New Year's Eve, this year...
When Clarke returned to her apartment on the 31st and finally turned on her phone, she wasn't surprised to find that she had a slew of missed calls, some of them even from Bellamy. But while many of her friends had left voicemails or texts, Bellamy had left no word at all to let her know exactly what had been happening in his life.
For Clarke, his very silence spoke volumes.
She dragged herself to Harper's, and all afternoon as she helped cook and decorate and set up for the party, Clarke wanted desperately to ask her friend about Bellamy. But she couldn't make herself do it. If Harper knew something, it wouldn't be fair to put her on the spot like that. And if she didn't know, then... why give herself away?
So instead, she told herself that she'd be... just fine, no matter what.
And until the very last second she actually believed it. Until the moment arrived for her stop working, jump into Harper's shower, and dress herself in the party clothes that were sitting in the carryall she'd brought.
That's when she knew it wasn't going to happen.
"What are you doing?" Harper asked, frowning, when she saw Clarke slip on her coat.
"I'm sorry, Harp. I just... I feel like crap. Gotta go home."
"Oh, no!" Harper's voice filled with concern. "After you spent all day helping me. Why don't you just, I don't know, take a nap or something? You can use our room..."
"Yeah, I don't think that's gonna help," Clarke said hurriedly, suddenly desperate to get away. "Can you, um, tell everyone I said Happy New Year?"
"Of course," Harper nodded. "I'll call you tomorrow, see how you're doing, but if you need anything..."
"Yeah, I know, thanks," Clarke interrupted quickly. "I'm sure I'll be fine."
She was already gripping the knob, the door already clicking open, when she forced herself to turn and leave one final massage.
"Harper, will you tell Bellamy that I... wish him happiness?"
Harper's brow furrowed and she hesitated before finally nodding again. "Yeah, um, sure."
Clarke figured it was pointless to explain. If Harper didn't understand her message now, she would soon enough.
XXXXXXXXXX
She stopped and picked up a pizza on the way home, but then didn't feel much like eating it. Instead, she lay on her sofa, vaguely marathoning an Iron Chef countdown, willing herself to think only about her own firm resolution. After several hours of non-stop viewing, her lids felt heavy, her eyes began to droop, and she drifted off.
So when the doorbell rang awhile later she awoke with a start, and for one uncomfortable second, even though she was lying on her own couch in her own living room, Clarke was totally disoriented. She rarely napped, because short bursts of sleep often left her mind in a fog and her body lethargic.
It wasn't until the bell rang again, this time accompanied by sharp raps on the door, that she became fully awake, fully aware.
She glanced at the clock. 11:20.
Who the hell...?
"Clarke, are you in there? Your car's outside so I'm getting a little worried."
Bellamy was at her door?
She bounced off the couch, flying across the room and wrenching the door open with a jerk.
"Bellamy? What're you doing here?"
"I, uh, came to make sure you were okay. Harper said you were sick."
Her mind went blank for an instant before she recalled her excuse for not staying at the party.
"Are you... alone?" she asked, peering behind him.
Bellamy's brow furrowed.
"Yeah, sure. I didn't think I needed a sidekick to check up on you." When she still failed to move, he said, "So... can I come in? It's kinda cold out here."
"Of course." Her mind was whirling as she closed the door behind him.
It was the first time since Thanksgiving that she'd been alone with Bellamy, the first time she'd had even a glimpse of him since school let out. Clarke had to ruthlessly suppress the buzz that coursed through her body at just the sight of him. Had to remind herself to remain firm in her resolution.
She watched as Bellamy glanced around the room, trying to decipher the curious expression on his face as he took in the gelatinous pizza and the quilt she'd had wrapped around herself, now tossed carelessly onto the floor. The Food Network program that was still playing on the TV.
She couldn't understand what the hell he was doing there.
"So... what's wrong?" he finally asked after a moment. "Do you have a fever?"
She shook her head lightly as things finally began to make sense. It was just like Bellamy to worry about her health and then feel obliged to check up on her. She wished she'd given Harper some excuse other than illness.
