Disclaimer: Due South characters belong to Alliance. Twisted ideas belong to me.
Rated: NC-17 for explicit sex, adult language, and some violence.
Pairing: BF/RK with some brief RK/Other thrown in purely for the squick factor.
Warnings: Contains graphic depictions of sex between two men. Major angst alert.
Specific Spoilers for: Call of the Wild, Hunting Season, Burning Down the House, Strange Bedfellows, Victoria's Secret, Mountie on the Bounty, The Ladies' Man, and Dead Men Don't Throw Rice.
Thank yous: To WP, Maxine, and Mirna for beta above and beyond the call of duty. You have my deepest gratitude, my friends.
Note: I have done my best to adhere to the final fates of the various characters, as set out in Call of the Wild. (If I've played a tiny bit with the facts, the timeline, and the geography of that episode, well, please consider that poetic license.) I have also attempted to achieve accuracy in my descriptions of Places I Have Never Been. Mistakes are failures of research and/or imagination, and I will gladly accept corrections from Those More Knowledgeable Than I.
And finally: You'll notice that the seasons of the heart lag behind the seasons of the globe. It happens that way, sometimes.
True North
by Crysothemis (crysothemis@yahoo.com)
After snowfall, the landscape is transformed. The old landmarks vanish, unrecognizable to the untutored eye. The snow covers everything with a blinding and sometimes treacherous beauty, but the land beneath it remains solid and firm as it ever was, the hidden depths sheltered by the blanket of glittering crystal, the streams and lichens and tundra and trees all frozen for now, but waiting patiently for the thaw.
Part I: Snowfall
Maggie Mackenzie's cabin had two rooms. The bigger public room -- with the wood-burning stove, the table and chairs, the sofa, and enough backwoods-type equipment piled in the corners to keep half a dozen Yukon types alive for years -- and the smaller, private room where she had her bed. At least, Ray thought it was smaller. He hadn't yet set foot in it. But he wanted to. He knew that much. He really wanted to.
"So you and my brother are on quite an adventure," Maggie said. She bent to stir the pot of stew or whatever it was she was cooking them for dinner. Fraser was out splitting firewood, and it was the first time Ray had been alone with her since they'd arrived, two days before.
Maggie looked as good as she had in Chicago, with her long blonde braid and her bright, intelligent eyes. Maybe better. It was enough to make a guy worry about getting tongue-tied. "Yeah, I guess we are."
Maggie flashed him a friendly smile. "So how did he talk you into it?"
"Oh, he, uh, he didn't. I mean, it was my idea," Ray said, smiling back. Crazy though that was, it was true. "See, we got stuck in this crevasse, and we figured we were gonna die, so I started babbling, you know, like you do when you got nothing better to do. I said I wanted to go on an adventure. A real adventure. And then we got rescued and Fraser was nuts enough to take me seriously."
"Oh, I hadn't realized that. Ben made it sound a bit different."
Ray couldn't tell if she was impressed that it had been his idea, not Fraser's. "Yeah, well, he has to put up with me trying to keep up with him, so I guess he kinda forgets I asked for it."
Maggie smiled again and shook her head. "He didn't talk about it that way, either, Ray. As a matter of fact, he's quite impressed with you. He says you've adapted extremely well to the climate and the exercise."
Ray felt a warm glow spreading in his gut. Fraser had said that about him. Fraser wasn't just putting up with him. "I guess you were, uh, you were talking about me."
Maggie set her spoon down and gave him an amused glance. "The subject did come up." She went to the cupboard and took out plates to set the table with.
Time to make himself useful. Ray went and got out silverware from the drawer Maggie had shown him yesterday. "Did he say anything else about me?"
"Not in words," Maggie said.
That was a weird thing to say. Ray looked up from arranging silverware to see Maggie eyeing him across the table, like she was trying to see through him or something. It was odd, but then, Fraser looked at him that way sometimes, too. Maybe it ran in the family.
"He's lucky to have you," Maggie said. "You mean a great deal to him."
It was the closest thing to an opening he was likely to get. "Yeah, we're tight. I mean, he didn't complain when I kissed his sister, right?"
There was a loud clatter as Maggie set the stack of bowls she was carrying down on the table, hard.
That didn't look good. "Did I say something wrong?"
"No, no, of course not." Maggie distributed the bowls to each of the three place settings. "That is, I'm glad you and Ben are close. It's good to have you both here for a visit."
Well, she didn't hate him, anyway. Ray sidled around the table. "Look, I, uh, that is, I was thinking maybe we could, you know, talk a little, get a chance to really know each other, and . . ."
He never got a chance to finish. The cabin door opened and Fraser came in carrying an armload of wood. Sheesh. Fraser had the worst timing of anyone he knew. It was almost as bad as when Fraser had interrupted him kissing Luanne Russell. Or the time he'd knocked on Stella's door right when things were getting hot and heavy. Of course, he hadn't interrupted the kiss with Maggie, but that was because they'd pre-empted him by making him turn his back, first.
"What's the matter, you get tired of playing lumberjack?" Ray asked, not a little sourly.
"Oh, no, Ray." Fraser looked perfectly innocent, like he had no idea he'd interrupted anything. "I just finished the wood pile." He bent to set his armload in the box beside the stove. "Maggie, I stacked it along the north wall of the shed. I believe you should have plenty to last you to the thaw."
"Thanks, Ben." Maggie smiled at him. "I've been meaning to get to the bottom of that pile all winter, and here it is April already."
"It was my pleasure," Fraser said, and his smile looked like he really meant it. Like chopping firewood for Maggie Mackenzie was his idea of a grand old time.
No. Stop. Can that thought. Maggie was Fraser's sister. There was nothing to be jealous of. "You need anything else on the table?" Ray asked.
"It looks like we're all ready," Maggie said, and gestured for him to sit down. "Ben, if you'd take off your coat . . ."
"Oh, of course. Right," Fraser said, like he'd forgotten he was still wearing it. He left his coat and boots on the rack by the door and came over to sit next to Ray.
Ray couldn't help himself; the words were out before he stopped to think about them. "Uh, Fraser, I think that's Maggie's chair."
But Maggie just smiled and shook her head as she leaned across to ladle stew into their bowls. "Nope, I'm sitting on this side. That way I can get up without climbing over one of you."
Having her climb over him didn't sound so bad, but Ray didn't have the nerve to say that. There was something going on, something he didn't quite understand. All he knew was that if he wasn't careful, he wasn't going to get a chance to even talk to Maggie before they had to leave.
Maggie finished dishing out stew and sat down herself. "So tell me about your plans," she said as she sat down. "Where are you going next?"
Ray let Fraser handle that and tasted the stew, which wasn't half bad. The truth was, he didn't really have a clue where they were going, and he didn't much care. He didn't even care if they found Franklin. All he cared was that he was away from Chicago, away from Stella, and he didn't even miss it.
The quest was sheer craziness. He knew it. Fraser knew it. But Fraser didn't seem to care, either. Fraser was . . . mellow, out here in the wilderness. As if, for the first time since Ray had met him, he was truly happy.
"Well, it all depends on the weather," Fraser was saying. "We're hoping to head east along . . ."
East, west, this far north Ray didn't know the difference. It was like when Fraser had been explaining about maps and compasses up here, about how you had to adjust your compass reading by a certain amount to account for the difference between magnetic north and true north. He'd said, "Fraser, if this isn't true north, I don't know what is," and Fraser had grinned back at him and left off with the esoteric stuff.
It felt good, being up here. It was pleasant spending nights around a campfire, actually listening to Fraser's stories and sometimes telling a few of his own. Riding the dog sled over the endless snow, or running along beside it when he got cold, or they needed to lighten the load. He was fitter than he'd ever been, after only a few weeks of it. He felt great.
Or, at least, he had felt great, up until two days ago, when they'd arrived at Maggie's cabin just outside Inuvik. That was when things had gotten complicated.
"The ice roads won't hold out more than another month," Maggie was saying. "Not with this warm wind blowing."
"Warm?" Ray said. "You call this warm?"
"Practically balmy," Fraser said. "Surely you've noticed the difference these past few days. It was up to five below today."
Oh, right. These past few days. The problem was, Ray hadn't noticed much of anything these past few days, ever since Fraser had casually said, "Let's visit Maggie," and he'd remembered he had a sex drive.
He'd been attracted to her from the start, when he'd first seen her in Chicago. There had been something amazingly familiar about her, something he hadn't recognized until he'd found out she was Fraser's sister. Of course, he should have known it would be something like that when he saw her licking things. If ever there were two people meant to be brother and sister, it was Fraser and Maggie Mackenzie.
"Ray," Fraser was saying. "Ray."
"Yeah," he said, and tried to remember what the conversation was about. Oh, yeah, weather. "Uh, I guess I didn't notice the weather today 'cause I wasn't out there on the sled."
"True enough," Fraser said, and he smiled around the eyes. Not a laughing kind of smile. Just a warm one. The kind of smile that made Ray happy to be here, and to be Fraser's friend. The kind of smile that made him really, really want to not screw it up with Maggie, because if he did he could hurt Fraser, too.
"You're setting off tomorrow, then," Maggie said.
"If Ray agrees," Fraser said. "Much as we appreciate your hospitality, it would be prudent to be on our way while we still have good, solid ice."
Good ice? Was there such a thing? But Fraser undoubtedly knew what he was talking about. "Okay, yeah. We could go tomorrow." Even if that meant he wasn't going to have a chance with Maggie. "Um, maybe we could come back, you know, later, when we've finished the quest thing."
"You're always welcome here," Maggie said, and Fraser said, "Thank you, I'd like that, too."
It made Ray feel better. So maybe he'd blown this chance, but there would be more. And Maggie kind of liked him; he was pretty sure of that. He just didn't know if it went any deeper than that.
Ray sat back in his chair and set his spoon next to his empty bowl. All in all, he was happy to be here. He wasn't complaining.
~ * ~ Fraser got up and put another piece of wood into the stove. It felt good to be home. Good to be with Maggie, getting a chance to know her. Good to be with Ray.
He was still astonished that Ray had chosen this quest. He would have thought Ray had had enough of rough terrain and ice fields, but somehow, somewhere along the way, Ray had to all appearances started to enjoy himself. It was utterly unexpected -- this was the same Ray who had once told him he got a skin condition if he left the city -- but Fraser wasn't going to question it. He would take Ray's company as a gift, a gift to be deeply treasured but not examined too closely.
There was a single kerosene lamp burning, and in the soft light Maggie and Ray's faces shone with warmth and good feeling. Even Dief, curled up on the rug at Fraser's feet, seemed content just to be here. "So that was when my mother decided I was old enough to learn to trap for myself," Maggie was saying.
Ray laughed appreciatively, and Fraser smiled, too. Maggie was a natural storyteller, and her tales reminded him of his own childhood. He'd be happy listening to her all night, but there were other considerations. Ray had agreed to leave tomorrow, and with the spring break-up threatening to come early, they needed to make the most of every day's travel.
Fraser got slowly to his feet. "Well, I hate to say it, but I'm for bed. We should make an early start in the morning. Ray?"
Ray looked up at him. "I'll, uh, I'll be with you in a sec."
"Of course." Fraser busied himself with getting ready for bed, brushing his teeth at the basin and removing the outer clothes he was wearing over his long johns. He could hear Ray and Maggie still talking, but they had lowered their voices to a murmur, out of consideration for him, no doubt. Fraser settled down onto his bedroll on the floor. He'd given Ray the couch, not sure which was the more comfortable option, but Ray hadn't seemed to mind last night. And Ray would always have the choice of joining him on the floor if he so desired.
Right. Fraser rolled over onto his side, facing the room. Maggie and Ray were on their feet now, and Maggie bent to pick up the lamp, carrying it with her toward her bedroom. Ray said something to her, close to her ear. And then the two of them went into her bedroom and closed the door behind them.
Something squeezed tight in Fraser's heart. He wasn't jealous. He couldn't possibly be jealous. He ought to be happy for them if they were going to find happiness together. Ray was already family. If he developed an attachment to Maggie, logically speaking, it could only strengthen that bond.
But somehow, logic had nothing to do with this feeling. He hurt, with an ache in his heart that was part loneliness and part self- recrimination. He wanted . . . things he had always known he could never have.
He'd been fine, out there in the wilderness, traveling with Ray. They'd spent days together on the sled, nights around the campfire, and he'd kept his control so well he'd barely even thought of it. But then they'd come here to Maggie's cabin, and all the old feelings had welled up again.
He had to fight it. These feelings were his problem, not anyone else's, and certainly not Ray's. It was just the change in routine unsettling him. Once they were back on the sled he'd be fine.
But right now . . . right now he wanted Ray with a longing that made his chest ache. He wanted to hold Ray in his arms, to hold him close and look into those storm-blue eyes, and then ease forward the last few centimeters to kiss those mobile, expressive lips -- lips that were chapped right now, but maybe he could ease their soreness a little, mouth to mouth. He remembered what Ray tasted like all too clearly, from the one time he'd covered Ray's mouth with his. They'd been underwater, of course, which had undoubtedly affected his perception, and they'd been sharing air, not actually kissing, but Ray had tasted even better than he'd imagined. And now he wanted to taste him again, to see if it was different on dry land.
No. He shouldn't be thinking like this. It was dangerous, and unfair to Ray. If he didn't watch himself, he'd let something slip, a word, a facial expression, and Ray would see it.
Fraser swallowed hard and shifted positions, rolling over flat on his back. The more he allowed himself to think this way, the more it would feel like a lie, when he saw Ray next and didn't say anything. He had to get control. He had to take these wild, inappropriate feelings and compress them, squeezing them into a single, tiny point of desire that he could hide in a corner of his heart and maybe, possibly, someday manage to ignore.
He was home. He was with Ray. It should have been enough, but it wasn't.
