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Okay, for the record: Clarke doesn’t actually think Finn is going to propose.
The rational, logical part of her knows that they’re both set for Harvard Law anyway – that’s four more years together to grow together or apart. But it’s a nice thought – and the Alpha Rho girls are so excited at the thought of her being the future Mrs. Finnegan Collins that she lets them indulge her for once. Fox gives her the best smoky eye and Roma and Monroe pick out this gorgeous dress, blue and flowing that makes her curves look great, if she does say so herself – and Finn picks her up two minutes early, meets her at the foot of the stairs, kisses her soft and sweet, and takes her to a beautiful restaurant. It’s all sickeningly fairytale picture-perfect that Clarke should have known something was up.
“To us,” she toasts, giddy on sweet words and future possibilities. She doesn’t miss how Finn decidedly does not drink.
“One of the reasons I came here tonight was to discuss our future,” Finn says, leaning forward on the table, his hair falling beautifully into his eyes. Clarke follows suit, raising one eyebrow in apprehension.
“You know we’re both set for Harvard Law, and things are going to be a lot different there…”
Obviously, Clarke thinks, leaning back in her seat. Getting the admissions results had been a good day – “As if there was any doubt,” Wells had told her over Skype; there was no way Finn, a fifth-generation legacy, and her, Abigail Griffin’s daughter and Alpha Rho Kappa president, with equal, perfect 4.0 GPAs and 178 LSAT scores, weren’t getting in. But Clarke sees the way Finn won’t meet her eyes, and a sinking feeling finds its way to her stomach.
“You were too good for him,” says Wells from her laptop screen.
“Don’t say that,” Clarke rebukes mildly, clutching a pillow like it’s her lifeline – if she doesn’t, she thinks, she’ll start crying all over again.
Wells sighs. “You’re right. He was too good for you,” he says, completely deadpan. “You are absolute trash with no purpose now that he dumped you. Is that want you wanted to hear?”
Clarke begins to cry.
But predictably, Wells says nothing until she stops, her sobs receding to the occasional sniffle. “Are you feeling better now?” he says, not unkindly.
“I guess,” she says, hiccupping. “But he said that Harvard needed to be different and he needed to distance himself – I get that college love isn’t forever, but he seemed so clinical about it! We were together two years! Is there a piece I’m missing here, Wells?”
Grainy-video-Wells looks at her sympathetically. “If there is, there’s no way you’re going to find out about it by moping,” he says. “Look, whether you like it or not, you’re stuck with Collins until you graduate or one of you drops out of Harvard Law – and if that ever happens, my money’s not on you being the one to do that, babe. So the one thing you got to do is work it.”
She nods. “Thanks, Wells. Hope you’re having a blast businessing it up over there.” It’s true; life hasn’t been quite the same since he went to Stanford. It’s not like she’s talking to her mom or anything, and her sorority sisters have the heart but not the history, so Wells is the only person she can really unload on.
“Miss you too, Clarkey.” He leans forward. “If it makes you feel better, the next time I see him, I’ll–”
“No violence, Wells,” she chastises gently, although the thought does bring a smile to her lips.
Wells pretends to be frustrated. “Fine, I’ll rearrange all his hair products.”
This does bring a laugh out of her. Wells looks proud of himself, and suddenly she’s taken aback by how much she really misses him.
Suddenly, there’s a crash from somewhere offscreen, and an unfamiliar voice yelling Wells! His eyes widen. “Gotta go,” he says hurriedly. She nods. “And chin up,” he adds. “It’s Harvard. I’m sure it’s going to be nice.”
The guy who meets with their group on freshman orientations day is decidedly not nice. His name is Bellamy, he recently passed the bar and is here because they’re short on people, he’s distractingly good-looking, and she’s sure he has it out for her.
The other people seem nice – there’s Miller, tall and pleasant-faced, top of the political science kids from Princeton and had worked with his dad’s company for a bit before entering law school. There’s Monty, unassuming and sweet bioengineering major but apparently with an IQ that’s through the roof; he and Jasper (gangly, dorky, biochem), are childhood friends and seemingly attached at the hip – they had been since elementary all the way through college. Anya, quiet, intense womens’ studies, had grinned at her and complimented her outfit when she sat down. (Clarke had brought muffins.)
It’s all ruined when he speaks to her.
