Catch Me If You Can (Come and Hold My Hand)

by litvirg

August, 1990. "This was stupid, she thought. She didn't know why she sounded so hopeful that this stranger, this man who could be anything, a murderer or a criminal, or crazy, would nod his head and say yes he was going somewhere and yes she could come along." Bellarke Roadtrip AU

1. Chapter 1

August, 1990.

The clicking of the turn signal was all he could hear. Click click. Click click. Click click. Back home, it said. Over and over and over. Back home, back home back home.

That was the problem though. He didn't want to go back home.

Not to that empty house. Not to that town of people staring as he walked down to the shop for work. Not to a medicine cabinet full of bottles and pills that did nothing, or a dumpster down the corner full of needles. Not to any of it.

Back home, back home, back home.

Click click. Click click. Click click.

The light turned green, but his foot was frozen on the brake. He couldn't move, he couldn't lift his foot. It was stuck. As soon as he lifted his foot he'd be driving back to that for sale sign, back to a dead end job and a dead end life, with no one around to give enough of a shit if he ever made it out.

The blare of a horn sounded from behind him, but he couldn't lift his foot. Not if he lifted it and had to turn left. A car whipped around him, the flash of a hand, sticking a finger up at him whizzing by as they drove past.

There was a lump in his throat. There was no point. No point in going back to Ark. No point in going back to that house, no point in going back to that job. No point in any of it.

He flicked the turn signal off. A little puff of air slipped out of his mouth and he wasn't even sure if it was a sigh of relief or anticipation or just a slip of air getting past on accident.

He lifted his foot and went straight.

Two Hours Earlier

"Jesus, Octavia," he said, heaving a box up the last flight of stairs. "Did you pack everything you've ever owned?"

Octavia snorted. "Yeah, like that's a lot."

The joke rolled off her tongue so easily that it shouldn't have bothered him, but it prickled at the back of his neck. He bit his lip. It wasn't his fault, he knew that. He'd done the best he could. Ten hours a day with his hands inside a car's engine, staining his hands an even deeper shade of brown was proof enough of that.

It was worth it, because it got Octavia to school. She was starting college, she was going to get a degree. She wasn't even stuck at Ark Community College, like he'd been, for that one semester before their mom got sick. He'd gotten her there. State School. Not community college. A real, full, live-in college, with dorms and dining halls and residence programs and connections.

The hallway was dingy though. Not as pristine as he'd imagined it, and the stairwell smelled a lot more like mold than the pamphlet had advertised and he tried to focus on Octavia's smile, instead of the weird stains in the carpets as they walked toward her room, because she couldn't believe she was there, and if he just focused on how happy she was then he wouldn't have to focus on remembering all those extra shifts he turned down and where she could be if he hadn't.

"You've got the look on your face," Octavia said, turning to him and taking the box out of his hands once they reached her room.

"What look?"

Octavia just raised her eyebrow at him and shook her head. "This is good, Bell. I swear. I'm lucky you did what you did for me to get here."

He looked around as she started unpacking her boxes. Her roommate, a girl named Echo according to the name on the door, hadn't gotten there yet so Octavia's boxes were scattered all over both sides of the room. She had old posters draped across her desk. the edges tattered from where she had peeled them off her bedroom wall at home before rolling them up in a rubber band and packing them into Bellamy's truck.

There were already clothes spilling out of three of the boxes, sneakers and ripped jeans and oversized flannels that she had constantly been bringing home after thrift shopping with her friends, pretending, he knew, that they just thought it was fun, instead of admitting they didn't want to ask him to drive them twenty minutes out to the mall a few towns over where they wouldn't be able to afford anything anyway. She had one small box of books, most given to her from Bellamy, and he couldn't help the smile that crept up on his face when he saw she'd labeled that box "fragile" in a black permanent marker.

"So," he said, folding up some of her clothes and putting them in her dresser. "What's the plan for after you unpack? Want to grab some lunch?"

"Actually," Octavia said turning toward him, a guilty look on her face. "There's a student meet-up in the Union. Something about clubs and stuff I think." She hesitated, waiting for Bellamy to jump in, but he just nodded at her.

"I mean,"she hurried on. "It's probably going to be super lame and awkward, but I don't know it might be a good idea to try and meet some people and see what it's like."

Bellamy smiled and pulled her into a hug. "You don't have to explain yourself, O," he assured her, messing up her hair for good measure. She swatted his hand away. "This is your first day of college, you get to choose what to do. I can stop at that burrito place on the way home anyway."

Octavia frowned at him.

"Why are you even going home?"

Bellamy huffed out a laugh. "You're kidding right?" She didn't say anything. "O, I've got a job. And the house. It doesn't all go away just because you do."

He winced at his wording, but she didn't react to the harshness of his words, just continued to stare at him, brows furrowed.

"You're selling the house. Everything's packed up. And you could do so much better than that job, Bell-"

"There's nothing wrong with my job. If you forgot, it's what got you here in the first place."

He felt his neck flush and a wave of embarrassment washed over him. He didn't know why he was defending his job, not to Octavia. He worked awful hours, barely got any sleep, and could hardly scrape together enough money to feed them, pay their living expenses, and still file away some to put toward her school. He never planned on staying there so long, but he couldn't help feel his wall throw itself back up as she repeated everything he'd ever heard.

"You're better than that job. You could do whatever you wanted, you could go back to school, get out of Ark. Just get out of Ark, Bell."

He slammed another box onto her bed. "I'm sorry life in Ark was so terrible for you but I can't just pick up and leave. You want to go to school? You need money to pay for it."

"This year is paid for," she protested weakly.

"Yeah and what about next year?" He watched as her face turned red. "You think you'll be able to make enough for another year at school with a summer job?"

"God, you're so afraid that you won't even listen when I say exactly what you've been thinking since you graduated high school!" Octavia's voice was raised. Loud. He was sure anyone in her hallway, anyone in their rooms down at the end of the hall could hear them.

"Afraid?"

"You're afraid that you're never going to be anything," she said, poking his chest. "Any you know what? You're right. Not if you stay in Ark. And if you go back, when you could move on, you're never going to leave."

He shook his head. It wasn't that simple. She never had to do what he did so she didn't get it. Didn't get that you couldn't just pack up and leave, not when people were counting on you. Not when you had to make sure the shit wasn't going to hit the fan again. It was different for him. He couldn't just walk away from it all.

"Just give yourself a chance," she whispered to him. She reached out to touch his arm, but he stepped back, shrugging her off. "It's not like you have to worry about paying for mom's medicine anymore-"

"I need some air," he said. "I'll be right back."

She was right.

He knew she was right. He'd never be anything in Ark. He never was anything in Ark. He was the kid with the mom nobody would walk near, nobody would hire, nobody would talk to. He was the kid who knew the sheriff by name because he'd been in the station so much as a kid, he was the kid who fought so often in the schoolyard, they stopped letting him through the doors. He was the kid who had tried to go to college, but couldn't get out of his stupid town, who'd tried to settle for community college because it was the only option he had, the who got his only option taken away from him, and had to sell his books and drop his classes, knock on doors and beg for work.

That's all he was in Ark. That's all he'd ever be.

So he wouldn't go back. Not yet. He'd figure out some other place, he'd find some other job and hope that maybe he'd be some other guy when he was in some other place. Hope that it was Ark that was making him who he was, that he wouldn't be the same greasy nobody a few towns over.

He missed the second exit that could take him back home.

He kept driving.

The sky was getting darker as he just drove straight and straight and straight. He didn't think about where he was, he didn't bother to check a map or stop for food or pull off at all. He just drove because Ark was behind him and maybe it was fine to be nobody in a truck on the highway, but he wasn't going to go back to being nobody in Ark.

He didn't even think about pulling off the highway until the gas meter started dipping dangerously low. He turned off onto the next exit without even looking at whatever town he was driving into and stopped at the nearest gas station.

There was a diner not too far down the road from the gas station, so he parked his car and walked over to it, the warm breeze that always came in August washing over his skin until he pulled his jacket close around him.

It wasn't exactly the dinner he had planned. He'd been planning on stopping for a quick burrito before getting back home and making sure all the boxes were packed up, and then going to bed early. He'd never liked being in that house alone.

There was a payphone just outside the diner. It was in the corner of his eye while he ate his burger and drank his milkshake. It was niggling at the back of his brain. He should call Octavia. She was expecting him to call when he got home. He should have been home hours ago, she was probably worried. He should call her. Let her know what was going on.

But what the fuck was going on?

He shoved the last bit of his burger into his mouth and dropped some money on the table. Stepping outside he glanced at the payphone. His hand was in his pocket, feeling around for the few quarters he knew were jangling around in there. His thumb brushed over one, but he stepped away.

Tomorrow, he thought. I'll call her tomorrow. When I figure it out.

He shoved his other hand into his pocket and headed down the street back toward his truck at the station. She was probably busy, anyway.

Two Weeks Earlier

Clarke heard a pounding on her door.

"Hey, Griffin!" she heard her roommate, Anya, yell from the other side. "Turn that shit down, or I'm in there and smashing your stereo!"

She felt Raven giggle into her side.

"What?" she joked back. "I'm sorry I couldn't hear you!" She reached over, across Raven to the desk the stereo was sitting on and turned the knob to the right, cranking the music up. Raven swatted her arm away, shifting so that one of her own arms was across Clarke's stomach, boxing her in beneath her.

"You know she's going to kill you one of these days right?" Raven said. She leaned down, trailing her lips from Clarke's neck to her collar bone. "And I mean really kill you. She totally seems the type who could finish the job."

