Chapter 74

Lugging around Avery's baby carrier was kind of a hassle, but it was one Clarke was quickly becoming accustomed to. It wasn't super heavy, but it was like a constant bulky accessory.

"So what did you think about Mommy & Me Yoga?" Clarke asked in her high-pitched baby voice as she situated Avery's carrier on top of a chair at their table. This host of the restaurant had complimented how cute Avery was when they'd walked in. "Huh? Did you enjoy it?" she asked.

Avery didn't respond, instead opting to squeeze her purple bunny. She had a good grip already.

"Yeah, me, neither," Clarke said, abandoning her baby voice. "Maybe tomorrow we'll just go for a walk." For some reason, all the other moms at today's yoga session had looked like fitness models. Their kids had been older than Avery by a couple months at least, and two of the women had even brought their toddlers, so it seemed likely that they'd just been attending the class longer. But that didn't mean Clarke had had any easier of a time not comparing her physique to theirs.

"Alright, I can find something to eat here . . . somehow," she said, looking over the menu. "Maybe a nice salad." Really, what she was craving was a burger, and they had a delicious looking one under the Main Course section, complete with golden French fries that looked perfectly crunchy and seasoned. But a salad would be healthier. "We can't go to Wendy's, 'cause Mommy got banned for . . . reasons," she added, a little more proud of that than she was embarrassed.

As Clarke looked through her options, she subconsciously started to listen to the conversation happening at a table behind her. It was quiet at first, so she didn't feel like she was eavesdropping. But when the voices got louder and more emotional . . . well, then she totally was.

"Don't be mad, Mom," a girl said. Practically pleaded.

"What, do you expect me to be?" a woman—the mom, Clarke presumed—snapped back. "Happy?"

"No." The girl sounded like she was crying, or at least starting to cry. "But I think I'm gonna be okay."

Clarke's interest piqued. For sure. Because by the sound of it, they were talking about . . . something she knew all too well.

"You're seventeen," the mother said.

"Yeah, but Jay's twenty."

"That's part of the problem."

Oh my god, Clarke thought, trying to inconspicuously cast a glance their way. She couldn't see them well out of the corner of her eye, but hearing them remained easy. No one else was sitting in the restaurant, and their conversation was such an intense one that they didn't seem to even notice her sitting there.

"You should've never started dating him," the mother growled angrily. "I told you to stay away. Now look at the situation you're in."

'The situation' was obvious at that point. Even if Clarke hadn't had a similar conversation with her own mother, she would have been able to figure out what they were talking about. She wondered if this was the first conversation they were having about it, or the first of many. It was possible this girl had told her mom in a public place to try to reduce the likelihood of her getting too angry. Clarke had considered telling her mom in public, too, for that very reason.

"I can just . . . take care of it, though," the girl said, lowering her voice, although Clarke could still hear her. "Right?"

Clarke's stomach clenched. Whoa. So they were having that conversation here, too.

"Don't you think I should?" the girl asked. She sounded so unsure, and so afraid. Two feelings Clarke remembered all too well.

...

When she'd envisioned an abortion clinic, Clarke had pictured something . . . cold. Sort of blue-tinted. Tile floors, concrete walls. Very sterile and unfeeling. But the clinic she actually found herself in looked very much like a regular hospital. There was a waiting room with an array of old magazines lying out on a table, and there was even calming, acoustic music playing lightly in the background. The receptionist had smiled politely and said good morning, but . . . it wasn't good. They both knew that.

Clarke's hand had been shaking so badly that she couldn't even hold a pen to fill out the required paperwork, so her mom had taken the clipboard for her and was doing it instead. She wrote quickly and sloppily, in a typical doctor's handwriting, and Clarke preoccupied herself by looking around, noticing every little detail about the place she could. Like the fish tank in the corner. Did girls—women—ever actually stand and stare at that fish tank? Was it supposed to be relaxing? Because it just seemed out of place. And why was the couch she was sitting on so uncomfortable? As if this whole day wasn't uncomfortable enough already . . .

"I think we're the first ones here," she remarked randomly, feeling the need to say . . . something. She and her mom had barely talked on the drive up here.

"Might as well do an early appointment," her mom said, still scribbling information down rapidly.

Clarke wondered how many abortions they actually performed in one day. Did the waiting room ever get packed? Just one soon-to-be dead baby after another?

