Chapter 8

Bellamy probably wouldn't have been going to Eligius quite as much if it wasn't for the fact that Clarke was working there. She was a hell of a distraction, no doubt about that, mostly distracting him from the fact that he was still technically freeloading off his mom and had yet to secure a job anywhere in town. He liked spending time with her, though. Even if it was just as friends.

"So how much did you manage to find out?" she asked him one afternoon while he sat up at the bar.

"Oh, a lot, actually. I should be a private investigator or something. I've got skills," he boasted.

"Really?"

"No. I did go talk to Octavia's roommate, though. Girl named Fox. I don't know how they ever got assigned to room together. Fox is quiet, calm, nice. Everything Octavia's not. Fox was studying when I showed up."

"Studying in college. A novel concept," Clarke said with a sarcastic gasp. "So, what does the Fox say?"

"Funny. She told me the guy's name is Lincoln."

"Lincoln?" she echoed. "Like the car?"

"Or the president." Sounded like kind of a douchebag name to him, but at least it wasn't something weird like Ilian. "Octavia's known him for a couple weeks. She met him at the rec center," he relayed to Clarke. "He works there. Apparently they talked, got to know each other, and then he asked her out the other night."

"And this Fox girl just told you everything willingly?" Clarke said skeptically.

"Well, I laid on the charm, as I'm known to do."

She laughed a little and shook her head.

"Anyway, Fox wasn't sure what he's like," Bellamy went on, well aware that he was monopolizing all of Clarke's time and that the other waitress on duty was pretty much attending to everybody else but him. "But she said he's definitely older. In his twenties."

"Oh, yeah, for sure, he looks like he's in his twenties," Clarke confirmed.

"What do you think, twenty-three, twenty-four?"

She shrugged. "Maybe. Yeah, he could definitely be your age."

"Great." That meant she was dating someone who was probably a lot more experienced and expected a lot more. Fan-fucking-tastic. "Well, Fox said he seemed nice, but that could all be an act, you know? That's why I'm gonna crash their second date."

"What?"

"Yeah, I'm gonna find out where they're goin', and I'm gonna conveniently show up there, too." He smirked, already envisioning his master plan coming to life. "Then I can put the fear of God in his eyes, right where it belongs."

"Uh, I hate to break it to you, but he's bigger than you," Clarke informed him.

He was? Bellamy glanced down at his arms, flexing for a moment. "I could still take him, though, right?"

Clarke cringed, giving him a doubtful look.

"No, I could still take him," he decided. He didn't care if this guy was the Hulk himself. He wouldn't hesitate to fight him if he did anything to hurt or pressure Octavia.

"Let's hope it doesn't come to that," Clarke said.

Hopefully, if luck prevailed, Octavia would just lose interest in this guy and come to a dramatic realization that she was asexual or something. Problem solved.

A man down at the other end of the bar called Clarke over to refill his glass, so she went and did that, then came right back over to him. He felt like he'd been talking about himself since he'd come in, so he shifted the focus to her and asked, "What about you, though? What've you been up to?"

"Oh, nothing," she said with a sigh. "Working. Classes. Had dinner at my mom's the other night. Pretty mundane stuff."

"Even with . . ." He trailed off, his eyes glancing down at her stomach.

"Yeah, even with that," she said. She looked on either side of her, as if to make sure no one was close enough to overhear, then leaned against the counter and lowered her voice. "I went to my first appointment the other day."

"Oh, yeah?" He hated to think of her doing that by herself, but once she told her mom, then her mom would probably accompany her. "How'd that go?"

"It was kinda annoying, actually," she said. "They told me I was gonna have an ultrasound, but when I got there, they were like, 'Oh, no, today you'll just sit down with a doctor and talk through some things. We'll have to schedule your ultrasound for your eighth week.'" She rolled her eyes, clearly still perturbed about it. "And I have to go to some medical imaging center for it."

"Next week?"

"Yep. Nine more days." She let out a heavy exhale. "I guess it wasn't a complete waste of time, though. They took some blood to do all the blood work stuff, and then they had me pee in a cup to run all these tests."

"What kinds of tests?"

