Chapter 12

It was late when Clarke woke up in Bellamy's bed. Really late. But she was so warm and so comfortable that she didn't want to move. His arms were around her, and they were snuggling, and . . . for a second, it just felt like old times.

Since it was completely dark outside, she lifted her head up and glanced over his shoulder at the digital clock on his nightstand. 2:33 in the morning. She'd been there for over twelve hours, and she'd spent the majority of that time just crashed out on his bed, taking up half the space of what was not a huge mattress to begin with.

Friends don't cuddle like this, she reminded herself, so despite how cozy she felt in the moment, she forced herself up and out of bed. Bellamy moved around a little, but he didn't wake up. Probably for the best. He'd try to convince her to stay the whole night, and that probably wasn't the wisest idea.

As she crept out into the hallway, trying to be as quiet as a mouse, she heard a voice come from the living room. "No need to be quiet," Aurora said. She sat in front of the TV, sewing something. A skirt, perhaps. When she wasn't working at the hotel, she mended clothes for people, and apparently that was something she did in the a.m. hours if she had to. Glancing up from her task, she told Clarke, "I saw your car outside."

She supposed she really hadn't stood a chance of sneaking out then. Not that there was any reason to sneak at all. She and Bellamy hadn't been doing anything X-rated. "I'm not doing the walk of shame, I promise," she said. "I just fell asleep here this afternoon and . . . Bellamy and I were just sleeping." Feeling the need to clarify, she added on, "Not together." But that wasn't exactly true, so she stumbled over some more words in an effort to explain. "Well, I mean, we were sleeping together, but . . . like the actual sleeping kind of sleeping."

Aurora shook he head, laughing at her rambling. "It's late," she said. "You can stay."

She'd already stayed a lot later than she'd intended to when she'd come over. It was supposed to have just been a quick visit to let Bellamy know she'd told Finn, but one the waterworks had burst, it was like she'd become almost catatonic. "No, I should really go home," she said. "I never meant to stay so long."

Aurora didn't push anything. She never did. "Okay," she said as she resumed sewing. "Well, drive safe."

"I will," Clarke promised. "Bye." She waved goodbye to Bellamy's mom, then scurried for the door. God, how was it that, even at twenty-two years old, she was still getting caught slipping out of Bellamy's bedroom? Even though they hadn't even been kissing, it was still embarrassing.

On her way home from Bellamy's house, she found herself waking up, not really feeling all that tired on account of the plethora of sleep she'd gotten. The fact that it was so late did not stop her from diverting from her route home and taking a turn that led her to Raven and Murphy's apartment instead. More than likely, they were fast asleep, and if she went to their door and knocked on it, she'd be waking them up in the middle of the night. Murphy could go back to sleep, but Raven . . . she and Raven were long overdue for a pretty serious conversation.

Pushing aside any reservations she had, she went to their door, knocked, waited, and then knocked a bit more loudly. She heard shuffling sounds on the other side, followed by the sound of a turning lock. When the door opened, there stood Raven in plaid shorts and her sports bra. "Clarke," she said, squinting against the light coming in from the hallway. "What're you doing here? It's late."

Clarke touched her stomach for a moment, wondering if the baby's heartbeat sped up whenever hers did. Because whenever it came time to tell someone, her heart just pounded like a drum in her chest. "I need to talk to you," she said quietly, hoping her friend would be able to go back to sleep after this.

...

Bellamy's back and shoulders felt stiff when he woke up. He hadn't moved around much, because he hadn't wanted to disturb . . .

Clarke? At first, he felt around for her, but when it became clear that she wasn't lying beside him anymore, he opened his eyes and was greeted with the sight of an empty mattress. Just him in his bed. The girl he'd fallen asleep holding onto was gone.

He sat up, propping himself on his forearm, and spotted a small piece of paper on the pillow she'd rested her head on. It was folded in half, and his name was scrawled on the outside in fancy handwriting that would have taken him hours to do. He opened it, and on the inside were two simple words: Thank you.

He smiled, his eyes lingering on that paper, hoping he'd been able to comfort her in some way. Clarke was a good girl. She didn't deserve all this shit.

