We all had it at least once before, this feeling of déjà-vu. Sometimes, it’s when you meet someone new, sometimes it’s when you go to a place for the first time. It’s all brand new to you, but somehow it feels like you’ve already been there before. It happens to everyone, and yet, it took hundreds and hundreds of years for it to finally find an explanation.
Death is not the end, it’s just another beginning. The soul never dies; it goes from dying bodies to baby ones and so on. Again and again and again.
The people walking down the Earth five hundred years ago are the same walking next to you at this very moment. They just don’t remember it. There’s only one way for them to remember, fully, about all their past lives, to end all the déjà-vu feelings for good, to get all the memories of the lives they’ve led, the person they’ve been… To get them all back, there is only one way.
They have to find their match.
On everyone’s very first life, the gods gave them a match. Someone to complete them, help them going through life, someone to share it with. On everyone’s very first life, they were put together from the beginning, But not on the second one or any of the next ones.
It is up to you to find them. Fate, as some called it, might put you two back together and when you’d stare into each other’s eyes for the first time, you’d get it all back. All the memories of the past, all the lives you’ve been through, the people you’ve met and loved or hated. Everything.
But according to books and documentary, this is not only about your match. It had been proved that the people you shared your life with in your past lives will always be around you in some way – the one that meant something to you, at least. A bond that linked maybe dozens of people together somehow.
You think it’s crazy. You’re sitting on the bleachers of the skate park, your board under your feet and your soda can on your lips and you think it’s crazy.
There will be people who will try everything they can to find their match. Apparently, it’s like some soulmate thing and, hell Lexa, who doesn’t want to meet their soulmate? (your ex’s last word to you, on the doorstep of your house, the day she broke up with you). And it’s crazy to see that there are people whiling to travel the world and look into every single person on that goddamn earth’s eyes just to find their match. Very crazy, because you’re here, on the bleachers and you couldn’t care less about your match. You’re honestly too focused on making fun of Anya for that fall she just took by not watching were she was going – she was looking at Raven’s lower back as the brunette was walking towards you and you honestly believe that Anya’s gay is going to be the death of her someday.
Raven sits next to you, her board against the bench as she massages her leg. You know how you can’t ask about it so you just grab you backpack and take a soda can out of it, handing it to her without a word. She thanks you with a nod and you look back to the park, where Anya and Lincoln are running in circles around each other, chatting about you don’t know what.
Looking at them, you remember your kind of fateful meeting in the orphanage when you were five, and how Anya kicked Lincoln’s butt after he made you cry – you don’t really remember why that happened but the guy apologized the next day and you three never left each other’s side after that. Raven came in a while later, after the car accident that gave her a bad leg and killed her parents. She was all snarky and always in a bad mood – so much in a bad mood that she somehow almost blew up the orphanage once. You were always the quiet one, the discreet one, so maybe that’s why Raven started hanging out with you: you weren’t asking any questions, you were just sitting there and throwing shades at Lincoln or Anya when your nose wasn’t in some book.
Honestly, if all that story about people in your old lives being the same than in the current, you wonder how you four met in the very first place (you guys were probably stupid Neanderthals fighting for food or something like that). You’d love to meet your match just to know how you lives always intertwined with theirs. Who knows after all, they’re your best friend in that one but maybe one of them killed you in the previous one, stole your wife or you don’t know what else.
You hear Lincoln groans and focus to see what he’s up to but then you realize he has face plant on the concrete of the park and Anya is not trying to help him. She’s not even looking at him, she’s focused on two young women walking in the middle of the park – well, walking is a big word as one of them, a brunette with braids, is just standing and looking at where you suppose was Lincoln’s face before he fell down. Her friend, blond one with loose hair, hasn’t notice her sudden stop and keeps walking towards the bleachers, speaking to the wind.
You give Raven a side glance and the brunette nods so you two stand up in the same motion and start walking down the bleachers. When she sees you two going down, the blonde one gives Raven a smile before looking up to you. Your gazes lock for a few seconds and then you proceed on missing one of the steps. Of course, of fucking course. Fate, your ass. It couldn’t happen when you were walking on the concrete?! No, of course not, all of your memories had to come back while walking down stairs and now you’re falling down. Out of reflex, you put your hands in front of you so that you won’t fall face first but when your left palm hits the concrete, you realize how much of a bad idea it was. You hear more than you feel you wrist crack and you can’t hold your weight so you end up hitting the concrete anyway. What a day.
“The fuck guys, you’re all dying or what?”, Anya asks as she comes rolling next to you.
“Shut up”, you groan, face still on the floor.
You close your eyes for a second, the hot concrete not really helping your thinking. You take a few deep breaths and try to reorganize everything in your head. It’s kind of hard not to mix up the time lines now that everything is here.
God, this is so messed up. Sure, you wanted to know about your past friendships and how Lincoln, Anya, Raven and you were linked in the past but, huh… The last one wasn’t a really good one. Neither was the previous. Of course, their faces and names aren’t the same but somehow, you know. You know which one they were. You know Lincoln was the French military you had to kill during World War Two and Anya was the nurse who took care of you after you got shot in the leg. You met Raven later, after war was over and the German had lost, while you were being judged next to her for crime against humanity. The biggest of the fuckery was that Elizabeth – it was her name back then but is it still now? – was the nurse of the prison you got locked in after the life sentence dropped. She was American and military and decided to stay in Germany after the war, as part of the occupation. But she also quitted the military not so long after and worked as a nurse for the Spandau prison. Fate, you said? What a bitch.
