Hardest of Hearts

A soulmate AU where you can feel the pain that your soulmate feels

A/N: So, I have a lot of stories that I want to write (Welcome to the Jungle Sequel, We Looked Like Giants Sequel, etc.) But this idea kind of took hold of me. I first read the prompt in "New Romantics" by NightsLightss, and couldn't get it out of my head. I snooped around the internet to make sure it wasn't an original prompt because I didn't want to plagiarize, and I found a similar prompt on tumblr. I tried to hold out on writing it, but I've written the first three chapters, and just can't let it go. The story is all outlined and partially written, and probably will be about nine chapters.

I know that I really like writing this so far, but I'm a little worried about what you guys will think. I've never really written fantasy type fics like this (not that this is really fantasy, but the whole subconsciously feeling your soulmate is out of my element), so I'm not sure whether you all would like it. I also don't want to look like I'm copying NightsLightss one shot; I think I've changed enough and the plot is different enough that it shouldn't be an issue, especially since this is a posted AU prompt, but if you guys don't like the plot or think it's too similar, just let me know and I'll delete it.

Alright, Author's Note is almost over. Please let me know what you think, I'm really leaving it up to you guys as to whether or not I continue, so feedback it appreciated!

Title inspired by "Hardest of Hearts" by Florence and the Machine

Chapter 1

Piper Chapman

Piper Chapman is seven years old when she first feels it.

She was sitting in her back yard, reading under an oak tree, when suddenly she felt a searing pain in her nose, as if it had been broken. Blood was starting to dip from her nose as her knees suddenly started to burn, as if she had just scraped her knees from falling on pavement.

Terrified, Piper ran into her house tears streaming down her cheeks.

"Mom!" she wailed as she entered the kitchen.

"Piper, there's no need to-" Carol Chapman stopped as she looked up from the newspaper. "Piper! What happened?"

"I don't know," Piper sobbed as her mother led her to a chair. "I was just reading and then my nose hurt and now I'm bleeding."

"Oh, Piper," her mother murmured sympathetically as she dabbed at the blood.

"Am I dying?" Piper asked as the pain in the nose finally lessened. "What's happening to me?"

"Piper, don't be ridiculous, you aren't dying," Piper's mother scoffed. "It's just your soulmate."

"My what?"

"Your soulmate. Everyone has a soulmate, and when your soulmate gets hurt, you feel their pain."

"Why?"

"Because you're connected. And you always will be," Carol was finished cleaning the blood, and was now inspecting Piper's nose, her brow furrowed.

"What's wrong Mom?" Piper asked.

"I'm not sure I like the idea of your soulmate getting hit in the face," Carol explained. "He seems like a troublemaker."

XXXXXX

From then on, Piper becomes accustomed to bumps and bruises appearing every couple of weeks. Most were mild, and she rarely to her parents when she was hurt anymore, only when it was serious.

When Piper was ten, her left wrist had begun to hurt so bad and swell so much that she could barely move it at all, and she broke down and told her parents. Her father soothed her, sitting her in his lap as her mother prepared an ice pack.

"It seems like whoever your soulmate is, he just broke his wrist," Piper's dad remarked, trying to lighten the mood.

"I guess," Piper winced as her mother placed the ice on her throbbing wrist.

"Bill, don't make light," Carol piped in, an edge to her voice. "Piper has been getting banged up since she was seven over this boy, it's completely ridiculous."

"Well, he's probably just being a young boy, it happens," Bill shrugged.

"Yes, well he should take better care. He should have been told by now what happens in these situations."

As Piper's parents continued to bicker, Piper's thoughts drifted to her soulmate. She began to wonder how he had broken his wrist, why he seemed to get hurt so much, what his life was like; Piper wanted to know everything.

XXXXXX

At twelve, Piper Chapman begins to question the idea of soulmates.

She was hanging around outside the movie theater with her friend Sarah when she saw her father across the street. She watches as he leaves a store with a woman, kisses her, and then gets in his car and drive away with her.

And it doesn't make sense.

In school, her class recently had a lesson on soulmates. Soulmates were people who were meant to be together. Once you meet your soulmate, there is no law forcing a pair together, but it's supposed to be very difficult to stay away.

Then why was her father kissing other women?

