Bellamy was in the living room when she had finished showering and changing. He'd left a pair of his own sweatpants and a sweater outside the bathroom door for her to change into. She had hesitated when considering her bra and panties. Her underwear was mostly dry, so she slipped that on (knowing that she would have put it on even if it hadn't been dry—there was no way she was going to walk around in Bellamy's pants commando), but her bra was still completely soaked, and she shivered when she thought about trying to strap it back on, so she bunched it up with the rest of her cold, wet clothing and slipped the sweater on without it.
She hadn't been to the Blake's cabin in years. It was somewhere she had gone every year as a kid with Octavia and Bellamy—mostly with Octavia while Bellamy towered over her intimidatingly, his three years on her seeming like a much bigger deal in middle school than they did now in college.
But every winter, here she'd be at least for a few days after Christmas to ring in the new year with the Blakes, making snow forts and sledding and drinking hot chocolate, playing pranks on Bellamy as they became sneakier, or as the years went on, ignoring the sounds of Bellamy's guests in his bedroom as they crept by in the middle of the night to finish off the rest of the good desserts before someone else got a crack at them.
Now, standing on the bottom step looking at Bellamy reading in the living room, she felt like a stranger. She hadn't come here since her first year of high school, and now here she was, about to graduate college, and she could barely recognize the person sitting a few feet in front of her. She was a new person in this house, and Bellamy was a stranger to her, and a bigger mystery than ever.
It's not like she never saw him, she did. When she was home on breaks she always spent more time at the Blake's than at her own house, so she saw him plenty. They talked occasionally too, a phone call here or there, usually relating to Octavia, but they would always chat about themselves for a minute or two. But this seemed like entirely different context.
Shaking her head she cleared her throat and called out to him.
"Hey, um, is it okay if I use your dryer? My clothes are still pretty wet."
Startled he snapped his book shut, clamping it down on the finger he had been using to mark his page. He winced for a fraction of a second before jumping up and reaching for the pile of clothes in her arm.
"Oh, you don't have to—," she started but he just shook his head.
"It's fine, go grab something warm to drink. There's coffee or tea." There was a ghost of a smile on his face. "We may even have some of that hot chocolate you and O used to guzzle as kids, if you want it."
She did chose the hot chocolate, for no other reason than she was feeling particularly nostalgic. The past suddenly seemed like a much better option than the present.
She took her mug of cocoa, and sat herself down on the couch Bellamy had been reading in moments before. She rubbed her hands over the familiar furniture—after all these years everything about the cabin was the same.
(Almost everything).
Bellamy plopped down next to her, raising his feel to rest on the coffee table. She curled her feet under herself, shifting a bit to face him.
"So what happened?" he asked.
That was the thing about Bellamy. No matter what age they were, or how long they spent apart, he always had an uncanny ability to read her like an open book—a fact which horrified her most of her life, as she was always afraid of the moment when he would finally call her out on her huge crush on him. That secret seemed to be the only one he never caught on to though.
"Walked in on my boyfriend—well ex-boyfriend, now—having sex with someone else."
She never felt the need to lie or beat around the bush with him. (Well. Almost never.)
Bellamy's jaw dropped, and his nose wrinkled in disgust. "Merry freaking Christmas," he muttered to himself.
She barked out a laugh at that, glad that he wasn't trying to be comforting. Because to be honest? Clarke wasn't sad—she was pissed. And she needed someone who would understand that. Octavia would have been pissed for her, but would have been careful broaching the subject with her. Her mom would tell her that she should try to work it out anyway. Bellamy was the only one who really got her when this kind of stuff happened.
"And a happy New Year," she replied bitterly, raising her mug to him.
"I think you're missing something in there," he said after she took a sip. He disappeared into the kitchen and returned a moment later with a bottle of whiskey, pouring a bit into Clarke's mug.
"To shitty people, and crappy days," Clarke toasted.
"To blizzards," Bellamy said.
Clink.
Bellamy wasn't entirely sure what was going on with Clarke. It had been a few months since he had seen her. With Octavia off in college, Clarke's visits to their house became less and less frequent, restricted to whenever their school breaks lined up with each other. And it had been years since she'd been to the cabin with them for Christmas.
He'd be lying if he said he hadn't missed having her around. She'd always sort of…gotten him. As kids they argued all the time, there was hardly a day that didn't end in them bickering, but as they got older it turned friendly and teasing.
(Sometimes, he even used Octavia as an excuse to call her. "Check" to make sure everything was alright, pretend Octavia didn't tell him everything. It was small, but it was something).
They were never close like she was with Octavia, the three years between them always seemed to matter when they were growing up.
(He didn't feel like they really mattered now).
And maybe it was selfish, but he was glad for whatever twist of fate brought her to the cabin that day. He missed her.
"Hey," she interrupted his thoughts. "You haven't put up a Christmas tree."
He glanced over at the corner of the room by the fireplace where the tree usually stood. He'd gotten out the boxes of decorations, and stacked them in the corner, but he hadn't actually put any of them up yet.
"Oh, yeah. Well O and I always put it up together," he explain, even though he knew she knew that. "When she called to say her flight was cancelled, I just didn't bother."
