Soulmate AU
A/N) Well, this totally isn't an AU idea I've had for months and wrote nothing, then scribbled the whole thing out on multiple scraps of paper almost non-stop over two days. And then took a week to type up because it's over 5,000 words and I'm laaaaazy. Nope.
Enjoy and please review!
"Soulmates."
The word tastes strange against his tongue, although it's one that has been bandied around for as long as he can remember.
Bandied around, joked about, sometimes recalled with a wistful sigh or a tone of shocked horror. Although Nick knows everyone is supposed to have one, there have been days – most days, in fact – that he has assumed he will never meet whoever he's supposedly 'destined' to be with. And if he's honest with himself, that's always been pretty much fine by him.
"Soulmates," she confirms, almost sounding slightly embarrassed about the proclamation. Her tone is very different from his: the traditional combination of shock and pure joy as she gives him a radiant smile. The woman who stands in front of him now – apparently his newfound soulmate - is pretty, very pretty: blond hair furling around her face and large hazel eyes that stare searchingly into his. It all seems a bit alien to be happening to him in the centre of a supermarket, surrounded by tins and crates of vegetables.
Nick's suddenly conscious of how long he's been standing there dumbly, his shoulder sending sharp tingles down his torso as a reminder of where they briefly collided. It happens to different people in different ways, he's been told. One of his work friends, Phil, met her husband when at a barn dance and momentarily brushing his hand. She's very fond of recounting this story, perhaps understandably. He's heard of people who sensed it from across even a crowded room, as if gravity was sucking them irresistibly together, a powerful beacon broadcast to each other. And his roommate Will apparently knew he had found his soulmate as soon as their new lodger – an attractive American girl called Eve – walked through their front door.
"Sorry, let me pick these up –" he murmurs now, bending and scrabbling across the tiles for the lost groceries from his companion's basket which had crashed, unnoticed from her hand as soon as they touched.
She crouches at the same time to aid him with the task and their eyes meet again. Nick's oddly breathless at even the simple, yet compelling eye contact. Pull yourself together, Nicholas! He makes an attempt to act casual and laughs awkwardly, realising for the second time that they haven't looked away for a good ten seconds and gesturing over to the crate of tomatoes that they are both squatted next to. "Did you want some of those, or…"
"Oh –" the woman chuckles herself, nodding too quickly in reply to be entirely natural. Obligingly Nick reaches across and grabs a handful of tomatoes, handing them somewhat shyly to her, who balances them on the growing tower of provisions in her basket. "I'm Rebecca," she suddenly informs him. "We should probably at least know each other's names, considering."
"Considering," Nick echoes faintly. He wishes he could feel anything that the typical storylines of books and cliché movies insist on right now. Like the name Rebecca is the most beautiful set of three syllables that he's ever heard, or that all he wants to do is sweep the stranger into his arms. All he really feels is an overwhelming sense of bewilderment at this new circumstance which he has never fully equipped himself to deal with. "I'm Nick," he reminds himself as much as her at this point. "Nick Clarke."
They straighten at the same time, Rebecca securing the errant shopping basket over one arm, Nick clutching the single can of soup he had come in to get to his chest like his sanity depended on it. "Nick," Rebecca repeats, as if testing out the name on her tongue, tasting the sound of it with relish. This is probably all she's ever dreamed of, Nick suddenly realises with a somewhat unpleasant jolt, judging by the surprised, yet dreamy smile flickering over her face.
"So," Nick starts again, feeling like he should at least try to make an effort to convince the woman that he's not actually mute. "Um – what do we do now?"
She looks lost. "I don't know," she confesses. "What do people usually do in these kinds of situation?"
Cry with joy? Fling themselves into each other's arms like a pair of lovesick teenagers? "Um – we could hug?" Nick offers, unsure exactly where he's going with this.
She looks relieved at the suggestion. "Yeah. Yeah, that works," she agrees as she moves closer to Nick. He enfolds her cautiously in his arms, hoping that the tingling sensation will finally be satisfied. It only intensifies with the increased contact. But – contrary to the almost rapturous expression that rests on his soulmate's face as she nestles comfortably into his chest, he feels nothing but awkwardness at hugging a stranger so intimately.
Eventually she withdraws with apparent reluctance, he with relief. "So this is what having a soulmate feels like," Rebecca notes breathlessly. "I always wondered."
He forces a smile. "Yeah. Me too."
