A/N: You've waited too long. I've taken too long. No apologies could ever do for this. It's a reincarnation, by the way. I'm so sorry it's so depressing, Lover, and if you feel uncomfortable about it, I will rewrite it and delete this one. A few fics I read inspired this. I tired a happy ending as best I could~ a promise is a promise, no matter how shitty my writing is. Edit!: the pun in the first line is totally intended :3
Her first was a short one; but it burned brightly - she was firefighters with possibly the shortest but the most intimidating man that had ever walked the Earth. Sharp gray eyes, black hair, a obsessive compulsive addiction to cleaning; she knew she had fallen before she could even begin denying it. Through the grim, sooty days to the ones they sat with their legs swinging off the fire ladder, talking mindlessly about everything and nothing at the same time, she knew that she had fallen to deep, much too far to ever be able untangle herself away from the smoldering storm that were his eyes.
[but she had to, when the desperate screams tore through the crackling air]
Maybe her first lifetime was too short lived, but the gratitude in the woman's eyes did not make her regret a thing when they found her; bruised and bloody and broken, her firecoat reduced to patchy fabric with countless burns, but with a small bundle in her arms. A living bundle - wrapped in a charred and tattered blanket, yes - but it was crying and wailing, tiny legs kicking with newly gained energy and strength. Maybe her heartbeat had drifted away like the ashes of the remains, but the baby's continued.
[but the desperate tears gleaming in his eyes]
We will meet again, Levi, were her last words in that lifetime.
[but she kept the promise too well]
. . .
Her second was not as heroic as the first, though she agreed it was worthwhile, because they met again. Prehaps it was only a casual brush of a shoulder in a place as regular and normal as a grocery store - a glance spared upwards. Her heart sped up but his did not - she has only given a glare from beneath spectacles before he turned away, strode away, and did not return.
[but hidden by anything, she knew those eyes anywhere]
Both of them grew up; time raced past as they went from the acne-faced teenagers, to irresponsible young-adults, to loving fathers and caring mothers and grandparents with graying hair - though both lived with a tug upon them, like they were being pulled from another side. For the fact that they did not know where the tug led them to, they strayed the other away, landing themselves in two different corners of the sky, as destiny willed them to, but both of them held that heartbeat their gazes locked in their memory for time out of mind.
They lived long lives, content but not completely fulfilled without the other.
[and to Jade, that heartbeat she shared with Levi in the entire lifetime was more memorable than her death]
But they locked gazes one as time just as Levi died quietly; it was in the grocery again; she was shrieking and trembling violently but Levi just looked up with a calm, dreamy smile, his beautiful stormy eyes boring to her dark eyes, the tiniest wisp of recognition sparking in his eyes after all those years, but it faded as quickly as it appeared, as death took a better grip of him and stole him again. He had opened his mouth to speak, yet only silence was their answer; but those were more than enough words for her to silence a few days later.
[to everyone else, that was a grocery store; but to Levi, that was where miracles happened]
. . .
They guided lives of pirates the next life; sailing the seas through both rough and kind, chasing after the marked X's on the frayed maps, rejoicing together at the abundance of gold and prized treasures they had hoarded and collected from other vessels with their strength. Through thick and thin, their fingers secretly interwined at every chance, and for a moment she thought:
[this is it, this is the life we were meant to live]
But she died shielding Levi, upon a night where the winds howled, whipping round the aged vessel until it gave into the waves. All the other life jackets that hadn't been thrown overboard by the whipping winds had been given to the crew members, but there was only one left - yet there was both Levi and Jade. She gave herself up into the abundance of cold moonlight as she pushed the last jacket at him, kissed him one last time, her lips bitter from years on the sea, but there was a hint of sweetness to it that nothing could mask and threw herself almost willingly into the ocean, knowing full well she couldn't swim but knowing that if she didn't die now, she would later. She didn't want his last image of her to be one cold and unmoving.
[but why was there a familiar sense of calm?]
She didn't regret it; it was Levi.
[but third time was not the charm for Jade]
. . .
They continued, lifetime after lifetime, playing the same game that they knew they had slim chances of win. They weren't afraid of losing repeatedly; instead, every loss pushed them forth, made them more sure, that after it was all gone, they would finally descend into a lifetime where they would live a long life together.
One of the ones they lived was one of internet personalities and obsessive gamers that happened to come together. Levi, the world-famous player of a game she couldn't quite recall and her an exceptionally talented girl at it; hours were spent online, wild profanity and insulting words coming from both sides when they hit an exceptionally sharp turn or hard path. But as it always happened, tragedy struck once more, robbers entering Levi's life and ending it, and she was left staring at a screen that flashed the words:
[game over]
Another was when they were travellers, meeting once; spending hours under the scorching sun, determined find their way out of truly the middle of nowhere even if they were hopelessly, utterly lost. GPS turned out to be their savior of the day. But one week turned out to be too short a time for the two to confess, they blindly stumbled away from each other, finding a love that wasn't truly their own. They never met again, though many fond memories of their brief time they met were passed down from both their families.
[if only it had been longer]
Prehaps the fondest was the one she just left, one where she had been a crazed Internet fangirl, determined on finding her idol, Levi, a famous online-hit, known for his flippant attitude, that had disappeared off the face of the Earth two years ago. She never succeeded, because she didn't realize possibly the one boy she had spent the entire lifetime with was the one she had scoured the Earth for, the one that was right beneath her eyelashes. It was so blatantly obvious now that she saw her mistake; the few pictures that she had she taped up on her wall, staring at for hours, were practically an identical copy of the boy who had watched her with mild interest through piercing gray orbs.
[why didn't I realize it sooner?]
. . .
The moment she had appeared the 104th Trainees Squad, Levi knew she was the one. It wasn't something about her that his heart needed after all those years of insufficient amounts of time; it was just the girl herself. Dark hair and even darker eyes, she would have been unrecognizable and forgettable to most but Levi had memorized her every feature carefully; from her angular chin and the crease in her eyes that appeared when she laughed. She wasn't much different from the person she was in her first lifetime - her jaw set in a determined line, fists clenched together, eyes narrowed in defiance.
[except maybe for the fact that she stared blankly back at him]
Because when Levi brushed past her during cleaning inspection, she glanced up, seeing only Corporal Levi, her superior, but not all those people he was before, a thin image above each one, his features only altering slightly; hair styled differently, glasses, differing types of clothing. She only saw him as Humanity's Strongest. Levi understood why she lost all of her previous lifetimes; she was a strong soul, but all souls can only be tormented for so long.
[Levi remembered but Jade didn't]
He didn't speak of it, but gradually they shifted closer, from their own personal corner of the sky to become comrades in battle, no matter their rank. They had a purpose together again; it wasn't struggling to find their way through the middle the nowhere, or hacking through villains with their crystal blades - it was fighting for humanity. Levi had to start from base one again, but he didn't mind. He didn't notice the shrill giggles Hanji let out, or the discontent mutter from the trainees when he was caught staring at her work, absorbed in the way she moved with precise and grace in the air.
[almost like she was born there]
And Levi made a promise, that he would make Jade would remember again; she would see all of him, the monster, the lover, the hero and the villain.
[and that alone he valued even more than saving humanity]
Hope you liked it, Lover! It was depressing. ^^ I wrote this over two hours, please forgive me, it's unedited. Anyways, if you don't like it, I'll be sure to take it down. just send me a PM! :3 Any review would be lovely, thank you for reading.
~Spire