"Nothing like that. I was just, um, a little worn out, I guess."
"Worn out? At the tail end of a long break that you spent with your parents?" Bellamy frowned. "Clarke, what the hell is going on with you?"
Alarm began to seep into her bones. She could hardly tell him the truth. Her spine stiffened as she decided to simply ignore the question.
"Look, Bellamy, you don't have to babysit me on New Year's Eve. You've checked. I'm okay. So now you can, uh... get back to your regularly scheduled life."
"What the fuck does that mean?"
"It means you can resume your evening! It's almost midnight, so you should stop worrying about me and just... do your own thing."
Bellamy's sudden appearance had been so unnerving that Clarke was barely holding it together. But she worked hard to make sure that her calm smile was firmly in place, and her voice clipped and direct.
He stared at her blankly for a moment, hesitating, then finally shrugged and turned toward the door. Clarke watched Bellamy's slow progress across the room with a mixture of relief and disappointment. With his hand turning the knob, and the door beginning to open, she gathered herself for one final effort to give him a civil goodbye.
"So have a nice New..."
She never got to finish it. The door closed with a hard clack, as Bellamy pivoted suddenly, squaring his shoulders, his expression hard and determined.
"Goddammit!" He shook his head. "I'm just... I'm not leaving it like this, Clarke. Not again. Sorry, but it's my New Year's resolution."
Wait! Bellamy had made a resolution? Which was what? To be her nursemaid?
"Look, Bellamy, I'm fine. Really. You should go be with... the person you want to spend New Year's with."
He stared at her like she'd suddenly grown a second head.
"What the hell are you taking about? I am with the person I want to spend New Year's with."
Clarke gaped at him. But what about...
"What about... Echo?"
Bellamy frowned. "What about her? Didn't you and I have a talk about how I needed to break that off? And I did that." He huffed in exasperation. "Which I'd have already told you if you'd even once answered your damn phone. Or maybe called me back. Instead, all I got was radio silence."
Clarke's mind was reeling as she struggled to wrap her head around this information.
Bellamy had broken it off with Echo?
"So... you're not engaged?"
"What?! Fuck, no! Where the hell did you get that idea?"
"I, uh... from Echo? On the last day of school..."
"Clarke." Two long strides and he was suddenly right in front of her. "I promise you I broke it off with her that night. If Echo had expected something different from me, she got that idea into her head all on her own. Not from anything I ever said or did."
Clarke blinked, her perceptions splintering as she tried to rearrange everything she thought she knew into an entirely different picture.
"So... you're not with Echo in any way?"
"That's what I've been trying to tell you," Bellamy said, his voice filled with quiet exasperation,
Then he heaved a sigh.
"Look, can we sit and have an actual conversation?"
"Okay," Clarke nodded, stumbling back towards the couch, Bellamy trailing after her.
"So then... what was your New Year's resolution?" she couldn't help asking as soon as he was seated.
"I promised myself I was going to fix everything that got screwed up last New Year's. That I wasn't letting that happen again."
Clarke felt her pulse quicken. What on Earth was he talking about?
"What... what got screwed up last year?"
He hesitated only an instant before reaching out to grab her hands from where they sat idly in her lap.
"Clarke, as soon as I saw you in that damn club, I knew I had to tell you..."
He took a quick breath, his gaze falling to where his large hands enveloped her much smaller ones.
"Bellamy?" she prompted, desperately needing him to continue. "You had to tell me... what?"
When he finally looked up, his lips were twisted into a small awkward smile.
"How I felt about you. How I'd felt about you for a long time."
Her quickening pulse had now begun to gallop.
Bellamy shrugged, shaking his head. "But I figured I'd have to work up to it because I wasn't sure what you'd say. And... then you asked me to dance and I didn't know how I could handle being that close to you. So I thought maybe just one more drink..."
As she listened, her heart beating wildly, Clarke began to consider the possibility that everything that'd happened that night exactly one year ago may not have been as it'd seemed.
Except for one thing.
"But... Echo? I looked over and... Bellamy, you were kissing her!"
