Archive of Our Own ^beta

No one was more surprised than Duck MacDonald when things actually started changing in Wilby. 

It was a small town. Worse than that, it was a small island. He'd been born there, though he didn't brag about being an Islander the way a lot of them did. He grew up there, spent his adult years there. Went away. Saw a world outside. Came back. So he knew better than some that Wilby never changed. Ever. The people didn't change. The storefronts didn't change. The air itself seemed to be the same. Even time was slow to leave a mark on Wilby. He heard, mostly from teenagers or people who'd just moved to the island, that it was like going back in time ten years. 

But the Watch scandal was enough to crack the stagnant life on the island, and things started to shift. 

Small towns bred small minds, he thought, though he wasn't the sort to say things like that out loud. He wasn't surprised to hear murmurings about queers and freaks and 'those people'. When the scandal was first in the papers, people acted as if they had been personally hurt by it. When the mayor let the thing rest and the paper decided not to publish the names of the people involved, there were darker murmurings.

Never mind that what was going on at the Watch wasn't any different than what went on over the pass where all the high school kids parked. The people at the Watch were all men, and that made it a crime. 

Duck was one of those men. He'd watched the progression of the scandal, wary but quiet. He knew everyone, but counted few people as his friends. Their opinions of him would change if they read his name in the paper, but he was pretty sure that his mostly quiet, peaceful life would go on more or less as it had. He was the only repairman on the island. People would still call him. He didn't have much to lose.

Some did. Dan more than most. Dan wasn't from the island, he'd be treated much worse. He'd had a wife. He had a business.

Someone - Duck thought that punk Taylor and his friends - had already thrown rocks through the windows of the video store. Duck fixed them free of charge, because fuck those stupid kids and their rocks.

The minds in Wilby only seemed to get smaller, shrunken by disappointment in not reading the names of the poor guys who'd been caught at the Watch. But the town was still small, so news traveled. People who worked at the paper, who saw the list, told other people. Nothing stayed secret in Wilby. Even after the papers stopped trumpeting about scandals, things changed. Got worse, bit by bit, as news traveled and people had time to reflect. 

Duck was stared at a lot. It didn't bother him much - he liked watching people, so for the most part he stared right back. Calls came less as people found other ways to mend their gates and hang their signs and fix street lights. But calls came, enough to keep him fed and the power turned on. Anyway, he'd never lied to anyone about what he was. He never flirted with women, or took Sandra up on her pretty blatant come-ons. He was what he was. The way he figured it, if no one cared enough about his personal life to ask before all this happened, they shouldn't care now.

But things were rough. There were pranks and phone calls and threats to a lot of guys Duck knew. Dan most of all. Dan got talked about a lot. 

Buddy French was the only cop who cared. His partner'd been caught planting evidence trying to make the Watch guys look like criminals, so he'd been fired. Wilby wasn't big, maybe, but four thousand people needed more than one decent cop, especially now that guys like Dan needed so much help. Last thing Duck had heard, the RCMP was sending in a guy to back Buddy up until he could get another cop trained. Someone from off-island, which Duck was glad for. 

Duck lived his quiet life and didn't see the visiting Mountie for a while. He heard things - the guy was smart, apparently, and famous on the mainland for tracking some criminals down or something. Duck wondered about that - why would a hero get sent to Wilby to help catch vandals and burglars? 

He also heard the guy looked a lot like Buddy. Didn't act much like him, but just looking at him they could be brothers. Duck secretly wondered how long it would take Sandra to get into the guy's pants now that Buddy and his wife were getting along again.

He lived, and worked, tried to avoid being conspicuous so the more mean-spirited of the islanders didn't turn their attentions to him.

He spent a lot of time with Dan. He'd gotten out of the hospital pretty quick after he tried to kill himself, but he needed help still. Not a lot - physically he was okay, but he got headaches a lot and sometimes he got confused. Oxygen cut off to his brain for a couple of minutes, or something, and he had a little damage from it. Not enough so's it showed most of the time. 

Not enough to make Duck love him any less.

Things in Wilby were shifting. Changing, but Duck went on. He was good at weathering things. A lot like the island itself, he thought sometimes. 

"Ray?" 

Duck climbed down off the ladder, ignoring the voice. He didn't recognise it, and his name wasn't Ray, so he kept his mind on his own business. 

He rolled up the banner he'd just taken down, careful to keep it neat. Wilby Days were pretty much ruined by the scandals lately, so he'd keep the banners somewhere safe and dry until Carol or someone decided they wanted them for something. 

Wilby Wonderful. He'd gotten it wrong, Carol said, but he liked it better his way. She decided after the night she cut Dan off his noose to let them stay how they were. 

"Ray!" 

Duck glanced over, mostly because whoever was calling for Ray was right beside him by then. He blinked to find Buddy's blue eyes on him, wide and surprised. 

But no. Buddy hadn't gotten a haircut last time he saw him, and he didn't go around dressed in those brown RCMP uniforms. 

For once the rumors were right - they could have been twins. 

He cleared his throat. "Constable Fraser?"

The Mountie's eyes were all over his face, and after a moment he seemed to realise Duck was also not the guy he first thought he was. 

Duck watched in interest as a little bit of life went out of the Mountie's face. 

But he stuck out his hand anyway. "Duck McDonald. I'm the handyman around here."

After a moment the Mountie shook his hand. "Benton Fraser, as you seem to have heard."

"News gets around." Duck let go of him, moving to put the banner carefully in the back of his truck. He could feel the Mountie staring at him, but he didn't say anything. 

As he predicted, the Mountie answered the question he would have asked a moment later anyway. "Forgive me, but you bear a striking resemblance to a good friend of mine."

"I figured. Ray."

"Yes." The Mountie came up to the truck. 

Duck glanced over, saw sadness on his face. 

He was good at that - reading people. He kept quiet and paid attention, which counted for a lot. It was how he knew Dan was going to try to kill himself. 

His only problem was not knowing how to handle the things he found out. Like this Mountie. He could tell that the Mountie missed his friend Ray, and he could tell that he wasn't going to willingly open up to a stranger he'd just met about it. 

But he wasn't sure what part he should try to play. Ask about the guy or let it be? 

He went to the edge of the bridge. Folded his ladder, carried it to the truck. The Mountie helped him slide it up to the top of the rack over his tools without saying anything.

Which gave Duck time to think. The guy was assigned there temporarily, and Wilby was notoriously unfriendly to strangers. Buddy would be nice to him, Duck figured, but no one was happy being lonely. 

A car drove past them, and a horn blazed. Through a cracked window came a voice, shouting something Duck couldn't make out but didn't really have to. He knew the tone well enough. 

He hesitated, watching the car drive off. He didn't recognise it offhand. Some kid from mainland, maybe. Someone who was friends with one of the Wilby kids and so knew who to yell obscenities at.

He saw the Mountie watching the car, and read the furrowed brow and disapproval in his eyes. 

Good. That was something.

So he spoke. "Want to go to Iggy's and have some lunch? You can tell me about my twin."

Sad blue eyes warmed just the slightest bit as the Mountie turned back to him. "Yes, thank you."

Polite. Duck flashed a tight smile. "Climb in."

The car was forgotten.

Ray was apparently some mystical, wild Yankee cop. To hear Constable Benton Fraser tell it, he was the greatest, most loyal, most unusual and unpredictable man in the universe. 

Which made him Duck's opposite, he figured. 

Duck learned a lot Fraser didn't say. Fraser didn't think of the guy like a pal. He lit up talking about Ray. He seemed reticent to talk about anything else. He told stories of things he and Ray did, places they went, crimes they stopped. Even meals they ate. 

Yeah, Fraser had it bad for this guy Ray. Ray was apparently back in America, and whatever the story was behind their split it was the one place Fraser wouldn't let the conversation go. 

As they left Iggy's and Sandra's wandering eyes behind, Fraser shook his hand again formally. "Thank you for lunch. I seem to be less accustomed to eating on my own than I used to be."

Before Ray. Duck heard the words clearly and smiled to himself. Wondered if this Ray guy loved the Mountie, and if so why they weren't together. 

He spoke out of instinct more than anything. "Come on. You're not on duty yet. I'll show you where I live, and next time you get homesick for your friend you can come stare at me."

"Oh." Fraser smiled but it instantly went away again. "I couldn't intrude. I am a stranger, after all, and..." He studied Duck. "I see Ray's face, but I don't see Ray. You're very different."

Duck smiled. "That's good. I don't much like the idea of being someone else, even just in your head. But you're here, you might as well make a friend. And you're not intruding if you're invited, you know. Get in."

Fraser stood where he was and watched Duck until he was in the driver's seat and had the engine going. Then he approached slowly and peered in the passenger's side window.

Duck reached over and opened the door. "Come on, Constable. I'll introduce you to another guy who needs a few more friends."

The Mountie climbed into the seat and shut the door. He hesitated, then half-turned to face Duck. "Ben."

