Disclaimer: I'm poor. Sue at your own risk, or better yet, don't.

Author's Notes: I am getting royally sick of the fact I can't concentrate on anything. (With meds, I'm stoned. Without them, I'm fogged and royally stupid, as a number of people I've attempted to e-mail with and such can attest.) So I'm going to go ahead and post this in its current semipolished state, just to get RID of the damn thing and start freshly on the story where Fraser and Ray actually get to it. It was supposed to be this story; somehow, it didn't work out. Like I said, maybe the fresh start will help.

Story Notes:

This story is a sequel to: Talking to the Dog VII: Every Virtue Has It's Price

Talking to the Dog VIII: "You're Touching Me"

Margaret Crimson Thatcher was floating easily in a warm vatful of narcotic substances. She was torn between trying to wake up and see what her current situation was--outside of the vatness--and just going the hell back to sleep, because this was more comfortable than she'd been in quite a--

Wait.

Motion.

Motion was occurring within the borders of her personal universe. She sure as hell wasn't doing any moving, so...God, she couldn't get a break. If she woke up with Turnbull one more time, they were going to have to pick out a china pattern. And--far worse---she was starting to get fond of the big goof.

Oh, hell, what was she on? "Big goof"? It had to be the drugs.

Had to be.

She pondered again the choice of whether or not to wake up and see what was going on around her. After enough years in the RCMP--most particularly the last few spent working with Fraser and almighty-spare-us Turnbull--she had learned that there were circumstances under which being well-informed couldn't be considered an advantage.

"Mm..." she couldn't move. Well, she could move, it was simply a matter of it turning out to require considerably more effort than she'd been anticipating, which had resulted in the wincing vocalization. Better take inventory.

Let's see...half-healed dumpster headbang, check; right set of knuckles bruised like a bitch from contact with jawbone of thug, check; body-slammed by mailbox and curb, check; ribs bounced on like a gymnast's mounting springboard by collision with stairwell banister, check; bruised knee, butt, shoulders and back of head due to intimate contact with two different cement staircases, check check check, Houston, we have a problem, please confirm transmission, where the hell ARE you people down--

HOLD IT

Hold it a second...deep breaths, deep--ouch. Fine, screw that--shallow breaths, shallow breaths...

Back to semi-sentience. And for a semi-irrelevancy, she supposed she could forget any further yelling at Fraser for endangering life and limb with Vecchio--or the blond either--when he was only supposed to be in paper-shuffling purgatory like the rest of them. Otherwise he was going to figure out that she wasn't such an asshole about it because he was out of line--though he was--but because she was so freaking jealous of his being out there accomplishing things. Bizarre things, but things. He might have to limp back to the consulate too often for her personal peace of mind, but at least Fraser's battered body housed a sense of job satisfaction. As did Turnbull's, apparently just from showing up, and sometimes she wished he'd leave it at that. But schist, if Fraser managed to get himself seriously injured while under her command in an administration posting, she was going to have some light-speed explaining to do, not that it would save her; her next posting would be in for Godssakes Minsk.

Of course, managing to provide them with some reason for showing up at--or already being at--work in the morning was, to be fair, part of her job. Fraser and Turnbull were really only there as her backups and aides; she did the meaningful--if one forgave the oxymoron--administrative duties; they either handled it when she couldn't, did whatever the hell she could come up with to give them to do, or fended for themselves. It was for that reason she'd pretty much stopped trying to keep the apron off Turnbull. She couldn't yell at him for being the reincarnation of a charlady when she knew she didn't have any work to give him that was any more meaningful than dusting. Besides, it kept him happy, and, for the more part, out of her hair. And in return, he did often manage to railroad unexpected morons into a tour, or an endless, winding conversation, or just back out the door to wherever the hell they came from, without either precipitating an incident or bugging her with the numbwits in question.

Hell, this posting was a major waste of all three of them--they'd all, for their different reasons, been exiled until the people they'd pissed off--or maybe simply confounded, in Turnbull's case--got their feathers unruffled again; doubtless one reason Turnbull, the temporary whatever-the-hell-it-said-on-his-initial-transfer-form had been wished on her and Fraser. And the reason she'd been such a distant and removed superior when she first showed up in Chicago, supplementing later with episodes of being a piss-and-vinegar bitch. Hey, she wasn't denying it. But she wasn't going to apologize for it, either. It was true, they were all in the same boat; but, damn it, when you're the boss, you don't get to be everybody's pal. You've got to be the boss, even when the boss has to rain on everybody's parade, go by the book, be the hardass in residence. Especially when there'd been a long history of people trying to pull the wool down over "the boss"'s head for no better reason than that "the boss" was female. It had a way of making a person kick ass first and ask questions later.

Right, enough bouncing over the chuckholes of her mind. Back to business, to wit: Body on the bed with her, so she wasn't still in hospital. The last two bodies she'd woken up with, related to her recent events-involving-being-green-and-purple, had been Turnbull and Marlon Brando. No, Stanley. No, Ray. Ray Kowalski. Got it. And whoever this was, it wasn't Fraser, because Fraser would rather sleep on cement than get in bed with her, and she couldn't really blame him, because they'd both probably lose it bad, fuck like rabbits, then be in hell until she could manage to swing one of them a transfer, which might prove impossible as things currently stood.

She was, uh, fond of Fraser. They did have a great deal in common. And he was undeniably--okay, unbe*lieve*ably--beautiful. Too bad their rank difference was so extreme. If they didn't get married, they'd be in deep kimchee. That was the way it worked, somewhat officially and muchly unofficially: If you fraternized, you got married, and if your posting was crucial at least one of you would be relocated; or you just did not fraternize. Especially if one of you answered directly to the other in terms of position. It was the same in almost all such organizations in their part of the world; she and Fraser fooling around would be tantamount to sexual harassment, speaking in terms of legalities and regulations. Besides, Fraser was passionately enamoured of places containing much of nothing, which would quickly drive her to messy suicide, should they...well.

She could dream.

So it was a (sigh) good thing this lump of warmth over to her right was very unlikely to be Fraser. Yes. Good thing. Shut up, hindbrain. Next order of business; open eyes.

Great, nothing was happening. Okay, she still had one eye that was a little puffy, so she tried channeling all her current eyelid-moving resources into a single effort to open the other one; still nothing. Maybe if she made another noise...

She inhaled, marshaled the breath, and...made a small snoring sound.

Nothing from the lump on her right, so either it was asleep, or she hadn't been loud enough to be heard. Hell, it could be the wolf, he was part deaf. The lump seemed too big for that, though; her right leg felt pinned by sheet all the way to her foot.

Wait a minute, the smell--damask rose. Could be hers. She'd started wearing cologne to work after the train incident, since it seemed to help Fraser not turn into a stammering, earlobe-tugging ninny while trying to talk with her, which in turn kept her from turning into a spluttering fool as well. She'd gone for plain, light floral scents, such as rose toilet water, which she could splash on all the parts of her person likely to produce any native scents that would have Fraser pawing the ground with one boot like a stallion confronted with a mare in heat.

