Raven/Clarke
Clarke Griffin knew she would go far in life, knew i the moment she touched charcoal and the moment her feet touched a soccer ball. The doctor, the doctor thing came later. Later when she knew what a trouble maker her soul mate would be. Later when she needed something to focus on.
Clarke could run with the best of them, body checked by another player or tripping over her own two feet she had plenty of injures. But never as many as her soul mate. There were nights Clarke would jolt awake and tears would spring in her eyes because everything hurts. Her face felt like it was splitting open and her ribs throbbed. She cried out, curling in a ball and the lights to her room flickered on, her dad coming to cradle her in his arms as her mom ran a soothing hand against her forehead. "It hurts." Clarke chokes out, tears falling down her face and pain radiating everywhere. It kept coming and coming.
She trembles in her parents arms and Jake and Abby watch one another with sad eyes because their baby was hurting at the age of twelve and there was nothing she could do about it. Sure there had been moments where Clarke had screamed out in pain because of her soulmate's injuries but that was fleeting, a dull ache that disappeared soon after. This. This was all consuming and unstoppable. Clarke screams out again and clutches her stomach, sobbing because somewhere someplace her soulmate was hurting. Was crying out and Clarke wasn't there to help. "It'll pass baby. It'll pass." Jake's voice is soothing as he rocks her back and forth and Abby's eyes are pained because this, Clarke reaction, something was going wrong. This was no accident. This was a continual severe attack. Somewhere their daughter's soulmate might be dying and there was nothing to be done.
When Clarke is fourteen she kisses Wells on a dare and he stares at her with heart felt eyes and she just smiles because he is her best friend. They sit around the party, laughing and talking until Clarke lets out a yelp, grabbing onto her hand at the intense pain. Wells looks up at her in worry and she flashes him a crooked grin. "Soulmate."
He nods stiffly because he had never felt the pain of a soulmate. The sharp surprising ache. "You think they'd be careful, I wouldn't want my soulmate to hurt. I'd be careful Clarke, not ignorant of your pain."
Clarke shakes her head, smiling at the dark skinned boy gently, her left hand twirling a pencil. "Its not like we can just stop getting injured. I broke my wrist a year ago, how do you think they felt." She shrugs smiling at him wryly. "Its just a thing."
"But why does it have to be a thing?" He stares at her with dark and intense eyes.
She shrugs again because everyone had tried and failed to explain the way of soulmates. "I dunno Wells, I didn't make the rules."
"But who did? Who decided that soul mates had to share their pain?" He stares at her like he is trying to get her to understand. To see what he sees. "Why would you want your soulmate to feel your pain?"
She shrugs, frowning because nothing ever makes sense at their age. "I don't know. Dad says its about understanding the pain not feeling it."
When Clarke is sixteen she watches her father die in front of her and her mother lets out a wail that shakes the room and collapses to the ground like the strings keeping her up had been cut. She screams because her heart is aching and everything hurts right now as she screams at the men in front of her. The cops come but they are too late. Her dad lays dead at her feet and her mother is trembling like everything keeping her grounded was gone. And Clarke, Clarke doesn't want this. She wants her dad back. She wants this aching in her chest gone. She wants to not have a soul mate because these next months to come are hard. They hurt and ache and her mom is broken. And Clarke doesn't want to be that tied to someone. Doesn't want to feel their death and be left knowing their last moments were painful. She doesn't want to be here. Doesn't want to hear her mom cry and she rocks herself to sleep because her dad no longer can.
When Clarke is sixteen she watches blood spill across her hand and she wants to severe the soul connection because her soulmate can feel the slice in her arm and doesn't know the reason why it aches. Clarke wants the soul bond gone so she ignores every ache. Every throb of pain and throws herself into being a doctor.
Soccer. Soccer hurt because her father would watch every game. Her father who would paint his face in her colors. In her numbers and scream as loud as he could. Her father who never missed a soccer game and now here she was, pressing her hands into a cadaver at the age of sixteen because it was the only way her mother could look at her and see Clarke and not Jake. It was the only time Abby could look into those blue eyes and not see her husband looking back at her with his own blue eyes.
