A/N: I needed a little something to help get me into the holiday mood, and I was missing a little bellarke in my life. Hope you guys enjoy, and happy 21 days until Christmas

Summary: It's the first Christmas since college student Clarke Griffin's dad passed away, and her mother is dead-set on having the perfect Christmas regardless. However, to pull off said "perfect" Christmas, Clarke finds herself trapped in a lie and is forced to bring her scrooge-like, bar-tending co-worker, Bellamy Blake, home for the holidays as her fake boyfriend.

Disclaimer: I own nothing, but a girl can dream (or ask Santa).

[*edited 2/16/16]


The neon sign out front flickered in the window as the young man flipped the switch, signaling that not only was the bar now closed, but that it was damn early into the morning.

Bellamy couldn't help but chuckle as he turned his head, his eyes easily finding his co-worker in the otherwise empty room. "Your eight a.m. is gonna suck," he called out to her as she was busy scrubbing the sticky table tops that were sloshed with beer, and a smirk pulled at his lips as he slipped back to his place behind the bar.

She rolled her eyes at his teasing, groaning when he realized that he was actually right, the bastard. "I can't even argue that because it's true."

Her shoulders drooped as she frowned at the remnants of the complimentary peanuts that littered the floor and lime slices that had been squeezed of all their juice. It was yet another job for her to complete before she was able to clock out.

"Ah, relax. It's not so bad, Princess," her nose wrinkled at the unwelcome nickname, "at least it's Christmas." His tone was mocking as he gestured to the cheesy, over-the-top décor that their boss had insisted upon as soon as the first of December had hit the Washington D.C. area.

"It makes people feel more depressed about what they don't have, which means they drink more." Their boss, Kane, had explained to them when they asked about the excessive use of green and red that offset the cheap golden snowflakes dangling from the ceiling. "And drinking more means they spend more time in my bar, providing the money to pay your paychecks, so stop complaining and use more tinsel."

Kane had thought himself brilliant. Meanwhile, both Clarke and Bellamy cursed the older man's name to the North Pole and back whenever they were stuck cleaning up the flaking material. Not to mention whenever they left the bar they were covered in glitter.

However, Bellamy's mocking backfired as Clarke leaned against the broom in her hands, her eyes taking in the twinkling lights framing the windows held their by scotch tape.

"Yeah," she sighed, gripping the wooden handle tightly as she gave the lights one last lingering look before returning to sweeping. "I guess you're right. The decorations might be a bitch to pick up after, but you can't be upset this close to Christmas time."

"The fuck I can't," came his grumbled reply before he slammed on the shot glasses on the counter in frustration. "The damn tinsel keeps flaking off into the glasses that I have to clean!"

"Don't be such a Grinch, Bellamy." Now it was Clarke's turn to tease, and the man's scowl in her direction only egged her on.

"Whatever," he rolled his eyes. "It's not like you're some poster child for the holiday. Do you even have a tree up in your dorm?"

She scoffed, sweeping the shells and lime remains into the broom pan. "As if I have the time, or the room for that matter." Clarke stood, brushing loose hair away from her face as she dumped the pan's contents into the nearest trashcan-only half full too, which meant she could wait until tomorrow before having to take it out to the dumpster out back.

As she returned the broom to the little storage closet in the back, she thought of Bellamy's comment about the holidays. It was true, Christmas time had the potential to be a little juvenile and, frankly, downright annoying when handled by those who took it to the extreme-such as her mother, for example-but Clarke didn't find the holiday unbearable.

She herself was guilty of curling up with a mug of hot chocolate shaped like a snowman, stirring the drink with a candycane while binge-watching cheesy, cringe worthy Hallmark movies that began the day after Thanksgiving.

Bellamy, on the other hand, might as well be named official King of the Scrooges.

Clarke had made the interesting discovery not long after the decorations had been put into place, and she found him especially Scrooge-like whenever Jingle Bells played over the speakers.

