Author's website: http://www.slashcity.org/~rushlight

Disclaimer: No harm, no foul.

Author's Notes: First and foremost, many thanks go to Sam McCoy for offering up the challenge that inspired this story. It was the first plot bunny that ever bit me in this fandom, and while it's taken me a while to complete it, I've finally got it done! Also, I'd like to thank Beth and Jennie for an exhaustive beta, encouragement, and handholding when I got so frustrated I was ready to give up writing completely. *g* Beth also deserves special thanks for providing background details about Fraser's past, and for being willing to discuss plot and character motivation ad nauseum without ever once complaining. You're a godsend, hon.

Story Notes: The little poem at the beginning of the story was written by Dean Koontz.

In the real world
as in dreams,
nothing is quite
what it seems.
--The Book of Counted Sorrows

Schisms
by, Rushlight

Fraser opened his eyes onto darkness.

It was an effort to still the reflexive burst of panic that gripped him, and he stood quickly, feeling something cool and gritty slide under his fingers on the hard ground as he scrambled to his feet. His heart was pounding, a soft cadence of slow-coiling terror that seemed to vibrate through every cell in his body.

Somewhere around him, the darkness moved.

His eyes strained, tracing the outline of phantom black-on-black images, and his heartbeat sped still further with an instinctive fear of blindness, a primal terror of the dark and all the many horrors that his genetic memory told him could be hiding within it. He thought, for a moment, that he could see something solid ahead of him, but he couldn't tell if it was real or just his mind's frantic attempt to make some sense of the void that wrapped around him.

No, it was real. There it was again. A soft flicker of light ahead of him, a smoother smudge of grey-tinged shadow against the darker black.

Taking a deep breath to steady himself, he moved toward it.

His entire body hurt, and his head ached as he tried to focus on the flickering light that led him. He could hear sounds now, a low scraping, the soft susurration of voices he couldn't quite hear. It made the hairs stand up along the back of his neck, and he froze for a moment, fighting the insane impulse to turn and run, just move away from it as quickly as his body could carry him.

There was something there in the darkness, watching him.

The certainty of that thought gripped him, and he wavered for a moment, lost in the grip of the fear that thudded through him. There was enough light now for him to see that he was in an underground tunnel of some kind, and the rock wall next to him was decorated with a faded, rust-colored painting that looked as if it dated before the arrival of the Inuit. It was illuminated faintly by a flickering yellowish light that seemed to bleed out of the corridor ahead of him. For some reason, the sight terrified him.

He felt as if he'd somehow fallen back into time, fallen back into the far, far past before the big ice fell down across the planet and remade the face of the world. It was an eerie feeling, being lost in the past, and it frightened him even more than the thought of the Thing he knew existed somewhere ahead of him in the darkness.

Ray. The thought filled him with a sort of distant longing, a half-hearted wish that somehow, somewhere, he wouldn't be forced to face this moment alone.

But Ray wasn't here. He knew that instinctively, knew that Ray was separated from him by more than distance in this place, estranged from him by more than the layers of ice and stone that cut him off from the surface above. The thought terrified him, and he stared at the play of light across the simple figure painted on the tunnel wall in front of him with a feeling of growing horror, unable to stop it. He was breathing hard now, trapped in the prison of his own wild panic, unable to make himself move forward, unable to go back.

He knew that there was something terrible in the shadows ahead of him, waiting.

And that something was hunting him.

*

Fraser woke with a gasp, flinging the covers away from him with a sense of desperation. The thin sheet felt as if it was suffocating him, and he sat up quickly, swinging his legs over the side of his low bed and lowering his head into his shaking hands, trying to get his panicked breathing back under control.

"God*damn* it," he said aloud, letting his breath out in an unsteady sigh.

That was the third time this week that that dream had woken him, and it was beginning to get on his nerves. In the corner of the room, Diefenbaker wuffled softly in his sleep; Fraser focused on the image of his sleeping friend with some measure of relief, feeling the terror of the dream begin to fall away from him. Around him, the room slowly began to come into focus; he was in his small closet of a room at the Consulate, and nothing had ever seemed so welcome to him.

It was a silly dream to have such a reaction to, anyway. Afraid of the dark, for God's sake?

Nevertheless, his legs felt rubbery as he stood and made his way out into the hall, moving quietly so as not to wake Diefenbaker. The air felt cool against his sweat-sheened skin, and he plucked at the dampened collar of his T-shirt absently as he made his way to the bathroom, turning on lights as he went. He felt irrationally better once the darkness had retreated, and the shadows around him resolved themselves into the familiar, sterile lines of the Consulate hallways.

The Consulate, he reminded himself; not a warren of ancient tunnels situated so deep beneath the surface of the ground it was like being buried alive.

God.

He flicked on the bathroom light with a savage motion and blinked rapidly in the suddenness of the light that sprang into existence around him. The light seemed pure white, cleansing in some way he couldn't describe. He moved immediately to the low sink and cupped his hands over the edge of it, trying to get a grip on the fear that still slid sinuously at the back of his mind.

This was ridiculous.

He splashed a handful of cold water over his face, and began to feel marginally better. Slowly, the memory of the dream was fading. Looking up at his reflection in the mirror, he saw a face he hardly recognized looking back at him.

Locking gazes with that haunted visage, he attempted to stare it down. After a moment, he let out his breath in an aggrieved sigh and moved to slide his boxers down over his hips. He might as well shower, since it looked as if he was up for the day.

It wasn't as if he was looking forward to going back to sleep, anyway.

There were some days, Ray mused, when it just didn't pay to get out of bed.

Around him, the restrained bustle of the forensics team and police photographers faded into background static, and he turned away from the crime scene with a grimace, not wanting to see any more of what was left of Mr. John Abraham Douglas. The shadow of the Tilt O' Whirl fell over his bent head as he walked away, making him shiver, and he wrapped his arms around himself tensely, knowing full well that the chill he felt was mainly internal.

This area of the amusement park was still and silent, a snapshot of an urban wonderland, frozen in time. Lights from the emergency vehicles flashed in lurid crimson and orange across the tarmac, bleeding in funhouse patterns across the looming shapes of the rides and stalls that surrounded them. Uniformed patrol officers held back the crowd of gawkers that massed at the edge of the concourse, where they vibrated with an almost insectile energy that made Ray's skin crawl. But here, away from the crowds, everything was hushed and still and seemingly untouched by the vibrant metallic jungle that rose up around it.

*Wonderworld,* he couldn't help but think grimly, remembering the park's advertising slogan. Land of a thousand wonders.

Fraser was sitting on a bench at a concession stand some distance away, leaning forward with his elbows resting on his knees. His face was expressionless, almost white in contrast to the dark red of his uniform. His eyes underneath the brim of his hat were strangely empty as they stared out across the crowd.

"Hey, Frase." Ray ran a hand over the back of his neck as he walked up to the bench, fidgeting nervously with the hem of his coat. The frustration and impotent anger he felt fairly crackled beneath his skin, pumping him full of the desire to run, to hit, to move, to do something, anything.

Fraser's eyes were strangely blank when they turned to look up at him. "Is it?" he asked.

Ray shrugged, sliding his hands into the pockets of his jeans. "Don't know yet. We'll have to send the black felt in to forensics, let them work their magic on it to see if it's the same kind. But, yeah." He frowned, dropping his gaze to the ground. "I'd say it's the same guy."

Dief whined and lifted his head from where it rested on his paws at Fraser's feet, fixing Ray with an unreadable expression. Fraser dragged a thumbnail back across his eyebrow, looking uncertain. "The fact that the victim was male this time would seem to indicate a break from the killer's usual pattern."

"Nah." Ray leaned back against the wall of the concession stand next to Fraser's shoulder, kicking absently at the loose gravel under his feet. Despite his best intentions, some of the bitterness he felt seeped through into his voice. "The guy was an accident, Fraser. He was collateral damage, he was a fucking casualty of war."

Fraser nodded, seeming to process this. "And the girlfriend is still missing."

"He killed the guy to get the girl, yeah. Our guy has a thing for blondes."

If there was one thing that Ray hated worse than investigating a murder, it was investigating a serial murder. There was just something creepy about crawling around inside the mind of someone who was capable of this kind of methodical, remorseless slaughter. The first victim had shown up almost five months ago: Theresa Yeagan, a freshman out at DePaul University. Nineteen years old, blonde, cheerleader-pretty, with aspirations of pursuing a music degree. Her body had been found in a back alley behind a popular dance club in the 1-5 district, with a thin square of black felt pinned to a bloodstain on her blouse.

About two months later, the second victim had disappeared. Nancy Etterly, a waitress at a roadside diner just down the road from the 27th precinct stationhouse. Also blonde, twenty-eight years old, she'd been snatched walking home from work one night. A group of local high school kids had found her body about a week later in the dumpster behind their school.

It had only gotten worse from there. In the past five months, a total of four young women had been kidnapped and subsequently murdered, each of them Caucasian, blonde, and somewhere between the ages of nineteen and thirty-two. Each one of the bodies had been marked with a square of black felt on their clothing, a detail which had been carefully kept out of the public eye.

Even so, the media was screaming "serial killer" and demanding to know what the police was doing to help protect their citizens. It was a nightmare all the way around, no matter how you looked at it, and Ray was more than ready to see an end to the whole sorry affair.

"You want to know what I think?" he said, without looking up from where the toe of his boot scuffed against the ground in front of him. "I think our guy's getting braver. He snatched this girl in the middle of a freakin' amusement park, for crying out loud. And he killed her boyfriend in what was almost plain sight. Shit, Frase, he killed the last girl just ten days ago. He's gettin' antsy."

"He's escalating." Fraser's voice was oddly flat.

Ray looked up, feeling a trickle of unease move through him. Fraser looked like a ghost this morning, paler than even he usually was, and there were dark circles around his eyes that looked almost like they'd been painted on. For the first time, Ray noticed the way the other man's hands were clenched together white-knuckled in his lap.

"You okay, Frase?" he asked, hearing the sudden change in his voice. Something dark seemed to flicker deep in Fraser's eyes in response to the question, there and then gone.

Fraser collected himself visibly, straightening his posture even as his lashes dropped down over his eyes, shielding whatever emotion Ray had seen there. He stood up from the bench rather more abruptly than was strictly necessary, making Dief grumble unhappily as he scuttled back out of the way.

"Yes, of course, Ray," Fraser said, and there was nothing unusual about his voice. Nothing unusual about his voice at all. He didn't meet Ray's gaze, though, as he straightened his dark coat around him. "I'd say we have our work cut out for us."

Ray watched with wide eyes as Fraser strode purposefully toward the buzz of the crime scene, walking with the measured strides of a man on his way to the gallows. Dief glanced up at Ray briefly before following.

If Ray didn't know better, he'd think that he'd just been given a brush-off.

By Fraser.

As if the universe needed to get any weirder. Shaking his head, Ray trotted after him, trying to puzzle out the reason behind his partner's sudden reticence. He'd known for weeks now that something was bothering him, but he'd assumed it was just a reaction to the intensity of the case. Fraser was a country boy, after all, and it had to be a shock to come face-to-face with the darker problems of Big City, America.

But this was more than just discomfort over a string of serial killings. This wasn't the first time Fraser had been faced with a murder, and the stalwart Mountie had never once so much as blinked in the face of the worst that humanity had to show him. No, this was something ... different.

Ray hated to admit how much that bothered him. He'd grown used to working in tune with Fraser, like two greased parts of a single machine, and it felt odd when they were ... off ... like this. It was something he was going to have to discuss with Fraser before too much longer.

But for now, they had a kidnapping to investigate. Doing what he could to focus his mind back on the task at hand, he went to join Fraser at the scene.

Fraser could tell that Ray was worried about him.

It wasn't anything Ray said, per se, but it was getting to the point where he could feel Ray's eyes on him, even when he wasn't looking. Ray had always been a skilled detective, and it was perhaps foolish to think that Fraser would be able to keep anything from him, even if it was something as innocuous as the fact that he was feeling disturbed by their current case. But what was he supposed to tell Ray, exactly? I'm sorry, Ray, but I'm off my game today because I've been having bad dreams?

No. Best not to say anything at all.

Involuntarily, his mind turned back to the dream he'd had the previous night, and all of the many disturbing images that came with it. Being lost in the darkness, feeling abandoned, trapped, hot on the trail of something evil that was hunting him in its turn. There had been blood in his eyes.

Fraser closed his eyes briefly, struggling to breathe. Momentary panic closed around him like a hand on his throat, but he fought through it stoically, refusing to give in. His hands clenched white-knuckled in his lap underneath the table, so tightly his knuckles ached.

He was just tired. This case was wearing on him, and his psyche was doubtlessly finding some measure of relief by tormenting him with nightmares. The dreams were a metaphor, doubtlessly, for the things those poor young women had gone through. His unconscious, Fraser had discovered over time, was unconscionably fond of metaphor.

He turned his attention back to the meeting with an effort, somewhat shocked to find that he'd allowed his mind to wander. It was a definite mark of prestige for Ray to have been chosen to be part of the inter-jurisdictional task force that had been set up to catch the killer, and he had no intention of embarrassing him. There were eighteen of them, gathered from a variety of backgrounds and fields, all assembled here together at the mayor's explicit request. The walls of the conference room were covered with a rough wallpaper of city maps and photographs of the deceased women, as well as a photo of the girl who had gone missing just this morning, with a big red asterisk drawn next to her smiling face.

Marilee Savannah Cavanaugh.

For some reason, Fraser was finding it difficult to look at her picture. No matter how illogical it seemed, he couldn't quite shake the feeling that her eyes were gazing at him in silent accusation.

Ray was currently involved in a heated argument with Captain MacLean, who was heading the task force, on the issue of how best to go about tracking down the killer. The room seemed to be pretty fairly divided between the two of them, and Fraser cast a silent bet in Ray's favor. Ray was tenacious, as Fraser knew from fond experience. He certainly didn't envy the captain his job.

And Ray looked ... good, when he allowed his emotions to take control of him like this. Police work was obviously something he felt very passionately about, no matter his stated ambivalence about pursuing this line of work when Fraser first met him. Despite the relative coolness of the spring outside, it was warm in this room, and the collar of Ray's shirt was colored with the faintest hint of dampness, clinging to the fragile-looking bones of his shoulders. He'd stripped out of his coat over an hour ago, and now he was dressed only in a thin white T-shirt and his shoulder holster, and a pair of loose jeans that seemed somehow obscene, even though they were not in any way inappropriate. For some reason, the sight of them kept drawing Fraser's eye.

And now he knew he was tired, for his mind to go off on tangents like that. Fraser gave his head a small shake, rubbing a finger lightly across his eyebrow. It certainly wasn't the first time he'd noticed Ray's physicality lately, but it was the first time his interest had actually begun to interfere with his work. This was turning into an obsession.

And now Ray was looking at him again, with that by-now-familiar inquisitive look in his eyes. Fraser pressed his lips together and met his gaze steadily, trying to look as if he hadn't just missed whatever had just been said.

The concern he saw in Ray's eyes cut into him like a knife, but Ray turned back to his conversation with the captain without saying anything about Fraser's lapse in concentration. Fraser felt overwhelmingly guilty suddenly, without knowing why.

It was a relief when the captain finally called the meeting to an end. Fraser stood gratefully as the rest of the detectives began filing out of the room, deliberately forcing himself to step forward and look at the picture of Marilee Cavanaugh on the wall.

"You all right, Frase?" Ray's low murmur behind his ear wasn't entirely unexpected.

Fraser nodded without turning around. "Yes," he said, wondering just how accurate that assessment was. Feeling a stirring of guilt at his dishonesty, he added, "I'm afraid I'm finding it ... remarkably difficult to concentrate today." That much was true at least, even if he couldn't accurately pinpoint a cause for his distraction.

Ray sighed. "Yeah, tell me about it." He sounded tired, and Fraser turned to face him finally. For a moment, Ray's eyes looked ages old -- eons old -- and that bothered Fraser more than anything else that had happened today.

"You did your best," Fraser told him, knowing Ray had to be feeling disappointed because the captain had vetoed his argument against informing the media about the details of the case. Fraser wondered belatedly if he should have stepped in and said something to give Ray some sort of backing. He was only an observer here, allowed to attend the meetings at the sufferance of the mayor because he was Ray's unofficial partner, but he had no real jurisdiction. Nevertheless, Ray might have been expecting some manner of moral support.

"Nah, don't worry about it." Ray waved Fraser's concerns away, leaning one hip against the table behind him. They were the only ones in the room now; the rest of the task force had disbanded to pursue their individual lines of inquiry into the case. "The media has to get involved sooner or later. Better to have them come into the game on our terms, I guess."

His tone clearly stated that he would rather not have dealt with the media at all. Fraser agreed.

But as Ray had insinuated, it was pointless to worry over what could not be changed. Fraser straightened slightly, trying once again to turn his mind to the business at hand. "It might be a good idea to examine the park grounds again, before the crime scene is reopened to the public."

Ray crossed his arms over his chest at that, looking unconvinced. "Forensics has been all over that area, Fraser. Do you really think we'll find something they missed?"

"No. But a killer will often return to the scene of his crime, to wrest whatever lingering traces of satisfaction he might be able to find from it. If nothing else, it will give us a better idea of what was going through his mind at the moment of the murder." He closed his eyes, feeling an unaccountable sense of deja vu. Again, the memory of his dream seemed to press in around him, leeching the air from the room.

Instantly, Ray's hand was on his arm, steadying him. "Whoa there, Fraser." His voice was tight. "Are you sure you're okay? You've been acting kind of strange lately."

"I assure you, Ray, I'm perfectly fine." With an effort, Fraser forced his eyes open. The uninhibited concern he saw shining in Ray's eyes gave him a pang of guilty pleasure, and he leaned into the hand on his arm without really meaning to. Fortunately, Ray didn't seem to notice.

He could tell by the look in Ray's eyes that Ray didn't believe him. Nevertheless, the only thing he said was, "I suppose it wouldn't hurt to check the park out again. It isn't like we got anything better to do, you know?"

Fraser smiled at him, feeling strangely grateful that Ray would have agreed to his suggestion. Fast on the heels of that emotion, however, came the by-now-familiar stirring of panic, pressing at the edges of his mind. It seemed somehow as if his dream were following him, stalking him, trying to find a way out of his unconscious and into the waking world.

Dear God, he was losing his mind.

The smile he favored Ray with felt strangely brittle. "That sounds like it would be an effective use of our time." He was amazed at how steady his voice sounded.

Ray's eyes looked a question at him, but Fraser pretended not to see it. What could he possibly tell Ray, anyway? That he was being stalked by a dream?

After a moment, Ray nodded, although he looked less than satisfied. "All right, then. Let's go."

It was almost funny, the way Fraser tried to pretend that everything was okay between them, when everything so obviously wasn't. Ray couldn't remember a time when Fraser had ever lied to him, and it scared the hell out of him. Chasing down a serial killer was not fun under the best of circumstances; chasing one down while you were at odds with your partner was just no fucking place to be.

He could see signs of stress in the lines around Fraser's eyes, and in the way he pressed his lips tightly together, even when he was doing his best to hide it. Ray tried not to take it personally that Fraser wasn't confiding in him, but still, the knowledge of it rankled. He wanted to make Fraser talk about what was bothering him, but it was exceedingly obvious that Fraser had no intention of doing so.

With an effort, Ray tried to focus on the park around them. John A. Douglas had been found dead in an alcove underneath the towering Dragon roller coaster ride, caught in the shadow of one of the many swooping platforms that arced overhead. Despite the relative seclusion of the spot, it still seemed like an awfully gutsy move to Ray. There had been a crowd of people right around the corner, milling around, eating their popcorn, while one of their fellow park-goers struggled and gasped out his dying breath just a few feet away.

This section of the park was deserted now, cordoned off by bright yellow police ribbons that warned the literate away. Police dogs had been over the scene in exhaustive detail that morning, and had found nothing. The only clue they had to the crime was the single square of black felt on the body's chest, looking almost as if it had been left behind as an afterthought.

"So what do you think?" he asked, mainly just to hear the sound of his voice.

Ray stood with his hands buried deep in his coat pockets, staring out at the tracks Dief made as he walked across the litter-strewn ground. The half-wolf looked like he was in his element, head down, ears back, tail held out stiffly behind him as he tracked some unknown scent in a curving path through the shadows. He looked suddenly wild in a way that gave Ray pause, and he had to fight the shiver of uncertainty that moved through him.

Around them, the park was still and silent as a grave.

"I'm not sure." Fraser stood in a posture that was eerily similar to Dief's, his gaze fixed on something in the distance that Ray couldn't begin to fathom. The wind ruffled his hair absently, throwing a few loose strands down across his forehead. "It's unlikely that the kidnapper would have been successful in wrestling a struggling woman away from the main concourse without drawing unwanted public attention."

"So you think he took her somewhere in the park itself?" The thought was a good one, if unilluminating. Ray chewed on the end of the toothpick he held for a moment, and then threw it down on the ground beside him. Damn, but he wanted a cigarette. "Where? There were people everywhere this morning, Fraser. Families, clowns, vendors, you name it. This place was a zoo."

"Yes." Fraser seemed curiously undisturbed by the problem. Without warning, he moved forward, making a beeline for a small metal door set flush with the wall of a maintenance shed some distance ahead of them.

Ray had to jog to keep up. "Whatcha got?" he asked, turning to cast a nervous glance behind them. The roller coaster where Douglas had died cut across the sky in vivid relief, like the skeleton of some gigantic monster. It was crazy, but he couldn't shake the uncomfortable feeling that someone was watching them, even though the park around them appeared to be empty.

"Where does this door go?" Fraser was frowning now. He reached for the thick metal chain that was threaded through the handle of the door and rattled it gently, looking around as if he, too, sensed that there was something amiss.

"Dunno." Ray shrugged. "Supply rooms, I guess. You think maybe our guy had a key?" It was a long shot, but he was willing to entertain any new ideas at this point.

"Not unless he somehow managed to reattach the chain behind him when he entered." There was a deep line etched between Fraser's brows now, and it was making Ray nervous.

"Well what, then?" Ray's voice was perhaps sharper than it needed to be.

Fraser didn't seem to notice. He took several steps back and gazed at the low building in front of them, looking thoughtful and disturbed all at the same time. Ray suppressed a shiver and moved to join him, trying to see whatever it was that Fraser saw. The maintenance shed was a low, sloped building that shared a wall with the Tilt O' Whirl beside it. It looked completely unremarkable, by any stretch of the imagination.

"This is the door maintenance workers would use if they were going to perform repairs on this ride," Fraser said, and the words were somehow a question, even though they didn't sound like one.

"Yeah, I guess so."

Ray's affirmation only seemed to make Fraser's unease deepen. "And there are other rides, with similar doors leading inside of them?" And this, although it sounded like a question, somehow wasn't.

Ray answered it anyway. "Yeah. What's your point, Fraser?" He was beginning to get annoyed with the cryptic Mountie routine. He shivered, rubbing absently at his arms as he looked around. Maybe it was the wind that was making him so jumpy; it was unusually chilly for this time of year.

When Fraser turned to look at him, his expression was ... haunted. There really wasn't any other word to describe it. "For the larger rides, these areas would all be connected in some way. With a network of tunnels, underground. Wouldn't they?"

And just like that, Ray got it. They were on the same page again. "Yeah," he said, getting excited now. And now he was looking around with intent, trying to pick apart the various looming shapes that surrounded them. "Yeah, they would be." And suddenly he saw another of those small metal doors, leading into the main terminal of the Dragon roller coaster. He pointed. "There."

While he took off first, Fraser somehow got there ahead of him. Even before he reached the door, Ray noticed that there was no chain strung through this one. Fraser reached for the handle, then cast a dark look at Ray. It was locked.

Ray was already reaching for his credit card. He stepped up to the door with a resigned air and fitted the thin plastic into the narrow slot by the lock, maneuvering it in with the familiarity of long practice. When he tried the handle this time, it opened easily, touching their faces with a faint breath of stale, cold air.

Dief seemed to materialize out of nowhere at their feet, and Ray glanced down in surprise when he heard him growl softly. Dief held his head low to the ground as he stared into the half-darkness behind the door, pressing his ears back against his head. The fur along the backs of his shoulders was prickling.

Ray felt a chill move through him. He tightened his hands into fists for a moment, fighting the sudden irrational urge to turn and run for his life. He wondered suddenly if maybe wolves could sense evil in a way that humans couldn't, if maybe Dief knew somehow that something not quite right had come this way ahead of them.

Then he glanced sideways at Fraser, and all other thoughts fled his mind. Fraser had gone abruptly pale beside him, vividly white against the dark red of his uniform. Ray reached out and grabbed his arm tightly, feeling his heart begin to pound. "Fraser?" What the hell was going on here?

