AN: I'm back, guys! Again, sorry for the longer wait, hopefully this chapter is worth it :)

Some smut towards the end, so heads up for that. Pretty explicit, but not very long, so you can just skip ahead a couple of paragraphs if that's not your thing!

As always, I don't own anything relating to The 100

-25-

It's interesting, Clarke thinks, how time can vary – sometimes hours rush by in a matter of minutes, sometimes days seem to drag into weeks. The latter is what happens during her final month of pregnancy. Really, it's the only explanation that she still has three weeks to go when she could have sworn it must have been at least that long since her mom gave her the last check-up at week 36.

"Any day now, baby," she says, patting her by now frankly huge belly as she enters the med bay.

"Clarke." Her mom looks up from where she's giving Dean, one of the younger Eligius, an examination. The treatment of the lung condition seems to have worked, but they're still keeping a close eye on the ones that were affected. "I thought we agreed that you were going to take it easy these last few weeks? I don't know about you, but to me that means no work."

"I'm bored," Clarke replies, easing down onto a chair by the door. Getting up again will be a problem, but she'll deal with it when she has to. Jackson should be around somewhere, he can help her. "Madi's in class and Bellamy's working, I just needed some company. Don't mind me."

Abby gives her a frown, but continues the examination before she sends Dean on his way and crouches down in front of her daughter.

"I know you're tired of this, but I promise, you're almost there."

Clarke huffs. "You said that last week."

"And I will say it next week too. Dilation and effacement has started, which I know you know means things are moving along the way they should. You're getting there, I promise."

Clarke knows this, of course, but it doesn't really help.

"Sorry I'm bugging you," she apologizes. "I know you have better things to do."

Abby makes a show of looking around the empty med bay. "The round of spring colds is over, nobody's broken a bone in weeks now and I don't have another check-up until this afternoon. I can make some time for you, honey, don't worry."

So they spend the morning going through the baby stuff Clarke has already organized and re-organized three times. Everything's ready – a beautiful crib that Miller and Jackson surprised them with at the baby-shower Raven insisted on throwing is set up in the bedroom, there's a mountain of cloth diapers in the washroom, where Bellamy has built a sort of fold down changing table, and tons of clothes, most of them hand me downs from Hope but some new as well, in a chest in the main room, since there's no space for it in the bedroom. The only thing that's missing is the actual baby.

"Did you decide on a name yet?" Abby asks as she folds a tiny onesie and puts it away.

"We haven't actually talked about it at all," Clarke replies. They just haven't gotten around to it for some reason.

"You might want to hurry up, then," her mom says. "I would recommend picking one before they start talking."

"Funny."

"You know, it might be easier if you only need to decide on one name…" Abby continues.

She's been very good at not revealing the gender in the last couple of months, not even slipping up, but every now and then she'll check in to see if they've changed their minds. Clarke hasn't, and Bellamy hasn't said anything about it, so she's assuming he hasn't either.

"I think we'll manage," she says. "Besides, we've waited this long, it would feel almost like cheating to find out at this point."

"OK, whatever you want, honey. But do try to agree on at least a couple of names. You don't have to pick just one for each, you might end up changing your minds once the baby's here anyway, but at least narrow it down to a few options."

"We could always go the gender neutral route," Clarke notes. "Or just pick a name and say to hell with it, this is the one we want, boy or girl."

"I've told you time and time again – your name is not just a man's name, my grandmother was named Clarke."

Clarke gives her an innocent look. "Whatever you say, Mom."

But they really do need to pick a name, so she brings it up that afternoon before Madi gets home from school.

"So, Mom asked if we had a name picked out earlier," she says, glancing at Bellamy where he's reading next to her on the couch. He carefully places his bookmark – a wooden one that Madi carved for him for his birthday – between the pages before putting the book away.

"Right," he says, running a hand through his hair. "We should probably try to get that out of the way before he or she gets here."

"That's what Mom thought." Clarke puts away her sewing – yes, she's sewing a blanket out of old clothes, she's nesting, damn it – and shifts a little so she can look at him more easily. "So… any thoughts?"