Although it was earlier than he would have liked, he still got up out of bed and trudged out into the hall. He noticed that his mom had fallen asleep on the couch, a needle and thread still in her hand, so he took those from her, set them down on the coffee table, and covered her up with an afghan. She had to be at work by 9:00, but she could still rest for a couple more hours.

After that, he went into the bathroom and got into the shower. He hadn't taken one yesterday, so the fact that Clarke had even wanted to cuddle up with him was really something. He ran some shampoo through his hair, scrubbed his pits and his junk, and then just stood there underneath the steady stream of warm water that was slowly growing colder. He could wash up for the day, but he couldn't wash off the feel of her next to him last night. In fact, it was gonna be hard falling asleep tonight, imagining her alone in that big queen-sized bed of hers, wishing he could be there with her.

It used to be so much easier to help her out. But nowadays, things were complicated.

...

"Parent/teacher conferences," Bellamy said as he and Clarke walked out of the school building and to the parking lot, hands linked. "You know what that means?"

"No football practice?" she guessed.

"No football practice." He hadn't left the school right after the bell rang all year so far. It felt pretty weird. "We should do something fun," he suggested.

"Each other?" she proposed.

"For starters." God, he loved the way this girl's mind worked.

"Does your mom go to conferences?" she asked as they veered into the parking lot.

He almost laughed at that. "No. She'd just hear the same thing from everyone. Popular kid, shitty grades, can't read to save his life."

"You can read," she said.

"Not really." He squeezed in between two cars, heading towards hers. "What about your parents? Are they gonna go?"

"My dad will," she replied. "My mom's working."

"What's he gonna hear?"

"Oh, the same thing from everyone. Nice girl, good grades . . . a little too distracted lately by Bellamy Blake."

"I distract you, huh?" He liked that.

"Constantly." They stopped at her car, and she leaned in against him, like she wanted to kiss him or something. He gladly would have obliged had she not become distracted by something on the side of her car, right near the door handle. "What is this?" she said, running her hands over some scrapes there.

"What?" He couldn't tell what she was looking at until she pulled her hand back, revealing four letters that had been keyed into her car. Four letters that spelled out the word slut.

"Who did that?" he said, more to himself than to her. Obviously she didn't know. But whoever it was didn't know what the hell they were talking about.

"I don't know," she said. "Maybe . . ." She looked around, and her eyes landed on someone behind his back. He turned around, and standing one row away were Bree and two of her friends, watching them. Bree was twirling her keys in her hands and had a satisfied smirk on her face.

"It's not that big of a deal," Clarke said.

No, it was, though. Nobody in that school would have the balls to key his vehicle, to come at him the way Bree was coming at Clarke. Bree was just jealous he wasn't paying any attention to her anymore, even though they'd never been anything serious. Bree had to put Clarke down to lift herself up. She was a bitch.

Leaving Clarke standing at her car, Bellamy marched right over to Bree and asked, "Mind if I borrow these?" He grabbed her keys out of her hand without waiting for an answer and headed a few spaces down to where his own truck was parked. Right on the driver's side door, he keyed the exact same words that now marked Clarke's car. S-L-U-T. They keys made a horrible sound against the metal, one that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, but once he was done, he nodded his head in approval and brought Bree's keys back to her. She just stared at him with this dumbfounded look on her face.

Similarly, Clarke looked a bit surprised when he walked back over to her. "If you're a slut, I'm a slut, too," he said with an unabashed shrug. Climbing into the passenger's seat, he decided he was more than willing to ride home with her. "Let's go," he said, already conjuring up a whole lot of 'slutty' things they could do together this afternoon.

...

When the water got too cold, Bellamy shut it off and just stood there with his hands pressed against the tile, trying to resist the urge to reach down and jerk himself off, thinking of Clarke the whole time. He didn't wanna be that type of guy, the kind who was so focused on sex that he couldn't think about anything else. Clarke needed him right now, as a friend. So that was what he needed to be.

...

Having already told Raven the news, Clarke's next logical step was to tell Harper. She invited both of them over for lunch, but they didn't even end up eating everything. Instead, they sat down at the table, and Clarke told her other close friend everything.

At first, Harper was speechless. Either she didn't know what to say or didn't know how to say it. Raven had had a similar reaction, so Clarke knew she just had to wait out the stunned silence.