When she returned from the back, Bellamy was busying himself with drying the various-sized glasses that he had served throughout the night. He was so hung up on bartending, and frankly, the blonde couldn't figure out why. While she was merely struggling getting through her sophomore year of college, he was coasting through his fourth year.

However, he seemed to care more about his alcohol concoctions than he did his homework.

Clarke plopped herself down on one of the stools in front of the counter, tightening her ponytail that had come loose over the course of the night. Bellamy eyed her carefully as she leaned over the bar and plucked a few of the recently washed glasses and set them down in front of her.

"You don't have to help me," he grumbled. "This isn't part of your job."

"I know," she shrugged, a sly grin appearing on her face. "Chalk it up to Christmas spirit."

He rolled his eyes, but tossed her outstretched hand one of the rags he kept behind the counter. "You're gonna regret this when you have to get up for class in the morning."

"It's three in the morning and my dorm is ten minutes away, and that's by cab," Clarke explained as she began trying one of the mugs, twirling the blue fabric along the brim on the glass. "On foot it's longer, obviously, but at night I can cut it down to about twenty minutes if I run the whole way."

His tone was dubious, "You run the whole twenty minutes?"

"You'd be surprised what adrenaline can do for you. Stranger Danger and all that jazz."

Bellamy raised a brow, failing to hide his amused smirk. "Stranger Danger?"

"Sounds better than 'kidnapped and forced into a human trafficking ring'. But whatever, my point is that it's already late. Staying an extra couple of minutes to help you won't affect my already shitty start to the school day.

"You're already deeming your morning shitty?"

"I have to get up in," Clarke drew out the word, frowning as she squinted to catch the time on the clock that hung on the wall behind Bellamy's head. She visibly deflated at what the skinny hands told her. "Four hours," she groaned, "so yeah, I think it's fair to prematurely deem my morning shitty."

Bellamy bit the inside of his cheek as he glanced at the few remaining glasses, scowling at the few flecks of sparkling tinsel that had fallen there, then looked to the girl in front of him.

He sighed, his mind made up as he reached over and retrieved the mugs she had taken.

"Come on," he told her before she could protest. "Grab our coats from the back room, would ya?" He saw the way she frowned, a small dip forming between her brows as she cocked her head at him.

He rolled his eyes at her confusion, patting down his pockets to locate his keys, which he then held up to dangle in the girl's face. "I'm driving you home."

She looked surprised. "You don't have to do this-"

"Shut up," he could have laughed at the affronted look on her face, but he settled instead for his usual cocky smirk. "'Chalk it up to Christmas spirit.'"


When her alarm went off roughly three and a half hours later, Clarke decided that she had been one hundred and ten percent in the right to prematurely deemed her morning shitty.

Despite giving herself as extra hour than she normally would to sleep in, Clarke still found herself beyond exhausted as she went through her usual morning routine in a zombie-like state. She could hardly look at herself in the bathroom mirror, and the bright lighting was only partly to blame. Her hair was tangled and matted from the ponytail that she had slept in, and the dark circles under her eyes might as well have been bruises.

In fact, she was so tired that she nearly fell asleep standing up as she went through the mundane process of simply brushing her teeth.

It was December, so obviously it was a stupid idea to go outside with wet hair, but Clarke found that there wasn't much else she could do with her sorry excuse of blonde locks. The girl wasn't usually one to arrive to class in an oversized shirt and sweatpants, but today she decided that her professors would just have to deal with her lack of professionalism, seeing as how it was either lazy clothing or risk running late to class.

As she ran through her dorm trying to shove all of her books and laptop and anything else she would need into her backpack, Clarke wondered for the millionth time why she even put up with the damn bar.

Her mother knew she was working part-time to help pay her way through school, but Abigail Griffin had no idea that her precious daughter was working the night shift at a bar in the middle of town. Clarke was fairly certain her father was rolling over in his grave at the very idea. But, at the end of the day, it was the only place that was hiring, and it paid decently enough.

