Title: "Frozen Thoughts"
Author: EA Karras
Rating: NR
Notes:  Each section is a different character's thoughts. This one takes
place during "Call of the Wild", and the full blown fics will take place
after this. Other than this snapshot and what I showed in the other one,
everything is pretty much the same as the show. You know...'cept for
the supernatural stuff. *l* Disclaimers: "Spider" belongs to Danny Elfman,
Due South to Alliance. Series: The Mountie Slayer
Pairings: Kowalski/Fraser
----

My thoughts are disjointed in ways I never even thought possible. I'm
hanging, stuck, in a crevice with my mountie and I can't believe how
much it hurts. Not just the ice pinching us together, but the emotional
betrayal I still feel that when Vecchio came back Fraser wanted to be
with him. 

I'm feeling like second desserts. I know that if Vecchio hadn't been
shot, it'd be him here with Fraser and not me. Nothing Fraser says will
change my thoughts on that subject. 

Then again, maybe it's just the hypothermia talking. 

It's getting very cold and I feel like there's something crawling up
my legs and my arms. Under ths skin.  Fraser's telling me something and
I /know/ I've answered him, but for all the love in the world I have
no idea what I said back. 

It's the damned vampire thing's fault. I know it. This is gonna kill
me, and I'll come back and I'll bite him. And that's how they'll find
us, him bloodless and hanging and me covered in his blood. 

Dammit, he's saying something again. Can't he see I'm freaking out? I
don't want to talk to him, not now. What I /want/ to do to him probabaly
isn't possible at this level. Not in the ice. 

There's a look in his eyes that I've never seen before, and he's...what
the hell...he's kissing me, and I swear to hell if he claims this is
buddy breathing I'll hurt 'im. 

I kiss him back, but then the most innappropriately bad timed thing happens.
I have one of my flashes. Not exactly the best thing to do while trapped
inside an ice crevice. 

First I'm screaming into his mouth, and he's looking at me with those
wide eyes. He manages to pull away, and I manage to stop screaming. And
then it really hits. I can see him falling down a mineshaft, I can see
Muldoon. I can see another mountie, one that looks a lot like Fraser's
dad used to. Then it's gone, and the pain really starts. 

I'm shaking so bad that it hurts, the ice is /digging/ into my back and
my sides. It feels like shards of glass. I'm probabaly screaming, but
I can't hear it. I can't hear anything. Not even Fraser, he's saying
something. Trying to hold me still, trying to keep me from hurting myself
and him. 

"Ray. Ray...Ray!!" He's doing that thing again, where he calls my name
until I answer. I hate that. "Ray, calm down. Please, Ray. You have to
stop," 

Like I can stop these things, right? But it slows and stops, I feel myself
slipping, and he's pulling me back up. He's barely holding on to the
ice by his fingers. I'm saying something under my breath, panting it.
Over and over again, I'm saying please. Please what? Please help me?
Please don't drop me? Please don't fall down a mineshaft? Please don't
leave me? I don't know, but I keep saying it like one of those crazy
mantra things he does. And somehow he manages to pull us out. 

"You must have loosened us," he says, loudly. Trying to keep my attention,
I guess. Like he has to work hard to do that. "Ray. No. Ray, don't fall
asleep.  Ray!" 

But I'm beyond hearing him, slipping into a dark void in my mind that
I can't get out of. And I don't wanna, not yet. I know that if I do whatever
I saw will take place. I don't want Fraser to fall, to get hurt if that's
what that was. And if I stay awake, if I stay well, he will. I don't
think he'll leave me. 

I hope I'm not wrong.

I think I love him. And I know if he dies, so will I. And I think if
he stays up here, I will too. 

If he'll have me.

***

We're in Frobisher's cabin when Ray finally wakes up. He'd had me concerned,
no... 

He'd had me worried. He was so cold, his skin was like ice. Even Dief
was worried, though for some reason he had turned into his werehuman
form even though it wasn't yet a full moon. I'd better consult Leftenant
Welsh when we get back to Chicago, he /is/ my watcher in Chicago; as
Frobisher is my watcher here. He should have some clue as to Dief's untimely
change. 

We are going back, Ray is in no condition to be "backpacking" through
the territories at this juncture. 

I do wonder if he'd really in any condition to do anything. He lost quite
a bit of blood when the ice pinched him. And the hypothermia. I can remember
him begging me for something, but he couldn't seem to get it out what
he wanted me to do. 

Well, let's just say it's got me very worried. So worried that I actually
let  the Inspector and Frobisher go after Muldoon. I would never have
done that if Ray hadn't been ill. They tell me that Muldoon was shot
by something, and I haven't seen my father since. I don't think I want
to deal with those ramifications at this moment. 

I don't want him to die. I don't think I could take it if he became a
vampire. Or something worse. And it could be worse, there are so much
more worse things that could happen to him than vampirism. If the demons
smell it on him, that he's been bitten and drank from a vampire... 

It wouldn't be good, let's just say that.

I find myself wishing for the days when the RCMS was stll the RCMP. Dad
never had this problem until a few years back when we made the switch.
When the vampires and demons we humans had embraced so willingly started
to turn on us. 

I think Ray has got it into his head that he's some sort of substitute
for Ray Vecchio. Far from it. He's been very comforting, but I think
I've grown closer to him than I ever did to the man he was supposed to
be portraying. 

Vecchio and I...we...we were partners, and friends. But Ray and I seem
to be closer than friends. This Ray would never leave me to go undercover,
he's saved my life more than once, has stuck by me as I stuck by him
during the entire Cahill incident. 

I kissed him in the ice. 

I think I may do it again.

If he'll have me.

---

"Spider", Danny Elfman

Spider crawling on the wall
I see him and he sees it all
And he sees it all
I fell down in that lazy place
Where the English language can't penetrate
And I saw your mouth moving
Just forget it and lie here with me
Maybe we should just climb in under the sheets
Where the words, they don't get in the way
We were wondering, if you recall
Is this the end of it all
End of everything
We were wondering, wonder... 
Spider crawling in my left ear
Has a message I want you to hear
Hope you're happy, found what you're looking for
Do you miss me, do you miss me at all?
Spider tells us, saw you yesterday
With somebody new, what can I say?
What can I...
Spider crawling, I crawl with him 
We go everywhere, we see everything
We are falling, falling to nowhere 
Hope you're happy, found what you're looking for
Do you miss me, do you miss me at all?