Archive of Our Own ^beta

"Ray?"

Fraser gently swung open the front door. The living room was dim and cold. Good; he was alone. He felt free to lean heavily in the door frame and clutch at his side. The fabric of his uniform was stiff and gritty around the tear. He gently rubbed the tender area beneath his arm, wincing as he dislodged something sharp--gravel or glass. The first order of business would be to clean the wound.

He made his way through the living room, careful not to track mud or blood on the furniture, dropping his coat only when he made it into the bathroom. He fumbled at his belt and holster, ignoring the sharp jolt of pain that accompanied the movement of his arms. With difficulty, he managed to strip off his tunic, dropping it onto the floor on top of his coat. The undershirt was more problematic. It clung to him, hardened to the wound like a shell. He gritted his teeth and peeled it away, stumbling back against the tub as he yelped with pain.

It was only a flesh wound, he reminded himself sternly. This was no time to grow soft. He pulled himself back up and opened the medicine cabinet. For some reason, he was shocked to find it nearly empty. Yet, if he had thought about it, he would have known not to expect the usual jumble of surgical steel, sterile bandages, and leftover painkillers. He'd seen Ray clear them out only the night before.

He'd woken alone to the sound of a clatter. The door was open, and light was streaming from the partially open bathroom door. He got up to investigate, and was nearly brained with a flying roll of gauze. He pushed the door the rest of the way open to find Ray tossing the contents of the medicine cabinet onto the counter, into the sink, into the trash, his hands a flurry of movement.

"What is this? What is all this shit?" Ray had demanded by way of greeting. "We've got a fucking mobile hospital in here!"

"It's important to be prepared for medical emergencies, Ray." Fraser, at that time in the peak of physical health, thought nothing of bending to gather the cotton swabs from the floor and throw them into the trash.

"She's gonna think we have a lot of fucking medical emergencies!"

"We do," Fraser said reasonably.

"Yeah, well, she doesn't need to know that. She comes into this house, she needs to see, like, lollipops and bunny rabbits. Medical emergencies should be the last thing on her mind."

"I doubt she'll root through our medicine cabinet."

"That's the first place she'll root! Don't you root around in medicine cabinets? You can get all kinds of dirt on people if... Amendment!" Ray waved a large bottle of orange-flavoured lubricant in Fraser's face before tossing it into the trash. "Gay sex! Gay sex should be the last thing on her mind!"

"She knows we're gay, Ray," Fraser pointed out, rescuing the bottle. No reason to waste perfectly good orange-flavoured lubricant. "She has probably extrapolated that we have gay sex."

"Not if she didn't think about it too hard. Hide that somewhere. And don't pull any of that in-plain-sight crap, that does not work. Hiding isn't lying. Hiding is just discretion. And discretion is the better part of valor, right? You like valor."

"Ray, it's an adoption interview, not the Spanish Inquisition. If the deciding factor is the presence or absence of any of these items, we've already done remarkably poorly."

Ray snorted. "I wouldn't rule that out, doing remarkably poorly. I'd rule that squarely in. We're gonna need all the help we can get. I don't know if you noticed this, but we," Ray tapped his own chest and then Fraser's, "we are not a normal couple."

"They did admit they've never placed with a gay couple before, but they seemed to me to be genuinely amenable to working with us, and--"

"I'm not just talking about that. I'm talking about the, all the rest of it." Ray gestured around wildly, although, with the exception of the mess Ray had just made, Fraser didn't see what was particularly abnormal about their bathroom. Modern plumbing, which had not been a simple matter to achieve; clean white tile; whimsical aloha-Hawaii shower curtain; turtle sleeping quietly in tank.

"Can we try to be normal?" said Ray. "Just for a day. For like, two hours. I'll be Ray, and you'll be Ben, and that'll be Dief, our dog."

From the doorway, Diefenbaker whined.

Ray pointed at him. "You, suck it up. Take one for the team."

"Be kind, Ray," Fraser urged. "I think he's a little overwhelmed. All of our lives are about to change drastically."

"Possibly," Ray muttered darkly, and he returned to rifling through the cabinet. "Now, what the fuck is this?"

"It's a tourniquet, Ray."

"Why the fuck do you need a tourniquet?" Ray demanded, compulsively stretching it out and letting it snap back into place. "Are you a doctor? Are you a registered nurse? I posit that you are not, Fraser!"

"You do realize you're up to a dollar fifty," Fraser said, reminding Ray of the swear jar, another measure he had undertaken in order to train himself for the coming interview.

Ray delivered a brief impromptu speech in which "mother" was the only unobjectionable word, reached into his pockets, and dumped handfuls of loonies and toonies into Fraser's hands without counting.

Fraser hadn't stayed up to see what Ray actually did with the things he cleared out of the bathroom. He needed his sleep if he expected to complete an early shift. Moreover, Ray showed no signs of slowing down. By this point in their relationship, Fraser had a firm grasp of his own limitations when it came to talking Ray down.

The upshot was that now, he stood in front of the cabinet staring at a tub of Ray's hair goop, a bottle of aspirin (an anticoagulant, worse than useless), a dusty bag of cough drops, a shaving mirror, two safety razors with blades removed, a pocket sewing kit, and a small box of medium Band-Aids. The Band-Aids so closely resembled what he needed that he stared at them for a long moment in despair, trying to will them to be larger and more substantial.

He lightly brushed the ache beneath his arm. It was warm and wet again, and that explained the throbbing pain. He reached for a towel, but the only ones available were clean, white, fluffy, and obviously intended for guest viewing. Desperate, he yanked a handful of toilet paper off the roll and pressed it to his side. A heavy red stain instantly bloomed beneath the woefully inadequate tissue. Fraser threw it away and reached for more.

What on earth had Ray done with all the gauze? One oughtn't to play hide-and-seek games with medical supplies. When one needed them, one hardly had the time or inclination to execute a thorough search. He swept his eyes around the bathroom again, as if he might find he had simply missed seeing the things he needed. Mike the turtle met his gaze with a blank expression, unmoved by the show of human desperation playing itself out before him.

He shut the cabinet and examined the angry yawning red gash in the mirror. He was beyond a simple dressing anyway, he decided. There was no getting around it. He needed stitches, and that meant that he needed a doctor.

Unless. With a sudden flash of inspiration, he reopened the cabinet, flipped the top of the sewing kit with one hand, and lifted the needle. Mike, seeming to understand his intentions, looked on in mute horror.

"It's a perfectly simple procedure," he informed the turtle, "providing conditions of sterility can be..."

He realized mid-sentence that he was being absurd. He could not give himself stitches with such dirty hands. Besides, who knew where this needle had been? Ray had known many long, boring days at home before his work visa went through, and Fraser was fairly certain some of his underwear had been patched.

One step at a time, then. He closed the cabinet and turned on the tap. He braced a hand on the counter and leaned over awkwardly, holding his elbow at an angle away from his side. The cool water on his face brought him to earth a little, but a moment of clear thought was enough to remind him that he did not want to think clearly. Thinking clearly only showed him the impossibility of his current conundrum. They would arrive any moment, and then what? This injury, while arguably unavoidable, was certainly ill-timed, and Fraser couldn't escape the sinking feeling that Ray was going to read some kind of message into it.