“What about you, princess?” Bellamy says, giving her a pointed onceover. Clarke instantly knows he’s taking in the designer purse, the Alpha Rho Kappa keychains, and the expensive sunglasses, but most of all the nametag that says Clarke Griffin in damning Sharpie. She takes a deep breath.
“Clarke Griffin – with an E,” she says, almost shyly. “Valedictorian, UCLA. I was premed before switching to poli sci.” It feels weird, saying it like this, to a group of people who probably think it’s no great feat. Again, she ponders the switch, wonders if she’d be talking to her mom had she continued on with med school, if her father hadn’t died and she hadn’t met Lexa.
There’s silence for a bit.
“Hey, you’re Abby Griffin’s daughter,” Monty starts, staring at her.
Clarke flinches, but gives him a smile anyway. “Yeah.”
“Your mom’s like – a goddess,” he says. “Chief of Surgery at John Hopkins – and her research on brain proteins, god, she’s amazing.”
“Glad you think so,” Clarke says. At least you do, part of her thinks; another part says why are you bringing this up here? She turns to Bellamy, and doesn’t miss his frown. “Is there a problem?”
“Nothing, princess,” he says quietly, not bothering to disguise his sneer.
She catches him after freshman orientations are over.
“Hey,” she says, not missing how he was grinning before he recognized her. “Look, I’m sorry if I did something to offend you earlier, but–”
“Forget it,” he says, his voice short and clipped. “Don’t you have other stuff to do?”
“No,” she insists, trying again. “Whatever I did to get you angry, I’m sorry–”
“Why are you so insistent on having my good opinion?” He challenges, crossing his arms and frowning at her. Offhandedly, she notices how good the shirt makes his arms look. “Right now, you’re not going to get it.”
“What’s wrong with you?” she cries before she can stop herself. “You’re a lawyer, you should know full well that judging people right off the bat is just – is just contrary to everything you stand for, and here you are doing it with me! And you won’t even tell me why you’re doing it!”
Bellamy actually looks taken aback at that, but regains his composure quickly enough. “Listen,” he says. “I know your type. Snooty rich kid whose well-connected parents put in a good word for them during admissions. You guys are all the same.”
Before she can say anything else, he walks away, leaving her gaping in the hallway.
The manicurist gives her a sympathetic look when Clarke pops down in front of her. “Bad day?” she asks. She’s younger than Clarke is by maybe a year, with long dark hair and striking eyes. Her nametag reads Octavia.
“The worst,” Clarke affirms. “And it’s only day two.”
Octavia peers at her. “Harvard?”
Clarke nods. “Law.”
Octavia beams. “My brother just graduated from there last year,” she says. “Really helped him grow up, y’know. Now he’s a legit, fully-fledged lawyer.”
“I hope he’s more grown-up than the freshman orientation guy I met today,” Clarke says, making an appreciative noise at Octavia’s hand massage. “What an ass. Disliked me right off the bat all because of my last name.”
Octavia clucks. “Don’t worry, my bro’s cool. He practically raised me, y’know. Worked three jobs just to get me through high school, then himself through law. And now he’s made it, and I’m actually working this job for fun, not for canned beans, and everything’s good.”
“He sounds amazing,” Clarke says, and means it. She leans back in her seat. “God.”
Octavia looks at her and clucks. “Hey, c’mon, there has to be one good thing that happened today.”
Clarke flashes her a tired smile. “I managed to avoid my ex the whole day,” she admits. “We were together two years, and then he just breaks it off the summer before we’re to go to college. Can you believe it?”
“Any news that isn’t about dumb boys?” Octavia asks teasingly.
“Well, the other people in my orientation group seemed nice,” she says. “I actually had a civil conversation with my mom in the morning. And hey, I got to meet you,” Clarke adds, smiling at her. “My name’s Clarke, I’m going to be a lawyer. I’d shake your hand, but looks like you’re way ahead of me on that front.”
Octavia beams at her again. Clarke notes she has a really nice smile. “Octavia,” she says brightly. “So why’d you be decide to be a lawyer?”
“My dad,” says Clarke. “He was an environmental lawyer. He got me interested in it, but I was going to be a doctor like my mom. And then he died, and…” She shrugs.
Octavia bites her lip. “Sorry. Happy for you, though.”
Clarke smiles at her again – it’s easy to smile around Octavia, she notices. “What about you?”
