Disclaimer: Not mine. No harm intended.

Author's Notes: Thank you to AuKestrel for the beta and some very nice lines.

Story Notes: Written for the dS Northern News Challenge on LiveJournal.

It was late, nearly midnight, by the time Ray got in, but he'd been late before and Fraser had still been up, so he was pretty sure he hadn't missed their daily chat. He still didn't log on immediately though, because that was...

He wasn't that...

He just didn't, okay?

He took off his jacket. He checked his messages. He fed the turtle. He got a beer from the fridge. And then he logged on.

TangoFoxtrot : hey fraser you there? Maintiensledroit : Hello, Ray. How are you tonight? TangoFoxtrot : good. you? Maintiensledroit : I'm very well, thank you. How was your day?

Ray rubbed the telltale knot of stress at the back of his neck and sighed.

TangoFoxtrot : ok MAINTIENSLEDROIT : Ah! Just okay? TangoFoxtrot : you know. it happened MAINTIENSLEDROIT : That's not the same as okay, Ray. Is everything all right?

Ray thought about brushing the question off and blaming the coffee or on being tired or just his usual rant about the long hours and too many bad guys, but he was already typing - if you could call two fingers and heavy on the backspace typing.

TangoFoxtrot : its not the same without you buddy

And that was understatement for you.

Not only was it not the same, it was also crappy, hard and dull. Things just didn't zing without Fraser beside him like a big, red... what was that word again? Accelerant! His edge was dulled. The days went by way too slow. He hadn't jumped off any buildings or played chess with any spies or dangled from an airplane wing in weeks. He hardly went out after work anymore: he had no one to hang with. He missed the wolf. He missed the stupid hat. He missed electrical socket tasting. He missed the quest. He missed Fraser correcting him whenever he chose the wrong word. He even missed the ear anecdotes.

That's how bad it had gotten.

His life sucked.

And now Fraser would say something terribly cheery and supportive, and Ray would remember how insanely annoying Fraser could be.

Which was a good thing.

Because life with the Mountie hadn't always been sweetness and light; they'd had words more than once, come to blows even. As good as it ever was between them, well, that was also how bad it got sometimes. Not that Ray was a saint or anything: he knew he could be tricky to be around. But Fraser could be a pedantic, sarcastic, uptight asshole when the mood took him; he could attain a level of aloof snark that Ray could only dream about.

And it was good to remember that on the days and nights that he missed Fraser so badly, he thought he might throw up from the emptiness inside him.

Maintiensledroit : An adjustment period after the cessation of any long-term relationship is quite normal, Ray. I'm sure you just need to give it time and you will be making bad guys shake as admirably as ever.

TangoFoxtrot : thats bull fraser

TangoFoxtrot : bull

Maintiensledroit : Ray.

TangoFoxtrot : bull

TangoFoxtrot : bull

Maintiensledroit: Ray?

TangoFoxtrot : B U L L

Maintiensledroit : Ray!

TangoFoxtrot : this new guy is NOTHING like we were. we were a great team fraser you should not mess with a dynamic like that. we were unbeatable

Maintiensledroit : If only that were true!

TangoFoxtrot : is true

TangoFoxtrot : compared to now it was magic fraser

Maintiensledroit : I'm sure that you and Detective Burton will soon move beyond these teething troubles and begin to work more efficiently as a team.

TangoFoxtrot : its been for months fraser!!!!!!! WE were good day one.

TangoFoxtrot : four

Maintiensledroit : We did strike up a good rapport during the course of our first case together, it's true, even if I was trying to prove that you weren't my partner most of that day. I suppose we were just lucky to have complementary personalities and strengths. Sometimes these dynamic take time to build, Ray.

TangoFoxtrot : you don't get it. its not that (p)rick is a bad cop hes not even a bad guy. hes just not you fraser. how does he work around that?

Maintiensledroit : I don't think you are giving Detective Burton a fair chance, Ray. Change is not always a bad thing.

TangoFoxtrot: (p)rick sucks fraser. i suck. theres a whole lot of sucking going on since youve been gone - do you know what im saying?

Maintiensledroit : Well, I can't speak for Detective Burton as I don't know the man, but you certainly do not suck Ray. You are an excellent police officer and any problems that you may be experiencing with your current partner cannot be attributed to your skills.

Ray hissed out an irritated breath and sat back heavily in his chair. He could even hear the lecturing tone in Fraser's voice.

Fuck this. He was too old for this shit.

He'd thought about just telling him - straight out and damn the consequences. Just so he'd know. One way or the other. Just to stop this freaky feeling, like he was biding his time, waiting for something to happen.

