A/N: Hey guys, so I know the last chapter was a little short, this ones a more normal length. I'm probably planning to time the final chapter (either 10 or 11, not sure yet) so it goes up after the new episode airs on Thursday.

Which basically means I'll be rolling out 5 chapters over the next two days. Hope that's alright with you!

P.S. Thank you for all the reviews! They're definitely motivating me to finish this fic quicker than any other story I've written..

Clarke flings the door open, fuming.

"I don't know why the universe is conspiring against me this morning," she informs her ex, who blinks as he realizes the door has opened, "but kindly fuck off, and pass the message on to the next creep in line for my front door."

Finn opens his mouth to respond, then notices Bellamy for the first time.

"Who the hell is that?"

Clarke follows his gaze, glancing behind her in confusion.

"That is none of your business," she declares, realizing he's talking about Bellamy. She pulls the door slightly shut, so only her head and half her torso are exposed. "What do you want?"

"You sent Jasper to drop off the box of my stuff last night! Clarke, this is crazy. I want you back."

She groans, and moves to close the door the rest of the way. Finn sticks out his foot, wedging the door open, and from behind her, Bellamy makes a noise of indignance.

"Finn, move your foot before I remove it."

He looks slightly taken aback by her hostility, but stays put.

"Clarke, come on. We were moving in together. You can't tell me you don't miss me. Just give me another chance. I love you."

Ignoring the sound of retching behind her, Clarke grits her teeth.

"No. You cheated on me, denied it while you were still in bed with her, and you still haven't even apologized."

His eyes widen in surprise, like maybe he'd just forgotten.

"I'm so-"

"Oh god." She makes a face, embarrassed for both of them. "Not now, it's way too late. Please just leave. Goodbye, Finn." And then, kicking at his sneaker with her bare foot, Clarke dislodges it and shuts the door behind him.

For a moment she just stays there, back against the door, hands pressed to her face. Eventually, another hand peels one of hers away, and she opens her eye. Bellamy peers back at her, looking concerned.

"You alright?"

"Yeah." She nods. "But you're going to have to wait until I know he's gone to leave. I am not opening that door again."

His only response is a shrug, and she walks past him into the living room, collapsing onto the couch with a groan.

"This is the worst day off ever. And it's not even eight-thirty."

He manages to look appropriately apologetic, hovering a few feet away.

"So that's the birthday boy, huh?"

Clarke snorts.

"That's him."

After a few seconds, Bellamy begins to drift back toward the door.

"I think he's gone," he says tentatively, and Clarke frowns at him from her spot on the couch. "I'm gonna get going."

Exhausted, she just gives him a half salute, similar to the one he got from the busboy at his bar a few weeks ago.

Bellamy's halfway out the door before he turns back.

"You've got free drinks for life, by the way. At Johnny's."

It's more a gesture than anything, she knows that. But Clarke smirks at him.

"I'd be careful with that offer if I were you."

His answering smile sends a shot of heat straight to her stomach.

"Don't worry, I'll keep you far away from the limes."

The reference makes her cheeks flame, and she throws a crochet pillow at him. She misses.

"Go home, Bellamy."

He tosses back the pillow.

"Thank you. Again."

She nods, and he ducks out, the sound of his footsteps on the hardwood outside lulling her back to sleep.

.-.-.-.-.

Clarke has never understood why grocery stores rearrange their products every few months.

"It's so you have to spend more time in the store, looking for stuff," Raven says beside her. "The longer you're here, the more statistically likely you are to spend more money."

Clarke rolls her eyes. The two women started a tentative friendship when the gorgeous Latina showed up at the hospital a few weeks ago, to talk to her. At first, Raven just wanted to know the details of Clarke's relationship with Finn. The realization that Finn and Raven had been together for four years, the last two of which had been long distance, and that Clarke was the other woman after all, had been a lot to stomach. Raven hadn't been too pleased either, when Clarke revealed that Finn had asked her to move in with him.

They'd gone to lunch at a pub across the street, made plans to meet up after Clarke's shift and get drunk, and been almost inseparable ever since. Clarke's other friends thought it was a little weird, at first, but wholeheartedly changed their minds after meeting her. Six weeks after that first lunch, they find themselves at a grocery store, shopping for party snacks.

"Or," Clarke counters, grabbing a couple cases of beer and dropping them into the cart. "I'll just get fed up with it and take my business elsewhere."

Raven shakes her head.

"No, because they all do it. It's like doctors. We all need them, so they can be an hour late for every appointment, and change their cancellation policies every two weeks, and there's nothing we can do. We just have to put up with it." She suddenly glances over at Clarke, who's trying to make a decision involving salsa to tortilla chip ratio. "No offense."

Clarke just shrugs.

"It's fine. I'm not a GP. If I'm late to an appointment, there usually isn't a patient anymore." The thought comes out a little more egotistical than she intended, but it doesn't bother Raven. "Hey, do you have a preference for cake? I probably should have asked you that like a week ago, but…" She doesn't really have an excuse. "But I'm a terrible person and didn't think of it until now."

The brunette taps her finger thoughtfully against her chin.

"Not really. But if you buy me a grocery store cake, I will tell everyone that you have a genital piercing."

Clarke gives her a strange look.

"Okay, but I don't." Which Raven knows, actually, because they may or may not have gotten hopelessly drunk and hooked up that first night after drinks six weeks ago. The next morning they'd woken up, laughed until a very hungover Raven ran to the bathroom to throw up, and gone out for a very platonic breakfast.

