Notes: This was the result of one of many DS-centric conversations I've had with the Most Wondrous Audra, as well as my own curiosity about a certain choice Ray Kowalski made.

Disclaimers, et al.: They belong to Alliance and I feel nothing but a deep and abiding envy over that fact. Rated R for an occasional bad word and some implied sexual activity. If neither turn your crank, walk on.

Thanks to Audra for both the read through and the suggestions. I promised Kasha a birthday story, so this one is for her.

==

Foresight

by LaT

February 2000

The worst thing about it, Ray thinks, is the cold. He believes it is unfair for it to be cold outside on the day of a funeral. When someone dies the people left behind are already cold and miserable inside, and it seems to Ray that adding frigid air to the mix proves Depeche Mode was right about God's sick sense of humor.

It had been raining at first, in addition to the cold. As they filed out of the church, the rain started slowly, lightly, the drops of it so small they were just mist, and then it really started to pour. Heavy, *beating* drops, the kind that actually hurt when they fell if you weren't covered up, if you weren't wearing enough to protect yourself from the sharp little pelts of wet.

Stella hates the rain, and Ray knows that if she had come with him it would have been one more layer of misery. At the moment, their marriage was already wrapped in so many of those that another really would just *crush* him, crush her and maybe even suffocate them both.

He shakes himself. There is no room for his melodrama today. Surrounded by genuine despair and sadness, Ray thinks it's almost selfish to wallow in the mess he's managed to make with Stella. He has no reason, yet, to truly mourn, and he reminds himself that he is at the funeral of another cop, always one of the saddest things in the world. It's overcast now, grey and so *cold*, and the cop was young and died in one of the worst possible ways.

Ray can't help but wonder what it would be like if it was him laid out today, body so badly damaged there is no choice but for the coffin lid to be closed. Would there be as many people, or would it be just him and Stella and his parents? His father, grim and vaguely smug, even in his grief. His mother, simply *keening*. Inconsolable.

And Stella. What would Stella be, he wonders? Would she be still, with tears falling in a steady yet even line, or would the howling of her grief be added to his mother's? Ray knows the amount of tears shed for a loss is not a perfect measure of how much what is lost was loved, but he hopes that his death would make Stella actually *weep*.

He reminds himself *again* that this day is not about him and realizes with a start that it's already time for the coffin to be moved. To be placed over that gaping, lonely hole, and he straightens along with everyone else to attention. Ray *is* sad, but he is not grieving because you can really only grieve for the ones you love, and he didn't even *know* Louis Gardino. He is here out of respect and a sense of professional brotherhood, and he knows that this not-quite-grieving sadness unites him with many of the other attendees. He turns his head, prepares himself to salute and something just seems ... odd about the coffin. Something a little queer, but it's not actually the coffin itself so much as the flash of ... color ... alongside it.

Color seems out of place on a day like this one. Color always seems out of place at funerals, and Ray believes that people wear black when someone dies because there's no *reason* for anything to be bright. He blinks once, twice, thinks maybe he should put on his glasses but no, he's not imagining it. That is definitely ... red. And it's not the red on the flag, either. It's a bright red. Vivid red. A red so ... alive ... it really is just in the wrong damn *place* because this is a *funeral*, for God's sakes. Someone died, somewhere someone else is dying. They're *all* dying really, but he still can't stop his eyes from tracking the red.

His gaze moves up a pair of red-clad arms and over a red-clad chest and looking at the whole thing straight on, amidst the blues and the greys and the *dull*, actually *hurts* his eyes. But they keep tracking, moving right on up and up and up and ...

Ray has to crane his neck a little because of the hat. It sits on the head of the man in the color that's too bright, alive and hurting to be *in place* here. And it has the widest fucking brim he's ever seen on something that isn't a sombrero.

So, he tilts his own head forward and narrows his eyes because the squinting does help, but then, *then*, pallbearer number 4 does something slightly miraculous. He lifts his head. Ray can see the man clearly, as clearly as one with eyesight as blurry as his could be expected to, and it's just ... he's just ... Ray actually coughs because outside of Stella at 13, he's sure he's never seen anything quite so completely *beautiful* as this man, carrying a coffin, and wearing the wrong color for a day of sorrow.

