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“You can go faster, come on.”
Clarke knows even as she says it that Bellamy isn't going to listen. He's the most stubborn man she's ever met, and every time she tells him to do something, even in bed—especially in bed—he just grins at her and keeps doing just what he's doing.
Tonight, though, what he's doing is going slow. Not gentle, she and Bellamy aren't gentle with each other, but even slow isn't taking her out of her head, and she wants to be out of her head. “I'm not going to come like this.”
“Neither am I,” he says, and grins at her. The light from her bedside lamp isn't enough to light up the room, but it's enough to let her see his expression, just how pleased with himself he is. “Right now I'm just enjoying myself.”
“You chased a suspect three blocks tonight, you should want to be done.”
“Tired of me already?” He may be going slow, but he knows just how to angle his thrusts, just how to keep her legs wrapped around his waist and all of her tense, waiting for it to get even better. He knows the answer to his question.
“Bellamy.” He pauses, looks up at her, and Clarke sighs and closes her eyes. It's not a game of chicken, but she still feels defeated when she admits to weakness. “I'm tired. I don't want to go slow.”
“I see how it is. Unless I speed up I'm going to fuck you to sleep, am I?”
She would roll her eyes, if she could bother to keep them open. “It's up to you, but I wouldn't rule it out as a possibility.”
Maybe it's a little cruel, giving him a sting to his pride like that, but he speeds up, so she can't regret it, and when she opens her eyes again he's intent, gauging her reaction every few seconds. “Better?” he asks when he sees her looking.
Clarke can already feel the pressure building, and she knows the relief isn't going to be too far behind. “You're still too slow,” she says, but her voice is a little too breathless for him to believe it. That's fine. She didn't expect him to, or need him to.
“I think you like the pace I'm going at.”
“Physiological response doesn't prove—”
“I know.” Bellamy pauses, and Clarke moves against him, impatient, but he stills her with a hand on her arm. “Would you relax for two seconds? You want to feel good, I want to feel good, we've got a common goal in mind here.”
He's right, but Clarke doesn't want to relax. She wants him to go fast so they can rush to the finish, so she has some chance of shaking off her shift and sleeping well tonight. “Okay, then make me feel good.”
“You're very lucky I'm a gentleman,” he says, and starts thrusting again. He does it the way she wants it this time, doesn't tease or draw it out, and Clarke lets herself relax. It's easier to do with the weight of him pressing her down into her bed, with their muscles straining and his breath coming in warm bursts against her ear.
Bellamy knows her weak spots, and it's not long before Clarke is clutching his shoulders, gritting her teeth against the urge to tell him faster, harder, more. She wants to come like this, without being so wild she'll feel it tomorrow when she goes into work.
“Come on,” he says after a while, grunting more than speaking, “loosen up.”
That isn't what he means. He means relax, or let go, and Clarke tilts her hips up into his for the last stretch and pulls his mouth down to hers. They don't kiss much, but they do when they're about to come, and Clarke is used to swallowing the noises he makes now, to biting at his lips until she loses control and finds herself just breathing into his open mouth.
She comes first, tonight, pulling on his hair until he pulls his head back to smile at her, always stupidly pleased with himself for getting her off, and she locks her legs around his hips until he speeds up, keeps going for another minute before he comes with a low groan.
They aren't still for very long, even though Clarke is already half-asleep, her body looser than it's been in days. Bellamy is slow to disengage, and from the way he moves she thinks it's because he's more sore than he wants to admit—there's a yellowing bruise on his shoulder, but part of his side is pink enough that it might be bruising.
“You can stay, if you want.” She sits up. She'll want a glass of water and something fresh to sleep in, since it's too cold to sleep naked tonight. “Forecast says snow.”
Bellamy shakes his head, barely visible since he's already moved away from the weak lamplight. “Thanks, but I have work in the morning. I need to get home before then.”
“There's a washer in the basement if you just want to wash your uniform.”
“Thanks, Clarke, but it's a longer ride to the station from here. Hope work is quiet tomorrow.”
“Yeah, well, that's partly up to you, isn't it?” Clarke sits up and then stands because sitting without the sheet isn't pleasant. There's a sweater next to the bed, discarded after her last day off, and she slips it on while he gets dressed again. “Get that side looked at if you have any swelling or trouble breathing.”
Bellamy stops getting dressed and turns to her just so she can get the full force of him rolling his eyes. “Thanks, doctor.”
“Don't.” Clarke crosses her arms. “Do you want some water or a snack before you go?”
“Just get in bed, Clarke, I'll make sure it's all locked up in here, you're exhausted.”
She shakes her head. “I'll get the deadbolt behind you.”
“Fine.”
Maybe when they started this, the silence would have been uncomfortable. They've been having sex for almost six months, though, and Clarke is fine with silence. She can be quiet with him now like she used to be able to with Wells, and that's not a completely pleasant thought, but it doesn't stop it being true.
Bellamy seems comfortable too, getting dressed without hurrying or being too slow about it, checking for his phone and his wallet and his keys in his pockets. “That's it,” he finally says, even though it's unnecessary.
“Okay. We left your coat on the table.” Clarke follows him out of the bedroom and watches him put the coat on. “I can call a cab.”
He shakes his head. “Train's still running. The weather isn't supposed to be that bad, and the train is probably safer than the roads even if there is snow. You're on shift tomorrow?”
“Yes, noon on.”
“Tell Raven to be careful driving.”
Clarke nods even though Raven will drive how she always drives, and Bellamy nods back and lets himself out the door. He isn't one for goodbyes.
She waits until she's heard him descend the stairs before she bolts the door shut behind him and goes to get ready for bed.
*
“You're tired today.”
