Chapter Four

"Name and date of birth?"

"Detective Raymond Vecchio. September 20th, 1960." He used Vecchio's birthday. It was a god damned miracle he remembered it. "Where's my partner?" He glared.

"One thing at a time, Detective." Jesus, how many one-things-at-a-time did Ray have to go through until he got a straight answer? He was still on the gurney from the ambulance for chrissake. He'd finally arrived in a trauma room, from the looks of it. Giant lights loomed over the center of a large room, dwarfing a sterile white bed. A fairly comfortable looking reclining chair for visitors sat at the other side of the bed, another smaller plastic chair had been carelessly tossed next to it, and wide glass doors opened directly to the nurses' station, the curtains pulled open.

"'This a trauma room?" Ray knew he needed to keep himself talking or his guilt would overtake him, and that would lead to nothing but much more deeply bent hostility, which he was trying very hard to avoid at… at this juncture. He swallowed dryly as Fraser's often-used phrase popped into his head.

"Yep. This is a trauma room." The young woman checking the hospital bracelet that had been secured around his wrist in the ambulance smiled and looked up at him for the first time. "You think you can scootch over for me onto the bed from there? Careful with your hand and wrist." She pulled the blanket underneath him as he wiggled over on top of it, glaring. Scootching.

"Now, can you tell me where my partner is?" Ray casually dislodged his badge so it fell in front of her as he proceeded to awkwardly transplant his body without the use of his dominant hand, and gave her a wolfish snarl of a grin, which disappeared quickly into a slack stare. He'd begun to shake again, so he clenched his teeth to keep them from chattering like a five year-old playing cops-and-robbers in the street in the middle of winter.

She couldn't have been older than twenty-two, the girl he was staring at. Rachel? He squinted at her name tag. He was trying to hide his fear from a kid just a couple years out of high school.

Ray felt hollow; the outside of his body aching and spasming with cold, clenched muscles, fear, and skin worn raw. His neck throbbed where he'd strained and overstretched his tendons, trying to see what was happening in the ambulance. He'd skinned and bruised his knees as they'd smashed into the pavement, though he hadn't noticed at the time, when he found Fraser. Ray's skin was sticky with the drying, browning blood that hadn't yet been wiped from his hands. The blood which had been so slick and warm as Fraser grasped his hand in pain. Blood that had suddenly turned so cold, shivers wracking Ray's body before he began using the brick wall as a punching bag. He'd slipped in a puddle of the same dark liquid after that kick to the wall sent shock waves though his ankle, knee, and hip, then landed on his back.

Lord, he hurt. He wished he hurt more. After seeing Fraser like that, he didn't know what to do but hurt. A shiver let itself out with a pathetic whimper.

"I'm Rachel. I'm a nurse's aide, Raymond."

"Ray." He closed his eyes, then opened them again, hoping she'd have disappeared. No luck.

"Ray. What's your partner's name? I'll have someone check for you." She patted his leg and gave him a saccharin smile. Maybe it was a real smile. "And your nurse will be in shortly to look at that arm and order some x-rays. Anything else I can do for you? If you need anything, here's your call button." She wrapped the bulky thing around his bed rail, which she hefted up, followed by the other side. "This yellow button turns on the TV."

"Yeah." He squinted at her name tag again. He couldn't concentrate. "Rachel. You see a guy in a bright red uniform who looks like a doorman or magician or maybe just, I dunno, in real bad shape—blood matching his uniform… like, a lot of blood… that's Fraser. I need to know why he's not in the trauma room and I am. If I find out someone drove him here slower than me, I got a badge and a gun." He paused. What the hell. "And all of Canada and possibly Her Majesty, the Queen of England will come kick people in the head. Got it?"

The aide appeared dubious. "Detective, we have three trauma rooms. Your gun has been placed in a locker for safety and storage. You were heavily sedated and came in by ambulance. We're bringing in the other ambulance in two minutes. I assume that is your partner. Someone will update you on his status as soon as possible." She walked through the sliding glass door muttering about Canada and the Queen and looking through Ray's chart, no doubt to see what drugs he'd been given.

Two minutes meant he was alive. Ray unclenched his jaw and allowed his teeth to click together in a room-strobing chatter, since no one was watching him lose his composure. He could afford himself a minute of exhaustion. He sunk back in the bed, and let out a sob as he examined his bare hand, then realized with a pang of horror that there was blood deep under his fingernails, sticking between his fingers. He wanted to scream for someone to get it off, but all he could do was lie there quaking, feeling all the hurts in his body, waiting for someone to fix Fraser, because Ray hadn't been able to protect his partner. Wishing Fraser could come quote that damn Shakespeare line squirreling around the back of his brain. Out, out damned blood. He actually wanted to be corrected. It didn't usually bother Ray when he improvised, but today he wanted Fraser to tell him the right words. Tell him which play. So Ray lay there compulsively thinking of what Fraser would say, the detective's teeth chattering to quotations he didn't remember to a play he was pretty sure involved blood.

