Archive of Our Own ^beta

8:30 A.M. Wednesday Morning

“Morning, fellas,” Frannie greets Fraser and Ray as they walk into the precinct to start their shift. “The commish sent blueberry muffins for the squad – in the break room.”

Things with Frannie have gotten much more comfortable since he and Ray returned from the Arctic. She had taken the news of their couple status with grace, although with perhaps a tinge of melancholy, Fraser thinks.

Ray grabs the stack of folders on his desk, and they wander towards the break room. While Ray pours coffee for both of them, Fraser gathers a couple of muffins on a paper plate. They stroll back to Ray’s desk, nodding at other squad members as they go. Everyone seems cheerful. Fraser finds that Americans appear to revel in Wednesdays, knowing the work week is on the downswing.

He deftly keeps the plate away from Diefenbaker’s questing nose. “Blueberries are bad for you.”

Bad for you, too.

“Sour grapes,” he chides the wolf, who huffs and flops in the corner, muttering to himself.

Fraser watches Ray alternating between nibbling on the muffin, sipping his coffee, and flicking through the folders for potential cases for their work for the day. Fraser admires Ray’s long and dexterous fingers, roughened by work and weather, remembering the night before and the same fingers mapping his body. He shifts in his seat, willing away his inappropriate thoughts in the work environment.

Ray looks up, possibly catching the tail end of Fraser’s thoughts as he gives Fraser a warm glance.

He’s all business though when he taps the folder. “Here’s something – one of your French-Canadian gangbangers was sighted at a rooming house on LaSalle. A Jean-François Roussel. Wanna go round him up?”

“Most assuredly,” Fraser agrees.

One of the tasks Ottawa had given him when they agreed to permanently assign him to the Chicago Consulate was to investigate and attempt to impede the flow of guns from the States to the Provinces, Quebec in particular. Home Office suspected the guns were getting into the hands of Québécois separatists, and the higher ups were becoming increasingly concerned, given the tone of the bulletins the Consulate receives on a weekly basis. Fraser has had no luck finding any information on the parties responsible, but he and Ray have been working on a list of potential candidates that Ottawa has sent them.

As they walk to the GTO, Fraser reflects on the change between the Prohibition Era, when illicit goods flowed from Canada to the United States, to the present day, where the stream of such black market commerce heads the other way.

The drive to the rooming house is full of morning peace, but as Ray parks around the corner from the building, Fraser feels his instincts going on high alert, ready for the chase. Ray gives his handcuffs to Fraser with a grin. They have this down to a science now, this partnership.

The landlady shrugs when they inquire about Roussel. “Never came back last night.”

“Can we see his room?” Ray asks.

“No skin off my back,” she replies, ushering them into the foyer.

She leads them up the stairs and unlocks a door on the first landing without so much as an inquiry about a warrant. Fraser wonders if she’s just indifferent to her rights or if Roussel aggravated her in some fashion.

The room is bare, the bed messy and unmade, but the trash can is empty. Ray stands in the middle of the room, tapping his chin, while Diefenbaker sniffs every corner. The landlady watches them, indifferent to their poking and prodding around the room. She probably just wants to make sure they don’t cause any damage, Fraser reasons.

“Did he have a car?” Ray asks finally.

“Didn’t request a parking spot,” she answers.

They exit the rooming house, and pause in front of it.

“He should be easy enough to track,” Fraser says. Diefenbaker is already busy sorting through the scents on the sidewalk.

“Nah. I’m pretty sure I know where he’s going.”

“You can’t be certain. We should track him.”

“Ben – spent more nights than I can count undercover with the gangbangers. I know within a couple of spots where to find him. My way is faster.”

“My way is more assured,” Fraser argues back.

“Okay, tell ya what – you do it your way, I’ll do it mine. With any luck, we’ll end up in the same spot.” Ray twirls the keys to the Goat around his fingers.

Fraser hates splitting up, but then reminds himself that while their methods may be different, nothing can shake his and Ray’s partnership. They had required much discussion and struggle to sort out their roles while they had explored the Arctic. Nothing like what he had with Ray Vecchio – they were brothers, beyond question or any need for discussion. Ray Kowalski, on the other hand, presents a far more complicated puzzle based on romantic feelings and sexual desire, in addition to their professional partnership. Fraser finds himself having to be his very best self as a result of their relationship.

