A/N: Sorry for the fake-out with the half-posted chapter, but we needed reinforcements and I was hoping to motivate. ;)
Good news is, Bob won, so thanks to everyone who took my bribe seriously and voted. You da best.
Here's the entire chapter, as promised.
Delinquent bonding, some Clarke insight, Clarke/Raven bonding, and then a bit of a cliffhanger...but this one should be more enjoyable. 0:)
Note: Raven isn't injured in this AU, because while my AU!Murphy is a curmudgeonly ass, he's not an (attempted) murdery ass.
Clarke and Bellamy had gone back to his apartment to change clothes, and then they walked over to Raven's, Bellamy now clad in jeans and a dark blue Henley, and Clarke in leggings and a soft green sweater that hung off both shoulders, giving her a sort of 80's vibe that she kind of liked.
If Bellamy's admiring glance over her neck and shoulders, bare except for the soft blonde curls that fell against them, was any indication…he kind of liked it too.
He'd seemed a tad keyed up when they'd first gotten to Raven's, as if uncomfortable with the sympathy he thought he might receive, but their friends seemed to realize he didn't want to be the center of a pity party, and after they'd each hugged him, they'd strived to make it like any other group get together, if a tiny bit more subdued.
They'd sprung for the family style Chicken Parmesan and spaghetti from Salerno's, complete with salad, garlic bread, and even chocolate chip cannoli for dessert, which seemed to distress Bellamy greatly.
"I thought you guys meant pizza or burgers or something. I didn't want you to do all this…" he'd said, almost embarrassed.
Raven, ever so helpful in her delicate way, had nipped that in the bud immediately. "I'm an engineer and these two idiots…" she said, gesturing toward Jasper and Monty. "…are chemists. It's not like we can't afford to buy you a decent dinner. Don't make it weird, Blake."
Clarke had tried not to snort, but hadn't entirely succeed, so she'd turned it into a cough.
It was only a few minutes later though, when Clarke had tried to give Miller money for her part of the dinner in the kitchen and he wouldn't accept, that Clarke understood a little of what Bellamy had been feeling: a bit of embarrassment, a bit of unworthiness, and a bit of incredulity…that they had people who cared about them this much.
At some point, Raven brought out an unopened bottle of Jack Daniels, and everyone added some to their glass, knowing that if any day had ever needed some Jack…it was today.
After dinner, they cycled through different activities, as they usually did. Jasper and Monty had taken over Raven's TV, using it to play video games, Miller had slid into the seat next to Bellamy, showing him a bow he wanted to get before next fall's hunting season, and Raven had taken Clarke into her bedroom, asking for her opinion on an outfit to wear to an upcoming office party.
Clarke watched in some amusement as Raven pulled out a couple of dresses that were skin-tight and showed a fair amount of skin, one in the leg department, the other in the chest department.
"Office party?!" Clarke asked, eyebrows raised.
"Not like…balloons and Walmart cake in the lobby. It's some kind of mixer thing our office puts on every year to try to woo new clients. It's in the ballroom at the Four Seasons. From everything I've heard, everyone gets drunk and acts really inappropriately," Raven said nonchalantly. "Apparently, that's how we get our clients?"
Clarke snorted. "I assume Wick is going to be in attendance?" she asked, trying not to grin.
Raven just glared at her. "Which one, Griffin?"
Clarke studied them for a second, quickly picking up the red one that was as short as you could feasibly get away with at a semi-work function. "This one," she said definitively, wanting Raven to highlight her best feature, which was definitely her long, slender legs.
Raven was still eyeing her a bit angrily. "Shoes?"
Clarke eyed the heels Raven had set on the floor in front of her, but quickly dismissed most of them as either too short of a heel or too "business-casual."
"Do you remember those black heels I wore to that club we went to downtown on New Year's Eve?" Clarke asked.
Normally, she wouldn't expect Raven to remember her shoes from what was probably two years ago, but they'd been pretty perfect shoes, kind of a cross between a high-heeled bootie and a pump, black leather, with an open toe and laser cut-outs all over them. Raven and Octavia had both complimented her on them multiple times that night.
