Chapter 70

When morning came, it wasn't waking up that seemed to be the problem for Bellamy. It was getting out the door. He kept finding things to do to delay himself, his inevitable departure. But finally, as the clock continued to tick, Clarke got him outside. It wasn't that she wanted him to leave, of course, but she also didn't want to see him get fired. Again.

"You're gonna be late, you know," she warned him as he stood in the driveway with her and Avery. He had the baby in his arms and was doting on her, making her smile the way only he could.

"I don't care," he said, stroking his thumb across Avery's cheek. It seemed like he could just stand there and stare at her all day. He probably would have liked to. "Maybe I could just call in sick," he thought out loud. "That's not suspicious at all, right? They'd never guess I just wanna spend another day with my two favorite people in the world."

Clarke felt like her heart was turning to mush when he said stuff like that. Being a new dad had brought out an extra sweet side to Bellamy. A little cheesy at times, but that was fine by her.

At last, he let out a heavy sigh, said, "Alright. I'm forcing myself," and handed Avery back to her. "I gotta go. But call me if you need anything."

"I will," she promised.

"And don't forget, I'll be home for lunch."

"That's just a few hours away," she reminded him. Four hours of work, an hour of lunch that would probably feel more like a half an hour once he got home, and then four more hours of work. He could do this.

"Day's gonna drag," he predicted, still looking totally reluctant to go. Eventually, he bent down, pressed a kiss to the top of Avery's head, and said, "Bye, sweetheart."

"She says, 'Bye, Daddy,'" Clarke said, wriggling Avery's little hand for her as if she were waving.

"God, this sucks," he groaned, backing away. It looked like it physically pained him to get closer and closer to his car. And when he looked in the back and glimpsed Avery's car seat, he actually had to shut his eyes, maybe to keep from crying. Clarke couldn't blame him. If it was her first day away from Avery, she'd feel emotional, too.

"We'll be right here waiting for you," she assured him, waving Avery's hand for her again.

Bellamy looked the other way and wiped his eyes, obviously trying to conceal just how emotional he felt about this. But then, with one more deep breath, he finally did open the door and get into the car. He couldn't even seem to bear to look at them as he put the key in the ignition and started it up, but he did send them a bittersweet smile as he slowly started to drive away.

Even though she'd been smiling moments before, Avery began to cry once Bellamy drove down to the corner and took a right turn. It was almost eerie how she just seemed to know that her daddy was gone for the day. "I know. I know," Clarke said, patting and rubbing her daughter's back. "I miss him already, too."

...

Productivity . . . wasn't Bellamy's biggest concern his first day back. School being out for the summer meant that there was a lot of work for the janitorial staff to get done. Shampooing carpets, repainting walls, and basically doing a deep clean on every single classroom. It was gonna be a lot of work, but it wasn't his priority. Checking in on Clarke and Avery was. He texted every half an hour to make sure things were going okay, until Clarke texted back that they were going to take a nap. So he stopped texting then. Which was fine, because he was glad she was finding a little time to rest. But he also hated being out of the loop on what was going on.

"Bellamy."

He rolled his eyes when he heard his boss come up behind him while he was supposed to be moving desks out of the Spanish classroom and into the hall. "Look, Steve, I'm a new dad, okay? I miss my kid," he growled in irritation. "Just let me be on my phone today, alright?" He continued to thumb through the boatload of pictures he'd taken of Avery these past ten days. Each one somehow more adorable than the last.

"I was just gonna tell you, Diana wants to see you," Steve said.

"Oh." He pocketed his phone, and, confused as to what was even going on, started off in the direction of the principal's office. (It was a route he knew well.) As he passed Steve, he stopped and said, "Sorry," but Steve just motioned him onward.

For the first time that day, he managed to think about something other than Avery as he made the familiar trek to headquarters of the school. What was happening? Why did she need to see him? What had he done wrong? His first thought was that he was getting reprimanded for something. Hell, when he'd been called in to see Emerson, he'd gotten fired. Was that what was going on here? Was it gonna happen all over again? He wasn't sure his ego could handle that. Not to mention his bank account.

