Work Text:
Clarke didn’t care if it was a little bit obnoxious how much she enjoyed wearing her scrubs in public—the blue fabric was her equivalent of a trophy, a symbol of the time and tears she had put into her medical degree and subsequent surgical training. Some people (Raven, mostly) thought it was unsanitary that she wore them outside the hospital, but Clarke enjoyed it. She liked the impressed eyebrow raises and was able to ignore the critical stares pretty well. So, it had never bothered her wearing them in public.
At least until she stood on the steps at the back entrance to the church, waiting for Octavia to let her in. The limo drivers, enjoying their smokes during their down time, narrowed their eyes at her appearance, and the one or two wedding guests who had caught sight of her outright frowned at the very much out-of-place apparel.
You shouldn’t be here, their scornful, imaginary voices rang in her head.
Not that she needed that advice—her own thoughts were echoing the same words, because really, she of all people (dressed appropriately or not) shouldn’t be here at the church where Bellamy was getting married.
Except.
Except she was his best friend, even if they weren’t on speaking terms, even if he had cut her out of his life three months ago, after a screaming match that had rivaled some of theirs from years ago when they hadn’t yet figured out they were cut from the same cloth, all because she had tried to tell him what he wouldn’t hear from anybody else: Missy wasn’t good for him, she wasn’t being honest with him, his rushed engagement was a mistake. They had all thought it—Octavia, Wick, Raven, even sweet-tempered Monty—but Clarke was the only one who had been brave enough to confront him about it. She had also been the only one to lose him in the aftermath.
So they hadn’t spoken in three months—ninety-four days, if you wanted to be precise. Clarke was a doctor, so of course she was precise. It had nothing to do with the possibility that at one time, too long ago to pinpoint when, she had thought that maybe, perhaps, she and Bellamy might have, could have—but that didn’t matter now. All that mattered was the piece of paper listing the very precise medical test that told her (in very precise, numerical terms) that Missy—who was most likely at this very moment twirling around in an excessively extravagant white dress—wasn’t pregnant like Bellamy, and everyone else, thought.
Those kind of tests didn’t lie, not this late in the game, and so, because of the very precise medical test, Bellamy wouldn’t have any reason to think Clarke was lying either. It was the only reason she was here, hand clutching that paper so tightly her knuckles turned white and palms grew sweaty, risking her medical license and the very pretty scrubs she had worked so hard for, because tests didn’t lie. Only people did, and Bellamy—giving, selfless, honorable Bellamy who had abandoned all thoughts of calling off his engagement when Missy had claimed the stick turned blue—didn’t deserve to start a marriage like that.
Whatever happened after he knew—her losing her job, him working it out with Missy—Clarke told herself she didn’t care. He just deserved to know.
Her heart stuttered when the back door finally creaked open, revealing a harried-looking Octavia.
“Get in here!” The brunette in the peach, puff pastry of a bridesmaids dress hissed, practically dragging Clarke inside. “Did anybody see you?”
“No?”
Octavia clutched at her arm harder as she towed her down the hall, clearly not reassured by Clarke’s answer. “Well, let’s hope not many people saw you, because I don’t put it past Missy or one of her minions kicking the groom’s own sister out if they catch us together. I’ve only got a minute before they wonder where I’ve gone.”
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Clarke’s stomach rolled nauseously, because while her good intentions were present, so were those lurking selfish thoughts of could-have-beens and maybe-still-could-bes. Apparently she wasn’t as good of a person as everyone thought. At the very least, she was the kind of doctor who broke privacy laws—and that didn’t bode well for the rest of her usually strict code of honor.
“I love my brother, but his head is as thick as a brick, and he won’t listen to anyone, even to me,” Octavia muttered as they hurried up a narrow staircase, although sadness also accompanied the frustration in her voice. “He can’t see straight with Missy, because all he sees is our pregnant mother, alone and abandoned twice-over by our dads. That test will clear things up, I guarantee it.”
Her words said test, but her tone said you, and Clarke realized, much too late, two things about Octavia: she could actually care less about the test, and that she was much, much more observant than Clarke had given her credit for.
As her conscience warred with suddenly unearthed true wants and wishes, she began to panic. “Octavia—”
“He’s inside.”
