Disclaimer: See earlier parts of series

Story Notes: This story takes place about ten years after Ray Vecchio and Benton Fraser divorced in the alternate A to Z ending and comes after Coda:Men Who Talk. In this world's chronology Benton is about 50.

SequelTo: Coda: Men Who Talk

Many of the patrons of the upscale Italian restaurant made observations that could be considered variations on a theme as they passed table number three. The location of the table accomplished two goals. It's prominence in the dining area was non-invasive enough to shroud its inhabitants with an illusion of complete privacy while satisfying the proprietor's desire for his restaurant to be thought of as a place that attracted Montreal's beautiful people.

The worldliness of the individual restaurant patrons colored the depth of their observations, but the common thread was the striking attractiveness of the two men at table three. The thoughts of the less worldly or those who simply pretended not to see, ranged from, `their wives are damn lucky' to `I wonder if they have girlfriends'. Others who had perhaps been a place or two saw the pair, understood what connected them without necessarily getting the exact nature of the relationship correct. `I wonder what his hourly rate is' and `if that's the look in this years boy toy I want one' were some of the thoughts that danced through people's minds or tripped in whispers across their lips to their own dining companions.

At table three, Benton Fraser stared intently at the man opposite him. As Benton was a modest man, his thoughts never touched on the breathtaking picture he and his dining partner presented to the restaurant at large. He, of course, like others in the room understood that the man across from him was beautiful. He had allowed that beauty, both external and internal, to work on him in ways that he knew should have been left unexplored. As he was a complicated man, his thoughts were caught up primarily with falling. How far a man could fall without realizing, how far a man could fall even with realization.

On a night very much like this one, some months ago, he'd been seated across a table from this same breathtaking man and watched himself as if from afar take a step further into an abyss.

In Benton Fraser's adulthood, he'd sometimes feigned ignorance when people made advances towards him so as to protect all parties from embarrassment and the resulting awkwardness. Often he simply didn't see it. That was more the case during his marriage. As a married man, his eyes were for only his husband, until he'd taken a step outside of the marriage, a step from which his recovery was still uncertain.

Four months ago, in a cafe as downscale as the current eatery was upscale, he found himself seduced by a man, a boy really who made up for a lack of experience with his enthusiasm and determination. On that night, Benton Fraser ascertained early in the evening where their meeting was likely headed, realized the man's partial intent in coming to see him. Realized that he needed to put an immediate stop to what was unfolding. Benton did not consider himself a weak man. He'd done a great many difficult things in his life, but he found he could not resist the advance. He'd wanted.... For the first time in the ten years since his divorce, that word whispered through his own mind. Want. He'd wanted the man, who sat across from him smiling and telling him stories about his time at University, occasionally reaching across the table in the crowded noisy restaurant to touch his hand.

Eventually there came a lull in the storytelling. The boy had simply stopped talking and concentrated on tracing his forefinger across the back of Benton's hand. Benton's eyes tracked the path of the long dark finger over his skin. And his eyes fluttered closed at the sensation. In the ten years since Ray Vecchio divorced him, no one had touched Benton as gently, as intimately.

Yes, there was John Owen, his.... He'd never been able to come up with a proper term for the man he had sex with in the post divorce years. Lover seemed wholly imprecise. And the cruder colloquial terminology that could characterize would never trip easily off his tongue. In these recent years there had been no one in the Mountie's life who cared what he did. He had no one to answer to and therefore no reason to truly pin down a term for John. They were men who had sex, who touched to blot out pain, there was no love. In his head John was simply `a fellow RCMP officer I have sex with for reasons that do not need exploring at this juncture'.

"Benton."

"Yes." He stepped back into the present, his eyes flicking up to meet his young man's.

"Que paso? What's wrong? You went away on me."

Their hands slid together on the table the way their bodies would later that evening in Benton's hotel room. "I was thinking about the first night we dined together." A blush flamed the young man's cheeks as he watched his lover closely.

"I'd like to make a toast." And the corners of Benton's mouth lifted as he raised his own glass. It was a joke between them now. He was always making toasts, most of them as jokes but not this one. Not tonight. He looked Benton in the eye.

"To you Benton Fraser for stepping out on this ledge with me. Je t'aime."

"And I you." Benton said solemnly as he lifted his glass to clink against that of Oscar Velez Alta-Vecchio. Fin S P O I E R S P A C E At the end of Coda: Men Who Talk, Ray and his husband were on the verge of adopting a 12 year old boy, Oscar Velez. In The Fall, Oscar is 22.