Author's webpage: http://www.geocities.com/destinaf/

Author's notes: Notes: I began this story last fall, but decided not to post it at that time for a number of reasons. It's a bit different than the type of story I generally write. I'm posting now because I suppose I just decided it was time to test the waters. I've lost the names of those who offered up beta and strong opinions about the first draft - but they all have my thanks, and my apologies. This story is set between "North" and "Vault".

"That's what we need - ridiculous odds and just a speck of hope that someday we'll beat them." --- Ray Vecchio

The Inuit had a saying about surmounting obstacles to achieve a goal. Ray didn't actually know that for a fact, but he was betting it was true. They had sayings about every other thing in the world. Fraser could quote ten of 'em without batting an eye.

In fact, Ray would've made book on the fact that Fraser knew every Inuit saying and could tell him a story to match each of them.

None of that was reassuring Ray much, given that his arm was about to fall off at the shoulder. Truth was, he had never healed completely from the bullet he'd taken for Fraser not a month before. Carting Fraser around the wilderness after the plane crash hadn't done much for his physical condition, either.

Ray glanced up at Fraser, who was swinging an ax with typical precision, striking nearly the same spot every time on the tall tree trunk. Fraser had been walking upright three weeks after getting a bullet in the back - a bullet Ray had fired, to be exact, though he wasn't tied up in knots about that as much anymore. So it wouldn't be right for Ray to be a wuss about a little shoulder wound, about a little pain that wouldn't quite let up.

Keeping his mouth shut was hard - he'd almost gotten used to speaking his mind about every momentary discomfort, just because the words were there to be said - but he wasn't about to make a big deal out of something Fraser would have ignored like a stoic. It was the whole invincible Mountie thing. He hated to think about the number of wounds and scars Fraser had. It made him feel practically inferior, since his own tally was about half of Fraser's. Pathetic. But he'd made a good start on catching up, lately.

Pain was stopping him from doing things, though. Things he wanted to do. Things like cutting wood, nailing wood, tacking wood - several wood-type activities were being impacted. Chopping skinny trees down and hacking them up was pretty much his only task, and he wasn't pulling his weight.

It had been his idea to come up to the cabin, to rebuild from the ground up, to make a big symbolic gesture. Foundation of their relationship and all that, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, that had worked out well. His idea, and yet the two of them were staggering around like the walking wounded, getting it done, but barely.

Great metaphor there, perfect symbolism. Lots to rebuild, but putting it together a tiny fraction at a time, like two disabled lumberjacks.

He caught Benny looking at him more than once. More than ten times, actually. Benny was looking a lot, with that patient, quiet squint, that one he got sometimes when he was biting back the things he knew Ray didn't want to hear, the things he felt almost compelled to say but knew wouldn't be well-received.

Ray had his partner pretty well broken in; when he wanted to know what was revolving in Benny's brain, he'd break out with a "What?!" and that reluctance would disappear like mist dissolved by sunlight. Behind the polite porcelain of Fraser's demeanor, there was a guy who saw everything, noticed things no one else ever would.

And still...for somebody so ridiculously trusting and open, Benny was about as far from an open book as you could get.

He'd watched Fraser noticing things before, seen the way he absorbed information like a big red sponge, taking it all in with quiet intensity. How anybody could be that sharp, and yet be so stupid about the stuff that counted most, was beyond Ray.

Which was why it unnerved him a little to realize Fraser was, well, noticing him. Noticing him in *that* way, the way he sniffed out a trail, or narrowed his eyes when he was picking his way through a case with more loose ends than a ten-tailed kite.

It made Ray try harder to lift that arm.

He hadn't asked for lessons in how to swing the axe. That had probably been the first mistake, the first big clue for Fraser to pick up. But if he'd attempted it with enthusiasm, Ray was pretty sure his arm would have fallen off at the shoulder, and he could have packed it in right there. He didn't even want to think about the way his body would react when the axe met wood and the shock wave of resistance shuddered through him. He'd have been felled a lot faster than the tree.

