Bellarke One Shots Book 2

71)Somehow the beauty will find you

On the list of Things Bellamy Never Expected to Happen, some random person climbing into the passenger seat of his car while he's at a red light is not even close to being number one.

Winning the lottery would be up there, especially since he never plays. His sister getting through six months without locking her keys in her apartment, maybe. A global nuclear fallout that forces humanity into space, sure.

But he's heard enough stories from friends and coworkers about drunk or confused people trying to bum rides that at first he assumes this will just turn into one of those anecdotes he pulls out to horrify friends' rural relations over cocktails.

Until he realizes that the person in question is wearing a puffy white wedding dress.

Which raises this encounter a few notches on the list.

"Uhhhhh," he says as the woman pulls yards of tulle onto her lap with frantic hands and slams the passenger door. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

She turns to him, the veil pinned to her blonde hair – by a silver tiara of all things – obscuring her face, but her eyes flash at him through the sheer material. "Light's green."

Out of habit, he presses down on the gas, but can't help staring at her out of the corner of his eye. "Yeah, I'm gonna need you to explain yourself real quick, princess, unless you want me to pull over right now."

She bats the veil out of her face and glares at him. "Princess?"

He smirks and glances up at her head. "If the tiara fits." She huffs at him as he turns back to the road before them. "Did you honestly just run out of your wedding and jump into the first car you saw?"

"Why, no," she says, her mouth twisted. "Whatever gave you that idea?"

Reluctant to admit his amusement, he settles for an answering grunt and points at an empty parking spot about a block up. "That looks like a good spot for me to drop you off, don't you think?"

"No!" She sends a frantic look over her shoulder through the back window. "Please just... just play along, okay? I'll make it worth your while. I need to get out of here."

He risks taking his eyes off traffic for a minute to look at her, even while she's still staring behind them. "You're not in any danger, are you? Is someone trying to hurt you?"

She turns wide blue eyes on him and he sees the split-second of indecision on her face before she shakes her head. "No, only my own poor decisions." Shifting in her seat, she leans towards him, her face earnest, and Bellamy's breath catches in his throat as he realizes how beautiful she is, all wavy hair and dewy skin and pink pout. He breaks eye contact, but she doesn't pull back. "Listen, I know this is unusual, but I need you. I can't go back, so please just... help me?"

Bellamy glances at her again and somehow he knows in his gut that he's going to regret this, but... "Where to?" he asks instead.

Clarke sits back and lets out the breath she'd been holding, knotting her shaking hands in her lap as she stares at this stranger's profile. Objectively speaking, he's an attractive man - mussed dark curls and cheekbones and bronzed skin sprinkled liberally with freckles - but right now he looks like something better: salvation.

He turns dark eyes on her, full of impatience, and Clarke realizes she never answered his question. "Oh, ummmm, well I should probably lose the dress if I don't want to be conspicuous." She places a hand on her corseted stomach and looks down at the beautiful, hand-stitched gown that had started to feel more and more like a burial shroud with every fitting.

Peeking up at her savior, she takes a chance. "What are the odds that you have a wife or girlfriend who would have something that would fit me?"

"Those odds would be extremely slim - not married, no girlfriend." His mouth twists with a mix of humor and bitterness that pricks Clarke's curiosity, but he shakes it off. "I've got a sister, though. She might have something she left at my apartment." Those intense eyes flash her way again, before turning back to the road. "Is this the part where you ask me to let a complete stranger into my home while I hope I don't become a statistic or a cautionary tale of what happens when you pick up weirdos in wedding dresses?"

Clarke raises a skeptical eyebrow as she runs her eyes over his lean, hard physique beneath the t-shirt and jeans that are not doing anything to hide his physical shape. "I think you can probably defend yourself against me."

"That's exactly what someone who wants me to lower my defenses would say."

She rolls her eyes. "Yes, obviously, this is all just a big ruse: the elaborate hair and makeup, the heels, the dress that costs as much as a sensible sedan. All just to lower the defenses of - what's your name?"

"Bellamy Blake," he says in amusement.

"All to lower the defenses of Bellamy Blake, an ordinary, hmmmm let me guess, bartender? Cop?"

"Junior high history teacher."

Clarke blinks in surprise. God knows she never had any teachers who looked like him in junior high. Which was probably for the best. "Right. All just to lower the defenses of Bellamy Blake, an ordinary history teacher, and rob him blind." She leans back - well, as much as she can in this dress - and sighs in satisfaction.

"All right, you made your point," he says, muttering, "smartass," beneath his breath, although he's clearly fighting a smile. He darts a glance her way. "So what do I call you?"

"Besides smartass?" She gives in to a genuine smile of her own at his unrepentant grin. "Clarke. Griffin."

The state of his apartment doesn't even register as a concern until he's unlocking the door. Bellamy drags the motions out as long as possible while his mind whirls trying to remember, did he remember to pick up all the dirty socks that he just kicks off while he's laying on the couch and what dishes were sitting on the counter that morning and when was the last time he made an attempt at scrubbing the toilet?

Shaking his head, he reminds himself that Clarke isn't really in a position to judge him or his life; after all, she was one who just ditched her groom at the altar.

Behind him, the puffy white dress crackles with her impatience and Bellamy gives up stalling and turns the knob, waving her forward. When Clarke hesitates, Bellamy sighs. "If you're waiting to be carried over the threshold..."

She makes a face before striding through the doorway with determination. He can see her casting subtle appraising glances and resists the urge to fidget. "C'mon," he says, leading her out of the entryway and towards Octavia's former bedroom, which still holds about half her shit.

"Aren't you the least bit curious about why I ran out on my wedding?" she asks. He glances back at her, seeing her furrowed brow as she examines the pictures lining the hallway.

Bellamy shrugs and turns to her once they're in the bedroom. "Not really. Either you caught him with someone else, or you're in love with someone, or you're not in love with him anymore, or you're terrified of that level of commitment. I'll be honest, I can think up a million excuses not to get married. The real question is, why would someone want to?"

She surveys him for a minute. "You know, you don't look as cynical as you sound."

"That's me, a surprise around every corner. And speaking of surprises," he says, turning to his sister's old dresser. "I have to say, if I'd ever stopped to consider how a runaway bride might act, I wouldn't have imagined her taking it as well as you are."

She goes quiet behind him, the occasional ruffle of fabric the only indication that she's still standing there as he digs through to find some clothes. When he turns back to her with a blue t-shirt and a pair of gray yoga pants, she wipes the frown from her face almost before he sees it, although the stitch in her brow remains.

He clears his throat, feeling awkward for the first time since she availed herself of his car. "Here's, uh, some clothes." He sets them on the bed. "I'll just..." He points past her shoulder to the hallway, shuffling past her as she steps further into the room.

"Bellamy," she says, her voice quiet. He turns to see her standing with her back facing the door and her head turned to the side, although not enough that he can catch her gaze. She's pulled her long blonde hair over one shoulder. "Can you help unhook me? I can't reach."

"Oh," he says and swallows hard as he lets his eyes trace down her back. "Of course." He steps back into the room, intent on making this as quick and painless as possible. He swears a blue streak when he brushes at the fabric and sees the row of tiny, impossible hooks lining her spine.

Clarke releases a breathless laugh. "You sound like my maid of honor when she had to help me get into this thing."

He starts on the first one, fumbling as soon as the tips of his fingers brush the smooth skin between her shoulder blades. He ignores her flinch and tiny shiver at the contact; if he doesn't, he'll never get through this. "Price of a sensible sedan, huh?" he says as a distraction. "That's a shame, because I've got a pocket knife that would be much more efficient at this."

"Oh god," she says on a groan and his mind blanks as he struggles not to imagine a different scene where she could be saying that as he helped peel her out of her dress. He tunes back to what she's saying with a clench of his jaw and a stern reminder to himself to focus. "...and then my mother would probably kill you." There's a beat of silence before she turns her head to say over her shoulder, "What? No patronizing response that you're oh so terrified of the threat of my mother?"

He snorts and flexes his fingers before he starts on the next hook. "Remind me to tell you a little about my sister at some point."

He can see the corner of Clarke's mouth tip up in a smile from her profile before she looks forward again. "Is that her?" she asks, nodding towards a picture on the nightstand. It's one of Bellamy's favorites: he's standing next to O in her dress blues the day of her graduation from the police academy,

"That's her. Octavia."

Clarke hums. "Did she move out recently?"

"Hmmmm?" Bellamy looks up from the hook that is giving him trouble and follows Clarke's gaze around the room, seeing the clothes strewn around, the still-made bed, the hairbrush sitting on a side table. "Oh. No, she moved out last year to live with her boyfriend. She's just terrible at packing and left everything here and moves it piece by piece as she needs it."

"And you don't have a problem with that?"

"Why would I?" he asks with a shrug she can't see. "It's still her home, if she needs it. You know how it is."

