Disclaimer: Ray and Ben do not belong to me, they belong to each other. *aaawww* No money is being made from this, nor is any reimbursement being sought. Alliance and the two Pauls own everything, I think.

Author's Notes: his story is paired with Fraser's POV story "To Tell the Truth." Just a little story, not quite a PWP, full of lots of love. Post CoTW, in Canada.

Story Notes: No explicit sex, sorry. Ray swears a lot.

If you'd asked me, when I first started -when I first met him, when I first started to fall in love with him, when I finally admitted beyond a shadow that I was in love, when we first started living up here in the Last Outpost of the Frozen North - if you'd asked me whether it was okay to lie to the Mountie, I would have said no.

Absolutely not. No way, no how. That's not buddies.

It's part and parcel of the whole partnership thing, in every meaning of the word - you don't lie to your partner.

Even little white lies that no one ever thinks can hurt - sometimes those hurt the worst. I'm including the `you like this mauve floral upholstery, don't you?', `absolutely sweetie, it looks great' lies, and especially the ones you say to cover your ass `cause you weren't at home when she expected and you know she'd be upset `cause you were at a bar with the boys and not at work like she thought.

They hurt just a little bit, like the sting before the novocain, until you get numb, and before you know it, it's easier to tell the lie than the truth. By then, the truth will hurt a hell of a lot more.

Stella taught me a lot about lying. Lying to myself mostly. We weren't headed for divorce, our fights weren't my problem or my fault, she still loved me, I was still in love with her. Things like that.

What's more, though, thinking back on it, she taught me that lies are a two-way street, just like everything else in a partnership. My lies were smaller and scattered all over the place, like the junk on my desk. Her lies were gigantic and should have been obvious, like all of my possessions she finally chucked out into the hall. I had trusted her to tell the truth, and she had trusted me, and our lives became one great big lie. Fitting for a marriage that was built on one.

I should have expected it, don't know why I expected something else - but there you have it.

I lied because it was easier than fighting, and she lied because, well, maybe for the same reasons.

The sting of it is better now, easier, but I still remember what it felt like.

Don't get me wrong, it's harder not to lie sometimes. And I'm clever, I know how to get alibis for my lies, so that all my bases are covered and there's no way I can get caught. I mean, hell, I used to lie for a living. Undercover agents have to, or we die.

It's like muscle memory or something, you just slip into gear, and all of a sudden you're on auto-pilot saying things like "whatever you want, dear" and "I understand why you need your space" even if those are the very fucking last things you mean. Saying, "I'll be home soon as I can, I've got to clear the paperwork off my desk," while you sit at a bar and shell peanuts `cause you don't want to have to deal with what your home-life has become.

And that fucking sucks.

So, rule number one, don't lie. If Fraser asks my opinion, it's because he wants it. Not that he'll take my advice, but it's nice that he actually does want to hear my opinion, which, I have to admit, I give him far more often than he wants it.

Same thing with Frase - if I ask him something, I want a straight answer. Okay, so, I should have gotten a license in dentistry, as easy as it is to pry answers out of him sometimes. Or maybe more like a degree in lan-, ling-, that language thing where you study words, `cause sometimes even his straight answers are a lot like those big shrub mazes at those castles in England. But the truth is in there, and so is the answer, even if it takes both hands and a flashlight.

Anyway, point being, we don't lie to one another.

This is not to say that we don't fight. Oh, we fight. I yell, he gripes. I get angry, he gets pissy. Nobody'd believe just how pissy he gets, all sarcasm and this holier-than-thou thing that makes me want to pop him one. But I don't. We don't fight like that. My hand still hurts from the first and last time I punched him. My jaw hurts worse.

It's funny how much time I spent trying to avoid fights with Stella, how much time we spent not-fighting. We never got a chance to make up `cause we'd hardly fought. Fraser and me, we argue like crazy, and then it's "I'm sorry, I was wrong," "No, I'm sorry, it's my fault," and for a guy who's never been married or Catholic, Ben has an advanced degree in Guilt. I don't even need to try to make him feel guilty. He's got enough guilt for both of us, and then some.

