I think I should make something clear, though hopefully brief: Do I think Yuugi can survive and thrive on his own? Yes. Do I think that Yami/Atem was supposed to pass on? Yes. Do I think it was easy on either of them? No way. For Yuugi, Yami had been a part of him for quite some time, and even though it was what was supposed to happen, I imagine it was like a best friend or close relative had died (because technically, he had) when Yami left. For Yami, Yuugi and the others were all he had ever known until he regained his old memories (and the bond he shared with Yuugi was stuff of legend – I mean, they lived in the same body), and I can't imagine it was easy for him. So in short? Yes, they can make it. No, it will not be easy.

Just as an example, I cried every year on the anniversary of my favorite uncle's death for at least four years after he was gone. Did I keep on living? Absolutely, and I'm quite happy. Do I still miss him to this day, now ten years later? Without a doubt.

Thanks so much to the two very kind reviewers for their comments on my last story, "Eien ni"! I hope everyone likes what I've come up with here – it's my first real post-canon story, taking place not quite two years after canon ends (according to my calculations that, at least in the anime, the series might have ended around August). It's completely non-romance, no matter what it may seem.

For my fellow United States-ers (and other people unfamiliar with certain foreign cultures), in Japan, the school year ends around March or April (and there is but a one week vacation, perhaps two, unless things have changed since I researched it). They wear their usual school uniforms at graduation, though a bit dressier. I'm pretty sure there is no hand-shaking, only traditional bowing.

And for the record, I have my first-ever graduation ceremony at uni in December, and I like the funny outfits.

"Issho ni" means "Together."

A final note: what would you all like to see me write next? Let me know! I love ideas! I've gotten some lovely ideas from two very kind reviewers so far and am working on stories inspired by them, but I always welcome suggestions as to what I should work on next.

Hope you all enjoy this, and please leave a review when you're done!

Issho ni

Anzu wanted to wear the hats.

Well, technically they were called "caps," but to Yuugi they were pretty much the same thing. He had seen the pictures from all the American magazines she had taken to reading, and quite honestly, he didn't see the appeal of wearing an over-sized black dress and a squashed-looking hat—sorry, cap—with an annoying yellow decoration hanging off it while walking across a stage to shake hands with an old man and stand around until you got blisters on your feet.

Of course, he had never actually said this to Anzu. But after seeing her magazines, he was suddenly grateful that they would be wearing their school uniforms.

His mother had taken one of the few uniforms he hadn't managed to ruin at one point or another—and the few that still fit him after his growth spurt—and gotten it pressed and washed and hung up in his closet last weekend, and had forbidden him to so much as touch it before the day of the ceremony. She had taken every opportunity to scold him for how many of his freshman year uniforms had torn pants, along with that one jacket that had scorch marks on the back.

She never did stop asking him about that. She also never seemed to buy his story that he had bumped into Jounouchi-kun's stove and the cloth caught fire, but not for long enough to ruin it.

Yuugi chuckled in a very ironic way at the memory of how long she had pestered him about that one, and how long Jii-chan had spent trying to make her believe it. He had eventually given up himself and let Jii-chan handle it, but considering Jii-chan was even less skilled at getting people to believe ludicrous stories than he was, that hadn't gone particularly well.

He adjusted his legs under the sheets and, for the twelfth time that night, opened his eyes.

Boom!

He didn't flinch. He blinked when the light streamed into his room, but then he just chuckled again and grabbed the covers to pull over himself, as he had apparently kicked them off most of his body. The rain had started somewhere around the third time he had opened his eyes. It was louder here than anywhere else in the house, a reasonable fact given that half of his ceiling was a window in itself. A long time ago he used to worry that the loud storms would shatter the glass and maybe the wind would pull him out into a tornado and he would be dragged off to a magical land like in that American movie Anzu had brought over to watch when they were still in primary school.

Now Yuugi just watched the lightning zap through the sky, and listened to the thunder, and he wondered why it was that his body refused him passage into any semblance of sleep.

"Funny time of year for it to be raining, isn't it?"

His voice came out quiet, and he always seemed to surprise himself with how it had dropped a bit in tone over the past year. Not so much that his friends noticed—but when he had spoken to his dad over the phone a couple of months ago, the first thing he had asked was whether it was actually his son speaking.

