Blaine steps through the Motta clinic doors and walks over to the receptionist’s counter. He smiles at the middle-aged woman behind the desk and leans on the tall edge. “Hello again, Mrs. Needham. How was your afternoon?”

She smiles back, but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “It’s Mr. Anderson, back again, and this time he’s on time. Do you have your two forms of photo ID?”

Blaine can handle this. He is charm personified. “Yes, ma’am, of course I do.” He takes out his driver’s license and his Dalton student ID card and hands them across the desk. “Do you need anything else?”

“No, your account is already taken care of, so I don’t need payment.” She glances at both cards briefly before handing him a clipboard. “I gotta make a copy of these. You start on filling out this stuff and bring it back when you’re done.”

Blaine grabs the clipboard and walks over to an empty row of chairs on the other side of the sparsely decorated room and begins filling out the forms. Most of it is just the basic stuff like his personal contact information or emergency contact information. Blaine has already been subjected to a complete medical history, family medical history, and behavioral risk questionnaire, not to mention a CT scan and MRI, when he’d come in two weeks ago for his pre-appointment. That time had taken four hours of being questioned, poked, prodded, and scanned.

When he’d asked why he couldn’t just have the procedure that day, the nurse had looked down at him with a patronizing smirk. “We’re going to have study all this so that Dr. Daniels doesn’t accidentally stimulate the wrong part of your brain and blind you or make you start speaking Swahili.” Which was stupid, of course, since there’s no way either of those were remote possibilities. There are risks involved, and Blaine and his family had been made aware of them. They’re minimal, though, and both he and his mother signed the standard waiver.

Blaine finishes the new paperwork and heads back up to the receptionist’s desk. He leans against the edge again. “Hi, Mrs. Needham. I’m done.”

She barely glances up at him as she removes the clipboard from his hands. She gives him back his ID cards before skimming over the paperwork. “Looks like everything is in order. Thank goodness you’re a private pay. So much less work.”

“Really?” Blaine has wondered about that, especially since he’ll be using his government voucher in March if this appointment doesn’t go well. “What’s different?”

“Oh, tons. When the government’s paying for it you gotta get a DNA sample to make sure it’s the right person so no one tries to get additional chances. And you gotta fill out like five times more forms.” She turns around in her chair. “Katie,” Mrs. Needham shouts, “you ‘bout ready for the Anderson boy?”

Good. He’d met Katie last time and liked her. She comes around the corner and waves to him. “Mr. Anderson, it’s nice to see you again. Would you follow me back, please?”

Blaine strolls around the desk, bowing goodbye to Mrs. Needham (who pays no notice), and grins at Katie as he makes his way through the door she holds open. “You’ll be in a different room this time.” He hears the door to the clinic area shut, and Katie shifts around him to lead the way down the hall. “So are you nervous?”

“Yeah, a little, I guess.” Or a lot. Tons. Mega massive amounts.

Katie chuckles and ushers him into a large room. “Try not to worry. We’ll take good care of you, I promise. Have a seat in the chair over there, and I’ll take your vitals.” She walks over to a cabinet and starts pulling out medical instruments. “I didn’t see your parents or anyone out there with you.”

“No. Is that a problem? I can call my friend Wes, and he can be here in a couple of hours.”

“Not a problem. I just thought maybe one of your parents would have come with you.”

Blaine shrugs. “Well, my mother signed the consent forms last time I was here, when we talked with Dr. Daniels, and they both had work today, so…” He doesn’t want to tell her they hadn’t even offered. He’s pretty sure they would have felt differently if there was any hope his soulmate might be a girl, but he prefers not think about that at the moment. They’d still paid for him to do this, even knowing they probably won’t like the outcome. That has to be enough for now.

“No worries. We’ll probably just keep you a few extra minutes after it’s all over with to make sure you don’t have any lingering nausea or headache.”

“Is that common?” Blaine starts fidgeting as Katie takes his temperature, pulse ox, blood pressure, etc.

“I wouldn’t say it’s common, but it also isn’t unusual. You’re looking through another person’s field of vision. Even if they aren’t on a rollercoaster or something, which I have seen happen, it can be disorienting to go rapidly from one environment to another.” She glances over at Blaine tapping his fingers on his armrest before she moves a little closer and says softly, “We’ve done this with lots of people, though, even some repeat customers, and no one has reported any lasting effects, okay?”

“Okay.” He takes a deep breath. “I’m fine, really. Just anxious about what I’m going to see.”

“Aren’t we all?” She turns around and grabs an alcohol prep. “Now, let’s see about shaving your head a little, okay?”

