WIP Amnesty Day 5, Part 3

[dira]

Ray took David aside while Fraser was studying - probably memorizing - the information booklet. They were just inside the gates, and Ray moved the kid around so he couldn’t see anything but the parking lot over Ray’s shoulder, so he wouldn’t be distracted.

“Okay, buddy, listen up, I gotta tell you something.” David glanced automatically toward Fraser, but then looked back at Ray and nodded solemnly. “Okay, I don’t know if you noticed, but Ben didn’t really want me to come to the zoo today.” David nodded again, apparently willing to accept that explanation for whatever he’d picked up on this morning at breakfast. “See, the thing is, I get distracted real easy. Usually Dief helps your brother keep an eye on me, y’know, so I don’t wander off and get lost, but Dief’s not allowed at the zoo, so Ben’s going to have to watch me all by himself today, unless you think you could help him out.”

David nodded enthusiastically. “I can help, Ray.”

“Okay, good, because I know he wouldn’t want to bother you about it when you’re having fun, but it’ll make things easier. So, what you do is, just try to keep an eye out, okay? If you look around and I’ve gotten further away than,” he backed up, awkwardly in his crouched position, until he was at arm’s length, “like this, you just come over and grab me, okay? My hand, or my belt, or whatever you can reach, just pull me over to where I’m supposed to be. You think you can do that?” David nodded again.

Ray took a deep breath. “Okay, and this is the important part. If I get so far away from you that you can’t see me, or if you can’t see Ben, either, if he’s looking for me or something, then you need to find somebody who works at the zoo, as fast you can. Run right to them, as soon as you spot one, and tell them that I’m lost, or Ben’s lost, and they’ll help you find us. Okay? Say it back to me, tell me what you’ll do if I go missing.”

David was taking this very seriously, which was good, and also appeared kind of amused at the prospect of Ray getting lost, which was even better. The trick was to keep him from being scared, after all. “If I can’t see you, I go fast as I can to somebody who works at the zoo and tell them you’re lost, and they’ll help me find you.”

“Bingo.” Ray tapped the brim of David’s bright red hat. “You won’t forget, will you?”

David shook his head, and just then Fraser walked back over, with a funny look on his face that made Ray think he’d heard at least part of that. “Come on, David,” he said, as Ray straightened up. “Look, the lions are right here, to our left.”

***

They timed their arrival at the polar bear habitat to coincide with feeding, which meant that they had to view the polar bears from the railings outside and above their pool, rather than visit the underwater windows. David dashed ahead when the polar bears came into view, leaving Fraser to follow behind with Ray at his side.

“You, um,” Ray glanced sideways at him for a moment, then looked down intently into his bag of popcorn. “You holding up okay, Fraser? It’s hot, we might wanna get going soon.”

He couldn’t help smiling at Ray’s thoughtfulness. He was still fighting back the uneasiness that had dogged him since they’d arrived at the zoo, though he could hardly imagine a more different set of circumstances from his last visit. “I’m fine, Ray. And David is very excited to see the polar bears.”

Ray looked up at him again, then back down to his popcorn, before saying casually, “And that’s what counts, right? He’s a kid, so you gotta look out for what he wants.”

They’d nearly caught up to David now; he was standing on the bottom railing, his hands wrapped around the vertical bars, peering down into the habitat, where the polar bears were climbing out of the water, obviously aware that they would be fed soon. “Yes, Ray,” he said, smiling at the excited look on his brother’s face, “that’s what counts.”

Ray nodded into his popcorn, and drifted away, apparently seeking a better vantage, as Ben took his place at David’s side. David looked up at him with a blinding smile, and, like the perspective shift of a Necker cube, the Zoo was no longer Victoria’s place that he was visiting with David - it was David’s place, where he had been before, in less happy times. He smiled back, and looked down at the polar bears, who watched the zookeeper taking her position with a tub of food. “David,” he said softly, after a moment, “you probably shouldn’t stand on the railing.”

David jumped down quickly, shoving his hands into his pockets but still smiling, and went on watching the show, as the polar bears caught the food that was thrown down, or dived after it into the pool. This held David’s attention for a while, but in time he began to fidget, and then edged along the railing, ducking around a couple of other people, to the information board which displayed a few basic facts about the bears. The crowd was thin, and David was still barely a meter away, so Fraser stayed where he was, and looked up to see where Ray had gone.

He quickly spotted Ray, at the far end of the railing, leaning one hip against it and making no effort to even appear interested in the bears; he was staring across the curve of the railing in their direction. He met Fraser’s eyes with a small smile, and then looked to David, drawing Fraser to look at him as well.

David stood staring intently at the board, one hand on its surface, tracing the bold letters at the top: POLAR BEAR. His lips moved around the shape of the words, and Ben realized he was watching David read. He felt pride welling, a broad grin stretching his face, and he looked up again to share the moment with Ray, but his partner had turned away to face the bears, leaning his arms on the railing, and was frowning down at them. His smile was a little faded when he looked down again at David, and met his eyes. David smiled at him and pointed to the words. “It says polar bear, doesn’t it?”

