Dr. Lance sat in his office later that week, the test results open in front of him. The fluorescent lights above buzzed faintly, the only sound in the room aside from the quiet thud of his heartbeat in his ears.
There it was. Clear, indisputable.
An abnormal mass. Small, but significant. Located in Lily's lower abdomen.
He clenched his jaw, eyes scanning the lines of data and preliminary scans again and again, as though reading them enough times might change what they said. But it didn't. There was something there. Not aggressive-looking. Not large. But it didn't belong.
His chest ached.
Of all people. Of all times.
She had just begun to live again. She had just started laughing without looking over her shoulder. And now this.
Lance leaned back in his chair, letting the reality of it settle in his bones. He closed his eyes for a moment. Memories flooded, from lives long gone, that refused to be discarded despite the endless passage of time. He remembered how his journey started.
He remembered the scent of damp earth and firewood.
The year was 1347, though back then, he hadn't known numbers like that. They had no names for diseases, only whispers—curses, punishments from the gods, or the vengeance of spirits angered by broken promises. He had been a healer then, or as close to one as the village had. A man with a steady hand and a curious mind, known for crafting salves and splints from bark and herb. He had no last name. No title. Just a hut near the river and a girl with hair like storm light who visited every afternoon.
Her name wasn't Lily then. It had been Liora.
She was sixteen, with calloused fingers from mending clothes and eyes that held the whole sky. She would sit on the crooked bench outside his hut and ask questions no one else dared to ask. About the stars. About death. About why people suffered when they prayed every day.
And he would listen. He always listened.
Until the fever came.
It started as a headache. Then tremors. Her breath grew shallow, skin slick with sweat. Others said it was the plague, told him to burn her bedding, cast her out before the "black sickness" spread.
But it wasn't the plague. He knew that much. The buboes never appeared. There was no rash, no bleeding gums, no stench of rot. Her abdomen swelled over three days, bloating unnaturally. Her lips cracked from thirst, and when he pressed his ear to her belly, he heard the gurgling churn of something wrong, deeply wrong.
He tried everything he knew. Brewed teas from fennel and wormwood. Pressed warm stones to her side. Prayed in secret to gods he didn't believe in.
She died on the fourth night.
Curled in pain, gripping his hand with a strength that should not have been possible for someone so thin. And just before the end, she whispered, "You're going to try again, aren't you?"
He didn't cry. Not then. Not when they took her body, not when he burned the hut, not when he walked for miles into the forest hoping to forget.
But centuries later, when he held a textbook in his hands and saw the symptoms again—he cried.
Acute Appendicitis.
Easily treated now. A simple surgery. A routine procedure in the world he lived in today.
Liora—Lily—had died because he didn't know.
That failure haunted him more than all the others.
* * *
He was twenty-three when he first read the headline.
"Tragic Crash Claims Mother and Son; drunk driver from the other car also perished."
He sat alone in the library at the university hospital, scrolling through the news on his break. It was supposed to be just another afternoon. But then he saw the photo. A roadside scene, mangled metal, shattered glass. And in the corner of the frame—almost an afterthought—a girl holding her father's hand, her face turned away from the camera.
But Lance knew. Something deep within him stirred, ancient and aching.
The name in the article confirmed it, but he didn't need confirmation. Something ancient in his bones stirred. The kind of knowing that didn't come from memory but from somewhere deeper. Something carved into the soul.
Lily.
Not the Lily from the hospital rooftop, or the girl beneath cherry blossoms from a life long faded into dust. This was a girl he had never met—and yet, he had. The grief in her eyes was haunting, he had known in too many forms.
And in that moment, he remembered.
Not the full scope. Not names or dates. But the ache. The futility. The brutal loop of trying—and failing—to save her.
Was the creator of this universe uninspired? Tired of crafting new tales? Out of ideas? Had the stars grown bored, recycling tragedies like reruns of a tired show?
No matter.
He had a chance. And this time, he would roll with it.
Leading up to this Lance was learning general medicine, since the memories came to him at 18, he had decided to focus on refreshing his memory on the general human body but after he saw the news he went to his advisor with two chosen majors. His advisor was shocked—he'd been a top student in general medicine, but two majors? In such bold and broad areas of medicine? he had a knack for treating almost everything despite being a student, still he was worried if this was too much to handle. Quite frankly his advisor knew that he would become renowned sooner than later, he was just sorry to lose such a promising member from his team, as he was a general surgeon himself. His parents begged him to reconsider, that it was late to go into not one but two specialities this late when he was already flourishing as a general practitioner. But Lance had already decided.