Ray wasn't especially proud. All right, he wasn't *noticably* proud. That didn't mean, however, that he didn't need a little respect. A little latitude to pretend everything was a-okay. Fraser's eyes kept flickering over him, light as a feather but mean as a ten-pound weight, pressing him. He could almost hear Fraser wondering, the gears in his brain were turning so loud. *Why the holdup, Ray? Want to give me a hand cutting down these trees sometime soon?*

But of course, Benny didn't say it.

Clouds rolled overhead in the pale-sun sky, billowing against a brilliant morning blue. Ray sawed logs in half; he lifted them up, cut them, stacked them, gritted his teeth and made good on his promise. He felt like a fish out of water in denim and flannel. His fashion sense was suffering right along with the rest of him. On top of everything else, he was hungry; canned ham and stew could only carry a guy so far before a nice salami sandwich started to sound really appealing.

Diefenbaker wandered over and sat down next to him. He could feel wolf-breath on his pants leg. "C'mon, Dief. Gimme a break, here, all right? I'm workin'."

Dief barked once. Clearly he had something to say. Ray rolled his eyes and dropped his chin to look at the wolf, who barked again. Under his breath, Ray said, "What are you tryin' to do, tip off the Mountie? Don't you have to answer nature's call or something?"

Nothing. Just a long, accusing stare.

He looked up, and Benny was doing it again. Looking.

"That's it." Ray dropped the end of the log he had just cut. "All right. Get it over with."

"Get what over with, Ray?"

"Cut it out, Benny. I know you're dying to ask me. Go ahead, ask." Ray wiped a hand over his forehead and leaned heavily against the makeshift sawhorse.

"Very well." Fraser rested the blade of his axe against a tree stump and leaned on the hilt. "Are you all right?"

"No, but thanks for asking. Let's get back to work."

"You hate it here." There was a hint of a smile in Fraser's voice, and in his eyes. "You'd be better off in town until I can cut the necessary amount of lumber to finish the repairs."

"Nah. That would defeat the purpose."

"Precisely what *is* the purpose, Ray? Your shoulder isn't going to heal completely unless you follow the instructions given to you by the doctors. You are willfully disregarding everything they told-"

"Oh, and you're such a paragon of health." Ray pressed his lips together and squinted up at Fraser. "Listen, I carried you halfway across hell's half acre. This, here - this is nothing. We came here to rebuild this place, right? Right. So that's what we're going to do. We, as in you and me. Together. None of this waiting in town stuff."

"Will you at least take regular periods of rest?"

"Don't need it. Shoulder just aches a little, is all." Ray eyed Fraser, noting the way he straightened cautiously. "How you doing?"

"My current muscle soreness is a result of physical exertion, I believe. Nothing to do with the gunshot wound. Which should lift a considerable weight of guilt from your shoulders." Fraser raised his eyebrows at Ray, which produced a grin from his partner immediately.

"True, very true." Ray cast a glance toward the barely begun cabin in the clearing below them. "We better get to work or we'll never get this thing built." He turned to pick up another piece from the stack, and was stopped by Fraser's hand on his shoulder, curiously warm, surprisingly intimate.

"Don't, Ray, you-"

"Benny, seriously, we've got a lot to-"

"You're bleeding, Ray."

"What? What?" Like a dog after its own tail, Ray twisted his neck around immediately, trying to look down at a place where it was impossible to get a first-hand view. Fraser's hand tightened on him.

"Come inside and let me take a look."

"Aw, no. You're not going to do some of that Mountie first-aid-snow rescue stuff on me, are you?"

"No, Ray. I just want to stop the bleeding. Come inside." The insistence in Fraser's voice, and in those persuasive eyes, made Ray nod his head in agreement almost before he'd consciously decided it needed to be done.

So it was that ten minutes later, they were standing in the rebuilt main room of the cabin - the only room they'd managed to put together in the time they'd been there, since they were working slower than a snowplow in a blizzard. Ray took a moment to feel guilty about the bloodstain on Fraser's shirt. He'd had to borrow it, reluctantly, when his own silk shirt had become a pincushion for splinters.

It wasn't high fashion, just flannel and cotton, but flannel was the equivalent of designer duds to Fraser. Not that Fraser knew Armani from the racks at the corner store - a shirt was just a shirt, functional and comfortable. Very comfortable, actually. And the flannel smelled like Benny, like soap and fresh air and the occasional mothball.

