A/N: Thank you so much to everybody who's been reading and reviewing! And an especially big thank you to LanieDawn for being an awesome beta.

-I don't own anything.-

Enjoy! :)

Chapter 4

Clarke hadn't been entirely motivated to look her best tonight. So, instead of the sparkly, butt-hugging dress Octavia had bought her for such occasions, Clarke had dressed herself in a loose, shimmery top so long that it almost hid her tattered jean shorts and a pair of simple, comfortable flats with only minimal scuff marks on the toes.

When she recognized the bartender as her very own bathroom creep, Clarke found a frown battling a smile on her face. The brief look of surprise, followed by a narrow-eyed smile revealed his own recognition of her.

Carefully joking, Clarke lowered her eyebrows at the man, "Are you stalking me?"

The bathroom creep smiled at her with a scoff, joking, "Please." Clarke shrugged, enjoying the way his "bitch please" face caused a charming dimple to appear in his chin.

"I work here," he explained, then paused, "If you really want to know, I just transferred from another Lacie's. I moved to town yesterday, actually. Wanted to be closer to my-"

"Sister. Got it." she paused, "Why do you need to find her, anyway? Just because of that phone call?"

With a sigh, the guy dropped his pungent rag into the half-absorbed puddle on the bar and rubbed at the back of his neck.

"It's a long story." He answered after a moment's silence, and Clarke lifted herself onto the bar stool.

"Then grab me a glass of wine and get talking." She told him, and was pleased to learn that his cockeyed smile also revealed his chin-dimple.

"Well, I was worried about her already when she decided to go to a college so far away from home." He started, placing a large glass before Clarke, filled halfway to the top with a deep red wine. It smelled expensive, and, sipping it, she found it tasted expensive, too.

"Were your parents worried that she was moving away?"

The guy rubbed at the back of his neck.

"I guess I need to go farther back to explain." he paused for a moment, expression thoughtful. "Okay," he decided, "when I was little, I didn't really have a dad around, and when my sister was born, things went from hard to harder. Our mom pretty much told me that she was mine to raise. My sister, my responsibility.

"Mom, meanwhile, did everything she could to keep food on the table and clothes on our backs, but... She did too much. She did the wrong things. Her money-making methods ended up getting her killed a while ago. All of a sudden it was just me and this teenage girl, orphaned and basically broke, and things got harder again.

"I took on a lot of work and did my best to squeeze in some classes between shifts. It sucked, but when I got fired from the car dealership I'd been working at, everything started looking up."

Frowning, Clarke leaned forward, "It started looking up when you got fired?" she asked. That dimple reappeared on his chin with another smile.

"Yeah, it sounds weird, I know. But after I got fired there, I got a job at the Lacie's in town. After a couple months, I'd made it to a managerial position, and I was actually thinking about buying the place, but it was close to my sister's graduation, so I decided to save up the money for college." He laughed, "Management is a bitch, but I was making enough, and her grades were good enough that she could pretty much have her pick of the crop in the way of colleges.

"When she found a place that was essentially perfect for her, but so far away from home, I couldn't think of a logical way to say, 'No.' So she left. I called her every week, and she'd been sounding happy, and she'd been sounding safe, and then a guy cut her off when she was talking to me a couple days ago, and... I think I was just waiting for a reason, any reason, to come find her. It sounds so stupid, now."

Clarke grabbed his hand across the bar.

"Hey, shut up. It's not stupid. You've spent your whole life protecting her. It's only natural you'd want to keep her safe." The bartender's look was skeptical, and Clarke rolled her eyes, "Okay. It's a weak reason to run charging away from home on a wild rampage, and I'm not saying I agree with you, I'm just saying that I get it."

"You think I'm the crazy, overprotective big brother." he laughed. Clarke sipped at her wine, realizing briefly that she'd forgotten about it completely while the bartender had been speaking.

"No," she replied, "I am wondering how you were able to go from management in one Lacie's to bartender in another in just a couple days, though."

He licked his bottom lip thoughtfully.

"Two days ago, Sister-napper ended our call, and I flipped out, made some calls, and somehow convinced the big wigs to let me transfer here. I got cut to bartender, but I've got an assistant management position at the burger place down the street. Lacie's owns them, too. So I've got that during the day, tending at night, and all the time in between for sister-stalking."

"Glad to know I'm not the only one being stalked." Clarke smiled, "So when do you sleep, if you're working days and nights?"

He shrugged, "Neither job is seven a week, so I've actually got quite a bit of stalking time. I managed to snag a nice little apartment near here, too, dirt-cheap and not bad quality. Well, not great quality, either, but, you know. With both jobs, I think I'll be able to keep up with her college fees and my apartment, and maybe I can even eat on weekends."