Clarke's quiet for a long moment, before she says quietly, "That's not how it is for everyone," but Bellamy's not sure if he was supposed to hear, so he just goes about unfastening the dress.

He breathes out a sigh of relief when the last one is unhooked. "All done. You, uh, you're good? Do you need anything else?"

She shakes her head, reaching up to unpin the tiara and veil. With her arms raised, her strapless dress sags a little lower on her hips, the deep V of fabric gaping enough to show the dimple at the end of her spine.

Bellamy swallows so hard, he nearly chokes on his tongue.

"I'll be right out," she says, as she shakes her hair down her back, blocking his view enough that he's able to break free of his stupor and walk away.

Clarke yanks on the hem of the t-shirt and it refuses to meet the top of the yoga pants. It's become apparent that Bellamy's sister is a little... smaller than Clarke in certain areas and Clarke can't seem to find enough fabric.

She gives up with a sigh and follows the path back down the hallway to find Bellamy, stopping to look at a few of the pictures. Frames line the walls, showcasing his sister - Octavia - in different stages throughout her life. Clarke sees the family resemblance in the bone structure and the thick, dark hair, but beyond that, the siblings don't look very much alike, Octavia being lighter complected with eyes that are either blue or green, Clarke can't tell in the dim lighting.

A few feature Bellamy - most with Octavia - though one shows a younger version of him in a cap and gown beside another boy with light brown skin and a close-cropped beard. Bellamy's hair in the picture is longer than it is now, curling out wildly from under the graduation cap in a way that makes Clarke laugh to herself.

She looks at each picture carefully on her way, telling herself it's innocent curiosity.

It has nothing to do at all with the thrill she'd gotten at the brush of his fingertips along the skin of her back a few minutes ago.

"Princess," Bellamy calls from the other room and Clarke jumps, "do you want a drink?"

She walks out to see him in the kitchen and hopes her voice conveys exasperation when she says, "You know my name now. Do you really have to call me 'princess'? Also it's barely noon."

He jerks a shoulder and looks up with a smirk. Clarke swears she sees him freeze for a moment as something unreadable flits over his face, but he glances back at the bottle he's set on the low counter separating the living room from where he's standing. "Even without the tiara, I'm sure the label still applies. Want a drink?" he asks again, without acknowledging her remark about the time.

"Why not?" She glances around the small living room. The dark brown couch appears to be older and sinks a little in the middle, but it's a nice sturdy couch, wide and long, perfect for napping. The TV stand and bookshelves are cheap particle board furniture, but they're clean and stacked with books sticking out every which-way. It's a nice room, a lived-in room, and it eases the last bit of tension Clarke didn't realize she was still carrying. "Anything is fine."

"Wine? I've got a few bottles I've been meaning to try that were gifts from a friend. Or I've got beer - nothing fancy."

She thinks about the expensive champagne she would have been drinking later and tries not to frown and says, "By all means, let's try the wine."

As Bellamy busies himself with the corkscrew, Clarke walks over to the bookcase, skimming a finger along the length of one shelf as she reads the spines of the books: The Landscape of History; Mass and Elite in Democratic Athens; The Peloponnesian War - she feels a yawn coming on just looking at them. "I hate history," she says, half-serious and half to see his reaction.

He doesn't disappoint, choking back a sound of outrage as he walks over with a glass, scowling as he all but shoves the drink into her hand. "How can you hate history? It literally shapes everything we know."

She takes a slow drink of the white wine - which is a little dry for her taste, but she's not really a wine drinker, so she keeps that thought to herself - as she mulls over her answer. "Math, science, English - those all came easy to me. They're, I don't know, constructive subjects. You have the pieces and learn how they go together to create a final product. History is just... memorization. It doesn't help to create or fix anything."

Bellamy shakes his head. "Damn, that's sad. I feel sorry for you if that's how your history teachers made you feel." He sits on the couch, propping his feet on the coffee table, and tastes the wine, making an approving noise in his throat.

She sits beside him, turning on the cushion to look at him, tucking one leg beneath her. "Okay, what do you do different then?"

"It's all in how you frame it," he says with a gesture of his wine glass. "I teach 11- to 14-year-olds, so I use references they're familiar with, current events that happened during their lives, to relate to stuff that happened centuries ago."

She frowns. "How does that work? Things change so fast - politics, technology, pop culture - there can't be that many references to connect."

"Those things do change," he says with a nod. "But people don't."

Clarke thinks about her own life, about who she was three years ago compared to who she is today, and shakes her head. "I know a lot of people who I barely recognize anymore, so-"

"Ah," Bellamy says, holding up a finger to stop her. "Those are individual persons. A person can change, people as a group don't. Not really. That's why it's important to look to the past, to see how wars have been started, and empires have been built or fallen, to look to failed forms of government and religious movements. To find out where things went wrong or where they went right, and then help steer the future into the right... What?"

She blinks at his sudden stop. "What?"

"You're grinning at me." He quirks an eyebrow and she feels her face heat as she slowly regains awareness that, yes, she is grinning. She's totally, stupidly grinning at this guy and his passion for history.

Sipping her wine, she breaks eye contact and shrugs. "It's just... it's nice to talk to someone about a topic they clearly love." She risks a glance back at him, but now it's he who is avoiding her gaze and using the wine as a prop. But she sees the tip of his ear turning red and has to bite her lip to stop from smiling again.

"Yeah, well," he says, smirking a little, although it has an air of self-deprecation to it. "It's... nice to talk to someone who actually wants to hear it. My sister and our friends groan when I get started."

She laughs. "My friends react the same way when I drag them to art exhibits."

"Art, huh?" He slides an appraising glance over her. "I can see that. Just an enthusiast or do you actually paint or something?"

"I sketch," she says. "It's a hobby." To hide her discomfort, she tilts her glass for another sip, only to find that the glass was empty. "Oh. I guess I liked it more than I thought."

Bellamy chuckles and drains his own glass. "Another?" When she nods, he gets up, collecting both their glasses and heading to the kitchen. "So what's the plan? Where do you go from here?"

Clarke sighs and runs her fingers through her loose hair. She'd almost let herself forget where she should be right now, what she should be doing. "I should let someone know that I left of my own free will and they shouldn't be expecting a ransom call anytime soon. Can I use your phone?"

He tosses it in her lap as he walks back over, setting her glass down. "By all means. The last thing I need in my life is to be a suspected kidnapper. I'll give you some space."

As he starts to walk away, she grabs his hand on an impulse. "Bellamy." Glancing up, she locks eyes with him and gives his fingers a squeeze before she drops the contact. "Thank you. Really."

With a nod, he heads toward the hallway and Clarke looks at the phone he's left for her like it's a time bomb.

With a deep breath, she shakes out her nerves. "You can do this."

She all but tosses back the wine to make sure.

After she dials the number from memory, the phone barely has a chance to ring before, "Reyes."

Clarke closes her eyes and her nerves settle, just by hearing the familiar strident voice of her best friend. "Raven, it's me."

Raven muffles a shriek and there's some shuffling from her end that Clarke imagines is her leaving the room. "Clarke?! Oh my god, where are you? Your mom is freaking out and trying to convince Kane to put out an APB. And Wells' dad has gone silent and still and it's terrifying. And I'm still in this godawful seafoam dress that you picked out."

"I'm - wait, you don't like the dress? You told me you loved the dress!"

Raven snorts over the phone and Clarke can hear the smirk in her voice. "Babe, I love you and it was your wedding. You seemed set on this dress, so I wasn't going to be the one to tell you it was horrible." Her voice turns serious. "What's going on? Where are you?"

"I'm safe," Clarke says and Raven sighs in relief. "I couldn't... I'm not... I had to get out of there, Raven. I couldn't marry him."

"And you couldn't have figured this out, I don't know, yesterday?!" Raven fumes quietly. "Or last week or at any point during your sixteen-freaking-month engagement?"

"I know, Raven! I know. Trust me, no one is more upset with me than I am. But I was sitting there, waiting for the ceremony to start. You went to help Monty and Jasper with their ties, my mom was taking her seat, and it was like I... like I just woke up. And I thought about Wells and my residency and my apartment and... None of it is me, you know? I didn't choose it." She sucks in a breath that feels more like a sob and bites her lip, letting her eyes fall closed. "For three years, I've lived in this fog. This morning I kept thinking about my dad and how he should be there and how-" she chokes back a sob, "-how disappointed he'd be in me for not living my life to the fullest. For not being happy. And I'm not happy, Raven. Not with any of it."

Raven stays quiet on the other end of the line, while Clarke struggles to even out her breathing, blinking back the burn of tears. "Okay," she says finally, voice as gentle as Clarke's ever heard it. "Okay. This is what's going to happen: I am going to let everyone know that you're not in any danger, you are going to lay low for a bit, and you're flying home with me tomorrow. And then we are sitting down and figuring out this whole how-to-make-you-happy thing. Because if anyone deserves to be happy, it's you, babe."