Or maybe she was still in hospital, and somebody had sent flowers. Turnbull would, certainly, but he'd likely bring them himself; plus she didn't see his roughly six-feet-three-inches frame managing to cram itself into a hospital bed with anybody else, this side of considerable manipulation of the topological mechanics involved. Besides, he'd only be tossed back out by burly technicians. They didn't take to that sort of thing in hospitals. It tended to raise their insurance rates.

Roses, no wolf, likely no Marlon, no Fraser, probably no hospital...the best guess was still Turnbull, even if the lump did seem smaller than that. So, the sooner she could wake up and demonstrate her ability to take care of herself on her own, the faster she could get his overly-solicitous person out of her apartment.

Okay. Turn head on pillow. Stop as wave of head-swimmy nausea announces itself. Wait. Try again. Get head turned on pillow. Back to eyes, now. Pick one and open it. Go for the one that isn't bruised.

After some blinking and fighting of the sleep crud gluing her eyelashes together, she got one opened, but the angle she was at, and the low light level, not to mention the absence of her contact lenses--she had a vague recollection of somebody squirting saline solution in her eyes and neatly plucking the things off her corneas--rendered the view less than informative. At least, beyond informing her of the fact that she was home; those were her antique objets d'art and forest scene prints on the wall. Like all severely nearsighted people, she was used to the appearance of familiar settings when she couldn't really see them. There was an automatic translation; the vague brownish smear is the dresser, dark places on the wall, or what was certainly the wall as far as she remembered, etc. She lowered her gaze, fighting the other eye open, and blinked some more, then some more.

The lump was covered with a pastel-patterned quilt--she could tell what it was by the colors that were reflecting off of it; silk embroidery thread, possibly. She could also figure--partly via what she saw and partly by sheer likelihood of the possibility--that unless Turnbull had given in and verified the suspicions of a great many people, the satin-shimmering pink of fur-trimmed mule slippers peeping out from the lower end of the quilt let Fraser, Turnbull and Kowalski all three out of it. She dragged her gaze up again and tried moving an arm; fortunately, her right arm hadn't hit anything as sharply as the other. Her fingers crawled their slow way up, and up, and up, until she could get a hand out from under the covers and begin to inch it over sideways, toward the other pillow.

Owing to the hills and valleys of pillows, bodies and bedclothes, she couldn't see what her hand eventually contacted, but it was silky and smooth; someone's hair. Curly, but a bit too long to be Fraser's. Too soft and fine to be Marlon--uh, Kowalski's, either, no evidence of gel. A bit of spray, perhaps; the curls crushed softly under her questing fingers, but retained their shape when she pulled back--maybe a perm? She gave an internal sigh. Investigative techniques such as deductive reasoning were all very well; but in figuring out who she was sharing her bed with, they should have been overkill.

There was a sound from the being under the silk-shimmery quilt, and a stirring. The sound was a soft, sighing "Mmmm..." of contentment. Well, at least the being was comfortable. A hand--a small hand--came up and slipped soft-skinned fingers through her own, clasping, with the light compression of someone half-sleeping.

Thatcher cleared her throat and tried to make another sound, managing a fairly voluble grunt; she licked her teeth and lips, smacking them a bit to lube them up for speech. Then she said "Whomis...who...?" Okay, brain needed to decide on a question before she engaged mouth. Polite was always good, especially when you were beat up and vulnerable and somebody was snoozing next to you in your own bed. Wouldn't want to irritate anybody. "Good..." morning? Afternoon? Keep it simpler.

"...hello?" she whispered, with just enough body in the tone to make it halfway audible. Her voice was still a bit gravelly.

The lump under the quilt shifted, and the fingers enlaced with hers tightened a bit. The soft pad of a little thumb, topped by the smooth edge of a carefully tended nail, began to caress her palm in slow circles. "Mmm," the sentiment was repeated, with more certainty this time. The skin of the hand was fine-grained and smooth.

Good night. "Miss Vecchio?" she managed, though "Vecchio" came out with only about two and a half syllables. She'd better check the condition of that recemented tooth. She was pretty sure she'd banged the side of her jaw when she hit the building door.

"Mm?" More stirring from under the quilt.

One more try. "Francesca?"

"Mm."

Well, this was a fine state of affairs. She couldn't speak loudly enough to wake the silly thing up. She started to see if she could tug on the hand she held sufficiently for the job, then decided she'd better reconnoiter more thoroughly first.

She tried to remember coming home, and realized that it had involved Turnbull at least a couple of points. Somebody had carried her up in the elevator, and it wasn't Fraser--she had no particular memory of latching her mouth on to any portion of anyone's anatomy, which would seem to let him out as far as having picked her up while she was operating a lot more on instinct than anything else. And, despite his recent Florence Nightingale imitation, it wasn't Kowalski; he'd probably be lying next to her, leafing through a medical supply catalog for the latest in trusses, unless he'd fireman's-carried her, which even he could probably see was an inadvisable method of transporting a patient who'd had the living snot hammered out of her. At any rate, nobody of her acquaintance within some hundreds of miles of the area but Fraser or Turnbull would leave her with the impression of a nicely oiled Sam Browne all along one side of her--okay, she didn't know if the imprint was still there, but noticing that the things were (no shit) quite lumpy was the only completely clear recollection she had of the evening before.

Which still left her with Francesca Vecchio sound asleep next to her, for whatever reason. She remembered the young woman talking to her in hospital; a soft mezzo-soprano voice, soothing words, and equally soothing indecipherable sounds that she now realized had probably been Italian, then the soft voice snapping something particularly harsh, and the obnoxious fluorescent light over her being turned off. There were a few expletives in English and probably-Italian, and a smacking sound accompanied by a short yelp...then there was a low incandescent light coming up near the bed, a blanket being lain carefully over her and fluffed and tucked, and a hand gently stroking her hair. She must've gone out after that.

One question about her most recent memories was answered by the next sound she heard. "Breakfaaaast!" sang Turnbull, whose presence was hardly a shock. It sounded like he was just down the hall, heading for the bedrooms--

Her eyes came wide open at the sound of two throaty screams, one baritone and one that was partly inaudible to humans, but had to be a doozy from the way her sinuses were vibrating. Francesca, in a scrap of pink nighty, was sitting up on the bed, eyes huge, clutching the silk-embroidered quilt to her bosom. Turnbull, dressed in a rumpled white t-shirt and faded jeans, was in the hallway. As she watched, he moved with the quickness of a striking cobra, nabbed the knob and yanked the door shut between himself and the bedroom.

Turnbull, and Francesca, in their respective ideas of scanties, in her apartment. And she herself could barely move or speak.

To her left, from the floor, she heard a yawn, a concluding snapping of jaws, and the canine mutter "Ah. You're awake. I'd have worried, otherwise--it would take coma to have slept through that. It even woke me up."

She sighed in relief. Now everything made sense. She'd died in hospital. She was in hell.

"...she says that they only kissed, but I know her, and it's not like I blame her, not at all, but she's only seventeen, and that age is so confusing sometimes, especially if your mother is a Salieri. I mean--bend your knee a little--aunt Gina was only sixteen when her father died and nonna took her vows, and of course that turned Gina into a case, thank God ma was oldest, and I worry because Bel's always been my favorite cousin, and she's still just a baby. Aunt Gina's paranoid from her mother dragging a rosary everywhere with a crucifix that's, like, life-sized almost and then joining an order, I just know Bel's trying to get out from under all that, and sometimes it seems like a guy's just the way, and the thing is she's right, sort of, but..."

