The cons don't hit her until she's 35,000 feet in the air.
One, he has a girlfriend. That's a pretty big one. How will Kaitlyn feel about Clarke just showing up? Will he even need her if he already has someone there?
Two, he might not want to see her. This trip was impulsive, all based on a gut feeling, but there's a good chance that's he's moved on, really moved on in a way that she hasn't yet. Maybe she's not what he needs anymore.
There are more, but those are the ones that sit at the front of her mind as they cruise at altitude, and a few hours later, begin their descent.
It's incredibly presumptuous, her making this trip. But she's here now, so all there's really left to do is show up. If he wants her to go, she will.
She catches a cab at the airport, wishing she'd called an Uber when her driver interrogates her for directions to Bellamy's address. She lists them, then lists them again, struggling to keep the irritation off her face when the man finally just shrugs and starts driving.
In the wrong direction.
They finally arrive, forty minutes and half a dozen wrong turns later. Clarke pays him the fare he asks for, nearly double what it should have been. He scowls at the tip she leaves him, and she scowls right back. She's so distracted by the whole ordeal that she's already at the door, knocking, before she remembers why she's there.
At first, no one answers. Then, when the door finally swings open, it isn't Bellamy who stands on the other side, staring at her.
"Eddie?"
He blinks.
"Clarke?"
From inside the house, somewhere, Clarke hear another voice call out; "That's not funny, man." Bellamy.
Eddie looks back over his shoulder, rolling his eyes. Then he turns his gaze back to Clarke, obviously confused.
"Um," She feels awkward with him frowning at her like that, like he has no idea why she would be here, but mostly she's just relieved it wasn't Bellamy's girlfriend who answered the door. "Can I come in?"
As though suddenly realizing they're both still standing in the doorway, Eddie steps back, letting her in.
"What are you doing here?" He asks quietly, as she tugs her suitcase inside.
"I-Octavia was worried. And I was worried. How's he doing?"
The musician glances down the hallway.
"Not good. I don't know what the hell made you come, but-" He lets out a deep sigh, one that sounds a little relieved, and ruffles her hair absently. "Man, you have crazy good timing."
"What do you mean?" The concern from earlier rises uncomfortably in her chest. Eddie just grabs her by the shoulders, pushing her toward Bellamy's living room.
"You just kind of have to see it." They round the corner, and he clears his throat. "Hey, man, you've got a visitor."
Bellamy sighs heavily, and when he turns Clarke can see the beginnings of a beard, the dark shadows under his eyes. He freezes when he spots her, like he doesn't quite understand what he's seeing. He blinks a few times, looking a little surprised each time he opens his eyes and she's still there.
"Clarke?"
"Hey." She walks over and sits next to him, the old leather couch sinking under her weight. "You look like shit."
He doesn't smile, but there's a flash of something behind his eyes. Something light.
"What are you doing here?"
"I…" She glances over at Eddie, who straightens up from his perch against the wall.
"Yeah, I'm just gonna go. If you've got this," he says quietly. She nods, and he disappears down the hallway. When they're alone, she turns back to Bellamy.
"You didn't answer my calls." It's not an accusation, it's a question.
"Didn't feel like talking," he grunts. She sighs.
"Bellamy, I'm sorry."
He looks up at that, and there is something so heartbreakingly bruised in his gaze that makes her chest ache. Not broken, just hurting.
"He was a good guy."
"I know."
"And some tweaker shivved him. Just right there in the street, gutted him like a pig."
She winces.
"Jesus."
He gets to his feet, grabbing an empty glass off the coffee table and heading for the kitchen.
"How did you even find out?" He wonders over his shoulder.
"Octavia."
He frowns.
"I didn't-"
"Tell her, yeah I know. You should really call her, Bellamy. She's worried about you." Clarke doesn't mean for that to come out like a reprimand, but it does, a little. She knows that if the situation were reversed, Bellamy would be crawling out of his skin waiting for Octavia to call.
He just grunts.
"That why you're here? O sent you all the way out here just to check on me? Well I'm fine, so it looks like you wasted a trip."
