"SKEETER" By Peaulp Deault (peaulp.deault@sympatico.ca) PG for language, overall story

SKEETER

*

"Ray, look out!"

Kowalski didn't turn fast enough to duck the elbow which crashed into the side of his head. He buckled once but kept his balance and managed to land his own elbow into Curt Griswald's stomach. Another body appeared out of nowhere and smashed Ray onto his face. Ray got to his feet and scrambled after Griswald. Two more men sprang out of the crowd and landed on his back.

And then the Referee blew the whistle.

"Cut out that shit or it's game over," he warned and gave the whistle an extra screech.

The man on top of the man on top of Ray stood up and skated away while the others slowly took their place among the onlookers. Ray stumbled clumsily back towards the bench and was barely aware of being hollered at by the Referee.

"Kowalski, you got five in the penalty box. Griswald, you're with him. Everyone else, back to the bench or the game's over."

Fraser watched with confusion, while the rest of the team cheered as Ray - their self-appointed team captain - skated towards the penalty box.

It was only five minutes into the game.

*

It all began one grey Tuesday morning. Ray, Huey and Dewey had supervised a raid at an abandoned warehouse where a drug bust had gone well and, literally, up in flames. It had been Ray's deal from start to finish - a slim hunch that turned into a good arrest. There hadn't been a lot of those in his life lately and this one felt good. There was only one apparent problem.

"This should be our bust, Kowalski."

"Up yours, Armstrong. My hunch, my snitch, my work, my precinct's collar, so tell yer partner to stop drooling all over my prisoners."

"You're so full of---"

"Uh-uh - watch that next word or I'll leave you out of my report." Ray smiled. "I love typing in 'Backup' lots of times."

"This is our backyard. We should be getting them."

"To the Thirty-Third? Yeah, you heard they renamed it the Bermuda Triangle, right? Lotsa people wander in and you guys just keep losing 'em."

Armstrong resisted the urge to give him the finger and walked back to his squad car instead. He motioned for his partner to follow.

"Hey, now, don't go away mad," Ray called sweetly after him. "Just... well, you know." He chuckled to himself and wandered over to Huey's car. Dewey was reading the Miranda Rights to one of the suspects while the other suspect sat in the back seat. Ray glanced across the street and watched the Fire Department clean up the remains of the fire. The criminals had panicked and set fire to the merchandise just before being arrested.

Ray smiled to himself. This was a good moment in a long line of not-so-fine moments. He nailed the brains behind another drug ring. A few more of these and he might just come to believe in his job again.

He looked down and saw that his shoelace had come undone. If he had ignored it and returned to his car, he would have been home free, but he didn't. He crouched down and retied the stray lace. He had just looped the knot when he heard a familiar voice belt out, "SKEETER!" from across the street.

Ray's heart stopped. He hadn't heard that name - yelled by that voice - in years. He looked up. One of the Firefighters was waving at him with one arm and hosing down a hot spot with the other. He had a smile on his face that was getting down right embarrassing.

"Oh, shit," Ray groaned as the chorus of voices around him began to snicker, "Skeeter" to each other.

The Fireman shut off the hose, carefully placed it on the ground and came lopping across the street with enough exuberance to scare a Mountie away. He smothered Ray in a bear hug. "Skeeter, you old bag of shit, how're you doing? Just kidding, you're not old. Man, look at you. How're ya doing?"

"Uh, just fine, Curt, you old ... Uh, you can let go of me, now." Ray delicately broke free and wished the entire collection of police officers and prisoners weren't staring at him right then.

The man beaming at him had a bright face, wide eyes and a tall, lean frame. He was kind and the worst nightmare to all the 'Skeeters' in the world because he was a hard guy not to like. Right now he was punching Ray in the arm and grinning. "Man, I haven't seen you in ages. I heard you were up on the Nineteenth, doing time for being such a wise-ass or something. God, it's good to see you again. You look---" He smiled as he tried to find the politest word. "...Well, not dead. You look not dead." He looked past Kowalski and motioned for Huey to join them. "Hey, Jack, I didn't know you knew this guy."

Huey smiled sweetly. "Oh, Skeeter? Sure, been working with him for a year or so now. Nice to see you again, Curt, didn't know this was going to be one of your fires."

"Yep. You guys get the fun stuff, we shovel the soot. Just kidding, it's a nice break, no one being hurt, no valuable property being destroyed." He nudged Ray in the ribs. "Man, Skeeter, I can't believe it's you."

Ray leaned over to him and quietly inquired, "Uh, Curt, do you think you could stop calling me that?"

But it was too late. Dewey strolled over to them and gave Ray a hard punch in the arm. "Hey there, Skeeter. That's your real name, isn't it? I figured 'Stanley Kowalski' had to be a cover for something."

"It's an old high school name that shoulda been left there," Ray snapped. "Does any one mind if we get back to work before these clowns here begin to ferment. Come on, let's get 'em downtown."

"He was 'Skeeter' on the hockey team," Curt boasted. "He could move that puck like nothing else so we called him 'Skeeter'. Too quick for just a skater, I guess. High school nicknames, huh? Who the hell remembers how any of them got started."

"Okay, well, it's been great seeing you again---" Ray tried to end the reunion by stepping backwards and looking at his watch, which happened to be on his dresser at the moment. "Gotta get moving, though. Lotsa bad guys to go find."

"That's you, man, always working your butt off."

"Uh-huh." Curt didn't seem to be moving, and at a loss for anything else, Ray said, "So, I thought you were still in Philadelphia."

"Nah, I went there for my first assignment after the Academy. Then Boston, then old Chicago. What about you, I thought you were in the undercover business."

"Long time ago."

Curt's face brightened. "Hey, do you still play hockey?"

Ray's eyes widened for a second, then narrowed. "Maybe," he answered carefully. "Why?"

"We have an inter-league team. We're always looking for other teams to play. Not for anything serious, though. We need the practice for the league playoffs and it's kinda fun to knock around with some of the other guys. You got a team at the station?"

"Sure," Ray lied with all the gusto of a guy who hadn't put on a pair of skates since his ex wife tossed them into the garbage during one of their worst fights. "It's pretty good. Might beat the crap out of yours, though."

"Yeah, but that's what we want, good competition to make us better. What do you say we face off, have some fun like the old days, okay? We've got a rink booked for the games, you'd just need to get some practice time in."

"Yeah. Maybe. Okay."

"We have rink time at eleven tomorrow night."

Ray's eyes widened. "Isn't that a little late?"

"Nah. This way our guys play, then go onto the early morning shift. Sweet deal for us. Man, it's good to see you again. How's Stella doing? She still in law?"

"Uh, she's good. We're not actually together any more. Kinda split up a couple of years ago."

Curt's face fell. He could hear someone call his name from the building but he kept his eyes on Ray. "You're kidding. You two? Shit, I woulda sworn---" The voice called for him again and this time he turned around. "Hold on, I'll be there in a sec."

"You should get moving," Ray finished. "I gotta get these clowns down to the station anyway."

But Curt was still staring at him. "I'm really sorry. You guys were so tied-to-the hip, I figured you'd be around forever."

"Me too. Things change. Call me about the game." Ray grabbed the prisoner and led him away to the car. He didn't look back to see Curt standing there, taking the news of the divorce hard, the way he took everything in high school.

Dewey sneaked up behind him and slapped him on the shoulder. "I didn't know you had a team, Skeeter. Can anybody play?"

"Back off, Buttface."

"Okay, okay, I'm kidding. So you don't have a team. But you do happen to have one of the world's best, underrated, under-used goalies."

Ray turned around, properly intrigued. "I do?"

"You could."

The possibilities began to dawn on him "Hmmmm." Ray headed towards the car, thinking this idea through. He didn't turn around again and he didn't see Curt cleaning up the ashes and looking back at Ray as if he had heard the world was going to end.

*

"Okay, who wants to play hockey on my team?"

After the dull swarm of 'Well...'s and 'Um's faded away, a few interested bodies were left. Ray pulled out his clipboard and began writing. "Okay, I got Dewey in goal. Jack, which wing do you want. No, don't gimme that look, I know you play. I'm left. You can take the other shift. Chin, you're defense, Rogers, you and Stitch are defense...." The role call went on. In five minutes he had his team.

"Is Fraser going to play?" Frannie inquired sweetly from her desk.

"He's part of the precinct, isn't he? Relax, I'm gonna ask him later."

"Why haven't you asked me yet? I'm part of this precinct. I might want to play. You think that because I'm a woman that I can't play on your stupid little team?" The other women in the room nodded to each other and agreed.

"Oh, yeah, Frannie, that's it," Ray sighed. "You can't play cause you're a girl. Sure, that's the reason. Let me ask you something - you ever picked up a hockey stick before? You ever actually played the game of hockey? You ever put on a pair of skates?"

"Yes, I have. I took one year of figure skating, if you must know. And I was very good. Well, almost very good."

"That's not hockey and you know it. Figure skatin's for people who don't know how to do real skating. I need hockey players, not twirly-skirts and guys in tight pants."

"Speak for yourself."

"You want to help, go book us some rink time. Lots."

"Go book yourself, big shot." Frannie stormed past him .

"You might have gone a little easier on her," Jack suggested.

"What, Florence Skatergirl, there? No way, Jack, this is serious, I don't need Frannie using up precious bench space." Ray didn't bother looking around for support on this subject. He was his own cheering section. "This team has gotta be good. No loose wheels, no tag-alongs. We gotta be the best."

*

Ray's next stop was the Canadian Consulate to lure in his secret weapon. He found Fraser in the boardroom writing out nametags for an upcoming dinner. The name tag holders were made of miniature wax Canadian Flags; the wicks were little tiny flagpoles. Turnbull sat across from him, affixing the nameplates to the candles and dying to light one of them.

Ray sat down across from them, cleared some of the candles out of the way and slapped down his clipboard. "Frase, you play hockey, right? I mean, you being Canadian and all."

Fraser put down his pen and looked up. "That's a little bit of a generalization, isn't it? Just because I come from Canada doesn't mean I'm genetically predisposed to being a hockey affectionado, not to mention a participant---"

"Yeah, right, whatever. So you want to play for my team? I need good players." He ignored the obvious cough from Turnbull's end of the table.

"I wasn't aware you had a hockey team."

"Well I got one. Remember we were talking a while back about me finding something new in my life? Well this is it." It was a nice cover considering that during the conversation Ray had been too discouraged to even pay attention to what Fraser was saying. "So as of today I have a team but we gotta move fast. Practices, drills, the whole shebang. It might be a little rough, though. You can throw a hit or two, right?"

There was another, louder cough from Turnbull.

"I suppose, "Fraser smiled. "I haven't played in a while though---" He was interrupted by Turnbull's next cough, this one from the ribcage. "Constable, by chance would you like to play on Ray's team?"

Turnbull's' eyes lit up, then diplomatically returned to business. "Well, I don't know, Sir, it might interfere in my work---"

"Turnbull," Ray sighed. "You want to play or not?"

"You bet your sweet ---"

"Fine." Ray scribbled their names down on his paper. "This is great. First practice is tonight."

There was another attention grabbing cough, this time from the doorway where Inspector Thatcher was standing with her arms folded. "I assume my staff was going to notify me of their decision to partake."

"Yes, Ma'am," Turnbull and Fraser rhymed off at the same time.

"I take it non-CPD members are allowed on your team, Kowalski."

"If they can hold a stick and skate at the same time, they can."

"I see. So if I wished to play, that would be within the rules."

Ray shook his head, as if another case of 'The Frannies' was creeping up on him. "What is it with you women?"