~ * ~ "So this is about Ben, eh?" Maggie asked as she closed the door behind them. Her bedroom was practically a closet, but it was cozy in the lamplight.
For a moment Ray had no idea what she was talking about. "What?"
"The thing you wanted to talk to me about. It's about Ben?"
"Oh." He looked down, suddenly uncomfortable. He had been so sure she'd caught his meaning when he'd suggested they talk in private. "Uh, not really." He looked up into her concerned face. "I was hoping we could, you know, talk about you and me."
"I see," Maggie said. "Ray . . ."
"Yeah?" He didn't know how to read her expression.
She reached out to touch his arm, rubbing her hand up and down his biceps. "I really like you," she said simply. "I hope we can be friends."
"Yeah, me too," Ray said. "I just, well, I guess I was hoping that we could, you know, be more than that."
Maggie's face fell, and he knew in that instant that he'd blown it. Blown it for good. "I'm so sorry," she said softly. She rubbed his arm again. "I never meant to mislead you. It's just that when I knew you in Chicago, I had no idea that . . . " She trailed off, looking down.
"I guess I'm not your kind of guy."
Her eyes came up, searching his face. "No, Ray, I find you very attractive. Please understand. It's just that I could never do that to Ben."
Say what? "Uh, Maggie, don't you think that's a little weird? I mean, he's your brother."
"Excuse me?" Maggie looked genuinely confused. "Oh, no, no, Ray. I'm certain that Ben's feelings for me are nothing but brotherly."
"So, c'mon, what's the problem? You think he wouldn't approve? Like I'm not good enough or something?"
"No, I'm sure he would approve," she said, but she still wasn't making any sense. "I just don't want to hurt him."
If she hadn't been a girl, he would have been about ready to pop her in the head. Sheesh, she could be as confusing as Fraser. "So he approves and he's not, uh, you know, about you, so what's the big deal?"
Maggie looked away and bit her lip. "I wasn't talking about his feelings for me," she said softly.
"Then who . . . ?" Oh, no. She couldn't possibly mean . . . but she did. He could see it in her face that she did. "Look, we're not, I mean, Fraser and me, we're just buddies. We're not . . . um, whatever it is you think we are."
Maggie looked taken aback. "Then he hasn't said anything."
"About what?"
She looked up into his face. "About his feelings for you."
"Look, he does not have feelings for me, okay? I mean, not those kinds of feelings. Trust me, I would've noticed."
Her face had gone pale. "Forgive me. I shouldn't have said anything."
Her expression cut right through his denials. There was no way it was true. It couldn't be. But it was also pretty obvious she believed it. "Did he tell you something? C'mon, what did he say?"
But Maggie just shook her head wearily. "He didn't tell me anything in words, Ray. He didn't have to. I could see it in his face when he was talking about you."
Okay, she was going on her gut, here. So which one of them knew Fraser better? Yeah, sure, Maggie shared some blood. But she'd met Fraser once, in Chicago. Ray had spent two years working with him, two years when they'd gotten into a lot of tight positions together. Two years when . . . oh, God. Fraser had kissed him. He'd called it buddy breathing at the time, but lips had met lips.
Shit. He did not want to go there.
"Look, I think I know him a little better than you do, okay? If you want I can ask him straight out tomorrow. Then we'll see who's seeing things."
Maggie's tight expression went, if anything, tighter. "There's no need to ask on my behalf. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said anything. I -- I'm sure you're right, and I'm just misinterpreting."
"Okay, then," he said, but it wasn't okay. "Um, good. I guess I . . . I'll just hit the sack."
"See you in the morning," Maggie said. And then, without any prompting from him, she stood on tiptoe and kissed him on the cheek. "He's a good friend to you," she said. "Whatever else he may or may not feel."
"Yeah, I know," Ray said. "I . . . " He didn't know what to say. "Uh, g'night."
"Good night, Ray," Maggie said, but her face was still tight and worried.
He made his way out into the main room, doing his best to remember where everything was, so he wouldn't trip over Fraser. A part of him wanted to wake Fraser right now and ask him outright, but that was stupid, because it was impossible, anyway.
There was no way Fraser had the hots for him. They'd just spent weeks out there in the snow, and Fraser had never shown any signs of being, well, interested. Hell, they'd even shared a sleeping bag one night, the time it had been blowing so hard they couldn't see more than a few feet in front of them. He would have noticed if Fraser had been getting any weird ideas. Besides, he'd seen Fraser kiss the Ice Queen good-bye, the night before they caught Bolt and Muldoon. If Fraser had the hots for anyone, it was her.
Ray managed to find the couch without kicking Fraser. He stripped out of his outer clothing, dropping it all on the floor, and curled up in the blankets that were waiting there for him. Maggie was confused, he was sure of it. Fraser would explain it to her in the morning, and everything would be all right.
~ * ~ Ray looked oddly innocent in the soft lamp light, with the blankets tucked up under his nose and his hair half spiky and half tousled. He didn't look like someone who had climbed mountains, fallen into crevasses, fought gun-runners, and learned to drive a dog sled all in the last few weeks. He looked vulnerable and very, very dear. Fraser indulged himself, allowing himself a few more seconds to watch Ray sleep. It would be weeks before they would have the luxury of a warm morning again, and it was a welcome respite to be able to look into Ray's sleeping face without having to be alert for signs of frostbite.
Without warning, Ray's eyes opened, staring right up into his. "Good morning," Fraser said, trying to keep the blood out of his cheeks. Ray didn't know he'd been watching. Ray had had his eyes closed.
"Is it?" Ray asked, and sat up. He yawned and looked around grumpily, like he hadn't had a particularly restful sleep.
"Morning? Yes, it's almost six."
Ray stretched, long and graceful like a cat. "Not that. I meant, is it good?"
"Ah. Well, the weather has turned clear and cold, so we won't have to worry about the ice, and Dief and the dogs are well- rested. All of that seems good."
"Fraser, that was one of those, uh . . ."
"Rhetorical questions?"
Ray rubbed his eyes. "Yeah." Then he looked up, and his expression was no longer just early morning grumpiness. There was something else there, some real worry. "Look, Fraser, I gotta ask you a question -- not a rhetorical one, a real one -- and I know it's going to sound dumb, but I gotta know, okay?"
"You can ask me anything."
"Yeah, okay." Ray shifted in his seat on the couch and ran a hand through his tousled hair, further mussing the soft spikes. He was fully awake now, awake and clearly unhappy about something. "I just wanted to know, uh, if you got, you know, feelings for me."
Fraser's heart froze. It meant what he thought it meant. It had to. Somehow Ray had seen it, despite how hard he'd tried to control himself. "Of course I have feelings for you," he said gently, though his pulse was racing and his blood was ice in his veins. "You're my friend, Ray." None of which was a lie.
"Not that kind of feelings," Ray said. "I mean, you know, feelings."
Fraser knew. He knew all too well. But he still couldn't find the words, because the moment he found them, his world was going to fall apart. "Ray, I'm not sure that I . . . that is, I think perhaps --"
"Just say it, Fraser. Yes or no? Are you in love with me?"
In love. Two little words that meant his universe, and meant the end of it. But he couldn't lie, not even for this. Fraser found the strength to move lips and tongue and say in a voice that was more of a croak, "Yes."
"Oh, geez." Ray stared at him, then leaped to his feet and paced the length of the room. "This is some kind of joke, isn't it? You and Maggie are pulling a fast one on me."
Fraser almost wished he were capable of saying yes. "No, Ray," he said softly.
Ray's eyes were wild. "So what're you saying? You wanna fuck me?"
The coarse word hit his ears like a blow. "Well, I don't exactly think of it in those terms, Ray, but --"
"Shit," Ray said, and turned away from him. "Damn it all to fucking hell."
Fraser bit his lip and said, though he knew it was utterly inadequate, "I'm sorry."
"Oh, that's great," Ray said. "That's rich. You're sorry." He was standing facing the opposite wall, hands raised like he wanted to hit something. "Well, sorry doesn't cut it, Fraser. This is not the kind of thing you can say you're sorry for."
There was nothing Fraser could do except stand there and take it while he was dying inside, breath by breath. "I know," he managed. "I . . . I'm afraid I don't know what else to say."
Ray's back twitched, and when he spoke his voice shook. "I thought we were friends."
It cut to the core that Ray could doubt that. "So did I," Fraser said. "I . . . value our friendship very highly."
Ray turned to him, his face a picture of hurt and loss. "Oh, yeah. I bet you do. You value it so highly you want to jump my bones."
Fraser winced. "Ray, I --"
"What were you going to do, wait until we were out on an ice floe a million miles from nowhere? Take me out there where I can't survive without you and then make your move? That's sick, Fraser. That's, that's --"
"No," Fraser said, too horrified to wait for Ray to finish. "I would never do that to you."
"Oh, yeah? Then when were you going to tell me?"
Fraser hung his head. "I wasn't."
"You weren't," Ray repeated, and stared at him.
"I imagined you would be happier not knowing."
Ray shifted on his feet. "So you were just gonna keep going, go off on this stupid quest with me, and not say a word? Damn it, Fraser, I shared a sleeping bag with you!"
"If we hadn't, you might have died," Fraser said. "I couldn't take that risk."
"Yeah, but I bet you enjoyed it."
Fraser bit his lip. He couldn't deny it. At some level he had enjoyed the chance to be so close to Ray, to sleep wrapped in his warmth and wake right next to him. But it hadn't been particularly difficult to control himself that night. He'd been concerned about the storm, and grateful for the shared warmth that told him Ray was safe. It had been enough, that night. He hadn't wanted anything else. "Ray, I --"
"No. Don't go there. I don't want to hear it." Ray crossed the room, passed right by Fraser, and sat down heavily on the couch. "I thought you had a thing for the Ice Queen."
Fraser straightened his shoulders. "Inspector Thatcher and I have a purely professional relationship."
"That why you were kissing in the middle of the Mountie camp? C'mon, I was there, Fraser. I saw you."
He swallowed hard, discomfort now piled on top of the pain. "There has been a certain amount of . . . mutual attraction between us," he said. "But I never, that is, since I . . . I mean, I was never actually in love with her. I have fallen in love only twice in my life."
"That bank-robber chick?"
"Her name was Victoria."
"Oh, yeah. Victoria. Right." Ray bent forward and rubbed his temples. "I don't get it. You usually dig chicks, but now you got the hots for me? That makes no sense, Fraser. You been out on the ice too long."
"I'm afraid this happened well before our journey north," Fraser admitted.
Ray squinted up at him. "Oh yeah? How long? You just wake up one morning and decide, 'Hey, I want a piece of that'?"
Oh, dear. He didn't want to confess this part of it, not with Ray acting and feeling the way he was. But Ray had asked. "I believe it was love at first sight."
"Oh, geez." Ray scrubbed his face with his hands. "You mean, you . . . ? Oh, God."
"I was confused that day," Fraser explained, not sure if Ray wanted to hear it. "I was looking for Ray Vecchio, and I found you instead." He swore he'd felt the air crackle as Ray had turned around -- the energy was that obvious, in a split-second's appraisal. And then Ray had hugged him. That had been the true genesis: something as simple as an unexpected hug when he was feeling lost, with his best friend missing and his apartment burned to the ground. He'd needed a hug . . . and Ray had given him one.
"So what you're telling me is it wasn't ever a real friendship. You were on the make from day one."
"The friendship was real, Ray. I . . . I was never 'on the make.'"
"Yeah, 'cause you knew I'd pop you one if you ever tried anything."
"Well, I knew it would hurt you."
"Oh yeah, you think you know everything, don't you?" Ray jerked to his feet, his hands balling into fists, his expression gone wild. "I should do it. I should just pop you in the head. For thinking about me like that. For . . . for ruining everything."
Fraser felt a lump rise in his throat. He couldn't deny any of it. He couldn't even defend himself, because he didn't want to hurt Ray any more than he already had. He lifted his chin and waited for the blow.
"Ray, don't," Maggie's voice said.
Ray whirled, and Fraser turned, too. Maggie was there, standing by the stove. She'd been outside, earlier, doing chores, but she'd obviously come in awhile ago, because she had taken off her coat and boots. So she'd heard some part of the conversation, which would explain why her face was so white.
"What's it to you?" Ray asked savagely.
"It's everything to me," Maggie said. "Ben, I'm so sorry."
Fraser shook his head, not trusting his voice.
"I thought Ray knew, and then I was so surprised when he didn't, I didn't stop to think," Maggie said. "Forgive me."
"I should have been the one to tell him," Fraser managed. "I should have done it a long time ago."
"Oh, yeah," Ray said softly, but his expression had changed from wild to miserable. "You should've."
"What do you want to do, Ray?" Fraser asked softly. He wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer. Whatever it was, he was certain that it didn't involve him.
"I don't know," Ray said. He scrubbed his face with his hands. "I really don't know."
"Inuvik has an airport," Fraser told him. "There are daily flights to Yellowknife and points south."
"You want me to go back to Chicago?"
"I think you should do whatever you need to do. If you'd like me to leave while you stay here with Maggie, I can do that, too."
Ray lifted his head slowly. "You mean, leave, like go out for a few hours, or leave, like take off for good?"
The first option was deeply tempting, but he knew better. Ray needed space, and a great deal of it. And if he were gone for good, Ray would be able to sort out his feelings for Maggie, as well. "I meant something more or less permanent."
Ray stared at him, his face unreadable, and for a moment Fraser almost dared to hope. But then Ray looked down again. "Yeah, okay."
The ice in Fraser's heart spread tendrils of frost through the rest of him until it filled him, body and soul. "All right, then," he said. He bent to pick up his bags where he'd left them, packed for travel. His coat was by the door.
"Where will you go?" Maggie asked.
Fraser pulled the coat on and set his hat on his head. "I don't know," he said. And then, because that wasn't fair to her: "I'll be in touch."