"Yeah," Raven acknowledges, with a glint in her eye. "But they don't know that. And how are you going to prove it to them, show them all your vag?"

Rolling her eyes again, Clarke pushes the cart toward the next aisle which used to be produce, but now seems to be dry cereal.

"That might be preferable, actually," she mutters, and looks up just in time to keep from running into another shopper. "Oh, sorry."

The other girl blinks at her.

"Dr. Griffin?"

With a start, Clarke recognizes the shopper as Octavia.

"Octavia, Hi. Call me Clarke." Her eyes automatically go to her shoulder, and she's unsurprised to see the sling is gone. "How's your shoulder?"

Octavia shrugs, the movement stiff on one side.

"A lot better. I'm going to physio, which sucks, but it's helping."

"I'm glad." And she is. She really does like Octavia. "And how's your brother?" Maybe part of her is just trying to figure out what the girl knows, whether Bellamy ever talked about her, but Clarke chooses to live in denial.

"He's good." Octavia's face lights up. "He actually just finished his dissertation, which is... It's basically been his whole life for like two years. His thesis defense is next week, which he's freaking out about, but-" She rolls her eyes. "He just likes to worry."

"I picked up on that," Clarke says, smiling. Octavia's smile dims, and she shakes her head.

"Sorry, you don't even really know him. That was probably too much information," she apologizes, grinning sheepishly.

So Bellamy hasn't told her sister. About any of it.

Raven finally appears again, her arms full of frozen food. When she dumps the bags into the cart, Clarke reads the labels.

"You're getting six bags of McCain's smiley fries?" she asks incredulously. "You know we're ordering pizza, right?" Raven crosses her arms defensively.

"Hey. It's my party. I can fry if I want to," Raven says with a wink, looking smug at her own joke. Clarke groans.

"You've been spending too much time with Jasper. Octavia, this is my friend Raven, the four year-old. Raven, this is Octavia Blake. She was a patient of mine." She waves her hand in the gesture that seems to be universal when making introductions, and the women wave at each other.

"You throwing a party?" Octavia asks.

"It's Raven's birthday tomorrow." And she normally spends it with Finn, a fact she let slip when they'd gotten drunk last week on homemade margaritas and a bottle of Skinny Bitch wine, which they've since decided is just watered down grape juice. So Clarke had immediately suggested that she throw Raven's party this year.

"It's true, I'm getting old."

Clarke points a finger threateningly at her friend.

"Watch it, Reyes. I'm older than you."

Octavia watches their exchange with an interested smirk. Raven notices this, and turns back to her with a thoughtful expression.

"You should come, if you're free."

This takes the young Blake by surprise, her eyebrows shooting up.

"Wow that's…really nice of you."

Even Clarke is a little surprised, but then again, Raven doesn't have that many friends in the city.

"You look super creeped out," Raven notes with a grin. Octavia flushes. "I'm not a stalker or anything, I just don't know a lot of people here. I moved to Manhattan two months ago, so. I'm trying to expand my social circle." She leaves out the part where she moved halfway across the country to be with her boyfriend who turned out to be a cheating douchebag, Clarke notices.

"I, uh, actually don't have plans tomorrow night. I'd love to come."

Raven nods, like this has been the plan all along.

"Excellent, what's your phone number, I'll text you the details."

As they exchange information, Clarke can't help but be a little bemused. Why would Bellamy not have told Octavia he knew her? Did he think she'd be embarrassed? Or did he just consider her a stranger he'd crossed paths with more than once?

She continues to mull this over as they check out, Raven loading the bagged groceries back into the cart as she pays. They make it to her car before her friend says anything.

"What's wrong? Do you not like Octavia?"

At the question, Clarke looks up from rearranging the bags in her trunk.

"Huh? No, I like her. Why?"

Raven narrows her eyes suspiciously.

"You're pouting about something. What is it?"

"I'm not pouting, and it's nothing," Clarke says, slamming the trunk shut. They both climb into the car, but Raven doesn't let it go.

"Are you stressed about the party? Because like I said, we can just go out-"

"It's her brother," Clarke interrupts her. "Her brother is the bartender who drove me home after I found out Finn was cheating on me."

"Octavia is his sister? I thought you said she was a patient."

"She was." Clarke pulls out of the parking lot onto the highway. "It was just a fluke, she happened to be in a car accident when I was working, and Bellamy was her next of kin, so he showed up at the hospital looking for her."

"Wow," mutters Raven. "Weird."

"Yeah. And then a few days later he showed up at my apartment and yelled at me because his sister's hospital bills were too low." Objectively, she's beginning to hear how strange the story sounds. She wonders if that's why Bellamy didn't share any of this with Octavia.

"He-wait. You lost me."

"I got all of Octavia's scans comped as training expenses, told accounting her room was being used for a family member, and didn't bill for my hours. So all he got charged for was her painkillers, and…I don't know. I guess he thought it was charity."

Her passenger is uncharacteristically quiet, and Clarke glances over at her.

"Was it charity?" Raven finally asks.

"No."

"Okay, and why would you go to all that trouble for a girl you don't know?"

"He's a bartender, he doesn't have insurance-"

"You must have patients who don't have insurance all the time-"

"He was nice, he drove me home that time-"

"What do you mean he's nice? He yelled at you for-oh my god. You totally like him."

Clarke almost rear ends the car in front of her, then turns to glare at her friend.

"I do not."

"Oh." Raven's face lights up in a shit-eating grin. "You so do. Is he hot? Octavia's damn attractive, he must be decent looking."

"He's okay," Clarke says stiffly. Raven just laughs.

"Oh, man. You totally like him."