Disclaimer: Not mine.
AN: My Christmas gift for Rashaka. About that Superpower AU she came up with a while back. Not Christmas themed, but I hope you like it anyway.
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* Walk Through Walls *
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Clarke knew about comic books, there even were a few scattered around the Ark. Sometimes, not often, when Clarke was younger, her and Wells's favorite teacher would bring one to a class and let them study it. Clarke was forever fascinated by the artwork. She would stare at the faded colors with wide eyes, almost being able to imagine how bright and striking they used to be, before time did its work and the reds and blues darkened and the yellows paled.
There was this one issue that was her favorite. It was a story about mutants. Every character had some kind of power. A professor that could read minds, a man that shot a (faded) red beam of light with his eyes, a woman who controlled the weather aptly named Storm, a girl who absorbed energy through touch… and another one who walked through walls.
It was a fascinating story, more so because it showed the pure beauty human imagination could create.
But it was just a story. Until it wasn't.
Until a hundred kids were dropped from the Ark and spiraled into the unknown and terrifying on the Earth below. Until a young man with deep brown eyes ignored her caution and opened the doors to the possibly toxic oxygen outside. Until they were hit with the first wave of fresh air they had ever felt and gulped it down hungrily as if they had never breathed before, maybe they hadn't, not the way they were supposed to.
Not until they spent the next twenty four hours dizzy and feverish, hallucinating the faces of people they had lost and shadows of monsters their minds had conjured.
Not until they opened their tired eyes to the first real sunrise and blinked in confusion at the new world before them.
It took Clarke three hours until she noticed the first change. The young man, the one who wasn't supposed to have come with them, but found a way to follow his sister, she saw how suddenly so many agreed with his every suggestion. She saw the power going to his arrogant head, but she also saw the flicker of confusion in his eyes when someone Clarke hadn't learned the name of yet, changed their mind after he grabbed their hand.
Bellamy Blake. The first change. Or at least the first Clarke noticed.
But then there were more. Monty Green, the mechanic whose hands suddenly moved at a speed eyes couldn't follow. Jasper Jordan who woke the whole camp in the middle of the night screaming in terror, they found him trying to frantically grab something to hold on to as he floated two feet from the ground as if the drop ship was still in space untouched by gravity.
A sixteen year old girl Blake was taking under his wing that started playing with fire as if it was a tangible substance. A seventeen year old boy with a cruel face and nature, whispering to empty air as if someone was there. A twelve year old girl who turned invisible in front of their eyes.
And Clarke.
Clarke, who felt the ground vanish from under her feet and as she fell, in panic grabbed the only thing within reach. Bellamy's hand was warm, stronger than she had expected - though she hadn't known she expected anything - and it held. Their eyes connected, his uncertain for the first time as if he had no idea what he would do, if he would pull her up or let her fall. Both their gazes moved away from each other and to the upturned spikes below her.
They looked back at each other knowing he held her life in his hands. And why did Clarke suddenly feel like she'd agree with his decision, whatever it was?
She saw him make a choice just as Wells and Finn joined his sides, but she never saw which way it would have gone because the interruption startled her in some way - pulled her away from the tangible connection that had been established with the man she found herself disliking so deeply - and his hand, a moment ago so steady and certain turned to smoke in her grip.
He hadn't let her go. Even as she fell she knew he hadn't let go. Her fingers slipped through his hand, not apart from it.
All she could hear were three screams. None of them were her own, and all she felt was static, her every muscle, every cell, every atom of her body was full of that feeling one gets when sitting on ones limb for too long. Like it had lost all feeling but was still somehow being poked by a million tiny needles.
One heartbeat. Two heartbeats. Three heartbeats.
She looked toward her chest as in a dream. A spear ran all the way through it, impaling her. She didn't feel it. Her mother had told her that sometimes, when the injury was bad enough, the wounded person could barely feel anything. This meant they were in shock and it was usually a very bad sign.
Except she didn't feel like she was in shock. And she felt the ground under her back, rocks scraping against her shoulder blades as she heaved a deep breath, earth under the fingernails she was digging into the dirt.
But she didn't feel the spear running through her body. And there was no blood.
Slowly she rolled from her back to her stomach, her eyes never left the object that should by all rights have killed her. It… stayed where it was, not in her body, but dug into the ground from which it didn't move an inch, and yet Clarke found herself free of it. Her chest was perfectly intact.
She raised her eyes to the three pale faces looking at her from above.
But her mind sent her back in time to that comic book. To the mutant characters with their inexplicable powers. To the girl who moved through walls. Kitty Pryde and now Clarke Griffin.
She didn't let herself contemplate it for long however. She had a patient that did not have the impossible luck to be able to turn intangible.
She would save Jasper. She would do anything she had to to keep all of them alive.
Even Bellamy Blake who had thought about letting her fall, but who now looked almost relieved to see that she was okay. Even Bellamy Blake whose touch had clouded her brain, for a moment made her think that he had the right to decide her fate.
