103a/n Huge thanks to everyone who has stuck with this story so far, including Stormkpr for betaing the whole thing. Only two chapters left after this one. Happy reading!
Bellamy has grown used to waking up with Clarke in his arms, or even waking up to the sensation of her pressing soft kisses to his cheek, since he has started to sleep in later than her as often as not.
But when he wakes up to her straddling him and bending over him to kiss him firmly on the lips, it feels like he's still dreaming. Certainly this does bear a strong resemblance to some of those fantasies he has been known to have about her in days gone by.
He's not dreaming, though. He's not dreaming, and this is real, and it almost feels too good to be true.
In fact, now he comes to think about it, this does feel too good to be true, coming so hot on the heels of the tough night and dropship visit they shared yesterday. That's what gives him the strength to push her slightly away from him and look up into her eyes. If this is some kind of twisted thanks for his role in supporting her when she was falling apart, or worse yet an attempt to prove that she's coping just fine, thank you very much – well, then. He wants no part in it.
"Clarke?" He asks, willing himself not to notice how distractingly pleasant it is to have her hovering above him like this.
"Bellamy." Her voice is steady, but she won't meet his eyes. Is she embarrassed that he is not jumping to take her up on her implicit offer, or is there something more going on here?
"What's this?"
"This is morning sex, Bellamy. You know, sex, that happens in the morning." No. She's not allowed to undermine a meaningful conversation with poor quality humour. That's his territory.
"If this is you thinking you owe me for yesterday -"
"It's not that." She sighs, and sits back on her heels, still straddling him. Her breasts shake as she moves, and that doesn't exactly help him to concentrate on the conversation.
"Then what is it?" He hears his voice grow sharper, and tries again. "Clarke, you know it's not like that with me, OK? You don't have to thank me for looking out for you. You know I'd do it again in a heartbeat. And you definitely don't have to pretend to be doing better this morning if it's not true."
Her face crumples at that, and he knows he's hit upon the truth.
"Clarke." He reaches out to stroke her cheek, and she nuzzles into his hand a little. "I know you've had to put a brave face on every morning since we landed here – we both have – but you don't have to put that act on around me, OK?"
She nods, eyes a little damp. "OK."
He offers her a tentative smile, and keeps rubbing his thumb against her jaw.
She smiles right back at him. "So maybe I'm not completely OK. But I do like to be on top, and I'm here now...?" She trails off suggestively, a faintly vulnerable look in her eye.
"Up to you, Clarke. Princess." He tries, seeing her eyes darken the moment the word leaves his lips.
"I want to." She tells him, and he can believe it, now.
He nods, and she gets to work. Not by kissing him, or sliding down onto his fast-stiffening cock, but by taking his finger into her mouth and sucking gently.
That's not something she's done before. That's not something anyone has ever done with him before, and it has him seeing stars of stunned desire.
"You like that?" She asks, when she pulls back.
He nods, not entirely sure that he can form words just now, and reaches up to tangle a hand in her hair. He needs to bring her down for a kiss – or two or three – before she gets to work riding him in earnest. Somehow he feels like he hasn't properly said good morning to her, yet.
They kiss for a couple of minutes, lips meeting with increasing urgency, until Clarke sits up and narrows her eyes at him.
"Stop distracting me." She tells him, affectionate but a little argumentative, and he likes that. He likes it when she gets all decisive on him.
She takes the lead, then, sliding down onto the length of him and getting to work. He's a fan of this position, even though he misses being able to reach her lips. She makes up for it with those breasts bouncing above him and the look of utter bliss on her face.
She has her eyes closed, and he wonders if he ought to feel guilty for watching her. Would she feel self conscious, if she caught him? He wouldn't want to make her feel nervous – he wants to help her relax and have a good time.
He doesn't close his eyes, though. He will if she asks him to, but he just loves watching her too much.
The rocking of her hips is already growing more frantic, and he can feel himself thrusting upwards to meet her with ever more urgency. He doesn't understand what it is about this woman that she can send him to the brink of sanity so quickly and consistently. When she's riding him like this, somehow the rest of the world falls away. All he can think about is Clarke, her skin against his, the little moans of pleasure she lets out between panting breaths, the way her breasts and that glorious blonde hair are bouncing above him.
He reaches out to cup a breast, tweaks her nipple between thumb and finger. She likes that – he can tell by the way her eyes shoot open, and the heat in her gaze as she looks right at him.
They don't often have much eye contact during sex. It's not always practical, for obvious reasons. But in this moment, he knows it's something he wants them to seek out again. Her gaze is unguarded, almost vulnerable, as if she's letting him in and inviting him to take a good look around her heart.
