AN: Wrapping up Italy and continuing onto Greece at the end of this chapter – hope you're all enjoying this "virtual trip"!
Chapter title from "Pompeii" by Bastille
35
Does It Almost Feel like Nothing Changed at All
An annoying buzzing wakes Clarke on Friday, and she fumbles for her phone on the nightstand.
"Turn it off," Bellamy complains behind her, burying his face in her hair.
She finally finds the offending object and does exactly that. "We have to get up, though," she says before turning around in his arms. "It's nine thirty and we have tickets for the Colosseum in an hour."
He just groans and pulls her closer. "Why did we book it so early?"
"Because we have the tour of the dungeons and arena at noon, and so we'd have time for the Roman Forum in the afternoon," she reminds him, reluctantly slipping out of his embrace and sitting up on the edge of the bed. "And it wouldn't have been a problem if you hadn't kept me up half the night…"
She feels the bed dip as he moves behind her and then his arms wrap around her and she leans her head back against his chest. "Are you complaining?" he asks, voice still rough with sleep.
"Not complaining," she replies. "You know I would never turn down a night of amazing sex. I was just noting that if we had gone to sleep at a reasonable time, we wouldn't be so tired."
He chuckles before placing a kiss against her temple and getting up. "That's what coffee's for."
They grab some breakfast – with a large coffee for both of them – on the way, and it does get them all the way to awake, but they still get another cup each to go. Just in case.
The line's not too long when they get to the entrance to the amphitheater, but it's still nice to be able to just bypass it and go straight in. They pick up their audio guide and let it lead them around, learning more about the ancient structure. Bellamy's completely enthralled, Clarke can tell from the look on his face the moment the voice starts talking, and she has to admit that it is interesting. She's been here before, but it was a while ago and there weren't any audio guides then.
When that part of their tour is over, they drop the audio guides off to join the small, live guided tour of the areas of the theater that are off limits to regular visitors – the actual arena, the underground areas called the hypogeum and the dungeons, where the gladiators and animals were kept before the shows.
Their guide is an amazing fount of knowledge, and the two and a half hour tour seems to fly by. Bellamy is easily the most invested of their group, asking questions through the entire tour, even getting into longer discussions with their guide a few times when they seemingly disagree about some obscure historic fact, until the other man remembers that he's in the middle of giving a tour.
They finally leave the theater a little before three o'clock, and with just over an hour until their allotted entrance time to the Roman Forum, they immediately find a restaurant for a late lunch.
"That was… wow," Bellamy starts when they've been showed to a table. He still has a slightly dazed look in his eyes and a probably unknowing smile on his face.
"Worth getting up for?" Clarke asks, her own mouth quirking up as well.
"Absolutely," he confirms.
"Better than last night?" she continues, biting her lip to keep her smile from widening even more and give away that she's teasing him.
"God no," he immediately replies, shaking his head. "I might be a history nerd but that doesn't mean I would take the Colosseum over sex. No way."
She can't hold back a chuckle at that. "Good to know."
There's no audio guide for the Roman Forum so they just stroll around at their own pace, Bellamy sharing what he knows about the different ruins. It's nice, not too crowded, the sun warmer than yesterday but still pleasant and not too hot. After a couple of hours, they continue to Palatine Hill before heading back to the hotel as the sun sets behind them.
Since they got through most of the things Clarke had planned for Saturday on Bellamy's birthday, the weekend turns out pretty laid back. They check out the Vittoriano, with its exhibits and magnificent view from the roof, a nearby archeological site with a really cool multimedia experience, and then work their way through a number of ruins throughout the Monti area on Saturday.
Sunday, they spend the morning in bed before grabbing brunch at a nice, American style (to Bellamy's disappointment) diner and crossing the Tiber to the Trastevere area. They wander down narrow streets, check out all the little churches they pass and stumble upon a flea market with everything from antiques and vintage clothing to jewelry and art. On the way back to the hotel, they explore the cute little island Isola Tiberina, before wrapping up the day at an adorable little mom and pop restaurant overlooking the river.
Monday morning, Clarke again wakes up to find Bellamy in the window seat, phone in his hand but head turned towards the window.
"You really like that window seat, huh?" she asks sleepily before stretching.
He turns away from the window to offer her a smile. "I like the view," he corrects.
She rolls her eyes and pushes the comforter off. "Semantics. Have you been up long?"
"Half an hour, maybe," he replies after glancing at the phone. "I was just sending some photos to O."
