Chapter 77

When the alarm sounded, Clarke didn't even bother to reach over and shut it off. She knew Bellamy would stretch right over her and do it instead, and indeed he did, after letting it buzz annoyingly for about ten seconds. Her cell phone would chime five minutes from now, and his would go off five minutes after that. They had to set a lot of alarms these days, because it was really tempting to just fall back asleep.

"Morning," Bellamy murmured, spooning up behind her.

"Mmm, morning," she moaned sleepily, reluctant to open her eyes. Surely she could get a few more minutes before she needed to get up and feed Avery, right?

Avery. She stiffened, listening closely to the sound of silence. There was no noise coming from across the hall. No gurgling, which was usually was Avery did when she was about to wake up. "Wait a minute," she said, opening her eyes. "Do you hear that?"

"What?" Bellamy asked.

"No crying." Since she was a mom, that meant she was automatically paranoid, so her hand shot over to the nightstand to seize her phone. She checked her baby monitor app and saw that her daughter was still snoozing away in her crib, her tiny little feet kicking and moving a bit as she dreamt.

Flipping over onto her back, Clarke showed Bellamy the image on her phone in astonishment. "She's still sleeping," she said. "Bellamy, it's 7:00, and she's still sleeping. It's a miracle." Had they really gotten almost five uninterrupted hours of rest? She'd almost forgotten that was possible.

"You're right," Bellamy said, sounding equally as amazed. "And you know what this means?"

She's gonna start sleeping through the night in the next few months, Clarke thought, feeling all kinds of hopeful. More restful was surely in her future.

But Bellamy had other ideas. "We've probably got about ten minutes to wake each other up," he said, crawling on top of her. He took her phone out of her hand for her and began kissing her, and that bulge she'd felt pressing into her backside now ground against her lower abdomen. Oh, yeah, she was down for a quickie.

Unfortunately, Avery must have had some sort of internal radar that alerted her whenever her parents were about to get frisky, because she chose that moment of all moments to start crying. There was no build-up, no crescendo. She went from sleeping peacefully to letting out the most needy noise Clarke had ever heard. And it totally killed the mood. She and Bellamy stopped kissing, and she almost laughed at the timing of all of this. "Ten minutes, huh?"

"Dammit," he swore.

Yeah, she had to laugh, despite what a bummer it was. A little wake-up sex would have been a good way to start the day, but that just wasn't so easy to do anymore. "I got this," she said, slithering out from underneath him.

"Okay." He lay back and announced, "I'm just gonna stay here and jack off."

"You do that." She would have loved to have been able to help him with that, but . . . mommy obligations. She couldn't ignore them.

Once Bellamy left for work, Clarke worked her way through a mental to-do list for the morning. Laundry, dishes, and all sorts of other monotonous housewife stuff. But once she got all that out of the way, she was able to squeeze in a little music time with Avery, a routine she was trying to implement consistently. She played baby music for her, sat her up on the couch, and moved her arms around for her in time with the beat. Avery seemed to like it, and everything Clarke had read about music said it was good for a baby's development, so it was a win-win.

Feeling a little cabin fever in the afternoon, Clarke decided she had to get out of the house for a while. It worked out perfectly, too, because Octavia had just texted her yesterday about spending time with Avery. So she roped her in as a babysitter and made gym plans with Harper. In between dropping Avery off at Octavia's and meeting up with Harper, though, she swung by Eligius with a few hand-drawn fliers she'd created a couple days ago. She'd stashed them in her vehicle's glove compartment, not sure she would ever actually hang them up, but the stay-at-home mom routine was starting to drain her a bit. She needed to interject something new into all her routines.

Diyoza was there, of course, as per usual. It really seemed like that woman lived at the bar. Since the lunch rush had come and gone, it was pretty empty in there, just two old men sitting at a window booth drinking coffee. Diyoza was in the middle of reorganizing the cash in the register, but when she looked up and saw Clarke, she closed it. "Hey, stranger," she said. "What brings you by?"

"Just wanted to say hi," Clarke said, although she definitely had an ulterior motive in the form of five neon-colored papers in her left hand. "And see if I could hang up a flier," she admitted.

"Sure," Diyoza said. "What for?"

"I need to have some money coming in, so I decided to offer music lessons." Clarke lay the fliers down on the counter, hoping they were eye-catching enough. She'd opted for a cartoony style of font and drawings, all done in just black Sharpie. All the necessary info was on there, but she didn't feel like it looked too cluttered.

"Vocal, guitar, and piano," her former boss read. "Very impressive."