He bites down on his lip, determined not to tell her anything she's not ready to hear. He shows her it, instead, caressing her cheek, cradling her chin in his hand.
"I like looking at you." He murmurs, fighting through the breathlessness because he needs her to hear this. "You look so beautiful right now."
He worries that it sounds sappy. He doesn't normally go around using the word beautiful very often, but by his count he's said it to Clarke five times in the last three days.
If it does sound sappy, she doesn't care. She doesn't argue, nor reply to him. She just flushes a gorgeous shade of red, and throws her head back, and with a couple more motions of her pelvis she starts pulsing around him, falling apart with a loud sigh.
He likes it when she comes first. It doesn't happen much, and it makes him glow with pride. It means that he's managed his goal of making her feel special and persuading her to take down her walls, for him.
She's still sitting over him, encouraging him to keep moving until he is finished, too. He keeps thrusting against her, wondering how it is that she reached orgasm quite so quickly today. Has she been planning this seduction for a while, getting herself worked up over the idea of starting the morning like this? Was she up half the night fantasising about this moment?
That does it. That has him spilling inside of her with a groan, squeezing hard on her hand which he doesn't even remember grabbing, crying her name so loudly he thinks they will probably get complaints from the neighbours, if they're not careful.
Clarke is still straddling him, even though they're both done. She stays there for a long time, his cock gradually growing limp inside of her, which is in itself quite possibly the hottest thing he's ever experienced. He doesn't go limp very quickly, once he's reached that realisation.
"You good?" He asks, wondering why she's still there. Is she hoping for round two? He could probably manage a round two.
"I'm good." She confirms, drawing swirling patterns over his chest with her fingertips for no apparent reason.
She shows no sign of pursuing that round two, so he just lies there, and lets himself relax under her touch. She smiles down at him, and he smiles up at her, and really it's a bit of an inane waste of time but he cannot bring himself to move.
He suspects that this is what happiness feels like.
That makes it a strange time to bring up Gina, of course. Making Clarke upset or jealous would obviously be a stupid idea, at this moment in time. But that's not his aim. He wants to clear something up.
"You were right about Gina, you know. It was supposed to be a date. Because – I didn't think I could ever have this with you." He gets the words out in a rush, before his courage can fail him, or Clarke can interrupt, or he can see her face fall too far at his words.
"I thought the same thing." She tells him with a wry smile.
"Guess we're both idiots." He tries for a light-hearted tone, but somehow, he senses that there is a lot riding on this conversation.
She nods, then bends forward, and wraps her arms around him in a hug so tight that she lifts his torso clean off the bed.
He was wrong, he thinks, as he hugs her back despite the impracticalities of the situation. He was wrong to think, half a minute ago, that he had found happiness. He knows better now.
This is what happiness feels like. This very moment, engulfed in a bone-crushing hug by Clarke.
…...
Clarke cherishes the little bubble of domesticity she is building with Bellamy. Sure, she still divides her days between life-and-death surgeries and missions as an ambassador, and Bellamy spends his time teaching men waving guns how to survive on the ground. But it is as close to peace as she thinks the pair of them will ever manage, with their track record.
One of her favourite features of their relatively calm existence is the habit they have adopted of meeting up for regular lunch dates. Whenever their schedules have both of them in Camp Jaha at the right time, they eat together and chat about their morning almost like any carefree young couple on the Ark would have done.
Of course, they don't call them dates. But they both know that they are dates all the same.
Clarke's had a quiet morning, today, doing routine appointments in med bay and counting down the minutes until lunch. The moment her last appointment is done, she waves goodbye to Jackson and bolts out of the door.
Bellamy is just arriving back through the gates by the time she gets there, an assortment of very muddy guards milling about behind him. Bellamy and Miller walk at the head of the group, miraculously free of the filth the rest of the guards are covered in. She wonders how that happened – she doesn't see either of them shirking their share of the dirty work, but the contrast in the state of their clothing is striking.
The fact he is not covered in dirt is a good thing, she decides, as he pulls her into his arms and greets her with a robust kiss to the lips.
"You OK? Good morning?" He asks her.
"Good enough. You?"
Bellamy frowns. "Mixed." He replies, and Clarke hears Miller laugh.
"Mixed?" She asks, brow quirked, even as he takes her hand and starts walking towards lunch.
"We found out that us two are pretty great at climbing trees." He says, indicating himself and Miller and looking more like the cocky young man who first came to Earth than Clarke has seen in ages.
"And everyone else?"
"We found out that they're good at falling." Miller supplies, not bothering to hide his laughter.