"I don't know, I guess checking to see if I have a bladder infection or, like, high levels of glucose or something." She shrugged. "And then they gave me this list of medicines that are okay to take, and medicines that aren't okay. And they recommended these prenatal vitamins. They're gummies, so I'm pretty happy about that." She smiled.

Cute, he thought, picturing Clarke popping gummy vitamins every morning instead of the regular pill kind.

"What else did they say?" she said to herself. "Oh, limit caffeine and soda, no alcohol, blah, blah, blah . . ."

No alcohol would have sucked. He couldn't have done that. "How much weight you gonna gain?" he asked, wondering when she would start to show. So far, she was still pretty tiny. Curvy, but tiny.

"They said anywhere from twenty-five to thirty-five pounds is healthy," she replied. "But when they weighed me, I was down four pounds."

"What? Why?" He didn't like the sound of that.

"Just because my normal diet's all out of whack. With the nausea and everything," she explained. "They said it's normal."

He nodded slowly, hoping it was. "Has that gotten any better?" he asked her.

"It's just sporadic. I'm getting used to it."

Man, being pregnant sounded like it sucked. No alcohol, throwing up in the morning . . . and she was still just starting out. He faintly recalled his mother complaining about a lot of back pain when she'd been pregnant with Octavia. "You're pretty badass, you know that, Clarke?" he said, grinning at her.

"Thanks for saying that."

He was about to say more, to convince her that it was true, because hell, any woman who had a kid was strong and brave as fuck, but he didn't get the chance when she looked over his shoulder. Her whole face paled, and she gasped, "Oh my god."

"What?" He looked over his shoulder as two guys walked in. One had short dark hair, the other had longer dark hair. That one looked to the bar and made eye contact with Clarke right away. "Who's that?" Bellamy asked her.

She didn't say anything.

"Is that him?"

The corners of her mouth drooped downward, and she nodded mutely.

Oh, shit, he thought, taking another drink. She probably would have taken one, too, if she could have.

Both those guys approached the bar, and the long-haired one—Finn, he recalled—said, "Clarke? Are you working here now?"

She barely even looked at him. Instead, she pretended to be all busy wiping off a glass that was already clean. "Yeah," she mumbled in response.

"Huh. Didn't see that coming." Finn sat down on the empty stool next to Bellamy and told his friend, "Atom, go get a table, man."

The shorter-haired guy nodded and wandered off. Part of Bellamy wished Finn would go with him, but the other part was curious to get a read on the guy.

"So how long you been working here?" Finn asked her.

"Not long," she replied. It was amazing how entire tone had just . . . shifted.

"Didn't think so." He looked over at Bellamy, narrowing his eyes, and asked, "Who's this? He looks familiar."

Damn right I do, Bellamy thought, tightening his hands around his glass. That must have meant Clarke had shown this guy pictures of him. Or better yet, maybe she'd done some sketches of him over the years.

"Finn, this is Bellamy," Clarke introduced.

"Ah, the famous Bellamy. About time I meet him," Finn said. "I heard a lot about you, you know. Although not from her. She was pretty tight-lipped. But Raven and everybody told me all about how close the two of you used to be."

Bellamy cast a quick glance at Clarke. She looked . . . embarrassed.

"Let me guess," Finn said. "You found out she and I broke up, figured you'd swoop back in and reclaim what's yours?"

Oh, that pissed him the hell off, hearing somebody talk about Clarke like she was property or something. "She doesn't belong to anyone," he growled.

"No, of course not," Finn agreed. "You know what I mean, though."

No, he really didn't.

"Well, anyway, good to meet you," Finn said as he stood up. Then he actually had the audacity to tell Clarke, "I'll take a beer whenever you can."

Bellamy rolled his eyes. What a fucking tool. What the fuck had Clarke ever seen in him? "That's your ex-boyfriend?" he said in disbelief once Finn had gone away. "Why the hell did you waste any time on him?"

"He wasn't always a jerk," she said. "Sometimes he could be really sweet. But he's been an ass lately, ever since I asked him to move in with me."

"You asked him to move in?" No, he couldn't picture Finn cozying up in that beach house with Clarke. That wouldn't work.

"Yeah, at the start of the summer," she said. "But he wasn't ready for that, said it made things too official. That's why we ended up calling it quits, because he didn't wanna be so tied down." She laughed sadly, tears in her eyes. "Ironic, isn't it? Now he's gonna be." She turned around, wiping her eyes as she headed back into the employee breakroom. He wondered if she might sit down back there and cry, back where the father of her child couldn't see her.

