Disclaimer: Insert your regularly scheduled disclaimer here.

Author's Notes: Originally posted for an April Fools Challenge in 2007. I'm posting here now to centralize stories.

Chaos.

The room was a clamoring, screeching, maddening bundle of chaos. Ray couldn't help but grin. Gathered around the Vecchio dining room table, Ray's family was brimming with their typical old-fashioned Italian charm. In other words, there were six different conversations going on between nine adults, two tug-of-wars between three preschoolers and a seven-year-old trying to feed beets to a wolf on the sly.

And the best part of it all, when the clamor ceased to be a fond remembrance of childhood and became a clawing migraine, Ray would take his toddler son, go to his car and drive twenty minutes across town to the nice quiet condo that he, Stella and Ray Jr. called home.

Family is so much easier to deal with when dealt small, brief portions.

Stella didn't get that. She had a really difficult time when faced with Ray's family all at once. And that was only the immediate family, Ray's siblings, their spouses and offspring. And Ma of course. Stella had yet to be faced with the entire Vecchio clan of aunts and cousins and great-uncle Paolo who still spoke broken English seven decades after leaving the old country.

Ray had tried to get her to come tonight, to use it as desensitization for the big gathering a few days away. But Stella was working, preparing a brief for court. She'd just have to sink or swim on Saturday. It wasn't going to be easy.

Not only were all the Vecchio's going to be in one place at the same time, but there would also be a wedding going on. It was going to be an Italian event that would rival the first scenes of "The Godfather". The fact that this was Frannie's second wedding and two of the earlier mentioned preschool-aged brats belonged to her would do nothing to mar the event. This was a big deal. Francesca Vecchio was marrying a podiatrist - somebody call the Vatican, a miracle has happened.

Ray wiped a stray bit of mashed potato from his son's forehead. When his attention returned to the table, Ray tried unsuccessfully to stifle a snicker. The Canadian delegation was in rare form tonight.

The fact that they had come at all increased the spectacle of Frannie's wedding a couple of notches. But to add even more fuel to the fire, the Mountie had seen fit to drag the aging half-wolf halfway across the continent. Benny claimed that Diefenbaker had harassed and harangued until Fraser had no choice but to bring him along. Ray knew better. He knew that the Mountie had caved to his partner's whim, as usual.

It was that same partner who was at this very moment gesturing wildly at Fraser. Kowalski hadn't changed much. There were a few more wrinkles across his brow and additional crinkling at the corners of his eyes. His hair was darker, as there evidently weren't any hair stylists in Lick-a-buck-tuck, or whatever the hell that town was called, that could lighten it the way Stanley liked.

Kowalski was still lean and scruffy. He still dressed like he'd rolled out of bed in the same clothes he'd worn the day before. He still jittered and twitched when he talked... or walked... or stood in one place for too long.

Those who'd known Stanley before would be able to see what Ray could see. The tight compact shoulders were tighter and broader from years of chopping firewood. The calluses on his hands that had once formed from hours with a gun had faded, replaced over time by those from leather harnesses and ski poles. But for the most part, Stanley was still Stanley. He was as irritating, aggravating, defensive and rude as he had been the day that Ray had met him.

And yet, Ray adored him.

Really. Stanley held a very special place in Ray's heart. Because in all the world, only Stanley could have wreaked such havoc on the life of one Benton Fraser.

The Mountie had changed, no doubt about it. His dark hair had gone gray at the temples practically overnight during the summer Ben had turned forty-two. Everyone blamed Stanley, and they weren't entirely kidding. There were other, more subtle changes in Fraser that Ray, having known him so many years, found to be glaring. Ray blamed Kowalski for these as well.

Benny too had crinkling lines around his eyes these days. A first guess would be that they were from squinting against the glare off the ice. But Ray had seen Ben laugh and knew better. Fraser laughed a lot now, he laughed easily at some of the silliest things. His blue eyes twinkled with mirth and Ray had, on more than one occasion, seen the Mountie wink. Usually just as Stanley was falling for some stupid practical joke Benny had set for him.

Fraser sometimes cursed. And not the "Oh dear," curses of those early Chicago days. Benton Fraser could swear a blue streak, at a really jaw-dropping volume when the urge struck him to do so. That urge tended to strike at about the same time that Stanley was yelling obscenities back. Not many people would believe it of them, but Fraser and his partner had some truly spectacular fights. The only reason Ray believed it himself was because he'd once been there to see it.

Ray had seen Fraser cry. Two years ago, when Stanley's mum had died, Ray and Stella had gone to the services. Though Stanley had struggled with his composure throughout the ceremony, he had finally broken down. In front of God and everybody, Stanley had buried his face in Fraser's shoulder and had bawled all over the red serge. Fraser had let him, had cried with him, had dampened the material of Kowalski's new black suit with tears of his own.

So yeah, Ray thought Stanley was a pretty okay guy - Weird but special. Kowalski had brought laughter and warmth, passion and feelings to Benny's life, so that now there was more to the Mountie than just the uniform he wore. What the two of them did in the privacy of their own home... well, Ray just tried not to think about that much.

"The declaration of Nunavut as its own territory is often regarded as a," Fraser was blathering on in his best I-am-a-Mountie-slash-tour-guide voice.

"Fraser," Stanley interrupted. "You are not going to lecture me about the heritage of our country."

Benny glanced up from his plate curiously. "I'm not?"

Kowalski slammed his palms onto the table top, making his silverware jump. "Tell me who studied history for three months straight."

"You did Ray," Fraser's small smile was affectionate and indulging.

Stanley pointed a long finger across the table and asked, "Who aced that test?"

Fraser's grin grew. "You did Ray."

"Whose name is on that certificate hanging on our cabin wall?"

"That would be yours Ray."

"And does it or does it not officially recognize me as a legitimate citizen of the great white North?" Ray went on.

"It does, Ray."

"You bet it does," Ray declared. "So I don't need some lecture on when or why or how Nunavut became a Territory."

Ray snickered around a bite of his mother's famous cannoli. "You know Stanley," he teased. "It would have been easier to just tattoo a maple leaf on your ass."

Kowalski snorted. "I tried that," he said without missing a beat. "But the CIC Processing Center wouldn't accept the Xerox copies I sent as proof."

"It must be a Canadian thing," Ray laughed.

"True," the dark-blonde head bobbed in agreement. "I didn't understand it myself at the time. But now that I'm one of them it all makes sense."

Ray had to put down his fork and clutch his stomach, he was laughing so hard. "It all makes sense?" Ray gasped incredulously. "God, explain some of it to me, will you?"

Stanley frowned. "Oh I'm afraid I can't do that, Vecchio. That would make you one of us and you just haven't got the proper credentials."

"You're right, I haven't endangered my life in a wildly unusual way in years," Ray chuckled.

Kowalski's dead-pan delivery didn't waver. "At the very least, you have to jump out of a window once in a while."

"And all this time," Ray said. "I thought it had to do with getting a big hat."

"Special dispensation is required to get a hat," Fraser said. His comment was made with such perfectly feigned innocence that for a moment, Ray thought he was serious. But as Stanley collapsed into fits of laughter, Benny's face broke into a wide grin and Ray knew that he was being jerked around.

Yes, the Canadians were definitely in rare form tonight. This was going to be a lot of fun.