Clarke ignored her, leaning back into the pillow instead, and pulling Raven's hands away from her hair and down toward her ribcage.

Two 's how long they had left. To fuck around, and mess around, and go out all night. Two weeks she had left to paint whatever she wanted, whoever she wanted, to blast her music as loud as she could, to sit on the couch and watch movies, or sit at the park and read books. To go out with Raven and come home with Raven. Two weeks left to actually feel her age. Then, back to school. Back to biology textbooks and labs and hours every night in the library. Two weeks.

She closed her eyes as she heard Anya's footsteps pound back toward her room. There was another knock on the door, softer than before, but Clarke ignored it. She heard the muffled sound of Anya calling out to her from behind the door, but she couldn't make out what she was saying.

Raven paused, lifting away from her, sitting back on her feet. Anya knocked again.

"Alright, alright," Clarke said, reaching her hand out toward the stereo again. "I'm turning it down!"

The handle to her door turned and Anya stepped in, holding their phone in her hands. One hand was covering the receiver, as she held it out to Clarke.

"Clarke," she said. "It's your mom. She didn't tell me anything, but it sounds serious."

Clarke rolled her eyes and took the phone from Anya. It was probably just her mom calling her to make sure she had everything set for her next semester. She saw Raven reach over to the side of the bed and pull a tank top on over her bra.

"Hi, mom," Clarke said. "What's up?"

"Clarke, honey," she heard her mom say. She was so quiet, and her voice was shaking. Clarke felt like she had to press the phone into her ear, hard, just to be able to hear her. "Clarke it's your dad…"

They had a table full of casseroles. Any kind of casserole, every kind of casserole there was, they had it on their table. Clarke didn't understand that tradition. With every ring of the doorbell, she had to pull open the door to see another one of her old neighbors, standing there, frown in place and casserole dish in hand.

"I'm so sorry, sweetheart," they all said. Then they'd reach a hand up to brush along her cheek, as if it helped at all. "Here you go," they'd say, as they would hand the casserole over. "Incase your mother can't bring herself to cook tonight. Should last a couple of days, makes good leftovers."

With the number of casseroles they had, Clarke was pretty sure they'd be fine for a few weeks. If they survived on casserole alone.

But she'd nod and say thank you, and step aside, letting them wander into the living room where her mom sat with all the other neighbors who had not long before handed Clarke their own casserole.

"Old family recipe," some would say. "Helps a hurting heart."

"So," she heard her mom's voice come up next to her. "This is where you've been hiding."

Clarke glanced up sheepishly at her mom. She was down on the ground, her back up against the washing machine, her feet tucked under herself.

Her mom looked tired. Her hair was woven into a braid that had gotten looser and looser throughout the day, strands of wispy hair flying out from it in every direction. Her hands were clasped together in front of her, and she had great big bags under her eyes.

"Want to hide out with me for a bit?" Clarke asked instead of explaining herself. Her mom knew her, knew that she could only last so long in a room full of people telling her over and over and over again how wonderful a person her father was, as if she'd forgotten, how lucky she was to have had him as a dad, as if she didn't know. As if that wasn't the reason it all hurt so much. As if the thought of never being able to see him or call him up again, of never being able to just be his daughter wasn't what was making her lie in bed every night not able to sleep, her head aching, her body exhausted, but her mind reminding her over and over and over he's gone, he's gone, he's gone.

Her mom slid down next to her, her legs spread out in front of them. She watched as Abby toed off the heels on her feet, revealing red marks around her toes and heels, but Abby tucked her feet under her thighs, sitting cross-legged beside Clarke. Clarke saw her mother's hand twitch at her side, about to reach out for her own, but she shifted and her mother rubbed her hand down her leg instead.

"I hadn't even thought about laundry," her mother said after a beat of silence.

Clarke looked over, confused. "What?"

"Doing laundry," Abby said. "I won't have to do it as often now. Now that there's only half to do."

Clarke reached her hand over and covered her's mothers on her knee. All week they'd been thinking of little things like that. No more notes on the fridge when they got home at different times. They could use Jake's favorite mug now. Abby could take up the whole sink with her bath products without Jake knocking them over or accidentally using her eye cream as toothpaste.

"What are we going to do with his old clothes?" Clarke asked. "I mean, what do you do with someone's clothes after they've…" She couldn't finish the sentence.

Her mom didn't answer her, didn't even look over, just squeezed her hand a little tighter.

"I should get back out there," she said. Abby made to stand up, but Clarke stopped her, pulling her in for a small hug. It was the first time either of them had thought to do it all day. Abby pulled back, her eyes a little brighter, but a little wetter than before. She pressed a kiss onto the top of Clarke's head and stood up.

"I'll be out...soon," Clarke said as her mom made her way through the door. If her mom could walk out and face the casserole, then so could she.

The laundry was more than they had talked at once the whole time she'd been home. She'd gotten there and been overwhelmed by a flurry of her mom's friends who were lovely and who meant well but who had seemed to forget that Abby losing her husband also meant that Clarke had lost her father. Then it was the day of thirty casseroles and the week of pies that followed.

They spent a lot of the time walking around the house trying not to look at things that reminded them of Jake, but trying not to let the other one see that they were trying not to look at things that reminded them of Jake. There'd be moments where one of them would pick up his hat or one of his books, or the apron he bought Clarke as a joke and forget for just a moment, until it came back to them, and then all they'd say was a soft "oh," before putting back where it had been sitting and remembering not to glance that way the next time they were in the room.

When the end of the two weeks came, Clarke started packing up her bags. She felt hollow, like coming home had just made things worse, but every time she thought of walking back into her apartment, of going back to school, sitting in class and the library, eating in the union, calling home between classes to just her mom, she felt like all she wanted to do was jump into her old bed and pull the covers over her. Never leave, wait for her mom to pull the covers off and tell her to get up.

But she wouldn't. Abby would let her stay, now, even when she'd always pushed Clarke to go for more before. So Clarke would stay under the covers, and Abby would stay there beside her.

They couldn't do that. So Clarke packed.

"Maybe you shouldn't go back to school," Abby said, from her doorway. "Maybe it's too soon."

Clarke felt her eyes prickle. The whole time she'd been home, they'd barely said anything because neither of them could figure out what to say. And now when she finally could, Abby was just confusing her more.

She wanted to stay. She wanted to hide away in this house with the feeling of him, the memory of him all around her. Where she could imagine she could hear him in his office or down the hall in his bedroom. Where she could leave the TV on when she went to grab something to eat from the kitchen and pretend she could hear him yelling at the screen. Where the sounds of cars outside could be his, pulling into the driveway. Where he was everywhere.

But she was drowning in the house, with him almost all around. His memory was flooding it and if she stayed she'd just be staying to cling to him, his ghost, and she'd never get anything done. She'd live in those two weeks forever, and her dad wasn't angry at her a lot in her life, but he'd be furious if she let herself waste away like that.

"If I don't leave now, I don't know if I will," Clarke said, quietly.

Abby came up behind her and wrapped her arms around her. "Your dad would be proud of you, you know. He was proud of you. He'd be proud of whatever you did."

Clarke reached around behind her to pull her mom close. Everything felt far away. She breathed in deep.

"I know," she said. "He said that all the time."

Her mom pulled away and wiped at a tear before it fell.

"Well," she said. "Okay then. If you're ready, I can be ready too."

"Mom, you don't have to…" she trailed off when Abby shook her head. It was easier not to talk about it. "Maybe you could go somewhere for a while. A trip or something. Go see some friends."

Abby just shook her head again and Clarke saw tears welling in her eyes, and she wished she hadn't said anything at all. Abby lifted her hands as her head swayed back and forth and Clarke got it. She couldn't leave the house. Not yet, not while he was still around. She gave her mom a small nod, and reached out to squeeze her hand.

"I'll drive you to the bus station. We can grab some food on the way," she told Clarke.

Clarke nodded, grabbing her bag. She took a look around her room to make sure she hadn't forgotten anything and then, with the flick of the light switch followed her mom down the stairs.

Her mom had waited until she watched her get on a bus before she drove away. She waited until Clarke sat down by the window and waved to her before she even got back into her car.

Clarke rested her head against the window before they started moving and let out a breath.

It was fine. She was going to go back to her apartment, she was going to unpack, and she was going to get ready to go back to school. It was fine. She was fine. Her dad would want her to be fine so she was going to be fine.

She was fine.

She reached up and grabbed his sleeve, tugging him away from the man he stood talking to, toward a wall, splattered with pictures.

"C'mon," she whispered. She wasn't sure why she was whispering, but the big white walls and muted suits of the men around her seemed to create a vacuum, where no sound could get in, and she was afraid that if she talked above a whisper then all the frames along the wall would shatter or the walls would crack, something, something would break, she could feel it.

Her dad couldn't though, she was guessing, as he let out a booming laugh behind her, letting her pull him away from the man with nothing more than a "Sorry, Steve, gotta go," and a quick wave.

"Pick me up," she said when she stopped in front of the great wall, full of frames, black and white images filling it from floor to ceiling. Her dad hoisted her up, putting her on top of his shoulders with a grunt. She teetered, a bit too big to stay steady on his shoulders anymore.

"I like that one," she said, finger wagging in front of a few separate frames.

"Which one?" her dad asked. He whipped his head back and forth. "Poke it, I won't tell."

Clarke leaned forward, reaching her finger out toward the frame until it touched the black corner, a smudge of oils staying behind when she pulled away.

"That one," she said. "It reminds me of the one you gave mom."

