Nathaniel had heard stories his whole life of the red string of fate. A supposed thing that just appears when you're near your soulmate tying you two together and signifying they're the one for you. He didn't believe in any of that though, just children's stories to give them home in love and happy endings.

He knew the truth. He knew there were no happy endings. As a plague doctor he'd seen far too many people sob over the corpses of their dead spouse or children to ever believe fate could give you the person you could love most only to take them away in such a brutal manner. Besides...what matters in these times is science. With so many dead and the diseases spreading faster than he can get through the medical tomes to find ways to cure them or at least aid the dying, how could anyone have time to dedicate to such frivolity?

Or so he was certain till he was called to yet another house and as he stood over the bed of the latest patient of his, he sees it. A thin little red string tied in a bow around their finger and his, connecting them.

Oh so fate truly is that cruel. Proving him wrong, producing his own soulmate, only for him to find them ill.