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“I don’t get it,” says Wells, cutting off Clarke’s rant, which is nearing the twenty-minute mark. It’s generous for him. He typically interrupts after five. “I thought this award didn’t matter to you.”
“It doesn’t,” Clarke protests, though the ranting would suggest that’s not strictly true. “The prize is bragging rights. And your name on a plaque in the office. And maybe a small cash prize. I could literally not care less about winning Teacher of the Year for myself.”
It’s true. Teachers are nominated by the staff in the last couple months of Arkadia High’s spring semester, and then voting opens in the nebulous time between the end of exams and the beginning of summer. Just in time to see which teacher brought in the best test scores for the school.
And really, that’s the reason Clarke doesn’t care about winning: because it inevitably falls to whichever teacher has managed to play the bureaucracy game the best over the course of the year. Teachers themselves can’t vote, since they’re eligible for the prize, but administrative staff and students can. Which means the only votes really come from administration, because most years the students care even less than Clarke does.
“You don’t care about winning,” Wells clarifies. “You just care about that math teacher you hate losing.”
“Like you don’t know her name by now,” Clarke scoffs. Even if she hadn’t been ranting about Diana Sydney for the last twenty minutes, she’s mentioned her to Wells once or twice (or twenty times) since she got hired at AHS. As Clarke's roommate, he's often subjected to Clarke venting her frustration, and aside from overly-involved parents and the inefficiency of the school system, her work nemesis is one of the most featured topics of such tirades.
“I know her name,” he grants. “I know her many, many faults. I know that she sucks up to Principal Wallace because his dad is on the school board, and I know that she bullies and manipulates her students, and I know that she takes every opportunity to try to convince the school to cut the arts budget. I know entirely too much about this woman I’ve never met. What I don’t know is why you care whether she wins this meaningless award.”
“I don’t want her to have good things in her life,” Clarke gripes. “And also, Dante Wallace is retiring his seat soon and I’m pretty sure she’s planning to run for it. Being named Teacher of the Year this year could only help her campaign.”
“It’s comforting to know you’re not acting entirely out of spite,” Wells says, clinking his bottle against hers and taking a long drink.
“Only mostly,” Clarke agrees. “I think I’m growing as a person.”
“So what are you going to do about it?”
“Do?”
“Put up or shut up, Griffin. I’m assuming the voting doesn’t work like Survivor?”
“I can’t vote against her, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Then either nominate someone else, or stop whining to me about it.”
He has a point. It hadn’t occurred to Clarke that she wasn’t yet resigned to Diana Sydney’s reign of terror. Once she’s realized that, she knows that she doesn’t just want to challenge Diana; she wants to decimate her.
It’s a big job, and one she wouldn’t just do for anyone. One she wouldn’t just do out of spite. If she’s going to do this, she wants the winner to be someone who honestly deserves the title. Someone who goes above and beyond for their students, who cares with every fiber of their being. And while she has many coworkers who may fit that bill, there’s only one she’d go to such lengths for.
She’s going to get Bellamy Blake named Ark High’s Teacher of the Year.
* * *
“When did Teacher of the Year become something we care about?” Monty asks, skeptical.
“When Clarke overheard Diana Sydney bragging about how she’s got it on lock this year,” Miller says. “She’s probably right, too. I know some of her AP kids from the fall play, and they’re intense. I bet her test scores are through the roof this year.”
“And Diana Sydney hates all things good in the world, so therefore we hate her,” Lincoln adds, and Miller raises a glass. Lincoln teaches French, which isn’t strictly in the arts department but is sometimes lumped with Clarke and Miller’s team under the umbrella of ‘electives,’ so Clarke is pretty sure that he and Miller will join her crusade out of similar feelings of spite.
He’s also dating Bellamy’s sister, so even if he didn’t hate Sydney he’d do it because he likes Octavia.
“Hate is a strong word,” Monty hedges. Clarke isn’t sure Monty has ever hated anyone.
“It’s like punking two birds with one stone,” says Raven. “As long as I don’t have to commit too much time, I’m in.”
“That’s the spirit,” Wells teases.
He’s got her bad leg propped up in his lap and he’s been absentmindedly massaging the muscles just above her knee– where Clarke knows Raven aches the most– for long enough Clarke is surprised Raven hasn’t stopped him yet. She’s either in pain or coming to terms with getting close to Wells. Clarke makes a mental note to figure out which.
“I have my priorities straight,” Raven agrees.
“I can get behind that way of thinking,” says Monty. “Effort relative to interest.”
“Honestly, I don’t think you’ll have to get that invested,” Clarke admits. “All we have to do is get students to vote. Between him and Sydney, who do you think they’ll pick?”