"Ray!" Fraser snapped. "Just because Inspector Thatcher happens to be a woman---"

"Thank you, Fraser," she smiled from the door.

"You're welcome, Sir," Fraser continued his tirade. "Just because Inspector Thatcher is a woman doesn't mean she can't play the game as well as any man. You may not be aware of this but she is one of the finest players to play for the RCMP team in Ottawa. She's an excellent forward and not bad on left defense."

Thatcher was staring at him, stunned by his knowledge, not to mention his accuracy. "Fraser, I had no idea you--"

"I've been one of your silent, appreciative fans for a long time, Sir."

Ray interrupted them. "Okay, okay, she can play, I got no problem with sex." He didn't like their stares. "Well - you know what I mean."

"Don't lose sleep over it, Detective," Thatcher advised. "I was only asking out of mere curiosity to what your response would be. As usual, I wasn't disappointed."

"It would most likely be a poor forum for her skills anyway, Ray" Fraser added helpfully. "The Inspector would rather use her skills against more ... skill related teams. I don't think she would perform her best hockey in a purely physical league as I assume your competition would be."

"Oh? And why would that be?" Thatcher's voice was ice.

Was that a glint of anger in her eyes? Oh, dear God, Fraser was feeling the walls creep in towards him. "Oh. Well. I didn't mean that you couldn't hold your own... you have a deft and unique style, and playing on the RCMP team is where those skills belong. The teams Ray has in mind probably don't know the meaning of grace and...."

"What the hell's that supposed to mean?" Ray jumped in. "Our teams are tough. We eat dirt for lunch. We don't fancy dance with the puck like you Canadians do. We go for the man, then get the puck and if there's anything left over we feed 'em to the rats!"

"And we don't need to resort to unnecessary displays of violence to maneuver the puck from one end of the ice to the other---"

It was Thatcher's turn to land on Fraser. "Are you saying I wouldn't be able to compete in an arena full of aggressive, under-worked American police officers?"

"Hey, I heard that," Ray complained.

"Good, you were supposed to." Thatcher glared icily at Fraser. "Well?"

" Sir, I only meant that---"

"You and Turnbull had better have these name tags attached to these candles before you go traipsing off to eat dirt with Spanky here." With those parting instructions, the Inspector flew out of the office and slammed the door behind her.

Turnbull and Fraser looked at each other with the same fear in their eyes. "Oh, dear," Fraser sighed for both of them.

"What's with her?" Ray wanted to know. "She got a problem with the way we play hockey here, she can go and play up north in igloo land. Okay, you guys in or not?"

"I think I offended her," Fraser mumbled to himself.

"Yeah, so what's new? You always offend her. You gotta be at the arena tonight by ten forty-five, that is if you boys have all your homework done by then."

"We resent that remark," Turnbull blurted out. "Constable Fraser and I are completely free to do as we wish when we are off duty."

"Perhaps I should go and make amends with her," Fraser mused.

Turnbull shook his head. "I wouldn't do that, Sir."

"You wouldn't?"

"Oh no, Sir, if you upset her any more, she may not let us play."

*

The first practice took place at eleven o'clock that night. The moment the players hit the ice with pucks, sticks and gear, they forgot they were police officers and remembered they were hockey players; each and every one of them an NHL Stanley Cup winner. They were fast, they scrimmaged hard, and they passed with invisible accuracy----

"Max, you wanna put your skates on the right feet please," Ray ordered from the bench. He was tying up his own laces and looking over the line-up on the clipboard at the same time. From the corner of his eye he saw a pair of legs covered in fishnet stockings that went high into the hem of a short skirt.

"What in God's name are you wearing?" he blurted out to Frannie.

Frannie, decked out in her favourite figure-skating outfit, stepped casually past Ray and shrugged. "Nothing. Just one of my skating numbers. Relax, Metal Brain, no one's going to notice me."

"Oh, they won't will they? Come on, Frannie, our guys have to be on top form out there and they can't do that if you're looking like .... like that."

"Like how?" she challenged.

"Like ... that," he repeated, then gave in. "Like... hot."

"Thank you, Ray."

"Yer welcome."

She smiled. "And the point isn't to distract our players, Knucklehead, it's too distract theirs. Ours are too dense to notice me doing anything." She stepped back as an indifferent Fraser climbed over the bench and stepped on to the ice. "I rest my case," she groaned and rolled her eyes.

*

The next morning, Curtis Griswald walked into the precinct and women began turning their heads in his direction. Curt smiled at them but Ray - who watched this disgusting display from his desk - would swear the man was as oblivious to his charms as Fraser was to his own.

Then - by separate doors and just plain bad timing - Fraser walked in. The heads turned again and Ray wondered what the chances were of these two men ruling the world.

Fraser and Curt arrived at Ray's desk at the same time and Ray reluctantly stood up and made the introductions. "Fraser, this is Curt, Curt this is Fraser. Fraser's a Mountie, Curt's a Fireman." He stepped back to avoid being singed from the glare of the greatness.

Curt took Fraser's hand and pumped it out of life. "You work with him, huh? He's one of the best. Crazy as a loon but one of the best."

Ray tried to smile politely but only ended up looking like a dehydrated woodchuck.

Fraser nodded and tried to free his hand from the well-meaning death grip. "So you knew Ray in high school, eh? That's a long way back."

"You betcha. He helped me in hockey, I helped him in physics, geography, chemistry, math---"

"Uh, okay, that's good," Ray interrupted. "Fraser here plays hockey on my team."

"A Mountie, huh? That makes you...."

"Canadian," Ray and Fraser confirmed at the same time.

Curt's brows met. "Uh-oh."

Ray shrugged confidently. "I know."

"I guess we're in trouble. Well, it'll be fun anyway. Good meeting you, Fraser. See you at the game tonight." Curt slapped Ray on the side of the head. "Later, Ray. I promise not to call you Skeeter in front of your cop friends."

"Great." Ray smiled until Curt was out of the room, then he dropped into his chair and sighed. "Oh, shit."

"Skeeter?" Fraser pulled up a chair. There was delight on his face. "I would have had you pegged as 'Hammerhead' or 'Bruiser---"

"Shut up, Fraser."

"'Barracuda', at the very least."

"High school nickname and I don't want to talk about it. You guys are ready for this game, right? Tell me the you and the Soda Pop are ready and raring to go cause we gotta play well. Curt's out to kill."

"He didn't sound very 'out to kill' to me. In fact, he actually sounded like he genuinely wanted to enjoy a game of hockey, regardless of the outcome."

"Ha, that's how little you know, Fraser. We gotta beat the pants off Griswald's bunch."

"I thought the point was to have fun. Play shinny, bond outside work hours, enjoy a team sport."

"It is."

"Then why does anyone have to 'beat the pants' off of anyone else?"

"Because I've known this guy for years and he's as competitive as they come."

"And you're not?"

Ray sat up, offended. "What the hell does that mean?"

"Nothing. I was just saying that you have a little competitive spirit of your own. There's nothing wrong with that, Ray. Even I've been known to have a little of that myself."

"Oh, yeah, I'd say you have a dab."

Now it was Fraser's turn to look affronted. "Well, I don't have that much."

"Yeah, you do. You ever listen to yourself? Someone says one thing, you gotta come back about the same thing, only you have two mooses in your story. Like their story isn't enough, you gotta make sure they hear yours."

"Isn't that called two-way communication?"

"No, it's called 'Not letting the other guy have his moment in the sun', even if it is about how many busses passed him that morning or something lame like that."

They were both silent. Fraser fidgeted with a pen on the desk for a moment, then stood up. "Perhaps I'll be on my way, then. I'll see you at the arena tonight."

Ray's head was bowed and he almost let Fraser go. "No, hold on, Fraser." He caught up to him by Frannie's desk. "I didn't mean it like that. I mean, I did, but just not ... like that."

"Never mind, Ray," Fraser said and kept walking.

Ray had to catch up again. "I don't want to 'never mind'." He followed Fraser into the coffee room and sat down across from him. "I'm sorry, okay? It was a dumb thing to say---"

"Obviously, you have feelings about the subject."

"No, it's not like that. It's not...it's not you - it's him. Maybe you remind me of him, I donno. He was like the biggest shot in school, Mr. Perfect. Everything he did great, I sucked at. Except hockey. Okay, maybe hitting on the girls. But I had to follow that guy's shadow all the time."

"And do I make you feel that way?"

"Like what way?"

"Feeling bad about yourself."

"We're not talking about you, Fraser."

"I think we are. Answer my question. Do I make you feel that way?"

"Yeah, sometimes, but you don't mean to."

"I don't think he does either."

"He does. Anyway, you're different. You're now. He's then. He's everything that pisses you off as a kid. Once in high school, Stella took a fancy to him one time when she and I were on the outs. I mean, I think she really kinda liked him and he liked her and he coulda gone out with her, no problem. But do you know what he did? He didn't go out with her because he knew that would piss me off. See, that's the kinda guy he is. Now, I gotta live with that forever. And on top of that, he's a competitive son of a bitch. If he's got a hockey team, it's gonna be a good team, cause that's just the way he is. The best things just fall around him. He's this, he's that. He's you. And it's not me. I'm none of those."

"Why would you want to be?"

"You never had a buddy like that in school, Fraser? Someone you thought was better than you?"

"Well..." He was cringing inside now. "Not really. But then I didn't have the same educational experience as I assume you did."

"Figures."

"Ray---"

"Then you don't understand why this guy is so ... so....annoying."

"That's not fair. If the problem is me, fine, just tell me. But if the problem is your friend, then---"

"He's gonna have everything, Fraser. Hell, he coulda even had Stella. At the game tomorrow, you'll see, everyone will follow him around, Frannie, the other guys. They'll be hanging off his every annoying word. The other guys'll want off my team and onto his."

"I won't."

Ray finally gave in. "Fine. Okay. You won't. So you and me'll be the only ones. And it'll be like it was all over again. He's in the sun, I'm the clod in the shade who couldn't even stay on the hockey team 'cause my average was so shitty they didn't even think I'd make it through school."

"I didn't realise it was that bad."

"Forget it, I don't even want to remember those days. But not Curt, he lives for 'em. Did then, does now."

"Well, I won't pry any further. We'll have a good game against them and we'll have fun."

Ray wasn't sure if Fraser had completely recovered from the insult and he didn't ask. It would have been one more detail that would get in the way of a successful outcome in the game.

*

When Fraser returned to work that afternoon, he had to fight his way past two fire trucks, five fire-fighters and a Consulate that had smoke streaming from the boardroom windows. Constable Turnbull was sitting on the bottom of the staircase, his face was covered in soot. In his hands was a box of melted Canadian flags, now turned into one patriotic mound of wax.

Devastated, Turnbull looked up. "I'm sorry, Sir. These were all I could manage to save before...." The rest of the sentence dissolved into sobs.

"Turnbull, what happened?" Fraser looked around for Inspector Thatcher. He could her voice coming from one of the rooms.

Turnbull looked down at the ball of congealing wax in his hands. "It seemed like a good idea at the time."

"What did? Are you and the Inspector all right? Where is she?"

"With the insurance man. I kept hearing her yell the words 'No Coverage?' over and over again."

"Where was the fire?"

"The boardroom. I only wanted to see if the candles would light and I put one on, then another. Then the Inspector called for something and I left the room for a moment and when I returned.... The bucket of flags had caught on fire, then the curtains, then the ceiling...."

"Oh, dear."

"Oh, yes."

