In the wake of Myrtle Wilson's death, New York moved on. It was a cold, unforgiving sort of city. It never apologized to anybody, no matter what it stole from the poor souls who chose to take up residence on it's filthy, glittering streets. It had a sort of... impersonal beauty to it all.

The glittering city that never slept moved on without regard to see if those involved were ready to or not. Wall Street still woke up bright and early every single day. Manhattan still bustled with people brimming with hopes and dreams for a new life. It was the sort of city you could be surrounded and yet feel entirely alone.

Jay Gatsby was one of those who felt alone.

George Wilson, in the wake of his wife's infidelity, had brought his gun to his lips and gone on to meet her. As for Tom and Daisy Buchanan, they had done with rich folks had done best - they fled with all their money and their gods-damned influence back West. Daisy hadn't even called him to say goodbye.

Gatsby had known it was over the moment he'd lost his temper in that blasted room at the hotel. The way Daisy had looked at him then... he'd known that there was no hope left. And then that green light, that had steadfastly blinked through even the wildest of tempests, had turned off, and he felt that he was adrift and alone in its absence.

But then you'd come around and shown him that his life didn't end. His neighbor from Chicago that had stayed with him through every step. The reunion, the affair, the culmination of all his hopes and dreams... and the bitter end. You'd shown him that the life he had as he knew it didn't have to end with the abandoning of his love.

It was funny, really. How much you'd changed things. You'd supported him all along.

And he leaned on you truly for the first time in a long time. More often than not, you were at his house. He didn't like to be alone, longing for Daisy. Not anymore. He was finally, finally free of that beautiful, poisonous dream.

He was sitting at the poolside of his big, empty house. He'd begun filling it with things that meant something to him, under your guidance, of course. He was watching you sit with your feet in the crystalline water.

"How's the water, old sport?" He called out softly.