Chapter Text
Most people thought having a soulmark was a gift. To Lucy, it had been nothing more than a curse all her life. Oh, she’d heard the stories, she’d heard people say how blessed you were to get a soulmark. Only approximately a quarter of humanity had one and while that number had been growing quite a bit as transportation and communications advanced, it was still fairly rare. A soulmate, as everyone learned as soon as they were old enough to comprehend the concept, was someone who would always love you. Who’d never desert you, who’d understand you more than anyone else could. These were, of course, exaggerations. Soulmates could hurt each other, could desert you, could misunderstand you. But it didn’t often happen.
Soulmate couples were exalted in the world. Those who had soulmarks on their arms tended to be given preferential treatment to those who didn’t. It wasn’t enshrined anywhere in law; it was just how things were. People tended to give those who were marked by Fate Herself the benefit of the doubt. How could they be a bad person when Fate chose them? In almost everyone’s eyes, Lucy Chen was a blessed woman, chosen for great things.
Not to Patrick and Vanessa Chen, though. To anyone else, the words on Lucy’s arm, “Why aren’t you taking notes, Officer Chen?” were entirely benign. At most, they’d fret because it meant she was probably destined to become a cop, a dangerous job. But to Lucy’s parents the words might as well have been the Mark of the Beast and Lucy herself the Antichrist. Lucy’s parents gave up on her before Lucy had a chance to ever prove herself. In their eyes, the police were nothing more than a group of bullies and bigots and Lucy herself destined to be an evildoer, a violent thug, an enforcer of the state.
Not once in her entire life had Lucy ever enjoyed a scrap of affection from them. Her parents never hugged her, never kissed her good night. They only gave her the precise bare minimum in material support necessary to not be taken in for child abuse. Nothing she did mattered. Her fate was preordained in their eyes. She was a bad person and it didn’t matter how nice she was, it didn’t matter how many good grades she got. To them, she was a monster.
Lucy tried to pursue a path which would make them happy. In vain, she tried to pretend she could accomplish other things with her life. She tried to date, but very few people were truly interested in her – who wanted to be with someone who was destined to be with someone else? – and the ones that were, well, they were just oversexed boys who got a kick of trying to be with another person’s soulmate and spoil her for him. Needless to say, none of them lasted long. Lucy tried to force the soulmate bond, tried to convince people to say those fateful words, but Fate, as always, would not allow those precise words to be spoken to her as the first words said to her by anyone other than her soulmate.
Lucy went to college and she studied psychology and she tried so, so hard to convince herself she was happy, that she could earn her parents’ love. But eventually, it was too much for her. She was sick of lying to herself. And so she accepted the fact her parents would never love her and she joined the Academy and she walked right towards the destiny Fate had laid out for her. Oh, she could be patient.
She even got into a not all that serious relationship with John Nolan at the academy. It wasn’t John’s first rodeo having a relationship with someone who wasn’t his soulmate. He was still waiting to meet the woman who was dog-sitting for his neighbors. She sure hadn’t been his ex-wife, who he’d only married because he got her pregnant. They both knew their relationship was just killing time until Lucy met her soulmate. The question was when that happened. It could happen to her on her first day of work or after a decade on the job for all she knew. But it would happen. It always happened. If you had words on your arm, you would always, always meet the person who spoke them to you. What happened after that was up to you.
Lucy was feeling pretty good about herself when she clocked into her first day on the job. She had managed to pick up a criminal who’d tried to steal her broken down car, and then sexually harassed her. Not the sharpest knife in the drawer. The most hilarious thing about the whole encounter was that the criminal actually had a soulmark, which meant he was either cheating on his soulmate or his soulmate got really cheated by Fate. Since the words on it read “Fuck you!” maybe he was just looking for his soulmate in his own way by being as much of a douche as possible.
Poor John got quite the ribbing from Sergeant Grey during roll call and probably a much harder thrashing during their one on one talk. Lucy suspected she’d have to kiss it all better tonight. She liked John, but she didn’t love him. Still, he was a good man and the best boyfriend she’d ever had, though this wasn’t an especially high bar to clear.
“This is your shop,” Officer Bishop announced. “Do not call it a car. It is where you work.”
“First you check the exterior for damage,” her new training officer, Tim Bradford said.
Bradford was a ruggedly handsome man in appearance, some ten or so years older than her, but in outlook he was sour and dour and probably other things that ended with our, but Lucy couldn’t think of any. She thought there was some underlying sadness behind his grumpy exterior. But she sure as hell wasn’t going to push to learn the answer. He was a hard-ass, probably ex-military, and he seemed to suck the joy out of every room he walked into. Just Lucy’s luck. Granted, it wasn’t as if Officers Bishop or Lopez were any friendlier in disposition, but Bradford seemed to take it to new levels.