He looked back over his shoulder again, watching as Finn and his friend threw sugar packets at each other across their table. They looked like losers, so it was really hard to believe that one of them was gonna have a kid.

...

Clarke sat through her classes the next day in a bit of a daze. Seeing Finn at the bar, talking to him for only minutes . . . it'd been a lot. She'd lain awake for hours last night, trying to figure out how on earth she was going to tell him about the baby. Hopefully he'd at least have a mature reaction, even if it wasn't a completely positive one.

When she left Professor Jaha's class, she felt dead on her feet, like she could just go home and nap for a while. Except she couldn't, because she still had one more class to go to. But at least she wasn't scheduled to work today. Although she didn't hate the bar by any means, being on her feet for so many hours at a time hurt like hell, and it would have hurt even if she hadn't been pregnant.

As she was walking to her next class, she felt someone come up behind her. "Hey, you," Niylah said, brushing against her arm.

"Hey." Niylah looked prettier than ever, her long blonde hair a mix of waves and braids. She was one of those girls who didn't have to wear any makeup at all, too, which Clarke seriously envied.

Niylah must have been impressed by her appearance, too, because she raved, "You look absolutely gorgeous. That must mean you dumped your boyfriend."

"I did," Clarke admitted. She and Niylah had a running joke that she was always at her hottest when she wasn't with Finn. "Well, actually, we dumped each other. It was a mutual thing, but yeah, we're definitely in one of the off periods of our on-and-off relationship."

"Well, I like those periods, because that's when I get to console you." Niylah smiled.

Usually, she enjoyed getting consoled by Niylah. It involved a lot of oral sex and once in a while even a strap-on. But there was just no way she could sleep with Niylah right now, not only because of the baby, but also because of . . . well, Bellamy. "There's a lot more going on this time," she said vaguely. "I don't think I'm up for any casual sex."

Niylah pouted, but she didn't push it any farther. "Well, if you change your mind," she said, "you know where to find me." She blew Clarke a kiss and veered off in the other direction.

Clarke sighed. Hooking up with Niylah would have been simple, and it probably would have made her feel better. For a little while, at least. But it wasn't a long-term fix for her problems. Never had been.

That night, she lay in bed, her phone in her hand as she agonized about whether or not she should text Finn. The ultrasound was only a week away now, and it was possible he'd want to be there for that. But it was also possible he'd leave her to fend for herself, which scared the hell out of her.

She typed out a brief text saying she needed to talk to him tomorrow, but then she deleted it. So she typed out another, one that simply said, We need to talk. But that sounded so foreboding that he'd probably just ignore it, so she didn't send that, either. Ultimately, she just set her phone on her nightstand, rolled over onto her side, and pulled the blankets up all the way over her head. She really wished she knew what she was doing, but she just didn't.

...

Upon waking up in the morning, Clarke tried some positive thinking strategies. She told herself that it was a new day. Because it was. Every day was a new day, and every day had the potential to be better than the last day. Or something like that. She'd slept a little better, and she wasn't waking up to a stomach that was doing backflips, so perhaps that was a good sign.

She got in the shower, taking a long time with her shampoo, hoping to rinse off some of the negativity from the past couple days and feel refreshed when she got out of there. Sometimes, her mind started to wander when she was in the shower or the bathtub, and this time was no different. In fact, her mind ventured into full-on fantasy territory when she looked down and imagined Bellamy's strong arms wrapping around her waist, his large hands splaying against her stomach. For a split second or two, she was able to pretend that he was standing behind her as that warm water fell on both of them, that he was leaning down to murmur in her ear, "Morning, Princess."

Unfortunately, the fantasy faded all too quickly, and she remembered that she was actually in that shower alone, that Bellamy wasn't even there right now, and that she had no reason to feel sorry for herself, because she was the one who'd championed this whole 'just friends' idea. It was the right thing to do.

In the midst of toweling off her wet hair, her phone rang. She ran back into the bedroom to answer it, and coincidentally enough, the very man she'd just been thinking about was the one calling. "Hey," she said, wondering if he could just tell that he'd been on her mind.

