Jack's alarm clock sounded at 6AM. His eyes flew open, and he was momentarily disoriented. He was lying face down in an unfamiliar bed, with one arm thrown over Mark's chest.

Oh. Dublin. Right. Why is my alarm…?

He sat upright with a jolt, remembering why he'd set his alarm. Oh fuck. Oh fuck.

He grabbed his phone, saw that it was only 6:02. He breathed. He tried to relax. He failed.

Hey tried to think back to the previous night, wondering why he felt so confused. Then he remembered; he'd set an alarm for them to get up for dinner, but they hadn't. They'd been so exhausted, they'd turned off the alarm and gone back to sleep. His anxiety eased slightly as he got a better grip on the situation.

His appointment wasn't until 8:00, but he wanted to make sure he had plenty of time to get there. He glanced over at Mark, who was sleeping soundly with a puddle of drool forming around his mouth. Jack almost giggled, despite his extreme nervousness.

He got up, careful not to disturb Mark. He took a quick shower and dressed. He assessed the state of his backpack, making sure he had his passport and all of his paperwork in a convenient place. He stepped into the sitting room and called for a cab. Then, he went back to the bed, and sat down next to Mark.

He watched Mark sleep for a long moment, his heart aching, his mind racing with anxious thoughts. He finally bent over and kissed Mark's forehead gently.

Mark opened his eyes. "Hey! We're in Ireland!" he said, sleepily.

Jack managed a smile. "Hello, love. I have to get going in a minute. I should only be gone fer a couple of hours, so yeh should just go back to sleep. I'll be back before yeh know it." He bent down and kissed Mark, slowly and sweetly. He pulled back reluctantly, smoothing at Mark's hair.

"Sean. Whatever it is, it's going to be ok. We can deal with it together, when you get back. Right?"

Jack nodded, hoped Mark wouldn't notice that his hands were shaking. He still had no idea what he would tell Mark if things didn't work out.

He leaned over and rested his head against Mark's chest, and Mark hugged him tightly.

"Love you, Mark."

"Love you, Sean."

Jack got up from the bed, walked out the door, and closed it behind him.

He took the elevator to the lobby and left the hotel, was relieved to see a cab waiting for him in the street. He told the driver his destination and sat in silence as they drove, playing with his hands nervously. The ride was short. He paid the driver and stepped onto the sidewalk. He checked the time on his phone: 7:37AM. Perfect.

He took several deep breaths, and walked into the U.S. Embassy.

Mark was pacing the hotel room, trying not to panic. He had no idea where Jack was, or why it needed to be a secret. Jack had mentioned he had an appointment to keep, and that that was part of the reason for this trip. But Mark was starting to think that it might be the whole reason for this trip. He could tell Jack had been distraught before he'd left, and worse, he'd been trying to hide it. Why? Why wouldn't he just tell Mark what was going on? He'd asked Mark to trust him, and Mark had done his best, but his stomach ached with worry. What if something was really wrong?

He suspected that Jack had been thinking about the end of their visit. He knew they had both been putting off the conversation, trying to soak up as much happiness as they could before facing reality. He wondered if Jack had brought him here to walk him through the trip, hoping Mark might be more likely to visit if he had practiced the journey, and could look back on fun memories of visiting Jack at home.

Does he really think I wouldn't visit? Of course I would…

But Mark started to think about it more carefully. What would it be like for them, splitting time between California and Ireland? It took a full day to travel, maybe another day to deal with the time change. They would need to plan to see each other for at least a week at a time. Well, we figured it out this time… Mark thought, but then he recalled the previous week, the overtime he and Jack had set for themselves to get ahead in their work. They had barely survived it. Would it even be possible to keep that up in the future?

Mark supposed they could work on content when they visited each other… and promptly rejected that notion as well. What would be the point of traveling halfway across the world, just to work instead of spending time together?

Mark felt sick. He had pushed these thoughts away for days, and they were finally overtaking him. He realized that Jack had probably come to similar conclusions, and his heart ached. What was Jack thinking? What were they going to do? Am I losing him right now?

