Disclaimer: They're not mine. If they were, they'd be hooking up on HBO, not my computer.

Author's Notes:

Story Notes: Implied violence - this story was very nearly titled "Bad for the Kidneys." Spoilers up to Good for the Soul, AU thereafter.

"For Christmas. For Christmas and I swear, I will never ask You for another favor ever again."

Fraser opened his eyes to see Ray, sitting by his bed.

There was low light coming from somewhere nearby, and Ray was frowning at something in that direction. He looked weary, impossibly so given that Fraser had seen him laughing at the Christmas party, mere hours ago.

"Ray?" His voice emerged as a faint croak. Ray turned to him with a smile, though even that looked tired, and held a cup of water to his lips.

"Thought you might be waking up," Ray whispered as Fraser sipped, and even with his voice so low Fraser could hear the nighthoarseness in it. "How you feeling?"

Fraser frowned as he considered the question. "Sore," he managed, pleased to hear his voice sounding almost normal. `Sore' didn't quite cover the situation, however. He was a patchwork of pain, more than the beating he'd suffered could explain.

When he looked up at Ray, he could see his confusion had been noted. "What's the last thing you remember, Frase?"

He searched his mind. "The picture--my father gave me a Christmas present, he must have taken my name off the tree. It was a framed photo of my family, from before my mother died. That was just at the end of the gift exchange, at the Christmas party."

Ray's expression seemed oddly frozen before he finally said, "Fraser, your dad's been dead for over three years."

Fraser frowned. What had possessed him to mention his father to Ray? "I know that, Ray. But I--I feel his presence often."

Ray nodded slowly. "You remember Warfield? You remember staking out his club all day?"

Fraser frowned. "Of course I do, Ray. It was rather a memorable day, as it ended with my being lured into an alley and beaten."

"O*kay*," Ray murmured. His voice still had not risen above a whisper. "What happened after you got beat up?"

This was becoming ridiculous. "I walked back out to the sidewalk. A bouncer made a phone call, and then you pulled up. You offered to drive me to the hospital, but I assured you that I was not--"

Ray was slowly shaking his head. "You collapsed on the sidewalk, Fraser. The bouncer did make the call, but he called 911 because you were unconscious. I got there right before the ambulance did because I was coming over to check on you anyway, and they let me ride along because I got my ass in the back while they were strapping you to a back board, and they couldn't shift me without taking up a bunch of time that they needed to get you here."

Fraser was staring at Ray, and Ray dropped his eyes to the edge of the bed. "The doctors decided you're officially lucky. Nine days in a coma and no sign of brain damage, six cracked vertebrae with no spinal cord damage, and they got all the bone chips out and didn't have to fuse any. And they think you're going to keep your left kidney."

Fraser, stunned by Ray's words, attempted a bit of levity. "What about the right?"

Ray looked up at him briefly with a horrified expression, and then looked away again, and Fraser knew it was no joking matter, and wished he could call back the words, but it was too late. Ray's voice was even lower when he spoke. "You didn't tell me Vecchio was your next of kin. I had to sign releases for everything they did for you. Your right kidney failed, started going bad--so I signed the form and they yanked it before it killed you. That was... that was the day we would've had the Christmas party, I spent it sitting in the waiting room, and Welsh and Frannie and Huey and Dewey sat there with me, waiting to hear that you still weren't dead, because you were in a coma and that was the best they could tell us."

Fraser blinked, staring at the wall, trying to distinguish the empty space in his right side from the general pain, trying to believe what Ray was telling him, that he had not walked away unscathed.

"So there you go," Ray whispered almost fiercely, "You fought the mob, and the mob got your fucking kidney. They think the other one's going to be okay, like I said, but seems like every cop in Chicago and probably all the Mounties in Canada got tested to donate, if you need. Frobisher, uh. Frobisher called, they found somebody, another Mountie up North, she's said she'll donate if you need it, they've got her all set up at a hospital, ready to go if the doctors decide you need a transplant."

Fraser swallowed, and said the first thing that came to mind. "A woman?"

Ray smiled a little. "Yeah, Fraser, chicks got kidneys too, and I promise you won't catch cooties."

