Chapter Text
Trinity Santos did not believe in soulmates. Did not believe in soulmate bonds. Not because they weren’t real. She knew they were real. But because who in their right mind would want to be her soulmate. Who would want her after all the pain she had felt and put her body through. So, at 18 as soon as the soulmate bond clicked in, she did everything in her power to subdue it. To push it to the back of her mind. She hoped that this would cause her soulmate to feel less of trinity on their side.
Baran Al-hashimi loved the idea of soulmate bonds. But for most of her life she relegated it to something that wouldn’t happen to her. When she turned 18, she still felt empty on the other side of the bond. She waited. Soulmates are not always the same age. So, she waited through college. Waited through undergrade and then medical school. By the end of medical school resigned herself to the fact that she wasn’t bonded. It was rare but it did happen. It wasn’t that her soulmate had died. She would have known that regardless of whether the bond had snapped into place of not. It was the only time a soulmate bond was felt before 18 was if one of them died. No, her soulmate bond just never snapped into place. Her line was floating untethered to anyone. At least that’s what she thought.
She was pregnant with her son. It was early, 8 weeks at most, her husband, another untethered, doting on her that she felt the bond snap into place with certainty and clarity. She stayed with her husband for another year, through the turbulent pregnancy, and finding out the amazing father he was only to realize that he wasn’t who she wanted. She wanted to spit fire she could feel in her chest who was blazing a path through the world.
The divorce was messy. Not because of any hatred between the two but due to the love they had and secretes the two had keep from each other. Her husband had felt his soulmate bond snap in place. Had felt it since undergrad when he was 20. He had lied the entire time about being an untethered. It turned out that he was a denier instead. Insisted that soulmate bonds forced people to be together. That it took away all choice in the matter. He hated soul bonds.
They fought about it like they had never fought about anything before. Two ideological differences that they couldn’t find a bridge to cross. But they forced themselves to. Their child the keystone between them that kept them from going too far. And after the dust settled they became the best co-parents their son could ask for. Eventually Baran’s ex husband moved on, he found a partner and she joined the fold of co-parenting. Baran could never brugrud her son for having more people to love him.
It was a decision involving her ex husband, his new wife and most importantly her son Keyvan that got them all moving to Pittsburg. A move that would knock a tiny domino with affects even she herself wasn’t aware of yet.