Luke was fast asleep, stretched out on the couch flat on his back, his head resting in Noah's lap. He'd lain there earlier to wind down and read his book, while Noah worked his way through a stack of memos and documents from his editing team. It hadn't taken him long to nod off. He had been up most of the night again, although he'd tried to hide his fretfulness from Noah, so it was no surprise he was so exhausted.

Nicky sat cross legged on the floor, frowning in concentration as he worked on his latest puzzle, this time a gift from Joshua.

Noah had long since lost interest in reading his papers. He had been watching Luke sleep for half an hour, feeling sick with anxiety. He knew that within the greater scheme of things Luke had come off lightly, that things could have been so much worse, (like a six month sentence in some hardcore prison cell), but Noah couldn't help the way he felt. It was his instinct to do something… change things… save him, but there was nothing he could do. There was nothing TO do but sit back and watch it happen, praying Luke would be okay.

And Noah dreaded to even imagine it. Thirteen long and empty weeks lay before them. Twelve long nights alone in an empty bed trying not to think of Luke locked away in a cell. Over the course of the agonising year before, living without Luke had become Noah's worst nightmare… his phobia.

He was so wrapped up in his thoughts it took him a while to notice Luke looking up at him, studying him carefully.

The brown eyes smiled softly as he stared down into them.

Noah shook his head.

"What are you thinking about?"

"Maybe we should speak to Lucinda? Maybe she knows somebody who can help."

"No."

"Why not?"

"Noah, you heard what Gareth said. I don't want to be the one responsible for setting some kind of legal loophole that allows guilty people to walk free from something like this. I did it Noah!"

"Yes, but…"

"No buts! There can be no buts Noah! And you know why! I'm going to serve the sentence passed to me and really, a part of me kind of needs to do it."

Noah sighed painfully. "You can be so god damn stubborn sometimes!"

"Hey," Luke said rubbing his arm, "We'll get through it."

There was a slight shake of Noah's head and his voice was almost a whisper, "I can't…"

"We'll get through it!" He said again with absolute conviction.

"I feel so stupid! I mean… you're the one that has to go into that place! You're the one who'll have to live it… Why are you so okay with this?"

Luke laughed a little, "Are you kidding? I'm scared Shitless! I mean, I don't know what to expect! What it will be like… But there's nothing we can do about it. I'll miss you guys so much. That's going to be the hardest thing! But it's three months! It's really nothing at all! And then afterwards? Afterwards I've got the most amazing day of my life to look forward too."

Noah leaned down to nuzzle him slightly.

"If anything's going to get me through," Luke continued, "it's knowing that you are waiting to marry me on the other side! That will get me through anything!"

"You know?" Noah said, squeezing his thigh, "If they'd let me come with you I would!"

"I wish you could too…"

"I need you to promise me something, okay?"

"What's that?"

"Please… please don't go being all gung-ho about the whole gay thing!"

Luke gave him an 'as if I would' kind of look, "Noah, I'm not going to hide who I am."

"I know it's in your nature to be all loud and proud, but… I don't think prison is the best place for it… I'm just asking you not to get people's backs up because they piss you off or something… just…" he grabbed and clutched Luke's hand, "just come back to me safely, okay?"

"Noah! It's not prison! It's a detention centre! Gareth said it will be fine."

"Yes, but just in case! Please, Luke? For me?"

"Okay." He sighed good naturedly in the way Noah knew he usually did when he was trying to appease him but didn't really agree.

"Promise?"

"I promise that I won't advertise the fact that I'm gay, but I'm not going to deny it either."

"That's the best I'm going to get, isn't it?"

"Yip."

And Noah couldn't resist kissing him after he grinned cheekily.

"I'm mad about your crazy head you know that?"

"I know! It can't be helped… I'm just lovable that way."

...

Tuesday morning arrived before they knew it and Noah found Nicholas on the floor by the front door, trying hard to put his sneakers on by himself.

"You need some help buddy?"

"I can do it…"

Noah doubted it, since he was trying to squeeze his left foot into his right shoe, but he left him to it. It was sweet. Nicholas was trying to stay out of their way, not really fully understanding such an adult issue as a whole, but smart enough to realise that Luke and Noah were pretty upset about it.

Noah let out a long breath to steady himself. He was determined not to fall apart. This was hard enough for Luke without having him having to deal with his partner's emotions as well.

He popped into the kitchen to quickly tidy their dirty breakfast dishes and when done, he paused on his way out the door watching as Luke emerged from the passage.

He wasn't taking much with him, just a small sports bag, and he dropped this by the door before kneeling to give Nicholas a hand.

