AN: As promised, we're picking up the pace a little in this chapter. To me, the story is split into four different parts (I'm not going to say which these parts are, since it'll give away too much of the plot going forward!) and this chapter is sort of the bridge between part 1 and part 2

As usual, I don't own The 100 or anything relating to it

Chapter title from "Love You 'till the End" by The Pogues

See the end of the chapter for warnings

14

I Just Want to Be There When the Morning Light Explodes

Clarke's not sure what wakes her the next morning, the buzz of Bellamy's alarm going off or the sudden and not at all pleasant lack of a warm body behind her.

She rolls over, finding him sitting on the bed with his phone in his hand.

"Morning," she greets him, voice gravelly with sleep.

He turns to her with a frown. "Did I wake you? Sorry."

"The price of my forgiveness is a good morning kiss."

He rolls his eyes but does turn around all the way to be able to lean down and kiss her. When she wraps an arm around his neck to pull him closer, though, he gently disentangles her hand and moves back.

"It's not that I wouldn't love to get back in bed with you," he says when she pouts a little. "Trust me. But if I do, there's no way I'm getting up in time to make it to work."

Clarke flops dramatically onto her back again.

"Fine, leave me here unsatisfied…"

Bellamy just laughs. "That's exactly what I'm going to do. Go back to sleep."

She sighs and watches as he crosses the room and disappears into the bathroom, and a moment later, she hears the shower turn on. She burrows into the bed again, pulling the comforter up to her chin and burying her nose in his pillow to get a lungful of his scent, and closes her eyes.

She doesn't fall back asleep, though, instead follows his movements on the other side of the wall based on the sounds – the shower continues for another few minutes, then the water turns off and the shower door slides open before there's silence for a few minutes during which she assumes he's toweling off. When Bellamy emerges from the bathroom, she opens her eyes and takes him in, a towel around his hips and a few water drops still glistening here and there on his chest and shoulders.

"I thought you were going back to sleep," he notes, bending down over his duffel bag and unzipping it.

"But then I'd miss the show," Clarke replies with a still sleepy smirk.

He straightens up, clothes in one hand, and raises his eyebrow at her for a moment before dropping the towel to the floor. She lets her eyes run all the way to his toes and then back up, lingering perhaps a little longer than absolutely necessary in certain areas.

"Like what you see?"

She licks her lips slowly. "Mm-hm."

To her disappointment, Bellamy steps into the pair of boxers he's just grabbed and pulls them on.

"I'm afraid that's it for now," he tells her with a smirk of his own, pulling a green t-shirt over his head before finishing off the outfit with the green cargo pants.

"Party pooper," Clarke complains, earning another laugh as he pulls the final piece of his uniform, the green jacket, out of the bag.

She thinks he's just going to leave the room, but instead, he crouches down by the bed.

"How about if I promise to make it up to you later?" he suggests, running a finger along her hairline before pushing a strand of hair behind her ear.

"I guess…" she pretends to grumble. "Are you coming back here tonight, or…?"

He considers the question for a moment, eyes intent on her but the expression in them unreadable. "Do you want me to?"

"Mm."

His mouth quirks up in a smile. "Then I will."

"Good."

For a moment, she could swear that he's about to say something else, but then he just kisses her softly and rises to his feet.

"See you later, Princess."

"Have fun at work."

He leaves the room, pulling the door almost closed behind him, and Clarke once again relaxes back into the pillows.

She listens to the sounds of him moving around the apartment for a while. A kitchen cupboard closing, then another one – he's looking for mugs, probably, she forgot to tell him where they are – but not a third. She imagines him laughing quietly at the mug Raven got her for Christmas last year – Sarcasm loading, 74%, please wait… – before pouring coffee into it and leaning against the counter as he drinks it.

Five minutes later, she hears the front door open and close, and knows that he's gone. It's quite frankly unreasonable how empty the apartment immediately feels.