They were probably the closest thing to a "fuck me" shoe Clarke owned, and you could actually walk in them. They would make Raven's legs look amazing.
"Yes!" Raven exclaimed. "Can I borrow them?! They'll make Wi..." Raven stopped abruptly, again glaring at Clarke, who only laughed.
"Yes, you can borrow them," she chuckled.
Raven rolled her eyes, muttering a 'Thank you' as she hung the dresses back up in her closet.
Clarke sat down on Raven's bed, swirling the whiskey left in the bottom of her coffee cup.
She wasn't sure what it was with them drinking alcohol out of the most random glasses, but she kind of liked it.
"Have you talked to Octavia today?" Clarke asked, a bit warily.
Raven and Octavia hadn't really been that close before…Clarke had usually been the one that brought them together, but ever since Clarke's vanishing act, she'd gotten the feeling that the two of them had gotten closer on their own, in a relationship that didn't include her. Honestly, she felt a little weird that the two of them were close without her.
"I called her after the funeral," Raven said, tossing the rejected shoes none-too-gently into the bottom of her closet. "Thought she might have questions about how it went."
Clarke didn't say anything, waiting while Raven slid the closet doors closed and turned around.
"She didn't," she finished, looking at Clarke.
Clarke started to open her mouth, but Raven held up a finger, telling her to wait a minute as she went and quietly closed the door to her bedroom.
"I know she kind of hated her mom," Raven said quietly, sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of Clarke. "But I thought she'd show up for this. I mean…my God."
Clarke nodded. "I know. I get that she didn't want to be here for her mom…but how could she not come back for her brother?! He…didn't take it well. At least not at first. I think he's doing a little better now though. But he needed his sister, and I can't believe she didn't even think about that."
Raven was studying her a little peculiarly. "Did he?"
Clarke frowned. "Did he what?"
"Did he need his sister?"
"Of course he did. She's the only family he's got left."
"Seems to me like you're the one that's been getting him through this," Raven said, picking at a thread on her jeans as she tried for nonchalance.
Clarke paused a little, letting that sink in before she replied. "Yeah, but he only wants me because she's not here."
Raven tilted her head, raising her eyebrows in a thinly veiled interpretation of 'I can't believe I'm friends with someone this dense.' "He. Loves. You." she said emphatically, pausing after each word as if Clarke were a toddler. "You idiot," she finished, although without any malice.
Clarke was already shaking her head. "You can't know that."
"I'd bet every penny I have on it."
"Has he told you that?"
Raven pursed her lips. "No. You want me to go ask him?"
"No!" Clarke said, a little too loudly.
She paused, but apparently the sound of whatever video game the boys were playing in the other room covered her insistent response.
"Even if he does, now's not the time, Raven. His mother just died."
Raven cocked her head again, and it was as if you could see the gears turning in her brain. "You love him. He loves you. Does it really matter how or when it happens, as long as it happens?"
"Number one, we don't know if he loves me," she insisted. "And yes…it matters. If he does feel the same way…then…" Clarke trailed off, looked down at her brightly colored socks, her cheeks growing warm.
"Then…what?" Raven pressed gently.
Clarke met the brunette's gaze, her eyes intense. "Vault?" she asked, using the term they'd first agreed on back in college to mean 'a secret that can never be repeated, no matter the circumstances,' literally 'keeping it locked up in a vault.'
Raven nodded.
"I'm serious, Raven. If this doesn't happen or it doesn't work out…I need to be able to show my face around those guys out there," she said, gesturing toward the living room as she took a large gulp of whiskey in the form of liquid courage. "And I won't be able to do that if you tell them this."
Raven frowned sympathetically. "I get it. Vault," she agreed.
"If Bellamy does feel the same way, then…he's it for me. To be honest, even if he doesn't feel the same way…he's probably still it for me," she admitted quietly. "I want everything with him, Raven. The house and the kids and the creaky rocking chairs…every sappy love song you've ever heard and every chick-flick you've ever seen. I'm just…so far gone for him…we couldn't just be casual, ya know? And we know each other so well…I feel like we'd either be…nothing or married. I don't know that we could find a way to do in-between."
