There was something about the New York winter that just wasn’t like the winters back home—it was colder, and sharper, and somehow got under his skin, right down to the bone. It also had him all off balance, because right now, in New Zealand, it was actually summer. It felt to him like it had been winter all year long, since he had left at the end of it in New Zealand.

From winter to winter…and now back again, even though spring was right around the corner here. The new winter that was coming on was not without, but within.

Nick stared out the window, high above the city streets, a landscape of jagged buildings thrusting up into the bleak, cloudy night, their lit windows glittering in the darkness. It was grand, sprawling, magnificent…and utterly lonely.

Behind him, the light on his answering machine was blinking furiously, as it had been since yesterday when he decided to turn it on, and he knew he had at least a hundred unanswered voice mails on his cell phone. Some of them were probably from his agent and his mother, but he didn’t want to wade through the others to get to them. If he had to hear one more oh Nick I’m so sorry, he was going to scream.

Why should anyone be sorry, after all? There was nothing to be sorry about, when something was simply not meant to be.

He turned away from the window, the ice cubes in his glass clinking together, making a sharp sound in the silence. It seemed he’d been drinking a lot lately, though he didn’t remember doing it or feeling it. As he looked into the dark, still void of his apartment—an apartment he had not paid for and it had been promised to him he would continue not paying for—ghosts and memories whispered to him. Out of the darkness they curled like wisps of cigarette smoke, voices echoing in his mind. Even though it was only three days ago, it seemed like years…

He could still see Ian sitting on the couch, his face haggard and looking decidedly old—he was old, but that night he had seemed far beyond his years. Nick could tell just from the look in his eyes that he had been doing a lot of thinking. They both had. And now, the inevitable was coming, like a huge tidal wave bearing down upon them, with nowhere to run and no way to hold it back.

"I think…we need some space…" Ian’s words had been halting, gruff and soft. "This isn’t working like we thought it would…"

Nick had known those words were coming for some time, but they were still like a knife cutting into him. He had just nodded—dumbly and without a fight. Perhaps he had been too startled, or too convinced himself that it was the right thing to do, that it was for the best. Somehow all his thoughts leading up to that moment were about how Ian was never around and how they were always kissing goodbye, and every one since then was about how much he loved him and all those emotion-soaked welcome home kisses they had shared. Somehow hindsight blocked out the bad memories.

"I’ve called for a cab…" Ian kept touching his forehead, as though he was trying to figure something out, something that pained him greatly. "I want you to know I’ll keep paying for the flat…and for your schooling…I promised you that at the outset, and I won’t take it back."

Nick had found it impossible to speak. Looking back, a million times he wished he had said something, anything. That he had pleaded and begged, or even suggested something…but nothing came from his mouth, not even when Ian gave him one last long, hard kiss. Then he was gone, sweeping out of his life the same way he swept into it, with a quiet, refined sort of melodrama.

It had been raining that night—a cold, steady drizzle that collected on the glass of the living room window, rolling down it in meandering trails that warped and skewed the lights of the buildings outside. Nick sat in front of it for a long time, just staring out at the night, wondering if his life was over or it had just begun. He was wearing finer clothes than he had ever worn in his life, sitting in an apartment finer than any he had ever lived in, drinking brandy with a name he couldn’t even pronounce…and yet there was nothing, nothing in the world anymore for him, it seemed. His tears fell like the rain, and they were just as cold.

Staring into the darkness of the living room, he imagined he still saw Ian sitting there on the couch, and in his head, he said all the things he hadn’t said that night. Theories about how it might work out, reassurances that their age difference didn’t matter to him, promises that he would wait for Ian no matter how long it took. He wanted to call him, but he didn’t think that would be appropriate, somehow.

Sighing, he went over and sat down heavily on the couch, right next to the spot where Ian had sat. He almost thought he could feel his arm on the back of the couch, behind his shoulders.

He looked down at himself—he hadn’t changed clothes in three days. Hadn’t gone out of the apartment, for that matter. The empty beer bottles, whisky bottles, take-out cartons, and pizza boxes piled on the counter and the coffee table were testament to that. It was amazing how many things one could have delivered in New York City. Not that half of it was even eaten. He didn’t feel much like eating, though somehow he kept just automatically calling random numbers in the phone book and having things sent over. The bottles, however, were practically all empty.

Sitting there, with his glass still in one hand, resting idly between his knees, he drew another heavy sigh, and looked over at his answering machine. The red light blinked angrily in the darkness, admonishing him. Finally, with a grimace, he reached over and hit the button.

As expected, there was a seemingly endless deluge of terror from his mother—why wasn’t he answering the phone? Where was he? Had something happened? Was he lying dead in a gutter somewhere? Thankfully, there had been no police at his doorstep yet, so she hadn’t actually started calling the morgues.

Interspersed were the expected phone calls from his agent, at first worried and questioning, then angry and threatening. Did he realize he’d missed a very important gallery opening? Why wasn’t he in class yesterday? Was he serious about his career, or was he going to throw it, and his life away?

There were also a few calls from worried friends, and even one from Elijah—

"Oh Nick…I heard from Dom who heard from Billy who heard from Liv who saw Ian the other day that you guys broke up! I’m so, so sorry…if you need someone to talk to, you know my number! I gotta go man, the director wants me on the set! Call me!"