As soon as she was helped up from the hole by Wells and Finn - Bellamy had reached as well, but Clarke flinched back and he pulled away, his eyes, a moment before so expressive, turning clouded and walled - she turned from all of them and moved for Jasper. Her mind already occupied by everything that needed to be done to keep him breathing.
—-
They had superpowers. Shouldn't that have mean that things were under their control and went according to plan? Shouldn't that mean that they should be safe?
Apparently not.
Because on Earth, no one was ever safe. There were the Grounders, who had powers just like they did, but they'd probably always had them and so they knew how to control them, how to turn them on and off at will. The hundred delinquents (minus two, plus Bellamy and Raven) had no such ability. Their camp was in a constant state of chaos.
Kids playing with their powers like it was some kind of game. Or the ones who were showing off. Or the ones who walked around comparing them, because 'My superpower is better than your superpower and wanna bet Monty's moonshine that I can steal the belt from around your waist without you noticing?'.
There were kids coming to her with burns because they pissed off Monroe and she hadn't been able to reign her fire in. And Jasper, showing up one morning with his arm cradled to his chest because he once again woke up floating in the air but fell as soon as he opened his eyes and landed on his wrist with a crack.
And then there was Octavia. Sometimes at the back of Clarke's mind she still hears Octavia screaming over Atom's body that first time. Still feels her eardrums almost bleeding, still notices the metal of the drop ship vibrating from the high pitch, still sees it as Bellamy clamps his hand over his sister's mouth, remembers how the scream abruptly cut short as he commanded her to stop. Remembers the way his face constricted in horror and he scrambled away from Octavia looking at his hands as if they'd betrayed him. She remembers his retching. Remembers how he kept saying he was sorry.
She hasn't seen him touch anyone since.
And yes they're getting better. Octavia maybe even being the best example. Since discovering the power behind her voice, the range of it has grown. Now she's able to broadcast it loud enough to encompass the whole camp. Or she can whisper in someone's ear from ten feet away.
It's useful. Maybe more so than anyone else's recently acquired ability.
Certainly more so than her own. Clarke doesn't see what use is walking through walls. There is of course the advantage of non-containable freedom, and of surviving such things as being impaled or shot or stabbed, but that only keeps her safe from the physical threats. It doesn't guard her heart from being broken, it doesn't protect anyone else from being injured.
Like Wells. Her best friend. The boy who didn't tell the secret that killed her dad. The boy who got stabbed by a crazy little girl because his father gave her nightmares. The boy who despite everything she's tried won't open his eyes. He just sleeps in the part of the drop ship Clarke has named med bay and dreams about things Clarke can't touch while the rest of them die around him.
The only reason Clarke knows he's dreaming at all, that he's in some kind of coma instead of being brain dead and gone, is because Raven once grudgingly told her so.
Clarke tries to stop her thoughts in their tracks at that. She doesn't want to think about Raven. The brilliant mechanic who loved her boyfriend so much she found a way to reach him even from space. Only to find him with another girl, and worst of all - or so Clarke imagines - to be able to feel it.
Clarke bets that being an empath would suck.
—-
She doesn't notice it at first. The way Bellamy starts becoming her rock. The way he's turning into the one solid thing in a world that grows less tangible or certain every day.
Clarke can walk through walls, it doesn't matter if those walls are metal or stone or wood, to Clarke they might as well be air. And on some days it's exhilarating, to know that there are no chains, no cells that could hold her, to know that there is no door she can't walk through.
But on some days it is terrifying. Like one day the earth will open up from beneath her, just like it did that first time, but instead of hitting the ground uninjured she'll keep falling through it, that she will fall and fall and never stop.
Except she's starting to trust that Bellamy will be there to catch her again. And this time she knows that he will not hesitate to pull her back.
She doesn't notice this new belief. Not until they find the cache of the guns and he corrects her hold on the weapon, - carefully, so careful not to touch her, not to influence her thoughts by accident - not until he lingers at her back for a second and Clarke can practically feel him letting out one deep shudder, she hears his breath catch at the back of his throat, almost forgets about the gun in her hands, about his own power, as she fights the urge to inch back and lean against his chest.
She pulls the trigger instead, hitting her mark almost dead on. And whirls around with a grin to be met by a genuine smile that almost looks proud.
She doesn't notice it until she saves him from one of their own people. Not until he returns the favor and saves her a minute later.
She does notice it as they lean against the tree. Exhausted and bloody. There's just two solid points in her world in that moment. The tree bark digging into her back and the man who will come back to their camp with her.
She needs him.
And not just because she can't imagine keeping their people together by herself. She needs him because she needs something - someone - that won't turn into smoke under her fingertips. Bellamy won't. Not now. Not anymore.
And maybe one day they'll gain enough control over themselves that Clarke won't have to fear holding his hand only to lose her grip. Maybe one day Bellamy won't have to avoid holding her hand for fear of taking her mind as well.
Maybe one day she'll be able to cross the wall between them too.
But until then they will sit beside each other and let an old tree steady both of their backs.