Where Parallel Lines Intersect by SA, art by bingeling [SGA, SGA/Numb3rs, R]

[flyingtapes]

Title: Where Parallel Lines Intersect
Author: SA
Notes: This was envisioned first as a "Sliding Doors"-esque story, which rests on the idea that a life can be completely different should it diverge from one specific point in one's life. The idea was perfect for artword's challenge, which was to write two stories somehow related. This is a crossover with Numb3rs, because I'm a sucker and the idea worked so well; much thanks to pandarus for beta and to bingeling for the artwork, which is so perfect and gorgeous. Nick Lorne/David Parrish, Nick Lorne/Don Eppes, R.

The thing about being in the military, especially being in the Air Forces, was that the people who always signed on for more knew more or less that they were lifers, that this was a career choice. Nick Lorne had figured out pretty early on that this was the best option from him, not really wanting to go back to his parents' hometown or be an accountant like his sister. He was accepted to the Air Force's officer's school, passed his courses more than acceptably and was drafted to lead mission after successful mission, ending up finally as second in command for a benevolent older general who took a liking to him and called up a buddy of his when it came time for Nick to be transferred. "I got some people I want you to talk to," Erminger said. "They're out of Colorado. I think you'll like them."



PATH ONE

"Welcome to the Stargate Program," said Colonel O'Neill easily, and Nick's breath caught in his chest when he watched that big metal ring fill with something that looked like water and sent a loud whooshing noise through the control room.

An hour into his final interview for the post and O'Neill had stopped looking at his file (after walking in to the interview room, saying, "I like to check out the potential hires, just to see what's coming up this time,") and caught him straight in the eye and said, "I think you'll do. Lieutenant Lorne, I'd like you to be involved in the best project you never knew existed."

They'd left the interview room and O'Neill walked him through the compound. For most of the trip Nick had tried to keep his jaw from hitting the ground. But seeing the Stargate go off was the single-best thing about the whole interview, and he told himself to send a bottle of scotch to General Erminger.

At least, it was great until some weird glowy air thing spilled through the gate and began to wreak havoc on the soldiers clustered around the gate. O'Neill ran to the gate room with a bunch of people running behind him, and Nick was caught between wanting to help and being completely overcome by the fact that that was probably an *alien* that was making all the computer monitors and TV screens go skewy.

Helpfulness won out over shock, and he followed the general flow of people heading towards the gate room; someone shoved a weapon in his hand and he had only a minute to look at the blue thing that was shaped like a 'z' and was like nothing he'd ever seen before when he and ten other Air Forces pointed at the big glowy thing, fired, and a solid chunk of dark grey...something formed and fell to the ground, but not before a big white flash of light up before them and went soaring through the ceiling.

As hazmat-suited people skittered into the room twenty minutes later for cleanup, Colonel O'Neill found him and clapped him on the shoulder, where Nick was standing, staring at the freaking alien weapon in his hands that he'd just used to immobilize a freaking *alien,* saying, "I think you'll do just fine."

*

After three years with Stargate, first being rotated through SG-8, 10, and 7, and then finding a permanent position on SG-8, he was called into the General's office. "Lorne, you're doing good work here," O'Neill said seriously, and Nick thought, shit, something's gone seriously wrong.

"But as I'm sure you've heard, we're back in contact with Atlantis," he continued, and Nick had heard because the mess cooks and servers were the biggest gossips on base and he knew one of them from basic, "and Caldwell is coming back now with Atlantis's senior personnel." He gave Nick a beady eye, and Nick felt himself straighten in response. "They've lost a lot of people. It's not easy, out there. But I think," he said, and Nick's heart jumped just a little--there was no way-- "I think they're in need of a few experienced people out there. I'd like to send you to help 'em out."

Nick took three seconds before saying, "Yes," as fast as he could get it out. Even though "experienced" at Stargate Command meant, "survived longer than eight months," he took it for the compliment it was intended as and went through the motions of packing up to leave the galaxy--jesus, this job would never cease to keep him awed.

He called up his cousin Colby in LA and made noises about being given a great new promotion, even though he couldn't say anything specific, and Colby just laughed it off, saying he knew what that shit was like. "Call me when you get leave," he said. "You should come out and see me in LA. I think you'd like it."

"Right," said Nick, grinning into the phone, "because I'm so suited for palm trees."

"Better than Colorado," Colby retorted, and he would have been right if this part of Colorado didn't lead to other freakin' planets.

He called his parents, said he'd be gone awhile, and his dad just grunted and said, "Send your mother a postcard." Nick couldn't imagine what would be on the front of it--a Wraith waving "wish you were here?"

Nick met Major Sheppard when the Atlantis crew arrived, before they were stuck in hours of meetings and it was decided, somehow, that Sheppard would be kept as military commander for Atlantis, and make Lieutenant Colonel. Nick didn't even try to understand how a Lieutenant Colonel had managed a base command, and from the looks of it, Sheppard didn't either; but it probably had a lot to do with the number of incident, injury and death reports Atlantis had banked up in its year of being off the grid. With the Goa'uld in *this* galaxy only just defeated, no one was willing to risk key personnel on an endeavor in *another* galaxy that was just as likely to end up with most of its crew dead as not.

Yeah, this made Nick feel a whole lot better.

"So I hear they want you to be my 2IC," Sheppard drawled, and Nick blinked because it was news to him. "Well, I've been looking over your records, and I think we might get along just fine, if you can answer me just one question."

"Sir?" Nick asked.

"How the hell did the Red Sox win the World Series?" he asked, genuinely perplexed.

Nick laughed. He liked this guy.

*

On the Daedalus trip back to Atlantis, he and Sheppard spent a lot of time going over vital information, new data from Earth, plans for the future, and details about the city that hadn't made their way into the reports back at SG Command. "Seriously, the atmo to orbit time is only seconds," enthused Sheppard; and though Nick had worked a little with the F302 project, he hadn't ever been a pilot and couldn't believe what Sheppard was saying.

He had realized soon after O'Neill had offered him the position at Atlantis that part of the reason he was chosen was that not only did he have staying power, but he'd been also identified as having the ATA gene. Nick didn't really know what to think about that; the thought of having some quirk of genetics determine his career path made him more than a little uncomfortable, but it was worth it in the end to be flying through a hyperspace tunnel on a direct course for the Lost City of the Ancients. Sheppard, who was the golden boy of the labs even now on the trip back, always bothered to touch this or turn that on, couldn't contain the light in his eye when he talked about the city and how great it was; and that was reassuring in its own way.