Clarke sets to laughing, too, and it feels good. She hasn't laughed about something as harmless as a load of guards falling in the mud for months. "Any broken arms for me and Jackson to patch up?" She asks.
"Would Bellamy look so happy if he knew you were going to be at work all night?" Miller throws her question right back at her.
She laughs some more, shaking her head fondly. The three of them start walking to lunch together, until Miller turns aside part way there, explaining that he has plans with Lincoln.
"They're friends now?" Clarke asks, confused, as she watches him go.
Bellamy nods. "The three of us have been hanging out a lot. I guess it makes sense that they're friends when I'm not around, too."
She bites her lip, wondering if maybe she's being selfish, here. "You can eat with them if you want. I don't mind, really."
"I mind." Bellamy says shortly. "Our schedules don't overlap for another three days. I'm not ditching you today."
With that settled, she squeezes his hand and keeps walking.
The lunch hall is busy, but that's OK. She can deal with busy, most days, by now. And when she can't, she knows she only has to tell Bellamy that they're having a picnic at Raven's gate and he will follow her, no questions asked.
Considering the number of people here today, there aren't that many she would count as friends. A handful of the hundred are at one of the tables – people like Munroe and Bree, who she doesn't know very well and still believes see her more as a leader than a companion. She's not that keen to sit with them. Gina and Sinclair are at another table, but without Raven around, she doesn't particularly fancy that option, either.
"Who do you want to sit with?" Bellamy asks, taking his tray and scanning the room.
She gives herself permission to answer honestly. If she can sleep with him, and cry with him, she reckons she can probably tell him the truth about this, too.
"You." She replies, with a small smile.
He nods, and sets out for an empty table. She takes a seat opposite him, and watches fondly as he starts attacking his plate of food as if he hasn't eaten in days.
"Long morning?" She asks pointedly.
"It's hungry work, climbing trees."
"Why were you climbing trees, anyway?"
He laughs. "Because Indra said we should, and I don't like to imagine what would happen if I said no to her."
This is progress, Clarke thinks. She could scarcely have imagined, three months ago, that Bellamy would be laughing affectionately about taking orders from the Trikru chief. It's working well, this job Bellamy has of helping the guards to adapt to life on the ground. It has grown beyond what Kane first imagined into a beautiful mess of chaotic cooperation with the grounders.
Clarke likes hearing about Bellamy's morning, but she has another topic in mind for conversation over lunch today, too. She lets him enthuse about tree climbing for another couple of minutes, but when he lapses into silence, she begins to pursue her point.
"I have an idea."
"You always have an idea." He says with a warm grin. "Is this an idea I'm going to agree with?"
"I think you'll like it." She's hoping he'll like it, anyway.
"Go on, then."
"We should take Raven and Wick to visit Niylah. They'd love it – she has scrap metal and ancient electronics they could salvage. And we could take the rover so Raven doesn't have to walk. It would be the first time she's actually been outside of camp since Mount Weather."
"Good thinking. She'll love it."
"You think so? It's not exactly a picnic and stargazing, is it?" She does believe Raven would enjoy her proposed expedition, but it's hardly the most romantic of double date ideas.
"No. But it's perfect for Raven and Wick."
Clarke swallows down disappointment. It's not only Raven and Wick she wants to please. "I hope it'll be fun for you, too. I know Niylah doesn't have books very often, but we might get lucky."
As if reading her mind, he reaches across the table to squeeze her hand. "It's a great idea. I'll have fun whether I get a new book out of it or not."
…...
Bellamy is excited about the upcoming visit to Niylah's with Raven and Wick. He's been excited about it since the moment Clarke mentioned it.
He knows it's silly, OK? They're still trying to make a home on an inhospitable planet, and they still haven't set things right with Lexa. He should be occupied with more important concerns than dating. It just means a lot to him that Clarke came up with that idea all on her own. They'd been talking about returning the favour by doing something nice for Raven and Wick for a while, and he'd largely given up on pursuing the matter because he was starting to feel like he was more invested in the idea of another double date than Clarke was. So it's reassuring and rather affirming to learn that she was making plans all along.
He worries that he's smothering her with affection or coming on too strong quite a lot, actually. He finds himself paying her little compliments, or letting slip how much he cares about her, and wonders whether that's a bit overwhelming if she's not as into him as he is into her. But this whole double-date plan, and the way she's got so enthusiastic about it, has him starting to believe that, actually, he might not be the only one who's head over heels in love, out of the two of them.
He shakes himself slightly, and tries to remember that he's supposed to be concentrating on a spot of lunch-time conversation with his sister, right now.
