Author's website: http://www.mindspring.com/~bluecham/

Disclaimer: I didn't blackmail anybody! The photographs were for a joke! Yeah! We set 'em up! A *joke*! (I need my medication.)

Author's Notes: Thank you, Kalena, for concurring with my that I will be beaten up by all those reading this story. <g>

Story Notes: One actual spoiler, for the story that isn't the pilot but has Gerard in it. (Sorry, I forgot the title.)

"Hello, son, what brings..." his father trailed off as he turned away from adding wood to the fire.

Benton stood there, in his red longjohns, a blanket and pillow under one arm and his folded cot under the other. "Hi, Dad."

Robert straightened up and looked at him quizzically.

"I was wondering if I might sleep here tonight," Benton added.

"Yes, that does appear to be what was on your mind," Robert nodded absently, scratching the back of his head, just below his hat. "Any particular reason? Bad day? Suspect got away from you?"

"Um...nothing like that. It's just that I was wondering that since I can touch everything else in here...well, I could...bring things in. You know, my clothes always come with me, after all."

"Yes, and thank God for that." Robert turned back to applying the poker to the stove fire.

"I just..." his father remained facing away, and Benton's tone of voice changed abruptly, dropping to a lower register and getting a bit louder. "Hell, Dad, forget it, it was a stupid idea." He turned to start back for the closet door.

"Now, now, pull in those reins, there, horseman. Fold out that cot and have a seat, tell me about it. Wasn't I always good for an ear when you needed one?"

"No."

"Ah. Well. That's true, I suppose, but I'm dead now, and I certainly don't have anything better to--"

"That makes me feel really welcome, Dad. I'll see you later." Benton resumed his turn toward the closet door.

"Come on, Benton, I just meant that if I'm still here, what better thing could I have to do? Give your old dad a break."

"You're not old, Dad. You're dead."

Robert went on as though he hadn't heard. "But the long and short is, you are welcome, son. Always are. Didn't I say my door was always open? Go on, set up the cot and we'll have a little father-son thing. Tea?"

Benton paused, then wondered dubiously "Can I drink your tea?"

"You can touch my Victrola."

"Good point." Benton folded the cot out while his father poured from a red china teapot that was keeping warm by the stove.

Benton arranged the pillow and blanket, then had a seat as his father brought the tea. "Where do you...usually sleep? This office hasn't got all the--pardon the expression--living amenities."

"Well, I do have an outhouse, son. The dead may not sleep, but some things in this universe you apparently just can't escape."

"Oh." Benton smiled a little, then sipped tea.

"So, then. What did you want to talk about?"

Benton pursed his lips slightly and said "Um...we probably shouldn't...shouldn't actually talk about this, anyway, I just wanted to...well, we never had talks like the one I'd want to have, and in fact, you told me you'd have knocked me into next week, or however you put it exactly, if I'd ever tried."

"Oh, one of those," Robert muttered, with a head-shake and a roll of his eyes. He sighed and said "I'll deal with it, son, if I have to."

"Don't bowl me over with enthusiasm."

"Benton, you were raised by the same people I was! You of all people should know that some things just don't come easy after that."

"I know, I know. Especially after...when my apartment building burned down, and...the Dirk MacGirk story..."

"Son..." Robert sighed and sipped tea. "When I said something good came of it--the cabin burning down and your mother and I holed up in that igloo for months--I, ah...I was talking about you. But you looked so...your eyes were...I couldn't follow through. There, I admitted it. Dirk MacGirk was real, all right, but I shifted the topic to him because I...just couldn't handle...I didn't expect you to go on with it, I thought you'd just get embarrassed and change the subject. When you didn't...it's not the way I was raised, I can't just...well. Your mother was very different from mine, Benton--" he held up a hand to forestall Benton's coming snide remark, "--as I know you realize. Caroline made sure..." Robert stared into the depths of his teacup a moment, then went on "If she had lived, I think it would have been all right. She would have been there to feed that...warmth that she nurtured in you, instead of killing it like my parents pretty much did. But I..."

"I know all about your mother, Dad. I know why you couldn't do for me what Mom would have done."

"It was one of the reasons I loved Caroline, wanted to marry her, so much. She complemented me so well. Any children we had...I could teach them to survive where we lived, in a place where that knowledge was life-or-death...but there were some things that...that only now, being dead, I've come to realize, were just as important--well. That's...that isn't quite true. Some of them I realized when your mother died, the rest after I did...I just...it's like I said. I was a miserable father twice, and the second time I didn't even know it. But I knew it the first time, Benton. I knew that I'd been relying on her to give you what you needed in..." he cracked his neck quickly and finished "...certain areas. Without her, I was no more fit to raise a child than..."

