Disclaimer: I don't own 'em, I just play with 'em and hand 'em back, none the worse for wear.

Author's Notes: FYI: Two chapters this week, enjoy!

Story Notes: Highlander/due South crossover, with a cameo here and there from Hellboy.

SequelTo: Geometry: Chapter 5, Hockey, Backrubs & Sleepovers

Wednesday evening, Marina glanced at a clock, calculated time changes and decided it was close enough. It would be three hours earlier on the west coast; Joe would probably be home for the night but awake. Standing in front of her parting gift from Duncan and Connor, a portrait of the three of them among the ruins of Castle MacLeod, she put her hand up on the wall just to the right of the portrait and a square of red light lit up. A brighter red line scanned down her palm and inspected her palm print and thermo-graphic signature. The back of the portrait made a sharp 'snick' sound, and the right edge of the portrait popped forward a few centimeters.

Marina tugged it open effortlessly, and as the portrait swung out without a sound, she tapped a sixteen-digit string into the small keypad set in the face of the safe in the wall. The safe door was three feet square, and save for the keypad, painted the same shade as the wall. Once it swung slowly open on pneumatic hinges supporting the weight of the door, Marina reached into the satin-lined interior. She had to reach past dozens of flat velvet and leather jewel cases of various sizes stacked on the bottom of the safe, but what she wanted occupied a modern cell phone charger sitting on the shelves at the very back. Two cell phones, small and sleek in metallic blue and green, sat in the charger.

Marina picked up the green one and flipped it open. The first name on the speed dial was Joe Dawson. She smiled and pressed enter. The little ringing phone logo scurried across the screen, turned into a fox, tweaked its tail at her and winked before vanishing in a puff of smoke. She grinned. Methos hand-built these cell phones from parts and programmed them himself -and seven others just like them, three blue and four green, differing only in color and network link- to connect himself, Marina, Duncan, Connor and Joe, in two separate networks.

Joe only had one green phone, but must have deduced that Methos and the other Immortals would have a separate communications link from one shared with a Watcher, no matter how well-loved a Watcher. Both the Watcher's Guilds had proven too unstable and rife with corruption in the last century. But for this she needed access to the Guild's records, so it was to Joe she would go. Not Methos, much as she longed to. Joe had to know they supported him as leader of the Watchers. Their support was instrumental in maintaining his position as head of the council.

A coalition of Immortals banding together -bound by love and not power- had not gone unnoticed. Several factions were uneasy at the implications; a few thought the possibility that Immortals would refuse to kill each other out of love might conceivably mean the One attaining power could be put off indefinitely. After all, one of the lovers was Methos, the legendary Immortal older than civilization itself. And the other three were MacLeods -Highlanders- a name spoken with a curse by every evil Immortal walking the earth today. That strength was enabling Joe to hold the fragmented Guild together while the traitors in their ranks were weeded out.

The phone on the other end was still ringing and eventually clicked off, but Marina waited patiently. While she was sure Joe would have his phone locked up as tightly as hers was, she was equally sure he would have a ring alarm on it forwarded to his regular cell phone.

Deciding she might as well indulge her favorite comfort ritual, she tossed the phone on the bed. Shrugging out of her day clothes gratefully, Mina padded naked over to her immense teak wood dresser and rummaged through the drawers of silk nightwear. An eternal sentimentalist, Duncan was inordinately fond of buying extravagant, gorgeous nightgowns like those he remembered from various periods of history and leaving them casually draped on the end of their bed for her to discover when she'd get out of the shower. After she, Duncan and Methos became lovers, Marina got into the habit of wearing them with the jewelry Methos had been unearthing from his various hoards and giving to her at irregular intervals. Of course more often than not, just wearing them resulted in Duncan's present being peeled gently off her body while they kissed skin sparkled with light from Methos' glittering gifts.