Yuugi had not noticed at first, but after his dad pointed it out he started to hear it. And he started to realize how much it sounded like the voice from the videotapes Kaiba-kun still kept from the Battle City duels that Yuugi had found him watching once or twice when he came to visit the company.

He shook his head, smiled, and sighed.

"But I guess it's getting kind of close to rainy season," he muttered. Jii-chan would be asleep right now, as would his mother. "You know that, right? Didn't you notice how it started pouring all the time in June?"

The sky lit up again, and this time Yuugi laughed out loud. Something in his chest ached. He breathed in and out and laughed again.

He shifted under his blankets and pulled them up so they reached his chin, not as if he thought it would help. He had made a habit at the start of his senior year of keeping a clock over on the desk across his room, but he couldn't see it unless he turned around and he didn't particularly want to see it so he just let it be. He didn't need to hear his consciousness reminding him he had school tomorrow for the umpteenth time.

"Well, maybe not the umpteenth. Tenth, maybe."

Yuugi chuckled again he heard his own voice echo throughout the room.

"Closer to eleventh, actually. You don't tend to really keep track of things, Yuugi."

His mouth remained closed. His heart thumped a little louder in his chest, but it only lasted a second, and he didn't even turn his head when something deep inside him urged him to do so. He just stared at the ceiling and saw the pattering rain on the skylight out of the corner of his eye.

Yuugi blinked slow, as if trying to see if his eyelids were heavy yet. They weren't. "Have you been counting or something?"

"Not at first." The voice seemed to surround him, but if he concentrated very hard he could hear it a little bit to his left. Like himself commenting on himself from a distance away. "But then you just kept doing it and I thought I might as well. So it's probably more along the lines of fourteen."

Yuugi cocked an eyebrow, and the ceiling seemed to shift around him, growing vague as if he was sleepy, when sleep still seemed about a million kilometers away. "Is that an insult?"

A pause. Amusement in the air.

"Just an observation."

"Heh. Yeah. You make those a lot."

The voice grew clearer now. Closer, and not so hard to define. It still didn't feel quite like a normal voice, not like when he spoke to Jounouchi-kun or Jii-chan, but it was easier to understand and felt more … real.

He almost heard a chuckle. Almost. "That's nothing new."

He wanted to look over to his side more now. It was getting difficult not to. But he forced himself to keep staring at the ceiling, to keep hearing the voice and believing it, and not breaking out of the trance he just about felt he was trapped in, but quite of his free will.

Yuugi settled down deeper on his pillow, and he brought his hands up to rest on his stomach.

"Did I ever tell you about the graduation ceremonies at school?"

"I don't think you ever had a reason to, no." The voice was interested.

Another flash of lightning glowed outside his window, followed shortly by thunder so loud he almost felt it making the house shake. With the light that appeared in the room, he could almost see a faint, shimmering form over to his left. Not close to his bed, but standing a good distance across the room, near the desk. Leaning in the place that had once been his, even if he was never really there, the spot no one else had ever thought to take.

Yuugi forced his eyes back to the ceiling.

"I hear they're really long and boring."

A pause. Not a whole chuckle, but the air seemed to fill with amusement and the sense one got when someone cocked an eyebrow in confusion and a bit of disbelief.

"It's a 'ceremony.' Isn't that the point?"

Yuugi chuckled. He wanted to laugh, and he could feel that laugh bubbling up inside of him, welcoming and warm, but he kept it back. For some reason, it didn't feel quite right to laugh. "Well, I don't think they intended it that way."

"Really." The other sounded so very skeptical of this, and amused at the same time. Yuugi could imagine his face like the old days when he could see him, and he ignored how very badly he wished he could see it again. "Because even in my time, 'ceremony' tended to indicate 'good time for a nap.'"

"Yes, that's very mature of you, oh mighty pharaoh."

"Hey!"

This time, more of a chuckle slipped past Yuugi's defenses, and he let it go without much of a fight. "'Hey' back at you, I'm just saying."

He could imagine so very clearly the other crossing his arms over his chest and giving him that look he rarely gave except when he was in a half-mischievous and half-playful mood. One eyebrow cocked and body leaned a little forward as if to scrutinize, but all that seriousness dulled by the distinct smirk on his face.

"Well, Yuugi, so am I."

Yuugi raised one eyebrow at the ceiling. "I think you've gotten more sarcastic."

