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Ray had been handling it until he saw the letter Fraser left him.

Sure, the twenty minutes until they got Fraser to the intensive care were some of the longest of his life. Yes, he had been going out of his mind while Fraser was in surgery, but that's what you did when you shot your best friend in the back, when you didn't know if your best friend was gonna make it. Ray spent the night in the hospital and was the only person there when the doctor talked about thoracic region and T8 vertebrae and how it was too dangerous to attempt to remove Ray's bullet. The words just slid right off Ray, at that moment all he had wanted to hear was Benny was going to live.

In the morning, the sight of the beige hospital wall was unexpectedly replaced by Welsh, standing in front of him. "Any news?"

"He is out of surgery. They are keeping him in the ICU for now." Ray felt like a robot, existing outside his own body. Nothing seemed real. Three days ago his family had been leaving for a week's vacation and he'd been happy to have the house to himself. Now he was waiting for the word on whether Fraser would have the full use of his limbs. The doctors were concerned about spinal cord damage and potential paralysis.

Welsh nodded and didn't speak. He was holding an envelope. The sharp writing on it spelled his name in Fraser's hand, and Ray's spirits sunk as he imagined what might have put the grim look on Welsh's face. "Read it, Detective."

Ray made his hand take Fraser's note.

"This was left with the wolf at the animal hospital. The doctors are planning to discharge the animal, I assume in your care?"

"Yeah, sure," Ray wasn't paying attention. His eyes scanned the brief lines, all in Fraser handwriting, not that he doubted who wrote it.

I told Victoria I am going with her. If circumstances prevent me from looking after Diefenbaker myself, I hope that you would do us the kindness of taking him back to the Yukon.

- B. F.

Those letters didn't stand for Best Friend. His best friend didn't write that letter. Fraser also hadn't been able to include any of the typical turns of phrase such as "Yours," or "Dear Ray". Perhaps some innate honor had told Fraser that writing such a thing on this farewell note would be cruel. Ray felt that Fraser had known he didn't deserve to use those terms of endearment and his heart squeezed tightly in his chest at this honorable act of his friend that could have been his last. The letter had killed the last remaining hope Ray had had that Fraser hadn't meant to leave on that train.

He lowered the letter and looked up. Welsh's face demanded an explanation.

"Victoria made him an offer he couldn't refuse, sir." And wasn't that the truth.

"So I understand." Welsh still looked grim. Ray handed the letter back into his outstretched hand; it would go into the case file. "The Internal Affairs received an anonymous tip that there would be evidence at your house that linked you to a large sum of marked bills. I assume this was the money you recovered at the train station?"

"I assume so," Ray said. "I have no knowledge of this, sir."

"Detective, I'm here as a courtesy. If you have any facts that you'd like to share with me before the official review, now is the time."

Ray tried to gather his scattered thoughts. "Fraser called me saying she'd be at the train station. He didn't say anything about evidence at my house, there was no time to discuss it, sir. We met up at the station and Victoria fired at us." He met Welsh's eyes straight on. "I stayed behind to take care of the suitcase full of money until reinforcements arrived. Fraser went after Victoria."

"So you knew she had a gun."

Ray nodded. He had gone over it in his head all night, when he had tried to shoot her he had no reason to suspect she wouldn't use the gun again. Later they found the weapon on the edge of platform; Fraser had already disarmed her.

Welsh continued, "The fact that Constable Fraser tried to apprehend the suspect speaks in his favour. I'll make sure they takes note of that in the investigation."

Ray nodded, pressing his lips together. Anything more he could say on the subject wouldn't be of any help.

"It appears that Constable Fraser was under considerable duress to do whatever Metcalfe wanted."

"It looks that way, sir." Ray met his superior officer's eyes, tasting bile. "How long until the Bureau realizes they were chasing the wrong guy and withdraw the charges against Fraser?"

"Let me worry about that side of the investigation," Welsh told him, not unkindly, "Your job is to pass the interview with the shooting team. We were all there, and saw what happened so it should be a formality. But we can't be too careful."

Ray nodded. He didn't want to remind Welsh about the bail money he still had tied up into the mortgage. He knew IA would ask about that, ask about the motivation Ray had to prove Fraser's innocence or to keep Fraser from leaving. Until he was in front of the board he would keep his trap shut and hope the ball got rolling on clearing Fraser's name. It was ironic that Ray himself had never thought Fraser capable of running until last night. He knew what Welsh didn't (or if he did, the Lieutenant was kind enough not to mention it) -- Fraser had been going with her. He'd been muttering as much laying on his back on the platform, saying he was supposed to be with Victoria. Ray had covered for him there, and he would continue to cover for him until Fraser was better. He didn't have to lie to himself, though. Any illusions he had held about Fraser were now gone, destroyed in the wreck left in Victoria's wake. Ray had been ready to stake his life on Fraser, and Fraser had thrown it all away.

"Keep me updated on his status." Welsh nodded. "I'll get in touch with Dr. Abraham about setting up your appointments."

"A therapist?" Ray's face contorted.

"I assume you'd like to be cleared for active duty as fast as possible." His voice brooked no argument.

Ray bit his tongue on the arguments that sprang automatically to his lips. He'd never shot another cop before let alone someone he thought of as a partner, and it made sense they'd want to check he wasn't going crazy. He'd deal with it later, he was too tired to think about it now.

He ran a tired hand through his shorn hair. "I'm gonna head home and change."

"Elaine has processed a day-off request on your behalf." Welsh stared meaningfully at him. "Get yourself in order. Tomorrow you'll meet with the shooting team at 10."

"Thank you, sir." A day off was the last thing Ray wanted. He didn't want to have time to think. However, he was aware of the smell of his clothes, the specks of Fraser's blood still on his cuffs, and of the exhaustion that threatened to make his eyes close while standing up. He would go home and sleep for a few hours in his bed, then come back to the hospital. It wasn't as though Fraser, drugged out of his mind, would know.

He saw the police cars a few blocks away from his place. Slowing down, dread climbing up a notch, he parked behind Huey's car. The front door of his house was off the hinges. Lewie's face flashed with pity when he saw Ray walk up, gaping at the destruction he saw inside.

"It's a real mess in there, Vecchio," he said. "A neighbour called it in. Somebody trashed the place. I wouldn't go inside--" but Ray stopped listening to him and stepped over the threshold.

A real mess didn't capture the reality inside his house. There wasn't a cupboard that was not overturned.

"We've never seen anything like it." Huey came down the stairs carrying his notepad. "Upstairs is the same. Was about to call your phone. Doesn't look like a typical burglary..." His voice turned thoughtful, "It's like they were looking for something."

