Chapter Text
If Bellamy Blake were a betting man, he would have bet against him and Clarke Griffin becoming best friends. He’d also bet that he’d be the first out of all their friends to become a parent, Octavia and the rest of their friends excluded. It wasn’t because he was the oldest or most mature, but because he’s the most parental of all their friends.
So when Clarke Griffin came to him a year after she graduated college, working as an art procurer for a private gallery, she hated her boss and Bellamy felt that her getting pregnant was her way of deterring her boss’s son from hitting on her.
“Are you sure this isn’t just about Cage?” Bellamy asked one night on their walk back to their apartment after announcing her plans to get pregnant by the end of the year. He’s been her shoulder every time Cage stopped by and hit on her. A hated him, he was the worst bigot, xenophobe and homophobe. It’s 2008 and we just voted an inclusive black man in as president, you can’t be that intolerant without expecting to get your ass handed to you when you open your intolerant mouth.
“He’s a minuscule factor. I’ve been thinking about this for a while and I want a baby, I’m still figuring out the how I’m getting pregnant, I’ve heard horror stories of sperm banks but also using someone I know could wind up badly too.”
“Badly how?” Bellamy grimaced, not exactly understanding the bad part of actually knowing who your child’s father is.
“He could be in it for the wrong reasons or he could want to be a part of our lives as her father and I don’t want that. I want a child of my own to love and raise and be better than my mother was at raising me.”
“You’re just wanting to make a point to your mom? That’s below you too. This is an eighteen-plus year commitment and you’re degrading it to beating your mother at the parenting game?”
“You know that’s not what I meant by that,” she stepped onto the stoop of their building and punched in the code to get in and Bellamy pulled the door open and held it for her to go in.
“You know you have people who would do anything for you, even donate their sperm.”
He pressed the button for the elevator and listened to Clarke while they waited for it to come down.
“Oh, yeah, I’m sure Emori and Harper would be willing to let Monty or Murphy donate their sperm to me. Don’t even get me started on Echo and asking Octavia and Lincoln would just be weird.”
“The sperm wouldn’t last the flight from Arizona anyway, so—“
“Wait.” The elevator doors opened and Clarke stepped in first and turned to Bellamy as he stepped in behind her and pressed the button for the third floor. “What do you mean Arizona?”
“I’m surprised she didn’t tell you, Lincoln got a job in Phoenix and they’re leaving in November. Of course, it’s impeccable timing with our fight.”
Clarke grimaced, “Is it something is going to yell at you over?”
“I think you’d yell more at her.”
“Does it have anything to do with me telling you that she’ll come around one day and see how special you are? Because you are, you know?”
Bellamy smiled as the elevator released them on the third floor and stepped across the small hallway to open the door to their apartment. “I know.”
Clarke smiled and headed into her room to change into her pajamas. Bellamy did the same, his drunk mind reeling over Clarke wanting a baby and not asking him or even considering it. She brought up Echo, but it’s not Echo’s sperm, it’s his so she has no claim over it.
Once changed, Bellamy knocked on Clarke’s door and she let him in, wiping her might make up off with a towelette he used to have to buy for Octavia when she was in high school. Stumbling the short distance to Clarke’s bed he collapsed and watched Clarke finish and sit as he wrapped his head around his words.
“I’ll donate my sperm to you.”
“Babe, you know you’re my best friend, but your girlfriend would kill me you’ve also always wanted to be a dad so donating your babymakers to me knowing you’re not getting to be a part of the child’s life… that’s not my Bellamy.”
“I could be Uncle Bellamy. I’ll be good.”
“Bellamy, you’re going to make an amazing dad one day with a woman who truly loves you, don’t settle for me and ruining your relationship with Echo just because you want to help me.”
Bellamy tolled onto his side and looked at her. “Settling for you is an oxymoron.”
“And were the rulers of that universe,” she smirked. “Get to your own bed, I have work in the morning.”
“Your bed is so much more comfortable!” He whined and Clarke stood and pulled him up to sit on the edge of her bed.
“Bell, if you were single we could, but you have a girlfriend who you gave a key to. Go to your bed.”