Fraser's eyes were wide when he turned to look at him. There was a fine sheen of sweat on his upper lip. "He took her in here, Ray," he said, and something in the way he said it sent chills racing down Ray's spine. His nostrils flared slightly as he breathed.

"We don't know that, Fraser," he said, almost angrily, but Fraser wasn't listening to him.

"She's in here." Fraser's voice was insistent. He gave Ray one more lost, lingering look and then moved into the open doorway, shaking off his hand.

"Fraser!" Ray hissed the word, feeling curiously reluctant to make too much noise. He felt uncomfortably exposed, standing here. This whole thing was weird, it was seriously fucking weird, and Fraser was acting so damned strange it made him want to scream, or cry, or both. There was something very, very wrong here, and it bothered him that he didn't have a clue what it was.

Not knowing what else to do, he cast a last frustrated look down at Dief and then went after Fraser, reaching for his gun.

The interior of the building was oppressively close and poorly lit. The supply room immediately inside the door was roughly square, with a narrow hallway leading out the back wall, toward the interior of the ride. Fraser was already gone by the time he entered, and Ray ducked into the hallway with a low curse, feeling uncomfortably exposed all over again.

There was something vaguely unsettling about this place that set his nerves on end. The metal floor of the hallway vibrated slightly as he walked, making him shuffle his feet nervously. The pale corridor was illuminated only by occasional fluorescent lamps set into the walls at varying intervals, providing alternately too much and then too little light. The overall effect was something out of a carnival funhouse. The air stirred faintly across his face, giving him the impression that the place was breathing.

Jeez, he was going to drive himself insane inside of a minute if he didn't stop this.

"Fraser?" He moved forward cautiously, hearing the soft click of Dief's claws on the floor behind him. The knowledge that Dief was at his back was somehow comforting. "Fraser, slow down, all right?"

But Fraser wasn't slowing. He paused for a moment at a half-open doorway, head cocked to one side as if he were listening to the low rumble of far-off machinery that vibrated in the air around them. Then he was moving again, skirting the door and making for the stairs that Ray could see at the end of the hallway. Ray followed him with a low curse, casting a fleeting glance at the open door as he passed it by.

And now things seemed to take a turn from curiously odd into downright creepy, because Fraser didn't seem to be aware of his presence at all anymore. Ray had to move quickly to keep up with him, and he fought with the conflicting desires to simply tackle him to the ground and shake some sense into him, or follow to see where he led. The high fluorescent lamps cast a disturbingly yellow light over the corridor around them, and it was flickering in places, making him squint his eyes uncomfortably as he made his way forward. After only a few steps, he felt like he'd been transplanted somewhere miles underground, cut off from the world above them.

After what seemed a small eternity, Fraser came to a T-junction indistinguishable from the others they'd passed, and he paused, looking around with a puzzled expression as if he didn't quite know where he was. It was a feeling Ray could readily identify with.

"What scent are you following?" Ray tried to keep his voice light as he leaned up against the wall to catch his breath. There had to be miles of corridors tunneled underneath the park, like the elaborate hive of some monstrous insect. He supposed he should be used to following Fraser's weird hunches by now, but there was something ... off ... about this. Fraser was acting like Dief on the trail of a rabbit, except he didn't really look like he felt they were the hunters here.

Fraser turned to look at him then, and Ray felt a sudden chill grip him. He couldn't shake the feeling that Fraser wasn't seeing him at all. "Fraser, what the hell--?"

Fraser shook his head, drawing his brows together in a frown. "She's here," he said again, and this time, the words sounded seriously eerie.

Ray's heart knocked hard inside his ribs. This was beginning to seem more and more like a scene out of a bad TV movie. Very deliberately, he forced himself not to panic. "Who's here, Frase?" he asked, keeping his voice low.

For a moment, he didn't think Fraser was going to answer him. Then, "Jackie." Fraser spoke the name in a near-whisper, sounding almost reverent.

What the fuck?

"No," Ray said, making an effort to keep his voice calm. He wiped a damp palm across the thigh of his jeans, shifting his grip on his gun with the other. "Not Jackie. We're looking for Marilee, remember? Marilee Cavanaugh?"

He might have been speaking another language for all the comprehension Fraser seemed to have. Without another word, Fraser turned away from him as if he'd forgotten he was there, and started off down the left-hand branch of the corridor.

"Dammit, Frase." Had they slipped into the Twilight Zone when he wasn't looking? Tightening his grip on his pistol, Ray started after him.

The maze of tunnels seemed to go on forever, and Ray began to get the uncanny feeling that the rest of the world could have ceased to exist, and he'd never even know it. How in the world could people work down here? The steady thrum of machinery was a constant presence around them, sounding uncomfortably like the babble of distant voices, and the walls and floor shook with a steady vibration, giving him the feeling that the place was alive. Alive, but sleeping.

The thought was not a comforting one.

He was beginning to think that they'd never find their way out, and he'd be doomed to wander around down here with a half-sane Mountie and a deaf half-wolf for the rest of eternity, but then he caught a glimpse of light ahead of them. Real light, not the flickering fluorescents that were playing havoc on his imagination. He felt absurdly grateful when the tunnel widened up ahead of them and finally emptied into a broad loading bay, where delivery trucks could drive up from outside to unload their supplies.

There were a handful of men working here, and they cast curious looks at the Mountie and his companions as they emerged into view. Ray flashed his badge at them in passing, not bothering to stop and explain their presence here, and followed Fraser as he made his way outside.

Thankfully, Fraser stopped as soon as he emerged from the tunnel. He stood blinking in the sunlight, looking lost, and Ray stepped up behind him, struggling hard to catch his breath. He was afraid to move too close to Fraser for some reason. He didn't have a clue what to do to snap him out of whatever weird fugue state he'd slipped into.

Finally, Fraser turned to look at him, and Ray was relieved to see that he looked like Fraser again. "I guess we lost him," Fraser said, and the words sounded small and puzzled and kind of lost.

Ray had to fight the urge to put his arms around him. "Yeah, I guess so." He couldn't quite bring himself to ask just who Fraser thought they'd been chasing.

Fraser looked away then, and Ray followed his gaze, feeling his stomach tighten. They were standing at the far end of the employee parking lot; in the distance, traffic on the I-88 moved by in a tight, dark line, like an endless procession of giant ants moving with steadfast persistence toward the horizon.

If the kidnapper had indeed made his way into the service tunnels, that meant he had access to the outside of the park, without obstruction or witnesses, as long as he was careful. And from here, he had access to just about anywhere in the city he wanted to go.

Feeling suddenly depressed, Ray slid his gun back into his shoulder holster. "You okay now?" he asked, and he almost laughed aloud at the narrow-eyed look Fraser gave him in response to the question.

"I'm perfectly fine, Ray." And yeah, that was the real Fraser again, snippity attitude and all. "Although it looks as if we've lost whatever chance we might have had at determining the kidnapper's whereabouts."

With that, he turned on his heel and started toward Ray's car, which was parked at the opposite end of the parking lot. Ray stared after him for a moment, feeling strangely cheated. That was it? He glanced back at Dief, who was sniffing curiously at a discarded soda can at the edge of the curb, and felt an odd detachment from the scene around him, as if the past half hour hadn't really happened at all.

"Are you coming, Ray?" Fraser called over his shoulder. He wasn't slowing.

Cursing softly under his breath, Ray gave Dief a final sullen glance and moved to follow him.

It was after four o'clock in the morning, but Ray couldn't sleep. Groaning, he rolled over onto his back and pressed his pillow over his face with both hands, grimacing as he inhaled the scent that rose from the sweat-soaked cloth.

Damn it. He felt like he'd taken an abrupt right turn straight into the Twilight Zone. In his mind, he kept replaying that harrowing chase through the underground tunnels at the amusement park. Even now, he wasn't sure what they'd been chasing, or even if they'd been the ones doing the chasing at all. He hated that he felt so uncertain about approaching Fraser about it, but Fraser had been remarkably adept at avoiding the subject all afternoon. At the earliest opportunity, he'd left for the Consulate without even waiting for Ray to drive him home.

The sound of traffic on the street below was a constant susurration outside his window, and Ray turned his head toward it, squinting slightly in the yellowish glare of the streetlights outside. Dull light filtered in through the slats of his blinds, layering the room in parallel stripes of luminescence that reminded him inexplicably of the fluorescent lights in the tunnels underneath the amusement park. The thought made him shift uncomfortably.

The hell with this. With a sigh, he shoved his pillow aside and reached for the glasses folded carefully on his nightstand. It was quite obvious that he wasn't going to be getting any more sleep tonight. He crawled out of bed with a low growl of frustration and stumbled blearily toward the bathroom, rubbing a hand absently over the back of his neck as he went.

He couldn't stop thinking of Fraser's uncommon aloofness, even as he tended to his body's more basic needs. Of course the possibility of death in any form was going to disturb the stoic Mountie, but Fraser's reaction to this case seemed to go deeper than that. Ray couldn't help but wonder what was going on inside his annoyingly cryptic partner's head. The thought was still swirling around in his mind as he reached for the clothes lying bunched up on the floor in his bedroom.

Why should he be the only one who couldn't sleep tonight?

The streets were nearly deserted as he made his way across town, and they glistened faintly with residual traces of the early evening rain. The streetlights reflected in strange, kaleidoscopic images off the asphalt as Ray parked the GTO at the curb in front of the Canadian Consulate and trotted determinedly up the broad stairs at the front of the building.

The lights in the lower floor windows were visible from the street, which didn't surprise him in the least. He knocked sharply, twice, and shifted from foot to foot impatiently while he waited for Fraser to open the front door. It really wasn't much of a surprise to find Fraser fully dressed when the door opened.

"Ray," Fraser said. His expression was impossible to read. For a moment, he didn't say anything further, but then he let out a short sigh and stepped aside. "Come in."

Ray's lips twitched as he accepted the invitation. He knew full well that Fraser's inherent politeness wouldn't let him turn him away, no matter how much he might want to. At any other time, Ray would have respected his friend's obvious desire for privacy, but the way he saw it, Fraser had been having far too much alone-time lately.

Ray's eyes swept around the vast entryway of the Consulate reflexively as he stepped inside. As always, the sheer empty weight of the place seemed to press in on him, and he wondered again how in the world Fraser could bring himself to live here. There was something about the building that brought to mind images of a gothic palace, decked out in velvet splendor. Even at this ungodly hour of the morning, he half-expected a white-gloved butler to step around the corner and ask him if he wanted something to drink.

Since it was Saturday morning and Fraser didn't have to go in to work, he was dressed in jeans and a dark grey flannel shirt. Somehow, the casual clothes didn't make him look any more at ease than he had this morning. Ray let his eyes sweep over Fraser's tall form as Fraser turned to lock the door, feeling strangely protective of him.

When Fraser turned to look at him again, his expression was carefully neutral. "Is there a problem, Ray?"

Ray frowned, hating the forced formality of the words. "Yeah," he said, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck self-consciously. He met Fraser's gaze steadily, determined not to back down in the face of that damnable Mountie courtesy. He hesitated for only a moment before deciding that a full frontal assault would probably work best. "I want you to tell me what's going on with you."

Fraser hesitated for the space of time it took to take in a deep breath and then let it out again, slowly. Sounding vaguely aggravated, he said, "I assure you, Ray, I'm quite all right."

Like hell. Ray held his gaze steadily, and after a moment, Fraser dropped his gaze, looking vaguely chagrined.

"This has been ... a disturbing case," Fraser admitted, sounding as if the words had been dragged out of him.

"Yeah." Ray felt a flood of relief wash through him. It seemed a miracle that Fraser was willing to open up to him this much. "Yeah, it is." He wished he knew what was going on inside Fraser's brain, but the other man's expression was carefully blank. Ray took a half-step forward, wanting to help, wanting to soothe, but not knowing what questions to ask.

Fraser stood staring at the floor for a long minute, but just as the silence was beginning to become truly awkward, the stiffness abruptly drained out of him. He closed his eyes and rubbed the pads of his fingers across his forehead as if it pained him, letting out another short sigh.

"I was just going to make myself some hot chocolate," he said. "Do you want any?"

Ray smiled, feeling cheered by the offer. "Yeah, I'd like that."

He followed Fraser into the small kitchen at the rear of the building, and leaned one shoulder against the hall archway while Fraser moved to fetch a small steel pot from under the counter. He watched silently as Fraser carefully measured the milk out and then turned the flame on low to heat it.

Ray watched him as he worked, feeling an uncomfortable tightening in his chest. The usual fluidity he was used to seeing in Fraser's movements was gone; he moved like his joints were attached to strings, a marionette being jerked around at the command of a rather sluggish puppeteer. The thought was sufficiently disturbing that Ray moved into the room to stand beside him, wanting to erase that image from his mind.

Fraser looked surprised when Ray stepped up behind him. The line of Fraser's back was tense as Ray's hand brushed across it, but to his immense relief, Fraser didn't flinch away from his touch.

"It'll be ready in a minute," Fraser said, sounding almost desperate.

Ray felt his brows draw together as he stared up into Fraser's eyes, trying to decipher the dark emotions he saw churning there. Underneath his hand, Fraser's back was shivering.

"What's going on, Frase?" he asked quietly, wishing he knew what to say, what to do to make Fraser open up to him. If he didn't know better, he'd think that Fraser was scared.

Fraser's eyes widened almost imperceptibly. After a moment, he leaned back against Ray's hand in a silent gesture of defeat, lowering his gaze.

"I don't know," he said, and his voice was hoarse, scratchy. "I just ... I haven't been sleeping well lately."

Ray nodded wordlessly and leaned back against the counter. He already knew that. "Is it the case?" His hand rubbed lightly against Fraser's back, trying to ease the tension out of it.

Fraser shook his head, seeming to relax slightly under the caress. "I don't think so. It's just ... I've been having nightmares." He shrugged, giving a small, self-deprecating smile as he turned back to the stove.

It must have been one hell of a bad dream. Despite Fraser's attempt to downplay the problem, Ray could tell that it was bothering him deeply. "Well, do you want to talk about it?"

And bang! Just like that, the walls were back in place. "No," Fraser said stiffly, and Ray could almost hear an audible crack as his spine straightened again. Damn. "It's not important, Ray. Honestly." The smile he favored Ray with then would almost have been convincing if it wasn't for the brittle emptiness in his eyes.

And that was just un-ac-cept-a-ble. Ray narrowed his eyes. He felt hurt by Fraser's refusal to confide in him, even though he was telling himself not to be. "Who's Jackie, Fraser?" he asked sharply, knowing he was being blunt and not caring.

Fraser flinched visibly as he reached for mugs in the cabinet over the counter. "I have no idea, Ray."

Relentlessly, Ray forged on. "You told me you were trying to find someone named Jackie in those tunnels under the amusement park."

Fraser pressed his lips together and shook his head, refusing to meet Ray's gaze. "Obviously, I made an error. We've worked on a lot of cases, Ray, with a great number of people. Is it so surprising that I'd get a name wrong, once in a while?"

"For you? Yes." Ray knew he was being unreasonable, but he couldn't forget how scared he'd been, following Fraser through those damned tunnels. It was like the other man hadn't even recognized him.

Fraser set the mugs down with a dull thunk and leaned hard against the countertop, lowering his head. "I don't know what you want me to say, Ray. I don't know anyone by that name."

"Like hell, Fraser." And now the anger crept into his voice, the bitterness he felt at being shut out so completely. It didn't seem to take much anymore for Fraser to get him going. "There's something going on here that you're not telling me. And that is more than just wanting privacy. Because you're more than just my friend; you're my partner. And partners tell each other things. If they don't, bad things happen. I have to be able to trust you, Fraser. If there's something going on with you, you gotta tell me."

For a moment, he almost thought he'd gotten through. Then Fraser turned to him with those hollow eyes of his and said, "Then maybe you should find yourself another partner for the duration of this case, Ray."

Ray stared, feeling as if the floor had just dropped out from under him. "What?"

Fraser's voice was calm. "It's obvious you don't feel comfortable working with me. And there is ... certain merit to that opinion. I think we'd both be happier if you were to find someone else to work with, as my own performance in this case has been ... somewhat lacking." He dropped his gaze, looking shamed.

Ray clenched his jaw furiously, hardly able to believe what he was hearing. "So you're just going to give up? Is that it? Without even telling me what's bugging you?"

Unruffled, Fraser turned back toward the counter. "I think that would be for the best, yes."

"Well, fuck that." Ray took a step forward, flashing back to the moment when Stella had confronted him with her oh-so-logical speech about why she couldn't be married to him any longer. It was irrational, but it had invoked the same sick feeling of dread in him that he was feeling right now. "Fuck that, Fraser. You got a problem with me, you tell me. I'm not gonna let you just turn your back on me and shut me out like this."

Fraser sighed, dropping his head forward again. "I think it would be best if you left now, Ray."

Ray stared at him. "No." He was shaking now, and he clenched his fists at his sides to stop it.

That made Fraser turn around to look at him, looking vaguely shocked. "Pardon me?"

"I'm not going." This whole situation was insane. A month ago, he and Fraser had been best friends, practically living their lives in each other's pockets. And now Fraser was telling him it was over, that he wanted him to find someone else to work with. Ray wished suddenly that he hadn't made the decision to come here tonight. He always had to push things, didn't he?

Fraser sighed again, scratching a thumbnail over his eyebrow absently. "Ray, I'm certain that another partner--"

"I don't want another partner!" Stupid fucking Mountie. Didn't he understand anything? Ray was bordering on outright panic now. "Don't you get it, Fraser? You're more than just a partner to me. You're ... you're one of the few people who actually sees me. Sometimes, I think you're the only one who does."

Fraser shook his head, looking troubled. "I'm not sure who I am anymore, Ray. Sometimes it feels like I don't know who anyone is--"

And that was just too fucking horrible a thought to let him finish. "Shut up, Fraser." Ray was furious. And damn if Fraser wasn't taking a half step back from him, like he thought maybe Ray was going to hit him. Maybe he was. "Just shut up. If you don't see me, I don't exist. Don't you get that yet?"

Fraser looked confused. "I'm not sure I--"

This entire conversation was ridiculous. Ray ran a hand over his mouth and half-turned away, trying to get a grip on himself. "Give me one good reason why you don't want to work with me anymore."

"You don't trust me." This was said with absolute certainty. "Which is perfectly understandable. The current fissure in our working and personal relationships could put you in unnecessary danger if we were to continue working this case together."

Ray shook his head stubbornly. "I never said I didn't trust you, Fraser."

For a moment, Fraser looked like he didn't know what to say to that. Then he lowered his voice and said, "You shouldn't trust me, Ray."

"Why not?"

"I don't trust me."

"Why?"

Fraser's eyes were huge suddenly. "I don't know."

And now Ray could see the fear in him, radiating out of him in almost visible waves. Without thinking, he took a step closer and laid a hand on Fraser's arm, feeling the subdued tremors moving through him.

Jesus, was Fraser like this every night? Was that why he hadn't been sleeping lately?

"Talk to me, Frase," he said, lowering his voice. "Tell me what's happening. I promise I won't run away, or laugh, or whatever the hell it is you're afraid I'm going to do. Okay? Just talk to me."

It seemed an eternity before Fraser finally dropped his gaze to the floor and nodded. Ray let his breath out in a harsh sigh and ran a hand back over the tousled hair at the top of his head. Good, they were good. He felt the rush of adrenaline leave him as if it had been siphoned away.

They moved into the lounge area off to the side of the front lobby once their cocoas were ready, and took seats on the large couch there. Ray leaned back against the plush cushions and took a cautious sip of his drink, being careful not to scald his tongue.

Next to him, Fraser sat stiffly and sighed. "I've been having dreams," he said after a moment, staring forward across the room.

Ray nodded. "Nightmares." There was no sarcasm in his tone. He'd had his own share of nightmares after Stella'd left, and he knew how frustrating they could be.

"Yes." Fraser closed his eyes and rubbed his hand across them. He looked tired.

"So, what are the dreams about?" Ray kept his tone mild, not wanting to scare Fraser into changing his mind about talking to him.

Fraser sighed. "It's the same dream, actually. Or at least, parts of the same dream, I think." His voice was strangely vacant. "I'm ... underground. In a cave of some sort. I'm hunting something, but I've been hurt, badly. It's ... cold. And it's dark. There's no light at first, but after a while there's some kind of faint illumination. Not artificial; maybe a torch, or a flame from a lamp. The tunnels are very old."

"Tunnels." The word escaped before Ray could stop it. He frowned.

Fraser glanced at him and nodded, his lips pressed so tight they were bloodless. His eyes were wide, dark against the paleness of his face. "Yes. There are ... paintings on the walls. Old cave paintings, crude, almost worn away by time. The light is coming from somewhere up ahead, and I ... I don't want to follow it. There's something there in the darkness, Ray, something that passed through the darkness and into the light. It's in the light, and I'm ... terrified of what I'll find when I get there."

He was shaking again, and Ray put a hand on his arm, scooting forward across the couch. "Hey, it's all right." He rubbed at Fraser's arm soothingly, feeling the tense muscles there begin to relax, slowly. "It's okay, Frase."

"Of course it is. It's just a dream, right?" Fraser gave him a rueful smile.

But Ray was still frowning. While the dream was undoubtedly terrifying, something about Fraser's description of it wasn't sitting quite right with him. "What did the painting look like?"

Fraser blinked, looking uncertain. "What?"

"The painting on the tunnel wall," he urged carefully. "What did it look like?"

It was a moment before Fraser answered him. "I'm not sure. It might have been a ... a wolf of some kind. And there was a hunter, with a spear. They were very old, Ray, and the drawings were crude."

Ray chewed thoughtfully at his lower lip. "That's an awfully detailed memory for a dream, Fraser."

Fraser stared at him. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, the way you described that, you made it sound like you were actually there."

"It was a very vivid dream, Ray..."

"You ever been anywhere like that?"

"Like what?" Fraser's eyes were widening again.

"I don't know." He shrugged. "Somewhere underground, with those cave paintings you saw."

"I don't ... I don't think so."

Ray felt a tingle of unease move through him. "You don't think so? How can you not remember something like that?"

He half-expected Fraser to get angry at the question, but instead, he just looked confused. "No, I... I've never been anywhere like that." Still, he sounded none too sure.

Ray stared at him. "Uh-huh."

Fraser shook his head and turned away. Letting his breath out softly, he admitted, "I seem to be having trouble telling the difference between my dreams and reality lately."

The confession made him seem vulnerable in a way that Ray had never seen in him before, and that just wasn't right. He tightened his fingers around Fraser's arm without thinking. "Is that what's been bothering you the past few weeks?"

Fraser nodded, looking miserable. He sat very still, his head bowed, and he looked so broken and lost that it made Ray's breath still in his chest. "It's just ... the fear, Ray," he said quietly. "Being lost in the dark, and hating it, but not wanting to go forward into the light. I don't understand it, but it's there, all the time, making me think about it." His voice was low. "I don't want to, but I think about it all the time anymore."

"You're not used to being afraid." It wasn't a question. He started to rub at Fraser's arm again, sliding his hand up to massage the back of his neck, wanting to do something to ease away the intense anxiety he could feel thrumming through him. Fraser's skin felt warm under his hand.

"Not like this, no." Fraser closed his eyes under the caress and leaned against him, seemingly without being aware of it. There was something heartbreakingly innocent about the gesture, almost child-like in the trust it represented.

Ray set his half-finished mug of cocoa on the low coffee table and shifted to make room for him, feeling strangely warm inside. He drew his legs up off the floor and pulled Fraser back against him, arranging them so they both lay sideways on the couch. Fraser followed his directions without protest and closed his eyes, stretching out beside him with a quiet sigh.

"Well, just take it easy, okay?" Ray ran his nails lightly across Fraser's forehead, brushing the loose bangs there aside as Fraser's head pillowed in against his shoulder. It should have felt weird, holding Fraser like this, but somehow it didn't. Fraser breathed a contented sigh, as if confessing his fears to Ray had drained the final reserves of his energy.

There was something remarkably endearing about seeing Fraser like this. He looked all of twenty years old suddenly, and Ray felt a fierce surge of protectiveness rise up in him. Whatever was going on, he felt better now that Fraser had confided in him. Even if it was becoming disturbingly clear that Fraser didn't have any better idea than he did what was bothering him.

Fraser's body was warm against him, and Ray shifted slightly to give him more room, smiling as Fraser's arm slipped forward around his waist. The lines of tension around Fraser's eyes had eased slightly, and his breathing was slow and even. There would be time enough in the morning to worry about Fraser's dream. For now, if Fraser felt comfortable enough with him here to fall asleep, Ray most certainly would not complain.

