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Emma Pillsbury doesn’t have a soulmate mark. Not when she’s four, when she’s five, when she’s seven, when she’s ten.Her parents are angry at her, all the time, what did she do wrong, don’t they deserve a daughter who has a mark like everyone else. They always threaten to abandon her and sometimes she wishes they would, but they never do.
She wishes she had a mark, too, someone to take her away from here, the idea of a future safe to hold on to. But she pretends she doesn’t, because she doesn’t want to admit to anyone that the thing her parents hate her for is something that she wishes she could change.
Shannon Beiste gets her soulmate mark at eight. Everyone already figures, softball and football and weight-lifting and rugby, she must be a lesbian, so no one’s surprised when the name reads Sue Sylvester except Shannon. She likes boys, she has always liked boys, and just because puberty hasn’t hit yet doesn’t mean she doesn’t know how she feels. There’s nothing wrong with being a lesbian, she figures, it’s as natural as anything else on this green Earth, she herself just happens to be straight.
Sue Sylvester gets her soulmate mark when her sister Jean is born. It says Jean Sylvester, and Jean is born with a mark that says Sue. The two sisters are the best of friends, inseparable through their childhood; as they grow older, it turns out that both of them are perfectly content to be single. Jean lives with Sue until she dies in the spring of 2011, and Sue is left behind devastated. That’s what you get, she says, for loving anyone as much as she loved Jean.
~*~
Shannon doesn’t want to find her soulmate, and so when she turns eighteen she doesn’t look. She gets weird looks for that, sure, but she also gets shit for looking like she does, and talking like she does, and living like she does, and she figures this is just one more thing and she’s going to do what she wants. There’s no point in trying to find someone who she doesn’t want to be with anyway.
~*~
Emma knows that Will Scheuster has the name Terri Del Monico written on his wrist. But she also knows that they’ve been having marital problems, because Will confides in her, and by the spring of 2010 she knows that they’re getting a divorce. So why shouldn’t she fall in love with Will, when he’s already been with his soulmate and found that they aren’t compatible after all?
~*~
When Shannon Beiste comes to be the football coach at William McKinley High School in the fall of 2010, she and Sue Sylvester hate each other on sight. Literally on sight; Shannon hates Sue before she even hears her full name. Because Shannon knows what a sports team can be for a school, what it should be, and Coach Sylvester, Shannon has already seen, teaches her Cheerios to be bullies.
~*~
When she dates Cooter Menkins in the fall of 2011, the first beau she’s ever had, Sue tries to sabotage her relationship by talking incessantly about the mark on her wrist. She tells Cooter that Shannon secretly wants her, Sue, and she’s just in denial so far; Shannon feels more relieved than she ever has been in her life when Cooter finally tells Sue that he doesn’t care, he just wants to be with Shannon, any way he can.
They elope to Vegas and get married. Cooter doesn’t have a mark, but it’s okay. Shannon’s just happy to finally have a husband, she doesn’t need him to be her soulmate too.
~*~
When Cooter hits her in 2012, she confesses to Emma and Sue. Of the two Emma is more sympathetic, but even after she tells both of them that Cooter’s apologized and they’ll be okay now, Sue’s the one who insists on coming to get her, just, she says, for a little sleepover. Just us girls. The sleepover turns into two days, and by the third day she’s realized that she has to move out.
Shannon moves in with Sue and Emma comes to visit, movie nights with popcorn and wine and sober nights when she’s all panicked over her relationship with Will and she needs someone to talk to. Shannon hugs her tight and long, beautiful fluttering in her arms, and thinks, maybe I’m not straight after all.
She still likes men. But she likes Emma too.
~*~
On Valentine’s Day, 2013, Emma’s set to marry Will Scheuster. Shannon’s out of town, she knows that Emma really wanted her to be present, but it’s unavoidable, she says. Family obligations, business stuff, planned way in advance and she can’t change it now, sorry. Really of course she just doesn’t want to watch the woman she’s now more than halfway in love with get married to somebody else. But it’s what Emma wants, despite everything that’s been so hard, and Shannon’s been there to support her and she knows, Emma should have what she wants.
(She just can’t face it. Tomorrow, but not today.)
Sue Sylvester is set to be Emma’s bridesmaid, but when Emma bolts from the church into a taxi, she calls Shannon the minute before she walks down the aisle in Emma’s place.
Emma takes the taxi to Sue’s home, which has been her refuge since Shannon moved in, and Shannon’s there to meet her after all. Emma cries, and cries, and Shannon holds her carefully and tells her it will all be okay.
Shannon doesn’t think that any of her feelings show on her face. Just sympathy, because what else does a girl need when she’s bolted from the altar? She might be glad if Emma and Will break up, she might make a move, someday, but now certainly isn’t the time.
Emma looks up from her crying and kisses her. Sweet and soft, these delicate little pecks onto her lips over and over again, and it’s not what she used to think she wanted but oh it’s so good.
They get to more later, but with Emma’s OCD, it takes a while.
~*~
Emma never does stop being sad that she doesn’t have a mark, but when she’s been happy with Shannon for a while (they’re still living in Sue’s house, but they share a room in the opposite wing from Sue’s), she finally admits to her that she wishes they had each other’s.
She knows, of course, that Sue was there for Shannon in a way that she just wasn’t when she really needed help. But maybe if she’d had the mark, she would’ve known better, helped more.
“Don’t worry, punkin,” Shannon tells her, and Emma loves the nickname because she knows it doesn’t relate to her hair at all. “Your soulmate is whoever makes you whole, it’s not who you love! And some very special people, like you, well. You never needed anyone else to make you whole, you’re complete just the way you are.”