Chapter 17

Clarke decided to tell her friends about yesterday's scare when they had coffee the next day. (Well, Harper and Raven had coffee. She was avoiding caffeine, even though it was supposed to be okay in moderation.) She sipped away on some tea that tasted like tar and told them what had happened, how scary it had been in the moment.

"Oh my god, Clarke," Raven gasped. "That's so nerve-racking. But you're sure everything's okay now?"

"Yeah," she said. "The doctor sounded really sure."

"Well, what caused it?" Harper asked.

For a split second, she thought back to being underneath Bellamy, moaning loudly as he thrust into her. "There's a lot of stuff that can cause it," she replied vaguely.

"Such as?" Harper prompted.

"Yeah, I mean, if you went to see a doctor, you should get some definitive answers," Raven said.

These girls were her two closest friends, so if she couldn't tell them, then who could she tell? "Sex," she blurted. "Sex can cause it."

"You had sex?" Raven's face lit up as realization dawned on her. "With Bellamy? Again? Oh my god, I love this for you."

"What's going on with you two?" Harper questioned. "Are you back together or what?"

"No. Not really." That didn't exactly explain why they'd been fucking together, though, so she added on, "I don't know. It's confusing, alright?"

"And does he know about all of this?" Harper asked.

"Yeah. He came to the hospital and-"

"He came to the hospital?" Raven interrupted. "He is such a supportive boyfriend right now. Clarke, I can't even."

While Raven spun off into real-life shipping mode, Harper remained a bit more logical about everything. "Wait a minute," she said, "so he was there . . . but where was Finn?"

Not there, Clarke thought glumly. But then again, she hadn't even bothered to call him. "He's still not even a hundred percent convinced this is his child," she mumbled.

Raven snorted. "What an ass. Sounds like Bellamy's been more of a father to this baby than he's been."

Clarke wasn't sure what to make of that remark. Because on the one hand, yeah, it was true. But on the other hand . . . it probably shouldn't have been.

Her phone dinged, signaling her to a new email, and when she checked it, she saw it was exactly the one she'd been waiting for. "That might be about to change," she said, holding up the screen so her friends could see what had just come in. "Test results."

...

For half an hour, Clarke waited to see if she got a phone call from Finn. He had access to the secure testing portal, too. They were both supposed to be able to see the results. But maybe he didn't have his phone with him, or he hadn't checked his email, or maybe he was still asleep or something. Because he didn't call or text her.

She left her friends at the coffee shop in the middle of a conversation about what Raven and Murphy were planning on wearing for Halloween and drove over to her ex's place. She found him outside, stuffing a huge bag of trash into the trash can next to his mailbox. Some of it was spilling out and going everywhere.

"Hey, you got a minute?" she said as she got out of her car.

He barely even looked at her. "I gotta be at work in half an hour."

Finn had a job now? That was . . . encouraging. "Where are you working?" she asked.

He didn't say anything.

"Come on, you can tell me," she urged.

Bending down to pick up some cups and fast food wrappers that had fallen out, he muttered, "I'm a janitor, alright? On campus."

Oh. She sort of understood why he hadn't been very eager to tell her then, but it was still better than nothing. "Well, that's fine," she said, just happy that he was actually working. "It's a job. I mean, look at me, I'm working at the bar." They were probably gonna have to ask her parents for a little financial assistance with this baby was born, but she didn't feel like they would deny her of that.

"Is there something you want?" he asked impatiently as he tried in vain to close the lid atop the trashcan.

"Did you check your email?" she asked him in return.

"No."

"You should," she suggested. "The test results came in."

Finn's eyes got wide, and he immediately whipped his phone out of his pocket, tapped around the screen a bit, and then just stared down at it as he took in that results document that had been sent their way. "I don't . . . I don't get this," he finally said.

"It's kind of confusing," she agreed, moving closer to him. "But see, these are basically all the little DNA pieces that they tested." She motioned to the two columns, one for the baby, one for the 'alleged father,' glad that she'd taken the time to really look at it so she could accurately explain it to him. "The baby gets half its chromosomes from the mother, half from the father. So it should always have at least one of these numbers in common with you. And it does." She pointed out just a few of the similarities, feeling like it was easier for her to understand since she was a biology major. "So then down here it shows the probability of paternity. It's almost a hundred percent."