"Thank you," she said, and came to give him a quick hug. Her face was furrowed deep with guilt, and he wished he could say something to ease that, too, but he couldn't think of anything. Fraser straightened as Maggie pulled away.
Ray was still standing by the couch, looking hurt and lost. It was hard to look at him, but Fraser couldn't look anywhere else. This might very well be the last time he ever saw that haunted, beautiful face. "I'm sorry we didn't get to finish the quest," he said.
Ray met his eyes. "You know, it's funny. I don't really give a damn about the quest."
"I won't ask your forgiveness," Fraser said. "I'll just say good- bye. It was a pleasure being your friend."
"Yeah," Ray said. "I . . . me, too. Fraser, I . . ."
"Yes?"
"I'll miss you."
It wasn't much, but it was something. Fraser swallowed the lump in his throat that felt big enough to choke him. "As will I, you, Ray."
"Uh, take care of yourself. Don't mess with any polar bears out there."
He had to go. He had to go now, or Ray would see him cry. "Good- bye, Ray," he said, and stumbled out the door.
~ * ~ Fraser had the hots for him. It still didn't seem possible, but it was true. Fraser had the hots for him, and Fraser was gone.
Ray turned to face the wall, biting the inside of his cheek and fighting back the tears that were prickling his eyes. He'd cried in front of Fraser once, after the thing with Beth Botrelle, and Fraser had done exactly the right thing, rubbing his neck and patting his shoulder. Fraser hadn't gone all mushy on him. He'd just been there.
And now, damn it all, Fraser had him questioning that, wondering about his motives that night. But if Fraser had had a thing for him then, why hadn't he done anything more? Ray had been so low that night, he probably wouldn't have protested anything. But Fraser hadn't taken advantage.
Ray bit his cheek harder. In some ways it would be easier if Fraser had taken advantage. Easier to believe all this, anyway. Because he still couldn't see it, even though Fraser had made himself pretty clear. He had a hard time imagining Fraser wanting to screw anyone, let alone him. Fraser always seemed so stiff, so controlled.
"Ray," a soft voice said.
He turned to find Maggie next to him, her face still pale and drawn. "I guess you hate me now," he said.
"No," Maggie said, and touched his shoulder. Almost, but not quite, like Fraser. "I just wish . . ."
"What, that I was like him or something?"
"No, just that I hadn't been the one to tell you."
"Oh."
"Do you want to talk?"
"I don't know." He didn't, not really. The only thing he wanted was to have things back the way they had been. To have Fraser here, and be buddies. To know Fraser cared about him -- as a person, not as some kind of sex thing. Only it had never really been that way; he'd just thought it was. "I guess I better go back to Chicago."
"Is that what you want to do?"
"I don't know."
"You can stay here if you'd like."
He looked up at her and tried to smile. "Uh, thanks, Maggie. I just . . ." It wasn't that he didn't like her. He still liked her a lot. But there wasn't going to be anything going on between them, not now. It wouldn't have felt right, with Fraser gone. Nothing felt right now.
He was completely lost. He didn't know who he would be if he went back to Chicago alone. It was Fraser who'd made him proud to be a cop, Fraser who'd helped him learn to deal with living without Stella. Fraser had made him feel strong and smart, and they'd gotten the partnership thing down, the one where they only had to look at each other and make the barest of hand signals, and they each knew exactly what the other needed.
He was going to miss that. He already missed it like hell. And he wasn't sure he wanted to go back to being the Ray Kowalski who was just Ray, not Fraser-and-Ray.
But it didn't look like he had much of a choice.
"I gotta go back," he said. "I'm sorry."
"We're all sorry, Ray," Maggie said.
"Yeah, I know," he said. There was nothing more to say.
Part II: Frozen
It was like swimming through fog, like nothing was real anymore. Ray walked into the 27th District police station from the parking-lot side entrance the way he had a thousand times before, but it felt completely wrong.
"Vecchio!" a voice said in greeting. Ray didn't know who it was, and didn't bother to look over. "What the hell are you doing here?"
Vecchio. Only he wasn't Vecchio any more. Vecchio was the name he'd had when he was partners with Fraser. "It's Kowalski," he said.
"Oh, yeah, right. Kowalski. Good to see you." The voice faded into the background as Ray pushed through the doors and out into the corridor.
"Ray!" That was Frannie, doing a major double take. For a moment her mouth just hung open. "What are you . . . ?" And then her mouth shut and her face fell. "Oh. So I guess you heard the news even up there in the frozen north, huh?"
News? From the look on her face, it wasn't good news. "Frannie, what news?"
Frannie waved a hand. "Oh, you know. That thing about my brother and your ex-wife running off to Florida."
"What?" She couldn't be talking about Stella. Not his Stella and . . . Vecchio? Hell, she hadn't given him the time of day when he'd been Vecchio, why on earth would she . . . ? No. Stop. He had to think clearly.
"Well, you know how it is," Frannie prattled on. "We were all so worried about you guys, and we had to sit around, waiting for news, and they kind of started talking, and it was, well, actually, sickening was what it was, but I guess they hit it off or something. Is Fraser with you?"
"Uh, no," Ray managed, though his heart was sinking into the pit of his stomach. He didn't need this. Not on top of everything else. "He, uh, he stayed up there in Inuvik. So they went to Florida?"
"Yeah, they were talking about opening up a bowling alley, if you can believe that. Is he going to be coming back, like maybe to visit or something?"
A bowling alley? That didn't sound like his Gold Coast girl at all. "Uh, no. I mean, not that I know of. Are you sure this isn't some kind of joke or something, Frannie? 'Cause, you know, Stella was never real big on bowling."
"Yeah, that's the funny part. Neither was my brother. I guess they decided they wanted to do something really different." Frannie looked up and down the corridor with exaggerated disdain. "Not that I can blame them for that." Her eyes came back to Ray and went serious. "Was Fraser okay when you left him? I mean, he's happy up there?"
Oh, God. That was not a question Ray wanted to answer. "He's fine," he said, too firmly. "Hey, he's Fraser. He likes it up there."
"So I guess he doesn't really miss Chicago, then."
"Not that I could see," Ray said. And then, suddenly, he knew he did not want to be here talking about Fraser with Frannie. "Look, could you tell Welsh I'll be in to see him, like, tomorrow?"
Frannie frowned. "You don't want to talk to him today? He's in his office."
"Uh, no thanks." He was going to lose it if he stood here talking for one more minute. "Just tell him, okay?"
He turned and pushed his way past an incoming crowd of men in chef's hats, being arrested for something undoubtedly vital to Chicago's law and order. Frannie was watching him go, he could tell that, even in the confusion of all the white uniforms. But he couldn't explain himself. Stella was with Vecchio. And he'd thought he was over her, had thought he was over the jealousy thing with Vecchio, too. Until this.
Damn it all, he needed Fraser. The thought was formed before he could question it, but it was true. If Fraser were here, he'd be telling some dumb Inuit story, something about a caribou on a mountainside or maybe Loouuuu Skagnetti, and suddenly it would all make sense and Stella running off to Florida wouldn't hurt quite so much.
But Fraser was up there in the Frozen North, missing him for all the wrong reasons. Fraser wanted to do weird things to his body. And Fraser, damn him, had wanted to all along, every time he'd ever told an Inuit story or talked about friendship or . . . or saved his life with that buddy breathing thing.
That was the worst part, now that he had too much time to think about it, the fact that Fraser had kissed him. Well, okay, Fraser hadn't actually slipped him tongue or anything, but he'd locked lips to lips. And then he'd lied, when Ray had asked him if anything had changed between them.
Ray made his way out into the parking lot and got into the GTO. The problem was, part of him still remembered what Fraser had tasted like: lake water, mostly, but there had been something else, too, something that was probably really Fraser. A sweetness in the air Fraser had breathed into him. Nah, that was his imagination, from being so close to giving up and gasping and breathing in water instead of air. Any air would have tasted sweet. It wasn't Fraser.
Damn it.
Something red caught his eye, and he realized where he was. Right in front of the Consulate. He'd driven over here on automatic pilot, like he'd thought he could find Fraser here. Only the red wasn't Fraser, it was Turnbull, standing guard.
Ray hit the accelerator and burned rubber heading home. Christ, he was in worse shape than he'd thought. What could he possibly have been thinking? Fraser wasn't here, and Fraser had betrayed him. As bad as Stella had.
Right, Stella. Stella was off in Florida, whooping it up with Vecchio. It still didn't seem possible, but then, her thing with Orsini had seemed pretty weird, too. But at least he'd had Fraser, then, to help him cope.
For a moment, he almost smiled. Fraser, Mr. Impeccable Manners, himself, had opened a car door right into Orsini -- on purpose, for him. But that only meant . . . no. There was no way he could figure Fraser had done that for selfish reasons. What could he have hoped to gain? It wasn't like Orsini was a rival -- if Fraser would've seen anyone as a rival, it should have been Stella. But Fraser had always been perfectly polite to Stella -- Fraser had, in fact, defended Ray's actions to her. Anybody looking at it would've said Fraser was asking her to give Ray another chance.
Damn. Even now that he knew Fraser's secret, the man still didn't make sense. Ray sighed and pulled into a parking space in front of his apartment building. He didn't really want to go upstairs and be alone with the noise in his head, but he didn't have much of a choice, either. He wasn't Ray Vecchio anymore. He wasn't Ray-and-Stella. He didn't know who he was, apart from someone who went home alone, and he didn't like that part. Didn't like it at all.
He climbed the stairs to his floor and fumbled for his key, finally getting it in the lock and turned and the door open. Home sweet home was a wreck, as usual. No, worse, because he hadn't done any dishes or picked anything up off the floor since he'd gotten home a week ago.
He tossed his coat on the couch, picked the empty (oops, no, not quite empty, but turning a fuzzy shade of green) pizza box off the floor and set it on the coffee table, cleared away a pair of socks and a t-shirt, and pulled back the rug. A CD was already in the player; all he had to do was turn it on and let the music wash over him.
The figure in his arms as he moved was Stella, always Stella. She was so light on her feet, like dancing with air -- okay, it was dancing with air, but air was what he had. He turned and swayed to the music, feeling the rhythm in every pore, giving himself up to it completely.
It wasn't enough. It was never enough, but it was all he had.
~ * ~ "It's all right, boy."
Dief whined and licked Fraser's face, which probably meant he was crying again. He was to the point where he barely noticed any more, except for the one night when it had been so cold the tears had frozen in his lashes. If it weren't for Dief and the other dogs, he probably wouldn't be alive right now, simply because he no longer cared whether he took care of himself or not. But the dogs needed food and shelter and a safe path over the ice, so for their sake, he'd tried.
He'd gone west from Inuvik, not east, because he couldn't bear the thought of continuing the quest without Ray. He'd ended up here, in the end, not through active planning, but because Dief knew the way. His father's cabin was gone, but the barn still stood. It was enough to provide some shelter for the dogs, and a barrier to at least some of the wind.
Fraser stood and added more wood to the makeshift stove he'd constructed from an old oil barrel. The dogs shifted around him and Dief settled back down on his haunches, watching him.
He'd gone over the site of the cabin earlier, while it was light. There were still ashes, scattered under the snow, from Victoria's fire. He'd meant to rebuild, but he'd never found the time. There had always been something else, some suspect to track -- murderer or litterbug, it had always been urgent at the time, far more urgent than rebuilding a cabin he had no plans to live in.
But he had time, now. He'd taken four months' leave, intending to spend it on the quest, and he had no other obligations to fulfill. The thaw was coming fast; already the snow underfoot was soft and heavy. It was a good time for construction. And maybe, just maybe, the hard physical labor would help him forget his battered heart.
As if anything could.
"It wasn't his fault," he told Dief. "It wasn't Maggie's fault either. I knew better, I just . . ."
Dief whined.
"I know," Fraser said, and the ice closed in on his heart once again. "I know."
~ * ~ "Ray Kowalski, this is your new partner, Dan Jerrit."
Ray made himself stick his hand out. No point starting off wrong, even if he didn't want a new partner. Jerrit had a clean-cut, square jaw and a solid physique, but his resemblance to Fraser ended there. His hair was medium brown, short and straight, and he had tough guy written all over him.
"We've met," Jerrit said, and squeezed his hand in an iron grip. "Good to see you again."
"Um, yeah." Ray extracted his hand, wondering if there was anything broken, and tried to remember. Oh, right, the Van Zandt case. They'd brought in Jerrit to fool a couple of Van Zandt's flunkies into ratting him out. It was the only time Ray had ever had real contact with the guy -- the rest of the time, he'd just been one of those people you saw around the station but never actually got to know.
"I want you two on the Randolph case," Welsh ordered. "I want you working together like a well-greased engine."
"Oh, right, greased," Ray echoed, trying not to be smart, and not really succeeding. Welsh was a good guy, a fair boss, and most of the time not even a jerk. But right now Ray really wasn't in the mood for being ordered around.
Welsh gave him a look that said he was pushing it, but let it go at that. "You can spell Hoover and O'Brien on the stakeout."
"We're on it, sir," Jerrit said.
"That the late shift?" Ray asked.
"You got a problem with that, Detective?"
"Uh, no, sir." He didn't, not really. He wasn't sleeping much these days, anyway.
"Good."
They walked out of Welsh's office together. Ray let Jerrit get a little ahead of him, hoping he could manage to avoid a conversation. It wasn't that he had anything against the guy, he just really wasn't in the mood right now. But Jerrit turned and saw him lagging.
"Want to get a coffee?"
He was trapped, nowhere to go. "Yeah, okay, sure."
Jerrit drank his coffee black and unsweetened, which, considering the state of the coffee, was a clear sign of bravery. Ray dumped three packets of sugar into his own and went to sit down opposite his new partner.
"So how does it feel to be yourself again?" Jerrit asked. "I guess you were undercover quite awhile."
"Two years," Ray admitted. It wasn't exactly his preferred topic of conversation, but he plowed on. "And it's, uh, it's okay. Some days I still forget and start to answer the phone 'Vecchio.'"
