Disclaimer: Not mine, yadda, just for fun, yadda, no infringement, yadda, yadda.

Author's Notes: Written for the DS Harlequin Challenge. With thanks to Pepe who stayed up late to beta for me, to Raine_Wynd for a read through and to Nicci who made the beautiful cover.

Ray Kowalski was having a bad day.

It obviously wasn't enough that his marriage and his life had recently turned to crap. It wasn't even enough that he'd been on this stakeout in Chinatown for two, long days of stewed coffee, a plastic chair that put his back out and no sign of their mark. Oh no. God or whatever had decided that this was his day to suffer, because now suddenly he finally had something to actually watch on his tiny monitor instead of an empty apartment and there was something actually happening. But it wasn't their guy going in through the door of the dingy little room he'd been staring at. No, it was a smooth dressed guy with a big nose who Ray half recognised, and a broad man with a weird hat. And they weren't just walking in... they were breaking in.

What the hell was going on?

"Here's a guy who doesn't know how to spend his money," Ray heard, the nasal voice distorting through the speakers.

Ray suddenly remembered where he'd seen the dresser before. It was a joint bust from last year, the guy was from the twenty-seventh - Versace or something...

"You know, Ray..."

Ray dragged the headset off and bolted out of the door, along the corridor, down the dirty, dark stairs and toward Drake's apartment, pulling his gun and finding his glasses as he ran. He was almost there, the words, "Chicago PD," already on his lips when he heard a voice shout, "Fraser!" There was an unholy, yellow glare and then a deafening blast that made the damn fillings in his teeth rattle. The bang became a strange groan, a rolling, shrieking echo that seemed to come from everywhere at once.

His last thought as the whole fucking world slid sideways and out from under his feet, was that he should have listened to his Dad - being a cop was just too fucking hard some days.

~o~

Ray Kowalski was having a very bad day.

He was waking up for the second time today with a head that felt like someone had parked their pick-axe through it while he hadn't been looking. The first time, it had been self-inflicted - a twenty-year old, single malt pick-axe that he'd picked up on the way home from work and got to know really, really well over the course of the previous evening. But this? This headache was not his fault.

Ray opened his eyes and realised that every part of him ached, not just his head. His neck ached, his back ached, even his hair ached. But along with this full-body assault there was something worse. There was something very, very not right with his left leg. He knew this from the iciness of the sensation. He knew this from the way he couldn't wriggle his toes. But mostly he knew it from the screaming pain that shot up his leg, his back and into his skull every time his heart beat.

"Fuck," he muttered, trying to shift his weight, so he could ease some of the discomfort.

Several things occurred to Ray at once. First, that he couldn't actually move, second, that it was fucking dark in here and c, that as bad days went, this was one of his finest. Ray strained to see anything in the darkness around him. Wherever he was, it stank. It smelled of dust and damp and concrete. Ray coughed through a mouthful of dirt and grit, spitting weakly.

His couldn't move his left arm, it seemed to be pinned, but his fingers, although tingling, were at least still there. He brought up his other arm, only to have it blocked about a foot above his head. More careful investigation revealed other surfaces, weird angles and splintered materials all around him as far as he could reach.

"Shit," he concluded, feeling his heart rate ratchet up. Flat on his back, trapped in a tiny space under the rubble of Frankie Drake's apartment was not what he'd had in mind as a fitting end.

He tried to stay calm. This was downtown Chicago, it wasn't like no one had heard the explosion, and dispatch had known where he was, so help would be already on its way. All he had to do was keep breathing and yell when he heard someone; if, of course, they didn't bring more of the damn place down trying to get him out, and if he didn't bleed out before they got here.

"Help! Hello? Help! Can anyone hear me?" he called. He stopped to listen, but there was no answering shout, only an eerie quiet and the continued squeaks and slides of the rubble settling.

Ray squeezed his eyes shut, preferring the blackness behind his eyelids to the blackness of being trapped in a tiny fucking space, under tons of rubble with limited air and a busted-up leg, waiting for someone to realise he was still alive...

Right. Freaking out here was not the thing to do. Not cool. His eyes felt suspiciously hot too and crying... just no. What he needed was a distraction; he decided to sing.