They push at each other’s boundaries, constantly bumping up against hurt places, and learning to avoid or soothe them. While he and Ray Vecchio fight like brothers, and forgive each other like brothers, Ray, his Ray was an icy wind, fresh and keen that woke all of Fraser’s senses and expanded his mind. Ray was sunlight bouncing off crystalized snow and pouring through a window. His Ray was also a pile of blankets, keeping Fraser warm and safe. His Ray was all of that and more besides, so many ways to a love a person that Fraser hopes he never reaches the end of the list.

“All right,” he says. “Be careful, Ray.”

“Always am.”

Fraser turns to Diefenbaker, who indicates that he has the scent. Scanning the direction that Roussel must have traveled, Fraser looks for things that might tell him where his quarry might be heading. A little further down the street, he finds a street vendor selling filled croissants, and he stops for a little mid-morning snack. As it happened, the vendor speaks French and Fraser converses with him a bit, discovering that he is the second customer that morning that had ordered in French. Fraser smiles to himself, certain that he has the trail.

They start off in the direction the street vendor indicated. As they go, Fraser thinks about Roussel – what he knows about him from the dispatches from Ottawa, what he’s experienced with similar individuals. Fraser puts himself into the mind of the gunrunner, thinks about his motivations, his connections, and his fears. At each cross street, Fraser considers the most likely path. Roussel would take, and once they choose their route, Diefenbaker confirms the correct choice. They have to back track once, but overall Roussel’s path leads steadily west, but bearing slightly to the north.

When they encounter a green belt, Dief gets the scent and races through the park. They exit the green belt to find themselves in an area of warehouses that Fraser estimates are southeast of O’Hare. Two low-slung buildings are directly in front of them, but one of them has lights on, forklifts moving around, and numerous people moving back and forth. The other is silent, seemingly deserted. With a flick of his fingers, Fraser sends Diefenbaker around the opposite side of the building while he slowly canvases the near side, looking for an entrance.

He meets back up with Diefenbaker at the front. The wolf reports no entrances on far side, other than loading docks with the doors down and locked. Besides the front entrance, Fraser had found a small side door so they decide to slip into the warehouse from that direction. Dief informs him that the scents indicate that Roussel went in from the front.

The door gives easily and they slip into the warehouse. They find the space mostly empty, and have to duck for cover towards the back more quickly than they expect. Listening for the sounds to determine how many people are inside, Fraser hears the rustle and crack of wooden crates being opened, and hears muttering in Québécois. He smells gun oil, but can find no signs of any other presence. The buy must have already been completed, he decides. Perfect time to confront Roussel, when he cannot deny his possession of the guns.

Fraser pokes his head out from behind the partially loaded pallet when he and Diefenbaker are hiding. He observes rows of semi-automatic rifles in crates. Slightly overkill for hunting rifles, but not so much that they couldn’t be explained away. Clever.

Roussel picks up a hammer and starts nailing the covers back on the crates. Fraser uses the ensuing noise to get closer, and then steps out from his hiding place.

“Jean-François Roussel – I’m placing you under arrest in the name of Her Majesty,” he proclaims over the clatter of hammering.

Roussel startles, dropping the hammer. And then he starts laughing. He picks up a shotgun that had been resting on one of the closed crates.

“A horseman? Aren’t you a little far from home?”

“I first came to Chicago . . . Never mind. I’m placing you under arrest.”

“You think you’re going to bring me in all alone?” Roussel raises the shotgun in his hands, and pumps a shell into the chamber. “The True North will mourn your loss, mon ami.”

Dief growls, but Roussel laughs, and then freezes in place, his eyes going wide.

“Not alone – mon ami.”

Fraser can see the outline of Ray’s side arm pressing against Roussel’s temple. Ray is concealed behind two of the pallets behind Roussel.

“Drop the gun, put your hands up,” Ray orders.

Roussel complies, his face like thunder. Dief moves into position, his fangs a few inches from the other man’s crotch.

“Still got my bracelets?” Ray asks.

“Indeed.”

“I’ll let you do the honors.”

Ray pushes Roussel away from the crates of rifles and into the open center of the space. Fraser gets the cuffs around his arms and then pats down the gunrunner, finding a long knife stuck in his right boot but nothing else.

“Yo, Wilson,” Ray says into his radio. “You got that pick up I asked for?”

“Right outside, Kowalski. Waiting on you.”

“Good man.”

They escort Roussel into the waiting squad car, and then follow it to Central Holding to get the gunrunner processed and jailed.

2:15 P.M. Wednesday Afternoon

“Are you impugning my skills?” Fraser asks, as their argument from the morning has carried on through lunch and back to the two-seventh.

