For Ximeria by Chris

He'd thought it would be colder. Well, obviously it wasn't winter any more, which was the reason they'd come down from the north in the first place, but break-up happened a ways before summer did, and it was still Canada, even if Toronto was about on the same latitude as most of Wisconsin. South of Minneapolis, too, which Fraser had explained to him several times. Enough to make a guy think he didn't want to stay in Canada. Which was crazy - as much as Fraser'd tried to hide it, Ray had gotten pretty good at spotting the wistful look that crossed his face whenever he saw a pile of snow, a bacon rasher that got cooked too long and ended up looking kinda dried, or a rare variety of white-faced parrot finch (or whatever; Ray knew pretty well what the rights and duties of buddies were, and listening to a recitation of the Field Guide to Canadian Birds wasn't in there). And then almost as soon as they'd arrived in Inuvik (hell, as soon as they'd arrived in that snowfield on the Plane Wing Special), it was like Fraser's edges had all gotten softer, like he was finally somewhere he could relax and be Fraser, without having to defend his borders against modern life and temperatures above freezing.

Toronto, though, was nothing at all like Inuvik. Maybe Ray's city senses had been thrown out of whack by two months on the ice, but it looked like nothing so much as Chicago. A little cleaner, but it had the buildings and the streets and the garbage, and even the ominous touch of humidity in the air that told you to brace for cranky Mounties, because in a couple of months, it was going to be hell on wheels inside the serge.

On the other hand, you could get decent pizza, without a side of bitching about fruits that were never intended to touch the Sacred Dough.

*   *   *

'Inspector.' Fraser drew himself up to parade rest, which was apparently Canadian for 'Whaddaya got for us, Lieu?' Ray kept his mouth shut and tried to remember the body language for 'quiet and polite'; the smart money said that was how Canadian cops liked their semi-official American observers.

So, okay, there were some differences. Like the office was glass and chrome instead of fiberboard and coffee stains, and they called it a detachment instead of a station, and the inspector was drinking tea instead of coffee, but all in all, it was weirdly like being back at work at home. Chicago. He had to start thinking of Canada as home, even if Ontario hadn't been his first idea of where they'd end up after the Quest. He'd figured Inuvik, maybe, or one of the little towns that started with 'Fort' and had about six people - somewhere like where Fraser had grown up. But RCMP brass wanted them in London, Ontario, so London was it.

With a mental shake, Ray tuned back in to the inspector, who looked like he was gearing up to get to some sort of point.

'So we'd like you to coordinate with the provincial police.'

'Yes, sir.' Fraser was looking a little stuffed, sort of the same effect that Thatcher with a pile of forms tended to have on him.

The inspector frowned a little, so he must have picked up on it. 'It's important to stem the tide of illegal tobacco products, Corporal.'

'Yes, sir,' Fraser repeated. 'Uh, that is... Quite. Most important.'

Cigarette smugglers. It just figured that was what they were going to use their newly rehabilitated super-Mountie for. Because nuclear subs and cross-border nicotine pushers, it was all organized crime, right? Ray suppressed a groan and followed Fraser out.

*   *   *

'So you got a big problem with people trying to smuggle cigarettes into the country, huh?'

The OPP kid, who looked faintly but disturbingly like Turnbull, nodded hard. 'Did you know, Detective, that the sale of contraband tobacco contributes to an underground economy worth hundreds of millions of dollars?'

'Uh, yeah. And those cross-border shoppers we just talked to, what are they buying?'

Fraser recognized his cue, and cut in smoothly. 'Surveys indicate that the most popular category of items brought across international borders is... cigarettes.'

The kid looked blank.

*   *   *

'Actually, Ray,' Fraser murmured later, in the dark of a Windsor motel room, 'when you think about it, it's an important task. Contraband sales often finance criminal organizations.'

Ray nodded, realizing too late that Fraser couldn't see him. 'Yeah, I know. It's just...'

Fraser's chest lifted against Ray's side and fell slowly in a long sigh. 'Quite so.'

'You wanna put in for a transfer?' Fraser shifted again. 'I don't know. I'm not sure it would be accepted, so soon after the beginning of this posting. Even with the shortage in northern communities, they appear to want me here. I'm rather...'

'Visible?'

'Conspicuous, I was going to say, but yes, visible.'

Ray huffed a laugh. Conspicuous was one word for it. 'And they want you visible here, fighting the Canadian mafia?'

'That would appear to be the case.'

Fraser was getting all tense again; Ray snaked a hand up to smooth back his hair. 'Okay, so we fight the Canadian mafia and make the brass happy. 'S not forever, right?'

Besides, from the way Fraser was leaning into his hand and getting a little handsy himself, they had plenty of better things to think about.

*   *   *

But a couple of weeks of driver-interrogating and trunk-inspecting later (Ray had, in a desperate moment, floated the idea of using his jitters to pose as a nicotine fiend looking for a cheap fix, but Inspector Mackey had shot that down pretty quick, and Ray couldn't really blame him; he wasn't too hot at accents), things kind of boiled over. Fraser had been doing his best impression of a Mountie city-style (which wasn't very good, but you had to give the guy points for trying. Or, okay, if you were RCMP brass, maybe you didn't) - had even let someone litter near the checkpoint, and Ray didn't know how no one else could tell what sort of effort that cost him. Not that he wasn't good at this sort of thing, had a freaky sense of when someone was hiding something; it was just...

Well, it was just the way he seemed twice as alive when he had some of his kind of policing to do. Like now, when he spotted something behind the wheel of a rusty Ford pick-up.

'Ray,' he hissed. 'Does that driver seem familiar?' 

Oh yeah, oh yeah he seemed familiar. It had been their last unfinished case before the nuclear sub thing went down, a jewelry store robber who did a spot of elimination of his rivals on the side, and however much they tried to forget about it and tell themselves Huey and Dewey could handle it, that kind of thing had a way of eating at you.

'Excuse me, sir. May I see what you have in your trunk?' Fraser leaned down with a smile, which Ray could have told him was a bad idea. Except half a second later, the guy leaped out of the car and was away running faster than you'd expect a five-and-a-half-foot perp in shiny shoes to run.

But not faster than Fraser.

While Fraser was reading the guy his Canadian rights, Ray walked over to the passenger window and peeked inside.

Of course.

Cigarettes.

*   *   *

The next day, Ray figured out the real difference between Mackey and Welsh: what happened when the plan went out the window. Welsh might bitch, but if you gave him a prosecutable perp, even if it wasn't the one you'd been sent out after, he was pretty happy. As happy as Welsh ever got, anyway. Mackey, on the other hand, couldn't get past the jurisdictional issues (the State of Illinois wanted him for jewelry; the Dominion of Canada wanted him for cigarettes, and apparently they were having a hard time agreeing), not to mention Fraser haring off without a word to the provincial cops.

But...

'Perhaps,' Mackey finished, 'your skills would be better utilized in a different area. Nunavut, for instance.'

Yeah, it was probably a good thing most people couldn't read Fraser the way Ray could, because he had a definite feeling that glee wasn't the reaction Mackey had been going for.

Looked pretty good to Ray, though, as he and Fraser walked out of the office and into the rest of their lives.