Bellamy groaned because he’s a child and Clarke smirked and leaned in as Bellamy was about to crack his neck—he needs a new bed—and the combination of the two movements connected their lips like a volcano was erupting and for a split second, Bellamy’s world disappeared. Echo, Octavia, Clarke wanting a baby, it all faded away except for the fact that he was kissing Clarke. He was drunk and they’re accidentally kissing but the energy between them was electric and something Bellamy always thought was for people meant to be together but Clarke pulled away.
“We can’t. You’re my best friend and we’re drunk and you have a girlfriend.”
Bellamy sighed, the last one hitting him like a brick. He had a girlfriend. It was like a bucket of ice water was splashed over him. He was kissing his platonic friend (who he may or may not be in love with) while he has a girlfriend who loves him and who he should love just as much.
Months went by without Clarke bringing up having a baby again and Bellamy went back to Echo like the kiss with Clarke didn’t happen. They were both happy. Well, at least he thought they were, but Clarke still wasn’t pregnant. It was November and they usually hold Thanksgiving for all their friends at their apartment. Clarke knew how to bake pie and that was pretty much it, there was this pineapple ambrosia salad her family made over the years and she made that Wednesday night but Thursday she was making pies on the island while Bellamy cooked their main dinner. Everyone was coming over, Echo, Roan, Miller, Eric, Murphy, Emori, Monty, Harper, even Jasper. Octavia and Lincoln were going to Indra and Gaia’s even though they were invited too. Niylah followed suit because “Octavia saved my life when you wouldn’t.” Bellamy watched as the inaccurate statement broke Clarke, he couldn’t do anything about it, he couldn’t hold her, he couldn’t console her without her possibly thinking he had an ulterior motive.
Sure, he’d love to be a dad, sooner than later, but that should be something he’d need to talk about with his girlfriend, not his best platonic roommate.
Of course, when everyone showed up and settled in and we’re just drunk enough to be hungry, they ate and drank wine and as they relaxed before enjoying Clarke’s pies, Echo had to bring up Clarke wanting to get pregnant by the end of the year and that she isn’t.
“Uh, I’m going with a sperm bank, I have an appointment on Tuesday.”
Of course, that blew the entire conversation off Clarke and onto babies in general, where Bellamy noticed Echo staying quiet as their friends went on about not being ready and how many they want down the line and that Clarke’s kid will likely babysit and be their role model so she better treat them right. They never used a gender pronoun which looking back on years from now made total sense but Bellamy didn’t understand in 2006 why his friends didn’t use any binary terms.
At the end of the night, Bellamy asked Echo to stay the night without actually wanting her to, he wanted to talk to Clarke about the baby once more. He had a feeling she wasn’t happy about using a sperm bank for the procedure and he wanted to know if she needed him for anything. And, as though she already knew, Echo said that she couldn’t stay, she had an early meeting across the city in the morning that she couldn’t be late to and of course staying with Bellamy would make her late.
“Hey,” he sighed, dropping the drying towel on the counter while Clarke scrubbed the pan that had the turkey inside. “You didn’t seem okay with using a sperm bank when Echo asked earlier.”
“Because I never told her about it. I don’t talk to her, she’s not my girlfriend or my new best friend who I’m ditching people for,” Clarke spat and then sighed. “You didn’t deserve that, I’m on hormones to boost my levels and prenatal vitamins and it’s all a lot.”
“I know Raven and Echo have been talking a lot but I didn’t know Raven’s been ditching you, that’s not cool.”
“It’s whatever, I get it, she has her own life but don’t cancel plans and then post pictures on Facebook of you out with other people. If anything ask if they can come. It’s not that I don’t like Echo, I just haven’t been able to get to know her and she’s jealous of our friendship.”
“I kind of knew that. She hates when I invite you places with us or you’re hanging out here when she comes over but you live here too, I can’t ask you to leave.”
“I can’t ask you to donate your sperm either.”
“You know I’d say yes.”
“Yeah.”
“And you still don’t want that?”
“I want no strings and I can’t have that with you.”
“I’ll do it however you want. I promise. I’ll sign whatever you need me to sign and I’ll be Uncle Bellamy. I promise you I won’t tell the child anything until you give me the okay.”