He had seemed slightly mistrustful ever since the armed robbery where Fraser had negligently allowed a bullet to pass through some important paperwork for the agency. (He had been keeping it in his hat at the time, waiting for a convenient opportunity to visit the post office. (The hat had been ruined also.)) Ray didn't say anything in the moment, occupied with the more pressing task of jumping onto the robber's back and smashing him in the nose (Ray was perhaps more dangerous without a gun); but forty minutes later, at the station, Ray came up to his desk and just stood there, arms crossed.

Fraser quickly began to speak. "Yes, Ray, the loss of the documents was unfortunate, but it's a minor setback. I'll send for replacements straight away. The Illinois Department of Public Health has excellent turnaround time, as you know. We'll only be another few days behind."

"Yeah, yeah." Ray shrugged, an ostentatious show of uncaring that almost always meant that he did care. "I know the drill."

Fraser lifted his chin. "I didn't choose to be shot at, Ray. Or pushed into the lake. Or set on fire."

"Are we done?" said Ray, and Fraser's heart had skipped a beat until Ray showed him his watch and added, "Can we go or what?"

Neither of them mentioned the incident again, and Fraser took special care, a week later, to ensure that the documents were delivered safely into the hands of the bartender who managed the only Canada Post location in town.

Fraser had not intended to send Ray any message. His persistent and uncharacteristic shows of startling incompetence were surprising even to himself. Yet, he couldn't state unequivocally that it was nothing, a coincidence, all in Ray's head. What was true in Ray's head often turned out to be true in reality, at least when it came to Fraser's subconscious wants and desires.

It was not exactly that Fraser didn't want children. He had always been ambivalent on the topic. Now that the decision was made for him, it was not necessary to resolve that ambivalence. Ray wanted children; Fraser wanted Ray; ergo, Fraser wanted children, at the very least indirectly. There was no reason to look any more deeply into his own feelings than that. He had always thought introspection was overrated, anyway. It was facts that mattered.

Fact: he had known how Ray felt about children long before he pledged his unceasing and passionate affection in that crevasse. If he couldn't bring himself to perform the duties of parenthood, he should certainly have restrained himself from ever pledging unceasing and passionate affection in a crevasse to a man who wanted so badly to be a father.

Fact: he had already demanded an unreasonable level of sacrifice from Ray. He laughed when the air was so cold his breath froze on his stubble, and he hung around town on game nights and complained about the Oilers per local custom. One might never suspect that it killed him inside, a little, to live three hundred miles from the nearest Chinese restaurant. He was due to win one.

Besides, Fraser didn't know that he didn't want children. That was the beauty of forgoing introspection.

He jumped at the noise of the front door opening and shutting and Ray's voice, suddenly clear in mid-sentence. "--would be here but I mean it's not the kind of job where you can just punch out at five. See, there should be a fire going in the stove there. I bet he got detained. Ben! You home?"

"I'm here!" Immediately Fraser was alarmed and horrified at how raspy his voice sounded.

There was a slight pause, and then Ray's voice again: "Something, ah, wrong there, honey?" Fraser deduced that this was Ray's way of telling him that the charade of Normal Couple was in full force, as the endearment wasn't one they typically used for each other. "Buddy," certainly; Ray had even once or twice used "baby" in earnest; Fraser had whispered "beloved" into Ray's ear. But no "honey" had ever passed between them. Besides, Ray's tone was more threatening then affectionate.

Fraser cleared his throat and tried again. "Just a moment!"

Panicking will do no good, he told himself. But there was no denying that this was a conundrum. He couldn't leave the bathroom while obviously dripping blood, and yet he could not remain locked inside much longer. Already they must think he was in some kind of terrible gastric distress.

Fortunately, Ray's cleaning frenzy had not included laundry. Time constraints and restricted freedom of movement kept him from digging thoroughly through the hamper; he took the first dark-coloured, relatively scent-free shirt he could find, which happened to be Ray's Chicago Bulls t-shirt. It was uncomfortably snug, but perhaps that would help to apply pressure to the area. An ill-fitting shirt and dirty uniform pants comprised perhaps not the most fashionable outfit in the world, but it was better than the topless and bleeding look.

He took a last glance at himself in the mirror and turned to Mike for his approval. The turtle's expression was inscrutable. Fraser took in several shallow breaths, opened the door, and strode out.

A young woman stood by the door huddled in a heavy coat and gray pumps which were undoubtedly sensible in the city. She seemed to be trying not to shiver. Ray was kneeling by the stove, but he got up and turned around when a floorboard creaked under Fraser's step. Fraser offered them both a casual smile.

Ray took one look at him and said, "Holy shit, Fraser!"

"What's wrong?" asked the young woman in the business suit, looking genuinely puzzled. Fraser was gratified that she, at least, did not see anything obviously wrong. Ray took two running steps closer and cocked his head to peer suspiciously at Fraser's face. Fraser did his best to summon the glow of health and vigour.

"You look like death warmed over," said Ray.

So much for health and vigour.

"I ate some bad trout," said Fraser, which wasn't a lie, because he had, once. "I'm fine, really."

"Is this a bad time?" asked the agent.

"No!" said Fraser and Ray together.

"Good," the young woman smiled. "Because it is a bit of a trek to get out here."

"It seems far out, but it's really well connected to all the, you know, the amenities of town. For example, we could have an ambulance helicopter here inside of five minutes," Ray was looking directly at Fraser here, his eyes narrowed, "if we needed to."

"Not that we expect many medical emergencies," Fraser put in hastily.

"I should hope not," said the agent cheerfully. "You must be Mr. Fraser."

"Please, call me Ben," said Fraser, giving a firm if clammy handshake to the agent, while glancing over his shoulder at Ray. Ray rubbed his eyes and nodded into his hands.

"Carina Wallace. A pleasure to meet you both." Ms. Wallace nodded at Ray, who by this time was back to his friendly company smile. "You have a lovely home."

"Sorry it's kind of a mess," said Ray, more as a gesture of modesty than apology, since he had obviously been cleaning well into the night. The table had been scrubbed of its coffee rings, and the old Hudson Bay blanket had been rescued from its rumpled heap on the floor and draped artfully over a chair.

"Don't worry about it," said Ms. Wallace. "We've often found that the best parents have somewhat lax housekeeping."

Ray's company smile faded.

"Shall we get started?" Fraser gestured at the couch, feeling that it would be in everyone's interest to move things along at a hasty clip.

Ms. Wallace settled herself down, and Fraser took advantage of the moment while her back was turned to lean into the doorway and place a palm over his side. The spot felt warm and slightly damp, but the moisture might not have been blood; it could have been the product of sweat glands or even of an overactive imagination. The T-shirt showed no discolouration.

When he looked up, Ray was staring at him, so he affected a look of nonchalance, trying to make it look like he was leaning in order to look cool, and not because he was too weak to stand unsupported. Ray cocked his head, perplexed. To complete the look, Fraser shoved his hands in his pockets.

He was immediately poked in the knuckle with the point of a needle. It was his own fault for leaving it loose there, but it still felt like God kicking him when he was down. Furthermore, the needle, combined the persistent ache, and the sticky, cold sensation that he could no longer deny was blood-related, served as a reminder that he still needed those stitches, and the sooner the better. He gazed longingly into the kitchen. If only Ms. Wallace were not here, he could sanitize his instruments in peace!

It would behove him, though, to get accustomed to having a third person in the house; particularly one from whom it was necessary to hide unpleasant truths. Ray would probably not want him to frighten the child with home surgery, either. Not even very minor outpatient procedures.

