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Part 2 of We'll be more than a memory - verse
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Published:
2024-01-01
Completed:
2024-05-08
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62,540
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25/25
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Nothing left (to look back on and regret)

Summary:

Upon attending his first lecture at university, Jack meets her again. She's there in all her glory, strolling into his lecture, asking for and then insulting his name once again.
The gears of life begin to turn once more for Jack - except even now, he can't find himself.
As Jack struggles to come to terms with Lacie trying earnestly to help him once more, Gilbert's cat gets lost, Leo prepares for his impending top surgery, Reim tries to come to terms with the fact that in this life, he might not be able to marry the one he loves, and Vincent keeps getting quite the annoying visitor at his job.
It seems that everyone is finding their place except for Jack.
Forever lost, unknown to himself - but not to others.

[standalone fic even if it's in a series; just the same AU as the other one]

Notes:

i realized only belatedly i did set this in the uni au series aka my wbtam verse. dear god. i forgot i had sharon read the stupid books by this stupid character from this other stupid fic. aka this doesn't have a title from the Simple Plan song, so you'll just have to bear with thsi being the outlier!

Chapter 1: Retrace I

Summary:

Jack meets Lacie again, and if she's anything, it's unpredictable - sitting down next to him, talking to him as if nothing ever happend.

content warnings:
- implied self-harm
- implied suicide attempt

Notes:

Welcome to my new fic! It's been quite a while since I've written a long pandora hearts fic, and my best friend and me set up a very super duper legally binding contract that we'd commit to one, so here i am! As you may have read in the tags, this fic consists of five separate but still connected short stories, each consisting of five chapters. :)

I will put trigger warnings in the summary for each chapter if I manage (i'm a bit of a boomer, sorry) but genereally just mind the tags pls :D the rating is set to T since i don't think mentions of sex and some exploration of suicidality necessarily warrant M, but if u disagree, make sure to let me know and I can change the rating to M. :)

uploads should be every 5-10 business days, since that's probably how long one chapter is goign to take me inbetween my other writing projects, haha

Chapter Text

“I didn’t care whether I lived or died. Until I met you, Lacie.”

 

*

 

When the door to the lecture hall opens two minutes before class starts, Jack Vessalius expects it to be the lecturer, but clearly, he expected too much of Rufus Barma, even in this world; there’s no world in which Rufus Barma is married to the love of his life and makes it to the first class of the year for the new students on time.

Apparently, though, there’s a world in which the one pushing open the door is a girl he knows all too well, dressed in a white dress much the same way as she was back then, though this time with dark red tights and a cardigan the same colour thrown over her narrow shoulders to protect her from the autumn wind.

Because this time around it’s not snowing yet.

Her hair is shorter, just reaching her shoulder blades instead of her lower back, the same glossy shine to its pitch black. Her eyes are red again, but this time around, that doesn’t mean anything anymore.

The times have changed.

But Jack hasn’t.

In that moment, he knows even less what to feel from usually. His heart starts beating out of his chest and he feels himself start sweating, his entire body running hot, but physical reactions is everything he has to go by to judge his own emotions, all muddled deep inside of him, not much different from back then.

Is it infatuation? Hate? Love? Anger? Sadness? Happines?

If only he knew.

He thought that he must hold all these emotions towards her; infatuation because she cared, hate because she made him care. Love because she was everything he could have ever wanted – anger because he knew that he couldn’t have her, because everything he ever wanted would be more than he could physically tolerate. Sadness because she died. Happiness because she’s all the way back here.

She looks around the lecture hall, a small smile on her face, pulling her lips together in what seems like a soundless whistle. He wonders if it’s ‘Lacie’ that she’s humming in her mind. Wonders if her voice sounds the exact same as it did back then, on that snowy day, thick flakes falling onto him and the thin, rough blanket he was holding onto for even just an ounce of warmth as if that could in any way help him.

When all the warmth he needed appeared right in front of him. All the warmth that made him want to live.

All the warmth that forced him to live against his own will.

He watches her and she keeps looking at the full rows, eventually spotting-

Him.

Jack freezes in his seat and heats up all the same.

She’s looking at him so thoroughly, eyes the same kind of bright. She shoulders her small tote bag (a John Tenniel illustration of the white rabbit looking at its watch in a tweed suit plastered on the front) and makes her way up the broad steps towards him.

For a moment, Jack considers running away, because so far, running is all he’s done with his life. Well. Tried to do. His family pulled him back and made him stay every single time. He doesn’t know whether he loves or hates it, but it’s not like that matters – because either way, he doesn’t deserve it. Not after the things he’s done to these people in his past life, anyways. One of them, he’s made sure couldn’t get with the love of her life back then, be it unintentional or not, it was still his fault. The other one he almost killed and then left to die for someone else to finish the dirty work, but he would’ve died just because of Jack, anyways. The other, he tortured, made him kill and cry and blamed him for all the things he and Lacie had done.