Ben nodded, and David looked back down, tracing the words with one finger and then looking up and around - trying, he realized, to locate Ray. After a moment David spotted him, and, with a small tut of impatience, dashed off, dodging around other zoo visitors, easily visible as his red-capped head bobbed along. Fraser watched from where he stood as David reached Ray’s side and immediately hooked his fingers through the bracelet on his right wrist, tugging his hand away from the railing and earning a bright smile from Ray.

“*Ray*,” he heard David say, voice a little thinned by the distance, “How did you get all the way over here?” He turned, hauling Ray by his bracelet as he might have a dog by its collar, and brought him back to where Fraser stood. David smiled proudly up at Ben while Ray looked a bit bemused, but he didn’t drop his grip on Ray’s bracelet, as though he suspected Ray might bolt.

“Okay,” Ray said brightly, “so we saw the polar bears, where to next?”

Fraser looked around, and David swung his hand idly, dragging Ray’s wrist back and forth, sunlight glinting on the bracelet. Ray, after a moment, answered his own question. “Ooh, the cotton candy guy is out - David, come on, you wanna try some cotton candy? I bet you never had this stuff before.”

Fraser sighed. David had also never, before today, had Superman ice cream with sprinkles, corn dogs, candy apples, circus peanuts, pretzels drizzled with orangey ‘cheese’, or popcorn. “Ray,” he said, as he had been saying, futilely, all day, “Cotton candy–-”

“Oh, come on, Frase, live a little. David, you wanna try some cotton candy, right? You’re in America now, after all.”

David nodded eagerly, looking up at Fraser, who knew that this meant *he* was going to have to eat cotton candy, just like everything else. He wasn’t at all certain his stomach could handle it; Ray and David appeared to possess superhuman digestive abilities. “Oh, all right, then. Cotton candy.”

***

They were standing by the sea lion tank when David suddenly let go of his bracelet. Ray looked down in time to see him wrap his arms around his middle, duck his head, and then puke, violently, all over the bars. He stepped back automatically, trying to clear the splash radius, but Fraser dropped to his knees, put one hand on the kid’s belly and the other on his back, just as his legs went out from under him and he continued to retch, spewing so much multi-colored yick that Ray had to turn his head away, swallowing hard, his own stomach lurching in sympathy.

Two zoo workers dashed up, and Ray forced himself to look again. David was on his knees now, his head hanging, and Fraser was sort of half-supporting him. Fraser’s mouth was tight, his eyes hard, and Ray took another involuntary step back because Fraser was *pissed off*, and Ray knew exactly who was to blame here. God, how could he be so stupid? He’d made the kid *sick*.

Fraser’s angry expression vanished in another second, papered over with a polite Mountie look for the nice girl in the docent shirt who stepped up while the guy with the walkie talkie moved a little way away, talking to somebody in a familiar tone of quiet urgency, and waving other people off.

The docent shifted slightly, and Ray realized she was *looking* at the puke. He forced himself to look, too, and then couldn’t look away from the bright red streak in the middle of the other colors. “Oh, Jesus,” he said, feeling the panic start, “is that–-”

“I doubt it, Ray,” Fraser said, breaking off whispering to David, and he might look polite but his voice was hard as nails. “It would be darker.”

“Did he have cotton candy?” Ray looked over at the docent, who was smiling helpfully, and nodded. She nodded back, her nose wrinkling a little. “It’s the cotton candy dye, it looks like that. We, um, see that a lot.”

Ray nodded again stupidly, and looked away, anywhere but at Fraser, talking softly to David, who was just huddled there on the ground, shivering in the ninety degree heat. A little electric cart with a red cross on the side pulled up, and a zoo guy in a blue shirt hopped out. “Hi there,” he said, to Fraser. “If you could just bring him along in the cart, we’ll take you over to the first aid station and get him checked out. Are you his parent?” The guy shot a weird look at Ray, like he knew *he* couldn’t possibly be the adult responsible for a kid.

Ray stared down at the concrete as Fraser gathered David up into his arms. “I’m his guardian, yes,” Fraser said, and as he stood, David’s red hat fell off his head, dropped onto the ground and rolled away a little.

The docent and the blue shirt guy walked with Fraser and the kid over to the little cart, which only had two seats, and then they took off and the guy with the walkie talkie was waving to somebody with a mop. “Sir,” he said, as the cleaning person approached, and Ray shook himself into motion. He picked up the hat, turning it over and over in his hands as he walked toward the parking lot. David would want a clean shirt, and there was a whole bag of them in the car.

He spotted the little first aid cart pulled up outside the building right by the gate, where Fraser had gotten that information booklet earlier. Ray hustled over to the car, popped the trunk and picked out the first shirt that came to hand, a bright red t-shirt with a yellow lightning bolt on the front. On the way back, though, his footsteps dragged.