Clarke grimaced. “I’ll think about it. Thank you.”
The day before Clarke’s doctor’s appointment, she came to him. “Okay, I’ll try it with you but if it doesn’t stick, I’m going with the sperm bank next month.”
Bellamy nodded. “How do we do this?”
“I’ll get a kit on my lunch break tomorrow and tomorrow night we’ll do it. Well, not it, but… you know what I mean.”
Bellamy bit back his smile, “Yeah, I do.”
Getting Clarke pregnant was easy, it was something Bellamy would do for any friend that wanted to be a mom and had the financial stability to do it and asked him to impregnate them. They were still friends and roommates and he was still going to be in the kid’s life, he just wouldn’t be called Dad and, yeah, he did have to sit on that and stew over it for a day or two but he knew without a shadow of a doubt that Clarke could be a mother and a father to a kid without going to pills and alcohol like Raven’s mom or questionable sexual partners like his mother. He knew that Clarke was well rounded and well-adjusted to societal norms better than any other millennial he knew. She even used the proper pronouns for Bryan and Emori when the rest of them were struggling with using they and them for a singular person. Bellamy slipped up once so far this year and he’s kicking himself over it, even though Emori didn’t mind, he was still annoyed with himself months later over it.
It wasn’t that Bellamy would have said no to having sex with Clarke (he definitely wouldn’t have), it was just more clinical and clean-cut having him ejaculate into a cup in the bathroom and having her inject that into herself thirty seconds later and lie upside down in their bathtub for a half-hour for the four days she’s ovulating. Bellamy knew having sex with Clarke would have complicated their friendship and was glad when he found out how clinical she was going to have the process be.
Thinking of being “Uncle Bellamy” forever because all his girlfriends left him for whatever reason wasn’t something Bellamy liked thinking about. It wasn’t as though he intentionally pushed them away or asked Clarke to let him be the father, he knew that she wanted to do this on her own and he couldn’t be a dick and say no.
He also shouldn’t ask her to bear a child for him in return, that’s completely inappropriate.
Echo figured out that Clarke was pregnant three weeks after Clarke informed Bellamy and she broke up with him because it was “so obvious that he’s the father.” It hurt but he was still on cloud nine from finding out that four days of ejaculating into a cup worked.
Of course, Raven and Octavia knew that Clarke was planning on becoming a mother but when they were all at Monty and Harper’s for game night when she was finally—and he meant finally—pregnant and enough months along that she was sure she wasn’t going to miscarry, they asked what the father looked like and Clarke grimaced, hating that they had to be like that because there isn’t going to be a father, that’s not what Bellamy is. He’s Uncle Bellamy, he also just happened to be the sperm donor. Though when she said that it was Bellamy... that was a big fight between Clarke and Octavia that Bellamy didn’t know how to separate or end and neither spoke to the other until the actual birth a few months later and they acted as though nothing happened. Octavia was even in the room for the birth, unlike Bellamy.
He repeated the words in his head for probably the billionth time, he’s not the father.
Holding the little girl that was identical to him and Octavia as babies, Bellamy reiterated that just because they lived in the same apartment, and he’d likely be helping Clarke more than a typical uncle would usually, he wasn’t the father.
“Are you ever going to tell her how you feel?” Octavia said on the take outrun. Clarke’s been craving Thai for months but couldn’t have some ingredient that was in her food until the baby was born so she asked for Bellamy to get her some Thai.
“What are you talking about?”
“You’re in love with Clarke and have been for years.” A cold, hard statement that should have pissed Bellamy off but his sister’s opinion of him and Clarke was always more than what it was.
Bellamy scoffed, he should have seen this coming since she found out that’s Bellamy was the father. And it wasn’t that Bellamy was in love with Clarke, he loved her, sure, but he’s not in love with her and maybe he could be if he knew that there was a possibility of more but there wasn’t. She’s the mother of his child, his child that will only know him as Uncle Bellamy and he’s fine with that.
He’s fine.
Bellamy went to the gallery to drop off some paperwork for Clarke during her maternity leave and walked right into Cage Wallace who was standing just inside the door of the gallery-like he was waiting for Clarke to show up instead. Then again maybe Bellamy was projecting.