He takes her hand in his and absentmindedly plays with her fingers as he thinks. "If it's a boy, would you want to name him after your dad?" he finally asks, eyes lifting to hers.

Clarke considers that for a moment. "Maybe as a middle name," she says eventually. "I think I'd like him or her to have their own name, you know? Not one that evokes bad memories like that. I'm not saying no to a family name, but that's still too raw for me, I think."

She's mostly over her dad's death, even if it will always be a painful memory. But sometimes, it hits her extra hard – like now. The thought that her dad will never get to meet her child, his grandchild, has brought tears to her eyes more than once in the last five months.

She squeezes Bellamy's hand. "He would have loved you."

He smiles a little. "You think?"

"I know. You two would have totally hit it off."

He nods a little at that. "I did meet him once, you know."

Clarke raises her eyebrows at that. Even though the Ark wasn't that big, their families didn't exactly move in the same circles. "I didn't. When?"

"I guess it must have been… a couple of months before he died?" Bellamy says. "It wasn't much of a meeting, really, I was stationed as a guard at some fancy dinner party with Jaha, Kane, your parents and some other higher ups. He started talking to me after the dinner, asking about my work and stuff, nothing big."

Clarke takes that information in for a moment.

"I was supposed to go to that," she finally says, watching as Bellamy's mouth falls open.

"Seriously?"

"Yeah." She nods. "What if I hadn't gotten sick that day, we might have met then."

Bellamy huffs. "Not like you would have noticed me. A lowly guard and the Ark's beautiful princess."

"Maybe not," she admits, knowing she wasn't the most perceptive back then, especially not before she found out about the oxygen problem. She had been aware of the whole apparatus that made the Ark run – technicians, janitors, kitchen staff, guards – but she's ashamed to say that she didn't pay much attention to them. "Would you have noticed me?"

He gives her a soft smile. "I knew who you were on the Dropship," he tells her, the smile turning into a smirk. "Why do you think I started calling you Princess to begin with?"

She smacks him on the shoulder for that, and he laughs.

"OK, we're getting off track," she says. "So Jacob as a middle name. Don't you have a bunch of names from history, or Roman and Greek mythology?"

"You mean like Octavia?"

"OK, maybe not exactly like that, but there must have been some normal names."

He's silent for a moment, eyes narrowing slightly, and she can tell that he's running through options.

"Hector," he finally suggests.

Clarke grimaces a little. "Not sure about that one."

He thinks for another moment. "Jason?" She just shakes her head. "Damon?"

"Damon." She tastes the name. "It's nice. Who was he?"

"He's part of a story about friendship and loyalty," Bellamy replies. "His friend, Pythias, was accused of plotting against Dionysius I of Syracuse, who was a tyrant on Sicily. He asked to be allowed to get his affairs in order before he was executed, leaving Damon in his place as a sort of promise, I guess, that he would return, which he eventually did, but Dionysius was so impressed by that, he let both of them go."

"OK, nice name, good story."

"So Damon Jacob Griffin?"

Clarke frowns. "You don't want him to have your last name?"

He shrugs. "I figured Madi's sort of a Griffin, right? I want her to feel like she's part of all of this, so… And Blake isn't much of a name to pass on, to be honest. It was my father's, I don't even know what my mom's maiden name was."

"Oh…" She hesitates for a moment, not wanting to push but still curious. Bellamy's never mentioned his father before, and she hasn't asked, figuring it might be a painful memory for him, since the man must have died when Bellamy was little.

"I don't have a lot of memories of him," he continues after a silent moment. "But the ones I do have are of him drunk, yelling at my mom and me… I'm pretty sure he beat her, even if he never touched me, as far as I can remember, and she never said anything about it after he died."

She reaches for his hand and squeezes it comfortingly. "I'm sorry. What happened to him?"

"He was floated when I was four. Stole a bottle of rubbing alcohol from medical, they found him passed out in a utility closet with the bottle still in his hand." Bellamy shrugs, but she can see that talking about it is getting to him. "Not much of a loss, really."

