Addison was awoken by Zed carefully moving in the bed next to her. She immediately sat up, looking at him with worried eyes.

"Zed? Are you okay?"

He glanced at her with an apologetic look. He hadn't intended to wake her. Addie could feel herself getting more and more anxious, and his silence wasn't making things any easier for her.

"Did you… dream?"

Zed didn't say anything for a couple seconds, and then nodded gravely. Addie felt her heart nearly burst in her chest and she wondered how she'd get through this. She knelt next to Zed, on the bed, and wrapped her arms around him. He sighed and pressed his head against her shoulder. He was just as worried - as terrified - as she was.

Their situation was very unusual.

Most people didn't engage in serious relationships. They rather waited until they had finished high school, eventually college, to go around the world and look for their soulmates.

But Addison and Zed had fallen in love, while knowing that they weren't soulmates. It didn't mean that their feelings for each other weren't strong. It didn't mean that they didn't stand a chance together.

"They're looking for us," Addison whispered, gently stroking Zed's hair.

Zed closed his eyes. The gesture was soothing, and it helped him calm down. As much as he tried to play it cool, he couldn't forget that girl he saw in his dreams. He didn't see her face, but he noticed her short black hair and her Metallica tee-shirt. He had thought of how different she was from Addie, and he hadn't liked it.

They had both secretly hoped that they'd be able to stay together, that their soulmates wouldn't come looking for them. They knew it was unlikely, though, and Zed's discovery was sad, but far from surprising.

"I don't know," Zed said softly.

Addison sighed. He put his hands on her waist and looked up towards her. He kissed her slowly. There was no passion in the kiss. It just meant 'I'm here for you', and that was all they needed at the moment. He was the one who pulled away.

"Do you think we'll just be… wiped out, when we meet them?" Zed asked. He did his best to hide how he really felt about it. He didn't succeed. Addison may not be his soulmate, but she could read him just as easily.

She looked at him. She felt the warmth of his hands on her body, his hot breath close to her face. His hair tickled as his head brushed against the skin of her neck. She thought of their first kiss, when they were both so terrified to jump into a relationship that would probably end because of their soulmates. She thought of how he had put all these light bulbs in this abandoned warehouse just to make the moment perfect and romantic, and how he had later told her that he had had to beg Eliza to help him so there would be electricity.

She didn't want to lose all that.

"I don't know," she said. There were tears in her eyes.

He grabbed her face and kissed her, with more passion. This time, the kiss meant 'you're the one I love'. She answered it eagerly. If Zed's soulmate was looking for him, this would probably end very soon. And they didn't want it to end.

"Maybe we should run away," Zed said.

But Addison shook her head. "We may just run into my soulmate if we do that. We can't spend our time running away from yours, anyway." She smiled sadly. "She must be so excited and so happy at the thought of meeting you." Her laugh was full of tears. "She's a lucky girl, you know that? You're wonderful."

Her words made Zed think of how another man would be holding Addison, once he was with that girl, whoever she was. He didn't like it.

She immediately knew something was off and she leaned in to kiss him. "I love you."

"I love you, Addie," Zed said. "I don't have any interest in… someone else."

She chuckled sadly. "Neither do I. But we knew we were going there, didn't we?"

Of course they knew. They had heard people tell them how their love wasn't real because they weren't soulmates. Addison's parents had actively tried to make them break up.

And yet, there were examples of unhappy soulmates all around! Bucky and Eliza, for example, fated together even when they represented everything the other hated. Zed's dad, as well, who had never gotten over his wife's death.

"This is real," Zed said.

"We're real," Addie answered.

They smiled.

"When's Zombie's next concert?" Addison asked, trying to find a lighter subject. Zombie was Zed's band, basically made of him, Bonzo, and Eliza. Zed glanced towards the clock and grunted.

"In thirteen hours from now."

"And when do you have to leave?"

"In four hours…"

She laughed. "You may want to get some sleep then."

"No," he mumbled, protesting like a spoiled child. "I want to stay with you." Then, without any warning, he made her fall on the bed and pretended to bite her neck. She laughed, protesting just for fun.

They did their best to put their heart into it. But even as Zed kissed Addison, as she took off his shirt and ran her hands over his chest, as he joked about her wanting to see him naked, they knew. From now on, they were on borrowed time.

This - them - would probably end soon, even if they didn't want it to.

That was one more reason to enjoy those moments as much as possible.

Okayyy, hope this wasn't too depressing, ahah. I've always been attracted to that kind of stories. For the record, I absolutely didn't invent the 'soulmates' story, but I tend to love those and I haven't seen that many in which people aren't actually soulmates. Hope you liked it :3 I also hope my writing was okay, english is not my first language. If I made mistakes, please just let me know ^^ Don't hesitate to leave a review if you did, that's the only way an author will know you've enjoyed what they wrote!

Thanks for reading!

Dya.

EDIT: Thank to keep-swinging for helping me with my mistakes!