Archive of Our Own

If you’d ask nine-year-old Bellamy Blake what he was about to do with his life, open a diner would have been at the bottom of the imaginary list. But here he is, standing at the entrance to Aurora’s Diner, his own place, and he feels odd and giggly and ridiculously proud.

“Bell, it’s gorgeous,” Octavia gasps. Standing in the doorway in a sundress, her long brown hair flying out behind her, Octavia looks beautiful. It’s all he can do not to run and hug her in happiness before he remembers.

(Right. Touch = instant death.) It’s hard to get used to, even almost a decade later – that’s ten years of not pinching Octavia’s cheek or hugging her or measuring her height against the wall with his hand. Raven, standing next to him, seems to sense it, though, and goes to Octavia’s side, swinging an arm over her shoulder and sending him an understanding smile.

Jasper and Monty high-five him and proceed to man the counter and start setting up tables. Raven smirks at him and goes to help Jasper, leaving him with Octavia.

“Mom would have loved it,” his sister adds, beaming up at him.

It’s hard not to get choked up, too, especially when Octavia mentions Mom. Sometimes he sees her frown in a certain way or flip her hair over her shoulder and he’s struck by how much she resembles their mother.

“Well, what do you know,” he tells her, smiling. “We’re not entirely con artists.”

Later, after a long day of making milkshakes and burgers, he, Raven, and Octavia are eating pizza on the couch of his apartment. The three of them are arguing the merits of buying a Wii U when the news broadcast comes up. Griffin heiress murdered on cruise ship, the headline claims, and Bellamy nearly falls off the sofa seat.

“Oh, my god,” Octavia says, her mouth dropping open in shock. “That’s Clarke Griffin.” She turns to him. “Bell–”

“I know,” he says roughly. “Holy shit.”

It’s really not often someone you went to high school with ends up the center of a sensationalist murder case. Octavia looks sorrowful whenever she reads her name on the internet or sees it on TV. (There are a lot of articles about it – people liked Clarke to begin with, and the fact that she was a tragic young white med student slash heiress, well.)

“Why aren’t you upset about it?” Raven asks, jostling his shoulder before sitting down on the couch and handing him a beer. She gestures to Octavia, who’s taken to digging up old pictures of her and Clarke and arranging them on the floor.

“We weren’t exactly the best of friends,” he says. (Truth.) “There was a time I hated her, y’know, just for being rich and stuff.” (Truth.) “I generally didn’t think too much about her.”

(Lie. Lie. Bellamy Blake is a big fat liar and can’t even own up to it even after she fucking dies.)

See, it’s just to remember that he and Clarke Griffin went toe-to-toe on pretty much everything and he resented her for living in a big fancy house with money. But there was really no denying he was so far gone for her in high school that the only person who didn’t know was her, probably.

(“I don’t blame you, big bro,” Octavia had said cheerily. “Clarke’s a babe. And she’s my babe, so that just makes it even better.)

But, see, even during his asshole scene phase Bellamy had principles, which more or less included: not being into high school girls, not being into his sister’s friends, and not being into people who were already in a nice committed relationship.

Clarke Griffin managed to hit all three categories in the Bellamy Blake Is Going to Hell bingo, and he still fell for her. (Okay, well, she and the Collins kid eventually broke it off, but it’s not like Bellamy was keeping tabs or anything. That would just be creepy.) It had gone away for a bit after she’d gone across the country for high school then med school.

But now she was dead.

“We have to go to the wake,” Octavia’s saying, and Bellamy knows she’s already picked out a date and outfits for the both of them.

“Don’t look so upset, Bell, you know we’re going anyway,” Raven says matter-of-factly. “We all know the investigation’s going to go nowhere as usual and Kane’s going to want us on the case.”

“You make us sound so heartless, Raven,” says Octavia.

Here’s the thing: Bellamy kind of has powers.

Okay, power, and it’s complicated and bizarre and tragic as fuck and he still has no idea why it exists, but if Bellamy’s good at anything it’s adapting to shit. It’s morbid, and it involves dead things, and sometimes it’s so, so gross. But the thing is, by touching a dead thing, he can bring it back to life.

But only for a minute. He has to touch it back to death again, or else it’ll stay alive indefinitely and something else dies in its place. It’s insane. So many dead squirrels had to be sacrificed until he figured out the specifics.

Dead squirrels, and, well. Clarke’s dad.

She doesn’t know about that, though.

You see, there was a time when the Griffins were new in town and rented out the house across from the Blakes’. Octavia and Clarke were the best of friends and Bellamy sort of…hung around for reasons he is not going to delve into again. Their parents were on okay-neighbor terms, so he saw a lot of Jake and Abby Griffin in the early days.

Then his mom keeled over while making toast, right in the middle of their tiny kitchen.

Octavia was sleeping over at Clarke’s, and so Bellamy was left alone with a corpse in the living room just before breakfast, fourteen years old and terrified. Then he touched her knee and felt a spark.

And then his mother was fucking alive.

“Bell,” she’d gasped when she saw him. “I must’ve fallen asleep. I’m sorry.” He remembers her standing and setting the timer to one minute before continuing to bustle around the kitchen. She doesn’t hug or kiss him or anything like that; Aurora Blake was never big on physical affection.

