Disclaimer: I don't own any of the Skins characters.

Chapter 1

"No," Naomi said, crossing her arms in defiance. "There is no way I am going in there!"

"It's just for fun," Effy said, getting frustrated with her best friend. "I already gave this nice man the money for it, so get your ass in there."

"Why don't you just go then?" Naomi asked, not budging.

Effy crossed her arms, mirroring Naomi's stance. "Because I'm in a happy, loving relationship and you need some guidance in that department."

Naomi smirked. "It's kind of funny hearing that come out of your mouth."

"Oh fuck off," Effy said before pushing her through the tent door.

Naomi looked around the small room before her eyes landed on the fortune teller sitting behind a small table with a crystal ball in the middle of it.

"You've gotta be kidding me," Naomi muttered under her breath, wondering how she ever let her friends talk her into coming to the renaissance faire with them.

"Sit," the woman said, motioning to the seat opposite her.

Naomi frowned, skeptically, but did as she was told.

"You're reluctant to be here," the fortune teller stated.

Naomi let out a laugh. "No shit. Can you see that in your crystal ball?"

"No, I could hear you talking outside," the woman replied.

Naomi shook her head and leaned forward. "So, what do you see in my future then?"

The woman looked into the crystal ball and started talking to herself which made Naomi cock her eyebrow. "You will find love soon," she finally said after a few moments.

Naomi blinked and then narrowed her eyes. "Will I?"

"Soon," she stated.

Naomi felt like laughing; the woman clearly overheard her and Effy talking about her lack of a relationship. Well, lack of a good relationship anyway. She'd had a countless string of boyfriends, none of which had lasted over a few months including the one who broke up with her the previous day for being too distant. Every other breakup had gone much the same way with every guy pretty much saying the exact same thing: she was too detached.

"Define 'find love'" Naomi said, using air quotes.

"Your true love, your soulmate…if you believe in that sort of thing," the woman replied, nonchalantly, leaning back in her seat.

"Do I get any details about this guy?" Naomi asked.

"She has brown eyes and…"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa…" Naomi said, holding her hands up. "She?"

The woman nodded. "She."

This time, Naomi did let out a loud laugh. "I think that crystal ball is broken."

"No, it is very clear," the fortune teller said, locking her eyes onto Naomi's. "Now if you'll let me continue…she has brown eyes and a scar above her left eyebrow."

"That's it?" Naomi said, incredulously. "You can't just tell me that my soul mate is supposedly a fucking girl and then tell me she has brown eyes and a scar and then tell me nothing else!"

The other woman put her hands down on the table and sighed. "I can only see what I'm being shown…nothing more."

"You are so full of shit!" Naomi blurted out.

The woman laughed. "Believe what you want dear, but it will not change your future."

"Tell me something about my past then," Naomi said, crossing her arms, "so I'll know if you really know anything or if you really are just full of shit."

The woman looked into the crystal ball again and stared into it for what seemed like an hour or at least it seemed that long to Naomi, who was anxiously awaiting her response.

"I see you in an alley," she said, glancing up at Naomi, "and there's a man behind you with a knife."

Naomi's eyes shot between the ball in the middle of the table and the woman sitting in front of her. "Thank you."

And with that, Naomi shot out of the room, bumping into someone while running over to Effy and Katie.

"Sorry," she said, dismissively to whomever she had bumped.

"Why do you look so pale?" Effy asked, looking at her with concern whenever she reached the two.

"I'm fine," Naomi said, quickly. "That woman needs her head examined!"

Katie laughed. "Well it's not really real, is it? I mean, it's all just for fun, right?"

"Yeah…" Naomi said, shoving her hands in her jacket pockets.

"I'm going to go look for Pandora and Cook," Katie said, craning her neck to try and look through the crowds, but she was too short to really see anything over the mass of people.

Effy waited until Katie was out of earshot before turning back to Naomi. "Okay, real or not, that woman said something that's freaked you out. I can see it all over your face."

"She didn't say anything." Naomi lied, avoiding her friend's eyes.