"Than anyone raised by the same people I was raised by. I mean, I loved them, but they..."

"But you did have your mother, early on. You did have her, and she opened that door in you...but there was nobody there, afterward, to give you what you needed to deal with what came out of it, and what kept getting into it, to keep it open, to...make you more..."

"More whole."

"Yeah," Robert said, almost inaudibly, staring into his tea again.

"You sounded pretty convinced of what you were saying in that factory building where I was hiding Gerard."

Robert smiled a little. "As I've said before, son...you look, but you don't see."

Benton was quiet a while, then said slowly "The distraction. The way I...I came up with that way to get close to Gerard, a way to distract the Federal agents--because of what you said to me."

"There are some things I can't say straightforwardly. It's...rather against the rules."

"I've had my suspicions on that front."

"I don't doubt it. You're a good man, son, a good Mountie."

"Is there any reason all this complimentary warmth is coming out right now? Especially...I haven't even told you exactly why I wanted to sleep in here, yet."

Robert paused, then said quietly, "Son...the last time you came to my bed, on one of the occasions I was home...well, I couldn't hand you off, because your mother was staying at the Brewster's--Gina Brewster'd just given birth and James was away on the rigs--you had your blanket and pillow, and your red woolies on, and..."

"I remember that. I...remember how you held me...one of the few times you ever did, just that way--and I--"

"Let's not get maudlin, for God's sake," Robert said, getting up and going to refill his cup.

Benton decided not to mention that Robert had started it, and only smiled a little, where Robert couldn't see; but then Robert turned around and saw the smile anyway, and his teacup clattered against the saucer.

Benton's frown line appeared. "Are you all right?"

"It's just...that look. I don't see it much, you're usually more than a bit upset when you and I talk, but when I do see it...well. All I can think of is that...beautiful little boy. Your eyes are just the same, now, as they were then, when you smile like that...makes me hope, in a way, and I can't afford that. You're grown. I'm dead. That opportunity is gone forever."

Benton sighed, thoughtfully. "If it's any help, sometimes...I can tell that you love me, in your way, such as it is. Not very often, but--"

"Son, I love you. Don't ever doubt that." Robert wasn't looking at him, cleaning up the mess from the spilled tea. "Though, in purely practical terms, I was never very good at loving anybody, except your mother, really. Maggie's mother was a fine friend, one I had a great deal of respect for, and that's saying a lot, for me..."

"I know," Benton said softly, with an amused dryness in his tone.

Robert gave him an arch glance, but otherwise went on as though he hadn't heard. "But I was still dumb enough not to figure it out about Maggie, not to even wonder. I trusted Maggie's mother in a way I haven't trusted many. If I'd only known..."

Benton said softly, "It was the way she wanted it. And perhaps for the best."

"I know. I just wonder if maybe...maybe if I'd been a little better at loving people--at least at showing it--that she would have told me. Oh, certainly not married me. She..." Robert sighed a blustery sigh. "She's dead now, too, and beyond my power to harm, I'm assuming, or yours either. But generally, though she married that Mackenzie fellow, she liked women better than men in that department. Told me once that the marriage was how she figured that out for certain; said she wasn't sure it wouldn't have come to a bad end in any event, if he hadn't died."

"But you would have offered to marry her, if you'd known about Maggie."

"Benton, I would have insisted on it, you know me that well! I get a child on a woman, I'm going to marry her, and that's the end of it."

"And she knew that," Benton said softly, "and that's why she took advantage of the fact that..." he smirked. "...math isn't one of your strengths. Neither is paying attention to that kind of detail..."

"...especially when it looks like I've already gotten off Scot free, is that what you're thinking?"

Mutely, Benton held out his teacup, looking just a tad smug.

Robert took it, probably grateful for the chance to turn his back again. "She knew about you, so I suppose...in a way, I do blame her for not telling me. She saw how I raised--or rather, didn't raise--you, and probably figured Maggie would be well away from that kind of parenting...but I wish, for your sake--she would have been a baby to you, quite too young to be a real companion, but still..."

"Unlike some people, Dad, I don't have a problem with the idea that everything isn't always about me."

"Another remark like that and you'll be getting the dregs in this cup," Robert muttered, returning the steaming vessel to Benton.