Then the timer goes off, and across the lawn, Jake Griffin collapses to the ground in the middle of watering the plants.

Clarke had cried hard that day, and all Bellamy wanted to do was hug her – but he couldn’t trust his hands to do shit. His mother, maybe spurred by the display of the fleeting nature of life, had leaned down to kiss him goodnight when tucking him and Octavia in.

And then she’d crumpled onto the floor, and Octavia cried hard that day, too.

He’s getting away from the point.

The other thing is that there are people who see Bellamy’s “gift” as something useful. Mainly, investigation of murders. Mainly, Marcus Kane.

Kane used to be chief of the local PD before a falling-out with then-mayor Jaha. He then went on to become a private investigator, because he was still committed to truth, justice, and the American way, or something. Bellamy doesn’t really mind. One-minute interviews in the morgue to get the killer’s name and he and Octavia walk away with a fat sum of money. It’s like cross-examination, but fast-tracked and far more rewarding.

(“What?” she says when he calls it that. “You’re going to have to pay for that diner somehow. Jasper and Monty depend on you for their salaries, Bell, you can’t let them down.

“They work parttime and all they do with the cash I give them is experiment on weed and alcohol,” he points out. That’s around eighty percent true.)

Raven’s there, too. Bellamy isn’t really sure why she hangs around, but she figured out his secret months ago (“I’m smart like that,” she’d said, offended) and, well, she’s one of his best friends. She says she’s in it for the not-inconsiderable money, but he’s pretty sure she’s in it mostly for the murder and blackmail. She’s great at looking at angles of a case that he, Octavia, and Kane haven’t thought through, however, because they don’t have mechanical engineering skills.

So that’s why they find themselves at Clarke Griffin’s wake. It’s the fanciest one he’s ever been to – there are lilies everywhere (which, gross) and pictures of Clarke tastefully placed everywhere (which, shit). Raven starts playing Flappy Bird on her phone around an hour in. Octavia and Bellamy say hi to familiar faces from high school and give condolences to the important-looking people. Jasper and Monty hang around, too, for a bit – they adored Clarke in high school, like the rest of the student body and apparently Bellamy himself. And of course they hang around until the very end of the ceremony, with the pastor and Abby giving them strange looks until Octavia goes up to her and charms their way out of it.

(For his part, Bellamy was all for breaking in in the dead of night, but Octavia wanted to pay her respects.)

The three of them do eventually break in at three in the morning because the funeral home owner kicks them out, so whatever. Bellamy is thankful they keep Raven around, because she’s already switched out the security footage.

“This feels strangely wrong,” says Octavia. “Do you feel guilty about doing this to someone you know?”

“Nope.” (Lie. Octavia thinks so, too, but gives him nothing more than a raised, perfect eyebrow.)

She opens the casket and Bellamy has to suck in a breath because dead or alive, Clarke Griffin is beautiful, all blonde hair and blue eyes and perfect, small, hands. He stands over her and wonders where to place his hand – this is Clarke Griffin, and dead or alive, she deserves only the best or the most appropriate. Knee? Too weird. Neck? Too creepy. Hand? Bellamy is not ready for this level of commitment.

Raven rolls her eyes at him. “Jesus, Blake, it doesn’t really matter.”

“It matters to me,” Bellamy blurts out before tapping her on the forehead. Raven gives him an incredulous look, but Clarke Griffin inhales and sits up, looking around frantically. Her face softens somewhat once she sees him and Octavia but her posture remains tense.

“Where am I?” she mutters. “Octavia? Bellamy? Why am I in a casket?”

He totally doesn’t feel giddy hearing her say his name. “Hi Clarke,” he says. “You’re dead, and you have exactly…forty-nine seconds to tell us who killed you.”

She sputters and glares at him. “Is this your idea of a joke?”

“Clarke, it’s really not, we’d explain if we had more time, but we don’t, and do you know who killed you or not?” Octavia shoots her an apologetic look.

“What? Of course I don’t! And I’m not dead, I–”

Octavia sighs in frustration. Bellamy puts his hands on his hips and frowns at her. “All right, princess. That’s fine. What can you remember before you died?”

“Twenty-three seconds,” Raven says unhelpfully.

Clarke’s face scrunches up in the way it used to. “Nothing,” she murmurs. “They were talking about my inheritance – and then suddenly there’s a bag over my head, and…” Her head droops. “Water. Lots of it.”

“So you’re saying you were murdered for your inheritance,” Bellamy notes. “Do you remember the number of voices? Genders?” She shakes her head. “Okay, we can work with that.” He moves to touch her again, but Clarke’s looking at him, piercing blue eyes and strong chin and all, and he can’t look away.

“Bell,” she whispers, looking positively ethereal in that white dress, “What’s going on? If I’m dead, why am I talking, or sitting, or seeing you guys–”

Okay, so Bellamy’s never considered himself a strong person around beautiful women. Also, it’s Clarke Griffin, and he lets his teenage self have a moment. He thinks about how if he touches her again, he’ll never be able to see her, let alone talk to her, and that’s not fair, okay. The world needs people like Clarke Griffin, and –

It’s a moment that evidently stretches out for too long, because suddenly Raven’s alarmed face moves into his field of vision and she’s holding his hand and moving it towards Clarke, but it’s too late – they hear a decided thump from upstairs.