Ray leans forward so much he almost brushes his cheek against the shoulder of the officer in front of him. He wants to get a better look and pulls out his glasses, puts them on and *wham*, with corrected vision, the guy's even more beautiful than he was blurred and unaccountably Ray feels this ... *ache.* He *does* brush the shoulder of the man in front of him then mumbles his apology and takes a small step back. Small enough to respect the boundaries of personal space, but not so small that he can no longer see.

This is a face Ray could watch for as long as he's allowed to, although he's not really sure what it is that holds him. It could be the eyes, which, even in sadness have a solemn and bright calm. Maybe it's the mouth, he thinks, because even from a distance he can see the lushness of it, not so much full as ... inviting, intriguing. The kind of mouth that might not laugh easily, but when it does, does so wholly. Completely.

Ray shakes himself *hard*, tells himself it's time to get a fucking *grip* because he's at a funeral. He's supposed to be reverent and sad and thinking of the man they're mourning, not the man who helps shoulder a now permanent and unforgiving weight. Ray knows enough of himself, however, to understand that he will ask questions later because he's always thought finding brightness in the middle of bleakness to be something of a gift. It's only proper to give thanks.

o0o

Weeks later and Ray is impressed at the truthfulness of the adage "you learn something new every day." He has, he *is* learning something new. Every day. Like the fact that Chicago has a Canadian Consulate and Louis Gardino's pallbearer works there. Like the fact that the same pallbearer is friends with a cop who works in the 27th District, and said pall bearer spends a goodly portion of the time he's not doing whatever it is he does at the Consulate working cases for the 27th.

Ray doesn't know what the pallbearer does at the Consulate because he hasn't yet gotten that far in his new process of learning. It has only been a few days since Ray learned about the Canadian Consulate at all, and he has told himself every day since then that there is no earthly reason for him to *go* there. Just like he tells himself there's no reason to visit the 2-7, and no reason to use his scanner to listen for calls that would get routed to that district because there are calls to answer in his own.

He could do it so easily, though, and that's what makes listening to himself so very difficult to do. He could turn the scanner on and listen to the street names -- he knows now which ones belong to that district as surely as he knows which ones belong to his -- and maybe take his own little ride. Unofficial drive-by and he wouldn't get involved, wouldn't move in on the turf at all. Just watch from the car to see if that red and the man the red is wrapped around are as bright and alive in the middle of urban squalor as they were surrounded by mourning and a dull, grey sky.

He doesn't take the ride. Manages not to for *weeks,* as a matter of fact, until one day it's just too slow and too dull and too quiet at work, and too raw, too bleak, too quiet at *home*, and he's just not ready to be alone for the rest of the day.

As he leaves, Ray tells himself he *isn't* going to try and find the Canadian Consulate, that all he really needs is fresh air. But the small part of his brain that never completely lets him talk shit to himself whispers "liar," even as he tucks the address and a map under his arm, even as he curls his fingers around the binoculars he'd signed out of the equipment room the day after Louis Gardino was laid in the ground

Traffic moves too quickly at 3 p.m. in downtown Chicago for Ray to make the car crawl down the street the way he wants to, but a turn of the proper corner reveals the red and he just *knows* that he's going to *park*. It's late in the business day so Ray has his choice of spots, and picks one that's not directly across from the building but still provides a good line of sight.

Against the clean marble of the stairs the red is still bright. Ray decides that there will never come a time when that particular shade doesn't seem *alive*. He waits before putting on his glasses to see if the right person is standing guard. It seems to Ray that he is *steeling* himself for something. He wonders if the sudden wave of fear he feels comes from knowing that if he does this, if he permits himself to stare his fill now, it simply will not be enough.

He closes his eyes and takes several deep breaths, tells himself it's not too late, that he can start the car again and go and then he'll be safe. For several clear, sharp seconds, Ray thinks that this is what he wants. To be safe and home and away from this strange and insistent *pull*. To be home where he can try and forget that he now *knows* where and how to find the man.

Ray opens his eyes and puts on his glasses. Home is no safer than here and when he realizes this, he turns his head and prepares to look until he simply can't any more. His glasses are almost enough to make out the face but not quite and he doesn't even feel that his hands are shaking until he raises the binoculars to his eyes.