"Is Dad really not coming?" she asked, even though she already knew he wasn't. If he'd wanted to come and be there for her today, he would have just gotten into the car with them this morning.

"No," her mom said, lips drawn tightly together. Just that one word of response was dripping with . . . resentment. She resented him for not being there.

"I'm sorry for what this is doing to you guys," Clarke apologized, feeling like she'd heard them fight more in the past couple weeks than she had her whole life. "I never meant to cause problems."

Her mom stopped writing for a moment, looked over at her, and assured her, "Your father and I will be fine. We just don't see eye to eye on this. But I'm sure we'll get past it."

I hope so, Clarke thought as her mother flipped to the next page. It wasn't like they were gonna get a divorce or anything, but still . . .

Her stomach gurgled, definitely not because she was hungry, but almost as if to remind her of where her focus needed to be right now. Sure, her parents had their issues, but her own issues were definitely at the forefront of . . . everything. "Why do I have to have the surgery?" she asked her mom. "Isn't there, like, a medicine or something?"

"There is," her mom confirmed. "But it's not quite as reliable. And it takes longer to recover."

"Yeah, but . . . it sounds a lot more . . . humane," Clarke said, wishing she hadn't gotten online and looked up the specifics of vacuum aspiration last night. That had definitely been a mistake. "I just don't know how I feel about some doctor literally suctioning this baby out of me."

"You won't feel a thing," her mother told her. "You'll have a numbing medication."

"Yeah, but I'll still know what's happening." It was impossible not to picture it in her head. Even if what was pulled out of her didn't look like a baby yet, it still was.

"Clarke, the end result's the same no matter what method you choose," her mom said, sounding a bit agitated. "This is the better option for you, trust me. Girls who take those pills end up bleeding heavily for weeks afterward. And there's strong cramping and sometimes nausea. You've got school starting on Monday. You can't be dealing with all of that."

School was pretty much the last thing on her mind. She'd barely even thought about it. "Well, I'm gonna be dealing with stuff no matter what," she pointed out. "What if I can't even go to school on Monday?"

"Then Tuesday will be your first day."

Wouldn't that be suspicious, though? Who missed the first day of school? Would people really believe that she'd just been sick? "So I just go back and act like nothing happened?" she wondered out loud, not sure if she could do that. This summer had not at all gone the way she'd expected it to. First, Bellamy had left early. Then . . . this.

"Isn't that what we agreed?" her mom said. "I'm not gonna say anything. Your father's not gonna say anything. You haven't told anyone else, right?"

She gulped, mumbling, "Right."

"Then no one else needs to know."

As tempting as it had been to tell Raven, there was one person she wished she could tell even more. But it felt too late for that; she'd gone too far down this path. "I wonder if I'll ever tell Bellamy," she pondered.

Her mother shot her a confused look. "Why would you?"

She shrugged unsurely. "Well, what if something changes and we end up getting back together?"

Grunting, her mom shook her head dismissively. "I really don't see that happening."

"Why not?" She and Bellamy had been really good together. They'd made each other laugh all the time, been insanely attracted to each other, and loved spending time together. Even Raven and Zeke, high school golden couple, didn't seem to have quite the same spark she and Bellamy had.

"Because . . ." Her mom sighed frustratedly and finished filling in a few last lines on the paperwork in front of her before she set her pen down and sternly said, "He's your high school boyfriend, Clarke. Realistically, do you know how many girls end up staying with their high school boyfriends? Not many. Because people change and people grow up. They grow apart."

That wasn't always the case, though, was it? Raven and Zeke were going to try to stay together. And she'd heard that two of the teachers at school used to date back in high school. And now they were married. Maybe it wasn't common for a couple to be together that long, but it did happen.

"I had a boyfriend in high school," her mom revealed. "I was head over heels for him. At the time, I thought we'd be together forever. But then he went to college, and I went to college somewhere else, and we both looked back and realized our feelings for each other hadn't been as strong as we thought. It's the same with you and Bellamy."

The way she said it . . . it was like a fact. Something indisputable. "You sound so sure," Clarke said. But as much as her mom was trying to draw a comparison or prove that she could relate in some way, it just wasn't the same. Her being head over heels for some guy wasn't the same as what Clarke felt for Bellamy. It'd taken her a while to accept the enormity of it—too long, in fact—but now that she was sitting in a fucking abortion clinic, about to eliminate his child from the world altogether, she finally felt like she had to own up to it. "I think I might've fallen in love with him, Mom," she mumbled.

