Chapter Three: Shut Up, Don't Mess With Me

"Is it Wells again?" Monty asked when Clarke declined a phone call, making a sour face at the caller ID.

She glanced up from the textbook in her lap and nodded grimly. "Only the fourteenth time today."

After ignoring him for a week and a half in person, Clarke had assumed that Wells would have finally gotten the message through his thick skull that she wasn't interested in friendship. The bridge had been blasted by a nuclear bomb and no one, especially Wells, would be crossing it for a long time.

At first the phone calls were almost like a trophy in Clarke's opinion; it boosted her esteem to know that he was suffering over what he lost because she was suffering over what he had taken from her. But three and a half months was a long time to be nagged at and now it was just a hassle.

Clarke barely had enough time to eat most days without having to worry about Wells popping up from the bushes every three minutes. "I'm almost ready to change my number all together."

"What do you think he wants now?" Jasper barely looked up from the TV, apparently being too invested in sniping people from crumbling rooftops to even glance at his stepsister.

For some reason, Clarke didn't find it offensive the same way she might have a year ago. It just felt nice for things to finally slip back into it's natural routine. Packing up boxes with her dad in the house she spent most of her life in had been draining to her emotionally, and when he finally left in the middle of August she found herself developing an anti-social streak.

There was something about Jasper ignoring his responsibilities in favor of Ps4 games while she and Monty poured over the trig notes that made Clarke feel more at home than she had been for weeks. The familiarity of it all was enough for her to not let herself get too riled.

"Probably to tell me that he didn't mean for things to go down the way it did. Or whatever variation he's come up with this time."

"I honestly can't believe he can't take a hint," Monty said and Clarke appreciated his sympathy. "It's almost like a boulder at this point, even. I mean, he clearly knows that you don't want to associate with him anymore."

Clarke glanced up at the TV screen as Jasper grunted, "You know what I don't understand?" Either he asked rhetorically or they took too long to respond in the second he gave them because Jasper continued, "I don't understand how I keep dying. There's literally no vantage point to shoot me in the position I'm at. This game is glitched."

The change in conversation was impeccable. A minute longer dwelling on her ex-boyfriend and Clarke would have been ready to fling herself from the second story balcony.

"Or," she said, taking the controller from her brother's hands and watched as a perplexed frown took over his face, "there's a guy hiding beneath a beam that can get ya through that hole in the wall." She clicked a few buttons and then a character Jasper hadn't previously noticed flopped out from behind a collapsed wall with three bullet wounds and CGI blood spewing from his middle. Jasper's mouth dropped open. "Yeah, you should be good now." She pitched the controller back into Jasper's lap while Monty laughed.

Clarke laughed along with Monty, forcing herself to muffle her snorts with a pillow when Jasper dramatically face planted into his comforter, moaning about how stupid he was for missing the hole.

"At least you didn't have to start over from checkpoint." Monty returned his eyes to his book, but his smile wasn't fully wiped clean. He probably wasn't able to read with all of the distractions around them.

Distractions. Clarke seemed to need more distractions. At this point, the stupid shenanigans she found herself roped into by Monty and Jasper were the only things keeping the ticking time bomb in her stomach from reaching zero.

"Why don't you guys ever play video games with me?" Jasper asked, sitting up all of a sudden and nearly tumbling face first off of his bed in the process. "It's Saturday night so why are you two worrying about math?"

"Maybe because we like to know what we're doing in class."

"And we can't all get away with taking slacker-people math classes." Monty quipped.

"That's cold, Monty." Jasper rolled over into his pillow again.

Knowing that she would regret it as soon as she did, Clarke slapped the textbook in her lap shut, not even bothering to organize her notes. She asked for a distraction so she might as well make the best of her Saturday night.

Jasper's head bolted up when he felt the controller easing out of his hand, and he clearly wasn't expecting Clarke to be the one taking it from him because he relinquished it in a startle. "Clarke?" he asked and Clarke shrugged.

