He was up before her the next day, making coffee in the tiny little coffee maker in their room, and brushing his teeth. She woke up to the sound of a crash and a soft "ow, fuck," from the other side of the room.

"What's happening over there?" she groaned into her blankets. She peeked one eye open and saw him dabbing a towel onto a wet stain on the front of his right pant leg.

He looked up at her as he wiped his pants down. "Is this not how you make coffee?"

She rolled her eyes and rolled herself back into the mattress, her face shoved into her pillow, the blankets tangled up in between her legs. She heard footsteps come toward her and the tap of something being set down on the nightstand between the beds.

"You are so not a morning person," he said.

She shoved herself up and glanced over, seeing a small cup of coffee sitting on the nightstand waiting for her as Bellamy stood over at the coffee maker, dumping packets of sugar into his. She grabbed it and leaned herself against the headboard so she could drink it without spilling it all over herself like Bellamy.

Her face twisted at how bitter it was and he laughed and tossed a sugar packet at her.

"The truck isn't going to be done until later," he said between sips. "I figured we could wander around a bit, explore the town a little so we're not too bored and we can still check in out it every once in awhile."

She nodded. "Yeah, sure, that sounds good." she hopped up off the bed and grabbed some clothes from her bag. "Let me shower and change, and then we can get going."

She slipped into the bathroom, pulling the door shut tight behind her. She turned the knob on the shower, watching the water get hotter and hotter, steam rising up and filling the bathroom before she stepped in.

It was strange, Clarke thought, the water cracking hotly against her skin, to see him like that. Waking up before her and sticking around, making coffee and teasing her and smiling, like they weren't two strangers stranded by circumstance. It was a window, a glimpse at how Bellamy was when he wasn't thinking so hard, when he just let himself be.

It probably wouldn't last, she knew. She remembered his hand slamming against the radio knob, shutting it off that first day, without a thought, like an instinct you grew when a hurt went so deep it just flowed along through your bloodstream, a permanent part of you. Not just a way of reacting to things but a way of being.

But then she thought of his face as they sat on that bench in front of the diner, what seemed like weeks ago, ice cream dripping down his chin as he tried to chase it with his tongue before it dribbled onto his neck, laughing as he danced along to his friend's ridiculous mixtape, the light in his eyes as when he told her about his sister, and she wondered if maybe that's who he really was, who he wanted to be, even if he could count how many times he was that guy on one hand.

She sighed, splashing water on on her face, scrubbing, trying to get off the small layer of sweat that coated her from the sticky hotel sheets. Today, she thought, today she'd see who he was. See which side of him won out, and how she fit into it all.

Her feet slid across the bathroom tiles, slipping, and she wondered as her hand reached out to steady herself on the towel bar, how she'd decided that she need to fit somehow with this guy she'd only known a few days, and remembered briefly, the for the first time in hours, that this wasn't her life. And in maybe just a few days, she'd be back home, or back in school-back to a place where this, all this time with Bellamy, all this time either stuck in her own head or trying to get a peek at his, would all be just a memory.

Bellamy was munching on a muffin when she came out of the bathroom, the freshest clothes she could scrounge out of her bag wrapped around her, and she was starting to wonder if maybe he just kept a stash of them somewhere in his bag.

He glanced up at her when she walked out of the bathroom. His bag was next to his feet, packed, and the bed he'd been sleeping in was made. When she glanced over to her own, she saw the covers had been folded down, tucked into the mattress, the pillows back at the headboard where they'd been before she knocked them off the mattress and hugged one to her body as she slept.

"Ready?" he asked.

She walked over to her bed, her bag on top of it where Bellamy must have put it when he was tidying up. A small smile worming its way onto the corners of her mouth.

"Yeah," she said. "Ready."

He smiled at her and tossed her a muffin. "Chocolate chip this time," he winked.

She pulled off a chunk and plopped it in her mouth, following him out of the room. It was soft and sweet. She wondered if she'd ever really know Bellamy at all.

Bellamy shoved a few quarters in her hand when they got to the lobby. He nodded to a payphone across from the check in desk.

"You told your friend you'd check in with her once in awhile, right?" he asked at her raised eyebrow. "I have to call O, too anyway. You can go first."

"Okay," she said, nodding. She tried to hand back his quarters but he shoved his hands in his pockets. "I can cover my phone call, Bellamy. Wasn't that the deal, anyway?"

Bellamy shrugged, already backing up, making his way to a couch by the door.

"It's just a few quarters," he said. "You can buy me lunch or something."

She felt a laugh tumble out of her, shaking her head at him, watching as he spun on his heel, turning away from her, pulling a small paperback out of his back pocket and plopping down onto the cushions as she was left by the phone to call Raven.

Raven picked up after the first ring.

"Hello?"

"Rae," Clarke said. "Hey, it's me."

"Anya!" Raven's shout crackled through the receiver. "She hasn't been murdered by that guy yet, you owe me $20!"

"Are you kidding me?" Clarke asked. "You bet on whether or not Bellamy would murder me? And you're hanging out with Anya?"