It should be duly noted (that's Fraserspeak) that us fighting and then feeling guilty has never gotten in the way of our sex life. A very healthy, active, exhausting, fanfuckingtastic sex life. Yay me.

So I'll take an order of arguing with a side of apology, thank you kindly. `Cause I already know what's for dessert.

I'll take that over not communicating and ending up thrown out into the snow any day of the week.

Speaking of snow, the Adventure was great. Greatness. It was him at his best (which is saying something) and happiest (which is saying a lot more), showing me all the things he loves about the Giant Icebox that is Canada. I've never seen a smile like the one he had plastered all over his goofy face right after we jumped out of the plane.

Look Ray - turtles!

I still can't believe I fell for that, but we hit the ground poof!, and I knew that no Northern Lights display could ever be as beautiful as the look on his face at being back home.

It broke my heart a little, or a lot, that I had never seen that smile directed at me in all the time I'd known him. But hey, guess I can't compare to seventy gazillion miles, kilometers, of frozen uninhabited wilderness and air so clean and cold it burns your lungs.

Anyway, he keeps me from dying of hypothermia and we get the bad guys and a big nuclear submarine, and life is good. Then it gets better when we decide to take off for the Hand of Franklin. That we never found it was fine by me, `cause what we did find was a whole lot better.

He asked if I would be amenable to the idea of expanding the definition of the word liaison. Never heard someone use so many words to proposition me. I responded, "Yeah. Liaise this."

Long story short, I stayed.

We're still ironing out the wrinkles, him and me, between the two of us. It's a lot harder for me to say what's on my mind than it is for him, but it's a fuck of a lot easier for me to say what's in my heart.

For a while, we were still totally at odds, like we were in Chicago. Not at odds exactly, but still doing the tug-of-war thing. I say potato, he says Northern Idaho Russet. And once weren't out on the icy tundra, and I didn't have to worry about just surviving, I had to convince him that I could in fact be happy up here. Living, not surviving. He didn't, and doesn't, get that I'm here because of him. That wherever he is - is where I am, where I want to be. Where I need to be.

And he wasn't happy in Chicago. Though he always says he was. Funny thing about lies, the longer you tell yourself one, the more you believe it.

He's just the kind of guy that repeats something to himself until he believes it is true, and then he lives with it. If you don't have what you want, then make what you have what you want, and get used to it. Don't want what you don't have. Don't want, period.

If I'd lost my mother before I was old enough to know her, was raised by people who were born in the last century, moved from town to town every three months until my grandfather died, and saw my living-legend father once every two years before he was also murdered, I think I might have turned out the same way too.

That sounds like VHI: Behind the Scenes, Life of a Serial Killer.

If every time I wanted a toy, I got a book, then my best friends would have been words too. He once explained that his grandmother's favorite saying was, "Be thankful for what you have," and his father's was "Stiff upper lip, son." Always be thankful, sit up straight, never complain, and don't make any friends `cause you'll just have to leave them again in three months. Or they'll leave you.

It explains why his self-image is worse than mine, which you'd never think in a thousand years, and I didn't think was possible. I'm the fucking King of Self-Pity Land. But if I'm the king, Fraser is the Ambassador. He drops by when there's a diplomatic crisis.

I mean, he's fucking perfect at everything, which gets damn annoying, but that he has to be perfect at everything he touches is just his way of making up for some deep down, personal flaw, like the Mark of Cain, that he thinks he's got. He once used this metaphor - like he does for everything, but at least it wasn't an Inuit story - about books and book binding, and that some books have "inherent vice". This means that they were bound wrong, or the pages weren't treated right, so they get moldy or something - and believe me, Fraser would know all about mold - so in the end, the book has a flaw from the start. Yeah, that's what Fraser thinks he's got.

So he's the Control Freak who's willing to do anything in the name of duty, but not in the name of love. And I'm the Fly By The Seat of My Pants guy, who'll do anything for love, but I draw the line at trying to be perfect, `cause I know I'll never make it. I'm happy with my marginal self, and he thinks I'm selling myself short. He needs a good kick to the head.

