A/N: I'm slowly getting back into this story, so hopefully you guys will see more updates, especially once my finals are over. Thanks to everyone who's stuck with me this long, you guys are amazing. And I love reading any comments/reviews you might have for me :)
Clarke set her bag down slowly, startled by the intensity of emotion on Bellamy's face.
"I stayed at a friends." She said, eyes trailing over the deep crease in his brow.
"You-right." He blinked. The tension didn't leave his shoulders, but he relaxed his face a little.
"I should have texted you." Clarke slid her jacket off. A strange mixture of guilt and indignance that she was being interrogated in her own entryway rose in her stomach. "I'm not used to having a roommate." She shot him an apologetic smile. He didn't return it.
"Okay. I made coffee." He turned on his heel, leaving Clarke standing confused in the foyer. She followed him into the kitchen. When she rounded the corner she was greeted with a steaming mug of coffee.
"Oh." She took it with surprise. "Thank you." As she drank, she leaned against the counter, watching Bellamy fix himself a bowl of cornflakes. The stiff line of his shoulders was enough to tip her off to his mood. "You're mad." She observed, sipping at the coffee. He swiveled his head just enough so she could see him rolling his eyes.
"Why would I be mad?" He wondered. She shrugged.
"I was kind of wondering that myself." She drifted over to where he was standing, staring up at his face. After a minute or so, he set his bowl down and glared at her.
"I'm not mad."
She raised an eyebrow.
"Now try saying that without flaring your nostrils at me." Her headache was beginning to kick in, the hangover delayed but finally making itself known.
"I'm not-" He sighed. "It's just early. And you're being annoying."
"I'm being annoying?" She sputtered. "You're the one being passive aggressive. So I stayed out all night. You're not my mother." Her mug almost empty, Clarke turned away from him to refill. She could practically hear his indignance at being called passive aggressive.
"Jesu-I was worried, Clarke."
Now he sounded angry. And she felt a little bad.
"Look, I'm sorry. I should have called or something. Like I said, I'm not used to having a roommate."
It was the best apology Bellamy was going to get, and he seemed to know it.
"I guess I shouldn't have jumped down your throat about it." His own half-assed apology came through gritted teeth. "It's just a reflex, you know, living with O for so long. But I'm not your brother, and it's not like I'm your boyfriend, you don't owe me anything."
He was right, but for some reason that didn't make her feel better. Clarke suddenly remembered the reason she'd run out on him last night. That feeling of complacency, contentment. Like she was all too comfortable with him being here. And he was going to leave.
"No." She said slowly. "You're not. I'm going to shower." She set her mug down, and headed for her bedroom.
The water washed away that feeling that lingered sometimes after waking up in someone else's sheets. But the other feeling, the one that maybe not for the first time she'd done something for the wrong reason, that one didn't fade so easily.
She didn't remember too much of the night before, not after the fourth round of shots. She did remember Lexa sitting next to her, and that combination of long brown hair and big blue eyes so unlike his seeming like such a perfect distraction. But then there had been tequila, a lot of it from Clarke could recall, and all that came after it was static. There were flashes of the after, soft skin and pink lips and words that Clarke hoped neither of them really meant. And it had been distracting, while it lasted.
But there had been something in Lexa's eyes that morning, something that told Clarke last night had been more than a distraction for the brunette. And that was troubling. Clarke had never been a heartbreaker, it wasn't her style. She didn't use people, never needed to. She was usually more careful.
Stupid.
And then there was the other thing.
Clarke stepped out of the shower, the cold air rolling over her in a wave. When she reached for her towel, her fingers grazed the cold metal of the rack.
"Damnit." She muttered. "Bellamy!"
She shivered as the sound of footsteps came up to the door.
"Clarke?" He sounded confused. She couldn't really blame him.
"I forgot I put my towels in the wash. Can you grab them out of the dryer?"
It really was cold, and the goosebumps on her arms were so pronounced they were almost sharp. But Bellamy shuffled away, then came back, and Clarke cracked the door enough for him to pass the towel through.
"Thanks." She let the door fall shut.
"I guess there are some perks to having a roommate after all." Bellamy mused from the hallway. Clarke rolled her eyes.
"If I didn't have a roommate I could have just gotten the towel myself." She grumbled in response. Wrapping the towel around her, she threw the door open. Bellamy was standing just outside, and the way his eyes traveled slowly up her body reminded her of the first time they'd met.
"I wouldn't have stopped you." He offered, pulling his gaze back up to her face. She smacked him squarely in the chest, leaving a wet handprint on his shirt.
"Can I get dressed now?" Clarke asked, pushing past him toward her bedroom. His chuckle followed her down the hallway. Maybe having a roommate wasn't so bad, but having a Bellamy was starting to get her into trouble. She needed someone to talk to, someone who wasn't a Blake.
.
"Hey." Raven stood up when Clarke walked into the café. Clarke made her way over to the table, sitting down heavily. Her friend raised an eyebrow. "Everything okay?"
Clarke nodded, tearing off a piece of Raven's muffin and popping it into her mouth.