In the days of their exile, that delightful denouement was not possible, but Marina found it strangely comforting to indulge in wearing one of Duncan and Methos' gifts together and thinking of them during her nightly sword practice. She felt so surrounded by their presence, so wrapped in their love. It was one of the few times their memories brought comfort instead of tears. She cherished it all the more for that. And what harm did it do to play dress-up for her weapons practice? A silly, sentimental, harmless child's game. And it certainly got her used to fighting in clothing not strictly conducive to swordplay.

So what to wear tonight, when she would get first-hand news of her lost loves? It was oppressively hot, but the wind was blowing fresh and clean right off the lake so she'd killed the AC, opened all the windows and turned off almost all the lights, shrouding the apartment in twilight dimness. Incense sticks smoldering around the rooms scented the air with a faint, spicy tang.

Her hands strayed over a breathy confection of feather-light midnight blue Indian silk embroidered with gold stars and moons, the top a single scarf of wispy midnight silk that looped over her breasts and tied behind her neck, the two lengths of rippling silk dangling down her back. The pants were filmy panels of more silk bound to an embroidered waistband and blue silk ankle ribbons that were open on the sides, letting the long muscles of her legs show. It had been Methos' all-time favorite since he caught her practicing sword drills in it one evening and after dueling her to a standstill, peeled it off with exquisite slowness and made love to her for half the night.

A month later he'd disappeared for a weekend and returned with another cache dug up in the Carpathians. Methos spent three days cleaning them all with the meticulous care of an archeologist, then draped her in a king's ransom in jewels that hadn't seen the light of day since the Ottoman Empire ruled the known world. The crowning glory had been a set of sapphires fashioned into a temple dancer's ceremonial garb, dozens of perfect, deep blue sapphires set in ornate gold and brilliant blue-green enamel. The set contained a belt, two anklets, two bracelets, a necklace, two earrings, half a dozen toe and finger rings, and two armlets designed to be worn around her biceps. Completing the set were half a dozen strands of tiny, glittering sapphires strung on gold chains for her hair.

The first time she wore the set with Duncan's midnight silks, Methos spent an hour braiding and twisting her hair up into a temple dancer's style while enthralling her with tales of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon at their height, then taught her a Oriental courtesan's dance of seduction lost to history for thousands of years. It worked, by the time she'd mastered the dance and spun through its slow cadences, Methos and Duncan drew her down onto their bed and loved her until dawn. And that was something else she'd lost. Methos and Duncan loved to see her dance, would spend endless hours watching her practice, and in bitter grief she hadn't danced a step since her exile. Perhaps -this once- she'd skip sword practice tonight and dance instead. Maybe this was a good night to practice those languid sensual movements and reclaim another part of her life sorrow took away.

Taken with the happy whimsy, she showered quickly with Methos' favorite scented soap, the one that smelled of lavender, roses, violets and musk. Listening for the phone the whole time, she dried off, slipped into the midnight silks and removed two long, rectangular navy-blue velvet jewel boxes from the open safe. Opening the box that held the belt and hair strands, she sat down at her dressing table to braid up her hair. She wasn't as handy as Methos at it. He had so many odd, wonderful skills hidden away in those long, graceful hands; but since she had an entire evening and night to kill, she took her time about it and when she was done even he would have approved of the result.

And now for her favorite part... Mina loved -adored- jewelry; it was her one secret vice. The more old, gorgeous, and ornate the better, and once Methos had ferreted that secret out he'd gone on a positive quest to feed that secret love. And just as icing on the cake, whenever he brought her a new piece, Methos would regale her with the tale of how he'd acquired it. She hadn't realized how many centuries he'd spent being a pirate and a mercenary... and for all those millennia he'd been burying his loot in caches halfway up some bleak Carpathian mountainside smack in the middle of nowhere. He'd been unearthing the caches to match the lovely nightgowns Duncan bought, but Marina got the feeling half the time he'd practically forgotten what he'd buried, and was as surprised as she was at what emerged from those ancient hiding places.

