I own nothing. I hope you enjoy. Also, Thank you to my awesome and quick beta Fleur! Thank you to sarcasticfina for catching my flubs.

Chapter One: To Enact

Tim has never put much stock in the whole soulmate thing, even though he bears the emblem of his own soulmate. He just doesn't think it's real that the universe or God has the power to pick out the person who best fits you and mark them.

Look at his parents- they both loved their booze more than each other, and they took turns taking shots at each other. They were twisted up and broken, but they were soulmates.

Then there are some people who are born without their emblem, and they show up later when the person is complete enough to love another person fully. (That's what scientists think. Tim thinks it' all luck of the draw.) Lyla had been waiting her whole life for Jason's emblem to come in to match her own. After his accident, his had come through: a tiny handprint just over his heart.

When she broke down on the side of the road screaming at him about their marks not being activated and his condition and no one helping her to help him, he did the only thing he knew to stop her frantic tear filled tirade. He'd kissed her, and it lead to their…thing. Some part off him hoped that when he touched the fire ball marks dotting her wrist that he'd feel the soul bond take hold, but it never did. It was then that Tim learned you could love the wrong person.

With Tyra love and soulmates had never been the issue. Her mark had never come in, and she said she didn't want it to. And that was that. They had a get-what-you-give relationship, and it worked for them. Until it didn't.

Being with Jackie was messy and mostly wrong, so he made no attempts to touch her mark and took special care not to let her touch his emblem, a perfect shell pink lip print on the back of his neck. He wore his hair down so that no one would ever see it. He wasn't sure he wanted a soulmate, but that spot on his neck felt like the only pure part of him, and it belonged to someone else.

When he'd shown it to her to make sure it wasn't accidentally touched and activated she had only said. "She must be sweet; it's almost innocent, that mark…" He'd blown her off.

Until…

-/-/-

"The whole room is spinning." Julie said drunkenly.

"That's because you're drunk ,Taylor. " He removed her shoes. "Just close your eyes and you'll be alright, Jules. I promise."

"I think I'm going to vomit like literally on the entire room," she mumbled with an air of self-disgust.

When she looped her arms around his neck as he tried to situate her properly in bed, the heel of her hand brushed across his mark, and it was like being hit by lightning and wrapped in a warm blanket all at once. As his side of the soul bond took hold, she looked surprised but gave a drunken sigh of happiness. Even though he hadn't activated her emblem. He didn't even know where it was.

"Jules, you gotta let me go." He pled, feeling too revealed and confused.

"What are you doing?" Coach said stonily, and Tim's stomach dropped.

=/=

Coach kicked him out, and he decides to let it go despite the way it stings. He has to live to fight another day. To fight for her, and somehow he knew he'll have to fight for her and he will. Julie Taylor is his soulmate.

It's odd how quickly the soul bond takes hold on his end. He can guess at her moods from clear across town. His mark reacts to her moods. Anger is hot, Sadness is cold, Happiness tingles, and laughter tickles.

Julie is definitely his soulmate according to the science he didn't believe in until faced with his soulmate. He can't keep this to himself, he's happy. He doesn't deserve someone like Julie, but he'll work to be worthy of her.

-/-

"Julie's my soul mate," he blurted the minute Jason has the door open.

"Hello to you too Timmy. Wait what did you say?" Jason cocked his head at him, doing that squinty thing he does when he can't decide what play to call.

"Julie's my soulmate and sure I thought she was hot before because all the women in the family are but like she's Coach's daughter and she's smart, like smarter than Lyla. She's the reads boring books for fun kinda smart so I just didn't think I had a shot, ya know. Now I'd like one and I wanna know things about her but I don't even think she remembers activating my emblem. She was pretty drunk when she touched it…" he pauses and found Street staring at him as if he said the Pope made him a virgin again. "What're you lookin' at me like that for? Help me!" He said growing impatient.

