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A familiar wailing wakes Clarke up from her peaceful slumber, muffled slightly from the baby monitor, though she can hear the actual cries from the next room almost as well. Madi hasn’t slept through the night once yet, and consequently, neither has Clarke.
She lies there for a minute, wondering if that makes her a bad mother, that she doesn’t immediately race to her crying child’s side. With a heavy sigh, she goes to slip out of bed, but then Bellamy is placing his hand on her arm, a gentle gesture to make her stop.
“I’ll go,” he says, sitting up. His voice is husky from sleep, and the sound sends a pleasant jolt to Clarke’s stomach. In the darkness she can vaguely make out his form, dressed in a t-shirt and boxers. She’s sure that’s for her benefit—the shirt at least. She likes to imagine he sleeps naked when he’s alone.
“You don’t have to—”
“You got her last time.”
He gets up, and Clarke feels something like love and affection lodge in her throat as she watches him go.
Bellamy never signed up for this. Clarke never asked him to, and she never expected him to. When she made the decision to use a sperm donor a year ago, tired of waiting for the right person to come along to have a child with, she fully expected to be doing it alone.
But even before Madi was born, Bellamy was there for her. He came to her birthing classes, read parenting books with her, helped her set up the nursery in the second bedroom. He stayed in the waiting room through the birth, but Clarke suspects he would have been right there holding her hand had her mom allowed it.
Clarke thinks she’s getting too used to it—having Bellamy around. She doesn’t know how she’s going to cope when he finally finds a new apartment and isn’t sleeping in her bed every night.
He’d started on the couch, two weeks ago. But at some point, between midnight wakings and afternoon naps, he’d crashed beside her in her bed, and Clarke wasn’t exactly mad about it. She likes having him there, even if sometimes it makes her ache for things she’ll never actually get with him.
She reminds herself he’s not Madi’s dad, and he’s certainly not Clarke’s husband, even if he acts like it. Even if Clarke finds herself wishing for it. Even if they’ve been mistaken for a couple too many times to count over these past few months, and aside from the fact they aren’t having sex Clarke feels like they may as well be.
But at some point, he’s going to decide Clarke had got it covered, and let her do it on her own. And Clarke knows she can—after all, that’s what she planned for. It’s just, now that she knows what it’s like to do it with him, she doesn’t really want to.
Feeling guilty, knowing she lets him do too much, Clarke slips out of bed and pads next door to the nursery. Madi’s cries have quietened down now, and Clarke can’t help but feel like her daughter loves Bellamy just as much as she does.
Clarke stands in the doorway for a moment, watching Bellamy as he holds Madi against his chest, gently rocking her back to sleep, singing a lullaby under his breath. Clarke’s heart wants to burst. Right in front of her, the picture of everything she wants. The man she loves holding their baby.
God, it physically hurts her to know that isn’t real. That it’s just a stupid little fantasy she needs to stop letting herself entertain before she gets her heart broken. She blinks back tears, wiping them away with her fingers before stepping into the room, alerting Bellamy to her presence.
“Hey,” he whispers, ceasing his singing. “You didn’t have to get up.”
“I like watching you with her,” she admits. “You’re so good with her.”
In the darkness, Bellamy flashes a smile, and Clarke’s heart does a pathetic little pitter-patter. Yeah, she’s absolutely setting herself up for heartbreak here.
Bellamy plants a kiss on the top of Madi’s head, then gently lies the sleeping baby back in her crib. For a moment, Clarke and Bellamy stand next to each other, shoulders touching, looking down on a peaceful looking Madi.
“She looks like such an angel like this,” Clarke says.
“But we know better,” Bellamy chuckles. He throws his arm around her, squeezing her shoulders, and as Clarke turns her head to look at him, he brushes his lips against hers. It’s so casual, for a half a second Clarke believes it’s a normal thing for them to do. Kiss each other.
But then her heart is spasming, her lips tingling, gut clenching with want, and she remembers he’s never done that before. That they’re just friends, and friends don’t kiss each other like that.
“What—” she starts, unable to finish the sentence. She swallows thickly, eyes wide and heart pounding dramatically in her chest.
“Sorry,” Bellamy blurts. “Sorry. Oh my god. I’m sorry, I forgot. For a second, I just forgot—Fuck.”
“Don’t swear in front of the baby.”
Bellamy huffs out a laugh, but he’s pulled away from her, and he’s somehow tense and fidgety at the same time, and Clarke can tell he’s embarrassed. She takes his hand and leads him out of the room, back to her room, so they can talk without disturbing Madi. She switches on the light so she can see him properly.
“I’m sorry,” Bellamy says again, before Clarke can say anything. “I didn’t mean to kiss you, it’s just—it’s confusing.”
“Confusing?”
“Yeah,” Bellamy says. “I guess—I mean you and I, looking after Madi together. Sleeping in the same bed. Sometimes it feels a lot like—”
“We’re married,” she finishes for him.
Bellamy nods. “I guess I got too caught up in it. I’m sorry.”
“It’s confusing for me too, you know,” Clarke says. She bites her lip. “Or maybe it’s not.”
Bellamy frowns. “That clears things up.”
“It’s not confusing,” Clarke decides. “It’s enlightening. Because it’s made me realise what I really want.”
“And that is?”
Clarke hesitates. He’s the one that kissed her, right? That has to mean something more than just him getting caught up in the moment. Maybe, just maybe, he wants it too.
“You,” she says, only just loud enough for him to hear. “To be married to you. For you to be Madi’s dad. And to see you naked.”
God, she feels like she might throw up. She just told him she wants to marry him and they’ve barely kissed. But she knows that even if he doesn’t feel the same way, he’s not going to run. He’s shown up for her enough times that him knowing she’s in love with him won’t ruin their friendship.
He’s silent for too long, like her confession has short circuited something in his brain.
“Say something,” she begs.
He swallows. “Yes,” he says finally.
“Yes?”
“Yes to all of it.”
Clarke laughs, tears of happiness welling up in her eyes. “Yes?” she says again, as though she still can’t quite believe it.
He nods, and then he’s stepping forward, reaching for her, pulling her into his arms, and kissing her. Properly this time. Deep and long and passionate. Clarke folds her arms around his neck, kissing him back, too euphoric to even reprimand herself for not doing this sooner.
Eventually—neither of them knows how long later—Bellamy is the one to break the kiss. He keeps his forehead pressed against hers, brushing their noses against each other.
“I love you,” he says, breathless from their kiss. “I love you so much, and I love Madi as if she’s my own daughter.”
Clarke gives a watery laugh. “I love you too. I feel like we’ve been so stupid.”
“We absolutely have.” He gives her another soft kiss. “I know you basically already proposed to me. But can we pretend that didn’t happen? I kind of want to do it. I want to get a ring and do the whole thing.”
“Okay,” Clarke agrees. She couldn’t stop smiling if her life depended on it. “We’re not engaged yet. But you can stop looking for apartments, okay?”
“Okay.” Another kiss. And another. And another. “We should try to get some sleep. While Madi is.”
Clarke nods, and they barely untangle from each other as they get back into bed.
“You can take your shirt off,” Clarke tells him. “You know, if you want to.”
Bellamy laughs, but he does as he’d bid, and then Clarke is all wrapped up in his big, strong arms, his bare chest warm against her back through her singlet pyjama top.
They gradually fall asleep then, whispering I love yous in the dark, and then waking up in each other’s arms in the morning sun.
And then that night, for the first time, Madi sleeps through the whole night.