AN: I stumbled upon a "soulmates trope" list on-line that was chock full of fun little scenarios. I just wanted to play around with these with Modern J&M and have a bit of lark. Please read, please enjoy, please review. Cheers.

1 | Seeing in Black and White

John Thornton didn't have a favorite color. On his very first date when Lucy Jo Perkins asked him about it, he shrugged and said 'Black.'

"That doesn't count."

"Sure it does."

"Do you want to know my favorite color?" She asked, staring at him with a odd smile.

"Okay." John slurped his water and tried not to roll his eyes.

Lucy Jo was a nice girl but awkward as shit.

"It's blue. But not deep blue, more cobalt sky blue." She fidgeted, staring at him with that weird ass look on her face. "You know."

John didn't know—so he didn't say anything. He couldn't even remember what blue looked like. He was only seven when the world started to lose its color and that was almost ten years ago. It was old enough to know how things ought to look but too long ago to give a damn.

"You know."Lucy Jo said again and giggled. "Like your eyes. You have the nicest bluest eyes."

John grunted and crossed his arms, allowing the awkward silence to unfold around them.

"Sometimes I wish I didn't know what blue looked like," Lucy Jo said suddenly, covering her cheeks with her hands.

"Why?"

She stared at him, her mouth opening a little in astonishment, "Are you—are you joking?"

"Do I look like I'm joking?"

"Didn't you pay attention in biology class? Dr Lammers dedicated an entire week to soulmates."

John shrugged. Dr Lammers was a skinny stringy haired beta of a man that clung to female attention like it was a lifeline. John didn't like him, but then again he didn't like most people.

"Dr Lammers explained how people with a soulmate don't see color. There's a really interesting hypothesis on why—"

"What do you mean they don't see color?" John interrupted. He'd definitely missed that bit of the lecture.

Lucy Jo frowned. "If a person has a soulmate they can't see colors until they meet them. Everyone knows that."

John scowled, his lunch sitting too heavy in his stomach. He vaguely remembered when the world lost color for him. It had happened slowly, like the air draining from a helium balloon, each color less vibrant, fading until two weeks after his eighth birthday, everything suddenly snapped into black and white.

"What if someone used to see colors?" He demanded. "What does that mean?"

Lucy Jo frowned, "Dr Lammers said you only lose color when your soulmate is born. So if you used to see color and it fades then I guess that means you're older than they are. Scientists think it's connected to how the rods and cones cells interact with the mitochondrial—"

But John was no longer listening, a rushing roaring sound filling his ears.

"Not everyone has a soulmate," Lucy Jo sighed. "It's like being left handed or something." She brushed her fingers against his hand.

John blinked. Both his hands were clenched into fists.

"I'm not left handed," he snapped, shoving himself to his feet.

"John, what's wrong? Where are you going?"

Lucy Jo followed after him, but John barely noticed. He stormed out of the restaurant and stared around him, trying to force his damn eyes to see the color his memory told him should be there. The sky is blue, the grass is green, stop signs are red.

The sky was light gray, the grass was darker gray, and the stop sign was also gray. Just like always.

"Shit," he shut his eyes, shook his head, scrubbed at his face, and tried again.

But everything was still black and white and shades of gray. John swore again, loud enough to startle a squirrel darting through the underbrush.

Apparently, he had a soulmate. As if he didn't have enough shit to deal with.

Margaret Hale didn't have a favourite colour. When asked she would frown a little, duck her head, and shrug, feeling her cheeks grow hot. All of her classmates, first in primary and then grammar school, could easily answer their teachers but Margaret couldn't. Not because she didn't want to—she just didn't know what colours were exactly.

"Colour blindness isn't unheard of, Mrs Hale," Dr Carnegie insisted, patting Margaret's mother's shoulder. "Margaret seems to have no memory of colour at all. I'd say she's very likely soulmarked."

Her mother sucked in a breath, "You don't really think—"

The doctor smiled. "It's not as uncommon as most people believe and it's completely harmless. Her soulmate is probably older than her."