Finally, Harper managed some words. "Oh my god," she said in astonishment. "So you're . . . you're really . . ."

"Pregnant, yes," Clarke filled in. She had to get used to saying the word, because she'd be saying it and thinking about it for months to come. She was still only in her first trimester, after all.

"When did you find out?" Harper asked.

"A little over two weeks ago," she replied.

"And you didn't tell me?"

Raven quickly jumped in and said, "Don't worry, I just found out, too."

"I was keeping it a secret until I told Finn," Clarke said. She really hadn't meant to tell anyone, but then Bellamy had come back all bearded and sexier than ever, and what with the sleeping with him and everything . . . she'd sort of owed him an explanation.

"Oh god, Finn," Harper said. "How'd he react?"

Clarke looked down at her lap, almost embarrassed that it'd been such a shit show. Maybe there had been a way to handle it better.

"Oh, well, don't worry, Clarke, I'm sure he'll . . . he'll come around," Harper assured her. "He just needs a little more time to process everything."

"It is a lot to process," Raven said. She'd stayed up with Clarke until 4:00 a.m. last night, just talking about everything, being a good best friend. Clarke was so relieved that both of her closest friends knew now. It was like the weight of keeping it a secret was slowly being lifted from her shoulders.

"So how'd it happen?" Harper inquired.

Sensing an opportunity to lighten the mood, Clarke said, "Well, Harper, a girl's vagina is like a garden, and a boy's penis is like a snake. Now when his snake gets in her garden . . ."

Harper rolled her eyes. "No, I know how, but . . . I thought you guys broke up at the start of summer."

"We did," Clarke confirmed, nodding. Yet another thing she was feeling embarrassed about was the way this baby had been conceived. "We made up. For one night."

"Oh," Harper said. "Oh. Well, that's okay. My parents conceived me on their fourth date in the backseat of my dad's car."

"Yeah, and my biological mom and dad barely knew each other," Raven put in. "Hence my adoption."

That word triggered something in Clarke, part of her conversation with her ex. "Finn told me I should put the baby up for adoption," she said. She and Raven had talked about many things last night, but not that.

"Would you do that?" Raven asked.

She shook her head. "I don't think so." Sure, it'd worked out for Raven, and she and her dad Sinclair were like two peas in a pod. But it hadn't worked out for Finn, and to be honest, she was surprised he'd even suggest it after all the foster homes he'd been through. "No, I . . . I know it's a good thing, and it can really work out like it did for you," she said, "but . . . I just can't." She almost felt like she didn't even have the right to pass such a huge responsibility as raising a child off onto someone else. Choices had consequences, and . . . there were consequences to the choice she'd made.

"That's understandable," Harper said. "And you're twenty-two. You're an adult. You have this beautiful house. You can do this."

"On my own, most likely," she grumbled. If yesterday's talk with Finn had been any indicator . . .

"You won't be on your own," Raven said, standing up. She walked behind Clarke and hugged her.

Harper did the same, adding, "You have us."

Clarke smiled as both her friends embraced her, making her feel loved and supported and not quite as terrified as she could have been. She was very grateful for them, but the sad fact was, there were limits to how far their support could go. Having friends wasn't the same as having a partner.

...

Flowers all pretty much looked the same to Bellamy. He couldn't really tell one type apart from the next. So when he entered the flower shop on main street, he had no idea what he was doing. The florist asked him what he was looking for, and he had no idea, so she asked him who he was getting flowers for. He just said, "A girl," and she smiled and said, "Oh, I see." It didn't matter that that girl could have been his mom or his sister—it wasn't—but that seemed to be all the info the florist needed to direct him to some pale pink flowers that she called peonies. He took a smell of one of them and said, "These are nice. I'll take a bouquet." She did her thing and arranged it for him, put a couple white ones in there to give it a little diversity, and it looked nice. But when she told him how much it was going to cost, he nearly choked on his own spit. Sixty-seven bucks for a bouquet of flowers? He couldn't afford that. They ended up making the bouquet smaller, and he got out of there paying only thirty-four dollars instead.