"Well, I'm not the world's best musician or anything," Clarke said modestly. "But I'm not bad. Decent enough to offer lessons." She'd cringed as a little girl when her mom and dad had told her they wanted her to take piano lessons. But after she'd excelled at that, she'd been able to teach herself how to play the guitar. And the singing stuff had always just come naturally. "Can you believe it?" she said. "Four years in college studying biology, and this is what I'm trying to do for work."

"Hey, do what you love," Diyoza said. "I think it's great."

It definitely wasn't going to be hugely profitable, but it wasn't going to be super time-consuming, either. It was a simple, enjoyable way to make a little extra money and have something to do that wasn't in a mom-capacity. "What do you think about the price?" she asked, willing to lower it if need be. "Would people actually pay that?"

Diyoza looked down at the bottom of the flier and quickly assured her, "Oh, yeah. I would, if I wasn't so damn busy all the time. I'd love to play guitar." She turned around and tacked the neon yellow flier up onto a board behind the bar. "There. How's that look?"

"Very nice," Clarke said, figuring she could hang the other fliers at the post office and a couple gas stations. "Hey, sorry I can't come back to work here, by the way," she apologized. "It's just, I wanna be with Avery a lot right now."

"Of course. Can't blame you for that," Diyoza said. "Where is she anyway?"

"Oh, my future sister-in-law's watching her today because I'm gonna go work out with my friend," Clarke replied.

Diyoza smiled. "I heard about that."

Clarke made a face. "Me working out?" Were people in this town gossiping about her body now, too? Was it Roma? Or Callie?

"No, the sister-in-law. The engagement," Diyoza clarified. "Congratulations."

"Oh, thank you." That was a much better part of her life for people to be talking about.

"And don't think I didn't notice the rock on your finger."

Clarke lifted up her hand, admiring the pretty ring. "He did a good job."

Diyoza grunted, "Better than my ex-husband did."

It took a moment for that to register with Clarke. "Wait a minute, you were married?" For some reason, she'd always pictured Charmaine Diyoza as the ultimate single woman, never impressed by a man enough to marry him.

"Seven years ago. For about three months," she said. "Three months of hell, I'll tell you that."

Hell? Clarke thought. How encouraging.

"But I'm sure your marriage will be a lot better," Diyoza added.

Of course it would be. Just the thought of marrying Bellamy made her feel all warm and fuzzy inside. It was just meant to be, always had been.

"Oh, you might wanna duck in the back," Diyoza told her suddenly.

"Why? Did my pants rip?" She swung her hand around to cover what she was sure would be a hole in her leggings.

"No, it's . . . your ex is here," Diyoza said quietly.

"What?" Clarke whipped her head around.

"Don't look," Diyoza hissed.

Crap, she thought, wishing she could just make herself invisible. "Do you think he noticed me?"

Diyoza cringed. "Yeah. Good luck." She headed over to the men in the booth with a fresh pot of coffee in her hand, and Clarke mentally debated whether or not she'd look too crazy if she just sprinted into the back room and hide out there for a while. Except she couldn't hide out for long, because Harper was expecting her at the gym in fifteen minutes.

"Hey, Clarke."

Too late, she realized, slowly turning around. "Finn." She couldn't exactly smile when she saw him, but she didn't want to seem like a bitch, either, so she tacked on a pathetic little, "Hey," hoping that would be the full extent of the conversation.

But of course it wasn't. "How you been?" he asked.

"Good. Really good." She fiddled with her ring a bit, wondering if he would notice it the way Diyoza had.

"And Avery?" he questioned.

"She's good, too." Clarke suddenly felt even more grateful for Octavia for being the babysitter today. If she'd had Avery with her, then Finn would have wanted to hold her again, and that was just so awkward.

"I just was walking by when I saw your car. Thought I'd pop in," Finn explained. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and didn't say anything more for a few seconds. When he did speak again, it was to say, "So I heard about you and Bellamy."

"Really? How?"

"Well, it was in the paper," he said. "Plus, you posted about it on Instagram."

"Oh, yeah." No wonder everyone knew.

"I was only on your Instagram to see pictures of Avery," he told her. "And I saw you posted a video of her taking a bath. That was pretty cool."

Clarke couldn't help but shift uncomfortably at the thought of Finn watching that. It wasn't really weird or anything, but . . . it was weird to think of Finn sort of living out that moment from behind a screen. When she took her first steps, Clarke hoped to get that on video, too, but if she posted it online, then Finn would get to feel like he was there to see it. And he wouldn't be. He wasn't meant to be.

"But anyway . . ." Finn said, trailing off. "Uh, yeah, congratulations to you and Bellamy. That's great."