"We should stop by the labs," Sheppard said, pushing his chair back. "I gotta make sure Rodney isn't personally ripping apart the bulkhead. He does that kind of thing, especially when he's not happy."

"Why isn't he happy?" Nick asked, wondering if he'd regret asking.

Sheppard smiled. "Something about the inelegance and cramped quarters of his temporary workspace." He shrugged. "I don't know what he expected--it's a spaceship, for crying out loud. I don't know how he expects the thing to pull out extra space just because he's run out of room with all the junk he's carting back with us."

Nick nodded, filing the information away for later. McKay had made himself known at the SGC, too, and it made Nick grateful that he worked with geologists and anthropologists, not astrophysicists.

"--and what the flying fuck is this! Who told you to bring this with you? Who said this was okay?" came a belligerent voice from just around the corner.

"Colonel Carter signed off on it!" retorted a just-as-pissed voice.

"Carter--despite her brilliance, which pales in comparison to my own--wouldn't know how to interface this piece of shit processor with control crystals if the fucking world depended on it! Take this shit away, I never want to see it again," he said, turning towards Sheppard and Nick as they came into view. "Ah, Colonel Sheppard. I need you to touch this again," he said, rummaging around on his workbench.

"What, the hot-dog-looking thing?" Sheppard said, apparently nonplussed, but Nick could see the glimmer of laughter in his eye.

McKay glared at him. "Just fucking hold it and tell me what it says."

"Bad day, McKay?" Sheppard asked, taking the device. It glowed at his touch. That never stopped being cool.

"You have no possible understanding of how COMPLETELY INCOMPETENT," McKay shouted so that the entire deck could hear him, "these so-called scientists the SGC has saddled me with are. A geologist? A botanist? What the hell do I need soft sciences for? They gave me three biologists and no specialist in nanite technology. You tell me that's not a bad day," he finished, his mouth sliding into a frown.

"It says that chicken masala is the special today," Sheppard said, his eyes half-closed.

"Oh, fuck you," McKay said tiredly.

"Okay, okay, it says that it's running at half-power and that there's useable atmosphere in this room," Sheppard said, waving the thing around for a second before handing it back to McKay, who brightened at the information.

"Now if only we could get the display to come up, we could attach it to a MALP for accuracy readings," McKay said absently, already turning away.

Sheppard looked at Nick and waggled his eyebrows in McKay's direction, as if to say, "See what you have to look forward to?" Nick hid his grin.

"Okay, we're going to go make the rounds," Sheppard said loudly, and McKay waved a distracted hand at them before they turned to leave.

"Wow," Nick said, at a loss for words. Sheppard laughed. "And that's barely anything. Wait until he really gets wound up."

They went through all the labs, meeting the new scientists. Nick tried to put all the names away for later; it would come in handy to know them. Finally they got to one room that smelled of soil and metallic water, with plants hanging from every corner. It was at least eight degrees hotter in this room than outside it, and Nick pulled a little at his collar. "Hello?" called out Sheppard, looking around.

A head poked out from behind some big, green leaves. Short brown hair, bright blue eyes, glasses barely hanging on to his nose. He looked a little out of it and asked, "Yes? Can I help you?"

"Hi," Sheppard said. "I'm Colonel Sheppard," and Nick was damned if that wasn't an emphasis on Colonel, "and this is Major Lorne. Just wanted to make the rounds, get to know the new staff, put a face to the names."

"Oh," the man said, straightening, pulling off his glasses and coming out from behind the plants. There was a bright yellow smudge of something that looked like pollen on his cheek, and wow, he was tall, Nick noted. The man held out his hand and Sheppard shook it, then turned to Nick for the same. "I'm Dr. David Parrish," he said, and when their eyes met Nick's heart jumped in a way that it hadn't at all in the last five years and he smiled back, thinking, shit. I'm in so much trouble.

*

Their courtship went like this: David handed Nick a flower.

When the SGA teams were reassembled after the command staff arrived back on Atlantis, Nick didn't have quite as much control over the members of SGA-2 as he would have liked. Weir had handed him the list of civilian personnel already vetted for off-world travel, and explained to him that SGA-2 was going to be primarily a biological sciences team to act as a counterpart to SGA-1's physicist/diplomatic team. They all had to be ready and able to handle the basics of diplomacy; but Dr. Yates would act as a cultural anthropoligist-diplomat, in an attempt to piece together how the Milky Way and Pegasus galaxies had divergent societies, and Dr. Parrish would analyze plant and potential food sources to import or trade for the ever-growing contingent of people on the Atlantis base and planet.

Nick wasn't too pleased about that.

Ever since their initial encounter, he'd been dancing around David Parrish, trying not to be around him too much. Something in him was tugged toward him, though, and it was a feeling that Nick had spent his many years as an officer in the military tamping down as much as possible. He'd only ever had a handful of relationships anyway; he'd always liked to move around and take different jobs and positions, and that had never made for long-term entanglements.

Well, now he was on a base. And there was David, always happy to see him, eager to talk about whatever new plant he was dealing with that day. Most of it went over Nick's head, but still he sat there and just listened to whatever David had to say. David asked him if he wanted to go to lunch; there was no excuse not to. David asked him if he'd seen the view from the second-floor balcony off daisy corridor (a reference that never ceased to piss McKay off), and Nick didn't have him in it to say no.

Needless to say, it had become pretty difficult to say no to David. Which is why Nick didn't want him on his team: the ways in which Nick's feelings could get around in there and muck things up were many, and Nick had no interest in exploring any of them.

But, there he was, with his team and their first mission. They stepped through the gate and were welcomed to a medieval-era planet who had something that looked like a fava bean and tasted like English Breakfast tea, and that was enough to convince them to stay the night. Nick radioed back to Atlantis, and they were given guest quarters. Predictably, for Nick, he and David were ushered into a room together. Luckily they had separate beds. He had been a member of the SGC's teams before, after all.

Which is why he should have been more prepared when David, on their evening walk outside the village (which was really more of a circuit patrol for Nick, but David didn't need to know that), exclaimed "No way!" and ran over to the side of the path to pick up a little, harmless-looking blue flower.

"Smell this!" David said, shoving the thing in his face, and Nick got a good waft of some kind of brown-looking pollen right into his nose before something switched on in his brain and he was shoving David up against the nearest available tree.

Luckily for Nick, it seemed his own sense that there was something between them was, in fact, reciprocated, and it wasn't until a couple hours later that he woke up in the damp grass, curled next to David with their jackets thrown over them. He groaned and sat up, remembering a particularly memorable, if unwanted, experience in the Milky Way Galaxy on P6D-875, some kind of local mead, and an overeager bartender.

