Say Hello, Wave Goodbye
Prologue
They follow the trail north along the shore of the Boothia Peninsula, making it as far as Peel Sound before they have to turn around. It’s late April by then and the temperature’s rising, making the snow thick and sticky. They reach Pelly Bay in the last week of May and are met there by half the city coming out of their houses to greet them. By then both Ray and Fraser and the dogs are several kilos lighter, tired and in need of rest.
A couple of townsfolk take care of the dogs and the sled while others guide them to the Inukshuk Inn, the town’s only hotel. After checking in - which can’t be done without the telling and retelling of their story to every new face - they throw away their traveling clothes and take long hot showers. They shave and cut each other’s hair with a dull pair of scissors, scattering it all over one of the beds' duvets. Afterwards Ray leans back on the bed and falls asleep, barechested, arms over his head, lying on locks of brown and blonde hair.
Fraser leaves him to go out into the city. He talks to Pam, the owner of the hotel, and learns that there’s a plane coming in, in three days time to pick up a fishing party. It will take them as far as Yellowknife, where they will be able to get connecting flights. He walks to the local RCMP office to talk with Ron, the only officer stationed there. When he comes back to the hotel Ray is awake again and by the phone, talking to Welsh. As it turns out, Ray’s paid vacation time ran out a week ago.
They spend the last three days sleeping and eating, for the most part. Ray seems in low spirits, preoccupied; Fraser finds his attempts at conversation mostly ignored. On the second day they sell the dogs, the sled, and most of their equipment. Ray says a rather emotional goodbye to Viking, a big friendly Malamute/Siberian Husky crossbreed that he favoured; Dief does the same to Luna, the team’s bitch.
He promised Ray a steak dinner at the end of their trip. Pam’s brother has just brought home a musk ox, and Pam agrees to cook them the tenderloin at the hotel. It cheers Ray up; after he’s had two servings of steak and a couple of beers he’s red-faced and laughing, more like his usual self. They talk about the expedition, about old cases and old acquaintances. Ray hides a big lump of meat in a napkin to bring out to Dief, who has spent most of their time there grumbling about the Inuit’s failure to regard dogs as indoor pets.
The flight comes in at eight a.m. the next morning, so they go to bed early. Fraser lies awake for a while after they’ve turned in. He looks at Ray sleeping across from him, far gone, snoring slightly. It’s been as good an end to their trip as anyone could wish for, a fine way to end their partnership. Still he falls asleep feeling unsettled, out of sorts.
The trip to Yellowknife is noisy; in addition to Fraser, Ray and five Yellowknife locals, the plane carries two teams of sled dogs and ten kilos of freshly caught fish - much of the trip is a struggle to keep the dogs from the fish. In Yellowknife, Ray has a five hour wait for a plane that will take him to Edmonton, to catch a connecting flight to O’Hare. Ray buys them coffee and tea with the last of his Canadian money. They play poker for Smarties like they did on the trip; the cards stick to the plastic tabletop.
When Ray’s flight is announced Fraser walks him to his boarding area. “So…” Ray says, “it’s been good knowing you.”
Fraser finds himself short of words. “Likewise, Ray.” They hug.
Ray bends down to ruffle Diefenbaker’s fur. “You take good care of him. Make him buy you doughnuts.” Dief whines uncertainly. Ray straightens up; he smiles wryly at Fraser before turning away. Fraser stays until Ray has disappeared down the boarding ramp. Then he turns around and walks out of the airport.
Unaccustomed and unwilling to go unemployed, Fraser applies for the first available posting, which happens to be in Banff, Alberta. He is surprised to receive an excited phone call only three days after mailing his application. He has apparently become something of a hero within the RCMP after the Muldoon case. This had escaped him those two months out on the ice. Sergeant Nielsen says he would be honored to employ him. He travels down to Banff the next day, feeling restless and eager to get back to work.
The posting turns out to be mostly of a supervising nature. Banff and the surrounding national parks have roughly four million visitors every year; the RCMP works closely with the local police and park wardens to ensure a safe environment in the city and the parks. His assignments include patrolling the parks, leading searches for missing hikers, and solving the crimes that occur in the city of Banff. Apart from Nielsen, his supervisor, there is only one other RCMP member in Banff: Constable McDermott, a pleasant man who carries a certain resemblance to Turnbull that has Fraser constantly underestimating him. It’s a far cry from the work that he has been used to, both in his postings far north, and in Chicago. If nothing else can be said, at least it has brought him close to the border.