"Sorry, O, what was that?"
She grins at him. "Distracted, big brother?"
"I'm fine. What were you saying?"
"I was asking whether you'll be in the bar later. But then I gave up, because you weren't listening, and because I know the answer anyway."
"You do?" He is really not keeping up with this conversation.
"Yeah. You'll be wherever Clarke is."
"No, you're wrong, O. She'll be wherever I am."
"Isn't that what I said?" She bounces it right back at him, giving as good as she gets.
He's missed this. He's missed petty good-natured squabbles with his sister, but somehow, they are better than they used to be. He likes the relationship between them, now that she is older, and she can be a friend rather than only an obligation.
That's when he realises he's been caught napping again, as she reaches over to poke him in the arm.
"Sorry." He says, completely unapologetic.
She only smiles. "It's good to see you happy, Bell."
"It's good to be happy."
Octavia's smile turns a little damp as she continues. "It's great that you get to have a life of your own now, you know? All those years on the Ark, I hated feeling that you couldn't go out and have your own friends and relationships because you had to worry about me. I'm so happy for you." She dashes a hand across her eyes, grinning through the tears.
He sort of wants to reach across the table and hug her, but he can't, because this is a dining hall. So he settles on a different way of showing her how much he values their new friendship, instead.
"Do you and Lincoln want to come to Niylah's tomorrow?"
She frowns a little. "We just went yesterday."
"Yeah. Yeah, I know. Listen, I'm not asking because we need pelts or potatoes. Clarke and I are taking Wick and Raven for a day out. I wondered if you wanted to join us?"
"Like a date?"
"Like a date." He nods, carefully. He is allowed to use the d-word, on occasion. He learnt that the day of the peace party.
"You want to invite your little sister and her boyfriend on a couples' day?" She asks, incredulous.
"I want to invite two of my favourite people on a couples' day." He corrects her, embarrassed, jaw tense. He's used to only having these kinds of emotional conversations with Clarke, and he's still getting the hang of the idea that his sister is a functional young adult who can cope with such things.
Octavia blinks at him in stunned silence for fully five seconds. And when she speaks again, she seems to be struggling with those happy tears once more.
"That would be great, Bell. It – it means a lot. And I know Lincoln will appreciate the invite. You've been a great friend to him these last couple of months, you know?"
"I'm trying."
"I always knew you were a good brother. But I've realised something since we landed. You're a good person, too."
He's not a good person. He's a monster who has slaughtered hundreds. But he's learning how to do better.
…...
Clarke knows, as she walks towards the rover the following morning, that she is blushing like a young girl on her way to her first Unity Day masquerade, but she figures that's fair enough. She didn't get to have much of a childhood, these last few years, so she's enjoying a dose of youthful, carefree joy alongside this rather mature and functional relationship she seems to have found herself in.
"We should have planned who's sitting where." Bellamy frets as they walk. "My sister is going to freak out if she doesn't have the best view. I'm surprised she's not insisting on riding a horse there."
"It'll be fine. Just relax and remember you're here to enjoy yourself." She squeezes his hand, and wonders whether he is capable of ever turning off his instinctive need to worry about everyone, all of the time.
By the time they are close enough to talk to the others, it seems that the seating arrangements have already been decided – more or less.
"I'm driving." Wick informs them.
"In your dreams." Raven argues back.
"You can't drive."
"Details."
"Raven and Wick are riding up front. The rest of us are in the back." Lincoln summarises.
Wick does manage to persuade Raven to let him drive, in the end, much to Clarke's relief. She has a great deal of faith in Raven's abilities in general, but she doesn't much fancy being along for the ride at her friend's first driving lesson. And in exchange for him being allowed to drive them there today, Raven manages to extract from Wick the promise that he will help her learn how to drive starting first thing the following morning, and everyone is more or less happy.
Well, everyone except Wick. Clarke can hear him grumbling that Raven shouldn't be trying to learn how to drive while her leg is giving her pain, but then Raven fixes him with a stare that suggests he will become single very quickly if he pursues that argument any further.
The conversation on the journey there is a cheerful one. They discuss the campaign to get the kill order lifted, but only briefly. Clarke is finding Lexa's ongoing silence enormously frustrating and she doesn't want to ruin their day by dwelling on it. So they move on to happier themes – the guards' lessons in everything from tree-climbing to fungus identification, the number of birth control implant removals in med bay, Kane's recent suggestion that Camp Jaha should have a different and more permanent name.
"He just wants us to call it Camp Kane." Raven yells from the front seat, to laughter all round.
"Sky City!" Wick suggests, at which everyone groans.