"Fuck," he said, rubbing at his face and checking his watch. When he looked down, David was looking at him intently, as if he was trying to read his face.

"Well, that's one question answered," David said conversationally. He sat up, the jacket falling to reveal his chest, and despite himself, Nick still wanted to touch. "I guess there should be an addendum to the off-world regulations--no sniffing strange flowers."

"Yeah," Nick said weakly. Now if only he could find his pants.

*

Nick pressed David into the door, framing his face with his hands and diving forward to kiss David's mouth. David's arms wrapped around him, keeping him close, and the microfiber uniforms suddenly felt hot and close and uncomfortable. Nick threaded a leg between David's, arranging his thigh so that it pressed against David's erection. David pulled their mouths apart to gasp hoarsely, and Nick rested his head against David's neck, breathing into his neck, which always smelled like earth.

David's hands tightened on him, and it was at that moment Nick started to freak out.

He stepped back, looking away, finally sitting on the bed. "We can't do this," he said, looking anywhere but at the stunned look on David's face.

"What?" David asked, sounding confused and a little angry. "What on earth could have happened between five seconds ago and now? Tell me, because I missed something."

"We're on a *base,* David," Nick said. "We can't do this, not in a city with less than three hundred people. It's impossible to keep secrets on any encampment this small."

"That didn't stop us the last few times," David pointed out, adjusting himself and walking towards the window.

"I know," Nick said, the words hurting in his throat.

"So your objection, the reason that you made us stop kissing, which, by the way, makes the first time I've had kissing I've liked this much, just so you know what you're stopping--your objection is that we can't have sex, even though we *have* had sex, because we're on a base where half the staff is fucking anyway?"

David always got short when he was angry, and for a mild-mannered guy, he could get pretty riled up.

"Yeah," Nick said weakly.

"For fuck's sake, there isn't even any sex pollen this time!" David yelled, and stomped off to the bathroom. Nick just sat on his bed, staring at the wall, not sure what to do. He heard the shower come on, and laid down, staring at the ceiling and imaging the thousand ways he could lose his commission, his career, and his chance to explore this freaking *galaxy* if anyone ever found out what he was doing with one of the botanists.

He thought about it until his mind was practically doing back flips, and then, frustrated and annoyed with himself and his life and the whole stupid universe, he took off his jacket and his boots and his shirt and went to the bathroom, leaning against the doorframe until David looked back at him.

"Okay," he said. "We can do this. I'm sorry for freaking out." David started to say something, but Nick put up a hand to stop him. "But we have to be careful. Because this isn't just fucking around for me, and there's more at stake here than just us and our relationship."

David nodded. "I know," he said. "But sometimes it's worth the risk."

Nick smiled, but it didn't feel real. "Yeah," he said. "Sometimes it is."

David pushed open the shower door. "Come here," he said, and Nick went.

*

The day Nick got shot in the torso by a Wraith stunner started out well.

There were chocolate muffins in the mess (at Dr. McKay's insistence, after an altercation with lemon poppy seed), which went pretty well with the milk brought from the Daedalus, in stasis and a hot commodity on base. They weren't scheduled for mission departure until 1330, which meant Lorne could finish up the paperwork that had been sitting in his inbox for the better part of a week; plus they were flying in, to a planet without a human population--something about high-protein, high-yield beans growing wild in a formerly cultivated area--so the mission was going to be easy and mindless. Mostly he was there to make sure the scientists didn't wander off. He didn't mind playing babysitter, most of the time.

What actually happened was encountering a small band of hiveless wraith on the abandoned planet and having to fight their way out of the intricate docking system of a ruined city to get back to the puddlejumper. Private O'Brien took cover while Nick shepherded Parrish and Yates, but just as they were about to round the corner, where the puddlejumper was lying cloaked, Nick took a stunner to the back and keeled over.

He still didn't know how they got back. He didn't think anyone else had the ATA gene.

When he woke up, he was on his side, and David was sitting next to his bed, head fallen to his chest in sleep and a thick book with a million arcane words in his lap. Nick wanted to reach out a hand to touch him, see if he was real, but instead he fell asleep again.

The next time he woke it was to Dr. Beckett checking him over and a bright light shining in his eyes. "Geez, let a guy know when you're gonna blind him," he croaked out, and Dr. Beckett gave him a pleased smile and a gentle pat on the shoulder.

"It's good that you're awake, lad," he said, stepping back and setting his penlight in his coat pocket with a click.

"Yeah," came Sheppard's amused voice. "We thought you might've liked your dreams better than reality and wanted to stay asleep."

"Well, it was tempting to stay with Shakira and Brad Pitt at Disneyworld, but I really like the Wraith so much more," Nick said, groaning as he shifted in his bed. "Jesus, doc, I couldn't get a painkiller for my back?"

"They wouldn't mix well with the antibiotics," came David's voice from a far corner, and Nick looked over to catch his eye for a quick moment, sharing a smile.

When he looked back, Sheppard had a speculative look on his face, and Nick had a sinking feeling in his stomach that had nothing to do with his meds.

*

There were a lot of conversations he never wanted to have with his CO, but this ranked up in the top three. Maybe the top one overall. Lorne stood in the office he never actually seemed to find Sheppard in, waiting on the appointment Sheppard had asked him to come in for.

He had healed relatively quickly, only lagging a little bit behind everyone else in PT and almost ready to be cleared for off-world missions again. David had been careful with him, especially after Nick told him he thought Sheppard knew; and Nick had tried really hard not to let his own deep-set issues impact their relationship, never wanting to be the kind of jerkoff who closed off from other people when shit got hard. He had years of watching his mom get hurt over and over again from that to do it to someone else. But he knew he had pulled away more than he wanted to, not wanting to risk any more visibility than they'd already had. He knew too well how his position was compromised; the number of people waiting to come to Atlantis was long, starting with Dr. Jackson and ending with every guy that swabbed the floor or served food in the mess who would jump at the chance to do it in another galaxy. He knew he was lucky. He didn't want to fuck it up.

Waiting was excruciating, and he schooled himself into still perfection, ready to pop into a salute as soon as Sheppard walked through the door. He was concentrating so hard on not being anxious, though, that when Sheppard walked in finally, carrying a tablet PC and not looking up, Nick was so off-kilter that he stumbled rising from his chair. Feeling stupid, he saluted and said, "Sir."

Sheppard looked up and then, raising an eyebrow, said, "Lorne. Feeling formal today?"

Lorne dropped his hand and relaxed his stance slightly. "Yes, sir."

