For my dearest, Paula for GGE. I hope I've somehow done these two justice. And this is a sort of odd mixture of book and movie canon… just go with it, I guess.

I've been married to science all my life, Rufus tells her. But he knows in his heart of hearts that's simply not entirely true. If it were, he would not have a stash of letters hidden in his briefcase. If it were, he'd have burned them all by now, let the wind carry the ashes away. He'd have let that bastard go. But no…

In the split second it takes for him to change the subject, he sees the light of recognition in Luisa's eyes. She is not a fool. The daughter of Lester Rey could be anything but a fool, and he thinks he sees the glimmer of a smile behind the expression. It might be pity but he doesn't dwell on it. He's pitied himself enough.

Upon his arrival back at the hotel he thinks of the two halves of a journal that he so carefully bound back together all those years ago. There's a letter that he never sent pressed between the pages, right where the two halves met each other once again, and he wishes for it now so that it may join the others scattered on his bed.

The yellowed pages still smell of ink and the musty stench of the Chateau that Robert wrote about with such disdain. He even imagines that he smells Eva's perfume, and it should fill him with jealousy or regret or hatred but it doesn't. It doesn't.

In a fit of nostalgia he rifles through the bedside drawer for a bit of stationary, but all he can find is a Gideon Bible with a spine that creaks and resists from lack of use. Good enough.

His writing is awkward and cramped on the thin paper, but he tarries on, determined though he doesn't know why. He only knows he needs to while he still can.

Bon Voyage International Hotel

Buenas Yerbes, California

August 9, 1975

Frobisher,

I won't pretend to be as eloquent as I used to be. Certainly not as eloquent as you ever were. I'd carry on about the music I hear on a daily basis but I can't. I don't know what the hell B flat or A major even means. You of all people know that I am a scientist of mind and cannot make beauty out of the everyday as you could and I confess now that all that time your musings on the trombone or the complications of a melody not quite remembered were utterly lost on me.

It was enough that you wanted to share them. Yes, even the things I'd rather you hadn't shared at the time were treasured for years. I look upon Eva's name with fondness. I read your last letter to me and my heart still aches for you, still skips a beat at the word suicide. Such an ugly word. You'd reprimand me, I'm sure, but it will always disgust me.

If only I had turned on the belfry. If only I'd seen you first. To know you'd seen me and had the self restraint to leave is the wound that won't quite heal. I try not to blame you but I do. Might as well have it out now, while I'm confessing. It's true. If I didn't blame you, I wouldn't keep your letters with me always. See how I love you still?

I was a foolish boy then, but you were beautiful. Selfish and a bit mad and beautiful. I'm sure I was shamefully easy to persuade but I don't regret it as much as I want to.

It's been longer than thirteen years since you last wrote to me and we never did meet again in Gresham, but I swear I saw your comet today. Could have touched it if I wanted to, but she's branded on a pretty young thing. A woman. Never fancied women, never could. Don't know what you saw in them and I'm too old for such dallying anymore. But a few hours hence I'll be bound for home and this woman will help me destroy everything I've worked for. If only it were as easy as pulling the trigger on old Ayrs. I envy the simplicity of your plight, Robert. Really, I do.

We never met in Gresham, and if we met earlier in the elevator, then it was anticlimactic and I'll have been sorely disappointed, but I had a dream once that when I die (and it will be soon, I promise you) I will find you in that china shop you wrote to me about tossing tea cups at the wall. I dreamt that you've been waiting for me.

I'm sorry I've taken so long. Sorry I still hold onto you like a vice. Sorry my love couldn't save you.

Sorry I've never heard your Sextet.

Sincerely,

R. S.

The first time was long before the Corsican stars shone their blessing upon their heads. Long before that night on the balcony when Robert first whispered dearest Sixsmith into the other boy's ear and tugged at his shirttails.

Long before he shot himself through the roof of his mouth.

There are an abundance of first times recorded in journals and letters and Bibles that no one will ever read. History repeats itself, crescendos and arcs above the staves, and if there is meaning to it all, Rufus Sixsmith has struggled to find it. He wonders now as he looks down the barrel if he found it just in time, or if he is too late, but Robert's last assurances console him, even as the bullet hits its mark.

We do not stay dead long. And this… this is how it always ends. A lonely third floor hotel room. Saying goodbye to a half finished love affair. A spent firework fizzling out.

And a letter.