AN: Wow this took me months to get to, and then minutes to finish. Sorry. But ily Jade.
I swear (everyday we’ll get better)
[AO3]
Clarke knows it’s not the same, but whenever she looks into his eyes, she sees the same things she always saw. There’s the world, she thinks, and the strain in his shoulders. There’s the fire and how it burns whenever he puts his mind into things.
The other day, she saw him skimming through the old photographs. It wasn’t much, not that they salvaged a lot in the fire. It was just the two albums, a small booklet of individual photos of him when he was a child, and one of the things he took when he was a teenager with a camera. There was his father in the booklet, who looked so much like him that Clarke could feel her heart break whenever she reminds herself that he doesn’t remember any of this.
He doesn’t remember his sister, doesn’t remember Raven and Monty and Jasper. He doesn’t remember his nephew. He doesn’t remember her.
When he looks at her with that blank look, she feels her world fall away.
They don’t do the same things, not since he came home from the hospital. He still stays in their apartment, still makes his way around the spaces he used to loiter. But he forgets to make the bed, forgets that the percolator doesn’t work unless it gets thumped at least five times, forgets that the blue mug was his.
He says sorry all the time, like he’s a burden to her. He apologizes when she mentions that he used to binge watch documentaries that make her fall asleep. She told him it would always always end up with him carrying her to bed. He smiled a little, tried so hard to look for the memories in his head, and then when his eyes started to water, she took him in her arms and let him rest.
There are nights, like this one, when he can’t sleep.
He’d stay awake, thinking. Clarke can feel it through the space between them. Before, that space was his arm around her stomach, their legs tangled under the blankets. He would bury his nose at the back of her neck, she would elbow him and he would laugh. He would laugh, her favorite sound in the world, and he doesn’t remember that.
Sometimes, he would speak. He would say her name and she would feel her heart seize. She would hope that this is it, he’s back. And then he’d ask how his father died, how his mother died, and she’d try to swallow her tears to answer him.
Tonight, he turns towards her, the rustle of sheets waking her half-asleep brain. When he speaks, it’s quiet.
“Did you really want to marry me?”
She chuckles. “Bellamy, of course.”
“You told me I was difficult and argumentative --
“And I was the same. Besides, we both loved it. Our friends hated it, but it would be the highlight every time we saw each other.”
He huffs, she thinks it was a laugh. “And you proposed.”
“I did. Only because you were taking too long.”
“I must have been nervous.”
“You were... making sure everything was perfect.”
He snickers, smile pressing into the pillow. Their faces are so close, but she hasn’t kissed him. It doesn’t feel right.
“And you couldn’t have waited?” he asks, fingers playing at the rumples of the blanket between them.
“There was the strings quartet,” she recalls, and she tells herself it’s for him. Only a little just for her. “The table was a shade of lilac that I liked. No candles, but there was a vase with a rose in the middle. You kept shifting to see me, it ended up on the floor because it was in the way.”
“So, not everything was perfect.”
She shakes her head, meeting his eyes in the dark. “No. Everything was perfect.” And then, much quieter. “I loved it.”
They were quiet for a while, the shadows in their faces heavy with memories, ones that only one of them can remember.
“Tell me about the first time I kissed you.”
She closes her eyes, breathes through her nose, and smiles. When she opens them again, his eyes are sad.
“Two years before we got together,” she tells him.
“That long?” he looked incredulous. She nods.
“It was during game night at Raven’s apartment. You and I, we argued our friends to sleep. To be fair, they were also really drunk. We always had the best alcohol tolerance out of all of them.
“The score was 5 to 5 and we were in our eleventh game of drunk Scrabble. I think we broke so many rules it wasn’t Scrabble anymore but we kept playing.”
“Did you hate me back then?”
She shakes her head. “I never hated you. I have always liked you. Especially when you gave away your Scrabble strategies when drunk.”
“So I was terrible at it?”
“You were amazing at Scrabble. Our friends would opt out whenever it’s your time to pick the game.”
“Okay,” he breathes, and she continues, ignoring the flutter in her stomach when he shifts closer.
“I... I was going through a dry spell back then,” she says, refusing the embarrassment starting to creep into her voice. “And since it was just you and me and I trusted you to stay true, I told you I wanted to get laid that night. I wasn’t... I didn’t mean it to be you, to be honest. I was resigned to being content with just being your friend back then. And then, you got that look in your eyes, the determined one. Like you’re going into battle. You said, ‘I can do that’, and it was... it was hilarious.”
She starts giggling, remembering his stale beer breath, and his sloppy kiss. He had threaded his fingers in her hair, angled the kiss to his liking, and it was one of the best kisses of her life. It just didn’t feel right. So she pushed him a bit, and he got that look of embarrassment in his eyes.
“Was it terrible?” he asks now, but he’s smiling.
“No. It was one of the best kisses I have ever received. In our wedding, you told me you were in love with me even before that. And I told you I was the same.”
“Now?”
“Even now, Bellamy.”
“I’m sorry.”
Her eyes start to hurt. “For what?”
“For not remembering. For not loving you. I could --
“Please don’t. Don’t force it, Bellamy. That would be worse. Please.”
He takes her hand and brushes his lips against her knuckles. “Okay. I won’t.”
They are quiet for a long while, and she thinks he’s asleep. She’s starting to doze off too, and then.
“Clarke, thank you.”
“I... it’s okay. Go to sleep, Bellamy.”
He does, their hands still tangled together. She cries again, but in the morning, he pulls the blue mug from the cupboard, and fills it with coffee. He pushes it towards her with a smile. She thinks she can do this.
fancast for t100 pls! also congrats on 2k and HAPPY BIRTHDAY MEL <333
jadey mah love!! thank you <3
YOUR FANCAST (t100)
Clan: Sky People | Trikru | Mountain Men | Polis | Ice Nation | Boat People | Eligius CorpWeapon of choice: Gun | Sword | Spear | Bow & arrow | Knowledge | WitsS.O.: Lincoln - you trust each other with your very lives NOT out of necessity, but out of the utmost respect and mutual adoration (also you survive MW bcos i say so lmao)Best friend: Raven Reyes - she’s the perfect counterbalance of Hard Edge and Quick Wit, making her your favourite person to work and play with