“Any nicks, scrapes, or dents, log them in,” Lopez went on as if they’d rehearsed this, which they no doubt had, to say nothing of the many times they’d probably given this speech beforehand.
Lucy listened to the words they were saying carefully, noting them in her head, trying to engrave them on her brain. But any concentration she had achieved was instantaneously vaporized by the next words out of Bradford’s mouth.
“Why aren’t you taking notes, Officer Chen?” Bradford demanded and Lucy’s brain seemed to just shut down and reboot for a second.
He was her soulmate.
Lucy Chen and Tim Bradford were soulmates.
What the heck had Fate even been thinking? She must have been drunk off Her ass when She paired the two of them up. Lucy, a bright and bubbly person, and Bradford (Tim? Shouldn’t she be thinking of her soulmate by her first name?) the world’s biggest grouch. Was this a joke the cosmos were playing on her? To make her parents hate her…over this guy?!
There had to be a reason for it, Lucy told herself, as she proceeded through the rest of the setting up by autopilot. There had to be more to him than at first glance. Fate always gave you the person you were meant to be with. She was infallible. And while Lucy thought reasonably highly of herself, she didn’t think she was so special as to be the first person to have ever been ill-suited to her soulmate.
“So why do you want to be a cop?” Tim asked her as they were driving in the car – shop together. He seemed to have mellowed out…slightly…since they’d hit the road.
“Is this a trick question?”
Tim’s head swiveled at impressive speed. “What did you just say to me?” he whispered.
But he already knew the answer to that. For almost forty years, he’d been able to see those words on his arm. And now, now that Lucy had finally said them, fulfilling a decades-long promise, they had turned from silver into a radiant gold, just as the own words on her arm had turned this morning.
“You’re my soulmate,” Lucy said, because she didn’t believe in beating around the bush.
“That’s impossible,” Tim said, presumably just on instinct. “You probably think you’re playing a hilarious prank, boot, but I promise you, I’m not amused.”
Lucy rolled up her sleeves and shoved her soulmark in his face. “Still think I’m joking?”
Tim clenched his jaw. “It doesn’t matter. I’m already married.”
Lucy couldn’t have been more hurt if Tim had started punching her. “You’re…what?”
“We’re separated,” Tim added. He looked bewildered as to why he’d even said that. Lucy knew the answer. It was because he felt the connection like she did. “But it’s…what kind of man would I be if I betrayed my marriage vows?” His jaw clenched and anger overtook him. “You wipe that smug grin off your face right now, boot!”
Lucy had indeed been smiling, but only on the inside. It was yet more proof the two of them were soulmates. Soulmates were known to be able to sense each other’s emotions, particularly if they were being concealed. And right now, Lucy could tell the idea of being with her was enticing to him, even if he was resisting the prospect.
“Lucy – Officer Chen,” Tim said, stammering a bit in a way he probably would not do to anyone but his soulmate. “This changes absolutely nothing. You are still my rookie and I am still your training officer. I will not be your friend and I will certainly not be riding off with you into the sunset. You will act professionally and appropriately with me at all times! I will not be giving you special treatment or anything other than the exact same treatment I give all my rookies! Am I completely understood, boot?!”
“Sir, yes, sir,” Lucy said sardonically. She wasn’t worried about the way he was treating her. If he really didn’t want her around, he’d have gotten her transferred to another TO. He’d come around. He was meant to.
Tim’s face softened a little. “I know this must be overwhelming. I didn’t expect it to be you either. I knew it wasn’t Isabel, but the last thing I expected was –” He suddenly stopped the car. “I’VE BEEN SHOT! Where are you, boot?!” His emphasis of that last word, in Lucy’s opinion, was completely unnecessary.
“What?”
“I’m bleeding to death. You have to call for help. Where are you?” Lucy was so shocked by the sudden turn in their conversation, to say nothing of her soulmate finally revealing himself to her that she probably would be hard-pressed at this moment to know what city she was in, much less her exact location.
“Now I’m dead,” Tim went on. “It’s your fault. Get out.”
Oh my God, Lucy thought to herself in horror. My soulmate is a total dick.
“Get out and walk. You can get in when you know where you are.”
But Lucy knew exactly where she was now. She was screwed.
