Work Text:
I chose this, he reminds himself, biting down on it like it's a pill he'll have to taste in full bitterness before it does him any good. I didn't want it, but I chose it.
From his bedroom window he can see Abby waving a tired hand at the latest journalist who's come knocking, and he imagines Clarke still crying over the headlines that branded her father a coward and a killer, the ones she believes Wells helped write. He remembers the look on Abby's face as Clarke collapsed into her arms, the way she looked shocked and disbelieving that she was being given another chance. The way Clarke didn't stop to think, even for a second, that it might not have been Wells. That she needed so sorely for it to have been Wells.
The alternative was unthinkable, and so it wasn't thought.
I chose this, Wells whispers under his breath as one by one, he sees their friends - Clarke's friends, now - arrive on the Griffins' doorstep, sees Abby relieved each time that it isn't him.
He remembers the last day his mother was lucid, before the pain told her brain it wasn't worth the fight anymore. "I wish I had more time."
He'd have his mother back under the falsest of pretences, would give the world to never have lost her.
He had the chance to give Clarke that. Why wouldn't he take it?
This is my decision, he forces himself to think as Raven throws him a disappointed stare across the library. It hurts to think they'd all believe Clarke over him without even asking, but really, he doesn't blame them. He knew this was what he was signing up for when he told Clarke, "I'm sorry," instead of "it wasn't me." Octavia shouts something after him when he walks past her at lunch, and he doesn't hear the words but he can tell she's angry, that she's hurting for Clarke and doesn't know how to make it better. Aren't we all?
TRUTH ABOUT "HEROIC" POLICE DEATH UNCOVERED. Block capitals that force themselves indelibly onto his eyelids. Years of mishandled mental illness culminate in suicide crash disguised as high-speed chase. Some of the articles were better than others, but they were all cutting, cruel, unforgiving. Wells can't forget Jake Griffin's worn features, the way he clung to life as though it might not quite be real, the way he only seemed to connect with the world when he was in the middle of a case. Clarke hadn't even told Octavia about that morning - only Wells. It was only ever Wells.
No more. He'll never hear her secrets again, never wipe tears from her face when she's too tired, too defeated, to care if they're there or not.
Abby has always wanted the truth to reach the people, and Wells shouldn't be surprised that she wants the family of the woman who died to understand exactly the circumstances of the accident. What's hard to bear is that she's willing to let Wells take the blame for telling the world in such insensitive terms. For the media hacks who say it was 'a coward's way out', as if it was ever a choice for anyone involved.
His own mother's face, eyes shut, mouth pressed closed to stop her crying out in agony. What would she have denied, if it meant a chance to go on being a mother for as long as she possibly could?
He doesn't understand why Miller won't talk to him until he sees Bellamy Blake standing nearby, and remembers that every detail of Octavia's life causes some kind of dramatic reverb from her older brother. There's no real love lost between Bellamy and Clarke, but if Octavia hates Wells, then he might as well be the Devil Incarnate in Bellamy's eyes. Wells doesn't go near.
Jasper gives him a kind of haunted stare, and shakes his head. Wells turns away. He hopes it won't always be like this, but if it has to, for Clarke to go on believing, then he's not going to tell any of them the truth.
Jasper leaves, calling Monty's name, but the other boy stays standing in front of Wells, as if he's trying to make up his mind. Wells thinks about walking off himself to save Monty the inner turmoil, but before he can, Monty's saying, "I know you're sorry, but give us some time." Wells gives Monty a smile and pretends he believes that he still has one friend left, but it's only a movement of muscles. Clarke is the heart of their group, whatever she might think. Wells has only ever been the childhood friend, and he's outstayed his welcome now, regardless of whether or not he did what they think he did.
A wall of silence seems to surround Wells everywhere he goes. He walks alone, works alone, eats alone, and - on one occasion, right at the back of the library, where he's sure no-one can see - comes very close to crying alone. I chose this. What a joke. He leaves only when the librarian locks up to go home.
They continue to hate him. He continues to orbit them, at a loss. Between them, they are everything he's ever needed - Jasper's humour, Octavia's curiosity, Raven's honesty, Monty's resourcefulness, Miller's determination, even Bellamy and his sometimes frightening intensity. And Clarke - there'll never be words for how much of Wells' world is built on her calm foundations. He's never needed anyone outside this circle. Take it away, and he's... There's no one else.
