Day 4-Soulmates

"Do you think you and David are soulmates?"

Carly knows the question takes Marcy by surprise, she pauses as she's looking over her medical bag. Marcy was scheduled to go on a routine run to replenish their dwindling stock of supplies, so Carly tagged along just for something to do.

"I don't meant to pry, it's probably a dumb question…..you know what, forget I asked." Carly felt her cheeks heat up in embarrassment as she turned back staring out the windshield.

"It's not a dumb question at all." Marcy tries to assure her. "Honestly, I don't know, I think I just got lucky with this host." She takes a moment to think, "Especially since pretty much everything that we researched and learned about my host was off target. Why do you ask?"

Carly shrugged as she focused her gaze outside, "I don't know, I was thinking about my neighbor. She's in a situation like my host was, with the physically abusive partner. I wonder if she or my host ever thought that those men were their soulmate." She shakes her head, "I can't imagine why they would stay with someone who hurts them like that."

"I don't think it's as simple as that, though." Marcy gently says. "I'm sure neither Jeff nor your neighbors boyfriend started out abusing them right away."

"Okay, that I can understand, but why stay when it did? Especially my host who had a baby with him? I don't get it." Carly was truly dumbfounded.

"Having never been in that situation, I can't answer that one way or the other. But, I'd like to think that in a different world, maybe a different time, my host and David could have been each other's soulmates." Marcy cocked her head, "I know that Jeff is or rather, wasn't anyone's idea of a soulmate, but what about 5416? He seems really nice and is obviously nothing like his host."

Carly snorted, "Absolutely not. I look at him and I still see the man that I would have gladly shot dead. I know consciously he's not Jeff, but that association is there, and it's hard to shake."

Not that it's stopped him from trying, though.

Traveler 5416 has made it a habit to be everywhere Carly is lately. He says it's because of him needing help to acclimate to being in the 21st without a team of his own, but Carly knows different. Showing up with breakfast, trying to engage her in small talk that has almost nothing to do with his (or her) mission, he is angling for something else. Something that she isn't sure she is ready to give.

Her relationship with Mac hadn't survived the transition to the 21st, and as much as she brushed it off as nothing but a moment, it hurt that he was so ready to cut short what they shared. Not that she thought of Mac as her soulmate, they were too similar to really work out in the long term. But sometimes, she thinks she'd love to be like a few of her fellow travelers and be able to go home at the end of a difficult mission and have someone there to greet her and ask how her day went.

Especially since Jeffrey Jr. is no longer in her care, and all she is met with on a frequently increasing rate is the angry shouts and meek apologies of her new neighbors.

"I don't really believe in the concept of soulmates anyway." Marcy continues.

"Why not?" Carly is honestly curious to know.

"Because that's a lot of stress to put on one person. You want this other being to be your lover, your best friend, and whatever else the word soulmates is supposed to mean? That is a long list of requirements to be met, and I personally don't believe you can find all that in just one person." Marcy explained.

"I mean, look at me and David. He's awesome in a lot of ways, but there is no way I can tell him who I really am. I can't talk to him about my work without lying to him, and I'm pretty sure soulmates are supposed to at least know what their partner does for a living." She leans against the wall, "but that doesn't make him lacking in any way, I can just talk to you guys instead, and that feeds that part of me."

"So you think it's better to surround yourself with people who feed differently parts of you, instead of trying to find one that does it all?" Carly asked for clarification, in a way that did make a lot more sense.

"I guess." The other girl gives Carly a half-smile, "I've certainly managed to surround myself with people that feed different parts of me, and it seems to be working out okay." Carly smiles back as she realizes she's subconsciously done the same thing.

As they headed back to base, she could feel her way of thinking shift, maybe the ultimate idea of soulmates wasn't to find everything in one person, but to spread it out into as many people as you needed in order to feed all parts of yourself.