Takes place right after Good for the Soul, so, yeah . . . a few spoilers. Slightly AU: this Fraser seems to think he has his own apartment.

F/K; implied M/M; Rated G

Standard disclaimers apply vis-á-vis Paul Haggis and/or Alliance. If I did own them, I'd set them free to compete in the marketplace although I consider their monopoly not only inevitable but wholly desirable.

© 1999 AuKestrel

By tacit agreement Ray, Lieutenant Welsh, and I have begun tidying the bullpen as people depart, some desultorily helping on their way to the door. The good-byes decrease in frequency as the room empties, and soon there are only the three of us left. It is rather late, after all, and undoubtedly there are children waiting to be tucked in with visions of sugarplums.

Ray, still wearing my Stetson, is pushing a dust mop around. Slowly, as if he doesn't care how quickly he gets finished. He, like me, has nowhere to go tonight. Or tomorrow. My Stetson looks rather nice on him. Francesca was teasing me, or flirting, perhaps, trying to show us all how she cannot wear hats, any sort of hat, and she pulled off mine to demonstrate. Ray is rather possessive of my hat for some reason and he snatched it off her head, put it back on mine, and said, "The hat is sacred, okay?" He was trying to joke but Francesca's eyes narrowed. To avert the squabble sure to follow, I removed my hat and placed it on Ray's head, to the accompanying laughter of the group around the Christmas tree, and Francesca was able to remark sarcastically that now it needed a sprinkling of holy water.

Lieutenant Welsh, having removed all the tinsel and other decorations from the desks and walls, is now standing by the remaining refreshments, looking a trifle frazzled. He looks over at me. "You want any of this, Constable?"

I shake my head. "No, thank you." I am almost finished removing the ornaments from the tree and soon will be able to remove the lights. Lieutenant Welsh thought that perhaps it would be best if the tree were not to remain, an admitted fire hazard, for a long weekend in the station.

The lieutenant raises his voice to call to Ray. "How 'bout you, Vecchio?"

