This is a companion piece to Kaleidoscope, which was written from Fraser's POV. That story could be found in the upcoming Full Mountie Fanzine. Wrote this ages ago, took some time for it to be beta'd, then my computer went supernova and ate my Word 97 with HTML editing capabilities, that's why it took so long for it to be converted. Had to do it in the old fashion way. *sigh* Anyway, slight spoilers for "Burning Down The House", "Seeing Is Believing", "Asylum", "Mountie on the Bounty", "A Likely Story", and "Call of the Wild".

Anyway A big Thank You Kindly for the ever wonderful Sama for betaing and make this much better than it originally was.

Disclaimers: Not mine, no money, so no point in suing. Lyrics are from Deana Carter's "Colour Everywhere" which is a very nice song that was found in the "Touched By An Angel" Soundtrack.

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Kaleidoscope: Metamorphosis
By Eugenie Chua

Life's funny, ya know? One minute you think that your life's over, the next, they shove a new one under your nose. At first I thought, ok, just pretend to be another guy with a different last name, no problem. Until I read the case files. After that, I had no idea what to expect, but whatever I would've expected, Fraser sure was not it!

Close relationships aren't all that common in my life. Other than Stella, I wasn't that close to anyone. A couple of drinking buddies and associates maybe, but not those body moving kinda friends, those you could really count on when you're in deep shit. At first, I still'd Stella to count on, but since she left, I ain't got nobody...

Ya know how sometimes you could be in a room full of people yet you feel like you're the only one there? The lone survivor of this huge disaster that wiped out the whole of Earth's population. Ya know that feeling? Sometimes, that's how I feel, especially after she left.

That is, until Fraser came along. He got me into all these situations that I didn't have time to feel sorry for myself, and somewhere along the line, he managed to get close to me like no one has ever done before. Not my parents, not even Stella. He saw something my parents and Stella only got a glimpse of, he saw the...the poet in me.

Ha! A poet. I bet the Duckboys would have a field day with that if they ever found out! Who could imagine? Stanley Raymond Kowalski, a poet. Like it or not, that's how I feel.

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He showed up just as I was feeling lost and had nobody. I only started to realize how much he meant to me after the episode with Volpe. He was the first one I ran to for help. Not Welsh, not Huey or Dewey, not Stella, but him. That was when I realized that he meant more to me than an associate or a drinking buddy. Much more...

Everything was normal for the first few weeks of the assignment, but it started to get weird the second the Mountie came back from his vacation up north with his wolf. The next thing I knew, I was driving a burning car into Lake Michigan, getting hypnotized, chasing ghosts and nearly drowning on a sinking ship, camping in the city park and heading off to the wild white north on an adventure. If anyone would've told me a year ago that all of that would happen to me, I'd've sent them packing to the nuthouse! And yet, all this has happened to me and I ain't regretting a single second of it.

Call me nuts, but somewhere along the line of this thing we call friendship, Fraser became the center of it. He's always there, rainy day or sun shine, he's always there, no matter what.

You know when you look into a kaleidoscope there's this center point that's always there? Everything around is changing by the second but you can always count on the center to be there? Well, that's Fraser, always in the middle of everything, always there for me whenever I need him. Hell! He's even there when I don't need him! But I don't mind him hangin' around.

He had the chance to leave when we had our fight at the waterfront. He could've taken the transfer and left like Stella did, but he didn't. When Vecchio came back, he could've gone back to work with him instead of agreeing to come on this adventure with me (freezing our asses off in the process!) but he didn't. He was right beside me the whole way. Makes me feel kinda stupid for being jealous of Vecchio. Yeah, I admit, I was jealous of that guy the moment I saw Fraser grinning like an idiot when he saw him. Ya know what the Mountie would've said? He would've said "That's just silly, Ray. There is absolutely no reason for you to be jealous of Ray. That is, Ray Vecchio I mean." Or something like that, but I can't help feelin' the way I did. That's how it was.

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But that ain't no matter to me now 'cause I'm no longer the lone survivor. Fraser's with me, and of course, Dief. Who could forget the wolf?

THE END

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