YEAR ONE

Clarke was so excited to go to college, away from her mother after a hellish senior year of high school. Her father died, her mother remarried and her best friend that decided that joining the military was the best option after high school when he could have gone to college was killed, his rover hit an IED and exploded.

She missed her dad, missed who he allowed her to be, telling her mother that Clarke can follow her own path and not in either of their footsteps though she was smart enough to follow either of their career paths if she so chose to. But she was an artist at heart, interpreting the world for people was in her blood. You can't change your passion.

Clarke was halfway done unpacking her things when a girl with long dirty blonde hair stormed in and plopped on the empty bed by the door.

"Um, hi," Clarke said/asked staring at the girl with her face smashed into the hard mattress, Clarke's wasn't much better.

"It's not polite to stare, Clarke Griffin. Please save yourself, my parents will be here in a minute and they're going to cry and ask you too many questions that I don't think you'd feel comfortable answering honestly."

"You're Harper McIntire?" Clarke guessed, who else would know her name besides her dorm mate? She doesn't know anyone here.

"That's me. You have ninety seconds," Harper warned.

"You're going to ask these questions later, aren't you?"

"For personal reasons, I'll make up the answers for them."

Clarke laughed, "Half hour?"

"Should be all clear," Harper said and Clarke nodded telling the girl she'll be back later.

Clarke went down the back stairs and found a boy smoking a joint out the window on the second floor landing.

"Oh, shit," he exclaimed, trying to hide it.

"I'm not the RA, or a narc, as long as I can get a hit."

"What if it's laced?"

"I'm watching you smoke it, you trying to incapacitate yourself?"

"Are you a premed?" he asked handing the joint over.

"My mother wishes I was, I had to agree to take some of the courses to make her happy."

Clarke took a drag as the boy cringed, "She's one of those."

"Just since my father died. I'm Clarke."

"Jasper, room 420, if you're ever in need of more," he offered, taking the joint back.

"I'll keep that in mind."

"Seriously, my best friend's parents are botanists back in Colorado, we got good shit."

"You're cornering the market in the dorm, hope it works. I'm headed to the library. I'll see ya?"

"Same dorm, probably."

Clarke went to the library across campus and found an anatomy book and began sketching out parts of the body.

"What are you doing?" she heard hours later, still going at it.

Clarke looked up and a shaggy haired boy was looking down at her.

"Sketching," she answered honestly, though she's sure that wasn't what he meant.

"Yeah, no, that's an anatomy textbook and you're sketching the parts of the body? Like the heart, intestines, kidneys..?"

"I don't know what you're getting at but yeah, they're important for human survival, why wouldn't I?"

"Is art your major?"

"No. Yes, sorry, I'm used to answering that with my mother around."

"Your mom?" he asked skeptically.

"She's a doctor, wants me to follow in her footsteps."

"Oh, and you don't want to."

"Would you want to follow your parents?"

"My parents are… nope, you're right, don't want to follow them. I'm Finn Collins."

"Clarke Griffin."

"Nice to meet you, Clarke Griffin. I have to go but I'll see you around?"

"I'll be the weirdo with the sketch pad," she quipped and Finn laughed before leaving Clarke to her creepy drawings.

"Clarke Griffin," she heard behind her as she was settling into her seat for Ethics 101.

She turned around and saw Finn Collins sitting in the row right behind her. "Finn, right?"

"Can't forget the name of a body part, can you?" he smirked.

"A body part of a majority of aquatic animals? Not exactly."

"Well, I'm honored."

"You have the gleam of freshman yet the navigational skills of a junior," she noted.

"You've noticed me on campus?"

"Well, when one is stationary and unfocused and don't know anyone, you tend to find the people you've spoken with. So far that's you, a pot head in my dorm and my roommate."

"Pot head?" Finn asked curiously.

"Yeah, fellow freshmen. Caught him smoking in the stairwell the first day, right before I met you, actually."

"I doubt that, you were hours comfortable in that chair I found you in."

"It's a good chair, I highly recommend it."

"I wouldn't tell too many people that or it'll never be available. And to answer your question, this is my hometown, not knowing the school would be frowned upon."

"Indeed it would be, I'm just glad that my mother didn't follow me here. She has a tendency to be overly protective, only child and all."

"Doesn't that just mean that your trouble?"

"Mischief isn't trouble, it's just… up to no good."

"Synonymous, you think that's why they make ethics a mandatory course?"

"No, I think it's so they can cover their ass if something ever happens on campus. Not only was it in the school code of conduct but they also took an ethics class when they first got here. We tried teaching them what's right, they just didn't grasp it."

"Intuitive," Finn smirked.