"Liar," Effy said, seeing right through her.

"Well, you'll be happy to know that I'm supposed to find the love of my life very soon," Naomi said with a cold laugh.

Effy shrugged. "What's so bad about that?"

"She told me that I'm going to end up with a woman," Naomi replied, looking around, making sure no one could overhear her.

Effy smiled. "Huh."

"Huh…that's all you have to say?" Naomi said, getting more and more irritated by the minute.

"Well, I always kinda thought it could be possible," Effy replied.

Naomi narrowed her eyes. "Always thought what could be possible?"

"You being…you know," Effy said, looking away from Naomi's death gaze. "I just…you know…you've never dated a guy for very long."

"That doesn't mean I'm a lesbian!" Naomi shouted in protest, causing a few stares.

"Well, I know that, but it's more of that fact that you didn't care about any of those guys," Effy stated. "Sure, you've dated plenty, but have you ever really given a shit about any of them? You just kinda go through the motions, so I kinda wondered before if maybe you were going after the wrong gender."

Naomi was too stunned to say anything so instead of talking, she just stared at Effy trying to comprehend the words that had just come out of her mouth. Sure she hadn't really been all that attracted to any of the guys she'd dated, but she always figured she was just dating the wrong guys.

"Anyway, why are you getting so bent out of shape?" Effy asked. "I mean, when did you get so homophobic?"

"I am not homophobic," Naomi said, scowling. "I'm just…"

Naomi shook her head, not really sure of what she wanted to say. It was true, she wasn't homophobic, but the thought of herself dating another woman had never crossed her mind. Okay, that wasn't entirely true; she had thought about it, but always convinced herself that she was just tired of being dumped by various guys and so her mind would wonder to what it would be like if she didn't have to deal with them anymore.

She would have chalked all this up to the woman being a fraud, but several months before, Naomi had been mugged in an alley by a man with a knife. She had been too afraid to tell anyone so only she and the man who did it knew it'd happened. She knew she should have went to the cops, but she was being stupid at the time and told herself it wasn't a huge deal and that they'd never have caught the man even if she had reported the incident.

"Hey," Effy said, putting her hand on Naomi's shoulder. "Are you going to be alright?"

"I'm okay," Naomi said, quietly. "Really."

"Just remember…she's probably just a complete nut that has no idea what she's talking about," Effy said, trying to reassure her friend.

"Yeah…" Naomi agreed, weakly.

"Let's go find where Katie scampered off to," Effy said, putting her arm around Naomi, leading her off into the crowd.

As she was being led away, Naomi looked back at the fortune teller's tent and frowned.

"There they are," Effy said, seeing their three friends standing next to some booth full of jewelry.

"Hey guys," Pandora said, peering up from the bracelet that she was eyeing. "Katie said you saw a fortune teller…what did she say?"

Naomi briefly locked eyes with a grinning Effy. "I'm going to find love soon."

"So who is the lucky guy?" Cook asked, only mildly interested.

Naomi glared at Effy who snorted, but tried to pass it off as a cough.

"What?" Katie said, noticing the exchange. "What did she say? And what's so funny?"

"Go on," Naomi said, looking at her friend.

"Are you sure?" Effy asked.

"Okay, dying to know here," Katie said, crossing her arms.

"Naomi was told that she was going to fall in love with a woman," Effy stated.

Pandora and Katie laughed.

"We were wondering when that was going to happen," Katie said, casually.

"Excuse me?" Naomi said, shocked.

"Well, we've all always kinda wondered," Katie replied, taking a few steps back, hoping her friend wouldn't lunge at her.

"So everyone here had always thought that I was a lesbian!" Naomi said, flabbergasted. "Why did no one inform me of this revelation?"

"We kinda just assumed that you were dating all these guys to try and cover it up and that you'd eventually tell us when you were ready," Pandora replied.

"It was the only explanation for why you wouldn't fuck me," Cook said with a shrug.

Naomi just stared at her friends, not really believing what she was hearing.

