Chapter 21

Clarke hated when people said they felt shook—why not just use proper grammar and say shaken?—but she had to admit, shook was exactly how she felt the day after Halloween. Possibly even shooketh. What Bellamy had said last night just had her reeling. He'd left not long after saying it, since she made up a little white lie about not feeling so well and needing to get some sleep. But surely he'd had as restless of a night as she had. Because after all, it wasn't just that he'd confessed to being in love with her back in high school. She'd confessed to the same thing.

She hoped that a visit to her mom's house might quiet her racing thoughts. After all, her mom liked to drone on and on about work sometimes, about all the surgeries she'd performed and the ailments she'd treated. Those types of conversations were prep for med school, she claimed. But sometimes Clarke just tuned out. Today, one of those conversations would be alright, though. In fact, she welcomed it.

"Hey, Mom," she said after she let herself inside.

"Well, hi, sweetheart," her mom said. She was unloading the dishwasher but stopped to give Clarke a hug. "No class today?"

"Nope. Looks like you have the day off, too." Clarke moseyed on into the living room and sat down on the biggest couch.

"Yeah, I do," her mom said. "I think I'm gonna put up the Thanksgiving decorations later. You wanna help?"

"Sure." Their Thanksgiving decorations were nowhere near as expansive and numerous as their Christmas decorations, but that would be one way to pass the time before she had to go to work.

"You want any breakfast? I can make eggs," her mother offered as she continued to unload dishes. "They're good for pregnant women."

Yeah, Clarke had read all about the pregnancy superfoods, and eggs were supposedly one of them. On some mornings, she didn't mind the smell of them, but on other mornings, she couldn't even take one out of the carton, because the mere thought of eating it made her want to hurl. "I already ate," she said, deliberately withholding the fact that what she'd eaten so far today had only been Doritos. Those damn chips were a powerful craving.

"You seem tired," her mom remarked.

"I am." Physically, she'd been all set to go to bed early last night, but her mind had had other ideas.

"Don't tell me you . . ." Her mother stopped short of finishing, then mumbled, "Never mind."

"What?" Clarke looked back over her shoulder.

"Well, I was just gonna say . . . I hope you didn't stay up late with Bellamy."

Clarke rolled her eyes. "No. He didn't even stay over."

"Oh, good," her mom said, sounding more than a little relieved to hear that. "So the two of you are still just friends then?"

Clarke sighed heavily, muttering, "I don't know what we are."

"What?" her mom shrieked. "Meaning?"

Meaning he's the first person I ever fell in love with, Clarke thought. Probably the only person. "It's private," she said, not about to divulge any of the talks they'd had or the . . . things they'd done lately. This wasn't why she'd come over here, either. At all. Her mom was supposed to be talking her ear off about hospital patients right now, not harping on her relationship with Bellamy.

"Well, Clarke, you need to think things through here," her mom said, abandoning the dishwasher as she came into the living room. "This isn't high school. Neither one of you is the same person you were back then. I mean, you've got a baby on the way. You can't just fall back into hold habits with him and expect everything to be the way it was before."

"I know, Mom," Clarke growled, biting her tongue to keep from snapping at her. "I don't need a reminder."

Her mom seemed to think otherwise as she grumbled, "Well, maybe you do," and headed back to her half-unloaded dishwasher.

No, I don't, Clarke thought. Every time she and Bellamy started getting too close again, every time she almost gave into temptation and let herself just be with him, she reminded herself how complicated this all was. And she backed off. At least for a little while. But it was starting to become like a cycle. She and Bellamy fucked, tried to be friends for a while, and then just inevitably fell back into bed together again.

She didn't feel like she could break that cycle, and it was getting harder and harder to even try.

...

Bellamy felt exhausted. Practically dead on his feet. Construction was hard labor, not something someone was meant to do on only a few hours of sleep. He was grateful when lunch break rolled around, but because he'd been spending too much money on fast food, he'd actually packed himself a sack lunch today. Or rather . . . his mom had packed it. In a sack. Just like she'd done in elementary school. Oh god.

Roan swung over to the student union and grabbed a Subway sandwich, but he came back to the site, where Bellamy had planted himself on the sidewalk to eat his turkey sandwich. "Alright, let's get this dad moment out of the way," his coworker said, whipping out his phone. "I gotta show you this." He pulled up a photo of two little girls, both with light brown hair, and showed it to Bellamy.