She heard a muffled conversation in the background, shuffling and the clunk of the phone being knocked around before Raven picked it back up and answered her.

"It's been weird without you here. And your apartment always has better snacks than mine." There was a pause before Raven continued. "When are you coming home?"

Clarke glanced over, across the room to where Bellamy sat, his elbows propped up on his knees holding his book in front of him. She could see the coffee stain from that morning on his pants from where she stood, and she recognized the shirt he was wearing as the same one from the day she met him. His brow was creased, but it looked more in focus than distress, his cheeks sooth while his eyes squinted, and she felt a tug on her ribcage she couldn't explain.

"I don't know, Rae," she sighed. She didn't know how to describe it. "I think I'm supposed to be here right now. Just for now."

She could practically hear Raven rolling her eyes on the other end of the call.

"I'm not going to be able to stop Anya from getting a new roommate if you're gone too long you know," she argued. It was a joke, Clarke knew. Raven was just trying to goad her, remind her that they missed her, get her to come home.

And she wanted to. A part of her really did want to go home. To go back to her apartment and go to art shows and movies and clubs with Raven and fight with Anya about whose turn it was to take out the trash and buy the dish soap, and yell about messages they forgot to leave for each other on the notepad by the phone.

But she wanted to go back home to a place where she would still get calls from her parents, the two of them on the phone at the same time, talking over one another. To a home where even when she felt lost it was only for a little while.

And it just wasn't like that now.

She felt lost, like she was stuck in a maze inside a maze, like each turn she took took her deeper and further away from whatever it was that she'd been floating near a few weeks ago. She thought about the cold buzzing in her chest from that bus ride back to school, how it got stronger the closer to school she got, and how it faded just a little when her feet stepped down on the pavement away from it. How each step toward that boy in that gas station, kicking his truck, made the pokes a little weaker.

"I'll be home soon," she promised weakly. "This is just something I have to finish."

She heard Raven sigh on the other end, unsurprised but not understanding what Clarke was saying.

"I feel like I was supposed to be with you during all of this," Raven said softly. "That's what friends do. You shouldn't be alone."

"I'm not alone," Clarke said. She watched Bellamy's tongue slip between his lips as he turned the page.

"Yeah, well, forgive me for being confused as to how I didn't make the cut, but the crazy guy who picks up strangers at gas stations did."

"Raven."

"I'm sorry," she groaned, but Clarke could hear a laugh in her voice. "I guess I shouldn't say that to the crazy girl who propositions strangers at gas stations."

"You're making it sound way more sexual than it was."

"Right," Raven said. "So you haven't even thought about sleeping with him?'

A wave of heat washed over Clarke as she thought about that night, with Bellamy's hands on hers, gripping her hips and her ribs, tangling themselves in her hair and she had to squeeze her eyes shut and turn back toward the wall so he wouldn't catch her blushing.

"Oh my god," Raven said, and Clarke realized that she'd been silent too long. "You've totally slept with him already. I can't believe this. Anya owes me another $20."

"It's not-ugh," Clarke groaned. "It's not like that okay? There was something the other night, but it's not...we're friends, I think. Or almost friends?" She glanced back over to where Bellamy sat. He looked up, feeling her eyes on him and gave a small little wave, scrunching his eyebrows together in question. She smiled, shaking her head and turned back away. "It's hard to tell with him."

Raven was silent for a moment. "Is he cute?"

"Raven."

"What?" she said. "It's a fair question."

"What do you think?" Clarke chewed her lip. "Yeah, he's cute, okay? He's really cute."

"Good," Raven sounded satisfied. "Now at least if you get murdered by this guy, I'll be able to understand why you got in the truck in the first place."

"Bellamy isn't going to murder me, Rae. Really."

She felt a swell of protectiveness over him surge into her. Raven was joking, she wouldn't actually let her get into a truck with a guy she thought might be a murderer without calling the police and dragging Clarke's sorry ass home, but there was an edge to her voice that let Clarke know that no matter what she told her, Raven didn't trust Bellamy.

"You better tell me next time you sleep with him. I feel like I'm missing out."

Clarke laughed, nodding even though Raven couldn't see her. "Sure thing."

"And call more, okay?"

A pang of guilt poked at her chest. She'd been at home for two weeks before she'd met Bellamy and she'd barely called Raven then. This was probably only the third time she'd spoken to her since she left her apartment the day she heard the news about her dad.

"Miss you, Raven."

She heard a muffled sniff on the other end of the line. "Miss you too, Clarke."

"Your turn."

Clarke's voice startled him out of his reading. She stood in front of him, smiling tentatively, like she didn't know if she was supposed to. He flipped his book shut and held it out to her, a raised eyebrow questioning.

"Oh," she said, taking it carefully. "Thanks."

"Don't know how long O's gonna talk, you might want something to entertain yourself." He reached into his pocket, pulling out some coins. "I'll try and be quick though," he said before turning around and walking away.

He heard her faint, "Take your time," as she plopped down on to the couch where he'd just been.

The phone rang twice before someone picked up.

"Hello?"

"Hey," he said. "It's me."

"Hey man," Miller's voice crackled through the phone. "Where the hell are you?"