They walked like that through the rest of the gallery, Clarke swaying unsteadily atop Jake's shoulders, while he wandered through the halls, stopping and starting in front of different pictures, new walls filled with new images that Clarke liked but didn't quite understand. There would be things like broken glasses on tables that her dad would stand there and study for twice as long as the photographs of bridges and lakes and she didn't want to ask why because then her dad would know that she wasn't thinking like he was thinking.

So she'd rest her chin on his head, and tilt it to the side, just like he was and she'd look at all the different colors that she didn't know existed in a black and white picture.

"Dad," she asked later, as they stood outside waiting for a bus. "Why do you like pictures so much?"

He dad paused when she asked that. He lifted her off his shoulders, and put her down on the ledge in front of him, a wall of flowers brushing her back.

"Well," he said, considering. "There's not really just one reason."

She plucked a flower and starting picking the petals off it, blowing them out from her palm as he explained.

"Sometimes, there's just a feeling you get. A sort of pressure right here," he put his hand over her chest. "That only spreads when you find something you love."

"Doesn't that hurt?" she asked. She imagined a tightness in her chest, a pressure sitting down on her, wondering why it was what her father chased with his camera.

"It only hurts when you're doing the wrong thing," he smiled at her.

The bus hit a bump and jostled Clarke awake. She felt a line of sweat gathering where her forehead met her hairline. She wiped it away with the back of her hand as she let out a breath.

She felt her chest tighten as she looked out the window, felt like there was an anvil sitting on top of her, growing heavier and heavier, weighing her down. She pushed air out of her lungs, but it felt forced, her lungs too tight, too small for what she needed.

It hurt.

The bus felt smaller than it had when she first climbed on. She couldn't think straight with everything so cramped, she needed air. She needed to get off the bus.

She felt the bus slow down, as it pulled into a stop, and the driver yelled out something she didn't hear, but she saw the doors open, and before she knew what she was doing, she was grabbing her bag and tumbling out the steps, onto the blacktop of the stop.

She took a deep breath and felt the cold, fresh air wash over her skin.

She wasn't sure where she was. She'd wandered out of the bus stop, into the town it had dropped her in. It was a small, dingy looking place. A small little diner at one end of the road, a big red church at the other, with a gas station in between. There was a lot in front of the church, full of minivans and old white Buicks. A smattering of mom and pop shops seemed to be all along the rest of the road, each one sporting an identical "Closed" sign, everyone too busy with Sunday mass to open up shop.

The diner looked open, a few cars pulling in and out of their lot, so she decided she could at least wander down there and grab some coffee to get herself together.

She was passing the gas station, empty except for a dark green pick up truck and it's owner, a young man, probably about her age, with wild dark hair, curling out in every direction. He pulled out his wallet and rifled through it. She saw him smash it shut and shove it back into his pocket, a loud curse slipping past his lips.

His voice stopped her short, and she glanced over as he sent his foot kicking into his tire, grunting and swearing more.

She paused, and turned. Might as well, she thought.

"Hey," she called out as she walked toward him.

He glanced up at her, his hard eyes looking her up and down before he grunted out a "What?"

She held her hands up in a some sort of ridiculous gesture of good faith as she came closer to him. She reached into her purse and pulled out a few bills and held them out to him. He narrowed his eyes at her hand.

"Need some money for gas?" she said, bouncing her arm a little. He still didn't take it.

"I'm fine," he grit out. Turning away from her he pulled his wallet out again and ripped it open, as if it suddenly had gotten thicker, full of money in the minute it had been sitting in his back pocket. She watched as his shoulders slumped forward as he let out an angry breath.

He turned back to her, cheeks stained a little red, eyes cast down toward his dirty covered boots.

"Thank you," he said, stepping forward and taking the money from her.

She felt a small grin tug at the corner of her mouth but she shoved it down, figuring he wouldn't appreciate her laughing at his reluctant acceptance of help.

"Don't worry about it," she said.

She stood there, frozen in the parking lot, having no business sticking around after she'd given him the money, but having nowhere else to go. She could wander down to the diner, where she'd sit with a weak cup of coffee while she decided whether she'd get on a bus to bring her home, or get on a bus to bring her to school.

She felt bile rise up in her throat when she thought about either option, so she stayed where she was.

She heard the click of his tank as it was filled up with gas, and the snap of the cap back in place. She stayed silent off to the side, watching him move around his truck to her.

He rubbed a hand over his face as he came back in front of her. "Look," he said. She noticed how tired he looked. The bags under his eyes reminded her of her mother and she wondered how long it had been since he'd gotten a full eight hours of sleep. His eyes were a little bloodshot, too. "I can't pay you back," he said pulling her out of her inspection of him.

She looked up, meeting his eyes. "That's okay."

"I don't have any cash on me, or else I could have filled the tank myself. I don't have a credit card," he carried on as if he hadn't heard her. "I've got an ATM card, but the only ATM around is in this locked vestibule down the road, so I can't get any cash. I'm sorry."

"It's fine," she said shaking her head.

He looked at her a moment longer, waiting for her to ask him something, but then settled on giving her a small nod and stepping one foot back toward his truck. She stayed where she was. He'd clearly been expecting her to leave after he'd finished talking. When she didn't he froze.

"You need something else?" He called over to her. He didn't seem especially keen to help her out, but she could tell she was wigging him out, staying there, frozen like a statue, watching him as he walked away, watching as he stepped toward his truck, not making a move herself. She must've looked incredibly stupid, standing there wide eyed and silent, waiting for him to drive away and leave her there, standing alone in the parking lof of a gas station without a car.

"No," she mumbled shaking her head. He gave another nod and turned around fully, his back to her as he reached an arm out to pull the door open.

"I can pay you!" she called out. She hadn't thought about the words before they'd tumbled out, but they were there, floating between them, too late to take back. He pushed the driver's side door closed slowly, and turned back to face her.

"Excuse me?" he said.

"To drive me," she said. She cleared her throat. "If you drive me, I can pay you."

His eyes trailed her up and down, wide and curious. Possibly a bit afraid. Definitely more than a bit confused.

"You don't even know where I'm going," he pointed out. He crossed his arms and leaned his shoulder against the truck. Maybe trying to intimidate her. She took a breath.

"Well where are you going?"

He huffed out a laugh at that and shook his head. "I have no idea," he admitted. "Not Ark, I can tell you that."

"Where's Ark?"

"Nowhere," he said, not meeting your gaze. "It's nowhere."

She took a small step forward. "And you're going...somewhere?"

This was stupid. She didn't know why she sounded so hopeful that this stranger, this man who could be anything, a murderer or a criminal, or crazy, would nod his head and say yes he was going somewhere and yes she could come along. But standing in the middle of the nearly empty gas station parking lot she couldn't help but feel like a lot was riding on his answer. So she held her breath as he considered her offer.

"Yeah," he said finally. "At least, I think I'm going somewhere."

He didn't say anything else, but he didn't move to leave either so Clarke was left standing there wondering if he was just waiting for her to say something or if he was just taking time to consider her offer. Maybe trying to gauge if she looked as crazy as she must have seemed to him.

"Look," Clarke said. "I can give you everything I've got." She pulled out her wallet. "I'll pay for at least half the gas, I just have to leave enough for food along the way. Do we got a deal or no?"

She had been trying to put a bit of a bite into her words, make it seem like she didn't have time to wait around for him to take all day to decide, when they both knew that wasn't true. If it had been true, she wouldn't have been standing there in the first place. He held all the cards. She stood waiting for his answer.

She did see slight upturn of his lips at her tone though, which she took for a good sign. Eventually he just shrugged and gestured to the passenger side door.

"Tag along if you want," he said, noncommittally. "I don't really care."

He wasn't sure what the hell was going on.

One minute he'd been trying to pull more than the three dollars he knew he had out of his wallet and the next he was sitting side by side in his truck with some girl he'd never met. After taking her money. And agreeing to take more.

There must have been something wrong with her. People don't just go up to people and offer them money. Not where he's from. Maybe it's different for people who have money, which judging by her clothes and her bag alone, he's assuming must be the case.

He rolled his eyes as he imagined Octavia's reaction to her shoes.

But something was definitely wrong with her because she'd spent a good five minutes standing silently in the middle of a gas station, with no car and no friends around. And then, she'd asked a complete stranger to drive her to….nowhere in particular. And then she'd actually gotten in the truck when he agreed.

She was either crazy, or running from something. He didn't know which one was better.

If she was running from something, then maybe it was a good thing he'd agreed. Get her away from whatever was chasing her. Do a good deed, for karma and all that.

Unless it was the law and she was some sort of crazy criminal. Well, some sort of criminal. She seemed to have the crazy bit down.

But, he needed the cash. He always needed the cash, honestly. It was going to be a little easier day to day now that Octavia was away at school and he would only have to worry about groceries for one and he was fine with eating leftovers most days if it meant he would only have to cook a couple times a week, but he wasn't exactly flush at the moment. College bills, even with scholarships like Octavia's tended not to be so friendly with bank accounts.

And this, whatever this was, this road trip or this escape or this excuse to run away, whatever is was that he was doing was just going to be another dent in his account. He could feel the grease and oil that would cover his hands for days working at the shop to make up for it.

So if some rich girl wanted to pay him to drive her around, he wasn't stupid enough to say no.

As long as she kept her feet off the dash and didn't spill anything sticky, he could live with her sitting there quietly beside him for a few hours a day.

The girl, Clarke he'd learned her name as soon as she slid in beside him and stuck out her hand for a handshake, didn't seem to get the quiet thing though.

