Dr. Glass is waiting for them in the lobby of the Medic Station. Her glasses are askew on her face and her hair is messy from sleep. Clarke doesn't even want to know how late the hour is for the doctor to look so disheveled. It had to be early in the morning, pushing towards dawn by now.
"We're so sorry to wake you, ma'am," Bellamy apologizes but the doctor just waves her hand, brushing them off, and ushers them inside her office.
"Not a problem. It's almost morning anyway."
She pulls down the phoropter and the lenses snap into place. Clarke thinks back to the last time she was in this room. Not much had changed. Except now, she could see all the colors. The color chart was a rainbow with every color imaginable fading from black to white. Every red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet shade on the spectrum. Clarke can't take her eyes off of it.
"Looks like someone finally met her soulmate," Dr. Glass says knowingly. Her smile is warm and kind.
"Finally," Clarke responds. She sits down in the chair and Bellamy crosses his arm leaning against a wall to watch.
"Can you see all the colors on the chart?"
"Yes."
"What is this one?" Dr. Glass points at a thin strip of purple. Clarke tells her the color and then the doctor points around the chart until she's satisfied.
"I got a ping for a solar flare exposure. How do you feel?"
"I have a little bit of a headache," Clarke admits and the doctor looks through the lenses of the phoropter at her eyes.
"Your eyes look okay to me. No permanent side effects. You might see some black spots today so just avoid looking directly at any bright lights." She finishes checking Clarke's eyes and then motions for Bellamy to come and sit.
"I-I didn't see any solar flares. I'm fine," he resists not wanting to sit down in the chair.
"You're her soulmate, aren't you? I just want to take a look," the doctor beckons him to sit with her hand. He does reluctantly.
"Can you tell me this color?" she points at a shade of green.
"I can't, ma'am. I still see in black and white," Bellamy tell her.
"Oh, how strange," the doctor says looking between the two of the them curiously. She rifles through her cabinet moving the eyes drops out of the way and pulls out a thick white notebook.
She flips open a page and holds it up for Bellamy. It's faded and yellow from age. Clarke can see a circle of greens encasing a red number eight.
"What number do you see?"
"Eight," Bellamy answers quickly.
"And this one?"
"Fourteen...or nine?" Bellamy asks with uncertainty. Clarke can see the nine from her position but doesn't say anything.
The doctor flips through the book and Bellamy guesses some more. Some answers correct and some not. When they're finished she puts the book away and pulls a tray of colored tiles out. Four rows. Four different shades of colors.
"Can you place these in increasing color hue for me?" she asks patiently. Bellamy can only stare at her in confusion. The darker colors are easy to tell from the lighter ones, but he misplaces the colors. He places the dark reds with the dark greens and runs out of room in the first row.
"Okay. Thank you," Dr. Glass puts the tray away and swipes through something on her tablet.
Clarke looks at Bellamy nervously. Clarke saw black and white when her eyes met his, but his didn't. Could they really be soulmates then?
"Bellamy Blake, you're colorblind," the woman says proudly looking up from her tablet and pushes her glasses up on her nose.
"So what does that mean?" Bellamy asks her and Clarke holds her breath for the answer.
"It means...Clarke is most certainly your soulmate but you won't ever be able to see color traditionally."
"He's my soulmate!"
"Traditionally?"
Bellamy and Clarke speak at the same time. Clarke lets the relief wash over her. But Bellamy still looks confused.
"You have a special type of vision that can't differentiate between the colors red and green. And blue and yellow. The photopigments in your eyes are abnormal. It's a condition I've been studying for ages. In my studies, it's surprising how many people through history were colorblind."
She goes on to explain more and then asks Bellamy and Clarke to wait outside her office. They sit down on the hard plastic chairs together.
Bellamy sits in mild shock beside her and Clarke can feel the emotions coming off of him. There was more to soulmates than seeing in color.
She pulls at his arm resting on his leg gingerly, lifts it up, and lays her head down in his lap. His hand rests gently on her shoulder.
"I thought the Universe was cruel for letting me see one color, but not all of them. But maybe that's why I could see the brown of your hair without meeting you face-to-face. The Universe knew you couldn't see color at all."
Clarke looks up at him. The blue of his guard's uniform reminds her of midnight, his brown curls like the dirt of the last living tree, and his freckles are like tiny stars cut out from the galaxy. Clarke wants to describe it all to him. To be his eyes.
"My mom never had a soulmate. Octavia will never get one. The Universe is cruel."
When he says that, she thinks maybe she has it backwards. She thinks of his sister hidden under the floor, his mother's carefully coded thread, and his unwavering conviction to protect his family. Maybe he can teach her a thing or two about seeing the world in black and white.
Dr. Glass finally comes out of her office. She's carrying a pair of glasses delicately in her hands. The frames are thick with black rims. But the lenses aren't clear like normal glasses. They have a colored tint to them.
"I'm not sure if this will work, but I think it will help you." She hands the glasses to Bellamy.
Clarke sits up and faces him. He slides them in place and Clarke gives him a moment to look around. His eyes search out the colors landing on the doctor's green Medic scrubs, the tan cloth on a sofa, the warm yellow of the lightbulb above them, the shiny silver metal of the chair under his fingertips, and to Clarke's face. Clarke is unsure what he sees.
"What color are my eyes?" she asks him.
"Blue," he says.
thanks for reading! let me know your thoughts and favorite lines!