Disclaimer: Standard Disclaimer. They´ll be home by curfew. I can´t promise anything more. Please send comments, questions, compliments, and otters to sdelcul@yahoo.com.

Author's Notes: I apologize for the list overload, but please bear with me (feel free to send angry emails and fling inanimate objects) until I catch up. Keep in mind that internet is a two hour bus ride away at the moment and I have to boil my water before it's safe to drink. Gotta love rural Ecuador!

Story Notes:

It always shocked Benton Fraser when Ray called him "annoyingly perfect." Granted, this Ray Vecchio knew only as much about Victoria as the first Ray Vecchio had decided to put into the file. Said file, he knew, was a blend of truth, half truth, and outright lie especially created to save the same Benton Fraser from the consequences of his actions.

It was with weary resignation that he'd allowed that Ray Vecchio to write the report he'd written. It would hurt Ray more not to allow him to do so, then to preserve the last of his dignity by allowing himself to be punished for what he'd done and allowed to happen.

There were other examples of his imperfections, only one as notable as Victoria, namely his failure to prevent that Ray from leaving.

If he had been there, perhaps he might have . . . what? Convinced Ray to stay? It would have been selfish to ask Ray to give up the opportunity simply because he didn't want him to go. He might have tried regardless, but he was fairly certain that, at least from Ray's perspective, this might have been something he felt compelled to do.

In Benton's view of the world, Ray Vecchio was perfection simply because he didn't claim to be or even want to be perfect. At an early age Benton had become obsessed with the idea of perfection. To a young boy catapulted from happiness into the austere world of his grandparents by the death of his mother, who he had worshiped, perhaps perfection would bring his mother back. The permanence of death was a difficult concept for a six year old to grasp.

Ray didn't do perfection, he simply did his best. And that was honest. Benton lived his life by the book because he didn't know any other way, literally, to distinguish right from wrong. The world was so much more complicated then the ethics formed by a six year old. Left to his own devices and without Ray's balance, he would have been as useless as everyone had predicted he would be in Chicago.

In the meantime he could help this Ray, who seemed to need him more then the other. He could be useful until such time as Ray Vecchio forgave him for not being good enough.

End Left Behind by silvina: sdelcul@yahoo.com

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