"Well, say what you like about my chess skills, but at least it didn't take me very long to lose." Bellamy leans back in his chair with what Clarke would like to think is an air of resignation, but resignation would imply that he cared about the outcome, and she's not really sure that's true.

"I don't think that's the attitude, really, Bellamy. You could at least have put up a fight." She's aware she sounds just a little petulant, because she was looking forward to this game which was over almost before it began.

"That was me putting up a fight." He shrugs and begins tidying up the pieces. "I actually am that bad."

"Well at least you've got plenty of time to practise." She's trying to sound more reassuring than patronising, because she doesn't want to spend the next five years with someone who refuses to play chess with her, but it's something of a challenge.

"It's going to have to be a pretty great movie night to make up for this. Who knows, I might even agree to play this ridiculous game again if I get to choose the movie."

"No way. Last time you chose and we ended up watching Troy. That's three hours of our lives we'll never get back. I'm just saving you from yourself, here."

"Hey, I've learned from that mistake. I promise I'll do better tonight."

"Whatever. You can choose, but I'm bringing my sketchbook in case this ends badly."

…...

Bellamy doesn't know what movie he would choose, because he never gets the chance. The moment he switches on the TV and starts scrolling through the options, Clarke squeals in delight and insists on watching something called "Mean Girls". He is surprised by her choice, to say the least, because the branding is all pink and there are photos of heavily made up teenagers on the poster and above all because the title of this thing is Mean Girls. She has never really struck him as a young woman who wants to watch pink movies about cosmetically enhanced mean folk, but she is thoroughly insistent, and it leaves him wondering if maybe he doesn't know her so well after all.

"Why, Clarke?" He can't help but ask. "Why this? Forgive me for questioning your taste, but this doesn't really look like our kind of movie."

"Trust me." She is already curling her legs up beneath her and shuffling towards him on the sofa. "It's not what it looks like. It's really funny. It's like a satire on early twenty-first century American teen culture."

"Other satires are available, you know. Less... pink... satires. The satires of Juvenal, for example, on the luxury and excess of imperial Rome." After all, she didn't seem to think that being a nerd with abs was such a bad thing.

"Shh." She reaches up to place a finger over his lips, and he feels his breath catch in his throat. Reaching an arm around her, he pulls her towards him in a move that now feels utterly natural – was it only two days ago he had held her like this for the first time? - and presses play.

…...

It is only a matter of seconds before Clarke gets her confirmation that the movie choice was a great one. She can feel Bellamy's chest shake with giggles even at the opening scene – she has to admit, she has always quite liked the bit with the over-protective parents and the milk money, and now it reminds her in a bittersweet way of her own mother, trapped but hopefully safe beneath the ground hundreds of miles away.

"So, did I do good?" She is determined to get him to admit she was right.

"Shh." He returns her gesture from only moments earlier, placing his finger across her lips. "I'm listening." That, she decides, counts as vindication.

Minutes pass, during which his giggles grow more pronounced and his chest grows correspondingly less comfortable. Emboldened by the darkness, and the fact that he's been running his hands through her hair since about the third scene, she rearranges herself so that she's lying with her head in his lap instead. For a moment, he is totally and completely still, seemingly not even breathing, and she wonders if perhaps she has crossed a line she didn't even realise they had drawn. But then he sighs deeply, and resumes his playing with her hair, and the film goes on playing, and all is well in this little world they have made for themselves.

…...

If he'd known it could be like this between them, Bellamy thinks, he's pretty sure he'd have found an excuse to share a sofa with her months ago. Admittedly, the months they have known each other have not exactly been filled with leisure time, but he's certain he'd have moved heaven and Earth to make time to simply sit and be himself with Clarke. He wonders why they wasted all that time, when they first met, in hatred, and so much time in between in misplaced anger. As it is, here and now, they have all the time in the world – or, rather, five years, which is certainly more than enough time to be getting on with.

The film is a good one, it turns out, very pink but at least it's ironically so. The routine they've built up during their work that day, of lighthearted running commentary on what's going on around them, holds up during the film, in spite of his best attempts to get her to keep quiet so he can actually hear what's going on.

"I've always wondered how she could be so naive as not to realise there is no back building." Clarke is saying now. "Don't you think?"

"Don't I think what? You didn't ask a question."

"You know what I mean."

"I'll know what you mean better if you pipe down so I can follow what they're saying."

She doesn't reply to that, just turns towards him as she's lying in his lap so that he has a better view of her rolling her eyes.

"Thanks, that's much better." He teases. "Silent reactions only please." She frowns sternly at him for that, and as he's looking down into her face he is surprised to notice that he seems to be stroking her cheek with his thumb. He wonders when, exactly, that happened, but before he has the opportunity to come to his senses and remove his hand she has trapped it with her own and rearranged herself to watch the movie. The next time, he is the one to break the silence.

"You know, I think Gretchen Wieners is something of a tragic heroine here. She only wants to find love and acceptance, but she is the object of the audience's derision."

"There you go again, being Bellamy, with your ridiculously generous heart. You're not supposed to feel sorry for Gretchen Wieners, Bellamy. She's an idiot, and selfish, and literally her only redeeming feature is that her father invented toaster strudel."

"What even is toaster strudel?" This gap in his knowledge has been bothering him.

"No idea. I presume it must have been popular on Earth at the time, for her to go on about it."

He makes no response to that, distracted by the urgent necessity of rubbing the palm of his hand gently along Clarke's exposed upper arm. She snuggles further towards him, and he decides that tomorrow they definitely need to find a blanket for movie night. He's aware that she had said they shouldn't watch a movie every night, but he's pretty sure he'll be able to get that overturned.

The film stops playing, eventually, as films do, but neither of them is in any hurry to move. His hand continues its slow journey up and down her arm, and the other one is still caught in her grasp, so really he couldn't turn the TV off even if he wanted to. As they sit there, staring at the empty screen where the credits have long since ended, he wonders if perhaps she has fallen asleep and he ought to get her back to her room.

"Any requests for tomorrow's breakfast soundtrack?" Her voice catches him by surprise.

"I thought you'd fallen asleep." His voice is soft and a little rusty from the long silence.

"No, just can't quite convince myself to move." There's a trace of laughter bubbling up in her tone.

"Me neither. We probably should though, we've got plans to make tomorrow for the move to our new home." He can't help the way that his heart warms when he says it. They've found a home, and they're going to spend the next five years there, together.

"Fair point." She starts sitting up at that, untangling herself from his arms, and he thinks it is not just his own wishful thinking that makes her actions look reluctant. She stands up, and he does too, and there they are after a lovely evening together – and a lovely day together – faces only a whisker apart, and he can almost hear her heart skip a beat as she reaches out and takes his hand in hers.

"I'm looking forward to domestic bliss." She whispers into the slither of space between them, and he can feel her warm breath on his cheeks. "I'm going to keep chickens and call them all Juvenal." With that she gives an impish grin, and the moment is not ruined but enhanced, because it is so completely them that he laughs aloud and pulls her in for a hug.

a/n Thanks for reading! Wouldn't it be a shame if anything interrupted all this domestic bliss?