As a result she had a jewelry collection unrivalled in the entire world save perhaps for the Royal Treasury of the Kings of Great Britain. Gorgeous pieces from Egypt, Babylon, Rome, Carthage, Troy, Crete and Athens; glittering relics of a dozen Chinese dynasties; gold and gems looted from Spanish trade ships during the height of the Empire; the booty from several Crusades fought -amusingly enough- on both sides; and last but not least a bewildering variety of magnificent gem encrusted pieces from India dating back before the Mongol Empire and the building of the Taj Mahal.

To Marina's utter shock she'd found out Methos did most of the engineering calculations for the Taj during its 22-year construction, and been paid very, very well by the grateful Shah for ensuring his memorial to his dead wife would stand forever. Indeed, part of the payment for his services had been the Princess's favorite set of fire opals, gems the size of hazelnuts and breathtakingly beautiful. Methos told her and Duncan the story one night as they sprawled naked in bed after a long, lazy bout of sex, while the fire opals glistened around her neck in the moonlit darkness.

She and Duncan were enraptured by the tale, and not long after that they paid a month-long visit to India, staying at a hotel that had a view of the Taj Mahal. She'd worn the jewels of a Mongol Princess while making love in the shadow of one of the Seven Wonders of the world- a building one of those lovers helped design. Every so often being an Immortal was a fairy-tale come true. It helped make up for the endless sorrows that came with living forever.

But for now, ancient Turkish jewels would adorn her skin while she moved through a dance lost millennia before, until resurrected from the mists of time by Methos' memory for love of her. Was it any wonder she loved him and Duncan so much it had torn her to pieces being separated? And yet those wounds were finally healing, at long last, helped along all unknowing by Dief, Ben and Ray. Who, if her scarred psyche wasn't playing tricks, might be interested in forming a troika all their own. And how wonderful would that be? Of course, she might very well be imagining the whole thing, but then again, maybe not... and it wasn't like daydreams hurt anyone. Dreams were all that got her through any more.

She opened the second jewel box and started with the earrings, threading the archaic hooks through her modern pierced ears, slipped the armlets over her biceps and the bracelets over her wrists, donning finger and toe-rings, and the anklets last. Standing up, she settled the belt around her waist, adjusting it to drape over the embroidered waistband without snagging the delicate silk threads and as she was admiring the reflection in the full-length mirror in her bedroom, the green cell phone rang.

Delighted, she leaped for the bed and landed in the middle of the lavender bedspread with a giggle. She punched the call button and chirped cheerfully, "Hi Joe!"

A moment of surprise greeted her from the other end of the line. "You sound happy," Joe told her, like he was braced for tears and off balance by not getting them.

"I'm playing dress-up," she confided, pulling a pillow over and tucking it behind her head so she could lounge in comfort. Joe laughed out loud; her previous Watcher captured her on film several times indulging in her hobby, and she knew for a fact one of those very pictures rested in a silver frame on Joe's desk.

"You must be feeling better."

She sighed wistfully. "Am I less of a complete wreck, you mean? Yeah, finally, and you can tell the others I'm doing better when they ask. How are they?"

Joe's voice softened. "Fine, all three. They miss you terribly. I haven't let them see any of the pictures taken in the last year so they don't know how thin you are. Have you started eating yet?"

"A little. I made a couple new friends and they're trying to fatten me up. Not very subtly, but what the heck, subtlety's wasted on me at this point."

"The detective and the Mountie?"

"Pretty unsubtle yourself there, Joe," Marina teased. "You could at least pretend you don't get a report on me every month."

"Every week," Joe said unexpectedly. "I'm as worried about you as they are, Mina." More, probably, since he alone knew how badly Marina was taking the separation, but he'd never say that. As the youngest of the Immortals, barely a century old, the separation from her mentor and lovers was far and away more difficult for her than for Connor, Duncan and Methos. Joe was much more worried about her than the other three, especially as in many ways Marina was the link that bound their fragile alliance together.

Touched, she smiled. "You're a sweetheart, Joe. I love you."

Standing over a thousand miles away in his house in Vancouver, Joe sank down into his favorite easy chair and smiled fondly. "You know you're not supposed to say things like that to the guy in charge of spying on you."

"Who cares anymore, Joe? Not me. I kind of like the fact you watch over me since Duncan and Methos can't."

