Work Text:
Bellamy was very young when he first saw his Aunts perform a spell. He was supposed to be asleep, but his sister kept crying, so he was hiding in his pajamas at the bottom of the stairs. He’d gotten to name her, but only because their mother refused to speak. Octavia was just a few months old, and their mother had just died—they said it was pneumonia, but he knew it was the curse.
The Aunts were still wearing black when the woman came to the door, begging them to make the man she loved, love her back. Indra was silent, still angry from the death of Aurora, as she fetched the dove from its cage.
Anya pricked the woman’s hand with a needle, and Indra cracked the pigeon’s neck, smearing blood on its feathers. They said the words, harsh and ugly in that magic language Bellamy didn’t understand. The woman paid in cash and rushed from the house, like she was worried the spell had a time limit.
It didn’t. The man fell in love with her. He left his wife and kids for her, left his job, went bankrupt, and hung himself in her house.
And Bellamy decided he would never fall in love.
But of course he did. He was twelve, and she was eleven. She lived next door—which didn’t mean much, since the Aunts lived at the top of the hill, so it was still a fifteen minute walk to anywhere. She had golden curls she always kept braided back, and huge blue eyes that felt like ice burn when she glared at him.
Her name was Clarke, and they met when some kids at their school were making fun of Octavia, and Clarke threw sand in their eyes.
They were bigger than her, but Clarke fought dirty, biting and scratching with her glittery pink nails, and kicking them all in the stomach. Bellamy had to pull her off, still kicking, and she growled at him, ready to take him on, too.
He said “You fight good for a girl.” It was not his finest moment.
And then Clarke threw sand in his eyes too, not letting up until he apologized, and he went home that day with something blooming in his chest.
He tried so hard not to love her, but then she was there every day, collecting sea glass with Octavia on the beach, or looking through his encyclopedia on their stomachs in the grass. She seemed to think that, since the other kids on the island refused to be friends with the Blake’s, she’d more than make up for it.
He wanted to tell her that she didn’t have to, that he didn’t want her to, that he and Octavia were fine on their own. They didn’t need anyone else—especially not some princess with an attitude, and a tendency to bite people when things didn’t go her way.
But each time he opened his mouth, words formed and ready, she’d tell him about some book she read that he might like, or about the weird flower she and Octavia found on their walk, and he wouldn’t be able to say anything.
He tried to talk to Anya about it, but she just poured him some gross-smelling tea and made him drink it so she could read the leaves. “You are focused too much on what’s in the front,” she translated, which wasn’t even helpful. “And you need to finish your math homework.”
Then he tried to talk to Indra, but Indra didn’t talk.
Aurora would have known what to say, but Aurora wasn’t here. If she was, he wouldn’t have this problem.
Octavia wasn’t much help, either.
“Bell,” she whispered, poking him in the face until he groaned and squinted one eye open. She’d just turned seven a few days before, and had yet to take off the dumb Birthday Girl shirt Anya had made her.
“What,” he snapped, rolling over to read the clock. It was the middle of the night, and he had school in the morning. “This better be good,” he growled.
“I found a spell we can try,” she said, and he stared at her.
“We’re not supposed to go through the spell book, O,” he said sternly. He hoped she didn’t do something dumb, like leave the thing out on the table, or something. Indra was gonna be pissed.
Octavia rolled her eyes, huffing a little. “I didn’t, I’m not stupid. I found it in mom’s dresser.”
Bellamy frowned, sitting up. “You’re not supposed to go through that either,” he pointed out, but she just shrugged.
“Well I did, and I found this,” she held up an old yellowing piece of paper folded into fours. “Now are you gonna help me, or are you too chicken?”
Bellamy sighed, but sat up anyway. He knew she was goading him, but. If he didn’t go help her, she’d just do it anyway and make a mess of things, so he might as well.
They crept down the stairs barefoot, careful to stick to the boards that squeaked the least. Old houses are loud—his mom used to say that was how it spoke to them, through groaning pipes and squeaky floorboards. But she never taught him how to understand the words.
They snuck into the greenhouse, tucked on the back of the house like a glass porch. It smelled like lavender and roses, planted for luck, and honeysuckle and linseed, planted for spells. Vines and flowery tendrils draped all around them like tentacles, leaking from the shadows. It was his favorite room in the house.
Octavia unfolded the paper and cleared her throat, scowling down at the words in concentration. She was a decent reader, but some of the larger words gave her trouble, since she was so used to Bellamy just reading everything out loud to her. “One large mixing bowl,” she read, and then pointed at a pair of the Aunts’ wooden scrying bowls, set on top of an empty terra cotta pot. “For each pet-al, name the in-greed—” She frowned, testing the word. “In-greed-eye—”
“Ingredient,” Bellamy corrected, looking over her shoulder. Octavia glared up at him.
“I know. For each pet-al, name the in-greed-ee-ent you wish,” she finished smugly. “Then turn the bowl count-er clock-wise, and toss con-tents into the air on a full moon night. Then, your true love will come.”
Bellamy froze, squinting down at his sister. “What’s this spell for?”
“True love, duh,” she scoffed, and he had to fight to swallow.
“Don’t be stupid, O,” he said, rough. “There’s no such thing as true love. Not for us.”
Octavia knew about the curse, of course, but it didn’t scare her. As far as he could tell, nothing could scare her, except maybe those really big hats with the feathers on them. Mostly, she just saw the curse as a challenge.
“That’s why we use the spell,” she said, like it was obvious. “We’ll add things that are crazy impossible, and then we’ll never fall in love, because we’ll always be waiting for this person.”
Strangely enough, he followed her logic, and it even seemed to make sense.
Besides, what was the worst that could happen? If it didn’t work, it didn’t work, and if it did, he never had to worry about the curse, again.
It probably wouldn’t work, at least for him; Octavia had gotten all the magic. She’d lit her own birthday candles with her fingertip.
There was still Clarke, of course, but he was only a little bit in love with her by now. He could probably still stop it.
They each took a bowl, and went down through the rows of flowers, plucking different colored petals as they went. Roses, hyacinths, irises, lilacs, crepe myrtles—they all went in his bowl, as he spoke.
“Yellow hair.”
Octavia said, “Bald head,” and he laughed.
“Soft hands.”
“Tattoos,” Octavia chirped, and Bellamy made a face at her.
“How do you even know about those?”
Octavia rolled her eyes. “I’m seven, Bell. I’m not a baby.”
Bellamy scoffed, but let it go and went back to his own spell. “A weird birthmark,” he decided, trying to think of something crazy. “On her back. Shaped like the Bat Symbol.”
Octavia giggled across the room. “Knows every knock-knock joke ever.”
“Can list all the Presidents in order,” he said, and Octavia wrinkled her nose.
“Nerd,” she shot. “Nice to animals. And kids.”
