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lysimache.livejournal.com posting in

Well, this one's a bit too long (okay, a lot too long), but I figure I've not posted anything before, so I'm owed a thousand extra words or so, right? Right. *g*

This story was originally written as a present for my girlfriend, but she's graciously allowed me to share it, since it's about, well, a key. F/K, 2218 words, G.

The Gift
by Lysimache

For Elena.

"The Gift"

I do not know if Ray could possibly have foreseen the significance I
would find in his small gift. He is, after all, of a rather impulsive
nature.

Ray gives with a heedless generosity that amazes me. I have known him
only a short time, and yet already he has given to me so much. He
stepped in front of a bullet for me -- and vest or not, that is a
brave and charitable action, worthy of a police officer of his
distinguished record. He shared with me what surely must be one of
his most personal memories, of a sort which I would find difficult to
share with even the closest of friends, let alone with a new partner,
surrounded by strangers.

I did not tell Ray Vecchio about Victoria until she appeared here,
like an unpredicted blizzard. This new Ray -- Ray Kowalski -- shared
his insecurities over his ex-wife with me after a few days'
acquaintance.

He asked me if I found him attractive.

True, he felt the need to couch it in what seemed safer terms, asking
me to pretend to be a woman before I answered, but that was perhaps my
fault for first pretending to not know what he was asking.

I knew what I hoped he was asking, after all. And the answer would
have been the same. I find him very attractive.

Ray has such energy about him, such grace. I find it difficult to
believe his landlady, otherwise a very kind woman, could ever describe
his movements as "clomping." He fairly dances even as he stands
still.

In the light streaming through the crypt's window, he seemed to glow
golden. And in those unfashionable glasses of his, I can see the
blurred outlines of a shy, awkward teenager, who is determined to
concoct an outer image to fool the world into letting him have what he
wants, not realizing that the disparity is not, perhaps, as large as
he thinks. He is, like most of us, a mixture of understandable fears
and unflinching bravery, of softness and edge.

He is, as he says, both poet and pugilist.

I find him most attractive. I am glad of an opportunity to have told
him so, even if it was perhaps not wholly forthright to let him think
my statement was not heartfelt, but rather somehow hypothetical. His
honesty perhaps deserved greater reciprocation.

His ready giving deserves greater response.

That he could give such a small thing, yet one so fraught with
meaning, so easily, amazes me, who am unused to such gestures. I feel
that he has handed me such easy trust as I could never repay, a gift I
can't quite match.

I turn it over in my hands, sitting here in the dark.

After his birthday celebration tonight was over, Lt. Welsh gone home,
having never succeeded in catching his trout, but remaining remarkably
good-natured about mouthful after mouthful of fish-water, Huey and
Dewey gone off to recover from the humiliation of Huey landing flat on
his back, and Elaine finished shepherding the last celebrants from the
room, Ray leaned back against the wall, a crooked grin on his face.

"Some party, Fraser," he said.

"Indeed," I replied. "One might even call it an unqualified success."

"A good time was had by all, my friend. You got a bright future ahead
of you as a party planner."

"I'm afraid Inspector Thatcher wouldn't agree with your assessment.
She considers me rather hopeless at arranging Consulate functions."

"Nah, Yukon parties'll be the next big thing. They'll be importing
caribou before you know it."

"Perhaps, Ray."

"I got my finger on the pulse of the nation. Trust me. You ready to
go there, Fur-face?" Ray was, of course, addressing Diefenbaker, who
was settled in a corner of the room with the remains of the trout. He
had been a bit more successful than Lt. Welsh at retrieving the fish
from the aquarium.

At least it hadn't been anyone's pet.

With a satisfied whuff, he joined us at the door.

"Got a stop we got to make on the way back to the Consulate. That
okay?"

"Of course, Ray. We appreciate the ride, but if you have other
errands to run, we can certainly walk." Diefenbaker disagreed
audibly, but what else could one expect of him? His bad habits have
grown rather more numerous over the years we've lived in Chicago.

"Nah, this'll just take a minute. Pop in and out."

"All right, then. Thank you kindly."

"You're welcome." I still got the feeling that a trace of sarcasm
tinged Ray's polite words, but I chose to disregard it. I'd had years
of practice with Diefenbaker, after all.

We went out to the car and set off. Ray pulled up a short time later
in front of a row of stores, blandly parking in a No Parking zone, and
said, "Back in a few."

Dief protested his departure, and I was forced to remind him that
Chicago businesses quite wisely do not allow wolves to come inside.
"He'll only be a few minutes." Dief's whine indicated that he did not
like letting Ray out of his sight for even a short time, and as I felt
rather the same way, I couldn't really reprimand him too strenuously.

Ray had gone into a small hardware shop, the type that had probably
been run by the same family for three generations, the sort that I
could imagine a younger Ray perhaps working at after-school as a
teenager. He would have worked there in a green apron with large
pockets, several sizes too big for his small, lithe body, saving money
to take Stella out on the weekends, dancing perhaps. He was strong
for his size, and some of the contractors who shopped there would have
noticed him, offered him constructions jobs for the summer or when he
finished school.

If it hadn't been for Marcus Ellery, he might have taken them up on
their offers, instead of becoming a police officer. Ray could have
excelled at nearly anything he chose. But he would have wanted to
become something that he thought Stella would approve of, desperate to
impress the blonde-haired girl from another part of town--

"Got it," Ray said. He was already gunning the sedan back to life,
and I hadn't even noticed him getting back in the car. "Frankie still
does nice, fast work."

"You know the proprietor then?"

"Yeah, worked there in high school for years."

"Ah." I was pleased my speculations had proven correct.

