Author's note: Thanks Master Li, WickedBluerose, xLaurelCullenxx, Soului, and anonymous reviewer! You guys keep me thinking about this even when I feel like I'm dragging my uninspired butt through it. I couldn't finish this without you.

A few questions: xLaurelCullenxx! You're totally missing out on a Great Canadian Tradition. Tim Horton's, affectionately known as Timmy Ho's, is a fast-food coffee and donut shop with a virulent presence across the entire nation. It's coffee is addictive, it's food is good and available 24/7, and it's named after a Canadian hockey player! Mmmm, does not get any more beaver-lovin' Canadian than Tim Horton's.

And anonymous reviewer...you totally caught me out on the Weapon X thing. I had that draft in various stages on my computer for a good month before I posted it, and the Weapon X thing literally popped into my head five minutes AFTER it went up. And Oz, being the total pop culture guy that he is, would know that. I had my fingers crossed it would slide. *sigh* But no, you guys are way to discerning. ^_^ Good catch!

Update: Typo fixed! Thanks Soului.

Affinity part 5

Once upon a time, there was the Toby and Olivia show. Toby flirted, Olivia flirted, and they both flirted around the edge of actually going anywhere. When the Toby and Olivia show was on, nothing else in the world existed.

"Hey." Oz shook his empty apple juice bottle at them then chucked it at the recycling bin. It bounced off the edge and rolled under the cabinet. "I have to go pee."

"TMI Oz." Liv tucked her pen neatly back in her pocket and smoothed her coat. Toby's eyes unabashedly followed the path of her hands.

"Seriously," Oz hopped off the bed, fetched the bottle, and dropped it in the bin. "My eyeballs are swimming. Do you think Robocop out there will mind if I step out?"

"Tell him you need a potty break, Oz." Toby flashed Oz a wicked look and Liv grinned.

"Har har." Seriously Toby. 'Sides, Liv has been sending me vibes. Like total third wheel vibes. And Liv is not somebody whose vibes a healthy body ought to ignore.

"Go ahead Oz," Liv offered at the same time as Toby said, "I'm sure he won't mind as long as you don't leave the hospital." They both blinked and stared at each other. Annnnnnd, back to our regular programming. Oz rolled his eyes and slipped out the door.

Robocop – Jansen - was standing as pretty as a rookie picture outside the door. Oz probably could have balanced a ruler across his shoulders. "Hey," Oz sidled passed the guy, "Any word on Detective Marks?"

"She has agreed to conduct your interview. You can expect her within the hour." Oz wondered if the guy got up in the morning and starched his face.

"Uhmm, great. I'm just gonna be right back, okay?"

"Please do not leave the building, Mr. Bey."

"No leaving the building." Oz held his hands up in mock surrender and backed away. "Got it." Oz turned the corner and relaxed as soon as he was out of the man's sight. There were a series of elevators at the end of the hall and Oz hit the button to go down. The hospital was a busy place 24/7 and there were very few places a guy could get some head space. The basement was quietest.

The elevator doors opened and Oz hurried down the hall. The basement was deserted. The few offices and work rooms were quiet, their doors shut and the lights turned off. Oz found the washroom and locked the door behind himself. He relieved himself, washed his hands, then stuck his head under the water.

It was cold.

Oz turned the water off, shook his head, and sank to his knees. He breathed. Then he sat on the floor, pressed his back to the wall, and pulled Liv's phone out of his pocket. Liv didn't know Oz had liberated it, but Oz figured Toby would smooth things over for him if it came up. Oz pulled up her list of contacts and scrolled through until...uh huh. There is was: Ray Mercer. Oz had figured Liv would be both concerned enough and A-type enough to make sure she had the number of her occasionally peculiar love interest's shrink. Oz pressed send.

"He-hello?"

"Oh, shit." Ray had obviously been sleeping. It was the middle of the night. Duh. "Oh, shit, Ray. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to wake you up. I wasn't thinking. Uh, I guess this can wait, sort of. I'll call you back later, okay?"

"Who is this?"