Do you really think it's great? Clarke wondered. Or are you just saying that? She chose to give him the benefit of the doubt and believe the former. "Thanks," she said, leaving it at that because, well, she still didn't feel the need to get all chatty.

Blessedly, Finn, too, seemed willing to put an end to the conversation, because he said, "I'll see you around," as he started to back towards the door.

Oh, can't wait, she thought sarcastically. Couldn't Finn just get a new girlfriend or something? Something to distract him and draw all his attention elsewhere?

For some reason, she'd been expecting to feel . . . maybe a little relieved when he was gone. Another little encounter over. It'd gone smoothly enough. So it confused her when she didn't automatically feel better. In fact, if anything, as she stood there next to that bar counter alone, absentmindedly listening to Diyoza talking to her customers about how hot of a summer they were having so far, she started to feel worse. Her stomach tightened and knotted up even more than it had when Finn had walked in, and she began feeling very uncomfortable. It took her only a few seconds to understand why. It was because that talk with him had been too easy. But she knew something he didn't, something huge, and it was hard to keep something like that inside.

...

Only three days into the school year, classes were already intense. Junior year was no joke, and it was keeping Clarke busy. But she was actually grateful for that. It was actually good for her to have homework to focus on. And her chemistry teacher had strongly hinted that they'd be doing pop quizzes every Monday, difficult pop quizzes. Which meant she had to study every night. She was probably the only student who was happy about that.

Even when she wasn't in class, Clarke still found it to be the best distraction. During her free period, she planted herself at a table in the cafeteria, laid out every book and binder she needed, and worked determinedly on her math homework first, then English, then whatever else she had. She wouldn't have minded having more.

Usually no one bothered her, but on the third day of school, someone approached her at her table and said, "Hey, Clarke."

She barely glanced up, because she was so in the zone. "Hey, Mrs. Sydney." Most kids would have dreaded seeing the principal come towards them, but she knew she wasn't in trouble. She'd been the ideal student so far this year.

Mrs. Sydney sat down next to her. "Busy studying already, huh?"

Clarke shrugged. "You know, junior year. They like to pile the homework on." She flipped her pencil over to erase furiously. She'd gotten an illogical answer for the last math problem on her assignment. Damn story problems.

"I'm sure you can handle it," her principal said. "Well, listen, I need to have a quick chat with you about your schedule. You don't have a class right now, correct?"

"Right." She only had a damn math problem to solve.

"Hmm. See, that's a problem," Mrs. Sydney said, "because only seniors are allowed to have free periods."

Clarke stopped working, feeling like she knew where this was going. "Not juniors?"

"No. We discussed that at open house night, remember?"

"I wasn't at open house night," Clarke informed her. She'd been too busy recovering from her . . . surgery.

"Oh, I see," Mrs. Sydney said. "Well, we can just fix it now. It's no big deal. We just need to find a class that fits into your schedule." She took out a piece of paper that had a big chart on it, one that listed every teacher and every class they taught throughout the day, and slid it towards Clarke. "We're a little limited for options in seventh period, and since you're in choir, that makes things more difficult to switch around," she said. "But you've got a few choices. Algebra II?"

Clarke tapped her textbook with her pencil and said, "I'm in college algebra."

"Oh, that's right." Principal Sydney whipped out a pen and crossed out Algebra II on the chart. "Well, it's pretty much gonna have to be an elective then. Let's see . . . economics . . ."

"Already took it." She scanned the rest of the classes that would be an option for her, and she was afraid she knew what the principal was about to suggest.

"It'd probably end up being child development then."

No, Clarke thought fearfully. No way.

"I mean, I think you'd have more of an interest in that than woodworking."

Last year, she would have. Last year, she would have taken that class with no problem. But this year, it was a huge problem, too big of one to overcome. "No," she said adamantly, not even willing to consider it.

"No?" Mrs. Sydney echoed.

"No." She stared at the title of that class, just two words on the page, both of which were filling her with absolute dread. "No, I don't wanna be in child development. I don't wanna do that."

"Well, it's only for a semester."

"I don't care!" she yelled, her feeling of panic coming out. "I can't . . . I can't be in there. Please, just—just put me in the other class. I'll do woodworking. I don't care." Could she be any clearer? She wasn't setting foot in some stupid class about kids. Nobody could make her.

"Are you sure?" Mrs. Sydney asked.

"Yes." She didn't even care if she sucked at woodworking and it destroyed her GPA. Wells was going to get valedictorian anyway.