The full impact of the tragedy had barely sunk in before a familiar voice boomed from down the hall, "Hey, Fraser! Man, I wondered if I'd see you here." Curt Griswald, dirty faced and grinning, was crossing the foyer towards him. He waved his hand in the direction of Turnbull. "Your man there, he's a little shaken up. He said something about being on the team for tonight, so that's good. A game of hockey will take his mind off this. And not much damage, well, except for those candles. That's a shame, they looked really good. So you work out of here, huh? Looks like a nice gig."

"Well, it---"

"Meg said this was like technically Canada, being in the Consulate. Is that right? Like, somebody could rob a bank and hide out in here if you guys let them."

Fraser and Turnbull exchanged curious glances. 'M-M-Meg?' they were both thinking.

"Diplomatic protection, right? You know, I used to study Canadian History as a hobby. You guys had it down right. Good Prime Ministers. You got screwed on a lot of the early fishing policies, but Macdonald and his guys, they did what they could, you know? You guys were the new guys on the block and you came into your own. I think Borden might be my favourite PM. Who's yours?"

Fraser was still staring at him. 'Meg?' This man was on a first-name basis with Inspector Thatcher?

He was saved by another moan from Turnbull. "How could I have been so careless?"

Curt leaned over and patted him on the shoulder. "Ah, don't worry about it, Turnbull, I had a quick word with the insurance man. We do a lot of business with that company, you'll be in good hands."

*

At ten-fifty that evening, Ray stood on a bench in the dressing room and addressed the collection of bored looking faces below him. It was ten minutes before the eleven PM start time against Curt's team. The players were dressed in various jerseys and sweatshirts.

"Forget the shot of '72, forget the Flower, ---"

"What about the Senators of 98," Turnbull asked helpfully. "I mean before the playoffs." Thatcher and Fraser nodded accordingly.

"Not to mention the Black Hawks," Rodney added.

"We don't mention their record," Ray reminded the team. "Too much to live up to. Now, if you'll shut it for a second I'll continue. Go out there, have fun, take your man and don't let the son's of you-know-what's win, okay?"

"They're Fire Fighters, Ray," Huey pointed out. "Not 'Sons-of you-know-what's'. They're the ones who rescue your cat when your house burns down."

"My point exactly, Jack. Don't let that nice-guy profession thing fool you. Hit 'em and take the puck."

"What about having fun?" Chin wanted to know. The others in the room murmured in agreement.

"Yeah, okay, that too. But win first, then have fun. Let's go get 'em!"

*

The pre-game warm up was underway. Ray, fully dressed and ready to go, stood by the bench and watched his team skate around the net. It was when the other team came onto the ice that Ray's world began to shatter.

Ray's eyes popped out of his head. "What the hell is she doing there?" Skating with the Flames, dressed in a Flames uniform, was Inspector Thatcher. "Fraser! What the hell is she doing out there. With them. With him!"

Fraser watched the sight unfold. She had been recruited. She had done it to spite him because of what Fraser accidentally insinuated. Ray watched the sight unfold with horror because he wasn't the only one with a Canadian on his team anymore.

Thatcher skated laps with the other players, deftly handled the puck and used a speed not usually seen by female players.

"Oh, dear."

Ray turned on Fraser. "This is your fault, Fraser. You got her into this, you get her out. Christ, what if she's better than you? What if his team actually wins this---"

"Ray."

"I mean it, Fraser, I won't be able to take it very well. You think I'm not a lot of fun right now, I'm really not going to be able to handle it if his team wins. If she's doing this to make you jealous or something, tell her what she wants to hear and pay her anything to play with us. Why the hell isn't she on my team? She knew me before she knew him."

"I'm afraid this has nothing to do with jealousy," Fraser admitted. "It has to do with the slip of a tongue that I made when I insinuated that Inspector Thatcher may find it less safe to play against a Chicago team of professional Firemen and Police Officers."

"Oh, great! She called your bluff. She's gonna help take Curt to victory cause you couldn't keep your big mouth shut."

"I'm sorry, Ray, I honestly am but.... What makes you think that our team can't win? We don't need the Inspector to defeat your friend's team. You happen to have a fine Forward from the consulate---"

"You're talking about you again, aren't you?"

"Well. As it so happens, I might be. What makes you think I can't lead you to victory." It must have taken a lot of discipline to free up even that much of his ego, but Fraser got the words out.

"Nothing, except three Canadians woulda evened up my chances a bit."

He and Fraser looked out at the rink. The Flames were doing well-organized scrimmages. They wore bright red jerseys, smart and sharp. Ray's team wore an assortment of mismatched jerseys and sweatshirts. They skated around the net and shot pucks at each other, usually missing.

It wasn't looking good.

The first period was uneventful. No one scored, though the Flames came close enough times. Dewey played solidly in net, Curt played occasionally on left wing and every time he was on, Ray shadowed him. Fraser handled his own shifts admirably and watched the Inspector with an unusual mixture of awe and envy. She had a way with the puck that he lacked in his own skills and if he didn't think she would club him over the head with his words, he would tell her so some day.

Fraser's worst, unspoken nightmare came true when he went into a corner to dig out the puck. When he looked up, he saw her skating towards him. Thatcher nailed him blind and checked him high into the boards. He had been dodging the other checkers just fine. He didn't think he needed to dodge this one.

"Fraser. You okay in there?" It sounded like Ray Kowalski's concerned voice piercing through the helmet, into Fraser's ears. "Come on, Frase, get up will ya. We gotta get this game going. Pitter patter, let' go, buddy."

He opened his eyes and saw Ray's sweaty face staring directly into his. There were some other faces staring down too. Inspector Thatcher's was among them. At least she had the decency to look concerned.

"Okay, he's fine, outa the way." Ray pulled Fraser back to his feet. He skated Fraser away from the other players. "Fraser, you gotta stop her or she'll crucify you."

"I can't check a woman, Ray, especially a woman who happens to be my Superior Officer."

"Yeah, that and the fact you got eggs in your basket for her. Look, switch shifts with Martin then, but don't let her do that again or we'll lose the momentum. Now those goons know you're good for head butting into the rafters."

"I can still avoid a check, Ray, I just didn't anticipate having to do so from the Inspector."

*

The Flames were fast, smooth and passed like angels. Ray's team was almost as fast, not quite as smooth and tried to take the puck up by themselves. By the end of the period, the game was tied one-one.

At the end of the period, Curt scored twice more on Dewey. The team was out played, out scored, out shot, out everything. Curt was winding up for another goal and Ray slammed into him. Curt and Ray went sliding into the boards and the Flames charged over to the corner.

"What the hell are you doing?" Curt asked Ray as someone pulled the men apart.

"Playing the game, what's it look like!"

"I didn't even have the puck yet. Geeze!"

The referee skated past them. "You guys want to cut that crap out!"

Ray and Curt stared at each other.

Fraser skated past and patted Ray's shoulder. "Lets go, Ray."

Gord, the team captain of the Flames stopped behind Curt. "There a problem here, Grisly?"

Curt and Ray's eyes were locked, though Curt didn't know if he knew exactly why. "No. Not a problem. Right, Ray?"

"Right."

"Right."

"Good."

"Fine."

*

When Ray stumbled into work the next morning - tired and aching through every inch of his body - he found a crowd of people huddled around the man sitting in his chair. As he got closer, he saw Curt Griswald holding court with Ray's co-workers and pointing to a photograph from a yearbook. Ray got closer and felt his stomach fall. It was his Grade Ten Yearbook.

Curt was showing one of the photographs to the attentive audience he'd gathered. "That's me and behind me is Ray."

The 'Awww's and laughter was interrupted by a loud, "What the hell are you doing, Griswald!"

Everyone turned and saw Ray standing behind them with his arms folded tightly. It wasn't his finest moment.

"Hey, nice hair do, Little Skeeter," Dewey laughed. The way he said it, and the laughter it created, made Ray want to kill them all for it. He leaned past Curt and slammed the yearbook closed, nearly slicing Dewey's hand in the process. If he had remembered it was his goalie's hand, he might've been a little more gentle but it wasn't the moment for important details like that.

"Do you mind?" he snapped at Curt.

"Mind what?"

"Figure it out, Griswald." Ray stormed away.

Curt left his crowd and followed Ray into the coffee room. "What? Those pictures are a hoot." He sighed and waited until Ray had relaxed long enough to fill a cup of hot coffee for himself. "We were cool little dudes, even back then."

"Yeah? Speak for yourself." Ray went back to his desk.

Curt appeared across from his in-box. "I'm sorry, okay? No one died. Just your sense of humour."

"Hardy haha."

Curt would have given anything to know how not to get on Ray's bad side. No matter what he did, no matter what he said, it would be the wrong thing. He was vaguely recalled this feeling from high school and he was definitely experiencing it now. He forged ahead anyway because this was Ray, and Ray was worth it. "You know, my shift ends when yours does today. Let's get outa here and go for a drink --- no, wait a minute, I made a date with someone. Say, we could double-date. You seeing anyone these days?"

Ray rolled his eyes and wondered how much longer he was going to hate himself for being such an asshole to this guy. "No. Yes. Not really." And for some reason his eyes wandered over to Frannie's desk. There she was, doing her nails and taking a report over the phone at the same time. For a fleeting moment, it seemed like this could work. He deliberately looked away quickly.

Curt took the bait and smiled. "She's the one from the bench, right? Nice legs, kept handing water bottles to Fraser. You and her?"

"Yeah," Ray lied shamelessly. "But we like to keep it quiet, working in the same place and all." He looked back at Curt and smiled. "Let's forget them. You and I'll get a couple of steaks or something."

"Nah, lets double. I've got dinner with a lady friend tonight so you and Frannie come too. My treat."

"No, I don't think that would---"

"Five o'clock, Muldoon's. Be there or I'll tomorrow I'll bring the grade-eight yearbook. Then the grade six one. Then, the kindergarten----"

"Curt, you don't have to---"

He pointed his finger at Ray, directly at him and said, "Yeah. I do. Five o'clock." Curt looked once more over at Frannie - who still hadn't looked up from her nails - and whispered, "I won't tell anyone about you and Frannie."

"Thanks." Ray smiled until Curt had turned and left the room, then he lowered his head; out of options, out of everything when Curt was done with him. It wasn't fair.

*

"Okay, Frannie, you're off in five. Let's go get something to eat."

Frannie looked up from the pile of paper work, which Lieutenant Welsh had dropped on her desk an hour ago. "I beg your pardon?" she inquired a little too politely.

Ray stood in front of her desk with his hands jammed into his pockets. "I'm taking you to get something to eat."

She leaned back in her chair and studied him carefully. "What are you up to?"

"Nothin'. I'm up to dinner. You wanna come?"

Frannie, among other qualities, wasn't born yesterday. She waved her pen in the air and smiled. "This is one of those little office jokes, right? Huey, Dewey, or one of those other knuckleheads has a camera going, so you can use it against me at the Christmas party---"

Ray tried not to glance at his watch while he chose his words hastily. "I'm not being a wise guy, Frannie. I need to eat. You need to eat. Let's go eat."

"Uh-huh. I see." She sat back and smiled sweetly up at him. "Why the sudden interest in my eating habits? And why do you have that funny look on your face?"

"Fine," Ray groaned and decided to cough up the details in one breath. "I told a buddy of mine I'd meet him for dinner but I have to bring a date, and I kinda told him that you and me were a thing so now I gotta show up with you for dinner with him and his date. Is that honest enough for ya?"

"So why'd you have to say me?"

"Because you were the first woman I could think of who worked here."

She looked at him sweetly following this confession of the heart. "Nah."

"I'm desperate."

"How much?"

"Twenty bucks."

She laughed. "I don't think so, Bro."