Gastroenterology. Neurosurgery. Healing.
He had memories—distant and fragmented—of surgeries gone wrong, of diseases left untreatable in lives where medicine hadn't yet advanced. He remembered the feel of her pulse fading under his fingertips. The helplessness. The horror.
This time would be different. It had to be.
He buried himself in medical school. He studied until his eyes burned and his hands cramped. His classmates partied; he reviewed case studies. They joked about his intensity, called him the "old man" even though he was younger than some of them. He didn't care. He carried centuries in his gaze—and one mission in his heart.
He read everything—textbooks, journals, obscure studies. He watched surgeries on repeat until he could mimic them blindfolded. But he also began to pursue something... older. Quieter.
Traditional Chinese medicine.
It started as curiosity. Then instinct. There were herbs he recognized by scent alone. Pressure points he pressed into his own skin like muscle memory. One day, he walked into a small clinic nestled between a bakery and a bookstore, and the practitioner there—an old woman with clouded eyes—looked up and said, "You've walked these halls before."
He bowed before her, knowing yet not wanting to give too much.
Years later, after completing his specializations and earning every accolade his mentors could throw at him, Lance founded TheLily of Hope Oncology Centre.
People asked about the name. He always smiled; said it was inspired by a patient he once met.
But it was more than that. The centre was a sanctuary—a place designed with sunlight and warmth, not the sterile coldness of most hospitals. Art lined the walls. Gardens Stormed in the courtyards. It was a space of healing in every sense.
He handpicked every doctor, every nurse. Some had resumes that sparkled. Others didn't. But Lance didn't care about paper.
He remembered them.
The paediatric nurse who had once been a battlefield medic in a life long forgotten. The head of radiology who had once been a monk, tending to plague victims in the 14th century. The quiet pharmacist who brewed herbal tinctures with the same care she once gave to potions in a village apothecary.
They didn't remember. But he did.
And he trusted them.
Together, they formed a team unlike any other. Blending cutting-edge science with the intuition and wisdom of lifetimes past.
Lance spent a full year in Yunnan, China, training under masters of acupuncture, herbal medicine, and qi balancing. He slept in small rooms. Ate plain food. Learned how to listen—not just with his ears, but with his hands. His heart.
He didn't believe in choosing between traditional and modern. He believed in both. Aggressive treatments when needed. Gentle remedies when possible.
He wasn't trying to beat fate with force. He was trying to out maneuver it—with precision, knowledge, and patience.
Lance was in the emergency room the night Lily's father collapsed. He still worked in BrookeHurst Hospital despite having his own hospital, he took a chance this lifetime believing that this time he would be ahead of the timeline.
He wasn't supposed to be on shift. He had traded hours with another resident on a whim—or maybe it wasn't a whim at all. Maybe it was the invisible hand of fate, giving him a nudge.
They wheeled the man in, unconscious, haemorrhaging internally. No ID. The staff was scrambling.
Lance's heart stopped when he saw the man's face.
He didn't wait.
He scrubbed in, led the surgery. A senior tried to protest, but Lance's authority didn't come from title—it came from knowing. He saved the man. Barely. He watched over him in post-op, adjusting meds himself. He waited until visiting hours to see her walk in.
Lily.
Twenty-two. Silent. Grief-stricken. And yet somehow, impossibly, still radiant.
He didn't speak to her that day. Or the day after. But he watched, from a respectful distance, the same way a guardian watches a flame they cannot let die.
When the biopsy of the massed they removed from her dad came back, he referred him to his centre for specialized treatment and there for one year he employed all his knowledge to bring Mr Storm into remission.
* * *
Today when Lily walked into the Lily of Hope Oncology Centre years later, Lance felt something shift inside him.
He had waited. Prepared. Built a fortress disguised as a sanctuary.
He had seen her die in a dozen ways, in a dozen lives.
Not this time.
This time, he had tools. Allies. A plan. And more than anything—he had hope.
Hope was not naïve. It was not blind.
It was forged. Hardened by loss and sharpened by memory.
As he watched her sit across from him in the consultation room, a notebook in her lap and her heart in her eyes, he made a silent vow:
This time, I will not let her go.
Not without a fight. Not without every ounce of knowledge I have. Not without turning the page on fate itself.
He had spent lifetimes learning how to lose her.
This lifetime, he would learn how to keep her.