Title And the Rest is Silence
Rating: G-possibly a little depressing to some.
Pairing: None
Teaser: Ben and Ray come to grips with the end of life
as they know it.
Spoilers: Tiny spoiler for VS, LG.
Archive: RSY, DuSC and Fraser's Library, if you want
it. All others, please ask.
Disclaimer: These characters are not mine. Any and all
feedback is welcome at any time
And the Rest is Silence
by Anna McLain
Now cracks a noble heart.
Goodnight, Sweet Prince,
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.
And the rest is silence.
--Horatio, Hamlet, Act V.
The tears slipped quietly down his cheeks, unchecked.
The warm breeze ruffled his dark hair, curling the ends with humidity. He
closed his blue-gray eyes and relished the feeling of fresh air, blowing across
He remembered what had meant the most to him, these
past seven years, each image causing his heart to clench as it appeared. One by
one, he accepted the images and feelings, saying good bye to each before
letting them go. Acceptance lifted a trace of the burden from his shoulders,
making it easier to breathe and think rationally. He straightened, wiping the
dampness from his cheeks.
Ben Fraser stared silently out his front window. The
slowly setting sun dipped toward the gray-blue tumult of the pond in front of
his new apartment complex, serenely capping the waves diamond bright. The
skyline was visible in the distance, silhouetted by the sunset. He studied the
city of
It isn't fair, he thought, there is so much beauty and
good in the world. But life wasn't fair and it never had been. You took what
came your way and did your best, preferably to improve the world and human
condition.
All for naught.
And now, he would never see his beloved Canadian
wilderness again. Inspector Pare refused his repeated requests for leave.
Beside him, his white wolf and faithful friend,
Diefenbaker, stared up at him with knowing brown eyes. Resigned. How do the
animals always know, he thought. Dief had realized and accepted the fact that
life as they knew it was about to end forever, long before Ben even realized
there was a fight. Before he gave up. Ben scratched the wolf's ears absently,
giving in to a need for touch. He couldn't muster a smile. The enormity of the
near future still weighed heavily on him. Dief would see right through the
attempt at levity and denial anyway.
He sighed, picturing the snow painted
So goes the world, passing into the dark winter night
with a whimper.
And we thought we were better than the dinosaurs, he
thought with a shiver despite the warmth of the evening.
A car horn blared insistently a few streets over,
jarring him out of his sentimental mood. The sound echoed eerily through the
nearly vacant streets and abandoned buildings.
He glanced at the backpack on the stripped bed, in the
barren apartment. Ray would be there soon. Ray, his best friend, would stay
with him and be his rock. Ben consciously chased away the last overt vestiges
of his melancholy. He needed to be the strong one. Ray was giving up
everything, except him, so he owed the man.
"You finished packin' yet, Benny?" Ray's
soft query echoed from the bare walls.
Ben turned. His friend slouched in the doorway, Armani
tie askew. Weariness and resignation, almost defeat, were evident in the droop
of his shoulders and the bags under his green eyes.
Ben flashed a small smile at him, trying desperately
to appear encouraging and hopeful. Without hope, a man had nothing. Ray looked
older than he had a few short months before, years older.
"Of course, Ray," Ben said. "We didn't
have much to pack."
Ray nodded distantly, green eyes following Dief's
pacing. "We have two hours to get to the pick up site. There's a bus with
our name on it. If we don't get on that bus it's all she wrote."
"She wrote what?" Ben asked, distracted as
he slipped into his new used brown leather jacket. It resembled his favorite
old jacket; the one the doctors had cut from him after Ray shot him. He felt
compelled to buy it the instant he saw it. It felt like coming home. It fit him
perfectly. He didn't notice if Ray answered his question, slinging his laden
pack easily over his broad shoulders. His back twinged. Old wounds haunted him
a little more each passing year. He took a deep breath to quell the tremors in
his stomach.
Ray glanced around the room and smiled. "Maybe
they'll give you a room without peeling paint." His chuckle sounded too
loud in the empty space. The smile dropped from his face and he blinked back
sudden hot tears. It was all happening too fast. He clung to the last tendrils
of denial, even as the truth crushed his defenses..
Ben didn't really hear him. "Just one more check,
Ray," he said cheerfully.
"They aren't gonna care if you leave the stove
on, Benny. It doesn't matter anymore."
Ben jogged down the hall, sticking his head into the
bathroom then the kitchen. "On the contrary, Ray," he called from
down the hall, "everything matters all the more now. If everyone just
gives up.well, then that really is all she wrote." He walked back into the
living room, where he kept his bed because it was more open. The heels of his
boots pounded as loudly in the barren space as though he'd been stomping. Ray
winced with each heel strike.
Ben stopped at the brink of the hallway and regarded
his disconsolate friend. "Ray," he said softly, glancing
uncomfortably at the cracked tile floor. "I do appreciate your choice
here. I know how difficult it must be."
"Which one?"
