#there's something about pete's big character moments occuring in times of high emotional stress

[kissporsche]

there's just something different about pete in the epilogue. he seems so much more settled in his own skin, he takes the time to consider what he's hearing, what he wants to say, how he wants to touch. there's a general sense of calmness that I think can only have come from a significant amount of introspection while vegas was unconscious, after the intense emotional whirlwind of the attempted coup and his resignation.

pete said himself he tries to live in the present, and i think part of that has been a defense mechanism, trying to not self-analyse too deeply or he'll have to confront the emptiness lurking there ("no. I've always been useless."). but after the finale, after finally owning up to what he truly wants and going after it, pete has had time to look at those choices he made in a desperate situation and has had to confront himself about them.

so when vegas asks him why he's still here, he takes a moment to really think about it. and unlike when vegas asked him before at the safehouse why he came back, he actually answers. he gives an answer that could have seemed flippant, but there's nothing but sincerity in the way it's delivered. he can't go anywhere else. and then: he just wants to follow his heart.

it's not a complicated answer. but it's what he didn't understand or couldn't face up to before, and he can only do so now because he isn't hiding away from himself any more. he knows that this was a choice he made and he will stand by it, keep making it, because it's what he wants. he seems so comfortable in his own skin in a way he hasn't before because now he isn't just living in the present: he's thinking about the past and what it will take to live with that, and most importantly he's thinking about the future and the life they could build together. the life he wants to build together.

and that conviction that he wants to keep following his heart gives us a version of pete who is so much more whole than any we've seen before