Jerrit took a swig of coffee without grimacing -- either he was a real stoic, or he'd been drinking the stuff so long he had no taste buds left. "They say a lot of times undercover cops get so used to the lifestyle they miss it when they come back out."
That was a pretty weird thing to say. Ray took a sip of his own coffee and had to control the urge to wretch. Instant made with tap water would've been better than this. "Hey, it wasn't all that different for me. I mean, I was playing a cop. No big deal."
"You were working with the Mountie. That's not the usual gig."
Damn. Why'd he have to bring up Fraser? "Uh, yeah. He's kind of an unusual guy."
Jerrit gave him a speculative look. "I heard you two were pretty tight."
"We got along okay," Ray said warily.
"Sounded like it was a bit more than that. Sounded like you were best buddies off duty, too."
What was this, some kind of nudge-nudge, wink-wink thing? "Hey, he hung out with Vecchio. I was just doing my job."
"What's the matter, he have bad breath or something?"
Oh, geez. If Jerrit only knew. Ray pushed himself to his feet and picked up his mostly full cup of coffee. "Look, Fraser and me, that's ancient history. Water under the bridge. Day-old salad. Could we talk about something else?"
"Sure, whatever." Jerrit got lazily to his feet and gave Ray a captain-of-the-football-team grin. "So what's this about your wife running off to Florida with Vecchio?"
That was it. That was the kicker. Ray set his cup down hard, splashing coffee all over the table, and closed in on Jerrit. He grabbed a handful of shirt. "You wanna make something of it?"
"Hey, hey, hey," Jerrit put his hands in the air. "No offense, buddy."
Right. No offense. This guy stuck his foot in his mouth so often, he ought to have a black belt in yoga.
And then he flashed, somehow, to what Fraser would say to that: Ray, I think you mean karate. I don't believe there's any form of yoga that awards black belts.
Ray closed his eyes. Fraser wouldn't approve of him hitting Jerrit no matter what the provocation, and somehow that still mattered. He forced his fingers to let go of the thin fabric of Jerrit's t-shirt. "Okay," he managed. "How 'bout we just talk about the case?"
"Fine by me," Jerrit said. He still had that smug expression, and for a second Ray almost regretted not hitting him. And then he took a second look. Damn. Jerrit was bigger than Fraser, and completely muscle-bound. Not the kind of guy he'd want to be taking on if he had any brains left.
Which, apparently, he didn't. "I better clean up this mess," Ray said, and went to get a paper towel to mop up the spilled coffee.
~ * ~ Sitting on a stakeout with Jerrit was as bad as having coffee with him. No, worse. They were in Jerrit's car, because he'd insisted, and they'd run out of things to discuss about the case more than an hour ago. So now they were sitting there in silence, chewing on gum and trying not to fall asleep.
The assignment was pretty simple, anyway: old-fashioned surveillance of the boring kind. Made all the worse because the guy they were after seemed to have the social life of a pet rock.
"So the rumors don't bother you," Jerrit said, apropos of absolutely nothing.
"Rumors about what?" Ray asked, even though he wasn't sure he wanted to know. Another of these foot-in-mouth things, and he was going to go ballistic.
"Oh, it's nothing. You, know, just people wondering why you came back from the Great White North early. And alone."
Damn. This was worse, ten times worse, than the cut about Stella. But Ray couldn't help himself; he had to know. "So, uh, what're they saying?"
"Oh, just what you'd expect. That you and the Mountie had some kind of falling out. I mean, not everybody thinks it was a lovers' quarrel."
Shit. Ten times worse? Try a couple million. "Hey, it wasn't like that. We weren't . . . I mean, that is so totally wrong, it's stupid."
"Really? So it's not true that you came on to him and he turned you down? Cause that's the way I heard it."
Was it possible to kick somebody in the head from a bucket seat? "Look, I said it wasn't true, okay? No way I would come on to him. I'm not that kind of guy."
Jerrit just grinned, and Ray had to clench his teeth to keep from slugging him. "Hey, we're talking about the Mountie, here. It doesn't matter what kind of guy you are."
That . . . made no sense. "What, uh, whattaya mean?"
"Oh, come on. Don't tell me you never noticed. A guy like that . . . hell, he could probably convert half the guys on the force just by batting his eyelashes."
The world canted a hundred and eighty degrees. Jerrit's earlier comments suddenly seemed a bit less judgmental. "I didn't realize you were . . ."
"Gay? Nah. That's what I'm saying. I've never wanted to screw a guy in my life, but if it was the Mountie asking, well, I'd have to reconsider."
"Sheesh." Ray stared straight ahead and chomped on his gum. "Well, it wasn't like that, anyway. We just . . ." He racked his brains for a suitable lie. "It was this dumb thing about his sister." There. That was almost a Fraser-lie, the kind where you told the truth, but the other guy got confused.
"Is she as good-looking as he is?"
"Almost," Ray said, and realized it was true. Maggie was pretty, real pretty. But Fraser was beautiful. "I, uh, I kinda put the moves on her when I shouldn't have."
"And he hit the ceiling? Protective brother."
"Yeah, I guess he is. It just wasn't good, after that, so I decided to come home."
"So you didn't get the guy or the girl."
"No, I did not."
"Too bad," Jerrit said, without making clear which he was referring to.
"Yeah, I guess."
"Shit happens," Jerrit said, and then fell silent for awhile.
Ray leaned back in his seat, careful not to look over at his partner. He couldn't believe what Jerrit had said. Not just the rumor. That thing about Fraser. If it was the Mountie asking, he'd have to reconsider. What was that? Normal guys didn't think like that, did they?
Ten minutes went by, and nothing stirred in Randolph's house. But after ten minutes, Ray couldn't take it any more.
"You really think he's that good-looking?"
Jerrit raised his eyebrows. "Who?"
Damn him, anyway. "Fraser."
Jerrit grinned, like he'd known who he was talking about and just wanted to make him say the name. "It's not just about looks, you know. You saw how many people turned out when they thought he was dead."
"Yeah, I remember." He'd thought they were all nuts for believing a dumb rumor. But he'd been half scared Fraser was really dead, himself. And damn relieved when he wasn't.
Jerrit turned to scan the street before looking back over at Ray. "But, yeah, he's that good-looking."
"So you would . . . I mean, if he asked you, you'd actually do it?"
"Hey, I'll try anything once."
Damn. That was something he had said once, to Fraser. The problem was, at the time he hadn't actually been thinking . . . well, it just hadn't occurred to him that Fraser might be interested.
"Of course, I don't really think I'd be his type," Jerrit said.
His type? Ouch. That was not someplace Ray wanted to go. "Fraser doesn't have a type."
"You're sure about that?"
"Oh, yeah."
"Well, if you say so. I mean, if anyone would know, it would be you."
It was almost an insinuation. Almost, but not quite. And given the recent direction of the conversation, Ray really didn't want to push it. The last thing he wanted to hear was that Jerrit had been speculating about Fraser's feelings, too.
"Trust me on this," he said. And then, suddenly, he couldn't take it anymore. He had to change the subject, because if he didn't, he was going to crack and really pop Jerrit one, and he still had enough sense to know that that was a really bad idea. Ray shifted in his seat, staring out the windshield like he was actually interested in the case. "So, you think there's any chance Randolph's gonna show tonight?"
"Not much," Jerrit said.
"That's what I figured."
Ray hunched down in his seat, settling in for the long haul. He didn't bring Fraser up again, and mercifully, neither did Jerrit, but he couldn't shut his brain off quite as easily. It was like having a CD set on replay, and with every iteration he hated the music more. He didn't want to think about Fraser. It hurt too much. But he couldn't seem to think about anything else.
~ * ~ There was a woman in front of him: he could see her long black hair, but he couldn't see her face. Ray wanted to say something, anything, to make her turn around, but his mouth was frozen. He tried to reach forward, to touch her shoulder, but his arm wouldn't move. And then he heard a voice -- Fraser's voice -- shouting, "Victoria!".
Ray sat bolt awake in bed, drenched in sweat. His alarm clock said nine twenty-three, and it was light out, which meant he'd had less than three hours of sleep. Damn.
Why the hell had he dreamed of Victoria? He didn't even know what she looked like, because there hadn't been a picture in Ray Vecchio's files. It was Jerrit's fault, for talking about Fraser having a type. Oh, yeah, great. Just what he wanted to think about: what did he have in common with a bank robber chick, that Fraser could fall in love with both of them?
His body had that peculiar heavy feeling that said not enough sleep, but his head was jangling, now. No way he was going to get any more shut-eye. Ray rolled out of bed and headed for the shower. He wasn't due at work until noon, but he didn't know what else he wanted to do.
Under the warm spray of the shower, the dream came back to him. That feeling of being paralyzed, unable to speak or move. He hated that. And hated worse the idea that maybe his subconscious was trying to tell him something.
Oh, yeah, like what? That he was going to go rob banks and then come back and break Fraser's heart? It was too late for the second thing, anyway, since he'd already gone and done it.
Damn. He turned his face to the spray, screwing his eyes shut and just letting the water run over him. It wasn't his fault he'd broken Fraser's heart. Fraser should have known better than to fall in love with him. It wasn't like he'd ever encouraged it, at least, he hadn't meant to.
But he had. He knew he had, now that he'd been thinking about it for a week. There was just something about Fraser -- not his looks, like Jerrit had said last night -- but something else that had made him trust Fraser from the moment they met. Something that made him want to make Fraser like him. So every time they'd had a meal together, every time Fraser had thanked him for something, every time they'd shared a look, or a pat on the shoulder, or a grin, Ray had felt all warm inside. And Fraser had known it, too; he was sure of that.
Even if he hadn't meant to, he'd been leading Fraser on.
Damn it. And now he was thinking about Victoria, because best he could figure, she'd led Fraser on, too. Or maybe she'd had other motivations; he couldn't be sure. Her profile had been pretty sketchy in Vecchio's notes, like Vecchio had been leaving stuff out, on purpose. But there had to be some way to find out about her.
Ray turned for a final rinse and then shut off the water. If he wasn't going back to sleep anyway, he might as well do something. Besides, he had to know. Whatever Victoria had meant to Fraser, he had to understand it.
But an hour later, going through files on Frannie's computer at the 27th, he wasn't exactly feeling enlightened. There were details, lots of details: it looked like she was wanted for murder one, and still at large. But there was nothing in the files to say that Fraser had loved her. He'd got that from reading between the lines in Vecchio's notes, and he didn't have Vecchio's notes anymore. The only person who would really know was . . . Vecchio, himself.
No, that was nuts. He couldn't just . . . but he needed to know. He looked up to find Frannie returning with a cappuccino. "Hey, Frannie," he said, before he had time to think better of it. "You got your brother's phone number somewhere?"
"Sure, Ray," she said. Then she seemed to catch on to what he was asking, because she tilted her head and really looked at him. "What do you want to talk to him about?"
Oops. Time for another Fraser-style lie. "It's about a case."
"Oh. You mean the nerve-gas thing?"
"No, it's another one. An old case, nothing you would've heard about."
"Well, actually, I happen to know a lot about Ray's old cases. He used to come home, you know, and talk about stuff he was doing, and --"
"Frannie, the number?"
"Okay, okay, I'm getting to it. Sheesh, some people." But Frannie mercifully leaned across her desk and scribbled something on a piece of paper. She was dressed surprisingly conservatively today, and she looked . . . almost fat. It was odd. He'd never thought of her as plump, before. In fact, he'd always thought she had a damn good figure. Funny, you went away for a month, and the whole world changed. "Here you go," Frannie said, and then tipped her head. "You wouldn't be planning to mention me when you talk to him, would you?"
"Uh, no, not really."
"Oh. Well, good. I mean, that's great. Because I'd really appreciate it if you wouldn't mention my, um, condition to him. Cause, you know, I'd really rather tell him myself."
"What do you mean, 'condition'?"
"That's funny, Ray. See how I'm laughing? Promise you won't tell him."
"Tell him . . . ?" What, that she had put on a couple of pounds? That didn't hardly seem . . . and then he took a good look at her. Oh, geez. She wasn't fat. She was pregnant, and pretty obviously so. "Oh. Uh, congratulations, Frannie."
She smiled. "Thank you."
"So you're . . . you're cool with this? You're happy?"
"Who, me?" She gave a laugh that didn't sound entirely sincere. "Of course I'm happy."
"You don't, uh . . . you don't miss Fraser?"
Frannie's voice went brittle. "Fraser? Why would I miss Fraser?"
He didn't have to push any further. He got the picture, even if he didn't know who the dad was. It obviously wasn't Fraser, and Frannie wished it was. "I'm sorry, Frannie."
She wiped surreptitiously under her eyes. "Sorry about what?"
"You know, for going away with him."
"Well, it wouldn't have been so bad if you'd stayed up there."
That couldn't mean what he thought it meant. "What?"
"You left him alone, Ray. What's he supposed to do now? How do you think he feels? You have some dumb argument and you take off? That's just so . . . so guy-like."
Whoa. He had no idea how she'd figured that out, because he certainly hadn't told her. Damn. "He's not alone. He's got his sister."
"It's not the same thing, and you know it. I mean, I'm sure she's a very nice person, but Fraser needs someone to love."
Oh, geez, she did understand. She understood better than Jerrit or anyone else had. "I'm sorry, Frannie," he said again.
"I'm not the one you should be apologizing to."
"Yeah, I know." Damn. He knew all too well. "Look, I . . . I better make this phone call."
"You do that," she said, and turned back to her desk.
Ray wandered over to his own desk -- Ray Vecchio's old one, which was his by default since Vecchio had left. He couldn't believe that Frannie knew, and didn't seem to blame him for it. That she was, in fact, mad at him for leaving Fraser.
He wanted to go back and argue with her, but it wasn't the place or the time. And right now he had less than an hour before he was supposed to be meeting with Jerrit.