Her mom's reaction was swift and strong. "No, you didn't."

"You don't know what I feel," Clarke argued. These words coming out of her mother's mouth were not facts. They weren't anything.

"Yes, I do," her mom insisted. "It's not love; it's lust."

"Maybe it's both." Didn't the best relationships, the real sweep-you-off-your-feet kind, contain both? Sure, perhaps what she and Bellamy had shared had started off as lust, but somewhere along the way, it had morphed into something so much more.

"Well, apparently he loves football more than you," her mom snapped, causing Clarke to frown. "I'm sorry, I don't mean to sound harsh, but . . . look around. He isn't here."

"But he would be if I told him." She couldn't fault him for going out and pursuing his dream, especially not when she'd helped encourage it.

"You're right," her mom said. "He would be here. Trying to talk you out of it."

"God." Clarke glared at her. "Why are you being like this?"

"I just . . ." Her mother trailed off, apparently thinking better of what she'd been about to say. "I'm sorry," she instead repeated. "It's just . . . today's a tense day for me, too. I don't take joy in this. I just want it to be over." With tears surging into her eyes, she grabbed the clipboard and pen and brought it back up to the front desk, where the receptionist pleasantly asked, "All done?" Apparently it wasn't all done yet, though, because Clarke watched as her mom leaned over the desk to point out a few questions she'd been confused on, and the receptionist nodded and started to clarify what she was supposed to write in.

What am I doing? Clarke asked herself, waves of doubt suddenly crashing over her. It wasn't too late to back out. If she decided to, then that receptionist could put all those papers through the shredder, and she and her mom could get back into the car and drive right home. Her dad would be so relieved that she wasn't able to go through with it. He'd hug her, and they'd cry together, but he'd promise her that everything was going to be alright.

Speaking of crying . . . her attention diverted when a girl emerged from the back room. She was in a wheelchair, being pushed by some young guy who looked like he was probably her boyfriend. She was wearing every day clothing, but she was sniffling and wiping her nose, and her boyfriend's face was just a blank, sad stare straight ahead. He wheeled her towards the sliding glass doors that led outside, where she would be met with a small crowd of protesters who had signs with pictures of aborted fetuses on them. Plenty of signs, but no compassion. One of them had gotten right in Clarke's face and screamed at her when she'd walked in.

Clarke watched them leave, and on impulse, she whipped out her phone and pulled up her contacts. Right up there towards the top was Bellamy's name, and her thumb hovered over it. He was so many things to so many people. A son. A brother. A teammate and quarterback. A friend. A lover, ex-boyfriend. Someone's father.

If she did this, then there wasn't going to be a child anymore, and he wouldn't be a father. Part of him, a part of his identity he didn't even know existed, would be gone. She'd be taking something huge away from him. And she loved him. She really did.

She came so close to pressing that name on her screen, which would have automatically dialed him up. But if she heard his voice, then it was over. She'd be a goner. She'd tell him everything, and then he'd come running home to help her through this. He'd sacrifice everything else for her and for this child, but that just wasn't fair to him. Not that this was, either. It felt like a lose-lose situation either way. It felt like, no matter what, she was going to hurt him.

As her mom handed over the completed paperwork, Clarke turned off her phone and pocketed it again, feeling like the chance had passed. She sat there stiff as a board, and her mother rejoined her on that uncomfortable couch without saying a word. And together, silently, they just waited.

...

Avery started crying. For no apparent reason whatsoever, she started crying, and despite Clarke's efforts to sooth and quiet her, she would not stop.

"Sorry," she apologized to that young girl and her mom. Oh god, probably the last thing they needed to see or hear was a baby.

The girl tried to hold it together, but eventually, she just broke down into tears and went running into the bathroom with her hands over her face. Her mom just let her go, which was probably for the best. She probably needed a moment alone.

Clarke picked Avery up out of her carrier and whispered, "Shh," as she held her to her shoulder and gently patted her back. For whatever reason, Avery quieted down as rapidly as she'd begun crying in the first place. It was almost as if she'd been trying to get that girl's attention.

"Clarke?"

Clarke looked up when she heard the mother's voice, but she didn't recognize her, so she wasn't sure how she knew her name.

"I'm Jennifer. Your mom's my doctor," the woman explained. "Do you mind if I sit down?"