She'd sat awkwardly at first, quiet like she'd been at the station, staring at her hands in her lap, and she looked tired but she didn't seem to want to let herself fall asleep because every time her head dipped over to the side, she would readjust. She'd bring her legs up and cross them or she'd tuck her feet under her thighs, practically kneeling on the seat, anything to keep her moving long enough to ward sleep off indefinitely.

"So, Bellamy," she said, after about an hour of shifting around and silence, watching the road pass by out the window. "How old are you?"

He looked over at her, eyebrow raised. "23."

"I'm 21," she said, even though he didn't ask. He didn't have anything to say to that, so he just nodded and kept his eyes on the road. Maybe that would be enough to hold her over for a bit. He heard her open her mouth and take a breath, as if she was about to say something, and groaned internally.

"What do you do?" she asked.

"I work."

I spend twelve hours a day up to my elbows in dirt and grime and oil, making barely enough money to feed me and my sister, pay outstanding hospital bills, and then fill my own tank, which you obviously saw this morning. Oh and then put money away for my sister to go to school so she didn't wind up stuck in Ark after having dropped out of her first semester of community college like me.. Yeah, maybe that would shut her up.

"What do you do? For work?" She was watching him, eyes wide. She seemed genuinely curious.

He wasn't trying to be a dick, he really wasn't but she wouldn't ever get what his life was like and it was pointless to try to explain it to her. Especially when in a few days he'd never see her again.

"I work on cars," he clenched his jaw, waiting for some sort of judgemental comment, but she just nodded her head and leaned back in her seat.

She was quiet only for a moment or two before she picked back up again. She was rambling, her hands flopping back and forth as she talked, and he thought that maybe she might have been nervous, but he tuned her out for the most part. Her voice stayed a constant noise in the background like a fan or the patter of rain against the window, but he had no interest in laying himself out for her to get to know better.

His life story wasn't exactly a fun one at the moment, and he sure as hell didn't need some stranger, from a totally different world, giving him that look he always got from people when they learned anything about him or his family or his life. He was exhausted and his muscles were aching and he had a small constant throbbing in the front of his head, and he just wasn't in the mood to deal with it.

"So, you're from Ark?" he heard her say. "What's that like? Is your family there?"

He ground his teeth. "No."

"Oh," she said. "Are you going to visit them?"

"Let's not do the whole get to know you thing, yeah?" he snapped. "We don't have to pretend like we're best friends or anything."

He glanced over at her and saw that she had turned her head to look out the window. Her cheeks were tinted pink and she was nibbling on her lip.

"Sorry," she mumbled. "Just trying to be friendly."

He let out a slow breath. This was more work than he bargained for.

"I just picked you up off the side of the road, and you agreed to come without knowing where I was going. You really wanna talk about your life right now?"

She was looking at him when he said that, her eyes harder than before, colder.

"You're right," she said, facing the windshield, pulling her feet up under her legs. "Let's just drive."

She hadn't tried talking after that.

She stayed facing forward, or looking out the window silently as the road slipped past beneath them. She watched to her right as they drove through town after town until he-Bellamy he'd said his name was-finally resigned himself and turned out onto the highway. She watched the towns turn to fields and trees, the engine rumbling beneath them, their seats vibrating as they went.

She let herself glance over at him only once. He was staring straight ahead (a good habit for a driver, at least) either not noticing her attention, or ignoring it. His jaw was clenched, his mouth in a hard line, and his hands gripped the wheel so tightly that his knuckles looked white against it.

If it had been different, she might have reached for her sketch pad. The sun filtered in through his window, soaking into his dark, tanned skin, pointing out each clump of freckles on his nose and cheeks.

He looked beautiful and hard, with cold eyes whenever he looked at her. He clearly wanted no part in getting to know her, and yet she couldn't make herself tell him to pull the car over for her to get out.

She sighed, and slipped her feet out from where they had been wedged underneath her thighs. She felt all her muscles tense up and tighten, and she needed to stretch, but there was no room in the cramped seat. She lifted her legs to prop her feet up on the dash, and let out a breath of relief when she felt her muscles stretch with the movement.

"No feet on the dash," Bellamy grunted, scowling at her.

She made a face at him and made a big show of pulling her feet back down to the edge of the seat, hugging her knees in front of her.

"Any other rules?" she asked.

He raised an eyebrow at her, gauging how serious she was being, but she just waved her hands,gesturing for him to go on.

"So far we've got no feet on the dash and, apparently, no talking or friendly conversation at all." She looked over at him. "So come on, what else you got?"

He bit his lip. "I didn't say no talking," he said after a moment. He even had the decency to look a little guilty about it. Clarke just scoffed at him, disbelieving. "Fine. How about, no questions about parents?" he amended.

"That," Clarke said, nodding. "Actually sounds perfect. No feet on the dash, no questions about parents."

Bellamy drummed his fingers on the steering wheel.

"And no smacking your gum," he said.

"I'm not even chewing gum!"

He looked over at her, a small smile playing at the corner of his lips. It changed his whole face and she let herself stare until he turned away.

"When you get gum," he said. "Then no smacking it."

Clarke pulled out her sketch pad from the bag at her feet. She flipped quickly over all the pages of half finished drawings, ignoring the smudged lines, and the half finished faces that flashed at her as she searched for an empty page. There was a marker in the cupholder on the ground, so she reached down and grabbed it. She uncapped it and scribbled at the top of the page before turning and showing it to Bellamy when he shot a look her way.

At the top of the page was the phrase "Road Rules" in big thick letters, underlined a few times, followed by their three rules. She left plenty of space for more, but she capped the marker for the time being and leaned back into her seat, stretching her legs out in front of her as far as she could.

She left the pad open on her lap and rested her head back, letting her eyes slip closed. Her hand was itching to roll her window down and let a cool breeze wash over her, to let some air in the cramped truck, to let it relieve some of the tension stuck in the stale air between them, but she felt the rumbling of the truck flying down the highway and pulled her hand back. Unless she wanted her ears to rattle off her head, it was better to sit in suffocating silence then to let the window down.

So she leaned back, eyes closed, and pretended she was somewhere else, with someone else. Someone who liked her. Someone she didn't need rules with.

But she leaned back and ignored it, and she noticed her chest didn't hurt quite as much as before.

"This is stupid," Clarke grumbled, pushing her door open. She shifted, letting her feet dangle out of the side of the truck as Bellamy wandered around from his side, to where he stood standing in front of her. His head was already drooping down onto his chest.

"Come on," he said, tiredly. Even his words were starting to slur.

"I'm a good driver," she said. "I've had my license for years."

Bellamy's face was blank. He shoved his hands in his pockets, his feet spread wide to steady him, but she could see that he was swaying back and forth where he stood.

"You don't have a car," he said for the tenth time. "Having a license doesn't mean anything if you don't actually drive."

Clarke huffed and jumped out of the truck. She grabbed her bag and slammed the door, throwing her hands out to gesture for him to lead the way.

"They wouldn't have given it to me if I was a bad driver," she muttered under her breath as she followed him up to the check in desk. "I can drive in a straight line for a couple hours without the world crumbling around us."

Bellamy ignored her as he stepped up to the desk.

Clarke leaned her back up against it and stared out at the parking lot as Bellamy spoke softly with the woman behind it. The sky was getting grey, bleeding into the bleak color of the fields and the roads. It was how she imagined the world to look after a huge storm, if it had nothing but grass and road for miles, no buildings or traffic signs to cut into the sky as the clouds reached back, drifting away as the ground soaked everything up.

It would be beautiful if she wasn't staring at it from the broken down motel that they happened to drive by, that Bellamy assured her would be good enough, even though it's windows were dark and had only half the shutters and the metal frame around the door was orange and rusted.

When she'd suggested they drive a bit longer to find an actual hotel, he'd just looked her up and down like he'd done back in the parking lot of the gas station earlier that day, and scoffed. She felt her skin prickle under his gaze and she turned away from him, clamping her jaw shut.

Fine. The motel would be fine.

There were two tiny beds in the room. One was by the bathroom, one by the heater that was making some sort of unsettling clicking noise. She dropped her bag on the first.

"I'll take the other bed then," Bellamy said grumpily.

"Jesus, do you want this one?"

Nothing, nothing she did seemed to be okay with him. Her talking, her not talking, her rules, her clothes, herself. He was just looking for things to get pissed about because he thought she was an easy target. Well she wasn't going to be one.

"No," he mumbled. "This one's fine."

"Great," she snapped. "Then stop complaining."

She rifled through her bag, pulling a big grey tshirt out. She pulled her sweater over her head and dropped it on the ground next to her bed before she tugged the t-shirt on. She resorted to using the old locker room trick where she stuck her arms into her shirt to undo her bra and pull it out, and she dropped that on top of her sweater.

The heat seemed to be cranked all the way up, and the only pajama bottoms she'd packed were her flannel pants, so she left those in her bag and dropped it down, tugging her jeans over her hips and crawling into her bed and slipping under the sheet before she'd had a chance to check to see if Bellamy had been watching her or not.

When she settled in she saw that he was facing the wall, a pile of clothes folded neatly beside his feet, while he pulled his shirt off. She turned away as he climbed onto his own bed, switching the light off as he did.

The room seemed quieter when it was dark. That was stupid, she knew, the light didn't make any noise at all, but suddenly the room was wide and dark and quiet and colder than it was a minute before, and she felt very, very small in her bed. She pulled the sheet up to her collar and squeezed her eyes shut.

When her eyes were closed she felt like she wasn't in the motel, she was back home, the stale air of the funeral home sticking to her every pore. She could feel her heels cinching in on her feet and she could hear the murmurs of the "I'm so sorry dear,"'s that came at her from all directions. She saw her feet step forward toward the casket, propped open and she saw her hands rest down on the sides of, her fathers face cold and grey below her.

