Disclaimer: The characters and the concepts belong to AA. No profit made, no copyright infringement intended.

Author's Notes: New to the Fandom. A Ray K/Fraser story but no Rays are bashed.

Story Notes: Set after the series, so no spoilers. Explicit violence, injury and medical stuff, m/m sex later in the series.

This story is a sequel to: Long Journey Home 1/?

Ray hammered on the heavy door; wondering if Fraser would be the one behind it. As if the last few months had been some kinda weird future thing. Or maybe because Ray was pretty dammed sure Fraser wasn't up in west bumfuck anymore, after a day and a half of run-around from the Mountie office up there. He might not be Detective Vecchio anymore but he still had resources. "Open it up!"

"Detective--" Turnbull looked startled. The uniform was another future/past thing. Made Ray think of Fraser like he was right here, like he was just around the corner and the urgent need to find him, talk to him dug at Ray like Dief digging his nose into his crotch.

"Nah, just Kowalski," Ray stepped forward and Turnbull stepped back out of habit and--easy as pie--he was in. Part one, check. "Fraser told you right? When it was over?"

"Yes, and I kept his information in strict confidence, of course."

"Cool." Ray was pulled along to Fraser's old office. Cot gone, desk cluttered--no Fraser. No surprise. "So, you're a Mountie?"

Turnbull had been trailing after him watching him like he was just a little off. "Yes," he said warily, patting his serge with alarmed hands.

"And Fraser's a Mountie, so I wanna know--is there like some secret Mountie thing? Handshakes, codes, Yahoo!Group? The Force?"

"I'm afraid I'm not following you, Mr. Kowalski."

"Ray," he said. "Name really was Ray. Or, well Stanley but you guess how often I use that."

"Ray--"

"'Cause I wanna know where the hell Fraser is," Ray interrupted, feeling the same agitated urgency that had been dogging him for the past few days. "He isn't in wherever the heck like he said. Not anymore."

Turnbull frowned faintly. "He may be on patrol, Ray. That can take several weeks in the more rural areas."

"Maybe, maybe, but I'm feeling suspicious. And the Mounties up there are so polite, all my detective bells are going off. I was figuring--"

"If Lieutenant Fraser is on an assignment that cannot be discussed I couldn't possibly--"

"No, no," Ray waved his hands. "Yeah, I got that. I really got that. But maybe you could just check and if there's some top-secret Mountie thing going on I don't gotta know. Just, check with the Mountie Force or something would you?"

He didnt like having to ask. Didn't like having Fraser filtered through Turnbull but, heck, he couldn't remember the name of the place Fraser was now, no way he was going to find it on his own. Ray wasn't quite sure when taking off for Canada had become an option but there it was. He was going to find Fraser even if he had to walk all the way up to the big North on his own.

"I will" Turnbull looked very uncomfortable. "Look into it, Mr. Kowalski."

"Ray."

"Of course."

Two-o'clock in the morning, Ray's phone rang. Half-awake, he let the machine take it, until he heard Turnbull's voice and nearly broke his foot getting to the phone before he hung up.

"What? Where is he?"

There was a long pause and Ray's heart kicked up, hammering away and he wanted to see Turnbull's face, see what it was he wasn't saying.

"I'm sorry to call so late, Mr. Kowalski," Turnbull began.

"Ray, remember? Ray," his mouth went dry at the sound of his voice. It wasn't a good sound. It wasn't a casual phone call sound. It was Bad News. "Spill it, c'mon."

A long sigh like static over the line and Ray thought that maybe Turnbull had been on the phone a lot today, maybe. Looking for one Mountie in a country full of them. "Corporal Fraser was--on patrol with--"

"Was? Was?" Ray jumped in. "Is he dead? He'd better not be dead. No."

"No, he's not dead." Turnbull managed over Ray's rising voice.

"Okay," Ray panted. "Okay, cool. So what's the deal. In trouble? Demoted? On his way to be a doorpost in a consulate in Florida?"

This time Turnbull's sigh sounded exasperated as well as worried. "No. He was- -injured. Badly."

"--oh." Ray chewed on that. Couldn't think what to say. He couldnt imagine Fraser injured--badly--not after seeing him leap off buildings and into burning cars and in front of guns and-- "how bad?"

"Very," there was no Canadian politeness there. Just blunt, tired truth. "He's been hospitalized for the past week, in avegetative state."

"Coma."

"Yes."

Ray shivered, suddenly cold in is boxers and nothing else. He just couldnt see it. Fraser down for the count. Coma. Maybe dying. "Where? Where is he now?"

Turnbull gave him the name of a hospital someplace he'd never heard of and Ray wrote it down. Plane tickets, he thought, and time off. And warm socks. After the Vecchio thing he deserved it, they owed him time and he was damn well going to take it. Whether they gave it or not. Cause Fraser wasn't going to be down for the count if Ray had anything to say about it.

Nothing was quite going as he'd expected. Somewhere along the line, his father had disappeared and Fraser was far from sure he was anywhere either. Maybe it was too late. He'd given up what little comfort he had for--this darkness. He couldn't say he was surprised. Duty was like that, a very, very cold comfort. Still, Fraser wished Dief were here or Ray. Or that he were where they were. Because it was very dark and he was very alone.

