Wonderful, wonderful story. Excellent writing. I often get bored when reading a fic with a lot of "inner" voices and description instead of dialogue/action and sometimes, um...skim through it. But I read every word of this -- on the edge of my seat, no less. The tension was palpable. You captured Ray's inner voice so well. I could quote a billion passages, but I'll restrain myself...

He was sorry he ever told Ray, probably because Ray hadn’t reacted in the right way, and now he was going to drink his water and say his goodbyes, because Ray sucked.

So Ray! He's always so hard on himself. And I love how it also illustrates how he's misunderstood Fraser.

his insides felt like they were melting, and he wouldn’t admit to it, except he’d learned a while back that lying to yourself was dumb, because you always knew what you were lying about, anyway.

So true!

I also love your Fraser voice. Him saying he's not welcome in his own country and that he's assigned tasks he didn't even have to do as a cadet. ;_;

You really made me think about Fraser on a deeper level. He's required to be in Chicago, because that's the premise of the show really, and that often gets glossed over in fics. But you made it believable, a part of him.

And them saying they're lonely. *dies* so heartbreaking!

So, yeah, fabulous writing. *g*