He didn't turn the radio back on when he flicked the turn signal on and pulled back onto the road. He didn't ask her to chose a tape for him, even though it was his turn. And he didn't say anything more. Occasionally he glanced over in her direction and she thought maybe he was looking at her, but he was just checking the mirror on the door beside her.

She tried to ignore the cold shiver that went down her spine every time she hoped that maybe, just maybe he was looking at her, and he wasn't.

I'm a way to keep busy.

I'm still some nobody in a pick-up truck.

That's who I am Clarke. We both know it.

His words were rolling around and around in her head and she couldn't breathe at the thought that she'd made him feel like that. This man, this soft, broken boy beside her, who'd watched her flounder at a gas station, looking for somewhere to go-somewhere other than the bus stop she'd just walked away from-and taken her in. The guy who let her cry and spit and rage beside him, who let her hold him and touch him and be touched, just to forget, and he thought he was nobody.

And she made him think like that.

It was too much to bear when he showed her his hands, held them up in hers, not to touch her, not to be close to her, but to let her know exactly why they never would be.

And she let him think that's what it all was.

He was infuriating and a grouch, but she'd been drowning in three inches of water and he'd flipped her around so she could breathe.

She kept watching him out of the corner of her eye, watching as he pulled his bottom lip between his teeth, gnawing at it instead of talking to her, watched as his knuckles turned white, gripping the steering wheel hard, then loosening again, his fingers stretching out while his thumbs stayed hooked on the wheel. He kept his eyes steady and forward, his face schooled into indifference, but a careful indifference, one there just for her.

It's fine, Clarke, he'd said. Don't worry about it.

Unable to sit with the silence washing over her, Clarke reached down to her bag at her feet and pulled out her sketchbook. She flipped the pages between her fingers, glimpses of each sketch jumping out at her. A few of her dad, from pictures in the house. One of her mom, smiling at her, eyes still full of sadness, but laughing with her back pressed to the washing machine, her feet, bare and thin sticking out in front of her. A few of the truck, with it's chipped paint and crooked mirror. One of the lake.

And Bellamy.

Over and over and over again. Scattered in the pages, between sketches of coffee mugs and muffins and wide stretches of road. His face, his eyes, his hands. One of a stray curl falling over his forehead, over his eyebrow, poking at his eye. One of his tongue slipping out wetting his lips, like he did every time he turned the wheel or changed the lane. One of him bent over the box of tapes, fingers touching the labels, picking which one to play next.

Over and over, he was there in the pages.

Her breath caught in her throat. Idiot, she thought. You stupid, stupid girl.

There it was, covering nearly every page and she hadn't even noticed it.

Of course that's what it all was. Even from the beginning. The jealousy at the bar when the waitress flirted with him, the heat of her skin every time she thought about his hands on her, the wholeness she felt when he joked with her, when he smiled at her, when she caught a glimpse of happiness in his eyes, from her.

Of course that's what it was.

She wanted to let her head fall against the window with a thud, to close her eyes and slip into the seat until there wasn't a difference between her and the old worn fabric beneath her legs, to slip into nothing for being so slow.

Instead she flipped to a clean page and watched the stroke of the charcoal darken it.

The noise filled the fragile air, the scratching of the tip against the page in hard and fast strokes, or smooth long waves, back and forth and back and forth until it all faded into the background again. It folded into the humming of the engine and the roll of the tires over the gravel, and soon she felt the silence wash over them again, without the pressing weight of before.

She didn't notice him pull into a rest stop until the car was parked and she heard the twist of him pulling the key out of the ignition.

"I'm hungry," he said at her questioning glance. He hesitated for a moment, but caught her eye. "Want anything?"

She nodded, reaching down to rifle through her bag, searching for the wallet at the bottom. She pulled it out, and grabbed a few bills, handing them over to him.

"Get whatever you want," she said. "Just grab a bag of potato chips, alright?"

He twisted his lips to the side, like he wanted to say something, but he just nodded and didn't ask her to go in with him. He slipped the bills into his pocket and pressed the door shut, walking away from the truck with his hands shoved in his pockets and his shoulders tense.

It didn't surprise her when she looked down at her sketchpad and found his hands, dark and dirty, gripping into her legs on the page. She'd drawn his fingers pressing into the soft skin on her thighs, just like he'd done a few nights ago, with his thumbs looping down toward the mattress below her, hooking them around not to lose his grip.

She sighed as she kept shading, wondering if this would be another one she kept tucked in her sketchpad, just for her. One to look back on when all this was over, when they back where they started in different cities. Strangers. It seemed wrong that they were ever strangers, and worse that soon that's all they would be again. Like a sharp poke to the gut with a piping hot stick every time she thought of it.

She jumped at the sound of the driver's side door slamming as Bellamy slid in next to her, dropping a bag of chips in her lap, a bottle of Coke between his fingers. She reached down to grab the bag, her hands stained dark from rubbing against her drawing. The entire side of her left pinky covered in grey, the tips of her fingers all tinted.

"Hey," she said, reaching her hand over. She caught his eye and smiled when he looked over at her, trying to keep it light. "Look." she held her stained hands over his. "Not so different."

A soft, sad smile played over his face, his eyes giving him away. He shook his head.

"You really, really don't get it."

She felt a burst of heat bubble up in her chest. A desperate, angry wave warming her skin because he was so damn stubborn that he'd rather stay broken and distant from her than just reach out and grab the olive branch she was handing him. That he was practically thrusting over to him, saying let me fix this I promise I won't break it again, and he'd rather stay cracked and fragile.

"Right," she said, sitting back in her seat. She ripped the bag open and shoved a few chops in her mouth. "Right, I forgot. You're just a taxi and I'm just a way for you to make some quick cash."

