Disclaimer: I am done borrowing Alliance characters, and they have been returned.

SequelTo: The Fall Part 6

It had gone down badly. There was no reason to expect that it would be otherwise. Still suffused with the otherness that possessed him to manhandle his husband, Ray strode into Fraser's room. It shouldn't have gone down like that skittered through Ray's mind, but he was in charge of this operation.

Although the nurse's body blocked a full view, he could see Fraser's leg shifting restlessly. And he heard him croak out the word `please'. The nurse moved aside so that Fraser could see him without obstruction. Beseeching, bewildered eyes watched as he moved closer to the bed.

The crushing weight of this present responsibility suddenly squeezed all the frightening otherness out of Ray. The words that he'd spoken to Jersey about family responsibility were sincere. If Fraser had been anyone else, married to their son and suddenly widowed, Jersey would have clearly seen that it was their responsibility to offer comfort and assure their new daughter or son in law of their place with Oscar's family. A darker thought peeped out of the corners of Ray's brain. But maybe it was more like one of Pavlov's dogs. Benton Fraser was hospitalized and Raymond Vecchio was in his designated place beside his bed. Like a magnet to steel. Like old times.

But this wasn't old times. There were other considerations. Ray was a married man and he'd sent his grieving husband, alone, to their hotel room under police escort. He pushed that thought down as he got closer to the bed. Stroking Fraser's forehead, he searched for the words. As with Jersey, in the restaurant, he longed for some way to avoid the words' tainting effect. The next thing that he said to Fraser would live with his ex for the rest of his life, probably echo in his head forever. Ray didn't want one more hurtful thing, said in his voice, rolling around in Benton's head. He didn't want his voice to be the one telling Benton Fraser that he'd been left behind yet again. As the blue eyes continued to beseech him, Ray brushed his fingers gently across the Mountie's forehead.

In his periphery, the nurse busied herself updating Fraser's chart. A needle was also at the ready. No one had discussed it with Ray. He hoped that it wouldn't come to that, but the deja vu was thick. And this loss was so much more than the loss of Stanley Kowalski. This was...

Unwilling to put words to the horror, Ray continued his gentle touch as he reached into his pants pocket with his other hand. Pressing his son's orphaned wedding band into Fraser's palm, he sealed it there with his own, then held on and waited. There was a sharp intake of breath from the man in the bed and wreckage in his eyes. Ray tilted his head slightly to give final silent acknowledgement.

Benton's hand tightened around his ex-husband's and for one ridiculous second Ray thought there was a chance Fraser would be able to bear the loss.

Using his ex partner's hand for leverage, the newly widowed man tried to get out of the bed. A task made near impossible with a leg in a cast, in traction. No effort was wasted trying to calm or soothe him with words. Ray simply motioned to the nurse who injected Fraser quickly and efficiently.

Unlike what he'd been given in Arizona all those year ago, this one worked fast. Because of Fraser's concussion they didn't give him enough to put him out, just enough to sap his will. And because he remained conscious, his eyes were still able to plead with Ray. And it tore Ray's heart to meet the gaze head on but he did. He held onto Benton's dry hand, the wedding band still pressed between. With his other hand he stroked through the hair grown longer than when he'd seen him a month ago and still grayer at the temples. His mouth wouldn't form the useless words that no one in their situation would believe. His mouth would not say `everything will be okay', ` you'll be okay.' Instead he said the only true thing his brain could come up with. "I'm here Fraser. I'm right here." And he was until the Mountie eventually lost the fight against his exhaustion and grief and drifted off to sleep.

For a flicker of a moment Ray entertained the idea of staying but there wasn't much else he could do. Closing the Mountie's fist around the band, Ray brushed his lips across the sleeping man's forehead and left.

