A/N: I own nothing but my own imagination, and I may or may not have a present for you guys this month. Stay tuned. ;)
The term 'easy like a Sunday morning' never felt more true as Clarke woke gently to a soft stream of light through the crack in her curtains. It was warm and she had managed to find that one perfect spot of comfort that cradled her body as it woke up. She twisted her bones and muscles to wake them, a warm sensation over her body and randomly a soft grin on her dry lips. As she exhaled from a deep yawn, she caught the taste of something in the air. Something sweet, but bitter. It wasn't coffee. She peeled the covers off of her body and slid her bare feet into thick slipper socks before exiting her room.
The smell was more clear now as she opened her door; it was Hibiscus black tea. Not something the girls had often but definitely one of their favorite morning drinks, especially one of comfort. It would seem that meant Raven was in need of comfort this moment. When the girls had gone home last night, they didn't talk about anything. Raven gave a polite but smart smile and a prod about Clarke and Bellamy's closeness, but that was that. Coming into view of the kitchen, Clarke clocked Raven at the counter.
"You have good timing." The svelte brunette called out quietly, not even turning to look at Clarke.
"Don't I always." Clarke smiled and moved into the kitchen. She went to pull down her favorite mug but didn't need to when Raven had beat her to it. She watched the other woman pour freshly steeped liquid into two massive mugs dropping a cube of brown sugar into each cup with a plink.
"Did you not sleep?" Clarke asked cautiously, noting how Raven's hair was messy. More akin to a restless night of sleep than a restful one. The girl responded with a shrug. Both women grasped their mugs and went to sit on the sofa in the living room.
"Want to talk?" Clarke offered with no strings attached. She knew Raven would probably say no, and they would leave it at that but she wanted to make the offer stand strong regardless.
"I don't do emotional shit well." Raven replied after a longer pause than normal. It made Clarke smile, but she understood she was venting.
"I could have told you that." Clarke prodded, and Raven rolled her eyes but cracked a faint smile. "So, how did your talk go? I take it not good?" She questioned as she thought back to last night at Jackson's.
The girl were in the kitchen putting together snacks. Raven was mulling over chip choices and Clarke was at the microwave popping a few bags of buttery theater style popcorn when Murphy walked in.
"Can I help?" He asked. His normal bravado seemed off.
"No." Raven responded instantly.
Murphy was visibly annoyed and stepped into the room more, making his presence very clear.
"Stop being a bitch and talk to me." He snapped at her and that changed the mood in the room.
"Whoa. Chill." Clarke stepped between the two and looked at Raven then Murphy. "You know you didn't mean that." She nodded to Murphy who shrunk into himself slightly.
"Obviously, I'm just tired of this cold shoulder bullshit. What did I do to her?" He asked Clarke in a childlike way.
"What haven't you done? All you do is fuck with me." Raven declared angrily from behind Clarke.
"We fuck with each other, Raven." Murphy spoke, defeatedly.
"Guys, stop." Clarke stepped back. "I'm going to get the snacks together, but I want you two to go talk. Go outside and get this over with. There is a lot to be said between you two and even I know that. I know Bellamy snapping earlier didn't help how you both feel right now but he's right. We all need to grow the fuck up and handle our feelings like adults." Clarke spewed her words as if she was talking to herself. Hell, it felt like she was giving herself advice but to be fair it applied to both pairs and she knew these two worked off of trolling one another and hostility more than anything whereas she and Bellamy just avoided things completely.
"What do you mean?" Raven looked at Clarke, confused by the implication that things needed to be said.
"Go, talk. Please." Clarke pleaded with her friend and went to the now beeping microwave. Raven seemed reluctant but she played along for the sake of her friend. Murphy ushered Raven out to the patio out back and Clarke watched the two leave. She ended up gathering the snacks herself and returned to the group.