"You wanted to see me?" he asked as he poked his head into Diana Sydney's office.

"Yes. Come on in," she said. "Close the door."

Oh, no, he thought, slowly doing just that. If this was a conversation about something good, she'd probably just leave the door open, let the two secretaries outside hear everything she was going to say.

"How's your first day back been going?" she asked him.

"Fine," he lied as he took a seat at her desk. In reality, it sucked. He hated this job and hated that he didn't have another week off to help Clarke around the house. Although, if he was getting fired, he'd have plenty of time off soon enough, wouldn't he?

Deciding he might try to guilt-trip her into keeping him around, he asked, "Did you get to see a picture of my daughter?" and pulled out his phone again. If she saw the little person he had to financially support now, maybe she'd lay off the whole firing thing.

"No, not yet," she said. When he showed her the cutest picture he had of her, she said, "Oh, she's beautiful, Bellamy."

"Yeah," he agreed. He'd probably have to intimidate and ward off a lot of boys someday.

"What's her name?" Mrs. Sydney asked.

"Avery," he replied, adding on, "Avery Blake," for good measure.

"That's nice."

"Yeah." He put his phone away again, still feeling like . . . the inevitable was going to happen. He couldn't think of any other reason why she'd want to talk to him. "I'm not getting fired, am I?" he asked fearfully. "'cause Clarke's on maternity leave right now, and I really don't wanna have to go to her parents and beg for money."

The principal smiled at him and immediately put his mind at ease when she responded, "No, you're not getting fired."

Nice change of pace, he thought, though he remained tense as he sat there, waiting for more.

"I wanted to . . . propose something to you," she said.

"I don't have the best luck with proposals," he mumbled, though his interest was already piqued. "What is it?"

"Well . . ." She took a longer pause than was necessary. "Our head football coach decided to quit. Very abruptly."

Football, he thought. Of course. "Probably for the best," he said. "No offense, but the record speaks for itself."

She nodded sadly and agreed, "It does. We just brought Nathan Miller on as the assistant coach. So it seems like a no-brainer to offer you the head coaching position now."

It wasn't a shocking proposal by any means, but it still . . . surprised him in a way. With all the news that had gotten out about him and Clarke back in high school, he'd assumed the school would want to keep their distance from him. Teen pregnancy wasn't exactly the image it wanted to promote. But then again, maybe a winning football team was the only image that mattered to them. "You want me to turn this team around?" he said, almost laughing at the thought. They were a shell of what they used to be.

"If anyone can do it . . ." she trailed off.

It was nice that she seemed to have so much confidence in him, but he worried it might be misplaced. "I've never coached a team before," he said. Coaching was different than playing. And weren't a lot of the best coaches just average players? Like they were good at coaching because they knew what it was like for the athletes who struggled more.

"But you played on a championship team," Mrs. Sydney reminded him.

"We got second place," he muttered bitterly. His fault.

"Well, you were still champions in the eyes of everyone in Arkadia," she insisted. "Ever since you've come back, people have been hounding me to get you on board here. You're a proven winner. You're young enough to relate to the athletes but old enough to lead them. Seems like the perfect fit."

Was it, though? What if he screwed the team up just like he'd screwed up that state championship game? "Not to sound greedy as fuck, but . . . how much would it pay?" he asked her. Despite his passion for the game, money was going to be a determining factor.

"I can match the salary you're making now," she told him. "Trust me, for a high school coach in a small town, that's a good deal."

It was, and he was well aware that it was. But something was holding him back from immediately saying yes.

"I know you don't love the work you're doing now, but you would love coaching," she assured him. "Do me a favor: Go home. Talk to your girlfriend. Sleep on it, and come see me again tomorrow. Okay?"

He breathed a sigh of relief, grateful for the out from the conversation. "Thanks," he said. It wasn't a decision he wanted to make on the spot. He wanted to talk to Clarke about it first.