Case in point - it took me for fucking ever to convince him that I'm happy here, happy being with him. Which brings me back to the issue of lying.

He has thought all along that I would get not just bored with Canada, but sick and fucking tired of it. He never came right out and said this, but it was there in all the things he didn't say. King of Lying by Omission, that's my Benton. It's the country right next to Self-Pity.

Been there, got the T-shirt.

For along damn time, he kept pointing out all the things that are hard about life up here, all the ways that living in the Arctic Circle is different from living in Chicago. New flash, buddy, I kinda figured that out all on my own. It's goes way beyond just the lack of pizza and Chinese and reliable cell phone service. But it was like he was trying to convince me to leave, trying to convince me to finally accept that I wasn't happy, couldn't be happy, would only leave him in the end so why not just get it over with?

I think it was the time that I made the carrot-penis snowman smoking a cigar that he thought I might be getting used to the climate. That I put the Stetson on the snowman was not, in his opinion, very funny. Liar. I called him on it, and later that night he said (gasped) that yes it was, I quote, indeed quite humorous, and could I please, please let him come now?

Yeah, truth hurts, Ben.

It does hurt sometimes, which is how I came to tell him a lie. A big lie.

It was about three months ago, and he was still expecting me to leave him. He kept saying things like, "Don't you miss that about Chicago?", about whatever it was. He kept asking me if I happy, and when I'd tell him I was, he'd argue with me like I wasn't being honest with myself. It was like the more I tried to convince him otherwise, the more he thought I was protesting too much.

So finally, I quit arguing. I quit saying that I was happy, and relied on trying to show him. That I was still here was proof enough, wasn't it?

What did Vecchio call him? The most annoying man on the planet? Yep, that's My Mountie.

So for a while, I settled in to doing all these little things around the cabin, and talking about plans I had for modernizing it, and learning how to do all the hearty Paul Bunyan stuff outdoors. I was going to be a woodsman yet. And we, we were going to have modern appliances if it was the last fucking thing I did. The cabin does have indoor plumbing, probably installed in 1925, but we could upgrade that too. I wanted it to take less than fifteen minutes to boil water for coffee.

I worked at becoming Mr. Handyman of the Universe, and I told him I loved him every day, and I tried to be more polite, and I didn't argue about stuff as much - and that's good, right?

But then he started to grow more and more distant, and more silent (which is just wrong) and doing the stiff upper lip, polite Mountie thing - and I began to wonder if really, all this time, he had been telling me that he was unhappy. Like asking me if I were happy was his way of telling me that he wasn't.

This terrified me right down to my frozen little toes.

What was weird is that during this time our sex life improved - and lemme tell you, I didn't think it could improve. But he made love to me as often as he could, which was as often as his Mountie heart desired, `cause I've had a hard-on for him since the day we met. More sex is always good, especially when it was these long, long, fucking intense sessions of deep, mind-altering love making. Give me Benton Fraser over LSD any day.

He would leave me a brainless puddle of goo, and would hold me and hold me, and kiss me like it was the last time.

Oh shit. He was apologizing. He was letting me go as kindly as he knew how. He was giving me a sweet, sweaty goodbye.

More and more I found myself jittery and paranoid, as only I can get, daily watching out for signs that all my belongings would yet again end up outside our door.

So in my jumpiness and his distant-ness during the day, we started nit picking. And, man, Fraser can pick some nits. How neat he wants the living room, what to do with my dirty socks, to remember to put more logs on the fire. Sometimes even before breakfast we'd be fighting over something as stupid as him reminding me to wear layers when I go out. Gee, you think? Yeah, it's only four hundred degrees below zero outside, I'm not going to forget to wear my jacket.

On particularly frustrating days, we'd sometimes not make it through dinner before one or the other of us would have the other one pinned to the living room floor or bent over the kitchen table fucking his brains out. Not making-love, but fucking the sheer stress of the day out of our bodies. Nothing like angry sex to bring out the apologies and the guilt, and then a make-up session of that long, slow, sweet sex to set things right.

Or so I thought.

It only got worse.

It hit bottom on a Tuesday. We'd been fighting about my getting a job.