* * * * * * * * *

Fifteen minutes later and Blaine is ready. And nervous and rambling. “It’s kind of remarkable how quickly you guys can do this, huh? I mean, you have to know where my soulmate spot is to shave the little areas of my head, and thank God I have thick hair that’ll cover those up pretty well, right?” He chuckles nervously, and when neither of the other two in the room responds immediately, he blathers on. “And then you have to know where to place the electromagnets and the coils on my head, and how to size the helmet and everything? That’s pretty impressive. I don’t think I could do that.”

Dr. Daniels grins at him. “Thanks. We do our best. Is the music okay? We have to make it something quiet and peaceful, but if you’d rather have something other than the Bach we can do that.” 

Blaine starts to shake his head but then realizes he can’t move. “No, I like Bach. I’m good.” Blaine really likes Dr. Daniels. He’s a nice guy, with thick, salt-and-pepper hair that Blaine is kind of jealous of. Blaine liked him immediately after they met the first time when he was able to make Blaine’s parents feel comfortable without being too stiff himself.

Dr. Daniels nods before continuing. “Now, a couple of things to remember before we get going with this.

“When I start these very concentrated electromagnetic pulses, the effect might be immediate or may take several minutes. When it does take effect, though, you’ll have absolutely no warning. Remember that although you’ll be able to see everything he or she sees, you’ll have no control over where you look. Sight is the only one of your soulmate’s senses you’ll have. Anything you hear or smell or feel will be in this room with Katie and myself, alright?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I have no way of knowing how long this will last; the episode will end just as quickly as it begins. I’ve had patients with as little as two and a half minutes, and I’ve had patients with as many as seven minutes. Any questions?”

Blaine feels like he’s about to come out of his skin. Time is moving slower, he’s sure of it. “Nope. I’m ready.” He wiggles his feet in anticipation. “Let’s do this.”

Dr. Daniels chuckles. “Okay. Remember that you’ll be able to talk to me, so if you need to stop or you start to feel sick or uncomfortable, just say the word.” He moves around to do something out of Blaine’s field of vision, and Blaine almost immediately hears a low humming noise.

The doctor leans around the chair so that Blaine can see him. “How are we? Doing okay?”

“Yep. Still here.”

“Alright. Katie and I will be silent until it’s all over unless you talk to us, okay?”

“Yes, sir.” He sits in the chair, waiting for something to happen. He wishes it would hurry up; it feels like this is taking forever. He wonders if he could count all the ceiling tiles, just to give himself something to do without going crazy, before it kicks in. But then –

* * * * * * * * *

Blaine blinks and opens his eyes to find himself somewhere else. He gasps and holds tighter to his chair. “This is the weirdest experience of my life,” he says and hears someone snort. Oh, that’s right. Dr. Daniels and Katie can hear him.

Blaine gazes around at his surroundings. So his soulmate isn’t colorblind. Good to know. Right now he’s looking down at a girl who is shorter than he is. Than his soulmate is.  Well … that’s confusing. She has brown hair and talks rapidly, her eyes trained directly on his soulmate’s.

He needs to figure out where this is, he knows that, but the only thing he can really see is the girl still chatting away. He’s grateful for a moment that he can’t hear her, otherwise that could be really distracting. God, this is difficult. He’s always thought he’d be able to look around on his own within his soulmate’s field of vision, but unfortunately he can only see where his soulmate’s eyes are pointed.

Start looking for clues. His soulmate is wearing something red, maybe? There’s a tabletop to the right, so he’s sitting at a table but has his head turned to the left to listen to the brunette who is still talking. What if this is all he sees? How’s he supposed to learn anything if the only thing he experiences is some girl talking incessantly?

No panicking. Focus. There are possibly people across the table that he can sort of make out. Nothing definite beyond the fact that one person wears black, one is in red and white, and they both appear to be girls. One might be –

Holy…! Head turning. Whoa. Stomach feeling a little queasy after that. Some kind of warning would be nice. Okay. Looking across the table. Two girls and a guy in his field of vision, and it looks like someone sits directly to his right. One of the girls speaks now. Should he be trying to read lips?

Too late. His soulmate looks up at the ceiling then back down to the girl before glancing to his right. So that sick stomach rolling thing is what Katie was talking about, then. Ugh. Bright side, it gave him a chance to see more of the surroundings. He can tell they’re definitely in a restaurant.