"Fraser," Ray sighed, walking over to the cupboard where his mother kept family pictures. They were lying in disarray out of their frames, but nothing was torn or broken. It was the most careful burglary act in history.

"What about him?" Huey asked. "And how's the guy doing anyway?"

"Like most people who've been shot in the back," Ray responded, voice flat.

"He gonna make it, right?" Lewie's pity reared its head again but Ray was past letting his hackles rise over it. He was too tired.

"They left the bullet in. It's too deep in his spine. It could paralyze him if they tried to extract it now."

They might have exchanged glances behind his back, he didn't care. He walked through to the living room where instead of his mother's dining room table stood the god-damned pool table he'd been so excited about before. That Friday night seemed like a life-time ago. Hadn't all the signs been there already? Ray felt blindsided, like he'd missed the biggest clue bus of his life before it ran him over.

"So we'll do the usual sweep for fingerprints," Huey was saying, "Run it through the database..."

"There's no need," Ray stopped him. He picked up a children's book off the floor and set it carefully on the table. "Fraser did this."

"What?" They both gaped at him.

"He was looking for evidence Victoria Metcalfe planted in my house. She blackmailed Fraser to do her dirty work. He was trying to even the playing field."

Lewis whistled. "She's one piece of work," he said. "And she and Fraser were lovers? I thought Janice was hard on me in the divorce, but this gal takes the cake."

Huey added, "Does this have to do with the IA's investigation? All that money at the train station?"

Ray nodded. The story would come out in any case, and it was in their favour if everyone knew the lengths to which Victoria had pushed Fraser. Ray had to get the timeline straight in his head tonight so he could sound confident tomorrow at the review.

"Well then." Huey slapped his notebook shut. "We shouldn't mess with the evidence. You let us know if you need help cleaning the place later," he nodded meaningfully at his partner and went outside.

"Listen...you gonna be okay?" Lewie hesitated on the threshold to the house. Ray gave him a long stare. "I mean...if you need a place to stay or something...?"

"You can pretend you care somewhere else," Ray said. "I'll take care of my business here then I'll go back to the hospital, check on Fraser."

"Alright." Lewie nodded but he was still hesitating. "Nice place...before, you know..." He shut up.

Ray turned away from him and began climbing the stairs. Victoria was good at what she did. They wouldn't find anything except Vecchios' and Fraser's fingerprints, he was sure of it. Too bad his bullet missed the mark. His bedroom was another disaster area. Ray felt how it looked. He drew a deep breath and got to work.

By the time the floor of his bedroom was visible he could barely see straight. Ray set the alarm and collapsed in an exhausted heap on the covers, clothes still on. He pulled his coat over himself as a cover and slept uneasily for a few hours. Afterward, feeling at least rested enough to function and drive his car without running anyone over, he showered (the soap was lying in the bathtub along with all the shampoos, the fact that made him giggle hysterically) and changed into a set of wrinkled clothes he'd picked up off the floor earlier. You had to give it to him, Fraser had been thorough. Ray could picture him in his mind's eye, turning each room over methodically, thoughtfully, eyes scanning for whatever it was Victoria had left for the IA to find.

His father's ghost never could resist turning the knife: "You are better off without him. Admit it, you secretly wish the bullet had finished him off."

"No. That is the absolute last thing that I want. If you knew me at all you'd know that." Ray turned his back on the spirit, the certainty of his feelings on that subject unshakable. When he turned around, his father was gone but the void left by his words remained.

He drank from the cartoon of milk in the fridge and headed out. By the time he got into the car he remembered Diefenbaker and his fake wolf license. It wouldn't do to have Fraser's pet wolf put down because of a misunderstanding right after the doctors fixed him up. He swung by the animal clinic on the way to the hospital.

The wolf sat panting a little with his tongue hanging out. He stared at Ray as Ray approached the cage, and his eyes looked strangely sad and wise. It was like the wolf read his soul.

"He's going to be okay," Ray told him. The wolf didn't reply. The thought amused Ray, in that I'm-losing-my-mind-talking-to-a-wolf way, so he talked some more. "You don't have to worry about anything. I'll take care of you until Fraser's better."

Dief let out a low whistle of a whine. "Yes, I want to see him too. I'm gonna get the paperwork sorted, then you're coming with me." He saw how Dief perked up at that. Before he left, Ray turned and glared at the wolf. "I hope you can walk because I'm not carrying you."

Later when he got the wolf settled in the car, he brushed the thin white hairs off his clothes. "You need to lose some weight," he told Dief, who lowered his face to his paws on the back seat. Ray's back protested as he got behind the wheel. "You are staying in the car while I go up. I can't take you into his room with me anyway."

The wolf didn't talk back which was just as well for Ray's sanity. Ray left the window rolled down for him. He was just making his way out of the car when his phone rang.

"Vecchio."

"Detective," came the crisp greeting with a Canadian accent, "This is Constable Brighten. Is Constable Fraser with you?"

He remembered her from his own hospital stay. What followed was an awkward dance of Ray bringing Fraser's coworkers up to speed on the recent events. They were unaware Fraser was recovering from a bullet wound in the hospital, and understandably shocked. They had assumed his earlier sickness had simply stretched longer. Ray recalled the way Fraser had played hookie with his sick leave while Victoria was in town. His faith in humanity was slightly affirmed when the lady assured him that they were concerned about one of their own and would visit the hospital as soon as Fraser was allowed visitors. Ray had been the only person to try to see Fraser while he recovered for long enough that he'd started to think nobody else at that place cared whether the man lived or died. It was reassuring to hear that they had just been out of the loop.

Elaine was at the hospital when Ray walked in; it was her lunch hour. For some reason she thought they had the kind of a professional relationship where it was appropriate to hug each other and he hadn't the time or energy to prove otherwise. Her hands came around Ray in a short, heartfelt embrace and he returned it. When she stepped back, her eyes were red and her face looked tired. Ray wondered if she'd slept at all. "I'm glad you're here. Fraser woke up."

"What?! How is he?"

"He's asleep again. The doctors said he was only awake for a few moments. He kept calling for someone."

"Victoria," Ray pushed past his lips, feeling his hands clench into fists.

Elaine nodded.

"Did he say anything else?"

She shook her head. "Now that you're here I'm gonna head out. Call me if anything changes, okay?"

Ray nodded. Before she left, he ran a few steps to catch her. "Wait, Elaine."

"Yes?"

"Diefenbaker's in my car. He needs someone to look after him until I sort things out at home."

Elaine thought for a moment, then sighed and nodded. "I can take him for the rest of the day," she winced at having to say the 'but' he knew was coming. "But I have company tonight so he really can't stay. My building doesn't allow dogs, let alone wolves."