"Okay, Ben." Duck nodded with a smile and got the rickety truck moving.

Benton Fraser was as surprised as anyone else to find himself settling into life on Wilby. His assignment was temporary, but no one in Wilby seemed to want to train to fill in the vacant law enforcement post, and the RCMP didn't seem to be in a hurry to replace him by moving another mainland officer to the island. So he stayed until the days became weeks. 

He didn't mind it nearly as much as he would have thought. He missed the north, of course, but he was making arrangements to have Dief brought down from Frobisher's camp to join him, and that would make things better. 

Perhaps his years in Chicago had adapted him to living amongst people. For whatever reason, the comings and goings of Wilby didn't seem at all jarring. He came to know many people by name, and though most were polite they seemed to be in no hurry to make him part of their lives. Which suited him. He was, no matter where he lived, a private man. He had never needed the company of others the way most people seemed to need it. 

And he had friends. Three he considered already to be good friends, and others who were always polite and respectful.

First was the man he worked with. Buddy French was a decent man, a man disgusted by the ill spirit behind the rise of crimes that had brought Ben there in the first place. He was willing to stand up to even old friends if something he believed in was under attack, and Ben respected that. 

He didn't think he and Buddy looked as much alike as everyone insisted, but at times Buddy would gesture or make a particular expression and he would have the eerie sensation of looking at a reflection. 

Bud's wife, Carol, was a lovely woman. She worked hard, but she had a strong sense of aesthetics. She was a painter, which Bud seemed to be immensely proud of. 

Along with Bud were Dan and Duck. The men were a couple, and targets of a lot of mean spirited pranks in the city. There were other men who were known to have frequented a spot called Wilby Watch, which at one point was discovered to be a sort of lover's lane for gay men. Others had gone, but Dan seemed to have attracted the most attention. Dan's wife had left him over it, and the two men had moved in together shortly after Ben first met them. 

Some of the less open-minded people in Wilby seemed to think Dan and Duck were flaunting a life of sin to an otherwise innocent and decent citizenry. Ridiculous, of course, but small minds were hard to change. 

Ridiculous mostly because Ben knew both men fairly well. Neither were depraved above any other person, and neither was the sort to flaunt anything to anyone. 

Duck especially was a quiet, self-possessed man. Ben marveled at that, but learned quickly not to associate Duck with Ray Kowalski, no matter how similar in appearance. Duck was quiet, sharp. He didn't miss much. He knew a lot of things about people that he learned just from observing. 

Dan was quiet as well. He had, Ben understood, gone through a hard time before Ben arrived. A suicide attempt had followed his wife leaving him. Duck had been the one to call him back, to make him realise that the sudden jarring of his life wasn't enough to stop living over. 

Dan was shy, but he smiled often and he more than obviously adored Duck, who more than obviously adored him back. 

They were a well-suited couple. They had a genuine affection for each other that Ben envied. They didn't flaunt their relationship to the people of Wilby because they didn't need to flaunt anything. They were secure in their lives together, and if sometimes Dan seemed to have a crisis of confidence in himself, he never lost confidence in Duck. 

Two of the most decent men Ben Fraser had met, and he was happy to call them friends. Though something in his heart twisted at times to see a man with Ray Kowalski's face broadcasting such love for someone else, Ben still sought out their company most evenings. 

He knew he would be replaced eventually, though no one seemed in a hurry to do it. Once replaced he would return to the frozen, solitary north. In the meantime, Wilby was as good a place as most others, and so he settled into life there in quiet contentment. 

Until a call came from Chicago.

"He's coming here." 

Duck regarded Ben, surprised at the shivering in his normally rock-solid voice. He knew in an instant who Ben meant, since he only ever got emotional when talking about one man. But he asked, because he knew Ben would need a bit of prying to get the full story out. 

"Who?"

"Ray." The name came out like a bubble bursting. 

Duck glanced over at Dan.

Dan had shut off the volume to the old John Wayne movie they'd been watching when he saw how wide-eyed Ben was. Now he turned the TV off entirely and twisted on the worn couch. He met Duck's glance with a raised eyebrow. "He's coming from Chicago?" 

Ben nodded. He shut the front door behind him. He stood there. He moved to a chair and sat heavily. 

Duck watched it all, hiding his surprise. Ben was not a man easily flustered. "A visit?"

"No. Well, yes, but." Ben looked at Duck, helpless. "He's being sent by the FBI. He needs to leave Chicago for a time, and when asked where he wanted to be sent he..."

Duck smiled faintly. "He said to you."

"Apparently." Ben didn't seem to realise he was blushing. 

"Apparently? You didn't speak to him?"

"No. To his leftenant in Chicago." Ben's leg was twitching up and down.

Duck glanced at Dan. Dan had a question in his eyes that Duck could read well enough. He frowned, gave a slight nod. 

Dan spoke quietly. "That's too bad, Ben. I'm sorry to hear it."

Ben's leg stilled. He blinked. "Sorry?"

"You don't seem like you're all too happy to have him coming."

Ben sat up, brow furrowed. "I..." He hesitated. 

Duck was curious, as he was now and then, about what history Ben and his Ray had. Why two men who went through so much together and who seemed to care for each other, to hear Ben tell it, would have simply split apart. 

As far as Duck knew Ray never contacted Ben here, and he never heard Ben mention calling Chicago.

Ben spoke finally, his voice back to its usual low thoughtfulness. "Ray and I have a lot of history. Most of it is good. It will be nice to see him again."

Duck sighed. He recognised the look in Ben's eyes. 

He thought for a moment, then spoke slowly. "You know, Dan and I met for the first time at the Watch."

He felt Dan tense. He looked over. 

Dan didn't stop him. 

He turned back to Ben. "You know what the Watch was for. At least, for guys like us."

Ben nodded. 

Duck hesitated. "I guess neither of us is really the type for...one night stands, or whatever you'd call it. But living here there's not exactly a singles group to join. Me, I've known about myself since I was a kid. I don't much get bothered by being gay. A lot of guys down there were different."

He reached over instantly and set a hand on Dan's arm. 

Dan just nodded, listening quietly. He knew by then that when Duck actually opened up and started talking more than a sentence at a time, he was usually going somewhere with it.

Duck turned back to Ben. "I'd go to the Watch a lot. Sit on the rocks, watch the water. Guys would come and go. Sometimes I'd taken them up on offers, sometimes not." He scratched his arm idly. Worst thing about actually talking was getting self-conscious right in the middle that maybe he wasn't being clear. 

Ben was watching attentively, and didn't seem confused. 

"Anyway, the minute I saw Dan there I knew he was the guy. Didn't even know I was waiting for anyone in particular until he pulled up, all unsure and nervous. I went up and talked to him, and we...you know. We didn't fuck. Just kind of eased some tension. I was gone for him fast." He glanced at Dan. "But I don't know which part of the whole thing bothered him more. The fact that I was a guy, and he was liking what we did. Or the fact that he was going behind his wife's back. He wasn't happy, and I saw it from the first night.

"After that?" Duck let out a breath. "I watched him a lot. Watched him eat himself up over it. I was conflicted, wanted him to know things would be alright. I wanted him to be happy with...anything. Telling her the truth or deciding he wanted to stick things out with her, or whatever he picked. I wanted to be there for him, but I couldn't do anything. Some things a person's got to figure out on their own."

Ben nodded at that, a sad kind of knowledge in his eyes. 

Duck noted it. "I knew the night he told her, because the next day he looked like someone'd ripped his heart out. Next thing we heard she was back on the mainland and their house was on the market." Duck sighed. "I was a stranger to him, really, but I was pretty much in love. I wanted to help. I knew I couldn't. Hard thing, sitting there on your hands waiting for someone to decide they want to live." He shot Dan a slight smile. "I slipped up a couple of times. Spoke out of turn."

Dan's eyes were bright. Duck realised suddenly that he'd never actually told Dan any of this before. He turned back to Ben, and when Dan's hand came to rest on his leg he just smiled. 

Dan spoke before he could take the story up again. "I knew he was watching me. Hanging around. Duck's an invisible guy when he wants to be, so when I started seeing him everywhere I knew in the back of my mind that there was a reason for it. But I had so much in my head that it didn't register until he actually came up and forced me to talk to him. Not even then, really, but thinking about it later." 

Duck looked over, and when Dan's hand absently went up to his cheek Duck smiled, small and private.

Ben cleared his throat. "But you've said that people have to make their own choices. In my experience, trying to tell someone which road they should take only leads to disaster."

Duck dragged his eyes from Dan, from the smile on his face, with some effort. "That's true. People have to make their own choice. But sometimes you have to tell them that more than one choice exists. I never told Dan he shouldn't kill himself, even though I knew he was planning it."

"He told me...no, he showed me...that if I decided to keep on breathing he'd be around, and it would matter to him."

Duck had to force himself not to look at Dan. "Sometimes you gotta tell people there's a second choice. That's all. Even if you think it's obvious, sometimes they just don't realise."