"Have a good day," she told him as he got up from her desk and left the office. He quickly swung back by the Spanish classroom to tell Steve he was going home, and Steve didn't question why.

As Bellamy walked out to the nearly empty parking lot—just a few vehicles of a few teachers and staff members who didn't seem to get the memo that summer vacation had started—he let himself think back. Not to the way his football career had begun, because those Friday nights out on that high school field had been amazing. If that was all football had ever been to him, there wouldn't even be a decision to be made here. But it wasn't. Somewhere along the way, the game had changed, turned into something that wasn't as familiar or enjoyable to him. And going back to it made him feel . . . uneasy.

...

"Damn," Brady said, craning his neck to the side. "Look at that ass."

Bellamy didn't bother to look, because if he glanced up from the pages of the book in front of him for even one second, the letters would probably be all jumbled the second he looked back down.

"I'd fuck the hell outta that," Winston, the team's number one wide-receiver, said.

"I think I already have." Brady grinned smugly.

"And?" Winston asked.

Brady shrugged. "Nothing special. Just another sophomore slut."

Bellamy winced. There were certain words he didn't use to describe girls, and that was one of them. Didn't matter if they were a one-night stand or not.

"Blake, are you really studying right now?" Winston teased him. As though studying was such a bad idea or such a foreign concept in the designated studying zone of the Student Union.

"Trying to," he said. He'd gotten the reading list for his English class early, and it was intimidating. He wanted to get a head start on it. He needed to.

"Studying," Brady scoffed. "Why?"

"Because I'm in college," Bellamy replied. "And college is a lot harder than high school, and I already sucked at that."

"So pay someone to do your homework," Brady suggested.

Bellamy narrowed his eyes at him, noting the smug look on his face. "Is that what you do?"

Brady might have been lying, might not have been, when he answered, "No. I just don't spend ten minutes on one page." He reached across the table and shut Bellamy's book.

Son of a bitch, Bellamy thought, more than a little frustrated. If this was high school, no one would have made fun of him for anything. In fact, in high school, if he'd have made more of an effort to study, the other guys on the team probably would have, too. "I'll see you guys later," he said tersely, grabbing his things. He tried to make a smooth exit, but he felt something drop from his pocket when he got up.

"Hey, wait a minute, you dropped your . . ." Brady reached down and picked up his phone for him. And when he saw the image that was Bellamy's background, he didn't hand it back right away. "Well, now, what do we have here?"

"Give me that," Bellamy said, trying to swipe the phone back from him. He didn't want Brady seeing any pictures of him and Clarke, let alone one of many romantic selfies they'd taken together out at the beach.

"Is this your girl?" Brady asked, holding the phone just out of his reach. "This the reason why you got your eyes on a book instead of that chick's ass?" He laughed, eventually handing the phone back to him. Bellamy put it back in his pocket right away.

"Didn't know you had a girlfriend, bro," Winston said.

"I don't," Bellamy told him.

"You sure?"

Reluctantly, he sat back down with his teammates, leaving his book closed again. "She's not my girlfriend anymore," he mumbled.

"Oh, so she's on the market," Brady noted. "Feel free to hook me up with her."

Bellamy shot the quarterback a stern look. That wasn't happening.

"Let me see," Winston said, holding out his hand for the phone. Winston . . . wasn't Miller or Zeke by any means, but he also wasn't as bad as Brady when it came to girls. So Bellamy handed over his phone and let him see.

"Fuck, she's hot," Winston said. "Damn. Got a rack on her, too. You ever fuck those tits?"

Bellamy just glared at him. Yeah, he had, but he wasn't about to tell them all about that. They weren't the best of friends, and even if they were . . . everything he and Clarke had done together was just for him and Clarke. No one else. "We're done talking about her," he decided, grabbing his phone back.

"Come on, man, I'm just-"

"I said we're done," Bellamy snapped. Clarke was none of their business. Period, end of story.

