Chapter Text
When Clarke was younger, her parents told her that if you’re lucky, you get a soulmark.
A soulmark is an image that appears on your body the night before your 17th birthday. It tells you if you have a soulmate and can help you find him or her, because that person has the exact same image on the exact same spot.
So having a soulmark means that you have the chance of a life filled with the most sought after type of love on earth. True love.
No one really knows why or how people get the mark, but as a young girl Clarke asked her parents many times and they always told her the same story. A story the Greeks and Romans came up with as an explanation.
‘Legends say that the Gods created the world and filled it with life. They filled our world with the most wonderful flowers and majestic animals and after some time they decided to create us. Humans. But the first humans didn’t look like how we look now. They had 4 arms, 4 legs and 4 eyes’ Jake Griffin used to tell his daughter when he tucked her in, ‘After a while the almighty Gods, that ruled the world from above, regretted their decision. The humans they had created were too strong so they tore them in half. That’s when soulmates arose. See, the first humans only had one soul, so when the Gods tore them in half, humans were doomed to live with half a soul and were condemned to spend their lives looking for the other half. So they could be complete again.
The Gods watched as the humans searched and searched and started to pity the ones who were unlucky and remained incomplete. They saw how unhappy and miserable those humans were and in an act of kindness they gave humans a soulmark. They gave the humans who are destined for true love a fair chance of finding it’
It was a story Clarke loved hearing as a child, but that was all it was of course – a story, not something that was actually true or commonly believed to be correct.
What is of common believe is that soulmarks are a blessing.
That’s also what Clarke believed until a stormy night, right before her 15th birthday, took the life of her mother, Abby Griffin. Abby was driving through a heavy storm on her way home from work, when she lost the control of her car and drove into a tree.
Clarke's parents had been soulmates and shared the same soulmark of 5 stars that decorated the skin behind their left ear. All of them had a different colour – the first one was a dark blue star and the stream ended just above their collarbone with a star in a soft blue tone. Just like every soulmark, it shimmered like a diamond when touched by sunlight.
As a child, when her mother or her father held Clarke tightly in their arms, Clarke loved to trail her fingers over the mark. The stars mesmerised Clarke– her parents' mark was gorgeous.
When she grew older, Clarke learned what their mark really meant. It was the symbol of the true love they shared – the unconditional and selfless love you share with your soulmate. All throughout her early teens Clarke wished she’d someday have what her parents had. Clarke counted the days until her 17th birthday.
But when death had taken her mother way before Abby's time and Jake turned into an alcoholic, Clarke saw the downside of true love. When you had it, you were deliriously happy and invincible, but when you lost it, even death was more merciful.
First, Clarke could handle herself and her dad’s problems. She may had lost her mother, her faith in love and, in a way, her father too, but she still had Wells Jaha, her best friend, and Lexa Green, her girlfriend. They were right there when she needed them and they reminded Clarke that life could one day be good again.
Clarke focused on school, on her volunteer job at the animal clinic and on the swimming team she was co-captain of with Lexa. All of that while dealing with her own grief and with her dad’s, who had a lot of ups and downs.
Sometimes Jake was able to put the bottle down for two days straight and be a real father to his daughter again, but most of the time he was getting drunk or already there. His addiction had cost him his job and put a strain on every relationship he had.
On the first anniversary of her mother’s death, Clarke got home from school at 5pm and found her father unconscious on their living room floor. Lying in a puddle of his own vomit, still holding his bottle of scotch like it was a lifeline.
Clarke thought he was dead.
She couldn’t tell you how she acted or what she did, everything seemed to happen in a blur, but 15 minutes later an ambulance arrived that took her dad to a hospital.
The Jaha’s suddenly appeared as well. Wells put his arm around his best friend and guided Clarke to their car and Thelonious, Wells’ dad and Clarke's godfather, drove them to their home.
Clarke was so in shock about finding her dad like that, that it took her a week before she could speaking again. Her first words were to Wells, saying ‘I thought I had lost him too’ and then she fell apart. Wells held her in his arms for hours.
Jake checked into rehab after he was discharged from the hospital and Clarke moved into the Jaha’s home permanently, she was still 15 after all.
A couple of days later Clarke turned 16, but she decided not to celebrate it. It would be her first birthday without either one of her parents present, so she honestly didn’t see a reason to celebrate. The Jaha’s were amazing though because they understood, but they wanted Clarke to have a nice day. Thelonious took them to dinner and Wells gave her an amazing nail polish set that Clarke wanted to have for forever.
Clarke visited her father more and more while he was in rehab and their relationship improved slowly during those visits. Their horrible year had done a lot to them individually, but also to the father-daughter relationship they shared. He had once been her best friend, her confidant, her protector, but now Jake was more a stranger than a parent to Clarke.