"Oh-kay." Sheppard waved him to the chair. "So, the inventory reports look good, but do you have any recommendations for the supply list? I was thinking, with the way the third team encountered that planet with all the fjords that maybe some low-fuel self-propelled boats would be pretty useful; you remember there was nowhere real stable to land a jumper?"

"Uh," Nick said, thrown, "yes, sir. I think that sounds like a good idea. And, uh, we need more clip cases for the civilian-issue Berettas; we've lost a lot off-world and our last Daedalus run only brought ammo, not the cases to hold them in."

"Good idea," Sheppard said, marking something down on his computer. "If you think of anything else, let me know by the end of the week so we can send it through on our communiqué." When he looked back up he seemed surprised to see Lorne still there. "That's all, Major."

"Okay, sir. Thank you, sir," Nick said, even more confused than before. Had he just been wrong about Sheppard's look? The man revealed a lot on his face when he wasn't purposefully hiding it, and Nick was pretty good about reading people. He stood to leave, but as he turned to the door, he had to ask, whether it fucked him over or not.

"Sir--I just--about my relationship with Dr. Parr--"

"Huh?" Sheppard said, looking genuinely confused, until a moment of insight flashed over his face. "What? What kind of asshole do you think I am, Lorne?" he said, looking pissed off, throwing his stylus onto the desk. "Like I care what you do and who you fuck," he said, more angrily than Lorne expected. "We're fighting a practically undefeatable enemy in another galaxy with almost no support from home base. I promise you I could care less about your personal life."

"Oh," Nick said.

"Yeah," Sheppard said tiredly, rubbing a hand over his face; and suddenly Nick could see just how much this endless, pointless fight was taking a toll on him.

"Thank you, sir," Nick said quietly, turning to leave, and on his way out he heard Sheppard mutter, "Don't call me sir."

*

Weeks later and things had calmed down--missions were going off smoothly, the Wraith were seemingly quiet for the time being, and the city was thrumming with the buzz of well-fed people who were happy to work there. It was a pretty good time to be in the Pegasus galaxy. Nick and his team helped a couple communities learn new farming tactics, thanks to a lifetime of summers helping out his family back in Kansas, and convinced a few planets where only remnants of a decimated civilization to come to Atlantis and join the growing population of refugees on the mainland. He felt like he was doing good work for once, not just looking for weapons or potential tools to use against the Wraith, and it was a good feeling. While survival and weapons were a necessity, sometimes Nick disagreed with the die-hard weapons scouting policy of the SGC. But he liked his job, so he kept his mouth shut.

On a planet with three moons and a lot of booze, he looked up from the campfire where half his team was dancing, half-drunk with flowers on their heads, celebrating with the last remaining village of what was once an entire planet of life and civilization and saw David laughing, and when their eyes met, Nick knew deep down in his bones that he loved David like he had loved few people in his life. It was a fantastically good feeling, for a very good day.

*

Just like that, though, things went from good to bad to worse and beyond. The Wraith hit them low and dirty, using their pet humans to capture a team member off SGA-4; Anderton was a civilian, a temporary liaison there to study geological changes in Pegasus galaxy planets versus Milky Way planets, and barely knew anything about Atlantis other than the basic things all members of the base were drilled on--the gate address for Atlantis and the Alpha Site, identifying knowledge if a GDO went missing, and what not to reveal should you ever be under duress. Anderton stood up well to the inquiry, but he wasn't trained for special ops. He didn't survive the torture and eventual death by feeding; and the shriveled husk of his body was left where he had first been captured, as a message that the Lanteans were never far from the thoughts of the Wraith.

It was a chilling message and set a pall over all of Atlantis; away missions were curtailed and civilian personnel were only allowed on missions on an as-needed basis. Nick was relieved, because it meant that David was on-base. Botanists weren't necessary personnel.

Only when the Marines were looking more haggard than McKay did Nick finally step in and ask for a week of limited gate activity, with the military personnel going in shifts to the mainland to take some much needed rest. "We can't do our jobs if we can't stand on our feet," he pointed out to Dr. Weir, and she nodded, looking troubled.

"I understand; but we'll need to keep some kind of effective presence here in case of a Wraith attack," she said.

Nick was relieved, and he relaxed a little. "We can do that, whatever you think is necessary. I just need to give our guys some time to rest--they're killing themselves, trying to manage the heightened security measures and doubled military gate teams too."

"Okay, Major," Dr. Weir said. "Co-ordinate a schedule and bring it to tomorrow morning's staff meeting. I don't think anyone will have a problem with it."

"Thank you, ma'am," he said, leaving with some of the weight lifted from his shoulders. If they could just get through this, it might be okay. They could make it after all.

*

"I think you should come off the team," Nick said quietly from the doorway. At first, he thought David hadn't heard him, but then David's head whipped up from the cutting he was hanging in the hydroponics lab and he narrowed his eyes through his glasses.

"What?" he asked sharply.

Nick cleared his throat. "I think you should ask to remain on base instead of going off-world."

"What the hell?" David asked. "What have I done that would make you think that?"

"Nothing!" Nick said. "You haven't done anything!" He pushed away from the door and walked into David's lab. "It's them I'm worried about. They've *learned,* David. They've learned the colors, or the computers, or *something* that lets them pick out the weak members of the SGA teams and use them because they won't fight back as hard. I can't--" he cut himself off and looked away. "I can't let that happen to you," he said through clenched teeth.

"The weak ones, huh?" David said softly.

"You know I don't mean it like that," Nick said.

"I don't know what you mean anymore. And I can't believe you'd ask this of me. The civilian members of this expedition have done everything the military has asked of them, every hoop and every leap, from workouts to med checks to restricted access to our own projects so we can work on defense strategies. Every single thing you've asked, we've done. And you repay that with this? With asking me to step down from one of the most coveted positions in this program?" David gave him a hard look. "Fuck that."

"David--"

"Nick. I am staying on this team. End of discussion," he said, and went back to his work without looking at Nick again.

Nick tried to roll out his shoulders, but he was too angry to do it properly, so he just left, pissed off and frustrated, and headed for the gym.

*

When his vacation time came up for the mainland, he packed a small bag and looked around his room, empty without the obvious presence of David there. No journals littered any available surface, there were no flecks of soil on the floor from his hands, flying through the air excitedly as he described some relationship that pointed to terraforming similar to that of the Goa'uld. Even the familiar stained coffee mug with "Botanists do it on the ground" was gone. Nick felt as empty as his quarters. He hadn't seen David for the better part of ten days, a noticeable absence in his life when before they had adjusted their time around each other's schedules and plans.

