—I’m standing in a white, white little room, which is somehow both too damn quiet and, at the same time, loud with beeps and pings and hisses and hums and people-noise beyond the walls.

Hospital. Shit. What am I doing in a hospital? Who’s hurt? And. . .how the hell did I get here?

“At least you’re asking the right questions, son. That counts for something,” says an unfamiliar voice behind me.

I just about jump out of my skin; whirl to face him, hand on my gun. It’s an old guy in a Mountie uniform and a weird furry hat that looks like roadkill. He’s looking at me with an expression I can’t quite suss out: like he’s sizing me up, maybe, and isn’t sure he likes what he’s seeing.

But I’ve got more important things to think about right now, like where the hell Fraser is. Last thing I remember, we were in an abandoned warehouse, I had my gun out, and I was signaling Fraser, I’ll go left, you circle around behind ‘em, and then—

Oh God. Did something happen to Frase? Is this old Mountie dude here to break the bad news to me?

But no, because now I see the hospital bed behind him, and that’s Fraser sitting in the chair next to it. So at least Frase is okay, which is a huge giant relief, except that I don’t even have a chance to stop and appreciate that properly, because that guy lying there in the bed with all the tubes and wires and shit stuck in him is. . .me.

Oh shit. Oh shit oh shit oh shit what the fuck is going on here—?

“Don’t panic,” says the Mountie. “Panic never brought home the bacon. Unless you count that one time when the gate on Nan McClaren’s hog pen broke and Dave Leroux got swept away by the stampede. . .”

I’m backed into the corner, far as I can get from the bed, which is not very far at all, and the old guy’s gripping my elbow. To keep me from bolting, I guess. Or maybe he’s trying to be reassuring, which, if so, it’s halfway working. Because even though he’s a stranger and weird and quite possibly off his rocker, it’s a familiar brand of nutso, and there’s something familiar about the way he talks, too. Something that signals safe to my freaking-out brain.

“Who are you?” I interrupt.

“That’s not important right now,” he says, giving me a disapproving look, and holy cow! He sounds just like Fraser. Which explains why my instincts tagged him as safe, only it doesn’t explain anything at all, because he’s obviously not Fraser. Fraser’s sitting right over there, by the. . .by my bed. Where I’m lying, except I’m also standing here with this old Fraser-like Mountie. And you know? There’s just no happy fun explanation for being in two places in the same time, especially when one of those places is a hospital bed.

“Am I, uh. . .am I dead?” I croak.

But no, stupid question. Me-on-the-bed may look like shit on toast, but hospitals don’t just leave corpses lying around like that, and the heart monitor’s blipping cheerfully along. Plus, if I were dead, Fraser wouldn’t just be sitting there calmly like that. Would he?

From behind, I can’t read him so good. He’s sitting with his usual dress-uniform good posture. (He told me once that the uniform is designed so the collar will cut your head off if you slouch. After that one time I borrowed Turnbull’s uniform, I damn well believe it.) His red tunic’s all scuffed up, though, like he’s been rolling in dirt. His hands are in his lap, out of my sight. As I drift closer, I can see his face is all pinched with anxiety, more than he usually shows when anyone’s looking. But of course, he doesn’t know anyone’s looking.

He’s talking, low and steady. No, not just talking: that’s his reciting voice.

“. . .and now

What rests, but that the mortal sentence pass

On his transgression, death denounced that day,

Which he presumes already vain and void,

Because not yet inflicted, as he feared,

By some immediate stroke. . .”

I don’t recognize the words, but it sounds like an installment of Paradise Lost, which he’s been telling me to pass the time when we’re on a stake-out or waiting around for whatever reason. I wonder how much I’ve missed.

“I’m not dead,” I whisper, and then, louder, “I’m not dead. Hey Frase, I’m not dead, I’m right here.”

But he doesn’t so much as twitch, and neither does the. . .body. . .on the bed.

“I’m not dead,” I protest. Shit, I sound like a whiny kid. I look back at the old guy. “Am I?”

“You’ll have to be the judge of that,” he says so blandly that I want to sock him.

“I’m not. I’m alive. Look, I’m breathing and stuff.” From here, I can see that’s true; my body’s chest is rising and falling. “I’m just asleep, and now it’s time for me to wake up.”