"He was still your dad."

He shakes his head. "No. He was my father, it takes more than a sperm donation to be a dad."

The way his voice breaks slightly on the last word makes Clarke's heart ache.

"Hey," she says, squeezing his hand and waiting until he looks up at her. "You are not your father, OK? You're going to be the most amazing father and dad to our kid. There is no doubt in my mind about that."

He smiles a little at that and squeezes her hand back. "Thanks."

"OK, Damon Jacob Griffin if it's a boy. Girl? Would you want to name her after your mom?"

He thinks about it for a moment. "Maybe like you said, as a middle name? I like the idea of a name that's just hers, you know?"

"Yeah. Any good girl names in your stories?"

He already has a name ready, it turns out. "Iris."

"I love it. Tell me about her."

"She was the daughter of Thaumas and Electra in Greek mythology, a water nymph, and the messenger for the Olympian Gods. She was the link between the Gods and the humans, I guess. But she was also one of the Goddesses of the sky."

Clarke smiles at that. "Skaikru."

"Exactly."

"You've thought about this one."

Bellamy shrugs. "A little. I was reading one of the books on Greek mythology a while back and came across her. I liked the name and the story behind it, so I made a mental note to suggest it."

"Well, I guess it's good one of us has some forethought," Clarke says with a sigh. "Though I did warn you that I suck at naming things, cats and kids. So Damon Jacob Griffin or Iris Aurora Griffin. That wasn't so hard."

"Well, no," Bellamy agrees, lips turning up in a smirk. "Since I did all the work."

Clarke punches him lightly on the shoulder. "I figured you should contribute something," she teases him.

This instantly gets him serious. "How are you doing with all of that? It's getting closer…"

She sighs.

"Well, I really can't wait to not feel like a beached whale anymore. As for the actual birth… I'm not exactly looking forward to the whole pain part, but… I think I feel more at ease than I did at the beginning, honestly, Mom's done a good job of going through everything with me so I know more or less what to expect, and helping Diyoza when Hope was born was a good experience too, even if I didn't really know it at the time, of course."

Bellamy wraps an arm around her shoulders and pulls her close.

"I know you're strong, you can totally do this… I'll probably be the one freaking out, to be honest."

She can't help but laugh at that. "Oh, yeah, Mom and I are both prepared for that."

"Hey!"

-100-

The weeks continue to inch forward oh so slowly. Clarke's discomfort increases every day, to the point where she can rarely find a position that's comfortable for more than a few minutes at a time. And as she feared, summer arrives much too soon, with temperatures rising considerably. Luckily, Madi's happy to spend most of her spare time with Clarke down in the lake. The water's not quite as warm as it was at the end of the previous summer, but that's really just a bonus, as it helps cool her down. Plus, floating makes her forget, even if just for a moment, that she's not as mobile as she'd like to be.

Still, as soon as she gets out of the water, she's warm and sticky within minutes, and Bellamy being a human furnace doesn't exactly help. This, in combination with the fact that she just can't get comfortable at night, of course means she sleeps badly as well – something that is also exacerbated by the fact that someone's using her bladder as a boxing bag or kicking her in the ribs. This affects her irritability, which is also heightened when she realizes that Bellamy has people keeping an eye on her.

He suggested he stay home too these last couple of weeks, but it didn't even take a whole day before Clarke begged him to please go back to work because he was driving her crazy. She can take him hovering for a few hours in the morning and evening, but having him constantly one or two steps behind her as she tried not to go crazy with boredom was just too much. Not even sex whenever she wanted made up for it…

So apparently he has outsourced Clarke duty to their friends.

She's not sure exactly how long it's been going on – the first person she spots is Murphy, who just explains what he's doing with a shrug when she asks, but he wasn't exactly hiding, so she suspects there have been others. Raven, for instance, would never get caught, but looking back, Clarke does think she's been seeing the mechanic around a lot lately…

She honestly doesn't have the energy to argue with Bellamy over it, so she just doesn't bring it up, even if she's probably a little shorter with him than normal over the next few days, if his small, confused frown is any indication. Also, she knows he just worries about her and the baby, and if this can set his mind a little at ease, she can let him have it, even if she's not too happy about it.