"Oh, wow." The girls were both dressed up in costumes, so he could only assume it was from last night. "That's a lot of glitter."

"Yeah, they wanted to go as Anna and Elsa from that movie," Roan said, but Bellamy's face must have given him away for not knowing who they were, because Roan added, "You know, Frozen."

Bellamy had never heard of it, but he was pretty sure that it couldn't hold a candle to The Little Mermaid. Few movies could.

"Anyway, we couldn't afford the costumes, so my wife tried making them," Roan went on. "It didn't really work out, so we just made 'em as girly as they could be." He smiled adoringly at his girls, then pocketed his phone again. "They had fun."

"Did you swipe any of their candy?" Bellamy asked. It seemed to him that that was one of the few perks of having to take kids trick-or-treating on Halloween.

"Well, I had to," Roan said. "Had to inspect it."

"Oh, I see."

"Oh, I'm serious. Nowadays people make drugs that look like candy. I wanna keep 'em away from all that."

Considering the guy's drug history, the paranoia was understandable. Bellamy supposed there were a lot of things parents had to think about to keep their kids safe.

No longer all that interested in eating, Bellamy put what remained of his sandwich back in its Ziploc bag and stuffed it into the brown sack. "So how old were you when you found out you were gonna be a dad?" he asked.

Roan stretched his legs out and recalled, "Twenty-five."

Not that much older than me then, Bellamy thought. He was turning twenty-four within the month.

"Echo and I had only been dating for a couple months. Hell, I'd only been out of jail for a year," Roan went on. "I was trying to stay clean, and she had her own problems to deal with."

Bellamy gave him a curious look.

"Prescriptions meds," Roan succinctly explained. "But when she got pregnant . . . I don't know, things just clicked into place for us."

Bellamy wondered if it'd happened quickly for them, if it'd been one obvious moment where everything had clicked, or if it'd been more gradual. "Were you guys nervous?" he questioned.

"Of course, at first," Roan admitted. "Especially when we found out we were having twins. But looking back, it's the best thing that could've happened to us. We might not have the most money or the nicest house, but we take care of our girls, make sure they're happy." A slight smile found its way to his face, the way it often did when he talked about his family. "Bein' a dad . . . it's the greatest thing I've ever done with my life," he said. "I mean, look at them." Taking out his phone again, he once again gazed down at the picture of his four year-old daughters, like they were his whole world or something. "They're perfect."

Bellamy took another look at Roan's girls, princesses to him no doubt, and it made him think about his princess. And the blurry image he'd had the privilege of seeing not once, but twice, on the ultrasound monitor. Another princess, perhaps? Something told him it was gonna be a girl.

After work, he drove by Eligius, not surprised to find Clarke on duty. She was putting in a lot of hours lately, probably trying to save up as much cash as she possibly could before the baby was born. He stood outside the window for a minute, just watching her. She smiled at customers and zipped all around that bar, her rounded stomach just barely visible beneath the shirt she was wearing. When he stared at that bump, he heard the sound of that heartbeat in his head, just as clearly as he had during her first ultrasound.

He knew it was different for him than it'd been for Roan, because he wasn't the father of the child Clarke was carrying. But still . . . it felt like something was clicking.

...

Clarke hadn't anticipated the night after Halloween being such a hectic one. She'd sort of assumed—naïvely, perhaps—that most people would have been tired from doing something the night before. But it just so happened to be some old fisherman's birthday, and it seemed like half the town had shown up to celebrate.

Time was flying by because she was so busy, but it seemed to stop the second Bellamy walked in. "You guys are busy," he remarked as he sauntered up to the bar and took a seat on the only remaining empty stool.

"Yeah," she said, trying not to look too shook. "Birthday party."

He nodded, glancing over his shoulder at the raucous crowd of 'good-old-boys,' as they insisted on being called. Clarke had taken their orders for food, but luckily, Diyoza was handing all the drinks.

"Can we talk?" Bellamy asked her suddenly.

Oh, no, she knew what he wanted to talk about, and her strategy for dealing with last night's revelations was just to avoid, avoid, avoid. "Right now?" she said. "Not really. I'm busy."