So they bounded over the brachiocephalic artery and pneumothorax and superficial cuts. They bonded over stitching wounds and blood. And the soccer ball lay forgotten in Clarke's closet, tucked into the back corner with her sketch book because just the sight of it brought memories that hurt and ached.
When Clarke is seventeen she meets Lexa, Wells is standing beside her moodily and Octavia is off dancing with one of Bellamy's friends while Bellamy himself is working three blocks down. Lexa stands with tense shoulder and broken eyes. Clarke, Clarke recognizes those eyes because her mother has them. She walks over to her and sweeps her eyes up and down the girl before twisting her lips sadly into an almost smile. Lexa swallows, nodding her head sharply and shifts to allow Clarke to stand next to her. Shoulders brushing they watch as Lexa's cousin, Lincoln, bumps into another patron of the club and drops his glass onto the table, slicing his hand open. They hear a yelp across the room and Octavia is clutching her right hand only to see Lincoln and they stare at one another. Miller forgotten as Octavia moves closer to Lincoln. They only have eyes for each other and Lexa smiles a bittersweet but happy smile as Octavia pinches her own arm and Lincoln jumps in shock and joy. Clarke shakes her head because as much as soulmates could love, they could hurt. She had seen the damage in her mother's eyes. Could see it in Lexa's.
Two months later Clarke and Lexa are racing down the street, a neighbors angry dog on their heels and Clarke can't stop laughing because Lexa has an almost smile as she runs with breathless gasps before they are jumping over a fence and collapsing into a heap of giggling limbs. "Never again." Lexa's voice is amused yet resolute.
Clarke pants beside her, blue eyes alive and happy. "Do you think O got away?"
"Yes, the beast came after us." Lexa shake her head with a wry sarcastic grin.
Clarke thumps back against the fence, legs splaying out in front of her. "Last time we listen to one of O's crazy ideas."
"You agreed to it."
Clarke rolls her eyes but laughs and then her eyes furrow in shock. "Lexa, your arm!"
Clarke hands pull back the long sleeve and blood drips down to her palm. Lexa just blinks, staring at the cut on her arm from the fence. She shrugs. "It's doesn't hurt."
Blue eyes furrow as Clarke applies pressure. "What?"
Lexa's soft green eyes drop to her lap, broken and dull and pained. "When Costia." Her words catch and the girl swallow thickly. "Died, I lost the ability to feel physical pain." Eyes full of tear fly up to stare at Clarke. "I would give anything to feel pain. Anything because at least when I felt the pain I still had Costia. At least when I felt pain I knew my other half was still alive." Clarke pulls Lexa into a hug and they sit there for the rest of the night in some random person's yard because everything hurts yet doesn't.
When Clarke is eighteen she's accepted into a med school, one of the best on early admissions. With all her general educations out of the way due to summer college courses shes on her way up and can't seem to catch her breath because she hadn't felt the cut or bruising form of pain in a while and she pinches her arm, wincing at the sharp feeling. She still had feeling. She was fine. Everything was fine.
When Clarke is eighteen she works a rotation at the Emergency Room, cleaning but it is in a hospital all the same. She watches as a man drop to the floor and screams. Watches him clutch at his chest like it is falling apart and tears fill her eyes because here was another without their soulmate. Another to clutch at their empty chest and bleed from wounds they couldn't feel.
When Clarke is eighteen she gets a phone call. Wells is dead. Wells was in a wreck. Wells didn't make it. He died twenty-three minutes ago. Her best friend was gone and she drops to her knees and clutches her chest because it feels like it is cracking and falling. It feels like it will explode and the phone drops to the floor, shattering to pieces until Lexa is stooping down, her eyes understanding and sad as she helps Clarke stand. All around them sympathetic eyes watch the blonde, assuming she just lost her soulmate. And she did in a way. Wells was her best friend. Her shadow. He was hers as much as she was his and everything hurt because Wells was gone. Just like that he had been erased from her life like he didn't matter. He was gone and she hadn't felt a thing. Why did she feel the pain of a person she never met? Why couldn't she know the second her best friend died? Why couldn't soulmates be someone you choose? Who chose your better half when your best friend was your best friend?
