Baby, You Can Never Hold Back Spring

There were some people you met and forgot before the week was over.

Some you remembered for a year or two—long enough for a story, a sigh, or an occasional “whatever happened to…”

And then there were the ones who lived somewhere beneath your skin.

Lance Knigtly didn’t believe in reincarnation.

Not really.

He believed in things that could be footnoted, cited, graphed, peer-reviewed, and defended in a faculty meeting full of people who liked to say phrases like best practices and data-driven outcomes. He believed in locking his car, in meal-prepping on Sundays, in rotating the tires every 5,000 miles, and in the quiet dignity of a well-organized Google Drive folder.

He did not believe in past lives.

Which made it all the more inconvenient that, from the moment Jennifer McQueen walked into the teacher workroom, he felt like he’d known her for centuries.

It wasn’t attraction—not at first.

Attraction, Lance understood.

Attraction was noticing someone’s eyes or their laugh or the way they held themselves like they had a secret they weren’t telling anyone else.

This was something else.

This was recognition.

Like hearing a song you hadn’t realized you’d memorized.

Like picking up a book and finding your name already written inside the cover.

Jennifer stood by the coffee maker, frowning at it like it had personally insulted her ancestors.

“Is this thing broken,” she asked no one in particular, “or does it just resent me specifically?”

Her voice did something to Lance’s ribcage.

He didn’t know how else to describe it.

It was like a bell ringing in a church he’d never visited but somehow missed.

“It’s the filter,” he said, before he realized he was speaking. “You have to press the basket down. It sticks.”

Jennifer looked over at him.

And then—

There it was.

That same flicker.

Like she knew him.

Like she didn’t know how she knew him, but she did.

“Oh,” she said softly. “Right.”

She pressed the filter basket down. The machine gurgled obligingly.

“Thanks… Mr.—?”

“Knigtly. Lance Knigtly.”

Her eyebrows lifted slightly, like she was trying not to react to something.

“Jennifer McQueen.”

The names should have meant nothing to each other.

They were just names.

They had no castles attached to them. No crowns. No ancient feuds or sacred vows or blood oaths sworn under torchlight.

And yet—

Lance’s hand tightened around his mug.

Jennifer’s smile faltered just a fraction.

It felt like remembering how a story ended without remembering the story itself.

The dreams started that night.

Lance had always been a normal dreamer.

Flying sometimes. Falling sometimes. Showing up to work in his underwear occasionally. The usual humiliations of the subconscious.

This was different.

He stood in a stone corridor lit by torches that hissed and spat like living things.

His hands were not his own.

They were broader. Scarred.

There was weight on his shoulders—chainmail, maybe—and a sword at his hip that felt less like a weapon and more like a promise.

He knew where he was going.

Or rather, Lance knew that whoever he was knew where he was going.

Down a winding staircase. Past a tapestry depicting a stag and a crowned lion locked in combat. Through a door half-hidden behind a pillar.

And there—

Jennifer.

Except not Jennifer.

She wore a gown the color of midnight. Her hair was braided with silver thread. Her eyes were the same, though—wide and bright and terrified in a way that made something in his chest ache.

“You shouldn’t be here,” she whispered.

“I couldn’t not come.”

Even in the dream, he knew those words weren’t rehearsed.

They were truth.

“We’ll be seen.”

“Let them see.”

She laughed then, breathless and broken all at once.

“You say that like it wouldn’t mean your life.”

“And yours,” he said.

Her hand found his.

Warm.

Real.

“I know.”

And then—

The door burst open.

Lance woke with his heart racing and his sheets twisted around his legs like restraints.

He stared at the ceiling.

“Okay,” he muttered. “Weird.”

But not alarming.

People had weird dreams all the time.

He got up. Showered. Drove to work.

And tried not to think about the way Jennifer’s hand had felt in his.

Jennifer didn’t believe in reincarnation either.

Which made it all the more inconvenient that she’d spent the night dreaming of stone walls and torchlight and a man whose face she hadn’t quite seen but whose voice she could still hear when she woke up.

I couldn’t not come.

It had followed her into the shower.

Into the car.

Into the classroom where she taught tenth-grade English and tried very hard to focus on metaphor instead of memory.

By the time lunch rolled around, she’d almost convinced herself it was stress.

New job. New district. New coworkers.

Her brain was just filing things incorrectly.

And then she walked into the workroom and saw Lance Knigtly again.

And the dream came rushing back so fast she had to grab the edge of the counter to steady herself.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said immediately.

“No,” she said a second later.

He waited.

Which, for some reason, made it worse.

“Did you ever,” she began slowly, “have a dream so vivid you were absolutely convinced it was a memory?”

His mouth went dry.

“…No,” he lied.

Jennifer studied his face for a long moment.

“Right,” she said eventually. “That would be weird.”

“Very weird.”

“Extremely.”

They stood there in silence for a few seconds.

“So,” Lance said finally, because apparently he had a death wish, “what was yours about?”

Jennifer hesitated.

“Stone walls,” she admitted. “Torches. A secret staircase.”

His mug slipped from his hand and shattered on the tile floor.

Archie found out two weeks later.

Not because Lance told him.

Lance would rather have swallowed a fork.

But because Archie had the uncanny ability to notice when something was wrong—or right—and refuse to let it go.

“You’ve been staring at your phone for ten minutes,” Archie said, dropping onto the couch beside him. “Either it’s a girl or you’ve finally developed an unhealthy relationship with email.”

