Timeframe: Takes place after the episode "All Good Things"

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"Yes, she looks for me. Good. Let her look for me to tell me why she left me, as I always knew she would. I had thought she understood. They have never understood, and no reason that they should...but if anybody could..."

"Finishing the Hat", from Sunday in the Park with George, by Stephen Sondheim

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She doesn't understand. She's never understood, and who could blame her? Not I. There's no reason she should understand.

But I had hoped that she might.

We had such a short time together, a brief moment of bliss, drowned by the reality of our lives. She honestly thinks that I want the power and the position. I don't care about it. I've never cared about it. It's a means to an end. Such a shame that the means is so distasteful, both to her and to me. I don't enjoy the threats and the mind games. I may be good at them, but that doesn't mean I want to live my life like that. But I've never had a choice, any more than the current Operations ever had a choice.

She forgets that sometimes. We do what we have to so that we may survive.

Or perhaps she thinks that my choice should be death. And perhaps she's right. It may very well be what I deserve. But I always found some reason to stay alive. Before her, it was Simone. Before Simone, it was my sister. It may make me a coward, but I won't apologize for it. If I hadn't survived this long, I never would have met her. And even now, when she turns away from me in disgust, I treasure the gift of her presence.

I do it for her. It has always been for her, my shining star, my guiding beacon. She shattered the darkness that surrounded me, and I curse my inability to tell her so. I do think she's come to understand some of what I'd like to say. That was one of our accomplishments, during that endless night in her apartment. But it was a fragile understanding, easily lost.

"I don't know who you are."

My answer was the truth. I am who I have always been, and could I weep for her lack of faith, I would. But I don't deserve her faith or her trust. There have been too many lies and too much betrayal. She is a strong, honest soul, and duplicity has been a bitter lesson for her to learn.

What can I do? I can only persevere, in the hope that my efforts will someday provide us with the security we need. The strength to defy those who would keep us apart. By that point, I may well have destroyed her ability to believe. I may have destroyed her, and in doing so, destroyed myself.

I had hoped she might understand.

I do it for her.