"I'd apologize, but I'm afraid it would be quite insincere," Benton muttered, taking the cup.

"All this...love stuff," Robert said, sitting down again. "Apparently you're having trouble in that department again."

"Yes, to answer my own question of earlier, I figured you'd...done whatever it is you do when you know these things."

"It's in the vibes, son," Robert nodded. "How do you think I know what's happening with you, sometimes, when I'm not there? I don't follow you around invisibly, you know. If I'm there, you can see me."

"I know. But I didn't come for advice, so you don't have to talk about it, if you'd rather not. I just wanted a....little bit warmer place to sleep. If you see what I mean."

"Then you'd better stop drinking that tea," Robert said, taking the cup away from him. "You won't get a wink otherwise."

"So I can stay?"

"Of course you can stay. I'm your father. After all, you're on this Earth because I got randy in an igloo. Gives me a responsibility. Any place of mine is yours, too."

Benton was torn between exploding with grim laughter and leaving, so he was just quiet for a bit as Robert put tea things away in a cabinet, back to him, silent.

Then he murmured "Thanks, Dad."

"But it would've meant more if I'd said it while I was alive, I know, I know," Robert muttered.

"Except maybe not the part about the igloo." Benton smiled again. Robert turned, saw it, and sighed.

"You could just give up and hug me, you know," Benton pointed out.

Robert frowned. "How do you know...?"

"In here, I can drink your tea, touch your Victrola...there's no reason I can't touch you. The only other time we touched very extensively was when I was asleep, and anything can happen in dreams."

"You have a point, but what I was wondering is why you assume that's what I want."

Benton shrugged. "I know what it feels like to see someone smile, and, well...I've felt myself get that look, too."

"The reason you're here."

"Mm-hm."

Robert sat down next to him, awkwardly. "Um..."

"Oh, for God's sake, don't force yourself. Just do it if it comes up again or something."

"Yes, of course, good plan. So, do you want to talk about why you're here? The person you see smile, I take it? Child you've met?"

Benton shook his head, looking distant. "No, he's my age, though sometimes childlike. In a way that..."

"Reaches you."

"Gets to me."

"I know, but it sounds so much more dignified the other way, son."

Benton chuckled. "It's my partner. Ray. The new one, the blond. I'm...in love with him."

Robert's eyebrows nearly vanished under his hat. "Him?!"

"Yes. With a man. Keep your shirt on."

"Well it's not so much that, son..." Robert got up and walked around to the other side of his desk; he didn't seem to be trying to put distance between himself and Benton so much as use the walking to help him think, as Benton often did. "Like I told you, I knew about Maggie's mother. Living on a frontier, the usual social divisions don't exist, you know that. You get all kinds, and you deal with all kinds, if you want to survive. It's a community, no matter what, or everybody dies; bigotry is just too expensive a luxury there. No, son, if that were going to bother me it would be because I never guessed you were interested in men." He sat down slowly in the desk chair, looking pensive. "And that makes me even more removed than I thought I was, from being a father."

"It's all right. I didn't guess, either. I've never paid much attention to that aspect of myself, with any gender at all. It only seems to get me in trouble. Of course, if I paid more attention, maybe it wouldn't be such a disaster every time, but if you taught me one thing, you taught me that if I ignore those feelings, they'll go away. Well, I learned that from you, anyway. Whether it's true or not."

"Don't they?"

"Not for me. I didn't lose the love of my life when I was...the age you were, when it happened. So, past some adolescent experimentation..." Benton shrugged. "He's the first. Man, that is."

"In love with your partner." Robert sighed and shook his head. "You're not the first that's happened to, and you won't be the last."

"I'd figured that much. People..." Benton cracked his neck. "People have needs, and...when you're in a profession like ours--and especially if you're out where..."

"...where men are men and certain granite formations start looking surprisingly human..."

Benton choked a laugh. "Yes. Or even in the city, here, where I...feel so alien, I might as well be in a sort of...overpopulated wasteland--and he's...he's emotional, a very...feeling man, though as I said, he seems sometimes to be more of a feeling boy. More so than does Ray Vecchio; he always came across as grown, maybe too grown--the man of his family, and comfortable in the role, though I think it was forced on him before it should have been. Before his father even died. But as I was saying...this Ray--his name is Kowalski--he was married for a long time. He fell in love with his future wife when he was thirteen years old, and though there were...interruptions, on and off times, before they married, neither of them seriously loved anyone else. Then they married, and, comparatively recently...they divorced."

