Wildfire
When she first met him, she thought he was like poison. He seemed to leech the strength out of the group, dissolving the fragile structure they had begun to form in the face of his own selfish goals. Only his sister seemed safe, though even she felt his touch sometimes. It wasn't until Atom that she realized the comparison was off.
She had heard weak gasps coming from the nearby foliage, and had followed it to where Atom lay dying and in pain from the fog. He had been crouched over his friend (that's what they were, though he would have denied it, declaring it weak, though it only made him stronger in the eyes of the others), a horrified look in his eyes. In that moment, she had seen something in his eyes going out. Driven by some unknown certainty, she knew that she had to save whatever it was that was dying in his gaze.
She looked the boy over quickly, hoping for an easier solution, but even from a distance she had seen it was hopeless. Atom died quickly, to the tune her mother had hummed to her when she woke up screaming for her father after he was floated. It seemed only fitting that the lullaby that had comforted her after a death would comfort the boy as he went to it. She saw him watching her from the corner of her eye, but she made sure to keep her gaze fixed on Atom's as his breathing stopped. She was wary of what she would see in his gaze, and was uncertain now that he wasn't the poison she had thought.
For the next several days, she avoided looking him in the eye. She would look at his forehead, or his nose, or his eyebrows. (Now she knows that she was afraid she had failed, and was avoiding seeing the absence of whatever had been in his eyes before, because it might have died anyway, despite her best efforts.)
When she finally meets his gaze again, it's after Charlotte, and she's arguing against killing Murphy. She's desperate to save that something in the both of them, otherwise she'd chuck the maniac over the cliff herself. He's yelling at her, but she's pushing right back, and then their eyes meet and she's stunned at what she sees there.
She had been wrong before, so, so wrong to compare him to poison. A slow and sneaky substance was not the right comparison at all. What she sees now in him is nothing but fire. She wonders now how on Earth she hadn't realized it before, even as she was feeling its effects, and seeing the results of the flames he contained.
He practically burned with a passion that he threw into everything he did, whether it was defending their people (really his, they only listen to her because he does, much to her grateful surprise), or making her life a living hell. She's rather disconcerted to find that she doesn't even mind so much, and barely admits to herself that she wouldn't have it any other way.
His flames are both reassuring and dangerous. He rages like fire when either he or those he cares about are threatened, scorching anyone who dares to defy him. The resulting inferno is terrible, burning lawless and wild, and the only ones who are safe are the ones he's defending. She feared him at first for this very reason, but now has come to rely upon it, seeing as she has become one of the ones he is willing to burn for.
However, also like fire, he provides safety and survival. People need fire for warmth, for light, for defense. It was the reason that the first spark was lit, and it has continued to be true ever since. She knows that if he could, he'd provide all of that for them and more. She also knows that the 100 and early man have something in common: neither would have made it without fire.
She wonders how none of the others can see it. She mentioned the comparison to Octavia once (no, she doesn't talk about him, the subject just came up, okay?), and the girl had raised her eyebrows and quirked her lips in a way that implied something that she just wasn't understanding. Even now the girl still makes an odd expression whenever she catches sight of her talking to her brother, though so far he hasn't noticed.
It wasn't until she was talking with Finn and burst out that she trusted him and his flames that she realized it was true. When had she begun to put such faith in him? When had she begun to realize that they were all mere sparks compared to his blazing flames? She doesn't allow herself to ponder on the thoughts for long, because she doesn't have the time – or quite frankly, the energy – at the moment. Despite her best efforts, though, they linger in the back of her mind, coming to her attention at the least opportune moments.
What she is certain of, though, is that even if the others end up no longer needing him (they won't, they'll always need him), then she will. His fire makes he run faster, think quicker, grow stronger, and become better at everything she does so she can avoid the flames. He challenges her in a way that the others, mere sparks like herself, never can. That's something that she will need, even if the rest of the world decides it doesn't.
She hadn't seen it at first, and then when she had, it took a while to see past the danger his flames presented. Once she understood them though, she no longer feared them, but welcomed them, and wondered how she had ever not seen them before. He burned so brightly that she wondered how his mortal frame contained it all, because if they were all sparks, then he was a wildfire.