Author's website: http://unhinged.0catch.com

Disclaimer: Not mine, never will be, but nobody else was using them and it seemed like such a good idea at the time.

Author's Notes: Very definately AU.

Story Notes: DEATH STORY. Mind you, they're dead before it even begins, but if you can't deal with that them please don't read it.

"What we see,
And what we seem,
Are but a dream.
A dream within a dream."

Author unknown

The humvee churned through the snow; an ugly black blotch on the otherwise pristine whiteness of the landscape. Even inside, the roar of its powerful diesel engine was all but drown out by the howl of the wind, and Corporal Steve Breubier found himself thinking, not for the first time, that more and more, humanity was becoming an intrusion on nature's attempts to remake the world as she saw fit.

With a sigh he turned from the observation window and looked at the silent company around him. Dressed from head to toe in extreme weather gear, they looked less like Royal Canadian Mounted Police and more like some strange species of scarlet and black animal, set free to roam the tundra with the burgeoning polar bear and Timber wolf populations.

The idea made him shake his head, bemused at his train of thought. Too much time spent on the ice Doc would say, and he'd be right. He was due for a stint of desk duty any day now.

"Corporal?"

The words crackled in his ear and he sat up straighter, flicking the two-way switch. "Yes, Constable?"

"Radar's picking up an artifact about 30 meters ahead. Could be a structure."

"How long before we have a visual, Constable?"

"Only a few minutes, sir."

"I'm coming up front." He was standing even as he spoke, aware the others were watching. He switched off the two-way and turned to face them. "Possible structure ahead. Get ready to deploy."

He pushed his way through the door that separated the driver's section from the cargo hold. Silverburg and Chasson were manning the controls.

Chasson glanced at him. "Should be within visual range in a minute, sir. Provided we can actually see anything."

Steve nodded. The conditions were as close to whiteout as you could get without calling a full alert. "Silverburg?"

"Yes sir?"

"Does this correspond to anything on the maps?"

"Not that I can find, sir. Of course a lot of data went missing."

Steve shook his head absently, squinting through the windscreen as if he could conjure up a clear view of whatever it was by sheer willpower. He of all people knew how much had been lost to the passing of Van Allen's Comet some 15 years before.

It was seldom talked about nowadays by either the RCMP or anyone else. No sense, after all, in brooding over the past. Better to concentrate on the here and now of day-to-day survival.

Still, there were nights Steve lay awake wondering if those higher up had known what passing through the tail of the Van Allen Comet was going to mean to the world. At the time it had been dismissed as a minor occurrence. After all, bigger comets had actually collided with the earth in distant eons past, rearranging whole continents and creating deserts where there had once been oceans. What were a few meteor showers in the face of such devastation?

So when the first influenza case presented itself, nobody thought anything of it. Hadn't the medical community been warning about the possibility of a widespread outbreak of the sort of flu that had killed so many in the early 1900's for years? Over-usage of antibiotics had finally created a new strain of bug that was a bit harder to kill.

Six months later millions were dead, and millions more were dying a death so slow and painful it became a mercy to kill them and end their suffering. Half a year was all it had taken for the new strain of influenza to decimate entire towns. Those in the more impoverished countries where little medical help was non-existant died quicker; but in the end, anyone who contracted what was now referred to as "Comet flu" were as good as buried.

Steve had lost all his immediate family, including his parents, his wife, Marcella, and their three children, Bethany, Alec and Michel. He'd personally nursed Marcella and the kids through their final hours, praying to God that he be allowed to follow them into eternity. God, it seemed, was no longer listening.

And even as the death toll continued to mount, the changes in the weather patterns began. Monster tornadoes and hurricanes sprang to life, killing thousands who'd been lucky enough to escape the flu. A pandemic of earthquakes descended, culminating in a temblor of such magnitude it reduced the Middle East to ruins. The fault-line in California finally slipped completely, taking most of the United States Pacific seaboard with it.

Those of a religious bent said it was the end of the world, the Biblical Armageddon, God pouring out his wrath on the wicked. They seemed to take no notice that the innocent were dying alongside the guilty. Others claimed the meteor showers from the comet's tail were a deliberate plan on the part of some alien entity to prepare the earth for conquest from the stars. They built landing platforms in the rubble and waited for spaceships that never came.