Of course, he couldn't actually think of anything cool to sing, so he had to settle for what he knew.

"So when you're near me, darling can't you hear me? S.O.S. The love you gave me, nothing else can save me..."

Okay. So that was a bad choice of lyric. He was just about to start on 'Puff the Magic Dragon', when something began to prickle in his subconscious - something he was missing - a presence and a growing certainty that he wasn't alone. It was like the quiet wasn't a natural thing, it had purpose and awareness.

Ray rolled his head to the right and squinted. Through the brown/black shadow he was amazed to see the whites of two eyes staring back at him, not more than an arm's length from where he was pinned.

"Fuck!" he yelped, which started new rolls of pain sweeping over him, making him sweat and grit his teeth. When he opened his eyes again, the steady gaze was still there, and Ray had the most terrible feeling that he was trapped in here with a corpse. But after watching for a moment, he was relieved to see a blink.

His eyes were adjusting now, and he could make out that the gaze belonged to a face, an indistinct and paler blob in the darkness.

"Hey," he croaked.

There was no answer. Maybe his eyes were playing tricks on him. Maybe he was talking to a stiff. With a careful hand, he reached out toward the figure and soon encountered leather, warm with body heat - hard, curved - a shoulder. Following it upwards, he felt a neck, a rough chin, so a guy, not a chick. He ought to know where to put his fingers to find a pulse; cops always did that on the TV. The man's skin was still warm, but as they'd only been here for five minutes, it meant nothing.

Ray fumbled, finding an ear, a jaw, soft short hair, but no pulse.

"Buddy? Can you hear me?" Ray asked, abandoning the pulse and settling for a good prod in the cheek.

"Yes, I can hear you."

Ray started. Good strong voice there, he thought. Sounded like he wasn't in imminent danger of croaking on him.

"Okay, greatness. Are you okay?"

"I...I seem to be trapped, but there doesn't seem to be any significant injury immediately apparent."

Ray blinked. He recognised that voice. "Hey, you were the guy. The one breaking into Drake's place. What gives?" If he could have moved, he would have, and got up into this guy's face - it was his damn fault that they were here in the first place.

"Breaking in?" the man repeated, sounding confused.

"Yeah, you and Detective Versace. This ain't your turf, you know that buddy? This here's the 19th's jurisdiction."

"I have no idea... what jurisdiction? I don't know anyone called..." the man went quiet, Ray could hear his breathing getting faster. "Where am I?" he asked suddenly.

Great. The guy was loopy - probably had a crack on the head. "We're lying in the remains of Frank Drake's apartment."

There was no reply.

"Chinatown?"

Another silence.

"Chicago? Any of this making sense to you there?"

"Ah, and you are?"

"Ray Kowalski, 19th Division, Serious Crimes."

"I see." He paused. "And I am?"

~o~

Ray Kowalski was having an extremely bad day.

Not only recently and painfully divorced, and currently in a meaningful relationship with Glenmorangie most nights of the week, not only trapped under what felt like most of Franklin Street with a broken leg, but trapped there with an amnesiac guy who talked like he had a stick up his ass - which he might have - that would explain a lot.

"What's the last thing you do remember?" Ray asked with exaggerated patience.

"Well, I... ah... not much."

"Great. Well, I gotta tell you, buddy, I'm not gonna be much help to you. I don't know you. I was doing surveillance on this sleaze Drake from the attic room above his apartment. The guy's been getting about a bit, talking to some people we know of, buying stuff from a couple of characters we've been watching. We want to know what's his angle, you know? So, I see you two guys and the next thing I know - Boom!"

"Is the other gentleman here?"

"What other gentleman?"

"You mentioned someone named Versace?"

"Yeah, Detective from the twenty-seventh. Dresses like he's all that."

"All what?"

Ray took a long-suffering breath. "You're not from around here, are you?"

"I have no idea."

Ray looked back up at the roof of their cramped refuge. Only now he could see how close that was, and it really wasn't very far at all. He swallowed and looked back at the guy.

