NOTES: This is set after my previous story - It Started With A Visit To The Dentist - towards the end of Season 3/4. I hope you like it - I would be really grateful if you would please submit a review - thank you kindly!

The Camping Trip

CHAPTER 1

"Are you sure you need all of these bags, Ray, we're only going for three nights?" Constable Benton Fraser was standing in the apartment of his best friend and unofficial partner, surveying the huge pile of things that Ray seemed insistent would be vital for their camping trip. "Apart from the tent, my guitar and the fishing equipment, I only have this." Fraser held up a single rucksack, with his bedroll strapped underneath it.

During work hours, Ray Kowalski was known as Detective Ray Vecchio as part of his current undercover assignment at the 27th Precinct, Chicago PD, but this weekend they were off duty. Ray could be himself for four whole days and he'd been really looking forward to it. Lieutenant Welsh and Inspector Thatcher had both agreed that their respective subordinates could take the extra days and Fraser had arranged a place for them to camp. It was a farm belonging to the cousin of a man he and Ray Vecchio had helped a while back. Lyndon Buxley was a breeder of rare poultry and his cousin Milford Buxley owned a smallholding a few hours drive outside of Chicago. He was more than happy to let Fraser pitch a tent on his land for a few nights.

"Fraser," Ray began, "I just wanna be prepared, y'know, like the, er, the Boy Scouts." Fraser kneeled down and began rummaging through one of Ray's bags.

"That's an excellent idea Ray, but why do you need ten pairs of socks?" Fraser pulled out each pair that Ray had packed and put them in a neat line on the floor.

"Well y'see Fraser, I need to put all of those in so that way I got more chance of finding a matching pair to wear," replied Ray.

"You mean none of these pairs that you have balled together actually match?" enquired Fraser, as he began unrolling some of them and looking at them in disbelief.

"Er no, Fraser," replied Ray, "C'mon, I'm a cop! I'm livin' on the edge here, danger could be right around the corner, when have I got time to worry about socks?"

Fraser shook his head and set about finding Ray just enough matching pairs to last for their long weekend. He handed Ray the left over socks. Ray took them from him, turned around and threw them onto the sofa. Sometimes Fraser wondered how his partner ever got through the day.

Fraser managed to persuade Ray to leave behind a few more items and they loaded their luggage into the GTO. Soon, with Diefenbaker curled up on the back seat, they were leaving the city behind and heading out into the countryside. Ray had selected some cassette tapes for them to listen to as they drove along and Fraser concluded that his friend had a surprising variety of tastes when it came to music. He made a mental note to lend Ray a few items from his own, albeit rather small, music collection.

"You were right Fraser," began Ray, "this is a great road for driving. This baby hasn't had a workout like this for far too long." He patted the dashboard affectionately. Fraser had never understood the emotional attachments that people seemed to have for their cars. He respected it, but didn't understand it. To him, a vehicle was simply a means of getting from one place to another. Ray Vecchio had owned a classic Buick Riviera (actually he had owned a few, after they kept meeting with untimely ends) and Ray Kowalski had owned this car since he was a boy and had spent hours with his father restoring it. Fraser assumed it was more to do with the memories tied up with the vehicle in question, rather than the vehicle itself, which invoked such strong feelings for it's owner.

Fraser was uncharacteristically quiet for most of their journey. The road stretched out ahead of them and Fraser mainly looked out of the window at the view, only occasionally pointing out an interesting tree or cloud formation or some other thing that Ray wasn't really interested in.

It had been Ray's idea to go camping with Fraser in the first place, they both agreed that they needed to get out of the city for a while. They'd both had some difficult things to cope with over the last few years and Fraser in particular, had been dwelling on his problems for far too long so Ray had insisted that while they were away from everything and everyone they would have those difficult conversations that they'd been avoiding. He hoped that just getting Fraser to talk would, at least in part, help him to come to terms with some things from his past. Ray himself never really had a problem opening up and he always felt better after a friendly chat with his buddy. He just hoped he could return the favour.

This weekend wasn't going to be all about that, though. They wanted to relax and have a bit of fun. He and Fraser were going to go fishing and sing songs round the camp fire and all that stupid stuff, thought Ray. Well Fraser can do the singing, he thought, maybe I'll just stick to ghost stories.

They decided to stop for lunch at a roadside diner. Dief was getting restless and Ray hadn't had a chance to eat much for breakfast, what with all the packing and he was getting desperate for coffee. Fortunately, this place had a decent coffee machine, although Fraser wondered why that mattered at all to Ray as he immediately loaded his cup with a handful of confectionery. Thank goodness Diefenbaker had remained outside otherwise he'd be begging Ray for treats and embarrassing himself, thought Fraser.