“All I’m saying is, there’s a big difference between tracking someone in the Arctic where there’s nothing around except snow and a stray caribou or two, and tracking someone in a city of millions of people.”

“The principles are the same,” Fraser insists.

“Okay, Ben, let’s put it to the test then. Only way to solve it.”

“What are you proposing?”

Ray glances at his watch. “Today’s what? Wednesday? And we’re not back on shift until Monday, yeah? I’ll bet that I know Chicago so well that I can hide from you for forty-eight hours. This time on Friday. You can put those Canadian tracking skills to use and see if you can find me.”

Fraser considers the offer. He doesn’t doubt his ability to hunt or his knowledge of Ray’s habits, but Chicago is a large place. Ray could just drive around for the allotted time.

“Parameters? Will you have the Goat?”

“Nah, I’ll be on foot, but you gotta give me an hour’s head start. And I’ll stay within The Loop. I don’t mind taking a handicap.” He’s grinning at Ben, eyes full of mischief and challenge.

“Fair enough. What about Diefenbaker?”

“If he’s part of the ‘Canadian tracking skills’ package,” Ray replies, making air quotes with his fingers, “then sure.”

“What’s our wager then?”

“Let’s see – the game ends Friday afternoon. Let’s say the loser spoils the winner for the whole weekend. Whatever he wants – massage, bee-jays, fancy dinner. Whatever.”

Fraser smirks. That is the very definition of a win-win situation. Either Ray spoils him or he gets the pleasure of spoiling Ray? He can’t decide which he would prefer.

“Ah, ah, ah! I know what you’re thinking!” Ray shakes his index finger at him. “This is a point of pride – no slacking off. Chicago street smarts versus Arctic survival.”

“I will give it my fullest attention,” Fraser promises.

Ray puts his gun in the top drawer of his desk, and then pulls his pager off his belt, and drops it on the desk. He does the same with his walkie and the new portable phone that everyone in the squad had been issued the month prior.

Fraser is puzzled. “What are you doing?”

“Don’t know what kind of new-fangled surveillance these doohickies have. Never know about you Canadians. Devious. Sneaky even.”

Fraser grins at Ray’s teasing. “Yes, Canada is far advanced in tracking technology compared to the States.”

Ray winks at him. He leans down and gives Fraser a quick, firm kiss, and then with a flippant wave, saunters out of the office.

Fraser notes the time on the clock – two-thirty. He sits down in Ray’s chair, closes his eyes, and tries to imagine the path his partner will take out of the building, where he will turn when he reaches the street, what he might do to evade Fraser hunting him. A large part of tracking anything – human or animal – is understanding your quarry, their habits, their needs. Fraser is certain that he knows enough about Ray to determine his location in far less than the allotted time.

He has an hour to wait, and he uses the time wisely, reviewing what he knows about Ray’s habits and haunts, coming up with a plan for tracking him. He smiles to himself

Interlude

Lieutenant Harding Welsh paces the floor of his office, eying the phone on his desk like it is a cobra waiting to strike.

“Man up, you dumbass,” he mutters to himself, finally plopping into his office chair and pulling the phone closer to him.

He eyes the blueberry muffin on his desk, and smiles to himself. No way the Commissioner would ever have the thought to send such a delicious treat to Welsh’s squad. The gift had to have been the doings of his executive assistant, Angie Grabel, who Harding has been having slightly flirtatious conversations with ever since she was hired the previous year.

Maybe the muffins are her way of asking him to step it up and quit waffling? he wonders. He puts in the number before he can lose his nerve.

She answers quickly, much to his relief – he doesn’t think he has the courage to leave a message.

“Commissioner Daly’s office, Angie Grabel speaking.”

“Hi Angie, it’s Harding Welsh.”

“Harding! How are you?” Her voice is as warm and sweet as maple syrup, and Harding gives himself an internal high five.

“I’m great, really great, thank you.” He pauses, and then continues in a rush. “I wanted to thank you for the muffins you sent over this morning. I know they’re technically from Daly, but I figure you must’ve chosen them. We all really appreciate the thoughtfulness.”

He winces at his babble.

“Harding. What muffins?”

His nerves evaporate in an instant, his instincts for danger replacing them. “We received a basket of muffins from Commissioner Daly at the precinct this morning. They included a letter congratulating us on our case closure rate. On his letterhead. With his signature.”

“We didn’t send any such thing.”

“Shit.”