“Knows all the songs by The Rolling Stones,” he said, and Octavia smiled. It was their mom’s favorite.
“Doesn’t have a mom,” she said softly.
“Doesn’t have a dad,” Bellamy added.
“Drives a motorcycle.”
“Can do ten cartwheels in a row.”
“Makes homemade pasta.”
“Good kisser,” he grinned, and Octavia looked disgusted. “Are we done, yet?”
“Knows a different language,” she said, plucking one last petal from a tulip. “Now we’re done. Well, almost.”
He followed her out the glass doors, into the night. It was the beginning of September in the northeast, and chilly enough to warrant sweaters and thick socks, though they wore neither. Instead they shivered, spinning their bowls three times—he had to show her which way was counter-clockwise—before lifting them up in the air.
“And so mote it be,” she breathed, as the wind took their spells. He watched the petals freckle the night sky until they faded out towards the water.
“So mote it be,” he echoed, taking her hand to head back inside.
He tried not to think about the spell much after that, but it was hard—especially when Octavia gave him looks whenever she saw him with Clarke.
“Clarke has yellow hair,” she said the next day, and he huffed a little. “You should ask if she has any birthmarks.”
“She doesn’t know all the presidents,” he pointed out, which was true; she’d forgotten Hamilton on their history quiz just that week. It was part of the reason he’d added that ingredient—just to sort of convince himself that it couldn’t be her.
Octavia just rolled her eyes. “There’s not a time limit on learning, Bell,” she said, before walking away. He stared after her, a little helpless—he should not be worse at this than a seven year old.
And then Mr. and Mrs. Griffin took them to the beach, and he saw Clarke in a bathing suit for the first time—a two-piece, with little yellow anchors all over her butt, which he pointedly did not look at. The top had a thick band, but he could see enough of her back to tell; no birth mark.
He tried very hard not to feel disappointed, but it didn’t take.
He and Clarke took Octavia to the beach with them, the next time they want, and they all lay out in a row like star fish, soaking in the sun. He made both of them slather sunscreen all over their pale skin, knowing they’d blister like lobsters if they didn’t, and they made fun of him for being such a mom!
It was nearly dinner time, when Octavia brought out a pocketknife.
“Where’d you get that?” Bellamy asked, eyeing the thing suspiciously. It looked huge and dangerous in his sister’s tiny hand.
“Murphy,” she said. “A boy at school—he didn’t deserve it, anyway.” Bellamy frowned; he really had to have a talk with her about her stealing. It was becoming a problem.
“Give me your hands,” she demanded, and they both held out their palms reluctantly.
Octavia sliced into Clarke’s first, and she hissed.
“What the hell, O!” Bellamy barked, snatching Clarke’s wrist so he could squint at the wound. It was bleeding, but it didn’t look deep, and she wasn’t crying or anything so it couldn’t hurt much.
“I read about it in a book,” O shrugged, and then grabbed his hand too. He could have wrestled it away from her, but. He was curious.
She sliced his the same as Clarke’s, and then her own last, and said “Alright, now we all shake on it.”
They did, and it stung a little, but not too badly. Mostly, it just felt bizarre. Clarke giggled, clearly excited to finally be a part of some spell, even if she didn’t understand it. He didn’t have the heart to tell her it probably wasn’t magic, just Octavia being dramatic.
“Now we’re blood-siblings,” she declared when it was done. “And we’ll always know when one of us needs the other.”
“We were already blood siblings,” Bellamy teased her, and she shoved him a little.
Their hands didn’t heal right away, and each time he saw the matching scabs on Clarke’s palm, he felt electric.
When he got to high school, things became a little easier. He was still an outcast, still the son of a dead witch and an unnamed sailor. But he took up running every morning and evening, to help clear his mind. He ran up and down the hill, and along the beach, until the bugs got too bad or his knees got all wobbly, and then he’d turn back. He went through a growth spurt, and the Aunts actually bought him new clothes, not just what they could find on sale at the Salvation Army. He let his hair grow out a little, and curl at the edges. He started getting lingering looks in the hallway, and girls would touch his arms while they were talking, or slip their numbers in his bag.
He was still best friends with Clarke, still forever-group-project-partners, and he still saw her every day. She still collected sea glass with Octavia, and they’d make jewelry out of it, with a pair of wire cutters Indra gave them, and whatever bits of fishing line Anya had to spare.
Clarke made him a bracelet, each bit of glass the same shade of blue as her eyes, and he never took it off.
He started hooking up with nameless girls from school, sometimes at school; under the bleachers, in the locker room shower stalls, in custodial closets. He almost never slept with the same girl twice, and he never tried to date them.
Dating was too close to the line, too risky. Dating could lead to feelings, maybe even love, and he couldn’t take that chance. It would be their life on the line, not his, and he didn’t want that responsibility.
He was with a girl from his Chem Lab—Roma, he thought—in one of the maintenance closets on the second floor. She had his dick in her mouth, and his hand in her hair, when he felt her fingers brush up against Clarke’s bracelet. She tugged at it a little, and he pulled away so it wouldn’t snap.
“What the hell,” he grumbled, zipping his pants. She stared up at him, wiping the back of her mouth.
“Why do you always wear that if she’s not your girlfriend?” she asked, and she didn’t sound bitter about it, not really, just. Confused.
“She’s my best friend,” he said, sounding lame even to himself. Roma saw right through him.
“Right,” she nodded, sitting back on her heels. “So why isn’t she the one in here?”
“Because I asked you,” Bellamy said, and he didn’t mean for it to be romantic, but Roma gave a shy smile and leaned forward again, nuzzling at his crotch.
He thought about Clarke as he came. He’d never felt more like an asshole.
“You should just ask her out,” Octavia suggested when she was twelve and he was seventeen. She was sitting cross-legged on the kitchen counter, absently stirring a spoon in her drink without moving her hand, while he finished a Calculus set at the table. “What’s the worst that could happen?”
“Her dying,” Bellamy said, flat. By now he’d had this argument with her more times than he could count, and it was getting harder and harder to say no. It didn’t help that Clarke was newly sixteen, always around, and gorgeous. She was helping her dad at the docks today, which he was secretly thankful for, because it was early summer, and she’d started wearing low-cut tank tops everywhere she went. It was torture.
Octavia rolled her eyes dramatically. “You’re such a drama queen.” Octavia cared less about the curse than ever, trailing a constant stream of boyfriends wherever she went. Octavia was careless with words, and love, and eventually he knew they’d both get her in trouble.
He didn’t really blame his sister; she knew the curse as a bedtime story, a nightmare as abstract as the Boogey Man under her bed. She’d been too little, when it had killed her father, just three weeks before she was born. She hadn’t watched Aurora wither away little by little, until finally she was just gone.