“Oh, fuck,” Raven says, stopping his arm a moment too soon.

“What’s going on?” Clarke asks again, but Octavia and Raven are already helping her out of the casket.

“You were dead, but then you were alive, and in exchange someone else is dead, and you have to get out of here,” Octavia says shortly. “We’ll explain on the way.”

Raven kicks him in the shin. “C’mon, Blake, I think you’ve made enough trouble for one day. Move your ass.”

When they’re all piled up in Bellamy’s pickup and a safe three kilometers away from the funeral home, Raven lets out a giant groan from the shotgun seat and glares at him. “Blake, what do you have to say for yourself? What the fuck, you could have killed me in there!”

“Well, I didn’t, so just be thankful about it, okay, Raven?”

“Yeah, okay, I’m worshipping the ground you walk on, but what the dead guy? What about–” She gestures to Clarke, who’s sitting in the driver’s alternating between furious and confused. “This?”

“Hey!” She looks affronted at that. “This has a name, you know.”

“Guys!” Octavia’s voice rings out from next to Clarke, and it makes Bellamy shrink in his seat and focus his eyes on the road. “Sorry, Clarke,” she says when he and Raven have quieted down and resorted to glaring at each other over the stick. “Okay, you remember me, right? I’m Octavia Blake.”

“Of course I remember you,” says Clarke, pulling her into a hug. “I missed you.”

Octavia flashes her a brief smile. “Okay. Then you remember Bellamy–” Clarke’s eyes harden just a bit for it to be noticeable. “And this is our associate Raven Reyes. Raven, this is our childhood friend Clarke Griffin.” Raven shoots her a grudging smile.  

“Good to meet you,” Clarke says prettily, and for some reason it’s good to know that those Griffin graces don’t fail her in death. Life. Life after death.

Damn it.

“Things are kind of a mess right now, but we’ll explain when we get to the diner, okay?” Octavia has placating fingers on Clarke’s shoulders. Bellamy shoots her a shit-eating grin from the driver’s seat.

“You might want to sit down for this,” Octavia tells Clarke. Bellamy comes out from behind the counter with a vanilla brownie milkshake in one hand and two strawberries on a plate – one rotting and one fresh. Clarke’s eyes light up like a kid on Christmas.

“Gladly,” she says, reaching for it. “This is my favorite.”

“Nope.” Bellamy’s arms swerve out of her touch, and he relishes a bit at the pout she gives him in return. Octavia takes the shake from him and puts it down in front of Clarke. He sits down on the opposite side of the booth, next to Raven who’s furiously texting. “Okay. Hi, Clarke.”

“Hi, Bellamy,” she says, tapping her foot impatiently. “Mind telling me what’s going on?”

“Right. So I kind of have this power.”

“Like, an X-Men power? Is this a joke?”

“Clarke, really, you’d be better off just listening, I promise,” he grumbles. Clarke quiets down. “Okay, so when I touch something dead, it can kind of come back to life, peak performance.” And he touches the rotting strawberry, Octavia keeps time, and Bellamy has to smile a bit at Clarke’s horrified face as the strawberry loses its rot and turns plump and red. “Goes against everything they taught you in premed, huh, Princess?” he has to say. Clarke is still staring at the strawberry in fascination. “But the thing is,” Bellamy continues, and Octavia’s watch beeps to signal one minute. Clarke’s jaw just drops when she watches the other strawberry wither. “It’s only for a minute, or else something dies in its place. And the other thing is, if I ever touch the resurrected thing again–” and he does, and feels a sick satisfaction in watching it wither again – “Boom. Dead forever. And I hope you got that, because I just wasted two strawberries.”

Clarke is looking aghast between him and the strawberries. “So – I was this strawberry.”

“Pretty much.”

“And the guy from the funeral home – oh, god – he was this strawberry and now he’s dead because of me?”

“And me,” he says, not unkindly. “Cut yourself some slack, princess. We’re in this together, you and I.” He gives her a dramatic wink.

Octavia and Raven both roll their eyes.

“Wait,” says Clark, petulant. “So I’m going to be alive indefinitely until the two of us–” she gestures to Bellamy – “Make physical contact?”

“Pretty much,” says Octavia.

“So why did you revive me in the first place?”

Raven chuckles next to him. “That’s the other thing. You remember Marcus Kane and how he ended up a private investigator?”

Clarke nods. “I’m pretty sure my mom’s been sneaking around with him, so yeah.”

Bellamy, Octavia and Raven all raise their eyebrows. Raven continues, “Well, he’s pretty known for his cases having a fairly high solution rate – and you’re looking at the reason why.”

Clarke processes this information for a moment before eyeing each of them, her mouth open. “Wait, so you guys just head on the morgue and resurrect – oh my god. So when you resurrected me – oh my god.”

“Yup.” Bellamy is really feeling the guilt right now. “We fight crime and stuff.”

“Who else knows about this? Do Monty and Jasper know?”

“Nope,” he says rather firmly. “I don’t imagine it would be a secret for very long if Jasper found out.”

“Now what?” says Clarke, her voice very small. “Can I talk to my mom?”

Octavia says “sure” at the same time Bellamy says “No way.” They glare at each other for a bit. “She can’t,” Bellamy says. “It’s bad enough that the three of you plus Kane are in on my X-Men thing. If her mother knew, that’s a disaster waiting to happen.”