Walks alone. Works alone. Eats alone. Sometimes, there are other people there (there aren't enough tables in the cafeteria for every man to be an island, after all), but Wells is still alone.
Once he hears a kid he doesn't know say, "It was him," and he doesn't even know what they're talking about - it's almost certainly not Wells, anyway - but he's struck by how suddenly he tenses up and ducks his head, as if hiding from their accusations. It doesn't matter that the guilt isn't real. It's starting to crawl inside his head and take up dwellings, even so.
Things come to a head the day Clarke opens her locker and a flurry of white feathers fly out, covering her pile of text books and spreading all over the floor. Wells is standing mere feet away, can only gape, watches as Raven, cursing, bends to gather the offending fronds and Octavia wraps her arm around Clarke, telling her to ignore it, that some people are just idiots, don't cry. Wells can tell even from here that crying is the furthest thing from Clarke's mind at the moment, that her shaking frame is trying to hold back anger, not tears. But even though Octavia's wrong, Clarke doesn't push her away. She needs a friend; it's not Wells.
I chose this. He forces himself to hear the words in his head, as a lone white feather - that ancient symbol of cowardice that Clarke's father never came close to deserving - wafts past him. He says a silent prayer Jake Griffin, I'm so fucking sorry. That you suffered like you did, and that anyone would want to transform that into a tabloid Chinese whisper, least of all your wife.
Octavia sends a text. Bellamy Blake makes short work of the hunt for the culprit, and the ass who thought it appropriate to humiliate a teenage girl as punishment for her father being ill finds himself with rather more bruises than he's bargained for and at least one newly-loosened tooth.
The weeks of quiet loathing turn into more savage barbs after that day, and Wells reluctantly starts to avoid the group completely. He learns of their lives only through overhead gossip and a few accidental brushes-past: Jasper gets a girlfriend who is cute but long-distance, Raven picks up an injury in the mechanics workshop. Octavia's still dating that senior Bellamy hates, and Miller's dad moves back into the family home, apparently without warning. Every time a new nugget of information comes his way he feels a new pang to match - imagines himself cheering Monty up on nights when Jasper's out of town, insisting on carrying Raven's books even as she tries to trip him up with her crutches. Feeding Bellamy cover stories when Octavia's out on dates, and comparing tales of crazy workaholic dads with Miller. Then, he imagines them all closing the gap he left, each one filling his role in some way or another until there's no trace of him ever being there.
Better this way. Better for everyone.
He carves new pathways, gets used to the way his life is now. He even makes a couple of new friends - Felix and Eric make him miss Jasper and Monty at first, but the more he gets to know them, the more they become people in their own right. Their friend, Sasha, is a quiet, cautious girl, and part of Wells would really like to know what makes her tick. But her head is always in a book and Wells doesn't want to pry - perhaps it's safer to keep people at bay. This way there are no shipwrecks, and gentle drifting doesn't hurt anybody.
He isn't quite so alone, not all the time. Smiling is no longer an impossibility, it becomes a lie he pastes on like a uniform.
He drifts. He lives. He's all right, most days.
Five months, two weeks. It's the first day back after winter break when Wells looks up and sees Finn sitting next to him - Finn Collins, psychology major, proud pacifist, breaker of hearts. Wells wants to curl his lip in disgust at the memory of what this boy did to Raven and Clarke, but remembers that as far as everyone else is concerned, he doesn't have much of a moral high-ground here. "Hey."
Finn is watching him carefully, like he's running analytics. Wells remembers this look from two years ago, when Finn flitted into their lives on a breeze, got the measure of all of them and assimilated himself into the group as effortlessly as he'd stolen Clarke's heart. Finn's fatal flaw was that he wanted to know everyone too well, their thoughts and motivations, and often it got him in too deep.
"It wasn't you, was it." The words are a question but the tone doesn't ask, it already knows. Wells flinches, like it's a state secret that shouldn't be said out loud. "You let her think it was, but it wasn't you."
Wells stares down at his text book, turns a page. "I made a choice. If she hates me for the rest of my life, then I made the right choice, and that's all you have to know." Go away, he pleads, silently. He's not desperate enough for absolution to want it from Finn, of all people.