"She looks like she's got it covered," Bellamy said, motioning towards Clarke's boss with his head.

She totally did, but Clarke still needed an excuse not to have this conversation. "Well, I have to handle the other customers," she said, "and . . ." Feeling at a loss, she blurted out the first thing that came to mind. "I have to pee." Even though she'd just gone ten minutes ago, she scurried into the backroom, making a mental note to use this pee excuse whenever she wanted out of something. Nobody would question it because it seemed so legit.

Dammit, Bellamy, she thought, wishing he hadn't shown up there. It wasn't that she didn't enjoy seeing him—hell, he was the hottest person on the planet as far as she was concerned, so of course she enjoyed seeing him. But all day, she'd been dreading this, not sure how she was going to put up the 'just friends' barrier in between them this time. Having sex was one thing, but admitting to the things they had last night . . . that was just on another level.

Opening up her work locker, she took out her phone, just to check and see if Finn had texted her back. She'd sent him a couple messages this morning, right after waking up, about the upcoming genetic testing she'd scheduled. She'd let him know the day and time and told him he could come if he wanted to, just in case he had any questions to ask about it. She'd also suggested that he pay for half of it, because . . . well, that was only fair. But so far, he hadn't responded.

Finn? she typed out quickly, sending that, too, just to convey that she was expecting a response at some point. Even if he just told her that he wasn't going to be there and wasn't going to help her pay . . . just some sort of communication would be nice.

She tossed her phone back into her locker, slammed the small metal door shut, and raked one hand through her hair. God, this wasn't easy. She had one guy who refused to talk to her and one who probably wouldn't give up on it.

Creeping towards the swinging door that led out to the bar, she thought about that look in Bellamy's eyes last night when he told her he'd fallen in love with her, too, and she peered through the tiny window to take a look at him. Diyoza or the other waitress on duty must have poured him a beer, because he was taking his first sip of one, and someone from the birthday bunch was coming towards him. He started talking to Bellamy about . . . something. Hard telling what.

Part of Clarke still couldn't believe he was there, sitting in that bar right now, just a few feet away from her after years of being so far away. But there was this other part that felt like he'd barely even been gone, like hardly any time had passed. Like they were still the same people they used to be.

...

"I got it!" Clarke chirped, racing downstairs when the doorbell rang. Her dad was holed up in his study, busy with work, but her mom was on the couch, wearing her glasses and pajamas, reading a cheesy romance novel. Clarke had heard the low rumbled of Bellamy's pickup truck all the way down the street, and she wasn't going to let her mom get to that door before she did.

Flinging open the front door, she exclaimed, "You're back!" and practically leapt into his arms, kissing him. His visit was only supposed to have taken him the weekend, but here it was Monday night.

"Finally," he said as he set her down. "Flight got delayed."

"Did you just get home then?"

"Yeah, a couple hours ago," he said. "Dropped my mom off at the house, came straight here."

"Really?" He'd been that eager to see her?

"Really." Smiling, he kissed her again, and even though he looked tired and sounded tired, there was nothing tired about that kiss. It was sweet, and she'd missed it.

"Come on," she said, grabbing his hand, pulling him inside. It'd been days since she'd seen him. He'd left Friday night right after the playoff game, which he'd dominated, of course. She'd hung out at the parking lot party without him, but it just wasn't the same.

Unfortunately, there was no way to get Bellamy upstairs without bringing him past her mom. The woman was parked on that couch, almost as if she were waiting for him. When Clarke brought him into the living room, her mom set her book aside and took her glasses off. "Bellamy," she said, giving him a stern look.

"Hey, Mrs. Griffin," he said, offering up a little wave.

After a brief but awkward moment of silence, Abby asked him, "How was UCF?"

"It was nice," he answered. "I really liked it."

"You think you might end up going there?"

"Mom . . ." Clarke couldn't believe she would ask that. She probably meant it to sound like more a casual question, but having overheard the conversation between her and her dad, Clarke knew that it was more of a hope than an inquiry. Her mother hoped that Bellamy would go that far away, and she probably hoped he'd never come back.

"We'll see," Bellamy said, doing a pretty decent job of not being fazed by any of the questions. Clarke admired his bravery in the face of her mom's subtle but significant hostility, but she just wanted to get him out of there so he didn't have to deal with it anymore.

