Chapter Text
Clarke
Clarke tries to ignore her phone when she’s teaching, she really does. She keeps it in the top left hand drawer and when there’s a break in the action, she’ll glance at it, make sure no important texts or calls have come through.
Just in case, she always tells herself. In case of what, she’s not exactly sure. In case her mother wants to apologize for their last, ridiculous fight? In case Lexa wants to get back together?
No, she tells herself sternly, no. In case a pipe has burst in her apartment. In case her dad wants to talk. In case her roommate, Monty, has let the cat out again or in case Murphy’s in the drunk tank. No matter that it’s Tuesday morning, Murphy has a habit of drinking and getting belligerent on any day of the week, and Clarke’s drawn on her trust fund more times than she can count to bail his sorry ass out. She and Raven always say Murphy’s middle name is “Drunk and Disorderly.”
Today she can’t wait for a break, and her students are quick to shame her when she grabs her phone. It’s been buzzing nonstop for an hour, and she has to see what’s going on.
“Ooooooh, Miss Griffin, I don’t want to hear a WORD next time I look at my phone!” Madi yells from her place in the back row.
“Four paragraphs on Van Gogh, due tomorrow, and no, I don’t care that there’s a football game tonight,” Clarke says mildly, “all of you, just in case you’re tempted to add to Madi’s sass.”
There are ten texts from Raven, and the last reads, I don’t care HOW busy you are, you need to call me right now. Pretend your mom’s sick, I don’t care. Call. Me.
“I’m stepping into the hall,” Clarke tells her class. “If you’re planning on making the game, I suggest you start your new assignment.”
She closes the door, dials Raven, hisses, “What the hell is so urgent?”
“I need you to not freak out,” Raven’s voice seems pitched a little higher, a little hysterical, so unlike her. “So promise me you’re not going to freak out.”
Clarke sighs, rubs her forehead, says, “Okay, I guess? I’m not going to freak out.”
There’s a silent moment, just a moment, that hangs between them and terrifies Clarke.
Raven finally comes out with it: “Bellamy’s back in town.”
Bellamy, all dark curls, freckled nose, and chocolate eyes, swims before Clarke’s vision unbidden. Her heart takes a dive, a quick, excruciating, pang in her chest.
She makes a soft noise. She didn’t mean to, but when the boy who broke your heart returns as a man, you can be forgiven a little whimper, a little whine.
“It gets worse,” Raven says, “Clarke, it gets so much worse.”
At this moment Clarke lifts her eyes to the classroom across from hers, and sees the worst: Bellamy’s chiseled cheekbones, his full lips, lifting a book and pushing glasses up his nose.
“Shit,” she whispers to Raven, “oh, shit, shit, shit.”
“He’s teaching history,” her friend says. “His classroom is right across from yours.”
“I’m staring at him like a creeper right fucking now. Oh my god, I need to go home.” Clarke can’t breathe, “I think I’m having a panic attack.”
“Hey, okay, I’ll be there in two minutes. These hellions will be okay for a couple of minutes...I think.” Clarke knows Raven is looking out over the shop class, wondering how many things are flammable. “Actually, no. They won’t. Okay. Breathe in, and count to three. Then breathe out, and count to three. Five times, Clarke, okay?”
Clarke sinks to the ground, her back sliding along the wall she so carefully painted with a mural over the summer. “I can’t do this, Raven. I need to go home. I need to go home.”
“You can’t go home,” Raven’s got her talking-you-off-a-ledge tone down to an art, the result of a lifelong friendship with Murphy. “Diyoza would kick your ass, for one thing. But he’d just be here tomorrow, and you’d have to face him then.”
“Does he know I teach here, too?”
“He’d have to be blind, to not know. There’s that giant mural, and the part where it says, Ms. Griffin--Art on your classroom door. And anyway, I’m sure Octavia told him.”
“They’re not speaking,” Clarke reminds Raven. “I saw her a few weeks ago and she said they haven’t talked in months, and she was an epic level of furious, even for Octavia.”
“Hey! Don’t touch that, Atom Graves, or you’ll be sitting in detention for a month!” Raven clears her throat. “Listen, these delinquents are about to get wild with welding torches and I feel I’ve done my duty in warning you. We’ll have a wine date tonight, okay? Your house?”
“Okay. Yeah. I think I’m gonna do vodka instead of wine, though.”
“You deserve it. Now go torture your class with art history facts like this is any other day.”
