Dani'd been hanging around the community center with the kid, as usual, and Ray had seen her out there, shivering in her stupid, thin coat, and he'd beckoned her inside.

She didn't usually come in without an invitation, unless Jackson was too cold or needed something. Ray didn't really know why she hung around, since she just got insults from most of the boxers and any onlookers hanging around. Except Levon Jefferson, that sweet kid, who was still talking to Ray even after Ray'd had to arrest him the year before.

Levon, besides being a good guy, and a decent boxer, was smart. He understood that Ray'd been ordered to bust him, that Ray probably saved his life by doing it, and that Ray believed in his innocence all along and risked his own life proving it. He was wise enough to see past appearances to the real stuff underneath, and he forgave Ray. He even told Ray straight out he thought they were pretty much even, everything considered.

And there was one more thing Levon was, the thing that made him smile a little too long and too pretty at Ray sometimes, that made him talk softer than your typical Cabrini gang member would've talked to a cop, that made him somebody Dani didn't try to solicit and didn't feel afraid of.

Levon didn't give off the vibes the other guys did, which went something along the lines of, she was a whore and a crackhead and beneath them, and they didn't waste money on chicks like her, but if she was giving out freebies, the line would form on the left. It was more than vibes, sometimes. Sometimes they said it right out, with lots of showing off and crotch-grabbing for emphasis.

But Levon, though, he just smiled and said hello and basically treated her like he treated everybody else. Like she was human. And he didn't want nothing from her, free or otherwise, because he just wasn't wired that way.

Ray knew, of course Ray knew. He'd had his gaydar working just fine years before Levon was even born.

It was one of those things that you didn't talk about. You didn't talk about Levon being gay, or about Ray being a cop, or about Dani being a junkie. You didn't talk about Jackson not talking. So the three of them didn't talk about much of anything that meant anything. But when Ray saw Dani and Jackson, which wasn't that often, since Ray didn't go the gym much after the Franco Devlin thing, he talked to Jackson more than he talked to her. Dani never had much to say, even though she could talk when she wanted to. Jackson couldn't say most words at all, but he was full of things he wanted to communicate, and he managed to make himself understood just fine.

Ray understood him, anyway, and the kid seemed to get him, too, which was all kinds of cool.

That last time Ray'd seen him, Jackson had been a tiny thing, though not rail-thin like Dani. He had that three-year-old chubbiness about him, round pink cheeks, tubby belly, bright eyes. He was obviously being fed okay, whether Dani was doing it or making sure he spent the day with someone who would.

Ray knelt down and pretended to teach the kid to box, and got him laughing and running around like a little maniac. When Levon started making "I got better things to do here than watch kindergarten hour" noises, Ray found Jackson a jump rope, shortened it up, and showed him how to skip it. The kid couldn't really manage it, but he tried fucking hard, and he worked on it for, like, half an hour while Ray sparred with Levon.

The whole time, Danitra sat there on a bench with her back against the wall, her knees up against her chest, shaking like she usually did. Whether it was the cold getting to her or whether it had been too long since her last fix, Ray didn't know.

Jackson was sitting on the floor making a train or maybe a snake out of the rope and pulling it under and around the bench when Ray finally sent Levon off to the showers. Then Ray swung down out of the ring and found his stuff so he could get dressed.

Ray never showered at the gym anymore, because one queer guy could be in there incognito, but two was asking for trouble, especially if everybody else in there was already watching them, the only white guy in the place and the young boxer with the way-too-pretty smile. One accidental glance at each other and they'd be toast. He showered at home, or at the station if he did the gym thing before work.

Ray didn't use the lockers here any more, either. It was too creepy in there with the other guys all looking at him like they wanted to cap him for busting Devlin. He wore his gym clothes under his other stuff and just dumped his duffle next to the ring, pulled off some layers, and strapped on the padding, then afterward he shucked the protective gear, toweled off as best he could, and pulled his layers of sweats and sweater and coat back on top of his gym shorts. It felt gross, but he was dry enough to stay warm.

It was usually kind of embarrassing doing even that much with Dani sitting there watching him with those silent eyes, because she was a girl, after all, even though she was skinnier than Ray. Hell, she probably wouldn't have batted an eyelash if Ray stripped naked right there, considering what she did for a living. She probably saw plenty of guys who looked a hell of a lot worse than him.

She had her eyes closed again by the time he finished, and Jackson was knocking the jump rope handles against the bench in some kind of rhythm, boom-ba-boom-boom-boom. Ray sat down on the bench next to Dani, making it creak.

She opened her eyes slowly, not startled at all. She didn't tense up, either, or inch away from him like she did around the gym rats. Her eyes weren't hard when she looked at Ray. He wondered if that meant she trusted him, which, that was weird, huh, a crack addict and prostitute who trusted a cop. Maybe it was because Jackson liked Ray, or maybe it was because he hung out with Levon here, and Levon didn't...

Or maybe she got the same kind of vibe from him as Levon. That didn't make sense, he told himself, that did not make sense, because Ray liked girls just fine, even if he wasn't sleazy and disgusting and abusive about it like the gym guys. Ray wasn't like Levon, Ray was just...

He sat back a little on the bench. He looked in her eyes and he saw, he saw...she knew. And there was no way she could've known, except she did. She must've just been really good at vibing people out. Lucky for Ray, she didn't talk. She might know, might've figured him out, but she didn't talk to anybody that he knew of, so she wasn't ever going to tell anyone.

He made a mental note never to introduce her to Fraser, though, because Fraser could get a clam to talk. Fraser could make an Eskimo Inuksha-whatsis spill its guts.

Ray twisted a finger into his bracelet, twisted it back out again. "You need anything?" he asked quietly.

She was still shivering, but she'd put her long legs down and stretched them out in front of the bench. She turned and looked at him, her eyes looking deep black under the sketchy gym lighting. Hungry. Her eyes looked...hungry. Only Dani didn't go much for food.

"I don't mean that," Ray said. "You know."

Which she did. She knew he was a cop, and she knew he was a clean cop; Levon had told her enough times that she wasn't going to get any drugs or shit from Ray. Or money. He couldn't even give her money for food for Jackson, nothing like that, because giving money to a crackhead was no better than handing them the drugs.

"I mean, like, could you use a cup of coffee? You look kind of cold. And Jackson, I was thinking...does he like macaroni and cheese? I loved that stuff when I was his age. Hell, I still like it." He smiled, feeling kind of awkward. "There's a diner on the corner, you know. You feel like going to get something? Jackson, he...he looks like he could use something hot to eat, and I sure could."

