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Bellamy isn’t quite sure what to do with himself once the dust finally clears.
Nobody talks about the after part in all of the books he’s read, though the general consensus seems to be that this is part where they all get their happy endings. He knows the type: everyone alive and well. Family reunions overlaid with sweeping, dramatic instrumentals. Someone finally gets the girl.
That’s the fantasy.
Reality, he realizes, is this: standing in the midst of a wreckage, hand-in-hand with a girl whom he just saved the world with; staring down at the blades of grass sprouting from a once-dead earth.
“We did it.” Clarke murmurs; her voice catching on the last word, breaking off into a half-sob of sorts. “ Jesus , Bellamy. We did it.”
He stares out into the open- at the flames still licking at the ground and the shattered remains of Raven’s invention (what saved them, in the end) and the blood splattered over his shoes.
Then, clearing his throat, he asks, “What now?”
She squeezes at his hand, hard enough to bruise. “Now, we live.”
And so they set out to do exactly that.
The first few months are difficult, to say the least.
Bellamy sleeps fitfully most of the time, bursts awake with his fingers clawing at the sheets and the names of the dead poised on his tongue. Clarke’s hands don’t hold steady behind the barrel of a gun. There seems to be permanent dark shadows under Raven’s eyes and Monty flinches at every loud noise.
But then Jasper laughs; a high, clear sound, in the middle of the dining hall one spring morning, and Miller starts subtly rearranging all the tools in Raven’s workshop to see if she’d notice and the smile twitching on Clarke’s lips stops looking forced and more like she’s actually amused at something.
Things are better, after that. They have a steady supply of food and water and medicine and there’s talk about building a proper plumbing system, if they can get Raven to figure out the pipes. Monty brews a new, more potent type of hooch. Mel starts raising chickens for the hell of it.
And Clarke? Clarke draws.
It starts with the people they’ve lost, at first; slowly progresses to everything else around Arkadia. The squealing newborns by the medbay, or a plant that they spot blooming by the fence during scout duty. On the quieter days, she would sketch something special for a particular person, slipping them under doors or pressing them into palms whilst passing.
People don’t shrink away quite as much when they see her anymore, even approaching her with something akin to warmth in their eyes. These days, wanheda is simply a whisper in the trees, and Clarke is just… Clarke. The girl with a knack for sewing the most even, neat stitches known to man with her charcoal stained fingers.
He finds her bent over her sketchpad at the end of the day, fingers curled around a small nub of pencil.
Wordlessly, he reaches over to angle the gas lamp by her desk, illuminating the sheets of paper stacked on her knee.
She startles at that, her expression quickly morphing into a rueful smile. “You know, some warning would be nice.”
“Next time.” Bellamy mutters, gruff, ducking his head so it wouldn’t be obvious that he was staring before. It’s hard not to, with her hair frizzing around her head like a halo, pulled back into the simple braided style that was reminiscent of their earlier days on the ground. It made him smile and ache in equal measure- a reminder of simpler times and everything they had lost to get where they are now.
Clearing his throat, he flops down onto the ground next to her, hitching his knees up to his chest. “So what’s on the menu today?” He asks, jerking a thumb over at her sketchbook.
She smiles, tilts the book over in his direction to show him the snowflakes lining the margins. “Do you remember how we used to spend Christmas, back on the Ark?”
“Unfortunately.” He grunts, toying at the edge of the slightly creased page. “Jaha had this whole bogus campaign set up, remember? Secret santa amongst all the different factions of the ark.” He snorted, then, in a terrible approximation of Jaha’s voice, “A show of unity even during the holiday season.”
“I’m not talking about that ,” Clarke says, waving the thought away impatiently. “There was a tree set up in the common area, remember? The PVC one they reused every year. And people draped all these colored lights over their doors, and they would sell these little wreaths at the marketplace.”