She actually did, just because she was nervous about this woman's motivation. But she said, "Sure," anyway, and Jennifer pulled out a chair and took a seat.

"I suppose you overheard everything," she said.

Clarke immediately tried to downplay how closely she'd been listening. "Oh, you know, it's none of my business."

Jennifer ignored that and cut straight to the question Clarke had been fearing: "Do you think you could talk to my daughter?"

I don't even know your daughter, Clarke thought. And you guys don't know me. But if this woman was asking her to do such a thing, then that had to mean she knew about her, that she knew about the choice she'd made.

"I heard that you went through something similar when you were her age," the woman said quietly, "and . . . well, I assume you'd go back and do things differently now, maybe look into adoption now that you've had . . ." She trailed off, pointing to Avery. "She's beautiful, by the way."

"Thank you," Clarke said, and she felt livid at herself for saying those words. Here this virtual stranger was bringing up her abortion, and she was thanking her?

"I'm sorry if I sound nosy," Jennifer apologized. "I'm just . . . oh, my head's just spinning right now."

Mine, too, Clarke thought. She hadn't imagined that an innocent brunch outing would turn into something as awkward and uncomfortable as this. "Um, yeah, well, you know, so is hers, probably even more than yours," Clarke said, feeling the need to advocate for how that seventeen year old girl was probably feeling. "So . . . just try to listen and be as supportive as you can."

The woman nodded, though she looked like she was about to start crying and follow her daughter into that bathroom at any moment. "Should she tell the baby's father?" she asked, as if Clarke somehow would know the answer to that. "You didn't, right? Do you regret that?"

Even though Jennifer was probably a very nice woman who was just too worked up to realize that her questioning had crossed the line into invasiveness a long time ago, Clarke could no longer sit there and engage in any sort of conversation. "I'm sorry, I have to go," she said, putting Avery back into her carrier. She strapped her in hastily and said, "I just remembered there's somewhere I have to be. Right now." She got up, offering a quick, "Good luck with everything," before she hurried out, feeling like she could no longer even breathe in there. So much for lunch.

...

Bellamy tapped his foot nervously as he waited for Roan to show up. They'd said 7:00, right? He hadn't imagined that?

At 7:07, Roan finally walked into Eligius, much to Bellamy's relief. He needed a guy to talk to about . . . things. Important things.

"Hey, sorry I'm so late," Roan apologized.

Bellamy noticed the fresh-looking cut above his friend's eyebrow and asked, "Rough day?"

Rolling his eyes, Roan explained, "The new guy doesn't know how to carry a beam. He's lucky he didn't hit me harder." He snorted and shook his head.

"New guy." Bellamy absorbed that tidbit of information quietly. Hadn't Emerson's excuse for firing him been that he'd been forced to make cuts? But if that was the case, how the hell had they hired a new guy? Unless someone else had quit, it seemed like that had been a crock of bullshit. Maybe that had just been an excuse to get rid of him.

"Hey, I heard about your new job," Roan said, changing the subject rapidly. "Coach, huh? That's gotta be a good fit."

"Yeah, I think it is," Bellamy said. "I hope it is." If he couldn't get that team a few wins under their belt this season, he was just going to look like a failure. He'd already failed at one job in Arkadia, didn't need to fail at another.

They easily could have sat and talked about work for a while, but that wasn't why Bellamy had called his former coworker up and asked him to meet up with him. He wanted to cut to the chase, so he said, "Well, thanks for coming. I know this was all kinda last minute today, but . . . it's important."

"Sounded like," Roan said. "What's going on?"

Bellamy picked up his now empty glass, wishing he could have another drink. But he didn't want to risk getting sloppy. Not on a night that had the potential to be life-changing. "I need your advice," he told Roan. "See, you're the only friend I've got who's married. And I wanna get married. To Clarke." He laughed a little after adding that last part, because it wasn't like he needed to clarify. "Obviously," he said. "But I gotta propose first. And I already did that once, but it just blew up in my face."

Roan frowned. "What do you mean?"

Bellamy was . . . surprised. At least momentarily. He'd just assumed that everyone knew by now, that the gossip had spread all over town. But Roan hadn't gone to Arkadia high school, so he ran with a different crowd of people most of the time. And he was busy with work and his family, so it made sense that he didn't know. And Bellamy didn't feel like revealing the whole story to him, so he kept his summary of the whole ordeal vague. "She said no. Not because she wanted to; just because . . . well, we still had some stuff to deal with. You really didn't hear about all that?"