She left her body behind, cold and hollow in her bed, but Aurora, and all the things that made her their mom, had disappeared.
The doctors said it was pneumonia, but Bellamy knew better. It was the curse that had shipwrecked his father, and it was the curse that had put the aneurism in O’s dad’s brain, and it was the curse that left their mother too heartbroken to eat or move or look at them.
And it would be the curse that took Clarke, if he wasn’t careful. He was already toeing the line, being in love with her. Surely the moment he tried to act on it, they’d tip over the edge. He figured, the curse didn’t care if he loved her, so long as he was miserable.
“She might not, you know,” Octavia said, surprisingly soft, and when he looked up she was holding her hand out, studying the ring Clarke made for her—sea glass as green as Octavia’s eyes. The eyes she got from their mother. “Anya says the curse only affects girls in the family.”
He’d known that, of course. Had thought it, to himself, always in the pale hours of the night when his mind was clouded over with sleep, but not fully soaked in it yet. He thought he might get away with it, might get skipped over completely, might actually be happy, with Clarke.
He was supposed to be a girl. The Blake’s were always girls, ever since anyone could remember. That was the whole point of the curse—his great-great-great-great grandmother had been a witch, cast out by the townspeople and abandoned by the father of her child, and so she’d cursed every man who ever fell for a Blake woman.
And then Bellamy came, and they weren’t really sure what that meant. They didn’t know what would happen.
Octavia was born the right way, with pale skin and bright eyes. Their mother’s eyes. She’d gotten Aurora’s eyes, and her hair, and her magic, so there was nothing left for Bellamy.
Except, maybe, the curse. Because nobody knew, not really, which meant it was still a chance. It was still a nightmare.
“I don’t want her to die either,” his sister chirped, jumping down from the counter. She was probably heading upstairs to call that week’s boyfriend, or maybe mess around on google earth.
She liked looking up destination spots, old castles and huge mountains that she’d probably never see. A Blake hadn’t left the island in nearly two hundred years—but Octavia felt the call of the outside world like a physical itch, and he knew she’d be the one to break the tradition. There are some things that cannot be caged.
“I just want you to be happy,” she added.
“Yeah,” Bellamy said, frowning down at the problem set. His mind was muddled; there was no finishing it, now. “I know.”
He graduated a month before he turned eighteen, and applied to a few jobs in town. There was a community college just off the island, with a ferry running back and forth, but they didn’t have the money, and he didn’t really want to go. He read in his spare time, anything he could get his hands on, and at least that way, he got to learn for free.
He got a job at the used book store, which was the one he wanted anyway, and Clarke would always show up after school, drape herself over the front counter, and chat, or do her homework curled up in one of the sofas. She filled out college applications in the easy chair in the corner, picking at her bracelet—matching his in all but color; hers was a deep chocolate—absently whenever she wrote an essay.
“Were there witches in Ancient Rome?” Clarke asked, tossing her bag to the floor before sinking against the counter, where Bellamy was rereading The Tempest.
She did this, sometimes; asked him broad questions, to take her mind off things like school work and college and her mother. He marked his place in the book and looked at her.
“You know there were,” he said mildly. “They were called Oracles, back then.”
Clarke played with her bracelet, avoiding his gaze. “Do you think that’s what you guys are?” She made a face. “I mean, not—like, do you think your family’s magic goes back that far?”
Bellamy studied her. Clarke had always been curious about the Blake magic, but she’d never actually pried. Once, he and Octavia snuck the Aunts’ spell book out to show her, but that was as far as it had gone.
“I’m not sure,” he shrugged. She knew that whatever abilities his family had, they didn’t extend to him. She probably thought that was why he didn’t want to talk about it, but the truth is he didn’t really know what to say. His Aunts and his sister could cast spells, and make things happen. His mother could too, when she was alive, and her mother before her.
And the people they fell in love with—or at least, the ones who loved them back—all died when they were thirty.
Clarke nodded, worrying her lip. Her hair was slipping out of her braid, grown messy and fuzzy from the wind off the sea, and he wanted to comb it out with his fingers. He wanted so much, when it came to Clarke, and he wanted it badly.
“Finish your applications?” he asked, rough, because reminding himself that she was leaving, and soon, was the quickest way to clear his head.
Clarke made a face. “Mom wants me to go to an ivy league, but dad wants me to stay close to home.” She hesitated a little, and he waited. “What if I don’t get in?”
Bellamy reached over to slide a hand over her wrist and squeezed. “You’ll get in,” he promised. “Any school would be an idiot not to want you—even Harvard. You’d make a kick-ass lawyer.”
She grimaced like he knew she would, and he laughed. “Seriously, I can see you now,” he went on, teasing. “In one of those dumb uniform skirts with the pleats, and a pair of oxford shoes.”
“Gross,” Clarke grinned, leaning close to dip her face against his shoulder, nuzzling. “Thanks, Bell.”
He swallowed, stepped back. Evened his breathing. She’s leaving, he reminded himself, but he could still smell the flowers in her shampoo, and it was no use. “Any time.”
In the end, she decided to go to the community school and take the ferry, while still living at home. She’d save money for those first two years, and have a little extra time to decide what she wanted to do with her life. Her mother wasn’t happy about it, but. She didn’t say no.
Bellamy and Octavia sat by her parents at her graduation, and whooped the loudest when they called her name. Octavia took a million photos for her Instagram account, and snapped one of Clarke’s mouth pressed to the skin of his jaw, in a grin. She looked happy, with her arms around his neck. He looked ready to fall over.
There was a party that night on the beach. The kids piled together a mountain of driftwood and old lobster crates, and lit them on fire. They roasted marshmallows and drank cheap beer and cheap vodka, and someone pulled their Tacoma up to the edge to blast classic rock from the speakers.
Bellamy sent Octavia home before sunset, but he and Clarke were still there deep into the night, laughing as Jasper challenged everyone to an air guitar contest, and Miller won, after sliding across the hood of the truck on his back miming a solo.
Clarke was sitting half in his lap, too drunk to hold herself up completely, and turned her face against his neck with a giggle. He was warm from her, and the fire and the alcohol, so he didn’t try to push her away.
One night won’t kill anyone, he decided, and when she pressed against him in a sloppy, drunk, open-mouthed kiss, he held her by the hips and kissed back. She probably wouldn’t even remember in the morning.
Jake Griffin died the next day in a boating accident. He’d been pulling up his nets—something Clarke usually helped with, but she was sleeping off a hangover with Bellamy on the dunes—and one had caught under the stilled motor. It was the sort of thing he’d dealt with a dozen times, diving under to untangle the ropes.
But this time wasn’t like the others. The rope wouldn’t untangle. The boat was old, the engine faulty, the motor unpredictable.
Jake Griffin was dead before Clarke woke up, and Bellamy felt like a murderer.
