Ink | Soulmate AU | ✓

twenty-nine | reality

Not a hallucination. This was too grisly. Only reality would do this.

'But the horror of the real world
Has only just begun.'

The poem. Had the poem been a prophecy?

That's why he looked so healthy, so happy. He didn't remember anything that had happened, anything that I had played a part in. Did he even know he'd been in prison? Did he remember my plan? I guessed not.

I assumed all the rest of it was artificial too: he'd died. They'd realised that what was what I wanted, and couldn't have that. Like I'd thought. It'd just taken a little longer than expected.

They'd brought him back. How, I had no idea. These people who could snatch memories, personalities, lives - surely they could return life to the dead as well?

Yes.

   This Government had secrets too.

   They'd paid for our silence with his life, but only just. If we told, there'd be uproar. What else didn't they want the public to know they could do? What kind of experimentation were peoples' taxes were being spent on? What kind of amazingly advanced technology did the elite have that they didn't want to share with the rest of us?

Next, surgery. It wasn't hard to make the ugliest of sights beautiful again. Add meat to his withering bones. Make his body work again after it had all suddenly stopped. What they'd done to him-- it was despicable. Used him like a lab rat, stopped his heart from beating because no matter how much so-called 'science' they worked on, how much sinister machinery they tried to create, how much they tried to destroy humanity, he'd always have something they didn't. A soul. The ability to feel love, despite everything. And Ink.

Finally, deciding there was no other way to win, they stole his memories, who he was, effectively taking his very soul. They returned him to me, but a different person. He didn't know me.

I hadn't won. They had.

How could I ever be so stupid as to think they'd let me win?

George was gone. Dead, but not dead. Alive, but as good as dead to me. George wasn't gone; my George was gone. And the Government had won. Like they always did.

But they wouldn't win. Even if they already had. What did they want me to do? Give up? Forget my soulmate and move on to someone new? Abandon George? Maybe his life would be easier without me now anyway. That mad girl who knew his name. Leave him to get on with this new life, alone.

No. I was going to win, even if I'd already lost. Perhaps they'd won a battle, but the war was still to come. They thought they'd avoided one by breaking me; they were so wrong. Little did they know I was going to start one. No, we were going to start one. Me and him. Us. Forever.

We live together, or we die together.

***

All of this passed through my brain in a matter of seconds before I grabbed his hand, pulling it into my own. Our eyes locked, again, only this time something passed between us: a look, a spark of understanding. Not that he remembered me, perhaps, but that he knew there was things he'd forgotten. Maybe a part of him was still in there. If so, I'd find it. If not, I'd rebuild him new. And he'd be mine. Forever.

The past was nothing.

I didn't want the answers. I just wanted him.

My midnight trips to craft stores were over. It was true: I'd never be the same again. But that didn't have to be a bad thing. I was past glue. I was on to stronger things, like trust, and love. And hope.

And Ink.

And George.

'So,' I began. 'Tell me about yourself.'

Even though I already knew everything.

His mouth opened a little, and then looked sadly down at the table between us.

I decided to start.

'Okay, well— if you don't remember me, how did you know I would be here?'

He gazed into my eyes; a shiver ran down my spine. 'I'm... not sure. I just... I didn't know where to go... I was wandering around the streets... and then I found myself outside a University for some reason...'

Where I was. He'd ended up where I was. Just like I'd ended up outside the prison where he had been. So he hadn't totally forgotten me, even if he didn't totally remember.

'Then the next thing I know... I'm here, in this café. Something just told me. Something just told me I should come here.'

I knew that feeling.

Silence hung heavy for several minutes.

'How's your day been?' I asked, grasping for a new topic.

A cloud of doubt passed over his face, just for a second. He said, 'I don't really... remember much.' Then he smiled. 'But it's certainly ended well.'

His eyes took me in, bit by bit, and stopped at my bare arms, dancing over the faded flowers that still lived there. Would live there forever. 'Where did you get those?' He asked, his voice full of wonder, still examining each petal closely.

In response, I tentatively pulled up both his sleeves, taking my time to do it carefully. And there they were. The flowers. They tattooed his skin as well, and would forever, just like they did mine. His own handiwork. Those flowers were his last words, and now they were my explanation of everything that had happened. The past was nothing.

   God, I had so many questions. The people in charge, the people I'd trusted were right for so long, allowed to control what I thought, who I let myself love... they weren't even people. They were monsters.

No matter how much they experimented on him, how much they tried to change him, take away who he was. We were still human. And The Professor was right.

   It never really washes off.