Due South and all of its characters belong to Alliance Communications.

Story page: http://www.geocities.com/callinuk

This is for Maria because it's her favourite song. Enjoy!

WIND BENEATH MY WINGS

I look around me taking in our surroundings - the smoky atmosphere of the small club makes my eyes water. Dim light from candles enclosed in red glass flicker creating an eerie light as it dances across the ceiling and down the walls. A small stage at the front of the club, in darkness at the moment, promises that there will be music from a band called Intensity later. I shudder inwardly at the thought of the type of music their name conjures up.

We are here celebrating Jack Huey's birthday - me, Tom Dewey, Turnbull, Harding Welsh, Francesca Vecchio, a couple of other detectives from the precinct and Ray. We are grouped around a table near to the stage, a pitcher of beer in the centre. The others around the table are drinking the beer, but like me Ray is drinking coke.

I can't help looking at Ray in the dimness; the flickering light casts shadows across his face muting his angular features, making him look younger and somehow softer. He is beautiful and I love him with all my heart.

He came into my life suddenly, taking my breath away with his constant motion and energy. Stripping away the walls of my loneliness, he offered me partnership, then his friendship and gradually his love. After months of agonising over my feelings for him, I finally plucked up the courage to open my arms to him. With a shy smile, Ray stepped into my hesitant embrace without fear, claiming me and surrounding me with his gentle and cleansing love. I have never looked back since that moment.

I smile to myself; memories of our afternoon of love making torment my mind and I can almost hear him whispering that he loves me over and over as I thrust into his body filling him as we lose ourselves in the ecstasy, passion and love that connects us, making us whole as though we are one person, not two.

Ray catches my eye, and I think he knows where my mind has wandered to, and I can't help myself as I blush hoping that the dim light hides my red face from our companions. Ray grins at me, a mischievous glint in his pale eyes, as he takes a sip of his coke.

He turns away from me as the band come out onto the small stage to polite applause from the audience. The lights dim even more as the music starts and I am surprised to find that Intensity are not the loud rock band I thought they would be, but a country and western band whose gentle melodies do not offend my ear drums.

Huey orders more beer, and coke for Ray and I. We all sit and listen as the band plays their first set, and I find myself tapping my foot in time to the music. I look around again - people have been drifting towards the side of the stage giving their requests to the band's manager, and Francesca tells me that the band's second set of music is made up from requests from the audience.

I nod politely before excusing myself to visit the bathroom. As I walk towards the back of the club, I know that Ray is watching me. It makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside, and I can feel myself becoming aroused. I try to think of ice bergs and have to splash cold water on my face before returning to our table and our friends.

Ray turns as I sit back down at the table smiling at me again, and I want desperately to touch him, feel the energy that is uniquely him as it pulses through his lithe body. I sometimes lay awake at night listening to his heart beat as he lays beside me in our bed. As I curl around him holding him close, I feel soothed by the steady rhythm of his life force letting myself drift towards sleep.

I smile back trying to say with my eyes and smile how I feel about him. That I love him. That I want to hold him. To touch him. His lips turn up again in a shy smile, but behind the bashfulness, where no-one but me can see, his pale eyes say that he loves me, wants me, needs me. And my heart soars with the knowledge that he feels the same as I do.

I can't help grinning foolishly, and hope that no-one has noticed; Ray's love for me makes me feel like I can soar like the eagles I watched in my youth. Brave, strong and beautiful, the birds hovered on the warm air currents of the arctic summer, and I marvelled at how they seemed to hang motionless in the sky, head down, wings out-stretched. I spent hours watching the birds trying to work out how they stayed in the air with nothing to hold them up. Then suddenly they would swoop downwards to catch some prey I couldn't see.

The band are taking a rest before their second set, and Francesca nudges me away from my day dreams trying to draw me into the conversation. Huey is pointing out people that he knows, waving at them as he catches their eye. Some drift over to our table, and Huey introduces us all.

I nod and smile politely. The atmosphere is warm and friendly, but I really only have eyes for Ray. He sits quietly to my right laughing at Huey's awful jokes, lightly teasing Francesca and Turnbull as they hold hands, or leans forward to talk to Lieutenant Welsh about the result of the latest hockey game. He smiles at me every now and again, and I wonder if he knows that he is my hero.

Ray has become my strength - the best part of me. Strong, brave, gentle and kind at the same time, he is like the warm breeze that held the eagles of my childhood in the sky as they balanced on the air currents.

Before he came into my life, I was as cold and as desolate as the land I was born in hiding behind my emotionless shield afraid of the world hurting me again. Ray opened my eyes showing me that the world could be filled with love and warmth. He is the centre of my universe, and for the first time in my life I feel whole and complete.

He teases me about endangering his life in wildly bizarre ways, but when I look back, over my shoulder, he is always there even though he doesn't always agree with my actions - strong and protecting - like the wind supporting the eagles in their flight.

Ray has achieved so much, and we both know that it will go on Ray Vecchio's official record, but I will know - know that it was my Ray that stepped in front of a bullet for me on the day we met, or rode a motorcycle through a window, without thought to his own safety, to save me and Quinn. I will know, and will keep the knowledge deep in my heart to remind him whenever he forgets or tries to shrug it off in his usual self-depreciating manner.

Francesca nudges me again - the band have returned to start on their second set of music. The lights dim once again, and I join the others to listen to the requested music, and find myself humming along to some of the tunes.

So lost in my thoughts of Ray, I hadn't noticed as some of Huey's friends joined our table that Ray has shifted his chair closer to mine - our shoulders and arms are touching, and I smile to myself. He makes me feel warm, safe and loved.

The band's manager is announcing the next song; he says that the requester didn't want their name announced but the song is for someone they love very much. The band begins to play.

I listen to the words of the song I requested, glad that I remembered the title. It describes how I feel about Ray so vividly, better than I could ever hope to voice the words and the feelings I have for him. And I hope that he knows that the song is for him.

It must have been cold there in my shadow.

To never have sunlight on your face.

You have been content to let me shine.

You always walked a step behind.

I was the one with all the glory.

While you were the one with all the strength.

Beautiful face without a name for so long.

A beautiful smile to hide the pain.

Did you ever know that you're my hero.

And everything that I'd like to be.

And I can fly higher than an eagle.

You are the wind beneath my wings.

It might have appeared to go unnoticed.

But I've got it all here in my heart.

I want you to know I know the truth.

Of course I know I would be nothing without you.

Did you ever know that you're my hero.

And everything that I'd like to be.

I can fly higher than an eagle.

You are the wind beneath my wings.

Did you ever know that you're my hero.

You are everything that I'd like to be.

And I can fly higher than an eagle.

Because you're the wind beneath my wings.

You're the wind beneath my wings.

Oh thank God for you.

The wind beneath my wings.

(Larry HenleyJeff Sibar)

I am humming the tune quietly, singing the words in my head, as I drum the fingers of one hand against my thigh in time with the music. I hope that no-one notices as I shift closer to Ray. I desperately want him to know the words are for him.

I am startled when I feel the slender fingers of one of Ray's hand curl around my own hand, which is still resting on my thigh under the table. I turn towards him smiling, and he squeezes my hand lightly as he smiles shyly back. He knows.

Ray is the wind beneath my wings. Strong and brave - he supports me, makes me who I am. Ray is everything I would like to be, and he will be my hero until the day I draw my last breath.

THE END

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