"I love all this native art you've got here," said Ms. Wallace, picking up a wooden walrus. She certainly seemed determined to take her time getting down to business. Fraser tried not to feel resentful. She couldn't know how dizzy and desperate he felt, heartbeat throbbing in his side as if his body was making a special effort to pump his blood away from his body. "Is this Inuit?"

"That's one of mine," Ray admitted bashfully.

"You did this? You're very talented."

"Nah, just bored. Long winter nights, you know."

Forcing himself to focus and gather his strength, Fraser pushed off from the doorway and stepped carefully toward the kitchen. "I'll just put the kettle on."

"Oh, don't go to any trouble on my account," said Ms. Wallace.

"It's not--it's no trouble."

Fraser left the kitchen door open, so as not to appear suspiciously absent. While he filled the kettle, Ms. Wallace continued chatting with Ray. "How long have you lived out here?"

"Oh, let's see, almost two years now."

"Do you like it?"

"Oh, sure. This is the native habitat of the common Fraser, right here. He grew up here."

"It seems like a difficult life."

"Not really, not once you get used to it. We got all the conveniences, electricity and everything. We even got a TV somewhere, not that we get reception. Actually I've been getting really into reading. You know Alpha Flight? So, uh, yeah," Ray suddenly seemed to realize he was on a tangent, "think this is going to be a really great place for a kid to grow up. I mean, all the nature and animals and learning how to build... things... space to run around in..."

He spoke as earnestly as if he really believed it. Ms. Wallace seemed to be taken in, and even if she was not, she was sufficiently absored in the conversation that she was not paying any attention to Fraser. He surreptitiously placed an additional small saucepan on the stove, in which he submerged the needle and thread.

"I mean, I didn't have anything like that. We just played in the street."

"Where are you from?"

"Chicago. Yeah, yeah, get out all your Yank jokes. I can take it."

"No, no," Ms. Wallace chuckled in a kind and professional way that suggested that she would never dream of making Yank jokes; she would only think them privately to herself. "I'm more surprised that a city person would come all the way out here. Bit of a culture shock, eh?"

"Yeah, well, turnabout's fair play. Fraser lived in the city four years."

"Did he, now?"

"Yeah, that's where we met, he was with the consulate down there."

"How long have you two been together?"

Fraser realized with a start that the interview had already begun. How had he missed that? He hurried back into the living room as quickly as he could manage, which was to say, slightly slower than the pace of the average leisurely stroll, trying not to rely too conspicuously on doorways and chair backs to steady himself as he walked.

"Let's see," Ray was saying, "the two years here, plus the year we were on the road..."

Ms. Wallace leaned forward. "You spent a year on the road?"

Fraser set himself down on the edge of a hard chair, trying to appear relaxed, but inwardly sighing. Did she have to show such a keen interest in everything?

"Yeah, looking for the hand of Franklin. You know, the one reaching for the Beaufort Sea?"

"Did you find it?"

"Oh, yeah, we got it around here somewhere. We, uh," once again Ray seemed concerned he had misspoken, "we wouldn't let the baby eat it."

Ms. Wallace began to look bewildered.

"Ninety-seven," said Fraser, attempting to shove the conversation back onto track.

"What?" said Ray.

"When we met. 1997. Five years." He hoped that the undeniable logic of arithmetic would help to settle the matter quickly.

Ray shot him a look, and Fraser wondered if he had gotten the subtraction wrong--his brain felt sluggish and cotton-filled--but then Ray said, "That was the twenty-seventh. The Vecchio thing. We weren't together for that... well, most of that... well, depending on how you look at it."

"I sense there's a long story here," said Ms. Wallace.

"Trust me, there is," said Ray.

Fraser mentally urged him to deliver the short version. With any luck the apparent telepathy they sometimes enjoyed would be in full working order.

Ray looked at Fraser with his eyebrows raised, and didn't open his mouth again. The telepathy had worked perhaps too well.

"Well?" said Ray, making "on with it" circles with his hands.

"What?" said Fraser.

"Come on, you know you wanna say it. You first went to Chicago on the trail of the killers of your father..."

Fraser shifted in discomfort. "Is it really necessary to go into all that?"

Ray's jaw dropped. Fraser realized he had erred.

The scratching at the door was a welcome distraction. "That'll be the dog," said Ray, leaping out of his chair. "He's a real sweetheart. Great with kids. Everyone loves him."

Ray swung open the door, and Dief stood there holding in his mouth a dead snowshoe hare.

"Oh my," said Ms. Wallace.

"He's a... an Alaskan wolfhound," Fraser explained.

Dief shot him an offended look.

"Get outta here with that!" Ray gestured back towards the woods and quickly closed the door on a confused and disappointed Diefenbaker. "Sorry."

Ms. Wallace flashed a fake smile and opened her binder uneasily. "Moving along."

Ray tensed, but, oddly, Fraser felt more relaxed. This was the sort of interview Fraser had had in mind: cold, formal, perhaps somewhat confrontational. During practise, Ray always played the role of adoption agent like an interrogator, leaning over the coffee table and resting menacingly on his knuckles while he demanded, "Why do you want to adopt?"

The first time, Fraser had searched for what he thought was the most unimpeachable answer. "There are so many children in need of a home, and we have ample resources to--"

"So you only want kids cause you think it's your duty or something? Some kind of charity case?"

"Is that not acceptable?"

"No, Fraser," Ray said, shifting into the slouch that indicated he was dropping his tough-detective posture, and picking up his beer. "We're supposed to want kids cause we want them."

"I don't see why our reasons have to be exclusively selfish."

"Because, they'll see right through it. Nobody's that selfless. You can't take care of a kid for eighteen years just because you think you have to. You can't just say what you think they want to hear, cause it'll bite you in the ass."

"Well," said Fraser, tentatively, feeling that he already ought to know the answer to this question, "what's your answer? Aside from 'babies are cute.' Why do you really want children?"

"I don't know, I just do." He squinted into the middle distance for a moment. "I can't put it into words. I don't like this, having analyze the shit out of everything."

"Nor I," said Fraser.

"People who make babies the regular way don't have to answer any questions. Can't you just want something cause you want it? Why wouldn't you want kids? Kids are great. To me, that's the one you should need a good reason for, not having them, not having them."

"Precisely," said Fraser, understanding what he meant despite the technical lack of semantic difference between the clauses. "That's what I meant. Two responsible people with a comfortable home and a steady income don't have a good reason not to accept the care of a member of the next generation."

"That's real beautiful, Fraser," said Ray. "That's like poetry. Do I mean poetry? No, I'm thinking of fine print. No purchase necessary, terms and conditions may apply, the party of the first part, hereafter known as 'the baby'..."

"Yes, well," said Fraser. "Granted, it's no 'babies are cute.'"

"Technically, I said adorable."

"Technically, you said 'fucking adorable.' I think the adjective lends it a certain je-ne-sais-quoi."

"Screw it," said Ray. "Let's just say we need the tax deduction."

"You laugh, but that's not on the list of bad reasons." Fraser had committed the list of bad reasons to memory.

"Only cause it's so bad, nobody would even think of it. Not to mention it's about the worst moneymaking scheme I ever heard of. Have you seen what a kid's bike costs these days? And they need a new one every year."

"Presumably a person truly interested in having a child for tax reasons wouldn't keep up to date with his bicycle needs."

"Sacrilege."

"Agreed. My answer, you see, was intended to convey our willingness to spend any necessary money."

"Yeah yeah, I get that, but can you just forget the money? Don't even bring up money. Maybe if we say, you know, we got extra love lying around. Lots of love to give out."