"Almost," he said.

"It never shows a hundred." Theirs was 99.9998 or something. A longer number than that. But it was about as high as it could be without actually being one-hundred.

"What does this mean?" he asked, zooming in on the screen. He read at the bottom of the document, "'The alleged father is not excluded as the biological father of the tested child.'"

"It's just the way they phrase it," she said. "Not excluded. If it wasn't you, it'd say you were excluded."

"But I'm . . . not excluded," he said. The reality of what this all meant seemed to be descending on him. His shoulders slumped, and he sighed.

She decided she wasn't going to hold it against him for not being more enthused. Hell, she'd cried when she first found out. "So there it is," she said. "I'm sure you can call the lab if you wanna know more, but . . . there's the proof you wanted." It'd sure as hell cost a lot of money to have this done, but at least now he couldn't pretend like he wasn't involved anymore.

He swallowed hard, closed out of the results, and shoved his phone back in his pocket.

"We don't have to hash everything out right now," she said, figuring he might need a little time to deal with it, "but . . . maybe in a couple days, we can sit down and talk?"

"Uh . . . yeah," he said, sounding a bit stunned. Had he really expected to not be the father when she'd been so insistent that he was? Or was that just what he'd been hoping for?

"Okay." Trying to keep reminding herself that she hadn't initially been thrilled about this whole thing, either, she turned and started back to her car. She stopped after only a few steps, though, spun back around, and told him, "Oh, by the way, yesterday I had to go to the hospital. I was bleeding a little bit, so they did another ultrasound."

His eyebrows arched. "And?"

"And everything's fine."

Everything about him kind of just sagged downward again, and she wondered . . . did that disappoint him? Would he have rather she had a miscarriage? She felt horrible for even pondering the thought, but . . . it wasn't outside the realm of possibility.

"It was probably just because of . . . hormonal changes," she said, using only one of the possible explanations Dr. Tsing had provided her. "But we got to see the baby move and hear the heartbeat again."

"We?" he echoed.

Oh, shit. She really didn't want him to know that Bellamy had been with her, so she quickly covered it up with a half-truth. "Well, my mom was there." It wasn't technically a lie. She had been there yesterday. "You can come with me to the next appointment, if you want." She wasn't quite sure what that appointment was going to be, but it'd be here in town. Her mom wanted Dr. Tsing to keep doing her ultrasounds from here on out, and there was another doctor she wanted Clarke to start seeing, too.

"Yeah, maybe," Finn said, sounding completely non-committal to that idea. "See ya, Clarke." He turned and headed up the sidewalk onto his porch and into his house. He looked like he couldn't get away from her fast enough.

Maybe? she thought, feeling let-down. It wasn't that she'd expected him to be jumping for joy and to immediately shift into some kind of hidden dad mode, but still . . . maybe he'd go to the next appointment with her? She knew she had to be patient with him, because he wasn't going to handle this the exact same way she was. Hopefully, with a little time to get accustomed to the idea, though, he'd start handling it better.

...

When Clarke got a text from Bellamy that asked, Wanna come over for dinner tonight? she didn't even hesitate to text back, Yes. She wasn't too keen on the thought of spending the night alone. It'd been kind of a turbulent week between the spotting scare, dealing with Finn, and meeting her dad's new girlfriend. She hoped that dinner with Bellamy (and his mom, she presumed) would be the starter to a better weekend.

When she got over there, she was surprised to find that Bellamy was the one cooking. He said he still wasn't a great chef but had learned a few things traveling the world and wanted to let his mom have the night off. Octavia came by shortly after, warned Bellamy not to accidentally poison them, and then hung out with Clarke in the living room while they waited for the food to be done. She broke out an old photo album, and Clarke was able to look at a bunch of pictures of Bellamy as a baby. He'd been adorable even back then.

Since Aurora had given birth twice, Clarke figured she could talk to her about what had happened yesterday. One of her apps had said that, as she approached the end of the first trimester, it was a good time to start having conversations with other moms about what they'd gone through and what she could expect going forward. And it just seemed easier to talk to Bellamy's mom than to talk to her own mom about that.

