Soulmate AU where you don’t see colour until you kiss your soulmate for the first time.
La Huerta would look beautiful in colour.
Now that they’ve escaped the sabertooth tiger, eaten the crab and left the cliffside, Amelia can finally appreciate the view. On one side, the sea stretches out into the horizon. On the other, there’s mountains and the volcano and jungle, the ground dotted with flowers, each a different shade of grey.
It’s a guilty pleasure of hers to listen to podcasts and watch radio shows where those who have found and kissed their soulmates describe what the world looks like in colour. She remembers the descriptions, and although she finds it almost impossible to imagine a life that’s not black and white, she’s certain that La Huerta would put every single one of those places to shame.
But the beauty of La Huerta isn’t really something she can dwell on, not when they’re making the way over a lake of magma and getting trapped in the observatory. She’s not going to think about love and soulmates and colours when there are blinking terminals, military pods, and interrogation rooms to think about.
Every time Amelia thinks the island can’t get any weirder, she’s proven wrong, and this one room seems determined to keep raising the stakes. The weird flare gun, the dossiers, and now a hologram? Things have been strange since they arrived, but this room feels like she’s walked into a sci-fi film.
When Jake points out that the weird pod-thing is open, she isn’t even surprised. They aren’t getting any further with the hologram and her ‘self-identity input needed’, so Amelia wanders over to the pod and looks inside. There’s a soft light inside, just enough to highlight a couple of circular grooves on the floor.
None of them knows what the grooves are for or what the pod will do, but they’ve exhausted the rest of the room. There doesn’t seem to anything they can do except step inside, although Zahra’s comments about it dropping them in the magma aren’t exactly reassuring.
Not that that stops Sean.
He steps inside, shuffles his feet until they’re positioned perfectly in one of the grooves, but nothing happens. He needs someone to join him.
The others discuss it briefly, but Amelia already knows she’s going with him. They don’t know what the pod’s going to do, and she’s not going to let the others risk anything when the only reason they’re all here is that she had refused to let Sean go alone.
(“I can’t lose you,” she’d said. He’d smiled at her, his touch sending shivers through her when brushed his fingers against her arm, and promised her she wouldn’t.)
She’s glad the others came. Sean alone wouldn’t have made it to the observatory, and it’s almost as unlikely that they’d have managed it with only the two of them, but the pod will only fit two people and she’s not going to let any of them risk anything more when she can volunteer.
Amelia climbs into the pod to join Sean. They have to embrace one another to fit comfortably, his arms around her waist, her hands on his biceps, and when she looks up at him, Sean would only need to bend down slightly for their faces to be inches apart.
The pod door slams shut and the pod starts to shoot upwards, but that’s not the only reason why her heart is racing.
When the pod door opens again, the room outside is pitch black. They step out hand-in-hand, and Amelia cautiously runs her other hand along the wall. It’s smooth and curved, and although Amelia can’t see much, she thinks the room must be circular.
She walks right into Sean. He’s come to a halt, and although she hadn’t been able to see him do so, he’s turned around so that when she collides with him, her nose bumps against his chest. She’s suddenly too aware of her own heartbeat, of his, and when she lifts her head up to say something – although she doesn’t know what – he’s looking down at her, his head tilted just far enough for the tip of his nose to brush against hers.
“Any guesses as to where we are?” he whispers.
“No,” she answers, turning her head to look around the room as if she might suddenly able to see something. His nose brushes her cheek. “But I’m kind of thinking this is the part where the lights come on and everyone shouts ‘Happy birthday, Amelia!’”
He laughs, although it’s slightly strained, and she can feel each breath warm against her skin. “That’d be nice, huh? Big party… good drinks…”
“It’s like you’re reading my mind.”
They stand in silence, waiting for something – anything – to happen, and then Sean sighs. “Gotta say, Amelia, if there’s anyone I’m happy to be trapped in a dark, creepy, maybe-deathtrap with, it’s you.”
She smiles and squeezes his hand gently. “You mean that?”
“I do.”
He’s close enough for her to feel him start to smile, and although it’s too dark for her to see, she can already picture it. Slightly lopsided, one corner raised just a bit higher than the other, slightly shy, and completely breathtaking.
But then he’s gasping in surprise and taking a step back away from her, and all she wants to do is keep him close and feel his smile again. Instead, she stumbles forward slightly, off-balance. “What is it?” Amelia turns around, wondering what it is that’s startled Sean so much, and frowns when she sees several small white lights glowing along the edges of the wall. “What’s happening?”
The lights grow brighter, more blinding, and then suddenly they’re surrounded by stars. There are swirls of light, galaxies with a brilliant white core surrounded by dots of light, the specks growing dimmer as they whirl away from the galaxy’s centre until they look like little pieces of dust glittering in the air. There are shooting stars streaking past, supernovas pulsing a bright white then dimming back to grey before bursting.