"Are we almost done?" Naomi asked, wanting to get away from the faire as fast as possible.

"Yeah," Effy replied.

"Let's go get it then," Naomi said, hurriedly pulling her friend along, with Katie, Pandora, and Cook in tow.

As they walked past the tent with the fortune teller, Naomi glared at it, wishing she'd never gone into the stupid thing.

"Wait up you two!" Pandora said, jogging to catch up to the rest of the group. "Geez Naomi, it's not like you'll walk off being a lesbian."

Naomi whipped around and scowled at the blonde.

Pandora gave her sweetest smile, which was faltering under her friend's intense stare. "Umm, sorry. It was just a joke…okay? Stop staring at me!"

Effy laughed and pulled Naomi backwards, toward the exit. "Stop glaring at her; she looks like she's about to shrink from fear."

After a few more moments, Naomi turned around, giving up trying to kill Pandora with her stare.

Emily and JJ were wandering around the faire, going from vendor to vendor, looking at everything they were selling.

"I think this thing is like twice as big as last year," Emily noted, looking around.

"Sorry." Emily heard, turning to see who had just bumped into her, but the woman was already gone.

Emily shook her head. "Why do people even say they're sorry when you know damn well that they're not?"

"Because society says you must," JJ said, smiling at his friend.

Emily frowned; that was the fourth person who'd run into her today and she was beginning to wonder if people could even see her. Yes the place was fairly crowded, but this was getting slightly ridiculous.

"Well, there's the fortune teller," JJ said, nodding to the tent.

"I'll be back in a few minutes," Emily said, giving the man standing in front of the tent her money.

Emily looked in the tent before entering it all the way; it was lit by candles and the woman sitting behind the crystal ball looking just like all the fortune tellers in the movies she'd seen.

"Sit," the woman said, motioning to the other seat at the small table.

Emily cautiously walked to the chair and sat down. "So, how does this thing work?"

"I look in the ball and tell you what I see," the woman said, curtly.

"So what do you see?" Emily asked, leaning in and putting her hands on the table.

"Give me a minute," the woman said, shushing Emily.

Emily frowned and leaned back, crossing her arms over her chest. She and JJ had come to the renaissance faire for the past three years, but this was the first year that the fortune teller had been there. Emily thought it would be cool to do it since she'd never been to one before, but she was rapidly starting to suspect that she just wasted her money.

After staring into the crystal ball for a few more seconds, the fortune teller suddenly started laughing which was very unnerving for Emily.

"Is my future that funny?" Emily asked.

"You don't have a scar above your eyebrow" the woman said, looking at Emily

"Am I supposed to?" Emily asked, perplexed.

"Well, the good news is that I see you meeting your true love very, very soon," she replied, not answering Emily's question.

"That's it?" Emily asked. "No description of the person?"

"She is beautiful," the woman said shrugging. "Blonde hair, blue eyes, stubborn personality…slightly snippy and rude."

"She sounds great," Emily said, rolling her eyes. "Is there anything else?"

"No, that is all," the woman said, dismissively

"Okay then," Emily said, getting up and leaving the room.

"Well?" JJ asked as Emily emerged from the tent.

"My true love is a girl who is stubborn and rude and I'm going to meet her soon," Emily said, frowning slightly. "And snippy, can't forget snippy."

"Seriously?" JJ asked.

Emily shrugged. "At least she said she was beautiful."

"Ooh…do you think the girl she was talking about could be the cute girl from the coffee shop?" JJ asked, hopefully.

Emily shook her head. "She told me I'll be meeting her soon, so I assume it's someone I haven't met before. Plus, she said the girl had blue eyes and the girl from the coffee shop has green."

"Did she happen to tell you when you're supposedly going to meet her?" JJ asked.

"Soon," Emily answered. "She just said soon. Do you want to go look for your friends?"

"Oh, I ran into Cook while you were in there," JJ replied. "He said they were leaving."

"Sorry," Emily said, feeling bad that she was monopolizing all his time.

"Don't be," JJ said, smiling. "C'mon, I think they're doing jousting over there."