"We're gonna go upstairs and hang out for a while," she announced, deliberately not asking for permission because she knew there was no way she'd get it. "Let's go, Bellamy." Hastily, she grabbed his hand and ran him towards the stairs, darting up with him before her mother could protest or object.

"You think she's okay with this?" he said as they tumbled into her bedroom, barely managing to shut the door before they started kissing.

"No. But I missed you." She looped her arms around his neck and arched her whole body up into his as they staggered towards the bed.

"I missed you, too," he murmured against her mouth. They ended up practically falling onto her mattress, scrambling up to her pillows, him on top of her.

"Oh, Bellamy, it was so bad," she said, burying her hands in his hair as he kissed her neck. "I was so horny."

Lifting his head, he asked, "Did the sexting help?"

"No, it just made me hornier." She pouted, although she couldn't say she was displeased with the naughty words and pictures he had sent her.

"Don't worry," he said, grinning. "I'm here now." Once again, he lowered his head so his lips could latch onto her neck, and he sucked greedily on her skin, right over her pulse point.

"Mmm," she moaned, perhaps a bit too loudly. Moments later, the door to her bedroom swung open. "Mom!" she yelped, pushing on Bellamy's chest to get him off of her. "What're you doing?"

"I think we're just gonna leave this open," her mother said in regards to the door. She gave them both a warning glare and kept her eyes on them as she headed down the hall to her bedroom. She left that door open, too, so that she could sit down at her desk and see into Clarke's room.

"This is so unfair," Clarke lamented, although she actually could understand why her mom wanted to make sure nothing was happening. Truth be told, she hadn't been thinking about having sex with Bellamy right now, just making out with him pretty heavily. No, if she and Bellamy did it while her parents were home, they were a lot more covert about it.

"Ah, that's alright," he said, lying down beside her. "I'll settle for a cuddle. I'm tired anyway."

She supposed he was, what with jetlag and all, so she snuggled into his side, enjoying the feel of his arms around her. "So UCF was nice, huh?" she said, craning her neck so she could look at him.

"Yeah," he said. "Cool campus."

At the risk of sounding like her mom, she had to ask, "Is that where you wanna go?"

"Maybe," he said as his eyes fell shut. "It's definitely an option."

Resting her cheek on his chest, she pictured what a Florida campus must look like, then pictured Bellamy roaming around it. Bellamy with new teammates. And girlfriends. "I'll miss you next year," she said, wishing she was old enough to be graduating, too. Then maybe she could've . . . gone with him.

"I know," he said, smoothing his hand over her hair. "I'll miss you, too."

She didn't doubt that that was true, but also . . . he'd be so busy making new friends and learning the ropes of his new team. He wouldn't have as much time to miss her as she'd have to miss him.

"But I'll be back on holidays and stuff, and for part of the summer," he said. "If you don't have a new boyfriend, we can . . . you know."

She smiled as he pressed a soft kiss to her forehead, the completely chaste kind that her mother, who was undoubtedly still eyeing them like a hawk, couldn't get mad about. "I'm glad you're back," she told him, pushing the college thoughts out of her mind. She'd meant it when she'd told Raven that she was committed to just living in the now with Bellamy. And right now, she was lying with him, very warm and very comfortable. So now was good.

...

The downside of using her pregnant bladder as an excuse to opt of conversations was that peeing didn't take very long; so after a few minutes of hiding out in the backroom, Clarke felt obligated to head out to the bar again. Bellamy was still talking to the same older man, and although he looked vaguely familiar, Clarke couldn't peg who he was.

"Hey, how come you never made it in college?" he was asking Bellamy. "You were good."

"Yeah, I was," Bellamy said with a sigh.

"Didn't like the program or what?"

Looking down at the drink in his hand, Bellamy mumbled, "Something like that."

The old man patted him on the back and said, "Well, good to see you, kid."

"Yeah, you, too."

When he was gone, Clarke inquired, "Who's that?" Even though Arkadia was a small town, it wasn't so small that she knew absolutely everyone.

"Miller's grandpa," Bellamy replied. "You know, it's crazy how many people in this town see me again and just wanna talk about what kind of player I used to be. They don't care what I'm up to now. They just wanna hear about the past."