He wasn't looking forward to leaving the base, not when that was the only place he was going to get a glimpse of David, mad at him as he was; but he knew that he needed the time off, when even Sheppard looked at him with something close to sympathy, or as close as Sheppard could get.

So off he went. The Athosians and their growing neighbors were in the process of clearing some of the forest for farming, so he threw himself into the labor, methodically working through a large swath of the area for the better part of a week until the other people pulled him away, laughingly pointing out that he was supposed to be on vacation.

They had big, satisfying communal meals and large firepits that were more recreational than especially useful; after the work they did, it was comfortable and satisfying to just sit with a cup of beer and watch the sparks flicker in the night sky.

Nick tried to calm his scattered thoughts, but he couldn't stop the mixture of aggravation and worry that circled around and around in his head. As much as he appreciated having David on his team, and wanted to have him nearby so he could protect him, Nick kept watching the bodies get loaded onto the Daedalus to be sent back to Earth and imagined David there every time. It wasn't just irrational fear--more than half of those killed were civilian/scientists, and still the SGC sent more people, more eventual fodder for this enemy that never seemed to quit.

But at the same time, David was well-equipped to deal with the challenges that being on an SGA team presented. They didn't just hand out the position randomly; there were qualifications that even the most accomplished of scientists had to meet in order to go off-world regularly. Dr. Zelenka's knee surgery had disqualified him from being a regular gate team member, and that had happened over twenty years ago. It didn't really make Nick feel much better, because a Wraith needed five seconds and an extended hand, which no amount of running could combat.

Over and over again he went through this argument with himself, and still he couldn't come to a conclusion; but after four nights, going into his last evening on the mainland, he looked up at the outstretched hand offering him a beer and saw David, looking at him seriously. His heart caught in his throat and he tried to stutter out "hello" but couldn't get out the word. David sat down next to him and let their shoulders touch, and relief went through Nick like a frission of energy. Maybe they weren't finished after all.

"You know, when I signed up for this mission, I didn't expect to have to deal with an overprotective Air Force major I was going to fall in love with," David said conversationally. he turned to look at Nick, and Nick swallowed. "But I did know when I signed up that this was going to be the most dangerous thing I could ever possibly do. It was worth it--for all of this," he said, sweeping an arm at the moon-bright sky and the village full of refugees making new lives for themselves. "Despite everything, I still wouldn't be anywhere else. And I want you to understand it and respect that choice, because you made the same one."

"I do," Nick said, surprised to discover that it was true.

"Good," David said. "Because it would suck so much to lose you."

"Yeah," Nick said, hanging his head a little and wishing he could come up with something more intelligent to say than monosyllabic words.

They looked up at the stars, and Nick settled in close to David. It would never be easy. But this was what they had wanted--this was the life they had chosen, danger and all.



PATH TWO

Colonel O'Neill wasn't in that day, and the bored personnel secretary said, "We'll call you about the position."

Nick wasn't sure when it had moved from being a transfer to being a position he had to apply for; but he waited two days in the hotel room the program paid for before calling back, getting only a recorded message saying, "I'm sorry, no one can come to the phone. Please leave a message after the tone."

He left three messages, and that day he watched with the rest of the city as a bright light lit up a cloudless blue sky and decided he maybe didn't want to know what was going on in Cheyenne Mountain anyway.

He wrote General Erminger a note of thanks, saying it just hadn't worked out for him, and contacted his old station. They found him a position working at a training camp in Mississippi. It wasn't action, but it would do for now.

*

After four more transfers and four unfulfilling jobs, Nick had enough. He was sick of being jerked around, and when his contract came up that summer he signed his withdrawal papers.

His cousin Colby out in Los Angeles called him up, said, "Hey, buddy, why don't you come out and stay with me for awhile? I know it's tough just getting out, and I've got a spare room." Nick said yes, because he could only take so long staying with his parents, packed his things together and went out to Los Angeles.

It was hot and dry and the sun always shined on his skin. Colby had a good job working for good people, and sometimes made noise about getting him an interview at the FBI. But that wasn't what Nick wanted. He'd been good at leading teams and being second-in-command for tough operations, but he felt tired of it all of a sudden. There wasn't anything he really *wanted* to do, so he went back to school.

He was never a dumb kid--they don't let just anyone be an officer, whatever derogatory things people might say about Air Force--but he'd never devoted a lot of time to studying. Now, though, he thought he might look into a Masters' Certification in teaching. Nick volunteered with the Boys and Girls Club, and it was the first time he'd felt really needed in at least two years.

"That's good," Colby said, handing him a beer from the fridge while Nick turned on the game. "I think you'd make a great high school teacher, man. It really suits you."

"I think so too," and he meant the words.

"Hey, listen, Don and his family are throwing a barbecue and Don invited the whole team out--you wanna go on Saturday?"

Nick thought about it, weighing the studying he needed to do with the chance to actually meet some people. "Yeah. Yeah, that sounds good."

*

The Eppes house was big by California standards (minus the celebrity crowd, which Nick figured got old really fast) but it felt small, the backyard and kitchen already packed with people. Nick passed two guys that looked like brainy types arguing about s-variations and something that was charmed? He couldn't have heard that right, and paused to ask where to put the beer he and Colby had brought.

"Oh, over there," said the one with the wild, curly hair, walking quickly over to the ice chest to open it up for Nick and narrowly avoiding the place of grilled corn that was balanced precariously on the island. With the guy's help he unloaded the beer pretty fast, and the guy smiled at him and stuck out his hand. "Hi," he said. "I'm Charlie Eppes."

"Nick Lorne--I'm Colby's cousin."

"Oh! The other army guy."

"I was a Air Force, actually--Colby was an army drone," he said, smiling to deflect the flash of annoyance he felt.

"Oh, right, right, sorry about that. Hey, let's go outside."

Colby found him pretty quick and gave him the rounds--David, Meghan, Larry, Alan, Amita--and finally they made their way over to the grill, where Colby clapped a guy with a permanent attentive stance and a smile that didn't quite cover his whole face on the back and said, "And Don, this is my cousin. Nick, this is my boss."

Nick stuck out his hand, and Don shook it firmly. "So you're the famous cousin we keep hearing about in the bullpen," he said, flipping a couple burgers.

"Well, I don't know about famous, but I gotta be better than Colby," he said, punching Colby lightly in the arm. Colby pretended to be wounded but couldn't hide his grin. "Hey, don't talk shit about someone standing right in front of you!" he protested.