“I kind of wanna be a dancer?” Octavia says. “I’m looking at scholarships in New York, but my brother’s being a butthead about it. He’s overprotective.”
“He did practically raise you,” she points out.
Octavia shrugs again. “It’ll work itself out.” She bends down to get a nail file. “And hey, Clarke, It’s only day one. You have four more years’ worth of days to turn it around!”
On Day Two, Clarke is kicked out of her first class.
She doesn’t mean for it to happen, okay – she fell asleep reading the assignment, her alarm doesn’t go off, and in her haste she forgets her homework, and the professor is a total terror that sends her out the moment an I-don’t-know look flashes across her face. It’s quite unfair. Clarke’s not used to teachers not liking her.
Finn finds her glaring at the ground outside the building fifteen minutes later.
“Clarke?”
Instinctively, she smiles at the sound of his voice, but her face falls when she remembers that they’re no longer a thing. Nevertheless, Finn’s familiar, and she lets him sit next to her while she tells him everything that’s happened. While telling it she feels petty and childish, being upset over such minor things, but Finn’s looking at her sadly and somehow that makes it better.
“Oh, Clarke, that’s awful,” he says softly and reassuringly, rubbing circles on her shoulder like he used to. “Rough start, but if anyone can turn it around, it’s you, right?”
She relaxes a bit at that, lets herself lean into his touch. “Thanks, Finn.”
Finn squeezes her shoulder, and of course that’s when everything goes to shit.
“Finn,” says a voice. “Who’s this? I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure of being introduced.”
Finn’s arm goes slack. Clarke looks up and sees a girl, probably a year or two older than they are, standing in front of them with her arms crossed. She’s gorgeous, all long legs and straight dark hair, and she’s looking at Clarke up and down with a raised eyebrow.
“Hey…Raven,” Finn starts, standing up and putting his arm around her. He smiles weakly at Clarke, and she realizes he’s scared. “Raven, this is Clarke Griffin. We were from the same college,” he says, and Clarke’s eyebrows fly up faster than they had any right to. “Clarke, this is Raven Reyes, my – fiancée.” She smiles at him, and from where she’s sitting Clarke can clearly see the diamond ring on her finger. Her heart falls right into her stomach. Finn’s not meeting her eye.
“Good to meet you,” she says, taking Clarke’s instinctively proffered hand.
“Raven was taking a robotics internship in Japan,” he explains. He’s looking at her now, pleading her not to say anything. I’ll explain everything, he mouths. “She came back over the summer, and – it all went from there. She’s taking up a teaching position at MIT for the meantime.” Finn and Raven smile at each other and she feels sick to her stomach.
Oh, Wells, you were so, so right.
Clarke glares at him. For a brief moment, she is torn between walking away and not making a scene, letting Finn be happy with Raven like he clearly was never happy with her, and unleashing hell on Finn for bringing this on them – no, on her – Raven clearly was not in the know.
Rational, undergraduate, goody-two-shoes Clarke would do the former.
But Present Clarke’s had a shit two days, and Rational Clarke can go suck it.
“You’re joking,” she says flatly, taking sick pleasure in the way his eyes widen. She cocks her head. “So Finnegan Collins, you’re telling me that you made me the other woman for two entire years?”
If anything, Rational Clarke would be proud at how icy her tone is.
Raven turns an accusatory, betrayed gaze on her. Clarke shrinks back a little; she’s intimidating. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that we were together for the last two years,” Clarke says simply. “Or so I thought.”
Raven’s eyes widen, and she wrenches herself out of Finn’s hold. “What is she saying?” she hisses at Finn, her voice dangerously low. She looks back and forth between Finn and Clarke. “I was gone for two years and two months, Finn, and it took you two months to shack up with someone else?”
Finn’s gaze shifts between the two of them for a long minute before he holds up his hands in surrender. “H-hey, so I might not have made it clear when you left–”
“I think you weren’t clear about a lot of things, Finn,” Clarke adds, her voice still.
Raven is furious. “You and I need to talk,” she says, shoving him in the arm. She turns to Clarke. “Hey,” she says, her voice just the tiniest bit shaky. “If this plays out the way I think it will, give me a call. We’ll need to go out for drinks.”
“I’m sorry,” Clarke says.