*****
It had been a long time since Tim had even considered meeting his soulmate as a serious possibility. He knew he wasn’t soulmates with Isabel. Neither of them had cared. They were in love. It wasn’t fake; their love was genuine, and just because it hadn’t lasted didn’t mean it wasn’t genuine. Yes, his marriage had fallen apart, but that didn’t happen because he was destined to be with someone else. It happened because people were complicated and the forces of addiction were stronger than the forces of love.
In actuality, Tim had never liked the idea of having a soulmate. It had never gotten him anything good. Though he’d never said it out loud, Tim knew one of the main reasons his father hated him was because Tim had a soulmate and he didn’t. Which was good news, in Tim’s opinion, because he would have felt sorry for whatever woman had been stuck with Tom Bradford as a soulmate. As he grew up, that damned soulmark seemed to sabotage every relationship he ever had. No girl wanted to date someone knowing someone else was destined to supplant her.
No girl, that was, until Isabel, who had no soulmate and loved Tim anyway. He would not permit Fate to take Her due, he vowed. Tim was sure he and Isabel would be together forever, defying the forces of destiny in the process. He thought they could build a life together. Maybe even become parents. But it was not to be and their marriage was now reduced to words on paper.
Now, though, his soulmate had revealed herself and she was none other than his rookie, which was basically the worst of options aside from some sort of serial killer. The worst part was…he actually got it. Lucy had a bright, fiery personality, filled with passion and warmth and compassion. But she was still his rookie and Tim took the training program as a sacred trust. He could not lead her on. He could not make her think they had a future together. Hell, she had probably named their kids by now! He had to cut this off at the pass.
So as much as Tim hated himself for it, he pushed Lucy just as tough as his other rookies, if not tougher. He messed with her head in every way he could think of. He had to get it through her head he wasn’t going to be interested in her. Lucy seemed like the type of girl who probably thought they were already together by virtue of being soulmates. Tim wished it could be otherwise. He’d never had a rookie who challenged him quite like Lucy, no one who could take all the bullshit he threw at her without so much as flinching. He wished she had any other profession, a teacher, a singer, a baker, anything. But it was not to be.
Finally, after one Tim test too many, he finally, finally made her snap. “You know what? You were wrong about me earlier,” Lucy said, clenching her jaw with fury. “About why I became a cop.”
“This isn’t storytelling hour, boot,” Tim drawled. “Do I look like a man who gives a shit?”
“Just shut up!” Lucy screamed at him. Tim smirked. Bingo. Speaking insubordinately to a superior officer, just what he needed to wash her out of the program. “My parents hate the police, okay? And with these fucking words on my arm in their eyes, I was always one of you! All my life, they hated me! But it was fine, I kept telling myself, because when I became a cop, I’d be able to meet my soulmate. I didn’t have their love, but I could have his.”
“I’m not going to –”
Lucy put her hand up. “This isn’t about you. This is about me, and how you’re making everything I suffered for almost thirty years COMPLETELY MEANINGLESS! You’re an asshole, Officer Bradford, and the only reason I’m glad I’m your soulmate is because I can spare some other woman from having to deal with your bullshit.”
“Out of the shop, go back to jogging alongside,” Tim ordered her.
“Why? I’m going to be fired anyway.”
“Did I say you were fired, Officer Chen? I decide if you get fired, and what I’ve decided is you’re going to be jogging alongside the shop. That’s an order, boot!” This time, unlike every time he’d said that to her, she smiled slightly, because she knew it meant she wasn’t out of the program yet, which she was right about, and probably because she thought she had a chance to be with Tim, which she was very much wrong about.
Tim considered her words as she kept on jogging, somewhat pathetically, alongside the shop. If she was telling the truth – and Lucy was many things, most of which were incredibly annoying, but a liar didn’t seem to be one of them – then Fate had seriously screwed her over by giving her those words as her soulmark. This whole experience must have seen like a horrific joke without a punchline.
After twenty minutes, Tim took pity on his rookie/soulmate and made her get back inside. “That conversation never happened. If it happens again, if you raise your voice to me in the shop even once more, you’re out of the program faster than your head can spin. Am I understood, Officer Chen?”
“Yes, sir,” Lucy said, sounding relieved.
When lunchtime rolled around, Tim was feeling uncommonly distracted by the unprecedented ethical dilemma before him. Should he request Lucy get another TO? But if he did that, would she end up pursuing him anyway? He just didn’t know what to do. At the table with his friends, he pretended like nothing was wrong, described his morning like it was just like any other one training a new rookie.
