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Life confused Bellamy and any time he thought he’d finally gotten a grip on what was going on something would happen and totally throw him for a loop.
So when he met Clarke he knew that at least one part of his life would finally make sense.
They met in college at the age of 19, he was a transfer student from his community college back home. She’d just happened to be the first person he’d run into and she helped him find his way around.
Turns out they were both English majors and had overlapping schedules, the first term was a mistake all the other times they’d planned it. They were fast friends, it was the kind of thing where no matter how much they tried to remember what it was that solidified their bond they couldn’t. But they couldn’t remember what it was like to not be friends with the other, either.
The two of them were inseparable.
There was one party that changed everything.
“You’re really pretty,” Clarke mumbled into Bellamy’s shoulder.
They were on the bus on their way back to the dorm rooms. They were mostly sober at this point, the alcohol had worn off for the most part about an hour ago now they were just tired.
“What?” Bellamy chuckled his head leaning against the headrest.
“Your face, actually everything about you is too beautiful it isn’t fair to those of us who were not blessed by the gods.”
Bellamy turned his head so his nose was resting on her head.
“You’re one to talk,” Bellamy said. “You walk around looking like that, it’s no wonder everyone who meets you is in love with you.”
Clarke lifted her head slowly giving Bellamy enough time to do the same without getting headbutted. They looked at each other for the last two stops without saying anything. They were so lost in each other that they almost missed their stop.
They didn’t speak a word the elevator up to Clarke’s floor, as luck would have it her roommate was out of town for the week.
Clarke unlocked her door painfully slow and walked in. Bellamy stood at the threshold unsure of what to do. Normally he’d say bye but this didn’t feel like it was the end of the night. Clarke stood opposite him.
“Well I should -” Bellamy was cut off by Clarke pulling him in for a kiss.
He didn’t waste any time in returning it. He stumbled into her room as she closed the door behind him. He pulled her closer unable to get enough of her touch.
Her hands raked through his hair and tugged gently pulling a moan from his throat. He felt her grin into the kiss. He couldn’t help but smile at her smugness.
They made their way deeper into the room until the found Clarke’s bed. He pulled away just long enough to remove his shirt and Clarke shed her dress leaving her in her bra and panties.
He went back in for another kiss. They seemed to share a thought about Bellamy’s pants because they both struggled with the clasp and zipper. It took a moment but Bellamy was finally the one to get them off.
Clarke turned them around so Bellamy’s back was towards the bed and pushed him so he fell onto it. She straddled his hips and bent down to kiss him again.
Bellamy’s hands kneaded at her ass and the instant she started grinding against his dick he almost lost it. He flipped them and kissed down her torso until he got to the hem of her underwear.
He removed them and looked up at her. She’d propped herself up on her elbows and looked directly at him. Without breaking eye contact he leaned down and licked her cunt in an almost teasing manner.
“Bellamy,” she whined flopping her head back on the bed.
He smirked before burying himself deeper in her and reveling in her taste.
“Oh, fuck.” Clarke ran her fingers through his hair and lifted her hips desperate for more.
He snaked his arms under her legs and placed his hands on her hips forcing them back down. She let out a loud whimper as he took her clit into his mouth.
Bellamy moved one of his hands and inserted his fingers into her entrance and pumped slowly.
“Bellamy,” she cried out again.
He could feel her clench around his fingers so he sped up. It wasn’t long before she was withering beneath him.
When she finally came down from her high he sat up and removed his fingers. After licking them clean he removed his underwear.
Clarke leaned over to her nightstand and pulled out a condom and handed it to Bellamy. He opened it and rolled it on.
He lined it up with her and looked at her one more time.
“Do it,” she commanded.
“As you wish.”
He slowly thrust into her giving her time to get used to the sensation. His thrusts started off slow but gradually sped up.
“Jesus,” he moaned.
“Nope, just me,” she smirked at him and he sped up again shutting her up with moans of pleasure. “Oh god.”
He placed his arms on either side of her head and kissed her again.
“Nope just me,” he whispered into her ear before kissing her just below her ear.
“Fuck you,” she muttered.
“Isn’t that what you’re doing?” He grinned.
This time she shut him up with a searing kiss. With a gasp, she came for a second time that night, the feeling of her coming on his cock sent him over the edge. With one last thrust, he removed himself from her and got off the bed.
He disposed of the condom before rejoining her on the bed.
They laid on their backs staring at the ceiling.
“That was different,” Bellamy said and Clarke laughed.
He turned his head to look at her.
“Did you want me to leave?” He asked.
“No, why did you want to leave?” She looked at him her bright blue eyes widening slightly.
“No.”
“Good,” Clarke said and snuggled into his side. “We should do that again sometime.”
And they did.
Actually, they did it quite a few more times.
They spent a while as lovers. They never actually dated because neither one of them wanted to commit, but they also didn’t see other people not seriously at least. Sure they went on the odd date but they never went anywhere and it almost always ended with them sleeping with each other.
That arrangement lasted up until Clarke’s father and brother died. They were in a train accident and didn’t even make it back to the hospital.
