“Not really?!”

“Would you just listen to me?”

“No, I don’t want you to do anything”

“I have to, Noah”

“I’ll do it, then, whatever it is, I’ll do it, not you”

“Honey, no offense, but you can’t. Look at you, you are exhausted after today”

“What? Do I have to walk all the way to Washington DC?”

Luke smiled and held Noah’s chin

“You are thin, and pale and you look weak… I don’t want the colonel to see you like this”

“What? You are thinking about visiting my father?”

“No, I am not thinking about it, I am going, first thing in the morning”

“No, Luke, please”

“I’m going in Lucinda’s jet. I will talk to him”

“And you think you are going to change his mind? That you’ll make him accept that I am gay?”

“No, I am going to threaten him”

“Threaten him? With what?”

Luke got some papers from a briefcase and showed them to Noah

“What’s that?… You have an account in the Cayman Islands?”

“I do now”

“I don’t get it…”

“Well… Lucinda has talked to a guy, who knows some other guy who knows some ot”

“I get it, Luke, someone no one knows”

“Yeah… well, if something happens to one of us, someone from our family or even a friend of us…”

“You are now officially scaring the shit out of me”

“This money will automatically be transferred to that guy whose only purpose will be kill the colonel”

“You must be kidding… please, tell me you are kidding”

“Nope…”

Noah walked away from Luke and ran his hands through his hair

“I am going with one of Lucinda’s men. He’s the head of the security department… he’ll be the one doing the talking. And you should see him, he’s scary as hell”

“Shit, Luke, I don’t think this is such a good idea”

“I think it’s brilliant, and I am doing it”

Noah sat down at the table and held his head with his hands. Luke sat down next to him and rubbed Noah’s back

“And you know what? If something happens to you… if he ever manages to finish what he started when you decided to let yourself be loved… I do want him dead”

Noah looked at Luke

“I want him dead too if something happens to you or Aaron”

Luke stroked Noah’s cheek

“I am sorry, cos he is your dad after all, bu”

Noah put the tip of his finger in Luke’s lips to stop him from talking

“No, don’t say that. He stopped being my father when he shot you… and it was clear to me when he beat me up last year”

“I am sorry anyway”

“You’ve given me a family, Luke. Much better than any other family I could’ve ever dreamt of”

Luke kissed him

“Don’t forget that you are a Snyder”

“I won’t”

They kissed again and Luke ran his fingers through Noah’s dark hair

“How about going to bed and lie together for a while, uh? We can hold each other and try to keep the nightmares away”

“Sounds like a plan”

Later when they were both already in bed Noah put his head in Luke’s shoulder

“How are you? And be honest for a change”

“I am spent. Everythings hurts”

“Do you want me to get you some painkillers and water?”

“No, I just want to lie here with you and forget about my leg, and my arm, and how weak I feel…”

Luke kissed Noah’s head and stroked his back.

“Everything will be okay”

“Aren’t you scared? What you want to do tomorrow…”

“I have been too scared for the last 2 months, I need to do something”

“And you think this will work?”

“I don’t know, but I’m sure going to try it”

He kissed his head again and thought about that night. He could still see Noah on the floor everytime he closed his eyes, and the blood, the twisted arm and leg… The images brought tears to his eyes.

Noah had done his best all those weeks, but it had been really hard on him. The recovery had been slow and the arm and leg were still hurting. Luke could tell just looking at him, as much as Noah tried to hide his pain from him it had been obvious. He kissed his head again

“I love you”

“Mmh… same here”

Luke smiled and felt a tear go down his cheek. Noah had been so patient with him all this time, he still was. Luke had been bossy and another pain. But Noah had never complained. He did everything Luke told him as crazy and stupid as it might have seemed at the time, always smiling and caring.

“Noah?”

He didn’t answer. He was asleep. He must’ve been really tired… Luke made a note to himself to call Brad in the morning and tell him to watch Noah for tiredness the day after… maybe he’ll call Holden and ask him to pick up Noah from work and take him to the farm. He’ll take good care of him.

He kept on stroking his back. The tears kept falling down. He’d done that plenty of nights in the last two months… the thought of almost losing him… it left him breathless. In real life the doctor did CPR on him, and mouth-to-mouth resuscitation for 10 minutes. The longest 10 minutes of his life. And then again at the ambulance, they brought him inside the ER with a doctor straddling Noah on the gurney doing CPR. That’s when they told him that he had to wait in the waiting room. That was the last time he saw Noah that night until the doctor came back.

He was going to do everything he could to keep that from happening again. No one was going to hurt his family again and that was final. It hurt too much, it stills hurts just too much…