Clarke chokes on the noise erupting from her chest and loses the fight against her tears, letting them roll down her face, hot and fast. "Thank you," she says once she can. "I love you, Raven."

"Yeah, well," Raven says and Clarke hears the discomfort loud and clear. "Who wouldn't? Now, are you going to be okay on your own for the next 20 hours or do I need to send someone to pick you up?"

"I'll be fine. If you can just distract everyone for a while, try to dampen any talk about trying to find me, I'd appreciate it. Oh, and grab my phone and wallet?"

"You don't even have your ID on you?" Clarke imagines Raven scowling at the phone then, dark eyes hot with incredulity. "Or money? How'd you pay a cab or anything? Where are you at?"

"It's a long story," Clarke hedges, because there's no good way to tell her friend I jumped into the first car I saw and am holed up in a stranger's apartment without making her worry. "I'll tell you tomorrow. And Raven? Tell Wells..." She swallows hard. "Tell Wells I'm sorry? I'll explain it all to him when I understand it, but... tell him that?"

Raven agrees and Clarke reluctantly ends the call, holding the phone in her clenched fist for a long moment before she stands and moves down the hall. The first door on the right is standing open and when Clarke peeks in, Bellamy is there, sitting on a made bed, legs stretched out in front of him and crossed at the ankle, as he reads a paperback book with the cover curled forward.

He notices her before she has a second to process the image and shoots her a smile that turns more sympathetic as he focuses on her tear-streaked face. "Got a plan now?"

"A semblance of one. Do you mind if I stick around for a while? Like all night awhile?" He nods before she's even finished asking and relief bubbles up. "My friend is going to cover for me and then I'm leaving with her tomorrow morning. I'll need some of my stuff. I hate to ask but..."

"But you won't let that stop you, right?" he says with a smirk, marking his place in his book and setting it aside with a sigh. "Lay it on me."

Bellamy follows Clarke's directions and pulls his car into the parking garage of one of the swankier apartment buildings in the city, biting the inside of his cheek to keep from gaping. He'd guessed that she probably wasn't hurting for cash - dresses the price of a sensible sedan don't grow on trees, after all - but this is ridiculous.

Old instincts rise up and, with them, the chip on his shoulder he'd thought he'd put aside in his early 20s. It had been nearly six years since the last time Bellamy had really thought of himself as a Have Not. But faced with Clarke, finding out she's firmly in the Have class, his hackles raise on instinct.

But he keeps his mouth shut. If nothing else, at least maturity has given him the wisdom to refrain from masking his insecurity by being an asshole. As they walk towards the building's entrance, he shakes his head as he imagines what kind of jerk he would've been to Clarke had they met in college instead. For all that she's a nice kid, she's a rich nice kid and he would've hated her.

It makes him frown a little and wonder who he might have overlooked in his youth.

At least until he sees the doorman and stops short, staring in shock.

Clarke half-turns when she realizes he's stopped. "Bellamy?"

On the plus side, David Miller looks just as nonplussed as Bellamy probably does, before he wipes his face clean and holds the door for Clarke. "Ms. Griffin," he says without inflection as Clarke passes through and greets him by name.

Bellamy jerks forward to follow her with a nod at his best friend's father. Mr. Miller lets the professional expression drop from from his face and tilts his head towards Clarke with a questioning eyebrow. Bellamy can only answer with a scowl and a vague shrug; how can he explain without words the situation he's in now?

Clarke moves toward a wall of elevators - not just an elevator, but an entire bank of stainless steel ones. The reflection of the marble floors and crisp white interior is blinding.

It's without a doubt the nicest apartment building Bellamy's ever been inside of and he's never felt more working class in his life, shoving his hands deep into his pockets. As the elevator dings and the silent doors open to admit them, he sends an uneasy glance towards Clarke. "Okay, who the hell are you marrying that they felt the need to post an ex-cop at your door?"

He sees surprise and confusion flit over her face. "David's not a cop!"

"Number one," he says, leaning towards her, "my sister's a cop; I can spot them from a mile away. Number two: that particular ex-cop is the father of my best friend and one of the best security consultants on the private sector." He runs a hand through his hair then scowls at his reflection on the doors that shows his curls are going every which way. He doesn't get a chance to try to fix the damage before the doors open to her floor and Bellamy follows her out onto plush, pale carpet. He almost runs her over when she freezes and turns to him.

"Are you sure?" she asks, peering up at him with narrowed eyes, her mouth twisted in suspicion.

"Am I sure that David Miller is my best friend's father? Or am I sure that he's one of the best guards in the city? Because the answer is yes to both." He puts his hand on her shoulder when a flicker of anxiety crosses her face, then pulls back almost immediately. Too familiar a touch for strangers, his head says, even though a part of him doesn't want to believe it's true. "If you're worried about him calling your fiancé or your parents or whoever hired him..."

"My future father-in-law," she says, grimacing as she begins to walk down the hall to one of the few doors. "Or, well, my former future father-in-law, I guess. Although I'm sure that's only because my mother didn't think of it first." She stretches up on her toes and runs a hand over the top of the door frame, until she finds the key hidden there with a little "ah-ha!" and smiles to herself.

"That seems safe," he says in amused sarcasm as she unlocks the deadbolt. "Why even bother to lock it?"

She makes a face at him, stepping inside and waving him to follow her. "That's a very good question, especially now that I know I have the best security money can buy, apparently."

"Which you still haven't explained..."

"Haven't I?" she asks, all innocence. "Wait here - I'm going to go pack a bag."

"You can't avoid the question forever," he calls after her when she walks down a hallway. When she disappears from view, he notes with some surprise that he's grinning to himself, like a dumbass, and staring after her. He shakes his head and decides to poke through all her crap.

Fair is fair, after all.

Objectively, the apartment is amazing: wide open spaces, high ceilings, light hardwood floors, an entire wall of windows that faces one of the best views of the city he's ever seen.

But it feels... off. Cold. It takes him a minute to put his finger on what's wrong, but Bellamy realizes there aren't many personal touches. No pictures on the walls, no kitsch or clutter, nothing at all to learn more about who Clarke is. It's a showroom with no life.

"Did you just move in?" His voice reverberates off all the blank, flat surfaces.

Shuffling movement from the bedroom muffles her answer. "No, I've lived here about three years."

"Are you sure-" he starts, cut short when his phone vibrates in his hand.

It's a text from Miller: are you cheating on me w my dad???? not cool

The hair on the back of Bellamy's neck prickles as he texts back some question marks. "Princess," he says as he sends the message, "what are the odds that your friend couldn't hold your family off and they're coming to see if you're here?."

Clarke rushes through the doorway and stares at him down the length of the hall, batting her hair out of her face with quick, impatient gestures. "Why?" she asks warily just as Bellamy gets his response.

my dad asked for your number. what's that abt?

"I think we have company." He shoves the phone in his pocket without responding and sends a grim look Clarke's direction. "What do you want to do?"

She's quiet for a long beat. "Would it be really immature of me if I ducked out on them? I- I can't... I can't deal with this now, the explanations and the apologies. I need time."

He nods. "Okay, we can do this. Grab your bag," he says, tossing her his keys. "I'll meet you at the car."

"Wait, what are you going to do?"

"Create a diversion," he answers with an aggrieved sigh, trying to pretend that he's not enjoying this. Before he starts toward the door, he sees the corners of her lips turn up.

He tries to pretend he's not affected by that either.

On the elevator down to the lobby, he mulls potential stalling methods - should he hit all the buttons on the elevator as soon as it arrives in the lobby? what are the consequences for halting the car during its descent? - and he almost doesn't notice when the doors silently slide open.

He does notice the group of men walking towards the bank of elevators.

One in particular makes him stop short in surprise.

Clarke throws her bag in the trunk of Bellamy's car, breathing through her nose so she doesn't seem as out of shape as she apparently is after running down way too many stairs to get from her apartment to the parking garage.

A slight breeze blows through the garage, alleviating some of the midday heat, and she basks in it gratefully, hoping she's not sweating through Bellamy's sister's shirt. Apparently, her sessions with her personal trainer in order to tone up for the wedding weren't effective enough and the next time she sees Anya, she's going to demand more cardio.

She huffs out a laugh, knowing full well that now that the wedding is through, she'll probably never set foot in Anya's gym again. It hadn't been her choice to begin with, but a "gentle suggestion" from her mother.

When Bellamy still hasn't met her after a few minutes, Clarke climbs inside the car to give her poor legs, which are still burning, a break. With the passenger door left open, she relaxes while the cool air soothes her warm skin and sinks back into the seat, closing her eyes.

Which, of course, is when Bellamy finally catches up, climbing into the driver's side and slamming the door behind him. Clarke jumps, sitting up straight to pull her door closed, but he doesn't turn the key in the ignition right away. She glances over at him and he looks grim - mouth tight, brow lowered, nostrils flaring, face hard and implacable. "What?"

He inhales slowly and turns to her, pinning her in place with his dark, intense eyes. "Wanna explain to me why I just had to make a fool of myself in front of the mayor of the city?"

