Disclaimer: I own nothing but this fic, and the AU in my head where this is totally canon - 'cause you know it makes total sense. XD

Saving Grace

Until now, Diana had been the only to know Clara's dirtiest secrets, that old hands liked to wander and cracked lips liked to kiss; that, not too long ago, there had been a weight settling in her stomach, growing heavier as the weeks drew on – until that dirty old man paid a doctor to cut her open and remove that which would have surely caused a great deal of problems. Until now, nobody else ever asked about the bruises on her arms and legs or the scars on her wrists. Most of the other children were too young to understand, or simply too oblivious, and the faculty knew better than to get involved. Until now, no one had ever come into her room because they heard her crying and caught her caressing the hideous scar on her abdomen through the thin material of her nightdress.

Until now, this boy – this nameless boy with the sky-blue eyes and messy blond hair had kept entirely to himself. They had nicknamed him Solo for a reason.

As he closes the door behind him and makes his way toward her slowly, she stares at him with wide, fearful eyes. She's long since lost her trust in the opposite sex. "What... what are you doing in here?" she asks, voice cracking. "What do you want?"

"Heard ya cryin'," he asks, and his stark American accent is not at all something she's used to. Unabashed, he sits on the edge of her bed and isn't at all surprised or insulted when she recoils a little. "Thought I'd come check it out," he decides to tell her, tries to make certain she understands his intentions are not at all malicious.

"Y-you never bother with the others," she says quietly. In the time Solo has been in the Rose Garden, she has never seen him play with Xavier or Thomas or Nicholas, has never seen him interact in the slightest with Diana or Meg or even that poor, unlucky girl, Jennifer.

"I stick with the little ones," he tells her with a roll of his eyes. "Us big kids," he gives her a slight smirk, "we can take o' ourselves."

"Some better than others," she replies in a mumble, adverting her gaze. If she recalls correctly, Solo a year younger than her, but he handles himself far, far better. She supposes those are the lessons learned on the streets, where he supposedly came from before the police picked him up and dragged him kicking and screaming to their front door.

"True story," he agrees, because he's seen the way she cowers and flinches at the touch of adults, especially men. He may be younger, but he's no fool. He's seen girls like her die alone and scared on the street because they were too damn scared to do anything about it. "But it don't gotta be like that, ya know."

She looks up at him slowly, curious.

He holds out a hand. His palm is littered with small scars. "Sometimes, it don't hurt to take care o' each other."

"W-what?"

"I'm breakin' outta here in a few days, gonna head up to those space colonies," he says, stretching his arm as far as it will go. "Come with me."

She looks from his hand to his eyes, and there's something there, swirling beneath the anger and the hatred that tells her it's alright, that she can trust him. "Alright," she says as she takes his hand. "But why me?"

"'Cause," he says, squeezing her hand. He won't tell her it's because she's still pure despite the bruises and scars and he doesn't want to see her ruined. Not in so many words, anyway. He gives her hand a tug, pulls her forward until her cheek is pressed to his chest and his arms are wrapped around her in that protective way he's held Olivia a time or two. She is tense, but melts into the hug the moment he leans down and whispers, "You're beautiful."

In five days time, she's nestled against him in the cargo hold of a shuttle headed for the L2 colony cluster. She had been hesitant to follow through with leaving when she found out they would be stowing away, but he had managed to convince her it really was the only way. They didn't have much money between them, he reminded her, and he insisted she keep it for herself once they arrived in space. Reluctantly, she agreed and soon enough found herself here, in the dark, with his scrawny but strong arm wrapped around her shoulders, her head tucked under his chin.

Once the gravity of earth releases its hold on them and they begin to float a few inches from the floor, she squeaks in surprise and pushes the skirt of her dress down forcefully between her legs. "What in Heaven?" she asks, eyes wide, and he laughs at her.

"There ain't no gravity in space, babe," he says through his laughter. It's so amusing to see her struggling to stay on the floor and hold her dress down all at once. She winds up lopsided, and he feels obligated to reach out and anchor her beside him again, as upright as possible. "It really ain't so bad once ya get used to it."

