Author's Notes: Thank you to those who appreciated this for what it is - and supported my decision to post it.

"I just can't seem to figure this out, Frase."

The vein in Ray's forehead is throbbing a beat in time with the thrumming of his fingers on the desk. Papers upon papers, strewn and stacked in a chaotic organization only known to Ray.

"It's all right here!" He jabs a frustrated finger into the nearest folio. "I'm just not seeing it. I'm missing something and it's driving me fucking nuts!"

His wary eyes dart up and around to see who might have overheard his outburst, then drop back to his desk. The bullpen has witnessed many of his outbursts, far more dramatic than this small slip. Besides, people sometimes need to talk out loud, to give their thoughts some fresh air. It helps. Ray looks no more a lunatic than usual. Ben smiles gently.

"If I might make a suggestion, Ray?"

"Knock yourself out, Frase." Ray shoves the nearest stack away from him, knocking another one to the floor. White sheets flutter and sail to the floor like leaves in a sudden breeze. He doesn't appear to care.

Ben settles himself in a chair, his chair, opposite Ray, where he has been for four years now. It is his place and peculiarly comforting that no one questions it. No one moves his chair or even scoots it in, besides himself.

Ray looks exhausted, eyes red-rimmed with strain and puffy with deep discoloration. He works so hard. It is his passion that makes Ben love him, the selfsame passion that so often cripples him. Ray loves so hard.

Ben clears his throat. "One of the few things my father taught me," he begins, gauging Ray's receptiveness for an anecdotal explanation.

"When he was alive or after he died?" Ray is listening, apparently too tired to hurry Ben to make his point.

Ben smiles again. "When he was still alive. I was young, but already determined to follow in his footsteps and join the RCMP. I was studying boreal horticulture, learning genus and species, memorizing the Latin names for every type of leaf and moss I stumbled across, which, granted, were quite a few. You'd be stunned at the vast array of plant life to be found so far north, but that's beside the point."

He said this as a reminder to himself to get on with it. He could see Ray's gaze muddle, his eyes gloss over.

"I had my nose either buried in a book or two inches from the ground searching for life in the Artic. And my father pulled me aside one day, one rare day when he was home, and took me outside, pulled me by the elbow out into the snow, and he asked to me to tell him everything I saw. Naturally I wanted to show off, I wanted him to be proud of me, I wanted to impress upon him the aggregate weight of my knowledge. I began to name all the varieties of birds and trees, in Latin and Inuktitut, and I was, as you would put it, on a roll."

Ray's brow was furrowed, his eyes pinched, but he nodded.

"My father stopped me mid-recitation. He stopped me and asked me what I saw. He swept his arms out, wide, taking in the entire infinite icy expanse of the tundra, and I was confused. I had been telling him what I saw. He shook his head, and asked me again what I saw. Slowly I realized then that he wasn't seeing moss and root and twig. What he saw was home. He saw the country he loved, the place of his birth, the glittering snow and inky peat leading to the Mackenzie Delta. He saw virgin forests stretching to a sky so full of stars that we wondered why anyone ever needed electric light."

Ben stops, rubs his eyebrow, moistens his lips.

"I was so meticulously focused on the minutiae that I was no longer seeing what was all around me."

Ray shoves the heels of his hands into his eye sockets, then drops his hands to his desk. "So that was your long-ass way of telling me you can't see the forest for the trees?"

"Yes, Ray."

Ray regards him suspiciously, narrowly. Ben can feel the banked embers of his frustration billow into flame. "You telling me I should back off? Give it a rest?"

Ben slides a hand palm-down across the desk within reach of Ray's hand, a placating gesture. "You're exhausted, Ray. You need to eat and to sleep. Your mind will function better - "

"Don't try to tell me about my mental functions, Frase, you know I can't drop this, these girls, all of them, look at them! They're all dead, dead, dead - " He begins to uncover grisly photo after grisly photo of teenage victims, raped and strangled, hollow-eyed and mouths gaping. " - And the sick fuck responsible is still out there!"

"Ray - "

Fraser stops speaking as Francesca approaches wearing the same sorrowful expression of concern she has been wearing for weeks now. "Everything alright, Ray?"

She says this in lieu of asking him if he needs to take a break. Dewey learned the hard way not to tell Ray to chill out or calm down or take a break. Dewey now stays at a safe distance from Ray, although, truth be told, no distance is safe when Ray pushes himself this way. Right to the precipitous edge of collapse.

"Yeah, Frannie, I'm just ... fuck ... this is just driving me crazy, you know? I'm just, I'm gonna get some more coffee and I'll be okay."

Francesca tucks a stray lock of hair behind her ear and smiles weakly. "If you need anything, you know, more than just coffee - "

"Yeah, I know, Frannie, thanks." Ray returns the feeble smile, and he means it. So does she.

Francesca has steadfastly remained his sister in spirit, and Ben knows that Ray appreciates this, deeply, even if he never says so.

"Okay, bro," she jokes even though her smile fades, and she drifts past his desk and out of the bullpen.

Ray stands, tosses a glance at Welsh's office. "Let's go somewhere we can talk, `kay?"

Ben nods, follows. Ray weaves out of the bullpen, shoving his hands deep into his jeans pockets to hide their telltale shake. The medication Ray is taking is supposed to help with that, but more often than not, he doesn't take the pills until Welsh threatens to bench him. Ray doesn't like a crutch, doesn't want a crutch, he wants to deal with things in their own time, under his own power, and resents any implication that he is cracking under the strain. Ben doesn't think it occurs to Ray that some strains cannot be borne alone.

Ray opens the closet door for him and takes a surreptitious look around before entering and closing them inside. The supply closet is claustrophobic but private. The single naked bulb dispenses its ineffectual light in a mere two foot radius, making Ray appear jaundiced and sickly, all angles and bone. He is losing weight.