Even worse, when she went home and told her mother about it, she wasn't even fazed. In fact, she punished Piper for seeing a movie without her mother's permission, and everything in her house went on as usual.

Piper had gotten so angry that she kicked the wall of the garage for five minutes until she calmed down.

And she began to wonder if soulmates were worth it.

XXXXXX

When Piper was thirteen, she learned another important lesson.

It's summertime. Piper is lounging in the pool while her mother was reading on the patio and her father was gardening, standing on a ladder clipping the bushes. She was floating aimlessly on a raft, reading, when she suddenly heard the metal ladder shift.

Piper looked up in time to see her father fall backwards off the ladder, his left foot hitting the ground and twisting at an awkward angle before he hit the ground. She heard her father gasp and swear as he hit the ground, clearly in pain.

Almost immediately, Piper turned to look at her mother. She had never seen a pair of soulmates in the same place when the other was hurt. However, her mother didn't even react. She didn't call out, or even wince in pain, and didn't seem to notice that her husband was hurt, she just kept reading her book.

Finally, Piper couldn't take it anymore. "Dad!" she called as she slipped from her raft, moving to the edge of the pool.

Carol finally looked up. "Bill!" she exclaimed as she jumped from her seat, running to where he was seated on the ground, grasping his ankle. Piper noticed that her mother didn't even limp when she ran, she was moving normally.

"Are you alright?" Carol asked as she reached her husband.

"I think I sprained my ankle," Bill growled, rubbing his ankle. "Can you help me up?"

Carol nodded, rising to her feet and reaching to pull her husband up. As soon as Bill stood, her immediately winced in pain and raised his left foot slightly from the ground. Piper glanced over at her mother, who, as far as she could tell, was still in no pain.

XXXXXX

A few weeks later, Piper asked her grandmother about her parents.

She's spending the night with her grandmother, and the pair were sitting at the kitchen table, having a snack when she finally asks.

"Grandmother, if I ask you something, do you promise you won't get mad?" Piper asked hesitantly.

"Of course dear, what is it?"

"When Dad sprained his ankle last week, it looked pretty bad, I mean, he's still walking with a limp. But when it happened, Mom wasn't even hurt. She didn't look like she was in pain at all. After you meet your soul mate, do you stop feeling their pain?"

Grandmother sighed, looking away from Piper before turning back to her. "No Piper, even after you meet your soulmate, you still feel the pain that they feel."

Piper didn't understand. "Then why was my mom fine?"

"Because your parents aren't soulmates," Piper's grandmother said gently.

"But, but that doesn't make sense. Why would they marry each other?"

"Your mother met her soulmate when she was very young," Grandmother explained. "They were very much in love, but he was diagnosed with cancer, and he died when he was in his twenties. Your mother didn't want to spend the rest of her life alone, and she eventually met your father and fell in love, and they got married."

"What happened to Dad's soulmate?" Piper pressed.

"That I don't know," Grandmother sighed. "He has never said anything about meeting her. I would have assumed your mother was his soulmate if she hadn't told me the truth. Maybe he just got too impatient waiting for her to show up, he just decided to be with your mother."

Piper nodded, letting the conversation drop.

At thirteen, Piper Chapman vowed that she would never settle for anyone less than her soulmate.

XXXXXX

At fourteen, Piper Chapman began to communicate with her soulmate.

It was after school in the fall of her freshman year of high school, and Piper was enraged. She had gotten a C on a group project in her Biology class, and her mother had grounded her for a week. Which wasn't even fair because the parts of the project she had done had received excellent marks, it was that stupid Jimmy Aldridge who put his portion together haphazardly at the last minute. But Piper's mother wouldn't even listen, and just told her she was disappointed in her and she needed to focus more.

So Piper was in her backyard, punching the old tire swing and ignoring the pain in her knuckles as she swung her fists. Suddenly, she felt a sharp pinch against her left arm.

"Ouch," Piper yelped, stopping to examine her arm. It didn't look like she had been bitten or stung, but she knew she had felt something.

Oh.

Instantly, Piper knew it was her soulmate, wherever they were. She had been punching the tire swing pretty hard, her knuckles were starting to bruise. Maybe he was just letting her know that they were hurting too.