Joe shook his head. "You're one of a kind, Mina. Even for a MacLeod."

"So what else is new? How are things going with the Watchers?"

"Better, " Joe confided, stretching out his artificial leg and resting it on the footstool. "We snagged another of the rogue cells and finalized them all."

Marina breathed a sigh of relief. "I shouldn't be so happy about people dying but to hell with it, I am. Every time I think about Darius I want to murder someone with my bare hands, Joe."

"I know, baby," Joe said comfortingly. "And I know what it cost you guys to let me handle the rest of it. Don't think I'm not grateful."

"We know you need to police your own, Joe."

And that was enough of that topic, Joe decided. Marina was too sharp and like all MacLeods, too prone to taking action on her own to risk letting some bit of information slip. "So you call me for any particular reason or just needed to hear my voice?"

"I called for a reason, unfortunately."

"Unfortunately?"

"Yeah. Listen to this." Marina related everything she knew about the murder investigation she'd learned from Ben and Ray, right down to a meticulous description of the sword now resting in her armory. By the time she was done, Joe was even more concerned than she was.

"It's almost got to be an Immortal, Mina. An Old One, too."

"That's what I thought," she said resignedly. "I took a few pictures of the saber with my digital camera, I'll email them to you once I get off the phone. Can you run a check on it and let me know? If I've got a rogue Immortal in Chicago hacking up the natives, I'm gonna have to take care of it quickly and quietly before the wrong people start noticing."

"Agreed," Joe said grimly. "But if this is an Old One you be careful, Mina. I mean it. Duncan's too fragile from losing Ritchie to lose you, too."

"I know, Joe. I'll be careful."

"Email me those pics and I'll get started on it now. One last thing."

"Yeah?"

A minor embarrassed pause. "Is that really a wolf hanging out at your place nights?"

"Half-wolf. His name's Diefenbaker. He's my new boyfriend."

"You're nuts, Mina."

"Like that's news," she mocked drolly.

"And the wolf's deaf?"

"Yup."

"So how does the Mountie talk to him?"

"Dief reads lips."

Another definite pause on the other end of the line, and Joe chuckled. "One of a kind. Stay safe, baby girl. I love you."

"I love you too, Joe. Give my love to the others."

"I will. Bye, Mina."

"Bye, Joe." She tapped the button to end the call and set the phone down, depressed. Talking with Joe was too sharp a reminder of what she'd lost. But she restored the phone to its charger and closed the safe and the portrait, making her way to the computer setup in her den. She transferred the pictures she'd snapped of the saber from her digital camera to her desktop and sent them off to Joe's private email address. He would do the best he could to run them down for her; the Watcher's Guild disliked police getting involved in Immortal affairs even more than Immortals did.

Once that was done, she toyed with the idea of passing on dancing in favor of sword practice after all, but that would be cowardly. Besides, if she didn't practice for a decade, she'd be a complete klutz when the time came to dance for Duncan and Methos. She'd look at it as an extended practice session, nine years long. Ah, sophistry. Wasn't it wonderful?

She wandered into the dojo, dithered over appropriate music for several minutes while stretching before settling on a sweetly sentimental Vivaldi concerto. As the first few notes sounded, she cleared her mind, raised her arms above her head... and danced. Half a dozen steps into it, she was rapt away in delight, lost in the pleasure of the dance, a joy she'd all but forgotten in her grief.

* * *

Tapping the steering wheel as he drove, Ray sang a few bars along with BTO in the GTO, grinning at Dief in the passenger seat. The wolf's tongue was lolling out companionably as his tail wagged, and Ray got the impression Dief liked rock 'n roll as much as Fraser disliked it. Poor ol' Fraser had been a little miffed at being stuck on duty at the Consulate with the Ice Queen while he and Dief got to go visit the Doc, but diplomatic receptions took precedence over murder cases when Thatcher's bosses came to town, according to her. So Fraser and Turnbull got stuck playing statue while the canapes circulated, and he and Dief got to visit Marina.