“That’s tough,” Raven muses, scratching her chin in mock thought. “The hot history teacher who coaches basketball and sews theater costumes and offers extra help sessions in addition to actually teaching the material? Or the math teacher every student actively avoids?”
“I heard a rumor last year that her microwave clock was stuck on 666 for a whole class period because she’s close personal friends with the devil,” Lincoln says mildly, and Miller nearly spits beer across the room. “I’m not saying I believe it, but I’m also not ruling it out.”
“So we just… what? Set aside class time for students to vote?” Raven asks.
“Yeah,” Clarke shrugs. “If you feel like it, you can ask teachers in your department to do the same. If you think they’d be on our side.”
“And maybe don’t tell Bellamy,” Monty adds, thoughtful. “He’d be annoyed and try to find some way to stop us.”
“Stubborn asshole.”
“Sure,” says Raven. “But he’s our kind of stubborn asshole. And us stubborn assholes are going to make sure he wins.”
* * *
“You’re here late.”
Clarke jumps and hits her head on the shelf just above her. She’s shoulders-deep into one of the supply cabinets in her classroom and school has been out for hours. She can’t be blamed for getting a little startled.
“Ouch,” she mutters, extracting herself to find Bellamy leaning against the doorframe.
“Sorry about that. You okay?”
“Fine,” she tells him, smiling weakly. He’s got a gym bag slung over one shoulder, t-shirt and shaggy hair sticking to his skin with sweat. He returns her smile and it’s really unfair, how attractive he is. Objectively. In the way that friends notice. “Just wasn’t expecting any visitors today.”
“I was heading out to my car and saw that your light was still on.”
Clarke smiles at the obvious lie. The route between the gym and the parking lot wouldn’t take him anywhere in the vicinity of her classroom, which means he’d intentionally come looking for her.
“From the opposite side of the building? Did you use your x-ray vision?”
He ducks his head but she can still see the flash of his smile.
“Alright, maybe I was hoping I’d find you here. You heading out soon, or you staying a while longer?”
“Heading out,” Clarke decides, checking the clock on her wall. “How’s the team looking, Coach?”
“They’re getting there,” he sighs, stretching. Clarke tries very hard not to objectify people, but he doesn’t always make it easy on her. “They’re relying too much on Micah. I know he’s good, and he knows it, and the scouts know it, but if he doesn’t get his history grades up he doesn’t get to play.”
“Maybe you should just bribe the teacher,” Clarke teases. “I’ve heard he’s very susceptible to Pad Thai and Sam Adams.”
“That’s not going to work as well for my students as it does for you. Speaking of, I was planning to grab some takeout on the way home. You want to come over and heckle Iron Chef contestants while I try to get some report cards done?”
“You know me so well.”
“Making fun of people who can actually cook while eating food you did not prepare for yourself is one of your favorite pastimes.”
Clarke doesn’t know how to tell him that almost any activity would become her favorite pastime if he’s at her side. She’s working on figuring out how to tell him.
When they get to his apartment, he ducks into his room to rinse off quickly and change into his pajamas, emerging damp and comfortable just as the food arrives. If, when he settles next to her on his couch, she tips slightly toward him, that’s just because of the way his cushions tilt. And because he’s holding the spring rolls that they’re splitting. It has absolutely nothing to do with the smell of his soap or the way her skin tingles when his arm brushes hers.
He’d already been on the staff at Ark High when she got hired, but with only a couple of years under his belt, they’d both had to go through the new teacher mentoring program. They’d bonded over sarcastically muttered comments and rolled eyes whenever Marcus– their shared mentor teacher– had crossed the line between bestowing wisdom and reciting corny cliches. That had quickly transitioned into finding each other at staff parties, making up drinking games with Monty from the computer lab and Raven from physics, and even spending time together outside of work. Like tonight.
“I need to start those report cards,” he sighs, once they’ve finished the food and pushed the empty cartons and plates to the side.
“You haven’t started yet?” Clarke asks, surprised. He groans and drops his head to her shoulder. She tries to ignore the way her heart is racing as he nuzzles into her until she starts scratching his scalp gently.
“I’ve been putting it off because I know I’ll have to fail a few of them,” he admits. “I know they have another quarter to get their grades up, but–”
“Third quarter grades don’t even show up on their transcripts,” Clarke points out. “You’re not ruining their futures.”
“How do you know? Maybe I’m just a bad teacher. That wouldn’t show up on their transcripts either.”
“I know you,” she scoffs. “I’ve seen your lesson plans and listened to you pinpoint where each of your students is struggling. You’re doing everything you possibly can for them, Bell. You’re not a bad teacher.”
“I know that,” he says, picking his head up.
“Do you?”
“I guess so. They’ve come a long way since the beginning of the semester, even the ones who are failing.”
