Title: Best Kept Secret

Author: Thesseli

Fandom: I Dream of Jeannie

Pairing: Tony/Roger

Rating: PG

Summary: Sequel to "She Just Wouldn’t Understand"

Archive: yes

Disclaimer: I don’t own Major Nelson, Major Healey, or Jeannie.

No money is being made, and no NASA personnel were harmed in the writing of this fanfic.

Best Kept Secret
by Thesseli

Major Anthony Nelson gazed down affectionately at his sleeping lover.

The night before, Tony had made sure to put the stopper in Jeannie’s bottle -- a discreet and rather desperate attempt to keep one secret from another, he knew, but it wouldn’t do for her to blink in at an inopportune moment. He knew that Jeannie wouldn’t understand about Roger and him; in truth, there were times even he didn’t.

It wasn’t as if he didn’t know what had initially drawn him to Roger Healey. That was something he was quite clear on. It was his good humor, his easy self-acceptance, his lack of self-consciousness. This, from the beginning of their work together in the astronaut program, had been the basis of their friendship.

He wasn’t sure exactly how or when it had turned into something deeper.

In the past, keeping their relationship a secret had never been much of a problem. No-one ever questioned why he and Roger spent so much time together. They worked together, they went on missions together. They were traditional comrades-in-arms. This, plus Roger’s carefully-cultivated image of skirt chaser, had always been the best way to throw others off the trail. Nobody would wonder why Major Healey never got serious with any one girl, if he was always on the lookout for another. And Major Nelson himself was the upright, stalwart ‘family man’ type, turned off by the groupies and free-love hippie chicks who were constantly throwing themselves at him… attracted by his celebrity but not to his real self. Even Jeannie -- to her he was the hero, her rescuer, someone larger than life. He was very fond of her, but she had certainly complicated his life, in more ways than she could possibly know. And not just because of the magic!

Keeping the secret from everyone had been easy…at least until Jeannie. Jeannie added a whole new level of difficulty. But Tony had decided long ago that it was worth it.

Tony gazed down at his sleeping lover, stroking his hair gently. If he kept this up, he would soon be rewarded by Roger’s sleepy smile and opened eyes -- the bluest eyes he’d ever seen, on the
best-kept secret of his life.

END