He sat down in his chair, picked up the phone, and dialed the number.
"Kowalski-Vecchio residence."
Damn. There was one thing he hadn't anticipated, and it had more thorns than a rose bush in full bloom. "Uh, hi, Stella."
"Ray?" Her voice sounded shocked. "What are you doing, calling me here? I've moved on, Ray. I've made up my mind and I'm happy with my choices, and you have to learn to accept that."
Ray winced and rubbed his temples. Stella on a bad day was worse than a hangover. "Actually, I called to talk to Vecchio. Is he there?"
There was a moment of pure silence. "What's this about?"
"I need to talk to him about a case. An old one he worked on."
"Oh. So you're in Chicago?"
"Yeah, I'm in Chicago. Look, is he there or not?"
Stella's voice went a little softer. "So you got my note?"
Note? What note? "I dunno if I, uh . . ."
"I left it in your mailbox at the station. I tried to explain."
She'd tried to tell him, after all. For a moment Ray felt a tiny bit better. "I'm sorry, Stella. I still got a pile of mail to go through."
"Oh," Stella said, and there was another brief pause. "I'll go get Ray."
The line went silent, and Ray took the moment to paw through the heap of mail on his desk. Notices, junk mail, wait -- Stella's handwriting. He cupped the phone to his cheek with his shoulder and ripped the envelope open.
"Ray," it said, scrawled out far more messily than Stella's usual precise hand, "I know you won't understand this, but I'm leaving for Miami with Ray Vecchio. This is what I need. Your mother will have my new phone number as soon as I know it. Take care of yourself. Stella."
No "love." No "I'll miss you." But at least she'd thought to write.
His thoughts were interrupted by a voice in his ear. Vecchio's voice, saying, "Stanley?"
It put his hackles up, but he fought them back down. He didn't have to be jealous of Vecchio anymore. After all, he was the one who'd got Fraser. Or . . . well, whatever. "Yeah. Hi, Ray. Listen, I got a couple questions for you."
"You mean this is really about a case?"
"Uh, yeah. I mean, sort of. I need to know about Victoria Metcalf."
"Victoria? Oh, no. You do not want to know about Victoria. Trust me, the less you know about that woman, the happier you'll be. She was bad news all around."
"I know that. I just . . . look, I gotta understand him, so I gotta know."
There was a moment of silence. "Benny got to you pretty bad, huh?"
"Guess I spent too much time with him."
"It's a common hazard," Vecchio said, which suddenly made Ray wonder . . . but no, Vecchio was with Stella. He couldn't possibly have felt that way about Fraser. "Okay, okay. Tell me what you want to know about Victoria."
Everything, Ray thought, but that wasn't fair to ask. "So I guess he was in love with her."
"Oh, you could say that. In love, obsessed, crazy. He would have done anything for her. Almost did."
"What . . . what do you mean?"
"Oh, it was a long story, and I don't even know if I know all of it. All I know is she had him, hook, line, and sinker. He was willing to throw everything away, just to be with her. If I hadn't shot him, he would've done it, too."
"Wait, you're saying you shot him?" That hadn't been in the files. Somehow, he'd assumed Victoria had done the shooting.
Vecchio sighed audibly. "I was aiming for her. How was I supposed to know he'd jump in front of her at the last minute?"
"He took a bullet for her?"
"Oh, I don't think he knew it was coming. He was just trying to get on the train."
The train. Right. That had been in the files. "To capture her. To bring her in."
Another silence. "Okay, I'm only telling you this because you two are tight, all right? But he wasn't there to arrest her. He was going to leave with her on that train."
Ray tried to picture that, and failed. Fraser, running off with a bank robber? "Maybe he was just trying to, you know, get her to turn herself in."
"Nah, he'd already tried that. Didn't work. No, he was going to leave me in the lurch for a hundred thousand dollars' bail and leave Dief at the vet's with a bullet hole in him, all for some crazy broad who was yanking his chain. That's how far gone he was. He would've given up everything for her."
Oh, geez. He hadn't pictured that. Not in his wildest imagination. Love had meant that much to Fraser, that he'd been willing to compromise everything for it. "For love," Ray said.
"Yeah, Stanley. For love."
"Uh, thanks," Ray said.
"That was what you wanted to know?"
"Yeah, I think it was."
"So there's no hard feelings, right?"
"No," Ray said, and suddenly knew it was true. "No hard feelings. Tell Stella I'm glad she's happy. She deserves to be happy."
"She's one hell of a woman," Vecchio said.
"I know." And so did she. "I'll, uh, talk to you later."
"Later, Stanley."
Ray hung up the phone and leaned back in his chair, staring off at nothing. Fraser had been ready to betray his two best friends -- Vecchio and Dief -- for Victoria. It seemed wrong, somehow, and very unlike Fraser. Fraser would never do anything like that for him. Of course, he wouldn't ask Fraser to, but still . . . it made him wonder if Fraser really did love him, or if it was just some weird misunderstanding. Maybe Fraser just had the hots for him, and didn't really care.
Damn, he shouldn't be thinking like that. He didn't even know why it mattered. It wasn't like he would give up anything for Fraser, himself. Well, not really. Just because he'd been prepared to follow Fraser to the ends of the earth looking for that stupid hand . . .
Ray sat up with a jerk. That was the problem. He had wanted to give it all up for Fraser. Damn it, some part of him still did, though he didn't know why. All he knew was that he'd already done it, once, when he'd refused the transfer that would've given him back his name. It would have been the right career move, and he'd known it, but he'd chosen to stay the moment Fraser had said he wasn't leaving.
Not because he'd wanted to be Ray Vecchio. By that point, he hadn't given a damn about being Ray Vecchio. No, he'd wanted to be with Fraser. As a partner. As a buddy. Not . . . anything else.
Damn it all.
Of course . . . Fraser had stayed, too. Fraser had said it would be a better career move for him, too, to transfer up to Ottawa, but he'd defied logic and stayed.
It wasn't exactly the same as leaving Dief or even Vecchio in the lurch, but then, Ray would never have wanted him to do either of those things. Not taking the transfer . . . meant something. He didn't know quite what, but even knowing Fraser's secret, it made him feel warm inside.
"So, what's the smile for? You just get laid or something?"
Ray started, and looked up into Jerrit's broad, clueless face. "What's the matter, you jealous?" he managed.
Jerrit just grinned. "C'mon, we have to go talk to Welsh about the Randolph case."
Right. Work. Ray clambered to his feet and did his best to put his mind back on the case.
It wasn't easy.
~ * ~ The cabin was not actually finished. Well, it had walls, it had a roof, and it even had a door. But additional amenities -- luxuries like windows and chinking -- were still intention rather than substance.
It was not his father's cabin. If his father had built it, it would have had a fanciful touch or two, a gable on the roof, carving over the door. This was square, bare, and utilitarian, but it suited Fraser's mood.
He'd spent two months on it. Two months working as long as there was light, which by now meant nearly twenty-four hours a day. But the hard labor hadn't managed to cleanse his soul. He felt empty. Drained. Lonely.
It was beautiful, here. It was home. But he'd taken the dogs back to Buck Frobisher's outpost, so now it was just himself and Diefenbaker, and it wasn't enough.
Never thought you'd be one to miss the city. He could almost hear his father's voice. But his father wasn't here, and that hurt, too, another tiny ache to add to the rest.
"I'm tired, Dief."
Dief came up beside him, laid a head on his knee, and whimpered. Fraser scratched his ears absently. "I know. I do, too."
Dief shifted against his knee and gave him one of those looks.
"Well, it's not as though there's anything I can do about it."
Dief whined.
"Oh, that's easy for you to say."
A series of barks.
"I am well aware of the fact that it's my fault, and I would appreciate it if you could limit yourself to mentioning it no more than once a day."
A self-satisfied woof.
"I have not been wallowing. I don't wallow."
A cock of the head.
"I couldn't possibly call him. I don't have a telephone. And even if I did, it would be highly inappropriate."
A quick bark.
"Ah, yes. Well, that's another story."
He got to his feet and surveyed his work. If he boarded up the window openings, it would stand the weather. And Dief was right. He still had duties to attend to, duties he had been neglecting shamefully. He found some planks in the barn, too warped and weathered to use in actual construction, and set to work.
The hike to the nearest outpost ordinarily took four days. Fraser made it in three and a half, pushing his already exhausted body to the limit. But physical pain felt irrelevant. It was at least a bit of a distraction.
Fortitude Bay had one general store, but the proprietor was happy to offer the use of his telephone, for a fee. Fraser thanked him kindly and dialed the number for the RCMP Detachment in Inuvik.
It took several minutes, but finally he heard the sound of an extension being picked up, and a familiar, firm voice said, "This is Constable Maggie Mackenzie, how can I help you?"
"Hi, Maggie. It's --"
"Ben." She sounded relieved. "How are you? Are you all right?"
All right was such a difficult term to define. "I'm quite well," he managed, which was reasonably truthful. "I apologize for not calling you sooner. I've been rebuilding my father's -- that is, our father's -- cabin, and I'm afraid telephone connections are rather sparse here."
"I understand," Maggie said. "Ben, it's good to hear from you. Are you planning to stay there, then?"
"I don't know," he said, and realized he meant it. As much as he loved this area, as hard as he had worked on the cabin, he felt no ties here. It was just a place. His home was elsewhere, with his heart.
"I haven't heard from Ray," Maggie said, as if she could follow the train of his thoughts from four hundred kilometers away. "I'm sorry."
It was one sentence, but it spoke volumes. Fraser felt flushed and cold, all at the same time. Ray was no longer with Maggie. He must have gone home to Chicago. "Was he, ah, was he all right when he left?"
"I think so," Maggie said. "Ben, you mean a great deal to him."
That hurt like salt on a fresh wound. Fraser swallowed hard, unable to speak.
"So are you still on leave?" Maggie asked after a moment, when the silence became painfully obvious.
"I have a few weeks remaining," Fraser managed.
"Do you have a post lined up, then?"
"No, I . . ." He hadn't thought that far ahead, truth be told. "I haven't made arrangements yet."
"I wish you would consider Inuvik. We have a position open for a constable, and we could really use a good officer. The last recruit couldn't take the winter."
Inuvik. His childhood home. Of all the places he'd lived in the Arctic, Inuvik was one of the oddest, the planned community, new and modern. As a child it had seemed normal, until he'd experienced more organic places, like Tuktoyaktuk, or the barren, icy wasteland of Alert. But Inuvik was where Maggie was, and if anyone were likely to hear from . . .
No, he couldn't think that way. She hadn't heard from Ray, and she wasn't likely to. Ray had made his choices. He had gone home.
"I can be there in a week," Fraser heard himself say.
"Great," Maggie said. "It will be good to see you, Ben."
"It will be good to see you as well."
Beside him, Dief barked his wholehearted agreement.
~ * ~ "Ray, are you okay?"
Ray opened his eyes. Frannie was looking down at him with a painfully concerned expression. Worried about him, which was stupid, only some days he was worried about himself, too.
He'd been in Chicago three months, now. It should have been long enough to sort things through and get over it all, but somehow he hadn't managed to. If anything, things were getting worse. He didn't even have the energy to dance, these days.
Ray took his feet off the desk and sat up in his chair. Yeah, he knew he should say, I'm just peachy. But all that came out was, "I don't know."
Frannie perched on the corner of his desk. She was really showing now, but it didn't look bad on her. In fact, she had this funny kind of glow about her, the kind of glow she used to get when she was around Fraser.
Damn. Why was it that whatever he was thinking about, he always ended up thinking about Fraser?
"You want to talk about it?" Frannie asked.
That was part of the problem; he had no one to talk to. Half the detectives he knew had quit, including Huey and Dewey, who had started some comedy club. Welsh was giving them six months, tops, before they came crawling back begging for their old jobs, but in the meantime it meant damn few familiar faces around the squad room. "There's not much to talk about," he said. A nonanswer.
"You miss him, don't you?"
Ray didn't have to ask who the "him" referred to. For once he and Frannie were on the same wavelength. "Yeah," he admitted. He said it half under his breath, but Frannie heard.
"You ever think of calling him up there?"
Oh, geez. The thought was . . . tempting and terrifying, all at once. "I don't think he has a phone."
"Well, there has to be some way of tracking him down. I mean, they live in this century, right? Somebody must have a phone up there."
Maggie did, and Maggie would know where Fraser was, but Ray didn't know if he could face her, either. "I could call his sister."
"So what's stopping you? You forgot how to dial a number?"
Ray shook his head. "I don't know what to say to him."
"You'll think of something. Trust me. You could start by saying you miss him."
The very thought was enough to make him panic. Fraser would take it all wrong. Or he wouldn't, and that would be almost as bad. "Uh, I don't think so."
Frannie rolled her eyes. "Well, it's your problem if you want to keep moping around the station. But don't go blaming me if you're miserable."
"Don't worry, Frannie, I won't."
"You know what you are? You're as bad as Frayzh. The two of you . . . well, it's no wonder you ended up like this."
"Hey, enough with the psycho-babble, okay? If I wanted to have my head examined, I'd've made an appointment."
"Okay, okay, I get it. But if you change your mind . . . let me know how he's doing, okay?"
There wasn't much chance of that. "Right. Sure, Frannie."
She hopped off his desk with another telling look and sashayed back to her own work station.
Ray flopped back in his chair. Calling Fraser, or even Maggie, was insane . . . but he couldn't help wanting to. He missed Fraser like he'd miss a body part. Every time he and Jerrit solved a case -- or, almost as likely these days, failed to -- he found himself thinking about how Fraser would have done it. Every time he drove by the Consulate, which was more frequently than strictly necessary, he imagined Fraser standing guard there instead of Turnbull. He remembered stupid little things, the time Fraser had let him wear the hat at that Christmas party, the time Fraser had called his hair "full bodied and bushy," the time they'd shared a sleeping bag together. And he'd figured out something else, late one night when he hadn't been able to sleep: Fraser had given up something for him. Fraser had given him up.