"G'night, Frase," he whispered, but there was no reply.

Smiling, Ray leaned his head back against the arm of the couch and stretched out as best he could. Resting an arm protectively around Fraser's shoulders, he stared up at the ceiling and settled back to think.

It was Turnbull who found them there the next morning.

Fraser cracked one eye open and saw a faint smudge of red outlined against the far window, which was bright with late morning sunlight. He squinted for a moment before opening his eyes completely, and the image resolved itself into Turnbull's familiar form.

"I'm sorry to disturb you, sir," Turnbull said, and he did indeed sound very regretful. "But Inspector Thatcher just called, and she's on her way in. Something to do with preparing for the upcoming trade delegation, I think. I thought it best if you ... I mean if you..."

Fraser stared at him blankly for a moment, then glanced down at the warm body lying curled up beside him. For the first time, it occurred to him that he was not on his cot in his office. A half-bent head of spiky blond hair was pressed up underneath his chin, and sometime during the night, he seemed to have spooned up around Ray's wiry body from behind.

Oh, dear.

"Yes," he said, and Turnbull looked relieved that he didn't have to explain things further. "Quite right." He shifted slightly, sliding his thigh back off of Ray's hip and carefully extricating himself from the tenacious grip that Ray had on the arm he'd wrapped around him.

Turnbull vanished into the inner rooms again without another word, and Fraser drew up on one elbow, stifling a yawn. Judging by the angle of the light that fell in through the broad windows, he'd gotten more sleep than he'd had at any one stretch for over a month. Amazing how good it felt to actually be well-rested for a change.

Ray murmured a faint protest as Fraser pulled away from him. It would have been preferable to let him sleep -- Fraser wasn't the only one who'd been missing sleep lately, he guessed -- but Turnbull was right. It wouldn't do to be caught lying here like this when Inspector Thatcher arrived.

The thought filled him with a dull heat that centered deep in his chest and refused to dissipate. It had been so long since he'd felt the comfort of sleeping with another person. There was something ... soothing about it, on a purely subconscious level. He remembered vividly the care that Ray had treated him with the previous night, despite his own reluctance to discuss the fears that had been keeping him awake lately. How could he possibly have thought that Ray would casually dismiss his dream?

Even the memory of the anger Ray had turned against him felt strangely pleasing. Because Ray cared about him. Which was certainly nothing he'd ever had cause to doubt, but somehow seeing evidence of it gave it a weight that could not be denied. He'd tried to shut Ray out under the mistaken impression that it would improve his ability to deal with whatever was bothering him, but Ray had simply refused to let him.

If you don't see me, I don't exist. Don't you get that yet?

The thought made him smile.

He realized suddenly that Ray was staring up at him with a fuzzy, half-awake sort of watchfulness. His face looked unaccountably beautiful to Fraser suddenly, unshaven and creased on one side with the weave of the couch they were lying on, with his hair sticking up in uneven clumps on one side of his head and pressed flat against the other.

Fraser was struck by the near-irresistible desire to kiss him.

"Good morning, Ray," he said instead, half-expecting Ray to pull away from him as soon as he realized where he was. But Ray only glanced around with bleary recognition and then snuggled in closer against him. The warmth of him made Fraser's heart pound fitfully.

"Mmrph," Ray said, muffling the word against Fraser's chest.

Fraser's smile broadened, and he gave in to the urge to touch Ray's shoulder lightly. "I wish we could sleep longer, Ray, but Inspector Thatcher is on her way in."

That made Ray stiffen slightly. After a moment, he tipped his head back against the arm of the couch with a resigned sigh. "I suppose it's too much to hope that you've actually got coffee around here somewhere."

"We have coffee," Fraser said, feeling his heartbeat quicken. Ray hadn't pulled away from him. He wasn't sure what that meant exactly, but it made him feel warm inside where he'd been feeling nothing but emptiness lately.

After a couple fortifying cups of dark coffee, Ray seemed to be in better spirits. Several hours of uninterrupted sleep had done them both some good, although he'd been in much worse shape than Ray. Strange how it actually felt odd to be rested this morning, as if his body had grown accustomed to the habitual torment of missed sleep over the past few weeks. The thought was irksome.

As an official part of the task force assigned to tracking down the killer, Ray had no specific duties in the 27th precinct that morning, but he insisted on making a trip in regardless. Fraser indulged him without questioning, enjoying the break from their usual routine. Inspector Thatcher had reduced his hours at the Consulate this past month so he could aid with the task force, and it seemed that just about every waking moment was wrapped up in this case lately.

Ray accepted the good-natured razzing of his fellow detectives with good graces as he stepped into the violent crimes bullpen. It seemed that Ray had developed a certain amount of notoriety among his comrades for being selected for the interdepartmental task force, but while this emotion was expressed with typical American male machismo, Fraser judged that they were actually happy for him. The thought filled him with a sense of pride; Ray deserved to be recognized for the hard work he did.

"So, any luck tracking down the Son of Sam?" Huey called out as Ray passed by on the way to his desk.

Ray made a vague gesture the other detective's direction that Fraser didn't recognize. "Very funny, Huey. You been practicing those one-liners?"

It seemed that Captain MacLean had followed through with his intentions to speak to the media yesterday afternoon, and news of the latest murder was being broadcast across the city. While Fraser still disagreed with the decision to make their suspicions about the killer's motives public, he had to admit that it was a benefit to have pictures of the missing girl showing on every major news station. He just wished that the media hadn't insisted on making her connection to the previous missing women known. He had a feeling that their killer was someone who enjoyed the publicity his actions brought about.

Perhaps the "Son of Sam" reference wasn't so inaccurate after all.

He stood talking to Francesca in the doorway of the break room while Ray sat on the edge of his desk across the bullpen to make a phone call. Somehow, the distance between them seemed bothersome after the intimacy of last night. And it had been intimate, regardless of the innocence of Ray's intentions. Fraser had needed a friend, and Ray had been there for him.

He realized too late that he'd completely lost track of what Francesca was saying to him.

"You all right, Frase?" she asked, eyeing him curiously.

It was not a question he could truthfully answer in the affirmative, although he was far closer to it than he'd been before last night. "I'm tired," he replied, feeling vaguely guilty over the immediate concern that rose in her eyes. Despite her rather forward nature, Francesca had a good heart. "This case has been ... wearing."

"Yeah, I'll say." Her voice sounded pained. "I saw the news last night. This makes what, six murders now?"

"Five," he corrected automatically, even as he wished that he hadn't raised the subject at all. "Marilee Cavanaugh is still registered as missing."

The look she favored him with was vaguely pitying. "Well, I hope you find her." She didn't sound particularly optimistic.

Which was entirely the problem they were facing with the media. Just because the killer had gone so long without being caught, the public was beginning to think he was invulnerable.

Hopefully, it was a misapprehension that the killer would begin to make as well. If he thought he was somehow above the law, then chances were that sooner or later, he would begin to make mistakes.

"As do I," he said, realizing belatedly that he hadn't responded to her statement.

Francesca's look softened, and she touched him lightly on the arm. "Well, don't work yourself into the ground, okay? She's lucky to have a guy like you trying to find her, but you can't work miracles."

Yes, a good heart. "Thank you, Francesca." Nevertheless, he couldn't completely keep the discomfort out of his voice. The thought that he might fail Marilee through some fault of his own was terrifying; the thought that nothing he could possibly do might make a difference was unthinkable.

Fortunately, Ray chose that moment to appear behind his shoulder. "How's things on the home front, Frannie?" he asked, as if he recognized that Fraser desperately needed a change of subject.

Francesca favored him with a wry expression. "How do you think? Harding's on the warpath 'cause we're short a detective, and everyone lately seems to want to talk to the Mountie."

"Well, tell 'em to take a number and get in line." Ray's voice was firm, which made the warmth in Fraser's chest grow that much deeper. "Fraser's mine till this thing blows over."

Francesca gave Fraser an odd look, and he wondered what exactly his face was showing at the moment. Carefully, he schooled his face into as bland an expression as he could. "I'm afraid Ray is correct, Francesca. Inspector Thatcher has made it quite clear that I'm expected to offer assistance to the task force until the killer is brought to justice."

"Yeah, well if you ever decide you want a break from all the intrigue, you know where to find it." She batted her eyelashes at him and moved away with a suggestive sway of her hips, giving him a last lingering pat on the arm.

Ray rolled his eyes. "C'mon, Frase. Briefing room one's open. I figure it's as good a place as any to sit and talk things over."

Talk things over? Fraser stared at him, feeling his heartbeat quicken, but then realization dawned. "Of course. You mean the case."

"Yeah, the case." There was laughter in Ray's eyes as he reached up to thwap him good-naturedly across the back of the head. "C'mon, before Frannie decides to come back and try getting her claws into you again."

Fraser wanted to argue that Francesca had merely been offering her opinions on their current case, but Ray was already moving. Fraser followed him, somewhat at a loss as to why Ray would choose to spend the morning here when he'd been studiously avoiding the place ever since he'd been assigned to the task force.

"Who was on the telephone?" he asked as Ray closed the briefing room door behind them. Immediately, the familiar hum of voices in the bullpen faded into a subdued murmur.

"Oh, nobody," Ray said vaguely. He swung a chair around and straddled it backwards, resting his crossed arms over the back in front of him. His expression turned serious. "You think of any new ideas about the case last night?"

Instantly, Fraser focused his mind on the problem before them. "A few," he answered, pulling out a chair across the table and sinking into it. Dief had apparently decided to stay out in the bullpen with Francesca.

Ray's eyebrows rose. "Okay. Shoot."

"I think it's odd that the killer would choose to utilize the park's maintenance tunnels as an escape route."

"Two points, Fraser. First, we don't know that's what he did. Second, we made it almost all the way out without running into anybody."

"But we didn't avoid contact with the park's staff completely. Choosing that route would be open to a fair amount of risk." Fraser paused and lowered his gaze, trying to fight against the sudden wave of fear that rose up inside of him as his memories of the maintenance tunnels intermingled with the memories of his dream. "And I don't really see any other way he could have gotten Marilee out of the park without attracting unwanted attention."

Immediately, Ray was reaching across the table to touch the back of his hand. "Hey. It's okay, Frase."

Deliberately, Fraser drew in a long breath. These free-floating anxiety attacks were getting damned annoying. "It's unlikely that someone unfamiliar with the park would expect to find their way out without running into some kind of opposition," he said, intentionally ignoring the fear that still thrummed through him.

Ray's hand on his was a lifeline. "Okay, so let's say you're right. That leaves us with a girl who was snatched out of a crowd, with her boyfriend. That's damn risky."

"Yes." And that was another thing that was bothering him. "I'd say the killer's need is escalating. It's likely he saw Marilee in the crowd, recognized her as his 'type', and decided impulsively that he had to have her."

Ray was nodding, looking interested. "And if he acted impulsively, maybe he made a mistake somewhere along the way."

"Yes, exactly. This kidnapping wasn't planned. He just happened to be in a position where he would have had access to visitors to the amusement park. Plus, he had to be reasonably familiar with the layout of the maintenance tunnels to think that he could use them unobserved."

Ray stared at him. "Goddamn. The killer's an employee at the park."

Of course Ray would understand intuitively what he was getting at. "His mistake, I think, was in using the maintenance tunnels. That's not an option that an average visitor to the park would have thought of."

Ray was getting excited now. He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and met Fraser's gaze eagerly as he punched in MacLean's number from memory. "Okay, I'll arrange to have the park's employees questioned this afternoon. But you do realize this is all ... whadaya call it. Conjecture. We don't know he used the tunnels."

"But it makes sense."

"Hell, yeah, it makes sense." Ray's eyes were shining as he relayed their request to have the park's employees questioned. Fraser stared at him as he talked, feeling a tightening in his chest. Ray had so little restraint over his emotions at the best of times, but now, with the first real solid lead they'd had on this case, it looked like his soul was shining straight out through his eyes.

A knock on the door interrupted them before he could say something truly embarrassing. Fraser tore his gaze away from Ray's face and turned around in this chair. Francesca was poking her head in through the half-open door.

"Your fax just came in, Ray," she said, and immediately, Ray bounced up to his feet and moved around the table to take it from her, shoving the closed cell phone back into his pocket.

"Thanks, Frannie," he said, already thumbing through the sheaf of papers as he made his way back to his seat. Francesca cast Fraser an unreadable look before ducking out again, closing the door behind her.

Fraser waited patiently for a moment, but Ray merely sat down without a word, head bent over the pages in front of him. He cleared his throat lightly. "Is this something related to our current case?" he asked.

Ray glanced up, and to Fraser's surprise, his cheeks colored slightly. "Uh ... not exactly."

Fraser raised an eyebrow and waited.

Ray shifted slightly in his chair. "You have to promise me you won't be mad, okay? That phone call earlier... I called Turnbull and asked him to have your service records faxed here to the office. I guess he had to call Ottawa, but they do things with your typical Mountie efficiency up there."

The admission surprised him. He didn't feel angered by Ray's curiosity, but he was profoundly puzzled. "Of course you're welcome to look at my service record, Ray." He certainly hadn't shown any restraint in looking at Ray's when they first met. "But I'm not sure I understand why it would interest you."

"Well, I've been thinking about this dream you've been having." Immediately, the words banished any feeling of warmth that Fraser had been enjoying. "And I started thinking that maybe there was something in here that might shed some light on it."

Fraser felt as if his heart had just frozen into a block of ice. It was difficult to breathe all of a sudden. "I'm not certain what you hope to find, Ray. I've already told you that I've never been anywhere similar to the caves in my dream."

"Yeah, I know you did. But it can't hurt to check, right?"

Logical. Eminently logical. So why did the very idea of it spark another of those damnable panic attacks?

Recognizing his distress, Ray came around the table to sit beside him. Fraser closed his eyes as he felt Ray's hand on his back, sliding up to massage at the back of his neck.

"Hey, take it easy, okay?" There was an edge of alarm in Ray's voice. Apparently seeing his formerly capable partner falling apart at the seams was beginning to take its toll on him. "This is seriously weird, Fraser. This just isn't you, okay?"

Fraser gave him a wry sideways glance, struggling to get his breathing back under control. "In what sense?"

But Ray refused to back down. "You're usually a rock, Fraser. Nothing bothers you. So what's up with this? Huh? Can you tell me that?"

"I assure you, Ray, I don't have any more of an idea about what's happening here than you do." Which was a hundred times more frightening than the attack itself. He was so used to always being in control, of himself if not of a particular situation, that losing that tenuous control was terrifying.

Finally, he got himself under some semblance of control again, and the fuzzy edges of panic drew back from the corners of his mind. He pressed his knuckles hard against his eyes, until he saw phantom sparks flashing behind his closed eyelids.

Ray's hand moved down to his back again, still stroking lightly. "You okay now?"

Fraser nodded, feeling his face heat. Falling apart in front of Ray was somehow worse than doing it in the privacy of his bedroom at night.

Ray patted him perfunctorily between the shoulder blades as if he recognized Fraser's discomfiture and then reached for the fax, sliding it across the table toward them. His voice was calm as he said, "Let's take a look and see if we can find anything, okay?"

It took a moment, but Fraser finally found his voice. He felt overwhelmingly grateful to Ray at that moment. "Okay," he agreed, dropping his hands back down to the table and turning toward the pages in front of them.

It took far less time than he anticipated to find what they were looking for. There it was in vivid black ink: May 16, 1982. Toward the end of his very first year as a Mountie, he had been involved in the investigation of a series of serial killings outside Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan.

He could feel Ray's startled gaze on him. "I thought you said you'd never investigated a serial killing before."

Fraser shook his head, feeling a strange sense of fuzziness fall over him. "I ... I haven't."

"That's not what the record says, Fraser."

Impossible. Deafened by the frantic pounding of his heart inside his chest, Fraser grabbed hold of the page and began to read further. The killer's name was Harold Randolf. His victims of choice had been young children aged seven to fourteen, and he operated successfully out of Moose Jaw for nearly half a year before the authorities closed in on him.

Fraser was listed as the only officer present when Randolf committed suicide on November 14, 1982. Apparently Randolf had been secreting his victims into a network of caves that stretched beneath a nearby Inuit village, and Fraser had tracked him there. The caves were a historical landmark, treasured for their exquisitely preserved artifacts from civilizations prior to the arrival of the Inuit, but no one had ever explored them fully. They were a warren, for the most part uncharted, frequented only by treasure hunters and historians.

It had been the perfect hiding place for a modern urban demon.

Fraser wiped at the sweat that beaded on his upper lip with one hand, recognizing that his hand was shaking even as he did so. He could feel Ray's eyes on him, Ray's hand warm upon his back, grounding him to the here and now as he read.

He was the only one who had followed Randolf into his subterranean lair, the report said, and for a moment, memory tickled: He had been so confident of his abilities as a youth, so certain that nothing bad could ever happen to him. He was Justice, he was Truth, and it had been his duty to take on all the nefarious horrors of the world. Of course, not much had changed in recent years, but it was true that he'd learned the value of ... temperance, to some degree. More importantly, he'd learned that it wasn't always best to work alone.

Fraser's report of the final confrontation with Randolf was not included. Later reports indicated that he'd been injured in some way during the incident. Hospital reports made passing reference to cracked ribs, concussion, internal bruising, surface lacerations to the skin around the head and neck. "My God," Ray whispered beside him, but Fraser ignored him. Apparently Randolf had taken a victim with him down into the caves that final time, a local girl from Moose Jaw who'd been all of ten years old.

The victim's name had been Jacqueline Smith.

"Jackie," Fraser whispered, and BAM! Just like that, the floodgates of his memory opened.

He'd been following Randolf's trail for five days, and it had finally led him to an opening in the cliff face several miles outside the Inuit village, overlooking the ice-covered gorges in the valley below. He'd pushed the coarse brush aside with both hands, marveling at the strength of the roots that clung so steadily to the rock face over the opening. Perseverance, he couldn't help but note. It was a lesson from nature that he was doing his best to emulate.

He'd been low on supplies at that point, but there was no chance of going back for more. His radio had died sometime during his third day out, when he'd lost his footing during a rock slide. Of course, procedure dictated that he should have immediately turned back at that point to reconnect with his team, but he'd been so sure he was on the right trail, and he hadn't wanted to lose it. It was well-known that Randolf had another victim with him, and that he would not hesitate to kill.

And, of course, being so brash and confident and filled with youthful zeal, Fraser had never imagined that there was anything he couldn't handle in a confrontation with one man. He'd breezed through the Academy, much as he'd expected, and hadn't yet come across any significant challenges to his resources or his physical prowess.

His first mistake came when he ventured too close to a section of the caverns where the tunnel floor was unstable. He remembered flailing for the edge as the floor gave way underneath him, rocks sliding like water under his hands as the beam of his flashlight went spinning dizzily off into the far reaches of the darkness. He'd fallen, a sickening lurch as he spun crazily through open air, and then a final sickening thud as he hit bottom some untold distance below.

When he'd finally regained consciousness, he realized that his flashlight had not survived the descent with him.

He vividly remembered the panic of that moment, as the darkness seemed to close around him like a living thing. He'd been well aware of the severity of his situation. Somewhere in these tunnels, Randolf was holding Jackie hostage. Was maybe hurting her, killing her, even now. The thought filled him with a cold rage that was completely alien to him; never had he felt so helpless, so lost to circumstances outside his control.

He remembered clawing his way to his feet with some difficulty. The pain had been very bad then, stabbing into his sides with every breath he took. Walking was an agony, but he moved forward, knowing it would be death to linger too long. Already, the cold of the tunnels was seeping into him, so that he couldn't feel his fingers and toes. If he stayed here any longer, he wouldn't have to wait for Randolf to come finish him off.

And so he had gone, with one arm wrapped tight around his aching ribs and the other held out in front of him, groping blindly at the open air to keep himself from running headfirst into an unseen wall. At this deeper level, the caverns were labyrinthine, and he had no way at all to tell what direction he was heading in. In time, the pain became a distant buzzing at the back of his mind, at one with the cold that gripped him, the hard floor that passed beneath his feet. He'd fallen into a kind of walking daze by the time he first noticed the light ahead of him.

He'd known immediately whose light it was. There was no one else down here, aside from him and Randolf, and the little girl. And Fraser knew with chilling certainty that he could never hope to outmatch Randolf in his current condition. His mind was suddenly consumed with images of the killer's former victims, the barely recognizable corpses, and the phantom echoes of their imagined screams rose up in the back of his mind, freezing him where he stood. His heart was pounding -- nothing seemed quite real to him at that moment, as if reality itself had been squeezed flat around him and compressed into one shining, glistening blade of pain behind his eyes. He couldn't breathe, couldn't move. He didn't want to die that way, oh God, he most certainly did not want to die.

In the end, he had decided simply that given the choice between light and darkness, he would choose the light. And so he'd moved into it, knowing full well what he'd find. Randolf had set up a series of oil lamps in the sections of the caverns that he frequented, and it was easy enough to follow their luminous trail to the place where the killer waited.

Oddly enough, he hadn't seemed surprised to see Fraser at all. There was a dull gleam of madness in his eyes, but it was the kind of madness that can pass itself off as the most rigid form of sanity under the right conditions. But here, underneath the earth, Randolf had looked like nothing other than what he was.

"I never truly believed in evil before that day," Fraser whispered, and for the first time, he realized that he was telling Ray this story aloud. Ray's hands were on him -- one on his back, the other cupped over his forearm on top of the table -- but he barely felt them. Part of him was almost physically down in those tunnels again, hurting, lost, and terrified. And, in the end, helpless.

Randolf had had Jackie with him. She'd looked at Fraser with the largest eyes he'd ever seen, and he'd seen the echo of his own fear there, his own wild terror. Even so, he'd managed to confront Randolf with some measure of his former bravado, no matter how laughable it seemed.

"He killed her," Fraser said hoarsely, and Ray's hand slid up to tangle fingers in the hair at the back of his head, offering wordless reassurance. "While I watched. She ... died, there in that cave. And then he ran. I ... followed him. We fought." He closed his eyes again, remembering the pain of it, the rage of it, the sheer burning madness of it. Even so, he needed to tell this story. He needed Ray to know. "He had a knife. I wasn't able to subdue him, but I guess he figured that if one Mountie had found him, there had to be a whole army of them stationed over the mountainside, just waiting for him to come out."

"He killed himself," Ray guessed, and there was a roughness in his voice that Fraser had never heard before.

Fraser nodded. "I remember ... standing there, watching him die. I wanted to kill him, Ray. But suddenly there just wasn't anything left for me to do."

He wiped a hand across his cheek, surprised to find tears there. Ray's hand on the back of his neck tugged gently, and Fraser gave into the gentle invitation, bending his head forward to lean against Ray's shoulder.

"You did everything you could," Ray said to him.

"It wasn't enough." Fraser's voice was bleak.

Ray sounded exasperated. "You were injured, Fraser. You had a fucking concussion. You stopped him from going on to hurt anyone else. You did good."

Fraser had to bite down hard on his lower lip to hold back the harsh ring of laughter that wanted to burst from him at that assessment. How utterly like Ray to completely miss the point of the story. "She died, Ray," he said with unaccustomed vehemence.

"There wasn't anything you could have done." Ray said this with such determined surety that it gave Fraser pause.

"How do you know that?"

"Because I know you." Soft hand on his neck, fluttering gently against his nape. "You would never 'let' anyone die. If it was humanly possible to save that girl, you would have done it. Hell, it's a wonder you were still alive at that point, from what I saw in those hospital reports. And you still managed to take down the bad guy."

The words hit him with a sharp lance of pain, and he winced, flinching slightly away from Ray's touch. Ray didn't react; he just continued to stroke lightly at the nape of Fraser's neck, as if he were trying to soothe a restless cat.

"So what happened next?" Ray asked after a moment.

Fraser started, caught off guard by the question. After a moment, he answered, "I had to leave Jackie's body behind. It ... took a while to find a way out of the tunnels, but the way was well-lighted. Once I made it outside, I started back in the direction of the city. It was snowing fairly heavily by that point, and..." He trailed off, remembering it vividly. He had collapsed in the snow, too drained -- both emotionally and physically -- to go on any longer. He'd lain there for what seemed a very long time, feeling vaguely shocked by the sight of his blood on the snow, and waited for the cold to take him. He'd been convinced that he was going to die, had welcomed it, even. "A party of hunters from the Inuit village found me before I succumbed to hypothermia. They contacted the local RCMP outpost, and I was flown immediately to Moose Jaw Union Hospital."