"Uh, it's Oz. Oz Bey. Toby's partner?"

"Oz? Is Toby alright? Is something wrong?"

Had anybody contacted Ray? Ray had to be top of Toby's emergency list. Marks for sure should have put a call-in to Ray. "Um, well, Toby shot LaPaige, then he got all weird for a bit, but now we're back in the hospital and Liv has given us the all-okay and they're gonna get Marks to do the victim statement so nobody has to worry about what to say – or not say – and I just thought it would be a good idea if you came and checked Toby over, too, you know? Like, a – a you-type check over. In the head." Oz circled his ear with his finger to indicate a head check-over, then stopped when he realized that usually meant somebody was c-r-a-z-y. Toby was not crazy. Then Oz decided to stop being defensive because nobody could see what he was doing anyway.

"Toby shot somebody?" Oz could hear rustling and thumping on the other side of the phone. Damn it. He'd definitely got Ray out of bed.

"Uh, LaPaige. But he didn't kill him! At least, nobody's said if the guy died."

"You're both at the hospital still?"

"Yeah. For a little bit longer, I think. We're still waiting for Marks to get here. Then...should Toby go home alone? I mean, he's a grown man, but still...well. Liv will probably go with him." Oz would totally hang out with Toby if that's what his best friend needed. It's just, he wanted to reassure his parents that everything was okie-dokie because they were probably going out of their minds with worry (He should have called them first. Why hadn't he thought of that? Bad shit goes down and the first person he calls is Toby's shrink? Toby so better appreciate how damn much Oz worried about him. Oz deserved, like, a freaking award for this. A beer, at least.) and he wanted a shower - a shower in his shower, with his soap, and his towels. Then he wanted to sleep in his bed. With his pillows. Mmmmmm. God, it had been a long night.

"I'm coming out there. Oz, can you stay on the phone with me a little bit longer? I want to know everything you know. Start from the beginning."

"The beginning? Like, when we got nabbed by LaPaige?"

"Yes. When did this happen? Who is LaPaige?"

"Ah, well," Oz tried to organize his thoughts. "What do you already know?"

"Nothing." Ray was pissed. He was definitely pissed. Oz suddenly realized that the quiet, crisp tones on the other end of the line weren't simply Ray's egg-head training shining through. "I was not aware Toby had been...nabbed, as you say."

"Oh. Sorry." Oz totally did not want to be the guy dropping this information on Ray. Especially not after the fact. "I figured somebody would have called you."

"Somebody should have called me. I will make sure that gets fixed. For now, what happened Oz?"

"We got a call out yesterday to the industrial district. Work-related accident. But when we got there, the place was dead quiet – nobody there. We thought it must have been a prank or something, but then this guy staggers out of one from the buildings and there's blood all down the front of his shirt. I couldn't tell where he was bleeding from." Oz remembered how he and Toby had checked the doors and found them locked, how abandoned the place had looked, how long it had taken LaPaige to come out. "I guess he wanted to scope us out. Make sure it was us. He wouldn't be able to control who dispatch sent to the scene. We should check the records; see if there's been any other prank calls lately...practice runs."

"That's good thinking, Oz. You'll have to make sure to tell this to Detective Marks."

"Yeah." Oz closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the wall. His hair was dripping water down his collar. Oz shivered. "I don't think the blood was real. Once he got close, LaPaige pulled the gun and told us to get in the ambulance. After that, he didn't move like he was injured."

"Did he know who Toby was?"

"Not like that. Not like what you're thinking, about the...mind stuff, and stuff. He knew that Toby was friends with Charlie, and that Charlie had been the detective on his brother's case – Oliver LaPaige? Have you seen that on TV? – and he was gonna use Toby to force Charlie to screw with the investigation. It was stupid."

"What happened next?"

"He took us to this house and handcuffed us to a grate in the basement. He said he was gonna shoot me in the morning if Charlie didn't do what he said."

"That must have been frightening."

"I'm cool. I totally knew Charlie would pull through. Toby was a little freaked out though."

"He was worried about you."

