Disclaimer: AA ownes 'em, I don't.

Author's Notes:

Story Notes: Set after the series, so no spoilers. H/C and the beginings the actual slash sensibility but no sex. Yet.

This story is a sequel to: Long Journey Home 6/?

Long Journey Home 7

Kicking the nurses in the head had gotten Ray banned from Fraser's room unless Frobisher or Maggie was there, so he was cooling his heels in the waiting room until Maggie showed up. He stared at his winter boots, wet with snow--he'd better seal them again--instead of the hospital security goon that happened to be lingering in the room with him. "Maggie, Maggie, C'mon--" he muttered, jigging his knee nervously. He felt like he was stuck after school in detention, waiting for his Pop to come pick him up.

Crisp footsteps in the hall brought his head up with a jerk. Maggie. She sounded like Fraser except shorter. She was in her daily blues; straight from work to here, so she could shadow him up to the room like he was a perp 'cause he couldn't play nice with others. Her face was long and tired and Ray's stomach knotted along with his hands, wondering if something had gone wrong with Fraser.

"What?" he muttered as they stood in the elevator and Maggie's face grew even longer--bitter. "What?"

"Detective Vecchio is leaving tomorrow."

"Yeah," Ray wasn't surprised, plus Vecchio had told him--left his number and made Ray swear to call if anything happened. "He's got a life to take care of."

"Mm." Maggie was staring straight ahead at the doors while the floors went past with little blings. All Ray could see was her profile, all he'd seen of her lately, that hard profile.

Which was just as annoying as when Fraser did it. "What's that mean--mm-- huh? What is it with you? What the fuck did I do to you?"

Maggie's mouth twisted like she wanted to yell but when she spoke, her words were even, slow. Like she was trying to tell him more than she was saying. "After you returned to Chicago, Fraser . . . returned above the tree-line, he headed out with his gear and his wolf. It took me two months to find him, if it had been winter, I never would have been able to."

"Yeah?"

"He had no intention of coming back," Maggie shot him a hard, frustrated glance. The door blinged open and she strode out into the hallway. Ray stared after her, then played catch-up, jogging after her and down the hall. He didn't get it. So, Fraser had been taking more of his leave. So, no one could beat Fraser at his own game in the wilderness, like that was a surprise. So-- Fraser didn't want to come back? "He left . . . after I left?"

"He left from the airport," Maggie muttered. "No word, nothing."

Suddenly, Maggie spun around, shoving Ray against the wall just outside Fraser's room. "Don't you understand, dammit? Do you think he just forgot to mention he was leaving to anyone? He wasn't planning on coming home, on coming back, on seeing anyone ever again. Now, Vecchio's leaving and what are you going to do in a week? Don't you understand?

I had to bring him back!" She went on. Behind the frustration, behind the anger- -Ray could see worry, desperate worry. "I had to find him out there, I had to follow him for three days before he'd talk to me. I had to watch him take one of the most isolated postings in Canada and just hope duty was enough to keep him from just . . . walking on one day and never turning back. Now, Vecchio is leaving and you'll--"

She broke off, close enough that Ray could see the unshed tears in her eye and hear her swallow. She stepped back, turning aside from him with a weary wave of her hand. "Never mind. Nevermind, Ray, just . . . nevermind."

Ray could feel the sick flush creeping up his face, remembering how hard it was to leave Fraser at the airport, how much it felt like a gut-shot. Remembering how straight Fraser had stood, like a tin soldier. Like nothing could touch him and Ray had taken that picture and put it in a box marked done. Fraser was home and he would be alright. Ray had hung onto that hard all the way back to Chicago, because one of them had to be all right and it sure hadn't been him. Maybe it hadn't' been Fraser either. Maybe that had been fucking obvious from day one and Ray had fucked up.

His Fraser radar had been on busted, 'cause maybe no one else woulda picked it up but he should've. He should've known Fraser wasn't okay. Fraser was like snow, like what white folks thought of snow . . . blank and white, but Fraser was really like Inuit snow; sixty different words and a whole world, if you knew how to look. But Ray hadn't wanted to look at whatever as underneath Fraser's toy soldier mask; he couldnt look at it then turn around and leave. Fraser didn't ask him to stay--never asked--so all Ray could do was leave, not look and leave. Ray knew he was one needy fuck and all he needed--all he'd needed then--was for Fraser to ask. To want him. Even a little.