Roan shrugged and shook his head, then said, "It's none of my business."

That was refreshing. So many other people seemed to think they had a right to know and talk about it all they wanted to. "Right," he said, relieved to have skimmed over that part of the story. "Anyway, I gotta propose to her again, but I'm fuckin' terrified, 'cause I want her to say yes this time. So I feel like it's gotta be perfect." All day, he'd been thinking about how he could do it, what special way he could pop the question this time. Because he couldn't just redo the last proposal. This one had to be new, different. Better.

"Nah, it doesn't have to be perfect," Roan said. "Trust me. Mine wasn't. If the girl wants to marry you, she'll say yes no matter how you propose."

"You think?"

"Yeah."

Bellamy really wanted to believe that, but he also wanted some reassurance, so he asked his friend, "How'd you do it? How'd you ask your wife?"

Roan smirked and fell silent as he reminisced for a moment. "Oh, I asked Echo in an arcade," he said. "Romantic, huh?"

Bellamy laughed lightly.

"Used one of those plastic rings you get out the prize machine," Roan recalled. "Wasn't fancy. Didn't need to be. I just wanted to ask her, so I did. And she wanted to say yes. So she did."

Bellamy could picture that in his head, a couple who had been through a lot having a perfectly lighthearted proposal, one that had resulted in a good, stable marriage and a happy family. "Sounds so simple," he said.

"It is," Roan responded. "You and Clarke are in love, aren't you?"

Was that even a question? "Yeah, of course."

"And you guys have moved past . . . whatever made her say no before?"

There were times when she still looked sad about it, nights she brought it up and cried a little about it, and he'd be lying if he said he hadn't thought about it, too. But it wasn't consuming either one of their lives the way it could have. "Yeah, I think so," he said.

Roan shrugged. "Then there's nothing to worry about."

Was that true? Bellamy really wanted to believe it was. He wanted to imagine his proposal and not feel any knots in his stomach. He wanted to feel completely confident about it, the way he had last time.

"When it comes to something like this, the past doesn't matter," Roan said. "The future does."

The future, Bellamy mused. He liked the sound of that. Because when he thought about the future, all he thought of was Clarke and Avery.

...

By the time Bellamy got home, the sun was already setting. He'd called Clarke, of course, to let her know that he was at the bar with Roan. But he hadn't told her why they were there or what they'd been talking about. No. That would come later. The plan that he and Roan had concocted was to hide the ring under her pillow and tell her to peek under there before she got into bed. A surprise. Hopefully a somewhat adorable one.

"Hey, babe, sorry I'm late," he apologized as he walked in the door.

"Oh, that's okay," she said. She was in the kitchen, pulling a big casserole dish out of the oven. "Gave me a chance to get dinner going."

It was way too late for dinner, though, which meant she'd waited for him. He felt bad about leaving her alone most of the night, but now that he was home, he was so damn determined to make it a night to remember. "Is Avery asleep?" he asked, sauntering towards the counter.

"For now," Clarke said. "Probably not for long." She picked up a big wooden spoon and began to stir the casserole around in the dish. He couldn't tell what was in it, but it looked good. Although he'd just gorged on pretzels at the bar, so he wasn't very hungry.

"You need any help with anything?" he asked her.

"Um, I think I got it," she replied. "But you can stand around and be eye candy if you want. I wouldn't hate that."

He smirked, leaning against the counter, and watched her stir. "So how was your day?"

"Oh, fine," she said with a slight sigh. "Pretty uneventful. The yoga was . . . interesting. But I think I'm gonna keep going. At least once in a while." She shrugged. "Might as well, right? It's not like I have anything better to do."

He made a mental note to take a day off next week, to cancel practice so that they could go do something as a family. Like maybe go to the zoo. Avery was too little to really know what animals she'd be seeing, but they could at least get some pictures of her.

"They had us start out sitting in, like, the butterfly pose," Clarke went on, "and then when we leaned forward, we got to kiss our baby's belly. That was kind of cute."

You're kinda cute, he thought, smiling at her. God, even in a simple white t-shirt and pajama shorts, Clarke was still the prettiest girl he'd ever seen.

"But then it got harder when we started doing all these stretches and poses with the baby underneath us," she kept going. "All I could think about was falling and crushing her. Oh, but then . . ."

