1. Past Lives
Prompt: Can I prompt the song Past Lives by Borne with Shandy through the years!
In the place of Eternity runs a river so long, it can lead soulmates back to the world of the living. It's where the wandering souls of lovers meet, share a kiss, and wade into the water in hopes of another life together.
The shells of the people who did not meet their other halves aimless search the lush, green fields in hopes of returning happily to another life. The saddened souls of those who have been waiting decades huddle under a willow tree - ever growing to encompass the lost ones.
But it's by the tulips that flutter in the breeze that the river gives hope to those who walk deep into their other lives. The water takes the story of the two souls and holds it passionately, waiting for their return to the place of Eternity.
It's there that the veteran soulmates approach the crystal water. She pauses but he doesn't release her hand. He knows the price he would pay if he did and he can't imagine his life without her.
"Again," He says breathlessly and he knows he's said it hundreds of times before, but it has never failed. "I'll love you in any life. That's what a soulmate is."
"What if it's dwindling? We had to wait a while last time." He ran his free hand through the rushing water. Her green eyes followed the liquid.
"The river isn't dry," he stated and gently tugged on their hands. "I like both of my hands to travel you and love you to my full potential. I can't do that here." She nodded and grasped a hand over their entwined fingers. Her toe brushed the water before she walked deeper into the river with him.
Their heads were submerged quickly and she felt to familiar pulling at her mind and hand as the water took what touches she remembered of him. When they were finally forcefully separated, she let out a sigh. The moment the water breezed over her breasts, she knew they had gotten away again and would see each other in the next life.
Lost love is sweeter when it's finally found.
She remembered playing catch with her father in the yard. His attention more focused on the phone wedged between his shoulder and ear. Her throw, something he had yet to see an improvement with, flew by him in a breeze. It bounced off the wooden fence and rolled lazily in the grass. Her father slowly walked towards it, his hands motioning wildly as he spoke.
"Shar!" He called lightly as he gently tossed her the ball. It scampered in the grass and her little feet padded after it.
She remembered a lot about her father, but at this moment, it wasn't enough.
"What were your parents like?" He had asked, but the question hung in the air as she shuffled her salad like the baseball had done to the grass in her memory.
"Loving," she finally responded. Her mother wasn't much that. She learned more from her grandmothers and she had always liked it that way. She felt older with their knowledge residing in her; wiser in many ways.
She didn't ask anything about his family, and the conversation had died by the time their orders came round. She studied him closely.
He was charming, considerate, but something was off.
"This was lovely," he had said, once his card was in the bill. "Can I take you out again? Next week?"
Somehow, she found herself agreeing to his offer.
Something was off, and it wasn't the restaurant.
She met him after the birth of Ricky. She vaguely remembered his face from the buddies Jack drank with.
He had fired two shots into the night sky at three in the morning to break up a bar fight.
He smirked at her from the other side of the tape and she had stopped in her movements. Everything had stopped, according to her. Time, the universe, her heart. And suddenly everything had clicked.
But it wasn't love or fondness.
It was anger, and hate, and messy.
They bickered for years; shouted, called each other names, made snide remarks. Even he knew, deep down, it was something else. Something besides the fighting that they had yet to explore.
It was after a long, drawn out case (not something that was ptracticualrly painful, but it tugged at the right heartstrings) that he sought her out one evening. She was Captain of Internal Affairs, but he found that intriguing and frustrating. Much like how their whole relationship worked.
"What is it, Lieutenant?"
He didn't even recognize that his feet had taken him up to her office until she spoke. And by then, the reason he ventured to IA had escaped his mind. He shrugged resolutely and turned towards her door.
"Again," she tried selfishly. If it was him, he would know. He turned to face her. His eyes didn't hold hers for long, before falling to the rings on her left hand. Lamely, he shrugged again and then left for good.
She tapped on her desk slowly, her left hand suddenly feeling like two tons as the ring sparkled in the overhead lights.
His feet felt like lead as he made his way farther from her office.
Through all of my lives, I'd never thought I'd wait this long for you.
After his impromptu visit to her office, he had steered clear of the Wicked Witch who held a vaguely familiar pull over him. When he did run into Captain Raydor, her word, "Again," rang in his ears.
It had been weeks since his trip to FID and in that time, her rings on the fourth finger of her left hand had been removed.
He didn't question it, but he was suddenly filled with a happiness that kept a smile on his lips for days to come.
The timing is right, the stars are aligned.
It had taken until she was Captain of his division for him to finally do something. When he knocked on her office this time, he was prepared for her words.
"Yes," she breathed out.
"Why didn't you say anything?"
"I didn't think we were the type of people to share things with each other, Lieutenant," Sharon said slowly. He was talking about her transfer, she told herself. Nothing more. Andy took a seat in the chair across from her desk.
He was silent for a minute before saying, "Aren't you going to go home soon?" She shrugged lightly.
"I still have some work to do here and then—"
"Do you believe in soulmates?"
"I'm sorry?" Sharon questioned.
"Past lives?"
It was his eyes, she thought, that told her of another life. Another time. She rose from her chair. He did too.
"Again," she tried. She knew he would know. There was something about him that made her feel like she was home in his presence. Their years of fighting morphing into something else, yet it still made sense to her that it could not be explained.
And for once she didn't need something laid out in full.
"That's what a soulmate is." In that second, time stopped again. She felt water rushing through her veins and flowing over her body. It was suffocating and liberating at the same time. He left out the beginning part, but that fine.
She thinks he moved first around her desk, but her lips touched his first. One of his hands laced through her fingers like they did in the place of Eternity, and the other rested on her cheek. Between locked lips and tongues, she raised their joined hands to his chest. Her fingers splaying across the material of his dress shirt. His hand paused before it moved to cup her face in full. They both sighed happily. Sharon let out a little hum.
It was all fine.
Past lives could never hold me down.
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