"I don't know why, or how but obviously I am into the dumb ass." Raven sighed, the words finally coming out. It was something both women knew. Raven looked over to Clarke with an annoyed yet sad expression. It made Clarke pout but she wanted so much to smile.
"Seems like a common theme this month." She let out a low chuckle that made Raven grin.
"Yeah, well it's weird. We always act like we hate each other which you get comfortable with and then this happens. It's weird. Fuck it's awkward." She sipped her mug. "When we got outside, he told me something Emori said. She accused him of being in love with me and said that is why they broke up. Can you believe that?" Raven looked irritated.
Clarke feigned innocence and looked away. "Wow."
"Wait, you're not looking at me.. You knew that?" Raven now looked pissed.
"I overheard her yelling at him the last night she was there. She tore into him when I was in the kitchen."
"What a bitch…" Raven mumbled words in defense of Murphy without even thinking about it.
"Right. Wasn't my place to say anything." She shrugged.
"Yeah, you're right. Well, he didn't deny it last night." She looked at Clarke seriously. "He told me he thinks Emori knew something he didn't and he realized how much he does care about me." Without fail her eyes glossed over slightly.
"And." Clarke pressed her gently.
"And, shut up." Raven refused the topic.
"And, you told him how you feel?" She questioned.
"No. I mean, I.. no." Raven was defeated.
"Why not?"
"I don't know, why didn't you tell Bellamy how you felt about him?" Raven bit back at the blonde.
"Okay, well not fair. With everything I went through and put your guys through this year I never really realized how I felt. When people push you together and you're not ready for it, you learn to think it's not what you want when I guess in reality, I'm learning it is what I want?"
"I'm sor-" Raven interjected.
"It's okay. As for what I want and what I was saying, I don't know Ray, but Bellamy and I are on good terms. I don't know what is happening or where it will go but I'm open to it. Took a long time to get there and it wasn't pretty, still isn't, but I'm ready to watch that play out. You have to get yourself to the same place with your life and it doesn't even have to involve Murphy." She sipped her tea. "You said to yourself, you have been so hard on yourself since your injury, you've also been harder on others. You keep me extra close and other people as far away as you can but you deserve so much more than just one person to love you."
Raven's eyes brimmed over and she blinked a few tears. Hearing something so sweet from someone she cared so much about hit her right in the feels.
"Thank you." She squeaked out.
"It's true. You deserve so much love and you're such an amazing person, we're all lucky to have you in our lives. You just have to realize that again. You knew that once, losing some of your mobility and independence temporarily made you think less of yourself but look at your life. Look at how much you do and how much you have adapted to what life threw your way." She reasoned. Raven nodded.
"I mean…" Raven laughed. "What is in our water that these boys have fallen for us?" She cracked a joke and both women laughed. When they finally came down from their gigglefit the both took a few sips of their tea.
"So, is that all he said?" Clarke asked, getting back on topic.
"He tried to convince me that I care about him. Or, tried to convince me to admit it? I don't know, it was awkward and as always I rejected him with on-brand hostility. I was kind of an asshole, I told him he was confused, didn't have feelings for me and was just missing Emori. That kind of ended our conversation last night and I feel like a dick." Raven explained and Clarke couldn't refrain from cringing.
"Yeah, that's brutal." She was honest.
"Now what do I do? I'm not good at this. I'm good at being aggressive, and silly and passionate and messy." She rambled. Clarke reached out and pat her resting hand.
"Right now, you drink your yummy tea while I get up and make you…" She thought of something yummy. "... Croques Madames, yes, with extra ham and cheese?"
"You're so good to me." Raven coo'd.
"And you me. Sit, I'll make you breakfast then we'll do whatever the fuck we want today, no boys involved." Clarke set her sights on a gourmet breakfast to start their day.
