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Around three-quarters of the planet’s population experienced what was commonly known as the soulmate phenomena and it frustrated Sheldon to no end, both in his youth and in adulthood. It was mainly biologists like Amy and Bernedette or philosopher’s like Sheldon’s old professor Dr. Ericson that studied soulmates. Some fields of physics touched it but that wasn’t Sheldon’s area of interest at all. That didn’t mean he wasn’t familiar with it.
What was known was that some individuals shared marks on their skin that appeared at birth and became more vibrant when they came into contact with the other person who shared their mark. After that, the known data became a bit fuzzier, which Sheldon found a bit appalling considering how many people had these marks. Everyone seemed to have a different story of what exactly it was like so no real consensus could be reached beside the fact that something occurred.
Some thought soulmarks represented the strings of fate tying together individuals meant to meet in life. Some thought they were god-given clues to point lives in the right direction. Some thought they were just marks, that they were totally random and utterly meaningless. Some thought they were something right out of a fairytale telling people who would give them their happily ever after. When the bond was made, some claimed they could feel each other’s emotions or hear each other's thoughts.
For Sheldon, it was something between the two but closer to the latter. When such brilliant minds shared that sort of bond, it was almost inevitable. He didn’t think much on it though.
Once, when Leonard was busy moaning about something or another and Sheldon didn’t want to hear it, Leonard asked him why Sheldon wasn’t interested in the soulmate phenomena. It was a question mankind had been asking themselves as long as the human mind has existed. Surely Sheldon found the challenge of solving that somewhat thrilling. Sheldon had responded he was interested in the realm of science, not intangible feelings that could never be proven, and left it at that. It wasn’t exactly a lie but Leonard was too occupied to press for the truth.
Another reason was that Sheldon found soulmates and their marks tiresome. Everyone seemed to be just obsessed with it. Someone like Missy, Sheldon could understand. He had to share a room with her during her most boy-crazy years afterall. But even people who Sheldon would like to consider rational people were all over it and not even in a scientific or academic sense. They just wanted to know everything about everyone else, and soulmates were a perfect focal point.
“Would Dr. Cooper and Dr. Fowler’s story be a lot more romantic if they were soulmates?”
Raj shut off the TV pretty quick after that but they’d all heard it. It wasn’t exactly new either. Sheldon and Amy had been all over the news since winning their Nobel and now that the excitement was starting to die down, the public was milking the story for all it had left. For anyone who made it big, that meant poking at soulmates and scientists weren’t excused from that.
“Who do they think they are?” Penny said loudly, breaking the silence. She was draped over the armchair beside the couch, bowl of chips on her lap. “Coming up with a theory at a wedding? That’s romantic as hell!”
“You don’t have to get angry on our behalf,” Sheldon told her quietly.
“You know they’re crossing a line, Sheldon,” Leonard piped up, only looking mildly uncomfortable with Penny sitting on his lap. “That’s your business.”
“Would make a good story though,” Raj pointed out, earning a swift elbow from Bernedette who was sitting on the couch behind him. “Hey! It’s true!”
“Doesn’t mean you should say it,” Amy scolded.
“Three-quarters of our species has soulmarks,” Sheldon iterated, repeating the fact he’d whispered to himself so many times before. “It is the focal point of human curiosity. It is not surprising that ours are being questioned.”
“I know this may be kind of inappropriate to ask right now,” Howard started slowly, ignoring a glare from both his wife and Penny, “but you two aren’t soulmates, right? We know Sheldon doesn’t have any marks but sometimes things happen.”
“It’s fine and we’re not,” Amy told him easily. “I don’t have any marks and it doesn’t really bother me.”
“Really?” Penny asked, turning to look at her. “Even as a kid?”
“Wait, how do we know Sheldon doesn’t have any marks?” Raj asked, glazing over Penny’s question. He glanced between Sheldon and Howard, the clockwork ticking in his head. “You ever see him naked?”
“Raj!”
“What? That’s like the only way you can know for sure!”
“I lived with him for years,” Leonard pointed out, “and I never saw anything.”
“Being my roommate does not mean you get the pleasure of seeing me naked,” Sheldon responded, displeasure visible on his face. “It says so very clearly in our roommate contract.”
“Wait,” Bernadette jumped in, “so you’re saying you do have a mark?”
Sheldon hesitated before speaking. “Yes.”
“And you’ve been hiding it from us all this time?” Raj questioned, voice going high. “Come on, dude. We’ve been friends for how long?”
“He doesn’t have to share if he doesn’t want to.”
“Amy’s right. He doesn’t.”
“Thank you.”
“But I still want to know why Sheldon never told us!” Penny continued, sitting up a bit so she could face Sheldon a bit more directly. “I thought we were closer than that.”
“Do you really want to know?” Sheldon asked after a moment.
“Yeah!”
Sheldon took a breath and then began rolling up his sleeves, one on each arm. Noticing this, Leonard chuckled. “Two? Didn’t think you had it in you, Sheldon.”
When Sheldon was done, he held up his arms, revealing the front of his forearms and marks on each one. Calling them marks may be a stretch though. They were so blackened and faded out that not even a soulmark expert would be able to decipher what the marks once looked like. “I don’t have the happiest relationship with soulmates.”
Leonard’s face quickly dropped. “Your… your soulmates died?”