"New Ark?" Lincoln adds quietly, and is greeted with a couple of nods.
The conversation moves on, then, Wick shouting increasingly ridiculous ideas even as Raven tells him to concentrate on the road and Octavia reminds him which track to turn down to head towards Niylah's.
And when no one else can possibly be listening in on their conversation, Clarke finds that Bellamy has turned towards her to whisper in her ear.
"I'm thinking of suggesting Arkadia." He murmurs. "But I guess people would think that's silly. Only an old Earth culture nerd like me would want to live somewhere called Arkadia."
"I'd live somewhere called Arkadia." She tells him, with an encouraging smile. She doesn't know what old Earth reference he's trying to make, but it sounds like a cheerful name all the same.
"You would?"
"Yeah." She swallows carefully, and practises being honest with him. "I'd live pretty much anywhere, as long as you were there, too."
He kisses her for that, a little more enthusiastically than she thinks is necessarily wise, in the back of a moving vehicle and with an audience as well. But she makes no move to stop him, because she likes kissing him, and it's not as if it's her sister who's watching them.
Octavia interrupts them, of course, after a couple of seconds. "That's quite enough of that, big brother. You still don't like it when we make out in front of you."
"That's different." He argues, breaking off the kiss with an unapologetic smirk.
"How is that different?"
"I'm supposed to protect you."
"And I can't feel protective of you, too?" Octavia argues straight back at him.
Lincoln interrupts with a calm smile. "I don't think he needs protecting from Clarke any more than you need protecting from me, Octavia."
Octavia concedes the point, and the journey continues amidst lighthearted chatter.
They arrive at the trading post, not long after. Clarke rather expects them to stay in their respective couples, but that is not quite how it turns out. Octavia and Lincoln do stick together, chattering away with Niylah in rapid Trigedeslang which Clarke cannot hope to keep up with. But Bellamy takes Wick aside, saying something about some scrap metal he saw here last week, and Clarke finds that she is alone with Raven.
That doesn't happen very often. Even since they smoothed out the rough edges of their friendship, they have mostly had Bellamy and Wick around when they have spoken.
Raven, of course, does not bat an eyelid at their circumstances.
"Come on, Clarke. I want to find me some copper wire."
"I want to see if there are any books, first." Clarke insists. She didn't come all this way to go home without choosing Bellamy a present.
"Getting your boyfriend another gift?"
Clarke nods, and starts walking.
Raven grabs her by the arm. "Hang on a minute. Not so fast. You're going to let me call him your boyfriend, and then you're just going to nod and walk away like that?"
Clarke looks furtively over her shoulder. The rest of the group are out of earshot – there is no danger in pursuing this conversation.
"Well he is, isn't he? We're in an exclusive emotional and sexual relationship and we're currently on a date." She is aware that the line comes out sounding rehearsed. That's because it is – she has been practising exactly those words in her mind, preparing for the day when she dares to have this conversation with Bellamy.
She'll get round to it, she promises herself. She'll get round to it, just as soon as she's feeling absolutely and thoroughly confident that he's not going to die on her.
"Does he know he's your boyfriend?"
"Yeah."
"Are you lying to me, Clarke Griffin?"
"He knows, OK? We don't talk about it, but he knows."
Raven sighs, and takes a seat on one of the benches outside Niylah's shop, and pats the place next to her in invitation.
Clarke sits, and prepares for an inquisition.
"Don't you think you should talk about it?" Raven asks, surprisingly gentle. "I was scared to talk about it with Wick, but that turned out well."
Clarke shakes her head, stares at the ground. "I just don't want him to die. People I love die." Even after everything Bellamy said to her, the day they visited the dropship together, she has not entirely managed to throw away that idea.
"People die." Raven corrects her. "This is the ground, Clarke. People die. Don't you think he deserves to know how you feel, sooner rather than later, in case anything happens to either of you?"
Clarke frowns. She hasn't looked at it quite like that. Where would they be if something were to happen to her, and Bellamy never got to hear her tell him she loves him?
Raven continues to speak, even as Clarke tries to process everything she has already said. "Anyway, I don't think you need to worry about him so much. He's survived pretty well so far, hasn't he? The fire at the dropship? Mount Weather? He's difficult to kill, that officially unofficial boyfriend of yours." She concludes with a smirk.
Clarke nods, and decides that there is some truth to Raven's words. She's not about to run straight into the trading post and confess her love to Bellamy right this second, of course, because acting on impulse does not suit her. But maybe, she resolves, these words might be words she has to think about and take to heart in the coming days.
First, though, she needs to go procure a book.
a/n Thanks for reading!