When Clarke is nineteen she kisses Lexa. Lexa kisses back and they press their foreheads together. "You have a soulmate Clarke." Lexa's eyes are pained and she could love Clarke, is beginning to love Clarke, but this could never work.
Blue eyes are pleading and sad and broken and hopeful. "I could love you Lexa. I do love you."
"I don't know if you could be in love with me." Soft fingers brush blonde hair from Clarke's cheek and Lexa's eyes are pained. "You could love me but we both know you will never love me like you could your soulmate. You have a soulmate."
Clarke shakes her head because she didn't want that. Didn't want that forever pain. "I haven't met them. Whose to say I will. I don't want some destiny to predetermine my fate. I want to make my own."
Lexa kisses her, desperately, hands weaving through blonde hair. "Loving your soulmate is like falling. It's scary and exhilarating but at the same time it is everything you need. It's safety. Its home." Lexa's voice cracks and Clarke fingers dig into the woman's forearms because Lexa is in pain. Lexa is hurting. "You will never love anyone as much as you will love your soulmate. I don't want to hurt that for you."
"What if I don't want them?" Her eyes beg Lexa to listen, to understand.
Lexa smiles in that sad way of hers. "Then you won't want them. But I do not want to take that chance from you. I do love you Clarke. I could fall in love with you but we both know it will cause us more pain than necessary."
Clarke's eyes fill with tears and Lexa pulls her into a hug. There is a sharp pain in Clarke's shoulder and she winces. Her soulmate was injured. Again.
When Clarke is twenty two she gets drunk enough to go to a tattoo shop and have the night sky etched onto her back. It is black and purple and blue and so beautiful. It stings like a bitch when she wakes up in the morning but it is her pain. She presses on the sensitive flesh before stumbling into the kitchen. Lexa is smirking at her and Octavia is staring at her like she is just now seeing Clarke. "What?"
"You have a tattoo."
"I know." She grumbles, heading for the kitchen where Lexa hands her a mug of coffee and Tylenol. Clarke twists her lips in thanks and Lexa just shakes her head.
Octavia leans forward, grinning widely because she had felt and watched Lincoln get his tattoos. "Did you freak out?"
Clarke blinks. "I don't remember last night."
And Lexa laughs because she has pictures and Clarke looks so confused and Octavia's lips are twisting into an almost evil grin. One that meant mayhem was to come.
It came, five weeks later when Octavia somehow pulled some pictures, none to innocent, from Lexa's phone. After all, teasing Clarke was Octavia's job. Lexa rolls her eyes and slips her phone back into her pocket because those were pictures of Clarke getting the tattoo and insisting Lexa show her the progress during her drunken event.
When Clarke is twenty-three she Octavia and Lexa are t-boned by an oncoming truck. Clarke is slumped in the passenger seat, blood dripping form her head as Octavia lays unconscious in the back seat. Lexa's arm is pinned to the steering wheel, blood dripping down her face as she slowly comes to. Her vision is swimming as Clarke groans next to her, slowly coming back to consciousness before letting out a pained hiss. Octavia has yet to move from the back seat and Lexa tilts her chin. "Clarke?" Her voice is calm and she can feel the blood dripping down her arm, knows everything is meant to hurt yet it doesn't. "Clarke!"
Clarke wakes with a low pained moan. "Lex?" Blue eyes are unfocused and the brunette groans because she couldn't move and they needed to get out of here. "What?" Blue eyes struggle to focus, heading bleeding swiftly and vision swimming.
"Clarke you need to get a phone and call 911." Lexa's voice is surprisingly calm and Clarke focuses on it, feels the panic and confusion in her chest rest as the brunette speaks. "I can't move and O is still unconscious.'
"Yeah. Okay. Okay." Clarke mumbles, eye fluttering shut and Lexa almost screams because what is Clarke doing? Why is she slumping to the side?
