a/n Thank you to the awesome folks who reviewed that last chapter! Thanks also to Stormkpr for betaing. Please enjoy this New Year's gift - happy reading!
A fortnight has now passed since Bellamy's miraculous return, and he has not slept in his own bed once. OK, that's not quite true – Clarke seems to remember that he might have taken a nap at his place, one afternoon, when he was still exhausted from that mission and she was helping her mother out in Medical – but her point stands. He hasn't spent the night in his own bed once.
But somehow, that is not the thing that Clarke treasures the most.
It is great that he spends the night, of course. There's something very comforting about waking up from a nightmare to find his reassuring warmth by her side, and obviously it opens up many more opportunities for a distinctly active sex life. And there's something inherently quite romantic about it, she can't help but feel, something that draws a stark contrast with the dutiful screwing and fleeing that marked the beginning of this relationship.
But, all things considered, the staying the night is only one facet of her favourite thing about this new phase of their relationship, and that is the sheer domesticity of it. They have been sharing duties regarding Madi for some months now, of course, and that continues to be a part of it. And he's increasingly keen to volunteer for all sorts of errands, from fetching snacks to fixing that idiosyncratic shower – although, to be fair, he did make a mess of that, and it ended up being Raven who saved them from a flooded bathroom.
And then there's something else she can't quite put her finger on, some seamless merging of routines and of personal space, those moments when it appears that he guesses what time she will appear at the door before she even knows it for herself. The fact that an increasing quantity of his possessions seem to have made themselves at home in her bedroom, from spare clothes to spare books.
She understands it, all at once, one afternoon, as she is doing a batch of laundry in the sink and wondering if she might have found it more efficient to carry it over to the single tired washing machine that lives in the workshop. One moment she is up to her elbows in soap suds, and questioning how it is that she is still forced to clean her undergarments in this primitive way, and the next she is faced with a pair of men's boxers and a startling realisation.
Bellamy has moved in. He might not have noticed it yet, but it has, without doubt, come to pass.
She will say nothing about it, she resolves. They have only been together by choice for two weeks, and she suspects that he will need a little more time to adjust to the idea before he goes about confronting the situation in actual words.
In the meantime, though, she finds her confidence rather bolstered. She finishes her thankless chore, hangs the selection of her family's clothing up to dry, and sets off for her shift in Medical.
…...
It is, unfortunately, not a quiet day. Two broken bones and one cardiac emergency later, she sags at her desk and realises that she has, most definitely, missed out on a quiet evening with her family. It is very much night time, now, and she can only be grateful that Bellamy was to pick Madi up from Gaia's lesson this evening and put her to bed at a sensible hour. She suspects that he stretches the definition of sensible when she's not there, suspects that he allows their little girl to stay up listening to stories rather later than is strictly wise, but she is disinclined to interfere in their attempts to make up for the twelve years they missed of each other's lives.
She finishes writing up her notes and heads for home. The house is silent as she unlocks the door, which is hardly surprising. It is well past the time when a twelve year old child and a guard with a dawn patrol ought to be fast asleep. Not quite ready to fall into bed just yet, in need of a glass of water and a little sketching time, perhaps, to clear her mind, she makes for the living room.
She can't make sense of it, at first. She cannot for the life of her understand why there is a chipped mess hall bowl, slightly too full of beans – at least, they appear to be beans – and evidently stone cold, sitting in the middle of the living room table.
Then she remembers that Bellamy seems to have accidentally moved in, and wonders whether these two developments might be related.
Sure enough, when she approaches the mysterious meal a little closer, there is a scrap of paper by its side.
I figure cold beans are better than going hungry?
- B xxx
She's not that convinced by his logic, actually. This bowl looks unappetising at best. But she knows that she ought to eat for the sake of the baby and, besides which, she doesn't want him to think she is rejecting his really rather sweet gesture. She chews experimentally on a stodgy spoonful, and finds that it is not altogether as unpleasant as it looks.
This is, apparently, what domestic bliss tastes like.
Hungrier than she realised after that long shift in Medical, she polishes off her delayed supper briskly, drinks her water, and decides against sketching. She's really rather keen to go cuddle close to Bellamy, and she thinks that, probably, kissing his shoulders will clear her head as well as any contemplative drawing ever could.
