Chapter Text
Who are the delinquents?
The game that would make the small town of Arkadia internet famous was started by a group of local friends, then children, nearly fifteen years ago! Located in a small mountain town in North Carolina lived a group of fifteen or so children that had grown up alongside each other in competition. The game was tag and it became the ultimate challenge for each child participating in an opportunity to out smart, out play and out run each other. Now almost fifteen years later ten remain in the game routinely each year in the quest to overthrow the reigning champion Bellamy Blake. However, the question remains, who are these now grown adults that have stayed together all these years for the sake of a game?
To get a better understanding of the players we met with Mrs. Harper Green. She has been playing the game since her senior year of high school after befriending the infamous Bellamy Blake’s sister, Octavia. She gave us some personal intel on the other participants starting with the games starting “It” boy Jasper Jordan.
“Jasper is your typical class clown, goofy, outrageous and sweet.” Mrs. Green states in her opening, “... he really is the childish heart of our group and is probably the biggest reason we’ve kept the game going as long as we have!”
Upon being asked how long that is exactly she informs us that Mr. Jordan started the game between himself and Monty Green (Harpers’ husband) when they were school boys. Remarkably it carried over into their middle school age where they met some other players (Dr. Clarke Griffin, Finn Collins, Raven Reyes and Wells Jaha). She then goes on to say that the fame evolved as their maturity and intelligence did, although she does snort throughout her statement. “It was clear that out of their entire social circle Clarke was running the show and she was the girl to beat for a while!”
Dr. Griffin had become a game participant by accident, says the long-time player, but her competitive streak simply couldn’t allow for her to walk away! We asked how the group expanded from there. “Well,” she starts, “I didn’t meet Octavia until our senior year of high school, I moved into town pretty late. By that point the game had already absorbed O and when her and Clarke befriended me it just sort of happened. From there her older brother and his friends kind of morphed into our group when we entered college.”
As it appears the friends had attended the same local four year college! “It was completely by choice of each other. We all knew we weren’t going to venture very far and that we wanted to grow alongside one another. It really wasn’t until we graduated college that the game had to be played within a designated time frame.”
She’s gone on to explain that upon graduating with a bachelors in business she had been able to work her way up through management at the local bar -The Dropship, and had eventually become an owner. Within her staff is fellow game player John Murphy who had joined the group as one of the elder Blake’s college friends and his girlfriend Emori. We’ve been told that Emori does not play the game, instead she prefers to facilitate and ensure that all rules are being followed properly. “It really is quite the set up!” Mrs. Green exclaimed. From there she profiled the other players for our readers.
Jasper Jordan is a chemist for the research facility -insert name- just outside of Philadelphia. As one of the team leaders for the lab it is his responsibility to initiate the first round of testing to live cultures. The lab produces -insert percentage of medicine here- for the northeast region of the country. Monty Green is a biology professor with The University of Pennsylvania located in the heart of the city of brotherly love. According to his wife the distance isn’t good for the two men and without each other she isn’t sure what they’d do, but since her position as bar owner allows for her to oversee things from a distance, it’s all worked out. “I spend at least one weekend a month in Arkadia just to make sure my staff is doing well, but my general manager Lincoln always has it under wraps!”
Lincoln Woods is another game player, married to Octavia (O) Blake. While he manages the customers and clientele of The Dropship and ultimately Arkadia, his wife is protecting them. Octavia attended the four year college and graduated with a bachelors in criminal justice before she pursued a career as a police officer for the town she grew up in. In an interesting coincidence her brother Bellamy Blake (who holds the record for nearly ten years as “not it”) is Arkadia's fire department's Captain! His best friend Nathan Miller often played as a “show man”, a term they gave Mr. Miller for his manipulation of other players to make the best moves for his own position in the game as the town's senior detective.
Other players include, Raven Reyes and her husband Miles Shaw, both of which currently reside in Reno, Nevada where Staff Sergeant Shaw is stationed with the United States Air Force. His wife works remotely with the department of defense. “Obviously it’s difficult to keep the game going with them,” Mrs. Green explains, “but that’s part of the reason behind our time frame!” Her pride in her friends breaks through as she goes on to explain the incredible feats Mrs. Shaw-Reyes has overcome in her life. “Our friendships are more than distance and time away from each other, it’s what makes us family.”
And the final player we spoke about was Dr. Clarke Griffin, a pediatric oncologist who currently resides in Washington D.C working in the children’s hospital of Mount Weather. Dr. Griffin is considered hometown royalty as her mother is the Senator born and raised in Arkadia. Her great, great grandfather was one of the founders of the small mountain town back in the late 1800’s just after the Civil War. Her father, a beloved physics teacher and hometown hero within the football department, the young Dr. Griffin has always been the “It” girl of their group. There’s more to her story though, as Mrs. Green softens her eyes and smiles with a tinge of melancholy. “Clarke is probably the reason we’ve all stayed together outside of the game. She is resilient and kind... her life always appeared so easy to us and we were all a little envious of that. At the end of the day she’s had her own battles that none of us even knew about! And it never mattered to her, because she always knew we’d be here-“ she paused to gesture around her, “-her game play is also incredibly wicked and tactile.”
We concluded our time with Mrs. Green discussing former game players and some of the things that could disqualify someone from joining in or continuing to play. “No girlfriends or boyfriends, only spouses.” She explained the main reasoning for Emori’s position as referee. And we also found out that residency outside of the country, cheating (although hard to manage in this type of setting) and intentionally endangering the lives of other players are all grounds for elimination. “Finn decided to travel with the Peace Corp after graduating college, which was fine, but it became too difficult to work it out with his schedule and the tension between him and Raven after their break up was uncomfortable. He bowed out of the game within his first year abroad.