Ray was losing ground fast. He could hear the time ticking away; he could hear Curt's fingertips tapping lightly on the restaurant table. Curt was the second most prompt person Ray had ever met. Ray pointed to the piles of paper on her desk. "Okay, I'll also do this paperwork crap for you."

"You will?" Frannie's eyes twirled with delight. "Okay, but if you make any mistakes and Welsh thinks I did it, you have to fix them up. Deal?"

"Sure. Anything. You got it."

"Who's going to believe I'm your girlfriend if I'm also supposed to be your sister?"

"Curt doesn't know you're supposed to be my sister. Look, I gotta make a good impression on this guy and if I can't get a date, then he's going to think I'm some kind of a loser."

Frannie rolled her eyes and pulled her purse from the drawer. "Gee, can't go giving him that impression, can we? Welsh is going to need that stuff ready by ten o'clock tomorrow morning."

"Yeah, yeah."

"I'm not kidding, Ray, you're going to have it done, right?"

"I said I would."

"All right, let's go eat. You're paying, right?"

"Yeah, like I'm going to stick you with the bill. I'm supposed to come outa this looking good, remember?"

Frannie rolled her eyes again and sighed sadly, "Ray, Ray, Ray...."

*

The closer they got to the restaurant, the more anxious Ray became. "Okay, remember, all you have to do is pretend you're my girlfriend and you're crazy about me and all that crap. I'll do all the talking if he asks how we met or something dumb like that---"

"Crazy about you? That wasn't in the deal."

Ray held the restaurant door open for her. "Okay, okay, just don't treat me like you usually do."

"Ha, I could say the same thing."

"I know. I'll be nice. Okay, there he is..."

Seated in the far corner of the restaurant, behind many variations of plastic palm trees, was Curt. He was nursing a club soda, and keeping watch over the coat at the empty place across from him. There were two extra places set at the table.

Frannie's eyes widened. "Oooo, he's even cuter without that hockey uniform."

"God, not you too. I thought you only had eyes for Fraser."

"I did - do. I bet Fraser would get jealous if he ever saw me with that guy."

"What about me? I could make Fraser jealous too, you know."

"Oh, yeah, right, Ray. How is the old spitting contest between you and Dewey going, anyway?"

"Haha ---- Hold on, someone's going over towards him."

They watched a woman return to the table. Her back was turned towards them until she eased into her chair.

"Oh - My - God!" Frannie and Ray gasped at the same time.

"What's she doing here?"

"Shhh! Let go of my arm, Frannie! What's she doing here?"

"Oh my God!"

"The Ice Queen? I don't believe this!"

But Frannie was miles ahead of him as the potential of this situation danced brilliantly in front of her eyes. "If she's with Curt and Frase knows about it, this means .... his heart will be devastated!"

"Frannie- - - "

"This is so good, Ray. If Thatcher's with your friend, then Fraser's going to need someone to soften the blow. And that means he could start seeing me in a whole new light and that'll be my chance. Ray, you're brilliant!"

"Oh, God, why is this happening to me?"

Frannie grabbed him by the arm and proceeded to stroll through the restaurant as if they were meandering through a valley full of fresh, bright ----"

"Hey, there you are." Curt stood up and extended his hand. "Glad you could make it, you guys."

Meg Thatcher did a double-take at the sight of Ray's date. "Miss Vecchio?"

Frannie swept into the chair between Curt and Meg. "Hi, Inspector, how's it going?" She turned to the host of the evening. "And you're Curt, right?"

"Sure am" Curt looked back and forth between the two women while Ray looked around for a deep hole. "You two know each other?"

"Yes - well - I thought I knew Miss Vecchio, not to mention Kowalski here," Thatcher replied coolly.

Curt saw the look of pain on Ray's face and suddenly, he realized what he had done. "Oh, no - Meg doesn't know that you and Frannie---"

"It's okay, Curt," Ray pleaded quietly while he toyed with the idea of taking the butter knife in front of him and jabbing it into his own chest. He prayed Curt would leave this alone but the look of desperate guilt on Griswald's face told him it wasn't going to happen.

Curt leaned across the table. "I'm sorry - shit, I didn't mean to blow your cover. Meg, don't tell anyone that these guys are going out, okay?"

But Thatcher was beyond listening. Her head kept bobbing between Ray and Frannie. "You? You and Ray? You and him You...." Ray gave her leg a sharp nudge under the table. "... You both look well this evening."

Curt leaned over and whispered into Ray's ear. "I'm sorry, Ray. It didn't occur to me Meg would know Frannie."

"It's okay," Ray repeated. "Sorry we're late. You guys been here long?"

"Not long at all," Thatcher assured him convincingly. She glanced around the table. "Would you two mind if I borrowed Ray for a moment? I have a small question regarding Constable Fraser's.... health."

"Health?" Ray repeated.

Frannie waved them away. "You go and sort out whatever you need to. Curt and I will get to know each other a little bit."

Ray followed Meg Thatcher to the lobster tank. He made the mistake of glancing back and seeing Frannie smiling at whatever it was Curt was saying. He shouldn't have left her alone at the table, he thought, he should have saved her from herself. For himself. Where did that come from?

Thatcher stopped in front of a tank of anxious lobsters. "Okay, before I blow this little charade, which I know is a charade---"

"How do you know Frannie and I aren't going out? We could be, you know. Besides, what the hell are you doing with him?"

"Having a nice dinner, I thought. If you and Francessca are an item then why hasn't Fraser mentioned it?"

"Cause he doesn't know."

"Because it's not true."

"Yes it is, and lower your voice, you're gonna scare the crabs."

"Lobsters. What are you up to, Kowalski?"

Ray squeezed another sigh out and saved himself the agony of more interrogation. "I just needed Curt to think I was going out with someone, okay?"

"Isn't that that a little... high school?"

"You should talk. Why aren't you playing on my team. I asked first."

"Actually, you didn't ask at all. You scoffed at the idea and, as I recall, I was the one who brought it up."

"You're doing this cause of Fraser, aren't you?"

"What does he have to do with this?"

"That crack he made about you not being able to keep up with our brand of hockey."

"That has nothing to do with anything, Detective," she replied a little too defensively.

"Then what do you see in him?"

"Fraser?"

"Curt!"

"Well," she almost appeared as if Ray's question was a tough one. "Those eyes for one."

"Oh, right. The same that eyes my pretend sister and girlfriend is gazing into right now?"

Thatcher whirled her head over. "She isn't."

"She is."

"I met Curt at a fire in our Consulate and I happen to like him so if that's a problem for you---"

"And what about Fraser?"

"What about Fraser," she repeated, exasperated by this thorn in Ray's agenda.

"Well... you two... " He couldn't bring himself to cross the line of unforgivable - though accurate - assumptions.

"We are done with this conversation, Detective?"

"You gonna tell anyone about me being having to pretend Frannie's my date?"

She thought about it. "Are you going to tell Fraser that you had dinner with Curt and me?"

"I won't if you won't."

"Deal."

*

Dinner went smoothly. Ray didn't stab himself, Thatcher didn't blow the whistle, and Frannie never mentioned twenty-dollars or paperwork. Curt learned how Ray and Frannie first met - in a lonely train station on a dark and rainy night (this was Frannie's version. Ray's went something like, 'oh, yeah - right,') and then the conversation turned to hockey.

"Meg is something else. I couldn't believe how great she plays. I'm glad I asked her to be on my team before you did." Thatcher and Ray avoided the other's eye, while Curt forged ahead. "What about you, Frannie? I thought you would have been out there playing last night. Don't you skate?"

"Uh, well, to tell you the truth, I skate but not too---"

"Frannie figure skates," Ray continued. "And she's really good." For once he didn't sound like he was trying to impress anyone. He couldn't see the look in Frannie's eyes so he missed her surprise that he would go so far to mention 'Frannie', Figure Skating' and 'Good' in the same sentence.

"My mother goes ape for figure skating," Curt said. "She knows every skater in every country. Hey, she sends her best to you, Ray. Wants to know if you ever took up another musical instrument." He sat back and chuckled.

Thatcher glanced over at Frannie and politely asked, "What did you play, Ray?"

"Tuba," Ray grinned and rolled his eyes at the entire memory. "For two months. The thing weighed more than I did. Man, I was one scrawny kid,"

"Nah, you just took longer to beef up," Curt said. "Then you became a lean, mean skating machine." He looked at Ray with pleading eyes. "Can I tell them what your nickname was? I promise, these two understanding women will never repeat it under penalty of----"

"Skeeter," Ray finished kindly.

They burst out laughing. "That's so cute," Frannie said.

"Yeah, but I don't wanna hear it off your lips ever," Ray smoothly warned her.

"Sure, sure, just keep on the good side of me at work and we'll see what we can do." Frannie looked back at Curt. "What other sports did he play?"

"Lawn ---"

Ray pointed a finger across the table before Curt could answer but he was too late. "Curt, no!"

"...bowling."

The women laughed and Ray began smiling too. "It wasn't my idea," he tried to tell them. "I kept getting detention the same year our gym teacher tried to get our school a team together. So for punishment.... Oh, geeze, it was awful. Our lousy team against those rich schools."

"Yeah, you know why it was awful," Curt interrupted.

Ray shook his head and admitted, "Because I was the only guy on the team who was good at it."

"Oh, I'm sorry," Thatcher groaned on his behalf.

"Trying getting through my neighbourhood with the rep as being the best lawn bowler on the school team. I musta had my ass kicked at least five times that year. At least it stopped me from getting into trouble cause I wasn't going to do that again."

"At least the uniforms were nice," Curt remembered fondly. "Well, you had to keep getting new shirts because you kept getting into fights."

"What a rebel," Meg sighed.

"That team of yours is tough," Curt remarked, "A little raw, but tough. How long have you been playing with them?"

Ray dodged Frannie and Meg's faces. "Not too long."

"That Fraser's pretty quick. And I don't think any of our guys made it past Turnbull on defense. How is he, by the way. He seemed like he recovered from the fire."

"What fire?" Frannie and Ray asked.

Thatcher couldn't bare the thought of going over the waxy details again. "Just a little mishap at the Consulate."

"That's where I met Meg," Curt piped in. "Small world, huh?"

Ray could only nod and agree. It was very small and perhaps not as unpleasant as he had thought.

*

After dinner, Ray drove Frannie home. The evening went better than he could have thought. It almost felt good to reminisce with Curt and he would have sworn he saw a genuine smile on Thatcher's face a few times. And all through the dinner he couldn't take his eyes off Frannie.

"So do all your dates drop you off in the driveway or do they walk you to your door?" He stopped the car in the driveway and wondered about making the date official.

"You know, I think I'll let the twenty bucks go because I had a good time, but you still have to do my paperwork."

"Aw, Frannie," Ray pretended to whine while he found his nerve. He decided he was going to try, and he inched closer to her.

"Think we ought to tell Fraser she was out with Curt?"

"Sure." Why was she sitting so far away? Mental note - adjust the seats. "Maybe we could we do this again sometime. Without those two----"

"It's great how it turned out, though," she continued. "I still think if Frase knew she was seeing Curt, he might start to look differently at me. What do you think?"

"Huh?" Ray edged back to his side of the car and dragged an unexpected disappointment with him. "Oh. Sure, I guess."

Frannie punched him on the arm and opened her door. "Thanks Ray, this was fun."

Ray was still smiling like a good sport - the freshly wounded kind - as the passenger door closed. He watched her walk up the driveway on and into the house.

"Yeah, it was."
*

An hour later, there was a knock on Ray's door. He peeked through the peephole and saw the worried face of Curtis Griswald bulging through the tiny, round glass.