Bellamy sighed, srunching up his face as if he was standing in front of Miller, blocking himself from seeing his reaction, instead of hours away with a shoddy phone line connecting them. "On my way to San Francisco. I guess."

"You...guess?"

"Yeah there's…" he trailed off, trying to think of a quick way to explain the last few days. There wasn't one that made him sound any variation of okay. "There's a lot happening right now. It's tough to explain."

"Dude, did you meet a girl?" He heard laughter in Miller's voice, and he could picture his lips pinched together to keep the chuckle tucked away, his eyes wide and teasing. It was the first time since he'd dropped Octavia off that he'd felt that pang in his chest that he figured must be homesickness, but he was just too unfamiliar with the notion to know for sure.

"I need to ask you a favor," he deflected.

"Oh my god, there is a girl."

"Miller," he groaned. "Focus please? For like half a second?"

He heard Miller sigh, but he stayed quiet waiting for Bellamy, so Bellamy carried on.

"Can you talk to your dad for me?" He pictured his old truck in the shop down the road, remembering the hours it took to get it running, the hours it took to get enough money for all the parts. Where it all came from. "Apologize to him for me, I mean. He's done a lot for me, and I kind of just took off without warning there."

There were a few beats of silence, a dead buzzing in his ear from the receiver, and he wondered maybe if Miller hung up or if the line was so bad that it crapped out halfway through his call. But then he heard Miller take a breath and shuffle the phone around before bringing it back up and answering him.

"No one's worried about that man," Miller said softly. "You've got a job here whenever you need one, you know that right?"

"I appreciate that."

"How are you?"

It was strange, to be having this conversation with Miller with so many miles between them. He couldn't see him, couldn't read his face or let his own speak for him like they usually did. He didn't think a small shake of the head and an "alright, you know, the usual" would cover it like it normally did. They were going to have to talk.

He seemed to be doing a lot of that lately.

"Honestly?" Bellamy said. "I have no fucking clue." He heard Miller snort and felt relieved that he didn't think he was crazy. "I was on my way home from dropping Octavia off and then suddenly I wasn't. I got stuck at a gas station and ran out of money, and now I'm on my way to San Francisco with some girl who offered to pay."

"Is she cute?"

"Jesus, Miller, that's what you got out of that?"

"That's a yes, then."

He felt his stomach tie in knots and he wasn't sure if it was because it was true or because he was happy about it. He felt Clarke's gaze on his back, and he could picture her hands sweeping across the pages, flipping them between her fingers. He knocked his head lightly into the phone when he realized that after only a few days he could picture her hands perfectly.

"Would it really be that satisfying if I said that she was cute?"

"I wasn't sure but, yes," Miller said. "It was."

Bellamay felt a laugh float out of him and for a brief moment he wished he could reach out and get a hug from his best friend.

"I miss you," he said.

"Pull yourself together," Miller joked. "You've only been gone a few days."

"Yeah," Bellamy sighed. "I think…" He trailed off unsure of what to say. It was a few days, just a couple nights in a bed that wasn't his own, and yet. And yet it felt longer and even though he knew the end of it all was looming near, somewhere down the next stretch of the highway, maybe after another night in another bed that wasn't his own, he felt like maybe this trip wasn't just a few days he could tuck into a calendar before getting back to his regular life. "Nevermind. I don't know what I think."

"Any idea when you're coming back?"

It was funny, he thought, that even with the distance between them Miller could read him so easily. Funny how he never called Ark home. Just back.

"Nah dude," Bellamy said. "No idea."

"Give me a call every couple days, alright?" Miller nearly sounded concerned. "Just so I know you weren't murdered by that girl."

"Clarke's not going to murder me."

"Ooh," Miller cooed. "So her name is Clarke?"

"Goodbye, Miller."

He heard a laugh from the other line. "Bye, Bellamy."

She knew he'd already walked around a bit the night before, when she'd gone back to the room without him, to sulk or to draw, or maybe to make him feel a bit badly about how he was acting, but he seemed happy to be out, walking along the same road again, pointing the occasional thing out to her as they strode in companionable silence.

The town was essentially one road. It had shops and a diner and a school scattered along the road, clumps of houses on either end, but other than the road they were walking on, Clarke was pretty sure there wasn't any else to the town.

She felt Bellamy slow beside her as they passed a display window, yellow paint across the glass, piles of books up behind it. She watched as his gaze fell onto the first display and his feet moved closer to the window, until he caught her watching him. He shrugged, moving back to her side, determined and moving forward.

"It was closed when I walked by last night," he said. "That's all."

She pressed the smile at the corner of her mouth down. "Let's go in."

"Oh, no, we don't have to-" he starred but she cut him off.

"C'mon," she said, stepping toward the door whether he was following her or not. "It's not like we have anything else we really need to do, right?"

He nodded but didn't move from where he was and she could see the beginnings of a blush creeping up from his neck to his cheeks.

"I'll go in alone if you won't come with me," she said, turning away. "It looks pretty cool though, so I think you might be missing out."

