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Disclaimer: I own nothing but my own mind. Pity me that and don't sue.

Author's Notes: My first dS story (excuses excuses).

Story Notes: Obviously many spoilers for CotW, inc. a couple of lines plagiarized (*ahem* echoed in a purely aesthetic way) from the ep. There are a few words here arranged by me, but the title credit goes to 'resurrection' by Moist.

Ich kann zu meiner Reisen / I cannot choose the time Nicht whlen mit der Zeit, / To begin my journey, Mu selbst den Weg mir weisen / Must find my own way In dieser Dunkelheit. / In this darkness. Es zieht ein Mondenschatten / A shadow of the moon travels Als mein Gefhrte mit, / With me as my companion, Und auf den weien Matten / And upon the white fields Such' ich des Wildes Tritt. / I seek the deer's track. Winterreise, Wilhelm Mller

The snow announced his arrival, moist crunching beneath tight leather boots, loud and ungainly patterns bouncing off the rocks, off the clouds, reverberating back into his mind. Step, scrunch, sink, step, scrunch, stumble, sink, step. All he had felt since landing, heavily, beneath thirty foot of the icy powder, was ungainly, clumsy and loud. Even when his throat was closed and rasping thick mist into the mountainous air he'd heard his voice like a trombone, and an out of tune one at that. Out of his element and sinking deeper and deeper into the pure white frost.

Fraser, on the other hand, didn't seem to disturb the snow. He'd made his way across the wilderness, strong and steady and warm. Absurdly warm under the circumstances. Fraser, breathing deep and even, whilst he himself stuttered in wasps of freezing air, which even then seemed to stab tiny pin-pricks into the lining of his lungs. He was getting used to it now though, becoming marginally more adjusted to the sink of his feet as he trudged through the snow, and the ebb and floe of ice to mist as he breathed in careful waves of air. Imitating Fraser's natural, unthinking rhythm; long and steady and utterly unconcerned. Unreachable, was the thought, as the mountie's position on the horizon seemed to remain unmoved. Ray turned to look behind him, gauging how far he'd walked, before heeding Dief's friendly growl and continuing towards Fraser again. He hadn't come all that far after all. There was something bothering Fraser though, as stoic as he looked. There was no way the guy could have brought Muldoon in without something touching, touching home. Muldoon who'd destroyed both mother and father in one way or another, as far as he could make out. You didn't need a knife or a gun to kill, Ray was all too well aware of that.

("Ray." A look of pure delight on that face too, for the broken moment when he realised who was standing in front of him.

"Ray?" As Ray had faltered and died by his side.

"Ray Vecchio."

"Ray Vecchio?" No knife, no gun, just a single word. One word can do a lot, he was discovering, can change things; what you think, what you see, even who you are. Vecchio, Kowalski, Auschwitz, fell, pushed, partners, friends, love, like, need. One word. One moment. Small changes in those big moonstep, mankind leap type things.)

"Ray." Ray looked up at the voice, surprised to find himself within a few feet of Fraser, so lost had he been in his thoughts. His shoulders tightened imperceptibly as he met his partners, ex-partners, curiously sparkling eyes. Sparkling, water, tears.

Diefenbaker nosed at Fraser's ankle, announcing his presence, before wandering a short distance to inspect a new patch of snow.

"You okay?"

"I think so." Fraser sighed. "It's been a tiring few days."

"That it has." Ray nodded, eyes trained studiously towards his feet. If he looked out on the scene before him the vast smudge of light tended to hurt his sensitive eyes, so he kept his eyes where they could see with relative clarity, in the distance between Fraser, himself, and the snow. "So, you're happy to be home though? Hard to be homesick now, I mean, what with being home and, uh, well home is good. Home is good. Home is where the heart is. Or so goes that....um...."

"Expression? Saying?"

"Yeah. That." Ray looked around, at the tracks which led from the RCMP cabins to where they stood, then turned back to Fraser, who in turn turned his eyes back to the landscape again.