Ben studied him, then Dan. "I'm honored that you would trust me with your story, but...I don't honestly see where this fits into my life."

Duck smiled. "No? Well. All I can tell you is what I see."

Ben asked after just a brief pause. "What do you see?"

It was Dan who answered. "When you talk about Ray, you get the same look in your eyes that Duck had when he watched me looking for places to kill myself."

Ben looked away from them.

Duck placed his hand over Dan's. Almost lost him, he thought to himself for the thousandth time since the morning he found him in the hospital. Almost lost him. 

It hurt more now than it did, now that he knew exactly what he might have lost before he had a chance to know it.

"When will he be here?" he heard himself ask.

"Two days' time." Ben answered softly. 

"Gives you time for a haircut," Dan said, sitting up and turning back to the TV. "You look more like Buddy every day." 

Ben made his excuses and left, looking conflicted, if less upset and off-center than he'd been when he arrived. 

Duck joined Dan on the couch, and for a few minutes they watched John Wayne. 

"Sorry if I talked out of turn," he said after a while, thinking back on the parts of Dan's story he'd told Ben without permission. 

Dan turned to him. He had a sad face on him, Duck had noticed more than once, even before he was worried about suicide. But his eyes were so much happier than they used to be. 

Dan smiled. "It's okay. Did him good, maybe. You always know just what to tell people."

Duck reached out, lay his palm over Dan's stubbled cheek. It was his favorite place to touch, even now that he'd touched everything else.

Dan put his hand over Duck's. "I love you too, you know."

Duck knew.

The morning of the day Ray Kowalski was to arrive, Ben found he couldn't concentrate. On anything. 

He patrolled his rounds with Buddy. He filled out paperwork without reading a word of it. He watched people come and go, nodded at those he knew. He even made an arrest, a teenager he caught spraypainting the rocks at the Watch. The boy seemed to be one of the more frequent offenders when it came to hate crimes, but Ben knew even as he brought him to the station that no charges would be pressed. Not in Wilby, not to an Islander who was speaking out against depravity. 

Taylor was the boy's name. He seemed to especially dislike Duck MacDonald.

But eventually, after lunch, Buddy sent him home. He knew today was important to Ben, though Ben hadn't told him much about why.

Ben went home, which in his case was the hotel he'd been living in for over four months now. And there Ben sat, idly ironing the rim of his Stetson and looking at the clock every two minutes. 

A half hour before the ferry was due, right as Ben was getting ready to set out, someone in the parking lot honked a horn near to his door. He went to the door and peered out, and there was Duck sitting in his shabby truck.

Duck smiled and gave a small wave, gesturing him over. 

Ben returned the smile as he locked his door behind him. 

"Just thought if me and your Ray look so much alike we'd best get the introductions out of the way." Duck put the truck into drive. 

Ben wasn't fooled. Duck was perceptive enough to have seen Ben's uncertainty about seeing Ray again.

Ray. 

It hit him like a hot shiver in his belly. Ray was going to be there in minutes. Right there. 

Duck didn't say anything on the way to the dock. He murmured unintelligibly along with the soft music coming from his radio and left Ben to his thoughts. 

But Ben found he didn't want to think. He didn't want to remember the last time he had seen Ray, at a tiny airstrip in Whitehorse. He didn't want to remember the quiet, hurt silence Ray had radiated for days before that. Or the conversation they had had that led to the departure. 

He didn't want to think of any of it, but if Ray was anything like he was a year ago, he would force the matter. 

Under the apprehension and the solemn memories Ben couldn't help but feel excited. Ray had been, after all, his best friend and partner for almost a year in Chicago, and for longer than that up north, on their adventure. He had gone to new places with Ray, explored parts of the frozen north he'd only dreamed of before. They had faced death together more than a few times, and that bonded men. 

There were a lot of things he missed about Ray. Not even the big things he might have thought he would miss, but the little things. Chocolate in his coffee, and the way he stumbled over words or concepts. His crooked grins when he guessed a motive right. The loud contempt he had for Meg Thatcher. 

His obviousness. There was no guesswork when it came to Ray. Everything was right in front. Every feeling he had was broadcast. Every thought was voiced.

Ben missed that. He missed being on such sure footing with Ray. They had lost it at the end, in Whitehorse, in Maggie's cabin. 

But maybe they could have it again, for a little while. 

Duck pulled up to the small parking lot by the harbor. There were a few cars there, waiting for owners returning from the mainland, perhaps. A couple of people stood watching a distant ferry coming in.

Duck and Ben climbed out of the truck. Duck shoved his hands in his pockets as he came around to the front of the truck, and silently he leaned against the grill. 

Ben joined him, standing uncertainly as he eyed the boat. For a moment he had the absurd thought that Ray must have missed the ferry, because if his energy had been contained on a boat that small it would have made some disturbance that Ben's eyes would have seen. 

It occurred to him then that he might have added a certain mythical proportion to Ray's quirks in his memories of him.

The ferry arrived, slowing to its snail's crawl to dock. Ben watched everything, every movement from the rails, every shift of the deck over the crawling waters. 

His throat seemed to close up as people began to emerge from the inside of the ferry. He watched a few familiar faces come out, but his eyes stayed on the door. Waiting. Tensing with every person that came out that wasn't Ray Kowalski.

"Duck!" 

His gaze was drawn to the voice, and he saw two young girls approach from the ferry. Sandra Anderson's daughter, Emily, and the departing mayor's girl. He didn't know her name. Emily was immensely fond of Duck, and he seemed to return the feeling. 

Duck grinned when he saw her and pushed off the truck. "Hey. Been mainland?"

"Yeah. Had to pick up some things mum ordered for the diner." She waved a plastic bag. "Guess who I met on the boat!"

"Who?"

"You!" 

Ben's attention was caught by that, and he turned back to the ferry. He scanned the crowd outside, looking for jutting blond hair and grinning blue eyes. 

"Me, huh?" Duck sounded amused.

"Yeah. His name's Ray. He's American." She handed the bag to her friend and went back to the ferry, shouting something back that Ben couldn't hear.

She went back on the boat, jogging up the gangway and inside. 

Ben frowned and waited, wondering why Ray would be hanging back. Maybe this would be more awkward than he feared. 

But. No.

His eyes caught, and his vision seemed to narrow until he saw nothing but the man who came from the boat. 

Ray had a familiar old duffel bag over his shoulder, and a cane in his hand. 

Cane. 

Emily Anderson came out right behind him, holding another bag and talking to him, pointing towards Duck and Ben. She was helping him down the gangway. 

Helping him. 

Ben's focus sharpened further when he saw Ray's limp, and how he leaned on the cane and the girl. He stopped thinking about past and present, about awkwardness or anger or happiness. 

He moved before he could think. He went across the small lot to the dock, and stepped onto it from his end the same moment Ray stepped off the plank. 

Ray looked up.

Ben stood where he was for a moment, a thousand questions in his head. A cane. A limp. Ray looked skeletal. His hair was flat and dull. He was pale. 

Something was very wrong. 

But as he got his feet moving again, approaching Ray, he focused on those bright blue eyes and knew that no matter what was wrong or what had driven them apart, Ray was still Ray.

He found himself smiling. Grinning, almost. He reached Ray's side. "Hello, Ray."

After a moment Ray's familiar, crooked grin emerged. A bit dull, perhaps, but sincere. Ben could always tell. 

"Heya, Frase."

Duck hung back, silent and watchful. He let Ben and his Ray have their reunion, though Emily, chattering and excited, seemed intent on breaking it up so she could introduce Duck to himself. 

To spare them her teenage stubbornness, and to spare Ray having to walk further than he had to - Ben hadn't mentioned a cane, must've been new - Duck finally ambled up to the dock. 

Ray was a thin, younger version of him, if they really looked as alike as Ben insisted. It was an odd thing, looking at someone you're told is your twin. 

Ray had his coloring. His blue eyes, his dirty blond hair. But he was pale, and lean to the point of Duck wondering if he was ill. 

Duck studied his face as he approached, but he was looking more for how Ray felt than how he looked. Duck was fond of Ben, after all, and he knew Ben's side of things. More than Ben told. 

He could see exhaustion on Ray's face, uncertainty. Pain. But under it...or over it, maybe...was a bright kind of joy. Ray leaned towards Ben, body twisted his way. Like a flower pointing to the sun. Drawn. 

Maybe it was love, Duck thought. At the very least it was pleasant. 

Ray's eyes caught on him as he approached. Emily must have told Ray about Duck, since she thought they were twins, but there wasn't any kind of flash of recognition on Ray's face. If they were twins he hardly seemed to notice. 

Duck decided, before he even said a word to the man, that Ray Kowalski was a man who knew himself so well that even a stranger with his face was so different from him he thought nothing of it.

Either that or he didn't know himself at all. 

Duck held out a hand. "Duck."

Ray shifted his cane to his other hand and shook. Firm grip, but shaky stance. "Ray."