“We’ve only really lost two players permanently, Finn and Wells...” we allowed Mrs. Green a moment to collect her thoughts, “Wells passed away our sophomore year of college. He was always sickly, but none of us except Clarke knew the extent of his illness. She took it the hardest having grown up next door to him. Every year we honor his memory by kicking off the official start of Tag Week with a shared drink at his grave site.”
Attached is the group photo of all original players in the hospital room of Wells Jaha a week before his passing, from top left to right is Bellamy Blake, Jasper Jordan, Nathan Miller and Finn Collins. From the center row left to right sits Clarke Griffin, Wells Jaha and Monty Green. And at the bottom of the bed left to right is Raven Reyes, Octavia Blake and Harper. In the chair to the side of the bed is John Murphy. Their hands simultaneously touch a part of Wells to signify his status as “It” for the game and photo. He passed away a week later.
90 Days Before the Blake Wedding
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
The article made big waves in the group warmly titled “The Delinquents”. For the most part all of the remaining members read on with pride and nostalgia, even Finn who took up permanent residence teaching English in Japan (for now) threw out some positivity in the long since retired group chat. None of them had anticipated the popularity of their game, but when Maya, Jasper’s very serious girlfriend, had mentioned her latest assignment as the socialite reporter for the local news channel he couldn’t help but jump at the chance to shed light on it all. And she was glad he had! The extreme and enduring game of tag within their friend group became a viral phenomenon and the online article became so popular that the producer of the station wanted to showcase the remaining participants in a short special.
The timing couldn’t have been more perfect! Bellamy Blake’s wedding was quickly approaching and like the tactile man that he was, his ceremony and reception would fall right on the second day of the ongoing week. The timing allowed for all of them to participate in their annual kick off with a shared drink at the gravesite of their friend, something that Jasper said he could get permission for Maya to participate and view, maybe even get some short video clips of; from there it would be off to the rehearsal dinner and then the next day was the big celebration! Bellamy would be marrying his fiance Echo Azgeda, whom he had met while on a vacation the previous summer in Costa Rica. He had been there attending the destination wedding of his former college love Gina Martin and Echo had happened to be a guest on the groom's side. According to the two of them their chemistry was immediate.
As this would be Maya’s first time meeting the entire group, the bride included, she only had the accounts of Jasper to go off of. According to him Echo was an outlier, a scientific or mathematical term used to describe a factor that doesn’t seem to fit the rest of the equation. He personally couldn’t figure out what it was about Bellamy that pulled the stern woman to him; Bellamy was fun and passionate and embarrassingly over protective. Echo hadn’t appeared to share any of those qualities. Of course; his opinion came from the opinion of Octavia who had always had the issue of being brutally honest even if it hurt someone's feelings. Octavia didn’t like Echo in any way. Echo was too stuck up, too standoffish, too disinterested in her brother's life that wasn’t centered around her. She was beautiful, sure, but Bellamy could attract any beautiful woman he wanted! The worse offense had been the seemingly unreasonable demands Echo had made for the kickoff of tag. “I mean, she sat both of us down,” Octavia ranted over the phone one night, “grown adults,” she proceeded to get louder and Jasper had to hold the receiver away from his ear to keep from wincing at the shrillness in her voice, “and told us that there would be absolutely no game play at all during the rehearsal dinner, ceremony, or reception. Can you believe that!?”
“I mean, to be fair, it is her wedding day O.”
“Oh please Jas,” he could practically hear the eye roll from the other end of the phone, “you know she picked this weekend intentionally just to fuck with all of us.”
Jasper tried to placate the abrasive woman's temper. “We don’t know that.”
He had failed if Octavia’s snort was any indication; “I do know that.”
And so Octavia proceeded to list her evidence against her brothers’ betrothed… “Think about it Jasper; the one thing that matters the most to my brother is us , the delinquents, and the only time of year the man cracks a real smile and laughs is when we’re all together. Echo reeks of jealousy; she changes the subject whenever our talks of way back when take off and she had explicitly mentioned that she doesn’t believe that Bellamy has time for something as trivial as a childhood game. As if she’s now the one that gets to decide his priorities!
“She’s changed everything from his wardrobe to the decor of his apartment, she has him looking at newly built homes in some cul de sac neighborhood in the upper end of the county. New construction! Anyone who talks to Bellamy for more than five minutes figures out he despises new construction; it’s not sound, it’s not safe, it burns too fast or too hot and blah, blah, blah. And do not get me started on her face whenever Clarke is brought up. It scrunches up as if she smelled a decomposing body left out in the summer heat for too long. What really gets me about that though, is that she went around his apartment and changed out every singular photo of him and Clarke for her and him. It caused a huge fight and I was positive that would be the end of it, but then bam! -Bellamy was all of a sudden muting his best friend on his already limited social media and taking the photos of him and his best friend and packing them away and Clarke ended up reaching out to me to find out what she had done. It was the saddest conversation I’ve ever had with her; and I was the one that just happened to call her within minutes of her finding out her dad died.”
Jasper did have to give Octavia that point, Bellamy and Clarke not talking was something that never ended well. “Okay, but to be fair, anyone from the outside would see their dynamic and feel threatened. I mean Lexa went absolutely crazy about how close Clarke was with Bellamy.”
“And then what happened Jasper?”
“And then…” Jasper paused for dramatic effect, “Clarke broke up with Lexa. Okay, I see your concern. I’m just not convinced that this isn’t all you being you about it.”
Octavia gasped; “And what does that mean? And why do you sound like Lincoln when you say that?”
