History TogetherInDeath / Literature

* In ''Literature/TheLadyOrTheTiger'', a "semi-barbaric" kingdom has a unique trial system: they are taken to an arena and forced to [[DoorRoulette choose between two doors]] -- if they are guilty, they will meet a tiger that will kill and eat them; if innocent, they will meet a beautiful woman they must marry (they might already be married, but hey, that's their problem). One defendant is accused of being in love with the princess, who manages to find out what lies behind each door and sends a signal to the man on the day of his trial. He immediately opens the door she indicates -- and we never find out what she sent him to. Most of the story is devoted to exploring what she must have been thinking as she tried to decide whether to see him married or dead. One argument for the latter is that she believes in an afterlife where she can reunite with him after her own death.

** After he dies in the fourth book, Daedalus is reunited with his son, Icarus, and nephew, Perdix, both of whom long predeceased him. Daedalus is sent to the Asphodel Fields (thanks to a grudge King Minos -- [[TheProblemWithFightingDeath who serves as his judge]] -- has against him when they were alive), meaning he is unable to truly be with the kids (who both went to Elysium), but Hades gives him a job to fix the bridge connecting the Fields with Elysium, thus allowing him to meet with Icarus and Perdix every once in a while.
** Charles Beckendorf and Silena Beauregard get this. When Silena dies, she says she won't be reincarnated, and instead goes to Elysium, so she and Beckendorf can be together.

* ''Literature/TheBrideOfCorinth'': A young woman who was sent to a monastery against her will, died, and returned as an undead to sleep with a young man reveals that her lover will die, and asks from her mother that they will be burnt on a pyre together.

* In James Freys ''Literature/EndgameTrilogy'' [[spoiler:Jago]] and [[spoiler:Sarah]] are [[spoiler:both shot in the same chapter]]. When [[spoiler:Hilal]] finds their corpses later, it is stated that her arm lay over his waist like an embrace.

** This is Robert Baratheon's opinion of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark. He's not pleased about it.
---> Rhaegar won, damn him. I killed him, Ned, I drove the spike right through that black armor into his black heart, and he died at my feet. They made up songs about it. Yet somehow he still won. He has Lyanna now, and I have [[GodSaveUsFromTheQueen her]].

** [[spoiler:If Harry's speculation that Grindelwald truly had cared for Dumbledore (romantically or otherwise) is true, then he counts as well after his death at the hands of Voldemort]].

** ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'': Arwen chose a mortal fate after death in order to be with Aragorn even if she survived him long enough to go to Lothlórien and die on Cerin Amroth where she made her promise in the first place. She also famously is Lúthien's descendant (so is Aragorn) and near-likeness.
** In a less heartwarming example, Denethor planned this for himself and Faramir, ordering a funeral pyre for both of them when he thought the latter had been killed in battle ([[BetterToDieThanBeKilled and even after learning he was still alive]]). He isn't successful, as Gandalf and Pippin arrive in time to rescue Faramir, although they can't talk Denethor out of burning ''himself.''

* In ''[[Literature/AuntDimity Aunt Dimity's Good Deed]]'', Dimity tells Lori that she and [[spoiler: her fiancé Robert [=MacLaren=] celebrated their honeymoon in the afterlife]]. This and an unwillingness to meddle in Lori's life are the reasons she gives for her two-year absence.

* The fantasy novel ''Literature/BridgeOfBirds'' has no fewer than three couples thus reunited.

* Horlick and Claire Minton from Creator/KurtVonnegut's ''Literature/CatsCradle'' die in this way, falling to their deaths while still holding each other's hand. According to Bokononism, this is especially common with two people in an exclusive karas (aka TrueLove Soulmates); if they don't die together, one will quickly follow the other anyway.
* There are two variations in ''Academ's Fury'', the second entry of the Literature/CodexAlera:

* Vlad Dracula and Elizabeth Bathory in ''Literature/CountAndCountess''.

