Rating: PG. There's nothing to rate here. Move along.

Warnings: I'm a sucker for RayK. 3rd season rulez!

Notes: This baby has been sitting on my hard drive since November '98 and was actually one of the first ideas that jumped me in this fandom. And now that I finally got it out of my system, I had to put my Fraser muse on anti-depressants... ;)

Thanks and a hug to Marion, for pummeling it into something containing a certain amount of shape and sense. You're the best. :)

This won't make much sense if you haven't seen the 3rd season episode 'Strange Bedfellows' yet, since it is set shortly after it and sorta continues the (emotional) plot -- another one of those missing scenes I can't fight off sometimes.

Disclaimer: Not mine. Just played with them. Put 'em back unharmed.

Last Dance

by Sammy

His head jerked up at the sound of the door opening, and with a start Fraser realized that he was sitting in a dark apartment -- Ray Kowalski's apartment. His grip tightened around the armrest of the stuffed chair he had chosen, and for the tiniest of moments Fraser felt disoriented. He knew exactly what time it was, but he hadn't really *noticed* it passing, hadn't even turned on the light when the sun had begun to set.

His partner didn't bother either.

He watched Ray close the door behind himself, watched him throw his keys on the counter and take off his jacket, dark leather gliding slowly over bare arms and making the hair on Fraser's own stand on edge all of a sudden.

He must have made a sound at that because Ray turned his head and stared right at him then, sitting in the far corner of the room, in the dark shadows of Ray's own apartment. Watching him.

"How long've you been sitting there?" Ray finally asked calmly, as if it weren't all that strange that his Mountie partner was waiting up for him. Fraser shrugged out of his rigid posture, neck cracking uncomfortably, leaning forward until he could rest his elbows on his knees.

"A few hours." he answered, his eyes not quite meeting Ray's.

//Seven hours and forty-two minutes.//

A few hours that he had spent with not thinking. Not wondering. Not getting up to check his partner's closet and desk drawers. Check for his shield, and gun, and wallet, and gun again. Not asking himself.

"Why?" Quiet voice, simple question. The answer, though...

"You didn't show up for work, and people..." A soft snort from his partner interrupted him, and for a moment Fraser lost his track and stopped evading. "*I* was concerned."

The muscles in his jaw clenched painfully, but he managed to raise his head and look at his partner. Ray had turned his head at Fraser's words to stare out the window, the flickering neon lights from outside painting a mask of bright lines across his face as he took a step forward, dropping his jacket on the couch.

And he watched Ray, watched him move through the room quietly, watched him sit down, not on the couch, but on the edge of the low table in the middle of the room instead, and although it made him face the window and brought him so close to where Fraser was sitting, he didn't look at the Canadian, didn't turn his head to meet his eyes, to tell him that there was no need to be concerned. Just sat there, nodding once, twice, then staring out the window again.

The silence grew thick between them, curling around them heavily like something you didn't want to disturb, but then, suddenly, Ray took a deep breath and lowered his head, running both hands through his thick hair until they came to rest at the back of his neck. "Why is it so damn hard to let go of her?"

Fraser, still leaning forward were he sat, turned his head to look at Ray, then glanced down again to where their knees almost touched, and it took a lot to not just reach out and touch him.

//Did you ever have a partner who needed your help, but you didn't know how to help him?//

He thought of the picture he had seen, lying face-down on Ray's desk, the one of a smiling young Stella and a younger Ray, how he had picked it up, his thumb tracing the side of the frame, barely touching Ray's image, and he wanted to answer his partner almost desperately, wanted to tell him he understood. But Fraser's throat tightened around the words, and before he could fight the wave of emotion down, he heard Ray's voice again.

"I mean, I know we're divorced." the cop muttered while his hand rubbed his neck in hard circles. "And I know she's my ex-wife, and my brain *knows* I should forget her and look forward and all such crap. But I just can't do that, y'know." He looked up then, shaking his head, opening his mouth to say something - then falling silent for a long while. Finally he shrugged in a strange way, and his mouth tightened minutely before he spoke again. "She's been gone for such a long time now, Fraser, but it still feels like she's just away for the weekend, on a camping trip or something like that. And all I can think of now is that I want her to get back from that fuckin' trip and back into my life so it will all be all right again, and I still don't have the foggiest why, dammit."

"Because then it would still be your life. Not some other man's." The words were out of Fraser's mouth too quick, startling him, too, and when he turned his head, he found Ray staring at him with his eyes narrowing.

"No." the cop finally answered, shaking his head. "No, that's..." Another pause, longer this time, blue eyes closing. Thinking. Then, finally, voice low and hushed and sounding lost in thought: "It's just that... she's been a part of me for so damn long. Years. Do you know what that feels like?"

//No, of course you don't. You're a Mountie, what would a Mountie know about women?//

The words Ray Vecchio had muttered such a long time ago echoed in Fraser's mind, and to his surprise they still cut as deep as the first time he had heard them. He'd wanted to tell him back then that he *knew*, not much, but enough, enough to understand - to feel.