"So did you ever have any bleeding when you were pregnant, Aurora?" she asked as she flipped past a page in the photo album where baby Bellamy was sitting in his high chair, playing with his food.

"Oh, a couple times," Aurora replied as she moved back and forth between the kitchen and the small enclave where they had their table. "Not when I was pregnant with Bellamy, but when I was pregnant with Octavia, I had some early on. Just spotting, but it was enough to make me think it was my period, you know? So I didn't even realize I was pregnant with her until probably around the eighth week."

Octavia shrugged. "What can I say? I'm sneaky like that."

"They said it was implantation bleeding," Aurora recalled as she set their plates on the table. "Did they have any ideas for what yours might be?"

Standing at the stove, Bellamy quickly answered, "Hormonal changes."

"Right. Hormonal changes," Clarke readily agreed. That was the excuse they were going with.

"It's probably 'cause of sex," Octavia blurted.

Clarke didn't say anything, and Bellamy poked his head out of the kitchen and gave her a look. Which pretty much said it all.

Octavia laughed. "I knew it."

"Oh, I never felt like having sex when I was pregnant," Aurora said as she set out their silverware. "I looked like a blimp, felt like a blimp. Didn't feel desirable."

Clarke still felt kind of sexy, even though she was definitely conscious of a little bump now. It was kind of at the point where she just looked and felt really bloated, so anyone could mistake it for fat.

"Supposedly it's really beneficial," Bellamy piped up from the kitchen.

"Of course he would say that," Octavia mumbled.

"No, he's right," Clarke backed him up. "I looked a lot of stuff up online. It has a lot of benefits." Some of the benefits were more physical, others more emotional, but all in all, it seemed like a good thing to be doing as long as she was still enjoying it.

"Well, then you two can go ahead and benefit each other all you want," Octavia said with a knowing smirk.

"Octavia!" her mother hissed.

"What? We all know it's happening."

Bellamy emerged from the kitchen then, potholders on both hands, dramatically held them out to the side, and announced, "Dinner is served."

Clarke closed the photo album and got up from the couch, feeling hungry enough to eat a hippo. Her appetite came and went in spurts. Her digestive system was all out of whack, so constipation was one of the many not so fun pregnancy effects she was dealing with. But when she wanted food, she wanted food, and luckily, what Bellamy had concocted smelled pretty good.

Pregnancy may have dampened her appetite for tacos, but pasta still hit the spot. She wasn't sure how Bellamy had known that—maybe she'd told him—but he'd prepared spaghetti with marinara sauce and penne noodles doused in alfredo. Plus, there were some garlic rolls that were calling her name.

"Mmm, this is really good, Bellamy," Clarke said as they all ate up.

"I know. I'm practically Italian," he boasted. "Might as well start callin' me Bellissimo."

She laughed.

"Where'd you get the recipe for this sauce?" his mom asked him.

"Uh, from one of my fellow gondoliers."

"Really?"

Octavia rolled her eyes. "He's lying, Mom. It's just straight outta the jar."

"You don't know that."

"Oh, really?" She plucked a roll out of the basket and hurled it at him, but he caught it like the football player he was and threw it right back.

Aurora sighed and gave Clarke a look. "Some things never change."

No, Clarke thought, amused by the siblings. Some things don't. On their own, they were both pretty grown-up, but around each other, they were utter children again. She appreciated it, though. In fact, she appreciated all of this. Bellamy's family was so easy-going. They made it so easy for her to feel welcomed.

...

"Clarke! Bellamy!"

Clarke pushed open the door, pulling her shirt down. "Coming!" The word would have taken on a double meaning if her parents knew what she and Bellamy had just been doing.

Bellamy zipped up his pants and told her, "That was good."

"Yeah," she agreed. They'd made it a quickie, and a very quiet quickie at that, but it was the first time they'd actually done anything in the house while her parents were home. Sure, they were downstairs getting dinner ready, but still . . . it was kind of a rush getting away with it.