Heck, the wolf got to stay the night, as Thatcher exiled him from the Consulate for the duration of the reception. Ray was going by after the party and dragging Frase home with him, which Fraser didn't know yet, but there was no damn way Ray was letting his best friend stay there. Nope. Not anymore. Fraser wasn't dealing with that dismal, lonely place one more night if he had anything to say about it, and Ray had plenty to say about it. Most of it using language that Fraser would scold him for.

'Course, they were visiting Marina to show her gross pictures of a dead, mutilated corpse, which was a pretty poor excuse for a visit, but it was case related, and after last night's heavy-duty conversation with Fraser about the possibility of trying to start something between them, Ray would snatch any reason to see Marina again.

Jeez, he still couldn't believe Frase was into trying a threesome. Granted, the Mountie was kinda freaked out at the fact he was into it, which Ray could appreciate, even if he'd had that crisis at seventeen instead of thirty-seven, but at least Ben was willing to fight past his inhibitions. It wasn't easy, Ray knew. Some people couldn't do it at all. It helped Ben hadn't gotten that homo = evil crap indoctrinated into him from the cradle up, but it was a shock to the system.

But waking up this morning was a helluva revelation. For starters, Ray hadn't slept that well since the day Stella tossed him out. Second, he and Ben woke up wrapped right around each other. Really wrapped around each other, their lips centimeters apart from a kiss as the alarm shrilled. Force of habit had Ray rolling over and smacking the snooze alarm automatically, and as he lolled back on the pillow and tried to organize his thoughts, two strong arms pulled him gently but inexorably back against Fraser's chest. Once he was cradled there, Fraser said a perfectly calm good morning, kissed Ray, and held him for ten minutes until the alarm went off again, and they'd gotten up and had a pretty normal morning.

Fraser made real coffee while Ray was in the shower, and left a cup for Ray with the requisite six M&M's in it on the bathroom counter. Fraser got a second kiss for that when Ray found it. Then he'd dropped Fraser off at the embassy on his way to work, like a hundred times before. It reassured Ray they might be able to pull this off long-term if Marina went for the idea.

And Ray's hunches were hinting not only would she like it, she might've tried it before in considerably more depth. His experiences with three-ways were limited to a few wild nights during Stella's college years, when she'd been in her own experimental phase. But that was the two-girls-and-one-guy split, as opposed to the two-guys-and-one-girl split he and Fraser wanted. Thinking about the geometry of it made his palms sweat.

They'd reached the wharf and Ray tooled around looking for a parking space and getting irritated when he couldn't find one. But the second time he drove by the entrance to the parking garage under her building, Dief barked and pawed at the window encouragingly.

Remembering the wolf's trick with the elevator, Ray eyed the wolf speculatively. "Can you get us in there?"

Dief barked once and wagged his tail. Remembering Theresa's trick with yes and no, Ray took that as an affirmative. He pulled the GTO up to the parking garage gate and when they got to the card reader, Ray unrolled the window and Dief tromped right into his lap in his eagerness. Ray yelped and shielded certain delicate parts of his anatomy from claws he knew from experience were damn sharp. Dief barked twice, that same short, sharp cadence, and the gate LED display flashed green and the metal garage door began rattling up.

Ray nodded, impressed, and ruffled the wolf's ears appreciatively. "Nice goin', Dief. Thanks. You know where we should park?" Dief pointed straight ahead to the very back of the garage and Ray followed the nose. There was an elevator door near the back parking spots, and parked in one Ray recognized the blue Jeep he'd seen Marina drive to the precinct the first time they'd met.

He parked the GTO next to it in the spot marked 'visitor', grabbed the file folder with the autopsy pics and held the door for Dief so the wolf could scramble out. Dief trotted over to the elevator, barked twice and the door slid right open.