She looked at him, not saying anything, for what had to be a whole minute while Jackson made explosion noises near the other side of the bench. Then she moved, and Ray had the weird thought that she looked like one of those marionettes, the long-limbed ones with the strings that you sometimes saw street performers using. "He likes it. He likes macaroni," Dani said. Her voice was hoarse.

So Ray took them around to the diner and bought them food, and Jackson got to color on his placemat with a little set of crayons the waitress brought him and said he could take home with him. Even Dani choked down a few bites of food, which Ray thought that was pretty good, considering, and he had the waitress pack up the leftovers real carefully so Jackson, at least, could have them tomorrow.

"It's pretty cold out, huh?" Ray turned his collar up with one hand and held the door for Dani and Jackson with the other.

She ducked out under his arm, holding Jackson by the hand, and made like she was going to walk home with him from here.

"Come on, I'll give you a lift home." Ray jerked his head toward the car. It had to be like fifteen degrees out; no way was he letting her walk that distance with Jackson, even if she did it all the time.

She shrugged and got back into the passenger seat, waiting while Ray belted Jackson in real good in the back. The kid really ought to have a booster seat, but since Ray still had the original-style seatbelts back there, he didn't have to do anything funky with them to fit Jackson in, and he'd take it real slow and easy to their apartment.

He got into the car and started her up. "You got anything warmer than that little coat, Dani? 'Cause it don't look like it's rated for below freezing, you know?" She coughed and looked out the window, shrugging her narrow shoulders. "Yeah," she said. "Sure I do."

Right. He looked over at her, checked out the jacket a little closer. It had quilting stitches on it, but it was thin like there was no insulating stuff in it, not puffy. There was nothing puffy about it. That damn thing she was wearing wouldn't have kept her warm on a typical April day at Wrigley Field. Not that she and Jackson probably ever got anywhere near to going to an actual baseball game.

"It ain't the cold," she said.

"I know," he said, "but I can't help you with that."

"Maybe it's not what you think," she said.

"Why're you jonesing?" he asked. "You trying to stay clean?"

"Yeah," she said, nodding hard, not sarcastic at all. Not even lying, he thought, but he knew if somebody held a couple of rocks in front of her, there was no way she was going to hold back from grabbing them. Her hands were shaking as she rubbed them together. "You got a smoke?"

"Nah, I quit years ago. But...okay. That's easy enough." He took her to a drugstore and bought her a carton of cigarettes and some other little stuff she needed, and a big jug of milk for Jackson, and cookies that Jackson picked out, chocolate and covered with multicolored sprinkles. Ray sneaked a cool-looking Matchbox car--not a GTO, a Mustang, but cool enough, and black--onto the checkout counter with the other stuff, and gestured to the clerk to put it in the bag when Dani and the kid weren't looking.

He stowed the bags out of sight in the car, and they walked down two blocks to a thrift store he knew wasn't too bad. He'd have preferred to drive them in this cold, but the couple of blocks gave her a chance to finish most of a cigarette without getting the smoke all over Jackson--or the GTO, for that matter.

They found a decent coat for her for only twenty bucks; it had real goose down insulation. Well, maybe it was duck, but that would do for Chicago, this not being the Arctic, and all. It was nice and puffy, anyway, and it was dark blue and had fake fur around the hood. He told Dani she looked cute in it, which she sort of did, if you squinted, and ignored that hollow look about her face. She'd need to gain about thirty pounds before she got to "cute," but Ray didn't mention that. They found a better coat for Jackson, too, bright green, which he liked.

Then they headed back down to the car.

"I'll pay you back," Dani said, holding tight to Jackson by the wrist as he strained to run ahead.

"Nah," Ray said, waving a careless hand. "Merry Christmas."

"It's February."

"I'm late. I suck at holidays. Sorry."

"You think I'm some kind of charity case."

"Nope," Ray said. "I'm trying to ply you with gifts so you'll let me be the kid's trainer when he grows up. Gonna be a hell of a boxer and make us all rich."

"B-ah!" Jackson said as weaseled his wrist out of Dani's grasp and tried to give her the slip.

She was used to it, apparently. She snagged him by the hood of his new coat. "You want some of them cookies tonight, you better mind your mama," she said, her voice hoarse in the cold.

She looked back at Ray. "You're lying like a rug. He ain't gonna be nothing if he never learns to talk."

"You had him to a doctor?" he asked.

She looked at him like he was nuts--or like he just came down from Mars and said something totally clueless. Which apparently he did.

"He'll go to school next year," she said.

And, okay, yeah. School might help. "He's a smart kid," Ray said. "He'll probably grow out of it, huh?"

He pulled the car into a spot a couple blocks from her place. Dani didn't want anybody she knew seeing her and Jackson pulling up in a shiny black car and getting out with shopping bags, even though the bags only held their old coats, the leftovers from the diner, and the stuff from the drugstore.

"Bye," she said to Ray, not meeting his eyes. "Thanks...for what you done."

"Did it for the champ, here," Ray said. "No big deal."

He scoped the street out quick from force of habit--no sign of trouble--and helped Jackson out of the car, squatting down to his level. "Let me see your moves, champ." Ray held up his palm for Jackson to punch his little fists into. "Right, left, right."

And boom-boom-boom, the kid was pretty coordinated for a three-year-old, Ray thought, though he didn't know much about child development and didn't really remember much about being three himself.

"See," Jackson said, real clear, pointing an expressive finger at Ray.

Ray grinned. "Hey, that's pretty good. I read you loud and clear. What do you want to see, buddy?"

"Buh-d," Jackson said. His brown eyes were very serious.

"Oh, you want to see my badge?"

"Mmm!" Big happy nod. "Buh-d."

Ray pulled it out and showed him, keeping the badge cupped in his hand so it wouldn't reflect too much. It wouldn't do Dani any favors to make it obvious she was hanging with a cop.

"Pee," Jackson said. "Peace."

"Yeah, police. You got it, champ." Ray kept his voice down. "You be good for your mom, and I'll see you around the gym, okay?"

"Kay," Jackson said, and he let Dani take his wrist and tug him towards home. He turned back once and tried to wave with his free hand, but he couldn't quite get it around the shopping bag Dani was carrying.

Ray waved back anyway. Kids, he thought. Nothing fazed them.