“Well, now, there’s an idea,” he says in this infuriatingly noncommittal tone, like he’s humoring a five-year-old.

Ignoring him, I march over to the bed. Fraser doesn’t blink; the rhythm of that stupid poem doesn’t falter. I ignore the creepiness of that, too, because it doesn’t matter; I’ll be able to talk to him all I want in just a second.

Jesus, the other me looks bad. Bandaged and tubed and pasty-grey skin, no color anywhere, and not moving, and. . .

I take a deep breath, lean forward and—

—darkcoldpainfallingdarksuckingpaincrackingdrowningstiflingcoldcrushingnonono—

I’m wedged into the far corner of the room again, shaking, with my heart jackhammering (which is weird, considering I don’t have a heart or anything else right now, but tell that to my nonexistent body).

“Good thing it’s a long poem,” says the old guy thoughtfully.

“Yeah,” I pant.

I concentrate on breathing, deep and slow and steady. In, out. In, out. The old guy looks almost sympathetic as he watches me try to get my shit together.

“Not everyone would do that, you know,” he says after a little while.

“Sure, but he’s my partner.” I’m only barely paying attention to what I’m saying; most of my attention is still on fight-or-flight. Breathe in, breathe out. “And anyway, this is Fraser we’re talking about. He’d do the same for some stranger he rescued in the street.”

“Would you do the same for him?” the old guy asks.

“Of course I would. What kind of jerk do you think I am?”

“One can never tell with Yanks,” he says serenely—





/ *** *** ***/





—and suddenly the lights are dim, and it’s way quieter around us, and my body’s still lying in the bed but Frase is gone.

“No visiting hours at night,” says the old Mountie. Before I can reply, he turns and walks straight through the closed door. I follow before my brain catches up and reminds me that that’s just not okay.

The waiting area is quiet, mostly empty except for a couple of people napping or worrying in their separate corners. And Fraser, a big, bright red statue standing at parade rest over in one corner where he’s got a clear line of sight to the nurse’s desk and the hallway behind it, the one I just came down.

“Is he gonna stand there all night?” I whisper, even though it’s obvious nobody can hear either me or my new ‘friend.’

“It looks that way, doesn’t it?”

“Hey, cool, I got my own personal guard,” I joke. Reflex, is what it is, ‘cause the old guy’s looking at me like he wants to see through me, and I don’t let people do that. But it’s not really a joke, because that’s exactly what Fraser’s doing. Feels good, knowing he’s watching over me.

His boss would never let him stand guard duty in that grubby uniform, though.

“Would you do that for him?” the Mountie asks.

If Frase were in the hospital—but Fraser doesn’t get hurt! Fraser never gets hurt, he’s the man of fucking steel, he risks his neck in a million harebrained ways, every goddamned day, and comes up smiling without a scratch on him.

I’m shaking; I feel like puking. Fraser can’t get hurt. What kind of a stupid universe would this be if Fraser. . .if that were Fraser lying in there, looking like a bad special effect, like an under-exposed photo, like a. . .

“Yeah.” My voice comes out all raspy. I swallow past the tightness in my throat. “I would.”—





/ *** *** ***/





—Fraser’s back in the chair by my bed. He’s not reciting Paradise Lost, though. He can’t have finished it, can he? That thing’s fucking endless. Maybe he’s just taking a commercial break. Resting his voice.

He rubs his hands over his face. He looks exhausted. Don’t know if I’ve ever seen him looking so tired. Like he hasn’t slept in days, even though he’s king of the 30-second micro-nap and all that shit.

He looks up. I turn to see why, and there’s Stella coming in the door. Cup of coffee in her hand. Courtroom poker face on, but if you know what to look for, her shoulders tell their own story, and it’s not a happy one.

Her eyes meet Fraser’s, and she hesitates just a little before walking over to him. Or to the bed. Same thing, I guess.

“Constable.”

“Ms. Kowalski.”

“You’re still here.”

“Yes.”