She's suddenly unsure. "Though we don't know the first thing about each other really," she continues more reservedly, fidgeting on the spot. They're drawing some funny looks from other customers now, but Nick blocks them out, a compass in his head seeming to point great big fluorescent arrows in Rebecca's direction.
"We could – um – do coffee?" Nick offers.
She nods rather too emphatically. "Yeah. Sure, that's a great idea – Nick."
The soup sloshes in its container as Nick mimics her nod. "Okay."
In the textbook titled 'How to Meet Your Soulmate', Nick guesses this encounter wouldn't make the top 10. Rebecca fumbles in the handbag, swinging over the other arm now supporting the laden shopping basket. "I'll just give you my number." Nick watches as she scribbles in a notebook, tearing out a page and handing it to him. The tingles resurface as their fingers make the briefest of contact. By the slight tremor of her arm, Nick guesses Rebecca experiences exactly the same sensation as him.
As they walk slowly towards the checkouts, Rebecca seeming to have forgotten or at least lost motivation for any other shopping she had been intending to purchase, they exchange hesitant conversation as part of not being complete strangers any more. "So, do you have a job?" Rebecca asks him curiously.
"I'm a research scientist," Nick replies. "I work at Calimov Systems – you know, the big corporation building just down the road?"
"Wow." Rebecca muses over this for a moment. "You must be pretty smart, then."
"Smart doesn't really tend to come into it much," Nick reasons. "Just patience – a lot of patience. Patience and perseverance, mostly."
"Still smarter than me, that's for sure. I'm just a lowly receptionist," Rebecca chuckles. She has a nice laugh. Nick chuckles along with her, scanning through the soup and tossing a couple of coins into the automatic machine.
He waits for her as she finishes paying for her items, silently offering his hand to take one of the two large plastic bags she holds, smiling diffidently as they make their way out of the supermarket. Rebecca points out the direction of her car and Nick follows her across the car park, a beacon seeming to have suddenly been activated in his mind that broadcasts every move of Rebecca's with odd clarity in his extremely dazed mind.
"You know, in a way it's kind of perfect timing, this," Rebecca pipes up, glancing at him as they walk, suddenly talkative again as if there's years of conversation she's been aching to relay. "My previous boyfriend and I have just broken up, and –" Nick's face must have given something away because she pauses, suddenly looking worried. "Wait. You don't have a girlfriend already, do you?"
Something twinges, somewhere deep in Nick's chest, but he swallows it down and does his best to keep his expression non-committal, impassive. "No," he lies. Maybe it's because he's still in slight meltdown over the whole soulmates thing, or maybe it's just the hopeful expression on said newfound soulmate's face. Maybe.
"Soulmates?"
She knows almost as soon as she sees the expression on his face, of course. His girlfriend is halfway through straightening up from where she had been crouched on her garage floor, fiddling in her usual way with some gadget or other, her mouth halfway through forming a sentence of greeting. "Didn't think you were coming today, Ni –" she starts, before her eyes finally fix on his and she knows.
Katherine had always been able to read him far too well, for better or for worse.
"Nick?" she asks now, her voice quiet, almost lost-sounding. Begging for her razor-sharp intuition to be wrong, for once. Begging for him to deny it. Begging for him to smile and everything to be okay.
"I'm sorry." It is possibly the worst thing for him to say.
Katherine's face crumples. "Soulmates?" she confirms, though the statement is a question on her lips, the word laced with a bitter hint. It somehow makes it a thousand times worse that Nick knows that his girlfriend has had to go through this before. That he's comforted her in the past when they were just close friends, when a guy she's been dating has found his one true love and cast Katherine aside in favour of another. That he, giddy with new hope and exhilaration, had once promised her that that would never happen to them.
And now here he is.
"I'm sorry," he repeats, as if that will make any difference. As if that will change what they're both aware is reality. Everyone knows that when you find your soulmate, that's it. There's a reason that fate exists, after all.
Four times. That's how many times Katherine has turned up on his doorstep, both back in university and in their early days as colleagues, when someone has torn out her heart afresh. For anyone who doesn't know Katherine, they would assume she is as callous and uncaring with her own life as she appears to be with her career. Nick knows she finds it easier to pretend that she is, sometimes. A defense mechanism. But he's seen that expression that resides on her face now four times previously. Defeat. Because, of course, there's a reason that she has never been the half of the relationship that has had the luxury of turning the other down. The world's not a fair place, and some people are born without fate having predetermined them a perfect other half. It's rare, but it happens. People do go out with others before, of course, but as a rule those practice relationships never lasted. They were the equivalent of those primary school play-pretend relationships that every child plays at. Just a game. A prelude to the real thing.
