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“Don’t shoot me and I won’t shoot you.”
Lee kept his gun pressed to the back of the stranger’s head for a beat longer before slowly removing it.
The man watched out of the corner of his eye and when the muzzle was finally pointed at the ground, he relaxed, his shoulders dropping and hands falling from by his head.
“Jesus, wasn’t expecting this in the jungle today,” the man mumbled, still half twisted away from Lee as he swung his camera strap over his shoulder. And the way he moved pulled the collar of his shirt and jacket away from his neck.
Lee almost dropped his gun, making Keiko flinch from a few feet away. But he was staring at the back of the guy’s head like he’d seen a ghost.
“What did you say your name was?” Lee croaked.
The apparent videographer turned. “You can call me Billy,” he said easily, head tilting at the odd look on Lee’s face.
“Is that a Mark on the back of your neck, Billy?” Lee asked, a brightness appearing on his cheeks as if he were coming down with a fever.
Bill’s hand jerked to cover the space between his head and his shirt collar, pale skin red with excursion from stumbling through the wilderness. And right below his hairline, black lines in the shape of two triangles on their sides with the points meeting in the middle like a butterfly.
“You one of those anti-soulmate assholes?” Bill asked, eyes dropping back to the gun, frowning hard in contrast with the friendly-turned-ruffled look that had been on his face previously.
“No,” Lee said flatly.
Bill looked suspicious but his eyes flicked from Lee, over to Keiko, down to her equipment, then back. “Then yeah. It is,” he said cautiously, dropping his hand. “... Why?”
Lee’s movements were jerky and halting as he put his gun back in his holster. He bent down as if strings were in control of his limbs. Before the other two knew it, he was shucking his boot, shoving his sock down and his pant leg up above his right ankle. To reveal two triangles, ends touching like an hourglass.
Lee straightened, facing a wide-eyed Bill, just as Keiko made a wounded sound beside them. Like a switch, the two men turned.
Keiko was pale, all the blood drained from her face. Without moving the rest of her body, feet stuck to the jungle floor, her right hand pushed the sleeve of her jacket a few inches higher on her left arm to reveal the thin skin of the crook of her elbow. Above which was the inky shape of two triangles taking the form of an infinity symbol, points meeting at the ends.
“Holy shit,” Lee breathed from deep in his chest.
><
“This is why we don’t allow women to serve,” General Puckett griped, throwing the file in his hand onto his desk in frustration. “Can you imagine how many more men would be compromised if this happened every damn day?! I send one good soldier on a mission and he comes back with not one, but two soulmates! Two! My Gran is rolling in her grave, Shaw!”
“With all due respect, sir,” Lee started from his place in front of Puckett’s desk, hands clasped behind him.
Puckett waved him on as he leaned back into his chair, looking up as if asking the heavens for help.
“With the… delicacy of what we are proposing and how covert it has to be by virtue of the topic at hand…. Sir, I believe having a team of soulmates working together would be beneficial to the cause. Especially if we only have each other to rely on,” Lee implored, trying to keep the desperation out of his voice. “It could add stability. It could strengthen our mission.”
Puckett remained silent and Lee waited him out. The clock ticked and eventually Puckett dropped his gaze from the ceiling and spoke.
“You did good, son. Coming straight to me. Better to be honest now instead of waiting for me to find out. Because I would have found out,” he said pointedly, looking Lee in the eye. “And no one else can, Shaw, do you understand? Bad enough you have two, God rest my Gran’s soul. But a man? And a damn—” He took a breath. “Find those fucking monsters, Leutenant, but keep it all mum. Understood?”
“Yes, sir,” Lee said.
“And we will provide your accommodations just like anyone else,” Puckett sighed, waving him away. “No need for anyone to get litigious.”
“Yes, sir,” Lee repeated, body jerking to attention and acknowledging the end of the conversation with a sharp salute.
He walked out of the office and kept on walking, feet moving without a destination until he was outside, eyes squinting against the bright sun. And then his feet were stopping.
He looked down and found a bench with two people sitting on it.
“What are you doing here?” Lee asked.
Keiko and Bill looked at each other from either side of the bench and then back at Lee. Bill made a vague gesture between the three of them.
“Yeah, dumb question,” Lee sighed, hands going to his hips as he looked around him.
The time between the Lawton and then was a whirlwind of logistical nightmares in getting them all back to the States, meeting with any necessary bosses or superiors, and getting their things in order. But the urge, the pull deep in their ribs that blossomed as soon as they all laid eyes on each other’s Marks, hadn’t swayed. So there they all were.
Lee squinted back at the two and opened his mouth, but Bill beat him to it.
“Anywhere to get a drink around here?” he asked.
><
Keiko knocked back what was in her glass in one go and set it down on the table hard, eyes lifting to find the other two blinking over at her.
“You want another?” Lee asked, looking both concerned and impressed.
Keiko shook her head as she glanced around the bar they had found, no one else looking anything like her anywhere in the room.
“What did your boss say?” Bill asked, already on his second beer.
“He’s going along with it,” Lee said, his words making Bill and Keiko relax minutely in relief.
“Happily?” Keiko asked dryly and received a wavy hand motion as answer.
“Gotta stay on our toes, I guess,” Bill said.