"Fuck! She was kissing me! She just appeared out of nowhere, and by the time I realized what was happening, you'd seen us. And then you were with Niylah... like really with Niylah, kissing Niylah... so I just figured that was what you really wanted..."
"Bellamy," she groaned, finally beginning to understand how things had spun so wildly out of control.
"Then you wouldn't let me explain about Echo..."
"I didn't think you owed me any explanation! I mean... it's not like we were... together like that. We were friends! And I just... assumed I hadn't known about her..."
"There was nothing to know. But you and Niylah..."
"But then I explained all that last summer!"
"Yeah! You did. And I missed you so damn much that I was counting the hours until you got home. Then Echo showed up at my door out of the blue, even though we'd barely talked all summer..."
Clarke was beginning to see a pattern here. A frustrating one filled with misunderstandings and miscommunication.
"And I walked in and just... figured the two of you were still on."
"Yes. And then you threw that new guy in my face."
Clarke huffed a laugh.
"Cillian. Right. We went out a couple times, but there was always one big, big problem with Cillian."
"Yeah? And what was that?"
She shrugged, her smile wry as she forced herself to be honest. "He wasn't you."
"Clarke."
The way he fairly breathed her name sent shivers up her spine.
"You know, I made a resolution this year, too," she said softly, feeling the need to make a small confession of her own.
"Yeah?" Bellamy's lips quirked up in a lopsided smile.
"Yes," she nodded. "I resolved to finally... get over you."
She heard his sharp intake of breath, saw his convulsive swallow.
"So... how's that working out for you?"
"Not so well. In fact... I can't see how I'll ever be able to do it."
"Thank god," Bellamy sighed, reaching out to stroke lightly across her cheek, and Clarke suddenly felt like she could barely breathe.
"You know," he said softly, his eyes glinting, his head bending closer, "I'm pretty sure I lost out on getting a New Year's kiss last year. So I think I should definitely make up for that now."
"Yeah?" The corners of her mouth turned up into a teasing smile. "But... I'm not sure it's actually even New Year's yet..."
"Close enough," he murmured.
Then his lips were on hers, and Clarke finally understood that for all the times she'd wondered what it might be like to kiss Bellamy Blake, none of her imaginings had even come close to the real thing.
What started as a simple New Year's kiss soon became deep and wet and open. Without ever removing his mouth from hers, Bellamy reached out, lifting Clarke easily, pulling her across him so that she was straddling his legs.
And then...oh, the feel of him... beneath her, surrounding her. Sensation rioted through her.
Hands, arms, lips, tongue. All moving together until she was breathless with want, wet with need.
She pulled away, panting, and gazed down at Bellamy. He looked dazed, flushed with desire... and just slightly chagrined.
"I'm... sorry, Clarke," he said, breathing hard, his hands still firmly locked around her. "Do you want me to... maybe I should go now."
She blinked at him in surprise, before smiling saucily as she twisted her body, rubbing herself firmly along the hard heavy length she could feel beneath her.
"If you do, I'll never speak to you again. But I do think maybe we could... use a change of venue."
She climbed off him, reaching down for his hand, pulling him to his feet.
"Are you sure?" he said, the words sounding just slightly strangled. Like maybe they'd been pulled out of him.
He seemed to be holding his breath as he waited for her answer.
"Absolutely," she told him, reaching up to kiss him softly. "Unless... you'd rather wait until next New Year's..."
Bellamy grinned, pulling her close and kissing her thoroughly.
"No chance."
And even though their earlier New Year's resolutions had been so utterly contradictory, Clarke found that she was now in complete agreement.
XXXXXXXXXX
It took them nearly two years, but when Clarke and Bellamy eventually decided to marry, they knew it couldn't possibly happen on any day other than New Year's Eve.
"You two are such sentimental saps," was Murphy's take when they announced the date. "But, hey! Who's gonna pass up a free New Year's party?"
The others just shrugged and agreed.
So in the end it was really only their vows that were surprising. The ones that they'd written themselves.
The ones that weren't really vows at all. Or even promises.
But were instead resolutions.
Wherein they resolved to love one another very much. And forever.