“Great minds and all that.” She could picture her friend waving his hand around wildly in sarcasm, but remained silent as she awaited his response. “You’ve always shipped Clarke and Bellamy together O. Even when you and Clarke were at odds! Maybe, part of you just isn’t read to let that small bit of hope go. I mean, I was there the night she confessed to having feelings for your brother and we were both there when we watched her run from it instead of handling it like an adult. Sometimes things just aren’t meant to be…”
Octavia contemplated what he had said, it was a long stagnant pause on both receivers before she was able to gather her thoughts properly. “Jasper that was six years ago and Clarke was right. It pains me to say it, but she had to leave. Things were weird between her mother and Marcus, medical school wasn’t an option in Arkadia and my brother wasn’t in the right mindset to handle any of that in the capacity of a relationship with Clarke.”
Jasper let out a low whistle and Octavia couldn’t help but giggle at the sound; “I’m impressed O, that was incredibly insightful.” She was about to agree, but Jasper had jumped right into his next point, ever the scientist, “However, I want to bring forward the fact that most of our friend group has met and socialized with Echo. Granted, things weren’t smooth sailing right off the bat, but even Raven will sing the woman’s praises and Raven praises nobody.”
“Well Raven isn’t the best judge of character, or do we not remember the colossal fuck up that was Raven Reyes and Kyle Wick.”
“I mean, yeah, but we should have seen that coming from a mile away when she started bringing the guy around.”
“She was a grown adult Jas, there were no excuses. She held that grudge with Clarke about Finn for years! And then she made Shaw the exact thing she resented about Clarke; the only difference is that Shaw made her get her act together and stuck by it and Wick just accepted it.”
“The guy was too nice for her.”
“We’re too nice for her.”
“Which isn’t necessarily my point,” Jasper said in an attempt to regain control of the conversation, especially since he noticed the time on his laptop, “my point is that Raven, Monty, Harper, Murphy and Emori all hold Echo in very high regard. There has to be a logical reason for that.”
“Time and distance.”
“Mmm, I’m thinking there’s more to it than that. You live in Arkadia, O, there’s no reason they have more time with Echo than you do.”
Octavia shrugged even though she knew Jasper couldn’t see her, but Lincoln could and the look of disapproval he sent her let her know exactly how he felt about her stirring the pot. “Echo doesn’t like me. She’s told me so. And I don’t like her and I’ve told her so. I don’t trust her and you mark my words Jasper, this is going to be an absolute disaster.”
“I suppose now is a bad time to mention that Maya’s producer is asking for some video clips of our time together to showcase the duration of our friendship and competition.”
Octavia laughed, “I want to be the one to tell Echo!”
60 Days Until the Blake Wedding
The Dropship
Arkadia, North Carolina
“Has anyone spoken to Clarke?”
Murphy wiped at the lacquered wood of the bar with a damp rag as he answered Harper, “Radio silence. Like she fell off the face of the Earth or something.”
“Yeah, or something.” Emori grumbled with a smirk as she passed her disgruntled boyfriend with a teasing slap to his ass. “Last I heard she was in the midst of handling Abby’s care, but I heard that through-”
“Lemme guess?” Murphy pretended to ponder and then snapped his fingers together sarcastically. “Bellamy! The man knows all when it comes to Clarke Griffin.”
Emori bit at her lip and leaned her hip against the bar, pondered her next response until Harper beat her to it. “Cut it out Murphy, everyone here knows that things aren’t right between them right now.” Harper said so without missing a count as she closed up the register, once satisfied she had recorded the correct amount of petty cash she looked up at the intimate crowd that surrounded her. “She actually heard from me and I heard it from O.”
“Which in itself is a novelty moment.” Monty chimed in from his seat a glass of beer half empty in front of him.
“Yeah, well, I made the mistake of calling O to see if she had considered Bellamy’s request to be in the wedding. Next thing I knew she was giving me all the details on the Abby Griffin situation.”
“Okay,” Murphy drew out in exasperation, “and are you going to leave us hanging?”
Harper shrugged in a non committed fashion; “I don’t know Murphy! It’s not my business to tell and I’m sure Clarke wouldn’t appreciate us talking about her personal life without her here. And-”
“And none of us have bothered to reach out to her.” Emori finished shortly with a knowing look sent to her other three companions. “Adulthood is hard and keeping childhood friends is harder, but I’ve been telling you guys for months that something wasn’t right with that girl.”
“Every time I talked to her she seemed fine!”
Monty rolled his eyes, “Babe,” he chastised Harper, “no offense, but Clarke has never been the type to open up about her problems. Only one of us has ever been able to crack her code and he’s otherwise indisposed.”
“Speak for yourself dude!”
“Oh, so you do talk to Clarke then?” Monty challenged Murphy with a knowing look and for a split second Murphy wanted to whack it off of his friend's face.
“Cockroaches stick together.” He had responded and instead of hitting Monty, had returned his attention to the cleaning. “We talked right after Bell announced his engagement.”
“Which time? The private announcement he sent to everyone but Clarke or the social media announcement that she saw three days after it was posted thus causing her to spiral and find out that he’s essentially cut her off?”
“Yes.” he replied quickly to his girlfriend, but he noticed the change in everyone’s demeanor around him. “It was a fucked up thing for him to do and we all know it. We can’t just pretend that we’re not all picking sides here.”
“Team Cockroach!” Emori cheered out as she grabbed a bottle of Twisted Tea from the fridge as she popped it open she winked at Harper.
“Hey now, we already did our daily inventory count.” Harper pouted as she stepped out from behind the bar to take a seat next to her husband. “Lincoln will be very displeased.”
Emori rolled her eyes and took a long sip; “Lincoln can bite me.”