“Hi! Is this seat still free?” she asks, pointing at the seat next to him, no one between him and the next person over.

“Uh… yeah,” he says, knowing that he probably doesn’t sound very intelligent right now; but that’s not his concern right now. What he’s concerned about is running all the possibilities through his head.

Does she know?

Does she remember?

He knows his family doesn’t remember. If they do, they hide it well, but there’s no way they do – they wouldn’t treat him this well if they did.

Does she remember but thinks he doesn’t, so she’s playing dumb?

If Lacie was anyone else, he’d know, but this is Lacie; fleeting, cold, warm, unpredictable Lacie.

She’s back.

Right in front of him.

His heart is beating so loudly, pumping all the blood into his ears until he can barely hear anything but its rushing sound reverberating through his skull.

“Well? Could you move over, or do you want me to take the seat, so you’d still have to stand up?”

She’s just as direct, but her smile lets him know that she’s not annoyed. He thinks. It’s hard to tell with her, but Lacie isn’t a person to easily get annoyed with things.

“…I’ll move over,” he says, and as soon as he does so, he realizes how wrong that decision is; however, it’s too late to say so now as his body is already moving. Next thing he knows, he’s trapped between some guy who looks way too young to be sitting here, and Lacie on the other side.

She smells of flowers. It’s so distinct that even though he’s barely breathing right now, the smell piercing his nose, more feelings welling up in his chest that he can’t pinpoint.
It makes him mad.

“I'm Lacie. What’s your name?”

She looks as if she’s going to drag him into the field and teach him to dance under the sun just to later drag him to that very field again once the sun has set, under a starry sky, pointing at the twinkling lights in the far, far distance and saying that this is exactly what the abyss looks like.

That it’s full of beautiful golden lights, shining down on her whenever she sees it, dancing with her and the flowers, finally feeling a little less lonely.

A place that she ruined together with Levi and their children.

A place Jack ruined even more, and then tried to do so even more by bringing the world to her, when the two worlds she loved, she loved because they were separate.

Because Jack has hurt Ada and Oscar and Oz, but first and foremost, he’s hurt Lacie.

He wonders if she remembers that, if her conscience saw.

Not that she seems to remember – after all, she just asked him his name.

“Jack,” he mutters, still too stunned to say more. “Just… Jack.”

“Really?” she laughs, “what a dull name.”

The same words as back then – is it to scout him out, whether he remembers, whether he doesn’t remember? Is it just coincidence?

He opens his mouth, unable to form words for a few seconds.

The only thing that’s changed about him is that wearing all those different masks has gotten harder. He manages when he truly has to, when he has to act like he’s fine in front of one of the many therapists the one who’s his father in this world has gotten him, in front of doctors at the emergency room after his sister took him there after he’s either hurt himself or tried to do even worse. But when in front of the people he now calls family, in front of teachers, in front of Lacie?

It's like upon being born, something deep inside of him came apart and buried those masks several feet under. Yet, left him with no means as to realize who he actually is.

“I suppose so,” he manages in the end, and clearly, Lacie, all smile and light makeup, slightly smudged eyeliner and sharp cheekbones and lips he’s never tasted, seemingly finds that amusing.

“Say,” she makes as she leans over to grab an iPad from her tote bag, “do we know each other? You look familiar.”

This time, for the first time in probably forever, Jack realizes what he feels at that statement – fear. Fear that she will remember, that she will remember how twisted he already was, scared that her connection to the abyss allowed her to see everything else he did in her name when this was never anything she wanted.

“I don’t think so,” he answers. Perhaps a little too fast.

“Really? Hmm, maybe I’ve seen you at the supermarket or something. Are you new around here?”

“Not… really?” he responds, gingerly closing twitter, still open on his desktop, revealing the new document he’s made for notes for the class, “me and my family have always lived here.”

“Ah, okay! No, I just moved here! Well we moved here, my brother and I. He found work here, so I was like, well, okay, guess I know what university to apply to, I mean, it wouldn’t have been a problem grade wise, so obviously I got accepted. You like cat memes?”

Ah. She must’ve seen his twitter. Jack runs through all the possible answers he could give to that, all the hundreds of masks, none of them giving him the answer he needs until only a single one remains.

“Sort of. Memes in general, I suppose. My little brother’s fault.”

“Haha, me too! That’s great! Considering you’re here, you also study psychology, then?”

Meaningless small talk. After she’s saved his life and then destroyed it, such meaningless small talk between the two of them.

“Yes,” he says, curtly. Not giving a reason.

“Why?”

Because she always asks for the why, and he shouldn’t be surprised.

“Actually, don’t answer, let me guess! Tried therapy, didn’t work, trying to do it yourself?”

She couldn’t be more off the mark. (Except he doesn’t know why he’s studying it, either.) It must show on his face, considering she looks a tiny bit dejected almost immediately.

“Ah, I guess not, huh. Why, then?”

Again, Jack rummages through all the responses available, only left with one.

