AN: some timelines overlap but oh well
…
The little boy in nine years old the day they get a new servant, and this one has a daughter. The girl is little and pudgy and can barely walk but she has these eyes that can catch the light from any space, even in the night. He thinks she might be magic. Then he starts hearing whispers, something of black and death and then his servant is screaming and the little girl's eyes aren't catching the light anymore.
He sees her stomach covered in rashes.
…
The little boy is seven years old the day his ships docks on land and all of the men celebrate. They empty out on this new land, India; they call it, and shake hands with one another. He wanders into the trees cautiously; making sure the sand is still in sight. He turns forward and gasps when he spots a pair of eyes looking out from the bushes. He almost calls for help, until the owner of the eyes appears, a young girl, with skin that looks burnt. She does not approach him, but runs the opposite direction, and he lies awake that night thinking about his maybe new friend and her kaleidoscope eyes.
Days later, his father and uncles massacre her village, and he finds her with a sword in her stomach.
…
The boy is eleven years old and living in England with his mother. He is walking down the street when he hears a commotion a few stores away. He runs up just in time to see the store owner take a clumsy shot with his gun, and he jumps. When he stands up, he sees her staring at him, brown eyes wide, and the patch of red spreading across the bodice of her dress. He feels a sense of déjà vu before he faints.
…
The boy is thirteen years old, living on a plantation. His house is large. His father is a slave owner. On a particularly hot day, he rides with his father through the cotton fields. He sees a girl, about his age, and she looks up at him. Her brown eyes lock with his for a moment before his father yells at her to get back to work, whipping her across the torso, creating red streaks on her dirty shirt. They ride past, and although he rides with his father often, he never sees that girl again.
…
The boy knows now, at fifteen, that something is wrong. He dreams of brown eyes, never more than that, but they come every night, and he can hear screaming. He dreams of history long past, of disease and discovery and faraway lands. Those brown eyes haunt him and he always wakes up with a pain in his stomach. He does not tell anyone, for fear that he will be seen as insane, but still those brown eyes haunt him. One night, a broadcast comes over the radio, telling of a terrible massacre. He never dreams of those brown eyes again.
…
The boy is seventeen, working proudly as a soldier on the front lines. He does his job well, and gets promoted quickly. He meets a girl with the most incredible brown eyes, named Mary, and they fall in love. She works as a nurse. One night he goes out and spends all his pay from the past six months on a diamond ring. The next morning he wakes up to screaming. He runs out of his tent to find Mary, surrounded by other nurses, dead on the ground with a musket ball in her stomach.
…
The young man meets her in a backdoor nightclub, dressed to the nines in silver and brown eyes gleaming with the thrill of being alive. He is eighteen years old, rebellious. They all are after the war. He never gets her name, but he dances with her until the sun comes up, and he thinks this might be what love is.
Two days later they find her dead in the back alley with a knife stuck in her gut.
…
The young man does not look at the bookcase. He cannot look at the bookcase. He cannot think about what is behind it. They are here, and he cannot look. He has to protect her, and her family. He knows it is illegal, but doesn't care. He can only think of her, and how he needs to protect her. But they do find her; they drag her away, and the last thing he sees before the door slams are the tears running down her face, and her brown eyes begging for salvation. It is 1944, and he is twenty years old.
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They have just reached the moon, and the young man is twenty two years old. He goes to a bar to celebrate. He sees a girl with gorgeous brown eyes, and offers to buy her a drink. They talk the whole night and he offers to walk her home. He leads her up her front steps and kisses her cheek. He goes back to that bar the next night, but never sees her again.
…
The young man is twenty five. He has grown up well, had a happy childhood, and married a beautiful girl. Then a car hits his and he rolls into a ravine and he knows he is dying. Despite all his successes, he can't help but feel that something was always missing. The last thing he sees before it all fades away is a pair of brown eyes. He doesn't know who they belong to.
…
He is thirty years old, and his boss pulls open the door of a blue van to reveal a girl. She smiles at them, playing innocent.
He puts a bag over her head.
An hour later she stands toe to toe with him, all five foot five compared to his six foot two. Her eyes flash and he's filled with a fire that he's never known before.
He thinks that this might be what being compromised feels like.
That night he dreams of history, of disease and wars and celebrations and it all leads back to those brown eyes and the girl sleeping two doors away.
He promises himself that this time, he will save her.
…
He is thirty one years old when she walks into his cell and brings down the electronic barrier between them. She steps forward and he stays put, but she keeps moving and suddenly she's holding him in her arms. Even though she tiny, so tiny compared to him, he can't help but feel safe in her embrace.
That night, lying in his new bed, in his new room, he twirls the silver bracelet around his wrist.
He is thirty one years old when he realizes that it was never about saving her.
It was about giving her the chance to save him.
…