Aug 15, 1969

Bethel, New York

Volkswagen vans and poorly pitched tents lined the other area of the four hundred acre dairy farm, dark clouds threatening to rain hung heavily over the crowd. Steve Rogers was nestled in the back of a Volkswagen bus, head in the lap of a smiling girl, thin wispy hands lovingly carded through his hair. The bus was far from the stage but Steve could still feel the heavy thump of the bass in his chest. He exhaled, blowing a chain of imperfect smoke rings towards the painted roof of the bus. For the first time in all of the lives he's lived, he was happy. Each of the previous lives ended quite tragically for him and rarely did he live to see his eighteenth birthday. Disease, plague, war, murder. Something always happened to him. This, however was the first time he made it to twenty and he was determined to make it as far as possible this time.

Young Steve Rogers led a rather uneventful life. Not through circumstance but by choice. He was born into a lower-middle class family in Brooklyn. His father worked at a butcher and his mother was a housewife who raised five boys. Steve included. In school, Steve kept mostly to himself and had quite an interest in science. History, not so much and with good reason. For most of his life, Steve kept his head down and in the books. Again, a life without excitement wouldn't exactly guarantee a full life but it'd certainly increase his odds.

Aside from himself, Steve knew of one other person that has also remembered their past lives. They met once before back before the Civil War. His name then was William, a farm hand who worked alongside him on an apple orchard in North Georgia. On a drunken night, the two exchanged stories of their past lives by a campfire behind the stables. William said that Steve (then Elias) was the only other person he's come across in the past two centuries that remembers their past lives. After that night, the two became inseparable and often stole kisses while hidden in the orchard after the sun had set. Though there wasn't a word for it during that era, the two knew that they were soulmates. Unfortunately, their love was short lived. Steve was killed when the orchard owner attempted to turn away a troop of confederate soldiers and they murdered . Steve spent a lot of his next life desperately in search of William, often coming up on dead ends. That life ended abruptly with a fiery wreck that killed Steve and his older sister who were on the great journey in search of his soul mate.

Up until that humid August day, Steve Rogers pushed all ideas and memories related to William as far back as possible. Maybe it was the weed or the overwhelming sense of comfort that radiated off of his new friend but something stirred within him, releasing the memories of William. He sat up immediately with a hand clenched to his bare chest as he suddenly struggled to find his breathe. Daisy looked at him, alarmed by his sudden movement and obvious panic that overcame him. He could see her mouth moving but there didn't seem to be any sound coming from it.

"Steve, are you okay, dude?"

"What?" He blinked, trying to refocus on the world around him. "I..." He exhaled, catching his head in his hands.

"Did you smoke too much, man? Fuck." Daisy took another hit from the joint before putting it in the center of a sloppily painted peace sign on the wall of the bus. She reached forward, stroking a hand up and down the length of his back.

"Maybe, I don't know." He shook his head, "Can I ask you a question, Daisy?"

"Anything, dude." She laid back on the the mountain of pillows stacked in a corner. "We're practically family."

"Right. Well, I don't want to come off as some crazy person." Daisy was the first person in this life that Steve felt comfortable enough with to talk to about well, everything. Even if she was a stranger, he felt like he knew her before in another life which was quite likely.

"Judgment free zone, my man. Anything spoken about in our sacred space stays between us."

"Okay..." He scooted closer to her, shrinking the massive gap that was now between them. Steve looked over his shoulder to see if anyone was within earshot of their conversation. Nobody. "Do you believe in reincarnation, Daisy?"

"Yeah man..." Her eyes fluttered shut for a moment. "It makes the most sense out of all the afterlife theories and I'm a firm believer, why?"

A wave of relief washed over him. "I uh...Well, as crazy as it seems, I remember my past lives. All of them."

Daisy sat up almost immediately, her bright blue eyes wide with surprise. She pulled a pillow around from behind her and clutched it tightly to her chest, "No shit..." She owl blinked, "That's mind blowing, man. Woah."