She didn't have to wait to see if he was following her, she heard the hff of his breath and the scuffle of his feet and she could feel the weight of his presence behind her. Something she'd grown used to in the past few days, a weight she wasn't sure she would do without when the time came.

She dipped off to the right of the store, art book catching her eye in a corner where framed paintings and photographs cluttered the wall, as he went start to the back, past the counter to a shelf that touched the ceiling under a set of stairs that led to what she could only assume was an apartment a floor above them.

She flipped through pages of old books for what felt like only moments but could have been hours. The smell of wood and paper and graphite, the sound of footsteps and scribbling and chuckling and sighing surrounding her. She bumped into Bellamy twice, both of them walking slowly, swaying side to side in front of shelves with their noses in books, too concentrated to notice what they were doing until they toppled into each other, making the books fall with a clunk to the ground.

"Something interesting?" He joked as he bent to pick up what had been knocked out of their hands.

She smiled as he handed her book back over, and reached her arm out to tip the cover of his down so she could read it.

"What've you got?" She asked, curious, tipping forward on her toes to get a better look but he was sliding back, out of her reach before she could see it.

"Nothing," he said. "Just flipping through."

It was strange, but she shrugged, because everything was strange with Bellamy and at least today things were warm and strange, a bubble she could bounce around in without fear of it popping. It was a nice shift from the stilted, careful strange that had been washing over them for days.

A few minutes later she finds him sat in a corner, a stack of books on one side of his legs, crossed in front of him, another flipped open resting against his toes. His bottom lip was pulled into his teeth, worrying away, and he didn't hear her shift the stack of books she held from one hip to another and she walked up to him, and he barely noticed until she was plopped down in front of her.

"Oh," he said, startled. "Hey. We can go if you -"

She shook her head.

"Nah, I'd like to check a few of these out, but it's hard to do it standing," she said. "If you don't mind staying a bit longer."

He nodded, shrugging like he didn't care but she could see a faint smile working its way onto his cheeks, but she glanced away, focusing down on her books, before he could catch her staring.

It did something in the pit of her stomach, his smile, twisting a curling it, making her feel like it was about to flip out of her while it spread a warm rush through her at the same time, and she wasn't sure what to make of it all. So she kept track of them, tucking each smile away in her brain, ready to pull them back out when he shuffled his walls up again.

The face he made when he was reading was like the one he made while he was driving, stern and concentrated, but ready. His eyebrows were scrunched together and his tongue popped out ever so slightly on occasion, licking his lips before he started chewing on his bottom one. She watched as his free hand drummed out on his leg and an odd sensation of familiarity washed over her, like she was so used to it all that it wove into her life naturally and now she would feel lost without the sound of his fingers tapping against the denim hugging his leg.

He looked up at her.

"What?" She asked.

"You've got a weird look on your face," Bellamy said.

Clarke considered herself for a moment and then burst out laughing.

"Smiling?" She asked. "Smiling is a weird look on me?"

She watched the blush splotch along his cheeks, lighting up his face and sending waves of heat all over her.

"You know what I meant," he grumbled. "You were like...staring at nothing and smiling. You looked like a crazy person."

"Just shut up and read your books," she joked. "You grumpy old man."

"I'm two years older than you," he muttered, but he was smiling down at his book again and she shook her head.

They'd spent an hour in the bookstore, curled up on the floor, their respective piles of books scattered all around them before Clarke complained that her legs hurt and she had to stand up. She dropped one book down next to him as he kept reading and had gathered all her others to go put them back where she'd found them before coming back over to him.

"Pick one," she said, grabbing her own from next to him.

"Excuse me?" He asked.

She rolled her eyes at him and gestured to the books on the ground in front of him. Some were novels, short and small so he could fit them in his pockets if he needed to, others were books of short stories and poetry. Others were more embarrassing. Self help books and school books he wished he could buy, and things he would never want Clarke to see around him, no matter how smooth the day had gone.

"Pick a book," she said.

"Why?"

She stared at him, huffing a breath out from her nose, like she was annoyed at him for missing something she didn't want to explain.

"Which one do you want?" She said instead of answering.

"None," he said piling them up as he stood, feeling his knees crack as he straightened them out. "I'm not going to buy any of them."

"Not what I asked," she said, like she was bored. "Just pick one."

"Why?" He said, stubborn.

"Oh my god," she cried. "You are honestly so much work. Just-constantly. I'm going to buy one for you, okay? Just pick out a book."

He pulled back confused. His hands ran along the spines of them and he wanted to reach out instinctively for one of the used ones he picked out, battered cover and crinkled spine so it would fit right in with his others, ragged on the shelf.

His fingers grazed over the spine of a new one, pages fresh and crisp, a hardcover, one he couldn't fit in his pocket, but would look nice on a night stand of a living room table, to grab at home when he was bored, when he finally had time to relax now that he wasn't taking care of two other people any time he wasn't working.

In the end he grabbed a small, leather bound journal. It pages clear and fresh, no lines running across them, waiting for something to fill them up.

She smiled as she took it from him, the pads of her fingers running across the soft cover, nodding as she wrapped her hand around it.

"Okay," she said. "Be right back, then."

