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Clarke sat in a tense ball on her bed, staring darkly at the remaining cardboard box on her bedroom floor. The staff had unpacked the rest of her belongings, hanging her clothes up, stashing her books, and arranging her art supplies in that very precise White House way. When they had reached for that box though, she had stopped them with an emphatic no! She had apologized for her abruptness, then immediately wanted to hide from the pity she saw in their eyes. It was the same look her mother had given her, only tinged with more disapproval, when she had lectured Clarke about getting ‘involved’ with Bellamy—Agent Blake, she thought bitterly—upon her arrival home from Stanford this morning. Involved was a kind way of putting, when Clarke had spent almost a whole semester falling for the grad student who had been her RA, only to find out a week before finals that he was actually an agent of the Secret Service placed undercover to protect her, the first daughter, during her first semester of college.
Then, after all of that (plus one bad night after too much tequila and festering emotions), here Clarke was, hauled home to D.C. to remain under the watchful eye of her mother and the staff indefinitely. Raven had threatened to storm the White House herself if Clarke didn’t keep in contact like a good (former) roommate would. It comforted her to know that even from three thousand miles away, Raven could still make her smile. God knows where Bellamy was, though, because not even his family connections with the Secret Service could save his job after the spectacle at the bar and tabloid pictures that followed. Tears, bittersweet and angry, welled up at the thought, because Clarke knew how much the job meant to him, but she was also a little bit glad that she wouldn’t have to see him every day now.
She wouldn’t see him anymore. Pressing her hands to her faces, she wiped stubbornly at her wet eyes, because there was no need to cry. Clarke had been through worse, and she wouldn’t let this stupid thing break her. So, with slow movements, she approached the box, opening it stoically to reveal the meager contents. Just five ordinary things—a notebook, a sweatshirt, a stuffed pig, a plastic crown, and a sheriff’s badge—but somehow they carried a heavy weight, one she didn’t know if she was quite ready to face. Still, Clarke Griffin, daughter of Abby Griffin, the first female US President, never ran from a challenge, so she stuck her hand into the box and pulled out the items in succession, forcing herself to confront exactly why each one held so much meaning.
The notebook was worn, its cover half-torn and the edges distressed from frequent use. Inside, class notes covered the beginning pages, but further along, it consisted of her sketches surrounded by handwriting, half of it neat and small (hers) and the other half loopy and sprawling (his). That first day, when Bellamy had defended her against the professor’s needling remarks about her privileged status as the first daughter, he had been sitting three seats away, though the warmth his bright smile generated made it feel like he was sitting right next to her. Soon enough, though, he was in that neighboring seat, chatting her up before class and whispering jokes to her during lecture, much to the annoyance of their instructor. They had started using the notebook as a more discrete way to communicate. She drew him pictures of the myths they were discussing, and in return, he provided her with interesting factoids about the history behind the myths, an exchange that made the dry course material more bearable. This notebook was where they had started, even if now Clarke doubted that whatever ‘they’ had been was real.
When she took out the sweatshirt, it was all she could do to not pull it over her head and burrow into it. It was huge, meant to fit someone twice her size, but she liked the way the bottom hem banged against her knees and the long sleeves hid her hands. She especially like the way it still smelled like him. Remembering the first time she had put it on, Clarke smiled, because Bellamy had been trying so hard to avert his eyes from her very wet and thus very transparent white dress. Some frat bro idiots had “accidentally” sprayed her with a hose as she walked by their house. As she stood on the sidewalk, drenched, camera phones were whipped out, professional and amateurs alike trying to capture the moment. While her agents were busy dealing with the now apologetic bros and the less apologetic photographers, Clarke had run for it, sprinting back to her dorm. On the way, she had run into Bellamy. At the time it had seemed like luck, or even fate, but now she knew better; he must have been tailing her. Regardless of the reason, he had swept her into his room, laughing as she asked in surprise how she hadn’t known that he was her RA. A recent thing, he had said, handing her the sweatshirt, some running shorts, and a baseball cap as a disguise before she could ask more questions. He had been oddly fidgety after turning around to let her change. At the time, she had grinned, thinking her state of dress was making him antsy. Now she chalked it up to him being anxious if he had played his cover well enough.
He needn’t have worried, because apparently as smart as she was when it came to academics, she was dense when it came to people. Or maybe it was just him, Clarke thought in frustration as she fiddled with the stuffed pig in her lap. She had practically grown up around politicians, so she usually considered herself very adept at reading people. She hadn’t been able to read him, though. That night at the carnival, when he hadn’t been able to take his eyes off of her, she had reveled in the attention, thinking him a little bit charmed by her. As an agent, though, watching her was his job, nothing more to it. Her throat closed up in embarrassment as she remembered tugging on his arm, flirtatiously challenging him to that stupid water gun game. He had taught her to shoot, wrapping his arms around her, stuttering when she smiled up at him in satisfaction at her surprisingly good aim. He had still won—that made sense now, given his true profession—but had gifted his stuffed animal reward to her, even as she rolled her eyes at how very old-school the gesture was. Even when she kissed him at the end of the night, leaning her body into his to tell him how much she wanted him, he had been a gentleman, wishing her a quiet sweet dreams without so much as a glance at her bedroom door that stood open in invitation.