“If Kane knows about her, Abby might just find out from him,” Octavia points out. “And what’s she going to say when she learns her daughter’s actually alive and we’ve been keeping her from her? That’s a disaster waiting to happen.”

“Do we even tell Kane?” Raven puts in.

“My mom’s already going to find out my body’s missing for obvious reasons,” Clarke points out. “Can’t we at least give her the satisfaction of knowing her daughter’s body isn’t lying in a ditch somewhere?”

And because Bellamy’s life is a fucking movie, Kane chooses to walk into the diner at that very moment.

“Oh, good,” he’s saying, leafing through his bag. “I didn’t know if it would be open at five in the morning, but I’ve got a call from Diana Sydney – of Shumway & Sydney Funeral Homes? Turns out that not only is Shumway dead, but Clarke Griffin’s body is–” He looks up, then between the four of them at the booth. “Missing.”

Clarke smiles shyly at him. “Hi, Uncle Marcus.”

“You could have called,” Raven says flatly.

One complementary plate of waffles and a coffee later, Kane looks far more placated, but he’s still occasionally leveling glares at Bellamy and Clarke in equal measure. “Okay,” he says very slowly, his voice very calm, “Will someone please tell me why my dead goddaughter is sitting in front of me, very much alive?”

“Bell was an idiot and kept her alive for too long,” Octavia says without missing a beat. Bellamy glares at her.

“Okay,” says Kane, still deadly calm, “Is that the reason Ben Shumway is lying dead, the autopsy of which will hopefully reveal natural causes?”

Octavia and Raven nod in sync. Bellamy wants to kill them.

“Right.” He rubs his temple like doing so will imagine this whole situation away. “All right, Miss Griffin. I agree with Bellamy; telling your mother is not the best option.”

Clarke prickles. “But – how’s she going to react when–”

“Oh, she’ll freak out, I guarantee it,” Kane says. “But I will try to convince her not to go public with it. It will take time, but she’ll listen to me.”

“Of course she will,” Clarke says dryly.

Kane gives her a strange look. “That being said, tonight’s fiasco will hopefully be hushed up, and we can return to the reason I came here – to investigate, well, your murder.”

“I already told them everything I know,” she says. “They wanted my money.” She snorts. “Passe, to be honest.”

Kane thumbs his chin. “It should be easy to find out who had a stake in your inheritance,” he says. “I’ll talk it over with Abby. For now, you kids go get some rest.”

(They find out later that Ben Shumway of Shumway & Sydney Funeral Homes had been stealing valuables from the corpses, but that doesn’t make anyone feel one bit better. Okay, it makes Bellamy feel a bit better.)

“That was not how I wanted to spend my Friday night,” says Raven, but she kisses both of them on the cheek and gives Clarke a half-smile before taking off. They watch her go, and then turn to the situation at hand.

“Clarke’s rooming with me, clearly,” says Octavia.

“Your bed is a single, Octavia, you’re not going to fit on that thing.”

“I can sleep on the floor,” Clarke offers. His sister snorts.

“It’s fine,” Bellamy says grumpily. “Clarke, you can take my bed. I’ll take the couch.” And if that doesn’t make his spine tingle, then. Well.  

“Bellamy,” says Clarke in that exasperated way she used to.

“Look, I’ll take the living room,” says Octavia. “I have dance class at one anyway, so I’m going to be movin’ around. Hate to disturb anyone.”

Bellamy looks at Clarke, who’s crossing her arms and doing a thinking pose. It’s cute as fuck. “Fair enough,” she says finally, smiling at Octavia. “Thanks.”

“Anytime, Clarkey.” Octavia turns to him before disappearing into her room to get stuff, leaving Bellamy standing alone next to Clarke. He stares at her (because how can he not, right) and opens and closes his mouth, not quite knowing what to say.

“Hey,” says Clarke, not looking at him. “Thanks, I guess.”

“You guess?” He laughs softly, relaxing back on his heels.

“Hey, I don’t exactly know how to react to being resurrected,” Clarke laughs. It’s a nice, melodic sound, and Bellamy’s an idiot. She’s looking right at him, her eyes playful, and he suddenly gets a real, burning urge to throw his hand around her shoulder, before realizing that nope, it’ll kill her again, and he’ll hate himself forever.

Clarke won’t stop looking at him and he can’t stop looking at Clarke and everything fucking sucks.

Fortunately, Octavia chooses that moment to breeze out of her room, a few things thrown haphazardly in a duffel. “Scoot, bitches,” she says, shooing them in opposite directions. “I’m gonna sleep like the dead – I mean, sorry, Clarke. You can, uh, just wear whatever you want from my closet.” She plops down on the sofa and stretches her legs, letting out a groan. Bellamy guesses she falls asleep in seconds. Clarke rolls her eyes and laughs, and he thinks she’s thinking the same thing.

“I’m going to take her up on her offer,” she says. “I’m super tired. How am I tired? I’m supposed to be dead.” Her funeral makeup’s all messed up and her hair’s out of the pristine curls they were in earlier, now falling haphazardly over her shoulders in wild curls, and he has to resist from tucking stray strands behind his ear. “Yeah,” he says. “Go get some sleep. We’ll figure out your murder…later.”