And he's there. Louis Gardino's solemn and beautiful pallbearer, standing at attention, damn near statue perfect. Ray is pleased he chose a less conspicuous spot to park because they would have essentially been face-to-face if he'd given into himself the way he really wanted to do. From where he sits Ray can see but not be seen. He can take in the strong line of the jaw, the elegant angle of the cheekbones, the promising redness of the mouth, until he is glutted and sated and certain he could see that face in his sleep.

The man's *stillness* mesmerizes Ray. He is sure the only movement made is the blinking of the wide eyes, and he wishes he could get closer so he could tell what color they were. Minutes pass before Ray realizes that he himself isn't doing any of the usual fidgeting that would accompany sitting at length in a parked car, and he marvels that a person can sit still in solidarity with another.

His professional training is too good for Ray to not notice what the front of the building looks like, or the fact that the man is wearing the dumbest looking pants he has ever seen, but again and again he comes back to the face. So beautiful and *still*, so calm and even, and it seems to Ray that if he tries hard enough, he can impose any expression he wants to on those near-perfect features.

Thinking this is what undoes him. Before he can even stop himself, tell himself it's wrong in many, many ways, he imagines that face sweating and convulsed with pleasure, and that mouth moaning his name. He has to clamp one hand down on his suddenly unruly dick, and force himself to look to sharply and quickly away.

The ruthlessness of his imagination startles Ray into movement. He drops the binoculars and starts the car even as he judges himself a sick, twisted fuck. He makes it home in record time and promises himself it's not going to happen again.

And it doesn't.

For several weeks.

o0o

Ray's desk has been a nightmare for two solid months and he is certain the last full meal he ate was the night before he signed his divorce papers. Sleep is an illusory thing and while he hasn't yet managed to make everyone in Vice as miserable as he is, he's come close.

Only dancing seems to give him some peace. Dancing and his visits to the Canadian Consulate, although peace isn't quite the word for the latter. "Peace" isn't the right word at all for the sweet, hot *itch* he feels each week, sitting outside, looking at that face, imagining it suffused with every degree and gradation of pleasure he can think of. Ray has the sense to wait until he gets home to jerk off, and it's always, *always* good, but there is a part of him that is deeply afraid a day will come when it is no longer enough.

He sits at his desk, swirling the contents of what *has* to be the day's seventh or eighth cup of coffee when he's summoned to the L-T's office. Ray knows he's been in a bad way lately, but he's kept it out of his work. At least, he thinks he has.

The L-T doesn't look happy and Ray gets himself ready to be chewed a new one when a heavy folder is dropped into his lap and the Lieu just shuts the door. It takes Ray a second to register the presence of the other person in the room. Enough years of being a cop and two seasons of watching 'The X-Files' make it easy to peg the guy as a Fed. Ray's not in trouble; he gets that much inside the first five minutes, and even though he tries he can't quite stop the blush he feels when L-T says something like 'one of my best men.'

Forty-five minutes later and the Fed finally nods at the file after he and the Lieu have explained the assignment. They tell Ray he has time, although not much, to decide. Too fast, too much and the effects of way more coffee than he really needed and it all kicks in at once. Ray thinks he'll take however much time they give him until his random flipping through the file knocks loose two pictures.

The first is of the man he will replace if he chooses to do so. The other is of the man he'll work with if he chooses to do so and it is seeing the second that makes Ray feel as though he can no longer breathe.

The tingle that shimmies along the length of his spine is as wondrous and familiar as the angles and planes of the face gazing back at him. Ray almost laughs out loud when he realizes the photo was taken during guard duty, at an angle that could have been his own, but from a distance much, much closer than he ever permitted himself.

Long-range lens, probably, the cop in him says, but the man in him only cares about the eyes. Smoke blue and *deep*, alert and alive, and Ray likes the idea of looking into them up close. Again, he hears the Lieutenant tell him he has some time and he nods, not looking up or away from the photo in his hand.

Ray already knows he's going to say 'yes.'

==

Additional Notes: The Depeche Mode song Ray thinks of in the first paragraph is a blackly comic number called "Blasphemous Rumours," the chorus of which goes as follows: "I don't want to start any blasphemous rumours/but I think that God has a sick sense of humour/and when I die, I expect to find him laughing ..."