He remembered the moment when he had regained consciousness there with vivid clarity. A grim-faced sergeant had been waiting to take his statement. Fraser had barely managed to relay the general occurrence of events that had led to Randolf's death before he blacked out again, and by the time he came around for the second time, it was all over. Both Jackie's and Randolf's bodies had been recovered, and he was afforded a hero's welcome when he finally returned to work at the RCMP outpost. There was an investigation into his actions, of course, but the board ended up exonerating him of any wrongdoing. He was awarded his first commendation on that same day, for bravery and determination in the face of severe injury.

It was then that he'd requested to be transferred out of Moose Jaw, preferably to a more rural setting.

The shame he'd felt then still burned bright within him, the bitterness he'd felt at the inability of his fellow officers to see that he'd been in the wrong. Perhaps logically, he understood what Ray was trying to tell him, that there hadn't been anything he could have done to save Jackie's life. But somehow that was even more terrifying than the prospect that he'd somehow been able to save her, and had failed.

Just when had the fog begun to fall down over his memories of those nightmarish days, conveniently obscuring the things that he no longer wanted to dwell on? How long had it taken for him to selectively choose not to remember them, until he wasn't even remembering them at all?

"God help me," he whispered, burying his face against the side of Ray's neck.

And still Ray held him, and murmured softly to him, and stroked the back of his neck with a soothing, hypnotic touch. Ray, who had never once stopped believing in him, not even when the worst of what he was came to light. Ray, who had come to him last night, and refused to be pushed away. Ray, who believed that he had done good.

Slowly, the gibbering madness of the memories began to ebb away. Fraser squeezed his eyes tightly shut and just let Ray hold him, losing himself in the decadent comfort of the other man's touch. Ray believed in him.

Somehow, his memories didn't seem quite so unmanageable anymore.

"You wanna crash at my place tonight?" Ray could feel Fraser's gaze on him, could practically feel the arch of the brow being leveled in his direction. Against his better judgment, the words continued to pour out of him. "I mean, in case you have those dreams again. I figure that way, if you do, at least you'll have someone to talk to, you know? I mean, instead of just sitting around the Consulate all by yourself."

He could feel Fraser's breath burning hot against his neck. He still couldn't believe half of what Fraser had told him, and it made him want to go out and hit somebody. Hard. The fact that the man responsible for the pain Fraser was feeling had died sixteen years ago made no impact on Ray's anger whatsoever. As far as he was concerned, Randolf had gotten off easy.

He half-expected Fraser to put up a fight about it, and he had his counter-argument all ready to go when Fraser said, "I'll have to pick up a change of clothes at the Consulate first."

The quiet acceptance in his voice gave Ray pause. It seemed odd for a moment until he realized that he'd never heard Fraser admit to needing anybody before. The realization was sobering.

"Hey," he said, sliding his hand over to Fraser's shoulder and giving him a little shake. The soft hair tickling under his nose smelled like herbal shampoo, as if Fraser had showered in the middle of a tropical rainforest that morning. Ray closed his eyes and breathed the scent in deeply. "You okay?"

"Yes." At least Fraser's voice had some degree of its former confidence. "Yes, I believe I am."

He pulled away from Ray then, and Ray let him go. Ray busied himself with straightening the pile of papers on the table in front of him while Fraser discreetly wiped at the tears on his cheeks. It couldn't be easy breaking down in front of another guy, even if that guy was your best friend.

Knowing the memories this case was dredging up for Fraser, Ray's instinct now was to keep him as far away from it as possible. But of course Fraser, being Fraser, would never admit that he might need to step back away from a case and take some time for himself.

"So, we good to go?" He asked the question with a sense of resignation, knowing full well what Fraser's answer was going to be.

"Yes, Ray, I'm feeling quite well now." Which was as blatant a lie as Ray had ever heard come from those perfect Mountie lips, but he decided not to call him on it. If Fraser felt he needed to work this case -- for whatever reasons -- Ray wasn't going to stand in his way.

"Okay." Ray gave him a level look, taking in the dark shadows underneath Fraser's eyes, which had gone all soft and shiny on him. Tears still clung to those dark, spiky lashes like a layer of glittering ice, and he had to fight the urge to wipe them away. "But if you start feeling freaky again, you tell me. All right?" His tone left no room for argument.

Fraser favored him with a small half-smile. "Understood," he said, which seemed exceedingly generous to Ray under the circumstances. Fraser never did what he was told. At least not without an argument or an Inuit story or something. Fraser's voice softened. "And ... thank you, Ray." He sounded uncertain.

Which just went to show how very rattled Fraser was. Ray wasn't sure quite how to handle this new, vulnerable Fraser. It seemed odd to think that Fraser might actually be human like the rest of them, which was nuts, but there you had it. Fraser always seemed so perfect, so untouchable, like nothing in the world could harm him.

It was liberating to realize that Fraser might be more human than he was letting on. Ray had caught glimpses of the man behind the Mountie mask over the past year or so, but they were always far too fleeting, as if Fraser was afraid to let his real self show. As far as Ray knew, he never let anyone inside, never let anyone see past the barriers he had erected around him.

Seeing this new side of Fraser made him seem strangely bare, even though he was fully clothed. Which was a crazy thought, but one that made Ray's palms itch in weird ways. And suddenly he was hit with a wave of fierce protectiveness, like he didn't want anyone else to see Fraser this way. It occurred to him then that he was the only person in the entire world Fraser would -- could? -- have opened up to in this way. The thought warmed him straight down to his toes.

Ray smiled and reached out to straighten the collar of Fraser's flannel shirt, trying to smooth over the moment of awkwardness between them. The fabric felt soft under his fingers, and it took him a moment before he pulled his hand away. "Well, come on, then," he said. His voice was strangely gruff. "Pitter patter, Fraser. We've got a case to solve."

Unfortunately, it would take time to interview Wonderworld's employees. There were something like thirty gazillion of them, give or take a few, and they were scattered all over the city during their hours off. Local patrols in the districts were doing what they could to track them all down, but it was going to take time to get to them all.

In the meantime, Ray swung by the justice building downtown to check in with the task force. He knew he would have been contacted if anything had turned up, but it couldn't hurt to be prudent. MacLean seemed surprised to see him, which Ray could understand after their little altercation yesterday. Nevertheless, Ray put on his game face and did what he could to play nice today.

It didn't help matters any that MacLean had opted to call in the FBI, without telling anybody. Special Agent Tom Donaldson was scheduled to arrive by plane later that afternoon to offer his expertise in forming a profile of the killer. Ray very carefully kept his opinions on that particular executive decision to himself.

"I am not a team player," he complained to Fraser over lunch. Around them, the diner thrummed with barely suppressed energy as the lunchtime crowd poured in through the doors, underscored by the harsh clatter of dishes echoing from somewhere in the back room.

The look Fraser regarded him with was placating. "You're doing just fine, Ray," he said, studiously averting his gaze as Ray fed a French fry to Diefenbaker under the table. "You've worked hard to achieve this kind of recognition among your peers. You should be proud of it."

"Recognition, yes." Leave it to Fraser to miss the point entirely. And he wasn't even going to mention the fact that as "Ray Vecchio", it wasn't entirely his performance record that had earned him this particular honor. "I can live with recognition. But no one ever said I had to make nice with the FBI."

Dief nudged his knee under the table, and Ray handed him another French fry, enjoying the way Fraser pretended not to see it. "It's only one afternoon," Fraser told him. "And you never know. Agent Donaldson might have something useful to contribute."

It was a small consolation that Fraser didn't sound any more convinced of that than Ray felt. "Yeah, whatever," he said, scratching at the top of Dief's head in silent apology once his fries were all gone. "You still can't make me look forward to a meeting that's gonna amount to nothing more than a roomful of detectives sitting around staring at their navels, waiting for some kind of inspiration to fall into their laps."

Fraser had no further comments to make as they got up to pay their tab. Ray gave him a sharp look, but it didn't look like Fraser had fallen into another one of his funks. Instead, it looked like he was just ... lost in his thoughts. For now, Ray decided to leave him to them.

Even Dief seemed irritable as they made their way back to the justice building. Even without the rain they'd been having for the past week, the weather seemed dull and dreary. The sky was a ceiling of unbroken grey above them, as if someone had taken the edge of a soft graphite pencil and smudged across it. Ray cast an uncomfortable glance up at it as he led the way inside; he was hoping desperately that they'd last the rest of the day without getting any more rain.

He was half-hoping that the FBI agent's flight would have been delayed -- or better yet, cancelled -- but it turned out that Donaldson had already called from his hotel to say he was on his way. Ray smirked under the commiserating glance Fraser cast in his direction before retreating into the break room to fortify himself with some coffee.

It took far too little time for Donaldson to arrive, in Ray's opinion, even if they were just sitting around rehashing the details they already knew about the case. He knew he wasn't the only one frustrated about being called in to hear some holier-than thou speech from the Feds when what they really wanted to be doing was going out there and catching their bad guy.

Even if none of them had a clue in hell how to do it.

Donaldson was a short, nerdy-looking guy with glasses, and he seemed to have a perpetual sniffle that had to be allergies. Ray glanced at Fraser and rolled his eyes as Donaldson moved to take his place at the front of the room, pulling what looked like a well-used hanky from his coat pocket to wipe at his nose.

"I've spent the past day going over the case file that Captain MacLean sent me," Donaldson said, leaning back against the front table. His voice was thin, and it had a reedy rasp to it. "I'm not sure how many of you are familiar with the history of the Investigative Support Unit out at Quantico, but what we do is provide working profiles to aid local law enforcement in tracking down violent offenders. We've built up quite a success rate in the past twenty years, so I beg of you not to discount what I'm about to tell you without giving it due consideration."

Ray sighed heavily and reached for the open bag of M&M's on the table in front of him. He shook out a handful and plunked them into his cup of coffee, trying not to look too bored as he stirred them in.

Fraser leaned over and nudged his arm lightly. "In point of fact, Ray," he whispered, "Agent Donaldson is correct in his estimation of the ISU's success rate. You might want to pay attention."

Ray cast him a dark look but turned his attention back to the front of the room, taking a slow sip of his coffee.

"What we do is not an exact science," Donaldson was saying. "And there are those who find our methods a bit ... unorthodox. Some have likened it to looking into a crystal ball." His tone was wry. "Nevertheless, law enforcement agencies around the world have come to us for advice in these matters, and the majority of the time, our profiles are right on target."

He paused, as if waiting to make sure he had everyone's attention. There was a distant spark in his dark eyes that made Ray sit up a little straighter in his chair. Whatever else he might be, Agent Donaldson took this part of his job very seriously.

"I've been studying your UNSUB's files extensively over the past twenty-four hours," Donaldson said. "UNSUB" was police jargon for "unidentified subject". "And I can tell you that these murders fall into a pattern I'm familiar with. I can tell you that your perpetrator is most likely male, Caucasian, twenty to twenty-eight years old, and works in a blue collar job. This wouldn't be his first crime of this nature, although this is likely the first that he's carried to this extent. As a juvenile, he would have been arrested for petty crimes, if anything. Burglary, petty trespassing. He's smart, with around a 130 I.Q. He would have done well in school, but he'd be a loner. He has a very vivid fantasy life, which he may be playing out through his obsession with these girls."

Ray stared, trying and failing to hold back the harsh bark of laughter that wanted to escape him. "What, are you going to tell us his shoe size, too?" He tried not to notice the disapproving glance Fraser shot at him.

Donaldson met his gaze seriously. "No. But I can tell you that unless you find Miss Cavanaugh, he will kill her. And after that, he'll kill again. And again."

Ray's humor faded as if it had been siphoned away. "You're saying he feels driven to do this."

Donaldson nodded. His eyes looked suddenly old to Ray, old and tired. "I've spent the better part of my career crawling around inside the heads of monsters like this one, Detective. And if I've learned anything from it, it's this: they don't stop. They kill because they like it, because it fulfills some sick need inside them. As long as the need is there, they will kill, until somebody stops them."

It was impossible not to be affected by the steady certainty in those words. Ray clenched his fist on top of the table and glanced around at the other detectives seated around him. "Okay," he said. "So where is she? Where's he keeping her? Is she still alive?"

"I don't know." Donaldson's voice was regretful, as if he wished he truly did have a crystal ball to look into. "But I can tell you that he'd bring her someplace that was familiar to him. Someplace that plays into his fantasies somehow."

Ray glared at him. "That doesn't help me."

Donaldson's expression was strangely doe-like. "That's all I can give you, Detective. The rest is up to you."

Ray could tell by the buzz of conversation as the meeting broke up that no one was taking Donaldson's words seriously. The thought angered him, although he couldn't have said why.

"It gives an interesting slant to the investigation," Fraser commented as they made their way to the door.

Ray frowned at him. "Interesting nothing, Fraser. The guy's a freak."

The look Fraser gave him was slightly wounded. "Agent Donaldson is a professional, Ray."

"Yeah, a professional nutcase." Ray was in no mood to discuss this. He certainly wasn't going to admit that Donaldson had managed to totally creep him out.

Fraser gave a longsuffering sigh, scratching lightly at his eyebrow. "We're already pursuing the possibility that the killer is an employee at the amusement park. What possible harm can it do to see if any of the employees match Donaldson's profile?"

"Fine." Ray didn't want to argue. And, when it came right down to it, Fraser was right. He dug around in his coat pocket for his cell phone and went to hunt down MacLean to get authorization. Bureaucracy sucked, but he wasn't about to do anything that would damage their ability to prosecute this case when they finally caught the bastard.

While he called in to the officers handling the questioning of Wonderworld's employees, he followed Fraser down to the parking lot, letting his gaze trail after him speculatively. Fraser seemed to be holding up okay, but Ray was still wary that something might be bothering him that he didn't see fit to mention.

As if he felt Ray's gaze on him, Fraser turned and regarded him with a small smile. "I'm fine, Ray," he said, as if Ray had just asked him a question directly.

Ray considered the statement as he put his phone away. He had to admit that Fraser certainly looked fine. He'd lost the air of preoccupied distraction that'd been hanging over him for the past few weeks. He looked ... clear. Alert. Here, in a way that he hadn't been before they'd looked at those records from Ottawa this morning.

"Okay, then." Ray couldn't help giving him a smile of his own.

It seemed that MacLean was still sore over yesterday's altercation, because he'd assigned Ray to keep Marilee's family updated on the progress of their investigation. Which was no progress at all. This was the part Ray always hated about police work, and he was grateful (not for the first time) to have Fraser with him. Fraser had a sensitivity toward people that Ray envied, and he was never more aware of it than when they were dealing with the victims' families.

So he hung back while Fraser sat down to talk to Mr. and Mrs. Cavanaugh, wandering away to look at the framed pictures on the mantle while Fraser politely declined Mrs. Cavanaugh's offer of tea. The pictures showed a happy family of three, most of them showing Marilee at a much younger age. There were several pictures of Marilee by herself, taken more recently, including one of her with the deceased boyfriend.

God, what must it be like to face losing your only child? For the first time, he felt viciously glad that Stella had decided not to have children with him. It seemed like such a godawful risk in this day and age, when nothing was ever certain. Without warning, he flashed back to Fraser's account of the killer he'd tracked in Moose Jaw all those years ago. That particular sicko had preyed on kids. What must Fraser have been feeling, knowing that guy was out there, that he had a kid with him, and that he'd be killing even more kids if he wasn't stopped? Ray couldn't imagine having that kind of responsibility stacked on his shoulders, even if it was self-imposed.

"Ray." Fraser's voice was soft behind his ear. "It's time to go."

Ray nodded and wiped surreptitiously at his eyes before turning. He vaguely remembered hearing Fraser telling the Cavanaughs something about the FBI, leaving them with that small measure of hope, at least.

He didn't say anything as he followed Fraser out to the car. It was still early yet, although the sunlight was beginning to slant heavily. The cloud cover overhead actually seemed to be breaking.

Dief's breath panted hard over the back of his neck as climbed into his seat behind the wheel, but Ray ignored it, leaning his head back against the headrest and closing his eyes. He could feel Fraser looking at him as the door closed beside him.

"Ray?" Fraser's voice was cautious.

Ray knuckled tiredly at his eyes and let out his breath in a harsh sigh. "I just want it to stop, Fraser. You know?" He turned and saw Fraser looking at him with big, solemn eyes. "I want a signed certificate from God saying that no more kids are going to be killed, ever. Is that too much to ask?" Fraser's mouth tightened into a thin, hard line, but he didn't look away from Ray's gaze. Instantly, Ray realized what an unfair question it was to ask. "Never mind," he said, waving a hand dismissively in the air between them. "Forget I said anything. You want Chinese for supper tonight?"

To his surprise, Fraser actually let the subject drop. Ray drove them to the Consulate so he could pick up the change of clothes he'd said he wanted, and while Fraser was digging around in his closet, Ray called in to see if anything had come from questioning Wonderworld's employees.

He knew perfectly well that it was too soon to expect anything, but it still stung that the officers on the job had nothing to report. Ray was very much aware of Fraser's eyes on him as he put away his phone.

He shook his head in response to the silent question, and Fraser's gaze dropped. Ray saw a muscle twitch in the side of his jaw.

"Hey," Ray said, taking a step forward into the room. His own frustrations notwithstanding, he couldn't stand to see Fraser looking so unhappy. "It'll take time for them to get in touch with everybody. There's a bunch of people who didn't have to work today, and they're having trouble finding them all. You know that, right?"

The smile Fraser gave him didn't quite reach his eyes. Nevertheless, he seemed to appreciate the effort Ray was making. "I know that, Ray."

"Good." Ray was suddenly aware of the intense silence around them, the heavy weight of the empty building, pressing in around them. How in hell did Fraser stand staying here alone, night after night? "Whadaya say we get out of here?" he said, forcing a lighter note into his voice. "I'm starving."

That actually seemed to make Fraser's smile seem a bit more genuine, and he quickened his movements as he threw together a small duffel bag full of clothes and other bare essentials like his toothbrush and shaving kit. Then he was following Ray out the door with a lightness in his step that made Ray think he couldn't wait to leave this place behind.

It was a feeling Ray could readily identify with. He barely waited for Dief to settle in the seat behind him before he peeled away from the curb, forcing Fraser to flail slightly for the dashboard. Ray shot him a wicked grin and was pleased when Fraser gave him what looked like an honest smile in return.

Because Fraser hadn't vetoed the Chinese food idea, Ray stopped for takeout on the way to his apartment. He didn't have any real interest in food, but he knew that Fraser wouldn't be eating tonight unless he set a good example. So he loaded the car with as much chow mein and sweet & sour pork as they could carry, doing his best to ignore the bemused glances Fraser cast in his direction as he helped carry the bags to the car.

The rest of the drive home was quiet, but not uncomfortable. Ray juggled the bags he held as he unlocked the door of his apartment, then shuffled in to set them down on the kitchen table. A quick glance around made him wish suddenly that he'd taken the time to straighten up a bit before tearing over to Fraser's place last night, but it was too late to worry about things like that now.

"Uh, make yourself at home," he said, moving toward the cabinets to pull down a couple of plates. He snuck a surreptitious glance over his shoulder and saw Fraser giving the apartment a quick once-over as he moved into the living room. Fortunately, he looked more curious than anything else. "You can see what's on TV, if you want."

"You're sure you don't need any help?"

"Nah, I'll just bring everything in so we can eat on the couch." It was an effort to hold onto the plates, the silverware, the paper towels, and the bags of food while he went to join Fraser in the living room, but somehow he managed.

Diefenbaker had already made himself comfortable on one corner of the couch, and Fraser had opted to take the middle seat. He reached up to help Ray with the bags of food as Ray stepped up beside him, and Ray gratefully unloaded his burden onto the coffee table. "You want anything to drink?"

"What have you got?" Fraser didn't even glance up as he pulled the hot white cartons from the bags and set them out on the coffee table. Ray tried to remember what Fraser had eaten at lunch, and figured it hadn't been very much at all. At least he seemed to have found his appetite again.

Ray went into the kitchen to fetch a bottled water from the inside door of the fridge. He was tempted to grab a beer, but for some reason, he felt that he wanted to have a clear head tonight. "Uh, I've got beer," he said, letting his eyes scan over the shelves inside the fridge. "Orange juice, chocolate Yoo-hoo, grape Kool-Aid, coffee if you want it, and, um ... water."

Fraser looked up with a bemused glance from the sofa. "Water would be fine, Ray."

Water it was, then. Ray grabbed a second bottle from the shelf and nudged the refrigerator door shut with his knee as he made his way back into the living room. Fraser had three of the takeout cartons open already, and the scent was playing havoc with Ray's own long-neglected appetite. No wonder Fraser couldn't resist it.

They didn't talk as they filled their plates, and Ray watched with a certain degree of admiration as Fraser handled his chopsticks with what looked like expert flair. Ray watched him for a moment before shaking his head and reaching for a fork.

It was kind of weird having Fraser sitting beside him on his couch, dressed in jeans and flannel and eating Chinese takeout. It was almost like Fraser the Mountie had stepped outside for the evening, and there was just this guy with tousled hair and tired eyes sitting next to him, who looked like he desperately needed a friend.

How many times had Ray taken that Mountie facade for granted, without bothering to look at what lay underneath? He knew for a fact that that was how Fraser saw himself -- as The Mountie -- and that he wanted others to see him that way, too. But there was more to him than that, and Ray knew that, but how often had he fallen into the trap of treating Fraser the way he wanted to be treated? Like he was something other than human, like he didn't deserve to make mistakes like the rest of them. Like he was a freak. When was the last time Fraser had felt like he belonged anywhere?

Ray flipped through the channels on the TV without really being aware of what he was watching, and finally left it parked on a hockey game. He wasn't sure what Fraser liked to watch on TV, except for curling, but there was no way he was going to be that good a host, even if he could find a channel that was playing it. He leaned back against the corner of the couch and hooked one foot up over the edge of the coffee table, trying to pay attention to his food.

Fraser seemed happy with the hockey game, though, and even Dief seemed to be getting into it after Ray broke down and set an open carton of chicken chow mein on the floor for him to eat. Dief devoured the whole thing in about two minutes flat and then jumped back up onto the couch next to Fraser, where he lay curled up watching the TV, like he really cared who won the game.

Crazy damned dog. Wolf. Whatever.

Fraser cast Ray a sideways glance that could have meant anything before turning back to his meal, but Ray could tell he was amused.

"You're awfully quiet tonight," Ray said. He was used to Fraser being more verbose than this; usually, it was all he could do to get him to shut up when they spent time together. "If you were freaking out again, you'd tell me, right?"

Fraser smiled at him, although he still somehow looked like he was worlds away. "Yes, Ray."

"Okay. Good. 'Cause it's really kind of hard to tell with you sometimes." Ray turned back to his food feeling less than satisfied.

Dief whuffed softly as the visiting team made a goal on the TV, and Fraser reached over to scratch at the scruff of his neck in silent consolation. Ray watched them surreptitiously out of the corner of his eye, wondering at the easy interaction between them. It took him a minute to realize what seemed so very off about the picture they made until it occurred to him that all of Fraser's usual defenses seemed to be gone. He'd let every last one of his walls down, and he looked almost naked sitting there, watching TV and sipping at his water and looking very much as if he were trying hard not to fall apart at the seams.

He looked inexplicably young suddenly, and very vulnerable. Fragile. It made Ray's heart ache to look at him, although he would never have admitted it aloud. He knew for a fact that Fraser wouldn't appreciate being thought of as vulnerable, in any sense of the word.

And more than vulnerable, he looked ... touchable. Damn it. Because as tempting as it might be, there was no way in hell Ray was going to put the moves on him tonight of all nights, no matter how much he might want to.

That was the worst of it, really: he did want to. And the more he sat around within touching distance of this surprisingly touchable Benton Fraser, the more that desire grew. Ray had never really felt this kind of an attraction for a guy before, but truth was, he'd never felt attracted to much of anybody other than Stella. He supposed the interest had always been there, but he'd never acted on it, never found anyone that made him want to act on it.

It was something that'd been sneaking up on him for a while now: a subtle awareness of Fraser's strength, an appreciation for the curve of his profile, the way his eyes deepened when he was talking about something that truly interested him. Ray had become addicted to the scents of leather and wool that hung around him when he was in uniform, underlaid by the faintest tang of the oil he used on his belt. Out of uniform, Fraser smelled ... clean. Different, but in a good way.

But there was no way in hell Ray could bring himself to act on any of that. Not right now, anyway. Maybe not ever. They'd found a kind of equilibrium in their working relationship that seemed to work well for both of them, and he was hesitant to risk losing that. He wasn't sure exactly what Fraser had been expecting when he accepted his invitation to spend the night, but Ray's intentions had been entirely honorable at the time. He didn't want Fraser to be alone with whatever demons he was wrestling with. That was the truth.

