It's kinda awkward having him as a model in class once they've started dating – mostly because everybody knows they're dating, and so everybody knows that's Clarke's boyfriend, there, naked in front of them.

Yeah. Awkward.

And she knows he doesn't do it for the heck of it, knows his job as a TA pays nothing and his job as a bartender is to pay for his sister's college fees so – she doesn't mind, really. And she's never been the jealous type, which helps a lot. Still, she could do without the snickering and the side-glances from the girls in her group, because it feels like high school all over again and, please, no.

He's already in the studio when she enters, wearing nothing but his usual bathrobe, and he looks up to flash her a smile before focusing back on his phone until Professor Wallace arrives and announces the beginning to the class.

It takes Clarkes maybe two minutes to see something is wrong.

She knows him by heart, knows every inch of his body at this point, and is getting more than familiar with his mind too. It's in the way he holds himself, in his tense shoulders and clenched jaw – something is definitely wrong.

And she can't do anything.

Saying those two hours are unproductive is a bit of an understatement because she can't focus on her art, too busy worrying about him to really pour her heart in the pencil she holds between her fingers, too worry to look away from him.

(Wallace notices. Doesn't comment.)

He's quick to leave the room when the professor call it a day and she is quick to follow, entering the adjoint room when he's slipping into his pants. He barely glances her way before going back to putting his clothes on. She forces herself not to roll her eyes because it wouldn't help.

"What's going on?"

He shrugs.

The idiot just shrugs.

So she moves closer until she stands right in front of him, and he has no other choice but to look her in the eyes – she sees sadness and heartbreak and she doesn't understands, but mostly she wants to hug him better and never let go. Instead she whispers "hey" softly, and raises a hand to his cheek. He leans into her touch, closes his eyes with a sigh.

"Let's just go to your dorm, okay?"

She nods in reply, grabs his hand.

He follows.

(Later, much later, spooning on her too small bed and watching Netflix on her laptop, he tells her. He tells her of a woman with blue eyes and a defiant stare, a woman too good for this world, too good for all the men that crossed her path. He tells her of a kind smile and even kinder heart, of a soft voice and sharp tongue.

He tells her of Aurora Blake.

Five years, he says. It's been five years.)

(She holds him close and wipes away the tears.)