"Now that," said Fraser, awed, "could work."

"Really? You think?" Ray paused, replaying it in his head, then made a face. "It's kind of sentimental."

"They're hardly likely to reject us for an excess of sentimentality," Fraser had pointed out. From thence forth "We have a lot of love to give" had been the official correct answer during their practice sessions. They had repeated the words so often now that they had lost all meaning.

Ms. Wallace, however, had not heard it, and Fraser was confident that they would win back any points they'd already lost just as soon as she asked them the inevitable question.

She did not lead with it, though. She said, "Let's get right down to it. How do you two plan to handle childcare? Does one of you intend to stay home?"

"Yeah," said Ray. "Me."

"I can see you've already thought this through."

"It was a pretty easy choice. Fraser's finally got his career back on track. I kinda left mine back in the States."

"Oh? Are you out of work now?"

"Sort of. I mean, yes. I do odd jobs here and there, but I'm not exactly the only one in town who can fix a snowmobile, so..."

"Consulting detective," said Fraser, not bothering to turn it into a complete sentence. "Invaluable to the department."

"Yeah, yeah. I help the Mounties out sometimes, but they can't let me do much. Law enforcement isn't really something you can do freelance, you know?"

"He is not licenced to carry a firearm in this country," Fraser explained helpfully, trying not to let Ray dominate the conversation too obviously.

Ray screamed at him with his eyes.

"Ah," said Ms. Wallace. "Do you keep guns in the house?"

Fraser wished he had let Ray dominate the conversation.

Somehow answering to Ms. Wallace was much more difficult than answering to Ray-as-interrogator. She employed less obvious tactics. And Fraser had not been distracted with pain when he playacted with Ray.

Ray hastened to explain, "He's real good about keeping it locked up. Much better than I was." He immediately seemed to realize his mistake and he squeezed his eyes shut, mouth tight in a chagrined grimace. "I mean, safety is like, Fraser's middle name. Fraser Safety... Fraser."

An awkward silence fell over the room, and then Ms. Wallace turned a page in her binder, which Fraser hoped meant she was willing to give them a fresh start.

"How do your families feel about you adopting?" she asked, looking up. "Are you going to be able to count on them for support?"

"Yeah, yeah, they're fine," Ray nodded, visibly relieved at this change of subject. "My parents, they're good with it, actually. My dad never liked me being a cop anyway, so even gay single dad is like, a step up, for him, and my mom's excited about grandkids. They're in Arizona, but they'd come up if there was a baby... They came up last summer in the RV and there was nothing for them to see but some northern lights."

Fraser shot Ray a hurt look, which he did not look back to see. Weren't the northern lights enough?

"Yes. I see that your parents submitted one of your recommendation letters," said Ms. Wallace, smoothing a page in her binder. "As did your ex-wife."

"Oh, yeah, right," said Ray. "I have a one of those. I wasn't trying to hide or anything. I don't think of her as my family anymore, I guess."

"That's quite understandable. Can I ask what happened there?"

Fraser ached with tension from his shoulders to his toes. This could be a minefield.

But Ray just shrugged and leaned back gracefully in his chair. "It didn't work out. A lot of reasons."

"I suppose I can think of an obvious one," Ms. Wallace remarked.

"Yeah, she didn't want kids."

"I mean that you're gay."

"Oh, yeah," said Ray, as if remembering this fact for the first time. "That wasn't it, really. I guess you'd say I'm bisexual."

Ms. Wallace glanced briefly at Fraser with a quizzical look on her face, a look which Fraser interpreted to mean, "You had your choice of any partner in the world and you still chose this one?"

Ray was rubbing the back of his head, oblivious to this nonverbal exchange. "Me and Stella, we both kind of knew it couldn't last but we loved each other, so we gave it a shot. Then it sucked even more when we finally split up. But, you know, it all turned out good in the end. We're pretty friendly now. I mean, I asked her to do a letter and she did, so she must think I'm an okay guy." Here Ray lost his cool a little, craning his neck. "Why, what'd she say about me?"

Ms. Wallace lifted her binder, hiding the contents. "I'm afraid I can't tell you that, if she didn't."

Ray seemed to take this as confirmation of his worst fears, and he said, with entirely feigned playfulness, "Hey, don't I get the right at least to know what I'm accused of?"

"Rest assured, I would ask you if I had any specific complaints to address. Actually, I do have one, shall we say, observation about your recommendation letters. The one from your nearest neighbour was--well, it was brief."

"Yeah, he doesn't know us too well, seeing as how he's twenty-five miles away... I mean, forty kilometers. Yeah?" Ray looked to Fraser for confirmation, and Fraser nodded even though he had no intention of performing the calculation. "The neighbor letter thing is kind of silly out here, if you don't mind me saying so. But, listen, we know most of the people in town pretty well, seeing as how Fraser's saved everybody's life a couple of times over. We can get some more letters in there, if you need them."

"That's quite all right. The testimonials from Ben's fellow officers ought to be sufficient. I did notice that there was a division between coworkers and family--I mean to say, the family letters all seemed to be on your side, Ray. Ben, what can you tell me about your family?"

Fraser blinked and forced himself to find the energy to speak. Fortunately, on this topic, he had very little to say. "My parents are dead."

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that."

Fraser waved his hand, a gesture intended to reassure her that his grief had been tempered by the passage of time and that, although painful, his personal tragedies had served to bring him necessary reconciliation to the mortality of all living things.

For whatever reason, Ms. Wallace did not seem entirely satisfied by this nonverbal response. She leaned forward, eyebrows raised. "What else can you tell me about your mother and father?"

About what? Fraser feared he allowed pure annoyance to show on his face before he recovered himself, but, honestly; what did she expect, autopsy reports?

Ms. Wallace attempted a direct question. "What was your relationship with them like when you were young?"

"Fine," said Fraser.

He honestly didn't intend to be difficult, but he couldn't think of any other answer. Ms. Wallace looked at him, sadly, as if really wishing to come to some other conclusion about his character and fitness. Ray glared stonily. Fraser swallowed. He wished he could say, "Believe me, I'm as disappointed in myself as you are."

"Ben," said Ms. Wallace, laying her pen down on her pad, "I hope you don't think I'm being purposely invasive."

"Ben's kind of a private guy," Ray defended him, belying his words with a sidelong murderous glance.

"I'm afraid now is not the time to be private," said Ms. Wallace, not quite apologetically. "I wouldn't ask if I didn't think it could be important. We've found that a person's relationship with his own parents frequently informs the relationship with his children."

In other words, the sins of the father shall be visited on the son. If Fraser had learned, to pick a purely hypothetical example out of the air, poor communication skills from his father, the child would be the one to bear the brunt of the ill effects. It occurred to Fraser that, quite aside from his own internal battle about what he wanted or did not want, it would arguably be irresponsible to inflict his own upbringing on a child. Fraser closed his eyes against the pain in his side, a wave of exhaustion passing over him.

"He was raised by his grandparents, really," Ray was explaining, apparently having given up on Fraser's ability to come up with an answer.

It would certainly be irresponsible to bring a child into a home where he was not wholeheartedly wanted. Should that turn out to be the case. Of course, had his father come to same realization, Fraser might never have been born.

But the question before him now was not whether to produce a new child, but whether he, rather than someone else, should be the one to raise an existing child. Most children would say that they would rather be born than not, but debating the relative merits of one home versus another was more subtle and uncertain.

"His mom died when he was just a little kid..."