She was doing it again. Poking. Prickling. Working him up. And she could see it was working. She could see the red flush working it's way over his cheeks, steam practically spilling out of his ears as he tried to keep his face schooled and calm.

"You want me to apologize for that?" His voice was thin and sharp. Unforgiving. "For taking the chance to make some quick cash after I've had to spend 7 grand a year on AZT to watch my mom die slower? And still have to find money to put my sister through college? You want me to feel bad about taking an opportunity?"

She felt her mouth snap shut.

There was nothing, nothing she could say to something like that. How could she ever find a way to apologize for it all? For everything he'd been through, everything that brought him to her, and everything she'd caused between them since they'd met?

And yet.

Some small, selfish part of her felt a sharp poke between her ribs because he hadn't even bothered denying the fact that all she was to him was a way to make some quick cash.

She heard him sigh.

"The guy in the shop said there was a motel up the road," he said. "Let's just stop for the night."

They'd gotten into a routine somehow, in the few days they'd been together.

He watched as Clarke slipped out of the truck before him, walking right into the main building. There was a poster over the window, some ad from a local shop blocking his view of her face, but he watched her hand stretch across the counter and hand over her credit card, and a hand reach toward hers with a key.

He'd just gotten out of the car, his bag slung over his shoulder and hers resting in the bed of the truck beside him, when she came out of the office.

"Room six," she said, pulling her bag out of the truck, brushing against his hip before she propped it over her shoulder.

The room was small. There was one little window, on the same wall as the door, so frosted over and stained that the only thing you could see out of it was a blur of shapes and shadows as they moved by the room. He scuffed his feet against the yellowing carpet and tried to ignore the big brown stains splattered over it a few feet in front of them.

It was the bed though, that made them pause as they stepped in the room. The one bed in the center of the room. It had a dark blue quilt thrown over it and four sad looking, limp pillows at the head of it.

It was big enough for the two of them but only just, and unless they stuck themselves on the edges of the mattress, their sides lining up with the sides of the mattress, hoping they wouldn't tip off in the night, there would be no room for space between them.

Clarke dropped her bag on the ground with a thud, startling him out of his thoughts.

"I'm gonna go take a shower." She raised an eyebrow at him. "You planning on taking one tonight? I'll go quick."

He shook his head.

"No," he said. "Take your time, I'll take one in the morning."

He heard the sound of her feet padding across the floor and the click of the bathroom door as she pulled it closed behind her, and he waited until he could hear the sound of the water running before moving, sighing as he flopped down onto the bed.

He toed his boots off his feet as he laid there, wondering if he should wait for her to come out to talk again, to offer to sleep on the floor, or something, or if he should just buck up and slide into his side of the mattress.

A few minutes passed without decision, and then he grit his teeth and dug through his bag for a pair of sweatpants to pull on before he decided to just bite the bullet and climb into the bed and under the covers, pressing himself the furthest he could to the side, drawing a thick line in the mattress for his side and hers.

It had been back and forth all day in his head. High, moving higher and higher up and crashing back down. Flopping back and forth between angry and frustrated and hopeful, but he was tired. She was going to come out of that bathroom and slip under the covers next to him, an inch of quiet, fragile air between them and he was going to have to make a decision.

There was an itch between his ribs, a niggling worry that even after all of it, everything that had happened in the past few days, she was counting the moments down until they reached San Francisco so she could leave him. Like the marker of the city was all it was going to take for her to hop out of the truck with a wave and be on her way, a memory, a ghost in his mind he'd probably never shake, one he'd definitely never understand.

He squeezed his eyes shut as he realized that it wasn't worry digging into his chest. It was fear. Not all consuming, not crippling, just there. Annoyingly present in every breath he took in putting off talking to her, growing every time he forced himself to avoid her eye.

He wasn't sure what was going to happen when she finally did leave. And the clock was ticking down, shaking him as he realized that he hadn't even told her yet that he was happy, in some weird twisted way that she'd stumbled across him, kicking his truck in that gas station. That in the few days they'd spent together he'd felt the steadiest he had in years, like his head was finally getting clear and his legs were solidly on the ground.

An odd steadying force, wobbling with every wall they put up, every mask they plastered on each morning, but one that was there as much as she could be. Better than most of the people from home who watched him and his life happen and fall apart around him.

When he wasn't crying or yelling he felt calm, something he hadn't felt in years, and that in itself was a miracle, one he thought might be exclusive to the slippery days on the road. He'd nearly half forgotten that he'd never be anybody so long as he was Bellamy Blake.

He should probably thank her for that, and instead he'd spent the whole trip fucking it up.

His eyes were still shut when the bathroom door creaked open and she shuffled into the bed beside him, the mattress dipping enough that his left shoulder slipped closer to her as his side tilted downwards.

He let his eyes flutter open as her hands, scrubbed red and raw and clean in the shower, reached down to pull the covers up and over herself. He sucked in a breath and she moved to hide them under the covers but he reached a hand of his own out to grab one of hers before she did.

"Shouldn't have said what I did," he whispered. He turned on his side, facing her while his hand still rubbed softly over hers.

She was looking at him with soft sad eyes, and he knew that even if someday they could see each other again, he wouldn't deserve to.

"No," she shook her head. "You had every right to say it. I was so, so out of line today."

"Maybe I had every right," he said, testing the waters. "But I didn't have to be such a dick about it."

She coughed out a laugh at that, her fingers wrapping around his hand.

"It's not an excuse," he carried on. Might as well get it all out now. "But I've always had to be a dick to get people to listen to me. With my mom's health and all I was constantly the bad guy, making a scene until somebody helped us out. I couldn't really do it any other way, and I had to have them-my mom and O-taken care of."

She was closer to him than when she'd slipped under the covers, he felt one of her knees bump his.

