Title: Crossing Over

Disclaimer: They aren't mine. They belong to someone else. But that's ok, I get to play with them.

Pairing: Fraser and RayK

Mail: Caffre19@hotmail.com


Note: This is the second part to Borders. My wingnut of a muse wanted a little hurt dumped on Ray, but she's seen the error of her ways and we are in negotiations. Third part should see it made ALL better. Again, thanks to Jaydax for the quick beta before she had to go climb a mountain. (Really!)




Ray's gone.

I'd laugh if it didn't hurt so much.

It obviously took him more courage than I possess to tell me. Everyone thinks I'm a 'hero'. Little do they know that I scoff when I hear those words, or any similar. A hero faces his fears. When I get shot, knifed or hurt in the line of duty, I don't feel a hero. I'm not entirely afraid of these things. I know there is more if my life should end. My faith in that is absolute. It's hard to have seen the wild untameable beauty that I grew up in and believe otherwise. How could there not be a God, when the snow covered peaks reach all the way to heaven, and the forests into eternity. Heaven to me is the untameable.

I have often thought of Ray in that regard. His passion for everything is something I must confess I wish I could experience. But my father taught me well. Duty was his passion, and with what little time I spent with him, he saw to it that I shared it with him. A father's gift to his son.

I sometimes wonder what my mother would have gifted me with.

Ray is energy and life, while I am routine and dogged determination. He is that part of me that was lost even while I was a youth. How he managed to keep hold of it, that vitality as he grew and became a man in Chicago is a miracle. Another reason for me to believe in a higher power.

* * * * *

I was on my way to see him last night when he caught me outside. Funny that. We work together and yet we are still able to maintain a friendship outside the confines of work.

Yet he caught me unawares last night. For me, love has always brought me pain. Its part of my conditioning, my emotional make up. First my mother's death. The real first lesson I was ever taught.

I reacted to it. I hurt and I felt and I wasn't ashamed to let others see that. I remember to this day crying at her funeral. I hadn't wanted to go, for on some level I knew that it was goodbye. But my father made me.

I stood at the front of the small church and wept, and I foolishly thought that my father would offer me some comfort. Instead he told me that I had better get used to it. That death was a part of the way of life where we lived. And that a man didn't cry.

My very first real lesson in pain.

There where others of course. By the time I met Victoria I was sure I was never meant to feel things like love and companion ship. When I found her, I didn't know what love really was, which is why I reacted so badly when she came back to Chicago. I craved that emotional stimulation that others had everyday of their lives, that I nearly destroyed myself to get it.

When Ray left me, when Ray Vecchio left me, it hadn't hurt as much as others assumed it must have. I just took the pain and buried it deep, where I would never have to look at it.

Then Ray. My Ray. Stanley Raymond Kowalski. I think I recognised something of myself in Ray. The pain. However, where I hide it in the dark, and pretend its not really there, Ray exposes his to the light, allowing it to shrivel up and die. That's why I'm not a hero. I'm afraid of that kind of light, that kind of exposure. He wasn't afraid to show it, he dealt with it, while I hide it like something to be ashamed of.

He showed me that when he cried, the pain of having, unintentionally or otherwise, destroyed a woman's life. I tried to tell him he had saved her, that it was others who had caused her her pain. But he couldn't accept that. Still, he had showed me, even when all the comfort I could offer was a tentative hand on his shoulder. I didn't feel I could cross that line, that to cross over that, that border, from the darkness into the light would mean consequences I wasn't and believed could never face.

Yet tonight I must come to a decision. I have never really considered myself heterosexual as such. To me, love is love no matter what the package it comes wrapped up in.

Ray's proclamation of love scared me. To accept would mean to accept the light. To believe that I deserved some of it. But what if I don't? What if I am destined to be alone? That to accept another into my life would drag them into the darkness that no one else even suspects exists inside me. No one that is, apart from Ray. He seems to be able to see me more clearly than anyone I ever knew.

And the fact that he is willing to love me despite the fact of who I am shows me his courage and highlights my own lack of it. If I hadn't of seen the pain in his eyes when he saw my own reaction to his words then I wouldn't even be contemplating telling him that I do love him.

If Ray can display that kind of courage so clearly that I am going to try also. You see, I've grown tired of this darkness. I've seen how the light invigorates Ray and I want that. Ray promises that with every look, even every angry comment he makes.

I should have told him. I know that. I've hurt him and I feel like dying because of it. But he was asking me to cross over and I wasn't prepared. I almost laugh at that. Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance.

Well, I'm prepared now. I've sent Dief back into the Consulate. He whined a little about that, but I think he could see that something was coming.

Its 3 am and I've been thinking about him since he left me on my side of the border. I know it's late as I walk across the city, but with every step I feel myself hope that this darkness is finally coming to an end for me. It should feel selfish but it doesn't, and I take that as a good sign. Ray can save me, if I let him. I just have to have the courage to let myself feel that I deserve that part of his soul that I know he's already given to me.

If Ray can cross that line, the one that we should have crossed together but for my own cowardice then I surely owe it to both him and myself to follow. It's what partners do. Its what people in love do everyday. And I do love him. He and I both need to hear me say it.