“I’m sorry, too,” says Raven, before dragging Finn off.
Clarke watches them leave before letting out a harsh breath and collapsing back onto the bench. She puts her head in her hands and wonders why her life is such a mess. Fighting back tears, she checks her watch. She still has thirty-three minutes to kill before her next class, and nowhere to spend it, and Wells is away and her girls are missing her and her mom is distant and she has no other friends in this shithole–
“Hey,” says a voice she knows.
“Look,” she says before she looks up. “I’ve kind of having a bad day, so if you’re here to gripe about my last name, I’m telling you, I’m not in the mood.”
Bellamy inhales through his nose. Clarke forces herself to look up at him. He’s looking nice today, she notices offhandedly, he looks great in green. And that leather jacket...well. His eyes land on her puffy face and widen.
“That’s – that’s not why I’m here, actually,” he mutters, runs a hand over his face. “Um, I was going to apologize, actually.”
“For being a condescending prick and ruining my freshman orientation?”
He gives pause at that. “Yes.”
“And what caused this sudden change in heart, o gallant knight?”
Bellamy puts his hands in his jacket pocket. His face is impatient. “I’m Octavia’s brother,” he blurts out. Clarke’s jaw drops a little. “From the salon? Yeah. She told me about you.” He ducks his head in embarrassment. “Imagine her surprise when her dear big brother turned out to be the same jackass who ruined your freshman orientation. She was livid. But don’t think I’m only apologizing because she told me to – you were right, and I was wrong, and immature, and–” The sun’s casting odd shadows across his face and part of her is itching to draw him.
Clarke stares at him blankly. “It’s okay,” she says, because it is – her squabble with Bellamy is so insignificant in the face of what had just transpired in front of her, and his apologizing does make her day the tiniest bit better. “Really.”
Bellamy waves a hand at empty air. “So I, uh, kind of saw all of that,” he says. He looks hesitant and unsure, a far cry from the self-assured lawyer he was yesterday. He looks at her. “If you wanna talk about it, or–”
She shakes her head. “Maybe next time,” she says, and tries not to think about how his lips quirked up at the possibility of a next time. But really, the last thing she wants to think of with a class so near is Finn. She pats the bench next to her, and tries not to stare at his grace and economy of movement as he sits down. Jesus, Griffin, get it together. “How’d you find me, anyway?”
“I was on my way back from dropping something off at Sydney’s class, he says. “Saw you sitting here – why, by the way?”
She feels like laughing and crying at the same time. “Sydney kicked me out, actually,” she says. “Does she always just – put people on the spot like that? Lots of strokes of bad luck, and here I am.” She scuffs the heel of her shoe into the ground.
Bellamy actually chuckles at that. It’s a nice sound. “She made me cry once,” he admits. “Completely terrifying, but she’s a great teacher. You’ll learn a lot from her, just come prepared.” Clarke can feel him looking at her, and she tries not to smile too widely in thanks. “Who else do you have?”
She leafs through her day planner. “Um, Shumway, Kane, Cartwig.”
Bellamy taps his chin with his finger. “Hmm. Cartwig’s the nicest of the bunch, great teacher, high grader. Every student’s dream. Shumway’s kind of boring, but his exams are ninety-nine percent based off of the textbook, so you can get away with just studying that. He’s a great criminal lawyer though, I’m helping him with a case right now. Kane’s…traditional. Another toughie, but he really does have a soft center. Recite all the time.”
Clarke smiles at him. “Thanks.”
Bellamy twiddles with his fingers, like he’s not sure what to say next. “I really am sorry, you know. It’s just that–”
She waves him off. “Octavia told me,” she says. “About how you guys were orphans, and you were juggling jobs just to keep the two of you alive. It’s true that I’ve never had to worry about that, but, well. My mom and I aren’t exactly talking. That GPA and LSAT score? All my blood, sweat, and tears. I must have cried blood during the process.”
He laughs. “Looking at you? Doubtful. I could have been less of an ass about it.”
Clarke has to grin at that. “True.” She glances at her watch. “I have class in ten.”
“Know where it is?”
“I think so.” She smiles shyly at him, and almost rolls her eyes in disgust. Clarke Griffin did not do shy. “Thanks for the advice,” she says.
“Eh, y’know. Lost freshmen, needing the alumnus’s guidance.” He gives her a mock bow. “Anything for the princess of HLS.”