"Good morning, class. My name is Bellamy and I'm the TA. Professor Wallace will be here next week," the man in front of the class said, beginning Clarke's first class of the semester.

After that Clarke and Finn hung out a lot, studied together. he was freaking out one night about the midterm and they had sex, throwing them into a relationship that they were both invested in. Clarke was happy for the first time since her father passed, since Wells left.

The end of the year came swiftly and she went home where as Finn stayed because he was already home. They texted when they could, their conversations being few and far between after the Fourth of July.

YEAR TWO

Clarke walked onto campus with determination, she's changing majors. She's one hundred percent committed to art. Screw what Doctor Abigail Griffin said, Clarke is an artist, not a surgeon.

Clarke was settled into her new dorm, with Harper, they requested each other at the end of the semester last year because they liked each other and were decent roommates so better than risk changing and getting shit roommates they're better off sticking with a good option than possibly getting shit on.

Clarke headed to the bridge that separated the east and west campuses, needing something to draw when she saw Finn. They hadn't really talked in two weeks and Clarke blamed the constant arguments with her mother about school and thought that maybe Finn was working more to cover tuition costs, but seeing him now, arguing with some girl she didn't recognize, Clarke was hurt because the way they stood and talked to each other meant that they were more than comfortable and familiar with each other's bodies in the biblical sense and sure, maybe Clarke was being presumptuous about the whole thing, they could just be friends or coworkers, they didn't necessarily have to have had sex. Right?

She was coming up from behind Finn when she heard the girl say, "It's like you're not happy that I transferred here."

"I—Raven, it's not that I'm not happy to see you, you know I am, I just—this is a third or fourth rate college that doesn't even have an engineering program, you were at MIT, for Gods' sake!" he argued.

"I love you, Finn. I want to be where you are. This is your home, so I'm here to—"

Finn shook his head. Clarke couldn't believe what she was hearing, this woman loves Finn, left MIT for Finn. Clarke's Finn. This is all very—what are they to each other?

Finn looked around the park and spotted Clarke. "Clarke, hey! What are—"

"Babe, are you friends with her?" the girl, Raven asked.

"Yeah, we—Clarke?"

"I'm his girlfriend," Clarke said to Raven who's face went from soft and caring to wanting to skin Finn alive.

"Girlfriend?" she asked and Clarke stood still, half wanting to see how this turns out and half praying what she knew was real wasn't.

"You were in Massachusetts, Rae. You said that—"

"I remember, I was there. I remember our conversation like it was yesterday, Finn. I never said that it was okay to see other people! Fuck you! Fuck I moved here for you!" Raven exclaimed before storming off.

Finn looked to the ground and grimaced before looking over at Clarke, "Clarke—"

"Don't. Goodbye, Finn," she said, continuing on to the bridge.

She told Harper about the whole fiasco after she finished a few sketches for her art classes. Still work, her favorite. Harper was furious, being a good friend but Clarke was just sad. She wasn't going to cry over someone who was willing to use her to cheat on someone else. She wasn't that kind of person, it hurt, of course it did but he wasn't worth her tears. It hurt because he was her only friend. Yeah, there was Harper but she was a convenient ally, they hadn't been friends freshman year and Clarke didn't want to be pitied.

A few months passed and Clarke was over Finn, he kept calling her and leaving notes on the whiteboard on her door, telling her that he wants her back. That he wanted to end it with Raven and it was complicated, they were friends their entire lives so it made sense until he met Clarke and suddenly being with Raven didn't make sense anymore.

Clarke didn't give in though. She couldn't risk her moral code for a guy she just liked, not love. She was okay with where she was at, she had a routine that didn't involve him or any one romantically, her grades are better without distractions.

It's Halloween and Clarke was content with staying in her dorm studying when Harper stormed in and yanked her off her bed and threw a French maid's outfit at her. "Change, you're coming out because I can't see you wallowing all the time. Let loose and have fun!"

"Where would we be going?"

"Fourth floor."

"With Jasper?" Clarke asked, she assumed that since their dorm didn't change, his didn't either.

"Yeah. You know Jasper?"

"Met last year, he was… is there an adjective to describe Jasper?"

"Stoned, free-spirited, absentminded."

"Those are cruel, but why the hell not, it's just upstairs, if I hate it I'll just come back down here."

"Get dressed, lazy bones!"

Ten minutes later, Clarke felt and looked like a whore, she also found out that Harper is trying to be more than friends with Jasper's friend Monty and can't show up to their party alone even though all her friends will be there so what did it matter? But there Clarke is going to a party filled with strangers.

