I didn't want the clock.

I didn't want the knowledge of being someone's burden for the rest of our lives.

But Mom insisted, demanded even, and threw me into the doctor's office like a piece of meat for waiting dogs.

The second we got home that day, I scrounged around for the duct tape to cover the little sliver of plastic. Just because I had the clock didn't mean I had to look at it. Mom glared at me while I did it, but since I at least had it now, she wouldn't say anything.

A few years passed without a peep from the clock, and I was fine. Mom wasn't. She always was insanely curious about things, especially when told she couldn't investigate it. Therefore, it should have come as no surprise to me when I woke up one day to find the tape on my wrist gone. How she'd managed to rip it off my skin without waking me, I'll never know. Unfortunately, though, I only realized the tape was gone when I read the clock face.

Two days, one hour, five minutes, and fifty-three seconds.

My throat closed and I couldn't breathe. I sat there, staring at the numbers count down, morbid fascination and unspeakable rage numbing my body. My mouth dropped open and I screamed - the only reaction I could actually muster.

When Mom came into my room, shock was written all over her face, but I knew it was a mold. She KNEW why I was screaming. When she asked me what was wrong, I flew at her, trying anything I could to claw at her skin. How could she?! How DARE she?! It was my business if I didn't want to know when I would meet my "soul mate" - she had no right to make me know! I now had little more than two days.

I dropped to the floor, heaving dry sobs and refusing to show her my wrist. Mom displayed a few small scratches on her arms and chest, but nothing that would stay for long. She tried to console me, but I wanted nothing to do with her. I stormed into my bathroom, locked the door despite her begging to let her in, and turned on the shower to drown out the noise.

I desperately tried to rid myself of the monstrosity of that clock, but, as the doctor had said it would, it refused to budge - not until I met the woman of my dreams.

I am eighteen years old. I don't WANT to have a "woman of my dreams" yet - I'm not even sure I want a woman! My hormones are still going haywire with the end of puberty, my voice still cracks sometimes, I still get accidental morning wood when I don't even remember my dreams. I rubbed my hand down my face.

I do not want to meet anyone.

I do not want to meet the person I am supposed to spend the rest of my life loving.

Because...

What if I'm not what they wanted?

What if they can't find it in themselves to love somebody like me?

I know these clocks are supposed to be accurate - I did enough research after getting it to be able to put one in another person's wrist no problem - but what if mine is faulty? What if something happens to one of us and we never actually meet when the timer goes off? I've read stories about things like that happening. One person spent most of their adult life with some doctor they thought to be completely boring before realizing that they might have married the wrong person, all because the doctor and the doctor's nurse didn't have clocks. Another person was excited to meet their soul mate, then just before they met, the other person died, and that's it. There is nothing that can be done if one of them dies. There is no "other soul mate", no second chance. It's just that.

One day, twenty-three hours, fifty minutes, and one second.

I want to vomit.

I have to come up with something quick, so I will never have to meet this girl and I will never have to burden her. The shower's still running and I'm not in it, but I'm not even thinking of it anymore. I'm trying to think of how to get out of this.

The perfect idea hits me like a brick.

I just won't leave my room. I will lock my door and close my curtains. I will ignore all my mother's pleas to step outside.

Simple. As. That.

Sleeping in my bed has grown boring and my stomach's growls are echoing in the dark expanse of my room. I look to my alarm clock and see that it reads two-thirty-seven in the afternoon. Mom gave up trying to get me to come out a few hours ago. I think the last thing she said was that she was going to call someone to talk to me.

Good luck with that. I'm not opening that door until my clock runs out.

Speaking of my clock, I'm curious now. It seems the trait is genetic because I can't stop myself from lifting my hand to my face and squinting at the little digits.

Zero days, zero hours, three minutes, and eight seconds.

Again, my throat closes tight, but I close my eyes and take deep breaths. Staying calm is difficult, but I repeat my mantra: "I won't be a burden, they'll never find me; I won't be a burden, they'll never find me; I won't be..."

A sudden knocking at my door finds my eyes wide open.

"Robin, sweet-heart, please...open the door. I've brought someone to talk with you. Just please...? He can help you get through your anxiety about meeting yo-"

I stop listening at that word.

He?

What?

I look at my clock again.

Zero, zero, one, thirty-eight.

I sit up in my bed. My hair is a mess and I haven't showered in three days. I have sleep-wrinkles lining my face and my pajamas are two years too short on my gangly frame. I look at the door.

HE?

My brain isn't working right, and neither, it seems, is my clock, as it's still counting down, just more slowly than before. The seconds seem to take minutes to trickle by.

Mom says something I can't decipher, and then I hear footsteps walking down the hall.

One set of footsteps.

A softer knock than before hits my door, and a deep voice that I've never heard rumbles through the plain wood. "Robin, I know you're worried about your clock. Your mother explained things to me over the phone - about the duct tape, about her taking it off, about your apprehension towards meeting the girl you're supposed to spend the rest of your life being in love with."

His words slip from his tongue like silk, and I don't know what I'm doing but my feet are taking me to the door. I've stopped trying to think, but what he's saying has been floating around in my head for the last few years. It's more than strange hearing them aloud and coming from this voice.

I stand in front of my door, and I know he's there on the other side of it, waiting to be let in.

My lungs are empty as I reach for the knob.

When the lock clicks and there's a crack between the frame and the wood large enough for me to look through, I hear a rhythmic beeping, like a heartbeat on high.

I can't tell where it's coming from - my side of the door or his. But when the beeping starts, I hear the man inhale sharply.

I'm not looking at his face, I'm staring at his broad chest. He has a name-tag, but I'm not really reading it. All I can comprehend on it is "S. W-" before my brain shuts off.

I can't take it anymore. I look to his face.

He's looking at mine.

I know what he sees and I'm ashamed. Rumpled black hair, blood-shot blue eyes with bags lining the rim, a too-narrow build, and an awkward set of Batman PJs that don't even reach the middle of my calves.

I wonder if he knows what I see.

Hard steel eyes, skin tanned from natural sunlight, hair that's just hitting gray, strong, large hands carrying a clipboard meant to evaluate my situation and mental status, a body fit to be that of a Greek god's. He's older than me by ten or fifteen years easy, but that doesn't seem to hinder my unexpected attraction to him.

The clocks finally stop their incessant beeping and I can feel mine relax its death-grip on my skin.

So.

The "woman of my dreams", my "soul mate", the girl I'm meant to "spend the rest of my life loving"...is standing in front of my bedroom door in all his masculine glory.

I want to say something to this gorgeous man, to apologize for my appearance and rudeness, but he stops me before I can get a breath out.

"You're more beautiful than I imagined you'd be."

I can't stop myself from flinging the door open and clinging to him as if my life depended on it. I don't think I would have tried to anyway.

A.N.: Just an old thing I actually put on my Tumblr a while ago as one of those reblog-and-add-a-story type of posts. This was for the one that had that "wrist-watch that told you when you met your soul-mate" thing. This is fairly obviously a Teen Titans!AU, so I figured I might as well upload it here, too. If you want my Tumblr, the link is on my Bio. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this!