Chapter Text
Colin doesn't talk about it anymore.
He doesn't.
And he understands why; he's not upset about it. It is what it is and he...
He doesn't talk about it.
But it’s a bad day.
It’s really, really bad today.
He slept like shit again, woke worse. Dr. Althaus is trying him on something new at night. It’s working, sort of. He sleeps harder but his dreams are somehow even more vivid and that has been bothering him a lot. He doesn't like more details; he doesn't like anything clearer.
He’s hiding in his room. Hiding in his fucking childhood bedroom at twenty-one because she came over. He heard her linger in the hallway as she passed by his door. Heard the old wood creak underneath the carpet, heard those creaks echo down the walls as she took a breath, listened, waited for something. Waited for the version of him that hasn't just spent an entire night going back. The version that normally manages this, manages it better, doesn't let the dreams fuck him up so badly.
But last night he could smell. Last night he could smell the sea. Last night the waves were loud and the sun was warm, her smile warmer.
It’s never quite that warm here.
Nothing is.
—
His first word was no, like so many.
His first question: where?
At two years old, Colin looked up at his dad with welling eyes and asked, “Where?”
Where, where, where?
Where am I?
Where is she?
He was three, looking out the window in the back of the car after his first haircut when he first told them he wanted to go back. He remembers the raindrops that day, following them down the glass. They were going so fast.
“What was that?” his dad laughed, looking to his wife.
His mum turned in her seat, reaching out a hand to Colin’s cheek. There was a moment, then, just one. One where she knew that whatever she thought his statement was did not match his expression.
Violet Bridgerton knows her children, and she knew something was wrong.
But he was three. He was three fucking years old and so she took a breath and shook it away, told him they’d go back to the barber when his hair grew again.
At the time, it was just flashes.
Hazed flashes, all the time.
He wanted water again, he wanted waves. He wanted the coast and the breeze and her smile.
And this life was nice, but it wasn't that one, and though he was too young to understand, he understood at least that.
That the two lives were separate, even though he was not.
—
Colin was a strange child.
That's what everyone said.
Back when they talked about it, his mum said he had no interest in playing. If he wasn't asking someone to read to him, more often than not, he was sitting in the corner of the playroom for hours studying his siblings. Watching them with curious and confused eyes, shaking his head when his brothers asked him to play.
He tried to write before he knew how to. Came up to Violet with papers filled with scribblings. Over and over, papers filled with unreadable scribblings, just lines then. But she saw form. She saw paragraphs, attempts at punctuation. She thought he might have been trying to replicate all the books.
It came out at weird times. When his mum handed him a glass of milk he’d tell her he used to have goats. When they watched an old French movie one night as a family, Colin crawled off his dad’s lap, walked to the telly and pointed at the screen, at the candle in the corner. Over and over at the candlestick in the corner. “Light, mummy,” he said. “Only light.”
He was calm, though. A calm baby, and he smiled a lot – though Violet also said that he would smile at strange things, things he shouldn't have understood. Like when she told him she was pregnant with Daphne, and then Eloise, only really saying it just to say it, thinking he wouldn't have any clue what she meant.
But he did.
And he was weird with babies, too. Anthony and Benedict were always excited, of course. But Colin toddled in each time with a certain… seriousness. He'd climb onto the bed, narrow his eyes. Trace the lines of their foreheads and their noses.
She didn't understand, then.
Thought he was just… sweet, maybe.
But he was checking whether he knew them before.
“Hi,” he whispered when Eloise was born. “I miss-ted you.”
—
Around four years old, when Colin managed sentences, things really got bad. With better control of language came a bit of… well.
Incessancy, maybe.
Urgency.
No longer calm.
It wasn't that he had realized that absolutely no one knew what he was talking about. It wasn't that his brothers had become short with him over time and complained to their mom in whispers (he’s weird, mummy) when she admonished them for excluding him. It wasn't the loudness of this house in contrast to the last time, it wasn't lack of love, or lack of anything…
Those things all added, in their ways. Spun around him in newness, punctuating the truth.
It was that memories grew worse with each passing year. So much worse. And with a newfound ability to speak about it…
He was fighting with Benedict over his crayons when his mum walked in. Both of his brothers – at Violet's pushing – had begun to pull him away from his “writing” and drawing and insist he do something else. Ride scooters with them, play a computer game, anything.
Anthony had left five minutes before, giving up with angry eyes after Colin said no for the fifteenth time.
“Please, Collie, just play with us! Mummy said!” Ben begged, holding his crayons high in the air, taller than him then. And Colin was furious, because the only thing worse than being haunted by memories was being kept from them. He was working on something, he was in the middle of something, and he didn't want to play. He didn't want to pretend that any of it felt like anything when the last time felt like more. But he was crying too hard, and Benedict was too tall, and so all he could really do was tackle him, scream out, “I was growed up! I just trying to remember!”