"And I hear you say things like how you might not go back to school and it just reminds me how different we are. It puts another link in the chain between us because you've got all these opportunities and that's what's scaring you." He felt his face flush and he tried to ignore the way her eyes widened the longer he went on. If he didn't say it now he never would, and she deserved to at least know something of the truth.

Even if it wasn't everything.

"But I'm…" he shook his head. "I'm nobody. I've got nothing. And I'm never going to be able to be anybody else if I go back to Ark, but I've got nowhere else to go."

It's not an apology, which is what she deserves, but the words make his ribs widen and let his lungs expand like he can finally breathe. Because even if she hates him and is counting down the minutes until they get to San Francisco so she can leave him, at least he finally said it all, out loud. It was out there now, and he couldn't take it back so now he just had to deal with it. For better or for worse. And there was only forward.

"It doesn't matter," Clarke whispered. "What you said before. We both said things we didn't mean today."

He nodded, watching her. She kept her eyes fixed on him, making sure that he was watching, that he heard her. It had been a mess of a day and it was time to try and clean it up.

"You picked me up," she shrugged. "A stranger at a gas station with a ridiculous proposition that would have had anyone else calling the cops and you barely even thought twice about it."

She knew he was about to protest, she could see his eyebrows scrunching together and his mouth opening but she didn't leave a space for it.

"I couldn't do anything in my own life that didn't make me feel like screaming and you gave me an out, and even if we've fought half the time-or more than half the time," she added at his smirk. "I'm not stuck and I'm not numb and I'm done screaming."

"Clarke-"

"You looked after me," she said simply. "Even when we barely knew each other. You made sure I called someone from home. You made sure we ate. It might be second nature for you but it's not nothing. And neither are you."

How many days had it been? Three? Four? She wasn't sure anymore. It was all waves in her head cycles of highs and lows on the road and in motels, and the actual days had blurred together, all in the shape of him, the guy in front of her who'd given her a glimpse at something she'd never seen in life before now.

She pushed herself forward on the bed and reached her free hand out to grab at his other. She loves his hands. Wide and rough and dark, stained from years of work, but light whenever he touched her. They were her favorite. He wasn't expressive in his face, hardened and blocked away from anything that might give away too much in his eyes or his smile or his voice.

He was expressive in his hands. They way they looked casually forced at his sides whenever he was uncomfortable, or clenched together, behind his back when he didn't want to let anything show. They'd drum on his leg or a table when he was lost in thought or antsy. They did the talking for him, most of the time, even when they were stuffed away in his pockets.

She loved his hands.

And she loved the way they were pulling her toward him, one slipping out of her grasp to run its way up her arm and behind her neck, playing with the hair back before moving down, skimming across the top of her spine and shoulders. Her sleep shirt was thin, nearly threadbare and she could feel every callous in his palm moving against the fabric, barely pressing into her skin.

She started thinking of the other night, when she pulled him on top of her, when he found her crying in that hotel room and when he left moments after they'd finished, barely pulling his boots on before he was out the door. She remembered the way his hands felt then, tough pressing against her. Different than they did now, worn and rough still, but warm.

How many days since then? A month? A year? Just a moment? The memories flooded her in waves, dipping her in and out of where she was, pressed nearly into his chest on the bed with his hand slowly working over her back and she couldn't stop the smile that worked it's way on to her face when she realized how different she felt with him now.

He'd propped himself up on his elbow, slightly above her so he could move his other hand into her hair as his right hand stroked down her spine. She felt herself turning, her neck pressing back into the pillows and her back trapping his hand between her shirt and the mattress. She watched him as he leaned down, his bottom lip between his teeth and his eyes wide and searching, closer and closer to her with every breath.

"I don't want to keep busy," she found herself whispering before anything happened. He pulled back up, a smile on his face. His eyes washed over her face, leaving stains of red wherever they touched. Different, she thought, so so different from the last time.

"I've been busy the last five years," he said. It wasn't sad any longer. He was watching her, his eyes smiling, his hands working around her to move them closer. "This is different."

He waited, hesitant until she nodded and smiled back at him, before he finally leaned all the way down to kiss her. His lips pressed lightly against hers, and when she arched her back, pushing up into him, she felt him smile against her.

Bellamy shifted, wrapping his arms around her as he framed her hips with his knees. He paused as his weight settled above her.

"You good?" He asked.

She nodded, her hands twisting into the fabric of his undershirt. "Yeah," she said smiling. "I'm good."

She pulled him back down, his chest bumping into hers as the force of it all caused his knees to slip out from under him. She felt him shift around, trying to make her more comfortable, but she just laughed into his mouth, her hands working their way around to his back. His shoulders drooped, relaxed as her fingers curled under the hem of his shirt, flattening against the warm skin of his back.

She pressed her hands into the hard muscles of his back, squeezing as he worked his mouth from hers to her neck, nibbling behind her ear before moving down, down, further until she felt his tongue slip out against her collarbone, then further and further as she arched her back, pressing into his touch.

The fabric of his shirt bunched above her wrists and she moved her hands over across his back and up until it was shoved up under his armpits. She poked at it, nudging at it until he got the hint and shifted himself, straightening up so he could pull it over his head.

His hair was pushed away from his forehead, sticking up at every angle. His lips were red and swollen but smiling down at her between flushed cheeks as he grabbed at the bottom of his shirt to lift it up and over his head. He dropped it to the floor, leaning back down but not all the way.

Pushing her hair slowly off her face he bent forward propping himself up on one arm, his elbow brushing against her side, as he used his other hand to rub at her belly, slipping under the thin fabric of her shirt, causing a chill to run down her spine as the rough pads of his fingers danced across her skin.

She felt heat pool low in her belly and she forced herself to stay still as his hand explored, stretching over every part of her torso, covering her stomach with the tips of his fingers brushing at her ribs, before reaching up toward her breasts, and she felt a hard, shallow breath force itself out of her lungs. A small laugh spilled from Bellamy's lips, shaking against her stomach, warming the dip below her belly button.