Standing just outside the door of the hospital staring at the snow, Ray's mind was adrift. He hated the snow. Really hated it. When he was married to the Mountie he knew that it would be an undeniable part of his life. Fair was fair. The Mountie had made his home in Chicago. So starting with their honeymoon when they went on vacation they either split the time between some place warm where Ray wanted to go and somewhere in the N.W.T. He loved the Mountie and so he put up with it. It wasn't until he moved to California that he could fully admit how much he disliked traditional winter in general and the snow especially. One November, shortly after he and Jersey were officially together, enjoying a barbecue in eighty-two degree weather, Ray knew that he would never live in a place that snowed again. He loved his mother, his sisters, his nieces and nephews but never again.

Since their marriage there'd only been one other time when they'd had no choice. A promising potential investor in the Trattoria's special event catering service believed in mixing business and pleasure. The pleasure involved skiing in Big Bear. They'd sucked it up and got the Gortex and the winter silks but neither of them was too happy about it. And in later years when Oscar wanted to go snowboarding they were only too happy to let him go with the family of a friend. He'd forgotten and Jersey must have too, about the snowboarding. That their son didn't share the aversion to this weather that they did. Although if it were like this all the time, Ray wouldn't have minded. He couldn't actually feel the cold. Hadn't been able to feel it since getting off the plane.

"Mr. Vecchio, may I drive you to the Inn." Vecchio blinked a couple of times and found Constable Skeekoo idling at the curb in front of him. "Thank you, I would appreciate that."

The journey to the Bay Inn was relatively short in duration but long enough for Ray to make two requests. The first the Constable was able to see to immediately by simply reaching into the glove box. The second request would take a little more time, but the Constable radioed the post so that it could be undertaken quickly.

At the Inn, which bore more than a passing resemblance to a large warehouse, Ray absently thanked Skeekoo as he clutched the manila envelope that represented the fulfillment of his first request to the Constable. As at the hospital, the woman at the front desk seemed to know who Ray was before he opened his mouth. She gave him a smile shadowed with empathy as she handed him his card key and told him his room number. Ray smiled his thanks and moved off in the direction she indicated.

"Oh,'" he paused for a minute, it couldn't hurt to ask, "It's possible we may need another room. Do you have another one available?"

"Yes, Mr. Vecchio we took the liberty of putting a second room on hold." Her smile indicated simple pleasure at their accurate anticipation of his need and their ability to fulfill that need. He wondered briefly if she would be quite as pleased to know that he wasn't asking necessarily on behalf of other family, but because he might be in need of his own room. He'd laid his hands on Jersey in anger. He'd stayed at the Mountie's side. Even though he did what was necessary, a civilian might not see it that way.

"Thank you," he said again as he moved in the direction of their room.

Bracing his hands on either side of the door to his room, Ray took a moment to listen. There were no sounds coming from the other side of the door. Squeezing his eyes shut, the beleagured husband concentrated on getting himself back in the proper frame of mind. Then he straightened and keycarded the door.

"Hey." Ray said quietly. Jersey, who was simply standing in the center of the room, focused reddened eyes on Ray.

"Hey." His eyes moved briefly to the envelope but he watched silently as Ray unzipped and unbuckled his winter gear. Ray tossed the gear on the quilted bed, the envelope on the dresser.

"Have you eaten?" Jersey blinked a couple of times before responding.

"No, I haven't really, no I haven't." It was on the tip of Ray's tongue to ask his husband if he was okay, but that would be stupid. He stepped closer to Jersey who didn't flinch. Only kept watching. Reaching out tentatively, Ray brushed his fingers across the soft skin of his husband's cheek. Jersey's eyes fluttered closed for a second and a tear slid down his cheek onto Ray's hand.

"Lo siento," Ray breathed in his husband's ear as he pulled him into a tight embrace. "Lo siento." The body in his arms shivered violently and the embrace was tightened that much more.

"I...I two wayed Frannie and Maria." Ray pulled back from Jersey so that he could look into his eyes. Again his finger traced the outline of his husband's tear stained cheek. "They're going to go together to tell your mother. Then Frannie is making arrangements to meet us in LA, to help with...everything. She said she'd try and get a flight out either tonight or tomorrow. "

"Okay, okay." It wasn't a battle that Ray wanted to fight right then. His husband hadn't asked him to leave the room. Everything else could wait for a little while. At least until after they ate.