"Then go get us a coupla beers," Nick retorted, and Colby rolled his eyes and made off towards the coolers.

"You guys get along really well," Don noted.

"Yeah, we were real close for a long time. He'd come out to our place on the summers, and we're pretty much the same age, so we'd run around for a couple months before he had to go back home. It was easy to stay in touch--we even got stationed on the same project one time, nearly tore the place up together," he said, realizing that he was telling this guy he'd just met way more than he'd intended to let out.

Don smiled at him, his eyes flicking over to the guy Nick had met earlier. "Yeah, I know what you mean," he said, and there was something in his eyes, a little softness around his face and some relaxation that wasn't there before that sent Nick's heart plummeting towards his feet in ways it hadn't done anytime over the last five years.

Shit, he thought. I am in so much trouble.

*

Don pressed him against the door, hands scrabbling against his sides, and Nick hooked his legs between Don's to pull him even closer. "The light," he gasped out as Don kissed and bit as his neck, popping the buttons on his shirt.

"Don't need it," Don said roughly, and Nick laughed on a high note, fisting a hand in Don's hair.

"Don, Don," he said, already gasping for breath, "I have class tomorrow morning, we can't, I mean--"

"I got work, too, I know we can't be up all night," Don said, pushing Nick's shirt away from his chest and licking a stripe up towards his collarbone, making Nick shudder and forget his words.

"Okay," he said, pulling Don up for a long, thorough kiss before pulling back, Don's eyes half-lidded and learning towards him. "Okay, Don, but we have to set the alarm this time."

"That's your objection?" Don said incredulously. "You stopped kissing me because you wanted me to set the alarm?"

"It's a valid point!" Nick protested, Don ignoring him as he went back to kissing. "We," Nick started to move them towards the bedroom, "the last time we tried this," kicking open the flimsy door, "you were two hours late to a staff meeting and I missed my morning class," he pointed out, reaching the bed at last and pushing Don onto it before going to his knees to open his pants, sliding his hands up the fabric.

"Accident," Don said breathily, "won't happen again."

"Because this time, we'll set the alarm clock," Nick said pointedly.

*

It was four a.m. and Nick had taken over the entire kitchen table with his books, notes, and binders, furiously typing away on his computer with a pencil between his teeth. He heard the sound of the front door unlocking and didn't look up from the screen, but his hands stilled as he waited for Colby to come into the dining room.

"Hey," Colby said. He looked rough, like the hours of sleep Nick knew he hadn't gotten had caught up with him. Even his holster looked rumpled, after Colby took off his jacket and threw it on the couch.

"Hey. How was the stakeout?" he asked, tossing the pencil on the table.

Colby shuffled tiredly to the kitchen, pulling out orange juice from the fridge and taking a few long drinks from the carton before answering. "Sucked," he said shortly. "But we caught the guy."

Nick nodded. "Snipers are wily fuckers," he said.

"This is the third sniper case our team has had in the last two years," Colby said, rubbing his hand over his eyes.

"That's tough, man. Can I do anything to help?"

"You can tell me why you're fucking my CO," Colby said, looking at the floor.

Nick closed his eyes. He thought Colby must've known before, that he and Don had been a little too reckless for someone not to notice. But three hours ago he got a text from Don saying "Colby knows" and worked furiously on his stupid final paper trying to get through it or stared off into space, waiting for this inevitable fight.

"It's not like that--" he started, but Colby cut him off.

"I don't care what it's fucking like. Is that why you left the Force? For this?" Colby met his eyes and Nick felt his shoulders straighten of their own volition.

"You know it isn't," he said, not looking away until Colby did.

"Fuck, Nick," he said, looking even more tired than he had before. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Nick rolled his eyes. "What, and bring on this conversation sooner? 'Hey, Colby, we need bread, and also, I think I'm in love with your boss, which, did I mention I'm gay?' Yeah, that would have really worked out well."

"Because this is working so much better." Colby stopped for a second, put his glass in the sink, and Nick sat back. "How long?" he asked finally.

"Seven months," Nick answered. "Since the cookout."

"Fuck," Colby swore. "How did you keep it from me that long? Jesus."

"Well, you've had a lot of cases between then and now," Nick pointed out. "And we were discreet. It's not like you ever saw us together, not unless you invited me over with you to the Eppes' house for dinner."

"Do they know? Charlie and Alan?" Colby said abruptly.

"Charlie knows. He's a smart fucker," Nick said, the ghost of a smile running across both his and Colby's faces. "Alan doesn't. Don only tells him about the women he dated," he said, and Nick didn't think it would hurt as much to say that aloud, but hell if it did.

"Okay," said Colby. "Okay, look. I haven't slept in three days and you've been working on your schoolwork for at least that long, so I'm going to say we table this for now."

Nick nodded, his mind already flicking back to the ten pages standing between him and the first half of his degree completed.

Colby walked past him and Nick followed with him with his eyes, and just before he got to the bedroom Colby turned around. "You shoulda told me," he said, "'cause I'm not some fucker from the Army looking to personally enforce DADT. You shoulda told me 'cause I thought we were brothers, Nick, and I wanna know when someone means that much to you. I don't want you to hide that shit, not from me, okay?"

"Yeah," Nick said, his voice sounding rough to his ears. "Yeah, I should've."

*

When he walked into the reception, his degree still hot in his hands, there were all kinds of people waiting for him. "Good job," Don said, pulling him close and kissing his temple, and Nick grinned helplessly into his shoulder. Alan and Charlie and Amita all hugged him too, and Colby grabbed him tightly and said, "I'm so proud of you, Nicky." His sister kissed him and her husband shook his hand. Only his parents, old and not so mobile and probably permanently glued to their farm weren't there, but his mother called later and congratulated him; even his dad came on the line to say gruffly, "You did good, kid."

All in all, it was a good day.

*

His first day of teaching, though, sucked.

Nick spent the whole of the summer moving in to the place and Don had found in Pasadena, one of the small cottages that was in a good neighborhood and had enough room for them both. It had been a weird summer, getting to know each other day in and out when before they'd only had dinners that were cut short by FBI cases or Saturday days for watching the game interrupted by study groups. They'd been in and out of each other's orbit for the last year and a half, and some part of Nick worried that they wouldn't work after spending a lot of time together. But they both made an effort, Don assigning more of the caseload to his team and Nick breathing, finally, after two years of intense work towards his teaching certification.

Hell, they even went on vacation, spending a week at a lake up north with no one to call them except the birds. Times like that made Nick glad he made his own schedule, now, even if Don didn't have quite the same luxury.

