Title: My Light
Author: Welmach.
Pairing: Ray Vecchio/Ian MacDonald.
Rating: Adult for abounding mushiness.
Disclaimer: I don't own the main ones. Alliance does.
Feedback: Is most welcomed.
Spoilers: Takes place after COTW.
I lay beside him, cradling him in my arms, and watch him sleep. He is beautiful. He is my light.
I spent so much time fumbling around women. I tried to be suave. I tried to impress them with an "Old World" charm, but mostly I came across as fake. Oh, there where exceptions to this. Irene saw the real me, but then she knew the boy that made the man. She knew my hidden secrets. And then she died. Died in my arms. I swore never to reveal myself to anyone again.
Then I lost myself. I lost myself in Armando Langoustini. I was forced to become someone I had always sworn to fight against. I was forced to do things I couldn't tell my priest. I was forced to do so much, but I survived, and I emerged alive. Alive, determined, but not unscathed. I refused acknowledge the darkness that clouded my soul; instead I became determined to start anew and clean.
So I took the "golden bullet", I took the Gold Coast girl and I took a second chance at life. And less than a year later, they were all gone. I learned that you can't be reborn when your nightmares keep you dead. Stella didn't understand my melancholy moods, my quickness to anger or my sudden fits of tears. She hadn't bargained on a "battle-scarred" husband. She'd been through Stanley's boughts of depression when he came out from undercover, and she made it clear she didn't want to go through mine. Some people might say she was cruel. But not really. It's not easy to love someone who you never really knew. And she never knew me.
So I returned to Chicago. No job, no wife, no best friend, no life. I couldn't count the number of nights I sat on my bed, holding my gun. Thinking how easy it would be to end this pain. And then the last night. I had the gun inside my mouth. I was ready to pull the trigger, and the phone rings. I don't know why, but I stopped. I knew I had to answer it. I knew it was important.
It was lock-up telling me that they had someone swearing to be my partner. My partner? It couldn't be Benny. He was settled with Stanley. Happy at last in Canada. No it couldn't be Benny, but I knew who it was.
Ian.
I stared at him through the bars of the cell as he rambled on about false arrest, working for the Canadian government...and artificial intelligence. On he rambled as I posted bail and led him to my car. As I sat behind the wheel, I felt something I had forgotten-real Ray Vecchio anger. Not Langoustini's homicidal rage. But Ray Vecchio's pissed off frustration.
And I couldn't help it. I began crying. Crying that this young, handsome liar had brought me back to myself. His rambling stopped and soothing words began. And a moment later, I don't know how, I found myself in his arms...sobbing...while he stroked my head and cradled my body, murmuring that he understood, he knew.
That was my rebirth. On that cold February night, my darkness was replaced by light. A light that was my Ian.
