[AU] Credits/Disclaimers: Inspired by this Tumblr post. Only the story is mine, everything else belongs to their respective creators. Accompanying image from Google.

I can recognise your voice in the midst of the cacophony of the World, I can read your eyes in the mirage of the Universe and I can follow you across Time. And yet, every time we meet, I must say goodbye to you before I am allowed to sculpt a promise out of my ill-fated hopes.

The first time, I hear you, I am blind. I can only hear you. You are the rough, rasping foul mouth who cares for the residents of the orphanage but vehemently opposes to make a show of it. You are far older than me. Thirty full years to my meager nine, but I think I fall in love with you. I cannot see, but I can hear you – your scoldings become my mantra. I have known only black and I have learnt to despise it. But when you tell me that my black hair is beautiful, 'black' has a meaning of love to it.

I only live for another four years and I die happy because I have had everything, I feel.

The next time, I see you. You are a punk. Leather jackets, stupid hair, riding a motor bike and annoying everyone. You survive, I am quite certain, on cigarettes and disgusting coffee. The first time we meet, I glare and curse at you while you dare to spill coffee on my fresh-pressed suit and instead of apologising, you smirk. I am late for work and I do not have time for your nonsense. I never hear you. My painted lips and arched brows are far above you. We see each other often after that and you always smirk at me while I glower at your impudence. The next valentine you have the audacity to leave a single red rose at my door while I watch from behind the curtains.

You die the following day riding that two-wheeled death-trap of yours. I keep the rose pressed close to my heart for the rest of my life.

The next time, I am fond of you from a very young age. You start off rough and grow up into a rougher individual, while I retain softness that feels somewhat unfamiliar. We are neighbours and we play together everyday. You are a little older than I am and quite bossy. You call me "defiant" and I don't understand the meaning of the word, so I deny that. You laugh and we traipse off to play at the park. I have a terrible attraction to half-baked schemes. You, aware of imminent failure, go along with my play. When I am grounded, you sneak me out for fun and games. You are my best friend and I am the maid of honour to your fiancée. She eventually cheats on you and you realise that what you thought was love, was in reality, a mistake. I am there through your messy divorce and depression. You wish me the best at my wedding. I marry and become more and more unhappy.

Four years later, we both jump off that cliff. You die and I survive, paralysed at the hospital with an year of suffering as reward. The only thing I can do is shed tears down my unfamiliar soft skin that no one bothers to wipe.

When I meet you again, you are royalty. Rotten, but royalty, nonetheless. You could not care less about that. You sleep with every young maid working at your palace and I am no exception. Other than the fact that I have been in love with you somehow. I hear you, I see you but I never talk to you. You never talk to me for I am not worth your time. You don't even know my name. But I do not fail to notice that I am the one you draw into the bedroom when you are at your most vulnerable and I am the only one who is not allowed to leave the room immediately after the deed is done. I fancy myself a special person – special to you. One of those nights, you are particularly enraged over something and as we lay on the bed with your head in the crook of my neck, you ask me if I would sacrifice my life for you. Your face does not betray any emotion and I am afraid that this is over. Dark eyes clashing with your steel grey ones, I reply decisively and take an oath to be by your side. You look at me with an emotion I can't name. You never call another woman to your chambers after that, except me.

I die of disease and you hold my hand through my final moments, kissing me, as I ask you to not contract anything and bless you with all I have. You kiss me again in reply as I silently slip away.

The time after that, we are arch enemies. I am a professional and excel at my job. I am an assassin and you are the law chasing me – hunting me – trying to take my livelihood away, and perhaps, my life too. I am always a step ahead of you, always a bit smarter, always a bit cleverer. You curse away at your subordinates and secretly consume all manners of illegal drugs because I am driving you insane. I know this. I know more. I know a lot. And I relish the fact that I am causing you this sweet, palpable torture that we both lust for. I like feeling this way about you and I love what you feel for me. You never see me for I am a ghost, but I have seen, heard and on one daredevil occasion, conversed with you in all your stressed, five-feet-two, overworked demeanour glory. You tempt me and I tempt you.

You catch up with me. Really intimately. With my knife through my stomach as you struggle to win the death match. I know I am not going to survive and somehow, I feel like I am home. Like this is absolutely acceptable. Like I want to be connected to you. And I know that you are done with this job too as you stare into my eyes for the very first and only time, and say things worth a million lifetimes, but I can only grasp a moment of them before being spirited away into oblivion.

When we meet again, we consume each other in emotions. I am a college freshman and you are the young professor who decidedly fails at hiding the fact that he is attracted to me. You wait for me to graduate and make major life decisions. I become a doctor and you are proud of me. Then, you ask for my hand and I warble a 'yes' with hot tears streaming down my face that you cup and kiss. I love you. You don't say it, but I know you love me too.

On our wedding day, I get a call from the hospital asking for my immediate presence even though I am off duty. The city is in chaos, I realise I have to leave. I call and leave a voicemail for you and rush to the hospital – wedding regalia donned, hair and make-up perfect. When I reach, I am only given the DOA list with your name on it. I am a widow before my wedding. And that day, I think I die more than you.

There must be lifetimes, in which I never meet you, lifetimes in which we just barely meet, lifetimes in which we barely miss. The idea of not being in your time scares me. Everytime we meet, I somehow know you and yet don't. I sometimes think, it's the dream of you that I am in love with. And yet, I long for the lifetime where I am yours and you are mine. Where, you are my happiness and I am your everything. And for that, if I have to chase you across universes, then I will. For you see, I am made of the same element as you. We are never meant to be apart. Your eyes say you know that – perhaps, you are waiting for me to realise?

Just wait, I will find you. Like I always do.