Work Text:
Before, when he still had a house of his own, Roy had a cupboard full of letters. Now they sit in a folder in a drawer in Lorrimer’s spare room, but he still has them. Whenever he’s sure he won’t be disturbed (when Lorrimer is out cataloguing) he opens the folder and reads the letters. They’re letters from old flames, letters he wrote but never sent (because how could a letter reach someone long dead?), letters just to himself to remind him of what happened when. He reads them, to remember how he used to be, before Roy Steel was born. He keeps them so he doesn’t forget, because if he forgets its like things never happened. If he forgets things then Anne was just a story, watching people (his family) die from diseases that are curable now but not back hundreds of years ago, He’ll forget things like his children’s first words, first steps, first loves, and he’ll forget that he isn’t just Roy Steel.