Clarke looks up from stretching the kinks out of her back. Monty is frowning at her, maybe worried, so she smiles back. “Well, we've had a lot of calls.”
Raven looks around the office door. “And she was out late last night.”
“I didn't go anywhere after shift last night.” Bellamy isn't a secret, but she doesn't talk about him much either. Raven always guesses, and Monty and Jasper sometimes do, but she doesn't volunteer the information on her own, because none of them quite understands what she and Bellamy do, why they aren't just dating. “And we're all tired. We've had a lot of calls.”
“Yeah, you said.” Monty relaxes a little, though, so maybe it's worth taking the teasing about Bellamy. “I wonder how the police department is doing on calls today?”
“I don't think too many murders happen during snowstorms,” says Jasper, hopping out of the back of the ambulance after finishing his restock.
“Unless people get bored,” says Raven. “I'm sure Detective Blake is keeping himself busy and not sending dirty texts. Not that Clarke would answer them at work.”
“I am going to pretend that none of you answer texts at work, much less sexts,” says Clarke, on a sigh.
Monty grins at her. “I am going to need you to say that again so I can record you saying the word 'sext'.”
“Very funny.”
Clarke is never happy to hear dispatch contact them, but she's a little relieved to listen to the radio this time, asking for an ambulance in a residential area for a heart attack, and to find Raven already starting up their ambulance when she radios in that they're coming.
The rest of their shift keeps them busy but not stretched, Clarke's favorite kind of shift, and at the end of it all of them collapse in the break room, waving on the next crew and updating them on the state of the ambulances and that Maya is running dispatch and is still a little hesitant on the codes.
Monty catches her on the way out the door, and since they take the same train most of the way home, Clarke falls into step with him. Normally, when they get off shift and it isn't the middle of the night Jasper comes too, but today it's just the two of them, and Clarke is grateful for the silence after hours of the sirens grating on her ears.
“We would stop asking if you wanted us to, you know that, right?” asks Monty when they're a block away from the train station.
Clarke can't pretend she doesn't know what he means, even though it's been hours since their conversation about it. “We all tease Raven enough about Wick, and Jasper and Maya ...”
“Yeah, but Raven laughs about it.”
Clarke's phone buzzes in her pocket, and she ignores it. It's almost certainly Bellamy, who seems to know her schedule better than she does some days, but he can wait. They never meet two nights in a row. “I don't know what to say about it, that's all. Bellamy and I have sex. It's just that.”
“I'm not saying it's more than that. Nobody is. We just haven't had anyone to tease you about since you and Lexa broke up, that's all.”
“Glad to know you've been waiting.” She shakes her head when Monty opens his mouth. “It's fine, Monty. I just don't know what to say about it, and I don't want anyone making it anything it isn't.”
They drop the conversation while they're getting on the train, and Monty only starts talking again when they find their way to some seats. “I'll tell them to lay off if it gets too bad. Do you want to check your texts?”
“I'm pretty sure you have enough blackmail material to get us to do anything you want for life,” says Clarke, and takes her phone out. She doesn't get reception on the train, but she can look at what she got while she was at work, and at the most recent text from Bellamy, a simple Hope your day was quiet that she probably won't respond to.
Monty is the first one off the train, and he squeezes her arm before he stands up. “I'll tell them to stop,” he says again, and shakes his head at whatever face she makes at him before he gets off.
She does text Bellamy back after all when she gets reception again, just a quick Quiet enough, and then texts Raven instead about whether she and Wick are meeting up on their day off or if they should get together.
*
“Clarke.”
“Not tonight, okay?” Clarke straightens up where she's sitting on her couch, muting the television, since it's playing some kind of survival special. “Why did you call instead of texting, anyway?”
“I don't need—I need your help.”
She knows that her plans for a quiet morning are gone the second Bellamy says it, and she stands up. “What do you need?”
“My sister needs some patching up.”
She heads for her first aid kit. “Some patching up? Do you mean she should be in a hospital?”
“No. She really hates hospitals, but I think she needs stitches and I thought better you than some—” Bellamy's voice goes muffled for a second, someone talking in the background. “—have a degree,” he's finishing as he probably takes his hand off the receiver, which is alarming. “Can you come over? I don't want to interrupt you on your day off, but—”
“What's your first aid supply like?”
“Full complement.” Clarke still packs her pockets full of suture needles and bandages, but that's a comfort to hear. Cops usually do well at keeping stocked up. “You'll come?”
“If you promise me that if I say it's too much for me to handle in your living room you will drive her to the hospital without complaining.”
There's a pause. “Yes, fine, I can live with that, and if she can't, well—I can live with that.”
“I'll be there in half an hour, keep pressure on anything that's bleeding in the mean time.”
“Your bedside manner is truly impressive, princess,” he says, and he only calls her that these days when he's stressed.
Clarke sighs. “You know how to keep her okay until I get there, so do it. I'm hanging up so I can travel safely and you're reimbursing me for cab fare when I get there.”
Normally, he would argue, more for the sheer pleasure of arguing than for any other reason. “Fine,” he says. “Thanks.”
“You're welcome,” she says, and hangs up so she can call a cab.
The ride to Bellamy's is slow, even though the snow is mostly off the streets now, turning into slush on the sidewalks. Clarke fidgets the whole way there and almost shoves her money at the cabbie when she gets out, because Bellamy is waiting at the building door, already walking out to meet her. “It's fine,” she tells the cabbie on her way out, because he's frowning at her in the rearview like maybe she's in trouble. “He's a friend.”
Her door is open when she says it, and Bellamy is close enough to hear it, but he doesn't comment, doesn't even grin about it, just gives her a tight smile and waits for her to get out and shut the door behind her. “I'll pay you back later, my wallet is upstairs. Thanks for coming. I know it's your day off.”
“It's fine.”
