Clarke rolled over and smiled at the image before her, Bellamy holding Madi tightly to his chest. Though it's only been three months with them, Madi sees what Clarke sees in Bellamy, that anchor that keeps her in place when the tide keeps trying to drag her out into its depths and consume her. She's felt it less and less the last two years, and though she itched for a razor now and then, she always called Bellamy instead, always made an appointment with Luna, her therapist, when she did.

It's been rough, going it alone for so long and suddenly opening up about everything, she wished she dared to tell Bellamy everything, about her dad and her mom, about Riley… and Cage. How she beat herself up by saying she deserved it all. That she somehow asked for it all, but there were some things he couldn't know, things that would change how he looked at her, how he'd see her and she didn't want that.

"Hey," he said lowly, looking over at her. "When did she sneak in?"

"Around four. It was a nightmare this time."

He nodded and Clarke knew what he was thinking "better than a wet bed." She was too.

Not that Madi knew any better, she's six and had so much going against her in all the foster homes before them. Wetting the bed was normal for a six-year-old with trauma, or so Clarke assumed.

"I miss morning sex," Bellamy whispered, though Madi's ear was right next to his mouth, and Clarke swore she heard a small groan with the words.

Clarke smiled, she missed it too. If they could sneak him out from under Madi's arm, they could have shower sex, which isn't the same as the gloriously slow pace and build of morning sex in their bed, but Clarke could make the compromise.

"How about I swing by at lunch? We order some tacos and get our rocks off while we wait for it."

"The taco place is five minutes away; you're giving us twenty minutes to get our rocks off?"

Clarke chuckled, "Make the most of what we have. It takes me ten minutes to get there, and I'm going to need ten minutes back to work. We only have forty minutes to work with, twenty to eat and most likely talk and twenty for… fun."

"I can't believe our lives have come down to scheduling sex into our lunch breaks because this one has the ears of an elephant and can't sleep in her own bed."

Clarke shook her head fondly, "Am I going to get an answer for my generous offer?"

"Are you kidding? It's always going to be a yes. We have to get this one ready for school first," he smiled, shifting so Madi would start waking up slowly.

Their morning was quick, too quick. After Madi woke up, Clarke took a shower while Bellamy cooked them breakfast and Madi picked out her clothes for school and traded the bathroom with Clarke who changed for work and they met in the kitchen, leaving Bellamy to shower and change all on his own. Clarke loved the idea of the three of them having breakfast together every morning and they usually would, but they had their little talk that morning in bed instead so a compromise was made. Bellamy grabbed the travel mug that Clarke filled for him, and Madi took his hand on their way out the door while Clarke washed the dishes, getting a kiss on the cheek from both of them and Bellamy looking her directly in the eyes when he told her that he loved her.

It was a move that simultaneously made her feel guilty and completely loved, she had slipped up last year, and it wasn't entirely intentional, but when it happened by mistake, she didn't jump to stop the bleeding. Bellamy took it personally, said he didn't love her enough that he had to try harder to make her happy. It broke her heart even more that he thought her broken pieces were his to put back together but there was a piece missing, a part she didn't know she needed and Madi didn't quite fit right either, but Clarke had someone to live for. It's too much pressure for a six-year-old, but Clarke didn't pressure her like that, she learned from her mother's mistake.

Hours later, Clarke walked into Blake's Woodworking and smiled at the sight of Bellamy with his sleeves rolled up and sweat coating every visible inch of his smooth, golden skin. "Hey, sexy," she smiled, dropping her purse on the chair before locking the door behind her and shutting the open sign off.

"Hey, give me one second, this has been a bitch all day, and I think I got it," he said with a low grunt as a sliver of wood shot through the air. He sighed with a soft, triumphant smile before dropping the chisel on the table and looked up at her, giving her a thorough once over. "How the hell did I get so lucky?" he smiled.

"Isn't that my line? The one who pined the longest gets to be the lucky one."

"Not when my girl looks like that and has the smartest brains to boot. I'm damn lucky."

"You're one to talk, Adonis."

"You're my Aphrodite, baby," he said seriously before breaking into a fit of laughter. It's light moments like those that Clarke hated ruining, she hated them coming to an end, but there was something about that moment in that place where instead of wanting to screw his brains out as they had planned, she wanted to tell him why she's such a mess. Why she had two new scars next to the one she had before meeting him, the one she hid from him for ten years.

"I know we had a plan, but I'm ready to tell you."

Bellamy's expression changed to wary excitement before masking it quickly with concern. She knew he'd be anxious to know what happened that turned Arkadia High's perfect princess into the school's closet basket case. "Are you sure? I don't…"

"I'm ready. Do you want to order the food first?"

"Yeah," he nodded, looking around for his phone and she just pulled hers out instead and dialed the restaurant, ordering their usual.

Bellamy was sitting on a stool next to her, and she sat in the open one that his clients usually sat in. It was where they first made love, and yes, that's the proper term because he was so gentle and loving that Clarke felt it in her toes days later.

"I didn't want to tell you because I didn't want you to see me differently. I know that's not who you are, but it's just a fear I have, that you'll find out and run, think I'm disgusting and never want to see me again."

"I won't, baby," he shook his head. "I can't. It's always going to be you for me."

Clarke nodded. She knew that, but she wanted him to know her fears, why she hasn't already told him. "I was fifteen and, God, a complete loser. I only had Wells as a friend, and we weren't even friends really, more family. We grew up together, and we were both battling for the top of the class. Um, my dad died, and I lost the one person who truly understood me. I lost myself, and I was just starting to get depressed because I didn't just lose my dad, my mom seemed to not care that he was gone which made me feel even more alone. Summer break started, and there was a party that some guy offhandedly invited me to, and it wasn't like I had someone at home who cared where I was, so I went. I didn't drink alcohol, and I never left my can of Coke alone, so I don't know how it happened, but all I could remember was blonde hair and boisterous laughter and immense pain. I tried saying no, I tried getting out of the situation, but I was being held down and… my mouth was so dry that I don't know if there was tape keeping me from saying no or something in my mouth that I was choking on."