She had to wriggle beneath him to get her shirt in her hands enough to tip her chest forward and pull it over her head, loose strands of hair falling over her forehead as she did. His fingers tucked them back behind her ear, and she wondered how it took them so long to get here.

His eyes were wide as they looked at her and she wondered if he was thinking the same thing. She grabbed hold of his hand which had stilled on her ribs, and moved it up, back toward her breast, as she tipped forward, leaning her face toward his as they sat upright.

"Still good?" she asked, whispering against his lips.

He nodded, pulling her tighter. He wrapped his free arm around her back and hoisted her up so she was sitting in his lap.

"Yeah," he breathed. "Still good."

Bellamy woke up the next morning wrapped around her. Her legs tangled in his, warm and sticky from sweat and sleep, his arm aching from the awkward position it was in all night. His nose was pressed into the back of her neck and he started kissing down it as he pulled his arm out from underneath her, her shoulders rising and falling with her slow breaths.

There was a small, prickling worry in his ribs that he couldn't seem to get rid of, but he pushed it aside, just for the moment to stretch back against the pillows as Clarke shifted beside him, turning, her face bumping into the arm he stretched out behind his head.

He'd closed his eyes again, but stayed awake, as she let out a long slow breath and pulled her legs back over to her side of the mattress. When he peeled his eyes open, she was watching him with soft, sleep lidded eyes. A small smile played at the corner of her mouth, but she didn't say anything, just let her eyes roam back and forth across him.

Her cheeks were red stained and she wouldn't quite meet his eyes.

He knocked a knee against her, forcing her to look at him. "Stop freaking out," he said softly.

"I'm not freaking out." She kicked back at him playfully. "Don't project your feelings onto me."

"Hey, I'm not freaking out either."

She pursed her lips and nodded at that, like she didn't believe him, like she guessed he didn't even believe him, but wanted to. He let one of his hands reach out toward the wild, starchy hair spread over her neck and shoulder. His fingers padded against her skin as he brushed it off her neck and let his hand rest there, running back and forth across her shoulder slowly. She smiled.

"So," she said, scooting forward so her arms were up against his side. "If you're not freaking out, then…"

He raised an eyebrow at her.

"Then," she continued. "You're feeling...good?"

Not quite, he thought. Good's not quite enough. More like settled. Rested. Whole. Like some strange sort of peace had washed over him, one he hadn't felt in a long, long time.

"How are you feeling?" he asked instead.

She squirmed around, avoiding his eye. He heard her mumble something that sounded like I asked you first, jerk, but when he leaned down to ask her to repeat it, she just shook her head.

"I feel...ready," she said. She looked at him with a playful glimmer in her eye. "Ready to start the day."

"Fuck, I'm not," he said, reaching his arm around her back. He pulled her closer, pressing his fingers into her sides, testing the waters. She wriggled in closer to him laughing.

She waited a few moments to say anything else. The two of them laid there, not quite wrapped up in each other, but wrapped up near each other, the weight of their breaths and the feel of their laughter spilling over and covering them both.

It was strange and warm and welcome, and Bellamy, just this once, let himself believe that this was supposed to happen to him.

"Hey," she pressed her hand into his chest, and he felt a spark bloom under her touch. "I slept really well last night." She said it like it was a surprise, like she was just realizing it herself.

"Yeah," he nodded. "Me too. Except, you know, for the snoring."

"Oh fuck off," she said. "We were having a moment. And I do not snore."

"How could you possibly know that?" he teased. "You're asleep every time it happens."

She rolled her eyes at him, pressing a soft kiss into his shoulder. Then she was kicking off the remaining covers from her feet and jumping off the bed.

"C'mon," she said, grabbing a shirt from the floor and pulling it on. From the looks of it, it was the worn gray t-shirt he'd pulled off last night. It fell soft and loose against her body, better on her than it ever looked on him. "We're burning daylight here."

He walked down to a cafe around the corner from the motel and picked up a couple of coffees for them as she finished checking them out of their room. He had a cup in each hand and packets of cream and sugar in his pockets because he hadn't thought to ask her how she takes her coffee, and he couldn't remember from the diners they'd stopped in before.

She was outside the office, leaning against the truck when he got back, her hair piled on top of her head in a bun, her face tilted up toward the sky. She was wearing big round sunglasses, even though the sun was hidden behind the pink blanket of the morning sky, and he could see her eyes pressed closed beneath the lenses.

"Here," he said, clearing his throat as he walked up to her. He handed her one of the cups, and dug around in his jacket pocket to pull out the sugars. 'Wasn't sure how you took it."

"Cream and two sugars please," she said, taking it with a smile. She set the cup on the hood of the car to peel the lid off and pour in the cream and sugar, before stirring it around with her pinkie finger. She licked the coffee off her finger with a pop, before smashing the lid back on and taking a sip.

"Oh my god," she said. "This coffee is actually good."

He pouted at her. "Give me some credit, come on."

"Sorry, yeah of course. Well done and all that." She patted the hood of the truck. "Ready?"

The sun was still low in the sky as they set off on the road, peaking over the horizon, creeping up further with each sip of the coffee they took, and each mile of the long grey road they passed. There wasn't much longer until they got to San Francisco, one long stretch of the highway, just a few hours and they were there.

It hung heavy in the car, the knowledge that they'd set a goal, and now, so soon after realizing what meeting it meant, they'd be passing it by, having to make a new plan once they got there.

Clarke was quiet for the first chunk of it. Sipping her coffee, smiling over at him, laughing when he caught her eye. She'd taken over control of the radio, ignoring the rolling of his eyes whenever she picked something he wished he'd never have to hear again, but his protests were lost, drowned out when she started singing along.