Ray opened the door. "Hey, Curt, what's going on?"

"Nothing much." Curt stayed out in the hall but looked carefully into the apartment. "I'm not interrupting anything, am I? I mean, Frannie's not here----" Same Curt, different worry.

"No, I took her home." Ray was feeling so lousy about the way it turned out that he almost felt like unloading on the sad looking guy on his door step. Almost. "You coming in or what? No one's here - my life doesn't work that well."

"Okay."

Curt followed Ray into the living room. Typically afraid to wait before he chickened out, he dove into the heart of his troubles. "Listen, I probably should have asked you sooner but ... that hit last night. In the game...."

Ray could barely remember what he was doing before Curt arrived, let alone what checks he through during the game. "What hit?"

"Well, all of them I think. Maybe you were mad at me for something, right?"

The guy was so much like Fraser it was frightening. The scary part was that Curt had been this way for as long as Ray had known him. Maybe he even took advantage of him because of it. Sometimes he did with Fraser, it was too easy not to. Both men seemed to wear invisible lettering saying, 'Walk over me, please'.

"I'm always mad. That's me."

"No it's not. You didn't used to be. Not like you are now."

Ray shrugged. "I know. I don't like all that good-old days' stuff. They were just days, they weren't so good. Least wise not for me."

"Okay."

"Okay?"

"Well, I still think they were good but if you don't, I'll shut up about them."

"Thanks."

"Okay." Curt looked around and took a deep breath. "I think I may know why you seem so pissed off at me."

"No you don't," Ray laughed sarcastically and wondered if there was enough psychology in the world to explain why he was so pissed off at Curt.

"It's Stella, isn't it?"

"Stella?" Again, an amused snort came out. "No, no that's long done with. I'm past all that divorce stuff."

At that moment, Ray decided to come clean about Frannie, the hockey team, the past, everything. He was going to go for broke and tell Curt his entire history of being under-confident around this guy, from grade eight to eternity. He took an extra deep breath. "Listen, Curt, there's something---"

"It's been on my mind, you know. Well, not all the time. But since I ran into you."

Ray looked up from the carpet where his confession lay in jeopardy. "Huh?"

Curt was oblivious to Ray's anxiety because he seemed to be overwhelmed by his own. "You remember that couple of months before you and Stella got married - when you broke up and everyone thought that maybe that was the end for you two - I mean, as it turns out, it wasn't but...."

"Remember it? Yeah, I'd say so. She only told me the week before that she wanted to put the skids on the wedding for a while. Christ, that was the worst time of my---"

"Um... Stella and I kinda went out a couple of times." He waited for the explosion as Ray stared into him for a few endless moments. He had seen Ray's anger when it would explode, it would rage, it would scream. Now it was doing something else.

"You what?" Ray calmly repeated into his face.

"When you were on that break... She didn't know what she ... it's not her fault so don't get mad at her. I mean, hell, a few dates with me and she married you after all, right?"

"How many?"

"I donno. A Few. Four. Five maybe. Ray, I'm sorry, I'm really sorry. I couldn't take you acting like this, I figured you must have known something or if you didn't you must have at least suspected." Later, long after this conversation, Curt would reprimand himself for ever deciding to open his big stupid mouth. But that was later. This was now.

"What the hell are you..." Ray lethally began. He was the calm before the storm. His stomach and best instincts told him to walk away from this conversation right now, but his more irrational side told him to let Curt finish his sentence so that he could confirm there was nothing to worry about.

"I thought I ought to clear the air."

"You and Stella?" His eyes, usually so blue and wide, were squinting in an attempt to hear this information more accurately. Curt. And Stella. And Curt.

"It wasn't deliberate or anything, I swear, Ray. We ran into each other at a party, and I donno, I guess I should have taken a hike but we went out a few times and I wasn't really sure where things were with you and her but she seemed to like my company."

Ray, using every ounce of discipline in his body not to throw this man out the window, went to the door and opened it. "Out."

"Come on, Ray, we should talk about this. I'm sorry---"

"Out," he repeated in almost a whisper. His face didn't betray his feelings. If Curt didn't walk out now, he would be taken out in a stretcher and Ray would be escorted out in handcuffs. "Now."

Curt lowered his head and wished that he was dead. This had gone far worse than he ever would have imagined. "Okay, I'm going." When he was in the hall, he turned to tell Ray that he would talk to him again, at a better time because Ray was his friend, one of his oldest and he wouldn't have hurt him for anything. He turned to tell Ray this but had the door slammed in his face instead.

*

It was three-thirty in the morning by the time Ray got through the pile of work on Frannie's desk. He had to sort the paper work alphabetically. Twenty-six letters turned into ninety six by the way it felt. He would have rather paid her the twenty dollars and forget that he even considered considering the evening a potential date. No, why do that when he was simply setting up the grand scheme of Fraser, while wasting his time bullshitting The Great Curt.

The squad room was quiet. There were a few other officers from the nightshift at their desks but nobody bothered to notice Ray and this worked out fine. He spent the time behind his desk, trying to concentrate on the paperwork and on nothing else. When he ran out of paperwork, he sat at the desk with his chin resting on one hand while he doodled with the other hand.

At nine o'clock, Welsh came out of his office. Ray was fighting sleep behind a tall book as Welsh's voice slipped into his thoughts.

"Miss Vecchio, I must say, you've found new and interesting meanings for otherwise simple file folders."

The words jolted Ray out of his trance. Frannie was standing next to Welsh and trying to catch Ray's eye. "Uh... what do you mean, Sir?"

"For instance, I didn't know 'Solicitation' could be filed next to 'Petty Cash' and still make sense."

Frannie's eyes narrowed and she glanced back at Ray. "Oh. Yeah. I was trying out a new filing system and I wanted to see if, um, I could merge the 'Shopping' subjects with the ... money part and---"

"But what I really like are the doodles you did on the Assault files. Little hockey sticks with axes at the end of them. It adds something, I'm not sure what exactly." Welsh held out the assault file for Frannie and any other art lovers to enjoy. On the tattered manila folder were fresh doodles, each one nastier than the last.

Ray sighed and shuffled across the room with his hands in his pockets. "Uh, that's kinda my fault," he said.

Welsh looked him over from top to bottom. "You mind telling me what the hell you've been doing all night? You look like hell."

"Yes, Sir. That filing stuff is my fault."

Frannie did the unthinkable. "No, it's my fault."

"It's mine."

Welsh interrupted them. "I'm not going to flip for it. Whose fault is this?"

"It's both of ours," Frannie lied. "I left the pile someplace stupid and Ray accidentally knocked the pile over and I had to start from scratch, and some of the titles were smudged from his ... foot prints where he walked over them when he went to get the proper...pens for sorting."

Welsh smiled and ended the story before it became any more dangerous. "Ah, good, well, you'll both enjoy the opportunity to get it right, even if it takes all day and all night."

"But we got a game tonight."

"This is going to take you twelve hours, Kowalski?"

"No..."

"Then do it. This pile looks like a monkey went through it." Welsh marched back into his office and left Ray alone with Frannie. She snatched the file from Ray's hand, the one with the artwork, and sat back down. "Thanks a lot, Ray. You were supposed to have this done for me."

"I did do it."

"You were supposed to do it right."

"Ease off, Frannie, I made a few mistakes, it's not the end of the world."

"Now I have to spend most of the day fixing it and that's going to put me behind on my other stuff and Welsh is going to want me to stay until it's done---"

"I said I was sorry, Frannie, get over it! You want me to help fix it, I will, but stop with the whining, will ya!"

Frannie looked at him and almost asked him why the change from the guy she had dinner with the night before. "Get outa my sight, Ray," was all that came out instead.

*

Welsh walked over to Dewey's desk and dropped a file on to it. "The Robinson homicide - we got a new lead. You guys go follow it up."

Ray flew over to the desk and grabbed the file from Huey's hand. "That's my case."

Welsh plucked it from Ray and gave it back to Huey. "Not today. I want them on it."

Dewey smirked as he passed Ray. "Sorry, Pal."

Ray gave him the finger before following Welsh into his office. "You mind telling me why? That's my case, they have nothing to do with it."

"I don't want you anywhere near the case the way you are. Next time you decide to come to work and be useless, call in sick. Save the tax payers a little peace of mind."

"I'm fine and I can follow up on one of my leads, on my cases just fine without you giving it to those two."

"You can't even do someone else's paper work without mangling the alphabet. I don't know what bet you and Miss Vecchio had, but you save that crap for your own time, not on mine. You have five reports outstanding that I've let slide but since you'll be spending most of your time at your desk today---"

"Hold on, I got---"

Welsh silenced him with a look from hell. "Reports. I want the last two months caught up by the end of the day."

"I'm sorry about the filing thing, that was my fault, I had some stuff on my mind."

"Then get it off your mind. Since this hockey thing began, all you've been doing is racing around, telling the other detectives in this room what to do, where to be and what'll happen to them if they're not there. You have a grudge up to your neck over this other team and it's getting tired."

Ray's chin tightened and he let the fight go. "Fine."

*

It was the last place he wanted to be but Ray went to the game that night. He scored one goal, he blocked another with his shoulder, and he generally kept his head low. His eyes only made contact with Curt Griswald once and that was in the second period. Curt skated into the corner to pick up the puck. When he saw Ray heading towards him, he abandoned the puck and let one of his other teammates make the play.

And that was all it took. The rage Ray had barely kept under his skin all day suddenly flew out of the darkness and raced after the man who had taken everything from him in one conversation.

The puck squirted free and someone sent it down the ice behind the Flames goaltender. Curt went after it. Ray went after Curt. He charged into him with everything he had and rammed him into the goaltender. Ray, Curt and the goalie all went into the boards. When it was over, only the goalie remained on the ice.

Breathless and dazed, Curt stumbled to his feet and tried to understand what was going on while his teammates flew off the bench and went straight for Ray Kowalski. A few came to the aid of the netminder but the rest dove after the sniper responsible for their fallen teammate.

Ray's team fled to the pile-on and pulled the players off one by one until everyone had someone to jostle. At the bottom, dazed and bruised, was Ray. He tried to stand up and see where the man he wiped out was but he fell back to the ice. Finally, Fraser's hand reached his and pulled him to his feet. This time, he stayed afloat long enough for Fraser to smuggle him through the melee and off the ice.

*

Smith the goalie was taken to the hospital. Curt and five other Flames went with him. His girlfriend was called away from her job and met them in the waiting room. Ray and Fraser waited at the other end of the hall, away from the others. Ray didn't say a word, he sat with his arms folded tightly. Every time Fraser breathed as if he was about to speak, Ray silenced him with one of his angriest looks.

Nobody spoke until Curt suddenly appeared in front of them. "Hi, guys," he said.

"Any word on Mr. Smith," Fraser asked.

"Yeah, he came too a while ago. He's got a concussion and a broken arm." Curt's eyes found Ray. "He's out of work for a couple of months."

"Shit." Ray leaned forward and sighed, "I wasn't aiming for him, I swear."

"I know." Curt stiffened. "You were aiming for me." He looked back at Fraser. "I appreciate you being here for Smitty but he's going to be okay. It might not be a good idea to hang around here. The other guys are pretty PO'd. I'll keep you posted about how Smitty is getting on."

Fraser nodded and rose. "I'd be grateful. I'm sorry for everything that's happened."

"Don't be. It's not your fault." Curt walked away.

Fraser waited until he was gone before turning to Ray. "I've let you be quiet long enough. What happened out there? I saw you head for Curt. You followed him, you wanted to---"

"Ram his ass up his nose, yeah I know. But I didn't mean to get the goaltender, Fraser, I swear to God."

