Chapter Text
Clarke took a deep breath, staring at the green door in front of her. Her suitcase stood still by her feet, the crooked wheels making it tilt, leaning into her leg a bit. There was no turning back now. She’d left. She’d packed up her room and called the school, and she’d gotten on that train. Then a bus and a cab, and four flights of stairs later, she was standing in front of the one address of the one person in the city who might be willing to help her.
Nothing left to do but knock.
“Coming!” She heard the voice from the other side of the door yelling. “Coming, I’m coming, hang on!”
There was a crash, and a few audible swear words, and then the shuffling of some feet, and the door was swinging open in front of her to reveal an out of breath, but stunning girl.
“Clarke,” Octavia said, shocked. “Holy shit.”
“Um,” Clarke shifted her weight from one foot to the other, hoping Octavia hadn’t already seen her suitcase. It was a little awkward showing up to your old best friends apartment with a suitcase, and a greeting of ‘hey I have no place else to go, mind if I crash here, indefinitely?’ She probably should have called first. “Hey.”
Octavia snapped back to normal in no time at all, thought, pulling the door open wide and stepping aside to make room for Clarke, and her imposing suitcase.
“Come in, come in,” she said. She grabbed Clarke’s bag from her, wheeling it in and setting it off to the side before closing the door again. “There are hooks on the wall by the door, you can hang your coat.”
She was back over at the counter, grabbing the kettle and filling it.
“Want some tea? Or coffee?” She took a look at Clarke’s haggard expression, the bags under her eyes, the forced smile on her face, and the suitcase sitting off to the side. “Tequila?”
Clarke laughed, smile genuine on her face. She couldn’t believe how much Octavia hadn’t changed. Even the flannel wrapped around her waist looked familiar, like it was the same old worn green and grey one she’d worn all throughout high school. She still did her make-up the same way, big thick lines around her eyes, with swooping gray shadow covering the lids. Dark red lips. Like a picture had been taken of her when she was seventeen and she had been living inside the snapshot ever since.
“No tequila, thanks.” She dropped her coat on a hook and took a seat at Octavia’s table. “Coffee sounds great though.”
It was quiet while Octavia shuffled around, making the coffee. She even brought out a plate of cookies to go with it, plopping it down in front of Clarke without question or comment. It was nice, though, a comfortable quiet. Clarke nibbled on the edge of cookie and soon enough Octavia was setting a fresh mug down in front of her.
“Milk or sugar?” She asked. A slight hesitation and then with a smile in her voice, “Or maybe whiskey?”
Clarke glared up at her.
“What?” Octavia asked, innocent. “Aren’t you Irish?”
“Just milk and sugar,” Clarke rolled her eyes. “Thanks.”
Octavia brought over a small milk jug and a bowl of sugar and Clarke dumped more than an acceptable amount of sugar in, stirring it up, hoping it would dissolve. Octavia stayed quiet for a moment longer, waiting for Clarke to start talking, explain what it was she was doing there, why after years of sparse contact and fairly impersonal holiday cards, she decided to show up at her door now, but Clarke just sipped her coffee, avoiding her eyes.
“Am I going to have to ask?” Octavia said eventually. “Because I will. Not that I’m not happy to see you, or anything, because I am, but don’t you live in Maryland?”
“Ah,” Clarke cleared her throat. “Lived, actually. Now I live...well nowhere.”
Octavia nodded and picked up her own mug, sipping slowly, waiting for Clarke to continue. Clearly, not going to let her off the hook then, Clarke thought. Might as well get it over with, besides if there was anybody who could understand, she figured it would be Octavia.
“Turns out I don’t want to be a doctor. And Maryland is really, really boring.”
Octavia raised her eyebrows at her, putting it all together.
“You dropped out of school.” She said it matter of factly, no judgement or disapproval in her voice at all, just Octavia, making sure she understood. Clarke breathed a sigh of relief. She missed that. She missed being able to talk to people without judgement or ridiculous expectations, or pretending to be excited when she wasn’t, or any of the things she did with her friends back home. Friends who didn’t really get her. Fair weather, and all that.
“Yes.” She nodded. “I couldn’t stand it, O, it was awful. I don’t know how I stuck with it for so long, it was never what I wanted to do. And when I finally figured that out, I didn’t know what to do, so I just left.”
“Left?”