"Ray, I'm certain that you will excel at whatever you should choose to attempt, but I'm afraid you won't find much to keep you occupied." He said this like it was a done deal, like he'd checked and there was absolutely no work for an able-bodied ex-flatfoot with mechanical tendencies. "Moreover, you're too old to become a Mountie."

"Gee, thanks, Frase. I needed the reminder of my age thrown in there." Not that I wanted to be a Mountie. Not if it made me carry a permanent stick up my ass at all times. But I didn't say that.

"And it is highly unlikely that employers will hire an American over a Canadian unless you have some specialized skill."

Oh, ouch. Thanks, again, buddy. "I've got skills," I said, feeling more than a little insulted. And he gave me one of his long-suffering, let's pity the poor American smiles.

"I know you do, Ray."

"Besides, I know all about the immigration rules. I've read `em cover to cover." I had. "But I have to try." He, of all people, should understand that, right?

"I understand, Ray. I'm merely trying to prevent you from becoming exceedingly optimistic in the face of what is doubtless going to come as a large disappointment."

Oh, now that's rich! Him giving me advice on expecting the worst so's I won't be disappointed. I fucking invented that technique.

"God, way to give me a line of credit, there, Frase. You could spare me the bullshit and just come right out and say, `Don't get your hopes up, Ray, `cause we both know you can't cut it'."

"That's not what I was saying at all - "

"Well, that's what it sounded like. I know it's gonna be hard, but I like hard. I'm not the one in the room who dooms everything to failure before I begin, Mr. Fount of Optimism."

That got a patented eyebrow rub and a little lip-licking. He clasped his hands behind his back at parade rest and I could just feel a lecture coming on.

"I'm always optimistic, Ray. I always assume a positive outcome in all - "

"Yeah, in all wildly dangerous situations where you're likely to die. Then you're all up and at `em, but not when it comes to love."

Damn, didn't mean to say that, didn't know why I said it, but maybe cause it'd been on my mind for weeks. And in the end, I saw that everything all boiled down to how much faith he had in me, how much he wanted me to succeed, no matter whether I ever would.

"I was unaware we were discussing love, Ray."

"Weren't we?"

"No, I was referring to - "

"Cause from where I stand it's been nothing but weeks of you telling me that I'm not happy and that I can't ever be happy if I'm not back in the states. So who's setting who up for disappointment, Benton? You'd just give me a big old `I told you so' if I can't find a job and Canada ends up deporting my sorry ass. Then I'd be miserable, but you'd be right."

"Are you ... miserable, Ray?"

"At the moment, or in general?" God, snarky much, Kowalski?

That earned me a stammer and a look that told me he didn't want to hear the answer, no matter what it was. Swear to God, one part of him was convinced that I was miserable as much as the other part was hoping like hell that I was happy as a clam.

"Shit. Let's just ... forget it, Frase. I'm gonna go make some coffee."

So I stood there in the kitchen over the wood stove - which drove me nuts because we had a gas water heater and electric lights, so why couldn't we have a stove of either kind? I don't know. It's like the oil lanterns he prefers to use. Conservation and environmental friendliness - and annoying as fuck when all I want is a Goddamn cup of coffee!

I was watching the water try to boil, watching the iron pot I was using to heat the water, when I just couldn't take it one minute longer. I dumped the water down the drain, clattered the pot into the sink with a really satisfying crash, and wheeled on Fraser standing right there.

"I can't fucking do this anymore, Frase." I pushed past him and grabbed my coat. "I'm gonna head out. Be back in a while."

I was at the door when his voice stopped me. "Would you like me to be here when you return?"

What kind of odd-ass question is that? "Whatever, Fraser. It's your house." And I slammed the door.

But maybe he had a good idea there. While I was going to go out and buy a Goddamn microwave, whether he liked it or not, maybe he'd go out on the sled, and we'd both take a break from one another. `Cause everybody needs a little time away. Thank you, Peter Cetera. Being cooped up with one person for all this time would drive anybody batshit, right?