“I’ll send the crisis response team to the two-seventh.”

3:25 P.M. Wednesday Afternoon

Fraser picks up his hat, flicking a few spots of dust off it. He mentally runs through his plan of attack and the first places to look. Diefenbaker will let him know if Ray took a cab when he left the precinct. Fraser makes two different scenarios, depending on Dief’s report. He turns to leave, ready to exit the precinct at exactly 1530.

“Listen up!” Welsh shouts, storming out of his office. “All personnel to the briefing room. Sergeant Willis – I need the morning duty roster. Everyone who was in this morning. Anyone out – summon them back!”

“What’s going on?” Dewey asks.

“A fucking emergency,” Welsh growls. “Get in the fucking room.”

He turns to Fraser. “Constable! You, too.”

“But sir, I . . .”

“Don’t fucking argue with me.”

Deciding that whatever has Welsh in such a stir must be serious indeed, Fraser follows the rest of the squad into the briefing room, taking a seat on the outer fringes, away from the door. He has no doubt that once the problem is laid out, they’ll realize it has nothing to do with him, and he’ll be free to continue his plan for locating Ray before Friday. Frannie settles beside him, giving him a worried look.

“What’s so bad he needs us file clerks?” she whispers.

Fraser assesses the new information, and his certainty that whatever is happening doesn’t involve him or Ray grows weaker. People continue to file in and Sergeant Willis stands by the door, checking them off as they arrive. Alarming him further, Fraser watches as several members of the Special Task Force for Emergency Response enter the room, and start setting up at the podium. The mutter of conversation briefly dies down, but then rises again, an edge of fear replacing the general aggravation at having their days interrupted.

“Sir, Units 12 and 3 are returning to the station,” Sergeant Willis informs Welsh. “Everyone else accounted for except Detective Kowalski.”

“Constable Fraser! Where is your partner?”

Fraser stands up, sliding the brim of his hat through his fingers. “That’s a bit of a more complicated question than it would appear on the surface.”

Before Welsh can ask any more questions, a man and a woman wearing scrubs walk into the room and stand behind the podium. The woman has a plastic baggie with one of the muffins from the morning in it. Fraser sits back down, ignoring the concerned look Frannie is giving him.

“Good afternoon,” the man says. “I’m Doctor Swiatla, this is Doctor Montoya. We’re from the Chicago PD’s crisis response team.”

“What crisis?” Huey shouts.

The doctor makes soothing gestures with his hands, but Fraser can tell that all the policemen present are alarmed as more than one of them touch the handles of their guns as if for reassurance.

The female doctor takes the podium, and waves the baggie at them. “Listen up. These muffins were made with Atropa belladonna berries and then laced with aconite for extra fun.”

“What are you saying?” Welsh demands.

“Belladonna and wolfsbane. Poison. We ran a fast assay on the sample you saved, Lieutenant Welsh. That’s our conclusion.”

“We’re going to die?” Dewey yells.

“Who did this?” Huey asks.

“As for who is responsible, you’re a squad of detectives, I’ll leave that up to you,” Doctor Montoya responds. “As for dying, no, you’re not. Some of you may be experiencing symptoms already, but don’t recognize them. The matrix of the poison and the particular effects are slow acting and subtle. We’re going to set up treatment right here and now. Each of you will get a shot and then a pill.”

“That’s right,” Doctor Swiatla says. “We have the duty roster – you’ll exit this room for treatment as we call your name. You may experience nausea and cramping as the poison exits your system. Just make yourself comfortable. We’ll come around and give you a finger stick to verify that you’re clear. Everyone should be home by the normal time.”

“We have a small problem,” Welsh says. “One of our detectives hasn’t checked in. Constable, perhaps you’d care to uncomplicate the question of Kowalski’s location for us.”

Getting to his feet again, Fraser rubs his eyebrow, trying to decide how he can possibly explain the game that he and Ray agreed to. Deciding that full disclosure is the only option, he launches into it – the morning bust, the bragging, the game, the rules. He leaves out the winner’s prize, given that it isn’t germane to the present issues.

“What on God’s green earth could have possessed you and Kowalski to indulge in such a dangerous and absurd bet?” Welsh demands.

“They were most likely already experiencing euphoria brought on by the belladonna,” Doctor Montoya says. “I take it that such ridiculous behavior isn’t normal for them?”

“I don’t know if I’d go that far,” Welsh mutters.

“Please, Doctor Montoya,” Fraser says, terror making his mouth dry. “You said ‘slow acting’ – how slow?”