Benedict yelped when Colin pinned him down and ripped the crayons out of his hand. He remembers the tears dropping down and staining Ben’s red shirt, seeing red, red, red, so much more red in this world than the last one.
His mum dragged him off his brother, begging him frantically, “Colin, Colin, stop,” and pulled him into her arms.
“I want to go back,” was all he could blubber out. He remembers her hands smoothing over his hair, just listening. He remembers the beat of her heart, too fast to calm him.
She told Ben to go get their father after he rolled over with tear-stained cheeks, thanking him for trying.
But Colin did not stop crying, clutching his stupid crayons in his fist as flashes of her smile and the sea and the house crashed by.
They’re worse when he cries, longer, which always makes him cry harder. Rising up like a crest of a wave, intermittent gleams of the wooden roof, the white stone walls, the blue door. The second floor, the window he would stare out of as a child. Swimming in the summer, birds flying past and skimming the surface of the water.
“I want to go back.”
Her smile, just her smile. Her hand in his as they walked late at night down to the shore. The way she ran, the way her dress flew in the breeze. Their feet overtaken by seafoam, chilled seafoam, calming the burn in their chests.
“I don't like it here. I want to go back.”
Picking raspberries in the bushes near the rowan trees. Letting the chickens run loose on the beach, laughing wildly as they waddled in the sand, attempting hapless flight with no footing.
“Where is she?” he sobbed.
“Who, baby?”
A baby on her hip. A baby on her hip. She's hanging clothes on the line just outside the kitchen window and he’s stirring something in a pot and she has a baby on her hip.
—
He remembers some of their conversation once he calmed down. He remembers Violet placing him back at the little table, giving him new paper, sorting through some of his works that day.
Trying to parse through his writing, his drawings.
“It’s always the same things, love,” she said, wiping a tear when his father walked in.
Edmund already knew what she was talking about. Colin’s drawings – though extremely plain, which never really changed – were always the same.
Wooden roof, white stone walls, blue door. The sea, calm waves, yellow sun.
Sometimes he added birds. Sometimes he added ships. Sometimes he added people.
“We’ve never taken him to the sea,” she said.
His dad nodded, kneeling down beside the table, rubbing his wife’s back. “He’s seen it in his picture books. And movies.”
“I know,” she sighed.
They ended up across the room, passing papers back and forth, trying to sound out his phonetic scribblings.
“‘I loved…’ I think that's going… g-o-w-i-g-g…”
Violet leaned over, tracing underneath his letters. “‘Going to town… with my...’”
“Baby,” Colin cut in, still drawing. “I wrapped her with cloth on my chest,” he said, rubbing over his heart. “When she was older we walked, but… she liked to run like my brother did.”
They both gaped at him, as that was the most he had ever said.
“She loveded eggplant. And flowers. We brought home lamb to cook.”
He remembers his mum’s grip on his father’s arm.
And then his father whispering, “I’ll ask around.”
The first doctor told his parents that children have very vivid imaginations. That it was incredibly normal; Colin was simply very “in tune with his emotions” and that with time it would fade.
The second doctor laughed at them. Laughed at Violet as she explained, laughed at Colin when he started crying. Laughed at his father when he grabbed both of their hands and dragged them out the door.
The third was an educational psychologist who studied children’s fantasy lives – imaginary friends and worlds. Colin didn't attend that meeting, his parents now far too concerned with how most adults reacted. But when they sat down with her and explained everything – the nature of his memories, the consistency in description, repeated themes – she then explained that children with imaginary creations usually feel in control of them. They choose what happens and when, and oftentimes admit themselves that their worlds are not real.
Colin was not doing that. Colin was very clearly not able to choose. Colin spoke about it like it was real.
She didn't make any grand declarations of what else it could be, but whatever it was – it was more than likely not imaginary.
But they already knew that.
His parents then spent months researching while Colin circled the drain. Reading books, articles, research papers. Psychology, history, mythology, neurology. Roaming different halls at their respective alma maters, begging anyone who would listen to give them a lead. Colin can't quite imagine what those conversations were like. “Our son remembers a past life. Got anyone for that?”
Colin became increasingly inconsolable in the meantime. Refusing to leave the house, refusing to go to bed. Refusing to do anything but sit at the table in the playroom and draw, try to write.
His mind seemed nearly incapable of stopping the memories at that point as they spun in a constant loop. It was safer at the table where there were no new things. With new things came new memories.
But they came anyway.
He remembers very little of that time.
It's the house and then the crayons in his hand. It's reaching for blue when the waves crashed harder, black when she did, wiping away tears to see the page.
It’s walks down to the beach, sinking his feet into the carpet here to try and stop it.
It's his brothers at the table with him, calmer with him then, some version of it explained to them.