The waitress returned quickly with their meals. "Thank you kindly" said Fraser, smiling.

The waitress replied with, "If there's anything else you need, anything at all, I'm right over there." She pointed to the counter and smiled coyly, fluttering her eyelashes, which of course was completely lost on Fraser.

Ray rolled his eyes. "How do ya do that Fraser?" he asked.

"Do what?" Fraser looked puzzled. Ray shook his head.

"What is that you're eatin' anyway?" Ray went on.

"It's salad Ray," replied Fraser. Surely his friend knew what salad was, he thought. Ray sneered and plunged another french fry into his pot of ketchup. They chatted as they ate, trying to decide what to do tomorrow. Ray really wanted to go fishing, something he'd never done before, but Fraser had a feeling that Ray was going to find it boring. Fraser himself loved fishing. He often used it as a time for reflection and contemplation, but Ray was not really very good at either of those things. It might be an opportunity for some of this talking that we're meant to be doing though, thought Fraser. "OK then Ray, tomorrow is fishing day."

Ray was sipping at his second cup of coffee when he noticed that Fraser seemed a little distracted. "What is it?" asked Ray, putting his coffee cup down.

Fraser looked back at Ray and leaned across the table slowly. "Ray," he said, in a low voice, "do you have your boot gun?"

Ray didn't need his instincts to know that something was wrong. "Yeah" he replied. He hadn't brought his other gun because he was off duty this weekend, but something had made him slip his back up gun into his boot at the last minute. "What's going down Fraser?" He slowly reached down and retrieved his weapon, bringing it carefully up onto his knees.

"I'm not sure yet," replied Fraser, his eyes were again focussed over Ray's shoulder and all of his senses were working overtime, trying to process the situation.

"Tell me what we got," prompted Ray, every muscle in his body had tensed.

"To your left there is a family sat at the table in the corner with two teenage children, a boy and a girl." Fraser began, "the mother is becoming increasingly agitated and the father keeps looking over his shoulder towards the counter. Immediately behind them is a young couple, who I believe are not involved in any way. Then at the table over your right shoulder are a man and a woman together with another older man whom I believe to be the younger man's father, judging by the similarities in their facial bone structure. They have exchanged several glances with both the mother and father at the corner table. They have a large holdall with them, the contents of which I am unable to establish. They have gone to great pains to disguise their identities and look inconspicuous by continuing to read the menu, even though they already have their food."

Ray was taking this all in and forming a mental picture. "Which of course makes them look very, um, conspic, er, consipic..."

"Conspicuous Ray," Fraser finished, "Precisely. The waitress who served us and another older waitress have been trying to look busy by repeatedly cleaning the same area of counter top and there is a young waiter who keeps looking through the serving hatch from the kitchen side. I believe he is waiting for a signal, but to what end, I have yet to determine."

"OK Fraser," said Ray, who was starting to get a little jumpy, "you take the family, I'll go see about ordering some more coffee."

"Understood." Fraser slowly got up from the table, picking up his hat and placing it on his head as he did so and began to walk towards the other table. Ray tucked his gun into the waistband of his jeans and headed towards the counter. Fraser extended his hand to the father who was looking over his shoulder again. "Good afternoon," he began. The man jumped and looked at Fraser, slightly taken aback. He quickly accepted the handshake. "My name is Constable Benton Fraser, Royal Canadian Mounted Police. I couldn't help but notice, er, that is, I was wondering..." Fraser's train of thought was interrupted by the three people from the other table who had all now got to their feet and were walking towards the family. Fraser looked at Ray, who had his hand on his gun. He nodded to Fraser. He turned back to see the waitress give a hand signal through the serving hatch. Neither Ray nor Fraser were exactly sure what was going on, but they were both on high alert and ready for anything, although they certainly didn't expect what happened next.

At that moment, the door from the kitchen was flung open and hit the wall with a crash. Ray drew his gun and Fraser instinctively stepped in front of the two children. Ray pointed his gun towards the young waiter who had stepped through the door. "Police, freeze!" yelled Ray.

Fortunately for Ray, his shout was drowned out by a simultaneous shout of "Surprise!" followed by a rousing chorus of "Happy Birthday to you..." sung by the family, the waiting staff and the three people from the other table, as the waiter carried a huge birthday cake, complete with sparkler candles, towards a now very embarrassed teenage girl.

Fraser immediately stepped to one side and looked, slightly bemused, at Ray who had quickly put his gun away.