"I was worried too. I know-" she breaks off. What it's like to lose someone you loved. What it's like to bury those feelings until they come leaking out like acid, burning everyone who touches you. What it's like to have a bad day. "I just know."
He scoffs, then seems to instantly regret it.
"Yeah." His shoulders slump. "He was just…out of the two of us, he was always the one who had his life together. He was the good one."
"The…good one?" And then she realizes what he means. "Oh, Bellamy," she murmurs sadly. "It doesn't really work like that."
"It should have been me." Her heart skips at the mere thought of that, of losing him. And then her mind catches up, remembering that he's not hers to lose anymore.
"Well, it wasn't." There's no point in arguing with him when he gets like this. After how long she's known him, Clarke is well aware of that. "When my dad died, my mom told me that the best thing I could ever do for him was live for both of us. Make it count."
"That's great," Bellamy mutters. "But it doesn't bring them back. It doesn't change the fact that I had to raise Octavia on my own, or that Amy's a widow after having been married for less than a year. It doesn't make what happened to Jake make sense."
She thinks about that, tracing a circle on the countertop.
"It changed how I see the world, how…how I miss them. It's the reason I have bad days instead of bad months." She admits. He snorts.
"Bad days? Is that what you call them?"
"Yeah," she eyes him carefully. "Why, what do you call them?"
He shrugs.
"I don't call them anything. I usually don't remember them."
And, ah, she knows the feeling. You wake up feeling empty and go to bed feeling nothing but the warm glow of something 80 proof humming under your skin. Suddenly, he rounds on her, anger in his eyes where it wasn't a second ago.
"Why are you here, Clarke? What are you doing here?"
She blinks.
"I just am."
They look at each other for a moment, Bellamy slowly deflating, Clarke telling herself that Hayley was wrong, that she hasn't been pining, she isn't still hung up on him. Eventually, he sighs, turning to grab a second glass from the cupboard.
"You want a drink?" It's 9am, but when has that stopped her before?
"Sure."
He pours two, one for himself, slides one to her, and then there's really nothing left to do.
"You shouldn't have come," he tells her, though there's no real conviction in it. Mostly, he just sounds tired.
"Maybe."
"I'm with somebody."
"I know."
His eyebrows go up.
"And yet here you are."
"I didn't come here to…get back together," she says slowly, surprised at how much his comment bothers her. "I just wanted to be around."
His only response to that is to grunt, downing half the glass of whiskey.
"I guess you're seeing someone too," he mumbles, eyes darting up to meet hers. She frowns.
"How do you-"
"Contrary to what you seem to believe, Octavia is actually my sister," he drawls. "She does tell me things every now and then."
"Right." Clarke grimaces. "We-" They're cut off by the sound of his phone ringing. When he doesn't move to answer it, she clears her throat. Rolling his eyes, he grabs it off the table, and holds it to his ear.
"Hello? Hey, I-Yeah I know. I'm sorry-yeah I know. I'm fine. Uh," He glances toward Clarke. "Hold on." His finger taps at the screen, and suddenly Octavia's voice fills the room.
"Clarke?"
Clarke blinks.
"Yeah, hey."
"God, have you ever heard of answering your phone? First I have to worry about this idiot," It's obvious she's referring to Bellamy, "And now you? Or is there some kind of dysfunction where the entire Toronto area just doesn't get reception, because-"
"I'm sorry." Clarke interrupts her, because when Octavia gets on a rant, it tends to run long. That appears to be a Blake family trait. "I must have left my phone on airplane mode." She pulls it out of her bag, and sure enough, the airplane symbol glows back at her. When she switches it off, a notification for sixteen missed calls pops up. "Are you serious? You called me sixteen times?"
"No? I called you twice."
Frowning, Clarke swipes through her call logs. Octavia's telling the truth, there are only two from her. Two are from Hayley. The remaining twelve are all from the same number, one she doesn't recognize.
"Oh, right. Well I'm here. My phone's on now, Bellamy is still alive," she informs Octavia, then winces at her poor choice of words. "We're-" she almost says good. "-managing."