Clarke was devastated but so was her mother. And in an attempt to help her mother through that she moved back home. Halfway across the country.
Bellamy didn’t hear from her after that, no one did. It broke his heart but he understood, she had other things that needed her attention.
Until about three years later when they ran into each other again, they were both 24. Totally random circumstances but there they were in the same place at the same time.
“Clarke,” he breathed when he saw her again. He almost hadn’t recognized her, she’d cut her hair and put a streak or two of red in it.
He hadn’t realized just how much he’d missed her until that moment. He thought he’d gotten over her but seeing her again brought everything back like a tidal wave.
“Hi Bellamy,” she smiled.
Her smile reached her eyes but something different about it. There was something different about her. It was like in the short three years they’d been apart, she’d grown up. She had a different air about her.
Before she had been a buoyant, silly, self-assured person. She was always the one to speak up or get people to do something that they might normally not do.
Now she seemed to be older. Like those three years had made her quieter more likely to have the answer to a question you didn’t know you had. Given her wisdom, she seemed, softer.
But her smile, her smile hadn’t changed, not really. At least, not in the way it counted. Her smile still made Bellamy’s heart stop then suddenly race.
“How’ve you been?” She asked.
And just like that, they were back. They went out to get drinks after the event and talked for hours. Caught up on each other’s lives.
At one point Clarke started talking about a good day that she’d had with her mother. Where they went out and just were and that was the turning point for her mom. And watching her talk about it set off something in him. It was like something finally clicked.
He was hopelessly in love with Clarke.
All he wanted was to take away her pain, fix everything that had ever gone wrong in her life because she deserved everything good that this life had to offer and more.
He also craved that closeness they’d once had. Not just the physical but the emotional part as well. He wanted and was ready for the intimacy of the relationship he hadn’t been ready for when they first met.
At the end of the night, Bellamy walked her to her car and she stopped right before they got there.
“You’re going to hate me,” she whispered. Bellamy barely heard her.
“I doubt it,” he said as he stepped towards her.
“Ok, first I need you to know that this has nothing to do with you,” she started and before she could continue Bellamy spoke.
“Why does this sound like a breakup?” He halfheartedly joked.
Clarke stared at him sadly.
“I can’t be around you, specifically you,” she told him and his heart broke. “I - I’m afraid that if I fall back into old habits with you I won’t be who I’m supposed to be. I won’t know who I am in this world without half of my family around.”
“Ok, I understand.” Bellamy nodded and swallowed the lump in his throat that had formed.
“But you also need to know that when I’m with you, I’m happy. The happiest I’ve ever been.”
And there it was, hope, just a flicker of it but it was enough to give Bellamy an idea.
“Ok well, if when we are 30 and we’re both single, and if you’re ready, let’s get married.”
She laughed through her nose but a bright smile lit up her face. She stuck out her hand.
“Deal.”
Bellamy took her hand and shook it one. “Deal.”
Bellamy was fully prepared to wait the six years before reaching out to her.
But it wasn’t like he didn’t live his life, he did. He moved to Paris, got a job there wrote a book. The only thing he didn’t do was fall in love. It’s not like he tried to actively stop himself from falling in love, but he also didn’t actively try to. He maybe went on three actual dinner dates in the span of three years.
One of them was with a very nice woman named Gina who could’ve been it, but everything she did he compared to Clarke. Any time she laughed he’d unconsciously think of how different Clarke’s laugh sounded. Or when Gina ordered he instantly thought about how Clarke might’ve gone for a dish that was a little more out there.
He continued to compare every woman he came across to Clarke because to him, she was perfect. So he would wait until they were both 30 before contacting her and that was his plan.
Then one fateful day while he was working on his next book he got an email.
Bellamy,
I don’t know if this is still you’re email, or if you even want to hear from me. But something happened and I needed to tell someone who wouldn’t judge me for it.
Do you remember the one person in one of our lit classes that would always raise his hand to correct the professor on something that he clearly knew nothing about but somehow no one could find it in themselves to stand up to that prick?
Well, I saw him again. And he had the audacity to come up to me. First of all, how dare he. Second of all, what did I ever do to give him the impression that I could even tolerate him?
Either way, he started talking to me and at one point he started talking about how Shakespear is the greatest thing to have ever walk the earth and that Romeo and Juliet is his greatest piece of writing, and you know how I feel about that.
But once the words ‘greatest love story’ came out of his mouth I looked him dead in the eye and said: “I’m going to stop you right there”.
Then I walked away.
Suffice to say that he won’t try to approach me ever again.
Anyway, I thought you might enjoy that story.
But how have you been? I hear you’re in Spain (?). How has that been going?
Love, Clarke
Bellamy laughed for a good ten minutes after reading her email. Alex was the man in question and not a single person liked him yet he had a big enough ego to believe that everyone did.
Once he composed himself, he typed and sent his reply.
Clarke,
Congratulations, this is still my email. However, I’ve recently become a Nigerian prince and need your help and if you could send me money that’d be great.
And of course I remember Alex, I also recall one time I had to talk you out of physically fighting him when you got drunk and he was sitting on the other side of the street smoking.