Steve's cheeks were flush. He looked away for a moment, rubbing the back of his neck. "Tell me about it."

The red head was at a clear loss of words as she look at him with a slack jawed stare.

"The thing is...this is the first time I've made it to twenty one. I usually die around eighteen or younger."

"Harsh." She shook her head, "Are you like...cursed?"

He sucked his teeth, running his fingers through the plush carpet. "I-I don't think so. It seems like I just had shit luck. I mean, look. I'm twenty-one."

Daisy reached over to the half empty cooler and pulled out a couple of lukewarm beers. "I'm kind of glad I can't remember anything from my past lives. Seems like pretty heavy shit to be carrying around for so long."

"It is." He popped the cap off of his bottle and took a long swig. "Cotton mouth."

She hummed, "Side effect of smoking." Daisy lazily tossed their bottle caps onto the growing pile that was now overtaking the front seat. "Let's get out of the van and go lay in the fields while the weather is still decent. C'mon." She reached forward, wriggling her thin fingers at him.

"Sure. Can we go further out so people can't listen to us."

She shrugged, taking a drink from her bottle. "If it makes you more comfortable, sure."

Steve followed Daisy up a smooth, sloped hill that had a dead center view of the stage below. She laid down in the overgrown grass and weeds, releasing a small sigh as she pulled Steve down beside her. "So...Steve."

"Daisy."

"How many lives have you gone through so far?" She didn't hesitate to ask but she assumed it must have been a lot since he never lived a long enough life.

"Ten? Honestly, I've stopped counting." He squinted, watching the graying clouds roll over one another as the closed in on the farm.

"Any favorite lives? Did you know any famous historical people?"

"Since I made it past eighteen, I'd say this one is my favorite and no, I didn't. I think the closest I really got was in one life, my mother's second cousin is Poe."

Daisy began plucking blades of grass from the dirt, "No shit...How was that?"

"Didn't really know him. He lived several states away. I met him once when I was really young."

The redhead began braiding the grass blade together, knotting in the occasional daisy. "Did you ever fall in love?"

William. Steve sat up and began fidgeting with the hem of his shorts, pulling at a loose thread. He swallowed hard. "Once."

"What happened?" She inquired, desperate to know the outcome of his first love.

"What always happens, Daisy." He flicked a dirt covered thumb across the tip of his nose. "I die. I always die."

Daisy poured what little bit was left of her beer down her throat, tossing the bottle to the side. "I know that much. Tell me about how you met them."

"Oh..." He laid back down, resting the back of his head on his arms. "It was 1860."

"Shitty era."

"Absolutely horrible." He agreed, "I was traveling to the north from Georgia when I stopped for work at an apple orchard just outside of Atlanta." Steve shut his eyes for a moment, allowing everything to come back to him. He smiled. "I needed money for food and the orchard needed a few more hands during picking season so, I figured I'd stop there for a week or two and earn enough money to make it to Tennessee. That's where I met him, William."

"William." Daisy cooed his name, her fingertips slowly working on the grass crown.

"He was also there for seasonal work. We bonded almost immediately and were inseparable. I could feel there was something about him that was different from the others."

"Wait. Was he like you, Steve? Did he-"

He interrupted her question, already aware of what it was. "Yeah. We were out in the orchard one evening after every else went home and got drunk on cider made from the very apples that we picked. One thing led to another and we just laid everything bare."

"I bet it was so liberating to finally bare your soul to someone without the fear of being judged or anything."

"It was. I knew from that night that the two of us were-"

"Soulmates." The two spoke in unison and Daisy giggled with delight.

Steve could see that night as if it happened the day before. It was one of the clearest memories that he's held onto. Fingertips ghosted over his bottom lip as sparks ignited in the pit of his stomach, the images of William's lips against his were all that he could see behind his eyelids. What Steve wouldn't do for just one more night under the stars in William's arms. "I spent two lives searching for him, Daisy."

"Do you think you'll ever see him again?"

"I honestly do not know."