As they headed downstairs, she saw just how much food her mother had prepared. It looked like someone was catering a graduation party or something, not just hosting a dinner for four. "Wow, Mom," she said in amazement, "how much did you cook?"

"A lot," she acknowledged. "We may have leftovers, but that's okay. We can send some home with Bellamy."

Clarke halted momentarily. What was that supposed to mean? Or was it supposed to mean anything? She wondered if there was some sort of hidden insinuation there, like Bellamy and his mom didn't have enough money to afford food or something.

"Looks really good," Bellamy remarked, walking right past her. He started to take a seat next to her dad, but her mom motioned to the chair next to her instead, so he scooted one over. Clarke sat down beside him, having to admire his courageousness for doing this family dinner with them all over again. The first one hadn't exactly been horrible, but it wasn't like it'd been a real great time, either. He was being a good boyfriend, though. Maybe if her parents—particularly her mom—got to know him better, these dinners would start to feel a little more relaxed.

"Let's, um, say a prayer first," her mom suggested as Bellamy started in on his fruit salad. He set his fork down, and the four of them joined hands. He didn't seem quite sure of what to do, Clarke mouthed to him, 'Close your eyes,' and he did.

"Dear God, thank you for this food we are about to eat," her mother started in, "and thank you for giving us this time to spend together as a family. With Bellamy."

Clarke frowned. What was that? Was she purposefully trying to make him feel excluded?

"And please help look after the people in this house and guide them to make the right choices and live responsibly," her mom finished up, and Clarke couldn't help but feel like that was directed at her. "In your name we pray. Amen."

"Amen," she and her dad echoed, but Bellamy was a second late with it. They all released hands, but he looked a little hesitant to pick up his fork again. He only did that when Clarke picked up his and took her first bite of the fruity concoction on her salad plate. She doubted Bellamy would like it very much, because he wasn't a huge fruit-eater. But it was sort of his strawberry gelatin thing with a crunchy bottom, almost more of a desert than a salad. She and her dad both loved it.

"So Bellamy," her mom said as she started passing the veggie tray around, "are you and your family religious?"

"Not really," he said, taking only one piece of celery off of it before he passed it on to Clarke. "I mean, I believe in God, but to be honest, the only thing I pray for is winning the next football game."

Clarke cringed inwardly. That probably wasn't the right thing to say. "We're not super religious, either," she pointed out.

"Sure we are," her mother insisted. "We go to church."

"Sometimes." Often, her mother was working, though, or her dad was out of town.

Thankfully, the topic didn't stay on religion for long. Her dad cleared his throat and said, "Bellamy, I forget, when are you going on your UCF visit? Next month?"

"Yeah," Bellamy said with a nod. "After state."

"Hmm." Her mother scooped some casserole onto her plate and gave Bellamy a questioning look. "You feel pretty confident the team's making it to state then?"

"Oh, yeah. We fell one game short last year. I'm not gonna let that happen again."

Clarke smiled at him, sharing his confidence. "We're the number one seed in the playoffs," she informed her parents. "So that's pretty exciting."

Her mother gave her a confused look. "Since when do you like football so much, Clarke?"

"Well, I've never disliked it," she answered.

"But you weren't this into it last year."

Because last year I wasn't dating the quarterback, she thought. Wasn't it obvious? "Well, now I understand it better," she said. "Bellamy drew out some plays for me. It's kind of interesting."

An awkward silence settled onto the four of them, but as plates began to fill up with food, that was at least a good distraction. "Food's good," Bellamy remarked, doing his best to diffuse the tension.

Abby smiled tightly at him and said, "Thank you."

Clarke shot her mom a quick glare. Did she have to be so . . . standoffish? She was a doctor. Her job was to interact with patients on a daily basis and put them at ease. Why couldn't she do the same with Bellamy?

Later that night, long after dinner was done and Bellamy had gone home, Clarke got up, headed downstairs, and filled up a glass of ice water. Sometimes she had naughty dreams that left her feeling hot during the night, so she needed some water at her bedside to cool down.

On her way back up the stairs, she heard conversation coming from her parents' bedroom, starting with her dad saying, "Abby, we just have to wait this out."

"And how long's that gonna take?" her mother shot back. "The entire year?"

