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The bourbon burns her throat on the way down, but the champagne being passed around by waiters in crystal flutes wasn’t doing enough to take the edge off. Clarke closes her eyes for a moment, taking solace in the black of her eyelids as she waits for the alcohol to make its way into her bloodstream.
She taps on the bar and orders a rum and coke. She waits until the bartender has passed her the drink before she turns to face the room. Golden light pours through large glass windows as the sun sets. It’s perfect and she couldn’t have pictured anything better for Octavia and Lincoln. Getting married on Christmas eve isn’t right for everyone, but she thinks it works for them. The newly married couple spins on the dance floor lost in a world of their own. Octavia’s dress floats around her as she and Lincoln twirl around and around. Clarke’s never seen either of her friends look so incandescently happy.
Her heart aches as she watches her friends, sorrow tugging at her chest. She’s missed them. She’s missed all her friends. It’s been months since she last saw them.
She has a good life in California, she fits in well there. She has good friends, she likes Maya and Anya a lot. She’s even dated. But she ended things with Lexa because it felt dishonest. Like lying, to herself and Lexa. Because she knows it could never really work out. (She’s in love with someone else.)
She’s has a good life in San Francisco, but it’s not her home. And coming back to the east coast—back to New York, where her friends—her family—are—only makes Clarke miss everything she left behind.
Her eyes catch a glimpse of dark curls and a strong jaw, across the room. A crooked grin she’s thought about a thousand times.
(He's the person she’s missed the most. He's the reason she left in the first place.)
She knows shouldn’t care. She and Bellamy were never together. They never dated. But for as long as Clarke can remember, Bellamy’s held her heart. Even if he’ll never know it.
She hasn’t been able to look at him directly all night. It’s too much. The suit. The smile. It's the same smile he’s wearing in the polaroid she keeps in her wallet and with her always. The photo’s faded, worn, a seam down the middle from being folded and unfolded too many times. But Clarke can’t help herself from bringing it out whenever she misses him. It’s the closest she can get to holding a memory.
It was taken by a stranger on the side of a road, they hadn’t really slept in days, their last shower had been at a motel with more rats than residents. But she, Miller, and Bellamy didn’t care. Flashes of memory play across her mind like the flickering images of an old movie. Echoes of laughter play like the songs they listened to as they drove cross-country in Bellamy’s old pick-up truck.
Quiet moments colored grey by the dark on the nights Miller fell asleep and she and Bellamy stayed up until dawn, just talking until the words came out soft and rasped, feeling brave and like magic under a cloak of stars.
She can’t face him now. She can’t face the soft and easy look she knows she’ll find when he sees her. Clarke’s never been more than a friend to him—a good friend, it’s true. One of his best friends, maybe. But just a friend. And it’s that truth that sealed her decision to leave. To do her residency in San Francisco instead of New York. She left because she knew that she’d never be able to move on if she didn’t. And she had to move on. Because one day he was going to find someone. He was going to fall in love with someone. Fall for them the way Bellamy does anything: with his whole heart.
Clarke didn’t want to be around to watch him fall in love—marry someone else. He’s electric, and eventually, someone’s going to notice. Clarke didn’t want to be around when it happened. So she left.
It’s been months since she’s seen him, years since she’s lived here, yet just the sight of him, even after all this time, stills her heart. (She was fooling herself thinking she could move on. There will never be a time when she won’t love him. It comes as easy as breathing. She loves him. She loves him. She loves him.)
She’s halfway through her rum and coke, watching Murphy ineptly flirt with the bartender when she hears his voice behind her. Her eyes shut of their own accord at the sound of her name on his lips. He stands a few steps away, and there’s a beat of tension before she turns to face him. She smiles, weakly, staring at his shoulder. Too much of a coward to meet his eyes.
“Can’t even bother to come say hello, Princess? Am I not worth your attention anymore?” His voice is the same: deep and warm. He’s teasing, but she can hear the undercurrent of hurt in his tone.
She turns her eyes to the drink in her hand and shrugs, “You’ve been busy all day. I didn’t want to distract you from wedding duties,” she swirls her drink, listening to the ice clink against the glass.