Chapter One
Sat, Aug 18 United Airlines
Depart: 5:05pm Chicago, IL (ORD)
Arrive: 7:18pm Denver, CO (DEN)
Depart: 8:32pm Denver, CO (DEN)
Arrive: 10:58pm Calgary, Canada (YYC)
Sat, Aug 25 United Airlines
Depart: 8:52am Calgary, Canada (YYC)
Arrive: 11:15am Denver, CO (DEN)
Depart: 2:25pm Denver, CO (DEN)
Arrive: 5:49pm Chicago, IL (ORD)
It was Francesca’s idea: Ray was complaining about not knowing what to do for his summer vacation, and Frannie said “hey, why don’t you visit Fraser?” And that got him thinking why the hell not? It’s not like he can’t afford it: as adventures go, dog sledding isn’t very expensive so the expedition hasn’t taken a lot out of his savings. And Fraser is in Banff, which is only a six hour flight with one stopover, about five hundred bucks. So why the hell not?
He calls Fraser to ask if it's o.k. and Fraser seems happy about the idea; as a matter of fact, Fraser would be delighted. Fraser can also get some time off, and would love to show him Banff and the Rockies. So that’s great. That’s greatness. He starts actually looking forward to his vacation, and he realizes that his decision to make it a clean cut and start fresh when he came back from Canada was a load of bull anyway, because: a) when he made that decision he had no idea how mind-numbingly boring being back in Chicago was going to be, b) Fraser is nine hours away, and c) It’s not like him and Fraser was married or anything.
He takes a five o’clock flight from O’Hare to Denver, eats a pretzel and gets heartburn, takes the plane from Denver to Calgary, gets lost in the airport and finally finds the bus that will take him to Banff. Ray hates buses, back from the days when he took the Greyhound to visit Stella in college and hated buses because he couldn’t get off to smoke. It’s a two hour drive with a lot of twists and turns, and it‘s dark outside. Ray gets nauseous and nervous about driving off a cliff; and then he gets nervous wondering whether it’s going to be weird seeing Fraser again, what they’re going to do for an entire week, what they’re going to talk about. He bites his nails, old habit.
Fraser’s at the bus station waiting for him, and Ray almost doesn’t recognize him, he’s so changed. On the trip Ray'd gotten used to Fraser being ten pounds lighter, bearded, sunburned and weatherworn. Now he looks big and pink and healthy, clean-shaven in clean clothes. He even smells like soap when they hug. Fraser lets out a deep breath and claps his hands together, smiling that wide smile that makes Ray notice his pointy corner teeth. "You look happy." Ray says, and it comes out sounding like an accusation, which he didn't mean for it to do.
Fraser's smile fades, and he looks down at the ground as if he's a little embarrassed about it now. "I'm happy to see you, Ray." He says finally, and it makes Ray feel like a dick, but also kind of happy.
They get his bags and Fraser drives them back to his house - and whoa, Ray didn’t need to worry about what to do, ‘cause on the way there Fraser runs through the schedule that he’s prepared, and by the sound of it they’ve got plans up the ying-yang, they’ve got plans to last them well into the new year. That’s all right by Ray; he leans back in his seat and closes his eyes, listening.
They reach Fraser’s house and pretty it's not - small with hardly any furniture, nothing but a kitchenette, bathroom, a small living room and bedroom - but this is the guy that used to live in a broom closet, so Ray figures it’s a step up. Dief acts snotty, not even bothering to lift his head to acknowledge his arrival. “I’m afraid he took your leaving rather hard.” Fraser lowers his voice “He doesn’t really want to talk about it, but I think he felt a little betrayed.”
“Huh, that’s too bad." Ray digs into his bag for a greasy tin foil wrap. “I guess no-one’ll be wanting this pizza I brought, then?” Dief’s by his feet in an instant, whining, tongue lolling. Sometimes Ray could swear that the wolf isn’t really deaf.
Fraser makes them dinner: regular spaghetti and meat sauce - no raw seal, no caribou stew and no aged walrus, thank God. Afterwards Ray does the dishes - he’s going to be a polite guest - and they watch a game of curling on T.V. It’s a pretty good sign of how much he’s missed hanging out with Fraser that he’s willing to sit through two hours of broom-sweeping, stone-throwing women screaming at the top of their lungs. He spends most of the game looking at Fraser, who’s flushed and sitting on the edge of his seat, eyes wild with excitement. It makes Ray laugh, on the inside.