Mark sat in a chair, put his elbows on his knees, put his head in his hands, and waited.

Jack was sprinting. He had called a cab and left the Embassy, and was running full force to meet his ride at the corner of the street. He knew his green fringe had come untucked from his hat, thought fleetingly that someone might recognize him running down the street like a fool and post the whole thing on the Internet. Fuck it. He didn't care.

The drive back to the hotel was excruciating. Weekday morning traffic had picked up, and Jack bounced his knee nervously as the cab moved slowly through the busy streets. Come on. Fucking come on! After a half hour that felt like at least a month, the cab reached the hotel. Jack gave the driver a handful of cash and jumped out of the cab without waiting for change. He moved as quickly as he could to the elevator, pushed the button to the top floor about a dozen times before he realized it wasn't helping. He fidgeted, screaming internally, shifting his weight from foot to foot.

He finally got into the elevator, thankful to be alone so he could groan audibly as the floors ticked by far too slowly for his liking. Ding. The doors popped open, and he was sprinting again, grabbing for the room key in his pocket.

He stopped abruptly in front of the door, hand outstretched. He was out of breath and probably looked a mess. Fuck! What am I doing?! What am I going to say?! He couldn't think straight, couldn't stand to wait, needed to see Mark before he passed out right there in the hallway. He swiped his key and stepped through the door.

Mark heard the door opening and flew out of his seat. He examined Jack from a distance, saw that he was red-faced and breathing heavy. He looked like he'd been running. He looked…

"Sean. Please tell me what's happening."

"Mark." Jack's voice was shaking.

Mark was by Jack's side in an instant, holding his shoulders, searching his face. "Tell me what's going on. Please let me help."

"Mark-" Jack took another deep breath. He tried to smile, but Mark could tell he was close to tears. "I need to tell yeh something. I did something without asking you first, and I knew yeh might be upset, but I had to risk it. I needed it to be my decision, and it's done. So, please, just-" Jack couldn't finish, couldn't find the words.

"Sean." Mark's voice was gentle. "I'm not upset with you, I promise. I'm just very, very worried. Please tell me what happened."

Jack's heart squeezed at the concern in Mark's voice. He tried to catch his breath. "Mark. I figured out how to stay with you. You don't have to leave without me. We can stay together." Jack looked into Mark's eyes, smiling shakily.

"Wait- what? I don't understand…"

Jack pulled back from Mark and opened his backpack. He took out the manila folder, set it down on the table, and opened it for Mark.

Mark wasn't sure what he was looking at. The first item in the folder was a small rectangular envelope, like a holder for a driver's license or credit card. Jack picked it up, slid out a small plastic card, and handed it to Mark. At first Mark thought it was a credit card, but it had Jack's picture on it, so that wasn't right... He read the text printed on it:

VISA - United States of America

Surname:

McLoughlin

Given Name:

Sean

Not a credit card Visa. The other kind of visa. The go-live-in-another-country kind of visa. How-?

"Sean…"

Mark looked at the packet of papers in the folder. It looked like a job application. No… not an application. A contract. With Jack's signature at the bottom.

Mark stared at the paper.

Mark stared at Jack.

Mark grabbed Jack's passport and opened it. A folded piece of paper fell out. No- two folded pieces of paper. The first one was Jack's crumpled boarding pass from the flight they'd just taken. The second one was-

"You bought a round-trip ticket, back to California." Mark's voice was shaking. "Sean. You had a round-trip ticket? This whole time? What's happening?"

Jack gently took the paper from Mark and set it back on the table. He put his arms around Mark's waist and spoke softly. "Mark. Did yeh think about what was going to happen at the end of this week?"

Mark nodded.

"Did yeh think about what it would be like to try to make this work long-distance?"

Mark swallowed hard, made a pained expression that Jack thought might have been a repressed sob. He nodded again.

"It wouldn't work." Jack smoothed Mark's hair out of his eyes. "Maybe at first, but not in the long run. It wouldn't be right or fair fer either of us. There's no getting around it. And leaving you-" Jack's voice broke- "was not an option fer me."

