Hello, everyone! I'm so sorry for the wait! Been busy and lacking creativity, but I've got the chapter ready for you now. I'm sad to say that this is the final chapter of the story, but I will be writing more Great Gatsby fanfiction, so if you like what I've written so far, stay tuned! Thank you for all the kind reviews, and please review again! I'd like to know your thoughts on the end. I hope you've enjoyed my fic. :)

The brown sand was warm between their pasty toes, rich and radiant with a summer of soaked up sun. But summer was drawing to an end, the summer of the year and the summer of their day, and so the trembling sphere shook down into the horizon of the bay, raking its warmth back from the soft earth, soon to cool the grain beneath their feet. The days were growing shorter, the wind, cooler, and all could see Fall trudging up over the hill, here for her yearly stay.

Nick welcomed the frigid miss with open arms just as Gatsby opened his to his falling body.

"Nick—!" He caught him, feet digging into the sand, back curving to accommodate the extra weight. Clutching the man by his shoulders, he laughed nervously. "Easy there, old sport. The hospital is no way to end a fine evening."

Nick got to his feet, clearly embarrassed, but managed a smile. "I'd only tripped over a pebble," he stated, brushing off his dress shirt, grey overcoat cast aside with their shoes and socks farther back. "I hardly think I could injure myself so badly from that."

"It isn't wise to tempt fate, old sport," Gatsby said, eyes twinkling. "God is very creative in his methods of hurting us mortals."

"Mortal," Nick murmured as they continued their walk. The soft roll of the bay nipped at their feet. "I do not feel mortal tonight."

"Oh? And why's that, old sport?"

"Because I am here with you." His tone held the gravity of a marriage proposal, and his smile was ethereal in the dying light. "Because I am alive, and I am here with you, and that is enough for an eternity."

His words stole Gatsby's breath and he stared at the brunet before breaking into a wide grin. "You say the most most beautiful nonsense sometimes, old sport." And Nick laughed and pushed him in the water, and they splashed and fought and smiled under the dying sun for what felt like hours.

Eventually, they made it back to the beach, sand sticking to their pruny feet like chafing glue, and lied down, close enough for their arms to brush. They propped themselves up on their elbows and watched the day end.

"Old sport," Gatsby suddenly began. "I imagine you have some questions."

"I've a few."

"You are wondering why I am here with you and not at home, watching that green light and pining for your cousin."

"You're a mind reader, Mr. Gatsby."

That earned him a flick of sand in the face. Nick grinned. "I'm sorry. Go on."

"It's been... an eventful summer, old sport. What with you moving here, and..." He trailed off sheepishly. "Well, what with you moving here. My first real friend."

Nick's eyes widened. "Your first—"

"You heard correctly." He smiled warmly at him, and reached out a hand to caress his sand-speckled hair. If Nick had stolen his breath earlier, Gatsby had just taken it back; the gesture was so painfully tender, so hotly intimate that he found himself frozen to the spot, entranced by the lulling motions of his hand.

"You are something else, Nick, I must admit," he sighed, and his name on his tongue sent a foreign thrill through Nick's body. "I began thinking this a few weeks ago; but of course, I could never figure out what that something was. I am not succinct with my words as you are, old sport."

"Gatsby—"

"Let me finish." He tucked a loose strand behind Nick's ear, then lowered his hand to embrace the other's. His touch was soft, warm—good. "I could not sum you up in a few words as I could Daisy." He frowned pensively, fingers exploring the crevices between Nick's. "And this brought me great distress. She was perfect, and golden—a true beauty, soft and sculpted in every flawless way. She smelled of promise and youth, and I would follow that scent into the dark blue sea."

A seagull cried overhead. It was only them on the beach.

"But then," Gatsby continued, turning his gaze to Nick with a tenderhearted smile. "There was you."

"Me?"

"I couldn't put you into words. We would speak, and just when I thought I had an idea of what to call you, just as the answer skipped to my tongue, you would do something to completely contradict it. It confounded me, it infuriated me, but, above all, it entranced me. You entranced me."

Nick blushed at such intimate words. "Jay, really—"

"I suddenly realized how horrible I had been to her."

Nick perked up at his soft, guilty tone. "Horrible?"

"Yes, old sport. I treated her as some object, as some—some reminder, glory of youth. She was put into the words I wanted so easily, and she became those words to me: golden, perfect, desirable. She was no longer a human being with wants and flaws and longings; now, she was just a pretty little key to unlock a pretty little hole."

He had never seen such a side to the man, secretly suspecting he possessed no such side. "And what was she to unlock?" he asked softly.

"That," he chuckled, "I am not sure of, old sport. But suffice to say, whatever it was, wouldn't have been enough. Nothing ever can be in the material world. And I was so enticed by you because I had not placed you in that world; I had—had allowed your personality to unfold on me, instead of I unfolding my desires onto you. You were a person to me. I let you be. I didn't let her be." He smiled sadly. "I hope she can forgive me for my selfishness."

Nick said nothing for a long time. What could he say? What could one say to such grandiose statements? For once, he was left without an original word to say, and so he picked two trite ones.

"I'm sorry."

Gatsby blinked, brow furrowing. "Sorry? Whatever for?"

"To me, the more I came to know you, the more you become a symbol of hope."

"Hope?"

"Yes, hope. That relentless pursual of the past gave me the impression of innocence, and by that extension, hope."

"I see." He paused. "And that is all I am to you?"

"No. You are so much more. And if I try to put it into words, I will make you a symbol for something else beyond you and lose you along the way. You, Jay Gatsby."

"You speak as if we are in a book, old sport!" Gatsby laughed.

"I am not the only one," he teased back.

"Well, at any rate—" He smiled at him warmly. "I forgive you."

"I'm glad."

The sun was gone, leaving scarlet waves along blue ones. "You're aware our relationship must be known by none, old sport."

"I understand."

"This doesn't bother you?"

He smiled sadly. "I've done this before; you are not the first man I've been with."

This brought a certain hesitance to Gatsby's usually confident eyes. "But—am I to be the last?"

"I'd like nothing more."

Gatsby grinned. "We ought to go, old sport. Before it gets too dark." He began to move, but Nick grabbed his wrist. At his inquisitive glance, he offered a beseeching gaze.

"Not yet." His voice trembled with emotion. "I don't want to go just yet. Let us stay on this beach forever."

Gatsby paused... then smiled. "Of course, old sport," he intoned tenderly. "Of course."

Nick rested his head back down on his chest, air passing cyclically in and out his lungs like the circles drawn upon his back by Gatsby's fingers. Red shuddered away, calming to a deep blue, blurring the line between the lake and the sky—an erased horizon. Nick wanted very much to take Gatsby's hand and walk out across that lake, so much like ice so still were her waters, and walk and walk and walk, endlessly, beyond the smudged out line between the lake and the sky, beyond all judgement; to run faster, to stretch his arms out further... And one fine morning—

But the water grew choppy as night fell, and Nick stayed on that beach with Gatsby for as long as he could.