She grins at him. He smiles back, and it’s probably the most beautiful thing Clarke has ever seen.
It does get better. She shares her next class with Jasper, who’s already crushing on the quiet girl in the back. She tells him what Bellamy told her about Shumway, and he wrinkles up his nose in such a funny way that Clarke draws a caricature of it in the corner of her notebook. She doodles Monty pulling a peace sign next, then Miller pulling a funny face, then Anya’s endless stoicism. She draws Octavia’s beaming smile and Bellamy’s smaller one. She draws a caricature of Finn with daggers sticking out of his eyes, and Jasper laughs at it.
She tells Wells about Finn first. Wells clucks his tongue and shakes his head in all the appropriate moments, and she can tell he’s sad for her, but she knows he always thought Finn was beneath her, anyway. She calls the Alpha Rho girls next; some of them bawl and sniffle, some of them offer to hunt Raven Reyes down, but she sends them her love and assures them she’ll be fine and would they please not hunt her down, she's hardly the one at fault here?
She, Jasper, Monty, and Miller start up a study group in the library. Clarke brings muffins and coffee and they stay up until one yawning and waking each other up until Bellamy chances upon them one night, delightedly calling them his orientation babies and offering his and Octavia’s apartment as an alternative study base.
“We couldn’t – possibly – impos–” Jasper’s cut off by a yawn.
“Don’t be dumb,” says Bellamy, winking at her. Clarke pretends her resulting blush is because of the heat. “My apartment’s way more comfortable. I bet it has cleaner bathrooms, too.”
“Count me in,” Monty mutters.
“Whatever, as long as I finish my paper for Sinclair, I am good,” says Miller.
Everyone turns to her. “I–”
And that’s how study groups at the Blake siblings’ place become a thing. Octavia is delighted by their presence and dotes on them excessively, Bellamy drifts in and out but is always willing to go on coffee runs. She and Bellamy bicker relentlessly, of course, but there’s an undercurrent of fondness there now. He knows how to make jasmine tea the way she likes it and sometimes brings her a mug before plopping down on the couch with a book on mythology and watching them study. Sometimes he sits on one end with his feet propped up on Clarke’s lap and reads through her paper, highlighting the parts he thinks can be improved on, praising the parts he likes, and laughing at the doodles she places in the sides. They don’t really talk much about the first couple of days, but Bellamy regales her with stories of Actual Lawyer Work and she laughs and fills him in on Law Student Stuff You Might Have Missed. Jasper makes kissy noises when he leaves the room to take a call once, and she throws her slipper at him.
“It’s not like that,” she hisses, despite her heart thudding.
Really, it’s not – she still dates a bit, talks to Lexa sometimes, and it’s not like Bellamy’s in any shortage of girls coming after him; there are nights the apartment is in Do Not Disturb Mode (as Octavia sadly, regretfully calls it before illegally crashing Clarke’s dorm room) and the gang holes up in the nearby coffee shop.
One night, Bellamy brings Raven home.
They don’t pay much mind to the two of them when they stumble in slightly intoxicated (Cartwig has a major exam coming up and Octavia has generously allowed them free reign of the living room despite Bell being sure to come home with a girl) but they end up sleeping around the living room in various uncomfortable poses. (Clarke, for one, is curled up on half the loveseat with her notes over her face; Miller is pretending he’s short enough to do the same on the other side. Monty is on the floor with his neck crooked uncomfortably on the ottoman.) This is how Raven finds them when she pads out of Bellamy’s room in an oversized shirt.
Clarke is the first to stir awake. “Raven Reyes?” she murmurs sleepily.
Raven just laughs. Right there and then, in the Blakes’ living room. “Oh, my god, I can’t believe this is happening,” she says in between giggles. “Clarke Griffin. Who woulda thunk it.”
“What is happening right now?” Clarke murmurs. She can hear Octavia upstairs, and feels grateful for the smell of the coffee pot.
“Well,” says Raven, sidling up to her. “You’ll be glad to know that I kicked Finn’s sorry ass to the curb.”
“Oh.” Strangely, Clarke isn’t as affected by this news as she would think.
“And, listen.” Raven is looking the least self-assured Clarke’s ever seen her. “We started kind of weird, I think. And, well. You seem cool. I like you. Let’s be friends, at least.”
