Disclaimer: If you sue me for borrowing these characters, I'll cry.

SequelTo: The Fall Part 3

Oscar hadn't gotten very far from the caf before he started to feel that he'd made a huge mistake walking away from his Pop and his boyfriend. He hoped that they would stay at the caf, but as he rounded the corner of his street, it hit him that they wouldn't. Yanking his cell phone out of his pocket, he started dialing as he backtracked.

He tried his pop first and there was no answer and then he tried Benton's cell. The same result. It rolled directly into voicemail. He tried Benton's room and got the voicemail. Finding himself back in front of the cafe, he'd stepped in hoping to see the two men, but knowing full well that the chances were slim.

The girl at the counter smiled at him, "Votre petit-ami n'est pas ici." "Merci," he managed to smile at the girl as he ordered a coffee and found a table in the corner. Maybe they would come back. He picked up his cell phone again to dial his dad in Los Angeles and realized that he didn't trust himself not to just spill everything. And Ray had told him not to. And he didn't want to. Of his two adoptive parents his dad, Joe was the most protective. His pop, Ray, was protective in his way. But Joe sometimes could be overbearing. Maybe it was because he wasn't the one that stayed home with him. When he was growing up, Ray was the one to do the day to day. Ray took him to soccer practice. Ray drove the school car pool. Ray took him shopping for school clothes. His pop, Ray, had always been about him being a man. His dad hadn't wanted Oscar to come to Montreal at all and they had argued about it. Ray was the one to convince Joe it was okay and Oscar gave silent thanks again. Because as freaked out as he was that his pop had shown up out of the blue, it was better to have his pop here than to have his dad.

And that in itself was freaky given that his pop and Benton had been married. And his dad and his pop seemed to fit so well together he couldn't imagine either of them with anyone else. It wasn't like the name Benton Fraser had even ever really been spoken in their house. So that wasn't how he knew Benton. He hadn't had any sense of him in that way. He had only known him as his cousin Tony's uncle. The uncle who built the tree cabin they'd hung out in when he visited, the good looking man that talked to him at his Aunt Frannie's wedding. It was the meeting at the wedding that stuck with him. Specifically what Benton had said to him that day.

That day, the god in the tuxedo, the man all the women seemed to want to dance with said a couple of things. One of which registered immediately, the other not until he was fifteen almost sixteen and then it was all he could hear. As Benton talked to him in that precise Canadian accent as though he were an adult, Oscar thinks that's when he first started crushing on Benton. At twelve he already knew he liked boys, but his parent's death sort of sidetracked him doing anything with that information.

He'd been sitting alone on one side of the room when Dief, Benton's white half-wolf, came over and lay on the floor at his feet. He'd scooted off the chair and sat beside the animal and rubbed his head.

"Ah it was good of you to keep Diefenbaker company." Benton had said as he unbuttoned his jacket and sat beside Oscar on the ground. "I think he's the one keeping me company."

"Understood." Then quietly. "My mother was killed when I was six years old. My father was killed when I was older." And in that moment Oscar felt like he wasn't so alone. It seemed like once his parents died he was suddenly surrounded by people with parents. He knew that his godfather didn't see his parents, but he had them, knew that Ray didn't have a dad but at least he still had a mother.

Benton Fraser was the first person he'd met after his parents died that didn't have any parents either. And he'd lost his mother when he was younger than Oscar. At that time he only knew that Benton was a friend of Ray Vecchio, who was his godfather's boyfriend. And he'd listened intently as his new friend told him some things that he'd clung to over the years. The first had been that his parent's death wasn't his fault. Everyone had told him things would get better, but no one had zeroed in on the thing eating at his heart. Benton Fraser had been the only one to do that. He'd also told him that Ray and Joe would take good care of him and that he would be safe. And even though Joe had told him essentially the same thing when he took him in, it somehow sounded more true coming out of the mouth of Benton Fraser.

Oscar sipped his coffee and stared at his silent cell phone. He'd left messages on all the available voicemails and neither of them had yet to call him back. His nerves were so jangled he knew that he wouldn't be able to concentrate in his seminar and he'd called his professor to explain that he had a family situation arise. Before he'd left the caf earlier that day, he'd taken a moment to look at the two of them. Two people that he loved in vastly different ways. The two of them standing side by side staring at him. It had been hard looking at his pop. Oscar's intention had never been to hurt him. He'd been surprised as anyone when his play hadn't been rebuffed. He didn't think that he was conceited, he'd been hit on enough times by a variety of people to know that he wasn't a troll, but he'd been nervous to the point of babbling on his first date with Benton.