Apparently, Francesca never shut up. Also apparently, though, she could soften her voice to the point it was only a pleasant background murmur. Even her nattering--to Thatcher, at least--had a low, singsong sound to it, as though it were deliberate nattering, maybe to soothe a fussy baby, or some such thing. Frannie didn't seem to expect any more response than one would get from such a being, either. Which was fortunate, because Thatcher had no clue what the hell Francesca was talking about, and her own tenacious mind, even in its current state of semi-stupor, would otherwise have been lurching around after Francesca's soliloquy like Frankenstein's monster's movie version, trying to follow the flow of words. Sometimes her mind drove her crazy.

It was crowded with two of them in the tub, even as small as Francesca was, but it wasn't like she needed to move much; Francesca was doing all the work. After Frannie had already stripped them both naked and gotten them into the water, Thatcher thought to wonder about the necessity of that, then realized that just because Turnbull could bathe her sitting on the floor outside the tub--and, on one exceedingly unfortunate occasion that they both would literally rather die than tell anyone else about, had done so--Francesca couldn't; she wasn't anywhere near tall enough.

Which Thatcher should have thought of. That occasion--in an odd multiplicity of aid-rendering--had also required her to get Turnbull cleaned up, but it was a good thing he'd been able to help, because he was too damn big to reach all of otherwise, at least without leaning too far over the edge and falling on her face in the water. She'd thought of mentioning to Francesca that Turnbull might as well handle this, since sex had firmly established itself as an utter non-issue between the two of them (she suspected sex was an utter non-issue with Turnbull in any event), and they'd seen each other naked already anyway; but Turnbull had scurried around so, being helpful, getting Francesca towels and general such bathing implements, that even in her debilitated condition she could see he was happy to have someone present willing to take over what was probably, to him, a very mysterious and complex task. Last time, he'd seemed to be approaching it similar to the way he'd wash a horse--soaping from the top down, blasting the suds off with the shower-massager hose, and toweling her dry with a practiced and near-violent enthusiasm. Under the circumstances, it had been better than nothing, but it'd left her feeling somewhat dazed and incomplete, like being run over by a bath.

Not so with Francesca. The bathroom, in Thatcher's bleary nearsightedness, was almost unrecognizable. It was like being inside a multipastel taffeta puffball, lit only by a muted pink glow from the now-draped window, and the soft golden flickering of about a half-dozen scented candles, each flame surrounded by a slowly drifting, rotating nebula of candlelit humidity. Watching the mist move was fascinating, at least when you were on drugs and without twenty-twenty vision.

"...I think we can rinse it now, sorry if you don't use depilatory usually--I don't, it makes me itch, but when I'm sick I hate it if I can't shave, makes you feel so much more slept-in, but I didn't want to give you razor burn or anything...there we go..."

Thatcher thought it had to be some kind of testament to the soothing powers of opiate and benzodiazepine medication that she was finding having her armpits rinsed with a bath tuffy to be so soothing. Though the coincidence of the warm water running softly over her breast probably wasn't a coincidence, with respect to the soothing part. Men never understood that having your tits caressed very gently could, rather than getting you heated up, relax you all over, if you were relaxed about the situation to begin with; done just right, it could pretty much put you to sleep. She idly noticed that Francesca's breasts were small and conical, quite complimentary for her small build, and gravity didn't seem to have made itself felt at all there yet. Large nipples, velvety dark pink...

Hold it.

Checking out Francesca's tits--even without benefit of corrective lenses--was one thing; but the images she was getting were beyond the pale. Francesca is grateful and helping me out, Thatcher reminded herself. Besides, who was she, anyway, the Succubus of Toronto? Even Fraser would have to catwalk dance in his underwear to get her motor running at the moment.

"Come on, let's get standing up, so I can rinse you a little better..." Frannie was messing with the knobs, switching the water flow from the tub spigot to the shower. Then she went to one knee on the no-skid tub mat and lifted Thatcher from the hips and the wide of her back, across the shoulder blades, so she was--using the term loosely--sitting. "There you go, okay, little water here, tilt your head back...I'd like to get you standing. If I hold onto you, can you put your foot on the edge of the tub?"

For some reason, Thatcher was getting a sense of deja vu. She wondered if it was the drugs.

"Okay, you can come in now," Francesca suddenly said, and Thatcher blinked at the odd segue--come in from where?--and then she realized that there was a towel wrapped around her. In trying to put together how she'd gotten from sort of lying in the tub to leaning on the tiled wall with a towel on, however, she could recall only a dream-sequence-like series of events--small hands and a bath sponge moving on her skin, the gentle cascading of warm water down her body, and the murmur of Francesca's voice, with the occasional brush of shoulder or leg or face against her here and there, moving along with the flow of words, as the other woman reached around, rinsing her.

Now, though, larger and by-this-time-familiar hands were feeling around at her body for a moment--for lumps, she supposed, so as not to put weight on them--and then she was being lifted. She groped back toward the lifter, finding a flannel-clad neck with shoulders that she could put her arm around, and then she heard--and felt, a low vibration through his chest--Turnbull saying softly "Here we go, sir, back to bed with you, Miss Vecchio's going to dry you off...there we are." She let her arm slither back off him as he lowered her to a soft, terrycloth-padded surface. Good of them to think of towels, considering the Pratesi sheets. Francesca had probably noticed. Hell, Turnbull would definitely notice. Or maybe they just wanted to save themselves the trouble of changing them for dry ones after she was no longer sopping wet.

"Tell me if I hurt anything." Gentle, circular swabbing with a towel that must've been made of some analog of cashmere, the thing was so soft...damn. These must be some good drugs.

Frannie was continuing "I'll be careful, but you're really, you know, bruised and everything. Fraser said it was a good thing you folded up fast and hit the rail on your ribs instead of falling right over past it when you landed on the *son*ofa--the jerk who grabbed me, plus you were about half-out, so you were all relaxed until right when you hit the stairs. I can't believe nothing's broken, I...still can't believe you did that, with your head all messed up, and that fall could've killed you if you hit wrong...Turnbull says you know how to fall, but frankly I don't see how there could be a good way or a bad way to fall, God knows I've never had time when I fall to worry about how. What, you were gonna fall bad? How? Sideways? Falling--" Francesca shrugged and snorted a laugh, continuing "--you just fall, you pretty much have a date with down, right?"

From somewhere near mattress-height, Thatcher heard the wolf say "That girl has a crush on you, you know."

She managed to blink her eyes a few times and get them open. Frannie's wide, long-lashed eyes blinked back at her. "Hi," Frannie said, with a small, nervous-looking smile. "Um...you're awake? You've been a little out of it."