"Fine. But call me later. Turn your ringer on. And take care of my brother."
Clarke rolls her eyes.
"Yes, mom."
"Love you."
Clarke and Bellamy parrot the words back to her in unison, then she's gone.
"Remember when you were afraid she wouldn't call you anymore after she got married?" Clarke asks. Bellamy laughs, a full on rumble that starts in his chest and is both familiar and surprising.
"Yeah. I should be so lucky."
"She just loves you."
He glances at her, eyes narrowing.
"Sometimes I think she loves you more, which is kind of unfair, considering we're actually related."
Grinning, Clarke shrugs.
"I'm easy to love."
The noise he makes sounds a little like choking. She scowls at him.
"Okay, easy, Blake."
He puts his hands up innocently.
"I didn't say anything."
"Mhmm." She eyes him warily. "Have you eaten anything?"
"I had some cereal a couple hours ago." It's barely nine in the morning, and she has a feeling this bowl of cereal happened some time before the sun came up.
"Have you slept?"
He groans.
"Clarke."
"Look, if you want to wallow, that's fine. If you need time to just be a trainwreck and hate everything and be drunk, that's fine. But people love you, so you have to take care of yourself too, just a little bit. Just enough that when you finally wake up and find yourself actually wanting to get out of bed, you aren't dying of alcohol poisoning or half starved to death."
Bellamy just groans again.
"I'm not even that drunk."
"Well," she points out, "you're doing alright, considering it's 9am."
"Why don't I remember you being this annoying before?" he wonders.
"You were getting sex before," she reminds him, and he just kind of nods like that is, in fact, the only thing that's changed. A little more gently, "Bellamy. Have you slept?"
He jerks his head to the side, and she takes that to be a no.
"Do you think you could?"
There's silence for a moment, then-
"I dunno."
"Do you want to try?"
He looks over at her, and she sees it for the first time, the new ghost in his eyes, brighter than all the rest.
"I'm going to dream about him, aren't I?"
"Probably," she answers, heart breaking for him.
"Nightmares?"
"Maybe."
"Perfect." He lifts himself off the chair, leaving his glass empty on the counter. She gets up too, grabs her jacket. He tracks that movement carefully, brows drawing together. "Where are you going?"
"Uh," she frowns. "The Fairmont." That takes a moment to register.
"Oh." He looks surprised, and she knows this is new for them, she's never stayed here and not stayed here before. "A hotel."
"It's not like I can stay here, Bellamy."
"Right, because…"
"Because it would be weird. And I don't want to intrude." She keeps expecting Kaitlyn to walk through the door, and it's starting to make her question if she really should have come. Bellamy looks amused.
"You have a bizarre sense of manners, you know that? You show up here, uninvited, boss me around, but you don't want to intrude."
"Go shower," she flaps her hand at him. "And then try to get some sleep. If you need me, you know where to find me."
"And if I don't?"
"Then I'll just show up and boss you around some more. Go." He does, with a heavy sigh, and an irritable glare, but he looks like he needs it. When he's gone, she looks around. Bellamy isn't a messy guy, per se, but the place is…actually it's a wreck. She finds herself thinking that there's no way he could have done this kind of damage in two days, and it's only been that long since Jake's been gone. She sets her jacket back down with a sigh and begins to tidy up.
.-.-.-.-.
She's sitting in her hotel room when the text comes in. It's been almost seven hours since she left Bellamy's, and she's hoping that he's actually slept, but she knows sleep won't come easy, not now.
Did you clean my house while I was sleeping?
She sighs.
No.
It only takes a few seconds for the reply to come in.
But it's clean.
Well, maybe someone broke in, and was so horrified by the state of it that they took pity on you and put some dirty dishes away.
A few seconds pass, and then a minute, and she suddenly remembers that they don't do this anymore. She's not sure if it's flirting, or just friendly banter, it feels the same as it always does to her. But it's not. Then her phone buzzes in her hand.
You're right, my mistake. That is clearly the more logical and obvious explanation.
She grins.
Did you sleep?
A little.
You hungry?
