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Author's Notes:

Story Notes: No explicit sex.

This story is a sequel to: Special Friends

"Frannie. Frannie. Frannie."

"Go away!"

"Open the door, Frannie."

There was a silence from the other side of the heavy wood, and then the door latch clicked. That was all.

Ray took the knob and opened the door. Frannie was sitting on her bed, facing away from him, head bowed.

"I really thought, that...you know...'it' was mostly cover."

"I did too," she barked, and snorted a loud sniff.

"Can I see that picture again?"

She waved a hand vaguely, toward the dresser, and he went to it and searched a second amidst the framed stuff; he found a photo of Frannie and a smiling fellow who was dressed in his shirtsleeves and holding a pair of glasses in one hand, with a half-mysterious, half-jovial smile on his face as he gazed at the camera. The arm not occupied with the glasses was around a grinning Frannie, who had her arms around his waist. The amusement park equipment at the piers could be seen behind them.

"Jesus. I wouldn't be able to tell the difference."

"For a while...neither could I. Or...maybe I chose not to. I mean, it's not like he ever spoke any English to me. I don't know why. He obviously knew what I meant when I talked to him."

"Yeah, um...some people are good at that. He might have been better at...understanding people, reading people. Better than who he looks like, maybe better than most people."

There was a choked sound from the bed. "He was...he looked just like..."

"Frannie." Ray dropped the photo. Shit. He would have been fooled himself, with nothing but their appearance to go on. He went to sit next to her, but she moved away. He understood; she wasn't telling him to fuck off, she just needed space at the moment.

He stayed where he was, leaning against the bedpost. "Look, it must've seemed like...a dream come true. I understand that. I understand that, Frannie. If I'd seen him..."

"You would never have made such an ass of yourself, that's what you wouldn't have done. He...looks like Fraser, but if you watch him for just a few minutes, the resemblance fades just a little because of...I dunno, mannerisms, whatever. Someone like you, trained to notice stuff like that, you'd never have ended up in bed with him. You'd never have ended up almost married to somebody who'd never said a word of your native language to you."

Ray sighed. He couldn't argue. Frannie had been prepared to MARRY this guy. She was pretty miserable about it--fuck, she was a wreck, but she damn near did it, just because he was Fraser's absolute twin and it would have been better, to her, misery of it not being Fraser included, than being in love with a completely different man.

"I thought...I didn't think I was over Fraser. I won't be over it all until I do not have to see him every day. But the government's paying me to do a job and help protect my brother, and I'd do that without the money. But I had it under control. I mean, I'd accepted the truth. The way I acted was mostly acting. Easy acting, I guess. It came from a reality that I'd...gotten under control. But when I saw Kaufmer..."

"That was his name, yeah. What language did he speak, anyway?

"Uh...I thought it was German, there for a while, but..."

"You know where he was from?"

"I think it was Liechtenstein."

"Did you think maybe...he was immigrating?"

"He must've been! He...I have..." she took a deep breath. "I have reason to think that he wanted...that he wanted a..."

"So you think...he wanted to marry you for citizenship."

"Well, maybe that, but you know how some of those...foreign people are, you...you do some kinds of things, you get married. He acted like he wanted to marry me, he did things you just don't do unless you want...something significant, and if he was trying to immigrate...it just all came together, you weren't there, it made sense. Ray...I'm not a kid any more. I'm...I'm thirty-six, if you tell a soul I'll break your arm. My marriage--it was out of high school, and it lasted not quite a year; I didn't have any trouble with getting an annulment. I don't...I don't have a lot of prospects...and looking at him...I could almost believe...oh, hell, Ray, it was idiotic, I guess I just--" she sobbed, but while he moved to sit closer, he didn't touch her; she obviously wasn't done. "I just lost it, lost it completely, it was so stupid, but when you--when you see a chance for--for something--"

"Frannie." Now he moved closer and put an arm around her, and she leaned into him, her body wracked with an unshed sob, a handkerchief pressed to her face, silent.

"I...got some stuff to tell you. I don't know if it's gonna make you feel better. But Fraser and I...we didn't like that this guy just fell of the face of the earth after you told him you were breaking the engagement. We didn't think...well. We had some ideas. We followed them up...well, Fraser did, he handled hypothesis, I did application, his brain, my official clearance to the right channels.