"Where are you going to be in a week?" Maggie's voice was strangled, like she didn't want to ask the question. All she was showing him was her profile again; nothing to see there. "Where will you be, when Ben's still here?"

Ray combed his hands through his hair, helpless. He hadn't been thinking about tomorrow or next week or the next hour for a long time. Going with the flow, going with the easy thing, crawling out from under his own name whenever he could. And he was the one who gotta make the plans? It should be funny but it wasn't. "Maggie--"

"Go see Ben," she said. "I'm not the one who needs the answer."

Fraser knew he was improving; by his own measurements as well as the somewhat more liberal encouragement of the medical staff. He knew where he was, most days, and why. He had long hours to stare at the little room he was in and try to remember what had happened. Of course, the doctors didn't expect Fraser to ever remember what had happened but . . . those lost hours could be key to finding the criminals, it was his duty to remember. No one seemed to agree, no one wished to discuss the case with him; saying only that he should focus on his recovery.

He had lost most of his left pinkie and the tip of his ring finger to frostbite, would have a visible scar on his forehead above his left eyebrow and the scar on his leg--bullet wounds that had shattered the thighbone--might require further surgery to allow him free movement. Fraser rubbed the ridge of tissue, the nerves sparking and aching under his touch, his gaze drifting to the empty chair by his bed where Ray Vecchio used to sit. Clearly he should have been wearing his 'please, shoot the other leg' sign because, once again, he'd been shot in the right leg. He'd even had that sign, until his apartment had burned down. Ray had made it for him. The sign was gone now, like Ray.

Displeased at the pitiable turn of his thoughts, Fraser turned his attention to the blank white wall beside his bed and did his best to block out the intrusive hospital noises. He settled down to do what he'd been doing for quite some time now . . . waiting. The familiar apathy that had claimed him after Victoria had returned. Fraser had little ambition besides waiting passively in his bed for the days to pass and he could return to the unchanging march of his days.

"Frase, hey buddy," Ray's voice was different today, more . . . something, more like Ray usually was, intense, almost abrasive. A chair scraped over the linoleum and Fraser turned back to Ray when he felt the light weight of his hand settle on the bedspread. He studied that hand rather than look into Ray's face. Sometimes, even looking at Ray's eyes was too much, as if all that lively energy was somehow threatening.

Ray's hands were a history of his life. The knobby knuckles and gun calluses; boxing and gunfire. The long fingers and bitten nails; hyperactive energy and stress. Faint scars; a life full of struggle--both physical and emotional. For years, Fraser's hands, like his face hadn't reflected the life he lived or the things he felt. He curled his left hand into a lose fist, feeling the ghostly echo of amputated flesh. Things had changed, finally, he bore the marks of his life in a way that could not be hidden under ceremonial uniforms or courtesy. Their hands were inches apart on the white blanket. Since Ray's first embrace, this was the closest they'd been . Those inches of white blanket were like an ice crevasse that Fraser didn't know how to bridge. It always had been.

"So, do ya like the posting you got now?" Ray seemed oddly intent, leaning forward in his chair and when those pale eyes caught his, he could see something of the detective in them. Today, Ray wasn't here to comfort him, Ray was here to find something. "In the middle of nowhere ain't it?"

"Yes," he said cautiously. Ray seemed to be veering off from the usual convalescent conversation that was as bland as the hospital food. The change was comforting, despite the suspicion of dangerous verbal territory coming up, listening to Ray try to be restrained had been painful. "Alert is a small town, hunting accidents and rescue operations are the most common emergencies in the area."

"And poachers."

"Yes, and poachers."

"No nuclear subs," Ray said, jiggling distractedly. His hand was still next to Fraser's on the other side of that unspoken divide, but he was pinching the blanket restlessly. "So, what'd ya do after I left, huh? 'Till they gave you Alert-- sounds like a cold medicine there, Frase."

Fraser stiffened, glancing towards the doorway, knowing that Maggie had to be somewhere out there. She had told Ray . . . something, he had no idea what. Something to worry Ray, something to make him curious. Exactly what Fraser didn't want, he thought, irritation prodding at the dullness of his thoughts.

"Not a great deal, Ray," he said blandly. "Waited for my next posting."

