As a husband, a father, yours is meant to be the hand that provides, to lead your loved ones into a secure and prosperous future.

Bond smiled. Perhaps it was all too conveniently proper that his life should end just before his future's true dawn, before he could stray the furthest from his past. He realised now, at the closing of the curtain, that he would be forever tethered to it. H

e had laced his path with the promise of tomorrow, but reality would never allow him to live up to it.

For tomorrow never dies.

He knew now just what that entailed.

He looked up at the heavens, to catch a glimpse of the missiles, the chariots that would soon arrive to take him to his place of judgement.

It'd all be over in seconds, Quick, clean, and oh so final.

It had been known to him since initial assignment that double-o agents had a very short life expectancy, he considered the length of time he had lived to have been professional courtesy by that which played the most divine role of all in the universe.

He had thought all his armour had been stripped from him so long ago, but the one weapon that stayed with him all through his life was his shield.

Shielded from hurt, loss, and life.

It was a weapon that could be lowered at points of sheer euphoria, and raised just as quickly when the fire ignited and cleansed the land of opportunity.

Perhaps there was no place in this world for a man so shielded. Maybe all of the armour had to come away, to have all men born of fire taken by the sweeping tide of change and cultural renewal. Perhaps this was the way, the best way, the assured way.

But there was no taming fire, and men like him, for better or worse, will leave a blazing trail right across the evergreen pastures.

Their shields raised, they would reach out to provide, and like before, and their hand would shatter.

He knew.

Oh, how he knew.