Jake was ashamed and disappointed in himself and apologised over and over again for choosing liquor over his daughter and for abandoning her when she needed him the most.
Clarke told her father that she was proud of him for checking himself into rehab and that she loved him more than anything, but she needed time before she could forgive him. Clarke had lost her mother and Jake's behaviour had almost cost Clarke her father. Finding him unconscious that day had broken the last piece of her heart that was still whole. She needed time and fulfilled promises before she could ever go back to the way they once were. Jake understood.
In the time that Jake was in rehab, Lexa and Wells both turned seventeen and got a soulmark.
Lexa woke up with a compass made of browns, blues and reds on her ankle. If Clarke and Lexa ever had held hope that they were one another’s soulmate, that mark took it all away. Lexa’s neighbour Costia Henderson had gotten the same mark on her ankle two years before.
It hurt Clarke when they broke up, but it wasn’t something chocolate chip ice-cream and a movie marathon with Wells couldn’t cure. Clarke had loved Lexa like everyone loves their first girl- or boyfriend, with everything she had and with a lot of passion, but at the end of the day Clarke was relieved.
Relieved there wasn’t a chance they were meant to be because after what she witnessed from her father, Clarke silently wished that she would wake up empty on the morning of her 17th birthday. That she would wake up as someone without a soulmate, or a Blank Soul as they called themselves, like Thelonious.
‘I can’t believe you want that’ Wells said to her one night, when Clarke confided in him about wanting to be Unmarked.
Wells was the child of two Blank Souls and had witnessed what a life without true love was like. Where Clarke's childhood may have been filled with laughter, love and a lightness overall, Wells’ good memories were overshadowed by screaming parents, his mother throwing everything in her arm’s reach at his dad and his father locking himself in his study so he wouldn’t have to spend a second more with his wife.
When they finally got divorced, it was a messy one and Wells only saw his mother once a month now.
Wells’ worst fear was waking up a Blank Soul on his 17th birthday, Clarke's was watching your mark disappear because your soulmate had died.
Her father still unconsciously touched the skin behind his ear and every time he felt the now empty skin, his eyes filled with tears.
No, Clarke didn’t want to be cursed like that.
‘You saw what losing a soulmate did to my dad. Compare that to your father – healthy, happy, a successful congressman.. I’d rather have that..’ Clarke replied, with her eyes on her pink polka dotted nails.
‘Really? You want a loveless life filled with anger, disappointed and heartbreak? That’s what my dad got..’ Wells said, sounding somewhat bitter.
‘That’s not true, he-‘ Clarke tried, but Wells cut her off.
‘Yes, I know.. My dad has happiness in his life, and it’s not loveless, even though he doesn’t have a soulmate’ Wells began, taking back his earlier words. ‘He loves us both with all he has and he has a great job, but I know that he’d cut off his arm if it meant he’d get a soulmate..’ Wells was silent for a moment, pondering over his next words. ‘But your parents had something so amazing.. They were so happy, more happy then anyone I ever met.. Don’t you want that?’
Wells looked at Clarke with a pained expression and she knew he could see right through her.
Clarke shrugged and ignored the tear that rolled over her cheek. ‘Do I really want something that makes death merciful?’ Clarke said stubbornly. ‘I don’t know.. I just don’t want the pain that either one of our parents had to endure..’
‘But that’s life, Clarke. Life is filled with ups and downs, highs and lows, pain and happiness.. I think it’s safe to say that it doesn’t matter if you’re Marked or a Blank Soul, your life will get all kinds of crap’
Clarke chuckled and wiped away the second tear that had escaped her. ‘I know..’
A couple of days before Jake got out of rehab, Wells turned seventeen.
Thelonious, Wells and Clarke were all really nervous. Clarke knew how much Wells wanted to be marked, so she couldn’t help herself when she send a prayer or five to whoever was in charge of those damn marks.
But of course, neither one of them had any reason to worry. Loyal, clever and the best friend anyone could ever wish for, Wells Jaha, woke up with a soulmark on his chest. Clarke knew that if he didn’t get one – no one would.
‘A strawberry poison frog’ Clarke said in awe when Wells showed it to her. ‘It’s so beautiful. Congrats Wells’ The orange frog with blue legs, that shimmered like a diamond when it got hit by sunlight, really was a gorgeous soulmark. ‘I’m so happy for you’ she said while they hugged each other tightly.
That night Wells threw a big birthday bash, celebrating the fact he was 17 and that he got marked.