Fraser leaned close as they made it down the creaky stairs for what Ray hoped was the last time. "Ray, are you going to--?"

"Yeah, I am," Ray said. "For Jackson."

"Right you are," Fraser said, and that, Ray knew, meant both "Good for you" and "I'm going to help."

"You're going to help," Ray said aloud, wonderingly, not really making it a question.

"Of course," said Fraser.

Because they were a duet.

Ray stopped at the curb. He unlocked the passenger door and pulled it open for Fraser, and only then did he actually look up and meet his eyes--God, so blue and steady and fucking gorgeous. Ray swallowed kind of hard. "Thanks, Frase."

"Any time, Ray."

Ray couldn't help grinning as he got in the driver's seat and peeled away from the curb. They headed downtown to make arrangements, figuring they'd knock that off the list before looking in on the little guy.

The City was happy to release Danitra's remains for private burial. Ray signed papers to have her sent to a funeral home. Any one was good with him except for the one where he'd seen Fraser laid out from Bouga Toad juice. Fraser found a quiet little place close to Dani's neighborhood, so they arranged to do a memorial and burial on Wednesday. Ray figured he could drop by her apartment one more time and let the roommates know the time and date. If they wanted to show, they could; Fraser and Ray would be there for sure.

Ray phoned Levon's aunt and left a message for Levon, too. He hadn't seen him in eight months, but Levon was a decent guy, and Ray figured he'd show if he could.

"Make sure you tell him it's for Jackson's mom, okay?" Ray said to Mrs. Jefferson. "Please make sure."

"All right, son. Don't you worry. I'll do that."

"Yes, ma'am. Thank you, ma'am."

He shoved the phone in his pocket and sighed. One more visit to make. "You tired?" he asked Fraser.

"Not appreciably," Fraser said, all chipper like he usually was, no matter what time of day or whether he'd slept at all, or whether he'd only had 30-second naps while walking down the stairs.

"Good," Ray said. "'Cause I called Social Services and got us permission to visit Jackson."

"That's wonderful, Ray." Fraser looked sincerely happy about that.

"You think?" Ray was grinning in spite of himself.

"I do," Fraser said. "If I may make an observation, Ray...?"

"Sure."

"You're taking a great deal of interest in this case."

"Yeah, well. I feel for the little guy. Always have."

"Is there any special reason?" Fraser scratched at his eyebrow. "What I mean is, why Jackson as opposed to the many other children in unfortunate circumstances that you come across in the course of your police work?"

"Other than, he ain't got no one and his mom just died, and even while he was alive his life wasn't that great?"

"Well, there are thousands of other children in similar circumstances all over Chicago," Fraser said. "Some of whom you have also interacted with."

"Scatterlings and orphanages," Ray said. "You're right." Maybe Fraser wouldn't notice Ray hadn't answered the question.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Ah, nothing. Just, yeah, I know there's plenty of crackheads' kids and orphans and...I know. And I can't do nothing about most of it. But I know this kid. And here's one little thing I can do."

"Bury his mother and comfort the bereaved?"

Ray shrugged. "It sucks, but it's something I can do."

"I think it's a worthy and selfless act, Ray."

Ray glanced at him: Fraser was looking at him with that open, sincere, beautiful look. How was it there were not angels and seraphims and cherubs and stuff painted and carved in St. Stanislaus' with that face? Maybe there were, and Ray had just never been able to look high enough to see them.

He smiled at him just to see Fraser's eyes crinkle up as he smiled back. "You're proud of me, huh?"

"Very," Fraser said.

"Didn't think I'd do something like this?"

"On the contrary, Ray. I've seen your heroism in the line of duty. You've put your life on the line every day as a policeman for eighteen years, and many, many times for me personally, or alongside me in the pursuit of Justice." He said it just like that, with a capital J. "This is simply a good deed, by comparison."

"That's me," Ray said, laughing. "I am all about the good deeds, Fraser." Which was so not true it made Ray laugh, but it felt good to laugh.

"I think you are," Fraser said, obviously hearing it the way Ray intended, as a joke, and disagreeing. "So no, it doesn't surprise me."

Ray shot him a smile, but only for half a second; he had to keep his eye on the road. They'd driven out of the Loop and gone south, through the South Side and back out, to a modest, working-class neighborhood with three-story houses in a lot better condition than the one Dani and Jackson had lived in. It was still modest, but way better taken care of. Families lived here, and fifteen-year-old crack dealers did not do business out in broad daylight on street corners.

The dealers were here, of course, it wasn't like Ray didn't know they were everywhere. But they weren't out in the open selling the stuff that got hold of Jackson's mother and wouldn't let go till her heart gave out.

Anyway, it was nice to look around the cheap, decent little neighborhood and not see probable cause for arrest playing out on every street corner.

They pulled in to a little yellow house with a double-size driveway. Room for a lot of cars. Which meant that this was not the kind of foster home where a kid stayed for long.

Ray shook his shoulders out and got out of the car. He wasn't going to make it very far if he couldn't even stand to look at the damn driveway.

The foster mom or caregiver or whatever must've seen them pull up, because the front door slammed open the moment Ray and Fraser got the car doors closed, and a mini cyclone whammed into Ray at thigh level. "R-eh!"

Ray brushed his hand over the soft reddish-brown curls. "Hey! Hey, there, Jackson."

"He's been looking forward to your visit ever since you phoned," a soft voice said. Ray looked up to see a woman standing there, smiling. She was on the high side of middle age, maybe even older than that, but her hair was still black everywhere, so it was kind of hard for Ray to tell. She had soft features and that ageless sort of look a lot of older black women had. She looked like a real nice lady, like a lady who cared, who could care a lot about a nobody kid from the crack-ridden streets who needed somebody.

She was neatly dressed in slacks and a sweater, the picture of calm and stability and all the things Jackson never had. She looked like a person who had time for a kid. Time to read stories and take a kid to the park...and Ray found himself hoping real hard that this was the person who would take Jackson in.

Next to Ray, Fraser cleared his throat, and Ray realized he was staring like an idiot. "Easy there, guy," he said to Jackson, untangling the kid from around his waist long enough to straighten up and stick out his hand.

"Yeah, I'm Ray--"

"--Detective Kowalski, yes, they sent your picture to my office," she said, shaking his hand firmly, professionally. "I'm Martha George. Jackson's caseworker."

Oh.

"Not his foster mom, huh?" Ray said stupidly, tossing that fantasy aside.