Torture’s an exaggeration--Clarke Griffin is one of the most-liked teachers at Arkadia High. Raven Reyes, stern but prone to blowing things up for the fun of it, is also popular with her shop students. Jasper Jordan comes in right behind them, concocting crazy chemistry experiments that keep his students engaged.
Now there’s Bellamy Blake, teaching history. If his love of the subject as a teenager is any indication, his students will appreciate him. He has a way of explaining things that always fascinated Clarke. She spent a lot of nights listening to him expound upon the day-to-day life of ancient Romans. Back then, she loved to hear him talk about anything.
Back then, she loved him, period.
But that was a long time ago. Bellamy broke Clarke and she put herself back together piecemeal, a little bit at a time, and she doesn’t know if this bandaged-up version of herself can stand up to seeing Mr. Blake--History every day.
The bell rings and Clarke jumps to her feet, throwing the door open: “Do NOT forget those paragraphs on Van Gogh! They’re due first thing tomorrow and I will be giving zeroes to those who don’t have them!”
Her students spill out, seemingly unconcerned, and she knows that quite a few of them will be up late tonight after the game, using Wikipedia to write their reports despite every teacher in school telling them it’s not a valid source.
Madi hesitates at Clarke’s desk, and when the classroom’s empty she asks, “Ms. Griffin, are you okay? Your face is all…” Madi makes a flapping gesture.
Clarke could cry over her concern. “Yeah, I just got a bit of a shock. No big deal, Madi, don’t worry about me.”
“Who says I’m worried?” Madi gives her a nose wrinkle. “See you at the game tonight?”
Clarke groans inwardly. No vodka for her, she has to show her face in school colors--they’re playing their rivals, Polis High.
“Yeah, I’ll be there. But I won’t embarrass you by acknowledging your existence.”
Madi rolls her eyes--peak teenager--on her way out of the classroom.
She’s easily Clarke’s favorite student, sass and all.
It’s Clarke’s planning period, and all she’s going to plan is how to avoid Bellamy for the next however-long, until he gets restless being back in Arkadia, and leaves again. There is no version of reality in which he doesn’t leave again. Maybe this time he won’t leave an angry alcoholic who resents every tiny thing tying him to this town, but he will leave.
He always leaves, and Clarke, rubbing an old ache in her wrist, hopes that this time he doesn’t destroy everyone who loves him on the way out.
Since there are no children present to keep her honest, she texts Murphy: Bellamy’s not only back in town, but teaching history in the classroom across from mine.
Murphy replies characteristically: Punch him in the face for me. And for you. Punch him twice. A pause. Hell, punch him three times, I’m sure there’s someone else out there who needs it.
She’s got her head in her hands when someone knocks softly on her door, then cracks it.
Bellamy’s low voice: “Clarke?”
Her head jerks up, takes him in: Same messy curls, button down shirt rolled up at the sleeves, Harry-Potter-esque glasses.
Still the most handsome man she’s ever seen, and she hates that.
Clarke rubs at her wrist again, and Bellamy’s face is all pain and guilt in an instant.
“Hurts when it rains,” she says with a shrug, trying to brush away the hurt, even though he doesn’t deserve that.
“So...how are you?” He sounds like a puppy waiting to be kicked.
He always had such a knack for playing the victim.
“Let’s not do this, Bellamy. I don’t want to, I actually can’t.”
“Please, listen--I have a lot to say to you and I--”
“You’re going to get sick of Arkadia again, and I am not going to be the person left standing holding the ashes when you burn your way out of this town. So we’re not friends. We’re not going to be friends, and I don’t care what you want to say.”
He stands in the door, holding himself carefully, offers: “I’m in AA, on step 9. Making amends, and you’re the person I--”
“I don’t want your fucking amends!” Clarke stands quickly behind her desk. “You had a million chances to make them after--but you just left. You left your friends, and you left me. So fuck your amends. Make them to your sister, to your mom. Me, and Raven, and Murphy? We’re not interested.”
“You’re the person I hurt the most,” he whispers, as if he didn’t hear her. “When you’re ready, Clarke, I have a lot to say to you, a lot to apologize for.” He looks at his hands, like they are the very things that broke Clarke all those years ago, and then he looks back up at her with liquid eyes: “I’m not leaving Arkadia. My mom’s dying. Uh, breast cancer. She probably doesn’t have more than a couple of months. And after that, I’m staying to get Octavia through high school. So…I’m sorry that it hurts you I’m here, and believe me, I thought about it long and hard before I took this job.”
Anger dissipates, hard to hold onto; Clarke has always loved Aurora Blake, an altogether softer mother than Clarke’s own. She moves towards Bellamy almost against her will: “I’m so sorry about your mom, that’s heartbreaking. Is Octavia--?”