"Where was your father?" said Ms. Wallace, still addressing herself to Fraser.

"Away a lot. Work," Fraser managed.

"What did he do for work?"

Of course, she had to ask that.

"He was RCMP," Fraser said coolly.

"Fraser's not gonna be like his dad with our kid," said Ray, jumping right in to skewer the subtext. "He's strictly local. They have him specializing in town crime, cause he's like, cosmopolitan compared to everyone else, and anyway we're not like dads from our generation, all closed-off. He's a real modern, sensitive, family-man kind of guy. Totally open, you know, with his feelings and whatnot."

"I see," said Ms. Wallace, not seeing.

Fraser met her gaze with an equally impassive poker face, refusing to allow any sign of his mental state show outwardly.

Was he really confident enough in his own abilities as a parent to rob this child of a perfectly nice life with a suburban straight couple from Edmonton? It felt selfish, narcissistic to think so. What right did he and Ray have to bamboozle the agency into believing that they were normal? They were not normal. Their lives were odd; their jobs were odd; their home was odd; their relationship was odd. Fraser loved his job, his home, his partner, loved them dearly, but he had chosen them. The child would have no choice.

Ms. Wallace flipped another page in her binder, and this time, it seemed less like a fresh start, and more like a new opportunity to fail. The only upside was that Fraser was able to time a brief gasp of pain with the sound of the page turning.

"Now, as you know," said Ms. Wallace, uncapping her pen, "we haven't placed with a gay couple yet. You'd be our first." Fraser glanced at Ray, wondering if he took this choice of words as a good sign. Ray was slumped in his chair, frowning, which either meant that he wasn't particularly inspired, or that he wasn't particularly listening. For all his good qualities, Ray could not be counted upon to listen. Fraser forced himself to pay careful attention. "As I'm sure our legal team has informed you, provincial law does not permit same-sex couple adoption, so only one of you will be able to go on the child's birth certificate as the single parent. Have you decided which one of you it's going to be?"

"Yes," said Fraser. "Me."

For just a moment, Ms. Wallace's expression of thoughtful nonjudgment wavered, and she looked openly surprised. Fraser wondered if he ought to be insulted. Certainly Ray had already volunteered that he intended to be the child's primary caretaker, and certainly for the last half-hour Ray had been chatting pleasantly with Ms. Wallace while Fraser grimaced quietly in a corner and offered surly curt responses when questioned directly, but to him that hardly seemed like unfatherly behaviour.

"We thought--you know, it would look better," said Ray. "Him being the one with the job and the income and, well, for a bunch of reasons."

Fraser swayed dizzily in his seat, suddenly afraid of what else Ray was going to say. They had discussed so few of the "bunch of reasons" out loud. In fact, they had come to the decision with very little discussion. Ray had suggested flipping a coin. Fraser had suggested thinking about it.

"You're right," Ray had said. "It can't be me. I look like a bum."

"They can't see you, Ray," Fraser had pointed out, not, however, contradicting the premise. It was the end of a long night of paperwork, and Ray was stretched full-length on the floor, shirtless, unshaven, and wrapped in a blanket.

"On paper. On paper. You're a fine upstanding Canadian law officer. I'm one of millions of jobless Americans. Put down you."

"Are you sure? Whoever goes on this form will be, in the eyes of the law, the child's only father."

"In the eyes of the law, yeah, but not in real life. This is just a technicality. It's symbolic."

"Symbols can be important."

"It has to be somebody. It's not like it's going to matter. Neither one of us is going to want to leave the kid anyway." Ray looked up from the paper aeroplane he was forming and stared at Fraser with unnerving steadiness, as if daring him to suggest otherwise.

"Of course not," said Fraser. "And even if one of us did, the other would not be so vindictive as to prevent him from visiting."

"But neither of us will," said Ray, "so it doesn't even matter talking about it." He released his plane across the room. "This is dumb. Just put down somebody. Anybody. I don't care."

Fraser had entered his own name, reasoning privately that it would be wise to place the stricter legal bonds upon the half of the couple most likely to require them. He had not, at the time, asked if Ray was thinking the same thing that he was, and he thought it highly inadvisable, now, to suggest this line of thought to the adoption agent.

"Ray," said Fraser piteously.

"...citizenship is still kind of up in the air, so I--what?" Ray was saying. "She's not INS. Anyway, it's not like it's a secret. There's kind of a paper trail."

"It's true, I'm not an expert on immigration," said Ms. Wallace, "but it's still something you'll need to keep our legal team informed about. We wouldn't want you to be sent away from your family. Remember, as Ben's son or daughter, the child would have no status in the U.S."

"Yeah, it's--I've got paperwork in. We just figured we wouldn't wait on that to get started on this. We figured we might be waiting awhile."

"That's probably wise. Again, it's not really my area," said Ms. Wallace uncertainly.

"Ben's son or daughter." The idea of raising the baby without Ray was chilling.

His lack of confidence in himself was puzzling; it did not seem to be founded in any particular physical or moral failing. He had been through worse physical exertions than sleepless nights and heavy armfuls. He knew what it was to feel responsible for another life--for dozens, in fact. He knew what it was to love someone so intensely that you woke up suddenly in the night drenched in cold sweat from a mere dream of losing them, and found yourself unable to relax until you listened to them breathe and shook them close enough to wakefulness to hear them say, "Noooo, Fraser, come on, buddy, give me some more of that pie, there's a monkey in the engine." He was used to all that.

But while he had loved, and did love, he had never committed himself to love--unconditionally, expressively--a person that he had never met. He could be polite to anybody, could show respect to anybody, but how could he promise to feel genuine affection? How could that be predicted? Would his heart rise to the occasion with this child, and if it did not, could he wear the mask for the rest of his life? To fail himself would be disappointing; to fail Ray would be heartbreaking; to fail an innocent child was unthinkable.

Fraser only just caught his hand before it absently reached for his aching side. He clasped his hands tightly in his lap and stared at them. It was too much. He had too many things to hide.

A shrill whistle sounded, and they all jumped and jerked their heads toward the kitchen, where steam was billowing out of the kettle and rising from the saucepan. Ah, yes. Fraser would have to get that. Right about. Now.

Ray got up. "I'll get it."

"No, no, allow me," Fraser insisted, pulling himself miraculously to his feet in a smooth, reasonably natural movement. He looked at Ray triumphantly, as if to say, "You see? I'm perfectly capable of performing simple motor tasks unassisted!"

Ray raised his palms and rolled his eyes, as if to say, "Whatever, go for it, perform those motor tasks, knock yourself out."

Fraser peeled his hand from the side of the end table and walked into the kitchen with stately grace. As soon as his back was turned, he felt free to let his pain show on his face. He moved the kettle and saucepan onto trivets on the counter and bent stiffly to tend to the fire in the wood stove.

"What else you cooking there, honey?" Ray called in an innocent voice.

"What kind of tea would everyone like?" Fraser replied, deliberately evading the question. "We have Earl Grey, chamomile, and a zesty fruit blend."

"Earl Grey would be lovely," said Ms. Wallace.

"I'll have a coffee," said Ray. He was staring at Fraser with a challenging expression. "Unless that's too much work."

"Not at all." Fraser looked up and down the unprecedentedly neat countertop. "Where did you leave the instant?"

"I put it away. Bottom drawer."

"Bottom drawer?" Fraser repeated sadly, staring at the drawer in question. It seemed an awfully long way away.

"Yuh-huh. You need any help?"

