Note: Well here it is. We've come to the end of the line. But, at the risk of turning into Dr M, nothing ever ends…

Please remember I am going from the film not the novel - basically no martian squids.


An Outsider Looking In

Epilogue

It's been over ten years since the Keene Act was passed, and much has happened in those ten years. But despite all the events that have occurred, despite all the tragedies and the sorrows much closer to home, I have never stopped waiting to receive the call once again and slip into the shadows to do my duty. I still have the instructions that Night Owl gave me, although I don't need to look at the paper anymore. I know them by heart. Sometimes I find myself wandering along in that direction, but I always turn away at the last minute. Even though the team has long gone, I know that it seems sacrilegious to break the unspoken agreement that we shared. I came when I was needed, never of my own accord.

Yes, it's been an interesting ten years, with interesting experiences.

Watching the cold war doomsday clock become ever closer to midnight, wondering if we would ever have peace again and, conversely, if we had ever had peace in the first place…

Watching reports of Rorschach's continued activity in the vigilante sphere – I knew it would take more than a bounty to stop him. It would take more than a gun, even…

Watching the chief of police triumphantly announcing that he'd been caught, and cheering inwardly when he consequently started a riot and escaped, never to be seen again…

Watching the city be destroyed by the man who was supposed to have protected it, the man who talked to me about humanity and the man who I refused to believe would do such a thing…

Watching Nixon's speech announcing a new world peace, and wondering sceptically how long it would last…

Watching Veidt promise to rebuild the city, and asking myself why his eyes seemed insincere…

Watching the world go by, wondering where the Watchmen were…

I helped them all at some point or another, and at the time I never asked questions. I always kept myself as separate from their world as I could.

But during these past ten years, things have changed.

I know who they were, I know the identities behind the masks, and I know of the double lives they used to lead.

I didn't go looking for the answers to the many questions that I had kept suppressed during my time with them. Unlike our code for medical attention, they always came to me. I didn't go to them.

I had always said to myself that I didn't want to know. But now that I do know, I can't imagine a time when I didn't.

I think of these things as I sit at my desk during a break in my night shift, viewing the construction site in the distance that was once the city centre. The phone on my desk rings and I answer it melancholy.

"An outside call for you, doctor," says the switchboard. "Putting you through."

" Hello?" I say, and my heart leaps as I hear the voice I've been waiting for these past ten years.

"Doctor, we need you."


Note 2: Well, hopefully that's given you a cryptic little idea of what 'An Outsider Looking Back' will be about… (The doctor will remain anonymous if it kills me!)

Note 3: The sequel may take longer to appear because I go home from uni tomorrow and I won't get as much time alone with my laptop, and I certainly won't be able to post chapters at half past midnight, which is what I've been doing for the past week or so.

Well, I will bid you farewell for now, but I won't be gone for too long...