* ''Literature/ADogOfFlanders'' ends this way. ''All their lives they had been together, and in their deaths they were not divided...''

* {{Subverted}} in ''Literature/EndoAndKobayashiLive The Latest on Tsundere Villainess Lieselotte''. Owing to Elizabeth disappearing right after her fiance August died prematurely of illness, the high society thought she must have killed herself for this, to the point there are stories of ghost sightings of her. The fact is, she's still alive and well in the PresentDay. [[spoiler:She had [[SomeoneToRememberHimBy August's child]], and knows her family won't let her exist because they have technically committed adultery, so she fled and raised their child among the commoners.]]

* The DeadlyDistantFinale to Jon Cleary's ''The Golden Sabre'' mentions that the male and female leads died in a plane crash several decades after the main events -- holding hands, happy to be together, even in this.

** In “The Tale of the Three Brothers” the second brother Cadmus Peverell uses the Resurrection Stone gift from [[TheGrimReaper Death]] to bring his dead fiancé back to life, but she doesn’t feel she truly belongs in the living world any more, so he commits suicide to then join her.
* Two examples in ''[[Literature/HisDarkMaterials The Amber Spyglass]]'': when people die, their daemon dissolves into its component particles, and the person's mind goes to the Underworld, a NothingAfterDeath. Lyra and Will find a way to [[spoiler: let the mind out into the living world, where it also dissolves and allows the person to have the same fate.]] Also, [[spoiler: Balthamos]], having completed his mission, simply loses the will to hold himself together and disintegrates, rejoining him in a way with [[spoiler: Baruch]].
** And [[spoiler:Will and Lyra]] themselves, who couldn't be together in life, but will be able to reunite in the land of the dead.
* In a non-romantic example, the DistantFinale of Douglas Reeman's ''HMS Saracen'' reveals that the ship's captain died something like twenty years after the main story. A minor character realizes the probable cause of death was a heart attack brought on by seeing film of ''Saracen'' being used as a target for a missile test, and thinks, ''So even at the end, they were together''.
* At the end of ''Literature/TheHunchbackOfNotreDame'', after Esmeralda's execution, Quasimodo goes down in the catacombs where they have dumped her body and embraces her corpse. He then dies of starvation. Years later the two skeletons are found and when they try to remove Quasimodo from his grip of Esmeralda, his skeleton crumbles to dust.

-->Would it not be better for him to die at once, and go to wait for her in the blessed regions of semi-barbaric futurity?

** Grantaire, who has been passed out drunk through most of his friends' doomed uprising, revives just in time [[HoYay to join Enjolras in front of a firing squad.]] However, this is averted ''after'' they die: Enjolras [[CrucifiedHeroShot dies standing up]] while Grantaire falls at his feet.

* Really, ''really'' creepy variation in ''[[Literature/SammyKeyes Sammy Keyes and the Hollywood Mummy]]''. [[spoiler: Sammy's mother Lana, an actress, fakes an ID so she can claim to be 25. Unfortunately, her new birthdate is the day her boss's wife died. He thinks Lana is the reincarnation of his wife, and he tries to kill both of them so they can be [[ReincarnationRomance reincarnated together]].]]

** Creator/JRRTolkien's [[StarCrossedLovers tragic lovers]] Beren and Lúthien from ''Literature/TheSilmarillion''. They are separated and reunited in death, twice! Special because, being a human and an elf, they would not have had the same fate after death (elves are bound to the world for as long as it lasts whereas humans are fated to leave it forever after a short while), but, through divine intervention, got the one exception. After their first death they were sent back for a short time to live a happy life together, and after their second death Lúthien's spirit was allowed to follow Beren's out of this world, as human souls do.
** Tuor and Idril. Tuor was a mortal Man and Idril a Noldorin Elf. When Tuor grew old, they headed together toward West on their ship Ëarramë. It is claimed Tuor alone of all Men has been accounted to the Elder Kindred whom he loved.
** Aegnor and Andreth are a variant. Andreth was destined to die a mortal death and leave the world forever. Thus Aegnor did not act on his feeling but in a cruel twist of fate ended up dying years before her but he could not follow her when she eventually died (being an elf, his life is tied to the world's). So he refused reincarnation and decided to remain in the [[TheLifestream Halls of Mandos]] forever because being permanently dead was the closest that he could get to be together in death with Andreth.
** Likewise Arwen in ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'' chose a mortal fate after death in order to be with Aragorn even if she survived him long enough to go to Lothlórien and die on Cerin Amroth where she made her promise in the first place. She also famously is Lúthien's descendant (so is Aragorn) and near-likeness.
** Túrin and his sister Niniel in ''Narn i Hin Húrin''.