"Looks like you've got the wrong shoe on that foot. Let me show you."

As he swapped the shoes Nicholas leaned back on his hands and said, "Luke, when you came back there will be a wedding."

"Yes baby there will. What is marriage, do you know?"

"Um…" he bit on the end of his finger for a moment, "You get married and have a baby."

Luke laughed. "Yeah, I guess, but there's more to it than just having a baby."

"You live in a house?"

"Yes that's part of it too."

"Are you and Noah getting married?"

"Ah ha."

Nicholas frowned as he considered this. "But you already live in a house?"

Noah smiled. God but that kid was smart!

"Yes we do, but we still want to get married…"

"Why?"

"So that we can promise to love each other forever..."

Again the soft wrinkled brow of consideration, "But you already love Noah. You said."

"Yes that's right I do. But this is like… it's kidda like a pinky promise."

The little face brightened with sudden understanding, "OH! Then it can't ever be broken!"

"So logical." Noah thought.

"Yes. It can't ever be broken. And someday you'll get married too." He tied the final of Nicholas's sneakers and griped his ankles fondly. "Would you like that?"
Nicholas shook his head.

"No? You don't like the idea of being married forever?"

"But I want to be here forever…" he looked suddenly very worried.

"No baby. One day you'll want to go off and make a new family of your own."

"But I can still live with you?"

Luke noticed Noah and Noah smiled at him before approaching Nicholas and lifting him up. "You can live with us for as long as you like Nicky. We're your family forever, okay? No matter what happens."

Nicholas nodded, happy with this conclusion to the very confusing conversation he was having with Luke.

"Ready?" Luke asked, standing and picking up his bag.

"No." Noah replied sadly, "But I guess we don't have a choice, do we?"

Luke smiled reassuringly at him and opened to door to exit his home, his family and his life for three months.

...

Draft story by Luke Snyder

Prologue (unedited)

So, somehow, I find myself in a place I would never have thought I'd ever see the inside of. I'm a ward of the state, serving a three month sentence for a hit and run I'm only now slowly starting to forgive myself for. And strangely, except for the separation from my family, I don't mind being here. It's oddly cathartic for me, because I wanted to be punished! My partner, my parents, my friends, the police, the lawyers, everybody! Even my sister! They were all totally sympathetic and understanding. But it didn't stop me from blaming myself and I was angry. I was angry at the driver who hit my sister and left her there. I wanted THAT driver to pay! And THAT driver turned out to be me.

And it isn't prison! Nowhere close! Sure there are bars on the windows and cell-like rooms, but it's cheerily painted and they even have framed pictures on the walls. Inmates are pretty much free to do as they please during the day so long as they follow the rules and strict timetable. It's how I imagine boarding school to be like.

And so I've decided to dedicate my time in here to writing. And what better subject to tackle than my three months inside.

...

The week dragged. Everything dragged. Seconds felt like minutes, minutes felt like hours and those hours seemed to stretch out, making one day feel like a year.

Not even the busy editing sessions at the studio were working to keep his mind off Luke.

They had spent that month apart before. The month when Luke had returned to Oakdale to tie off loose ends before moving full time to Los Angeles, but that was nothing in comparison to this. At least he could speak to Luke on the phone or visit whenever he wanted. This time he was stuck with radio silence for an entire week.

So now he shifted restlessly from foot to foot as they waited for Luke in the visiting area. They were surrounded by other people but Noah didn't even see them. His eyes were fixed on the door through which Luke would appear in any minute.

"Where's he?" Nicky kept asking impatiently.

The poor child had cried every night for Luke. He was terrified that Luke would never return home. It was almost impossible to explain to him that Luke was coming back. Noah knew that if a week felt long for him, it would feel like a lifetime to a child.

Luke was given conjugal privileges as part of his sentence. In fact California. they discovered. was the only state that allowed such visits for same sex couples. But Noah and Luke declined for two reasons. One, they couldn't imagine making love in a prison, there was just something seedy, something so wrong about that and it never sat right with them at all. And for another they had Nicholas to think about. When Noah visited, he definitely wanted to see Nicholas too and there was no way that Noah could stay overnight. As a result the decision was to suffer through it and instead Gareth managed to arrange all day visitations on Sundays. That would have to be enough to see them through. As least they hoped it would be.

Of course, had the sentence been longer, that would have been a different story.

Finally Noah saw a flash of blonde just peaking above the opaque strip of glass along the wall of the room and Luke appeared in the doorway. He felt his heart leap.

Nicholas ran to him, "LUUUUKKKEE!"

"Hey!" Luke laughed swinging the child around and kissing his cheek.

"Luke we waited and waited!" Nicholas chastised.