"The guy was a businessman. His name was Michel Kaufmer. He was...kind of from all over Europe. He was in the country as a representative of a fine clothing company, mid-level in the market, called Sveltana. He's their expert on their stock for export, but for reasons we got no idea their expert for that doesn't speak English, though he does speak Italian and French. Anyway, he lost his translator and their negotiator in Heathrow. Mislaid somehow, I mean, and they wound up on different planes, different airlines, even different routes. They probably tried to hook up sooner, but the best they could do was arrange to meet in Chicago, at O'Hare--all air roads lead there--on their way out to L.A. Kaufmer got here first. He..." Ray sighed. "He had time to kill, and the money to spend. For a little touring around. And...maybe a local girl to entertain."

Frannie had frozen in his arms.

"I know you must feel like a fucking yam right now, Frannie, but I want you to know that your assumptions weren't unreasonable. They do have different customs, he did wine and dine the hell out of you for well over a week, and...some of the places he was raised, I'm willing to bet that when you're doing that, you do treat the woman you've picked out like a queen, especially if she was as enthusiastic as you probably were for most of it, considering. His. Well. Looks, and the way he acted..."

"He was wonderful..." Frannie whispered. "I really thought he must want..."

"Like I said, just what you want, here, when you...do that. To him, his way of doing it, I mean, he was a classier guy, most likely. It's like, the man knows what's going on, the woman knows what's going on--nice fantasy-type fling, a few days, a few weeks, who's counting. Everybody has fun, nobody gets hurt. He...was a stranger. He probably didn't have the vaguest idea, he knows nothing about American customs--what we export on TV ain't the greatest teacher about real life here--and Fraser says that despite most of our ancestors are white, or whitish or whatever--Europeans, the customs can be so different it's like being in Lesser Nambunia, the differences and misunderstandings...he just didn't realize that you were taking it...that way. And he treated you like you mattered, a lot, like...not like a casual fuck, the whole time he was here. Always delivering flowers, candy, phone calls--whatever the phone calls were worth, what with the barbwire language barrier, they showed he was thinking about you--and dinners, taking you to shows and places you had to buy new formal dresses for...you looked pretty good in a couple of them. Pretty damn good."

"He..." She smiled. "I don't know if I mentioned this, but...he took me to those places...where they model things for you? And he let me...pick...whatever I wanted...he didn't even ask the price, and you can do that by nothing but pointing at a checkbook or something and raising your eyebrows. Who does that if they don't..."

"Guys with his customs who have money, that's who. And it fooled you. It would have fooled anyone with your way of, you know, doing this stuff, basic Chicago American, who was in the throes because of...of his looking like Fraser. Anyway...he did send flowers and make time before his plane to come see you at your job the day he was leaving, to say goodbye."

"Oh. That's...why he didn't call again...I thought he must've understood me, that I'd broken it off. I thought the whole time..."

"Mm. But it was the day he was leaving. Didn't have time for much, but he did come to see you. As far as what he thought...hell, I dunno, I he knew you were American and different from what he was used to. He wasn't really sure what you were after, maybe, for any of it--you wouldn't have reacted the same way as the women he was used to--It must've semed pretty weird to him--but he didn't let that stop him. He found you...desirable enough for it anyway. And I bet if you bumped into him again, he'd be honestly friendly. He'd never have treated you that well if you weren't something that he thought was special. That's gotta be worth something."

"It's worth a shitcrock full of misery and a lot of wet Kleenex!" Frannie began to sob. Ray folded her closer, and rocked her. "I had it under control! I had it under control! And now it's square one--"

"You did. You really, really did, better than I got the thing with Stella under wraps--it took falling for Fraser to do it, for me. But you did it without the help. This...what happened, it's not your fault."

"I don't care!"

Ray shut up and let her cry, murmuring nonsense. He knew how to do this. He'd been married--and done it as well as he knew how, including expressing sympathy in a way that would matter to a sobbing person--and besides, it was what Frannie'd done for him herself, just the same, over Fraser, more than once.

"I love him," Frannie whispered hoarsely.

"Yeah," he whispered gently, pressing his face to her hair. She smelled like apples. He sighed in the fragrance, and said "Yeah. I do too, Frannie. I got it. I got where you are, here, at least some."

"Which is the only reason I'm talking to you."

"Also there's nobody you can tell...everything, you know what I mean, to. Except Fraser and Welsh, which I guess don't count."

She snuffled a snotty chuckle and wiped at her face again. She lifted up a little, out of her position slumped into his lap into his enwrapping arms, and blew her nose ferociously.

"You got any more of those cotton hankies? You'll just blow up a kleenex."

She smiled, barely. "Yeah. Dresser drawer, top right."

He got up and opened the drawer. "Hey, lacy undies. Can I run my fingers?"