"I'm afraid not. He's a darling child, but I've already raised one family, and I have a daughter and three grandchildren living with me now."

"Oh. Uh. That's nice. Uh, I mean that you got grandkids." God, he sounded so stupid.

She laughed softly, but kindly, in a way that said she didn't think he sounded stupid at all. "I think I'm very lucky."

Ray thought she was, too, but he felt a little tongue-tied, because he wanted to ask what was going to happen to Jackson, and at the same time, he didn't think he wanted to hear the answer.

But she turned smoothly to his partner, thank God. "You must be Corporal Fraser," she said, offering her hand to Fraser. "I'm told you're Canadian."

"Yes, Ma'am." Fraser started into his whole "I first came to Chicago" speech, which usually annoyed Ray when he did it any more, because why the hell was it important how Fraser first came to Chicago and why he was still here, which he wasn't going to explain at this juncture, anyway? But at the moment, Ray was actually grateful for the whole spiel, because it gave him time to squat down to Jackson's height and ruffle his curls.

"R-eh!" Jackson said, whacking Ray in the thigh.

"Whoa! Hell of a right you got there. So, yeah, it's me, again," Ray said. "You probably thought I got lost up in Canada in all that snow, huh?"

"Snuh?" Jackson said, looking up at the sky. It was gray and overcast, no surprise for mid-November, but it wasn't near cold enough to snow yet.

"Yeah, that kind of snow, right, only in Canada, way up that way, up by the North Pole."

"A-ta?" Jackson said.

"You got it, up near Santa." Ray smiled. "Hey, it's gonna be Christmas in another month. You waiting for Santa?"

Jackson gave him a blank look. "M-uh," he said.

Oh, shit.

Ray blew out a big sigh. "Hey. Santa will still come," he said.

Jackson squinted up at him like he didn't believe it. Obviously Santa was available only if Dani was. Or maybe Jackson wanted Santa to bring Dani back. And he couldn't tell the nice caseworker lady that, or whoever was taking care of him. He couldn't tell anybody anything, damn it. Even Ray only vaguely understood what Jackson was trying to get across, and when he thought about it, Ray realized he'd only ever seen the kid a handful of times, ever. Like a dozen? Maybe a few more, but only a dozen or so times with real conversations, if you could even call the exchanges he had with Jackson "conversations."

"Santa will come," Ray said. "I know Santa. See my buddy there? He's from way up north in Canada, which is close to the North Pole where Santa's workshop is. If Santa don't come down here and bring you something good, my buddy will go track Santa down with his dogsled and give him a ticket."

"Kay," Jackson said, looking at Ray with eyes that said he wanted to believe him, but he'd wait for the evidence.

Ray rubbed his eyes. Time for a distraction, he figured. Fraser was still talking to Mrs. George, asking questions about Jackson's foster care and listening carefully to the answers. Ray knew he'd get the whole story out of Fraser later.

He put up his palms. "Show me your moves, champ, one, two, three."

Jackson did it just like Ray'd showed him, boom-boom-boom, only even faster than he did last year, and that last boom kind of smarted, even, cramping up Ray's hand a little.

"Hey, whoa, you got me good." He stood up, stretching his legs and pulling his glove off to rub the cramp out of his hand. "I think you're ready for the next lesson, champ. And that is, you got to stay light on your feet and keep moving so they can't get you, you hear me?"

"Yeh," Jackson said, tilting up on his toes a little to show he understood.

"You got it. I'll bring you a jump rope next time you and me box," Ray said. He pantomimed covering up with his left and jabbing with his right, and Jackson laughed.

Ray saw a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye, red--yeah, it was Fraser, his big hat clutched in one hand and rubbing his eyebrow furiously with the other one. He looked like he was trying to swallow a stupid, totally charming grin, and his eyes were soft. What the fuck? Ray thought.

Fraser actually blushed and glanced away.

Ray turned back to Jackson. "So you like your new crib? They treating you good here?"

Jackson still had a half smile on his face, but he didn't respond to the question, he seemed to just ignore it, like it had no relevance. Ray couldn't figure out if the kid even had a clue what Ray was asking him...or if he didn't know what the answer was. What was "being treated good" if you had grown up like Jackson did?

Mrs. George cleared her throat. "Could I speak to you for a moment, Detective Kowalski?"

"Sure. Fraser?" Ray nodded toward Jackson.

"I'd be delighted," Fraser said, and came over and crouched down to introduce himself.

"A-ta?" Jackson said.

"I told him you know where Santa lives," Ray said.

"Oh, I see. Well, that's actually a mis--"

"Do not. Do not confuse the champ there with your magnetic north cra--uh, stuff, okay? Just you know, elves and workshop and the whole deal. Reindeer. You can tell him about the reindeer."

"Understood."

Fraser turned back to Jackson as seriously as if he was briefing a security detail on the Canadian Prime Minister's visit. "We call them caribou up in Canada," he started in.

Mrs. George led Ray a down the driveway a bit, out of Jackson's earshot.

"This is only a temporary situation for Jackson," she said. "I think he realizes he won't be staying here."

"He's a smart kid."

"Yes, he is."

"Is somebody going to see him about the...the speaking thing?"

"Oh, yes, he'll be evaluated by a speech pathologist as soon as we can get him an appointment. A doctor's seen him already and didn't find anything really wrong with him. His hearing seems good."

"Good, that's...good," Ray said. "He always seems to understand me fine...except just now. That was...new, that total no-comprendo."

"It's probably a sign that he understands more than we realize," she said with a sigh.

"He hasn't figured out about Dani," Ray said. "Uh, at least, he keeps asking for her."

She sighed again. "Since he can't ask in a specific way, no one quite knows what to tell him."

"He's gonna think she abandoned him," Ray said.

"He might feel that way in any case."

"Yeah. Yeah, I get that."

"So are you going to find him something good?" Ray asked. "A family, someone to adopt him?"

She gave him a pitying look, a look that twisted Ray's guy all over again. "He...he might be quite difficult to place."

Ray swallowed. "Why? He's a sweet kid. So smart, so..."

"Frankly, Detective, he's got several strikes against him from an adoption standpoint. Adoptive parents have to go through a lot of work and expense to get a child. They're looking for perfect children if they can possibly find them. And they often can, in other countries if not in the US."

"Perfect, what do you mean? He is perfect. He's beautiful, he's smart, he's real good with his hands, you should see him put together stuff, with the blocks and the..." he gestured.

