"If it was that easy we wouldn't be talking about it," Bill muses, wry and a little tired. If anything in their lives had been simple, they might not be here right now, nursing old scars and deeper sorrows, wondering what the city lines might do to them when they decide to leave again.

And they will leave, in the end. It's all they can do.

"You don't have to do it alone, you know," he says it so casually and he reaches for the pack of cigarettes. He doesn't smoke, really, but when in Derry... "Not anymore. None of us do."

Bill won't turn a blind eye because all of his blind spots have been diminished. There are no more yellow rain slickers haunting his dreams, no more doubts or questions or bouts of numbing amnesia. It's all laid out before them, and when he looks over at her, offering the pack back once he's fished a cigarette for himself, he can't help but feel like he's seeing her for the first time all over again. Vibrant and bright and strong, even when bruised. They all looked to Bill for guidance, sure, but Bev had been the real leader; the glue.

"Twenty-seven years was plenty of time to get our shit together," he says with a little laugh. "So it'd be nice to meet up occasionally somewhere else. Throw a beach bonfire, get wasted and talk about politics or listen to one of Richie's sets, like we'll even get the choice." A smile, tired, but warm, crosses his face.