"Uncle Eric, Aunt Sammy, Grandpa!" the girl stood up and flung her arms around the three other people who had produced brightly wrapped presents and cards from the holdall. "You came all this way!"

"We couldn't miss your sweet sixteen now, could we honey?" replied the older man.

"Happy Birthday Miss," Fraser managed to splutter, rather sheepishly.

Ray quickly pulled out a bundle of dollar bills from his pocket and slapped them on the counter. Then, he half ran to join Fraser who was already heading towards the door. The young couple who were sat at the other table had clearly witnessed everything and stared at them as they left. Fraser stopped at the door and turned his head back towards them, blushing. "False alarm" he said and ran out after Ray.

Ray had slumped to the floor on his knees and had tears of laughter running down his face. "I nearly shot that cake, Fraser!" he said, wiping his eyes.

"Well I don't know what's so funny Ray," replied Fraser, trying to retain his dignity, "there was indeed something surreptitious occurring."

"Oh buddy," said Ray, getting to his feet, "I really think we need this vacation! Your Mountie senses are way off today!"

Fraser shook his head. Maybe Ray was right, perhaps the idea of talking about things was worrying him more than he'd realised and had knocked his usual abilities a little off kilter. He sighed, looked at Ray and laughed. "That was a little embarrassing," he agreed.

As they headed back towards the car, Diefenbaker was still pacing about. "Dief, will you please get on with it" instructed Fraser, impatiently, "we're not stopping again until we get there now. If you don't relieve yourself in the next five minutes you'll have to hold it for at least an hour." Dief looked at him with one of those 'don't talk to me like that' looks that he had perfected, but decided that ultimately it wasn't worth arguing with the man again and wandered off behind a tree. Fraser shook his head. "I think he's becoming embarrassed about performing his natural bodily functions in public," he explained to Ray.

Ray laughed. "Perhaps ya should let him go into a cubicle?" he suggested.

Fraser sighed. "It's my fault, I've been too soft on him and now he thinks he's a city dwelling human being instead of an arctic wolf!" He grinned at Ray. "Would you like me to drive the rest of the way?" he asked.

"No thanks Fraser," replied Ray, "we're nearly there and I'm really enjoying the drivin' actually. Sure beats crawlin' in Chicago traffic every day."

"Agreed," nodded Fraser.

Back on the road again, Fraser's hat was in it's usual position on the dashboard and he had returned to staring out of the window. "Are you OK buddy?" Ray enquired. He knew what Fraser was thinking about. He didn't want the prospect of talking about the things they'd agreed to talk about to ruin the whole of their weekend.

"I'm fine Ray," replied Fraser, turning his head and smiling. "I'm just thinking, that's all."

"OK" Ray replied. Fraser obviously didn't want to talk yet and Ray was fine with that so he refocussed his thoughts on the road ahead.

It wasn't long before they arrived at the farm. They pulled up outside the farmhouse and just as Ray switched off the engine, they saw a plump, grey haired man aged around sixty five appear from around the back of the house. He walked up to the GTO as Ray, Fraser and Diefenbaker got out, extending his hand warmly and smiling broadly. "Milford Buxley" he introduced himself, shaking Fraser and Ray by the hand, "and this is my wife Gloria." A woman of around the same age had also appeared, carrying a baby in her arms. Ray and Fraser introduced themselves to the couple.

"Hello. I'm so pleased to meet you, Constable," said the woman, smiling, "we've heard so much about you from Lyndon. This is my granddaughter, Wendy. My son works away a lot of the time, he's a scientist, a lecturer, he's very intelligent, so his wife, Maria lives here with Wendy."

"Gloria," Milford Buxley spoke, chuckling, "these gentlemen have had a very long journey, I'm sure they're not interested in how proud we are of our son!" The baby girl had fixed her gaze on Fraser who was pulling a face at her.

"What are ya doin' Fraser?" asked Ray, shuffling his feet and looking slightly embarrassed.

"I'm doing the puffin face, Ray," replied Fraser, as if it was the most normal thing in the world.

"Well stop, Fraser," said Ray, not quite able to look at his partner.

"Oh dear," chuckled Gloria Buxley, addressing Ray, "I see you're not used to babies! Would you like to hold her." She held out baby Wendy for Ray, but Ray just looked even more uncomfortable.

"Er, no thanks," he said, looking at Fraser for help, "no offence, or nothin'." Fraser knew that Ray had always thought that he would have children with Stella, but that, of course, never happened. It had made him somewhat awkward around children. It was one of those difficult subjects for Ray, all connected with the disintegration of his marriage and Fraser made a mental note to try to broach the subject when they finally got around to talking about things later. Fraser was determined that it was not only his own problems that they were going to discuss. That had been their arrangement, anyway.