Octavia Blake is sixteen, a problem child but a beautiful one, with moments of sunny, rare sweetness. Clarke has had a soft spot for her since she was a little girl, begging “Bell” for attention, unable to understand his mood swings and his sudden exit from their family. Clarke doesn’t have her in class, but sometimes catches her in the halls or at extracurriculars, always tries to find a kind word for a girl who’d been betrayed by the person she trusted most in the world.
Because Clarke knows how that felt on a cellular level.
Bellamy ducks his head, a muscle in his jaw twitching, Clarke knows it means he’s angry, and she backs away again, puts the desk between them. He reaches for her, and her chest feels like it might cave open.
“No, it’s--Clarke, you have to understand that I’m mad at myself. Not you or Octavia. Not my mom, or Raven and Murphy who have every right to hate me.”
“To hate you a lot,” Clarke corrects. “They have every right to hate you a lot. And so do I. And Bellamy, it’s better for me, easier for me, to feel that way. So if you wanna make amends, just stay out of my way, alright? Like, I get it, you’re sorry, but you were sorry so many times back then, and nothing ever changed, it just spiraled further and further out of control. I can’t have that in my life again.”
He nods, and holds out a thick envelope: “My sponsor said that you might not want to talk to me. He said I should respect your boundaries, and I will. But I wrote you this letter, and if you’d just take it? You can read it when you’re ready, or not read it at all. But I need to give it to you, please.”
She doesn’t want to get any closer to him, but reaches across the desk to take the envelope.
His eyes don’t miss the scars on her wrist and hand, results of the surgery to put them back together after--
After something Clarke’s been blocking out for years, and she doesn’t have any intention of thinking about it now.
The envelope doesn’t say Clarke on the front, in his block-letter handwriting.
It says Princess, and she whispers, “get out,” before this man can destroy her any further.
Raven’s not pleased that wine night has been replaced by wearing all their school spirit gear and trying to stay warm in a cold, icy drizzle, and if it wasn’t for the promise of gossip about Clarke’s meeting with Bellamy, she probably wouldn’t have come at all. Murphy trails behind her for the exact same reason, looking irritated in a North Face jacket.
“You know,” he says nastily, “the only reasons I ever went to football games in high school were to smoke under the bleachers and try to get in Raven’s pants. With neither of those things being an option, I’m not really thrilled to be here. So let’s get right down to it: what’d that prick have to say for himself?”
Clarke sighs. “To start--his mom’s sick. Really sick, not-gonna-make-it sick.”
Raven’s mouth twists. “That’s sad. Aurora’s great...I think we all liked her better than our own parents.”
“He’s um, apparently in AA now?”
Murphy snorts at this.
“Don’t laugh, god knows you need AA too,” Raven snaps.
“Too much religious bullshit. I’m surprised they sucked Blake in.”
Clarke shrugs, feels like her shoulders are nearly as heavy as her heart.
My Atlas, Bellamy would say, brushing her hair out of her face, you’re holding up the whole damn sky.
“He’s on that step where you make amends--”
“Oh, fuck him,” Murphy whistles between his teeth. “Did you tell him what he could do with his amends? Did you tell him to shove 'em up his ass? Did you show him your wrist, let him know you have to write and draw left-handed now?”
“He saw. I didn’t show him on purpose or say anything, but he had this letter when I wouldn’t talk to him, saw my scars when I reached for it.”
Raven interjects, “you shouldn’t have taken it. You should burn it.”
And Clarke should--she knows she should--but she can’t.
Some part of her is still that girl who loved Bellamy, and some part of her is itching to know what he wrote.
“He’s just checking you off his list of AA steps, you know.” Murphy bumps her arm with his. “Don’t let him manipulate you.”
And Clarke wishes that was true. Clarke wants that to be true. But there was such an unsteadiness to Bellamy, such an ache.
But she cannot let Bellamy Blake ruin her life again.
“Where’s Jasper?” Raven looks for the geeky young man, who normally joins them at the big football games. The trio has known Jasper practically since birth, and while he’s an altogether softer person than Raven or Murphy, Clarke loves him, always asks for his insight on the harder things.
She’ll never forget the way he sat with her for hours while she learned to write legibly with her left hand, that he was the one who brought her a blank canvas and a set of charcoals, said: “Art’s in your soul, Clarke. It doesn’t matter which hand you draw with.”
