chapter one:

in this crowd, i still search for you

The air is cold and thick. Her hands are starting to feel numb from the biting coldness of the wind. Gloves in her pockets, already forgotten. She thinks that the heaviness of the ring in her right hand can compensate the surges of the cold, but it can't. Not like it used to. And she thinks, for a moment, that maybe the meaning it holds does not mean as much anymore. Just for a moment.

Because one glimpse of a moving figure made her believe again.

After all these years.

It's still the same shadow. Same figure. Same color of hair. Same throbbing in her heart. Same name that tickles her tongue.

Or was it her? She panics for a moment. And then it was gone.

It wasn't.

Lexa almost stumbles in her steps. The crowd is as busy as ever, despite the indifference of winter. The same streetlights are blinking, the same enormous buildings still towering above her. And the emptiness that has always been there, never changing. It has always been like this. For years. She tries to remind herself of the times they weren't.

Aiming for the other side of the road, she walks callous and uncaring, not minding the loud horns of hasty cars and impatient drivers. She does not have a care in the world, she thinks to herself. She could die right now and not mind, for she would still be alive the next moment in another body, with another life, in another time.

And it would still be the same. Every damn time. She still wouldn't be next to her.

Her.

She blinks purposefully. And when she has a clearer vision of the girl walking towards her, she was sure this time. It is her. Her mind is racing, to all those past lives that she has met her. Her heart is beating as fast as ever, to the same beat of the loud footsteps around. She stops midway. And she shouldn't have.

Because just as fast as the figure came, she was gone. And she almost said her name, or her last. What would she call her now? Would she still have the same name like before and the life before that? Would she still remember Lexa's? Would she have the same glimmer in her eyes when she see her too? Would Lexa ever know?

Just like that, the cars are passing by her, unforgiving and hasty, leaving her alone in the busiest streets of New York. Or what was once. They now call it the City of Light. And it's not the same as before but it's still as magnificent as what it has always been. The city of dreams, of wonder, of hope.

In here, she finds hope again. But hope is almost two blocks away from her now, from where she is standing – as still as the streetlamps and the buildings and the stars. Letting herself be killed by a fast car at this very moment would be the biggest regret of her current life. So she has to think fast, she has to will her feet to move faster.

And so she does. She turned around and is running now, pushing her way to the forming crowd that is waiting to cross the street, towards the same blonde hair that haunts her dreams and very existence.

Clarke. She breathes her name in the night, her hot breath contrasting the unforgiving air. It has to be her, she thought.

She runs, not losing the blonde's figure in the busy crowd. She's running and not giving a damn about the angry looks she gets from pedestrians and the cruel words thrown at her. And the distance between them is decreasing, and she can imagine those very blue eyes. She shouts her name.

"Clarke."

It was as loud as the noise around them. The blonde does not hear her, and so she does not turn. She needs to be louder. So she screams again. And this time, she sees blonde hair whipping around and she sees that smile. That same smile. She almost thinks it was for her. But blue eyes are searching and searching, and that smile turns into a frown.

Lexa has never felt so invisible.

And when that blonde girl turns back again, facing ahead and continuing her stride, she felt just as helpless as she was five minutes ago. She almost grasps those petite hands and just pull her close. Until she sees another pair of hands holding them tightly.

It is only then that Lexa sees him. She swears she's seen him before. Maybe it has always been him. Finn, was that his name? She didn't see the face clearly.

The distance between Clarke and Lexa are now increasing. And she can do nothing about it. So she stops walking, frozen like before. The sea of people are parting before her, trying to elude her like a permanent post is planted in the middle of the sidewalk.

She thinks of all the times it has been like this, and she wishes that she would not remember every damn memory of the past. She used to think of it as a gift. A way for her to find her, in every life, in every century. But as much as she wishes for it, fate does not work like that at all.

Her love would be with another. Maybe she met her too late. Sometimes, she would meet her, and it would be just that. She thought that maybe in those lives, they were not meant to be together. Most lives, she would not even meet her at all. For the world is as vast as her memory, and it is as cruel as her. As cruel as the version of her in the past– in her first. That, she refuses to remember at all. Not tonight.

And when it would feel like it would be another life wasted where they would not meet, when hope wears as thin as the ice that she's threading, she would think of the lives where they do meet. At the most perfect of times, or in the most exacting ways, where they meet – and fall in love. It is those lives that gives her courage the most. Where she can hold her hand, and she can kiss her lips, and she would be hers, and they would be each other's. Where she could wake up each and every day next to her, and lay in bed at night with her cradled in her arms. Where she could feel the heat of her body, and she could feel her skin. Where she could be with her every single day, and every single night, until they can no longer be together and she would be able to do nothing but say goodbye.

May we meet again.

In another life.

Sometimes she thinks of telling her everything. Of how it has always been them, and how she remembers every life they had together. But she knows better. It might end the cycle, or it could mean that she might lose her forever. So she does not dare.

She is here. I have found her.

Lexa smiles despite herself and heads to the other direction, the figure she yearns for the most now nowhere in sight.

If this is the best she will get in this life, she will treasure it dearly. It means a great deal to her now. It would mean that the soul of her love is somewhere near. And if she would just be patient, they would meet again someday.

Or if she would just be brave enough, maybe they could learn about each other again. And fall in love the way they do.

In this life.

Because right now, it is this life that matters. In this life, she could be hers, and they could be each other's.

In this life, she would not make the same mistakes she did in their first – when she was a commander, and Clarke fell from the heavens.

A/N: Please do review! I would very much like to know what you think. Here's another alcohol-induced fic, heh.