"Don't mind Winston," Brady said. "He's just jealous 'cause we quarterbacks get all the hottest girls." He chuckled.

"Fuck you," Winston said a little too loudly, garnering a few angry "Shhhs," from some of the other students nearby who were trying to study. He looked around, lowered his voice, and said to Brady, "At least the girls I fuck remember it."

Brady suddenly fell silent, and his whole facial expression just changed. He looked instantly serious, and his reaction coupled with those words made Bellamy tense up, too. What the hell did that mean? Was it just a jab, a way of insulting Brady's, uh, performance? Had to be, right? It wouldn't be . . . anything else.

"Let's go," Brady said to Winston, standing up from the table. "Bellamy needs to get back to studying." The two of them left without so much as a goodbye, without another word. And that tense feeling that had overcome Bellamy didn't exactly fade away when they were gone.

It was just a joke, he told himself. Not a very funny one, but still . . . nothing to be worried about.

...

Bellamy arrived home when he had planned to, for lunch, but it hadn't sounded like Diana expected him to be back at all. Which was good, because that job offer was weighing heavily on his mind, and he needed to sort it out. Besides, it wasn't like he was just yearning to clean any classrooms.

"Hey," Clarke greeted him cheerfully. She sat on the couch with Avery, holding her while she slept, watching TV. "Is it lunchtime already?"

"Yeah." He kicked off his shoes, amazed that his feet could hurt so much after only being on them for a few hours. That job . . . it made everything ache.

"I lost track of time a while ago," she said, muting the TV.

"Was it hectic?" he asked, sitting down beside her.

"At first, yeah," she replied. "She just wouldn't stop crying. But then I tried singing to her, and that actually worked."

Of course, he thought. His girlfriend's voice was a good one for lullabies. Or any type of song, really. No matter what she sang, it always sounded good.

"She fell asleep for a while, so I got to nap, too," Clarke went on. "She woke up about an hour ago, but just to feed. Now I guess she's tired again."

Part of him had been hoping that Avery would be awake and energetic when he got home, but it was good that she was sleeping. Clarke deserved the downtime. "Looks like you guys have done alright without me," he remarked.

"Yeah," she said. "It's better when you're here, though."

He wished money and jobs weren't even an issue, then, so he could have been with them all the time. "Can I hold her?" he asked, feeling like . . . he just needed to have that baby in his arms.

"Yeah." She carefully passed Avery over to him, then angled her body towards the side, propping her arm up on the back of the couch. "You look like . . . you're not having the best day," she noted.

"No, it's not bad," he assured her. "It's just . . . weird."

"Why's that?"

"Well . . ." He knew it wasn't going to sound so weird when he told her what had happened. It'd probably just sound like good news. "I got offered a job," he revealed to her. "Football coach."

Her eyebrows shot up excitedly. "At the school?"

"Yeah."

And there came the happy smile. "Well, that's great," she exclaimed. But it only took her a second to see that he wasn't having the same reaction, because her smile fell, and she quietly squeaked out, "Isn't it?"

"I don't know," he mumbled. It could be. He wasn't sure.

"Is that, like, in addition to the job you're already doing?" she inquired.

"No. In place of it." Naturally, she had to be assuming that a pay cut was the reason why he wasn't more ecstatic, so he told her, "I'd get the paid the same, though. Probably even more if we started to win."

She stared at him curiously, then asked, "So why don't you seem happier?"

It was hard to explain, but the thought of coaching football just made some shit resurface that he'd tried to keep buried as much as possible, from everyone but her. "I just don't know if I should do it," he said. "I mean, considering the way football ended for me . . . maybe it's best if I just don't go back to that."

"Well, being a coach would be different than being a player," she pointed out. "And not only would you get to do something you love, you'd get to be a good role model for those guys."

"Am I a good role model, though?" he wondered. "I'm telling you, it feels like that Hall of Fame thing all over again. I feel like I don't deserve it."

"You do, though," she insisted.