So I was in the jeep and going into town and I knew that would take at least two hours, and then two hours back, and by that time I knew I'd have settled down, cooled my jets, and we could have dinner like civilized people. I knew that I'd feel like an asshole for, well, acting like an asshole, and he'd say he forgave me and that it was all his fault. God, we were pathetic. Couldn't apologize fast enough if we thought we'd hurt one another.

Just thinking about it made me want to turn the jeep around and head back there and fast-forward straight to the great sex part of the evening. Mr. Will Lick Anything does and has licked every single inch of my body, and it's the only thing that makes me wish I could gain weight better. More of me to lick.

I have a foreskin fetish, so that makes us even. I can tease him right to the edge of death by playing with all that extra skin. Shit, I remember how much embarrassment (on his part) and giggling (on mine) was involved the evening I explained that my talents under the hood were not restricted to cars.

God, I love this man.

I would do anything to make him happy.

When I got into town, and by town I mean a settlement that has fewer people in it than the average American Wal-Mart, I decided that I should get something for him too. I'm getting me a microwave, and him, I'm getting that coat he was eyeing the last time we were here together. It's lined with musk ox fuzz. He told me the proper name for it, the fuzz, and that it was the most insulating substance on earth, or something like that, and that no, it does not smell like a musk ox smells. He would know.

And he was right, it smelled like leather, soft good leather and the furry smell that accompanies all furriness. Greatness. Yes, it's fucking expensive, and he wouldn't buy it for himself, but that's what gifts are for right? And gloves to match. More greatness.

So I had me a microwave and him this beautiful coat that would feel amazing to wear naked. Oh God, that's a mental image. I wondered if we could break it in like that, spread it out beneath us and rut like the wild musk beasts we are.

Horny and happy, I left town and drove back home, humming all the way. Sky full of stars and cheesy Canadian tunes on the radio, and I was going home to My Mountie. I would apologize and fuck him until he believed I was happy. I hoped we had enough lube `cause it was gonna take a while.

It never occurred to me that I would come home to an empty cabin. I did.

I fed Dief and the other dogs outside, hung the coat in the closet, right next to where he always hung his coat, so that he'd be sure to see it, and I set about unpacking the unthinkable luxury of my microwave. It was smallish, but who needs a gigantic microwave for just two people?

It looked good in the kitchen, right there on the counter. He could have his wood stove and I could have my microwave - and it's all about compromise, right?

It was dinner time, but I would wait. So I stretched out on the couch, oh wait, put more logs on the fire, then stretched out and took a nap.

It's sad just how content I was, that I had no fucking idea what kind of chaos I had caused when I left. No clue. That's me, Mr. Clueless.

Stella always said I was blind, that I could see all these details and have all these instincts about my job, but I could never see what was right under my nose at home. No kidding. That was her neat little way of telling me that she was having an affair, had been having affairs for a while. It took the divorce papers being mailed to me to make me realize what was right in front of me in big, flashing neon letters. RAY YOU SUCK.

Yeah, I suck.

A noise woke me up, and I realized two things: it was pitch black out, and I was cold.

The fired had died and the phone was ringing. What the hell time was it?

Oh God. Ben. Ben. Ben somewhere dead or dying. Ben attacked by a previously-thought-extinct kind of artic wolverine. Ben in a snow drift, shot and bleeding because he tried to stop someone from littering. With him, anything is possible.

I picked up the phone with, "Ben?!"

"Ray?"

Not Ben. A woman. What the -

"This is Maggie." Before I could say another word, she snarled, "What the hell have you done?"

This meant something very bad - Maggie swearing. This meant something beyond bad and into god-awful.

"What have I done?" I echo, not having the first clue. "Where is Ben? Is he okay?"

"No, he's far from okay." Hostile tone, bitterness oozing.

"Oh God, oh God." I slowly sank to the floor and tried not to puke or drop the phone. "What - what happened? Where is he?"

"He's with me."

That brought me up short. "With you? What happened? Is he hurt?"

"You could say that." I heard the word asshole stuck on the end there, even if she didn't say it.

"What is it, please, tell me. I've gotta know. Is it bad. Please, just tell me." I needed to know how hard to cry over it, `cause at that point tears were already welling up and near to falling.