And the RCMP had found itself serving as a military force, attempting to keep order in the midst of chaos; a task Steve thought of as being somewhat akin to trying to put out a blazing bonfire with gasoline. Large portions of the world teetered on the brink of anarchy, and in many cases, fell. Medical concerns over the Comet flu's possible mutation forced Canada to seal its borders on all sides. Slowly but surely each contingent of survivors found themselves withdrawing from society as a whole. At the time it had seemed the only way to keep peace. Especially as the weather extremes began to creep into Canada, seemingly intent on bringing about the next ice age.

Fifteen years had dulled the more vivid memories; they only visited him now as nightmares. Still, there were times it saddened him to realize that many of the men and women under his command had no real memory of what summer looked like. For them the United States and Europe were faraway, almost mythical places; as remote and dead as ancient Greece has been to Steve when he was a boy in school.

"Sir?" Silverburg's voice brought him back to the present. "We have a visual."

Moving as well as he could in the cramped quarters, Steve leaned forward and squinted at the object slowly taking shape. The humvee rumbled a few more meters then stopped with a jerk, and Steve found himself chuckling.

"Sir?" Chasson was looking at him with worried eyes. "You recognize the structure?"

"Lord, yes." Steve shook his head in amazement. "It's a cabin, Constable."

Silverburg's forehead furrowed. "A 'cabin', sir? Like in the history books?"

Steve nodded. "Used to find them all over up here. My father owned one near Ottawa; we summered there when I was little." The way they were staring at him, he might well have been speaking Swahili. "Chasson, do a scan for life signs."

Chasson nodded and flipped a switch on the dash, studying the yellow screen that sprang to life. "No signs of life sir."

"Almost certainly abandoned," Steve muttered, more to himself than them. "Silver, contact McKenzie and Turnbull; have them suit up."

"You're going in, sir?"

Steve sighed. "You said there were no signs of life, Chasson. Humor an old man; I simply want to have a closer look at it."

"Yes sir." Silverburg flipped the com-switch and relayed his orders to McKenzie and Turnbull. Steve already had himself thoroughly zipped up and slipped his goggles into place. "Sir?"

He looked at Silverburg, who seemed distinctly uncomfortable. "Yes, Constable?"

"Are you sure its safe?"

Steve didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "We'll be armed, Silver. It's still full daylight and will be for another six hours. The only thing we're likely to encounter is a rogue polar bear."

"Yes sir." Silverburg turned back to the console, fussing with the switches. Steve sighed; Doc was definitely going to hear about this when they got back to base.

McKenzie and Turnbull, in addition to being two of his best, were about 10 years older than the rest of the squad. He hoped the age difference would keep them from being afraid of a cabin.

The wind had died down somewhat, but they still had to use the com-links to communicate. "McKenzie; you ever seen one of these before?"

"I have some vague memories, sir. A friend of mine had an aunt who owned one up near Bear Lake. She took me there one summer. This one, though; it would've been remote even by early 21st century standards."

"A lot of people preferred more remote areas then." That was Turnbull, the squad's resident fountain of esoteric knowledge. "The world was a lot more crowded, Sara."

"I knew that, Buck."

A few feet away from the front porch, Steve stopped and studied the building. "It's in remarkably good shape, given its age and the conditions. Even before the weather change, it would've been cold up here most of the time."

"Do you think someone lived here?" That was McKenzie.

Steve shook his head. "Impossible to tell."

Despite the wind and the snow, the front porch was relatively clear. "Look." Turnbull was pointing off to one side, at two wooden chairs with a table between them. "Seems strange to see furniture outside, sir."

"They would've had a few months of summer; days it was warm enough to come outside and sit." For some reason the chairs and table disturbed him. It made the place seem less remote.

It took the three of them to get the door open; a combination of freezing and rust, Steve figured.

He didn't know what he'd been expecting, but what he saw only increased his uneasiness. Turnbull shut the door behind them, and they found themselves staring at a large room that had obviously served as a living room/kitchen. The furniture showed no signs of decay; indeed, everything in the room was coated with a thin layer of ice crystals. McKenzie and Turnbull had already moved off to explore, but Steve stayed where he was.

"Obviously someone lived here full-time." He was only half aware of Turnbull's running commentary. "The wood-burning stove would've been used for warmth and cooking."

"Where'd they get the wood?" That was McKenzie, who was poking around in the cupboards. "There aren't any trees."

