Chapter One, we could be

Ruby Rose is fifteen and her soulmate mark still hasn't activated. She is starting to doubt it ever will.

It happens sometimes, someone who doesn't have a soulmate mark and no soulmate to find. Ruby just never wanted to be that person.

Her sister's soul mate mark had activated when her sister was thirteen and Yang had been a bit of a late bloomer in that respect. Ruby had been eleven and more than half her class at Signal were giggling and sharing their newly developed marks, bearing the name of their soulmate that they would meet and love someday. Some of them were already meeting for the first time, some of them already best friends.

Ruby dreams of a hero's life; helping people, saving the day, slaying creatures of Grimm… and kissing her soulmate at the end of the day. That's how all the best night time stories Yang told her before bed went. It isn't like Ruby doesn't know that not all soulmate relationships end happily like in the movies, she knows what happened with her parents. Hell, she knows being a huntress or any kind of hero often ends in tragedy, like with her mom. Still Ruby desires a romantic hero's life as a huntress with a soulmate and a happily ever after.

Ruby is starting Beacon Academy two years early, jumpstarting her career as a huntress and hero, but she does not have a soulmate mark. It is a dark shadow upon her heroic dreams.

Her new classmates have their soulmate marks though and for the first time (but certainly not the last) she witnesses soulmates meeting for the first time twice in the same day. It isn't rare to witness, but it is rare that one party of both pairs rejects their soulmate out right at first meeting.

The first is a brusque "No," and a disgusted curled lip from the crabby princess (heiress, actually) that she'd accidentally exploded in the courtyard.

The second is while everyone else is curling up to sleep in their sleeping bags for the night. She can't see them in the dark, but she hears the "I don't want you," whispered in the dark. Ruby waits long moments for the sounds of shuffling back into sleeping bags to die down before she reaches her hand out to clasp her sister's hand. Yang turns over and ruffles Ruby's hair.

"Don't worry about it, Rubes. Go to sleep." Ruby shuts her eyes but doesn't let go of her sister's hand. She tries not to cry.

Ruby is terrified of ending up alone. She has never been the best at socializing or making friends and after her mom died she'd decided she didn't need anyone more than Yang, Dad, her Uncle Qrow, and the soulmate she was destined to meet. Or not. Now she is going to actually have to meet and socialize with people she doesn't know if she wants any chance at love or friendship with someone that isn't related to her.

It's a bit of a surprise when by the end of her first semester at Beacon she's actually kinda sorta good friends with not just her own team but with the members of team JNPR too.
When Ruby meets Penny, she doesn't know how much they have in common until later. Ruby just thinks Penny is sort of weird. When Penny tells her she isn't a real girl, that she is the first synthetic person who can generate an Aura but she doesn't have a soulmate mark, Ruby tells her being made of nuts and bolts instead of squishy guts doesn't make her any less real that Ruby is. She also tells Penny she doesn't have a soulmate mark either.

The relief and wonder on Penny's face makes Ruby's anxiety over not having a soulmate almost worth it. Ruby is glad to have a friend who experiences the loneliness only someone wearing a skin without a soulmate mark can understand.

Ruby decides to give dating a try after that conversation but doesn't get the chance until her second year at Beacon begins. Her first year living in Vale, the world needs saving from Roman and Cinder and the Grimm and she is a hero who fights the bad guys and protects the people. Ruby learns that heroes don't have time to find love no matter how Yang's bedtime stories went.

Her second year begins and this time Remnant really is at peacetime. Somehow she ends up dating her partner, half-way through her second year.

Dating Weiss is… nice. Weiss is strong and an excellent huntress and Myrtenaster is a really great weapon and Weiss is a really good kisser to boot. Weiss is pretty and smart and fun to hang out with too, especially now that she has mellowed out and isn't so abrasive about everything. Ruby isn't sure what else she could want in a lover or soulmate.

A couple months after they start dating, Ruby tells her about not having a soulmate mark even though Weiss has probably already noticed by now. She is embarrassed when she ends up crying but Weiss doesn't make fun of her. Ruby is glad Weiss doesn't compare her own rejection of her soulmate or give her soothing platitudes. Weiss just returns her honesty with her own and it is nice and sweet and safe. That night their eyes are red-rimmed and their noses red and cheeks tear stained but they are laughing in relief and they kiss.

Ruby is happier than she ever imagined, dating Weiss – her partner, teammate, and girlfriend. She imagines how it would be if Weiss's name was on her skin, if her life would be complete. She wonders if Weiss wouldn't have wanted her if Weiss's soulmate mark was Ruby Rose. Maybe that is why her skin is blank, so Weiss would give her a chance.