Realistically, he knew it couldn’t have been his, or anyone else’s, fault. But the doctors said it was no one’s fault when O’s dad died, too.
They said Aurora had pneumonia, and that his father died in a storm.
And he remembered his spell, those stupid ingredients, trying to prove some sort of test and he wasn’t even sure why. He’d been thinking of Clarke at the time, picturing her with each petal he’d thrown in.
She doesn’t have a father, he’d said. And now Clarke didn’t have one either, and he was sure it was his fault.
She left within the month. She was supposed to go to the college, supposed to stay, and he hated himself for getting used to that dream, the thought that she’d always be there, that somehow, she’d just never leave.
Because now she was gone, and he couldn’t even be mad about it, because wasn’t it his fault? Wasn’t he the reason?
Octavia could be mad, though, and she was. In a tantrum, she threw her glass ring out her bedroom window.
But he knew she regretted it, because that night he saw her creeping through the grass with her phone as a flashlight, searching for it in the weeds. She didn’t find it, and in the morning her eyes were red and puffy, like she’d cried herself to sleep.
Clarke sent them a post card that Christmas, but he thought it might have come late because there was a garden gnome dressed like a pilgrim on the front. She’d written Thinking of you. Happy holidays. C. on the back, and Octavia just stormed out after she read it. He taped it to his bathroom mirror, back side up so he could see her words.
Clarke had never been good with words, even as a kid. The others thought she was rude, or callous, because she didn’t ever know what to say, or how to say it. That was why essays made her nervous, why she had Bellamy tell her stories about great historical speakers, so that she could try to learn how they did it.
Octavia hated Clarke for leaving, until she couldn’t anymore, because she was seventeen and it was midnight, and she was sneaking out his bedroom window because it was easier to climb down.
He wasn’t sure why she bothered with the sneaking. She’d gotten her diploma. The Aunts probably would have driven her to the ferry dock in the morning, if she asked.
But Octavia had always had a flair for the dramatic, so she was straddling his window sill when she hugged him goodbye.
“You have to visit,” he ordered, probably holding too tight. He’d known this moment was coming, known that she could never stay, but. She was his baby sister, and he wasn’t really ready to let go.
Octavia pulled away with a vicious smile, and clasped their hands together, so the scars on their palm touched. “We’re blood-siblings, remember?” she said, and he grinned.
“We were already blood siblings,” he echoed, and she rolled her eyes at the old joke.
“Whenever I need my dumb big brother, you’ll know,” she reminded him, and then she was slipping down the trellis and into Jasper and Monty’s shared Pontiac, idling by the lawn.
She tried to text him every day, but the island had the same ancient cell tower it’d always had, so reception was shitty, and sometimes he’d go days without getting anything, and then wake up to fourteen missed messages all piled together.
She told him about her adventures hitchhiking across the country, picking up random jobs like cleaning gutters, and staining tables for a carpenter, and performing the odd palm-reading, or tarot-reading, or straight-up prophesizing with some cloudy snow globe she’d bought at a truck stop.
Octavia never told them anything that wasn’t true, and she could see certain bits of visions well enough, but people seemed to believe easier if she had something tangible, that they could hold. Faith didn’t come easily to most.
She told him about the friends she was making—Harper, and Monroe, and Fox—and he was glad for her. Octavia had never had much in the way of life, and he’d wanted her to have everything.
And she told him about Atom, a stock car racer somewhere in Death Valley. She told him when they got an apartment together, and she got a job with an actual schedule and a dental plan, working in a law office answering the phones.
She told him when she got pregnant, and he and the Aunts—with his suitcase of books and their suitcases of feathered hats and long gloves—boarded a plane to California.
It was a girl, and her name was Augusta, and she was tiny and perfect, every bit a witch like her mother. It was something in the eyes.
He was in the hospital room when Atom kissed his sister’s sweaty hair, and looked at their daughter, and cried. And he was happy for them, happy for his sister—but he was also scared. Atom was twenty-one. The curse didn’t tend to waste time.
They stayed for a week before leaving—he was the store manager now, and couldn’t take much time off.
He shook Atom’s hand at the airport, and hugged his sister too tight, and peppered his niece with kisses. Anya gave them a willow sprig for the doorway, and Indra gave them a single potted rose—to ward off grief, and keep happiness rooted.
Kai was born just two years later. Bellamy couldn’t get the time off to be there for the birth, but the Aunts went, and came back loaded down with blurry photos taken with the cheap cameras used by tourists. He was hairless and wrinkly, with plain brown eyes, and Bellamy’s heart ached, because he knew what that meant.
Bellamy had a landline installed, so he could talk to his niece and nephew, and hear them gurgle back over the phone. He told them the same stories he used to tell Octavia, and he knew she must have been telling them too, because sometimes Augusta would whine that we hear that one so much, Uncle Bell—tell us about a different battle, this time.
Two days before Octavia’s twenty-seventh birthday, she called in the middle of the night.
“There was an accident at the track,” she said, voice breaking on the last word. She spent the next twenty minutes sobbing into his ear.
“I’m coming to get you,” Bellamy told her. “I’m bringing you home.”
He traced the scar on his palm the whole plane ride. I need you, he thought, hoping that wherever she was, Clarke would hear. Octavia needs you. The kids were both at school by the time he reached the apartment and let himself in, but Octavia was still curled up in bed, looking tiny and broken. He wasn’t sure she’d even moved after their phone call.
He slid in beside her, and she shuffled over to make room, like when she was little and thought bugs were in her bed, so she slept in his just in case.
“You’ll be okay,” he whispered, smoothing the hair from her face. It was greasy, and her skin was too pale. Her eyes were swollen and gray.
“How?” she asked, voice hoarse. She blinked and tears leaked out of her eyes. He brushed them away and hugged her.
“For Augie,” he said. “And Kai. They need you to be okay for them.”
“They need their dad,” she argued, voice muffled by his shirt. He rubbed her back the way their mom did for him, when he was sick.
“Well they have you. They’ll need you twice as much, but—you can do this, I promise. I wouldn’t say it if you couldn’t. You’re the strongest person I know.”
He held her until she fell asleep, and then he packed their bags, and picked the kids up from school. They’d been crying, too.
Bellamy wasn’t really sure what to do; he’d been the one, picking Octavia up and cleaning her skinned knees and fetching the band aids, and putting Neosporin on her bloody knuckles after she got in another fight at school, and getting her that numbing paste when she lost her baby teeth, and reading Aesop’s to her when she had chicken pox, but—those were different. He could fix those things, those physical pains.
Now it was Octavia’s heart that was damaged, and he didn’t know how to fix that, and he didn’t think the Aunts did either; otherwise, wouldn’t Aurora still be alive?
