Disclaimer: I don't own anything here, except the writing and the story idea.

References:

-Song at the beginning: A thousand years by Cristina Perri

-Story: Gabrielle from XWP, "Prometheus"

-Poem: Gabrielle from XWP, "Déjà vu all over again"

[1st]

The first time our lives cross paths, I'm trying to will my feet to move. I'm exhausted beyond reason and my eyelids flutter closed every minute or so. I have to literally bite the inside of my cheek to keep myself from falling asleep while on duty.

I am reminded that I have been sold and tossed away from owner to owner once too many times to risk my luck at pissing off this new Master. So, I force myself to remain awake as I try to catch up with him, all the while holding onto his newly acquainted treasures in my arms.

I'm so focused on putting one step in front of the other that I never see you coming and we bump into each other, landing both on our backs.

I huff as the wind is knocked out from my lungs but the painful sensation is nothing compared to what I feel when the ceramic jars that I had in my arms fall to the ground and shatter into a million pieces.

"Look at what you've done, you worthless slave!" I yelp in pain as my Master grips my arm and forcefully hauls me to my feet. "I'll make you pay for it."

I close my eyes when his hands rip my robe apart, exposing my naked flesh to the prying eyes of the public. I hear his whip lashing at the air once and I know that the next blow will certainly land on my skin.

I wait, but the blow never comes. So, I open my eyes to see what is keeping him from punishing me and I'm definitely not prepared for the sight that greets me.

There you are, the living embodiment of power, beauty and grace, saving a mere servant from harm.

The very same moment my eyes land on your hazel ones for the first time, I swear to whatever Gods may be that I will do anything in my power to return the gesture you showed me this day and become your saviour.

It's not until some months after the incident at the public market that I see you again.

I'm enjoying one of my few and rare moments of freedom, strolling by the riverside, when I catch sight of you.

You're sitting under the shadow of a willow tree, reading a scroll that sits casually on your lap. Your beautiful raven hair is braided to the side and there's a crown of golden laurels resting in your head.

I'm painfully aware then and there of exactly who you are.

Suddenly, as if someone had called your name, you lift you head and your sparkling hazel eyes lock on mine. I freeze, terrified at being caught staring but then you smile and all my worries fade away.

You gesture with your hand for me to come closer and my heart starts to beat wildly in my chest. I climb up the hill, trying not to trip and make a fool of myself in front of you, until I reach your side.

You pat the patch of grass at your side, so I flop down as gracefully as I can and sit next to you.

"What's your name, dear?"

"Emma."

"I know you from somewhere, Emma," you tell me in that low and velvety voice of yours.

"You saved me once," I reply, vaguely, because I know that whatever I say cannot ever begin to express all that it meant to me.

"Ah yes."

You close your eyes, reliving the memory in the back of your mind, and I take that moment to marvel at your beauty and all that you seem to evoke in me. When you open them again, you have a wicked smile plastered on your lips and I wonder if you know what I had been doing all along, but that thought is interrupted when you show me the scroll you hold in your hand and ask me if I know how to read. I shake my head and feel the shame of knowing I will never be at your level rise in my gut, but you lift my chin and tell me that it's alright. Then, you offer to teach me and I'm rendered speechless by your kindness once again. Why you would do this for a worthless slave is beyond me but I find myself wanting to discover that reason and every other reason that moves you. So, I nod my head and you start to read out loud for me and, in that moment, I know that the words written in that scroll will forever remain imprinted in my mind.

After that day, we continue to meet under the shadow of the same willow tree once or twice a week but, then, we seem to find the days in which we don't see each other unbearably long and so you suggest meeting more regularly. Before either of us notices it, winter gives way to spring and, along with the buds, something more intense blooms between us.

You're the first to call it love and, even though I have never experienced it before, I'm sure that it's precisely that. You tell me that love creates happiness and that it's the most powerful feeling in all the world and I know you're right because, every time we touch, I feel my heart swell and my skin tingle.