"If he's your age, that's a long time to be married for an end in divorce," Robert said quietly.

"Yes, it is. I think that in some ways...he hasn't had some of the life experiences many people our age have had. Not the...exterior ones, not getting drunk for the first time or anything as superficial as that. I mean..."

"Inside. He fell in love at thirteen, and now he finds himself on the downhill side of thirty-five, suddenly a free agent. A bug on a plate without a sextant."

"Exactly." Benton looked up at his father. "That was quite a concise analysis."

"I fell in love with your mother young, too, though perhaps not that young. And then I lost her, and after that...there was no one else for me, no one but a few friends, like Maggie's mother. I may not make a habit of discussing it, but there are...things I feel I missed because of that. Oh, I wouldn't change it--I wouldn't have missed being married to your mother, or, ah, or..."

"Or having me."

"Well, your mother actually did that part, son."

Benton smiled. "Yes. Go on."

"But I can understand about finding oneself...adrift among people who all seem to understand...something, something very big, about life, and themselves...it's something they all share--but you have no idea what it is, or how to get the experience you need yourself to understand it. Or if you're...even capable of it. Of understanding."

Benton nodded. "Me, too."

"Yes, I know."

There was quiet a few moments; the fire crackled, and the wind--low this evening--sang softly, like a distant lone wolf, against the timbers of the cabin, rather than howling.

"So. What do you think you should do?" Robert wondered.

"I don't know," Benton said mildly, staring into the fire. "I didn't really expect to be talking about it. I just...have these...feelings. You said I wasn't the first or last. What do you know about other...Mounties, or whatever law-enforcement entity the people in question belonged to, falling in love with their partners?"

"Not much, if you're looking for specifics; I just know what we all heard, really. I loved Buck, still do, but not like that."

"Yeah, I wasn't thinking of you in that department, Dad."

"The ones I've known about...well, I'd have to say that the involvements I'm aware of mostly came on under seriously...discomfiting conditions."

"They were scared?"

"Something like that. Somewhat of a prolonged, chronic state of scared. Extreme situations. You'll feel close to perfect strangers, and fall full-out in love with friends, in cases like that...hostage syndrome--no, that's not right. More like disaster syndrome, I can't remember the exact phrase--" Robert waved his hand, impatient with it.

Benton said "I know what you're talking about. But that's not where Ray and I are, though there are similarities. You don't know of anyone who just...did? Just fell in love with his partner?"

"Sondra and Keith Whynot got married, but they were the approved genders for that. But they couldn't be partners afterward, of course. And so both of them ended up resigning in a couple of years. Evidently, they were...real partners, the kind Buck and I were. And when they lost that, even though they didn't lose each other, there didn't seem--to them--any point in continuing as Mounties, though they continued as husband and wife. And in a way, that can be very similar. Well, not arresting people and whatnot. You know what I mean."

"Yes, I imagine so, too," Benton said, smiling softly, "and if Ray or I were a woman, and if...to make a long story short, that's what worries me. I don't want to lose him as my partner, or my friend. It seems...greedy, somehow, to want more than what he already gives me. He takes care of me, here in Chicago, and he lets me take care of him, when he needs it, or when I...feel the need to...he lets me."

Robert was quiet, gazing out the window, as the evening continued to darken.

"But what if I really do...what if he's..." Benton gave a blustery sigh and fell over on the cot, lifting his feet to rest on the blanket as his head hit the pillow. "I know I love him," he said simply, helplessly. "I think he could love me. I think he does love me, though I'm not sure just how. He's the kind of person to do this sort of thing, but still--he's risked his life at least twice to save mine, both times against orders. Could have killed him, or left him almost as bad off as that, either time. He...just went crazy, and..."

"You're his partner," Robert said quietly. "Partners do that sort of thing for each other, sometimes, real partners. Like I told you, son, your heart knows where your duty lies."

Benton smiled a little, remembering Ray Vecchio as well as his current partner. "Yes."

"But then, so do people in love. It's hard to say, son. Hard to say."

"Mm." Benton wasn't particularly annoyed with this switchbacked lack of insight, since, as he'd said, he hadn't expected much in the way of useful advice; he'd only wanted a little...comfort, familiarity. That he should seek such things from his father, of all people, must speak to how old he himself was getting, he thought, with a rueful smile. That he was beginning to understand his father well enough to find his erratic inscrutability comforting...even to the thought of his touch, which had been such a pain in the ass when he'd edged his way into bed with Benton just before that nightmare hit.

