Archive of Our Own

The first life where I remember you is a beautiful one. I’m born remembering you, and I wonder if I will see you again. I work hard to become strong, so that I can travel the world in search of you.

My brother thinks I’m foolish.

He tells me that chasing something I can’t explain will only get me killed. That I should stay, take up something steady, build a quiet life. He doesn’t understand why I spend my nights studying magic until my hands ache, why I stare off like I’m listening for something no one else can hear.

“I’ll come back,” I promise him, more than once.

He never says he believes me, but he makes sure I leave with more supplies than I can carry.

Luckily for him, I don’t have to go far.

My first adventure is a disaster. I’m attacked by rogue bandits in the forest. I try my best to fend them off with my magic, but it’s not enough. I think I’m going to leave this life without having met you again. But there you are — your voice strong and your blade sharp. You save me, like some dashing knight, defeating the bandits in one fell swoop. I recognize you immediately, even in a different body.

Your face is sharper, you’re taller, and your hands are scarred — unlike the soft, smooth ones I once held. I look into your eyes, hoping for something, a flicker of recognition, maybe? Some form of proof that you remember me too.

I find nothing.

I brush away the sting of disappointment. You might look different, but your soul is the same.

I join your group and we travel the world together. I get to know you again. The way your voice sounds in the mornings, how you hold me in your sleep, and the fact that you hate chocolate. This life is nothing like the one I remember, the one where we belonged to each other. And yet, when I look at you, my soul sings just as it always has.

Somewhere along the way, you ask to be mine — like it’s the first time, as if we haven’t already belonged to each other before. I say yes, and we are united.

It’s a small affair, with just our family and closest friends. But as long as you’re there with me, I don’t need anyone else.

You ask me, that night, if I’ll love you for this life.

I tell you, “I’ll love you for this life, and all the ones that come after.”

You tell me you will too, and I try not to think of it as a lie.

We grow old together, with two beautiful children who bring even more joy into our lives.

Sometimes, when I write letters home, my brother sends back short replies. He never says much, but he always asks if I’m happy.

I always tell him yes.

It’s a wonderful life, and I couldn’t have asked for more.

Your family sponsors me, in the next one. I’m an artist and you’re the only daughter of a noble family. You have lots of responsibilities and obligations — an entire life already decided for you.

We never really meet — not properly. Our stations keep us far apart. Still, I see you sometimes; passing through the halls, dancing at balls, always just out of reach.

We do get close, at one point. I’m commissioned to paint your portrait. It will be sent to your groom’s family, your mother tells me, so I must make you look good. I think you always look good, but I nod anyway.

You sit for me in that quiet room, the sunlight spilling through the tall windows, your hands folded neatly in your lap. You hold yourself with all the grace and poise befitting of a lady. Still, I notice the small things. The way your fingers twitch when you think no one is looking. The way your gaze drifts just for a moment, before you catch yourself and sit straighter.

“Like this?” you ask once, tilting your chin slightly.

My breath catches.

“Yes,” I say, softer than I intend. “That’s perfect.”

I sketch you carefully, trying to commit all of you to memory, afraid that if I miss a single detail, I’ll never get the chance to see it again.

You watch me sometimes when you think I’m too focused to notice. Your gaze follows me sometimes, curious — but nothing more. Not the love that had followed me in our previous life.

The days pass quietly. Paint layered over paint, colour mixed and remixed until it feels right. I capture every detail I’m allowed to see — the curve of your smile, the softness in your eyes, the parts of you that I could have loved but never got the chance to.

I finish the painting, and it is easily one of my best works.

Your mother is pleased. Servants carry it away to be sent off, and I stand there a moment longer than I should, staring at the space it once occupied.

It’s the closest I ever get to you in this life.

You leave soon after that, and I don’t see you again. I do hear about you though. You marry the son of a wealthy aristocrat and have a child together.

Your life is good. I tell myself that it’s enough.

I’m an orphan, abandoned on the church’s doorstep as a newborn. I grow without ever knowing my mother’s love, but I don’t mind. I wouldn’t have met you otherwise.

You’re the son of our church’s pastor. We become friends, even though I’m just a servant boy and you’re expected to follow in your father’s footsteps. We play in the courtyard, steal bread from the kitchens, and spend our days making grand tales. You don’t treat me like a servant, and I don’t notice the world judging us — only the joy you bring me.

As we grow into our teens, our friendship shifts. In secret corners of the church, behind closed doors, our hands brush, our breaths mingle. We sneak out to the woods together, stealing a few hours of freedom, of each other, before the weight of your family’s expectations drag you back.