She therefore heads for the bathroom, and thence to the bedroom, and eases the door open as quietly as possible. She treads lightly as she walks towards her side of the bed. Unlaces her boots, pulls off her clothes and drops them in an exhausted heap at her aching feet. And then she slips into the bed. It's a challenging situation, this. She wants Bellamy in her arms, but she's not quite sure how to go about achieving that without waking him up, and that doesn't seem fair when he's got to work so early in the morning.
"Clarke?" His voice, smudged about the edges with sleep, solves the problem for her.
"Hey." She abandons any hope of subtlety and wraps an arm about him. "Go back to sleep."
He wiggles a little, settles more deeply against her. "Did you get your supper?"
"Yeah. Thanks." She punctuates her words by pressing her lips against his skin. "You seem to be making a habit of leaving food out for me."
"I'm never sure what else to do. I've got no idea what it's like, dealing with a medical emergency, and no idea how to support you. Did it go OK, today?"
"She died." Clarke states dispassionately. A lot of people have died, and she was far from close to this Wonkru warrior, but all the same, losing a patient is never pleasant.
"I'm sorry to hear that." He finds her hand, entangles his fingers with her own.
"Don't be. It happens. And an aneurysm in peace time is probably not the worst way to go."
He doesn't answer that, clearly not entirely comfortable with the topic at hand, and she finds herself feeling grateful all over again to have this man by her side, for the way that he is prepared to push the edges of his comfort zone for her sake.
"Thank you. For the beans and for the chat."
"Any time." He presses a kiss to her palm. "Get some sleep, Clarke. We've already packed Madi's stuff for school tomorrow, so you can afford to sleep in a bit."
"Thanks. I don't know what I'd do without you."
He gives a hollow chuckle. "I think you managed just fine, as far as I remember."
"You know what I mean." She chastises him gently around a yawn.
"Of course I do. Now go to sleep."
She's not going to argue with that. After all, she wouldn't want to interfere with this domestic bliss they've been working on.
…...
One of Clarke's projects in recent weeks has, of course, been the cataloguing of the various plants that Bellamy brought back from his mission. She has dried them, and packaged them, and filed them, and made a start on performing chemical analyses on some of them, and is feeling at least a little smug about this positive impact she is making on the community. Or, rather, the positive impact she will make, just as soon as she learns anything of actual use. She might not be leading her people, as such, these days, but if she can be of help in the cause of healing her people – well, then. That has to be better than nothing.
That's what she tells Kane, this morning, as he laments at great length the state of everything from their supply of fresh meat to the haphazard curriculum on offer at the school.
"But we're doing well on the medical side of things, Marcus, when you -"
"Clarke. Of course we're doing well on the medical side of things. Just look at who works there." He sounds exasperated, she thinks, and not much like the calm, controlled, confidence-inspiring Kane who is to be seen in public. "On the security front, though -"
She is mercifully saved from having to interrupt him by a knock at the door. And that's for the best, really, because a school curriculum is all very well, but she's still not inclined to get involved with conversations that feature guns and the like.
"Come in." He calls, and attempts to rearrange his face into something like its normal authoritative expression.
He gives up on that one, though, when the door opens to reveal Miller and Bellamy. It seems that they, too, are privy to the fact that the de facto leader of Sanctum is a little frazzled, just now.
"Clarke?" Bellamy steps into the path she is already taking towards the door. If they are here to report, she has no intention of hanging around. "Stay for a minute? We won't be long and then we can get lunch together?"
She ought to stick to her policy, she supposes, but his imploring face does look rather genuine and, really, if they're only going to be a minute, she can't see that it could hurt. And if she gets to eat lunch with Bellamy, well then, that's not an offer she's going to turn down. She gives a slight nod, and does not walk any further. She adopts what she hopes is a neutral expression, and sets about pretending not to listen.
"How was it out there?" Kane asks.
"All quiet in sector six." Bellamy states calmly. "We shot a couple of those little boar things and dropped them at the kitchens on the way here."
"Thanks. If only all my guards were as good as you two."
