Disclaimer: Alliance's toys, not mine, though I play with them more often than they do these days.<g> No copyright infringement intended, no money being made, just having a little fun.

Thank you to Maria for the once over, again, and for her support. (You're the best thing that ever happened to my ego!)

Contains spoilers for (and some direct dialogue stolen from) the episode "Strange Bedfellows", and some very minor spoilers for "Burning Down the House"

Feedback is worshipped, and can be sent to bluecast@yahoo.com

This is a sequel to Shadow Dancer.

Rating: About a PG, if only for slashy overtones

Close
by Tara Blue

The wind, while nothing compared to the icy ones of the Northwest Territories, still had a definite bite. It brushed against Fraser's slowly reddening cheeks, but the man easily ignored the chill. He'd had practice at ignoring cold. The secret was to focus on something else. Fraser was focusing on a window. A window on the uppermost floor of a building.

Ray's building.

Ray's window.

A single lamp was on, the curtains open. Every once and a while, the wiry blond detective would move into Fraser's line of sight as he paced around the apartment. It didn't happen often, due to the minimal area visible through the windows, though Fraser's location - crouched on the fire escape of the building opposite - meant it was more than he would have other wise seen.

His knees were beginning to ache from being forced into a crouching position for so long and the wind seemed to be getting colder as the night wore on, and Fraser began to consider moving. He pondered heading to the roof level, so that, in the very least, he'd have a more stable platform beneath his feet than the ominously creaking metal structure. The idea had merit, but he soon discarded it, instead leaning further back into the shadows. For once eschewing the bright, bright red uniform he practically lived in, the Mountie had opted for dark blue jeans, a dark sweater, and his leather jacket. Aside from the pale blurs of face and hands, he was practically invisible, concealed by the darkness. An ideal stake out position.

If he moved, Ray might very well see him. Fraser very much didn't want that to happen. Back at Stella's apartment complex, the other man had been very clear about his desire to be alone for a while. And Fraser had wanted to respect that desire, to leave Ray in peace. But...

But he'd been worried.

There had been something ... something almost indefinably wrong with the blonde's demeanour or the way he talked that had started his partner worrying. Obsessively, as Fraser often worried. That bewildering something wrong had been tugging at Fraser all evening, pulling his thoughts time and again back to Ray, and he wasn't even sure he could pinpoint exactly what had been so wrong. Maybe it could be traced back to the hallway, right before they'd parted...

Fraser leaned against the wall of the hallway, just far enough from the embracing pair to preserve their privacy. Stella was leaning into Ray's lean frame, arms loosely wrapped around his shoulders. Ray was leaning back, arms wrapped loosely around her waist. With his ears still ringing from the explosion, the Mountie couldn't make out more than the odd word strung together by faint murmurs. Not that he was actively trying to listen in, mind you. That would be rude.

He firmly clamped down on the urge to strain his ears, to try to catch a hint of their conversation. *Stop that* he chastised himself, face held carefully blank. *It's rude.*

Instead of looking at the detective and his ex-wife, Fraser focused on the sight of Dwayne being led away in cuffs. The man, wallowing in self pity, was watching his feet forlornly while two police officers guided him by his elbows. The little entourage passed, and Fraser absently glanced back to the other end of the hallway in time to see Stella reach up and kiss Ray on the cheek before turning and going into her apartment.

Ray watched as the door closed behind her before turning himself and walking down the hall to join Fraser. There was something about the way he held himself. Something in the set of his shoulders. Possibly even in tense lines around his mouth. Something sad and tired and defeated. It was as though the entire, stressful episode had finally beaten Ray into the ground so brutally that it was unlikely he'd be able to pull himself up. Even the air of static, popping energy that perpetually surrounded him was subdued, a sight Fraser never thought he'd see.

Fraser stood, unmoving, as the other man drew up next to him. Propping his hand against the wall next to the dark head, Ray leaned in until his blond spikes were nearly brushing Fraser's forehead. Fraser had to take a deep breath to suppress the rush of heat that spread through his body at his partner's proximity and turn his attention to what the man was saying.

"Maybe I should go home." The fatigue, mental and physical both, that Ray felt was apparent in the heaviness of the statement.

Knowing it was probably the wrong thing to say, knowing he probably didn't want to hear the answer, Fraser asked anyway. "Stella will be alright?"