There’s a clear sort of longing in her voice that makes him want to do something stupid, like reach out and tuck a stray strand of hair behind her ear. Bellamy resists, somehow, settles for saying instead, “Plus the hot chocolates that Nygel used to give out when she got a little too tipsy.”
She cracks up at that, burying her face into the crook of his neck. “Wells always used to sneak extra cups for me. And if my dad was working late that day, we would bring it to his office for him.”
“Must be nice.” He says dryly, side-eyeing her. “I gave my portion to Octavia, every time.”
Clarke gives a little hum in response to that, elbow bumping against his companionably as she snakes her head down to lace their fingers together. “Shame.”
It still gets to him, sometimes, thinking about his sister- but it’s been long enough that the sting doesn’t feel as sharp as before, a yellowing bruise that’s healed, almost. Mostly he just worries about how he has no idea where she is, or how she’s doing. He speculates with Clarke, ever so often, and on the good days, they can even find it within themselves to joke about the whole situation.
(“The last time I saw her,” Clarke mumbled, taking a gulp of the moonshine she swiped from Monty’s quarters, “she had made a pollock on the floor from skewering my earth skills teacher like a kebab.”
“Well.” Bellamy deadpanned, staring up into the darkened ceiling. “She never really did get the hang of cooking without making a goddamned mess, so. I would say it’s pretty in character.”)
“Shame.” He agrees, resting his head against hers when she leans into him, cheek pressed on his shoulder. “Oh well.”
She stiffens at that, turning over to look at him.
“Oh well ?” Clarke repeats, straightening, disbelief clear in her voice. “So, what? You’re going to let it go, just like that? You’re just going to grimly accept your fate of having terrible, sub-par Christmases and go on pretending that you don’t care about the holiday as much as you do?”
“Uh,” Bellamy goes, bracingly, “yes?” Then, with a shrug of his shoulders, “Hate to break it to you, Clarke. But it’s just a holiday.”
He can practically see her chest rising in righteous indignation. “I’m going to make you eat your words by the end of this, Blake.” She vows, fixing him with a stare that is simultaneously terrifying and adorable all at once.
And mostly because he can’t help himself anyway (or deprive himself of the opportunity to see her all red-faced and grumpy and huffy) he tells her, “Knock yourself out, Princess.”
(Something tells him that he’ll probably live to regret this.)
+
A few days pass with no sign of Clarke acting on her promise to make him eat his words, so Bellamy relaxes, mostly, by the fifth day.
There are better things to do anyway, with winter fast approaching- he’s in charge of fortifying Arkadia and reworking their fences while Clarke escorts a team up to the nearest Grounder village to trade for furs and other essentials, so it’s not like Clarke has the time or energy to expend on other matters- especially not on a childish whim they talked about days back.
But then he wakes to the sight of her sneaking around his room, and suddenly he’s not sure.
Pulling himself up on his elbows, he blinks, letting his vision adjust. She has her back turned to him, hair swinging against her shoulders and still dressed in her sleep shirt. The side of her bed is still warm, so she can’t have been awake for long.
“Clarke?” He croaks, rucking his fingers through his hair. “What are you doing?”
Her face is carefully blank when she spins on her heel to look at him, hands clasped behind her back. “Nothing. I just thought I heard something.”
He arches a single, disbelieving brow. She meets his gaze, tilting her chin in a innocent, doe-eyed look.
“Fine,” he grumbles, relenting, scooting back under the sheets. “Just come back to bed already.”
She makes a noise of assent, and he can feel the sheets being lifted before she’s snuggling into his back, hands slotting under his shoulders and meeting at his chest.
They’ve been sharing a bed for a while now, ever since they’ve come home from their impossible mission and he had woken to with her hair in his mouth, curled up against his chest like she belonged there. He hadn’t said anything about it and neither had she, but it felt like a given, somehow. They did everything better together anyway, and her presence chased away the nightmares that so often plagued him; the weight of her arms around reassuring every time he jerked awake, eyes wet.
