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"Bellamy, I promise I'm fine." Clarke says into her phone with a huff and a roll of her eyes as she closes and locks their apartment door behind her and makes her way to the elevator at the end of the corridor.
"I know, I know... I'm just-"
"Over protective? A control freak? Anal-retentive?" She spouts off quickly, a laugh lining her voice.
"Yes." He states dryly. "You'll have to give me some leeway here baby, I swear leaving my nine month pregnant wife alone is giving me hives."
Her laugh echoes through the empty corridor. "Alright hubby, how about this? While you’re off being superman dressed as a cop, I’ll send you selfies every half hour-"
"Yes, that please-"
She huffs and cuts in "If, If you pick up some more strawberry ice cream on the way home?"
She hears Bellamy’s scoff "Clarke, we had two tubs before I left at lunch!"
"What can I say? The baby wanted ice cream." She tells him blithely as she rubs an ache in her lower back.
"Our baby's veins will be filled with ice cream before you give birth. Fine... Fine, I'll pick up some more later."
"Thank you, sweetheart." She says cheerfully.
She hears someone call for him and then he says quickly. "Alright, I gotta go, don't forget, every half hour or no foot rubs." He threatens.
"Oh please, like you'd ever deny me a foot rub."
"Clarke."
"I promise, I'll be a good girl." She teases him.
"Oh Jesus Christ, don't start that now." He pleads
She laughs. "Go on, get to work, bring mama home some bacon."
"Now you want bacon?" he teases.
She rolls her eyes. "Fuck off."
He laughs and it makes her smile. "Okay bye baby, love you."
"Love you too."
She hangs up as she reaches the lift, presses the button and only has to wait a few moments for it to open.
And when it does it reveals Murphy.
Fucking Murphy.
She's still pissed at him for the stunt he pulled at her baby shower.
"Murphy."
"Clarke."
She steps inside and the doors close. There's that moment of weightlessness that always happens when an elevator starts moving and then she takes a good look at him.
He's acting very nonchalant.
Too nonchalant.
"What brings you our way?" She asks him with a furrowed brow.
His eyes flick up to hers.
"Just in the area you know."
"Coming to see me?"
"Gaming marathon with Josh from upstairs."
He is a terrible liar right now. Which is surprising because he's usually pretty good at it.
"Josh moved out three weeks ago." She informs him as she crosses her arms.
"Ah..." He's got that 'Oh shit.' expression on his face.
She licks her lips and states. "Bellamy sent you to babysit me."
"No, no, he didn't... he... yeah he did." If he were anyone else this would be the point he would start using puppy dog eyes and start pleading with her but he just shrugs and grins at her. "Well I tried."
"Fucking hell." she murmurs to herself. "I'm pregnant, not a fucking invalid. I can make it to dinner at a restaurant with Raven without him sending in the cavalry."
"Clarke." he starts dryly as he rolls his eyes. "You're nine months pregnant. You could go into labour at any moment."
She glares at him. "It doesn't happen just like that, Jesus. I. Am. Fine."
It's at this moment that the gods seem to curse her for her calmness and throw it back in her face.
Three things happen next in quick succession.
First the lights flicker out and the elevator screeches to a halt.
"What the fuck was that?" Murphy asks as they stumble to stay on their feet.
"I think... I think the power just went-" She cuts herself off with a groan as she feels a contraction sear through her body.
"Oh no, no, no, stop that! What are you doing!? Stop!" Murphy yells in a panic.
She blinks through the pain and takes a few panted breaths before she straightens and looks into his wide eyes.
"It's fine, I'm fine." She denies with a shakey voice.
"Clarke, was that... were you having... oh god, this can't be happening to me." He honest to god whimpers.
"I am not having contractions. I am not in labour, during a fucking black out in a fucking elevator with you being the only other person around!" Maybe if she says it, it'll come true.
"Jesus Christ, Clarke." He doesn't believe her. Oh fuck she's so screwed.
"It's probably Braxton-Hicks contraction, okay. I've been having them for weeks now." She's not sure who she's trying to convince, him or herself.
"Right." he says. "It's going to be just fine."
And then her water breaks.
*
"Oh god, that's disgusting!" Murphy says as his face scrunches up and he peeks through his fingers at the sight of Clarkes spread legs.
"Murphy!" Clarke snaps for the hundredth time since she realized she had gone into labour, during a black out while stuck in an elevator.
With Murphy, of all fucking people.
This kind of shit only happens to her.
Murphy's eyes snap up to Clarke's.
And he dry heaves.
"I think I'm going to be sick."
His whole body physically flinches at the look Clarke sends him.