She was quiet, those first few weeks back on the island, and it scared him. His sister had never been quiet, not even when she was a baby, wailing and wailing for hours on end.
But now she was quiet, and she was angry, at everything and everyone. She barked at Kai when he dropped a bowl and it shattered, and Kai began to cry.
Augusta was furious, wiping her brother’s face and glaring up at her mother. She started calling her Octavia, out of spite, and Bellamy wanted to tell her to stop, wanted to make her understand that her mother was just hurting, but he couldn’t, could he? Augusta was hurting, too, and Kai. None of their pain was worth more than the others’.
Clarke would know what to do, he thought. Clarke was the one Octavia cried to when she caught her seventh-grade boyfriend kissing another girl at the school dance. She was the one who convinced Octavia not to bareknuckle brawl the middle school guidance counselor. She was the one who put the sea glass ring on O’s pillow on the anniversary of their mom’s death, and a matching one on Aurora’s headstone because she knew they’d find it.
Clarke had never been good with words, but she was good with actions—good with holding, and patching people back together with more than band aids and Neosporin.
But Clarke wasn’t here, so it was Indra who eventually dragged Octavia out of bed, and out of the sweatpants she’d been wearing for ten days straight, and outside the house.
She didn’t go far—just the front garden, helping Anya weed through the herbs, but. It was a start. She was still out there when Augusta and Kai walked home from school, and Bellamy watched them stand still when they saw her.
Well, Augusta stood still. Kai tugged his hand from her grip and went running up to O, hugging her knees, because he was only six and she was still his mother. Augusta stared, suspicious, but then gave a slight smile when Octavia straightened up and asked about their day.
It was a start.
Bellamy was working on the spreadsheets for that week’s income—he’d taken the store over when Kane had retired, and he was still getting the hang of it. It’d been a bit of a surprise, learning that selling books wasn’t the only thing that came with a book store—when Kai tugged on his arm.
Bellamy frowned down at him, checked his watch, and frowned again. It was way past the kid’s bedtime. “What are you still doing up?”
“Comet’s missing,” he whispered, upset. Comet was the black cat that had recently given birth to a litter under the porch. The kids still didn’t understand that that didn’t make her theirs.
“Where are the kittens?” he asked, and Kai wiped at his eyes, crying.
“They’re crying. Gusta put them in the shoe room.” Shoe room was Kai’s name for the screened-in mud room at the front of the house.
“Alright, bud,” Bellamy sighed, standing up. “Let’s go find her.”
He got Octavia and the Aunts to help too, and soon all of them were prowling around the yard in the middle of the night, calling for a cat that wasn’t even theirs. Finally, they gave up, but Bellamy promised to print out posters to hang up the next day.
The next day was Monday, his day off while his assistant manager Monroe ran the store, so Bellamy was in the kitchen when the man came to the door.
He was huge, objectively speaking, which was all the more comical when Bellamy saw he was holding slim Comet curled up to his chest.
Octavia was still in her bathrobe, holding her cup of tea, when he knocked on the door. She was also still scowling, which never really stopped until at least midday, when she opened the door.
“What,” she snapped, and then narrowed her eyes at the cat accusingly. “Is that Comet?”
The man gave a faint smile, seemingly unconcerned by Octavia’s general grumpiness. “I think so—I saw your posters. She showed up at my doorstep last night.” He held her out, carefully, and Octavia took her a lot less gently, with one hand around her belly.
“Thanks,” O offered, sounding awkward. She was not at her best in the morning.
The man shrugged. Bellamy had been creeping closer with each second, and now he could see a little more clearly. There was a dark, thick-lined tattoo sprawling over the skin of his neck, under the collar of his leather jacket. His head was clean-shaven, and he looked sort of like he belonged in a biker game, but—softer, somehow.
“I hope you don’t mind, but I gave her a checkup.”
Octavia squinted at the man, suspicious. “You did what? Why?”
“I’m the new town vet,” the man explained. “Lincoln.” He held out a hand, but seemed to realize it wasn’t necessary, since Octavia was holding both the cat and her tea. He took it back, unoffended.
“Octavia,” she said. She still didn’t sound at all welcoming, but at least now she didn’t look ready to stick his head on a pike as a warning to their other neighbors; don’t approach this house until after 12 o’clock.
“This is my brother Bellamy,” she tipped her head to where he was spying on them, around the corner, and he stepped out to shake Lincoln’s hand.
“Nice to meet you,” Lincoln offered, and then stepped back. “I should probably get going—she’s all clear, by the way. You guys are obviously taking care of her.”
Octavia scoffs down at the cat, disgusted. “She’s a moocher,” she agrees, and then slams the door closed.
“He seemed nice,” Bellamy started, as Octavia tossed Comet down. The cat immediately trotted over to where her kittens were asleep on one of the sofa cushions Augusta had set down on the floor for them, and she started to groom their fur. “Very—bald. Nice tattoo, too.”
Octavia snapped her head around to glare at him. “Don’t start,” she warned. “It’s too fucking early for your bullshit.”
“He’s good with animals, if he’s a vet and all,” Bellamy said, and she flicked him off on her way down the hall.
“We should probably get the kittens checked out too,” Octavia suggested the next day over breakfast. She scowled at Bell, pointing harshly with a piece of bacon. “Don’t.”
Bellamy threw up both his hands. “I didn’t say anything.” She threw her bacon at him, anyway.
She took Augusta and Kai with her, partly because they begged to go, and partly—he thought—as a sort of test for Lincoln. Either to see if he was good with kids as well, or to let him know they were a part of the package, he wasn’t sure.
But when they came home, the kids were all smiles, and each kitten had a new ribbon collar with tags detailing the house address as home.
“Mr. Lincoln was super nice,” Augusta said, and Bellamy looked over to see Octavia biting back a smile. “He told us jokes.”
“I’m sure they were awesome,” he agreed, kissing the top of her head. “Wanna help me make dinner?”
Augusta groaned a little. “It’s not spaghetti, is it?” she demanded, suspicious, and Bellamy threw a hand to his heart.
“What’s wrong with spaghetti?”
“You always make spaghetti,” she whined, but she followed him into the kitchen anyway.
“When you’re old enough to cook on your own, you can make whatever you want for dinner,” he promised, fetching the box from the cupboard. “But for tonight—spaghetti it is.”
Octavia found a few more excuses to visit the vet—it was relatively easy, with five cats, and the occasional garden snake the kids found and begged to keep—but Lincoln didn’t actually ask her out on a date for three months.
She found him after the roar of Lincoln’s motorcycle faded away. Augusta was asleep with her head in Bellamy’s lap on the sofa, and Kai was in bed upstairs. Bellamy glanced up from his book to find O watching him from the doorway. She looked—pretty, in a black dress that flowed out below her knees. His sister had always looked sharp, and shocking, and intimidatingly gorgeous, but never pretty. He thought it was a nice change.