"Do you want me to get something from room service."

"I don't have much of an appetite.."

"I know baby but we've got to eat. You didn't get to finish your dinner so maybe a little something now."

"The menu's on top of the television. I have to call Manuel I didn't have time to go over the invoices with him."

"Okay."

They ate at their rather generous steak dinners in silence. Each man pushed various parts of the meal around on the plate. And there was silence between them that had only just become a part of their marriage. Just before Ray moved into the Malibu house.

"I love you." Ray said catching Jersey in mid chew. Jersey finished chewing quickly and swallowed.

"I know that Ray." The hurt resignation cut Ray to his core.

"What's in the envelope?"

"Um, we should wait until after we eat."

I'm sure it won't make my appetite any worse than it already is." Ray sipped his water.

"The Constable gave me a copy of the police report." Jersey's fork clattered to the table. And he clasped his hands tightly in his lap. "I see."

"Tell me."

"Try to eat a little bit more baby."

"Don't handle me. Tell me. Please, just tell me what happened."

"Okay, okay. I haven't read it yet. You understand it's only preliminary. They haven't had a chance...the Mountie hasn't given a statement yet."

Retrieving the manila envelope, Ray opened it and skimmed the contents of the stapled sheets of paper. He offered the copy of the report to his husabnd who closed his eyes and shook his head. "Just tell me."

"An accident like they told me. The driver may have been going too fast but the way the ice is on the road....he lost control of the car. Apparently he, our son Oscar was standing the closest to the road. I guess to the car. Oscar was clipped hard in one of the spins and thrown. Fraser was hit too but Oscar....His neck was broken. It doesn't appear that drugs or alcohol were involved."

Ray purposely left out what the driver said about what he thought the two men were doing when they got hit. If Jersey didn't want to read the report then there was no reason to tell him. It didn't add anything to the fact at hand. Their son had been killed in an apparently weather related traffic accident. A broken neck.

The crash of the plates, glasses and silverware to the carpet was jarring in a room that had been so silent before. Jersey stumbled up from the table and stared at what he'd done without seeing. Ray stepped to him immediately and grabbed him in a half restraint, half hug.

"Oh God, Ray." Jersey clutched his husband as his knees gave. Choosing not to fight the momentum, Ray sank to the carpet holding him tightly.

"Okay baby, okay."

After a time Ray's was able to get them off the floor and into bed. His husband's back solidly against his chest. Ray pressed his lips gently to Jersey's neck as the words begin to spill out of him. He told stories about what Oscar was like as a baby. And Ray offered silent encouragement as his fingers ran soothing circles over Jersey's chest. Of course Ray knew a lot of the stories or had seen the home DVD's, but he didn't have the first hand memories of Oscar's younger years like Jerse,y did. His heart clenched at the hearing of these stories now. And the image of his bright shining boy flashed in his head. Ray felt the prickle of tears he would not allow to fall.

*****************

Jersey managed to get his eyes open just as Ray stepped out of the bathroom wrapped in one of the Inn's robes. He allowed himself a small moment to experience the simple pleasure he got from looking at this husband. Their lives would never be that way again he thought. Never just about the simple pleasures. It would always be shadowed by this family tragedy.

"I thought that you would have gone back to the hospital by now." His tone was even, no hint of accusation. And Ray answered neutrally.

"The Mountie has a sister. I explained to the Constable that she needed to be notified. He called last night while you were sleeping. They put her on a transport plane. I talked to her this morning, she's at the hospital."

"I'd like to leave today. He knows now there's no other reason for us to stay. I want to take my son home." Ray tried not to bristle again at the use of the exclusionary `my'.

"I've explained the situation to Maggie. She'll do what she can."

"I'm not -" Ray lifted his hand to stop the rest of the sentence.

"Maggie said that she would call me, so can we, maybe for an hour or two not do this?"