Finn drops the psychiatry routine, and shakes his head. "You're a better man than me," he says, without a trace of irony or mocking. Wells shrugs. That's not much of an achievement. He's always known he doesn't want to be the kind of guy Finn is.
That first week back passes no slower or faster than any other, and the cold weather is starting to thaw. For the first time since the headlines, it's going to be warm. The sun's going to shine again soon, and he won't see the way her golden hair glows in the light. But that's the choice he made.
His father's on a business trip - campaigning, mostly. Things are looking good this time around. One more anti-police story raising bad feeling in the press has done wonders for his performance in the polls. Wells wonders, sickened, if Abby's work on his father's campaign had anything to do with her willingness to exploit her husband's death for all it was worth, to paint it in the worst possible light with a few well-chosen revelations. Wells is glad Thelonious is out of town the night he makes that connection. The argument they'll eventually have about it isn't going to end prettily.
He doesn't take his books upstairs, instead sits on the couch and stares blankly at them. His schoolwork suffered badly in the first weeks, but he's determined to make this semester count. He wishes, not for the first time, that politics wasn't his major. He grows more and more disillusioned with the whole thing daily.
Eventually, he gets up, throws two slices in the toaster and searches out a tub of peanut butter. He sometimes feels like cooking, and isn't bad at it by now, but when no-one else is in, there seems little point. Armed with his makeshift meal and a soda can, he settles back down with his books. There's always the TV for when he loses motivation.
Minutes pass. And then: the doorbell rings.
It must be a trick of the light. Either that or the near-sixth-month exile has finally broken his brain, because...it really does look like Clarke standing outside his front door.
He turns the key, hand shaking, tries to brace himself for the yelling match that's long overdue. Wills himself to stick with the choice he made, for her sake, no matter how close she comes to tipping him over the edge.
He opens the door. Clarke is standing there, her eyes wide, her face trying for conviction, but ending with her looking very young and alone. Wells' every instinct is to reach out for her, but he doesn't. Just because she isn't already screaming at him doesn't mean she's come to make friends again.
Her voice doesn't tremble as much as he feared it would. "Wells? I know I probably don't deserve it, but I need to know the truth."
He nods, wordlessly, prepares to feed her any lies she wants to believe. Anything but the truth. He doesn't like Abby, doesn't think she deserves the second chance at motherhood he waxed so poetic about six months ago, but he's not going to take away the last family Clarke has left.
Unless.
"It was my mom, wasn't it?"
The question hangs. Wells almost denies it, but she's talking again, and the sound of her voice is so foreign to his ears and yet so familiar, that there's no interrupting it. "I found a cheque from that stupid Sydney woman, the journalist. In my house. I...didn't want to believe it, I didn't even read the date so I could pretend it might be for any other story... But I..." Now there are tears in her voice, as the easier words run out. "All those horrible things they said... I couldn't. I blamed you because I didn't want to believe my mother would...would betray his memory. But she did, didn't she? And you let me hate you instead."
It's said. The words can't be taken back, and even Wells can't dodge them now they're pointed so directly. He opens his arms and she steps into them, cautiously, as though she doesn't know if she still belongs there. He hugs her tighter than he's ever done before, and rests his head on hers. "What are friends for?"
Just this, he thinks, as he holds her in the doorway of his father's house. This, for as long as the world turns.
"How can you forgive me?" she asks, voice small against his chest. He draws up one arm so his hand strokes her hair, only gently, more for his sake than hers.
How can she think that he'd hold it against her, even for a second? "That's already done."
She lets herself cry, finally, and he finds his own eyes wet too. It's a relief so deep it soothes his bones.
"Have you talked to your mom about this?"
He asks it delicately, after the tears have gone and they've been curled up on the couch together for a while, exchanging news about their lives that normally the other wouldn't have missed.
She nuzzles into his shoulder. "No. I'll call O, I'm not going home tonight."
A twinge of hurt. He wonders at how quickly his mind has readjusted what it expects of her. "Okay."
She lifts her head to look at him. "You think I should go home?"
He hopes she doesn't really think he'd suggest that. "Obviously not. I just...why Octavia's? Why not stay here?"