“How were they?” she asked, quiet so she didn’t wake her daughter.
“Great,” Bellamy shrugged. He’d never had any real problems with the kids. “They were raised right. How was your date?”
Octavia smiled, but it was small, and tight. Brittle. “He’s French,” she said, and Bellamy frowned, confused. “He spoke French on the phone to his brother,” she clarified, and he thought back to their spell. Speaks a different language.
“He’s—nice,” Octavia frowned, crossing over to sit in Anya’s sewing chair. “He’s thirty-five. The curse has never taken anyone over thirty.”
“I guess it just assumed Blake women would always be cougars,” Bellamy shrugged, and she threw a pillow at him.
She worried her lip a little. “Did you know I heard it? The curse, the day Atom died. He was at the race track, and I was at home, and I could hear this cricket under the floorboards, just like Indra said. I dug them all up with a screwdriver, but I couldn’t find it. And then he was dead.”
Bellamy wanted to get up and hug her, but he couldn’t without dislodging Augusta, and Octavia waved a hand.
“Sometimes I think you were lucky, you know? That she left when she did, before anything could really happen.” Bellamy thought about Jake Griffin, laying bloated and cut open in the water, and he bites back a grimace. “I was wrong,” Octavia whispered. “I was so, so wrong about love. It wasn’t—it’s not worth it. I miss Atom every day. I think I always will.”
“Does Lincoln know?” Bellamy asked, and she nodded.
“I told him. He said we can take things slow, but—I don’t know if I can take anything. Not anymore. It’s not fair, and it’s not fair to him.”
“It’s only been four months, O,” Bellamy said gently, but Octavia didn’t look upset. Just tired.
“I know.” She stood up, slipping her heels off. “Help me put her to bed?”
He carries Augusta up and tucks her in, and grabs Octavia’s hand when she goes to leave. “You deserve to be happy, O,” he said, and she gave a watery smile.
“I was. I was really happy, Bell, and maybe…maybe that’s all I get.”
Bellamy hadn’t thought about Clarke in years—not since Augusta was born. He hadn’t allowed himself; hadn’t been that masochistic.
But the next day, Augusta and Kai came running into the store.
“Uncle Bell, Uncle Bell!” Augusta yelled, breathless and grinning. They were both wearing their school bags, which dwarfed their backs hilariously.
“What’s up, kiddo?”
“We have a new art teacher,” she announced, and he grinned, amused.
“Yeah? Is he nice?”
“She’s nice,” Augusta said primly, and then grinned, looking as feral as her mom. “And she’s pretty, and she said she knew you and mom!”
Bellamy frowned a little, bewildered. Not a lot of new people came to their island—it was mostly made up of the people born and raised there, who then got married and had families of their own so that the cycle continued. And he didn’t know anyone from off the island.
“Oh, yeah? What’s her name?”
“Miss Griffin,” Augusta said proudly, and Bellamy froze. She didn’t seem to notice, and continued. “She said she might stop by the store later,” she waggled her eyebrows exaggeratedly. Clearly, she was spending way too much time with Indra, and needed to be stopped.
It took Bellamy a few tries to swallow, but he eventually did it. “That’s, uh, cool. Go help your brother with his homework.”
He hadn’t thought about Clarke Griffin in eight years, which was why it was so unfair that at the mere mention of her name, he was completely ruined. He kept glancing up towards the door, expecting her to show up any minute. He only stocked the shelves near the front, so he could see.
She never came, and he walked the kids home, refusing to feel disappointed.
The next day went the same, and the day after that, and he was beginning to think maybe she wouldn’t show up at all. It wasn’t a very big island, but it was possible to avoid just one person if he tried hard enough.
And then on Saturday the bell above the door rang, sometime around lunch, which meant he was eating sushi at the front counter because he couldn’t take an actual break.
Which meant he had an enormous bite of squid in his mouth when he saw Clarke Griffin for the first time since she was eighteen.
She hadn’t changed that much, really. There were laugh lines in her face now, and a few around her eyes. Her hair was a little less wild, but still a mess of golden curls around her face. She was wearing soft jeans and a sweatshirt, which wasn’t even that hot of a combination, but.
He was still so gone over this girl. She’d left before he could actively try to get over her, and now she was back, looking soft and unsure and smiling a little hopefully, and he nearly choked to death.
“Are you okay?” she asked, partly amused but mostly concerned. There was the little wrinkle between her brows that she got when she was focused, and—he was getting nostalgic over a fucking wrinkle. He was so screwed.
“You caught me in a bad moment,” he coughed, gesturing to his lunch, and Clarke looked a little guilty.
“Shit, sorry—I can come back later, if you want…” she trailed off, looking suddenly stricken. “Or, God. I could just not come back. I’m so sorry, I should have called or something, and asked if you even wanted to see me, not just ambush you at work.” She grimaced, and he knew that look too. It was the look that meant she was about to go home and beat herself up over this all night, and so he waved his fork at her, feeling desperate.
“No, it’s fine. I just, uh, didn’t really expect it. How are—how are you?” Bellamy had always been the one who knew what to say, but right now he was floundering. Clarke politely pretended not to notice.
“Not bad,” she shrugged, worrying her lip. “I was pretty lost for a while, after everything with dad. But eventually I got it together and went to school, and got my teaching degree.”
“Yeah, Augie said you teach art at the school now.”
Clarke ducked her head with a smile, impossibly endearing, and Bellamy’s heart strangles his own chest. “She’s awesome,” she says, with feeling. “Her brother, too. I didn’t know Octavia got married.”
Bellamy cleared his throat, sobering. This wasn’t just playing catch up with an old friend he hadn’t seen in a while.
This was Clarke, his best friend, who didn’t know if Octavia got married, because she’d abandoned them for thirteen years with nothing but a lame post card and a handful of words.
“Actually, she didn’t. She was with her boyfriend Atom for nine years. He died four months ago.”
Clarke looked stricken, blue eyes stretched wide. “Jesus, I’m so sorry,” she breathed. “I should have been there.”
“Yeah,” Bellamy agreed. “Why weren’t you?”
Before he’d stopped thinking about Clarke completely, he’d pictured this moment. Him, successful and happy without her, when she shows up looking forlorn and apologetic, begging him to take her back. Confronting her.
He’d pictured a lot of different excuses for her to give, each more outrageous than the last—shipwrecked on a desert island, kidnapped and held in a drug pen, amnesia, getting lost in the Blue Ridge Mountains—but he always forgave her, and she always leapt into his arms.
To be fair, he’d been just nineteen at the time. He’d had a lot of emotions he didn’t know what to do with.
But he was a lot more well-adjusted now, and so he just waited calmly for her response.
