Greg tried concentrating on his book. He was sitting in his second favorite spot in the house, third if you count the fridge, trying to get through I, Alex Cross and failing. When Nick came up behind him, his entire body tensed instead of loosening up. It became worse in the neck area when he could smell Nick's aftershave. His lips, Nick's lips, were there.

"Hey."

Greg didn't want to keep from saying it out loud but he couldn't help himself. "So, you're just leaving then?"

Nick came around the recliner, extending his arms out over the arms of the chair and squatting down so he could look up into Greg's eyes. "We talked about this, Greggo. We never said forever. C'mon, man, its not possible for anybody like you and me."

Greg looked away, turning his eyes to the ceiling and crossing his arms as though he were cold. "Well, maybe I thought we could change your mind."

"I...I wish you could have felt..."

Greg was trying not to tear up. "Oh no. I'm feelin' plenty right now, thanks."

"I don't wanna end this with you angry at me."

Greg's voice was shaky, but he brought his eyes to bear on Nick. Whether he was lying or not mattered less than what he responded with. "I understand that I can't give you enough because there's just limitations. On society, on the house, you know, whatever. And I love you but I won't stand in your way."

Nick gave a little half-smile and got up, turning to leave for his early shift at the lab. "You're still amazing. I wish I could make you understand what it was like, what bringing that kid back to his mom was like...just, everything it meant."

Greg waited until Nick was gone before he reacted. He stood up, throwing the book across the room with an unsatisfying thud. Moving quickly, Greg ended up stumbling to the bathroom in tears. Turning on the light, he ran the faucet to extreme cold and splashed water on his face so that he would stop crying. He had to stop crying.

I've given up everything for him, everything! He thinks this is gonna be easy for me. What am I supposed to do, how am I supposed to meet anyone else? No one else is gonna measure up. Damn you, Nick Stokes. You didn't think I didn't want kids? Did you think I had myxophobia? I wanted kids! I wanted to fight the system with you...now, now all I can do is fight my feelings to leave since I've got a mortgage on this place.

He'd been through the fights with himself about telling Nick his real feelings and not being so gracious. But he loved Nick more than that. Greg was sure that Nick was feeling guilty enough about taking a teaching position near his hometown in Texas. Nick wanted a normal life and Greg had to give it to him. But that didn't mean he would be happy about it.

Greg noticed the gleam from the toothpaste shot glasses. They were Baileys brand; Nick had brought over from his old apartment. They had swirling frosted white patterns on them. They had been one of the first things to come over. But it hadn't been enough to make him stay. Eventually, he had wanted more. Greg should have seen it coming. The sound that his glass cup made when it shattered against the wall of the shower was more satisfying than the thud from the book. And it was easier to clean up than if it had "accidentally broken" on the carpet.

Nick and Greg's last two weeks before Nick went back to Texas were frosty. Their relationship regressed from lovers to roommates and then not even that. Seeing the key on his ring for the storage shed, just for temporary reasons, was a constant reminder to Greg of what he was losing.

And by the time that Nick landed, on his way back to Fort Worth, Greg was already through his second glass of scotch, a birthday present from Warrick, who had always teased Greg about having never tasted scotch. It definitely wasn't that he liked the taste. It was that Greg needed the burn.

For Nick, time had seemed to stop in Fort Worth. His sister had come to get him, looking ten years more refined and with a hybrid, but with the same sense of humor and the same love for Tim Urban that she had had when they had spoken last. And his not so little nephew Drake was waiting for him as well, a reminder of what he was returning to and for.

Slowly but surely, both men worked on picking up their lives. Greg started redecorating, shoving everything Nick liked that he hadn't into the storage shed with rattling air conditioning that constant smell of Nick's favorite scent of Old Spice across all the boxes. Greg never stayed at the shed for very long.

Nick began to try and rebuild his life in Fort Worth. Things had changed, some for the worse. There was less pollution and better food, but it worried him when he spent his first day dealing with the barbed wire around the high school that had ultimately hired him. Getting home hadn't been a chore afterward, but looking at the bare white walls of his apartment had been.