And he felt like Fraser was fogging him again, deliberately avoiding the issue. No one who was as smart as Fraser could be this dense, right? He'd been doing it for weeks now - it was why Ray had made Fraser get a Yahoo account (although he'd bitched about the whole having a computer at home thing, the RCMP plus Ray had finally persuaded him that e-mail was a useful tool when you lived a hundred miles from fucking anywhere): talking on the phone got Ray in such a state of frustration and confusion they'd ended up with more silence than conversation. Every time Ray got too personal or tried to put into words what he wanted to say, Fraser would retreat into hearty advice or tell him what a fine person he was, then Dief would urgently need a walk or something and Fraser would be gone.

And obviously Ray had not been fine enough for Fraser to want him to stay.

Did Fraser really not know that was what Ray'd wanted? Could all that na*ve Fraser hid behind be real?

That just wasn't possible.

Ray was telling him that he missed him; that had to be plain. Ray was saying that he hated that they were apart, that he wanted what they'd had. Sure Ray wasn't the best at the whole communication thing (did you see a wedding ring on his hand?) but he was pretty sure he's been straight - that word again - about this. So if Fraser was going to pretend that Ray meant just their working relationship then Ray would spell that out for him too.

Or maybe Ray should just take all the hearty advice, shut the fuck up and get on with the rest of his life.

But what did he have to lose? Turtle, takeout and the tube?

Seriously?

They were already apart. It wasn't like the guy could leave him when he was 2508 miles away.

Give or take.

Ray looked around his apartment. It had never been a big place, but since Fraser wasn't there to take up space on his couch on game nights, or at his counter while Ray made coffee, it seemed to echo. His hallway looked empty without the Stetson. Even the GTO felt off without the weight of Fraser in the passenger seat.

It was ridiculous. He felt the same gnawing ache of part of himself missing as he had when Stella had left - and he'd never even got to first base with Fraser.

He wasn't even sure if Fraser had a first base.

Or a ball, bat or glove.

But he had something with Fraser; he was sure of it. Whether Fraser knew what it was or not, Ray sure as hell knew, at least from his end; he loved Fraser, and in that pathetic "forever" kind of way that seemed to be the only way Ray had. Just like Stella - he'd kind of love her forever in spite of everything. He was like one of those birds... geese, maybe, that mate for life; despite the fact that his mate had given him the heave-ho and taken up with an Armani, his stupid heart just didn't get it. In the same way, Ray would never be able to stop the warmth that spread through him whenever they spoke, or the deep sense of connection he felt to Fraser, even if the emotionally repressed Mountie knew all about him and had blown him off in the most polite and gentle way possible.

Ray was so far from fine, in fact, Ray was so dumb that he hadn't even realised he'd been dumped until he was on the plane, flying south to Chicago.

On his own.

TangoFoxtrot : you remember the day I left?

'Maintiensledroit is typing' came up in the little message box and Ray waited. And waited. He picked up a pencil and tapped on the screen, then took a swig of his beer. Was Fraser typing a blow-by-blow account of Ray's last day in Behchoko starting with the weather conditions and wind-chill factor, or what?

Ray blinked when the message finally popped up.

Maintiensledroit : Yes, Ray.

Huh!

TangoFoxtrot : you know how quiet i was while we were waiting to go?

Maintiensledroit : I remember it very well, Ray. I was concerned that you were perhaps feeling unwell.

Well, he had that right. Ray'd felt sick and shaky and right out of options. Spending those weeks up on the ice with Fraser had been enlightening - he'd seen aspects of Fraser that the city had no use for, but that were a critical part of his friend's personality. Fraser was happy, he was connected, he was part of that world and it convinced Ray that he could never ask him to come back to Chicago.

But it also made Ray think that maybe he could learn to be a part of that world with its harsh beauty, its short summers, its stunning autumns, its fucking massive amounts of wildlife and its quiet.

But Fraser hadn't asked.

On the other hand, why would he?

Fraser wasn't like Ray. He didn't need someone. He was comfortable with his solitariness, resigned to it anyway, even if he didn't exactly welcome it. Ray had seen the offers Fraser got every damn day living in Chicago, and Ray knew if the guy had been looking to fill that gap he wouldn't have had to even try.

Ray, fool that he was, still had hope - a hope that he thought had died along with his marriage, but that had risen from the grave when he'd taken on another man's life and partnered up with the improbable Canadian. Hope that there was someone out there for him. Someone special. Someone specific.

Stupid.