Bellamy lives on the third floor of a rickety, well-loved building, the kind that probably has stories about being haunted and definitely has three layers of floral wall-paper on the hallway walls, all in various states of peeling. She trots up the stairs behind him, used to skipping the ones that creak too much when she comes in or leaves at two in the morning and skipping them automatically even though it's broad daylight.
When they get to his apartment, there are three people on the couch—the woman who must be Bellamy's sister, with her leg propped on the lap of the man next to her, and two men, one with a shaved head and one with a beard. Clarke manages to get an impression of leather and tattoos before she focuses in on her patient.
“I'm a paramedic, and Bellamy called me to make sure you're okay. Do you need stitches?”
She rolls her eyes at Bellamy, and it makes Clarke like her right away. “I didn't think you were serious. Fine, look, he won't leave it alone until you have.” She shifts on the couch, obviously uncomfortable. “Nyko would have been fine.”
“Never let a friend patch you up or you'll hate them later,” says Clarke. “What's your name?”
She gives Bellamy a dirty look. “It's Octavia. And this is Lincoln and Nyko.”
It isn't her job to deal with any of the tension in the room, so Clarke goes over to the couch, taking the first aid kit Nyko hands her. Octavia's arm is cut up, and her leg is scraped. “Nice to meet you, Octavia. How did this happen?”
“Took a spill on a motorcycle.” Bellamy makes a noise behind her, but Clarke ignores him. “My leathers took the brunt of it but I caught my sleeve on a piece of metal and got it sliced open. Nyko cleaned it for me.”
“I'll clean it again. The arm is the worst you have? Nothing feels broken or sprained?”
Octavia is relaxing second by second, and it's much easier to concentrate on doing the job in front of her now with the job in front of her. “Yeah, the arm's worst, I'm just going to be bruised up.”
It's not a difficult task. Clarke cleans the arm again, because she can't be too careful, and Lincoln and Nyko turn out to be capable assistants. Octavia refuses painkillers when Clarke puts five stitches in her arm and cleans gravel out of the scrape on her leg, and Bellamy hovers somewhere behind her, a constant presence raising the hairs on the back of her neck, pacing.
“You should have gone to urgent care at least,” says Clarke when she finishes, because she could probably lose licensing for this and she and Bellamy both know it. “And don't take them out on your own. I'll give you my number and you can call me in a week and I'll do it if I need to, but I would be more comfortable if you went to a doctor.”
“Yeah.” Octavia's face is tight with pain, but she opens her eyes and exchanges a few looks with Lincoln, who hasn't said a word the whole time Clarke has been in Bellamy's apartment. “Fine,” she finally says. “I'll see a doctor about it.”
“Good.” Clarke picks up what supplies of hers she didn't use and starts putting them away again. “I'm sure you all have things to discuss. Unless you need me for anything else, Bellamy?”
He's quiet for long enough that she turns around to look at him. He's staring at his kitchen table instead of looking at her or Octavia. “No. It's fine. I'll walk you out.” He looks up and looks at Octavia. “And then we'll talk. You can stay for dinner.”
“All three of us?” says Octavia in a dangerous tone.
Nyko shakes his head and stands up. “I'll go home. Clarke, I'll walk you out if you like. Are you going to the train station?”
“Now that I'm not in a hurry, yes.”
Bellamy finally shakes off whatever it is keeping him so quiet and still, and comes over to grab her sleeve. “I'll pay for your cab home too, it's fine. You've done me a huge favor.”
“I'd rather take the train. But you could give me the cab fare over now, if you want.”
“Right.” He frowns and goes back to the table to dig out his wallet, finding enough to cover the fare from most companies and handing it over. She takes it without comment. “Sure you don't want me to walk you out of the building?”
“It's not that dangerous, and Nyko's on his way out too. You stay with Octavia and Lincoln.” She looks back over at Octavia, who's watching them with her eyes narrowed. Either Bellamy has told her that they have sex or he hasn't and she's wondering if they do, but either way it's not Clarke's problem. “We'll talk soon.”
“Thank you again, for this.”
That's unusually sincere, for him, and Clarke ducks uncomfortably away from his gaze, not sure what to say, especially not with an audience. It's easier to look back over at Octavia and say “If you have any questions, or want recommendations about low-stress doctors or clinics, you've got my number.”
“Yeah.” She's still frowning, looking between Clarke and her brother, but Clarke can't do anything about that right now. “Thanks, Clarke, see you around. Bye, Nyko.”
Clarke avoids the noisy stairs again on the way down the staircase, and she's glad that Nyko never comments on it.
*
“I brought takeout.”
Clarke, already halfway out of her shirt, finally registers that the smell of Chinese food she's recognizing is coming from Bellamy's bag instead of from the hallway. “For us?”
“No, I figured I'd wait for it to get cold and take it back to my place for breakfast, yes for us.” He brandishes the bag. “I made an arrest in a case I've been working for weeks, I thought I would celebrate with sex and takeout. You're joining me for one, why not the other?”
Clarke pulls her shirt down, thrown off. They talk outside of these nights, but if they arrange to meet up for sex they don't often do anything else first. “Sure, thanks. Didn't want to call Octavia over? I could have waited.”
“You know I can never resist fulfilling your sexual needs, princess. And O is on a date with Lincoln tonight.” He makes a face and then looks at her sideways as she goes to get out some forks for them to eat with. “She says you two have been texting?”
“Yes, a couple of times. Is that weird for you?”
Bellamy starts unloading containers, the smell intensifying as he does. Clarke ate a few hours ago, but she won't turn it down. “No,” he finally says. “No weirder than it must be for you to have me be friends with your co-workers. And she likes you.”
Octavia's texts are always terse, just a piece of information or a quick question, so that's news to Clarke. “Okay. What did you bring?”