He watched as she walked off toward the register, her book and his hugged tight to her chest. He wondered if he'd ever write in it, or if it'd sit in a drawer in his nightstand, waiting for him to figure out his thoughts in words he could never come up with.

They'd wandered around for a couple more hours before Bellamy gave in to her pleas for food and they stopped in the diner around the corner from the repair shop.

He'd been awkward since the bookshop, holding the journal he'd picked out close to him, his knuckles tight around it, even when they went into other shops. She'd offered to carry it in her purse, but he'd just waved her off with a shake of his head saying he didn't mind.

She'd shrugged at that, deciding to ignore it, and pulled him into the record store a few doors down from the bookshop they'd gone into.

He'd walked close behind her around the store, murmuring comments into her as they stood side by side, flipping through records.

"This one" he'd say, pulling an album out with a band she'd never seen before on the cover, dressed in all black and ripped pants, makeup smeared carelessly across their faces. "This was Miller's favorite. He used to blast it in the shop while we worked, drove his dad insane."

She laughed raising an eyebrow at him. "I'm not sure I want to meet Miller, if his music taste is anything to go by."

He gave her a funny look at that, a strange little smile poking into his cheeks as his eyebrows twitched closer together.

"Uh, yeah," he stammered out, shrugging. "Well, that's Miller."

He stuck close by her, and she found herself doing the same. Telling him things that no one cared about, things like which album drove Anya up the wall when she played it too loud, or which one she liked to cook to, or which one Raven always played when they were getting ready to go out. She stopped when she stumbled across the record her dad always played when he was developing pictures, and he paused beside her, his hand reaching over hers, his palm brushing against the back of her hand as he slipped the record out of her grasp and into his own.

"Ah," he said, straightening it out in front of himself. "I always liked this one."

He flipped it over, reading the song list on the back and she propped herself up on her toes to read it over his shoulder.

He glanced back at her, and she forced a small smile on her face. She didn't want to cry there, in the store thinking of her father, but she couldn't find the words to explain what it was, clogging her throat and shrinking her smile, but he caught her eye and nodded.

"This one," he said, tapping the fourth song on the list. "That was always my favorite."

He bobbed his head and started to hum. He wiggled his eyebrows as he did, his movements growing bigger and his humming growing louder until he was singing outright, off-key and barely within tempo. He turned so he was facing her, bending down so his face was in line with hers, but his eyes were squeezed shut as he sang. His hands reached out for hers, swaying their linked arms back and forth, not caring about the people staring at them.

"Oh my god," she laughed. "Bellamy people are staring."

"Lucky them," he said, still humming. "It's a good song."

She let him move around her and let her throat loosen and let herself breathe the air around her without feeling the weight of someone who wasn't there as Bellamy's voice washed over her.

He peeked one eye open at her when he finished up the last verse. Watching her to see if the smile was real or forced this time.

"The next one is pretty good too, you know…" he started, lifting the record back up to see which one was listed next. "I can always keep going-"

"No way," she said shoving him in the shoulder. "You've got a terrible voice."

They'd stayed there, browsing and talking, sticking close by even when they were silent, for a while longer. It wasn't until she felt her stomach rumble beneath her shirt that she glanced over at him and he nodded toward the door.

"There's a diner down the road," he said. "Let's go grab some lunch and then we can check on the truck."

There was a jukebox, brown and red and yellow, booming from the corner of the diner. The booths were filled with couples, old couples, two heads of gray hair popping up from every table.

A waitress dressed in a poodle skirt and roller blades slid up to them.

"Hi there!" She said, with a wave to them. "Table for two?"

Bellamy's eyes were wide when he glanced back at her. "Yeah," he said, nodding. "That'd be great, thanks."

She led them over to a booth in the corner opposite the juke box, red cushions glaring up at them. She set the menus down on either side of the table and waited until they'd scooched themselves in, in front of the pace settings before she spoke again.

"Alright, I'll give you two a few minutes and I'll be right back to grab your order!"

Her voice was small and perky and left Clarke feeling like she was far too somber person to have ever walked through those doors.

"Want a poodle skirt, Clarke?" Bellamy said, teasing. "I think you could fit right in here."

"Shut up, you greaser," Clarke stuck her tongue out at him.

They sat in silence, reading the menus, and sipping the waters that a server had brought over to them as soon as they'd sat down. Bellamy's face was softer than normal, but hidden a bit, like the moment at the record store had left him too open and he was trying to overcompensate. Clarke chuckled to herself at the absurdity of it all, and he glanced up at her, eyebrows raised in question.

She shook her head.

"I wonder if I'll ever have another meal not in a diner," she said in lieu of answering whatever it was he didn't ask.

"Hey, we had muffins for breakfast this morning," he said. "That wasn't from a diner."

The waitress came back over and they ordered, Clarke a burger and onion rings and Bellamy a turkey club. He caught the waitress before he left, asking for two chocolate milkshakes for the table and shrugged when Clarke nodded approvingly.

"My treat," he said, holding his hand up when she started to protest. "For the book."