All that last week in Behchoko he'd been trying to find the right way to tell Fraser that he wanted to stay and why. They'd tiptoed around each other, uncomfortable in each other's presence. Ray'd been furious with himself and his inability to express his emotions, and Fraser'd seemed confused and disappointed at their mutual antagonism. But each time Ray'd tried to explain, he'd been too chicken, too scared that he'd fuck it up and be without a best friend or a lover, so he'd just shut up instead. They'd had a week of conversations left unfinished, hours of tense silence, and finally Ray had been forced to accept the inevitable. So he'd ended up at Yellowknife's airport, clutching his pack, filled with regrets, choking on words he couldn't say, shaking hands and waving goodbye.

And it had come to this:

the only thing that he looked forward to each day was an internet chat with Sergeant Oblivious.

At thirty-eight years old? That was beyond sad.

At first Ray thought that Fraser had reminded him how to love his job again forever, like he had at the beginning, but it turned out that he only loved his job when he did it with Fraser. Right now he was just going through the motions. What he'd told Fraser was true: there was nothing wrong with Rick Burton. He was a good cop, a swell guy, and under any other circumstances Ray would have been glad to have him as a partner, but Rick stood no chance when Ray's last partner had been Constable Benton Fraser, RCMP, thank you very kindly indeed.

TangoFoxtrot : i guess i was sick in a way

Maintiensledroit : I guessed as much. We had been in very close proximity for a prolonged period, Ray. I can understand that you were tired of my company and desiring of a change of scenery.

Whatthefuck?

TangoFoxtrot : ha ha. that would be funny if it wasnt so not. i wasnt sick of you freak!

Maintiensledroit : Then I'm afraid I don't quite follow you.

TangoFoxtrot : i didnt want to come back

Ray stared at the words. Seeing them on the screen was thrilling, in the same way that reaching the top of a rollercoaster climb was. Except you knew that all the exhilaration was about to change into something else. Ray just hoped he wasn't going to puke this time.

Maintiensledroit : Then why did you? You know you're always welcome here, Ray.

TangoFoxtrot : i didnt want to be welcome frase. i wanted to belong there.

It seemed that now he'd started he couldn't stop. All the stuff he'd only whispered in his mind was suddenly finding its way onto his computer screen. It was almost like someone else's words up there, except they resonated inside him, chiming at the truth in those few short sentences.

TangoFoxtrot : i couldnt tell you all the things i needed you to now.

TangoFoxtrot : know.

TangoFoxtrot : i still dont know if i can

TangoFoxtrot : we are best friends right?

Maintiensledroit : Need you even ask that, Ray?

TangoFoxtrot : no sorry your right

TangoFoxtrot : youre

Maintiensledroit : you're

TangoFoxtrot : i just dont know how far that goes. can you forgive me for anything Fraser?

TangoFoxtrot : if there was something about me that you didnt know

Maintiensledroit : Yes, I believe I can.

Maintiensledroit : I doubt there's anything you could say that would change my high opinion of you, Ray.

TangoFoxtrot : like if i said something you did not like

Maintiensledroit : Ray, I'm certain that whatever you needed to say, I would not hold you in any other regard than the one I do now. You are my greatest friend.

TangoFoxtrot : i wanted to stay with you fraser.

TangoFoxtrot : WITH you

TangoFoxtrot : as in together

Ray waited for a few seconds.

TangoFoxtrot : you and me. together.

Ray swallowed as "Maintiensledroit is typing" popped up in the message bar. This was the moment of truth. It had taken him months to get here, and now he wasn't sure if he was ready for the answer. He pressed the end of his fist to his mouth and reminded himself to breathe.

"Maintiensledroit is typing"

God, what could be taking him so long? Ray stuck his fingers in his hair and tugged, tapped out a complex rhythm on the desktop, shifted in his seat, kicked his chair legs.

The longer this took to type, the less likely it was to be good. "I'll meet you at the airport" only took a few seconds for Fraser to type - so this was definitely not that. This was probably something about friendship and distance and surprise and no.

"Maintiensledroit is typing"

And TangoFoxtrot was going quietly fucking demented.

Just as Ray thought he would have to beat himself to death with his mouse, the screen refreshed and a new message popped up.

Ray blinked, not sure he was seeing right.

"Maintiensledroit is offline"

Ray checked the box, and sure enough the happy yellow face that indicated status was now grey - its eyes shut in a parody of sleep.

TangoFoxtrot : fraser?

TangoFoxtrot : you there?

TangoFoxtrot : hey fraser!

Ray's fingers dropped away from the keyboard.

He'd gone.

Fraser had fucking gone.

Ray had told him the truth, put it all on the line, taken a chance on the "friends forever" bull, and he'd bailed.

"No fucking way, Fraser," Ray muttered as he pulled out his cell and began dialling.

It wasn't fair. He couldn't just leave a guy cold, like that. It was... it was... un-Canadian. And not buddies.