He shook his head, not able to believe that as easily as she did. He'd really dropped the ball, so to speak, in college. Not on the field, but off of it. At that party.

"Bellamy," she said softly, reaching over to put her hand on his shoulder, "what happened at UCF . . ."

"Sticks with me," he filled in. This job offer had it sticking to the front of his brain. "I know I don't talk about it a whole lot, but it's always there, Clarke," he said. "Those guys, that team . . ." He shook his head, selfishly pissed off that he hadn't had a better experience, that it hadn't been everything he'd dreamed it would be. "They took something I loved and made it . . . different," he said, his jaw clenched. "Something I didn't even recognize. Something I didn't wanna be a part of anymore."

"But this isn't UCF," she protested. "And you're not nineteen years old anymore."

Yeah, he knew that. Logically, he knew. The guys on this team weren't going to take advantage of drunk girls at parties, and if any of them ever so much as tried, he'd kick them off the team and kick their asses more ways than they could count. "So you think I should do it?" he asked her. Even though it was pretty obvious.

"Yeah," she said. "You'd have Miller with you, too. I think you'd have fun."

Admittedly, the thought of getting to work with a close friend who also happened to have been a hell of a good player . . . it wasn't the worst thing in the world. As terrible as Arkadia's team was these days, he did sort of love the challenge of turning it around. "It's probably more time-consuming than we realize," he said, mentally weighing the pros and cons. "Especially during the season. We're talking weights every morning, practices every night after school. Plus, I think I'd have to go to some coaching clinics and meetings and stuff."

"At least you could do some things at home, though," she said, "like . . . drawing up plays and watching film and stuff."

"True." He smiled a little, because he pictured himself doing that with Avery in his arms, just like she was now. And when she was older and bigger and could fit in one of those chest carriers, he'd just strap on one of those and bring her out to the field.

"And Avery and I could come to practice sometimes," Clarke added, "just sit on the sidelines."

"Hmm. That might be kinda distracting," he said.

She gave him a look. "You really think all those big, tough football players are gonna get distracted by a baby?"

"No," he said. "But they might get distracted by the baby's hot mom."

"Are you saying . . ." Clarke's mouth dropped open in astonishment. "Am I officially a MILF now?"

He chuckled. "Yeah, you are."

"Huh," she smirked, then shook her head and laughed. "Well, you know what that makes you then," she said, grinning at him suggestively.

DILF was a title he wore with pride. Too bad the F part of both acronyms was still a couple weeks away for them.

She got serious again when she scooted closer and urged, "Take the job, Bellamy. You know you still love the game."

I do, he thought, remembering that rush of running the ball into the end zone, or the thrill of making a game-winning pass. There were other guys on that team now who deserved to feel that same way, and if he could help them get there, then maybe the past didn't have to matter so much anymore.

...

Every team had a culture, and Bellamy picked up on the Rockets' culture right away at their first meeting. He brought them into the gym and made them all sit down at the bleachers, then proceeded to clock how long it took for them to all shut up and be quiet. Five minutes. Five minutes before they realized he was just waiting there for them. That alone showed him they weren't taking it seriously.

He started off with a mini-lecture about focus, and about how they weren't focused, and about how pissed off he was that it'd taken them five minutes to shut the hell up. It didn't hurt to instill a little bit of fear right from the start. Most of the best coaches he'd ever had had intimidated him at least a little bit. But after that, he went into his whole pre-planned spiel about the goals and the hopes he had for this team, the things he wanted to see them accomplish. He couldn't be too intimidating; he had to be encouraging, too. It was kind of a tough balance to achieve.

"I'm not gonna sugarcoat things," he said, slowly walking back and forth in front of them on the edge of the court line. "The past couple years, things haven't gone the way this team wanted them to. You guys have had tough losses, injuries, and some season stats you'd probably rather forget."

A couple of the guys nodded solemnly. But others just continued to stare at him blankly.