(Still, he made sure to reiterate to Miller that the arrangement was purely platonic when people began to whisper about how she ducked into his room every night. Miller had just rolled his eyes at him and walked away all whilst muttering under his breath darkly.)
He can feel her shifting against him slightly, her breath warm against his shoulder blades. “Don’t do anything stupid, while I’m gone.”
“Too old for that.” He grouses, trying to tamp down the anxiety curling in his gut. It’s always hard saying goodbye to Clarke, even temporarily. It reminds him of the last time she walked out of those gates, her back turned to him and his cheek burning from where her lips had grazed his, his knees seconds away from buckling at the realization that he might never see her again.
She must sense his line of thoughts, her arms locking more firmly around his shoulders. “I’ll be back before you know it,” she says fiercely, making him smile into his pillow. He likes the unspoken reassurances they now share with one another, a promise not to leave the other behind for too long. “Besides, Harper is going to be swamped if I don’t get back in time.”
“She’s counting on you.” He reminds her, twisting his neck at an angle so he could peer down at her. “Don’t forget to check in whenever you can.”
“I won’t.” Clarke promises, pressing a kiss against the jut of his shoulder blade, fleeting and light. She’s never done anything like that before, and he can’t help but flush at it.
“See you at breakfast.” She chirps, deliberately avoiding his eye as she scrambles out of bed, her cheeks a little pink.
He can’t help but grin a little at the sight of her receding back, has to keep himself from whistling throughout his shower.
The rest of his day goes by relatively quickly after he sends Clarke off at the gates. There’s the mandatory (for him) council meeting where he mostly gets into disagreements with Abby while Kane sits on, trying (and failing) to mediate. Then it’s guard duty with the new trainees and dinner with Miller before he finally gets to head back to his quarters, where at least he’ll be able to get a shower, and —
He stops short at the doorway, gaping.
Stepping past the threshold, he closes the door behind him with his foot, fingers reaching up to twist at the garland of blinking lights draped over his bed post.
There’s a cluster on them on his desk, too, a strand weaved artfully around his closet; flashing red and green and yellow, painting his room in a bright wash of color. A small laugh escapes him, unbidden, as he shrugs out of his jacket, reaching for the note that she left for him on his pillow.
Step one of plan: complete. Probably a little hard for you not to get into Christmas spirit when it looks like it exploded inside your room, huh? ;) - Clarke
P.s: they’ll make some nice company for when I’m gone
P.p.s: I’ll be home soon.
He tucks the note into his pillow, smiling, falls asleep with red and green and flashes of gold painted against his eyelids.
+
Clarke comes home unscathed- save for a slightly bruised ego (and knee) from when she slipped on a patch of ice in front of everyone during the return journey.
“Don’t start,” she grumbles, when his gaze inadvertently drifts down to the bandage looped around it. “If you want, Jasper does periodic re-enactments in the dining room at around ten. There’s a laugh track and everything, courtesy of Raven.”
“Aww,” he teases, twisting his lips into an exaggerated pout. “Is someone getting tired of this holiday season already?”
“No!” She snaps, automatic, casting a dirty look over at him. “Plus, I wouldn’t be doing this—” the statement was accompanied with a flourish of the wreath in her hand— “if I wasn’t looking forward to Christmas now, would I?”
He nods, working to assume a expression of mock graveness. “Oh yeah, I can definitely tell how much you’re enjoying yourself from the way you’re mangling that poor shrub.”
“Wreath!” She barks, scowling, reaching over to swat at his chest when he cracks up. “It’s not funny.”
“It kind of is.”
“Your face is what’s funny.”
Clutching at his chest, he manages a wounded look. “Savage, Clarke. Your razor-sharp wit— ”
The rest of it drops off into a laugh as she barrels past him, slapping the wreath against his chest before leaving in a huff, the sound of her darkly muttered expletives trailing down the corridor.