Katherine turns away. The device – one he dimly recognises as one of her many pet engineering projects she enjoys tinkering over in her free time – lies discarded on the grey slate floor of her garage. When she turns back to him a moment later, there's fresh tears glistening in the corner of her eyelids, but her expression is resolute. Carefully controlled. "It's fine," she replies at last, although it's not fine, it's anything but fine, but she's always been a skilled liar, even on occasion convincing him.
Not this time, though.
"Katherine –"
"What's her name?" Katherine interrupts him, cutting him brusquely off. Fine? Yeah, right.
Nick tries to catch her gaze, to allow himself to stare into those dark ocean eyes, but they're distant, unreachable. "Katherine…"
"What's her name?" she repeats insistently.
He sighs. "Rebecca."
He sees her mouth the word under her breath, although no sound comes out. "Okay," is all she says after another eternal moment. Her tone dull.
Nick wants her to shout and scream. Usually she is liable to do this in the most trivial of situations, when she or Nick have rubbed each other up the wrong way in a typical work day. They will end up yelling full-out at each other across a lab table or silently sulking in the office. But not this. Never this.
"Is there anything I can –" Nick wonders aloud, trailing helplessly off.
His best friend looks distractedly at the floor. "No."
"Okay."
"Okay."
Nick suddenly can't endure just standing there a minute longer. "I'm sorry," he breathes for a third time, and slips silently out of the garage door, feeling horrendously guilty but not knowing what else to do.
It's only when she knows Nick will be out of earshot that Katherine breaks her silent vigil and allows herself to sink back to the floor, her legs giving up the pretence of supporting her stance any longer as tears begin to blur her vision.
Rebecca's obviously made an effort for this. Her hair bounces buoyantly blonde around her shoulders and she's applied a thin layer of pink lipgloss, which stands out in her smile at Nick as he approaches. "Hey," she says shyly.
Nick directs his gaze at the coffee shop sign overhead, boasting the best paninis in the city, rather than stare unintelligently at his soulmate, dressed in light blue jeans and a floral blouse which he can't help but notice. "Hi."
They both order a cappuccino, which Nick isn't wholly surprised to find out is also her favourite hot beverage. He's heard soulmates tend to share common traits, have the same preferences for music, hobbies, that sort of thing. Not at all like him and Katherine, who had always made a distinct effort to favour exactly the opposite things to each other, just so they had something to disagree over.
No. Don't think about Katherine.
"So," Rebecca starts, twisting a strand of hair around her finger in what Nick vaguely recognises as a coy manoeuvre. He guesses she has more experience of the dating scene than him, not that that's much of a challenge. "Tell me something about yourself, I guess, Nick."
"What do you want to know?" he inquires. "I have to confess, I'm not very interesting."
She laughs. "Well, fate informs me that we are soulmates, so we really ought to know the first thing about each other. Hobbies?"
"Eh – tinkering. Inventing. Nerdy stuff like that," Nick replies vaguely. With Katherine, his subconscious shouts at him, but he forcibly smothers the tiny voice of guilt in the back of his mind. "How about you?"
She gives an airy shrug. She seems more confident than their first encounter just yesterday, Nick realises. Maybe she's a little less freaked out by the revelation after she's had time to sleep on it overnight. "Nothing out of the ordinary. Shopping. Sunbathing. Just girly stuff like that, really."
"Nice." Nick stares absently out of the window, watching as various swanky-looking cars drive past the café on the main street in the centre of town. Rebecca suggested it over text this morning when Nick finally managed to summon up the courage to string together any sort of coherent greeting.
Rebecca coughs awkwardly, though her smiling features show no sign of the emotion when Nick looks back at their table, swallowing another mouthful of coffee. "How's your drink?" she inquires pleasantly.
"Mm – good," Nick replies ardently. "Yours?"
It's somewhat forced small talk, of course, but both of them are too polite or maybe just too nervous to broach the obvious elephant in the room. Rebecca takes a sip, wincing slightly. "Hot. Good, though. I drink way too much coffee, really."
"Same," Nick seconds with a rueful chuckle.
It gets slowly easier to talk to Rebecca. As they finish off their drinks ten or so minutes later, Nick is surprised to find that he's actually enjoying the woman's company more than expected. They have a similar sense of humour – the same sarcastic wit. So much so, that he can almost – almost – force the image of the tears collecting in Katherine's eyes out of his head.
