Modern Day (set after the events of Changes)

Gideon was woken by the sound of someone knocking on the bedroom door. He opened his eyes. Jason was still asleep, his back pressed against Gideon's chest, and Gideon buried his face in the warm skin of Jason's neck.

The knocking came again, and Jason groaned. "Gid, get the door."

"You get the door," Gideon said, closing his eyes.

"Guys?" Roux's voice came from the hallway outside. "You awake?"

Jason groaned again and climbed out of bed, scrubbing his eyes and raking his fingers through his bed-head.

"What's up?" he asked, as he opened the door.

"Sorry to wake you so early, but Ysanne needs to see Gideon," Roux said.

Gideon sat up.

"About what?" Jason asked.

"I don't know, but she did say it was urgent," Roux said.

"Is she in her office?"

"Yes."

Jason glanced back at Gideon. "We'd better get dressed then."

Message delivered, Roux didn't wait for them. Jason and Gideon dressed as quickly as possible and hurried to Ysanne's office.

"Do you have any idea what's going on?" Jason asked.

"I really don't," Gideon replied.

"Probably nothing to worry about, though, right?" Jason sounded uneasy.

Gideon took his hand. "I'm sure it's nothing."

But he couldn't help a twinge of unease himself. What could Ysanne possibly need them for? What was going on?

They reached Ysanne's office, and knocked on the door.

"Entrez," she said, and her voice was as crisp and unruffled as ever, giving nothing away.

They went into the office. Ysanne was sitting behind her desk, and despite how early it was, she was as polished and well-dressed as ever. Despite how long he'd lived in the same House as her, Gideon had rarely seen her as anything less than perfect.

"Gideon," she said, fixing him with her frost-coloured eyes. "I have been contacted by a young man named Harry Thomas. Do you know the name?"

"No," Gideon said, baffled.

"He says that he's Jerry Thomas's nephew. Does that mean anything to you?"

Jerry . . .

Gideon sat down, hard, in one of the chairs in front of the desk.

"I'll take that as a yes," Ysanne said.

Gideon struggled to organise his thoughts. He hadn't seen Jerry in decades, hadn't even thought about him since coming to live in Belle Morte, and suddenly a piece of his past was colliding with his present in a way he'd never anticipated.

"Apparently Jerry asked Harry to try and get in contact with you," Ysanne said.

"Why?"

Ysanne's face softened, just a fraction. It probably wouldn't have been visible to anyone who didn't know her.

"Jerry's very ill," she said. "His nephew doesn't believe he has much time left, and the one thing he's asked for is to see you."

Jason took the seat next to Gideon, putting his hand on Gideon's knee and squeezing.

Gideon's head felt like it was spinning. After all this time, Jerry had found him . . . but he was dying?

It shouldn't come as a surprise, not after how long it had been since they parted, but the reality of it still hit him like a slap. He couldn't find words.

"Is he in hospital?" Jason asked.

Ysanne nodded. "Harry said that if you wanted to see him, you'll need to get there as soon as possible."

Jason looked at Gideon. "Do you want to?"

He tried to speak, but the words still wouldn't come.

"Gid?" Jason squeezed his knee again.

"Yes," Gideon said at last, his voice hoarse. "I'd like to see him."

It didn't take them long to get to the hospital. As they were walking towards it, a man who was leaning against the wall outside, approached them.

"Gideon?" he said, looking uncertainly between Gideon and Jason.

"That's me," Gideon said.

Harry didn't look much like Jerry – he was lanky and thin, and his hair was dark – but then he smiled, and suddenly there was something of Jerry in his face, a spark that Gideon hadn't expected to see again.

"It's good to meet you at last. Uncle Jerry talks about you all the time," Harry said.

"He does?"

Harry smiled, but it was sad. "Do you want to see him?"

Gideon grabbed Jason's hand. "Yes."

Harry led them through the hospital to a lift, and then up several floors, until they reached a ward that was quieter than the rest. At the end of a corridor, in front of an open door, Harry paused.

"He's in there," he said.

Gideon hesitated. He'd never thought he'd see Jerry again, and now there was only a doorway between them. His stomach clenched. He had no idea how to feel about this.

"Are you okay?" said Jason softly.

Gideon didn't know.

"I'll be right here with you," Jason said, holding Gideon's hand.

"You're coming in with me?"

"If you want me to."

"I wasn't sure if it would be awkward," Gideon admitted.

