A/N: Sorry if I mispelled 'je ne se quois'. I just have no idea how to spell it (And I'm French-Canadian too, isn't that sad:-P) Anyway, enjoy and please review:-D
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Armando Langustini woke up in his hotel room at precisely 9AM, just like he did every morning. Or rather, Ray Vecchio woke up at precisely 9AM, just like he did every morning since he had gone undercover to become Armando Langustini.
He had been doing this for 6 months. 6 long, grueling, lonely months. But even so, each and every morning in the split second between when he woke up and his brain actually turned on, he would think he was home, that the last months had been some horrible dream and he would wake up in his own bed in his own house, go downstairs to have food happily pressed on him by his ma, while bickering good-naturedly with his sister, Francesca all before running out the door to his beloved vintage 1971 green Buick Riviera, to his job, and to pick up the Mountie. Ray felt the now-familiar, sharp pang of regret and sadness as a mental picture of his best friend swam through his head. After 2 years of seeing a guy every day, then to not see him for 6 months…but there was more to it than that, wasn't there?
Sure, Fraser infuriated him to no end with all of his habits, his insisting on licking everything, his never-ending, random stories about Inuits, and his non-sensical, yet never failing Mountie logic, but Fraser was still his best friend. All that was just what made Fraser Fraser, and all Ray knew was that there was something about the Canadian that appealed to him, made him like Fraser, and most importantly, miss him like crazy. Sure, Ray missed his ma and his car, and even his sister at times, but it was different with Fraser somehow. His ma was his ma, no one could meet her and not love her instantly, his car was his baby and though he and his sister fought constantly, she was still his sister, but Fraser was…Fraser was his partner, his brother, he was closer to Fraser than he had ever gotten to his brother-in-law, but most of all, Fraser was his best friend.
'Yeah, right, some best friend, you are. A guy that doesn't even tell his best friend that he's leaving." The nagging voice of guilt wracked at Ray's brain. That was his biggest regret, even bigger than having to leave to begin with. He hated how he wasn't able to say goodbye to Fraser. Benton Fraser was famous for not having taken a single sick or vacation day in the entirety of his career in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, so of all the times for Fraser to take a vacation, it had to have been that week. Granted, the week before he had suffered slight amnesia from falling off a car, but that was no excuse. The fact that Ray hadn't been able to say goodbye had made the feeling of missing Fraser about ten times worse. He was positive in the fact he wouldn't feel this bad if he had been the one to tell Fraser about his assignment in person, rather than a cryptic phone conversation. Granted, the conversation still made him feel a bit better, but there had been so much he hadn't said…
Ray rolled out of bed. He peeked out the windows, careful to not look too much. Despite how lost he still was in his thoughts, his carefully honed police instincts never let him forget he was on his assignment. One stupidly false move could cost him his cover, the chance to nail this mob group, but most importantly, his life. He had been careful the past six months (a care that he hoped that the man who was keeping his cover was taking too), not letting the people who knew Langustini very well get too close, and mostly keeping on guard, listening to his instincts. If something didn't feel right, he always found a way to get out of the situation; Fraser had taught him all that.
The sharp pain came back. Ray had been trying to tell himself that it was an ulcer for a while, but never really believing himself. The pain had gotten worse since he had gotten to Chicago. They had put him up in a very nice hotel, of course, he 'was' Armando 'the Bookman' Langustini, after all (one of the perks of his assignment). Ray looked out the window, over the familiar territory that was his home; that had been his home for his entire life. Two blocks east and one block south was District 27, his station, his home away from home. He still thought of it as his station. Strictly speaking, Ray Vecchio still worked there, he himself just hadn't seen it since he left 6 months ago. About 6 blocks away from that going further east was the Fraser's dingy, plain apartment in the slums of Chicago. Four blocks west of the station was the Canadian Consulate. Ray briefly wondered if Fraser was there yet, or if he was at the station; with his replacement, Ray remembered. Ray had thought many times of this mystery man that had willingly taken his identity, wondered who he was, if he was a good guy, a good cop. Ray wondered if this new guy had gotten used to his incredibly eccentric partner, and (with a slight twinge of jealousy, Ray had to admit to) if he and Fraser got along well (he rather hoped they didn't, Ray wished, rather grateful for Fraser's oddness for the first time ever).
