Insanity, they say, is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Hermes had put little stock into this trite mortal phrase at first, but now he understands it better than the ones who coined it—though he objects to the term itself.
It's not insanity, but hope, that drives him; hope, the thing with feathers that gives him the courage to try and try and try for their happiness despite nothing changing in the end, at least for long. Not in the ways that matter. Spring followed by summer followed by fall gives way to bitter winter, and with it Hades' renewed wrath and misguided love.
He's even checked After, a few times, just to see what comes After, and it's unwelcome. Sometimes a wall, sometimes a castle, sometimes a tower, Hades eventually fights to catch his wife's eye and keep it once more, make her a willing captive of Hadestown's mechanical symphony. He lets her leave later and comes calling earlier, and she drowns her ever-increasing grievances in ever-increasing bottles of wine. In the end they'll all be back where they started, and this time with no muse's son and his muse to offer respite. Hermes has long stopped checking After, since none of it goes well.
He catches Clotho busily spinning Lachesis' careful threads out of the corner of his eye, and sighs. The threads may vary, but the tapestry is always the same, and he briefly wonders, as the Fates do, what exactly he hopes to accomplish this time. Fate is cruel; the Fates are cruelly kind; give up, they say, and spare yourself and them further sorrow. Atropos holds up her life-severing scissors with a not unkind smile; whether it's a threat or a promise, he can't tell, and he don't care.
Hermes stopped paying them much heed long ago, though it sure don't stop their whispering that worms into his head, that simply tells the way things are, have been, and will be. If he hadn't listened the first time around or the second he knows he won't now, as much as the truth in their voices grates.
Perhaps he would do well to heed them and let the tragedy play out only once, instead of an eternity of hoping in vain for something better. Perhaps he should let the tiny seed of doubt that's taken root in his mind flourish. Perhaps he should drink deeply of the River Lethe and forget this lost cause. Perhaps it is cruel to expect so much, of gods and mortals alike.
If Orpheus can do it, so can she; if she can do it so can they; but if Orpheus doubts so can Hades, and it all comes crashing down.
He can fight for an eternity, and has, and will, but nothing will ever come of it. Orpheus will turn at the last and doom his music, his muse, and the workers of Hadestown with that poison they call doubt; Eurydice's hunger for life will be lost to the mines and oblivion, leaving her as dead as the other shades; Hades and Persephone's fraying marriage will unravel the fragile threads of civilization on top and the dark world below; and Hermes knows this because he's seen it all before, helpless to stop it but forever able to start it again.
But he'll keep hoping, even if it's all the old messenger god has left. So he braces himself, straightens his suit, and calls for the train, the crowd, the gods and men, to give the story another go. The players take the stage for the old song and dance, and all that jazz; the story of Orpheus and Eurydice.
This time, Hermes thinks. This time they'll get it right.
He's wrong.