Chapter Text
Clarke’s day got a whole lot better when he sat down next to her in English. It was the first day back at school – September 6th – and she knew she’d have to knuckle down a lot harder this year, for her final GCSE year. The only thing was - she was new.
Clarke’s mother had moved them across the country, from Polis to Ark, for her final year in secondary school. This was a pretty detrimental year, and Clarke wasn’t just surprised that her mother was risking it, but also that she would move in the first place. However, Clarke had grown up in Ark until she was seven, and now she was fifteen, she had returned.
Anyway, he sat down next to her.
He, being Bellamy Blake. She felt like she couldn’t really look at him directly – that his smile was too bright or his face too pretty to stare straight at; like the sun, she thought absently. But he wasn’t the sun – he was the universe; a galaxy of freckles across his skin and the worldly look in his eye. He couldn’t have left Ark in his life – not many people do – but he had an aura about him as if he was born to be in bigger places.
“Hi,” he said, dumping his backpack at his feet.
“Hey,” she replied quietly. They didn’t talk for the first few minutes. She’d arrived to school early, to pick up her timetable and to find her first class, so she’d laid out the notebook the teacher had handed her, as well as her pencil case. She noted that everyone else just pulled out a pen from their blazer pockets.
Her table-mate (at least, that’s what it said on the board, with the diagram of the room and their names on one half of each rectangle), Bellamy, it seemed, glanced over at her often, from his relaxed position in his chair. Immediately, she was worried that she had been landed with a slacker who would copy all of her work, but she didn’t need to.
The moment they were handed A View From The Bridge, by Arthur Miller, he sat up, flicking through the first few pages.
“Have you read it before?” He asked, startling Clarke. She nodded – the play was about Italian-Americans in Brooklyn, hiding illegal immigrants in their house. There’s love, hate, a lack of sex, and she generally found it interesting to read. She thought he would end it there, but he kept going.
“So what did you think of Eddie’s obsession over his niece?” He asked, looking generally interested. She shrugged.
“A little paedophilic, if you ask me,” she said as he cracked a smile. She noticed that he covered it quickly. “And, with the ‘walking wavy’ as well as them having no boundaries?”
“He so should’ve enforced something, right?” Bellamy agreed.
“Yeah, or his wife,” she replied with a smile. Her table-mate chuckled and placed the book on the table in front of him.
“Bellamy Blake,” he said, looking back to her. She smiled a little.
“Clarke Griffin.”
The lesson practically flew by from then onwards. They joked a bit – argued over the use of Marco and the lifting of the chair (“it’s meant to signify strength and ward off Eddie,” Clarke insisted. “He was just showing off,” Bellamy said, rolling his eyes. “Even I can lift a chair.”), and eventually, as it drew to a close, he slid her timetable from her pencil case and compared it to the one he pulled from his blazer pocket.
“We have the same schedule,” he informed her.
“Really?” He nodded.
“Apart from Art,” he admitted with a nod.
“Ah, not the budding artist?” He all but snorted.
“No thanks. I’m taking History.”
“I did that in year nine,” she said, plucking her timetable from his hands and stuffing it into the pencil case again.
“Oh yeah? What’d you get?”
“B,” she replied. “Could’ve got higher – but I suck at American West.” He smiled, picking up their books and dumping them on the pile at the front of the class with everyone else. He spoke when he returned.
“How’d you do in Medicine Through Time?” He asked.
“Aced it,” she replied with a shrug. She didn’t watch his eyebrows hit the ceiling, but when she looked back, they were still in place, hanging from the lights.
“How’d you manage that?” She shrugged.
“My mum’s a doctor.” There was a sense of finality in her tone and he didn’t ask any more questions, just led her to their next class. He sighed when he walked through the door, and she glanced back to find him looking at the teacher. He nudged her forward and they took seats in the back.