Unsure as to what to do, Piper grabbed her left arm, and squeezed. It produced a dull ache, one hopefully strong enough for her soulmate to feel, letting him know she got the message. A minute later, she felt another ache in her arm, and Piper couldn't help but smile.

From then on, Piper's soulmate would let her know whenever Piper was causing them too much pain, and Piper would do the same.

XXXXX

Piper's soulmate was an animal in bed.

Piper discovered this when she was about seventeen years old. She had lost her virginity the year before to Mark Welch. She had thought about waiting until she met her soulmate, but her friend Polly thought she was being ridiculous, and she had liked Mark well enough. Her first time had been a little painful, like everyone said it would be, but other than that, it was fine.

However, she didn't remember leaving scratch marks down Mark's back.

One morning, Piper woke up to her back feeling tender. It didn't feel like she slept wrong or pulled a muscle, but it was definitely sore when she clasped her bra or leaned back against a hard chair.

That evening, when she was changing into her pajamas, Piper checked out her back in the mirror. It was faint, but Piper thought she could make out red streaks down her back. She had no idea what it could be, so she let it slip from her mind.

A few days later, she was hanging out with her friends on a Friday night when she felt it again. This time it felt like a scratch.

"Ouch," Piper hissed, wincing as the pain spread down her back.

"What's wrong?" Polly asked from next to her.

"I keep getting this pain in my back," Piper explained. "It almost feels like I'm being scratched."

Polly's brow furrowed. "Show me."

Piper jerked her head, indicating for Polly to follow her as she stood and left the room. When they reached the hallway, Piper turned away from hallway and lifted her shirt, exposing her back.

"Holy shit," Polly gasped.

"What?"

"Those are definitely scratch marks," Polly confirmed as Piper turned to face her. "Damn, I'm jealous."

"What do you mean you're jealous?" Piper asked incredulously.

Polly rolled her eyes as if Piper was missing something obvious. "They're scratch marks Piper. Like, sex scratch marks. Meaning whoever your soulmate is knows what they're doing in bed."

Piper felt a smug smile unfurl. "I guess you're right," she admitted.

"Ugh," Polly scoffed. "Whenever you meet your soulmate, I'll have to give you a wide berth for a week so I don't have to hear about all the sex."

Piper smirks, but as Polly walks away, Piper's smile falters. It's a weird feeling, knowing that your soulmate is having sex with someone else. She never really thought about it before, but now that it was happening, she wasn't sure she liked it. She thought about pinching her arm, getting her soulmate to stop, but she decided against it. She and her soulmate hadn't really had any communication through pain in almost a year, and she felt weird about initiating it after so long. Plus, she would probably be acting like some kind of cockblock by using their old trick to interrupt sex.

So Piper went back to the party, silently dealing with the pain that she kept feeling throughout the night. Apparently her soulmate had the ability to go all night long.

Alex Vause

Alex Vause didn't feel her soulmate until she's thirteen years old.

Her mom always told her that it was fine, that it was totally normal not to feel anything for a while.

"Sometimes it just takes time, babe," Diane Vause had tried to comfort Alex when she was ten, but it was hard to take her mother's words to heart, especially when everyone else seemed to have felt their soulmate. For Christ sake, two kids in her fifth grade class figured out that they were each other's soulmate, and they've been inseparable ever since.

When she was twelve, Alex began to think that maybe she didn't have a soulmate. Maybe, since all of her crushes were on girls, she didn't get to have one. That there was something wrong with her that prevented it.

One day, thirteen year old Alex Vause was watching television, waiting for her mother to come home. Suddenly, her foot started throbbing. Sharp pain started radiating from her toes, a pulsing pain that felt as if she was repeatedly slamming her foot against cement.

Alex stared at her foot, wincing in pain for a few seconds before she finally figured it out.

It's her.

Alex knew her soulmate was a girl. She just knew, and she finally felt her.

Despite the pain, Alex was giddy, practically bouncing up and down when her mom finally came home from work. She was bursting with excitement as she told her mom that she finally felt something, that she knew she had a soulmate. Diane smiled, giving Alex an I-told-you-so look as Alex launched into extreme detail about the story that lasted more than a minute.

Alex knew she may be over exaggerating and making too big a deal out of it, but Alex didn't care. She finally felt like less of a freak.

XXXXXX

When Alex was fifteen, she snapped at her soulmate.