And a mere 2 blocks from where he was at this very moment was Ray Vecchio's house. The house he had grown up in. Ray looked at the clock; 9:25 AM it read. Knowing that, Ray could pinpoint exactly what was going on in the Vecchio household. By this point, Ray would have been long gone, already at the station for about 20 minutes, after dropping of Fraser at the Consulate. Ma was cleaning up from breakfast, after telling Francesca, who was probably still eating (she had always been the slowest eater ever since she had been a little kid), to help, but slowly taking over, because that was the way his ma was. She always loved having someone in the kitchen with her, under pretenses of them helping her cook, but as she also believed that she was the only one who knew exactly the proper way to do anything, whomever was in the kitchen with her usually had the job of being the taste-tester. It was Wednesday, so it was pasta fazoul tonight. Ma's special sauce was slowly simmering on the stove as she happily added spices as she passed the stove with the breakfast dishes as she thought of it. That was Ma, she never had any recipes, she just made her food however she thought right. Once when he was a kid, Ray had asked his ma why she never used any recipes; they were all in her head, she had responded.
At precisely 9:15 AM, Armando Langustini got dressed for the day. The skinny mustache was the piece de' resistance, and fully turned him from Raymond Vecchio; Detective First Grade to Armando Langustini; Mob kingpin, in one fell swoop. Ray couldn't say he minded it, he would never grow one on his own. Ma hated facial hair and Francesca would laugh, but he kind of liked it. It gave him a certain…a certain…'Je ne' se quois' Ray mumbled to himself under his breath. Fraser had taught him that once when he hadn't wanted to admit the fact he was going bald.
The sharp pain of loneliness and guilt bit at Ray once again, until he was tempted to throw one of 'his' expensive Italian shoes across the room, but he resisted for it would bring one of the guards, and he didn't feel like having to deal with them or have to come up with a good excuse in a matter of seconds. This was getting to him. It had definitely gotten worse since he arrived in Chicago, Ray decided. Becoming once again surrounded by the familiar scenes of his exploits had stirred up memories of his loved ones, which only served to cause more pain as he realized he hadn't seen them for half a year, and he wasn't even sure when he was seeing them again.
Somehow, everything he thought of, every landmark he had mentally mapped out before brought him back to the Mountie. This was very much getting to him. If he didn't have an ulcer now, he would definitely have one before this assignment was up. Ray had always heard that saying that you don't know what you have until you don't have it anymore, but he had never believed it until now. Ray had never realized that he even respected or liked his Canadian partner this much until he wasn't dealing with the Mountie's eccentrities every day. Until he realized that he missed Fraser. But now he realized. Now he knew just what Constable Benton Fraser of the Royal Canadian Police meant to him. He would never be quite sure what, but eccentricities, wolf, and all, something appealed to the loud, brash, sarcastic Italian about the obsessive-compulsive, almost infuriatingly polite, downright weird at the best of times Canadian. It was a certain je ne se quois. Whatever it was, Fraser was his companion, his brother, his partner, his confidant, the first man ever Ray found he could trust wholly and completely. The best, most loyal friend Raymond Vecchio had ever had.
A knock on the door came just then and Ray wiped his eyes quickly, furious at himself for both allowing himself to display emotions in general, and at the fact he suddenly had less than a second to change his mindset to Armando Langustini. Armando Langustini would never cry. He quickly glanced at his reflection in a nearby mirror on the way to the door, double-checking to make sure everything hiding the fact that he was not Ray Vecchio, but instead, Armando Langustini, was in place and, more importantly, that his eyes weren't all red from crying. He opened the door, adopting an impatient look, typical of the Bookman. His jaw dropped, and all his thoughts about being Armando Langustini, not Ray Vecchio were forgotten. A dark haired man, wearing an odd red uniform that many mistook for that of a doorman, carrying an odd-shaped hat under his arm stood at the door, grinning ear to ear once he beheld the man who had answered it. A younger man, with blonde hair that stuck up in all sorts of directions, carrying a police badge and wearing a simple tee-shirt and jeans, which Ray would have sneered at for what he thought as being dressed unprofessionally for a man of the law, had he been in the right mind at the moment, peered over the first man's right shoulder.
"Ray!" grinned the dark-haired man exuberantly, obviously very excited, gaining a look of surprise from the blonde man, that the dark-haired man didn't see.
Emotions flooded inside the Italian man, who wasn't what he seemed. Feeling both happy to see the dark-haired man, yet horrified that this man had also more than likely just blown the cover that he had taken the last six months to perfect, for there was no way that no one in a 6 mile radius hadn't heard the dark-haired man's cry of joy upon seeing the Italian, calling him by a name that wasn't what everyone else around thought it to be, Ray had no idea what to feel about finally seeing the person he had thought about more than any that morning.
"Fraser?" Raymond Vecchio whispered at his former partner, hardly daring to believe it.