"You got this place nailed," Ray said, approving. Sure enough the elevator took them straight up to the top floor, and opened onto the hallway with the dancing dragons painted on the wall. One dragon was considerably more complete than he'd been the last time Ray was there and the paint glistened, damp in places. Lotus must have been by today. Dief trotted right up to Marina's door, barked twice, shouldered the door open and went through without breaking stride. Not wanting to barge in without at least knocking, Ray swore and grabbed for Dief's collar but missed, and stumbling forward from the momentum ended up inside Marina's apartment anyway. Defeated, he closed the door behind him and looked around. Most of the apartment was dark, but a dim light glowed in the hallway that Dief's tail was disappearing down.

A sudden hunch nudged at Ray and without stopping to think he followed Dief, moving quietly down the hallway. Most of the rooms were too dark to see into, but light glowed faintly from one, and as he got closer Ray could hear music. He cocked his head and listened. Vivaldi. Marina liked classical. Dief lay down just outside the lit doorway and watched quietly. Ray slipped up to the door and peeked through, and his breath stopped in his chest.

Marina was... dancing. Alone. Not like Ray danced when he danced alone, this was something more akin to ballet. That and a modern dance performance he'd seen once titled 'Sex'. It was frankly sensual, and at the same time it felt weirdly out of place. Ancient. Like something that was danced when the Pyramids were new. She was a classics professor, Ray reminded himself. For all he knew this was a recreation of an ancient dance form. But it was beautiful, and so was she.

Ray'd seen a few wild dance costumes before, especially when he hit Mardi Gras in New Orleans, but what Marina was wearing now gave 'em a good run for their money. Indigo blue fabric and shiny gold embroidery rippled and swirled under wild, flashy costume jewelry that glittered and sparkled. The dangling teardrops -Ray supposed they must be some kind of lead crystal- swung out in lovely, fluid arcs as she moved. Bracelets glittered on her wrists and ankles and pretty rings drew an observer's eye back to her slim, graceful fingers and toes as they moved through the air. But it was her hair that captivated him, braided up into long flowing coils strung with tiny shimmering crystals. It flowed the way hair moved under water, the slow, achingly beautiful motion that fascinated him as much as water unnerved him.

Hardly aware of what he was doing, Ray sat down beside Diefenbaker on the floor and watched, as enraptured as the wolf. He suddenly understood how his landlady could sit and listen to him dance for hours at a time. He'd be perfectly happy to sit here for as long as Marina cared to keep moving. She was slow, languid poetry in motion, beauty of form and movement perfectly balanced. On some level Ray was aware he ached for her already, ached to touch, to caress, to kiss, ached to spend hours learning every curve of that tanned skin, but it was a quiet longing, a sweet hunger that soothed rather than aroused.

When the music clicked off Marina stopped, coming to rest in a drooping pose reminiscent of a dying flower. Dief whimpered unhappily and when Marina looked over her eyes widened to see Ray sitting beside the wolf.

"Hi."

The quiet spell of the music hovered in the air. Ray didn't want to break it. He stood up slowly, leaving the file folder and his jacket on the floor and walked over to where she stood.

"Dief let us in," he said softly. "I didn't want to stop your dance. It was... beautiful."

Marina shrugged shyly, indicating she wasn't all that bothered by his presence.

Ray refused to think. Thinking would ruin what was happening. He was operating on pure instinct now, and instinct was telling him Marina wanted to stay caught in this fragile spell too.

"Would you dance with me?"

She smiled -it was like watching the first faint flush of sunrise break- and nodded. Ray punched play blindly on her stereo and the Vivaldi drifted out. Ray held out his hands hesitantly and Marina moved against him like they'd been dancing together forever. Ray eased her into his arms and... danced. She was a wisp of smoke in his embrace, light as air but warm and real. Not a dream, or a memory, but alive and happy to be right where she was. Ray had forgotten what it felt like to hold someone who truly wanted to be in his arms. Wanted to be nowhere else. Ray laid his cheek against her hair and let go, drifting in the moment.