“Looks like your rookie’s been having one hell of a morning,” Angela observed.
“She’s my soulmate,” Tim said without thinking and then took slight satisfaction in the way Angela spit her drink out of her mouth.
“She’s what?!”
Tim glared at her. “Look, I didn’t know until I got in the shop with her. You know it’s encouraged for rookies to reveal their soulmarks in the application, but they’re not legally required to, and Lucy didn’t. I’ve been very careful to not cross any lines.”
“Yeah, by running screaming in the other direction,” Talia said. “I almost feel sorry for her. Almost.”
“I have ridden her harder than any rookie I’ve ever…” They stared at him with faces registering a strange mixture of amusement and horror. “Okay, I could have phrased that better.”
“You think?” Tim glared at her ferociously. Angela let out a sigh. “Tim, look, I know you want to make sure no one crosses any boundaries, but this isn’t an ordinary TO/rookie relationship and you do Lucy a disservice by pretending it is. Like it or not, Fate has tied you two together. You can fight it all you like, but you’ll just end up suffering.”
Tim looked back at his rookie, who was laughing and joking with Nolan and West, and hated the way his heart flipped in his chest like he was back in middle school asking out his first crush. He especially hated how right it felt. “I’m her training officer, being with her would be wrong.”
“There’s a difference between being a hard-ass, Tim, and a total fucking asshole,” Talia advised. “I respect your position, but think about what it’s like in her shoes. Everyone’s taught her this is the fulfillment of her life’s purpose. And then you come charging in…just think about the consequences of your actions.”
Angela gave him a more sympathetic smile, though it was definitely tinged with amusement and schadenfreude. “We’re not saying you have to date or even be friends. But you need to be treating her like you’d treat any other rookie – not better or worse.”
Tim drummed his fingers on the table. “I’ll take that under advisement.” He cast his eyes over at Lucy, who spotted him looking and stuck her tongue out at him. “Though it’s going to be difficult.”
*****
Lucy didn’t think it was possible for her day to get any worse, but then it did, because the instant John found out she’d found her soulmate, he broke up with her on the spot. He was a romantic at heart. It was hard enough convincing him to fool around with a soulmated woman. Convincing her they should still fool around even after she’d met her soulmate, even if said soulmate was Tim, her training officer, proved to be impossible.
“You’re a good woman, Lucy,” John assured her. “You’ve gone through a lot in your life, and you’ve earned your chance at love. A washed up has-been going through a midlife crisis…you can do better than that.”
“And that better is Bradford?”
Jackson gave a mischievous grin at her. “I bet there’s a sensitive soul buried underneath that rough façade of his. I mean, it’s a classic opposite attracts scenario.” Lucy banged her head on the table repeatedly. No sympathy. She was getting no sympathy at all. “Hey, you’re lucky. At least you have a soulmate. We’re not all so fortunate. And a hot one too! Damn, you think he’s bi? Maybe up for a threesome?”
“Shut up, Jackson, or I’ll make you shut up.”
“Shutting up now, Officer Chen.”
Lunch was unfortunately over far too quick for Lucy’s tastes and she was back on the road with her dick of a training officer.
“It’s been brought to my attention I may have been…too harsh on you,” Tim said, sounding like the words were being forced out of his mouth. “This whole…soulmate thing was a shock. It’s messed with my focus. I will not be going easy on you, boot. But tempers are high today on both our sides and I hope we can maintain a more professional relationship going forward.”
“Uh, yes, sir,” Lucy said, surprised he was willing to give up that much.
That seemed to be the full extent of what he was willing to give up, because they proceeded to their next test and while Tim wasn’t quite as antagonistic towards her as before, he was still willing to throw her against that Ghost Head guy. And then something entirely unexpected happened: she met Tim’s wife. Or at least the shell addiction had left Isabel as.
It was painful watching him be so tender with her. It should never have been Isabel he was this tender with! He shouldn’t even have married her in the first place! Why couldn’t he wait for her? Why had he settled for Isabel? What was so wrong with Lucy?
And then things got even worse, because they went after Selby and Tim got shot. He got shot in the chest, her soulmate got shot the first day they even met, and Lucy could feel the pain, a phantom pain pressing against her chest like a spear of fire lancing through her. It wasn’t the first time she’d felt such a pain. Back in middle school, she’d passed out one day in class after Tim, in retrospect, had been shot while serving. It was easier to endure the second time…but not much.
If her soulmate died…if he hated her and then he died…what would Lucy have to live for?