Lee gave him a nod. “And keep our mouths shut.”
“No shouting about MUTOs down the streets of D.C.?” Bill asked, chuckling at the unimpressed look Lee gave him for saying it too loud. “Relax, that’s what the acronym is for.”
“Yes, that ,” Lee groused. “And the… other thing . He was very specific on us keeping that to ourselves.”
“Because I’m Japanese,” Keiko said at the same time Bill said, “Because I’m a man.”
Bill winked at Keiko from across the table, the corner of her mouth twitching. Lee just made a face at both of them.
“And because there are two of you.”
“Is this going to cause problems for you?” Keiko asked, gesturing vaguely towards Lee’s uniform.
Lee huffed. “There’s a reason I had a black eye the day we met,” he said, shrugging with his hands before picking up his beer bottle again. “Besides, who am I to argue with Marks?”
“You could,” Keiko insisted.
“I could,” Lee agreed. “But I don’t want to. Do you?”
“This is a touch different for the two of you,” Keiko said, dodging the question.
“Hey, I’m an open-minded kinda guy,” Bill said good-naturedly.
“And I can stand up for myself,” Lee said, gesturing towards what remained of his bruise, yellow resting on his cheekbone. “This is just uncharted territory. So we can do what we need to do, just quietly.”
“‘Uncharted territory’ is my middle name,” Bill grinned.
“So I should cancel the Soulmate Announcement I submitted to the Times ?” Keiko asked and had to stifle a laugh at the split second of horror that flitted across Lee’s face before he realized she was joking.
Bill didn’t hold back his laughter as he nudged Lee with his foot under the table. “ Relax , we know keeping quiet is the name of the game here. And I don’t have anyone to tell anyway. No one’s been listening to my crazy for years.” His smile turned self-deprecating.
“My father wouldn’t remember even if I did tell him,” Lee muttered before raising his voice to a more even tone. “I don’t think my family knows my current address so they won’t be suspicious when we get our new one.”
“‘Our’?” Keiko asked, eyebrows raising.
Lee frowned. “Yeah…. Puckett said we’ll get our own place, just like anyone else. Do they… not do that in Japan?”
Bill looked slightly surprised but pleased at Lee’s news and looked to Keiko for her answer.
“No, they do,” she said, eyes falling to her empty glass as she toyed with the tiny straw. “I just didn’t expect it… in this situation.”
“Is that gonna cause you problems? We can figure something else out,” Bill supplied.
Keiko shook her head, brow furrowed, looking almost as wan as she did in the jungle. She chewed the inside of her cheek before saying, “My mother is due to visit tomorrow. This has been months in the making and I could not reschedule. And we are waiting on her visa to go through, so she will eventually notice two white men following me around even if I don’t tell her this time.”
Bill and Lee laughed, making Kieko’s shoulders drop again.
“I guess that’ll be some shocking news,” Bill empathized.
“Are you thinking she can’t keep it a secret?” Lee asked.
“Oh, all the aunties back home will know in an instant,” Keiko said, picking at her cocktail napkin. “But there’s no one here for her to tell.”
“Guess not even the Army can fight the gossip tree,” Lee acquiesced with a smile.
“And they’re not fighting our work,” Bill said with a grin. He lifted his beer. “To Monarch?”
“To us?” Lee raised an eyebrow, finding Bill’s grin and turning to Keiko with his own beer raised.
Keiko studied their faces for a moment but still lifted her empty glass, tapping it to their bottles with a small smile.
After what felt like amicable silence, broken only by the other voices surrounding the bubble around their table, Bill asked, “Who’da thunk, huh?”
“The Army funding us?” Keiko asked.
“Well, that. But this . Us,” he said, motioning between the three of them, all leaning forward in their seats with no idea how long they had been doing that. “Most of my buddies growing up found theirs in high school.”
“Lost hope?” Lee asked, no judgment in his face.
“Nah,” Bill said, shaking his head, leaning his elbow on the table and resting his chin on his hand. “I heard all sorts of stories when I was digging for anything that confirmed my other theories. Things always seemed pretty limited over here, in my opinion. How our parents said things would happen.” Bill jerked his thumb between him and Lee and Lee nodded back. “Can’t say I got many stories that look exactly like ours, but people told me things about Marks and ‘mates I’d never thought to imagine. Figured if I was believing in the unbelievable already, might as well keep my hopes up about someone out there being willing to listen to me day in and day out.”
“So you’re a romantic,” Keiko said, lightly teasing.
Bill shrugged with a smile. “Sure. Are you not?”
Keiko shrugged back. “Some of us are a bit busy for that.”
“What about you?” Bill asked, turning to Lee.
Lee shrugged too, mouth turning into a wry smirk. “One of my old sergeants told me I was a bit jaded. He was probably right. You can only follow in your father’s footsteps for so long before the cynicism happens, I guess.”
“Doesn’t help when everyone tells you that you’re an old crone by 27,” Keiko said dryly.
“They give us men a few more years before we’re spinsters,” Bill chuckled.
“Had you lost hope?” Lee asked her, gaze serious.
Keiko hesitated. “I think hope comes in many forms,” she said slowly, honestly. “Like knowledge. And love.”
Lee’s head tilted. “Spoken from experience?”