"I don't think there's anyone else here anyway... uh... Fraser. I think your name might be Fraser. That's what Versace yelled just before the bomb went off. And there wasn't anyone else in the room - I know - I've been watching it for forty-eight hours."

"Fraser," the guy repeated. "Is that a christian name?"

"In Canada? I dunno. I guess."

"Canada?"

"Yeah, I figure from your accent you must be Canadian." Nobody from Chicago that he'd ever met talked like this Fraser guy - all long words and pronouncing every single letter. Who had time for that?

Fraser seemed to be thinking about that and in the quiet Ray heard the unmistakable scream of a fire truck siren, muffled, but nearby.

"Hear that? Won't be long now," Ray said stoically, although for whose benefit was debatable.

"Detective Kowalski?"

"Call me Ray."

"Ray? Do you think you could see if you can move this restriction on my chest? It is making respiration rather more difficult than is comfortable."

Ray reached his free hand up gingerly. With his fingertips, he could just brush the 'restriction' - it felt like some kind of massive wooden joist or something. He stretched, trying to see how far it went up, but the effort sent new waves of nausea and a screaming, throbbing heat up from his leg.

He flopped back with a groan.

"You're injured." Fraser's voice sounded accusing and concerned at the same time.

Ray didn't reply, he wasn't sure he could unclench his jaw yet without revisiting lunch.

"Why didn't you say? I would never have asked you for help if I'd known," Fraser muttered.

"My leg's trapped, actually my whole left side and I think I... uh... I think my leg's..."

"Help's on the way," Fraser said reassuringly.

As if on cue, Ray could hear more sirens and if he really stretched, possibly a voice.

"Hey! Hey! We're here! Hello?" Ray yelled.

"I suspect they're still assessing the building to make sure no further instability exists before they start looking for survivors, Ray," Fraser said thoughtfully.

How could anyone be that calm? That was like... freaky. "Yeah? Well I'll tell you what's un-fuckin'-stable. Me!"

"Ray, they have to assess these kinds of situations extremely carefully, if they go in and start pulling bits of debris off willy-nilly, it might cause the whole lot to collapse, and crush us in the process."

"Are you always this cheerful?"

"I'm sorry. I'm certain that when the time is right, they will be able to extricate us from this location."

"If we're still alive by then," Ray growled.

They both listened for a moment. There was a definite rumble of activity now, distant but quite definitely there.

"Fraser?"

"Apparently."

"Did you say willy-nilly?"

"Ah, yes, I did. I think your assumption about my heritage must be correct."

~o~

Ray Kowalski was having the badest of bad days ever.

Trapped beneath rubble with the mysterious but kindly Fraser, Ray found himself listening for every creak, every groan and every slither from the former building now piled like playing cards above their heads.

From time to time he would yell, but it set up such a buzzing, flaring ache throughout his body that he couldn't keep it up for more than a few seconds. Fraser's chest was constricted by a large beam and breathing deeply enough to shout was impossible.

The first time it happened, Ray was convinced they were gonners. The constant hum of heavy machinery had changed pitch suddenly as they lay there in silence. Two seconds later there had been an ominous squeak, renewed creaking and then a rumble, which they felt through the floor of their prison. Dust drifted down, landing on their faces and filling their noses.

Ray instinctively shot out his right hand, finding Fraser's arm. He slid his fingers down and clutched Fraser's large, warm hand tightly until the noise stopped and the loudest thing was once again the beating of his heart.

Self-consciously and somewhat reluctantly he untangled his fingers from Fraser's. "Sorry, I..."

"Think nothing of it, Ray," Fraser replied and his voice sounded kind of strange there, so maybe Ray wasn't the only one in need of a little reassurance.

The worst part was the waiting. Every tiny creak took on massive proportions, each small screech of metal made them tense and sick.

The second time, there were chunks of masonry falling around them and Ray's hand found Fraser's already groping for him. They twined their fingers together and squeezed, and even when the rumble died away and the building settled again, they didn't let go.

"Maybe we should... ah... talk to pass the time," Fraser suggested tightly.

"Right, good, yep. What d'ya wanna talk about, Fraser?"

"Well, without knowing anything about myself, it's very hard to come up with a topic. Why don't you tell me about yourself, Ray?"