"Where's Dief?" Robert wondered.

"He's standing guard in my office."

"Good of him."

"I didn't tell him to; he offered."

"Even better of him. Well, it's late for you, son. Get some rest. Sleep on it. Maybe the morning will give you fresh eyes."

Benton sighed and dutifully let his lids fall shut. He felt the heat from the stove, the golden glow dancing dimly at the edge of his vision. He lay still for a while, listening to the wind and his father's small, quiet movements; paper whispering against paper, wool against leather.

He finally opened his eyes again and wondered quietly, "You're not going to say anything about grandchildren?"

Robert was still a moment, then got up, came over to where the cot was, by the fire, and went down on one knee next to it. When he began to gather his son close in his arms, Benton turned to him, embracing him and hiding his face in the dead man's shoulder. He felt the unexpected burn of tears.

Robert held him, with a little rocking motion, for a while; then he said "No, I'm not going to say anything about that. Little reason as I've given you to believe it, I can understand, too, that everything isn't always about me. If you could...do this, come here like this...I can concede that much."

"I..." Benton swallowed a tiny sob, tried again, and then sighed and let it go.

After a few moments, Robert whispered, almost inaudibly, "Me too, son."

"And even if you are dead, I'm glad you're not gone." Benton fell asleep there, upper body cradled, head on his father's shoulder.

When he woke up, he was standing, the cot was standing next to him--somewhat impatiently, apparently, as it slid across him to bang against the mirror--and Dief was scratching frantically at the door. He could have opened it, but that would have meant Fraser and the cot both falling out, and likely Dief knew that. He'd been in there enough.

He heard the pounding at his office door and lunged out with the speed of fear, the cot right there with him. He got it rearranged to its usual spot as Dief hopped around, whining and muttering. "Well, thank God for that," Fraser muttered at the news that it was Ray at the door, and not Inspector Thatcher .

"Frase! You okay in--"

Breathing heavily, Fraser got to the door and opened it. "Ah, Ray, just the man...I...was thinking about."

"You don't look like you were thinking about anybody, unless you were dreamin'."

"I was. I was dreaming. The sound, you know, how sounds, sometimes, um. Into your dreams. Ah, what can I do for you?"

"Shower and get dressed while I get you some tea and toast or whatever you people eat for breakfast. We got a full morning of statements and interviews."

"Oh, is it that late? I'd..." Fraser noticed a mild crick in his neck, and wondered just how long his father had sat there next to the cot, holding him while he slept. "I'm sorry. I'll get dressed right away."

"No, like I said. Shower and we'll put something in your stomach." Ray reached out casually and lightly rubbed the stomach in question with the backs of his fingers, through the red longjohns. He grinned. "Hey, most important meal of the day, right? We're not in the squad room this morning, so hours are a little more flexible. And we gotta feed the wolf. He'll make sure our lives utterly lack meaning until we do."

"Oh, true. And he'll want a walk. Would you mind?"

"No prob. C'mon, Dief, wait, here we go, your equipment." Ray retrieved the necessaries for a morning Dief walk from their usual spot and held the door for Dief. "So Frase--you go ahead and get ready, and maybe I'll have some bagels with me when I come back. Well-fed Mounties are happy Mounties."

"Is that our new motto?"

"It beats 'Go to the ends of the earth after a litterbug'."

"Well, Ray, I think in that case, it--"

"Frase. Shower."

"Ah. Right you are." Benton nodded.

The door closed behind Ray and Dief.

Benton heaved a sigh, rolling his head on his shoulders, stretching, generally acting like someone operating on too little sleep and under too heavy a load. He turned, put his hand against the closet door, and murmured "I'm going to tell him, Dad. I don't think he'll...well, if we are really partners, real partners, like the Whynots, we'll get through it. And if we're not, then it won't matter. And if we're...we're real as lovers, like you and Mom...we'll know. And if we're not, we'll get through that, too, because one thing I do know we have for real...is that we're friends."

"Smart boy," came in an amused mutter from the closet.

"Thanks, Dad."

"Door's always open. Unless the wind is from the east, then you'll have to knock. Too chilly."

Fraser rolled his eyes. "You never actually leave the door--" he stopped, then grinned. "I do see when I look, sometimes, you know."

"I know, son."

End Closet Chronicles by Blue Champagne: bluecham@mindspring.com

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