Disclaimer: These characters aren't mine and I am making no money off this.

Author's Notes: For sdwolfpup on her birthday! Beta'd by brynnmck and snoopypez.

Story Notes: Post-CotW, set in the same verse as "If you don't love me, let me go." It's not songfic exactly, but it's an attempt to capture the feeling of the song "Clear and True" by Rainer Maria. Also, this didn't really fit in the fic, but I thought you should all know that the first thing Fraser and Vecchio do is go on a roadtrip in Ray's new Riv. Fraser makes Ray stop at all the weird roadside attractions (he loves the corn palace!) and art museums, and they make love in cheap motels.

SequelTo: If you don't love me, let me go

1. and through my awkward life the same refrain

The snow stretches out on either side of the sled; the sky is blue and endless and the sun is so bright on the snow he and Ray need goggles. Fraser can feel the wind on the few inches of cheek and forehead left exposed; he's clean and fast and home and himself.

He felt this way on long drives with Ray. Talk ran out and Ray's hands were sure and beautiful on the steering wheel. No one was looking at him, and he could sink into the Riviera's passenger seat like a caress.

He thinks about Ray sometimes. Well, to be honest, he thinks about Ray all the time.

His memory is unusually accurate, but he can't be sure he's remembering Ray quite right. When he imagines placing a call to the States, he can't quite remember how Ray said "Vecchio" into the phone. He's heard Ray say it too many times now, the vowels all wrong, the rhythm off. But he knows he's pitch perfect on "Not now, Benny" and "This isn't a good time, Fraser." Ray always said it and he always came.

"What are you grinning about?" Ray grumbles, pulling his gloves on tighter.

Fraser throws an arm out in a grand gesture at the snow and leans into the curve.

2. time has proved you right

Fraser is afraid of death. But he's never really believed in it, either. It failed to stop his father, and as for Ray--Fraser remembers their private little war with Frank Zuko. It was like a game, and he didn't know the rules but he knew they would win. He believed he could keep Ray safe.

He tells Ray that the border between life and death is poorly guarded. Even so, as he watches Ray's birthday gift soar through the air, framed by blue sky and trees, he thinks maybe it can snatch Ray's nightmares out of the air before they reach him, wherever he is. He doesn't think about how this image would work better if Ray were buried beneath their feet.

The day after Ray comes back, Fraser watches Ray and Ray gunning for Muldoon's men. He watches men fall. He's seen his partners fire their guns hundreds of times, and he's never seen them hit anyone before. He realizes Ray could die. Then Ray almost does.

Ray almost died for him, and Fraser watches the sun on snow and tries to catch Ray's bad dreams from all the way up here.

3. sing me something clear and true

Ray is not afraid of death. He's afraid of pain and sickness and leaving his family unprotected, but death itself seems to hold no terrors for him. It takes a long time for Fraser to realize that his own fear of death is really a fear of endings. He's always wanted to be like his father, and wanted so badly not to be like him at the same time. But he is like his father, and if he dies he will leave everything undone and unsaid.

Ray, Fraser thinks, wouldn't need one last chance. Ray has always told the truth.

Fraser hopes that there is at least one important truth Ray hasn't told him yet.

4. I'm not afraid of going out alone

"Fraser," Ray says one night, "did you ever think maybe you needed to figure out who you were, but then you realized that you already know who you are, but you don't like that guy all that much and you were kinda hoping that if you did something big, maybe you'd turn out to be wrong and you were someone different all along?"

Fraser hides a smile. "Yes."

Ray drops his pemmican. "Really? You? Why?"

Fraser starts laughing and can't stop. If he were a different person he could give Ray an honest answer to that question. If Fraser were a different person, Ray might already know the answer.

"You're a freak, you know that, Fraser?"

Fraser does know that. He's always known that. For the first time he realizes it doesn't have to matter. He can be alone, so long as he isn't afraid. "Ray," he says, "we need to stop at a telephone pole."

5. I'll lay down on the stone right by your side

"Yeah?"

For a moment Fraser can't speak, overwhelmed by the scientific miracle of telephonic communication. Ray's voice, flying clear and true over thousands of miles to reach him. Ray, he notices, doesn't answer the phone with his name anymore. Probably a wise precaution. "Next time I want you to let me get shot."

"Benny? What the hell kind of thing is that to say?" Ray demands, and goes from there. It's a deranged and impossible thing, Fraser knows. He's smiling so hard he thinks his jaw, which is already a little numb from the cold, might crack apart, and half-way through his eleventh home truth about Fraser's mental and emotional well-being or lack thereof, Ray's voice changes. "Next time?"