He takes longer to reply to that, and she chews at a hangnail on her thumb.
Going to dinner with Kait in a bit.
The reminder of his new life hits like a fist to the stomach, and Clarke once again scolds herself for forgetting. This is hard.
Good. I'll be in town for a couple days-gallery stuff. In case you need something.
Yeah, right. I'm fine. Go home.
Suddenly, her head feels fuzzy, cheeks warm. Should she? Who was she to assume he needed her here? It's been half a year since they broke up, he's obviously moved on. Without thinking, she dials a number, lifting her phone to her face.
"Hello?"
"What am I doing here?" Clarke hisses, her nails digging into the palm of her hand as it curls into a tight fist.
"What are you talking about?" Octavia asks, sounding confused.
"Why the hell did I come here? I could have just called. I'm like the psycho stalker ex. God, maybe Hayley was right."
"Okay, first of all, you did call. He didn't answer."
"Okay, but-"
"Second, no offense, but whatever your girlfriend said about Bell was probably kind of biased. Girl is mad insecure."
"We-"
"And most importantly," Octavia says, interrupting her again. "You're there because he needs you, and you love him."
"He doesn't," Clarke murmurs, sickened that she's saddened by that. She should want him to have someone else. But all she feels is left behind. "It's like I just assumed that because I'm still-that I could just show up and it would be like nothing had changed. Which is fucking stupid."
"Then come home."
"I…" She thinks about that. Is there any point staying for a few more days if all she's going to do is sit around and wait for him to maybe, probably not, call her?
"See? You want to stay. Because you know I'm right."
"I know you're annoying," Clarke mutters, pinching the bridge of her nose.
"Hey, you called me."
"Octavia, should I be here?"
"Clarke, I can't answer that."
Frustrated, she groans.
"Hayley and I broke up."
"Hmm."
"You don't surprised," Clarke says accusingly. Octavia just makes a noncommittal noise.
"Well, she was kind of, I don't know. Not your type, I guess."
Ignoring the fact that both of her best friends apparently realized that long before she did, Clarke flops back onto her bed.
"Why? Because she wasn't your brother?"
"That's not what I meant. But it's interesting that you bring that up."
"O, this is hard."
"I know," her friend hums sympathetically. "But you care. It's kind of your thing."
Clarke sighs.
"I hate my thing."
"Look, you have to take care of yourself first." Octavia says, a little more firmly. "That's what you always tell me, and I'm sure you've said something similar to Bell in the past few hours. So if you can't deal with being there, come home. I won't judge you."
"I think I'd judge me."
"Then stay."
"This conversation has kind of become pointless," Clarke points out. Octavia snorts.
"Then I think I've gotta go. Lincoln's family is here, and his nephews are trying to put facepaint on the dog."
"Okay. Love you."
"Love you," Octavia tells her. "Bye."
And then it's just Clarke again, the cold air of the hotel air conditioning reminding her of the last time she was sitting on a hotel bed and trying to convince herself that it was finally time to put Bellamy Blake in her rearview mirror.
It takes six hours to convince herself to leave. It feels remarkably like running away as she takes the suitcase that she never unpacked and wheels it up the Uber waiting at the curb. It's self-preservation, she reminds herself. And sometimes, that is the best you can do.
They're halfway to the airport when her phone rings. At first, she assumes it's the same number that's been calling her all day, an unlisted number that always disconnects as soon as she answers, one that hasn't turned up any results after a couple curious google searches. But when she flips her phone on her lap, it's Bellamy's name on the screen.
"Bellamy?"
"Hey," he says gruffly, sounding surly and more than a little drunk.
"Are you okay?"
"I, uh, could use your help with something." Definitely drunk. His words are slurring together, slow and clumsy.
She should tell him she's already almost at the airport, that she has to leave, that she needs to stop pretending that she can have him back anytime she wants. She broke up with him. She needs to act like this is the life that she chose. This is what she wanted.
"I'll be there in fifteen minutes." She hangs up, hating herself and feeling perversely validated in equal measure. "Sorry," she murmurs, leaning forward to address the driver. "change of plans."