“A little of everything. Have whatever you like, as long as I get a few pieces of General Tso's I'm happy.”
They eat in silence, passing containers across the counter, neither of them bothering to sit down at the kitchen table. Clarke eats lightly and doesn't complain when Bellamy devours more than she would have expected. She hasn't heard much from him in a day or two, so chances are he hasn't left the office in that long, and whatever he can scrounge out of the precinct vending machines can't be very good.
When he's finished, Clarke puts their forks in the sink and the cartons with food still in them in the fridge and then pauses, still looking into the fridge, which just contains milk and eggs and the remains of a pack of pre-mixed salad she bought the last time she made it to the grocery store. She can't stay for long, but the cold air gives her a jolt, and she needs one. She doesn't know what to do with Bellamy in her apartment, how to segue from dinner to sex. Usually they don't bother exchanging small talk.
Bellamy is the one to break the silence with a hand on her shoulder. “You ready?”
Clarke turns around and kisses him. She knows how to do that, anyway, and the way his hands slide into her hair it's like he's been waiting for it all night. They stagger a few steps from the fridge before she remembers to kick it shut, and then he's lifting her off her feet, carrying her to her bedroom and dropping her on the bed, going for his tie.
She shimmies out of her sweatpants and shirt while he strips, throwing everything off the side of the bed to pick up later. “Are you coming?” she asks, looking up to find him standing at the edge of the bed, still wearing his pants and watching her, backlit by the light flooding in from the main room of the apartment.
“Not yet,” he says, voice rough, and he climbs onto the bed.
It takes wrestling to get him out of his pants and underwear, and when he's out of them, a condom from his pocket clutched in her hand, Clarke finds herself on top, hands pressed to his chest, which is already heaving. “This is your celebration,” she says. “What do you want?”
His hands settle at her hips. “This is good.”
“Sure, let me do all the work.” She smiles to soften it, but it's dark enough that she doesn't know if he catches it. He's hard against her, though, and that lets her move on to the next question. “Ready for the condom?”
“I'm not going to skip foreplay if you want it.”
Clarke sits back to consider and relishes the way he hisses in air. “I'm setting the pace. I shouldn't need much, and if I'm feeling unsatisfied, you can stick around for a second round.”
“Tempting.” A flash of teeth, probably a grin. Clarke is surprised at how off-balance she is without the light on. He must be able to see even less, though, with the light behind her. “We'll see how we do.”
That's a cue Clarke knows how to pick up. She rolls the condom on with the ease of practice and then crouches over him again, finding the right angle to sink down over him, his fingers clenching in her covers, her thighs tense and trembling as she makes sure to go slow.
Bellamy is already breathing like he's running a race, and Clarke has pity on him. Usually when she's on top, she draws it out, teases him, but tonight she doesn't want to. She settles into a steady pace instead, an easy one, something she can keep up all night if she wants to, leaning until he's at just the right angle inside her. “Is this good?” she asks.
“Touch yourself,” he says, and it's more vibrations than words, but she understands.
Clarke has been with a few people who seemed to take it as some kind of insult when she got herself off while they were having sex, but Bellamy seems to like it, and she's glad. It's harder to balance herself, riding him and touching herself at the same time, but Bellamy seems to understand, hands coming up to grip her hips, holding on solid and steady.
She can't gauge his expression in the dark, so she uses other cues as well as she can, even if she's surprised at how strange the difference is. It takes her a few minutes to get used to tracking how his breathing changes, how the pressure in his hands changes, how his hips push up against hers, and then she speeds up, more confident.
It doesn't take long for Bellamy to start gasping beneath her, choking out noises that are almost words but that Clarke can't make any sense of. She speeds up, muscles protesting the activity, and Bellamy clutches at her, goes quiet.
Clarke is the first one to come. She goes still, pulse pounding in her ears, and Bellamy gasps like he's coming up for air, holding on tight. “Please don't stop,” he says, the first thing he's said for what feels like forever, and Clarke obliges.
They're in an awkward position for her to kiss him, but she does it anyway, bending as far as she comfortably can and pressing her mouth against his. She loses her balance, puts too much weight all at once on his chest, but all he does is grunt and move against her, urging her to speed up with his hands and his mouth.
When Bellamy comes, he wrenches his mouth away from hers and makes a low, pained noise, hands falling to his sides, leaving her skin tingling from where he was holding on tight enough that she wonders if she'll bruise.
Clarke kisses him when his head turns back in her direction, and he's stiff for a second before he relaxes into it, his mouth moving against hers until finally he winces when she shifts. Clarke rolls off him, not bothering to be graceful about it, and lets him take care of the condom.
“If I stay,” he finally says, “we can have leftover takeout for breakfast.”
“You don't have to be at work early?”
“Captain gave me the day off for closing this one. How about you?”
“I don't start until two in the afternoon, so you can stay.” Clarke props herself up on her elbows. “Just let me get the lights turned off, brush my teeth, all that. You're welcome to see if you can find something to wear if you want to, and there's an unopened toothbrush in my medicine cabinet.”
“I think I left some sweatpants here one time, I'll see if I can find them.” Bellamy sits up too, moving more slowly than usual. He's never been one to pass out after they have sex, but he seems ready tonight, and Clarke reconsiders turning on the overhead light on her way to the bedroom, doubling back to turn on the lamp instead, and point the light away from him. He squints against even that, but he's alert enough to track her movements on the way out of the room.
By the time she comes back five minutes later, her evening routine complete, he's asleep, just wearing a pair of boxers she stole from Wells's place when she needed pajamas for a college sleepover, curled up on one side of the bed. She'd always assumed he would hog the bed, given the opportunity, but he doesn't seem to be yet.