Mrs Hale nodded, her entire body rigid with fear and anger. After that, Margaret had tried so hard to see the colours everyone said were there. She wanted mummy to be happy and not angry with her. But it didn't work.

Margaret simply learned to adapt. By the time she was thirteen, she could, with enough concentration and effort, accurately distinguish between the differing shades of grey to feign normalcy. She changed schools often enough that people stopped noticing but her mother never treated her the same.

"It's so romantic to think you've got a soulmate," Edith sighed, throwing herself down on Margaret's bed.

She was visiting Margaret and her Aunt Maria for the Christmas Holiday in their tiny New York flat.

"I rather wish I hadn't," Margaret replied, sorting through her mother's medications. The sicker her mother became the more complicated Margaret's life became. A soulmate would complicate everything. "I've enough to tend to without him."

"Migs, you're the absolute worst, you know." Edith stared at her incredulously. "I'd kill for a soulmate."

"Why?"

"There's someone out there, just for you. Someone your soul wants—needs to be with."

"I don't need anybody, Eds." Margaret raised her chin, "I'm fine just the way I am. And if he feels differently then he can bugger off."

John watched with practiced laziness as the newly arrived truck was being unloaded. He glanced at his watch, eyes darting across the yard looking for Williams. There was work to be done and he was burning daylight. John squinted. Sometimes it was still hard to distinguish faraway objects. Milton grays all blurred together. He thought he saw the old dispatcher at the gate, talking to someone. His eyes stung a little and he blinked, a gust of cold January wind making them water.

"Don't you fuck with me Smokey!"

John's attention snapped to two of his drivers shoving each other, and shouting. Shit. He should've known there would be trouble with Boucher coming in today. In less than fifteen seconds, the two men were going at each other like young bulls in the same pasture.

"Stevens!" John vaulted over the low railing, skipping the last eight steps, his suit jacket straining with the movement. "Boucher!"

Stevens took a solid right hook on the chin and went down hard, Boucher charging forward to continue the beating. John's gun was in his hands and in Boucher's face before John took a breath.

"Don't you dare," he muttered, keeping his eyes on Boucher. "I'll pull this trigger, you drunk bastard. Don't think I won't."

John took a full step forward as the skinny man flinched back, his slurred words spurting from his mouth like sewage from a leaky pipe. A flurry of movement and a yell from the left broke John's concentration for a split second. His eyes flicked over the face of young woman as she rushed forward and grabbed his arm.

John let out a hiss as a searing pain tore through his eyes. What the hell? The sensation intensified and he tried to clear his eyes with the shake of his head. Everything was suddenly too bright.

"Miss?" Are you alright?" Williams's voice and a blurred brown shape swam across John's vision.

Brown.

Someone made a grab at his gun and John swore, throwing a blind punch. He stumbled, catching the tail end of Boucher's next punch on his cheek, but he kept hold of his gun.

"Williams!"

John swiped his arm across his eyes, and slammed his elbow into Boucher's nose, blood gushing everywhere. John stared.

Red.

Red.

He spun, his eyes finally starting to clear, but still throbbing. Blue. Green. Orange. Brown. Yellow. All there, muddied and faded, but growing clearer.

Boucher moaned, clutching at his nose, "You bastard," he stumbled towards John again but John shoved him away, all his attention fixed on the young woman crumpled on the ground clutching her face. Tears streamed from between her fingers.

"Miss, please!" Williams had a hand on her arm.

"Leave her alone," John barked, holstering his gun. He pushed the gawking workers aside, "Get Groucher out of here."

"Does she need a doctor?" Williams asked.

"I don't know," John muttered. He crouched, hands hovering awkwardly over her. He pulled his handkerchief from his breast pocket and pushed it gently into her free hand. When his fingers brushed against hers John barked out a curse. Everything surged brighter—so bright he felt like a spike was being driven into his temple. He squinted, blinking hard, black spots dancing across his vision.

"What's your name?" He asked, his voice hoarse and strained.