She opened her eyes.

A shaky breath skittered past her lips and she cleared her throat, pushing it away.

"Goodnight," she whispered.

She heard Bellamy shift on his own bed, but he said nothing for a long moment. When she thought that maybe he'd already fallen asleep she heard him clear his own throat.

"Night."

She woke up to a muffin hitting her in the face.

"Rise and shine," Bellamy called to her, nibbling on his own muffin. "Skeevy guy at the front desk said we gotta be outta here in five. I'll meet you at the truck."

Clarke groaned, rolling into her pillow, flipping him off.

"I hate blueberry muffins."

She heard him huff out a laugh.

"Be out in five, or I'm leaving without you," he said. Then he swiped the muffin from beside her head and took a big bite. She pulled the sheet over her head and waited until she heard the door swing closed to let out another groan.

Clarke, apparently, was not a morning person. She'd been dead asleep when he'd woken up and gone down to the front desk to check them out. She'd been dead asleep when he came back to the room and tested out the shower. (Cold, but at least he didn't feel like he was covered in anything weird from the room.) And she'd been dead asleep when he went out to grab something to eat. She'd been dead asleep when he reached out and shook her shoulder, the only sign that she was alive was when she seemed to grip the pillow a little tighter.

So he'd tried something else. She woke up immediately when the muffin landed on her nose.

She came grumbling out of the room four minutes later, her hair pulled up into a bun, wearing the same clothes as the day before. She glared at him as she walked toward him, and he held up a new, chocolate chip muffin as a peace offering.

"You sleep like a log," he said.

She snatched it out of his hand and ripped a chunk off the top, shoving it in her mouth. "What does that even mean?" she asked, crumbs spilling over her lips. She reached for the door.

"Woah, there," he said blocking her. "If you're going to eat like that you're going to eat outside the truck."

She narrowed her eyes at him and made a big show of tearing off a much smaller piece, and placing it delicately in her mouth. She chewed slowly, and purposefully, actually physically turning her nose up at him, and waited for him to move his arm. He did, reluctantly, and she swung the door open and climbed in.

"So," she said when he slid into his own seat. "Where to?"

He drummed his fingers along the steering wheel. He had no idea. He hadn't thought he'd even be driving this long. He hadn't thought at all.

"How's west?" he said instead. She nodded and leaned back into the seat.

"West sounds good."

The quiet wasn't as rigid as the day before.

It wasn't filled with the awkwardness of trying to figure him out, or the fear of saying the wrong thing or the noise of all the thoughts she wanted to push back. She let it wash over her, she let herself sit back and turn her brain off, and let the noise of Bellamy's fingers tapping on the steering wheel fill the stale, warm air of the truck.

When she glanced over at him from time to time, she noticed he wasn't gripping the wheel as tight. His brows were still furrowed, a thick crease sitting just above his nose, but his knuckles weren't white and his neck wasn't stiff and stuck staring straight ahead.

He even gave her a small smile when he caught her eye.

When she felt herself getting antsy, she reached out to the radio dial to switch it on. She glanced over at Bellamy when he shot a look at her hand, looking away quickly without saying anything.

"Is it okay if I turn the radio on?" she asked.

"Yeah," he nodded. "Yeah, go ahead."

She turned the dial, switching back and forth between a few stations, trying to find something that wasn't completely static, finally landing on a station playing a bit of news

"-and even after the IAS announced that no further IAS sponsored conferences would be held in a country that is working to restrict entry to HIV infected travellers, protests to close America to infected immigrants have continued on. Questions of whether or not infected persons should be detained until more is known about the correlation between HIV and AIDS is still being tossed out by citizens with extreme views. The dangers of the illness have-"

Bellamy's hand shot out from the wheel and smacked the radio off. Clarke sat up, looking over at him, startled by his movement.

His nostrils were flared out, and she hadn't noticed over the noise of the radio, but his breathing had gotten heavier, heaving. She opened her mouth to ask him what was wrong but he was already shaking his head.

"Sorry," he said. "Let's just...can we not listen to the radio?"

Clarke nodded quickly, looking away. "Yeah," she said. "Sure, sorry."

"No, I…" he trailed off. "It's fine. There's, uh, a box of tapes in here somewhere if you want to look through those. Should be near your feet."

Clarke bent over her legs, and patted her hand around in front of her feet. When she reached around under the seat she felt the edge of a small cardboard box, and after a bit of tugging was able to pry it free. She pulled it up onto her lap.

"Oh my god," she laughed as she rifled through it. "You have the music taste of an old man."

She pulled a tape out. "Johnny Cash? Really?"

Bellamy scowled at her. "Johnny Cash is a classic. You're just too young to understand."

Clarke dropped the tape back into the box, laughing. "Get over yourself, grandpa," she said. "You're like two years older than me."

She pulled out tape after tape, making faces at almost all of them, thinking that maybe silence would be better than sitting through Bellamy's eclectic mix of screaming rock music and music that he was two generations too young for. Finally she pulled out one she liked.

Without saying anything, she popped it out of it's case and she slid it in, turning the volume up.

Before ten seconds had passed, Bellamy was groaning at her.

"What?" she smiled over at him. "You're the one who has The Bangles Greatest Hits." She held her hands up and let herself bob along to the music. She drummed her hands up and down her thighs to the beat.

"It's my sisters," Bellamy grunted. He started reaching for the radio to turn it off. "And it's garbage so-"

She smacked his hand away.

"Uh-uh," she said shaking her head. "Passenger gets control of the music."

"That is absolutely not the rule!" Bellamy protested. "Driver always gets control of the music. Especially veto power. And this?" He waved at the radio. "Veto."

She rolled her eyes and reached down into her bag, pulling out the sketch pad. She flipped open to the Road Rules page, and added a fourth.

Rule #4: Music choices will be alternated back and forth between passenger and driver, and the music choices will be respected, not heckled or mocked, or overpowered by the groaning of the non-music selector.

"There," she said, reading it out loud. "That good enough for you?"

Bellamy wrinkled his nose at the radio once more, but nodded.

"I don't want to hear any complaints when it's my turn though," he warned. "If I'm going to sit through the Bangles greatest hits, then you're going to sit through Johnny Cash."

Clarke mimed retching, satisfied when she heard him snort next to her.

"Please," she said. "Like you don't know the words to every song."

To her surprise, he didn't even try to deny it. He just shrugged his shoulders. "It's the only thing my sister would ever listen to. Once you hear something three times a day-and I mean every day-you can't help but learn the words."

"So you're going to sing along, right?"

He cocked an eyebrow at her. "Absolutely not."

"Oh come on," she teased. "Won't be feeling sorry, sorry, sorry, on the judgement day…"

He didn't actually make her listen to Johnny Cash.

He was tempted, just to get back at her for making him listen to that tape, again, once he thought he'd finally escaped it.

Instead he'd made her dig around until she found at the bottom of the box a mix tape his friend Miller had made him a couple years ago.

He was surprised when he'd caught Clarke mouthing along to a few of the songs, most of them being things he'd never picture a girl like her listening to. The Bangles, absolutely. Miller's random mix of underground rock? Not so much.

She'd grumbled a bit at first, saying she was allowed, to balance out his complaining when it was her music choice, but he could see a hint of a smile at the corner of her mouth, so he bit his tongue and rolled his eyes and played along.

When it was her turn again, she already had her choice picked out, so she popped his tape out and slipped hers in right away.

His mom was always singing, when he was little. She'd put old records on while she vacuumed or did the laundry, while she stood side by side with him at the sink, washing while he dried.

"All your life you've never seen a woman, taken by the wind," she crooned, swaying back and forth, bumping shoulders with him. "Would you stay if she promised you heaven, will you ever win?"

Bellamy would hum along with her, bouncing his knees up and down, because he didn't really know how else to dance. His mom would hum along with the instruments when the vocals died down.

When she wasn't cleaning, she'd be in the living room, her eyes closed, swaying back and forth in her grimy apron, the music turned up as loud as it went. She called them their little concerts.

"There's a lot of good music out in this world, Bellamy," she say, putting another one of her Fleetwood Mac records on. "But some just makes you soul sway, you know what I mean?"

He nodded then, even though he had no idea. He wasn't sure what it felt like when his soul swayed, but he watched his mom come home after cleaning for ten hours, just to clean with him some more, and he'd see how her smile would slip onto her face as the music blared in the background, and he wanted to know what she meant.

He reached out without thinking and popped the tape out. He dropped it into the cupholder on the door next to him.

"Hey," she said. "I didn't take your pick out-"

"Just," he sighed. He couldn't explain it. "Not that one."

His voice must have given something away because she closed her mouth without protesting, nodding as she silently picked out something different to play.

A few minutes later, music floating between them, bouncing around the empty spaces between them, he cleared his throat.

"Sorry," he said.

She shook her head. "It's fine."

"Look," he said, leaning into his window to talk to her from outside of the truck. "Is there someone you should call?"

They were at a gas station again. He'd just climbed out to fill the tank again, but seeing the payphone off to the side, he'd stopped and turned back to her.

"I'm thinking you probably should have already gotten to where you're supposed to be, and I'm not too fond of the idea of a missing persons report going out on you, or the idea of that getting me arrested for, I don't know, abducting you or something."

She bit her lip. He was right. Anya was expecting her back the day before. Early in the day too. She probably wouldn't have called her mother, not yet, but she would eventually. Especially if Raven found out she hadn't come back yet, and then Raven would probably wrestle the address book out of Anya's hands and call Abby herself.