The call from Maggie came late in the afternoon. Jersey listened openly to the one sided conversation which consisted of a lot of `yes, yes' and `okay' from Ray's side. And with a final `I'll take care of it,' Ray concluded the call. Jersey tensed as his husband looked at him.

"We can take Oscar home today. There won't be any problems with that. "Maggie and her brother will be with us on the plane going back. "

When he said nothing Ray continued. "They can stay at the house in Malibu and I'll move back into our house." "No."

"To which part."

"I can't do this Ray. His parent's.... I was supposed to take care of him. They left him to me to take care of, not to put in the ground."

Ray knelt in front ofhis husband and slid his hands up his thighs. "You were - ," the past tense was like ash in Ray's mouth. "You were a great dad Joseph. You raised a good hearted, well-rounded, smart young man. You gave him the life his parent's wanted for him."

"We hardly talked at all in the last month."

"I know, I know but he knew that you loved him. That was never a question in his mind."

"Do you think that he really did?"

"Oh God, baby of course. Of course he did."

"I'm not even sure which of his friends to call. I don't know if I have the numbers."

"It's okay. I think I have a lot of them in my database at home and his ex- roommate can help us and Frannie will be there. You, we the family will help with this."

The funeral went as funerals do. Francesca had done an excellent job of handling most of the arrangements. In her capable hands, all the two fathers primarliy had to do was either say `yes those flowers' ` no not that casket' and so on. They'd managed to track down most of their son's friends. And with a stab of pain, Ray realized his son was the one, the first. Of his young friends, his son was the first in the group to go.

Welsh and Huey came to pay their respects. Elaine sent a nice arrangement. She was tied up in court and unable to get the time away. The Kowalski's also sent a deeply personal letter that Ray could not bring himself to read. Despite her fierce desire to attend, his mother was not in attendance. She was not well enough. If there had been any way for them to have simply kept the information from her, Ray would have chosen that option. She'd talked to Jersey a long time on the phone the night before. When Maria came to give Ray the phone, he'd pretended to be asleep.

The immediate family sat at the edge of the grave site in various degrees of pain and desolation. Earlier that morning, Ray had had to fight through a flash of hatred when his son's ex, Adam, stopped at the house to pay his respects. The despair and loss on the young man's face barely reached Ray. It kept rolling in his mind on a loop, if you hadn't left my son...

Fortunately, Jersey, Frannie and Maria had been at the house and the boy was able to offer his condolences unmolested. Still at the grave site service, Ray had difficulty seeing Adam with his new wife and keeping his temperature in check. He and Frannie flanked Jersey. Maggie was next to Frannie and Benton was ramrod straight on Maggie's other side. Maria, her husband, the grown nieces and nephews surrounded them as did the restaurant family. Oscar's friends from elementary, high school, their families and the group of people he hung out with at college as well as a couple of professors filled out the group of mourners. A couple of times Ray tried to steal a look at the Mountie. He'd seen him only briefly since returning from Repulse Bay.

Once the details for the funeral were arranged, Ray went to the Malibu house in person to give Maggie the details. As he and Maggie talked in the kitchen, he could see Benton huddled on his crutches at the edge of the Pacific. His former sister-in-law followed Ray's shuttered gaze. .

"He still has not spoken much since we've been here. He's spent a lot of time looking at the water."

And Ray heard his own fear echoed in what Maggie did not say. Even on crutches Benton could be in the water and gone in an instant. In the days leading up to the funeral Ray kept expecting to get that phone call.

Francesca stepped through the patio doors to the backyard. The water in the pool shimmered in the lights that illuminated the separation between the patio's concrete and the grass. Her eyes fluttered closed for a moment and memories of other falls and summers spent at this house with her brother's family washed over her. And she felt the expected sting of tears at the realization that those times were irrevocably gone.

Opening her eyes, she stared at her reason for coming out here. In one of the adrirondack chairs, her older brother sat nursing a glass of wine. The opened bottle was on the ground beside him and she was gratified to see that it was still mostly full. Ray glanced briefly in her direction then back down to the glass he lifited to his lips.