You don’t have to remind me that you think that Romeo and Juliet is the stupidest story you’ve ever read. But I will remind you that they are teenagers and that’s the point of the story.
Also, I’d expect nothing less from you.
No, not Spain but Paris. And I’ve been great. I’ve been doing my best to stay away from all the pastries but that hasn’t been going over too well, as you can imagine.
What about you? Other than putting assholes in their place, what have you been up to?
Forever yours, Bellamy.
They emailed back and forth for months. Bellamy had suggested some less archaic way of communication but Clarke told him that letters were the truly archaic way of doing it and then said that she liked the long-form of email instead of texts.
In one of the emails, accidentally, Bellamy informed her that he still loved her and hadn’t fallen for anyone else. He knew that they still had 2 years before their pact would take effect, but he felt that she should know.
Clarke told him that she was still very much serious about their pact and found herself in a similar situation. She also informed him that when he found himself stateside again, they should meet up because she felt she was ready.
Bellamy wanted nothing more than to drop everything and go to her right then and there but he had to finish up his contract.
A year later he found himself finding a job in New York, which Clarke had mentioned was where she was living now.
They finally met up in New York and fell into each other easily. It was like whatever spark they had never left, like the fire they had for the other never died out just got turned down and now that they were no longer afraid to put labels on it or commit to the other it burned brighter and hotter than before.
They moved in together. A cute little one apartment that had a view to die for. They lived the domestic life that felt like it was straight out of a movie. Picture perfect.
Late nights on the couch wine drunk watching a TV show and getting way too into it, the occasional early morning making pancakes as the sun rose. Slow dancing to whatever song was playing over the Bluetooth speakers in the living room.
There was never any pressure to exchange ‘I love you’s honestly to Bellamy it felt like they already had. But when she said it for the first time while they were actually going for it, his heart felt like it could explode out of his chest.
They were dancing to some cover of a song Clarke loved. Her head was resting on his chest and randomly and without warning she said it.
“I love you,” she said softly. “I’m in love with you, have been for a while I just didn’t know how to feel it without feeling guilty.”
“Why would you have felt guilty?” He asked as they continued to rock back and forth to the beat of the song.
“Because my brother won’t ever know how this feels, he won’t get the chance to fall in love with some.”
Bellamy didn’t know how to respond to that so he just rubbed her back silently for a minute.
“I’m in love with you too,” he finally said.
“Good,” she joked, “Because this would’ve been really awkward if you didn’t.”
There was one night when they came home from hanging out with their friends when Bellamy and Clarke were in the kitchen eating ice cream. Clarke was sitting on the counter and Bellamy was leaning on it next to her leg.
Suddenly he put down his ice cream and walked out of the room.
“Is everything ok?” Clarke called after him.
“Yeah, just stay there for a moment,” he told her.
She did. She sat on the counter completely enthralled with her ice cream. Bellamy stood at the edge of the tile and watched her for a moment. He wanted to savor this. She looked at him.
“What?” She asked.
He closed the distance between them and pulled out the little black box he’d had hidden in the apartment for months now.
“I know that we’ve only technically been dating for almost a year but I’ve known you were the woman for me since that event where we randomly ran into each other,” he opened the box revealing a ring, “Marry me?”
“That’s not fair,” she said, “I’m not 30 yet you have one more month.”
“Seriously?” Bellamy asked wide-eyed.
“Mm-hmm,” she nodded smugly.
“Fine.” He pulled her in for a kiss. “But it’s happening on your birthday in the most ridiculous way possible.”
“Ok,” she agreed and kissed him again.
A week before her birthday Bellamy got a call.
The dreaded call that no one imagines getting, but he got it.
He doesn’t remember much about the ride to the hospital or what the doctor said happened.
What he does remember is that Clarke was hit by a drunk driver and ended up in the ICU.
For four of the longest days of Bellamy’s life, he kept hearing: “She could wake up. She’s getting stronger every day.”
Turns out they were all wrong because at 6:00 pm on the fourth day her heart gave out and they couldn’t do anything to restart it. Bellamy couldn’t find the strength to move they had to call some of his friends to help him out of the hospital.
Miller and Murphy helped him back home.
He stood in their share apartment clutching the hospital provided plastic bag full of her personal items.
Miller and Murphy spent the night, they crashed on the couch while Bellamy struggled to find sleep in the bedroom.
She was everywhere no matter where he looked she was there. He didn’t know how to move on and at that point, he didn’t even know if he wanted to.
He couldn’t remember much of the funeral. He knows Clarke’s mom was there and that they spoke. Her mom gave him something an envelope that was supposed to hold something that she’d written years ago. But it sat unopen in the drawer of his nightstand and would for years.
He hasn’t spoken to her mother since he supposes at some point he should, but not yet.
“So that’s it,” he said tears streaming down his face, “That’s why I’m here.”
His therapist handed him a box of tissues and he took it.
“She learned to keep living and feel again. I want to do that for her, maybe someday I’ll want it for myself but for right now the only reason I’m here is for her. Because she’d want it for me.
“So, that’s my story. It sucks and I hate it.”