Great, she couldn't remember leaving consciousness. Of course, maybe she hadn't, entirely--maybe it was memory dropout. Benzodiazepines were a nuisance, worse than pain meds. They'd been foisted upon her, or rather on her two human guardians, by the doctor who'd been present for a couple of her attempts to escape the hospital. Said doctor'd told Francesca to make sure Thatcher took them, to keep her too tranked to fight the pain meds and get up; but it was Turnbull who'd been administering them to her. He knew how to pill both horses and dogs, and, apparently, as with the bathing procedure, didn't see why humans should be much different. He might have been right. He'd sneak up, and thewholethingwouldbeover so fast all she'd actually see would be a smiling Frannie holding a glass of cool water for her, to get the damned lump in her esophagus all the way down.

She'd thought she had a bone to pick with the wolf about it all; if she couldn't trust him to keep an eye on Turnbull, they were all in trouble...then she realized that the wolf and Turnbull were in league, at least on that point. She was surrounded by turncoats. And there was a pun in that sentence somewhere and if she didn't think about something else fast, she was gonna realize what it was.

Angling her gaze forward and down, she saw that one, she was no longer lying on towels; two, she was dry and wearing only a pair of cotton shorts and a nightshirt that was rucked up under her arms to expose her middle; and three, Frannie was now in a nightgown--maybe the same one she'd been sleeping in--holding a folded wet washcloth, and there was a mixing bowl of water with ice in it in her other hand. Thatcher was also lying on a heating pad, which was probably why she was comfortably warm even in this state of undress. The hospital had no doubt given instructions about the use of heat and cold in these circumstances, and Turnbull would have known about their proper application, anyway. The scented candles were in here now, as were the window drapes, one set in rose, the other a pale yellow.

"Back with us again, are you?" Diefenbaker said. "Don't worry. Nothing interesting happened while you were gone, except that Francesca just kissed the bruises across your ribs."

"Kissed me?" she wondered, almost inaudibly.

"Very carefully, to give her credit, but I think it's probably what brought you back to the here and--uh, oh. She heard you."

Francesca's wide eyes had gotten even wider. "I--" she dropped the washcloth in the water, and, smiling nervously, began to twist at a thin lock of her hair, down by the nape of her neck, shrugging with that shoulder and otherwise signaling a hard veer-off as she spoke. "Uh, I thought you were--I didn't, um, just a make-it-better. Thing. Kiss. Kisses. A few. I--"

"She's panicking," Dief noted helpfully. "Just FYI."

"--better get Turnbull, you probably want to, probably need to, um--"

"Felt nice," Thatcher whispered, her barely-open eyes turned now toward Francesca.

The bed shuddered a bit, due to Frannie nearly discombobulating herself via aborting, in mid-launch, a bolt from the room. "...nice?" Frannie's voice was very, very soft.

"Yes," Thatcher managed to murmur back, and let her eyes close again. If the wolf was going to be giving her updates, might as well take advantage. It wasn't like she could see anything well enough to matter anyway.

Dief added "Until a few minutes ago, she'd been sitting in the floor with me, to keep from jostling the mattress. She's been sponging your lumps for about half an hour."

Never mind about Francesca and my lumps, she thought, but it wasn't worth saying. "Franssesca," she murmured.

Frannie blinked, taking a moment to switch from panicked-chatter mode to someone's-trying-to-talk-to-me mode. "Yeah, um, yeah? Anything, is there something I can, ah, do for you? Well, obviously, you want me to do something, that is why I'm here--"

"Pleasthe shuth up, Franssesca."

Frannie's face fell a bit. "Oh. Oh...well, right. Um..." she looked away, picking at a thread that was coming lose from her quilt. "I...understand, really, it's all right, I mean it, I know I can just, you know, go on, sometimes, and you want to rest and I'm--"

Thatcher managed to catch Frannie's wrist, halting the younger woman's attempts to begin the process of getting off of the bed. "Don' leave."

"Uh...okay." Frannie settled herself again. "So...what did you, um, need me to do?"

And uh, good point. How about this. "Kiss me."

Frannie was frozen, her long-lashed eyes saucerlike. "Ahchm," she managed after a moment, swallowed after the throat clearing, and said "You mean, like just now, when I..."

"Nothe bruises." Thatcher reached up and rested the tip of her forefinger on her own lower lip. "Kisth."

"You...want me to kiss you on...you want me to, to--oh, you poor--you must need...reassuring, like the time my cousin Lucia fell down the stairs and it was just so boring being laid up for weeks and--"

"Shuth up. Kisth."

Francesca leaned back down on the elbow she'd been propped on when she'd started to get up, eyes still huge, fixed on Thatcher's. "I might hurt you," she said. "I know, well, a little, how it feels to want some, you know, snuggling...but I might hurt you."

"No, you won'. Tooth glued back in, lipth fine. Do soft. Kiss."

Francesca was still another moment, then said "Are you...do you...you know. With? Um, women? Or--" she shook her head quickly with a rolled-eyes expression at her own question, "--of course, I'm sorry, I'm laughing, see how funny that is? You're just needing a little--I'm such a...I mean, you just want--"

"You..." Thatcher blinked dazedly herself, "...to kiss me. Okay?" What was she gonna have to do, ax it out of a rock in cuneiform and beat Francesca over the head with it?

"Um...yeah, okay. Yeah," Francesca said, with a small, slightly nervous smile. She leaned closer, turning her wrist to slip her right palm under the right side of Thatcher's face, supporting it so Thatcher wouldn't have to try to lift her head, then lowered her own head and brushed her lips gently over Thatcher's. There was a light, sweet pressure, and a little soft-moist sound when they separated.

Frannie leaned back a little, and Thatcher's eyes closed; the tip of her tongue came out to trace the taste of Francesca's cocoa butter lip balm. Not exactly a big-deal kiss, only about a three on the Mohs kiss scale, but different from the men she'd kissed, even that lightly. Francesca's lips were so full and soft, velvety, like when they'd been in the tub and Thatcher'd imagined the feel of...woops. Watch those hands, Meg. She realized she'd reached for Frannie with her left hand when she felt skin that, apparently, wasn't her own. She opened her eyes; Frannie's shoulder. It was a small shoulder, left bare by the spaghetti strap of her gossamer pink nightie. A little shoulder. A shoulder smaller than Thatcher's, smaller than anyone's she'd had any reason to touch more than perfunctorily since she'd been grown. But it was strong--she could feel the movement of the strands of the medial deltoid under the fine skin beneath her fingers. Little and slim did not necessarily equal weak. Thatcher had always had excellent reason to know that for herself. "Nice," she whispered.

Frannie cleared her throat and gestured vaguely with her free hand, the right one, fingers returning to that habitual twisting of the curls at her neck, as she asked "You mean, the, the, um kiss, or..." she made a half-finished tilt of her head toward her own shoulder. "I'm sorry, dumb question, hey, I don't know what's getting into--"

"You. Nice."

"Oh, that--of course I--I mean, you got hurt so bad, to save me. I'd be a pig, my Gaaahd, not to even stay with you to, to help, even if you've got Turnbull--he's sweet and all, but still, he's, well, Turnbull, and you could've landed wrong because you were still so messed up when you jumped and you did that for me and--I'm babbling, sorry, just tell me to shut up, I know you'd have done the same thing no matter who it was, I'm just--it's nothing, never mind--"

Thatcher knew that Frannie was (for all practical purposes) in bed with her for utilitarian reasons, and she also knew she was on a combination of opiates and benzodiazepines, which was enough to put anyone in orbit, but surely the drugs couldn't make Frannie so appealing. Opiates and benzos could, in fact, make you forget you'd ever had anything called a...what was it again? Sex drive? They couldn't make Thatcher want to know how it would feel to...