He says it like he’s drawing a line in the sand, like it’s his last stand. I don’t know why he’s expecting a fight from Stell, but she doesn’t give him one. Instead, she hands him the cup of coffee. That surprises him; he looks up at her. She lays a hand on his shoulder, which surprises me, and takes all the starch out of him: he slumps down in his seat, his eyes tracking back to the bed.

There’s only the one chair, but he doesn’t offer it to her, and she doesn’t seem like she’s looking to sit down. She stands next to him for a long time, both of them silently watching the body on the bed not do anything.

“I can stay for a while,” she offers, finally. “If you need to—”

“I’m staying. Until Ray wakes up.” He’s not even trying to be polite, but she doesn’t get ruffled.

“That might take a while,” she says gently.

“That doesn’t matter.”

“What about your job? Do you—?”

“They’ll give me compassionate leave. Or they won’t.” And I don’t give a rat’s ass, says the stubborn clench of his jaw.

Maybe it’s his RCMP higher-ups he’s been fighting? How long has he been here? How long have I been here?

“Would you do that for him?” says a voice in my ear, making me jump.

“Ssh!” I hiss, even though I know damn well they can’t hear us.

The old Mountie raises his eyebrows, but he does shut up, and after another few seconds of trying to burn holes in me with his stare, he turns to look at Fraser and Stella. I do, too.

It’s weird, seeing them together, both of them watching over. . .me. Fraser, sitting there like a rock, barely acknowledging her. Stella, standing stiffly next to him like she doesn’t know what to do with herself, like she maybe doesn’t have the right to be here.

After a while, she breaks the silence with, “The doctors said—”

“I know.” He says it flat, without any counterargument or optimistic words. Just, nothing. Doesn’t even look at her.

Makes me feel cold all over my imaginary body, and I have to look away for a little bit. Which is how I see that Stella’s blinking back tears. Just for a few seconds. Then she takes a deep breath, lets it out, wipes her eyes real quick, and that’s it, done.

“Is there anything I can do?” she asks.

He finally looks up at her, and for the first time since she arrived, his face shows something other than exhaustion. Fear. Not sure I’ve ever seen him look scared before. Not something I ever needed to see.

“Don’t let them. . .” He glances at the heart monitor by the bed, then meets her eyes again.

“Not unless you say so,” she promises. He nods and she nods back, like a handshake.

Fraser goes back to staring at the bed, but Stella keeps looking at him. Her hand moves like maybe she’s going to touch him again, but then she doesn’t, after all.

“Thank you,” she says softly to the back of his head, and then leaves.

I watch Fraser watching unconscious-me until I can’t ignore the twitchy feeling any more and have to look over at the old Mountie. Who is, of course, looking at me.

“Look, what do you want from me?”

He makes a sour face and shakes his head.

“It’s just a simple question, son,” he says tetchily—





/ *** *** ***/





—Fraser looks like hell. Dark pouches under his eyes, dark stubble heavy on his jaw, patchy on his cheeks.

“Woah, lose the face fur, Frase,” I can’t help telling him, even though I know damn well he can’t hear me. “Nature did not design you to wear a beard.”

He rubs his hand over his chin, frowning. Then he reaches over to the man in the bed and cups his cheek—my cheek!—testing the stubble with the pad of his thumb, careful not to disturb the what’s-it-called that’s piping oxygen into my nose. My body’s got almost a real beard, but then mine’s always grown fast, not to mention I probably had a head start on Fraser in the first place.

Fraser. . .keeps on stroking my cheek, like he’s fallen into some kind of trance. His eyes glisten, brim over, and the tears start leaking down his face.

All of a sudden, I’m shaking with how wrong this all is. Fraser crying. Fraser disheveled and run-down and at the end of his rope. Fraser touching me, stroking my face, and I can’t feel a fucking thing.

“Would you do that?” the old man asks, and there’s an edge to his voice, now, and I want to wheel around and belt him, knock that know-it-all, above-it-all calmness right the fuck out of him.

“Yes, damn it, I would.” My voice sounds clogged up, like I’m crying. Well, so what if I am? “If I could get back into my damn body and wake the hell up, I’d do it right now.”

With a deep sigh, Fraser buries his face in both his hands.

I reach out to touch his shoulder, but the old Mountie grabs my elbow to stop me.

“Oh, you don’t want to do that, son.”

