Chapter Text
I gotta know. This isn’t the kind of thing you pretend isn’t there, that’ll go away if you ignore it or if you pretend hard enough. This is my life. Which is kind of funny, really, because I’m not sure now what my life is, haven’t been sure since the twenty-fourth floor, since that hotel room. Since I had to ask if I still had a partner.
And got a typical Fraser answer. “If you’ll have me.”
Well, who the hell else would I have? Who the hell else would I jump on – and off – a plane for? And who the hell else would carry me up the side of a fucking mountain? Yeah. Who else would have me? Maybe that should have been the second question, the second answer.
And the third question, yeah, okay, this is starting to go somewhere... who else do I have? And who else does Fraser have? Okay, besides the incredibly weird Frobisher and the incredibly opportune Delmar.
And what else does Fraser have? He’s been kind of remote since he turned the bad guy over to the RCMP. That light in his eyes, the one that kindled that smile on his face in the middle of a goddamn ice field, is still there, but it’s tempered now by sadness. Sadness at going back to Chicago? Sadness at losing the Ice Queen? Although, frankly, I never thought Fraser’d had the Ice Queen anyhow; but that was some kiss. If we hadn’t spent most of our free time together I might’ve thought there was a relationship there, one they’d just been really low-key about; but Fraser didn’t have time.
And really I don’t care, right now, about the Ice Queen. We’d finally gotten a few minutes alone when she had to butt in and waltz him off and kiss him under those big fucking Canadian stars. When Fraser came back, looking more than dazed, he hadn’t seemed too inclined to continue the conversation we’d started, which was okay by me, because it seemed to be heading in that “see you in Chicago, maybe, have a nice life, we’ll always be friends” direction.
So yeah, I was pissed at the Ice Queen but kind of relieved, too. Relieved at the time. But the not knowing... the not knowing where I belong, if I belong... the not knowing is getting to me. So, yeah. I gotta know. It has to be faced. I’ve faced divorce... I too have known loss and, on occasion, loneliness. Not for a long time, though. Not since... well, not since I gave up my life and took over someone else’s.
And I wouldn’t trade it. Wouldn’t trade this time with the Mountie for anything in the whole world, not even for Stella. I hoped - I used to think, anyhow - that Fraser wouldn’t trade it either. I’d thought that up until the moment I saw the smile on Fraser’s face when the door opened and the real Ray Vecchio was standing on the other side.
Vecchio. Yeah, that was my mistake, right there. I could’ve said no to the assignment. And even after that, I could’ve said no to the Mountie.
In what universe? Can anyone say no to Benton Fraser? I’ve never been able to and the hell of it is that I know Vecchio can’t, or couldn’t, either, which makes his decision to go undercover in the first place even more confusing to a flatfoot of very little brain like me.
But anyhow, I could’ve just been professional, you know, liaised in the daytime, brooded and danced in solitary at night. Instead I said yes. Yes to ‘a bite to eat.’ Yes to friends. Yes to partners. Yes to pretty much everything he asked of me, even, eventually, a fucking suicide mission to a ghost ship. Stupid, yeah. No argument there. And that stupidity was only exceeded, on my part, by jumping onto Muldoon’s goddamn plane with the Mountie, all on that vague, “If you’ll have me.”
Yeah, that stupidity got me tossed into thirty feet of snow, ratcheted up the side of a mountain where I know, even if Fraser sounds reassuring, that I almost bought the farm (the snow, ice, and rock farm, Canada-style) and would have if he hadn’t hauled me up and whaled the both of us down the other side, and then ended up facing down a nuclear sub.
In spite of that, I’m still here. Why the hell am I still here? Almost everyone else has taken off already. Muldoon’s on his way to jail along with the 62nd Parallel Airborne for escort; Thatcher’s long since gone; even Frobisher is making tent-taking-down noises. But Fraser hasn’t mentioned leaving.
He’s not going to. I know that. I mean, he’s not leaving. He’s in like Flynn with the RCMP now. But soon enough he’ll start making tent-taking-down noises in my direction; he’s just too damn polite to be premature about it.
And so... why am I still here? Wasn’t this enough of an adventure?