The kid would be fine, right? He had to be fine. Okay, so Ray had never seen anybody sick up what looked like half their own body mass in six different colors, none of them found in nature, but that didn’t mean anything. And Fraser... Well, Fraser would probably start speaking to him again, eventually, as long as the kid was okay. Fraser had been mad at him before, and they’d gotten over it.

Of course, he’d never hurt somebody Fraser cared about as much as he cared about David, before, even accidentally. The first aid station was right inside the gate, so even walking slow he got there before he was really ready. He headed inside, followed a couple of signs, and soon spotted Fraser standing in an open doorway. The building was quiet and cool and dim, after the blinding afternoon outside, and his footsteps seemed loud as he walked down the short hallway. Fraser looked up as he approached, and gave him a more-or-less friendly look he couldn’t quite read. “Ah, there you are. David was worried you’d gotten lost.”

Ray winced. Hell, he’d fed the kid that line, and never thought... “He’s okay, then?”

Fraser nodded, gesturing Ray into the room, and there was David, sitting up on a cot in a bright blue t-shirt with a polar bear on the front and the words *Lincoln Park Zoo*. Ray stuffed the shirt he was carrying - so small, the kid was so small and breakable-looking right now - into one pocket of his baggy shorts. The hat was still in his hands, still turning around and around. David looked up from watching the nurse who sat on the edge of the bed take his blood pressure - what, they thought he was going to stroke out? - and smiled at Ray. This smile, at least, Ray could read, even without David saying, “There you are, Ray!”

“Yeah, buddy, here I am. How you doing?”

David opened his mouth to answer, but the nurse, standing up, cut him off. “He’s fine, or he will be, when he’s rehydrated a bit. Mr. Fraser, could you come with me? There are some forms we’ll need you to sign.”

Ray looked quickly to Fraser, and for a second it was just like working - just a half-blink, you go that way, I’ll go this way, watch your back, and then Fraser was following the nice lady out the door while Ray went to sit on the edge of the bed by David. “That’s a nice shirt you got there.”

David picked at it and nodded, but he was frowning, and Ray could add one and one and get two: Fraser had left the room, and David’s brave trooper smile had gone with him. “Hey, hey.” David looked up. “You okay?”

David looked down again and shrugged, and then said, in a very tiny voice, “Ben carried me. Like I was a baby. They’re all treating me like a baby.”

“Hey, take it from me,” Ray said, “when you’re not feeling so hot, sometimes you gotta be carried. Ben carried me up a whole mountain one time, when we were chasing some bad guys up North and I got sick.”

David looked up, and tilted his head curiously. “Oh - Muldoon?”

Ray grinned, startled. “Yeah, you heard that story?”

David nodded. “I didn’t hear the part with you, though, he didn’t say much about that.”

Ray frowned. That was weird. “Ben didn’t tell you that I was there?”

David shook his head quickly. “Ben didn’t tell me the story. M–-a Mountie did. I guess he didn’t know you.”
He’d been staying with Mounties, hadn’t he, before Fraser got up there? They must have told him stories about his brother, got him all wound up. No wonder he thought Ben was like unto God. “Oh. Well, I was there.”

David nodded, back to staring at his lap. “I’m sorry, anyway,” Ray added, finding it a bit odd to talk to the top of his head. “Didn’t mean to make you sick.”

David looked up with an earnest face that proved the whole nature/nurture thing all came down to genes. “It wasn’t your fault, Ray.”

Ray squinted at the kid, gave him an almost professional interrogation stare. “Yeah, but I’m sorry anyway.” The earnest face started to look a bit frayed, which was just where Ray wanted him. “So I’m going to ask you something, okay? And I want you to answer me, because I know you wouldn’t tell me something that’s not true.”

David looked down again, but nodded, and Ray said quietly, “When, exactly, did your stomach start to feel bad?”

David shrugged, but Ray waited him out in silence until he said, barely audible, “After lunch.”

Which was before they even *got* to the zoo - and then he’d eaten everything Ray could find a vendor for? He kept his voice pretty gentle, because the kid was just a kid, and not going to hold out on him, and feeling bad enough already. “Did you actually want any of the stuff I gave you? Or did you feel sick and like you didn’t want to eat anything?”

Little tiny fingers, tangling in the hem of the bright blue shirt. “Sick.”

Ray sighed. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

David looked up then, glanced toward the door, the one Fraser had left through, and then at Ray.

He swallowed hard, suddenly feeling sicker than he had since he saw the kid puke. “You didn’t say because you didn’t want Ben to think you’re a baby?”

David nodded, looking relieved that Ray understood, and Ray did feel kind of good that he could get the kid like that, with the parts of his brain that weren’t starting to seriously freak out.

“David, buddy, you gotta tell Ben stuff like that, so he can make it right - otherwise this happens, and it’s way worse.”

David looked away; he nodded, knew he didn’t have a leg to stand on, but Ray knew for a fact that next time he wasn’t going to say anything either. Stubborn Mountie genes, and *God* it sucked to be a cop, because he knew *exactly* what could happen to a little kid who wouldn’t tell anybody when he didn’t feel right about something. He had to try, he had to fix this.