He'd learned in the subsequent months that, that kind of behaviour wasn't Benton's normal style. Oscar was grateful that on that night Benton had decided to let go of his natural reserve. And knowing his lover as he did now, it was that much harder for him to wrap his mind around the idea of he and his pop ever being more than work partners. He could see them as cops, they both had that thing that said cops about them so it wasn't that hard to imagine his pop as the "bad" cop and Benton as the "good" cop, but the rest....Besides not wanting to think about his parent and sex, he just couldn't see it.

What Oscar could see when he left the caf earlier was that his pop still loved him. Before his panic he'd hoped that love would keep the man that raised him from beating the hell out of the man he loved. Still his stomach was doing a flip flop a minute. And when his phone finally rang he nearly jumped out of his skin. "Hello."

"Did you call your dad?."

"I chickened out," he admitted to his pop. On the other end of the line Ray chuckled. Oscar took that as a good sign.

"Where are you now?"

"At the caf. I got nervous and came back. I called my professor and told him that I wasn't going to be able to make it today."

"You're not gonna get penalized for that are you."

"No it's okay."

"Alright, I'll pick you up in about ten minutes."

"Okay." And Oscar's stomach did one more flip.

*****************

Ray flipped the omelette in the kitchen of his son's apartment. At one time the whole structure had been a large Victorian home but now it was divided into four separate apartments. He remembered Oscar showing him a picture of it on the internet. At the time he thought that the picture was an exaggeration but it was as roomy as advertised.

The open design of the kitchen allowed Ray to watch as Oscar set the table. Meal times had been important in the three homes that eventually came together to make the Alta-Vecchio household. Sometimes the three of them ate at very odd hours given the schedule of the two adults but in the first couple of years as a family, Ray and Jersey strove to have regular meal times with Oscar. Either Jersey or Ray cooked and Oscar set the table. When Oscar was older Jersey actually relented and let him touch the stove, but generally speaking, table setting was Oscar's thing.

It was nice, Ray thought, fixing breakfast in his kid's place. Despite the elephant hogging the space in the room, this simple pleasure was something that they hadn't experienced since Oscar left for college. It had been important to Ray that they cut as much of the apron string as they could when they sent him off to school. Especially since his school of choice, USC, wasn't really that far from their home. They'd become a close knit family, but Ray knew that sometimes being in constant proximity to that same family could stunt you. He'd been willing to set aside who he was for his family because they were in each other's pockets. He put them first because he felt it was his duty, but he wanted his son to learn early how to survive in the world. He wanted his son to be his own man from the jump. Jersey wanted him to commute to school and live at home.

"Hey this is nice, huh?" Oscar looked up from setting the forks down and grinned at his pop.

"Yeah, it is. I've missed the monster omelette breakfast." In the face of that grin ten years of proud father moments flashed in Ray's head. There was nothing that could make him not love this boy.

The elephant sat quietly in the corner of the room while father and son ate breakfast. And they talked of other things. As there became more plate in front of both of them than monster omelette, the elephant inched his way closer to the table. Oscar lifted his glass suddenly. "A toast." Ray lifted his glass as well. "A famiglia, " the young man intoned solemnly.

"A famiglia." Ray joined in. Oscar took a quick sip and splayed his fingers on the tablecloth. The elephant lumbered and sprawled in the center of the table.

"I didn't mean for you guys to find out this way."

"Well your dad is still blissfully ignorant." The nervous young man slumped in his seat. His eyes remained concentrated on his own hands.

"At least he can't ground me."

"No but he can come after Fraser with a shotgun."

"Oh, God. It wasn't Benton. I did this. I told you in the caf that this was on me. I'm the one that started this."

"That's a Mountie specialty, to make you think some lunatic thing he gets you involved in you're doing of your own free will. It isn't true Oscar. You don't have to stay involved in this situation because you think it's your responsibility." Despite his assertion to Benton that any objection he made would send Oscar in the wrong direction, Ray couldn't resist the pull to say what was on his mind.

"When Adam broke up with me the first time it hurt a lot." It took Ray a moment to switch gears.

"When Adam -, " Oscar lifted his head and stared at his pop. Pain flittered around the edges of his expression.