It was. Yeah. Wow. I guess.
Trouble was, I was so fucking cold or scared to death or worried about keeping up with Fraser I didn’t really have time to enjoy having my life risked in a myriad of wildly bizarre ways as only Fraser can. And I’m still here because... because I’m here... because I’m... . because every damn time he risks my life, he risks his own, and more, to save me. I’m still here because he’s my partner. My friend.
I’m still here... why?
Because I’m stupid. Because I got no life.
And I got to get me one of those, immediately if not sooner.
“You’re very quiet tonight,” Fraser says, poking the fire. “I’m sorry.”
Huh? Wha... “Huh? Sorry about what?”
“About Stella.”
“Stella? Stella who? Assistant State’s Attorney Stella? Gee, Fraser, I left my Canadian dictionary in Chicago, stupid, you say, but see, I didn’t know I was gonna get dragged up to the Great White-”
“Ray, I assumed that you’d heard about Stella.” He’s not kidding. Now I’m worried.
“No. What happened? Wait, was she hurt? Jesus, Fraser!”
He leans forward and puts a mittened hand on mine. “Ray, no, of course not. She’s fine. It would simply appear that she and Ray, er, Ray Vecchio have a great deal in common. Quite a bit, in fact; I understand they’re engaged.”
“Wow.”
“Quite so.”
“Wow. Stella? And Vecchio? Already?” I just stare. I can’t do anything else. He gets worried after a minute and puts his other hand over mine.
“I thought you’d heard. I wouldn’t have broken it to you in quite that fashion if I’d known-”
I can’t hold back the laughter for another second, and he watches me for a moment in disbelief before sitting back, an answering smile coming to his lips.
“Evidently my fears were unfounded.”
“Been over her for a while, Frase. Vecchio. Gold Coast girl. Oh, God.” Almost as funny as me and Stella. The image sets me off again and Fraser watches me indulgently. After I settle a little, we exchange a few comments on Stella’s probable reaction to Ma Vecchio, vice versa, and how soon Frannie’ll move out, assuming, that is, that Stella agrees to move in.
God, I’m gonna miss this. This talking stuff. This not talking stuff. Gonna miss him. This friendship we got, it’s a once in a life time thing, I think. I mean, I could see us being friends for ever, thick and thin, richer and poorer, sickness and health... it’s kind of funny that it’s those words I think of right now, that they’re so right for what we’ve got, that they fit us better than they ever fit me and Stella.
At least, they used to. Or I thought they did. But hey, I’m good at that self delusion thing. I do that good. Because, you know, since Vecchio got back the only hint I’ve gotten from Fraser about this friendship deal is the “If you’ll have me.” Although I do kind of remember him, or me, talking about partnerships on the side of that mountain. Or someone else was talking about ‘em. I was hallucinating, whatever. And, Fraser, you know, actions speak louder than words, and he did drag me up that mountain, even though I slowed us way the hell down. Still can’t help wondering who he’d rather have had on that plane with him, though, because Fraser could’ve just dragged me up that mountain and back down again because he’s a Mountie and not because it was me at all; Vecchio was laid up so I could’ve been second choice, replacement Ray, as usual.
“Red ships,” I say out loud.
Fraser looks up quick at that. “Ah. You remember that?”
“Was that it? Not really. I remember someone talking about partnerships.”
“That was... you.”
“Yeah.” I hesitate a minute. “You know, Frase, I’m, uh, I'm sorry about all that.”
“About what, Ray?”
“About the mountain. About slowing you down. I don’t know how you did it.”
A rustle and a thud and he’s sitting next to me on top of the groundsheet, kind of unexpected because Fraser’s not what you’d call demonstrative. In fact, he’s pretty much the textbook definition of the opposite. And then he blows my mind completely when he puts an arm around me and fucking squeezes my shoulders.
“I was overjoyed to have you with me, Ray. I will never forget standing on top of that peak with you.”
