Disclaimer – I own nothing.
Notes –Thanks to everyone who left me comments on Five Days More (and Five Days) you guys are awesome. I'm going away for a few days so I thought I'd post this before I left (gives me less of an opportunity to panic). It's a soulmate au which is new territory for me. Eventually it'll get a little weird but it's fun to write.
**/**
No one is more surprised than Lois when her soulmate's… name? … turns up printed on her skin. And by no one she means that she doesn't actually tell anyone so there is no one other than herself to be surprised.
The mark just appears one morning at her leg joint and she doesn't notice it until she's in the bathroom about to hop into shower. She's already slept late and the General's still home which means, like it or not, she's going to be on time for homeroom. She's tired and cranky, none of her homework is done and she already has a detention after school.
But petty concerns fall away when she catches sight of the mark as she leans into the stall to turn the water on and her blood runs cold. She has to step up to the mirror to study it, thanks to its inconvenient location. Five letters, five meaningless letters, darker than her skin and slightly raised. When she runs her fingers over them they tingle a little otherwise seeming content to act as if they've been there her whole life.
She stares at the mark as the mirror fogs up and the bathroom fills with steam, studying it, trying to make sense of it until the General bangs on the door and tells her that her ride is five minutes out and she will be ready when it arrives. Fingers numb and clumsy she manages to dress herself, shutting the shower off without having stepped in it – not caring if she wanders around stinking all day. She considers telling her father she's sick and going back to bed, but lacks the energy for a fight.
Somehow she manage to be dressed and downstairs with her school gear just as her ride pulls up. Because the General does occasionally remember he's a father he hands her a piece of toast and pats her on the shoulder and tells her he'll see her for dinner.
This is not what I wanted.
**/**
Eventually, after three weeks of keeping it to herself because she doesn't wants to be jerked around by what is essentially a creepy birth mark, she caves and tells the school counsellor – who convinces her to tell the General who takes her to an agent.
Which is how Lois finds herself sitting in a room that is a disturbing shade of peach with her father glowering at the impassive agent. The agent, Christie Shaw, tells her that it's not unusual for her soulmate to have not turned up in the system just yet, especially given her age. And there's a thousand other reason why he – or she – might be keeping to themselves for the time being.
Christie does remark that Lois' mark… name… whatever is a little odd. But distinctions do ultimately make it easier to find your soulmate. Which is why fingerprints are better than names – the database can match them so very quickly.
"Well, let's hope he has a finger print that he wants to share, then."
"Lo'," her dad says, voice low and tense. "Things will happen when they're meant to happen." Which Lois thinks is a bit rich coming from someone who has never had a soulmate, but she keeps her mouth shut because she knows he loved her mother and there's sullen and then there's cruel.
"What if I don't want anything to 'happen' at all," she says instead, slumping down in her chair further. She's never found the idea of 'forever and ever and ever' to be romantic, even if it's meant to be with someone who is your perfect match.
"You're not the first person to sit here and say that." Lois is so surprised she actually looks up at the agent, noticing a 'D' and part of an 'a' or an 'o' peeking out from under her collar. "You'd probably be surprised how many people are less than thrilled to find they have a soulmate. You'll find it's different when you actually meet him."
Lois snorts. "Doubt it," she says.
**/**
The General has her dropped her back at school for fourth period, parenting well and truly done for the semester. Lois dawdles her way to Algebra before deciding she has more important uses for her time than linear functions and hitches a ride back to the base.
Holed-up in her room she spends her afternoon reading the pamphlets and searching up more information online.
All of it, over and over, tells her that this is cause for joy. She is one of the 0.92% of the population who will find a soulmate… She is lucky… Somewhere out there is her perfect match… She will have everlasting happiness…
If all this is true, why does she feel like she's just been handed a prison sentence?
**/**
Apparently the General does still have some parenting in him because he turns up shortly after 2:30pm. "The school called." Of course they did. They're particularly vigilant about students missing classes.
"I take no responsibility for any buildings that may or may not have burned down."
He narrows his eyes but doesn't comment on her flippancy further and she's skipped enough school that he's given up shouting at her for it. "Have you called your sister, yet?"
"Lucy is the last person on the planet I want to know about this." The last but one. "Or Chloe."
"You'll have to tell them sooner or later."
Later works for Lois. Much, much later. Maybe when they're old and wrinkly and it doesn't matter anymore. "No. I don't. Is there something you wanted? I'm kind of busy." She has a couple more helpings of sugar-coated soulmate accounts to read.
"I've arranged for us to have dinner with a friend of mine and his wife." He pauses and Lois waits for the other shoe to drop, knowing what it's going to be anyway. "They're soulmates."
"I'm not going."
"I didn't say you had a choice."
She doesn't have a choice in much of anything these days, does she?
**/**
The retired Colonel Fisher and his wife, Dr. Fisher, live off-base in a pretty brick house with a large garden. Inside, no wall goes untouched by pictures of their three children. Everyone looks deliriously happy in their tiny wooden frames, not a fake smile from a single one of them. This is the kind of couple the pamphlets old up as being an example of the perfect soulmate couple.
Lois, eating slightly dry pot roast, has the sick sensation that she may be looking at her future in all its suburban glory. Fighting the urge to gag, she puts her fork down and pretends to listen the story about how the two of them met. She misses most of the tale but she does notice they don't mention the bonding portion of the experience, only the parts both immediately before and immediately after.
She's as curious about the process as she is repulsed by it. The pamphlets has described the ordeal in dry clinical language and the internet had taken the opposing route using a range of vivid and disturbing adjectives to illustrate what is essentially meant to be several days spent sleeping.
No, not a euphemism.
Colonel Fisher pats her on the shoulder and offers her a glass of wine that she accepts, ignoring her father's glare, but she quails when he asks about her mark. How is she meant to describe the location and talk about how she doesn't even know what it means?
The General, though, comes to her rescue. "What my Lo' isn't telling you is that her mark is quite 'intimately' placed." Though, as usual, his help is a little misplaced.
She can't quite help the blush that heats up her face but she hides it by sipping her wine. "I think it's his name," she says, voice hoarse. She doesn't tell them exactly what it says – what would the point be? She's going to be one of those people who can only have their mark explained by their soulmate.
The Fishers' marks are across their right thighs, not much above their knees. Hers is his first words to her and his is the co-orindates to her childhood home. "Took some figuring it out," Mrs Fisher says. She's rolled her shorts back to show Lois where the words are etched in her skin 'Hey! You can't be here!', likely still as distinct as they day they appeared. "But the marks are secondary, anyway." She reaches out and takes her husband's hand, smiling up at him.
Later she hugs Lois as she says goodbye on the porch. She pulls back, but keeps a grip on Lois. "Sweetheart, I know you probably feel like you've been handed a life sentence but I promise you it isn't. And I know it isn't much comfort now but you'll wake up one day and realise that it is a gift. I promise, I promise, it gets better."
Lois turns away to hide the tears that are starting to gather.
**/**
She studies the mark in her mirror – still the only place she can actually see the mark easily. It's low on her hip, low enough that it'll be covered by everything even a not too skimpy bikini. And somewhere out there, in the same place on his body, is something that be significant to her and her alone.
Kal-El.
**/**