It went on like that, the sun rising in the sky, the light flashing off her skin, Clarke's head bobbing back and forth beside him. It was hard to look straight ahead, to watch the yellow lines zip under the tires when she was close and so open and warm in a way she hadn't been before. He wanted to reach out and touch her and make sure it all wasn't some weird, horribly real dream teasing him before he woke up.

It was quiet, but the air was soft between them. He smiled, tucking it into the corner of his cheeks, keeping it to himself, as he breathed it in.

"Need me to drive?" Clarke asked, glancing over at him. Her left leg was pulled up onto the seat, bent with her knee poking at his thigh.

"Nah," he said, shaking his head. He pushed his right leg over and felt her knee press into him. "I'm good."

They went to the Muir Overlook before crossing the line into the city.

It was foggy when they pulled the truck into the lot, thick grey clouds covering the steps of the path walking them out toward the water. They could see a few feet in front of them, nothing more, until they got to the end of it, and Clarke pulled him forward by the hand, leaning her body over the gate that surrounded it, her belly pressing into the metal.

"Holy shit," he breathed. With the fog swirling around him, mixing into the water below them, blurring the greens and blues and yellows of the world into one overwhelming color in front of him.

Clarke nodded beside him.

"Yeah," she said. She sounded out of breath. He looked over and watched her knuckles grip tighter around the sketchbook clenched between her fists. Her eyes were fixed in the sight before them, determined, looking away from him.

"It's not the edge of the world," he said, pulling her closer into him. He rested his hand over the fist wrapped around the book. "But it feels like the edge of something."

She shook against his side and he looked down, expecting to see anything but her shoulders bouncing in laughter, eyes bright as they looked up at him.

"What?" he asked.

"Nothing." She brushed the hair out of her face. "I think my dad would have liked you, that's all." Her voice got shaky as she carried on. "I brought this out to draw something here, this was always somewhere he wanted to go, but I really, really don't think I can."

It was too much, he could see that. Her dad was there and not there, and it was too much to process. She'd be drawing for him but he'd never see it. She was doing something he always wanted, but he wasn't there. Her dad, if he could see her, would be proud she'd gotten there, and horrified at how.

It's not something he could fix, not even something he could make better, so Bellamy just reached his arm around her and brushed her hair out of her face.

"Did you ever go on picnics as a kid?" he asked her, her head falling down to rest against him. He could feel her shake her head, her nose pressing into his chest. "They're fucking terrible."

She coughed out a laugh and he had to press his own smile down to keep going.

"No, really," he said. "Just awful." He felt her arm wrap around him as he spoke. "My mom used to take us on picnics, when we were little. Before things got bad. And we were always excited. She'd pack a huge basket, and we'd carry it down through the neighborhood to the park a few blocks away, and we'd set it up there."

The sun was beaming down then, clearing the fog, warming their skin. He let his eyes slip closed as he watched himself, eight years old, trudging down the road with a giant basket, Octavia behind him wearing the blanket like a cape.

"But then we'd realize that all the food in the basket was the leftovers none of us had wanted to eat all week and we'd sit there picking at it, starving because we'd skipped breakfast to get ready for the picnic, and thirsty as all hell from the walk over. And when we wouldn't eat it, the ants would. And the flies. And suddenly we were grumpy and sweaty and starving, being eaten alive by bugs, and the worst part was we had to carry it all back and pretend like we had a really good time." He shook his head softly. "And we never stopped going on those fucking picnics. Ever. And they were always terrible."

Her laugh was thin and worn but warm against him. Her grip on his hips felt a little tighter.

"How do you feel," she started. "Right now. Thinking of her."

"Angry," he said without thinking. "And sad, obviously. She was my mom. But there are parts of me that will never not resent her for what she made us go through-what she's making us go through still. And always. She fucked up once for her, but it's every day for us now that we have to deal with it."

He shook his head, his chest aching in a way he couldn't really understand.

"I guess I miss her and I wish that I didn't." Clarke's face was stone watching him, her hand like honey out in th sun as it reached up to brush his hair out of his face like he'd done for her just a minute ago. "I want to call her. Or hug her. Something."

The silence washed over them after that, Clarke's eyes roaming, her mind working a million miles minute, he was sure. He stood there, slotted into her side watching the sky shift in front of them until it was all he could think of. The wind, the water, the press of her side against his.

"Is there a payphone around?" Clarke broke the silence.

"C'mon," he said, peeling himself off of her and pulling her back up the path by her hand. "Let's have a look around, see if we can find one."

She wanted to hug her mom too.

The whole time she'd been thinking of her dad and how she'd never get to call him or hug him or see him again, and the whole time she'd been ignoring her mother.

She thought back to his wake, back to sitting with her mom, their backs pressed against the machines in the laundry room. Did she hug her that day?

The phone rang twice before her mom's voice called out on the other end.

"Hello?"

She took a breath. Her lungs felt shaky. "Mom?"

"Clarke?"

"Yeah, hi. " She thought she heard a sniff on the other line. "How are you?"

There was a long pause. Clarke could hear the phone drop down from her mom's ear, scuffing against her shirt for a moment, scratching in her her before bringing the receiver back up to speak.

"I'm okay, Clarke," she said. "How are you?"

She laughed. A short, watery laugh that she couldn't help. She heard her mom sniff again.

"I'm okay, I just…" she trailed off, not knowing what to say. "I'm in San Francisco. Well, almost. I'm at the Muir Overlook."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," Clarke said. "Dad would have loved it here."

"Mmm," her mom hummed.

"I just," Clarke sighed. "I love you mom. We spent so long talking about how we love dad and how we were worried about each other missing dad. And I didn't realize until now that we might have forgotten to say we love each other and might miss each other too. So I love you, mom. I miss you."

Her mom was crying. She was trying to mask it, muffling it through her shirt, Clarke was sure, just like she'd seen her do so many times before. But she knew it. She could practically see her.