"Sort of."
"Hmm." Raven pushed the plate toward her, and Clarke took another bite of the muffin. "You know, I'm a mechanic, not a shrink."
"Yeah." Clarke admitted, "But you think more like a man than any woman I know."
That earned her a grin.
"Boy problems? That takes me back."
It was how they'd met, after all.
"Boy problems, girl problems. Clarke problems." She mused. "I could use some coffee, you want anything?"
When the answer was no she got up, returning with the biggest possible cup of black coffee.
"God." Raven eyed it, then her, with concern. "What, did you just ask for a vat?"
Clarke took a long sip, ignoring her.
"Well, it's too early for alcohol, so." As she drank, Raven watched her.
"You're hungover." She observed. Clarke sighed.
"Yeah. I went to Portside last night. Met a girl-"
"Went home with girl." Raven finished for her, shaking her head. "You're usually in a better mood after getting laid."
Clarke shrugged.
"I kind of feel like an asshole. I told her I'd call her."
"Which you don't plan on doing, obviously."
"Yeah." Clarke sighed.
"Hence the boy problems?"
"Hence the boy problems."
"Okay." Raven finished what was left of her blueberry muffin and sat back in her chair. "So, who's the boy?"
"Bellamy Blake." Clarke said quietly. Across from her, Raven straightened up.
"I'm sorry could you repeat that? It sounded like you said Bellamy Blake."
Clarke glared.
"Oh. Wow." Raven whistled. "So, if you have something going with O's brother, what's with the one night stand?"
"That's the thing. I don't have anything going with Bellamy. He lives with me, but that's just a favour to Octavia. It's strictly platonic." Even though the way he'd looked at her earlier was anything but. Still, that didn't mean anything. You stick a wet, mostly naked woman in front of a man, he's going to look.
"Okay." Raven looked confused. "Am I missing something?" She leaned forward.
"I don't tell people I'll call them." Clarke said. Despite the noise of the café around them, a bubble of silence fell between the two women.
"Oh." Raven said. Her dark eyes narrowed.
"Yeah." Clarke agreed. "Oh."
.
Clarke was half hoping Bellamy wouldn't be home when they got there. Maybe he'd be out with Finn, or Octavia, it really didn't matter to her.
But there he was, sitting on the loveseat, reading glasses perched across a constellation of freckles. He blinked when Clarke and Raven came in, pulled out of whatever riveting old report he was reading.
"Hey." Clarke nodded at him, pulling her jacket off. Raven did the same, and they fell together onto the couch. "This is Bellamy." She said, for Raven's benefit.
"Well." Raven squinted at him. "He's very hot." Clarke didn't respond to that, just rolled her eyes.
Bellamy opened his mouth then closed it again.
"Are you two drunk?" He asked, glancing at the clock. It was just after 1 pm.
"No. Just a little wired." Clarke told him. "Bellamy, this is Raven Reyes. She's my mechanic."
Raven gave a strange little salute. Bellamy frowned.
"Your…mechanic." He repeated. She nodded.
"I take care of that beautiful machine our Clarke so takes for granted." Raven said, propping her feet up on the coffee table. Bellamy looked annoyed at that, which for some reason made Clarke's heart flutter in her chest.
"Ah. The Charger." He slid his glasses off, and Clarke found she missed them. Booknerd was a good look for him, suited everything about him.
"Mhmm."
Raven hung around for an hour or so, then ducked out with the excuse of a waiting client. As she left, she leaned down to whisper in Clarke's ear.
"Girl, you're so in trouble."
Clarke watched her go, sighing.
"Yeah," she muttered, "I know."
.
As soon as the front door clicked shut, Bellamy got up, moving onto the couch beside her.
"Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't you say that your mechanic was the one who-"
"Finn cheated on me with?" Clarke asked.
"Uh, yeah." His eyes came up to meet hers, curious.
"Yeah. She is."
Bellamy rubbed his face, suddenly looking tired.
"You two seemed friendly." He pointed out.
"Well," She propped her feet up on the table the way Raven had done earlier. This time, Bellamy didn't even notice. "We're friends."
"That's a little weird."
"Probably." She agreed.
And just like that it was back, that feeling of home that Clarke had never realized was missing until it arrived in the form of her best friend's brother. She couldn't run again, so Clarke just pressed her thumbs against her closed eyelids and watched lights pop up in the darkness.
After a few minutes she heard Bellamy shift beside her, and then the rustling of pages. She opened one eye to see he'd picked up what he was reading earlier.
"What's that?" She asked. He didn't look up as he answered.
"Just some notes from Archer Collins' journal. I've covered most of his relevant work already, but there's some personal stuff in here I could use." He was wearing his glasses again.
"How's it going with Finn?" She didn't really want to know, but she needed an idea of how long he'd be around. A few weeks she could probably hold it together. Longer than that? She might be in trouble.
"Uh." This time he did look up. "Fine, I guess. He's kind of a douche but he's been pretty accommodating with all this stuff." He gestured at the table, which was covered in paper and notebooks.