"The extreme cold killed them off." Steve found himself moving around the living room area, running a gloved hand over everything, finally stopping next to a bookcase to study the titles. Call of the Wild, The Poems of Roger Service, A History of the Inuit, and a stack of what looked like ledgers. He picked one up and opened it:

7/7/06

The last of the wood ran out this morning and I am too ill to chop more. I have given some thought to burning the furniture, but in the end I believe it best to simply let nature take its course.

Dief is gone. Perhaps dead, perhaps simply running with his pack mates. Animals' sense when the world is not right so much better than we humans. He was a good friend, and I shall miss him.

I do not fear death. I know Ray is waiting for me on the other side. He is no longer in pain, and for that I am grateful; watching him suffer was almost more than I could bear.

I have no regrets at leaving this world. I led a good life. Ray and I had 10 years together. He was the other half of my soul; and a soul torn in two cannot remain long on this earth.

If anyone should find this, know that I have chosen my own course. I have stayed the race as well as I could. But I am weary of living.

Benton Fraser

"Sir?" Steve looked up, hardly able to distinguish McKenzie's face through his steamed-over goggles. "Turnbull and I found something you need to see."

He followed her woodenly, still holding the book in one hand, as she led him through a curtained doorway off the front room.

Turnbull was standing at the foot of the bed studying the figures on it, and Steve found himself doing the same. Two men, dressed in flannel shirts and jeans, frozen in time. One was solidly built, dark-haired, his face peaceful in the wan sunlight pouring through the un-curtained window. The other was slimmer (natural build or disease?), with dark blond hair. He lay snuggled against the dark-haired man's side, his head resting in the crook of his neck.

"I don't understand, sir." It was McKenzie's voice in his ear; he'd never heard her sound uncertain about anything in all the time he'd known her. "How can they be here? Why?"

Steve looked at her confused face, eyes behind the goggles suspiciously moist, and held up the journal. "They lived here. One of them was named Ray, the other Benton Fraser. If what I read is correct, Ray died of the flu first. Benton apparently joined him not long after. He mentions someone called "Dief" as well. I think he must be referring to a sled dog, since he mentions him running with the pack."

"Years ago, when I was very small," Turnbull's voice was soft, "my Uncle Renfield used to talk about Mountie named Benton Fraser that he worked with in Chicago."

"Chicago?"

"At the Consulate. My uncle was a Mountie, you know. Apparently, Constable Fraser worked with the Chicago Police as a liaison. Uncle Ren said that he and his partner, a man named Ray Kowalski, chased the killer of Fraser's father all the way to Canada just to bring him to justice. And then, he said, they settled down in a cabin built on the spot where Fraser's father's cabin had been." He looked up at Steve. "Mother and father always told me he was exaggerating; that he hadn't been quite right since the bus accident. But I didn't believe them. I knew he was telling the truth."

Steve was unable to take his eyes off the men on the bed. They didn't look dead, merely asleep. As if any minute now the long-silent alarm clock on the bedside table would ring, and they would get up to start another day of their life together.

"Sir?"

He realized McKenzie was talking to him. "Yes, Corporal?"

"Turnbull and I have discussed it...we don't think you should tell anyone about the cabin. Or them." She gestured at the men on the bed. "They'll just want to send in clean-up team to tear things apart, and that wouldn't be right, would it, sir?"

Steve looked away from her at Benton and Ray.

"They're at peace, sir." That was Turnbull. "And I think they should be left at peace, don't you?"

Steve nodded his head. "Together forever," he said softly, thinking of Marcella and Beth and Alec and Michel. "Together forever, and not even death could separate them."

Silverburg and Chasson looked distinctly relieved when he came up front to tell them they were back.

"Find anything, sir?"

Steve stared at the silent cabin, the knowledge that Benton and Ray would remain undiscovered and together made him smile slightly. He'd put the journal where it belonged on his way out. "Uninhabited, like you figured. I'm amazed it's still standing. Chasson?"

"Yes sir?"

"Don't bother to enter it into the data base. I imagine the next good storm will reduce it to kindling."

Chasson studied him a minute, then nodded and shut down the screen.

The engine, which had been idling, roared to life as Silverburg fed it more fuel. "Where to now, sir?"

Steve turned his back on the cabin and it's secrets, and smiled. "Back to base, I think. We've been out in the wilds too long."

FIN

End Dream Within a Dream by MR: psykaos42@yahoo.com

Author and story notes above.