"I love you too Clarke."

She let the quiet fold over her for a moment, the static on the phone line pulling her away from the mountains and trees and water, pulling her back home, back to her mom and her room, a blanket tucked up around her as her mom kissed her forehead goodnight.

"How long are you staying in San Francisco?" Her mom's voice was small and tinny.

"I'm not sure," Clarke said. She hadn't let herself think about it yet. Not long, she knew. She couldn't stay too long.

She thought of Bellamy going back to Ark, on his own, back to a shop job he never really wanted, a stack of books he never had time to read. She thought of her apartment, her room, empty and waiting for her to come back, her school, with a spot left reserved just for her. And as long as it was hers it couldn't be anyone else's.

"I'll be home soon," she promised. "I don't know when exactly. But I'll be better about calling. I should have called you before I left."

"It's okay, Clarke," her mom whispered. "I'm just happy to hear from you."

"Love you, mom."

"Love you too, Clarke. Be safe."

Her mom's voice rang through her head all throughout the rest of the day. They stopped at a little cafe for dinner and she heard her mom, I love you, be safe, it's okay, how long, over and over again in her head, when they walked through the doors, when they picked their table, when they ordered their drinks. She was slipping away, back to where she started from and she could see that Bellamy was noticing.

"You alright?" he asked, picking at the food on his plate.

"Yeah," she said. She shook her head, trying to break out of it and push herself back there, at the table across from him. "Yeah, sorry. Just got caught up in my head I guess."

He nodded, chewing on a fry. She swiped a few from his plate and he stuck his tongue out at her but she could feel his foot brush up against hers under the table.

All at once she felt a wave crash over her. This boy, this caring man in front of her, who had been looking out for her even when she made him feel small, was sitting across from her with no final destination in his mind. No plan to move on to something else. It made her heart sink, imagining him going back to a town that held him back, thinking he was only good for helping his sister, that he didn't deserve to help himself.

"What are you going to do?" She asked, softly. He pressed his lips together and she watched as his eyebrows pulled in, confused. "Instead of going back to Ark."

"I live there, Clarke," he said. "I've got things I need to take care of."

"You should apply to school." His face was plain, schooled into carefully practiced calmness. But there was something beneath and she knew it. She just had to poke at the right spot. "It's what you want, isn't it?" He had a book in his pocket everywhere he went. He hated that he had to drop out all those years ago, he'd let it slip he kept the textbooks in a box in his basement back home, just in case. Just because he couldn't bear to get rid of them. He was meant for more, he deserved it, and deep down, that pull in his chest knew it. She just wanted to give it a tug, remind him.

"It's not as simple as that."

"Sure it is," she said. "You apply. You get in. You go." He opened his mouth to protest, but she carried on, not letting him get a word in. "You don't have to be full time. You can do part time and still work if you're worried about Octavia. And you don't have to worry about your mom's medicine anymore-"

"Clarke…"

"You can get scholarships," she said. He was smart. She knew he was smart. He was bound to qualify for a hundred different scholarships. He could do this.

"Yeah, except I'm going to have to apply for those. And for school." He shook his head. When his eyes met hers they were wide and wanting, but far, far away. "I haven't been to school in years Clarke. It's not as easy as going right out of high school."

It wasn't fair. She felt a sharp pang in the middle of her ribs and she wanted to scream at how unfair it was that he couldn't do what he wanted to do. That he couldn't see himself deserving it.

"I can help," she said. "I'll help you apply. I'll find scholarships, and I'll help you figure everything out."

His fingers reach over to hers across the table, squeezing her hand inside his.

"When, Clarke?" He smiled at her, making it worse. "Tonight? Tomorrow?" He looked away from her face and focused on their hands. "I think you've forgotten where we are."

She watched his fingers dance over hers, and she searched for something to say, but there wasn't anything. He was right.

"Hey."

His voice startled her out of her thoughts. She raised an eyebrow at him.

"Want to split a piece of pie?" He smile was warm and wide and forgiving. She nodded and she felt him squeeze her hand before flagging down a waitress.

Clarke had been quiet throughout the rest of their dinner. She'd smile and laugh with him when he poked at her, but she kept her eyes down, stuck on his hands, unless he called her name, pulling her up.

They left the cafe with slow, dragging steps, not wanting to end the day because meeting the sun tomorrow meant making a decision.

"There was a music shop we passed around the corner, if you wanted…" he trailed off. If you wanted to drag the day out longer, is what he meant. What he should have said. Let her know that he wanted to stretch it out as long as possible.

"Yeah," she said. "That sounds good."

She laced her hands in his and he reminded himself to map how her hand felt on his skin, so tomorrow he could make it out himself.

They wandered around the shop, Clarke pointing at records, telling him stories she was reminded of by them, leaning into him, singing her favorite bits of songs low in his ear. She grabbed his arm at one point, her fingers wrapped around his bicep and swayed with him back and forth as her favorite song came on the store speakers.

She tried to guess Octavia's favorite record, and Miller's, then his. She'd pull record after record out of the stacks, raising an eyebrow, stating her case.

"Come on," she said. "That mixtape? This is definitely Miller's favorite album."

It had a picture of an old death rocker on the sleeve, black hair spiked up, face painted in black and white makeup. She folded her fingers in the rock 'n roll sign and stuck her tongue out mimicking the pose of the artist.

"Oh, right," he teased. "You got it. That's Miller's favorite, no need to guess anymore."

She got caught up in flipping through the records again, wandering from aisle to aisle and he slipped away for a moment, keeping her in his line of sight as he meandered through the cramped rows of the store.

He bumped into a stand, and cassette tapes went flying around his feet. Bending to pick them up he noticed the one by his right foot, The Temptations. He smiled to himself and tucked it inside the palm of his hand while he picked the rest of them up. With a glance over his shoulder, he saw Clarke tucked away in a corner of the store, so he made his way over to the register.