“How come when the giant wants to bite you he can, but when I want to, I’m a freak?”
Murphy heard three groans and short laughs and smirked, he was always the one they relied on to slip the lewd comment in. “Anyway, I heard that this could be Clarke’s final game with us.”
“No way!” Monty exclaimed with disbelief. “Clarke lives for tag, competitive as the best of us, cunning and she’d never miss a chance to honor Wells.”
Murphy shrugged and draped the towel over his shoulder, “I know all that, but when I talked to her last she had gotten interrupted by a phone call. A school in Australia, I didn’t catch all of it but I did my research and found that one of their lead lecturers in their school of medicine is retiring. No idea if she applied for the position or not, but she cut our Zoom call short to take the call.”
“Wow! I mean, that’s incredible and impressive.” Emori said in between sips. “It’s even more incredible that you did any kind of research and somehow pieced all of this together without confirming any of it with her. For all we know she could have reached out for something work related with one of her patients.”
“Oh, good point! Not to mention that she was recently promoted at work.”
Monty hummed and hauled before he sipped at his beer and responded to the chatter. “I don’t know, fleeing to Australia immediately following all of this tension between her and Bellamy is definitely something she’d do. I asked Jas if he heard from her.”
“Yeah? And?”
“He said she sounded rough. She called him to talk about the chemical reactions of some pretty hard drugs. Big hospital narcotics and the like,” he paused to take a sip of his beer, “Jasper was pretty spooked by it. Come to find out it was her mom swiping drugs from the nurses station while she was visiting Marcus through his treatments. All she had to do was sign her name and people just handed it to her. It was a whole mess and it fell on Clarkes’ shoulders.”
“Like everything else in this world.” Murphy grumbled out with a sigh, “Abby never gave a shit if she hurt Clarke.”
“False.” Emori said with her finger pointed towards the rugged man next to her. The incredibly handsome rugged man. “Abby has never done anything to intentionally hurt Clarke; she's just never tried to not hurt her.”
“I don’t know, before Bell met Echo he was the only one she talked to about this stuff. It always seemed to resolve itself between the two of them. Now we’re putting bits and pieces together from different sources and, ugh, it’s a mess.” Harper dramatically thumped her head against her arms she had crossed over the bar. Feeling sympathetic Monty gently rubbed in between her shoulder blades. “Speaking of Bellamy, has anyone talked to him lately?”
“Cool as a cucumber!” Monty chirped happily. “He says he’s ready to be a married man and start a life with his wife.”
“Has he accepted that he won’t be able to participate in this game and therefore will be surrendering his title as reigning champ as of Sunday morning?”
“If he’s thought about it he hasn’t said it, but he did say that he’s appreciative that we’re all understanding Echo's requests.”
“Well it is her wedding day. And she is our friend.” Harper said softly, she had adjusted so that her chin rested on her arms. “It’s a bummer for sure, but I’m positive he’ll be back next year.”
“Yeah, okay.” Murphy bit out. “We should face reality now and accept that this is it you guys. There is not going to be a next year. Whoever wins this round is going to be the final winner and I’ll be damned if we let Bellamy surrender his position because of a forfeit!”
“So what do you suggest we do? Ruin his wedding?”
“I say we confer with the official rule enforcer.” He turned to Emori and smiled. “How about it babe?”
Emori smiles cheekily; “I love when you get into your antics! I’ve actually been thinking about this a lot. Technically there is no rule that says we have to abide by the request. Since Echo is marrying into our family like friendship we should do so regardless, but there’s nothing recorded about adhering to that kind of request.” She took a sip from her bottle to finish it off and let out a triumphant hoot as she tossed it into the trashcan in one shot. “So here’s how I see it. None of you want this tradition to end and I’m sure the same can be said for our missing comrades, no matter how messy some things may be right now, right?”
“Right!”
Emori smiled over at her friend at the bar; “The only way to ensure that next year’s game takes place is if we tag Bellamy. If he ends this year without being tagged it’s all over. Now I talked to Raven, because the woman is a logistical genius, and she reviewed the rules as well. There are special circumstance rules, for example nobody would be allowed to disrupt the official ceremony.”
Murphy laughed; “I forgot about that.”
“Yeah, I had a feeling that one was your doing.” Emori said fondly, quickly returning to business. “So that one is a must follow, but some other rules I think we should adhere to include no excessive force and the three drink rule. The last one is more for Jasper, but we can’t do anything that will risk embarrassing Echo on her wedding day or pushing Bellamy further away.”
“Okay, so we adhere to the basics and then all we have to do is tag Bellamy.” Harper said with cheer, “It works because Clarke is technically still it and we definitely can work with that.”
“Well, yes, except that Clarke wasn’t actually invited to the wedding.”
Monty, Harper and Murphy shared similar expressions of shock mixed with outrage. Before they could bombard her Emori jumped into the explanation; “Echo didn’t feel comfortable inviting her and since she didn’t get her destination wedding in the Bahamas like she wanted she used this as her compromise.”
“That's outrageous!” Harper exclaimed. “They couldn’t hold a destination wedding because they couldn’t afford it! That’s not a compromise at all and Bellamy just… went for it!?”
“Look, I only know what Echo told me the night I helped her with the seating chart. I noticed Clarke wasn’t on the RSVP list and I inquired and that’s what I was told. I didn’t have the nerve to bring it up to any of the three of them.”
“Well now we have two missions and we’re going to need all hands on deck.”
“What are you thinking Monty?”
Monty shrugged; “Obviously we have to fix what’s going on between Bellamy and Clarke. And then we need to tag Bellamy.”
30 Days Until the Blake Wedding
Arkadia Volunteer Fire Company
Arkadia, North Carolina
“Tell Bellamy to come home now.”