Katherine downs the last dregs of coffee from her mug, setting it down on the kitchen worktop with customary bluntness. "Might actually stand a chance of staying awake through what you optimistically call a film now," she notes ironically.
Nick, from where he's washing up dishes from their takeout pizza just half an hour ago, shoves her shoulder lightly. "Hey. It might not be that bad."
She pulls an unconvinced grimace. "'Might' doesn't exactly fill me with boundless confidence, Nick."
"It's an hour out of your life. So what."
"An hour and thirteen minutes, actually. I checked."
He rolls his eyes. "We don't have to watch a film if you don't want to, Katherine."
She pretends to consider it, sighing dramatically. "No, it's fine. I need something to base all my insults on, don't I?"
Nick chuckles, places an affectionate peck on her cheek as he swoops past into the living room. "That's what I thought."
He first kisses Rebecca two days later, when they're out what could tentatively be called their second date. He hadn't really meant to exactly. They are sitting up in the shaded back of the cinema, exchanging occasional snarky comments about the film's narrative and sharing an overpriced box of popcorn. He's not exactly sure when it is that her hand slides almost unnoticeably into his, or when she's leaning so close that he can smell her floral-scented perfume, or when their lips are pressed against each other as if they're searching for something that they didn't know they had lost. She tastes sweet, though that's probably just the effect of the caramel glistening on the forgotten popcorn sitting in between them.
"Wow," Rebecca laughs when it's over, seemingly dazed and more than a little euphoric, Nick is while also trying to shake off the sparks dancing around his vision. Turns out there are literal sparks accompanying a soulmate kiss, probably intensified since it's the first they've shared. "So that's what kissing your soulmate is like."
Nick can only stare at her, the climax of what had promised to be a passable film seeming nothing now. "I guess so," he agrees breathlessly.
She giggles dizzily, leaning back into his shoulder and continuing to watch the film as destiny-induced tingles cascade throughout their bodies. Nick can finally make himself believe that maybe this is meant to be, especially since every cell in his body seems to ache to kiss the woman again. Maybe fate's right, just this once.
"Face it, Nick. If I had been destined to find any kind of other half, soulmate or otherwise, don't you think they would have presented themselves by now?"
Nick hurries to catch up with his co-worker, whose cheeks are flushed with tension and who refuses to look back at him as she strides along an empty corridor, leaving an equally isolated lab behind. Maybe all the employees sensed one of Katherine's moods coming on and scarpered. It's the same argument as usual, in which neither of them are really on opposing sides of the debate but where Nick always feels powerless and Katherine feels resentful at life in general. Nothing new, really. "It might change," he offers hopefully: his usual addition to this stage in the conversation.
She huffs, an irritated exhale. "Yeah, right."
"You don't know for sure," Nick insists. He's following a pattern now. The same old routine. True, Nick and Katherine love to pick an argument with each other. But this subject in particular always makes Nick feel awkward, especially since he can never really pretend he understands her point of view. He may not have met his soulmate, but he's never had the certainty Katherine has that he just doesn't have one. He guesses that it's just the same principle in reverse, really. You just know.
Katherine swivels on her heel so she's staring him down, her eyes blazing blue. "Do I not know that there's no-one out there for me? Do I look like I don't know for sure, Nick?"
She certainly seems sure. "Well you can't be the only one," Nick theorises, still in a vain attempt to calm his friend down.
This, as usual, only seems to infuriate her further. "Every guy I've ever dated – every guy, Nick, whether for just a few weeks or two years – has broken up with me the second he meets his soulmate. It's how life works. I doubt I'm the only exception to the rule, but I await with bated breath the day I find one of them who wants to date me."
"Well, maybe it doesn't have to be one of them," Nick retorts, surprising himself with the sudden feeling in the sentence.
It catches Katherine off guard for a moment, at any rate. "What?" she wavers.
Time to break the usual pattern. It's about time, anyway. Nick summons up all his nerve in one and uses it to kiss his co-worker full on the lips, sensing her shock even as he's pulling away. "Maybe it could be someone else instead?" he completes with a somewhat embarrassed smile.
Katherine's cheeks are still flushed, but for what Nick suspects is for a completely different reason this time around as she stares at him, utterly speechless for once.
Nick finds himself yearning to be with his soulmate almost unconsciously, as time stretches out across lethargic minutes, long hours. It's ridiculous, really it is. He's having to swallow down all the scepticism that he's accumulated about the custom over the past years, as he's observed couples pairing off all around. Soulmates have always been an accepted factor of life, but he's realising that some of what all the books and films say does actually hold water, much as he wishes he could think clearly.
