Author's Note: Sorry for the long wait! This chapter is a bit longer to hopefully make up for it! Please follow, favorite, and review :)
Without further ado, here's chapter 10.
The night of Clarke and Octavia's return was a quiet one; it was clear that the girls needed to settle back in first. However, now that it's been over 24 hours, the camp is loud and lit up by a rather large bonfire. There's another boar roasting on the spit (the sky people already devoured the first two), Monty's moonshine is being 'discreetly' passed around, and everybody is laughing and having a good time—except Clarke, that is. She's sitting around the fire with the Blake siblings and a few other friends. Despite the good company, Clarke is just pensively staring into the flames.
Whatever Clarke is thinking is disrupted when Raven plops down next to her and asks, "What's on your mind?"
Clarke breaks her eyes away from the fire to look at Raven when she responds. "It just puzzles me that you guys didn't see any grounders while we were gone. I mean, even Octavia and I didn't see them in the woods. I want to know why. Are they going to attack us? Lexa and I really connected for a minute there, but I'm still worried that she'd take us all out to prevent our retaliation."
"Slow down there, Griffin. First of all, have a drink." Raven hands Clarke a bottle filled with moonshine, which she stares at for a second before taking a big sip and almost vomiting, at which point the mechanic continues. "Small sips. You need to relax, not poison yourself. Anyways, we aren't planning on retaliating, last time I checked. Also, I think if the grounders wanted to attack, they would have done it already. I think Lexa may still value whatever 'connection' you have."
Clarke takes another swig of the alcohol as she watches Octavia, who is laughing at something Bellamy said. Clarke catches the eyes of the Blake girl and smiles, which prompts O to walk over to her. The blonde quickly responds to Raven to end their conversation. "That connection is long gone."
Octavia drops into Clarke's lap, forcing her to grunt. She then takes the bottle from the Griffin girl's hand and drinks. "So, what's the hot topic over here?"
"Your alcoholism, clearly," laughs Raven.
Octavia shoots her a glare, but she can't help it when her forced seriousness breaks into a grin. "It's only a problem if you tell yourself it's a problem," she manages to slur out. Octavia adjusts her position in Clarke's lap so that her head rests on the blonde's shoulder and she has a good view of those "perfect eyes." The brunette blushes a little, realizing that her thought escaped her mind through her drunken, filter-less mouth.
Noticing the other girl's embarrassment, Clarke returns the compliment. "Yours aren't that bad either, dork."
Warmth buzzes through Octavia's body, and it isn't just because of the alcohol. She smiles at Clarke and closes her eyes. The blonde begins to pet her head and O drifts off.
Raven has been watching the girls interact over the past two days and her boozy mind finally puts the pieces together. After a few moments of silence, she looks at Clarke and asks a question to address the elephant in the room. "So. Do you need my help, or can you carry your girlfriend back to your tent alone?"
Clarke's eyes widen and her jaw drops open, taken aback by Raven's comment. "I uh…she's not…we're…" She lowers her head and looks at the girl in her arms, then mumbles to herself, "Shit."
Clarke is taking off Octavia's boots when the brunette stirs. She looks around and notices that she is laying on the bedroll in the blonde's tent. "Damn princess, you carried me all the way back here? I'm impressed."
Clarke laughs as she places the other girl's boots to the side. "Raven helped me out." She then sits Octavia up and takes off her jacket.
"I'm awake now, I can undress myself," Octavia chuckles.
"Good point." Clarke blushes a bit and begins to get up, but O quickly grabs her and pulls her back. Their faces are close now.
"I said I can undress myself, I didn't say that I want to."
Though it only takes one second, it seems like a millennium before Octavia's lips are on Clarke's. The blonde gently weaves her hand through long brown hair and places it on the back of O's head, then pulls her deeper into the kiss. As Clarke's tongue finds its way to Octavia's, Octavia's hand finds its way under the hem of Clarke's shirt to the soft skin at the small of her back. She slowly brings her hand up to Clarke's bra, but before she has the chance to take it off, Clarke breaks away from the kiss.
With staggered breath Clarke speaks, "We can't do this."
"We can, Clarke. I'm ready, and I think you are too."
"No, I mean we can't have sex now. Not tonight. You're drunk and I'm not even sure what we are to each other. If this happens now, I'm just taking advantage of you. I won't do that O."
"I've wanted this for a while Clarke, don't you know that? When I kissed you in the bunker, what almost happened in the creek—I was sober then, and my feelings are even stronger now. Please, I want this."
Clarke's tone grows a bit frustrated now, "No! What even is this? Is it a relationship? A drunken fling? Nothing can happen." Octavia looks hurt by this, and Clarke internally chastises herself for the anger in her voice. "I'm sorry…I didn't mean to…" At this point, Clarke is rather flustered. She quickly gets up and runs out of the tent before Octavia has a chance to respond.
The brunette sits and thinks for a minute, but her head starts to spin. She's still drunk and also very tired, so she bends at the will of her body and goes to sleep.
Clarke finds her way back to the bonfire. The celebrating goes on for a while longer, but one by one people begin to wobble back to their tents. The last people around the dying flames are Clarke, Bellamy, Monty and Harper.