"Thank you," said Fraser politely, "no."

He and Ray stared at each other for just a second longer. If Fraser had had any doubt that Ray knew, he was doubt-free now. He was keenly aware of Ray's eyes on him as he gently bent his knees and lowered himself to an awkward squat before the bottom drawer.

Fortunately, Ms. Wallace made a comment about Ray's walrus sculpture which distracted them both and Fraser's unnatural movements went unobserved as he retrieved the jar of coffee, lifted it onto the counter above his head, and pulled himself up by one arm. Still discreetly favoring his left side, he made up two cups of tea and one of coffee and arranged the mugs on a tray.

Carrying three full cups, at least, gave him a pretext to walk slowly. He held the tray in a natural-appearing position, one hand on each side, forcing his good arm to take the brunt of the work from a disadvantageous position. It was only surprising that he was as near to the table as he was when the tray tipped. His reflexes were quick enough to grab a firm hold of the unsupported side of the tray before more than a few drops had spilled. His reflexes did not remember why he was carrying the tray so oddly in the first place. Burning jolts of pain forked up and down his side and he bent forward, releasing a sharp breath.

Ray was instantly standing, taking the tray from him. There was no good explanation for why this change of the guards had happened, and Ray didn't volunteer one. He just said "Here we go. What'd you have, black? Let me get you some milk for that."

For his part, Fraser swayed on his feet a moment and then said, "Excuse me a moment, won't you?"

He took no particular care to appear normal on his way to the bathroom, and it was probable that he hobbled in his rush to make it to privacy. He couldn't think about it anymore.

When he was safely shut inside he stood before the mirror and lifted his shirt. As he had feared, his side was roughly painted with fresh blood. He looked around in despair. No medical supplies had mysteriously manifested in his absence. Mike the turtle gave him a desultory nod and returned to sunning himself under the heat lamp. His disinterest felt a little like a slight, although Fraser supposed that his sympathy would have been useless even had it been forthcoming.

There was one major visible difference between the bathroom now and the bathroom before the interview, and that was the presence of Fraser's torn tunic and coat on the floor. The gun in its holster was right there on top of the pile, not locked up in the slightest. It was only by the grace of God that Ms. Wallace had not yet experienced a call of nature. What a terrifying thought.

Fraser leaned down to pick up his things, but it was not the right time to be tidying. He found himself sitting on the floor, his back against the tub, streaking the white porcelain red. He had enough presence of mind to keep from moaning audibly.

He opened his mouth to tell Mike, "Don't tell Ray," but at the last moment he changed his mind and kept silent, not because he was afraid of being overheard, but because he was overwhelmed by the certainty that he would be better off if only Mike could tell Ray.

And then Ray was there, kicking the door shut behind him, saying, "Christ!" Fraser couldn't understand how he had known to come until he realized that the voice saying, "Ray, Ray," was his own. He broke off mid-"R" lapsed abruptly into silence. Ray dropped to his knees, and Fraser felt his hand flying from his arm, to his thigh, to his side, fingers cool beneath the burning gash. When he looked up, his face was pale, his eyes wide with fear. "What happened? Were you shot?"

"Shot at," Fraser corrected, feeling oddly calm and collected now. "It's just a graze."

"Oh, well, in that case." Colour was coming back into Ray's face, namely red. He yanked a clean guest towel from the pile. "Why didn't you say something? Fuck. You need a doctor."

"Yes, I know. I was going to give myself stitches, but I didn't have--"

"You were going to give yourself--of course you were. Who do I think I'm talking to? Jesus, Fraser. Are you trying to make me a single father before we even get this kid?"

"The risk of infection is very small if the instruments are properly--"

"Doctors, Fraser! Doctors give you stitches. You got health insurance now, you dumbass, you don't gotta be Trapper John M. Fucking D.!" Ray whirled around to wet the towel in the sink, then turned back and carefully applied it to Fraser's swollen flesh, the gentleness of his touch belying the hard expression on his face.

"I don't know if you noticed," said Fraser testily, "but we're currently being inspected."

"Fraser, you were shot!"

"At," Fraser stressed.

"Either way! I think the agency would be open to rescheduling!"

Fraser didn't answer. The pressure of the cold towel held firmly to his wound made him ache, but it was a good ache. Ray's firm hand and steady gaze gave Fraser secure feeling that something was being done and the healing process was underway; a feeling which had been lacking in the open-air-and-hope method of first aid he had been employing hitherto.

Ray took Fraser's hand pressed it against the towel, then rocked back on his haunches and picked up Fraser's cast-off coat from the floor. "Come on, pitter patter. This all your stuff?"

"You want to go to the hospital? Now?" said Fraser.

"Can you think of a better time?"

"But she's..." Fraser gestured weakly at the door. "You didn't want to look weird."

"Priorities, Fraser!"

"Yes, priorities," Fraser said, surprisingly himself with the firmness of his voice. "I don't want to be the reason--if we disrupt the interview now, and we're rejected--I don't know if I'll be able to--"

Fraser broke off, finding it difficult to find grammatical conclusions to his sentence openers, but Ray seemed to know what he meant. He stared at the floor, brows knit, and then, barely perceptibly, he nodded. "Okay." He dropped Fraser's coat and stood up. "Okay. Okay okay okay. You stay here. I'll go out there and tell her you're not feeling well, which we've already laid the groundwork for--"

"And it's true," said Fraser.

"That too. I'll keep her busy, give her the grand tour. The woods, the creek, the pile of rocks, all the magical spots where the kid could frolic around and learn important life lessons. You, do what you need to do, but we are going to the hospital the second she leaves. Okay?"

"Yes, Ray."

"Okay. I better get back out there. She's probably already writing up in her report how the two gay guys were in the bathroom together for a suspiciously long time." But instead of leaving, Ray darted forward and kissed Fraser's mouth briefly but intensely. Fraser tried to make the most of his limited time against Ray's lips to project an air of reassuring warmth.

Ray pulled back into the doorway in one quick jump, and from there, he pointed an accusing finger at Fraser. "You're not giving the baby stitches."

"No," Fraser agreed. "If necessary--and I hope it won't be--we will take the baby to a doctor."

Ray nodded, turned, and shut the door behind him. Through it, he could be heard addressing Ms. Wallace. "Hey, listen, Ben's feeling kinda under the weather..."

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that..."

Fraser pulled himself up and carefully washed his hands until he heard Ray's and Ms. Wallace's voices die down and the front door click shut behind them. He turned to Mike and nodded smartly. "Here goes nothing."

He took a brief sojourn to the kitchen to fetch his needle and thread, easier now that he did not have to pretend to walk normally, and returned to the bathroom. He had forgotten to ask Ray where he hid the rest of the medical supplies, but he had the essentials, anyway. He lay the bath mat and three towels on the floor of the tub and gently lowered himself down. He angled the mirror to give himself a good view of the wound and retrieved the needle and thread from the pan.

Threading the needle took longer than anticipated. He felt lightheaded, and his hand shook suddenly at unpredictable moments. This should perhaps have warned him off the whole project, but he felt oddly confident, as though success were inevitable. Ray was waiting for him, and he would simply have to get it done. He hadn't realized what a tremendous relief it would be to have Ray on his side. Even though he wasn't in the room, Fraser felt his support like something tangible.

What a relief it would be to tell him the whole truth, about everything.

He took a brief meditative moment, then open his eyes and slipped the end of the thread into the eye of the needle.