Nick and Katherine roll their eyes in perfect unison as Megan, one of the many lab technicians, wanders off across the lobby looking radiantly happy, hand in hand with a taller girl with tousled black hair and a dark leather jacket. "It's like they can't bear not to be in constant contact for more than five minute intervals," remarks Katherine cuttingly.
Nick shakes his head in amusement. "She's happy, look at her. Let her be."
She looks distrustingly after the retreating couple. "If I ever wear that gormless grin, do me a favour and hit me in the face."
"Will do."
"But seriously, what is up with the whole proximity thing," Katherine continues disapprovingly. "Just because they're apparently what society calls 'soulmates' gives her license for like three days off every two weeks, it seems."
"You and your conspiracy theories, Kath'," chuckles Nick.
"It's perfectly founded fact!" she flares up. "After all, I can bear to be without you for a day, can't I?"
Nick gestures to their own clasped hands. "I don't see you rushing off anywhere, Katherine."
Katherine rolls her eyes again but has no custom-built retort for that one, since they are indeed sitting rather too close to each other to be completely natural.
For what seems like the thousandth time just that morning, Nick finds his hand creeping into his pocket to check his phone, but as with every other time there is no hopeful beep to signify a message. He has texted Katherine seven times already since their breakup, but there has been no reply. Nick knows there's no reason why she should do – she's hurt and angry, and from past experience he's fully aware that when she combines these two traits there's little to do other than wait it out for her to calm down. If she ever calms down. Again, there's no reason why she should.
"Hey." Rebecca flashes him a typically bright smile as he enters the kitchen, quickly slipping his phone back into his She's sitting at his counter munching on a piece of toast. Over the last couple of days, it's become oddly normal for Nick to open the front door to Rebecca and eat breakfast together, trading friendly conversation before they both head their separate ways to work.
Nick tries to return the smile of equal luminosity, but can't quite manage it so settles for a kiss as he passes her to prepare his own breakfast, just popped up out of the toaster. "Hey," he replies, unable to shake the sudden unerring sense that this is wrong, this is very wrong.
"Hey!" Katherine storms into his kitchen, face like thunder as she sits down heavily on a stool with an equally weighty sigh.
"Hey yourself," Nick responds automatically, his forehead creasing in concern. "What's up? Bad day?"
She grimaces. "Not great."
"What was the 'hey' in aid of, anyway?" Nick wonders.
"Just felt like it," she shrugs grumpily, refusing to elaborate.
Nick knows it's always best to just let Katherine fume it out when she's annoyed about something. "Will hot buttered crumpets make up for it?" he asks with a slightly teasing note to his tone, gesturing to the oven.
Katherine sniffs despite herself, indeed detecting the faint aroma of food furling from the cooker, and a faint smile finally graces her features, finally releasing some of the wound-up tension from her stature. "It might do just a little bit," she admits.
Nick grins. "Coming right up."
Nick realises he has come to a decision as soon as he opens his eyes to the sound of faint birdsong outside his bedroom window. For the last few days, his brain has been in a hazy jumble of concepts, induced by the blissful joy of finding his soulmate, he assumes. But now, it's in sharp clarity and he suddenly knows exactly what he has to do.
He wastes little time. It takes seconds to locate his phone, to extricate it from the mound of stuff layering where he's been assured his bedside cabinet used to reside, click through the 'Contacts' list until he finds the name he's looking for.
Rebecca answers the phone by the second ring, despite it only being around half seven on a Sunday morning. "Nick," she acknowledges with a yawn, only sounding faintly surprised. "How's it going?"
"I'm sorry," Nick says simply, dimly aware that he's already let down one relationship in this exact same way within the last couple of weeks. He doesn't intend on making it a habit. "I like you, and I know we're soulmates and 'fated' to be with each other, but I can't do it anymore."
Rebecca suddenly sounds very awake. "Nick?" she asks, uncomprehending, anxious, evidently not understanding fully.
"I'm sorry. I'll explain later," Nick promises, before ending the call and feeling inexplicably better than he has done in weeks.
It's only seconds before his phone beeps insistently again, no doubt a text or call from Rebecca demanding what he's talking about. She's probably confused and more than a little unnerved, but Nick tells himself he can worry about that later.