Anthony would usually play something on his DS, but he'd talk to Colin when he got bored.
“Are those chickens?”
Colin nodded, “We had chickens and goats and also a dog once. He was wild but my mummy let me keep him.”
Benedict always drew with him. Copying Colin’s works in finer detail, more precision. He often thanks Colin now for showing him his love for it. After a few months, Ben moved onto watercolors, and his own renderings, his own thoughts – but he still sat with Colin at the table.
The only time Violet could ever convince Colin to leave was to go see the babies. She stopped bringing little Daphne and El to the playroom after a while, hoping that might lure him out.
It worked, sometimes.
But Colin preferred his time alone. When he didn't have to pretend he was only seeing faces here as a blur, only barely seeping through spinning memories.
He also preferred being awake. Sleep was worse. Being awake was hard but sleep was worse. At night the water was cold. At night the winds picked up. At night her smile was near constant. At night he could hear her. At night she would speak . At night their baby giggled and their goats cried and the waves rose and fell so loudly that it rang in his ears the next morning.
Dr. Althaus finally came recommended by a professor at the University where Edmund had studied.
As it turned out, according to Dr. Althaus – Colin was not alone, he was not the only one, and there were people out there very eager to talk about it.
Or perhaps study it.
By the time Colin was five, he was laying in an MRI machine while lullabies played through the speakers. Dr. Althaus had a few theories, but he always liked to start by getting a sense of the brain and checking for anything abnormal.
Lullaby and goodnight, with roses bedight
With lilies o'er spread is baby's wee bed
Lay thee down now and rest, may thy slumber be blessed
It hit him like a punch in the chest, drowning him.
“We went to church!” he called out, ripping the headphones off. But as soon as those were gone he was overwhelmed by the machine thudding and hammering, his heart monitor going off wild in the room over.
“Hey, Colin, buddy – can you put the headphones back on?” Dr. Althaus called over the speaker.
But Colin just screamed, “We went to church! He said we’d be together!”
Nothing, then, just bang, bang, bang, and, thud, thud, thud, and buzz, buzz, buzz, vibrating the tears on his cheeks until his mum said, “Put the headphones on, baby, I'll talk to you.”
Colin swallowed, looking up at the white dome around him, and agreed.
Lullaby and goodnight, thy mother's delight
Bright angels beside my darling abide
They will guard thee at rest, thou shalt wake on my breast…
The music finally faded out, and then…
“Who said you would be together?” Violet called in, voice soft and soothing.
“The vicar. Mummy, why don't we go to church?”
“We don't believe in God, baby. But it's okay if you do.”
“I don't know.”
“That's okay, too.”
“Mummy?”
“Yes, baby?”
“Sometimes I dream I go to there. But sometimes it really hurts because it's when I'm leaving. Every times, I tried to go say goodbye to her, even though we said goodbye in the morning, but she's not home, and so I just go because I'll see her tomorrow. But then the water is really cold, and the wind is really bad, and then I leave them.”
He heard his father ask, “A shipwreck?”
“They usually die tragically,” Dr. Althaus explained.
“I can't do this,” his mum said as the line clicked off.
The lullaby was back, then, a different song. Just for a few moments, Colin trying to stay still like the doctor told him.
But then his father was on the line, “Colin, sweetheart, what was your favorite day?”
—
His first meeting with Dr. Althaus was long.
His parents brought with them all of Colin’s works. The endless drawings of the same house, the same sea, the same sun. His writing, which had improved a bit with school, and all the writing before it.
Printed articles, a milk crate full of books highlighted and tabbed.
And Colin.
They brought Colin, the largest piece of evidence, a leaking ship.
His scans were normal.
They all knew they would be.
At fifty, Dr. Althaus was the head of Psychology research at the University of London, Birkbeck. Colin remembers several conversations with his parents where he explained just how rare this was, less than 2,500 cases reported in the last fifty years. His department was new, beginning a relationship with the University of Virginia in the states – the largest operation of investigation into these cases in the academic world.
“Our ultimate hope is to corroborate the memories. Colin is a special case, really. He reports more memories than average, but less detail. If we can get names out of him, or even more specific descriptions, we might be able to verify some of this. With enough, we’ve even brought children back to their previous homes. Oftentimes, that is the first step in helping the child move on and acclimate to this life.”
“I am most concerned with his happiness,” his father said.
“As am I.”
Dr. Althaus was the first to truly listen. He listened to his mum recount all the things she noticed since he was born. He smiled earlier than other babies. He cried louder. He spoke sooner.
Spoke less.
He had no interest in playing, but a deep interest in books, in drawing, in writing.
“He also seems to have favorites with his siblings.”
“No,” he clarified.
All three of them turned to him.
“I just know some of them,” he shrugged.
Dr. Althaus’s eyebrows raised, he remembers that. A slight sparkle in his eye in excitement. He hadn't seen that before. His brothers always looked at him like he was a bit crazy. His parents always looked sad.