Afterwards, Fraser makes him up a bed on the couch, and before zoning out he has this crazy idea to ask Fraser to leave his bedroom door open. He just got used to it on their trip - Fraser sleeping within arm’s reach. Stupid, like he’s a kid. He falls asleep smiling at himself.
The next couple of days Fraser drags him from one museum to the next. They go to the Whyte Museum Of The Canadian Rockies, the Buffalo Nations Luxton Museum, Canada Place, the Canadian Ski Museum (a total drag, who gives a flying fuck about the history of skiing? Fraser seems to; but then again, Ray knows for a fact that Fraser thinks a block of wood is exciting), the Cave and Basin National Historic Site, the Banff Park Museum National Historic Site, which is actually kind of cool, and Cascade Gardens (again, who cares? It’s flowers). There are a lot of young lovers in the park, though, and Ray feels a little weird all of a sudden, walking next to Fraser telling him about the White Mountain Avens.
Ray thinks Banff is maybe the most un-Canadian part of Canada he has seen: first of all there don’t actually seem to be that many Canadians; mostly it’s tourists asking Fraser if he’ll pose for a picture. Second - the place is crowded with people, paved, crammed with huge European style hotels. And while Fraser assures him that this is just as representative of Canada as the N.W.T., Ray still feels like Canada really is supposed to be more about frozen rivers, dried fish and Inuit laughing at you because you look funny.
Wednesday, Fraser has pulled some strings and gotten them a couple of hours on the ice rink after closing hours. Ray hasn’t played a lot of hockey, but he went skating with Stella back in the days. He’s no way near as good as Fraser, but he makes up for it by playing dirty. They play a couple of good, hard games, pushing each other into the boards, elbowing each other, pulling jerseys, laughing.
When they finally head back to the locker room, they’re both sweating and out of breath. Ray shrugs off his jersey. He’s got a smile on his lips, thinking up a witty retort to Fraser’s last jib in a line of witty banter, when Fraser says “You’re bruised, Ray,” in a hushed, serious tone.
And - yeah - he is, brown, yellow bruise on his right side that he only feels when he’s stretching. “Yeah, perp got me pretty good, hurt like a mother- uh, real bad; couple of weeks back,” he lifts his arm to get a look at it, winces.
“You should have told me, Ray.”
Ray lets his arm drop, shimmies into his t-shirt. “What? And give you the advantage?” And he’s grinning, almost laughing, when he catches the look on Fraser’s face; he looks resentful - Ray’s made him feel foolish or self-conscious or something - his mouth is pulled tight and unhappy.
The last two days Fraser has planned a hiking trip to Twin Lakes. Before the expedition, Ray would have sworn that he was a city kid; he used to hate communing with nature and all that country boy crap, didn’t like any kind of communing that couldn’t be done at a rest stop on the I-90. By now, he’s kind of grown to like it, working hard, pushing yourself - it’s almost like boxing.
It’s a good tough climb, hard enough to shut them up on the steepest parts, enough to make Ray regret smoking twenty a day for the best of twenty years. His muscles are burning and the backpack hurts his shoulders, but he realizes that Fraser isn’t slowing down for him and that makes it all worth it.
They reach the lakes at dusk. The campsite is deserted and the view over the lakes is amazing. They’ve got the setting camp routine nailed by now: Fraser sets the tent and rolls out the sleeping bags while Ray gets the primus fired up. They’re having real food tonight, none of that freeze dried stuff. Ray pours a container of chopped onions on the pan, ground beef, a can of beans. They eat it with fresh bread that Fraser fries in the fat on the pan. Ray suddenly remembers that story about the seal he caught in the fjord near Gjoa Haven, and it’s still funny. Their voices sound loud in the quiet; the dark makes it easy to imagine that the world ends just outside their circle of firelight, just like on the trip.
They rinse out the pan and their and bowls, and Ray’s getting ready to boil water for coffee when Fraser opens his bag and pulls out a six pack of the local brew. It’s almost enough to make Ray tear up, “Fraser, words cannot express how much I love you right now.”