"I realize that but what concerns me more is how intent you were on hurting Curt. This has to stop, Ray, this grudge, this resentment; it's gone too far. An innocent man has been hurt. You hurt him."

"I know." Ray got to his feet. "And I don't want to talk about this now."

"Fine. What do you want to do instead? Go out and pick a fight with the first person you find who resembles Curt? Go home and wake up as angry as you went to bed?"

"No, I want to feel like the shit that I am for what I did to that guy, do you mind? I know you mean well, Fraser, but just back off on this, please. I don't want to hear what you have to say because it isn't going to change anything, not by a long shot."

A voice called from behind, "Raymond Kowalski?"

Fraser and Ray turned. Two uniformed officers were heading towards them. A young woman, Smith's girlfriend, followed. She had been crying. Gord, the captain of the Flames, was next to her.

One of the officers spoke in an official voice. "Are you Raymond Kowalski?"

"Yeah, what about it?"

He slipped a pair of handcuffs on Ray's wrists while the other officer began reading him his rights.

"What the hell are you doing!"

"I'm sorry, Sir, but you're being charged for assault on Milton Smith."

"Are you nuts?"

"Ray," Fraser cautioned wisely. "Excuse me, officer, but Detective Kowalski is ----"

Smith's girlfriend stepped up to Ray. "They told me what you did and you can be charged for that kind of crap---" Gord took her aside while the officer continued to read Ray his rights.

Ray didn't do anything to protest and he let them escort him down the hallway as though they were doing him a favour. He could hear Fraser from behind blurting out things about calling the Lieutenant, calling a Lawyer. He had to laugh when both officers heard Fraser say he would call States Attorney Kowalski.

One of the officers stopped cold and looked at the other. He put two and two together. "He's related to Kowalski. He's that Kowalski."

"Don't sweat it," Ray assured the worried looking officer. "She's outa town and kinda like the last person I want to talk to anyway."

*

Ray was spared the humiliation of being taken to the precinct where he worked. This one, the Thirty-Third was also known as the Bermuda Triangle, the same one he made fun of earlier that week. The officers kept apologizing and Ray kept nodding. If he was going to make this easy on them, he was doing a good job. He knew the ropes. He was off duty and he went after another guy while trying to nail someone else. The only difference was, he did it in the middle of a hockey game. Same assault, different ice. He didn't give a shit about what happened to him. He gave up worrying about that a long time ago.

Fraser was taking this worse than Ray. "I'll get a lawyer," Fraser promised across the room.

"No."

"Then I'll call the Lieutenant."

"No!"

"Ray---"

"I mean it, Fraser, keep Welsh out of this and you stay out of it too. I don't want your help."

The door to the pen opened and someone belted out, "Holy Christ, they weren't kidding!" Curt Griswald thumped his way across the floor to the admitting desk. "Jesus, Ray, what the hell is going on?"

Ray glanced over his shoulder, "You want to fill him in on that one, Frase? Give him a clue and start with the handcuffs."

"But this wasn't all your fault," Curt yelled back. "I goaded you into it, remember? You weren't after Smitty, you were after me. Just tell them that."

"You want me to tell them why I wanted to kick you ass into the next universe?" Ray's temper flared up. The cuffs on his wrists became real and his anger took over. He kicked the chair in front of him and sent it into a cabinet. "That's not gonna happen, Curt. You make damn sure it doesn't happen."

"I'll tell them you went after me because I called you a name," Curt offered back. "I'll tell them ---"

"Don't you dare go bullshitting any more than you have." Ray made another move towards the counter and it took three of the officers to yank him back under control.

"Ray, stop it," Fraser yelled as he diplomatically shoved Curt in the direction of the door and told him to wait outside. When he turned around again, Ray had been led away and that was the last Fraser saw of him for three hours.

*

Fraser found Curt waiting down the hall. "I know this is none of my business but what happened between you and Ray that led to this?"

"He didn't tell you?"

"Obviously not."

"Then I can't." Curt stuck his hands in his pockets and looked at the floor. "Not without his say-so. I'm going to talk to the other guys and Smitty's girlfriend. The other stuff with Ray, that's out of my hands. I messed up doing something to Ray, but he's the one who took it too far tonight. Listen, my shift starts in a couple of hours so I'm outa here. Ray knows where to find me if he wants to talk." He was about to leave but there was something else he wanted to say. Ray wasn't here to tell it to, so his partner would have to do. "That's not the guy I wanted to be like in high school."

Fraser looked at him strangely. "I beg your pardon?"

"Ray. He was the coolest guy. Not the leather-jacket kind of 'cool'. Ray was for real. If he got his ass kicked ten times, he'd go back for another ten if there was someone in trouble. He didn't care about what people thought, he just did it. Now this other guy gets all bent outa shape when I call him an old nickname. "

"I think, if I may suggest, Ray isn't all that comfortable with old names. He tends to embarrass about that sort of thing. He once forebode me to talk to my wolf when we were out in public. I complied at the time, naturally, but I've since eased back into the habit."

"He hates me talking about the old days, especially in front of people he works with. He eased up a bit when Meg and I double-dated with him and Frannie, but that's been it."

Double-dated? Meg? Him and Frannie?

Curt didn't notice the strange look on Fraser's face. "You'd think he and Frannie have been going out long enough he'd be past being embarrassed about old stuff with her."

'Going out long enough?' Fraser repeated in his head over and over again.

"I think if I accidentally called him 'Skeeter' one more time he'd have let me have it. Turns out that's the least of his problems with me."

"He doesn't like being singled out like that. Standing next to me in my uniform everyday gets him noticed. He does his thing, he doesn't like to be noticed. Sometimes I worry that he is hidden too well because he lacks in confidence more than he should."

"Ray? Lacks confidence?" It was Curt's turn to be surprised. "Right."

"Yes - Ray."

"Not the Ray I remember."

"People change. I've also thought that, despite our differences, perhaps one reason he and I are friends is because we're both somewhat outsiders. My old partner was the one who showed me his world, his friends, interests, things he was a part of. Ray was brought in as undercover, he didn't bring much with him. The only familiar thing I've seen that he belongs to is an ex-wife."

"Stella."

"You knew Stella from school?"

Curt squirmed. "Yeah. Not really, I mean.... No. How serious are Ray and Frannie?"

Fraser's eyes narrowed. "Ray and Frannie? As in ... serious? You mean, dating?"

And then it hit him. Among other things, Curt wasn't a total idiot, he was just slow to get to bat. "He isn't going out with Frannie, is he?"

"No, not to my knowledge."

"You and Meg?" Bits of the conversation from the dinner that he hadn't understood were floating back.

".... Co-workers. Friends, perhaps."

"And the reason she's playing for my team...."

"I inadvertently insulted her hockey skills."

"Anything else I ought to know?"

"Depends on what else he's been telling you. I think I know why Ray is angry at you but I can't tell you why."

"Yeah, I know why he's angry but I can't tell you why either."

"His anger goes back a long time."

"I know."

"To high school. Is that where your Angry-Ray story begins?"

Curt shook his head, entirely confused. "No way. Couple of years after high school."

"Ah. Well, perhaps we are talking two different Angry-Rays."

"But I didn't do anything crappy to him in high school."

"According to Ray, you didn't do anything bad to him after high school."

"What did I do to him during high school?"

"What did you do to him after high school?"

They looked at each other. "I can't say," they both admitted.

Fraser gave up first. "Perhaps a conversation between you and Ray is what's called for. As it stands I haven't been told if I've done anything to him yet. And if I have, I doubt I'll hear about it for ten, possibly twenty years. Good night, Curt."

*

"How long has he been in holding?" Welsh had been woken up thirty minutes ago with news that one of his detectives had arrested. The rest of the details didn't please him.

"Several hours, Sir," Fraser yawned. "I tried to explain to as many people as I could that he was an officer but they had too many other people to process."

"This hockey thing has gone too far," Welsh sat down. "I can't have a time-bomb under my command."

"Yes, I realize that, sir."

Welsh's cell phone rang "Welsh.... Yeah. That's right, I want his ass out of here in ten seconds. Yeah, I'm here waiting." He closed it. "Assholes. Come on, they're bringing him out. He's been in the infirmary for the last two hours and no one bothered to let anyone know. Assholes."

In a few minutes, a door opened and Ray appeared. He was only expecting Fraser and groaned, "Shit," under his breath when he saw Welsh.

"What in God's name happened to him?" The Lieutenant demanded.

Ray's right cheek and jaw were red and bruised. His left eye was almost swollen shut. There was a bandage, still bloodied on his cheek and another on his forehead.

The man with him, Lieutenant Thompson tried not to look as guilty as he felt. "There was a bit of, uh ..."

"Slipped in holding," Ray explained for him. "A couple of guys recognized me and tried to help me up."

Welsh shook his head incomprehensibly. "What idiot put a cop in a holding cell with a bunch of perps?"

Thompson stepped back and panicked. "It's a mistake, I can explain - he didn't say who he was---"

"No, he had this guy---" Welsh pointed to Fraser - "doing the talking for him. How many times did one of your clowns hear that Kowalski was a cop? Constable Fraser, did you, or did you not inform the officers present that Kowalski was a police officer?"

"Yes, Sir. To as many people as I could but they seemed to have too many other people to process."

Welsh glared at Thompson. "So you dumped a cop in with the regulars and he got the shit beat out of him."

"I - I - that still has to be..."

Welsh nodded. "You get those charges dropped, and you have one hell of a report to my office by nine o'clock. This one's going on record, Wilbur."

Fraser stepped away from the standoff and tentatively approached Ray. "Perhaps a quick trip to the hospital, Ray." He reached over to put his hand on Ray's shoulder but Ray pulled away sharply.

"Don't touch me!"

"Ray---"

"Lay off, Fraser, I'll go see the goalie tomorrow."

"I didn't mean for him, I meant for you.""

"Why in the hell did you call Welsh?"

"Because they wouldn't release you or assure me that you were safe. I'm sorry, but I didn't know what else to do and if that annoys you, then, well ... tough luck."

"You know, Fraser, I'm tired of Curt, being perfect when you don't want him to be, and not being perfect when he shoulda been and I'm tired of you being perfect all the damn time! You don't even know you do it, you just are and I'm getting fed up with it. You, Curt - it's like being lost in the middle of cult of Perfect Freaks or something."

"And that's my fault?"

Welsh came up behind Ray and swung him around. "You went after a guy in a league hockey game and busted his arm for no reason other than you got in a temper? I expect better from my men. You don't pull that kind of crap, not on the job and not off the job!"

"Fine. I'll see you later."

Ray tried to walk past but Welsh grabbed him by the arm. "No, you'll shut up and listen to me. I don't need calls like this in the middle of the night, dragging me out of bed because one of my men got himself chucked in the slammer for something as stupid as what you did."

"I realize that and it won't happen again so if you don't mind, I'd really like to go home and have a shower."

"Oh, that'll solve everyone's problems, won't it."

There was a look in Ray's eyes, a determined one that Welsh should have paid attention to but didn't. Ray didn't want to discuss anything more about what he had done, or where he had just spent the last few hours. He was going to go home. "Good night, Sir."

"Not so fast, Kowalski." Welsh turned to Fraser. "I'll take it from here, Constable."

"Yes, Sir." Fraser stared at Ray for a moment and wished that he could read minds as well as body language. "Are you going to be all right, Ray?"

"Get out of here, Fraser, I don't want to talk to you."

"Yes, I get that impression." Fraser said goodnight to Welsh and disappeared down the corridor.