"You've got jobs and housing. Just got to find your sister and you'll have the makings for a good life in this city."

The bartender nodded, then frowned.

"Wait. Are you here alone?"

Clarke nodded before shaking her head, "Well, I mean, I did come here alone, but I've made a few friends from some classes." The bartender's mouth curled into a grin.

"No, I mean, are you here alone? The club?"

Clarke's face heated as she shook her head, laughing. "No, no. I came with some friends. But, they like to get... intimate. It usually takes about a half hour for them to actually be any fun. I just wanted to get away to wait them out."

The bartender gestured grandly, "Well, you're welcome to wait here, where we specialize in spilled beer, good wine, and long, mopey sob stories."

Clarke laughed, "Oh, come on, creep. Your story was hardly mopey." The bartender grinned again, but just as he started to speak he was cut off by a familiar, irritating voice.

"Sweetcheeks, the lovebirds have flown the nest, and they are asking for you on the dance floor." Murphy cast a judgmental look at the bartender before he turned back to Clarke, "Guess you are a lonely girl tonight."

"Screw off, Murphy." Clarke said, and offered an apologetic look at her bathroom creep. "I'm sorry. I guess my awkward dancing is wanted on the floor. I'll be sure to find you next time I need to wait them out," she paused, "I mean, if that's alright. You might not be working, but I guess I'll... Thanks, anyway." She sighed, and the bartender licked at his bottom lip, smiling despite her awkward embarrassment.

"Anytime, Princess." he told her, and Clarke smiled despite herself, locked onto the bartender's black-brown eyes. Murphy made an unattractive noise in his throat, then, and the spell was broken. Clarke found herself being dragged away from the rich wine and entrancing dimple and into the ear-wrecking noise of the dance floor.

...

Bellamy watched her shake off the grabby hands of the weirdo as she walked away. Was he her boyfriend? If so, that relationship was a strange one. Brother, maybe? But their similarities basically ended at species. Maybe he was just a friend, but the way his hands had tried to wrap around the girl's waist preached otherwise.

Bellamy frowned, and found himself obtrusively distracted for the rest of his shift. Hours passed in which he dealt with three drunks, two overly flirtatious women trying to get free drinks, four complaints about some guy grabbing people on the dance floor... And a partridge in a pear tree. He thought bitterly, wiping at his forehead.

Someone was running the air conditioning on low, probably to save money, but it made the employees miserable in the process. Bellamy had always made sure that his Lacie's had been at a tolerable temperature at all times. When he was manager of this one, he vowed, he'd ensure that again.

At the end of his shift, he wandered close to the dance floor on his way out, hoping to see the towel princess. It was ridiculous, he knew, but he found that despite himself, he liked her, and not only because he'd seen her almost-naked and been bewitched by her voice both in conversation and in pleasure. There was something in her eyes, something unnameable, something that made it hard to look away. He wanted to see it again.

Instead of blonde hair, however, a dark head spinning among the pulsing bodies caught his eye.

"Octavia!" He yelled over the chaos, but his voice was lost in the music. Pushing into the writhing mass of bodies, he called her name again.

When he found her arm under his hand, a massive tension flowed out of his chest, and he pulled her into a hug.

"Bellamy! What are you doing here!" she had to yell the question twice before he heard it.

"I came to find you!" with excess improvisational sign-language, he managed to communicate through the noise.

It took five repetitions before Bellamy understood Octavia's reply, "Too loud! Talk tomorrow! I'll call you in the morning!"

He made her promise, stomach roiling. He wanted nothing more than to toss his sister over his shoulder and drag her away to talk properly. However, he knew Octavia, and he knew that if he did force her to talk she'd shut up tighter than a clam. As much as he hated it, he'd have to wait for her call in the morning.

He made a mental note to ask how she'd gotten into the club despite being underage. Octavia was resourceful, Bellamy knew. At times, too resourceful. He decided to leave her for the night, though. She was glistening with sweat, and in her eyes was that terrifying glimmer threatening rebellion, and Bellamy resolved to scold her after she'd satisfied her partying urges instead of trying to stop a train already speeding down the tracks.

He grabbed his coat on his way to the exit and froze by the coatrack. A blonde head was just disappearing out into the night. Bellamy swallowed. Was it horribly weird to go after her? Ask for her number? Damn it, it probably was.

But she'd been okay with listening to his whining about Octavia, maybe she'd be okay with a little more weird. He pushed open the door and plunged out into the night after her.