"Hey," he returned. "I didn't wake you up, did I?"

"No, I just got out of the shower." She waited for him to say something else, but when he didn't, she prompted, "Bellamy?"

"Just give me a minute," he said. "I'm picturing it."

"Stop." Who was she kidding, though? She loved that the thought of her in the shower turned him on. "What's up?"

"Oh, you know, I'm just about to crash Octavia's second date with Lincoln today," he revealed.

"Are you serious? You're actually doing that?"

"Yeah. It's okay, though, she knows. I convinced her to invite me along."

How on earth had he managed that? Bribery or something?

"What do you think I should wear, a short-sleeved shirt or a long-sleeved one?" he asked. "What's more intimidating?"

"Long-sleeved," she replied. "Roll it up to your elbows. That makes it look like you mean business."

"Black?"

"Yes."

"Alright. Thanks for the input."

"Yeah, no problem." She wondered if that was the only reason why he'd called, or if perhaps he'd just felt like talking to her. "Do you want me to tag along," she offered, "be your backup?" It wasn't like she had anything better to do today, and if she just stayed home, she'd end up wallowing, and then this brand new day wouldn't be any better than the last two had been.

"Sure," he said. "I'll come get you at noon, alright?"

"Alright. See you then." She ended the call, not quite sure if this was a good idea. On the one hand, it had the potential of feeling like a double date, but then again, what guy would go on a double date with his little sister? No, she was just being friendly. Because they were friends now.

...

"Pizza place," Bellamy grumbled, looking around the restaurant. "How romantic."

"Oh, come on, where was our first date? A parking lot party?" Clarke reminded him.

"But this is their second one. He should step it up or something." Bellamy shook his head, not impressed. Sure, this place had good pizza, but there were a couple other nicer restaurants in Arkadia. On the bright side, though, this place was cheap, which was good, 'cause he only had about ten bucks in his wallet, and he was paying for Clarke, too.

"Are you determined to hate the guy," she asked, "or are you willing to have an open mind?"

"I don't know yet." He stretched his arm out over the back of their booth, in the process putting it around her.

"Bellamy," she said.

"What?"

She used her head to motion to his arm.

"Oh." Slowly, he brought it back down again. Dammit, this sucked. All these little things that he was used to with Clarke . . . he had to change them now. Like when he'd gone and picked her up today, he'd almost kissed her, just because that was what felt natural to him. But she'd of course leaned back to stop him.

"There they are," she said, pointing to the entrance. Indeed, there was Octavia, wearing a jean skirt that was way too short for his liking. Beside her was this huge guy, one whom Bellamy suddenly had no confidence in beating if it came down to a physical fight.

"Hey, sorry we're late," Octavia said as they came to the table. "We got busy kissing." She slid into the booth and greeted, "Hey, Clarke. Didn't expect to see you here."

"Yeah, I had some time to kill today, so I kind of invited myself along."

"Funny," Octavia remarked, "Bellamy did the same thing."

Lincoln sat down alongside her, nodding at Bellamy. "Nice to meet you," he said. "I'm Lincoln."

Bellamy didn't say 'nice to meet you, too,' because he wasn't yet sure that Lincoln was nice to meet. "This is Clarke," he introduced.

"Hi," she said with a much friendlier smile than anything he could produce in that moment.

"Hi," Lincoln said to her.

A bit of an awkward silence settled over them then, but Octavia was the first to break it when she said, "So should we order or what?"

"Sounds good," Bellamy said. "I'm gonna need a drink." The only way he was going to make it through this lunch was with a little alcohol in his system.

They decided on what types of pizza to get pretty quickly—Octavia and Lincoln picked some disgusting veggie option, and Clarke wanted a whole plain cheese pizza, so Bellamy relented on his desire for pepperoni just so he could share with her. While they waited for it to come and ate away at a basket of garlic breadsticks, he learned a lot about Lincoln. Army brat. Grew up with just his dad, moved all over the place. Conveniently enough, though, he never mentioned his age, which was the thing Bellamy was most interested in.

"So after we left Trikru, we moved to Polis," Lincoln said, wrapping up a very boring story that charted out everywhere he'd lived in the northeastern United States.

"And what year was that in?" Bellamy pointedly asked, eliciting a swift kick from Clarke beneath the table.