Jason's laughter rung out loudly between them. "What?"

"God gave you Julie Taylor…" he went into another fit of laughter.

"I know I don't deserve her but do you have to laugh in my face, man?"

"It's not that, Tim, if you'll love her right, then you'll deserve her. It's just you're forever attached to Coach. Wonder if he'll make you do wind sprints any time you make her cry." Jason teased.

"Can you help me or not?" He retorted shortly.

"You wanna talk to her Riggs? Then just talk to her, Julie's pretty chatty. Get one of those twenty questions every soulmate should ask things off Google and start there. What's it feel like?" He asked, popping a wheelie.

"Kinda like havin' your fishing line caught up on something, but it's way more specific, like right now she must be concentrating on something or asleep because no emotions are comin' at me, and the girl has lots of those little shits, trust me." He said tiredly, and Jason smiled.

"She was disappointed, happy, impatient, and irritated by Gracie Belle all before 8 am."

-/-

When Julie woke the next morning to a house devoid of Tim, something felt off She had the niggling sensation she'd done something wrong, even after she took the Advil and tried holding down breakfast. Her Dad murmured something "I shouldn't have put you in that position with that boy…" and suddenly the niggling sensation pulled full-force at her conscience.

As snatches of the night before came back to her now sober mind, even in their mixed up state, they worried Julie. Surely to God she hadn't activated Tim's soul mark. He might not even have one.

She had a fleeting thought of the series of nail-like scratches on her thigh made to look like a thirty three.

Oh Holy Shit!

-/-/-

Something about maybe having found her soulmate seems too personal, big, and scary to share just yet. So she headed to the library and sat down at one of the computers, chucking her books at . She typed in her school log in and hit the blue E. She took a breath and shook out her hands before typing "How do you know if you've activated your Mate's Soul Mark/Emblem?" She hit enter and exhaled as the school's turtle speed internet loaded.

She clicked the Wikipedia link and skimmed the stuff she knows…" Markers ensure better marriages and the propagation of the human race blah blah…"

Ah and there it was: "Enacting the Mark" in big bold letters. She started reading voraciously as if having the facts will make it less real

"Studies show that when marks activate in the same moment, there tends to be a highly sexualized feeling of euphoria. This is believed to be an evolutionary remnant meant to cement the bond immediately.

Prolonged exposure to your soulmate and or contact with the mark on your partner's body to identify your soul is said to sync up your heart and respiration rates. The reason for this is unknown but quite common in older soulmates.

In the event marks are activated separately, the activated soul and the activating soul will experience different things. The activator will often feel as though they're being watched, sapping energy and burning in their own mark.

The activated soul will be able to sense the other half's emotions via physical sensations, or in some cases, synesthesia will occur. The emotions will present themselves in taste, smell or colored aura's depending on how the person processes or suppresses their own emotions."

Julie sighed. She's not really sure she's even ready for a soulmate. According to every person she knows who has found their soulmate, you never want to be away from them, they become the entirety of your world, and Julie's just not ready for that.

She sighed and blamed her zapped energy and jaw cracking yawn on her hangover. There was no way, just no way she and Tim would ever make sense.

She shoved aside the voice in her head saying her emblem is in fact Tim's jersey number and not some random pattern.

She turned to walk out, and there he was, all shaggy hair, ripped jeans, scuffed boots, and faked confidence. How she knows the confidence was put on, she had no clue.

She swallowed. "Tim." There was a definite magnetic pull between them, and her emblem wasn't even activated yet.

"Julie…" He addressed his boots, But then, as if he could sense her thoughts, he looked up at her. Sharp green eyes pinned her in place. "You're my soul mate," rumbled from a place deep in his chest.

"How do you…" He turned around and raised his hair off his neck. On the back of his neck, dead center, are lip prints…Her lips, as if she'd left them there as a mark of ownership.

The world went a bit wobbly. "It's you, Jules." She heard as she sat before she can faint.