Clarke looked at him, appalled.
"You were going to have Christmas without a tree?"
"Well, I was planning on having a relaxing holiday to myself, but them the abominable snowman showed up on my doorstep."
She smacked his arm playfully, feigning shock at his words.
"Okay," she said through her laughter. "But I'm here now and I refuse to have Christmas without a tree!"
So half an hour later, with the old fake tree dug out of the attic, Bellamy was being ordered around by Clarke, who was telling him exactly where to put everything. Every ornament, every decoration, every light.
"You know this is my cabin, right? I should get some say in where everything goes."
"Here," she said, tossing him the star for the top of the tree. "You can choose where to put that."
He had to admit, the house cabin looked better now that everything was up. (He obviously wasn't going to tell Clarke that, though. God, that would inflate her ego.)
When she slipped away to the kitchen to make some more hot cocoa, he ran up to his room, and pulled a small wrapped box out from his duffle bag. He tucked it under the tree silently and went back to his book.
She came back into the living room and handed him a mug. (She'd not forgotten the whiskey this time, he noticed).
"What's that?" she nodded over to the tree.
"Why, it's a Christmas tree, Clarke. What do they teach you at that fancy school of yours?"
She shot him a look. Setting his mug down, he moved over to the tree and grabbed the box from beneath it, handing it to her.
"It's your Christmas present. I brought it to give to Octavia. You guys usually see each other on New Years, right?"
"You got me a present?"
He felt a blush creep up on his neck.
"Yeah," he tried to sound casual. "Don't get too excited it's nothing huge."
She grinned.
"Wait here," she told him.
She ran upstairs, taking the steps two at a time, and then returned down a minute later, with a similar small box in her hand.
"Merry Christmas, Bell," she said handing it over to him.
"Technically, Christmas isn't until tomorrow," he pointed out.
She waved him off, and sat back down on the couch next to him, reaching for her present. She peeled the wrapping paper off carefully and pulled out a little gray box. Opening it, she lifted out a long necklace, with a thin gold pendant. There was an owl engraved on the pendant. She lifted it up around her head and pulled he hair out so it wouldn't tangle in the chain.
It looked ridiculous against his big chunky sweater that she was wearing, but she was smiling, so he figured she didn't care.
"It's beautiful, Bell."
"The owl is the symbol for the Roman Goddess Minerva. You know, Goddess of Wisdom and arts and crafts. Seemed fitting for you."
She pulled him into a hug and then pushed his present into his hands. "Open it!" she commanded.
Clarke was the tiniest bit nervous about her gift for Bellamy. He would like it she was sure, but it was…well, he might think it was too personal.
(After his blush inducing explanation of his necklace, though, she thought it might be less of a risk).
He lifted off the top of the small black box she'd handed him (she hadn't gotten a chance to wrap it yet) and pulled out a watch.
"Wow, this is really nice, Clarke."
"It was my dad's, actually."
(And maybe she had been lying to herself for a while and it had stopped being a stupid crush a long time ago, and maybe this gift announced that quite plainly, and maybe she didn't care anymore).
He looked up at her, and then back down to the watch, and Clarke was sure this was the only time in her entire life that she had seen Bellamy Blake speechless.
He opened his mouth to say something, when a shrill ringing broke out from the coffee table. It was her phone.
She glanced down at the screen at the same time Bellamy did, both seeing Finn's name flashing across the screen.
"You gonna answer that?" he asked her.
"Nope."
Bellamy waited another ring to say anything more.
"He may want to fix things you know," he told her quietly. Clarke sighed.
"I really just…don't care."
And she didn't.
Obviously she had liked Finn. He seemed like such a great guy. He was nice and he was funny and smart, and he was sweet to her while they were together. But she didn't feel heartbroken when she found him cheating on her. Yeah she felt hurt, but she was mostly pissed. And sitting here, with Bellamy she just couldn't be bothered to care anymore.
"Were you in love with him?"
Bellamy's question shook her out of her thoughts.
"No," she answered immediately.
His eyebrows raised.
"I wasn't," she confirmed. "Really. He was just nice."
"Until he—wasn't." Bellamy pointed out. Clarke huffed out a laugh at that.
"Yeah, until that."
Bellamy seemed to be studying her—probably trying to decide how truthful she was being. She felt her face heat under his gaze and decided she didn't want to talk about Finn any more. She scrambled for something to say.
"What about you?" the words were forming before she could really think them through. "Any adventures of the heart to speak of?"
He breathed out an awkward laugh.
"Uh, not so much," he said. His brow furrowed a bit and he shifted to face Clarke entirely. "Actually, Clarke…"
Suddenly the air felt very different, and Clarke had a feeling the secret she had kept safe from him all those years might not have been very safe after all. And maybe next week he'll have changed his mind, and she'll have to go out and find someone needy and foolishly devoted who would never get bored of her; maybe he will have left and gone on to something new, removed himself as an option, but she still had this one moment and she maybe she wasn't thinking straight but she wasn't about to let the minutes tick by any more, so she reached out and laid her palm on his chest and decided that she was done pretending it was ever a secret at all.
"Bellamy," she breathed and he leaned his forehead down on hers.