"But you're all still here," he reminded them. "You're on this team because you love this game." Even as he said that, he had a feeling there were some who were on it for other reasons. Primarily social. They just wanted to hang out with their friends, or they wanted to be able to wear the green jersey on game days and look more popular than they actually were. He'd weed those guys out for sure. They weren't gonna last in the program he had planned.

"Now each and every one of you has what it takes to be a great player," he said. "A winner. Maybe even a champion. But you're not there yet. And that's why I'm here. That's why Coach Miller's here." He motioned behind him, where Miller stood with his arms crossed over his chest, a stern look on his face. "We know what it takes to win. Some of you probably sat in the stands at the games we played in, cheered us on. Well, now you have kids out there cheering you on, wanting to see you succeed. So are you gonna do it? Are you gonna put in the work it takes to get there?" He paused for a moment after those two questions, hoping to see some of the players nodding their heads. But he didn't. "'cause I promise you, it's gonna take a lot of work," he said. "Ask yourself that right now: Are you willing to work your ass off to become a better player, a better team? And if the answer's no, you might as well leave now." Again, he waited, just to see if anyone actually made the move to get up and go. Right now, they were all too proud or too stubborn to do that. "No one's leaving," he said to Miller.

"Nope," Miller said.

"I guess that means you're all in then." Time would tell who really had what it took to be a player on his team, but for now, he could try to whip all of them into shape. "Are you?" he boomed loudly. "Are you guys all in?"

He'd been hoping for some kind of rousing response, or if not that, at least a few mumbles of "Yeah," or some nodding heads. But he still got nothing but silence, and the only thing that broke into that science was one of Avery's little giggling sounds. He looked back over his shoulder to where Clarke and Avery were sitting on the opposing bleachers. "Sorry," Clarke apologized as she shushed Avery.

Bellamy turned back to his team and exasperatedly spat, "Really? My baby's the only one who's all in?"

Finally, that got a reaction out of the guys. Just a smile out of most of them, but a chuckle out of a few. It was something, so he'd take it.

"Come on, circle it up," he said, motioning for the guys to stand. A couple of them groaned as they got to their feet, and a few of them couldn't have looked more uninterested if they'd tried as they formed a lopsided circle. "You guys might be down right now, but you're Rockets," Bellamy reminded them. "You don't stay down. You blast off." He put his hand in the middle of the circle, and all his players instinctively did the same. "Rockets on three. One, two, three!" he counted.

"Rockets!" they all yelled, but it wasn't as loud or as enthused as it could have been. As it hopefully would be by the time their first game in August rolled around.

"Alright, hustle out onto the field," he told them. "We're gonna start with some conditioning."

"Let's go!" Miller shouted, leading the way out of the gym at a fairly fast-paced jog. A few of the heavier guys started complaining right away about having to run.

Got my work cut out for me, Bellamy thought as he crossed the gym to check in on his girls. He sat down next to Clarke and asked, "Did you hear that ending?"

"Oh, with the Rocket metaphor?" she said. "Yes, very nice."

"Yeah, you gotta leave 'em with something to hold onto," he said. "I may not be able to read too well, but I've always been able to give a damn good speech."

"Yeah, everyone always liked it when you talked at pep rallies," she recalled.

"I usually just pulled those out of my ass," he admitted. Man, those had kind of been the days, though, hadn't they? Everyone in that school looking up to him, thinking he was just the greatest, the coolest. Maybe a few of these current players had looked up to him once, but most of them had been too young to really pay attention to anything he'd said at those pep rallies or anything he'd done on the field.

"How's she doin'?" he asked, eyeing Avery.

"I think she's gettin' kinda cranky," Clarke said. "I'd better take her home."

He didn't exactly love the thought of her driving so soon after delivery—hell, it'd only been two weeks—but she'd driven to the store the other day and had insisted she felt fine. "Alright," he said. "You need any help with anything?"

"Nope, I've got it," she said, zipping up Avery's large baby bag. "Just go ahead and get out on the field, crack down on these guys."