"I'll pick him up in the evening. Tell him you will feed him and he'll follow you. Thanks, Elaine."

It's not you I'm doing it for, she didn't say as she left, but those words echoed in the air. Ray remembered saying them to Victoria. He sat down heavily in the plastic seat and stared at the opposite wall, his head spinning. Ray had objectively realized that Fraser was only a man, that people who treated him like some sort of a hero were fooling themselves. And yet, over the past year, somehow Ray himself had gotten suckered into that illusion, the force-field that Fraser gave off with his starched uniform and unwavering faith. Seeing that faith break, seeing Fraser give up the best of himself for someone he knew wasn't worthy had shaken Ray's own faith. He wondered what Frannie would say when she found out and immediately resolved not to go into any detail with her. Let her have her image of Fraser, untarnished, like Ray's own had been until he had seen that letter Fraser had left him, with his confession.

Professional cleaners set him back more than he had been prepared for, but on the other hand he could hardly blame them. It wasn't a few hours work to set his house to rights. He directed them to start with the kitchen and what remained to be cleaned up in his bedroom. Then Frannie's room, the worst hit after Ray's own bedroom. He still had a day until his family was due to be back; the cleaning company would come back next morning to finish the job on the ground floor.

At the hospital, Fraser didn't wake up again, but the doctors said he was out of imminent danger. They were keeping him in the ICU for the rest of the night and visitors other than immediate family weren't allowed. Ray wasn't sure if he was supposed to be flattered when one of the nurses inquired if theirs was a partnership other than professional. Any mirth he might have felt over the idea of pretending to be Fraser's boyfriend fled when she inquired if he knew who Victoria was, in the same conversation. A criminal, he had bitten out, his tone making the petite nurse jump, startled. A criminal who turned a man like Fraser into...Ray didn't finish that thought. Was Fraser to blame? He couldn't think about it, even though that was the one recurring thought haunting him all day as he tried to work through the rest of the fall out. Fraser's steadfastness had sustained Ray and wasn't something he was prepared to let go of easily.

The rest of the day crept by with beige floors and beige walls, until Ray gave up on getting a chance to see Fraser and left to stop by the station. He kept his head down and didn't look at other people as he went straight for the Lieutenant's office.

Welsh wasn't happy to see him on Ray's involuntary day off. He wasn't happy to hear Ray request he be kept appraised of the investigation into Victoria's whereabouts. In fact, he informed Vecchio that since Victoria appeared to have left the state, they had to leave the case to the FBI, who had little to no vested interest in tracking down one woman who failed to get away with the diamonds.

"She murdered someone!"

"Yes," Welsh said slowly, as though talking to a child, "and he was a known felon."

"So what?" The volume of his voice jumped in anger, and he tried to get a hold of himself, tried to cool it. "So we just let her go after what she did?"

"Detective," Welsh was calm, "You and I both know how many open cases this station is dealing with at the moment, don't we?"

Ray was silent for a moment, until he realized Welsh expected an answer. He pressed his lips together in frustration, then pressed out, "We do."

"We have our internal investigation into your involvement to take care of, don't we?"

Ray felt himself start to slouch. "We do."

"You have your therapy sessions scheduled, don't you?"

"No, I--" But Ray saw the look on Welsh's face. He lowered his head. "I'll get right on that, sir." Maybe tomorrow. Or next week, if his calendar freed up, Ray thought to himself, but didn't say it.

"You do that," Welsh looked back down at his paperwork. Ray had been dismissed.

"We should put a guard on Fraser's room." Ray felt the need to point out. He'd been thinking about it, and the oversight was on him. "We don't know if Victoria might come back to finish the job. I can't be there all day and night..."

Welsh looked up and looked him over, evaluating. "I think it is unlikely," Ray was about to protest when Welsh held up a hand, "However, I believe the Canadian Consulate has already put in a request to have a Mountie there during the night shift."

"Thank you, sir." Ray left with his heart a little more at ease.

By the time he picked Dief up from Elaine's desk she was already upset that he hadn't come by sooner. "I have my mother visiting," she muttered as they both settled Dief into Ray's car. "She hates dogs." The wolf was asleep, it was hard to remember that he had also been shot quite recently and needed more rest than usual.

Ray stopped by Fraser's place to pick up Diefenbaker's food from Fraser's apartment. The door wasn't locked, a fact that Ray still considered an insane Canadian custom, but the place hadn't been burglarized, perhaps due to the fact that nobody wanted any of Fraser's earthly possessions anyway. His valuables were still locked in the old chest and Ray debated getting some of his dad's journals for Fraser to read when he woke up. He decided to ask permission before opening the chest.

The faucet in the kitchen was dripping. Ray stood in the middle of the room, momentary stunned by all the memories of hanging out here with Fraser waiting for pizza to arrive or just talking. It seemed impossible to believe his friend wouldn't simply walk through the door and greet Ray with a smile. He had a sad thought that even as Fraser recovered he wouldn't have much to smile about for a long time. Victoria had destroyed any peaceful memory of this room. He turned to leave, suddenly almost shaking with anger at the thought of her, free.

Outside the door he bumped into the landlord knocking on Fraser's door and asking whether the rent would be coming in on time, given that Fraser was in the hospital and all. Gossip evidently traveled fast. Marveling at the supernatural senses that had let the man know someone was once again in the apartment, Ray assured him that the rent would be on time. Privately he debated letting the place go. It would be a simple matter of moving the few pieces of furniture Fraser had left to Ray's basement and letting the rent lapse. By the time Fraser would be out of the hospital he would be forced to look for another place to stay and Ray could gently nudge him towards the better neighbourhoods. Fraser would never need to know. Ray wondered if that's what Victoria would have done to get her way.

Thinking back to the earlier conversation with the Canadians and now Fraser's rent situation reminded Ray of another urgent order of business. He had given his own financial information at the ER when they brought Fraser in and he had to figure out if he would end up paying Fraser's hospital bill, which would end up considerable. (Ray hoped. The alternative, that Fraser wouldn't be going through post-surgery recovery and PT, was unthinkable. Fraser was going to make it.)

Ray phoned the Canadian Consulate, where an unflinchingly polite Constable Turnbull failed to answer any of his questions for the next half hour. He may or may not have been brought in as a replacement for Fraser, while the man was convalescing. There may or may not be a person at the hospital that evening, Turnbull could not confirm as the information was need to know, and he didn't know if Ray needed to know. Once Ray was screaming into the phone, and Turnbull still hadn't raised his voice or moved past his inability to confirm whether or not Fraser had medical insurance while in Chicago (and still under the investigation for a murder in the first degree, although that was supposed to be wrapped up, according to Welsh), Ray hung up and barely held back from throwing his phone against a wall. He considered visiting the consulate in person, but between his weariness and his inability to guarantee that this Turnbull character would survive the encounter, Ray decided against it.

