A/N: Chapter 50 🎉🎉🎉

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"Do not be afraid, it doesn't hurt a bit to die."

– Murtagh Fitzgibbons Fraser

Reincarnation wasn't anything like how it was depicted. He didn't magically have all the memories of his past life. An infant's brain couldn't handle the strain of having all those memories. In a way, it did all filter through to him through dreams but he never retained them, just woke up with the feelings they had caused. These feelings felt distant as if it wasn't him though.

—

May 1771

He dangles, kicking, and hears a far-off rumble from the crowd. He kicks and bucks, feet pawing empty air, hands clawing at his throat. His chest strains, his back arches, and his sight goes black, small lights flickering in the corners of his eyes. And then the stubborn impulse leaves him and he feels his body stretch and loosen, reaching, reaching for the earth.

"Brian!" Ellen's cry breaks through.

"I'll hold him! Cut him down!" Da speaks.

Hands take hold of his body round the middle, lifting slightly to take the strain off the rope. Brian moans.

The next few minutes had been a blur. Hands holding him steady as he's cut down. He can hear Da's frantic begging, full of apologies, Ellen's sobbing and Mama's practical doctor voice as she tries to help him but he can hear her voice wobbling.

"You're going to be ok, Brian." She whispers, her hands on either side of his head.

He tries to move, he tries to speak, but he can't. He hadn't died yet but he was, however, in the process of doing so before his parents' and sister's eyes as they cry and yell frantically above him.

Then another voice breaks through, an old memory that drowns out his family's voices. Instead, he finds himself on hard tarmac ground. A road?

"–Jeremy! Jeremy, don't leave me please!"

He doesn't reply. He panics. What's he doing here? Why's he here? Who's Jeremy? No– Jeremy was– oh God. How could he have forgotten?

Leave? No, he can't leave, not again.

The blackness envelopes him.

—

August 2016

Jeremy gasps awake and his hand immediately goes to his neck, rubbing it to make sure it's not, it didn't happen. He's been having a lot of those strange dreams lately, of him living this other life but inside a body he can't control. He knows it can't be real but he can't not believe it as well. The rope around his neck had felt so real as it choked him.

He's breathing heavily, panicking as he sits up in bed. The memories of his dream flicker through his mind making him shake, his breath catch.

He startles when his door shakes as a few thumps smack against it.

"Jeremy? Jeremy? Get up you lazy ass. It's move-in day. We have four and a half hours to get to NYU!" Cries his mother.

"I'm coming, Mom!" Jeremy calls back, flinging out of his bed. Here's to a new beginning.

—

December 2017

"Jeremy? Jeremy!"

Jeremy blearily blinks up at his friend Brandon. "Mmm? What?"

"You okay man?" Brandon asks worriedly.

"Uh, no, not really." He mumbles.

Brandon raises an eyebrow as if encouraging him to continue, chewing on his burrito. The NYU Campus Corner Cafe is many things, but an upstanding, clean establishment is not one of them. Still, it is perfect for Jeremy and his friend Brandon to meet up once a week, take their drink of choice, and split an overwhelmingly large breakfast burrito.

Jeremy sighs and begins to speak, "It's– I've been having this dream for like a year now where I, er, basically, I'm being hanged and I, um, I don't know but I can't help but feel like it's a warning. A premonition or something."

"Well, fuck man, I don't know how to help you there," Brandon responds.

"Neither do I," Jeremy grumbles.

Suddenly, Brandon jumps up as if he's been electrocuted, he waves his hands around excitedly as he articulates his idea while Jeremy winces at the wasted bits of rice that fall out of his friend's burrito.

"What you need is a distraction!"

Jeremy blinks at his friend in alarm. "A what?" He blurts.

"Distraction, a hook up, a dalliance."

Jeremy wrinkles his nose. "No one says dalliance, Brandon."

Brandon scoffs. "They should." Jeremy sighs. "Oh, come on man! What about Amelia Davis?"

"Brandon, no," Jeremy intones, a small groan in his voice betraying how he really feels about this subject.

"Brandon, yes," Brandon retorts with a ridiculous smile. "All I'm saying is that you should do something about your ridiculous crush before we go into next semester. I think you should go for it."

"Brandon, it's not going to happen," Jeremy grumbles out.