"Yeah, that should take up thirty seconds," Ray snuffed, but the next groan of moving debris was just beginning, so he plunged in so he wouldn't have to listen to his impending doom.

"Well, I'm thirty six. I was born in Chicago, lived here all my life. I have a brother, Kevin, he lives in Arizona with his wife and three kids. Nice kids, too. My Mom and Dad moved down there to be nearer them, 'cos I don't... Uh, I've been a cop for fourteen years. I got an apartment downtown, it's not much, but it's mine. I used to box, but I gave it up when... I have a pet turtle called Vin. My favourite colour's green and uh..." Ray dried up as the sound of a pneumatic drill started up somewhere above them.

"Are you married?" Fraser asked calmly.

"No.. uh... I was until March, but... didn't work out."

"Had you been married long?"

"Yeah, me and Stel... Stella, my wife's name was Stella, we were like together since eighth grade, on and off, more off than on in the beginning. She's a lawyer, a good one. Assistant State's Attorney. Always knew she'd be someone - she's something else, you know?"

"She sounds like a very capable woman, Ray,"

"Yeah, she is that. And beautiful. Smart. Dances like she weighs nothing, you know? Just floats..."

"You love her very much," Fraser said quietly when Ray tailed off again.

"Yeah, but that's not always enough, is it?"

"I don't..."

Ray gave himself a good, hard mental shake. "So what about you, Fraser? Married? Kids?"

"Ray, I thought we'd established..."

"Well, what do you think? Do you think you're a family guy? Are you wearing a ring? Do you feel like you're married? C'mon Fraser, work with me here."

He was pushing, being over familiar, he knew that. But this wasn't the time for polite conversation - they'd managed to survive a fucking explosion and were waiting to find out which piece of drywall had their name on it. This was like that speed-dating thing - making an impression and 'getting to know' before the five minutes were up.

"Ray, I really can't remember anything at all about..."

"Then make it up! It doesn't matter! Just say anything." Ray knew he sounded annoyed, petulant even, but just rolling out your life history for someone like that - it was weird. Putting it out in bullet points like that made you realise what a loser you really were. And the machinery noise was getting louder and louder, with all the groans and clanks and...

"Alright," Fraser said evenly after a second. "My name's uh... Steve Fraser and I come from uh..."

"You don't sound like a Steve," Ray muttered. He'd met Steves. He knew Steves. They were guys in bars who would break your face if you happened to glance in their direction. They didn't sound calm and reassuring like Fraser did. Clean-living. Wholesome, even.

"Well, I don't remember what a Steve sounds like, Ray. What do you suggest?"

"I dunno. James? Robert? Something traditional... Doesn't matter. Steve's fine," Ray jabbered stupidly.

"Fine. I have a cabin by a lake in the Rockies. I'm thirty-seven. I've got two brothers and a sister. My parents live quite close by, in Calgary. My mother's a writer and my father, he's a university lecturer."

"That's why all the long words..."

"Pardon?"

"Never mind. So what do you do, Steve?"

"Oh, I'm an artist. Watercolours and pencil sketches mostly. I don't sell very many, but enough."

Fraser really seemed to be getting into this now, his life story flowing as if they were real memories.

"Cool," Ray grinned, wondering if Fraser could see him.

"My brother, James, is a rocket scientist, my other brother, Robert, is a formula one racing driver and my sister is an astronaut. Her name's... uh... Rose."

"Sounds nice. Good names."

"Yes, I'm kind of the dark sheep. The others all have proper careers," he explained, but he didn't sound bitter about it - more like amused.

"You married?" Ray ran a tingling thumb over the smooth band of skin that still encircled the base of his ring finger and imagined Fraser checking his own hands for evidence.

Fraser hesitated, "I don't think so," he said, suddenly less certain. "I think I had my heart broken once and never found love again."

"No way, Fraser!" Ray said, incredulous. "I bet you're one of those guys who gets the pretty, smart girls - the serious ones, but you never settle down and commit to one. But somehow, because you're so nice about it, you get away with that."

"Why would you think that?" Fraser asked.