--

Things go back to normal in the hours that follow – or as normal as things can be with a resurrected Clarke Griffin (who by now has wiped off the gross funeral makeup and changed into some of Octavia’s old pajamas) sitting in the living room. Marcus comes back with a list of people Abby suspects could be after Clarke’s inheritance, and the five of them discuss it, bring up articles and theories and dirt on the suspects. He says he’ll look into the Wallace group especially, and leaves, thanking them.

He also brings a bunch of Clarke’s old clothes; no one wants to ask him how he got it off her mother’s hands, but Clarke thanks him nonetheless.

(“I wanted to come,” she says petulantly after he leaves. “I’d go all Jacob Marley on them. The looks on their faces will be priceless.”)

And then, because Bellamy can’t deny her anything, they go and watch a movie. Clarke wears giant sunglasses and a plaid headscarf to match Bellamy’s shirt, and they take a silly picture and she chats animatedly to Octavia about the film. He’s glad she’s two seats away because then he might get the urge to hold her hand, and that would be massively inconvenient.

He lies awake in bed later, thinking of Clarke’s smile and dead dad and, sighing, pads into the kitchen looking to make a cup of tea only to find her sitting at the table. “Can’t sleep either, princess?”

Clarke smiles at him over her mug. “Still calling me princess ten years later?”

“Some things never change.” He can’t help it, he has to smile at her. “What’s up?”

Clarke scrunches up her nose, and it’s adorable. “I never thought I’d go by way of inheritance-related homicide,” she admits. “I hoped I’d live a long and happy life, or at least go out doing something awesome, like taking a bullet for the president, or bungee jumping.”

“I’d hate to see you go out bungee jumping,” he says. “That sounds painful.”

“But you’d be okay with me dying to save the president?” she teases. Her eyes sparkle, and Bellamy is a dead man.

He shrugs. “As long as he was a decent president, I guess.”

She laughs. He takes his tea out of the mug and begins to sip it.

“It’s weird,” she whispers. “Three days ago, I thought I was gonna rule the world. Like, not literally, of course, but I was going to be a doctor, I’d sold a couple of paintings, I had a friend group, and then…zip.” She uses her pointer finger to draw a quick line across her throat. “All gone.”

He’s not really sure what to say to that, and resorts to coughing awkwardly. “Yeah, I went to your funeral,” he says, chuckling at her bemused face. “They miss you.”

“Thanks, I guess. Sorry you had to sit through that. I bet it was awful.”

“The food was good,” he jokes. They lapse back into silence. She stirs her hot chocolate, he taps a melody on the dining table.

“You don’t touch Octavia,” she blurts out suddenly, pointedly not looking at him. “What’s up with that?”

He bristles automatically. “You noticed.”

“It’s not hard,” she says, looking back at him. “You guys were insanely close before. Now…Raven’s always in the middle, or constantly keeping an eye on you, or…”

Bellamy exhales. “You’re right.”

Clarke fiddles with the ends of her hair. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

He leans forward. “Well, we’ve already dragged you back into this shithole, so might as well get the full package, right?”

She laughs again. Bellamy decides right then and there that he likes making her laugh.

“Anyway, like I said, you’re right. I did resurrect Octavia.”

Clarke stares at him, her brow furrowing. “She died? But – how – when–”

“After – after Mom died,” he says, and it’s still painful, and Clarke’s eyes drop downwards because she lost her dad then, too. “We moved out, remember? We lived with my mom’s cousin across town. Let’s just say – the guy was a dirtbag. One time he came home wasted and tried to pull the moves on her. She was only fourteen.” His jaw tightens and his knuckles clench involuntarily, and Clarke looks at them. “O and I hated him, but – what could you do. He had custody. Then there was a car accident. She was in the backseat without a seatbelt.”

Clarke bobs her head. Her eyes don’t leave his. “She died,” she whispers, following. “And he lived.”

“I was banged up, but overall okay. But I was so angry,” he continues, folding his arms across his chest. The memory comes back to him – the broken glass, Octavia’s hand falling limply, his uncle’s heavy breathing. “It wasn’t fair. She was so young, and she didn’t deserve it, and to have him live…and the sight of O, blood everywhere – I couldn’t handle it. My sister, my responsibility, right? And I know it was selfish, that– but I can’t ever think I did the wrong thing.”

“I had no idea,” Clarke says quietly. “I knew her uncle had died and you got custody and I saw you guys a lot, but…she never said anything. I don’t know how I never noticed.”

“Guess it worked.”

Clarke nods again, her hand under her chin. Her fingers tap a pattern on the table. “You’re right,” she says finally. “Some things never change. Your sister, your responsibility.” He has to smile a bit at that, and she smiles in turn. It makes him feel giddy. “I’d hug you if I could,” she murmurs suddenly.

“Me too,” he finds himself saying, and they stare at each other across the table. The yellow light softens her face, makes her look younger and less tired. She’s beautiful, always has been, and he wonders what made him think any girl could ever live up to her.

She clears her throat. “I think – I think I’m going back to bed,” she announces. “Thank you, Bellamy.” She stands and her fingers move to touch his shoulder before remembering, and she settles for a soft “good night” as she brushes past him.