It takes him about five minutes to calm himself into a state of normalcy; another ten to head down to Raven’s workshop to wrangle her glue gun from her. The ground is pretty much frozen out but Monty has a stash of possibly questionable plants stored in the greenhouse, so Bellamy just takes whatever vaguely resembles the leaves of the wreath. Coupled with a strip of fabric he cut up from an old sock that he wrangled into a ribbon, and, well.
Objectively, it’s a much prettier wreath than it was before.
Propping the door open pointedly, he settles down onto the bed, book in hand, and waits.
Granted, it’s a pretty obvious set up, her gaze darting over to wreath almost immediately as she walks through the door, brow arched.
“You didn’t have to do that.” Clarke sighs, folding her arms across her chest. He can’t help but smile a little at the note of fondness in her voice, though, has to bite at the inside of his cheek to keep it from showing.
Keeping his nose buried in his book, he manages a grunt instead. “No idea what you’re talking about.” He says briskly, pulling back the sheets in invitation. “Now are you coming up here, or what?”
She beams over him, only hesitates for a split second before burying into his warmth, her cheek pressed against his chest. “Depends on your reading material, actually. What are you covering tonight?”
He hums in response, feeling wisps of her hair tickling at his chin. “White Fang.”
“Good,” she murmurs, pulling closer, and he has to fight back a shiver when her lips skate across his collarbone, the neck of his shirt. “Read it out loud.”
+
Bellamy has never noticed how crowded Arkadia could get- not until now, at least.
The rapidly plummeting temperatures has everyone holing up in the dining hall (the one place with a working radiator) or in the hallway outside the communal showers (privacy is dead, apparently), which means getting anywhere without receiving an elbow in the ribs is downright impossible.
It’s not so bad, he reckons, for people with shifts at fixed places- but his job requires him to be constantly on the move, to be able to direct a whole bunch of people at any given time, and, well .
It’s pretty fucking terrible, to put it lightly.
“Why can’t they just bundle up and stay in their rooms?” He grumbles, yanking at the laces of his shoes and untying them deftly. “It’s not like they’re being paid to stand around and shiver after work hours.”
Clarke glances over at him, once, before turning back to her sketchbook. “Well, not everyone is built like a furnace, so.”
He scrubs at his face, scowls. “What?”
“You heard me.” She says, absent, her hand darting across the page fluidly. “I go to sleep in nothing but a shirt and I still wake up drenched in sweat, thanks to you.”
“Seriously?” He demands, trying his best not to sound too affronted. “Maybe it’s just your own body heat. Have you ever thought about that?”
The look she shoots him is pitying, almost. “Sure, Bellamy. Whatever you need to tell yourself to go to sleep at night.”
“It’s not me.” He declares stubbornly, flopping back onto the bed.
She’s gone by the time he gets up the next morning- which is surprising, considering Bellamy has her schedule memorized down cold and knows for a fact that her only early shift is on Fridays. Still, he decides not to overthink it; gets dressed and heads out of the door instead.
Jasper intercepts him as he’s making his way down to the dining hall, chewing on a piece of toast.
“Clarke wants to see you.” He announces, sputtering crumbs everywhere. “Something about needing your help in identifying this herb.”
He frowns, squinting suspiciously over at him. “Since when would I know anything about that?”
Jasper shrugs. “She said it looks like something you guys encountered on the road together, but she’s not sure.”
“Fine.” He huffs, grabbing at Jasper’s elbow and pulling him out of the way of the horde thundering down the corridor. “I’m assuming she’s by the med bay?”
“She’s out by the back with Raven.” He says, loping after him. “I think she was on her way to get you, but I volunteered.”
“So, to translate that: you were trying to get out of something.”
He sputters at that, hands flailing exaggeratedly before he plants them on his hips; a picture of absolute assurance. “ No. ”
“Save it.” He snaps, striding past him to lift the latch off the back door. “I’ll probably hear Kane nagging about it during the council meeting later.”
