Author's Website: http://www.geocities.com/caffre_19/South.html

Disclaimer: The guys don't belong to me. Wish they did, but they don't. *sigh*

Author's Notes: You really need to read the first story, Sword of Damocles for this one to make any sense.

Story Notes: Bit of angst, nothing to traumatic though. Brief mention of Good for the Soul and Call of the Wild

I may not be many things. I know I'm not exceptionally smart, but hell, I can hold my own with most people if they let me. I know I'm not the most sensitive guy on the block, but if I look, I can see if someone's hurting. I'm also not someone who walks away from a friend when they're going through some hard times.

Another thing I'm not is stupid.

Oh, I heard the phone ring, heard Fraser say he'd get it 'cause I needed my rest, and that was nice, 'cause you know, I'd had a hard day, plus a hard Fraser is something that needs a lot of time to work with, you know what I'm saying here? Yeah, well, once the thought came into my head that well, he's up, I'm up and little Kowalski was getting up with a single look at his retreating ass, I was more than ready.

Then I hear him say it. Say her name. And my heart just stops.

Fraser says that I've lit a fire in him, warmed him up from the soul out, and you know, I love him for saying it. But how can I look at him and not think of the cold. Everything I love about Fraser is ice-white despite the red and I don't mean he ain't passionate. Fuck me; our first night together in the sack was something I'll never forget. The way he went down on me and sucked me off, a look on his face like the one out in the middle of the snowy wastes of Canada when we jumped out of the plane. Wonder, amazement and a real sense of belonging, of coming home. Then I seen that same damn look wrapped round my dick, I couldn't believe what I was looking at, and I came harder than I woulda thought possible.

Trouble being, when someone looks at you like that, you start to believe it, depend on it just like that first coffee in the morning, it becomes part of the dynamic of who and what makes you what you are. And a Ray Kowalski that has a Benton Fraser loving him is the best damn Ray I've ever met.

I can hear him. Oh Christ he's going to help her. I can hear it. Sure the words are a big enough clue, but the tone of his voice is telling me more. All kinda defeated. Some damn tone he had when he said he was going to walk home after Warfield's thugs had worked him over.

It goes quiet out there, and I'm sick and lying still wondering if he's just going to sneak out of the house and away from me and I can't seem to move to be able to stop him. I want to. But what happens if I do? I let all the doubts and fears live in my head and fester for the next 30 or 40 years, souring anything. Had too much of that with Stella to want to do it again.

No, he's got to make up his own mind.

"Where are you?"

If it's at all possible, I go even stiller. He's made his decision. I'm going to loose him.

Its real quite out there now, and I think he's trying to figure out a way of getting out of here without me knowing, when I hear him say Turnbull's name.

I drag myself back from my self-pity and start to feel relief seep though me as I hear their conversation. He's turning her in. He's picked me over her. I'd shout for joy if it hadn't of just suddenly hit me that I don't deserve him.

This year together as a couple, and what do I do at the first sign of trouble? I doubt him. All right, I'd heard about Victoria, and how much he was in love with her and all that shit, but did it ever occur to me that he just loves me as much, if not more than he ever loved her? No. Instead, I let him down by just assuming that he doesn't love me as much as I love him. Childish or what?

He comes back into the room, and I pretend I'm asleep; doing the even breathing thing that'll fool anyone. Hey, after a while in a loveless marriage you learn how to fake sleeping, means you don't have to talk. Lets you put off facing the truth for a little while longer. Then he wraps himself around me and I get it. I suddenly get it all.

I wouldn't have been worried if there wasn't something to loose. Fraser could have gone running again, but something held him down, kept him strong.

Arrogant of me I know, but I'm going to say it was me this time. If not for me he would have been dragged back to hell, only this time with no Vecchio to shoot him down at the gates. All he had was a Kowalski, a guy who loves him too much than is bound to be good for either of them.

I knew he loved me. Fraser's not the type to do the sex thing without love. But now I know just how much, and I'm never gonna forget it, never ever gonna doubt him again. Like I said, one of the things I'm not, is stupid.