She shakes her head. “He won’t last until Friday if you’re thinking about letting the game play out. He doesn’t have that long.”

“How long?”

She and Doctor Swiatla exchange glances. Doctor Swiatla finally says, “This time tomorrow at the outside. The very outside.”

“Even then, he’ll need much more severe interventions to save him. The sooner you find him, the better,” Doctor Montoya adds.

“He’s playing a game where he’s hiding. On purpose,” Huey says. “What if we can’t find him?”

Doctor Montoya responds, “If we can’t get to him, he will start suffering hallucinations and delusions, leading to paranoia and further attempts to hide. Eventually organ failure and . . .”

“Death,” Fraser finishes. His terror has turned to bleak hopelessness.

“Yes. You have to end this game immediately.”

“How do you end a Chicago-wide game of hide and seek?” Dewey asks.

“Only The Loop,” Fraser corrects.

“Olly olly oxen free,” Frannie says.

“Yes! Thank you, Francesca,” Fraser exclaims. “Lieutenant Welsh, the teams searching for Ray must tell him that the game is over, that he won.”

“What about his side arm?” Welsh asks. “Is he going to start shooting our people if the paranoia hits him?”

“No,” Fraser shakes his head. “He left his gun here.”

Doctor Swiatla says, “Lieutenant Welsh, you can start coordinating the search with other precincts. Your people won’t be able to help for another few hours.”

“Understood,” Welsh says, walking out the door. “Lieutenant Amadio is taking over command while we recuperate. I’ll take my treatment once he gets here. Start with Fraser. He can give the teams ideas where to look while he recovers.”

“No,” Fraser protests. “I need to find Ray. I can’t be out of commission.”

He starts for the door, but Doctor Montoya grabs his arm and he feels a sticking pain in his bicep.

“No can do, constable.” She holds the capsule to his lips. “Be a good boy and take your medicine. The sooner you cooperate, the sooner you can start looking.”

Fraser is so startled he opens his mouth, and she shoves the pill onto his tongue. The doctor hands him a cup with a straw, and guides him over to a chair. A nurse comes and drapes a thermal blanket over him as the first tremors hit. Fraser tries every technique he’s ever learned to unclench his spasming muscles, but can’t get control over the shaking.

“This is the cure?” he groans.

“Trust me, the real thing would be worse,” the nurse reassures him.

Someone sits down beside him, a blurry figure on the edge of his sight. Fraser tries to turn his head to get a better look, but his neck muscles are painful and uncooperative.

“Constable Fraser?”

“Yes?”

“I’m Lieutenant Amadio. This is Sergeant Reaves. Can you tell us where to start looking for your partner?”

Fraser mentions Ray’s apartment, the boxing club, Ray’s favorite diner. He tries to concentrate, but the shivers distract him.

“Those are outside The Loop,” the voice says, gentle and patient. “He’s supposed to be inside it, right?”

The voice is so soothing – is he being treated like a hostile witness? Fraser wonders. No, like a crime victim, an assault victim. Which, he supposes, is no more than the truth.

After wracking his brain, Fraser finally says, “He has a Metra card.”

“You think he’s riding the trains?”

“I don’t know. But it would be a good way to throw me off. To keep moving.”

“We’ll get some people looking there.”

Fraser sinks into the tremors, pretending he’s someplace else. Diefenbaker leans against his shins, offering comfort. Fraser sinks his hands into the wolf’s fur, letting it ground him. When the illness finally passes, he hardly notices. Someone puts a cool hand on his forehead, bringing him back to the squad room.

“Constable Fraser, let me have your hand,” Doctor Montoya says.

When he holds up his hand, she sticks it with a lancet. After a moment, she says, “You are cleared, Constable.”

“I can go?”

“Let me fill you in on our progress,” Lieutenant Welsh says.

7:30 P.M. Wednesday Night

Exiting the precinct, Fraser settles his Stetson on his head. Ray has a five-hour head start instead of the one hour they planned.

“See if you can pick him up,” he instructs Diefenbaker. “It’s not a game anymore.”

"Told you. Bad." the wolf says.

“You could have been more specific!” Fraser snaps.

Dief presents no further argument, instead applying his nose to the pavement outside the station. He finally indicates that he found Ray’s scent and that he had headed south. Fraser runs through all the scenarios he can think of in that direction, and decides to start with Grant Park.

