The evening of the final wrap was worse than the moment just after the last shot itself was done. Dom knew somehow that it would be and, applying the same insight, knew that Billy would take it hard.

They'd tried while going through those last motions to execute them as they had on day one, or day two hundred, or even the day before. But it wasn't the same. Cut was called more than usual, for one. Billy kept staring off into space and missing his cues, which wasn't like him.

And it couldn't have been played off as difficulty; they were doing small moments—a glance at the camera, a certain expression that was needed, a short sequence of running or walking usually being redone to get a different angle or a different bit of background brought to focus. Reshoots were less demanding and more detail-oriented, after all.

Between takes, there was no fooling around. Which was funny, because they had kept that going up until yesterday. When Dom turned to Billy and asked, "You alright?" and Billy just sucked in his bottom lip and looked away, Dom felt it, too.

He was trying to be positive and stiff-upper-lip about it for them both, thinking in a moment of philosophical inspiration that when you love someone, you should be able to carry the combined weight of the both of you at the same time. Or maybe he felt like playing hero to Billy's distress for just once. Either way, the strained expression he saw on that normally chipper face turned his stomach to knots.

It had been hard enough saying goodbye to Elijah and Sean—who had left for California just a day before. Now they were done—really fuckin' done. Done, and missing the rest of the Fellowship, for the most part. Done, and not at all in the mood for partying. (They had already said goodbye to all their haunts—had been to Fidel's countless times in the past week.) Done, and Dom hoped that maybe once the costumes were off that they would be able to breathe and talk about the times ahead.

But as he stepped out of the make-up trailer, a band of anxiety squeezed around his chest. He was shivering and cold—not prepared for the reaction of his body to it's completely fucking over—and he stood there for a long while.

There was a rebellious sort of urge there as well—made his hands twitch, made him want to do some damage to the space around him. It's fucking over! The cold, sick feeling churned in his belly.

He didn't want it to be over. How many fucking years—it's not normally like that, a movie set, and the friends—and the love, all here, it happened here! It's not just a job. It was life. Years of life, for fuck's sake!

It'd be very easy to let the hurt turn to rage; might even feel good; lash out, just let it vent through pores of violence. But he stood with crew mulling yards from him—where the fuck was Billy—and he felt soppy and empty and desperate. His personality seemed to desert him—left him for fucking dead, because he just didn't want to react to this, didn't want to feel all the ways that it was hugely important or meaningful.

Throat constricted, he looked out over the trailers and tents. A shadow of movement caught his eye. Just near the kitchen tent, someone was moving around. Dragging in a breath, Dom made for it.

He ducked inside, sidestepping a line of folding chairs. He felt the same combination of blankness and pain as moments before, but now it was temporarily numbed by focus. The shadow near the back of the tent was settled now, slumped over on a folding chair that leaned flush up against the translucent, nylon wall.

A choked breath and a hitch followed a soft snuffling noise and Dom blinked into the dim light.

"Billy?"

Billy turned in the chair, a hand coming up to rub his face.

"Yeah?"

Dom stepped closer, grabbing a chair in the process, and settled down next to him. Billy turned back towards the wall, face bowed down towards his shoes. A faint smell of the cheap soap and lotion used by the makeup crew came off his skin.

Dom's chest twisted up again. The anger from moments ago melted into something sticky and uncontrolled. At least try to keep yourself in one piece for him, git.

"It's okay," he said, practically whispering, and laid a hand on the back of Billy's neck, stroking through the hair there.

Billy cleared his nose again and shifted around, trying his very hardest to stop. He didn't want Dom to see him like this; didn't want Dom to know how hard saying goodbye to the project hit him. He had never felt as old as he had today when it became clear to him just how easily Lord of the Rings had become his life—and how weak he felt when he realized how he had just as easily come to rely on it.

It was always: there's another reshoot, no worries, we'll be back next summer. Keep our flat clean and warm, won't you? Keep my scarf and my feet nice, too, and for God's sake, launder that stomach prosthetic just once!

But there was no next summer this time.

