My alarm goes off at exactly six in the morning every day.
"...Five more minutes."
I mutter that while pulling my pillow over my head.
Two seconds later, my phone vibrates again.
06:01.
"...Damn it."
With a long-suffering sigh, I finally sit up in bed and rub my eyes.
My name is Gwen Stacy.
And this is, more or less, my life.
The first thing I do every morning is get out of bed, tie my hair into a ponytail, put on my training clothes, and go for a run. After all, I need to stay in shape.
Especially when you're a masked heroine who spends a good portion of her life swinging between buildings in New York.
If I stop training for a week, half my back will probably explode.
I run through the streets of Queens while the sky is only beginning to brighten.
The cold air hits my face for nearly an entire hour.
When I get back home, I head straight for the shower.
After that, I carefully go through my skincare routine while looking at my reflection in the mirror.
When I'm finished, I walk downstairs, catching the smell of coffee coming from the kitchen.
My mother is already awake.
She seems physically incapable of sleeping in.
"Good morning, sweetheart."
"Morning."
My father slowly lowers his newspaper when he sees me walk in.
"...You got home late yesterday."
"...Dad."
"I'm just making an observation."
"You were literally asleep on the couch when I got back."
"...That's not important."
I roll my eyes as I sit down at the table.
You're probably wondering something.
If I'm already a married woman...
Why the hell am I still living at my parents' house?
Well, the answer is complicated.
My husband is Arthur Morgan, the great king of New Uruk.
An absurdly powerful man, ridiculously wealthy, and someone who apparently wins women's hearts the same way other people collect rare trading cards.
I could be living in a gigantic castle, a mansion, or any of the absurd properties Arthur casually buys the way normal people stop by a bakery to buy bread.
In fact, he's offered me his house in Queens more than once.
He also offered to buy an apartment just for me.
And honestly, the man would probably buy an entire building if I asked.
But my parents insisted so strongly that I keep staying here that eventually I just gave in.
I'm almost certain the real reason for that insistence has a name.
Aurora.
My adorable and energetic little daughter.
She inherited practically all of her father's personality.
Which is terrifying.
Because physically she's almost a copy of me.
So imagine a miniature version of myself equipped with Arthur's absurd charisma and excessive confidence.
My mother adores her.
My father pretends to complain.
But I've caught him more than once secretly letting Aurora paint his nails.
Even though technically I "live with my parents"...
I spend a large portion of my time at Arthur's house in Queens.
That place has become a gathering point for absurdly powerful women, divine entities, and completely eccentric people.
Strangely enough, it's fun.
Especially because of the goddesses from his original world.
Artemis, for example, is a special case.
The goddess of the moon loves Arthur with such an absurd level of obsession that every now and then he literally sets aside an entire day just to spend with her.
And the funniest part is that none of his other wives actually mind.
In fact, they all find the situation amusing because Artemis can become unbelievably happy over incredibly simple things.
Once, she showed up crying because Arthur had gone three days without giving her exclusive attention.
Then Atalanta replied:
"You can survive that."
Artemis immediately shouted that she couldn't.
I could barely breathe from laughing that day.
While remembering that, I picked up my phone and started replying to messages from my friends.
MJ: "You disappeared yesterday."
Felicia: "She was busy with her handsome husband."
MJ: "I'm so jealous."
I immediately roll my eyes.
Gwen: "You two should stop lusting after your friend's husband."
Felicia: "Impossible."
...
Arthur is a walking problem.
A tall blond man with crimson-red eyes so striking that they seem impossible to be natural.
Taller than me, broad-shouldered, strong-armed, with a sturdy physique perfectly balanced between muscular and ridiculously comfortable to hug.
On top of that, he always seems to radiate presence.
He's the type of man who walks into a room and instantly draws attention.
Even when he's not trying.
Although, if there's one thing I can complain about, it's the bizarre fashion sense he had when I first "met" him.
And the quotation marks will make sense another time.
That man's taste was criminally awful.
On such an impressive level that he somehow managed to look ridiculous and majestic at the same time.
Which shouldn't even be possible.
On top of that, for some reason, Arthur seems physically incapable of existing without wearing something gold.
The earrings, for example.
He's always wearing those things.
And apparently he loves clothes that leave half of his chest shamelessly exposed.
The first time I saw him wearing a shirt open almost down to his stomach, I stared at him for nearly a full minute trying to figure out whether he was serious.
The bastard somehow radiated protagonist energy while dressing like an RPG villain.
I still laugh whenever I remember the day I finally lost my patience, walked into his room, and opened his wardrobe.
I stood there in silence for almost ten seconds staring at all those atrocities.
"No."
Arthur blinked in confusion behind me.
"...No?"