“I didn’t do anything.”
That’s the point, he wants to say, his lips already forming the words—
Just as something cold and wet slams into his face; soaking his hair, making his eyes sting with it. Some of it ends up in his mouth and he gags, spitting furiously only to realize that it’s ice.
Wiping at his face, he lifts his head, only to catch a glimpse of blonde ducking behind a snow pile.
“Goddamn it, Clarke.” He grumbles, ducking low as another snowball whizzes past him and hits Jasper instead; who promptly jumps back into the fray as snowballs begin flying everywhere.
He catches a glimpse, then, of a grinning Monty, Harper with her hair threaded through with snow, Miller with a beanie shoved over his ears and chunks of snow hidden in his pockets. The mood is infectious, somehow, and it’s nice to see everyone like this; happy and competitive and acting like the kids they are.
(He can’t help but hope, really, whenever they get moments like this. Hope for a time when this could be the constant state of living.)
His gaze finally catches on the flash of blonde darting through the trees, the tails of a familiar scarf fluttering out from behind her. Getting up from his crouch, he scuttles after her, gathering a pile of snow in his palm.
She’s half-hidden behind a tree when he finds her, patting her snowball in place, and he lets his fly before she can react, landing against the back of her neck.
“Bellamy!” She shrieks, jumping to her feet; and he bursts into laughter at the expression on her face, the sound dropping off into a muted oof when she catches at his waist, pulling him down on the ground with her; a tangle of limbs and laughter.
He thrusts a handful of snow in her hair, and she retaliates with a clump of snow against his cheek; her arms pinwheeling wildly before he finally gets ahold of them, caging her in with his body, her teeth grazing against his chin as they both still, breathing heavily.
She’s warm and soft beneath him, flakes of snow caught in the length of her lashes and he swallows, has to work to keep his breathing in check.
Bellamy’s always known, deep down, that his feelings for Clarke was a slow, simmering thing, hovering under the surface and showing up at the most inopportune moments. Perhaps back then he could delude himself into believing that it was really nothing- a harmless crush borne out of gratitude. Lust. And yet, it wouldn’t go away, the feelings building and building until she was all he could see, and now his feelings for her were veritable fucking mountains that he couldn’t seem to explain in words.
Mostly, though, he knew that it was love. And above all, peace. A kind of shared understanding and affection that he didn’t know how to have with anyone else. Maybe one day, he’ll tell her that.
Now, he clears his throat instead, shifting on his elbows so he can lift his weight off her. “Sorry. I’m not crushing you, am I?”
Her eyes snap back to his, and he realizes (feeling a little smug) that she had been staring at his mouth. “No,” she says, a little breathlessly, taking his hand and letting him help her up, “I’m, uh. I’m good.”
“Good.” He echoes- can’t help lingering, just a little, and watching her cheeks mottle pink.
She licks her lips, averting her gaze. “We should head back before the others start wondering where we are.”
He hums a affirmative in response, falling into step next to her as they trudge back through the trees. The silence between them feels loaded, somehow, seconds away from falling off the knife’s edge into uncharted territories entirely.
Nudging at her elbow, he tells her instead, “So what we’re telling everyone else is that I totally had you beat, right?”
Her laugh bounces off the trees as she reaches over to bump at him, purposeful; the easy, familiar cadence of her voice trailing him all the way home.
+
It’s a habit, at this point, to peek into the med bay whenever he has his rounds.
Not to check up on Clarke, or anything, but just to see how she’s doing, in general. He knows that she has the tendency to forgo lunch whenever it gets a little busy in the clinic, so he sometimes drops by the kitchen first to snag a portion of squirrel for her. Passing out on her patients is a bad precedent to set anyway- as he so often tells her- and bringing her lunch is what any good, responsible friend would do. (Right? Right.)