Fraser runs a thumb over his eyebrow, glint of humour in his eye, “Ah… symbolically, I presume?”
"You got it, Fraser buddy”. The first two are still warm from Fraser’s body heat, but the last one is so cold it makes the hair on his arms stand up. With the hard day’s work and the fresh air, Ray’s a little drunk by the end of it. He leans back and closes his eyes and only half listens to the story that Fraser is telling him. He falls asleep. Fraser wakes him up and hands him a flashlight and they gather up their food and cutlery, and Fraser shows him how to put up a bear bag. They decide to sleep in their clothes and crawl into the tent. It’s a lot smaller than the one they used for the expedition, but they make do.
Interlude: Chicago
Couple of weeks after he’s back, Welsh calls him into his office and asks him to close the door. “Vecchio’s coming back,” he says. And Ray’s first thought is that Stella’s kicked him out, and he can see himself patting Vecchio patronizingly on the back: oh yeah, I know the Stella. But then Welsh says “he’s coming back with his wife… And a citation for bravery.”
And Ray’s been undercover; hell, he has even tried returning to his old precinct with a citation, so it’s not like Welsh has to spell it out for him. “Oh, c’mon!” Ray knew there was something fishy about that bowling alley story.
Welsh leans over his table, looking at him firmly “Is this going to be a problem for you, Kowalski?”
He checks himself. “No sir.”
At least it makes him feel a little better that Welsh obviously thinks that Ray could take Vecchio. It makes him feel better for about five minutes, until he realizes that Welsh could also be thinking that Ray is a homicidal maniac.
Stella and Vecchio return to the precinct a week later. Both of them are tanned, and Stella’s strawberry blonde is bleached pale from the sun. At least they have the sense to tread carefully around him. Vecchio actually kind of freaks him out the first couple of weeks, being all polite and respectful. It makes Ray paranoid, makes him think that someone’s laughing at him somewhere, so it ends up being a relief when Vecchio reverts to the sarcastic, smirking bastard that Ray remembers.
Stella he can hardly recognize, and it’s not the blonde hair that makes the difference: she looks happy, relaxed. She tones it down when he’s around but he still hears her laugh from down the hall. He can’t remember hearing that laugh for years, not since before they got married. It makes him want to punch something, or cry maybe. Instead he calls up Fraser a bunch of times on his work phone. Fraser doesn’t seem to mind.
When Fraser asks him how he is, Ray tells him that he misses him. It makes him feel weird, and he wonders what Fraser makes of it. Does he even notice or think about it? Because Ray doesn’t know what it’s like up there in Canada, but in Chicago, that’s something a husband and a wife would say to each other when they’re apart: “How are you honey?” “I miss you.” Something like that. He’s not saying that - whatever it is he’s not saying - he’s just saying that an old cop partner might feel it, and might slip it into conversation: “My new partner is a dork, sure ain’t like the old days, Fraser.” Like that. That’d be alright, that’d be buddies. This… This, he feels kind of weird saying, kind of clingy.
He tells himself that he’s worrying for nothing. It’s not like Fraser has any sense of normality, anyway. Ray actually likes that about him, that he can just tell Fraser whatever comes to mind, without worrying about the whole macho, godfather, mano-a-mano deal. And when Fraser asks Ray how he is, that’s apparently it. But at the same time Ray’s beginning to worry that he has some sort of psychological issue. Frannie once told him about this shrink who says that if you don’t get enough motherly love when you’re a kid you won’t be able to let go later in life, and you just want to hold onto people forever. And okay, Ray feels like he was damn near smothered in motherly love, but he can see a pattern: He met Stella when he was ten and ended up running around after her acting like a dork, wanting to be close to her for more than twenty years. He even still misses her, always will.
And now Fraser. He meets him, he likes him, he hangs out with him all the time and now that he’s gone, Ray misses him. He misses him in freakishly improbable proportions. So maybe Frannie and this psychologist guy are onto something. Maybe Ray ought to go chase up his mom and dad in Arizona and ask if maybe there’s something they haven’t told him, maybe they misplaced him for a week, left him in the car and the car was going to the mechanics, and he went without motherly love for a week or so.
Or maybe, he thinks, maybe he just needs to go out some. Meet new people. Hell, maybe even get laid.