“Okay, look, I can’t make you tell Ben when something’s wrong, even though you should and he won’t think you’re a baby, and I know that because he doesn’t think I am and I tell him just about everything.”

David looked up at him like he knew that there was a ‘but’ coming. “But if you won’t tell him, you gotta tell *somebody*, okay? So how about, next time you don’t feel right - if you’re feeling sick or anything else, anything at all, you’re sad or you’re scared or something just doesn’t seem right to you, if you don’t wanna tell Ben, how about–-” Ray took a deep breath, because he had to be cool about this, just like the getting lost thing, the key was not to make the kid freak out, “How about you tell me, huh? Just whisper in my ear, if you need to, whatever, Ben won’t know and then I can take care of things for you and he’s none the wiser.”

David, thank God, was looking like he could buy that one.

“Whaddya think, buddy, you think you could do that?”

David nodded, slowly. “Okay,” Ray took a breath. “Okay, good. You promise?”

David nodded again. “I promise.” And then he looked down at Ray’s hands, and Ray realized that he was still holding the hat, turning it around and around and around, curling the brim in one hand. David looked at him, and it was just like looking at Fraser, and he knew what to do; he put the hat on the kid’s head, and David smiled at him, straightened it a little, and Ray let out that breath he’d been holding. Everything was going to be fine.

***

When David had had his medically-recommended cup of orange juice and been settled on the couch for a nap with Wally tucked securely under his arm and Dief lying on the floor to keep watch, Fraser went out into the main living area and stood looking down at Rachel Boileau’s trunk. It still stood where he and Ray had dropped it the night before, as much out of the way as anything could be in the relatively small space.

He looked up from contemplating the yellow strapping holding it closed to see Ray, standing at the kitchen counter drinking a glass of water, and watching him. Ray quickly turned away when Fraser met his eyes, and he was reminded strongly of the way David had avoided him after his mother’s funeral, though he could not fathom what he had done to make Ray so skittish. He thought Ray would flee to his bedroom, where he’d been since their return from the Zoo, or leave the apartment altogether, and kept his eyes down on the trunk, not wanting to make him more uncomfortable than he already was. He was pleasantly surprised to hear footsteps quietly approaching, and when Ray thrust a full glass of water into his field of vision, he accepted it, lifting his face to smile at Ray, who smiled uncertainly back.

Ray waited until he had a mouthful of water to say, “Look, Fraser, you got every right to be mad, but I’m really sorry, you know that, right?”

He swallowed hard as he frowned. “Ray?”

Ray looked away, obviously frustrated at his lack of immediate understanding. “I said I’m sorry, Fraser. Y’know, today, when I made David sick, you remember that?”

Fraser felt his eyes go wide, and said quickly, “Ray, there’s no need–-”

Ray, unaccountably, muttered “*Frasers*,” under his breath, and then said, “Look, I fed the kid all the junk food I could lay hands on even though you kept telling me not to, and then he barfed a *rainbow*, Fraser. That was my fault, and I’m sorry, and you can’t *tell* me you’re not mad, because I saw your face.”

Fraser looked away and sighed. “It’s true that I was, and am, angry, Ray, but only with myself. David hasn’t been in my care even a week, and already I’ve failed rather spectacularly to look after him properly.”

Ray started to protest, raising his hands in some emphatic gesture, but Fraser cut him off with a raised hand of his own. “No, Ray. David is my responsibility. You were only trying to show him a good time, and I appreciate that. *I* am his guardian, and it is up to me to make decisions regarding his welfare. I knew he shouldn’t be eating so many strange foods, but I did nothing to stop it.”

“Fraser, you did try to stop it, you said over and over it wasn’t good for him.”

Fraser shook his head doggedly. He’d thought this over, and he understood his error perfectly clearly. “I never put my foot down, Ray. I may have made some token protests, but the fact is that when David’s health was on the line, I failed him. He’s not your responsibility, Ray, so you’re not to blame.”

Ray went still, his frustration ebbing visibly, leaving his shoulders slumped and his hands still at his sides. He looked strangely defeated as he said, “I’m still sorry, Fraser.”

Fraser nodded, looking down at the trunk and concluding that he could deal with its contents another time. “As am I, Ray,” he said absently, but when he looked up the bedroom door was closing, and he was alone.

***

Ray was dragged out of sleep by the perfectly normally irritating beep of his alarm clock, so he was on autopilot as he rolled out of bed after the third snooze to head for the shower, and made it all the way to the door before he heard Fraser saying something to the kid, and remembered. With an unpleasant little jolt of adrenaline, he came fully awake, took his hand off the doorknob, and looked around for sweat pants and a t-shirt. He was going to have to start wearing pajamas. Really.

Once he was decent, Ray stepped out of his room. Fraser was there in the kitchen, making--surprise!--oatmeal. He was fully dressed, and smiled brightly at Ray. Ray made a vaguely not-hostile pre-shower-and-coffee noise, and Fraser, who’d gotten pretty good at interpreting those, nodded and glanced over toward David. Ray followed suit, and had to smile. The kid was watching Bugs and Daffy, leaning forward intently with his dog in his lap, so hurray for David’s taste in cartoons. When he looked back to Fraser, Ray thought he could risk actual conversation. “Busy day today?”