Then with a yank of the door and a shove to the back, Octavia thrust her into the room where the groomsmen were assembled, the ruffling of taffeta and tulle sounding her quick retreat as she abandoned Clarke in the now dead-silent room.
“Clarke?”
Wick was the first one to speak, looking somewhere between stunned and curious. Clarke managed to send him a weak smile in greeting, glad she had someone to focus on other than the groom. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Bellamy standing frozen and frowning, dressed to the nines in a tux, looking just as handsome as he had that one time he had done her the favor of escorting her to one of her mother’s hospital fundraisers.
Don’t, her brain warned her. Don’t go there. Not to that night, all of nights, that night when they had almost become more than a maybe.
“I need a minute with him, guys,” Clarke finally managed to stutter out, paper in her hand crinkling as her grip tightened on it even further.
Wick, Miller, and Murphy all flicked wary glances at Bellamy, and after a very long moment, she saw him give an almost imperceptible nod. Clarke let out several shaky breaths as the groomsmen rose and filed out, thankful for the way Wick quickly reached out and squeezed her hand comfortingly.
That comfort was short-lived, however, because as soon as the door clicked shut behind the men, she had no choice but to look at Bellamy. Dragging her gaze up reluctantly from her shoes, her eyes widened at the fury written into every line of his face.
“What the fuck are you doing here,” he exploded, not even bothering to keep his voice down as he strode towards her rapidly.
Something in Clarke snapped—maybe it was the overly tense set to his shoulders, or the dramatic way his fists flexed in anger, or the slightest shadow of doubts she didn’t think she was imaging in his eyes. Bellamy wassmart, damn it, and so good at reading people, how had he missed this, and she had been right about Missy all along, and for years he had been her bestfriend, meaning it was her job to keep him from doing idiotic shit like this, and all it had taken was this stupid fucking thing to rip him from her—
“She’s not fucking pregnant!” Clarke yelled back, slamming the damning piece of paper into his solid chest, her hand pressing against it so hard that she could feel how furiously his heart was beating. “She’s lying to you. And you fucking refuse to see it.”
“What?”
That single desperate whispered word froze Clarke in place, the sheer shock of it cooling her anger immediately like water running over burnt skin. Except instead of relief from the pain, she felt the ache in her turn sorrowful, because the dazed, heartbroken expression on Bellamy’s face might not have been worth her being right. And even if she was right, he never should have had to hear it like that, and from her of all people.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said it like that—”
Her protests caught in her throat when his large, warm hand came to rest gently over hers, slowly tugging the paper from where it was wedged between her palm and his chest. Anxiety tugged at her heartstrings as he unfolded the paper, eyes running over the long list of numbers. She didn’t know if he knew what he was looking at, but offering to help probably wasn’t a good idea right now. So she let him absorb the numbers that told him what his heart couldn’t, or wouldn’t, see—Missy, while tough and funny and pretty and fun, also wasn’t the type of girl Bellamy would every marry.
Or at least the Bellamy that Clarke had known wouldn’t—and these days, she couldn’t say that she really knew who Bellamy was anymore.
His reluctant sigh and the sound of paper crumpling had her heart jolting to a brief stop, because was he couldn’t, he couldn’t be going through with it—
“You should go,” he mumbled, running a hand frustratedly through his overly gelled hair, letting the curls spring wildly up again in a way that had Clarke almost smiling—because there he was, a little part of him that she finally recognized.
“Oh,” she then breathed, his words finally registering. He was—he was still going to marry her. “Oh. Okay.”
Clarke didn’t know how she made it out of the room, because her vision suddenly blurred and her limbs tingled with numbness, and not because she was losing a could-have-been, but because she was losing her best friend.
Memories washed over her—her initial annoyance at his bigheaded, stubborn nature; months of sniping at each other while everyone else rolled their eyes at the antics; getting absurdly drunk one night and bonding over how stupid the ending to Lost was; ordering crappy Thai takeout during movie marathons; the way his skin felt warm against hers as he tossed her into the ocean waves, that feeling of safety and comfort she had grown so very used to whenever he was around—as she walked down the hall, carrying an empty heart in a hollow chest.