When they begin their hunt, the sun has already gone down, and the office towers that Fraser would have checked if he had been able to commence on time are mostly locked for the night. He doesn’t think Ray would hide out in any of the towers, because Ray doesn’t like the narrow options they would provide him in terms of concealment. He also eliminates the idea that Ray might have taken a taxi somewhere to the edges of the bounds of the game. His instincts tell him that Ray would prefer the flexibility of walking.

Given the hour, the park is not as busy as it could be and the heavy machinery constructing the addition to the park has been shut down for the night. The restaurants and bars are lively with their usual Thursday night crowds, getting a head start on Friday and the weekend.

As they reach the northern end of Grant Park, Fraser realizes how astoundingly foolish their game is. Even with the limitations of The Loop, the idea that he could find Ray within the heavily populated downtown district seems ridiculous. There are far too many places he could conceal himself. It was the height of arrogance to think that he could succeed. Hubris, even. And the gods have struck him down for it in the worst possible way. He hopes that Ray doesn’t pay the ultimate price for Fraser’s miscalculation.

“Dief, you take the park,” he decides. “I’m going to check the bars and restaurants.”

Around midnight, Fraser finally picks up Ray’s trail in a restaurant below street level specializing in hot dogs. One of the servers recalls seeing Ray in the late afternoon, right before the dinner crowd. It isn’t much, and it’s been hours since then, but Fraser feels a tiny tendril of hope that he’s on the right track.

The hope dies as the night wears on and the bars start closing. Dief finds him around three A.M. and reports that while he’s certain Ray was in the park at some point, he can’t pinpoint his location or where he might have gone.

Despite knowing that Ray has most likely holed up somewhere for the night, Fraser can’t make himself stop moving. If he stops, then despair might conquer him, and he cannot afford to give it to that particularly insidious emotion.

11:00 A.M. Thursday Morning

When the sun comes up, Fraser hopes that he will pick up Ray’s track. He stops to get a breakfast roll up from a street vendor once he realizes that he hasn’t had anything to eat since lunch the day before. He hesitates before taking a bite, wondering if he’s about to be poisoned again, but then he reasons that the chances of this one food vendor out to get him are nearly nil.

By mid-morning, he has found no further traces of Ray and concedes that his partner might be concealed somewhere that Fraser can’t imagine. He decides to return the twenty-seventh and report back to Lieutenant Welsh. Perhaps there’s been some news from the all-points bulletin that the lieutenant issued the day before.

Frannie greets him as he enters the squad room. “Well?”

Fraser shakes his head. “No luck.”

Welsh exits his office. “We have nothing – no one has spotted him at all. And no sign of him.”

“There’s too many places he could be,” Fraser says.

“Call Stella,” Frannie demands, handing him a phone and a card with the Vecchios’ number in Florida.

“I don’t . . .”

“He’s my brother,” Frannie snarls at him. “You’re gonna do whatever it takes.”

“What would I say to her? She doesn’t know me.”

“Fine.” She pulls the phone back. “I’ll do it.”

She punches the numbers angrily, but her expression smoothes out when someone answers on the other end.

“Stell? Yeah, it’s Fran.”

“…”

“Great – listen we’ve got a problem. Your ex and the Mountie are being dumb-asses. We need to find Ray.”

“…”

“No, no, no. Kowalski. Look, I’ll let Fraser explain it to you.”

Frannie hands him the phone, and Fraser puts the hand set to his ear. He has never had a proper conversation with Ray’s first love, and once he explains the current circumstances, he doubts she’ll feel terribly charitable towards him.

“Ma’am? Yes, I can’t find him.” Fraser grits his teeth and explains the whole thing – the bet, the muffins, the belladonna and aconite, the consequences, the time limit.

“You’ve looked at his parents?” she asks.

“No, by the constraints of the contest, he has to be inside The Loop.”

“The Loop? Hmm. What about the beach?”

“We have officers down there, but no luck. We’ve got people looking in all the public places including the Metra stations in case he’s riding a train back and forth.”

“Let me think.”

Fraser breathes deeply, thinking about fresh, untracked snow, or endless glittering starry nights – anything to quell his rising panic that is hitting new, heretofore unexamined heights.

“Oh! The geology field trip!” she exclaims.

“The geology field trip?” he repeats, puzzled.

“Yes, yes. Along Michigan Avenue. That doesn’t matter. It’s the caves!”

“Caves?”

“When we were juniors in high school, we took a field trip to Michigan Avenue to look at the geology. There are caves under Randolph Street. They were Ray’s favorite part of the day. I know he’s gone back there since then.”