“You got her pregnant? The brunette wasn’t enough for you, you needed Clarke too? But the commitment... you couldn’t handle that could you?”
It took everything within Bellamy to not punch Cage in the face over that uncalled for comment. He has no clue about Bellamy’s relationship with Clarke or Echo. He also had no right talking about either of them like they’re toys to play with.
“You have no clue what you’re talking about. What Clarke does is all Clarke, it has nothing to do with me and if you have a problem with her, you will have to deal with her and me over it. She’s my best friend and I will protect her with my life.”
“So you didn’t get her pregnant?”
“This isn’t a conversation you should be having with me. Clarke will be back and you can ask her then but it’s not your business.”
“This gallery is my business and, believe me if she doesn’t look delectable when she gets back, she will be fired.”
“She’s not a piece of meat and if you do fire her because of how she looks, you will be hearing from her lawyer because that’s not a legitimate reason to fire someone.
Lyra was four months old before Bellamy nearly broke. Of course, he didn’t have a say in her name and Bellamy wanted to ask Clarke countless times why she chose Lyra, hoping it was the reason he thought it was but stayed quiet about it.
He nearly broke when he walked into the apartment to find Clarke pumping in the living room when he came home from work. Lyra was likely sleeping so Clarke couldn’t feed her so she was pumping and it wasn’t as though Bellamy didn’t know that she did that, he heard her through his door while grading or while he was cooking them dinner in the kitchen and she was somewhere else in the apartment. He’d never actually seen her doing it or breastfeeding Lyra with him in the room.
It wasn’t like Bellamy ached to know what his daughter—niece, fuck—was drinking. He knew breastmilk was better than formula for a multitude of reasons but it wasn’t something he was desperate to taste himself. Until he walked in the door to find Clarke’s bare chest being sucked empty by a machine.
“Um... hey,” he said after unfreezing and turned around to take off his Oxfords and drop his messenger bag on the bench next to the door. He didn’t want her to think he was ogling her, even though he was.
“Is it four already? I must have lost track of time. Give me a minute to clean up and—“
“Take your time, I’m a little early today and I was thinking of going to the gym so I’ll just go change.”
“You haven’t been to the gym since Lyra was born.”
Before that, Bellamy corrected in his head. He knew he shouldn’t have helped Clarke with her cravings when she was pregnant but he did and because he wanted to be there to help her, he didn’t go to the gym. He got her pregnant and even though it technically wasn’t his responsibility, he wanted to be there for her and get her whatever she craved whenever she craved it.
“I, uh, I know, I wanted to be helpful.”
“You have. You’ve been more than helpful and I don’t know how I could ever repay you for it all.”
“No need, we’re friends and that’s what friends do.”
“Yeah, well, I need to be a better friend to you then.”
“You’re my best friend, there’s no competition.”
“You can turn around. I shouldn’t be doing this in the common area. I’m sorry.”
“I don’t... I don’t mind,” he turned around and looked at Clarke. The pump was on the coffee table and her shirt was back on properly. “I just wasn’t expecting it.”
“Yeah, I lost track of time and I had just gotten her down when they started hurting and I had to pump.”
“It’s fine, Clarke. I wouldn’t tell you it was if it wasn’t.”
“Right, I was thinking about something and I wanted to discuss it with you today but you should go to the gym.” She smirked before adding, “You’re losing some definition, are the teenagers still fawning over you?”
Bellamy smirked, kind of loving how she doesn’t specify gender anymore. They’re the cool, gender fluid positive elder millennials. It took them time to call people the proper pronouns and now its second nature.
“I don’t think the definition has anything to do with it.”
“You have your sleeves rolled up like that every day, it has a lot to do with the definition.”
Bellamy rolled his eyes, it’s comments like that that give him hope for something more with her. Something that would never actually happen. “I’ll be back in an hour. I’ll bring some Thai with me.”
“You’re a godsend!” she whisper-yelled and Bellamy smiled, pressing a kiss to the crown of her head on his way to his room.