Clarke drops eye contact, fast. "I... Could you bear me being here, after what I did to you?"
Wells almost laughs, it's so ridiculous. "Clarke, when I said I forgave you, I meant it. You're...you never stopped being my best friend, okay?" He draws away so he can see her head-on, and takes her hand. "Nothing happened here that I didn't sign up for. I didn't want you to lose your mom, but just... Look at me, Clarke." He waits until she finally meets his eyes again. "You'll never lose me. Never. Even if you think you have, it'll never be true. Okay?"
Her eyes are glistening, but she puts her other hand over his. "Okay."
He kisses her on the forehead. This and the cheeks are his only domain, for the lips belong to people who have no promises to keep.
"So I can stay?"
Far less hesitance this time. He wraps his arms around her again, and now, with neither of them shaking, it's just like old times.
"As long as you need to."
Saturday is long and slow, dawns bright but descends into showers. Wells and Clarke spend the morning watching reruns and eating pancakes, still catching up on all the time they lost. Clarke's phone keeps ringing, and she gets texts from Octavia, Raven and Monty, saying her mother's trying to get hold of her. Wells' phone stays silent. This reconciliation is still their secret.
She calls Octavia, the only one who hasn't given an Abby a straight answer on whether she's with Clarke or not (bless that girl's ever-present awareness of the need for alibis - bless Bellamy for causing it to exist). She asks Octavia to tell her mother she's stayed the night and won't be back 'til Monday, at least.
When she ends the phone call, Wells catches her looking despondent. "What's up?"
She bites her lip. "I made them all hate you, Wells. How am I going to tell them?"
He puts an arm around her shoulders, gives her a squeeze. "You didn't make them do anything they wouldn't have done for you anyway. They love you, Clarke. I love you, too. Whatever they've been thinking of me for the last few months, we've got that in common."
She stands on tiptoes to kiss his cheek. "And I love you right back. I've got an idea."
Infuriatingly - but in a good way - she won't tell him what this mysterious idea is. She calls Raven, then Jasper, but she says no more about it.
They spend the evening 'studying', shooting questions from each other's textbooks back and forth - the penalty for a wrong answer is a shot, and the reward for a right one is two. Clarke is miles better at biology than Wells will ever be at politics, so she's twice as tipsy as he is by the time they settle down to sleep. The double mattress, purloined from the guest room, is placed ceremonially in front of the TV, and they doze off somewhere near the end of the second movie.
When Wells wakes up on Sunday, it's already nearing noon. He stares, confused, at the sitting room ceiling. Why isn't he in his bed? He sits up, and the jolt brings back his memory. Clarke! Clarke's here. Or at least, she had been. She's not lying next to him, and he can't hear any sounds to suggest she's in the kitchen or the downstairs bathroom. "Clarke?"
He gets up, washes and dresses quickly. Perhaps she's gone back across the road to confront her mother? Oh God, what if she has, what if Abby's convinced her this was all a mistake and everything's his fault after all? The thought makes his head spin. After this reunion, he doesn't think he'd be able to bear going back.
He finds his car keys as a matter of course, unplugs his phone from the charger. And then, by some miracle, just as he's got it in his hand, it rings.
Clarke's smiling face is on the screen, the contact picture being one he took on summer vacation two years ago, wind in her hair and a pair of sunglasses perched on her head, holding back the straying strands of blonde. "Hello?"
"It's me."
"It's me too." It's the first time they've exchanged this phone greeting in nearly six months and he grins at the thought, then asks, "Where'd you go?"
She doesn't answer straight away. "Sorry. I'm at Raven's. Can you come?"
He frowns. "What's happened?"
"Nothing's happened." She doesn't sound distraught, and he really wants to believe it's nothing, but there's a tightness to her voice he can't ignore.
"I'm on my way."
Raven's isn't far away - just three corners to turn and a long stretch of road. It wouldn't take five minutes, but he drives feverishly, arrives in three.
From his car he can't see what's different about Raven's front door, just that something's draped across it, brightly coloured and blowing in the breeze. He gets out, locks his car, and as he nears the house he sees it's a banner. Welcome Back, it reads, but something's off with the spelling. Too many Ls. Wellcome Back.