So she nodded, reluctantly and got out of the car. He watched her as she climbed slowly out, her fingers tangling in themselves, wringing nervously in front of her. She gave him a small smile, not convincing at all as she passed him and he reached an arm out to grab her wrist.

"Do you…" he trailed off, running his hand over the back of his neck. "Do you need change or anything for the payphone?"

"No," she shook her head, smiling at him. "I'm good. Thanks."

"So you're not dead," Raven said when she answered the phone.

"No, Rae, I'm not dead."

"Well, good fucking thing you called, because accusations were about to be thrown around, and that would not have ended well," Raven joked. "For anyone."

Clarke laughed, holding the receiver closer to her ear. "Please don't try to get my roommate arrested for a murder she didn't commit."

She let Raven's voice fill her mind for a few moments. She missed her. They were never anything serious, they were never going to be anything serious, but she was her best friend, and after spending two days in a car with a guy she barely knew, a guy who could barely stand her, she missed her best friend with a gnawing ache in her chest.

"So," Raven said. Clarke held her breath. They were finally getting to it. "Where the hell are you?"

"Doesn't really matter," Clarke said. "I don't know. West. Some random gas station."

A sigh.

"What are you doing, Clarke?"

She felt a knot inch it's way up her throat and she had to swallow a few times before she could answer.

"I don't know," she whispered. "I just, I got on that bus to go back to school, and either everything just caught up with me, or being home without him changed everything, and it just hurt. Like the bus was on me, squishing my ribs into my lungs. I don't know. I just had to change direction. I don't know."

A pause.

"Okay," Raven said.

"Okay?"

"I mean," she carried on. "You're going to call me every once in a while to check in, let me know you haven't been murdered. If I hear from you less than every two days then I'm calling Abby and letting her do whatever she wants."

"Okay," Clarke said. "Seems fair."

"Do you know where you're going?"

Clarke glanced back over to Bellamy leaning on the truck, waiting for her. West, he'd said. Somewhere, he'd said. I have no idea, he'd said.

"Not really," she said.

"Okay," Raven said again. "Don't get murdered. I love you."

"Love you too, Rae."

She clicked the phone back in place and took a deep breath before turning around and heading back to the truck. Bellamy watched her carefully as she made her way back over to him.

"Ready to go?" she asked.

He nodded. "Everything good?"

"Yeah," she said. "It's fine. Phone's free if you want it."

He turned away from her, glancing at the payphone. He opened his mouth and looked like he was about to take a step forward, but then he just shook his head.

"Alright," he patted the hood of the truck. "Let's go."

Bellamy suggested that they just pull off at the next exit and stop in whatever town it brought them too. He didn't want to get back in the truck and drive for hours, the tape resting next to his left leg, and Clarke's questioning gaze when she rifled through the box or when she thought about the way he practically fled from the gas station when it was his turn to use the phone.

He just needed to get off the highway and out of the truck and get a few more feet of space between himself and Clarke. So he'd pulled off and drove around the town until they found a small little hotel off a side road that still let them check in, even though it was so obviously past check in hours.

"This place doesn't look that bad," Clarke said as she wandered into their room.

Bellamy snorted. "Five stars compared to the last place."

There were two beds, and he dropped himself down onto the closest one, letting his eyes fall shut, pressing his face into the pillow. It wasn't late, just around dinner time, but he was exhausted. He reached out to the table between the two beds for the alarm clock and one for twenty minutes. A quick nap couldn't hurt.

He expected to hear Clarke do the same, but all he heard was the zip of her bag being undone, and then the click of the bathroom door as she shut it behind her. Probably showering, he thought, since she didn't get a chance that morning.

When the alarm went off he woke up to Clarke, standing in front of the mirror, putting make up on. She was wearing different clothes than earlier that morning, a black dress, and her hair was pulled up, but wasn't flying all over the place like it had been that morning.

He sat up.

"You going somewhere?"

She turned around, mascara brush in hand. "Yeah," she said. "I don't really feel like just sitting around." She bit her lip nervously. "I was just going to wander down the road to that bar we passed. Get some food, have a drink, whatever."

He nodded, throwing the blankets off himself and moving toward his own bag. He pulled a clean shirt out of it and began to peel off the one he was wearing.

"What are you doing?" he heard her ask.

He started buttoning up his shirt. "Going along. That okay?"

She nodded, not looking at him. "Yeah, uh, sure. Yeah, that's fine."

"Okay," he said to her. "You ready?" She grabbed her purse. "Lead the way."

They grabbed food at the bar, not bothering to wait for a table. They each got a burger, and the woman who brought them their food lingered a few moments too long, waiting for acknowledgement, and having to settle for Clarke's.

She gave Bellamy a sideways glance. "She was waiting for you, you know."

"Good for her," Bellamy said with a mouth full of food.

Clarke carried on. "You should go for it, get her number."

"You should mind your own damn business," he said back.

She held her hands up in surrender and went back to her food. She finished it off in a few bites, not having realized how hungry she had been. She sat there, empty plate in front of her for a moment while Bellamy finished his own. Once he did, he sat there, silent, fingers trailing along the bar in front of him.

"Okay," she dragged out the word. "Well, this has been thrilling, but I'm going to wander a bit." She dropped some money on the bar for her burger and slid herself off the stool.

"Have fun," he mumbled

He wasn't sure how long he'd been sitting at the bar, but he'd had three beers and turned down four different offers to dance when he suddenly realized that he hadn't seen Clarke in a while. She'd slipped off earlier, dancing with some guy with floppy hair, but she'd been within his field of vision, staying in mostly the same place, ignoring him as much as he was ignoring her, but not running off.

He took a look around and saw she was nowhere in the room. She might have run to the bathroom, but they were on the opposite side of the bar and he would've seen her brush past him.

Taking one last swig of his drink, he threw a few bills on the counter and pushed back from the bar, slipping off his stool. He pushed his way through the crowd, the stench of sweat and beer overwhelming him as he slipped between couples dancing and made his way to the back, hoping to find her pressed into some corner, but she wasn't there.

Fuck, he thought. Of course, he was the only person in the world who knew where this girl was, and now she'd actually been abducted. Perfect.

He saw the floppy haired guy come in through the back door, a rush of wind and the sound of cheers spilling in behind him.

"Hey," he grabbed the guys arm before he got too far. "Is Clarke out there?"

The guy frowned, his brow furrowed. "Clarke?"

Jesus, of course he was too plastered to have any idea what was going on.

"Yeah," Bellamy grumbled out, annoyed. "Blonde hair, not too tall. Black dress?"

"Oh," realization dawned on the guy's face. "Yeah, man! She's out back, you should come join it's a cool scene." He pointed toward the door he'd just come through with a jerk of his thumb and Bellamy, throwing a quick thanks over his shoulder pushed his way outside.

There was a line of people on either side of the alley, all drunk, some stoned. He stood at the door until he saw Clarke in a clump toward the rear, a group of guys in baggy pants and backwards hats all kneeling in front of her while she sat with her back pressed against the bricks, her neck dipped back and her eyes closed. She was drunk. Or stoned. Or both. Whatever, he didn't care. At least she wasn't kidnapped.

He stepped around the crowd by the door and made his way back, weaving through the legs of people stretched out from either side.

"Clarke," he said as he got closer. "It's getting pretty late, we should…"

He trailed off as he reached his arm out to shake her shoulder, move her until she sat up and opened her eyes. As his hand reached out to her shoulder, he glanced down toward her legs. She was squished up against one other girl, who was nearly draped across Clarke's legs. His hand wrapped around her shoulders to push her off gently, freeing Clarke to stand, but as she caught sight of him and smiled, bending her legs to stand, his eyes trailed down to the pavement next to her hands.

Her blood ran cold as he saw two old needles, laying on the cracked cement next to her, and suddenly he didn't care that he'd only known this girl for a couple of days, he didn't care that she was obviously running from something, something that was probably just as horrible as what he was running from, he didn't care that she was hurting and trying to ease the pain because all he could feel was the thrumming of his ears, like an ocean wave crashed over his head, ringing in his skull, heat creeping up his neck.

He wrapped his hand around Clarke's upper arm and pulled her up.

"What the fuck?" he yelled, pushing her toward the door. She shot him a slow, confused look.

"Hey, man," one of the guys from her clump started to stand up, reach for Clarke. He'd picked up one of the needles and was pointing it haphazardly at Bellamy. "Just chill out a sec, we're just trying to have a good time."

Bellamy stalked up close to him, the boys head coming up only to his nose. "Stay the fuck away from me," he snarled, knocking his hand until he heard a clatter on the cold pavement.

"Bellamy, what-" Clarke started to slur, her brows crumpled in on themselves, but he just grabbed her arm and led her to the door they came through.

"Time to go," he bit out. She paused at the door. "Now."

"Bellamy-"

"Now."

He yanked the door open and walked through it, not checking to see if she was behind him, just pushing his way through the crowd until he reached the entrance to the bar. He waited outside the front door, wrapping his jacket around him tighter while he waited for him to catch up, and when she did, he stalked away again, toward their hotel, assuming she'd catch up.

He'd been silent the whole walk back.

She could see the hint of red creeping it's way up his neck and the way his fists clenched at his sides as he took silent, fuming strides back to the hotel. She stayed a few feet behind him once she'd caught up, the cold air and Bellamy's unexplained outburst sobering her. She didn't want to be near him, not when he was like that. She didn't want to see the anger in his eyes, or feel it as it wrapped around her arm and pulled her away from her one escape, she didn't want to hear it in his voice.