Your father begins to push harder. He wants to send you away, to study holy scripture at a distant seminary, and prepare to marry a suitable young woman from a respectable family. Each command is like a chain, tying us down. Your eyes grow tired, and I worry that soon you might snap.

One night, under the shadow of the bell tower, we make a choice.

“I can’t do it,” you whisper. “Let’s leave this place, together.”

I nod, heart racing. We pack the bare necessities and slip out under the cover of darkness, careful to avoid the patrol guards and townsfolk. Every step is dangerous, but we have never felt so alive and free.

After days of travel, we reach a distant village, where no one knows our names.

Here, we build a quiet life. You become a teacher, respected in the small schoolhouse, while I become a baker. We live carefully, pretending to be brothers, or cousins, or distant kin, so no one questions our closeness. Our love exists in stolen touches, lingering glances, and in the privacy of our own home.

It’s a simple life, far from the expectations that once threatened to tear us apart. And yet, every day, I see you — your voice, your warmth, the way your hand finds mine when no one is looking — and I know that some things don’t change across lifetimes.

Even here, with the world none the wiser, I’m thankful I could love you for a long time in this life.

I ask the universe. I ask it again and again, though no answer ever comes. Why must I be the one to remember?

I do not choose to carry the weight of these lives — the ache of lost moments, the knowledge of what could have been. Others move through their lives, oblivious, yet I wake again with your face, your laugh, your presence etched into my soul.

It feels like both a gift and a punishment, this endless remembering. Sometimes I wish I could forget, to walk through life without the constant pull of you.

It is not fair.

And yet, when I catch a glimpse of you, even from afar, I know I would never trade it. To forget you would be to lose a part of myself.

You’re dead in this one.

There was a war 15 years ago, and you were the princess of our nation. You took up your sword and fought to protect us all. With your final breath, you cut down the evil that had been plaguing the realm, bringing us into an era of peace.

I grew up hearing tales of your bravery. They call you fearless. Noble. Untouchable.

I don’t like that word. It’s so different from the you I remember.

I dedicate my life to studying you anyway. Every record, every painting, every account written by someone who stood close enough to you to claim they knew who you were.

They never say the things I’m looking for.

No one writes about whether your voice was soft when you weren’t giving orders. Or if you ever hesitated before making a choice that would cost lives. They don’t mention if you laughed loudly, or quietly, or at all.

I think you must have.

I spend my afternoons at your statue in the city square. It’s too large, too perfect — your sword raised, your gaze fixed somewhere far beyond the horizon. Someone decided this is who you were meant to be.

There are always fresh flowers at your feet. Sometimes, I bring my own.

Sometimes I just sit there, tracing the engraved lines of your name with my fingers, worn smooth by years of strangers doing the same.

Once, I notice a small crack along the base. It runs through the stone, uneven and imperfect. I press my thumb into it and pretend, just for a moment, that it’s you.

I try to imagine you as something other than a story. Something other than a symbol. A person.

I wonder if the corners of your eyes crinkled when you smiled. Or if they shone in a way no one thought to write down. I wonder if you remembered me. If you looked for me in the faces of strangers, the way I have looked for you.

I think it’s best you didn’t, that you didn’t have to feel the pain.

The sun sets, and the square empties, and still I sit there, staring up at a version of you that was never allowed to be anything less than perfect. I know I would have loved you without any of this.

I get mad at you in some lives. I know it’s irrational, that you aren’t choosing to forget me, but I still can’t help but get angry when lifetimes pass without you.

This is one of those lives.

I told myself I was tired of chasing your memory through crowded cities, always searching for you in the faces of passersby. By then, I had already spent years looking, waiting for you to appear.

So I stopped looking for you.

I told myself I would fill that hole in my heart with the wonders of the world. I packed my belongings and crossed kingdoms with little more than a horse and my sister for company.

I stayed nowhere long enough to grow attached and took on dangerous jobs for money. I saw the corners of the world — from the great pyramids to the mystical hanging gardens. I saw wonders people spent their entire lives chasing, and none of them filled the space you left behind.

We were travelling to the wetlands, stopping in the city to rest for a day. It was a beautiful city, crowded with merchants and travelling caravans escaping the cold. I wandered through the market near dusk, looking for a few supplies for the journey.

Then someone laughed behind me.

I turned towards the sound before I could stop it.