But it was also true that Fraser was feeling vulnerable right now, and shaken, and kind of lost. He wanted comfort, that much was obvious. He'd been giving off some pretty strong signals that morning at the Consulate, and Ray's skin still tingled at the memory of waking up with the warmth and scent and solidity of that hard Mountie body surrounding him. God. He felt fairly certain that if he started hinting that he wanted something more from Fraser tonight, then Fraser wouldn't say no.

And that was a bad idea. A really, really bad idea. It would be taking advantage of someone he cared about deeply, in the worst possible way.

So okay, then.

"You can have the bed tonight," Ray offered, feeling strangely eager to have the evening done with.

Fraser gave him a sharp glance. "Don't be ridiculous," he said, shoving his food around on his plate with his chopsticks. "I'm not going to put you out of your bed, Ray."

Ray found that statement inexplicably irritating. "I don't mind, you know," he said, almost growling. "You need to get a good night's sleep tonight."

"As do you."

Eminently fucking reasonable. Ray glowered and busied himself with his food for a few minutes, somewhat surprised to find how much he'd eaten. He must have been hungrier than he'd thought.

"We could share it," Fraser said unexpectedly, without looking up from his plate. After a moment passed and Ray didn't respond, he added, "The bed, I mean. It is large enough, isn't it?"

Ray stared at him. "For what?" he asked, stupidly.

Fraser favored him with a small smile. "I'm not going to jump you, Ray."

"No, I--" Fuck. Ray could feel his face going hot, and he glanced down hurriedly at his plate again. "I'm just not sure what you're asking, Fraser."

"I was merely stating that if your bed is big enough for two, then there's no reason for either one of us to sleep on the couch." Fraser had adopted his most annoying tone, and he dove right in to full lecture-mode without pausing for breath. "It's not uncommon for people to make these kinds of sleeping arrangements in the north, especially during the colder seasons. I apologize if I've overstepped some kind of cultural boundary. That certainly wasn't my intention."

And damn, but he'd gone all wordy again. Not for the first time, it occurred to Ray that Fraser used words to hide behind when he was feeling uncertain. "No, you didn't," he said, thinking fast. Maybe Fraser just didn't want to be alone while he slept tonight. Maybe he thought he'd sleep better if Ray was with him, like he'd been last night. "I just... Yeah, okay. Okay. We can do that, if that's what you want." He could do that for Fraser, even if it did rub his libido raw. Damn it.

Fraser seemed to relax then, and he nodded, turning his attention back to the game. Ray fidgeted nervously for a moment before standing up and collecting the leftovers from their dinner. There was more than enough left for lunch tomorrow, if they wanted to come home again instead of eating out.

By the time he was done with the dishes, Fraser was sitting on the edge of the couch, rubbing tiredly at his eyes. The sight filled Ray with a strange sort of tenderness, and all of his previous uncertainties fled in the face of his partner's obvious exhaustion. Like Fraser would be up for anything tonight anyway with as much sleep as he'd been missing lately. Ray felt guilty for even considering the possibility.

"All right. Up and at 'em, Frase." He was half-tempted to leave the TV on for Dief, who seemed to be the only one honestly interested in the game, but in the end, common sense won out. He flicked off the TV with only the barest of protests from the half-wolf. "I'll take Dief out while you start getting ready for bed."

It was yet another mark of the strangeness of the day when Fraser gave in to his suggestion without the obligatory tirade on how he was perfectly capable of taking care of himself and didn't Ray have anything better to do than nursemaid him all night long, thank you very much? Of course he wouldn't phrase it in quite those words, but the message would be the same.

For the first time, it occurred to Ray how very little Fraser had ever taken to the suggestion that he might not be in control of anything, and yet ever since the fax from Ottawa had come in that morning, he'd been acting like it was par for the course. He was reacting, instead of acting. Ray frowned as he pulled on his coat, and Dief cast him an unreadable look as he went to stand by the front door.

The night air was chilly yet, even though the afternoons were beginning to feel pleasantly warm. He took Dief on a quick circuit around the block, not wanting to leave Fraser alone any longer than he absolutely had to. Not for the first time, he wished he had Fraser's uncanny knack for communicating with the half-wolf.

"I'm worried about him, Dief," he said as he climbed the back stairs to his apartment. They could have waited for the elevator, but there was too much of a chance that his landlady would see them. He wasn't quite sure what her rules were on housing wild animals in the building, but he was perfectly happy not finding out.

Dief whined softly as they walked down the hallway toward his door. It wasn't much of an answer, but he assumed it meant Dief was worried, too. And that wasn't comforting in the least.

It wasn't much of a surprise to find all the lights still on when he stepped inside. There wasn't a sound in the entire apartment, and Ray had to do a little searching before he found Fraser lying on the far side of the bed in his bedroom, covered in blankets and apparently already asleep. The sight made Ray's stomach do an odd little flip, and he stood there for a moment in the doorway, just watching him.

Damn, but Fraser looked good when he was sleeping.

Keeping his thoughts studiously blank, Ray went into the kitchen to fill a bowl of water for Dief. He gave the half-wolf a good-night pat on the head before going to brush his teeth, turning off lights as he went.

Usually, he didn't wear anything to bed on nights when it was warm enough inside the apartment, but tonight he dressed in jockeys and a T-shirt for Fraser's benefit. The thought of actually going in to get into bed with Fraser was terrifying, and he was half-tempted to go back onto the couch and watch some more TV until he "accidentally" fell asleep there. But the truth was, Fraser had asked specifically not to be left alone tonight, and that pretty much decided him right there. Ray could barely contain his own yawns as he made his way into the bedroom.

He moved as carefully as he could as he slid under the sheets next to Fraser, not wanting to wake him. It felt strangely ... un-uncomfortable to have another body in his bed again. Not exactly comfortable under the circumstances, but ... right, somehow. Fraser had stripped out of his flannel shirt, at the very least; his shoulders were covered only in the thin white fabric of his T-shirt. The flash of pale skin at the back of his neck looked almost obscene in the light that filtered in through the half-open blinds of the window.

Ray swallowed hard, resisting the urge to reach out and touch the curve of Fraser's shoulder that he could see peeking above the sheets. There was something remarkably asexual about the impulse, despite his fears; he just wanted to prove to himself that Fraser was all right, that he wasn't as broken and lost as he'd looked earlier in the day. He wished that Fraser was facing toward him, but all he could see was the back of that bushy, dark head.

Feeling uncomfortably like a voyeur, Ray rolled over and pillowed his head on the back of his hand, staring hard at the blinds that covered his window. He thought he could feel the heat of Fraser's body at his back, almost a physical presence in the bed between them, but of course that had to be his imagination. He squeezed his eyes tightly shut, letting his breath out in a long sigh. No matter how tired he was, there was no way he was ever going to be able to sleep tonight with Fraser in the bed with him.

A moment later, he fell asleep.

He should have known the moment he closed his eyes that the dream would be there, waiting for him.

Fraser hadn't been able to get to sleep at all until Ray returned with Dief, and even then, he'd fully expected Ray to find some excuse to sleep on the couch, regardless of the agreement they'd come to. It had been a pleasant shock to feel the bed dip under Ray's weight as he joined him under the covers, and only then had he been able to let go of the insane terror he felt, and actually fall asleep.

Not that it was any kind of a surprise where he ended up once he let sleep claim him. The only difference was, he recognized these tunnels now. He remembered the feel of the cold, stale air on his face, the terror of wandering lost in the darkness, knowing in his heart that he was solely responsible for Jackie's life, because he was the one who'd tracked her here, and he had taken this burden on alone.

Ray. There was the light, up ahead, flickering in insane patterns on the walls of the tunnel. There was the painted mural on the wall, the little rust-colored man with his spear eternally raised against the unidentifiable animal rushing toward him. A moment of prehistoric conquest, forever frozen in time. Now, as he had then, Fraser wondered who had won the battle that the ancient artist was rendering: man or beast. It bothered him that he didn't know.

Ray. He didn't want to move forward into the light, didn't want to, even though he knew he had to. He'd die if he didn't, die if he did, and even though he knew perfectly well that he hadn't died here, hadn't died here, it didn't seem to make one bit of difference to the fear that was rushing like ice water through his veins. He could picture Jackie's face perfectly, the dark curls that framed her pale face, the eyes that stared into his with such frantic yearning, pleading, and in his mind she was already dead, even though he had yet to go forward and watch her die, mute witness to her murder for a second time.

He wasn't sure what woke him, but suddenly he was back in the here and now, panting harshly into a pillow that wasn't his own and staring out across a room he didn't immediately recognize. Somehow, he felt like he was back in his dream again as the darkness pressed around him, even though he knew perfectly well that he was awake. He squeezed his eyes shut, feeling his breath start to quicken, and was immediately aware of a warm hand pressing against the back of his shoulder.

"You all right, Frase?" The familiar voice was hoarse with interrupted sleep behind him.

For a moment, he was struck by a sense of complete disorientation, but then memory hit with the speed of an approaching freight train. Dinner last night, making the offer to share a bed with Ray, then climbing into Ray's bed to sleep, waiting for him to return...

He. Was. In. Ray's. Bed.

Oh, dear God.

Fraser kept his eyes tightly closed as he willed his breathing to slow. Yes, he vividly remembered practically begging Ray to sleep with him, and his face burned at the memory. It was obvious from Ray's reaction to the suggestion that it hadn't been at all welcome, but even then, Fraser hadn't had the strength of will to withdraw the request. Because the fact of the matter was, sleeping with Ray the night before had given him the first uninterrupted sleep he'd had in what felt like ages, and he wanted to have that again.

"I'm sorry, Ray," he said, hunching his shoulder against the hand that touched him.

"For what?" Ray's voice was still fuzzy with sleep, but it was gaining in strength. The hand on Fraser's back slid up to touch the back of his neck briefly before sliding down again. The fleeting contact of skin on skin made Fraser shiver lightly.

"For being so..." The silence was filled with possibilities. So needy? So selfish? So desperate? So ... pitiful?

"So what? Imperfect?" There was a dry edge of amusement in Ray's voice. "Believe me, Fraser, you haven't cornered the market on that."

The words held the harsh sting of truth in them. Fraser let his breath out heavily and slowly forced himself to relax.

"I never said I was perfect," he said, wincing slightly at the tight edge that worked its way into his voice. There was no reason to snap at Ray for making such an innocuous observation.

There was silence for a moment before Ray said, "I know." His hand rubbed in soothing circles between Fraser's shoulder blades, grounding him, refusing to let him fall prey to the memories that threatened to overwhelm him.

Fraser realized only then that he was shaking, and it seemed almost surreal when Ray reached for him, strong arms sliding forward around his shoulders and holding him like it was the most natural thing in the world. "It's okay," Ray whispered, and God, when was the last time he'd been held like this? Fraser kept his eyes closed and drifted in the warmth of the body that pressed up tentatively behind him, feeling strangely disconnected from the world around him.

When was the last time he'd actually felt warm? Having Ray touch him made him feel safe, and protected, and the horror of his dream slowly began to fall away. He felt completely out of control, and for the first time in his life, it was a pleasant feeling. Like being in freefall, thrilling and terrifying all at once, except that he knew Ray was there to catch him. Always Ray, always there for him.

Without thinking, Fraser bent to press a light kiss to the arm wrapped around his chest. Ray's entire body tensed in immediate reaction, almost but not quite pulling away from him. Instantly, Fraser's warm euphoria faded like a splash of ice water, and his eyes flew open, taking in the shadowed contours of the room in front of him with something akin to desperation.

Fraser cursed himself inwardly, hearing the sudden startled hitch in Ray's breathing. Damn it, he always wanted too much. Always. He should be used to that by now. Ray had offered him more than anyone else he'd ever known, except for a rare few, and it was so very easy to ask for more, and more, until he'd asked for just one thing too many. But it was so easy to let his guard down with Ray. So easy, and so very tempting.

Several moments passed in silence before Ray settled behind him again. Fraser was relieved that the arms around him were not withdrawn, despite his fears. When Ray sighed, his breath was a moist heat against the back of Fraser's neck.

"Go back to sleep, Frase," he murmured.

Fraser blinked and stared hard into the shadows in front of him. That was it? Slowly, the frantic thudding of his heartbeat began to slow. It looked like Ray wasn't going to mention his misstep at all. He supposed he should feel grateful, but instead, it just left him feeling driftless, like something important had been left unfinished between them.

He supposed he could sleep like this, with Ray's arms around him, just as he had last night. He knew instinctively that the dream would not come, not with Ray here to ward it away. But he was all too aware of Ray's breath against his neck suddenly, and the heat of Ray's bed, and the familiar scents that rose from the sheets around him. The warmth from Ray's body seemed to be seeping in through his skin and pooling straight down into his groin, which was beginning to ache now with a familiar restlessness. He shifted uneasily, not wanting to disturb Ray where he lay behind him.

Dear God, he wanted.

He was hit by a sudden reckless thought: what could it possibly hurt to ask for what he wanted? For just this one night, this one comfort, if that was all Ray had in him to give. It was patently obvious from Ray's actions earlier that evening that he didn't want what Fraser wanted, but maybe he'd be willing to give just this much to him. Just this much, and no more.

No. There was such a thing as asking too much, even between such close friends. Fraser closed his eyes and pressed his lips together to hold the words inside. And what was he expecting to ask Ray, anyway? Hold me? Touch me? Love me? The very worst that Ray could say would be "no".

"Ray." The word escaped him before he could call it back.

Ray stiffened slightly. "Go to sleep, Fraser." His voice had an inexplicable edge to it.

Fraser's heart was pounding. This was unforgivable, what he was about to do, but he couldn't stop himself, couldn't even begin to figure out how to go about heading this desire off at the pass. He was feeling out of control again, and he could feel the sweetness of the ache moving through him with each steady beat of his pulse, centering in his groin.

"Ray," he said again, more firmly this time.

Instead of waiting for Ray to speak again, he rolled underneath the blankets until he was completely turned around. Ray's face was a pale outline in the darkness in front of him, smudged dark with shadows.

"Fraser." Ray's eyes were impossibly round, touched silver by the light of the streetlamps outside the window. There was something ... touching about seeing him this way, still half-asleep and mussed with his hair sticking up in about a thousand different directions. It made Fraser want to reach out and touch him, made him want to try smoothing out Ray's wild edges, but with an effort, he managed to keep his hands to himself.

Despite the obvious reluctance in the way Ray said his name, Fraser couldn't stop himself from saying, "Please." It seemed obvious that Ray knew exactly what he was asking for.

Ray looked away and let his breath out, hard. "Don't ask me, Frase." His voice was quiet.

And that was that, wasn't it? It stung more than it should have, and Fraser closed his eyes, trying to fight the burning sensation that rose in his cheeks. God, what had he been thinking?

A hand on his shoulder startled him into opening his eyes again. Ray looked uncomfortable, but there was something about his gaze that made Fraser shiver deeply. "Look, you don't have to ... have to do anything in order to stay here tonight, all right?"

And that made absolutely no sense at all. "I'm not sure I understand." The warmth of Ray's hand on his shoulder was distracting.

He knew he wasn't imagining the stain of red on Ray's cheeks, but Ray's gaze was steady. "I just don't want you to get the wrong idea, okay? You're feeling ... vulnerable right now, Frase. You don't know what you want."

That was something he'd honestly never been accused of before. Fraser's initial surprise faded to warmth as he realized that Ray was even now looking out for him, in an attempt to protect him from himself. The gesture was unnecessary, of course, but the thought was gratifying. He would have felt shamed that his inner turmoil was so apparent if it had been anyone but Ray.

It occurred to him then that if anything was going to happen tonight, it would be his call, not Ray's. There was a strange sort of freedom in that, that Fraser wasn't accustomed to. How odd to be the seducer, instead of the one who was being pursued. He reached out to touch Ray lightly on the side of the face, feeling the rough stubble there slide underneath his fingertips. He felt something inside of him loosen when Ray didn't pull away.

"I know what I want," he said quietly. More than he had a right to ask for, certainly. But when had that ever stopped him in the past?

Ray swallowed visibly. "Are you sure? I mean really sure, Fraser."

"I'm sure." Ray could tell him no, but he hadn't yet. Not yet. Feeling emboldened, Fraser leaned in slowly to touch his mouth to Ray's, just the slightest brush of lips, breathing in the air that Ray expelled. The contact was startling, and it was made even more so when Ray's lips parted to grant him entrance, gifting him with the warm touch of Ray's tongue against his own.

And still Ray didn't say no. He just let Fraser touch him like this, shivering lightly under the hand that cupped his face but still not saying no. Fraser felt drugged, lying there in the darkness and kissing Ray, as a thousand late-night fantasies seemed to come to life and dance with glee around him. He let the tip of his tongue slide down to swipe across Ray's lower lip, tasting him, and smiled against the gasp Ray gave him in return.

Fraser shivered deeply when Ray's hand moved to his waist, burrowing under his T-shirt to touch his skin. God that felt good, and Ray's eyes were closed but Fraser could feel the hunger in him, drawing them together even when it seemed that Ray would pull away. It felt so good, and it was exactly what he wanted, to be touched and held and used in whatever way Ray would have him.

"Ray," he whispered, without being sure what it was he wanted to say. It was near impossible to think at all with Ray's hands on him, feeding the desire that burned just under the surface of his skin, growing stronger with every kiss that passed between them.

"Shh," Ray said, and his hands moved to the waistband of Fraser's boxers with a surety that Fraser envied. "I've got you." Fraser tensed as Ray's hand slipped in past his waistband, and his hips bucked forward involuntarily when he felt those long fingers curl around the length of his erection.

"God, Ray," he said, panting harshly, and that was all he had the breath to say before Ray began to stroke him. The world seemed to shift and then realign around him as the pleasure of it rocked through him, and he let his head fall back with a soft groan, thrusting his hips forward greedily into the touch that Ray was offering him.

Ray's other hand rubbed soothingly over Fraser's back underneath his T-shirt, calming him and holding him at the same time. Fraser pressed his face into the warm curve of Ray's neck and breathed in the scent of him hungrily, feeling that scent shiver through him, marking him in some way that he couldn't readily identify.

It wasn't enough, though, to simply be touched in this way. He wanted more than just to have Ray service him. Even as the thought crossed his mind, Fraser's hands were moving again, sliding across warm skin to the waistband of Ray's underwear. Such tight cotton underwear, so very Ray, and the thought made Fraser smile as he dipped his fingers inside to massage lightly beneath the small of Ray's back. Ray shuddered delightfully against him at that, so he did it again, biting gently at the smooth curve of the shoulder in front of him.

"Fraser," Ray said, half in protest, but he hadn't said no yet, hadn't said no. Fraser pressed his advantage and slid his hands further underneath the soft cotton, feeling the hard muscles of Ray's backside bunch and flex under his palms. Ray bucked against him with a soft moan, and Fraser dropped a line of kisses across the sweat-sheened skin under his lips, silently willing Ray to let him do this, just let him do this for them both.

Ray gave another bone-deep shudder and then folded against him with a sigh. Fraser closed his eyes and hummed softly, feeling the acquiescence inherent in the gesture, the permission to go ahead and do as he pleased. Very carefully, he eased Ray's underwear down over his hips, enjoying the sharp tremors that moved through Ray's body when his knuckles inadvertently brushed up against Ray's erection.

Ray was hard for him, so wonderfully hard. Fraser's mouth watered as he considered all of the many things he wanted to do to Ray, to do with Ray. It seemed like a dream that he was being given leave to touch this body now. Ray's eyes were wide and dark when Fraser pulled back to look at him, and for a moment Fraser was lost in the sight of him, so open and honest and needful. He looked ... beautiful.

"Trust me," Fraser whispered, bending down to kiss him again, and Ray nodded, looking somewhat dazed. How thrilling to know that Ray trusted him in this, even in this, and was willing to follow his lead. Fully aware of the depth of the trust being placed upon him, Fraser used one hand to slide his boxers down his thighs, baring his skin to the air. Ray made a small sound in the back of his throat when Fraser reached out to touch his erection, smoothing a thumb over the moisture that gathered at the tip. Fraser nuzzled the side of his jaw, biting lightly, and stroked the stubbled skin there with his tongue.

"God," Ray breathed, and it sounded like nothing less than a prayer as Fraser rolled to half-cover him, using the weight of his body to press Ray down against the sheets. Ray was shaking, and Fraser did what he could to soothe him as he settled himself against the curve of Ray's hips, biting down hard on his lower lip as the pleasure of Ray's body sparked through him. His hips made an involuntary thrust against the hard muscles of Ray's abdomen, testing the softness of the skin there, and Ray still wasn't telling him no.

He started thrusting slowly, and oh God, this was what he'd been wanting, this smooth slide of skin on skin, so warm against him it burned. Fraser closed his eyes and lost himself in the rhythm, feeling Ray's body respond beautifully beneath him. Ray's breath was a harsh panting beside his ear, and Fraser kissed the side of his jaw in silent comfort, breathing in the dark, musky scent of him, sweat and arousal commingling around him until it consumed his senses, becoming the entirety of his world.

He thought he might have bruises come morning from the grip of Ray's hands on his hips, on his back, but even that felt good, felt right. He could feel the urgency thrumming underneath the surface of Ray's skin, tensing in Ray's muscles as he arched against Fraser's body in determined counterpoint to the thrusts Fraser made against him. Ray was beautiful like this, so beautiful, all heat and motion and honest need. God, what he wouldn't give to make this never have to end, to lose himself inside this heat and this wonder and make this moment last forever.

"Fraser," Ray gasped, and then he clung to Fraser's arms with both hands as his body bowed, flooding the space between them with liquid heat. Fraser closed his eyes as the utter perfection of it shuddered through him, and he held Ray tightly through the fading aftereffects of his orgasm, thrusting hard into the hot slickness that spread between them.

And then the universe seemed to narrow to a single point of bright, hot light as that same heat roared through him, pounding in his ears, drowning out the room around him. He cried out loudly, barely aware of the utter abandon in the sound as Ray's hands moved to hold him, anchor him, and he groped blindly for Ray's mouth with his own, knowing only that he wanted to taste him when he came.

It seemed that the only thing real then was the feel of Ray's arms around him, lowering him carefully to his side against the bed. Fraser sighed heavily, feeling exhaustion roll through him in a dark wave. He felt Ray start to move and reached for him in protest, but Ray only murmured softly and brushed back the sweat-dampened hair at the side of his face, kissing him lightly on the cheek. Fraser watched through half-lidded eyes while Ray sat up and pulled his boxers the rest of the way off, then used the wadded-up cloth to wipe the evidence of their lovemaking off of Fraser's belly and thighs.

"Go to sleep now, Frase. We'll talk in the morning." Ray's voice sounded tired as he tossed the soiled boxers on the floor beside the bed.

That seemed wrong to Fraser somehow, but he was so tired, he couldn't fight it. It was a few moments before Ray shed his own clothes and came back to lie beside him. Fraser curled against his side with a quiet sigh, closing his eyes in relief when Ray's arms moved around him, holding him close. Ray's arms felt so good around him, so warm, and although he wanted to stay awake to talk about what had just happened between them, he knew it was a losing battle.

"G'night, Frase," Ray whispered against the top of his head, and Fraser murmured softly in reply.

*I love you,* was his last coherent thought before he drifted off to sleep.

It was still dark outside the window when Ray woke to the sound of his ringing cell phone.

He peeled his eyes open with a low groan, shifting slightly under the hard weight that was draped across him. It took him a moment to realize where he was, which was odd since it was his bed, but as soon as memory hit, he flushed hot straight down to his toes.

Jesus Christ.

Fraser's body kicked off heat like nobody's business, and it clung to him like a second skin, furry head burrowing tight into the curve of his shoulder. Ray lay still for a moment, blinking up at the ceiling, and concentrated on the steady thumping of Fraser's heart against his ribcage.

The phone rang again, a strident ringing that sounded almost eerie in the predawn darkness of the room.

"God, I'm coming," he said in protest, and it was really best not to think too hard about that, now was it? He could still feel the imprint of Fraser's hands on his skin.

His movements felt sluggish in a relaxed, I-got-mine sort of way as he shoved the blankets aside and stumbled out of bed. It had been a while since he'd had anything remotely resembling sex with another human being, and his body was making sure to let him know how very happy it was with his managerial decision during the night. Ray bit back a sigh and raked his fingers through his hair as he padded naked into the living room, where he'd left his phone lying on the coffee table in front of the TV.

Diefenbaker was lying curled up on the couch. He raised his head curiously as Ray walked into the room, and his tall ears twitched slightly as the phone rang again. The streetlights from the window reflected in his eyes, making them look like featureless gold circles in the darkness. The sight made Ray vaguely uncomfortable as he reached down to pick up the phone.