They'd been fine, they'd been doing fine. They certainly weren't friends, but it wasn't like that first day when she'd been too afraid to talk, or when he'd been uninterested and defensive when she did try. But his face in the alley when he saw her there, slumped up against the wall was hard and cold and he didn't wait to explain what she did wrong, he'd just brought her back into the bar and turned his back on her, leaving her to trail after him, hoping that the steam blowing from his ears would be gone by the time they got back to the room.

She closed the door quietly behind her. He'd slammed the door to the bathroom shut, and she heard the faucet running. Silently, she slipped out of her dress and pulled her pajama shirt on, climbing into the bed. Her head was already pounding, and she knew it would be worse come morning, but she didn't have any medicine for it so she just pulled her knees up and rested her forehead on them, cupping the sides of her skull with her palms.

She heard the door to the bathroom open and Bellamy pad over to the table between the beds. She heard a clink against the table and she pried her head away from her legs.

"Here," he said, setting two advil down next to the glass of water. "Drink some water, and go to sleep."

His voice was quiet, softer than it had been outside the bar, and his eyes looked red and tired. He moved away from her, back toward the door and when she saw he was reaching for his coat to shrug it back on she called out to him.

"Thank you," she said. "For the advil. And for finding me, tonight. It was nice of you to come looking."

He didn't turn around to face her, but his shoulders slumped, a nearly imperceptible bit of the tension slipping out, but he didn't turn back toward her, he kept his face, weary and worn, hidden facing the door.

"I'm gonna go get some air," he said. His voice was rough. Scratchy. "I'll be back in a bit."

She nodded, even though he couldn't see her, and sank lower into her pillows. She closed her eyes and tried to imagine a few hours before when he'd been trying to hide how he hummed along to every one of the Bangles Greatest hits, but all she could see were his wide eyes in the alley and the look on his face as he pulled her up and pushed her away.

His mom was shaking, sweating, curled up on the cold tile of the bathroom floor and he didn't know what to do, He brought her water and a blanket and he tried to get her to move, to bring her to her bed, but she shook her head, clinging to her knees, folding in on herself next to the toilet.

"Come on, mom," he said, trying to lift her himself. "Octavia is going to be home soon, come on let's just go to your bedroom."

His voice was pleading but her eyes were squeezed shut and she was already shaking her head.

He went to get a damp wash cloth and started dabbing where her forehead met her hair, stopping the salty beads of sweat from dripping into her eyes.

"What if I call-"

"Don't," she cut him off. "Don't call anyone. I don't want anyone to know."

He let out a frustrated groan and felt tears prickle and burn in the corner of his eyes. He couldn't do anything, she wouldn't let him help her, she was just sitting on the ground, convulsing and she was making him sit there and watch. He felt like he needed to scream, soon, or his throat was going to rip apart.

"Mom," he growled. "I can't just do nothing."

She shook her head again, reaching her hand out to pat his cheek. Her palm was clammy, leaving a puddle of sweat on his cheek when she pulled away. She tried to smile for him, but her eyebrows were drawn together in pain and he felt a lump like cement form in his stomach and he had to push the nausea away.

"It can't have gone up that much," Bellamy argued into the phone. "No, it can't-" He rounded the corner as the voice on the other end driveled on in his ear. "Fine," he slammed his fist against the wall. "I'll have to call you back."

He clicked the phone of, dropping it down on the table in front of him. Octavia wandered into the kitchen, pulling a soda out of the fridge.

"What was that about?" she asked.

His head was dropped into his hands, rubbing back and forth across his skull.

"Mom's meds," he sighed. "I don't know how we're going to afford it."

She got that look on her face, the one where she was ready to say something she'd been thinking, something they'd all been thinking, for months and she opened her mouth but he held a hand up before she could say it.

"You're not dropping out of school to work, O." He shook his head, standing up and reaching for an apple behind her. "We've talked about this. You're staying in school and you're going to go to college."

Octavia rolled her eyes at him. "Yeah and how are we going to get money for mom's junkie meds and my school?"

"That's not what they-" he cut himself off running a hand over his face. "I know you're still pissed at her, but it's not helping anything. We're not having this conversation again."

"Whatever," she grumbled, pushing herself off the counter and walking toward the door. "Have fun at your ten hour shift."

The doctor was an old, wrinkled man. He came toward them, his lab coat on, a chart in his hand.

"Bellamy Blake?" He called from the front of the waiting room.

Bellamy stood up and walked over. His hands were wringing nervously in front of him and he could feel Octavia's eyes on him from behind.

"Yes?" he said, walking up to the doctor. "How is she?"

The doctor sighed, reaching a hand out to lay on Bellamy's forearm.

"It's not looking good," he said quietly.

He tried to slip quietly into the room. Clarke was lying still on her bed, probably having fallen asleep shortly after he left. He didn't bother changing, just dropped his jeans down onto the ground and climbed into the bed in his shirt and boxers.

He'd left to clear his head but had come back with it full of memory after memory of things he didn't want to relive, things he didn't want to care about, things he just wanted to brush away, to forget, to have never happened in the first place.

He felt a wet streak slide down his cheek and he batted it away with the back of his hand.

"I'm sorry," he heard from Clarke's side of the room. "I don't...I don't know what happened-what I did-but I'm sorry."

He squeezed his eyes shut at how small her voice sounded, and nodded into his pillow.

When Clarke woke up in the morning, her mouth felt fuzzy but her head is fine. She rubbed her eyes, and saw that the bathroom door was shut, the shower running on the other side. She flopped back down on the mattress, waiting for Bellamy to come back out so she could shower.

After only a few minutes he wandered back out of the bathroom, wet hair, wearing a t-shirt and jeans. He glanced over at her, nodding when he saw that she was awake.

"I was thinking about going to that diner down the road for a late breakfast, if you want to come," he said.

She nodded. "Yeah, that sounds good." She grabbed some clothes out of her bag. "Just give me a few minutes to shower?"

He nodded, a small smile forced into the corner of his lips, as she slipped into the bathroom and hopped into the shower, letting the hot water wash over her.

She didn't bother washing her hair, just let it soak in the water while she scrubbed her body down, and hopped out only a few minutes later, pulling her clothes on and stepping back into the room to see Bellamy sitting at the edge of his bed waiting for her.

"Ready?" she said, breathlessly, pulling her shoes on.

"Yep," he nodded, standing. "Let's go."

The walk over was quiet, but not tense like the day before. Bellamy strode slowly beside her, his hands shoved loosely into his pockets, not clenched in fists, and the permanent line between his eyebrows wasn't as deep.

It wasn't until they were sitting in a booth by the window that he finally broke the silence.

"About last night-" he started, but she shook her head.

"You really don't have to…" she waved her hand around, reaching for whatever it was she was trying to say. "It's none of my business."

"My mom died." He was looking at her straight on, none of the anger from the night before, not even sadness, just blank open eyes, expecting nothing from her. "She was kind of a junkie. Got HIV from a dirty needle. That's why I freaked out last night, not you."

She opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came. She watched as his head dipped down, staring at the table, swallowing nervously. Suddenly the first Road Rule made sense. No asking about parents.

"I didn't," she finally said. "Last night, those weren't mine, they were some of the guys. They offered but I didn't. Not my scene."

He looked up at her.

"It's none of my business," he said, repeating her.

"No," she smiled. "It's not, but I'm telling you I get it. And that I'm not into that."

He huffed out a laugh, and she saw his eyebrows quirk.

"I'm really sorry about your mom," she whispered.

"I…," he sighed, head shaking. "I don't really want to talk about it. I just felt like I owed you an explanation."

She nodded, taking a sip of her coffee. It was bitter but weak and she nearly gagged from it's taste on her tongue but she desperately needed something to help her wake up so she took another sip, nose scrunching at it's vile taste.

"That bad?" he laughed at her.

"Here," she said holding her mug out to him. "You try."

He took it, skeptically, watching her the whole time, and she was half sure he was going to pretend to like it just to annoy her, but she saw it in his eyes when the taste finally sank in. He nearly spat it back into the cup.

"Told you," she sang taking the cup from him.

"You should try plugging your nose."

She raised an eyebrow at him.

"To help with the taste," he explained. "You won't taste it as much if your nose is plugged.".

She wasn't sure if she believed him, she thought maybe he was just teasing her,trying to make her look ridiculous, but she did it anyway. Surprisingly, he was right.

"Huh," she said after a big gulp. "It worked."

He quirked his lips in a smile, and lifted his glass of juice in silent cheers.

A few more minutes passed in companionable silence, but Clarke was itching to talk, to move, to do something other than sit quietly like she'd been doing the last few days. Few weeks really. Two weeks being quiet at home with her mom, days of silence in the car with Bellamy and she was drowning, the quiet air pressing in on her. She glanced over at Bellamy and saw that the crease between his eyebrows was nearly absent.

"You have a sister?" she asked suddenly.

He looked up at her. "Yeah," he said."Octavia. She's 18."

His eyes were lighter when he said her name and Clarke couldn't hold back her smile at that. Ridiculous really, to feel so strong a need to smile at the glimmer of happiness in man's eyes, when she barely knew the man herself.

"Is she in school?"

He nodded, his smile growing a bit wider, still barely visible to someone who hadn't seen his scowl, but she could tell, it was creeping up.

"Yeah. Just moved her in the day I picked you up, actually."

Clarke smiled. "What's she like?"

He shook his head laughing, and Clarke's chest ached for someone like that in her life. Selfish, after just learning his mother died, to envy someone for something so small, when she had so many things, but his face changed completely thinking about her, and she couldn't help but think Otavia was lucky in ways she probably didn't even know.