A chuckle. "It comes from time spent around Mana."

"She never struck me as sarcastic."

"She isn't," he affirmed. Yuugi could imagine him smiling this time, not quite as much of a smirk. "But she doesn't pick up on it, so everyone makes this habit of being sarcastic and watching her just take it without a word."

"That's horrible."

"I know. But we get bored sometimes and she doesn't mind."

Yuugi laughed out loud, even though he still didn't like the sense of it, and he still got the distinct feeling the other didn't particularly like messing with people quite that much. He had always enjoyed a good mind trick, but never anything serious against friends. This wasn't serious, though. It was like him and Jounouchi-kun, joking around, never meaning harm.

He knew he shouldn't look. He knew he shouldn't turn his head, and he told himself over and over again that it was a bad idea. That if he did, if he actually turned to see, that it might shatter before him, and there would be nothing and no one there. The voice would disappear, and would not come back, just like it had never really appeared before in over a year and a half. And he did not care if he had to stare at the ceiling for the rest of his life if it meant the voice could stay.

But he had to turn. He had to look. He simply could not stop it.

He turned his head.

Something deep within him jumped when his eyes settled on the spot in front of the desk under the skylight. It was that kind of moment when you looked in an empty space and thought you saw something and jumped, only to notice a second later that there was nothing there at all. He stared at it. He waited for it to fade away. But it remained.

Lightning lit up again, and there was nothing. The space was, indeed, empty in front of the desk. It was just him, all alone in his room under the rain.

But when the darkness returned, the form was there again. It was just a vague mirage at first, glimmering, making everything behind it look faded and far away. His eyes adjusted, though it was such a slow process and one he almost thought had stopped, and bit by bit, the form grew clearer. He could make out the shape of a shorter-than-average teenager, with hair that looked almost identical to his own, and eyes that glowed violet with hints of crimson, and the gold decorating the white linen almost seemed to reflect the moonlight above.

Yuugi drew in a short, shallow breath, and he tried so hard—and so much in vain—not to stare. But the form just smiled at him, as if Yuugi had finally completed a task the other had been waiting for. Pleased. Content. So much like the smile Yuugi used to know so well.

He didn't smile himself. He wanted to, or at least a part of him did. But he just stared at the form not far away, staying in his bed, and he let out his breath soft and slow.

"So my mom got my uniform all cleaned and tidy for the boring ceremony."

His former other, the regal spirit nearby, suddenly stood up from leaning against the desk and gave him a fake harsh look, tinted with the chuckles he could not quite suppress.

"Oh, let it go!" The chuckles came through more, and one of his eyebrows cocked when he seemed to finally hear the first part of the statement. "And wait a second, you have uniforms left I didn't ruin? I've failed in my duties!"

Yuugi broke out into laughter that felt so good and warm within him. So nostalgic and familiar, and yet, very deep inside, there was still a faint aching pain. "Well, you got darn close! That was one of my last."

The other crossed his arms over his chest, and Yuugi thought he imagined the gold jingling from his earrings and headdress. The smirk on his face was so old and so young at the same time. Yuugi couldn't quite tell whether that made him look more or less like the ever-regal king.

"Did she ever comment on those scorch marks from Battle City?"

Yuugi put one of his arms over the blankets. Despite the rain, it was warm outside, and for some reason he got the feeling the room was warmer than before. Maybe because of seeing the other wearing a tunic with no sleeves, as if they were sitting under Egypt's sun instead of early spring in Japan. "Jii-chan's still trying to convince her to believe my story."

"You're joking."

"Nope."

The spirit laughed out loud this time, and the sound was rich and lovely and it almost made Yuugi feel like he was back years ago. Back when everything was how it used to be. Danger at every turn, yes. But also content happiness. The sense of being together. The tight circle of caring he had come to hold close and cherish.

The circle that still held the scars from being broken.

He smiled, and Yuugi wanted so badly to smile back. It hurt, though, the more he tried, and the aching within him grew sharper and darker. The other leaned back against the desk with his arms crossed again, and the smile remained.

"Isn't this around the time you start preparing for college?"

Yuugi swallowed the pain within him, and he set himself for a moment back in class. There weren't many classes left. Just a few, and then his teachers would say their farewells, and all the seniors would go their separate ways.

"Yeah, I'm already accepted, actually."