"I've seen that, yes. He's very good with Legos. But...Detective..."

"Ray," he said.

"Ray, then. He's the son of a mother known to have been severely addicted to crack, which is believed to cause birth defects. Prospective parents would suspect problems even if he showed no symptoms. But his speech problem is serious; he doesn't speak well for a two-year-old, let alone a child of his age. That's a red flag in a child from...his situation. It may only be the tip of the iceberg. There could be learning disabilities, maybe even some retardation. He may need special help with education or living skills. We don't know. He's four-and-a-half, which is fairly old for adoption, considering most people are looking for infants or at least younger babies."

She sighed deeply. "And on top of all of that, he's biracial."

"He's beautiful," Ray countered. "He's a super kid. Why should people care what color his parents were?"

"I don't know. I'm with you on that point, but the sad fact is that people do care. To a black family, he'll look white. To a white family, he'll look black."

"That's stupid. He's just a kid. He ain't black, he ain't white, he's just him."

"I agree," she said, her eyes searching his. Her eyes were soft and sad and open. "But I'm giving you the facts as I understand them."

"What, you mean you don't let people adopt unless they look a lot alike?"

"Oh, no," she said. "Well, there've been arguments along those lines in various places, but when you investigate them they turn out to be highly politicized and not very concerned with the needs of individual children.

"When it comes down to it, we have a child who's in need of a home. We're not going to worry too much about what color the parents are. Of course, we'll only allow him to go to parents--or even one parent--of good character who can afford to support him. Finding a mixed-race couple would be, well, it'd be like finding a needle in a haystack. There are a lot of them around, but only a tiny, tiny percentage are looking to adopt, and virtually all of them will be requesting a newborn."

"Yeah, yeah, I get that. People want a fresh start with a kid. They want to be the influence from Day One. They don't want to deal with a kid who came from a tough life before." He scratched his neck. "Which, mostly, it was just being poor that was the problem. Being poor and not having family, except for his mom, and she couldn't do it all by herself."

"That's very perceptive of you, Ray."

"I'm a perceptive kind of guy," Ray said. "Sometimes. Sometimes I miss what's right in front of my face." He sighed.

"Don't sell yourself short, Detective. I assume there's a reason they let you wear the shiny gold badge."

"Yeah, sometimes I wonder."

"I think you made a difference for Jackson and his mother," she said.

"Nah, not me. Until Sunday night, I hadn't even seen the little guy in months. I--I was away. In Canada, and then...well, it doesn't need exploring at this juncture."

"I've seen your record," she said. "What's public, anyway."

"Jeez." He blushed a little.

"And I think you probably did more for Jackson than most people ever have."

"How could you know that?"

"Evidence, Detective. Jackson said more words to you in two minutes than he's said to all the rest of us in the past thirty-six hours."

He looked up, surprised. "Really?"

"Really. And you're the only one who's understood most of what he said."

"You just got to get to know him," Ray said. "He gets his point across great without a lot of words. He'd make someone a great son."

"I think so, too." She sighed. "But there's really no magic wand I can wave that will bring a couple along who wants a child of his age and background. So he'll be hard to place."

"And if he doesn't get placed?"

"He may have to remain a ward of the courts and live in a group home situation with counselors and..."

"But no parents. No actual family. Nobody who loves him so much they'd...put him first. He'll be a client, but he won't be anybody's son. If he does make it through school, who'll show up for graduation?"

She looked startled. "Well...that's putting the cart far ahead of the horse, but...essentially you're right. He won't have a family in the usual sense."

"Or in any sense."

"Yes." She looked away. "Would you be surprised if I told you that a very large percentage of those you arrest and send to jail came from foster care themselves?"

"No. Actually, no. We know a lot of criminals came from fu--uh, messed-up families, bad situations. It's just, by the time they get in the system, most of them have gone too far, done too much wrong to be rehabilitated. It's too late for a lot of them."

"The social safety nets we have in place for children at risk like Jackson are just not adequate," she said. "Too many children slip through the holes. If we don't have stable adoptive families willing and able to take them in, we're limited in what we can do for them."

"It's wrong," Ray said. "It's wrong to hang a kid out to dry like that when he ain't done nothing. A kid should have a family. Especially him. If any kid should have a family it's him."

Ray didn't know why he added that, he didn't know why he even thought it, because of course there were tons of other kids, even right here in Chicago, who needed somebody. Still, it made a weird kind of sense to him when he said it.

Her eyes were sympathetic...and knowing. Like she'd been there, gotten personally involved with cases even though she knew it was asking for pain. "I assume the police department has tried to track down his mother's relatives?"

"Yeah." Ray frowned. "I got somebody on it, back at the station, but..." And he did, he had Frannie working on it when she had a free minute here and there, but so far it didn't look good. "Since it was an accidental death and there's no actual crime with respect to Jackson, it's, um. On the back burner, you know. Way back."

"Yes," she said. "I know. Though you do realize that even if you do find a relative, they're not obligated to take him in, and they might not want to."

"Yeah," Ray said. "Yeah, I realize."

And Fraser was suddenly there next to Ray, damn it. He'd heard it. He'd heard what Mrs. George said.

"In that case, it might be better for all concerned if they were not found," Fraser said.

That was a weird thing for Mr. Dot the Is and Cross the Ts to say. But Ray got it. "Well, we'll look for them, anyway."

"You don't think you might..." Mrs. George held up a hand. "Sorry, I--I shouldn't."

"No, it's okay. Say it."

"Are you married, Ray?"

He shot Fraser a glance, then looked back at her, shaking his head. "Divorced," he admitted. "She, uh. She didn't want kids."

"Oh. Then you did."

"Yeah." He smiled, feeling pink. "Yeah, okay, so maybe that's another reason why I'm all worked up about this case. I wanted kids and I can't get them. Jackson needs parents and he can't have them. Yeah. It doesn't take Dr. Freud to figure it out."

"I see," she said. "In situations like this one, single-parent adoptions have a pretty good chance, but of course, in your line of work..."

"Right. It's dangerous. Plus there's plenty of times I'm out all night on a case, or I'm on call, so I gotta light out of there at a moment's notice."

"I understand. It would be too hard to manage without a spouse," she said. "Although I'm sure there are policemen who find themselves thrust into such a situation without choosing it, but I imagine they usually have someone to share custody, not to mention other family, a support network."

"Or they quit and find another line of work," Ray said.

She sighed. "But you're right: it's a hard risk to ask a child to take when you have a choice in the matter. I'm sorry to have pried."