That evening, he drove over to Clarke's house, hoping she was at home and not working. If she was at the bar, he'd go surprise her, give the flowers to her there. No special occasion, really. He just wanted to do something to put a smile on her face. The macaroni and cheese he'd made yesterday just wasn't enough.

His phone rang when he was only about a minute away, and as if by fate, it was Clarke's name on the screen. "Hey, perfect timing," he answered.

"Is it?"

"Yeah, I was just thinking about you." He turned onto her street.

"I was thinking about you, too," she said.

"Oh, yeah? Dirty thoughts?" he couldn't help but tease.

"No, the innocent kind."

Damn. Well, he was thinking enough dirty thoughts for the both of them then, because . . . he had ended up jacking off in the shower, and he'd pretended his hand was hers.

"I was just . . . I was thinking about how lucky I've been to have you back," she went on. "These past couple weeks . . . you've just been amazing. I don't know how I would have gotten through all this without you."

He pulled up outside her house, shut the car off, and picked up the bouquet. "Just trying to do whatever I can to help."

"You have helped," she said. "You've helped a lot. Just being with you yesterday, being able to cry and let it all out . . . you have no idea how much I needed that."

"I wanna be there for you." He got out of the car, flowers in hand, and took one more whiff of them. Yeah, they still smelled pretty good. He'd never really been the type to get a girl flowers, but Clarke deserved them, especially with everything she was going through. "I care about you, you know?"

"I know," she said. "But I finally told Raven and Harper, so now you won't have to deal with me so much."

About to head up to her front door, he froze. "What?" What did she mean by that?

"Yeah, you can go back to living your own life instead of worrying so much about mine," she said. "You don't have to be the one to help me through all of this anymore."

He frowned, not sure why she would make it sound like she'd been such a burden. He liked being there for her; he liked helping her out. Not that he expected her to keep it a secret from anyone else, nor did he want her to. It was good that she'd told Finn, good that she'd told her friends. But that didn't mean she couldn't still talk to him about it, that she couldn't cry to him about it if she needed to. He was more than willing to go with her to her next doctor's appointment if she didn't want to be alone, but . . .

But she wasn't alone now. So maybe . . . maybe that meant that he was.

"Bellamy?"

He lowered the bouquet, feeling like he shouldn't go give that to her now. "Yeah, I'm here." He was literally here, at her house, thinking he'd go ring her doorbell and surprise her with these stupid flowers. Like flowers would be enough to get her mind off of everything else.

"I just wanted to thank you again," she said. "For everything."

For what? He felt like he hadn't even done that much. Not as much as he could have done, at least. "No problem," he said, opening the car door again.

"Goodnight."

Inwardly, he winced as he said that word. "Goodnight." He waited until she ended the call to lower his phone from his ear. Then he tossed the bouquet back into his car, watching them land uselessly on the passenger's seat. What a dumb idea.

He got back in the car, started it up, and drove off, figuring he could still give the flowers to his mom. She'd probably know he'd meant them for Clarke, but she'd still like them anyway.

...

The next day was a rude awakening for Clarke. Her doorbell rang out shrilly, and only seconds later, it rang out again. It kept going and going, and it was annoying as fuck. Sometimes little kids came around selling stuff for school and all their activities, and if she had the misfortune of answering the door for one of them, she usually felt obligated to buy whatever they were selling, even if it wasn't anything she actually wanted.

She sat up and pressed a button on her remote to flip on the TV and see who was standing out there. Kane had insisted on a great home security system when she had moved into this house by herself, and it was pretty handy, though she hardly ever remembered to use it. The images through that outside camera were always a little blurry, but it was plain to see that the annoying kid on her porch was Finn.

She got up and flew downstairs while the doorbell continued to ring. He wasn't even taking breaks in between anymore. It was just one ring right after another. He'd probably break the damn thing. When she finally opened the door, he came right inside and blurted, "We need to talk."

They did, and the fact that he'd shown up here on his own perhaps boded well. But she didn't want to get her hopes up. "We needed to talk Saturday, but you slammed a door in my face," she reminded him as he came inside.

"I was freaking out, alright? I needed to calm down."