Bellamy watches her turn down the hallway and disappear into Octavia’s room, and leans back in his chair. He thinks about how he could have resented her when they were younger and what it means now that she’s back in his life. He’s unsettlingly grateful for it, because she’s Clarke and she’s always been lovely, but to keep her around with them, away from her friends and family…that’s not fair. She deserves better than that, better than the person responsible for her dad’s death.

He thinks about never getting to touch her and his heart hurts.

It’s been exactly thirty-nine hours since Clarke Griffin breathed her way back into his life, and Bellamy’s realized how fucked he is for around three hours of that time.

She’s playing Scrabble with Raven in the living room and Clarke’s arguing that “za” is an actual, acceptable word (it is) when Octavia slides into the chair across from him. “You okay, Bellbell?” she says in that way she does when she knows he’s not okay and is just waiting for him to say it.

“Fine,” he grumbles, because he’s not about to talk about how great Clarke is when it’s his fault she’s in this whole mess with the girl who’s probably her best friend.

Octavia raises both eyebrows at him. “You love playing Scrabble,” she points out. “You and Raven play it all the time and completely own me because you’re both nerds.”

“Maybe I don’t feel like playing it right now,” he shoots back.

Octavia flinches and he feels bad for a second until her face softens. “Bell,” she says softly. “Stop beating yourself up about Clarke.”

Bellamy groans and puts his head in his hand, and Octavia fucking chuckles, damn her. “Look,” she continues. “It’s not your fault she died, and that was just shitty, but – you’ve given her a second chance. At least give yourself that much credit.”

“I know,” he moans. “But she can’t talk to her friends, or her mom, and she can’t go back to med school and she’s basically just stuck hanging out with us, and fuck, O, she deserves better.”

“She deserved better than to drown because she was rich,” Octavia says. “You gave her more than that, and yeah, maybe she also deserved to volunteer with Doctors Without Borders or have high-flying exhibits, but you couldn’t control that.”

“I killed her dad,” he says dumbly.

Octavia frowns at him. “You didn’t,” she says firmly. “And that’s all in the past. This is it now, big bro.”

He stares at her before he forces his face into a smile. “Thanks, O,” he says, resisting the urge to muss up her hair.

“Hey, you gave the best motivational speeches,” she points out, grinning at him.

Raven likes to remind him that she has a life outside of them, a greasy-haired on-again-off-again boyfriend, and a doctorate degree to finish, but she’s over so much lately that Bellamy often forgets it. It’s not that he doesn’t appreciate her company – he does, it’s not like he’s particularly big on letting people in, X-Men thing (damnit, Clarke) and all. Raven’s one of his closest friends.

“Listen, Bell, I’m not that great with relationships either,” Raven says matter-of-factly over chicken sandwiches. “But people aren’t machines. I learned that much in the lab, at least.”

He frowns. “Not like you to be metaphorical,” he says. “What are you getting at?”

She groans and rolls her eyes. “You’re an idiot,” she says bluntly, and he resists the urge to smile because that’s more like it. “Talk to Clarke.”

 “What made you say that, Raven?”

She grins at him cheekily. “C’mon, Bell, like I haven’t seen the way you look at her. It’s not rocket science.”

He startles. “Says the rocket scientist,” he shoots back. “Raven, really?” He thinks there’s a part of her that still feels bad for the Finn Collins Fiasco, that Clarke had left for college before they could truly become friends.

“You haven’t dated in years,” she says. “And don’t think Octavia hasn’t told me about your loser crush on her when she was in high school.”

“It’s really creepy when you put it like that,” he says through his hand. “Besides, there’s a lot of other…unresolved stuff.” He thinks of Jake Griffin, Clarke in all-black.

“That was years ago, Bell,” says Raven. “Fix them, then take the plunge. You both deserve it.”

He frowns at her.

Raven shrugs. “Hey, wanna go wall-climbing later? Wick won coupons to the climbing gym, but he’s not into that stuff.”

He sighs, then grins. “Sure thing, Raven.”

Bellamy’s birthday comes and goes. It starts out fairly normal; some guy named Atom was stabbed in the jugular and left to die in a forest (Clarke wrinkles up her nose) and he and Raven go out and see the body in the morgue. He’s pretty sure by now that Miller, the coroner, knows what’s up, but he’s not really up to testing that hypothesis.

But then they get home and Octavia and Clarke have surprised him with the biggest, most chocolatey cake from the bakery down the corner. Raven gives him a small-scale, working model of a Roman catapult she’d whipped up herself and Octavia gives him a boxset of documentaries on Mesopotamia. Raven hugs all of them before she leaves to study for an exam, and he, Octavia, and Clarke bundle up in the living room to watch it.

All in all, it’s a pretty good day.

They’ve gotten to the one on Mesopotamian mythology and Octavia falls asleep in the middle of the story of Inanna and Ereshkigal on the couch next to him, her limbs sprawled out every which way. He looks at her, bemused, and carefully covers her with a blanket. He realizes Clarke’s watching him, and she gestures for him to join him on the floor with all the sleeping bags.

“I’ll be careful,” she says, grinning.

He does, because as previously covered, he can’t deny her anything, and he sprawls out on the sleeping bag across her. There’s a whole pillow between them. “You okay?” he asks her.

“Fine,” she says. “I think I learned way more in the last three hours than I ever did in high school history.”