"You wanted somebody to play with. I was kind of sick of numbers anyway." She turned to Monty who had already shoved his own book aside and had nestled himself in a blanket near the foot of the bed. "You up for some first person shooter action?"

"I'm almost insulted you had to ask," he said, grabbing Jasper's camouflage controller.

"Finally," Jasper muttered, sitting up again. "Now maybe things will be interesting."

An incoming text made Clarke's back pocket buzz, but she ignored it. She was too absorbed in the video game world to be distracted by the real one.

By Monday afternoon, Clarke was whipped.

The night before consisted of a late soccer practice, so she had to make due with a flimsy blanket while sitting up on the bleachers for three-plus hours. It didn't help that she ended up having to stay up past midnight working on the trigonometry she never finished from the night Monty was over.

The only consolation at this point was that Bellamy Blake was having just as rough a time staying awake as Clarke. Every once in a while, she would glance over her shoulder to find him nodding off before shaking himself awake. Since Octavia was dedicated to soccer and the late night practices, Bellamy was forced to be dedicated to late night practices also. And knowing that Bellamy was just as miserable as she was brightened Clarke's day a smidge.

Not much, but a smidge.

Head propped up in her hands, Clarke forced herself to keep her eyes open. She could feel Wells's eyes boring into her from the back of the class, but she ignored him the same way she had been all day.

"The Black Death," Miss Cartwig announced excitedly and that caught everyone's attention. She scribbled 'Black Death' on the board followed by a series of other events. "The Black Death," she continued, "was one of many hardships that hit Europe pre-dating the eighteenth cent—"

Pounding at the door interrupted Miss Cartwig's lecture, and a moment later a face was peering through the crack in the doorframe. Clarke sat up; this was the most interesting thing to have happened in class since school started a week and a half earlier.

Even Wells had torn his gaze from Clarke to watch the newcomer at the door.

"Miss Cartwig?" A boy with dark eyes and shaggy, long hair slipped into the classroom.

"Finn Collins." Miss Cartwig looked less than impressed with the boy at the front of the class. "You were supposed to be in my third hour."

The boy, Finn Collins, produced a scrappy piece of paper from the folds of his vest and handed it to her with a daring smirk at the corners of his lips. When his eyes shifted to Clarke, she found him grinning, "The office messed up my schedule."

Clarke rested her head back down her desk. If there had been anything interesting about his sudden appearance, it was gone now.

"Well at least you made it to class." There was a shuffling of papers. "Why don't you find a desk. You picked a good time to show up because I was about to assign the first project of the year."

Groans erupted throughout the room, almost sounding like a hive full of bees. A rush of cool air fanned Clarke from the side followed by the sound of books crashing down on the desktop to her left. Finn must've sat next to her.

She knew of Finn Collins from the previous year; he had transferred from TriKru Union halfway through junior year, but that was as far as her acquaintanceship with him went. This was the first class they had together and there really wasn't any reason for them to have spoken to each other before.

"Hey, I'm Finn."

Until now, at least.

He held out a hand and Clarke shook it slowly. "Clarke," she said.

For some reason, she expected him to initiate a conversation; whether it be about a sport, his summer, where he'd been the last week—anything. So when Finn turned back to the teacher without saying anything else, Clarke found herself feeling a bit disappointed.

"—picking one of the events on the board for your partner project." Clarke caught the last part of Miss Cartwig's explanation and her mood dipped even further. "First ones to have partners obviously get first dibs on whatever topic they'd like." She set a timer on the board. "You have six minutes."

Six minutes seemed like more than enough time, but then Clarke looked around the classroom. For an advanced placement class, there weren't a lot of people to choose from who would make an adequate partner. Then Wells Jaha was up in her face.

"Clarke," he said with a nervous smile. Clarke kept her expression neutral. "Did you want to be partners for the project?"

"No."

"Come on, Clarke." His voice was pleading, but Clarke found no sympathy for him.

She folded her arms defiantly. "I already have a partner."

