"What?" Jack asked.
Boone smiled a little. "You wanna call Shannon, don't you?"
"No," Jack replied, which was admittedly a complete lie. Boone gave him a look. "I'm not going to. I'm sure Noah'll be fine."
"Yeah, he will," Boone agreed.
"You don't think she's gonna ignore him do you?" Jack asked.
"What?"
"Well, not ignore him, but just try and impose some routine on him that he's not used to cos that'll just upset him," Jack explained. "You know what they're like with Zara, they don't give her a whole lot of leeway, and Noah's used to leeway so do you think they'll make allowances?"
"Jack, calm down, I'm sure it'll be fine," Boone assured him.
"Yeah, it will," Jack repeated, nodding his head, hoping that made it look like he was convinced. He stood there for a second. "Maybe I should just make a quick call."
Boone laughed and shook his head. "Go on then."
"No, I shouldn't, it's crazy and obsessive," Jack replied.
"Yeah but you're crazy and obsessive so it sounds about right," Boone smiled. Jack looked at him. "Just call her so we can get on with our evening."
"Okay, just real quick, just to put my mind at rest, then you can have my full attention," Jack told him, heading for the living room.
"I'll look forward to that," Boone said, following after him.
Jack picked up the phone and speed dialled Shannon. "Hello?" she answered.
"Hey, Shannon, it's Jack, I was just..."
"Christ, don't worry, I haven't killed him yet," Shannon interrupted. "Jack, you've been gone like ten minutes."
"Yeah, I know, I just wanted to make sure he was doing okay," Jack explained. "Is he settling in all right?"
"He's fine," Shannon replied, sounding rather irritated. "He probably doesn't know he's anywhere different, all he does is stare at the ceiling anyway."
Jack knew that Shannon was a good mother but he also knew that for some reason she liked to hide that side of her well. He knew she'd take good care of Noah, as would Sayid, but he wished she could sound a little more positive and reassuring.
"Look, if anything happens to him I want you to call me, okay? Anything at all," Jack instructed. "Even if you don't think it's a big deal."
"Okay, Jack," she said, sounding bored.
"If anything at all seems slightly out of the ordinary you have to call cos I'm a doctor and I..."
"Jack, give me the phone," Boone interrupted.
Jack looked up at Boone. "Just a sec," he told him.
"Jack," Boone repeated. "Give me the phone."
Jack sighed. "Shannon, Boone wants a word, hang on."
He passed the phone over to Boone who took it off him and sat down on the sofa. He listened for a second and then said "Tell me about it," whilst looking at Jack. Well, how very supportive of him, Jack thought, he's going to gossip about me. Not that he had any grounds to stand on so he headed into the kitchen and left him to it.
He opened the kitchen cupboards and found an expensive bottle of red wine they'd been saving. Now seemed as good a time as any. He opened the bottle and grabbed two glasses, heading back into the living room.
"Uh-huh," Boone said into the phone as he looked up at Jack and saw the wine. "Yeah, listen Shan, I have to go, I'll speak to you later. Bye." He hung up and turned his attention to Jack who sat down next to him and poured the wine. "What are you doing?" he asked.
"I'm getting you drunk so I can take advantage of you," Jack explained, handing him one of the glasses.
Boone took it and looked at him for a second before a smile came over his face. "Okay then."
Jack smiled back and leaned in to kiss him. Boone met him half way and Jack hadn't quite realised how much he'd missed this. He was just starting to really get into it when Boone pulled away.
"Jack?"
"Yeah?" Jack asked, reluctantly opening his eyes again.
"We can't do that yet," Boone stated.
"Yeah we can," Jack replied and leaned back in.
Boone maintained the distance between them. "No," he said shaking his head a little. "We have to talk, remember? And I don't think we're gonna talk all that much if you keep kissing me."
Jack nodded and leaned back again. "Okay, you're right," he agreed. "We get to kiss later though, right?"
Boone smiled. "Yeah, we get to kiss later."
"Okay then," Jack said, taking a sip of his wine.
"So I guess we have some stuff to work out," Boone began. "We need to change a few things cos it's not working so well as it is."
Jack nodded. "I guess you're right," he admitted. "I have been a really terrible boyfriend lately."