Then he started as he suddenly realized that Ray, *this* Ray, was waiting for him to answer, and his throat tightened again, trapping the carefully rehearsed words he had chosen back then, cautious enough to speak them only to a sleeping man. And this time the words came indeed easy - too easy, and too painful.

"Yes." he murmured, and that one word tasted like tears. "And after eleven years it still tears my heart out."

He felt the weight of Ray's gaze on him then, and Fraser took a slow breath, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't help but look up, couldn't help but meet the blue, blue eyes that watched him intently.

"You want to talk about that?" Ray finally asked quietly.

The words made something spark between them, something that went straight through him, and roamed under his skin, and messed him up, and when Fraser finally tore his eyes away from Ray's face, he felt like he had been shattered and put back together again in a completely new pattern. And he found himself shaking his head because this would not be the kind of talking he usually did, some anecdote or a story told at the right moment to nudge someone's mind into making the right decision.

Because this would not be about decisions, it would be about emotion, raw, and deep, and consuming, and Benton Fraser had always, always felt lost whenever it had come to this subject because this was nothing you could learn out of books.

"No." he wanted to say, but the word refused to leave his parted lips, and so he just shook his head again, pressing his eyes shut until he heard Ray move, heard him rub his eyes softly.

"I need a coffee."

"It's pretty late, Ray."

He got a low laugh in return that sounded as exhausted as his partner looked. "Fraser, I haven't slept for two days. One coffee's not gonna make a whole lot of difference."

"Right you are." Fraser sighed, reaching out to touch Ray then, patting his partner's thigh briefly... fleeting touch, *safe* touch. He got up and out of the chair before he allowed himself to linger.

He didn't need the lights to find his way around Ray's kitchen, and for a while he busied his traitor hands with making coffee because Ray did indeed look rather like he needed to wake up than to get drunk.

When he returned to the living room, Ray had settled down on the couch, one foot drawn up to rest against the table, head fallen back, eyes closed. He stirred when Fraser sat down beside him, taking one of the steaming mugs he was offered, though not drinking for a while, just turning it slowly in his hands, staring into the dark liquid as if the answers he was looking for were to be found in there.

"It sucks." he sighed, leaning forward and running a hand through his rebellious hair again, the other still clinging to the mug.

"What? The coffee?"

And Ray couldn't help himself, he had to smile at the incredulous surprise in those words, even though he knew that Fraser had deliberately misunderstood him. "No, Fraser, the coffee's..." He paused, breathing deep, looking for words, looking for what he actually meant. "The coffee's fine." he sighed, running a hand across his eyes.

There was more, of course, but the words wouldn't come, and eventually Fraser found himself opening his mouth. His voice was slow, careful, sounding slightly lost in thought, like he always did when he was searching for the right thing to get someone back on track. "You're a good man, Ray, and a fine police officer."

"I know that, Fraser. And guess what -- that's the thing that hurts the most." He stared down at the mug in his slender hands again, his thumbnail scratching at some imaginary crack absentmindedly. "To know that the best you can do will still never be enough."

And God, yes, Benton Fraser understood that.

Just like that, his right hand moved again, coming to rest on his friend's shoulder, giving a gentle squeeze before moving down Ray's back, slow stroke, deliberate stroke.

//I'm here.//

He felt Ray heave beneath his hand, draw a shuddering breath as he raised the still steaming mug to his mouth. One sip, then another, then a quick shake as the first rush of caffeine kicked in.

And finally, Ray turned his head and gave Fraser a long glance, one he didn't know how to return because Ray's face lay hidden in the darkness, and his own had to be way too open in the blinking neon lights. So he drew his hand away with a last pat on his friend's back and took a sip of his own coffee.

And when he met Ray's eyes the next time, the blond man nodded, a quick tilt of the head. "You ever dance, Fraser?"

"Sometimes."

"Huh." Ray hummed, a low, thoughtful sound deep in his throat. Then he glanced at Fraser again. "You want to? Now, I mean?"

"With you?"

"Yeah."

Fraser took a deep breath, then shook his head slowly. "No, Ray."

"No?"

"No." he confirmed, his mouth curving into a slight smile. "Friendship and dancing don't mix well."

Ray laughed at that, a rough bark of sudden amusement. "So. You won't lend me money, and you won't dance with me. Any other limitations to our friendship I should know about?"

Fraser blinked, meeting his friend's eyes. "Not that I'm aware of." he replied, a quick shiver running down his back because there was so much more to that simple question than the actual words.

"Good."

And if it had been some sort of test, Fraser felt like he had passed it, because suddenly there was that spark again, that flare of something he couldn't quite grasp yet, something that made his skin itch and his heart beat just a touch faster.

"Good." Ray repeated then, raising his mug to touch it against Fraser's as if to toast him. And Fraser completed the movement, the soft clink of mug against mug coaxing a smile out of him.

//Welcome back then, partner.//

- the end -

by Sammy <sammy@home.ins.de>

Read my other stuff at Little Sammy's House Of Fun