"Clarke!" The blonde stills and Lexa's voice isn't calm it is scared and broken. Lexa rips her arm from the steering column, unable to feel the muscle tear as she forces her self out of the crushed metal. Her finger find a phone and she calls 911, demanding they come before she is moving to the passenger side, her fingers press into Clarke throat and the girl's pulse is thankfully still thrumming against her finger tips. She can't get Clarke out, the metal to warped so she makes her way to the back, pressing her fingers into Octavia's neck. The girl was alive but battered and Lexa leans into the side of the car because she is tired. The truck that had hit them, lies down in the ditch, having smashed into the side of their car before careening into the large side of the road.
Lexa falls back into the passenger seat, eyes fluttering shut because nothing hurts but she's a little light headed. When the EMT's get there they remove the three girls from the car and pronounce the driver of the truck dead. A heart attack. Lincoln is at Bellamy's side, eyes wide and panicked because he had felt everything.
When Clarke turns twenty-five she stands by her friends, leaning into Lexa's side when there is a sharp pain in her back and her legs go numb. She falls. Faster than a sack of potatoes and Lexa's arms are the only thing that keep her from hitting the ground. "Clarke?!" Lexa clutches at her, watching as blue eyes flutter and the blonde groans in pain. "Clarke look at me." Lexa's voice is soft yet commanding as their friends stare at the blonde in worry.
There is an almost pitiful whine from the blonde as she twitches in Lexa's hold. "My legs. I can't. My legs." Clarke stares at them, trembling because the pain is to great and it feels like her own. Her brain can't distinguish the difference.
"Your legs are fine Clarke. Look at me." Lexa clutches at her as Clarke trembles, staring at her legs. "Clarke look at me."
"MY back. It hurt. I cant. I cant feel." Blue eyes are hazy and unfocused. "My leg. My legs."
"Its your soulmate Clarke. Look at me." She pinches her arms harshly, the skin reddens, already forming a bruise. Clarke winces but her eyes clear. "Focus on your feeling, your pain not your soulmate's."
Clarke slowly stands on trembling feet leaning into Lexa's side and the brunette stares at the rest of the party guests before leading Clarke up the stairs and to a bed. The fall into it and Clarke curls around Lexa. "They were hurt." Lexa says nothing as the blonde speaks in a broken tone. "They lost their legs and I'm not there. What good is this!" She is angry, rightfully so because to feel the pain of your soulmate is agonizing. Even more so if you can't help ease it. Lexa remembers it all too well. "I hate this Lexa. I hate this. I feel their pain and they are hurting."
Lexa's voice is soft and broken. "But they are alive."
When Clarke is twenty six she stumbles upon a man who grins like a boy and laughs like freedom. She meets a man who makes her feel alive but he is not her soulmate. He doesn't not ache when she trips and slams into the table. He does not wince went she bumps into a sharp edge of a counter but he makes her feel alive and Lexa. Lexa was one of her best friends and she couldn't bring herself to let Lexa end up hurt, especially by her own hand. So she and the boy with a laugh like freedom hook up. More than once and she's heading to his apartment, slipping in with the key he loaned her to get her badge back for work. What she doesn't expect is to stumble into another woman. Doesn't expect to see someone else coming through the door with a grin on her face before it falls. "Who are you?" Clarke stumbles back, left leg catching and digging into the table. The woman continues to glare at her, unflinching and suspicious.
Clarke swallows because this woman looked pissed and Clarke could deal with bleeder. Could deal with a fifteen car pile up and people throwing up on her but this woman was angry and she hadn't even spoken two words to her. "Clarke Griffin."
"What are you doing here?" The suspicion is there and the woman with skin dark than Clarke's and eyes even darker, glares at her.
"I forgot my badge last night." Clarke motions to the bedroom, knowing exactly where it had fallen, behind the headboard. "Finn told me to come get it."
The woman shifts on her feet, throat bobbing with emotion as she swallows. "You have a key?"
"Yeah, he had to work so he lent it to me." She grips the key tighter in her hand, tilting her chin to the door. "I'm leaving it under the mat like he asked."
The woman's glare is ten times worse than five seconds ago and her hands are steady even as her shoulders tremble in rage. "Who are you.?"
Clarke tilts her head to the side in confusion, there is an ominous foreboding in her gut that has her wanting to turn and run from this apartment. "Clarke Griffin."