Duck glanced at Ben. "Should get him somewhere to settle down."

Ben's gaze was locked on Ray, and his eyes were smiling brighter than Duck had ever seen him. "Of course."

There was a shout from behind, attracting their attention. 

A man - Taylor's older brother, Duck thought - was standing against his car, arms folded, glaring at them. 

Ray coughed. "Wow, did that guy just call us fags?" 

Ben frowned, as if trying to decide whether to throw his badge in the guy's face. 

Emily turned red.

Duck just shrugged. "Welcome to Wilby."

Dan looked up from the newspaper spread over the counter when the door opened. When he saw it was Duck his face relaxed and his smile grew. "Hey."

"Hey." Duck grinned, warm just like that. "Gonna stay open long?"

Dan glanced around at the small, empty store. He shrugged. "We can go." 

Duck hung back and let him turn off lights and things. 

"How'd it go with Ben?" 

"Strange." 

"Yeah?" Dan ducked into the back, then out again after a moment. He put on his coat and flipped the sign in the door to read Closed. 

No one kept regular hours in Wilby. 

Duck moved on to the street with him. "Ben's a real together guy," he said thoughtfully.

"Yeah."

"I think Ray is too, in another way. Knows who he is, at any rate." 

"Okay."

"But I don't think either of them know who they are when they're together. Strange thing."

"Does he look like you?" 

Duck considered that, thoughtful, as he slid in to the truck next to Dan. "You know, I don't think he does."

When Duck dropped them off at the hotel, Ben felt a little of Ray's already wan energy slide away. At first he wasn't sure why that would be, as he helped Ray take his bags into the room Ben had reserved for him. 

He gave him the brief tour anyway, wanting badly to ask him about himself but not sure it was welcome yet. 

Ray, as usual, didn't seem to feel the need to find boundaries. He sat down on the bed, let his cane fall to the floor, and looked at Ben. "You look good, Frase." He waved a hand before Ben could answer. "Don't say anything about me. I look like shit and I know it. I'm just saying it to say it, not to get anything back. Because you do. You look good."

"Thank you, Ray." Ben set his bags by the small dresser and hovered. "Are you hungry? I could run and bring something from the diner."

Ray regarded him. A small quirk of a smile touched his mouth. "When you say run and bring something you're being literal, aren't you? You're gonna jog for my lunch."

Ben shrugged, sitting finally in the small, hard-backed armchair near the bed. "This is Wilby, not Chicago. Jogging to the diner is a much less daunting prospect than you'd imagine."

Ray grimaced. "For me, jogging anywhere's a daunting prospect these days."

"Will you tell me what happened?"

That took Ray by surprise. "Welsh didn't tell you?"

"No. The leftenant was actually rather vague. He said you had to find a safe place to stay temporarily, somewhere out of town."

Ray snorted. "This ain't exactly the suburbs, Frase. I had to get out of Chicago, out of Illinois, and if I had my way out of the fucking country."

"Why?" Fraser was alarmed, more by the starkness in Ray's voice than the words he spoke.

Ray dropped back suddenly, sprawling on the bed. His arm came up and over his eyes. "Vecchio."

Ben sat up. "The last I heard he was with his wife in Florida."

"His wife." Ray snorted again, quieter. "Yeah, far as I know he still is. But some of his pals from Vegas came looking for him. The Bookman vanished in Chicago, and they'd been looking for him for a while. Figured out finally he wasn't a Fed or anything, just a local cop named Vecchio. They asked around, found some local scumbags."

"Who knew you as Ray Vecchio, and not the real Ray Vecchio." Fraser spoke slowly, reaching the grim conclusions in his mind. 

"Yep. Knew about you, too. They caught me right outside the Consulate." He shrugged from his prone position, his eyes still covered. "Didn't take a genius to figure out I wasn't the bald Italian with the big nose who was pretending to be the Bookman. But they found my badge, saw me by the Consulate where Vecchio supposedly always hung out. They figured I had to know something."

Fraser stood up before he could think about it. He went to the bed and sat on the edge of the mattress. Ray was too thin. Too frail. "What did...how...?"

Ray's head dropped to the side, to face him as he sat. His arm fell over his head and he shrugged as if it didn't matter. "They had me for a few days before Welsh and the others tracked me down. Turnbull saw the car that grabbed me, so they found me thanks to him." He looked up at Fraser. "The rest of it's not really worth talking about, is it?"

Fraser wanted to argue, but didn't.

"I lived, anyway. Saw the guys real good, heard them talking to some of their bosses in Vegas. Heard names, direct orders. I'm a witness now. Important federal witness." He flashed a grin. "Of course the Feds gotta spend like a year and a half putting a case together, so I'm on the run until I can testify. Sorry if I'm intruding or anything, but Welsh said get somewhere safe and...I thought of you."

For all the grimness making his muscles tense and his thoughts darken, Fraser felt a little spark of warmth. "You know I'll do anything in my power to keep you safe."

"You don't gotta do anything. Nobody's gonna think to look for me on some podunk little Canadian island." He sat up, groaning a little as he did. "Wilby, Frase? I'd've thought you'd be back in the tundras by now."

"I go where I'm assigned, Ray."

Ray shot him a look. "I know."

Fraser looked away, remembering their last few days together. He stood up. "No doubt you're tired from your trip. I'll leave you to rest. If you need anything--"

"Yeah." Ray's voice was still hard. "I'll call the hotel manager or something."

Fraser blinked. "Well, no. I'm right next door. These walls aren't very thick. A sound rapping on the wall should be sufficient, if I'm in."

"You're staying here?" Ray's face lost a little of its hard edge. "I thought you'd been here in town a while?"

"Nearly five months, Ray."

He shook his head, smiling reluctantly. "You never change, Frase."

Fraser went to the door. He realised then why Ray had seemed to lose a little of his energy at seeing the hotel. He thought Fraser was dumping him somewhere. That Fraser didn't want him to share his quarters. 

He hesitated, turning in the doorway to look back. Ray might be keeping his secrets, treating Fraser with something less than warmth. But Ray wanted to come to him. Ray wanted to be where Fraser was. Whatever it took to get him there, that meant something. 

"You know," he said finally, "most people here call me Ben."

Ray looked up. Wary blue eyes met Fraser's. "Yeah?"

He nodded. "In some ways, Ray...in some ways I do change."

Despite Ray's assurances that no one would ever think to look on Wilby Island for him, Fraser wasn't prepared to play games with his life. It was decided - by him, though Ray accepted it with distant amusement - that he wouldn't be Ray Kowalski whilst there. 

Ray MacDonald, Duck had suggested easily enough. People there knew him and his family, and if they thought hard enough they'd realise there was no distant MacDonald cousins in America. But he didn't think they'd give it a second thought once they met Ray. People would accept what they saw over what they knew.

Ray MacDonald was a mechanic from Boston, come to Wilby for a holiday. 

"I don't sound anything like Boston," Ray had protested. 

"Think anyone in Wilby will realise that?" Duck had replied.

For the good people of Wilby Ray was even worse than a mainlander - he was a Yank. No one bothered him, but no one was in any hurry to be polite. 

He rested for the first day, and then Fraser came to take him on a tour of the town. In Duck's truck they drove the few streets and saw the few sights. Ben explained about the Watch and the scandal, because no doubt Ray would hear something about it. Some remark about his queer cousin, maybe.

Ray wanted to see it, so in the afternoon when it was warmer Ben drove them to the nearest road, and led him carefully down the path to the rocks. 

There was garish green paint on the walls of the lighthouse. QUEERS and FAGS and Ben recognised Taylor's handiwork. He really was going to have to talk to Buddy about that boy.

Ray noted the graffiti with a smirk that Ben couldn't interpret, but he looked out at the water and the rocks and somehow seemed to relax more than he had since walking off the ferry back into Ben's life. 

He sat on the rocks and laid his cane against his lap. Even when Ben approached and sat near him he didn't tense. 

Ben watched him the way Ray watched the water. For a long time they were silent. 

Then Ray spoke, not moving from his peaceful perch. "I never was an outdoors kind of guy. You know?"

"I'm hardly stunned by that admission."

Ray shot him a grin. "Didn't have much choice. Grew up in Chicago." He looked back out at the water. A hand went to his leg, rubbing a spot on his thigh gingerly. "When those goons had me stashed and were making like target practice all over my body, you know what I thought of?"

Ben was quiet. His eyes didn't move from Ray. Couldn't. 

They were awkward. Ray was understandably sore with him. But Ben understood Duck and Dan's story all the better now. He was conflicted in more than one way about Ray, but he still knew how he felt about him. He understood himself well enough. Not knowing what to do about it was what was killing him. 