Okay, snow plus cold plus Canada equals demonstrative, communicative Mountie. Where the heck do I sign? Green card? Can I get one? Do I need one? Good time to risk this conversation, then, and enjoy the warmth, the strength, the feel of the arm around my shoulders. I feel connected. Feel hopeful, again. He was overjoyed to be with me. The real me. I mean, the me that’s here, not that not-me that’s in Chicago with Stella. Stella and Ma Vecchio.
No, don’t go there. You got Fraser talking now, don’t start laughing your fool head off at irrelevant mental images.
“Partnership? You, uh, started to say something about that the other night.”
“Ah. Yes. Buck Frobisher and my father. You know-” he pauses a minute, swallows, then says, “they had a falling out.”
“And this has to do with us how?”
“But they, ah, they made the leap. And they were partners even when they weren’t together.”
Yeah. There goes the hope. But not the arm, not yet, anyhow. So what the hell. I stick my arm around his waist. He tenses a little, glances sidewise at me fast, then relaxes again.
“So you and Vecchio...”
He looks at me like I’ve lost my mind.
“Ray, what does Ray Vecchio have to do with this? Aside from the fact that he is in Chicago and we are here?”
“You know. Partners. Even when you’re apart.”
“I’ve always thought the point of partners is being together, Ray, and I know my father felt the same way about Buck Frobisher.”
I sigh.
He gives me a little shake.
“I was referring to our partnership, Ray.”
“I got that, now.” But I sigh again. “Gonna miss you, Frase.”
“Ah.”
“I’m not gonna miss those monosyllables, annoying Mountie.”
He chuckles. After a few more minutes, he asks, “Are you warm enough, Ray?”
“I don’t think my body remembers warm. Half frozen, yeah, I’m good.”
He reaches over and pulls a sleeping bag around both of us. We stare a while into the fire in silence, each of us still with an arm around the other. I feel like crying, almost. Partners. Us. I don’t want to leave. I got nothing to go back to. And even if I did, I wouldn’t want to leave, because I want, I think I need, to be where Fraser is.
Damn. At least this is a nice good bye, a campfire, Fraser solid against me, finally getting a little warmer under the sleeping bag with the Mountie’s body heat working on it. He probably has excess body heat just like he has excess lung capacity.
But it’s best not to think about that either, about the moment when our partnership crystallised, for me anyhow.
He sighs, this time.
“Something wrong, Fraser?”
“Not at all, Ray. Almost everything is right.”
“You've been kind of sad since we nailed Muldoon.”
“Ah, well, that was simply... well, missing my father. It felt... it felt... I felt as if I were losing him again.”
My turn to squeeze. Can’t think of anything happy to say so I state the obvious. “You’re back in Canada, though.”
“Very true, Ray.”
“You can stay, now.”
Utter silence. Big dumb Mountie, it hasn’t filtered through that brain yet that he done good. Very good. Welcomed back to the fold with open arms prodigal son type good. Saved the Northwest Areas, Territories, whatever, good. I knew before he did. Knew he was staying. That makes me feel good for a minute, before I remember the separation part, which makes me feel bad again, so I make more conversation.
“Where do you think you can get assigned?”
“I... I’m not quite sure. I haven’t... it hasn’t quite sunk in yet. That I’m home to stay. Yes. Well. There are choices. The Territories aren’t generally a popular assignment.”
“You know what’d be fun, Frase, is if you got assigned somewhere up there near that place you were telling me about. The Franklin place.”
“There’s not a place, per se, Ray; that’s the point. No one’s found the Hand-”
“I know, I know. But, you know, someplace that’d be a base, so you could check stuff out in your off time.”
“That’s rather a deserted area of-”
“And this isn’t? Aw, come on, Frase, where’s your sense of adventure?”
He turns his head and looks at me with just about the funniest expression I’ve ever seen on his face, a combination of exasperation, pride, and disbelief. “The nuclear submarine wasn’t exciting enough?”
“Exciting, yeah, but I was too scared to remember most of it. I told you. Someday I’ll have an adventure.”
“Ray...”
“Yeah?”
“When is someday?” His arm tightens around me, and I stop thinking that it’s a guy who’s got me in a clinch, because there’s no one around but Dief and Frobisher, and I start thinking instead that it feels damn good. I like being held. I like being held by Fraser. And I like what I think he’s saying.