"Nah," he said, the combination of a nasal tone from crying and a Scottish accent bringing the word to a level that only Dom could understand. Dom, who had seen him drunk and chattering with a brogue so heavy that it called for a translator on many occasions. "'S'alright."

When Billy lifted his head, a set of puffy, pretty green eyes and a flushed face drew Dom's attention. Billy's cheeks were still damp. Dom's resolve against crying crumbled a little.

"Bill," he murmured, voice strained and miserable, hand sliding further up Billy's neck. Billy shuddered and put his face down again and was tense—holding, shivering, shaking, fuck—for a long moment before a tiny sob imploded in his throat.

"Stupid cunt," Billy said through crying, turning in his chair to bury his head in Dom's shirt. "Gotta get me all blubberin' like a—"

"Oh, belt up," Dom grumbled, tears blurring his vision as he pulled Billy further off the edge of his chair and pinned him close.

They fell silent. Dom pressed his fingers again and again down the back of Billy's head along his neck and hair as Billy's chest jerked and shuddered with formless sound, tears dampening Dom's collar. He pressed his cheek to Billy's hair, wetness gliding silently down his own cheeks; throat worked around the soundless crying, vaguely frightened by the persistence of his tears.

Billy's arms wound their way round his waist. "Fucking crap. I'm telling you—"

"I know," Dom sighed, blinking rapidly, bowing his head into Billy's neck and breathing in. "'S'all crap. Should've been more...ready."

"Should'a!" Billy agreed, snuffling again. And then he gave a low laugh. "'S'like after we filmed Moria... 'Member? We all sat around, cryin' like the world'd ended."

Dom gave a thick chuckle, swallowing back a fresh round of tears. "Yeah. That wasn't fun at all, was it? Right then, cut's been called, you lot. You can stop crying now. Boys? Boys?"

And he decided that was his best impression of Peter to date, which was a consolation beyond value.

Billy giggled into his shoulder. "Then Ian came nancing around and for some stupid reason we all felt better..."

"He's alive! Oh, praised be the saints!" Dom went on, laughing. Billy sat up and rubbed his eyes. Dom gave him a look and cupped his hand around Billy's neck. "Ready to go?"

"No," Billy admitted, smiling and swiping his cheeks with a sleeve. And then he stood up anyway.

Arms around each other they left the kitchen tent, walking in the general direction of the parking area. Halfway there with semi-dry eyes and bolstered emotions, Billy tugged them to a halt.

Dom stopped. He followed Billy's line of sight—the usual vision of New Zealand right after sunset sprawled mottled purple-orange-beige in front of them, the colors smeared and indecisive like watercolors hastily spilled and then sopped up. It was a sight they'd seen nearly every day that they had spent here. But this was one of the last times they would see it as Hobbits.

"Brilliant," Billy breathed.

"Yeah," Dom agreed in a light tone, eyes fixed on Billy. Billy turned and caught the look—and then smiled.

Somewhere between the kitchen tent and the parking lot, it had hit Dom that what they were saying goodbye to wasn't really the experience of shooting the movie—but all the physical reality of it. And that wasn't such a terrible thing to give up, if they had to give up something.

All the other parts, the bits that really mattered—the memories, the photographs and videos, the long nights, the frantic snogs, the laughter. It was all there, really, neatly tied and stored in their heads.

Especially the times involving Billy. And that was the crux of it, you know, at the very end of all of it, standing there with the ever-watchful New Zealand landscape round them, tears still prickling with a fine burn that made them feel alive and desperate at the same time.

And Dom thought that he really should say I love you or something like that, because it seemed appropriate, because it was what he felt just as hotly along with the pain of leaving.

But he didn't need to. Billy turned and brought them together, tipping Dom's chin and sealing them with a kiss that throbbed with so much more voice than anything Dom could've possibly said. Seeing the warmth and fluid smile back on Billy's face calmed him.

And they were walking to their car without hesitation, then, backs to the horizon but not really turned from it, hearts and minds full to a painful brim that was all at once everything and nothing.

And to Dom, it was much more of a beginning than an end.