"Mmm," she hums, getting out of bed and climbing into his lap. "I don't like it when you get up before I'm awake."
Bellamy chuckles, settling his hands on her hips and rubbing circles against her skin with his thumbs. "I'll keep that in mind."
"Please do."
She leans in, their noses bumping before their lips meet in a lazy morning kiss. He breaks it too soon for Clarke's liking though, and she lets out a disappointed sound.
"Don't we have the Vatican today?" he reminds her.
"We do," she confirms. "But not until two thirty."
He raises his eyebrows in a questioning way. "Yeah?"
"Yup. It's a bit of a walk, but as long as the weather's nice, which it is, I figured we'd start heading over around noon, grab some lunch either on the way or when we get there, and still have plenty of time before the tour starts."
He nods when she finishes. "Well, in that case…" She barely has time to react before he's stood up and dropped her on the bed, crawling on top of her a moment later and pressing her into the mattress.
-100-
Clarke has been to the Vatican before, but she's never actually been inside the museums, the Sistine Chapel or St. Peter's Basilica, so she's almost as excited as Bellamy about their tour – just almost, because it's not possible to be more excited about Rome in general than Bellamy.
Just like during their guided tour of the Colosseum, he pulls her along to the front of the group, so he can ask the tour guide questions and insert his own thoughts whenever he doesn't agree with him. Unlike the Colosseum guide, however, this one doesn't seem too happy to have to answer more questions than normal and soon, Bellamy pauses to let a few other people pass them.
"You'd think he would appreciate it when someone pointed out he had something wrong," he grumbles and Clarke can't help but smile
"You would," she agrees, squeezing his hand. "But you can be my tour guide."
So they hang back, letting their group get ahead of them a little, and then he starts to tell her everything he knows about the place. She adds anecdotes about some of the artwork they pass as well, and it's nicer, if she's honest.
When they get to the Sistine Chapel, they both stop for a long moment to just take in the frescoes on the walls and ceiling. The room's fairly crowded, everyone tilting their heads back just like they are.
"Did you know that Michelangelo didn't really want to take on the painting of this place?" Bellamy asks quietly after a while.
"I didn't," she replies. "Why not? It must have been a great honor."
"He was mainly a sculptor, not a painter, so it wasn't really his area of expertise, I guess," he explains. "Which, you kind of have to wonder how good he would have been if it had been his thing."
"Yeah," Clarke agrees. "This is absolutely amazing."
They wander around a little, getting a closer look at the different parts of the frescoes.
"Another funny thing," he starts when they're heading towards the door. "Back in the sixteenth century, The Council of Trent, which was a council of important people in the church back in the day, decided that the frescoes should be more decent, so they hired a painter to cover the naked figures up with fig leaves or loin cloths."
"Seriously?"
He smiles at her indignation. "Yeah. They remained until 1980, when the frescoes were restored and the additions removed, so four hundred years."
"Wow… that's insane."
"Oh yeah, completely insane." He pauses. "Or, you know, completely logical considering the church's stance on anything even vaguely related to sex. Especially back then."
"Yeah, when you put it that way…"
They catch up to their group outside St. Peter's Basilica, the guide giving them an annoyed glance. They stay at the back, though, only half-listening to the guide as he launches into his introduction about the church and then leads them inside, whispering little notes to each other and trying to keep from laughing out loud.
"So we have two basically free days before we leave for Naples?" Bellamy asks when they're on their way back to the hotel, strolling along the Tiber with the setting sun to their right.
"Basically, yeah," Clarke confirms. "Why, anything you're thinking about?"
"We've been doing all these historical stuff for my benefit all week," he replies. "I was thinking we could do something you wanted for once."
The fact that he's obviously thought about this makes her smile and she squeezes his hand before answering. "You know I've enjoyed everything we've done too, right? I might not be a history nerd but there's a lot of art too, and I can still appreciate cool history stuff. It's not like it's a hardship, I'm having fun."
"No, I know that," he assures her. "But I can appreciate art stuff too, if you want to check out a museum or something?"
It's true that she mainly focused on things she thought Bellamy would enjoy when she booked their tours and visits, but that's because the trip's supposed to be about him, for obvious reasons that she can't think about right now because even touching on the subject makes a lump form in her throat. She swallows it down.
"You do realize we just came from what's basically a huge art gallery, right?" she asks, trying to make her voice teasing and probably succeeding. He doesn't seem to notice anything off, anyway.