Clarke meets his gaze head-on, refusing to flinch under his regard. "Because my fiancé - well, ex-fiancé now - is his son, Wells. As for the making-a-fool-of-yourself part... well, I will need more details about this before I can explain it." She forces a smile. He doesn't take the bait.

"And you couldn't have, I don't know, warned me before I went down to intercept them?"

"I didn't know for sure it was him," she says with an unapologetic shrug. "No need to delve into that particular minefield if I didn't have to."

Bellamy stares at her with an unreadable expression for a long beat before turning the key and starting the engine.

They remain silent on the drive back to his apartment, the air heavy and tense. Clarke struggles to understand why he seems so angry - for all that he's doing for her, they are still strangers. She doesn't owe him anything besides gratitude... well, that and maybe some money for gas.

She tells him as much when they pull into the small lot alongside his building.

He doesn't look at her, but a little of the tension seeps out of him as his shoulders fall a bit and he leans back into the seat, killing the engine with a quick flick of his wrist. "I know you don't owe me anything," he says, his deep voice rumbling in the sudden silence. "I don't like surprises. And that was a hell of one."

Somehow Clarke knows he's telling the truth, but she can tell there's something else there, something more. She doesn't want to spend the rest of her night - her wedding night, some treacherous part of her reminds her - with this awful tension hanging over them, so she offers an olive branch. "Maybe I don't owe you anything, but it probably wouldn't kill me to talk about it. If you're interested in listening."

One side of his mouth tips up and his eyes lose a little of their hardness when he looks at her. "I have to admit, you've piqued my interest. How about we stop and drop your bag off, grab a bottle of wine, and go to the roof? If we're going to day-drink, we may as well do it in style."

She follows his lead up to the apartment and watches him contemplate a small collection of bottles while she grabs their used glasses. "Are you going to explain the wine thing?"

He hums and grabs a bottle at random, snagging the corkscrew off the counter. "Maybe after I hear your story. Quid pro quo."

"Let me get this straight: I tell you the story of my ill-fated engagement and you equate that to a story about wine?!" She shakes her head. "No way. It has to be a story of equal or greater value."

He shoots a grin over his shoulder as he walks toward the door. "Maybe it is. Maybe my fixation on wine stems from the tragic death of my one true love and I'm spending the remainder of my life honoring her memory by drinking every good wine she never got a chance to taste."

"Does it?" she asks with unashamed curiosity.

"Nah," he says, waving her before him through a door that leads to a stairwell. "A woman I used to bartend with in college opened her own wine shop and sends me bottles every now and then. It started out as a joke, because I refused to touch anything less than hard liquor or beer when I was younger. But I didn't want them to go to waste, so I started drinking them and it turns out I liked them."

Clarke reaches the top of the staircase and sees a few colorful plastic Adirondack-style chairs with a small table between two of them, an empty ashtray with a small bit of rainwater sitting on top. "You don't smoke, do you?" He rubs the back of his neck with an abashed look on his face, and Clarke sighs. "Bellamy..."

"I'm trying to quit. I slip up every once in a while, but you don't have anything to say about it that my sister hasn't already beat into my head." He drops into a bright green chair and digs the screw into the cork of the bottle he's carrying.

She sets the glasses down and stands near the edge of the roof. "Wow, it's really beautiful from here, isn't it?" she says as the sun illuminates the city skyline against the bright blue sky. She can feel Bellamy's gaze on her profile, although he turns away the second she tries to catch him.

"I've seen better," he says, staring across the landscape, although his amused smirk is at odds with his apathetic tone.

Clarke laughs quietly. "Ass."

"Is that any way to talk to the man supplying you with alcohol?" he asks as the cork pops free.

She snags her glass as soon as he's finished pouring and drops into the orange chair facing him. "It is when he's being an ass." She smiles over the rim of her wine glass before she sips. It's another white, this one sweeter to her untrained palate, and she hums her approval.

Bellamy nods as he takes his own drink. "I knew you'd like this one better. It takes a little time to acquire a taste for the drier stuff."

They drink in companionable silence for a few minutes, each staring out across the sky. Clarke sets her glass down on the arm of the chair with a hollow click, deciding now is as good a time as any. "Wells was my best friend growing up. I don't remember a time in my life where he wasn't part of it."

Bellamy sits up straighter, but doesn't say anything, or even look her way. It helps.

She takes a shaky sigh. "I guess I always kind of knew that he had a crush on me: he never really dated when we were younger, he always got jealous of anyone I went out with. But I thought it was just that, a crush, and that he'd grow out of it eventually. And he was still my friend, my very best friend, regardless of any romantic feelings."

"You never felt the same?"

"No," she admits, feeling the shame writhe in her stomach. "I never did."

"What changed?"

"I've had a rough couple of years." She laughs without humor. "A few bad break-ups and... well, there were other factors. About two years ago, he put himself out there - told me he was in love with me, had always been in love with me, and he wanted nothing more than to spend the rest of his life taking care of me."

Bellamy stirs then, shifting while and taking a slow drink of his wine. "You don't really strike me as someone who needs taking care of."

"You're kidding, right?" she says with a grimace. "After everything you've done for me today?"

He waves her off. "Sure, I was there and helped, but you would've been fine on your own."

A kernel of warmth blooms in her chest, her lungs feeling a little tight, and she can feel her face going pink. "Thanks. Anyway, at the time, it sounded like heaven: not having to worry about the minutiae of everyday life, having someone handle the bills and the decisions and all of it. Life had just become too much all the time, and I was barely coping."

"Where was your family in all of this?" he asks, a thread of alarm in his voice. "Your friends? Because that sounds like you had some serious depression going on and he took advantage of it."

"It wasn't like that," Clarke says, although she lacks conviction. After all, she'd had the same thought before, hadn't she? "Or if it was," she amends, "it wasn't done maliciously."

"There's a reason that the 'road to hell' proverb exists - a lot of bad things come from well-meaning people." He leans forward, setting his glass aside to rest his forearms on his thighs and turns his full attention to her. "No one's ever pointed this out to you before?"

She shakes her head, fiddling with the stem of her glass. "My mom was so happy; she and Thelonious went to school together and they'd basically planned out my and Wells's lives before we were even born. I was finally falling into line with what she wanted." She shrugged. "Wells was my closest friend, my oldest friend. Some of the friends I'd made in college were around, but only peripherally. They have their own lives or live far enough away that they didn't see what was going on. I didn't want them to, I guess. I wanted that safety."

"But something changed." It wasn't a question, but she nodded anyway.

"I told my friend Raven - my maid of honor - that I felt like I'd just woken up this morning, that a great fog had lifted. But in all reality, it's been clearing in small ways for a while. This morning was the last of it melting away and I realized what I'd done, what I'd let happen. Nothing in my life is what I wanted it to be - not my apartment, my career, my relationship. It was all for other people. I can't point to one thing in my life right now and say, 'I did this for me'. So I ran." Thinking about this morning again, for the first time she doesn't feel ashamed; she only feels a thrill of rebellious pride in reclaiming her life and stares out at the horizon without apology.

"See," Bellamy says, voice mild. She turns to him and he's watching her with a small smile, face lined with a tinge of admiration that makes her pulse trip. "I knew you could take care of yourself."

Bellamy can't help feeling as though the answers he's gotten about Clarke's life have just left him with more questions. What happened over the past few years that could leave her depressed enough that the only salient option was to allow someone to run her life? How could the people closest to her - her mother and her best friend - not see this uncharacteristic submission for what it was?

He bites back the desire to interrogate her. She was right when she said before that they were strangers, only in each other's lives for a few brief hours, to most likely never see each other again.

He ignores the pit in his stomach at the thought.

However, there's a far more pressing need regarding his stomach that he is more than willing to indulge. "If we keep pounding back this wine, we're going to need some lunch. How do you feel about Chinese?"

"I feel very warmly about it," she says with a glint in her eye that he's alarmed to find causes reciprocating warm feelings in him.

"Great." He stands, wavering a little on the spot. "Let's head back down - I'm going to guess that any longer in this sun and you'll regret it." Her nose has already begun to redden and he stares at it too long, because she crinkles it at him and crosses her eyes to see it herself.

"Am I burned?"

No, but I have a feeling that by the time you leave, I will be. "You're fine," he says gruffly, turning toward the staircase. "Let's go."

In the apartment, Clarke politely excuses herself while Bellamy calls in their order and pours them each a glass of water. He needs to take a break from the wine before he loses his head and does something he'll regret.

"It'll be about 20 minutes," he tells her when she walks back in, nodding his head at the water he poured her, which she takes gratefully.

She eyes him as she takes a long drink and Bellamy pretends to ignore it, grabbing some plates and flatware in preparation for lunch.

"So you owe me a story," she says, climbing onto one of the wooden bar stools lined up along the counter that separates the kitchen and living room. "And remember - equal or greater value."