Back at his own house, Ray considered leaving Dief to spend the night in the car, but it wasn't safe. With difficulty, he carried the wolf up the stairs to his bedroom and let him have the carpet by the bed. Maybe Fraser would have let the injured animal sleep on the bed, but Ray's magnanimity stretched out only so far. Dief had woken while Ray was carrying him, but had hardly moved a muscle, making an impression of a stuffed toy while he gazed at Ray from his paws. Ray threw a thick towel on the floor by the bed and motioned for the wolf to use it.

Exhausted, he showered and changed into his pajamas. He had intended to sleep, and was certainly tired enough to expect to drop off immediately, but his mind churned with the unresolved questions. The review board was tomorrow, and he had to say all the right things to get them to back off. He had to believe in Fraser's innocence, a goal that seemed further out of reach then ever before.

I am going with her.

He saw the words behind his closed eyelids. Why had Fraser rushed after her at the last moment? He had disarmed her, and he hadn't yielded on the subject of money. But he had jumped in front of Ray's bullet. Ray could see it before his eyes as though it was still happening. The slow motion of Fraser falling back, shot. The horror that set in inside Ray's heart when he realized what happened. As Fraser bled out on the platform, his last words were of her, of wanting to be with her. Not a thought for himself. Tossing and turning for some time, Ray eventually gave up on trying to sleep and opened his eyes to stare at the ceiling.

He heard a low whine from the floor, and slowly turned his head to look.

"Can't sleep either, huh?"

The wolf starred sorrowfully silent from his place on the carpet. He seemed to be asking Ray a question and Ray grappled with what he could say. In the darkness of the room, there was a sense of isolation. Ray felt like he and Diefenbaker were the only two beings who really understood what Fraser had done, how he had damaged them all.

"I never thought he'd leave you behind," Ray said, feeling so depressed he could hardly look at the wolf. "I thought the guilt would have killed him if he tried. Maybe I just didn't know him that well."

Diefenbaker woofed.

"Oh, what and you know better?" Ray snarled, annoyed. "You can keep your dogged trust and loyalty. I've had enough. He betrayed us, don't you get that?"

Dief whined. He didn't agree.

"Of course not," Ray looked up to the ceiling, "You're a wolf. You are supposed to be loyal to a fault."

Dief barked sharply.

"Oh, shut up." Ray ran a hand over his face. "But what does that make me?" Stupid, his father would have said. Ray checked carefully in all the corners of the room but Pop wasn't around. He sighed in relief, and prepared to turn over to try falling asleep again, already knowing he wouldn't be able to.

Dief only rose slowly to his feet and then put both paws on Ray's bed. "Oh no--! Get off!" Ray was saying and then he had a lapful of a wild animal who apparently liked to lie across his legs. "Get--! That can't be comfortable," Ray observed, wondering if moving his legs would jostle the wolf and hurt his wound. Immediately, all of his extremities itched and it took an effort of will to stay still. The warm weight of him was oddly comforting. "You're supposed to be a wild animal, what are you doing making like a comforter?"

Diefenbaker didn't seem to mind the bumps that were Ray's knees. Ray gave up arguing with the wolf and sighed. "You miss him," Ray said, stretching out a hand to scratch the wolf's white fur, "I get that. I guess you forgive me for shooting him then? Good to know." Dief's ears twitched. He turned his head and licked Ray's hand.

In that moment he seemed to Ray so perfectly like his owner. Putting Ray out with unreasonable demands one second, but in another moment doing something that made Ray's heart seize with fondness. Perhaps the wolf was really a familiar spirit, sent to guard Fraser on this earth.

"We're not doing a very good job looking after him, are we?" he murmured, then shushed the wolf's protests with more scratches behind the ears.

His head hurt. His heart hurt in a completely different way. They said you could physically feel your heart break, and tonight Ray thought it might be true. He'd felt his crack hearing Fraser mutter about being with Victoria while bleeding out on the train platform. He felt it crack again reading that letter, realizing how everything he knew could change in a heartbeat. He thought about how hard it was to live with this knowledge. And yet, Ray still wanted to defend Fraser against anyone who tried to hurt him. Fraser probably had a ready quote for that, or some Inuit story. Something like Nietzsche's "Love is blind, friendship closes its eyes." Or whatever.

If Fraser had felt half as bad over Victoria's betrayal, who was Ray to blame him for being weak for once in his life? For being human and selfish for once. Just because Fraser hadn't lived up to some misguided ideal, that wasn't his fault. Putting him on a pedestal was all Ray's doing and he swore to himself he would never do it again.

The man and the wolf slept like that. Ray found some comfort in the warmth radiating from the wolf's body. Sometime in the middle of the night, his task accomplished, Dief shifted off him and went to lie on the more comfortable carpet, but Ray was long since asleep.

In the morning, Diefenbaker was his typical self, no mention of the tête-à-tête they shared the night before. He would only pay attention to Ray as long as Ray fed him, and wouldn't calm down until Ray bribed him with sweets. Afterward, Ray took him to Fraser's hospital and managed to sneak him past the nurses by virtue of carrying on as though the wolf belonged there. Maybe they thought he was a sniffer dog.

The doctor said that Fraser was getting stronger. Some Mountie from the consulate had indeed spent the night guarding Fraser's room, according to the descriptions of the excited nurses. This calmed Ray, since the men Victoria had traded with were still at large, and likely pissed at both her and Fraser. Ray knew which investigation was at the top of his priority list when he was back on active duty. He wouldn't let them touch Fraser. In the hospital bed, Fraser slept on, but that was normal.

His first glance at Fraser confirmed what Ray feared: Fraser looked awful. Ray found it hard to look at him and know he was responsible. Seeing his confusion and regret, the nurse on duty assured Ray that Fraser was out of danger and needed his rest. Diefenbaker had crawled under Fraser's bed and wouldn't come out so Ray left him to his own devices, after a stern warning to behave. Fraser was sleeping, and Ray felt a little less guilty leaving him alone while he went to work, with Dief there to guard him.

On the way, someone called Charlie Underhill phoned Ray from Canada. The man sounded concerned about Fraser, which Ray hadn't thought was a common characteristic of Fraser's Northern connections and instantly warmed him to the guy. Underhill ended up assuring him that the RCMP took care of their own and any hospital bills Fraser incurred during his recovery in Chicago would be covered. Ray, who has been wondering if he would end up using the bank loan he held for Fraser's hospital bills now that the bail fiasco was ending, breathed a quiet sigh of relief.