Closing the door, she surveyed him, the bags under his eyes, the clearly unwashed hair, the early signs of stubble from not shaving for a couple days. "Are you calm now?" she asked skeptically. "'cause you don't look very calm."

He paced around her living room for a few seconds, then stopped, put his hands on his waist, and said, "I wanna see the ultrasound."

She lowered her head for a moment, feeling bad that she hadn't let him know prior to having that done. She'd went ahead and saw the first images of the baby without him, heard its heart beat for the first time without him by her side. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you before," she said, heading towards the kitchen. She'd put the pictures up on the refrigerator, just because she didn't know where else to put them. Pushing the magnet aside, she took the images off and brought them to him. "You can come to the next one," she told him.

He stared at the photos in disbelief, shaking his head as he took in the beginning of what would become a baby. Their baby. "Who went with you to this one?" he asked her. "Your mom?"

"No, I . . ." She wasn't about to tell him that her other ex-boyfriend had gone with her, so she quietly lied, "I went alone." What Finn didn't know about her and Bellamy right now wouldn't hurt him.

"Holy shit," he swore, shaking his head in astonishment. "And you say you're two months along?"

"Eight weeks. Almost nine now." She felt like she was going to start showing soon. Hopefully not noticeably, but it'd probably be the kind of weight gain where people didn't know if she was pregnant or just getting fat.

Finn looked at the photos a little more, then handed them back to her and growled, "I want a paternity test."

A . . . "What?" she shrieked. When he'd said they'd needed to talk, she'd assumed he'd meant talking about what to do next, not . . .

"I just wanna know if it's mine," he said.

"Well, I'm telling you, it is." There was no paternity to test. He was the one and only option. Plain and simple.

"I wanna be sure."

He wasn't raising his voice or getting mad, but the things he was saying still made her mad. Not only was he insinuating that she may have slept with someone else, but he was casting doubt on her character in the process. "I'm not lying!" she yelled at him.

"I just wanna know."

"You know! You know because I'm telling you! You're supposed to believe me!" Open-mouth, she grunted incredulously, shocked that he didn't feel like he could trust her. Or maybe . . . maybe it wasn't that. Maybe it was something else. "But you don't wanna believe me, do you?" she said, her eyes narrowing. "You're so desperate to be off the hook here that you can't even step up and take responsibility."

"I don't think I'm asking for much," he said.

"A paternity test? Are you serious, Finn?" That was like Maury Povich stuff. It was ridiculous.

"I can cover the cost, at least half of it upfront," he volunteered. "I'll have to save up for the other half."

"Oh, you've already looked up the cost?" She snorted. "Unbelievable." That meant he'd done his research, that he'd come over here today bound and determined to demand this. "Fine, you know what? We'll do a fucking paternity test," she decided, just so he wouldn't have any reason to doubt her claims anymore. "And when you find out this baby's yours, maybe you'll have the decency to apologize."

He didn't apologize even now, though, for upsetting her, offending her. All he had to say was that he was sorry but thought this was for the best. Something. Anything. But he gave her nothing as he walked right back out that door.

...

Clarke called in sick to work that afternoon. She wasn't sick, not really. Sick to her heart, maybe, but physically, she actually felt alright. No morning sickness. It was pretty sporadic lately. Sometimes she felt fine, and other times she felt like crap. Today, the only thing that had made her feel like crap was her conversation with Finn.

Luckily for her, when she asked Raven to stop by after work, her friend didn't hesitate. She showed up, apologized for smelling like a greasy mechanic, and asked how she was doing. Clarke told her all about Finn's insistence on a paternity test, and Raven talked her down from how upset she'd been feeling all day and got her to think logically. Of course Finn wanted a paternity test. If he was going to help pay for things, he wanted to make sure he was paying for a baby that was actually his. Clarke was still pissed that he didn't believe her, and she suspected she might always be. But Raven got her to understand that it wasn't so unbelievable that he'd make such a demand.

They sat on the couch, each of them looking up information on their phones. Clarke had only looked up a few things today, but she'd had to quit when she read that amniocentesis harbored a small risk of miscarriage.

Fortunately, Raven found another option. "Okay, it looks like the non-invasive prenatal paternity test is gonna be your best bet," she declared.

"Non-invasive," Clarke echoed. "That sounds good." That didn't sound like miscarriage would be a concern.

