It's much harder than Clarke imagines, finding her soulmate. Ninety-seven years later, after the nuclear bombs destroyed the Earth, there were only twenty-five hundred known humans left on the Ark. And the combined twelve space stations were only so big. Most people met their soulmate when they were young, like on the first day of school or in the next years following. It was rare for them to be delayed because of a difference in age or if they were from a different Station on the Ark. It was even more rare for a person not to have a soulmate all together, but Clarke doesn't like to think about that possibility.
Wells eventually meets Sasha. Nathan has Monty. Even Raven Reyes found her other half in Finn Collins, a total jerk, in Clarke's honest opinion. But Clarke, at almost seventeen, was still without her soulmate.
She knew they were out there. She can still see the color of their brown curls every Unity Day in the dirt around the last living tree. Sometimes she sees it in the rust of the Ark's old nuts and bolts, or in the special chocolate her parents give her on her birthday.
She's covered up to her elbows in the color now and stares up at a coated canvas. Clarke had moved on from crayons in kindergarten to finger paints to watercolors and finally to the paints that she had mixed together herself. Always searching for the only color she could see in her dull colorless world.
The canvas, like the walls of her room around her, is completely filled with brown. Earth and her trees, her mother's piercing eyes, and that head of dark curls.
Clarke stands back to admire her work when a knock sounds on the door and her mother comes into the room carrying a heavy garment bag.
"Oh, good. You got done early at the clinic, too?" Abby asks and sets the bag up on the back of the gray door. She ignores the brown canvas. After years of Clarke trying to convince others around her that she could see a shade of brown, Abby had let her be. It was just unheard of, but Clarke's insistence was persistent.
"Yeah, Jackson let me go so I could get ready for tonight. What's that?"
"Your dress." Abby smiles brightly at her and then unzips the bag, dramatically, revealing a dark black dress. It's richer than anything the Griffins' own. Clarke wipes her hand on a cloth, leaving the brown behind, so she can touch the fabric. It's made of silk and tulle.
"Where did this come from?" Clarke asks bewildered.
"I've been saving it. They had these dances before we were on the Ark, you know? And it matches your eyes!"
Clarke's fingers still on the soft fabric.
"What color is it?"
"It's a dark purple, like a plum," Abby tries to explain and Clarke is even more in awe of the dress now. She tries to picture it and closes her eyes as her mother describes it for her, "It's warm like your brown, but fuller and richer. Think royalty and kings. Or think of the fading light in the sky on earth. A bruise. A heartbeat. A-a…"
"It sounds beautiful," Clarke says cutting her mother's explanation off.
"It's going to make your eyes pop! Iris would have had to have made your soulmate blind not to see you tonight."
Clarke laughs along with her mother at that joke, but can't help but feel nervous at the same time.
The Council was throwing a masquerade dance on Unity Day in honor of Iris in hopes for the few unpaired young adults that remained to finally meet their better halves. The butterflies soar around in her stomach at the thought of finally meeting her soulmate. Everyone on the Ark would be there. Everyone would be decked out in their finest colorful clothing.
Clarke steps into the plum dress letting her mother zip her up. It's tight, holding all of her insides together, so she can barely breathe. She runs her fingers over the silk at her waist.
"You look beautiful," Abby murmurs tears filling her eyes. She holds up a small mirror for Clarke to see herself in.
Her hair is still entwined in the thick braid she had thread it in that morning with tiny trindles falling around her face. The dress looks stunning on her, but she wishes she could see her blue eyes. They look dull and gray in the reflection of the mirror, like the murky water she dips her paintbrushes in.
Not letting herself be brought down, she straightens up and smiles at her mother.
"Thank you. I love it."
"You're welcome, baby. Now, get out of here and go have fun." Abby gives Clarke a tight squeeze and helps her into her shoes before pushing her out the door to go meet Wells.
He's waiting for her in the rotunda.
Clarke bursts out with laughter when she lays eyes on him. His shirt and pants are a mismatch of patterns. Polka dots on his sleeves and stripes on his chest. His pants are a swirl of flowers and designs.
"Stop laughing! You're not getting the whole effect. This is an incredible outfit," Wells says. She tickles his side and he takes her hand to spin her around.
"I may not be able to see the colors, but I'm not blind!" Clarke says breathlessly from the spin.
"Okay, so you're seeing the full effect in the shirt. It's black and white. But the pants...well, the pants are sex and lust."
"Nice. Spending time with Sasha before you got here?" Clarke smirks at her best friend and guesses the color of his pants, "Red."
"Gah, you're too good. The jacket matches your eyes!" He blurts out and picks his jacket up off of an exposed pipe on the wall behind him.
"Too easy. And I hope you're not being serious because that combination sounds ridiculous."
Bright blue with dark red. Clarke is thankful she can't see Wells' outfit clearly.
"It's not the worst thing we'll see tonight."
Clarke doesn't respond. She places her arm in his when he offers it to her and they walk down the halls of Alpha Station silently. The walls around them are smooth and gray. It's calming to walk through. To know the color around her.
"Are you nervous?" Wells asks her after a few moments.
"Of what? Dancing in front of the whole Ark in a room filled with colors I can't see?" Clarke jokes.