She wanted to say that the point of the book wasn't to get anything out of it, it was to buy him something nice, because he deserved it and she wasn't sure if anyone had done that for him before, and she could tell by the way his fingers danced along the spines of those books that he wanted them. But she watched as he looked away from her and let the protest die on her lips.

He could buy her a milkshake if he wanted. No harm in that. Maybe his wall would stay down at least until they left the diner, then.

They ate in silence, mostly, chewing and fiddling with chips and rings and napkins as they wolfed down what was in front of them, the most interaction between them the exaggerated slurping of the milkshake in front of Clarke that she did just to annoy him.

"Please," he groaned. "It's so gross."

She slurped louder.

"Fine," he said, raising his hands. "Fine." He grabbed his own milkshake and pulled the straw into his mouth, scrunching up his nose at her as he slurped right back. He stopped after a moment, holding his hand to his forehead, wincing as his face stayed scrunched.

"Happy?" He asked. "Now I've got brain freeze, and apparently, the maturity of a five year old."

She laughed at him, sipping the last of her milkshake.

"I don't really think you can blame me for that," she said.

He nodded, his eyebrows hidden beneath the hair flopping over his forehead and she thought back to the last diner they sat in, the grungy bench outside where they ate ice cream, the waitress who ignored her to flirt with Bellamy, the sad, small look on his face when they sat down and he started to tell her about his mom dying.

She looked up at him and saw the hint of something new. Not entirely new. He was still hidden behind another layer, but she felt like she had peeled one away, like she was getting closer with every smile he cracked and every laugh he let tumble from his lips. She didn't feel like every time they sat down, every time they stopped moving, like something was going to happen. It was nice just to be for a little while, with someone else, the world as they knew it slipping away in exchange for whatever bizarre alternate reality they chose to run away to.

She heard shuffling all around her and looked up to see the couples around them pulling each other into the middle of the diner, a space on the checkered tile cleared, and each couple paired off, swinging their partner into them, hands resting on waists as they swayed back and forth.

She caught Bellamy watching with a small, fond smile hidden in the corner of his mouth and she stood up, holding her hand out to him.

"Come on," Clarke said. He didn't say anything, just stared at her hand. She grabbed his and moved to tug him up next to her, but he stayed where he was, rooted to the seat, and she nearly fell forward into him with the force of his resistance.

"You can't possibly be embarrassed by this," she said, rolling her eyes. "Do I need to remind you what happened in the record store?"

"That was...different," he huffed. "This is, like real dancing."

"It'll be fun," she said. "Come on."

"No," he shook his head. "No way."

She huffed and crossed her arms in front of her. She wasn't sure what it was about him, but there was something there that always seemed to be fighting with her, even when he wasn't. Something that made her want. So she tugged on his hand, swaying back and forth on her heels, letting him know that she wasn't going anywhere. He could come dance with her, or they could stay like that through the whole song, but either way, he was stuck there, his hand in hers, as the song played in the background.

"This song isn't even from the fifties," he grumbled as he stood up. She listened carefully and heard The Temptations crooning through the crackling speakers.

"Whatever, nerd," she said tugging him fully away from the booth. "It's a good song."

The couple around them were swinging, circling them as they sang along.

Well, you could have been anything that you wanted to

And I can tell,

The way you do the things you do.

She pulled him in front of her, one hand still in his, guiding his movement to the rhythm, the other resting on his shoulder, while his came up to her waist. His thumb, rough and calloused, slipped over the side of her overalls, brushing the strip of bare skin left exposed by her cropped shirt, and she felt a shiver that felt like a memory.

His hand was warm and soft in a way she had never felt from someone else, like it was resting carefully against her skin, melting into it slowly instead of taking it's place on top of her. She felt herself take a step closer and his thumb slipped further beneath the fabric.

His fingers were rough, scraping against her skin as they trailed up and under her shirt, and she let out a little gasp at the feeling.

"Sorry," he murmured. His head was dipped down, his hair falling into his face and blocking most of his eyes. What little she could see were focused down, at her neck where he'd just pulled away from. His face was flushed with heat. "Rough hands."

He made to press lighter, pulling his hands fractionally away from her skin, but she pressed into him, her hands falling over his own, keeping them how they were, hugging her hips tight.

"No," she said, inching forward. Her legs were still crossed in front of her so she lifted on over, resting on the other side of his own knee, so she could scoot closer. "It's good."

He smiled into her mouth at that, kissing her again and she shivered as his hands rubbed back and forth along the bare skin of her back.

She straightened a little at the memory of his skin on hers and she turned her head away, watching the couples dance around them, hoping that her hair would fall and cover the blush that stained her cheeks. The pressure of his hand was suddenly far more weighted than it had been in the record store, holding her to him much closer than just palm to palm with an arm's distance between them.

She turned back to him to see a pained expression on his face. He was watching her with brows drawn together and his lips were in a flat line, pressing in on each other, leaving nothing but a white stip of skin where normally there were full pink lips.

She reached their linked hands up and brushed her hair out of her face and he seemed to jolt back to reality, pulling away from her a bit.

"What's up?" She asked.

He looked away from her, and she could feel his hands slipping out of hers, slowly, until there was none of his pressure left up against her at all.