Miller huffed into the phone that was pressed between his ear and shoulder; “Hello Echo, how are you tonight? I’m doing great, thank you for asking.”
“Not funny, Bellamy has been out since I set the dinner table and it’s time for him to come home.”
“It’s possible your future hubby is actually busy fulfilling his duty as a civil servant to the citizens of this great city.”
He could hear Echo let out an exaggerated breath; “Look, it took forever to figure out what all the noise from his pager meant, but I did. I’m just asking you to remind him that he has responsibilities here at home too.”
Miller rolled his eyes in response, not that Echo could see, but he hoped she could feel the disdain for this conversation through his tone. “Had it ever occurred to you that I’m nowhere near Bellamy and actually busy with my own personal life?”
“If you are, I'm sorry, but this is important.” Echo tried to use patience as she talked to her fiancee’s difficult best friend. Although if she was being honest she felt that all of his friends were especially difficult. “We had a fight and I’m trying to offer a sincere apology, but I can’t do that if he’s going to hide out at the station. Despite what you may think about me, I learned my lesson the last time and will not show up there again.”
“Look,” Miller started as he pondered his choices from the vending machine -which had been what he was attempting to do when she originally called him. “I get that this is difficult for you. It’s not easy being a fireman’s wife, but nothing I say to Bell is going to make him return home any faster. I’m sorry you two are fighting, but it’s life and that happens.”
Echo pondered what she heard through the phone carefully before she responded. “Can you just tell him that I love him? I know you aren’t my biggest fan and I know I haven’t made it easy for you, but I really do love him. I just want him to know that.”
Miller took equal time to form his response, “I’ll tell him…” he started as he pressed the buttons that would release the glazed honey bun to his clutches, “and in brutal honesty, you haven’t made it easy for anyone else that loves him. We accepted you because you make Bell happy, but you have yet to accept his own sister let alone any of his friends.”
“You know that’s not true! I’ve tried with Octavia and she just… she’s impossible. Even her husband agrees with that.” Miller would give her that one, but he’d never say so out loud. “However, I feel at home with his friends. Harper and Emori are fantastic friends and Raven is basically like my sister! Murphy and Monty are great too and I know I haven’t met Jasper yet, but he sounds sweet. You’re really the only person I haven’t been able to crack.”
“Well maybe that’s because I’m not your biggest fan and I won’t lie to Bellamy just to please him.”
“Come on Miller, what did I ever do to you?”
Miller let out a bark of laughter; “It’s not me I’m pissed off about. Look, I’ll talk to Bell and relay the message but that’s all I’m doing for you. Have a good night Echo.”
He hung up as he bent over to retrieve the treat he had been craving. Something about the iced honey buns that really did it for him. Then he turned around and made his way back into the officers room adjacent to the vending machine. He used the electronic fob on his key ring to gain access and saw the man in question typing away at a computer with a stack of reports in front of him. A common Tuesday night scene for them, and no Miller was not kidding. “You and Echo have a fight?”
Bellamy didn’t miss a beat when he offered his explanation; “Yeah, something like that. We just know what buttons to push, ya’ know?”
Miller spoke around his bite of pastry, “If I’m being honest, no, not really.” he took a moment to swallow and fold the plastic wrap back for another bite. “She called me while I was in the hall, wanting me to tell you she loves you.”
“I know she loves me.” Bellamy did a small stretch of his hands and shoulders and shook his head briefly. “I love her too and she knows that. I just had to get out and clear my head.”
“Alright.” Miller continued to enjoy his treat and play around on his phone. The men lapsed into a silence they were both familiar with. It’s what made their friendship so ideal to Miller, there was never any need to force anything. If something was going on with one, the other could wait patiently until necessary. Both men had been hot headed teenagers and it had often gotten them into trouble, until David Miller (Nathan’s own father) brought them to the station and put them to work. When the time came for them to qualify for interior firefighting they both passed easily enough, but Bellamy hung on to it and was one of the few members that stayed on from the transition from volunteer to paid. Miller always respected that about his friend, but he personally had little desire to give up all he worked for with the police department for the chance to get paid to ride the truck.
So the two men sat until the sensor lights in the enjoy bay turned off and the illumination of the officers room was all that was left. At which point Bellamy let out an exhausted sigh and pushed back from the desk, “Echo would like for us to move to New York City or at least closer so that she could commute to the city daily.”
“That’s where she’s from?”
Bellamy nodded and crossed his arms over his chest, the tell-tale sign that he was about to talk himself out of the situation he was currently in. “When we first met she had just been laid off from the law firm she was working at. The woman who owned the firm sounded like a piece of work, but there wasn’t much that Echo could really do. She’s not a lawyer, she’s a paralegal and even if she did her job well she didn’t have any status to support or back her up when the job cuts came.”
“She was happy to move down here and be with you so quickly because she didn’t have many options.”
“Yeah, we kept it a long distance for a little while, but the job hunt on her end just wasn’t going anywhere. So I asked around the county to see if there was anything available and with the potential job came the offer for her to move in with me. Which is great! The only other woman I was serious about was Gina and that was years ago, man.”
Miller didn’t argue, though he did roll his eyes, “Okay, so she accepts your help with housing and a job. You two live together for a bit and then you’re engaged, these order of events are actually pretty normal. And talks of moving are normal too, so why shut her down so hard?”
“How do you know I shut her down?”
Miller extended his arms in front of him in exasperation, earning a chuckle from his friend. “Ok, I concede your point. I was pretty adamant about not leaving.”
“So now bring on the next question, why not?”
