Do You Get Gooseberries In Canada?
by Little-b
Disclaimer: These paragons of loveliness belong to Alliance/Atlantis and they can have them back later. But they can have Bob back right now.
Author's Notes: This was my first challenge piece (and first DS fic fullstop) for ds_flashfiction on Livejournal, it's a fun thing to do and I'd recommend it to anyone.
Story Notes: Erm, Fraser's poem is Christopher Marlowe's "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love", which isn't all that appropriate when you read it all the way through (I doubt Ray will appreciate a wool dress even if Fraser makes it), or maybe it is, considering it's about love conquering home comforts etc.
I'd just got back in the door when I found I had a problem. When I'd gone outside to do my, uh, business (dammit Kowalski, you're becoming as bad as Fraser for euphemisms). Okay, strike that, when I'd come back from the bathroom (smart, Ray, like that's any better. There is no bath in the freaking outhouse and we are so getting indoor plumbing. Yeah, even if Fraser wants us to get solar panels first. I'd rather piss in the dark than piss in the cold any day) I had two Mounties in the cabin. When I left there was only one; my fricking Mountie.
Now, as I said, I have two fricking Mounties. (Sitting on the wall, two fricking mounties sitting on the wall, then when one fricking Mountie accidently falls... Shuddup, shuddup, shuddup; no funny. I'm trying to deal with unexpected Mountie here.) Actually new Mountie (he's old) looks kinda familiar but wrong. What else seems familiar, something does; familiar and old, musty like a coat stuck at the back of a closet?
It's Fraser. He's laying into the other Mountie; hard and fast (Kowalski, you're making it sound like sex and something just screams gross). And I've heard it all before. But I've never seen Old Mountie (heck I can't think of a better name right now) before, thinking about names, maybe Sucking Lemons Mountie would work, sounds kinda Indian, strike that, First Nation or Inuit (right, Fraser? See, you can teach an old cop new tricks. Or at least better than Dief) but he ain't. Old Mountie has killer posture, just like somebody I know real well. He's currently yelling (yeah, yelling) at Old Mountie about how he thought he (Old Mountie) was happy in the Hereafter with Mother and how he (I think that's my Mountie but it's hard to follow and not making much sense. Since when did I expect anything with Benton to make sense) is really fed up with him poking his nose in at inopportune moments (okay, I was right) and if it is going to continue, would he kindly not mater... matrel... materialise in our fricking bedroom. Thank you kindly.
Old Mountie froze up on this one. He had been trying to interrupt and that, but now the saucer was flying but the aliens were communing with the Loch Ness Monster. His mouth just kept doing this cute gulping thing like The Turtle (Fraser once asked me about my love for the definite article, I asked if he wanted one, he said no.) and then a thumb comes up and strokes his eyebrow. Oh Damn. I thought everything was getting too normal. Like the silence though. Fraser's just watching Old Mountie like he's about to start poaching Caribou, and Fraser Senior's still having an, uh, senior moment.
Yeah, Fraser Senior. I like the silence it's giving me time to put all the weird together. Yeah the shouting sounded familiar, like back when Fraser would start talking into space, `cept clearly he wasn't. He didn't just go to Chicago in search of his father's killer, he took his father's fricking ghost with him. (Maybe took is the wrong word, it doesn't sound like Fraser was entirely happy about it). Right. Score Detective First Class Kowalski-Vecchio. And Fraser thought he wouldn't be back because he went home to momma. And now he is.
And now he is looking right at me. He's finally unfunked (not that I'll believe that any relation of Fraser can funk -or groove- ever except maybe that Uncle Tiberius I keep not hearing about) enough to look across the cabin at me.
There is one real problem with this little family picture, beyond the I'm just about to meet my boyfriend's (weird word) my Mountie's (better) undead father, it's summer in the Territories and believe it or not (this so should make Ripley's) it is actually damn hot here, and I've just crawled out of bed (sure Fraser might get up at some ungodly hour but me, hell no!) and the thing is, the thing is... erm... (Kowalski, repeat after me, you are not Benton Fraser, you do not have weird hang ups)... okay, you ready for this, I went to the john butt naked. (Chicago Flashback: Fraser says its scientifically been proven that men run faster in the Greek fashion - he means au naturel, nude, naked, bare - and I ask from what? If he can run that fast in The Serge, God help any perps who get naked Mountie on their ass, because a) he's fast and b) I'm the jealous type) Flashback induced bliss has not made it better, I'm standing minus clothes plus tattoos in front of Fraser's father, Fraser's fell out of a time warp from some time in the nineteenth century father. This is so not greatness.
And then poof (bad choice, there, but it's my onomatopoeia. Hey, Fraser doesn't have a monopoly on polysyllabic epithets.) and he's gone, off to parts unknown. I don't really need my detective skills to know that was one pissed undead mountie ghost guy. Problem: detective skills suck beyond suck when it comes to detecting Benton Fraser.
"You okay?" Dork beyond the valley of dork here, but any question would suck really and while Fraser might speak in many tongues (trust me, I've checked that out) non-verbal is not one of them
"He'll come round eventually. Or mother will talk some sense into him. You missed quite a bit. She doesn't think he should be interfering in my life, we're going to have quite enough time to catch up later." I'm so not trying to think about the last bit, moody fatalism creeps me out. I think I like Caroline Fraser though.
"How come I can see your dad now, but not in Chicago?" Pushing it, but I have to know.
"Because you're family now. `Come live with me and be my love...'"
What a choice, let the romantic Mountie who grew up in a library quote me poetry, or lean in and take him in my arms and kiss him like this and show him that there is someone who will always love beyond words and deeds and
Well, I hadn't been sure about this ocean cruise thing, when Julie had suggested it to me. To be frank, I hated the idea. But, then, I thought, I might as well take all my paid leave before they boot me out to fend for myself. And there was rather a lot of it; a good quartermaster is very good with figures. A little bit here, a little bit there, it all adds up. Worked out when it came to kit for young Benton's little honeymoon, I'm not entirely sure of the attraction of the honeymoon (I call it as I see it; it darn well felt like one to me) or the intended (Benton would be contrary enough to get that in the wrong order but I suppose their situation isn't conventional); point is, putting a little aside worked fine with stores and it's working fine with leave.
To my surprise, the cruise has been turning out quite nicely. Rather like my visit to America. I'd have never considered either of them; you hear things and you think that you'd rather die than do that; and then you do and it's surprisingly pleasant. When I think about it, a lot of my preconceptions were down to Bob Fraser. It was he who claimed Americans were unpleasant, that retirement and sea cruises were for vegetables and so many more things besides. Don't get me wrong, Bob was a true and valued friend; it's just in hindsight I find his opinions rarely equate with my experience.
Maybe this is what Julie intended.
"Buck. Buck! We're going to hell in a handcart!"
FINIS
End Do You Get Gooseberries In Canada? by Little-b
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