It was after nine thirty by the time he made it to the station, where he was immediately bombarded with questions about Fraser's health. There was a card going around that most of the precinct had signed, delivered by Elaine to Ray to hand it to Fraser when he woke up. He didn't get ribbed, which oddly annoyed him. He'd been prepared for some jokes about his poor aim and spending time at the shooting range. Their sympathy made him feel like they thought he was weak and couldn't handle what life dished out. Ray had everything under control, thanks. He tried to act it. He knew exactly what he would tell the Internal Affairs in the upcoming interview; he knew his story cold.

He may have snarled a little more than usual, because eventually only Huey was brave enough to remain in Ray's general vicinity, and that was only because Ray had to hand some of his more urgent cases over to the man. While Ray was under the investigation and off active duty he couldn't officially work the cases. To be honest, his mind wasn't on the job anyway. His family was arriving back home that evening and the cleaning crew was still finishing the job at the house. Frannie's room was clean, but he knew he'd catch hell for the way everything was in a different place. He still couldn't get past the fact he'd let a murderer stay under his roof, in his little sister's room. Shortly, Ray's obvious distraction made Huey ask after Fraser sympathetically again, and Ray knew he had to pull himself together.

Ray spent an hour going through some of the details with Huey and then it was time to face the music. Welsh stepped out of his office and motioned for Ray to follow him. Ray took a deep breath, hating the sympathetic looks he was getting from people almost as much as he would have hated the lack of sympathy.

"Lieutenant has our reports," Huey told him as he rose to leave, making a significant gesture with his eyebrows. "We saw that it was an accident. Fraser was trying to stop the woman from leaving."

Ray nodded at him, letting some gratitude show in his expression. Whatever personal quibbles he had with Ray, Huey had the fellow detective's back.

Lewie had been hanging about, pretending to be researching, but now he turned around with a curious expression. "How do you know Fraser wasn't just pretending, you know, to be someone he's not?" He got a swift look from Jack that told him to shut up.

"I just know." Ray said and went to the interrogation room. He felt exhausted already. The expectations of other people weighted down his shoulders like an endless stack of stones, until he felt like one more would break him. He wondered if Fraser felt this way most days under the weight of the ideals he held himself to.

The investigating agents were sitting in almost the same position they had been when they'd first interviewed Ray, when this whole mess had started. A guy from FBI was leaning on the stone wall in the back of the room, observing. They had the same questions for him again: did he know about the money? Did he know about the diamonds? Did he know where Victoria intended to go? Endless loops that assumed he had been in the loop, and not blindsided by it just as Fraser had been.

"Shouldn't you be trying to track her down to ask her?" Ray wondered glibly after they circled back to the events of the train station and the piles of money Ray had protected.

"All in due time, Detective. We are interviewing all of Metcalfe's known...associates. Since you and Constable Fraser are the only two people who can claim to have met the woman while she stayed in Chicago, yours is a vital testimony."

"Let me tell you something: the only way I associated with Victoria was by letting her stay at my house when Fraser thought she was in trouble. She tried to frame me. She almost got Fraser killed. If you're asking me whether I'm protecting her now, you are barking up the wrong tree, Agent."

"If you hadn't posted his bail, Fraser would have been safely out of her reach, in prison." The agent looked meaningfully at him, and Ray tried not to let anything show on his face. "We don't know what she had planned, who would have made the exchange then, but the fact of the matter is it was your actions that assisted Metcalfe."

"She would have found someone else. She's resourceful like that."

"She didn't just pick Chicago randomly on the map."

"No, she wanted to get Fraser where it hurt the most. Guess what, she succeeded. When he wakes up he'll have to live with the fact that he failed to stop her."

"Stop her from leaving? Or from taking him with her."

"Fraser wasn't leaving with her."

It was the first out-right lie he'd told. He had practiced it, memorized the way the words felt, almost made himself believe them. If he knew them for a lie, he would take the secret to his grave. Fraser was just doing his best in a crazy world. He didn't deserve these yahoos on his case while he recovered. If he wanted to chase after Victoria after he was better, well, Ray would be there to talk some sense into him. He didn't think Fraser would do it. Protecting her from Ray's bullet had been Fraser's one last heroic act of love. Fraser and Victoria were over when she left him lying on that platform. Anyone with a heart would have jumped off the train.

"You are sure he didn't want to run?"

"He tried to save my job, didn't he?" Ray said. "If he was going to run, his best bet was to keep me in prison, instead of tracking him."

Because he would have, Ray realized. He would have tracked Fraser and Victoria down to the ends of the earth. Had Fraser known that? Had he sabotaged Victoria's plans for Ray anyway? The thought filled him with a dangerous kind of affection. He had to look down and drink some water while he composed his expression to face them again.

They circled back to the shooting, his record of no friendlies in the past, his previous excellent evaluations at the shooting range. He had drawn a diagram of the scene for his to-be-written official report, the way he had aimed for Victoria and the way Fraser had reached to grab for her only to get shot. The piece of paper with a stick figure and a bullet hole entry point in the back lay between them on the table. It was a terrible drawing, Fraser was the artistic one. It conveyed the point.

They kept asking if he was sure he'd seen a gun. Ray didn't care, what did it matter? He'd told Victoria he would kill her if she hurt Fraser, and she'd gutted Benny like a fish. He tried not to think of the way Fraser would have looked at him if Ray hadn't missed the shot. He hated how scared the thought made him feel. The agents didn't know any of that; they just cared whether they believed he'd seen the gun. Welsh backed him up here, and Ray was grateful for that.

After two hours of this, Ray began to tap the leg of the table impatiently with his foot. This was a waste of time. He could see Welsh knew it too. As hard as they tried to pin something on him, they had no case. He sighed explosively, impatient to get out of this box.

The Agent frowned at him. "You look like you'd like to be elsewhere."

Ray was tired of the dance. "My partner's in a hospital, what do you think?"

"It's interesting that you term it that way," the Agent's stare was impenetrable. "Yours is an unofficial arrangement."

Ray wished he wasn't so transparent, he knew his irritation showed. "Friend; whatever." That 'partner' word had been a slip of tongue, straight out of his half-formed fantasies. In reality he knew Fraser never thought of him that way. Friend, sure, Fraser had been quick to call Ray that. Partner? Not even close. At best, Fraser probably thought of him as a kind of sidekick, there to clean up the garbage and straighten the mess out after Fraser was done being the hero. Ray with his impeccable timing, arriving to handcuff the villain Fraser had apprehended. It shouldn't have rankled. He was happy being Fraser's friend. Yesterday he hadn't been sure of that much.

What it all came down to is Fraser thought he didn't need him. It was fine to trust Ray only that much, let him in only so far, so that when Fraser's entire life exploded Ray was left staring at the mess and wondering how he hadn't seen it coming. That was going to have to change. When Fraser woke up. If he was well enough to get back to his work. If he wanted to be around the guy who shot him. The status quo would have to change.