"I know you and dad thought that I broke up with him, but it was Adam's idea...both times. One of the things that made it easier the first time was something that Benton said to me at Aunt Frannie's wedding. It hadn't really meant anything at the time. I guess I was too young to fully appreciate it."

"Okay." Making sure to keep his expression neutral, Ray watched his son closely. He'd never known the specifics of what Fraser said to Oscar that day, but the boy's spirits had definitely been lifted. He'd figured there were some Inuit and caribou involved since those were usually the hallmarks of most of the stories he'd told their nieces and nephews.

"He told me that other people would leave me and that `the thing in life is to know when it is and isn't your fault. Being able to sort that through will make a tremendous difference in your life young Oscar'. I hadn't thought of that in a long time. Not until after Adam. And then it was all I could think about for awhile. I realized that it wasn't my fault that he broke up with me. And I felt really grateful to Benton because as much as it hurt it didn't hurt as much as it could have. I wanted to thank him. So I asked Tony, Jr. about him. And then I e-mailed him and I really was going to thank him but it seemed kind of geeky and stupid. And so I just asked him about school stuff. And he was really nice about it. And then I couldn't think of any more fake school projects having to do with Canada so I stopped e- mailing."

Oscar stood suddenly and began clearing the table.

"Adam left me again, last year. Right before graduation." Stunned Ray, turned to look at his son. He hadn't known that Oscar was involved with his high school boyfriend again. For that matter it had never occurred to either him or Jersey that Oscar was the heartbreakee when he was a kid not the breaker.

"This second time, I didn't know whether it was or wasn't my fault. And it hurt more than it did the first time. A lot more. I started thinking about Benton. And I wanted to ask him how to figure it out. I mean if the same person leaves you twice it must be your fault, but I didn't, I couldn't......I wanted to talk to someone who seemed to have been there and like with my biological parents Benton was the only one I knew who'd gone through what I was going through. Tony, Jr. helped me track him down. There were immersion programs in Toronto and Quebec but I chose Montreal because he was here."

Listening to his son, hearing the remnant of pain, the retired cop was unsettled to realize the number of inaccurate assumptions he and his husband had made.

"So, you came to Montreal because you wanted to get with Fraser?"

"I came because....I wanted to get to know him better, I didn't plan for any of this to happen but we.....I know that I've had a better childhood than he had, a better life maybe but there are things about me that he understands. Things about him I understand. And I think that's because of how our parent's died. I love you and dad with all my heart and you've given me a great life. Even if it doesn't kill you, I think it still marks you a little when the people who brought you into the world disappear from your life suddenly."

"I don't know what to say, " Ray said. And he didn't. He'd been prepared to listen but he hadn't expected to learn how he and Jersey had failed their son. How even though they'd lived together as family for many years, Ray had failed to see his son. Had in fact treated him to some degree the way people treated the Mountie. It shamed him that it never occurred to him that his popular, gregarious and handsome boy would be the one pining for a studious, semi nerd like Adam.

And now that his eyes were open he could see the striking resemblance between Fraser and Adam. It wasn't so much physical as it was spiritual. It also nagged at Ray in a darker corner of his mind that maybe he'd somehow failed his first husband by walking out even though the Mountie deserved it.

"He's not an easy man, son." And to Ray's ears it sounded like a blessing. And that's not what he wanted to do. Oscar stopped fiddling with the dishwasher and came back to the table. He straddled a chair across from Ray.

"One of the things I really love about him is his laugh. He's teaching me to skate and mostly I just fall on my ass a lot. He laughs at me. And they're these really great soul deep laughs. The first month we were together he smiled a lot but he never really laughed. Sometimes I fall on purpose just to make him to laugh. I've got bruises on my ass like you wouldn't believe. "

They both laughed and then Ray quickly sobered when he got a flash of just who would be tending to his son's bruised ass.

"Look son -"

"Wait okay. I know this is weird with the age thing and the marriage thing. I know that but we....we're good together. Maybe you could spend some time with both of us while you're here. Leaving him isn't an option for me."

And Ray knew that, but the determined gleam in son's eyes silenced anything else he was going to say.

"Okay," Ray said as he rose from his chair. Oscar stood up as well. "I need to talk to your dad." He pulled his son into a tight embrace. " I love you. This doesn't change any of that but you need to know this is probably not the last conversation about this. Your dad will have some things to say to you."

"I know. Thanks pop."

"You're welcome."

End Part 4

Part 5 - The fallout