Clarke crept towards the door, listening closer.

"Maybe," her dad responded. "But you've heard the boy. He's gonna go to school somewhere else; he's not gonna stay here."

Bellamy? They were talking about Bellamy?

"You're right," her mom said. "He'll go be a football star in college, probably forget all about Clarke when he's got dozens of other girls fawning over him."

Clarke frowned as she leaned towards the door, careful not to press against it or make any noise that would alert her parents to her eavesdropping. She wanted to hear this conversation, even if she wasn't meant to.

"And if they try to stay together, it won't last," her father predicted. "They'll break up once he realizes he wants to play the field. That's how it always happens."

"And then Clarke can move on to somebody better," her mom said. "Somebody who isn't banking his whole future on being able to score touchdowns. Somebody who comes from a better background and a better family."

A better family? She felt offended on Bellamy's behalf. There was nothing wrong with his family. His mom was really nice.

"Exactly," her dad said. "This whole thing that she's doing with him . . . it's just a phase."

A phase? Clarke wanted to slam open the door and scream at them that this wasn't just a phase, that she did have genuine feelings for Bellamy and he had genuine feelings for her. Maybe it wasn't going to last beyond high school, but that didn't make it meaningless now. And what the hell was up with her dad saying all of this? She'd assumed her mom would be determined to be judgmental, just because she hated the thought of Clarke being sexually active. But her dad . . . she thought her dad had been developing a better opinion of Bellamy than this. But apparently it was all just an act.

She was so mad at them that she had no desire to stay there the rest of the night. Instead of lying back down, she got dressed, grabbed her keys, and slinked downstairs and out the front door. She got in her car and drove right off, hoping neither of them heard her but not really caring if they had. If they tried to ground her, she'd just pretend to go along with it, but in reality, she'd probably try to sneak out again.

At a little past midnight, she found herself over at Bellamy's, and although his mom was a lot more laid-back when it came to him having someone of the opposite gender in his room, Clarke still didn't feel like knocking on the door. So she went around to his bedroom window and tapped on it a couple times before he pulled back the curtains and looked out. He was shirtless, only wearing boxers, and he immediately smiled when he saw her.

"Hey," he said after he pushed open the window. "What're you doin' here?"

Escaping, she thought, feeling like she'd sleep much better with him next to her than she would with her parents in close proximity. "Can I stay with you tonight?" she asked, hoping he wouldn't mind.

He didn't ask why she was over there, didn't even hesitate to step aside and let her in. That night, she curled up in bed with him, his arm around her, his heart beating steadily beneath her cheek. And she ended up sleeping really soundly.

...

Octavia pulled Clarke into her bedroom after dinner, despite both her mother and her brother suggesting that she help do the dishes. "Okay, now that we can have some girl time," she said, "I wanna talk to you about something."

"What?" Clarke asked.

"Sex."

"Oh, Octavia . . ." She knew this girl liked to tease her and Bellamy, but really, she didn't want to go into detail. "It's only happened three times with your brother since he's been back, and I really don't think this is something we should be talking about."

Octavia made a face. "No, not you guys having sex. Me. Me having sex. With Lincoln."

"Oh." That made a lot more sense. "Oh." This wasn't like a birds-and-the-bees talk, was it? Sure Aurora had given her one of those a long time ago. "That's happening?"

"Not yet, but it's going to." Octavia's whole face glowed with excitement. "I decided I'm ready."

"Oh. Okay." Clarke really wasn't sure what to say, so she tried to approach the situation like an older sister would. "Well, are you on birth control?"

"Yeah. I'm on the pill."

"That's good." That definitely wasn't the most effective type, though. "You have to remember to take it every single day, though. And with the shot, if you ever switch to that, you can't ever be late with it. I mean . . ." She touched her slightly rounded stomach and muttered, "Unless you wanna end up like me."

"Yeah, he'll wear a condom, too, so it'll be totally safe," Octavia added.

"Good." She'd thought this through then, at least. "Does Bellamy know you're planning to do this?"