"Well, yeah, but that's, like… historic art or whatever," he says with a shrug. "There's the museum of modern art, we could go there tomorrow maybe?"
Clarke knows there's a modern art museum in Rome, but it's not like they've talked about it, so she's not sure how he does.
"Did you look that up?" she asks, and knows she's right when he ducks his head a little and doesn't meet her eyes.
"So what if I did? You literally planned this whole trip, six months, I can come up with suggestions too."
She lets go of his hand to be able to wrap her arm around his waist instead, and his arm automatically goes around her shoulders. "Of course you can."
"So what do you say? You like modern art, right?"
"I like basically all art, to be honest, but yeah, I do like modern art," she confirms. "I'm kind of curious about how you came to that conclusion, though?"
"It's what you paint, isn't it?"
"Well, I do abstract art right now," she corrects him. "I've tried out most art disciplines at one time or another – expressionism, cubism, realism, impressionism… Abstract art is sort of a sub-genre of modern art, but in general it's not just abstract stuff."
"Oh." He nods thoughtfully. "I didn't actually know that, I've always kind of assumed all those pieces where you can't really make out what it's supposed to be are modern art. Not that I'm an expert or anything… obviously. I do know cubism, though, Picasso, right? With all the angles and stuff. You have one of those paintings, don't you?"
"I do, yeah." She peaks up at him. "I didn't tell you those were my works?"
She doesn't keep all her paintings, far from it, but she's tried to save at least one example of all the different types of paintings she's done over the years, so the wall in her library that's not taken up by book cases is full of paintings.
Bellamy's eyebrows shoot up. "No, you didn't. Just that one or all those paintings?"
"All of them," she confirms with a chuckle.
"I'll have to take a closer look at them when we get home," he decides. "So modern art museum? Tomorrow?"
"Sure."
So they spend Tuesday exploring the paintings and sculptures and other pieces at the museum, Bellamy asking about everything he doesn't immediately get and Clarke trying to explain as much as she can. Which sometimes is not at all – she really doesn't get some of the more avant-garde pieces either.
The last day in the city, they decide to grab one of those bus tours where you can get on and off where you want.
"This feels like something we should have done on day one," Bellamy notes when they've settled in on the open upper floor. The sun's nice and warm, though it's still a little chilly up here in the wind. "Get a lay of the land before we started exploring."
"I think we did pretty well anyway," Clarke notes. "But this is a good opportunity to get photos."
They don't actually hop off anywhere, just ride the whole route once, listening to the audio guide, and then stay on the bus past their starting point and get off close to the Fontana di Trevi, where they grab some lunch and try another gelateria. When in Rome, after all…
"So did Rome live up to all of your expectations?" Clarke asks when they're in bed late that night. "Did you get to do everything you dreamed of?"
Bellamy's checking something on his phone, but at her questions, he puts it on the nightstand and rolls over so he's facing her.
"Do you even need to ask?" he replies incredulously. "Have I not been completely obvious the last week? Because I feel like I have been."
She shrugs one shoulder. "Well, yeah, but… I kind of wanted to confirm anyway."
His mouth quirks up in a half-smile and he reaches out to push a strand of hair behind her ear. "In that case, I have had the most amazing time here with you. It's been… out of this world, really. Definitely the experience of a lifetime."
She resolutely pushes away the underlying reminder that it really is the experience of a lifetime, or at least his lifetime, and turns her face into the touch of his hand, which is lingering against her cheek.
"Good."
"You know…" he starts, hand trailing down her throat to her shoulder and then along her arm. "There is one thing that would be the icing on the cake."
She's pretty sure she knows what he's getting at. "Oh yeah?"
"Uh-huh." He shifts closer, hand sliding around to pull her against him, mouth finding hers.
And, well, it's not like she's going to say no.
-100-
Clarke has never been to Naples before, even though the train ride from Rome is only about an hour. She's heard about Pompeii before, of course, even thought about visiting it, but for some reason she's never gotten around to it.
"See, you're helping me be more… historical or whatever," she tells Bellamy when they're on the train on Thursday.
He raises an eyebrow at her. "That's exactly what I was going for."
"Shut up."
There's a long line of cabs waiting outside the train station and within minutes, they're en route to their hotel in the historical center of the city.
"This is… different," Bellamy notes when they're standing outside the hotel. "It's nice but it feels much more modern than Rome or Venice."
The façade of the building behind them is mostly glass, so Clarke can see where he's coming from. "It does," she agrees. "Come on."