His sister Christine had been a great help in getting him settled. She would go with him to get a couch or plant and every now and then he might see that same excited spark in her eyes that he had seen in Greg's when he had come home after a hard day. And that made it harder sometimes to move on.

But Nick knew his duties, threw himself into the dating scene. Women were more disappointing than he could remember. They were too loose and made him worry about what kind of diseases he needed to protect himself from or they had an aura of being too old or too desperate for children. He connected with a couple, slept with one or two, but there was no spark.

He met one man that he liked and he wouldn't exactly call what they did dating. Having the school's swim coach come over with a pizza and a six pack wearing a speedo under his jeans just made him a glorified fuck buddy. And sometimes it was great. He had the chance to be dominated occasionally, which made him think of Greg being all the stronger.

But buddy cock wasn't enough to take the edge off the loneliness. Sure, sneaking into the school's empty locker room made him feel young again. The taste of Robbie's body, the way his hair parted into a widow's peak and the way that he was Italian all the way through without being bulky, that was all great. But there was never any talk afterwards, no need for cuddling. It left Nick feeling dissatisfied and missing Greggo all the more. Greg used to force him to talk afterwards, listen to inane chatter or debate about something in Newsweek.

Years later, he would remember the taste of the breakfast that Christine had cooked for him. Eggs over easy and peppery bacon, French toast with powdered sugar since Drake always had that on Saturday. And trying to avoid Christine seeing the look in his eyes, that feeling that was drilling deep inside of him of being lost.

"You're quiet today," Christine said as she sat down after pouring orange juice.

"Still trying to settle in."

Christine chewed thoughtfully, Nick not offering much more. The conversation about moving forward with Robbie hadn't gone well at all. "You know, Alison still asks about you."

Nick furrowed his brow, trying to remember which one Alison was. "The one with the cat sweater that goes to your church?"

Christine nodded, not hopefully though.

Nick set down his fork. "Great meal, Chris."

Christine smiled. "Have some more, plenty of bacon left. I know you love bacon straight from the hog."

Nick took a large swallow of orange juice. "True, but I'm trying to cut back. Gotta think about my gut, getting on in years and all that."

Christine bit down on her lip. "Drake, honey, why don't you go get your uncle Nick that picture you drew for him?"

Nick noticed how much Drew had been watching him eat. He'd probably been doing that since Christine's husband had died last year. "You drew me something, buckaroo?"

Drake nodded finally, realizing that his uncle was looking straight at him. "Sure, did."

It wasn't much of a picture. Just enough talent that you could tell he was a ten year old that was way too serious about keeping his lines straight. Nick's hands started to shake. It was a picture of himself sitting on the porch rocker while Christine and Drake chased fireflies in the foreground. The empty white space all around the chair hit him. Christine sure knew how to make a point.

"Uncle Nick, when are you going back to Vegas? I miss those snow globes you used to send me."

"Who told you I was goin' back to Vegas?"

Nick already knew the answer before Drake hesitantly made his way out of the room to watch cartoons or organize his trading cards. "Mom did."

Christine's face was stony with guilty defiance. "Don't get mad at the kid, Nick. He's just sayin' what I think."

Nick reached for the plates so that he could take them, loaded with silverware, over to the dishwasher. "So you think I made a mistake comin' back? Didn't you say after dad that you wanted me closer?"

Christine bit down on her lip. "Yeah, but I wanted all of you back Nick. Whatever you left in Vegas...you're killin' yourself without out. And its hurtin' me. I'm not gonna lie to Drake either. Even he can tell you're not okay."

Nick gripped the edge of a plate. "Don't tell me what I am."

Christine put out her hands. "I'm not trying to. I'm just trying to give you a way back without a regret."

"You've been listening to too many of those country songs, Chris."

Chris whacked Nick's shaking head lightly with a pot holder that had been on the table. "Just because you're miserable doesn't mean that you can take it out on my music."