"Does my wine story factor in towards the cumulative value? Like if your story is rated ten, the wine story would be rated like a one, so I'd only have to give a story worth nine to be equal?"

Clarke considers this for a moment, but shakes her head. "No way. I want a ten."

"I don't know that my life is as interesting as yours, but I'll try. Okay, how about the fact that I named my sister?" he offers.

"I'm listening," she says with an expansive wave, radiating noblesse oblige.

"And now I know how Scheherazade felt." He pauses. "She was the woman who-"

"I know who Scheherazade is." She smirks at him, raising her brow. "Quit stalling."

Bellamy smirks back, but relents. "My dad was never in the picture, so it was just my mom and me until I was six. I doubt my mom somehow reunited with my dad, so the odds are good that Octavia has a different father, but my mom didn't talk about that and I hate the idea of considering Octavia half-anything, so she's always been my baby sister. My mom didn't have healthcare - she was working under the table cleaning houses, taking in mending, waitressing, whatever she could - so she hadn't been seeing an obstetrician throughout her pregnancy and didn't want to rack up a bunch of hospital bills. She decided to have the baby at home."

"There are clinics-" Clarke starts, but bites her tongue when Bellamy looks at her.

"I know that now, but at six her decisions made a lot of sense. So I was right there, in the room, while she was giving birth. I had nightmares about it until I was in high school, especially once I found out all the things that could've gone wrong and how unprepared she was for that. When Octavia was born, my mom handed her too me while she delivered the afterbirth and told me to name her."

"You picked out Octavia as a six-year-old?!"

Bellamy grins and nods. "Proof that I've always been a history buff. At the time, I was obsessed with the Roman Empire and its first Emperor, Augustus. Who had a sister: Octavia."

"Okay," Clarke says, smiling a little, "the situation was horrifying, but that part is adorable."

"I'm going to tell O you said that the next time she complains about the fact that she can never find a keychain with her name on it."

"She was okay, though?" she asks in concern. "Nothing went wrong with the delivery?"

"She was perfect," Bellamy says proudly. "I followed my mom's instructions to clean her up and she told me something that has always stuck with me: Octavia was my sister and my responsibility. I took care of her while my mom fell asleep. Fortunately, one of our neighbors heard the commotion of her labor and called the cops to come check on us. When I answered the door still holding Octavia and saw a patrol cop standing there in uniform, I... well, I cried. I thought they were going to take my mom to jail and take Octavia away from me. He sat with me, calmed me down, while my mom slept on and we waited for the EMTs to show up to check Octavia out."

"I bet your mom was pissed when she woke up."

He shrugs. His mom was his mom - she wasn't perfect, but he loved her anyway. "She got over it eventually."

"Still, that wasn't fair of her to put you through an experience like that. You were so young, hardly more than a baby yourself. Did you even get a childhood or did you spend it raising your sister?"

Annoyance pricks him and he scowls. "Well, gee, princess, we tried the nanny thing, but apparently they like getting paid. We did the best we could with what hand we were dealt."

Clarke blinks at him as hurt flits over her face. He sees the moment it transforms to anger, her face tightening, jaw locking, her blue eyes turning to flint. "I fully admit that I was privileged and not everyone has the same advantages. But that doesn't change the fact that your mother put you in an unjust situation." She softens a bit then. "It's okay to feel that way, Bellamy. It doesn't mean you love her any less."

"I don't regret growing up the way I did," he says after a moment. "I wouldn't change it, not if it meant I didn't have Octavia. I'd go through all of it again - every single night where there wasn't enough for me to eat because O ate first, every hour spent scrounging for work to make sure she had clothes for school, every ass-kicking from guys twice my size that came home with my mom and thought Octavia was fair game. I'd do it for her. My life started the day she was born."

He looks up to find Clarke watching him with glassy eyes, her mouth pressed into a tight line that curls into a wobbly smile at his regard. "I hope she appreciates how much you love her."

A self-deprecating laugh rumbles out of him before he can stop it. "Believe me, it sounds a lot better from my point-of-view than it does from hers. She's been very open about the fact that I was a looming cloud of overprotectiveness from the day she was born. It's been a, uh, a hard adjustment, learning how to deal with her independence, letting her grow up. I haven't always been great about respecting boundaries."

"What, like threatening away boyfriends or something like that?"

"To start," Bellamy admits with a sheepish nod. "When she was fourteen, I found her making out with this older kid. The next day, my friend Miller and I duct-taped him to a tree."

"Oh my god, Bellamy!" Clarke says with a laugh. "That's horrible. Wait, Miller as in the cop's son?"

"Oh, yeah. He spent a few years on the rebellious side until he got pinched shoplifting. Getting caught scared him enough that he reevaluated his life. He's a cop now, too, about to make detective."

"He got scared straight, huh?"

He can't help chuckling at her turn of phrase. "Uh, yeah, not exactly." When she tilts her head in questions, he smirks. "He was in the closet his entire childhood. Ironically, it was after he was 'scared straight', as you put it, that he came out."

Clarke blinks. "Oh. Is he the one in your graduation picture in the hallway? And if so, is he single?"

"That's him. But I should clarify, he's gay, not bi. You're not his type."

"No, but he's my friend Monty's type," she says. "Besides the very last thing I need right now is to jump into another relationship." As soon as the words leave her mouth, she locks eyes with him and he swears he sees a cloud of regret in her gaze.

He holds the contact for a long beat as the air becomes charged with something unacknowledged, his head buzzing with the tension, before he looks down, nodding to himself. "That's probably for the best," he hears himself say, mouth dry, chancing a glance back up at her.

Her lips are parted, on the cusp of saying something, although she seems unable to find the words. Before she does, the intercom sounds and they both sigh in relief.

"I'll get the food," he says. "Pour more wine."

"God, yes," she says, moving past him to do just that, while he reaches for his wallet and they avoid each other's eyes.

Clarke is relieved that by the time Bellamy sets the takeout containers down on the dining room table, the strain has lifted from their conversation. They're back on even footing, safely bantering about potstickers and fighting over the the egg drop soup, a little silly with the wine and the break in tension.

It's uncomplicated and nice and she would be lying if she denied the presence of butterflies in her stomach. But she'd meant what she'd said earlier: the very last thing she needs in her life right now is romance.

Besides, she's leaving town in the morning for an unspecified amount of time, not knowing if she'll even return.

Bellamy steals a spring roll from where it's resting against her plate before she can stop him and grins at her with it in his mouth, dimples creasing his freckled cheeks, and she knows she'll be back.

As they're finishing up the obnoxious amount of food, the front door opens and a feminine voice calls out, "Bell?" Clarke finds herself holding her breath, hoping it's his sister and that she hasn't been crushing on a man in a serious relationship. Again.

When she goes cold all over at the mere thought, she knows she's already in too far.

Luckily at that moment, Bellamy jumps to his feet, moving away from the table and into the living room, just out of Clarke's sight. "O? What're you doing here?"

"Do I need a reason to visit now, big brother?" Octavia's voice is teasing, although Clarke can hear the note of suspicion. Which makes sense. Given how much he loves his sister, Bellamy likely never questions any visits.

His answering huff is nothing short of fond. "No, but you usually do anyway. So what is it this time?"

"You got me. I was hoping to steal a bottle of wine from you for dinner. Do you have a Marsala?" she asks and Clarke notes with some alarm that her voice is getting louder, although her steps are light and quick and hard to distinguish. And all of a sudden, Octavia is there at the edge of the kitchen, jolting as she sees Clarke at the table. "Oh. Ohhhhhh." She nudges her brother with her elbow. "Hang a sock on the doorknob next time, Bell. Hi, I'm Octavia."

Before she knows what's happening, Clarke finds her hand shaken and green eyes appraising her. "Clarke," she says, with a glance at Bellamy who seems just as much at a loss.

"Are you wearing my shirt?" Octavia asks, sliding a look askance at her brother. "Is this some weird kink of yours I don't want to know about?"

"Octavia," Bellamy says harshly, his face twisted with disgust. "It's not what it looks like. Clarke is a... friend and she couldn't wear what she came in anymore, so I offered her a change of clothes."

"Thank God." Octavia drops into Bellamy's vacant chair and pinched a bite of rice up with her fingers. "So how long have you two known each other? How'd you meet?"

"Oh, well." Clarke looks to Bellamy for help, only to find him turning around with a bottle of wine in his hand.

"Here you go, O." He shoves the bottle at his sister. "I'll talk to you later."

"Fine," she says with a sniff. "I know when I'm not wanted. But I have to pee first." She walks off while Bellamy strangles out an embarrassed, "Jesus."

Clarke waits for the bathroom door to click shut before she turns to Bellamy with no little amount of amusement. "She's very... direct."