Ray glanced over, then back at the water once he saw Fraser was listening. "I thought about our adventure. Not you, really...though now and then when I realised I didn't care enough about Vecchio to go through that shit, I'd picture what you'd think if you heard I let your old partner get killed. Kept my mouth shut tight." He massaged at his leg. "I thought about up north. Nothing but white for miles. Everything dead silent and still. Cold and...sometimes a bird would fly by and since everything else was so silent you could hear its wings on the air like a frigging plane. I never knew the world could be that still."

Fraser nodded, thinking of the north, of the lands that called his name no matter where he was in the world. "As I recall it nearly drove you mad at first."

Ray grinned. "Yeah, well. I'll bet being in Chicago for the first time nearly drove you nuts too."

"Indeed."

"But I figured out what you saw in it. I remember when we went into Carson City that first time. I was so annoyed every time anyone opened their mouths. I was used to the world being quiet." He sighed. "Anyway. I used that. Thought about a big blanket of white. Everything muffled and still and so wide open you feel like the world must've grown somehow. Or else you shrunk." He glanced at Fraser, his cheeks red. "Or whatever. I don't gotta tell you what it's like. I blocked out a lot of bad shit with those thoughts."

"I'm glad." Fraser's voice was thick when he spoke, and he didn't know why. He cleared his throat and looked out at the dark mass of land in the distance, through the haze and clouds. Mainland. "I'm glad you were able to put something between you and..."

"I didn't give Vecchio away." 

"I never doubted that." 

Silence fell. The water lapped against the rocks. Everything felt, for a few minutes, as restful and hushed as it had in the most barren parts of the Yukon.

When they got back to Duck's truck, someone had thrown a rock through the windshield.

"I'd've just knocked the glass out and left it, but. Gets cold." Duck surveyed the edges of the new windshield, making sure the sealant was perfect. "This is good work."

Ray sat against the wall on the short workbench. "Gotta keep up my cover," he said with a shrug. 

Duck glanced at him. "I'm good with my hands. Do a lot of different things around town. Don't know cars to save my life."

"You should learn. I might have time to show you some things."

Duck noted Ray's hand rubbing at the spot on his leg that seemed to bother him a lot. 

He knocked knuckles against the windshield, satisfied with the work. Satisfied because it told him something about Ray. Men like Duck, men who worked with their hands and judged a good day by the jobs they had finished, determined a lot about a person from how they did their dirty work. 

Ray looked careless. Talked careless. But he'd taken pride in the windshield. He knew how to use his hands. 

Duck approved. 

"Why'd you go back to the States?" he asked as he went to grab a rag and some glass cleaner to polish up the other windows. His truck was never clean, but he wanted the glass to sparkle the next time he took it out. Because fuck people and their rocks. 

"What do you know about it?" Ray didn't sound as defensive as Duck anticipated. 

He shrugged, spraying the driver's side window. "You two went on some quest up north. Stayed with his sister for a while. What then?" 

"Guess it's safe to tell you, of all the people in this town." Ray sounded amused, in a dark kind of way.

Duck polished until he could see Ray's reflection behind him in the window. "Safe?"

"I told him I was falling for him and he left smoke trails running away from me." 

Duck's hands slowed, then stopped. He turned. 

Ray sat back, arms folding across his chest. He returned Duck's stare. 

Duck cleared his throat. "Happened just that way?"

Ray shrugged. "We had this long talk. I told him...things...and the next day he comes up and says he's taking a post in Yellowknife and all adventures must come to an end, and thanks for a few laughs, and see ya around, Ray." 

Since Duck couldn't reconcile that with what he knew about Ben and how Ben felt, he made a note of it and decided to puzzle it out later. "So you went home and haven't talked to him since?"

"I tried to call now and then, but when he's posted places like that he's on patrol most of the time. No phones. So I wrote him." Ray flashed a smile, one Duck noted was deeply self-deprecating. "They all came back return to sender. Don't know if the addresses were wrong or if he..." 

"The addresses were wrong," Duck answered.

Ray's brow furrowed. 

"Sending them back would've been rude." 

Ray snorted after a moment. "Good point."

"Still have the letters?" 

"Yeah." 

And wasn't there a whole world of hurt in that answer? 

Ray cleared his throat. "Brought 'em up with me. Maybe because he was on my mind when I was packing, I don't know."

Duck shrugged. "So deliver them now." 

"No point."

"Maybe not. But if he never got them then as far as he knows you never wrote them."

Ray's eyes lowered. He considered that. 

Duck went to clean the passenger-side window.

Dan laughed when Duck told him. Not a mean laugh, though. A bit amazed. "The funniest thing about it is I'm actually in a position to shake my head sadly at the relationship problems of others."

Duck grinned at that. "Someday we might have a fight or something, you know."

"You don't talk enough to fight."

"Do too."

"Do not."

"Do too."

Dan grinned. "There. Our first fight. Somehow my sense of security survived it."

"Just don't tell Ray how smug you are. He'd pop you in the head or kick you in the face or whatever it is he likes to threaten people with."

Dan sat back against Duck's chest, sighing as Duck's arms folded around him and Duck's lips pressed against his neck. "Maybe we should just tell Ben what Ray said. You're so sure he's madly in love with Ray...?"

"Nope. They gotta take care of this themselves."

"Think so?" 

Duck nodded, closing his eyes and holding Dan against him, slipping fingers under his shirt just to touch light fingers to his stomach, warm and soft. Someone there. Someone with him, who cared. Loved.

It was the most amazing thing he'd ever known. He'd had a mostly rough, mostly dirty kind of life. But now he had this. 

"Worst thing I could have done...you know, back before?"

Dan nodded against him, turning his face to nuzzle his cheek to Duck's mouth. Back before meant before the noose. Before them. 

Duck went on. "Worst thing I could have done, worse than telling you whether or not you ought to kill yourself or go on living...I could've gone to your wife. Told her about you. Told you what to do about her. Nah, life and death's tricky enough to talk about. Love's pretty much impossible."

"Hey, Ben?" 

"Mmm?" Ben looked up from the form he was filling out. One thing he noticed never changed in law enforcement, whether working in Wilby or patrolling Nunavut or liaising in Chicago - every action taken had about ten accompanying forms that had to be filed. 

Even to his studious mind it was exessive.

Buddy leaned in and grinned at him, seeming to read his mind. "Save it for tomorrow. Carol wants to know if you want to go out for dinner."

Fraser sat back, needing no other prompting to forget his work.. "I'd be happy to, but I really must insist she allow me to pay this time."

"Not going to happen. Anyway, don't worry about that. She doesn't pay because she's selfless, you know. She just uses you for the kick she gets going out with twins." Bud rolled his eyes and tapped the doorframe. "Come on. Invite your friend."

"Duck as well? She can be seen on the arms of two sets of twins." Fraser stood up, dropping his pen over the form still to be finished. 

"I don't know about that." Bud walked him down the hall towards the front lobby of the small stationhouse. "These days asking Duck somewhere is the same as asking Duck and Dan somewhere, and Carol's still a bit odd about Dan."

"I can imagine. Seeing someone that way can't be an easy memory."

"No, but that's not what bothers her." 

Secretly, Fraser was glad to know the woman was so bothered by her memories of her actions that night. He only learned about it through Dan and Duck, of course, and Duck was obviously biased against her. But through the bias the fact remained - Carol had found Dan on the noose, cut him down, and then chose to hide him in a closet rather than miss the chance to sell the house she found him in. 

Of course at the time she'd assumed he was dead. She couldn't know he'd been hanging there for a matter of seconds. But there could be no question that her priorities, for that night at least, were highly skewed.

"Well, I'll call her and ask what she wants to do," Bud said when Ben didn't answer. He pulled out his cell phone and dialed. "Go on home if you like. I'll call your room."

Ben left him to his phone call, walking the short, familiar route to the hotel. The nights were getting longer, and the evenings cooler. It was just at the time of year when inhaling felt sharp, invigorating. Not enough to feel the ice crystals forming in your mouth or nose, the way deepest winter would do.

Just enough to make the short walk enlivening. 

By the time Ben reached the hotel he felt more than ready for dinner with pleasant company. He saw the light in Ray's room shining, and moved past to his own room. There was a letter half-slid under the door, and he lifted it as he moved inside. Buck Frobisher, he recognised with a smile. Dief must be arriving soon. 

He found himself smiling at the thought. Diefenbaker was his companion, after all. Though the wolf would be happier to see Ray, he thought. But he didn't blame him. Wolves were more loyal, he thought, than humans. Ray had been gone longer.

As if in answer to that thought, his foot caught against something on the floor near the doorway. He saw a brown box, another piece of mail. He instantly recognised the scrawling handwriting.

Ray? 

For a moment he was alarmed, but he picked up the box and reminded himself that Ray's room was occupied and there was no way he could have gotten off the island without half of Wilby seeing and coming to ask Ben why he was leaving. 

One good thing about small towns, he thought with a wry smile.

He sat on the bed, tugged out his penknife and sliced the tape around the edges of the box. No postage, he noted absently. But his address written out clearly as if it were mail. 

Inside the box...envelopes. It was filled to the top. He pulled out the top one and turned it over and in an instant he realised what it was. 