“Shit, are you already with someone?” Bill blurted out.
“I was,” Kieko said, giving in to the truth tentatively. “I thought my mother would be furious, but she agreed that I missed my chance on finding my matching Mark, so I had her blessing when I fell in love and got married. I had decidedly less of her approval when I lost my husband and chose to do my post-graduate work in the United States. I do not know what she will think when I tell her that decision led me here.”
Bill frowned. “I’m sorry,” he said sincerely, reaching across the table to put his hand over hers before pulling it back reluctantly.
“Most men would be put off by their soulmate not saving themselves for them,” Keiko said derisively, giving in to the darker thoughts she’d obviously had since they met and had such little time to get to know each other. “I’ve heard what men say when they think there are no English-speaking women in the room.”
“I don’t know about Mr. Romantic here, but I can’t fault anyone for finding happiness where they can,” Lee said, bringing back the shrug, his face open. “God knows some of us schmucks never find it.”
“Sounds romantic to me,” Bill teased before looking back at Keiko seriously. “And of course I don’t care. Did you know, there’s this one tribe where everyone’s first marriage is someone that’s not their soulmate by tradition so—”
“You don’t even care if I already have a child?” Keiko blurted out, voice scathing, raw skepticism, fear, and doubt spelled out on her face as she challenged their supposed fortitude. “I know soulmates are rejected for that over here, don’t pretend like it’s only the primitive foreigners that do such a thing. It would be easy for you two to just have each other, no extra baggage necessary.”
Where Keiko looked ready to lash out, arms folding tight across her chest, Bill looked stunned at her outburst and Lee blinked across the table in surprise.
In the pause, Keiko raised her empty glass in request for another as a random waiter passed. It was brought to the table before anyone spoke up.
“Well,” Lee started plainly, breaking the silence. “We aren’t huge fucking assholes.” He looked at Bill. “Are we?”
Bill shook his head. “It’s not baggage,” he argued, his shock turning to conviction. “It’s… you. Whatever you have, we have, too. Whatever he has, we have. And I hope whatever I have, you two have. I guess we could all go our separate ways if we aren’t up to the task, but I’m not making that fucking call. I want this.” Bill sat back in his seat, arms crossed resolutely.
“You’ve been over here on your own for a while?” Lee asked gently.
Keiko nodded slowly, deflating.
“Having to deal with all the huge fucking assholes out there?” he asked, gesturing towards the window to his right and the world beyond it. “Dealing with idiots that assume being a doctor means you’re a man and having to show them what’s what?”
Keiko nodded again, mouth twitching.
“Wait, did you—”
Lee interrupted Bill quickly. “How about you not deal with that alone anymore? Not because we have to, but because we want to.”
Keiko lifted her chin, looking Lee in the eye, then Bill. He gave her an encouraging smile, body posture open again where hers was still closed off.
“How is your Japanese?” she asked.
><
Plans were made in a hurry once it was explained that Keiko’s mother was bringing her son with her, both of them being at the mercy of the visa process, and that this visit was one for Keiko and her son as well as Keiko and her mother. After a formal dinner with Mrs. Miura, on which she insisted and during which Lee put his memorization and language skills to good use in order to impress with a multitude of carefully selected phrases, it was time for Bill and Lee to meet Keiko’s son as her newly found soulmates before he had to fly back across the world.
When Keiko opened the door to her home, Lee and Bill stood on the doorstep, and neither were empty handed.
“You didn’t have to bring anything. I try not to spoil him,” Keiko protested, leaning against the doorframe. Behind her they could only see boxes that mimicked their own homes in their preparation to move.
“We’re not trying to spoil him, we’re trying to bribe him,” Bill said evenly. “And it’s just a few snacks. We… well, we thought he might like to try some American food? Some stuff the both of us liked when we were kids? We didn’t want to step on your toes by bringing anything over the top. This guy’s dad got him a knife when he was Hiroshi’s age—”
“A few years older,” Lee argued.
“ — which we figured was a terrible idea,” Bill insisted with a wry look over at Lee.
Keiko smiled at their nervous faces. “I think that sounds nice, actually. He was too young for any of that the last time he visited, so this will be a new experience for him. Thank you.”
Bill and Lee visibly relaxed.
“But you aren’t giving that to him, are you?” Keiko asked, eyebrow quirked as she pointed at the camera around Bill’s neck.
Bill chuckled. “If he’s too young for weaponry, he’s too young for photography,” he said before appearing nervous once more. “I know he’s not here long. I figured you’d like some new photos of him? Maybe one of all of us before he leaves?”
Keiko blinked, surprised. And then she was stepping forward, arms going around Bill’s shoulders in a sudden hug. They had only known each other a short time, from the jungle to then, and not much had been spent physically close. But it felt right, the ache in her chest pulling her in.
“Thank you,” she whispered, feeling his arms fold around her despite the hindrance of the bags he carried. She pulled away and immediately turned to do the same to Lee, feeling off kilter if she didn’t.
Both men looked like they felt the same, calm looks on their faces as Keiko stepped back, returning their smiles as she tried to discreetly wipe at her eyes. Without anything else to say, she just turned to go back into her home, holding the door for Lee and Bill to follow.
