Chapter 1

CS Genre: soulmate au

"Are you lonely? Tired of the dating scene? Ready to find your soulmate and settle down?" came the over-excited voice from the TV on the other side of the apartment common room. "Have I got a deal for you! For just two easy payments of $19.99, you can be the proud owner of the Music of the Heart Soulmate Finder™!"

"Emma, have you seen this?" Mary Margaret called from her perch on their sofa.

"A smarmy infomercial salesman trying to peddle his crap to gullible lonely people?" Emma asked, never taking her eyes from her laptop where she had just picked up a promising lead on her latest skip. "Yeah, I've seen plenty of those. Thanks."

Mary Margaret tutted. "Emma, you're always so distrustful!"

"Yeah, kind of comes with the bail bonds person gig," Emma said, clicking open another tab on her browser. "Something about going after the scum of the earth on a daily basis kind of makes a person lose her faith in humanity."

The infomercial droned on, happy couple after happy couple giving their testimonials about how the "Music of the Heart Soulmate Finder" brought them together and changed their lives. Emma rolled her eyes. Soulmates! The whole concept was a joke. There was no such thing as a soulmate. No such thing as one person designed specifically for you.

In her experience, even regular, ordinary love was a fairy tale.

Mary Margaret finally clicked off the TV, and then turned toward her. "Emma," she said. "I think we should do it."

Emma shot her roommate and best friend a questioning look. "We should do what?"

"Get soulmate finders!" Mary Margaret said, her emphatic nod making a lock of her dark brown pixie cut tumble into her face.

"You have got to be kidding me, Mary Margaret!" Emma said, closing her laptop and turning her attention fully toward the woman on the other side of the couch.

"Now Emma, I know your…difficult experience…with Neal has made you a little, um, wary when it comes to relationships," Mary Margaret said with a placating motion of her hand, "but not all guys are like that. Aren't you even curious to find out if there's a soulmate out there for you? Don't you even want to find love?"

"Mary Margaret, things with Neal weren't just difficult!" Emma said. "The son of a bitch not only left me, he had me arrested for his crime! That's what happens when you let yourself fall in love. So, yeah. The occasional one-night stand is all I need, thank you very much."

Mary Margaret shook her head gently, frown on her face. "Emma, those walls of yours may keep out pain, but they also keep out love, and love is so worth it!"

Emma shot her roommate an annoyed look. "Why do you need a magical soulmate finder anyway? I've seen the way you and David Nolan look at each other. I kind of doubt you need to waste $40 dollars to find love."

Mary Margaret colored, smiling to herself. "He asked me out, you know?"

"Really?" Emma asked, "I didn't think Deputy Nolan would ever get up the courage to ask you. How'd he do it?"

"Well…" Mary Margaret said with a little laugh. "He pulled me over. When I asked him what the problem was—I was sticking strictly to the speed limit—he told me he was going to have to arrest me for grand theft. Seems I'd stolen his heart."

Emma groaned and buried her face in her hand. "Please tell me that wasn't the line David used! That's quite possibly the worst pickup line I've ever heard."

"Oh I don't know," Mary Margaret said, "I thought it was kind of cute."

"Mary Margaret, your second graders could have come up with a better line, and they're about half a decade away from puberty."

"Well, good line or bad," Mary Margaret said, "it worked. We've been dancing around this…whatever it is…for months now, and I can't wait to go to dinner with him and find out if there's really something there or not."

"I'm happy for you," Emma said, feeling genuinely happy for her best friend, a woman who'd wanted to get married and have babies of her own since about sixth grade. She deserved to be happy.

"Thanks," Mary Margaret said. "And that is exactly why I think you and I should go down to this address and get fitted for soulmate finders!"

"Mary Margaret, you just told me you landed a date with the man that everyone with eyes can see is perfect for you," Emma argued. "Why the hell would you need a soulmate finder?"

Mary Margaret shrugged. "I mean, it would save months of heartbreak. If I turn the thing on during my date with David, I'll know if he's the one. I can be sure. Besides, if things go well for me and David, I want you to find happiness too. Please! I never ask you to do things for me, but this would mean so much! And really, what do you have to lose? You buy the finder and it doesn't work, you're out $40, that's it. No harm, no foul."