"About that, Kane. Sir." Miller shifts his weight awkwardly, as if referring to his old mentor as sir isn't enough of a giveaway to the other occupants of the room that he's feeling uncomfortable. "We had a bit of an incident with that cadet you asked us to take out. Corvus, his name is. He – erm – when we first heard the boars, he panicked. Let off a couple of rogue shots."
"He did what?" Kane makes no attempt to conceal either his horror or his fury.
"One of the bullets got Tiya on the arm – just a graze, she's fine – but yeah." Miller trails off uncertainly.
"So one of the cadets is so incompetent that he shot one of his comrades because of a little panic over ten kilo herbivores?" Kane clarifies, voice rather less than measured.
"Yes." Bellamy acknowledges quietly. "Sorry. We had a chat with him on the way home, tried to teach him a bit more about how to be at home in the forest."
"Yeah." Miller chimes in. "He's a sweet guy, Kane. Just not very confident out there."
"Or very competent, it seems." Kane offers, voice sour. "Go on, get your lunch. I'd better hope I find some magic solution to this cadet problem, hadn't I?"
They do not hesitate to do his bidding, having no great interest in sticking around to watch him rant. The three of them leave the building together, and then Miller excuses himself to go meet up with Jackson, and so it is that Clarke finds herself walking at Bellamy's shoulder as the pair of them go to get some lunch and find a table.
She takes a seat, and is on the point of asking where he thinks they should take Madi on their next day out when he opens with a rather different topic, instead.
"Why do you always leave?"
"What?"
"Why are you always so desperate to get out of Kane's office whenever a patrol team reports in?"
"Because I don't do security."
"You know that's stupid, Clarke. I know you're still working on moving on from everything that happened on Earth, but you're great at all that strategy stuff. You should be doing what – what you're meant to do."
"Says you." She spits back, bristling with annoyance, and just a little bit of hurt.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"I get that you don't want to go out on such long or risky missions now you've got a family, but you're made for more than this, Bellamy. That one morning patrol with a nervous cadet is the most exciting thing you've faced all week, and it shows."
"There's not a lot of career opportunities for a stay-at-home dad guard." He bites out, stirring his soup with unnecessary vigour.
"Why did you ever join the guard, anyway? You're obviously meant for more than following orders. I always thought you were too bright to waste your life on doing what other people told you to."
"There weren't a lot of options for even bright boys from Factory Station." He reminds her. "And anyway, I thought it might help me protect O."
She can hear the grief in his voice, and is sorry that they've somehow ended up on a topic that does neither of them any good. She is sorry, really, that they seem to be having a disagreement at all, in such stark contrast to that domestic bliss they've been working on, and finds herself more than a little upset.
She swallows a mouthful of food, and tries for a conciliatory tone. "I can see that."
He doesn't respond. He glares at his soup.
"What have you got planned for this afternoon?" She asks, when she can bear the silence no longer. So much for a cheerful lunch date, she thinks sourly.
"I'll pick Madi up from school." He summons a little brightness at the idea. "We might tag along to target practice with Murphy's squadron."
It is no wonder Kane is struggling to hold Sanctum together, Clarke muses, when one of his best men is spending the afternoon tagging along with John Murphy for want of a better use of his skill set.
"What about you?" Bellamy asks, apparently trying to set his annoyance aside, but failing miserably. She doesn't like to see him frustrated with her like this and, really, she's beginning to think that perhaps she ought to try to do something about it.
"I'm helping Kane with some town planning." She tells him, but as soon as the words leave her mouth she thinks better of them.
Maybe, she wonders, she is not meant to do town planning this afternoon.
Maybe, it is time to explore exactly what it is that she is meant to do.
…...
Clarke isn't sure how to introduce Kane to her change of heart. It will sound a bit odd, she thinks, if she walks into his office and tells him that she suddenly wants to make life-or-death decisions, just because the man she is sleeping with thinks it might be a good idea. And because she doesn't really want him to look so cold or disappointed with her as he did over lunch today ever again.
So it is that she starts with a rather different strategy.
"It sounded ridiculous, what that cadet did this morning. That must be the first time you've ever had anything like that happen?"
