice even, nonchalant as she took a small sip of her water.

The absolute silence confirmed something Clarke had felt in her gut she hadn’t wanted to acknowledge.

Bad things always come in threes.

The tension at the table was uncomfortable for a moment, as Monty cleared his throat and tried to find the words his obviously broken heart couldn’t stand to formulate.

“He, um. Well. About three years ago. No… Not long after you left he met this girl. She was sweet, and he fell head over heels. So quickly. Not six months after they started dating, and Jasper was sure he was going to propose. The four of us were gonna do this great big double wedding - houses next door. Kids would be together forever - just like us.”

His eyes closed, as Monty willed the tears to stay back, the old pain resurfaced so easily - Clarke knew that well.

“She and her dad - one night. They were hit head on by a drunk driver and… yeah. Jasper took her death hard. He changed, lost his joy,” her friend’s eyes drifted towards his wife, and Clarke watched her slide her hand to cover his in a gentle squeeze of support, “and then, about six months before Jordan was born we just stopped hearing from him - we couldn’t find him anywhere. Three months later, the cops found him. He’d… he overdosed.”

Monty didn’t try to stop the choked sob that escaped him before he continued, “He didn’t want help, and he left us behind in his grief. Died alone in a condemned building with a needle in his arm.”

Harper chose that moment to speak, “We all know that grief can destroy you if you let it, but there were so many good things to remember. And those are the memories we have now. We have so much love that he gave us. Now it’s our job to give that back.”

Clarke gave the couple a watery smile and a small nod of agreement before she raised her water glass, “To Jasper Jordan - and all the love he never got to share with the world.”

Harper and Monty raised their own water glasses, and the three gave a half-hearted cheers before their attention was stolen by a coo from the little boy next to them, who had raised his stocky little arms high in the air with a bounce - eager to mimic whatever his parents were doing.

The three found themselves in an unwilling laughter before Clarke cut herself off from the moment of peace. The rest of dinner went smoothly, or as smoothly as anything could when you spring a secret baby on old friends.

But somehow the unit in front of her had nothing but love, and acceptance for her. 

And suddenly, the hope she’d thought might be misplaced grew just a little bit brighter.

Chapter Text

Sunday was not a productive day for Clarke.

She couldn’t tell how much time passed, even if she had been checking the time every fifteen minutes. 

But she definitely wasn't doing that. 

For most of the day her phone stared at her from the coffee table. Sometimes there was a half-empty wine glass next to it. Sometimes nothing.

She could do this.

It wasn’t hard.

Just dial ten numbers and press a green button.

Except, Hulu.

And Netflix.

And her DVR. 

Then lunch.

Dinner.

Check-ins with her mother.

Pictures of her daughter in various stages of playtime.

Where did Abby find a pink tutu?

Ten numbers.

.o.o.

Monday came and went.

Madi’s laughter kept her alive and out of her head.

Clarke had developed a tendency over the last ten years an uncanny ability to overthink, an unfortunate habit which meant that action and inaction were both signs. She drowned in it, constantly reading between the lines of what the people around her did and didn’t say.

How could she not?

For years after losing Wells, she couldn’t comprehend how she found Octavia. Why the girl picked her out of the hundreds of other girls their age she could have decided to sit with that day, why her?

Was there something in Clarke that was appealing to be around? Or did she scream sadness in a way that she couldn’t hide, was it pity?

Clarke felt her head twitch to the side in a twinge, unconsciously being pulled from her own thoughts when Madi ran up to her Monday night, freshly changed into her new pink striped nightie - one of the multitudes of things Madi had been returned to Clarke with when she’d picked the toddler up from daycare.

The look of panicked exasperation on the poor worker’s face when Clarke had arrived shortly after 3 PM would have been funny if she hadn’t known first hand how scary Abby could be when the older woman set her mind to something. If that thing was somehow storing six bags of toys and clothes alongside the silly pink ladybug roller that Madi had left with, so be it. Clarke also counted no less than three extra teddy bears among the haul.

With a heavy sigh and a frustrated bite to the lip, Clarke apologized profusely to the teacher and school manager, though she knew she couldn’t promise it would happen again. Abby was uncontrollable.

There were times that Clarke had wished she’d had the power to force her mother out of her life, but she wasn’t that strong. There would always be a part of Clarke that remembered the woman who soothed her as a child, encouraged her to get back up when she was knocked down, taught her to fight for her convictions. It was just hard, to reconcile the loving picture in her memory with the controlling, iron-fisted woman in reality.

Which is why she shouldn’t have been surprised when shortly after Madi had begged for the story of the dancing princesses to be read for a third time, half asleep in her protests, that there was a knock at the front door. It was soft, tentative and unobtrusive. Like the person on the other side didn’t want to be there. Clarke looked at the sleepy five-year old she sat next to, and brushed the girls wild chocolate curls away from her forehead with a kiss goodnight. The small whines and whimpers stung in the back of her mind as she turned off the light and shut her daughter’s bedroom door tightly.

The rule of threes has always been predominant in Clarkes world. 

Jake Griffin. Wells Jaha. Aurora Blake.