Ray pushes the dust mop in the corner and slowly walks over to Lieutenant Welsh.

~~~

"Do you think, just tonight, just us, you could call me by my real name?" I say to Welsh. He looks a little startled, then covers it up. Didn't mean to hurt his feelings. I just wanna be myself tonight. Or maybe I wanna be someone else, but not Vecchio. Fraser looks over at us and then looks back at the tree. He probably heard. He probably thinks I'm dissing his best buddy Vecchio again. Hurt his feelings too.

"Sorry," I say gruffly, loud enough for Fraser to overhear. "Stella got on my nerves."

"Yeah," Welsh says. "Yeah, mine used to too. Sorry, Kowalski."

"So what'd you want?"

"You want any of this food?"

"Nah. Didn't care for it the first time around. Not much good at recycling."

Welsh sighs and absentmindedly eats a gherkin as he starts pitching stuff into the garbage. I move around the table to help him, practicing my aim. I miss a couple of times but Welsh just grins instead of yelling at me. He stands back and tries his hand at it. Pretty soon we are making an even bigger mess as we move further and further back from the garbage can and miss more and more often.

Fraser's finished taking the lights off the tree and has wrapped them neatly around a piece of cardboard, which he puts on top of the ornaments in a box. For someone who had buckthorns or whatever they were for Christmas trees, he knows his way around a tree. He looks over at us and shakes his head and smiles. I smile back. Welsh remembers who he is and starts getting gruff again.

"Look at that mess you made, Kowalski. It better be cleaned up in five minutes." But he moves around the table and starts picking the floor up himself. I help him, and then get rid of the rest of the mess, except the punch bowl, by bundling everything into the paper tablecloth and throwing the whole thing into the garbage.

Fraser calls over, "Dramatic but effective, Ray."

I shrug. "It's finished."

Welsh pours himself another cup of punch, offers me one. I don't say no.

"Constable, you need any help taking the tree down?" he asks Fraser.

Fraser looks over. "No, sir. Almost finished."

We both lean against the table and watch him run the dust mop under the tree. I see the picture frame on Frannie's desk and go over to get it, bring it back to the table where Welsh is chilling. Wonder who gave him this? Who found this photo of him and his parents? Must have been Inspector Thatcher. Sometimes I think she has a heart after all. Welsh is looking at it too. Looks a little sad, for a minute. The Mountie's alone.

"Constable, aren't you heading back to Canada?" he asks.

Fraser dumps out the dustpan and puts it down by the dust mop. "No, I'm afraid not," he says, walking slowly to join us. He's lucky nothing got broken in that alley. Very lucky. "Both constables and Inspector Thatcher wanted leave. I didn't need any."

"So you're holding down the fort."

"Yes, sir." I'm surprised Fraser doesn't pretend not to know what that means and then realise that he doesn't have to, with us. Makes me feel good inside.

"Was that true?" I ask Fraser abruptly. "What you said about the buckthorn tree and stuff?"

"Of course, Ray," he says, surprised that I would doubt him.

"Not an Inuit story?"

"Those are often true as well, Ray. Or they have, at least, a grounding in fact. Or observation." He quirks that eyebrow at me and Welsh and I both snicker. Mountie's more human than I've seen him in a while. More open. Smilin' in spite of that busted lip.

"We always had a big Christmas tree," Welsh says slowly. "We never got to see it until Christmas morning. My mother actually put paper over the keyhole of the living room door. And goose. Roast goose. My mother was German so she always wanted the roast goose on November 11^th. And my father, whose ancestry is obvious, he always wanted it on Christmas. Every year they'd argue all fall. Every year, we'd have roast goose on St. Martin's Day. And then every year she'd pull a roast goose out of the oven on Christmas Day too."

"That's a good memory," Fraser says quietly.

Welsh pulls himself out of the past. "Yeah, Red. It is."

Fraser goes around to pour himself a cup of punch and leans against the table with the rest of us. We hang a while, in silence.

"How about you, Kowalski? Aren't your parents here?"

"Nah. They went to visit the grandchildren. My brother's kids." Fraser looks at me swiftly, sharply, before looking down at his cup again. "It doesn't matter. Stella was never big into Christmas. We didn't really celebrate except for a couple of presents."

Fraser says, "That's odd. My impression of your mother is that Christmas would have been something she enjoyed."

"Oh, my mom, hell, yeah. You haven't lived 'til you've celebrated Christmas Polish-style, Fraser. It starts in November with the goose thing too. And then you gotta make the pierniki. I can still smell those. You gotta make those in advance."

"What are they?"

I shrug. "Pierniki. I dunno. Kinda like gingerbread only better. I know they got honey in 'em."

"Possibly similar to Lebkuchen," Fraser says to Welsh.

"Ah."

"The longer they sit the better they are. And my grandma used to make cream horns, the real kind, but my mom never had the patience to sit and make the dough and wrap it around those molds. It takes almost a whole month just to make the basic food. Mom always made the sauerkraut herself. And we always had to make pajaki, ornaments for the tree, outta straw."

Fraser goes to a box on my desk, the box that Turnbull brought in for him before we exchanged presents, and returns with it to give me a handful of straw with a smile.

"Jeez, Frase, it's been years." But my hands remember and I start wrapping and braiding as I talk. "Kwas. Fermented beet juice."