“See? You’re not a bad teacher. You’re doing your best with what you’re given.”
As one of the newer teachers in his department, Bellamy gets stuck with the classes no one else wants to teach: the low-performing students, the delinquents with behavioral issues and spotty attendance records, the kids who aren’t old enough yet to drop out and aren’t interested in learning the material. He has some good ones too, genuinely hard-working kids to whom learning doesn’t come easily or naturally, but much of his job this year has simply been motivating his students to want to do well.
And he does a great job. He told Clarke once that he used to be that undesirable student until a history teacher refused to give up on him, refused to let him drop out after his mom died and he and Octavia got shuffled into foster care. He handles them incredibly, and for him to think that he’s failing them is something Clarke will absolutely not put up with.
“If you say so.”
“I do,” she says firmly. “Besides, we’re way too sober for you to be this gloomy. I’m gonna grab a beer. You want one?”
“One of my own beers? From my fridge? Sure, if you’re feeling generous.”
“Don’t say I never gave you anything.”
He finally does get the report cards started, verbally processing each grade he doles out. The more she listens to him talk about his classes, the more certain she feels that he ought to win Teacher of the Year.
She’s also increasingly unable to deny that she’s head over heels for him, but first things first.
* * *
“You know, this might actually work,” says Miller, carefully painting within the lines Clarke drew for him. She’s not sure how he’d pull off the spring musical if he were any less likable– he’s got Raven constructing sets for Clarke and Lincoln to paint, Bellamy sewing costumes, and Monty overseeing the students running tech.
“What, the sets? That hurts, Miller. I’m still an artist. The whole ‘those who can’t do, teach’ thing is a myth.”
“I meant Teacher of the Year,” he says, brow furrowed in concentration as he maneuvers the brush carefully around the edge of the set. “I wasn’t sure students would vote just because I gave them class time to do so, but at least half of them did. I figured you just wanted to mess with Blake, get him on the ballot. I didn’t think he’d actually win.”
“This is a Clarke plan,” Raven reminds him. “Have you met Clarke?”
“It also concerns Bellamy,” says Lincoln. “And I’ll repeat, have you met Clarke?”
“Shut up,” Clarke grumbles without heat. Bellamy could arrive any minute, and she still wants it to be a secret. As far as she can tell, he doesn’t even know he’s up for the award yet. It really isn’t something many teachers pay attention to. Everyone has bigger things to think about this time of year.
“I don’t know why you insist on pretending you don’t have a thing for him,” Raven says, casual as anything. Clarke grips her paintbrush tighter and wishes desperately there were students around to get in the way of this conversation. But the cast has music rehearsal in the band room this afternoon, so it’s just the four of them until Bellamy finishes up his tutoring session.
“I’m not actually working that hard to hide it.” It is, apparently, pretty obvious how she feels about Bellamy, at least to her friends, so she doesn’t see much point in denying it.
“If he doesn’t pick up on it after this whole award thing, you’ll probably have to spell it out for him,” says Lincoln.
“Blake is pretty thick,” Miller snorts. “You’ll probably have to spell it out for him anyway.”
“Who’s spelling what out for me?” Bellamy calls from the back of the auditorium, his arms full of fabric.
“Miller’s just annoyed he’s been reduced to Kindergarten art levels,” Clarke covers quickly, not even flinching when Miller flicks paint her way. She can already feel dried paint on her arms and neck, and she’s wearing a smock. Getting a few more drops flung her way really won’t make much of a difference.
“At least I can stay in the lines,” Miller says, eyes drifting pointedly to Bellamy.
“I maintain that Clarke’s directions were ambiguous, and I was doing what I thought I was told.”
“Dude, why would we want the mountain to be the same color as the sky?”
“You know, I don’t have to put up with this,” Bellamy says, finally reaching the stage and dumping the fabric near Clarke before hoisting himself up to sit next to her. “I can leave anytime I want, and then you’d have to pay someone to do a worse job than I would on these costumes.”
“As long as you stay away from my backdrops, I appreciate the hell out of you.”
“That’s sweet,” Lincoln deadpans.
“But unnecessary,” Raven adds. “We all know Blake would never let his students wear shoddy and potentially anachronistic costumes. It’s an empty threat.”
“I need better friends,” Bellamy stage-whispers to Clarke, who feels the corners of her mouth turn up.
“I was just thinking the same thing.”
“Oh, please. You love us,” Raven says, and Bellamy breaks eye contact with Clarke to smirk at her.
“You’re alright, Reyes. But, as the only one who hasn’t made fun of me today, Clarke is my favorite.”
And when Raven snorts and mutters, “Yeah, and the Pope is Catholic. Tell us something we don’t know,” under her breath to Lincoln, both Clarke and Bellamy pretend they can’t hear her.