"Okay," Mrs. Sydney said. "I'll get your schedule changed." Slowly, she stood up from the table, but she'd only taken a few steps when she turned back around and asked, "Is everything okay, Clarke?"

No, nothing was okay. But she'd been able to forget about it, all of it, until right now. If she'd just been able to sit there and work on her homework and do her studying, then her hands wouldn't have started shaking, and she wouldn't have tears stinging her eyes. Mrs. Sydney was not a guidance counselor, though, and even the school's actual guidance counselor didn't know what she'd done over the summer. And she never would. Nobody would.

"Yeah," she lied, bringing it back inside, covering it all up. She even managed a smile and a "Thanks." And apparently that was enough, because her principal didn't ask any more questions. She nodded, accepted that blatant lie, and headed back to the office. And Clarke wasted no time getting right back to work.

...

She knew she had to tell him. It wasn't like it was going to stay a secret forever. Nothing ever did.

Clarke left her fliers on the counter and ran out after Finn, catching up with him at the street corner. "Hey, Finn!" she called, stopping him just as he was about to cross the street. "You have a minute? There's something I need to tell you."

"Uh-oh," he said with a half-grin on his face. "Last time you said those words to me, you ended up telling me you were pregnant."

That wasn't something to joke about. Telling him had been horrible, especially with how he'd reacted. But of course he hadn't really given any consideration to her feelings then, so she figured she didn't have to sugarcoat things for the sake of his feelings now. "Once Bellamy and I get married . . . he wants to adopt Avery," she revealed to him, feeling like he had to have at least suspected this would happen. "And I want that, too."

His little grin faded in an instant, and he got serious very quickly. "Just like that, huh? I don't even get a say?"

"Finn . . ."

"She's my daughter, too, you know."

That was where he was wrong, though. It was like he just used that word without actually realizing what it meant. "It takes more than DNA to be a father," she told him, eliciting a wince. "I'm sorry, I don't mean to sound harsh, but . . . Bellamy and I can give her a real family," she said. "It's what she deserves."

He looked down, swallowed hard, then mumbled, "Yeah, well, I wouldn't know anything about having a real family." With tears in his eyes, tears that looked legitimate and genuine, he trudged across the street without another word. He wasn't playing it up for sympathy. He was actually hurt. And she actually felt a little bit bad about it. Obviously she wasn't going to change her mind, but . . . she and Finn had been close at one time. Sort of. They'd talked about his upbringing, what it had been like for him as a kid bouncing around the foster system. He really didn't have any family, at least not yet. But she honestly hoped, for his sake, that he did have one someday. It just wouldn't be with her and Avery.

...

What was supposed to have just been a regular day had ended up being surprisingly stressful. In the interest of full transparency, Clarke talked to Bellamy when he got home from practice, telling him about the brief but important conversation she'd had with Finn that day. She knew it wasn't what he wanted to hear, but she couldn't lie to him and say that Finn hadn't had any reaction to it. Because he definitely had.

"So you think he's gonna fight it?" Bellamy finally asked. It was the obvious question. He stood next to the stove, arms crossed tightly over his chest, doing his best to disguise his worry.

"No," she said, slicing up some potatoes on the cutting board. "He was just upset." She got going so quickly that she nearly sliced her own finger and decided to slow down. She still wasn't the greatest cook, so cooking and talking at the same time wasn't exactly easy. Especially not when they were talking about something so serious.

"Yeah, well, now I'm upset," Bellamy muttered. "Why'd you tell him?"

"I had to," she said. "You can't adopt her if he doesn't sign off on it."

Bellamy's whole body tensed up. It was noticeable.

"Which he's going to," she made sure to add. "He didn't say he was gonna give us any problems. Just try to think positive." She slid the potato slices off the cutting board and into a bowl, then turned around and dumped that bowl into the pot. She wasn't exactly sure what she was trying to make, but she figured that if she put some vegetables in there, it'd turn into something.

Bellamy shook his head, swearing, "Fuck, I should've just signed that birth certificate myself."

"That's paternity fraud," she reminded him.

"Like hell it is," he grumbled, looking at the ground.

She sighed. As much as she would have loved to have Bellamy's name on that all-important document, it just wasn't allowed. But maybe they could get it changed, though, once everything became . . . official.

"I'm talking legally here, Bellamy," she said. "You know you couldn't have done that. You know we have to go about this in the right way."

"The right way," he repeated sullenly. "Alright, fine. So what do we do?"