Bellamy settles next to her, the heat of his arm inches from hers. She knows she should step away, but all she wants to do is curl in closer.
She chooses not to move.
“I wouldn’t have minded being distracted by you,” she can hear the smile in his voice, but she doesn’t check to make sure. Instead, she stares resolutely at the couples dancing and hides her smile with a sip of her drink.
On the dance floor, Miller grins smugly and Monty’s cheeks are pink as he laughs at whatever his boyfriend just said.
Bellamy’s voice is gruff when he speaks, “I’ve missed you. It’s been months since I’ve heard from you…” he clears his throat, “Is—Is everything okay, Clarke? You’re acting like you’re mad at me.”
His voice is soft, almost apologetic, and Clarke finally looks at him. His hair is short on the sides but long on top, his curls falling across his forehead. He smells like pine needles and coming home.
Her eyes catalogue the familiar pattern of his freckles as she takes him in. Her gaze lingers on his mouth. On the scar on his lip, the way the corners of his mouth are turned down, telling Clarke he’s upset. Clarke knows she’s not being fair. But just being this close hurts.
Her fingers squeeze her glass as she meets his eyes (she’s always loved his eyes), “I’m not mad at you, Bell. I’m just tired. Jet-lag and all,” she lies. She hopes her smile doesn’t look as stiff as it feels.
His brow furrows, “I don’t believe you, Clarke. We haven’t spoken in months. The only way I knew you were alive is because you were still keeping in touch with everyone else.”
“We’ve talked.” Her hands are shaking. She set her glass down on the bar to lace her fingers together in front of her.
“Twice. In 5 months.” Desperation starts to thread his words, “Clarke, I don’t understand. Is this because of what I said? Before you left?”
Clarke swallows. A week before she left, Bellamy had called her, drunk, and told her not to leave. He had rambled and slurred about how much she mattered to him. I love you, Clarke. You're my best friend. It had broken her heart. Because no matter how much she wanted those words to mean more, she knew he hadn’t meant them the way she wanted him to.
She’s saved from answering by the clinking of glasses to signal for everyone to return to their seats for the speeches before dinner. Octavia gestures to Bellamy and Clarke moves to make her way to her seat, but Bellamy catches her hand, oblivious to the sparks his fingers send across her skin. He gives her a look that tells her he’s far from done with their conversation before letting go to hurry to where Octavia’s waiting for him with the mic.
After that, Clarke makes sure she’s not alone again. She talks to Miller and Monty at their table, teases Murphy about the handsome bartender, and pulls Wells up to dance with her when she notices Bellamy getting up from his seat.
Bellamy finally catches her alone at the table after dessert while her friends are getting refills on their drinks. He offers his hand, cocking his eyebrow in a challenge.
“Dance with me, Princess.”
She’s never been able to back down from a dare and he knows it. A smile plays at the corners of her mouth as she thinks back to June nights and fireflies. She slides her hand into his, ignoring the way the gesture makes her heart trip in her chest.
The music swells, sweet and sad and slow. She carefully places her hand on Bellamy’s shoulders, feeling the hard curve of muscle beneath his white dress shirt. Bellamy’s hands on her waist draw her in, leaving little space between their bodies. She squeezes her eyes shut for a moment, half her heart wishing he wanted her the way she wants him, the other half cursing fate for never giving her any other option but to love him. Because she does. Love him. Her love for Bellamy feels like stars in the night sky. Infinite. Inevitable.
She loves him for every part of who he is. She loves the parts of himself he brandishes for all the world to see, and the ones he hates and hides. She loves the way he speaks, passion threading every word. She loves his heart, how when he feels, he feels deeply and fully. She loves his strength, his kindness, despite everything he’s been through. She loves that his favorite place in the whole world is the library in their hometown because it was his safe haven as a kid and because it’s where he first discovered the powerful magic of words.
When she opens her eyes, Bellamy’s watching her, face inscrutable. She’s never understood his ability to do that. To shutter his expressions. So that not even she, the girl who’s known him since he was a teenager with a chip on his shoulder and something to prove, can read the feelings flickering behind his features.