"It is good to be here though." Fraser continued to talk as Ray stood before him, not more than a foot or two apart. "I met a man once, on the shore's of Great Slave Lake, who had developed a particularly vital meditation technique. He claimed it could transport him to an ethereal plain in which he met and talked with a number of well-known tribal elders. That was his home, his place of belonging. He made a rather compelling case in fact, because you see you could take that home anywhere, and you never had to worry about losing it to the elements." There was a pause.

"Stella." Fraser looked towards his friend for a moment. "She used to be my home." Ray explained. "You know, before."

"Ah. Well people are a common attribute to what any given someone refers to as home. Parents, spouses," Dief barked shortly and Fraser added, "wolves."

"Attribute. Attribute. Okay. Attribute." There was another long beat, during which Fraser sat, scanning the frozen wilderness with a kind of bone-deep joy on his face. Ray kicked at the snow, hands buried in the borrowed cloth of his coat.

"I'm staying here." Fraser said, long overdue. Ray nodded in agreement, not in the least surprised by the statement, less surprised than Fraser seemed in fact.

"Place of belonging huh?"

"Yes."

"Right. Yeah. I get that."

Ray finally looked out, squinting, at the wide strip of wilderness bared to their gaze. Dusk was settling around them, but the remaining sunlight sparkled off the wet snow, dazzling his susceptible eyes. He shifted, digging deeper into the powdery white beneath his feet. The horizon remained a blur, no matter how long he stared, dipping darkly into the untouched ground.

**

"And you Ray?"

"Huh?"

"What will you do now?" Where do you belong, Fraser had wanted to say, but clamped down on the urge.

"Oh. Don't know." Ray's bottom lip curled ever so slightly, forming an almost imperceptible pout. Fraser slanted his head, watching a wave of unbridled youth wash over his partners face before it was drawn back in behind the adults reserve.

"You could stay here." Oh so softly spoken, words reverberated like gunfire off the rocks and ice and sky. Fraser's mouth remained open for a second, realising what he had actually said, out loud, and swallowing the remaining 'with me' as if choked. He clamped his lips closed, moving to trace an eyebrow in an attempt to hide his unease.

Diefenbaker surveyed the pair, sniffed a little, and trotted further away.

Ray froze for a moment, uncharacteristically still amidst the movement of snow and night and air. "What is it you want Fraser? From me. What is it you want from me?"

"I don't know what you mean."

"Don't know what I mean. Well just, you know tell me, Fraser. Could you do that? I mean, you want me to stay here with you and, I don't know, catch grizzly Joe Adams, corrupted grizzly Joe?"

"Ray?"

"Or you want me to stay until you find a new posting?"

"Ray."

"Or until I find a new posting? Or until V...."

"Ray."

"What?" Fraser breathed in a lung full of crisp, rich air, felt it all around him, inside his lungs, against his skin.

"I, I want you to stay." Ray crinkled his brow at Fraser, before a sad expression stole over his face.

"What am I gonna do here Fraser huh, put the fisticuffs on fighting caribou?" Ray shook his head, rolling his eyes towards the increasingly dark sky. Then stillness, strange and deafening from his usually hyperactive frame.