Fraser nodded. “I’ll need to locate a suitable apartment for David and myself, arrange a doctor’s appointment to complete David’s vaccination sequences, and register him for school.”

Ray nodded, and wondered whether he should cheat and have coffee before the shower. “Could be tricky,” he said, absently. “School will want his address, and if you’re sending him to public, it’s a different school depending where you live. And they might not let him register til he’s got all his vaccinations. Some of them require the, ah,” he stared at the counter top. He’d read this, not long ago. “The varicose--”

“Varicella?”

Ray snapped his fingers, nodding. “Chicken pox vaccine, yeah. Or you could send him to private, of course. Then they don’t care where you live, and aren’t so hung up on the red tape.” Ray swallowed hard, and added, in as uninterested a voice as he, just some guy with no right to make decisions for the kid, could manage, “You could even send him to that Montessori kindergarten up on the north end, they do stuff with teaching the kids French. That way he wouldn’t forget.”

He glanced up at Fraser, who was frowning a little in David’s direction. “Ray, I hardly think–-”

Ray rubbed hard at the back of his neck - must’ve slept funny - and wished for coffee, wished he could just shut up. “I spoke Polish til I was six, Fraser. Soon as I went to school, I forgot it. Same thing happened to my brother, now neither one of us understands a word. I mean, he’s got you, and you’ll probably be back in Canada soon anyway and he’ll be fine, but that way he wouldn’t be the weirdo kid, just the kid who already knows all the words to Frere Jacques, right?”

He didn’t look up, and Fraser finally said, “I’ll keep it in mind, Ray. I hadn’t considered that aspect.”

Ray nodded to the linoleum, which gleamed at him. “I mean, what do I know, right? And it’s a lot of money, so. I, uh. I gotta take a shower.”

He brushed quickly past Fraser, and didn’t raise his eyes from the floor til he was safely locked in the bathroom.

***

Fraser sat at the kitchen table after he’d finished his breakfast, watching David eat oatmeal and plotting everything he had to do in the day ahead. He was wondering exactly how much time he should allot for wrangling with the American medical establishment over David’s insurance status when Ray stepped out of his bedroom, shrugging into the light jacket that he wore, despite the heat, to cover his shoulder holster.

Ray smiled at him, and came over to the table, dropping into a crouch beside David’s chair. “Hey, buddy, I gotta head to work now. Can I get a hug before I go?”

David put down his spoon. He seemed to consider the question for a moment, then nodded solemnly, and Ray’s smile brightened. “Greatness.” He shifted forward onto his knees, engulfing David in a hug, pressing his face briefly into David’s hair. As he lifted his head, he said, “I love you,” and for a split second, Fraser could see by the shock on his face that said he hadn’t meant to speak the words. Then it vanished, as David lifted his face to look at Ray, and Ray smiled down at him.

“I love you, too, Ray,” David said, and reached for his spoon again as Ray released him. Ray stood up and hesitated for a moment, looking down at David, and then turned and strode quickly out the door. Fraser got to his feet, signaled Dief to watch David, and followed. He caught Ray in the hallway.

“Ray?”

He turned back, ran a hand through his hair. “Sorry, Fraser, did you want a hug too?”

He nearly flinched at the tone in Ray’s voice, flippant nearly to the point of cruelty, that utterly denied him the opportunity to say *yes*, no matter how much a part of him wanted to. “I merely wondered...”

Fraser trailed off, unable to articulate what he’d been wondering, but Ray jumped into the breach, crossing his arms defensively and jutting out his chin. “What, I can’t say that to the kid? Is that *suspect* or something, Fraser?”

The fury in Ray’s voice rocked Fraser back a step, and threw him further off balance than he already was. “No, Ray, it’s just--” He spread his hands, helplessly. “You’ve known him barely thirty-six hours.”

Ray was clearly unwilling to be placated, and whirled to pace across the width of the hallway, stride and turn and stride. “He’s just a kid, Fraser. You don’t have to think about it much with kids. If they’re total monsters, you know it pretty quick, and David is anything but.”

Ray somehow managed to make the fact that David was lovable sound like an accusation, and Fraser tried again. “You didn’t mean to say it.”

He changed direction, striding quickly up to Fraser, nearly nose to nose, his whisper nearly a hiss. “Don’t you tell me I didn’t mean it, Fraser. I know what I said, and I meant it.”

He set one hand lightly on Ray’s arm, felt the tension in the muscle through the thin sleeve, and thought better of trying to hold him still. “I know you meant it, Ray. But you didn’t expect to hear yourself say it.”

