Here is chapter 2! This is the last sort of 'set up' chapter, then we will see how much action we can pack into an airport! PLEASE review and let me know what you think!
This being her third year at school in blustery New England, Clarke was no stranger to snow, but its appearance never failed to warm her heart. The whole world seemed to slow down when it snowed - everyone casting longing glances to the windows every few minutes, their minds preoccupied with all sorts of winter-y activities.
The Boston airport was no exception to this snow time-lapse trend, and the security line had adopted a positively glacial pace that had Clarke's foot tapping impatiently. She shot a furtive gaze down to her watch - it had been her father's, and after he passed away the spring of her freshman year, her mother had bequeathed it to her. It dwarfed her wrist and clashed with nearly everything she owned, but Clarke wouldn't be caught dead without it.
Seven o'clock. Clarke had hoped to grab a real dinner before boarding, but now it seemed Burger King would have to do. Maybe they would even have ginger ale on the fountain.
"D'ya think airport security exists in a kinda black hole?" Jasper grumbled, voicing the worries Clarke had just been mulling over. "I swear time just kinda... Disappears. Must be some scientific explanation, right Mont?" The question was answered with silence, and both Clarke and Jasper glanced at Monty after a moment.
They found him staring across the terminal to the front of the security line, his lips parted as he rose a bit on to his tip toes, seeking a better view of whatever held his gaze so firmly. There was a flurry of movement at the crossroads where security checkpoint met boarding area. Clarke could see angry faces and shaking heads, although the cacophony of impatient voices rendered it impossible to hear what was being said.
"You left your phone on, right Jasper?" Monty asked suddenly, snapping Clarke's attention back to their corner of the winding line. Jasper's head bobbed, although the tightening of his mouth made Clarke question the sincerity of his 'yes.' Monty seemed to have the same suspicion, because a moment later he held out his hand expectantly, palm up.
Jasper's eyes widened, and he dove one hand into his coat pocket, rifling around for a few moments before he produced his phone and surrendered it to his friend. "Before you say anything—"
"This is on airplane mode, Jasper!" Monty groaned, interrupting what Clarke suspected was about to be Jasper's confession of that same fact.
"Yes, okay, when I saw your text about keeping it on for flight updates I kind of jokingly thought 'oh, airplane mode, for all your airplane needs' and then I just didn't switch it back?" Jasper babbled as Monty switched his phone on, and both boys flinched as the phone seemed to throw a minor tantrum with the number of notifications it immediately received.
"You should really unsubscribe from some of these." Monty grumbled as he flipped through Jasper's email. Jasper simply shrugged, and Clarke marveled at the trust shared between her two newfound companions. There was a very short list of people on this planet she'd allow to handle her unlocked phone without direct supervision, and it seemed as though these days, that list was shrinking by the hour. Perhaps it'd grown by two today?
Monty's face darkened, and Clarke immediately frowned as well, helping push their small pile of luggage forward as the line inched along a few more feet. Before she could ask what had soured his mood so quickly, Monty held up Jasper's phone, displaying an email from their airline that appeared to contain all the red text in the world.
"Our flight is delayed. By three hours." He announced. Clarke groaned, dread pitting in her stomach - not at the prospect of waiting, because she'd made friends and she'd be able to have that real sit down dinner someplace that was guaranteed to serve ginger ale, but instead at the daunting number of voicemails from her mother that no doubt awaited her once she turned her phone back on.
••••••••••••
"This is SO unfair." Octavia whined, throwing in a solid foot stomp for good measure. She cast her brother a glance and was met with a head of shaggy hair - his back was to her, his attention firmly set on his phone.
"The universe is righting itself, O. Nothing to do but let it go." Bellamy's gruff response did nothing for Octavia's calculated tantrum, and her expression darkened. When her whine turned into a low grumble, Bellamy glanced behind him and couldn't help but chuckle at what he found there:
Octavia stood with her feet spread apart, hands on her hips with her fingers curled into fists and shoulders squared. Her lips were curled into a sneer he recognized, and her glare was positively murderous. His chuckle only stoked the fire - her dark eyes flashed and on a second she had lunged forward and grabbed at his phone.
She was quick, sure, but Bellamy was like lightning as he snapped his hand away and held it high over his head.
"We're going stand by on the Little Rock, O." He scolded quietly as Octavia resumed her defiant stance, apparently unconcerned with the incredulous glances they were drawing from the surrounding passengers. They were nearing the front of the endless queue and thankfully the task of preparing for security was beginning to draw the attention of the majority of their audience.
"It's just three hours, Bell. Three hours, for the best vacation of your life!" Octavia folded her hands under her chin and stuck out her bottom lip, her eyes softening and growing as wide as she could manage. Bellamy scowled at her, and she threw in an exaggerated bat of her lashes. His scowl remained firmly in its place.
