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It was not exactly their plan for Clarke to get pregnant, but.
Three weeks after they got back from their trip to Venice, she started throwing up regularly, and it became obvious that their plan had changed.
Raven doesn’t mind. She didn’t mind holding Clarke’s hair through the morning sickness while Bellamy fetched cold washcloths, and she didn’t mind lying in bed in the dark, arguing sleepily about names, and she didn’t mind seeing the gentle curve of Clarke’s belly grow and grow.
She definitely didn’t mind how pregnancy made Clarke want them on a nearly desperate level, as often as she could get them.
Plus, Bellamy cried the first time he felt their baby kick, and that pretty much made her year.
(She might have gotten a little teary-eyed too, but whatever, no one can prove it.)
She does mind the fact that, since Gus has been born, not one of them has gotten a chance to sleep through the night.
The baby’s fussy cry grows louder, and she can hear Clarke’s groan echo hers. Bellamy crowds against her back, stubbornly burying his face in her hair until she can feel his hot breath on her neck.
“I was hoping for a Christmas miracle,” Clarke says mournfully, and Raven cracks open one eye to look at her.
“Ha,” Raven says humorlessly. “Fat chance.” It’s 3:03AM on Christmas morning, right on schedule.
Clarke sighs, and Raven softens a little, because she’s obviously exhausted, even more than the rest of them. When Gus wakes up in the middle of the night, it’s because he’s hungry, and he is definitely his father’s son—they’ve tried feeding him from a bottle, to give Clarke a break, but Gus has a fit if he’s offered anything other than Clarke’s breasts.
To be fair, Raven would probably be put out too if someone tried to offer her rubber instead of Clarke’s breasts. They’re pretty much the best breasts ever.
Gus lets out another, louder cry, and Bellamy lets out a gusty breath, then rolls away from Raven to turn on the bedside lamp. His feet hit the hardwood with a loud thud, and Gus’s voice gets louder still when he hears, knowing that someone’s coming to get him. There’s no point in trying to sleep anymore right now, so she hauls herself up in bed to a sitting position and reaches for Clarke’s shoulder.
“Babe,” she says. “You’re up.”
Clarke lets out a little whimper, stifled in her pillow, then rolls over to rest her head on Raven’s thigh.
“I’m tired,” she breathes, eyes fluttering closed. “Can’t you just, I don’t know, hold him there? It can be like an all-you-can-eat, serve yourself buffet.”
Raven snorts softly and starts to comb her fingers through Clarke’s hair, carefully working through the tangles.
At the crib in the corner, Bellamy is talking softly to the baby, scooping him out and holding him to his chest. Gus quiets a little once he’s being held. Bellamy had done a lot of reading while Clarke had been pregnant, and one of Raven’s favorite things Bellamy had taken to heart was the need for skin-to-skin contact with babies.
It has led to a lot of shirtless moments.
He’d insisted that Raven do it too, which—she knew that they were in this together, the three of them, even though Clarke was the one carrying the baby and Bellamy was the father, but that had clinched it. And there wasn’t anything quite like holding their baby to her chest, seeing him drift asleep against her, feeling safe and warm and content with her as much as Bellamy or Clarke.
He’s all of theirs, totally and completely.
“Sorry buddy,” Bellamy says, carrying him back to the bed. “I’ve got nothing for you.” Gus is rooting around Bellamy’s chest, and Raven can’t help the instant, powerful flood of devotion she feels at the sight. Sometimes she still can’t believe it, that she’s in love with these two beautiful people, and they’re in love with her, and they’ve made a home and a family together.
But they have, and Gus reminds her of that as he lets out the loudest wail yet, extremely displeased with the fact that Bellamy’s chest is neither as soft nor as interesting as Clarke’s.
“Okay, okay,” Clarke grumbles, and pushes herself up. “Come here, you little stinker.”
“Where’s your joyful Christmas spirit?” Bellamy chides, carefully climbing onto the bed on Clarke’s opposite side. This is how they tend to arrange themselves when she’s feeding Gus; one on either side, all a part of it.
“It’s still sleeping,” she retorts, but the second Bellamy transfers the baby to her, her entire body melts, and she leans forward to gently rub her nose against Gus’s. “Merry Christmas, baby,” she whispers.
Gus blinks wide, dark eyes at her, momentarily distracted from his hunger. He looks more like Bellamy and Raven than like Clarke, skin several shades darker than Clarke’s, dark fuzz on top of his head, but they’re pretty sure he has Clarke’s nose, and he was born with a scattering of birthmarks like the one above her lip.
Bellamy slings an arm around Clarke, and Raven is close enough to Clarke that he can run his fingertips over her shoulder. Clarke puts the baby to her breast, and once he’s settled and happy eating, Raven reaches out, tracing delicate fingers over the soft snowman-patterned sleeper they’d put him to bed in.
“What’s the plan for today, again?” she asks, resting her chin on Clarke’s shoulder. She knows, but she likes listening to Clarke talk, low raspy voice, especially in the dark and quiet of the night like this.
“My mom’s coming over at ten with Marcus to open presents,” Clarke replies, rubbing a slow circle on Gus’s back as he nurses. “And then Monty and Miller and Octavia are coming over at four for dinner, and Octavia’s bringing her new boyfriend.”
Bellamy huffs and grumbles a little, and Raven’s delighted by the arch look Clarke sends his way, instantly quieting him.
“And we are all going to be nice to him,” she says, warning. “Lincoln sounds like a very nice man, and you have no room to judge other people’s relationships.”
His smile goes crooked as he looks at them, Clarke and Raven and the baby, and he nods. “Fine, I’ll be good.”
“You’d better,” Raven says dryly, “or your sister will kick your ass. Embarrass you in front of your son,” she adds, wiggling the baby’s foot until he starts to kick out.
He shrugs. “I’m sure I’ll embarrass myself in front of him in a bunch of different, stupid ways while he’s growing up,” Bellamy says. “But I’ll do my best to not do it tomorrow over Octavia’s too-old boyfriend.”
“We can only hope,” Clarke says.
They talk softly for a while longer, groaning about all the prep they still need to do for the holiday meal, arguing quietly over who has to peel all of the potatoes, making bets about how much Abby and Marcus spent on Gus’s present for his first Christmas. They talk through Gus switching sides, and eventually, as it gets closer to four, his eyelids start to droop dangerously. Usually he’s up for a while longer after feedings, energized, but if he wants to go back to sleep early, Raven is all for that. She’s the best at naps, and they could all use the extra rest.
“Maybe we will get a Christmas miracle, and he’ll end up sleeping in late this morning,” Clarke says hopefully, making Bellamy chuckle.
“I’m not holding my breath,” Raven says, smiling into Clarke’s shoulder. While she’s there, she presses a kiss to the skin, right next to the strap of Clarke’s sleep shirt, and Clarke leans into the touch.
“Well,” Bellamy says, nudging the little fist Gus is resting against Clarke’s skin until the baby curls it around Bellamy’s finger, holding on tight. “If you think about it, he kind of is a Christmas miracle.”
Clarke snorts, and Raven reaches behind Clarke to thread her fingers into his hair, tugging lightly and rolling her eyes. “You’re such a sap,” she tells him. “Just for that, you can have the blessing of dealing with all of the Christmas miracles Gus deposits in his diaper today.”
“Fine,” Bellamy sighs, but his face lights up with a grin as Gus stares up at them and gives a gummy smile of his own.
Well. He kind of is a miracle, Raven admits, if only to herself. Because he’s here, and he’s theirs, and they’re together.
There’s more joy in her life than she ever thought possible before, and that seems like a pretty good miracle to her.