It was immediately odd, not being up the front. She and Maya – a friend from Polis – had always sat at the front of the class. Maya liked it because she was quiet, and being up the front meant that teachers knew you were listening and wouldn’t call on you often. Clarke had done it because she liked soaking up the information. She decided not to tell Bellamy this and very quickly the class was full of annoyed humming over algebra.
It was only twenty minutes in when Bellamy grinned to the boy on his right. Clarke looked past him and to the dark skinned guy, with the guarded expression but small smile. He’d come in late (with a note, promptly handed to Ms Vera) and landed in the seat next to Bellamy.
“Clarke,” he introduced quietly. “This is my best friend – Nate Miller. Miller, this is Clarke. She’s new.” Miller nodded at her and Clarke smiled back. Then Bellamy turned to his friend.
“I know,” Bellamy nodded wisely. “We have to do something about this.” Clarke couldn’t recall Miller speaking, but they were somehow having a one-way conversation, filled with just expressions.
Then, Miller leaned into his bag and produced a small packet, which he passed on to Bellamy. He stuffed it into his pocket before she could see what it was. Then, Ms Vera was in front of her, glaring.
“Miss Griffin, if you would be so kind as to actually do the work you were assigned,” she bit out, refusing to even look at Clarke’s almost complete work sheet. “And maybe stop fraternising with Mr Blake – who-“ she turned to him with an evil eye “I’m surprised is even here, considering his low attendance.” Clarke glanced to her new friend, and there was a look in his eye that said he was bothered by his words. But he didn’t let on, otherwise. Instead, he smiled, swinging back in his chair against the wall, and putting his hands behind his head.
“Just be glad I’m here,” he said easily. Ms Vera gave him a warning before stalking off to the front of the class. The moment her back was turned he glowered.
Clarke sighed as Miller gave his friend a pointed look.
“I know,” Bellamy murmured. “I’m waiting for the opening.” She didn’t question what it was, but continued with the work, not wanting to be berated again on her first day of school (or worse, have her mother phoned). It was about ten minutes later when Ms Vera stopped the class.
“I’m going to go outside for a moment for a quick meeting. I will be gone no longer than five minutes and I want all work sheets completed by the time I get back.” Her voice was demanding and suddenly she swept out of the room and a sigh relaxed over the class.
This is when Bellamy turned to her.
“You don’t seem very rebellious, Princess,” he started, immediately cut off by Clarke.
“Princess?” She asked, incredulously. He nodded, dumbfounded.
“Yeah – you look like one,” he mumbled before recovering. “Like, the way you wear your uniform and stuff.” He shrugged, continuing on with his thought, but a quick look over his shoulder to Miller’s amused, shaking head said that Bellamy wasn’t honest.
“You don’t seem very rebellious, but I’m going to help you break out of that shell,” he said, his voice speeding across the words. Then he produced the gift from Miller from his pocket. She raised her eyebrows.
“Condoms? I like that you’re into protection and all – but I think we’ve known each other for an hour and a half.” Bellamy rolled his eyes with a sigh.
“Clarke,” he sighed. “Vera has it out for us and you know it.” She nodded reluctantly. “So we’re going to put condoms all over her desk.” She was frozen for a moment, her mind running over the possibilities. Detention, detention, a phone call home, detention. And although she hated them all, she couldn’t help but like the look in Bellamy’s excited eyes. She nodded without realising she was doing it. “Great!” he exclaimed. “Let’s get a move on – before she gets back.”
He was out of his seat within a second, jumping over the table and walking through the class. She followed slightly slower, noticing the eyes following them. Then he chucked her half of the packs. Immediately, the two opened them, unrolling them and leaving them on her desk, in her draws, under her laptop. Clarke had no clue what had come over her, but she loved it. She was having fun. Actual fun. Not sitting at home doodling by herself, but actual, real fun.
She couldn’t help but pause to look at the boy who made her feel that way. And then, the next day, after some kid from the front of the class had ratted the two of them out after lesson, she couldn’t help but stare at him, two seats ahead and to the right, the entire way through detention.