Rick Grimes met his soulmate when he was sixteen years old.
The early years of his life were spent in black and white. He knew there were colors - his parents told him so, regaled him with the story of how they met, how everything simple turned bright and new and beautiful and chaotic in one fell swoop - but he had never seen them. He was used to the simplicity, to the way everything could be boiled down to shades of those two colors, how the only chaos was hidden within layers of black and white.
Like any other normal kid his age, he wanted it all. To see the red of a cardinal instead of just hearing its song, to see the blue of the sky on clear days instead of the perpetually overcast grey blob it always was, to see the yellow of the sun instead of just feeling it on his skin. It never happened, though, and, like the typical impatient teenager, he had given up on ever seeing the beauty of the normal world.
And then he met Lori.
In the way of most important things, he met her on the most ordinary day in existence, during yet another walk down yet another crowded school hallway hearing about yet another of Shane's romantic conquests. And then Shane stopped to talk to a girl by her locker, and Rick was practically duty-bound to wait for him, and Lori Johnson walked up to him to say hello.
Hardly had he gotten out the words "Rick Grimes. And that's Shane." before Lori had gasped and staggered backwards, one hand reaching out blindly for the locker beside her. She had stuttered as she tried to explain what she felt, reaching for words that wouldn't come to describe the flood of colors she'd never seen. In the end, she'd simply fallen silent, mouth snapping shut as she straightened and stood, albeit shakily.
Rick, on the other hand, found his new world unfortunately lacking. It mostly looked the same, too much black and white and grey for his taste. He had tried to see the changes - had tried hard enough that, eventually, he thought he saw the tiniest tints of color overlaying the neutral - but he found himself overwhelmingly disappointed. When he'd heard "explosion of color," he had hoped for something drastic, something world changing. Something more.
Still, there was no denying that he and Lori were soulmates; after all, colors weren't revealed at just any meeting. And, really, their life was perfect. They set up the perfect life, developed the perfect life plan. They married in a cute little church with a white gown and pretty flowers. He went to school for law enforcement, acing his exams. They moved out to King County, got a nice house in the suburbs for Lori and a nice spot on the force for him. Lori even got pregnant, a beautiful baby boy inside her.
Shane moved out there with them, joining in with their white-picket life. He bought an apartment nearby. He joined the force at Rick's side, his partner to always have his back. He even settled down with a soulmate of his own; his colors had been revealed the same day as Lori's, in the midst of his locker-side introduction to Miss Emily Carpenter.
Unlike the storybooks, life wasn't perfect. The white-picket life wasn't perfect. Despite the age-old adage of "opposites attract," he and Lori were simply too different to get along easily. They began to fight, his silent logic incompatible with her strident shouting. Even their child's birth - Carl, they named him - didn't stop the arguing for more than a few weeks. More often than not, the start of each patrol shift turned into venting sessions, Rick ranting about Lori and Shane discussing his (or Emily's) hundredth affair.
It wasn't perfect, but it was pleasant enough. Rick had Carl and Shane and, for all their fights, Lori. He didn't doubt they were soulmates - if Lori's certainty about her colors wasn't enough, the fact that their life was so close to ideal satisfied any concerns - and he had never been happier. Even Shane, after yet another night on his sofa, proclaiming that "soulmates had open relationships all the time," still believed that he and Emily Walsh were meant to be. Soulmates didn't mean everything would be perfect, but it was the closest one could get.
And then, he and Shane were called out on a car chase with two suspects.
And then, a third person stepped out of that crashed car.
And then, he got shot.