"I dunno, you just seem like a nice guy, you know?"

"Really?" Fraser didn't sound convinced, but he did have a soft note of pleasure in his voice at the same time.

"Sure! I hate guys like you! You make it all look so easy," Ray laughed, but the stabbing in his leg made him stop abruptly.

"Ray, are you okay? I'm sure they are quite close to finding us now," Fraser said, only just audible over the grinding, hammering sounds, that were, in fact, getting closer all the time.

"I'm fine," Ray gritted and felt ridiculously pleased when Fraser squeezed his hand supportively. "Go on."

Hearing Fraser talk, no matter that it was all a fabrication, was soothing. He had a smooth voice, deep and rounded. It took Ray's mind off the pain and the fear that snapped at his consciousness insistently.

"Uh... where was I?"

There was a huge, resounding crack and the dark air around them was filled with dust again making them both cough for a minute. The hiss of the grains of pulverised concrete filtering into their airspace went on for a long time.

"Ray?" Fraser sounded hinkey.

"Pet?" Ray prompted. If they could just keep up their conversation they wouldn't have to think about... the other stuff going on.

"Oh, a dog. Big, white one."

"Sport?"

"Hockey."

"Colour?"

"Red."

"Cool. I'm pleased to know you, Steve Fraser. Maybe when we get out of here, we can go out and get a drink? I could pick up any of those serious, smart girls who didn't catch your eye," Ray said cheekily.

"I don't think... that is... I doubt any of them would," Fraser responded slowly. "Catch my eye, that is."

It took Ray a good minute for that piece of information to filter through his overwrought mind. Then another minute for him to raise the courage to say, "Fraser? Are...?"

"What happened between you and your... and Stella, Ray?" Fraser asked, cutting him off.

Ray swallowed. Was it coincidental that Fraser asked this right now? Or was it a leading question? Could Fraser tell, just from what he'd said? Okay, the handholding thing was incriminating, but these were weird-assed circumstances right here. Any guy would do the same - straight, bent, didn't matter. Stress made you do odd things.

Stress didn't make you wish they'd never stop though.

Ray cleared his throat, stalling for time. He didn't tell people this - this was something that only he and Stella knew.

Something Stell had known all along and been okay with, right up until she suddenly wasn't.

And that was a tale that would keep them in conversation topics, even if it took days to dig them out.

"I uh... see the thing is, me and Stella... she was my best friend in High School. I told her everything, you know? Everything. Even the stuff... Anyhow, we fell in love. So she knew when I asked her to marry me that I... uh... I hadn't always been totally... uh..."

And Christ on a unicycle if Fraser's thumb wasn't rubbing along the back of his knuckles, stroking his skin; a tiny, seemingly unconscious gesture that Ray could choose to ignore as a stress reaction or interpret as something else altogether.

"We were young and stupid and in love. And we thought that what we had was enough, we thought it didn't matter that I... Fraser, the thing is, I'm..."

"Hello? Can anyone hear me?"

~o~

Ray Kowalski was having a hellish day in which he might have just managed to find a sliver fucking lining, except it was being complicated by a rescue operation whose timing sucked spectacularly.

Ray's hand clenched involuntarily in surprise; the voice was so close it sounded like they were right above them. But when he tried to relax his grip on Fraser's hand, he found Fraser wasn't letting go.

"Yeah, we hear you."

"Got them! I got them! Hey, who is that?"

"Ray Kowalski and ... uh... Fraser," Ray shouted.

"Are you injured?"

"Yeah, my leg's a mess and Fraser's got a head injury."

"Is Constable Fraser conscious?"

Constable Fraser.

Not Steve.

Constable.

Ray felt icy, knowing how stupid it was to have thought that he could forge a friendship with a guy in under a couple of hours, no matter how fraught the circumstances. And yet he felt connected to Fraser, that they shared some kind of bond. To hear that his sweet, gentle artist from the Rockies was actually a cop - well, it was like someone had taken something precious from him.

Ray turned his head, searching for some of the reaction he was feeling on Fraser's face. Steady eyes gazed at him, filled with something Ray couldn't name, maybe it was longing or maybe that was what Ray wanted to see.

