Awww! See, I know you so well now that I've learned that an "oh my" from you is always good. ;)

I'm so glad that the second part moved you so much. I was worried about writing that scene because it's such delicate subject matter and I wanted the sex to be conveyed in the right way -- you know, pure and loving and comforting instead of lustful. Yeah, it's good that Stephen didn't want to use sex as another way to harm himself; I'm sure a lot of people have done that, but he's not the type. For him to do so would be to taint what he has with Jon, since the sexual intimacy that they have is supposed to be a completely positive force in their lives. Plus it wouldn't be fair to Jon, who loves him and would never want to hurt him.

I'm glad you liked Jon's tenderness; I really wanted that to come through. And thank you as well for what you said about the last two paragraphs. As I said to others, it took me a long time to write that! I view the endings to stories as being very, very important and I knew I couldn't post this fic until the ending was right.

Thank you, babe. :)