Chapter 1
The day starts the way it always does.
Janet stands in front of her mirror, takes a deep breath, and begins to pull her hair back into a tight braid. The lightning shaped scar looms large over her left eye. She can see it. Her fingers run across the scar, still bright red against her skin even after years. She takes a deep breath, pops a blue-tinted false eye into her left socket, and blinks a few times. Her real eye wasn’t blue – isn’t blue. It draws attention to the falsity of it all. Her employer doesn’t like it. She thinks it just makes the customers pay attention to her.
They talk about her as they leave, too. She can hear them. They don’t try to not be heard.
Janet takes another deep breath. Another day just like every other day. They all bleed into each other after a while.
And to be honest, she feels like she’s been seeing the same people every day, too.
Sometimes she doesn’t think they’ve even changed clothes.
It’s been a few days since she’s done laundry.
Janet takes the basket down. It’s been days; there should be more in here than this. Maybe it hasn’t been as many days as she thinks she has. She starts the washer and goes back to her apartment on the top floor, turns on Agent Carter, and eats her vegetarian pizza. (She isn’t a vegetarian, but they’d offered it to her when they realized they’d made her the wrong order. She works at a retail store; she’ll take free food whenever it’s offered to her.)
There should be a new episode, but this one is a rerun. That’s okay. She’ll hash it out with Whitney and Emma at work tomorrow. Maybe they’ll have something new to say. She certainly will.
She falls asleep during whatever plays next and wakes with a shock when she realizes she’s missed her alarm. Janet runs downstairs and hurriedly tries to put her laundry in the dryer. It isn’t there. When she goes back upstairs, she sees her laundry basket still half full. She still has plenty of clothes left for work.
Maybe she’s still getting her days messed up.
Janet crawls into her bed, pulls the comforter over her head, and makes sure to set her alarm for the right time. She doesn’t want to have another shock again.
Whitney and Emma don’t have anything to say about the new Agent Carter episode. In fact, it seems like they haven’t seen it at all, even though the same episode played two weeks in a row. Well, maybe they don’t have anything to say because they said it all last week. Maybe they’re just pulling her leg. That sounds like them.
The same customer comes in complaining for the umpteenth time about how they’re out of the right charger for her phone. It’s not her fault they haven’t stocked it. Can’t the lady go try another store instead of coming in here every day?
Janet stifles a yawn and leans forward over the counter.
As soon as she see the charger woman, she goes to hide in the back. She goes through some of the boxes, checks the ones that just came off the truck, and finds a box full of chargers for the woman. If she cared a little more, she’d take one out to her, but she’s tired of dealing with her shit. That’s why she came to hide back here, anyway?
Emma glares at her when she comes back out, but she doesn’t apologize. Why should she?
If the lady doesn’t find one somewhere else, she’ll be back tomorrow. And tomorrow, they should have them in stock. They don’t sell out that fast.
And then she won’t have to deal with her again.
The charger lady comes back.
The stock hasn’t been moved.
Janet checks in the back for them because she didn’t avoid her like she’d planned on doing again.
The surplus stock isn’t where it normally is, and she finds the box where she found it the day before.
Is this a joke? --of course it’s a joke. This entire job is a joke.
She gets the woman the charger and goes back to the counter. At least she won’t have to deal with her again.
The charger lady is back again.
She doesn’t remember getting a charger yesterday.
Agent Carter is the same episode for the third week in a row.
There is still vegetarian pizza in her fridge, and she hasn’t gotten any since last week.
Oh.
Oh.
Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck-------
She’s supposed to meet her soulmate. That’s what this means. She’s supposed to meet her soulmate, and she’s missing them – whoever they are. She doesn’t know when she’s supposed to meet them or how or where or how she has missed them for three weeks, aren’t they looking for her, too? She can’t imagine that someone else didn’t pick up on the literally repeating loop of a day for three weeks, but if she didn’t—
She works retail. It’s not her fault. The days were bleeding together even before this whole hoopla began. If not for Agent Carter and the charger lady and the magic pizza, she might not have ever noticed at all.
She didn’t even think she would have a soulmate. She’s never been particularly attracted to anyone. Isn’t that part of this? She doesn’t think that’s just going to change because the other person is her soulmate. Or maybe that’s how she’ll know who they are?
This time – this time – she’s aware.
The day starts the way it always does.
Janet stands in front of the mirror and takes a deep breath. She pulls her hair back into a looser braid, runs her fingers along her scar, and then, despite the extra time it takes, slowly begins to cover the scar over her eye with make-up.
She doesn’t care. She doesn’t care. She isn’t ashamed of the scar. It’s a part of her now. She’s not afraid of it. She doesn’t care.
But if she’s going to meet her soulmate today – whichever today it is – she doesn’t want them to be turned away because—
Janet pauses with the powder just in one hand. She takes another deep breath and stares at herself. The scar is still there. It’s still visible. It just isn’t as harsh.
She blinks the one blue eye.
She bites her lip.
Her soulmate won’t care, whoever they are.
Her soulmate might care.
Janet has never tried to be pretty before. Emma’s going to make fun of her when she gets to work. She won’t say anything, but Janet will know. Whitney will poke at her, too, but then she’ll help. (Janet has seen the scar etched into Whitney’s face, too. It was Whitney who first suggested that she could cover it up and had given a few pointers. Janet had blown her off. What a fool she’d been then.)
Sometimes Whitney and Emma hold hands. They’re cute together. Emma doesn’t care about Whitney’s scar, but Whitney does.
The goal should be to look for her soulmate.
But if Janet has the extra time…maybe she’ll learn a few things first.
Where’s the harm in that?