“Only one of them,” Sheldon responded, holding his right arm up a bit more stiffly. The mark on that one was heavily blurred and colored a deep black. “Don’t worry. He was quite old when he died.”
“You were bonded to an old guy?” Howard asked, looking confused. Sheldon rotated so his offered arm was facing him.
“Two marks.” Sheldon moved his arms a bit for emphasis. “Usually that means at least one of them is platonic.”
“Or that you have another partner for you when your first one dies.”
“Dr. Sturgis is nearly sixty years older than me and we met when I was nine. I don’t think he was meant to be a romantic partner, Rajesh.”
“I was just saying…”
“What about the other one?” Amy asked, looking at Sheldon’s arms as close as she dared without touching him. He’d probably allow it but she didn’t exactly want to spook him when he was opening up like this. “It’s dark enough that I thought your other one was dead too.”
“He never told you?” Leonard asked, sounding surprised.
“No. Did he ever tell you?”
“I was his roommate! You’re his wife. Big difference.”
“He’s right. There is a pretty big difference,” Sheldon agreed. “You’ve seen me naked. That’s why you’ve seen my marks and he hasn’t.”
“Just tell us about your other soulmate,” Amy said, trying not to sound annoyed.
“Her name’s Paige Swanson,” Sheldon answered, sounding a bit wistful, “though she might’ve changed it. I haven’t looked her up in awhile. If I’m married, she might be too. I don’t think she’s the type to change her name though. Or maybe even the type for marriage, for that matter.”
“Your other soulmate’s a girl?” Raj clarified, surprise etched on his face. “And you married Amy? No offense, Amy.”
“None taken,” Amy responded, not even bothering to look at him. “I’m surprised, Sheldon.”
“Good surprised or bad surprised?”
“I don’t know. I assumed one or both of them were romantic soulmates since you wouldn’t talk about them but hearing confirmation is still something.”
“Oh, Paige and I weren’t romantic.”
“She another oldie?” Penny asked.
“Unfortunately not,” Sheldon responded, missing Raj and Howard’s mutterings at the use of the word ‘unfortunately.’ “She’s my age. We met in Dr. Sturgis’ class actually. She was another genius. All of us were.”
“You passed up a girl version of you?!”
Bernadette elbowed Raj again. “I see what Amy was saying about the mark being too dark to read much. Are you sure she’s still alive?”
Sheldon nodded. “Yup. It’s been this way for years. My mother called her mother when it first started getting dark and she said she was fine, except her mark was doing the same thing.”
“I haven’t heard anything like that happening before.”
“Soulmarks are just crazy like that.”
“I’m a biologist, Raj. And I’m in the medical field,” Bernadette responded, tone clipped. “I had to study the soulmate phenomenon quite a bit. This could be something totally unheard of.”
“I considered that but I didn’t want to check.”
“This could be a real breakthrough, Sheldon.”
“I know. But soulmarks are two ways. Even if I wanted to understand it, there’s no way anyone could learn anything from it without the other side of the pair and I don’t think that would be very fair to Paige.”
“Well, you got any theories or anything?” Penny asked, craning her neck to try to get another look at Sheldon’s arm. Leonard groaned a bit as her weight shifted on his lap, presumably digging a bone into one of his thighs, but he didn’t say anything more than that.
“We were both recognized as geniuses. We also both struggled socially. Dr. Sturgis too.” Sheldon smiled a bit. “Meemaw would say we were three peas in a pod. That got in the way of our friendship sometimes.”
“So… Your soulbond was severed because you didn’t get along?”
“I wouldn’t say it’s severed. It’s not all black yet. There’s still some gray in there.” Sheldon lowered his right arm, cranking his left one around to get a better look at it himself. “And it was more than that. We all had our own issues. Dr. Sturgis had psychosis, plus he was getting old. Paige’s parents were getting a divorce around the time and it was really hard on her. And then there was everything with my family afterward. Those things didn’t exactly make us fight but it made it harder to come back from. At some point… we just couldn’t anymore and our marks reflected that.”
“That’s so sad,” Penny said, and it sounded like she really meant it. “You think you’re ever going to try reaching out to her again?”
Sheldon, finally lowering his arm, swiveled to glare at her. “Did you not hear a word I just said? Some things have no coming back.”
Penny waved a hand, shushing him. “I heard you. It’s been a long time though, hasn’t it? And you said yourself your mark isn’t black yet.”
“What are you doing, Penny,” Amy hissed under her breath but Sheldon didn’t react, unbothered.
“She’s not a romantic soulmate. I’m fairly certain of it.”
“Not what I was suggesting.” Penny swung her legs off the arm rest and put the bowl on her lap down on the coffee table, shifting so she was no longer lying on top of Leonard. “You already lost one soulmate. You really want to lose another one?”
“Not really,” Sheldon admitted, “but that was another era of my life. People like Paige and Dr. Sturgis were who I needed when I was a kid. I think I made it pretty clear in my Nobel acceptance speech that I already have anyone I need to be fulfilled, soulmate or not.”
“Aw,” Amy said softly, “Sheldon.”
“This is not new information. I just said that. There’s no need for this sappiness.”
“We love you too, bud.”
“Bud? Really, Leonard?”
“Back to hating you.”
“Leonard!” Penny scolded.
“Fine, fine. Back to neutral feelings.”
“Thank you.”