Ray realized his thoughts had become one long run-on sentence, all about Benny. Something was making him want to babble.

Might have been the way Fraser was easing the shirt off him at that particular moment.

"So who'd a thought it, Fraser? The two of us up here a million miles from anywhere, doing the buddy thing? After what happened a few weeks ago...what are the odds that I'd come back up here and actually like it?" Ray smiled over his shoulder, but the smile faded as he turned back to face the wall.

"Technically, Ray, we're only about twenty miles from the nearest town. As you well know, since we purchased supplies on the way here." Fraser's voice had grown soft, and his touch was deft and reassuring as he examined the wound. "As for you liking it, I have my doubts."

"What, you don't believe me? I'm having the time of my life." The mental truth-track playing in his mind shouted at him, but he ignored that, since he had other problems - for one thing, the strange and alarming sensation of pleasure he was experiencing at the motion of fingertips against his spine.

"You're kind to say so, but I don't think wilderness living is your forte." Now there was humor in Fraser's voice again.

"You think I'm not into the great outdoors? After everything we've been through, you still think I can't appreciate nature?"

"No, not at all." Hesitation. "Actually, yes."

"Well, I could if I set my mind to it." Ray chuckled, and he decided he could feel Fraser smiling, even if he couldn't see it.

"Is this painful?"

"Ow! Watch it!"

"You have overexerted yourself. In fact, you've opened scar tissue that was, to all appearances, largely healed. I'm afraid I must insist you stop work for the remainder of the day."

"Oh, fine. Great. I've got a mother already, thank you very much, and she knows better than to try and tell me when to quit. What's a little pain? It only hurts now and then. Nothin' more than a scratch."

"Ray. You're babbling."

"No I'm not."

"Are you nervous about something, Ray?"

"Why would you ask me a stupid question like that?"

"Well, no reason, really. It's just that I can feel your heart rate beneath my hands, and your pulse has increased by roughly twenty percent in the last few seconds. I've also noticed an increase in respiration proportionate to the rapid blood flow."

"What are you, some kind of human abacus? Stop with the math, already."

"Sorry, Ray." Only Fraser didn't sound properly sorry. He sounded...smug. Which Ray found irritating beyond belief. Here he was in pain - never mind that he'd denied it, any idiot would've known he didn't mean that - and Fraser was being a smart ass.

So he opened his mouth to go to town, to let Benny have it, but something truly shocking happened just then, something that slammed his mouth shut tighter than lockjaw and sapped away his power of speech. Benny's hands opened, fingers unfurling against Ray's skin like wisps of dandelions blown away on the breeze, and the softness of his palms slid down both sides of Ray's back. Ray drew in a long breath and held it as that touch set fire to his skin, as the roughness of callused fingers elicited a shiver of epic proportions.

Not possible. Not possible. Not freakin' possible.

He was *not* attracted to Fraser.

Oh, yeah, but his body was singing a different song, spelling it out for him one symptom at a time. It was clear in the way his breath was catching in his throat, in the beat of the pulse ticking feverishly in his neck, in the heat traveling over his skin and spreading everywhere he was touched, and everywhere he hadn't been touched yet but might be.

That touch had all the reverence of a preacher ministering to the unconverted, full of passion and desire and love for the magnificence of the spirit within the temple.

The surprise of it short-circuited his objections, made every word he thought of saying seem like another language, one he didn't understand. Ray knew he had to say something, had to *do* something, but Benny's name was playing in his head like the soundtrack to a nightmare, over and over, and over...

"Benny?"

"Yes, Ray?"

"Are you coming on to me?"

Silence, as those hands stilled, then stopped. "Would that bother you, Ray?"

A small riot of panic ensued in Ray's heart. Yes, yes, *yes*, his mind screamed. Partner, friend. Partner, friend. Boundaries. Lines that can't be crossed.

And some hidden, intuitive part of himself countered calmly, illuminating a long list of who Ray Vecchio really was, beneath - just a guy in denial who had a jones for the kind eyes and sensitive mouth of his male partner. His male partner, who would die for him; the same partner he'd do anything for - take a bullet, swing a bola, shelter an ex-con.

Ray spared a moment to be simply, truly amazed at his train of thought. He couldn't even get the ache of longing to subside long enough to deny it existed in the first place. But he just...wasn't that kind of guy. Not possible.