"I wish." Kane's bad mood has apparently still not lifted. "That kind of thing is happening all the time, recently. Cadets shooting at trees by mistake, new recruits having stupid accidents. Two of them got in a fistfight the other week over a stolen ration bar. They just seem to have no sense of discipline. And I'd be the first to admit that their training programme isn't fit for purpose."
"So would you say that's the main problem on the security front, just now?" She's fishing for information, of course, and she's hardly being subtle about it, but Kane seems too troubled to care.
"That and the lack of field medics. Miller's agreed to get some medical training, but we know he's doing that out of love of Jackson rather than because he has any love of the job. Or any great aptitude for it, though he's better than nothing. But he's still only one, and he can't go on every mission."
Well, then. Those two problems are easily solved.
She says as much to Kane, and he stares at her with, she thinks, equal parts confusion and disbelief. "What do you mean?"
"Put Bellamy in charge of training the cadets." She says it as if it is the most obvious thing in the world. That is, in fact, because it is. "And I'm sure you'll find Octavia a great field medic."
"Clarke. I have a very high opinion of you, and of your family. But you can't seriously be suggesting that your boyfriend and his sister are the solution to everything."
"No. But I do think they're the solution to these two problems. Bellamy's obviously the perfect candidate to oversee the cadets. Do you know anyone else who has experience of turning a hundred confused adolescents into a viable army?"
She sees Kane's jaw drop at that, can practically hear him wondering how on Earth he could have overlooked this. "You're right, of course. I never looked at it like that."
"Well, good job I'm here, then."
"I don't see where you're coming from with Octavia, though."
"Did my mother not tell you that Octavia helped me perform surgery when we were having an emergency the other week?"
"No." He looks incredulous at best.
"Well, she saved Ivon's life. I remember her being useful back at the dropship med bay, too. A bit of training and she'll be capable of most basic procedures that might be required in the field. And she's got the right temperament, she doesn't scare easily and she'd be able to defend herself if ever she needed to."
"People would never accept her. The idea that they're supposed to trust Bloodreina to save their lives, now? It's madness."
"I've killed plenty of people, and I still work in Medical."
"I'm telling you, the people wouldn't like it."
"Aren't we supposed to do what's right, not what's popular?"
Kane is frowning at her, still evidently unconvinced.
"I'm telling you, Marcus. I'm telling you that this is right. You've been saying for months that you want my input more often. Well, here I am. And that's the only solution I can see. Take it or leave it."
He sighs at that, a long and tired but not entirely displeased sigh, and claps her heartily on the shoulder.
"Welcome back, Clarke. It's good to have you on board. I think you had better go fetch Bellamy."
…...
Clarke isn't sure what to expect from going to fetch Bellamy. She's fretting about the atmosphere at that chilly lunch, wondering how to go about showing him that she gets it, now. That she understands he only wanted to encourage her to make the best use of her talents, and experience something approaching job satisfaction and fulfilment. But she's still a bit annoyed with him, really, because she only wants those same things for him, too, and he didn't seem too interested in that part of the conversation.
With some trepidation she arrives at the firing range, wonders how to go about beckoning him over. Before she has reached a decision, Madi sees her, and runs towards her, and pulls her into a hug. There is something rather lovely, Clarke thinks, about this warm welcome from the child she last saw four hours ago. It is pretty heartwarming, she decides, to have been so evidently missed.
"Madi, honey. Hey."
"Mum. Dad didn't say you'd be joining us."
Bellamy has, by now, noticed her arrival, and is walking towards her with an expression that she cannot quite make out.
"I'm not here for target practice. Sorry. I'm here because Kane wants to borrow your dad for a moment."
"He does?" Bellamy looks understandably surprised at this news. "I thought you two were working on town planning this afternoon?"
"That's not quite how it turned out." She explains hesitantly, not entirely sure how much to give away when the news is surely Kane's to tell.
He frowns at her a little, before apparently admitting defeat. "OK, then. Sure. Let's go."
"I want to stay." Madi doesn't pout, not exactly. She is looking rather too commander-ish for it to be truly a pout.
"Madi, we won't be very long." Clarke soothes. "And then you can come straight back here."