Their relationship doesn't end on bad terms less than a year later, but it isn't exactly happy either. It just ends with solemn agreement. They want different things as lovers but they both want to be partners and teammates and the best of friends like they had been. Ruby cries about it for a while, eating chocolate chip cookies faster than Yang can bake, but her sister and her mom's secret chocolate chip cookie recipe that only her sister knows get her through her first break up when she is seventeen. Penny helps too, dragging her out of the dorms and into the city where they explore and laugh and it helps get her mind off of Weiss.

More than anything it helps that she hasn't actually lost Weiss as a friend.

At the end of her third year at Beacon, Ruby gets a sort of embarrassing crush on Ren. At first she'd thought he and Nora were soulmates, but apparently they aren't… but then apparently they are. It confuses Ruby, but she listens when Ren tells her they aren't those kind of soulmates. More than friends and lovers, more than teammates and partners, but not soulmates that want to date. Their relationship as soulmates was more significant than any other relationship they had or would ever have, but they dated separately. Ruby knows it is possible, but most people end up dating their soulmates because the best lovers are your best friend and soulmate.

Still, Ruby doesn't judge. She and Ren never date even though Ren isn't opposed. Mostly she is mortified for having a crush on him in the first place.

(Mostly she wants a lover that can love her like a soulmate would.)

She cries it out for a bit with Yang, but the tears are mostly cathartic. She isn't going to give up and isn't going to settle for a love less than what she wants to have.

It is the end of her second semester of her fourth and final year at Beacon. She will soon graduate and be a full fledge huntress. Even though her team doesn't have to, they've long since agreed that they aren't going to break up the team. They are going to be heroes and huntresses together after graduation and even if Ruby is missing a soulmate, well she has friends and teammates and family she wouldn't trade for anything. She will not stop looking.

Then Penny tells her, "Friend… I don't think of you as just a friend. I think I – I might like you more than that."

"Like what?" Ruby asks, eyes wide.

"Like, like I might love you the way a lover does. Maybe more than that."

And everything comes together, just like Yang's bedtime stories, like a hero's story.

Ruby falls hard for Penny the moment she lets herself. Penny is funny and honest and strong and her laughter makes Ruby feel like she can take on the world. They date and kiss and bear their souls honestly and easily.

By the time Ruby is graduating, they get themselves tattooed with each other's names. Penny holds her hand when she gets Penny tattooed upon her chest, right over her heart. Ruby cries happy tears. Ruby sits with Penny while Penny's father personally tattoos Penny's synthetic skin, right over where Penny's heart would be. Penny's dad said they could just get Penny a brand new skin, pre-tattooed, but the process is important to Penny so he doesn't say anything more.

After graduation, Ruby takes Penny to Patch to meet her dad and Uncle Qrow. The entire team comes too, just as they had after first, second, and third year for break. Weiss's father and sister have cut her off and Blake never had a family apart from the White Fang to return to. Their team has long been family now.

Taiyang embraces Penny the same as he does his daughters and her team and welcomes Penny to the family and tells her to make herself at home, his eyes tired but proud.

"It isn't much but it is everything I need," Ruby's dad says.

Uncle Qrow later pulls her to the side and tells Ruby that the two are lucky to have each other.

"Your face is like your mom's," Penny tells her while Ruby shows her pictures in their extensive photo album collection. Penny's finger is pointing to photo with Summer and her and Yang. They are smiling at her father as he takes the photo. Her parents and later Uncle Qrow had taken documenting every moment of her and Yang growing up very seriously. They'd even organized every photo she and Yang had sent to them from Beacon too. Photos of her team and teams JNPR and CFVY and some of Neptune and Sun with their team as well, and of course photos with Penny.

Ruby nods and leans on Penny's shoulder, while Penny continues, "But your personality is more like your Uncle Qrow's!"

Ruby laughs, "Maybe. I've never thought about it really," She tilts her head to consider.

"Hey," Ruby says when she hears the distant call of a Beowulf in the gray forests surrounding her childhood home. "Wanna slay some Grimm?"

Penny laughs, "Sure! Lead the way, Soulmate!"

Ruby is nineteen and a huntress and hero and she has family and a team and a soulmate, and she has been involved in war that she helped win, but it isn't her happy ending merely the beginning of her adventure and her soulmate is right by her side with her.

Thank you for reading. Read on Ao3 for more author notes.