“Uh, someday. Someday soon? Fraser... really?”
“I... I'll miss you. More than I thought possible.”
“Wait a minute, are you asking me or not?”
“Ray, it is completely and utterly selfish of me to think of such a thing. You have a career, friends, family in Chicago. A whole life. ”
“Yeah.” And I’ll just slow him down. He belongs here. I don’t. So I say it out loud. “You belong here.”
“I... I wish you felt that you did.”
I whip my head around so fast he doesn’t have time to draw back and we’re eyeball to eyeball, I can see the lines around his eyes, the crack in the middle of his lower lip from the cold dry air that matches the one on mine, and I can smell him, kerosene, leather, dogs, and plain old Fraser.
He stares back. Canadian standoff. I can see him exhale, white fog, from his nose, mingling with mine from my mouth.
“I don’t know where I belong any more,” I say, quiet, two inches from his mouth, watching my breath mist into his parted lips.
He watches me steadily.
“I don’t have a division any more. A job. Hell, a life. I don’t know...” I have to look down finally, but I look right back up. “I didn’t expect this. I expected it, but not like this, not now. The fact of the deal of the matter is, Fraser, I didn’t think past tomorrow. I was having too much fun.”
He quirks a smile at that. Doesn’t move his head. “Fun? I don’t think you’ve ever called it that before.”
“Yeah, well, cards on the table, Fraser. Being your partner is fun.”
“Is that why you’re here?”
Those words hang in the air, too warm to be frozen, for a long time. A long scary time. A long enough, scary enough time for me to think about life, here, and life, there. Here, with Fraser. There, without Fraser. Here, with snow and ice. There, with Vecchio and Stella. Not... not a whole lot of difference, after all, climate wise.
He’s still watching me, and it’s pretty hard to read his face. He’s steady, unblinking even. He says again, “Is that why you’re here, Ray?” And, fast, drops his eyes for a second, twitches that thumb across that eyebrow. That tells me everything I need to know. Gives me the courage to open my mouth.
“I’m here because my life is here. And it pretty much revolves around you. About how I feel about me, when I’m with you. About how I’m someone different when I’m around you. Well, okay, not someone different, I’m still me, I’m just more me, a me I didn’t know about, a me I like.”
“I... like you too.”
“I know.”
“All those things you don’t have, Ray...”
“Yeah?”
“Would time be one of the things you do have?”
“Sure. How much time?”
“As much as it takes.”
“Can you be a little more specific? Is that Canadian for, you know, two days or two months or something?”
“Forever.” And I’m losing what little mind I have left because Benton Fraser, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, is leaning closer to me, his lips parting, his eyes closing – and I’m leaning forward too, right in there with him, on the same page as always. Which is why I want to smack my own smart mouth about three nanoseconds later.
“You about to kiss me, Frase?”
“Ah, yes. Evidently.”
He still hasn’t moved his head and our lips are almost touching. I can feel the heat from his mouth.
“Why?”
“Because... oh dear.”
Yeah, that did it. Nice going, Kowalski. He backs off a little, looking faintly embarrassed.
“Oh dear what? Did I say no?”
“Ray, I’m afraid that my motives are not of the pure variety.”
See, now I get that. That’s Canadian for I wanna jump your bones. “I’m not exactly pure, so that’s a match, there, Frase.”
He blushes and snatches his arm away from me. I leave mine around his waist and squeeze again, watching him steadily, the tables turned now.
“That’s not what I meant. I simply meant that I realised that... that I was possibly trying to influence you through physical means.”
“Influence me to what?”
“To stay. To go with me on an adventure.”
“Fraser, I already said I would. Jesus. And I should, I should do it now. Especially while I’m in shape from chasing you all over Chicago, not to mention Canada. I want to do it now. And if I get an unhinged Mountie in my bedroll, that’s an added bonus.”
He gulps at that and cracks his neck, fast. That’s me, both barrels blazing, maybe he didn’t mean to, like, kiss me, maybe he just wanted to, uh, kiss me. And then I catch his eyes on my mouth and I watch his tongue curl from one side of his lower lip to the other.