Lexa leaving. Bellamy’s rejection. Octavia’s words.

Bellamy finding her was the debatable beginning of this new third. Jasper’s death.

Clarke saw the third in front of her when she opened the door.

The woman had her back to Clarke, had apparently changed their mind after long enough at the door with no response and slowly began the walk back to their vehicle. A long dark ponytail  swayed between the woman’s slumped shoulders towards an old truck parked in the street, lightly illuminated by a flickering streetlamp.

It was now, or maybe never. 

Clarke had a decision to make.

.o.o.

Meeting Raven had been a devastating experience for Clarke.

After all, no teen dreams of the moment they find out they’ve been used. No little girl wakes up one day and imagines that their whole life will be complete if only they could just be the ‘other woman.’

Finn had been a surprise to her.

Freshman orientation at a state school, just another small dig at independency from her mother and her money if you asked Abby - but to Clarke it was a chance to keep her found family. This is what Octavia could afford due to the discounted rates for in-state tuition, and this is where Bellamy would… where Clarke was sure he would eventually return now that his sister wasn’t at risk of being removed by Child Protective Services. This was the place she would never have to look herself in the mirror again and see the scared teen she’d been for the last three years. Never again.

Clarke never expected to sit in that crowded auditorium next to Octavia and meet a stranger’s eye through the crowd. To feel seen in a gasp of emotion she hadn’t felt in… she could never act on. But this time? 

Clarke had felt herself flush with excitement as she turned to whisper with her friend, giggling. She put the brown eyes out of her mind, and she definitely didn’t think about how they reminded her of a similar pair that haunted her dreams.

The boy ended up being in a couple of her gen-ed’s. She saw him on campus frequently, and somehow her eyes would find him in a crowd, even if she wasn’t looking for him. His name was Finn. Finn Collins. He’d introduced himself like James Bond, and if that hadn’t been endearing she didn’t know what was.

He made her laugh, kept her mind light and off of the sadness that creeped in daily.

Octavia liked him, liked flirting with him and teasing him to get a rise out of Clarke. They would laugh about it, how the boy was just what Clarke needed. 

Fun.

Clarke fell hard and fast with the first person since Wells to make life feel effortless and she saw a future where there was only light.

He fit in with Octavia easily, and people flocked to him - he was blissfully unaware how easy he made friends, and how thankful that Clarke was he slotted herself and O into his circle. How his friends became hers with little to no thought or question.

It was fifteen times easier than the wheedling from Bellamy’s seemingly only friend John Murphy, who talked to Clarke because it annoyed the older man. To get a rise out of him.

She deserved easy.

It was blissful.

He asked her out in the fall, the leaves just starting to struggle free from their branches. He told her he loved her two weeks later. Clarke felt free.

And it all came crashing down after their first Christmas break.

The two girls had returned to campus high from the bittersweet joy of the holiday, a break from classes brought the misery of what the passage of another year without a loved one brings and the absence of new friends a teen is always sure will be there forever. But it also brought clarity,  and an understanding that while she couldn’t say if she loved Finn back yet, she thought she could. And that was a beautiful thing.

Their reunion was fantastic, and Clarke could say goodbye to stupid the stupid social concept of virginity. It didn’t matter. And it had been perfect - all awkward fumbling and laughter. Trust. 

Gone the next morning when a stranger appeared at his dorm room door.

Clarke was still half-asleep in his tiny twin, back angry from the too small space being crammed with double occupancy.

He’d answered the knock lazily, in just sleep pants, but Clarke would never forget the way he froze, his entire body tense as two arms flung around his neck.

Sometimes easy wasn’t good. Sometimes it hurt.

He’d chased Clarke across campus for the rest of their second semester.

Excuses.

So many excuses.

How he really did love her. That this other person was so far away. That he’d thought the distance would be cause enough for their relationship to end. How was he supposed to know she would follow him.

It didn’t matter. 

Heartbreak comes in threes.

Clarke isolated herself for weeks in the aftermath. How could anyone look at her the same way once they knew. She had destroyed a relationship. Her new friends would inevitably hate her, Octavia would finally see that she wasn’t worth the time she’d invested.

When she finally mustered the courage to go out outside of class times, it was to an annoyed Octavia Blake showing up at her door.

“Alright. Enough sulking over arrogant jackasses who aren’t worth the water to cry. We’re over him now.”

Choked smiles between them, and everything felt healed.

Clarke dumped the boy, and slowly gained the girl.

Raven Reyes was an engineering student, a brilliant mind and became an even better friend.

.o.o.

“Raven, wait,” Clarke felt her voice escape her before she knew it, she sounded distant, quiet in the raging sounds of the fall night.

The woman in question turned over her shoulder, head turned sharply at the sound of the voice in the darkness.

Clarke couldn’t hear the whisper of her name on the other woman’s lips, but she could see the motion in the dim light. Could see her face start to contort, and there was no missing the tears start to fall down her cheeks.

And Clarke definitely couldn’t stop herself from running to take Raven into a deep embrace, both women clutching onto the other. Raven’s words flowed over her as they were repeated.

“I’m so sorry.”

They weren’t fine.

But it was a start.