Okay, so it was kind of screwy logic, the kind Fraser would give him grief about. But if Fraser loved him, the last thing he would've wanted Ray to do was leave, and Fraser had made it easy for him. Fraser hadn't even protested; he'd just walked out that door.
It seemed painfully unfair, that Fraser had done that for him and he'd just accepted it without questioning. It made him feel like a cad. Because now that he'd had months to think about it, he knew how he felt about Fraser. He loved Fraser. Not . . . not that way. But it was love just the same.
He had no idea what to do about it. He kept thinking about what Jerrit had said, the thing about reconsidering if it was the Mountie, and it was killing him. He couldn't do that . . . could he? He'd never tried it, personally, had never even wanted to. Okay, there was one kid, in eighth grade. They'd been goofing around in the shed behind the Nowaczewskis' house, and Brian had had a copy of Playboy he'd stolen from his older brother. Somehow they'd ended up jerking off in front of each other, looking at the pictures in the magazine. At least, that was what they'd been looking at most of the time . . .
Oh, God. Ray scrubbed his face and opened his eyes. He shouldn't be sitting here, drifting off. He had plenty of cases to work on. He just had to find the energy to get to it, when all he wanted to think about was Fraser.
He'd never felt like this about anyone. Not even Stella. Well, with Stella it had been easy -- he'd been crazy about her since he was thirteen, and he'd always known what he wanted with her, even if it had taken another five years to get it. With Fraser . . .
He knew one thing. He wanted to make that phone call. No, worse, he wanted to see Fraser. He wanted to hop on a plane and go up there, track Fraser down, and tell him . . . what? I love you, too? Oh, yeah, great. Just what he needed -- Fraser would probably misunderstand and kiss him or something.
But the sick thing was, he was starting to wonder if that would be so awful. The thing underwater hadn't been gross or anything. So how bad could it possibly . . . ?
No, it was wrong. It was twisted. He couldn't go up there and bargain: you can have my body if you'll be my friend again. He'd have to be seriously unhinged. Besides, if he didn't like it, if he freaked out, he'd just end up making things worse, and end up losing Fraser for good.
Oh, geez. He had to stop thinking like this, but he couldn't help himself. He knew that one experience at the age of fourteen was hardly enough to go on. He just wished he knew enough to know whether he could actually handle . . .
"Earth to Kowalski. Come in, Kowalski."
A hand waved in front of his face, and Ray jumped. Damn. It was Jerrit, and there was no telling how long he'd been there. Ray sat up and ran his hand through his hair. "Uh, sorry."
"Solve the Morin case yet?"
"No." Damn, he wished he had.
"Then we'd better get cracking."
Cracking. Right. Yeah, he was close to that already. "I'm all over it," Ray managed, dragging himself to his feet. Jerrit was still looking at him with a funny expression, almost like . . .
No, he was imagining that. Definitely imagining. There was no way Jerrit was interested in him like that. And even if he had been . . . okay, Jerrit was the right size and shape. But everything else was totally wrong. Besides, if Ray was going to try banging his partner, it had damn well better be Fraser.
"You want to interview the wife?" Jerrit asked.
"Let's start with the girlfriend," Ray decided, grabbing his jacket. He had no idea why. It was just a hunch. But lately it seemed like everything Jerrit suggested, he had to disagree with. He didn't even know why, except Jerrit's methods were sometimes kind of screwy, and he never really knew what Jerrit was going to do next. There was no mutual trust at all.
Oh, well, maybe it would get better with Jerrit, eventually. Maybe they'd eventually get their success rate up to a reasonable level. Yeah, and maybe he'd get hit by lightning and win the lottery, too.
~ * ~ "So what can I get you this evening?"
Ray cleared his throat and looked at the bartender. It was the same guy he'd seen here before, the one with the balding head and the too-familiar manner. "Uh, you got any of that 'Despondency' stuff?"
"You know I do."
"Okay, gimme a tall one." The bar wasn't very full tonight -- a few guys who looked like regulars down at the other end of the counter and a smattering of people sitting at tables. Probably had something to do with the fact that it was Tuesday night, and getting on into the wee hours of the morning.
Hey, it was better than being alone.
"So where's Big Red?" the bartender asked, sliding the drink in front of Ray. It didn't exactly look appetizing -- thick, muddy brown -- but tonight he didn't care.
"He's, uh . . . he's in Canada."
"Been there awhile, too, from the looks of you."
"Three months," Ray admitted.
The bartender leaned forward, all fawning sympathy. "Mmm, that's rough."
Ray took a long drag on the drink. It tasted almost as bad as he remembered, but he gulped it down. Whatever those St. John's warts were, he needed them big time. "Look, really, I . . ."
"You had a fight with him."
Damn, the guy was a mind reader of the worst kind. Ray took another gulp of the drink. "Sort of. I mean, it wasn't really . . ."
"Intentional?"
"Uh, yeah, intentional. I mean, I wasn't ready for it. I wasn't thinking. I didn't mean to, uh . . ."
"Leave him?"
Geez, this guy was annoying. "Right."
"Well, I can certainly understand that," the guy said. "He's a real pretty package. Actually, it's a shame you two broke up, because you made a very cute couple."
Oh, geez. He was assuming . . . but the worst part was, he wasn't that far off. At least not from Fraser's side. "Uh, thanks," Ray said, because it was too complicated to explain the whole ugly truth. He stared down into his muddy brown drink.
The bartender leaned, if anything, closer still. "Y'know, I think I know the cure for what ails you."
Oh, right. Like this guy could possibly fix the mess he was in. "Look, nothing personal, but I don't think these warts are doing it for me."
The guy wasn't even listening. "Come on, now. You're moping. You're down in the dumps. You need to open your eyes and start looking around you. You," he proclaimed, poking a long finger into Ray's shoulder, "need to get laid."
Like he didn't know that? Ray tried for flippant: "Hey, look, I got motive and means, but I'm kinda lacking in opportunity."
The barkeep smiled. "That's because you don't have your eyes open."
Ray blinked. What was that supposed to mean? But as he was trying to figure out just what he wanted to ask, there was a motion at the far end of the bar. "Can we get a drink down here?" one of the regulars called out.
"Right with you," the bartender answered. He turned back to Ray and winked. "I get off work in an hour," he said. And then he was off to the other end of the counter.
Ray stared after him. He couldn't believe it: he'd just been propositioned. Sheesh. He hadn't seen it coming at all. Just went to show how out of it he was.
He took another swig of his drink, which didn't taste any better than it had a few moments ago. The guy was annoying as hell, and he wasn't even good-looking -- skinny and bald, and he had these funny little sad puppy-dog eyes. He wasn't a thing like Fraser . . . not that it would make a difference, of course. There was absolutely no point in considering the offer.
Damn. This was Fraser's fault. Because he was considering the offer, crazy as that was. Okay, the guy wasn't pretty, but he was interested, and he had the right equipment. And what better way to find out if he could stand it? If it was really, really bad, well, all it would mean was that there was another bar he couldn't show his face at.
Nuts, yes. Certifiably unhinged. But right now it was making a weird sort of sense he didn't know how to argue with.
He was still there when the bar closed, an hour later. The barkeeper came down to his end of the counter with a smarmy smile his face, and Ray almost left right then. "So, you want to go to my place?"
He knew the answer, and it was decidedly no. But he heard his voice say, "Uh, yeah, okay."
The smile went broader. "Great. Shall we take my car?"
"Actually, I got my car here, and I don't really, uh, want to leave it in this neighborhood." What he really didn't want was to be trapped at this guy's place, in case he needed to make a quick get-away. "How 'bout I just follow you?"
The barkeep tilted his head. "You're not having second thoughts, are you?"
Second? How about third and fourth? "Wh-- why would I be doing that?"
A hand came up to stroke his cheek and Ray couldn't help flinching. "I wouldn't think that love god of yours would be easy to replace."
Ray swallowed hard. The image of Fraser as a "love god" was somewhere between really weird and . . . well, terrifying. "I'm not looking to replace him."
"Mmm, that's probably for the best. Shall we?"
"Yeah, okay."
Following the guy's car up Broadway, Ray nearly turned off six or seven times. Every time he thought about what he was getting into, he felt his heart start to pound in his chest and his hands go cold. But when the guy finally turned onto a side street, Ray was still behind him. He found a space and parked, got out and went to meet the guy in front of a somewhat shabby three-story courtyard apartment building.
It was crazy. He was about to have sex with the guy, and he didn't even know his name. "I'm, uh, I'm Ray," he said.
"I know."
"You do?"
"Sure. That's what Red calls you."
"Oh." That was weird. The guy remembered his name, when he hadn't been in that bar in months. "And you are . . . ?"
"Oh, I'm Rodney. Everyone knows me."
Yeah, right. Everyone but him. Ray followed the guy inside and up the stairs. His apartment was a little nicer than the building. Neater than Ray's own, anyway. The guy -- Rodney -- went into the kitchen and pulled down two glasses. "What can I get you to drink?"
"I guess you kinda take your job home with you."
Rodney looked at him quizzically. "I don't follow."
Ray gave a nervous laugh. "You know, drinks, bar, work?"
"Oh." Rodney looked down at the glasses. "I get it. So what do you want?"
"I'm good the way I am." Truth was, those St. John's warts were churning rather unpleasantly in his stomach, and he was still waiting for the supposed boost.
"Mmm, that you are," Rodney said.
Ray felt his stomach heave. Oh, geez, the last thing he needed was to have this guy drooling all over him, telling him he was hot or something. "Look, I . . ."
Rodney made a show of pouring something for himself. "You want me to put some music on? Or get you something to eat, maybe?"
"Could we just, you know, get to it?"
"Ooh, eager. I like that in a man." Rodney set his drink down and came over to where Ray was standing. He placed a hand on Ray's shoulder and brought the other one up to touch his cheek like he wanted a kiss, and suddenly Ray knew he couldn't bear that. It was too personal. Too intimate. Too real.
"No . . . no kissing, okay?" Hey, it wasn't like he needed to try that out -- Fraser had already kissed him. Well, close enough, anyway.
Rodney's thumb rubbed his cheek. "Oh, you've got it bad for him, all right," he murmured. "But don't worry. I'll make it good for you. I'll make you forget all about him, even if it's for just one night."
"Yeah, whatever."
"Come on," Rodney said, and led the way to the bedroom. His bed was made -- weird -- and he went to go turn it down, then sat, patting the mattress beside him. Like a sleepwalker, Ray crossed the room and sat gingerly on the bed. "You know, I don't bite," Rodney said. "That is, not unless you want me to."
"Uh, no. I mean, that's okay. I don't really . . ."
"Know what you want. I know." Rodney reached over and patted his knee.
"No, I gotta do this." He'd made it this far. No point in backing out now.
"If you're sure."
"I'm sure." And to prove it, Ray took a deep breath and pulled his t-shirt over his head.
"Mmm, a tattoo. Nice."
Ray didn't answer that, just bent to take off his shoes. He wanted to get this over as soon as possible. He got the shoes off and then -- no time like the present -- ditched the jeans and underwear, too. A rustle next to him told him Rodney was following suit, but he really had no desire to look over. Ray lay back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling, and after a few moments felt a hand touch his chest.
Rodney's skin was pale -- even paler, Ray thought, than Fraser's - - and his bones were obvious beneath it. His touch was not entirely unpleasant. His fingers were a little damp, but other than that they felt okay. They trailed down onto Ray's stomach and he held his breath. If they had been Fraser's fingers, they would have felt different.
He knew that, suddenly, with a certainty he couldn't explain. Fraser's hands were always warm and strong, never clammy. Ray had touched Fraser, had been touched in return, too many times to count. How many times had they helped each other up? How many times had their hands brushed, in the course of their everyday interaction?
It had always felt perfectly natural. It was perfectly natural. Touching Fraser had been . . . a part of his life, ever since they'd first hugged. And now he knew he missed that, too.
"Mmm, that's better," Rodney said, and Ray felt the hand move lower, move down toward . . . oh, geez. It was weird. It was definitely weird. Ray closed his eyes. Would Fraser touch him like that? Was that what Fraser wanted? Rodney's hands moved lower still to squeeze his balls, and Ray jumped. "It really has been awhile, hasn't it?"
Ray muttered something meaningless and hopefully incomprehensible.
"All right," Rodney said. "Why don't you roll over? I'll make it good for you, baby, I promise."
Ray rolled onto his stomach, feeling his pulse pounding in his ears. This was it, the acid test, This was when he found out if he could take it. He heard a scraping sound, like the opening of a night-stand drawer, and a moment later felt something damn cold and slippery touch his ass. His whole body twitched, completely involuntarily.
"I'm hurrying, sweetie, don't worry."
Another noise, which he figured to be the sound of a condom packet tearing. Ray craned his neck around to be sure. Yes, that was definitely what it was. He buried his face back in the pillow. At least the guy knew what he was doing, playing it safe. That was worth something.
He felt pressure against his ass -- impossibly huge, though Rodney's dick hadn't looked all that big, from his one glance. Ray wriggled his hips, to do something, anything, to get this on with and over. Rodney giggled above him. "Hold on, hold on. You're so . . . oh, there."
Pain knifed through him. Not a dull pain or a burning, but a sharp, stabbing flare. "Fuck." Ray moaned.
"I'm working on it, I'm getting there. Oh God, you're so tight." Rodney moved, and it hurt worse.
"Listen, I, I can't . . ."
"It's okay, it's okay," Rodney crooned. He lurched again, and Ray had to bite his lip to keep from crying out. "Three months is a long time to do without."
Try thirty-seven years, Ray thought -- and if this was what it felt like, he could easily go another thirty-seven. "Shit."
"I got you, babe, I got you."