"It's ninety-nine percent accurate, kind of a newer method," Raven went on. She scrolled on her phone, reading, and relayed the information to Clarke. "They just collect blood from you and a cheek swab from Finn, and then they analyze it."

That sounded so simple, almost too simple. "How does that work?"

"Well, the baby's DNA is already in your bloodstream," Raven explained. "It says it can be done any time after the eighth week."

In my bloodstream, Clarke thought. Wow. "How much is it?" she asked.

"It says anywhere from $700 to $1000," Raven said, cringing. "But some other sites I looked at said it could be more."

Great, she probably couldn't afford that without some help from her mom then. She didn't quite believe Finn when he said he'd be able to cover half the cost upfront.

Setting her phone down, she slouched back on the couch and lamented, "What did I ever see in him, Raven?" She felt like such an idiot.

"A cute guy," Raven said, setting her phone down, too. "A rebound from Lexa."

She shook her head. "He wasn't a rebound. Lexa and I ended on good terms." Truth be told, she'd never really understood what Finn had been to her. First, there had been Bellamy, and that had been . . . well, at the time, it'd felt like everything. And then years later, with Lexa . . . that had been real and serious, too. But with Finn . . . they used to say 'I love you,' and part of her did love parts of him as a person, despite what a huge jerk he'd been lately. But she'd never quite felt that spark of being in love with him. Ever.

"You wanna know what I think?" Raven said, giving Clarke a serious look.

She nodded, eager to get the perspective of someone she trusted implicitly.

Raven folded her legs up underneath herself and said, "Okay, I'm gonna be honest with you. You dated Bellamy, had this amazing year of high school. And then after that, you were single for a while."

"For two years." Junior and senior year had been so much different than her sophomore one.

"Yeah, and when you finally started dating again, it was with a girl. Quite the change," Raven went on. "But when that ended, you found Finn. And I'm not saying you didn't like him, because I know you did. Sometimes. And you were with him for a really long time. But part of me always wondered if you were so determined to make things work with him just because . . ." She trailed off suddenly.

"Because what?" Clarke prompted. Whatever Raven had to say, she could handle it.

Hesitating briefly, Raven finally finished up her thought. "Because you wanted to feel like you'd finally moved on from Bellamy."

Her chest and stomach tightened upon hearing that. No, that . . . that couldn't be right. "Raven, I didn't see or speak to Bellamy for five years," she pointed out. She'd moved on as much as she could have.

"I know. But that doesn't mean you got over him," Raven pointed out.

Dammit, she thought. As per usual, Raven was right. Of course he hadn't ever really gotten over Bellamy. That was why she'd been so excited to get that text from him. That was why even a looming pregnancy test hadn't been enough for her to stay at home and not go out to meet him at the bar. That was why she hadn't been able to resist sleeping with him, even though she knew it wasn't fair to him, because he wanted more than what she could give him now.

"Not to get too heavy or anything," Raven said, "but . . . what happens with Bellamy now?"

"What do you mean?" Nothing was supposed to happen anymore.

"Well, ironically, he chose now of all times to move back home," Raven said. "And I know you guys didn't just stop at one hook-up."

God, was she really that obvious? She'd been determined not to say anything about the second one. "Just one other night," she mumbled.

"See? You're insatiable. You guys want each other."

"No, we're just friends," she insisted. There was nothing else they could be anymore. That time had passed.

"So that's gonna be your future with him?" Raven said. "Friends?"

What else was it supposed to be? It wasn't fair to expect Bellamy to come to her rescue every time Finn decided to be a jerk, or to expect Bellamy to help her through something life-changing when it wasn't even his responsibility. "Raven, I can't really think about that right now," she admitted. The truth was, as hard as she was trying to be unselfish with him, this whole friends thing wasn't easy. She would have loved for it to be able to be something more, but . . . it just couldn't be.

"Right," Raven said. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said anything."

Feeling like she needed a distraction, something to look at in order to keep from looking so damn worked up about Bellamy, Clarke leaned forward and grabbed her phone off the coffee table. She typed in non-invasive paternity test to educate herself about the procedure and stay focused on the bigger issue at hand.