His lips tip up a bit at the corners while he pinches the bridge of his noise. "If I hadn't raised her myself, I'd swear she was raised by wolves." Sighing, he turns to her. "I'm sorry. I'm trying to be discreet, but I know she realizes something is-"

"BELLAMY BLAKE!" Octavia tears down the hallway from where she was obviously not in the bathroom and stands with her hands on her hips, staring her brother down. "I knew she looked familiar, I knew it. And the name - Clarke - tickled the back of my mind, but the very expensive wedding dress that is draped over my bed just clinched it." She pivots to gape at Clarke. "You're Wells Jaha's runaway bride, aren't you?"

Clarke stops Bellamy from answering. "Yes, I am. I can't imagine my wedding - or lack of one - is common knowledge, though."

Octavia snorts. "It is for cops, especially with a decorated captain like Marcus Kane quietly calling in favors all over the city to try to find you. He's your stepdad, right?"

"No," Clarke says, voice flat and cold in what Raven always calls her Ice Princess impression.

Both Blake siblings stare at her in shock for a beat, Octavia shaking it off faster than Bellamy. Clarke can feel his dark eyes on her profile, but she ignores him. "Okay," Octavia says, unperturbed, grabbing her bottle of wine. "Bell, walk me out?"

He agrees, dropping a hand on Clarke's shoulder as he walks past and she lets her shoulders drop, drawing strength from that touch, but it's gone too soon.

Which is just as well.

She shouldn't rely on him; she's leaving in the morning.

She tosses back the rest of her wine and pours another.

"You could've just left it alone," Bellamy says as soon as the front door closes behind him and his sister. "Even if you figured it out, you didn't have to say anything about it to her."

Octavia shrugs him off. "That's part and parcel of being a society debutante, isn't it? Everyone always in your business? She should be used to it." She frowns at him. "How the hell did you meet her? How long has this been going on? Are you the reason she left that poor guy at the altar?"

"You don't know the whole story, O. But she's more than what you think she is. She's a good person."

"A good person who ran out on her own fiancé," she says. "Who does that to someone they love?"

He makes a noise of frustration. "Everything isn't always so black and white. Clarke did what she felt she needed to. I don't need to make excuses to you for her."

"No, you don't, yet you are." She observes him with sharp eyes. In their childhood, he'd rarely been able to keep a secret from her anyway; her acquired cop skills don't help. "You never answered my question: just how did you two meet?"

He rams his hand through his hair savagely. "We met when she climbed into my car this morning in her wedding dress and asked for help."

"Are you kidding me, Bellamy?!" she screeches, punching him in the bicep hard enough to make him wince. "You're lucky you're not lying dead in a ditch somewhere. What were you thinking?"

The morning seems like a lifetime ago instead of a handful of hours, but the memory makes him smile a little. "That the veil and dress and heels were a little too elaborate to lure a willing victim for her next homicide or robbery or whatever." He shrugs. "I figured it was a safe bet she was who she said she was. And I was right."

"This time," she says, still put-out but the anger had dissipated a bit. "But if the next one turns out to be a murderer, I'm putting, 'I TOLD YOU SO' on your headstone."

"Fair enough. Although I don't think there'll be a next one. I think I met my quota of runaway brides for this lifetime." When stares at him in bemusement, he asks, "What?" in  defensive.

"You can never do things the easy way, can you?" she says cryptically before giving him a hug. "Be careful, big brother."

He returns the embrace. "I promise, no more hitchhikers. Not even the pretty blondes in wedding dresses."

"I'm not worried about the future ones; I'm more concerned about this one."

"I just told you, Clarke is harmless. Besides she's leaving tomorrow." He tries not to sound as upset as he feels about that.

"Is she?" Octavia asks, voice flat, squeezing him one more time before she leans back. "Call me if you want to talk after she's gone."

His sister walks away before he can even begin to formulate a reply to that.

Clarke cleans the table off while she waits for Bellamy, boxing up the leftovers and placing them in his almost-barren fridge. She drinks another glass of water to hopefully prevent a headache in the morning.

With nothing else left to do, she sits on his couch and tries not to listen to the murmur of voices in the hallway. She half expects Bellamy to come back and and tell her she has to leave; she wouldn't blame him if he did.

He hadn't asked for any of this and now his sister has been drug into it as well. Clarke thinks about the stories Bellamy told her about his childhood, the lengths he went to for his sister. She tries to think of one time in her entire life where she felt as loved as Octavia had been. Maybe when her dad was still alive?

Closing her eyes, she leans her head back against the couch and imagines being loved like that now, so unselfishly. Wells had tried, she knows he did, but it was never right, because he always tried to earn Clarke's reciprocal love and because of that, because he thought it was something he could earn, he never did.

The backs of her eyes sting, but she refuses to cry, not over this, not now. Because it's the right choice for everyone involved, even if it hurts.

She goes back to imagining it, imagining someone helping her for the simple pleasure of being able to do it, someone sacrificing their own well-being to care for her. Someone she would be willing to do the same for.

She tells herself the image in her head is impossible, that's not how life works, it's unreasonable to expect something like that.

Opening her eyes, she finds Bellamy watching her with a pensive expression, before he glances away. Smiling, she sits up and pats the cushion next to her, pleased when he sits beside her instead of at the opposite end. "I didn't hear you open the door."

He hums a little. "I thought maybe you had fallen asleep." She feels him tense, before he says, "Clarke, I don't want you to be worried that Octavia will do something rash. She'll keep her mouth shut about you being here."

"Oh," she says, taken aback. The thought hadn't really occurred to her to be concerned about. "Okay. That's.. that's good. Thank you." She frowned. "I didn't make a very good impression on her, did I?"

Bellamy stares at her for a minute, mouth slack, before a laugh rumbles out of him. "I would've said the reverse: that she didn't make a very good impression on you."

"What? No, I liked her." He looks at her in skepticism. "I did! I don't know anyone who speaks with as much candor as she does. It was refreshing."

"Well, that's O for you," he humors her sarcastically.

"I mean it." She bumps his shoulder with her own, smiling when he does it back.

"If you say so." He glances towards the table. "You didn't have to clean up, you know. You're a guest."

"I'm more like an imposition than a guest," she says with a roll of her eyes. "It was the least I could do.

After a beat, he says, "You're right, it was," and she makes a face at him while he laughs.

She turns on the cushion, putting her back to the arm and crossing her legs in front of her. "Was it hard when Octavia moved out?"

"Damn, talk about your mood whiplash," he says with a pained smile, before he nods. "It wasn't easy, that's for sure. Of course it was worse because she wasn't talking to me."

"I find that hard to believe."

"Yeah, well." His jaw flexes, clearly still troubled by the memory. She's about to apologize and change the topic when he continues, "Remember how I said I was bad with boundaries? O would get annoyed at first whenever I did something dumb, but she got over it so fast that I never took her complaints seriously. So when she started dating a guy seven years older than her..."

"You did something really dumb, didn't you?" Clarke asks in sympathy.

"I picked a fight," he says, smirking when she closes her eyes and shakes her head. "If you saw her boyfriend - Lincoln - you'd be even more dismayed. He's practically twice my size, like a slab of freaking granite."

"Oh, Bellamy."

He sighs. "Believe me, I know. But when Octavia didn't forgive me, I knew that it was serious, that she was serious about him. She stopped coming home at all, at least while I was here."

"But you made up eventually," she says.

"Of course," he says, as if it were ever that simple. "She's my family. And if that means I have to be nice to Lincoln occasionally, then I do what it takes."

"What did your mom say about it?"

He freezes, face turning to stone for a long second, before he inhales sharply through his nose. "My mom died when I was 21 and O was 15."

Clarke folds her legs up so she can rest her chin on her knees. "My dad died three years ago." He turns to her in surprise and she meets his gaze with a grim smile.

Bellamy feels like another piece of the Clarke puzzle slides into place when she tells him about her father's death. The fog she'd mentioned, the depression, wanting to give up control and let someone else take care of the details... it makes sense now.

"It never gets any easier, does it?" she says sadly.

"No. It doesn't." Sighing, he shakes his head. "You might be able to forget about it in small stretches, to focus on other things, but it's always there - the sharp pressure in your chest, waiting for the next reminder around the corner." He smiles. "Octavia looks so much like her and has all her ferocity, her fearlessness. It used to scare the shit out of me," he admits. "I knew all it would take was one wrong move and my sister could fall into the same holding pattern that my mom raised us in. If I do nothing else in this life, at least I'll die happy knowing I helped Octavia have a better life."

"One of the big reasons I ran this morning is because I was thinking about my dad," Clarke says and Bellamy shifts to face her. Her chin is still propped on her knees and she's staring blankly across the room. "At first it was, 'I wish he was here, he should be here to walk me down the aisle.' And that turned into realizing how miserable I am and how disappointed he'd be that I'd let my life spiral this far out of my own control." She turns mournful eyes on him and it tugs at something deep inside Bellamy. "He hated that I let my mother push me into med school, used to rile her up by trying to talk me out of it in front of her."

"You're a doctor?" he asks in shock.