"She could stay." Murphy speaks up from behind Bellamy's shoulder. "I don't mind looking out for her, if she stays."
Clarke's jaw nearly hits the floor at that. Since when is John Murphy a viable babysitter? "I'm not sure about that."
"Oh, please, Mum. I'll be fine."
"I'll keep an eye on her, too." Indra wades in. "You have protected my daughter before now. I will see that no harm comes to yours."
Well, then. Indra seems like a slightly more trustworthy guardian. And between the pair of them, Clarke thinks that, maybe, her near-teen daughter might be able to cope without parental supervision for just a couple of hours. It might be time, she supposes, for her little girl to start learning a little independence. She looks up to meet Bellamy's eyes, silently asking whether this arrangement sounds acceptable to him.
"Thanks, guys." He answers for them both. "That's kind of you. You be good, Madi, until we get back."
"Of course." She replies, all mock innocence and rolling eyes.
With that decided, they say their goodbyes and set off back towards Kane's office. Clarke is expecting awkward silence, in as much as she is expecting anything at all, and is wondering how to go about showing Bellamy that she would rather this awkward silence didn't last entire months like their last bout did. She might start by taking his hand, she thinks, or perhaps telling him softly that he might have been onto something, or -
"Clarke?" His voice interrupts her train of thought. "I'm sorry. About how I acted at lunch. I've been kicking myself ever since."
"It's OK." She says, opting for that hand-holding. She is relieved when, on reaching out, she finds that he is there to meet her half way. "You were right. It would do me good to get on with doing what I do best."
"But I shouldn't have been like that about it." He sounds, she thinks, disproportionately contrite. One joyless lunch date is hardly the greatest challenge they have ever had to overcome.
"Bellamy, really. It's fine. I just got upset because I feel like you're wasting your talents at the moment, too."
He makes a scoffing noise at that, and she finds herself wondering yet again how it is that this remarkable man is always surprised to be considered valuable. He's been so upbeat since his return from that mission, so transparently joyful about her pregnancy and their relationship, that she's not given much thought to what might actually be going on behind closed doors. To questions about whether he still finds himself weeping alone, from time to time, and whether the state of his relationship with his sister is still weighing on his mind, and whether the day will ever come when Bellamy Blake believes in himself, as much as Clarke Griffin believes in him.
Those are questions to ponder another time, though, it seems, as they arrive at Kane's office, and enter, and are invited to take seats.
"What's this about, Kane?" Bellamy asks, eyes narrowed.
"Did Clarke not tell you on the walk over here?"
"I thought it was your place to tell him." Clarke murmurs, not quite happy with how quickly she's found herself in the thick of things. An hour ago, she seems to remember, she was looking forward to a town planning meeting. "I thought it would be better coming from you."
Kane frowns at her, but does not disagree. "Well, Bellamy. You're aware that we've been having some issues with the cadets recently. And I'm aware that you're looking for a role that makes use of your considerable talents but allows you to spend the evenings at home with your family. How would you like to take charge of training the cadets? Become the first person to hold this new post?"
The look of disbelief on Bellamy's face lingers scarcely a second, before he is jumping to his feet and reaching out to shake Kane's hand.
"I'd like nothing more, Kane. Sir. Thank you. I'm honoured. But – are you sure?"
"Of course I'm sure. As if we could give the job to anyone else."
Bellamy still looks a little bemused, she thinks, but his eagerness is fast outweighing that. "So how does this work? When do I start?"
"Don't ask me." Kane gives an exaggerated shrug. "It was Clarke's idea, ask her."
Clarke jumps in shock at that, momentarily distracted from observing the joy suffusing over Bellamy's face. "Don't ask me. I don't know. I don't even know how many cadets we have, let alone what their schedules are."
"I'm sure the pair of you will work it out." Kane tosses a tablet in Clarke's general direction, passes Bellamy a sheaf of papers. "I'm off to see Jordan. I'll be back in a couple of hours."
He strides from the room, shoulders proud, his earlier state of near-despair apparently forgotten.
"Well." Bellamy turns the topmost sheet in his fingers. "I suppose we'd better get on with working it out, then."