"Of course not, Ray," he said, with as much dignity as he could muster. "She's a Mountie."

Ray smiled a little at that, and Fraser asked, "What about Warfield?"

Another faintly stricken look stole the smile from Ray's face, and he raised a hand to his throat, lifted his chin for the first time, and Fraser's stomach lurched at the sight of fading bruises circling Ray's throat. "You were sick," Ray whispered, and Fraser knew with horrible certainty that the hoarseness of his voice had nothing to do with the time of day. "After the surgery, we cut it a little close, trying to wait, trying to give you the chance to get better with everything intact, and you wound up with an infection after they did pull it. It was bad, for a while, real bad, and I couldn't stay anymore. Frannie and Elaine came and sat with you. Welsh and the Duck twins came out with me, wanted to pour drinks into me til I passed out, I think, but I wanted to go see Warfield."

Oh, God. Fraser would have spoken, if he could have moved words through his throat, suddenly as tight as Ray's must be.

"I bullied my way right up to him, started yelling at him, about how he'd maybe killed a cop, my partner, and I was going to take him down if it was the last thing I did, he was going to go away. He just stood there and smiled, smug bastard, but I wasn't stopping, I couldn't stop, and I think I was starting to get under his skin. Then I--I said something about him laying a hand on my boyfriend, and Warfield went crazy, started screaming at me about being a fag, got his hands on my throat and."

Ray coughed, took a sip of water from the same cup he'd held for Fraser. "I didn't think they were gonna get him off, almost blacked out. So he's going away, Fraser, and it's a domino thing, once he was in jail he started naming names, and everybody came out of the woodwork accusing everybody else, and probably half the organization in Chicago's going to go down." Ray raised his eyes, though his chin was down again, hiding the marks. "He's going down for the right stuff, at least, Fraser. Attempted murder and assaulting an officer, Stella managed to get the case and she's nailing him to the wall, almost like she cares. Sorry we couldn't get him for you, but we got him."

"Ray," he whispered, "I'm sorry."

Ray shook his head. "That's the great thing about getting beat up, buddy, it gives you a `get out of apologizing free' card. You're off the hook. I checked, it's even good in Canada."

Fraser nodded slowly. "Ray," he said, his voice a little firmer. "Why did you say that?"

Ray ducked his head and spoke to his knees. "C'mon, Fraser, one little lie for a good cause..."

"No, Ray, I mean, what possessed you to tell that particular lie?"

Ray's head jerked up as though drawn by an overenthusiastic puppeteer, so that for just a moment Fraser saw the expression of utter despair that Ray could not hide. He closed his eyes as Ray composed himself, because it was obvious. He should not have had to ask that question, just as he should not have asked about Warfield before asking after Ray himself. It occurred to him that he must be on enormous amounts of medication, and not in control of himself to the usual degree, but that was no more comfort to him than it was to Ray.

In the silence, he could hear the computer hum of his monitors, of to his side, where Ray had been looking when he woke up. "I'm sorry," he whispered, finally daring to open his eyes.

Ray gave him a careless smile, but did not remind him that he wasn't obligated to apologize. "It's you, Fraser. It's how you are. I knew that, I saw this coming. Should've stopped it."

He wanted to ask what Ray meant, Warfield or boyfriend or all of it, but he couldn't bear to see Ray's face turn pale one more time, so he'd have to muddle through on his own.

Ray leaned close, resting his forearms on the bed. "Go to sleep, Fraser, okay? I just threw a lot at you, and you've still got a lot of recovering to do. I'll be here when you wake up, I promise you."

Fraser didn't question Ray, just obediently closed his eyes, and was soon asleep. He had to be dreaming, in fact, because there was no way Ray could be on the phone beside him, asking Buck Frobisher to do him a favor.

"I even tried kissing him. Didn't do any good, but who am I kidding? I'm nobody's Prince Charming."

"Hey, don't sell yourself short. Benny's nobody's Sleeping Beauty here either."

When he woke up, Ray was gone. He stared around at the hospital room as best he could, given that he was immobilized, and then a door opened and Ray stepped into his field of vision. His welcoming smile this time was brilliant, and Fraser could see in the light of day that the bruises on his throat were nearly gone. "Hey, you're awake!"

