His wet hair froze his head in the cold air and he was sure he was sure there was ice in the curls while he knocked on Clarke's big front door. She hated the doorbell, something he knew Jasper and Monty were working on fixing for her for Christmas. But, by the third time he knocked, he was more than ready to ring the doorbell. Just as he reached for it, the door was yanked open to reveal Clarke wrapped in a big pink robe with her hair piled on top of her head, the curls that dangled around her face wet at the ends.
"Hey, sorry. I took my hot bubble bath after all and I thought I'd be out by the time you go there, but I guess I lost track of time. You should have rang the doorbell." She waved him in as she stepped out of the doorway, slamming out the cold.
"It's alright. I wasn't out there for very long," he promised.
"Good. I'm going to go get dressed. Make yourself at home." With that, she spun around and rushed up the stairs, pausing only to shout down to him, "Order the pizza for me. Anything with meat on it. My purse is on the kitchen counter. Just grab the money out of there."
"You trust me not to rob you?"
"You'll get thirty bucks and some old Spearmint. I wouldn't suggest it."
With that, she disappeared up the stairs and left Bellamy alone in the house, for the first time since Octavia had joined the ARC program. When she came back down fifteen minutes later in a red and white striped candy cane sweater and black tights with Santa hats on them, he was sprawled out on the couch. She kicked his legs aside and joined him, pulling one knee to her chest and wrapping her arms around it to rest her chin on her knee. She asked, "What are we watching?"
"Nothing right now. Pick something. The pizza will be here within twenty minutes. We can watch infomercials until then."
"I have been thinking that I need a new straightener that also serves to pluck my eyebrows," she replied with a quirk of her eyebrow.
"Maybe you can get me one too. It can be my Christmas present," he replied, sitting up so he could tug on her foot and straighten out her leg, making her fall forwards a little before she caught herself.
"And who says you're getting anything?" She kicked at his hand and he caught her foot to tickle her through the red and green Grinch socks she was wearing.
"I do. I could just nick something from your house," he offered and she laughed.
"Oh no, Bellamy Blake. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me three times, I buy a big ass safe."
It was his turn to laugh and he tugged on her toes through the sock. He informed her, "All your Christmas spirit makes me want to barf."
"And your lack of holiday spirt makes me want to barf. And I'll have you know that I also own a Hanukah and Kwanzaa sweater and socks. And I own sweaters that have snowmen on them, not just holiday sweaters. I'm completely inclusive."
Bellamy snorted and turned on the couch so that his legs weren't the closest thing to her anymore and he sprawled out across the couch again, still pulling on her toes. He handed her the remote and she warned him, "You are far too comfortable for a guardian, Bellamy Blake. Most of the parents don't get this at ease with me."
"Most of the parents don't care enough about their kids to have lunch with you once a week."
She grunted and flipped through the channels on the tv, leaving it on a Christmas movie about love and fake relationships. When Bellamy grunted, she nudged his shoulder with her toes. They watched the ridiculous movie until the doorbell rang and Clarke looked at Bellamy expectantly. He grunted, "You are bossy when the kids aren't around, Ms. G."
"Go get the door. You know where the money is. It's my day to relax, Bellamy Blake."
When he came back with the pizza, it was Clarke who was stretched across the massive couch that wrapped around the living room- big enough to fit her and all of her kids on it. He dropped the pizza on the coffee table and went back to the kitchen to get the case of beer out of the fridge. He said appreciatively, "Bottles."
"Only way to drink it."
"Would have pegged you for a champagne or wine type."
"Only when I want to celebrate the night by being hammered," she laughed.
They ate their pizza and taunted one another with a camaraderie formed over a month of having lunch together. When they'd finished their pizza and a couple beers, Clarke suddenly blurted out, "Wanna see something pretty?"
"I'm looking at something pretty," he flirted shamelessly and she rolled her eyes.
She stood up and swayed for a second, reminding Bellamy that she didn't drink and that she was absolutely miniscule. When she was steady on her feet, she held out her hand expectantly and, when he took it, dragged him to his feet. Grabbing her beer with her free hand, she proceeded to drag him up the stairs to her section of the house, and into a dark room.