"You think I can't handle meeting your ex-boyfriend?" Jason teased.

"How do you know he was my boyfriend?"

Had he even been? Certainly they'd never referred to each other as such, but they'd been together as a couple, labels or not.

Jason grinned. "Husband's intuition."

Gideon gripped his hand a little tighter, and they walked into the room together, while Harry stayed outside.

The room was small, the curtains drawn to block out the sunlight, the floor dominated by a hospital bed, and lying there . . .

Gideon almost stumbled over his own feet.

Jerry had been twenty-nine the last time Gideon had seen him, but that had been forty odd years ago. Now, the sandy hair had turned white, sparser at Jerry's temples, and the body that had been hard with muscle looked shrunken, frail. His skin was pale, creased with age, and his eyes were tired and rheumy, but the look in them when he turned his head towards Gideon . . . it was like seeing the sun come out.

"Gideon," he breathed. "You came."

Gideon had no idea what to say. He was gripping Jason's hand so hard it probably hurt, but Jason didn't make a sound.

Jerry patted his bed. "Come over here. My eyes don't work as well as they used to."

Gideon and Jason moved closer to the bed.

"My god," Jerry said, and there was a wobble in his voice. "You look just the same. I mean, I knew you did, I've seen you on TV, but . . . it's different in person." He looked to Jason, a question in his eyes.

"Hi," Jason said, giving him a little wave.

"This is my husband, Jason," Gideon said.

"Your husband?" A huge grin spread across Jerry's face, showing off the dimples that Gideon remembered. "You found someone, then."

"I did."

Jerry scrutinised Jason again. "Looks like you picked a good one. He's bloody gorgeous. But then you always did have good taste – I mean, look at me."

Jason laughed. "I'm going to get some coffee from the cafe. Do you need anything?"

Jerry shook his head.

Jason gave Gideon a quick kiss before he left, and Gideon realised that Jason wasn't going for coffee. Or at least, he wasn't only going for coffee. He'd come to support Gideon, but without anyone needing to say anything, he'd realised that Gideon now needed some time alone with Jerry.

"How long have you been married?" Jerry asked, watching Jason leave.

"Just a few months." Gideon moved closer to the bed, suddenly unsure of himself without Jason's reassuring presence.

"He'd better be making you happy."

"He is."

Jerry's eyes sharpened as they travelled over Gideon's face. "You used to have such sad eyes, but they're not sad anymore."

"How about you? Did you find anyone?" Gideon asked.

Jerry smiled, but there was something sad in his eyes. "There was this one guy, a long time ago. He ran into a burning building to save me. No one else measured up, after that."

He shifted in the bed, trying to sit up a little straighter, and winced.

"Are you alright?" Gideon said.

Jerry nodded, but his face was drawn tight with pain. "Did Harry tell you?"

"He said that you weren't well," Gideon said carefully.

Jerry sighed. "Fucking cancer. I only got diagnosed a few months ago, and . . ." Tears glittered in his eyes. "Will you sit with me?"

Gideon reached for the chair in the corner next to the bed, but Jerry shook his head. "No, I want you to sit with me." He patted the bed.

Carefully, Gideon climbed onto the bed next to him. There was barely room enough for them both.

"I never stopped thinking about you," Jerry admitted. He laced his fingers with Gideon's, brushing the edge of Gideon's wedding ring. "Even after all these years, no matter where I went or what I did or who I fell in love with, you were always at the back of my mind."

He looked down at their joined hands and sighed. "You always had such nice hands. And now look at mine."

Gideon couldn't help but look. Jerry had always had nice hands too, strong and tanned, and Gideon couldn't help remembering what they'd felt like touching him. But they were old hands now, withered and wrinkled and pale.

"Did you ever want to see me before? When you knew I was at Belle Morte?" Gideon asked.

"I thought about it, so many times," Jerry admitted. "But even if Belle Morte allowed visitors, I wouldn't have come."

"Why not?"

Jerry smiled sadly. "Because I got old, Gideon. I got old and you didn't."

"So if you weren't . . . ill, I really wouldn't ever have seen you again."

"I suppose not. But I'm not ill. I'm dying, and I don't need you to spare my feelings. I know I don't have much time." He looked down at their hands again. "I just had to see you again, once more."

A knot rose in Gideon's throat. Jerry wasn't Jason, could never be Jason, and anything that Gideon had ever felt for Jerry was a fraction of the love he had for his husband. But Jerry had been important to him once, and there was something very painful about seeing him like this, old and sick and at the end of his life – so different to the man that Gideon had known in the seventies, and yet unmistakeably the same man.