“I don’t know!” Bellamy repeated the arm motion, only this time it seemed more in distress than expression. “She showed me some great houses outside of the city that were doable with our savings right now, showed me some decent spots in the city too. She knows I’ve talked about potentially going back for a masters in history of some kind, so she had information on NYU and their programs as well as more affordable options surrounding the city. And it all seemed so plausible until I asked what we would do work wise. She sent my resume out to the American Museum of Natural History.”
Miller blinked and nodded; “Alright, that’s not so bad. It’s a little pushy, but it’s not so bad. Would you not want to do that?”
“It’s not that, it’s that she just assumed that’s what I want. I’ve never been to New York City, but it sounds God awful. I have a hard enough time when I’m up visiting Jasper in Philadelphia! So I started to get a little defensive; started pushing. I wanted to know what she was going to do and I wanted to know why this came up all of a sudden when we were just looking at houses just outside of Arkadia a few weeks ago. As it appears the son of her hard-ass boss has recently inherited the firm and he has specifically sought out Echo to return.”
“Now we’re talking.” Miller quipped. “So what? Are they friends? Were they an item? Do you know this guy? Do you trust Echo?”
“Of course I trust Echo.” Bellamy glared over at his friend, but continued on regardless. “She got defensive talking about him. She said that she had a real sense of purpose when she worked for that firm and that she even had thoughts of going back to law school. She didn’t mention him in any more detail other than he was the boss’s son and a hard-ass attorney, he worked on a lot of high profile cases and the best exposure to the more challenging work came from his office. Echo wanted to know why I was so hung up on this town when there are other, better fitting, opportunities for me out there and I just…”
Miller waited patiently a moment before he prodded his friend; “Bell, I get it man, this is your home. You grew up here, you’ve spent your whole life here and you have established a career and community reputation. I don’t love the idea of you moving so far away, but it doesn’t sound like what Echo is seeking for is too much.”
“She accused me of waiting around for Clarke .”
Miller snapped his mouth shut and the silence grew thicker as Bellamy repeatedly rubbed his eyes with his hands. There were no tears, but he was exhausted and he could feel the heaviness behind his eyes. “I told her that was crazy, I haven’t talked to Clarke in months and I respectfully put distance between her and I for Echo’s peace of mind.”
“Which is bullshit and not one of us actually believes that for a second. We just haven’t had the nerve to ask you what happened there.”
“Clarke and I had a fight when I told her that Echo was moving in.” Bellamy swallowed and played around with the mouse of the computer, just to keep his hands busy. “She said she hadn’t realized how serious I was about this girl and I took it personally. I don’t even know why , man, she said it and I just snapped. I asked why it mattered so much to her and then it escalated because she deflected and I was just so tired of hearing her deflections that I lashed out.
“She said she was asking out of concern and that she didn’t mean to insinuate anything and I hated that response. Absolutely hated that she was being diplomatic with me so I threw some low blows. I told her she couldn’t understand because she’s never allowed herself to feel that way about anyone before and that when she does she runs from it. She didn’t respond right away and that pissed me off some more so I started throwing more hits; I told her that she’s always been better off alone and that if she wasn’t the one calling the shots she wasn’t interested and then I threw her moms’ relationship with Marcus Kane in her face.”
“Oh damn,” Miller whispered, “Bell, why didn’t you say anything?”
“How could I?” He exclaimed with a truly hurt expression on his face. “I found out about a day later that her mom was caught sneaking money out of her daughters trust fund while Marcus has been getting treatment for lymphatic cancer, to fund her drug addiction. I didn’t have time to really fix it before Echo moved in and for the first month of us living together all I did was talk about Clarke and our fight and I tried reaching her and I would get distracted and in all that time I never once reached out to Clarke herself.”
Miller nodded along; “So when Echo made those demands you agreed and hoped for what? That Clarke would reach out?”
“I figured she’d have to at some point, we’ve never not worked through something.”
Miller shook his head, “Dude you’re in trouble. On many levels.”
“Yeah, well that’s why I’m here…” he gestured to his surrounding area, “and not at home with my future wife.”
“Well from my point of view you have two questions to ask yourself;” Miller held up one finger, “are you ready to move to New York?” He put up another one. “And if you aren’t, are you waiting for Clarke?”
And for the life of him, Bellamy Blake just didn’t know the answer to either.
Seven Days Until the Blake Wedding
Mt. Weather Children’s Hospital, Doctor’s Lounge
Washington, D.C.
Clarke heard her cell phone from somewhere under the pile of papers on the small desk that she had utilized in hopes of getting some of her records caught up. That was three hours, one code and two other emergency calls ago and she still hadn’t gotten through much. With her impending vacation time she knew she couldn’t put the work off. Unfortunately in her time as a new and young doctor she’s had a “remarkable” track record as Dr. Dante Wallace would say. Dr. Wallace had pushed her to her absolute limit when she was on her rotations with him, but she was absolutely determined to make it in the mentally demanding world of pediatric care. With the exception of the week she took off to go back to her hometown to continue on with her yearly tradition of tag.
Her very first year under Dr. Wallace, he hadn't taken her seriously. In fact, he had laughed at her and demanded to know what tag stood for. She tried to explain it to him again, but to no avail. Eventually she had to call in reinforcements and so naturally she chose her scientist friends Jasper and Monty and her cop friend Nathan Miller. All three of which gave the crotchety old man the same explanation as her. He did grant her the time and it had become an unofficial rule that Dr. Griffin was off the same week every year.
There were no exceptions.