As we drove back to the Consulate, Ray told me about some of the
customers they had had, the contractors and the amateur remodelers,
the housewives buying insect spray, the children building their first
kites or toy boats. These were the people he'd grown up with. His
youth had been so different from my own; he'd seen more people in a
day in his bustling neighborhood than I sometimes encountered for
months.

Still, we were both enormously attached to our roots. His sense of
community in a way made me feel more at home than I had in a long
time.

I was delighted that he accepted my invitation to come in for a cup of
tea. Diefenbaker pushed happily at Ray, nudging him with his nose, as
we went in, perhaps trying to ensure that he didn't change his mind.
Inspector Thatcher and Turnbull were gone for the day, so we were the
only ones in what had become my new dwelling-place.

Over Ray's protests that it was too much trouble, I made him a cup of
an instant coffee blend that contained chocolate, which he had chosen
from the Consulate's extensive selections. For myself I made a cup of
Darjeeling, black, and tried not watch as Ray added spoonful after
spoonful of sugar to his cup. It seemed his sweet-tooth rivaled
Diefenbaker's.

He took a cautious sip of the sugary beverage and said, grinning
widely, "This is great!"

"I'm glad you're enjoying it." He slurped noisily, to irritate me, I
thought rather uncharitably. "Oh, hey, I don't want to forget," he
said, holding out the small brown paper bag from the hardware store to
me.

"For me?" I asked in confusion, unsure why he should have gotten me
anything there.

"Yeah. Take it." I did. The bag was very light, and I could hear
one thing sliding across its bottom.

Reaching in, I felt a small metal object, flat, with an irregular
edge.

"A key?" I pulled it out. It was a shiny golden color, obviously
just cut.

"A key, yeah. You've got doors on houses up there in the frozen
north, right? You lock your igloos when you go out?"

Understanding his jibe to be good-natured, I said blandly, "Igloos
don't have doors, Ray. We use trained polar bears as guards."

His eyes widened in surprise, and then he gave a short laugh. "Butter
wouldn't melt in that mouth of yours, as my mother would say."

"Nor ice," I agreed. "Cows are hard to keep in the Yukon."

"You milk the polar bears too, right?"

"Polar bear milk is an excellent source of fat and calcium."

Ray was chuckling in earnest now. "It's a copy of my apartment key,"
he explained. I must have looked still confused, as indeed I was, for
he went on to say, "So that you don't have to break in again."

"Ah." I was amazed by his gesture, the trust he was showing in me.
"Thank you kindly, Ray. Though as I already told you, I didn't break
in; your landlady--"

"Let you in, yeah, you said."

"Well, she did."

"And now you don't gotta ask her again. Consider it a standing
invitation." He looked embarrassed for a moment, not meeting my eyes.
His cheeks flushed slightly.

"Thank you," I said again.

Without sarcasm, this time, he replied, "You're welcome."

"I'm quite touched, really," I said, knowing the words inadequate to
convey my feelings and afraid to say too much.

Ray too seemed to be choosing his words with care. "Nah, no biggie.
Not like when Stella..." He trailed off.

"Stella?" I prompted.

Almost reluctantly, he said, "When she was in college, and she got her
first apartment -- the day she gave me a key to it, I felt like I'd
made it, you know? She was *mine*. That was the day I had everything
I'd wanted my whole life."

"Ah," I said meaninglessly.

"It was when she really let me in. Let me know I was there to stay."

"A symbol."

"Yeah, like, 'I have this space, but you're welcome there'. It was
like the whole world was mine."

"It's a beautiful memory." I felt unworthy, really, to share it, not
having a similar memory of my own to trade.

"I had never seen anyone as beautiful as Stella." He slurped the last
of his coffee. "What do they say, 'Better to have loved and lost'?
Well, I loved, and I lost, big time."

"I'm no stranger to loss myself," I told him. I wanted desperately to
let words come spilling out to this man I barely knew and already
trusted implicitly. Ray looked at me knowingly, and I felt an aching
jolt of connection -- of promise. "I think I could try to love again,
however."

"I'm not sure I'm ready just yet," he said, and I thought maybe he had
understood all along what I was feeling. "I mean, I want to find
someone, and I want to make it work this time, but I just might need
them to wait a bit."

He stood up, pushing his chair back from the table. "Listen, I should
get going, it's late..."

"Of course," I said, also standing up. I carried our mugs to the
sink. "Let me walk you to the door."

We walked in silence to the front hall, Diefenbaker's nails clicking
behind us.

"Thanks for the coffee," Ray said, as I opened the door. The night
air blew in the sounds of the city street.

"Thank you for the key, Ray."

"Just hold on to it. 'Til -- well, anyway..."

"Good night." I thought about wishing him a happy birthday, but I was
reluctant to introduce the spectre of Ray Vecchio just then.

Ray, however, seemed to be following my thoughts, and said, "It was a
good birthday. Best one I've had in a long time."

"I'm glad you enjoyed it."

"And hey, you, me, the wolf, Saturday at the park to play catch with
the Frisbee?" He was teasing, I knew.

"You'll find Diefenbaker's more likely to chase down the hot dog
vendors." He yipped to remind me that he would also enjoy chasing
Ray, but I considered it prudent not to mention that.

"Yeah. Bye, Dief," he said to the wolf, and then to me, "Night,
Fraser."

"Good night, Ray. I'll hold on to the key. Until, well, until it's
needed."

"Good." he headed for the car, whistling softly, and from the doorway
I watched until his car turned the corner, out of sight.

Such a small thing, really, this gift. I turn the key over in my
hands, again and again. Small. And yet it is, I think, a symbol -- a
promise.

And I will hold on to it.

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From:

dsudis.livejournal.com

I am sitting here making incoherent high-pitched noises of delight. This is *beautiful*! So much promised, so much already understood between them a week into their partnership. Thank you (and your girlfriend) for sharing this!

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