Bellamy's jaw tightened, he probably didn't think it was anything like this, just her mom and dad maybe, maybe some Lexa. She knew he wanted to kill Riley before this because he tried messing with Octavia who was a junior in high school when he came back that summer three years after the incident Clarke's telling him about, but now Clarke is afraid he's going to act on it. It wasn't like she didn't want to kill Riley for both, but who was it going to help at this point? Clarke pressed on.

"The next thing I remember was being at the hospital with my mom, and an officer was taking her statement, and she practically blamed me for being raped. That I was promiscuous, asking for it, that I always was. I didn't know why until the school year started back up and I had Riley Sydney in three of my classes." Clarke scoffed, saying his name felt like saying Lord Voldemort in Harry Potter, it gave him the power, but he doesn't get her power anymore. She's stronger now. "Riley Sydney, the son of the Chief of Police. One of the classes I had with him I also had with Cage Wallace, a knowing look between the two and I figured it out. Cage was there that night of the party; he was in the room while Riley… Cage was holding me down, and he was what kept me quiet. The whole year was torture with them around, and they were seniors, but they shared the knowledge with some juniors, and my mom still didn't believe me.

"It got worse and worse, they followed me home, harassed me there. Social media was hell, so I deleted every account I had. It wasn't that I couldn't take it anymore, but since I wasn't on social media, I didn't see the pictures until they were up for a while and the internet is forever. I couldn't go to college with that floating around. I didn't have a future outside of Arkadia anymore; I was going to be stuck there with the losers who raped me and tortured me as they amounted to nothing, becoming the same as them."

She couldn't look at Bellamy telling him the next part; she didn't have any dignity or pride in her actions. There was nothing to be proud of…

"Logically, seeing absolutely no hope. No end to my torture, I found a razor. It was old and rusty, and I didn't care that I found it on the floor of the garage. I'd die of tetanus as long as it meant I would never see any of them again. I couldn't live anymore and barely surviving wasn't enough.

"Apparently my mother, who hadn't given a shit for years, didn't see it that way. She found me and brought me back. Sometimes it sucked being the daughter of a brilliant cardiothoracic surgeon. Especially when she catches me mid-suicide and saves me right in my bathtub and doesn't do anything aside from throwing me in the psych ward of her hospital. She was in the same building eighty hours a week and didn't visit me once. She didn't want anyone to know she had a basket case for a daughter.

"She had them release me early because missing the first day of senior year was unacceptable. My health or well-being wasn't as important as what it would look to the community if I weren't there on the first day." Clarke scoffed at her mother's callousness. "Of course, no one knew anything about her drug addiction then."

"Clarke…" he started but she needed to get it all out, she needed to know why she trusted him and followed him to Polis because that's precisely what she did. It wasn't an accident, she called the school and asked to join, that she made a mistake choosing Brown. She wanted to go to State.

"I didn't talk to anyone senior year. Not a single person until Finn asked me out and then… you. You made everything seem okay with one conversation. You brought a light to my darkness, and maybe that wasn't fair, putting all that pressure on one real thing you told me. The only real thing I knew about anyone."

"Clarke, why did you think I would look at you differently?"

"Because you are. Right now, you're looking at me like I'm the strongest person you've ever met."

"Because you are! How do you not see that? You've been through so much, and you keep going, it's not easy, and it's never going to be, but you're not alone anymore. You have people; you have me and O and Raven, hell, I think Murphy even counts."

Clarke scoffed. "Madi."

"She's not old enough to talk to about it, but yes, you have her. She has you; she can talk to you about everything she's been through, knowing that you won't judge her or think of her differently. I've always thought you were strong and brave; this just proves it. Oh, and I swear if we ever go back to Arkadia and I see either Cage or Riley… I'm going to jail."

Clarke scoffed, leaning over and kissing him. "Thank you for listening and for always being you. You may not be a teacher in the conventional 'working for the man' way, but you've taught me that I can love myself, that I deserve to be happy and I know you're going to be teaching Madi so much."

Bellamy shrugged, "I think I wanted to be a teacher because I didn't know what else I could do with a history degree. Not that it matters anymore because I'm a woodworker."

"Don't say it like that; our apartment is all your designs! They're amazing!"

"They're barely functional," he complained, and Clarke rolled her eyes as someone pounded on the door and she jumped to get it.

"Well, I love them!" she called, avoiding Bellamy's grimace that she's buying their lunch. He loved providing for his girls.

"So what I'm getting from you," he said after she paid the delivery guy. "Is that Madi is going to O's tonight and we're going to spend the entire night having sex, making you forget those scumbags ever existed."

"It'll probably take a week's worth of nonstop coitus," she smiled, sitting back on the stool. "But I like how you think."

"I'm calling her after we eat, you need to forget them pronto."

"And only a massive dose of 'vitamin d' will do the trick," she teased.

God, she loved him. She loved how he knew that she didn't want to talk about it all at once after she told him. She loved how he cared so much about her to make his want for sex more than something he wants and made it something about her (not that sex with him wasn't amazing and something she wants all the time, it's just nice that he wants to help her forget them. If that even makes sense).

After they ate Clarke kissed him goodbye, having to get back to work and he said he was calling O, he can't wait for the weekend. He wants her to forget them more than anything.

They can make it, Clarke knew they would, and it was more about her not getting too in her head about what she can't control and focus on what she can more than anything. Or so her therapist told her.