The latter two teens are so deep in whatever conversation they're having that they almost don't notice the partying is over. Monty turns to Bellamy and Clarke and asks, "Where the hell did everybody go?"
"I think your moonshine caused everyone to turn in for the night," Bellamy scoffs.
Harper stands and holds out her hand to Monty. "Then I think it's time we turn in too," she says with a suggestive smile.
The grin on Monty's face seems almost unreal. He jumps up and says a quick "Bye guys!" before practically sprinting for his and Harper's tent.
Bellamy and Clarke are left laughing. "They became a 'thing' while the two of you were gone. It was inevitable, really."
"Good for them, they look happy." Clarke smiles, but her tone doesn't match her face.
"You know, Clarke, you deserve it too."
"What are you talking about?"
"Happiness—you deserve happiness. And love."
"Again I ask, what are you talking about?" Clarke knows exactly what Bellamy is trying to say, but she's worried that he's talking about her potential happiness with him, not with Octavia. She likes Bellamy, but not like that…
"Oh come on, it's so obvious that you like Octavia." Clarke lets out a sigh of relief at the mention of the Blake girl. Bellamy continues, "And I know her well enough to say that she certainly likes you too. She looks at you like a puppy and it's disgusting. It's so gross, but she likes you."
Clarke just looks at the ground. She thinks of the way Octavia looks at her, the way she feels when Octavia looks at her, and she can't help but smile.
"Nothing you did makes you less deserving of happiness in your life. From day one all you did was look out for everybody, so now I'm looking out for you. Just date my sister already, dammit."
Clarke laughs, but then offers Bellamy sincerity, "Thanks, Bell."
"Listen here, you break her heart and you're as good as dead." As much as Bellamy cares for Clarke, he is serious in his threat. His sister means more to him than anyone else.
"Duly noted."
"Well, now that we're on the same page, I'm going to bed. You should sleep too. Alone, by the way."
"No worries, your sister is too drunk tonight anyways."
"Oh my god, ok, I'm walking away now."
"Night, Bell!" Clarke snickers and begins to walk away as well, towards the Ark.
Clarke is standing in the doorway of Raven's workshop, watching her friend tinker with something. She clears her throat to alert the mechanic of her presence, which causes Raven to nearly fall out of her chair.
"You scared the shit out of me, Griffin."
"Sorry, I just wanted to see if you were awake; I figured that you'd be here if you were. Wanna chat?"
"Well I'm working on something right now, but talk away. I can't guarantee I'll listen though."
Clarke furrows her brow, confused as to why Raven is being so cold. She moves to sit in the chair on the opposite side of the mechanic's worktable. "Did I do something?"
"No." Raven continues to tinker, but this only proves to Clarke that she isn't being honest.
"I don't know what I did wrong, Raven. Everything was fine until you helped me carry Octavia back to my tent earlier. Is that why you're mad? Help me out here."
Raven puts her project down, exhales, and looks at Clarke. "I'm not mad at you. I just want to know why you didn't bother to tell me about you and O. I mean, I know you guys were gone for a while, but I thought we were still friends."
"We are! I didn't say anything because there wasn't…isn't anything to say. There isn't an 'us' right now."
"Don't lie to me, Clarke! I see the way you look at each other. I'm happy that you two are together, just don't lie to me."
"Raven I'm not lying! I swear. When Octavia and I were away, we kissed once and we almost had sex once, but we were both far too emotionally unstable and decided to stick to friendship. And tonight after we brought her back it almost happened again, but it didn't. I'm sorry I didn't tell you that I love her, but we really aren't together."
It takes a minute before either of them register that Clarke said she loves Octavia, but as soon as they do, Clarke turns a deep shade of red and Raven is grinning as wide as she was when she first stepped on land.
"You love her?!"
"I…I don't know…maybe?" Clarke buries her head in her hands and finally admits it to herself, and to Raven. "I love Octavia Blake."
"Then date her dammit! She obviously has it in for you too."
Clarke laughs, remembering what Bellamy said to her a little while ago.
Raven raises an eyebrow. "What's so funny?"
"Nothing, it's just that you're not the first person to have said that to me tonight."
"Well in that case, I hope you realize that it's true." Raven pauses for a second to watch Clarke blush. "You said that tonight 'it' almost happened again, but it didn't. Care to explain?"
"You helped me carry her, form your own conclusion!"
Raven stands and begins to put her tools away. "Too drunk—fair enough. How about you sleep over at my place, then? It's a pretty cozy tent; it's waterproof and it comes complete with blankets."
Clarke walks over to her friend and pulls her into an embrace. "Sounds like a plan, grease monkey."
Raven contorts her face and playfully pushes the blonde away. "Not that I don't love nicknames and all, but no."
"I'll think of something for you, but I suppose for now I can stick to calling you Raven…or Reyes…or Ray-Ray?" Both girls cringe. "Ok, Raven it is." They start laughing and leave the workshop to head towards Raven's tent and call it a night.
While they sleep, the only thing Clarke can dream of is Octavia.