"So what's the problem with that?" Raven asked. "I hate to tell you this, but you two already act like you're married. Actually, I'd bet you good money that if you went out there and asked him to marry you right now, he'd say yes in a heartbeat."
Clarke glared at her. "I wasn't done, Reyes."
Raven held up her hands placatingly. "Sorry, sorry. Continue."
"Anyway. If we end up…together…if it started now…I'd always wonder if he actually wanted to be with me, or if it was some knee-jerk reaction to his grief. I'm so stupidly crazy about him…I don't think I could handle always wondering if the only reason he was with me was because I'd told him how I felt when he was lonely and desperate for someone to love."
Raven was studying her, moving her mouth around as she contemplated. "You weren't kidding; you have got it bad for him."
Clarke raised her eyebrows in a 'told ya so' gesture.
"A giant part of me just wants to smush your faces together while screaming 'you love each other, you morons!' But then I wonder…maybe the reason you two get to have this epic, nauseating love is because you care enough about each other to be miserable until you can find the right time."
Clarke snorted. "Thanks…I think?"
"Do you have some specific amount of time you're going to wait after this?" Raven asked curiously as she stood up.
"Not really," Clarke shrugged. "I'm just going to wait and see what happens. I just want to make sure he's…himself…before I even think about…"
She wasn't about to tell Raven this, since admitting that they were now kissing on the regular would open an entirely new can of worms, but Clarke almost felt like she'd done everything but come out and say she was in love with him. Especially given the circumstances, Clarke almost felt like she needed to wait for him to make a move after this was all over.
Raven nodded. "I get it," she said, grabbing Clarke's hand and opening the door. "Come on. We need more booze."
Clarke allowed Raven to drag her back into the kitchen, where she added another healthy dose of whiskey to her cup, then stood by the counter, sipping on it as she replayed parts of her conversation with Raven in her head: both the parts about her feelings for Bellamy and how disappointed she was in Octavia. When Clarke glanced down, she saw her phone sitting on the counter, and before she could talk herself out of it, she grabbed it and headed out into the hallway outside Raven's apartment.
She clicked on Octavia's number and pressed the phone to her ear, waiting while it rang. After a few rings, it went to voicemail.
Clarke pulled the phone away from her ear, frowning at it a bit before she pressed it back to her face, just in time for the shrill beep. "Hey, Octavia. Listen…I told you before how sorry I am about your mom. I know you two weren't close and I don't blame you for not knowing how to…deal with all this. But I just…" Clarke sighed, not wanting to go too far out of line, but still anxious to say what needed to be said. "Bellamy had to deal with this on his own. I mean, I tried to be there for him as much as I could, but…you should've been here, Octavia. Not for your mom…for him." Clarke took a breath, closing her eyes. "Don't hate me, okay? It needed to be said and Bellamy would never say it. He's so used to protecting you from everything…shouldering the burden himself…but he shouldn't have had to this time." Clarke turned around, slowly making her way back to Raven's apartment. "I'll talk to you later…if you're still speaking to me after this. I miss you."
With that, Clarke reluctantly pressed End, not sure if she'd gone too far or not, but needing to let Octavia know how badly she'd hurt her brother by not coming home.
She walked back into Raven's, setting her phone back in the kitchen before she headed into the living room.
Everyone was gathered around the coffee table, apparently playing poker.
Clarke perched on the arm of the sofa, right beside where Bellamy was sitting. She automatically put an arm around his shoulders, leaning over to see his cards.
Seemingly just as automatically, he leaned into her, making some sort of "Hmmm" noise.
It wasn't until he'd leaned forward to collect the two new cards he'd requested from Raven, then leaned back and immediately leaned back into Clarke that she realized they weren't exactly hiding their newfound 'closeness' from their friends.
No, they weren't making out in front of them, but they'd held hands in front of them all morning, at the funeral, and now they were being extremely touchy-feely in front of everyone…
…and no one seemed to find anything out of the ordinary about it, Clarke realized.
She wondered if it was because they thought Bellamy needed comforted or if…maybe they were like Raven and were aware that she and Bellamy were dancing around…something.
Honestly, Clarke didn't know if she could handle that.