Even though she continued talking, he started to get a little . . . lost as he listened to her. Not because he was bored, but because he was just . . . fascinated. Totally enthralled by the way her lips moved and formed all those words, and by the way her blue eyes sparkled so effortlessly. There she was, the love of his life, the girl who had been the one for him for the better part of a decade now, and he still hadn't married her. What was he waiting for? Hadn't they already waited long enough?

"Hey, Clarke?" he interrupted softly.

"What?" she asked.

This wasn't the plan. That ring was upstairs, stashed away in the back of their nightstand drawer, and he was supposed to find it and slip it under her pillow. That was the plan. And that would've been fine. But for some reason, standing there with her in that kitchen, listening to her ramble aimlessly about her day . . . this just felt right. So he blurted out a question he was sure he already knew the answer to: "Do you still wanna marry me?"

She stopped stirring the casserole abruptly and stared at him with wide, surprised eyes. It took her a moment to respond, but when she did, it was a quiet unassuming, "Well, yeah, of course." And then she looked down at the food in front of her and actually tried to start stirring it again. She didn't do that for long, though, until she stopped again, looked back up at him, and said, "Are you asking?"

There was no backtracking now, no pretending he'd just brought up the question to see what she would say. "I think I am," he told her. Except that sounded too uncertain, and he wasn't uncertain about any of this. "Yeah. Yeah, I am," he confirmed. "I'm asking. Will you marry me?" God, he wasn't down on one knee or anything, didn't have the ring in his hand, but there was something kind of romantic about a spontaneous proposal, wasn't there? He just loved her so much that he couldn't hold off any longer.

"Are—are you sure you want to?" Clarke stammered, turning a bit to face him. "Because you don't have to. I know we have Avery now, but I don't expect anything, especially not after . . ." She trailed off, gulping nervously, and remained nervous as he words tumbled out. "I mean, I would understand—like, totally, completely understand—if you still need time."

"I'm fine," he assured her. He'd had some time, and now he was ready to move forward.

Still, even with that insistence from him, she kept trying to give him an out. "It's just that . . . you're not obligated," she told him, as if he ever felt that way with her. "And I don't want you to feel like you're obligated. You're her dad—she knows that—and you've already done so much for us. You don't need to do this, too, if you're not sure . . ."

"Clarke, I'm sure," he cut in.

"But-"

"Just stop, okay?" As nice as it was of her to double and triple check that this was really what he wanted . . . he needed her to know that he'd never wanted anything more. "Marry me," he said again, not even phrasing it as a question this time. Because he already knew what her answer was. It felt different this time.

She inhaled a heavy breath, then let it out shakily. "Okay."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. I mean yes," she corrected. Once she'd said that word, she allowed herself to relax, and a big smile swept across her face. "Yes," she repeated, more emphatically this time.

There it was. There was the word he'd wanted to hear for a while now. It wouldn't have been right to hear it before Avery was born, and looking back, as painful as it all had been, he was glad she hadn't accepted his proposal before being completely honest with him. They'd needed to wait. And now they had.

Cupping her face in both his hands, he leaned down and kissed her excitedly. She kissed him back giddily, her hands finding their way to his arms, and in the back of his mind, he realized that, for the first time in his life, he was kissing his fiancée.

"Oh, wait," he said, pulling back suddenly. "I forgot the ring. I have it. It's upstairs." He darted towards the staircase, instructing her, "Just wait down here while I go get it." He was almost all the way up when he decided against that and said, "Actually, on second thought, go outside. Go stand on the beach. I'll be right out."

"Outside?" Clarke echoed.

"Yeah." He grinned, thinking back to all the time they'd spent together on the beach. Maybe not always this beach at this house, but over the years . . . they'd shared a lot of good memories there. Plus, now that it was dark out, it was damn romantic out there.

Locating the ring turned out to be harder than he'd thought. "Shit, shit, shit," he swore as he rummaged through the drawer. "Where is it?" Ever since he'd moved back in, his stuff had sort of just been dumped into drawers and scattered onto shelves. And neither one of them felt particularly inclined to clean since, when they weren't busy with Avery, they tended to feel exhausted. He hadn't minded the fullness of the nightstand drawer until now, because it'd been a good place to store the ring out of sight. But now he needed it. He needed it badly.