(He was embarrassed now, Fraser thought, embarrassed and uncomfortable and something far worse as well. He looked weary. Shoulders slumped, defeated, where he stood with unusual stillness in the snow. No movement now, nothing but the short exhales of mist. Fraser didn't quite know how to handle this new side of Ray. Well not really a new side, more a new edge to the sides he already knew about. But, still, he was out of place, and it made Fraser anxious. Half of him hated seeing Ray so open and vulnerable. Well, again Ray was always open in a way, but an openness countered with fiercely guarded defenses. Shouting mostly, and of course threatening to kick you in the head. Then there was the other half of Fraser which kind of liked being able to take care of his partner. Being needed. And that pleasure, pleasure from being needed, agitated him all the more. Was that selfish? Ray had accused him of such a thing before now. But no, Ray could take care of himself, had made it over a mountain with his help and partners are supposed to help each other. He could teach Ray how to survive here, just like Ray Vecchio had taught him to survive in Chicago. Keep each other going, because that's what partnership is all about. But he didn't know what Ray wanted him to say. He didn't understand, not about this, he only needed, wanted, felt. Oh dear. Him such a talker, always talking about nothing at all, and Ray such an active man, with his heart on his sleeve as they say. Never still, never silent, except about this strange something between them, too fragile to even contemplate, let alone touch or act upon. And now something had to be said, and Ray was trying so hard to read him, to figure out what it was they both wanted. Sifting through emotions neither understood. If only his father were here, not that his father would have had anything more than a stern 'buck up' to say about this. Would he? Be faithful to your partner, depend on him, never give up until you find them and bring them home. Fine. But this just wasn't like the feeling of loss at Ray Vecchio's departure, or when he had to leave Innussiq behind. And it surprised him that it hurt so much more than that, because it had felt like losing an arm when he'd discovered that Ray, Ray Vecchio, had gone. Losing Ray, Ray Kowalski, was more like losing a lung. It was just more than something. A train pulling out of a station, an outstretched hand, a curious desperation which throbbed, deep in his gut, and never seemed to stop. And that need, the memory of it made flesh once again, made all the words freeze in Fraser's throat.)

Diefenbaker, who had been cocking his head at his companion for some time, let out a grunt and, running up to Fraser, started licking the mountie's pink hands.

"We should probably just...." Ray motioned towards the cabins. Fraser watched his hands, fingertips numb where he should have been wearing his gloves. He had taken them off earlier, wanting to feel the cold upon his skin.

"Reaching out hand."

"What?" Fraser looked up rather abruptly, an energy about him which hadn't been apparent before.

"In 1845 Sir John Franklin set off in search of the Northwest Passage with two boats, the Erebus and the Terror, and he was last seen navigating Peel Sound July 26th."

"Uh, Fraser - "

"Many went in search of his hand but," Fraser caught Ray's eyes and held on for dear life, "none found it." Ray squinted dumbly for a moment, before his whole body seemed to straighten, jolting suddenly awake. He pointed two of his fingers, first, last, and thumb at Fraser in an `I get it' gesture.

"We could do that." There was a momentary pause. "We could do that?"

"We could certainly try Ray." Fraser nodded, eyebrows lifting subtly. Ray's face moved into a wide smile as both men took a first final look out over the barren landscape. There was a silence, broken by a familiar 'mnh' noise of amusement, and Fraser's eyes shut momentarily against the ensuing warmth.

"How likely is it that we'll die doing that Fraser?" Ray looked up at the sky, now inky black with pin-prick stars, before holding out a hand to pull the mountie up from the rock. "How, how likely is death if we do that?"

"Oh, not that likely Ray, not much worse than four to one, I would say." Ray looked at him. "Three to one." He amended lightly. Ray nodded amiably for a few seconds, before his posture faded a little, giving way to a more sombre bent. Their hands were still interlocked. Ray stared hard at their twined fingers, hidden by their sides.

"What about, uh, Vecchio?"

"According to Lieutenant Welsh he is out of the hospital, and in the process of regurgitating the bullet from his system."

"Regurgi-what?"

"Coughing it up."

"Oh." Fraser thought for a moment about what else Lieutenant Welsh, along with Francesca's frequent interruptions down the phone line, had told him of Ray Vecchio's recovery time at the 27th, but thought perhaps that news might be best left until later. Ray smiled somewhat shyly, distracting Fraser from everything else. "An adventure huh?" In a whisper, in a misty cloud of breathe. Fraser nodded his head.

**

Diefenbaker growled low and happy in his throat, running with his nose tracing the snow. He was home.