Many thanks to all who reviewed! You all put a huge smile on my face! Here goes Chapter Three…

Clarke didn't bother to look up from the book she was reading when she heard her door open.

"I'm gonna hop in the shower. Want to grab some lunch when I get out?" Octavia asked.

"Yeah, sure," Clarke said absentmindedly. Then before the door could close all the way, her head snapped up, "Wait, don't you go out to lunch with your brother every Sunday?" she asked suspiciously.

Octavia's head re-emerged, complete with a guilty smile, "Yeah, but I thought we could all go together." Clarke returned the statement with a stare. Octavia continued, "You know, talk, hang out, get you and Bell to a point where I'm not worried about waking up to one or the other of you strangled dead on the floor of my living room."

"Yeah, not really in the mood to go out to lunch with your coffee stealing brother."

"Please!" Octavia said, giving Clarke her best puppy eyes and pouting her lower lip. "Bellamy said he'd be willing to have you come."

"Did he, now?"

"Yup, totally did." Octavia clipped before intensifying her puppy look, "Please, Clarke, at least try to get along with my brother a little. You're the two most important people in my life and I hate that you guys don't get along."

"And I hate it when you play that card." Clarke said glaring despite being on the verge of giving in. Why did Octavia always have to give her that look when Clarke didn't want to do something? Too many times in college Clarke had put off her homework to watch a movie or go out or be otherwise unproductive because Octavia was giving her that look. And then whenever it came to Bellamy the very card that Octavia had just played would come out, and Clarke's guilt at making her friend unhappy would surface and, and…"Fine!" Clarke let out an exasperated sigh.

"Yay! Thanks, Clarke! I'll be out of the shower shortly and then we can go!" And with that Octavia left Clarke alone to change and put on some make-up.

Thirty minutes later Clarke was following Octavia into the living room where Bellamy was waiting. He stood up from the couch as he heard footsteps, turned around and stopped, "She's not coming, is she?" He looked questioningly at Octavia.

"You said he was good with this." Clarke said, turning her gaze to the dark-haired girl.

"Well, I'm not. Sunday is mine and O's thing."

"Fine with me. Didn't want to eat lunch with you anyway." Clarke turned and started to walk back to her room but was stopped by Octavia grabbing her arm.

"No. You're not getting out of this." She told Clarke. "And, Bell, you said you'd try."

"Yeah, I'd try to be civil with her. Not go out to lunch with you and her and pretend we're all friends and everything is fine and dandy."

"Come on, B," Octavia turned her power of the puppy eyes on her brother, "It's just lunch. For me? Please?"

Bellamy took a deep breath, caving under the puppy eyes quicker than Clarke had, "Fine." He said with a huff.

They sat in silence around a table at an outdoor café. Before Octavia could try for her third time to start a conversation, the waitress, a young girl who looked about sixteen, came over, "Hi, I'm Charlotte, and I'll be helping you today. Are you guys ready for a drink order?"

"I don't know about them," Clarke said with a glare towards Bellamy, "but I'll have a cup of coffee."

"You'd better bring extra sugar packets then, too." Bellamy said wryly with a returning look for Clarke. "I'll just have a water."

"Diet Coke for me," Octavia chimed.

"Alrighty, I'll be right back with those drinks for you." Charlotte said as she slipped her pad of paper and pen into her apron, oblivious to the tension at the table.

Silence resumed, "So, Bell, how is your thesis coming along?" Octavia asked.

"Long, difficult, exhausting, frustrating."

"Care to expand on any of that?" Octavia pushed, knowing that if she could just get him talking about his project, she wouldn't be able to get him to shut up.

Bellamy sighed, "Right now I'm just stuck on part of a translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses. Every time I think I'm satisfied with my translation, I pick up on something in the Latin that I just can't get into English with the right vibe. I waver back and forth between translating the word literally and translating the meaning behind the words, but nothing seems to express what Ovid is saying in the right way." Bellamy raised an eyebrow at Octavia who had gotten a big grin on her face and a twinkle in her eye. "What?"

"You should have Clarke take a look!" Octavia said excitedly before turning to the other person at the table, "You took, what, eight years of Latin?"

"Yeah," Clarke said, drawing her lips into a line. "Four in high school, four in college."

"Pf, you would go to a high school that taught Latin," Bellamy muttered.

