The little blonde, blue-eyed girl whirled through the small space that made up her home, excited about the day. Her parents tried to corral her into some semblance of peace as the three of them got ready to begin their day, but she was a force to be reckoned with. Jake and Abby Griffin shared a smile as their daughter, Clarke, bounced in place at the dinner table, barely taking a bite of her breakfast before she was off again.
"Clarke, sweetie," Abby said, beginning to grow exasperated at her daughter's excitement. "Sit down and finish eating."
"I can't, Momma," Clarke said, grinning wide. "I'm just soo excited."
"We know you are, Princess," her father said, chuckling at her enthusiasm. "But you need to finish your breakfast. It's the most important meal of the day."
"Yes, Daddy," she replied and finally sat down to finish her meal.
Jake Griffin had that effect on Clarke. He could get her to toe the line more often than Abby could. It was in his nature being an Omega. Abby on the other hand, as an Alpha, just did not have the patience to put up with that kind of energy. They were both proud of their daughter. Jake just had an easier time making a connection with her.
When breakfast was finally over and all three of them were ready, they left their home and headed towards the section of the Ark that held the classrooms. This was the reason behind Clarke's excitement. It was her first day and she was eager to get started. To learn. To make friends besides Wells.
When they reached their destination and before Clarke could burst through the door to her classroom, they both reminded her of the rules. That she needed to behave and listen to her teachers. It was important that she did so because she was a Griffin. Both her parents held very important jobs on the Ark and had a reputation to maintain. Abby reminded her to act accordingly. Clarke nodded solemnly and when the Jaha's appeared with young Wells in tow, she was finally allowed to enter the classroom.
Both sets of parents moved to an adjoining room where they were joined by other parents to watch their children through a one-way mirror. Inside the room, they greeted Abby's closest friend, Callie Cartwig, and the Sinclair's.
Callie smiled at Abby and said, "Clarke looks like she's ready to take on the world, Abby."
Abby returned the smile, "She does indeed. We could barely get her to eat her breakfast this morning. She was so excited."
"I wish Tennyson showed that much energy this morning," Callie said, sighing as she looked over towards her own daughter. "I had to bribe her to get her moving."
Theolonius frowned at that pronouncement, "Why is that, Ms. Cartwig?"
Callie looked over at him and replied, "It's the classwork, Chancellor. She finds it too easy. I've already spoken with the teachers and they are going to do an assessment to figure out where she is. During the break, she tore through the reading material available for her age and I found her trying to gain access to material meant for someone twice her age. She absorbs information like a sponge and is always looking for more."
"Raven is in a similar predicament," Jacapo Sinclair spoke up. "She has started working her way through some of my engineering manuals and has been tinkering non-stop."
"That is very interesting. Both girls are showing signs of high intelligence," Theolonius mused. "It seems that they need to be challenged more. I wonder if anyone else has shown such signs."
The scientist in Abby also thought it was interesting and decided that when she got to her office, she'd look up both girls' medical history to see if there could be anything there that may give her a reason to investigate them further.
They turned their attention back to the classroom and noticed that Tennyson and Raven were sitting together along with a young boy with shaggy black hair. They spoke quietly amongst themselves and seemed to ignore those around them. It wasn't until the boy looked up and noticed Clarke and Wells that their attention spread outward. They turned to one another and after a short conversation, Tennyson stood up and approached the pair. She spoke quietly to Clarke and pointed over to Raven and the boy. After a moment, Clarke nodded her head eagerly and stood up to walk over there. Wells stood up to go with her, but Tennyson stopped him with her hand on his shoulder and shook her head. Wells said something the parents couldn't hear, and Clarke turned back to look at him. Clarke said something, staring hard at Tennyson and she reluctantly took her hand from Wells, allowing him to follow. Tennyson frowned, but followed. Raven and the boy also frowned that Clarke had allowed Wells to join them. This sparked another debate between the parents. Why would they want Clarke but not Wells? What made her special, they all thought to themselves.
