Chapter Text
There was one true rule in Auradon about soulmates:
Soulmates could never fully hide from each other.
The stories stretched back centuries, woven through every fairytale romance Auradon had ever adored. Snow White and her prince. Rapunzel and Eugene. Belle and the Beast. Every soulmate pair bound together by the same strange magic.
At some point in their lives, soulmates began sharing memories.
Not intentionally. Never intentionally.
The memories slipped through during moments of intense emotion — romance, longing, affection, heartbreak. The stronger the feelings, the stronger the memory became.
And the cruelest part?
The moment didn’t even have to involve your soulmate.
A first kiss with the wrong person could still end up in your soulmate’s head. A touch. A confession. A heartbreak.
Nothing stayed private forever.
Since she was little, Jane had waited for her first memory.
Most people received theirs around fifteen or sixteen. Audrey had gotten hers at fourteen and spent weeks talking dramatically about “the silhouette of broad shoulders” she’d seen in a soulmate memory during a school dance.
Jane was seventeen.
And she still had nothing.
No flashes.
No emotions that didn’t belong to her.
No soulmate.
At first, she’d thought maybe she was just a late bloomer.
Then she started wondering if maybe she didn’t have one at all.
“Jane?”
Jane blinked hard and looked up from her half-finished potion notes.
Fairy Godmother stood at the front of the classroom with her hands folded neatly in front of her.
“You’ve copied the same line three times.”
Heat crawled into Jane’s cheeks.
Around her, a few students laughed softly.
“Sorry,” she mumbled.
Fairy Godmother’s expression softened immediately. “Just focus, dear.”
Jane nodded quickly and looked back down at the page, though the words still blurred together.
Outside the classroom windows, afternoon sunlight spilled over the gardens of Auradon Prep. Everything looked warm and golden and painfully perfect.
Jane rested her cheek against her hand.
Maybe she really was broken.
The thought barely settled before warmth suddenly flooded her chest.
Jane froze.
It started small.
A flicker.
Then—
Flour exploded across a kitchen counter.
Laughter rang out loud and breathless.
A boy’s hands — tan skin dusted white with flour — scrambled to catch a mixing bowl tipping dangerously sideways while a dog barked excitedly nearby.
“Oh my god, Dude, move—”
The memory hit harder all at once.
Warmth.
Happiness.
A sharp burst of affection so strong it made Jane’s chest ache.
The boy laughed again, louder this time, and Jane caught a quick glimpse of dark curls falling into his eyes before the memory vanished completely.
Jane jerked upright in her seat.
Her pulse hammered.
Across the room, someone asked a question, but their voice sounded impossibly far away.
Her first memory.
After all these years.
Jane pressed trembling fingers against her lips.
It had felt so real.
Not like watching something happen.
Like being there.
Like standing inside someone else’s happiness for three impossible seconds.
The feeling lingering afterward was almost worse.
Because whoever he was—
he’d felt safe.
The bell rang loudly.
Jane startled hard enough to knock her pencil onto the floor.
Students immediately began shuffling out of their seats, voices filling the room.
Jane barely noticed.
A soulmate memory.
Finally.
Her soulmate existed.
And apparently he liked baking with dogs.
By dinner, Jane had replayed the memory at least fifty times.
The kitchen.
The laugh.
The warmth.
Especially the warmth.
Soulmate memories carried emotions with them. Everyone knew that. It was impossible to separate the memory from the feeling attached to it.
And whoever that boy was…
he felt things deeply.
Jane sat cross-legged on her bed later that night with her journal open in front of her.
Memory #1, she wrote carefully.
Kitchen.
Dog barking.
Laughs a lot.
Possibly terrible at baking.
Then after a second, she added:
Feels safe.
Her pen lingered.
That part mattered most.
Jane had spent years hearing people describe soulmate memories like fireworks or lightning strikes or overwhelming romance.
But this hadn’t felt explosive.
It had felt soft.
A knock sounded suddenly at her door.
“Jane?” Fairy Godmother peeked her head inside. “Lights out soon.”
“Sorry!”
Fairy Godmother smiled tiredly. “Long day?”
Jane hesitated.
For half a second, she almost told her.
But soulmate memories were private. Sacred, almost.
So instead she just nodded.
“Goodnight, sweetheart.”
“Goodnight.”
The door clicked shut again.
Jane looked back down at the journal.
Then slowly smiled.
Somewhere in Auradon, her soulmate existed.
And somehow, impossibly—
she thought she already missed him.
The next morning, Auradon Prep buzzed louder than usual.
Jane adjusted the strap of her bag as she walked through the crowded hallways.
Students moved around her in clusters of noise and color.
Chad was loudly retelling a tourney practice story near the lockers. Audrey looked seconds away from killing him.
Typical.
Jane smiled faintly to herself before turning the corner—
—and stopping abruptly.
Laughter.
Warm, breathless laughter.
Her stomach dropped.
Not because she recognized the sound exactly.
Because she felt like she did.
A familiar ache bloomed suddenly in her chest.
Ahead of her, leaning against a locker while Jay argued animatedly beside him, stood Carlos De Vil.
Dark curls.
Nervous hands.
A grin that flashed bright and disappeared just as quickly.
And before Jane could stop herself—
she remembered flour-covered fingers.
Her breath caught.
No.
No way.
Carlos looked up suddenly.
Their eyes met.
And everything in Jane seemed to go painfully still.
Recognition flashed across his face so quickly she almost missed it.
Not confusion.
Not curiosity.
Recognition.
His smile vanished.
For one terrible second, neither of them moved.
Then Jay shoved Carlos’s shoulder hard enough to make him stumble slightly.
“You listening or what?”
Carlos blinked hard.
The moment shattered instantly.
He looked away first.
Jane’s heartbeat thudded unevenly as Carlos muttered something to Jay and pushed himself off the locker.
As he passed her—
their shoulders brushed.
The memory hit like lightning.
Carlos lying on the dorm floor beside Dude.
Late night darkness.
Soft breathing.
One hand buried in the dog’s fur while exhausted relief flooded through him so strongly Jane nearly gasped.
“I think…” his voice whispered shakily into the quiet room, “I finally feel safe here.”
Jane stopped dead in the hallway.
The emotion behind the memory cracked through her chest so hard it hurt.
Not happiness.
Relief.
The kind that only came after fear.
Carlos froze a few feet away.
Slowly, he turned back toward her.
And Jane realized with dawning horror that he’d seen one of hers too.
His expression looked stunned.
Raw.
Like he’d touched something fragile unexpectedly.
Jane knew exactly what memory he’d gotten.
Her standing alone in front of her mirror at thirteen, trying over and over to practice sounding brave.
Trying not to cry after another day of feeling invisible.
Neither of them spoke.
The hallway noise blurred around them.
Jane saw it then—
the panic flickering underneath Carlos’s expression.
Not fear of her.
Fear of being seen.
And just before he turned away again, Jane felt one final sharp pulse through the soulmate bond.
Not a memory.
Just emotion.
Sudden.
Violent.
Terrified.
Then it vanished.
Leaving Jane frozen in the middle of the hallway while Carlos disappeared into the crowd.