“Yep,” Clarke said, popping the p. “Left. I called the school when I was on the train, and then I was back in the city and before I knew it I was here.” She took a breath before she carried on. “Look, I know it’s a lot to ask, especially from someone you’ve barely heard from since high school, but I really, really need a place to stay. I doesn’t have to be permanent or anything, just until I can find something else, I swear I won’t be in your way or anything, I’m pretty neat--”
“Clarke!” Octavia cut her ramble short. She was smiling, shaking her head at Clarke. “Of course you can stay, are you kidding?”
She stood up from the table, clearing the dishes, and Clarke wasn’t sure what to do. She gripped her mug in front of her, happy to have something to occupy her hands, but she wasn’t really focused on anything other than the fact that Octavia, in true O fashion, hadn’t even taken a moment to think about it, before she jumped back in time, back to high school where they swapped favors like it was nothing.
“Look, I have to go to work,” Octavia said. She grabbed a clunky leather bad from under the coat rack. “I’m a photographer,” she said tapping the side of the bag. “I’ve got a wedding I’ve got to get to, but please make yourself at home. Literally. Unpack, get comfortable, whatever. We’ll catch up later, okay?”
“Okay,” Clarke said. “Um, where should I…” she trailed off gesturing to her suitcase.
“Spare bedroom.” Octavia pointed to a door beyond the living room. “The guys in the apartment across the hall are friends of mine, if you have any questions feel free to ask them! I’ll see you later!”
And with that, she was out the door. Clarke half expected a puff green smoke to appear where Octavia had been standing a moment before, she disappeared so quickly.
***
It was a while later, Octavia was still gone and Clarke, after sitting and finishing her coffee, wandering around and checking out the apartment, and staring at the phone for half an hour-debating whether or not to finally call her mother--had decided to unpack.
Then she’d wheeled her suitcase into the spare bedroom, hoisted it up onto the bed, and stared at it for ten minutes before she decided to go find that tequila that Octavia had mentioned before.
She was on her third margarita, when she heard the door to the apartment open and shut again. She stared at her room--her room--the contents of her bag splayed out across the bed, half hanging in the closet, half stuffed in open drawers, and shrugged. Octavia was used to her messes, or well, she had been in high school.
“Did you know the guys got a duck?” She heard a voice yell. It was familiar, one she hadn’t heard in a long, long time. But she knew it, it was saved right in the back of her head. “There’s no way you don’t know, you can hear the duck quacking from two floors away.”
She didn’t know what to do. She hadn’t really planned on having to explain anything to anybody without Octavia by her side, and she really didn’t expect to have to do it tipsy. But Bellamy was going to find out sooner or later. Probably sooner, considering she had music playing from the radio sitting on the dresser in her room, and the third margarita sitting next to it hadn’t made her singing any quieter. Or better.
There was a knock on her door. She took a deep breath. Time to buckle up.
“O?” He pushed the door open a little bit. “What are you doing in here? Did Raven forget something when she moved--”
He stopped short when he saw her, standing between the bed and the dresser, hands limp at her sides.
“Clarke?”
“Uh,” she said. “Hey.”
He looked back to the door, then back at her again. Back and forth like that a few times. A smile was stuck to the corner of his mouth though, and no matter how many times he whipped his head back and forth he couldn’t shake it off.
“Wait, excuse me miss, what year is it?”
She grabbed a pair of rolled up socks and chucked them at him, missing his head by a long shot, the socks sailing into the living room.
“Shut up,” she said pushing past him to retrieve them. “It hasn’t been that long.”
“Uh, yeah it definitely has.” He was leaning against the doorframe of her bedroom and honestly, she couldn’t even blame him for asking what year it was because suddenly she felt like she was transported back into high school, her best friend’s, nerdy older brother teasing her, trying to seem cooler than he really was, slumped against the wall gazing out at her.
“I’m pretty sure the last time I saw you, you were wearing bright turquoise leggings as pants.”
She blushed at that, because he was probably right. “Everything comes back into style eventually,” she said. “I’m sure there will come a day when I won’t be humiliated to break out those pictures.”
He followed her back into her room, helping her fold and hang clothes wordlessly, silently helpful just like she remembered it. It was a comfort, just like falling back into easy conversation with Octavia had been.
She had liked her friends in Maryland, of course. They were nice and they were smart, and she always had someone to joke around with in class or borrow notes from if she missed a day, but it was never, ever the way it felt with the Blakes. She started to wonder if they were just a special breed of people that she’d never find again.
“Jeez, how long are you planning on staying?” He said after hanging shirt after shirt in the closet beside him.
“Well, until Octavia kicks me out, really.”
He dropped the hanger he was holding, scrambling quickly to pick it up and smacking his head on the bar in the closet.