Clarke grins, and takes her proffered hand.
Bellamy stumbles out of the bedroom next, his curls damp and carelessly tousled, muttering about a hearing he’s slightly late for. “You know where everything is, take care of yourselves,” he says hurriedly, kissing Raven, then Clarke on the cheek. He smells like deodorant and shower gel. Clarke tries not to gape at him as he leaves.
“First piece of advice as your friend: you’ll want to get on that,” Raven says sagely, pouring herself a cup of coffee. “Trust me on this.”
If Clarke blushes, she tries not to let it show. Would it be inappropriate? She’s still not that sure.
Bellamy is the one to tell her she got into Shumway’s internship.
Well, okay, Finn and Anya and some guy named Lincoln did too, but what matters is how proud he looks when he tells her. “Looks like you’re stuck with me, princess,” he says, and it’s fond.
They’re lined up to defend a woman named Harper, who was boarding with the Wallaces before allegedly being found standing over Dante Wallace’s dead body, a smoking gun on her hands. Clarke smells foul play, everyone else on the team seems resigned to loss.
“My money’s on the son, Cage,” she says. “He’s the only other one without an airtight alibi. And he has records of juvie, then actual time spent in jail.”
“For drug use, not murder,” Anya points out simply.
“Why would he murder his dad, though?” Finn points out. “He has a trust fund. He already owns the part of the company he’d inherit after he dies – the rest is already partitioned off to other parties. He’d have nothing to gain from it.”
“Why would Harper murder him?” she asks. No one else on the table meets her eyes, except Bellamy. No one else has an answer to this until the prosecutor gets Harper to admit on the stand that Wallace was harassing her. There’s uproar on all parties, and the judge declares that court will reconvene the next day.
“It’s true,” she sobs to Clarke later. “But I would never murder him. I couldn’t.”
Clarke fights the urge to hug her. “I’m sorry they made you admit it just to give you a motive,” she murmurs. “But there’s more to Cage than meets the eye, I know it.” She pats Harper on the back. “I’ll take care of you, okay?”
Finn tells her that Shumway wants to see her in his office before he leaves.
“Sure,” she says absently. Then, “Take care, okay?”
He gives her a strange look for around two seconds, but grins back. “You too, Clarke.” She thinks that things between them will never be like they were, but hey, you gotta start somewhere.
She closes the door to Shumway’s office. He’s sitting on his sofa, nursing a cup of coffee. “Miss Griffin!” he greets, gesturing her to sit down on the opposite chair. “Have a seat.”
“Thanks,” she says amiably. “What did you want to talk to me about?”
Shumway approaches her. “I’m very impressed with your work, Miss Griffin,” he says. “You’ve always seemed most promising, and I’m impressed with how you handle our client. Are you interested in applying for the position?”
“I’m not sure yet,” she admits truthfully. Her mother wants the two of them to take a vacation together; Clarke would rather get ahead on her units.
“It wouldn’t be hard,” says Shumway. All of a sudden, Clarke is hyperaware of how near in her space she is. “With a mother like Abigail Griffin, I bet you’ve never had to work very hard for what you wanted,” he adds, his fingers creeping up her thigh. “How far are you willing to go for this internship, Clarke Griffin?”
For a moment, she’s frozen; all she can see is his face and all she can feel are his fingers on her pantyhose. And then disgust curdles in her stomach and she stomps on toes with the stiletto heel. Distantly, she thinks Anya would be proud.
“You thought wrong,” she spits, gathering up her things.
Bellamy’s in the lobby when the elevator doors open. “Clarke!” he calls. “I need you to look over Emerson’s witness testimonials, I think there’s something–”
She chooses to brush past him instead of respond, ignoring the way his hands follow her arm. “Clarke,” he says, and he’s close, too close for her to deal with right now, and – “Clarke, what’s going on?”
She turns up to look at him, and his face is so filled with genuine concern that it breaks her heart. “I’m quitting,” she says flatly, wrenching her arm out of his grasp and stomping away.
“What–” Bellamy catches up to her easily. “What happened? Why would you–”
“I don’t want to be part of any internship where the professor just sees me as someone to feel up,” she cries, her pitch rising with every word. “And he said that I never actually had to work for anything because of my mom, and–”
Something flickers in Bellamy’s eyes, then, and his entire face tenses up with righteous fury. “What? He tried to – hey, wait–”
“I have to go,” she says shortly. “Thanks, Bellamy. You made it worth it.”