Most of the time, this girl that Alex was destined to be with was calm. She clearly wasn't clumsy, not like Alex, who had broken and sprained her bones multiple times throughout her childhood. She didn't seem to get into too much trouble, but every once in a while there was a flare up.

After the first time she felt her, Alex realized her soulmate had a temper. And when her temper boiled over, she often manifested it physically. Most of the time, Alex just took it, remembering the times she broke her nose and arm as a kid, and the pain her soulmate must have felt during that.

One day, however, Alex couldn't take it anymore. She had a particularly rough day at school, a presentation didn't go as well as she wanted, and Jessica Wedge made some snide remark about Alex's new glasses during their algebra class. She was feeling bloated and crampy, and was looking forward to relaxing on her couch with a hot water bottle when she felt a sharp pain in her knuckles.

She couldn't help but groan as she felt the pain, somewhat used to feeling the mysterious girl punch things. Alex tried to wait it out, however, the pain in her knuckles just kept coming, and Alex needed to make it stop. So, she did the first thing she could think of.

She grabbed her right arm, and pinched. Hard.

The sharp pain in her knuckles instantly stopped. They still felt sore, like they were about to bruise, but she knew that her soulmate had stopped punching a wall or tree or whatever the hell she hit when she was mad.

Surprisingly, Alex felt a shot of pressure in her left arm, right where she had pinched herself. It didn't hurt too much, but she was shocked that the girl responded. Alex smiled slightly as she pinched herself again lightly, hoping the girl would feel it.

Alex felt a thrill that she had a way to communicate with her soul mate, no matter how limited it seemed. It gave her the feeling that they had a connection, and that they would meet soon.

XXXXXX

When Alex was seventeen, her soulmate broke her heart for the first time.

Luckily, Alex was at home when she felt it. It was Friday night, and she hadn't been in the mood for a party, so she stayed in. She was in the middle of a good part of her book when she feels a sharp pain down there. She knows what that pain meant. She had heard enough girls describe their first time having sex to know, and she had heard enough guys in school describe their weird version of the pain to know that her soulmate, wherever she is, just lost her virginity.

Alex is sullen and moody when her mom gets home, and she can tell Diane instantly picks up on it.

"Are you going to tell me what's bothering you, or am I going to have to guess?" Diane asked after fifteen minutes of monosyllabic answers from her daughter.

"It's…hard to explain," Alex finally admitted quietly.

"Try me," Diane responded, sitting on the couch.

"I felt… I felt my soulmate lose her virginity," Alex said. "And, I don't know how to feel about it."

"Do you feel jealous?"

Alex shrugged. "I guess. I'm a little mad that she didn't wait for me."

"Aw, babe," Diane swung an arm around Alex's shoulders. "You can't expect her to wait for you. You have no idea when you'll finally meet."

"Yeah, but-" Alex blushed as she looked down, unable to look her mother in the eye. "I was thinking about waiting."

"You can still wait if you want," Diane replied gently.

"But she didn't," Alex said, betrayal coursing through her. "It's like I wasn't important enough to wait for. I mean, Janie Fisher and Charlie Nichols have known they were soulmates since they were nine, and neither of them feel the need to screw around and experiment."

"But that's different. They've known they were meant to be together since they were kids, why would they want anyone else when they've known their soulmate for so long?"

"My soulmate knows she exists," Alex shot back.

"But you don't know who she is."

"We still manage to communicate. Whenever one of us is hurting the other, we pinch our left arm. It's our signal, and the other one knows to back off."

Diane Vause smiled widely at that. "That's really cute, Al. But even still, you haven't really met. You can't blame her for being a teenager, to wanting to experience normal teenage things. It doesn't belittle anything that you have and what you two will have."

"Hmm," Alex sighs. "I guess you're right."

Diane kissed the top of Alex as she stood. "Well, you still need some cheering up, so let's get take out and pig out on junk food."

"Okay," Alex replied, giving her mom a slight smile.

Alex decided to let go of that feeling of jealously and betrayal. However, she slowly stopped giving her soulmate a heads up whenever she was in too much pain, and her soulmate began to do the same. With the exception of the occasional bumps and bruises, Alex never felt her anymore, though she never forgot that she was out there, somewhere.

A/N2: So, was it original enough to continue? Do you even like it?