DISCLAIMERS - The characters in this story do not belong to me, they belong to Alliance et al. I'm just killing time with them. They'll be returned to their proper owners in their original state. Well, maybe a bit rumpled but basically the same.

NOTE - At about three a.m. during a ten hour train ride, I was staring out the window at the empty towns and listening to Sarah Maclachan's "Angel". I felt lonely and a bit bummed, so I projected my feelings onto someone else, and gave him his angel.

SHAMELESS PLEA FOR FEEDBACK - Please write me and tell me what you think! I'm new at this, I need to know what's going on. And, as my father (editor of our local newspaper) says, "Writers eat that shit up." My e-mail is furrygirl@usa.net

A Due South vignette by

Sabrina Cross

"Constable Fraser," I say into the phone.

"Yeah, Frase, it's Frannie." She sounds tense.

"Hello, Francesca, what can I do for you?"

"It - it's Ray," Dear God, no.

"Is something wrong?" But something is wrong, I know it is I can hear it in the strained quality of her usually confident voice. Has he been hurt? Please, no. . .

"Yeah, Frase," she says. "He killed somebody. Welsh made him go home."

Oh, dear.

When I'm off duty, I go to Ray's apartment. I don't actually run, but it's close enough so that other people on the sidewalk part to let me through, and stare after me once I've passed. Ray has often told me that I should get a car. At times like this, I tend to agree.

The landlady recognizes me, she smiles at me as I pass her on the stairs, which I'm taking two at a time. I smile in return, but there is no feeling behind it. I meet no one else along the way.

He won't want to talk to me, I know him, and he'll tell me he's fine, that he can handle it, don't worry, Fraser, I'm fine. But he won't be fine when I find him. He'll be hurting and afraid, not that he'd ever admit it. For an open person, he can be so closed sometimes.

If I'm especially unlucky, he'll be drunk. I've only seen Ray drunk once, and the alcohol only seemed to intensify his feelings of sorrow, and guilt. I have never quite understood why people take refuge in such substances. My own - admittedly limited - experience with alcohol has been . . .regrettable.

I knock on his door, and there is no response. I knock again, then try the knob. It's locked.

I hear him call softly,

"You have a key, Fraser."

I do have a key, but using it had not occurred to me. I don't really question how he knew it was me. I unlock the door and ease it open.

Ray is standing at the window, his back to the room. To me. I can see the tension in the set of his shoulders. One long, slender arm is stretched above his head, his palm flat against the window frame. I can almost see the muscles vibrating with tension beneath the thin cotton tee-shirt he wears. Other than that almost-motion, he is eerily still.

I step into the room and shut the door. I stand there, waiting for him to move, to speak, to . . .something. The oppressive silence spins out between us, longer and longer until I think it will snap and then,

"Frannie has a big mouth."

His voice doesn't give me a clue to his emotional state, as I had hoped it would. It's absolutely expressionless, which I suppose is a clue in itself.

"Francesca cares about you, Ray," I tell him. "She was concerned."

It's almost as if I watch my words move from me and across the space between us, before he hears and absorbs them. He doesn't turn around, but he nods slowly, the first movement I've seen him make since I arrived, and when he speaks, his voice is so low I almost miss the words.

"And you?"

I hear nothing in his tone other than a vague, detached curiosity, and this worries me more than anything. With Ray, everything is fueled by emotion, by passion. Anger, hatred, love, happiness - it's always there, that emotion. It's why I love him. But now, he seems so different, so . . .distant. Cold. I am supposed to be the detached one, the emotionless logician. Not Ray. Not my unruly, passionate, hotheaded, impulsive Ray.

I move closer to him. One step. Then two.

"I was - and am - concerned for you, as well, Ray. Are you all right?"

He laughs then, but there's no mirth in it, it's not the warm-up-the-room laughter he usually gives. It's toneless, flat, and I nearly shiver at the sound.

"I'm fantastic, Fraser," he says in that distant tone. "Why wouldn't I be?"

Another step closer. "You don't seem fantastic to me, Ray."

Please. Talk to me, tell me you're still in there. Inside the tense body, that shell, behind the cold voice Tell me, ray. Tell me you're still in there.

"You always this perceptive, Fraser? I killed a guy."

His voice is still impersonal, but it falters slightly at the end, and as though through a crack in the ice of a frozen river, I catch a glimpse of him.

"In the line of duty, Ray," I say, taking another cautious step closer to him. The Ray I know, the Ray I love is in there. I just have to help him find his way out. "You had no choice."

He tenses suddenly at that; I see the muscles in his back and neck spasm.

"You're sure about that?" he asks me.

Another step. Two more and I will be touching him. I want to. He hasn't turned around, hasn't really moved at all.

"Of course I am. I know you."

His entire frame seems suddenly to sag, although he makes no move at all.

"Do you?" he asks, his voice shaky, the first change in it I've really heard. Shaky is better than cold, I decide and put a hand on his shoulder. He tenses slightly at the contact, as though I've surprised him, then relaxes again.

"I do," I tell him, and suddenly my voice is shaky, trembling under the weight of withheld emotions, and unspoken words.

"Look at me," I say, without having realized I was going to speak. He doesn't move. I squeeze his shoulder a little and repeat my request. My demand.

"Look at me, Ray."

I am struck by the graceful unfolding quality of his movements as he lowers his arm from above his head and turns to face me. His eyes meet mine and they still possess that coldness, that emotionlessness that so unnerves me.

"I know you, Ray Kowalski. I know your humanity. I know your honour. You are a good police officer and a good man. What happened today does not - cannot - change that. You are still Stanley Raymond Kowalski, a man I am proud to know, proud to call my partner. And my friend."

I still have my left hand on his right shoulder. My right hand, seemingly having developed a will and mind all it's own, moves up and cups the side of Ray's face. His afternoon stubble feels pleasantly rough against my palm.

Ray's eyes drift closed, and his hand comes up to cover mine. We stand that way for a few endless seconds before Ray opens his eyes. Looking into his face, so close to my own, I could almost weep for joy.

Because I see Ray in those summer blue eyes - the emotion, the warmth, the passionate vitality that make him who he is. Those warm, tear-filled eyes hold mine for a brief eternity before he reaches out with his free hand and cups my cheek.

"Just a friend?" he whispers. "Nothing more?"

I hear an eternity's worth of emotion in his soft words - longing, joy, fear, hope, love - all of them, and I smile.

"So much more," I say before I close the last few inches between us and press my lips to his.

The kiss is sweet and gentle, and when his mouth opens under mine, the touch of his tongue is electric. One of his hands cradles my head, his long, slender fingers threading into my hair. It feels so wonderful to hold him like this now; his slim body fits so perfectly against mine, in my arms, as I always imagined it would.

He pulls back from the kiss to just let me hold him, his head resting on my shoulder. He sighs softly.

"You're my angel, Fraser," he says. "My angel."

END

I know, I know. Cheesy, sappy, what-have-you. I know.