Nothing has ever felt more right than you and me.

The first poem I successfully read without tethering is about everlasting love and eternal life. I'm prone to ask you what you think of it but you beat me to it, so I tell you that my love for you burns so bright that I doubt death or any other adversity could ever put out its flame. I know I must have said the right thing because the way you kiss me speaks louder than words ever could.

But there comes a day when my words and our love are tested.

Our secret love affair reaches the Emperor's ears and we know it's a matter of time before either of us pays the ultimate price for betrayal.

I'm already expecting them when your husband's men burst into my humble home and drag me all the way to the public square on my knees. What I'm not expecting is to find you there as well.

I struggle hopelessly against their hold on me when I see you tied up to the cross, but it's futile and we both know it. They tie me up right beside you and I find comfort in knowing that, at least, the last thing I'll ever see will be your beautiful hazel eyes.

You cry when you realize that you'll be the first to leave this life and, right then, something stirs in me, a strength that, until that moment, I ignored I possessed.

"Regina," I call your name until you turn your head to the side and look into my green eyes. "Don't be afraid. True love is endless." More tears fall from your eyes when you smile tenderly at me. You never get to hear me say the next words but I promise you that we will meet again, in this world or the next.

[2nd]

The second time around, I enter into your life when it's already too late.

I'm employed into your service to make you company and offer you some distraction as you wait for the inevitable. The memories of our past life come rushing in the moment I lay eyes on you and, suddenly, everything in my empty life finally makes sense.

For a whole minute, I'm rooted to the ground just looking at you.

You are on your dying bed, looking sickish and pale and I realize there's no trace of the kind and hopeful woman that I remember you to be here. No. In this lifetime, you are a Queen and your former sparkling hazel eyes are tainted with the hardships of the kind of life you've led. Here, you're known for the iron fist with which you rule and your utter lack of mercy.

It tears me apart to know what has become of you in this life but what hurts me the most is that, when you finally lock eyes with me, you stare right through me as if I am not even there and I realize that, in this life, you don't know who I am or what we felt for each other.

It takes all of my will power to sit beside you every day and read you all the poems and stories you enjoy so much without being able to tell you that it was you who taught me how to do it the first time around, or that I know exactly which poems are your favorites because you used to read them to me so much that, eventually, they were lovingly carved in my heart.

Despite my best efforts to offer you some sort of comfort, you don't get better and, as autumn begins to settle, your life starts to wither along with all the flowers outside.

One day, I decide I've had enough. I cannot watch you fade away without you knowing who I am, who you are. Somehow, I need to make you remember.

Of course that spilling the raw truth right at your face will only serve me to get myself beheaded. No, there are more subtle ways to achieve the same result.

It occurs to me that, if I manage to find a way to tell you about the most important moment of your life with me, then you'll remember everything. So, I ask you for permission to read you one of my favorite stories instead of the ones you usually select and my heart leaps in my chest when you agree to listen to one. Knowing your lack of patience in this life, I know that this is probably my one and only chance at making you remember about our past life together.

I choose the first story you ever read to me under the willow tree because I know that it was the turning point in our relationship, the sweet beginning and the promise of what was yet to come.

I close my eyes and, as I recall the memory in my mind, I begin to speak:

"Once a long, long time ago, all people had two heads and four legs. Then the gods threw down thunder bolts that split everyone into two. Each then had two legs and one head. The separation left both sides with a desperate yearning to be reunited because they each shared the same soul. And ever since then, all people spend the rest of their life searching for the other half of their soul."

I open my eyes to look into yours when I finish. My heart is hammering in my chest in anticipation. I'm so sure that this will bring your memories back that, when it doesn't work, I feel devastated and completely exhausted.

I excuse myself to you and head back home where I cry until I fall asleep.

The next day I send word to the castle of my renouncement. I cannot bear to look at you and feel the way I feel knowing that I will never get you back. Then, it occurs to me that maybe this is the price I have to pay for the crime we committed by loving each other in our past life. That theory seems to make sense and I silently accept it. After all, the love we had is worth the price I have to pay and more.