"Have you had a good life?" he asked Jerry.

Jerry didn't answer for a long moment, and Gideon's heart sank.

"There have been good times and bad times," Jerry said at last.

"What happened to everyone at the squat? Are you still in contact with any of them?" Gideon asked, thinking of everyone who had lived with Jerry back then, all the gay men who'd had nowhere else to go and had formed their own little family in an abandoned building in Brixton.

He heard the sudden shift in Jerry's heartbeat, the hitch in his breathing.

"Jerry?"

"Davey's still around. He lives in Australia now, with his partner." Jerry smiled. "They adopted a couple of kids. I haven't seen him in a long time, but we keep in touch on social media."

There was something in his voice, a note of raw, real grief.

"What about everyone else?" Gideon asked.

Jerry was quiet for the longest moment, and when Gideon looked at him again, tears were brimming in Jerry's eyes.

"They died, Gideon. They all died."

Gideon felt the words like a savage kick to the heart. "What . . . how . . ."

But even as he said it, he knew.

"Yeah," Jerry said, reading his expression. "AIDs came, and it just . . . it wiped us out."

Gideon closed his eyes. "I'm sorry."

"Hardly your fault."

"But if I'd stayed, maybe I could have –"

"What? You could have saved us?"

"No, but I could have . . . supported you somehow."

As a vampire, Gideon had never been at threat from the disease, but he'd watched as it ravaged the world, as the death toll of gay men rose and rose and rose, as too many people used that to reignite fear and hatred of the existence of gay people. He had withdrawn from the world, hiding from the wave of fear and hatred and suffering, and now he felt a sharp stab of guilt.

Jerry's friends, the people he'd always loved and protected, had died, and he'd been powerless to stop it, and even though Gideon couldn't have stopped it either, he couldn't bear the thought of Jerry suffering alone.

Jerry wiped away tears. "Let's talk about you. Have you had a good life?"

"It got better when I met Jason," Gideon said.

"Did you know that your whole face lights up whenever you say his name?"

Gideon smiled.

Jerry started to cough, his body shaking as he doubled over, and Gideon held him until it had passed. Jerry's shoulders felt so thin beneath his arm.

"Does it hurt? Is there anything I can do?" Gideon asked.

Jerry shook his head and leaned back against the pillow, Gideon's arm still around him. "I get tired very easily these days," he murmured.

"Do you want me to go?"

"No. Just sit with me."

They sat quietly for a while.

"I spent so many years thinking about you, wondering where you were and what you were doing, but I never thought I'd see you again. I definitely never thought you'd be here at the end," Jerry said.

Gideon desperately wanted to insist that this wasn't the end, but Jerry had already made it clear that he didn't want platitudes.

"I just had to see you again," Jerry murmured, looking down at their hands, still linked on the bedcovers. "I'm glad you came."

They talked a little longer, about the time they'd spent together in the seventies, about the happiness they had carved out of a world that seemed determined to hate them, and the happiness that they had found later on.

Gideon stayed until Jerry fell asleep on his shoulder, and he stayed until Jerry went further than sleep, quietly, peacefully slipping away.

Gideon found Jason sitting in the hospital's little cafe, nursing a mug of coffee. He looked up as Gideon sat beside him, and his expression dropped.

"He's gone, hasn't he?" he said.

Gideon could only nod.

Jason stood up and hugged him. "I'm so sorry," he said.

"Where's Harry?" Gideon asked, looking around.

"He's gone. He said that he'd already done his goodbyes with Jerry."

They sat down on the plastic hospital chairs, Jason holding tightly to both Gideon's hands.

"Are you okay?" Jason said.

"No."

Jason stroked the back of Gideon's hand with his thumb. "Did you love him?"

"I never really had a chance to. But he was a genuinely good person, and the world is a little darker now he's not in it anymore," Gideon replied.

"I'm glad you got to see him again."

Gideon stared around the cafe, the plastic tables and chairs occupied by people with exhausted faces and teary eyes. He thought of the man who'd just died, the man who'd loved him all these years, even though they hadn't seen each other in so long, the man that Gideon had never had a chance to find out if he loved. Then he looked at the man that he did love, his husband, who stood at the absolute centre of his universe.

He kissed Jason's knuckles.

"I think I'd like to go home now," he said.

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