Rain or Shine | Soulmate AU 1.5 |

15

I scroll through my playlists on Spotify, not finding the one I'm looking for until I'm all the way at the bottom of the list. Damien made me a playlist for my birthday a while back but I've never let myself sit down and listen to it. Now feels like a good time, though, so what the hell.

Every box of old stuff from my closet is currently strewn about the floor of my bedroom. There's a lot more than I remember having. I have an entire box of developed pictures, ones of my past team doing various stupid things as well as an insane number of Damien and I together. I never realized I have this many pictures from back then. They all got tossed haphazardly into a box just like everything else after the League relocated me to jumpstart my current team.

There are two large boxes of nothing but blankets which I can't even bring myself to feel embarrassed about. I couldn't just donate them or anything like that. The mere idea of parting with any one of them was unimaginable back then, let alone now.

I put a few of the best photos into some empty picture frames I find in another box. A selfie Damien and I took finds a new home on my bedside table. A group picture of the five of us on the team on Christmas ends up on my dresser alongside a picture from when we filled Damien's bedroom with balloons on his birthday. I used to think of these things as horrible reminders of what was and could've been, but my perspective has shifted quite a lot recently. It feels more okay to remember things now.

There's a box of some of Damien's old clothes, but I just refold them and close the box back up. Indulging in wearing them will be a step backwards at this point, so they'll stay in their box in my closet for the time being. Maybe my stomach won't ache at the idea of wearing the old college hoodie he wore religiously every winter after I've had some more time.
I bring the remaining picture frames out into my suite's living room, placing a bunch on the mantle of the fireplace.

I sit down in the kitchen with a turkey sandwich and a stack of paperwork when all is said and done. A lot of the papers are the normal stuff I have to fill out as the captain of the team: mission debriefs, Wendy's request for extended maternity leave, you name it. Paperwork is basically the foundation of the League. Almost everything that happens has a form that needs to be filled out and submitted as soon as possible to keep the organization running smoothly. At the top of my typical stack of forms right now, however, is the one I need to officially claim Damien as my counterpart.

Damien and I both agreed to wait until we got married to submit the necessary documents to claim each other in the League's eyes. The process was longer back than instead of the single double-sided page it is now. We simply didn't have the minutes to spare and figured we'd eventually have nothing but time to get everything squared off.

I fill out both sides of the form, writing in my full name and information as well as Damien's. It takes ten minutes at the most. I fold the form in half and slide it into a yellow mailing envelope along with my counterpart necklace. The League will need my half of the pendant to prove the validity of my claim. They already have Damien's pendant on file since the League buries its agents with their counterpart necklaces in almost every case. I have no idea why anybody would claim someone who's already dead as their counterpart, but I guess there are just some sick people out there.

The package of forms and my necklace will have to be hand-delivered to the department of HR that deals with this stuff in D.C, so I hand it off to Moon down on the tower lobby. He's due back to the big headquarters there within the week for some retired agents meeting that I know nothing about. He accepts the yellow envelope with a grin, placing it in a locked drawer behind his desk as I watch.

"I sure hope this is what I think it is," he comments.

I sigh.

"I've waited long enough, Julien," I reply. "His captain's cord and service medal are probably collecting dust on a shelf somewhere right now, and that's just not right."