She knows she won't be able to go back to sleep, but she doesn't particularly feel like getting up yet either, so she grabs her phone and starts scrolling through her social media. After a little while, Bastet saunters into the room and jumps onto the bed, demanding some morning cuddles, and when the cat moves to the foot of the bed and curls into a ball fifteen minutes later, Clarke decides that it's time to face the day.

-100-

They settle into a routine over the next couple of weeks. Bellamy spends every night at Clarke's place, just going home to grab some more clothes and books for class every few days.

Considering she hasn't lived with another person in over forty years – she and Niylah never got that far – it's surprisingly easy to get used to having someone around a lot. Of course, he works during the day and has class in the evenings three or four times a week, but it's still a lot more time not being alone than she's used to.

At first, Clarke's worried that her Transfers might lead to awkward situations where she has to come up with believable explanations as to why she disappears now and then. But so far, most of her assignments have been while he's been at work or in class, and none at odd hours of the night. The few times she's had to come up with something, she's been able to use Raven and say that she's meeting her friend for lunch or coffee or something. Bellamy hasn't questioned this – possibly because he's also studying for finals – until now.

It's his day off and they haven't gotten out of bed for more than bathroom visits and breakfast, and even that they just cooked together in the kitchen and then brought back to bed. It's a little after noon and Clarke has a Transfer at one, so she knows she has to get going soon.

But Bellamy is being very distracting.

"I really have to go," she tries again, pushing half-heartedly against his chest.

"You can't see Raven later?" he asks, leaning down to brush a kiss against her throat at the same time as he trails a hand down her side and slips it between her legs. "I have class tonight."

"She and Zeke are going out tonight. It's just lunch, I'll be back in two hours, tops." She can't help but gasp and lift her hips when he pushes one finger inside her, though.

He doesn't say anything more, just leans down to kiss her as he adds another finger. He curls them just right on every stroke and when he adds circles against her clits with his thumb, he has her falling apart in just a few minutes.

"See?" he murmurs into her ear as she comes back down. "I'll make it worth your while if you stay here…"

"I know," Clarke says breathlessly. "I just don't want to be one of those girls who ditches her friends because she has a new boyfriend."

She realizes what she's said a split second before Bellamy's eyebrows shoot up and she has to force her lips together to keep from trying to backtrack. Not that she really wants to, but it's way too soon to be talking about labels…

"Boyfriend, huh?"

"I don't know why I said that, it just slipped out, I…"

He cuts her off with a kiss. "Relax, Princess," he says when he pulls back, a huge smile on his face. "I'd love to be your boyfriend."

"Yeah?"

"Absolutely."

He leans down again and she returns the kiss for a moment before pulling away. "I still have to go."

Finally, he rolls off her. "It was worth a shot."

"You gave it your best," she agrees, patting his chest reassuringly and quickly getting out of bed before he can come up with some other way to convince her to stay. She's pretty sure he could if he really put his mind to it.

Still, she just makes it to the Transfer in time.

She does meet Raven for lunch a couple of days later, because she really is trying to make an effort to not get lost in her and Bellamy's little bubble.

"So," her friend starts when she's plopped down at the table Clarke snagged for them before the lunch rush started ten minutes ago. "How goes the co-habitation?"

"It's fine," she replies, avoiding Raven's eyes and focusing on her water glass.

"You know you can't lie to me."

Clarke sighs. "I… almost said it the other night."

"Said what?"

"The L word."

It hadn't even been anything special. Bellamy got home from his night class much later than usual, not until almost midnight, due to getting stuck in the aftermath of a car accident – he texted to let her know, so she wasn't worrying or anything, but she fell asleep on the couch waiting for him. When she woke up, he was laying her down carefully on the bed, and her sleep-addled brain figured out that he must have carried her from the living room. When he realized that she was awake, he placed a soft kiss on her forehead before straightening up.

"Go back to sleep, Princess," he whispered. "I'll join you in a moment."

She burrowed into the bed but was still half-awake when he crawled in next to her a few minutes later and pulled her closer, and she buried her face against his neck instead of in her pillow.

"I missed you tonight," he mumbled into her hair.