I swing a fist at him, yelling, “Yes, I do!”—but he catches my wrist before the punch can connect. Jesus, his grip is like a bear trap.

“Not that way,” he says quietly. He turns, making me turn with him, until we’re both facing the body on the bed. Then he looks back at me.

Yeah, okay, old man. I get it.

My not-really-there guts churn cold, but I tell myself it can’t be any worse than jumping off a grain elevator into Lake Michigan or stepping in front of a bullet, and anyway it doesn’t matter because I’m doing it now.

Black cold sucks me down, spins me around, squeezes breath and thought out of me—I’m choking, cracking, falling—nothing but cold and terror, blotting out even the pain—

—and then I’m blinking in a bright white blur, and I can feel again, which, fucking ow, my whole body aches and throbs. Cough; it stabs my side and burns my lungs. There’s something jammed up my nose, but at least I can breathe. Mostly. Hurts. Can’t see much; can’t think good. Dizzy.

Try to yell for Frase but all that comes out of my mouth is a garble, sounds like some animal dying. Got to move—don’t know where or why, just I got to get to Fraser, but I can’t move. Something’s pinning me down. A hand on my chest.

“Ray, Ray, relax,” comes Fraser’s voice from somewhere in the white blur above me. Dark blur, now, blocking the light. Warm pressure on my chest; Fraser’s voice, soothing me. “Don’t move, you’ll hurt yourself. Just relax.”

I stop thrashing, blink my eyes until the world un-blurs enough so I can make out Fraser’s face looking down at me. That’s his hand, holding me down.

“Frase,” I say, or try to.

“I’m here, Ray. It’s all right. You’re going to be fine.”

One hand warm on my chest, the other stroking my hair. Yeah, Frase, everything’s all right, buddy.

He keeps talking: nothing-words, calm voice. Like a blanket. Only it doesn’t sound quite right. Rhythm, pitch, yeah, but it sounds choked, wet.

Try to lift my hand to touch him, but he covers it with his. Won’t let me move it. His other hand’s gone.

“Frase.”

“Yes. I’m here.” But he’s not, he’s moving away. I grunt a protest, try to grab him—but suddenly there’s people, moving, noisy, and Fraser’s hand squeezes mine and then he’s gone.

Strangers poke at different parts of my body and look at monitors and shine lights in my eyes and ask me questions, even though I can’t make words to answer them. But they act like my grunts are real interesting. Probably they’re trying to figure out how badly I’ve scrambled my brains, which I should care about, but all I want right now is Fraser back.

Finally, finally, they go, and like magic, Fraser’s here. Still got bags under his eyes, but he looks way better than he did before. More like he’s supposed to look. His eyes are shiny-wet, but shiny-happy, too. Shining at me; staring at me like he can’t look away. Eating me up, those eyes. And I want. . .I want. . .

“You—you wanted to tell me something?” he asks.

Jesus, yeah, Frase, but I don’t know where to start and I hurt all over. Try to talk, it comes out as a grunt. Try to lift my non-IV’ed hand to touch him, can’t even manage that. Fraser takes my hand carefully in his. Warm, good. Not what I meant. But his eyes search my face for clues, and he brings my palm up to his cheek. Question in his eyes.

I curl my fingers, stroke behind his ear, under his jaw. Yeah, Frase, you got it.

He lets out his breath. Loud, shaky.

His skin’s so warm under my hand. Smooth.

“Shaved,” I slur.

His eyes get real big for a second. He clears his throat. “I—yes, just now, while. . . .In the bathroom. I thought you. . .that is. . .”

I try to smile; not sure how well it works. “Better.”

His smile works just fine, except it’s kind of wobbly. Then he turns and hides it in my palm. Warm breath, warm lips on my skin. Oooohhh yeah.

He sneaks a peek back at me; question in his eyes. Can’t fucking move; just my fingertips pressing his jaw.

“Yeah.” Got to get the words out clear. “Frase. For you. I would.”

If that imaginary Mountie’s watching, he’s going to get an eyeful of his. . .son?. . .slipping the world’s most gentle tongue to his half-dead Yank of a partner.

And you know? I kind of hope he is watching. Serve the old pain-in-the-ass right.