But one day, some weeks after my renouncement, someone comes banging to my door. My heart stops beating for a second when a page tells me that you don't have much longer and that your last request is to see me.

I run all the way to the Castle, but the distance separating us never felt longer than it does in this moment.

When I reach your bedchambers, I practically burst into the room in my desperation to see you and, when I do, my heart seems to fall to the ground and collide painfully against the floor. Gone is the strength from your bones and gone is the light from your eyes.

When you see me standing there, you pat the empty side of your bed, motioning for me to sit beside you.

You take my hand in yours and tell me that you really enjoyed the story I told you about soulmates the last time I was here, even though you wouldn't admit it at the time, and then you tell me that your last wish in this life is to hear one of my stories or poems again.

I nod my head in silent agreement and bend over your frail body to whisper the words close to your ear. This time I choose to recite the first poem I ever read to you without stuttering, the one about everlasting love and eternal life.

I tighten the grip of your hand in mine and look into your eyes as I start reciting:

"Life is eternal.
It has no beginning and no end."

I can feel tears welling up in my eyes as the words slowly leave my mouth and the memories of our previous life assault me.

"The loving friends we meet on our journey return to us,
time after time."

I blink my eyes and the first tears begin to roll down my cheeks and land on our joint hands. I can almost see you tied to the cross, trembling in fear, and I hear myself repeat the promise you never got to hear me say: that I would find you again, in this world or in the next.

"We never die
because we were never really born."

The moment my green eyes find yours again, I don't see the characteristic harshness that haunts them in this life. Instead, they sparkle with newly formed tears as I see the flash of recognition pass across them.

"Emma?" You whisper in a shuddering breath and I nod my head as I squeeze your hand tenderly.

All it took to make you remember was to remind you of the most treasured memory you held dear, of me reading to you for the first time.

I cannot believe I managed to get you back only to lose you again. I let my head drop as my body wracks with sobs.

You lift my chin and brush my tears away. You manage to smile at me through the pain but, then, your smile fades and the light in your eyes disappears.

I don't need to search for the pulse in your wrist to know that you are dead. You've moved on to the next life and, as I lean in to kiss your lips, I renew the vowel I made to you that fateful day. This time, however, I know with certainty that we will meet again.

[3rd]

The next time, it is you who finds me.

I work at the market, selling my craftwork. I was never truly skilled with handmade objects but these are hard times we're living in, so I cannot afford coming back home without some denarius in my pouch.

Your people come to our village once at the beginning of each season to trade with us. We've been trading for years now but I had never seen you before, perhaps because you were too young to travel. So, when your people appear for this summer's trade I am not expecting to see you there.

You tug on your mother's sleeve and point with your finger to my stand in excitement. Apparently, you've seen something that called your attention but your mother is too busy to acknowledge you.

You don't give up, though, and after some more relentless tugging, your mother gives in and you lead her straight to my booth.

At first, I'm surprised to recognize you in this form. You're so young and innocent. Your bright hazel eyes lack the harshness of your previous life and I decide I like you better this way, when you don't seem to carry the weight of the world on your shoulders.

I wait for the spark of recognition to flash across your eyes again but it doesn't happen. I convince myself that maybe you're too young to remember me, although I'm sure that, no matter which form I'm in, I could never forget you.

You've seem to have branded yourself that hard in my heart.

I watch you point with your chubby finger to a ragdoll sitting in display on my stand and it doesn't pass me by unnoticed how that doll has golden straws for hair, green painted pebbles for eyes and a white rag for a dress. It seems to me that, somewhere deep within your mind, you do remember me after all.

I grab the doll and lean over the counter to give it to you but your mother pats my hand away and shakes her head. I look at her in confusion but then I realize what you're wearing and it strikes me that it's either the doll or food for you this year.