“Who did you know, before?” he asked, meaning it.
“I didn't know my brothers. I knew Dapnee but I don't... but I know Elweeze was my big brother.”
“How do you know?”
Colin thought for a moment. “I just look in their eyes.”
“Amazing,” he smiled, writing that down.
—
There are a few things Colin likes more about this life than the last. More than a few, really, but Dr. Althaus is always telling him to add.
Wikipedia. Suncream. WD-40.
Trainers. Showers. Spotify.
He keeps a list on his phone.
He’s so desperately tired today. And he thinks about going to sleep again; thinks about rolling over one more time and just taking another nap – but he really has to piss and his skin has that taut feeling from staying in bed too long.
Plus, it's late-morning at least, his stomach is growling, and if he spends any longer in here his mum will come find him and insist he go for a run. Running helps, sometimes. But mostly it just feels like running away from it all, like everything else does.
And he’s too tired to run, so…
He thinks he can do this day.
He thinks.
He only makes it five steps out of his room before that is very clearly not true.
“Colin!” El calls out from behind her door.
“El,” Pen grits, but Colin hears it.
That’s it, really. That's enough. Her voice.
But he has no choice.
Never does.
He takes a breath before he enters, then another. Tries to calm the burn, imagine flight instead of sinking like Dr. Althaus says. When that doesn't work – simply tries to put on what he needs to put on.
“Come tell Penelope she’s beautiful!” El adds.
“What?” he laughs before he turns the corner.
Eloise is laying on her bed, sprawled out like a starfish. Her curtains are drawn, the only light in her room the glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling that she won't take her eyes off of and whatever is coming from the vanity mirror in the open bathroom. Penelope is nowhere, so probably there.
“She’s just being self-deprecating as hell and I need some back up.”
Penelope's voice echoes through the room as it flies out from around the corner, nearly knocking him out cold. “I don't need a man to tell me I'm beautiful.”
“Ding ding ding! Bingo, bitch. Jesus, took you long enough.”
“Can I say it anyway?” Colin asks.
He can hear her smile as she replies, “Won't say no.”
Eloise groans, slamming her head on the mattress. “You're undoing progress!”
“You are beautiful.”
“You can't even see me.”
“Don't need to,” he says.
He leaves after that floats, after it thickens the air, clutching his chest as soon as he makes it into the hallway, trying to catch whatever breath he has left, chasing after it, chasing, chasing, chasing…
Because it really is that bad today.
—
He finds his dad when he hits the last step to the stairs, study doors open, glasses balancing on the tip of his nose.
Colin still struggles with this.
He’s so much like him. So much more the same than the others, though less than her.
But with him…
It's harder.
Or… hard in a different way.
Yeah, a different way.
He doesn't think about it every day anymore. But sometimes he finds Edmund like this, studying texts with his pointer finger just like he did, brows pinched the same way, and he's back – seven years old at the kitchen table, listening to the last version of him read from the Bible.
Colin spent most of this childhood wondering when Edmund would leave. Wondering if things that happened there repeated here. Wondering if they were here together again for a reason.
He doesn't remember much. He was very little when it happened, and just like memories here, the ones from early on grow hazy over time. He remembers having to do his jobs after he died. He remembers his mum sending him out before dawn to milk the goats. He remembers walking into town in the afternoon with his brother to sell the eggs. He remembers, most of all, his absence.
Sometimes he wants to tell him he still fears it. He knows he's not supposed to. Not supposed to fear it, not supposed to think about it. Not supposed to look at his father and only see loss, but he can't control it.
He told them that, back then. Back when they still talked about it.
“I think daddy will leave again.”
“Did you know daddy?” Dr. Althaus asked.
Colin nodded, wiping a tear as he continued with his crayons.
“And daddy left you?”
“Yeah.”
"I’m right here, bud, isn't it great we're together again?"
“Maybe,” Colin said, because that’s all he ever really felt about it. “But maybe you leave again.”
But he didn't.
So it is great, isn't it? He wants to feel that way. He wants to feel more purpose to all of this than he does. He wants to know why some of them came back to him and some of them didn't. He wants to know why he has a new mum this time, but not a new dad. He wants to know why Eloise came after him, and why Daphne did too, when last time they were older than him. He wants to know where they wait until they reunite, why he remembers all of that but not what happens in-between.
He wants to know why she doesn't remember, and he does. He wants to know why his soul transcended single existence and no one else’s did. He wants to know things he can never know.
He wants to let it go.
Rolos. Hand sanitizer. Fuzzy blankets. Highlighters.
“Colin, did your daddy die?”
Colin nodded again, gripping his crayon harder as everything went red.
“I think that's enough for today.”