“So you wanted to talk to me about something?” Bellamy asked eating a piece of cauliflower while Clarke slurped her noodles. Lyra laid in her little rocker that now sat on the floor between them. If he was in a movie, he’d see the imagery as an intentional distance that Clarke made with that move, but he knew better. Or so he thought...
“Yeah, I was thinking and right now it’s fine, but when Lyra’s older, she’s going to need her own room. Learn to sleep on her own and to do that, we’re going to need more room,” she grimaced, looking at her plate the entire time and Bellamy knew that she was asking him to move out so Lyra could have her room. It’s only fair.
“Uh, I can start looking for an apartment, there’s no reason you shouldn’t stay here and—“
Clarke’s eyes shot up to his and grimaced. “Bellamy, I was…” she licked the soy sauce dripping from the corner of her mouth. “I was thinking a three-bedroom. You’ve been so helpful with her and I’d pay the extra rent.”
“You still want me to live with you and Lyra?”
“Why not? Unless you’re uncomfortable...”
“No, no. That’s not... If I stick around and help you raise her, she’s going to think I’m more than just ‘Uncle Bellamy’.”
“You’re her dad.”
“I’m not, that’s not the deal we made.”
“It wasn’t a deal. I want to be a mom and I would have either gotten pregnant or adopted. I didn’t want some random guy’s seed, I wanted someone I knew wouldn’t run away the second I was pregnant and I wouldn’t be able to say that ‘Daddy didn’t love Mommy’ or ‘Daddy didn’t want to be a part of us.’ I wanted to say, ‘Uncle Bell is your dad. He doesn’t love Mommy like your friends' moms and dads do but he does love us and he won’t leave us.’”
“That’s fucked up, Clarke. You… you used my father’s absence against me.”
“That’s not true, Bellamy. I knew you were going to be in my life forever regardless of me having your baby. Lyra shouldn’t change that.”
“This is still manipulating me,” he spat and he didn’t know why he was so angry. It was true, his friendship with Clarke wasn’t one that he would easily walk away from. He couldn’t find the amount of understanding and respect from anyone else in his life, not Octavia who’s known him her entire life, not Miller his best friend. Not even Echo, his longest relationship to date, not that that mattered in the end, choosing to give Clarke his sperm for her pregnancy was the last straw in Echo’s mind. She knew what she was getting into with Bellamy, how close he was to Clarke, how deep their friendship was, she should have known that Bellamy would have done it regardless of anyone else’s opinion on the matter.
“That’s not how I meant it.”
“I know that,” Bellamy sighed. “And that’s why it hurts so much.” He stood, knowing that it was possibly the wrong thing to do since it was his unofficial night to wake up with Lyra. “I’m going to Miller’s, I might not be back ‘til morning.”
“Bellamy, I’m sorry. I still…”
Love you.
“I know, me too,” he grimaced. He loves her, he’s always going to love her, but that doesn’t mean that he can pretend her actions never hurt him.
“You’re in love with her,” Miller said after Bellamy’s long rant about everything Clarke just confessed. (Was that a confession?)
“No, I love her, but I’m not in love with her.”
“This wouldn’t hurt you so much if you weren’t in love with her.”
“Here, if Bryan came to you and asked you to impregnate his surrogate because his sperm can’t and you come to find out that his sperm is fine and he only asked you as a safeguard to keep you in his life, you wouldn’t be mad?”
“I’d be furious! We were a shit couple but we’re best friends and Eric would hate for me to ever admit that I love him but I do. I’m in love with Eric, but I probably have that same love for Bryan that you do Clarke. The only difference is that I would talk to Eric about it first, I wouldn’t have decided without talking to him.”
“If you’re referring to the Echo, I did. She told me to do what I felt was right and making Clarke happy felt right.”
“Of course it did, but you making Clarke happy made Echo upset and that’s what you didn’t think about. This isn’t about Echo though, this is about you and Clarke always gravitating towards being more and then pushing each other away. You’re like magnets that don’t know their polarity.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“Yeah, well, you and Clarke not being together doesn’t make sense either,” Miller countered and maybe he had a point, but that didn’t mean that Bellamy would forgive Clarke for a while.