“I was really fucked up, Bellamy,” she said, sad and serious, and he felt most of the tension drain out of him. She’d just lost her dad, and it was easy to forget how torn up he’d been over his mom’s death, since he was so young. But he’d had the Aunts, and O, and even Clarke to get him through it, and who had she had? “For a really long time. I thought it was my fault, that if I’d been there, I could have done something to save him, and—I was a mess, and I didn’t want you to see it.”
Bellamy frowned, feeling angry all over again. “I could’ve helped,” he argued, and she nodded.
“But I didn’t want you to. Bellamy—you were everything, and I was stupid in love with you, and I didn’t want you to see all the shit I was doing.”
She was frowning down at his arm, and it took him a moment to realize she was looking for his bracelet, and was upset to find it gone. “I close up at six,” he offered. “If you want to wait around. O’s sort-of boyfriend’s making dinner tonight.”
Clarke curled up in the easy chair with her grading, and it was like a weird sort of de ja vu for Bellamy, watching her there. He did his best not to stare, but he still found himself glancing over every few minutes.
She caught his eye once, and grinned, waved. He ducked and waved back.
She followed him out when he went to lock the door, and she grinned down at his keychain, surprised. She reached over to touch the blue sea glass, hanging down from his key ring. “You did keep it,” she said, pleased.
Bellamy shrugged. “The wire snapped.”
When they walked in, the kitchen was filled with steam, and there were freshly made noodles hung over every surface, drying. The kids were there, giggling and mashing tomatoes for the sauce, and the Aunts were sipping their gin and tonics at the table. Lincoln held a noodle out for Octavia to try, and she snapped it from his fingers with her teeth, grinning when he laughed.
Bellamy shut the door, and everyone turned to stare at them.
Octavia’s eyes went hard, and flashed. “Clarke,” she said, short, and Clarke winced.
“Hi, O,” she said weakly.
“It’s lovely to see you, Clarke,” Anya said. “It’s been a minute since the last.”
“Hi, Miss Griffin!” Augusta waved with fingers red from tomato juice, and beamed.
“Kids, why don’t you go play out in the garden,” Octavia said, and Augusta rolled her eyes, like she knew what was happening, but she dragged Kai out with her anyway.
“I’d like to speak with my brother,” Octavia declared, dangerous. “Alone.”
Clarke nodded, slipping out after the kids, and Bellamy followed his sister into the living room. He bent down to scratch one of the kittens, batting at his shoelace.
“What the hell are you thinking?” Octavia hissed, whirling around on him once they were alone. “Do you not remember how messed up you were over her leaving the first time? Because I do!”
“Her dad had just died,” Bellamy defended, and Octavia growled.
“I can’t believe you’re doing this again—actually, I can. Okay, it’s your life, whatever, but I’m not going to pick up the pieces a second time, Bell.” She stomped back into the kitchen, and Bellamy went into the garden to find Clarke.
He did find her, monitoring a cartwheel contest between Augusta and Kai. The kids were limber enough, but their depth perception was a little off, so they kept falling about halfway.
“How many can you do, Miss Griffin?” Augusta asked.
“Well, my record is eight,” Clarke shrugged, and Bellamy smirked a little.
“Come on, princess—I bet you can do better than that,” he goaded, and she turned at him, affronted.
“Excuse me, how many can Uncle Bell do?” she asked pointedly, and he laughed.
Octavia was right; he was falling into old patterns. But he couldn’t really help it—it shouldn’t be this easy, anymore. They shouldn’t still complement each other so perfectly, but they do, and it was. Loving Clarke was the easiest thing in the world, it always had been.
“More than eight,” he teased, and she scowled, just like he remembered.
“Prove it.”
He did nine in a row, before collapsing on the grass, too dizzy to move. The kids giggled, jumping up and down and begging Clarke to beat him.
“Alright, alright,” she decided, like he knew she would. Clarke was the most competitive person he knew. “Let’s do this.”
She did ten exactly, and then wobbled up to his side, letting him take her whole weight. “You’re gonna hold my hair back when I vomit, right?” she asked, and he slung an arm around her shoulder.
“Of course.”
Octavia was watching from the porch when they turned, looking contemplative. She scowled when she saw them looking, though. “Dinner’s ready, come on, we don’t have all day.”
“I thought you hated spaghetti,” Bellamy frowned at Augusta when he saw the bowl of it on the table, and she giggled.
“Yeah, but Lincoln’s is home-made,” she said, looking proud that she knew the word. Octavia ruffled her hair with a smile as everyone dished up their plates.
“It’s not that different,” Bellamy grumbled around a mouthful, even though it absolutely was, and it was delicious. Clarke patted his thigh comfortingly.
“It’s okay Bell,” she said, “You’re still the best at being a nerd, that must count for something.”
Octavia announced that she was doing the dishes, and leveled a heavy stare at Clarke. “You’re helping,” she said, leaving no room for argument, and Clarke helped her clear away the plates.
The Aunts were in the greenhouse, doing witch things, which left Bellamy and Lincoln alone in the living room while the kids got ready for bed. It was only a little awkward; Bellamy did like Lincoln, and he was happy for his sister, but the guy didn’t really talk much. And it was getting harder and harder not to sneak over and eavesdrop through the door.
Finally, right as he was beginning to think his resolve had met its limits, the girls walked in.
“I’m gonna head out,” Clarke explained, and Bellamy shot up so quickly he almost tripped over the rug. Octavia looked at him, amused, which was better than angry, and Clarke stifled a smile.
“I’ll walk you home,” he said.
Octavia clutched Clarke to her at the door before dragging Lincoln upstairs.
“I’m glad you guys worked it out,” Bellamy offered as they started down the hill, and Clarke smiled.
“She was right to be mad at me,” she shrugged. “But she asked me what my intentions were, and told me about Atom, and. It was nice, having her again. I really missed you guys.”
“You could have had us,” Bellamy pointed out, careful. He didn’t want to start an argument again. Clarke just shook her head.
“I was too—broken.” She glanced up at him, face open. Raw. “You deserve me at my best, Bellamy.”
“I’d rather just have you,” he said, but it was a little weak, because she couldn’t think he deserved her, could she? She had to know how he felt, that he just wanted her, in whatever ways she gave him. He cleared his throat. “What did she ask about?”
“She wanted to know why I came back. Why I’m here.” She stopped, and he looked up to see they were standing in front of a small yellow cottage, the color of sunlight. It was tiny, and cute, like her—but it was not the giant Victorian that Abigail Griffin owned. “I’m renting it,” she explained, and he nodded.
“Why did you come back?” he asked, looking back at her.
“Don’t you know?” she grinned ruefully. “You—it was always you, Bell.”
If his life was a movie, or even a slightly well-written book, this would be the moment that Bellamy kissed her, grabbing her face, or her back, or her hips, and pouring everything he felt into it.