Nick smirked for the first time in days, and took a long drink from his glass.

There was just shy of forty messages, and it was only shy because the tape ran out. There were 112 on his voice mail, and he went to this next, skipping over every one that began with "Nick, this is your mother!" or "Nick, this is your goddamn agent calling again…" He stood up and wandered in to the bedroom as he listened. There was one from Dom, who of course had heard from Billy who heard from Liv…

While he listened, rolling his eyes and sighing at various points, he found himself moving seemingly outside his own will, doing something that he wasn’t sure what it was until he began. For some reason, he had drug a duffel bag out of the closet and was tossing clothes into it. Not the ones Ian had bought for him, but the clothes he came there with from New Zealand—barely enough to fill a duffel bag, and not quite as nice as the ones he had on now—even if they were badly in need of laundering.

He had been thinking a lot about home tonight—agents and school and careers be damned. Maybe that’s where he was going with his duffel bag—though at the moment he wasn’t even sure. He just felt the need to pack it.

When he got to the ninetieth message, he decided he’d had enough. He was just about to erase the rest of them without listening when a different voice stopped him, making him pause in his packing.

"Nick…I…I don’t know why I’m leaving this message. I don’t even know why I called this number…force of habit, I suppose…"

He stood up straight, listening.

"I just…I think I might have left a bit abruptly the other night…so very foolish of me…"

Nick’s heart leapt, but he forced it back down, swallowing hard.

"The truth is, I…I thought this was going to be a simple matter. A closed book, and I’m done with it. But when I got to England, I wasn’t so sure anymore, you see…"

Nick gave a harsh, watery laugh, and brought his trembling hand to his mouth, fingertips pressed against his lips.

"I’m rambling…and I can’t talk properly to you like this…I’ll call you soon, I promise…" It clicked off.

Drawing a shuddering breath, he went through the rest of the messages, hoping—growling as he heard his mother’s voice again, and another friend. One hundred, one hundred and one…he reached the last one and held his breath, listening.

"Nick! This is your sister! Mom wanted me to call you…"

With a snarl, he flung the phone across the bed. It landed with a thunk against the headboard.

Storming back out to the living room, he searched through the mess of bottles and cartons, and found a half-full bottle of whisky. Grabbing his glass, he started to pour it, when the phone rang.

He looked up, glaring for a moment at it, and at the answering machine, realizing he’d turned it off after he’d checked the messages. Sitting the bottle down hard on the coffee table, he went over and snatched the receiver up.

"Mother, if this is you, I’m not fucking dead!"

There was a bit of a snorting laugh on the other end. "Well, seeing as how you’re speaking to me, I didn’t think you were…but I’ve never been called ‘mother’ before. ‘Madame,’ but never mother."

Nick blinked, freezing, then slowly he sat down on the couch, his voice caught in his throat. Once again, he couldn’t speak.

"Did you get my message?"

Nick just sat there for a long moment, trying to find his voice, finally clearing his throat and saying softly, "Yes…just now."

"Just now? My, you have been depressed, haven’t you?"

Nick gave a harsh, bitter laugh. "Like you wouldn’t fucking believe…you’re lucky I am alive…"

"Oh, come now…no need to be so dramatic. I’m not really worth dying for, now am I?"

Nick fell silent again, blinking tears out of his eyes, then saying softly, his voice choked, "Yes…you old cantankerous bastard, you are."

Ian was silent for a while too. When he spoke again, his voice was hushed and strained.

"I’ve always been a terrible judge of situations…perhaps I’ve made a mistake…"

"Perhaps you have…" Nick wiped the tears from his eyes with a trembling hand. "How dare you make this decision for the both of us."

"For the good of us, I made it!"

"For the good of us!" Nick gave another harsh laugh. "Do you feel good right now?"

Ian was quiet again, then softly, "No. No I don’t."

"Neither do I…"

They were silent for a while, just listening to each other’s breathing. It was a familiar situation, since more and more they had been spending so much time apart. But just knowing he was there, on the other end, thinking about him and speaking to him, was enough for Nick and always had been. Getting that through Ian’s thick head, however, was quite the chore.

"Ian…"

"No…don’t say anything else." Nick’s heart sank, fearing he was going to say goodbye. "I was wondering…if I wired you the money…"

Nick finished his sentence in a rush. "…if I could fly out tonight and be with you by morning?"

Ian chuckled softly. "I just can’t get rid of you, can I?"

"No…not on your life." Nick got to his feet, tears falling freely now, but not tears of sadness. "Although I may kill you when I see you…"

"Yes, you may. And I’d deserve it."

Nick laughed softly, and wiped at his cheeks. "All right…call me back when you’ve sent it, I gotta get packed here…"

"All right…but don’t take too long. If you hurry, you can get the flight that’s leaving in two hours…"

Nick smirked, shaking his head. It was funny, and yet…terribly romantic. To know that Ian was one step ahead of him, and that he couldn’t have said no if he wanted to.

"I’ll talk to you soon, my reason for living, and for being very, very pissed off…" Nick headed toward the bedroom again.

"I love you too, shnookums."

Nick shook his head and turned the phone off, tossing it onto the bed. He went to grab his suitcase from the closet, but then stopped, looking at the duffel bag on the bed, wiping a few more tears from his eyes. Then a slow smile spread across his face, a smile of wonder and awe.

So that’s why he had been packing it.