She wasn't sure why he was asking her when she didn't know anything more about it than he did. "We do . . . exactly what we planned on doing," she said, reaching for another potato to start slicing it up. "We talk to Finn, get him to understand that this is what's best for everyone involved. He agrees to relinquish his parental rights, and then you can adopt her." She knew it was like a knife in Bellamy's heart to hear her talk about any rights Finn had, because he hadn't done anything to earn or deserve them. But that was the kind of language they were going to need to grow accustomed to while they worked all of this out. She felt the need to reassure him, though, to put his mind at ease, so she added on, "Nothing's changed now that he knows."

He nodded silently for a few seconds, still looking upset, still sounding upset, too, when he said, "Yeah, hopefully not." He turned and headed for the stairs, and she knew he was going up to the nursery to spend some time with Avery, probably just to watch her sleep. That seemed to be what he did whenever Finn made an unwanted cameo appearance in their lives.

The pot on the stove was really starting to boil now, perhaps too much, so she turned down the heat and picked up the knife again, ready to resume slicing up the potatoes. Except . . . getting dinner ready didn't really seem all that important anymore. In fact, she wasn't even hungry. She didn't want to sit and eat; she wanted to go be with Bellamy. Clearly this was bothering him, and because it bothered him, it bothered her, too. She just had to remind herself that it wouldn't always weigh so heavily on their minds, though. Once they got married, then things would probably progress pretty naturally from there.

She made one big slice through the middle of the potato, then stopped as an idea occurred to her. A way to get things moving, to speed up the process. A way to make her family a "real" family in the eyes of the law.

Clarke turned the heat on the stove down as low as possible, put the cutting knife down on the counter, and raced upstairs, heading straight for the nursery. Bellamy, as expected, was in there, holding onto the side of the crib while he gazed down at the little girl asleep in it.

"Do you wanna get married?" she blurted out.

He gave her a confused look, waiting a moment. "Uh . . . yeah," he said. "Yeah, that's why I got proposed to you. Twice."

"No, I mean now," she tried to clarify. It wasn't lost on her that this room was the first place he'd popped the question. And now she was kind of turning the tables and doing it to him.

"Like right now?" he asked incredulously.

"Yeah. Or tomorrow. We could, you know," she said, smiling at him eagerly. "If that would make you feel better about everything, put your nerves at ease . . ." She walked into the room, closing the gap between them so she could put her hands on his chest. "We could just drive to the courthouse and do it there." She didn't have any white dresses in her closet, but she had some nice ones. If any of them still fit, they would work. "It doesn't matter if it's not fancy. It doesn't need to be," she assured him. "We can just get married, and then maybe this whole adoption thing will be easier."

"Clarke, I . . ." He grabbed hold of her wrists and removed her hands from his chest, holding them in his own. "I can't wait for you to be my wife. And to be your husband," he said. "And maybe it would make me feel a little better, but . . ." He made a face. "I don't wanna take you to the courthouse. I want you to have a real wedding."

"That doesn't matter to me," she said. "It's real no matter what."

"Yeah, you say that, but . . ."

She exhaled, running through options in her mind. Truth be told, she didn't exactly want one of the most important days of her life to take place in a courthouse. And she didn't want to have to wear some dress she already owned, and she didn't want to rush her vows to have them ready by tomorrow. But she didn't want to be one of those couples who was engaged for months, either. "Well, okay, maybe not tomorrow then," she decided, "and maybe not the courthouse, but . . ." She trailed off, took a moment to just picture their wedding, and one image automatically came to mind. "Here, come with me," she said, pulling on his hand. "Come on." She led him out of the nursery and onto the balcony that looked out over the beach. It was a beautiful night, beautiful sunset. The wind was just right, and the waves were so steady and calm coming into shore. "Look. Look at this. Look where we live," she said, gesturing out to the ocean. "We could get married right out here, and it'd be amazing. I could find a dress, and you could find a tux or a suit or something, and I'm sure you could whip up some pretty incredible vows in no time at all."

"Well . . . yeah," he said, smirking.

She laughed lightly. "See? This doesn't need to be some long, drawn-out engagement. We could have the wedding next week or the week after that."

He looked out at the scenery they woke up to every morning, and she wondered if he was seeing it through brand news eyes the way she suddenly was. That beach right there could be the one they said 'I do' on. It could be the place where they made the ultimate commitment to each other, made a promise to be together forever. "Bellamy . . ." she said softly, reaching up to stroke his cheek. "We've been in love with each other for years, right?"

"Yeah," he said, threading his fingers through her hair.

She gazed at him intently, lovingly, feeling so ready to be his wife and for him to be her husband. "Then what are we waiting for?" she asked, not at all surprised when he couldn't come up with any answer to that question.