She nods. "Yep. Clarke Griffin, M.D., going into my last year of residency. And I'm not even sure I want to be a physician." She smiles, but it shakes at the edges. "Isn't that the stupidest thing? All that hard work, the long hours, and here I am at the finish line and I don't even know that I want to cross it. My mother told me all my life that I wanted this, and somewhere along the way it just became easier to believe it than to fight it."

"I can understand that to an extent," Bellamy says. "Except it wasn't my mom, it was everyone else around us - neighbors, kids at school, most of the teachers. They all expected me and Octavia to be... less than. When I was in high school, it was easy to play up to their expectations, to be the punk with the bad attitude and violent streak. But I knew I could be something more, so even if I had to work every night to put food on the table for O, I still busted my ass to get as many scholarships as possible so I could go to college."

"That must've been tough. But you did it." Clarke looks at him with admiration, and Bellamy ignores the burning in the tips of his ears.

"I had to. I had to show Octavia that she could do it, too."

After a minute, Clarke says lightly, "So you were the brooding bad boy from the wrong side of the tracks with the secret penchant for academia?"

He groans, making her laugh. "Well, when you put it that way... It's not that funny," he protests, which only makes her laugh harder. "I would've hated you back then," he says, remembering thinking that earlier.

That shuts her up, although her mouth is still curved in humor while her eyes widen in surprise "Really?"

"The pretty rich girl who was out of my league? Definitely. Even if I liked you, I would've hated you because you represented something I never thought I could deserve."

She watches him in silence for a moment before shaking her head in bemusement. "You're a complicated man, Bellamy Blake."

"I'm not like that anymore. Or I try not to be. Sometimes it's hard to forget; it's ingrained."

"Good," she says. "Because I think you deserve everything you've ever wanted. And I don't like the thought of you believing otherwise."

"Don't get sentimental on me now, princess," he says with a smirk. "It'll go to my head."

But she doesn't take the light-hearted bait. "I mean it," she says earnestly.

He locks gazes with her, seeing nothing but sincerity on her face, and his heart swells. He doesn't know what he's done to earn so much goodwill from her, but he'll take it.

It's been a long time - too long - since Bellamy wanted anything just for himself. Throughout his life, so many of his choices have been for Octavia, either directly or indirectly.

But looking at Clarke, sitting on his couch, face flushed from the sun and wine, staring at him like he's someone worthy of her...

He wants this.

He wants this so bad it aches.

It's a pity he can't have it, have her.

Clarke sees the flare of something fierce and bright in Bellamy's dark eyes for a second before it's tamped down again. Her heart doesn't get the message though, still beating wildly against her ribcage.

She knows what that was, knows desire when she sees it in someone else's expression, but the answering surge of it within herself... That's less familiar, at least over the past few years.

And it's heady.

And irresistible.

"Bellamy," she murmurs, leaning forward to kneel beside him, sitting back on her heels. She rests her hands on his thighs.

He exhales in a shaky stream, closing his eyes as though pained. "This isn't a good idea."

"I know."

"You're leaving in the morning."

"I know."

"You almost married someone else this morning."

"Bellamy?" she says again, waiting for him to look at her. When his eyes open, his irises are dark pools, with only subtle golden fleck delineating the brown from the black of his pupils. "Shut up."

She presses her mouth to his, cupping his jaw in both her hands, glorying in the flex as he opens to her. It's messy and wet and hot from the word go, and Clarke is overwhelmed.

Sliding one hand to the back of his head, she spears her fingers through the dark curls along the nape of his neck, using the leverage to change the angle of the kiss as she sees fit, taking control. Bellamy moans into her mouth when she gives a sharp tug to his hair and somehow the kiss becomes even more incendiary, tongue and teeth moving in perfect rhythm.

Clarke rocks her hips into his, sobbing out a groan herself when Bellamy meets her movement with one of his own, pressing up into her, right where she needs him.

His palms find her hips and help her undulate on top of him, his strong fingers curling into her skin. One sharp movement causes white spots to burst behind Clarke's eyes and she loses her place in the kiss, nipping at his lip too hard.

Pulling back, she pants out, "Sorry," trying to kiss the bite mark, but he has other plans, nosing at her chin until she tips her head back and bares her neck to him. He follows the underside of her jaw until he finds the spot, the good one just below her ear, the one only her girlfriend her junior year of undergrad had ever found.

Clarke sighs his name again, running one hand down his back, feeling the play of muscles beneath his shirt, all the way down to the hem, where she moves her touch to his bare skin. While he sucks a mark to her neck, she all but purrs, running fingers over his flat stomach, up and down.

When she starts to move her hand lower with a purpose, he stills and pulls back.

"No," she says. "Don't stop."

But the damage is done. He grabs her wrist, gentle but forceful, and uses the hand on her hip to ease her back. "This... we shouldn't have done this." He's still breathless and Clarke tries to concentrate on his words and not the rise and fall of his chest.

"Yes, we should have. And we should keep doing it."

"Clarke," he says sharply, and she meets his gaze. His eyes are still dark with desire, but his mouth is an implacable line, and she wilts a little under his stare, feeling uneasy.

That alone makes her edgy and she looks away. "I didn't figure that you'd be so uptight about sex, Bellamy."

"We haven't even known each other twelve hours. Don't you think this is a little fast?"

Had it really been this morning that they'd met? Clarke wonders in shock, but says, "And you've never had a one night stand?"

He's quiet for a moment, long enough that she turns back to him, just in time to see the tail end of hurt on his face before he wipes it clean. "Is that what you want?" he asks, voice so thick with misery that a knot forms in Clarke's throat.

She wants to lie for her own piece of mind. She could say yes, sleep with him, and move on tomorrow morning, the entire day nothing more than a pleasant memory.

It would be easier to lie. But she can't bring herself to hurt him that way.

"No," she whispers. She moves towards him as he reaches for her, tucking her against his side as he lies back against the couch. Resting her head on his chest, she curls one leg on top of his and throws an arm over his stomach, closing her eyes and concentrating on nothing else but synchronizing her breathing to his.

Bellamy wakes up in his bed with an unfamiliar weight pinning his arm to the mattress. Blinking his eyes open, he sees nothing but blonde hair and it all comes rushing back to him.

They'd dozed on the couch after their ill-fated makeout and woke up tangled up in each other, trading soft kisses until Clarke's stomach had growled. They'd pulled out the leftover Chinese and killed another glass of wine each before cuddling up in bed, talking until the early hours of morning.

He'd told her about his two brushes with monogamy, while she'd detailed the troubled pre-Wells relationships of her past.

They traded stories about their mothers: Bellamy's and her long line of deadbeats, Clarke's and her boyfriend who just happened to be a police captain.

She told him about her dad, about growing up in political circles, while he made her laugh with anecdotes about the preteen dramas he witnessed daily on the job.

Neither one of them had talked about what would happen this morning. He'd half-expected to wake up and find that she'd snuck out.

He spoons her now, brushing her hair aside and placing kisses to the line of her shoulder as she stirs and tenses immediately. "Good morning," he says in a low voice, rewarded when she relaxes against him with a breathy sigh.

"Morning." Her voice, already husky, rasps with disuse and he throbs. She groans a little, pressing back against him and making him see stars. "Are you very sure it would be a mistake to have sex?"

He tucks his head between her neck and shoulder, right where the two meet and he's found she's the most ticklish. Squealing, she pulls away from, turning to face him and pushing at his chest. "All right, all right," she says. "I get it. No sex." Leaning up, she kisses the cleft of his chin, blue eyes shining. "Your loss."

"Don't remind me," he grumbles, brushing her hair back from her face, running his palm down her shoulder and arm, until he can weave their fingers together. Propping his head up in his other hand, he watches her, not wanting to disrupt this moment, but needing to know. "What time do we have to meet Raven?"

As expected, her gaze dims a bit, so he flexes his fingers against hers to pull her back to the moment. "Her flight leaves at 11:30."

The clock on the wall shows it's just past 8. A weight presses down on his heart as the reality of the situation takes over. With another squeeze to her fingers, he pulls his hand free and rolls out of bed. "We should leave by 9:30, give you time to meet up with her, and get through security. I'll get some clean towels so you can shower." He doesn't look at her while he moves to leave and assume she's getting up, until she grabs his hand as he passes on his way to the door.

"I have to leave," she says, although it's uncertain. Like she's waiting to be talked out of it.

"Clarke." He looks down into her beautiful face, running his thumb down the line of her lips and brushing against the dark mark punctuating them. He wants to talk her out of it, for his own selfish reasons. But he can't. He can't be selfish with her. "I know you do. I won't stop you, even if I want to."

"Do you?" Her lashes flutter closed for a second, before sweeping up so she can stare at him intently. "Want to, I mean?"

He nods once.

Some of the weight seems to lift from her shoulders then and she rises to her feet and kisses his cheek before moving past him without another word.

They don't speak much as they get ready to leave. Bellamy offers her breakfast, but Clarke knows the hollowness in her stomach can't be filled with food. She declines.