"You're not going out dressed like this anymore."
Then I started sorting his clothes into categories.
From the tackiest to the most criminal.
Arthur slowly began to realize what was happening.
"...Gwen."
"Silence."
"...Gwen."
"Silence."
"...Are you holding a lighter?"
"Yes."
"...Are you going to burn my clothes?"
"Yes."
"..."
He remained silent for a few seconds.
"...You manage to be terrifying at the strangest times."
"Thank you."
That same day, I forced Arthur to go shopping for new clothes with me.
With me choosing everything, obviously.
It was a painful process.
Mainly because he kept pointing at the most absurd pieces imaginable.
"This coat looks amazing."
"Arthur, that looks like something an anime antagonist would wear."
"...Then it's perfect."
"No."
"You're destroying my dreams."
"Your dreams are tacky."
Even so, these days he dresses much better.
Although he still insists on wearing open shirts.
Maybe I don't hate that as much as I should.
My phone vibrates again.
Arthur: "Good morning, my queen."
I immediately roll my eyes while smiling.
That smug idiot.
Gwen: "You're awake earlier than usual."
Arthur: "I took a break from work. Besides, sleeping without you is depressing."
...
My face immediately heats up.
Even after all this time together, he can still make me blush like a teenager.
Gwen: "Stop being dramatic."
Arthur: "Not in this lifetime."
Gwen: "And Aurora?"
Arthur: "Sakura made pancakes for the kids, so I stole hers."
Gwen: "...She's going to try to kill you for that. You know how much she loves Sakura's pancakes."
Arthur: "She takes after you. I'll survive."
I start laughing by myself in the middle of the kitchen.
My mother notices immediately.
"...Are you talking to Arthur?"
"...Maybe."
My father grumbles behind his newspaper.
"...I still don't like him."
I smile as I put away my phone.
My father still can't accept that his son-in-law has more than one wife.
---xXx---
I stare at my phone screen for a few seconds after finishing my conversation with Arthur.
The screen slowly darkens, turning into an improvised mirror.
My reflection appears there, faint and slightly distorted.
And I smile at myself.
There's something about me that nobody knows.
Something nobody will ever know.
Not even Arthur.
Sometimes I think about telling him the truth.
But then I remember everything I've been through.
Everything I've seen.
Everything I've lost.
And that desire disappears.
After all, how would someone react upon discovering that his wife had lived for more than a thousand years?
Mentally speaking, of course.
My body is still young.
But my mind has already passed through more lives than I can count.
The reason for that is an absurd and cruel temporal curse.
Simply put, it forces its bearer to relive fragmented and endless cycles of an unavoidable fate.
I have no idea how I was cursed.
Or by whom.
I spent countless years searching for answers and never found any.
But eventually I discovered the trigger.
"Inevitable End."
That's what I came to call it.
Every time I died.
Every time Arthur died.
Or every time Aurora died.
The curse activated, and I was sent back to the same day I first met Arthur.
At first, I was happy.
I thought I had been given a second chance.
An opportunity to fix mistakes.
An opportunity to save everyone.
An opportunity to build the perfect future.
But I was wrong.
So unbelievably wrong that the version of me from back then feels like a complete stranger now.
Because the Arthur from that first cycle...
Wasn't the Arthur I know today.
He was still Arthur.
But he was very different.
Colder, more arrogant, and more ruthless.
In that world, Arthur seemed like a king created solely to dominate everything around him.
I still remember the first thing he said to me.
"You're in my way."
Without any of the strange kindness he shows today.
Even so...
I fell in love with him again. I still don't understand how that happened.
And little by little, I managed to change some things.
Day after day.
Argument after argument.
Conflict after conflict.
I watched him learn to trust.
I watched his pride diminish.
I watched that man begin to care about people he once considered irrelevant.
Until eventually, he smiled.
A genuine smile.
Not the arrogant smile of a king.
But the smile of a happy man.
And at that moment, I knew I had succeeded.
We got married in that cycle.
We had Aurora.
We built a life together.
And then he died.
No.
More precisely, he was murdered.
I still remember the feeling of his blood on my hands.
I can remember the weight of his body and the emptiness in his eyes.
The suffocating sensation of watching my entire world collapse before me.
Then I woke up again.
On the same day I met him.
That was only the first cycle.
Just the first.
Because then came others.
And then more.
Then dozens.
Then hundreds.
More than I can count.
Every time I returned, the world was different.
As though I were entering an alternate reality whenever the cycle restarted.
Sometimes Arthur was kind from the very beginning.
Sometimes he was an arrogant idiot.
Sometimes he was an innocent hero.
Sometimes a conqueror.
Sometimes an irredeemable scoundrel.
Once, he was literally a university professor.