Clarke relies on her tough friends, the ones who’d protect her at any cost, but Jasper will understand why she needs to read Bellamy’s letter, even though he had a front row seat for the fallout after--
After everything, to sum it up without the details that make her weak after all this time.
When Mr. Jordan--AP Chem finally appears, hiking through the slippery metal bleachers to sit on their blanket, he looks a shade more pale than usual. “Did I just see Bellamy Blake buying popcorn in the concession stand?”
“He’s here?” Clarke asks, her voice nearly a moan.
“None of you could have sent me a text letting me know he’s back in town?” Jasper has huge dark eyes, giving him a sense of innocence, of someone you need to protect. “That’s just great, guys, really appreciate it.”
“It’s way worse than that, Jasper, he’s the new history teacher.” Raven’s grim: delivering bad news seems to be her specialty today.
“In the classroom across from Clarke’s?” Jasper squeaks. “Are you serious?” He reaches across Raven’s lap to take Clarke’s hand. “Did he try to talk to you?”
“He told her he’s in AA, and he wants to make amends,” Murphy’s voice is dripping with scorn, “like anyone could make amends for what happened, after all this time.”
“It’s up to Clarke if she wants to forgive him…” Jasper trails off, his voice doubtful. “But do you?”
“No. I want him to fucking disappear. But his mom’s sick, and we’re not gonna get rid of him until Octavia graduates, and this is a small town, so maybe I should just--”
“Absolutely fuckin’ not,” Murphy looks enraged and his voice climbs with every word: “That guy nearly ruined your life! Not to mention the rest of us--I got hurt that night, too, in case you don’t remember. And then he just blew town like none of it mattered, like Clarke wasn’t in the hospital! Fuck him. Fuck him ten ways to Tuesday, I hope he falls down the bleachers and breaks his own damn arm and then that’ll maybe be a start to his stupid, selfish amends--”
“Glad to know how you feel about it,” Bellamy says from their right, popcorn in one hand, having approached quietly.
Murphy shoots to his feet, and Clarke can see the tremble in his hands as he closes them into fists. “If you have a letter for me, Blake, you can fucking choke on it. You’re the biggest piece of shit I’ve ever known, and coming from me, that’s saying a lot.”
Bellamy nods. “I deserve that.”
Raven wraps her fingers around Murphy’s, says, “He’s not worth it,” while studiously avoiding Bellamy’s face.
They used to be so close, and Clarke’s throat swells at the memory of their younger selves, Bellamy and Raven trying to figure out how to get his beat-up Camaro to go faster, Murphy and Clarke laying in the grass, eating Red Vines and arguing with Jasper about the best way to make pot brownies. But that was a different time--feels like it was a different planet. Even looking at Bellamy back then gave her a natural high, his smile fed her soul, the way he’d wink when no one was looking…
Clarke would flop her legs over Murphy’s knees and say, “You’re hogging the Red Vines,” and he’d say:
“Fuck off, Griffin, I didn’t have lunch.”
He never had lunch, that was the tragedy of Murphy, no money and no prospects, so Clarke would head into the Blakes’ small house and make him a baloney and cheese sandwich.
It happened that way a thousand times, and there was a comfort to it all, to the smell of grease, to Jasper’s overenthusiastic hand-waving and the flash of gratitude in Murphy’s eyes. He never wanted to ask for anything, but he always needed something.
In that way, he hasn’t changed at all.
Clarke stands abruptly. “I’m starving, and it’s cold. Let’s go back to my place, I’ll make dinner.” There’s a murmur of assent, even as Murphy stares Bellamy down. Clarke risks a look in his direction. Bellamy’s got his lip caught between his teeth, like he’s going to say more, but then he just turns away, and not far from where they are, Aurora Blake is sitting, wrapped in a blanket.
Her face is so troubled Clarke nearly breaks, nearly runs after Bellamy, but instead she makes a mental note to find a time when he’s not home to visit the woman who was her second mother for so many years.
Raven slips her hand in Murphy’s, clenches her fingers against his. “We’re leaving now,” she murmurs to him, “fighting Bellamy is going to get you nowhere.”
Clarke glances at Jasper: “C’mon, Monty would love to see you.”
This lights up a smile on Jasper’s sad face. “Only if Murphy cooks instead of you.”
“I’ve still got a jar of cherry moonshine from Monty’s last batch, too.” Clarke makes sure her voice carries. “We can get really drunk and play Cards Against Humanity.”
The message is there: We still get drunk together. We still have fun. Without you.
We’re fine without you.
I’m fine without you.
Everything that’s happened in the past eight years has been without you, she thinks, and until today I liked it that way.