They both laugh. I laugh too. "Well, when you're desperate, I guess you're desperate. My grandma used to make it but by the time I was old enough to remember my dad just bought it. You gotta have it to make barszcz."
"Borscht?" Welsh asks.

Fraser's watching me and he picks up some straw too, his big hands with their deft fingers copying what I'm doing.

"Hell, no, much better than borscht." I snort. "Those Russians don't know anything about real food, Lieutenant.

"But the time when you know Christmas is coming, is almost here, is when Mom starts making the bigos. All kinds of meats - lamb, pork, ham, you name it - and homemade kielbasa, and sauerkraut. You can smell it cooking all up and down the street. It's better if it sits, too, so she always makes it a couple days ahead of time for the wilja supper."

I'm back in my childhood, the straw slipping through my fingers, the familiar names that I haven't heard or said in so long rolling off my tongue like yesterday.

"Wilja?" Fraser asks quietly, trying not to break my concentration.
"Supper. Supper on Christmas Eve. That was kinda our big celebration, although lunch on Christmas Day was pretty substantial too. We had to help in the kitchen all morning, taking turns crackin' nuts and grinding the poppyseeds for the kutia and the strucel z makem but once the strucel was rising they let us go because us stompin' around the kitchen might make it fall.

"So we'd clean some more and maybe make some more ornaments and then they'd send us outside to watch for the first star. That was a big deal 'cause once we saw it we could finally eat.

"And then we'd sit at the table, oh, and the table always has an extra place set for Mary just in case she comes knocking, and watch Mom and Dad do the oplatek." I look up at them, sighing. "You wanna know what those are too, don't you."

Welsh grins. "Any time you're talking about food, Kowalski, I'm paying real close attention."

"Little wafers, embossed with scenes from the Nativity, and blessed. So Mom and Dad have to each break one and then give the other person a piece, and eat it. Then they hug and do all the happy happy joy joy stuff. Then we each get one and we hurry through those so we can eat. And we eat and eat and eat."

My mouth is actually watering and I wish for a minute that I'd gone ahead and gone with Mom and Dad. But my brother's wife isn't Polish and I doubt that there'll be any bigos or even pierniki there, unless Mom took some with her. Hope she did. The niece and nephew gotta understand where their crazy uncle and their dad came from. Not that I ever see them. Pictures in the obligatory Christmas card is all. I look at the table and realise that Fraser and I have a pile of pajaki goin' on here.

"Why am I not surprised that yer good at that, Frase?" I say.

"You're not too bad yourself, Ray," he says, nodding at my pile.

"It's funny what you remember," I say, and they both make grunts of assent and we fall silent again, the only sound the rustle of straw against our hands. Almost absentmindedly I start humming a half forgotten tune.

"Is that Chopin?" Fraser asks after a few moments. I look at him, puzzled, then realise what I was doing.

"Um, it's Lulaj'ze Jezuniu," I say. "It's just traditional."

"It's Chopin," Fraser says with a grin. "I can't pronounce that."

"Lulaj'ze Jezuniu. And yer normal Polish person today would probably die laughin' to hear me mangle it."

After a while Welsh says, "Springerle. Pfeffernusse. Zimtsterne."

"Gesundheit," I say.

He thumps me on the back, good-naturedly. "Cookies. Kleingebäck. I can still taste those. And Lebkuchen, like Fraser said. We mostly got presents on St Nicholas Day, though. But always a few from the Christkindl."

"We got ours from Mother Star," I say. "Gwiadzka."

"Gesundheit," Welsh says, getting his own back.

Fraser just smiles at both of us, his fingers still moving through the straw.

"So Stella didn't do Christmas," Welsh says.

"Nah."

We sit a few minutes longer in silence.

"I think her parents just weren't around much. I know when we were married they spent a couple Christmases in Switzerland. She seemed to like Christmas with my family."

"Possibly it became her family," Fraser says quietly.

"Yeah." That could explain why Stella and my mom are still close. Maybe Stella needed to belong to something even if it couldn't be me. Us.

"You should do Christmas, Ray," Fraser says, still quietly.

I laugh. "Hell, Fraser, I don't know how to cook all that stuff!"

He and Welsh both grin at that.

"Learn," Fraser says. "There is more to food than hot water and instant coffee, you know."

"Yeah, tell me about it, Mr. Pemmican Gourmet. And you forgot the M & Ms."

Fraser achieves a mock shudder. "I had almost succeeded in putting those out of my mind."

From the street, in the silence, we hear the distant chiming of bells. We've been sitting here for over two hours, talking and not talking.

"Merry Christmas, Constable, Detective," Welsh says, after the twelfth stroke dies away.

"Merry Christmas," we echo.

Welsh gets to his feet, looks around.

Fraser gets to his feet too, sweeping the finished pajaki into the box of straw. I drop the one I'm working on in there too.

"Guess it's time to hit the hay," I say.

Fraser starts talking, fast, like he's afraid we'll interrupt.

"I, er, actually had planned a small dinner tomorrow. Today. If you feel so inclined I would be honoured if you would join me. Four o'clock? At the Consulate?"

Hell, I've never been able to say no to Fraser, even when it involves endangering my life in wildly bizarre ways, and I'm not gonna say no now to some Christmas pemmican with the guy who's become my best friend. "Sure, Fraser. No caribou, right?"

"In Chicago, Ray?"

Welsh, I've always suspected, has a similar problem in saying no to Fraser and right now is no exception.

"Thank you, kindly, Constable. I'll be there."