"That's when I was a junior," Lincoln answered.

Again, Bellamy wanted to ask the question, but he also had a new one that needed answered. "Polis. Did you play football there?"

"Yeah, defensive line."

Aha. He'd felt like this guy had looked familiar ever since he'd seen him walk in. "You sacked me my freshman year," Bellamy informed him. He still remembered that hit. Brutal.

"Did I?" Lincoln asked.

"Yeah. Gave me a concussion. I had to sit out the next game."

"Oh, right," Lincoln recalled. "Sorry about that."

He shrugged. "No, it's part of the game." He hated the abundance of rules in football these days. It was a hard-hitting sport by design. Weak people had no business playing it.

"See, you both played football. Something in common," Octavia said. "Isn't that nice?"

It really wasn't, not when that tackle from Lincoln had been one of the hardest hits he'd had ever taken in his life. Oh, well, though. They'd still won that game. "So how'd you meet my sister?" Bellamy asked him, wanting to cut to the chase before the pizza came.

"Well, she came in to work out, had a few problems with the yoga ball," Lincoln said, laughing, "and, uh, that's where it all began. I work there."

"So I've heard." He had to be a trainer or something, right? He was built like a Mack truck. Probably steroids. "You know she's eighteen, right?"

Lincoln nodded slowly. "I do know that now," he said. "When I first met her, I thought she was older. And she let me think that until our first date."

"Oh, so she lied to you?" Bellamy said. "Not a great way to start a relationship."

"Shut up, Bellamy," his sister snapped. "I came clean, and he forgave me."

"Whatever," he grumbled. "So how old are you, Lincoln? Twenty-three? Twenty-four?"

"I'm about to be twenty-six," Lincoln replied.

"Twenty-six?" he shrieked. This guy was older than him? "And you're dating an eighteen year-old?"

"I'll be nineteen before the end of the year," Octavia pointed out. As if that made a difference.

"I gave it some thought on whether or not it's the right thing to do," Lincoln admitted, "but . . ." Looking next to him at Octavia, he smiled. "I can't help how I feel about her. I think she's amazing."

Octavia smiled back at him, a dreamy look in her eyes that Bellamy had never seen from her before.

"Oh, god," Clarke cut in suddenly, holding one hand over her mouth.

"Yeah, this makes me wanna puke, too," he said.

"No, Bellamy, I'm really . . ." She held one hand to her stomach and kept the other clamped over her mouth. "I need to get to the bathroom," she whispered.

"Oh. Oh." She was really nauseous then, not just grossed out by the couple across from them. "Yeah, go ahead." He started to slide out of the booth.

"Wait," she said, squeezing her eyes shut for a moment. She burped, but that was all. "Never mind, I think it passed. I'm okay now," she said.

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah." She glanced across the table at Octavia and Lincoln and apologized, "Sorry, I just . . . I've had this stomach bug, and I'm still getting over it."

Lincoln seemed to buy that, but Octavia stared at Clarke suspiciously, and said, "Oh my god. Are you pregnant?"

The people in the booth next to them looked over when they heard that.

"A little louder, Octavia," Clarke said. "I don't think they heard you all the way in the back."

"Oh my god, I'm gonna be an aunt?" she exclaimed, undeterred from being loud. "Congratulations!"

Oh god, Bellamy thought. This was so awkward. "It's not . . . it's not mine, O," he told her quietly. And poor Clarke just looked down at her lap.

"What?" Octavia spat. "No, you guys are . . ." Luckily, she stopped before saying anything else. She'd already said enough. "Oh," she said as she processed that. "Sorry."

"It's okay," Clarke assured her. "Just please don't say anything."

"No, of course not." It was her turn to avert her eyes then, and to look embarrassed for saying anything at all.

Beneath the table, Bellamy reached over and put his hand on Clarke's knee. Maybe he wasn't supposed to touch her now that they were just friends, but . . . it felt like the least he could do.

...

Bellamy knew there were going to be stares the first time he and Clarke walked into school together, hand-in-hand. He was used to being in the spotlight at this school. People paid attention to him because he was the quarterback and he was popular. It had to be a strange feeling for Clarke, though, to have so many eyes on her.