The thought spurred him on. He was done being pushed around by everyone who wanted him to play a part in their own story.

"Is this interrogation tending towards a goal or are we just gossiping?" His caustic tone drew Welsh's ire, but it served to make the agent in front of him straighten his shoulders.

"This is an exploratory interview." The way he said it, Ray knew they had nothing. There were witnesses all over the place at the train station; nobody could charge him for his conduct there. There was no evidence he'd ever even spoken to Metcalfe, especially since the bureau thought she'd been dead until recently and hadn't believed him when he said he'd seen her. All of their case hinged on somehow pitting him off against Fraser, getting him to rat Fraser out for his imaginary misdeeds. If they didn't have Ray, they couldn't touch Fraser.

"Right. I think we're done here." He stood and turned to go.

"Detective, wait."

Ray turned back at the low growl of the tone. Stretched his hands out in front of him. "Arrest me."

He waited, meeting the stare directed at him, until the Agent lowered his eyes. Ray threw an angry look towards Welsh and walked out of the room. He knew the Lieutenant would take care of it. Welsh wanted Ray back solving crimes, not spending hours filling in the holes in Feeb's case.

Ray straightened his shoulders. Refusing to play into their hands had centered him emotionally. He wasn't afraid anymore. It was time to realize what his true priorities were: his family and Fraser. Ray had to carry the weight for a little longer and he could do that gladly.

His new found resolve brought him back to the hospital where Fraser slept on in a private room that Ray was paying for out of the pocket until the Canadians came through. The nurses hadn't seemed to have discovered Diefenbaker, who peeked out at Ray from underneath Fraser's bed. The wolf snorted, and walked out through the door, evidently trusting that Ray would look after his master while he did his wolf business. Ray followed him out to the hallway, peeking around the door trying to think of an excuse if someone saw the animal, but the wolf had already disappeared down the nearby stairs heading outside. Ray let him go, returning to the bedside.

Fraser looked drawn, his eyes sunken with black smudges under them. He was pale. Ray sat down in the chair next to Fraser's bed. He felt that same exhaustion of the last couple of days threaten to overwhelm him. After rubbing his eyes with the backs of his palms, Ray gave an explosive sigh and looked back at his friend, trying to see if there was any color returning to his cheeks. Fraser looked a little better than the last time he'd seen him, but that wasn't saying much.

"Hold on, okay," Ray said after a while of looking at him. Fraser looked so thin and lonely laying in that hospital bed. He had no family to visit him. Besides Elaine and some Canadians, he had nobody but Ray. Maybe that's why he'd grabbed on to the idea of Victoria so strongly. Fraser didn't have the ties of family to hold him back from leaving; all he had had was his moral code. Morals tended to fly out the window when real feelings got involved, Ray knew. It seemed suddenly important to let Fraser know he did have people who depended on him, who needed him around.

"You've got people waiting for you to wake up." Ray whispered, bending over the bed so only Fraser would hear. "People who love you...like me, for example." His voice had gotten rough towards the end but he didn't regret saying it. Fraser had to know, and when he woke up Ray would show him he cared in every way he could. He remembered Fraser's cabin, how it had been destroyed by Victoria before she even came here. Maybe Ray could do something about that.

Ray looked up. The ghost of his father was standing on the other side of his best friend's hospital bed with the familiar disappointment in his eyes. "When he wakes up, he isn't gonna want to see you. Who would?"

Ray pressed his lips together and resolved not to answer. He wanted to look down at Fraser again and pretend not to have seen the ghost, but Pop never took that as a sign to stop talking.

"He'll never believe it was an accident. He'll resent you."

That hurt, because it was probably the truth, but he wouldn't give his father what he wanted. He never would. "Then I'll apologize and he will forgive me eventually."

"You do everything for this kid," Pop tried another track, "And he repays you by running away and leaving you to deal with his mess." His father shook his head. "He betrayed you. He put your job in jeopardy."

He had, and yet, Ray understood him too well to blame him. He had gotten past it. It was an exception that proved the rule -- how dependable Fraser had become so Ray hadn't seen this coming at all. But Ray was done feeling abandoned. They'd fix their friendship. It wasn't like there'd be another Victoria. Fraser had surely learned his lesson. He wasn't going to run off to have adventures with someone else and leave Ray behind.

"I'm not listening to you," Ray said, turning away from his father's ghost. "Fraser is my friend."

After the hospital he dropped by Fraser's building and paid the man's rent for another month. Maybe Fraser would find the familiarity of his old apartment comforting when he was able to return to it. In any case, he'd think better of Ray for having kept it, and just then Ray was prepared to throw some money at his problems.

Ray considered making himself scarce when his family finally got home that evening, but it would just postpone the inevitable. Instead, Ray ground up new coffee and brewed a pot, hoping the smell wafting through the house would fill in for familiarity. Although the house was clean, Ray kept bumping into furniture that was slightly out of place. All the pictures were rearranged from their usual places in the frames, and Ray didn't even want to think about how different the kitchen would look to his mother. He hadn't been able to provide any guidance to the cleaners on that room of the house since he spent as little time as possible there. All he knew was that the fridge rarely had anything but Asiago cheese unless Frannie went shopping recently, and she'd been away for a week.

His mother took one look inside the house and put her hands up to her cheeks in silent surprise. Silence was unfortunately not Maria's strong suit, so she immediately burst in with, "Did you redecorate?"

"Something like that," Ray hedged, "come in, come in, let me help with that, Ma," he was saying, even as Maria's kids burst inside and immediately disappeared up the stairs to their room.

"Thirty miles an hour, all the way from Florida," Frannie was saying as she walked inside, not even pausing to look around as she pulled her bag off her shoulder and took her jacket off, "The other cars on the highway were laughing at us!"

"Is that coffee I smell?" Tony walked in, not carrying any bags at all, as per usual. Ray motioned for him to the kitchen, for once glad for his distraction.

"What happened to our room?" came a boy's shout from upstairs, soon followed by other children's voices, "It's all wrong!"

"Raymundo?" His mother looked tired after the trip, but mostly just concerned by the changes in the house.

"It's a really long story. I hired some guys to clean the place up, Ma."

"I didn't even know those cupboards were green," Maria was saying, running a finger over the surface of the shelf and noting the lack of dust, "I don't think anyone's cleaned inside this closet in all my life."

"Well, then, something good could come out of this mess," Ray said. "Let me get the other bags. Tony--Ah forget it!" He left his family to their exploration and escaped outside.