Ducking his head past the plastic sheet set by the entrance, he peers in, calls out, “Clarke?”
“She’s not here.” Harper goes, coming into view.
For a second he can only stare, dumbfounded. “But… she has a shift.”
“We traded shifts, so she’s taking mine tomorrow instead.” She shrugs, her lips twisting into a frown. “Wait, she didn’t tell you?”
Trying not to appear too put-out by the revelation, he mimics her shrug instead, works to keep his voice nonchalant. “Guess not. Did she, uhm,” he pauses, searching for the words. “Did she say where she’d be instead?”
“No, but Miller just came by, and he mentioned something about her being down in the kitchens with Bryan?” She says, with a furrow of her brow. “I’m not sure about the accuracy of the statement but that’s what I heard.”
“The kitchen.” He repeats, flat, brow rising involuntarily. “Clarke, in the kitchen?”
Harper makes a face at that. “Yeah, I thought I misheard, at first. But that’s what Miller says.”
“Okay.” He says, raising his hands in mock surrender. “I’ll just go verify that. Want me to grab you some lunch?”
“I’m good.” She says, waving him off. Then, smirking slightly, “Just go, Bellamy. Before your face sets like this.”
“My face is not doing anything.”
“Tell that to your reflection. Do you always look like you’re constipated?”
Scowling, he throws one last look of disapproval her way before marching off.
The kitchen is down by the basement, stuffy and industrial-white and boiling hot. The waves of heat are suffocating as he descends from the stairs, grumbling lowly under his breath and swiping his hair out of his eyes.
Bryan passes him first, makes a startled noise as if he wants to say something. Bellamy ignores him pointedly, barreling past and into the depths of the kitchen, gaze roving around the space—
And stops short at the sight of Clarke emerging from the walk-in refrigerator, arms stacked full of ingredients.
“Well, I never thought I’d see the day.” He says, conversational, leaning back a line of cabinets. “I thought Harper was hallucinating, at first.”
She purses her lips at that, planting her hands on her hips. “Just because you’ve never seen me cook before doesn’t mean I haven’t. Or that I don’t know how, for that matter.”
“No, I’m just more surprised as to why you’re doing it now, than anything.”
“Because it was supposed to be a surprise for you! ” She says, the words bursting out of her in a single breath. “I made this whole batch of Christmas cookies and I was going to surprise you at lunch, and—”
“So why are you starting over?” He asks, feeling his bad mood from before dissipate instantly, replaced by a crazy urge to laugh instead. He tamps it down to a grin, though, reaching over to tilt back a bowl so he could peek at the contents.
She swats at his hand, irritable. “Because I screwed up the first batch.”
“Screwed up how?”
“I don’t know .” Clarke huffs, cracking at an egg with a flick of her wrist, grimacing at the yolk that somehow manages to leak out onto her fingers. “But Miller took a bite and made this face, so it’s terrible, most likely, and you’ll hate it—”
He catches at her wrist, turning it over gently so he could take the egg from her, setting it down on the table. “You sure it isn’t just his normal expression?”
“How much of an idiot do you take me for, Bell?”
Side-stepping past her to get behind the counter, he grabs at the tray placed at the cooling rack, setting them down carefully. They looked like the sugar cookies that they used to sell at the marketplace back on the ark, though he never had the luxury of having any. “They look pretty nice to me.”
“I don’t know.” She says, apprehensive. “I followed the recipe to the T and everything.”
Shrugging, he grabs at one, takes a bite out of it, and oh.
It’s rock-hard for one, the consistency resembling something vaguely akin to wet flour and it still tastes burnt, despite the copious amount of icing sugar piled on it. Working to keep his face impassive, he reaches for the glass of water perched on the counter instead, takes a gulp.
She’s watching him anxiously when he turns over to face her, hands scrunched up in the folds of her apron. “So?”
“It’s good.” He manages, willing himself to grab at another. To chew as silently as possible. “I think we have a winner here, Princess.”