As I place the ragdoll back in its place, I catch the look of utter disappointment on your face and my heart suddenly feels heavier than before. For someone so young you seem to accept your mother's final word on the matter but, as she walks away to join the elders, I can see how your eyes betray the yearning you feel for the toy.

I look at the price tag in the doll's feet and decide I can work a few weeks extra to pay for it. So, I take the object of your desire in my arms and come to my knees before you, so that we can be at eye-level. Your hazel orbs find my green ones and I can see that you understand what I'm about to do, but your eyes widen when I give you the toy all the same.

In that moment, with the doll pressed tightly against your chest, you mumble something in a language I don't understand and give me a wet and messy kiss in the cheek.

As I watch you run back happily to your mother's side, I take a hand to where your lips touched my skin and I can't help but smile.

I wait for you to come back next autumn but your people never appear again. It reaches my ear that your village was raided and that there were no survivors to the attack.

The following years elapse as a black and meaningless blur for me until, eventually, death comes to claim my soul too.

[4th]

From all the lifetimes we get to live, the ones in which you don't exist are the worst of all.

I spend my whole life traveling from one place to another, searching for something, though I never know what it is that I'm actually looking for, believing that 'this is it; this is the place where I'll find it.'

Inevitably, when that doesn't turn out to be true, I move on to the next place and thecircle begins to play all over again.

Sometimes, I even believe that I am going insane because there's this void living inside me that cannot be filled with anything or anyone. I travel to new places, meet new people but nothing seems to be what I'm looking for. However disappointing it is, the belief that I will eventually find it – find you – never leaves. I hold onto it like my personal prayer and so I never give up. I spend those whole lifetimes searching. And, when death finally comes, I depart with a smile on my face and the certainty that the next lifetime will be the time when my heart finds what it's so desperately looking for.

[5th]

This time, it happens absolutely by chance.

I'm running as fast as my legs would go, trying to catch my train. I'm late, as usual, and I'm supposed to be in San Francisco at five o'clock. If I miss this train, I ruin the one chance at a decent job I'll probably ever have. So I'm in such a hurry that I don't see you coming straight towards me.

The next thing I know is that I'm lying with my front pressed up against yours and staring down at two furious hazel eyes.

"Uh-Oh. I'm sorry!" I mumble as I try to scramble to my feet and get off of you. "I didn't see you coming." I stretch out my hand, which you begrudgingly take, and help you up again.

"That much is clear," you quip and, even though I've lived a bunch of lives by now, I cannot help but to feel like a helpless five year old under the death glare you throw at me.

A siren echoes through the station's walls and I curse under my breath because I know exactly what that means.

"It would appear you just lost your train, dear," you point out with jibe as you run your hands down your pretty grey dress to smooth out any possible wrinkles that your almost inexistent contact with the floor may have caused it.

I'm about to come up with a witty retort that I'm sure will render you speechless – because knowing you for several lifetimes has its advantages — when I catch sight of a translucent bag you dropped down to the floor when you fell.

I bend down and pick it up in my hands before I realize just what it is that you were carrying. It's a dress, a long white dress, and I immediately feel a tug on my heart, as all the implications that said dress carry, begin to battle in my mind.

"You're getting married?" I ask, incredulity and fear taking over me.

The second the words leave my mouth, I know I screwed it up, because there is no way they could ever be taken as mere curiosity. All I can think of is how you could do this to me, even though you have no idea of who I am.

"Actually no, I'm a fashion designer. I design wedding dresses."

The sigh of utter relief that escapes my mouth sounds almost inhuman, even to me, and you narrow your eyes as you try to decipher whether I'm completely nuts or just partially.

"Sounds like something you would do."

"What?" You ask, and I realize I must have thought that out loud.

"Nothing," I smile nervously. "I must have hit my head when we fell or something."

I know it's a lame excuse and so do you because you give me a skeptical look and raise a questioning eyebrow to make it absolutely clear that you're not buying it.