Closing the door behind them, Keiko could only watch as her soulmates slipped their shoes off in the foyer without prompting and immediately bowed towards Keiko’s mom sitting within sight of the door and said, “Ojama shimasu.”
Mrs. Miura returned their greeting and made her excuses, heading back to the guest room on the opposite side of the house.
“She’s… going to read?” Lee attempted to translate as Keiko met them in the living room and received a nod.
“Giving us privacy,” Keiko explained, gesturing for them to follow. She took a steadying breath as she went to what used to be her living room, now half packed away. On the floor, taking up the space the coffee table used to, was a toddler, sitting with a large collection of wooden blocks (and discarded pots and spoons off to the side). The little boy looked up and blinked up at the two strange men, eyes wide and bright.
Keiko knelt on the floor beside him, allowing the boy to crawl into her lap shyly. She kissed the top of his head as she started to rub his back gently. “Hiroshi-chan, remember what I explained to you yesterday? That Mama met her soulmates?” Keiko whispered to her son, repeating herself in English.
Hiroshi nodded. He took his eyes off the men and reached for Keiko’s arm where her Mark was exposed for the first time that Lee and Bill had seen. Hiroshi used his tiny finger to trace the lines of the triangles.
“That’s my Mark,” Keiko said softly. She tapped her own finger on Hiroshi’s back where his own Mark lay, visible to him only when she helped him with the mirrors. “Yours is here, remember?”
Hiroshi looked back up and Lee immediately got to the floor.
“How do you say ‘Mark’?” he asked.
“It’s close, ‘maku’. But you can speak to him in English. I’m trying to expose him as much as possible for when he moves here. I’ll translate the important parts,” Keiko said, resting her chin atop Hiroshi’s head. She smiled slightly as she added, “You can probably teach each other.”
Lee smiled then nodded and started to push down his sock and push up his pant leg. He stuck his leg out so Hiroshi could access the symbol on his ankle. “See? Just like your mom’s,” he said, holding still as Hiroshi immediately crawled out of Keiko’s lap so he could poke at Lee’s Mark.
Keiko watched as Bill set down his bags and removed his camera to set it on top of a nearby box so he could join them all on the carpet. When Hiroshi looked at him he turned slightly, reaching up to pull at his collar. “Mine’s back here, almost like yours,” he said, smiling gently as Hiroshi knee-walked over to poke at him as well.
Keiko watched as her soulmates quietly spoke between themselves and Hiroshi, only interjecting when the boy asked for it, as they showed him their Marks then moved on to sharing their Cracker Jack and M&M’s with the curious kid. Somehow it turned into using the candies to teach each other how to count in their respective languages, then morphed into building block towers taller than Hiroshi himself. And Keiko watched.
Eventually, Lee turned and caught Keiko’s eye and saw the tears welling in her eyes that weren’t falling.
“You alright?” he asked softly so Hiroshi wouldn’t hear as he slid over the floor to her.
Keiko nodded, not fighting the draw to lean into his side as he wound his arm around her easily.
“Not doing this alone, right?” Lee whispered.
“It’s… difficult… to wrap your brain around something changing so quickly. Especially when you were so sure something would always stay the same,” Keiko said, keeping her voice low. “I fully expected to be on my own for the rest of my life. To raise Hiroshi alone for the rest of my life. And I was prepared for that. I accepted it.”
“Me, too,” Lee murmured against her hair.
“I should have known better, though,” Keiko said after a moment as they sat listening to Hiroshi giggle. “My favorite thing in the world is knowing that none of us know everything.”
“We thought we knew everything about soulmates and we thought monsters didn’t exist,” Lee murmured, making Keiko laugh softly.
“Think we’ve got a future engineer on our hands, Kei,” Bill said suddenly from the other side of the blocks, as invisible as Hiroshi behind the structure. His head popped up and Bill’s smile turned gentle as he saw the look on her face. He sat back down and they could hear him whispering to Hiroshi and as soon as he was done, the little boy shot around the blocks.
“Mama!” he cried, diving into Lee’s lap and long over his shyness, making Lee flinch at an almost misplaced knee, and crawled over it to slide into Keiko’s arms. He triumphantly held out a handful of candy to share.
Keiko squeezed him close and kissed the top of his head. “Arigato,” she whispered as she kissed the top of his head, looking settled as they shared the treat.
Keiko’s mother walked out from the bedrooms asking about dinner, prompting Keiko to look at the nearby clock.
“Oh,” she said, surprised. “I didn’t mean to take up your whole afternoons. You probably have other things to attend to.”
Billy stood so he could see them. “If you were anyone else, this would be rude. But I actually don’t want to leave,” he said plainly, hand rubbing his sternum unconsciously.
“You can be rude because you’re my soulmate?” Keiko teased as Hiroshi wiggled back to his blocks.
“I can be honest because you’re my soulmate,” Bill said frankly.
Keiko couldn’t suppress a smile. “I did not plan on having guests for dinner. I was going to heat up leftovers for Hiroshi.”
“Good thing we aren’t guests, then,” Lee said easily, lightly squeezing his arm around her. “I don’t mind leftovers. In fact, why don’t we heat them up so you can spend time with your family before they go.” He looked up at Mrs. Miura and repeated the word for family, earning himself an approving nod.