He saw Ray’s shoulders sink, felt him go still under his hand, and let go. Ray turned his head aside, and ran a hand through his hair, a gesture of confusion now rather than frustration. “I guess I just ... hugging someone good-bye, on my way to work ... Me and Stella, always. We had this fight once, in the morning, whose turn to do the dishes, and I stormed off to work, yelling all the way out the door. Distracted all day, like the dumb rookie that I was.” He shook his head in apparent wonderment at his youthful self. “Short version, got myself knifed.” He waved toward his left thigh. “Coulda been bad, but it wasn’t really. They called Stella to come in, had me too tanked on painkillers to remember my name let alone my insurance policy number, but it gave her the scare of her life, she thought I was on my deathbed.”

Ray didn’t look away from the floor as he spoke, head turned aside, leaving Fraser to read the memory of that day in the tension of his throat, the way he swallowed before he could go on. “After that, last thing we said to each other was always ‘I love you,’ in case it was the last thing we said to each other. Got so it was automatic. Even after we were separated, we said it. When she stopped saying it back, that was.” Ray closed his eyes, shook his head, and finally turned and met Fraser’s eyes. “That was when I knew it was for real. I kept on saying it, though. Couldn’t just turn it off. Until the day we met to sign the papers. I got up to go, after, and I started to say it, and she just gave me this *look*, like it’d kill her if I finished that sentence. I said ‘I’ll seeya’ instead, and since then I never said it to anybody, not like that.”

Symbolically, indeed. Fraser nodded slowly. “Until David.”

Ray looked away again, shrugging, trying to force nonchalance into his body language and succeeding to a rather admirable degree, considering. “Yeah, well, it’s good for a kid to hear, right? And if God forbid I should bite it today, there’s worse things for a kid to remember about some guy he knew for thirty-six hours.”

Fraser studied Ray’s profile, as familiar as his own face after more than two years at his side. “Indeed,” he managed.

Ray looked back at him with a bleak smile, as if he’d read his thoughts. “I, uh. I always figured, no matter what I said, you knew what I meant. How I felt.”

Partners, and friends. Buddies, Ray would say. Fraser nodded. “Your trust was not misplaced, Ray. I know.”

Ray’s smiled brightened a little. “Greatness. Okay. I gotta get going.” Ray started backing down the hall, toward the stairs. “Have a good day with the kid, and try not to strangle him before I get off-shift, okay? With my luck they’d make me come and arrest you.”

Fraser couldn’t stop a smile at Ray’s peculiar sense of humor. “Have no fear, Ray. Even if I were driven to such an act, I would make certain to turn myself in and spare you any possible conflict of interest.”

Ray stopped with his hand on the railing. “See, Fraser, this is why I love you.”

For a moment, Fraser couldn’t respond, looking at Ray’s bright fearless grin, knowing that he’d be allowed to keep the words this time, even if they didn’t mean quite what he wished they would. Finally, he said, “And I you, Ray.”

Ray winked, and nodded, but said nothing else. It had to be the *last* thing, of course, that was the rule. Ray headed down the stairs, and Fraser, after a moment more smiling vacantly down the hall, slipped back into the apartment.

David had pulled a chair over to the kitchen sink, and stood on it washing dishes, Dief and Wally watching from the floor beside him. Ben walked over to join him, picking up a towel as he did. “David,” he said, hesitantly, wishing he could simply say the words as easily as Ray seemed to do.

David looked up at him with a bright smile, and swayed sideways to bump his arm with one small shoulder. “I know, Ben. I love you, too.”

He smiled, as much with relief as with affection. “Ah. Well, all right then.” David handed him a bowl, and he dried it.

***

Welsh was no help. He wasn’t even going to try asking Huey or Dewey, who didn’t seem to realize they weren’t comedians anymore. He tried random people around the station, but got nothing but puzzled stares and nosy questions, no answers, no useful information, no help.

He was starting to get panicked as the day wore on. He’d never dreaded the end of shift like this, never been so scared to go home that the fear writhed in his gut and he couldn’t eat, could barely work. Even Stella on the worst of bad days, icily silent or throwing dishes, hadn’t scared him this much.

His shoulder holster had never felt so heavy. He fiddled with it constantly, and checked the safety every five minutes to make sure he didn’t blow his fingers off. He kept waiting for Frannie to make some male-insecurity crack–-she’d cornered him once and gone on for twenty minutes about guns being palace symbols, he’d had to ask Fraser what the hell she was talking about afterward, which had turned out all kinds of embarrassing–-but she never did. She was busy, he guessed, training the new girl.

***

They had sandwiches for lunch, and Fraser stalled the meal as long as he could, making conversation with David, stopping only when he realized he was making the poor child nervous. He excused David to go back to his murmur-narrated game–-it involved Wally, six balled-up pairs of David’s socks, and the red hat pressed into service as a dogsled, from what he could tell–-and sat watching until David caught him at it, and fled to the far corner of the room, hidden from Ben’s line of sight by the armchair.

Ben sighed, and rubbed his eyes, rolling his shoulders wearily. It was like a day at the Consulate, if he’d had to spend an entire morning on the phone with different incarnations of Turnbull. He was as exhausted as if he’d gone an entire day behind a sled, without making any headway for his pains.