"That kinda sucks," she empathized.

"Yeah," he agreed. As if he'd been looking for a segue, he shifted the conversation by saying, "But hey, speaking of the past . . ."

Oh, no. Her stomach knotted up.

"Can we talk about what happened last night?"

Playing dumb, pretending she had no clue what he was even talking about, she said, "What do you mean?" and got busy wiping down the counter, even though it was plenty clean.

"Oh, come on, Clarke, you know what I mean." He gave her a look. "We said . . . I mean, we told each other . . ."

That we loved each other, she filled in mentally. And even though they'd been using the past tense, it felt like it had some implications for their present, too, and their future. "We were talking about high school," she reminded him. "And it sounds like you're tired of talking about that, so let's not talk about it anymore."

"No, I'm tired of reliving my football glory days with people who expected me to make it bigger than I did," he corrected. "I'm not tired of talking about us."

"Us?" she echoed, not even sure what they were anymore. Or what they should be.

"Yeah," he said. "Our relationship."

She stared at him for a second, getting lost in the intensity in his eyes. Bellamy was a very passionate person, always had been. When he felt things for people, he felt them strongly, so even nowadays with her pregnancy complicating things, he was getting in so deep. Too deep.

"Our relationship's over, Bellamy," she forced herself to say. It was harsh, and the words felt like acid on her tongue, but she felt like . . . like she had to say something like that, otherwise he'd just get in so deep with her that he might drown.

The look that found its way to his face after that was one of pure hurt. He frowned, narrowed his eyes at her in confusion, and shook his head in either disappointment or disbelief. She couldn't tell which one, but clearly he hadn't expected to hear her say that. After taking one more big drink, he got up and left, wordlessly, almost angrily.

I'm sorry, Bellamy, she thought, ignoring a customer down at the end of the bar who was trying to get her attention. She didn't enjoy hurting him, but she was just trying to look out for his best interests.

...

Since his mom was working late and Octavia was probably out at some college party, Bellamy was home alone that night. And it sucked. First he flopped down on the couch, attempting to watch TV, but nothing kept his attention or got his mind off of Clarke, so he went and lay down in bed, hoping to fall asleep early. But being in that bed only made him think about Clarke some more, since they used to have plenty of fun there.

How could she claim it was all just over?

Around 11:00, he got up and went out to the refrigerator in an attempt to distract himself with food, but he wasn't hungry, and nothing sounded appetizing. Fuck this, he decided, grabbing his keys off the living room coffee table. Forgoing a jacket and stepping into his shoes on the way out the door, he decided to go for a drive.

At first, he didn't have a destination in mind. He thought he might just cruise around for a while, listen to whatever crap was on the radio, clear his head. And the more he thought about things and let himself feel things, the clearer it all became. The anger he felt about Clarke had said today faded away, because he realized she probably hadn't really meant it. The regret of not coming back to town a couple weeks sooner, that same regret that had been eating away at him . . . that faded, too, because he really did wanna believe that things happened the way they were supposed to. And those feelings he'd felt for her in high school—lust and desire and affection and, yeah, love . . . all those feelings just intensified. They'd always been there, even when he'd been elsewhere. But now that he was back and they were carving out a place in each other's lives again . . .

It all just clicked into place.

He ended up at Clarke's house that night. Of course. He probably should've figured that was where he was headed right when he'd walked out the door. The light was on, and her car was parked out front, so she was definitely home. Maybe she'd just gotten off of work, or maybe she was struggling to fall asleep just like he'd been. Maybe something was clicking for her, too, or maybe it was about to.

Marching up to the door, he felt determined in a way he hadn't for a long time. He knocked loudly, and a few seconds later, he heard the door unlock, and Clarke opened it with a confused expression on her face. "Bellamy . . ."

"It's not over," he blurted, crossing the threshold to cup her face in his hands. He laid one hell of a deep, passionate kiss on her, drawing it out because he didn't want it to end. It must have caught her off guard, but she kissed him back anyway.

There was no way something like this could ever just be over.

Even though he would have gladly just kept kissing her, he knew another night of sex wasn't what they needed right now. They needed to just be honest with each other, because he got the sense that everything he was feeling was what she was feeling, too.

"What're you doing?" she asked him almost accusatorily. Whirling around, she started to pace through her living room.