"Yeah. But! You should have seen it – well, not seen it, 'cause we wouldn't want you to be stuck down there too, but it was totally awesome – because I totally tackled the guy, like, kung-fu ninja style, and we were fighting it out and I would have had him in a second – any second – and that's when Toby got his gun and shot the guy."

Ray was silent for a long time. Oz could hear him breathing on the other end of the phone. Then a car horn honked. Ray must have stopped at a red light and fallen too deeply into his thoughts to realize it had turned green. "He shot the man on purpose?"

"It was self-defence Ray. Nobody can hold that against Toby. LaPaige was a psycho and he was going to kill us."

"I'm not holding that against Toby. I'm just trying to figure out what happened."

"He shot the guy but he didn't kill him. He never wanted to kill him. So we called 911 and the police and the ambulances came, and we went to the hospital. LaPaige is in surgery right now. Olivia checked Toby and I over, and says we're both good to go." Oz decided to just say it, because he didn't know what else to do. "Here's the part I'm worried about:" The part I want you to worry about. "Toby was having trouble staying out of LaPaige's head. I mean, when LaPaige first grabbed us, Toby went along with it pretty easily and he said it was because LaPaige wanted it so badly – like Toby could feel how badly he wanted it too. Then, when LaPaige got upset 'cause Charlie wasn't calling right away, Toby tried to smooth things out; like, make him feel better. Toby was doing that whole..." Oz widened his eyes and made a Toby-face at the bathroom door, "that whole la-la land thing he does when he's listening to someone's mind. The situation was, like, super-stressful, you know?"

"Toby has lines." Ray was using his quiet, soothing voice, "He has worked really hard at drawing lines between what he's thinking and what other people are thinking. But with strong emotions, especially when those emotions align, those lines get harder to maintain. If Toby is very upset, and the other person is also very upset, it is more difficult to distinguish one upset from the other. Sometimes, if the other person has a solution to that upset, Toby is more likely to go along with it because he can't quite untangle his feelings from that other person's."

"Yeah." Oz said. "That sounds right. You need to help him work on that."

"We have been working on that Oz. It's always been a top priority." Ray chuckled. It wasn't really a happy sound. "With Toby, a lot of things are top priority."

"I hear you, man. Here's the other part: after Toby shot LaPaige, he was really having trouble staying out of my head. I mean, I would think something and Toby would say it. It was weird, like an echo of sorts. I've never seen him do it quite that way. You know how sometimes he'll answer a question that you think, or just talk to you while you're thinking? Well, this wasn't that."

"It was traumatic circumstances, Oz. I'll have to talk to Toby, of course, but it was probably just the stress of the event."

"Yeah." Oz ran a hand through his hair and found it dry. "Stress. Look, they're probably wondering where I am by now. You're coming then?"

"I'll be there in fifteen minutes." Ray confirmed.

"Good. That's good. I'll see you when you get here then."

"Thank you for calling me, Oz. I'll be there shortly."

Oz hung up. Then he stared at the ceiling and contemplated the mystery that was his best friend.

The phone rang.

Oz almost didn't answer it. It was Liv's phone, after all. Then he considered poor Ray and the fact that nobody had talked to him. Oz answered the phone.

"Olivia Fawcett's phone."

"Osman Bey." Uh oh. It was his full name. Olivia sounded way too sweet to be using his full name. "Who have you been talking to? You've been on the line for ages."

"Uh, I gave Ray a call. I thought it might be a good idea."

"Oh." Olivia faltered. Then she came back, sounding more business than dangerous. "Detective Marks is here. She would like to get your statement. Sometime this night, I'm sure."

"I'll be right up, okay?" Oz got to his feet and unlocked the door. The basement was still deserted as he made his way back to the elevators. "You get Toby all...smoothed out?"

"Toby's fine." Liv had a great way of sounding pert and annoyed and proper and amused all at once. "Thanks for asking me if you could borrow my phone, by the way."

"I'll buy you a coffee." Oz was unrepentant. "You can tell Toby it's a date."