Frannie smelled sweet, roses, apples, different from anyone she'd ever...anything...hell, she couldn't string a whole concept together right, forget formulating it in English.

If it was the drugs, fuck it, let it be. Maybe Frannie was doing what she was doing--like kissing Thatcher multiple times just beneath her breasts and other such--because of her crush. Maybe she was doing it out of gratitude. Then again, that was an unusually intimate gesture to use as a thank-you.

Those thoughts didn't make her feel very good--either the "I'm using her" aspect or the "It's not me, it's just that she's grateful" aspect--but frankly, she could never believe anyone in the condition she was in, much less herself, would use it to try to get a little. And, looking back over their previous--admittedly intermittent--work-related relationship, Francesca had seemed like an airhead sometimes--okay, a lot of times, but Thatcher suspected it was more a matter of where her interests lay than any actual lack of intelligence. Frannie was also a bit of a trouser-chaser; but she clearly had some standards, even beyond Fraser, and Thatcher didn't think she'd bend them for this. Frannie had too much pride, which was demonstrated, as one example, in the move that had distracted Whiting long enough for Thatcher to make her own move.

Speaking of which. She rattled the little shoulder a tiny bit. "Kiss me," she managed fairly clearly, dismissing the imploring note in her own voice.

"Um, Meg, you're...hurt, and with the medication, and..."

"Misth Vecchio, didn'th thay 'blow me'. Said 'kisth me'. Won' hurt 'nythin', right?"

A startled bark of laughter escaped Francesca's mouth, and the swift movement of her hand to cover it made the mattress flex a little, but so little that it didn't change Thatcher's current level of comfort, which was usually at least some problem when sharing a bed with a man, if she wasn't feeling so great. Men were so damn big.

"Um--f'you want to," she amended her request softly.

Francesca went still, looked sideways a moment, then met Thatcher's eyes. She moved closer, lifted the other woman's head by the uninjured cheek again, and pressed their lips together more firmly this time, but still careful--several small kisses, one, then another as Thatcher's mouth followed Frannie's when the latter tried to pull back, then another into which Frannie pressed a little more concentration, a little more participation by the rest of her body, bringing them closer together...sweet, clinging kisses, moist and gentle.

As Frannie finally pulled away, her eyes were large again, and Thatcher realized that the hand touching Francesca's shoulder had moved down to the soft lace and silky gossamer of the portion of the gown that covered Frannie's right breast; cupping and caressing, thumb-stroking.

Frannie's eyes closed, her mouth opened a little, lips shining softly in the light of the aromatherapy candles. A flicker of pink tongue appeared as Frannie tasted her own lips, too, apparently for whatever Thatcher might be tasting like at the moment. Fluoride mouthwash and Chapstick, most likely, Thatcher thought with a dull sense of high-school letdown. Stupid pills...

"You like that, too," Frannie whispered, relaxing back to the pillow while lifting a hand to hold Thatcher's against her breast. "You do it just like...just like someone who'd know." She smiled, rolling her eyes briefly at herself in a "Gahd, aren't I just Albert Steinbeck" expression, then looked down shyly at their hands, hers resting lightly on Thatcher's, more feeling its movements than pressing down on it; and at Thatcher's hand, below her own, lightly caressing the soft mass. She smiled again, a little abashed, her cheeks pinked just a tiny bit...hard to see in the ambient, colored light, but still, she seemed pleased, at least more that than embarrassed.

Thatcher smiled, too, as she continued the careful petting, stroking gently around and over, supporting. "Men think it always meanth sex, don' they?" she whispered. Frannie was relaxing all over now, and Thatcher managed to get her other arm out from under herself and give Frannie's other breast a warm place to unwind, too. Her thumbs stroked the nipples through satin lace again and again, but the velvety aureoles never really hardened; it was so gentle that they, and Frannie, remained deliciously relaxed, though she sort of flexed and purred and presented for more petting, like a cat having its head scratched.

Frannie's eyes opened again after a few moments, and she smiled. "You always liked this? Like, with your best friend when you were a teenager and like that?"

"Mm," Thatcher said, inflecting the chemically numbed sound to indicate agreement.

"Doing it to her, or her doing it to you?"

"Both," Thatcher whispered.

"Then I'll do you," Frannie said, and, neat and sweet, she lifted her hands to Thatcher's cotton nightshirt, slid them easily under it, and settled on the soft, smooth-skinned swells of coolish flesh. They got warmer with the touch.

Thatcher moaned lightly, with a contented sigh. "Misth...um--"

"You're holding my tits. Call me Frannie," Francesca grinned, and they both giggled softly, Frannie not apologizing with any protests of silliness this time.

"Frannie," Thatcher said, trying out the word, smiling. "Feel free to share my duvet and linens, Frannie."

"Doovay?"

"Get undher the coverth with me," Thatcher clarified (sort of), reluctantly withdrawing her hands, and then she felt Frannie's withdrawn just as reluctantly, but with a little parting caress that made her close her eyes with a murmur of pleasure. Then Frannie was moving, sitting up, the silk-embroidered quilt sliding in a smooth shimmer off her body. Thatcher added, as Frannie slipped off the bed to tug the covers loose on her side, "...an' we could...if you want to, if you...help me, I can't thit up too well..." she tugged a little at her nightshirt in illustration.

Frannie was completely still a moment, her eyes large, but then she was smiling again. She pulled off the nightie and laid it at the foot of the bed, and the candlelight shone like white gold on her body, with its slight, smooth curves and angles.

"Stho...God, so pretty," Thatcher whispered, barely realizing she'd spoken. She hadn't allowed the beauty of another woman to fill and color her thoughts like this for a very long time.

Frannie smiled shyly at the floor. "The pills are talking again, aren't they," she murmured, but she took a deep breath and, to Thatcher's mild surprise, slid her underpants off, too.

"To...a degree," Thatcher murmured, "I probably wouldn't've thaid that without them...but I agree with wha' they're saying." Frannie was beautiful, such a tiny thing, so smooth and perfect, like a miniature in ivory, her eyes a deep, deep amber, shining out from each side of her petite-but-proud nose.

Still with a bashful smile, Frannie wordlessly offered to get Thatcher's nightshirt off, and Thatcher tried to cooperate as Frannie slowly, carefully worked it over her head and off. All Thatcher had to do for the underpants part was lift her butt for a moment, which caught at her rib muscles, but she didn't let the discomfort show, lest it concern Frannie. She managed not to giggle as Frannie slid the soft blue bikinis down her legs, diving under the covers to get them over her feet. Her fingers left warm paths on Thatcher's legs all the way down...and then all the way back up...and then Frannie was throwing the underwear toward the closet and the clothes hamper. "Turnbull will be more than happy to wash those for you," she smiled.

"Probably ecstatic," Thatcher said, smiling a smile designed not to strain anything lumpy or odd-colored. "He will be."

"Here..."

"Ow--"

"Sorry, sorry--is this better?"