It did mean that Clarke was openly breastfeeding and pumping milk for Lyra in front of Bellamy. He said he was okay with it and he was but maybe Clarke should have eased into showing Bellamy her breasts three to five times a day. To Bellamy, breasts meant sex and it wasn’t that he wasn’t attracted to Clarke, but he couldn’t exactly stop his cock from getting hard every time she whipped them out and whether it was Lyra who latched on or the pumps, Bellamy couldn’t help but be transfixed by the whole thing. By Clarke’s beauty.
It was three months before Clarke noticed Bellamy’s fixation.
“I know what you’re doing.”
Bellamy’s eyes jump up to meet hers, his book falling completely out of his lap. Fuck, he couldn’t even control himself with the cover of reading a book across from her, it was getting so bad.
“What?”
“You think I haven’t noticed you watching me feed her? Pumping? What do you like more? My breasts or the milk?”
“I don’t… uh…” Bellamy licked his lips with a crinkle in his brow. He didn’t know what to say to her.
“Do you want to taste?” her brow quirked and Bellamy immediately knew it was a test. It was just like her to do this, test him with something he shouldn’t want but did. It was how he wound up dating Gina for three months all those years ago.
“Fuck you.”
“You turned that down sixteen months ago.”
“You’re such an asshole. No wonder you and Murphy get along so well.”
Clarke yanked the pump off her breast and it made a satisfying POP that Bellamy usually liked hearing but this was different. This was Clarke goading him. “Maybe, but this offer’s only good for another ten seconds.”
Bellamy shook his head and stood with the full intention of going to his room to read, but the next thing he knew, he was in front of Clarke.
“Be a good boy and lay down.”
Okay, her taking command was admittedly hot but also setting Bellamy on edge, he didn’t know what he was doing. Maybe he thought that getting some time with her breasts in his face would have them lose their power, their hold over him whenever she pulled them out of her nursing bra. Maybe he was just that desperate for female affection that he’d be desperate enough to go to his best friend for it, knowing the consequences were falling in love with her instead of remaining platonic soulmates. That’s definitely a thing.
Bellamy did what she said though and laid down with his head in her lap, her breasts just above his head and he looked at the TV that was playing British Bake Off on mute.
Clarke’s fingers delve into his hair and Bellamy muffled back a groan, it felt so good. Bellamy’s mind flashed to a place it shouldn’t have gone, at least not with Clarke…
To a place where she tasted like heaven and sin and the lust was reciprocated and not a fucking game. To a place where sinking inside her was eternal. To that happy place inside his heart that he locked uptight and never let show because she’s his best friend and anything else could ruin them.
“You want a taste?” she asked, raking her nails against his scalp.
“Stop it,” he groaned, talking about the teasing, not the mothering because he needed that, he didn’t get that with his mother and he needed it desperately from somewhere.
“Look at me.”
Bellamy tightened his jaw, desperate to get out of this situation, knowing that there was nothing he could do because he loved being where he was.
“Be a good boy and look at me,” she practically growled the demand and Bellamy couldn’t help but look up into her piercing blue eyes. “There he is. Come on, baby, taste it.”
“Clarke…”
“I want you to. Don’t you want to know what Lyra’s tasting?”
“This is so fucked up,” Bellamy grimaced tearing his eyes from hers.
“Do you want to know, Bellamy?” his name sounded heavenly making him wonder the reality of the situation.
“Yes,” he finally admitted.
“Go ahead, baby. I got you.”
He leaned up, his lips parting and so, so close to her perky pink nipples and pebbled areola when he jumped at the sound of Lyra’s cry. “I’ll get her,” he said, standing up and left the room.
Walking into Clarke’s room and to the crib where his daughter’s—niece—eyes were starting to darken to the safe of his deep chocolate ones.
“Thanks for saving me. I don’t know if I could have come back from that,” Bellamy told little Lyra as he picked her up and she stopped crying instantly like she knew that he was her father. “I love you, and I hope one day when you ask who your dad is that you won’t be disappointed in me.”
Bellamy kissed Lyra’s forehead and she cooed, her tired eyes blinking up at him before fading back into sleep. Bellamy sat on the edge of Clarke’s bed just holding her. How could he have agreed to not be her father?