And she's actually grateful for it a few days later, when she discovers some blood in her underwear one morning and panics.

She knows, on a logical level, that there are several not-at-all bad reasons for this – she's around 39 weeks after all, so the most logical one is that this is just an early sign of labor starting soon – but her brain simply cannot process that at the moment. It just literally sees red.

When she leaves the cabin, she finds Echo lounging in one of the rocking chairs Bellamy built for their porch, and stops dead in her tracks.

She and Echo have become friends in the last few months. They will probably never be as close as Clarke is with Raven, or even Emori and Octavia by now, but they hang out together with the rest of their group most of the time and even just the two of them now and then.

Still, for some reason she wasn't expecting to find the other woman here.

"Is something wrong?" Echo asks, alerted by the look on Clarke's face, probably.

Clarke takes a deep breath before she speaks. "It's probably nothing, I'm just overreacting, but I found some spotting so I'm going to have my mom give me a check-up, just in case."

Echo nods once and stands up, extending her arm so Clarke can loop hers through it for some support. Walking – or waddling, really – is not much fun these days and she tires quickly, so it's a welcome relief.

"As you say, I am sure it is nothing, but better safe than sorry," Echo says as they make their way slowly through the settlement. "And if something is wrong, I am sure your mother could deliver the baby now? It must be developed enough to survive?"

Clarke nods, grateful for this reminder. "Yes, that would probably be the worst case scenario right now, and it would be fine. I know that. As I said, overreacting."

She feels Echo squeeze her arm. "It is only natural. And it has taken you this long, right? Bellamy has been overreacting about many things for months now."

This statement might have given Clarke a pang of jealousy not too long ago, thinking that Bellamy had been talking to Echo about his worries instead of Clarke herself – especially considering her current state of beached whale. But now she just laughs. She knows where she has Echo, knows that she and Thor are still together and happy, but even if that weren't the case, she trusts Bellamy implicitly. Yes, she might have moments of insecurity now and then, but they never last long and don't run deep.

"He has, hasn't he?" She gestures vaguely at Echo. "Case in point."

Echo laughs as well. "Yes, I did try to tell him this was not necessary, but he was very adamant. And I thought, if it puts his mind at rest a little…"

"Yeah, that was my thought too."

They've reached the med bay by now and Echo lets go of Clarke's arm to hold the door open for her.

"Clarke?" Abby looks up as they enter the main room. "Something wrong?"

The walk and conversation with Echo has eased her mind quite a bit, not to mention the incessant kicks she's gotten to her ribs, but she would still like her mom to confirm that she's overreacting.

"Just a bit of spotting, I'm sure it's nothing but better safe than sorry, right?"

Abby nods, but she doesn't look concerned. "Of course. Come on through."

Clarke's not sure if she was expecting Echo to accompany her all the way into the examination room, but she doesn't complain when the other woman takes a seat on the chair by the head of the examination table. During the last six months, she's been poked and prodded repeatedly by both her mom and Jackson, so she's way past being embarrassed at this point.

Abby helps her pull her pants and underwear down and gets started, Clarke trying to stay relaxed.

"OK, everything looks good," Abby finally says. "It was most likely part of the mucus plug. The baby's dropped down into your pelvis and you're about one centimeter dilated, so it's progress…"

"… but it could still be a while," Clarke finishes the sentence, and her mom gives her an understanding smile.

"I'd say two to three weeks at most, but yeah, it could still be a while." She reaches for the pinard horn on the stainless steel counter by the wall and pushes Clarke's shirt up a little before placing the wide end against her lower belly. "Heartbeat sounds good as well."

Clarke notices Echo watching Abby curiously.

"Do you want to listen?" she asks before even thinking the question through. But it's what she would have said if Madi or Bellamy had been with her, or any of their other friends, so why not?