"No," Octavia answered emphatically. "And you have to promise not to tell him. I'm only telling you because I need advice. And I can't talk to my roommate about it, because she doesn't believe in sex until marriage, and I can't talk to my mom because, well, she's my mom. I mean, I had a boyfriend in high school, and we did . . . stuff. But never full-on sex. So . . . got any tips?"

"Uh . . ." Once again, Clarke scrambled for a response. In a weird way, she almost would have rather talked about her and Bellamy's hook-ups. "Well, it doesn't hurt to go to the bathroom and take a shower beforehand, just so you don't feel self-conscious about anything," she told the young girl. "And the first time's kinda painful, so tell him to go slow. You might wanna put a towel down underneath you just in case you, you know . . . bleed."

Octavia made a face. "Does that happen to a lot of girls?"

"Oh, yeah." She'd definitely bled a little the first time, but Bellamy had been so nice and understanding about it. "Other than that . . . just enjoy it. You'll only ever lose your virginity once, so if you're sure you're ready and you're sure Lincoln's the one you wanna give it to, then be in the moment." She smirked, then added, "And remember that it feels better the second time."

"Hmm." Octavia laughed lightly. "Alright, well, thanks, Clarke. I love that we can talk about this stuff now that I'm not in middle school anymore."

Oh god, hearing that made her remember seventh grade Octavia, a little girl who had been more interested in learning how to skateboard than she'd been in paying attention to boys. She felt sort of bad about having this conversation with her behind Bellamy's back, because maybe he would have wanted her to try to discourage her from losing her virginity to Lincoln. But at least Octavia was dating Lincoln. She'd be such a hypocrite if she told her to wait longer when she hadn't even waited to make things official with Bellamy before hopping into bed with him.

For about an hour after dinner, she hung around until she started to feel tired and announced that she had to head home. Bellamy walked her out to her car, and as they stood there together, he asked, "So what did you and my sister talk about?"

"You really wanna know?"

"Mmm-hmm."

Well, he'd asked for it. "She's gonna have sex with Lincoln," she revealed.

"Oh, no." He covered his face and shook his head dramatically. "No, I didn't wanna know that."

"Don't tell her I told you. She asked me not to say anything."

Exhaling heavily, he brought his hands down and resigned himself to it. "I guess there's nothing I can do to stop her," he said. "She's not a kid anymore."

"Nope. And hey, at least she waited until she was eighteen," Clarke pointed out. "That's longer than either of us waited."

"Yeah, four years longer than me. God, my poor mom."

"Yeah, really," she agreed.

"But see, with me . . . I'm a guy."

Clarke scrunched up her nose. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Well, my mom always used to say boys were easier to raise, because then you only have to worry about one penis. With girls, you gotta worry about every penis in the world."

"Huh." She thought about that, feeling like it actually kind of made sense. "True."

"See? You remember that if you have a girl."

"Okay." Whether she had a son or daughter, she felt like Bellamy's mom could offer her some good advice. She'd raised a damn good son all on her own, and her daughter . . . well, her daughter was loud and pretty wild these days, but she wasn't a bad kid, either.

"I had a good time tonight," Clarke told him, really glad he'd invited her over. "I needed this." Spending time with him and his family helped take her mind off of everything with Finn. They were a good distraction.

"You know you're welcome anytime," he said. He reached out, took both her hands in his, rubbed his thumbs over her knuckles lightly, then moved in closer so he could kiss her.

This isn't friendly, she thought, even though she allowed herself to kiss him back. This isn't friendly at all. It was at least a pretty chaste kiss, though, which was probably a good thing, since out of the corner of her eye she could tell that there were eyes on them. "Octavia's watching," she informed him.

"What?" His head snapped towards the window right as his little sister tried to pull the curtains shut. "O!"

She chuckled, feeling a sense of déjà vu. Octavia used to look out the window like that when she'd been younger, too. Nosy.

Although it was tempting to just crawl into bed with him and spend the night there, Clarke knew she should be getting home. So she said, "Goodnight, Bellamy," hoping she might have a dream or two about him.

"Goodnight, Clarke." He lifted one of her hands to his lips and pressed a kiss to it, then slowly let go as he backed up towards the house. It was really hard to get in the car after that, because . . . god-dammit, even after all these years, Bellamy Blake still managed to give her butterflies.