"Poor Maria's not feeling well today," Gloria went on, "if you ask me she's missing Daniel. It must be hard for her in a strange country with a new baby. We do our best for her, but..." Gloria noticed her husband glaring at her and decided she had probably said too much already to these people whom they'd only just met.

Fraser noticed the looks that passed between the couple and changing the subject, he said, "We really should go and erect our tent before it starts to get dark. If you would kindly point us in the right direction."

"Of course," beamed Milford Buxley, "I'm afraid the path down there is rather narrow so you'll have to leave your car here. My, she is a beauty." He looked admiringly at the GTO.

Ray smiled, "Sure is," he replied, walking over to the car.

"We only have this old gal," continued Buxley, pointing to a rather rusty old pick-up truck parked to the side of the house. "She still runs like a dream, though." Ray nodded. He knew that some of these older vehicles were built to run forever and usually rusted away long before the engines were ready for the scrapyard. They unloaded their things and followed Buxley through an apple orchard to the field where they were going to make camp. "We get a few campers here," he explained, "and you're most welcome. If you're hungry, Gloria will be quite happy to cook for you later on."

"Thank you kindly, Mr Buxley, but there will be no need for that." Fraser said.

"Oh please, call me Milford," replied the farmer. "Well, if you're sure...but please do walk up and collect some fresh eggs in the morning," he went on, "they're not quite as good as Lyndon's, but we do our best. Jorge Benitez, our farm manager will be here at the crack of dawn. It's officially his day off, but he often comes in for a few hours anyway. I don't know what we'd do without him these days. We're getting a little too old for all this." He waved his hand around to indicate the size of the farm. "Jorge's been with us for years and now we also have Jack. He's only a youngster, dropped out of college, I believe, but he'll help you with those eggs. He loves the chickens. Actually he's great with all the animals. He's going to love you!" He ruffled Diefenbaker's ears as he said this.

"Thanks," said Ray. He'd never eaten fresh eggs before, certainly not that fresh, straight from the chicken and the thought made him feel a bit weird. In fact, he was feeling completely out of his comfort zone. His ears had tuned to the repetitive sound of the crickets as soon as they'd arrived and he was beginning to find it a little annoying. This is the countryside, he thought to himself, better get used to it. It's only for four days.

Milford went back to his house and left Fraser and Ray putting up the tent. Well, Fraser put up the tent, Ray stood back picking up various tent poles and looking at them in confusion. "Doesn't this thing come with instructions?" he asked.

Fraser shook his head. "Ray," he began and stopped hammering in a tent peg long enough to talk to his friend, "are you sure you want to do this? You don't seem very comfortable."

"Yeah buddy, sorry," replied Ray, a little sheepishly, "I do, it's just that I've never really done this before. My Mum, y'know, she hated the idea of camping, she said it was dirty! Me and my brother slept out in the back yard a couple of times when we were kids, but she kept comin' out and giving us food and extra blankets. Sort of, um, sorta ruined the atmosphere." Fraser laughed. Ray's mother was, indeed, very motherly and over protective of Ray, even now.

It wasn't long before the camp was looking much more homely. The tent was up and Ray had put the bedrolls and the rest of their gear inside. There was some firewood already chopped and Fraser set about making a fire. Ray placed two larger logs around the fire for them to sit on and Diefenbaker had already made himself at home on a grassy patch that was just catching the last of the sun as it dipped below the horizon.

Ray was feeling more relaxed now too and Fraser was pleased. The air of trepidation still hung over him though, he knew Ray was going to push him to open up about Victoria later on. He knew he had to get it out into the open. Thoughts of her and what she'd done to him still haunted him and he knew that had to stop soon before it sent him crazy. He also knew that Ray deserved an explanation. They were partners and best friends and yet this one thing that seemed to be such a huge part of what made Fraser who he was, was the one thing he felt unable to tell Ray about. Not properly, anyway, not all of it. Ray knew the basics and a couple of times Fraser had mentioned it in conversation, usually relating to a case or something that was troubling Ray, but Fraser felt so uncomfortable talking about his feelings and emotions. That sort of thing came much more easily to his friend and Fraser was more than a little envious of that particular trait.

Their arrangement for this weekend had been that if Fraser talked about Victoria, then Ray would talk through how he felt about Stella. Fraser knew that the end of his marriage had really affected Ray and he knew that his friend needed to deal with it, sooner rather than later, so he had resigned himself to the Victoria conversation in return for a chance to help his partner. He hoped it wouldn't be as hard as he thought it was going to be. He may have been wrong.