Years of fighting and barely tolerated behavior, years of acceptance and friendship, years upon years upon years of a connection so deep that Clarke felt as if she was losing half of herself—all of that would be gone in the span of two words uttered from lips she had never gotten to taste, words of promise that were based on a lie.
She was sick to her stomach at the thought, and at the shame that she had arrogantly thought this, them, would end any other way.
Selfish, conceited girl.
Somehow she made it back to her car, shutting the door behind her and fastening her seatbelt, even sticking the key into the ignition. Clarke couldn’t force herself to turn the car on though, instead choosing to sit parked on the side of the road opposite the front doors of the church. She watched the tulle and flowers fastened everywhere dance merrily in the warm summer breeze, gaze gradually becoming unfocused as imagined apparitions of the ceremony proceeding inside flickered across her vision.
Self-pitying laughter bubbled out of her when the church doors suddenly flung open, because she was pathetic enough to be imagining Bellamy standing there, bowtie askew, scanning the area as if looking for something (someone, her traitorous heart muttered). As she tried to blink away the tears hovering at the edges of her eyes, she realized the image wasn’t fading.
What—
And then his eyes locked with hers, and she swore a hint of a smile appeared on his face. With trembling fingers, she swiped at her eyes, wanting her vision clear, because if this was real, if Bellamy really was running over to her car, then that could only mean one thing.
“Drive,” was all he said when he slid into the passenger seat of her car, looking upset and regretful and relieved all at the same time as he slammed the door shut. A walking contradiction, as he always had been, a storm of wanting to do right by others and right by himself always raging inside him, more often than not tearing him apart in the process.
Clarke choked out a melancholy laugh, because she had always been there to pick up the pieces for him, but to bring him back from this, when she had been the one to render him undone this time—she didn’t know if she could do it.
“Octavia said if I wasn’t five miles from this church in two minutes, she’d never speak to me again, so if you could step on it—”
The fact that he knew he had Octavia’s blessing told Clarke that he was sure about his decision, beyond a doubt, and so she twisted the keys and slammed on the gas in the span of a single breath. It wasn’t until they turned the corner that he broke the heavy silence.
“She admitted it when I confronted her, said it was the only way—god, I didn’t even recognize her, the way she was talking. And then it just all hit me, so many things that now, looking back—so I called it off.”
Another long pause filled the car, and Clarke let him think, knowing he needed time to collect himself, even as every cell in her body screamed why did you run now, why did you run to me now?
“All of you tried to tell me and I—I’m so sorry. I can’t even—god.” Bellamy rubbed a hand over his face several times in rapid succession, his movements rough and reckless. “You all must hate me for being so blind.”
“We don’t—”
“Clarke.”
She couldn’t look at him, because the regret in his voice tugged too tightly on the want clutching at her chest, squeezing her heart in a vise-like grip. He was beating himself up already, and wouldn’t stop, because he was Bellamy, and he would be sorry about not listening to his friends, sorry for walking out on everyone in that church, even sorry for walking out on Missy despite what she had done, because that was Bellamy.
That was her best friend, and the man she was in love with, and she wouldn’t let him do that do himself, damn it, not about this, not ever.
“You’re forgiven,” she blurted out, turning suddenly to look at him, mouth set and voice insistent as his pleading eyes locked on hers. “If you want forgiveness, I’ll give that to you.”
At her words, Bellamy let out a soft laugh and closed his eyes, smiling a heartbreakingly doubtful smile that said thank you, but I don’t believe you. As Clarke continued staring at him, and the way the afternoon sunlight spiraled across his freckled cheekbones, only glancing away briefly to make sure she wasn’t going to crash the car, he reached a hand over to hers that was resting on the stick shift. With careful, cautious movements, he loosened the grip of her fingers, nudging and maneuvering them until they were intertwined with his own. He held on tightly, as if her hand was the only thing keeping him grounded.
Clarke swallowed thickly, trying to resist even the slightest smile, because nothing about this, with the way it was happening, should feel so good, soright.
“I missed you,” Bellamy murmured, giving her hand a long squeeze. “Imissed you.”
And with three words, and the hidden truth they spoke, all of Clarke’s apprehension unraveled, releasing her from her self-made prison of doubts and fears so that she could give his hand a firm, revealing squeeze back.
“I missed you, too.”