"Mmm," she agreed. "Me too. I…"

She fell asleep mid-sentence, and that should have been the end of it, really. But in the morning, the moment came back in full clarity and she knew beyond the shadow of a doubt what she had been about to say.

She's expecting Raven to be shocked, or at least surprised, but all she gets is, "Oh."

Clarke finally looks up at her friend again. "What do you mean 'oh'? You're… not surprised?"

This gets more of the reaction Clarke was expecting to begin with and Raven's eyebrows shoot up. "You are? You really didn't know that you were in love with him?"

"I…" She pauses, really thinking about it for a moment. "No. I mean, I knew I was falling, but I hadn't realized I was already so far gone."

"Oh, babe." Raven reaches across the table to pat her hand. "I knew that way back at Thanksgiving."

Clarke almost chokes on the sip of water she just took. "Thanksgiving?"

Raven just shrugs. "Yeah. I've never seen you like that, not with anyone. And I was there for both Lexa and Wells, remember? So yeah, I knew. I really thought you did too, or I would have said something."

Had she known and just not wanted to face it? It's not impossible, her subconscious still clinging to Bellamy's Number and how it's a bad idea to get involved with him… never mind that it's clearly way too late to avoid that. God, she's in so deep.

"Anyway, why didn't you just say it?"

It's Clarke's turn to raise her eyebrows. "It's been less than a month, I can't drop the L bomb on him."

"Why not? I can say with at least ninety-nine point nine percent certainty that he'll say it back."

Her heart rate picks up a little, remembering the smile on his face when she'd accidentally called him her boyfriend. "You really think so?"

Raven does one of her famous eye rolls. "I know so. That boy is head over heels, follow you to the end of the world, start wars in love with you. It was beyond obvious during game night."

Whenever Clarke and Raven are in the same general area – which is most of the time these days – they do monthly game nights. Sometimes it's just the two of them and Zeke, sometimes it's the whole gang plus some extra people when someone brings a friend.

This Monday had been Clarke's turn to host, and as luck would have it, Bellamy's class was cancelled, so he got the full experience, which included Raven turning over the Monopoly board when Zeke bankrupted her, Jasper getting high and spending half an hour insisting that P-A-C-L-I-P-E-G-O – which was really just all his letters and two already on the Scrabble board – was a word, and Harper throwing the candle stick at Monty when he won Clue.

Pretty much a normal game night.

But Clarke hadn't picked up on anything special from Bellamy, so she's not sure where Raven gets that.

"How do you mean obvious?"

Raven lets out an exasperated sigh. "You really don't see it?"

Clarke's phone dings and she rummages around in her purse for it. "I guess I just don't want to jump to conclusions. I mean, I did accidentally call him my boyfriend the other day and he actually calmed me down when I freaked out about it and said that he wanted to be my boyfriend, so at least that covers the whole 'what are we' thing. But love, that's…"

She finally finds her phone and can't help the smile on her face when she sees that the message is from Bellamy.

Hey, what are you doing tonight?

She hesitates for a moment.

You, hopefully :-P Why?

Good answer ;-)

Miller's complaining he's barely
seen me for weeks.

And he wants to "officially" meet
you, whatever that means.

He's promised to make his
amazing spaghetti and meatballs.

Would you mind spending tonight
at my place?

I apologize in advance for any too
personal questions and obscure
grew-up-together, practically-
family, in-jokes.

But at least you'll have Jackson
to roll your eyes at for those.

She's trying to type out a reply, but the rapid stream of texts make it hard.

Stop rambling!

Sorry…

Thank you :-)

I would love to have dinner
with Miller and Jackson
tonight

Oh, great, my ranting didn't
scare you off ;)

So I'll tell him we'll be there?

Yes!

Go back to work you dork :-P

OK, OK!

See you later :-*

Yes you will :-*

When she puts the phone down and looks up again, Raven is watching her with amusement.

"See? That, right there. You're completely gone."

Clarke sighs. "Yeah, I guess…"

"And he's the same way. He can't keep his eyes off you, it's like… some sort of magnetic pull. Seriously, trust me – just tell him. I promise he'll be over the moon. He's probably been worried about saying it too soon too."