Her surprise and panic fade once she realizes he speaks from experience. "You're from the colonies?" she asks, relaxing once she's secured her dress between her legs.

"Uh huh," he mumbles.

"Why did you come to earth?" she questions, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear, only to have it rise up and out of place again a few seconds later.

Solo turns his gaze away from her, stares ahead into the darkness of the hold, and it's the first time she's seen him so stoic. Like this, she thinks, he looks much older than fifteen. "Figured things'd be better there, ya know?"

She looks down to her lap. "And what are things like where we're going?"

"Don't worry 'bout it," he says, and turns to her with a smile. He won't tell her that war is like a disease and it's already spread throughout space, that the Organization of the Zodiac has a choke-hold on the colonies, and the Alliance forces from earth aren't any better. She doesn't need to know those things, not yet. "It won't be so bad. Nothin' like the orphanage."

She is quiet for a few moments, studying that smile of his. She can tell it's forced, but the best he can muster at the time, so she smiles back in a similar fashion, halfheartedly. She supposes nothing could be worse than the Rose Garden and the horrible, horrible things that went on there. But, oddly enough, since leaving she has never felt more like a princess – though, she is not as frightful as Wendy had declared when the Red Crayon Aristocracy was formed and she was made one of the many Princesses. The smile turns into a whimsical one as she looks away from him.

"I suppose you're right," she murmurs.

"What's the smile for?" he asks, eyebrow arched.

She shakes her head. "Something silly. Nevermind."

"C'mon, tell me. We got time to kill."

So, hesitantly, she tells him the story, tells him about the Princess of the Rose and the hierarchy she had created. She also tells him of her former title, and that she never really felt like royalty – just a hapless mermaid in waiting, but she feels like a princess now, here, with him.

"I make ya feel like a princess, huh?" he muses, a crooked grin on his lips.

She blushes. "W-well... What I meant to say was, this reminds me very much of those old fairy tales. The ones where a dashing young hero comes and rescues a trapped princess from some horrible fate."

He scoffs at the suggestion. "I ain't no hero, trust me."

"You saved me," she says. "That makes you hero enough in my eyes."

And it is Solo's turn to blush, and he turns his head away sharply, hoping the dark conceals the pink on his cheeks well enough.

"I thank you," she whispers, leaning over to rest her head to his shoulder, "from the bottom of my heart."

"An' this is where you go your way, an' I go mine," Solo says a day after they've made it to L2–X17835.

Clara stops walking, and her eyes are wide as she stares at the back of his head. They are outside, in the middle of a crowded street, and she wishes he would have brought this up somewhere else. "W-what?"

"Hey," he turns to her, reaching for her shoulder and squeezing it, "I never promised we'd be in this together forever now, did I, babe?" There's a smile on his lips, one full of sympathy and confidence, and it makes ignoring the passersby a little easier, so long as she focuses on him.

"I – I don't know my way around, I have no idea where to go from here," she says quickly, brow furrowing.

His other hand goes for her other shoulder, and he leans forward to press their foreheads together. "You go wherever ya feel like now," he says, and his tone is stern, as though he's speaking to a stubborn child.

"But – "

"No buts. You're gonna walk away from me, an' you're never gonna look back, ya hear me? I gotcha outta that hell-hole, away from that old bastard for a reason, Clara; so you could start over," he says, lifting his hands to cup her cheeks, fingers hooked behind her ears.

"Solo..." and she starts to cry those ever-familiar fearful tears. "I can't do this on my own."

"Yeah, you can." He thumbs away her tears as they fall. "This ain't a fairytale. This is the real world. There ain't no mermaids or princesses – and Prince Charmin' ain't comin' to save ya any time soon." He leans in, kisses her lips, makes her stop crying and blush all at once, and when he pulls away he's smirking. "Ya gotta save yourself, babe."

She presses two fingertips to her lips as she looks him up and down. She's learned, over the last few days with him, that once his mind is made up there is no changing it. If he wants her out on her own, he will drive her away if he has to. Deciding to walk away will hurt but will ultimately be less painful than being forced away, she takes a breath and nods, her first step in making her life her own.