"You are?" The other didn't try to veil his excitement. The stoic nature of that ancient spirit had never kept up when he was given news about Yuugi. Yuugi had always wondered about that. "Where, Yuugi?"

Yuugi cringed somewhere deep inside him.

"You keep calling me 'Yuugi,'" he whispered, and for the first time, hearing his own name hurt. "Why?"

Atem shifted. It looked strange to see him surprised, flustered, even a little nervous and tinged with guilt.

"I … thought it would feel more natural to you."

"Not from you."

There was a pause. Yuugi didn't intend to put any malice in his voice, and he didn't hear it. But he didn't hear kindness, either, and he cursed himself a little when Atem waited to respond. Atem took a very slow step away from the desk, toward the bed, as if he was going to come and sit. But he stopped and his eyes grew soft. "Would you prefer 'Aibou'?"

Yuugi closed his eyes and nodded.

When he opened them again, Atem's lips wore a strange mix of a smile and a frown.

"Okay, then. Aibou. Where were you accepted?"

Yuugi breathed out a long breath.

"Just the local college. Domino University," he muttered, the name still unfamiliar and strange on his lips. "It's not far from the high school."

The smile on Atem's face was calm, and with a hint of sadness and pain hidden behind it. Or maybe that was just the feelings reflected from Yuugi himself.

"I think Anzu told me about that one. Congratulations."

Yuugi broke their gaze and stared at the ceiling again. It still hurt, even when he didn't look at him, for he could feel those violet eyes on him, no matter how much he tried to force the pain away. He slipped his arm back under his blankets, and he settled back under in a silly attempt to bring himself to calm. "Since it's so close I'll probably stay in the game shop. With Jii-chan, you know."

"Yeah."

Silence for a moment. Pattering rain, another boom of thunder. The thunder was quieter now, further away, and the rain had grown lighter as the storm began to move. Yuugi breathed the air and imagined he breathed in the rain.

"… the others haven't told me their plans yet. Except Anzu. She's going off to America."

He could hear a smile in the other's voice. "Like she wanted."

"Mm-hmm."

The pause was longer this time. The aching within Yuugi's chest stayed right there where it was. It had settled, as had the feeling of there being someone else in the room. He wanted to hug himself, to pretend that the one across the room was there and could hold him like his grandfather used to when he was little. Like his mother had done long ago, like his father had never been around to do.

"… everything will change again soon."

Quieter now. The voice sounded soft and solemn, one that held so many years within. "… yes, it probably will."

Quiet. Rain and peace.

"And everyone will move on with their lives." His voice caught in his throat, and he swallowed and pushed back the pain he didn't want to admit was really there. "Just … keep going on, I guess."

"Yeah."

The voice faded this time, and this time, Yuugi did not break the silence that followed. Not at first. He looked at the ceiling, and he looked at Atem standing some distance away. He still looked so vague, nothing like the images of spirits one sees in movies. Most of the details of his form were Yuugi's imagination, and Yuugi knew it. He wasn't just transparent or dark. He was a flickering image, a memory, one Yuugi had to fill in.

"I miss you."

The other waited this time before saying anything. Yuugi could almost feel the words seeping into him, seeping between them like feelings once did when their very cores were bound. Sometimes it felt as if they still were. Now, he still wasn't sure whether the emotions swirling within him were his own.

"I know."

"I mean … every day." Yuugi breathed in deep, and he felt the rain quiet down more outside. Another flash of lightning. He closed his eyes tight, and he pushed back the pain that grew behind them. "Not like I don't live anymore, I do, I-I bet you know that, but … every day, there's this feeling, like there's something inside me that's gone and no matter what I try nothing fills it up and …" He swallowed and turned on his side, but he did not dare look at Atem. "Ishizu-san told me it'd be there and I'd just have to feel it and keep moving on but … I don't know."

His voice trailed off, and he let it, until again the only sound in the room was the pattering on the skylight. Yuugi wondered if it was true that story Jii-chan had told him when he was seven that the rain was really the tears of lost spirits as they tried to find their way home. He wondered if Atem had ever cried for all he had lost and what he had gained.

Atem's breath was loud and slow, and not really there. "Aibou …"

"Are you happy?"

"What?"

Yuugi looked at him, and he saw the ancient king with the indigo cape and the white linen and the gold and the hair like his, and he saw his other half, standing beside him in the middle of the night, talking about everything, talking about nothing.