The planes of Ray's face pulled taut momentarily, and Fraser began to silently berate himself for ignoring the voice of common sense that told him bringing up Stella would only serve to hurt the other man.

"Nah, she'll be just fine by herself." He straightened, and Fraser again had to suppress his feelings, this time an acute sense of loss at the physical withdrawal.

That something was still there, there in the way Ray was carrying himself, in the set of his shoulders, in the lines around his mouth. It hurt Fraser to see his partner in such obvious pain, and he deeply regretted that his unthinking question might have contributed to that pain. He rabidly searched his mind for something that would help, that would take Ray's mind off of his ex-wife.

And all he could come up with was "Want to go get something to eat?"

*Oh, yes, Ben, that's a great help,* Fraser silently railed. *'Want to go get something to eat?' Ray is obviously in great emotional pain and the best you could do was 'want to go get something to eat?'*

Seemingly oblivious to Fraser's self aimed disgust, Ray quietly answered "Nah, Fraser, I think I'd like to be alone."

Alone.

And Ray thought he was alone, secure in the privacy of his apartment. He didn't know that his crazy Canadian partner was currently occupied with sneaking about and spying on him.

But Fraser had been worried. And it wasn't as though he was actually attempting to barge in on Ray's solitude, he rationalised. He was just checking up on his partner. Besides, after the incident involving his psyche profile and being caught in the closet - *or is that Dad's office now?* - by Inspector Thatcher, Fraser had rather welcomed the chance to leave the consulate for a while.

So, there he was, huddled on a precarious fire escape, straining to look through the windows of his partner's apartment. *Peeping tom* the scratchy voice of his grandmother accused him from the back of his head. He ignored her. Listening to one ghostly relative already got him in enough trouble.

It had been a while since Ray's last pass by the window. Fraser was beginning to think he'd gone to bed, even though the lamp in the living room was still on, and the one in the bedroom had remained off. Then, suddenly, Ray was back.

And he appeared to be dancing. One sleekly muscled arm was up and cocked, as though holding the hand of a partner. One lean, graceful hand rested against his own stomach, long fingers spread as though cradling the small of a partner's back. Smooth, gliding steps moved Ray out of Fraser's sight, but in moments he returned to the area in front of the window.

The play of light and shadow over the detective's head showed his eyes to be closed. He had the look of someone focusing so far inward as to be oblivious to their surroundings. Yet on he danced. Rocking towards the window, and away, and towards it again.

*He almost looks close enough to touch*, Fraser mused, resisting the urge to reach out a hand and try. *So close...*

Close.

Ray was always close, always touching. Right from the beginning.

Something Fraser had noticed upon moving to Chicago was how ... close everyone was. So many people cramped into one little space. Everyone crowding in, living too close, standing too close, just being too close to each other. Fraser knew that the average American's idea of personal space was less than the average Canadians. There had been various studies done to prove that by a number of sociologists. Canadians simply needed more space between them and other people to be comfortable than Americans did. And Fraser needed more space than most.

Fraser knew all these facts, but it wasn't any help when people started to hem him in. When they started getting too near to be ignored. Telling himself that it was an interesting social phenomena didn't make him any more comfortable when people crowded their way into his bubble.

With Ray, though, he had never felt trapped. The blond man was always near, always touching him. Leaning in to share a revelation about a case. Placing a hand on the back of his shoulder to subtly urge him along. Walking down a hallway so close their shoulders brushed. He got closer to Fraser than anyone else, yet Fraser found himself welcoming the proximity rather than despising it as he did with others.

Still watching the lean, blond man dance along in the building opposite, Fraser was overwhelmed by the memory of the first time he and "Ray Vecchio" had met. The moment when the man he'd believed to be his partner had turned in response to his call.

A stray beam of light filtering through the dusty windows of the bullpen brushed the fine spikes of hair and dusting of stubble, turning both a burnished gold. His fine boned face was a study of planes and angles, and went well with the lanky body which seemed to be all planes and angles, too. Absurdly pink lips, kept from being feminine by their narrow lines, stretched over teeth in a smile - no, in a grin.

Those lips were moving, forming a word. His name. "Fraser!"

It wasn't until then that Fraser realised this lean, golden creature was answering to Fraser's "Ray!". The shock wiped his normally quick mind blank, but by then it didn't matter. Those long arms had reached out and pulled Fraser into a brisk hug.