"What?" he said shortly, knowing immediately that it couldn't be good news.

The call was from Officer Nguyen from the state patrol, who was in charge of running the background checks on Wonderworld's employees. It seemed that he'd found a match for Donaldson's profile -- a twenty-three-year-old electrician by the name of Justin Frye -- who had coincidentally failed to show up for his shift that morning.

Ray scratched hard at the back of his neck and sighed, feeling a strange, tingling numbness move through him. Justin Frye. It was such a normal, kid-next-door kind of name.

"Yeah, thanks," he said, realizing that Nguyen was waiting for him to reply. "We'll go check it out." He snagged a pencil from the junk drawer in the kitchen and scribbled the address Nguyen gave him on a piece of paper.

There was a steady pressure building behind Ray's forehead by the time he hung up the phone, and he rubbed at it absently as he made his way back into the bedroom. Fraser was awake and waiting with his chin resting on Ray's pillow, watching the doorway with solemn eyes.

"We've got a name," Ray said, feeling strangely reluctant to say the words. Fraser looked like an angel, lying there. "And an address. It's something to check out, anyway."

Fraser nodded and pushed the covers aside, sliding out of bed. He was still naked from the waist down, and Ray shifted his gaze away, feeling his face heat. He was suddenly aware of his own state of undress and reached for his discarded T-shirt hurriedly.

"You take the bathroom first," he said, keeping his gaze down. "I'll go start some coffee."

He could feel Fraser's gaze on him as he turned and left the room. It made the growing headache behind his eyes throb that much stronger, and he went into the cupboard for a couple of aspirin before he even reached for the coffee pot.

He wished he knew what the hell had happened last night. He'd known from the moment Fraser suggested they share a bed together that something like that was going to happen, and even now, he couldn't decide if it was a good thing or not. He couldn't help feeling that he'd taken advantage of Fraser, despite the fact that he hadn't been the one initiating things. Fraser was hurting, and he wanted comfort, and if that was what last night was all about, then fine, Ray was more than happy to do that for him.

Even if it did tear him apart inside.

He'd tried to keep it strictly business-like, just one friend doing a favor for another, but Fraser hadn't wanted it that way. The memory of Fraser's mouth on his was dizzying, and Ray closed his eyes as he remembered what it had been like. He'd done what he could to keep himself separate from what they were doing, but as always seemed to be the case with Fraser, his efforts hadn't been enough. Fraser had a way of crawling inside of him and making a home for himself there, deep inside where Ray was used to spending all his time alone.

He didn't know what he'd do if it turned out that was all Fraser wanted from him, just this one time of comfort to get him through the night. What if it hadn't meant anything to Fraser at all? He wished he knew what Fraser was thinking. Was he regretting what had happened? Was he ... grateful? Would he step out of that bathroom with a polite smile and a "Thank you kindly, Ray," and the unstated knowledge that they'd never speak of this again?

Ray's hands were shaking. He clenched them hard at his sides, not knowing how in the world he'd handle knowing that he'd just been a convenient body for Fraser to warm himself with during the night. He'd been so careful to let Fraser know that that's all there had to be between them, if that's what Fraser needed. Fuck. Goddamn it. Ray pressed the heel of his hand to the throbbing pressure above his eyes, wishing he'd had the foresight to get an apartment with a guest bedroom. That would have solved all their problems before they'd even begun.

The sound of the bathroom door opening brought him back to himself abruptly, and he dropped his hands back down to his sides. Sudden panic gripped him as he imagined the conversation that had yet to be broached between them.

Fraser cleaned up nicely, was his first irreverent thought as Fraser stepped into the kitchen. He was impeccably groomed, dressed in a pair of clean jeans and a soft black sweater that highlighted the paleness of his skin. He looked good enough to eat, and Ray turned his gaze away hurriedly, feeling his face begin to heat. Damn it, there wasn't time for this right now.

"Coffee's almost ready," he said as he stepped past Fraser toward the bathroom.

He could feel Fraser's gaze on him again as he left, and he tried not to think about the lost look he'd seen in those big dark eyes while he did his best to straighten himself up. He wished he had time for a shower, but a quick wipe-down would have to do. He ran his head under the faucet and left it to air-dry, then ducked into the bedroom for a set of semi-clean clothes.

Fraser already had his coat on by the time Ray returned to the kitchen. Dief was standing at the door, looking expectant, and Ray snagged the cup of coffee Fraser'd left out for him before going for his own coat. The taste of the coffee was surprisingly sweet, and he realized that Fraser had found his stash of M&M's in the cupboard, and added some.

The gesture seemed intimate in a way Ray couldn't deal with at the moment. Not even Stella had made his coffee with chocolate the way he liked it. Was Fraser trying to tell him something? Surely he didn't put candy in the coffee of every guy he fucked.

He met Fraser's gaze tentatively, and Fraser's eyes went soft when he saw Ray looking at him. Damn, they needed to talk about this, but there just wasn't time right now. This wasn't a conversation they could finish in a few seconds.

"You okay?" Ray asked quietly, and Fraser nodded.

"Yes, Ray," he said, smiling slightly.

That smile seared straight down inside Ray and stayed there, filling him with a warmth that seemed heady and dangerous at the same time. It wasn't exactly an answer to the questions he wanted to ask, but for now, it would have to be enough.

They rode in companionable silence as Ray drove them to the address that Nguyen had given him. The sun wasn't quite rising yet, although the predawn radiance of it was beginning to bleed onto the streets. The streets seemed strangely empty, and there was an odd listening quality in the air around them, like the city was holding its breath in anticipation of something that Ray couldn't begin to imagine.

It was enough to thoroughly creep him out even before he pulled into the driveway of the small, squarish house near the end of Millard Avenue. Dief leaned forward from the back seat and growled softly, ears pressing back stiffly against his head.

"Easy, boy," Ray said to him, but he didn't take his eyes from the house as he got out of the car.

Fortunately, Fraser seemed to be all business as they went up to knock on the front door. When there was no immediate answer, Ray knocked again, harder this time.

"He was supposed to be in to work at five this morning, but he called in sick," Ray said, recounting what Nguyen had told him. He tried to peer in through the narrow window beside the door, but it was covered with a thin sheer, blocking his view.

"I'd think he'd still be at home then," Fraser commented.

"You'd think so, wouldn't you?"

Giving up on the door, Ray moved toward the low gate leading into the back yard behind the house. It was closed with a simple hook latch, which he opened easily, reaching for the gun nestled underneath his coat.

"Do we have a warrant?" Fraser asked curiously, following him.

"Not exactly." Ray kept his attention focused on the yard around him, sparing a thought to be grateful when Fraser didn't pursue the issue.

Whoever Frye was, he seemed to keep a neat home. The grass behind the house was recently mowed, and the simple picnic furniture on the back patio looked well-kept. A sliding glass door opened onto the patio from inside. Ray approached it cautiously.

The lock on the glass door looked relatively simple. Ray shifted his gun to his left hand and reached into his pocket for his credit card. Dief waited patiently at his feet while Fraser gave him a disapproving look.

"You want to wait until we get a warrant?" Ray said quietly as he slipped the card into the narrow space between the door and the frame. A short twist of his wrist, and the lock popped open. When Fraser didn't say anything in reply, Ray turned to him with a small grin. "Besides, anyone who bothers with cracker jack locks like these deserves the occasional B&E, don't you think?"

Fraser's eyes gleamed softly at that, and Ray knew he was remembering the time when Ray had come to visit him in the Consulate after hours, without benefit of a key.

Dief whuffed softly, and Ray turned his attention back to the house as he put his credit card away. The glass door slid open soundlessly, and Ray stepped over the track cautiously as he stepped inside. Dief slipped in after him and stood looking around with his fur bristling slightly.

Ray shared a weighted glance with Fraser, then shifted his grip on his pistol as he moved into the center of the room. The living room was layered in shadows, and what he saw of it looked distinctly middle class modern. There were no other lights on in the house that he could see, and he nodded Fraser toward the kitchen as he trailed after Dief toward the stairs against the far wall.

Fraser took a quick circuit of the lower floor rooms before returning with a small shake of his head. Ray glanced upstairs and sighed almost inaudibly. This was the part he really hated about police work.

He half-expected some chainsaw-wielding maniac to come after him as he ascended the stairs. It was even darker up here than it'd been down below, mainly because all the upper floor windows had the curtains drawn. The possibility that Justin Frye might simply be asleep in his bed occurred to him briefly, but he discarded the idea just as quickly. Dief's fur was still bristling, and Ray trusted the wolf's instincts.

Most of the upper floor rooms appeared unused, and Ray wondered if Frye was renting the place. The irrelevant thought was quickly shoved aside as his attention was caught by a half-open door at the end of the hall.

"Bingo," he said as he stepped inside.

This was undoubtedly Frye's bedroom. The double bed against the far wall was unmade, and the walls were painted a dark, brooding blue that Ray found disturbing for some reason he couldn't readily identify. Unlike the rest of the house, this room actually looked lived-in, and it was strewn with loose papers and CD covers and paperback books.

Aside from the carefully contained chaos within it, the room was empty.

Fraser checked inside the closet briefly before moving to look at the bookcase against the far wall. Dief sniffed longingly at a discarded Big Mac wrapper on the floor as Ray stepped up to the cluttered desk that stood next to the doorway.

A rat-eared copy of the Satanic Bible caught his attention immediately. He picked it up and flipped idly through the well-worn pages, tracing the inverted pentagram on the cover with his thumb.

"Uh, Fraser?" he said.

"Yes, Ray." The words sounded odd, and Ray glanced up sharply, seeing Fraser engrossed in whatever he'd found on the bookshelf at the other side of the room. Ray dropped the Satanic Bible back onto the desk and went to stand behind him, cocking his head to one side as Fraser handed him a thin, dark book.

"Lucifer Rising," Ray read aloud, staring down at the cover. A quick glance at the other books on the shelves showed him that this was a common theme in Frye's library. "Fuck, Fraser. You think we're dealing with some kind of cult here?"

"It's unlikely." Fraser sounded distracted as he thumbed through a pale, hardbound book he'd found sitting on one of the shelves. "It's not inconceivable that a young man of questionable mental stability would find solace in a religion that embraces the tenets of ... self-gratification." He stumbled slightly over that last word, and Ray wondered if he was thinking back to Harold Randolf's own particular brand of self-indulgence in the children he'd kidnapped and murdered.

"Yeah, I guess so," Ray replied, keeping his voice gentle. He touched Fraser lightly on the arm and peered over his shoulder. "You find anything?"

Fraser glanced up at him briefly before turning back to the book in his hands. "'I take my refuge below the earth,'" he said, and the intonation in his voice told Ray he was reading aloud. The page he was reading from was bookmarked. "'In the darkness I am reborn. My strength will grow as my body finds ease beneath the earth, and when I rise again, I shall be as the conquering flame, cleansing the world of all unrighteousness.'"

Ray snorted lightly, trying not to think about how much the words unnerved him. "Sounds almost Lovecraftian."

"There are a great many volumes of Lovecraft's here as well, Ray. It seems that Mr. Frye's obsession is not confined to Satanism alone."

That sparked something in Ray's memory. "It's his fantasy," he mused aloud. "Like Donaldson said."

"Yes." Fraser put the book down with a look of distaste.

"But where the hell is he, then?" Ray was beginning to feel like he was missing something blatantly obvious, and the feeling annoyed him.

They searched the rest of the house thoroughly, but a systematic check of the basement and attic failed to reveal anything other than cobwebs and stockpiled holiday decorations. Growing increasingly frustrated, Ray returned to the main floor and slumped against the wall in the hallway, rubbing at his eyes. His headache was starting to come back again.

"She's not here, Fraser. What the fuck."

"He wouldn't keep her here, Ray," Fraser said. "He'd be a fool to do so."

Ray glared at him. "He's a maniac, Fraser. They're not necessarily noted for their brilliance."

Fraser shook his head, pressing his lips together tightly. His eyes glinted like broken glass in the newly risen light outside the window. "He may be a maniac, Ray, but that doesn't mean he should be underestimated."

The words were undeniably a reprimand. Ray lowered his gaze to the floor, chewing absently on the inside of his cheek as he thought about Marilee Cavanaugh and Satanic groupies and ancient sacrifices buried beneath the earth.

He looked up at Fraser with wide eyes, drawing his breath in sharply. "My God."

Fraser's eyes gleamed as he met Ray's gaze. "You know something." It wasn't a question.

It was oddly satisfying to know that Fraser seemed willing to follow his lead on this, without making one of his usual arguments about logic and due process. Ray pushed away from the wall and started toward the door, holstering his gun absently as he fumbled in his pocket for his keys.

"I think I know where she is," he said, feeling a rush of adrenaline wash through him. Fraser followed him without protest, shadowed closely by Dief.

"Where?" Fraser asked as he pulled open the door of the car, letting Dief jump in ahead of him.

It seemed so obvious to Ray now, in that weird way he had of getting hit by inspiration when he was working a case. He glanced over at Fraser as he fit the key into the ignition to start the car.

"Underground," he said, feeling suddenly cold. Shit, but Fraser really did not need to hear this. "He took her underground. You were right when you guessed he took her down into the maintenance tunnels at the amusement park, Frase, but I don't think he ever took her out again."

Fraser's expression did not change, but something in his eyes turned dark, as if a shadow had fallen over them. "She's still down there, then."

"Yeah. Fucker believes he has some sort of power underground, like we won't be able to touch him." The GTO pulled away from the driveway with a protesting squeal of its tires, and Ray turned them in the direction of the freeway without hesitation.

He pulled his cell phone out and punched in MacLean's number, trying to get a grip on the urgency that was thrumming through him. He told MacLean what they'd found at Frye's residence, and asked him to send in some back-up to meet up with them at Wonderworld.

He could feel Fraser's eyes on him as he put the phone away. "We should be there in about fifteen minutes. Any ideas on a strategy once we get there?"

The pause before Fraser answered was just a heartbeat too long. "We should probably wait for our backup to arrive."

Ray glanced at him. "I don't think that's a good idea. I mean, if we tear into the place with an army of cops behind us, he'll freak."

"He'd kill the girl," Fraser agreed after a moment, dropping his gaze. His voice sounded strangely hollow. "Then he'd kill himself."

Ray's palms were beginning to sweat. He was starting to wonder whether Fraser would be able to hold it together for this. It had to be some kind of cosmic joke that Fraser was being forced to live through this a second time, and Ray fought with the urge to just turn around and take Fraser as far away from this confrontation as he possibly could.

As if he sensed Ray's thoughts, Fraser turned to him and gave him a small, tight smile. "I'm fine, Ray." Nevertheless, his eyes were haunted.

Feeling less than reassured, Ray frowned and narrowed his attention to the road ahead of him.

Ray's badge got them into the park when they arrived, and they immediately tracked down the park's manager to requisition maps of the network of maintenance tunnels underneath them. There were almost a dozen maps altogether, detailing different areas, and Ray fought with the sudden flutter in his stomach as he considered how very many square miles the park covered.

"He'd want to take her someplace where he wouldn't risk running into other workers," Fraser commented, running a finger lightly over one pale segment of the blueprint spread out on the table in front of them. They were in one of the back offices of the park's administrative wing, closed off from the rest of the building by a closed door and a wall of shuttered horizontal blinds. Ray felt like he and Fraser might be the last two people left on the face of the planet.

"He'd be in a section that isn't being used right now," Ray mused out loud, pacing back and forth across the room. "Somewhere where the rides are out of order, maybe, where there wouldn't be a lot of need for routine maintenance."

They were still considering their options when MacLean arrived. Ray looked up sharply, feeling a tightening in his chest. He knew there was no love lost between the two of them, and he hoped that wouldn't make the older detective doubt his judgment now.

"What have you got?" MacLean asked, coming up to stand beside the table. His gaze roamed over the pile of maps uncomprehendingly.

"He's in the tunnels underneath the park." Ray ran a hand back over his hair, shifting nervously. "We just have to figure out where."

MacLean nodded. "I've got a fleet of cops outside waiting for the order to move in. Let's get these maps down to the rest of the task force so we can find this bastard."

Ray glanced at Fraser briefly. "Uh, I don't think that would be a good idea, sir." MacLean glanced at him sharply, and he plunged ahead without stopping to think. "If we go in there with a battalion of cops, our guy'll freak."

MacLean's gaze narrowed. "What are you suggesting, Detective?"

"That you let Fraser and me go in alone." He could feel Fraser's surprise at that, but he refused to look away from MacLean's weighing gaze. "We can track him down, flush him out, do whatever needs to be done. You can make sure the exits from the tunnels are covered, and if he tries to make a break for it, you can nab him."

"It's too dangerous, Vecchio." MacLean was shaking his head, looking unconvinced.

Resolutely, Ray set his jaw. "I think it's our best chance of getting Marilee out of there alive." He didn't think it was necessary to mention that she might already be dead.

MacLean hesitated a moment, then glanced at Fraser. Fraser nodded. "I concur, sir." His voice sounded steady, like this was just another case like any other.

Finally, MacLean let out his breath in an explosive sigh. "I'll need time to set up a perimeter around the park. Where are you going to start looking?"

A quick consultation with the manager provided them with two possibilities. A theme roller coaster ride, about half the size of the towering Dragon where John Abraham had been found murdered, had been closed down for the past couple of days while a new length of track was being flown in from Los Angeles. In addition to that, the park's main funhouse was closed for repairs, ever since the rain earlier in the week collapsed part of the roof, causing a great deal of water damage that was still being aired out.

"Your call, Frase," Ray said, chewing his lower lip nervously. He was starting to itch under his skin again with the desire to do something, anything, but he refused to rush into this headlong without waiting to see what Fraser had to say.

Fraser regarded the blueprints in front of them thoughtfully. "The funhouse is closer to the place where Abraham was found." He traced a cluster of thin white lines on the map with one finger, his brow furrowing. "Plus, that section of the tunnels is fairly self-contained, so he wouldn't have to worry about anyone using it to reach another part of the park."

"All right, then." Feeling suddenly full of energy, Ray glanced up at MacLean and waited for a faint nod of consent before he went out the door.

At this early hour, the park was all but deserted. The main gates wouldn't open to the public until eight o'clock, which gave them an hour or so to wrap this up before they had to deal with that additional hassle. The park manager was more than happy to lend them the use of a jeep, as well as an escort to drive them across the park.

"I think we should go in here," Fraser said, holding the edges of the blueprint down against his knees as the wind from the jeep's movement tried to yank it out of his grasp. He pointed at a section of the map that looked about the same as every other to Ray's discerning eyes.

"Sure," Ray replied. He'd take Fraser's word for it -- Fraser was the experienced tracker in this partnership, after all. He eyed Fraser critically, but could see no signs that the other man was feeling at all nervous. That in itself was nerve-wracking. "How are you holding up?"

"I'm fine, Ray." Fraser's voice was terse, although his expression betrayed nothing of what he might be feeling.

Ray frowned, feeling apprehensive. "You don't have to go down there with me, you know. Just stay up here and cover the exit. I'll take Dief." His stomach tightened at the thought. He hadn't lied when he'd said how very important Fraser's partnership was to him, but he wasn't willing to pressure Fraser into anything that might damage him more than he already was.

Fraser frowned. "I'm going with you, Ray. You can't honestly think I'd let you go down there alone."

No, he didn't. But it had been worth a try, anyway.

The park was still and silent around them as they pulled up beside the door that Fraser had indicated. Tethered balloons bobbed lightly in the breeze as they approached, strangely colorless against the shadows of the rides and game stalls that surrounded them. Ray pulled his gun from his holster and looked around warily, feeling the skin at the back of his neck start to prickle.

Fraser thanked their driver and sent him on his way, then turned to Ray with an oddly solemn expression. Ray was reminded suddenly of the last time they were here, and the way Fraser had seemed to fade out as soon as they entered the tunnels.

"Are you gonna be okay with this?" Ray asked seriously. He wished there was some way to convince Fraser he didn't have to go down there, but he knew it would be useless to try.

Fraser closed his eyes and nodded, breathing out slowly. "I'll be fine, Ray. I ... I need to do this." His eyes opened again, and Ray read the unspoken plea in them clear as day:

Trust me.

And that was the big question, wasn't it? Did he trust Fraser? Or didn't he? Ray's throat tightened, and he found himself staring into his partner's eyes, unable to look away. He saw the vulnerability there, the fear, the determination. The loyalty that would follow him into hell, and had, on more than one occasion.

Ray nodded and reached into his pocket for the key that the manager had given him. Like there was any question involved at all.

"All right, then," he said. The key turned easily in the lock, and the door opened with a small puff of cool air against his face.

He cast one final look over his shoulder at Fraser, who smiled encouragingly at him. Once again, that smile warmed him straight down to his toes.

Feeling heartened, Ray pulled the door all the way open and stepped inside.

Ray's confidence in him was exhilarating. Fraser felt buoyed by the knowledge that Ray hadn't lost faith in him; it carried him forward when his every instinct was screaming at him to run away.

The corridor was brightly lit by fluorescent lights set up at even intervals along the walls, nothing at all like the terror-filled memories from his dream. Nevertheless, Fraser felt a tightening in his stomach as he followed Ray down the narrow metal stairs that led into the ground. The weight of the entire park seemed to be pressing down above them, and he had to wipe his sweaty palms against the thighs of his jeans to dry them as he made his way down the stairs.

His breaths were shallow by the time he reached the bottom, but he met Ray's concerned gaze stoically, refusing to give in to the fears that were churning in him. He wasn't used to feeling afraid; he'd always faced life's challenges head-on, without any kind of hesitation over what the possible consequences of his actions might be. Granted, he was afraid of death like any sane man would be, but this thing that had a hold of him was a newer, darker fear.

It was fear of failure.

A cold wetness against the backs of his knuckles made Fraser glance down sharply; Dief was nuzzling his hand in silent encouragement, dark eyes wide as they gazed up at him. Fraser smiled and scratched the top of the wolf's head fondly, grateful for the reminder that he wasn't alone.

Resolutely, he pushed the memories away. He was still holding the furled blueprint, although he believed he no longer needed it after the time he'd had to study it on the ride in from the main offices. He'd chosen this entrance because it gave them access to the section of tunnels below the funhouse while still giving them the chance to approach without alerting Frye. Their only hope of rescuing Marilee -- if she was indeed down here -- was to have the element of surprise.

So many assumptions. Ray had chided him often enough about depending too heavily on logic, however. Despite his reservations about whether this would prove a fruitful line of investigation, it felt right. He wondered if this was what Ray had meant with his constant chiding about how he should "trust his instincts".

Fraser pressed a finger to his lips in a gesture for silence before leading Ray down the corridor, following the map he'd made in his head. It shouldn't be more than a few minutes' walk to the section of the tunnels they wanted to examine.

At his side, Dief growled softly, and Fraser held out a hand sharply to silence him. A moment later, the soft echo of footsteps alerted him that there was someone else in the tunnels ahead of them. The echoes in the tunnels made it difficult to determine just how far away the other person was.

Ray cast him a dark glance and moved soundlessly to press against the tunnel wall across from him, holding his gun at a ready position in front of him. The tension in his body was visible from where Fraser stood, and Fraser felt his own heartbeat pound fitfully.

After several more tense moments of walking, they came across a young man with tousled dark hair, dressed in a light blue maintenance jumpsuit. The man looked up in surprise when they appeared, a thin line of consternation deepening between his brows.

A moment later, the line faded. He smiled. "Hello, gentlemen," he greeted, and the words were polite, unhurried. "What can I do for you?"

Fraser's heart was pounding, and for a moment he couldn't speak. Was this the man they were looking for? Dear God, he looked so young. Handsome, in a way that might appeal to a younger generation. He didn't look like a killer at all.

"Chicago PD," Ray said sharply, still holding onto his gun as if it were some kind of talisman. "We're looking for Justin Frye."

The young man's smile didn't fade, and something in his eyes flickered with what might have been amusement. "Well, you've found him. Am I under arrest?"

Fraser could sense Ray's hesitation at Frye's casual attitude. He certainly wasn't acting like a man caught red-handed in the midst of committing a crime. However, when Ray spoke again, his voice revealed nothing of whatever doubts he might be having.

"We just want to ask you a few questions. We were told you weren't coming in today."

Frye regarded them curiously for a moment, and Fraser could almost see the wheels turning inside his head. Obviously, he'd noticed the contradiction between Ray's statement and the fact that they were actually here looking for him.

"I called in this morning, yeah." Frye leaned one shoulder against the wall and crossed his arms over his chest, shrugging. "But after I slept in for a bit I decided to come in anyway. Is that a crime?"