“It’s… it’s…” Amelia’s not sure what to say. She’s never seen anything like it.
“The most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
She turns back to Sean. She can see him now, the lights bright enough to see the darker greys that decorate his polo shirt, the shadows of his cheekbones, the white reflection of light in his eyes. He’s looking at her, his gaze soft and undistracted by the universe around them. Her chest feels tight, her heart’s beating too fast, and she doesn’t even think when she steps towards him, steadying herself with her hands on his shoulders as she rises onto her tiptoes, lifts her head and presses her lips to his.
For a moment, it’s awkward. Sean doesn’t respond, and Amelia starts to wonder if she’s made a mistake. He’s flirted with her since they met on the plane, and he’s seemed to reciprocate every time she’s made a move – when the game of Marco Polo narrowed to just them, when he held her in his arms as they camped out under the stars – but maybe kissing is too far. Maybe Sean is one of the romantics, someone who waits until they believe the kiss will confirm what they already know – that they’re soulmates.
(He can’t be. He was with Michelle for two years and neither of them can see colour. If he made his romantic decisions based on the outcome of a single kiss, they wouldn’t have lasted as long.)
She starts to sink back down onto her heels, her lips starting to part from his, but then he has his arms around her and he’s hauling her close, lifting her so her toes are barely touching the floor. She clutches at his arms, sighs into him when he kisses her harder.
After what feels like a forever, his lips leave hers. She keeps her eyes closed as she tries to catch her breath, as she slides down Sean’s body so her feet are firmly on the ground again. He presses his lips to her forehead, lingers there for a second.
His arms slack around her suddenly, and she feels him take in a sharp, sudden breath. “No,” he whispers, and he sounds awed, incredulous. “This is it. This is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
Amelia opens her eyes, and it’s her turn to stop breathing, to gape at the room around them. It’s incredible, the room glowing with a constellation of colours she’s never seen before but can somehow name. There’s a blue sun flaring behind Sean, the galaxies glow pink and yellow, each colour of light dancing on Sean’s skin and reflecting in his eyes.
The trim on his shirt is blue.
“You’re right,” she breathes, her smile impossibly wide when she meets his gaze. “It’s… colourful.”
He reaches for her, his hands cupping her face, and then his lips are on hers again. She wraps her arms around his neck, lifts herself into him, and everything is Sean. She trails one hand over his shoulder, down his chest, and when she sways slightly, unable to balance on the very tips of her toes, his arms are around her again.
Amelia slides her hand along his waist, nudges up his shirt to press her hand against his abs. She needs to feel him, needs the warmth of his skin against her own. His hands caress her, one anchored at her waist, the other stroking up her back, and Amelia pulls her lips away from his to start trailing kisses along his jaw, down the side of his neck.
“Amelia,” he says, voice catching midway through her name when she nips at his skin, soothes it with her tongue. “Amelia, wait.”
She stops and sinks back to the balls of her feet, gazing up at him. “What?”
“Just give me a moment to look at you, okay?” His embrace loosens, one arm staying around her waist whilst he raises his hand and twists a brown strand of hair between his fingers. “Your eyes are beautiful. You’re beautiful.”
“What colour are they?”
“Blue.”
She could have stayed in that room for hours, with the stars glittering different colours around them and Sean’s arms around her, but they remember what they’re meant to be doing all too soon. Sean notices the constellations are wrong just as the lights fade around them, and they can’t stand and lose themselves in each other when there’s a satellite to connect and an island to escape from.
“Well? Did you find anything?” Grace asks the moment they leave the pod. Sean’s hand keeps holding hers.
“Did you guys kiss?” Craig teases, shaking his head when Michelle tells him to shut up. “Come on, Amelia’s cheeks are all red. I had to ask!”
She and Sean exchange a look, his hand giving hers a reassuring squeeze. “We saw… a hell of a thing,” Amelia tells them. “Stars and galaxies and the whole universe.”
They don’t answer Craig’s question. It’s not for anyone else to know about yet.
Several minutes later, after activating IRIS and hearing a few terrifying communications with the US coast guard, they find their way back out of the observatory. The others walk ahead, but Amelia lingers. From the top of the ridge, she can see so much of the island – the glittering deep blue of the sea and the sky, the green of the grass and the trees, the dusty orange paths and rocks.
She may have never seen the places described on podcasts and on television, but she’s sure she’s right. Nowhere can be more beautiful than La Huerta.
Sean’s arm settles around her shoulder and she turns her head to look at him. He’s beaming down at her, as though they haven’t just heard the world implode, and her breath catches and she smiles back.
(He’s always going to make her smile. It’s always going to be him.)
“I’m glad it’s you,” he says quietly, dipping his head to press a kiss to her forehead. “I wouldn’t want to share this,” he nods at the colourful island vista surrounding them, “with anyone else.”