And, fuck it, Ray should have known better than to believe Fraser's "there's nothing you could say that would make me change my mind, Ray" bullshit. Because apparently there was - and Ray had hit the jackpot first time. Congratulations! What do we have for our lucky winner?

A lifetime's supply of alone.

Maybe he could limit the damage. Maybe he could make Fraser believe that he'd meant their working relationship - that he didn't want to be a cop without Fraser. He hadn't been there to see Ray's fucking pathetic, lovesick face as he'd typed. Maybe Ray could pass it off as one of those misunderstandings you get when you can't see the other person's body language or hear the tone of their voice.

The connection was echoing and faint, reminding Ray of every single empty mile between Chicago and Behchoko. He heard a click, a hiss, and then the fuzzy burr of ringing. He checked his watch. Fraser was only an hour ahead, but that still put him at 1:20. Fuck it, Ray thought, it wasn't like the guy was sleeping.

He let it ring for a long time, imagining the shrill noise filling up that impersonal little house the RCMP had assigned to Fraser. He imagined Dief's ears twitching at the high pitch of the ring.

But Fraser didn't pick up. Ray hung up, then immediately dialled again. He knew he had the number right the first time, but he pulled out his address book, checked, and dialled again.

Once again, Fraser was pretending that he wasn't there. Ray toyed briefly with the idea that Fraser had come online while at work, but he could hear in his head Fraser's lecture on the improper use of RCMP resources.

Finally Ray cut the connection and put the phone down beside him on the desk.

That was that then.

Turtle was still working his way through the apple slice Ray'd given him. The clock on the wall showed 12:26. The sound of Chicago at night filtered up through the window; dogs, cars, drunks.

Ray drank the dregs of his beer, smiled tightly, nodded, then threw the phone as hard as he could against the wall, shattering the thing into a shower of plastic, circuit boards and wire.

>>>

Ray got a message on his desk that afternoon in Frannie's curly lilac-inked handwriting.

Ray, All communication with Fraser is to be rooted thru Jell-O Knife (???) until further notice.

Ray threw it into the garbage.

>>>

It took Fraser until Wednesday to call Ray back. He figured that was pretty good, considering. He wondered how Fraser had managed to rationalise his obvious disgust at Ray's suggestion that they might be more than friends in only a little over thirty hours. Ray guessed it was something along the lines of his unshakeable sense of duty - he'd promised Ray that they would always be friends, no matter what, and now he was sticking to it. No matter what. He'd given his word.

"Hello, Ray. I was hoping... Sorry. This is Benton Fraser, by the way, which I suspect...."

Ray smacked the delete button with his keys without listening to the rest, started toward the fridge, then turned back and disconnected the answering machine.

When it got so bad he didn't even have a grain of pride left, it was time to shut up shop. He'd been there with Stella; it had taken him months to erase her last message. He'd be damned if Fraser was gonna do the same thing to him.

>>>

"Kowalski, your cell's not switched on," Welsh called as Ray walked past his office on Friday afternoon.

Ray stuck his head around the doorframe.

"No sir. I think there's something wrong with it," he said, nodding seriously.

"Get it fixed, Detective. If I ever needed to get a hold of you, I'd rather not have to leave sixteen messages on your machine in the vain hope you might check them."

"Right, sir. I'll... I'll do that," Ray replied, backing away slowly.

"And Detective? Call Sergeant Fraser. Ms. Vecchio's filing skills are shaky at best, but she seems unable to perform basic alphabetic order whenever she has to take a message from the our Canadian associate - and since that's been three times a day for the past three days, it's beginning to wear on me."

Welsh, who had been talking to him from behind a manila folder, peered around the side of it when Ray didn't reply immediately.

"Is that a problem, Detective?"

Good question. Ray already had a collection of Fraser's messages in his wastepaper basket. It had become a reflex - get back to the two-seven, throw away the "While you were out" note stuck to his phone. If Fraser was having a crisis of conscience, that was his problem. Ray wasn't going to make it easy for him, and he wasn't going to settle for a tainted version of what they'd once shared. Fraser had made his decision: his first reaction was all Ray'd needed to know to understand how far out of reach his own hopes had been.

What the Mountie wanted to offer now - some kind of compromise or friendship based on pity - was not good - not for him and not for Ray. If he'd learned anything from Stella it was that it was better to make a clean break. It had to be easier, even if he had to ignore the sick lurch of his stomach whenever he stood still long enough to think about it.

"I'll get right on that, sir," Ray promised and dodged away from the shrewd glare the Lieu was aiming his way.

>>>

"Frannie?"

Francesca Vecchio turned a dismissive gaze toward her erstwhile brother and then continued to read her magazine.

