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"If you wait a couple of weeks we can go with you." Danny states as he's putting the finishing touches to his case. Jeans, t-shirts, a couple of jumpers, shorts. Nate said there was a pool and they're not too far from a beach. He's meant to be going on holiday. He has to pack them even if he'd go in just the clothes he's wearing…

Five weeks he's waited, he's not waiting anymore. It's not like Danny can come with him anyway.

"I don't like the idea of you…"

"I just need to get away for a bit." He sighs. "With everything that's happened…" The shudder that rips through his skin is real. Just like the image of Brendan dead on that table. For all he knows it's fake now, he didn't then and it's stuck with him. "It'll be good for me."

"I don't think that you should be going with Cheryl." Danny states. "I know that she's your friend but being with her I'm worried it will bring up memories for you."

"It will but… I need this. Dad. I'll be fine." He knows that Danny's been worried about him. Couldn't miss it. All the trips the hospital for check-ups that he could have done alone but Danny had come with him. The unexpected visits, all the phone calls, all the dropping in on him at the deli when he'd gone back to work a week after getting home because he couldn't sit around anymore. Not with the frustration bubbling under his skin, at knowing but not being able to do a damn thing except wait.

He doesn't blame Danny for worrying... It actually nice. Someone worrying about him. Wanting to take care of him. Like his Mam should of all those years. Like an actual parent, or at least what he thought an actual parent was meant to be like.

He feels guilty some days for lying, only he's not really lying. He is in grieving.

Brendan may be alive but he'd grieving for everything else. For himself. For his Mam. For Doug. Because he might just get a happy ending, might just have a shining light at the top of the pit but he knows there's a cost even if no one's said anything about it.

Brendan can't come home. He's dead on all records. He's dead to everyone but the few that know he's not. If anyone finds out that he's not that's it. Life means life behind bars. There's no coming back for him.

He's desperate to talk to him, to hear his voice. He wonders if he's got it right in his head. He can still hear him, but maybe it's distorted over time, maybe it isn't as deep, isn't as gravelly, isn't as... He can't ring him though.

Nate told him that there was no reason for him to start ringing the house in Croatia, that they had to stick to the plan. One phone call a week from Nate or Cheryl to make it look like they were checking in with the place as they had apparently been doing for a year and a half since Nate's mother had given it to them. A flux of calls would look suspicious.

"It's not that I don't trust you Ste but this is mine and Cheryl's lives. I can't risk it." Which was his way of saying he didn't trust him.

He couldn't even say that Nate was wrong. He didn't know if he could be trusted either.

If he had the phone in his hand and Brendan on the line what would he say?

He's not even sure what he's going to do when he sees him. It can be when now. A few hours and he'll be on a flight. It's not if anymore…

"You're sure?"

He nods. He's sure about going. He's sure he has to see him if only to smack him in the face and call him every swear word he knows.

"Okay. But you phone me as soon as you get there."

"I am an adult you know?"

"You'll always be my little boy." Danny says. "Just like Lucas will always be yours and Leah will always be a princess." He steps forward and pulls him into a hug. "You ring me if it gets too much. Promise me."

"Promise."

"Have a good time."

He sits quietly until the taxi arrives, steps in and looks out the window with his stomach flipping.

He's shaking at the airport. The tension. The nerves. He can barely hand his ticket and passport over. The officials are looking at him strange and he wonders idly if they think he's got something to hide. Paranoia grips him. Maybe someone is following. Maybe there's a police officer watching him. Watching them, lying in wait.

What if he leads them straight to him? What if he sees him only for the police to step straight in, cuff him and take him away again without even being able to touch him?

It's unbearable.

Cheryl's not helping either. She's as bad as him, looking over her shoulder. Nate keeps telling them both to start acting like normal people going on holiday before they draw attention to themselves.

He grips the plastic arms on the plane chairs so hard he thinks they're going to break. Then what would happen? He'd be drawing attention to them…

His heart is pounding so hard he swears he's going to have a heart attack. He can't stop sweating even in the air conditioned cabin. He can't watch the film being shown, he can't look out the window. He can't concentrate on anything but trying not to shake apart into a thousand pieces.

Cheryl places a hand over his hand. They're both shaking so much the turbulence is a relief.

He doesn't think he's going to make it down the steps of the plane. He forces himself but he feels so unsteady. He's giving them away. The terror grips him as he sees a couple of local police.

He presses his head against the toilet cubicle and makes himself calm down as much as possible, actual calm he doesn't remember.

He leans against the wall, arms crossed, eyes down while Nate goes and gets their rental car.

"It's a bit of a drive." Nate says helping load the cases into the car.

He sits in the back and looks out the window at the landscape. The steep hills almost mountains, the trees… It's familiar and yet completely unknown. The sun is stronger, brighter, there's a faint smell that he doesn't recognise. It's not unpleasant, the opposite it's just strange.

It's an amazing place. The buildings. The colours. Alien to his eyes. He's never been somewhere like this before. The pictures he had seen when he'd been looking trying to see what it would be like. They don't compare to actually being here.

He licks at his lips. Runs his hands up his arms, skin itching from dryness caused by flying. He can barely swallow the water Nate offers him.

"Alright back there?" Cheryl asks after a while.