There was a long pause, a long, deadly, terrifying pause. "Ray, Ben is in my living room drunk out of his mind. He walked here." Holy shit. Walked there? She lives like an hour away - by jeep. "He hasn't stopped crying and it's been hours, Ray. He can't form coherent sentences anymore. What the hell did you do to him?"

Too many shocks to deal with at once, but it stopped me from bawling like a baby. I didn't even bother getting pissed that she thinks this is my fault since it probably is. "He's drunk? Since when? Ben doesn't drink. Ever. And he hardly cries in front of me.

"I'm aware of this, Ray, which is why it concerns me. I thought you might have died. But when I asked him, he said that you weren't dead. He said you had finally left him."

What the fuck? "I went into town for a microwave," was what I said instead, not really recognizing the squeak in my voice. "And he thought I left him?"

I began to rewind the day. We had fought before I left, sure, but - oh Christ. Oh fuck. Double fuck. I can't fucking do this anymore.

"Maggie, I'm coming over."

"No, Ray. You stay where you are and warm up the cabin for him." How the hell did she know it wasn't warm? "I think he's passed out, but I can get him into the truck. And when I get there, you and I are going to talk, Ray."

Oh shit, I knew that tone. Stella had that tone. The Spanish Inquisition tone.

She hung up before I could respond, and I flew into a frenzy of making the house as warm as possible. I thought of all the ways I knew to sober up, none of which ever worked. The only thing that did work was drinking a lot of water before passing out, and it sounded like Ben was way past that stage and all the way into the puking his guts out in the morning stage. A beer for breakfast helped, but I knew he wouldn't go for that.

God, he thought I left him. Finally left him. God, Ben. This is what fucking happens when you don't talk about shit. This is what happens when you forget that not telling a lie is not the same thing as telling the truth. You end up with assumptions and guesses and paranoia and frustration. You end up drunk and crying and wandering in the dark in the cold.

I stopped throwing wood on the fire and took a minute to thank God and all his angels that Ben made it Maggie's, that he didn't end up freezing to death in the dark, alone in the snow. Fuck, that was a whole life's worth of guilt and pain in that thought, and I made it to the kitchen sink just in time to throw up most of lunch and all of the cookies I snacked on before we had our fight.

Who was I kidding that I thought we needed time away from one another? This is what time away would be like. Cold and dark and vomit for me, and sobbing alcoholism for him. Probably the reverse if we ever did split up and my own history is anything to go by. Fuck that.

Ben might be one to assume that everyone he loved would eventually leave him, seeing as everyone he loved had, but not me. No. Not now. Now ever. Thick-skulled, stubborn Mountie.

More warm-making, and turning on lights and making bark tea, and finally I heard Maggie pull up outside. I put on my coat and went out to help her with whatever mess Ben had become.

It was a m-e-s mess.

He was unconscious and drooling, doing these little pre-vomit hiccups that I recognized all too well. Sure enough, we had to stop on the front porch and hold him while he projectile vomited all over the snow in his sleep. Make that an ugly mess. God would surely damn me forever for doing this to the kindest, most beautiful person ever created.

When the heaving stopped, I opened the door and we dragged him inside. He's no lightweight, and we had a hell of a time, but we managed.

In the light, his face was all swollen and his upper lip covered in snot, and I loved him more than I thought possible. My Imperfect Mountie. Gone and tied one on. God, he'd never forgive himself. He'd spend the next year and more beating himself up for this one, single slip-up, this proof of his inherent vice. He'd punish himself more than I ever could.

"Let's keep him warm and try to get him to drink some tea."

"Right," I said. "Okay. By the fire."

We set him down by the fire and she stayed by him, propping him up, while I got tea for all of us. I grabbed a whole stack of towels, including a wet one, because I knew that the pyrotechnics outside weren't the last of them. He had yet to enter the dry-heaving convulsing stage.

I'm an expert on vomit.

I sat by his other side, and we got his coat off of him, using it as a pillow while he lolled senseless against the back of the couch.

"Tell me what happened, Ray."