"My—my eyes. Oh God—"

John's heart hammered against his ribs, head pounding as his thoughts slammed into each other one after another—too fast, too much. He flinched as he finally got a good look at her. It almost hurt to look at her, the color of her skin and hair too bright. She gaped at him, eyes still streaming, her face pale.

"You—your eyes," she gasped, her breathing too shallow, too fast. "Bloody hell—they—they're—what's wrong with them?"

John swallowed, "They're blue."

Her own deep blue eyes widened and she stared at him for a moment.

"But I—I can't—you—" her eyes fluttered shut and she slumped over in a dead faint.

Margaret heard him before she saw him. A deep grumbling baritone that pulled her out of her colourless dreams and forced her awake.

"Hale? You're sure?" The deep voice demanded.

"That's what she said. Miss Margaret Hale. Said your dad was a friend of yours."

"Shit. She's Richard's daughter."

Margaret almost shivered. That voice belonged to him. The man with—with—

They're blue.

Blue.

Blue eyes.

So that's what blue was. Beautiful. Terrifying. Perfect.

"Master, what the hell is going on? Shouldn't we call an ambulance?"

"I don't need an ambulance," Margaret croaked, pushing herself up into a sitting position, her eyes kept tightly closed. She wrinkled her nose against the assault of smells—coffee, petrol, cigarettes, and grease. "I just need a moment."

"Try opening your eyes," The deep voice was much closer, almost on top of her, and her throat felt thick and useless.

Margaret hesitated, gripped by a sudden panic. Sweat gathered at her neck and face. But she grit her teeth, straightened her shoulders, and slowly forced them open. The tall dark haired man with the deep rumbling voice sat directly opposite her on a rusted chair, elbows on his knees, watching her carefully. Margaret blinked rapidly as her eyes watered, her head pounding—it was too much, too many, too new.

He wore a grey suit, black tie, and a crisp white shirt. These colours she knew and understood. She stared at them, the ache in her head easing a little. Margaret forced a slow breath in through her nose and out of her mouth. Then her eyes darted to his face. She let out a short firm breath.

"Blue." She whispered.

His lips quirked into a small grim smile. "Yours are too."

She'd always wondered what they looked like. Probably like his, except—except they would be hers.

"Are you—are you Mr Thornton?"

He nodded. He was young, younger than she had thought he would be. He'd been standing on the stairs outside the warehouse. Margaret's eyes had stung a little when she first caught sight of him, much like now, but she'd shrugged it off as the fistfight broke out. Before he—before—

She blinked slowly and tried to look around her, flinching in pain as each new colour assaulted her.

"Are you alright?" Mr Thornton's voice was gruff but gentle.

So unlike his demeanor towards those poor men a few minutes ago. He'd pulled a gun and threatened a man. Margaret scowled at him.

"No, I'm bloody not," she snapped, shoving herself to her feet.

Her vision swam and the room tilted. Mr Thornton stood and caught hold of her before she fell. Margaret squeezed her eyes shut, her legs trembling beneath her, but his firm hands never wavered.

"Easy," Mr Thornton said, his voice low. "It'll pass."

"Don't—" Margaret tried to push him away, but Mr Thornton didn't let her go. "I'm perfectly fine. It's called chromatic overstimulation. I'm seeing colours for the first time and my brain is struggling to process the information. I've been colourblind since I was a baby."

"I know."

She glared up at him, slow tears still leaking from her eyes.

"Your birthday is January 15th, right?" Mr Thornton looked almost angry and a little sheepish.

"Y-yes," Margaret stammered. She stared into his face. The colours were so bright he almost seemed to glow. She knew it would fade once her body adjusted.

Margaret's research on her condition had thoroughly explained chromatic overstimulation. It would pass. She also knew there was only one set of mitochondrial DNA in the entire world which could have triggered the reaction.

His.

Her soulmate.

Bloody hell.

Margaret swallowed, realising he was still holding onto her, his touch light and warm and intoxicating and—

She blushed.

"I—I'm Margaret."

"John."