Between Wells’ birthday and her own, Clarke moved back in with her dad and she met Atom Jones at the animal clinic where the both of them volunteered.
Atom was a year older, very good looking, a big animal lover like she was and very sweet. Atom was also a Blank Soul, something that actually drew Clarke to him.
Atom told Clarke what it was like to wake up unmarked. First it had hurt like hell, knowing that he would never grow old with a soulmate, that he would never be loved with the most sought after type of love. But when he got used to the idea, Atom found his peace with it.
He was spared the feeling of losing true love and he could live his life for himself, instead of spending a lifetime looking for your true love like some people were doomed to do. Atom had an independent soul without a big and obvious weakness.
‘Besides, that I didn’t get one now, doesn’t mean I’ll never get one’ he concluded.
He was right, but it was a chance of less than 5 percent. Sometimes someone got a soulmark later in life when their new soulmate had just lost their first one, but it was extremely rare.
Clarke told him about her parents and that she had a feeling she would be a Blank Soul as well. Clarke told him that she liked him and asked him if he wanted to give them a go. He did and what they had was nice, but they both knew that what they shared wasn’t any type of love, only fondness.
Their passionate fling ended abruptly when Clarke turned 17 and found a soulmark on her arm. Atom told Clarke he didn’t want to be with someone that belonged to someone else, that he could never become serious with someone that was a flight risk. Clarke couldn’t blame him and she knew she wasn't in love with the guy, so they decided to go back as friends.
When Clarke woke up on her seventeenth birthday she immediately found her mark. Clarke opened her eyes and brought her hand to her face, so she could scratch her nose and there it was. Holy fuck..
Clarke instantly started to panic, not because she knew now for certain she had a soulmate, but because it was a soulmark like she’d never seen one before.
It was a cherry blossom that decorated the inside of my lower arm and it was completely colourless.
Clarke quickly did the math. Ninety-one percent of the soulmarks had colour, only a few percent were in black and/or grey. Her mark didn’t have a splash of colour and as an artist, Clarke found it breath taking, but it still left her dumbfounded. It looked like someone had sketched it on her skin with a very dark pencil and had filled it with a softer grey.
Clarke wondered if it meant something. Why was her mark colourless? Why did she get the kind of mark only nine percent of marked people get? Or did the colourlessness of her mark indicate something about her soulmate?
Clarke turned on her laptop and started looking for answers. To her dissatisfaction, Clarke didn’t really get any, but Wikipedia had a nice little story about it.
‘It is to be believed that the more complex (multiple colours, with details or multiple symbols) a soulmark is, the truer the love is. However there are Marked people who have a colourless mark. Having a soulmark with no colour is very rare. Only nine percent of the world population has a soulmark that is black or black with grey.’ Clarke looked down at her arm to find that her black with grey mark still graced her arm. ‘These colourless marks don’t indicate a colourless love. No, legends say that when you’re marked with black, you’re destined for a love as great as Romeo and Juliet or Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy’
Since it came from Wikipedia, Clarke figured it was probably bullshit, but she thought it was a cute story nonetheless.
Wells and his dad came over to celebrate her seventeenth birthday later and to admire her soulmark. Neither Jake, Thelonious nor Wells knew what to make out of it being a black with grey one, but the four of them all agreed it was pretty.
Later that night Wells asked Clarke how she felt about being marked.
It wasn’t an easy question for her to answer. Clarke felt hundred different emotions about it. She was relieved and happy that she was blessed with something people would kill for, but Clarke was still terrified that it would be taken from her. She was confused about why she got a colourless soulmark and she wanted to know what it meant.
There was also still a small part of Clarke that was devastated and angry about being someone’s soulmate. Clarke wasn’t ready yet for the epic kind of love the Gods had in store for her. She wanted to be independent, Clarke didn’t mind the idea of being on her own. She also hated the idea that her happiness depended on someone else, that she would live a miserable life if she would stay Incomplete.
And she wasn’t ready for such a commitment yet.
Clarke knew that she would be, one day, but she also knew that day wouldn’t be tomorrow or the day after that one.
‘It will happen when you’re ready’ Wells said.
‘How do you know?’ Clarke asked sceptical.
‘Because it will be fate’ Wells answered like it was the most obvious thing in the world. ‘Everything about these soulmarks and soulmates and true love is chosen for us. It’s all out of our control. So when you’ll finally meet your soulmate, someone else will have decided that was The Moment. So, don’t worry – it will be perfect’
‘Wow, you’re mark should’ve been an owl’ Clarke joked and he chuckled. ‘Since you’re such a wise ass and all’
What Wells thought may have been correct for when he met his soulmate, but when Clarke met hers, it was as imperfect as it could have been.