“You loved high school history,” he points out, smiling.

“I wasn’t that great at it, though,” she replies. The lights from the TV flicker off her face, make her eyes sparkle, and he stops listening to the documentary entirely. “Not like you were.”

He blows his curls out of his eyes. Absently, he thinks Octavia is right and that he should cut it. “Your high school was ages ago. I feel like a grandpa.”

She laughs. “Sorry I was such a pain in your ass back then.”

Heat rises in his cheeks, and he winces again at all their shouting matches. “Nah,” he says. “I was an asshole. And we made a damn good team sometimes.”

Clarke ducks her head prettily. “So what’s been up with you?” she asks softly. “I mean, like, I know what you’ve been up to. Tell me why you started the diner, how you met Raven…” She trails off, waves a hand vaguely.

He chuckles. “How about this,” he says. “We swap stories. I’ll start.” She nods. “What do you want to know first?”

She looks thoughtful. “How you met Raven,” she says. “You guys are so close.”

He remembers his and Raven’s conversation and tries not to blush. “Not like that, god,” he says. “Well, actually. Raven and I met because she wanted sloppy revenge sex against her cheating ex, and I happened to be at her favorite bar.”

Clarke looks scandalized, but then she laughs. “Oh, my god, she’s still with Finn?”

He’s only vaguely aware of the whole Raven/Finn/Clarke situation. “They got back together after you two, uh, broke it off,” he says. “But apparently he cheated on her again, and she kicked him to the curb. She’s with some engineer now.”

She tsks and shakes her head. “Well, glad I let that one go,” she says, shifting to face him better. “What do you wanna know about me?”

Everything, he almost says, but then instead asks, “Dated anyone recently?”

“You mean before I died?” she jokes. “Nah. The last serious relationship I had was in med school, but I think she was looking for something that wasn’t there. You?”

“Same as you,” he says. “Octavia’s always telling me to up my game. Just because she’s in a nice, steady relationship.”

She nods, like she’s filing this away for future use.

“Med school, huh?” he says.

“Well,” says Clarke. “You know it was what my mom wanted. I thought I wanted it too, but, well… I liked art. I was considering shifting majors, before…y’know. Why’d you start the diner?”

“I worked in security for a bit,” he says, “But, well, my mom wanted to start a diner before…she died, and the gift helps with the milkshakes.” He winces instinctively, thinking of his mom. Clarke’s staring at him. “You still mad at your mom?”

She plays with the ends of her hair. “Nah,” she says quietly. “I was for years and years, but like…being dead kind of puts that all into perspective. She had to live with me being mad at her until I died.” There’s a silence the passes, and he wants nothing more than to smooth her hair back from her face. “How’d you start working for Kane?” she asks finally.

He laughs, if only to relieve the tension. “He caught me resurrecting a mugger,” he says. “It was all very epic. He chased me through alleyways and everything. But then he sat us down, and we worked out an agreement, and well, he pays well.” She laughs. “Kane and your mom?”

She giggles. “He’s at every party my mom hosts and they’re always together. It’s weird, but I just got the feeling.” She nibbles a little at her lip. “But he makes her happy, I think. Even if he was one of dad’s best friends.”

He tenses instinctively at the mention of her father, remembers Octavia saying this is it now, and starts, “Clarke, I–”

“Oh,” she says suddenly. “Wait, I made you a birthday present.”

She gets up and goes to Octavia’s room, coming out with a piece of paper and handing it to him. It’s a watercolor portrait of him smiling at something, and he traces the lines and the colors almost reverently. He’s taken aback by the sheer power and simplicity of her art, and fuck, nobody’s ever done something like this for him, ever. “You drew me?” is the smoothest he can come up with, his mouth dry.

She purses her lips. “It was really rushed,” she says, annoyed. “You never said anything. I had to find out from Octavia yesterday.”

“I think you made me look very handsome nevertheless, Clarke,” he interrupts.

“It’s not like I had much to do,” she retorts, but she’s grinning and her cheeks are pink and fuck if that’s not the cutest thing he’s ever seen. Her face softens and she looks away. “Happy birthday, Bellamy.”

Bellamy really, really wishes he could kiss her.

And that’s when someone practically busts down the door yelling “Happy birthday, boss!” with legitimate confetti. Jasper and Monty crowd into the room carrying a giant teddy bear and blasting grainy Happy Birthday audio files. “How could you not tell us it was your birthday?” Monty says behind the teddy bear. “Jasper would’ve actually wiped the counter properly.” Clarke instinctively shuffles under a pillow and Octavia startles awake, glaring at them.

“I let slip that it was your birthday,” Raven pants after them, hands on her knees. “Sorry. You know there’s no stopping these two.”

Bellamy opens his mouth to say something, but Jasper’s eyes have already landed on Clarke, his jaw dropping.

“Hi, Jasper, Monty,” Clarke says tentatively.

“Hi, Clarke,” says Monty, extremely cautiously. “Long time no see.”

“At least I talked them out of bringing Miller?” Raven offers.

Jasper and Monty go through every possible explanation Bellamy can think of and more – the words clone, evil twin, time travel, faked death, doppelganger all come up at least once, sometimes in conjunction with each other, before Bellamy finally snaps and lets them in on the X-Men thing.