He felt sure that on some level Ray already knew. Occasionally, Ray seemed to be asking him to admit it, and Fraser had so far refused, but Ray, of course, knew him better than he knew himself. He had not deemed this knowledge worthy of action, though, and was that not a good sign? Presumably if Ray thought Fraser would make a bad father, he would discourage him from attempting to adopt.

On the other hand, Ray had an obvious conflict of interest. Deciding against Fraser as a parental partner meant either giving up on the idea of children, or else leaving him, and leaving behind all of the other symbiotic relations between them: adventurous, domestic, civic, professional, personal, sexual, friendly, familial. For several moments--he wasn't certain how many--Fraser lay still, his hand hovering, his eyes staring blankly at a spot in the middle distance.

He blinked to attention. Mike was staring back at him, looking inquisitive.

"It doesn't bear thinking about," he told Mike.

As these were the first words Fraser had spoken in some minutes, he had no reason to believe that the turtle was on the same page. Still, he seemed to understand anyway. Mike really was an excellent turtle. To think that, without Ray, Fraser might never have known him.

"Excuse me," he said politely. "I'm afraid I need to focus my entire attention on the task at hand. As much as I enjoy talking to you, distraction can lead to stupid errors, as I'm in a particular position to know."

He turned away, and banished all thoughts from his mind except the soothing repetition of stitch in, stitch out, and the steady drone of his own voice as he recited under his breath. "Of man's first disobedience and the fruit of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste brought death into the world..."

He had hardly gotten to the adamantine chains and penal fire before he was tying off the end of the thread, although he may admittedly have missed a few lines. He took a moment to admire his handiwork in the mirror. Small, neat stitches; a doctor could hardly have done better. He propped himself on his elbows, carefully bringing himself up to a sitting position. He would have to be careful not only to avoid giving himself pain, but to keep the stitches intact. He doubted the thread in the four-dollar sewing kit was designed to take heavy abuse.

He buried all the bloody towels and shirts in the laundry basket and retrieved a flannel for himself. He could not bear to put the damp, clinging Bulls T-shirt back on, even though the change of clothing might raise questions. He made sure to tidy up after himself, just in case Ms. Wallace should want to visit the room later in either a personal or professional capacity. As long as she did not dig deep in the trash or the laundry basket, she would not find anything to complain about. Granted, if she looked under the sink, she would find a saucepan filled with sewing supplies, but this storage choice, while perhaps unorthodox, hardly seemed like a basis for rejection.

By this time Ray must surely be running out of things to show off on the grounds, Fraser fed Mike, put on his coat, and ventured outside.

He felt stronger as soon as he took in a breath of pure, clean air. His own memories of childhood, he reflected, featured forests and snow and dogs and deer far more than they featured people. Possibly that meant he'd been neglected, but it hadn't felt that way to him. He had felt free. Adults, on the whole, overestimated their own importance to children. This was a comforting thought. His actions or inactions could only have so much effect on the child. Nobody's happiness rested entirely on any one person. The child would have Ray, would have Dief, would have everyone in town, would have these trees, this sky, these stones.

He set off down the path around the cabin and soon heard the low buzz of Ray's voice. He'd correctly guessed that Ray was showing her his favourite part of the property, the garage, and sure enough they came into view silhouetted against the gleaming white body of Ray's '72 Polaris Starfire. Fraser expected to hear the familiar refrain of, "She'll get you one-twenty, easy, had to replace the tank, original treads though, can you believe this sled was just pile of parts when I got her?" But Ray must have gone through all that already, because when his words became clear, he was on another topic altogether.

"...lot more like his than mine, I guess, but that's kind of a plus. Don't get me wrong, I turned out okay. You know, if you like that sort of thing. But him, I mean--something went right there."

At Ray's feet, Dief made a questioning moan.

"I'm just saying, we end up making another one of him, I got no problem with that. That's fine by me."

Fraser didn't like to flatter himself that he was the subject of the discussion, so he didn't. Ray might easily be talking about the Starfire, although the sled's pronouns were generally feminine. At any rate, it was high time for Fraser to make his presence known. He trampled a twig. Dief and Ray turned immediately. Dief barked, and Ray uttered a "Fraser" that was more of a sigh of relief than a word.

Dief jumped up and pressed his paws to Fraser's chest with unusual gentleness. Ray must have updated him on the situation. How he had done this without simultaneously tipping off Ms. Wallace was unknown, but then, Ray and Dief had always had unnaturally strong nonverbal communication.

Ms. Wallace offered him a curt professional smile. "Feeling better?"

"Very much so. Thank you."

"Told you it wasn't serious," said Ray, shrugging. He pushed by Fraser's good side, giving his shoulder the briefest of squeezes as he passed, and led the way back to the house.

Dief trotted in behind them, the rabbit incident forgotten, and immediately curled up before the stove. The light was waning and the cabin was lit only by the smouldering embers behind the grill. It was as pretty a domestic scene as they were likely to get, and Fraser could tell it was having its effect on Ms. Wallace, who looked around and smiled slightly as she hung up her coat.

"And now we're back here," said Ray. He glanced from Fraser to Ms. Wallace and back again, clenching and spreading his hands nervously. It was obvious to Fraser that he was making an effort to restrain himself from helping Fraser off with his coat. Fraser was easing it off by stages, trying to give the impression not that he was in pain but that he simply kept getting distracted by the outgoing mail pile or the pictures on the wall.

"Isn't there something you're forgetting?" said Ms. Wallace.

Fraser glanced at Ray, but he shrugged. In all the time Ray had spent giving what must have been a conspicuously, ludicrously long tour, what could he possibly have forgotten? Suddenly it came to Fraser and he said, "The baby's room."

"Right!" Ray took two long jumping strides across the living room and opened the door to what was now the guest room. "Come on, come look."

Ms. Wallace stepped forward curiously. Fraser breathed a sigh of relief and finished removing his coat.

"There's not much to see. It's, uh, we haven't decorated or anything. You have to picture like a crib and changing table and all that. Wallpaper. Duckies." Fraser joined them in time to see Ray gesturing animatedly, trying to impress upon Ms. Wallace the importance of the duckies. "We figured we'd have plenty of time to, ah, make the necessary preparations. Right, Ben?"

"Right," said Fraser smoothly, as if he had been there behind them all along.

"I think you're absolutely taking the right approach," said Ms. Wallace, and it surprised Fraser to hear such adamant agreement from her lips. "Even once they're approved, some couples wait a year or more for an assignment. There will be plenty of time to buy whatever you need if you get the call."

Fraser didn't like the sound of that conditional. "If" you get the call?

Ray, however, seemed unfazed. "Yeah. That's exactly what we thought."

They trickled back out in the living room, and Ray shut the baby's door. "Anyway," he said with an air of finality. "What else you need to know?"

"Actually, I think I've got everything I need. It's been wonderful to meet you both." Ms. Wallace shook Ray's hand, and then Fraser's. Fraser numbly returned her polite smile and nod, feeling bewildered. Was it really over, just like that? He had been looking forward to the end of the interview, but this seemed worryingly abrupt. "While you have me here, is there anything else you'd like to know from me?"

"Is that it? Have we failed?" Fraser did not ask. He had a feeling this was not a question she was permitted to answer.

Ray asked for her contact information, should any questions occur to them in the future. It seemed somehow cruel of Ms. Wallace to comply, even going so far as to pencil her direct line on the back of her card, encouraging Ray to hope. While they exchanged numbers, Fraser felt free to bite his lip and openly clutch his side, not caring anymore if she caught him.