The worst part of it is that that life, World War Two and shit, is the only one where you and her got a chance at growing old together. As far as you can remember, there’s always one dying way too young in all the others. When you found each other, you both were in your thirties, probably looking older because of all the things you’ve seen and done during the war, but you got together anyway. Of course, everything that you had done went against her reason and heart, but the bond between you two, formed by the previous time together, got the best of her and she accepted to meet you regularly in the nurse office. And you fell in love, of course you did. How could you not? Her eyes were filled with more stars than the sky itself and her smile could warm you in places you didn’t even know you were cold.
You sigh and turn your position, as to lay on your back on the ground and watch at the sky for a second. It’s all clear, not a single cloud, and the color is quite similar to Elizabeth’s eyes. You wonder if her eyes are still the same, now that you think about it, they never did change before; always the same blue, always bright and shiny, always full of stars.
Taking your wrist in your hand, you finally sit up and turn as to see her. Your lift your gaze and give her a look before looking at the ground. She nods and comes to sit in front of you. As she does, you take a look around, just to see the brunette one helping Lincoln out. The guy doesn’t seem to be injured so you’re kind of glad. You think you remember the brunette, though, from some times in the 1800’s, you’re not totally sure. The more in the past you try to go, the more blurry it gets. You can understand that, that’s a lot of memories to take in, your brain is probably full.
“Clarke”, she finally says as she holds her hand out to you and you put your wrist slowly on your leg before shaking hand with her.
“Lexa.”
Her voice is different from before. It’s low, raspy, but heaven. Elizabeth’s was a little bit squeaky, sometimes acute when she’d talk about something she was passionate about. Taylor, the one from the 1800’s something, had a clearer voice, not cheap, not low, but steady and clear. Loud sometimes, she knew how to make herself be heard.
“Say”, you say after a few seconds of weird silence, “do you still have any medical knowledge? Because I’m positive I just broke my wrist.”
Her eyes suddenly widen and, yes, blue, and full of stars. Just like always.
“Oh my god, are you serious?!”
She scouts closer to you, totally invading your personal space and sure, you would have gone mad with anybody else but there’s something to her. You don’t really know what, if it’s the apple scent of her shampoo or the bond that you can almost feel connecting when she softly takes your arm in both her hands, but she’s soothing.
“Crap”, she mumbles before putting your wrist back on your leg. She struggles to take her phone out of her pocket for a few seconds and when she’s finally done, she quickly unlocks it and typse a number. She then locks it between her ear and shoulder, making sure to free her shirt in the process. She takes off said shirt, which was covering a black tank top, and rolls it before tying both the sleeves together. She then gets closer to you again and as she places knot behind your neck, you can hear someone replying to her call.
“Mom, it’s me, sorry to call you at work”, she says, “but I’m gonna come in in like, fifteen minutes with Lexa. She broke her wrist.”
“Who’s Lexa?”, you hear her mom ask and you make a face. How the fuck is Clarke going to reply to that question?
“Lexa is… Lexa, mom. Lexa is Lexa.”
“Seems legit”, you mumble and you see Clarke sticking her tongue out to you. You can’t help but smile, as you remember Elizabeth and Taylor and a few others doing that. It’s just so typical of her.
“Oh…”, her mom says, but then she repeats her “oh” in a higher voice, with some kind of understanding in it. “You found her?”
“Yeah, and O found hers too but I don’t know his name. We’ll be coming all together, okay?”
“I’ll wait for you at the entrance.”
Clarke hungs up her phones and put it back in her pocket. She then takes your hand and slowly puts it in the improvised scarf that is her shirt.
“My mom works at the hospital”, she tells you, “she’ll take care of that.”
You nod and turn your attention to Anya and Raven. The two women are sitting on the bleachers, looking at the four of you without really understanding what is happening.
“Anya, take Raven home, I need to go to the hospital.”
“Care to tell us what the fuck?”, Anya asks you as you reach the bleachers to get your bag.
“Broken wrist. Match. Just when I thought my life couldn’t get any more shitty.”
“Please”, Clarke says right behind you, “you’re gonna get that wrist fixed for free and you complain?”
“You’re the reason why it’s broken, it better be free!”
“Dude, fuck you.”
The tiniest of smile is dancing on your lips while stars are shining bright in her eyes.
Fate might be a bitch sometimes, you’re kind of glad in this moment. Glad that in every one of your life, at some point, you got those eyes to stare at, to get lost in.
Those eyes to remind you that the brightest of stars shine even in the light.
You slung your backpack on your shoulder and hold your arm for Clarke to take. “I’ll text you”, you tell Raven, “don’t worry, it’s just broken.”
“It better be, I’m not visiting you if you need surgery.”
“Don’t I know it.”
Clarke laughs at your desperate tone and this is honestly the best thing you’ve ever heard. The prettiest, the clearest, the softest of the laughs.
Fate might be a bitch sometimes, but unlike before, you have a good feeling this time. Maybe it’s the one. Maybe all the suffering and the dying you went through before were to lead you to this one life. To the one where finally, you two could fully be in each other’s life. The one you’d be able to share with her, the one you’d finally be having her.
The one where her eyes are even brighter when she smiles, the one where her smiles could light up the darkest of the streets, the one where her laughs could make you melt.
This one is yours, to live and die, together.