Taking this as encouragement, Francesca stepped a little closer to her brother. "Is he asleep?" He asked without looking at her. She nodded then remembered he wasn't looking at her.

"Yes, he's sleeping." She started to say something else but she didn't really know how to deal with the silence. Not in this house. And everything was so weird. Her nephew gone and Benton Fraser, the widower. Neither her brother nor her brother-in-law seemed fully capable or willing to explain what happened. And Benton, well she hadn't seen him since the funeral and understandably at the funeral he seemed to mostly look through everyone. You didn't have to be a rocket specialist to realize that there was a lot going on.

So Francesca was left standing where their families had such great times together with nothing to bridge the gap between those times and these. His voice when he spoke was so quiet that she had to lean to catch the words.

"Everyone always thought that it was a love at first sight thing with me and Benny because he was so beautiful, but it wasn't. Not for me." Her brother lifted his glass to his lips and drank.

"Yeah I appreciated the package as much as anyone else but the rest of it was later.... at the diner. He was so..."

Ray's sister wasn't sure if she should encourage him to go on. Despite wanting to have the situation clarified, she now wasn't so sure she wanted to hear the rest of what her brother had to say. No one in the family had a crystal understanding about what ended Ray's second marriage. Joseph was also a brother to her now and she didn't want Ray to say something that would make her have to choose between them. She watched quietly as Ray drained his glass.

"His guard was down, the snideness was gone. He wore his loneliness and vulnerability with such dignity. Courage. And there was no way I wasn't gonna invite him back to house that night." Again Francesca searched for something to say. But before she could come up with anything, Ray spoke again in a ragged whisper.

"I should have had more courage that night." Again Francesca could think of nothing appropriate to say. She didn't want to make whatever was going on worse, even though right now it was hard to imagine it being worse.

"Ray, you should try and sleep," she said as she stepped close enough to pick up the wine bottle. Francesca refilled his glass and turned and took the bottle into the house with her.

"Thank you. Really. I'm glad that you're here. I'm glad that he has someone to talk to."

**********************

"Hey Uncle Ray." Ray smiled at his nephew as he cut the convertible's engine. He climbed from the car and tossed the keys to his nephew Tony, Jr who waited for him in the driveway of the beach house.

"You wanna take the car back to the restaurant? Your Aunt Frannie and Uncle Joseph are there."

"You're gonna let me drive the convertible?"

"Yeah, life's short you know."

"Yeah." His nephew agreed somberly as he glanced back towards the house. "We just finished walking, if you wanna call it that. He's on the deck. He hasn't...he won't eat. I'm worried Uncle Ray. He's not..... He's really messed up. It's scary."

Ray embraced his nephew and kissed him on the forehead. "I know. I'll take care of it. You take the car, enjoy the drive. Be careful in the turns." "Thanks."

"You're a good man Tony."

"Thanks Uncle Ray."

Ray watched his nephew until he could no longer see the tail lights. His gaze swept to the slightly charred hills across the street from the house. There were only two more properties within immediate view. Standing in his drive looking at the beauty of the Santa Monica mountains and feeling the warm October breeze on his face, Ray understood just how fortunate he had been. For a guy with his background he'd done well. He'd survived his childhood without ending up mobbed up, didn't get killed in the line of duty, hadn't gone mental in the line of duty, although there were several times in Vegas that he thought he would. A few nights when he thought he had. He'd managed to come out with a minimum of drama and find two men who loved him and a son. "You'll never see your son surf that beach again," whispered through his mind. His knees buckled suddenly, but he managed to steady himself.

Turning finally to face his house, which on paper was straight out of one of those lifestyle shows, Ray could only see it now as the place that held the wreckage of his life. He doubted that he and his husband would ever live in it together.

******************** Since the funeral, Raymond Vecchio found that he had no choice but to look at some hard truths. He hadn't really chosen Jersey. Not in the classic sense. He did love Jersey, he had fallen in love with him, but at the time Jersey revealed his feelings, Ray still loved his ex-husband. And he'd made the decision to go back to Benny. But Benny had essentially refused him. Yes, he'd done it with an eye toward Ray's burgeoning feelings and his well being, but Ray was twisted up in knots after his encounter with Jersey. And that wasn't the best time to make a decision about his relationship with his ex.

