Disclaimer: A little dark fun, sans profit. The characters belong to the creator of due South.

Author's Notes: First fic in this fandom, originally posted to Bindlestitch.

Story Notes:

He had finally figured out how to keep death from taking someone else that he loved away from him. How to deal with the bone deep fear that gnawed at him. A fear he had been able to sublimate most days, but lately, the days when sublimation failed were outnumbering the ones when it worked. The recent week had been only days of failure, and he realized he would have to meet death head on. Look it in the eye so to speak.

In the first year of their relationship, he had struggled with the fear that Ray would leave him for someone else. At a classic car show they attended, he observed Ray in animated discussion with a man who specialized in customizing GTOs. There was nothing in the body language of either man to suggest anything other than a gearhead to gearhead discussion, but it simply popped into his head that there could be other possibilities. It wouldn't let him go until he looked it in the eye. Or more precisely, until he looked Ray in the eye and saw a promise. Ray loved only him and wanted only him. When he could see that so clearly, he could no longer remember why he had been afraid.

Then Ray had gotten shot. And of course it wasn't the first time he had been injured in that way. But it was that first time he was officially listed as the next of kin. Filling out paperwork, verifying that Ray wouldn't want any artificial means to keep him alive and donating blood brutally reminded him that the person he loved most in the world could leave in another way. Without warning. Thoughts of Ray dying alone tormented him.

He understood that if something happened to Ray, if Ray didn't persevere, he was not likely to either. Maybe the difference between when they were platonic partners, and now was that their lives were so entwined. There was nothing of his that wasn't marked by Ray. His heart, his body, his soul. He no longer knew how to live without those markings.

Ray recovered. The fear was better until...it stopped getting better. Until when Ray was a few minutes late in meeting him somewhere for dinner or coming home from work, he would absently begin making a funeral checklist. Where was Ray's favorite outfit? Would it have to be dry cleaned? And so on. He would steel himself for Lt. Welsh's or Thatcher's sudden appearance on his doorstep or at the place he and Ray had chosen to dine with bad news. And when Ray eventually appeared with a lopsided grin and sparkling eyes it took the knot in his stomach a good long time to dissipate.

He understood he would have to look death in the eye. Unlike Ray, death couldn't make him any promises. Or more precisely death's promises were the sort one wouldn't want. Death promised, "Yes, I will break your heart. Yes, I will break you." He was humbled. Others might say he was hobbled.

He balanced the weight of the gun in the palm of his hand. From his time working with Ray, he knew every place a person could obtain a hand gun illegally in the city. And he knew how to make himself unrecognizable in order to facilitate such a black market purchase. Leave the Stetson at home, put on a baseball cap to hide his Mountie recognizability, and under no circumstance thank anyone kindly.

Ray would be home soon. Smiling with contentment, he put the gun away and went into the kitchen to start dinner.

End Part One

End 'Til Death by Evans: cevans652000@yahoo.com

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