He thought better of trying to nod, and said instead, "I noticed."

Ray grinned as he came over and settled into his chair beside Fraser's bed. "Okay, so I got a surprise for you. I dunno if you're gonna like it exactly, but it's already done, so you just have to accept it."

"All right, Ray," he said, delighted by Ray's good spirits. "And thank you kindly."

Ray looked down, seeming embarrassed. "So, you were in a bad way, especially right at first--they were talking about fusing your spine, they were talking about a lot of things. And I thought, what if you were in a coma and I was out of town or something, and nobody told me?"

Fraser blinked.

"I figured, if I got back home and found out about that, too late, I'd want to kill whoever was responsible. So I, uh. I had some information, and I used it, I made a phone call, I passed a message to a certain mob guy that his little brother back home in the old country had picked a fight with a paisan, and was laid up in the hospital. Six days later, Vecchio had wrapped up the whole operation, handed the FBI half the mob in Vegas, giftwrapped. He told everybody he wanted to get home to his Ma for Christmas, but as soon as he got off the plane he came here, sat for eight hours. We talked about how much we hate the mob, and how crazy you make us, and I caught him up on all the 2-7 gossip, and eventually Frannie and Tony came and dragged him home to eat and sleep and see his Ma."

"Ray Vecchio?" he finally managed, and Ray looked up and grinned.

"Yeah, Fraser. Got you your real Vecchio back."

He frowned. Exhaustion was creeping in again, already, making Ray's words harder to grasp than they should be. "You've put yourself out of a job, then, Ray."

Ray's smile turned sad. "Yeah, well. We're in the same boat, then, huh?"

"Yes," Fraser sighed, closing his eyes, because surely there was no way he could avoid a medical discharge this time, even if he didn't require a kidney transplant. "You'd better keep steering, then, Ray."

Ray's hand covered his, and he heard the smile in his voice. "Don't worry, Fraser. I got a feeling about this."

"Here, lasagna. Ma says to tell you, just because I'm home doesn't mean you're not her son anymore."

"Yeah? That make us twins or something?"

"The kind of twins where one of us was found on the doorstep, maybe."

"Is that how they got you? Because I just walked in a year ago and introduced myself."

"Don't I wish. I used to tell Frannie and Maria I was adopted, because I couldn't possibly be related to them."

"That's funny. I never thought of that when I was a kid, but Stella, she used to say that to her family all the time."

"Stella, huh? Now, if she's your ex, and we're, uh, does that make her..."

"It makes her single, buddy. She likes dancing and guys who dress nice. Knock yourself out."

Fraser opened his eyes to see Ray--Ray Kowalski--perched on the foot of his bed, balancing something on his knee. Ray Vecchio sat in the chair where Ray Kowalski had been before, holding something similar, grumbling. "You're peeking, aren't you?"

"I'm not peeking, Vecchio. I'm just better than you."

"I should get the bed, y'know. I was here first."

"No you weren't," Ray said, absently, as he studied the thing on his knee, rolling a small plastic peg between his fingers. "If you were here first, you'd be on the bed. G7."

"God damn it, Kowalski!"

Ray looked up to grin at Vecchio, and then his eyes widened as he saw that Fraser was awake. "Hey."

"Ray," he whispered, then, and Ray Vecchio jumped to his feet with a plastic clatter, something hitting the floor, bouncing, rolling, and Ray was leaning over him, hugging him gingerly.

"God, Benny, it's good to see you."

"You as well, Ray," he managed, as Ray finally straightened up, and took on a stern, lecturing posture.

"But I thought I taught you better than this about how to survive in Chicago."

Fraser opened his mouth to concede, but Ray scooted down the bed to somewhere near his knees, not quite interposing himself, but setting a hand on the bed rail between him and Ray Vecchio. "Hey, I think he learned his lesson. No lecture required."

Ray Vecchio smiled. "Yeah, okay, Kowalski. I'll just stick with Merry Christmas and I missed you, then, okay, Benny?"

"I missed you as well, Ray." He frowned. "Did I miss Christmas, then?" He'd dreamt something about that, about his father, always missing Christmas...