"Just this," he said, putting it down on the counter. He handed some money over to the cashier. "I don't need a bag, thanks."

The cashier ripped the receipt and handed it over to him with the tape, and Bellamy tucked it into his pocket. By the time he'd wandered back over to Clarke, the same cashier was announcing the store was closing.

"Ready?" he asked, popping up behind her. She jumped a bit, steadying herself with a hand on his arm as she nodded.

"Yeah," she said. "Let's go."

The words from the cafe were hanging in the air when they got to the hotel room.

He wanted to tell her it was okay. He appreciated what she was trying to do, but it was okay. He'd go back to Ark and fall into the same slot, and it wouldn't be any better but it wouldn't be any worse, and it was fine. Some greater things just weren't meant to be.

"Clarke," he started, as soon as their bags were on the ground and the door was closed behind them. "I don't want you to...I don't know, feel bad or anything. Because of what I said at dinner."

She turned toward him, walking closer with each word.

"You're amazing for offering what you did. And it sucks that it can't happen, it really really sucks. But it's fine. It'll be fine."

She was pressed up against him then, her hands resting over his chest, her fingers dipping into the collar of his shirt, making fists around the fabric.

"Okay," she nodded. Her voice a whisper. "Okay."

He opened his mouth to keep going, to tell her what it meant have her say it anyway, even though they both knew where they were, what they were, but she stopped him by pressing her lips to his, pulling him in tighter and closer by the collar of his shirt.

She pulled away from the kiss, falling back on the heels of her feet, her forehead dropping against his chin.

"I don't want to talk about it," she said into his neck. She pressed a kiss into his pulse, down his neck, dropped against his collarbone.

His hands reached around her back, pushing up the thin fabric of her shirt, his hands resting on the warm skin of the small of her back.

"Okay," he said, mimicking her. "Okay."

He slept with her back pressed into his chest, his arms wrapped around her and her hair falling uncomfortably into his face. He woke from the tingling of the arm underneath her having fallen asleep but her didn't move her, just readjusted, so the prickling faded away before his eyes drooped closed.

She woke in the middle of the night, her legs slotted between his, and she turned around, facing him. She watched him for a moment, floating between sleep and wake, waiting to see if he'd surface while she watched him, but his breathing kept steady, so she buried her face in his neck, breathing him in before her eyes fluttered closed.

"Clarke!"

She turned around, her hand above her brow to block out the sun, just in time to see Bellamy snap a picture. He'd bought a disposable camera from the hotel gift shop before they'd left that morning and he'd been annoyingly snapping away all day.

"Going to sightsee, right?" he'd said at her questioning glance. "Might as well remember the sights."

She rolled her eyes and lowered her arm as she walked back over to him. The sun was washing over them, glowing off of Bellamy like he was just part of it, and she'd had the urge all day to slot into his side. She wanted to. She probably could.

It had to be allowed, right? After sleeping with someone three times, you were allowed to fall into them and wait for them to hold you. That was allowed.

All day she'd been overthinking it. She'd taken her sketch pad along with her, drawing him every time she'd had the urge to get too affectionate, to touch him too much. Her book was filled with pages and pages of his hands and his neck, and his eyes.

It was the most she'd seen him smile. Standing there, under the sun with the crappy plastic camera in his hand, sunglasses perched on his nose, book tucked into his back pocket. He'd snap a picture and flash her a smile, and she'd reach for her sketch pad and etch him into the pages.

"That was supposed to be for seeing the sights."

"Who says it wasn't?" he teased, sticking his tongue out at her.

He held the camera up again and she pushed her sunglasses down from the top of her head and let them fall against the bridge of her nose, posing with her tongue out and two fingers up in a peace sign.

"Perfect," he said.

It was like that the whole first day. And the next. Walking from sight to sight. Stopping in restaurants. Sharing meals. Stopping in shops along the roads, teasing each other.

Finding a hand next to hers when the weight of everything came back to her, in bursts like it always had a way of doing. A hand she could reach out and grab, one that wouldn't poke or pry or judge, but would just hold her and understand. One that would reach for hers when he needed it too, waiting for her to hold back.

Three days since they'd gotten there, three days they'd been able to breathe.

She didn't see her father around every corner like she thought she would. She didn't feel like she was seeing something without him, it wasn't even about him anymore. He'd given her the push, he'd set her on the road, and then she'd tumbled into Bellamy and found her way there.

The problem was time. And what she was going to do when it was all over.

Her mother's voice rang in her head at the end of every night, waking her up at the start of every day. Not pestering but wondering, growing worried and curious and it was hard to push away because it started to blend with all her own thoughts.

He could see it, she knew he could. And she had to tell him.

But then he'd smile at her and hold his camera up, or he'd take her hand and show her something and suddenly she'd think that all of it could wait.

His arm was wrapped around her, pulling her in closer to him, until their heads were sharing a pillow, the third night in the city.

"We've got to talk about it," he said simply.

"No," she shook her head. "We don't."

He smiled at her softly, and pecked her forehead. He pressed his nose into her cheek, his eyes closed and just breathed her in.

"We've handled worse," he said, dryly. "I think we can get through this."

She sighed. He was right. She hated how that was starting to become a pattern.

She hated how it was a pattern she wasn't going to have forever.

"I don't know what I'm going to do," she said. Her voice cracked on the last word and she squeezed her eyes shut, willing the tears to go back, to stay where they were at least. It wasn't right when she thought of going back, starting back in school, meeting with her professors to figure out what to do about the time she missed.

But it wasn't right staying there either. Opting out of making a decision.

She melted into the feel of his hands on her waist and she knew that it was cowardly for her to stay, to keep running away, to give up everything she had just because she wasn't sure. It wasn't something he would ever do, and she knew, in the back of his mind, even if he said otherwise, he'd think less of her if she did.