She brought her cup to her lips, taking another gulp as she wondered if their entire group of friends was aware of how pathetic she was for her best friend.
A couple hours later, Bellamy and Clarke stumbled a bit through his front door, grinning at each other a little breathlessly as they closed the door and righted themselves.
They'd spent the last two hours at Raven's, playing poker and drinking, and Clarke had lost count of how many 'splashes' she'd added to her glass. She wasn't drunk drunk, just tipsy enough to get the giggles…or sappy, depending on how the rest of the night went. All she knew was that she felt lighter than she had in days, and Bellamy seemed to be in a similar place as he leaned against the wall, a half grin on his face as he studied her.
Clarke wanted to keep that grin on his face for as long as humanly possible.
She grabbed his hand, tugging him into the kitchen. "Let's make cookies!"
"Cookies?" he questioned, laughing.
"Yes! Cookies! Do you have chocolate chips?"
Her slightly addled brain wasn't quite sure why she'd decided that cookies were the way to go, but it was some combination of the extreme case of the munchies she'd contracted and her recollections of how much Bellamy loved it when she baked.
"Of course I have chocolate chips," he scoffed. "I've kept chocolate chips in the cupboard since your sophomore year, when you broke up with douc…Finn," he corrected himself, although he did so grudgingly.
She'd gone on a bit of a baking bender at Bellamy's apartment after the Finn catastrophe, and her most featured variety of self-medication in the form of baked goods had been chocolate chip cookies. After all, what was better than comfort food for a broken heart?
Clarke was frowning at him a bit as she got out the flour and sugar. He'd kept his cupboard stocked with chocolate chips since then? Bellamy didn't even have that much of a sweet tooth…
She flashed back to Thanksgiving, when he'd asked her to wait for him to come home to start working on the pies. "What's with you and the baking?" she asked, although she wasn't really sure if that made sense once she said it out loud. It made sense in her head.
"Huh?"
"I've never seen you bake on your own and you're not even that crazy about desserts. Why do you always want me to bake?" She paused, thinking about it. No, that wasn't quite right. "Why do you always want to bake with me?"
Bellamy rolled his eyes, but she swore she caught a slight flush on his cheeks. "You're getting paranoid or something, Clarke. Maybe I'm just amazed that you can be in a kitchen without burning the whole place down." He walked over to the other side of the kitchen, grabbing a bag of chocolate chips out of the cabinet above the fridge. "Here," he said, handing them to her. "I'll be right back."
Clarke stared after him with a bit of a narrowed eye, wondering why he was deflecting.
"Damn Jack Daniels," he muttered on the way into his bedroom, making Clarke laugh out loud, because she'd broken the seal about an hour ago and could fully sympathize.
By the time he got back a couple minutes later, clad in sweatpants, she'd collected everything they needed and completely forgotten about her previous line of questioning.
"Come onnnn, Bellamy. I need food."
"You just ate your weight in spaghetti," he responded.
"Are you fat shaming me?" she asked, knowing very well he wasn't.
"No," he answered, coming into the kitchen to join her. "I also ate my weight in spaghetti. How the hell are we hungry again?"
"Whiskey," Clarke answered simply. "Now get over here and help me."
He did, and they worked in sync, measuring ingredients, cracking eggs, and then mixing everything together.
They got the cookies in the oven, and Clarke started washing dishes while Bellamy put everything away.
She was standing at the sink, running hot water into one side when she felt Bellamy come up behind her and put one of his hands on her waist.
She felt just the tips of his fingers in a softer-than-soft caress as he pushed her hair off her shoulder, then leaned down to press a warm kiss to her bare skin.
Clarke was fairly sure she quit breathing. She closed her eyes at the simple touch, every cell in her body coming to life.
The intimacy of it…the anticipation…
It was delicious in a way she'd never experienced before.
Bellamy chose that moment to drop his hands from her, taking a step back as his breath hitched a little, as if he'd just realized what he'd done. "Sorry," he mumbled. "I don't know what I was…"
Clarke turned around, grabbing his arm to stop his retreat. She shook her head as she put her other hand on the side of his face. "Don't apologize," she insisted, going up on her tiptoes as she pressed her lips to his.