"You never know, she might actually be exactly what you are looking for."

"I am not going to ask Amelia Davis out, Brandon. Remember what happened with that British guy, Henry, last semester?" He retorts.

"Jeremy, you have been obsessed with her all semester, yet you haven't said a word. Please just walk up to her tomorrow and literally just introduce yourself." Brandon pleads. Jeremy is sure that he is sick and tired of hearing Jeremy moan about his crush.

"I am not going—" Jeremy starts, and then is stopped by a hand on his mouth.

"Look, if you do this and it doesn't go anywhere, I promise to try out for the lacrosse team." Comes Brandon's ultimatum.

He turns to look Brandon in the eye. "Really?" He asks. Jeremy's been trying to get Brandon to join the team for months and the national championship is coming up in about four/five months.

"Really." He says smugly.

"Fuck me, I guess I am going to embarrass myself greatly tomorrow in the name of entertainment for my best friend." Jeremy starts.

"Oh, you mean your only friend," Brandon interjects.

Jeremy lets out a cry of outrage, throwing some of his burrito in his friend's face.

—

June 2018

Jeremy is frantic as he runs. When he starts running it is hard to stop. He can't let things end like this, he needs to tell Amelia the truth. But he forgets to pause at red lights. He forgets to look both ways. His legs push him closer and closer and as he gets nearer the bond strengthens, tightens, and thrums with energy. Something catches his attention from the corner of his eye, but by the time he glances up, it's too late. There is a terrifying screech of brakes, and then the car hits him.

His entire body hurts as he smacks down onto the road with a skin-numbing thump. He can feel blood leaking from the side of his face but everything is one smear of pain and he can't tell whether it is from his nose or his mouth, or both.

It takes a few minutes for sound to return to the world. He can hear three distinct voices, each of them talking over one another, and none of them familiar. A car door slams. Someone swears. Someone starts speaking a one-sided conversation, into a phone presumably, calling the police or an ambulance perhaps. The light from the street lamps is so bright it almost hurts when he's finally brave enough to open his eyes.

Someone is kneeling by his side, and considering the look of annoyance crossed with guilt on the person's face, Jeremy has a feeling that this is the driver of the car that hit him. He tries a weak smile to reassure the guy it isn't his fault that Jeremy ran out into the middle of a road without looking both ways.

"Are you okay? Just stay still, alright? Don't move a muscle, you might have broken something. The woman on the phone said it was important to make sure you weren't moved." The man says, one hand still holding a phone up to his ear and the other fluttering helplessly over Jeremy's body.

"Mm," Jeremy lets out a soft grunt of pain. He's peachy. Just peachy. Why does this never happen in the movies? When the protagonists are running towards their destiny, or to the love of their life, none of them get hit by a car.

He closes his eyes again, ignoring the man when he tries to shake him gently, worried that Jeremy is falling into some kind of coma. Honestly, he thinks he is. The pain is wrecking through his body.

"Jeremy!"

Amelia.

Amelia falls to her knees by Jeremy's side, practically shoving the driver of the car out of the way before the poor man has even registered that somebody else is coming towards them.

"I'm sorry." Jeremy sobs.

Amelia reaches out with shaking hands, stroking his face. "It's not your fault. It's not your fault."

"Amelia…"

"No, ssshh, it's okay."

His eyes flicker closed. He feels his body shutting down, his breathing shallow.

"Jeremy! Jeremy, don't leave me please!"

It's the last thing he hears before everything goes black.

—

May 1744

He sees what he thinks is the light at the end of the tunnel, his life passing through his eyes, but the light he is seeing is not from a tunnel but from his birth, or rather, from his rebirth. As he emerges, he hears French being spoken in soft, worried tones before frantic English being spoken by a woman breaks through.

"What is it? Why isn't he crying? He–"

She gets cut off when he suddenly receives a harsh slap on his bottom and suddenly wailing can be heard.

"See, Madame Fraser. All is well."

He is placed in someone's arms. His vision is blurry but he can see shades of amber, golden brown, and smoky topaz, surrounded by brown framing the blip the colours sit upon. The woman lets out a gasp as she sobs.

"Oh," she sobs, "thank God."

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A/N: Please leave comments on how you're enjoying this story and what you think.