The answer came out casually. "It might, yes."

Immediately, the warmth of skin on skin retreated. "Your wound is dressed. If you refrain from excessive movement of that shoulder and resume use of the sling, you'll see a dramatic improvement in your mobility within a few days, I'm certain."

Ray turned around and caught the front of Benny's shirt with an outstretched hand, holding him at arm's length. "You just gonna drop this, act like it never happened?" He searched the depths of those contrite eyes, seeing his own vulnerability reflected back at him in the gentle, wary gaze of his friend.

"It seems a prudent course of action."

"You don't get off the hook that easily, my friend." Ray took a deep breath and relaxed his grip, but didn't release Benny altogether. His mind was racing. Processing the hot-as-hell touch of another man was not in the Vecchio repertoire of sexual tips and tricks. Not that he was really thinking about it in that way. Much.

He let his thoughts slide off in that direction, just to see where they were headed. Benny was important to him. Very important. So much so that he'd done things for him he wouldn't do for anyone else. The therapist had had a field day with that revelation in the last of their sessions. He wondered what kind of notes she'd written about his feelings for the Mountie, what she'd say about this new experience. He could see the silly headline at the top of his chart: Mountie Gets His Man.

Nothing was clear, nothing at all, and he didn't have any perspective, any experience to help him. Just Benny's eyes, patient and locked on him, and now he was looking again, and there was no reason to hide.

So Ray said the first thing that came to mind.

"I didn't say it *did* bother me, just that it *might*."

Fraser nodded and pressed his lips together thoughtfully. "Ah. I see. There is a clear distinction between the two I failed to appreciate."

"I'm glad you see that."

"Does it?"

"Does it what?"

"Bother you, Ray."

Ray released his hold on Benny's shirt abruptly.

Did it?

The answer came to Ray without thinking, laid out and ready to be explained, and he let it come out, just looked his partner in the eye and said the only thing he still knew was true in the shifting world he inhabited.

"It's too soon, Benny," he said softly, surprised by his words, by the way he was giving voice to reasons he hadn't even realized were reasons. "It's only been, what, a couple months? She may have gotten into your blood overnight, but she climbed all the way in this time. It's going to take a hell of a lot longer than a couple of months to get her out."

Fraser's jaw tightened, and he looked away, and down at the dirt floor. The little room seemed cold to Ray suddenly, as though they were submerged in frigid water, and the ice was crystallizing over their heads. Awkwardly, Fraser clasped his hands behind his back, as if unsure of what to do with them.

"I've let her go, Ray. I'm not going to dwell on things that can never be."

"Well, sure, okay. But that doesn't mean you can just dive in to...whatever else...that you can...you were going *with* her, Fraser, you know...it takes time..." Ray shrugged his shoulders, for lack of something eloquent to say to explain his point. All the eloquence seemed to have jumped ahead and been given voice already, and there wasn't anything left - no witty remnants, no profound observations about love.

It struck him, as he stood there, how handsome Fraser looked in that sort of pensive, deeply serious way. The youthful face was cast in shadow, and Ray wanted very much to see him in sunlight again. As he looked, Benny met his eyes, and he realized he'd been caught looking. Caught, he supposed, with much the same expression Benny had on his face - wistful, a little too guarded, and not at all happy.

Benny said, haltingly, "Perhaps I should have said something. I handled this very badly, I suppose."

"That depends. You going to give up completely now?"

What leapt into Benny's eyes just then rang Ray's bells in a big way, made him want to shout amen and log the moment away for future reference. So he added a piece of truth, something else he'd just realized. Something that should have seemed pretty profound, but here, in this place, away from censure and civilization and under the Canadian sky, it just seemed expected. "Because for the record? I didn't mind. Well, not much."

"Actually, Ray, I thought the signals were clear." Benny said it cautiously, as though he expected a freight train to emerge from the woods and collide with him at any moment.

"What are you talking about?" Now Ray was getting confused. He'd had it all compartmentalized a moment ago, stacked up neatly for later scrutiny, but this was getting a little more tricky.

"If you'll recall, you did shoot me to stop me from getting on a train with another woman. And you subsequently dove in front of me to save my life, stopping a bullet with your body. It seemed rather...obvious."