They get checked in and drop their bags off before leaving the hotel again. The sun is hidden behind some clouds at the moment, but it's still nice out, maybe even a little warmer than in Rome.
"Do we have a specific goal in mind?" Bellamy asks, looking around.
"Not really," she replies. "Honestly, trying to find sights in Naples was kind of tricky, the only given was Pompeii, which isn't exactly in the middle of the city… there's a bunch of churches all over the place, obviously, and a castle of some kind down by the water… do you want to just walk and see where we end up? We do have the walking tour on Saturday, we'll probably hit whatever tourist hotspots there are on that."
He shrugs. "Sure."
So they basically just stroll around, exploring the little alleys around the hotel before venturing further afield. They do end up finding the castle more or less by accident, and it's pretty cool – they can't get in without tickets, but they walk around it before checking out the harbor area on the other side and then weaving their way back towards the hotel in a roundabout way. When both of their stomachs start rumbling, they pick a restaurant at random which turns out to have great pasta.
"You know, I love Italian food," she says as they leave the restaurant. "But I'm kind of looking forward to something else when we get to Greece."
Bellamy chuckles and wraps an arm around her waist, keeping her close. "Yeah, I know what you mean. Just think about it – gyros, moussaka, souvlaki…"
She groans. "I'm completely stuffed but that still sounds so good."
"Soon, Princess," he promises, lips brushing her temple for a moment.
They leave Naples a little after ten the next morning, arriving at the archaeological site of Pompeii after a half-hour bus ride. Their guide is absolutely amazing, even Bellamy doesn't have anything to add to her extensive explanations and descriptions of what they're seeing. Most of the time, it feels like a normal historical tour, like the many others they've already been on during this trip, but occasionally they come across casts of the victims of the volcanic eruption, which are a stark reminder that this isn't just a historical site – people died here, people just going about their lives.
If she hadn't been basically immortal, it probably would have made Clarke think about her own mortality but as it is, she loops her arm through Bellamy's to remind herself that he's still here. At least for now. She gets a little more time with him.
The mood on the bus leaving Pompeii is a bit subdued, but the tour guide is apparently used to this and manages to get them laughing with stories about past tours and strange requests from visitors.
The second part of the tour is a hike up to the summit of Mount Vesuvius, which is demanding but so worth it when they finally reach the top.
The day started out a little cloudy, but the sky has cleared by now and they have an amazing view of the coastline below, Pompeii some ways away and even Sorrento on its peninsula in the distance.
"So, this is an active volcano, huh?" Bellamy says, leaning against the railing and peeking into the crater.
"Yup," she confirms. "Last eruption was in 1944, so it could blow any day now."
He gives her a withering look and she lets out a laugh.
"I'm pretty sure we're fine," he decides, pulling her along around the edge of the crater, to get a better look.
It's after six when they're finally back at the hotel, and Bellamy just face plants on the bed, letting out a groan. Clarke toes her shoes off before sitting down next to him, sliding her fingers into his hair and scratching his scalp. He turns his head with a content sigh, so he can look at her.
"You OK?" she asks amusedly.
"Long day," he replies, eyes sliding closed. "Good, but long. Mmm, keep doing that."
She chuckles but obliges. "I wasn't going to stop."
Silence falls over them, the sound from the street outside seeping in through the closed window, and she almost thinks he's fallen asleep when he finally speaks again.
"You know I've loved everything we've done so far on this trip," he starts, opening one eye to look up at her. "But I'm honestly really starting to look forward to a week of relaxing in the Seychelles."
She hums in agreement. "Yeah, it's been pretty intense."
"How long until we're there?"
Clarke pulls her phone out of her pocket and opens their itinerary. "Two and a half weeks," she tells him after a moment. "Onto Athens on Sunday, obviously, then Crete, Cairo and Petra."
He seems to perk up at that. "Right, Greece, that's going to be amazing."
"You going to be able to muster up any enthusiasm for that or did Italy exhaust it all?"
"Nah, I'll be excited," Bellamy says with a chuckle, rolling onto his back and sitting up. "But it was a good idea to put in these little breaks, thanks for that."
She leans in for a kiss. "Of course. Dinner?"
They have an early morning tomorrow as well, so they decide to just get room service and call it an early night.
Their last day in Naples, and Italy, they take a guided walking tour, learning more about the city and exploring the underground ruins that date back to the Roman empire. In the afternoon, they take a cab to Herculaneum, another town that was destroyed by the same volcanic eruption as Pompeii, and spend a few hours among its ruins.