"We're a little old for Seven Minutes in Heaven, don't you think?" he teased, earning himself a smack to the chest.
"Shut up." She flipped on the light and, when he got over being temporarily blinded, he looked around the room. He found himself surrounded by canvases and easels and art supplies. Paintings and drawings hung from the walls. Paintings of the house and the kids and outdoors. Octavia hung from the wall on the left. She was in a kitchen, flour flying through the air around her, her smile was bright and her eyes glowed. The other kids were up on the wall too. Miller and Monroe poking at each other, Jasper catching a grape in his mouth, Monty tinkering with the toaster, Lincoln staring solemnly at something outside of the picture, Atom smirking.
"These are….wow…." Bellamy breathed. "I've never seen your work before."
"These are the ones I don't sell. I don't know what I'm going to do with them. I just want to keep them. Wanna see the kids that already graduated?"
"I'd love to."
Clarke pulled him further into the room and showed him a set of paintings off to the side. A blonde boy in a ROTC uniform with a rifle to his shoulder, a long haired blonde girl about to jump off a diving board, and a dark haired Hispanic girl bent over a car engine with Jasper standing beside her, his goggles perched high on his head. Clarke said calmly, "Dax. Harper. Raven." But her voice caught on Raven's name and he asked, "Still hurt?"
"I don't care about Finn," she admitted before she took a long swig of her beer. "I just miss her. I miss my Raven. She was just a kid. Just this gorgeous kid who nobody ever loved and then somebody did love her and start taking care of her and she just got lost in it."
"You don't think she loves him?"
"She loves him. She loves him way too much." Clarke's voice was thick with tears she was trying to hold in. Bellamy stepped closer to her and wrapped his arm around her waist. He pulled her to his chest and tucked his chin on top of her head.
"You could call her. Just talk to her."
"She swore me off a long time ago. She swore us off a long time ago," Clarke replied sadly. "You know, I can keep hold of the girl who murdered my best friend, the kid who sold meth out of his locker, the kid who stole a car, but I can't get a kid who got caught stealing a dollar fifty can of soup from a Dollar Store to call me back."
She snorted, a wet sad sound that made Bellamy tighten his hold on her and move his hand up to the back of her neck so he could caress the nape of her neck. He murmured, "Keep trying. I know that people can't ignore you forever. Look at us. I got you to go to lunch with me, and now I'm drinking in your house while you cry. That's progress, isn't it?"
She snorted again and they stayed like that for a few minutes before she pulled away and wiped at her eyes, drying her cheeks. When she looked up at him again, he took in her red rimmed eyes and informed her, "You look awful."
"Oh shut up and drink your beer so you can get as tipsy as I am," she scolded.
"You just want to get me drunk so you can paint me like one of your French girls." He meant it as a joke but her eyes lit up and he said quickly, "Clarke, no."
"Not paint!" she objected. "Draw. Please, please, please let me draw you."
"Come on. Why do you want to draw me?"
She stared up at him, her eyes completely solemn, and then she said slowly, "Because you're pretty."
"I'm not pretty," he argued.
"You are so pretty," she cooed, her smile curling up into a grin.
"Who's the asshole now?"
"Oh shut up. Like you don't know that you're a gorgeous man. Come on. You've got an entire ego thing going on."
"An entire ego thing? What does that even mean?"
"You winked at the waitress last week and she took ten dollars off our tab!"
"I didn't know she was going to do that," Bellamy protested.
"Oh whatever, Mr. my-hair's-always-perfectly-messy-and-I-look-too-good-to-be-true-in-a-t-shirt-and-jeans. You know that you look good."
"And apparently so do you."
"Like that's a crime," Clarke snorted. "Everybody who sees you knows you look good, Bellamy Blake. If they don't, then they might be blind."
"Same to you, princess."
"So let me draw you. Not naked," she promised. "I just want to draw you. Pretty please."
"Fine," he finally agree. "Where do you want me?"
That was how he ended up on Clarke's couch again, sipping at his beer and slowly getting more and more drunk while she sat on the floor in front of him with a sketch pad. He insisted on laying like Rose from the Titanic, and she insisted that if he didn't keep his damn pants on she was going to cut him open. "I was a premed major before I went to art education, Bellamy Blake!"