He wanted nothing more than to go lie on the floor and play polar expedition with David, but that would neither find them a place to live nor even encourage David to go on playing. Instead, he stood, stretched, and went to retrieve the phone books from the bathroom floor.

***

Frannie walked up to him as he stood in front of the coffee machine, one hand straining between his shoulder blades, trying to fix his shoulder holster. She swatted his hand away, and tugged on the straps til they laid right for what seemed like the first time all day.

“McMullen downstairs has two kids, ages three and four,” she said, quietly, almost in his ear, “and his partner, Ryerson, adopted a little boy last year, six years old. They might know.”

He turned, eyes wide, and said, “Thanks, Frannie, how did you...?”

She gave him a serene and mysterious smile, like the Mama Lisa, and then the new girl, Juliana, yelled from the squad room, “Miz Vecchio? How do I answer the phone again?”

Frannie’s Virgin Mother face cracked, and she rolled her eyes and turned away, muttering Italian curses under her breath and rubbing hard at the small of her back.

Ray stood a moment longer, watching her go, and then beat feet downstairs to find McMullen and Ryerson, and see what they could tell him.

***

Fraser stood at the window, staring out across the fire escape. There wasn’t much to see–-just an alley, of the sort he and Ray always seemed to be chasing suspects through, or hunkering in during a shoot-out. Still, it was *outside*, and he longed for it as he’d longed for the Arctic a week ago.

David had fallen asleep, sometime after Fraser had given up on making fruitless phone calls to pediatricians’ offices and started making fruitless phone calls to various public and private schools instead. Fraser had gone and scooped him up off the floor, carefully leaving his improvised dogs and sled in place, intending to put him in his bed where he might sleep more comfortably. David had woken halfway there, and rather frostily demanded to be put down. Fraser had managed to get him to lie down for a nap without significantly worsening the situation, and now that he was up again David was marginally less upset, kneeling at the coffee table looking at his book, wounded dignity surrounding him like curtain walls.

Fraser had opened the window for Dief, a little more than an hour before, and the wolf had given him only a briefly apologetic backward glance before fleeing down the fire escape. Fraser couldn’t really blame him.

***

Ray checked before he left his desk, and again before he got into the car. He checked at a stoplight halfway home, and before he got out of the car. He checked one last time in the hallway, outside the apartment, and then he took a deep breath, tucked the unloaded gun into his shoulder holster, and opened the door.

Dief came barreling up the steps as he did, and Ray let him go in first, wondering what he’d been doing out without Fraser. He stepped inside as Dief disappeared under Fraser’s cot, and Fraser was standing in the kitchen, cooking. He looked up at Ray and smiled, and Ray smiled back, but he had to get this over with, so he headed into the living room, where David was laying on the floor.

He had Wally, some balled up socks, and his hat, all tied together with–-

David grinned. “Look, Ray! Ben gave me some bootlaces to play with.”

Yeah, bootlaces. They were all a little worn in spots, not pretty enough to be part of the uniform anymore, but still–-what would Fraser say? Perfectly serviceable. The kid had done up harnesses for Wally and the socks with all kinds of complicated knots, not a lark’s head or bunny-eared bow to be seen. “Wow, buddy, that’s really cool.” Bootlaces. Jesus. Should’ve known the kid would like something like that. Ray dropped down into a crouch and tapped one of the knots. “What’s that one?”

David quickly picked up the laces and began pointing out the highlights. “That’s a bowline right next to a butternoose. And I used half-hitches here, and double half-hitches–-”

“Doesn’t that just make a hitch?”

David rolled his eyes. “There’s no knot called a hitch, Ray.”

Ray smiled. “Oh, yeah, of course. I forgot. What about over here?”

“That’s a double sheet bend, there’s another one here that came out better. And fisherman’s knots to join the laces together. And a figure 8 here, I just like tying those.”

“That’s really good, buddy. You tie knots real well.”

David shrugged, laid everything down again, tugging the lines around into perfect order. “I’m too little to use rope yet, but I know how, so when I’m older I can.”

“That’s good.” And that was pretty much the end of his reprieve. Ray nodded toward the armchair. “Can you come here a second? I want to show you something, now.”

David nodded, patted his dogs, and stood up, following Ray over. Ray sat down, and David stood at his side. He thought that through for a second, and then said, “Here, sit here, okay?” He patted his right thigh. “That’s the safest spot.”

Something went over David’s face at the word ‘safe,’ and he did as Ray said, climbing up into his lap. Ray tucked one arm around the kid, took a deep breath, and drew his–-empty, empty, empty, empty, can’t hurt him unless I drop it on his head–-gun. David instantly shifted closer to him, and put one hand over Ray’s on his side, holding on, so somebody had maybe had this talk with him already. Good.

“You know what this is, buddy?”

He held it normally, aimed toward the far wall, the exterior wall that might stop a bullet, not the interior wall with neighbors on the other side, away from himself and David, away from Fraser in the kitchen and Dief under the cot. David nodded, and whispered when he spoke. “A gun.”