The song rises and crashes around them like a wave. Bellamy’s quiet as he guides her around the dance floor and Clarke feels herself losing the battle against her reason. She lets herself be pulled into him completely. Bellamy has always been magnetic. It's the way he carries himself, the way he speaks. And just this once Clarke lets herself bend to his pull. She rests her head on his shoulder, Bellamy turns so that his jaw presses against her hairline, his breath sweeping across her forehead as he speaks. She can feel the rumble of his voice through his chest.
“Do you remember the first time we danced?”
Clarke smiles, involuntary, “I don’t know if you could really call what we did 'dancing.'”
…
The night before Bellamy was deployed, Clarke, Octavia, and Bellamy spent the night drinking vodka and eating whatever they could find in the fridge, stubbornly ignoring what the fast approaching morning would bring.
Octavia had fallen asleep around one in the morning, curled up on the in their living room couch while Clarke and Bellamy stayed up through the night.
At some point, the two of them ended up on the grass outside. The warm beginning of summer buzzed around them as they passed a can of whipped cream back and forth, both of their mouths stained red from the maraschino cherries they’d been eating all night.
They were talking, whispers against the night when of the neighbors opened a window and the lilting melody of an old radio wafted through the air.
Clarke grabbed Bellamy’s hand without thinking.
“What are you doing?”
“Dance with me,” she said, pulling his hand to drag him to his feet.
“I don’t dance, Princess,” he smirked, but the way he rubbed the back of his neck gave him away.
“It’s fine if you don’t know how. I’ll teach you.”
They were terrible. Stumbling, uncoordinated. But too drunk to care. They laughed and spun as the music faded into the background.
It had been that night. Under a sky streaked with morning, a breath away from Bellamy, a boy with constellations painted in his freckles, that she had first wanted to kiss him. Bellamy had always been beautiful, but she had never noticed in more than a passing manner. He had never made her heart skip before. But that night his mouth spread in a wide grin, teeth red from the cherries, blades of grass in his hair, she had wanted to kiss Bellamy. Really kiss him and be kissed by him.
He’d been on a plane headed halfway across the world by ten the next morning.
…
The song ends too soon. But before she can pull away, Bellamy takes her hand. He leads her out of the room to the balcony out back. The air is cold, but the warmth from the drinks she’s had numbs her against the bite of frost.
Bellamy runs a hand through his hair, nervous. Clarke stares down at her dress, gold and flowy, unable to watch him as she waits to hear what he has to say.
“Clarke, I don’t know what I did, but I can’t take this. I can’t take not talking to you, not seeing you. God, I’ve missed you like hell these past few months and you won’t even look at me.”
She meets his gaze, his dark eyes are filled with feeling so deep she could swim in it, “I—You’re right. I’m sorry.”
“What did I do, Clarke? Is it about what I said? Because--”
“No! It’s not that. You haven’t done anything, Bell.”
“Then, fuck, Clarke. What is it?”
“I’m in love with you,” she whispers. The words slip through the cracks in her heart. She stares at his shoulder, instead of his eyes. Bellamy freezes.
“And it’s not your fault, I just, I need time, okay?” she swallows the lump in her throat, “To get over you. It’s just—it’s too hard right now, and it’s not fair to either of us—”
She cuts off herself off as Bellamy steps forward. He brings his hand to her face, thumb brushing against her cheek and she finally looks him in the eye, almost breaking at the undisguised look of raw hope on his face.
His voice is ragged when he speaks, “I don’t want you to get over it. I—fuck—I love you, Clarke. I’ve been in love with you as long as I’ve known you.”
The next moment he’s kissing her, deeply and desperately. Her back is pressed against cold brick, but she doesn’t care as she twists her fingers in his hair and pulls him in as close as she can.
They spend a few minutes tangled up in each other and when they pull apart, their lips are red and their eyes are glassy as they struggle to catch their breath.
Bellamy rests his forehead against hers. Their breath mingles in the cloud between them, but her heart is warm. She pulls Bellamy down into another kiss and smiles against his mouth at the promise of forever on his lips.