Somehow I manage to make my own mouth move. “God, Fraser. Why didn’t you tell me before?”
“Tell you what, Ray?”
“Oh, come on, Fraser. Come on. Don’t play dumb, not now. Come on, level with me. This is us, this is you, this is me, this is us. My future, your future. Because, if you mean it, I can do the Hand of Franklin thing. And I can so do the forever thing. And, frankly, Fraser, I am all over the sex thing.”
Bright red flush, deep breath, unexpectedly steady voice. “And what about the... er... love thing, Ray?”
Uh, whoa.
Love.
He’s levelling, all right.
Yeah.
“L-love. Yeah. Oh, yeah, Fraser. That’s what it is, isn’t it?” And suddenly everything falls into place, all the confusion, all the doubt, all the wretched – yeah, wretched is the only word for them – feelings of fear, separation, loss.
“Yes.” Only one word, says so much, sounds so sure.
“Okay, so now are you gonna kiss me?”
“Yes.” And matches words to actions. I’ve been waiting for this. Been waiting for this for days. For weeks. For fucking months, haven’t I? Yeah. Years, feels like. And even though his lips are chapped, they’re still soft, still tender, and his mouth is so warm, so sweet, I’m lost in it. Cold Canada around us beats all hell out of Lake Michigan around us because I can smell him and taste him and feel him. I can feel his heartbeat pounding, feel his shaky breathing.
He was more scared than me. Wow. This is a huge leap for him, this love thing. This asking thing. But he did ask. And he asked me. Me. New Ray. Ray Kowalski. Fraser’s Ray.
“Fraser?”
“Yes, Ray?” He sounds a little scared still.
I grab his face in my mittened hands and look him in the eye again. “I love you.”
“Oh, God, Ray!” Relief, passion, and heat, oh the heat in that voice, in that mouth as it covers mine again, his tongue less tentative this time, more demanding... almost too demanding, Jesus, we’re kissing in the middle of ice and snow with fucking mittens on. I love the taste and feel of his mouth but I want more, want to lick his chin, his neck, wherever, without leaving little Ray icicles when I’m done, and I don’t plan to be done for a while.
“Wanna take this discussion into the tent?”
“The tent, Ray?”
“The tent with the nice warm snow. I mean, stove.”
“Ray, you’re babbling.”
“Ain’t never been kissed by a guy Mountie before. Mmmmyeah.”
“Is it... satisfactory?”
The blush. I was waiting for it. Gonna see a lot more of those tonight, I hope.
“Nah, Frase, you need lots more practice. In the tent.”
“Ah.”
“Benton!”
Holy shit. We forgot all about Frobisher. He’s poking his head out of his tent flap. He’s gonna freak. Fraser’s gonna freak.
“Yes, sir?”
“Take it inside, Benton.”
This Frobisher guy’s definitely growing on me.
“Right you are, sir.”
“You need to get an early start tomorrow.”
I look at Fraser. “Start for where?”
“Town. Supplies.”
“Phone. Welsh.” It’s catching. I shake myself. “How long are we going to be gone?”
“Forever, Ray.”
“Oh-kay. Yeah. Well, I’ll just tell Welsh to, uh, not worry about putting my transfer papers in any time soon, then.”
“Or he can simply deposit them in the nearest circular file.”
“Fraser-”
“I’ve got you now and I will never let you go.” He pushes me backwards down onto the sleeping bag, covering me with his body, and my body doesn’t know what to do, to protest the cold driving up my back or to thrust up into the heat covering my front.
“Oh, God, Fraser. Damn it! You couldn’t decide to do this in Chicago, in a nice warm apartment or even a nice warm car? You gotta wait until it’s eighty below and I’m freezing my nuts off in the middle of Northeast Bufu, Canada and we got at least thirty layers in between us?”
He shuts me up with another kiss. Yeah. Good call, Frase. Tent’s an even better call. I push at him until he gets the hint and rolls off me, finally, reluctantly. Yeah, there we go, Mountie. Up on your feet. One foot in front of the other. Tent’s nice and warm and not exactly private with the stove going but so what? I bet Buck Frobisher’s seen it all and then some.