She quickly leans forward and grabs a fist full of his hair.
"Ow, ow, ow!" He complains.
"You listen to me John." Clarke says with furiously intense blue eyes as she brings their faces close together. "We're all we have, okay. The only thing that's real and solid and not wrapped up in hope. And I need you, John. I need you to have my back right now and I need you to help me deliver my baby."
He blinks at her and then releases a shakey breath that she feels on her lips.
"Okay, okay, okay."
Clarke smiles back at him and honestly it's a little terrifying.
She lays back down on the elevator floor and watches as he rolls up his sleeves.
Clarke huffs out a pain filled breath and then says through a grimace. "I need to put your fingers inside my vigina and see how dilated I am."
He blinked at her. "Vigina?"
"It's definitely not a pussy right now." Clarke says.
"Ain't that the truth." His gaze far away like he's literally haunted by the memory.
"Come on, do it." She prompts.
He snaps out of it then stares at her then his hand then her spread legs that were covered by her pretty lilac maxi dress. And then back to her.
"Honestly Clarke, I don't think I've ever wanted to touch a puss- vigina, definitely vigina less."
"Murphy!" She snaps and throws her sandal at him.
Murphy yelps. And she grins.
She liked that more than she should have. Labour was making her vicious... well more than usual.
"Clarke! What the fuck!? The buckle hit my eye!" He says as he rubs it, it was a little red and watery. "You have no idea how much this hurts right now." He says in a whiny voice.
"Excuse me?" Her tone frosty.
He stilled at it. "Ah..."
"I currently have a six pound baby working its way through a very small hole in my body and you're complaining! What's the matter with you!" Clarke screeches.
"Right." He said with a grimace. "My bad."
Clarke’s breath hitches as she feels another contraction.
"Oh fuck." She groans out.
She scrunches her eyes closed and her body tenses as she rides out the searing cramp that comes from her lower back and stomach.
"Clarke!" Murphy says in a panic pitched voice as she lies there moaning in pain on the dirty elevator floor that was only lit up by the emergency lights. "Clarke, are you okay?" He asks helplessly.
She takes a moment to get her breath back after the contraction ended.
This was happening, this was really fucking happening.
This definitely wasn't in her birthing plan.
At least they wouldn't have to worry about that hefty hospital bill now, well not for this part anyway and with Bellamy being a cop and her being an art teacher they needed all the silver linings they could get.
God Bellamy is going to be losing his mind, with the cell service in this elevator being non-existent and him not being able to get through to her.
Then he really is going to lose it when he realises he missed their first child being born.
"Okay, Okay." she says at last. "No more fucking around John."
He nods at her seriously. Good. He needs to be serious.
She looks at his fingers and grimaces. Fuck they were going to be inside her.
She hears him gulp audibly before he seems to steady himself and he pulls up her maxi dress that had fallen down her legs as the last contraction hit and starts moving towards her vagina.
"Wait, wait, wait!" she yells out suddenly as a thought occurs to her.
"What!?" he yelps in panic, practically jumping back from her.
She was going to give him so much shit for this when this was over, you know when she had her baby safely in her arms and this story can officially be funny... that might take a while.
"You need to clean your hands, I've got hand sanitizer in my bag." She says as she nodded to her black leather handbag on the floor behind him.
He breathes out in relief and gives her a look before he goes searching through her handbag.
Yeah, she probably didn't have to yell that.
After he's sufficiently covered his hands he says "Okay, you ready?"
"Ready as I'll ever be." She assures him.
He cocks a comical brow. "Yeah me too sister."
"Do not call me sister right now."
He huffs a laugh.
"Alright, I'm in active labour right now so lets skip straight to three fingers. Go slowly and gently, do not push if you feel resistance, you need to see how dilated my cervix is." she informed him, the tightness in her voice betraying her nerves.
"It's like my first time all over again." He jokes with a crooked grin.
"John." she warns. He'll be lucky if he walks out of this alive at this point.
"Don't worry babe, I've got this." He says in an overly cocky voice and she sighs in exasperation.
She winces slight in discomfort at the feeling of his fingers inside her and is so fucking glad that his head is ducked and she can't see his face right now.
Although that means he's looking at her... nope, no, not going to think about it.
"Okay, I think... Yeah, I think I'm doing It." he says proudly.
She makes a little involuntary grunting noise. "Do you think you can fit another finger?"
"I ah... yeah I think so."
Fuck.
"Alright try." and he did.
"Four fingers." he said with a happy little grin when he popped back up. She wants to smack him "That's good right?"
and then he takes in her glare and his smile drops. "Not good?"
"Not good."