Ray Vecchio's expression turned sad. "Yeah, you did, Benny."

"Actually," Ray said, his hand slipping from the bed rail to cover Fraser's, "you caught the tail end of it the first time you woke up. That was about the last five minutes of Christmas."

"Anyway," Ray Vecchio added, "you're both invited over to our place to celebrate Christmas as soon as you're allowed out, Benny. Ma has presents for both of you, and I think she figures that'll give her enough time to wrap stuff for me, so it'll be a real nice Christmas."

"In July?" Fraser whispered, wondering.

Ray patted his hand. "February at the outside, buddy, but they'll probably spring you before that, even. You're healing up fine, now. Kidney's good, spine's healing up, you aren't even going to have to do PT."

"Thank God for small favors, then."

Ray grinned. "And big ones, Frase."

"I'll let him know when he wakes up."

...

"Greatness. Thanks again, for everything."

...

"You too."

After his first unaided trip back and forth to the bathroom, Fraser sank into Ray's customary chair by his bed, and Ray pulled himself up to sit on the edge of the bed. "Okay, Fraser, I been putting this off, but I gotta tell you how things are, so you can start planning what you want to do once you're out of here."

He'd been dreading this. "All right, Ray."

"Okay, first thing, you got a place to live. I talked to Frobisher right after you got hurt, and he wanted to know if there was anything he could do to help. I asked him if he could see about getting your place in the Yukon livable. Didn't realize that meant rebuilding it from the ground up, but he said he'd see to it, and he did."

Fraser lowered his face into his hands, and Ray was quiet a moment, then went on.

"Second thing, Frobisher's offering you a job. You live up there, and he'll bring those rookies they send him over to you, for extra training up, so they might actually survive north of Sixty, he said. He said, that means they'll know where you live, and probably come running to you every time they run into something they can't handle. Said looking at the kind of people they're sending him lately, you'll probably never have a moment's peace. Said the pay's crap, but it's something to do."

Fraser raised his head again. To be nearly a Mountie, unofficially, much as he'd been nearly a Chicago cop in his time here, was more than he'd imagined. Ray winked, looking pleased with himself beyond all measure.

"Third thing, Thatcher's been pulling some strings herself. If you don't want to take your medical discharge, you can stay in uniform, teaching at the Depot or pushing paper in Toronto. The money's better, but the commute from your place would be hell."

Fraser blinked, and something of the disorientation he felt must have crossed his face, because Ray was suddenly crouching at his side, propping him up.

"Okay, and there's one more thing," Ray murmured, near his ear. "Probably should have told you this before. I've been on leave of absence since you got hurt, and what with me getting attempted murdered in order to bring a mob boss down, I got a medical discharge being offered to me, too. And wherever you go, I'm coming with you. Living next door, or down the street, or however far the restraining order says I have to be, but I'm coming with you."

Fraser braced a hand on Ray's shoulder, and pushed away far enough to look his partner in the eye. "Ray?"

Ray grinned. "Hey, it'd be a hell of a time trying to get you to fall in love with me if you were in Canada and I was still in Chicago. I didn't give up on your kidney, Fraser, and I'm not giving up on your heart."

Fraser could only stare, in a sort of horrified fascination at the things that sometimes came out of Ray's mouth. "You have the soul of a poet," he managed, finally, when he could form words again.

Ray looked pleased. "Thanks, Fraser."

"Not the verbal skills," he clarified. "But certainly the soul."

Ray's pleasure seemed quite undented. "Hey, soul's good enough for me."

When they arrived at the cabin, there was a small wrapped box sitting on the table. It looked familiar, though Fraser couldn't remember why until Ray told him to open it, that it was his last Christmas present. Then, with a sense of deja vu, he unwrapped the package, and lifted out the silver-framed photo.

"Frobisher tracked it down for me," Ray said. "It was your mom's, your grandparents had it, and when they died it went into storage with the rest of their stuff."

Fraser pulled Ray close, leaning on him as he stared down at the picture. "My family," he said, softly, and kissed Ray's smiling mouth.

End Christmas Present by Dira Sudis: dsudis@yahoo.com

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