Michael climbs onto a lower section of the Foundation's roof to think. He smiles, sort of, as he settles his back against the other wall of the second floor behind him. Devon would have a fit if he saw me up here, he thinks. Or maybe he would join me… The half-smile doesn't last long. He doesn't come up here very often anymore. He doesn't come up here very often anymore because honestly? He's been doing okay these last two-and-a-half years. When he catches his reflection in the darkened mirror of the bathroom at night, he doesn't flinch. He doesn't get ready to fight whatever stranger broke in while he slept.

The contours of his face feel just as familiar now as his old face. It's not really his face thought, is it? It's the face of a psychopath, softened by Michael's own kind heart. A heart of gold, he's been told more than once. He heard that a lot in his old life too. He's always been a good person always will be. It's how he was raised.

As he leans his head back against the bricks, baring his throat to the stars, he wonders how Garth was raised. Did Wilton try to raise his son to be kind, or was he so caught up in chasing phantom rainbows that he accidentally raised Garth to be cruel, selfish, predatorily opportunistic? Worse still, did Wilton know the effect his parenting was having on the young Garth but change nothing?

Michael sighs and tugs at a loose thread on his shirt. People have been trying to figure out the whole nature/nurture thing for a long time now. People a lot smarter than Michael with more doctorates than anyone would consider sane.

His thoughts turn to KITT; his car, partner, best friend, brother, confidant. If stripped down to his bare nature, KITT's just a highly advanced artificial intelligence, wires and circuits and lines of code. Programmed to learn and adapt to the world around it. By his nature alone, KITT shouldn't have preferences or be so vocally opinionated. KITT shouldn't have fears, both rational (Michael dying, being reprogrammed) and irrational (flight, spiders – both fears inherited from the people closest to him), or worries of his own.

KITT had been nurtured to escape the nature of his programming. Bonnie tells Michael about it using words he can't hope to understand, but the sheer reverence and awe and she speaks tells him they've witnessed a miracle of Old Testament grandiosity. He understands that, knows it for himself.

They're both do-overs, Michael and KITT. Mirror images of failures and disappointments. Michael absently picks out the constellations he can see from the roof. He's never sure if he's being too harsh on Wilton, wishing he could have had more time to get to know the old man for who he really was. But Wilton had been dying long before Michael met him, pain and the constant pressure of time running out too quickly often rendering him irritable and short-tempered.

So maybe they're both second chances then; one man's attempts to if not fix, then maybe soften, his mistakes. Michael and Garth, KITT and KARR. Two sides of the same coin, inextricably linked. Michael knows he would have physically died the night Tonya shot him had Wilton not been so determined to make things right. Even if it meant things had to move more quickly than expected. Even if it meant sending the fledgling Knight Industries Two Thousand out before it was really ready. Devon, Bonnie, and Wilton had all wanted KITT and Michael to have time to acclimate to each other before they went out into the field, but Michael's impatience, his heavy-souled need for revenge; didn't allow for that.

Michael finds Orion's belt in the sky, picking out the rest of the constellation from there. He vaguely remembers learning in high school that those stars are actually obscenely far away from each other and that the people who had lived and died thousands of years ago told each other stories to give life to the patterns they saw in the heavens. He identifies Rigel and Betelgeuse but can't remember the names of the other stars. Did he even learn those stars' names in the first place, or were Betelgeuse and Rigel the only two deemed worthy of teaching a bunch of high schoolers?

Next time he's okay with the silence being broken, Michael decides he'll ask KITT about Orion's stars. Maybe they'll head out into the desert for a couple days, and Michael will let KITT talk about the stars while he sits on the hood that'll still be warm despite the cold desert night and just listen. Tonight, though, even the thought of hearing anyone's voice grates on his nerves.

Devon and Bonnie had told Michael that KARR's first priority was self-preservation. Michael thought, Isn't everyone's first priority self-preservation? Aren't we all just trying to keep ourselves alive? Self-preservation and the preservation of human life aren't mutually exclusive, Michael concluded as he'd wrestled with KARR's existence. It was something he realized he'd known all along, but he hadn't thought much about it until then.

He shivers as the breeze from earlier in the day returns, and he draws his knees to his chest for warmth. It's not cold enough to drive him inside; just cold enough to bring him back to the present and to what originally caused him to seek out his rooftop sanctuary.

"Yknow, I read somewhere that you only die once people stop saying your name," he overheard a young woman say to her companion a couple tables over as he ate lunch. "I wanna do something, be someone so important that no one forgets my name. I just don't wanna die like that!" She spoke so passionately that Michael knew she'd find a way to do just that.

Michael wonders how dead he really is. He knows that Michael Knight will live on, immortalized in history for his work with the Foundation. That name will be brought up at bar-b-ques and family get-togethers, friends sharing grievances and trying to help each other solve them. "A friend of a friend was having some problems and this guy, I think his name's Michael Knight, took care of all of 'em!"

Michael doesn't say his old name out loud very often. It sounds foreign to him; feels like he's talking about someone else. Isn't he, though? Michael Long's life was headed in other directions. He knows that Wilton had intended to approach Michael Long after KITT was ready and invite him to join the Foundation. An invitation that, by its very nature, gave Michael an opportunity to say no. To continue his life as it was and marry Stevie and celebrate Christmas and Thanksgiving and birthdays with his mom instead of sending her cards and money anonymously.

Jimbo keeps Michael Long alive and close to his heart. Michael thinks about his old badge and wonders for the thousandth time if Jimbo had really recognized him as Michael Long. He keeps the badge in KITT's glovebox the same way some people drape a rosary around the rearview mirror.

Hell, even Zachary and Simpson kept Michael Long alive. Granted, Zachary only kept Michael's name on his tongue because he blamed Michael for his lover's death. Michael Long had been dead for some time when Tonya's bullet ricocheted off KITT's window, and he hadn't played any part in Tonya's death, but that didn't matter to Zachary.

Michael Long's not dead, he tells himself, first finding the Big Dipper, then following one of its stars to the Little Dipper and Polaris, a familiar star he'd used many times to guide himself home. Long won't be remembered in neon headlines and a blaze of glory like Michael Knight, but his name is still spoken just enough to keep him alive. His old partner, Stevie, friends toasting his memory as the clock strikes the final midnight of the old year, and, most importantly, his mother; they all keep Michael Long alive. A good man, dearly loved and bitterly missed by many, dead but certainly not forgotten.