"Nah, it's okay. If I was you I'd have asked me the same thing. Seeing as I'm the only one who--"

"Well, we'll certainly hope someone comes along who might, also," she said smoothly. "Occasionally we get lucky."

Ray looked over to see Jackson sitting on the lawn, holding Fraser's Stetson and turning it around and around by the brim, looking at it seriously, like maybe he could figure out how it was put together. The kid had such an active mind. Who was going to see that he got the opportunity to develop it? Some counselors in a group home or a series of foster families? Listening to him, would they think he was stupid and treat him that way?

Jackson finished examining the hat and picked it up and set it on his head. It covered his eyes completely, which he obviously found hilarious. He got up and stuck his hands out like he was blindfolded, and made his way over to Ray in a pretty straight line. The kid would rock at Pin the Tail on the Donkey.

Jackson's laughter got the adults laughing along with him. Even Ray, who hadn't felt like laughing in what seemed like a real long time.

"Hey, Frase," Ray said, elbowing him for emphasis. "I'm gonna have my nose all out of joint now. Who's your partner?"

"You are, Ray."

"Well, you're letting some other guy wear The Hat."

"I'm afraid he coerced it out of me," Fraser said, hanging his head. "He's very persuasive."

"I can fix his wagon," Ray said, and flicked the hat off Jackson's head, laughing. "I got it now, champ. You can't catch me!" He broke into a run, just fast enough to get Jackson running after him, and Fraser joined in, and when Mrs. George finally called a reluctant halt to the chaos by announcing that it was Jackson's bedtime, the three of them were tumbled down in the grass, laughing their sides off.

When Ray finally caught his breath, he noticed three things: the Stetson had grass stains, Jackson had the hiccups, and Ray felt lighter than he had in a long time, maybe since the moment he got hauled up out of that crevasse.

He was back in the crevasse, sliding down, head over heels over head, aiming for the center of the Earth. It probably was bottomless, like Fraser said. Or Ray'd fall through to Antarctica and the momentum would carry him on out into space, head over heels in the black nothingness, forever and ever, amen. Tip, slide, tumble on down, nothing to break his fall.

Except two strong arms, and a calm steady look in blue eyes: Fraser. How the hell did Fraser keep his cool every single time he stared death in the face? How did Fraser manage to help Ray keep his cool? Because if there was one thing Ray did well it was freak out. It was one of Ray's freakouts that got them in the crevasse in the first place, though from what Fraser said, it probably would have happened anyway, sooner or later.

Ray was calm, too, even though they were going to die, or maybe because of it, because the only possible rescue would be a miracle, and he was going to die here with Fraser in the middle of a case, trying to save the world. Which, if Ray's number really was up, that wasn't a bad way to go.

So they sang. Fraser sang the Franklin song and Ray hummed and yipped along, and he really was calm, because this was just dying, he'd been in that spot before...or maybe it was hypothermia. It wasn't like Ray didn't care, but more like he knew he couldn't do anything to change the outcome. If Fraser said they were goners, they were, and there was no use whining about it.

Anyway, Fraser usually pulled a miracle out of his Stetson at the last minute, even if the Stetson was a couple hundred feet up on the mountain with the rest of their stuff.

And Fraser did. Turned out it was one of Fraser's freaky Trapper Joes come to life who got them out, and whaddya know, Fraser really did know guys like that, like Delmar, with a beard down to his beltline and the strength of a polar bear. He didn't have a lot of marbles, but he had a heart the size of the Yukon, sturdy ice screws, and a hell of a lot of good rope, and that was all it took. He hauled them up through 200 feet of ice and pulled them free, laid them out gasping like fish on the surface of the mountain.

So the Ray-and-Fraser story wasn't over after all. In fact, when they came up out of the crevasse, it was kind of just beginning.

Fraser's hand. Fraser's hand moved. Oh. Right. They were still in the car. The parked car, parked at Ray's place, and he hadn't driven Fraser home first, which God knew what Fraser thought of that, whether he thought Ray would ask him to walk the fifty-eight blocks home, or something.

And Ray was just about to say, "I'm sorry, I thought you could come up for a cup of coffee and we could go over the kid-crack-dealer case," when Fraser moved. He only moved like a fraction of an inch, but it was enough to bring Ray's brain back on line. He closed his mouth and shook out his neck and shoulders.

Fraser had apparently been fidgeting with his hat while Ray sat thinking, and now he stilled his hands, moving the left one down next to him on the seat and just resting it there. Almost like...it was weird, it had to be one of Ray's hallucinations again, but for a moment he expected Fraser to keep moving that hand till it was on Ray's leg.

Ray had to be unhinged. But, yeah, he could see what his wacked-out brain was getting at. Fraser wanted to offer a...a gesture. Of comfort and understanding. Like when Ray had felt that urge to hug Fraser in Dani's apartment and had maybe even started to move, but then stopped himself, because it wouldn't have looked right in front of other people.

Fraser apparently didn't have to use any self-control to stop himself from doing something similar here, because he wasn't inclined to do it in the first place. Fraser putting his hand on Ray's leg, even in the privacy of the car, would have sent the wrong signals, would have given Ray false hope, so Fraser didn't do it.

Ray was pretty sure of that. If Fraser had wanted to signal interest in Ray, he could have done it any time in the last two-and-a-half years, and he hadn't. Ray'd given him plenty of openings, plenty of hints. True, he hadn't come out and beat him over the head with it, but he'd sent plenty of vibes, vibes that even a Canadian could understand. Fraser was a savvy guy and the best detective Ray had ever worked with. There was no way Fraser could have missed Ray's Fraser-wanting vibes.

Ray had even told him he wasn't a prude and that he'd try anything. Ray had given him a huge opening after the buddy-breathing incident, asking whether anything had changed between them that could put a different spin on the way Fraser chose to save his life, but it turned out, unfortunately, that to Fraser it was just a life-saving technique, nothing more. Ray had held onto Fraser's hand way too long a half-dozen times, looked him in the eye the way straight guys just did not do. Tugged him into bathroom stalls for whispered conferences. Climbed over him in the car and once in a tiny submarine and lots of times in a sleeping bag. Hell, Ray had snuggled up to him in his sleeping bag almost every night on the quest, until it got warm enough to quit doing that, and even so, he maybe pretended a few times that he was colder than he really was, just to make the snuggling-up part last longer.