How long they danced Ray couldn't have said, hours certainly. If the music on the stereo stopped, the music in his head hadn't, and he knew without asking Marina was hearing it too. Fragments of emotion drifted over Ray's thoughts without disturbing them. How sweet Marina's skin smelled, like flowers and something darker. How smooth the bare skin of her back felt under his fingers. How lovely and soft her hair felt under his cheek. How sweet her lips tasted- when had they started kissing? He had no idea. Just that her mouth was under his, they were sharing a breath of air and it was blindly glorious. Her blue eyes were dark as midnight and Ray was lost in them. Never wanted to stop dancing. Never wanted to stop at all.

His cell phone ringing was such a brutal interruption Ray's arms clamped around Marina in instinctive protection. Ripped out of their spell, dumped back into reality like falling into ice-cold water, Marina gasped a ragged breath and instinctively pressed closer. That one little movement, that tiny jump into his arms like there was safety there... that was Ray's undoing. He was in love. Fathoms deep in love. With her. No reason, no logic, just love, overwhelming everything else.

Ray realized dimly it was probably Fraser calling but he refused to release Marina, instead leading her over to where Dief, his jacket and the forgotten file folder lay. Keeping his arm around her shoulders was so important. Letting her go was unthinkable. He flipped the phone open and held it to his ear, cradling Marina against his chest.

"Vecchio."

"Ray?"

"Yeah Frase."

"You sound... odd."

"Feel odd."

"Are you all right, Ray?"

Ray smiled down at Marina, still reeling inside and at the same time so calm, so centered. Like his world had a sun again, after drifting in the darkness for so long.

"Yeah, Frase, I'm all right. Party over?"

"The reception has ended, and you did ask me to let you know. I'm sorry if I interrupted something."

"Forget it. I'll be by to pick you up in a minute."

"You don't hav..."

"Don't argue, Frase. Just this once, don't argue." Ray could feel Fraser's puzzlement on the other end of the phone.

"Very well, Ray. If you insist."

"I do. See ya in a few."

"Goodbye, Ray."

"Bye, Frase." He closed the phone and dropped it on his coat. That arm was so much better put to use by holding Marina close. "Gotta go."

She nodded. Ray sighed, pressed a kiss on her forehead and forced himself to let her go, but kept tight hold of one hand. He scooped up coat, phone and file folder with the other and meandered down the hallway toward her front door. When they reached the door Ray turned, eased her into his arms and kissed her, dropping back into that quiet, still place of magic they'd been floating in while they danced.

After long, unhurried moments, Ray nuzzled her cheek and tossed the file folder on her entry table. "Case stuff. Look at it tomorrow. Not tonight. Call you in the morning about it. All right?"

She nodded.

"Say my name."

"Ray..." A lover's whisper. Achingly beautiful.

He had to close his eyes, it was so powerful and when Ray could open them again he looked down at Dief. "Take good care of her."

Dief rumbled very low in his throat and pressed against her side.

Ray opened the door. "Good night, Marina."

"Good night, Ray." She leaned against the doorjamb as he left and Ray looked back over his shoulder and smiled as he walked into the elevator.

Marina closed the door and leaning against it. "Reset security." She looked down at Dief, her eyes starry with wonder and joy, and whispered, "Wow... didn't see that coming."

* * *

Finally comfortable in jeans and a t-shirt, hair damp from a fast but extremely thorough shower, Fraser waited patiently just inside the Consulate door, holding a hangar with his spare uniform for the morning wrapped in plastic.

His usual uniform would need a complete dry-cleaning to get the stench of cigarette and cigar smoke out before he could wear it again, it reeked from the hazy cloud that hung over the reception all night. The stench destroyed his sense of smell, rendered his nose numb as a post. He and Turnbull waited until the last of the diplomats left, shooed out the catering crew after they finished cleaning, then opened wide every window that couldn't be used to enter the building and left them open for the night in the hope the stench would clear by morning. Even Turnbull, not known for his olfactory sensitivity, was half-sick from the reek and Fraser was glad Diefenbaker was staying with Doctor MacLeod as the wolf would have been positively ill by this point and miserable besides.