The break room was empty, other than the two of them, and Ray hovered nervously by the doorway, fidgeting with his bracelet.

"This is the break room, Ray. Might it therefore follow that I'm on a..." she sketched quote marks in the air with a casual flip of her hand, "...break?"

"Yeah. Whatever. Listen, if Fraser calls for me, could you do me a favour and tell him I've been reassigned to another undercover job?"

Frannie looked up from her glossy, suddenly engaged. "You want me to lie for you?"

"Yeah, Frannie. Is that a problem?"

"Well... no. I guess not. Did you guys have a fight or something?" The obvious concern in her voice was exactly what Ray did not need. Frannie's eyes were unexpectedly soft, and Ray hastily looked away before her sympathy undid him.

"No. No, nothing like that. I just... you know... I have things to do and he's... a distraction. I just need to... uh... concentrate on this.... stuff... for a while."

Frannie gazed at Ray with disbelief all over her pretty, painted face. "Sure thing, Ray," she said obediently, although her eyes were full of questions.

Ray knew he had no answers, so he scrammed before she could ask.

>>>

"What's the deal with you and Fraser, then?"

Ray forced himself to swallow the bite of roast beef on white that threatened to make a sudden surprise appearance all over his dash.

"How do you mean?" Ray asked, keeping his voice level and his body language relaxed, which wasn't easy when he'd been stuck in the car with Prick for the last three hours and he was beginning to get antsy and tense, even without the questions.

"Well you guys were tight, right?" Rick continued, turning slightly in his seat to look at Ray. "Everyone says you guys were friends."

Ray nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

"So what's with the avoiding thing suddenly?" He took another bite of his sandwich and waited for Ray to answer.

"Not avoiding, I'm just..."

Rick's eyebrows rose in invitation as Ray ran out of words. "He called me this morning. Again. I left you a message. Again. You threw it away."

Ray gritted his teeth.

"Again."

"Well, things change. He's up there, ticketing speeding polar bears now, so we don't have much in common anymore. I guess he's missing the pace of the two-seven." Ray hoped his flat tone made it clear that the topic was closed, even thought he felt kind of sick that he'd belittled Fraser's contributions in an effort to shut Burton up.

"It must get boring for him now he's used to crime, Chicago-style. How many times can he polish his boots, right?" Prick laughed, and Ray bit down the urge to push his head through the windshield while explaining that Fraser was one of only five officers assigned to patrol an area the size of Lake Michigan inhabited by mostly First Nations people where violent crime and unemployment ran hand in hand for the biggest problem prize. And that in the six months that Fraser had been there, overall crime rates had dropped by 12%. And that Prick wouldn't last three minutes up there. And he'd asked him to get whole wheat, not white.

>>>

When Ray got home on Tuesday night he had another letter with a Yellowknife postmark and Fraser's copperplate writing on it. He put it on the counter with the other three, unopened like the rest.

At least he'd stopped calling. It was the only break Ray'd had since... well, in a long time. Work was intolerable: Prick was dancing around him like he was a ticking bomb, and he caught Frannie watching him with an indefinable look more often than not. Even Welsh was going easy on him.

On top of that, he was working so much overtime that he only came home to sleep, shower and change clothes. Sure, it was tiring, but that was the whole point. If he was working he wasn't thinking about Fraser. If he was sleeping, he couldn't endlessly replay their last conversation. Down time was his enemy, when the guilt whispered to him and self-pity was the only game in town.

Ray didn't bother with the lights; he didn't need to see what a mess his place was. He just stripped down to his shorts and headed to bed.

The noise, when it came, took a while for his exhausted brain to place. A lock. The lock on his front door. Fuck it. In his pathetic state, he hadn't even shot the deadbolt.

Ray rolled silently off his bed and felt around for his holster in the heap of clothes on the bedroom floor. Someone was being very quiet, moving this way through his living room. Ray struggled with the fabric of his t-shirt as it snagged on the butt of his gun, tangling him up.

"You don't need that, Ray."

Ray almost pissed himself with relief before his stomach turned to ice. He dropped the t-shirt, holster and gun back onto the carpet and stood up, slowly turning toward the door where he could see Fraser's bulk as a darker shape in his dim room.

"I took the liberty of using my key as I couldn't be sure that you'd actually open the front door knowing it was me." Fraser reached over and clicked on the lamp that stood on the dresser without any warning, making Ray blink and squint.

He wondered if he should find some clothes to put on, but now more than ever, he had no secrets from Fraser, and if it made him uncomfortable to be face to face with a barely clothed Ray then so much the better - it might make this interview over quicker.

"Something I can do for you, Fraser?"

"Why haven't you answered my calls?" Fraser's voice was curt, businesslike.