You stood near a fruit stall, smiling at something the merchant had said. The setting sun fell across your face, warm and golden, and even with the scar covering your face, I knew it was you immediately.

I stared for too long. Long enough that you glanced toward me for a brief moment.

Nothing crossed your face.

No recognition. No pause. Your gaze slipped past me like I was anyone else.

I should have left town then, stayed true to my word to ignore you for this life. Instead, I spent the rest of the evening thinking about the sound of your laugh.

That night, lying awake at the inn, I promised myself I would return to the market in the morning. Just once. Just to see if you were there again.

But when I returned the next day, you were gone.

A merchant told me you had left with a caravan before sunrise, headed south.

I sat in the square for a long while after that, watching the place you had stood the day before.

Sometimes, when enough lifetimes pass without you, I worry I’ve started stitching you together wrong.

A laugh from one life placed into another. A habit from centuries ago mistaken for something newer.

I remember the feeling of loving you perfectly… I don’t know if I remember you perfectly anymore.


We meet as kids in this one. It’s the first day of kindergarten and I haven’t made any friends. I sit on the swing set, hoping someone will join me. It doesn’t look like anyone will. Just as I’m starting to lose hope, I hear soft footsteps approaching me.

“Do you wanna be friends?”

I recognize your voice immediately. You seem just as nervous as I am, but when I nod, it all vanishes in an instant. You give me a brilliant smile and I know that you will love me in this life.

We become best friends, spending our days playing games in your basement, going on bike rides, and talking about things that don’t matter. You always sit next to me, always choose me, and I think this life will be peaceful.

It isn’t.

I get kidnapped and you fight hard to bring me back. When I return, you hold me like you’re afraid I’ll disappear again. You say my name like it matters.

For a moment, I think you remember me too. But you don’t.

Our lives don’t get easier after that. The supernatural follows us, again and again, and we do our best to overcome it. We make friends along the way, and my family grows bigger.

Through it all, you’re there for me.

You always are.

Then you start dating our friend. I try my best to be happy for you both, but some part of me aches every time I look at you.

There’s a moment where I think you might feel something for me.

I tell you a story — about someone who lives a hundred lifetimes, loving the same person over and over again. I hope you’ll hear what I can’t say out loud.

You listen carefully, like you always do. When I’m done, you smile a little and say it’s good.

You don’t understand. Or maybe you do, but you don’t say it.

We eventually put an end to everything, but it comes with a price.

My sister.

She takes a piece of our hearts with her — a piece we never get back.

We’re never the same after that.

I think you did love me, in the way you were always there. In the way you never let me face anything alone. In the way your voice softened when you said my name. But you never get the courage to say it, and I never ask.

We drift apart and I try to find your warmth in someone else.

Sometimes I get these phone calls, always late at night when the rest of the world is already asleep. No one ever You never say anything, but I always pick up. Afterward, I spend my nights hoping the phone will ring again.

You spend your life pretending, until one day you can’t anymore. The news breaks something in me, a small stubborn part of me that still had hope.

I make it another seven years before I follow you.

I tell myself it isn’t so I can see you again sooner.

I don’t know if I believe it.

I spend hundreds of lives with you, and hundreds without. I have loved you in every form, every gender, every shade, and I will keep loving you until the end of time.

In each life I think that you might remember me the same way I remember you, but in each one I’m proven wrong.

I think I gave up hope at one point, just happy to be loved by you in every life I can.

We meet on my first day at work.

I'm fresh out of university, still trying to make myself look like I belong here. You're a little older than me, settled into life, moving with a confidence I can only hope to possess.

I smooth out the wrinkles in my skirt, take a steadying breath, and turn to the clicking of heels approaching.

You take my breath away without meaning to.

"Are you Willow?" you ask.

"Yes,” I manage.

You smile like it's nothing.

You show me around the office, guiding me through my first day, and I spend the whole time trying to keep up.

You become my favourite part of the job immediately.

You stop by my desk in the mornings armed with coffee and the latest office gossip. We eat lunch together most days, hidden away on the rooftop overlooking the city. 

Sometimes you catch me staring at you a little too intensely. 

I can't help it; I’ve spent lifetimes memorizing your face. I forget other people aren’t supposed to look at someone they’ve only known for a few months with this much affection. 

Long meetings become bearable when your knee brushes mine beneath the table. Rainy commutes feel brighter when you're under the same umbrella with me. Some evenings, after everyone else has gone home, we stay late together finishing reports while old music hums quietly from your computer speakers.

You kiss me outside my apartment in the snow, like it’s the simplest thing you’ve ever decided to do.