* After Princess Toutebelle and the King of the Gold Mines die in "Literature/TheYellowDwarf", the mermaid who helped the king transforms their bodies into palm trees, which embrace each other with their intertwined branches.

* {{Subverted}} in ''LightNovel/EndoAndKobayashiLiveTheLatestOnTsundereVillainessLieselotte''. Owing to Elizabeth disappearing right after her fiance August died prematurely of illness, the high society thought she must have killed herself for this, to the point there are stories of ghost sightings of her. The fact is, she's still alive and well in the PresentDay. [[spoiler:She had [[SomeoneToRememberHimBy August's child]], and knows her family won't let her exist because they have technically committed adultery, so she fled and raised their child among the commoners.]]

* In ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'' this is Robert's opinion of Rhaegar and Lyanna. He's not pleased about it.
--> Rhaegar won, damn him. I killed him, Ned, I drove the spike right through that black armor into his black heart, and he died at my feet. They made up songs about it. Yet somehow he still won. He has Lyanna now, and I have [[GodSaveUsFromTheQueen her]].

** After he dies in the fourth book, Daedalus is reunited with his son, Icarus, and nephew, Perdix, both of whom long predeceased him. Daedalus is sent to the Ashpodel Fields (thanks to a grudge King Minos -- [[TheProblemWithFightingDeath who serves as his judge]] -- has against him when they were alive), meaning he is unable to truly be with the kids (who both went to Elysium), but Hades gives him a job to fix the bridge connecting the Fields with Elysium, thus allowing him to meet with Icarus and Perdix every once in a while.

* Averted: in Literature/WhatDreamsMayCome, Annie commits suicide after the deaths of her children and then husband, but because Roman Catholic rules appear to be the ones mostly in play in the book, this sends her to Hell…and he's in Heaven.

* In ''Literature/PercyJacksonAndTheOlympians'', Beckendorf and Silena get this. When Silena dies, she says she won't be reincarnated, and instead goes to Elysium, so she and Beckendorf can be together.

* {{Subverted}} in ''LightNovel/EndoAndKobayashiLiveTheLatestOnTsundereVillainessLieselotte''. Owing to Elizabeth disappearing right after her fiance Agugst died prematurely of illness, the high society thought she must have killed herself for this, to the point there are stories of ghost sightings of her. The fact is, she's still alive and well in the PresentDay. [[spoiler:She had [[SomeoneToRememberHimBy August's child]], and knows her family won't let her exist because they have technically committed adultery, so she fled and raised their child among the commoners.]]

* {{Subverted}} in ''LightNovel.EndoAndKobayashiLiveTheLatestOnTsundereVillainessLieselotte''. Owing to Elizabeth disappearing right after her fiance Agugst died prematurely of illness, the high society thought she must have killed herself for this, to the point there are stories of ghost sightings of her. The fact is, she's still alive and well in the PresentDay. [[spoiler:She had [[SomeoneToRememberHimBy August's child]], and knows her family won't let her exist because they have technically committed adultery, so she fled and raised their child among the commoners.]]

* After Princess Toutebelle and the King of the Gold Mines die in "The Yellow Dwarf", the mermaid who helped the king transforms their bodies into palm trees, which embrace each other with their intertwined branches.