“You’re just saying that to humor me.” She mutters, but the smile on her face is unmistakable.
Bellamy grins back, takes another cookie. They’re kind of growing on him, actually.
+
The decorations go up a week before Christmas.
It would be a nightmare, ordinarily, if Bellamy didn’t notice how happy it made everyone else.
Monty and Jasper have taken it upon themselves to dangle sprigs of mistletoe along several doorways, unwittingly jamming up numerous corridors with people’s attempts to either a) avoid it, or b) get specific people under it- which seems to require a considerable amount of effort for just a kiss, but who is he to judge, anyway?
(Bellamy’s been avoiding those spots staunchly, so far, with the one time he slipped up being with Miller, who kissed him full on the mouth before striding away as if nothing happened. Of all the kisses he’s gotten in his life, he can’t even say it was a bad one. Pretty solid, in fact.)
Then Bryan starts setting out Christmas themed pastries and cookies every other night, and Raven starts giving out santa hats to everyone who visits her workshop. The paper snowflakes on the walls and the ornaments dangling from doorknobs are all Clarke, and even Murphy starts teaching the younger kids how to build snowmen.
He’s not sure how he can add to the festivities, at this point, but it comes to him during one of his patrols around the camp’s perimeter.
Which explains why he’s here, really; sweaty and a little grimy, with several (small) fir trees strapped to his shoulders.
He hauls them over to the dining hall, barking orders off the top of his head, already contemplating possible locations where they could be situated. He could probably get Clarke to make more of those little ornaments as well, so kids could decorate—
“So that’s where you’ve been all day?”
Lifting his gaze, he grins, instinctive. “I decided that this could be the one benefit of living on earth: real Christmas trees, instead of crappy PVC ones.”
“What,” Clarke asks, challenging, though he can make out the teasing in her tone too. “Didn’t have the upper body strength to haul in a huge one instead?”
He arches a brow at her, pointedly looking down at the pines littering the expanse of his sweater, the sporadic damp patches that the snow left behind on his clothes. He shed his jacket in an attempt to keep from sweating all over it earlier, and his curls are matted against his head. “I’m sorry, is this not enough effort for you?”
Surprisingly, she flushes at that, swallowing as her gaze runs down his form. “No one’s doubting that. I just— I was just wondering , okay?”
“Okay.” He says, easy as can be, taking an experimental step forward. She startles at that, her flush deepening, and he has to bite at the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing. Apparently, sweaty and dishevelled is a thing for Clarke. Who knew? “Well, I did look for a huge fir, at first, but there weren’t a lot of appealing options.” He continues, shrugging. “Plus, considering I was doing it alone, I highly doubted my abilities in sawing down a fifty foot tree.”
“Cool,” she says, apparently having recovered. “That’s all I wanted to hear from you, actually.”
“Me, admitting all my shortcomings in life?”
“You, admitting that you needed help, for once in your life.” She says, with a roll of her eyes. Then, sobering slightly, she asks, “You don’t— you don’t happen to be free now, do you?”
He frowns, casting a quick glance over at everyone else setting up behind him. “I have a minute or two to spare,” he says, a little wary. “Why?”
“I want to show you something.” She goes, jerking her chin towards the corridor. “Come on.”
“Real informative of you.” He calls out, sardonic, before following her out anyway.
It only dawns on him that she’s leading him back to his room when their familiar wreath comes into view, the door propped open just enough for a crack of light to shine through. She shoulders her way in then, beckoning him to follow before closing the door shut behind them.
“Okay,” she breathes, sounding uncharacteristically nervous. “So I know it’s only Christmas Eve, and we didn’t have a talk about presents or anything, but, I saw it and I just,” she trails off, wringing her fingers together. “I thought you would like it.”
He blinks. “Wait, so— Clarke, you got me a gift?”