“It’s nothing.”

“Mhm.”

Archie leaned back, hands behind his head.

“She got a name?”

Lance sighed.

“Jennifer.”

Archie went very still.

“Jennifer,” he repeated.

“Yeah.”

“Last name?”

“…McQueen.”

Archie sat up so fast he nearly headbutted the coffee table.

“You’re kidding.”

“I wish I was.”

“Lance.”

“What?”

Archie dragged a hand down his face.

“Okay,” he said finally. “This is going to sound insane—”

“Great.”

“But have you been having dreams?”

Lance stared at him.

Archie stared back.

“Oh, come on,” Archie said. “Don’t make me say it first.”

“…Stone walls,” Lance admitted reluctantly. “Torches. Secret staircase.”

Archie let out a laugh that sounded more like a sob.

“Unbelievable.”

“Archie—”

“In my dreams,” Archie interrupted, “my name is Arthur.”

The memories didn’t come all at once.

They never do.

They came in flashes.

A courtyard.

A ring on Jennifer’s finger that hadn’t been put there by Lance.

Archie—Arthur—standing between them in armor that gleamed like judgment.

“You know what this means,” Arthur had said.

“Yes,” Lance—no, Lancelot—had replied.

Jennifer—no, Guinevere—hadn’t spoken at all.

Her silence had been answer enough.

Forbidden didn’t begin to cover it.

She had been promised to Arthur before Lance had ever laid eyes on her.

Their marriage had united kingdoms.

Ended wars.

Saved lives.

And yet—

Every time Lance had looked at her across a crowded hall or a council chamber or a chapel filled with candlelight, it had felt like something holy and terrible all at once.

They hadn’t meant to fall in love.

They just had.

And history had not been kind to people like them.

In this lifetime, Archie brought pizza.

He always brought pizza when things got existential.

Jennifer opened the door and froze.

Archie froze right back.

For a moment, the air between them felt centuries thick.

And then—

“Guin—” Archie began.

Jennifer’s hand flew to her mouth.

“Oh my God,” she whispered.

Lance closed the door behind him.

“Well,” Archie said weakly, holding up the pizza box like a peace offering, “this is less awkward than I expected.”

It wasn’t.

They sat at the kitchen table like people who had once ruled a country and were now trying very hard not to cry over pepperoni.

“I remember the chapel,” Jennifer said eventually. “The day of our wedding.”

Archie nodded.

“I remember thinking I’d never seen you look so unhappy.”

“I wasn’t unhappy,” she said softly.

“I know.”

They both looked at Lance.

“I remember the trial,” he admitted. “The accusations. The way they looked at you.”

Jennifer reached for his hand without thinking.

This time, neither of them pulled away.

“In that life,” Archie said slowly, “you betrayed me.”

“Yes.”

“And I had every right to hate you for it.”

“Yes.”

“But I didn’t.”

Lance blinked.

“You didn’t?”

Archie smiled faintly.

“No,” he said. “I was angry. Hurt. Furious in ways I didn’t know how to survive. But hate?”

He shook his head.

“I loved you both too much for that.”

Jennifer’s eyes filled with tears.

“They wrote songs about our tragedy,” Archie went on. “About the fall of a kingdom brought on by forbidden love.”

“I remember,” Lance said hoarsely.

“But here’s the thing,” Archie said, leaning forward, elbows on the table. “We’re not in that kingdom anymore.”

Silence.

“We don’t have alliances to uphold,” he continued. “Or wars to prevent. No one’s life depends on who marries whom.”

Jennifer let out a shaky breath.

“No crowns,” she murmured.

“No crowns,” Archie agreed.

Lance swallowed.

“You’re not… angry?”

Archie laughed.

“At what? That my cousin and my friend found each other again after a thousand years of terrible timing?”

He reached across the table and covered their joined hands with his own.

“In that life,” he said quietly, “I couldn’t give you my blessing without losing everything.”

A pause.

“In this one, I can.”

Jennifer started crying outright then.

Lance wasn’t far behind.

Archie squeezed their hands.

“Go on,” he said gently. “Try again.”

Second chances don’t usually arrive with fanfare.

No trumpets.

No proclamations.

Just quiet moments.

Coffee shared in the teacher workroom.

Walks taken a little too slowly.

Hands held a little too long.

They still had to learn each other.

Jennifer liked mystery novels and hated cilantro.

Lance snored when he slept on his back.

They argued about thermostat settings and whether pineapple belonged on pizza.

They were new.

And yet—

They weren’t.

Sometimes Jennifer would catch Lance looking at her like he was memorizing something he’d already lost once.

Sometimes Lance would wake in the middle of the night and reach for her just to make sure she was real.

Archie watched it all with something like relief.

History had given them tragedy.

This lifetime was giving them grace.

On a quiet evening in late spring, Lance took Jennifer’s hand and led her down a path in the botanical gardens.

“No torches this time,” she teased.

“No secret staircases either.”

They stopped beside a fountain.

For a moment, neither of them spoke.

“I think,” Lance said eventually, voice unsteady in a way that had nothing to do with fear, “that we’ve waited long enough.”

Jennifer smiled through tears.

“In every lifetime,” she said softly, “I think I would have chosen you.”

He laughed weakly.

“Even the one where it ruined everything?”

She squeezed his hand.

“Especially that one.”

And then—

“I love you,” he said.

This time—

There was nothing forbidden about it at all.