Chapter Text
Every single person on the planet knows that the moment your soulmate's heart stops beating, your vision will turn to grey.
No one knew why. There was no scientific explanation behind the phenomenon, but it was simply accepted nonetheless.
It was a universal, depressing, known, factual, truth.
Some people would live their whole lives with someone, get to a ripe old age, hold their lovers’ hand as they slipped away, and still remain in color only to discover they had been married to someone who wasn’t their soulmate. Some would be going about their regular day and suddenly their vision would flash to black and white without ever knowing who their soulmate was. Then, of course, there were the people who had found their soulmate, held onto them, only to lose them one day and if that loss wasn’t bad enough, they’d take the vibrancy of the world with them.
The point is, no one ever truly knows who their soulmate is, until the day their heart stops beating.
Everyone always talked about how depressing it was when your world goes grey, how if you’re the first to go, you’re the lucky one.
Evidently, no one ever bothered to talk about how in the moments that your other half takes their last breath, that you would feel their pain.
That part came as quite a surprise to Fallon.
Her world flickering to grey as she stood in shock, staring in horror at the body of her friend wrapped in plastic was completely unexpected.
It came out of nowhere as if a higher power was punishing her for her part to play in the tragic death of the young girl who had just been pulled from the cold lake.
For Fallon, one second, everything was vibrant and colorful. She could see the blue of the water, the white of the boat cradling the corpse, the green of the pines on the horizon.
Then, in the blink of an eye, everything is in shades of grey.
The fear was instantaneous.
“I can’t see.”
The crowd around her were already in a daze of their own as they were attempting to process the bodies laid out in front of them. Their minds were so preoccupied with strategizing the next steps to ensure there was an element of damage control they hadn’t processed hearing Fallon speak.
She blinks, once, twice, three times.
The color still wouldn’t return.
Now, as adrenaline coursed through her veins, she speaks again, the panic evident in her higher-pitched voice, “Seriously, I can’t see.”
Sam was the first to drag his attention away from the commotion unfolding before him and focus on the brunette.
“Fallon? What do you mean ‘you can’t see’?”
Tears spring to her eyes as an overwhelming emotion of grief overtakes her. “I mean everything’s in black and white, I can’t see, oh my go-”
She practically chokes on her words as her airways close up.
Her hands instinctively go to clutch at her throat, her eyes wide, pleading for help.
The sudden lack of oxygen to her brain causes her to fall to her knees, the moisture of the earth below soaking into her skin, but she doesn’t care.
The motion had managed to catch the attention of the rest of the crowd.
“Fallon?” Blake eventually rushes to his daughters’ side, attempting to claw Fallon’s hands away from her throat where her skin is turning red. “What’s wrong?”
“I feel like I can’t breathe.”
Her lungs are filling with water and it burns.
Except, she realises that it isn’t her lungs, it’s her soulmate’s lungs.
Liam.
She tries and fails to ask what’s happening. He was fine an hour ago – they were together, engaged, happy. Above all else, he was safe.
Her vision continues to darken as her breathing becomes more ragged, and the connection she has with the love of her life begins to fade further away, out of reach, threatening to be lost to her forever.
She feels arms around her holding her up, worried voices telling her to try to take in air, but it isn’t enough.
His life is slipping away, and part of her soul is going with him, tearing itself away from her and joining its equal partner.
Just as darkness is edging its way into her already grey-scale vision and seconds before she gets to the point of passing out, she finds she can gulp in a desperate breath.
Directly in front of her, the previously grey skin of her Father evolves back into a creamy complexion and its pure relief to realise that the color returning and the sensation disappearing from her lungs tells her that he’s ok – he’s been revived, he’s breathing.
Her eyes dart around and she begins to take in the blue of the sky, the yellow of the sun, the red of her coat.
It takes a few seconds, but as soon as she is able to retain enough oxygen, the first question she asks is, “Where the hell is Liam?”