"Hello? Ray?"

"Yeah, I'm here. He's conscious, but he has amnesia."

"Okay, we're gonna be right back. We're nearly through to you. Hang tight, okay?"

It was very quiet while the men worked overhead, other than the sound of debris being cleared and the muffled shouts of the rescuers. Fraser held on tightly to his hand, as if he thought that Ray might pull away at any moment.

"Are you okay, Fraser?" Ray asked from time to time, and each time Fraser would reply in a monosyllable, obviously trapped in his own thoughts.

When they finally broke through, Ray had to close his eyes against the glare of the arc lights they were working under, their brilliant but flat light danced wildly on his retinas even with his eyes shut.

They had made a gap off to Ray's left, putting him between Fraser and the rescue party.

"Detective Kowalski?"

Ray craned his neck, peering over the joist that held his arm. "Here," he replied. A guy in a white coverall and a hard hat rolled himself into the crawl space and inched toward Ray.

"Hi, I'm Nathan," he said, peering over the beam that had Ray trapped. "How are you doing?"

"Peachy," Ray bitched, but Nathan was already doing his thing, checking Ray's vitals as best he could in the limited space available.

"Constable Fraser, we're gonna get to you as soon as we've moved Detective Kowalski. Do you understand?"

"Understood," Fraser said quietly.

Ray deliberately kept his eyes away from the man trapped beside him. He wasn't quite ready to give up his image of Steve Fraser and the longer he didn't look, the longer he could hang onto just his voice, without the distraction of a face to put to it. He answered all the questions the medic posed and swore when Nathan assessed the damage to his leg.

"Okay, you're good to go. I'll get out of the way and they can lift this last part."

"You need to look at Fraser. He must have had a smack to the head. He doesn't remember anything."

"I can't get to him yet. We need to lift this joist before we can lift the one that's on him," Nathan replied quickly. "We're doing this as fast as we can."

Nathan wriggled back the way he'd come and Ray could hear the machinery powering up to lift again. Taking a deep breath, Ray settled his hand in Fraser's more firmly and turned his head to look at him.

As the slab of concrete above their heads slowly lifted away, Ray got his first proper look at Fraser and vice versa. Fraser's eyes widened when the artificial lighting made a reality of their prison.

"Wow," Ray murmured softly. His fear that 'Steve' was actually a fifty something, balding, fat guy had been wildly inaccurate. Fraser was... Fraser was... gorgeous. Even with his hair and face covered in dust and with his skin and lips pale from shock, he was an amazing looking guy.

Fraser seemed to be having some sort of revelation himself beside him. "Ray, you're... exactly how I imagined."

Ray smiled a little at that. "So... you're not an artist."

"No, it would seem that I'm a policeman like yourself," Fraser said carefully.

Ray nodded, keeping the disappointment off his face as best he could. Because falling in love with a guy who was an artist, was one thing, but falling in love with another cop - that was complex. The police were a horribly insular, homophobic bunch at the best of times, he figured it wouldn't be much different north of the border. Not only could an affair ruin their careers, but you never could tell when your sexuality might make a difference of, say, your backup arriving promptly or not. Why would the guy risk it?

Ray closed his eyes. Stupid. As if he knew the guy well enough to fall in love with him. As if the guy knew himself well enough to be interested in a skinny Polack cop with hair issues.

"Does it hurt?" Fraser asked.

Ray nodded again. Yeah, more than he could possibly imagine.

~o~

Ray Kowalski was having... Ray's life sucked.

Moving the debris had been painful; strangely it had been his arm that hurt more. The sensation of the blood rushing back into his pinned hand was one he'd remember for a long time to come. His leg had been numb and agony in turns, and after a glimpse of the blood soaked leg of his favourite jeans, he'd kept his eyes shut until he'd been rolled onto a gurney and covered with a blanket.

They'd freed Fraser while they'd been setting Ray up with saline and morphine. Fraser had seemed surprisingly mobile for a guy who'd had a house fall on him. He too had been strapped into an emergency gurney and they had both been carried through the jagged piles of masonry and fallen roof to a fleet of ambulances.