"Clarke . . ." He knew she'd enjoyed that kiss just as much as he had. Something in her just wasn't yet willing to be as honest as he was, though, because she stormed out the back door onto the porch. Groaning inwardly, he followed after her. "Would you just wait a minute?" he called after her. "Would you talk to me?"

She marched out onto the beach, barefoot and not wearing warm enough clothes for this time of year.

"Clarke!" he shouted impatiently. "Why do you keep running away from this?"

"Because I don't know what this is!" she yelled back, spinning around vehemently.

He stopped a few feet away from her, willing to give her a little space as she let herself contemplate . . . everything. "I do," he said. This was the love of his life standing in front of him. He'd met so many girls all around the world, many of them beautiful and interesting and great in their own way, but not one of them had made him feel the things she did.

Grunting, she grumbled, "It's a mess."

"Kind of," he acknowledged, wondering how things would have gone if he'd just gone to college close to home, if they'd stayed together. "But it's our mess, so that's alright."

"No, it's not alright!" she screamed, her eyes ablaze with emotion. The cool breeze blew her short blonde locks away from her face, and he saw tears on her cheeks. "Look . . . I'm pregnant and you're not the father," she stated in a quivering voice. "But you're still here. You went all over the world, and you ended up right back here six weeks after I . . ." She stopped abruptly, her mouth trembling as more tears spilled over. "You were too late," she whispered.

"That doesn't matter to me," he told her.

"It doesn't? Really?" she challenged. "You don't care that I'm carrying someone else's child?"

He shook his head. "No." It didn't make him want her any less, if that was what she was insinuating. If anything, he looked at her now, this young girl who was becoming a mom, and he had so much fucking respect for her. It just made him love her more.

"Well, you should," she said. "You should care, Bellamy, because it screws everything up for us."

"No, it doesn't have to," he argued. "Listen to me, Clarke . . ."

She took a step back when he took a step forward. "No, Bellamy, don't," she practically pled, her voice a mere whimper.

"Please. You have to hear this."

She wrapped her arms around herself and looked away from him.

"Clarke . . ." He waited, waited for her to blink the tears back and meet his eyes again. When she did, he didn't hesitate. "I didn't just fall in love with you in high school," he told her. "When I got home, one of the first things I did was meet up with you. I couldn't wait to see you. Just talking to you that night, walking around town with you, being with you . . . it all just came flooding back." Of course he'd been blindsided when he'd woken up in her bed the next morning and she'd revealed she was pregnant. Of course he hadn't seen that coming when he'd first texted her to meet up with him. But things in his life had never exactly followed a plan, so really, this wasn't all that out of the ordinary.

"I feel the same way now that I felt back then," he told her, feeling the confession rising in his chest. He'd never said these words before, to anyone other than his mother and his sister, but she deserved to hear them. "I love you, Clarke," he said. "I'm still in love with you. And I think you're still in love with me, too."

Her eyes got wide as she gazed at him, and her breathing deepened. She looked like she wanted to say something, but all she managed to get out was, "I can't do this," as she turned her back to him and started walking further down the beach.

"Why not?" he challenged.

"Because!" she yelled, whirling back around. "Because, for the past five years, I've tried to . . . forget. And move on. I didn't think you were coming back, and I didn't think you'd want me even if you did. Not like . . . not like this."

"Like what?" he asked, making a face. There was nothing wrong with her.

"Pregnant," she cried. "I mean, have you even thought about that, Bellamy? I'm pregnant."

"I know. I was the first person you told, remember?" he pointed out to her. "I was there with you for both ultrasounds. I heard its heartbeat." He looked down at her stomach, amazed that there was actually this whole other person in there, growing every day. "It was incredible," he said, smiling as he remembered the sound of it.

Shaking her head adamantly, she backed up and said, "No, Bellamy, I see what you're doing, but . . . this isn't fair to you. I can't ask you to do this."

"To do what?" She wasn't asking anything.

"To just step in and . . ." Tears started to fall rapidly onto her cheeks, and she just kept shaking her head. "You shouldn't have to sacrifice your whole life just because I got pregnant. This isn't your responsibility. It's mine."

"But I love you." God, it felt so good to say that. Why hadn't he ever said it before? Why had it taken him so long?