She took a deep breath.

"But I think I have to go home to figure it out."

There was a small part of her that thought maybe he'd tap into the Bellamy from a few days ago and find a way to argue with her about it. Tell her she was being stupid and throwing away everything she had again by leaving just when she was starting something. But he just nodded, biting his lip.

"I feel like I'm...different now," she confessed softly. "Is that stupid? It's only been a few days, and I can't explain how but something has shifted, you know? It's all different. And you...I can't run away and let myself slip out of making a decision just because it's easier."

"You could." His words were a whisper and there was a sad smile playing on his face. He didn't mean it.

"You would never do something like that though," she said. "And I think that if you can be as brave as you've been your whole life, I can be brave enough to go home."

She felt it when the tears finally leaked out, streaming down face in hot, wet strips. She felt the pad of his thumb brush them away and she shook her head like it was going to change something.

"Even if it sucks," she said.

He barked out a laugh and she let herself look at his eyes for the first time in the whole conversation. They were red and watery, but he wasn't crying. And there was a hint of a smile in the corner, one he put there on purpose to make her feel better.

"And it really, really sucks doesn't it?" he said.

"Ha," she coughed. "Yeah. It really does."

She pushed herself in closer, and she felt his shirt grow wet from the tears leaking from her into the fabric. His arms wrapped around her tighter and she tried to remember the first thought she had when she saw him for the first time.

Might as well, she'd thought. She felt a laugh bubble out of her when she thought of it.

"Hey," she said. "Talk to me about something else."

He'd stepped out of the room the next morning when she called the airline. Went searching for a vending machine or a payphone or something else to do while she sat on the phone, getting a flight back home planned. He sat slumped outside the room when he was done wandering, waiting for her to finish up.

He heard the door creak open and Clarke's head peek out.

"Hey," he said standing up.

"Hey." She was leaned up against the doorframe, arms crossed over her chest. "Think you can give me a ride?"

He felt her hand on his, halfway between their hotel on the airport. He felt it crawling up his arm, moving over from his arm to his leg, resting on his thigh.

"Pull over," she said.

They listened to the slow roll of the tires from the road, crunching in the loose gravel just off the shoulder. As soon as it was parked, Clarke turned to him, unbuckling her seatbelt.

Her lips were on his before he could ask what was wrong, and before she could explain, he was knotting his fingers in her hair and pressing her down into the seat. He heard a thud and realized she'd hit her head against the passenger side door.

"You okay?" he asked, breathless.

She scooted herself back, a few inches between the top of her head and the door, and pulled him back down on top of her. "Yeah, yeah, I'm good."

As soon as he pulled into the parking lot, Clarke was hopped out of her seat, walking around to the bed of the truck to grab her bag. She was going so quickly, she wasn't even looking at him, and he had to scramble out of his seat to catch her before she managed to pull her bag out. His hand was on hers before she could turn away from the truck.

"Hang on a sec," he said. He reached into his pocket and fished out the tape from the other day. He held up a finger when she opened her mouth to ask him, and popped it in the stereo, turning the volume up a bit.

With a roll of the window crank, he opened it wide as he shut the door, the music blaring out beside them.

"Didn't have time to make you a mixtape," he said into her ear as he pulled her close.

Her eyes were skeptical, waiting to see what song he was playing, but a slow smile spread across her cheeks as the lyrics wormed their way out of the window toward them.

Well, you could have been anything that you wanted to

And I can tell,

The way you do the things you do.

"Nerd," she teased, pressing her body into his. Her body swayed from side to side and she felt as his chest slotted in with hers, bumping from left to right with the beat as he grabbed her hands.

"Whatever," he said. "It's a good song."

"Yeah," she sighed. "It is."

He tried to ignore the pounding in his chest as the song went on, getting closer and closer to the time to say goodbye. Closer and closer to the time he'd watch her walk away and he'd pile himself back into the truck, pull back on the road and sit at an intersection listening to the turn signal click, wondering which way he was going to go.

Clarke was right though. Where they were may not look so different from where they started from, but something had shifted. It was all different.

He felt her hands pressed into his back and he knew that it was different.

He heard the song end and the tape skip right over to the next, and he stepped back, looking down at Clarke. Her shoes bent and she pushed herself up on her toes to land a small kiss on his cheek before sliding back down. But he caught her around the waist, holding her in place to chase it, pressing his lips to hers as he lowered her the rest of the way back down.

He reached in through the window and ejected the tape, pressing it back into it's case with a click before handing it over to her, pressing it into her palm.

"So," he said, bobbing on the balls of his feet. "Thanks for the company, I guess."

"Yeah," she said, voice watery. "Thanks for the cassette."

He nodded, avoiding her eye as he reached into the bed of the truck and pulled out her bag, handing it over to her. The metal of the truck felt warm against his skin as he leaned into it, and he planted his feet firmly, sinking them into the ground where he was so he wouldn't do something stupid like go after her.

The bag scratched his arm as she pulled him in for one last hug.

"I know it's not the end of the world," she said. He could feel the wind wrap around them, sending shivers down his spine. "But it really feels like the end of something." She slipped something into his pocket. "Thank you, Bellamy."

Her footsteps were soft as they walked away from her, the sounds of passing cars and overhead planes drowning them out, so he wasn't sure how long it took her to walk away from him and into the airport. He waited a few minutes pressed against the side of his truck, the wind whistling as it whipped through the open window of the passenger side door.

He waited until he got back in the driver's seat before taking out the slip of folded paper she'd put in his pocket. The sound of it crinkling as he unfolded it filled the car.

He laughed as he saw it was the Road Rules sheet she'd made up that first day. A note scribbled at the bottom caught his eye.

Left something for you in the box of cassettes since you never followed the music rule.

I expect a full report. XO, Clarke.