Wait. He knows that restaurant. Coffee house. Yes, coffee house!! He just came from there. He could see the chair where he sat for an hour a few tables away to his soulmate’s right. OH MY GOD. HAD HE BEEN SITTING IN THE SAME ROOM WITH HIS SOULMATE AND DIDN’T KNOW IT OH MY GOD?!?

His soulmate leans forward, around a guy in a wheelchair and a blonde in a cheerleading uniform, to look at –

No. No no no no no. The scary cheerleader. His soulmate sits just three seats away from the scary cheerleader who’d hit on him. Santana. Her name is Santana, and she stares back at him with a look of clear disdain. Whoever she speaks to – his soulmate – isn’t someone she particularly likes. Wait. She smiles a little before –

Head turning again, God, that’s annoying. His soulmate picks up his coffee and lifts it to his lips to drink, but then someone hits his soulmate’s arm and his soulmate looks down. He catches a glimpse of his soulmate’s legs wearing jeans –

* * * * * * * * *

And then he’s back in the doctor’s office. Blaine reels for a split second before he starts shouting. “I need out, I need out, I need to get out, out, out. Let me out of here!”

“Mr. Anderson, please –“

“You don’t understand; he’s five minutes away from here. He’s at The Lima Bean. I need to go before he leaves!” He stares at Katie as she hurries to him from across the room. Dr. Daniels, somewhere behind Blaine, turns off the machines. Blaine tries to lean forward, to sit up, but is stopped immediately by the helmet on his head and the shoulder restraint he’d forgotten about. “Unhook me from all this stuff, please, I have to go now!”

Katie leans down so she looks directly in his eyes. “Blaine, listen to me. You have to calm down. We can’t let you go if you’re upset. Part of our criteria states that a patient has to be calm and in full control of himself before he’s allowed to leave.”

Blaine’s eyes grow to the size of saucers, he’s sure. “But. … I have to leave, Katie. I have to.”

Katie starts unhooking something on his head. “Then you’re going to have to relax. We’ll get you out of here just as quickly as we can, but how long it takes is ultimately up to you. Calm yourself, show us you can be trusted to leave, and we’ll have you in your car in ten minutes. Keep up the hysterics, and it’ll be much longer.”

Fighting every instinct in him, Blaine sits back and tries to relax.

“That’s good, Blaine.” Dr. Daniels is back in his line of sight. “Breathe deeply. Focus on what you can do right now, which is to memorize the details you saw. Commit them to memory while we undo everything.” Blaine nods and closes his eyes.

Right. His soulmate was sitting at a table to the left of The Lima Bean’s front door as you walk in, with his back to the door. He was sitting between a guy in a wheelchair and a girl with brown – oh, he was so stupid. The chatty brunette was the loud one who’d admonished Santana.

“Almost done, Blaine. You’re doing well,” he hears Katie say. He feels her apply some sort of cream to where she’d shaved his head earlier.

Focus. What else was there? His soulmate was wearing jeans and a red shirt or jacket. Um. There was maybe a girl with long, dark hair across from him wearing all black? Yes! He remembers her from before! He’d glanced at the table, mostly at Santana, as he was leaving, and he sort of remembers seeing her as one of the non-jock/cheerleader people. But he can’t remember who’d been sitting where his soulmate was.

“Mr. Anderson?” Blaine opens his eyes to see Dr. Daniels sitting on a stool beside him. “You’re unhooked, but I have to ask you a few quick questions before I can let you leave, okay?”

“Yes, fine, okay.”

“Good. Now, are you feeling any nausea or discomfort?”

“Absolutely not, sir.” That isn’t entirely true. His stomach flips and churns, but Blaine’s pretty sure it’s an effect of the adrenaline and excitement of possibly finding his soulmate, rather than the procedure.

“Excellent. Are you having any visual disturbances?”

“No, sir.”

“No part of your vision is blacked out, and you don’t see any phantom images from your experience?”

“None, sir.”

“Good.” He holds up a hand. “I need you to follow my finger.” He moves his index finger left and right so Blaine can follow with his eyes.

“Very good. Okay. I think you can be cleared to leave.” Blaine sits up and starts out of the chair, but Dr. Daniels stops him. “Blaine, it’s very important that if you have any delayed reaction or feel strange in any way that you call me or call this office. Do you have the post-procedure information?”

“Katie gave it to me before we started. It’s in my bag.”

“Alright. Blaine, don’t speed or break any laws getting over there. It’s not worth your life or someone else’s, got it?”

Blaine exhales loudly and nods. “Yes, sir. I know. I’ll be careful, I swear.”

“Go on.”