He exhaled, and his voice trembled.

"I mean, are … are you okay where you ended up and … it's good where you are?"

Atem broke his gaze and stared at the skylight above him. He looked at the light of the moon and the stars, the ones the clouds didn't block out. Yuugi watched him, and he knew there was no way that light could reflect and glow off of his cheeks. And yet somehow, it did.

With a nod, Atem sighed.

"Yes. I'm … alright."

Yuugi swallowed. "… good."

Atem closed his eyes for a moment, even though Yuugi knew there was no reason for a spirit to do so, and when he opened his eyes the violet in them shimmered with pain that was not really there.

"I miss you, too, Aibou," Atem whispered, and his voice held more emotion than Yuugi had ever imagined it could hold at once. "Every moment."

Yuugi let out a half-laugh, solemn in its own way, and yet holding the very vague hints of amusement. His own defenses stood up against the pain and made him want to laugh in spite of himself.

"I guess time must be kind of different there."

"At first." Atem leaned back on the desk and rocked back and forth on his feet. It didn't seem like the sort of thing he would do, not to Yuugi. "You get used to it."

"Well, it's good to know where I'm headed someday is nice, right?"

Even when Yuugi let out that tiny laugh again, Atem just stared at the floor.

"It's still so funny seeing you in that outfit, you know. With that … tan."

Atem seemed for a moment to try to hold back his chuckle, but it slipped past him, and he stood there chuckling and smiling with such a quiet sadness that made something in Yuugi hurt worse than before.

Yuugi considered standing up, but he stopped himself and merely leaned a little forward, so he almost hung off the edge of the bed, in fear that if he actually touched the floor, all this would end. "I'll always imagine you with my skin. And my uniform. But you always wore the jacket like a cape."

"What's wrong with that?"

"Mou hitori n—Atem." He caught himself, and almost hearing the words from his own lips hurt like a knife in his upper back. He forced away the ache. "People don't wear capes nowadays."

The other cocked his head, and Yuugi wasn't quite sure if he saw a hint of sympathy in those old eyes, clouded over with his veil of confusion. "So?"

"So, i—oh, never mind. I guess the cape was always pretty cool."

This time he smirked. Yuugi had missed that smirk. "I knew you liked it."

Yuugi just laughed, loud and true, and he heard the faint ring of Atem's laughter mixing in with his own. He looked at the ceiling, and back at Atem, and no matter how much he blinked the image before him didn't fade. For some reason that he could not explain, that gave him some odd sense of peace, but it also made something in him hurt.

"Are you real?"

Atem stared, and for one split second, Yuugi thought he really looked like an ancient king.

"What do you think?"

Yuugi cocked an eyebrow, and he wished he had a tape recorder so he could keep a few lines of this conversation. He wondered if the voice would show up on tape like spirits' voices did in the movies.

"That's a really cheesy answer, you know, you sound like my literature teacher."

Atem didn't respond, but Yuugi could feel the amusement twinkling within him. Yuugi shifted his feet that were starting to fall asleep under the covers.

"It's kind of weird talking to a ghost."

"Hm?"

Atem blinked at him. Yuugi smiled a strange smile.

"I mean, I never really thought about it back when we were—together, but … I mean, there was a lot to think about and about a month afterward I just randomly started cracking up when I realized I had been seeing a ghost for over a year and it never really fazed me after I realized you were there."

He trailed off into nothing, stopping himself before he really got into rambling. He had rambled a lot recently, or so Jounouchi-kun had seen fit to tell him. And yet it all made sense to him, even if he couldn't really understand what it meant.

Atem raised one eyebrow just a tiny bit.

"The whole concept of being a ghost never really 'clicked' for me either, you know."

Yuugi smiled and let a little chuckle slip past his lips. "Yeah. I guess so."

The faint grin on Atem's face faded, so slow that it was difficult to tell. Atem looked at him with those violet eyes that had never before looked so gentle, and with a concern only thinly veiled.

"Are you lonely, Aibou?"

The pain within Yuugi twisted, and with a final squeeze on his insides it faded and vanished. He looked at Atem and Atem looked at him, and all that went between them could have rivaled the bond they had once held so very long ago.