The parents didn't leave to head to their respective offices until the teachers arrived and began the day. Abby headed straight to her office and looked up Tennyson's and Raven's records. It took her a moment to find a connection, but when she did, she didn't know what to do with the information. She dug further. She found that the girls, including Clarke and along with eight other children, all shared the same connection. They were all born with the serum in their system. They were all born with black blood.
Abby leaned back in her chair as she thought about the little she had learned that morning. Tennyson and Raven both showed high intelligence which meant theoretically, all the children with black blood would also be the same. She needed to know the name of the boy who had been with them and find out if he was having the same issues of not being challenged enough academically. Her next question was how they knew that Clarke also shared the same blood. How is it that these children, all from different stations, could tell that they carried the same blood type and that they gravitated to one another? Abby had so many questions in her head and she began to get excited over the thought of finding out exactly what else these children were capable of.
It also dawned on her to worry. Never in the history of the Ark had there been ten children born with black blood at once. Since it first began appearing, the most that had been born in a generation was four and they were all current members of the Council, including herself. What could it mean? She decided she needed to let Jaha know and hope that it wasn't an omen of something to come.
That evening the Griffins gathered around the dinner table and as they ate dinner, discussed what happened to each of them that day.
"So, Clarke," Jake asked. "How was your first day of class?"
"I had so much fun, Daddy," Clarke said, grinning wide. "I made a bunch of new friends."
"Oh, really? What else happened today?"
Clarke paused in her eating as she thought about it and then said, "Well, Ten showed me all the neat things that we can do in the classroom. Raven helped me and Wells…"
"Wells and I," Abby corrected.
Clarke nodded and corrected herself, "She showed us how to make paper airplanes that flew across the classroom and how to make them do loops. Bellamy showed me a book that had pictures of Roman Gods and told me some of the stories."
"Who's Ten, honey," he asked.
"Tennyson," she replied. "But she likes to be called Ten, like the number. She's really nice. I like her, but I had to keep reminding her that Wells was my friend too."
Jake and Abby shared a concerned look and then he asked, "Why did you have to do that?"
Clarke looked guiltily down at her plate and said quietly, "Ten said that Wells wasn't like us. She said that we were different and needed to stick together."
"Did she tell you why you were different," Abby asked, leaning forward.
Clarke shook her head, "No, just that we were. But I told her that just because he was different from us, doesn't mean that he couldn't be our friend. That it was wrong and mean. She said sorry to Wells and it's all better now."
Jake smiled, "That's good. You're right. Just because people are different, it doesn't mean that you can't be friends with them. Every friend is supposed to be different because if they were all the same, it wouldn't be as much fun, would it?"
"No, Daddy," Clarke said, smiling.
"So, who's in your group of friends," Abby asked, wanting to know if her mental list compared to Clarke's new friends.
"There's Ten, Raven, Bellamy, John and Wells," Clarke answered quickly. "Though John is pretty quiet. He doesn't like to talk much."
"Do you know his last name?"
Clarke shook her head negatively, "No, but I didn't ask."
Abby nodded and smiled, "That's okay, sweetie. I'm glad you had a good day at school today."
Clarke grinned wide again and replied, "I am too. I can't wait to go tomorrow!"
This made Jake and Abby laugh and the rest of the night went well. As Jake put Clarke to bed, Abby went over to her desk and began making notes about Clarke's day. Her mind going over the possibilities of what it could all possibly mean. Ten children born within five years of one another and all of them born with black blood. Unprecedented. She knew change was coming, but she couldn't fathom if it was for the good of the Ark or for ill. Only time would tell, she thought as she sighed and hid her notes. Jake wouldn't like the idea of her watching the children. Studying them. He wouldn't understand her need to find out the why. He would see it as an Alpha's need for control, which she told herself that it was not so. Clarke was her pride and joy. She knew that Clarke was destined for great things. She could feel it. Taste it even. As her sire, it was important to make sure that Clarke made the right friends, studied the right things, and acted accordingly to the station she was born in. Clarke reflected Abby's accomplishments and it would behoove the child to learn that lesson early on in life.