Echo looks surprised by the question, but nods after a moment. "If that is alright with you."

"Of course."

Abby moves back a little so Echo can place her ear against the flat end of the horn, and Clarke can tell when she hears the heartbeat, as her eyes widen.

"It is very fast," she says after a moment, standing up straight again.

"It is," Abby agrees. "Which it's supposed to be."

They wrap up the examination and Clarke and Echo head back the way they came.

"This probably goes without saying, but not a word to Bellamy about this, OK?" Clarke says after a few minutes of silence.

Echo actually laughs. "Oh, no, he is much better off not knowing about this."

So when Bellamy comes home that afternoon to find Echo in their main room, laughing with Clarke, they just tell him that Clarke caught her hanging out and invited her in.

Clarke goes to bed content that night. She feels like her and Echo's relationship has taken another step in the right direction, and she feels sure that the baby will be coming any day now.

It doesn't.

A week and a half later, she's back in the med bay.

"Just two centimeters, seriously?" she says incredulously when Abby's examined her.

"I know, honey, these things just take time," her mom reminds her. "And you have to remember that I have had to estimate everything when it comes to this pregnancy, so the time frame's always been sketchy."

"I know." Clarkes rubs the heels of her hands against her eyes for a moment. "Still, is there anything I can do to move things along?"

Abby sits down in the chair next to the examination table.

"Well, exercise is always good," she starts. "I realize you're not up for much, but just walking around might help. And, of course, there's sex."

There was a point in her life, not that long ago, really, when Clarke would have been embarrassed discussing this with her mom, but right now she's too tired and uncomfortable to care.

"We have sex all the time," she grumbles

Abby's eyes widen a little at that. "Oh."

"What?" Clarke frowns. "Is that not normal?"

"Oh, honey." Her mom reaches out to squeeze her arm. "There is no such thing as normal in this type of situation. The only thing that matters is what you and Bellamy are comfortable with. If you enjoy sex at this stage, that's great. Some couples have sex less regularly or stop altogether towards the end of a pregnancy, but that doesn't mean it's normal."

"OK. So, anything else?"

"The thing that sex does is it releases oxytocin, which can also be achieved through stimulation of the nipples."

Clarke sighs. "Right. I haven't really been comfortable with that lately, to be honest. It feels a little weird with the whole lactation thing."

"Of course. Like I said, it's about what you're comfortable with. This baby will come sooner rather than later, no matter what you do."

Still, Clarke raises the issue with Bellamy when they're in bed later that night.

"So, I asked Mom about ways to get labor going," she starts.

She can see the flash of terror on Bellamy's face before he responds. "OK. And…"

"Well, exercise, hence my walk down to the farm earlier. Sex, which we're already having. She also mentioned nipple stimulation." Clarke can't help but wrinkle her nose at the last one, which he of course notices.

"You don't have to make it sound like torture or something!" he laughs, and she elbows him in the ribs.

"It just freaks me out, OK."

He quickly stops. "I know. And I've told you, we don't have to do something you're not comfortable with."

"That's what Mom said too. But I'm sick of nothing happening, so have at it."

Bellamy gives her an unimpressed look. "So tempting."

But he does lean down to kiss her, and helps her pull her shirt over her head after a moment.

When she first feels his hand cover her breast, she tenses a little.

"Relax," Bellamy mumbles against her lips before abandoning them to trail kisses down her throat to her chest, where he pulls one nipple into his mouth while twirling the other between his fingers.

And she does manage to relax, the amazing feeling of his tongue and teeth grazing her breast making her arch her back against his touch after only a moment.

Somehow, the rest of their clothes join her shirt on the floor, and within a few moments, Clarke's coming around his fingers, his mouth still working her breast persistently.

The orgasm overwhelms her, and she just lazily goes along when Bellamy nudges her onto her side. When she feels him entering her from behind a few moments later, she has to bite her lip to keep from crying out. She hasn't come down completely yet, so it only takes a few thrusts, hitting that amazing spot deep inside her, before her release crests again, or maybe it's a new one, she honestly can't tell.