"See you in a couple hours," he said, giving her a kiss on the cheek. "You, too," he added for Avery, pressing a kiss to his fingertips and then pressing his fingertips to her face. This was going to be a short practice for many reasons: the heat, the lack of conditioning these guys had done in the past, and his overwhelming desire to get home and spend the evening with his girlfriend and his daughter.

Once out on the field, Bellamy watched in disbelief as the guys struggled through some simple pyramid sprints. Some of them were completely gassed by the time they reached the end of the field, and that was even with him allowing them fifteen seconds in between. Hell, back when he'd been in youth football programs, he'd been lucky to get ten.

"You seein' this?" Miller asked as the guys crouched down at the goal line again.

"Yeah." Bellamy blew his whistle, and they took off—some faster than others—for the ten yard line. "We got a lot of work to do."

Miller shook his head in dismay and said, "It just deteriorated, man."

It sure had. Bellamy looked down at the stopwatch and only waited twelve seconds before blowing his whistle again. Twenty yards this time, and a few of the big guys on defense really took their time getting there.

"Did you ever think you'd see the game from this side?" Miller asked him.

He shrugged. "I don't know. I probably wouldn't have made it in the NFL. I'm not big enough."

"You had the talent, though," Miller said. "You never did tell me why you didn't stick with it in college."

The answer to that question was reserved only for conversations with Clarke. To this day, even Octavia still didn't know, and she never would. "It wasn't everything I thought it'd be," he answered vaguely. Needless to say, taking this job had made him think a lot about how things could have gone differently, and about how that would have altered his whole life. And as much as he hated what had happened at UCF, he didn't hate that he'd ended up back in Arkadia. "I'm glad I'm back here," he said, unable to envision his life any other way now.

"Yeah," Miller said. "If you hadn't come back, Clarke would be a single mom, and Avery wouldn't have a dad."

Picturing the two of them on their own, even though they would have made it . . . it hurt his heart just thinking about it, because it wasn't what either of them deserved. Or maybe . . . maybe if he hadn't been around, Finn would have actually decided to step up and be there for them.

He blew his whistle again, right at fifteen seconds, and tried to refocus his mind on the practice at hand. Because as much as he didn't like thinking about his family ending up alone, he didn't like picturing Finn ending up with them, either.

...

Clarke shook out her old, crinkled pom poms in an attempt to fluff them out a bit and eagerly asked, "You ready?"

"Yeah," Bellamy answered from the bedroom.

I'm gonna embarrass myself here, she thought, opening the bathroom door. She did her best to skip out into the room and jump at the foot of the bed, but her body was still . . . recovering, and that made her wince.

"Careful," Bellamy cautioned, starting to sit up.

"Stay down," she told him, pointing a pom at him. She'd worked hard on this silly little routine, and she wanted to show him. Clearing her throat and imagining Raven yelling, "Ready!" she clapped her poms together and then started in on the motions she'd choreographed with the words she'd made up. "B-E-L-L-A-M-Y! Bellamy! That's my guy! Gooooo, Bellamy!"

He laughed, a huge grin on his face. "Wow. How long did you work on that?"

"Like two minutes," she fibbed.

"Really?" He sounded skeptical.

"Okay, maybe ten," she said, although it'd probably been more like twenty. He'd just looked so tired once he'd gotten home from practice that she'd gotten it in her head that a silly little cheer could perk him up. Not that she was super perky herself. In fact, it'd be a miracle if she was able to stay up past 8:30.

"I like your pom poms," he said suggestively.

She threw them at him and said, "If that's code for what I think it is, then my pom poms are very, very sore."

"They look good, though," he said as she crawled into bed with him. "You look good."

That was nice to hear, especially since she was starting to get frustrated with her post-pregnancy body for not just snapping back into the shape it'd been before starting to expand. "My belly still feels kind of flabby," she admitted, lying on her side. "And I don't know if the stretch marks are ever gonna go away."