This year was no different; although Clarke’s original enthusiasm was replaced with anxiety. See, this year was the start of a permanent shift throughout the group. They were all getting older and looking to settle down, i;e Bellamy marrying Echo. They were all looking at busier and busier schedules as each year came. On top of that there was an unsettling distance that started to spread amongst her chosen family, and it felt like Clarke was on the furthest edge. Not that she had done a whole lot to prevent it. Her trip home in the upcoming week would be the first trip home in exactly a year. The guilt ate at her! Yet, there was only so much she could do and she already shouldered so much throughout the last few years.
In a rational way she knew if she had just opened up to her friends they could have helped. It was just that it wasn't something Clarke was able to do! As a child asking for help was a mark of failure, and you didn’t fail in the Griffin household. Her father tried his hardest to lighten the tension that rested naturally between Clarke and her mother, but then Jake Griffin was killed by a drunk driver when she was seventeen. The tension got thicker because Clarke resented her mother’s nonchalance and her mother resented Clarke for her rebellion during that time. It was a never ending circle of aggression and repression. It was unhealthy and nobody knew just how much it had affected Clarke.
Save for Bellamy, who had always known Clarke the best.
That included all the ways he could hurt her best. He had apparently perfected the art, if their last phone call was anything to show for it. Then it was like she had never existed to him and all the while her friends sung the praises of the love of his life. It brought back so many of the insecurities that she faced as the only well-off child in their friend group. Yes, she could afford the nicer things, but there was always some reason to resent her. She thought as they had all grown closer throughout the trials of life and their unique bond of friendship that those differences would cease to exist.
Clarke took it upon herself to make herself irreplaceable to them. She shouldered all of their struggles and problems. She took the brunt of their frustrations and their judgment of her life. She took on the relationship Raven built with her own mother with a smile, because Raven lost both of her parents and spent most of her life with an aging grandmother and an ignorant aunt. She handled the anger of Octavia and Jasper when they blamed her for all the wrongdoings of the world after Clarke’s roller coaster of a relationship with Lexa. She took responsibility for the things Lexa did to them, said to them that Clarke hadn’t been aware of and she had done so with a straight back and assertive nature.
Clarke was the mother hen of the group; reminding them all to study for their finals, eat their vegetables and drink water with their liquor. She was the caregiver when one of them was ill, dropping everything on her plate to ensure that someone was there to take care of her people, but never dared ask for the same treatment in return. And after her bout of pneumonia that had her hospitalized for three days during one of their winter breaks in college, she had stopped expecting it too. She made sure everyone’s holidays were filled to the brim with tacky decorations and cheer and lights, because so many of her friends just didn’t have that experience and they thought she did, so she tried for them. She stopped when Murphy brought Emori for the first time and remarked on how much the affair really cost and how the simplicity of the holiday should be what’s remembered, because it’s the memories that stick with you.
Clarke loved her because she was right.
Yet, through all of these unsure moments Bellamy had always been there. Granted, it came a long time after their rivalry and consistent head butting, and bickering… and long talks that led them both to an understanding of each other. It was only natural that Clarke would allow herself to feel safe enough to somehow develop feelings for him. Therefore it was natural that she blocked those feelings; the timing was never right, they were both with different people, she was in medical school, until finally it was just made obvious that he hadn’t felt the same way. So Clarke did what she learned to do when confronted with overwhelming self-loathing and emotional distress.
She worked her ass off and then left.
Clarke thought that maybe things had shifted after a few years of space. She had realized that what she wanted in life was to have a family, a real one, that was all hers. She wanted the hush quiet of a small town neighborhood and the steady pace of a regular work schedule. She wanted someone to come home to, but more importantly she wanted to go home. She wanted to return to Arkadia and she had wanted to embrace all of these newfound things about her! She had wanted to confront the man that she looked for in every partner of her adult life! She wanted Bellamy Blake , and then…
Her mother depleted her trust fund to fuel her drug addiction.
Her mother’s husband started treatment for lymphatic cancer.
Her long term care patient lost both of her parents and a younger brother to a drunk driver. The flashback of pain upon finding that out from the aloof social worker was almost enough to put Clarke over the edge.
Then, just as things were starting to look up, the man she loved called her to tell her about this incredible woman he met on vacation. He sounded so excited and happy on the phone that Clarke didn’t have the heart to say anything else but pleasantries. She should have done the same when he called to tell her that Echo agreed to move in with him, but she had been exhausted and it was the straw that broke the camel's back. Then he got angry and Clarke just couldn’t understand, it had been so long since anger was shared between them! He said awful things, things that he knew she already felt and it was like a lightbulb moment for her. That had been the moment she realized, Bellamy didn’t and couldn’t love her.
And in a wine induced pity party she convinced herself that none of the others really did either. So why was she still planning to spend a week with them? She wasn’t sure. Maybe it was to give herself some closure, or maybe she was actually a masochist. More than likely it was because revoking the week off would raise red flags amongst her coworkers and Clarke just didn’t have the energy to face any of them. So she instead made plans to head back to Arkadia to spend a week with her favorite people, one last week of tag!
The logistics were the same as always, she would stay with Murphy and Emori, Raven and Shaw had a hotel room booked at the hotel on the opposite side of town from the hotel that Jasper and Monty booked. Nate Miller would open his dad's basement up for their usual huddles, because they really all had the same objective and that was to tag Bellamy. And speaking of which, that man would be chugging protein shakes and grading papers and saving lives without so much as blinking and will still manage to remain untagged. Although she was hopeful that some of her brainier friends had put together an actual plan this year, when she spoke to Jasper just a couple weeks ago he sounded maniacal with what he had come up with.
Maniacal was always impressive when it came to Jasper Jordan.