"To finally meet them."
"I think I'm more nervous that I won't," Clarke admits. They stop in the hallway and Wells looks at her with sympathy in his dark eyes. She looks away from him not wanting to get emotional before she enters the next room.
When she glances around, she notices the string of lights leading into the Ark Ballroom. There are ribbons and banners that lead inside as well, and they cause her feet to move involuntarily, curious with what else could lay inside the entrance. Wells follows behind her. He's in even more of a trance than she is.
The room is lined with plush drapes to cover up the metal walls making the room feel fancier than it is. There are streamers hanging from the ceiling. Crystal glass balls reflect the light on the tables. And the room is filled with people. Even in gray it's dizzying. The decorations glitter and shine all around her. The Arkadians dazzle in their fancy clothes and bright smiles.
"It's a kaleidoscope of—"
"Hush. I can wait to see it all for myself." Clarke says throwing a hand up to stop Wells. It lingers in the air as she remains mesmerized by the sight before her.
They take in the room, until the voices of their friends draw them from their stupor.
Sasha is calling for Wells on the dance floor. Her dress sparkles under the chandelier shooting off colors Clarke can't even begin to comprehend. Nate and Monty are posted up by the drink bar with Monty's best friend, Jasper. They're laughing as they spike the punch with Moonshine. Jasper hasn't met his soulmate yet either, so the three boys are playing a game of Guess the Color. The crowd provides a game that's never ending for them.
All of the Ark seems to be here. Her friends from school, and ones who had recently graduated, a few parents, some teachers, and the Council.
Clarke joins Wells and Sasha out on the dance floor and they dance the night away.
Wells twirls his best friend and his girl around. It's always been easy for the three of them. Since Wells had met his soulmate in the first grade, when Sasha had switched into their class, and they automatically made room for her at their table. Clarke remembers the look on Wells face. It's the same look he's giving her now. Like she holds all the secrets to the universe. And then the music slows down and Clarke remembers that as they grew older it was getting harder for her not to feel like a third wheel. She bows out so that they can slow dance together.
As she exits the dance floor she searches around the room for a familiar face. Her eyes flit around but she can't find anyone she knows, so she goes over to the window that looks over the earth. It is a swirl of white and grays. She traces the patterns of the clouds with her finger on the glass. Then the Ark rotates a little to the left and Clarke is suddenly blinded by the bright light of a sun flare.
An alarm system begins to sound and a woman's voice chimes out over the P.A. system.
"Solar Flare Alert."
Clarke shields her eyes and turns away from the window. She blinks rapidly to clear her eyes. Black dots fill her vision.
"An X-class solar flare has begun on the Starboard side of the Ark. All citizens must report to the nearest shelter site immediately. This is not a test. This is a solar flare alert."
The alarm continues to sound and some of the people in the room groan loudly when the Ark guards enter. The music stops.
"Looks like the party is over," Jasper grumbles. Clarke can hear him from across the room.
"Ladies and gentleman, you know the drill. I.D.s out," a guard calls. The other guards began to scan I.D.s and Clarke pulls up the sleeve of her dress to reveal hers.
There's a guard beside her, but it's not his uniform that alerts her to his presence or the shock baton he has out as he crouches over a small girl, but the brown curls on the crown of his head.
"I'll create a distraction," his gruff voice whispers to the girl he's shielding with his body.
There's a desperation to his voice and the baton at his side hums to life.
"Bell, I'm scared. How do I get home?" Clarke tears her eyes away from his head to look at the girl speaking to him. She looks terrified.
Clarke's mind races to figure out what's happening before her, when an older guard makes his way towards them. She feels the tension rolling off of the guard beside her. So she does the one thing that will cause the biggest distraction for them.
"Hi! I think you're my soulmate!" Clarke jumps in between the two guards and faces the younger one.
As soon as their eyes meet Clarke's world bursts into color.
The brown curls on her soulmate's head compliment his intense brown eyes nicely. She can see her blue ones reflecting off of them. The wide bridge of his nose is dotted in freckles. He has a scar on his forehead and one above his lip. And his lips are full and pink, pursed in a tight line, obviously in annoyance. Clarke smiles at the dimple in his chin.
She catalogues his features all the while her peripherals are catching on the colors around her. The red plush drapes on the walls, the golden silverware that lay on top of pink blush tablecloths, the checkered array of orange in a fruit basket, and the hanging purple and green streamers. Her mind doesn't even have names for the colors flying around the room from the lights bouncing off of the chandelier.
Her declaration of a soulmate is heard around the room and the cheers and congratulations go up in the air. The sounds are deafening in her ears. The colors are overwhelming. Clarke's head begins to feel light and then her knees go weak. All of the colors swirling around her go dark in her mind as she passes out.
She's unaware of the voices and bodies around her, but they carry over into her subconscious.
"Watch out, Blake," a guard's voice shouts.
"Catch her, Bell!"
Before her body can hit the floor, strong warm hands wrap around her torso and she's swept off of her feet.
"Thanks for the distraction," a voice close to her ear whispers and then says much louder, "I'll take the girl to Medical."
But Clarke doesn't wake up in Medical.