"I'm a busy man, Fraser, a busy, tired man, so if you don't mind..." Ray gestured toward the door, just like he couldn't have cared less.

Fraser didn't move, but Ray hadn't really held out much hope that he could get off that lightly. Fraser had come to make nice and he wouldn't leave until he was convinced that had happened or that it was impossible. He wanted to be reasonable. He wanted to be mature. It was his duty as Ray's 'best friend'.

Strangely for Fraser, he didn't mess around with polite crap first. "What you said last week. Did you mean... am I to understand that...?"

Ray ran a hand through his hair and sighed. "What do you want, Fraser?"

Fraser put his fingers to his forehead and rubbed an eyebrow, bowing his head in a gesture so familiar to Ray that it made his chest ache. "I think the pertinent question, Ray, is what do you want?"

"I want you to get out of my bedroom, get out of my apartment, out of my city and out of my fucking country, Fraser." Ray kept his voice low and controlled. He just had to get through this with a little bit of integrity, so Fraser would never need to know what a freak Ray really was. "Go home. There's nothing here you need."

"You think so?" Fraser asked immediately, apparently unfazed by Ray's bluntness.

"Yeah, I think so," Ray threw back.

"Well that's interesting Ray, because I think what I need, what we both really need, is to talk. Don't you?"

Ray thought what he might need was to scream now, to yell his head off and punch anything handy because he seriously, seriously did not want to hear what Fraser needed to say.

"Yeah, 'cause I'm so good at that," he spat sarcastically.

But Fraser was moving, putting down his pack and placing his Stetson on Ray's dresser, settling in for a nice chat, mano-a-mano.

"No talking, Fraser. No getting things straightened out. No problem solving. You know why? Because I solved it all already. You can go back to Canada safe in the knowledge that this thing is over, done, doneski. Mark it off your to-do list, 'kay?"

"But you haven't heard what I have to say, Ray. How can that be finished?"

"You don't have to say a word, Fraser. I got it. Message received, loud and clear, okay? Now leave it. I don't need what you've come to... say. I don't want to be your... I don't need your pity, Fraser, so there's no point in..."

But Fraser wasn't listening it seemed. He was clearing a space on the floor, then he turned for his pack and shook out his bedroll. "It's funny you should mention Canada, Ray," he said, just like he was at a fucking tea party or something, as he bent to untie his boots.

"What are you doing?" Ray demanded, and he hoped he sounded mean instead of panicked.

"Canada, as you know, has quite pronounced extremes of temperature. You experienced them on our adventure, if you recall." Fraser stepped out of his boots and placed them tidily at the bottom of his sleeping bag.

"You're not staying here tonight. I know what this is, Fraser."

"You do? Well, you do seem to be something of an expert at predicting my reactions these days, don't you, Ray?"

Ray opened his mouth, then shut it again. He'd never heard Fraser's voice sound quite so... bitter. There was an anger there that he'd never heard before, not even when they'd fought. It was crystal sharp and icy, and it sounded old, like it had been there for the longest time. Waiting.

"You can't make this all right, Fraser. Not this time," Ray said finally, not sure what else to say. "I appreciate it, really. But I'm not gonna let you... I can't know that you're... Fuck!" Ray scraped his fingernails across his scalp. "We can't be... we aren't friends anymore, Frase. I just... I can't."

"I see." Fraser seemed unmoved by Ray's increasingly broken rhetoric. "Well, that would seem to be most unfortunate."

"Yeah," Ray muttered quietly.

But once again Fraser didn't seem to be relating their 'good-bye' conversation to his behaviour. Ray watched bewildered as Fraser pulled off his stupid plaid shirt, his socks and his jeans, folded them into a pile and then switched off the lamp. The next sound was unmistakably Fraser lying down on his horribly uncomfortable-looking bedroll and getting... comfy.

"Fraser? Did I not just cover this? You can't stay here and I don't need you to. Do you get it? It's not fair... to either one of us."

"How do you mean, Ray?"

Ray sat down heavily on the bed, his elbows propped on his knees and his shoulders slouched. Fraser was going to irritate him to death, that's what this was all about.

Well, it was no more than he deserved.

"I think you know what I meant was that I... I have feelings for you, Fraser. Like, you know, feelings. While I'm not about to jump you or anything, it is not buddies for you to be sleeping in my bedroom when you've made it clear that you're not interested in that. That's kind of heartless, don't you think, to be tormenting me like that?"

Ray thought the silence from Fraser might just be him reconsidering, but when it passed the minute mark, Ray sighed, scrubbed his face with the back of his hand, and grabbed the pillow and the quilt from his bed. He headed for the couch, careful not to kick Fraser on his way out.