Mark took Jack's face in his hands, tried to keep them from shaking. He couldn't control his voice. "Are you saying you're coming home with me?"

Jack smiled. When he finally spoke, his voice was choked with emotion. "Yeah. I'm saying, we're going home together." Tears splashed onto his cheeks.

Mark put his arms around Jack, lifted him off the ground, and kissed him.

He felt his own tears mixing with Jack's as the full weight of the situation hit him. He replayed Jack's words in his head: Leaving you was not an option for me...

Jack was getting ready to leave his home, to move halfway across the world, to change his entire life…

Mark set Jack down gently and looked in his eyes.

"Sean. I can't even tell you what this means to me. I can't believe you did all of this, for me. For us. The idea of going home without you is… unbearable. I would do just about anything to keep us together. I would do anything you asked me to." He paused to kiss Jack's lips, holding him close. Jack felt himself relaxing, felt both of them breathing more easily the longer they touched.

Mark finally broke away. "But I need you to walk me through this. I need to know this is the right decision. How did this happen? Why didn't you tell me what was going on?"

Jack took a shaky breath. "Remember when you came home from the store? You were so upset…"

Mark nodded, embarrassed.

"It hit me right then. I knew what would happen if I came back to Ireland, and you stayed in California. I knew it wouldn't work out, no matter how badly we wanted it to. I saw how sad yeh were, and I thought… I knew… you were serious. About us. After everything that happened between us… I thought yeh'd want me to stay."

"Of course I wanted you to stay." Mark brushed at Jack's hair.

Jack nodded. "I know. And I had already been e-mailing with my friend who works at Blizzard."

"Blizzard? As in, Blizzard Entertainment? As in, Overwatch?"

"Yeah. Their office is in Irvine."

"I know. That's... right outside of LA."

"Yeah. I know a couple people who work there. Anyway, I asked my friend to talk to his boss, see if the company might be interested in working something out. They were. It's just a few hours a week, consulting fer game design and marketing and such. Just enough to get on the payroll."

"And that was important because…?"

"I needed the job to get a visa. I wouldn't be able to stay in the States without one. I mean, I could visit, but I wouldn't be able to stay fer any length of time. Luckily the folks at Blizzard were excited. They put a rush on the paperwork fer me."

"Jesus. Sean, why didn't you just tell me?"

Jack looked steadily into Mark's eyes. He spoke firmly. "Because you might've tried to stop me. Because I didn't want you feeling guilty, or feeling like you forced me into this decision. 'Decision' isn't even the right word fer it. Like I said… leaving wasn't an option."

"But then… why didn't you tell me after you signed the contract? Wasn't it a done deal at that point?"

Jack shook his head. "No. I didn't know if the Embassy would approve the visa, until today. If they hadn't… God, Mark, I was so scared they wouldn't. I would've had to stay here. You would've had to go back without me. I couldn't face it. I had to make sure it would work out before I told you. And I had to come back to Dublin to do the interview, I didn't have a choice."

Mark let this sink in.

"Mark, I'm so sorry I put yeh through this. But this is what I want. This is the right thing fer me, I know it."

"Are you sure, Sean? What if I-"

"What if you what? Moved to Ireland? Mark, there is nothing here, there would be no point! I promise you, I've thought a lot about this. It just makes sense. And don't go thinking like it's some kind of huge sacrifice. It isn't. I'm excited about this. I want the job at Blizzard. I can keep doing YouTube. And we... we can be together. I have literally nothing to lose, and everything to gain. D'you see?"

Mark couldn't deny the logic. He nodded. "I get it. But, Sean…" He searched for the words. "I just feel like you're giving me this massive gift. How can I ever pay you back?"

Jack's lower lip shook. "Tell me yeh're not going to leave me here. Tell me you want me to come. Tell me yeh're going to take me home." A single tear ran down his cheek.

"God, Sean-"Mark wrapped his arms around Jack, pulled him close. "It's not home, anymore, without you."