"Maybe."

She thinks she might give it a little longer, despite Raven's assurance…

"What did he want, anyway?" Raven asks.

"Apparently, Miller thinks I've been hogging him lately, so we're having dinner with him and Jackson tonight," Clarke tells her with a shrug.

"Ah, so kind of like meeting the family, right? You said that he grew up with the Millers as a sort of extra family, and it's not like you're going to meet his parents."

Trust Raven to turn a simple dinner into something to get nervous about.

"I guess…" Clarke agrees reluctantly.

"OK, topic change," Raven announces, thankfully. "Christmas. I'm picking up everything I can next week, before the stores descend into complete chaos, so I need to know numbers."

Since Raven hosted Thanksgiving they're doing Christmas at Clarke's place, even though Raven and Zeke will be doing the actual cooking. Clarke offered to do the shopping, but Raven just rolled her eyes and said that she'd rather do it right from the start instead of having to go back to the store to get everything Clarke forgot. Which was a little insulting, really. She does know how to follow a shopping list, thank you very much.

"Well, Jasper, Maya, Harper and Monty are going out of town together, and Murphy doesn't celebrate Christmas, so I guess we're on our own."

Raven hesitates briefly and then nods. "OK then."

But Clarke knows her, and she knows that there's something her friend's not saying.

"What did you do?" she asks sternly, because it does go both ways – she knows she can't lie to Raven, but Raven can't lie to her, either.

Raven keeps her eyes firmly on the menu in front of her, even though Clarke has already ordered for both of them. "I didn't do anything."

"What are you not telling me then?"

Raven's quiet for another long moment, then she sighs deeply. "You're going to have to tell him that you forced me to tell you."

"Who? What on earth are you talking about?"

Finally looking up again, Raven meets her eyes with an almost defiant look that Clarke recognizes very well on her face.

"Wells and Sasha are coming over for a couple of days around Christmas," she says. "He wanted to surprise you, but, well, you obviously refuse to be surprised."

Clarke gives her a sheepish look. "Sorry."

"Whatever. So that makes it five… what about Loverboy?"

"Are you ever going to use his actual name?"

"To his face? Sure. Talking to you? Not likely."

Clarke supposes she'll have to content herself with that.

"And you're avoiding the question," Raven continues. "You don't want to spend Christmas with him?"

Of course she does. It's the only Christmas she'll have the opportunity…

"It's like the L word – isn't it too soon?" she wonders, and Raven shrugs.

"Do you know if he has plans?"

"We haven't actually talked about it. I don't think his sister is coming to town – there's definitely something there he doesn't want to talk about and I don't want to push – but I know he spends holidays with Miller's family sometimes, so he'll probably be going there."

A worrying smile spreads on Raven's face. "That's your chance, then! You don't have to ask him what he's doing for Christmas, just ask Miller."

As most of Raven's ideas, it's actually pretty smart.

"OK, fine, I will."

And she'll have to, too, because Raven will not let this go until she has an answer, and if Clarke just says that she's asked and Bellamy has plans, she wouldn't put it past her friend to ask him herself.

-100-

"Why are you so nervous?"

At Bellamy's question, Clarke turns around to find him lounging on the bed, already dressed and ready to go. She's standing in the walk-in closet, only wearing panties and a bra, and it's a testament to his self-control that he hasn't joined her in there and backed her up against a wall yet. Though they do have to leave in ten minutes to make it to his place in time for dinner with Miller and Jackson, so that's probably why.

"Who says I'm nervous?" she replies, though she is, of course. Stupid Raven.

"The fact that you've tried on and discarded three different outfits – all of which made you look absolutely amazing, by the way," he says.

She sighs. "Fine, maybe I am. Raven said something about this dinner basically being like meeting your family, since you grew up with Miller as a sort of extra brother. And I don't know why that made me nervous, but it did, OK?"

She half-expects him to laugh, but he doesn't. Instead, he gets up from the bed and crosses the room to the closet. He takes both her hands in his and waits until she looks up at him.

