One April Night

Story

Nathan pulled up to the lot attached to Lake Archimedes and smiled slightly in relief as he found the Sheriff's Jeep waiting for him to park next to.

So, Jack was here.

He shot off a message to Allison and Henry and climbed out of his car, confident that they'd pass the word along to the others and call off the search.

It had been a throw-away comment that Taggart had said, once, about having run into Jack out by the lake a few times and Nathan had a hunch that the blond went out that way on a regular basis.

He saw the figure sitting cross-legged on the ground and felt that last vestige of panic fall away as he recognized Jack in the last light of day, the sun setting around them both.

"Jack?" he called out as he made sure to make noise, coming closer until he was level with his lover and lowered himself down next to him. "You okay?"

Jack was silent for a long moment before blowing out a breath and nodding slowly. "I'm... getting there."

"Good. You should probably know that Lupo caught the bastard and Fargo is in the middle of resetting the bunker, so you won't have to worry about being drugged, anymore."

He saw Jack nodding out of the corner of his eye and breathed out to calm himself down.

When he found out that someone had reprogrammed SARAH to allow a truth serum variant into its stores, he'd been furious. Not mention worried sick, but more furious than anything else.

Of course, no one had actually found that out until Donovan had half-seriously asked Jack if he loved Nathan and there was no flippant remark like they would have usually heard when asked that same question.

It had become somewhat of a game to Nathan, Jack and all their friends: Ask Jack what he saw in Nathan and Jack would come up with some sort of asinine response with a smile that told everyone he was kidding.

Nathan had made a vow to himself, Jack and Allison that he wasn't going to push the blond into anything and to take what he could get for as long as Jack was willing.

There had, of course, been a slowly growing desire to hear those particular words from Jack, but Allison had made Nathan promise her that he would say them first. If Nathan did first, then Jack would know exactly where they stood with each other and how serious Nathan was about him.

But Donovan hadn't thought anything of the question and each and every one of them had been expecting a usual quip.

What Nathan never expected in a million years was Jack turning to him with earnest blue eyes and he barely had the realization that something wasn't right with Jack when he opened his mouth.

'Yes, Nathan. I do love you.'

Everyone had been in complete shock at the sincere words for long moments before an odd glaze over Jack's eyes cleared and he paled rapidly at his answer.

It had only taken a few minutes after the blond took off for the rest of them to realize that something had happened to make the secretive blond blurt out his most private feelings – in public, no less.

They'd still been trying to figure out what had happened when someone asked if they'd seen Carter because he was running a little late to their meeting and the lightbulb went off in Nathan's head as the normally innocent questions were being sidestepped with rambling. The scientist had grown more nervous and Lupo had been the first to reach the man, demanding to know what he'd done.

It was a good thing she had, because Nathan realized that Jack's confession to him had basically been forced and fury unlike anything he'd ever experienced before rushed through him.