Disclaimer: As before

Author's Note: Just take note in the summary of this story, I've added that it's slightly AU; that seemed like a more accurate representation of it given the rather selective method I've employed with the facts and timeline of season fourteen. Thanks for all the reviews on the last chapter, as always, great to hear your views. Ray's backstory that I've used here is based vaguely upon the hints given in the deleted scene from season 12 with Ray and Clemente by the way. And incidentally, just to warn all of you who are looking forward to the meeting, remember these are letters. I don't want to set you up for a disappointment!

Baton Rouge

August 2nd 2007

Dear Doctor Jumbomart

I'm sorry, but I absolutely couldn't resist – would you really expect anything else from you?! You asked for that one. If it's any consolation, I promise not to call you that too often. Maybe only when we're in bed…? Okay, I'm not going to get any for a long time after that, am I?

I can't believe you've booked your flight. It makes it so… real. Not that that's a bad thing of course, it's fantastic, but forgive me, I still find it hard to believe sometimes that this really is happening. I mean, these letters, they mean the world to me, but they're just words, promises, and I'm not trying to hurt you with this, but I don't trust you anymore, not after everything. I will again, hopefully in the not too distant future, but there have been a hell of a lot of empty promises this last year and you've got a lot of making up to do.

But when you do come down here, then that will be – I don't know exactly how to explain this, I'm not doing it very well, I know – it will be an action, something decisive, not just words, and that… I'm sorry, I can't really say any of this without triggering that guilt complex I know you have in you, but there's no point in being anything but honest. Actions from you as far as we're concerned have been pretty few and far between over the years, well, positive ones anyway, and that's what's driven me half crazy this year, but I feel like it's going to be different this time, I know it will be.

There, did that make any sense at all? Reading back over it, I don't think it did very much, but I can't seem to find the words to explain myself better. Maybe when I see you it will be easier, although I don't think it will matter by then. When you get here, I feel like none of this will matter, it really will be looking to the future then.

As for what you said about your leaving, I don't want to rake it all up again. All I can say is every thing that you tell me helps me to understand and piece it all together a bit more. It was all very painful, it still is, but time, and these letters, help a lot. I can see why you left that night, and I don't blame you for that, but as always with you, a bit of an explanation – keeping me in the loop – would have been nice.

On to happier subjects… I told Mom about us – at last! I thought as you were coming down here then I should probably put her in the picture. She was very happy to hear it, not that she'd ever have said, but I think she knew how I felt about you, even back when we were just roomies. And of course she will come and pick you up from the airport, neither of us would hear of you getting a cab. You're my guest Neela, I intend to look after you. And don't you dare argue! I haven't really made any plans, I hope you don't mind. If I'm honest, I'm still not up to anything very much, but there'll be plenty of PT sessions to go to if you still want to, beer and devil movies and the World Poker Tour of course, and I'd like to take you to the park where I read your letters – you'll like it there. Nothing too exciting I'm afraid, but I… I think it will be nice. I hope you'll enjoy it anyway.

You asked me ages ago about my parents, and I never got round to answering you. As you're going to be here, then I guess it might help if you know. I know I never mentioned them much, but I didn't like to talk about it. Even now, I don't really want to talk about it, but you've been so open with me, so it seems only fair that I tell you stuff too.

Dad was… Dad was a manic depressive. Well, not was, he still is. He always will be. When I was really young it was okay, he was on his meds and he was a great guy, I remember playing sports and stuff with him, listening to his old records – it was him who taught me how to how to play the guitar – and I thought he was the best dad in the world. I don't really know when he first came off his meds, I expect it happened more often than I noticed, but as I got a little older, I became aware of it. Running down the street and smashing all the neighbours' mailboxes up with a baseball bat is harder to hide from a ten year old than it is a five year old I guess.

But the weird thing was, I never blamed Dad. I remember being sat down and Mom explaining that Dad was sick and sometimes he did things that he didn't realise he was doing, and, acutely embarrassed though I was at having a crazy father, I always got that it wasn't his fault. I still idolised him as much as any boy idolises his father.

The bit that I never really got was that I blamed Mom. Somehow in my head she'd driven him to it. I don't know why I thought that, I really don't, but I was a scared kid and maybe I didn't understand as much as I thought I did. She tried her hardest, but she spent so much time looking after Dad, making sure he was taking his meds, trying to tidy up after him, help him keep whatever job he was threatening to be sacked from or to find him a new one when he did get sacked that somewhere along the way, she forgot to be a Mom. I always came second, always. And God, I hated her for that.

There were times, like the time Dad came after us – again with a baseball bat – one night after dinner and I was terrified, all I wanted her to do was protect me, but she didn't even think about how I felt, it was all concern for Dad. I mean, I was concerned for him too, but I think I wanted to feel like she cared for me the most. I don't know. Even now it's not exactly straight in my head, although it's getting better.

As soon as I was old enough to get out of there, I did. I went home occasionally when I was in college – as Mom quite rightly said at the hospital, always with a load or three of laundry – but not as often as I should have done, and by the time I got to med school, even that had dwindled to just the odd Christmas or Thanksgiving when I couldn't find an excuse not to.

They got divorced in the end. She still helps him out a lot, but the marriage itself died a long time ago. I think she was only staying with him for me, to try to give me the sort of family life that she thought I needed, although it didn't quite work out like that. In truth we might have been better off it had just been the two of us, but when Dad was having a good spell, I wouldn't have wanted any other guy for a father so I don't know.

Now, Dad's on his meds, and has been, Mom tells me, for quite a while. She says it's been nearly four years since he's had a really bad manic episode and I guess that's pretty good. Things with him I've learnt to just take as they come. He comes to visit me when he's in the area, but I know not to have any expectations; if he doesn't turn up then fine, he will some other time.

Mom and I are rebuilding things very slowly. Even though I know now none of it was her fault, I've had a lot of trouble forgiving her for it all. The shrink has helped a lot – you're not the only thing I had to talk to them about. She's been… she feels like a Mom again, that's the only real way I can explain it. It was absolutely terrible in those first days that I got back here, I was a sullen shit, angry and with no-one to take it out on but her, and she was devastated to see her only child broken to within an inch of his life. But once the shock wore of for both of us, and with a lot of talking, we're getting there. I don't know if we'll ever reach that mystical point of love, acceptance, mother-son bond that I guess we're searching for, but I… I'm glad I've been given this chance to repair things with her. I'd never have done it otherwise, I know, so…

Wow, I'm exhausted by all that. Some of it I haven't even told the shrink. I didn't tell you for sympathy Neela, and I don't want any from you, but I think you need to know what you're letting yourself in for. I mean, manic depression is hereditary, I can't guarantee that I won't pass it on to a child, or even that I don't have it myself. If Abby was in a better place right now, I'd tell you to talk to her about it. And I know I probably should have told you sooner, but I didn't want to jeopardise things with you. I can't lose you again Neela, but I'll warn you now, if you want to walk away, please do it immediately, no more stringing me along. I couldn't bear it.

I'm sorry that all this has come out now, but I've never told anyone all that. Brett knows a bit – he was my roommate at college, briefly, until he dropped out – but now no-one knows as much as you do, and it took a hell of a lot of courage, knowing that being honest with you about this could really be the death knell for us, but I thought about it long and hard, and I decided you had to know. I… I'm all talked out now, I'm sorry. I'll be looking forward to hearing from you again.

Love Ray