Can you imagine Arthur teaching quantum physics?
Another time, he was an almost divine entity worshipped by an entire civilization.
Whenever a cycle restarted, everything changed.
Except for one thing.
We always met.
It didn't matter which reality.
It didn't matter who he was.
Arthur Morgan always appeared in my life.
And I always ended up falling in love with him.
At first, I tried to fight it.
I tried to run away.
I tried to avoid meeting him.
I tried to ignore him.
Once, I even moved to another country just to avoid him.
Did it work?
Of course not.
Three years later, he casually showed up in a café while traveling.
He sat at the table next to mine.
Looked at me, smiled, and said:
"...I have the feeling I've met you before, blondie."
At that moment, I almost started crying.
Every time a new cycle began, all it took was seeing him for the same thought to appear.
"Ah."
"It's you again."
I've lost count of how many times Arthur died in my arms.
I've lost count of how many times Aurora died.
How many times the world ended.
How many times I failed to protect them.
I watched entire cities be destroyed by enemies we failed to defeat.
I watched continents vanish amid the battles we fought.
I watched people I loved cease to exist with the snap of a finger.
I watched Arthur sacrifice himself for me countless times.
I watched Aurora cry while he died before our eyes.
I can still hear some of those screams whenever I close my eyes.
Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night looking for her.
Even though I know perfectly well that she's alive.
More than once, I completely broke apart.
Living through that repeatedly destroys anyone.
Watching the people you love die hundreds of times...
Isn't something the human mind was built to endure.
And the worst part was realizing that I was beginning to forget.
Forget dates.
Forget faces.
Forget names.
Forget people who had once meant everything to me.
I lived so long that some memories began to blend together.
Sometimes I have to stop for a few seconds just to remember which life a certain memory belongs to.
But I survived.
For one simple reason.
I love Arthur.
To such an absurd degree that, honestly, I don't even know how to explain it anymore.
After so long, I came to know him better than I know myself.
If someone gathered together all the cycles I lived through, they'd probably discover that I spent centuries by his side.
Unfortunately, Arthur remembers none of it.
But there's something curious.
Every time we meet...
He doesn't know why, but he always says:
"When I saw you for the first time... it felt like something finally made sense."
"As if you were what I'd been searching for my entire life."
Every time he says that, my chest tightens a little.
Because I remember everything.
And perhaps that was the cruelest part of the curse.
I was the only one carrying those memories.
The only one remembering all the lives we shared.
But eventually, I discovered something important.
I wasn't the only person connected to his fate.
More than once, I accompanied Arthur on adventures across other worlds, and in almost every one of them, the same thing happened.
Women inevitably fell in love with him.
At first, I hated it. It would have been strange if I hadn't.
But later, I came to understand.
Arthur has that effect on people.
He attracts people.
He inspires people.
He changes people.
But because of me, throughout many cycles, he remained only with me.
Because I insisted.
Because I wanted that.
Because I wanted to believe Arthur was mine.
Mine alone.
And then I finally realized.
Maybe that was the true reason the curse existed.
Maybe I was being punished.
Because, time and time again, I was stealing other people's destinies.
Taking everything for myself.
And every time I did, the consequences appeared.
I watched women who were meant to stand beside him sink into loneliness.
I watched some lose their way.
I watched others spend their entire lives searching for something they would never find.
As if they had lost a fundamental part of themselves.
And then the cycle restarted.
Again.
And again.
And again.
For a long time, I refused to accept the truth.
But deep down, I knew part of the blame was mine.
Until finally, after so much suffering.
So much fear.
So much jealousy.
So much guilt.
I accepted it.
I accepted that loving Arthur might mean accepting every part of his destiny.
Even the parts I didn't want to share.
So, during the final cycle—the current one—
I stopped resisting.
I started guiding him down that path myself.
Because I knew that if I didn't, Arthur would remain faithful only to me.
And surprisingly, it was the best decision I ever made.
From that moment onward, everything changed.
I made friends I never would have met otherwise.
I discovered things I never would have learned.
I lived adventures I never would have experienced.
I met wonderful people.
I built a family larger than I ever imagined possible.
Maybe my relationship with Arthur was never destined to be normal from the start.
But honestly?
I don't care anymore.
Because after so many lives...
After so many bad endings...
After so many goodbyes...
I finally found a future worth protecting.
Maybe, just maybe, this curse wasn't as terrible as I once thought.
Because thanks to it, my life finally became what it had always been destined to be.
And now, after living so many lives...
All I want is to enjoy this one.
Alongside my family—loud, chaotic, enormous, completely insane, and absolutely perfect.
My happy ending...
(End of Extra)
This should explain some plot holes that have been haunting me since the beginning of the fic lol