~~~~

Welsh and I get to the Consulate at almost the same time. Bein' punctual, for the Mountie, who appreciates such things.

Fraser opens the door before we have a chance to knock and I get the feeling that he is happy and even a little surprised to see us. What'd he think, we'd say we're coming an' not show? Then I think about him alone in the Consulate, with everyone gone, no rotten successful brothers to be jealous of, no mom, no dad, not even an ex wife to jerk his chain, and I feel even worse. I shoulda come over this morning and helped him.

Welsh is sniffing the air and looks at Fraser in amazement, at the same time I place the smell, something I haven't smelled in probably ten years.

"Goose, Fraser?" Welsh says, unbelieving. "Where'd you find a goose?"

Fraser looks back over his shoulder, a mischievous smile on his face, as he leads us back to the dining room. "It's entirely domestic and legal, I assure you, Lieutenant."

We both chuckle and then stop dead in the dining room.

Fraser's got four places set. He remembers everything. Our pajaki are all over the table. He's rolled out the Consular linen and dishes, that much is clear, and there's even a bottle of wine at the head of the table, already open and breathing. He motions Welsh to the head of the table.

"Dinner - or supper, if you will - is actually ready and I don't think we can wait for the first star," he says.

"I'll pour the wine," Welsh says as I follow Fraser into the kitchen. He hands me the goose, already carved, and picks up a couple of covered dishes as we return to the dining room. I smell more vaguely familiar smells but I can't quite place them. I turn to follow Fraser again and he shoos me towards a seat.

"This is almost all of it," he says, and disappears again.

He comes back juggling three more covered dishes, sets them down, and sits down, looking at us expectantly. Welsh spears some goose and passes it to me. Fraser passes Welsh one of the dishes. He opens it and looks up at Fraser in amazement. "Pellkartoffeln und Quark."

Fraser grins. Hands me a dish.

"Bigos? Fraser, how the hell - " It smells real. Smells authentic. Smells like it's been sitting for two or three days.

Fraser's eyes are dancing now and he opens the rest of the dishes. Barszcz. Red cabbage that makes Welsh's eyes light up again. Sauerkraut. And a plate of pemmican. That breaks the silence and we start laughing.

It isn't until I'm on my second helping of bigos that I come up for air and get around to asking Fraser how. How he pulled this together out of thin air on Christmas Day.

"It was quite simple, Ray. My downstairs neighbour in my new apartment is Polish. I don't know if you've met her yet. Mrs. Wienczkowski. And I had met Frau Ryan professionally, on a case. She teaches German at a local school and despite her married name is extremely German. They were both more than pleased to help you out. In fact, they invited us all for dinner. But I thought perhaps you would prefer more of a smorgasbord." He gets up and goes to the kitchen and brings back a plate of, what else, cookies. Pierniki and some kinda gingerbread thing, one of which Welsh gloms onto instantly.

"Lebkuchen! Springerle! Pfeffernusse!"

Fraser smiles. "You didn't think they'd let me leave without dessert, did you? But I'm sorry, Ray, no strucel. She didn't make it this year."

Welsh leans back in his chair, drains his glass. "Constable, you are a constant source of amazement to me."

"I'm sorry, sir," Fraser says, but he's smiling again.

"No reprimand needed this time, Constable."

"Best Christmas present I ever had, Fraser, and that includes the year I got the beebee gun," I say finally, after getting my mouth around a piernik.

He looks startled and then happy. "Thank you, Ray."

"Thank you, Fraser. And I'm sorry I didn't get you anything."

He laughs, like he's amazed. "You came. To spend Christmas with me. What more do we need?"

"I'll take some more of that barszcz, for starters," Welsh says. "And some Weihnachtgans."

But I am looking at Fraser and I suddenly realise what I need. And that I can never have it. But at least I can be friends with it. And reach a shaky hand for my glass and follow Welsh's lead, draining it. He didn't notice; he was passing the goose to Welsh.

He looks over at me. "Happy Christmas, Ray."

"You have no idea, Fraser."