"And then you had that Classic Comparative Mythology class that you loved, too! That's basically what Bellamy's doing for this thesis! You guys could totally talk about this!" Octavia exclaimed while ignoring her brother's comment.

"I took that class like three years ago, I'm not going to remember anything from it!" Clarke said, back pedaling before Octavia could rope her into something neither she nor Bellamy wanted.

"Yeah you do! You brought it up just the other day when we were watching Hercules."

"I, uh…that was the only thing I remember from the class…"

"You're a horrible liar, Clarke. And even if that's true, you could still take a look at the Latin. That I know you know! You still read your Latin books so you don't get out of practice."

"I, uh—"

"Here's your drinks," Charlotte said with a big smile, placing their drinks in front of them, "You ready to order or do you still want a few minutes?"

Clarke's shoulders relaxed at the interruption. "I think we're ready," she said, grateful for anything to get away from the direction of the conversation. She then realized she hadn't even really looked at the menu. "Ummm…" she said, desperately flipping through the pages and naming the first thing that stood out to her, "I'll have the grilled chicken quesadillas."

Bellamy and Octavia placed their orders and right when Octavia was about to resume the conversation her phone rang, "It's a client from work, I'm going to take this." She got up from the table and walked outside, a small smile on her face as she said hello.

"Grilled chicken quesadillas and coffee?" Bellamy said with a smirk, "Sounds delicious."

"Shut up." Clarke replied.

Tense silence returned to the table, both left to their own thoughts for a minute. Bellamy shifted uncomfortably, clearly having an internal debate. He groaned, "As much as I hate to say it, or ask it, especially of you. I could really use a fresh pair of eyes on my thesis. My advisor has already looked at it and said I was on a good track, and I've already bothered the other Masters and PhD students enough and they've all got their own stuff to worry about. And you're my last resort, and it's only because you've had a lot of Latin experience that I even considered what my sister was suggesting. And—"

"Email it to me or drop off a copy at the apartment, I'll take a look." Clarke said, cutting him off.

"Thank you," Bellamy replied in nearly a whisper.

"Yeah," Clarke grunted. "No problem." After a long moment thinking about how she told Octavia should would make an effort with Bellamy, she added, "Why don't you tell me more about your thesis. That way I can have more of a grasp of what you're talking about when I look at it."

From there the conversation resumed with Bellamy telling her about what he was working on, while Clarke nodded her head and offered up small comments. Octavia returned, and joined the conversation, mostly just with the head nodding, her only knowledge of Classics coming from the stories her brother told her as a child and his rambles as he took his college courses. She didn't say anything about Clarke and Bellamy talking to each other without their usual underlying tension, but Clarke could tell by the shit-eating grin, that she was ecstatic. Then again, she had a grin on her face before she even joined the table again, apparently it was a good phone call.

The rest of lunch went smoothly as long as they kept the conversation focused on Bellamy's thesis. At least, it went smoothly until the check appeared.

"Here you go, I can take it whenever you're ready," Charlotte said with a smile.

Octavia was the quickest to grab it, "I've got this, guys. I made you both come out to a lunch neither of you wanted, so my treat."

"You don't have to do that, O," Clarke and Bellamy said in chorus. They looked at each other and then away.

"I'd say let the princess handle it since she's the one with the trust fund and mommy's bank account, but I guess that's not true anymore," Bellamy simpered.

"Fuck you, Bellamy," Clarke said and threw a twenty on the table. She got up to leave. "I'll see you back at the apartment, O."

"Uncalled for, Bell," Clarke heard Octavia say, but was out of earshot before she could hear Bellamy's reply.

"And I was just beginning to think that maybe we could actually get through half a day without him being a complete asshole," Clarke muttered to herself as she began the trek back to her new apartment.

PS
I'm not sure how reasonable Bellamy's educational timeline is with the whole army thing (I know nothing about enlisting or serving other than the brief survey I did online while thinking about this), but here's how I tried to think about it…he enlists and begins training at 17 with parental consent (according to something I read that's a thing, not 100% sure how reliable my source is though), after training he's on active duty from age 18-21 and he returns home when his mother dies so that he can take care of Octavia who is 16 at the time, and he's on reserve for four more years (8 years of enlistment seemed to be the most consistent answer for a minimum years of service), during this time he gets an undergraduate degree, and is currently working on his third year of his Masters at age 28. I apologize if I'm completely off base about any of that.