Possible. It was possible. Fraser wasn't sure when the last time was that he'd felt so uncertain. There were probably hundreds of employees at this park; Frye could very easily have come in to work that morning without the manager being aware of it. He might very well be innocent.

If Ray was having the same doubts, his voice didn't show it. "What are you doing down here?"

Frye's smile twitched. "I work here."

Ray scowled at him. "Where's Marilee Cavanaugh?"

"Who?" Frye seemed honestly perplexed.

Finally, Fraser found his voice. "She's down here, isn't she?" he asked quietly. He stared hard at Frye without looking away.

When Frye's dark gaze moved to look at him, Fraser felt a shiver work its way deep down into his bones. There was nothing overtly threatening about it, but he knew that look, knew the patterns of the mind that spun behind it. His mouth went dry.

"You mean Mary." Frye was still smiling, but the expression had an edge to it now.

"Is that what she told you her name was?" Fraser wasn't sure where he found the breath to speak; he felt as if the walls of the corridor were pressing in around him, cutting off his air. He felt like he was being buried alive.

"Yeah." Frye's eyes glinted in the bright light of the fluorescents. He moistened his lips slightly.

Fraser could see Ray's hands flexing around the gun he held. "Where is she?" Ray asked. His voice was harsh.

"Where are any of us?" Frye seemed completely unconcerned, and his total lack of fear was making Fraser distinctly nervous. Did Frye truly believe he was invulnerable down here beneath the ground? Or did he have another reason not to fear their presence here?

"She's dead, isn't she?" He wasn't even aware of his intention to speak the words until they'd been spoken.

Frye's grin twisted slightly. "We're all dying, aren't we? From the moment we're born, it's just a long, slow slide into oblivion."

"Cut the bullshit." Ray sounded angry now. "Just tell us where she is so we can all go home, all right? It's over now."

"Over?" Frye seemed amused. "Maybe."

Fraser tensed the instant he saw Frye move, but then Frye was running, ducking as he sprinted away from them down the corridor. A shot rang out, and then another, but both of Ray's shots went wide, and then Frye disappeared around the corner.

Ray cursed loudly and took off in pursuit, and Fraser followed, trying to get a handle on the terror he could feel beating in time with his heart. He felt cold and hot at the same time, and a sudden anger gripped him when he realized that his fear was interfering with his ability to think, to react. If he wasn't careful, he was going to get them all killed.

Unexpectedly, the lights went out, plunging the corridor into pitch blackness. Fraser skidded to a halt, coming up hard against the tunnel wall beside him, and felt his fear abruptly explode into full-blown terror as his dream came crashing in around him.

Frye had shut down the lights.

God.

"Fraser! Fraser!" Dimly, he became aware of the fact that Ray was calling his name. It sounded like Ray was some distance down the corridor ahead of him, and Fraser knew with sudden certainty that he was considering coming back to check on him.

"I'm all right!" Fraser called out, hearing the hoarseness in his voice. Damn it, these ridiculous fears of his would have to wait. They didn't have time for this now. "Go after him!"

He heard Ray curse softly, accompanied by a faint shuffling as he apparently wrestled with his options. Then Fraser heard a rough thud that sounded as if Ray's fist were striking the wall. "Stay here, Frase," Ray said, a disembodied voice floating in the darkness. "Just stay here, all right? I'll come back for you."

And then there was the sharp echo of footsteps retreating rapidly down the hall. Fraser listened to them go, feeling as if a piece of himself were leaving with them.

Then he was alone, and the only sounds were his harsh breathing and the dull echo of his rapidly pounding heart. He wiped sweaty palms across the front of his shirt and leaned hard against the wall behind him, fighting the dizziness that swept through him. He knew he should be following Ray, going with Ray, but he felt paralyzed, unable to move. Ray's faith in him had been so dreadfully misplaced.

The darkness seemed almost a physical presence pressing in around him, seeping in insidiously through his ears and nose, squeezing the breath out of him. He closed his eyes tightly, then opened them again. It had to be his imagination that he felt so very cold suddenly. His arm slipped around his ribs, hugging tightly against the distant ache he felt growing there, and that was crazy. He wasn't injured, not this time.

Panic flittered teasingly through the back of his mind, haunting him with memories that he'd spent the latter half of his life trying to avoid. Closing his eyes didn't stop them from coming, and it was just like his dream, just like his dream, except that he was awake this time. That was the most horrifying thing of all.

Ray. He could see Jackie's face in front of him as if she were physically there, and her eyes were so sad, so lost. The memory choked him. When would her ghost stop haunting him? When was he going to stop blaming himself for her death and get on with his life?

It took a tremendous effort of will to push away from the wall. The darkness seemed to leap in around him as soon as he was bereft of that tenuous support, cackling madly as it threatened to disorient him completely. But now there was another emotion underneath the fear, spreading like a dull heat through his limbs. Anger. He was furious with himself for letting Ray go on alone, and in the heat of that sentiment, the cold seemed to evaporate from around him.

Immediately, a sharp bitterness rose in the back of his throat. Ray wasn't familiar with these tunnels, and Frye was. Ray had Dief with him, presumably, but in the darkness, Dief would be both deaf and blind.

Ray was going to die.

The terror of that thought burned away the lingering traces of the fears that held him there. What did any of it matter if Ray died? Deliberately, Fraser focused on the mental map he'd made of the tunnels in this section of the park. The blueprint was gone, dropped somewhere in the past several minutes (years?) of panic, but he still remembered it vividly.

Perhaps his eidetic memory had some good use, after all.

No matter what demons he was presently wrestling with, he couldn't let Ray down. He felt warm now, invigorated, and he clung to that emotion as he moved forward into the darkness, sliding the fingers of one hand over the wall beside him to help feel his way. His heart thudded painfully inside his chest, accompanied by a faint ringing in his ears. Where would Frye be keeping Marilee? She had to be close by; Frye's presence here seemed to suggest that much. But where?

There was no doubt in his mind that Frye would be running to Marilee. Now that he'd been discovered, there was no hope he would be able to continue his reign of terror in the city. He would kill Marilee, and then he'd kill himself. And if Ray or Dief got in the way, he'd kill them, too, without hesitation.

The thought brought a resurgence of the panic he'd felt earlier, but Fraser pushed it aside with the ease of long discipline. There was no time for him to fall apart now. Feeling increasingly anxious, he shuffled through the map inside his head, looking for a place that would meet Frye's criteria. A moment later, he thought he might have found it. There was a large storage room not too far away; it was isolated, cut off from the main complex of the tunnels, and yet not too far from the stairs that would provide Frye with an easy escape route to the park above them.

Without hesitation, Fraser moved forward into the darkness. He refused to think about what would happen if he got lost down here, if he miscounted the number of tunnels he passed by or took a wrong turn. The wall felt like ice under his fingers as he walked, and every time he came to a branch that led off into some new, unfathomable darkness, he wrestled with panic until his hand found solid wall again on the other side.

It seemed like an eternity before he saw the first faint light appear ahead of him. He froze, feeling hit by an unaccountable sense of deja vu. His heart seemed to leap into his throat, but he swallowed it down with an effort and moved forward again, pressing himself against the side of the corridor.

The light seemed to be coming from a flashlight that was running low on its batteries. The light flickered unsteadily against the tunnel wall in front of him, and Fraser saw that it came from a half-open doorway some distance away. Cautiously, he approached it, staying close to the doorframe as he peered inside.

It was almost impossible to see anything for a moment as his eyes adjusted to the light. Faint as it was, it made him squint uncomfortably for a moment. Huge shadows loomed inside the room, tall shapes draped in heavy plastic covers. This was the storage room for the funhouse above them.

There was a figure huddled against one of the tall shapes, almost lost in its shadow. The flashlight lay on the floor some distance away. Fraser slipped into the room as soundlessly as he could, looking around sharply for any sign of an attack, but he made it to the figure's side without incident.

Even with the flashlight's unsteady light, he could barely make out the thin fall of shiny blond hair that spilled over the young woman's shoulders. Fraser dropped to one knee and touched her lightly on the shoulder, feeling a sudden tightening in his chest. She wasn't moving, wasn't reacting to his presence in any way. For one horrified second, he thought that she might already be dead.

But she flinched ever so slightly away from his touch after a moment, and he heard her breath catch on a snuffling moan. She was alive, then. The relief that poured through him was so profound, it nearly eclipsed the fear he still felt for Ray's safety. She was alive.

"Marilee?" he whispered, glancing back at the open storage room door. There was no response, and while he knew it would be best to let her adjust to his presence at her own pace, he also knew that time was running out for all of them. Frye could show up at any moment, and Ray could already be dead.

The thought made something freeze deep inside of him. "Marilee," he said, more forcefully this time. "We've got to get out of here now, before Frye returns. Are you hurt?"

Slowly, her head raised to look at him, and he blanched in the face of the naked terror he saw shining in her eyes. In the dim light of the flashlight, he could barely make out her features, but still, he recognized her from the many photos he'd seen of her. Her cheeks were streaked with dirt and tears, but she didn't have any visible wounds that he could see.

"Are you hurt?" he asked again, more gently. Her lips were pressed together so tight they were bloodless, and she just stared at him for a moment before holding out her hands. Fraser glanced down and bit back the curse that wanted to slide out of him. Frye had tied her wrists together with packing twine, and there was dried blood crusted around the edges of the thin ropes.

He reached for the knife in his boot and watched her flinch away from it. "It's all right," he soothed her, rubbing gently at her arm with the thumb of one hand. His voice was a soft hiss in the darkness. "I'm Benton Fraser, with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. My partner's with the Chicago Police Department, and we came to get you out of here."

Something in her eyes flickered at that, and she held still while he used the knife to cut through the ropes at her wrists. Her hands jerked spasmodically when the ropes fell away, and he held onto her tightly, letting her know she wasn't alone.

"Are you hurt anywhere else?" he asked, and after a moment, she shook her head minutely. It worried him that she wasn't talking, but that might just be a natural fear of drawing Frye's attention. How many days had she been down here, anyway? Two? Three? Fraser felt a spark of rage move through him, and he clamped down on it reflexively. There would be time to react to this later, after they were safe.

He was disturbed by the fact that there was no sign of either Frye or Ray. Fraser wanted very much to go look for them, but he knew that his first responsibility was to get Marilee to safety. Mentally checking his map of the tunnels, he gently urged Marilee to her feet and put an arm around her shoulders. She leaned against him, shivering lightly, and he had to physically urge her toward the open door.

A soft sound from out in the corridor made him freeze. He stood still for a moment, listening, and then pulled Marilee back with him away from the door. His heart was pounding again.

He put a finger to his lips to warn her to be silent as he ducked back behind one of the towering shapes inside the room. It appeared to be a plastic statue of a grinning devil, almost indistinguishable behind the thick layer of plastic that covered it.

Marilee stared at him with wide, frightened eyes, but stood beside him without protesting. Fraser kept one hand on her arm as he leaned forward around the edge of the statue, trying to see who was coming into the room. His heart leapt when he saw Frye, hunched over backwards and dragging something behind him.

The moment Fraser saw what Frye was dragging, the world seemed to constrict to a single point of roaring light inside his head. Ray. Dead? No. No, no, no. Fraser's hand clenched hard at his side, and he swayed for a moment, feeling a wave of remembered helplessness wash over him. He felt physically ill.

There was a vague satisfaction in seeing Frye's dismay when he noticed that Marilee was missing. Fraser watched him through narrowed eyes, wishing there was more light. Ray's body was lying motionless in the middle of the floor, blond head turned away from him. One hand was flung out in front of him against the floor, slender fingers curling upwards. Fraser ached to reach out and touch him.

It was obvious that Frye was angered by the knowledge that he'd lost Marilee. He was a vague shadow moving around at the edges of the room, and Fraser could hear the muttered curses he made as he searched for her. The hairs along the back of Fraser's neck were prickling; he wanted to move forward and go to Ray, but he didn't know what kind of weapons Frye had. At the very least, he'd have Ray's gun.

The only thing he had working for him was the element of surprise. Frye didn't know that he and Marilee were still here. Fraser tensed as he waited, fighting the irrational fear that Frye would be able to hear the frightened pounding of his heart.

His gaze slid toward Ray again as he saw a movement out of the corner of his eye. Ray's hand was twitching. Instantly, a storm of pent-up emotion exploded inside Fraser's chest, and he had to blink back sudden tears. Ray was alive! His heart raced with a sudden cadence of alive, alive, alive as he glanced over at Frye.

He didn't know what to do. Indecision twisted through him, and he wiped his hands absently across the front of his shirt. He was so afraid that he'd make the wrong decision, that somehow either his action or his inaction would lead to Ray's death. Because he'd been here once before, hadn't he? He'd been in exactly this same situation, and he'd failed. He could still see Jackie's eyes as she'd looked at him, right before Randolf's knife had cut across her throat.

Then Frye moved back into the light again, alerted by Ray's movements, and Fraser made his choice. If he stayed here, Frye would find them eventually, and they wouldn't have any more of an advantage than they had right now. He gave Marilee's arm a brief, comforting squeeze before leaving her and moving sideways around the edge of the darkness.

Frye's eyes looked like gaping wounds inside the paleness of his face as he stalked toward the center of the room. He dropped to his knees by Ray's side and patted the other man's pockets roughly, apparently searching for something. Ray moaned and rolled onto his side, but didn't regain consciousness fully. Fraser had to bite down hard on his lower lip at the sight, fighting back a surge of mingled rage and revulsion as he watched Frye's hands move over Ray. He held himself in check, though, not wanting to do anything to put Ray at further risk.

Finally, Frye found what he was looking for and sat back on his haunches. The light caught in a glimmer of silver in his hands, and Fraser watched with slowly building fury as Frye pulled Ray's hands behind his back and secured them there with the handcuffs he'd just taken from Ray's belt.

It was his intention to wait until Frye moved away from Ray again before confronting him, but some subliminal sense must have alerted Frye to his presence. Frye's head lifted with a sudden wariness, eyes probing the darkness, and Fraser tensed as he felt that dark-eyed gaze pass over him.

Frye smiled suddenly. His hand moved to the back of Ray's head, stroking lightly down the back of his neck. Fraser tensed, but didn't move.

"Hello?" Frye's voice echoed strangely in the large room. "You are there, aren't you?"

Fraser stared at him, not moving, knowing there was no way Frye could see him in the shadows. His eyes were glued to the hand stroking along the back of Ray's head, and his chest tightened painfully as those fingers clenched, grabbing a handful of Ray's hair.

"You're here, aren't you." Somehow, that wasn't a question. A gun appeared as if by magic in Frye's hand, and Fraser realized that it was Ray's. Frye lifted Ray's head up from the floor and pressed the barrel of the gun to the side of his face, caressing gently. Ray moaned again, his eyelids fluttering. "Would you come out where I can see you? Please."

The courtesy in his voice sounded surreal. Fraser's heart leapt at the sight of that cool metal pressing against Ray's face, and he moved forward almost without thinking about it, shedding the concealment of the shadows. He felt Frye's gaze latch onto him with an almost physical strength.

He held his hands out to his sides, fingers spread to show that he wasn't holding a weapon. He felt cold, like there was ice moving around inside his veins instead of blood, but the rage was still there, warming him.

"Let him go," he said quietly, without moving his eyes away from Frye's.

Frye's smile turned faintly mischievous. "I don't think so. Where's Mary?"

Fraser shook his head. "She's gone." Silently, he willed Marilee to stay where he'd left her.

"I think you're lying." Frye sounded disappointed in him. The hand at the back of Ray's neck turned caressing again, and Fraser's jaw clenched. Frye grinned at him. "Tell me where she is, and I might just let him go."

As if Fraser could believe that for a second. He shook his head slowly. "I'm afraid I can't do that."

Ray's eyes were opening now, and after a moment of looking around dazedly, his gaze focused on Fraser. Fraser could see the exact moment when he took in his situation, and the confusion in his eyes turned into outright fear. Fraser's heart ached for him.

"There are police all around this park," Ray said unsteadily. His voice sounded like it had been dragged for a distance over hard gravel. "There's no way you can get out of here."

Fraser felt a stirring of panic at this pronouncement. "I don't believe escape is his intention, Ray." Silently, he begged Ray not to pursue this line of discussion. If Frye believed he was beaten, he would kill Ray, kill Fraser, then find Marilee and kill her as well.

Frye was still regarding him calmly, as if they had all the time in the world. Fraser couldn't help but wonder what kind of thoughts were spinning inside his head.

Fraser took a deep breath and then let it out slowly. "What is it you want, Justin?" he asked.

Frye's smile turned faintly mocking. "What does anyone want?" he countered. The gun against Ray's head didn't waver.

It was probably a rhetorical question, but Fraser couldn't help answering. "Happiness. Love. Acceptance. A sense of family, perhaps." He held Frye's gaze evenly. "I assume these are not the same things you're seeking to gain here."

Ray's gaze never moved away from him, and his expression was unreadable. His initial panic had faded, and now Fraser could see the acceptance in his eyes. The trust. The thought warmed him and chilled him at the same time.

"You might be surprised." Frye's voice was thoughtful. His eyes lowered to look at Ray, and Fraser watched breathlessly as his thumb traced up along the skin below Ray's ear. He saw Ray flinch ever so slightly away from the caress, and then the tendons in Frye's wrist tensed as his finger tightened on the trigger of the gun.

Fraser moved reflexively, not sure if the scream he heard was vocalized or if it existed only in his mind. His full weight hit into Frye at the same moment the gun went off, and the retort seemed painfully loud in the large room, impossibly loud, as Fraser's weight bore both of them to the ground. His shoulder hit the floor with a jarring impact that vibrated all the way up his arm, but he barely felt it as he twisted to reach for the gun in Frye's hand.

It was like fighting smoke, like fighting something that was barely human. Frye was a wild thing, kicking and clawing and biting with a fury that seemed almost a force of nature. Fraser knew that Frye didn't care if they both died in this confrontation, which made him even more dangerous. His hand flailed for Frye's wrist and found it, fingers digging in hard as he fought to keep the gun pointed away from them both.

In the end, Fraser's superior size and strength proved more effectual, and he wrenched the gun out of Frye's hand, tossing it aside as he rolled Frye onto his stomach and pinned him there with a knee against his back. Fraser held Frye's wrists crossed firmly at the small of his back and steeled himself as he glanced over his shoulder to look at Ray.

The breath fell out of him in a sudden rush that left him dizzy when he saw Ray looking back at him. Fraser had to blink back sudden tears as he realized that Frye's shot had missed. Ray was alive.

Ray's eyes were suspiciously shiny as they stared up at him, and Fraser gave him a tight smile, wishing he could reach out and touch him. After a few moments, Ray rolled forward to lay beside him, and Fraser nodded, knowing what Ray was thinking without having to ask.

He reached into Ray's coat pocket with one hand and groped around until he'd found his keys. The handcuff key was easily recognized once he'd found them, and Ray rolled again so Fraser could use it to unlock the cuffs at his wrists.

Then it was an easy matter to use the cuffs to restrain Frye, and Fraser relaxed for the first time since they'd first come across Frye in the tunnels, letting his breath out slowly. It wasn't until he felt Ray's hands on his arms that he realized he was shaking.

"Hey." Ray's eyes were wide and kind of shell-shocked in the darkness, but other than that he looked all right. His hand smoothed over Fraser's shoulder lightly, then dropped away. "I don't think this flashlight is gonna last much longer. What do you say we get out of here, huh?"

Yes. Of course. Fraser slid off of Frye and pulled him to his feet with somewhat more force than was strictly necessary, then turned to look at the patch of shadow where he'd hidden with Marilee.

"It's all right," he called to her. "You can come out now."

It took a moment, but then she edged cautiously around the side of the statue she was hiding behind. She met his gaze uncertainly, then turned to look at Ray.

"Ray Vecchio, Chicago PD," Ray told her gently, tucking his gun back into the holster under his coat. He glanced at Fraser briefly and then moved toward her. "It's gonna be okay."

Fraser was barely aware of the trip they made out through the tunnels, although he was sure he had to be the one to lead them. He remembered the harsh bite of the sunlight against his eyes as they emerged outside, and the coolness of the air against his skin, which smelled like popcorn and diesel fuel and cotton candy. There was a commotion as a tide of uniformed police officers moved forward to surround them, and he heard Ray giving sharp instructions as Frye was removed from his grasp. There was an ambulance nearby, and he was grateful to see EMT's moving forward to tend to Marilee.

He felt numb; everything seemed to be happening around him, not touching him. Ray stayed by his side, rubbing lightly at his back as one and then another of the rescue team stepped up to talk to them. Fraser heard Dief's name mentioned, and he looked up to see a team of workers surfacing from the door of the tunnels, carrying a stretcher on which Dief lay unmoving. The half-wolf's left flank was smeared dark with blood.

Ray brushed a hand across his eyes and breathed out hard. "Bastard shot him," he said quietly, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Fraser as they watched Dief being carried past. "We were trying to follow him, but it was so damned dark. He jumped me, took my gun. Dief tried to fight him, but I heard the gun go off and I knew he'd been hit. Before I could do anything, Frye knocked me out."

Fraser nodded. "It wasn't your fault, Ray." This, at least, he was certain of. His own eyes felt curiously dry. Finally breaking free of his paralysis, he moved to follow Dief into the back of the truck that would carry him to the animal hospital. He knew from long experience that Dief would be granted the same priorities as any official K-9 partner struck down in the line of duty, but he wanted to be there for him nonetheless.

Ray squeezed into the back of the truck beside him, and Fraser shifted to give him room, feeling grateful for his presence. He still felt numb inside, but his initial fears were ebbing. Looking up, he saw the sun shining brightly in the blue sky before the door of the truck slid shut behind them. The sight made him smile, even as his gaze dropped back down to look at Dief's unmoving form. While Dief was unconscious, his sides were still moving gently.

Ray's hand groped tentatively for his, and Fraser tensed as those cool fingers slid tight around his own. Ray's gaze was fixed on Dief, not acknowledging the contact.

"He'll be all right," Ray said, without looking at him.

Fraser nodded, steadying himself as the truck jerked slightly under them, pulling away from the curb. His fingers tightened around Ray's, and he smiled slightly, drawing tacit comfort from the touch. He was just beginning to realize that it was over, that they'd come through the darkness, and they were all still alive. The thought filled him with a warmth that felt almost liquid inside of him, lapping against him with the steady insistence of an ocean tide.

They were going to be all right.

All of them.

Ray fumbled in his pocket for his keys, weighing his choices carefully before he spoke. He still felt it was a minor miracle that Fraser had agreed to come home with him after they left the hospital.

Diefenbaker had come through surgery just fine, and now he was shacked up in a cage in the recovery room, where he'd be staying for the next few days. Ray had promised to bring him a donut when they came to visit him tomorrow, and Dief seemed to appreciate the sentiment.

Fraser'd been exceptionally quiet all day long. Ray hadn't wanted to leave him alone at the hospital while he went in to talk to MacLean and give his report, but he did, hoping it would be enough to get everyone to leave them both alone until tomorrow. God, he was tired. He rubbed at his eyes with one hand as he followed Fraser inside, throwing his keys on the table beside the door.

"You, uh, want to take a shower?" he asked. "I'll go heat us up something to eat."

Fraser nodded and moved into the bathroom, leaving Ray alone. Ray let out his breath out in a long sigh as he moved into the kitchen, shrugging out of his shoulder holster as he went. He felt like a coward, but he wasn't ready yet to be alone with Fraser. Judging by the speed Fraser'd disappeared down the hall, he felt the same way.

There was still leftover Chinese food in the refrigerator, and Ray put it in the microwave to nuke while he pulled out two bottled waters from the fridge and set them on the kitchen table. His fingers drummed absently on the edge of the counter while he debated having them just eat in the living room like they had yesterday evening. But he really wasn't in the mood for TV, and he knew Fraser wouldn't be, either.

He felt nervous, edgy, and he knew it was only partially a result of the case. He was desperately glad that the thing was over, and that Marilee seemed to be relatively unharmed. The poor girl would have psychological scars to last a lifetime, but the worst was over. And Justin Frye was off the streets for good.

The microwave timer went off just as the water down the hall shut down, and Ray hurriedly reached for plates and silverware, knowing Fraser would be back in just a few minutes. The thought made his chest clench nervously, and he scolded himself inwardly for feeling that way. It was Fraser, for God's sake. Whatever they'd shared last night wasn't going to interfere with their partnership. It couldn't.