Ray's spidery handwriting, the return address in Chicago. Ben's name, the address of the old post in Yellowknife, and a big red stamp. Return to Sender. Addressee Unknown.

He had only stayed in Yellowknife for a matter of weeks. After that he sought a post more deserted. 

He pulled out another envelope. The same thing. He looked into the box, at the stack of mail waiting for him. He turned it over on the bed, let the envelopes fall in a pile. 

Ray had written to him. 

Ray Kowalski, who could barely sit still long enough to add his signature to the bottom of some form. Ray, who was embarrassed around Fraser by his elementary vocabulary and the clumsy ways he expressed himself. 

Fraser looked at the pile of envelopes, overwhelmed. 

The phone rang before he could think about opening one to read it. 

He stood, almost in a daze, and answered it. 

"Ben? Hey. Alright, Dan and Duck are in. Iron your shirt. She wants to take us mainland for a real dinner, she says. Get Ray up and ready, the ferry's leaving in an hour."

It took Ray a minute to answer the door, thanks to his injured leg. When the door finally opened he looked at Fraser, wary. "Hey."

Fraser searched his face, wanting answers. Wanting to know what the right questions were. Wanting mostly to shut himself in his room and read front to back every letter, envelope, address, that Ray had written to him. "Carol French has invited us to dinner," he said instead. His voice was tight.

"Oh. Cool." Ray hesitated. 

Fraser wanted to reach out to him. Instead he grasped the door frame. "Ray..."

"Read 'em yet?" Ray stayed wary. 

Fraser shook his head. "I only got in a minute ago."

"No point in talking about it yet, then, is there?"

Fraser couldn't argue. 

"You get a lot of murders in a place like this?"

Bud seemed surprised. "Not since...1975, I think?" 

Ray whistled, toying with his fork and the soggy plate of greens that passed as a salad. "I can't decide if that'd be a nice change of pace or if it'd get so boring I'd kill someone myself."

Bud chuckled. "My old partner, Stan. He used to talk now and then about 'the criminals' the way old people talk about smoking 'the pot'. He'd talk about what it would be like to get a real crime in Wilby. It never appealed to me."

"You're a small town kid, huh?" 

"Unfortunately, you might say."

"Nah." Ray sighed. "It's kind of nice to feel safe."

Ben looked at him, instantly concerned. 

Ray ignored him. "I guess there's not a lot a guy like me could do in a place like Wilby."

"If you weren't a police officer?" Bud pondered it. 

"Mechanic," Duck said. 

"You fix cars?" Carol spoke up, her voice quick as it always was. Like she was late to say whatever it was she had to say. "You'd be welcome here, then. The last time our SUV broke down they had to bring a man in from the mainland. It took three days just to have someone look at it."

Ray considered that. "Small town mechanic. Huh."

"Forgive me, Ray, but..." Ben cleared his throat. "Are you considering not returning to police work?"

Ray flashed a smile that didn't comfort Ben at all. It was his bitter smile. "I don't have much choice, Frase. Police work's done with me."

Ben looked at him, surprised, then saw the handle of the cane propped up against the table and understood. "Your leg."

Ray nodded. "Nerve damage. Doc says it'll never be much better than it is now, so. It's desk job or pension."

Ben and Bud both winced. 

Ray shrugged. "Some psych thing too. I get these panic attacks when I see a gun. Doesn't really make for a good cop."

Ben turned to him, setting his fork down. "You haven't told me everything."

"Yeah. I did. Just went light on the details."

"What happened to you? If you don't mind my asking." Carol French was looking at Ray in fascination.

He glanced at her. He hesitated, then spoke flatly. "Couple of mob guys strung me up in a basement and took shots at me for fun."

Silence fell.

Carol looked at her salad. 

Ben looked at Ray. 

"If you want my opinion, both of you should stay around." 

All eyes went to Dan.

He cleared his throat. "We need another full-time cop. We need a mechanic. You two don't hate it here." 

Duck flashed a smile, his first of the night. "I can find no fault with that logic."

Ray glanced at Ben. He looked away again. 

Ben turned to his salad, and Dan took up the conversation. He spoke, halting and shy, about why he decided to stay in Wilby after everything that happened. Though everyone at the table realised the answer was sitting right next to him.

"I like the Watch," he said, and turned red. "Not because of...what happened there. Just, the Watch."

Bud cleared his throat. "One of Carol's first paintings was the view from the Watch. My favorite one."

"You paint?" Dan made the motions of a smile her way.

She returned it uncertainly. "I did for years. I just recently picked it up again."

"Duck paints." 

Duck shifted in his seat. "Signs."

Dan glanced at him. "No, he paints. He won't let me see any of them, though."

Duck shrugged. "Gotta do something with the leftovers from signs and houses and all." 

"I didn't know that." Carol spoke awkwardly. 

Duck sent her a look. Hardly a muscle on his face had shifted, but there was an unmistakable air of contempt coming from him suddenly. "Yeah, well. I ain't rich, why bother finding out?" 

She looked away.

Bud cleared his throat. "Come on, Duck."

Ben looked from Duck to Carol. He thought about the letters sitting on the bed in his room. 

"I don't care much for people who treat other people with contempt without a reason."

His eyes were drawn back to Duck. 

It seemed that for all their differences, Ray and Duck shared a confrontational side. 

"Duck." It was Dan who spoke. He leaned towards Duck, and though his hands were out of sight under the table Ben had no doubt where they were. "She saved my life." 

Duck snorted. For that moment he might have been Ray. 

"Stop it." Dan spoke firmly, more firm than Ben had ever heard him. "She did." He sent his look to Carol. "I'm the last person in the world who has any right to judge someone for making the wrong choice in a stressful situation. Especially considering that night."

She was looking at Duck, her eyes wide and stark. 

"Not the point," Duck said, his voice gravel. "You don't treat someone like trash."

"Why not?" Dan sat up, eyes suddenly bright, and stubborn. "Why not treat my life like trash when it's what I was doing? I was throwing myself away, Duck. Can't expect anyone else to treat me better than garbage."

Ben hadn't known Dan before all this, but he imagined the suicide attempt and the little traumas before and afterwards had had an affect on him. Suddenly he thought he saw a glimmer of the man Dan might have been before it all happened. 

Duck looked at him with quiet surprise. But he looked away again, unwilling to concede the point.

"Duck."

"Fine." He sat back, frowning.

"She saved my life."

The two men regarded each other.

Ben was struck again by the level of silent communication they shared. Maybe because both men were naturally less talkative, they seemed to find it easy to speak to each other without words.

Duck turned suddenly, his eyes on Carol. He didn't regard her with warmth, but the contempt seemed to have faded. "Thank you. For saving him."

She stood up and went towards the restrooms.

"Get this soap opera type stuff a lot in towns like Wilby?" Ray asked.

They looked at him.

Fraser.

It's not gonna surprise you too much that I'm not good at this letter writing thing. I'll bet you know that stuff, the writing...caligraphy. I just looked it up. Caligraphy and all. But this is me. I wanted to say a couple of things I didn't say up north. Sorry to spring things on you the way I did. Hell, I didn't really manage to actually say anything outright, I guess, but you always know what I'm thinking so you had to know it then. Anyway you must have to send me away so fast. 

I know you're not into guys, okay? I know you're into dangerous, leggy dark-haired chicks with rap sheets. That's cool. I mean, I'm into skinny blondes who are way out of my league. But I'm into you too I guess. I thought that meant you could be into me too. Dumb of me, I know, since you're in Yellowknife or wherever and I'm back here in the sludge. 

Anyway. I just want you to know I understand. If you want to call me sometime that's cool. We're still partners, right? You said that thing once about your dad and Frobisher and being miles apart but still partners all the same. 

I got to get to work. Later, Frase. 

Ray

Oh, tell Dief hi. I wanted to send him a donut, but I guess it wouldn't make the trip with all its parts intact. Kinda like me, huh?

It was that very first letter that hurt the most. The uncertainness. The self-conscious wish to still be partners. 

The revelation.

It was just that Ray and Maggie had spent so much time together right before that talk. And Ben was well aware of Ray's preferences in women, and Maggie fit those preferences. She liked Ray, Ben knew. She wanted it to become something.

After he requested the immediate assignment and told Ray he was leaving, he had the first inkling that maybe he guessed wrong. The abandoned look on Ray's face...

But he didn't hope to think that Ray meant him. That he wanted him. 

The first letter had Ben sitting stark and shaken. It got worse with every new one he read. 

And the last letter, one that had never been mailed, that sat thin and innocent at the bottom of the pile, nearly undid him.

The date was only three weeks ago. After Ray's attack. The writing was so jagged it was almost unreadable. And the letter was so short.

Fraser,

It doesn't really matter because you haven't got any of these, but I can't sleep lately, and I keep thinking you'd know what to tell me. I guess I miss you right now.