And Ray had told him he loved him. Although maybe that last one wasn't always as clear as it could've been, because when there were other people around, Ray always qualified it with words that made it sound brotherly or platonic-friend-like. He wasn't stupid enough to say stuff like that out loud in the police station. If he was going to do that, he might as well stand on his desk and just announce his queerness and get it over with.

But he'd been clear about it with Fraser at other times, and Fraser had always answered, "And I, you, Ray," and smiled at him happily from behind that buttoned-up Mountie reserve.

So Ray figured that was all Fraser could give.

And if that was all Ray could have, it was enough. He had his right hand and his imagination for the rest, and he had Fraser in his life in pretty much every other way, and there was nobody else on planet Earth who had that. He didn't even envy Ray Vecchio for Stella, that was how much Ray valued having Fraser's presence in his life.

Maybe Ray could have fatherhood, too, after all. He'd once wanted a wife and kids and had finally accepted he wasn't going to have that old dream. Well, maybe he could have a close adult relationship and parenthood, too, as long as he was open to having both of them come to him in ways he hadn't anticipated.

Fraser's hand had gone perfectly still. Ray sighed. The silence was probably getting too weird. Ray wondered if that might mean something.

"You don't think I could hack it, do you?" Ray was fishing and he knew it, giving Fraser an opening to lay a dose of cold reality on him if he needed it. He didn't look at Fraser.

"I didn't say that."

"Well, do you think I could?"

Fraser's hand moved then, right up to his eyebrow to scratch at it. "Ray, if this is something you really want to do, I'm sure you can." He cleared his throat. "I hope you'll consider very carefully first to make sure you're not choosing this course of action out of a sense of guilt."

"Who, me? No. No, that wouldn't work."

"I know that, Ray, having been the recipient of care delivered by guilt-ridden caregivers."

Ray looked up quick to check out Fraser's expression, but it was calm, like he wanted Ray to think he had gotten used to that guilty-caregiver thing so long ago that it wasn't anything to him now but an old memory.

Except the thing was, Ray'd seen Fraser during the Muldoon case. He'd seen him on the quest, so soon after. He'd seen him lying in his sleeping bag with tears freezing in their tracks down his face.

He knew it wasn't just an old memory. It was a thing that still had an effect on him, that maybe dictated some of the ways Fraser was, some of the weird shit the guy came up with.

"Look, Fraser. You're right I feel bad about what happened to Jackson, but Dani made her own choices, and there's nothing anybody could have done to talk her out of them. I've thought about this. The only thing I could've done would have been to track her down when she was using, bust her for child endangerment, and get the kid taken away from his mother sooner.

"Maybe he had a crappy life with her, but maybe not. You saw the kid. He ain't been starved and he ain't been abused. I never saw any evidence she ever hurt him or I would've been on her like that." He snapped his fingers to emphasize how quick. "And...she was his mother. His only mother."

Fraser cleared his throat. "That's exactly what I was going to say."

"Well, I get all that," Ray said. "I want Jackson for me. I want him to be my kid."

"That's the only reason that will work," Fraser said. And that funny look was back in his eyes, that shiny look.

And that made Ray want to hug him yet again--no surprise. Instead he knocked Fraser on the shoulder with his knuckles and said, "Thanks, buddy," and sighed. And then he mentioned the cup of coffee and figuring out how to stake out the fifteen-year-old crack-dealing entrepreneur, and the world tilted back up more to normal.

One day at a time, he told himself, and he and his partner got back to work.

When they got in to the station, Frannie snagged Ray before he got halfway around her desk. "I found them," she said.

"Found who?" he yawned, trying to cover his mouth and talk at the same time, which he didn't have a lot of success at that.

"Jackson Brown's maternal grandparents."

Ray's heart sank. "Oh, God, they want him."

She got a strange look on her face. "Well, no, Ray, I found them in the county records. They're both deceased."

Jesus. "How long ago?"

"Sixteen years," she said. "A car accident. Danitra was just ten years old."

"What...where did she live after that?"

"Most of that information's locked up in private files, but I found a caseworker still on the staff at Social Services who remembers her, a Mr...." she snagged a slip of paper off her desk and consulted it. "Greg Parsons. He says she was shuttled back and forth, from one relative to another, because none of them really seemed to want her, and then finally she was placed in foster care, and she pretty much got shuffled around by them, too. She was a good kid, apparently, not a troublemaker, but she was way too old and too..."

"Black," Ray said. "She was too old and too black to get adopted; where've I heard that before?" He sighed hard.

"You're probably right," Frannie said, frowning. "And she had this learning thing, she needed extra help in school, and they couldn't seem to find the right person to do it, and she just..." she trailed off helplessly.

"She fell through the cracks," Ray said.

"I guess. Actually, she got moved from one foster home to another, maybe four different ones. Until she was fourteen and gave somebody the slit--"

Ray choked. "Slip, Frannie. She gave them the slip. Don't get that one wrong, please."

"Slip, slice, slack, whatever. The point is, she ran away at age fourteen and was never tracked down and..."

"Recaptured, yeah."

"Well it wasn't jail," Frannie said.

"Tell me that after you've seen more of these unwanted kids," Ray said. He thanked her and went on over to rescue his messy desk from Fraser's obsessive paper-arranging. But his heart wasn't in it, and he let Fraser throw away a year's worth of his takeout-menu collection without a protest. All he could think about was adopting Jackson.

He had no idea in hell how he was going to make it happen. He only knew he had to do it.

Jackson's eyes lit up when he saw the jump rope. Ray tried to show him how to skip it, but that was a total failure, and pretty funny, too, because Ray's legs were longer than Jackson's whole body, just about, and the rope was Jackson's size. Ray was down for the count more than once.

So everybody had a good laugh at Ray's expense--Ray, too, he couldn't get the least bit yanked about his bruised hip or anything, because Jackson was laughing, he was laughing full out like he was happy, and that did things to Ray, it made him feel like he was going to just explode inside, and when he looked up at Fraser and saw that look on his face yet again, he was sure, this time, that he was giving it right back.

When he got his wind back, Ray went back to the car and dug around in the trunk and found his own jump rope, and then he showed Jackson the right way to do it.

But apparently jumping rope like a boxer was still the wrong way, at least to a girl, because Miss Lila stood there laughing and said she never understood why men turned something that was supposed to be fun into a way to practically kill themselves, and pointed out how men just didn't have the rhythm.