“Great idea, Army,” Bill mocked with a grin, stepping over and holding his hand out to pull Lee up. Their hands stayed linked as they marched into the kitchen to make themselves at home.
After a dinner spent acting as rotating seats for Hiroshi that was a pleasant hodge podge of languages and laughter, Bill rested his arm on the back of Keiko’s chair and leaned in close.
“Did you still want to take some pictures? We don’t have to, but the light is pretty good outside right now,” he said, hand grazing her bare arm unconsciously.
“I’d love to,” Keiko said honestly, hand going to his knee under the table as she smiled, still pleased by his idea.
Making their way into the tiny garden out back, Bill instructed Keiko, Hiroshi, and her mother to group together by the hedges where the setting sun hit them perfectly.
“Alright,” he said, holding the camera to his face then pulling it back to adjust a few of the knobs before lifting it again. “Hiro, say ‘cheese’!”
“Cheeeeese!” Hiroshi called as Bill took a photo, pushed the film forward, then took another with Lee watching behind him.
“Don’t waste too much film,” Keiko chastised as Bill rotated the camera from horizontal to vertical.
“This isn’t a waste,” Bill answered, taking one more before letting the camera drop. “Are you always so argumentative?”
“Yes,” Keiko answered. She murmured something to her mother who laughed in response.
Bill grinned. “Good.” He gestured towards himself and knelt in the grass. “Hiro, you want your own?”
After Keiko translated for him, Hiroshi ran over so Bill could take a closer portrait of the toddler. He grinned the forced smile of a child hamming it up for the camera until he suddenly laughed, non-artificial delight taking over his face. Bill quickly took the photo then looked behind him to see Lee making faces at Hiroshi before quickly trying to appear innocent when he got caught. Bill chuckled and stood, Lee stepping in to press close against his side as they both watched Hiroshi run back to his mother and get lifted into her arms. He whispered something to her as she smiled down at him and Bill quickly captured the moment, earning his own smile from Keiko when she caught the snikt of the camera.
Then Mrs. Miura was herding Bill and Lee to take her place until they ended up with Lee in the middle, his arms around Bill and Keiko with Hiroshi in her arms. Bill didn’t hesitate to hand Mrs. Miura the camera when she gestured for it, the older woman catching on quickly as he used lots of pointing as instructions. After her mother got the images she wanted, Keiko suddenly twisted and deposited Hiroshi into Lee’s arms and stepped away.
“Say ‘cheese’,” she instructed the boys from beside her mother.
“Pssst. Hiro,” Bill hissed, catching his attention as he twisted in Lee’s hold to look. Bill stuck his tongue out and Hiroshi giggled, mimicking him. Bill saw Lee do the same as they all turned back to the camera, holding in their laughter until after the photo was taken.
The group ended up going through all the film Bill brought with him just as the sun finished setting. Mrs. Miura made her excuses again, not even trying to be sly in her insistence on taking care of the dishes. The rest of them stopped in the living room after following her inside.
“Time for bed,” Keiko softly said in Japanese, lifting Hiroshi into her arms and starting to rub his back to encourage his heavy blinks.
Keiko smiled at Bill and Lee and turned to walk down the hall. The other two were pulled to follow.
Keiko entered Hiroshi’s room and looked over her shoulder. She then pointed to the top drawer of the dresser to her left and Lee stepped forward to open it and then pick out the child pajamas from the choices inside. She pointed again towards the bed and Bill stepped forward to pull down the blankets and turn on the lamp on the bedside table. Wordlessly, the soulmates helped Hiroshi through his nighttime routine until it was time to bid him goodnight, which they all did in a row as if they had been doing it all his life.
The three passed Mrs. Miura in the hallway upon entering the main part of the house once more, and then they were alone again.
Breaking the easy silence, Lee said, “Thank you for having us.”
“That is something a guest says,” Keiko reproached.
“Thank you for introducing us to Hiroshi,” Bill corrected and they were all standing in each other’s space without conscious thought.
Keiko looked away and smiled at the floor, her emotions playing across her face.
“They leave on Friday. Will you be there?” Keiko asked, looking both expectant, like she knew the answer, and nervous, like she was afraid she didn’t.
“Of course,” Bill said and Lee nodded in agreement.
As they smiled at each other, Bill was urged forward. His hand closed the distance between them as he cupped Keiko’s cheek and leaned down, pausing. Letting Keiko close the distance to press her lips to his. It was a slow kiss, soft and easy and natural. Keiko’s hand went to the center of his chest, bodies pulled close. They parted, not going far, and Lee was there, hand on her waist, ducking down to do the same. His mouth was more urgent, but just as natural, just as welcome. One shoulder pressed against Bill’s, Keiko’s hand on the other. And then Bill and Lee’s free hands were linked as they turned, keeping contact with Keiko all but between them, their kiss firm but similarly innate.
The ache only made itself known in its sudden absence for the first time since they laid eyes on each other’s Marks.
>< >< ><
Monarch
“Operative lost during field assignment in performance of duties. Missing presumed killed:
Miura, Keiko.
I request her death benefits be issued to her surviving soulmates:
Randa, William. Shaw III, Leland.
Signed,
General Puckett, United States Army.”