When Colin was nine, back when he still thought his parents were superheroes, he would ask a lot of whys. Knowing now just how little changes as you age, he understands why he received no answers.
There are none.
But at nine, he believed there were. That if they just talked about it enough they might find them.
Some nights, he would sit in the study with his dad when he couldn't sleep. And it was silent, mostly – Edmund would do all the things he does late at night when the house is finally quiet, and Colin would curl up in the armchair across the room and stare at the binds on the bookshelves.
It bothered him differently back then. By that time he was too old for history to repeat itself the same way. And he was never sure, still isn't, that Edmund wouldn't leave again. But it lessened, a bit.
Which only caused more questions.
Why are we back? Why do I remember and you don't? Why are you so the same?
And his dad tried, he did. But over time his answers shortened.
“Maybe it happened for a reason. Maybe it didn't. If you needed me again, I'm just grateful I am here. Grateful I didn't leave you this time.”
“But why? Why did you stay this time and not the other?”
“Modern medicine? I don't know, Colin. I can't know that. Neither can you.”
“That’s not fair. You aren’t tortured by knowing that there are answers, just not what they are.”
“That is true, son,” he offered.
Sometimes when he finds him this way he wants to ask again. Maybe he has an answer now.
But Colin doesn’t talk about it anymore.
Black-out curtains. Stephen Colbert. Electric guitars.
—
On his sixth birthday, Colin’s parents gifted him a baby doll and a wrap. He remembers his mum helping him secure the doll to his chest. And he remembers knowing it wasn't the same, but also knowing, at least in part, in what way she was trying to help.
And it did. It did help.
Weight on his chest helped. If he closed his eyes he could almost pretend he was back, walking with her to town. And if he focused even harder, he could pretend he could feel her breath knocking against his. That was his favorite part.
His brothers snickered as he walked into the kitchen the next day, doll wrapped to his chest again, his tote of coloring supplies in hand.
Dr. Althaus had managed to convince Colin to sit in the kitchen by then. Even the living room sometimes. He’s sure it had nothing to do with the candy bar he got at the end of the week if he spent time outside of the playroom.
He tried to ignore them as he sat down at the kitchen table. Anthony shoved Benedict as he continued laughing, at least knowing in part that they shouldn't.
“I don't want to hear even one word from either of you,” their mum snapped.
“I didn't say anything,” Benedict huffed.
“It'd do you well, both of you, to remember that fathers are parents, too.”
“Duh,” Anthony said flatly.
“Well? Why should he not, then?”
Colin just unpacked his tote. Crayons, paper, some of his drawings from the previous day. He missed whatever expression their mother gave before his brothers were droning, “Sorry, Colin,” in unison.
“It's okay,” he shrugged.
“Off with you.”
Both of them skittered off, ruffling Colin’s hair on the way out.
“Does that help, love?” she asked.
Colin nodded. Violet smiled.
“Mummy?”
“Mhm?”
“I think… I think I like Dr. Althaus.”
Violet turned around, a tiny Eloise on her hip.
“I like him, too,” she smiled.
“You'd really like my mummy before.”
The pain behind her eyes was obvious, but not quite understandable at that age. He searched her for a moment, watched her pull it back.
“Can you tell me about her?” she asked.
Colin shook his head.
Violet sighed, letting Eloise down as she became fussy.
“I love you both the same, mummy. She's my mummy. But you're my mummy, too.”
—
Getting more details out of Colin proved fruitless. It was six months of weekly meetings before Dr. Althaus explained to his parents that Colin’s memories were simply too emotionally driven to gather specifics.
“Wooden roof, white stone walls, blue door,” he said. “Seaside, a short path down to the beach. They had goats and chickens and a dog. He had a mother, a father who died quite young, and an older brother. They sold eggs at the market in town. They milked goats at dawn. They swam in the ocean. Women wore dresses and kept their hair long but his drawings are nondescript, no detail to the fashions. No electricity, but even that hardly helps. I cannot place the time, nor the country. The memories are a bit more detailed as he– as the last soul grows older, but even those…”
“I know,” his mum said.
“He speaks of smiles and the warmth of the sun and holding hands,” he finished. “He won't…” he said, bringing his tone down low. “He won't speak about the death. Nor yours.”
His dad shook his head. “I don't think he should have to.”
“I can keep working with him, and I would very much like to, if that is alright with you. I believe I can help in other ways, but I am not sure that it is worth the time to search with so little.”
His parents agreed.
“There is also– the memories normally begin to fade around six or seven. We’re not far off, now.”
Sometimes Colin wishes he had spoken up. Had fought back, told them he just needed more words. That was the problem, really – a lack of vocabulary for it all. Rudimentary skill in drawing, fumbling hands, a child's tongue.
