Klaine: Soulmates.

Disclaimer: I own nothing linked to Glee. Idea of the story was from in time, I don't own that either. Enjoy me not owning anything.

Getting a Chrono is something as trivial as getting your first haircut. Usually done within the first two years of life, Chronos were something that nearly everyone under the age of twenty had. It was a simple device, small and unnoticeable unless you knew what to look for. It was a nearly flat, rectangular metal plate about an inch and a half in length, attached to the inside of the person's left wrist. When applied it supposedly hurt as much as getting your ears pierced, but no one remembered because they were so young. The whole point of a Chrono was worth the initial pain it caused, though. You see, Chronos help you find your soul mate.

Studies done in the late eighties had shown that nearly everyone in successful marriages had a common chemical in their blood, unique to each couple. The Chrono, once affixed, would tap into the veins and run a scan to see which unique chemical the person carried. It would communicate with every other Chrono on the planet and find the person with the same chemical, and that would be their soul mate.

Of course, there was another thing that Chronos could do that was operated in a way that only the makers of the device understood. They were able to tell when you will meet your soul mate, indicating the time by glowing different colors. If it was a dull red, it would be a very long time. Bright yellow meant you were halfway there, and completely green meant you had mere days to go. When it flashed bright white and beeped, you had met.

No matter what, the inventors would not reveal how the devices knew when your soul mate would arrive. They said it was because of marketing, so that no one could steal their idea, and it worked well considering there were no other timer companies on the planet.

Chronos were slight cause for worry though, when they were first sold. When you got your Chrono, if the screen was black it meant that your soul mate hadn't gotten one yet and it would light up when they did. However, if it started out light and suddenly shut off, this meant that your soul mate had died, thus stopping blood flow and,

~.~.~.~

It happened so suddenly that he had to do a double take. Kurt was sitting at the dinner table with his dad when Burt asked him to pass the basket of garlic bread, and when Kurt reached out my left arm to grab it, he saw the small screen on his wrist turn from lime green, almost yellow, to black.

Kurt froze with his arm hovering over the table, staring at the little device, his mind stuck. At first he just waited, waited for it to blink back to life, refusing to think of what it might actually mean. In the back of his mind Kurt remembered the only other time he'd seen this happen in real life, when his mother and father's Chronos flickered out together as he sat beside her hospital bed. But, that couldn't happen to him, he was only thirteen...his soul mate couldn't be dead...he couldn't...

Kurt had tears in my eyes before he even realized what was happening, his eyes still fixed on the electronic. It was like watching a heart monitor flat line, like seeing his mother die all over again, and he knew his dad had seen it too when he got up and pulled Kurt into his arms. He buried my face in Burt's shoulder and cried harder than he'd since he was eight, taking in the familiar smells of car oil and home.

It was a rough night. Burt offered to let Kurt sleep with him in his bed like he'd done the night Elizabeth died, but Kurt declined. Mom had belonged to both of them and it was their pain to share, but this was different. This was Kurt's soul mate, his other half, and his alone.

Kurt cried and cried, staring at his wrist in the dark, missing the warm glow that used to lull him to sleep. Sometimes it was the only comfort when he was being bullied, that light, because it told him that there was someone out there waiting to find him. Kurt knew it would be a boy, he'd known that since age five. Maybe he'd faced the same hardships as Kurt, and when they were older and had met they'd be able to talk about them.