"You did?"

"Yeah! We waited FOREVER! Where've you been?"

"I've been here baby."

"Why?"

"Because I made a mistake and I hurt Natalie. Remember?"

"Yes but it was an ac-di-dent."

"An accident."

"Yeah that!"

"I know. I'll be home real soon, okay?"

"Today?"

"No, not yet."

Finally his hazel eyes, eyes Noah had been deprived of for six whole days, fastened on his.

"Hi, baby." He smiled.

Noah looked around, desperate to hold him but suddenly acutely aware of the inmates surrounding them, and not sure of Luke's situation in the place. Luke, always reading his thoughts, placed Nicky on the bench and gently smoothed his arms around him. One arm around his neck, the other around his waste and Noah breathed in the sent of him, pressing his eyes against Luke's neck and holding him tightly.

"I missed you so much, bubby." Luke breathed.

"Same here."

"Luke I was in the park!" Nicky exclaimed, tugging at his shirt for attention.

They broke apart and Luke quickly wiped the tears out his eyes before Nicholas saw them.

"You did hey?" He sat on the bench and lifted Nicholas to his knee, "You want to tell me about it?"

For a while they sat and caught up on the week, until eventually Nicholas began to tire of the conversation and Noah pulled his pad and pencils from his bag so that he could draw for a while.

"So," Noah smiled reaching up to briefly stroke Luke's chin, "You look well enough. Prison blues suit you…"

Luke nodded and laughed, "It's really fine Noah. It's not dangerous at all."

Noah let out a breath of relief, "That's good."

"Well actually… I have something for you." He pulled a folded piece of white paper from his pocket and opened it out so that Noah could see the typed print on it.

Noah took it as Luke offered it to him, "What is it?"

"It's the start…"

"Of what?"

"My book!"

A grin of pleasure stretched across Noah's face, "You're writing?"

"Well, yeah! I thought I might as well! Nothing else to do… It's probably not any good but…"

Noah smiled, Luke was always his greatest critic, "I'm sure it's wonderful like everything you write! What's it about?"

"This!" And Luke stretched his arms across the room. "Life, you know… in detention. This way I'll have something new written every week for you to read at home and at the same time you get to hear what it's like, what I'm doing, who I'm meeting…"

"Wow!"

"You can take a small piece of me home with you each time! You like?"

"I love!" He kissed Luke then, savouring the feel of his lips against his.

"That's good!" Luke said, "because," and he dipped his hand back into this pocket to pull out another slip of paper, "Here's the start of a chapter…"

Noah laughed. "Thank you!"

...

Draft Story by Luke Snyder

Draft Chapter (unedited)

Most of the men in the detention centre are just your average Joe Blog. Men just like me, who at a point in their normal lives made a major judgement in error and ended up incarcerated as a result. But of all the men I've met here, my cellmate really is the Everyman.

Kevin Howard is that friendly service type guy, who you'd happily leave alone in your house while he carried out his work. The guy you'd sit and chat with while he was on his coffee break. Just as ordinary as ordinary can get. An all round nice guy who reminds me of a childhood friend of mine. He had already served six months of a five year sentence for robbery, making my sentence seem like child's play in comparison. He was suspicious of me at first. I have the impression things hadn't gone very well between him and his previous cellmate, (a subject he refuses to expand on), and hence he got saddled with the new guy, namely me. We got to talking quite quickly though. I can tell that he was once the friendly happy-go-lucky type but that whatever went wrong in his life has really done a number on him. And of course we eventually got to the subject of why were both there.

"You accidently hit your sister with a car?"

I nodded.

"Shit! That's hardcore man! Is she okay?"

"Yes. Thank god! I can't imagine what I would have done if I'd actually killed her!"

"But it was an accident right, so why are you in here?"

I shrugged, "Something came over me that night. When I realised what I'd done I blanked it out."

"Blanked it out?"

"It's hard to explain, but I couldn't deal with it. It was like I thought I was dreaming, you know? And if I just went back home and fell back to sleep, then that's all it was... a bad nightmare!"

"And that's what you did?"

"Yeah. It took three weeks before I remembered what really happened."

I saw his mind working and then the light dawn, "Oh! So it was a hit and run?"

"I'm afraid so!"

"Harsh man!"We chatted along those lines for a while longer. At the time I thought it odd that I didn't feel at all uncomfortable talking to him about it. I suppose it was just nice to make a friend in here.

Eventually we exhausted that topic and of course I turned the tables and asked him the same question, "So, you? I know it was robbery, right? You don't seem the type."

His story would rock me to the core.

Note to Noah: To be continued next week... (Love you bubby)

...