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Outside the thunder crashed and the thunder blazed its way through the clouds, and the rain drummed down upon Amethyst's roof and ran in torrents off the side of the house. But none of that really mattered to her, because that was all outside, and she was in here.
Amethyst tossed aside her pad, one of those decorated ones she used for her personal notes, that she'd left on the couch after penning her last poem, that one for Robert. She sat down and flicked the television on only to jump back up to answer the door.
It was Robert, dripping wet from the rain, and looking entirely defeated. She stopped. Of all the things she hadn't expected this was probably at the top of the list. She haltingly invited him in and in response he just shook his head. "Walk with me." And she did.
Through the rain that had been "all outside" just a few minutes ago, Amethyst and Robert strolled. Robert had a lot to say. Amethyst had a few things on her mind, but he had come to get her, after all. It was silent though, he would talk when he was ready. Because that's the way things are. Robert talks when he needs to and he will be neither delayed nor goaded into early speech.
Some time later, after Amethyst had become as rain-soaked as Robert had been after walking the 10 or so miles between their houses, he chose to break the silence. "I read your note. Your poem. About the future."
She hadn't planned on him bringing it up, not that. It took her by surprise and all she could respond with was a pitiful, "Oh yeah?"
"It's not true, you know. She won't be beautiful. She probably won't even exist. For that matter he won't be charming. He can't be anymore."
"Robert? Where are we going?"
"You know where we're going." And she did. It was a good, long walk away but the fact was that they were already just about there. She'd been there with him too often not to know where he was leading her. She had told him to walk with her sometimes, but by the time they got where they were going she was still wondering why he chose tonight.
"Robert?" He turned at the neck to face her, his face down but his eyes smouldering up at her face. "Robert, what did you mean 'she probably won't even exist' and 'he can't be charming anymore'?"
"I'm dying for you and for everyone else out there just like you, and you know it. I know everything. Everything. Hell, I'm dying for everyone else out there who isn't like you. I'm just dying. But you dealt the mortality."
"Robert stop this."
"Stop what? You know what happens when we walk. You knew what would happen when we walked, and still you told me to come to you. And now we're walking."
"I'm going home."
"No you're not. You'll go back to your house, but not yet. And you'll never go home again. Because that's the way things are. You aren't going home. I will. Before I do though you're going to stay here and listen to me. You're going to walk with me. Sit down."
Amethyst sat down. And Robert continued.
"I would have been okay. I would have been... not fine, but better. But that's not the way things are. I'm not allowed to be fine. It's up to me to make sure everyone else is fine, and so I listened, and I paid for it. Now it's my turn. Nobody is going to listen to me. Except you. That's all. Do you know what it's like to watch something crumble? A world capital decay into a ruin? Can you imagine watching a perfectly fine person degenerate into a symbol and a fountain of everything you despise? A figurehead for everything that's wrong, even when that person claims to abhor just those things? That book meant a lot. Problems are to be solved."
And Amethyst understood. Amethyst knew that everything he said was true. And Amethyst stood up to go to Robert. And Robert tucked his hands behind him. And Amethyst advanced with open arms. And Robert pulled out the solution. And Amethyst's open arms closed and turned into frantic halting gestures. And Robert bit down on the barrel. And Amethyst tried to say something, but her lungs froze. And Robert pulled the trigger.
Because that's the way things are.