I don’t stop you.

We move in together a year later.

Our apartment is small and always a little messy. You leave sticky notes on the fridge reminding me to eat breakfast before work. I steal your sweaters even though they never fit me properly. We argue over groceries and what movie to watch before falling asleep halfway through both.

It’s ordinary in every possible way.

I love it more than I can explain.

Sometimes, lying awake beside you at night, I wait for the familiar fear to settle into my chest. The certainty that something terrible is coming for us.

But it never does.

It’s one of the rare peaceful lives we get to share.

I’m working a late shift at the hospital, exhaustion settled deep in my bones. Four more hours, I tell myself, before I can go home.

There’s a major accident, a shooter at the train station, and suddenly the emergency room is flooded. Rushing footsteps, shouting, and the sharp smell of antiseptic making me dizzy. I’m rushing around, doing my best to tend to the wounded, when you’re rushed past me on a stretcher.

It’s only for a second. Your face is pale, your shirt soaked with blood, your hand hanging limp off the side. But I know it’s you.

I freeze, just for a moment. Someone calls my name, snapping me back into motion — but it’s already too late. You’re gone down the hall, being examined by another doctor.

I tell myself I’ll check on you when things settle. Hours pass in fragments; the many stitches, compressions, and voices blending together. Through it all, you’re on my mind.

By the time I find your chart, you’re already gone.

You didn’t make it through the night.

I stand there for longer than I should, staring at your name and hoping it will change.

I find out later that you were the one who stopped the shooter. You got close enough to disarm them, throwing yourself in front of the gun when it mattered.

I’m reminded of that life, from centuries ago, where you had sacrificed yourself to protect us all. No matter the life, you have always tried to save everyone.

You’re remembered as a hero, and your family receives a medal of honour on your behalf. Your sister speaks your name with pride, love, and sorrow.

I can’t bear to watch the ceremony. Instead, I sit in my apartment, thinking about that moment. Your hand was just out of reach. I think, if I had taken that step forward, if I had said your name, if I had gotten there in time.

But I didn’t. In this life, I found you too late. You slipped right through my fingers.

I hear the jingle of the bell above the door to my tattoo parlour. I’m busy organizing my tools, so I don’t bother looking over. I don’t hear any footsteps, though, which grabs my attention. I look up to see you standing in the doorway, frozen. Like all my other lives, I know it’s you.

“Welcome to Evermore Tattoo Parlour.” I say, steadying my voice. “I’m Will Byers. How can I help you today?”

You don’t respond.

There’s something in your eyes that’s different this time around.

“Hello?” I ask.

That gets you out of your trance. You give me a nervous smile, trying your best to play it off.

“H-hey, I’m Mike Wheeler, I— uh, I own the floral shop next door.”

We become friends after that. You’re the same as always; kind, bright, easy to talk to. Yet there are moments where it feels like you’re keeping something from me.

Moments where you look at me too long, like you’re trying to place something you can’t name. Sometimes you go quiet for no reason at all, eyes unfocused, like you’re looking at something just out of reach.

I start to think it’s just my imagination.

You come find me during your lunch breaks and I meet all your friends. I think you might feel something for me too, in this life.

It happens on a very normal day, really. We’re getting lunch together, like we often do. We’ve just gotten our meals and are hiding out in my apartment.

I can’t remember what we were talking about before this, but it wasn’t anything important.

There’s a moment where you just stare at me, like you did the first time we met. You take a deep breath, gathering your courage.

“Do you believe in soulmates?” you breathe, like the question has been building inside you for years.

“Yes,” I say immediately. It takes a second for the words to process and my heart skips a beat.

Do you…?

“This is going to sound so insane, but, do you believe in reincarnation?”

For a second I can’t breathe. I’ve imagined this moment so many times, but it’s never been you asking first.

Still, I hesitate. You’re different in this life, in a way I can’t explain.

“Yes,” I say finally, quieter than I mean to.

I don’t realize I’m shaking until you lean forward and take my hands gently, like you’ve been searching for it your whole life. There’s a knowing glint in your eyes, like you remember everything.

“You hated chocolate,” I blurt out. “In one life. You said it was too bitter.”

You let out a shaky laugh. “And you kept trying to make me like it anyway.”

I laugh, and it feels wrong and right all at once.

There’s relief in your expression, but grief too. Like remembering me also meant remembering every life we spent without each other.

“You remember?” I whisper, disbelieving to my own ears.

Your smile breaks, soft and certain.

“I do.”