I see you standing at the end of a long pier. It stretches out into blue-green waters as barely-there waves lap against its wooden supports. Beyond in the sea are boats; sailboats and pleasure yachts, fishing boats and smaller craft where people enjoy the balmy weather, the careful breeze, the sun and the lazy, fluffy clouds that roll by above. This is their Heaven, and you are mine.

Your long hair flows beyond your shoulders, moving with you and around you as you turn your head to see who's looking at you. You smile, and even after all this time that acknowledgement, that silent statement that it will always only be me who can bring forth those feelings within you, rocks me to the very center of who I am.

I have never loved another as I have loved you. God knows I've tried, with spectacular failure the only result. I have hurt another in an attempt to move beyond the grace, the beauty, the perfection that was our love, and for that I may never forgive myself. I felt untrue to you but I pushed past it, away from the memories, blocking it out and refusing to let it consume me any longer.

But like the ever-present sky, like the always-there earth, you remained seated deep within my soul and it took nothing but a moment of déjà vu, a stark replay of precious seconds spent with you, to break through the walls I'd constructed and leave them in ruins. Leave my new union in ruins. She came to understand that I would never move past you no matter how much I wished it or how desperately I tried or how much I cared for her.

Because it's always been you. From the moment we met as children even unto this day, this moment when I teeter on the brink of death myself, looking for a reason not to move along the beach, to take those many steps out onto the weathered pier. As I search for excuses to return to our sons, to the life I built in the many years since we lost you. I still can't bring myself to speak of you, even in passing, and it's only because I ache for you as much now as I did in the seconds after you died.

It hasn't gone away, this love. It hasn't dimmed with age, nor lost its grip on my heart. If anything it has increased even as my memories have changed and faded; as I've forgotten any bad times and recalled nothing but the good.

I can hear them calling to me now, our boys, our little boys that you brought into this world, the last one mere minutes before you were gone. I hear them begging for me to return, but I ask what more it is I could offer than I have already given. A secure future, success, the gift of saving lives through International Rescue. Each life saved, for me, since it began operating, has been nothing less than penance for not saving you.

Gordon tells me I will live, as I told him he would in the aftermath of his hydrofoil accident.

Alan tells me my race is not yet finished.

I hear Virgil's words, artistic words of beauty painting the picture of the life I still have yet to live.

Scott's orders for my return, as though in this moment the Captain believes the Colonel might bow to his will for once.

And John, telling me it's not yet time to join the other stars in the vast expanse of space he loves more than I ever did.

My own mother, telling me through tears she can't watch her only child die before she does.

Kyrano, trying in his own strange way to keep hold of me, to reel me back from this beach, to pull me through the barrier between Here and There so I'll remember There exists.

You stand as the vision of perfection that you were the last time I saw you, whole and healthy, smiling and tangible. You're not a figment of my imagination; I know this as surely as I know my own name. This time you're not simply a dream, or wishful thinking. You're real. And if I step away from this sand, if my foot so much as touches that pier, then I will join you at last. I will have you forever in my arms, never to go another day or night with an empty, lonely bed and snatches of remembered words as my only companions.

Penny is There now, too. I hear her voice, can almost feel her tears when she tells me that as much as she knows I want to be with you, the needs of those who still live outweigh my need to stay Here. She says that even if I live another hundred years, you will still be here waiting for me looking as you do now.

I know she's right. I'm surprised she is There, but not really, because she truly does love me. Not, perhaps, the way you and I loved one another, nor the way I still love you. But even after breaking her heart, she comes to my side and asks me to stay.

If only I'd had the strength to be the man she needed me to be.

But I didn't. And I don't.

For everything that I am is wrapped up in you, Lucille. It always will be.

Still, Penny is right.

Kyrano is right.

The boys are right.

While I want nothing more than to walk out there to join you, I know with certainty now that I cannot stay Here with you. Not yet. You wouldn't want me to give up so easily now, after I refused to give up when you left me. You would want me there for our boys, especially since you can't be There in any way but spirit.

And, I think, you would want me to tell them that I saw you, tell them what you look like Here, how beautiful and unmarred you are. How happy you look. How you will be waiting for all of us when our time comes. Maybe the reason I have to return is to rectify the one thing I haven't been able to bring myself to in all this time: not talking about you.

Maybe I need to pull out the photo albums. Tell stories of you. Share the love you felt for me, and for each of our sons, in your far-too-brief time on Earth. Maybe after I do that, after I say the words our boys have longed to hear since they found out you were gone, then maybe I can join you Here with a clear conscience and a peaceful heart.

I will try, Lucy. For you, I will fight to go back There, to stay There, and I will try to make amends for shutting the door on you simply because I couldn't handle thinking about you.

I raise my hand, trying to wave, but it mostly just remains raised in the air because I'm saying good-bye to you all over again, and in some part of me that hurts as badly as the first good-bye did. But when you raise your hand in return, and your smile never fades, I know you understand. You give me your blessing to go back to them.

You will wait for me, as long as is needed.

And I vow to you here and now, that I will do everything I can to make right what my pain surrounding you has made wrong.

My hand lowers, as does yours.

I take a deep, shuddering breath, whisper, "I love you," and hear the echo of those words in your musical voice.

I close my eyes, turn, and walk away.

I'm going back.

I'm going back to tell them about their mother.

About how much I loved her.

About how much she loved them.

About how we will all see her here, on the pier, on the beach, when our lives are through.

I'll be back, Lucy.

One day, I'll be back.