Welsh shoved Kowalski into a chair. "You had better rethink your attitude around here. It's getting very thin and when you start telling the Mountie where to get off, I gotta think you need some reigning in, pronto."

"It's between him and me."

"And the guy you sent off work for a month, where does he fit into this?" He waved his hand around the room. "Get it straight, Ray, you aren't off the hook from coming back here again. If those guys on the other team want, they could have you back in here in a second and make the charges stick. You want to spend anymore time in that cell that you were in tonight? It could happen, believe me."

Ray said nothing. He didn't want to think about jail cells and what happened in there tonight. He wanted to go home and shower and take a dozen aspirin.

"I want a report from you on what happened in there, I want it signed and on my desk by end of tomorrow."

"What's that going to prove?"

"That I make sure the right heads roll for putting you in there. They fixed you up in first aid?"

Ray pointed to his face. "This was the best they could do."

Welsh tilted Ray's head for a better look at the bandages "Good. They'll have charted it. I'll get that for my records too. Pissed off as I am at you, no one dumps one of my people in this zoo and lets their gorillas take shots at him."

"Yeah," Ray said because this was little, if absolutely no consolation to him.

"You sure you're feeling okay? I can take you to the hospital if you want."

"I'm fine. Just sore."

"Okay, good. And until you hear otherwise, you're suspended."

Ray's head shot up. "Are you kidding?"

"Not in a million years, Kowalski."

*

Ray spent the following morning in the basement of his apartment building, slamming tennis balls into the far wall with a hockey stick. It was a long room with a cement floor. There were three washers lined up against the right wall and three dryers against the left. The only light came from a low bulb hanging from the ceiling. In between slapshots, Ray would place a ball on the end of the stick, aim and send the ball sailing into the opening of one of the washers. So far, he had only missed three out of twenty shots.

His ribs and back still ached from the night before but that didn't stop him from using as much force as he could to send the balls flying against the wall. The more it hurt, in fact, the better. He didn't hear a tentative pair of footsteps came down the wooden staircase.

"Hey Ray."

He released the shot before turning around to see who was there. To be honest, he didn't much care. The Superintendent could give him all the hell she wanted, but he wasn't bothering anyone. The other tenants were all at work anyway.

Frannie was standing at the bottom of the staircase.

"What are you doing here?" was all he asked before turning around and releasing another mighty swing.

"Just---" She almost didn't recognize him through the cuts and bruises and the black eye. "Holy cow, Ray, your face---"

"Don't start, Frannie, it's not as bad as it looks."

"Yes it is."

"What are you doing here?" he repeated.

"Dropping by on my lunch hour. No one else wanted to do it. You're not very popular down there today."

"I'll live."

"You even have Fraser angry at you. How'd you manage that?"

"It's a gift." He delicately lined up a tennis ball on the end of his stick and sent it directly into the last washing machine. "You come for any reason other than Welsh made you?"

"He didn't make me. He thinks I'm out shopping for nylons. What happened last night?"

"What did you hear?"

"That you went nuts."

"I didn't mean to go after that guy," he groaned. "I was aiming for---"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, you were aiming for Curt. I thought you and Curt were friends."

"Were. Were, were WERE! He seems to forget that past-tense thing. The guy crossed the street to see me. If I had seen him first, I would have turned the other way so fast .... " He finally stopped and looked at Frannie. She had that expression on her face, the one that forgave you when you didn't deserve it. "I can't even go and say I'm sorry to the goalie. They won't even let me go see him and apologize. That's all I want to do."

"That's good. I mean, good that you tried. Maybe you should try again in a day or so."

"Maybe."

"So what are you going to do now?"

He turned away and resumed the slapshot-a-thon. "What does it look like?"

"Like you're acting like an idiot again. You broke some guy's arm, you got tossed into jail where you got beat up, you got suspended, all because of one guy. That's an awful lot of trouble to go through, even for you."

"There's more to it than that, Frannie, just trust me on that one."

"So you've got some great reasons for hating this guy - you don't want to go around hating him for the rest of your life, do you?"

"Sounds like a plan to me."

"And no matter how it makes you act or how it makes you feel, you'll just go on hating him."

"Don't. I know what you're trying to do, but don't. I'll work this out on my own or with Curt, I don't need no psycho lecture stuff from you."

Her temper rose. "Psycho lecture stuff? This coming from the psycho himself! Yeah, Ray, you just stay here all day and smash some little tennis balls against the wall. Hey, maybe I could ask Curt and Fraser to sit against the wall and you can just fire away at them."

"Don't give me any ideas." He played a few more rounds - these ones all sailed into the open dryers - and suddenly stopped. He looked at Frannie and said quietly, "I was good at this game in school. It was the only thing I could do really well, and do better than Curt. He was so competitive, always trying to do what I did, always trying to do it better and most of the time he did. Now look at me, busting my ass to impress a son of a bitch like that."

"He's not a son of a bitch."

"Nah, he's Mr. Perfect. He can do no wrong. Well, actually he could, it would just take an act of God to get him not to admit it to you twenty years later. Are we done with this conversation, Frannie, cause I need to get all the target practice I can get imagining each little tennis ball here is Curt's measly little head."

"What the hell did he do to you?" Frannie demanded. "Geeze, for all this crap, it had better be good!"

"He went out with Stella after high school and I didn't find out about it til a couple of nights ago when he got nailed with a case of the Griswald-guilts. That good enough?"

"Okay," Frannie admitted weakly. "I guess that's pretty good."

"So I tried to keep my temper from killing the guy and I thought I was going to be able to do it until the game last night and one look at him and I lost it." "Curt called me this morning to ask how you were. He really sounded worried."

"Guilty," Ray corrected.

"Worried," Frannie concluded. "He wants to talk to you and get things straightened out. He freaked when I told him about you getting punched out in there." She rolled her eyes. "Like those idiot cops couldn't see that one coming with a foot away."

"A mile," he corrected with little enthusiasm. An inch away was more like it. One of the guys in the cell remembered him from an old bust. That's all it took. Guys he didn't even know - guys who didn't know him - unleashed their anger on him as if he was the reason they were in that cell. One guy held him and the others - six or seven, he couldn't tell - started punching and kicking him until he dropped to the floor under the mob. Then someone else wanted to take it to a lower level, another man said yes, the lower the better. It was the lower that worried him the most but Ray would never tell anyone about that. Two or three of the men and said they didn't want anything to do with it and backed away. One or two of the others wanted to "teach him a lesson" and Ray's heart stopped. The voices became loud enough that two guards finally heard the commotion in the cell. Another minute longer and it would have happened. The men separated and left him there lying on the floor, bleeding into the filthy drainpipe and gasping for air.

"You know Family Trees," Frannie was saying. "Where you have a history with people and what's your Present now is what's going to be part of the tree later. You know what I mean?"

He was staring at her blankly. "What in God's name are you talking about?"

She sighed and tried to get this right. "You have a history with people like your family and your friends. It's a Family Tree but it's with your friends. Stella and Curt, they're part of that history and so are a lot of other people, but those two are still in the history picture Now, as well as Then. Get it? People like me and Fraser and Welsh, we're in your Present but someday we'll be your History too. But if you keep getting angry at people, even if you have really good reasons, you're going to start losing the people in your present and they won't be there to become part of your future History Tree."

"Okay...." Ray said slowly as he tried to get his head around this logic. "So the people in my past---"

"Curt and Stella."

"Are my Now. And people like you and Fraser..."

"Are going to be a distant memory unless you stop being such a goofball. You have a lot of reasons to be mad at Curt and Stella, and for hearing about it now, but all of that was a long time ago and it isn't as important as right now and not ruining friendships with Fraser or anyone else. That's the important part you have to remember or else in twenty years you'll just have all that anger and no friends. You want to be like that Ray? I think it would be pretty miserable. Who knows, you might even get to like Curt and he could be a friend in the future. These people are going to be part of your history tree whether you like it or not, and if you can keep on good terms with a couple of them, that's not such a bad thing." She paused for air and glanced at her watch. "Shoot, it's later than I thought. You want to go grab a sandwich and walk me back to work?"

"Nah, thanks. I got some stuff to do around here...." He gestured at the empty basement and realized how dumb that sounded. "Well, I could find some stuff to do around here."

"Yeah, like repaint and rebuild. Gimme a call sometime, Ray. How long are you suspended for?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "Welsh didn't say and I didn't have the nerve to ask."

"Maybe it's just a short one, then."

"I almost hope not. I don't think I can face going back in there and have all the guys on the team look at me like I'm some kind of mental case, which I know I am. Maybe Welsh is right, maybe some time to cool down is okay."

"Yeah, but slapping tennis balls into the wall isn't cooling down, it looks like you're just getting warmed up again."

Her logic was astounding him, not to mention irritating him. "Yeah, right. Thanks for coming by, Frannie. Hey, don't roll your eyes like that, I wasn't being like sarcastic. I mean it. I wouldn't have come to see me if I was me."

But she rolled her eyes again, this time with a smile and said simply, "Ray, Ray, Ray."

*

Ray hesitated for a moment but he pushed the tall door open. He opened it and walked directly into Inspector Thatcher. "Hey, watch where yer---"

"Do you mind, Detective. It's bad enough you're running into people during hockey games, but you don't need to do it on Canadian soil."

"Oh, yeah, uh, sorry, I didn't see ya there." He stepped out of the way and held the door open with his foot. "Is Fraser here?"

She dropped her keys into her purse. "Come to finish off the rest of us?"

"Come on, Inspector, I just want to talk to him."

"Funny, I seem to recall most of the Flames players saying that about you."

"Haha. Where is he?"

"Go find him yourself." And she blew past him down the front steps.

Ray went into the building and stopped at Turnbull's desk. "Fraser here?"

"You can't see him," Turnbull stated flatly.

"Why not?"

He paused reverently. "He's in the garden."

"The what?"

"The garden. He's in the garden." Turnbull looked at Ray icily. "And you can't speak with him."

"You seen what I can do to a guy, Turnbull - you want to mess with me right now?"

The Constable gulped and gave in. "Side door, off the dining room."

*

Ray walked through the open door off the dining room - one he didn't know existed - and stepped down into a small, enclosed garden. Fraser was crouched in front of a rose bush, pulling up weeds. He didn't see Ray; or if he did he didn't give any sign of wanting to acknowledge him.

"Company coming?" Ray asked lightly.

Fraser slowly stood up and wiped his hands on a towel. "No." He looked over the damage on Ray's face but he didn't say anything.

"I never knew you had a garden here."

"It's Turnbull's garden. Usually, he is the only one who works in it but I needed some fresh air. It's better to think out here."

"Oh. Yeah. Think about anything in particular?"

"Whatever I wish."

"Oh. So you maybe came out here to think about telling me to go to hell, or some Mountie equivalent like that?" And suddenly, the possibility of this scared the shit out of him. What if he had gone too far last night and Fraser was the last patient camel's back to break?

"I have other things on my mind besides you, Ray."

"Yeah." Ray glanced around awkwardly and said, "Okay, well I'm going then..." He was about to leave and but Frannie's speech about trees and histories crept stubbornly into his mind. "You know, Frase, there's this Family Tree kind of thing ...." He wanted to say it perfectly but Fraser's face intimidated him and he knew he would never get the right words out. "I'm sorry for treating you like dirt last night, that was really crappy of me."

"Yes, it was." He was waiting for something and Ray couldn't figure out what.