“So you’re saying you brought Clarke back to life?” Jasper’s lying on the sofa, his feet on Clarke’s lap, and Monty’s sitting on the floor, his head next to Clarke’s knees. It’s adorably domestic. “Wait, so the laundering funeral owner–”

Octavia laughs. “Not Bell’s best moment.”

Monty only shrugs. “Rad.”

“Hey,” says Clarke, “At least it means I can work the diner now. There’s only so many Netflix shows I can marathon all by myself before I get bored.”

She means it as a joke, but Bellamy feels the pang of guilt once again. He’s distracted, however, by Jasper’s “Hey, so let’s say I have a hypothetical dog, and…”

“Look, can we just agree to never mention this to anyone?” Octavia’s saying. “It’s bad enough as it is that Jasper wants to resurrect his dog.”

Then his phone rings. “It’s Kane,” he announces.

“Marcus Kane?” says Monty.

“They fight crime,” Clarke says conspiratorially.

Bellamy puts his head to his forehead. Kids. He leaves the room. “What’s up?” he says into the phone. “It’s ten in the evening.”

Kane’s voice is surprisingly quiet. “You’ll be interested in this one,” he says. “You and Clarke, I think.”

He finishes the rest of the conversation slack-jawed. “I’ll tell her, he says, his mouth dry. Bellamy pokes his head inside the living room. “Clarke,” he calls. She meets his eye across the room, her brow furrowing, and he nods at her to come outside.

They step out on the porch, and Clarke leans against the porch wall. “What’s up?”

Bellamy takes a deep breath. “Kane called,” he says quietly. “It’s Wells. Wells Jaha.”

He watches her eyes widen, hears her shortness of breath, and his heart breaks a little.

By the time they get to the morgue, Clarke’s struggling to hold back her tears. Bellamy murmurs a few words to Miller before he nods at them and opens the door. He pulls a sheet over one of the bodies, and then Wells Jaha is lying on one of the tables, his face peaceful.

“You don’t have to be here for this, Clarke,” he says quietly. She takes off her sunglasses and looks him dead in the eye, and he wonders how he thought he could make her do anything.

“I want to be here,” she whispers with conviction.

“Okay,” he says, before leaning over Wells. He touches him on the shoulder and the younger man jolts awake.

“Holy shit,” breathes Wells, and his voice is as low and serious as Bellamy remembers. He blinks at the bright morgue lights. “Am I dead?”

Clarke moves into his field of vision, and he gasps. “Clarke,” he says, “You’re – What are you–” before she hugs him, already in tears.

“Oh, Wells,” she says, pulling away. “It’s me, and I’m sorry, and you were dead but you’re not for now, and do you know who killed you?”

Wells startles. “Charlotte Jones,” he says without missing a beat. “She has the murder weapon, I think.” Clarke nods, teary-eyed. Bellamy notes this information and moves to touch Wells again, but Raven hisses and grabs his arm. Let them have a minute, she mouths. Or, y’know, thirty-nine sconds.

“Clarke,” says Wells, still half in Clarke’s arms and his hand on her elbow, “What’s going on?”

“Don’t think about it too much,” she murmurs. “Oh, Wells, I missed you so much, and you’ll go back again soon…”

“Last I recall, you should be there too,” Wells points out, the slightest bit amused. “You idiot, Dad and I were a mess.”

She laughs at his gallows humor. “I’ll be here for a while,” she replies, throwing Bellamy a smile over her shoulder.

“I’ll wait for you,” Wells replies without missing a beat.

She shakes her head vehemently, her curls flying. “Don’t,” she says, and she’s crying again. “It’s really, really great there. Don’t wait up for me.” Wells nods in understanding, and Bellamy looks out the corner of his eye and notes Octavia’s crying and nodding, too. Distantly, he notes he’s never asked what it’s like after death. Maybe it’s not something he was ever meant to know.

“Twelve seconds,” says Raven, who’s looking away and trying really hard not to be affected. Bellamy takes her arm, and she gives him a half-smile.

“Bye, Wells,” Clarke croaks, and kisses him on the forehead.

“See you, Clarke,” says Wells, closing his eyes.

Bellamy taps Wells on the shoulder again with a second to spare. “You okay, Clarke?” he asks. She’s dropped to the floor again, head buried in her knees.

“I’ll be fine,” she hiccups, and smiles at him despite her tears. She’s a pretty crier. “Thank you for that, Bellamy.” She gets up, and – to everyone’s great surprise – holds up her scarf to his cheek, and presses her lips against it. Involuntarily, he closes his eyes and wishes he could reciprocate, the patch of skin still tingling. But Clarke’s standing back and grinning at him, her eyes shining, and he smiles back. They’ll figure everything out – whether or not the Wallaces were behind her death, or whether she can ever talk to her mom, the fallout from when he’ll tell her about her dad, or whatever this is between them – they have time. He’s given them that much, at least.

Raven throws her arm around Clarke as they walk back to the pickup where Jasper and Monty are waiting for them with McDonald’s, and Octavia falls into step behind him. “It really is great,” she whispers, looking up at him, and instantly he knows what she means. “But life? Life is way more kickass.”

Bellamy’s heart swells. In front of him, Clarke looks back and grins at him, her smile blinding. “I’d toast to that,” he says, and means it.