"Move your--there, like that...there." Thatcher rested her face in the crook of Frannie's neck and inhaled the faint scent of apple blossoms. "You sthmell good." Frannie smelled like...a real dried-apple sachet--no, like a real apple, when you bit into it after it'd been hanging on the tree in the sun...no, closer--it smelled like the woman who was biting into the apple.

"You feel good," Frannie barely whispered, then snorted at herself again and said "No, I don't mean that like, you feel good, obviously you feel like crap, I meant--"

"Frannie."

"Yeah?" Frannie asked in a small voice.

"Shuth up." Thatcher slid her hands lightly up the skin of Frannie's ribs and cupped her breasts softly again.

Frannie made a small sound that seemed to be part startlement and part an inverted kind of snort, probably amusement; then she took a slightly shaky breath and whispered "Okay." Her hands moved in slow patterns on Thatcher's skin. With a fingertip touch to the chin, she lifted Thatcher's head enough to touch their lips together. Thatcher wondered vaguely why the taste of apples wasn't stronger.

"So," Frannie murmured. "You've, ahm...you've got one of those...those red Mountie dress uniforms, right, with the...with the belt and all...?"

"Dress uniforms. Yeth, theveral. They tend to come to grief around here."

"I can believe that," Frannie muttered. "Why do you keep them, though? I thought you could...you know, go nifty, dress like normal people."

"Mufti," Thatcher corrected her absently.

"Huh?" Frannie said, and Thatcher realized that Frannie thought Thatcher'd said something unintelligible. The thought made her smile, and she winced a little and was careful of the relevant side of her face. "Are you okay?" Frannie asked.

"Yes," Thatcher said. "I keep them because I do wear them every now and then, there are special functions, of course...and...sometimes, by preference."

"You're...the uniforms are really...bright. And the..." Frannie gave a careful little wiggle, "...boots, you know...and the belt, with the shoulder strap? That Fraser told me the name of once? But...I was distracted."

"By Fraser?" Thatcher wondered, half-smiling, opening her eyes so the other woman would know Thatcher didn't hold an attraction to Fraser against her. Though there were some other things she'd like to hold against--hell, she was getting worse than the dog.

Looking embarrassed by the Fraser reference, Frannie tilted her head, eyes sliding sideways, and she stiffened a little; Thatcher began to lightly massage the breast she was holding.

"Ohhh..." Frannie more sighed, eyes closing. "Yeah. We were, um, helping Ray, and we were in a closet, and he had his pants...um...he was...hiding these files...oh, boy, that feels...anyway, he's pretty...um..."

"...pretty," Thatcher finished for her. "He does wind up with a lot of skin exposed for any reason but that one, doesn't he? Don't worry about it. I have the same problem with him. Only I think ours is worse. Ith's like, we'ffe got to...the hell with it, like we've got to fuck immediately or die."

Rather than leaning back and looking appalled, Frannie's mouth twisted in a sarcastic, remembering expression and said "I've had those. Thank God they stopped when I was...well, younger. You still get it?"

"Fraser's the only case I've had," Thatcher sighed back. "So naturally he was assigned as my aide and post second officer. The universe is a truly perverse place."

Frannie's eyes widened. Evidently she wasn't expecting such a declasse word from Thatcher.

It took everything Thatcher had not to laugh. "That word means...deliberately contrary. Going against the current, against what would be easy or kind or understandable, just for the sheer hell of doing it."

"Oh. Yeah. I guess it is...I mean, I could hardly lie here now and deny it." They both giggled quietly, and Frannie said "I was just...the uniforms...they're really...there's just something about them, you know? That...that makes the blood stir, makes the sap rise, makes the...the..." Frannie's words had slowed, lowered in tone as they increased in emphasis, and she was wriggling a little in the hip region as though trying to express something, but she also seemed unaware she was doing it, gazing into space through slitted eyes, forehead tightening as she moved her plump lips thoughtfully, forming them into almost-words, and her lips were still shimmering a soft-velvet sort of shine, like muted satin.

And oh, boy, that was it, Thatcher rolled up and closer, applying herself to Frannie and wriggling, too--slightly enough, gently enough, she didn't want to end up hurting anything and scream in Francesca's ear or something--so that their contact wasn't loose or precarious any longer. They tangled their legs and got close, there, sister; oh yeah, close.

"I like it when, um, when the sap rises," Thatcher breathed.

"Color of the uniform," Frannie smiled a little, her tongue tickling Thatcher's lower lip.

Thatcher smiled and said "Some kinds of tree, yes...yeah...careful...okay...oh, you feel good--"

"Turnbull thinks that the two of you look very beautiful," Dief cheerfully contributed, and Thatcher, too immobilized to rip into whatever appropriate sort of lightning-eyed Monsoon Inspector show seemed best for such a situation, heard Turnbull's voice--but it was coming through what sounded like the closed door.

"Lunch is ready, sir, Miss Vecchio," he said softly, "but it's a nice light fruit and cream cheese crepe; they can wait in the refrigerator a while for the finishing touches. Shall I bring it in, or would you rather--"

Menstruating Christ on a pogo stick. "Umthm..."

"We'll eat later," Francesca said. "I think we'd maybe like to talk a little, and then...sleep. Make it...two o'clock."

"Sir?"

Dief admonished Thatcher, "Say something, you overmedicated jackass, he'll never leave until you tell him yes or no."

Muttering under her breath about somebody around here needing a worming, Thatcher roused herself to the point of speech, managing "That would be fine, Turnbull. Thank you for...thank you."

"No problem at all, sir. Just send Diefenbaker if you need anything." She heard the soft sound of his big feet moving off down the carpeted hall.

"I think I really like him," Francesca said, sounding neither lascivious nor sarcastic. More puzzled.

"I know what you mean," Thatcher said. "I think I really like him, too. It's a hell of a thing. And...I think I really like you. Really."

She had felt, at first, like this was little more than a girl's session, made more intimate by Francesca's caring for her and such; but she was beginning to figure out that that part had only been the jumpstart neither of them had been aware would, if it occurred, take them a lot farther than "girls' session".

"Ohh," Frannie's voice shivered in a high, faint whisper, and her eyes were huge as she kissed Thatcher's lips carefully, tentatively--wanting, but nervous, always letting Thatcher set the speed and intensity; so Thatcher decided to set up some speed and intensity.

Then she was gobsmacked as Frannie did substantially more than just pick up the ball. Frannie was suddenly kissing Thatcher with passion and heat and moaning and some drool because Thatcher's face hadn't quite come back all the way from the Lidocaine yet and it was a bit clumsy, Thatcher knew it was, she knew Frannie knew it was, but it was one of the most heartfelt kisses she had ever shared with anyone at all, one of the friendliest kisses, intense friendliness, and this moment suddenly became one of the most heartfelt moments in all her life and at that moment, if her mouth hadn't been busy, she would have told Frannie she loved her, loved her, loved her so much that she wished Frannie could shrink at will to a size that Thatcher could carry in her pocket all day and never have to be away from this warmth and friendliness and love (GEEZ these drugs were serious) and could she grab Thatcher a Kleenex and she'd never felt anything quite like this about anyone in her life to date and could Frannie stop leaning her weight-bearing arm on the mattress quite so close to Thatcher's ribs and oh, thank you, Francesca had moved to ease the strain anyway, because she was watching, paying attention so Thatcher would be comfortable, and now here came that Kleenex and a whispered "sorry about that--" which was slipped in so quick and quiet Thatcher didn't have time to protest that the apology wasn't needed, and Francesca was kissing her again...