“Clarke–” She tries not to think about how his face had crumpled as she gets in her car.
“You’re joking,” Wells says.
“I wish I was.” She gives him a tired smile. “Maybe this was a mistake,” she whispers. “Is it too late to switch out to Harvard Med?”
His face on the screen turns serious. “Clarke, don’t let this single sketchy dude ruin it for you,” he says darkly. “If you do, then you are clearly not the girl I thought you were.”
“That doesn’t sound like you at all,” she points out.
He laughs. “It doesn’t, right? My dad says it all the time.” They both chuckle. “Really, though. Scumbags are everywhere. It’s just up to you how to work against them.”
Clarke inhales. “You’re right,” she affirms. “But I’m still quitting that internship.”
“Fight on, Clarkey.”
That’s when her phone lights up. Bellamy Blake, it says, and her heart skips maybe three different beats. “It’s Bellamy,” she says, “I might have to take this.”
“Oh, it’s Hot Lawyer Friend,” Wells teases, daring to use air quotations. “Go get em, tiger.”
“Wells!” her face turns hot.
“Don’t say anything about how inappropriate it is, don’t even think it–”
“Stop that, I am hanging up on you.”
“Nope.” He’s grinning at what she assumes is her red face. “I’m hanging up on you. Bye, Clarke.”
So this is how it goes down:
(1) Harper fires Shumway right in the middle of the courtroom. Bellamy will tell Clarke later how Harper’s face had crumpled when he’d let slip what happened.
(2) Clarke gets to have a grand courtroom entrance, and she relishes in the way Shumway’s face falls. Octavia, Fox, and Roma even come in to watch after her.
(3) There is nothing quite as comforting as Bellamy’s hand on her back when he tells the judge that Yes, your Honor, I’ll supervise. She turns her head to look at him, and he winks at her.
(4) Clarke manages to trick Cage Wallace into admitting that he accidentally shot his father with a bullet meant for the family’s physician, one Dr. Tsing. It is, quite possibly, the best moment of her entire life. Harper gets off scot-free.
(5) “You are so fucked up,” Bellamy says to Wallace before he’s led away before he turns to give her the biggest bear hug she’s ever been in. “You did it, Clarke.”
(6) Sydney, as it turns out, has heard more than enough tales of Shumway’s dalliances that Clarke’s furious testimonial is the last nail in his career at Harvard. Or the coffin of which. Whatever.
They’re hanging out at Grounders, Raven’s favorite bar (she’s apparently on…very good terms with the bartender, a guy Bellamy’s age named Wick who’s apparently also into mechanical engineering, and she manages to score them all free drinks), in celebration for “my girl Clarke winning her first case, and she’s not even a lawyer yet!” It starts with her, Raven, Octavia, Miller, Monty, Jasper, and Finn circled around a table, three plates of nachos, until Raven goes off to schmooze on Wick and Octavia and Jasper wander off to the dance floor and Miller and Monty are (Clarke presumes) necking in a stall in the guys’ bathroom, whatever, the point is it’s her, Bellamy, and Finn left in the booth, and she’s giddy on the high of technically winning a case and the alcohol, and she’s leaning back into Bellamy’s shoulder and nestling her head on the crook of his neck and laughing at something he said. Bellamy’s fingers are playing with the ends of her hair, and every time he turns his head his cheek brushes against the top of her head. It’s a nice feeling. She could get used to this.
On the other side of the booth, Finn looks between the two of them, a weird look on his face. Absently, she wonders if seeing her and Raven just fine without him bothers him.
His jaw drops, and she realizes she’d said it out loud.
Finn gives her a smile and a tired look. “It’s fine, Clarke. I think I’ll head on home, okay?”
Clarke watches him leave and turns to see Bellamy looking at her all concerned. “You okay?” he says softly, his breath just grazing her ear. She shivers and hopes he doesn’t feel it.
“It’s fine,” she whispers back, and it comes out breathier than she expects. She hopes she’s not imagining how his eyes close at the sound. “If I’m going to be a partner at a firm before I’m thirty, I’m going to need a boyfriend who’s less of a bonehead.”
He chuckles, his finger drawing lazy patterns on her shoulder, and she feels the sound to her bones. Oh, god.