"You need to eat more, Ray." It isn't what Ben wanted most to say, but it needs to be said.

Ray closes his eyes and shakes his head, but says, "Yeah, I know. I haven't been hungry lately. I'll pick up some Chinese on the way home." Hushed and brittle his voice, a pale imitation of his normally animated dialect. "And I know I'm losing my mind over this case, but I ... when I sleep ... I dream about these girls and their faces, and I dream about you, and you getting shot and your face looking like one of those girls. The sleeping pills aren't cutting it, Frase." Ray looks down and away. Standing this close there aren't many places Ray can look but at him, and yet Ray manages.

"I know, Ray." He does know. He is there for every single sweat-drenched, twitching nightmare and the waking aftermath of tears wherein all he can do is hold onto Ray and whisper him through it.

"I think this is gonna be my last case, Ben. I don't think I can do this anymore."

"You've said that before, Ray."

"Yeah, I know. You don't have to remind me, but I mean it. I can't ... I'm not ... I hate this. I fucking hate this!"

Ben raises a hand, cups his palm to Ray's cheek, brings Ray's eyes in contact with his. "I know you do. I wish there was more I could do for you, to help you."

A short bark of laughter and Ray's anger flares once again. "Oh, that's rich, Frase, real rich. You wishing there was more you could do. You wanna know what I wish? Huh!? I wish you could do anything! I wish you could do one goddamn thing! But you can't because - "

His rant is cut-off mid-stride as the closet door opens, a shaft of light spearing between their feet. "You okay Ray?" Detective Huey looks genuinely worried, an expression frequently mirrored on most of the faces in the 2-7.

"Yeah, I'm just taking out my frustration on the shelves, Huey. I think I scared Frannie yelling at the files earlier. But I'm good. Greatness."

Huey nods slowly, lips pursed, not appearing in the least convinced. "If you need someone to talk to, Ray, you can come to me." It's such an unusual offer that Huey fumbles for words to clarify. "I'm good for tossing around ideas, about the case, I mean." He stands there for a long uncertain moment, silhouetted in the doorway. "I know it's been hard, Ray. We all miss him - "

Ray interrupts, grabbing the doorknob from the inside. "Yeah, I know, just gimmie a minute, okay?" But he isn't asking. Slamming the door closed, Ray sighs heavily and balls his hands into tight fists.

Ben knows he can't stop Ray from truly venting his rage on the walls or on the furniture or on himself. All he can do is stand patiently and wait for either fists or tears or a verbal onslaught of profanity, mostly directed at God. Minutes pass in silence, Ray's jaw clenched tight, his eyes screwed shut, the muted voices outside the closet humming around them.

"Ray, I wish I were - "

"Don't." A fierce light in Ray's bloodshot eyes. "Don't you fucking say it, Ben. If anybody gets wishes here, it's me, but wishing you weren't dead is pointless so don't you fucking say it."

They've had this conversation before, too often it seems. Ben isn't sure who Ray blames more.

Neither of them is to blame, or both of them perhaps, but assigning liability is useless. Worse than useless, and it changes nothing.

Ben was shot six weeks ago. Ben is dead. Ray has his ashes on a living room shelf beneath which Diefenbaker sits and cries at night.

Still Ben remains, by Ray's side, until Ray tells him to go.

"You're right, Frase." Ray's voice is struggling, tension slowly seeping from his body, and he slumps where he stands. "I need to go home, get out of here, think this through tomorrow with a clear head. I do need to back off a little and look at the larger picture." His breath stutters, his shoulders shake, but no tears fall. Ray has said that he is beyond tears, although Ben knows that isn't true.

Ben hates Ray's resignation, hates that they can't argue as they used to, out loud, in front of everyone. Most of all, he hates Ray's pain.

Once again, he reaches out a hand and cups Ray's face, Ray leaning into the touch even though it looks like it pains him. Ben knows what Ray will say, but he has to ask. He always asks.

"Would it be easier on you if I left?"

Panic strikes swiftly, drains Ray's face of what little color it has left. "No, no, no, no," he repeats so many times Ben loses count, just like the night he died, listening to Ray's voice fade further and further away.

"Don't leave." Ray's hands grip him, that they can do so no longer an shock. "Don't you ever fucking leave me."

Ironic to hear those same words again when by all logical and rational account, Ben has already left. What remains is anyone's guess.

It doesn't matter. He gathers Ray into his arms, strokes his fingers up Ray's spine, feeling the cotton of his shirt dampened by sudden perspiration. "I'll be here," he reassures, as always. "Where else would I be, Ray."

He doesn't ask that, never makes it a question. Because it is unquestionable. There is nowhere else he will ever want to be.

He soothes Ray a moment more with nonsense sounds and soft words before tipping his face into a kiss. This kiss, like all the ones before, is sweet and open and full of love so profound Ben is convinced it is what tethers him to the earth.

He doesn't know why he can feel anything, heat and cold and the stubble of Ray's cheek, but he can. Ray tells him that his skin is still warm, even if that is a physical impossibility, but he doesn't argue. He has learned not to question the things that give Ray comfort.

"I think we should go home, Ray." He presses a kiss to Ray's temple. "Let's go home."

Ray nods, lips against Ben's neck. "Chinese food...I'll rent a movie...we can snuggle."

A bubble of laughter floats to the surface. That they can still snuggle boggles the mind. "I would love to, Ray."

"Okay, Mountie. It's a date."

Ray pulls back to smile at him, a fleeting genuine smile, all panic assuaged, and for a second, just for a precious second, Ben swears he is alive again. Because loving Ray feels like life.

They leave the station together and Ben rides home in the passenger seat, as he has done for years now. It is his place and wonderfully comforting that no one questions it.

Ray holds his hand.