Clarke gets dressed and turns out the light as quietly as she can, and she wakes up at ten the next morning to the smell of warmed-up Chinese and Bellamy sitting at her kitchen table frowning at the news on his phone and drinking a cup of coffee from one of her guest mugs. Clarke can't for the life of her remember when he found out where she keeps her mugs, much less which one she won't let anyone else drink from.
“I saved you some eggrolls,” he says without looking up, and Clarke goes over to join him.
*
“Clarke, on your feet.”
Clarke, in the middle of her break and halfway through a granola bar, looks up at Raven in surprise. “What's going on?”
“Big call, there was a shoot-up and a brief hostage situation at a drug bust downtown, they need everyone we've got.” Raven is still looking at her like there's worse news to come, though, and Clarke waits for it. “There are officers down. We don't have IDs.”
“Jasper and Monty?”
“Already on their way, and Monroe and Stirling were on their way back from the hospital so they're heading there too. You and I need to get on the road, you can finish eating that on the way.”
Clarke hops to her feet and runs to the ambulance, just pausing long enough that Jasper doesn't hit her driving out of the garage with their sirens already on. Maya is on dispatch when she gets in the ambulance, reading out the situation with her voice shaking—this is maybe the worst she's seen, so far, or at least Clarke hasn't been on a shift where she's seen worse.
“Hospitals are prepped,” says Raven as she hits the gas. “Shouldn't be too many people, but depending on the situation they're on standby.”
“Good.” Clarke still has her granola bar but she feels sick, and she can't force it down. She never knows anything about Bellamy's cases until after he's solved them, so she doesn't know if he and Miller will be there, or if they responded to the emergency call when the bust went wrong. “Do we know anything about the wounds? I'm assuming GSWs, some knife wounds?”
“No details yet, just keep your ear on the radio.”
Clarke does, but all the channels are busy, and all she gets are numbers—one fatality, not among the police, and between eight and a dozen injured on both sides, some critically. She hears Jasper and Monty check in at the site, and Monroe and Stirling, and two minutes later they're screaming into the site and jumping out of the ambulance.
Monty and Jasper are with a police officer she doesn't recognize. Monroe and Stirling are with Miller, and Bellamy is sitting next to them with blood on his shirt.
“Hey,” says Raven, grabbing her arm. “He's upright, it's just on the sleeve, he's helping them with Miller. We need to triage here.”
“Right.” Clarke allows herself the luxury of a deep breath, and then she marches up to a paramedic from a different company, one she recognizes from a twenty-car pileup on the highway a few months ago. “Who's next in line?”
“Police are all being dealt with,” she says, giving Clarke a nod. “Worst hurt civilian is over there, he's next in line. Gunshot to the side, probable concussion.”
With a job to think about, it's easier to get herself under control. Bellamy is hurt, but he'll be fine, and from what she can see out of the corner of her eye he's shrugging off Monroe when she tries to check his injuries. Clarke jogs over to Raven and starts coordinating getting a stretcher for their patient, who's barely conscious and almost certainly concussed.
“I've been counting,” says Raven while they heave their patient onto the stretcher with the ease of practice. “Enough responders on the way to take care of everyone, a few grazes that can ride to the hospital in the back of a police car, we can take twenty at the ER and make sure he's okay.”
“Job at hand, Raven.”
“You are so full of shit,” says Raven, grinning at Clarke before counting off to get the stretcher in the back of the ambulance. “He's okay. And you can text Octavia on our break and let her know her brother needs taking care of.” They strap everything down. “I'm driving, you drive like my grandmother. You're good back here?”
“It's fine.”
Clarke knows her job, and she's good at her job. She knows before they've taken three turns that her patient isn't going to be in danger of his life by the time they get to the hospital, and she does everything she can anyway.
That doesn't stop her thinking about Bellamy leaning over Miller with blood on his shirt, about Raven offering her the chance to stop in at the hospital the same way she did when Lexa had inhaled too much smoke. He's okay, but Clarke isn't certain that she is.
*
Raven insists on taking care of the paperwork and the handover when they reach the hospital, and she doesn't give Clarke much choice but to go check on Miller and Bellamy.
As chance would have it, Clarke finds Bellamy first, in an examination room swearing a blue streak while a doctor sews up his arm. “You and Octavia will match,” she says from the doorway when the doctor doesn't have her needle in Bellamy's skin.
He looks up at her. “Wondered if you would be at the scene. Have you heard how Miller is?”
“Less than you, you were with him in the ambulance, weren't you?”
Bellamy looks back down. “We were the closest team when the officers on the bust called for backup. He took a shot through the thigh.”
“And you?”
“Grazed, that's all.” He winces, and Clarke wants to demand why he doesn't have painkillers or some kind of numbing agent on, but she knows Bellamy. No doubt he refused any of it. “I'm fine, princess,” he adds when she's been silent for too long.
Clarke wants to yell at him. She wants to tell him that he won't always be fine, that he could be killed and that's unacceptable, but she doesn't have the right. “Do you want me to tell Octavia you're here?” she asks instead.
It makes him look up at her, alarmed. “Are you kidding? She would fucking murder me.”
“I can understand the impulse.”
She tries to sound grumpy, but from the way his mouth quirks, she suspects she fails. “Clarke, were you worried? I've been hurt on the job before, you know that.”
She wants to say Never this bad and Not since we started having sex with only each other and, worst of all, Not since it made me want to panic. “Not since I patched you up after that knife fight,” she says, forcing the words out, and the doctor, finishing off the stitching, gives her an alarmed look.
Bellamy takes a while to answer. “I almost forgot that was how I met you.”
Clarke wants to ask how the hell he thought he met her, then, before she remembers they met again two weeks later when several departments of emergency services all got together for a charity breakfast. “It seems like it should be difficult to forget.”