Wells's eyebrows shot up. "Who? Bellamy paired up with Harper already so—"

"Why the hell would you think I'd willingly be partners with Bellamy?"

"I don't know. I've seen you guys hanging out a few times and—"

"It's none of your business who I do and do not talk too." She glanced over at Finn, hunched over his textbook as if trying to decide what topic he was most interested in. Obviously he was eavesdropping, but Clarke had to give him credit for not blatantly staring the way other people in the school tended to. "And by the way," she slapped her palm down on Finn's desk, making him start, "Finn's my partner. So I'd suggest finding someone else before you're forced to work alone."

Wells stiffened, hardening his features slightly. Without another word, he wandered off to find a partner.

Clarke turned to Finn and he smiled, "Hey, partner."

Sighing, she hoped that she wouldn't regret her decision.

Wells was worried.

What if Jasper wouldn't talk to him either? Jasper might be Wells's last chance at reconciliation with Clarke, but it could very well already be game over if Jasper refused to hear him out.

He hoped it wasn't the case; when Wells had been dating Clarke, he and Jasper had gotten on along together fine. Still, there was a nagging sensation in the back of his head.

What if Jasper wouldn't help? What if he did and Clarke still wouldn't look at Wells? What if Wells made a rift between Jasper and Clarke?

That idea didn't rest well with him at all. Wells figured that he would let Clarke hate him forever before he would come between their brother/sister bond. Clarke was angry about her dad moving, so he could only imagine her wrath if she had a falling out with her brother.

Wells peeked around the corner. Boys were filing out of the locker room decked out in silver and red soccer jerseys—the official colors of the West Ark High Delinquents. On the opposite side of the hall, girls in matching uniforms marched out of the girls' locker room.

Wells waited and watched. He recognized Octavia Blake walking with Sterling Tracey and Fox Buchner, but still no Jasper. Wells was almost convinced that Jasper had skipped practice when he stumbled out of the locker room, hopping on one foot as he pulled his sock up his foot.

"Jasper," he hissed. Jasper stopped in his tracks, eyes wide and Wells realized he was still hiding around the corner.

He stepped out into the open and Jasper visibly relaxed. "Oh, Wells. What do you want?"

Wells bit down on his lip. "I was wondering about Clarke—"

"—then you might as well stop right there." It was off putting to see Jasper's eyes so cold, so unforgiving. "You really screwed with her, Wells, and I hate seeing her the way she is."

"And you think that I don't?" he exclaimed harshly. "You think I meant for her dad to get fired? Do you not think that I would go back and change things if I could? Because I would! Anything to bring Clarke back to me. To get her to look at me the same way she used too."

Jasper's glare softened, though not by much but Wells was just relieved that Jasper was talking to him. "It's a shame that there aren't time machines because it's a little too late to go back and change things."

"You're telling me."

"So what do you want, Wells? You know that I can't talk to her about you without her getting angry."

"I just want a list," Wells said. "A list of after school clubs or whatever activities that she's going to do."

Jasper laughed bitterly. "You're going to join her clubs to get close to her again?" The smile wiped from his face when he saw that Wells was being serious. "That sounds an aweful lot like selling Clarke out. Do you know how much she'd hate me if she knew I did it?"

"That's why she doesn't need to know. I'll tell her that I found out by asking around and asking people who didn't know we were over."

Jasper groaned, leaning against the wall. Wells recognized the fire in the younger boy's eyes; it was amazing how similar Jasper and Clarke had become after years living with each other. "I'll do it," he finally said.

Wells started to thank him but Jasper held up a palm and sharply added, "Not for you, but for her. She was the happiest I'd ever seen her when she was dating you. But if you screw her over again, I swear that you'll never want to show your face to me ever again. Are we clear?"

Wells nodded stoically and Jasper hurried down the hall grumbling about being late to the field.

Wells waited until Jasper was out of sight before releasing a breath he had been holding. He was going to have to fix this mess before things got too out of hand.

...

1/18/16