Ray

He lowered that last letter. It seemed forlorn without the bright stamp and smear of red postal office ink.

Forlorn when considering what he wrote, and what must have driven it. 

Ben found his eyes wet when he blinked up into the real world, the dim hotel room he called home. 

Five minutes. A talk of five minutes would have saved them both months of pain. All he had to do was ask. To clarify. 

But no. Benton Fraser was a man who was sure of one thing above all else - that his way of seeing a situation was the right way. The only way. He was an intelligent man, after all, who used logic more than most people. Who prided himself on being always fair, always level-headed.

Always right. 

He heard Ray's words, credited them to being about Maggie, and that was the end of it. 

For his bullheadedness he deserved the last few months of loneliness and the disquiet in his mind. But Ray? Ray deserved to have whatever good in the world that he wanted. 

If he still wanted Fraser, then Ben would take those five minutes he should have given him months ago, would bury his pride, and would give himself over. He would walk to the next room, knock on the door, and tell Ray that he loved him. Damn his pride and his uncertainty. Ray shouldn't always have to be the one to put himself out.

He dragged the sleeve of his shirt over his face to clear his vision, and stood. All the emotions boiling inside of him gave way to a sudden nervous excitement. Finally he would say out loud the words that had filled his head since before he and Ray ever left Chicago.

From outside, a noise. Sharp, sudden, with a million connotations and not one of them good.

The blast of gunfire.

Too late, strangely, was his first thought. He was out the door as quick as reflex, watching the back end of an old jeep speeding out of the lot. 

There were holes in the plaster and wood. Holes in Ray's room. 

Too late. 

Buddy hung up the phone, ran out the door, and drove Carol's SUV the short distance to the hotel so quickly that he didn't catch the entire chorus of the song on the radio. 

Wilby being Wilby, there were already people crowding the rooms. The few occupied hotel rooms were cleared out, and people in pajamas hovered around the open door to the room Buddy knew belonged to Ray Kowalski.

He parked haphazardly and reached the doorway a moment later, moving people forcibly out of his way. Everyone knew Buddy, and they moved for him, but only to crowd in behind him once he was inside.

Ben Fraser was kneeling on the floor beside the bed. 

Ray was propped against the bed, shaking, eyes open but glazed and unseeing. 

Buddy cursed and hit his knees at Ben's side. "Is he shot?"

Ben didn't glance his way. His eyes were on Ray, his hands clenched around one of Ray's. He mumbled something about panic attacks. 

Then Bud remembered what Ray had said at dinner about guns. He realised that the glaze on Ray's face wasn't pain. It was sheer, unseeing terror.

Ray was speaking, hardly moving his lips, repeating something low and fast and toneless. Buddy leaned in, but hesitated. Panic attack, he should give Ray room? "What's he saying?"

"He thinks they found him. The men who injured him in Chicago." Ben's voice was tense enough to hum. 

Buddy glanced back at the bullet holes in the plaster and the door. The only shootings he was ever called to in Wilby were accidents, hunters preparing for trips mainland. "Did they?" 

Ben turned to him for the first time. 

Buddy, and most people in Wilby, took Ben mostly at face value. Unemotional, for the most part. Calm and steady. But there were wells in those blue eyes. Deep and undisturbed wells. Ben was human, after all: he felt emotions, he just hid them. 

There was nothing hidden now. Those pools were disturbed. They were whirlwinds. Typhoons. Furious. 

"No," he answered. "The shooter drove away in a white jeep."

Buddy drew in a breath. He stood. He looked towards the door. 

Ben spoke again even as he turned back to Ray. "Do something about him, Buddy. Or I will."

Bud saw familiar blue eyes peering in through the doorway. He saw those eyes widen as he realised who had fired shots into the hotel. 

He saw the blue eyes turn and vanish from sight. 

"Damn it." He went to the door in a run. "Duck! Wait!"

Taylor. That little shit Taylor. 

One of Wilby's native sons. Cocky as shit about his little jokes, his petty revenge. 

Duck had never given him much thought. Not even after the news about he and Dan had come out, and Taylor seemed to focus on that as a way to get Duck back for keeping him from attacking Emily Anderson.

Taylor was the artist who kept painting his foul words at the Watch. Everyone knew it, but no one did anything. Duck didn't give him enough respect to care, and no one else gave crimes against the queers a second thought.

Taylor put a rock through the window of Dan's store. Probably put the one through Duck's windshield. Him or someone just like him. 

Duck didn't care. If that was the price he had to pay for keeping some horny punk from raping his girlfriend, well then, it was worth it. Bothered him when it came home to Dan through him, but Dan was the first to tell him it didn't matter. Dan was the first to tell him to let it be. 

He was done letting it be. 

Taylor had gone too far before, but this was over the line. No one else would do a damned thing. Not even Buddy. And Duck wasn't willing to live with that anymore.

He knew exactly where Taylor would be. Hiding, because he had just done a dumb thing and he must have known it was bad enough to get some attention. But hiding in public, because he was a smug teenage brat. 

He parked on the street and moved down the familiar route to the Watch. 

Taylor was an idiot. Duck knew the Watch better than most. He had years of experience creeping around in the dark. He knew the trails, the hiding spots. The private places. The ways to run if the cops showed up, flashlights glaring and voices calling. He knew it backwards and forwards, could find any part of it in the blackest of nights. 

And he knew Taylor would be there. Taylor would figure it was the last place anyone would think to look for him.

He was sitting, this small, skinny slip of a kid, on some of the rocks nearest the water. Dangling a foot over the side, on his back, blowing puffs of smoke into the night. Happy as shit.

Duck approached without making a sound. His feet padded up slippery rocks, sure of their way. Water lapped around him, almost soothing. 

Encouraging. 

He cleared his throat.

Taylor jerked up, making a sharp sound of surprise. He scrambled up on his hands and turned, and when he saw who stood less than five feet behind him he backed up. 

Then he smirked. "You know they can arrest you just for being here."

Duck shrugged. Wholly unconcerned. The kid was right: none of the guys from the scandal list were allowed at the Watch. At that moment it was the furthest concern from his mind.

Taylor's eyes wavered. Cocky, yeah, and sure as shit that he hadn't even done anything wrong. But a kid, and he had already felt Duck's strength once. "They'd tear you apart if you hurt me."

Duck moved forward a step. 

Taylor slipped off the rock he'd been stretched on, putting it between them. His feet splashed into the water ankle-deep.

Duck regarded him, eyebrows lifting. He knew Taylor was scared of him. He knew Taylor ought to be. 

"Well? Say something." Taylor straightened, ready to dart to either side if Duck approached him either way around the rock. His hands were flat and pale against the slate of the rock, and Duck wondered idly where he'd dropped his cigarette. 

Duck almost smiled. Scared little punk. He was nothing. Couldn't have been seventeen yet. 

But he could get his hands on daddy's hunting rifle, or whatever he'd used at the hotel. He could throw a rock, and he had the contempt in him to do it. 

Duck didn't move, didn't even shift his weight, but something in his face must have gotten to Taylor. He tensed, shoulders stiff and eyes huge under lanky hair. 

"I'll tell everyone you raped me!" The words came out in a burst, like a sigh of relief as the idea occurred to him.

In the back of Duck's mind he realised this was Wilby, and people might actually believe a lie like that. But he'd never been one to put self-preservation above things he thought more important. 

Taylor sneered when Duck didn't answer, sure he'd won the battle. "I got a good imagination. I can tell them all about you putting those fag hands on me. You're a low class queer. Nobody's gonna be surprised." 

Duck folded his hands across his chest. Little sprays of water from the tide against the rocks struck his legs. Colder out this time of year, he reflected. 

"So? You scared now? You want to do something, do it! You know what'll happen." Taylor planted his feet, having gone from smug to scared and now back to smug. 

Duck moved forward.

Taylor wheeled, falling over one of the many jutting rock-tips that came up over the tide. He scrambled to his feet again, cursing.

"Duck."

Duck glanced back, and frowned when he saw Buddy at the edge of the rocky soil coming from the footpaths. Buddy had his flashlight out, but it was a bright evening and they didn't need the extra light to see. 

"Buddy!" Taylor moved around the rock, slipping and then slipping again as he tried to escape Duck as fast as possible. 

Duck stood there, calm, and let him run past. 

"Buddy, he was gonna jump me. He said."

Buddy watched him coming, frown on his face. He looked past Taylor to where Duck stood. Something tugged at the corner of his mouth.

Duck relaxed. He'd heard it all, then. Or enough to count. 

Buddy's solemn eyes went to Taylor. "We'd better get you where you belong."

Taylor nodded fast. "I want to go home. Away from that queer and his--"

"Taylor." Buddy put a firm hand on his shoulder. "You're not going home."

Taylor hesitated. 

Duck moved down the rocks, approaching them slowly. 

"Come on, Buddy."

"You went too far this time."

"I shot high. It was a joke."

"A joke." 