“Fuck,” he said rubbing his head.
“Are you alright?” Clarke asked, stepping closer to him, but he waved her off with his hand, shaking his head.
“Yeah, no, I’m fine,” he said. “Just surprised, is all. You’re moving here?”
Clarke shuffled around, looking for something to do other than have this conversation with him. Bellamy, the guy who’d seen her in all her bad hair phases, and teased her mercilessly after her first date and taught her how to properly make pancakes and helped her move into her dorm freshman year, who snuck her booze every New Year’s she remembered in high school and her first couple of years in undergrad, while she was on breaks at home.
It was a little embarrassing to suddenly have to come crawling back to her old life, and she didn’t really know how he would take it. He was always a little sensitive about things.
“Well I dropped out of school and I certainly can’t live with my mom after she finds out about that, so yeah, I was thinking I’d just live here.”
She grabbed her margarita and moved back into the kitchen, unsure whether she should down it and pour another or just dump hers down the sink.
She heard a faint, “Wait, what?” come from her bedroom, but before she could answer, the door whipped open and three more people who definitely were also not Octavia came pouring in. They didn’t give her a second glance as they walked right past her and started rifling through the cupboards. well, the two men started rifling through the cupboards and the woman stood off to the side, leaning on the back of the couch watching them.
“Do you think ducks like doritos?” The tall, lanky man shouted, his arm reaching to the back shelf and pulling them out, digging into them as he continued to look for...whatever it was he was looking for.
“I think ducks like bread, Jasper,” the girl from the couch said. “Just grab some bread, and leave some money on the counter for O.”
“Why do I have to leave the money?” he whined.
“Because you already owe Monty a fortune, you may as well knock three bucks off of your debt.”
The guy pulled at his pockets, nothing coming out of them.
“I don’t think I have three bucks. You think she’ll take an IOU?”
Clarke cleared her throat and all three of them stopped what they were doing, looking over at her as if they were seeing her for the first time. The tall one, Jasper, smiled at her as he crunched on more doritos, the sticky orange powder circling his lips and covering the fingers he held up in a wave to her.
“Do you guys...live here?” Clarke asked uncertainly.
Bellamy laughed, coming up behind her. He grabbed the glass from her hand and topped it off with the leftover margarita mix sitting in the blender, taking a small sip before handing it back to her with a wink.
“Clarke,” he said. “Meet Monty, Raven, and Jasper.”
Each of them waved at the call of their name and Clarke waved back, awkwardly to all three of them separately, still wondering what the hell they were doing in an apartment that wasn’t theirs, especially since Octavia wasn’t even there.
“Raven used to live here,” Bellamy continued explaining. “You’re moving into her old room. Monty and Jasper live across the hall. None of them have any concept of boundaries. You’ll get used to them.”
“When did you move in, Clarke?” Monty asked her, breaking the silence that fell after the introduction.
“Well, I’m not actually all moved in yet,” she said. “I just got here a couple of hours ago. Bellamy was helping me unpack.”
“Do you know Octavia?” Jasper asked, but Raven smacked him on the shoulder.
“Duh, she knows her. How else do you think she got in here? Or met Bellamy?”
Clarke laughed, feeling a little light headed, and a little overwhelmed, but mostly...happy. They were weird and it was definitely something she was going to have to get used to if they came by as often as Bellamy was making it seem, but they were nice. They all had a crazy sort of welcoming energy about them, folding her right in alongside them, like it wasn’t weird at all.
“Octavia and I went to high school together,” she said. “We haven’t been great at keeping in touch, but she was the only one I knew in the city, so when I decided to move here, she was the first person I checked with.”
There was an awkward silence, the three of them staring at her, nodding their heads to the beat of her heart beating too loudly in her chest. Too many margaritas, she thought. Bellamy was closer to her, his hand reaching out and steadying her back, even though she wasn’t swaying at all. Eventually Raven broke the silence.
“Cool,” she said pulling more margarita mix out of the freezer. “Move in party?”
***
It was a few hours later, and her stuff was all unpacked and, for the most part--with the exception of every single pair of her socks which were layered on Monty, courtesy of Jasper--put away, neatly, and in places she definitely would be able to find in the morning.
“So,” Bellamy said from the couch, pointing to her. “We still don’t have the story.”
“Yeah,” Monty agreed, hanging upside down on the armchair. “What’s the story, Clarke?”
“The story?”