><
“Son, I know this is hard—”
“General, with all due respect,” Lee forced out through gritted teeth. “You don’t know.”
“Shaw—”
“My Mark is still black, General, you know what that means!” Lee insisted, voice raising.
“It means you are an anomaly, Shaw! You have two soulmates and one is standing right behind you. That is why your Mark is still black. I’m sorry, but she is gone. You know she is,” Puckett insisted.
“What I know is that she is still out there! We know she is out there! We’re her soulmates, it’s our job to know. I feel it. Right here!” Lee yelled, no longer trying to keep his voice down, fist digging into his chest.
“Major!” Puckett snapped.
“Sir,” Lee continued, visibly trying to reign himself in but not succeeding. “What Billy is theorizing could be the most revolutionary thing to happen to the U.S.— hell, to the world of science, in decades! Centuries, even. Your name could be right at the top. You could be a pioneer, sir. If you just help us —”
“And what do I tell my bosses, Leland?” Puckett entreetied. “That you’re spending millions on a feeling? I can’t tell them that you’re trying to go after your dead soulmate—”
“We’ll tell the whole damn world if we have to. The press. The goddamn President. I don’t care who knows,” Bill spoke up from the back of the room, voice and expression dark. “We aren’t playing those games anymore, Puckett. We are going to do what needs to be done to get her back. Because we are getting her back. With or without your help.”
Puckett’s jaw clenched and unclenched repeatedly as he stared at Bill from behind his desk. He then turned to Lee and asked, “Does he speak for you, Major?”
“Of course he does, sir,” Lee said plainly, posture back to rigidly respectful but face hard.
Puckett leaned his hands against his desk and looked across the room at nothing. Finally he stood straight and nodded the men away.
Lee let out a breath as if he’d been holding it in for the whole conversation. He stepped back to grab Bill’s hand and pull him out of the room before they said anything they regretted and got their approval rescinded. And then they got to work.
><
Bill and Lee stood in front of the Project Hourglass pod as the other crew made their way inside.
“Scared?” Bill asked, voice low.
“Of course not,” Lee said. He paused. “Shitless,” he admitted.
“You don’t have to do this.”
“Of course, I do.”
“I could go—”
“No, Hiroshi needs you here. And I need you here, too, to fix anything that goes wrong,” Lee insisted.
Bill turned to face him, fear and desperation written on his face. He lifted his hand in a salute but Lee was having none of it. He reached out, grabbing the back of Bill’s neck exactly where his Mark lay, and pulled him into a kiss that relayed all those same emotions.
“Puckett is going to be furious,” Bill said, paying no heed to their audience when they separated, not going far.
“Fuck ‘im,” Lee stated, Bill’s hand going to his chest where they both felt the aching pressure.
“Louder for the people in the back,” Bill chuckled.
“Wait up for me,” Lee smirked, reluctantly pulling away. He turned and marched up the stairs to the entrance before he could lose his resolve.
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On the way down, the world spun on its axis the completely incorrect way and it felt that way in their bodies, everything forcefully wrong as they plummeted towards what only Lee could feel was right.
The silence echoed in their ears as everything stopped and they gained consciousness. Lee forced himself out of his seat with a pained noise, feeling what would turn into bruises come morning, belt buckle clanging against metal and ringing around the limited space.
“Everyone alright?” he groaned as he started prodding at the radio buttons and continued to receive nothing but broken static.
“Yeah,” Brandy grunted, shaking his head into awareness.
“No.”
Lee stood and spun around at the same time to face Burke. She was pressing her hand against Hest’s neck. She shook her head when she met Lee’s eye.
“Fuck,” Lee hissed as Brandy made a choked-off noise. He made a move to tug at his hair but his hand met his helmet first. He gripped his hand into a fist then made a gesture towards the hatch. “Get ‘im out.”
Distracted, Lee tried again on the radio before giving up and following the remaining members of his crew. What he assumed was the sun was almost beyond the horizon, telling him they had probably been knocked out for longer than he thought. The familiar clicking of a camera lens broke the unnatural stillness around wherever they had landed as the others did what they were meant to do, what they came down here for.
“Keep your eyes peeled, we don’t know what’s down here,” Lee instructed as Burke set up the equipment, eyes continually flitting over to Hest’s body. Lee studied the terrain as he removed his helmet, and then his face went deadly white. “Where’s the beacon?”
Burke and Brandy spun around, eyes wide as they came to the same conclusion as Lee.
“Keep working. Get what we need and then we’ll work out a plan,” Lee ordered. He knelt on the unfamiliarly familiar forest floor and dug into the supplies pack he’d brought out for a handheld trowel. He nodded to the others, making their pinched faces ease just a touch as he began to dig a grave.
“Did he have—”
“No,” Burke answered, shaking her head as they clustered around the mound of dirt in the dark.
Lee just nodded, jaw clenched in anxiety and impatience as he was forced to await the daylight.
When he could finally see ten feet in front of him, with Burke and Brandy’s backs turned, Lee climbed back into the pod to retrieve a second backpack that had been squirreled away weeks ago. Emerging, he pulled out a gun and set about the motions to make sure it was in working condition. He tucked it into the accompanying holster and shouldered the pack.