"A pain in the ass, really," he said, his smile finally overtaking his whole face. "Hardly ever listens to me. Smart though, really really smart. A lot smarter than I ever was at her age."

"Wow," she said. "She sounds incredible."

"She is," he said earnestly. "She deserves to be somewhere better than she is. Somewhere like Harvard, but…" he trailed off shrugging.

"Harvard is over rated anyway," Clarke said. "Stuffy guys in sweater vests, and tweed blazers."

Bellamy just raised an eyebrow at her, seeing through her, but letting a laugh fall out anyway.

"Yeah," he said. "Sure."

She sat staring at him as he laughs, amazed that the light, happy man in front of her was the same man as the night before. She remembered when they stopped at that gas station and he had her call Raven, how he hesitated when she told him the phone was free. Probably thinking about Octavia, she realized now. She wondered why he didn't call her.

"It's been a few days," she said. "You might want to call her, make sure she's not worried."

"Yeah," he agreed. "You're probably right."

She sat on a picnic table, a few feet away from him as he stood in the payphone booth, calling Octavia. She heard the occasional murmur of "Yeah, don't worry I'm fine," or "that's great, I'm glad you're having a good time," or "I'm not really sure, but I'll keep you posted, alright?" and she smiled to herself, tipping her head back, the sun soaking over her skin. She tried to tune him out, give him his time alone with Octavia like he'd given her time alone with Raven.

She jumped when he tapped her shoulder, to let her know she was finished.

"So," he said, shuffling his feet a bit. "Back on the road? Or hang around here for a bit longer?"

She glanced down the road, their hotel and the bar from the night before one of the only few businesses. She remembered walking by a park, some sort of lake front beach, and an ice cream shop. Other than that, the town seemed pretty dead.

"Let's hang around here for a bit," she told him.

He nodded. "Alright, then."

It was probably too cold for ice cream, but Clarke had insisted, so after standing in line at the ice cream stand they wandered over to the park alongside the lake and sat on a bench just in front of the water, coats pulled tight around them as they worked on their cones.

"Who'd you call yesterday?" he asked her, finishing off his ice cream."Was it your mom?"

Clarke had the urge to whip out the Road Rules and point to number one, but after what he told her that morning, she didn't think she could really use that one anymore.

"No," she shook her head. "Raven. My friend from school."

"You guys live together?" he asked.

She shook her head. "No, but she would probably strangle my roommate, Anya, if she found out I hadn't come back and Anya hadn't told her. It's best to keep Raven informed at all times."

She laughed as his eyes grew wide, curious and intrigued as she told him more about Raven, how she was an engineering student who hated engineers, how she'd managed to piss off nearly every professor in her department, but still got glowing recommendations from them because she was actually the most brilliant student they'd ever had. How she tried to single handedly steal the cow statue outside their town's dairy and use it as a lawn decoration in front of her apartment, but she only got it about halfway across town when she got caught. How she managed to talk herself out of ever getting in trouble because she either carried on until you forgot what you meant to say to her in the first place, or she somehow managed to turn it on the other person, making them think, like with the cow, that it was their fault and she was just trying to fix their mistake.

"She sounds...intense," he said when Clarke finished.

"She is," Clarke agreed. "But she's great."

"I think she and O would get along," he shuddered. "Let's hope they never meet."

Clarke laughed and sat back, pushing her elbows up onto the top of the bench. It was getting colder as it got later, and it must have been at least dinner time.

"I'm gonna miss her," she said after a moment.

Bellamy looked over at her curiously. "Miss her?"

"I don't know if I'm going back to school," Clarke shrugged. "Everything is sort of up in the air right now."

"Why?" he asked, disbelieving. "Why wouldn't you go back to school?"

"I just don't know if it's the right thing for me right now," Clarke said slowly. She didn't think she would have to explain this to a guy who picked up strangers in abandoned gas station parking lots.

She heard a bitter laugh escape his lips and she couldn't bring herself to look over at him, her cheeks burning red at the noise.

"Of course it's the right thing," he said. "You get to go to school, of course it's the right thing. Jesus, what is it with rich kids thinking that they'll be worse off after going to college?"

Clarke bristled at that and looked over at him. He was shaking his head, eyebrows raised nearly to his hairline as if hearing that she wasn't sure if school was the right thing was the most ridiculous thing he'd ever heard in his whole life.

"Excuse me?" she said.

He stood up in front of the bench.

"Go to school, don't go to school, who cares right? It's not like it's a big deal when you have the option to tap out whenever you want."

"I'm not tapping out-"

"Yeah you are," he said. "And you get to. It's just not that easy for everyone else."

She stood up and stepped toward him, ready to knock back whatever he hurled at her but he just put a hand up and shook his head, stepping back.

"Whatever," he said, turning back toward the street. "I'll meet you back at the room. Your taxi will be ready to go by morning."

He shouldn't have stormed off, he knew that. And he shouldn't have made the jab about the taxi. She wasn't, at least she didn't think she was, the kind of person who thought of him like that. Just a guy there to do her dirty work.

That's who he'd been to everyone back home. Who he'd had to be for Octavia, even though she didn't want it. He didn't want to be that guy for her.

Sitting there on that bench though, hearing her talk about school like it was forced on her, like she was being pressured into having the only thing he'd ever wanted, he couldn't help but see dollar signs push a wall between them, with him lower, always lower and farther away than he'd felt in that diner, sipping her terrible coffee.

He was the guy who was driving her to get away from school. Who was helping her tap out, helping her quit before she even realized what she had.

He pictured his small pile of textbooks, still sitting in a box somewhere for that first semester, when he'd only gotten halfway through, before he'd had to quit. He'd had to quit, he didn't have a choice. And he couldn't stomach the idea of someone getting to go to school without struggling for it, probably a better school than he'd ever dreamed of-hell probably one of those Ivy Leagues she'd been so easy about making fun of that morning-and choosing not to. Choosing to run away instead.

He didn't have anything where he was running from. That was the difference between the two of them.

It was dark by the time he got back to the hotel.

Clarke was sitting on the edge of her bed, her back to the door, her feet dangling off the side, brushing the carpet below her.

"Fun night?" she asked, but something about her voice sounded different. Off.

He walked around to his bed, about to flop in without a word, without a fight, he didn't want to fight, but he was stopped by the sight of her in the mirror on the opposite wall. Her eyes were wet and puffy and red, and tear streaks stained her cheeks.

She turned her head when she saw him looking, shuffling to pull her legs up onto the bed, and climb under, like everything was normal. He stepped over to her bed and sat carefully on the edge of it. His hand twitched at his side, and he wondered whether he should reach out to comfort her or if he should just stay put.

His indecision made the choice easy for him.

He sat there silently for a moment, trying to think of what to say, but his mind went blank.

"Want to talk about it?" he asked eventually.

She swatted the tears away with the back of her hand

"No," she spat out. "I don't want to talk about it, I don't want to think about it, that's the problem." Her eyes squeezed shut, her forehead crinkling as she took a deep breath. "I spent two weeks at home having to think about it and talk about it and have my neighbors come over and talk to me about how great my dad was like I didn't know, and I just don't want to think about it anymore." Her hands were tugging at her hair as her breathing got heavier. "And then I found you and you picked me up and I managed to find something else to think about, because jesus you're a lot of work, but it's been good, it was fine because when I'm thinking about something else I'm not thinking about him and how he's gone, and I just need to keep busy, but then I just came back here alone and everything was open and empty and I couldn't keep busy anymore…"

She was talking fast, like she wasn't thinking about anything before she was saying it and it was terrifying to think that this was what was going on in her head all the time and he wanted to help, to slow it down and distract her but her didn't know how.

He shifted so he was kneeling next to her and he reached his hands out to hers, tugging her hands out of her hair gently, guiding them back down to the mattress and then reaching one back up to her arm, and resting it there, rubbing small circles against her sleeve.

Her breathing slowed down, back to a normal pace and she opened her eyes to look at him properly, and he saw how red and raw they were.

"I don't want to think about it anymore," she whispered.

He nodded, because he understood. He wanted her to know he understood. He kept his arm where it was, and brought his other up to brush the sticky hair off of her forehead. He nodded.

She watched him, trailed the movement of his head bobbing up and down with her eyes and then suddenly she was leaning forward, the heat of her body pressing into his and the soft flesh of her lips pushing against his own. She was gripping his shirt and moving herself closer and he couldn't think anymore, until he pulled away.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

She looked down at their legs, pushed up against each other at awkward angles and bit her lip.

"Keeping busy," she mumbled. "Thinking about something else."

He felt the heat of her palms still on his chest and he pressed into her, and put his hands on her ribs, slipping them under her shirt.

He nodded. "Okay."

She couldn't think about anything when he was touching her. Not about anything other than him touching her.

His lips had trailed their way over her neck, her chest, her stomach, and his hands mirrored their movement, moving in opposite directions, making sure she was buzzing and alive and preoccupied on every part of her she could touch.

It was when he was gone that it all came flooding back.

He didn't linger. There, wonderfully, completely there one moment, and then gone the next, leaving her body feeling light but her head suddenly heavier than a pile of bricks, and she tried to hide how hard it was to breathe.

Her head ached with a million thoughts as he pulled his shirt on, and a pair of sweatpants. He padded over to the door and slipped his shoes on.

"I'm going to go for a walk," he mumbled without looking at her. "I just...I'll be right back."

He closed the door and she bit down on her lip, shoving her face into the pillow.