“You were in med school? Training to become a doctor and all that? Pretty sure the school was in Maryland? Now you’re here?” Bellamy was teasing her, but she knew he really was curious. She’d kind of made a point to avoid ‘the story’ as they’d been unpacking, but it wasn’t like they weren’t going to find out. And they didn’t seem like they’d be the type to judge her for it.
“Yeah, well, turns out you shouldn’t really go to med school unless you actually really want to be a doctor,” she said.
“And you didn’t?” Raven asked her.
“I thought I did, for a bit. I wasn’t bad at it.” She was actually pretty good at it. Hard to be bad at it when your mother was Abby Griffin though, who’d been training you for that kind of life since you could walk. “But it was just...routine. I didn’t actually want it, it was just an easy slot to fall into.”
Bellamy was swirling the dregs of his last drink around in his glass, staring at her.
“Ah, so you decided to come slum it with your old hometown pals?” His voice was light, joking, teasing her. Nothing about the apartment or their life was anything she could compare to slumming it. But, if she knew him well enough, and she thought she did, there was a little hidden question there, wondering why she decided to come to Octavia, and to him. If they were a sort of plan b to her perfectly planned out life.
“You got me,” she winked back. “Decided to come slum it with the only people I could think who would welcome me back unconditionally, and who would make walking out on a life planned for me by someone else feel like anything other than a mistake.”
She was never great at subtlety.
The phone rang from the table next to the couch and Bellamy reached a long arm around to grab it. A second after answering it, he held it out to Clarke.
“For you,” he said. “You sure put that change of address in fast.” He flashed a grin at her as she grabbed the phone from him and walked back into her bedroom.
“Hello?”
“Clarke? Honey, it’s your mom.”
Clarke sighed. She knew this phone call had been coming, she just hadn’t realized she’d be in the middle of the weirdest party she’d ever been a part of, or have so much alcohol churning through her body when it finally happened.
“Hi mom,” she said quietly. “Look I know this all must have come as a shock to you but--”
Her mother cut her off. “I called the school, honey, and this doesn’t have to be it. If you’re struggling with your classes there’s a great tutoring program, and you can get some really excellent hands on learning. And if it’s about the money, then please don’t worry on that front, you know I’m always here to support your education.”
“It’s not the money,” she said, defeated. “And my grades are fine. And I appreciate how hard you worked to put me through school, and I fully intend on paying you back, every cent for med school. It’s just not what I want anymore.”
There was a long silence.
“Well. Clarke, honey. What do you want.”
“I’m not sure,” she said. “I don’t know, it’s hard to explain. I never really considered anything other than your plan. It was a good plan too,” she said, hoping to make her mom feel better about it all, even though she knew it wouldn’t. “But it wasn’t my plan, and I think I just need to work for a while to figure out what that is. Does that make any sense?”
Another long, long pause.
“Call me when you figure that out then, Clarke.” And then the other line was dead.
She clicked the phone off and let it drop next to her on the mattress, deciding to sit there a moment longer to compose herself before she went back out there.
A minute later there was a small knock on her door, and Bellamy came in, a plate of cookies in hand.
“Monty made them earlier,” he said, plopping down next to her and taking a bite out of one. He held the plate out to her and she took one, nibbling slowly. “It is really good to see you again, you know.” His elbow bumped hers.
“Yeah,” she said, smiling. “I missed having someone nerdier than me around.”
“I am not a nerd,” he protested. They sat eating together quietly for a moment before he broke the silence again. “So, confession. I overheard you talking to your mom just now.”
She groaned, flopping down onto her back.
“You think I’m an idiot, right? I’ve never done anything this big, or stupid. I have no idea what I’m going to do.”
“You’re going to figure it out,” he said, confident. “Look, I’ve known you since you were practically a kid. You’re stubborn as hell. And yeah, you’ve been a little spoiled for most of your life, but that doesn’t mean you can’t figure things out on your own. You just need a little practice.”
She opened one eye, peeking out at him. “Really?”
He rolled his eyes. “Really. Now come on,” he stood up from the bed and held his hands out to pull her up. “We’re playing pictionary out there, and I have a victory record against you, that I’d like to maintain.”
“It’s been a long time since we played,” she said, letting him pull her up. “I’ve gotten better over the years.”
“Yeah, well so have I. And I was already amazing, so be prepared for the ass-kicking of the century, Griffin.”
He sauntered out into the living room in front of her. She took a second to take a deep breath and look around her room before she followed him out. She could do this. She could figure this all out.
“We don’t have all day!” she heard him yell, so she ran out, flipping him the finger as she plopped back down next to Raven.
“Okay,” she said. “Ready.”