He starts going out. Turns out Ray of the scrawny body and geeky overbite can score. Chat up women in bars. It’s kind of his first time doing that. First there was Stella, and then there was Fraser - which, nothing funny - but the guy was so good-looking anyone else just became invisible in comparison. When he goes to a bar now, women see him. Not all of them, it’s not like he’s a total stud or anything; but it turns out blond and tough on the outside, poet on the inside works for some women. The cop thing is a bonus as well. Especially since all the shit him and Fraser had a knack of ending up in makes for good stories.
After him and Stella split up he went out with a few women who'd have him, and it’s embarrassing, but he doesn’t remember any of their names, or faces even. He just remembers Stella with a sad, cold, unfamiliar look on her face. This time he’s noticing, really paying attention to all the little details – hair colors, skin colors, shapes and sizes. All different and all exciting, but he still feels like he’s looking for something that he hasn't quite found yet. A new Stella, maybe. A girl exactly like Stella.
So he has a couple of drinks, flirts a little. Turns down invitations or phone numbers. Goes home and puts on Lhasa and dances alone with the lights switched off, thinking about Stella. And sometimes after he’s gone to bed he lies in the quiet, staring at the dark, and thinks about the red horizon in the half-dark of an arctic winter, or trying to sleep in the noise of a blizzard, in a tent that smelled like smoke and cooking and two men who hadn’t showered for far too long.
By the end of October, him and Vecchio have worked out some kind of truce. Vecchio may be a snarky motherfucker, and he may pile abuse on Ray’s hair, Ray’s style, Ray’s car, but he knows never to cross the line. One day he walks over to perch on the side of Ray’s desk and complains about what a pig he is, picking up china boxes and hamburger wrappers with every sign of disgust. He says, “Hey, why don’t you come over for dinner someday, eat real food for a change?” And it sounds casual, spur of the moment, but Ray knows better.
He says yes, mostly because it feels like Vecchio’s challenging him, but also because it’s Stella, and even if it’s Vecchio asking him, he knows this means she wants to see him and he can never say no to that. He drinks a couple of beers before going, not enough to embarrass himself. He tells himself that if he can catch and skin a seal, he can also have dinner with his ex-wife.
He steps into Stella and Vecchio's new apartment and feels immediately out of his depth. He’s shaky and angry and curious, and he’s stupidly happy that Stella’s dressed up for his visit. Stella takes his coat and Vecchio offers him a drink while Stella disappears into the kitchen - and what is this, the 1950’s? He accepts the scotch, though, and it’s a good raw burn down his throat. It helps him get it together to go along with Vecchio’s talk about work and sports; but he keeps listening for Stella, keeps thinking about how beautiful she is looking, about her smile when she greeted him. They go into the dining room and he recognizes Stella’s uncomfortable high-tech chairs which are now placed around an equally hideous, unfamiliar table.
Stella’s cooked something fancy and French, she’s always been a great cook when she could be bothered, but Ray’s nervous and eats it too quickly, not tasting it. Stella and Vecchio eat slowly like civilized people while he stares down at his empty plate and feels like an idiot and worries that he’s gonna be sick.
He keeps stealing glances at Stella, who looks amazing and alien; distant, even further out of reach than when she hated his guts. He doesn’t know who this new Stella is, the Stella who cooks fancy dinners and listens attentively and has a bright silvery laugh. A happy Stella, maybe, and isn’t that a kick in the crotch?
At some point Vecchio asks him about the expedition and at last they find a kind of safe topic. He tells a couple of funny stories, makes Stella smile. Him and Vecchio swap stories about Fraser and it makes it all easier. Makes it all easier, until Stella who’s been listening and nodding and smiling encouragingly, wipes her mouth on her napkin and says, “Maybe you could go see him, Ray,” sounding a little uncertain, like she doesn’t know if she’s out of line. And bam, there he is: laid out like a dead seal on the ice, caught and skinned. Because Ray’s been wondering why they’ve invited him, what this is, exactly. And he doesn’t know what does it - the realization that Stella and Vecchio are trying to make him feel better, or that maybe he doesn’t want this new Stella - but all of a sudden he has to leave, without even trying her carefully created crème brûlée.
He goes out and gets drunk. He thinks long and hard about not wanting Stella. He misses Fraser. He can’t shake Stella’s “maybe you could go see him.”
Part Two![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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ximeria and is my contribution to the 2006 DS Seekrit santa.