After the girls ate they fell into a reality TV bender on the sofa for the rest of the morning before decided to get out of their pajamas and leave the house. Raven decided she wanted to spoil herself, from all the talk about being bad to herself for so long so they ended up going to a full service spa. They enjoyed luxurious massages, facials and manicures then Clarke took Raven to her favorite salon where they got her in as a walk in. Raven never got her hair cut much, just kept healthy but today she binged and got highlights and a soft blowout of waves. She looked like she felt alive, and maybe that was what she needed.
The following two weeks went by very uneventfully for everyone. Their work weeks were normal and their time together on the weekend went back to normal. Raven and Murphy avoided one another pretty easily though and no one pressed it. Nothing had really changed between Bellamy and Clarke, they were their normal close but not too close. The weekend of Thanksgiving everyone was busy with their families and they opted to not get together. Bellamy, Lincoln and Octavia had a family dinner with some of Lincoln's relatives. Monty invited Harper to his family home with him for the holiday and Maya invited Jasper to hers. Jackson went home with Miller where they spent the holiday with his father. That left Clarke and Raven who were invited to Abby and Kane's home out of city.
The girls spent the weekend up there and they really enjoyed their time. Abby was sober and back to her slightly overbearing but very loving self and it couldn't have made the two girls happier. Over the years, Raven had really looked to Abby as a mother figure and it made sense. She had lost her family young and with how she and Clarke weirdly became so close, Abby was the only parental figure she had in her late teens. Together the three women made dinner and it was messy and fun, which made it perfect. Something came over them to make them to Black Friday shopping later the next day. Now, they had detested the idea yet found themselves at a few different stores and ended up going home with more bags of shit than they probably needed. Clarke did some Christmas shopping for her friends, and Raven did some shopping for herself. Abby on the other hand couldn't help but shop in mom mode and buy the girls things they liked or she figured they needed. When they eventually drove back home on Sunday, they had to unpack a bunch of stuff, it was almost comedic.
The Monday following Thanksgiving felt like a second Black Friday. A lot of shopping was still going on and that meant the ER was busy. The first half of the day was the normal rush of people who waited out the weekend hoping whatever was wrong with them would pass. A dash of shopping incidents sprinkled in throughout the day as well as people with general ailments. It was busy but nothing too bad. She couldn't clock out fast enough though as the day just made her feel gross. Tired and gross. Tuesday and Wednesday didn't get any better. More and more people would trickle into the ER with a cough and chills which turned out to be a flu. It was the season and it seemed to hit hard. She did so much to keep herself healthy while on shift and when she got off that it was almost a joke. Thursday rolled around and she pulled herself out of bed, got herself ready for work and when she opened the door at the bottom of the building to exit to the lot she was greeted with a blast of frigid air and fluffy snowflakes.
"Uh." She looked dumbfounded and the snow danced through the open threshold. She quickly shut the door. She would have seen this had she gone out the front door or even checked the window but she didn't expect a winter burst like this. "Nope." She turned back and went upstairs before pulling out her phone and checked the weather. The temp was low, only in the 20's and the snow was thick but it wasn't projected to be a long storm. Sitting down, she pulled open her laptop and looked through the company. It took her all of five minutes to decide it was a good day to shut the site down. They were on schedule and with her in the company they were saving money so she didn't need to worry about the budget. She quickly shot off a group message letting all of the boys know they had the day off. She didn't ask permission or go through Pike, she just made the choice and waited.
"Stay warm." Pike replied to the message within minutes and she felt at ease with the shotgun decision.
As quickly as she got dressed for work, she got undressed and slid into over-sized sweats and a massive sweater and socks. A day to herself, she was more than ready to just binge watch TV so she did just that. She curled into her sofa and sat with the TV a little louder than Raven would normally stand, but hey, she had the house to herself. Raven had been gone before Clarke even got up. Maybe 45 minutes had passed she was jolted out of her cozy place by a knock on the door. Annoyed and confused, she got up and went to the door, relinquishing her blanket on the sofa.
It seemed to be a theme that today she wouldn't look before doing, as she just peeled the door open and in the hallway stood Bellamy.