Fraser puts his hand over the speaker and looks at Welsh. “She says there are caves under Randolph Street.”

“I have no idea what she’s talking about,” Welsh says.

“Mrs. Vecchio, we’re a bit confused.”

“There’s an entrance to the Metra station on Randolph just west of Michigan. Go down the stairs and go towards the turnstiles for the station. Off to the right will be a tunnel blocked off by a gate. The caves are back there. You’ll have to get someone from Public Works to unlock the gate.”

“Then how would Ray . . .”

“Lockpicking.”

Fraser pulls the handset away from his ear, and covers the mouthpiece with his palm. “She says . . .”

“I heard,” Welsh says. “Already on it.”

Fraser uncovers the mouthpiece. “Thank you,” he tells her.

“Find him!”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Fraser and Dief get in a squad car with Lieutenant Welsh. As they hurtle towards Michigan and Randolph, they are joined by a hook and ladder truck and an emergency medical unit. Welsh barks commands into the radio, ordering all the other cars to clear the route.

The intersection of Randolph and Michigan is clear when the squad car enters, the traffic held back. Fraser sees the small covered entrance to the subway on Randolph and opens the door before Welsh has fully stopped it. Dief hops over the seats and follows. They barrel down the stairs, Dief bounding several at a time, and Fraser skipping as many as possible until they finally land at the bottom. Doctor Montoya and the emergency medical technicians follow with a gurney and their equipment.

They head towards the turnstiles, slowing down. Fraser finally spots the bars of the gate slightly behind the ticketing office. He races towards it, knowing they need to wait for the Public Works person, but when he shakes the metal bars, the latch gives.

“It’s not locked!” Fraser crows, flinging the gate open wide, triumph coursing through his veins. He has no doubt that Ray is somewhere beyond – they will find him in time.

“Why wouldn’t he re-lock it?” Welsh asks.

“The game. He wouldn’t cheat.”

“So if you made it this far . . .”

“Yes. He never intended to make it impossible for me to find him.”

Fraser runs down the corridor past the gate, the ground sloping down more acutely as he goes. The path finally opens up to what can only be the caves that Stella described. Fraser stops short just inside, his mouth open in amazement, the beam of his flashlight catching on wet stone, constantly dripping minerals onto spires of frozen rock. The place is a forest of limestone and dolomite, a stately nave far under the streets of the Windy City. He understands Ray’s fascination with the place.

“Holy shit,” Welsh says.

“Indeed.”

Diefenbaker bounds forward, his nose to the ground, but Fraser calls out, clear and loud, “Olly olly oxen free!”

They hear movement up to their left.

“Ray! The game is over! Olly olly oxen free.”

“Ben?”

“Yes, keep talking – I’m coming to get you.”

“Yeah, I don’t feel so good.”

Fraser picks his way through the columns of stone, following Ray’s voice. Dief trots back and forth between them, anxiously making sure that Fraser is on the right path. Doctor Montoya is hard on Fraser’s heels.

They round a final trunk, and find Ray in a clear patch on the cave floor, slumped over, with Diefenbaker shoved up against him.

“Ray.”

“Ben, you found me,” Ray mumbles. Then he catches sight of Doctor Montoya, and scuttles back, trying to squeeze himself small. “No, no, no. A demon.”

“That’s the belladonna,” the doctor tells Fraser. “Hold him please.”

Stepping forward, Fraser kneels in front of his lover, gathering Ray into his arms. “It’s all right, I’ve got you.”

Doctor Montoya empties her syringe into Ray’s arm. “That’s a start – we’ve got to get him out of here and into treatment.”

The EMTs arrange Ray on a portable board and then carefully carry him out of his hiding place. Once they get him on more level ground, they strap him to the gurney and move quickly to get him back up to street level and transport. Doctor Montoya dashes after them.

“We’re taking him to Rush U Medical!” she shouts.

“I’ll drive us,” Welsh says, patting Fraser on the back.

When they arrive at the Rush University Medical Center, the receptionist refuses to allow Diefenbaker into the hospital. Welsh calls Frannie, who volunteers to take the wolf with her back to the Vecchio house.

Ray is finally transferred to a room in the intensive care unit as the sun sinks below the horizon. They tell Fraser that he has been stabilized, but they will need to run a dialysis machine on him for several hours to ensure that the poison has been removed from his blood system.