Clarke's pretty sure that, by the end of this trip, she'll have seen more ruins than the rest of her life put together. She tells Bellamy as much when they're back in Naples, trying to decide on a restaurant for dinner.
"Sorry for trying to educate you," he replies with a chuckle.
"Yeah, how dare you drag me to interesting historical and cultural sites," she teases back. "I expect nothing but sun, sea and frivolity for the rest of this trip."
His chuckle turns into a full blown laugh and it takes him a moment to pull himself together. "Frivolity? Who even says that?"
"Well, excuse me for not keeping up with all the hip, new expressions." She knows she uses some old fashioned words sometimes, even though she thinks she's pretty good at keeping up with the times, but he's never actually said anything about it before. Not that it sounds like he's criticizing her or anything.
"No, I love it," he still assures her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and pulling her closer. "Come on, this looks good."
-100-
Their flight to Athens ends up being delayed, which… it was bound to happen at some point, and it'll probably happen again before the end of the trip, considering the number of flights they have booked over the next four months, but it's still annoying. So they're both cranky and exhausted by the time they get to their hotel, just before midnight, and only manage to remove the necessary pieces of clothing before collapsing into bed.
"Nothing booked tomorrow, right?" Bellamy mumbles, one arm reaching for Clarke and she willingly slides closer.
"Nope, we can sleep all day if we want," she confirms.
"Maybe not all day."
Clarke wakes up first the next morning, blinking against the light streaming in through the window and slowly realizing that they didn't remember to pull the curtains closed before falling asleep.
She slides out of bed and takes the few steps needed to the balcony doors. The room's nothing too fancy, but it's nice and clean and – most importantly – it has a balcony with views of the Acropolis when you're actually on the balcony and leaning just a little over the railing.
She opens one of the doors and the sound of the city immediately rushes into the room. They're on the top floor, so it's not as bad as it could have been, but she's still grateful that the doors and windows seem to be pretty well isolated.
It's already petty warm out, probably in the low sixties, and the sky above is an uninterrupted pale blue. It looks like it'll be a great day.
She sort of expected that either her movement through the room or the sound of the traffic outside would have woken Bellamy up, but when she turns back to the bed, he's still fast asleep, sprawled out on his back. She checks the time on her phone on the nightstand – 9:42 – before crawling back into the bed and throwing one leg over his. He sighs in his sleep and rolls onto his side, one arm wrapping around her to pull her closer.
"Morning," she murmurs, rubbing her nose against his, and is finally awarded with one eye opening.
"Mhm," he replies, only semi-coherent, before squeezing his eyes shut again.
Clarke can't help but chuckle. "I thought you said you'd be excited when we got here?" she reminds him amusedly. "I was kind of expecting to wake up and find you on the balcony, to be honest."
"Give me a moment," he tells her, rolling them so he's pushing her into the mattress and pressing a kiss to her collar bone. "I definitely want to check out the view but I have other priorities right now."
She has every intention of letting him take care of those priorities, but her stomach chooses that exact moment to growl loudly, and Bellamy rolls off her with a chuckle.
"Or we could go get some breakfast, I guess," he says.
"I am kind of hungry," she agrees ruefully. They got vouchers for food at the airport in Rome and got some sandwiches, but that was at eight last night and neither of them had the energy to find something to eat when they got to Athens. "But definitely a rain check on that."
So they get up and leave the hotel, finding a restaurant that serves traditional Greek breakfast just a few blocks away, and then spend their first day in the city just strolling around. They start by weaving around the fenced off area with the Acropolis on its hill, getting as close a look at the Parthenon and the other buildings as they can without actually entering the area. They lose themselves among the narrow streets beyond the Acropolis for a while, enjoying some gyros for lunch, before finding their way to Areopagus and Filopappou hills to admire the three-sixty degree view of the city.
"Good start on our Greek adventure?" Clarke asks when they're in bed later that evening.
"Mm, great start," Bellamy agrees, putting his phone and glasses on the nightstand before rolling onto his side to look at her. "Sparta tomorrow?"
"Yup," she confirms. "So we're getting up pretty early."
"Ah." He nods, a solemn expression on his face even as he trails a hand from her thigh, over her hip and up her side, fingers light against her ribs. "So I suppose any… nocturnal activities will have to wait."
She arches her back when his hand slides around to her front to cup her breast and bites her lip. "Did I say that? Just… maybe not too late."
He chuckles lowly as he leans in closer. "I'll do my best."