"What the hell is she doing here?" is the first thing Clarke heard over the obnoxiously thumping bass once the elevator doors opened and Raven was standing between two insanely attractive brunettes that had to be related. The older one, Clarke recognized, he was the TA from one of her classes last year.

"Be nice, Raven," the young girl said next to her.

"Nice, to the girl Finn cheated on me with? No."

"O, this is exactly why I didn't want to come, too much drama."

"You're the one that slept with my roommate, do not blame me for the awkward drama, Bell."

Bellamy, his name was Bellamy, Clarke remembered.

"Raven, I'm sorry about the Finncident. If I knew that you were in the picture I never would have been with him. He never mentioned you so how could I have known?"

"Wait, this is the girl—" O asked, gaping at Clarke. "You're pretty."

"Excuse my roommate, she pre-gamed and likes everyone. What are you doing here?" Raven demanded while Bellamy just leaned back against the wall, now enjoying the dispute.

"Clarke is my roommate," Harper said annoyed, they hadn't acknowledged her since they arrived. Clarke's ex drama taking center stage.

"I don't see how that's relevant, this is our party."

A lanky boy with goggles stepped out of a dorm, Clarke recognized him as Jasper, it's been a year, but no dramatic changes rendered him unrecognizable aside from the mad scientist costume and wig. "Actually, it's my party and I say the more the merrier. Hello, Clarke, it's nice to see you again."

Clarke smiled, her lips latched shut, "Hey, Jasper."

"Long time no see, I'd have thought you were dead if Harper didn't mention you every once in a while. Coming here to crash when you were with—"

"We're just not going to talk about him," O said quickly with a smile, but looked pointedly between Clarke and Raven, trying to get Jasper to see what was going on.

"You're abnormally chipper. Did Monty give you an Adderall?"

O smiled widely and Bellamy knocked his head back against the wall audibly, the thunk heard all the way down the hall.

"Monty, you really need to stop handing out my Adderall! Octavia is—"

"Blissfully self-aware," Clarke heard behind her and turned around.

"Nathan?" she asked in disbelief.

"Griffin, what—are you okay?" he asked, concern hitting him like a wave crashing into the shore.

"Why didn't people ask me if I was okay?" Raven spat. "The bastard cheated on me too."

Nathan grimaced at Raven, "You ran to Bellamy, asking him to screw your brains out. You're fine. Besides, I didn't know that Clarke was the other woman until you just said so. I didn't even know Clarke went to school here. What happened the Ivys that were begging for your attendance?"

"Nate, you know I'm not my mother."

"You two know each other?" Bellamy asked. "From high school?"

"From…I think I was six and Clarke was five."

"That sounds about right."

"We hung out at events, my father would schmooze for money and Clarke and Wells's parents would hand it over. Wells was good people, I'm sorry, Clarke."

"Who's Wells?" Octavia asked.

"He was my best friend. He died two years ago, he was in a plane with my father and his mother and it crashed. No survivors."

"That's a downer," Octavia rolled her eyes and walked into the dorm that Jasper stepped out of.

"Excuse her, she is a different, nicer person when she's sober," Harper explained and Clarke had a feeling that even drunk Octavia was nice, it was the Adderall-induced Octavia that was mean.

The party was fun and not really a party, more of a group of friends that aren't of age to go to a bar hanging out, having the only legal one there getting all the booze, Bellamy.

The boys were playing X-box and the girls watched until it was dark when they pulled out all the stops with a horror movie marathon drinking game.

"Okay, so, I know Octavia and Harper are going to be curled up in a ball of scardy-cat for the next six or so hours, but that makes this a thousand times better," Miller smirked to the group, they were joined late by another guy they all called Murphy and that Bellamy told to shut up a lot, which made Harper and Raven hold in laughs every time. "Clarke, I'm not actually sure you're okay horror movies."

"If they're good, I don't have a problem with them."

"Well, you have a problem then, but you're going to get drunker than you did at Christmas three years ago."

"That was food poisoning," she countered, refusing to admit defeat.

"They pumped your stomach!"

"Miller," Bellamy grumbled next to Clarke, still not having said a word to her. Maybe it was awkward hanging out with a former student. Then again he wasn't the professor, just the TA.

"Right," Miller clapped his hands together before rubbing them together swiftly. "Rules for movie numero uno: whenever you cannot understand what the hell is being said, you fucking drink. Every time someone dies, you fucking drink. Anytime someone does something badass or your friends comment badass or any of the likings, you fucking drink. Whenever a main character makes a dumbass decision, you fucking drink. Lights!"

Murphy stood and walked over to the switch.

"What's the movie?" Clarke asked and Harper tapped her knee. She has a lot to learn with this crew.