Theoretically, a rejection should have been his best-case scenario, but this didn't feel like a victory. He did not even feel the familiar, exhilarating relief of a narrow escape. Perhaps it was naivete, perhaps it was narcissism, but somehow it had not occurred to him that their efforts would ultimately end in failure. Oh, he and Ray had spoken of failure as a possibility, but he had not really felt the danger. He did not really feel it until now, when it was too late to head it off.

What would they do now? It had taken them over a year to get this far. It was not inconceivable that they might find another agency--perhaps the government of a particularly progressive or particularly corrupt foreign country--but there were so many ways it could go wrong. How many times could they start again before they became thoroughly disillusioned? Before they aged out of prime parenting years? At some point, would Ray decide it was time to simply give up, count their blessings, enjoy the life they had now?

He was surprised to find himself appalled by the idea. Giving up felt like--well, like giving up. Even when he'd daydreamed about coming clean, telling Ray his doubts, he hadn't imagined that the outcome would be giving up. He had thought... Well, he hadn't actually gotten as far as imagining what the outcome would be.

He imagined them ten years older, still childless. He probably would have been promoted out of much active duty by then, and, like Thatcher and Frobisher, would only take on chases, shoot-outs and arrests in special circumstances. The rest of his time would be spent on paperwork and delivering stern admonitions to overly enthusiastic young officers. Ray would have a full time job, too--private security, maybe, or consulting, or automobile repair. The guest room would still be a guest room, free of all duckies. Each day they would be perfectly free to come home and discuss disturbing crimes and make love on the living room sofa, their partnership untested by the strain of sleepless nights and disagreements about after-school activities. It was a perfect and perfectly attainable future, the natural happily-ever-after conclusion to their years of adrenaline and erotic yearning and careful teambuilding.

But what was the point of building such a strong team if they did not take advantage of their strength and their unity to achieve some noble goal? What other adventure could they undertake so noble as the moral and mental development of a brand-new human being? The happily-ever-after seemed suddenly selfish and boring and overall wasteful, like training up a new recruit only to keep him out of the front lines because he was so pure and had so much potential. Potential was nothing if wasted.

The judicious addition of new members, carefully trained, could strengthen a team. It was the only way, in fact. Teams without new members stagnated. The only teams which survived long, which could possibly survive beyond the lives of their original members, were those which accepted new recruits wholeheartedly and without reservation, offering to them every advantage of assistance and support. Not only in the form of material resources, but in a sense of oneness, of belonging to one another. That was the real strength of a team.

"Before you go, Ms. Wallace," said Fraser, and Ms. Wallace looked up from her briefcase.

Fraser coughed. "I just want you to know that--we, both of us," he took Ray's hand, "are very much looking forward to raising this child. I--" There seemed to be only one way to express everything concisely. "We have a lot of love to give."

Ray squeezed Fraser's hand.

"Yes, of course," said Ms. Wallace, and though she smiled, there was a worrying hint of sadness in her smile. "Well, I'll be in touch."

Ray jumped to open the door for her. "You can follow us. We're going into town anyway. We got, ah, errands."

Ray apparently agreed with Fraser that it no longer mattered if his physical weakness was conspicuous. He walked Fraser to the car with an arm tight around his shoulders.

As soon as he got into the driver's seat Ray reached out and swatted Fraser's hand away from the safety belt. He pulled his glasses from his pocket and nodded at Fraser's side. "Show me."

Fraser lifted his shirt.

Ray nodded grudgingly. "That's pretty good stitches. We're still going to the hospital."

"Understood, Ray."

Ray flashed his turn signals to let Ms. Wallace know they were about to leave and pulled out on the dirt road to the highway, driving much closer to the speed limit than usual. He reached across Fraser to the glove box and retrieved a packet of cigarettes. Ray had announced his intention to quit before the baby came, but Fraser elected not to remind him of that. It was not, perhaps, strictly relevant.

"That wasn't a success, was it?" Fraser asked after a moment.

"Yeah, well. It was a long shot to begin with." Ray spoke with a practised neutrality that Fraser did not believe in for a second. "Come on. A couple of weird gay cops living off in the woods. Would you give your kid to us?"

"If I had a child--"

"Then we wouldn't be doing this, yeah. You don't got to knock down all my hypotheticals."

Fraser watched Ray take a drag and tap his ash pensively through the cracked window, his visible breath mingling with the smoke. Finally he said, "I'm sorry, Ray."

"Nah, I'm used to it."

"No, I mean, I'm sorry," said Fraser. "This is--it's my fault."

"Don't do that. It is not."

"She liked you. If she had met you with someone else--a woman--"

"If I was with a woman, Fraser, I wouldn't even be trying this. I would just make a baby the old-fashioned way."

"You don't know that," said Fraser, unable, as was his custom, to let the technical inaccuracy pass. "One of you might be infertile, or--"

"Whatever, Jesus, who cares? I don't want have a baby with some hypothetical fertile or infertile woman. I want have a baby with you."

"So do I," said Fraser. "I want to have a baby with you, too."

"Yeah, I know," said Ray without removing the cigarette from his mouth, betraying no surprise, apparently unaware that he was witnessing a momentous realization. Of course; he'd known all along; he knew Fraser better than he knew himself.

Fraser watched Ray attempt to keep one eye on the road while smoking out the window and blindly pawing between the seats for a tape. A warm glow within him battled the overall weary ache of disappointment. Whether this warmth was a sign of affection or infection was, at the present moment, impossible to tell.

"Fuck it. I'm sick of thinking about it," Ray announced, returning his eyes somewhat unnecessarily to the road, which stretched out before them straight and empty as ever. "We get it, great, we don't, we'll deal."

"Perhaps we should move to Toronto."

"Oh, God. We are not moving to fucking Toronto."

"It's a very clean city," Fraser defended, surprised by Ray's vehemence. "Well supplied with Chinese food."

"Fuck Chinese food. I like it here."

Fraser watched him a moment longer before asking softly, "You really do?"

"I live here, don't I? What, just because you like it, I can't like it too? Don't you be an I-liked-it-before-it-was-cool snob. It's, what do you always, unbecoming. Hey, put something good on, will you? It's gonna be a long drive."

Fraser selected a tape at random from the pile and slipped it into the deck. Gratified by Ray's satisfied nod--his selection had been deemed worthy--Fraser eased back into the passenger seat and allowed the discordant melodies of the Clash to lull him into a restorative sleep.

*

Board of Approval:

I visited the home of Constable Benton Fraser and Mr. Stanley Raymond Kowalski (Ben & Ray) on June 5, 2002. It is my pleasure to recommend them for immediate placement.

Ray intends to stay home with the child. Ben intends to continue his work with the RCMP to support the family. Ben will be the child's legal guardian. They live in a rural environment, with access to local towns by means of their vehicles (car, truck, and snowmobile). They are committed to environmentally and socially responsible living, and both are trained in survival and safety through their backgrounds in law enforcement and wilderness exploration.

It is perhaps worth noting that Ben spent the entirety of the interview suffering from what appeared to be a medium to major injury, probably incurred in his professional capacity as peace officer. Both he and Ray attended carefully to my questions and delivered thoughtful, candid answers, while colluding to conceal from me the extent of Ben's distress. Although they were ultimately unsuccessful, I was impressed with their teamwork and their ability to keep cool in a crisis.

Attached, please find my official report. Please do not hesitate to contact me with any questions.

Sincerely,

Carina Wallace