He nods he can't speak. He doesn't think there room in his throat to speak since his heart seems to be lodged there. Pulsing at different rates of stressed. He's not even sure he knows or it knows the rhythm it's meant to keep anymore.

"Nearly there."

"I can't." He can't. Everything is screaming at him he can't see he if he's only going to be taken away again.

"You can." Cheryl turns and looks at him. "You can."

He nods a little and looks out the window gazing out at the sea in the gaps between houses until they higher up and he can see it all the time. The boats. The people.

"Do I look alright?" He asks in a sudden rush of adrenaline. He looks at his crumpled t-shirt. His jeans. He fingers his hair. It's gone fluffy were he's been worrying it.

Cheryl laughs, not unkindly, just shock he supposes.

"Honestly love you could turn up looking like you've been dragged through a hedge backwards and I don't think our Bren would care."

He doesn't care if he wouldn't care. He cares. He wants to look good. He wants to look like he did when he last, no he doesn't. He doesn't want to look like he did in the hospital. He looked like… Awful. He can't believe that that's the image of him that Brendan's had…

His fingers tremble as he tries to get his hair to behave, he's only making it worse. He knows he is but he can't stop trying to make it right…

"This is it." Nate states pulling up to the gate and stepping out to open them.

He looks but he's not looking at the house, he's looking for him but he can't see him anywhere.

Maybe Cheryl lied. She couldn't be that cruel. No one could be.

He can't stop looking as they drive up to the house.

He thought he'd be waiting. Where is he? Tears of frustration pool in the rims of his eyes. He won't let the fall. He looks a state already he's not seeing him again crying.

He wipes at them.

Does he know he's here? Did Cheryl tell him he was coming?

He leans against the car for a moment to take a breath, shakes out his arms and get his legs under him.

He helps Nate with the bags. He doesn't know why he's putting it off but he can't help but want to delay it. The longer it takes the longer they've been apart, but he doesn't feel ready.

"Coming?" Cheryl offers her hand. He grips it like a life line as she leads him up the steps and inside the wooden door.

It's bright inside. Light. Cream walls, pale red almost peach tiles on the floor. Sparse furniture.

She leads him through to some sliding door that lead out to a garden with a pool.

He's there. Facing away. Leaning down on a wall looking down over it.

His heart thumps against his rib cage he's pretty sure that it's trying to escape.

"Go on love." Cheryl pushes her hand forward and he follows stepping out onto the stone surrounding the pool.

He steps carefully. Doesn't know why he should be careful but he is. He takes it a step at a time, waiting for his legs to just give up completely under the strain. He's less than a metre away, he stops. He sees Brendan take a deep breath, sees it in the rise of his shoulders. His head dips slightly before he stands up straight.

He looks down, takes a quaking breath. His bottom lip threatens his start quivering, he bites at it to stop it. His eyes burn.

Brendan turns and the breath is knocked out of him… He looks different. No moustache just a thick layer of stubble coating his cheeks, not quite a beard. Shoulders broader. Waist trimmer. Living, breathing… If he sees nothing else for the rest of his life he'll take it.

He steps forward and the same time as Brendan…

His fists ball tight at his sides. The urge to hit him for putting him through all this rises and falls away as he gets closer. Until he can feel the heat of his body. The electric running through his skin awoken by proximity. Being this close.

He wraps his arms around him at the same moment as Brendan closes his arms around him and pulls him into a tight hug. Hand to the back of his neck. He grips at his shirt so hard in his fists that he can feel his fingers going numb with the effort. He breathes in his scent. The feel of his arm. The safeness, steadiness of the embrace even though they're both shaking… Brendan kisses the side of his head, stubble raking his ear. He grips tighter, tries to get closer even knowing it's not possible. The warmth of his skin, of his breath against his cheek. The beating of his heart. All things he never thought he'd get again.

They start to sway slightly, rock a little, comfort spilling from it into his veins, filling the cracks, the voids. Soothing his nerves.

He loosens the grip a little, he needs to see his face, his eyes. He looks up and Brendan thumbs him cheek softly. Gaze running across his face as the tip of his thumb touches his bottom lip. The intensity of Brendan's eyes, boring holes in him, like he's staring into his soul has his breath shaking from his mouth. Brendan leans in slowly, eyes not leaving his… The first touch of their lips is shocking, raw, has him desperate to run, this. Them. Brendan. Nothing feels as powerful, like he could do anything, be anything with him by his side. It rushes him, pushes him, the hunger the utter desire that flows through his body and his arching into Brendan as he slides his hand up to the back of his neck, pulling him in deeper. Nothing compares, nothing is as right... The feel, soft, lush, the brush of stubble burns, stings as the kiss intensifies into a battle, a hot, desperate mash of tongue, lips and need. Want. Denied for so long.

Brendan breaks it fast leaving him whirling, pulls him closer and holds him to his chest with a hand gripping his thin t-shirt so hard he can feel his nails in his skin and drops his mouth onto his collar bone and inhales deeply.

He lets himself sink into the embrace. Quieter, still desperate but steadier, manageable.

Brendan's murmuring something, barely more than his lip moving against the fabric but the stubble gives the movement away. He knows it's not words, at least not words he's meant to hear. He lays a kiss there then squeezes him so tight it's painful.