He wishes they had forced him to cry more, maybe. Which sounds insane but it's the truth, because they’re always so much longer when he cries, and maybe if he could have just sobbed for a while he'd have a memory long enough to draw with more detail. Maybe if they'd waited he'd have found the words, and Dr. Althaus would have found the time, and Colin wouldn't have…
But he just sat there, and he dropped his crayons, suddenly disgusted with them – his inability, his failure to remember enough to take him back.
“What if they miss me?” he asked.
That was the first time Dr. Althaus explained time to him. That what he already knew to be undeniably true was even more true; time was linear, there was no way back, and they were all long gone.
Buried somewhere impossible to find, six-feet-under, likely next to his last set of bones.
He never drew again.
—
Colin knew he was a guinea pig. He knew. He knew he was different, and he knew he was weird, and he knew something was wrong with him. For a long while between seven and eight he was worried he was sick, but…
He'd been sick before; sicknesses get better.
Remembering never gets better.
What became increasingly clear as the questions never changed is that no one knew what to do with him. That every single attempt at helping him was a shot in the dark.
And the ship wasn't leaking quite so much anymore – but it's not all that comforting to watch adults who should know what to do frantically patch holes with whatever they have on hand. The chain of command seemed all wrong.
Dr. Althaus tried a lot of things on him. They ran blood tests to check for any weird markers and did continued brain scans.
Found absolutely nothing.
Colin would often ask what Dr. Althaus believed.
He'd just say, “I believe you.”
Sometimes, that was enough.
He took endless notes. More notes than Colin could even comprehend, as if every word he said was gold.
After another year, Dr. Althaus’s questions became more direct, in their way. What he wouldn't give for that now, ironically – but at eight, it was making him crazy. He was tortured by the memories enough.
It didn't help that no one ever had answers to his. Hard to want to answer when no one answers you.
Though, half the time, he had no clue how to ask either.
He hated answering, after a while. The first question was usually fine. He didn't mind being asked about the coast or the house or his mum. But the follow-up was terrible . “And what else do you remember?”
Everything?
Everything, he wanted to say.
Colin understands now, at least in part, why they were so flat. Why Dr. Althaus responded the way he did, so carefully, with so little. There is concern that to ask is to goad, or perhaps even lead a “reborn child” to remember things falsely.
But Colin always knew the difference. He could tell the difference between the real and the false. Because sometimes he would have normal dreams. Dreams a child should have, with shadowy figures and inconsistent details. And though Dr. Althaus knew that too, Colin supposes he couldn't risk it.
Colin’s sleep only got worse, though, as the normal dreams waned with age, always walking around with dark circles under his eyes far too intense for his age. Sometimes Colin looks at old portraits of the family and cringes – no child should look that tired.
Be that tired.
But rest was so rarely rest for him. Rest was going back.
The only thing harder than sleep was not being able to. Waking up over and over, suddenly in the dark, sheets cold, skin colder – realizing once again that he hadn't returned. That the sun he had felt so viscerally just moments before actually only existed in the past. This sun, aged, had set hours before and even when it rose again in the morning it would never be as warm as it was then.
He's read that the sun is getting hotter. Ten percent brighter now, actually, than a billion years ago. Factually, he understands. Factually, he can also report that it is not as warm here as it was there. Period. End of story. That is the truth.
At least in the daytime the memories are superimposed over this life. In the daytime he knows he isn't there, he knows he's lost something, he knows he's separate. But at night he’s immersed, he's only there and not here at all and the return is so much more painful.
At night, when he wakes suddenly so alone, it all feels so much darker. And it's odd, because during the day having someone there hurts, and the pulling back hurts too. But at night… no one to be there when this life crawls in like a sudden thunderstorm? No one to talk to, no one to stop it, no one to help him? At least in the daytime there's usually someone there, too busy to say much but there enough to ground him again.
And Colin knew, in some ways, that when he stopped talking about it they would think it was getting better. But when he woke up again one night at eight years old, aching from head-to-toe, he decided he was done. He was done going to his parent’s room every night. He didn't want their questions. He wanted answers to his.
It was around then that Dr. Althaus decided it was time to rethink the plan.
Because Colin had become a lot less quiet. A lot more…
Violet said volatile.
Colin doesn't remember it that way. He remembers being tired all the fucking time.
But yes, he remembers a meeting where that word was used and then danced around for the better part of an hour.
So they pivoted. Dr. Althaus started him on some meds at night, which worked only half the time. The meetings changed too, as he began hooking Colin up to all sorts of monitors when they discussed his past life.
Past, past, past.
Can someone hate a word?
Dr. Althaus would ask what the last new memory was. Colin would say something like, “She added cinnamon to my porridge when she slept well,” and Dr. Althaus would watch as Colin’s heart monitor went absolutely berserk.
He'd ask again.
Colin would say the same thing.
It'd calm a bit.
It worked on the old memories. It worked to make new memories old. But desensitizing him to the nonsensical blow of cinnamon in porridge did little to help when he gained so much access to new all the time.