"No," Yuugi whispered. His voice came out rough and cracked, and with a hint of the tears that were never to be shed. But also with a deep sense of peace. He nodded. "Everyone's … everyone's still here, and they still talk to me. Even Kaiba-kun, he still wants to duel sometimes, but he talks. And Bakura-kun, he talks more now."

Atem didn't breathe out so that Yuugi could hear him. But Yuugi got that very distinct feeling that he sighed in his own sense of relief, like some great weight had just been lifted from his shoulders. His lips twitched into a grin.

"Good. That's good."

Yuugi adjusted himself under the covers. The strange warmth of the room grew as Atem looked back at him, and it felt almost like the ancient spirit was a part of him as he had been for so long. Back when he was never alone, when there was always someone there to watch over him. When there was always someone there to protect, even when he did not really need it.

He sighed, quiet and at peace.

"How long can you stay here?"

Atem smiled at him in full, and in the pale light of the moon, Yuugi could not quite make out whether or not that smile was sad.

"You never really decided if I am here, remember?"

"Right. Right …"

The movement was slow. So slow that Yuugi wasn't sure at first if he wasn't imagining it. He couldn't see the ethereal feet move across the floor, but a little bit at a time, he saw the form that wasn't quite there shift around the room. The violet eyes that almost seemed to glow crimson in the lightning and the moonlight that shone through the drizzling rain, and Yuugi's eyes followed him as he came to stand on the other side of the bed, just to his right.

Yuugi stared at him, his eyes starting to close every few seconds before he realized it and opened them again. Those eyes with the tan skin and shimmering gold and transparent multi-colored hair looked back at him, with a gentleness he rarely saw, with a kindness that had once been so familiar.

The bed did not shift when the form moved and sat down on the sheets next to Yuugi. Yuugi thought about moving himself, but Atem shook his head, and Yuugi remained still when he adjusted himself to sit against the wall behind the pillow. For a second, for a split second, Yuugi could not see the difference between his own hand and the hand of his former other, even with the difference in skin tone, and that one was solid and one was not. For a moment, they looked like the same hand, the same person, and for a moment, it felt as if they were one.

Yuugi's eyelids drooped again, and this time he did not fight them. He shifted on his pillow to be nearer to the one sitting next to him, as Atem slipped down against the wall so he was only half sitting and half lying down. The violet eyes looked down at him with a soft gentleness that made the rain feel like stars falling from the sky, and the whole room fill with a soft peace.

"I think …" Yuugi's eyes slipped further closed, and his vision blurred, so it was hard to tell Atem apart from his surroundings, and the gold glimmering on his head and arms and waist seemed almost real. "… you're still a part of me, in a way."

Atem's eyes did not leave him. He shifted closer, or perhaps it was Yuugi moving without realizing it. Yuugi knew it was not real, but he almost felt the familiar warmth within him, as if his other self was connected to him once again.

He could not quite keep back a yawn. "I think … I think you always will be. Sort of."

Atem moved his hand, slow and steady, and Yuugi could not quite see his fingers rest on the spikes of his hair. He knew it wasn't real. He knew he couldn't really feel it. But he thought for the very life of him that he could feel Atem's hand stroking the magenta edges of his hair, a finger coming to smooth out his bangs, that comforting sensation of safety and care.

His eyes drooped again. Almost closed now, almost gone. But he could still see the faint form of the ancient pharaoh next to him, looking upon him with affection, familiar and so real. "Atem?"

"Hm?"

The voice was clearer than he had ever heard it before. Clear and human.

Yuugi breathed out and allowed his head to sink all the way into the pillow, concentrating on the hand on his head, trying to soak in all of this moment as the world faded away.

"When I graduate, will you watch me through the whole boring ceremony 'til I get my diploma?"

There was silence for a moment. And even though Yuugi did not open his eyes all the way to see, he thought he could hear the faintest chuckles, and he could almost feel Atem's lips twitch up into that signature grin.

"Even when everyone else starts snoring."

Yuugi smiled, without fully realizing it, though there was not a bit of him that wanted to fight it. He breathed in and out, and the peace sunk deep within him, surrounding him, his eternal guardian always next to him to keep him safe.

"I'll save you a seat …"

Yuugi still felt the hand on his head as his eyes closed and darkness reigned, and even as sleep settled over him, he felt his other sitting there, protecting him, as he always had and always, forever would.