Something clicks. Clarke's idea. What was it? To lure him to Raven's house so they can all sarcastically welcome him back to the group, despite all the poison that must have been festering here? Six months is plenty long enough to build up real resentment, regardless of his innocence of the first crime. He can't expect them all to want him back in their lives - Clarke is a special case.
He knocks on the door. Let it be quick, if it's not kind.
The door is flung open, and Raven's standing there. She's holding one of those silly party popper things that spurt confetti, but she looks at a loss to use it. "Damn it," she says, "I can't do the surprise thing. We were going to go all 8th-birthday-party on you, Wells, but I... That's kids' stuff and you deserve the real deal. Shit, I'm so sorry."
She throws her arms around him. Wells is dazed, can't quite believe she isn't mad at him. He did all this for Clarke; the rest of them hadn't gained anything from hating him all this time, and surely couldn't understand why he'd wanted them to. His eyes blur as he hugs Raven back. Vaguely he becomes aware of Jasper and Monty joining in, and he's encircled from all angles.
Eventually they break away, and he sees Clarke smiling in the doorway to the kitchen. Wells is still a little light-headed, leaving him especially vulnerable to the next attack - a cannon ball named Octavia Blake that plows into him, knocking him off his feet in a fierce hug that makes him fear for his ribs. "I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry," she's spluttering, and Wells is laughing as he sits back up, pats her on the back.
"It's fine. It's... It's all fine."
He means it - for the first time in a hideously long time, everything is absolutely perfect.
Octavia pulls back so she can look at him. "I'm really sorry I called you a self-aggrandising insensitive heartless dick."
He laughs again. "I don't even remember," he says truthfully.
Octavia looks thoughtful. "I don't think you were there."
He shrugs, "Well, then. No harm done."
She shakes her head, "I said it and I meant it. But it turns out you're the best out of all of us."
She scrambles to her feet, and pulls him to his feet. Once standing, he bats Miller's offer of a handshake to one side and goes for a proper bro-hug. "Let's be real, it's been too long." Miller chuckles and accepts, clapping Wells on the back.
Everyone filters through the house and into the garden, and Wells follows, arm in arm with Clarke. It's really too cold for an outside party, but damn it, spring is coming and it's the dawn of a new era, so they'll celebrate it out here, under the sky - and later, the stars.
Bellamy's manning the barbecue, and Wells nods at him amiably, not sure where they stand. He's kind of surprised to see him here at all. But the older guy flips the last burger and comes out from behind the table, shakes Wells' hand firmly and gives him a pat on the shoulder that might he might get a bruise from, but at least he knows it's sincere. "You were missed," Bellamy says, and he doesn't say who by, but Wells thinks Bellamy includes himself in the unnamed group. "Sorry about before."
"It's nothing," Wells says, shrugging. Today is everything.
They mingle and talk and laugh. Wells listens, asks questions, immerses himself as much as possible in everything he's missed. Raven's got her eye on a new engineering student, according to Miller - Raven denies it vehemently, but she lists his personality flaws like a lovesong. Octavia and Lincoln are still going strong, and he'd be here tonight if Clarke hadn't laid down a strictly-no-significant-others law. "Tonight is about friendship," Octavia says in a very good impression of Clarke's voice. Wells tells her he's looking forward to seeing Lincoln again, nonetheless - he'd liked the guy a lot. He seems solid, and that's what Octavia needs.
Later, Jasper takes him aside, and offers a sincere apology. "Monty didn't want to hate you, but I wouldn't let him near you. He was right and I'm a huge idiot and you should just skin me and make Jasper shoes right here, right now."
Wells rolls his eyes. "You're too skinny, Jordan, and I've got giant feet." He grins. "Seriously, don't worry about it. Everything you did, you did for Clarke. We all did, me included. If any of you had really betrayed her, I'd have slaughtered you. There's nothing I wouldn't do for that girl."
Jasper nods. "It's the same way I feel about Monty."
"Right. So let it go, Jasper. We're good. Don't worry about me, let's go back to worrying about Clarke." He sighs."Just because it wasn't me doesn't mean her dad's not being slandered left, right and center. She's still hurting and she needs to know we haven't all forgotten, just because I'm back."