The neck brace they'd stuck on Ray despite his protests cut out most of his range of movement, but he did get a quick glance of the ruined building, which looked like it had just folded in on itself, revealing snatches of other people's homes where the collapse had sliced right through them. Ray tried to look for Fraser, asking his medics where the other man was and if he was alright. They just fed him platitudes and more morphine.

The ride to the hospital was kind of surreal. Ray kept dropping in and out of consciousness, and his last thought as they took him into theatre was whether, when Fraser regained his own memory, he'd remember Ray at all.

~o~

Ray Kowalski was having an outstandingly bad day.

Of course, technically this was a new day because he could see a rectangle of sky out of his window, the peach and lilac of dawn fading even as he watched.

He was bored and dopey, and even through the medication haze, he could feel the low-grade aches he'd sustained and the jangling, insistent pain in his leg.

He couldn't sleep; the sliding in and out thing couldn't be counted as sleep, plus it was making him cranky. He couldn't move; his leg was covered in bandages and trapped inside a kind of cage thing, to keep it still. There were needles in him with long snaky tubes that tugged and made him feel kinda faint whenever he forgot and tried to reach for something. His left arm was an interesting shade of livid purple where the joist had been, fading to yellows and greens up onto his shoulder and down to his wrist. It also ached like fuck.

And worst of all was that he was on his own now and had no one to take his mind off the ever present gnawing of dulled pain. He'd watched the news on his miniature TV beside his bed - they'd made second story. Everything was 'unconfirmed' at that time and the channel had gone with a compressed gas explosion of some kind. The images of the building and the rescue crew scurrying around were kind of eerie, but he'd caught a glimpse of Fraser talking to the EMTs, grit in his hair and a dirty face. He'd switched it off when his own pale, bloody face had appeared, wide-eyed and tight-lipped as he'd been lifted into the ambulance.

In short, he needed a distraction.

A warm voice.

A warmer hand.

Something to listen to.

Something to focus on.

Fraser.

Ray lifted his fingers to the gash above his eye. He hadn't even known he'd had it until they had cleaned it up. It had bled down into his hair, making one part of his dirty blonde turn an unflattering pink.

"You shouldn't fiddle with that, Ray. You'll make it worse."

Fraser stood in the doorway, a sight that made Ray's jaw drop. He was dressed in the full Mountie get-up. His buttons glittered bright from his scarlet tunic, his puffy pants were ridiculously inflated and his boots were polished to a shine Ray swore he could see reflections in. In one hand he held his big-ass hat and in the other a basket of fruit, equally as sizable. He looked uncertain and kind of hopeful.

"Wow," Ray said, once again stunned into monosyllables by the Canadian. "You're... you're... Wow."

"May I...?" Fraser gestured toward Ray's bed.

"Yeah, you may," Ray replied.

Fraser smiled as if Ray had given him the best present ever. He put his hat and the basket on the table at the end of Ray's bed, then sat down in the horrible orange plastic chair beside Ray.

Ray had to click his mouth shut with his hand, covering it as a scratch of his chin, before he began to drip drool all down himself. Fraser was looking at him as if he were Brad Pitt, George Clooney and James Dean all rolled up into one, not a beat up, knocked about, tranked Ray Kowalski with stripey hair. The look in his eyes was positively longing.

Ray swallowed rather than drown.

"Your memory's back then?" he squeaked embarrassingly.

"Mostly, yes, Still a few sketchy spots, but on the whole, I'm functional."

No one should be allowed to say 'functional' like that, especially around sick people, Ray thought. It was positively lewd.

"Wondered if you'd... thought you might not... remember who I was."

"Ah, Ray. You make quite the first impression." Fraser smiled again, rubbing a thumbnail over a perfect eyebrow and, drugs or no drugs, Ray felt himself reacting which, well, that was cool, because they'd told him nerve damage and possible widespread effects and lots of other things he hadn't really wanted to hear.

Ray adjusted his blankets with his good hand, only to have Fraser reach over and 'help' which didn't help at all.

"Did Versace make it?" Ray asked, trying to distract the Mountie from smoothing his blankets, before Ray embarrassed both himself and Fraser.