"Going with me instead of your family."
Ray shrugged and didn't meet his eyes. "Yeah,
well, there was no choice, Benny. Besides, they got Tony and now that Franny's
a Private Eye, they can take care of themselves. And you got nobody since
Dief whined in objection.
Ray glanced at him, face unreadable.
"I have Dief," Ben said with more cheer than
he felt.
"Nobody who talks." Ray took a step back and
let Ben pass through the doorway to the dimly lit hall. Ben flipped off the
light with a last, lingering look around, then closed the door behind them. He
sighed, staring for a moment at the closed door. He'd finally grown used to his
new apartment. Ray clapped him on the shoulder.
"I know, Benny. We got a bus to catch."
Ben nodded, head down. Silently, he said goodbye to
his apartment, his way of life; the new family he'd grown accustomed to.
His good-byes done, he took a deep shuddering breath
and followed his best friend and former partner from the old building.
"You know, I wouldn't have been completely alone,
Ray," he said, stowing his backpack in the trunk of Ray's Riv. "The
new city will be filled with the former occupants of
"Well, there's alone.and there's alone," Ray
said.
The ride in the Riv to the stadium was grueling. The
streets as they drew closer teemed with cars going to the stadium and two other
pickup points. The evacuation was nearly half-finished. As they inched over the
Dan Ryan freeway, both men looked out the window. On the freeway a double line
of buses crawled in either direction, like lemmings.
What an appropriate image, Ben thought. Lemmings
running for the cliff in a giant mindless swarming mass.
Dief whined and Ben slipped an arm around him,
absently offering comfort. The wolf found some joy in the first and last front
seat ride he'd have in Ray's Buick Riviera. Ray felt generous. Soon, there
would be more important things to deal with. Dief slid down, resting his muzzle
on his packmate's thigh.
Ray sighed. The city of Chicago, reflected on the
window glass and in his green eyes, looked somehow skeletal. Dead.
Exanguinated. "I lived here my whole life," he whispered. "Hard
to believe it'll all be gone in a month."
"Well, technically, it won't be `gone', Ray, just
uninhabitable."
"Same difference."
"Not exactly," Ben began, using the excuse
to talk to shut out the despair that leaving brought him.
Ray tuned him out, not wanting to know anything more than
that the wrath of God had finally come. The apocalypse. The end. He lost
himself in a detached depression, memorizing the surreal details of the city he
had called home. Benny's voice was a comforting background noise, if he didn't
listen to the words.
".A vast circular area of North America will then
be obliterated or gone, as you put it. Even the damage that will spread out in
concentric rings from the point of impact could be considered gone. However,
Chicago, much of the U.S. and all of Canada will still be here." Ben
shrugged, swallowing hard. "The worst of the disaster won't be the
immediate damage, Ray. It will be the global climatic changes. Once the food
chain is interrupted, the devastation will snowball. The dust cloud will block out
the sun causing what scientists term `nuclear winter.' Plantlife will die and
the planet will freeze."
A ghost town," Ray murmured to the skyline, his
throat constricting painfully. Suddenly, he had trouble breathing.
Ben swallowed and frowned, running a finger along his
eyebrow. It helped to think logically, to turn his mind away from the impending
chaos. He had accepted their fate two years before, when they found out their
fate was sealed. But with the deadline upon them, it was easy to plummet over
the edge into the depths of despair. The past month had seen record numbers of
suicides across the continent. Ben could understand their reasoning.
"There will be people who remain in the city,
Ray. Some don't believe the threat is real. Some even believe it's an elaborate
hoax perpetuated by the American government
Morons." Suddenly, Ray hit the dashboard
violently. "Morons!" he shouted.
"We can't save those who won't help themselves,
Ray." Ben touched his friend's arm lightly. "They'll survive.for a
while. After that.who knows? Perhaps the cities will allow more people inside
their domes."
"Great, we'll all have to go on a diet cause
there won't be enough food."
"There'll most probably be rationing, Ray. From
what I understand, the design for the new cities has been in the works for
decades. So, they should be well prepared. And the system isn't completely
isolated, like the failed Biosphere project in Arizona. These will filter and
use outside air and water, so as to eliminate many many problems."
Ray sighed deeply as the stadium finally loomed in the
distance. "Okay, okay. Give it a rest." He was quiet for a moment,
then snarled and snapped, "Why didn't they just nuke it and take the
chances with the smaller pieces?"
"Didn't you pay attention at any of the
briefings, Ray?"
"I had more important stuff to think about."
"More important than the possible extinction of
the human race?"
"Ma."
"Ah." Ben nodded. "Understood." He
turned back to the window, turning over in his mind the events of the past
seven years. As they entered the underground parking for the stadium he turned
and looked over his shoulder. The setting sun bathed the city in warm gold,
sparkling from the tallest buildings. It looked alive, warm and vibrant.
All gone, Ben thought, forever. "Good night,
sweet prince and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest," he whispered
END