Why was it he couldn't remember two weeks ago but every miserable moment after Ray had left him on the tarmac was burned into his heart? And why did Ray have to question him about it? Fraser wasn't inclined to discuss things he couldn't change and Ray (both Rays, all of them, everyone actually) leaving was one of those things. But Ray scowled at him and slumped back in his chair, arms crossed and foot tapping.

"Yeah, sure," he said sourly. Fraser watched him fidget for another moment than toss any more dissembling out the window. Ray rubbed his hands together briskly, bracelet glimmering, and leaned to him. His face was drawn, tired, and fierce, like Fraser remembered from their years in Chicago. Ray was so alive. "What were you looking for out there, huh, when you pitched everything over your shoulder and made for the horizon?"

"Nothing," he answered, like Ray, Fraser gave up on any pretense of ignorance. "I was disinclined to--"

"Nothing," Ray echoed sharply, hand chopping the air, looking anguished. "Dis-- disenclined. Just like always Frase. You prefer not, thank you kindly and are dis--everything and what d'you want? Huh? You're my buddy, dammit and we were partners for three years and wandered around the fucking Arctic circle for five months and I don't think I ever heard you say what you wanted."

"You almost die and it's still all not wanting and not asking and--" Ray tossed his hands in the air and shoved out of his chair to pace. Fraser pushed himself a little more upright, feeling the wash of his blood in his body for what seemed to be the first time since he'd awakened, Ray was like the sun, too vivid to ignore, too maddening to simply tolerate. "You got duty down good, Frase but listening to ya is enough to make a guy give up."

"Why are you asking me this?" he said straining to smother his resentment. It was so easy for Ray to want--to reveal his wants, to fight for them. No one asked Fraser these kinds of questions.

"'Cause I wanna fucking know what you want!" Ray exploded, voice ragged as he clawed at his hair. His face was torn between frustration and a raw intensity that Fraser shied from understanding. "I swear to god, Frase--dancing girls, tropical fruit, a vacation at Club Couples, whatever you want but you gotta want Frase, you gotta want something!"

"Something!" He was strangling, glaring at Ray, feeling a burning flush race up his throat and face. What did want have to do with anything? "What should I want, Ray? To be shot and left for dead? To be exiled for exposing criminal actions? Tell me, what does what hat I want have to do with anything?"

Fraser stopped, choking as he realized in astonishment that he was yelling; undignified, impolite and everything he wanted was clogging his throat and blurring his eyes and streaking hot down his face like tears. He dragged in a ragged breath, ashamed of himself but Ray wasn't looking shocked, he wasn't staring at him disapprovingly. He was, he was there, right there arms around Fraser's shoulders, hands hard on his tired shoulders.

"Frase," he said into the top of Fraser's head and he sounded strangely happy, breathless, crazy--Ray. "I got you, I got you. You tell me, you tell me anything and I'll get it."

"I want . . ." he gasped, hardly recognizing himself; his voice, the way he clutched at Ray's arms. He buried his face into the raspy stubble of Ray's neck. "I want. I want Dief! Where is he? I want--I want to get out of here, I hate it here!"

Like a spring rush, Fraser discovered he couldn't stop all those wants flooding out of his mouth. Ray probably couldn't understand him, between the harsh noises--not sobs, he never cried--and the way he hid in the darkness of his shoulder. But he couldn't stop. The words hurt, like they'd been frozen inside him for years but he still couldn't stop himself. His protective apathy had burned up, shattered under Ray's insistence and what was behind it was . . . rage. Need. Want.

"I want to go home," he gasped. "I want a home to go to."

Other wants, shattering wants and Fraser struggled to push himself away from Ray, fought for the armor he'd worn so long.

"Uh-uh, buddy." Ray clung like a limpet, like Fraser wasn't an invalid. Fraser couldn't escape from the grip on his hair, the hard line of Ray's shoulder against his cheek or Ray's chant, "Tell me, tell me, tell me--yeah, tell me it all."

"I want, I want . . ." Fraser groaned in shame, helpless to stem the words flooding between them. "I want you, Ray. I want you to stay. Never leave. Never . . . "

Ray breath hitched sharply, he was crying too, hunched over Fraser's bed, crying. "You got it, buddy. You got it. You got it all."

TBC (121504)

End Long Journey Home 7/? by XTricks: x_tricks2000@yahoo.com

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