She feels Bellamy's movements slow while her whole body shakes with the power of her orgasm, and he brings her over the edge one more time before following her himself.

It doesn't do anything about the baby situation, but still, amazing sex, so she can't complain.

They keep trying every night, and while Clarke does get over her aversion to Bellamy's mouth on her breasts, nothing else really changes.

She wakes up early one morning, almost a week later. It's nothing uncommon – she hasn't slept through the night in over a month and knows this isn't going to change anytime in the near future, considering they'll soon have an infant to keep them up.

She's not quite sure what woke her, probably a well-aimed kick to a rib or a punch against her bladder. She stays where she is for a while, trying to go back to sleep, but after ten minutes or so, her bladder makes itself known so she maneuvers herself out of bed – without waking Bellamy, which is quite a feat in her current state.

The pale light coming in through the open shutters in the main room tells her it's probably just before sunrise, which is at around five these days.

She does her business in the bathroom before waddling back through the main room.

Before she reaches the bedroom, though, she realizes what woke her up. She's been having pre-contractions for a little while now, just a slight pressure or cramping feeling in her lower belly that she's been able to sleep through during the nights. This, however, feels more like a deep ache in her lower back, radiating through her belly. It's not exactly painful – or at least not yet – but not particularly comfortable either, and it's definitely not pre-contractions any more.

She knows this will take time, especially since this might very well have been the first and second contractions, so she goes back to bed. When another contraction starts, she starts counting, and gets to sixteen minutes and twenty three seconds before the next one. Knowing she's going to need her strength later, she tries to go back to sleep, but gives up after another two contractions and just gets up instead.

At least one of the suns has risen by now, judging by the more yellow light, and she grabs the blanket she's still working on and tries to get comfortable on the couch, needle freezing every time she breathes through another contraction.

She's had another three by the time the bedroom door opens and Bellamy appears in the doorway, yawning and rubbing his eyes.

"What are you doing up?" he asks. "It's early."

Lately, the baby's been active a lot during the evenings and nights, but calm in the early hours of the morning, so most days, Clarke's gotten what little continuous sleep she's been getting in the mornings, not waking up until well after Bellamy's left for work and Madi for school. So her being up before both of them is not common.

She puts her sewing away before she answers him. "Well, I've been having contractions for about two hours now, and I couldn't go back to sleep, so I figured I might as well be productive."

It's almost comical how he freezes in mid-step, eyes widening and mouth dropping open. He shakes himself out of it pretty quickly, though. "What?"

"It's baby time."

"But… what… why didn't you wake me up right away?"

Clarke shrugs. "Not much for you to do. It's going to be ages yet, I figured one of us should be well-rested."

"But… you should have woken me up," he insists weakly. "How are you feeling?"

"Fine, they're pretty mild so far."

Bellamy looks around the room, as if searching for something, for a moment. "You haven't gotten your mom?"

"There's no point, the contractions are about fifteen minutes apart, it's going to be hours still, maybe not even until tomorrow or even the day after. You remember what we talked about with Mom, how close together the contractions need to be before anything actually happens?"

"Two to three minutes," he replies, almost automatically, and Clarke knows he's memorized everything her mom's told them. "Still… she'll be up by now, I'll just go over there real quick before Madi needs to leave and let her know what's happening."

Clarke sighs, but doesn't even try to argue. "Fine."

He's out the door in a moment, apparently forgetting that he's only wearing the sweatpants he sleeps in. Clarke just shakes her head at the door – she supposes she should be glad he's wearing pants, at least – before leaning her head back against the wall and breathing through another contraction.

AN: Finally baby time! What did you think of the names? I wanted to go with something mythology related, and I'm especially happy with Iris, with the whole sky goddess thing. Damon I pretty much found by reading up on the stories about the few men with normal names in Greek mythology… there are not many! As for which name will be used… you'll find out soon enough ;)

I'm not sure how much we know about Bellamy's dad from the show, I honestly can't remember him even being mentioned and I've read many different versions in other fics, so I went with what worked with my plot.