That was Bellamy, though. As sarcastic and bantering as his words could be, his actions were always unfailingly respectful and polite. It melted her heart a little the way he always placed a hand to her back to steady her, or used his height to shield her from curious eyes. His touches were always light, hesitant, as if he was never sure they were welcome. When he was her date the night of the gala, Bellamy had been extra jumpy, especially after almost falling into her lap on the limo ride there. They had hit a bump in the road just as he leaned over to straighten the small crystal headpiece he had given her earlier—you are America’s princess, you know, he had joked—pitching him against her. Clarke had laughed as his profuse apologies, not quite understanding why he looked so pained at the mishap. After escorting her in, he kept more distance between them, even when she had pulled him out to dance. No one else is dancing, he had hissed at her anxiously. I don’t care, she had teased back, smiling as she began to move them around the floor. Every time she had tried to get close, he had pulled back, until she spun out and back in suddenly, catching him off guard enough that she finally ended up in his arms. Even as his jaw clenched in frustration at her trick, he had looked at her fondly, his brown eyes warm with affection. That affection was absent later in the night, though, as they ran from the armed men spotted outside the building. To her shock, his face was neutral and stare blank as he pushed her into the getaway car, raising a radio to his mouth as he tightly announced Princess is secure, slamming the door on her before she could even process the revelation. The entire way back to the White House, the sound of his voice uttering her codename rang in her ears, a repetitive roar that drowned out everything else. As a thousand thoughts flooded through her mind, she had ripped off the crown and clutched it in her hands, willing herself to break it in two. Furious and sick to her stomach, she had wanted to destroy it, to get rid of this symbol of the weight that she had been suffocating under for years, until he had come along and made it seem not as burdensome. The little thing had bent in her tense hands, so close to snapping, but she hadn’t gone through with it, because he had given it to her. Now, sitting defeatedly on her bedroom floor, Clarke traced her fingers over the metal swirls and jagged crystals, again considering breaking it. Just like before, though, her heart ached at the memory of his smile when he had given it to her, so confusingly open and kind, and so she merely placed it on top of the sweatshirt balled up in front of her.
While the crown glittered brightly in the low lamplight of her room, the cheap plastic sheriff’s badge that Clarke pulled out of the box next barely gave off a reflection. Turning it over and over in her hand, she remembered fixing it to the very low collar of her white tank top as she and Raven dressed up for the end-of-semester “Hoedown Throwdown” party thrown by the student social board. Her cheeks burned as she recalled how she kept fiddling with it, her fingers lingering at her exposed cleavage as Bellamy—now dressed in the customary Secret Service suit—pointedly looked away each time she teasingly reached up to adjust it. It wasn’t fair to torment him, Clarke knew that, because she was the one who had decided to brave having him around if it meant he got to keep his job. Still, every time she looked at his stoic face, resentment bubbled up inside her, and the teasing was her way of making sure she didn’t boil over. Clarke never let the teasing go too far though, that was until five shots of tequila and a few minutes of Raven being absent convinced her to climb up onto the bar when ‘her song’ came on. Crooning drunkenly along to the first chorus, she had started shaking her hips in front of everyone in the room, though she had done it specifically for him. To make him angry, like she was. Bellamy Agent Blake did get angry, just like she had wanted, but she hadn’t expected him to punch out the frat bros catcalling her and haul her out of the bar over his shoulder, right through a wall of paparazzi. The tabloids had gleefully exploited the spectacle, and after a grave phone call from her mother, Clarke took a long plane ride back to the East Coast, wondering the whole while how her formerly amazing first semester of college had turned out so horribly wrong.
Three days later, and she was back in her room, her things settled but her heart still confused as she stared at the items in front of her. It wasn’t until the early hours of the morning that she finally packed them up again and shoved the box to the back of her closet. She lay down on her bed, turning on her side to watch the sunrise, her mind too numb to contemplate sleep. Maybe it was the exhaustion that made her so compliant the following afternoon when her mother suggested she take a leave of absence from school to come on the campaign trail with her. It could have been the looming fear of ridicule that she guessed awaited her back at Stanford next semester, no matter how adamantly Raven promised to defend her. Whatever the reason, though, through the spring and summer, Clarke found herself flying from city to city, trailing after her mother in stiff clothing and smiling woodenly at rolling cameras or cheering crowds. It wasn’t anything she hadn’t done before, but this time the tight collars and inane media questions seemed more suffocating.