So Ray dropped the rope and asked her if he could have this dance. She looked startled, but she said okay. So, right there on the driveway, he hummed the music and took her through eight bars each of a waltz, a rhumba, and a foxtrot, till she practically collapsed laughing and admitted that, okay, Ray had plenty of rhythm.

And when he turned back to see what the other guys were doing, he saw that Fraser had set his hat on the car and was jumping rope with Jackson. Fraser was using Ray's jump rope and Jackson was using his, and Jackson was jumping rope almost perfectly, like he already knew how.

Ray let out a low whistle. "Will you look at that?"

"Wow," Lila said. "He couldn't do anything like that before."

"I know," Ray said. "I used to have him try at the gym, but he really couldn't. I chalked it up to that he was only three, and the ropes were all too long, anyway. I mean, I shortened them up, but..."

"He's really very coordinated," she said. "It wasn't that. I suspect...well, there's no way to know, really, but I suspect his mama didn't let him be very active. I don't think he was allowed out all that much. He's outside every chance he gets. Runs me ragged."

Ray shrugged. "Active kid. I was just like that. And, uh, yeah, I ran my mother ragged." He knew his grin was kind of sheepish.

She smiled back at him, then sobered. "There's something else," she said. "He doesn't cry out loud."

"What do you mean, you mean because of his mom?" He wasn't going to say it, not with Jackson possibly in earshot.

"No, I mean when he does cry, or complain about something, or...he doesn't make a sound. And there's nothing wrong with his vocal cords, as you can hear."

Ray could; Jackson and Fraser were laughing and chortling and guffawing all over the place, especially when Fraser accidentally on purpose tripped on his jump rope and did a pratfall (imitating Ray's not-on-purpose one, and Ray'd have to have a word with him later about the mocking-Ray stuff, only later).

"It's like somebody used to shush him. Like he got conditioned to having to be really quiet, all the time."

"Whoa," Ray said. "You think that's why he's not really speaking?"

"I really don't know enough about it. I've studied some child psychology, but I'm no expert. Still I can't help wondering."

No shit. She'd got Ray wondering, too.

Lila wiped her palms on her pants legs. "I guess there's no real way to know what his past was like. He'll probably never be able to tell us even if he does remember some of it."

Ray held up a hand. "Wait a second. We don't gotta ask him. There's other people we can ask. She had three roommates."

Lila looked surprised. "I hadn't heard."

"Well, we didn't want it in the papers because of an ongoing investigation into...some other stuff, and lucky for us, the papers apparently didn't think a poor black female with a crack habit deserved an inch in the obits."

"She didn't have relatives?"

"None that cared," Ray said. "She was in the foster system after a whole bunch of different relatives, one after the other, turned her out."

"It's not perfect," she said.

He patted her hand. He figured she'd be okay with that, since she'd let him dance with her.

She looked up and smiled.

"It don't have to be perfect," he said. "It just has to be enough."

She nodded. "I know. We, my husband and I are, the first line of defense for some of these kids. They come through here when they're traumatized, like Jackson, or worse. Much worse, sometimes. They don't stay that long, just long enough to find them a good situation if we possibly can. If they still have parents or guardians living, someone works with them to see if they can possibly get their children back, whether it's rehab or just a helping hand that they need. And if they can't, or if there are no parents, as in Jackson's case, then we try to find them a good situation as soon as possible."

"I want to be Jackson's good situation," Ray said.

"I know. Mrs. George told me. I'm happy for you. And very happy for him. Good luck, Ray."

"Thanks."

"You're great with him, clearly a good influence. He's never so happy as when you're going to visit, and he talks. You know he talks about it now? In single syllables, mostly, but he's tried for more syllables once in a while, and I think he's getting there."

"Oh, yeah, he can. He said a whole sentence the day I read the books to him. Uh, Wednesday, the day of the funeral."

"He did? Interesting. Were you able to make out any words?"

"Well, he said `mama,' kind of. The way he does. He said `okay.' I didn't really catch the individual words, but I got the meaning. He was asking me where his mother went and when she was coming back."

She nodded. "Makes sense."

"Yeah, it's what I'd be asking."

"What did you tell him?"

"Well. I told him she loves him no matter where she is. And I told him even the grownups don't have all the answers."

"Ain't that the truth," she said.

After the rope-jumping had tired everybody out, Lila had them all come inside and she made them sandwiches (Fraser helped, of course, because Fraser always helped), and then Ray and Fraser and Dief took Jackson and Lila to the nearest park and they went on the swings and then ran around like maniacs some more.

About three o'clock, Lila said she had to be getting back, because her other kids were coming back from being out with her husband, and anyway, it was probably a good time for Jackson to nap; he got cranky by dinner time if he didn't have a nap in the afternoon.

So Ray reluctantly said goodbye and gave Jackson a bunch of hugs, and Dief licked Jackson's face, and Fraser even let Jackson hug him, sort of. Ray noticed Fraser kind of tried to hug back, real carefully, like he was afraid Jackson might break.

Ray could see he was going to have to work with Fraser on the whole hugging thing. He was good with hugging Ray when he needed it and when they weren't where anyone could see them, but he was pretty reserved with everybody else. If Ray was going to bring Jackson into the family--whatever they were, it probably was some kind of wacked-out version of a family--he was going to have to get Fraser up to speed. If Fraser wanted to be a father, he needed to learn to hug his kid.

Hell, even Ray's father could hug him once in a while, and Ray's father was certainly no ace when it came to the whole emotions deal.

They dozed off a little, and they woke, and they made love again, slower, sweeter, gentler.

Afterward, Ray dropped off again for just a little while, like ten minutes; he wasn't really tired, after all. He was stirred up, juiced. He felt like he'd felt that day when they didn't die on the mountain, but reached the summit instead.

"You think we can do it?" Ray asked him. "You think we can really do this?" He didn't mean only the two of them being lovers, domestic partners, husbands. He meant all of it: Jackson, too. He meant forever.

And he knew Fraser was right there with him on the same page, on the same line, as ever.

"I think we can," Fraser said, rock-certain belief in his voice. Like he somehow had a hotline to God and he just knew. Ray hoped so much that he was right.

"Because I want to so much," Ray said. "I want you and I want our family, Dief and Jackson. I want it all. I think...God, Fraser, I think I am asking to have it all." He shook a little in Fraser's arms.

"I know, Ray," Fraser said. "It's rather terrifying, isn't it?"

"Yeah, but...only before you fall." Ray grinned at him. "Once you give in and make the leap, you're flying."