He finds Katherine where he knows he'll find her, wandering around her kitchen with an unreadable expression on her face. He's suddenly aware of how much he's missed her; he assumes she's been intentionally avoiding him at work as he has her, and it's been nearly two weeks since the fated encounter that began it all spiralling down around their heads. Through her kitchen window of her ground-floor flat Nick can make out her features: exhausted-looking, as if she hasn't slept properly; untamed dark-chocolate brown hair tumbling around her shoulders framing a pallid, drawn face; staring down at the sink full of soapy suds and plates as if she's never smiled in her life.
He uses the key, a permanent resident in his top shirt pocket, to let himself into the flat. He's quiet enough so that a distracted Katherine doesn't appear to hear his entrance, failing to register his presence behind her as she finishes scrubbing a breakfast bowl clean. It's only when she's picking up another plate to dry with a striped tea towel that Nick clears his throat subtly from the doorway. Katherine swivels so fast that she nearly drops the plate. "Nick?"
Nick tries a crooked smile. "You weren't answering your phone," he explains ruefully.
Katherine casts a somewhat guilty look at said phone, indeed blank and resting on the kitchen table, before her gaze transfers back to Nick, searching his expression with calculating eyes. "What are you doing here?" she finally allows herself to ask, not quite finding the answer written on his face.
"I wanted to see if you were okay."
Her face closes off even more, if that's possible. "I'm fine," she mutters.
Nick throws her a pointed look at the feeble lie.
Katherine – tired and defensive, two more traits that don't blend well where his friend is concerned – reverts to her backup defence system and transfers all other negative emotions into enraged anger. "What do you want me to say, Nick? That I'm not fine? There, I said it. How would I be fine, when the one relationship that I actually let myself hope might work out for once is smashed up because of the whole soulmates thing? Like usual." She breathes hard after this outburst, pronouncing 'soulmate' like a repulsive word.
Unaccountably, Nick finds a slight smile tugging at his features at her fury, so that he thinks a fuming Katherine might actually hit him. "What?!" she challenges, unafraid to stare confrontationally into his eyes as she yells at him, although residue of tears are still badly concealed at the edges of hers. "What are you smirking about, Nick Clarke?"
"Nothing," he replies somewhat absently. "Just –" his deadpan expression splutters and dies. "I've missed our heated arguments, that's all."
Katherine frowns uncertainly. Nick doesn't give her time to formulate a reply and instead steps closer to her. Unlike with Rebecca's constant furling scent of pretty perfume, Katherine just smells of – Katherine. That and apple-scented soapy water. "Because," he starts, suddenly sure of what he needs to say. "I realised I'm an idiot."
She stares up at him, hardly daring to believe. "Well, I knew that already," she points out, her voice slightly hoarse. "Did you just come over here to tell me that?"
He chuckles. "No. Well – yes, but no. I was just an idiot to think that a few tingles and sparks when I touched someone was enough to automatically classify them as my soulmate."
She's silent. Musing. Her eyes downcast at the mention of Nick's 'perfect other half'. "I don't want to get in the way of you being happy," she murmurs, her voice tiny.
"That's exactly it. I realised I'm an idiot because I didn't realise what… actually made me happy." Nick moves even closer and finally the tears come back to Katherine's eyes, beaded on her dark lashes.
And when he kisses her, there's no golden sparks, or tiny explosions going off in his head, or even tingles where her hand rests on his shoulder as she finally relaxes against him. There's just the unerring sense that nothing can be wrong with the world if what he's doing feels so - right.
Katherine's actually crying when the kiss ends, though doing her best to hide it. "What about Rebecca?" she asks surprisingly audibly.
"I think I just answered that question, didn't I?" Nick smiles. "There's probably quite a few angry texts waiting in my phone, but she deserves to know. Hopefully she'll be able to find her own soulmate one day."
"But you're her soulmate," insists Katherine, drawing away from him slightly. "Isn't doing this feeling like it's tearing you up inside? That's how soulmates work, correct?"
Nick shook his head, surprised to find he's actually telling the truth. "Actually, no. I guess maybe it's because I've finally managed to convince my body otherwise."
Katherine laughs through her tears. "Well, you always said I'd find my happily ever after one day, Nick. I just never believed you."
"You've always been scared to fall in love with guys that will just leave you for his soulmate," Nick reasons. "Well, you've fallen in love with a guy that's just left his soulmate for you, so I guess that makes us one of a kind."
She wipes a tear away but she's smiling widely through them, looking happier than he's ever seen her look.
"And I guess it's true what they say," continues Nick softly as he fingers Katherine's hand clasped in his, pressing a light kiss onto the crown of her head. "When you meet your true soulmate – even if it takes a while at first – you just know."