Anniversary
by Giulietta
Disclaimer: Hey, wait. Stella belongs to Alliance Atlantis too? Doggonit --
Story Notes: This is from Stella's POV, and she's sort of moping over RayK, but Ray is with Fraser (so never fear, F/K shippers.)
Stella grabs some clothes and shoves them into her overnight bag. She snags her toothbrush, hairbrush, and hand lotion. She rummages in her desk drawers for her appointment calendar and the case files. She lays her suit, neat and flat in its dry-cleaner's bag, on her bed next to the open overnight.
Something is missing. Something. She's forgotten to do something. Automatically, her eyes drift over to her desk calendar, checking the date --
-- and then abruptly she tears her eyes away from it. No. No. She's not forgetting anything. Nothing. She's got a trial tomorrow. She's got everything she needs for it, even the name of that last minute witness -- whom she's lucky to have, actually, since his number had almost gotten lost in the secretary's piles of used post-it notes and empty manila folders. Honestly, is it asking too much from Mary to at least deliver messages properly? For Christ's sake, that's her job.
Yes. She's ready. Not that there's too terribly much to prepare for -- it's only for one night, the night before the trial. And it's not a particularly bizarre case -- there aren't any traumatized goldfish, or smuggled rubber ducks filled with coke. It doesn't involve Ray, at any rate, which would complicate things for more reasons than one --
-- no. Not more than one. Just that one -- he's got himself a crazy Mountie for a partner. It's not even Ray; it's Fraser. Ray just tags along. He's always tagging along. He's not important at all, all by himself. Not even a little bit. So Stella obviously isn't running out of this apartment so that Ray won't find her here when he comes. She's not even a little bit worried that when Ray does come, he'll actually convince her to do something stupid. No. This doesn't have anything to do with Ray at all. It's just -- there's this trial. And it's early in the morning. And she doesn't want to have to wake up at six just to get to the other side of town in time. And who is she making excuses to, anyway? Stella snorts in disgust, zips her bag shut, hauls everything over her shoulder, and marches out.
A minute later, she has to let herself back in; she's forgotten the toothpaste.
When Stella gets back home, she doesn't remember right away. She's high on adrenaline -- yes! I won! Again! Eat dust, bastards! -- flying, just stopping short of doing a pretty improper jig right there in the middle of the living room, in the suit and the shoes and all of it. Adrenaline, she thinks, is one of the best things ever, right next to chocolate -- she could totally turn out to be an adrenaline junkie, just like --
Oh.
Stella approaches the answering machine with some reluctance, eyeing it distrustfully, like it's about to jump up and try to strangle her. Hey, it just might. It's not like she's ever gotten any loyalty from her machines -- her computer still refuses to print for her whenever she's in a hurry.
There are four messages on the machine; Stella sighs, and resigns herself to ten minutes straight of Ray's pathetic stammering. Best to get it over with, really. And one of the calls might be from work -- she can't afford to just delete them all.
The first is garbled, in Spanish, and hastily cut off -- a wrong number, probably. She deletes it.
The second one is from Mary, who sounds almost hysterical: "You got a message on Tuesday, and I can't find it anywhere -- you need him for your trial today, I don't know where to reach you -- " Stella rubs her face tiredly, makes a mental note to reassure the poor girl sometime tomorrow, and deletes that as well.
The third is a frighteningly cheerful young woman who wants to know if Stella would like to sponsor a local newspaper. She doesn't sound like she could be out of high school yet -- she's probably doing it as a part-time job, or some such thing. Sorry, Kate, Stella thinks, and hesitates for only a second before deleting that too.
And here it is, number four, Ray's message. Stella settles in comfortably, and presses play.
It's not him.
It takes a whole minute to process that -- until the answering machine bleeps loudly, declaring its day done -- even though the guy who's left a message sounds nothing like Ray. "Uh, yeah -- Amy? I thought you said your roommate's name was Stephanie. Oh. Wrong number. Right. Uh -- sorry, Stella." She blinks at the machine for a while after that. How could Ray not call? He always does. It's one of those things that's never ever going to change. It's like how she can't run in heels, not even when she's late -- annoying, but real and dependable.
Ray hasn't called. What does that mean? Has he finally grown up enough to realize that -- ? Or maybe something's gone wrong -- Fraser's done something --
She doesn't really register that she's dialing until she hears the phone ringing on the other end of the line.
"Hello?"
"Fraser?" What the hell -- ? Did Ray just leave town without telling anybody or something? "What's going on here? Is this hide-Ray-Kowalski-day or something? Somebody should've told me, I'd've marked it on the calendar -- really fucking awesome day, if you ask me -- "
"I -- " The Constable sounds flustered. Well, good. Serves him right, answering Ray's phone like -- like he -- "I'll just put him on the line, shall I?"
"Damn straight," Stella growls, trying hard to sound intimidating.
There's a soft clunk as Fraser sets the phone down; there are some voices in the background, and then there's a soft scrape of plastic on wood. "Stel?" Ray says uncertainly. "What happened? Your trial get fucked up?"
"I -- no." Suddenly she feels incredibly stupid. What is this, junior high? She doesn't want him worrying about her. She doesn't want to be worrying about him. She hasn't any idea what she's doing. "No, I convicted him."
"That's good."
"Yeah." If she had half a brain right now, she could figure out how to hang up without being too awkward. Or she just wouldn't care about being awkward. "You guys working on a case?"
"Uh." Ray sounds confused, maybe because she's being too nice, or something. Ingrate. "No. Not really. Just, you know. Watching the game, eating pizza. Guy stuff -- " and suddenly Stella's not listening any more, because she's distracted by how her brain is screaming lie! lie! lie! which makes no sense. Why would Ray lie about that?
"Right," Stella says, because she's supposed to say something; she can hear Ray squirming uncomfortably on the other end. "Well. You'll show up at work tomorrow, right? You're not gonna get all drunk or -- "
"Jesus, Stella," Ray says, laughing, "you think Ben's gonna let me get away with that?"
Stella blinks.
"Ray?"
"What?"
"Who's Ben?"
There's a pause -- the one Stella's come to associate with ridiculously long-winded and repetitive arguments that stretch into the wee hours of the night and bring all the neighbors storming up to their front door. "Ben? Fraser, I meant Frase -- you know that good ol' Mountie moral code -- "
Constable, Fraser, Frase, Ben. Dear God -- how had she missed that? This isn't the first time Ray's called Fraser -- oh. Oh. That explains -- a lot. It explains today, anyway, and just -- a lot. "Fraser. Yes, of course. You -- I'll see you, then. Tomorrow."
"Yeah, maybe. Only we've got this lead to -- "
"Yes. All right. I'll see you when I see you."
"Stel, you sure you're all right?"
Oh, boy. This is not what she needs right now. "Of course I'm all right. Lay off, Ray," she snaps -- and all right, maybe it doesn't make much sense, but who gives a damn? Her fucking ex-husband is fucking queer.
Ray doesn't say anything for a moment -- a first, she thinks meanly. "Yeah, okay. I get it, jeez." There's a click, and Stella lets the phone drop from her hand. Her eyelids feel grimy and disgusting. She should really take off this suit and have a shower.
She doesn't. Instead, she curls up on her bed, fully dressed but barefoot, and tries to remember Stanley Kowalski -- hair still flat, a single perfect lilac in the palm of his hand, and a grin sprawled awkwardly over his face.
She hasn't seen that grin aimed at her for twenty years -- only somehow, she did see it last week.
--fin
End Anniversary by Giulietta
Author and story notes above.
Please post a comment on this story.
Read posted comments.