Nick didn't speak while he turned on the hot water in the sink with one hand and poured soap into the machine with the other. He finally spoke once the powder was put back under the sink. "Thanks, sis."

And he knew that Christine was right, he knew what he had been missing, even if it meant he'd have to wait even longer for kids. And when the chance to join the Basic High School Forensic team came up as an advisor, in tandem with the chem teacher opening, he figured it was a sign and sent out an email to the principal the next evening.

Greg still had a bottle of Old Spice in his locker. It was a fat white pawn in a sea of blackness. He wanted to, but he couldn't move it. And he couldn't explain to anyone why his locker smelled so much like Nick still. He just went silent when they pushed, which may have been more of an admission of guilt than anything.

And if the scent thing wasn't enough, he had started to lose his motivation to keep the break room from going insane with bad coffee. Everyone was drinking instant with sweet n low instead of the stuff he used to grind in his Magic Bullet and bring in during whatever part of the day was considered the morning. The Magic Bullet had gone into storage, the key to the shed sat on its ring, perched in his work locker.

He was so used to the scent that he didn't notice the change in heaviness when Nick was coming up behind him in the hallway. He nearly dropped his coffee when he heard that sweet cowboy drawl, roughed up by a few hard years chasing criminals.

"Hey, Sanders."

Greg thought it was better if he didn't turn around. "So, Nick, back to pick up the rest of your stuff?"

No."

Greg wouldn't allow himself any bleak hope. Hope had sat on his chest for so long that it had started to rot from the bottom upwards. "I figured you would probably be able to replace anything you left."

"Can't replace you, figured that out the hard way. You gonna turn around and look at me?"

Greg's head snapped, his body turning as he just flat out dropped his coffee. The place was pretty much dead since they had just finished a recent case involving a body found in a convenience shop explosion that had actually died of food poisoning from the slushee machine not but two days earlier. Greg looked around before pulling Nick by his collar into an empty lab room.

Greg's voice was feverish, low. "What do you think you're doing?"

"I thought you might miss me," Nick tried for a playful tease.

"Don't confuse anger with love," Greg countered with furrowed brows. "You think you can just waltz back in after all those ambiguous letters...."

"I didn't want to hurt you. I thought what I wanted..."

Greg shook his head. "Too late for that. You think you're ever gonna find what you're looking for?"

Nick let his lip twitch, as though he were fighting back a smile. "I did."

Greg tried to resist Nick as he pressed his body against Greg. Greg remembered that which he had never forgotten: the muscles that refined in age, even stronger Old Spice coursing through the vein, and the feeling of fitting.

Greg tore himself away. "No, I can't. Can't do this when you're gonna leave again."

"I've been told I can't come back. Not without everything I am."

Greg leaned back, sitting on the empty steel desk. "So what, you think I'm just gonna pick up and move to Texas, the only state that celebrates the death penalty for every minority group?"

"Not what I'm saying at all."

"Then what are you saying?"

Nick rolled his eyes. "Greggo, would you listen to me before you get all riled up? I got myself transferred back. I'm gonna be teaching chem at Basic. I wanted to get you all excited, but I think you're too mad at me for that, aren't ya?"

"Oh."

"Okay, so I shouldn't have left, but how else was I supposed to know how much you meant to me?"

Greg shrugged, defeated. It was just north of too much information, like having his angry legs cut out from under him. Nick moved forward, putting his thumbs on Greg's cheeks and massaging with them. "Please, don't be angry at me."

"Nicky, I..."

Nick took the advance, already knowing he had too. Nick kissed Greg like he couldn't have ever kissed anyone else, with his whole being. He poured his fears, his wants, his love into Greg. They were nose to nose, a match in a million.

And then Catherine coughed in the doorway.

"Well," she said without any surprise in her voice, "you coming back to the lab?"

"Nope," Nick grinned sheepishly while Greg turned beet red.

Catherine turned to walk away. "Nice to see you back in Vegas, Nick. The city was miserable without you."