When they let Fraser into Ray’s room, he collapses into a chair by his bedside, the tension and stress of the last twenty-four hours catching up to him. Fraser doubts he could walk to the end of the hall, never mind trot all over Chicago. He’s grateful that they have the next few days to recover. Ray will probably need to take some medical leave, Fraser thinks.

He wonders if Huey and Dewey have found who sent the muffins and why, but then decides that’s a problem for another day.

2:30 A.M. Friday Morning

The night duty nurse comes in, reviews all of Ray’s readings and then takes some of his blood. All the questions Fraser wants to ask her crowd in his throat, but he swallows them down, trying to let her do her job with his anxious interference. Given that he holds Ray’s medical power of attorney, they would tell him if anything had changed. He clings to that thought. The dialysis machine pulling Ray's tainted blood out and putting back good blood keeps going, swishing in the background.

She leaves but comes back almost immediately with another nurse. “He’s doing well enough to take the tube out,” she says. “Please move back so we can work.”

Fraser steps over to the window, staring out into the night. They’re on the fourth floor, and he can just make out the occasional lighted window in the downtown towers, someone still working at the wolf hour. Tiredness itches behind his eyes, but he shoves it away.

“All done. You can give him some ice chips once he wakes,” the first nurse tells Fraser.

The nurses finish their tasks and exit. Fraser turns around, and relief at seeing Ray’s face unobstructed by the breathing mask floods through him. He retakes his seat at Ray’s side, reaching for his hand again. He dozes without realizing it.

He startles awake as another nurse enters the room. Blinking his sleep-crusted eyes, Fraser scrambles to his feet as he realizes that the figure in the doorway isn’t a nurse at all.

“Mrs. Vecchio!”

“Don’t you think you should call me Stella . . . Benton?”

“Yes, yes, indeed,” he agrees. “Here – there’s another chair. Please. Sit.” He clears his throat. “Er, Stella.”

She smiles at him as she settles in the chair beside him. They sit in silence for a moment, while she gazes at Ray.

“You found him in time.”

“Yes, thanks to you.” Fraser rubs his eyebrow. “I owe you more than I can say.”

She gives him a cool, assessing look, and he’s reminded that she’s a prosecuting attorney by nature and training – he wonders if his actions have triggered some instinct for vengeance and punishment in her. He bows his head, willing to accept whatever sanction she might choose.

“It seems to me,” she says, “that there is an unspoken bargain between you and me. Inchoate until this moment.”

“A bargain?”

“That I would take care of Ray Vecchio for you and you would take care of Ray Kowalski for me.”

Her words strike him. “And I have failed my part of the bargain.”

“Are you looking for absolution?”

“No.” He doesn’t think there is any possible forgiveness for his carelessness.

“Good, because you don’t need it.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Taking care of Ray doesn’t mean keeping him out of danger – impossible. Instead, it means to honor him, to accept him.”

“Not love?”

“I loved him. But I could never accept him. That ended us.”

“I see.”

“But he found what he needed in you.”

“How so?”

“Even when he was still clinging to me, I could see that he couldn’t help being drawn to you. Like a magnet. Inevitable.”

Fraser thinks about magnets, about field lines – endlessly circling lines of attraction flowing between two opposite poles. The attraction went both ways; it always had. But so did the acceptance, he realizes. Ray and he had disagreed, vehemently and violently at times, but never about the fundamental truth of the other.

But faced with Ray’s first love, who had saved his life, Fraser feels wholly inadequate.

“You know him better than I do,” he concedes.

“And that galls you.”

“Yes,” Fraser replies. “Though I’m ashamed to admit it.”

“I think you’re wrong,” she said. “I knew the Ray that he was. You know the Ray that he is now . . . and will be in the future.”

They fall silent then, both of them watching the even rise and fall of Ray’s chest. Fraser finds himself succumbing to his exhaustion again, and decides to stop fighting it, nodding off as he sits in the uncomfortable chair.

When he wakes, the other chair is empty and he wonders if he dreamed her.

Ray’s eyes are fluttering open. Fraser presses his hand to Ray’s cheek feeling the stubble and the warmth under his palm.

“Good morning,” he whispers.

“You found me. I guess you win,” Ray mumbles hazily.

“To be perfectly fair, Stella told me where to look.”

“You called Stella? That’s cheating.”

“I suppose it would be fair to say that neither of us won.”

“Or we both did,” Ray replies, rubbing his face against Fraser’s palm.

“Even so.”

Fraser feeds Ray an occasional ice chip, but they mostly sit in comfortable silence, their fingers interlaced, as the sun rises over the Lake They Call Michigan.