"Uh, what." She said for the second time today. He laughed scanned her dressed down look.
"I was already near work when my boss canceled work." He grinned. "So, I was going to see if you wanted to have a snow day with me." He was so sly for it being early in the morning and a snowy day. He looked smug even.
"This is my version of a snow day." Her hands flourished to gesture her comfy attire with a smile on her face.
"Want company?" He boldly asked, and something made her nervous in that second. She didn't hesitate to let him in though, stepping aside and ushering him in from the stark hallway.
"So what did you have planned? Fluffy blankets, a PSL and reality TV?" He asked as he let himself in and pulled his coat off and scanned for a place to put it. She held her hand out and took it from him, hanging it in the closet right behind the front door as he slipped off his wet snow boots and left them at the door.
"First of all, I'm not that basic." She rolled her eyes at him and moved around him as he loomed there. Her hands moved to his back and she pushed him ahead of her into the main living area. "I was watching Expedition Unknown." She stated defensively. "Also, fuck pumpkin spice."
Bellamy snickered at her and looked to her TV which was paused. He knew it was still reality TV in a way and she could just feel his thought. "Don't even." She rolled her eyes and moved to the couch where she plopped down and fluffed the blanket back over herself. Her eyes looked up to him and questioned what he'd do.
"If not pumpkin spice, what is your hot drink of choice?" He asked, moving to sit on the couch. He left a void between them that seemed more noticeable than it would have been in the past.
"Tea. I love tea." She nodded and nestled into her couch more. "Oh and obviously hot chocolate with marshmallows. Real ones, not those weird little dried ones in premade mix. Those have no purpose."
Bellamy studied her as she expressed and he couldn't help but smile. "Do you have the fixings for hot cocoa?" He asked.
She clocked him a glare, not wanting to get back up but he set a hand over her blanket wrapped legs to put her at ease.
"I'll make you a cup, make replace your love of tea." He offered.
She chuckled and nodded. "Yeah, I have premixed stuff, cocoa, sugar. We may not have marshmallows though." She shrugged and reached for the remote, unpausing the show she was watching. "Help yourself."
Bellamy did just that and Clarke caught herself watching him walk away before he left her view and she found herself watching the show again. The volume was lowered so she could hear what he was doing and they could chat but nothing was said. She heard him rummage through her cupboards and turn on the electric kettle. The distinctive sound of a spoon mixing in a mug took over the sound eliminated off the TV and came to a stop moments before he rounded the corner with two larger mugs. Clarke couldn't lie, she liked the domestic display before her as he walked up to the couch and handing her a steaming mug.
"It's hot be careful." The obligatory warning made her smile and accepted the hot mug into her hands carefully. Warm chocolate filled her lungs and warmed her soul but something smelled different. Looking at the liquid, it was a silky milk chocolate color, slightly thicker than water. She realized there was a lack of marshmallows and her eyes flicked up from her mug to the man now sitting beside her on the couch. He was prepared and presented a bag of big marshmallows that was nearly empty. Grateful he could find them. Bellamy opened the bag and presented the open end to her which she gingerly plucked about four large marshmallows out of the bag and plopped them into her hot mug. Bellamy took a few himself and put them in his own before leaning back and getting comfortable.
"You have to dip and bite the first one. It's a rule." She commanded and did as she suggested, dunking the marshmallow low enough but not scalding her own fingers. The bottom was melty and gooey but holdable so she could suck the melted part of the marshmallow. Bellamy watched a bit more closely than he probably should have, but he followed suit as her eyes studied him carefully. "Is there vanilla in here?"
"Yep." He sipped his mug bravely against the fresh heat of it. "Cocoa, sugar, milk, a tiny bit of vanilla and cinnamon."
"It's yummy, thank you."
"You're welcome." Bellamy settled into the couch a bit and looked to the TV. He had watched this show before and others with the same host. They were good, so he had no issue with the choice. They say quietly watching TV and drinking their cocoa until Clarke broke the silence.