“Yup.” She says, sidestepping past him to grab at the parcel on his desk, wrapped hastily in brown paper. “I didn’t have time to spruce it up a bit or anything, but.” She bit at her lip, peering up at him from between her lashes. “Look, I just really hope you like it, okay?”
Speechless, he takes it from her, has to rub at his face to regain his bearings because she got him a present. Logically, he knows that it’s not unusual or anything for her to be giving him something- they’re friends, after all, and she’s been the recipient of many of his random gifts too- and yet . He has to swallow past the lump in his throat, eyes stinging fiercely as he pulls at the string holding it together.
The paper crinkles slightly as he unravels it to reveal a slightly yellowing copy of The Iliad, spine cracked and smelling faintly of cinnamon, of something sweet and tangy and sharp that is all Clarke.
“You told me once that you buried your copy of The Iliad with Gina.” She says, soft, hands curling around his forearms to hold him steady. “And this is not— it’ll never replace that, of course, but I thought it’d be something you could remember her by. A part of her you can keep with you, wherever you go.”
“I do.” He manages, sliding his fingers along the pages, feeling the same distant, far-away ache that came with thinking about Gina. It didn’t hurt anymore, thinking about her, and he took it as a good sign. A bone that set right, despite everything. “I love it.” He bites on his tongue before he can say anything else, before an I love you slips out. “I wish I got you something.”
“You don’t have to,” she says, squeaking slightly when his arms come around her, enveloping her into a hug. She relaxes quickly after though, her lips settling in the crook of his shoulder while he buries his face against her neck- and just like that, it feels like home.
And when he’s composed himself enough, he tells her, “All part of your great ploy, huh? To convince me that Christmas is great and that I’ve been missing out my entire life?”
She gives a little laugh at that, pulling back slightly so she could look at him. “It only occurred to me after, okay? This wasn’t a part of my master plan, or whatever.” Then, brushing his hair out of his eyes, she goes, “Did it work, though?”
His eyes flutter shut at that, automatic, her breath warm against his skin and making him shiver. “Did what work?”
“My plan to convert you into a Christmas-loving freak.”
She’s close enough now that he can see the light scattering of freckles over her face, the familiar beauty marks that he has memorized like the constellations in the night sky. “Yeah,” he says brokenly, hands coming up to cup at her face. “You did good.”
“Good,” she echoes, before she’s kissing him, and everything else is lost in a mess of heat and warmth that is Clarke; her fingers grasping at his shirt like she can’t believe he’s there, holding him close. He sneaks his under the hem of hers, touching at the small of her back, her ribs, places where he’d never thought he’d be able to before.
They pull apart to breathe, both of them grinning, and he lets loose of the laugh building in his chest; soft and delighted. “Still part of your master plan?”
She groans at that, swatting at his chest. “It was either this or cornering you under the mistletoe.”
“Hmm,” he teases, nuzzling his face into the skin of her neck, grazing with just enough teeth for her to gasp. “I think I like this one better. More privacy.”
“Same.” She says in between kisses, jumping slightly to wrap her legs around his waist, fingers twisting in his hair. “We should definitely, definitely utilize it.”
“Yeah, yeah.” He laughs, lifting her and crossing the short distance to the bed, setting her down gently. It’s a little overwhelming, seeing her sprawled out on his bed like this, eyes dark and wanting and teeth showing as she smiles up at him, kissing at his palm before he drops it down to her neck, thumb rubbing absent circles against skin.
“You know this isn’t—” he pauses, searching for the words, “I feel—”
She reaches up to kiss him then, gentle. “Yeah, Bell.” She murmurs, carding at his hair. “I love you too.”
“Good,” he manages, hoarse, rubbing her hair between his fingers, just like how he always pictured. “Merry fucking Christmas to us, Clarke.”
“It’s the best goddamn holiday of the year.” She beams, before pulling him back down to kiss him.
(He can’t bring himself to disagree, at this point.)