Sure enough, they do work it out. Working it out is, after all, what they do best.
…...
Clarke jumps a mile when Kane reenters his office a little over two hours later. That time has rather passed her by, somehow, but she has to admit that she feels proud of what the pair of them have achieved. She's prouder, still, that Bellamy was so ready to take the lead in achieving it, once she gave him a little nudge to do so, reminded him that he was, in fact, at perfect liberty to tackle this problem however the hell he wanted. That he was actually in charge of this programme, and should be the one calling all the shots.
"How are you doing?" Kane asks with evident interest.
"Pretty well." Bellamy answers smoothly. "We've planned out a sort of induction programme for the next few days, so I can work out where we're starting from. Then I'll see what we get and take it from there. We talked about what the goals of the training are, and which areas we want our cadets to be skilled in by the time they complete the programme. So it's just a matter of coming up with a schedule of activities to meet those goals."
"Excellent. I won't bother you, or show up to inspect, or anything. I haven't got the time. As long as no one is shooting each other by accident by the time they come to me, you can do what you like. But do come to me if you need anything."
"Of course. Would it – would it be OK if we go to fetch Madi now?"
"Absolutely. Do try to remember you're your own boss, now, Bellamy. That was part of the point of inventing this job for you."
Clarke giggles at that, speaks up for both of them. "Thanks, Marcus. This means a lot to us."
"And it'll be good for Sanctum. Everyone benefits. Now get going, the pair of you. Are you going to bring Octavia in tomorrow morning, Clarke?"
"What?" Bellamy asks, evidently confused, at the mention of his sister.
"Sorry. I didn't say before, because we were doing this." Clarke rushes to explain the situation, gesturing at the broadly cadet-themed mess of notes before them. "We were thinking of inviting Octavia to take some field-medic training. She'd be no immediate danger, of course, and even if she started going out on missions she would be well protected and -"
"Clarke." Bellamy interrupts with a hand on her thigh. "Stop. She's a grown adult now, and if she chooses to go out into danger that's her decision. I wasn't going to criticise you. I was going to thank you. I think she'll be really happy to be asked."
"You think so?"
"Yeah. Come on, let's go get Madi."
With that, they say their goodbyes to Kane and set out towards the firing range. For the first time all afternoon, Clarke allows her mind to wander to the question of how their daughter is faring without them.
As if he has read her mind, Bellamy takes up the theme.
"Do you think this will affect our childcare routine? This new role I'm doing?"
"Perhaps a little." She tries to sound matter-of-fact, not wanting to dampen his evident joy at this opportunity that has come his way. "But Madi likes coming to Medical and observing my mum. And she can go to work with you when that suits, if you're doing target practise or survival skills or something."
"She could probably teach most of these nineteen-year-olds a thing or two about survival skills."
"Yeah." She agrees with a giggle, knowing full well that her daughter would indeed be only too keen to outline everything these gormless cadets are doing wrong. "And there's loads of other people who care about her, Bellamy, and would gladly have her learn a bit about their work for an afternoon. You saw Murphy and Indra volunteer today, and Gaia takes her for lessons already. I'm sure Raven would love to teach her how to change a fuse, if ever neither of us is available."
"Yeah. You're right. It's just a little hard letting her out of our sight, you know?"
"I know." She squeezes his hand.
They walk in silence for a moment, and they are nearly at the firing range when Bellamy speaks next.
"Thank you. For inventing this job for me."
"I didn't do it because I care about you." She says carefully, needing him to understand that he has arrived here by competence rather than favouritism. Needing him to learn to back himself, again, a bit more. She may not have much liked that arrogant Bellamy she first knew on the ground, but she thinks that this current model is a little too lacking in confidence. "I did it because it was the right thing to do, and because you're obviously the right person to do it."
"I think that's the reason I'm thanking you, actually. Thank you for getting involved with all this when I know you've been finding it hard. Thank you for backing me into a corner where I have to get on with doing what I'm good at, again, too."
"You're welcome." She reaches up to press her lips to his cheek, the warmth of his skin dispelling once and for all any lingering chill from that frosty lunch date. "Let's go tell our girl your good news."
a/n Thanks for reading!