"Detective Vecchio was thrown clear when the device detonated. He did sustain some bruising, but judging from the volume and frequency of his complaints, he's fine."

Fraser was still watching Ray, like if he took his eyes off him, he might disappear.

"So, Steve is it?" Ray grinned.

"Ah, no," Fraser admitted, sitting back in his chair and tugging on his earlobe like he was uncomfortable or something. "It's Benton."

Ray thought about this. "Fraser Benton or Benton Fraser?"

Fraser rolled his eyes, self-deprecatingly. "The latter."

"And the writer Mom and teacher Dad and all your over-achieving family?"

"No, my... I was an only child and my father was a Mountie. My mother died when I was quite young."

He said it in a neutral tone of voice, but his eyes flickered away. Some hurts were obviously too raw, even after all those years, and Ray felt oddly compelled to hear this story, but he had to be touching Fraser, not in some impersonal, hushed hospital room.

"The cabin in the Rockies?" Ray prompted quietly, tactfully changing the subject.

"Yes to the cabin, but somewhat farther north," Fraser replied.

"North as in fewer McDonalds or north as in polar bears?"

Fraser blinked. "Uh... probably something in between. It's quite isolated, but the scenery is stunning. The perfect place, in fact, for a recuperative break." He looked at Ray steadily.

"That sounds... good."

Fraser smiled one of those heart-stopping smiles again and Ray knew he'd said the right thing.

"Oh, but I was right about the dog... well, wolf actually," Fraser told him. "He's looking forward to meeting you."

"Wolf, really? Cool." Maybe it was the drugs, but Ray couldn't quite believe this was happening. Fraser was... well... seemed to be... kind of... Fraser was hitting on him. And that was surely too good to be real?

"So, you're married with, what... six kids?" Ray forced a grin. This was where Fraser stopped twinkling at him, and reality bit.

Fraser took a breath and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "It seems that some things I remembered more accurately than others. Diefenbaker for example, is white and a dog of sorts. And thinking that red was my favourite colour could be construed as a scrambled memory of my dress uniform."

Ray nodded. Fraser's voice was pitched low and intimate, and the gentle rise and fall of it was hypnotic, lulling Ray closer and closer to oblivion. And damnit, he didn't want that - he needed to hear this.

"Fraser," Ray said, slurred and slow.

"No Ray. I'm... uh... not the marrying kind."

Fraser's eyes were intense - the kind of blue Ray remembered as a kid when August afternoons would turn stormy and the sky would become the same colour as the lake. Ray could lose himself in that colour.

"You have pretty eyes, Fraser," Ray smiled dopily, hanging on to consciousness as long as he could.

Fraser reached a hand out and pushed back some of the flattened hair off Ray's forehead. It felt warm and good.

"So what's a Mountie doing in Chicago anyway?" Ray murmured, every blink of his eyelids more heavy than the last.

"Well that's an interesting story, actually. I... I'll tell you when you wake up."

"Will you be here?"

"Later, yes I will. I have some errands to run first, but I'll be back as soon as I can."

Mounties didn't lie; Ray remembered hearing that from somewhere.

"'kay. Coolness." He blinked, smiled at the warmth in Fraser's gaze and closed his eyes.

~o~

When he woke up, Fraser wasn't there. Ray's brain was muzzy. He didn't know if he'd been asleep for a minute or an entire week. Had Fraser been a dream? The uniform, the wolf, the invitation to stay, it all seemed freakishly unlikely.

Ray closed his eyes again, chasing the place where Fraser had been, smiling and warm and sexy as hell, but that was gone too. His leg was itchy and sore, his arm ached and the IVs were cold against his skin.

Ray opened his eyes and blearily looked onto the nightstand for his watch. There, propped against a jug of water was a picture, no more than a pencil sketch really, drawn on a piece of graph paper - the kind they used in medical records. It was a simple image of two silhouettes, sitting by a lake, with mountains in the background. They were side-by-side, so close that they were really one silhouette, watching the sunset. One had spiky hair, the other had a big-ass hat.

Ray closed his eyes again.

Fraser would wake him when he got back.

This was turning out to be a great day.

Fin