The month before school started he was obsessively going over all the planning and coursework he'd put together for the three math classes he was teaching, even as Don teased him to try and relax before the summer was out. Nick even went to Charlie to ask for his opinion on his teaching plan, but Charlie went off into some theory he was working on in the astrophysics department that was so far beyond the calculus and trigonometry Nick was going to teach that he started laughing halfway through Charlie's lecture, explaining so Charlie would get the joke with him.

"Oh, right," Charlie said, grinning bashfully. "I, uh, get a little enthusiastic. But, no, it looks good. You'll do fine. I was nervous, too, the first time I taught."

"The first time you taught was when you were sixteen," Nick pointed out. "You had way more reason to be nervous than I do."

His first class was a room full of sophomores, and he swore they could smell his fear. For fifteen minutes they were loud and ignored everything he said until finally he slammed his hand down on the desk and said in his best "training the grunts voice," "Listen up!"

Every head turned to him. He could almost hear the whipping sound echo through the hallways. "My name is Mr. Lorne," and boy did it feel weird to not hear the Major come before his name. "I'm your trig teacher. I'm new, but I'm not stupid. I spent twelve years in the Air Forces with kids a lot more rude and loud than you are, and brought every one of them back alive. I promise I'm gonna do the same for you. Open your books to page five."

News of him spread like wildfire the whole day, and if the girls looked at him in teenage awe and the boys sort of grudgingly respected him, well, it was better than walking out of there beaten by a bunch of kids who couldn't even drive a car by themselves.

He got home and cracked open a beer and sat on the couch, watching a hockey game he didn't pay attention to until he heard the jangle of keys and got up to open the door. "Thank god you're--" he said, cutting himself off when he saw Don standing there, sweaty and tired with his shirt covered in a big, dark bloodstain. "Fuck," he said, and pulled him inside.

In the shower, rinsing off the flakes of dried blood until the water didn't drain pink any longer, Nick let Don unravel the story of a group of kids who'd gone too far with a drug deal and had gotten themselves killed for their trouble. Don choked over the words, "they were just *kids,*" and Nick knew how that felt, to hold someone too young to be doing what they were doing in his arms and have nothing to offer as they died.

It was the part of his old life he didn't miss at all.

*

"You can't keep doing this to yourself," Nick said firmly, crossing his arms over his chest.

Don stared back at him, purposefully not comprehending. "Do what?"

"This! This act, where you go out into the field and watch something awful happen, something you couldn't prevent, and then crack a little more, and then pretend like everything is fine," Nick said, shouting at the end of it.

"I don't do that," Don said, but it was a weak protest. This fight had been coming for half a year, both of them knew it.

"The fuck you don't. And don't give me that shit of 'you don't know what it's like,' because I damn well do know what it's like, even if I was never solving a crime while I was doing it," Nick said angrily, stomping out of the living room and into the kitchen. Fights always happen in kitchens, part of him thought.

"What do you want me to do, give up my job?" Don said, trying to get angry back at him, but he was too tired for it. Don followed him into the kitchen, leaning against a counter.

Nick kept his back to him, looking in the freezer for nothing, really. "You know I'm not going to tell you that. I'd never tell you that."

"Than what? I can't just ignore cases, Nick, I'm the lead investigator on one of the top solve-rate teams on the west coast."

"I'm not asking you to ignore cases."

"Than what are you asking me? Do you want to transfer? All our families are here. What, you want to go back to Kansas?"

"There's no crime in Kansas," Nick said mulishly, finally turning back around to meet Don's tired eyes. "Okay. I'm sorry we're fighting now. I know you just wanted to rest after the larceny case was solved, but let me explain to you just how that would have gone.

"First, you would have said, 'Nick, we just cracked a big case and put the bad guy in jail, and I have the weekend off. Wanna go to a baseball game?' And I would have said yes, and it would be good.

"Second, Saturday morning would roll around and you'd only wake up when I waved coffee in front of your nose because you'd spent the last week killing yourself over a case again and wouldn't come home to sleep, 'cause your dad's place is closer to your office. And maybe we'd fuck or maybe we'd watch tv, I don't know, but it wouldn't be two hours before--

"Third, which is when your cell would ring again because you never turn the fucking thing off and you probably told the department secretary to alert you if someone got a paper cut, and you'd be out the door after a shower and a kiss and telling me that the quiet would help me work anyhow." He stopped, letting out an angry breath, and Don had looked away.

Tense silence ruled in the kitchen, and Nick finally stepped up into Don's space, every inch of Air Force rigidity in his spine, causing Don to tense up in response. "You listen to me now, because you sure as hell haven't been hearing me at all the last couple months. Fix this. Fix this part of your life, because if you don't, I'm walking." He didn't believe the words until he said them, knowing then that they were true. "You are the best thing that has happened to me since I came here," Nick said, grinding the words out and not moving away, "but if you keep doing this to yourself I'm not gonna stick around to watch. I love you too much for that. Find someone else to be a field agent, you're killing yourself for the job. It's not worth it."

He let his hand come to rest on Don's elbow for a split second, and then turned and left, not looking back.

*

His summer without Don was rougher than all the times he'd been in special ops maneuvers put together.

The lease ended after Don had walked away, sending Alan to get the things he needed and Charlie to handle the moving company. Nick watched dispassionately as a house full of stuff was divided in half. He and Don had never mingled anything more than their furniture together, and part of him thought that it shouldn't be that easy to get out of a relationship that had made up two years of his life.

Colby wanted him to move back in, but Nick found his own place, small, a quick drive to his school. "I think he came along at that point in your life, man," said Colby over a couple beers at a bar that tried too hard to emulate an Irish pub, "that point where you were re-learning yourself outside of the Air Force."

Nick didn't answer, just picked at the label on his bottle; but Colby went on. "And so, he, like, meant all that too you because he represented what you could have outside of the military, man, he was the real thing waiting for you after making yourself wait for so long."

Nick rolled his eyes, and Colby fell silent, hunched next to him at the bar.

"How does he look?" Nick asked finally, hating himself for asking.

"Not good, buddy." Colby took a long pull of his beer. "Not so good."

*

Two weeks later, it was Colby who called to tell him that Don had been shot, was unconscious and in the hospital. "He lost a lot of blood," Colby said curtly, and Nick knew those words meant they don't think he's gonna make it, "you should get down here as fast as you can."

It was easy, too easy to walk in there; the hospital had that quiet hum of a crisis just passed, and Nick saw Alan first, sitting in the hallway looking at the wall.

