Last chapter! I do enjoy writing these soulmate AUs, so I'm definitely open to hearing suggestions if anyone has another one they would like me to try.


Seymour had found a lot of things to worry about in the hours since his time in Orin's dental office. He had to worry if anyone might have spotted him, if anyone might have said something to the police, and if anyone would ever believe him if he tried to explain that he hadn't exactly been responsible for what happened, even if he had dragged the body home and chopped it up. And he also had to worry about the fact that fate had somehow decided this morning was the right time for him to find his soulmate, no matter what had happened the night before.

But more than anything, he was worried about Audrey. He still didn't know whether or not he had done the right thing for her. And when she ran into an alleyway, in tears over the news of Orin's disappearance, he felt a crushing worry that he may have made a very wrong decision.

And yet… there was still a nagging voice in his mind saying that something wasn't sitting right. Orin had zeroes. He'd seen plain as day that Orin had zeroes. And while it had crossed his mind quite a few times throughout his night of staring at the wall and worrying about timers, he still couldn't understand it. All he knew was that something had to be wrong with the dentist being Audrey's soulmate. And it seemed to confirm what the voice was saying when he couldn't help but think that he'd seen Audrey cry much, much harder than this over knowing that Orin was still a part of her life.

"Seymour, I've done something awful." Audrey said through her tears as she sat down and buried her face in her hands.

"That's not true." Seymour found himself responding before he had any time to think over his words. "It wasn't awful to think about wanting him gone. Not if he made you miserable."

Audrey shook her head, still looking to ashamed to meet his eyes. "It was worse than that… my tima'…Orin…"

"It doesn't matter what happened with your timer. Your timer was wrong, if it said you were supposed to be someone you wanted to disappear."

"It wasn't wrong about him. I just don't deserve a soulmate now. I've let a terrible life." Audrey insisted.

Seymour came to sit beside her as she explained about working in The Gutter on nights off, the cheap and tasteless outfits, meeting Orin there, meeting plenty of creeps there who didn't care about not being her soulmate, and going along with what all of them wanted until her past made her feel so dirty that no one could possibly want her anymore.

She was very certain that by the time she was finished, Seymour would be agreeing with her that she should just be left alone without a soulmate, and then he would leave her sitting in the alley by herself. But instead, he looked at her tear-streaked face and reached into his pocket.

"Here, take my Kleenex."

As he reached over to hand her the tissue, Audrey caught a glimpse of the back of his wrist. Instinctively, she reached out to pull his arm closer and get a better look.

"Seymour, your tima'..."

He looked down as well, and saw that there were hardly a few minutes left. Audrey started to pull away again, sure that he would want to run off to find the person he wanted to spend his life with.

"It's alright. I'm not going anywhere." He assured her. He didn't know how everything had worked out this way. But somehow, he felt calmer than he ever had since realizing his timer was close to reaching its end. He couldn't shake the feeling that fate had already gotten him exactly where he was meant to be, with exactly the person who was meant to be there with him.

"Seymour…" Audrey paused to take a deep breath, then seemed to strengthen her resolve about something. She reached down to push a bracelet aside, and began running a thumb over the spot where her timer would have been before it disappeared.

Or… the spot where it still was.

Seymour's eyes widened as concealer was rubbed away, revealing a few minutes still left to run out. Minutes and seconds that matched his perfectly.

"Orin was neva' my soulmate." Audrey said. Her voice was shaking, but she took another deep breath and kept going. "He just… he got so rough, and I was so scared. I thought maybe he'd take it easia' on me if he thought we were supposed to spend our lives togetha', and I knew he didn't pay attention to his own tima', and…"

"Audrey…"

"I know it's a terrible thing to lie about. You must think I'm an awful person."

"Of course I don't think that." He told her without a second thought. "You're a very nice person. I always knew you were. You haven't got anything to feel ashamed of."

Audrey could hardly believe this wasn't a dream. She'd wanted it to be Seymour. For so, so long, she'd wanted it to be Seymour. And here she was, only a few minutes away, and Seymour beside her with the same amount of time left. Could this really be happening? She'd thought for sure it wasn't going to happen at all. That her timer was just going to run out without her finding her soulmate, because surely fate would decide that she didn't deserve one after everything she'd done. But Seymour was right there, looking at her with love and respect in his eyes and providing her with sweet understanding.

And as much as it was still strange and frightening, she would find that she could come to believe him when he said that all of the bad times built up over the course of her timer could be clean washed away.