"What about you?" she asks quietly.

"What about me?"

"What will you do? Will I see you again?"

He looks away from her slowly, to the ground, to an alley. "Don't worry 'bout me," he replies to the first question. "An' who knows? Ya might," he says with a shrug, answering the second, "if ya know where t'look."

Another deep breath, another nod, and then she leans in to shyly return his kiss. "Goodbye," she murmurs, then walks away and into the crowd with her heart thudding away anxiously inside of her chest.

"Later," Solo calls after her.

She doesn't look back.

He smiles.

She can hear voices from the other side of the room, and it's an old habit that keeps her from knocking right away.

"What? You gotta be kiddin'! Sure, your name would stick out too much here, but still. I mean – "

"Instead of complaining, why not spend your time resting and concentrating on getting better?"

She barely has time to step aside as the door opens and a young man walks out, as stoic as stone. She clutches the charts and the clipboard to her chest as she watches him head for the nearest exit, and only turns her attention back to the hospital room when she hears the assigned patient mumbling to himself.

"Of course he's gonna overdo it."

Brow furrowed, she crosses the threshold and closes the door behind her. "Mr. Maxwell?" she asks, and is taken aback to see the boy look to her with a practiced smile on his face.

"Just Duo's fine," he tells her.

"Right. Well, Duo," she sets the things in her arms down on the desk in the room, "it looks like everything is in order. Nothing a bit of bed-rest can't cure. Which is surprising, considering the bruises you have." She had been there when the doctor checked him out, and there had been black and blue and purple bruises everywhere. "If you don't mind, how in the world did you come by those?"

"Oh, you know," he shrugs nonchalantly, "just boys bein' boys, Clara."

She turns to him, eyebrows raised. "How did you – "

"Name tag," he smirks, pointing to the left side of her overcoat.

"Oh, right. How silly of me," she mumbles with a blush.

"You're not from the colonies, are ya?" Duo asks, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees.

"No, but how did you know that?" she asks, brow furrowed once again.

"Clara. It's an old-world name. Not somethin' people are namin' their kids these days, not up here."

"Oh," she mumbles, looking to the floor.

"I've only heard that name once before," he tells her, because there's no harm in making idle chit-chat. "A friend of mine said he knew a Clara once. Talked about her from time to time."

She can actually feel the blood draining from her face. "Your friend... Was his name Solo, by chance?"

Duo's eyebrow arches, then he smiles faintly at her. "Fancy meetin' you in a place like this," he chuckles.

"How is he?" she asks, her insides trembling. God knows how hard she had tried to find him after they'd gone their separate ways, but it had been impossible – the colony was too big, and there were too many people, and she had a feeling that was what he had always wanted to begin with.

The boy in front of her opens his mouth, then closes it and looks to the ground again. "Shoulda known you wouldn't have heard 'bout it."

There's a sense of dread settling in her core, making her stomach knot and churn. "About what?"

He decides to spare her the gruesome details. "He, uh... He died."

"W-what?"

"Eight years ago, when the plague hit."

She braces herself against the desk with one hand, and presses the other to her forehead gently. She has a hard time accepting it, and there are so many questions she wants to ask, and her head is suddenly reeling and –

– there are arms around her, and a voice beside her ear, quiet and kind. "He wouldn't want ya to cry."

And Duo's right. So she takes a few deep breaths, blinks away the tears that had almost fallen and he lets her go as she straightens herself again. She gives him a sad smile and nods. "I have to get back to work."

He backs up to give her the space she needs to move without skewing herself into some odd shape to escape the space between him and the desk. She heads for the door, but stops before she turns the handle.

"When you're released, would you mind if we met up to talk? There are so many things I'd like to know..."

He cocks his head to the side, smiling wistfully. "Sure. Why not?"

"Thank you, Duo."

"No problem, Princess."

She chuckles and manages a sad smile. "I'm not a princess."

"You were," he says, because he thinks she needs to hear this, "in his eyes."

-End