He thinks about that sometimes, just how much life he had before. He does not know what age he died, but he knows how old his daughter was and can make guesses.
It's at least 14,000,000 minutes.
That's fourteen million potential memories.
Fourteen million.
No one seemed to understand that.
And it didn't matter how mundane they were, mundane almost hurt more. She's sleeping, and it's summer, and the window is open. A breeze flows through and rustles the curtains, the linens, her hair – sends goosebumps down her arm. He watches the goosebumps fall down her arm and then he’s back here – nine years old, doing something that doesn't matter at all like filling out a fucking mathematics worksheet or helping one of his sisters put on their fucking coat and he knew… he knew if the mundanity of that life brought him to tears by its beauty alone then this one should too, but he just couldn't… he doesn't know these people and he knew them, he knew them, he knew–
“Colin.”
They used to find small rocks on the side of the path to the shore and carry them down to the beach. And then they’d sit on the rocks somewhere – fucking somewhere… those memories are too fucking isolated – and scrape messages into the stone with the sharp ends.
“Colin.”
But what the fuck did they say?
He can't… he can't read them, and it has never mattered how hard he tries to focus his vision on the words, he always ends up looking at her. All he has is her stupid beautiful smile as she writes something else, the stupid beautiful sun somehow ricocheting off her skin.
“Okay, we’re done,” Dr. Althaus said, turning off the monitors. It was only when they went quiet that Colin heard just how loud they had become.
He hated the meetings with his parents the most. The progress reports. The ones where he just sat there and slung answers to questions as if they mattered at all.
Nothing ever changed.
No one ever listened.
He knew they were trying. He did. But they didn't seem to understand…
The only thing that had changed was everyone’s concerns. He was supposed to start forgetting around seven or eight. The memories were supposed to fade.
But with each year they just sped.
And Colin was furious. He didn't want to be parted with them, which seemed to be the new goal. But he also… God, if he had to be so broken couldn't he have been the normal kind of broken?
Forcing them away seemed so much worse than a fade. If it had been a fade away he'd have had no choice. But they were implying choice. Implying that he could simply feel less about it if he tried hard enough. He thought that was stupid.
So unbelievably stupid.
Adults were supposed to be smart.
“How are you sleeping?” Dr. Althaus asked once they met with his parents again.
“Like shit.”
“Colin,” his dad sighed. “Try again.”
“Sorry, um… terribly.”
“And how's school?”
He refrained from replying shit again. His mum said he was doing perfectly. And he was, but mainly because focusing on new facts kept the memories at bay for at least a few hours at a time.
“Friends?”
His mum shook her head.
“I'd really like to get him involved in some activities,” Dr. Althaus said.
Colin sunk into his seat. “God, what does it matter?”
His mom gestured vaguely as if he was proving some sort of point.
Dr. Althaus circled something on his clipboard. If Colin was one to bet he’d guess it had something to do with apathy.
But it wasn't apathy.
It was rage.
He was so, so, so angry.
And so fucking tired.
And nine years old. And confused.
And so fucking tired.
Who would want to be friends with him anyway? He didn't give a shit about anything they did.
He liked one telly program. One.
Liked food, sometimes – when his stomach wasn't bugging him. When his head wasn't bugging him.
His sisters were on a perler-bead kick. He enjoyed making one of those the week before.
And he liked going on bike rides with his brothers. But mainly because the wind felt nice on his face, reminded him a lot of–
“Exercise will likely help. Might help with sleep, as well. Tire him out a bit.”
Colin’s grip on the couch grew white. “I am tired,” he grit out.
—
“Sweetheart, don't forget you have an appointment on Friday,” his mum smiles as she walks past.
Colin furrows his brows, spinning to face her. “I’m moving Friday.”
“That's why I made the appointment,” she says flatly, heading up the stairs.
“Mum–”
“Friday at one.”
Hyacinth spins past him with a kiss on the cheek before she skips into the living room, her supposedly sound-proof headphones blasting something. Gregory’s video game sounds off, explosions and blasts and whatever else mixing with his shouts as Hyacinth blocks his view.
“I can't see!”
“Just one second, Jesus, I'm looking for something.”
Colin turns his head; his dad is now packing up his briefcase, likely headed to the office today.
Food, right.
He turns to head into the kitchen but then he hears her.
“Colin.”
Just a whisper.
Top of the stairs.
He spins around, and finally sees her.
And it is really, really, really bad today.
She's wearing a matching hoodie and joggers in this pretty lilac that reminds him too much of the flowers she liked before. Has her hair down, redder today somehow. Always redder. A bit messy.
Beautiful; he was right.
“Hey,” he says, because that's what you would say if you were normal. If your heart weren't trying to escape. If you didn't already know. If this weren't–
“Are we… tonight?”