"You were right to tell him, you know," Alan said to him before Nick had even said hello. His eyes caught the medical chart in the bin by the wall that read Eppes, D. "I'd been trying to tell him for years that he was working too hard, he was coming by and there'd be all these ghosts following him in the house, people he couldn't save, cases he couldn't solve." Alan looked up at him, his eyes sad. "He never had a job like this, y'see, before it was always someone else who took the weight of it, and Donny, he isn't so good with letting things go." Alan sighed, and Nick fell into the seat next to him, his shoulders heavy. He couldn't look anywhere but the floor.

"I thought maybe what you'd said to him would get some sense into him, you know, but he didn't want to talk about it. I think he knew you were right, but this was the job he thought he'd been working towards all this time." Alan snorted then, a little smile playing at his lips. "He was always so reckless, but he hid it, made it look like he'd planned it all along. He'd go riding his bike and fall in the street, but get up and shrug it off, like he wanted to see how far he could push himself."

They fell silent, and Nick cleared his throat a little. "Can I go in?" he asked, the words catching.

"Yeah," Alan said, patting his shoulder. "Just, I wanted you to know, you were right to tell him. He needs to stop being so easy with his life, there are too many people that value it, even if he doesn't." Nick nodded and stood, not sure what to say to that, but knowing it was right. He should've known better, though; thinking back, Don had that same look that was so familiar from soldiers he'd commanded who had been on one tour in the Middle East after another, willing to throw themselves at something for the sake of doing it, not because they were told to. He should've known.

When he went into the room, Charlie was sitting there, his hair askew and his eyes red, holding Don's hand. Don's eyes were closed and he looked peaceful, except for the rough, red abrasion that marred half his face. Nick winced looking at him; he wondered about all the injuries he couldn't see.

"Charlie," he said, and Charlie looked up, gave him a watery smile. "Nick," he said, "it's good that you came. He, uh, he would've wanted you here, I know it."

"Thanks, Charlie." Nick pulled a chair over to the other side of the bed and ran a shaky hand down Don's body, just feeling that he was really there. "What happened?" he asked, almost not wanting to know the answer.

"It was a kidnapping," Charlie said roughly. "We were using Franklin-Jones analysis to reduce the likely points of hostage down to a manageable level, and then one of David's sources came in that linked up to a location with 85% probability. Don didn't want to wait, even though Meghan wanted to run a deeper psychological profile of the kidnapper--it was the girl's father, he was crazy, he was demanding custody rights or he wouldn't return her at all, and Meghan thought he was unstable. But Don wanted to go in, get him right now, he trusted the numbers," Charlie said, choking on his words.

"The guy shot him," Nick said, knowing where the story was going.

"Yeah," Charlie said roughly. "The swat team went in and he put the gun to his daughter's head and Don was trying to talk him down, but the bullet went wild and got him in the--in the chest, it nicked his lungs. They, uh, they got it out, but he can't breathe on his own and he should have waited, god, why didn't I lie? I should have told him the numbers were bad, I should've--" Charlie cut himself off, tears coming down his face as he looked at his brother.

"No, no, Charlie, you couldn't have done anything," Nick said. "It wasn't your fault. It wasn't anyone's fault. It was a crazy guy with a gun--"

"A crazy guy that we should've caught," Charlie said stubbornly, " and we would've caught him if we just waited like Meghan said." He wiped at his face, and Nick recognized the same set to his mouth like Don's, when Nick couldn't convince him of anything and just had to let the anchovy pizza go for the night.

They sat there in silence until finally Charlie said, "Meghan's going to recommend that he take leave for awhile."

Oh, that would go over well. "Is he staying at your place?" Nick asked carefully.

"Yeah. But I think you should come over for dinner when he's better. I think he's gonna have some stuff to say to you. And if he doesn't," Charlie said, raising his chin defiantly, "he will after I'm done talking to him."

Jesus, Nick thought, who would ever think to mess with the Eppes men. He held on to Don's hand and watched the machine breathe for him with Charlie, and tried not to feel like this was the worst day of his entire life.

*

There was a soft knock against the doorframe, and Nick looked up to see Don standing there, looking uncomfortable. "Hey," he said, leaning.

"Hi," Nick said back, putting his book aside.

"Colby let me in," Don explained, his eyes going from Nick to the window, around the room, and then back to Nick again.

Nick decided to cut him a break. "How are you feeling?" Just a little one.

"Okay," Don said, a lie if Nick ever heard one. "I'm breathing better, now, but the doc still has me on all these meds."

"Are you taking them?" Nick said, letting his voice go a little flinty.

Don stared at him for a second, like he was trying to figure out what Nick was saying behind the words. "Yeah," he said finally. "Yeah, I'm taking them. I don't think my dad would let me get away with not taking them."

"Well, your dad's pretty smart."

"Yeah," and they lapsed into silence. Nick didn't know what to say; he didn't know why Don was here, after all the times he'd never had anything to say when Nick came to visit him at the hospital and then, later, at the Eppes house. He stopped going, after awhile, but he heard through Colby that Don had been put on a six-month leave pending physical review. He probably wouldn't be equipped for field duty any time in the near future. It was a bum way out, but Nick couldn't feel sorry for him.

Don cleared his throat and a million emotions seemed to run over his face before he finally said, "Look, I'm sorry."

"For what?" Nick said. He wasn't going to let Don out easy. He hadn't waited for three months just to let Don get by with his damn contrite look and a couple mumbled words. Nick deserved more than that.

"For, uh, for everything. For not listening to you, for living for my job, for walking away because it was easier than watching you do it." Don stopped, and it looked like he was breathing a little hard. "It's been a long time since I haven't been FBI first, me second," he said, not looking at Nick. "Work is what got me through my mom dying, and it," he swept his hands out like he was spreading out an imaginary map of his life, "it's what got me excited to wake up in the morning, for longer than I can remember. Back when I was in Field Recovery, I never felt so alive, you know? I'd wake up, and get on the road, and it was perfect." Finally he turned to Nick. "And then it was what kept me going, and then it was all I was." He shrugged, the movement still a little truncated, even months later. "I don't know how to do anything else," he said, coming closer to Nick, "but I think I want to learn."

"Oh, fuck," Nick said just before their mouths met, and this is what he'd been missing all summer long, into the fall, blanking on the faces of his kids because he was wondering how Don was handling being holed up in a house, laid up because of a stray bullet and worried family. He pulled Don closer, hooking an arm around his neck. When they pulled apart, they were breathing each other's air, and Nick had come out of his seat.

"Jesus, you piss me off," Nick said lowly, and Don laughed into his mouth because he knew it meant I love you.