He hadn't realised the truth of it until he's said it himself, so wrapped up (mostly literally) in having his friends back that he's hardly spared a thought for Clarke's suffering. He's glad to see Jasper making a beeline for her, backward-hugging her as she stands, talking to Raven. The trio quickly fall into a clumsy three-way embrace, and Wells watches from a distance. He'll join them soon.
He feels a tap on his shoulder, and there's Monty, looking solemn. He seems even more subdued than Jasper had, which Wells thinks is a little funny, given that Monty was the only one to show him any compassion way back when the news first broke.
"Hey, Monty. I hope you haven't come to say you're sorry too, because I've had it up to here with that word." Wells indicates to somewhere above his own head to emphasise the point, but grins. "No hard feelings, so don't you dare."
Monty, to Wells' horror, looks close to tears. "I missed you."
"I missed you too. I missed all of you," Wells says, and, wondering how many more hugs he can take part in today before he breaks some kind of world record, embraces his friend once more. "Don't worry, you won't get rid of me again so easily."
Monty still looks miserable. "I didn't believe it could have been you at first. But I let them convince me. I should have believed in you."
Wells shakes his head. "I didn't want you to. But Monty? Thanks. You were the only one who told me 'give us time' instead of 'get out of our lives'. That's not nothing. I needed to hear it."
Monty finally smiles at this, and Wells grins back. "So where's the moonshine at, my friend? I've missed that most of all."
When everybody's eaten their fill of burgers, Bellamy is dragged out from behind the barbecue and forced to join the game of spin-the-bottle. Raven is using some ridiculously precise mechanics knowledge to get the bottleneck to land on Wells for every round, so that after fourteen spins, everybody's had to kiss him. Octavia really goes for it, but then she prides herself on being the best kisser of the group, if only because it really grosses Bellamy out when people talk about it. Miller, Monty and Jasper manage cheek kisses, Raven's is chaste but sweet, and Bellamy sort of pecks the air near Wells' head, because he is 'ridiculous', according to his sister.
The last one up is Clarke. She crawls across the circle to him, and kisses him on the forehead, then the cheek. Then - for the first time in a friendship that's lasted all their seventeen years - on the lips. Closed-mouthed and innocent. It doesn't matter if she never does it again, and he's not sure he'd even want her to. It's enough to mark today as something new. Something to hold on to.
Later, when the stars are peeping out into the darkening sky, Octavia, Jasper and Monty are lying on their backs in the middle of the garden, in the optimum positions to be tripped over. Raven catches Monty's ankle and tumbles to the floor, laughing, then rolls on to her back to join them. "What are we looking at?"
Jasper points out the constellations he can name, and some he can't. "That one there is called The Deer With Two Heads."
"Bull," Raven calls, and he laughs, admitting it.
"And that's the Unicorn of Love," Jasper continues, "With its horn pointing toward the Butterfly of Desire."
Miller flops down next to Raven, and Bellamy follows. "Are you high?" Miller asks Jasper curiously.
"Nah," his friend replies honestly. "Just happy."
Clarke and Wells, the last two left standing on the other side of the garden, watch them fondly. "Idiots," Clarke says, giggling.
"Our idiots," Wells confirms, and Clarke's arms snake around his back to hold him close. "How are you doing?" he asks her.
She sighs against him. "I'm okay. I'm so mad at my mom that I can't even think about it without wanting to do something stupid. But it's done, you know? She told. We can't erase that." She pauses, sighs again. "I'll face her tomorrow, or the next day. Tonight's about you. Us."
He squeezes her gently. "If you want me to be there, I'll be there."
"Thanks." He doesn't know if she'll need him during, but he hopes she knows the invitation applies just as much to before, and after, and for as long as she'll have him.
She shifts so that they're standing side by side, one arm each still wrapped around the other's back. "Shall we join them?"
They walk together to their group of stargazers, and lay down among the outstretched limbs.
"And those over there look like a heart," Jasper is saying, waving a hand vaguely in the direction of the stars he's spotted.
"Or a face," Miller pipes up.
"No, you're looking at the wrong ones," Jasper argues.
"No, I see it too," Octavia says, sounding sleepy. "That group of... eight. Maybe a face. Maybe a heart."
"I think one of them's an airplane, though," says Wells.
"Who cares," says Clarke. "It found its way to them."