"I didn't tell you everything about Curt, about why I wanted to kill him, so you must think I'm just some maniac without a reason, right?" Again, there was no response, just a blank stare. Ray began to panic inside and his words came fumbling and bumbling out. "He went out with Stella. Just when we were going to be married, Stella called off the wedding. She and Curt went on a couple of dates. I only found out a couple of nights ago when he told me, and since then I've been kinda wanting to bust his head in twenty different ways and it caught up to me in the game last night."

"I see."

"I see? Can you not do the 'I See' thing, Fraser, it's really discom-com-... it really makes it hard to talk. Anyway, that's why I went nuts, that's why that goalie is on his back, counting tiles. Can you please say something, like yer not going to hate me forever!"

"I'm not going to be your next Curt."

"Huh?"

"I'm not going to be another friend who, because you can't relate to, you discard, or worse, resent."

"No, Fraser, that's him, that's not you. You wouldn't ... you're my friend..." With all his courage, he added, "You're kinda like my best friend. Ever."

"I won't be your next scapegoat, Ray. I won't change who I am so that everything I do doesn't offend you. I'm willing to help, talk things out with you, whatever it takes but you're still the owner of what bothers you, not me. It wasn't my idea of sportsman-like fun to wait in that station for three hours last night. It wasn't my idea of anything but friendship to have to wake up the Lieutenant and explain what happened while he yelled in my ear. Or have more officers than I care to recall tell me to sit down and shut up every time I asked about you."

"I didn't mean what I said last night. I was really tired, really messed up. I wasn't thinking right, Frase."

"I think you knew exactly what you wanted to say. You were very clear about that."

"N-no... um, I wasn't...It's not like you think..." Ray didn't plan to tell anyone about what happened, especially Fraser, but nothing short of what could have happened in that jail cell would have explained his sheer disregard for Fraser's feelings last night. He looked down at his feet and managed to stumble over the right words. "The guys who did this to me..." He pointed to his face but he still couldn't look away from the ground. "They... a couple of 'em wanted to...take it further, to... The guards got there in .. they got there in time so it didn't... they got there in time..."

"Oh," he heard Fraser's quiet voice say. And this time, Fraser was the one who had trouble making eye contact "That's ... perhaps that would have frightened you somewhat..."

"I been trying not to think about it. I didn't tell anyone, just you. You can't tell anyone, okay?"

"No, I won't."

"So if I kinda overreacted, that's kinda part of why." He didn't say anything for a moment. "You know what was funny? When they found out I was a cop, guys I didn't even know wanted a piece of me. And I was thinking later, that's just what I was doing; blaming everyone and snapping away when they weren't exactly the cause."

"Are you referring to Curt in general or in specific?"

"Specific, I guess. What if Curt was the difference between Stell and me marrying and making it or not? I didn't want the split then, she did. How do I know that he wasn't the cause?"

"That was a long time ago. Do you really think that Curt's presence, short as it was, into her life would have made that much of an impact down the line?"

"I don't know. I haven't been able to think straight about this yet. Curt tells me something that happened a whole lifetime ago and it feels like it happened yesterday. Stella's out of town so I can't ask her. She never told me about that. I didn't go out with anyone. I didn't want to. I wanted to marry Stella."

"She married you eventually. That's real enough."

"She also divorced me."

"You have life, a career that is completely independent of Curt."

"How do I know he didn't help wreck the marriage in the first place?" He crouched over and saw the rose bush up close. He was surprised at how bright the flowers were with so little light coming into the garden.

"You might want to give some thought to the fact that there is a dissatisfaction with your life, which seeing Curt merely compounded. Even before he showed up, I noticed that you've been particularly restless."

"Yeah, that's me, terminally restless at everything."

"I wish you wouldn't put yourself down so much, Ray. You're an intelligent, creative police officer."

"He still makes me feel like the mental midget I was in high school."

"Oh, I see. He does that. All on his own, intentionally, no doubt."

"No..."

"Then stop placing the blame on him. He's just the symptom, you still own the problems. And remember that forgiving doesn't happen right away, just because you wish or expect that it will. He's wrestled with this twenty years ago, you just found out."

"I know. I wish I could feel like it was that long ago. I guess it will in time. When Stella gets back, I'll ask her about it. I don't want to talk to Curt about it anymore than I have to. I shoulda heard it from her in the first place."

Fraser nodded. He waited a moment, and decided to say something that had been at the back of his mind since Curt Griswald trotted back into Ray's life. "May I offer an observation that you may not like but perhaps should hear?"

"Uh...do I got a choice?"

"No. You may not like this but despite your bravado, one of the qualities which you posses is that you are sensitive to a great deal of things. This is a good quality but you also have the burden of being easily hurt by what others say and end up feeling less than good about yourself. I often wonder if anything I've said has unwittingly been taken harder than it should. I realize I have bad habit of correcting you, interrupting you, talking over you. These are things I will try to work out, believe me, but the fact remains that nothing I've ever said or done was ever meant to hurt you. You should no more have to apologize for who you are than Curt or I have to for the type of people we are. But don't put the blame on others, not if it isn't intended."

"I know. I forget sometimes. You guys are you guys. It's what gives you that jazz you got. And you do, Frase, so don't say yer just some ordinary guy cause yer not. It's a good thing."

"I'm different that's all. And so are you and so is everybody. I think you should have a talk with Curt, you may be surprised by what you hear."

"I've heard enough from him for a while."

Fraser nodded. "Just keep your options open."

*

Lieutenant Welsh ended the suspension after four days and Ray's return to work was silent and difficult. The hockey games continued but Ray was no longer a member of the team. He had the feeling that if he showed up to play and the Flames didn't kill him, his own teammates would. They were no more pleased about the attack on the goalie than the Flames were. He tried to apologize to the team - some accepted, some didn't. Most of them were polite. From what he heard in the washroom, the only sign of carry-over from that last game came when one of the forwards went after Fraser in the first period. Curt was the one who came to his defense. He was doing Ray's job and he was doing it better.

A week after the terrible game took place, Ray quietly slipped into the arena to watch one of the Twenty-Seventh's practices. They were doing better. He watched Fraser leading the scrimmages, Dewey catching almost everything that came his way and the others skating like veterans.

He saw Frannie down by the visitor's bench. He hoped she didn't see him because if she did, she would come up and talk to him. He hadn't spoken with her much since her visit to the laundry room and he didn't want her to know how things had gone since then. He hadn't spoken to Curt, he hadn't done what he knew he should have and just didn't have it in him to be called on it.

Frannie sat down next to him and held out her bag of popcorn. "They're looking good, huh? They've been practicing. Turns out there are some teams who need teams to play so our guys have a full schedule. They made Huey the team captain."

"Huey?" Ray repeated with surprise as he took a handful of popcorn.

"Fraser didn't want it." She didn't need to say any more. Fraser wouldn't flaunt anything in Ray's absent face and Ray appreciated the gesture, perfect or not.

"That's good. They deserve to have some fun out there."

"The Flames team is kind of nice. Actually, I made a date to see a movie with one of them next week. Perry, the tall guy who plays defense."

Surprise had a funny way of hitting him. This time it didn't make him feel badly for not acting on his own dating instincts earlier. She seemed glad that she was meeting this Perry guy. That was good enough for now.

"He's kinda cute. Really funny. Those guys have the rink for practice in half an hour, you should stay and meet him. He thinks Curt is a bit of a head-case so you two would get along."

"Hahaha."

"You spoken to Curt yet?"

"No. I will sometime, I'm just not in the mood. I'm still feeling like a complete idiot for doing everything I did just to impress some guy from high school. I figured you'd be on my case more for me being so dumb - doing stupid stuff, telling idiot lies, telling Fraser where to go, dragging you to that restaurant and begging Thatcher not to blow the cover. Making like you and I are some hot item, all for that guy! Like you'd go to dinner with me for any other reason than to make Curt or Fraser - or whoever the hell else you got eyes for - jealous."

"How do you know if I'd go to dinner with you for any other reason - you never even asked."

"You mean you would?"

"Yeah, in some century. I wouldn't go with that old Ray though. He's got attitude up to his eyebrows."

He softened. "So yer sayin' some other time if the nice Ray comes back...."

"Yeah, maybe. He's a lot more fun to be around than the other guy. He owes me a dinner, okay?"

He smiled at her for the first time in a long time. "You got it, Frannie."

*

Ray left the arena before the Twenty-Seventh practice ended. He wasn't up for game-stories or polite silences. He opened the back door and walked onto the parking lot. It was colder than usual this time of year and Ray pulled his jacket in tightly. He didn't see who was lumbering towards him, hauling something awkward over his shoulder.

Curt nodded hello and tried to decide if he should keep walking. He had a bag of hockey equipment strapped over his shoulder. He carried it as though it were a fire victim.

"Hey, Ray."

The two men stopped several feet apart.

"Hi Curt."

"You been okay?"

If he was referring to life in the jail cell or life in general, Ray couldn't tell so he just shrugged. "I'm good."

"You look better than I heard." Curt took in a deep breath. "I'm sorry about Stella. And telling you. Not sure which I'm sorry about most. You can hate me all you want for it, I just wanted to say it clean."

"Okay. I heard it. Thanks."

There was the kind of silence that followed which told you flat out you could stay - or you could leave - but you'd better make the right choice. Ray leaned on one foot and said quietly, "Frannie and me aren't dating. I only made that stuff up to look good."

"Yeah, I figured that out. I can't believe you thought you had to do that cause of me. Why the hell were you trying to impress me?"

"Being an idiot, I guess. That's my reason for a lot of things lately."

"You were acting like that before I told you about Stella. Look, I know I'm pushy, I know I'm a pain-in-the-ass about things but that's me and I'm not going to change or apologize for wanting to be friendly, or remember good times with you. I'll apologize when I do something dumb or hurtful, but I won't for who I am."

"I know that now. I never told you this but I always thought you were this super-ace who did everything great and I did everything lousy. Seeing you again just kinda brought all of that back. That's why I was acting like I did."

"And you know why I act like I do around you? Cause I always thought that if I had even an ounce of the juice you had, I could have been like you, and that's pretty much what I wanted to be back then."

"Yer kidding."

"Do I sound like I'm kidding? Would I say that out loud, outside a hockey arena, freezing in this weather if I was kidding? Nobody wants you to be anything, Ray, get that straight. I liked you just the way you were then. I sort of like you the way you are now but the jury's still out on that one. And for the record, if I was looking at Meg the other night the way you were looking at Frannie, I'd be getting off my ass and doing something about it instead of letting her go to some butt-kissing, brown-nose like Perry. I mean, sure, he's great on defense and he's the kind of guy you want on your team for a Five-Alarm but ...." He stopped and shook his head. "But I'm not you, so you do what you want."

This caught Ray off guard. "Uh, ya. Okay."

"Smitty said you dropped by. He was glad you came."

"He was pretty okay about everything, considering."

"Smitty's a good guy. The other guys on the team may not be so forgiving yet."

"Yeah, I passed a few of them on the way out." He hadn't been glared at like that since Stella's parents heard about the divorce three months after it took place.

"You still took out one of our guys for no good reason - well, that's debatable, but not to them. That's what teammates do, work or sport, they stick up for each other. And friends do that too. Maybe you and me'll be friends again someday, who knows. I'm tired of waiting. You let me know. See you around, Ray."

"See ya, Curt." He watched Curt disappear into the arena, his hockey bag weaving awkwardly over his shoulder. For a moment, Ray wanted to run after him and set the bag correctly before it caught on the door, but he wondered if Curt would want his help. By the time he took a step towards the door it was too late. Curt had gone inside to join the others. That was all right, Ray decided, as he walked across the parking lot. He would make sure there would be a next time.

THE END