But instead he just frowned. “You didn’t even call,” he said. “You sent one postcard!”
Clarke froze, staring up at him, and then nodded, curt and professional, before grabbing his hand and leading him into the cottage.
She flicked on the light, and he glanced around to find a well-furnished living room, filled with old used wooden furniture and overflowing bookshelves. He watched as she crossed over to an ancient roll-top desk, and rifled around in one of the drawers, before coming back with a thick stack of post cards in hand.
She perched on the old leather sofa, patting the cushion beside her so he would sit down. Once he did, she took the first card and flipped it over, clearing her throat.
“Dear Bellamy,” she read, “I’m so sorry I didn’t say goodbyes—I’m not good at those, and it would have felt too permanent. I’m in Maine right now, and everything smells like the ocean, but not like our ocean. More like fish. It’s kind of gross. Tell O I’m sorry too, and I miss her. I saw this bikini in the store made out of real seashells, and it made me think of her. I miss the island, and my mom, and I really miss my dad. I miss him so much, and I think you’re the only person that might really understand that. There’s no one who understands you like someone you’ve grown up with, I think, and you’ve always understood me the best. I miss you. I miss you. I miss you.”
She picked up the second card, and started reading. “Dear Bellamy, Boston is neat. There’s so much history here—you would love it. I stopped in Salem on the way, and went to a museum about witches. It made me think of your Aunts, and even Octavia. Not you, though. But the history museums in Boston make me think of you, and I like those better anyway. I wish you were here with me. We should come back, together, and I’ll show you how to ride the trains. The maps are really hard to read, but I think we could manage. I miss you. I love you.”
He opened his mouth to respond, but she cut him off, reading the next one. “Bellamy, I’m in the south now, and they have the most wonderful food. Everything is dipped in batter, and fried, and it’s perfect for gray, rainy days like this one. I wonder if it’s raining on the island. I wonder how you are, if you’re happy, if you’re not, if you remember me at all. I can’t stop thinking about my dad, and what he would think of all the places I’m seeing.
"I feel like there’s this hole inside me, that I left back on the island. I feel like I’m searching for something to fill it up, but there’s nothing that fits. I have this nightmare, where I’m on the beach, but it’s high tide and I can’t move, and each time the waves crash over me, they take a little bit more away until there’s nothing left and I’m just empty. Just a hole in the sand, except eventually the waves wash that away, too. I think if a doctor were to check for my heartbeat, all he’d hear is the ocean. I think the hole I left was you.”
She picked up the fourth without pausing. “Bell, I went to a party last night. There was this girl there, she was insanely hot and we danced for hours but when she kissed me all I could think of was you. I think about that kiss on the beach all the time, and I wish I’d kissed you sooner, and longer, and more. Do you remember how I taste?”
Clarke cleared her throat again, and glanced up. He could see her cheeks were pink, and her neck was going blotchy as she slid the stack of cards in his lap. “You can read the rest, if you want. Everything’s in there—I wrote to you every day. I’m still not sure why I didn’t send them…”
When Bellamy spoke, his voice was impressively even. “Yes,” he said, staring down at the pile. The one on top said WELCOME TO TORONTO in big, capital letters, with a moose.
Clarke frowned. “What?”
He looked up to meet her eyes. “Yes, I remember how you taste. I think about it every fucking day.” He leaned over to set the stack on the old coffee table, on top of a collection of ring stains made from sweating cups.
“Oh,” Clarke said, and that’s when he kissed her.
It was frenzied at first, too much teeth and nails and groaning, neither sure where to touch first, because they wanted to touch everywhere. He got her shirt off, and she yanked his pants down awkwardly since he was sitting, and he fumbled with the strap of her bra a bit before just pulling back so he could see what he was doing.
He knew how to unclasp bras, he wasn’t a goddamned teenager flailing around in the backseat of his mom’s minivan, but. This was Clarke, and he couldn’t help it. Each time she kissed him, or stroked his arm, or moaned into his neck, he felt dizzy again, like he’d just done too many cartwheels.
He unclasped her bra, and she let it fall away, hair tumbling over her shoulders, and then he saw it.
Right in the middle of her back, a few inches from her spine. Right where the band of a bikini might cover it. Just a few shades darker than her normally pale skin, was a bat symbol.
He traced it with his fingers, and she leaned into his touch. He could hear the smile in her voice when she spoke. “It’s a birthmark. My dad used to call me his little superhero.”
Bellamy leans his head against her spine, pressing a kiss to her skin before groaning. He feels her tense up against him.
“What’s wrong?”
“Clarke, I—” he was starting to panic because, what should he say? There’s this curse on my family and I think you might die? I’m pretty sure I created you with some spell my sister found when we were kids? Or how about the kicker; I might be the reason your dad’s dead.
“Bell, what is it?” She twists in his arms, so she can slide into his lap and scratch her nails against his scalp.
In the end, he told her all three, and then she made him start from the beginning.
When he was finished, she took his face in her hands, and lifted it so he could see she was smiling, a little amused. “Bellamy,” she stroked the skin of his cheeks. “You didn’t make me into your true love—I’ve always loved you. And you didn’t kill my dad; a boat motor did. Faulty mechanics did. His own carelessness.” She leaned forward so their heads pressed together, and sighed. Her breath was warm on his mouth. “You didn’t make me yours. I’ve always been yours.”
“You could die,” Bellamy said, breath catching a little, and she pressed her lips to his in a chaste kiss.
“Well, I turn thirty-one in five months, so I guess we’ll find out soon enough.” She ground down against his crotch until he moaned. “And I really don’t want to die without knowing what you feel like inside me.”
Bellamy surged up to kiss her, trailing his hand up her thigh, and she grinds back against him, fucking eager, and happy, and—
She was right. He’d really rather know.
“I love you too,” he said after, curling up against her in her bed. She laughed, bright and sunny, pressing a kiss to his shoulder.
“You’re a little late,” she teased.
“It was always you,” he echoed, raising her hand in his so he can see their scars side by side.
“Always,” she agreed, and he fell asleep to the smell of their ocean.
When Bellamy wakes up on Clarke’s thirty-first birthday, her hair is in his mouth and she’s draped half on top of him, wheezing a little in her sleep because she’s had a head cold for the past three days that she refuses to do anything about.
He only has a few minutes to admire the feel of her, naked and pressed up against him, before Comet jumps up onto his chest, and spits something out on the blankets before sitting down and staring, expectantly.
“What’s that?” he asks her, and she gives a single lazy blink.
Sighing, he reaches down and grabs the gift, bringing it up for a closer look.
It’s a cricket, thoroughly dead, black and brittle in his fingers.
Clarke mumbles his name in her sleep, and he smiles. They might get the happy ending, after all.