"Ah, there you are," he said when he finally found it. He opened up the box, did a quick inspection to make sure it was as perfect as he remembered, and said, "Okay," already kind of breathless as he raced back out of the bedroom, this time with the small box in hand. At the top of the stairs, he had an idea, though, and said, "Wait a minute," as he turned back around. He headed into the nursery, flipped on the light, and reached down into his daughter's crib. "Hey, rise and shine, sleepyhead," he said, lifting her out. "Daddy needs your help." Even though he'd already gotten his yes out of Clarke, he still wanted to do something kind of cheesy, something she would always remember and could tell their grandkids about someday. "What're we gonna do?" he mused, looking around the room. "Help me think of something."

Since he couldn't exactly leave Clarke standing outside by herself for too long, the thinking had to be abbreviated. And since Avery didn't know what was going on, it was up to him to do the thinking. Once he had his idea and committed to it, he carried the baby downstairs and walked out the sliding glass door with her, holding her close to his chest. She rested her cheek on him, but her eyes remained open, almost as if she didn't want to sleep through this.

And there stood Clarke, his girl, his princess, waves lapping at her feet. The moonlight reflected on the water's surface, but she looked so much brighter and more beautiful to him.

"Avery wanted to be a part of it," he explained as he stepped down off the back porch.

"Oh, she did, did she?"

"Yeah. You know, this is a big moment for her, too." He looked down at her and clasped her little hand in his larger one, then returned his attention to Clarke and teasingly asked, "So do you like the moon? And the stars? I hired them just for this special occasion."

She laughed a little as he came to stand beside her. "They're very nice."

"And the weather . . . I'm gonna have to thank the weather big time, because it's really doin' its job here." For real, though, he couldn't have asked for a more perfect night. It was warm but not too warm, the breeze was perfect, and the ocean, for the most part, was surprisingly calm and still.

"It's perfect," she said. "So what's your plan here? I already said yes."

"I know. But this is gonna be when it's official." He cleared his throat, making a big show out of it as if he were going to launch into some long spiel, and said, "You know, I thought about maybe pulling out an impromptu speech, 'cause you know how I am about speeches."

"So good," she said.

"So good," he agreed. "And I could do that pretty easily. 'cause I could tell you how much I love you, or how much being with you has changed my whole life. Or how I don't wanna spend a single day without you."

Her eyes started to get shimmery, and she had to blink back a few tears.

"But then I just thought . . . she already knows that," he said. "So maybe I should have Avery do the honors. You ready?"

"Yeah," she said, smiling excitedly.

"Okay, here we go." He turned his daughter around, still keeping his hand clasped over hers, revealing the piece of paper he'd hastily scribbled on and taped to her onesie. Will you marry Daddy? it asked. His handwriting was complete crap, and it probably would have been cooler to actually design and order one a onesie that said that, but hell, this was getting the job done, and he could tell by the look on Clarke's face that she adored it.

"Aww," she said. "Yes, Avery, I will marry Daddy."

Despite being rudely awoken up in the middle of one of her many naps, that got a coo out of Avery.

"Ooh, she likes the sound of that," Clarke said.

"Yeah, she does." He liked it, too. "Oh, and look what she's got in her hand." He unclasped his hand slowly, and Avery's fell open along with his. There in the palm of her hand lay the ring he'd envisioned Clarke wearing for months now, the one he'd picked out and had designed just for her.

"Oh my god," Clarke gasped. "I love this."

For being a spur of the moment proposal, he had to admit, it'd been pretty good. "Here, you take her so I can do this the right way," he said, taking the ring as he handed Avery over. With Clarke holding the baby, he was free to get down on one knee and slide the ring onto her left hand. It fit perfectly, and it looked amazing.

"There we go," he said, slowly standing up, holding her trembling hand in his. "There it is."

"There it is," she said, looking down at the ring in awe before she lifted her eyes up to his once again and tearfully told him, "I love you, Bellamy."

"I love you, too." Damn, his heart felt like it was getting so big that it was about to break through his chest. If someone had told him back in high school that it was possible to love someone as much as he loved Clarke Griffin and the small little girl she was holding, he wouldn't have believed them. But now, he knew. "Come here," he said, encircling his arms around her waist. He pulled her as close as he could with Avery still in between them and gave her another kiss, quite possibly the happiest kiss of his entire life.

Finally, he thought, smiling against her lips. Finally.