"Nothing," he said, avoiding her eye. "I'm just uh-We should go check on the truck."

"Oh," Clarke said. She stepped away and felt a blanket of cold air fall over her. She felt like she stepped back three days with her one step, watching his face transform in front of her from the Bellamy she woke up to this morning to the one she ran into at a gas station.

"Okay," she started again. "I'll go pay and meet you outside?"

He nodded and was gone, out the door, before she even grabbed her purse from the booth.

She watched the couples shuffle around next to her, watched their feet at they moved back and forth in sync with one another, moving with music she couldn't hear anymore over the ringing in her ears. She watched the patterns of their steps.

One step forward, two steps back.

His neck felt flushed all the way from the diner to the repair shop.

He stretched his hand out at his side, fingers reaching away from each other, grasping at air, the moment he'd stepped out of the diner, but all he could feel was the soft skin at her ribs brushing up against his thumb and his palm, and he'd shoved his fists into his pockets.

He felt like a jerk as he watched her face crumple in confusion as he nodded his head toward the shop and start walking over without her, but he felt like his lungs were a little to small every time he got within a hand's distance of her, so he pushed on, taking a big breath and feeling the cool air on his skin.

Maybe it was nothing, he thought as they handed the keys to his truck back over to him as Clarke signed a check at the front of the shop. Maybe it was different for him, to be so close again, than it was for her.

But suddenly, with her nose just inches from his in that diner, he couldn't help but fall backwards, back to that hotel, on that squeaky mattress, with his hands, rough and worn and dingy, pressed into her skin, soft and smooth and fresh, and each press of his thumb against her took him away from where they were now.

He took a deep breath.

"Ready?" he asked her.

Clarke had her feet propped up on the dashboard, one knee poking out of the open window. The breeze felt nice and cool, as the hot was air billowing into the truck from outside.

It was a small road, lots of trees around them and they hadn't passed a building in just over ten minutes, but it was the good kind of quiet. The kind where you felt like you could get lost if you wanted to, just for a little while, and then walk right back out of, without disturbing anyone.

The radio was on but low, and she watched Bellamy's fingers fiddle with the station before he landed on one, turning the volume up enough to just almost drown out his voice as he sang along.

She watched him out of the corner of her eye and she saw that smile, the wide open one that he usually tuned away to hide from her, but it was there, screaming at her, making all the colors a little sharper around her as she watched it stretch from his cheeks to his eyes.

"You must know this song," he said turning to her. She let her hands fly up in surrender and he shakes his head at her in disbelief. "Clarke. This is the greatest song of all time."

He reached his hand back over to the volume knob and gave it a twist, filling the truck with the song, letting it, and his voice, spill out of the cracked windows, leaving a wake behind them. She felt a laugh bubble up in her belly and something bloom as he looked over at her.

There was something in the corner of her eye as he glanced over at her, meeting her gaze, smiling as he sang to her. It was a blur, she couldn't tell what it was and she was distracted by the way he was dipping his head toward her, until it was too close and suddenly-

"Bellamy!"

There was the blare of a horn and she watched as his hands jerk to the side, ripping the wheel and them off to the right, as they floundered in the air from the impact of the van at their side. The tires kept rolling, slowing on their own until they slipped slowly into a tree, halting and lurching forward at the contact.

She looked over to her side, and his head was dipped down over the steering wheel, the iron tight grasp his hands had on it loosened, his knuckles warm and tan instead of gripped white.

"Hey," she said, her hand reaching over and touching his head. She peeled her fingers back, stained red at the tips and she had to bite down on her own lip to keep from crying out. She unbuckled her seatbelt and shifted over, lifting his head in her hands. She brushed the hair out of his face, but when she looked down it wasn't Bellamy's head in her hands it was-

"Dad!"

Clarke gasped as she woke up, her head knocking into the window as she jerked upright.

"Clarke?"

Bellamy's eyes were wide, concerned as he flicked back and forth between watching her and the road. She felt a pressure on her shoulder and she looked down to see Bellamy's hand wrapped around it, tight, squeezing, making sure she was still with him.

She shook her head. She couldn't breathe.

"Clarke," he said again, concern growing in his voice.

It felt like icy needles were pricking into her lungs. Her vision started to blur. She shook her head again, it was all she could do was shake, no no no no.

"Clarke, hey," he said, stern. "Open your eyes."

"Pull over," she gasped out. "Pull the car over now."

The tires bounced against rocks and divots as he flicked his blinker on and pulled over to the side, slowly, stopping once they were fully parked in the shoulder. He didn't wait for her to say anything, he yanked the keys out of the ignition and hopped out, walking over to her side of the truck.

When he reached it he pulled her door open and reached over to unbuckle her seatbelt. He dragged his hands along her sides, pulling her legs so they were dangling out of the doorway and she was facing the outside.

Her lungs felt a little bigger.

"Clarke," he started but she shook her head.

She felt herself slip out of her seat, her feet landing on the ground, feeling like her legs were shaking and spinning, like everything around her was shaking and spinning, but in a way that made her own shaking and spinning twice as worse instead of cancelling out.