*****
Tim opened his eyes and for the first time in his life, he was relieved to see Sergeant Grey sitting at his bedside instead of the woman he loved. If Isabel even deserved that slot anymore. “You gave us quite the scare there, son.”
“Selby?”
“We got him.” An awkward silence descended upon the room. “Officer Lopez informs me you’re soulmates with your new rookie.”
Tim shot straight up in his bed and let out a cry of pain. “Sir, I promise you, absolutely nothing untoward happened. I would never pursue a relationship with her, and I will absolutely have her transferred to a new TO.”
Sergeant Grey tilted his head. “Now why in the hell would you want to do that?”
“Sir, she is my rookie,” Tim pointed out, unsure why he wasn’t getting this very basic concept.
“Tim, do you have any idea how rare it is to have a soulmate bond between two cops? Do you have any idea how useful it is? It gives you an advantage no one else has, a connection you can turn into a major asset. It’s rare, extremely rare, to have a rookie/TO pair, but there are precedents and as such, there are exceptions written into the rules allowing you to have such a relationship.”
Tim clenched his jaw. “I don’t care. It would still be unethical.”
“I respect your decision, Tim…if you’re making it for the right reasons.” He held up his arm. The words “Can I borrow a pencil?” were emblazoned upon it. “I ever told you how I met my soulmate?”
“Yes, you were in the same college class together and she sat next to you and –”’
“Wrong. That’s how I met Luna. But Luna isn’t my soulmate. My soulmate was Nikki Wilson. We were thirteen years old and she asked for a pencil and I said “Sure,” and that was the word on her arm, and we were in love at first sight.”
Tim had no clue what he was saying. “So…what happened?”
“What happened is some asshole was driving drunk just days after we had our first date and he T-boned Nikki’s parents’ car and she died on impact. Don’t get me wrong. I love Luna. We don’t need to be soulmates to be happy. But I’ve spent my whole life wondering what might have been. That’s not a fate I’d wish on you, Tim. Not with a job like ours, where everything can change on a dime. Fate can be a real bitch and you’ve tempted Her enough.”
“I’ll consider what you’ve said, sir.”
“If you do, then you should understand you’re not going to be given a free pass. You will be watched very, very closely for any hints of impropriety outside of the soulmate exceptions. It’s not going to be a cakewalk. But then again, since when has love ever been one?”
The next person to come and see him was, of course, his rookie and soulmate. Obviously. He was shocked she wasn’t the first. “Hey,” she said softly. “You look pretty busted up.”
“Oh, I’ll be back, making things tough for you soon enough,” Tim promised. “In the meantime, congratulations on surviving your first day in the program. I’d say it gets easier…but I’m no liar.”
Lucy gave a chuckle. She had a beautiful laugh. She was a beautiful person, with a beautiful soul. She deserved better than some washed out veteran who had a phenomenally messy personal life. Fate should have dealt her a better hand. But since She dealt Tim to her instead…well, Tim would just have to pick up the slack. “Listen, Lucy, my brush with death, everything you’ve told me today, it’s given me some perspective.”
“Oh? So you’re finally accepting we’re soulmates?”
“I am,” Tim said and he was shocked at how easy he found giving in finally. “It’s apparently not prohibited for you to be with me during your rookie year, since we’re soulmates, but regardless, it’s a line I refuse to cross.”
Lucy looked like she was about to cry. “Oh. I…I understand.”
“No, you don’t. With that in mind, we have two options available to us. I can have you transferred to another TO, with no stigma, and we can…try to make this work right now. Or I can keep training you and when your rookie year is over, then we can revisit us being together.” He leaned forward. “Please don’t take this the wrong way, please don’t see this as a sign you’re not wanted, but I hope you take the second option. Maybe I’m biased because we’re soulmates, but I think you have a great amount of potential and I’d like to be the one to cultivate it. But it’s your choice.”
Lucy looked relieved. “Thank you, sir. And I think I’m looking forward to continue my training in the FTO program under your mentorship, Officer Bradford.”
Maybe it was the painkillers, but he couldn’t help but give her a very fond smile, quite unlike any he’d ever given any of his rookies. “You’re a special girl, Lucy Chen. And I think Fate knew what She was doing when She put us together.”
“Thanks, Tim. That means more to me than I can say.”
“One year, Lucy,” Tim said softly. “Be patient. You’ve waited this long. It’s just a little longer.”
Lucy hesitated for a long time and then she leaned in and planted a kiss on his cheek. She was clearly wanting to go for the lips, but she chickened out. “I’m glad I met you.”
“Me too. Hey, you know any good divorce lawyers?”