And being that tied up he'd forgotten another one of the hallmarks of his second marriage. Benny was a self-flagellating son of a bitch. Were it an Olympic sport, he'd be a Canadian gold medalist. In their life together, Ray was the one who stepped in to tell Fraser to knock it off. But between Jersey's stunning offer, Benny practically shoving him in that direction, and his own considerable feelings for Jersey, Ray had been more than a little off-kilter.

On the heels of his return from his visit to Kowalski's grave and the accompanying guilt that was probably eating him for lunch, Fraser had done what any self- punisher would do. He gave up the thing he wanted most. He didn't fight for Ray. He simply tossed his Stetson in the ring and took a giant step back.

And Ray had stumbled into Jersey's arms. Comparatively, uncomplicated Joseph Alta. It had taken Ray about two years to settle into his new marriage. There were little moments of adjustment, but one he remembered clearlyt occured towards the end of the second year. They'd been at a party thrown by a friend of a friend. It was peopled with some truly stunning men and women. Predatory men and women. Despite his wedding band, Ray had been hit on several times. At some point it dawned on him that his husband was M.I.A. A low grade panic seeped into him. The need to track Jersey down overcame him. A twenty minute search of the Bel- Air estate, found Jersey more or less holding court in what seemed to be a small movie theatre.

He was telling a story to a mixed group of people. Their attentions were focused fully on him and he seemed to be in his element. His husband had to have a certain level of comfort with people to be in the restaurant business Rayunderstood, but he realized as he watched quietly out of Jersey's eyeline, that he'd made an assumption about his current husband based on his experience with his first husband. That weird feeling that had been nagging at him for months, nagging at him so consistently that he thought he might have to seek professional help, he was finally able to identify. With the Mountie, he operated with a Mountie attuned seventh sense, with an ear out waiting , waiting for the Mountie to get into trouble and need rescue.

On the street it had been a given, but in their home lives it was present as well. They rarely had anyone over who wasn't family and then usually it was only the kids. When they went to a gathering at his mother's house or an RCMP function or something having to do with Ray's job or sometimes just at a the convenience store, he was always on alert, at the ready to step in and defend the Mountie against unwanted advances, against misunderstandings about his nature, about his Canadianess. And his reward was always the brilliant breathtaking smile and love in Benny's eyes. At the time it seemed like an even trade. He liked being the unlikely Prince Charming, but watching Jersey hold court that night, he also remembered how tiring it was sometimes to be that person in the marriage. To be the buffer. Jersey didn't need that from him and as that realization dawned fully on Ray, he couldn't help but grin broadly. He was happy to at last name what had been plaguing him. He could finally relax into his new marriage. There would be no need to talk Joseph Alta down from any roofs. Jersey didn't need to be rescued and Ray was able to let go of the sense of apprehension.

The sober look he took at his third marriage, allowed Ray to find a context for Benny's relationship with his son. It echoed things Ray could see in his current relationship. The ease he and Jersey'd had until two months ago. The lack of substantial baggage. The lack of darkness. Estranged from his family, Joseph Alta made a new family. He didn't pine for the family that didn't want him. He embraced the one that did. He wasn't his. loss. And the same was true of his twenty-two year old son. He and Jersey had worked hard to raise a well-adjusted child. In the back of both their minds the Mountie loomed as an anti-role model for the upbringing of an orphaned boy. And they'd been successful.

Even allowing that Oscar and Fraser had a kinship based on the loss of their parents, they lived with it so differently. The truth was his son had survived the deaths of his parents. Even after all this time Ray wasn't sure he could say the same about Benton Fraser.

Ray grabbed a bottle wine from the wetbar as he moved through the house. He thought about stopping in the kitchen to get a glass but as far as he knew, the Mountie still didn't drink.

He found the Mountie still sitting on the deck in one of the two blue cushioned chaises.