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t- huh? Wow, okay, you’re weird. I sat down next to a weirdo who likes cat memes. Whatever, I like weirdos, unless you try to kill me. So, like, I'm studying psychology ‘cause I’m interested in it. Human psyche has always interested me. My literature teacher in grade five or so handed me a copy of Freud way too early and it all went downhill from there – not that I agree with the guy. Obviously.”

She seems to shudder at an implication that Jack already knew wasn’t going to be the case – Freud doesn’t answer the ‘why’s' well enough for her. He’s not accurate enough, seems to imply more than he clarifies. He supposes she must not like Nietzsche, either.

“I also hate Nietzsche, but alas, they got me into this. So now I’m just hoping to have a good time. You’re in all other first year classes, too, I suppose? Want my number in case one of us gets sick?”

Aren’t they just jumping a few steps?

Didn’t they also jump a few steps when they first met what must have been over two-hundred years ago, with her crawling below his blanket, ignoring completely how much he must’ve stunk after not having been able to wash himself for days? Cutting his hair, stealing food, making him care.

He can’t find a reason not to.

“I guess.”

“Alright, write it down here.”

She turns her iPad to him, the background of her word document a pastel pink with bunnies, too.

He takes it, because he can’t find a reason not to. The white material feels foreign beneath his fingers. The thought that she touched this iPad, that it was her fingers having grazed it in the same way feels alienating. Off. Wrong.

He’s touched her before, of course – they lived together on the streets for so long. But it was always her initiating those touches, taking his hand to lead him in a dance as if she was the man and he the woman, unafraid to ignore such stereotypes, kiss his cheek in an affection he has always been unable to pin down and understand.

But now, to be touching her iPAd of his own accord?

Oz would probably jokingly call him an ‘incel’ for those thoughts. Maybe he’d be right, in his eyes. He’d be wrong in Jack’s, either way. Because he knows why it feels weird and wrong.

Because he’s dirty and a nobody and as still and chaotic as water, undeserving and unwilling.

Still, he taps on the screen until the keyboard shows up, typing his number down for Lacie because whatever she wanted, he did, and whatever he thought she wanted, he also did.

He reads over it one more time to make sure he’s gotten it right. He has, so he swiftly turns the iPad back to her, the feeling of wanting to get rid of it overwhelming suddenly.

She’s still just as small. When she raises her hands, wearing two large rings, one on each hand, and he sees her dainty fingers, the way her knuckles move below her skin, he knows that she also hasn’t changed.

And that’s a good thing.

For Jack, it isn’t.

“Thanks! I’ll text you after class to make sure you didn’t do the thing of giving me a wrong number just to get rid of me!”

That thought had occurred to him, but he felt like he couldn’t do it. Felt like Lacie would know right away, always able to see through him. The only one to judge him as a person when he can’t even judge himself.

This time, when the door opens, who steps in is indeed Rufus Barma, because how could Jack not recognize him after he was the one to reveal the truth in their past lives?

He does so with graceful, long steps, hair still as red, just shorter this time around, his face looking much older than it did right up until his death the last time. He immediately captures the attention of the students present, everyone looking at him, including Lacie.

Even if he was way too late.

“Well,” Lacie exclaims in a whisper, despite her muted voice still perfectly expressing her honest excitement, “here goes our first class!”

 

*

 

A week later, ten minutes earlier this time, the door to the lecture hall still open, Lacie walks right through it. This time, her hair is in a bun, a strand dangling down on either side of her face, the tips of both the bun and said strands still wet. She’s wearing a purple knit sweater this time, white-and-black checkered skinny jeans, and she beelines straight towards Jack.

Since there’s not a lot of people there yet, she just sits down next to him without further ado.

“Say, why do you never respond to my messages with more than a ‘mh’ or ‘yes’ or ‘no’? You’re not one for conversation, are you?”

Always asking for the why.

“I have nothing else to say.”

“Ugh. I’ll psychoanalyze you one of these days. Well, whatever,” she says, this time prioritizing pulling out her phone instead of her iPad, swiftly scrolling through her pictures in search of something. “I found a really funny cat meme yesterday night but I thought I’d just show it to you in person since I was gonna see you today anyways-“

She’s searching for a little while longer – just how many pictures did she add to her phone in a single night, and then holds her phone way too close to his face until he has to pull back to even be able to see what’s on the screen.

It’s a black cat fighting with a shoe sole, biting the top of it, going ‘your sole is mine’. Jack doesn’t know how to tell her how old this meme is but-

It makes it so much harder to hate her. When she’s trying to- make friends with him?

Still. This is exactly what happened the last time around, too. She made him care about her and about life because what is Lacie, if not life, even if she died so early?

“You’re smiling.”

Is he?”

“I’m not.”

“You totally are. You like the cat meme. Admit it.”

“Maybe.”

Maybe,” she gasps, “I’m taking that as a success.”

Jack isn’t sure which way to take it, himself.