Duck had known Buddy most of his life. Buddy was mostly calm, mostly easy-going. But he could get that blue-steel look in his eyes when someone pissed him off. 

He had it then, regarding Taylor. 

"It was a joke! Nobody gives a shit, Buddy. He's just a fucking Yank, and Irene says he's a queer like his retard cousin." His head jerked Duck's way. 

Duck smiled faintly. The one thing about small town people was that they used words as a weapon. Not much else, usually, but words. So they assumed words were enough to hurt anyone. 

Words were so weak, though. Words didn't change facts. Duck knew that. He'd always known how unimportant words were. 

Buddy's hand slipped down to grasp Taylor's arm. "I should've stopped you long before now."

"Let me go! My dad's going to--"

Buddy leaned in. Duck was close enough to hear the words, though they came through barely opened lips. "You tell your dad that the next person who breaks a law, no matter how small, against Duck or Dan Jarvis or any of the men from that list is going to end up sitting in jail right along with you."

Something in Duck ached to do what he went there for. To lash out. To make the punk kid suffer. If it was five years ago, when he was still a regular at the barstools of the Loyalist, he would have. 

But Buddy looked up at him suddenly, straightening without loosing his grip on Taylor's arm. "It's my fault he thought he could get away with it."

Duck nodded. They both knew it was true, why lie to keep Buddy from feeling guilty?

"Things will change." 

Another nod, and somehow Duck managed to add a smile. 

Ray had stopped his mumbling, stopped shaking so badly. His eyes were shut instead of staring out blankly. 

But Ben couldn't stop worrying. He couldn't move, couldn't take his eyes from Ray. Too late, he thought again. If Taylor's bullets hit lower, if it really had been the Mafia in Wilby...if Ray hadn't come at all... 

"Frase?" 

He heard the murmur, saw blue peek out from between Ray's eyelids. He leaned in, still clutching Ray's hand in both of his unconsciously. "Ray."

"My ass is sore."

Ben blinked, and relief hit him in a wave that had him grinning. "Well then, let's get you off the floor." 

He settled Ray on the bed, and for the first time realised the front door was wide open. The crowd seemed to have dispersed, and he wondered how long they'd been sitting there. 

He went to shut the door, and stopped in the bathroom to get Ray a glass of water. He brought it over. Knelt on the floor beside him. "Here."

Ray looked down at him in some surprise. "I got a chair, you know." 

Ben just held out the glass. 

Ray took it, eyebrows raised, and sipped. He made a face and held the glass to his lap. "Hate those attacks. Normal, the department shrink said. But...what kind of cop is scared of guns?" 

Ben had never liked seeing that self-hating look in Ray's eyes. He answered, firm and easy. "All of them, if they're smart. Guns are violent, more powerful than any person has a right to be. But we face them anyway. And you will too, eventually." 

Ray shook his head. "I can't go back, Frase. I don't mind helping people and stopping bad guys, but when those mobbed up clowns were watching me, looking for places to shoot..." He shook his head, trembling, and rubbed at his thigh. 

Ben placed his hand over the spot, over Ray's hand. "Here?"

Ray nodded, pale.

"Where else?" His voice was low.

Ray looked at him, uncertain, but tugged his sleeve up high on his arm, revealing a grooved line of scar tissue over his elbow. 

Ben reached out, touched fingertips to it. "How many?" 

"Eight."

Ben shuddered. 

"Kind of spread out, though." Ray shrugged.

"I would have come back. The moment I knew what had happened..." He swallowed against a throat that always clogged just when the most important words were needed. "I would have come back if I realised my mistake." 

Ray studied him. Somehow, maybe the way Dan and Duck seemed to do it, he read something from Fraser's eyes. Maybe it was a thought he'd suspected himself. "You thought I was talking about Mags. That day."

Ben nodded.

"I thought about it a lot. Tossed my words around in my head, tried to figure out where I went the most wrong." Ray's voice was hoarse. "I should've just been blunt, huh? I always was best at just saying things."

"I love you, Ray."

Ray's throat worked. "Yeah. Blunt like that."

"I always have."

"Fraser."

"Well, not always. I did live a good many years without knowing you." Ben smiled as he spoke. He couldn't help it. He'd said the words. Finally. Blunt, the way Ray liked. Spoken his feelings. No matter how Ray responded, he felt lifted of a weight he didn't realise he'd been carrying. 

"But since Chicago. Since..." Since when? He'd never thought to put a day on it. He shook his head. Unsure of a fact, and happy about it. "Actually, maybe it really has been my whole life."

A hand clenched at his arm.

He looked down, saw that his finger was still laying against that red scar. Ray's knuckles were white against his wrist. 

He looked up. Smiled. "I made a mistake. I'll regret it forever. I deserve..." He shook his head. Searching for words had never come so hard. He shrugged finally. "I deserve a good kick in the head for it."

Ray snorted, his mouth quirking up. The smile was short-lived, though. "That's it, huh? You made a mistake? That's all I get?"

Ben chuckled. He climbed off his knees and sat down beside Ray on the bed. "You remember how hard it is for me to admit I've made a mistake, don't you?" 

Ray laughed again, quiet and surprised. "You know, you were right. You really have changed. I kinda like you in Wilby, Frase."

"Do you?"

He nodded. His hand was still around Ben's wrist, but the tight hold relaxed. His thumb rubbed back and forth, light. 

Ben nearly shivered again.

"Yeah. You're not so life-and-death grim like we had to be up north, but you're not as uptight as Chicago. I guess this place is still home, even if it's not as dangerous as the home you grew up in."

Ben thought about that. He nodded. "I suppose so."

"Maybe you ought to stay."

"Maybe. Diefenbaker is due to arrive in two more days, and he would sulk something terrible if I put him right back on the boat to move again."

"Can't have Dief sulking." Ray hesitated. "I've gotta go back. I've gotta testify when they pick a court date."

Considering the fact that Ray hadn't really responded to his bold announcement, Ben was surprised at how confident he felt answering. "It might be nice to pay a visit, just to see the people again."

"Yeah?" Ray's eyes were wide. His hand shifted, and his fingers bumped Fraser's and then slid between and twined together and grasped. "Yeah. You can come see the two seven. Say hi to Turnbull. He's a nice guy when he's outside the Consulate. I hung out with him some. Kinda like getting Fraser Lite. Imitation Fraser. I Can't Believe It's Not Fra--"

"And then of course I can help you gather whatever you have left at your apartment that you'd need to bring back here." 

Ray grinned when Fraser cut him off. "Frannie's taking care of the turtle. Got everything else in storage. Couldn't be too hard to ship it up."

Ben looked down at their hands. He squeezed, feeling the smile on his face all the way down to his toes. 

"My hero." 

Duck stopped in the doorway. It wasn't the words, it was Dan's tone - a bit amused, a bit sarcastic. Chastising. He'd always told Duck to leave Taylor be. 

But he'd never heard sarcasm from Dan. It made him grin, even though he knew Dan was serious. He grinned because Dan was waking up every day, little by little, from that terrible fog. "People could've been hurt."

Dan regarded him, crossed the small kitchen. Duck's place was small. Perfect for one, he'd always thought. Somehow Dan fit there. Contained himself in the space with Duck as if it were still only one person. 

"What did you do to him? I heard he was in the back of Buddy's car crying like a baby."

Duck thought back. Shrugged. "All I did was look at him."

Dan studied him for a moment, as if checking for sincerity. Then he shook his head and laughed. "I guess that's enough." He closed the space between them, kissed Duck. His hand drifted up to Duck's arm and squeezed, then he turned and moved back to the oven. "I was making us some dessert?"

"Sounds good." Duck had to go back out to the truck, get his tools into the garage in case those clouds threatening all day decided to burst open.

But he hesitated. He leaned back against the doorframe and watched Dan moving around his tiny kitchen. Dan wanted a bowl, he went right to the cabinet where the bowls were. Comfortable. Familiar. 

Duck smiled. He thought about looking into that open hotel room door and seeing, for a second, Ben curled into Ray, grasping hands, broadcasting clear as day all the love and fear and care in the world. 

They'd be okay, he figured. And maybe they would stay. The good people of Wilby could use a queer in the police station. It'd be a nice change of pace. 

They could have days of work, evenings at Iggy's with Sandra and Emily or hanging out with Bud and Carol. There were good people in Wilby, and though it was a small place without more to offer than a big American city or a frozen, glittering Yukon, there was all a person needed to live a life on the island. 

They'd be alright, Duck figured. So would Dan. So would Duck. They'd all been through worse than a few dark looks and sneered words and thrown rocks. 

"What are you grinning about?" 

He blinked and focused on Dan, who was at the table mixing a bowl of something and regarding Duck with pink cheeks and a smile. 

Duck shrugged. "Just. Fuck people, you know?" 

Dan's head tilted. 

"People and their rocks." He tapped a fist against the doorframe and headed out for the truck. Couldn't explain himself much better than that, but then, words weren't really important. 

Dan would know.