"That's not what I meant," Boone told him.
"Maybe not but it's certainly a factor," Jack insisted. "I think I need to get my priorities straight. It's just that I've been waiting so long for this and I guess I got so caught up with Noah that I just... I don't know. I don't want anything to happen to him because I really need this to work out, all of this."
"You want your family," Boone stated.
"Yeah, I do," Jack agreed.
"I'm part of that," Boone pointed out.
"I know that," Jack replied. "But I guess I didn't make it clear to you that I knew that," he finished, realising what he'd been doing. "I'm sorry, Boone, I wasn't doing this on purpose."
"I know you weren't," Boone replied.
"That doesn't make it okay," Jack told him. "I guess I kind of took it for granted that you'd be there so I concentrated on him."
Boone looked down. "You know, I'm so used to everyone in my life taking me for granted, everyone's always done it to me and I never even really cared. But it was different with you. You taught me that I was worth it, that I was worth something. And then it was like you stopped believing in me or something." He glanced up at Jack. "I know this is all of bunch of crap, I know I blow everything out of proportion."
"No, I think that's quite accurate," Jack told him. He scooted up closer and put a hand on his thigh. "You are worth something, Boone, and don't let anyone, not even me, let you believe that you're not. Your confidence has to come from yourself, not from me, that's where you're going wrong."
Boone looked up at him. "I don't wanna lose you," he said simply. "If I lost you I don't think I'd even exist anymore."
"You're not gonna lose me," Jack assured him. "You're just not, okay?"
"So we're gonna have to work on things," Boone told him. "Relationships don't just happen, you have to work on them, and now that we have Noah we have less time to work on it but we're going to have to find the time or..." he trailed off and sighed.
Jack nodded. "We will, we'll make the time."
"You're gonna go back to hospital next week and when you do I'm gonna try and get Noah into some kind of routine, which is probably gonna be a little tough on both him and me, but it has to be done," Boone went on. "And then, if I can do it, we should be able to get more time with just the two of us for stuff like this."
"That sounds like a plan to me," Jack agreed.
"But you're gonna have to let go of him a little bit," Boone told him. "Which is gonna be tough and you're not gonna like it but..."
"You're right," Jack nodded. "I'm not really helping anyone by acting the way I am. It's not helping me, it's not helping you and Noah's never gonna be able to stand on his own two feet if I treat him like this the rest of his life. He'll be one of those kids that never moves out, they just go live in the basement and think cos it's a different floor it doesn't count."
Boone smiled. "Yeah, we don't want one of those kids."
"I want him to be strong," Jack said. "But I can't make him strong by giving him everything I have, it doesn't work like that, does it?"
Boone shook his head. "No, I don't think so."
"It's a tough one, isn't it?" Jack considered. "I give him too much and he'll never be strong but I give him too little and he'll..." '...end up like Boone' was Jack's immediate thought but he couldn't exactly say that out loud.
"No one ever said being a parent was easy," Boone commented.
"No," Jack agreed. "But they didn't say it would be this complicated either."
"Life's all about middle grounds, Jack," Boone told him.
Jack nodded. "You're right." He looked Boone in the eye. "We're gonna do okay. I mean, surely you can't get it that wrong."
"Are you gonna be okay?" Boone asked. "Leaving him all day to go to the hospital."
"I trust you," Jack told him, really hoping he got the point across. "So I've got no excuse to not be okay."
"Okay then," Boone said. "I think we can do this."
"Of course we can," Jack agreed. He took another sip of wine and then reached over and took Boone's glass out of his hand, placing them both down on the coffee table. "Now that we've dissected our parenting skills, can we get back to the kissing part?"
Boone gave Jack a smile that made it very hard for Jack to wait for a reply before jumping him. "I think that would be a nice progression of the evening," Boone agreed.
Jack smiled back and leaned in for another kiss, much more passionate this time. He pulled Boone in close to him and slipped a hand under his shirt. He'd almost forgotten the way Boone smelt and the way Boone felt but he was quite enjoying remembering. And if this was the kind of evening he had to endure to save his relationship he was really, really okay with that. He leaned Boone back and started work on his belt.