So I told her, I told her everything. I started from the beginning, from way back at the beginning of me first moving in with him. While I talked, we helped him - a tandem effort of holding him forward when he heaved and holding a towel in front of his face, and wiping him up when he was done. I'd helped lots of guys over the years who were passed out and puking, so this was familiar territory.

So was fucking up and saying something stupid and paying for it later.

When I got to today, and told her what I'd said, she gave me a glare that could strip paint. "For the love of God, Ray, you didn't hear yourself? You didn't realize what you'd said?"

No, I didn't, I hadn't.

"Okay, so that at least explains it. You know he loves you, Ray." Yes. "And you love him?"

"More than life."

She threw up her hands, as only women ever do, and looked at the heavens. I could hear somewhere a whole chorus of women sighing, "Men."

"How about I make things easier on you, Ray, since you're both too obstinate to ever do anything the easy way? I can sponsor your application for citizenship. I'll do it first thing in the morning, start the application process. That way you won't have to worry about work for a while. Between the two of us, maybe we can convince him that you are happy and that he should let both of you be happy. He deserves to be happy, Ray, more than anyone I've ever known. But he doesn't know how."

Yeah, a man who doesn't know how to be happy. It's one of those things you don't have, so you tell yourself you don't need. Or deserve.

"Maggie, if I weren't already in love, I'd marry you." She smirked, and took what I said as my heartfelt thanks. "How much did he drink?"

"I don't know. When he arrived, I was too shocked to ask, and he was too cold. He just sat on my floor by the fire and sobbed." She sighed like a gust of wind and looked at him tenderly. "He'll never forgive himself."

"Yeah, I know." A thought dawned. "Can we - can you help me in telling a lie?"

She gave me a hard, penetrating look that made me think she'd be right at home on the Chicago PD.

"Precisely what kind of lie, Ray?"

And so it was that I came to tell Ben an enormous lie, not only tell it, but make it look like Maggie was the one telling it.

We got him to down some tea in his sleep, and it stayed down. Then we stripped him, mostly, and wrapped him in an afghan, and laid him on the sofa. I unrolled his bedroll and slept beside him, checking on him every time he twitched or made a sound. I hardly slept all night, but I made sure I was up and had put away all traces of my having slept on the floor by the time he finally regained consciousness - which he did with a groan.

Yeah, know that song by heart, buddy.

"Mornin' sunshine," I said, purposefully chipper, but quiet, squatting beside him. I didn't turn on any lights.

"Ray?"

"Yep. Who'd you think it'd be?"

"Ray?"

"You've got quite a grasp of the obvious, Frase." I tried to mimic his voice. He made a pathetic attempt at getting up, but I wouldn't let him. "Whoa, there, babe. Maggie said you stopped by her place last night - "

"Ray."

" - And that you came down with the most God-awful case of food poisoning she'd ever seen. I told you the moose in the fridge was questionable - "

"Ray."

" - So you just sit tight, and I'm gonna get you some tea? Okay?"

He gripped me as I tried to get up; he gripped he hard and his bleary, bloodshot eyes were tearing up. "I thought you'd left, Ray. I thought you'd gone."

I made like I didn't get it. "Yeah, I told you I was leaving. I have a slight confession. I bought a microwave. I just couldn't take making coffee like that anymore, Frase. Water shouldn't take fifteen or twenty minutes to heat up. But I also got you something."

"What?" I love it when he's monosyllabic. He looked so totally confused I wanted to kiss him, but not with morning-after-vomit breath. Sexy that isn't.

"I got you a present."

"Why?"

"Because I can. I get to do that for you. I get to be happy that I'm here and that you're here and that you love me. And you," I paused to make my escape to the closet and get his coat, "You get to be happy in this kick-ass coat of musk you'd been drooling over."

"Ray. A coat of musk is a truly appalling thought." He looked like he might puke again at the idea.

"I know it's too much, it's extro-, extrava-whatever, but you look great in it, and it likes you. See? Pet it. It purrs."

"Ray, Musk Oxen do not purr."

"Well, they would if you pet them, Benton." I let my voice lower just enough to make him think of sex, which he does, turning pink on cue. Then he grew serious again, losing the pink to a deathly shade of white.