“There,” says the doctor, standing up. “I'll be back with your prescription and instructions for your care, Mr. Blake.”
Bellamy grins up at her, one of the sudden blinding smiles Clarke doesn't see very often unless he's trying to charm someone. “Thank you for finishing before my friendly neighborhood paramedic showed up to critique your technique.”
The doctor rolls her eyes, but she's more relaxed now that Bellamy has identified Clarke. Clarke knows most of the ER doctors, but the Ark's ER is busy today, and she could be pulled in from somewhere else. “You're welcome, Mr. Blake.”
When she leaves, there's a minute of silence, and Clarke doesn't have anything to fill it since he already told her not to contact Octavia. “Aren't you supposed to be working?” Bellamy finally asks. “I'm pretty sure that's what the uniform is for.”
“I'm on a break. The situation is under control and Raven is doing paperwork.” She pulls her watch out of her pocket to look at it. “I should go soon, though. I just wanted to check on you.”
“Yeah, of course.” Bellamy starts to raise his arm and then stops with a grimace. Clarke checks her instinct to go check on his stitches. “You can let O know if you want. I'm supposed to meet her for dinner tonight and I'm probably not going to want to be in the mood, you can tell her to be gentle with me.”
Clarke rolls her eyes. “I don't know Octavia very well, but I'm pretty sure that's not likely.”
“It's worth a shot.”
There are jogging steps down the hall and Clarke turns out of the doorway on instinct. It's Monty coming towards her with an apologetic grimace. “Car accident, Jasper and I can't get out yet but Raven says you guys have plenty of supplies for it. Do you mind taking the call?”
Clarke looks at Bellamy, who's already gesturing her away. “I'll take it,” she says, and jerks her head at the door. “Say hi to Bellamy.”
Monty smiles at her and squeezes her arm as she passes him, already speeding up, ready to ask Raven for the briefing and head on to the next thing.
Raven is waiting for her in the ambulance and gives Clarke a sharp look when she gets in. “He's fine,” says Clarke. “Stitches, he got grazed but nothing is embedded.”
Raven doesn't ask anything else, but she knows Clarke well enough that she probably doesn't need to.
Your brother was at Ark Memorial getting stitches last time I saw him, Clarke texts Octavia an hour later, when she finally has the time to send a text. He's fine, I just wanted to update you.
Everyone at work pays a little too much attention to her for the rest of the shift. They aren't too nice, and they don't ask awkward questions, but they watch her, and all it does is remind her of Bellamy leaning over Miller with blood on his shirt and make her wonder just why it is that the image won't leave her alone.
*
“I can't believe I'm asking this, but are you pissed at me?”
Clarke pauses in the middle of putting her shirt back on after getting thoroughly fucked and eaten out on her kitchen table. “Why?” She knows she's treating Bellamy differently, with stitches still standing out halfway down his arm, but she can't stop herself either.
Bellamy is quiet long enough that she thinks he's giving up on it. “Because you haven't said I can stay if I want,” he finally says.
That brings Clarke up short enough that she turns to look at him. He's still half-dressed, sweat glistening on his exposed skin. She should tell him to wash his stitches. “Obviously you can.”
“But you … never mind.” He rubs the back of his neck with his good arm, and Clarke bites down on the urge to ask him if he's sore and needs to take a dose of his painkillers. “I have work in the morning anyway.”
Clarke tugs her shirt straight and zips up her jeans. “I'm not angry at you, Bellamy.”
“But something is up.”
“God, I don't know.” It all sounds stupid no matter what way she puts it to herself, that she was surprised at how worried she was about him when he got hurt. Of course she was. They're friends of a sort, and they have sex. “Just upset that you got hurt, I guess.”
Clarke doesn't know why she expects an immediate breezy comment, delivered with a grin, like he would have given her six months ago. They know each other better now. He knows she's serious. “Cops get hurt, Clarke. All emergency personnel does sometimes.”
“I know that. Doesn't mean I like it.”
“I'm okay.”
“I know you are.”
“Then what's the problem? You've barely talked to me all week, you jumped me as soon as I got through the door, and you haven't invited me to stay. There's a problem.” Bellamy runs a hand through his hair, messing it up more than Clarke already did. “If you're done, you tell me and we're done. That's how this has got to work.”
“I'm not done. Unless you are.” He shakes his head. “Okay, then we're not done. Things can just stay like they are.”
“Right. I still have to go to work in the morning. I should get ready to go.”
“Fine, yeah.” Clarke runs them both a glass of water, mostly for something to do with her hands. “Remember to clean out your stitches when you get home, so they don't get irritated. They come out in a few days, right?”
“Thursday. And I know how to care for my stitches.” He drinks his whole glass in three gulps and puts it down on the counter. “Thanks for the quickie, I guess. And Miller says thanks for the card, I know that was your idea.”
“I haven't been off during visiting hours at the hospital and I hear he went home this morning anyway.” Bellamy nods. “Pass on my best. I'll see you soon.”
Everything is awkward and too quiet while Bellamy gets his coat on, more ginger with his arm than she thinks he wants her to notice, and then she's waving him out the door and listening to the sound of him going down the stairs and feeling stupidly unsatisfied when this is exactly what they're supposed to be to each other.
*
“A fucking hostage situation, Clarke?”
Clarke looks up from dabbing the last of the blood off her face in the break room to find Bellamy standing in the doorway, one shoe untied and chest heaving, a picture of panic. “It wasn't a hostage situation,” she says, even though she knows the bruise coming out on her cheek isn't going to help back that up. “A patient got scared and threatened me, he's now safe in the hospital and I am here instead of there. Did Raven call you?”