The buzzing of her cell phone continued, so whoever was calling had purpose, and Clarke scrambled desperately in search of the iPhone she refused to update even though it was two models behind. Eventually -after misplacing several pieces of her medical records, which would require extra dedication to fixing later in the evening, she found it. She was delighted to see that it was in fact Raven calling her! More than likely to confirm their steadfast plans; Raven and Shaw fly into Richmond, Clarke picks them up on her way down so that nobody has to go out of their way to Wilmington or Raleigh or Charlotte. She offered to pick Jasper up as well, but he insisted on driving down with his girlfriend (who Clarke was ecstatic to meet).
“Hey!” Clarke answered breathlessly, as if wrestling loose papers could warrant the wheezing gasps she was letting out.
Raven clearly found it funny because she chuckled before responding. “Babe, all these years and I still manage to take your breath away? I’m flattered.”
“Haha,” Clarke replied, but the smile was evident in her voice, “very funny. I misplaced my phone in my stack of records to complete and it became a bit of a war zone.”
“A war well fought I hear.”
“You could say that, so what’s up?”
“Nothing new! I’m just confirming everything for next week.” Down to business, Raven recited the flight information (for the third time) and reminded Clarke that she was more than welcome to stay at the hotel with her and Shaw (for the upteenth time). “I still stand by my original statement.”
“What original statement?” Clarke mumbled as she attempted to reorganize the files in hopes of salvaging at least a portion of her evening.
“Boycotting the wedding on Saturday. I know for a fact Murphy would too and we can probably get Octavia to join us.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Clarke scoffed, “You should go and be there with them on their big day. You’re their friend!”
“You don’t have to do this.”
“I’m not doing anything, well no, I’m trying to reorganize these records, but no such luck.”
Raven sighed into her phone dramatically, “You don’t have to pretend that this doesn’t bother you or try and convince us that we’re okay with it too. You’re just as much as our friend as he is and it’s beyond fucked up what he’s doing right now.”
“It doesn’t matter Raven… besides it’s probably for the best.”
“Don’t do that either.”
Clarke laughed, a little hysterically and maybe a little sad too; “Do what?”
“You love Bellamy, like love him and you’re allowed to be hurt and angry about this! You’re human Clarke!” Clarke let out a breath as Raven continued her tirade. “I get that you’ve spent your whole life denying that fact, but you can’t just force your emotions down and away forever. You literally have been told not to by a professional. Multiple times. And what kind of example do you think that’s going to set for Madi?”
“I would agree with you if I was suppressing my emotions, however, I’m not. I had my emotional upset over this, I had my time of self-pity and depression and a few other not so pleasant personal experiences. I worked through the anger and my therapist hasn’t had to walk me through any of it this time.” Clarke paused to catch her breath; “Madi is a bright young lady and she’s far more aware of her emotions than I ever was at her age, in fact she’s suggested I take up coloring.”
Raven snorted, “Coloring? Really? Does the girl know you could mimic a Picasso in almost any medium?”
“Eh, that’s neither here nor there, my point is that you all want me to have this explosive episode and that’s just not who I am anymore. And part of that is because of Madi, because I want her to see that it’s okay to be upset for a while, but eventually you have to move on.”
“Ew, who thought you’d make an insightful mother.”
“Thanks, I think it’s the desire to break the trend of poor mother daughter relationships in my family.”
“Spot on, but…” and Raven emphasized the but very strongly, “I still think you’re faking it.”
“Well if I wanted your opinion on the matter I would have asked.”
“Ah yes, but the thing about that is, it’s never really an opinion if I’m usually right.”
Clarke laughed once more, “Your humility astounds me more and more.” Both girls remained silent for a few moments before Clarke spoke again, this time much softer. “Did you mean it?”
“Mean what?”
“That you’d boycott the wedding for me?”
“Don’t be stupid! Of course I mean that, how could I not choose the girl who always chose me?”
Clarke smirked softly into her phone, “I appreciate the lie, it was very convincing.”
Raven remained in contemplative silence for a moment, but when she spoke next her voice was unusually soft. “How do you know I’m lying?”
“Because it’s the twenty-first century Raven and we’re millennials.” Raven huffed out a short breath at the sarcasm from her friend. “You, Harper and Emori are all really bad at the discrete social media thing.”
“So all this time you knew we’re in the wedding?”
“Yup.” Clarke popped the ‘p’ as she continued to skim through the files once more to make sure she had gotten them all right. “It’s why I never talked to any of you guys about it, it would be wrong of me to put you in that kind of position and from what I’ve gathered about Echo she doesn’t have a lot of close friends and family. She needs you guys more than I do at the moment.”
“You’re too damn good Griffin and I’m sorry we kept it from you.” Raven tried to disguise the emotion in her voice by adding in a quick quip; “Poorly, we apparently poorly hid it from you and thus rubbed it in your face unintentionally.”
“Nah,” Clarke waved her off, in an attempt to keep the gentle teasing going, “I did get to talk to Murphy about it. He made me feel a lot better, he’s only invited as Emori’s plus one. And Octavia said if she wasn’t related to the groom she wouldn’t go.”
“So you and Lincoln talked her into going.”
“More so Lincoln than myself, but yeah, pretty much.”
“I still feel shitty about it.”
“I think,” Clarke pondered while she shuffled through some of the papers in her hands, “that’s a fair feeling to have.”
Raven groaned; “Ok, ok, I promise we’re going to make it up to you.” To Raven’s delight Clarke let out another little laugh and unlike the last few this one sounded sincere. The girls continued to talk and catch up, but eventually Clarke did have to disconnect. The paperwork wasn’t about to finish itself and Raven still had some research to sort through. They ended their call just a few minutes later, but Raven thought about it everyday until her flight took off. Guilt wasn’t something the Latina learned to handle.