Disclaimer: I own nothing.

This is sort of my first attempt at fan fiction. I'm working on another one (and actually need a BETA for that one, anyone interested?) but couldn't get this idea out of my head. Written at 2:30 a.m. best time for working I always say.

Ray's POV, speculation of season 13 (September 21!  ) Hope you like it, please review:)

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Ray stumbled up the stairs to their apartment, bitterly remembering it was only his apartment now.

He was tired. He was tired of being tired. Tired because he couldn't sleep, tired because when he did sleep he didn't rest.

He walked up the stairs like a drunken man, remembering how amused he had been in med school when he found out that sleep deprivation for one night could render you into the same state of a drunken man.

'If I were drunk, though' he thought 'I probably wouldn't be in so much pain'

Abby had gone up to him two days ago, asking what was wrong. 'What's wrong?' he'd thought then 'Well, I fell in love with a married woman and when her husband died she told me to go to hell. It's all peachy.'

But then he remembered he'd been feeling a weird oppression in his chest for a time now, and he himself was starting to be concerned.

"You know, now that you mention it" he had said to Abby, "I'd like you to take my blood pressure; I've been feeling chest oppressions for the last couple of days...figured it'd be nothing"

"Ray, you're a bloody doctor!" Neela used to say bloody. Damn her British accent. "You should've had someone check you!"

Then she had been puzzled because his blood pressure was just fine and his heart rate was normal and there was nothing wrong with him except dark circles around his eyes.

He couldn't sleep because he thought about Neela, of course. When they became too painful he would go outside, flick through the channels, try to hopelessly keep interest in a magazine, take a shower. Sometimes a cold one.

Around 3:00 a.m. when he was too tired to even move around the apartment anymore he would go to bed and collapse. He would, of course, dream of her. She was in his dreams every night, dreams sent to his head by a terrible, unmerciful God. Dreams too beautiful and too painful to imagine. Her laughing, smiling, her dancing with him, her gasping...Then he would open his eyes, to find only nightmares...

He finally stood in front of the door to his apartment, wondering if he should even bother going in. For a moment he toyed with the idea of stepping right out the complex and getting really drunk in some random bar; but his conscience got the best of him and he walked in like a good boy.

There were the remains of his short-lived romance. A couch, a TiVo and pans unused for various days, just looking at the simplicity of those things and thinking about how much they meant to him made him want to cry.

The pain was unbearable, and deep in his mind he knew the pain was caused by Neela, the pain was Neela. Pain because he couldn't have a married woman, pain because he wouldn't have a widow, pain because she didn't want him anyway, she never had.

He had always thought love was something you felt at thirty when you decided to get settled and marry and have little kids running around. He would have never imagined you could fall in love at twenty-six barely finishing your career and unsure about everything in your life. He'd never meant to fall in love.

'If this is love' he thought 'I would've rather not known of it.'

But he was lying, and he knew it. He loved loving Neela. It kept him sane in his loneliness...in a twisted manner.

He gasped, opened his eyes to reality. He'd said it many times to himself 'you can't mope around forever, you have got to move on with you life, stop thinking so much about her.'

Not tonight, though, not after he had seen her with him, Gates. The bastard finds out her husband died and what does he do? He goes out and buys a white flower to offer condolences! And she smiles!

Forbidden thoughts entered his mind, thoughts about Neela moving on with someone other than him. Thoughts about her never returning his calls, avoiding him forever. 'But that is what she has been doing' he thought, 'are you blind?'

"Great!" he blurted out to space, "Now I'm talking to myself...in my mind!" 'I need to get drunk.'

He took off his coat, dumped his bag on the floor and walked towards the fridge, taking out a beer. The contents of his fridge reminded him of himself: a lonely beer pack, a half-eaten sandwich, and a jug of milk. Pathetic. Now that he remembered it, he hadn't been eating too well, because what reason was there to cook for now?

He snapped the beer open and took a swing of the bitter, foul, taste as he tried to remember why he even drank beer in the first place. Neela had made him question this, but then again, she'd made him question many things.

'Look at yourself, Ray. Neela wouldn't like this, the fact that you're planning to get drunk on your own. Because you know you're going to drink this one and another one and another one until you drag yourself to bed and pass out only to awake with a terrible hang over and be late for work. At work you will pass her in the hall and she will look at your messy hair and your blood-shot eyes and look away with a saddened look that will break your heart for the hundredth time...' "Argh! STOP!"

The beer bottle flew across the room like in slow motion, crushing against the other side of the apartment and breaking into a hundred little pieces which all fell to the beer-stained floor. "Shit!"