He was a little concerned with how Dief and Ray's visit had gone with the Doctor; Ray had sounded so... strange when he answered the phone. Relaxed. Peaceful. Serene, even. Not that it was a bad thing, just unusual. Ray was wound so habitually tight it was strange to hear him so tranquil. Ray was too responsible to drive incapacitated, but otherwise Fraser would be wondering if his partner hadn't stopped for a couple drinks after dropping off Diefenbaker.

But there was Ray's car, driving up the street obeying as many of the traffic laws as he usually obeyed, which was to say perhaps half, and Fraser walked out into the hot night, carefully locking the Consulate's front door behind him. After laying his uniform on the backseat, Fraser looked Ray over carefully as Ray pulled back out into traffic. Yes, his partner did have a very odd air about him, distracted but... happy?

"Is everything all right, Ray?"

Ray turned to his partner. "Do I look crazy to you, Fraser?"

"No more so than usual," Fraser replied, with no thought of being funny. What this was about?

"Drunk, high, dosed?"

Startled by the question, Fraser leaned close and inspected Ray minutely. Had someone slipped Ray some kind of drug? Eyes clear, reflexes normal, skin tone healthy, breath -what he could smell of it, anyway- untainted with any chemical residue.

"No, Ray. None."

"I guess that's it, then."

"That's what?"

"I guess I'm in love."

Fraser sat back, thrown off kilter by that calm response. "May I ask with whom, Ray?"

"Marina. When I went over to her place, we... danced."

Fraser ran a finger over his eyebrow thoughtfully. Dancing had a very special meaning for Ray, one deeply tied up with love and sensuality. "I see."

"No, but I wish you could have, buddy. It was like... the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. Like something out of that Arabian Nights thingamajig."

Was Ray referring to Sir Richard Burton's classic A Thousand and One Arabian Nights? Knowing the historical references to Scheherazade and King Shahryar, as opposed to the children's version most people were familiar with, Fraser was more than a little startled. But surely Ray couldn't mean that. For one thing, he was quite sure Ray had neither gotten married nor executed his bride for infidelity in the last six hours. What on earth had happened over there?

"Perhaps you could start at the beginning and tell me everything just as it happened, Ray?"

It took a while. By the time Ray finished haltingly describing what Marina was wearing and the weird, time-displaced, unearthly beauty of her dance, the hours they'd spent dancing together and both his and her reactions; they'd reached Ray's apartment and settled into bed for the night, sitting side by side leaning back against the headboard.

Fraser listened patiently as Ray finished his recitation- a tale worthy of Scheherazade herself.

"So am I crazy, buddy?"

Fraser took his time answering. The situation with Marina, himself and Ray was snowballing very fast, yet try as he might Fraser could find no cause for trepidation beyond the fact that they were risking their hearts as anyone did when they took a chance on love. He knew his partner well enough to know Ray would not let their budding relationship interfere with their current investigation; and hadn't he and Ray already discussed trying this and agreed to risk the attempt? In light of that, the fact Ray and Marina had formed a connection and obviously a deeply emotional one was a good thing, was it not?

He'd been monitoring his own reactions quite closely during Ray's recitation and he wasn't feeling any wild pangs of jealousy, perhaps a little envy he missed what was a very special experience, but he neither wanted to kill Marina nor sever his friendship with Ray. He didn't feel left out or pushed aside, as there was no attempt on either of their parts to exclude him, his duties as a Mountie had, and always would, come first. He simply wished to be there next time.

"No, Ray, you're not crazy," Fraser said slowly, and smiled at his partner. "But I think you are in love."

Ray grinned suddenly, restored to manic normalcy. "That's what I figured. But wanted to run it by you anyway." He reached over and snapped off the light. "Let's get some sleep." He flopped down on his side with his back to Fraser and held up a hand in a rather odd position; and it touched Fraser to realize Ray was waiting for him to snuggle up before they slept. He was happy to oblige and the kiss he pressed on Ray's shoulder tonight was much less hesitant and definitely warmer.

"Hey, Ben?"

"Yes, Ray?"

"Just so ya know, loved you first."

Fraser's heart just melted. He could find nothing to say but cleared his throat twice and finally managed to murmur, "I know that, Ray."

"Good."

* * *