Ray nodded. “Right. You seen one before?”

David nodded again, and his voice was a little stronger. “My mom had some. Bigger ones. For hunting.”

“Yeah. This one’s smaller, maybe it doesn’t look so dangerous, but it’s not made for hurting caribou or rabbits, it’s made for hurting people. And that’s what it’ll do, if you mess around with it. It’ll hurt you, or somebody else, even if you don’t mean for it to happen. Did your mom have a rule about guns?”

David nodded. “Don’t touch.”

“Don’t touch, that’s right, that’s a good rule. Now what’s that mean, don’t touch? Does that mean, when Mom’s around? Or, when it’s locked up where you can’t reach it?”

David shook his head, and met Ray’s eyes with a wide-eyed, solemn look. “Don’t touch *ever*.”

“That’s right, and that’s the rule here, too. Don’t touch, ever. So. Pop quiz.” Ray carefully set down the weapon on the coffee table. “If I’m not home, and Ben’s not around, and you see this, what do you do?”

David unbent a little, wiggled on Ray’s knee. “Don’t touch it. And tell Ben.”

“Good, very good. Because guns should be locked up, and this one will be, in just a second.” Ray picked it up, tucked it back in his holster, and he could feel David relax when the gun was out of sight. Unable to resist experimenting, or checking one more time, Ray pulled his gun again, taking both hands to check it was empty, and the safety on, while David leaned hard against him, fisting one small hand in his t-shirt. Ray took one hand from the gun and wrapped his arm around David, squeezing him close. “You ever seen a gun like this before, buddy?”

Hesitation, and he wished he’d sat the kid somewhere where he could look him in the eyes, but then David said, “No, Ray.”

He thought about asking him whether that was the truth, but the kid just seemed nervous. Maybe he’d had that rule about guns drilled into him a little too hard, last time. He could understand it; he’d have screamed and yelled himself if he thought it’d keep David safer, and if Ryerson hadn’t told him it was a really bad idea. Ray nodded, and said, “Okay, let’s get this put away.” He swung the gun out, away from David, and the kid jumped down off his lap. He stood up and headed for the bedroom, David at his side, and there was Fraser, just standing six feet away, watching. There was no expression on his face, but he looked pale. Looked like he’d just been shot, but Ray knew that was just his overactive imagination.

“Fraser? You okay?”

He nodded, but he didn’t say anything and then he just turned around and went out the door. Ray wanted to follow him right that second–-Fraser had done as much for him that morning–-but he had to take care of things here, first. He moved the gun to his right hand, and took David’s hand with his left, and led him into the bedroom. He unlocked the drawer, and dropped in his gun, and the clip from his pants pocket, and locked it up again. “Now, you don’t ever go in that drawer, right?”

David nodded.

“Okay. Go wash your hands, dinner’s probably ready soon. I’m gonna go talk to your brother.”

David nodded, but stopped before Ray could get past him and out the door. “Why do you call him Fraser?”

Ray blinked. “Uh, I don’t know. Habit, I guess.”

David nodded. “His name is Ben.”

“Ben,” Ray repeated, edging sideways. “I’ll remember that.”

***

Ben couldn’t help watching as Ray crossed the living room to where David lay on the floor, but an awful jealousy surged through him when he saw how David accepted Ray’s interest in his game, and shared it with him. He turned back to the stove, tuning out their voices, telling himself he was being ridiculous. He’d nearly succeeded in persuading himself when he heard a familiar and unmistakable metallic click.

He took two long strides out of the kitchen, toward the sound, his heart racing with unreasoning panic, only to see Ray sitting in the armchair, David not merely sitting on his lap but snuggling close to him, holding on to his shirt, as Ray ostentatiously checked the empty chamber and then snapped the assembly back into place. “You ever seen a gun like this before, buddy?”

He didn’t hear David’s response, frozen, his heart pounding harder even though there was no danger here. He could hardly put words to what he felt, and remained still as if he were trapped on the spot, until Ray and David stood up, and saw him standing there. Ray looked startled, and then concerned, but Fraser was watching his hands, one still holding the gun, unholstered, out on display, the other hovering at David’s shoulder, as though–-

He nodded in response to the inflection of Ray’s voice that told him a positive answer would be the polite one, but as he’d been frozen before, now he couldn’t keep still. He turned on his heel and strode quickly to the door, and walked as far as the stairs before he forced himself to stop and get some sort of control over himself.

He’d nearly succeeded when he heard the apartment door open and close, and when he looked up, Ray was standing there, nothing on his face but concern. “Frase?”

Fraser looked away, fighting down another irrational rush of anger at the sight of Ray’s guileless face. He breathed deeply, forcing away the anger, the weariness, the surge of panic that had rushed through him, all of it utterly unwarranted, and he had nearly forced himself to proper calm when Ray, nearly at his side, said softly, “Hey, uh. Ben. You wanna go take a walk or something? Kid’s probably been driving you nuts all day, right? Go on, I can feed him dinner...”

---

Part 3a