At this point, I'm half expecting you to call security on me, or worse: the mental health department. So I'm struck mute when you suggest walking me to the nearest hospital just in case I have a concussion.

It is those three simple words that give you away completely because I have learnt long ago that, with you, there are no coincidences. Everything you do is fueled by a reason and, this time, I happen to know exactly which your underlying motive is.

You don't wait for my answer, though. You turn around and begin to walk away. You're completely sure I will follow and, honestly, so am I. I would follow you to the end of the world if you asked me to.

So I watch you slowly getting lost among the crowd and I shake my head, hiding the smirk that threatens to overthrow my features. Finally, I sprint into a run to catch up with you and, as I shorten the distance between us, I realize that maybe the fact that you don't remember our past lives together have its perks after all, because I get the chance to make you fall in love with me all over again.

[Last One]

From all the lifetimes I've lived, if there is something I've learnt is that nothing ever happens exactly the same way twice.

There are times when the memories of all the lives we shared come back to me the moment I take my first breath. Others, they only return when I'm grey and old.

But even when I don't remember you, I know you exist. I can feel you there, like a warmth that wraps around my heart. I cannot remember your name or the way you look but the yearning I feel for you, for your love, never leaves.

That, and a little help from someone else, is what takes me to your front door on my twenty-eight birthday.

I don't recognize you but there is something about you that makes me want to stay, find out who you are, uncover all your secrets.

You once told me you don't believe in fate. But, when I blew out that candle on my birthday and I made a wish, I could swear it was fate that knocked on my door.

They say that if you truly love someone and they love you back, you will always find a way to be reunited. I always thought those words to be a romantic crap. Now, I cannot find them to be more true.

After all, they keep bringing me back to you.

FIN

Headcanon and missing facts:

-Emma and Regina live a total of nineteen lives together. There are four more in which Regina doesn't exist and Emma spends her whole lives searching for her.

-In their first existence, Emma is dressed with a white roman-like tunic and Regina wears a purple silk dress. They date for two years before they are discovered by one of Regina's "friends" while they were having a reading session under the willow tree.

-Originally, Emma's words to Regina (when they are tied to the cross) were going to be "Keep on moving forward, I'll meet you halfway."

-In their second life, Regina is a widow Queen. She killed her husband and his daughter to keep the throne for herself. She is cold and ruthless here, much like FTL Queen we know. Emma, on the other side, is an orphan that lives in the outskirts of the kingdom and runs a library to make a living. She's one of the very few people that know how to read. She developed this skill thanks to her previous life and Regina's teaching lessons.

-Emma thinks that, if she gets to remind Regina of her most beloved memory of their past life together, she'll remember everything. She believes that said prized memory is when Regina read to her for the first time, introducing her to this whole new world of fantasies and secretly initiating their relationship but, in truth, Regina's most beloved memory is the time when Emma manages to read properly to her for the first time. Regina dies from leukemia but Emma lives until she's a crone.

-The third time they meet, Emma is a grown woman and Regina is only five years old. Emma has a family, she's married and she works as a craftswoman at the market. Regina's people are nomads and they speak a different language than Emma's. Regina's people are attacked by Vikings and there are no survivors.

-There's one untold life in which Emma is a horse and Regina a horse groom. In this lifetime, Emma never gets to tell Regina of their love and Regina never remembers but she loves Emma more passionately and fiercely than she ever did before.

-The fourth time they meet, Emma is trying to make a better living by getting a new job in San Francisco. The position she's offered is that of a secretary at an important law firm. The train is black and functions by steam. Regina is dressed in a grey, tight-fitting dress and black high-heels. Instead of going to the hospital, they end up in a bar having a café and (secretly: their first date).

-In present time, Emma does not remember Regina as of yet but, as she lands in Storybrooke, she knows there's something worth staying there (even though she isn't sure what it is yet). So, she stays.

-This is the lifetime in which Emma gets to fulfill the first promise she ever made to Regina: to become her saviour.