"You have nothing to be nervous about, OK?" he assures her. "Miller already loves you – you've made me leave the house voluntarily for something other than work and class for the first time in ages. You're already off to a flying start."

Clarke can't help but laugh a little at that. "Yeah?"

"Yes." He squeezes her hands once before letting her go. "Now put on that green dress you tried on first."

She turns to pull it off the hanger again. "Not the blue one?" she asks. "I thought you liked that one more."

She sees his eyes darken at her words. "I do, but if you wear that one, I won't be able to keep my hands off you."

She feels her stomach swoop at that.

"Well, we can't have that, can we?"

"Exactly."

"But I will keep that in mind for the future."

A wonderful smell greets them when Bellamy unlocks the door to his and Miller's apartment barely an hour later.

"We're here," he calls as the door closes behind them.

"Kitchen!" someone calls back.

He helps her off with her jacket and hangs it up before putting a hand on the small of her back and half-pushing her ahead of him down the hallway.

"Just in time," the guy standing at the stove says, glancing at them over his shoulder. "Ten more minutes and dinner will be ready."

"What he means is welcome," a voice comes from behind them.

Clarke turns to find a tall, dark haired guy that she remembers from Raven's Halloween party setting the table. "Hey, Batman!"

He laughs. "Eric Jackson, actually, most people call me Jackson. And you must be Clarke. Nice to officially meet you."

She accepts his extended hand.

"I am, nice to meet you too."

"And that's Nathan over there, but he doesn't respond to anything but Miller," Jackson continues, nodding at the guy at the stove.

"Hey," he calls, waving a spatula in the air.

"Hey, Robin," Clarke replies, remembering his outfit from Halloween as well.

Bellamy chuckles next to her. "Is that how you want to play this, Princess?"

She just rolls her eyes. "You already call me that all the time anyway."

That gets a laugh out of Miller and he turns halfway around to give her an appreciative look. "I like you."

And just like that, all her nerves are gone.

Bellamy joins Miller at the stove while she helps Jackson set the table. They quickly realize that they both have a membership to The Guggenheim and like to stroll around the modern, minimalistic halls, and get engrossed in a discussion of the latest exhibition.

The food is delicious, just like Bellamy promised, and the conversation flows easily at the table. Clarke discovers that Miller loves embarrassing his friend, and she happily listens to all the stories of crazy things the two of them got up to in junior high and high school, before they both 'got their shit together', as Miller puts it.

Bellamy seems torn between being annoyed at Miller for revealing all his youthful mistakes, and happy that he and Clarke are hitting it off. He settles for giving Miller exasperated looks now and then and retaliating with stories of his own, and smiling at Clarke.

"So, Clarke," Miller says when they've settled onto the couch with dessert – just ice cream, but she's so full she doesn't think she could get anything else down anyway. "Bellamy said you spent Thanksgiving with Raven and Zeke, are you celebrating Christmas together too?"

Excellent, he's giving her an opening to find out about Bellamy's Christmas plans without having to bring it up herself.

"I am, yeah," she confirms. "I'm actually hosting this year, we'll see how that goes. And a couple of other friends I haven't seen in a while are coming in from out of town as well, so it should be fun. How about you?"

Miller and Jackson exchange a look.

"Well, Nathan's parents won four tickets to a Christmas cruise and invited us to go with them," Jackson says after a moment.

"But they don't want to go and leave me all alone over the holidays," Bellamy finishes with a roll of his eyes. "I've told them that it's fine, but do they listen?"

"And I've told you that you don't abandon family on Christmas," Miller retorts in a way that makes it clear it's not the first time they're having this discussion. "Dad's trying to get another ticket, but if he can't Aunt Marjorie and Uncle James will go instead of us, it's not a big deal."

Clarke sees her opening. "If you're worried about this one brooding in his lonesome all Christmas, I can drag him along to my place."

"You'd really do that?" Miller asks, though she's pretty sure that's what he was fishing for when he brought it up. She hopes he's had some sort of indication from Bellamy that he actually wants to spend Christmas with her, and that it's not just that Miller and Jackson really want to go on that cruise.

