Disclaimer: Characters owned by Alliance/Paul Haggis/Paul Gross.

Author's Notes: Big, big thanks to Beth, nancy, and Kristina over at the dueSouth Slash Beta list.

Story Notes: I just have this thing about RayK and the divorce. Uh. Go figure.

He stood on the steps and looked off to the northwest. The sun was setting and in this spot he could see the golden ball glowing between buildings. It was beautiful, coloring the whole world bright gold with shadowed hints of blue. He put his hands up to bracket the image as if he were taking a photograph and saw the light made his skin brighter, almost shining with a light from within. As he watched the sun ducked behind a building and the light went out of his skin. Dull, now, dull parchment with blue veins tracing hap-hazardly under its surface like worms. He shuddered and shoved his hands into the pockets of his jacket.

He had come to her office hoping, wishing he could talk her out of it. He still loved her and he knew she still had feelings for him. For God's sake, they had been married for well over a decade, that said something, didn't it? It meant something.

Evidently it didn't mean the same for her as it did for him. He turned for one last glance up at the wall of glass, looking for the one mirror behind which she had sat and waited for him to sign the papers. Turning away from the building he continued down the steps to the sidewalk and began to walk away from everything that he had known. Everything that had mattered. Everything that had defined his life for the last twenty-five years.

The wind came up with the setting of the sun and he clutched the edges of the jacket closer about him to keep it out. He had tried. If she wanted, he had given. If she asked, he had done his best to answer. And now, after giving her everything he was, everything he had, there was a strange emptiness inside. Who was he if no longer a part of her? He could feel the fear of it tangling in his gut and shuddered. He felt like nothing.

A glance at a storefront as he passed showed him a glimmer of his face and he stopped, confused. His face was dark in the glass, the blonde hair subdued, blue eyes grey. The glass distorted the shape of his jaw. He had been enough in the beginning; otherwise she wouldn't have taken him on. When had he become less?

He shrugged and continued down to the bus stop. Stood to wait. The moon was rising -- it was near full. After the hot colors of the sunset the cool white light it spread made everything silvery. Colors were washed away, faded in its soft reflection of the sun. He reached up to the moon as if to catch it and ask it for an answer. He noted the back of his hand. The blue of the veins was still there, but it seemed more grey than blue, the skin pale, almost white.

That was how he felt, that was who he was now, a line drawing on canvas. Distantly he wondered what would come in the future and what he would see.

End reVision by Ashlan: Ashland40@yahoo.com

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