Emma had to admit there was something about the idea of a device that could tell her if a certain guy was her soulmate or not that sounded appealing. And if it would make Mary Margaret happy (and keep her off her case about her current very, very single status), maybe it was worth it.

"I can't believe I'm saying this," Emma said finally, "but fine. I'll give the soulmate finder a shot, but I'm just telling you right now, when it doesn't find me my soulmate, it's going right into the garbage."

~c~s~c~s~c~s~c~s~c~s~

"So it's really a simple concept," the perky saleswoman said later that day when Emma and Mary Margaret stepped into Happily Ever After, Inc. later that day. "Highly scientific, and it comes with a 100% guarantee. We've been manufacturing the Music of the Heart Soulmate Finder for five years now, and we've heard nothing but positive things from our clients."

"Yeah, that's great and everything," Emma said, from her perch across from the brunette sitting behind her desk, "but just what is this amazing product and how does it work?"

"Emma!" Mary Margaret said under her breath, "don't be rude!"

"Oh it's no problem, Miss Blanchard," the woman, who, if the name plate on her desk was accurate, was named Aimee Cupid, assured. "We're quite used to skeptics. It's a difficult world out there. Most people have spent a lifetime kissing frogs and have yet to find one that will turn into a prince. I'm perfectly happy to explain our product."

"So get to it," Emma said, crossing her arms over her chest.

Aimee opened the top drawer of her desk and pulled out what looked like a tiny hearing aid. "This is it," she began. "This tiny little device will find you the person of your dreams. Here's how it works. Every person has a certain, shall we call it energy that is uniquely theirs. No one else has quite the same energy. Using newly developed sonic wave technology, our founder realized he could turn that energy into a musical melody, one that's unique to each person, and one that is the most beautiful music in all the world to the person experiencing it.."

"So, the device…broadcasts a person's particular melody?" Mary Margaret asked, sitting forward on the edge of her chair.

"Not exactly, Miss Blanchard," Aimee said. "When the device is placed in a client's ear and turned on, the client is able to "hear" all the melodies around them. And here's where the soulmate finding capacity comes in. Every person on earth has a soulmate, one single person who is their perfect match. When two soulmates meet, their energy mingles in a supremely satisfying way. The Music of the Heart Soulmate Finder facilitates this process and makes it absolutely clear to each person that what they are experiencing is indeed the True Love of soulmates."

"Let me guess," Emma said. "When you meet your soulmate your music finally stops?"

"Quite the opposite, Miss Swan," Aimee said. "Your soulmate's melody meshes perfectly with yours. Your two melodies come together to form a perfect harmony. The more like your soulmate a perspective match is, the more you will like the way your melodies sound together, but when you meet the one, it will be unmistakable. You will be overwhelmed with how perfectly your melodies click. We've had more than one client break into uncontrollable sobbing upon meeting their soulmate, because it's just so beautiful."

Emma rolled her eyes and muttered under her breath.

"We'll take them!" Mary Margaret said enthusiastically.

"Excellent!" Aimee Cupid said with a little clap of her hands. "Ladies, prepare to meet the men of your dreams."

Notes:

-This story was originally posted as part of my Fluffy Fridays collection.

-So, I've wanted to do a soulmates au for a while, but I wanted to put my own spin on it—something that kind of brought in a bit of who I am. As music has always been a huge part of my life, I think if there really were such a thing as a "Music of the Heart Soulmate Finder" hearing aid-type device, I'd be all over it! (Even if it didn't find me my own devilishly handsome pirate, it would still be fun to hear what everyone else's melody sounded like!)

-Up next: While Mary Margaret finds exactly what she's looking for in David Nolan, Emma doesn't have nearly the same positive experience with her soulmate finder. After a couple less than stellar dates, she decides to give up…that is until she happens to come across a devilishly handsome blue eyed musician playing a gig in her favorite coffee shop…