"Wait, were you going to work early?" She looked over at him.
Chuckling, "I saw the forecast, so yes. Let me guess, you didn't? I'll bet you cancel work the moment you walked outside." His suggestion was on point.
She gave him a fake glare but admitted how right he was. "Yeah. I wont lie, I saw the snow, checked the schedule and said fuck it." She shrugged. "Why come over though? The site is closer to you than it is me." She questioned his motive for being there. With that Bellamy looked over to her, his face soft.
"I wanted to see you." His words were sweet, soft and bold all in one fell swoop. So much so a pink hue tinged her cheeks. She didn't know what to say but a grin appeared while they made eye contact as she couldn't deny enjoying the idea that he wanted to be around her, or with her.
"Well, don't get snowed in." She blindly said and his expression fell flat and he took a long glance before looking down. The sight of his face falling from such a sweet gaze to something pained made her heart stop for a moment. What had she said that upset him? She studied him, waiting, wondering. Just before she had to give in and ask what was wrong, he shifted his weight.
"I…" He stammered. "That's not why I came over. I wasn't even thinking like that. I'm sorry. I can leave." Bellamy's normal collected demeanor was now shambles and weak like a child caught lying. Shame plagued his face and his body was tense. Clarke realized how what she had said to him came off and instantly regret everything. She felt hot with humiliation and guilt as she reached down and put her mug on the table.
"Oh Bell, I didn't mean that. I'm so sorry." She leaned in and moved to his side. He didn't budge. "Seriously, I wasn't even thinking about THAT. What happened in the past is the past and I only meant that you coming over in a snowstorm may get you stuck here. I swear it was a harmless joke. Please, Bell." She gripped his knee as his hands were occupied.
"I just feel bad. I didn't realize how similar the situation was. Last snow storm, I was here." His words made her cringe, realizing how true that was.
Sighing, "I mean, yeah that is awkward when you think about it but that was different and I know that, you know that. It was also a long time ago." He finally looked over at her, studying her as she spoke to check the validity of her words. He set his mug down and took her hand.
"I just don't want you thinking that I came over here for any other reason than to spend time with you." He plead.
"I know better, Bellamy." She squeezed his hand and reassured him. It was awkward when they really thought it through. The last snow storm, Bellamy was in this apartment sleeping with her best friend just before realizing how much Clarke meant to him. So much has changed since then though and while it was a heat of the moment thing, his purpose in coming over today was just to spend a snowy day with the girl who weaseled her way into the center of his universe.
"Do you want me to stay?" He asked, unsure of himself in that moment. Clarke responded by getting up enough to shift her position. She plucked a pillow from her side of the sofa and put it between him and the arm rest on his side before pulling the blanket up over herself and leaving room for him in it. He took the queue and leaned into the armrest, took the blanket edge from her and let her nestle into him. She fit perfectly into his side and made him feel so complete. The rest of the morning they spent snuggled up on the couch watching and discussing a variety of TV shows mostly on the discovery and history networks. It was the perfect way to spend a snowy morning. In the afternoon they made a mess of the kitchen by making a hodge-podge lunch together and then building tiny snowmen on the balcony out of the fresh powder that had accumulated. They ended up making a scene of their friend group using melon-ballers and ice cream scoops to form the balls. They even used craft supplies to decorate each little snowman and give them more personality. After that they ended up falling asleep together watching a movie. Clarke laid out nearly on top of Bellamy who took the length of the sofa. Raven came home around five. As awkward as it should have been for her to find them snowed in together, it actually wasn't. The trio ended up making dinner together before Bellamy decided to go home before it got dark. Seeing him out, Clarke kissed Bellamy on the cheek in childlike display of nerves, far too charming to handle. It left Bellamy beaming on his drive home. The day was so complete and perfect that both Bellamy and Clarke slept sweet that night.