“I heard about it on the radio and I was leaving the precinct anyway.” He comes the rest of the way into the break room, shedding his coat and moving into her personal space to squint at her face like he's waiting for the marks to come out, but he doesn't touch her. “Have you filed a police report? If you aren't too tired I can take you back to the station—”
“I've filled out the paperwork.” He's still staring, eyes flicking down to her neck and hands, anywhere there's bare skin, looking for injuries. “Bellamy.” He snaps to look her in the eye, and she reaches out intending to grip his shoulder. He's standing close enough that her hand lands on his chest instead, and she leaves it there, waiting for him to relax. “I'm fine. I just need some ice that Monty is getting for me and the rest of the day off.”
“I took Miller's car to work this morning. I can drive you home.”
Clarke opens her mouth to tell him it's fine, she was only an hour from the end of her shift and Raven has offered to get her home when it's over, but he still looks as anxious as he did leaning over Miller, so she nods and drops her hand. He still doesn't move away. “Thanks. I just have to get my coat and my ice and tell Raven I'm going.”
“Okay.” And then, to her surprise, he's hugging her—holding her, really. Bellamy isn't gentle, but now he is, pulling her in close, arms wrapping all the way around her. Clarke barely has the chance to reciprocate before he's letting her go again, looking back into her eyes. “Don't do that again.”
Monty clears his throat from the break room door. “I have your ice, Clarke.”
“Thanks.” When she moves, Bellamy gets out of the way so she can get the pack of it, wrapped in a cloth so the cold won't be too much of a shock. “Bellamy is giving me a ride home. Let Raven know?”
“I will. Jackson wants to talk to you about today, says you should call him tomorrow morning.”
“Of course.” She already knows how the conversation will go, Jackson all apologies and offers of time off and workman's comp, but she doubts there will even be much swelling, even if her face and wrists will be colorful for a few days and she has a butterfly bandage on her cheek. “You guys are okay for the rest of the shift?”
“We really need a few fill-in staff.”
“First responder course starts next month.”
Bellamy appears next to her. “You two can talk shop later. Come on, Clarke, get your coat, put that ice on your face before it melts, let's go.”
“I'll see you soon,” says Monty, and grins at them both before he jogs back down the hallway.
Clarke turns back to Bellamy, who's still crowding close, and when he raises his eyebrows at her she sighs and grabs her jacket, putting it on quickly before she puts the ice up to her face. He grabs his coat too, and shepherds her out the door without passing Jasper or Raven or anyone who might stop her leaving.
The car ride is quiet. Bellamy turns the stereo on once Clarke is strapped in with the ice pack held to her face, some podcast she doesn't recognize playing in the background, Bellamy humming along his agreement occasionally. The hum of noise without conversation is comforting, and Clarke almost nods off before he parks in the spot she never uses outside her apartment building and cuts the engine, plunging them into silence.
“Thanks,” she says, straightening up, hand on the door handle. “Do you want to come up?”
He answers back so fast he must have been waiting for it. “Jesus, Clarke, I'm not going to fuck you like this, not if I might hurt you.”
“Just to sit. I might turn on a movie, order some pizza. I deserve it after today, and you drove me home.”
He sighs. “Yeah, I'll come up. I'll pay for the pizza if it's meat lovers.”
“We'll debate that upstairs, come on.” She drops the ice pack for long enough to get her car door open, and by the time she's out on the sidewalk, Bellamy has started moving too, and it's only a few seconds before he's beside her, locking the car with the press of a button.
They don't know how to make small talk. Clarke has never minded that about them, that she found out where he went to college from Miller and what he does on the weekends from Monty and his favorite movie from Octavia. She minds it now, though, when they get up to her apartment and out of their coats and he still hasn't said a word. “I'm going to take a shower. You can join me or you can wait out here, whichever.”
“Well, princess, as wonderful as soothing your wounds with citrus shower gel sounds, I think I'll wait out here, tell Miller I'll be late with his car.”
“Okay.”
Clarke half expects him to be gone when she comes out of the shower wearing sweatpants and an old shirt she's had since high school. Instead, he's on her couch, button-up unbuttoned, watching the start of an animal documentary, judging by the credits rife with flamingos and lions. “Octavia says she hopes you feel better,” he says, stretching out an arm and gesturing her over.
She could ask why he was telling Octavia that she was hurt, or what they're watching, or how long he plans to stay, but she goes over instead, leaning into his side and watching the documentary.
*
Clarke wakes up on Bellamy's shoulder to the sound of quiet narration and soundtrack from the television. When she cracks her eyes open, someone on the screen is measuring a snake. “What time is it?”
“Almost eight.”
“Fuck.” She straightens and stretches the kinks out of her neck. Her head feels like one big bruise, and probably looks like it too. She's lucky she isn't concussed, though she isn't going to mention that to Bellamy. “Sorry. You should have woken me up, you must be starving.”
“Pizza and breadsticks are on their way.” He brandishes his phone and pulls her in closer again. “I was going to wake you up in a few minutes.”
“Thanks. I guess I shouldn't have asked you to stay.”
“I wouldn't have left unless you told me to.” He looks away from the television, down at her, and Clarke feels caught out somehow, even though of course she's looking at him, if they're conversing. “Please don't do that again.”
“It was just a patient who was upset, Bellamy, and I'm not going to stop doing my job any more than you're going to stop doing yours. Do you think I liked seeing you with a bullet graze? Or every other time I've had to patch you up?”
“I'm sorry. If it was anything like … don't they let you carry tasers on the job? Anything like that?”
Clarke squeezes his hand. “The point isn't to hurt the patients more. Raven sedated him, it was before we even got him in the ambulance, and I'm fine.”
Bellamy kisses her, and there's that unusual gentleness again, barely any pressure making her push up against him until he strokes his thumb against her neck. “Just be careful, please,” he whispers when he pulls away.