"That's fine," he said, dropping her poms onto the floor. "Come here." He put his arms around her, pulling her closer to him, and kissed her deeply, the kind of kiss that didn't end with just one, but rather transformed quite naturally into full-on making out. Bellamy must not have been completely exhausted, because his hands rubbed her sides and her back, and his tongue darted out a few times to caress hers.

"Mmm," she moaned, taking a break from the making out only to boost his ego a bit. "You know, all this sexlessness is reminding me what a good kisser you are."

"One of my few talents," he murmured against her lips before planting one on her again.

"Few?" she said, pulling back a bit.

"Yeah. Kissing. Sex. Sexy things with my hands. And football. That's about all I'm good at," he claimed.

"Motivational speaking," she reminded him.

"And that."

"And parenting," she added.

"That's a talent now?"

"Well, you're really good at it." He was good at a lot of things, and she wished he'd give himself more credit.

"So are you," he said, tucking her hair behind her ear for her. "We're doin' a good job."

"Yeah." They weren't experts yet by any means, but these first two weeks had definitely taught them a lot, more than any app, baby book, or even Lamaze class ever could have. "Bellamy?" she whispered softly.

"Hmm?"

She wasn't even sure she wanted to ask the question that was on her mind, but she felt like, if she didn't, it'd just linger there, distracting her. "Do you think we would've done a good job five years ago?"

That look in his eyes changed from a playful one to a serious one. They hadn't talked about it a whole lot. It wasn't like they were actively avoiding it, because they were just busy being new parents more than anything else. But Clarke felt like they needed to talk about it sometimes, just as a way of continuing to deal with it.

"I don't know," he answered honestly.

It definitely would have been harder, because they'd been younger. But not impossible. "We'll never know," she said sadly. "Can't turn back time." Rolling over onto her back, she looked up at the ceiling and let out a deep sigh. "I just broke down today, Bellamy," she confessed. "While you were at practice. I was watching Avery sleep, and I started thinking about . . . everything." She gulped, feeling a lump in her throat all over again. "And I just started crying," she said. "I mean, I think part of that's normal. A lot of new moms feel extra emotional during these first couple weeks. But most new moms aren't feeling guilty about . . . doing what I did. So it's a lot."

"Clarke . . ." He moved closer to her, reaching out to put a hand on her stomach. "It's like I said in the hospital . . . I forgive you. For not telling me. You don't need my forgiveness for the abortion. That was your choice to make."

"I know, but I still made it without you," she said. His forgiveness for the secrecy meant so much, more than he'd ever know. But it didn't erase her guilt altogether. "I think I'm still trying to forgive myself," she said, her voice shaking as a few tears slipped over onto her cheeks. "Oh, sorry," she said, wiping them away. "I started out with pom poms and ended up in tears." These mood swings definitely didn't just vanish after pregnancy.

"That's okay," he said, rubbing her stomach. "You want me to make you laugh?"

"Yeah." That always made her feel better.

"Alright." He sat up, mumbling, "Let me just get these pom poms."

"Oh, god." What did he have up his sleeve?

"Can't fuckin' believe I'm doin' this. Cheesiest shit I've ever done," he muttered as he got out of bed and went to stand down at the foot of it. He struggled to reach his hands towards the center of the poms and grip the small plastic bars. His hands were way too big. Shaking his head, he groaned and said, "Alright, here we go." Then he launched into the most un-cheerleadery dance moves she'd ever seen, basically just flinging his arms out in all directions as he chanted, "C-L . . . A-R-K-E! Clarke . . ." He had to pause for a few seconds to come up with something that rhymed. "You are the girl for me! Yeah!" He threw both poms up in the air, a huge, dorky smile on his face. "That's so bad, I'm sorry. Don't tell anyone you ever saw me do that."

She laughed so hard at his ridiculous performance that that her stomach muscles hurt, and, for the time being, at least, all her tears just went away. Her boyfriend may not have been a cheerleader, but he was still her cheerleader. And that made her feel so lucky.