"The thing about extremes of temperature, Ray, is that they are usually accompanied by adverse weather conditions. Such as Tuesday last," Fraser said softly as Ray reached the door.

Ray paused. Fraser was speaking so low if he left the room he would lose whatever else he said to the noises of the city.

"There was a storm. A big one."

Ray began to get a feeling that he'd missed something. That he'd fucked-up in some cosmically massive way and that a reckoning was about to hit him form a great height. Like that rollercoaster arriving at the end of the ride, and you think you've survived it, you've just about held on to your lunch, but instead of stopping, it keeps right on going for another circuit.

"There were several lightning strikes in the vicinity of Yellowknife which severed telecommunications for Wha Ti and Behchoko until the following day."

Ray felt all the muscles in his back tense up.

"I tried to call you, Ray. Believe me. And when I couldn't get through, I radioed in to Yellowknife and had them relay a message to the 27th."

Right on cue, the wave of terminal idiocy swept over Ray, making his head ache and his jaw clench. He knew he should turn around and look at this soft-voiced Fraser, let him see some of the fear and uncertainty, but he couldn't. Was he hearing what he wanted to hear? Or was this some sneaky Fraser way of saying what he'd wanted to all along? Maybe he should be listening. Maybe...

"When that was unsuccessful, I left a message on your answering machine. It appears that it is currently inoperative. So I left messages for you with Francesca, Detective Burton, Detective Huey, Lieutenant Welsh and Andrea from administration. Apparently they became misplaced."

Ray recognised that tone of voice all too well. That was the tone Fraser used when he knew damn well what had happened, but was cranking up the polite so he didn't have to call anyone a liar.

"So I wrote to you. Four times..."

Ray threw the comforter and pillow onto the couch and walked over to the counter where Fraser's pale blue airmail envelopes sat. Clicking on the light in the kitchen, he tore open the top one and pulled out the single sheet of thin paper.

Scanning the letter, Ray found himself unable to focus on the neat lines of Fraser's script; the words just wouldn't resolve into something coherent that his brain could work with. The slight tremor in his hand made the paper flutter and rustle. He grabbed the other envelopes and turned back toward his bedroom.

Fraser was under a blanket, hands clasped across his belly, staring at the ceiling. In the murky light from the kitchen, it was hard to make out his features, but Ray thought he saw a kind of determination, a certain pissiness and a gleam of triumph. It was in the tightness around his eyes. In the way his fingers weren't quite still. In the way his throat bobbed as he swallowed.

"You gonna tell me what you wanted to say?"

Fraser pursed his lips briefly. "You're a stubborn, short-sighted, pig-headed, self-critical, proud, conceited, inflexible man, Ray Kowalski."

"So I've heard. And that's just the good stuff," Ray murmured with a harsh, twisted smile in the Mountie's direction, wasted as Fraser refused to look at him.

"Would you really have been so unforgiving as to cut me out of your life completely had I not been able to return your affections?"

Ray tried to wade his way through all that Canadian, and came up with a simple, "Yeah."

Fraser rolled his head slowly to look at him, disappointment and sadness written in every inch of his face.

Ray sighed. "No, I wouldn't. You know I wouldn't. We're buddies, Fraser. But it's too soon, you know? It's hard. Didn't you ever fall in love with someone who didn't love you back?"

Fraser's lips tightened into a grim line, and Ray wished hell would quit dicking around and just take him now. He dropped his head to the floor and grimaced.

"I do have some experience of that," Fraser said in an odd voice that made Ray look up quickly, but Fraser was already staring back up at Ray's utterly fascinating bedroom ceiling.

"What do they say, Fraser?" Ray held the crumpled letters out toward his friend, but he made no attempt to take them.

"I was simply asking you to contact me, Ray. I felt that putting anything else in a letter or in a telephone message was too impersonal."

"Great. Now you're here. It's personal. So let's hear it."

Fraser was silent for long enough that Ray stepped over him and sat down onto his bed again. If he had to listen to this shit and see the pity in Fraser's eyes as he told him how they could still be friends despite Ray being... you know.... gay.... then he was at least going to be sitting down.

Lying down.

Drifting off to sleep.

Because he'd had a hell of a long week and now there was that Fraser smell near him again, and he could hear Fraser's breathing, and they reminded him of the three months they'd spent together adventuring on the ice. And that had been a good time, one of the best times of Ray's life. And Ray had realised, without all the distractions of the city and the bad guys, that the reason he was happy was Fraser, not just there in the wilderness, but in general. He was happy; and he hadn't expected to be.

"Why didn't you say something?"

"Huh?" Ray jumped, shaken out of his warm thoughts by Fraser's low-voiced question.

"You could have told me, Ray."