"Did you have the dinner table moved?" His mother shouted from inside the kitchen. Ray remembered how he'd planned to have the billiard table there even after they came back, to show them it was his house and he had his own friends over while they'd been away. It seemed the universe believed in karma after all. He had ended up having the cleaning agency move the billiard table downstairs and his mother's dining table back to its usual place. Any signs of a personal life that Ray might have had have been erased. Not that the disastrous pool night hadn't been embarrassing on its own, even without the mess that followed after.

Over the next hours as they settled in and unpacked, Ray danced carefully around his explanations for the events in Chicago, but his family was only too happy to fill the air with their own stories of Florida and of his Aunt. His mother had ended up making up with her sister after all, and they had spent the week cheerfully doting on their grandchildren. The kids had loved Disney World and were thrilled by the invitation to come back another time. Ray wondered what would have happened if he had gone with his family to Florida. Other than him losing his mind from spending that much time in a confined space with them, he thought of what he might have found when he came back. Fraser would be gone.

Ray knew that if he hadn't stopped Fraser with that unfortunate bullet, the man would have left with Victoria, throwing his career and life away. How long would Victoria have tolerated his quirks? How long before his conscience rebelled and he didn't follow the next heist his lover planned? And oh, Ray had no doubt that Victoria wouldn't stop. People like Victoria didn't stop because it wasn't about the money; it was a thrill for them. Fraser wouldn't have lasted long. Victoria might have killed him, if not herself then in another badly planned heist. Ray knew he saved Fraser's life by stopping him. It was just hard to get past the fact that he had to be in that position in the first place, had to shoot his best friend.

Thinking of Victoria's plans and Fraser in the hospital spoiled any remaining good cheer he had and he was brusque at the dinner table, where hastily thrown together pasta in Alfredo sauce was being handed out by his mother, who had immediately began cooking even though she was dead on her feet. Tony had told her to get some rest, all the while not lifting a finger himself to help. Frannie ended up helping her put the meal together while Maria and Ray helped his nieces and nephews unpack. Ray realized his mood was affecting his interactions with his family when Frannie finally exclaimed out of nowhere:

"I don't know what crawled into your cornflakes and died, but don't take it out on me!" She turned away, motioning with her hand, "Tony pass the salt, please."

Ray sat behind the dinner table, for a moment paralyzed with indecision. He could keep the charade up indefinitely. Maybe Fraser would never again visit his house. He certainly wouldn't want to talk about Victoria. Maybe his family never had to know what happened at all, and he could play his part convincingly. If lying was an Olympic sport, he'd be a gold medalist. But he realized, starkly, that if he couldn't talk about it with his family, he had no hope of ever being able to face Fraser when he woke. Ray found his voice.

"Fraser's been shot."

"What?" Frannie's voice found previously untapped heights. The rest of his family froze with their mouths open. His mother put a hand over hers, looking horrified.

"There was a chase after a criminal, and he got in the way of a bullet," Ray felt the irritation creep into his voice but it covered a deeper dread. It was easier to be angry than afraid. "He's recovering in the hospital now."

They all started talking at once. Frannie was the loudest: "And where were you during all this? I thought you were supposed to look out for him. You're a policeman for God's sake."

"Oh, and like you have a right to judge," Maria jumped in, only on Ray's team because she had to pick a side against Frannie. "Fraser's a cop too. Sometimes these things just happen."

"People don't just get shot!" Frannie snapped back.

"I'm the one who shot him," Ray admitted, like ripping off the band-aid. There was pandemonium. "Quiet! Shut it alright!" he shouted eventually, barely getting himself heard over the noise.

"I thought he was your friend," Tony put in, rather quietly, but without an accusation. He just made an observation, however astute. Ray wondered if Fraser would look at him like that once he awoke, asking if he had been mistaken at to the nature of their relationship. He shut his eyes to dispel the image.

"I didn't mean to shoot him." He explained when he could get a word in edge-wise, "I was aiming for this woman who had a gun, I thought she was going to shoot Fraser. It happened so fast...He got in the way."

"So it was an accident?" His mother said, a worried cast to her face. "Are you alright at work, Raymundo?" She, unlike his sisters, quickly understood that if there were problems at work and Ray's salary came into question it would affect the family.

"Yeah, they're still investigating but there were witnesses. It'll be fine." Ray shrugged, the thrumming of his heart belaying the indifference he displayed in his body-language. "I've got a week of shrink time before they put me back on active duty. The investigation should wrap up by then and they'll clear Fraser of murder charges." He knew what he was doing as he said it, and a part of him reviled himself for his underhandedness. Of course after this throwaway comment nobody was interested in how Ray shot his best friend, everyone wanted to know what murder charges, and how Fraser would never.

Ray explained as best he could about the frame-job. ("She stayed in my room?" Frannie cried out. "Ugh! I'm going to repaint. You let a psycho stay in my room?" Ray hadn't known she was a psycho at the time, and said as much.) He left out the details about her being Fraser's lover, or that Fraser had been ready to drop everything for her: his job at the Consulate, Diefenbaker, Ray.

I'm going with her.

The words from Fraser's letter danced before Ray's eyes once more but he didn't care. If Fraser had left with Victoria perhaps he'd be worse off. But now he was drugged to within an inch of his life in a hospital where Ray put him. Some friend he was. Maybe he saved Fraser's reputation, but between the two of them they would always have that bullet, lodged in Fraser's spine and Fraser wouldn't thank him. It didn't matter -- Ray would make it up to the man, somehow. He had to believe they could fix their friendship, he just didn't know how yet. He'd have plenty of time to think about it when he went to the hospital later.

"Can we stop talking about this already?" He threw to the room, feeling like he was suffocating in their incessant commentary. "I'd like to eat dinner in peace, if that's alright!"

They didn't stop, of course. The conversation rolled on without him, speculation about Fraser's health and whether they should send flowers. Ray threw his hands up, and left the table, his mother's worried calls after him unheeded.

Frannie wouldn't let him visit the hospital without taking her with. His mother was up making cannoli. It was Ray's favourite desert of hers and the last time she made it he'd been going through a divorce. Ma Vecchio made Ray take a can of soup with him to the hospital for Fraser, despite his protests that he wouldn't be allowed any outside food. Ray threw it out in the trashcan outside the hospital, with overwhelming guilt and Frannie giving him dirty looks, before they made their way upstairs.

"You're really not gonna talk?" Francesca turned to study him. He had been staring ahead silently most of the drive, and now that they were heading up to Fraser's room he realized he hadn't spoken since they left the house.

"No."

"Fine, then I'm gonna talk."

"Please don't." They walked the beige corridors towards Fraser's room.

She did anyway. "I get jealous sometimes..."