Though not enough to put up with this shit, she thought irritably to herself as she pulled on a sweatshirt and prayed to the Heavens above that it wasn't snowing today. She could deal with wet hair, but frozen hair would be a deal breaker.

One quick glance at the alarm clock by her bed had Clarke forgetting about the cold as she saw that she was about to be late regardless of all the things she'd skipped in her morning routine.

"Damn damn damn," she muttered, shutting off the light and slamming the door behind her as she took off in a sprint down the hall.

A very, very shitty morning indeed.


Actually, scratch that, it wasn't just a shitty morning.

It was a shitty day.

The only upside had been when Miller, a friend of Bellamy's that had the same eight a.m. as Clarke, unexpectedly handed her a steaming, Styrofoam cup filled with coffee.

"Bell texted me this morning, told me he thought you might need this." The boy had yawned before stuffing his hand into his sweatshirt pocket and pulling out a few containers of creamer and a couple packets of sugar. "He didn't tell me how you took your coffee though, so I grabbed a few of these when I got my own."

"Thanks," Clarke had said, still surprised, and a little shocked, that Bellamy had done this for her.

"No problem," Miller had waved off her thanks, rubbing his eyes as he too was still trying to wake up. "He said something about Christmas spirit, but I'm pretty sure he was just being a smartass."

That had made Clarke grin. "No doubt."

But the thrill of free coffee had soon been overshadowed by the fact that their professor apparently didn't care that it was the last week before the end of the semester. Their final grade wasn't going to be a test or oral exam, as the rest of her professors were doing. Oral exams she could handle, tests she could study for, but no. Their final grade was going to rely on a paper about, "the true meaning of Christmas."

"The fuck?" she heard Miller complain to a guy named Murphy after class as they were walking out. "Who the hell does she think we are-third graders?"

Frankly, Clark had to agree. It was a juvenile and cliche topic, though she figured it'd be easy enough to bullshit her way through in the end.

Raven was going to laugh her ass off when she heard about it, and seeing as how Clarke and Finn were on speaking terms again-though only just-he may even offer a sympathetic wince.

Though, she hoped that when she got the chance to see Finn again she wouldn't be dressed in an oversized shirt and sweatpants. No girl ever wants her ex to see her look anything less than grade-A.

Which, thinking about Finn only set her mood down another two notches below where it already was. When she had first informed her mother about the split-leaving out the part about Finn cheating-her mother had been beside herself with worry over her daughter.

Clarke had taken the news hard, sure, and there had been a couple nights at the bar where she had downed a few of Bellamy's experimental concoctions as she cried into the growing number of shot glasses. Bellamy had seemed concerned but didn't pry, though he did cut her off completely when she finally came clean.

"Drinking isn't going to help you get over him," he had warned, "and drinking away your problems is a bad habit to get into. Trust me."

Clarke had never asked about the "trust me" part of his statement, but she had to admit she was curious.

Now, as she stepped out of the lecture hall and into fresh air, her mood darkened. Not only was it raining, but Finn was coming up the stairs just as she was going down them.

And any hope that she had of sneaking by him were diminished when he caught her eye and waved.

A very, very shitty day, indeed.


The rest of her classes had gone smooth enough, and one teacher was even so kind as to actually email her students a bullet-point list of everything her final would cover.

Though, that was unfortunately the only highlight of Clarke's day.

Besides the coffee, of course.

Later, when she was finally able to take a breath as she returned to her dorm room, her cell went off from somewhere in the depths of her backpack.

Clarke could have cried. All she wanted was to shed her wet clothes-she hadn't known of the rainy forecast, thus consequently was soaked on her walk back from her last class-and get in a few hours sleep before she was due back at work.