Oh, fuck. What had he gotten himself into? Rodney surged against him and the pain stabbed again, stabbed worse, so that it was all he could do to keep from screaming. And suddenly he couldn't take it anymore. Ray twisted and heaved, pushing Rodney up and off of him. He had his answer. He didn't need anything more.
"What the hell are you doing?"
"Look, I'm sorry." He reached for his clothes, right there on the floor, and yanked on his shorts and jeans. "I just . . . I can't do this."
"You picked a fine time to get cold feet." The condom-clad erection looked utterly ridiculous and sadly out of place, bobbing there.
"I said I'm sorry." He didn't know what else to say. There was nothing else to say. "It's not you. It's me. I just can't."
"You have it that bad for him."
The scary thing was, in a twisted way that was true. If he hadn't cared so much for Fraser, he never would have been here in the first place. Ray pulled his t-shirt over his head. "Yeah, I guess."
Rodney sighed and his sad-puppy eyes went morose. "I should have known it was too good to be true."
Ray shoved his feet into his shoes, not bothering to tie them. He could do that in the car. "I'll, uh, I'll see you around or something."
"No, you won't. You're never going to come to the bar again."
It was a pathetic sort of honesty, and Ray couldn't summon the strength to lie. "Look, I gotta go."
"I know." Rodney slid off the bed, still naked, but no longer hard. The condom drooped forlornly, threatening to slide off. "Ray, I . . ."
For once, Ray wasn't the one who ran out of words. "Yeah?"
"I wish I could have made you forget him."
There was nothing he could say to that. No kindness to soften the blow. "Thanks for . . . for not being too mad."
"These things happen."
"Yeah." Ray checked his pockets for his wallet and keys. Everything was in place. "It's uh, it's been real."
"It certainly has."
There was nothing more to say, so Ray made his escape. His ass still hurt, but it had dulled now to a throbbing ache. And at least he had his answer.
He made his way down the stairs and out to the street, where the GTO was parked under a street light. His hands were shaking as he unlocked the door. Delayed shock, Fraser would probably call it. He just called it stupidity.
What could he have been thinking, anyway? He had to be nuts. He should have known it would hurt. He wasn't that dumb.
Ray slid in behind the wheel and felt another twinge of pain. There was only one saving grace: it hadn't happened with Fraser. He leaned forward against the wheel, feeling a peculiar pain in his chest. It had been hard enough to face Rodney, afterward. If it had been Fraser . . .
Well, now he knew. He didn't want to have sex with Fraser, or any other guy. He didn't ever want to go through that again. So all crazy thoughts of bargains were off.
It should have been a relief. It should have felt better, to know that he wasn't going to do it, after all. Ray wrapped his hands around the steering wheel. He wanted . . . he didn't know what he wanted. Anything but this awful feeling in his gut and in his heart.
He wanted to be with Fraser. But Fraser wanted . . . something he could never give.
Ray buried his head in his arms and wept.
~ * ~ "You know, you look like shit."
Ray kept his face forward, staring out the windshield of Jerrit's car. His head was splitting, which was half hangover and half pure misery. "Thanks a lot."
"No, I mean it. Are you okay?"
Define okay; then he might know. "Oh, I'm just great."
"Ray . . ."
Sheesh, things had to be bad if Jerrit was calling him by his first name. "Look, I said I'm good. So I'm good."
"Well, you don't look good."
"Could you just . . . do whatever it is you were doing?"
"I'm driving."
"Good. So drive."
"The lieutenant was asking about you."
Oh, great. Just what he needed. Frannie's concern was bad enough. "He say I need to have my head examined?"
"No, he seems to think this has something to do with Fraser."
That was it. That was the absolute last straw. "Look, I am not in love with Fraser, okay? So just shut up about it!"
There was dead silence. When Ray finally dared to look over, Jerrit was staring at him with his mouth hanging open.
"Uh, watch the road."
Jerrit turned his eyes back to his driving, but his face still had that bemused look. "I don't think Welsh said anything about love."
Ray swallowed hard. Jerrit was right: he hadn't mentioned the word.
Jerrit glance over. "But boy, you sure are sensitive about it. A person would almost think there's something going on."
Ray gritted his teeth. "Hey, you want a knuckle sandwich? Cause I'll pop you one. I swear I will."
Jerrit took his hands off the wheel in a conciliatory gesture. "Sorry, man. No offense meant."
Oh, yeah, right. Ray turned to look out the side window, so he didn't have to look at his partner. The Chicago streets looked unusually calm for such a warm day. People were just out strolling, or chatting, or . . . oh, geez. That was a kid with a gun. "Stop the car."
"Honest, Ray, I swear I didn't mean . . ."
"No, I mean it. There's something going down." Ray reached for the door handle. "Stop the car or don't; either way I'm outta here."
Jerrit hit the brakes and Ray popped the door open at the same moment. He hit the ground running, heading back for the spot where he'd seen the kid.
"Don't move!" a shrill voice cried. "Don't nobody move!"
It was a kid with a gun, all right, a boy who couldn't be more than twelve or thirteen. "Chicago PD," Ray said, showing his badge. "Put the gun down."
The gun turned to point at him, and Ray's heart skipped a beat. That was no ordinary handgun. It looked like a TEC-9 semi- automatic assault pistol: cheap, deadly, and very illegal. Ray put a hand out, trying a conciliatory gesture, and left his weapon in its holster. He was seriously out-gunned, anyway. "Come on, you don't want to do this."
"Don't get any closer, mister." The hand holding the gun shook, and Ray had to suppress the urge to flinch, or run. All around them, people were scattering, which meant he was doing some good already. If the kid let loose with that thing, it would be that many fewer targets.
"See, you put that down, and you don't get hurt," Ray said. Damn, he wished he knew how to deal with this. If he'd been with Fraser . . . but he wasn't. He was with Jerrit. "That way everybody's happy." He let his eyes leave the kid for a split second and spotted Jerrit off to the left, on his cell phone. Thank God. Calling for backup.
"I didn't do it," the kid said. "Jeremy says I did it, but I didn't."
That was good; that was hopeful. What would Fraser say? "Hey, I believe you," he said. "I'd believe you even more if you put the gun down."
Out of the corner of his eye he saw Jerrit move, circling around behind the kid. "No, I mean it. I really didn't do it. She was so pretty. I wouldna touched her."
Hell, this was even worse than it looked. Ray tried to think. "Okay, do you, uh, do you know who did do it?"
The kid scrunched up his face, and for the first time the gun lowered, just a bit. Then he shook his head. "I dunno. Maybe Jeremy did it."
"You didn't see him."
Another shake of the head.
"Look, can you tell me what happened? Or where she is?" He needed something, anything that would give him a clue what the boy was talking about. But the boy just shuddered and raised the gun again.
"It wasn't me. I told you. I didn't do it."
"Uh, yeah, I know." Damn, damn, damn. "Listen, I said I believed you, but you gotta give me something. You gotta tell me where she is."
Another compression of that impossibly young face. "Okay."
"You gonna tell me?"
"She's by the train tracks. In the big weeds. Jeremy showed me."
The gun was at half-mast again, and Ray thought he had a chance. "Okay, I can take that," he said. "Then you can show me where she is."
The kid looked up at him, almost trusting. Almost there. The gun stayed lowered. And then, behind him, Jerrit moved.
"Jerrit, no!" Ray shouted, but it was too late. The kid swung around, his finger tightening on the trigger. Bullets sprayed and shop windows shattered. There was another report, from Jerrit's direction, and the kid dropped to the concrete.
"Shit!" Ray fell to his knees beside the kid. There was a single bullet wound to the chest, but it was pouring blood. So much blood for such a small body. Ray struggled out of his holster and pulled his t-shirt off, wadded it up, and applied pressure to the wound. There were sirens, coming closer -- Jerrit's backup, no doubt. Too damn late to do any good.
"Ray --" That was Jerrit's hand on his shoulder. Ray shrugged it off.
"What the hell were you thinking? I had him. He was gonna give me the gun!"
"He had you point blank. I saw him squeeze the trigger."
Jerrit hadn't seen a damn thing. "Anyone else get hit?" Ray asked.
"Just you and the kid."
Him? Ray glanced down at his bare arms. Oh, geez. There was blood all down his left side, but he didn't feel a thing. "Not me. The blood's his."
"I don't think so," Jerrit said.
The kid made a funny noise, and Ray turned his attention back to where it ought to be. Oh, damn. There was blood coming out of his mouth, now. Shit, shit, shit. Ray pressed harder against his wadded-up shirt, but it didn't look like it was doing much good.
"C'mon, stay with me," Ray said. "Don't crap out on me now, kid." There was a squealing of tires and sirens, slamming doors, running feet. Someone was at his elbow, pushing him out of the way.
For a moment, Ray resisted. But it was the paramedics. They were the ones who knew what the hell they were doing. He stood, and felt suddenly dizzy.
"You better let me look at that." It was one of the paramedics, looking at him, not the kid.
"Hey, he's the one that got shot."
"He's not the only one." The paramedic touched his arm, and it hurt with an odd, dull ache. Ray looked down again. There was fresh blood running down his arm. Damn. He'd been hit too.
The paramedics had the kid on a stretcher and were wheeling him toward the ambulance. There were medics all around him, so Ray couldn't even see his face.
"He gonna make it?" Ray asked. The woman was working on his arm, doing whatever she was doing.
"It's too early to tell."
That was not good. Ray pulled away from her. "Look, I gotta talk to him."
"Don't worry," the paramedic said. "You're going the same place he is." She grabbed his arm again. "Sir, hold still."
"That kid knows something. Could be about a homicide. I gotta talk to him before he goes under."
"Sir, you can't talk to him. He's not conscious. Please, sir."
Unconscious. Could be dead already. Ray hung his head in defeat and let her do her thing. A few minutes later he was patched and loaded into the second ambulance. He would have said forget the hospital, except that was where the kid was. He had no idea what had happened to Jerrit.
All he could think was that this never would have happened with Fraser. Not like this. If Fraser had been here, he would have talked the kid down, somehow, and Ray would've been the one calling for backup and, dammit, trusting Fraser, the way he wished Jerrit had trusted him.
Maybe it meant he wasn't trustworthy. But if he'd been with Fraser instead of Jerrit . . . no, Fraser would have trusted him, even only three months into their partnership. Fraser had trusted him about the Volpe thing. Or with Zoltan Motherwell, for that matter, on their very first case.
Ray leaned forward in his seat and hid his face in his hands. On a day like today, he didn't care what Fraser wanted to do to his body. He needed Fraser like he needed air.
He knew one thing for certain: if he had to keep living like this, it was going to kill him.
~ * ~ The kid didn't make it.
Ray found out at the hospital, an hour after they brought him in. His own injury turned out to be relatively minor: one bullet had creased his arm, deep enough to bleed, but not enough to do more than superficial muscle damage. Lieutenant Welsh showed up as the nurse was bandaging him up, and Ray gave him the full story, including the thing about the girl by the tracks.
"I'll get a team on it right away," Welsh said, pulling out his phone. "He didn't say where?"
"Just near the tracks, in the weeds." Ray sighed and pulled on the oversized t-shirt one of the nurses had found for him. His own shirt had been ruined. "He said someone named Jeremy showed him."
"All right. I'll get Wyatt on that angle." Welsh started to punch in the number.
"Lieutenant?"
Welsh looked up and paused in his dialing.
"I'll do it."
"Detective, you're hurt. You should go home."
"No, I want to do it. I'm fine. Really."
"You've done enough for one day, and your partner is holed up at the station talking to the shooting team. We had a kid die here today."
His partner? For a moment, Ray wondered what the heck Fraser was doing at the station. And then he realized Welsh meant Jerrit. "Look, just let me talk to the family, okay?"
Welsh sighed and gave in. "All right. You can talk to them. But Detective . . ."
"Yeah?"
"This thing is a mess already. Don't make it any worse."
Ray felt a lump rise in his throat. "I, uh, I'll try not to."
The family was still in the hospital, two women, a man, and five kids. The younger woman was sobbing, holding onto the older woman for support. The kids all looked lost and frightened.
"I'm from the police department," Ray introduced himself. "I, uh, wish to express my deepest condolences on the loss of --"
"Are you the one who shot my Billy?" The younger woman's eyes accused him of that, and worse.
"Uh, no ma'am." And then, because it was the truth and she deserved that much: "That was my partner."
"Then you're a murderer same as he is."
Ray felt something die inside. He couldn't argue with that, couldn't say anything to lessen her grief.
"No, Mama, not him," the oldest child said, a boy who looked around fourteen. Older than Billy, anyway. "He's the one tried to save Billy."
The mother looked up. "That true?"
"I tried to get him to give me the gun," Ray said. "I'm sorry."
"Where's my baby get a gun like that?" the mother wailed. "Can you tell me that? Where's he find it?"
"I wish I knew."
She went back to sobbing, but five pairs of kids' eyes were still looking at him. "Could I ask a couple of questions?" Ray tried.
The mother didn't answer, but her husband nodded silently, so Ray took that for license. "Anybody know who Jeremy is?"
There was a moment of complete silence; no sobs, no nothing. But several pairs of eyes turned toward the oldest boy.
"That you?" Ray asked, point blank. The kid nodded jerkily.
In a former life he would have jumped Bogart on the kid, no matter how young he was. But right now all Ray felt was tired. "You gonna tell me everything? Cause if you don't, you're in deep shit."
"I didn't do nothing," the kid said. "I swear to God, I didn't do it."
"Look, I know about the girl. Billy told me. So don't mess with me, okay?"
Jeremy's chin came up with false bravado. "You can't make me do nothing. I'm a minor. I got rights."
But he wasn't counting on his mother. She got to her feet, shedding the comfort of the older woman, and marched over to face him. "You know something, Jeremy Johnson? You know something about Billy?"
"Mama, I didn't do it!"