* * *
Between the musical, grading finals, and life in general being busier as summer approaches, Clarke almost forgets about Teacher of the Year. She remembers to get her class to vote, and talks the other arts teachers into doing the same, but then she lets it slip her mind. It’s not until the end-of-year assembly, when the winner will be announced, that she remembers.
“What’s up?” Bellamy whispers when she startles with the realization and starts surreptitiously looking around for Diana Sydney. This whole thing may have become a way to give Bellamy the recognition he deserves, but it began with Clarke’s spite and she doesn’t want to miss a perfectly good opportunity to feel smug.
“Nothing,” Clarke says, turning to look at him.
With his head bowed toward hers, his face is suddenly very close and it takes her breath away for a moment. She forces herself to look away from his lips, but his gaze is just as wrecking, possibly even more intense, and it’s only the knowledge that her fourth period class is sitting right behind them that stops her from closing the distance between them. “I just remembered something,” she stammers.
“What?” He asks, and Clarke isn’t sure whether he lost track of their conversation or if he’s asking what she remembered, but it doesn’t matter because Principal Wallace is calling his name with a tone of slight disdain and Bellamy’s students are going nuts around them and Clarke has to nudge him out into the aisle to get him up onstage.
He shakes Cage’s hand– an act that has both men internally cringing, and Raven cackling a few rows behind Clarke– with a look of disbelief affixed to his face.
“I didn’t even know I was nominated,” he whispers to Clarke when he gets back to his seat, and she just grins and bumps her shoulder against his. She completely forgot to find Diana's face, but it was a great moment nonetheless. Totally worth it.
“Tangible proof that you’re not a bad teacher,” she tells him, watching the back of his neck turn red under his curls. “I don’t ever want to hear anything to the contrary again.”
“No promises.”
He still looks awed when they part ways for last period, and the memory of his expression keeps her smiling for the rest of the day.
She’s entering final grades in her computer when she hears someone clear their throat from her doorway. When she looks up, she’s unsurprised to see Bellamy watching her with an amused look on his face.
“Oh. Hey. I didn’t see you there.”
“Probably too busy coming up with your next conspiracy,” he says lightly. Her hands freeze over her keyboard.
“What?”
“I talked to Miller,” he says, stepping further into the room, hands in his pockets. “He outed you all. Told me I have you specifically to thank.”
“I really didn’t do that much. I just gave the students an obvious choice.”
“Still.” He leans up against the edge of her desk so he’s not towering over her. “I’ve recently come into a small cash prize, so you should let me take you out for dinner as a thank you.”
Clarke leans back in her chair and bites her lip, considering her next words carefully.
“I don’t think so,” she says, nudging his leg with her knee when his face falls.
“No, yeah, I mean–”
“If you’re taking me to dinner, I don’t want it to be a thank you,” she continues, her stomach unknotting. He’s so nervous, she doesn’t feel like she needs to be. “I want it to be a date.”
“Oh.”
He blinks, twists around to look at the doorway and make sure the hall outside is empty, and then he’s leaning in to slide one hand into her hair and pull her toward him. By the time his lips land on hers she’s laughing into the kiss because it's a little sloppy with enthusiasm, endearing and sweet. And she’s happy.
“I’ll take that as a yes?” She teases when he pulls away. It’s a little soon for her liking, but they are still at work. There could be students around. Or worse, Principal Wallace.
“That depends,” he says, and his grin is just as goofy and unrestrained as she’s sure hers is. "Do we have to go out for dinner?”
“I’m open to alternate suggestions.”
“Not to brag, but my couch is really great for eating Thai food on.”
“And making out, I bet.”
He holds a hand out, his grin widening, if possible.
“One way to find out.”
* * *
Raven accosts her on her way into the building on Monday.
“Did I just see you get out of Blake’s car?”
“Carpooling is great for the environment,” Clarke says, smirking when Raven rolls her eyes. She spent most of the weekend at Bellamy’s, save for the few moments she was grabbing a change of clothes from her own apartment. She smells like his soap, and every time she notices, it makes her smile.
“Please,” Raven scoffs. “I guess you finally spelled it out for him.”
“I”m more competent than you give me credit for,” Bellamy says, sidling up between them so that the back of his hand brushes Clarke’s every time they take a step. She feels giddy with how much she likes him, but then, she spends most of her time around teenagers. Something was bound to rub off. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m hopeless as a human being, but I’m a good teacher. I even have an award in case anybody forgets it.”
Clarke laces her fingers with his as she listens to them bicker good-naturedly. He has the award, it’s true. But he also has her around to remind him how great he is whenever he forgets.
It’s a big job, and not one she’d take on for just anyone. But she’d do it for him, and that’s all that matters.