Fuck, okay.
“Yeah,” he breathes. “Yeah, of course.”
But then the study doors open. He nods for her to disappear.
She does.
—
There was never any question. Not one moment of doubt in his mind. Not a single second, not less than one. If time could be laid out in a line, if one single particle of it could be grasped within his fingertips, if the second-hand on the clock could make a half-tick… it was somewhere in there.
He knew.
He knew the moment she looked up.
He knew.
It was her.
Colin never thought much about love. Not the romantic kind. He didn't really need to. He already had someone to miss. He already did that.
He was eleven, coming off of an afternoon football practice, something his mum had decided was the newest distraction. He wasn't bad at it, and he liked the running. Liked kicking things. Liked winning.
Hated going, didn't know why.
It had rained that day, and practice was hell. But that fun sort of hell where the pain adds to it all. The wet ball had whacked him so many times he was pretty sure he was covered in welts, but he honestly hadn't thought about the last life in several hours, so that felt good.
It was dark in the house from the storm, and his mum had the kitchen lights turned down low. He remembers the way the grass was sticking to his shins. The way his shirt dragged on his shoulders, heavy from the rain. He hesitated for a moment, thought about going to change first. But then he smelled cookies and tea and that was quickly forgotten.
Everyone was being strangely quiet. Benedict was working on his watercolors at the kitchen table, headphones in. His mum was taking another batch of snickerdoodles out of the oven with a tiny Hyacinth on her hip. Daphne was in the room over teaching Frannie a duet on the piano, and Greg was suddenly at his feet, clinging onto his legs as he walked into the room.
He remembers grabbing a cookie off the stack, leaning over the island for a teacup.
Remembers his mom ruffling his hair as she walked past, setting Hyacinth down in the high chair.
The back doors were open, rain pattering loud on the step, streams falling off the awning.
Thunder rolled through, and Greg gripped him tighter.
“Just a storm,” he said mindlessly.
And then they both ran into view.
Eloise first, giggling loud and happy, completely drenched and shivering as the downpour consumed her. Reaching out her hand as she tipped her chin to the sky and spun.
Then she appeared.
Just a hand, but then Eloise swung her around and…
He knew immediately.
But when she looked up, he knew.
It was only one turn, less than a second of her eyes catching his.
But he knew.
He wishes time would have truly stopped. He wishes that the moment was graspable, pluckable. That he could hold in his hands the precise granule that was knowing.
“Holy shit.”
“Howy shit,” Greg echoed.
“Colin Bridgerton!” his mum scolded, pulling Gregory off him.
Normally, he was meant to apologize. Find an alternative, like wow, or, oh no, depending on the situation.
He’ll admit he couldn't decide that time.
Or find a breath for another word.
Eloise laughed louder as she pulled the little redhead into her spins. And her laugh, that one…
Everything stopped.
Colin stopped breathing.
Colin stopped everything.
He just stayed like that, teacup in one hand and a half-finished cookie in the other, his heart vibrating as flashes of her before flew in as quickly as she did.
Different, then. In so many ways.
Just a short flash of her looking back at him with a smile as they walked down to the shore.
Another, older – pregnant, he thought. Newly, and worried, rubbing over her growing bump as she looked in the mirror.
But then back again, they're quite young, no younger than they were in this life at the time. He's bandaging a scrape on her knee, and she's crying, but he says something and then she laughs.
Her hair was different. Her face, too, though not by much.
But her eyes were exactly the same.
He could hear her laugh, over and over, mixing with the ones flying in the rain. And he tried, he tried what Dr. Althaus said, he tried to separate them, separate the time. See only this one and not her, too, but it wouldn't stop.
“Colin.”
All he could do was stand there as they whipped by. Thunder rumbling louder, all of it rumbling louder, her smile pointed to the crying sky, darting out her tongue to taste the drops.
Another, she’s waiting outside his doorstep while he says something to his mum. The sun is so bright that her hair becomes a second sun, pulling, pulling, pulling… But he’s halfway, leaning against the jamb, trying to convince his mother to let him leave – flitting his eyes between a very beautiful, pulling, pleading, and cheeky girl and his very wary mother. Eventually she agrees, and Colin whips out the door, grabs her hand and runs.
“Colin.”
Several flashes, different days. Different days spent in the water. They’re young, and then they're older, and then they're younger again. Blue skies, dark skies, lighter.
“Colin!” Ben cut through just as the lightning struck, hands to his shoulders.
“Girls, inside!” he heard his mum call out.
He’d never had that many back-to-back.
And they weren't stopping, not really, flashes and flashes and flashes, the sound of her breath, her hand in his, their life.
Their baby.
Their baby.
“Bring him in here,” Edmund said from the hallway.
He only got one more glimpse of her, one more breath before Benedict pulled him down the hall: his mum handing her a towel; her smile.