Clarke struggled to breathe the whole summer, but it wasn’t until the end-of-season ball at the White House that she felt as if her lungs were collapsing. It didn’t help that the floor-length, gauzy navy blue dress she was wearing had an impossibly tight bodice, or that the crowded room was about a million degrees. After choking out a polite excuse to the group of ambassadors and senators that had been keeping her occupied, Clarke hurried for the nearest exit. She flew down staircase after staircase until she found a door leading to the garden. Hurrying down a random path, she breathed in the humid, fragrant air, clutching her sides and cursing her stylist for choosing such a constricting dress. Frustration boiled up inside her, and before she knew it, she was tearing at the laces crisscrossing her back, jerking on the knot and pulling the strands loose. She sighed in contentment as her chest expanded comfortably now, the undone back of her dress flopping around as she breathed deeply.
“I see you are still a bucket of trouble.”
Clarke felt adrenaline surge through her as footsteps slowly made their way down the path, and she steeled herself against the onslaught of bittersweet memories that the low, very familiar voice brought on. Turning slowly, she clutched the front of her dress to her chest, because after the eight months of no word from Bellamy, she was not going to let their first interaction be overshadowed by a potential clothing mishap.
“What are you doing here?” She snapped, tensing as she felt a nervous blush sweep across her chest, up her neck, and onto her cheeks.
Bellamy stopped several yards from her, fiddling with something in his pocket as he just looked at her, the dusky light shadowing his face. He was still tall, his hair still unruly, but the nervous smile on his face was new, and so she relaxed a bit, relieved that she wasn’t alone in her anxiety. For a long minute he didn’t say anything, swallowing a few times indecisively.
Finally, he cleared his throat, rocked back on his heels, and said, “I came for you.”
The blunt words and the sincerity in his voice made Clarke breathless again. She froze, because he said it, straight out and up front, and what the hell was she supposed to do with that. Everything else between them had been so veiled, and layered, and deceptive, that his honesty spun her head.
“Oh,” she breathed, hand clenching into the fabric of her dress. “Okay.”
With a quiet laugh, Bellamy walked forward, taking slow steps as he approached her. Clarke focused on the bushes, the night sky, anything but him, until he was inches from her, and she had no choice but to look up. He was smiling, shadowed eyes shining with amusement. As he reached up to cup her face, she caught his hand roughly, trying to piece everything together.
“Why?” She asked, wanting to know if he was back for her as the president’s daughter, or as Clarke.
“Your mother called me,” he said with an incredulous shake of his head. “Seems there was an opening at the FBI office in San Francisco for someone with my qualifications. Just wanted to let me know that she’d put a good word in for me, if I was interested.”
Trying to fight a smile, Clarke raised her eyebrows and said, “Oh, really? And are you, interested?”
“Nothing holding me in D.C. anymore,” he murmured.
“Nothing?”
“Nah. See, the girl I’m crazy for, she goes to Stanford, and San Fran is pretty close to there, so it would be convenient.”
Clarke hummed neutrally, biting her lip as she watched Bellamy grin down at her before saying, “A lot of assumptions you’re making there, that this girl will be on board with you following her across the country. And how do you even know she’s staying at Stanford?”
“Because she’s a smart girl, and too strong to let a little controversy keep her from experiencing life like anybody else would.”
“Damn straight,” Clarke interrupted.
Bellamy chuckled before continuing, “As for how she feels about me, I don’t know, but the move, well, it’s worth the risk.”
Smiling, because of course he would be that sappy, Clarke surged up and pressed her lips to his, claiming a much needed kiss from him. With a low sigh, he clutched her to him, sliding his arms around her back, his broad hands ghosting over her bare back as he deepened the kiss. She shivered at his warm contact, and Bellamy broke away, eyes flicking down to her now very much disheveled dress.
“We should get you inside before nosy reporters come looking for you,” he whispered against her lips. “I think you and I have had enough experiences with photographers and clothing mishaps,” he murmured teasingly.
“Then I suppose I should get into something more comfortable,” Clarke said, giving him a sly look. “Wanna help me change?”
Closing his eyes briefly, Bellamy groaned, then looked down at her in amused disbelief as he muttered, “You are going to get me into trouble.”
Grinning, Clarke slipped her hand into his and tugged him down the path, grinning as she replied, “Like you’d want it any other way.”
Bellamy just laughed in response, squeezing her hand as they walked side by side back to the White House, which somehow now seemed a little smaller to Clarke, less like home and more like a place she once lived, because home was waiting for her, three thousand miles away.