“Major?” Burke asked, drawing Brandy’s attention towards Lee as well.
“Finish getting what we need,” Lee repeated firmly. He tossed the supplies bag to Burke. “I’ll try to be back before the sun goes down again.”
“What?!”
“Major—”
“If anything gets close, get in the pod and don’t come back out.”
“Where could you possibly be going?” Burke asked incredulously.
“I have my mission, Burke, and you have yours.”
“Dr. Randa—”
“My mission is Dr. Randa’s mission,” Lee said, voice stark in his surety. “Get those readings then bunker down.”
“But the pod—”
“I know!” Lee snapped, voice carrying into the trees and disturbing possible-birds into the air. He took as big a breath as he could against the pressure in his chest. “I know. I’ll be back. I made a promise to my son. No one’s leaving without anyone else.”
“Shaw,” Brandy started, both of them looking horrified.
“My soulmate,” Lee stated firmly, using the only excuse he could possibly give: the truth. “She’s down here. I can feel it.”
“Soulmate?” Burke blurted out, like she’d never heard the word. “How in the world is your soulmate here ?”
Lee shook his head and looked down at his watch but the hands were frozen. “She just is. We can feel it. This is my priority, but it’s not yours. When we get back we will look for the beacon so we can get the hell out of here. Something’s not right about this place.”
Without waiting for a response, Lee set off, feet moving lighter than they had in years. It wasn’t until he was just over a hill that he heard the crackle of lightning. And the scream. He flinched, stopping hard in the dirt.
And he chose to let the tug keep him moving.
Lee didn’t have to go far before his path led him exactly where he needed to be, time passing slowly and in an instant.
“Kei? Keiko! ”
“Lee?”
Lee felt he might fall to the ground in relief, the ache and pain in his chest easing in one fell swoop as if the infected wound had simply been chopped off. But Keiko was suddenly in his arms and he couldn’t fall for fear of letting go.
“Thank God,” Lee gasped into her hair before they pulled away together just far enough so they could kiss, getting as close as possible so it would feel real.
“Lee,” Keiko breathed, their foreheads pressed together as their tears flowed freely, so long constantly on-edge finally bleeding out of her muscles once in his arms again.
“We knew it. We knew you were alive,” Lee whispered, voice breaking. “I’m sorry, Kei. I’m so sorry it took so long.”
“A few days is impressive,” Keiko answered and Lee flung his head back.
“Days? Kei… it’s been three years,” Lee whispered, brow furrowing as he had to watch anguish wash over her face.
Keiko’s body jerked away, but Lee didn’t let her go.
“ Hiroshi —”
“Is fine,” Lee insisted, gripping her tighter. “He misses you, but he’s just fine, I promise.”
“He— He’s been with you?” Keiko asked, shock and distress taking over as she struggled to fully comprehend what had happened around her without her knowing.
“Of course,” Lee insisted. His hands come up to cup her face, her own tightening over his like a lifeline. “Of course he’s been with us.”
“Billy—”
“Is waiting upstairs,” Lee said firmly. “We should hurry. If you think it’s only been days, we need to get moving. Now .”
Keiko stooped to pick up the bow and arrows she had dropped while in Lee’s embrace and together they turned.
In the blink of an eye that took who knows how long elsewhere, Lee stepped out of the trees to find scorched earth and Burke’s body.
“ Shit. ”
Lee and Keiko exchanged dark looks as they cautiously entered the space.
“Brandy?” Lee called.
“Not so loud,” Keiko hissed just as the pod door opened, making them jump.
Brandy looked down from the contraption, face icen. And then his eyes widened like he was staring at a ghost. “Dr. Miura?” he gasped, the only one of the team that had worked for Monarch long enough to recognize her. “You’re—”
“Alive,” she responded.
“— his soulmate?” Hest finished.
“Are we telling people now?” Keiko asked dryly, raising an eyebrow down at Lee as he tugged off his pack and knelt on the ground beside her.
“We are no longer caring what people know or don’t know because what’s important is that we get you back,” he said, tossing out the medical supplies in his bag to reach the bottom. He pulled out his spare training helmet, Shaw across the front, and held it out for her.
“You could feel her down here?” Brandy asked incredulously.
“Yes and she says she’s been here only a few days, so we need to get our asses into gear if you want to see your soulmate in this century,” Lee commanded and his words prompted a scramble to prepare a search for the beacon as all their chests urging them up— over— under— back to where they all belonged.
Brandy opened his mouth as he started down the pod ladder, but was cut off by an inhuman screech.
“Get down!” Keiko cried just as Lee tackled her to the ground, both narrowly missing the claws of whatever had swooped at them.
Brandy wasn’t so lucky as Keiko’s arrows and Lee’s bullets were too low and slow to reach their target before the last crew member was out of sight.
Before they could say a word, the air started moving. The terrifying screech from moments before was overshadowed by an earsplitting roar as a new tunnel appeared and started pulling the world around inside it, like one of the tornados from Bill’s childhood stories.
Lee just had enough of a millisecond to grab Keiko’s hand before they were both lifted off the ground. Flying past a root buried in the ground, Lee managed to take hold.
“Don’t let go!” Lee screamed, just able to make out the terror in Keiko’s eyes through the chaos before they were swept away.
