The title for this chapter is a line from the song Fight Song by Rachel Platten.

Scientific Soul Mates

Chapter 1:
Sending big waves into motion

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Sitting in his jeans and button-down in a room full of people who were so done with dating that they were turning to science to find someone for them to be with was... well, it should have been at least a little bit humiliating, and yet, Arthur could do little more other than crane his neck, eyes scouring the faces, the thought playing at the back of his mind that someone in very well could be his perfect match.

According to science, anyway.

His head snapped back to the front of the room when someone began speaking—a woman who was maybe in her forties or fifties, auburn hair shaped in a very professional way, blouse and pants and heels all somehow matching the beaded chain that kept her glasses perched on the top of her nose. Arthur scrunched his nose, wondering if she was as cold and distant in personality as she looked from where he was sitting, and if that would have any effect on this whole... process.

Her name was Lydia Leslie, she introduced herself as he was thinking that, and she was one of the few experts who would be intimately in charge of matching the couples up.

Arthur shifted in his seat at that, trying to will himself to pay apt attention. The room smelled like desperation and too much cologne, however, and he was finding he was beginning to doubt this whole thing too much to pay as much attention as he would have liked to. Perhaps this had been a mistake, perhaps he didn't really need to go to these length to find someone…

"—something the website did not mention, however, was that the couples that we match up are to be married. And none of the couples will be meeting each other until the day they're to be married—they won't even find out each other's names or anything about each other until they meet at the alter the day of the wedding."

That was more than enough to grab Arthur's attention fully, however. She was right, that definitely hadn't been mentioned on the website. If it had been, would he have been sitting there right now? Probably not.

Digesting the new piece of information, Arthur felt something stir in his stomach—uneasiness, skepticism, out-right refusal to have anything to do with such absurdity…

And yet, even as handfuls of people rose and left then, a murmur still whipping around the room as Dr. Leslie patiently waited for things to quiet down at the front of the room, Arthur didn't leave. Didn't even move. Not even when those around him left, leaving the room feeling quite empty—indeed, where there had been something like a hundred or so people in the room to begin with, there were now only thirty or so. And with so few people left, was Arthur's perfect match really in the room—could they be? Were the odds in his favor with so few people here? Could they find his perfect match with less people to work with?

Something like a stubborn curiosity kept him rooted in his seat then—any sane person would have left already, as most of them already had—as Dr. Leslie gave the room an appreciative look-over before continuing with her explanation of things, and he knew then that he would be seeing this process out for as long as he could; either they would find his perfect match or they wouldn't, but he wasn't giving it up or dropping out, he was going to do this.

Even by the end of the afternoon, after Dr. Leslie finished explaining everything, Arthur still wasn't running in the other direction. No, instead, he found himself filling out paperwork, providing numbers and details and names and getting a packet of information concerning everything he'd already heard that afternoon—and this was bloody insane, wasn't it? He couldn't marry someone he didn't know! It was ridiculous! Preposterous!

Or at least, he kept telling himself that it was. Even as he made an appointment for the interview Dr. Leslie would want to have with him—as she wanted to meet all the candidates one-on-one, for obvious reasons—and other such arrangements, he kept telling himself that it was insane and he shouldn't do it and his father and sister were going to kill him when they found out about it.

And the following day, when he was sitting inside her office, in a surprisingly comfortable bright red chair just across from her, the room cozy and homey in a way that said she probably spent a fair bit of time there—her desk dark, walls lined with books and certificates and documents that, of course, said she was more than qualified to run this little experiment—and made him wonder if she had any luck in the love department herself… well, he still thought it was insane. But that didn't stop him from answering question after question that she had to throw at him, curious and prodding in a non-judgmental sort of way that made him answer all of the questions in as honest a way as he could. And God did she have a lot of questions for him:

"What drew you to this experiment in the first place?"

"I haven't had very much luck with relationships in the past, but… I still want one, I want that connection, that... spark, that someone to come home to at the end of the day, I want... love—the same as everyone else, and if there's even the slightest chance that you can find it for me—because clearly I'm doing something wrong if I can't find that perfect someone myself—it's worth taking a risk on."

"And why did you stay after finding out you'd be married to someone you didn't even know?"

"Well, it's not like I've got anything to lose."

"What are you looking for in a partner?"

"Someone… I don't know, someone I can talk to. Someone who challenges me. Someone I can come home to and feel at home with. Someone witty. Someone who I feel understands me. Someone I can try to understand and figure out and challenge and make feel at home. Someone I could call my other half."

It was two hours of extensive questions and prodding that ended with a handshake and a pile of paperwork being shoved into his hand, promises of a follow-up phone call and things of the such. Dr. Leslie told him, as he left her office, that she'd already met with a handful of the candidates so far, and he seemed… well, promising.

He wasn't sure how he felt about that.

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