This isn't casual. Clarke has known that for weeks now, but it's impossible to ignore with Bellamy sitting next to her on her couch, stroking her skin and watching stupid documentaries and showing just how worried about her he is. That doesn't mean she knows what to do about it, or if it's worth risking Bellamy backing off to say something. “I'm just as careful as you are.”
“Not comforting, princess.” He kisses her again.
This time, when he pulls away, Clarke doesn't let him go far, keeping him there with her hand on his cheek. “Will you stay the night? I know we don't do that, especially when we're not even having sex tonight, but I'd like you to stay.”
“I was going to ask.” Clarke's buzzer goes off, and Bellamy swears. “That's the pizza, I'm going to buzz him up, you don't go anywhere.”
Clarke does, the second they disentangle themselves, because they need something to drink with dinner and she needs painkillers, and Bellamy throws an annoyed look over his shoulder while she bustles around behind him and he pays the woman with their pizza. “I don't want to get grease on my couch,” she says when he shuts the door. “We can eat at the table.”
“I think you get a day off table manners when you've been hit in the face,” says Bellamy, but he doesn't grumble about it any more than that.
They end up talking business over dinner, about the first responder course that's coming up and whether Clarke should ask Nyko and Lincoln if they want to join in, and Bellamy considering joining a task force on an organized crime op. “This is good,” Clarke says when they're winding down, both of them full of the pizza and her painkillers kicking in enough that she's starting to feel human. “We should do this more often.”
“Inviting me for dinners, telling me to stay the night ...”
“I know,” says Clarke, before he can finish that sentence. “I know that's not what this is. But I'm starting to think maybe it should be.”
Bellamy puts his water glass down, watching her across the table. Clarke refuses to be nervous, but she clenches her fists in her lap. “You were the one who said this was casual,” he finally says, and Clarke blinks, because of everything, she wasn't expecting that. “The first night we did this, you said you weren't looking for anything more than sex, and I was fine with that. You were the one who put the boundaries up.”
“I didn't have feelings for you then. And if you want this to stay casual, I can ...” She picks her way through what she wants to say carefully. She knows what it's like to be in a relationship where one person is more invested than the other, and it doesn't end well for anyone. “I can probably keep it up for a while longer, but not forever.”
He still hasn't moved. “Be very sure.”
“This isn't because I had a bad day at work, or because you almost got shot, or because we have good sex. It's ...” She doesn't know exactly when it crept up on her. Sometime between arguing with each other in a bar and needing someone to spend a night with and meeting his sister, Bellamy has become important. “I'm sure.”
“Okay.”
Clarke sighs. “Now's your chance to tell me your opinion on it.”
“I told you. You're the one who set up the boundaries.”
“Don't pretend you've just been waiting for me to love you back for months now.”
Bellamy shakes his head. “I'm just saying that if you'd asked me out on a date instead of back to your place, I would have said yes. You didn't. That's fine. I would have been fine staying casual.”
“But?”
And finally, Bellamy smiles, and Clarke relaxes. “Well, I've been saving up my favorite date spots for a few months now, princess. They're pining after me at my favorite Italian place, I never bring anyone over anymore.”
“I guess I'll just have to go with you, won't I?”
“That does seem only fair.” He's trying to look serious, but there's too much of a smile on his face for it to work, and Clarke doesn't love him yet, but now that she's starting to think about it, she's starting to see where she will, sometime.
Clarke stands up. “I'm really not as badly hurt as you think I am.”
Bellamy laughs. “And you plan to prove it to me? I'm not going to object.”
“Good,” says Clarke, and takes his hand to drag him towards the bedroom.
*
Clarke wakes to the sound of movement by the bedroom door, and she groans and props herself up on her elbows. “Bellamy?”
“Go back to sleep.”
“Why are you up?” She squints at the clock. Three in the morning, work won't have called him unless there was a real disaster.
“Turning out the lights. Making sure the deadbolt was in.” He coughs, and Clarke wishes he would turn a light on so she can see what his face looks like. “I'm not going anywhere.”
“Good. Then come back to bed.”
“Demanding.” She knows what he sounds like when he's smiling, though, so it's hard to take him seriously as he comes back and crawls under the covers with her. He may not have intended to leave, but he's been out of bed long enough that the sheets are cold. “You need anything? Painkillers, water?”
“If you were actually going to get me any, you would have asked when you were still standing. So no.” They don't cuddle, but Clarke lets herself curl a little farther into his space than she normally would. “Do you have to work tomorrow?”
“Just let the captain know I have a follow-up appointment about my stitches tomorrow but I'll be in for the noon briefing.”
Clarke laughs. “He'll know you're lying.”
“He also knows you're hurt, probably.” There's a lot there, questions Clarke isn't ready to have answered yet about why Kane would know that Bellamy would care that she's hurt. “And it's not a complete lie, you can check my arm and reassure me that it's fine.”
“Right.” She kisses him, too tired and sore to be urgent about it especially when they're already had sex tonight. “I've got eggs and toast for breakfast, maybe some bacon, I can't remember.”
“I should have stayed for breakfast long ago, clearly,” he says, wrapping an arm around her, tucking her in against him so close that she'll wake up if he gets up again tonight. It's more comforting than she wants to admit, knowing that. “I'll make you some the next time you stay at my place.”
Clarke yawns, already falling back to sleep now that she knows he's here. “We'll start with tomorrow.”
Bellamy doesn't answer right away, and Clarke leaves it, lets herself drift back under, warm and close to him. She thinks, right before she falls asleep, that she hears him say something, just a few words, maybe an agreement, but she doesn't bother to rouse herself to ask what it was. She can always ask in the morning.