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Outside a town where they thankfully knew the language, they were granted access to a phone with the truth: they needed to call their soulmate.
As they were led into the farmhouse kitchen, Keiko’s eyes immediately landed on the table where, beside half-empty teacups, there laid a newspaper. She stopped in trepidation.
Their host said she would give them privacy based on the nature of the call and stepped out of the room. Lee steeled himself and moved past Keiko to pick up the paper. His eyes bypassed the headline and went straight for the numbers in the corner.
“How many?” Keiko whispered, eyes tracking Lee’s face to watch for any minute reaction.
Lee let out a breath as he set the paper back down. “Another three,” he said gravely. Their hands met without either one moving first or last.
Keiko shuddered, visibly reigning in her emotions and rapidly blinking away her tears. She could only nod.
Lee squeezed her hand and finally reached the phone on a table in the corner. Without thought, he dialed a very specific number, the dial rotating at a glacial pace with each turn.
The phone line picked up. Without needing to ask who it was, even after more time than they had expected or planned for, Bill said over the line, “You got her.”
“Sorry it took so long,” Lee said, need evident through his voice as they felt the tug shift direction.
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In Monarch quarantine, isolated but allowed to stay together by invoking their soulmate rights, Lee and Keiko were poked and prodded and questioned.
But the only thing they wanted to hear finally made itself known after a day when, outside their room, they heard, “Sir! You can’t go in there!”
“ Like hell I can’t. ”
The door flew open.
“Mama!”
Keiko burst into tears from her hospital bed as Hiroshi barrelled past Lee and straight into her arms.
“You’re so big,” Keiko sobbed as she squeezed Hiroshi like she was never planning to let go.
Bill stepped into the room, new stress lines marring his face, and all three of their chests loosened like their hearts had been a vice for much too long. Eyes on Keiko, he went to Lee, hand going straight to his Marked ankle before leaning down to meet him in a gripping hug.
“The team?” he whispered and Lee shook his head, pained with the losses and his lack of regret.
Nothing more needed to be said when Bill pulled back, only giving Lee’s leg a squeeze as they kissed in relief. He then turned to Keiko who looked up over Hiroshi’s head at the exact moment Bill set his own streaming eyes on her.
“Kei,” Bill choked out, falling forward to hug her around Hiroshi and kiss her with the same anguish Lee had down in the unknown. Her hand not keeping Hiroshi close went to the back of his neck. “I’m sorry—”
“No.” Keiko stopped him, looking him and then Lee in the eye as they all cried. Bill’s hand held her arm, thumb pressed into her Mark. “You came for me. That’s what matters.”
“We—”
“Are together now,” Keiko insisted as Hiroshi burrowed against her despite barely fitting on the bed beside her, his shoulders shaking.
“We missed you,” Hiroshi whispered into her chest.
“Hey….” Lee didn’t need to finish his thought as Bill set about arranging machines and wires and pushing the hospital beds together to appease the need for all four to be close enough to touch at all times for the foreseeable future.
In the middle, Hiroshi, curled on the bed like he wasn’t approaching teenhood, reached beside him to grab Lee’s hand.
“Thank you,” he murmured, looking older than he should.
“I promised, didn’t I?” Lee said, gripping the boy’s hand back as his other one reached over to grab Bill’s so they were linked around Hiroshi and Keiko between them.
Bill looked painfully relieved as he laid his forehead against the top of Keiko’s head. “It almost fell apart,” he started.
“We know you wouldn’t have let it. We’ve done nothing but fight against anyone who doesn’t believe us, you would have kept doing that. I know you did, Billy,” Lee argued.
“I could feel it,” Keiko whispered, exhaustingly overwhelmed both in her vindication and disorientation. “I didn’t feel alone, I knew you were coming for me. You kept telling me so, in my head.”
“They promised,” Hiroshi told her. “Can you really feel it? All the time? Here?” He pointed at the middle of her chest, asking questions he had never been interested in before she had fallen.
“All the time. Anywhere,” Keiko vowed.
“Does it hurt?” Hiroshi asked.
“All the time. But it’s worth it when it doesn’t,” Lee said.
“You’ll see one day, Hiro,” Billy said.
“If I don’t?”
“Then you can make your own feeling. Here,” Bill said, fist to his own chest. “Don’t listen to what anyone else tells you, alright? You don’t have to know, but you also don’t have to be afraid when you do. You know you, not anyone else.”
“You three know each other,” Hiroshi said of the one surety in his life that hadn’t swayed in his memory.
“Because I know they know me, because I know myself.”
“We choose to follow the pull, Hiroshi,” Lee said.
“Just like we choose to be with you,” Keiko whispered, pressing a kiss to Hiroshi’s forehead. “Love isn’t an obligation, sweetheart, it’s a choice.”
Years and days of feeling unwhole settled, the broken pieces still jagged but fitting back together enough for them to be able to move forward. To continue fighting for their ideals and for each other in a world that accepted the mythical that had been twisted into normal but refused to listen to reason when the unreasonable was right under their feet, clawing its way out. Maybe with loss only just falling from their fingertips they could stop being quiet. They could make their choices loudly and unapologetically as they embraced the world’s anomalies, be it love, monsters, or both.
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