"I did tell you," Ray protested drowsily.

"Four months later." Fraser's voice left Ray in no doubt that he was not impressed.

Ray thought that it would be really good if Fraser would stop talking now, because he'd said his piece, and as tired as Ray was, Fraser's voice was doing things, making him think things he shouldn't when it was all quiet and intense like that.

"Sleep now, Fraser. S'dark," Ray muttered stupidly, but he was too tired to care.

"All right, Ray. But tomorrow we'll discuss your options for Canadian Citizenship before you go to work."

"Fine. Wh'ver," Ray said, burrowing through consciousness to find the place where Fraser lay warm at his back, snugged up against him in his sleeping bag, breathing damp gusts of bark tea breath over the back of his neck.

>>>>

Ray dreamed of Canada. He dreamed of the Northern Lights and Smarties, of snow and pine trees, of rivers, caribou and converting kilometres to miles. And of Fraser, smiling in that way that almost broke his heart every time - not a Chicago smile, but a whole-body, belonging kind of smile. The one that he'd included Ray in, until things had started going unsaid and begun to go wrong.

He dreamed of nights in the tent, laughing, telling stories. Of Dief and the team and they way they smelled at the end of a long day. Of his nose thawing out over a mug of soup and of Fraser giving him a spoonful of dried milk powder with his oatmeal instead of just water.

He dreamed of the way Fraser would wake up with a hard-on every morning and how he would rag him about it. And how Fraser would simply shrug, climb into his snow gear and see to the dogs. Except that this time, Ray wouldn't let him, and instead he would slip his cold hand inside the stupid, fuzzy, red fabric of Fraser's union suit and feel the soft heat of his belly, slightly sticky still from the sleeping bag, and run his fingers through the downy hairs below his navel, lower into the harsher, coarser hair and curl his palm around Fraser's smooth, burning cock, making him breathe hard and groan.

God, Ray loved...

>>>

"Canada!"

Ray's heart thumped erratically in his chest and he fumbled for his alarm clock.

"It's a little after four."

"What did you just say?"

"I said it's a little after four, Ray," Fraser repeated dutifully.

"No, no, before that. Before I..."

"Fell asleep, yes, that would explain your interesting choice of awakening line this morning. I said that we could discuss your options for Canadian citizenship before you go to work, but I think you still have time for a couple more hours of sleep before we need to address..."

Did Fraser sound... amused? Did he not know that nothing was amusing at four in the morning? After three months on the trail with Ray, he should have.

"Okay. Stop." Ray rubbed his knuckles hard across his forehead, combed his fingers through his hair then sat up. "Why would I need to discuss that?"

"Your options for..."

"Yeah, that. Why?"

Fraser made one of his 'surely that's obvious, Ray' pauses, cluing Ray in that he was being a bit slow. "Well, if you wish to live in Canada, then the immigration laws are quite clear on..."

"Right. Live in Canada. That's... Okay, look, that wasn't the critical part of that whole conversation, Fraser. Canada. Norway. Sri Lanka. Doesn't matter. I think you've missed the, uh, the..."

"Essence?"

"Essence, okay."

"No," Fraser said thoughtfully, "I don't think so."

"Fraser, this wasn't about where I live, it was about with whom."

"Very nice."

"Thank you."

"Well, I suppose there's no reason why you shouldn't find a place of your own; however, I assumed that if we were lovers it would follow that you would want to live with me. I thought that was the essence, if you like. Would you like me to look into alternative accommodations for you?"

"Uh, no. I mean, that's... if you're happy..."

"Oh, yes, Ray. Quite happy."

"Fine."

"That's settled then."

"Good." Ray lay back down and the alarm clock ticked out the seconds of silence that fell between them. A number of questions worked to the top of Ray's consciousness, itself a jumbled tangle of queries and surely nots. He struggled with them for a while, chewing on Fraser's words, before he gave up.

"Fraser...?"

"I thought you'd never ask, Ray," Fraser said immediately and Ray listened to the rustle of blankets, a couple of light footfalls, then felt the bed beside him dip.

All those good thoughts, the Canada ones, particularly the Fraser in Canada ones ganged up and all rushed Ray at once as Fraser cuddled up behind him, slinging a heavy arm over his waist and pressing an interested groin against his hip.

"Goodnight, Ray," Fraser murmured into his neck.

Ray knew Fraser's interest would still be there in a couple of hours, when it was time to wake up and tell him that he had a day off. Sure, Ray had a buzz on, but a good, low-level buzz that could go either way. And this? This was too good to pass up.

Ray decided to go with it, and closed his eyes.

But he didn't fall straight back to sleep because that was...

It wasn't that...

He just didn't, okay?

Fin