But he had done something: he'd scared Billy, enough to set off the whole dreadful chain of events. Ray knew it, and the kid knew he knew it, too.
"Tell the man!" the mother commanded. And Jeremy's face crumpled.
"I saw it happen," he said softly. "I saw the guy that done it."
"You know him?" Ray asked.
A moment's silence, while the kid tried to think it through. Then, softly: "Yeah."
"You better not be lying to me, 'cause if you're lying, we'll find out."
"I ain't lying."
There was no sense of triumph, no pleasure in having made a break in the case. There was only an aching hole where his heart should have been. "Okay," Ray said. "Here's what we're gonna do."
~ * ~ "That was good work, Kowalski."
He was in the lieutenant's office after what felt like a year packed into the space of a day. With Jeremy's help they'd found the girl -- or rather, her body, as Ray had feared. They'd also arrested the suspect and collected evidence, and it looked like there was enough to lock him away for good. Ray had given the shooting squad his account of the incident, as straight-up as he could. He didn't know if Jerrit would be acquitted, and he wasn't sure he cared.
"Look, I gotta ask you something." He hadn't been thinking about it all day. In fact, he hadn't been thinking about anything but Billy lying there, the blood pouring out of him, but he suddenly knew what he had to do. He couldn't stay here. He couldn't take any more of this. He needed peace and quiet and snow. He needed Fraser. "Uh, you remember that leave I requested before, when I was up in Canada, but I came back early? Y'know, no pay, no questions?"
"Is there a point to this, Detective?"
"I need that leave after all. Starting tomorrow."
"That's damn short notice."
"Okay, it's like this. I'm splitting tomorrow. If I get leave, there's a chance you see me again. Otherwise, no deal."
Welsh looked at him appraisingly, but didn't ask another question. "All right, Detective. I'll file the paperwork for you in the morning."
"Thank you." Ray turned to leave.
"You going back to Canada, then?"
Damn. Welsh probably knew -- or thought he knew -- as much as Frannie did. "Looks like it."
"Good," Welsh said. Nothing more, just "Good."
Ray turned and went to clean out his desk.
Part III: Chinook
On the fifth leg of the plane trip, Norman Wells to Inuvik, Ray started having regrets. Well, not regrets, exactly -- it was closer to panic. He'd been running on adrenaline for forty-eight hours, and now his body felt so heavy he wasn't sure he could get out of his seat. Either that or it was the cramped quarters on the 737.
He'd packed too fast, that was part of the problem. He didn't know if he'd managed to take care of everything. He'd remembered to pay his landlady three months in advance, which was the best compromise he could think of short of tossing all his stuff. He'd taken the GTO up to Skokie for his dad to take care of, and he'd given his turtle to Frannie, who hadn't seemed to mind too much. Then he'd thrown every warm piece of clothing he owned into two suitcases and hightailed it out to the airport.
He'd made one stop on the way. One stop that was a big part of the panic he was feeling now. Because now that the adrenaline had washed out of him, he knew it was one of the stupidest ideas he'd ever had.
He wasn't going to go through with it. He couldn't possibly, not even for Fraser. It was too much, he already knew what it felt like, and he didn't ever want to feel that again.
But somewhere, buried now in the middle of his suitcase, was a box of condoms and a tube of K-Y.
The plane banked left, descending through light clouds, and Ray glanced out the window. Wait, something was wrong. The land below him was green. There were trees and plants and things everywhere -- okay, yeah, he remembered trees, but not quite so many. And there was no snow.
Maybe he was wrong, and this wasn't Inuvik. He was so wiped he could have counted wrong, or forgotten a stop after Edmonton. Because this couldn't possibly be . . . wait, there was a river. Could be the river he and Fraser had crossed getting to Maggie's place. There were lakes everywhere, like he'd remembered, only not frozen. And the town was just a little scrap of buildings by the water, not nearly as big as Edmonton or -- what was it? -- oh, yeah, Yellowknife.
They landed on the runway, coasted, taxied, and finally came to a stop. Ray grabbed the knapsack he'd taken as a carry-on and followed the other passengers down the aisle to the door of the plane. Three months. He'd been away three months and it looked like a completely different place.
At the top of the stairs, Ray had to stop to take it in. He turned to the flight attendant as she told him to have a nice day. "I didn't get on the wrong plane or something, did I?"
"This is Inuvik, sir. Was that not your destination?"
"But it's . . . it's warm."
The flight attendant looked politely baffled. "Well, it's summer, sir."
Summer. For some reason it hadn't occurred to him that it was ever summer up here. But it had to be seventy degrees. Maybe even warmer. It felt . . . good.
Ray felt the butterflies in his stomach calm, just a bit. Maybe, just maybe, this wouldn't be a disaster. He shouldered his knapsack and went to collect his luggage and find out if, in addition to summer, they had taxis in this place.
~ * ~ There was a note on his desk, in Maggie's handwriting. Fraser set his pack down and picked it up. He'd been on patrol all week, which meant he'd only just got back to town.
It was just a few brief lines: "Ben, please come to my place for dinner tonight. It's important. Love, Maggie."
It's important. That wasn't her usual style. Nor was it usual for her to issue an invitation when he'd just returned from patrol duty. This must be something different, something special.
Perhaps she had news for him. She had certainly been seeing a lot of Constable Thomsen lately. It might be about that.
Fraser set the note down and frowned. He really needed a shower and a shave, but it was late already, and if he delayed further he might miss the dinner hour altogether. Maggie had seen him look worse, and so, for that matter, had Jim Thomsen. He could leave his pack at his desk and collect it tomorrow.
At his feet, Dief whined.
"Yes, I realize that appearances are important," Fraser told him. "I'm afraid I don't have the energy right now."
Dief gave a disapproving bark, but led the way out of the station.
Maggie's cabin was five kilometers from town, a negligible walk even in his current, weary state. It wasn't so much a physical weariness as a spiritual one, in any case. His body was sound enough, but his soul still ached.
He had thought that time would dull the pain as it had with Victoria, and it had, but only barely. He still thought of Ray every morning when he woke, and every evening as he tried to sleep. He dreamt of Ray nearly every night, usually nightmares, although last night had been different. Last night he'd dreamt of snow and caribou, thousands of caribou, thundering through his head -- and he'd woken feeling peaceful, if not fully rested.
It had to be humanly possible to forget and let go. There had to be a way. But every technique he'd tried -- yoga breathing, directed imagery, self-hypnosis -- had worked only briefly, at best. It was as though his thoughts were in orbit around a single point, always falling inward toward that inevitable gravity.
Time was the only hope he had left. The simple passage of time. Perhaps in a year, or two, or ten, he would be able to think of Ray fondly but distantly, and no longer feel this gaping hole in his heart.
He could hear soft voices as he crossed the clearing to Maggie's cabin. It would be Jim Thomsen, then. Well, he was happy for Maggie, if she were finally finding happiness. She certainly deserved to find love, after all she'd been through.
The door was propped open, with just the mosquito-netting screen door barring the entrance, so instead of knocking, Fraser called out, "Maggie?"
"Come on in, Ben."
He wiped his boots on her mat and opened the door. "I'm sorry to be so late. I'm afraid I was delayed crossing the river. I hope I haven't kept dinner."
Diefenbaker trotted happily into the cabin, and Fraser followed. He was right, Maggie had company, and Dief, who had never seemed to care for Jim Thomsen one way or the other, went to give him a joyous greeting.
Fraser's eyes followed Dief, and his heart skipped a beat. It wasn't possible. He was seeing things, seeing what he wanted so desperately to see. Fraser closed his eyes, willing the false image to go away, but when he opened them again, he saw the same vision in spiky golden hair.
"Hi, Fraser."
Ray, here -- when he'd thought never to see him again. Ray in Maggie's cabin. For a moment it was all Fraser could do to stand there without swaying. It was more than he'd dared hope for. But why on earth would Ray be here? To have come all this way . . . Fraser swallowed the sudden lump in his throat. Of course. Maggie had something important to tell him. He had simply mistaken the object of her affections.
"Ray."
Ray stayed where he was, seated at Maggie's table, with Dief still happily barking at him and jumping up to lick his face. "Crazy wolf," Ray said, but he didn't seem to mind the attention. He buried his hands in Dief's fur, letting Dief lick him, and Fraser felt an insane stab of jealousy. He wanted to feel those hands himself, to feel Ray's arms around him, but he couldn't move.
"Please come in," Maggie said, hovering. "You're not late. I've only just put the steaks on."
Sensation returned then, and he knew he was smelling caribou steaks. "Ah, yes. Yes, of course." He took a step forward and then stopped, paralyzed. There were two empty chairs, one across from Ray, and one next to him. Either one was impossible. If he sat next to Ray, he'd be resisting the urge to touch him all evening. If he sat across, he'd be resisting the urge to stare.
"C'mon, Fraser, have a seat."
Right. Time to choose. Fraser took the lesser of two evils and sat across from Ray, turning his chair a little so that he was half-facing the room. Every glance in Ray's direction hurt his eyes, like looking at a too-bright light. Ray looked . . . tired, perhaps, but that might be his long journey, and the jet lag that accompanied it. His hair was mussed, his forehead rumpled, his t- shirt stained. He was the most beautiful thing Fraser had ever seen.
"So how you been?" Ray was looking at him with those sky-blue eyes, and Fraser couldn't bear it. He had to look away or be lost.
"All right," he managed. "I've been all right."
"You didn't go finish the quest thing without me, did you?"
He had to look up at that, but Ray's face appeared innocent of any darker emotion. "No, it didn't seem . . . appropriate without your company."
"You, uh, you ever miss Chicago?"
Every day, Fraser wanted to say, only it wasn't strictly speaking true. It wasn't the city he missed. "I, ah, that is . . ." But before he had to commit himself to a misstatement, Maggie rescued him by bringing the food to the table. In the bustle to distribute steaks, rolls, and salad, Ray seemed to forget the conversation topic entirely.
"Enjoy," Maggie said, seating herself next to Ray.
"It looks delicious," Fraser pronounced. "The greens are from your garden, I assume?"
Maggie smiled encouragingly, obviously trying to smooth the conversation along, which meant she'd noticed his fumbling, earlier. "Yes, and the radishes as well."
"Hey, this is pretty good," Ray said around a mouthful of steak.
"Thank you," Maggie said. But the conversation, stilted to begin with, lapsed into silence.
Fraser ate steadily, barely tasting the good food. Ray was here, and some part of him knew he ought to be happy, but it was too new, too unexpected. He felt raw and open, blind-sided, confused. He wanted to look at Ray, but he didn't dare. It was agony being here, but he didn't want to be anywhere else.
The silence was the worst of it. Maggie and Ray ought to be chatting with each other, but it seemed his presence was serving as a damper. Fraser dared a glance across the table. Ray was staring at his plate.
This was intolerable. He couldn't bear it any longer. "So are you having a pleasant visit?" he asked, first thing that came to mind.
"Just got here today, Fraser, so I really couldn't tell you."
"Oh, I see." For some reason he had imagined Ray had arrived earlier in the week. "So when are you planning to return to Chicago?" It shouldn't matter to him. After this dinner, Ray probably wouldn't even want to get together again. But he couldn't help himself.
Ray paused, a forkful of caribou steak midway between his plate and his mouth. "Wasn't planning to," he said. "I got a one-way ticket."
Fraser felt his whole body go hot, then cold. Ray was here for good. It could mean only one thing, that things were far more settled between him and Maggie than Fraser had thought. "I see," he said. There was nothing else he could say. "I'm very happy for you."
Ray's head came up with a jerk. "What's that supposed to mean? You're happy for me? I drag my skinny ass all the way up here, and that's all you got to say?"
Fraser blinked in confusion. Ray was angry, he understood that much. But he had no idea why a simple well-wishing would set him off.
"Ray," Maggie said, and placed a hand on his shoulder.
"I was merely wishing you well," Fraser said. "It was certainly not my intention to offend you."
"Oh, yeah. I bet."
"Ray," Maggie said again. Ray set his fork down and leaned forward over his plate, his head bent, his hands at his forehead, massaging his temples. "Look, I, uh . . . this isn't easy, okay?"
"No, I know," Fraser said gently. "I'm sorry for that, too."
"I just . . . I had a pretty crappy three months."
Fraser stared at that bowed head, feeling utterly helpless. Ray had been unhappy, and he hadn't known. "I'm very sorry to hear that."
"Wasn't your fault," Ray said, which was the ultimate generosity. "Everything was messed up. I guess you probably heard about Stella and Vecchio."
"I'm afraid I haven't heard any news."
Ray's head came up, those hooded blue eyes meeting his. "They went to Florida. Together."
Oh, dear. Fraser felt a peculiar pain in his chest, a pain that was hurting for Ray. It wasn't jealousy, well, at least not mostly. It was simply knowing what Stella meant to Ray, and how such an abandonment would make him feel. "Ray, I . . ."
"No, it got worse. Trust me. I got this new partner, and I mean, he wasn't a bad guy. We just, we didn't work so good together. And then he shot this kid." Ray paused and rubbed his eyes, then continued in a soft, tired voice. "The kid had a gun. I was trying to talk him into giving it to me. I think I had him. I mean, I was this close. And Jerrit shot him."
Despite the painful words, it was a little easier watching Ray now. Fraser could nod and be sympathetic and not worry that he was staring. Ray obviously needed to talk, needed an audience. "You did what you could," Fraser said, and Maggie reached over to rub Ray's neck.
Ray sighed. "I don't know. I mean, I don't know if I did. I keep thinking, you know, maybe I could have said something, before, so Jerrit would know not to do that. Or maybe I could've tried harder and worked with him better. I just . . ."
"Everyone makes mistakes, Ray. Including your partner. You can't make his mistakes your own."
"Not you," Ray said. "You would never've shot that kid."
"No," Fraser agreed. "My mistakes are of an entirely different nature. But they are very real, and have the power to hurt just