Some days Clarke Griffin really hated the universe.
She hated it the day her dad died. She hated it the day she left her mother's house. She hated it the day Octavia met her soulmate. She hated it again when Octavia moved in with Lincoln and left her. She hated it more the day she moved out of Bellamy's apartment and into the ugly yellow walls of her dorm room, and she hated it the day she turned eighteen.
She remembered that day down to the last detail. She remembered waking up before four in the morning. Sitting in the bathroom for the rest of the day. She remembered waiting. Waiting, for someone who wasn't coming. Waiting for a soulmate that didn't exist. She remember the sinking feeling at the end of the day, and the last bit of hope she had as she set her alarm for four in the morning again. She remembered thinking she would just try again the next day, and she remembered how much she hated the universe when she saw nothing for the next week. She hated it the day that she finally accepted that her bathroom mirror would never change.
Today wasn't a day to hate the universe though. Today she was heading back to Bellamy's apartment. A break from classes had finally come and she was going home.
Home.
She definitely didn't hate the universe the day she saw the little easel in Bellamy's new study. It was the first time since her father had died that she had begun to feel as if someone would one day leave her.
The semester up until now had been exhausting. Not only was pre-med kicking her ass, but Clarke was almost sure she was going crazy. It started almost as soon as she got to her dorm. Only a couple days into classes and Clarke was convinced she was not only seeing things, but hearing them too. One morning, as she was leaving her bathroom, a bright light seemed to radiate from the side of her. As she turned to look, though, it was gone. All she saw was the hallway leading back to her lofted bed. She decided that maybe she should go to bed sooner if this is how early she needed to wake up.
The thing was, though, it kept happening. A sudden flash as she was walking. A creaking noise as she was stepping into the shower. A banging when she hadn't closed a door. The color green seemed to keep popping up. It was either early in the morning or late at night. She began to create scenarios for herself. Maybe she had a concussion that she totally forgot about getting. Maybe there was a misplaced baby monitor in her wall. An open window she forgot about. Or maybe her phone was acting up. It didn't work, and the ideas kept coming.
At one point, she began to contemplate the idea that aliens were waiting in her hall to abduct her. Anything to keep from thinking the scarier things, like brain tumor or dementia. Besides, she thought she might have a chance against the aliens. Would she go and see a doctor? No. Would she ignore it and pray to a god she wasn't sure she believed in that it would go away and not die? Oh hell yeah.
None of that mattered today though, because she was going home. Home to Bellamy. When he picked her up from the dorms something warm settled in her chest. Something right. When he smiled at her as she set her bag down in her room something fluttered in her stomach.
And then her stomach promptly dropped. This was not good. This was full out -stepped on a rusty nail with no idea when your last tetanus shot was - bad. She knew that flutter. She felt that flutter when Finn gave her that stupid toy dear. When Lexi kissed her for the first time. When she was at the coffee shop around the block from her dorm and gave the cute blond her number.
She loved Bellamy, she had always known that. He was family. Octavia's older brother. The guy who gave her a home when her mother was no mother at all. She just hadn't known that she loved him. Not like that. Not like spend the rest of our days in this little apartment and make that office and nursery kind of way. But there that damn flutter was.
She vowed to ignore it. Nothing would come of it anyway. Bellamy would have a soulmate any day now. Being the mother hen that he was it was obvious that his soulmate would be younger than him. Someone he could give all that worry and care he used to give his mother, and now used to give his sister, to. Clarke may hate the universe, but she knew even it wouldn't be cruel enough to deny Bellamy Blake a soulmate. But that soulmate would never be her. And she would always be the younger sister in the spare room of his apartment… at least until his soulmate moved it.
Over the next few weeks she put her plan into action. As Bellamy's hand touched her when he was passing her the milk, she ignored the sparks shooting up her arm. When Bellamy asked how she slept the night before she omitted how she dreamed of him. When he threw his arm around her shoulder as they walked through the grocery store she resisted the urge to plaster herself against his side.
It worked fairly well, for a while. One late evening, the day before Clarke was suppose to go back to the dorms, Clarke sat in front of the mirror again. It wasn't exactly the same bathroom Clarke had hated the universe in on her eighteenth birthday, because Bellamy had painted the walls. Green of all colors, she didn't know what he was thinking with that one.
But Bellamy had laughed at a stupid joke of hers that morning. With his head flung back and biggest of smiles on his face Clarke was sure she had never seen something more beautiful. And the laugh. The sound still played over in her mind even now. Looking into her own eyes in the bathroom mirror.
"Mirror Mirror on the wall," she muttered to herself. "Stop being a dick and show me something useful." She needed to see a soulmate. Something to stop this feeling in her chest. To stop the image of Bellamy ruppled with sleep on the living room cough after their movie marathon last Saturday. Something to stop her feelings for a man who would never be hers.
But the mirror was the same as ever. Showing her nothing but her own wet hair and disappointed expression. And she added another day to the list of days in which Clarke Griffin hated the universe.
Things didn't get better when she got back to the dorms. If possible they seemed to get worse. Bellamy had started calling her more than ever, and every time his name popped up across her screen Clarke's heart beat faster, stronger, as if it was reaching out to him of its own will. She didn't know how much more of this she could take.
So she went back to her bathroom. She sat on the counter in front of her mirror just like she had done on her eighteenth birthday. And just like her eighteenth birthday and the week to follow, the cool glass showed nothing but her own face. Clarke decided that every day was going to be a day she hated the universe.
One bright spot in her hating the universe life had occured since coming back to the dorms though. That bright spot being that there were no more bright spots, no more flashes as she walked into the hall. No more random footsteps, or banging doors. No more random green.
Score one for ignoring something until it goes away.
At least, Clarke thought it had gone away until a very late night after a marathon study session with her chemistry group. Green had reared its ugly head again. Only this time, as she looked into her bathroom mirror, Clarke could see it was an ugly green wall.
Everything seemed to fall into place in that moment. The out of place noises, the strange flashes in the hall. They hadn't been in the hall at all, but in the bathroom mirror as she walked out the door. If only she had stuck her head back into the bathroom she would have seen what she was seeing now and everything would have made sense like it did in this moment.
Well, almost everything. Almost because as she looked at the man in the mirror, the one in front of those ugly green walls, leaning over the sink, she knew him. And nothing made sense anymore.
"I didn't even hear you come in, how did you get home?" Bellamy asked from the mirror with a brief glance up to her before splashing water on his face.
Clarke was fairly sure that in that moment she would have been no match for an alien abduction. The universe was never suppose to give her this. The universe was a dreadful thing. It could never be this kind.
"Clarke?" Bellamy sounded worried now as he raised his eyes back to hers.
A large part of Clarke wished she had a camera for this moment, the moment when the realization of what was happening hit Bellamy. But watching his jaw drop and eyes light, Clarke was fairly sure she would never forget it anyway.
"Bellamy?" Clarke reached her hand out to the mirror. That damn thing that had once been so cold and unforgiving now felt smooth and comforting.
As she watched Bellamy raise his hand to meet hers, Clarke decided that maybe not every day was a day to hate the universe.