And waiting for someone to come give him x-rays. Heh. x-rays.

He choked off a laugh. That's what Stella used to call the blue flip-down covers for his glasses. He didn't like wearing his glasses. They were kinda nerdy; got in the way. But she never minded. He guessed he really never cared much what he looked like to other people, but the glasses were a hassle, and he was teased about them when he was a kid. But Stella… Good old Stella. She loved him no matter what. And when he came home with the funky blue shades that flipped down over his glasses, she'd laughed. She'd called them his X-Rays. He'd jumped right on board with that and claimed that they gave him x-ray vision. Told her he could see exactly which undergarments she was wearing underneath her business suit, and she'd laughed again, turning to leave the room, shaking her head in that Stella way. He was a detective; he'd noticed what was in the wash and what was missing from her drawer. He'd gotten it right on the first try. The name stuck around after that, and he felt like Superman in those blue shades. Even after he and Stella had broken up. Even after her usually scathing remarks toward him, he liked his X-Rays…

By the time the nurse walked in, Ray had dirty, probably dried blood-streaked lines of tears rolling down his face into his flattening blond hair. No glasses tonight. He remembered them shattering tonight by the dumpster. It was one of those memories—perfectly preserved sounds and the feeling of the glasses hanging off one ear before they dropped—so clear now, but he he'd hardly noticed when they fell to the ground in crunching shards. Shards sharp like a knife…

It occurred to Ray now that perhaps he should be worried about who'd eventually detained their suspect, but he just couldn't think straight. He was thinking in loops. He'd given an officer the kid's location. Ray was sure he'd been picked up. Re-Mirandized. Hopefully kicked repeatedly. Maybe by the Queen. His lip twitched upward.

The nurse looked down at Ray, holding his chart in one hand, and tugging on his bracelet with the other to check his identification.

"Name and date of birth?"

Ray laughed. He was still crying silently. "Stanley Kowalski."

The older, balding male nurse chuckled. "Ha! A funny guy! Love me some Brando! Try again, Streetcar."

"Raymond Vecchio. 09-20-60."

He'd started shaking again, adrenaline long ago having left his body. Memories and pain attached themselves to shadows; the dark sheen of blood reflecting like oil under a failing streetlamp, and that sickening tangy metallic smell burning his nostrils mixed with rotting garbage from a dumpster nearby. He could still feel the cold that stabbed through his body—a combination of the frosty night air, the sweat clinging to his shirt after the foot pursuit, and the shock that filled his chest and head with ice cubes from the moment he caught sight of Fraser's red tunic in the alley.

Ray wasn't usually afraid to get dirty. He'd never noticed grit as something unpleasant before tonight. Actually he liked grit. Grit was working on his Goat. Getting the bad guys off the streets. Maybe this discomfort was Fraser's ruined, bloodied uniform; which, until now, rarely seemed to find a wrinkle, much less common urban grime. But the helplessness Ray had felt as Fraser moaned in pain next to him was accompanied by an awareness of grinding into every bit of dirt and grit underneath Ray's body as he steadied himself. He had been aware of his fingertips, palms, even the scuff of his boots scraping roughly against the harsh texture in a sympathetic, reflexive duet with his friend's agony.

Under the bright fluorescent lights of the hospital room, Ray looked up, certain and afraid his eyes were flashing several shades darker than their usual gray-blue. Super. Just what he needed: to Hulk-out in front of someone else. He needed to see Fraser. Haunted, frightened, and disgusted, Ray felt his breathing increase and the blood drain from his face.

"Whoa, hang on there, Detective. You don't look so good. I'm just going to lay the head of the bed all the way down, okay?" Ray felt his head drop down steadily, unaware that he'd been upright at all. "You're looking pretty pale. Do you think you could swallow some water?"

He thought he distantly heard someone call for some fluids. Wasn't water a fluid?

Ray tried to say something but everything around him greyed from the edges inward. He was slightly aware of his ears becoming cold and his stomach rolling. He swallowed, but there was nothing in his throat. Tried to say he didn't feel so great, but his whole head went cold and he blacked out until voices around him quickly began to disappear. The last thing he heard was frantic yelling in the hallway about a stab wound victim... something about a Mountie. Fraser. Ray tried to hang onto that conversation, but he couldn't stop himself from passing out.