"Of course," she assures him. "That way you won't miss out on the cruise, and I'll get some reinforcements against the couple invasion I'm facing."

That seems to settle the conversation, as Miller switches topics.

It's late when they finally go to bed, after one in the morning. Bellamy has tomorrow off, but Clarke has a story time at eleven, so they can't sleep in, unfortunately.

Bellamy waits until she's returned from the bathroom and crawled under the covers before he brings up the topic of Christmas again.

"I'm sorry about Miller ambushing you with the whole Christmas thing," he says quietly when she's settled in with her head on his chest, his arm sneaking under her so he can wrap it around her waist and pull her closer. "He's been nagging me to ask you about it for a week, I guess he decided to take things into his own hands."

She reaches across him to intertwine their fingers. "Don't apologize, I was going to ask if you wanted to spend the holidays together myself, he just saved me from having to figure out how to bring it up."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." She pauses. "But, I mean, if you just want to have a quiet Christmas on your own and not subject yourself to the madness that is Raven in holiday spirit, I totally understand."

Bellamy chuckles. "I actually kind of like Raven. Sure, she's intense, but she seems like she's a good person to have on your side."

"The best. So Christmas at my place with my crazy friends?"

"If you're sure you want me there."

Clarke shifts so she can look up at him. "I always want you there. I thought that much was obvious since I've basically refused to let you leave for two and a half weeks."

"It's not like I tried very hard."

She settles down again, letting out a deep breath.

"So we're doing Christmas?"

Bellamy squeezes her hand. "Looks like it."

"Just a heads-up – one of the friends from out of town that's going to be there is my ex." She figures it's best to put that out there, in case someone says something about her and Wells' relationship in front of Bellamy. Come to think of it, she should probably discuss this with Wells before he and Sasha actually get here too, make sure they have their stories straight…

"Oh. Alex, right?"

"Lexa. But no, not her, Wells," Clarke clarifies. "We dated our senior year of high school and made it all the way to the Thanksgiving break our first semester at college before we realized that long distance wasn't going to work. We stayed friends, though, and his girlfriend, Sasha, is a close friend of mine too, even if they live in the UK these days."

"That's nice, that you stayed friends," Bellamy notes. "I've never really managed that with exes."

"Yeah, it can be hard," she agrees. "So you're OK with that? You don't want to back out of Christmas?"

"I think I can handle seeing you with a guy you broke up with, what? Eight, nine years ago?"

Bellamy thinks she's twenty-seven, so that's about right.

"Good." She burrows further into the mattress and shifts a little so she can bury her face against his throat. "Because I really do want you there."

He places a kiss on top of her head. "Then I'll be there."

She hums contentedly, feeling the first tendrils of sleep tugging at her mind.

"I love you."

At first, she's not sure she heard him right, but then she realizes that he's tensed beneath her, and pushes herself up a little to be able to look at him. His eyebrows are furrowed and he looks like he's afraid she's going to run out of the room screaming.

"I'm sorry, I know it's way too soon to say that, I just…"

She silences him with a kiss before pulling back and meeting his worried gaze. "I love you too."

She can both see the relief in his eyes and feel it in the way his whole body relaxes.

"I almost said it the other night," she reveals.

"When?" Bellamy asks.

"That night when you got home late and carried me to bed."

"Really?"

Clarke just nods.

"I've been trying not to blurt it out for a while," he admits.

"Since when?" she asks, curiously. Not that it matters who wanted to say it first, it's not a competition or anything.

"That first morning at your place. You were lying there in bed, all sleepy and soft, and didn't want me to leave… I was so close to just saying it then."

She remembers that morning, remembers thinking he was about to say something and then didn't.

"Really?" she repeats his earlier question.

"Really," he says with a half-smile. "I was worried I'd scare you off."

Her eyes flit to his Number for a moment. 224. It's after midnight, so it's already counted down one more day.

"You couldn't scare me off if you tried," she tells him truthfully.

The universe has already tried and failed, after all.

Chapter warnings: a tiny bit of explicit sexual content. Blink and you might miss it