"No. Are you screwing my boyfriend." Her words are harsh and she takes a step closer, eyes blazing in a all consuming fire.
Clarke chokes on her own spit,staring at the woman in shock and understanding and apprehension. "Boyfriend?"
"You are aren't you!" The woman steps closer, fist clenched and eyes as dark as the night itself. "You little slut!"
"Whoa. No." Clarke holds her hands up shaking her head because this woman has the wrong idea. "I didn't know he was your boyfriend."
The girl shakes her head, shifting on her leg, Clarke's eyes catch the brace and something tugs at the back of her mind and her heart aches at this woman yelling at her but she didn't love Finn. Why did this hurt? Why did her stomach roll and flip and burn. "How long have you been fucking my boyfriend?"
"I don't." Dark eyes flash to her and Clarke sighs because this was a woman as determined and frightening as Lexa was when she played sports. "Two months. We're not dating, i'm not his soulmate. I didn't. I didn't know he had one."
"I'm not his fucking soul mate either!" She throws her hands out and Clarke almost flinches because there is so much anger and pain in her voice that Clarke aches. "Doesn't mean I don't love him!"
There is the sound of a door opening and Finn looks up, his shaggy hair falling into his eyes and he pushes it back from his face, eyes widening and he swallows. "Oh shit."
Two months later Clarke bumps into Raven again. The party was one of Murphy's, Lexa had pulled her along because Lincoln had forced her to do her 'once a week social outing' and Clarke was the best company. Lexa was distracted holding a ladder as Echo attempted to fix one of the lights and Bellamy is in the kitchen, cooking with Monroe. The silence is awkward and Raven rolls her eyes. "I broke up with Finn."
Clarke ducks her head because guilt was hitting her and her heart was racing for some odd reason. "I'm sorry I slept with him."
Raven shrugs almost helplessly and her lips twitch in an almost grin. "You didn't know."
Clarke relaxes because this isn't the heart aching angry woman who had called her a slut. Blue eyes are bright and Clarke's chest feels like it's soaring for some reason as she shrugs her shoulders at the tan skinned woman. "Yeah but I'm still sorry."
Before Raven can reply Octavia is dragging her into the kitchen for his knife skill. "You cut up bodies all day, please tell me you can cut vegetables." Octavia's voice is teasing and eyes full of mirth as Clarke rolls her own blue.
Raven comes in a few minutes later, beer in her hand as she eyes them. Bellamy is at the stove, fire flickering and eyes intent. Octavia is humming under her breath as she digs around in the cabinet. Clarke is chopping up vegetable and Raven can't hold in her snort. Blue eyes turn to look at her, sharp and demanding. "What?" There is a warning in her voice but Raven doesn't hear it or ignores it, grinning with a smugness that shouldn't send Clarke's stomach fluttering.
The woman shrugs almost innocently, picking up a slice of green pepper and stuffing it in her mouth as the blonde glares at her in challenge. "These aren't very even." There is a wicked gleam in dark eyes. "Is this what your patients look like after your through with them? All crooked cuts and shit?"
Clarke rolls blue eyes, glaring at the dark eyed grinning woman. "I can cut into someone and know where their vein is, missing it by a centimeter. I can cut well enough to kill or save a life." She brands the knife at Raven with sparking blue eyes.
Raven laughs throatily. "Just can't chop vegetables can you?"
Clarke rolls her eyes, cutting the vegetables again with sharp movements. "Fuck you." Her voice is almost petulant and Raven laughs loudly with a wide grin and Clarke slips because that laugh did something to her chest and suddenly there is a sharp pain in her hand and she jerks back with a yelp.
Raven jumps. "Ow, fuck." Gripping her right hand like it was on fire and Clarke drops the knife from her left and applies pressure to her bleeding palm.
Blue eyes widen as she stares at Raven. She presses into her palm almost wincing in pain before her face slackens because Raven's face twists and she massages her hand like it aches and Clarke just stares at her. "Oh." The words barely fall from the blonde's lips in a breathy whisper.
Raven face twists into shock, amusement and hope. "You've got to be shitting me." There is a wry grin on her lips.