"But it's not just me right now," she protested. "It's me and this baby, and . . . it's too much. I can't let you do this."

She's worried about me, he realized. All of her efforts to turn their relationship into just a friendship, to prevent it from becoming what it already was . . . she was looking out for him. It was admirable, but unnecessary. "Well, what if I want to?" he said, not backing down. "What if I wanna be there for you and for this baby?"

Lowering her head into her hands, she wept openly.

"Clarke, I've given it a lot of thought . . ."

"No, you haven't," she cut in.

"Yes, I have." Dammit, she was being stubborn as hell about all of this, and even though he understood it, it was starting to frustrate him. "Would you give me some credit here? I'm not an idiot, okay?" he said. "I know what I'm getting myself into. I know being with you right now and being with you going forward . . . I know it's not what I was expecting. And I know it's a lot to take on, but-"

"Bellamy, we are talking about your life here! Your whole life!" she shouted. "Do you even realize how huge this is? Do you even know what you're signing yourself up for? It might not seem like it at the time, but you make one choice, and it can just—it can influence everything!"

Yeah, he'd made plenty of those in his lifetime, and so had she. "You made a choice when you walked into that locker room and asked me to sleep with you," he reminded her. "And I know you don't regret it."

"But what if you regret this?" she wailed.

"I don't think I will." He didn't know the first thing about being a father, but his mom had shown him what it meant to be a good parent, so he wasn't exactly the worst person for the job. "Clarke . . . I wanna be with you," he told her, his own voice cracking, causing him to realize that he was actually pretty damn close to crying himself. And he never cried. "I wanna be with you no matter what."

Wiping the tears from her face, smearing her eye makeup in the process, she said, "But we can't just—we can't just be together the way we used to be. We were just kids, and . . ." Her whole body shook with a fresh sob. "We were so stupid, Bellamy. We were so stupid."

"No, we weren't," he insisted. Hell, maybe they'd been onto something back then, just surrendering to their feelings and not over-analyzing it. "I know we can't go back to that, but . . . we can take what we had then and make it part of who we are now," he assured her. "It doesn't matter if you're pregnant. You're still you, and I'm still me, and we're still . . . us." He knew he was taking a risk by using that word again, considering how she'd reacted to it earlier. He was bracing himself for more of her attempts to push him away, but he was hoping she'd just quit trying to do that.

"What do you want me to say?" she asked, flapping her arms against her sides.

"I want you to say you wanna be with me, too."

"Well, of course I wanna be with you!" Those words spilled out of her mouth with so much emotion attached to them that he could barely understand her. "I love you so much," she cried.

She loves me, he thought. His heart felt like it was doing backflips in his chest, because although he'd sensed that for a few weeks, he'd never heard her say it until right now.

"Of course I wanna be with somebody who makes me happy and makes me laugh," she went on, "and . . . somebody who makes me feel like everything's gonna be okay." She squeezed her eyes shut and clasped one hand over her mouth, and her whole body shuddered as she cried. "But I don't deserve this, Bellamy. I don't deserve . . . you."

"Oh, Clarke . . ." He moved in closer to her, close enough to reach out and stroke her hair, then to cup her cheek. "You deserve so much more than you know."

She didn't back away from him this time. Instead, she closed the distance between them and allowed him to put his arms around her. "I don't know what's gonna happen," she admitted, putting her trembling hands on his chest.

"We'll figure it out together," he reassured her.

"I don't know what the hell I'm doing."

"We'll figure that out together, too," he promised. He just wasn't gonna let her do this alone.

She managed a tearful smile, and although she still looked nervous, he could just tell . . . it'd clicked for her, too. "I love you, Bellamy," she whimpered, eyes still glistening with tears.

God, hearing her say that . . . he'd never realized how good it would make him feel. "I love you, too," he told her, willing to tell her every single day from here on out. Because he didn't envision it changing.

This time, it was Clarke who initiated a kiss between them. She rose up on tiptoe and pressed her lips to his, and he decided he wanted to do this every single day, too. He loved kissing her.

She was shivering, not because of her tears anymore but because of the cold, so he just held her after that, just hugged her to his chest and rested his chin atop her head. The ocean waves slid up onto the shore, coming close to their feet, but neither one of them bothered to move.