"What does four fingers mean?" he asks bewildered.
"It means I’m well into active labour, it means I’m having my baby here." She croaks out and tears fill her eyes.
"What? No, no, come on Clarke, we just need to wait for the power to come on and then we'll get a taxi to the hospital." He says confidently and there was this small sick part of her that can't wait to shatter that confidence so that he would be freaking out as much as she is.
"So let's say the power comes on within the next couple of hours, which by the way is how long we have before I’m pushing this baby out, then we have to contend with how nuts traffic will be in New York after a black out or we could go the ambulance root that besides being crazy stupid expensive will be busy with all the life and death carnage that's happening right now, I won't be a high priority on their triage list, the best thing we could hope for would be a 911 operator to talk us through this once were out of here and have service again and to send us the next available ambulance which could take hours."
As she talks she watches as his skin goes pale as his eyes go wide and his mouth gapes.
It doesn't make her feel better.
"Oh holy fuck, we're so screwed."
*
"It's okay Clarke, you've got this, you've got this." He coo's as he rubs circles into her lower back.
She screams through another contraction as she leans against the wall of the elevator.
"Fuck off!" she snaps, batting him away.
He backs off as far as he can in this little cube they're in and she hears him gripe. "Bellamy so owes me for this."
"I will kick your fucking ass Murphy!"
There is silence for a moment, the only sound her huffed breaths before she takes in his muffled laughs.
"Murphy!" screeches, she turns around one hand rubbing her belly as she pins him with an accusing glare.
"You're going to kick my ass?" he says with a bright smile. "Clarke you're in labour!"
She takes a moment and lets her eye's narrow.
"Later, I will kick your ass later." She's dead serious.
Murphy has known Clarke since they were five and throwing mud pies at each other in primary school.
He's honestly never been so scared of her.
*
"I'm so sorry John, I'm being such a bitch to you." She sobs from the floor of the elevator and this is so much worse than her threatening to kick ass.
Clarke's crying. Clarke never cries.
He has known this girl for twenty years and yes, for half of that they were sworn enemies but he can count on one hand the number of times he's seen her cry and still have fingers left over.
"Oh no, no, no, please don't cry Clarke, it's okay, I promise. You can be a bitch to me, I don't mind" He says, as he pats her shoulder and watches her sob into her hands. "God, where's Bellamy when you need him." he mumbles to himself, when in doubt about Clarke? go get Bellamy. It's been the cardinal rule since they were in high school and Clarke transitioned from being Octavia's ride or die to Bellamys.
She must have heard him because she just sobs louder.
"Fuck."
*
"You know there have been times over the years where I thought to myself 'Yeah I'd tap that.' Like when you're in your princess warrior mode not your stern mama bear mode... well I mean sometimes... when it's not directed at me..."
"I'm going to kill you." Clarke mutters to herself.
"I'm never going to experience that again." He says a little mournfully.
*
"You remember when we were in college and -" Clarke starts as they sit side by side leaning against the wall, she's just checked her phone and there is still no service, they've been in this death box for hours and her contractions are getting closer and closer together. It won't be long now.
"And we spent winter break together?" he asks softly.
It had been before... before a lot of things really.
Before she switched from pre-med to a teachers degree, before he dropped out to be a chef.
Before her mom became an addict and Murphy met the love of his life.
Before Aurora died and Octavia went to the darkside.
They were twenty and all their friends had places to be or people to see except for the two of them.
Murphy had never had a home to go home to, not for as long as she could remember. His moms an alcoholic and his dad’s been in prison since they were eight for armed robbery.
Her relationship with her mother has been frigid since she was fifteen and caught her mom fucking well's dad.
She asked her not to say anything, told her it was a mistake, that it would never happen again but well... Clarkes has always been a daddy's girl.
So she told him and Clarke became the child of a divorce couple who were always, always bitterly heart broken by each other.
Until he died.
And that seemed to send her mother into a spiral of endless bad choices.
Bellamy was two years older and off on a road trip with Gina and their friendship had been... weird at that point.
So she didn't go home and waved off Bellamy's concerns and had plans to hunker down in her dorm room eating junk food and studying.
"And we spent two weeks straight at the movies." she finishes with a laugh.
"I still can't believe I convinced you, goody-two-shoes Clarke Griffin to sneak into a movie. Let alone do it for two whole weeks straight."
"Yeah well you were persistent, and I was bored." and fucked up over Bellamy and her parents and sick and tired of going through the hell that was pre-med when she didn't even want to be a doctor, it was just the plan and had been since her parents were in love.
She takes a moment to take him in, this boy she's known her whole life.