"Dinner. I'm an expensive date. 'Sides, then we can both bitch about Toby when he's not there."

Oz could hear something that sounded suspiciously like 'I'm sitting right here' on Liv's end of the line, but he dismissed it as nonsense.

"Deal. Be there in a sec." Oz flipped the phone closed and got in the elevator to go back up. Charlie knew the secret but Liv didn't. They'd have to do this in private.

When Oz exited the elevator, however, Liv was standing there waiting for him. She held out her hand. Oz handed the phone over. "Marks is waiting for you in the examination room." Liv had that thunderous look she got on her face whenever she had to give Toby and Charlie alone time. "Officer Jansen's going to make sure you're not disturbed. Feel free to rush over there and refuse to leave until Charlie does."

"Oh, Liv." Oz edged around her and subtly, sneaky-like-ninja, got out of arms reach, "There's nothing going on between Toby and Charlie. I think Becker might throw Toby over a bridge in a pair of cement shoes if there was."

Liv shook her head. "I'm not an idiot, Oz. And I don't own Toby. Though after tonight, somebody ought to put a leash on him."

"That's what I was thinking!" Oz said, and didn't run down the hall to the safety of the examining room. Both Charlie and Toby had guilty looks on their faces when Oz burst into the room and slammed the door behind himself, the kind of guilty looks Oz knew meant they'd been talking about secret stuff.

"Toby was just telling me about LaPaige." Charlie said.

"He knows." Toby looked at Charlie. "Oz was the first person I ever really told."

"Oh." Charlie examined Oz with new interest, and Oz tried not to puff up his chest in pride – because Toby had told him first. Toby had trusted him first. "Well, then. Why don't you have a seat, Oz?" Charlie looked back at Toby. "Does anybody else know?"

"Ray knows. Ray's known since I was a kid. He helped me."

"That's it?"

"Olivia doesn't know." Oz figured Toby was answering the question Charlie was really asking. "So yeah, that's it."

"Huh." Oz wished he was a mind reader. He had no idea what Charlie was thinking. "Alright boys. What happened with LaPaige?"

Oz helped Toby recount the story a second time ("totally could have kicked his ass!" and "You don't know what he was thinking, Oz") then shot Toby a hang dog expression when Ray knocked on the door and Toby glared at Oz.

"I thought he should know." Oz shrugged helplessly. "Nobody even called him, Toby. He cares about you."

"Toby." For once, Ray wasn't perfectly coiffed. He'd obviously got dressed in the dark and simply run a hand through his thin hair on the way to the hospital.

"Oh." Toby's face completely changed. "Oh, Ray. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you."

"Well," Ray's mouth was twisted in something like wry acknowledgment. "Well." Then he swept forward and wrapped Toby up in a hug.

Oz suddenly desperately wanted to see his parents.

"Uh, guys? I'm gonna head home then, okay? Charlie, you finished?"

"I know where to find you, Oz." Charlie said, and followed him out the door.

Liv was waiting at the front desk.

"Shrink's in there," Oz said. "Give 'em a moment."

"I think that might be an offensive term, Oz." But Liv was smiling. She shook her phone at him. "I took a page from your book, and made a call."

"Osman!"

Oz spun around. "Mom!" She took his face between her hands and kissed him on his eyelids, and his cheeks, and the tip of his nose. Then she sobbed against his chest. "Oh Mom, I'm fine. I'm fine. Everything's okay." Oz smiled at his dad over the top of his mom's head.

Charlie leaned against the counter beside Olivia. "Good call."

"Well," Olivia grinned at Charlie, "I know a good idea when I see one."

Author's note: Okay, I really was dragging my butt all through this one but I was determined to get it out today. Happy Canada Day everyone! *waves flag* Oh, Caaaaannnaaadaaaa!

So, here are my issues with this section: It's slow. Oz spends a lot of time re-telling things you guys already know – a big no-no in writing – and the action is all emotional (not something I'm fully comfortable with). Also, Ray is the single most difficult character for me in this show, I think...and I know you guys were looking forward to him. So, straight up, how does Ray measure up for you?