On the drive to the airport, she thinks about his admission, the fact that he wants to stop her but won't. She should feel ashamed for asking him such a pointed question, forcing him to admit his less-than-noble baser emotions, but she's finding it hard to scrounge up any shame.

Early this morning, after they'd talked themselves out, he'd drifted off first and she'd spent a not-insignificant amount of time lying there staring up at him before she curled into him and closed her eyes.

She went back to imagining, like she had after Octavia left the day before, what it would be like to be loved in the all-consuming way that Bellamy loved. But this time, she didn't try to imagine her parents or Wells loving her like that. No, this time she pictured Bellamy.

Bellamy, loving her enough to put her well-being above his own.

Bellamy, loving her so much that he'd sacrifice his own happiness for her piece of mind.

And it had struck her, in those predawn hours, that even though the rest of her life was uncertain, she knew without a doubt that she wanted that dream. She wanted that kind of love, but not from anyone; from Bellamy.

It was ridiculous and impulsive and everything that Clarke was not, but it was also incontrovertible.

Having him admit that he wanted her to stay but would let her go solidified everything.

She was leaving for now, but she was coming back.

And she was coming back for Bellamy Blake.

He joined the line of cars in the drop-off lane and Clarke's throat tightened. She reached out and grabbed his hand. "I feel like 'thank you' is nowhere close to adequate."

He squeezed her fingers, staring straight ahead and moving forward in the slow queue. "You don't have to thank me, Clarke."

"Bellamy," she says, hesitating until he turns to look at her. "We will see each other again."

He forces a smile. "It's okay if we don't."

As much as she'd craved this stupid noble streak earlier, she wants to groan at it now. "No, it's not." Releasing his hand, she unbuckles her seatbelt and leans forward. "Look, I read once that after the end of any substantial relationship, you should wait two years before trying to get into another one."

He turns in his seat, mouth twitching, before he reaches up and runs the tip of his thumb over the dimple in her chin. "Two years, huh? Does that stand even when it was an engagement built on nothing more than friendship?"

She hums and wraps a hand around his wrist, holding his palm to her jaw. "I bet it could be reduced to six months in those circumstances," she offers, the corners of her mouth tipping up into a small smile.

"Six months." He pretends to consider it and nods with forced reluctance. "All right, if that's the best offer I can get."

A sudden knock on the window startles them both and Clarke turns to see Raven staring at her through the window, brows high, eyes sharp, mouth a thin line.

"I'm assuming you know her?" Bellamy asks in amusement.

Clarke's friend keeps pace with the slow crawl of cars in the drop-off lane until Bellamy's to a spot where they can climb out and get Clarke's bag.

He tries to pretend he can't hear Raven's exclamations of "Are you out of your mind?" and "He's hot, I'll give you that, but for fuck's sake, Clarke!" and "Who are you and where is the real Clarke Griffin?" while he opens the trunk and takes his time pulling out the handle and setting the suitcase down just so.

When he slams the trunk closed, though, he's relieved to see that Raven has backed off, leaving an exasperated Clarke standing on the curb. He rolls the bag over to her and hands it off. "I feel like I should tell you to be safe, but I know you can take care of yourself." He rocks back on his heels. "But don't go being too resourceful and climb into any other unsuspecting guy's car if you get in a pinch."

She steps into him, wrapping her arms around his neck. "I wouldn't dream of it." After kissing his cheek, she smiles against his shoulder. "Don't forget: it's a date. You, me, here, six months from today."

"You got it, princess," he concedes, squeezing her waist, dropping a lingering kiss on her lips before he steps back. "Six months."

She nods, turns, and walks away.

He watches her for a minute until she's swallowed up in the crowded ticketing area.

She's gone from his life as quickly as she appeared.

six months later

Bellamy stands in the airport arrival lobby and checks his watch for the fifth time in as many minutes, calculating the time between her flight's scheduled arrival and how long it would take to get here from the terminal.

Although he and Clarke haven't spoken since she's been gone, Raven turned into a pretty reliable point of contact for the both of them.

It started the day that Clarke had left, with a text message from an unknown number saying Clarke had wanted him to know her flight had landed. Bellamy had thanked Raven and added her to his contacts at once.

He tried not to use it too much at the beginning, only giving in a few times, whenever the curiosity or self-pity were about to eat him alive. Even in those times, he'd limited himself to a quick, "Is she ok?"

But that led into more elaborate messages about Clarke and what she was doing and how she was feeling.

He knew, for instance, that she'd only stayed with Raven for two weeks - the same two-week vacation block she'd intended to use for her honeymoon - before choosing to finish out her residency.

He knew she was selling her apartment and moving into something of her own.

He knew she sent Miller her friend Monty's contact info via David (although Miller had yet to use this information).

He knew that she'd seen Wells and they were working on repairing their friendship.

He knew that she and her mother had gotten into a horrible argument. It was one of the few times he considered using the information Raven had provided him and going to her, aching to be there for her while she was upset.

And he also knew that she'd flown out this weekend, in a beautiful coincidence of fate, to celebrate Raven graduating early with her Ph.D. in aerospace engineering, although she wouldn't get to sit in on a ceremony until spring, if she still wanted to.

Truth be told, the sheer fact that everything was falling into place was enough to make Bellamy edgy. His life didn't work like that; never had, never would. Things didn't line up correctly or fall into his lap. They were always messy and chaotic and fraught with frustration.

Why should his budding relationship with Clarke be any different?

For six months, regardless of Raven's intel, he'd told himself not to get his hopes up, that things could change. Maybe she'd meet someone, maybe she'd change her mind, maybe she'd come to her senses - like she had with Wells - and realize she didn't want to waste her time on someone like Bellamy.

Maybe the chemistry, the feelings they'd felt were situational and couldn't sustain under everyday life.

Standing there alone, watching as people greet their loved ones, without so much of a glance of Clarke, he feels ill. Dread curdles in stomach as the minute hand ticks later and later past her arrival time, until Bellamy finally admits to himself that she's not coming.

With one last glance at the board, which clearly shows her flight as ARRIVED, he sets off.

Halfway to the exit, he feels his phone vibrate and sees an incoming call from Raven. He's half-tempted to send it to voicemail, although his curiosity wins out. "What?" he says with a weary sigh.

"Where the hell are you, jackass? I just got a call from Clarke and she was crying because you didn't show up!"

He stops on the spot, ignoring the couple that just miss running into him and shoots him a dirty look. "What are you talking about?"

"What do you think I'm talking about? Clarke is waiting for you and you stood her up!"

"No, I'm here, Raven. I'm waiting for her. I thought she changed her mind or didn't get on the plane or... But she's here? She's here somewhere looking for me?"

Raven is quiet for a beat. "Yes," she says and Bellamy can tell it's through clenched teeth. "I literally just said that twice. She's waiting for you by the drop-off lane, where you said you'd meet."

He swears and starts to move then, walking quick, dodging around everyone in his way. "I'm in the arrivals lobby," he says. "Call her. Call her right now and tell her I'm almost there and don't leave!"

"Call her yourself!"

He laughs then, breathless and a touch hysterical. "I don't know her number. Do you think I'd text you for six months if I had her number? Call her, Raven," he pleads, before disconnecting the call and shoving the phone in his pocket, all but running now.

He gets to the front entrance and skids to a stop on the sidewalk, looking left and right, desperate for a glimpse of blonde hair, when all of a sudden he's blindsided by a warm, soft body, as Clarke wraps an arm around him.

She still got her phone pressed to her face and he can hear Raven calling her name. Bellamy pulls it from her grip and says, "She found me," and disconnects, before wrapping his arms around Clarke's waist and pressing his face into her hair.

"I didn't think you'd be here," she says against his shoulder.

"I wouldn't miss this for the world, princess." He kisses the side of her head and eases back in her hold a bit, tilting her face up so he can look at her. Her eyes are damp and deep blue, lashes spiky with moisture, but she's smiling at him, so much relief and affection on her face that his throat closes up.

They both realize that they're standing there, grinning at each other like idiots, at the same time, and start to move away from the doors.

"So," Bellamy says, taking her hand in his and weaving their fingers together, "where to?"

"Well, I really need to get out of these clothes," she says with a cheeky grin, waving a hand at her jeans and soft blue sweater. "What are the odds that you have a wife or girlfriend who would have something that would fit me?"

He eyes her. "Slim-to-none. I'm not married and my new girlfriend doesn't have any stuff at my place. Yet."

She presses a smile to his shoulder as they walk. "How about sisters? Do you have any sisters who would mind terribly if I borrowed their clothes?"

"Funnily enough, I do have a sister, but she finally moved all her stuff out of my apartment, so you're outta luck there, too."

Clarke sighs. "Let me get this straight: when we get to your place, if I take all these clothes off, there won't be anything for me to change into?" She looks up at him, all guileless blue eyes.

"You got it," he says with a smirk, raising a brow in challenge.

She answers him with a slow, sinful smile of her own. "Perfect."