Even so, he couldn't stop his eyes from lingering when Fraser came back into the kitchen. Fraser's hair was still damp, and it looked shiny black in the overhead light, accenting the faint rose color on his cheeks. He was wearing jeans and a dark blue flannel shirt, which accented the color of his eyes. He looked absolutely gorgeous, and Ray had to force his gaze to shift away.

"Ray?" Fraser said, sounding uncertain.

Ray cursed himself inwardly. He still didn't know how he felt about the changes their relationship had taken, and Fraser wasn't giving him any cues at all.

"Nothing," he said shortly. "Will you get the napkins? They're on the counter behind you."

Fraser looked uncomfortable as they sat down at the table to eat. Ray could feel the silence stretching between them, but he ignored it as best he could, figuring that as long as he didn't call attention to it, they wouldn't have to deal with it just yet. Fraser seemed to be following a similar philosophy, which Ray found strangely comforting.

It seemed weird to be eating without Dief around to give him sad puppy-dog eyes and wait patiently for Ray to sneak him treats when Fraser wasn't looking. Not for the first time that day, Ray spared a thought to be thankful that the half-wolf was going to be okay.

Right on cue, the thought brought with it a flood of other images, and he closed his eyes for a moment, willing them away.

"Are you all right, Ray?" Fraser's voice was soft.

Ray nodded, rubbing at his eyes with one hand. "Yeah, I'm good," he said. "I'm good. Just ... tired."

The silence that answered him was so loud it almost hurt his ears.

After a moment, Fraser said, "It's over, Ray. We did it."

Ray couldn't help but smile at that. "I thought that was supposed to be my line."

Fraser smiled back at him tentatively, and Ray felt cheered by the sight of it.

The silence as they ate then was almost companionable, and Ray relaxed into it. It felt good to be home at the end of a day like this one, and it felt even better to have Fraser here with him.

After they were done, Fraser sent him into the shower so he could clean up. Ray went without protest, more than willing to wash the day away. When he was finished, he felt almost human again, and he came back into the living room to find Fraser on the couch flipping through the channels on the TV.

The smile Fraser favored him with was radiant. "Better?" he asked, and Ray nodded, collapsing onto the couch next to him.

"Yeah," he said, glancing at the TV. Fraser had stopped it on some weird documentary about mating squirrels.

God, he loved this man, even if he was a freak. The thought made his smile fade abruptly.

"Uh, Fraser," he said, without moving his gaze away from the TV. Beside him, Fraser tensed, as if he understood instinctively what Ray was going to say. "I really think we ought to talk about last night."

It was a while before Fraser answered him. "Yes," he said at last.

And what the hell was that supposed to mean? Ray rubbed at his eyes, feeling frustrated. He was really too tired to match wits with an uncommunicative Fraser right now.

"Tell me I didn't take advantage of you last night," he said abruptly.

That got Fraser's attention, he was pleased to note. "No," Fraser said, sounding surprised. "Of course not."

Something inside of Ray eased slightly at that, although it didn't erase his fears entirely. "Well, good. That's good to know." He wiped his palms absently across the tops of his thighs, letting his breath out slowly. "Because I'm trying real hard here to figure out what's going on inside that head of yours, and I'm not having much luck. I can't figure out what you want, Fraser."

Fraser's eyes were extremely round as they looked at him. "What do you want, Ray?"

The corner of Ray's mouth twitched. "What do any of us want?" he countered, and maybe that wasn't really the best memory to raise right now, but he couldn't help himself.

It seemed to be the right thing to say, though, because Fraser's face relaxed out of its stiffly formal mask and gave him a real smile again. A moment later, though, the expression faded.

"I don't know how to ask for what I want," he admitted, lowering his gaze. His fingers traced at the edge of the cushion idly.

Ray was sure he could feel his heart pounding in every cell of his body. "Ask me," he said, as casually as he could. "You'll never know unless you ask."

He could see the indecision on Fraser's face, a mirror of the fear Ray was feeling. Fear of rejection, fear of getting hurt, for whatever the reason. Fraser had been hurt so many times in his lifetime. Finally, Fraser's eyes lifted to look at him again.

"I want to sleep in your bed again tonight," Fraser said, sounding hesitant.

Ray's breath caught in his throat for a moment before he could reply. "Okay," he said finally, wincing inwardly at the forced casualness of his tone.

Fraser flicked off the TV, looking pensive. They were both quiet as they moved into the bedroom and stripped down to their underwear. It should have felt uncomfortable climbing into bed next to Fraser again, but somehow it didn't. It had been a hell of a day, but even so, Ray was surprised at the languor that enfolded him the moment his head hit the pillow. It was vaguely comforting to know that he didn't have the energy to do anything other than lie here, even if one of them wanted to.

Fraser's body felt warm beside him, and Ray turned toward him instinctively, watching the play of the lights outside the window as they moved across Fraser's upturned face. It felt ... nice, lying here. Comfortable.

"No bad dreams tonight, okay?" he murmured, reaching out to touch Fraser's arm without thinking. Fraser's skin felt warm under his fingers.

"No," Fraser agreed, and he sounded strangely certain of that fact. He smiled slightly, looking sleepy. "There won't be."

And that was good, that was just the way it should be. Some of the uneasiness on Fraser's face faded, and Ray allowed that to soothe him as he shifted his pillow into a comfortable position under his head, closing his eyes with a sigh.

When it came right down to it, he supposed this was what he really wanted. Intimacy. It meant so much more than sex, and it was something he'd been seriously lacking since Stella had left him. Since long before that, if he was honest with himself. For perhaps the first time ever since the divorce, he was able to think her name without feeling the familiar ache spread through him.

What that meant, he wasn't sure. But he was here, and Fraser was here, and for now -- for right now -- it was enough.

Anything else they wanted to sort out would have to wait till morning.

Dief limped slightly as he stepped out of the elevator, and Fraser glanced down at him with a disapproving frown. "You know full well that you're perfectly fine," he told him. "It's shameful to take advantage of your convalescent status this way."

Dief gave him an affronted look and limped over to Ray's side. Unsurprisingly, Ray gave him a commiserating glance and patted him on the head. Fraser stifled a sigh but didn't comment.

"Give the poor guy a break, Frase." Ray's voice was light as he reached into his pocket for his keys. "He just got out of the hospital. I'd say he deserves a little pampering."

Fraser glanced down at Dief again with narrowed eyes, meeting his I told you so gaze evenly. The bandages wrapped around the half-wolf's flanks and left shoulder were thick and white, making his fur look strangely dark in comparison. The sight made Fraser feel an uncomfortable tightening in his chest, and he reached out to stroke his fingers across the top of that velvety soft head as Ray unlocked the door. Dief licked his fingers lightly before following Ray inside.

They were staying at Ray's apartment momentarily because there was no way to get into the Consulate without climbing the front steps, and he didn't think Dief should be using the stairs. It was a convenient excuse, and it meant they could put off discussing the recent changes in their relationship until Diefenbaker was healed. He hadn't meant to put the discussion off for so long, but neither one of them seemed willing to tamper with the fragile understanding that had come between them.

It felt wonderful to be sleeping in Ray's bed, and to know he was welcome there. They hadn't made love since that one ill-timed night before Justin Frye had been captured, but Fraser was content with what they had. He really couldn't tell if the reason Ray wasn't making any advances was because he was trying to draw a line in the sand -- This far, and no further -- or if he was simply afraid that Fraser would reject him.

And of course Fraser, true to form, wasn't willing to raise the subject, either.

He'd swear that Dief rolled his eyes at him as he brushed his way past Fraser's legs on his way into the apartment. The half-wolf immediately confiscated the couch and stretched out in a truly pathetic display of lupine misery, gazing up at Ray with shining eyes.

Predictably, Ray went immediately into the kitchen to fix him a snack. Fraser didn't even try to hold back his sigh this time as he moved to stand next to the couch.

"You're embarrassing yourself," he said quietly, fixing the half-wolf with a sternly disapproving gaze. The gaze Dief shot back at him was distinctly unremorseful.

"Come on, Fraser," Ray said, coming out of the kitchen with a plate piled high with cut-up meat and old steak bones from the dinner they'd cooked last night. Dief's head lifted up off the couch immediately. "You're supposed to be indulged a little when you get out of the hospital. I think there's a law about that somewhere."

In the end, they compromised by having Dief move to the floor, where he immediately set about devouring the food Ray'd brought for him. There wasn't, Fraser was quick to note, any discomfort at all in his posture while he was eating.

Ray caught his glance and smiled. "So he's faking it. Who cares?" His voice was amused as he settled onto the couch next to Fraser and reached for the TV remote.

After he finished eating, Dief curled into a loose ball of silver-tinged fur on the floor beside the couch, gazing up at Ray adoringly as his tail thumped the floor. Fraser had the distinct impression that the half-wolf was laughing at him.

Deliberately, Fraser turned his attention to the TV. Ray had selected what looked to be a popular sitcom, although Fraser didn't recognize any of the characters. Outside the window next to the couch, the sky was darkening steadily with evening's advance, glowing faintly with thick fingers of burnt orange light that reached toward the horizon. Late enough to make themselves something to eat for supper, if they wanted it.

"You hungry?" Ray asked, as if reading his mind.

Fraser started. "No," he said after a moment. He glanced down, feeling suddenly nervous. "Are you?"

"Huh-uh." Ray's eyes never moved away from the television. He was slouched back against the couch in a typically Ray-like posture, feet propped up on the edge of the coffee table in front of them. "Besides, I don't feel like cooking tonight."

"We could always order out for pizza."

Ray shrugged. "Sure. If you want to."

Fraser honestly wasn't hungry, but anything had to be better than just sitting here feeling uncomfortable. He stood up and went to pick up the phone in the kitchen. Dief's gaze trailed after him as he walked across the room.

Ray had the phone number for the local pizza delivery service in speed dial on his phone. Fraser dialed it and ordered a large traditional-crust pizza with everything but anchovies. And extra pineapple.

After that, there was really nothing to do but go back to the living room and sit beside Ray some more. So Fraser did, wishing that Diefenbaker didn't look quite so exasperated with him.

"The pizza will be here in about an hour," he said, and Ray nodded.

The silence stretched between them. After a moment, Ray looked up at him. "You okay, Frase?"

Fraser glanced at him sharply. Colored lights from the television screen flickered across Ray's face, giving him an inscrutable expression. The light outside the window was fading fast, layering the room in shades of growing darkness.

He flicked on the lamp on the end table beside him before replying. "I'm not sure," he admitted.

Ray nodded, as if he'd been expecting this answer. He glanced back at the TV screen briefly, although Fraser got the impression he wasn't seeing it at all. "I suppose we should talk about it now, huh?"

Fraser didn't have to ask what "it" was. Instantly, his heartbeat seemed to jump into overdrive, and something cold settled deep in the pit of his stomach. Now that Diefenbaker was out of the hospital and safe with them again, there really wasn't anything to distract them from this.

"I suppose so," he agreed reluctantly. Which was stupid, because if Ray truly didn't want anything further to develop between them, it would be best to know now, before things got any more out of control.

"Okay, then." Ray shifted sideways suddenly, pressing one knee up against the back of the couch so he was sitting facing Fraser. His gaze was downcast, and there was a faint coloring in front of his ears. He took a deep breath and then let it out slowly. "You've probably noticed that I'm feeling a little hesitant about this. You, uh, you know what happened with me and Stella."

Fraser nodded, frowning. Yes, he was more than familiar with Ray's feelings for Stella Kowalski.

Ray scratched lightly at the back of his neck and gave a nervous laugh. "I'm not very good at this relationship stuff, Fraser. You've seen that. Stella's the only girl I ever... I mean, the only person I ever... I mean, I fooled around a little in college before we got married, but it was never anything, uh serious, you know? And then when I married Stella, that was it. She's the only one I ever really, uh, ever really..."

Loved. The word hung there in the air between them, unspoken.

Fraser had to force himself to swallow against the dryness in his throat. "My own personal relationships have been somewhat ... less than satisfactory," he said, feeling uncomfortable with the admission.

Ray's gaze flickered up to look at him. "Yeah?"

"Yes." He had never talked about these things to anyone before, except maybe Diefenbaker, but he'd already bared so many shadowed parts of his soul to Ray over the past few days. What could one more dark secret hurt? "My first ... my first lover was a man named Steve Pedersen. We were both recruits at Depot together. Our relationship was ... somewhat intense. But after our training was over, we were both assigned to different posts, and I never heard from him again." He glanced down at the folded hands in his lap. "I think the relationship meant somewhat more to me than it did to him."

"Bastard," Ray said, with feeling.

Fraser smiled. "After that, I didn't get involved with anyone for a number of years. I was ... content with my work." He could almost believe he imagined Ray's snort of disbelief at that. "It wasn't until I met Victoria Metcalf that I ... allowed myself to experience that side of my nature again."

"You mean the crazy bank robber chick."

Fraser had to close his eyes and swallow hard at that. Of course Ray would have read about it in the former Detective Vecchio's files. "Yes. In retrospect, it was not a very sensible choice to pursue a relationship with her, no matter its brevity."

"Love isn't supposed to be sensible, Fraser." Ray's voice was soft. "It's supposed to be ... spontaneous. Kind of like getting hit by lightning. Or maybe more like jumping off of a cliff. You just gotta make that choice to jump, and then take whatever comes on the way down."

Yes. Yes, that was it exactly. "I felt I'd betrayed her when I turned her in to the authorities, even though there had been no promises spoken between us. And then, when she showed up here in Chicago all those years later..."

"She played you like a fiddle."

Fraser smoothed a thumb over his eyebrow. "Yes," he agreed.

Ray shook his head slowly. "Jesus, Fraser. You've been knocked around even more than I have."

Fraser glanced up at him in surprise. "I assure you, Ray, I've never been physically abu--"

"I don't mean physically hit, Fraser." Ray sounded impatient. "I mean you got your heart stomped on but good. And we all know how good you are at repressing things."

Fraser felt his face go warm at that. It was the first time Ray had made reference to the events of the past few days since the case had come to an end.

"I ... suppose you're right," he said.

"Probably makes you kind of hesitant to trust anyone again, huh?"

There was something cautious in Ray's voice now, as if he were feeling his way forward across an ice field. Fraser considered carefully before he replied.

"Nonsense, Ray. I have come to trust a few people since I've come to live here in Chicago." He paused. "You, for example."

"But it doesn't come easy for you, does it?"

There was nothing he could say to that but the truth. "No. It doesn't."

Ray nodded to himself, as if confirming something he'd already come to a decision about. When he looked up again, his eyes were earnest. "I don't want to hurt you, Fraser."

Fraser's insides clenched. What did that mean? "Nor I, you, Ray."

Ray looked decidedly dissatisfied with his response. "I mean, if you just want to go on being friends, that's cool. I can do that. You're ... you're the best friend I've ever had, and I don't want to lose that. I don't ever want anything to get in the way of that."

The words were soothing, and Fraser basked in them for a moment before replying. "Does this mean you don't want anything further to develop between us? In a ... in a physical sense?" He could feel his cheeks coloring again, but he held Ray's gaze steadily, ignoring it.

"Not if you don't want it. I mean... Fuck. I don't know what the hell I mean." Ray dragged his fingers back through his hair in frustration. "Talking like this isn't my thing, Fraser. I'm not ... I'm not good at it."

Fraser nodded; he was having the same problem. He decided to go back to the question that was still preying on his mind. "Are you still in love with Stella?"

Ray blanched slightly at that, but he didn't look away. It was a moment or so before he answered.

"No," he said at last. "I'm not. I mean, I still love her. I guess I always will. I can't just ... just fall for someone like that and then turn it off again later. That's kind of the problem I'm having here with you. If you needed someone to ... to be with the other night, I was happy to be there for you. But if that's all there was to it, I'm feeling a little out of my depth here. I'm no good at casual relationships. Once I decide I'm in love with somebody, I ... cling." He laughed shortly. "But as for Stella? No. That was over a long time ago, Fraser. I think it just took me a while to realize it."

Fraser's heart was beginning to pound again, latching onto one of the words that Ray had said. "And do you, Ray?"

"Do I what?" Ray looked confused.

"Love me."

There was no sound in the room then aside from the dull murmur of the TV. Ray's eyes were wide in the yellow light of the lamp, and Fraser stared, enraptured, watching a whole host of emotions skitter across his face, so fast he couldn't name them.

"Yes," Ray said finally. The word was little more than a sigh.

Fraser closed his eyes and leaned back against the couch, letting his breath out hard. Irritatingly, he could feel the hot sting of tears prickling at the backs of his eyelids.

"Fraser?" Now Ray's voice sounded worried.

Fraser looked up finally and saw Ray leaning toward him, one hand braced against the cushion between them. His expression looked like it couldn't make up its mind whether it wanted to be annoyed or scared.

"Thank God," Fraser said, realizing even as he said it that it wasn't an appropriate response to the admission Ray had just made. But he couldn't seem to make himself say anything more coherent.

Now Ray's expression was turning annoyed. Yes, definitely annoyed now. "You know, Fraser, this is not the time to turn into the world's most irritating man again. So just cut the cryptic Mountie crap for a minute, okay? Please?"

While Fraser could talk for hours about nearly any obscure subject known to man, putting his own personal thoughts and feelings into words was not his forte. So instead of replying verbally, he reached up and slid one hand around the back of Ray's neck. Ray's eyes went wide again at that, but Fraser didn't give him time to react before he pulled him forward and kissed him.

He didn't think it was possible to have forgotten the way Ray tasted the other night, but now it was like tasting him for the first time all over again. The skin of Ray's neck was warm under his hand, and Fraser massaged there lightly as he deepened the kiss, feeling the small sound Ray made shiver through him.

After a few minutes, he pulled reluctantly away. Ray leaned forward so that their heads were touching, keeping his eyes closed. They were both breathing hard.

"I love you, too," Fraser said finally, knowing he owed it to Ray to say the words.

Ray's eyes remained closed, but a delicate shudder rippled through him. He rubbed his forehead against Fraser's for a moment before pulling back to look at him. "Thank God," he said with a small smile, then moved in to kiss him again.

It seemed perfectly natural that they should move into the bedroom together, as if they'd done it a thousand times. Their progress was hampered slightly because Fraser couldn't seem to keep his hands off Ray's body, but Ray wasn't complaining. And Ray's hands apparently wanted to be everywhere as well, tangling in Fraser's hair, smoothing across his back beneath his shirt, holding him, guiding him, refusing to let him go. It was a challenge to remove their clothes without breaking contact, but they managed it somehow, and then they fell together into the softness of Ray's bed.

It was the first time he'd ever been naked with Ray, and Fraser closed his eyes, savoring it. Ray's body felt lithe against him, so different from his own solid frame. He moaned as Ray's lips trailed down his jaw and locked onto the side of his neck, sucking lightly before marking him with the faintest sting of teeth.

"Ray," he whispered. How different it felt to make love to Ray now, knowing that that love was mutual. He reached for Ray's hand and held it tightly, twining their fingers together, and Ray's breath stuttered slightly against his ear as their bodies moved together, bringing their hips into alignment.

"Come live with me," Ray murmured, rolling on top of him. His eyes were bright as they gazed down into Fraser's face. He thrust slowly with his hips, sparking a delightful frisson of pleasure through both their bodies.

Fraser gasped softly, kissing the smooth shoulder in front of him. "Yes," he said, letting his tongue dart out to taste the moist warmth of Ray's skin. Ray shuddered against him, all heat and motion and unashamed need, and the fine sheen of sweat that covered his body provided a delightful friction as Fraser spread his thighs, allowing Ray to settle in against him.

"God, Fraser, you feel so good." Ray's voice was little more than a sigh, punctuated by soft grunts as he moved. Fraser could feel the muscles rippling beneath Ray's skin where his hand was settled against Ray's lower back. He lifted his head for another kiss, and Ray obliged him eagerly, filling him once again with the taste of Ray. He felt like Ray was being imprinted on his senses, taste and scent and touch and sound, and even with his eyes closed he could still see him, beautiful Ray, as his world constricted to the hot, bright friction of their bodies.

His sudden orgasm caught him by surprise, and Fraser threw his head back against the pillow with a low cry, tightening his grip around Ray's hand. He felt Ray's teeth press into the soft juncture between his shoulder and neck, and Fraser's hips bucked upward involuntarily in response, riding the almost unbearably intense sensations as they spiraled through him. He felt like he was in freefall again, and it was pure exhilaration this time, without the fear. Ray's body clung tight around him, refusing to let him fall alone.

And then Ray was gasping loudly in his ear, and the hot space between their bodies was suddenly filled with even more incredible heat. Fraser held on to him tightly, pressing hard kisses to the side of Ray's neck and face, wanting to feel every nuance of Ray's orgasm as if it were his own. After it was over, Ray collapsed bonelessly against him, sweaty and spent.

"Oh God, Fraser." The words were mumbled against the side of his neck, lips moving warmly against his skin.

Fraser smiled, rubbing a hand lightly over Ray's back between his shoulder blades. His other hand was still holding onto Ray's. "Mmm," he agreed, pressing a kiss to the sharp curve of Ray's shoulder.

Anything further they might have said was interrupted by the ring of the doorbell. Ray lifted his head from Fraser's chest and cast a murderous glance at the open bedroom door. "Pizza," he said dully.

Fraser nodded, suppressing another smile. "Yes, it probably is."

Ray scowled. "Maybe if we don't answer it, they'll go away."

Fraser couldn't stop the laugh from breaking free at that. The movement unseated Ray from his position on Fraser's chest, and he backed away slightly, looking annoyed.

"You haven't eaten since early this afternoon, Ray," Fraser said, reluctantly pulling away from the seductive heat of Ray's body. He sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed, reaching for the T-shirt he'd left lying on the floor.

It felt unexpectedly pleasant to have Ray watching him while he dressed. Ray lay naked and mussed in the tangled-up sheets, lying on his side with his head resting on one hand as he gazed up at him. He looked ... edible. Fraser felt a dull heat begin to claw underneath his skin again, and he buttoned his jeans hurriedly as he went barefoot to answer the door.

He paid for the pizza and carried it back into the bedroom, snagging a roll of paper towels and two bottled waters from the kitchen as he went. He was unsurprised when Diefenbaker dragged himself up from the rug under the window to follow him, narrow snout raised to sniff the air appreciatively.

Ray was sitting up in bed when Fraser returned to the bedroom, leaning back against the pillows he'd set up against the headboard. He was sitting cross-legged, and Fraser paused for a moment in the doorway, letting his eyes wander to take in the long lines of him. Ray truly was a beautiful creature, and he looked even more appealing now, with his skin flushed and sweaty and his hair in total disarray.

Ray's smile twitched slightly. "Lose the clothes, Fraser," he said shortly. "And come back to bed."

Fraser didn't have to be told twice. He set the pizza down on the bed and slid out of his clothes in record time, then moved to sit next to Ray. Ray already had the box open and was helping himself to a slice of pizza, and the scent made Fraser's stomach growl in anticipation. Ray cast him a sideways glance and grinned, handing him a slice.

Diefenbaker set his chin on the edge of the bed and whined piteously, gazing up at Ray with pleading eyes. Fraser was just about to chide him for his behavior when Ray pulled a third piece of pizza from the box and said, "Pineapple. Veggies. Cheese. It's good for him." His voice was faintly pleading, and Dief gave a soft whine to underscore the sentiment.

"Grease," Fraser added, narrowing his eyes at Diefenbaker's shameless display, "is not a food group."

"Aww, come on, Frase." Ray's eyes were bright, teasing. God, Fraser loved this man. "We'll take him out this weekend to work it off. I kind of feel like we have something to celebrate here tonight."

And of course there was no way Fraser could say no to that. Dief's tail wagged happily as he accepted his prize from Ray's hand, and then he curled up on the floor beside the bed to eat it. Fraser gave a longsuffering sigh and leaned back against the headboard beside Ray, thinking that there was something undeniably domestic about the scene. Unable to resist, he leaned in for a kiss, feeling the indescribable heat of Ray's shoulder against his own.

"I love you," he murmured against Ray's lips. He was close enough to feel the answering shiver that rippled beneath the other man's skin.

"Crazy Mountie," Ray said in reply, but his eyes were soft as he met Fraser's gaze.

Fraser smiled as he took another bite of his pizza. Already, he wanted to make love to Ray again, but that would have to wait until after they'd finished eating. He had a feeling they were both going to need to keep their strength up if this relationship was going to continue.

It had been a long time since he'd felt this contented, without any strings attached. He snuggled in closer against Ray's side, feeling the unconscious welcoming of Ray's body against his own. Dief's tail wagged slowly across the carpet when he looked up to meet Fraser's gaze.

Every once in a while, it seemed that dreams really did come true.

The End
11/7/01

End Schisms by Rushlight: n_sanity75@hotmail.com

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