"Let me..." Frannie gently maneuvered them so that she was on top, straddling Thatcher. She was smiling a cat-and-canary smile. "Don't want you to have to do so much work." She lowered herself, covering Thatcher's body with her own, carefully...all-over carefully. The feel of Frannie's breasts sliding against her own was indescribable--not because she was beyond describing it, she simply wouldn't have been able to think of anything to compare it to, to make anyone who hadn't felt such a thing understand. Frannie licked slowly up the side of Thatcher's neck, soft little kitten-licks that almost--but didn't quite--tickle. The parts of Thatcher that were capable of it shivered. "Have you...been with...many..."

"It's all right to ask, Frannie," Thatcher said. "The day and age, after all. Besideth, from you, I don't mind. I'm not sure why. Huh. Anyway...very, very rarely. Like you, when I was younger--mostly just inebriated...well, messing around, like...it seemed you and I were going to do..."

Frannie seemed taken aback. Her expression fell a little, the smiling lift of the smooth skin over her cheekbones falling a bit. "Is that...what you wanted? Because, I mean, I can...you know...it's just..."

"What I want is to do this until I die of starvation. As much as you want. Of anything. It's so easy with (youwithyouwithyou)...women, isn't it?"

Frannie smiled again, making Thatcher smile too, and nuzzled Thatcher's neck, letting her lips drift down to caress side to side, all along her collarbone. "Yeah. It is. Last time...I was young, I was a kid, you can get away with things, at least in my family, no matter how much Ma invokes various saints and like that, because for one thing, fooling around with other girls, they aren't watching for that--and if you've got a reputation for being a handful anyway, well...these days, I'm ready to just...worry about that when it comes up, if it does. And you...you're different...you even understand about Fraser."

Thatcher, smiling in a wash of simple pleasure as Francesca's licking-moist lips stroked down to the breast Frannie was cradling in one hand, weight on the other elbow, said "I think I know what you mean. For my part...it's difficult, in...oh--" she had to pant lightly for a moment, then continued "--the organization, being a member of the...mm...RCMP--that means the most thing...I mean, the biggest thing...I mean..."

"It's okay," she whispered. "I know what you mean. And probably also that...you'll only worry, if it turns out you need to worry," Francesca finished for her, making Thatcher moan softly as Frannie spoke against the lightly crinkling nipple her lips rested against. "But hey, 'til then..." Frannie moved her attention to Thatcher's other breast, still cradling the left one, letting her small fingers make a soft, undulating motion to gently work the mass against her thumb at the other side.

Minutes passed as they touched, kissed, stroked...Thatcher finally managed "I've never had anyone...spend so long..."

Francesca was licking all around each breast, up the sternum, and back around, using the side and bottom of her tongue easily. "Nnng?"

"...without...oh..."

"Nn?"

"Trying to speed things up."

"Want me to?" Frannie wondered, with an elfin smile, after licking a shining drop from her lower lip.

"I'd be an idiot to try to tell you anything, even that, you know what you're doing too well...I haven't ever felt this good, while, while I'm feeling this..."

"Bad?"

"Well, yes. Dragged through a genuine wringer, ever. Oh..." She closed her eyes and lifted her hands, stroked Francesca's cheeks, fingertip-stroked the shells of her ears, brushed her thumbs along smooth, arched eyebrows, slid her fingers with a slow, satisfying luxurience through the curls of her hair, finally opened her eyes as she traced her thumbs, barely, faintly, along the edges of Francesca's lips; Frannie's eyes closed, and she shivered all over, with a soft, involuntary susurration of breath.

The huge dark-amber eyes opened, and Francesca said determinedly "I wanna speed things up."

"I wanna do what you wanna do," Thatcher panted, eyes riveted to Frannie's. "Yes, let's...speed things up--any...way you want?"

"I want what you want," Frannie purred, not sounding teasing, not coquettish, just aroused.

"Move up," Thatcher murmured, her voice practically dripping, and Frannie moved, asking softly "How far?"

The smile as Frannie asked, and what Frannie obviously meant, made Thatcher moan very softly, but she reached up as soon as Frannie's breasts were level with her face and caressed them; she got a moan in response, even though, in the state she was in, all she could do was some gentle mouthing and licking, caressing with her hands, while her mouth just did whatever it wanted, engulfing or licking or light, unpainful biting or nuzzling or anything, Thatcher was on autopilot, and Frannie's whimpers let her know she wasn't the only one having such a bye-bye-mind experience. This was the kind of thing that handled itself, so that all anybody had to do was enjoy.

Frannie was just barely moving now, a little side-to-side rocking rhythm with her shoulders and upper body, resting on her elbows with her hands combing gently through Thatcher's hair; it was rather like dancing. One and two and back and forth, slooooow largo, and you dance divinely, Miss Vecchio, and may I say, if it's not too forward, that your skin is softer than a baby's ass, and you have the tits of a goddess? Thatcher clamped onto a nipple and started doing her level best to give it the most loving and heartfelt treatment any nipple in the history of nipples had ever gotten, her hands caressing skin, anything she could reach, and Francesca was small enough that even this bad off, Thatcher didn't have to work much to reach a whole lot of Frannie--

"I'm gonna," Frannie whimpered, "oh God, you haven't even and I'm gonna, I'm gonna--aah!" Frannie almost screamed and pulled back and away, rolling to one side a little, bumping the side of Thatcher's ribs and instantly saying "Sorry, oh, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to hurt--I was just--I didn't want to, not yet--and I just about--oh, God, where's that water--" she fumbled at the nighttable on her side for a glass of cold water that up until recently'd had ice in it.

But she did it with one arm, still on her back near Thatcher, which was good, because Thatcher had apparently developed an addiction to Frannie's tits, and her hands had immediately sought them out when Frannie toppled over to the other side of the bed. Tiny, Frannie's waist was so tiny, her hips were so tiny, yet she was so firm and soft and rounded all over, perfect, perfect tiny little thing, perfect little Frannie. And yeah, she knew that if she weren't on drugs she'd be bazooka-barfing with the sugar overdose at the things she was thinking, but so what. Plenty of time to heave up later.

"HngOHhh," Frannie responded to this, her back arching, her head shaking. "Not yet--"

"Why not? We can take it into as many extra rounds we feel like."

"Oh--uh, yeah, yeah...men, kinda...gotta stop when they're like done and...I haven't...another girl...long time oh my god--" with a dancer-smooth undulation of her lithe body, she was back over Thatcher, but instead of bringing her tits level with Thatcher's face, she had her own mouth on Thatcher's left breast, moaning softly as she held the nip in her lips, stroking and flicking the hardened tip with her tongue. Thatcher's turn to groan.

"You like blood flowers?"

"Huh?" Thatcher said, then managed to get a few more of her neurons firing in a coordinated fashion and realized what Francesca meant, thought that was the purplest euphemism she'd ever heard for hickey, and decided to give a shit later. "Hickeys?"