She slumped off her backpack, not caring when it went crashing to the floor. Though she was sluggish in her movements, she was still able to locate her phone before the call was sent to voicemail. However, when Clarke saw it was her mother calling, she debated canceling the call anyway.

Clarke loved her mother, but she wasn't in the mood for a half-hour long conversation about nothing.

Her guilt gnawed away at her conscious long enough in the end to where she found herself pressing the "accept" button.

"Hi, mom." The girl grinned into the phone, hoping she sounded more excited than she felt. Her eyes shifted as she gazed longingly at her unmade bed that was practically begging for her to jump in and stay for a while.

"Sweetie!" At the sound of her mother's voice, it felt like some of the weight had been lifted from the girl's shoulders. It really had been a while since their last phone call. "I won't hold you for too long," the blonde rolled her eyes knowingly at the cell phone, seeing as how that's what she always said before Clarke was stuck on the phone for an hour. "But I was calling to make sure you're still coming home for your break."

"Yeah, mom. Wouldn't miss it for the world."

"Good good. I needed to know so that I could start getting things ready around the house, but I won't get the tree until you get here, of course. Also, you prefer ham for Christmas, right? Not turkey? Of course not turkey, you always say you're too sick of it from Thanksgi-"

"Mom," she cut off her mother's rambling. "Honestly, you don't have to do all this. I know you're busy at the hospital right now and-"

"Oh, hush, Clarke. Let me have my fun. Besides, the Jaha's are visiting considering, well," Abby's voice began to fade, and Clarke knew it wasn't due to poor connection.

"Yeah, mom." Clarke gave into temptation and sat down on the edge of her bed, her hand stroking her comforter. "I know."

"Well, I didn't call to upset you before work," her mother bristled, shifting into her doctor's voice as she berated herself. "I'll keep this short."

"You're fine, my shift doesn't start for another two hours." As she said this, however, her head fell against the pillows. Her shift may not start for a few hours, but Clarke wasn't sure how long she could keep her eyes open.

"Well, yours might not, but I'm due to the hospital in a half hour. In fact, I'm on my way out the door right now."

Clarke stiffened. "You're not driving, are you?"

Abby sighed, "Honestly, Clarke. After what's happened to this family, do you really think I would be on my phone behind the wheel right now?"

"No," her voice became small. "I'm sorry."

"Well, anyway," her mother's tone softened as she changed the subject. "Are you bringing anyone home for the holidays?"

"No," Clarke shrugged, before remembering her mother couldn't see her. "Not really."

"Oh." Did her mother sound disappointed? "What about that nice coworker of yours that you said you were dating?"

Shit, Clarke's eyes widened dramatically. Shit, shit, shit.

She'd forgotten all about lying to her mother about dating Bellamy, and the only reason she had said something so stupid was because when she first shared with her mother about Finn, Abby had been torn up over the idea that her daughter had been drastically affected by the end of that relationship.

And, frankly, Clarke had been torn up, but she'd crossed that bridge.

Abby, on the other hand, was insistent on burning the damn bridge to the ground.

"Uh, y-yeah," she stuttered as she pulled self-consciously on her hair while racking her brain. "It must have slipped my mind, what with finals and all." Clarke laughed nervously, hoping her nerves weren't as painfully obvious over the phone. "I'm not sure if Bellamy can make it. I haven't asked yet."

"Well ask, Clarke! It's rude to wait until the last minute. You said you have work in two hours?"

"Yes ma'am." Clarke confirmed, grimacing. She already knew where her mother was going with this.

"Then I expect a call in three. And that call better include whether or not I'm setting an extra place at the dinner table. Understood?"

"Loud and clear, mother. Loud and clear."

Abby let her go soon after that, explaining that she really needed to begin leaving for the hospital.

Frustrated, Clarke dropped the phone beside her and stuffed her face into the pillow, wanting to scream at the very idea of having to ask Bellamy Blake to come home with her for Christmas.

A shitty, shitty existence, indeed.


Second chapter coming soon!