"Hey, Benton." The muscle in Fraser's jaw tightened, but he didn't say anything. Ray lowered himself sideways onto the other chaise so that he faced Fraser and waited. They sat silently for fifteen minutes. Ray drinking from the bottle, Fraser staring out at the water.

"Carpe diem." Ray was glad that he hadn't been taking a drink at that moment or he might have spit all over his white linen shirt. The voice was so hoarse from disuse. Ray wouldn't have recognized it as Benton Fraser if he hadn't been sitting right next to Fraser.

Ray held his breath. He didn't want to do anything that might spook his friend. He took a drink and waited.

"I allowed him to get close to me that first night in Montreal because of what he was to you. Another young man even with the same extraordinary characteristics that he possessed would not have been allowed similar access. Complete access. I let him because he was your son."

Ray felt anger flare in his chest. He hadn't started drinking to get drunk, maybe just to get a little numb, but now he wondered if drunk weren't a better proposition. He didn't know if he could hear what Benton finally had to say.

"And he was exquisite. Remarkable. I took the opportunity that was presented to me without regard for the consequence." His laugh was harsh and ugly. When the sound mercifully faded, Benton's eyes flicked to Ray's then away.

"We were...he liked to walk in the snow. And there had been fresh snow the night before. He liked to walk while it was still had its pristine quality, so we were out at first light. Walking....by the road as we had on other ocassions. And he turned to me to me tell me to hurry because my sheer overwhelm at what he'd become to me caused me to lag behind. His smile lit up the world. When we were toe to toe. I..."

Ray took a hit from the bottle. He knew what was likely coming next. The driver of the car told the authorities that the two men must have been `making out or something' because he didn't realize it was two people until -

"In the moment I was happy. I had everything I'd given up or lost. And then he was gone. He was gone."

And in this telling Ray felt that he was getting the phone call again from the RCMP officer whose name he would never be able to recall. The grieving father watched as his grief stricken friend's eyes surveyed the ocean before them.

"I won't return to the Territories. The snow... I can not do this anymore. I believe that I am at last done." At that moment Ray Vecchio wished that he knew Benton Fraser less well. If he had, he could more easliy pretend that `done' merely referred to the chances of Benton getting married again.

He also wondered if it were possible to have someone else's deja vu. Staring at the man who had been the cause of some of his greatest happiness and some of his greatest unhappiness, he understood what those last moments Fraser had with Kowalski felt like. It was overwhelming instinct, second nature to save your partner's life. Watching the muscles work in Benton's jaw as he continued to stare at the water with great longing, Ray knew that he would do anything to save Benton's life. Even to the destruction of his own marriage. He'd already forgiven his ex-husband for that long ago betrayal, but now that he understood he felt the urge to apologize.

His information was more precise than the information Benton had at the time he was confronted with Stan's despair. Ray knew exactly what that pain would feel like to Jersey. He'd known that hurt intimately. And still the option was on table. Leaning forward he caressed the Mountie's cheek. "Oh, caro."

"Your son, Ray. How can you look at me? How can you be here?"

"Ssh caro." Another hard truth Ray had always known, but only recently allowed into his conscious mind. For the world to be okay, he needed Benton Fraser to be in it and okay. Maybe his husband had nailed it. Maybe he had pimped his son. For the last ten years he'd allowed himself to live with the delusion that things were fine for Fraser. But he wouldn't be able to do that in the next ten years.

Ray stood and swung his long leg over Benton's lounge so that they formed a V behind the Mountie. He wrapped his arms around Fraser's chest and held on to him.

"I need you to stay here Benny."

"I don't think that I can."

"Please try caro."

"You shouldn't be here Ray."

"I know. I know, but I need you to stay. You understand what I'm saying. And I need you to promise."

"Alright Ray."

"Say the words, Benny. Say the words.

"I promise that I will try to stay."

Ray tightened his grip on Benny. Mountie's didn't lie and right now more than anything he needed to believe that a retired Mountie didn't either.

"And I'll be right here. I promise."

- Fin