"Hold it, hold it. I did not shoot you. I was trying to shoot *her*."

"I know you think that, Ray, but subconsciously, you may have been attempting to-"

"Just stop. Right. There." Ray stepped close to Benny, so close the fabric of Fraser's shirt tickled his bare chest. "Are you insinuating that I shot you on purpose?"

"No, not on *purpose*, Ray. It's just that you couldn't help yourself."

"You're insane. It's official. You're completely off your rocker," Ray said, as if it were self-evident. None of that could be remotely true. He would never have...even if she *was*...and he didn't want Benny hurt...but it was nice to have that quality time in the hosp...

"I did NOT shoot you on purpose, you got that? And besides, I could have been killed taking that bullet for you. Remember, you *admitted* you got a little thrill out of that." Ray put everything he had into the denial. He made it clear, as clear as it was possible to be with one hand clinging to reality, and the rest of him dangling in the chasm of insane assertions.

"After I was certain you would live, yes, of course I did."

"You think I wanted to hurt you?" Ray couldn't decide if he should be incensed, or find a nice, quiet hospital suitable for the mentally unstable and check the both of them in, since he was starting to see the horrifying possibility that Benny was more perceptive than he was about this.

"No. No more than I wanted to hurt you." Benny lifted a hand, as if to touch Ray again, but it drifted in midair, abandoned by the impulse which had set it into motion. Quietly, Fraser said, "But I did hurt you. I know it, Ray, and I'm sorry."

Ray turned his face away, just slightly, unsure of what to say. Big emotional confessions weren't his forte. He looked at Fraser's hand, at the cuts and the scrapes and the fingernails smudged with dirt. And he wanted that bruised, honest hand back where it had started.

"Go ahead," he said, still staring at the hand.

"With what?"

Ray lifted his chin and made a motion with his head, indicating that hand. He lifted his gaze to Fraser's, smiling a little. "You know."

Warmth settled against his ribs, both sides, slow and mercifully gentle, since Ray's skin suddenly seemed supersensitive. Every nerve ending was awake now, each one craving sensation.

Lips descended on his, and Ray let them take him, let them open him softly and tease him until his need was magnified into heat. Fraser's mouth wasn't gentle, not at all like he'd expected, not like his hands; he was being worshipped in a different way, a more ruthless way, as he was explored and charted by an expert. He tasted sunshine in the breath Fraser sighed into him, felt the warmth of it on him, and Fraser's hands were everywhere, moving but not fast enough, and he was falling backward, lost...

Reality hit with a crash, in the form of a wall at Ray's back and the weight of Benton Fraser pressing him against it, and he shouted with pain. "Hey!"

"Sorry...sorry." Benny backed up with a look of acute concern on his face. "Did I injure you?"

"No, no." Ray waved him off, wincing as he straightened and moved away from the wall. "Nothing like a little enthusiasm." The words made him grin.

"A bit too much enthusiasm, apparently."

"Save some of that energy for later. You might need it."

"Ray?"

"For chopping logs."

"Naturally."

They stared at each other, each trying and failing to look a bit more solemn, for the sake of decorum.

Ray squinted at Benny suspiciously. "We're on the same page, here, right? We're not going to have to talk about this any more, are we?"

"I shouldn't think so." Fraser titled his head, as if preparing to say more, and added, "No. Definitely not."

"Good. I'm starved. The sooner we get those logs-"

"The sooner *I* get the logs chopped. You're going to rest your shoulder, remember?"

"Yeah, I remember." Ray shook his head. "Talk about your twists and turns."

"I thought you just said you didn't want to talk about it any more."

"It's an expression, Benny." Ray said it so patiently, so automatically, that he didn't realize he'd been had until he noticed Fraser smiling at him. A genuine smile, the kind so rare and true it brightened the entire northern hemisphere. It made his heart ache, that smile.

What were the odds he would end up in the wilderness, in a part of the world he'd thought he had no place, and find a place was ready for him all along?

Kissing his partner was definitely not something Ray had factored into the equation, but the odds always improved when the two of them were set on the same goal. Things were looking up.

If his luck held out, there might even be some of that leftover canned ham for dinner.

End.
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