The shock of impact between their two bodies jolted the Mountie's mind into motion. He began analysing each aspect of the man with clinical precision, but little actual though, his thought processes still a little slowed with shock and confusion. Each way that this man, who seemed to claim to be Ray Vecchio, was different than the man Fraser knew to be Ray Vecchio.

The man's spikes of dark gold hair rubbed at his cheek, slightly crunchy with gel or hairspray or something. Fraser could smell a faintly sweet scent from what ever hair product was being used to create the bristly effect.

Ray's hair was not gold touched, or spiky, or even that thick on the top.

The hug abruptly ended and the man stepped back, allowing Fraser to see more of him.

Translucent blue eyes, not the appropriate soft green ones. A face that was all angles highlighted by cheekbones sharp enough to cut, lacking the gentle rounding in the cheeks produced by a life time of Ma Vecchio's cooking. And the nose. To be blunt, Ray's nose was, well, more prominent than this man's.

Who ever this person was, he was not Ray Vecchio. But who exactly was he then? And why had Fraser felt a brush of loss as the one sided hug ended?

Back on the fire escape, Fraser smiled a little sadly. That first hug, an unexpected touch after a long stretch of physical isolation, had been all it had taken to send him tumbling head over heels in love with the man whose name he hadn't even know.

Yes. Love. Not as a partner, not as a brother, not even so much as a friend, although that was part of it. The kind of love one felt for someone they wanted to spend the rest of their life with.

In love with a man who still pined for his ex-wife.

It hurt.

Catching a movement in the apartment across the way, Fraser abandoned his unhappy thoughts and focused outwards again. Ray had quit dancing and moved to stand in the window. He seemed to be searching for something, or someone, on the street below. To Fraser it seemed that the defeated slump of the other man's shoulders was even more pronounced than it had been when they'd parted company last, his unhappiness almost palpable, even viewed from across the street and through a window.

Fraser froze, tucking his hands out of sight beneath him and ducking his head to eliminate the give away pale blur of skin above dark clothes. *Don't see me, don't see me, don't see me, oh dear, what was I thinking, spying on Ray like this, please don't see me . . .* The tense moment, wracked with fear of discovery, stretched and stretched until it became unbearable, and Fraser risked a glance up.

What he saw broke his heart in ways he hadn't realised it could be broken.

Ray was crying. Not silent, stoic tears, but great heaving sobs that seemed to be being ripped from his chest against his will. Even without the benefit of being able to hear them, Fraser could tell that the agonising sound of them was filling Ray's apartment. The lean hands that the Mountie so loved to watch as they flitted and fidgeted, never ever still, were pressed palm down and fingers splayed against the glass. Ray seemed to be leaning all of his weight against those two hands that appeared ghostly pale to Fraser, on the opposite side of the window. His entire lean frame was shuddering with the violence of the man's sobs, from his shoulders to his waist, which was as far as Fraser could see before the window sill cut him off.

Ray mourned as he did everything else in life, loudly and boisterously and with everything in him.

Mourning for the loss of the woman he loved, Fraser assumed. He ached for the detective, and for himself, and for the futility of the love each had for another.

Suddenly, it was more than Fraser could endure. Although he longed to comfort the other man, he couldn't, and he could no longer stand to stay and helplessly witness his grief either. It was time for him to escape back to the relative safety of consulate, where he would face another sleepless night filled with thoughts of Ray.

He stood abruptly, ignoring the shriek of protest his thighs and calves sent to his brain at their sudden unfolding. Turning to make his way down the creaking stairs of the fire escape, Fraser looked back one last time at the apartment opposite.

And met Ray's eyes.

Two pairs of blue eyes widened, one set, tear stained and blood shot, in shocked discovery, the other, dry from long moments of staring when their owner forgot to blink, in mortified fear.

Ray had seen him. Fraser froze and resisted the urge to sink back into the shadows. It was too late. Ray had seen him. Seen him begin to climb down from his perch directly across from the apartment windows. Too late to go back to the consulate, to hide, to pretend he'd never been there. He'd been seen. By Ray. Ray had seen him.

It would only be a few moments until that beautiful, quirky brain shook off the effects of surprise and figured out exactly what Fraser had been doing. That he'd been spying on his partner, on his friend, through the window like some sort of voyeuristic pervert out for a cheep thrill.

Fraser made the most of that time.

He ran.