"Well." Clarke picked up one the sheets in front of her, scanning what looked like a blueprint. Raven would have been able to make more sense of it than her. "In the time we were together I never really got the sense he cared much about his family tree. They've had a lot of skeletons, over the years."
When she glanced back up she caught Bellamy staring at her.
"How long was that?" His voice was low, casual but…not. She raised an eyebrow.
"He's never mentioned it?" She wondered. Bellamy snorted darkly.
"He's not stupid enough to talk about your relationship in front of me. He thinks we're together, remember?"
Oh." Clarke blinked. "Right. We, uh, dated for two years then he proposed. And we were engaged for almost a year when I found out about Raven."
Bellamy frowned.
"Long engagement?"
Clarke tugged at a loose thread on her jeans.
"Not really. We broke up about two weeks before the wedding. My mom was pissed, we lost most of our deposits. She made me pay for them." Clarke remembered, her lips turning up into a hard smile.
"She what?" He gaped at her. "Your fiancé has an affair and she made you pay for the wedding?" She shrugged.
"She didn't know. I've never told her why I called it off." It was hard to explain, sometimes, the kind of distance that had grown between them since her father had died. It was like he was the bridge between the women in his life, and after he was gone, there was a canyon between them that Clarke could never really cross.
Expecting pity, she looked up at Bellamy. His glasses had slid down a ways, resting almost on the end of nose. But his expression was simply thoughtful.
"I'm sorry." He said. "About your dad."
Clarke stared at him. Had she been thinking out loud?
"I…thank you. I actually think you would have gotten along." She mused. "I'm sorry about your mom. For what it's worth, I think what you did for Octavia was incredible."
It was quiet for a moment as he just looked at her, brown eyes intense in a way that made Clarke feel both warm and incredibly vulnerable.
"It's worth something." He finally said. "Thank you. I would say you and my mom would have gotten along but… I don't remember that much of what she was like sober."
Clarke fought the urge to wince. She might have lost her father, and a part of her mother, but at least she had always been able to count on them to take care of her. Octavia was so stubbornly resilient that Clarke sometimes forgot that her friend had lead an entirely different life. But Bellamy wore their childhood in a way his sister didn't, it made him seem older, and darker.
"And my dad…" He sighed. Clarke straightened in her seat.
"I thought you didn't know who your father was?" She didn't mean to pry, but that was the story Octavia had always told.
"Uh," he looked uncomfortable. "that's not exactly true. I knew who he was, he was around when I was really young, on and off. He was gone when my mom got pregnant, came back before O was born. He left for good when Octavia was three."
"Oh." Clarke tried to reconcile that with what her friend had told her, and as the pieces fell into place her eyes went wide. "Oh. Octavia doesn't know that, does she?"
He shook his head, then sighed.
"Technically we're half-siblings, she knows that. And I don't know who her father is, he…"
He was a client. Bellamy didn't need to say it.
"Octavia doesn't know that either." Clarke guessed. "She thinks your mom didn't start…that until after she was born."
Bellamy set his book down, staring at his knees. Clarke couldn't believe it. She wished she'd never asked.
"Bellamy…" She wanted to tell him he had to tell his sister the truth. She had a feeling he already knew that. "You're worried she won't be able to handle it. You're worried she'll relapse." Clarke realized. His head jerked up, eyes sad.
"That's kind of annoying." He sighed.
"What?"
"The mind reading thing."
Clarke bit her lip.
"Sorry."
The quiet was different this time. Something had shifted. Friends seemed like too simple a word for what they had become the moment he shared this with her, but it was the only one that came to mind.
"I think you're wrong. Octavia is one of the strongest people I know. I'm starting to think she gets that from you." Clarke nudged him with her shoulder.
"She'll hate me for not telling her."
Clarke didn't know what to say to that.
"She'll find out eventually, Bellamy. Secrets like that are impossible to keep, trust me. And she'll hate you more if she finds out from someone else." She thought of the night Thelonious Jaha had come for dinner, letting slip that her father's heart attack hadn't been an accident. That was a secret her mother had kept for two years, and it had only served to drive the wedge between them further apart.
He dropped his head into his hands.
"You can't tell a kid something like that, and then the older she got it just got harder. I was waiting for the right time." His voice was muffled by his fingers.
"I don't think there's going to be one." Clarke poked at the back of his neck. "But now that you've told me you have to tell her."
He finally glanced up and shot her a look that told her he was well aware of that.
"You can't protect her from everything, Bellamy." She said softly. "If it was anyone else, I would say don't tell her. But Octavia…she'd want to know. As harsh as it is, she just wants the truth. Always."
He knew she was right, she could tell.
Clarke glanced up at the clock, and was startled to see it was already after four. She was supposed to be meeting Anya at the gallery in less than half an hour. She jumped to her feet.
"I've got to go. O's off today, maybe now would be a good time to tell her. Before you talk yourself out of it." She gave him a pointed look. He just pursed his lips. "I shouldn't be too long."
"I've heard that before." He muttered, voice low. Clarke ignored it.