The door opened suddenly, "Ray! Are you okay? What happened!"

He turned, it was Neela.

For a second he stood there silent, trying to remember where he was as her took her in and for the first time in what seemed like months really looked at her. 'God, she is so beautiful...' Her hair was longer, but she was definitely the same woman he fell in love with, beautiful outside 'Reflects the inside' he thought. He noticed her eyes were tired and blood-shot like his, but there was something else in there, was it concern?

"Ray?" she said dubiously, "what happened?"

He snapped out of his reverie.

"Oh, Neela, erm, nothing happened, I just... I was drinking a beer and it slipped off my fingers?"

"Oh" she said like she believed him. "I'll help you clean up." Her British accent almost made him cry.

"No, no, you don't have to..." but she was already walking around the kitchen like she owned the place, she did once, getting the stuff to clean it up. He stood and watched her get down on the floor to pick up the glass shards. Eventually he joined in and they both picked them all up, he even rubbed the wall with a moist towel in hopes that some of the beer would come off. They worked systematically, happy to have something else to do that would distract them from talking.

When the last shard of glass was discarded they simply stood. He was leaning on the kitchen counter; she washed her hands on the sink and turned around to face him.

Something snapped in him, something terrible and beautiful, he felt tears prickle his eyes.

"Neela" he said shakily, passionately, trying to hold in all his feelings, all the thoughts running through his head "why are you here?" realizing how that sounded he corrected himself and said in a more concerned manner "I mean, I love the fact that you are here, it's just a surprise because well, I called you and I haven't heard back and..."

"Ray" she cut him off.

"I...I get what you're trying to say." "Err...to tell you the truth I don't quite know why I'm here either..." A tear sprang from the corner of her left eye, ran down the side of her perfect check and settled in her chin. She looked away, embarrassed.

His heart broke for the hundredth time.

He walked towards her and took her face into his hands, forcing her to look at him; slowly he lowered his hands to her shoulders, their eyes still connected. He waited for her, as if asking permission, and then she buried her head into his shoulder and sobbed. He held on to her and felt that he wasn't giving her any more comfort than she was giving him. He hugged her tightly as her sobs grew louder, but they didn't trouble him anymore because she was giving him a chance to be there for her.

"Shh..." he whispered gently into her ear "I'm here, ok? Everything's gonna be all right..." She sobbed louder. He felt hot, wet tears through his t-shirt, a sharp contrast with the silky strands of hair he kissed gently. To be honest, he felt like crying as well but he knew he had to be strong for her.

"Ray...I'm so...so sorry...I blew it...everything...Michael..." she kept on sobbing.

"I know, I know how you feel" he told her, he reassured her for what seemed like hours until he came to believe he did know what she was feeling. When she calmed down she disentangled herself from him and looked at him yet again. He waited for her to talk; knowing that whatever she said could shape his world irrevocably.

"I...just felt so guilty. I saw...I realized...I realized I, I had, well..." she laughed lightly, he was happy to hear her laugh, even if it was just out of nervousness.

"I had feelings for you. And I was married then and..."

He knew she had so much more to say, maybe even a prepared speech she had practiced for days before she resolved to visit him, but he couldn't take it. It was just too damn much for him, after years of wondering, after months of hoping, after weeks of hurting and hating and loving and wanting her so much. After so many days of insomnia he realized he was probably wrong for doing so but he cut her off anyway. He cut her off with his lips.

He kissed her. Hard. He crashed his mouth against hers and pushed her up against the fridge, his pathetic fridge. Releasing all the pent-up frustration, all the agony of his sleepless nights. She staggered for a second and then responded, biting on his lower lip, causing him to gasp. A gasp followed by another one and then a series on uncontrollable gasps and moans he knew he'd been holding ever since that day he'd walked in on her room while she was getting dressed. They came out one after another as she caressed his back and pressed herself into him.

She wrapped her legs around his waist and he took them into his arms willingly, carrying her, worrying about his own weak legs faltering and both of them falling. He moved his lips to her neck, nipping it, attacking it, intensely enraptured by her tiny moans of pleasure.

He tried carrying her to the couch but she dug her fingernails into his back causing him to stumble and crash against the wall on the way. He faintly smelled beer. Suddenly she crawled out of his arms leaving him with a completely sense of loss. He stood against the wall, breathing hard. Waiting and momentarily being satisfied just by looking at her disheveled clothing and the rapid rise and fall of her chest.

She stared at him like she meant to say something, looking at him with that look he'd been craving for weeks, naked longing. Then she walked back, fell into the couch and signaled at him suggestively to follow her steps.

And they danced.