“You’re not a bonehead,” she murmurs against his chest, looking up at him. Bellamy’s looking at her, large eyes wide and shining. He leans close, so close their lips are almost touching, but he’s looking at her expectantly. The ball is in her court. Of course.
“Fuck it,” she mutters, and closes the gap.
She wakes up to a familiar ceiling, her head pounding. She feels around, realizes she’s in the Blake living room, there’s a blanket over her and a pillow under her head, and a glass of water and an aspirin on the table next to her.
Bellamy walks out of his bedroom, and a fond smile overtakes his face when he sees her awake on the sofa. “Good morning, princess,” he says, picking up a towel and a shirt from the floor.
“Morning. Thanks for taking care of me,” she says, and means it.
“No problem,” he calls from the kitchen. “You are such dead weight when you’re drunk.”
“It’s a side effect of being so useful when I’m sober,” Clarke calls after him. She bites her lip, fists her hands in the blanket, before gathering up her courage and following him into the kitchen. He’s standing at the sink, washing his hands. .
“Hey,” she says, seating herself on the island counter. “I meant what I said last night.”
Bellamy stills in the middle of pouring himself a cup of coffee. “Really,” he says, his voice strangled but happy. He turns around and looks at her near-reverently, and approaches her on the counter. “Really.” He positions himself between the V of her legs, and she looks down and wraps her arms around his neck.
“I don’t want to fuck this up,” he says. “Especially with Collins, and Shumway, and all–”
“No,” Clarke murmurs, and has never felt so sure. “It’s true,” she says solemnly. “You’re not a bonehead. You are such a butthead, though.”
Bellamy places his large hands on her hipbone, stares up at her, then sputters. “I don’t think anyone’s called me a butthead since the ninth grade.”
She laughs, thinks of Octavia. “Maybe not to your face.” Bellamy pretends to pout at her, but leans up to kiss her all the same.
(Later, she makes a mental note to thank Raven for her solid advice.)
(three and a half years later)
The second Clarke steps off the podium after giving her speech and watching her classmates toss their hats in the air, she runs towards Wells. “You made it!” she shrieks, jumping into his arms.
“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” he laughs into her shoulder before setting her down. “Great speech, Clarkey.
“Like you’d expect anything less from the Class of 2018’s valedictorian oh my god Wells I still can’t believe it! I even have job offers! I’m not unemployed!”
“Yes, yes, very nice,” he says, deadpan. “No thanks to me, longsuffering best friend and perpetual Skype support system.”
“Hey,” she says, punching him in the arm playfully. “Sometimes you’re in-person-during-the-holidays support system.”
“Touché.”
“And me,” says Bellamy suddenly, materializing and wrapping an arm around her waist. “Congrats, babe,” he says, pulling her down for a quick kiss. Clarke’s heart soars.
“My eyes,” says Wells in the same deadpan tone. “I’m guessing this is Hot Lawyer Friend? Oops, nope, Hot Lawyer Boyfriend now, apparently.”
Clarke’s ears turn red, but she can’t stop her earsplitting grin. “Wells!”
“Is that how you referred to me before you realized your deep and neverending love?” Bellamy looks exaggeratedly distraught. “I expected better.”
“Anyway,” Clarke says haughtily. “Bellamy, this is Wells, I’ve known him since we were two and now he has a shiny master’s in business under his belt.”
“Good to finally meet you, man,” says Bellamy.
“Same here,” says Wells cheerily. “Except I stalked you on Facebook, and I’ll have you know that if you ever mess with Clarke, I have a black belt in judo.”
“Thanks for the support,” says Bellamy, chuckling. Clarke smiles at him, then at Wells, and feels warmth blooming in her chest -- these are her boys and they love her like she loves them, and like hell she'll let anything change that.
Wells turns to her. “By the way, now that you’re done, there’s, uhm – well, I didn’t come here by myself.” Clarke and Bellamy follow his gaze to see her mother a few yards away, standing with her arms crossed, an expectant look on her face. (She wonders if Monty knows yet.) Abby Griffin meets her eyes across the room, and she sends her mother a smile.
“Think you’re ready for a civil conversation now?” Bellamy murmurs in her ear.
“I have you guys,” she mutters, taking Wells’s hand. “Also, I’m valedictorian of Harvard Law School. I can handle anything.”