"Okay, is it just me," she said, "or is everyone looking at us?"

"Everyone's looking," he said. Stopping at her locker, he suggested, "Maybe we should give 'em something to look at," and bent down to give her a kiss. He didn't care who was watching or what they thought about this. He liked kissing Clarke Griffin, so he was going to do it a lot.

When she slid her hand out of his, it was only so she could unlock her locker. "Does this mean I'm sitting at your lunch table today?" she asked, squatting down to pull her books out of the bottom of it. "Or are you sitting at mine?"

"We could start our own table," he suggested, leaning back against the lockers next to hers. "It'll fill up fast." He glanced down the hall and noticed Bree and her friends watching. Not one of them looked happy.

"Do you have football after school?" Clarke asked him.

"Yeah. Every day until after the season's over." Even after that, he planned on working out with Miller and the wrestling team, just to stay in shape.

"Yeah, I've got cheer practice," she said, shutting her locker. "We're starting on our state routine. I think it's gonna wear me out."

"Not as much as I do, though, right?" He reached out and put his arm around her waist, pulling her closer.

"No, not as much as you do."

Maybe I can wear her out tonight, he pondered. His mom had a date, so he was supposed to watch Octavia, but . . . if she found something to watch on Netflix, Clarke could come over and they could be quiet.

"I have to go," she said. "Stu-co meeting."

"Alright, I'll see you later." He kissed her again, a deeper kiss this time, the kind that teachers and other adults in the school would tell them to stop doing if they walked by and saw. Like he'd listen to them, though. Fuck that.

Clarke headed one way down the hall to get to her meeting, and he headed down the other to go to the cafeteria and grab some breakfast. He had to walk past Bree and her friends, and of course Bree couldn't not say anything about what she'd just seen.

"Really, Bellamy? A sophomore?" she huffed jealousy. "Seriously?"

He smirked. Yes, seriously. Clarke may have been a sophomore, but she was a cute, sexy one. And he liked her a lot more than he liked any other girl in that school.

...

Lunch passed with very little fanfare after Octavia had blurted out her congratulations. Bellamy didn't even grill Lincoln too hard after that. The tone had shifted, and he ended up thinking about Clarke more than he did his sister's new boyfriend.

Since it began raining, Octavia made up some excuse about needing to leave and get back to her dorm before it started storming, so Bellamy drove Clarke home, too. She didn't say much on the drive. Neither did he, really. What were they supposed to say? Octavia had literally assumed they were having a baby together, but they weren't, so . . . it was just weird.

When he pulled up outside her house, she didn't make any effort to get out of the car, so he just turned off and sat there with her while the rain fell on his windshield.

"So what'd you think of him?" she finally asked.

"Lincoln?" He shrugged. "Seemed pretty nice. I didn't end up hating him half as much as I wanted to."

"Well, that's a good thing, though," she pointed out. "You want Octavia to have a good boyfriend."

"Yeah." He gazed at her sadly and said, "I want that for you, too."

She inhaled shakily and said, "Finn's not as bad as he seemed when you met him. I'm sure once he finds out about the baby, he'll start to come around."

Will he? Bellamy couldn't help but wonder. Not every guy did. His father, whoever the son of a bitch was, had been twenty when his mom had gotten pregnant at seventeen, and he hadn't stuck around to help out at all. Finn was probably, what, just a couple years older than that? Probably Clarke's age? What were the odds he was going to step up and be a good dad?

He wasn't about to voice any of his concerns to her, though. That was the last thing she needed to hear. He did ask, "When are you gonna tell him?" though, because he wasn't sure keeping it a secret was a good thing for her stress levels.

"I don't know," she said, shaking her head sadly. "I don't know what I'm doing, Bellamy. I act like I'm holding it together, but . . . I feel sort of lost."

She looked that way, too, but . . . she still looked beautiful. "Hey. Look at me," he said, reaching over to take her hand in his. She did, but she had tears in her eyes. "You're strong. You're smart. You're Clarke Griffin," he reminded her. "I know you can do this."

That got a smile out of her, but the tearful kind. Leaning over the seats, she wrapped her arms around him and hugged him, her shoulders shuddering a bit as she sniffled and cried lightly. He felt like he could sit in that car and hold her forever, or at least for however long she needed him to.