“Thank you!” He jumps out of the chair and grabs his bag that was waiting against the wall. As he runs to the door he calls out, “Thanks, guys. Wish me luck!”

He thinks maybe one of them says something in return, but he’s already halfway down the hallway. Blaine moves quickly through the lobby (“I’m pre-paid, Mrs. Needham, but you can bill my parents if there’s more!”) and runs to his car. Once he opens the car door, he throws his bag into the empty passenger seat and jumps in. And okay, yeah, he’s slightly dizzy from all the motion after being in his soulmate’s head, but it’s nothing he can’t handle.

Dr. Daniels is right, of course. No need to risk anything. But he can still be cautious and quick at the same time, right?

* * * * * * * * *

Six minutes later he pulls into The Lima Bean parking lot. He snatches his wallet and phone out of his bag, stumbling as he gets out of the car. Through the window he can see the same group as before still at the tables inside. Telling himself to settle down, he walks in and stops. Blaine slowly turns to his left, trying to be nonchalant, to see his soulmate’s back.

He has shortish brown hair, sort of styled up, and he’s wearing a red jacket and jeans. Right. So he’ll just go over and … what? What??

God. No. He hasn’t thought of what to say. What do people in this situation say? Should he be direct? Take a few seconds? Get to know him first? The boy has his arm draped around the back of the chair where the talkative brunette sits. Are they friends?

Focus. Right. He’ll just go over and say hi and see what happens. Wait. Scary Santana is getting up! No, crap, hide!

Blaine quickly does an about face and flees to a table partially obscured by a large display of Lima Bean mugs. He can still see most of the group, though.

This is productive and mature, really.

Blaine stays hidden at the table for a minute, weighing his options and trying to formulate a game plan. His soulmate laughs now, though Blaine can’t hear it. The guy with the mohawk says something else, and his soulmate keeps laughing. Maybe mohawk isn’t as scary as he looks.

Two people pass in front of him, and one stops at the table with the group he’s watching. Stalking? No, just watching. The girl calls out, “Okay, we’re done. Time to leave. I got a history test Monday that ain’t gonna study for itself. Hey Mike, can you give me a ride home so Kurt doesn’t have to go out of his way?”

A tall, lean guy with short dark hair stands up and takes the hand of the girl in black Blaine remembers from before. “No problem, as long as Tina and I are at my house in time for dinner.”

The girl in black rolls her eyes and says, “Asian dinner.”

The next few moments happen very quickly.

The couple holding hands starts arguing about Asian … something. Someone else says, “Well, if you guys are leaving, we’ll head out, too.”

Then all of a sudden everyone at the table is leaving. His soulmate, who’s taller than he’d looked sitting down, turns around, and Blaine gets a look at his face for the first time. He’s good looking, most definitely. Kind of cute in a boyish way, with nice eyes. Blaine doesn’t feel any fireworks or anything, but a lot of people don’t the first time they see each other.

His soulmate puts his arm back around the tiny brunette as they make their way to the front door, the brunette still chattering. “And you could come over after you eat dinner, and we could work on our duet together and then maybe watch a movie or something, right?”

They make it all the way to the door and start outside before it finally hits Blaine that they’re leaving and if he doesn’t do something he’ll lose them. He jumps up and rushes to the exit, but he gets stuck at the back of the group as they single-file their way through the door. His soulmate and the girl had been toward the front of the group when they exited.

Blaine finally squeezes through people standing around in the doorway but then comes to an abrupt stop. His soulmate’s arms are around the girl as they’re saying goodbye.

And then he leans down to kiss her. On the lips. Like a real kiss.

Someone yells from the direction of the parking lot. “Finn Hudson, I need to get home to start dinner, so if you don’t get over here in five seconds I am leaving without you, and you can explain to our parents why you had to walk home.”

His soulmate breaks the kiss with a loud smack and yells back. “Hold on! I’m coming. I’m allowed to say goodbye to my girlfriend!”

Girlfriend?

The same voice from before cuts across the parking lot. “5 … 4 … 3 …”

“Fine! I’m coming.” He turns back to the brunette and kisses her quickly. “I’ll call you after dinner, Rachel. Bye!”

“Bye! I’ll start putting together song ideas!”

Blaine watches, stunned, as his soulmate runs quickly to a large black SUV and hops in the passenger side. He says something to the driver, but Blaine can’t hear it.

And then they drive off. Blaine stands there, just outside the entrance to The Lima Bean, dumbfounded. He found his soulmate.

His name is Finn Hudson.

And he has a girlfriend.