"I thought you'd left, Ray."

"You said that." I knew we'd be back there. He never lets anything slide.

"I thought you'd left me, Ray. For good," he ended on a broken whisper, and a little drop of water slid sideways down his temple.

"Ben, Ben, Ben. What am I going to do with you? Huh?" I sat on the couch beside him and touched his face. "I. Love. You. Love. Big love. Forever love. Only love. More love than snow." I flailed an arm at the window just in case he forgot where the snow was. "And I'm never leaving you. Never. Not ever. The polar opposite of ever, Frase. This is me promising you for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, as long as I live. Amen. Got it?"

A pained expression wafted over his face like the ghost of something he killed a lifetime ago, and then he shook his head, which I stilled with both hands firmly planted there and squishing his cheeks a little.

"Look at me. You have to get this. And if you don't, I'm going to tie you down to the bed in there and f -, make love to you until you do get it. Oh, you think I'm kidding? This is me threatening you with unending days and nights of sex, as often as I can get it up, only stopping for eating and pissing. I'm not the one with a career here, so I can keep going for a damn long time. Like forever."

I could see in his eyes the same look that he had looking at the snowman with a dick. I could see that he wanted to laugh.

"That sounds ... tempting, Ray."

I nodded. "Oh yeah it does. But you're sick, bad Mountie stomach, so I called you in sick today, and I get to coddle you."

"Ray - "

"No. Don't Ray me. You get to be sick. It's allowed. It's in the handbook. And I get to take care of you. It's part of the contract. Plus, I want to. You got to make sure I didn't freeze my skinny ass off while we were looking for the reaching-out hand, and I get to make sure you are well enough to tie me to the bed. Deal?"

His mouth searched for words, and he swallowed. Yeah, he really needed some water I bet. Finally, he closed his eyes and squeezed one of my hands on his face.

"I love you, Ray. More than I can ever, ever say."

"Yeah, I get that, the beyond words part." I grinned wide. "You know that you're it for me, right? Say it. Ray loves me forever and is never leaving me."

" Ray - "

"Say it, or it's bondage and endless sex time."

This got me a dark eyebrow arched way up. Ooooo, Ornery Mountie.

"Alright, that's it. Onto the bed with you." I tried to pick him up, and he just hung on, squeezing the life out of me, and I felt him smile.

If this was the price I paid for lying to him, it was worth it. It was worth me going to hell for the pain I caused him the day before. It was worth everything.

"I can't smell good," he finally said into the crook of my neck.

Okay so, no, not right then, but apparently I wasn't done lying. "You smell like you've been sleeping, Ben."

"I love you, Ray."

"I know."

"And I know you love me."

"It's about fucking time you said that."

He pulled back, eyes grinning. "Let me have some tea and a shower, and then we'll see what time it is."

"I love it when you talk dirty."

A closed-mouthed kiss was his answer to that, but what it lacked in passion, it made up for in lots and lots of sincerity. It ended with a loud smooching sound that had us grinning. We are such saps. After his shower and his tea, and lots of toothpaste, it was bed time again. He was so hung over that I got a sympathy head ache, so I held him close and whispered to him until he fell asleep.

He never did admit to having been drunk, and Maggie never spoke of it again. And they say that Mounties never lie ...

Somewhere since then, he forgave himself - he worked himself out. He quit accusing me of being unhappy, and I quit worrying that he wanted me to leave.

We don't fight as much as we did, but like I said, I'll take the fighting any day of the week and twice on Sunday. We still have make-up sex, though, making up for lots of time we wasted trying to pretend we weren't in love. What can I say? We may be experts at lying to ourselves, but we're also experts in bed. God, if only I could get a degree in that.

I'd like to think that if it ever slips, if he ever figures out that I knew, he'll be able to laugh about it, or at least smile. He gives me those smiles every now and then, those blinding, snow-capped smiles, and plus he has a few that he gives only to me. Smaller secretive ones that no one else sees. And we hold hands like a couple of love-struck idiots and watch the sun almost set on the artic circle.

So, I don't lie to him. Just that once. And I don't regret it for a second.

THE END