Ray actually stopped and turned to her in disbelief. She shrugged. "I don't have a friend like that. I had Gabby but then I got divorced and she stayed married, and somehow we stopped talking all that much after that." She shrugged a shoulder. "I wish I could be close to someone like that, like you are with Benton."

"You make it sound weird."

"Because it is weird, special, same difference. You got something good here, Ray. Don't mess it up!"

Like he needed her advice. He was thinking that his life would be incomplete without Fraser. When Benny flew into Chicago and crashed into Ray's life, he'd changed something fundamental, something Ray hadn't even been aware he'd been missing. A true companion, a friend he could trust implicitly, a person at his side he counted on to always be there for him, something Ray had never had in his life. Victoria couldn't change that, Ray wouldn't let her. She'd blinded Fraser to many things, but Ray could show him what was what again. He could be there, and be a friend, and never let Benny down. If Benny let him.

Ray gave an explosive sigh and entered Fraser's room, mostly to shut his sister out. Unfortunately, Francesca entered right behind him, immediately walking over to the other side of Fraser's bed.

Fraser must have already been half-awake because their voices made him open his eyes. Slightly unfocused from all the drugs they were undoubtedly pumping through his system Benny's eyes found Ray's.

"Ray?" Fraser murmured.

"Yeah, Benny." Ray rushed forward, only to stop. What was he gonna do, grab Fraser's hand to hold? He gripped the side of his hospital bed instead. "It's me. Do you want anything? Water?"

"Nope," Fraser said. His lips formed a slightly dopey smile for a second. Then he refocused. "Francesca?"

"Are you in any pain, Benton?" Francesca swooped in on the other side. "We were all so worried! Ma's been beside herself. She lit candles for you at the church." As an afterthought Frannie added, shifting guilty, "I did as well."

"I seem to be...fine." Fraser turned to Ray. "Ray, is your sister actually here?"

"You're not imagining things, Benny." Ray assured him.

Fraser relaxed a little. "Okay. Good."

Frannie's hand was brushing very softly over Fraser's palm on the bed. Ray wanted to tell her to back off, but he realized Fraser probably couldn't feel it anyway so he let her enjoy it. Fraser's eyes meanwhile blinked slowly as though he was very tired by their brief exchange. Ray's heart seized with a moment of unexpected tenderness. He wished he could spare his friend the long recovery ahead of him.

"How're the doctors treating you, Benny?" Ray tried. He was disconcerted when Fraser turned to him and looked at him for a very long moment before saying anything. Ray added, "Any heads I have to knock together to make things better?"

"You've done your part just getting me here." Fraser said. He had a weird half-smile on his face, like he was laughing at his own words, and Ray wondered if he had intended the double meaning. If he was pointing something out to Ray that should have been obvious, that Benny didn't want to see him. Not yet. Fraser's eyes were doing the half-mast thing, and he looked worse than he did when they came in, pale and shivering a little.

Ray said, "You want us to go?"

Fraser's eyes did that slow blink again, like he was struggling to keep them open. He said, "I'm very tired."

"Okay," Ray swallowed. "You get better buddy, you hear me?" He patted Fraser's leg over the sock, very lightly, almost afraid to hurt him even though he knew his leg was okay.

He turned to go and heard Frannie sigh beside the bed, "Are you sure you don't want someone to read to you? I brought all these books. My mom always used to read to me when I was sick." She held up one of the children's books she brought, a smile on her face both hopeful and lost, like she didn't know if she was welcome here. Ray felt a little sorry for her.

"Okay," Fraser said, voice so quiet Ray almost missed it. Ray struggled to control his expression, disbelief warring with a sudden grief. It felt like someone had punched him in the solar plexus, all the air in his lungs was gone.

With a relieved smile, Frannie settled back down in the chair by Fraser's bed.

"I'll just...wait in the car then," Ray said and walked out before he could get a response. He didn't remember how he walked to the Riv, parked outside the hospital.

It took a long time for Frannie to get into the car with him. She must have read Fraser the entire book while he fell asleep. Or maybe she'd just starred at him while he slept, because that wasn't creepy or anything. Ray didn't care. Why would he? He was fine, Fraser was fine. He had woken up and he knew who Ray was, and he wasn't paralyzed. That was alright.

He was about to pull away from the curb when Frannie rested a hand on one of his, stopping him mid-motion.

"You're upset."

He turned to her, feeling an annoyance so powerful his face flushed with it. "I didn't say anything."

"That's how I know."

"How, okay? How can you know I'm upset if I'm not saying anything?"

Francesca sighed. "Look, Ray. You're my brother. Thirty years of this, I might have picked up on a few things. You don't talk when you're pissed with yourself or with someone else, or both. In this case I'm guessing both."

"Fine." Ray growled, "You wanna hear it? Okay. Why did you get to stay and I didn't?"

She looked baffled. "What?"

"I do everything for the guy, okay? I follow his crazy hunches for a year. I get constantly grossed out by what he puts in his mouth. I went to Canada for him. I let him turn my life upside down. I stood by him when his psycho girlfriend decided to ruin my career. I bailed him out of jail when he was accused of first degree murder, when all the evidence was against him. I'm taking care of his pet wolf, for crying out loud. What else does he need from me to forgive me for one little bullet?!" He punched the wheel of the car. Even as he shouted the words, he knew. Ray couldn't forgive himself, so how could he expect Fraser to?

Frannie's soft, "Ray..." got lost in the air between them.

"I just...want him to be alright...and... for us t-to get past this..." He found it suddenly difficult to swallow and his eyes filled with unexpected tears, half-angry, half-hurt. The last couple of days had finally caught up with him. He could practically hear his father laughing, sneering over his son getting upset like a baby. Frannie's calm hands went around him, and lead him into her embrace. They were the only things helping him keep it together and not start actually crying in helpless frustration.

"It'll be okay," she whispered into the side of his head, kissing his hair. "You'll figure out how to fix it."

"How would you know?" he said into her shoulder.

"Because you're my brother. You always do. That's part of why I love you."

With relief, Ray sank deeper into her embrace, letting her hold him up just for a second, just while he gathered some strength to keep going.

"I mean, if I don't, who will, right?" Francesca added, cheeky. Ray felt the same way about her.

"Thanks," he whispered.

"Chin up, Vecchio."

He withdrew from her hands and nodded. This morning he had understood how things stood, that it might take a bit of time for Benny to get over everything that happened. He had understood that he would have to bear with it and try not to let Benny down. Nobody said it would be easy.

He cleared his throat and turned the key in the ignition slowly, buying himself more time to get his control back. Riv roared to life, and Frannie settled back into her own seat, examining her pink nails too closely.

Ray drove down the street. He knew he would be back here, every day, as long as it took.

The End.