His nose hairs were frozen. Frozen! Snorting, Ray stomped the 'light spring blizzard' off his boots and looked around the chilly white hallway. Hospitals, even Canadian hospitals in Brandon--and calling this place a city made Ray want to laugh except he'd seen other places in Canada and knew it was a city--were the same everywhere. A place for people to be unhappy in.

Ray straightened his shoulders and walked, long strides, honest face--stiff backed Mountie walk--right to the front desk. His jacket, flannel lined jeans and winter boots, all saved in the back of his closet from the last trip to Canada, passed Canadian muster.

"Good Afternoon," he said, putting on a smile with an edge of worry and letting the memory of Fraser's accent fill his own voice. Just because his Vecchio job had been a half-assed 'let's pretend' undercover job didn't mean he couldn't pull a real fake when he wanted to. And Ray wanted to, because he was going to see Fraser even if he had to join the Mounties for real. "I was hoping to visit Corporal Fraser today."

He held his hat in his hands and gave the young man at the desk his best 'whatwould -Fraser-do' smile. Kinda amazing the smile he got back; maybe there was something to all those 'thank you kindlys' and 'yes, pleases' after all. Or maybe the guy was on the make. No, wait, this was Canada.

"Corporal Fraser?" the desk jockey went through his computer and frowned.

"Yes," Ray wanted to fidget, to pace, to pick the guy up by his shirt and shake him but a Mountie wouldn't do that. Nope. So he smiled until his cold face hurt. "I worked with the corporal for two years and I heard he'd been injured"

"Yes, he's here. But--"

"I was passing through to my next assignment," and he watched the light blink on in the guy's face. Mountie, yup that's what he was and Ray didn't even have really, really lie. So, Manitoba was a little out of his way from America. So his Canadian accent was as real as Dief's deafness. He didn't say he was a Mountie and Ray couldn't be responsible for other people's assumptions.

"I--I'm sure it wold be fine for a brief visit," the man said and then Ray had room and floor number. "Your name?"

"Raymond Kowalski," Ray said. There had to be pollaks somewhere in Canada. "Thank you kindly."

Fraser's words were rolling around in his mouth as Ray rocked on his heels and watched the lights blink in the elevator. When the door slip open, he stepped out, heart pounding faster and faster as he walked down the hallways and counted room numbers. It was good, had to be good, that Fraser wasn't in intensive care. Ray was going to take that as a good thing, not a hopeless 'he's not getting better so lets stick him in a back room' thing. Fraser's door was half open and the nurses' station was all the way down the hall at the corner; Ray slithered inside and pressed the door shut the rest of the way.

Canada, right, and so Fraser shared a nice room with an empty bed and a small window looking out on the snow. The drawn curtain and the soft bling of machines told Ray where Fraser was. His hands shook when he pulled aside the curtain. He didn't know what the hell was going to be behind door number two. Fraser, yeah, but how bad? How bad was *'badly'*?

Bad.

It wasn't the cast from shoulder to wrist on Fraser's left arm. It wasn't the bandages all along one leg, or the bandages on both hands. Not even the heavy bandage across his head. Not the crappy hospital shave that left Fraser all scruffy and strange looking. Not the lank, greasy hair, the tubes everywhere, the machines clustered around him like martian invaders.

Ray thought the high pitched steam-engine panting was Fraser but no, his chest rose slow and faint and steady. Ray's jaw ached, his clenched fists ached and he struggled to steady his breathing before he fucking passed out. It was bad. It was a very Bad Thing, this place, this moment.

"Frase?" little kid whisper and no answer at all.

It was Bad. Because there was nobody home.

"Fuck--" lurching over his own feet, Ray turned and ran out of the room, down the hall and into the mens' room. "Fuck,fuck, fuck, fuck!"

He fell onto his knees in front of a toilet and threw up everything he hadn't eaten since he'd gotten Turnbull's phone call.

Maybe he had to do something. Maybe he'd done too much. Maybe, Fraser felt the distant stir of guilt and worry and duty, it would never be enough. Regardless, nothing had changed and he was beginning to be afraid that this was going to be it.

He couldn't remember, now, what had brought him here, or what kept him here. He had a vague sense of clinging to somethingsomething and perhaps it wasn't worth the effort. Perhaps he should let go. He wasn't tired, he didn't hurt--and though he refused to remember why, he was grateful for that--but he also wasn'tanywhere. There weren't even dreams to trouble him.

frase

A sound dropped into a bottom of a well from a great, great distance away. He didn't know what it was, from where but it was something. Something more than he had had before. Still, Fraser was afraid to reach for it, he was knotted with terror and only now did he feel it. He soul was cramped and cringing in the corner. He went still in the dark, like a vole when a hawk flies by. Now, Fraser knew there was something out there but he'd lost any faith that it was something he wanted.

End Long Journey Home 2/? by X-Tricks: x_tricks2000@yahoo.com

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