They had inched their way nearly to the security checkpoint, and Bellamy was beginning to occupy himself by preparing their luggage. Octavia watched him pull out his ziploc bag of liquids from the top of his duffel, and smirked as he turned to do the same with her backpack. She'd been making sure everything was ready for their impromptu Chicago trip when he'd barked across their shared apartment to make sure her bag was on the top of her things, and she hadn't been bothered to listen.
Now, watching him grumble about protocol and wasting time and getting her ears checked as he dug through her extra scarves, inspiration lit a bright smile on Octavia's face.
"Oh, Bellamy!" She gasped, earning an absolutely acidic glare from her crouched older brother. His eyebrows quirked upwards, inviting her to continue, and Octavia's smile widened. "If we go on standby for Little Rock, doesn't that make it so much more likely that they lose our checked bags? I mean, I know you don't really trust these airport idiots, and you're so right not to."
Octavia cast a meaningful glance to their left, where one such idiot had just toppled over a massive pile of checked luggage and was barking orders at apparently lower ranked idiots to clean up his mess. Bellamy's lip curled, and Octavia celebrated her second victory in the past half hour.
"We're doing standby, Octavia." Bellamy growled. Octavia just nodded and smirked, comfortable in the knowledge that the argument had been won. Her brother would catch up in about seven minutes, and would find some reason that foregoing standby was his idea. She would let him believe it, and in three hours time, they'd be well on their way to Chicago.
••••••••••••
Clarke's phone buzzed insistently as voicemail after text after email registered, and she clung to it, desperately typing out the one message she intended to send. "Flight delayed. Check website. Will touch base later. With friends. Don't worry." She murmured, fingers moving in time with her lips. She hesitated a moment, then added a rushed, "Love you." and hit send.
"Nailed it." Monty declared victoriously as she flipped her phone back onto airplane mode, and Clarke smiled a bit, the tension of the communication sliding out of her shoulders as she deposited her phone back into her bag and zipped it closed. She'd spent the last half hour of their security line wait strategizing how to go about communicating their delay to her mother with minimal freak-out potential. With three heads put together, the trio had finally come up with a foolproof text -
And not a moment too soon, it would appear, as the TSA agent sitting at the end of the line gestured for her to take Jaspers place at his stand. Clarke drifted forward, handing him her boarding pass and her ID and watching as he inspected them.
He wasn't much older than her, and his face was all soft lines and flushed cheeks. He glanced back and forth between her face and her information a few more times than Clarke thought explicitly necessary, but there was no hostility in his gaze, and she saw no harm in offering him a friendly smile.
"You're all good to go, Ms. Griffin." He said warmly, handing her documents back. Their fingers brushed as she accepted them, intentionally Clarke was sure, and her smile widened.
"Thank you." She matched his warmth and earned a small smile and a deepening of the redness in his cheeks in return. Clarke walked to the shortest line, casting a glance over her shoulder to meet his gaze as he wordlessly accepted Monty's boarding pass. Next to him, Monty mimed vomiting, earning a loud laugh from Jasper and a gasp of embarrassment from Clarke, who turned back around before the handsome agent could witness her face turn tomato-red.
Monty caught up with them quickly at the conveyor belt and nudged his shoulder against Clarke's, laughing at her sharp glare.
"Maybe he'll be your white knight in this delay fiasco?" Monty teased, and Clarke groaned, shaking her head firmly. She was saved from dignifying that with a response by another TSA agent beckoning her through the metal detector. This one was a woman, her greying hair pulled back in a punishing bun that gave her angular features a distinct bird-of-prey kind of look.
Clarke gulped as she stepped through, not putting it past this woman to make trouble if she'd forgotten her belt or something, but she was beckoned forward without so much of a second glance. She heard a beeping behind her as she slid her shoes back on, and smirked when she spotted the older woman preparing to pat down a panicky looking Monty. Serves him right.
Monty finally caught up with his chuckling companions, and cast a withering glare at each of them in turn, although he would have seemed more threatening if there wasn't still a mortified flush coloring his cheeks and neck.
"Hungry?" Clarke offered, stifling her laughter and gesturing at a small restaurant on the other side of the Arrivals and Departures screen. Monty looked unconvinced, and Clarke reached out to squeeze his shoulder. "We have time to get dessert?" That promise seemed to sweeten the deal enough to pull him out of his shame, and Monty beamed at Clarke, nodding firmly.
The three headed for welcoming glow of the restaurant, blissfully oblivious to the red blinking text that was beginning to overrun the Arrivals board. From the faux wooden walls of their booth, they didn't hear the near-constant announcements and warnings that came over the P.A. system. Fully occupied by their oversized milkshakes, it certainly didn't occur to any of the three to take their phones off airplane mode.
For now, everything in their bubble of the world was peaceful and content.
UGH I'm sorry this was SUCH a placeholder set up boring chapter! This is NOT going to be as slow of a Bellarke burn as Finding A New Nickname. Next chapter, things are going to hit the fan! Bear with me on this, friends!
And definitely review! The A/U is new territory for me and I'd love to hear how I'm doing. Is it too jarring for this to be totally modern day? Are things making sense? Any glaring common-sense errors? Thanks team!