"I can't remember...mmm..." she paused to lick and nuzzle some more, her body moving with smooth-but-intensifying animation over Thatcher's, "...who called them that...someone I knew..."

"Sthow me," Thatcher begged, in a voice containing no pride whatsoever. Well, she'd care later, while she was giving a shit about the other thing. Get it all over with in one session.

"If you don't need anything more from me for a bit, I'll just go into the closet and hump the laundry hamper," Dief said. "All right?"

"Jus' don' knock it over. Turnbull'd bitch."

"Mng?" Frannie wondered, talking with her mouth full.

"Nothing, Frannie, nothing, jus'...nnnggohhhhh..."

The front door opened, and Fraser and Ray peered in cautiously. "Inspector?" Fraser said.

"Constable Fraser," came Turnbull's voice. He was on the couch, dressed in flannel and jeans, surrounded by what had to be Thatcher's entire wardrobe. "I'm just doing a bit of mending and sorting. Come in. I trust your day is going swimmingly."

"We trust yours is, too," Ray said, coming in behind Fraser. "She being good for you?"

"Oh, yes. I don't think I've ever seen the inspector in a more relaxed mood."

"You would if you'd seen her the other night sayin' nothing but 'huh?' for a few hours," Ray said. "Guess gettin' the crap knocked out of you is sort of an icebreaker thing for some people."

Fraser gave him a sideways look. "If a rather extreme reach."

"Well yeah."

"Is she feeling well enough for us to speak with her?" Fraser wondered. "I know she'd be comforted by a report that all's quiet and going well."

"You don't want to give her a report right now," said Dief, emerging from the hall. "She's busy."

"Busy?" Fraser said, his brows drawing together. "The last time I saw her she could barely speak."

"She's still not talking that well. Y'know, I thought it was mostly the men of your species who were the horny sons-of-mothers. She's fighting two different kinds of moodkilling drug and still. Schist."

Turnbull's eyes got big and he made an rather odd face, flushing a bit pink and turning back toward the Discovery Channel to hide it, muffling a squeak with one big hand.

"What's that mean?" Ray said.

"Uh, would the two of you care to join us for lunch? Nothing at all to throw together two more crepes," Turnbull said, getting up. His eyes were too wide and his lips were twitching suspiciously.

"That won't be--"

"Yeah, sure," Ray cut Fraser off. "Crepe sounds good."

Turnbull scuttled for the kitchen, muffling another squeak with his hand.

"Think I'll canvas a snack," Dief said, following right on his heels.

"Dief!" Fraser said, but Dief ignored it.

Fraser sighed and rolled his eyes, entering the place behind Ray; he sat down on the love seat, where Meg's uniform stuff was piled. He picked up her Sam Browne and the oil, his hands moving over the leather reflexively as he started in with the care and feeding of a big-ass belt. "Hungry, Ray?" he wondered dryly.

Ray grinned, propping himself against the back of the couch. He was gazing at the TV, which was now showing a documentary on extremely deepwater creatures, things that looked more like glowing glass spheres and bells than living animals. "Check that out. That thing's actually alive. How the hell do you get around with no face? And glowing?"

"Ray," Fraser said, his voice dropping a bit.

Ray chuckled. "Hey, it's lunchtime."

"What the inspector is busy with is none of our business."

"Oh, I don't know. I mean, I like to think me and Meg have gotten friendly. You guys are friendly, right?"

"She's my commanding officer," Fraser growled.

"Yeah, like I said, friendly. So I think that since we're all friendly here, and friends care about each other, it might be a good idea to hang around a little while and see if she needs any help. We don't wanna let her down, right? She's all beat up and everything? Hey, a friend in need--"

"--is managing quite well, for the moment, without Turnbull's help or Diefenbaker's; so I doubt there's anything either of us could do for her."

"Never know."

"The hell I don't."

"Now, now. Language."

Fraser sighed in long-suffering and turned his attention to the belt he was holding.

"Lunchtime," said Turnbull, coming back out into the front room carrying plates. "Anything to drink for either of you?"

There was the sound of a door opening, and muffled giggles. Frannie came trotting past, noticed the populated state of the room, and pulled the short satin robe she was wearing more securely closed. "Oh, ahm...hi." She grinned a slightly strained grinned for a second, then turned and zipped into the kitchen and back out again, carrying a recently-used can of whipped cream. She headed back down the hall.

Turnbull squeaked again, and the piles of whipped cream on the two plates-O-crepe he was holding shivered a bit. There was the sound of a door opening and closing, once again accompanied by muffled giggles.

Fraser ran a hand over his face in surrender, shaking his head. "I'll have a bottled water, Turnbull."

"Sounds good," Ray joined in.

"Coming right up," Turnbull said, handing them the plates and escaping back into the kitchen.

"These are good," Ray opined, after swallowing.

"Hey, T made 'em," Dief said semi-intelligibly, coming back in with a crepe and slithering under the coffee table, where he could peer at them at will, but Fraser couldn't take the crepe away.

"Good point. So what the hell's up in there, anyway?" Ray asked, booting the coffee table with one boot. "Spill."

"Don't do anything of the kind, Diefenbaker," Fraser said, managing to swallow his current bite beforehand. "This conversation is disrespectful, Ray."

Turnbull came back with water, setting the bottles in reach on the coffee table.

"You wouldn't say that if you didn't think you were pretty darn sure you knew what was up in there," Ray said. "Otherwise, hey, she might just be doing her taxes or something."

Fraser only glared in reply. Turnbull flushed again and sat down and became very busy, examining a lace teddy minutely for loose threads.

"Meg and Frannie," Ray said as they were walking back toward the car. "I wouldn't've seen it."

"You still haven't seen it," Fraser told him darkly. "Diefenbaker is not the most trustworthy reporter."

"How do you explain T?"

"I don't explain Turnbull. That would be a completely pointless exercise of one's problem-solving capacities."

"I was thinking specifically about the fact it looks like he can understand Dief."

Fraser stopped walking, his eyes getting huge. "My God, you're right. I never...just never noticed, somehow. No wonder he's never said anything about..."

"...either of us talking to Dief. He wasn't ignoring it. He just wasn't horning in on the conversation. You suppose those ducks he had you come rescue actually asked him for the help?"

"I wouldn't put it past Turnbull to believe they had, at least," Fraser said, still standing still, now shaking his head a bit as he went through a bunch of past moments with Turnbull. "I would never have..."

"It took me a while to notice, too," Ray said, resting a hand on Fraser's shoulder. "It doesn't really stand out."

"Apparently not." Fraser resumed walking, and they continued on. "Still, it's...an odd thought, living with that fact under my nose for a couple of years and never realizing."

"Like I said," Ray said, "it probably just blends in with his general Turnbullness."

"I think you've coined a word," Fraser smiled.

Ray laughed. "Yeah, that's me, the word man."

"More so than you think."

"Ah, hell, whatever. Long as everybody's happy."

"Just what I was thinking," Fraser said, and exchanged a smirk with Ray as they got into the car to head back to the precinct house.

End Talking to the Dog VIII: You're Touching Me by Blue Champagne: bluecham@mindspring.com

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