Their friendship is a complicated one, sworn enemies as kids to friends by association in high school but that was the moment they really become friends in their own right.
"You know that was when I stopped being scared of switching my major?"
"Yeah?" He asked surprised.
"You helped me be brave."
"Clarke." he says like she should know better. "You've never needed help being brave. You're the bravest person I know."
*
"Push Clarke! Push!" He encourages from where he's kneeling between her legs as the baby crowns.
"No, no, I want Bellamy, Bellamy needs to be here." She refuses with a stunted sob.
"Clarke." He says softly.
"I want Bell." She begs him and it breaks his heart.
He watches as she covers her face with her hands like she can't stand him seeing her vulnerable even now.
He shuffles forward, tugs her hands free and holds them in his own as she blinks up at him with tear filled eyes, she's covered in a layer of sweat and her cheeks are bright red.
"You can do this Clarke, Bellamy will be here soon and maybe he will miss this part but he will be here for every moment after and in the meantime I’m here, I’m not going anywhere, I'm not leaving you." He pauses for a moment, looking around the tin can he's in. "Even if I could leave."
Clarke breaths out a reluctant wet laugh and groans. "I hate you."
"No, you don't." He says with a soft smile.
She blinks up at him and smiles back. "No, I don't."
Maybe that's the biggest secret of their friendship.
They actually kind of love each other.
*
Hours later, when she's finally in the hospital and she's holding her perfect baby daughter in her arms with her adorably stressed out Husband sitting on the edge of her bed she watches as her friends pile into her hospital room.
Jasper is the first one in, a ball of boundless excitement carrying a big stuffed teddy bear and a pink balloon with 'It's a girl' scrawled on the front.
"Woah, woah calm down Jas." Bellamy states as he jumps up, forming a wall of police uniformed covered muscle between his wife and kid and the accident-prone puppy of a man.
Clarke laughs as Jasper pleads his case to hold the baby and like hell that's happening until she's actually watched him take his ADHD meds.
Raven makes her way over to her bedside as Harper and Monty take a seat on the couch against the wall, Nathan gives Bellamy a bro hug and she watches from the corner of her eye as Murphy hovers in the doorway.
She whistles. "Giving birth during a black out in an elevator? You never do things the easy way do you babe."
"What, that? That was nothing." She jokes as her baby coo's from her arms.
"Well she is kinda cute I guess." Raven says with reluctant interest pooling in her eyes.
"Does Aunty Raven want to hold her?" She challenges knowingly with a cocked brow.
"Oh... ah nope, no, I'm good, you know maybe later." She says instantly as she backs away.
"What!?" Jasper screeches. "Why does she get to hold her?"
"Because she hasn't forgotten to take her Adderall." Bellamy says in a dry voice like he's already made that point.
He walks towards her and scrunches his face at her so she scrunches hers back.
He bends down to press a quick kiss to her lips before he kisses the baby's forehead.
"You doing okay, honey?" He asks anxiously for the millionth time since she called when the power came back on and they got out of the elevator.
"Yes." She tells him indulgently as he strokes her hair off her forehead. "Just tired, is all. "
He eyes her worriedly and years of knowing him tells her that he's about to kick everyone out.
She covers his hand with her own and kisses the inside of his wrist.
"We gotta do that thing first." She tells him.
He looks at her like he isn't sure she should be making life changing decisions right now and to be fair she is hopped up on painkillers and is the most sleep deprived she's ever been in her life but she knows she won't ever regret this decision.
"Are you sure?" He asks again.
"I'm sure." She promises.
"Okay." He sighs in a disbelieving tone.
"John." She calls out to the figure lingering on the edge of the room.
She sees his eyes snap up to meet hers.
"What?"
"Come over here and hold your goddaughter."
The room goes silent and they all watch as his eyes go wide and his mouth gapes.
"You want me to be her godfather?" He croaks out.
"Of course, who else would we ask?"
What he hears is 'I trust you with the person I love most in this world.'
"Right." he replies just as flippantly.
And what she hears is 'I'll treasure her.'
He stalks closer till he can sit on the side of her bed and look down at her beautiful daughter, she's tanned skin, red cheeked, hands covered in newborn mittens and wearing a baby green onesie.
"This is-" she says as she moves her into his arms. "Madison Aurora Griffin-Blake."
He looks down at this impossibly tiny baby and little Maddie blinks up at him with the milky blue eyes all newborns have and feels a love, a responsibility he has never known before.
She's easily the best thing that's ever happened to him.
"Thank you." he breathes out as he flicks his eyes up to meet Clarke's.
Thank you for making me your family.
"You're welcome, John."
You were already my family.