She leaned against the side of the truck so she didn't have to worry about standing anymore. She let her breath glide out of her, slowly, like she wasn't sure she was going to be able to get it all back, but with her lungs so small and tight she didn't have room for the amount she was trying to hold.

He inched closer to her, his hand reaching out tentatively and she looked up at him, just trying to breathe. His face was scared, unsure and she felt herself dip out of his grasp.

Exposed. That's how she felt. Like she was standing naked in a field, with strangers in a circle ten feet away from her, watching, waiting for her to snap while they stood by and watched the naked freak in the field.

It wasn't real, she tried to tell herself. She hadn't been in the car when he died. She hadn't even known about it until afterward. It wasn't real.

It didn't help and her breath got quick again and she watched as her breathing quickened, watched as Bellamy looked farther and farther away from her, nervous, not knowing what was wrong with her, not knowing how to make it better, or if he was just going to set her off.

She wanted to run. Run away from it all again, leave everything, including him, including her, behind.

It was enough that she didn't know what to do to make it better for herself but to watch him flounder next to her, this guy she barely knew, who she'd somehow convinced herself she should stick with, even though he didn't know her, even though he barely liked her, it was too much.

He was fucked up enough without her laying everything all on him. Again. They saw where that got them the last time.

Him, with his shirt and his shoes pulled halfway on as he was sprinting out of the door, away from the mess she'd made of what was already a mess too big to clean up.

His hand grazed her shoulder and she jumped back away from it. She didn't want that to happen again.

"Clarke-"

"I'm fine," she snapped. "Don't worry, I don't need you to fuck me again."

Her skin prickled as she said the words, knowing they were harsh, but she couldn't do it. She couldn't stand there and pretend she wasn't leaving a trail of disasters at every pit stop, and if she could stop it at this one, then she was going to.

She pulled her door back open and hopped back into the truck, slamming the door shut before Bellamy could say anything watched the wind blow the trees ahead of them through the windshield instead of watching his face fall and crumple in confusion on the other side of her door.

It felt like a bad dream for a moment. Or a joke.

He was sure Clarke was going to pop her head out of the door any moment and tell him she was kidding, that she didn't mean it. Tell him that it wasn't his touch on her shoulder that made her flinch away. That she didn't spit at him for fucking her in the same day he felt the memory of her skin wash over him uncontrollably.

It pulled him back. Back into the what the fuck are you doing pocket of his mind that he'd been managing to avoid all day. Then her door slammed and his veins were filled with ice.

It was too much. He shouldn't have left home. He should have dropped Octavia off and gone home. Gone back to work instead of blowing his money on a roadtrip where he ruined every leg of the journey by being exactly like his mother.

Just doing whatever the hell he wanted, hurting the people around him without even knowing it.

He felt guilt shake his bones and then he looked into the window where she was staring straight ahead, watching the road with stone eye and he couldn't take it anymore.

His foot was crashing into the metal of the truck before he knew he'd made the decision to move. Once, twice, three times and his foot was aching so he stomped back over to his side of the truck and fell in.

He dropped the keys into the cup holder in front of the radio, and instead of buckling, he twisted to face her.

"Okay, look-" he started but she shook her head.

"No, don't, Bellamy-"

"No," he said cutting her off right back. "We're gonna fucking talk about this now, alright? Because we've been avoiding it and clearly that's not going to work anymore."

She was quiet as he said that, her head ducked down, her eyes refusing to meet his, but she was quiet so he carried on.

"I get it," his voice was softer than he wanted. Too open, too easy to read. But it was out there and he couldn't change it. "Okay? I'm a way to keep busy. That's all I am. A taxi to help take you away, distract you from your life-which you've told me basically nothing about, by the way, so you can't get mad when I don't have more than that to go on."

She startled at that, looking at him with wide, red eyes, but he kept going before she could cut in.

"You're taking a trip, but I'm grasping at straws here. It's different, alright? Because at the end of all of this, you get to go back to your friends and your fancy school, and I'm still some nobody in a pick-up truck."

"Bellamy," she reached her hand out, resting over one of his lightly and he felt his whole body light up in flames. He knew she was about to apologize. He could feel it in the touch of her palm against his fingers, in the way she said his name.

But he didn't want to hear it. He didn't want hear her say sorry for him knowing the truth about who they were and where they stood. They could pretend all they wanted in diners and bookshops and record stores, but at soon as it was just them and the air between them, he knew exactly where he stood and he couldn't bear to hear her apologize for it.

"Look," he said, lifting their hands. "That's where it all is."

Her hand was soft and clean, her fingernails polished, not a scratch on her palm, not on any fingers.

"I've had these callouses on my hands for two years. These grease stains?" His nails were dark and gritty while hers were fresh and clean. "They're probably never going to go away. That's who I am Clarke. We both know it." He gave her hand a squeeze before dropping it into her lap. "We both know who you are too."

"Bellamy, I'm-"

He shook his head as he turned the key in the ignition. "It's fine, Clarke." He pulled back out onto the road, stones and pebbles jumping up from the tires to smack the bottom of his truck. "Don't worry about it."