She snorted a mucous-laden sound that might have been a laugh. "The handkerchiefs are on the right. And if you run your fingers in the underwear you gotta refold."

"That's a deal." He got another hankie and closed the drawer, came back and traded with her, holding the snotrag by the corner. "Um..."

"Hamper. Other wall, there."

He disposed of the used handkerchief and came back to sit next to her. How could she even, even, look pretty with no makeup and her face swollen like hell? Red nose, and she didn't have any damn button nose. His heart went out to anybody that looked like that, but she was still pretty. It must be how the tears made those eyes shine, reddened though they might be, and wetted her thick eyelashes.

"Fraser's a fool, Frannie."

"Ray, please quit saying that. I am his little sister. I will never be anything else. The end."

He lowered his eyes, with a silent moment as she wiped some more, and said "I guess my saying that doesn't make you feel much better, under the circumstances, does it?"

"No. It doesn't. I'm glad you think I'm pretty, Ray. You're a good-looking guy yourself, and I've said so. But it only emphasizes the fact that it isn't Fraser who's saying it, you know? Ever felt that when I say you're a pretty damn hot guy when you want to be and I think Fraser might really love you and not be able to do anything about it but if I were him I would pants you in the men's room?"

He nodded. "Yeah. I have felt that. Fat lotta good, et cetera. You are right, Frannie. Sorry. But can I say I think you're pretty?"

"You can when I'm pretty. Right now I look like shit." She blew her nose again. "I've been crying so long my head hurts."

"Aspirin?"

"Yeah. Bathroom cabinet."

He got up and fetched the aspirin, bringing the glass he found in the bathroom for water.

"Ray, you're a saint." She swallowed the three aspirin, took another gulp of water, and set the glass down on the bedtable.

"I'm your friend."

"You are. And if I may say you are a very good fuck."

He grinned. "Well, I like that. I'm being as sensitive as a guy can get and I get complimented on my bumping skills."

She smiled. "I just never thought it was possible to show...so much affection and...and caring, with sex, when you aren't, you know. In love. That it can be love, and be real, but not...not only what they always said. Said that it had to be, to be...real."

"A lotta women believe that, if my experience is anything to go by. But I have to say I've never had a friend like you that way. I've had...like you've said before, fuck-buddies, or maybe it was me who said it. You were right, you're too classy for fuck-buddy. You'd have to be really friends."

"And I am."

"Me too."

"I think you just proved that." She let herself slump against him, and he wrapped her in his wiry-muscled arms again. She was warm and soft and flexible, such a beautiful, sweet small body.

"You're getting a woody, Ray," she said, and gave a healthy sniff, but he could hear her smiling.

"Sorry, I know you ain't up for it, may not be for a long time, but my body's kinda used to you. When I notice how good you feel, how...beautiful you are. You're shorter than Stella, but your body's bigger. You have muscle, some solid bone, you outweigh her. I know you're not her, so don't think it's that I'm thinking of her, ever. You're as different as night and day. Even friends, I don't want you thinking that."

"It'd be okay if you did, sometimes, if you had to."

"No. When I need you because I hurt over her, I need you 'cause you're different from her, not because I want to imagine being with her. Fraser it kinda goes without saying."

"Same here. You're nothing like Fraser, not in the body, face either. I can...kind of hold you up, if you're on top, I can sort of grab your ass and use my thighs and shoulders and just kind of lift--"

"I like that. It makes me pound."

"I know. That's why I do it."

"Uh. Frannie, I'm thinkin' about you naked and sweaty now and you're not up for sex, so can we--"

"Ray. I--give me a few, sex when I can't breathe is a pain, but yeah, if you--if you want. I could use it. I could use getting that close to somebody I trust, and who isn't, and doesn't even look like...well..."

"I get you, Frannie. But, um...here in the house?"

Her mouth quirked. "I've had sex here since before I was eighteen. Nobody in the family knows, of course. But no one's home, no one's gonna be home, not for a while; I'll take a shower and drain my head. You can come with me, if you want."

"Yeah, I want. I'll wash your back. I'll wash your front. You'll never've been so clean." He squeezed her fingers in his own and kissed her knuckles. "Just...not because...you think I need it 'cause all the touching got me horny, or--"

"And not because you think I'm doing it 'cause hugging me got you horny."

"No."

"No."

"Then we're good."

"We're good. We're real good, Ray." She managed a bleary smile, and he stroked her cheek and smiled back.

End Special Case by Blue Champagne: bluecham@tds.net

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