Author's website: http://beth-h.mrks.org

Disclaimer: Nope. Still not mine.

Author's Notes:

Story Notes: This was originally written for the Live Journal ds_flashfiction "Hourglass Challenge" (which asked for two scenes that were at least five years apart). Spoilers for anything up to and including "Good for the Soul."

Sparks
by Beth H.
(c) May 2, 2003

"Fraser? You okay?"

The voice seemed to be coming from below, but that couldn't be right....

He stood like he'd seen his father stand. Parade rest, his grandpa called it, even when it was just Dad and Constable Frobisher listening to something their commanding officer was saying and not even in a parade.

"You have your knife and that piece of flint, don't you, son?"

"Yes, Dad."

"Good lad. Now I shouldn't be gone long, but if you get cold, start a fire like you've been practicing. You remember the steps, don't you?"

He nodded.

His father patted him once on the shoulder. He started to turn away, then glanced back at his son.

"And Ben."

"Yes, sir?"

"When we get back home, let's keep this just between us men. We don't want your mother to start worrying. We know you can take care of yourself, don't we?"

Ben could feel his bottom lip start to tremble, but he licked at it to keep his dad from noticing. There wasn't anything to be scared of. He'd been out in the woods lots of times.

"Sure, Dad. I'll be okay."

After his dad left, he picked up a stick and started to draw pictures of animals in the dirt, but by the time he'd drawn a caribou and a wolf, the sky had grown too dark to see them clearly.

He looked in the direction his dad had gone. He couldn't see him anywhere. A rustling noise behind him made him turn around; maybe dad was coming back from the other direction. No, it was just an animal slipping through the underbrush. Maybe a lynx.

He shivered, then patted at the pockets of his parka, wanting to make sure the flint and knife were still there. Dad would be back soon - he knew it - but maybe he'd go collect some stones and wood before it got too dark to find any. It was always better to be prepared, just in case.

By the time he'd found enough twigs and fallen branches for a proper campfire, the sun had gone down all the way. Mum had told him that tonight was going to be a new moon, but he wasn't really sure what that meant, especially when he looked up in the sky and couldn't even see the moon. At least the stars were still there, peeking out from behind the clouds.

The wind started to blow. He sat down on one of the large stones he'd dragged over and placed in a ring, then pulled the edges of his parka more tightly around him. The scream of an owl from a nearby tree made him jump a little. Just a little. He wasn't scared of any old owl.

It was getting a little cold and damp, though. Maybe he would make a fire, after all.

He gathered some grass and weeds, then rolled them into fibers, just like his dad had shown him. He knelt down inside the stone ring and squeezed the fibers into a small ball, then plucked at the edges until it looked like a bird's nest. Ben hoped the owl didn't think this was her nest before he could get the fire started.

The wind began to blow harder. Ben knelt down beside the teepee he'd built from the twigs he'd collected and pulled out his flint and knife. He struck the flint against the knife blade just like his dad had taught him ...but nothing happened. He tried again. Nothing. On the third try, he finally got a spark, but he must have been holding the knife too far away from the nest of grass and weeds because the spark didn't catch.

It was hard to see what he was doing in the dark. Shivering a little, he held the knife closer to the nest with his cold, numb fingers and hit down hard with the flint, slicing it across the top of his knuckles and missing the knife blade completely.

He dropped the flint and knife and brought his fist up to his mouth. He sucked on his knuckles. Ben could taste his own blood on his tongue. It didn't really hurt that much. Not like that time when he broke his wrist falling out of a tree. But his eyes were stinging with tears anyway.

Ben scrubbed at his eyes with his palms, then took a deep breath and went to pick up the flint again, but he couldn't see the dark stone anywhere. He got down on his hands and knees and reached out all around him, rubbing his hands over the cold dirt. It wasn't there. Biting down on his bottom lip so that he wouldn't cry, he crawled all the way around the inside of the fire ring, even though he knew the flint had to be somewhere near where he'd been kneeling. He had to find it. His dad wouldn't give up, and he wouldn't either. He wouldn't give up.

The owl screeched again. Ben screwed his eyes shut, then reached out blindly until he had the grass nest in his grasp and threw it in the direction of the owl.

"Here," he yelled. "You can have it. I don't want the stupid thing!"

Then Ben tucked his head and arms into his parka, curled up beside the little pile of firewood, and cried until he fell asleep.

"Fraser? Come on, man. You're freaking me out a little."

He opened his eyes. He blinked twice, and snow fell from the tips of his lashes onto his cheeks.

Ben looked down to see Dief staring up at him from the back seat of the GTO. Ray was sitting behind the steering wheel, watching him with a worried expression.

He started toward the car, trying to ignore the throbbing pain in his lower back and right knee, but he stumbled with his first step. Ray was out of the GTO before he took a second step and had tucked himself underneath Ben's left arm before he took a third.

"Starting to stiffen up a little, huh? Yeah, sorry about that. I should have told you to stay inside the station until I got the car, but I thought I'd parked over by the pizza place, and when I got there, I remembered I left the car next to the dry cleaners so...."

"It's perfectly all right, Ray. I'm fine." He tried to smile reassuringly, but the cut at the edge of his mouth pulled and dripped blood onto his lip. He dabbed at the blood with the tip of his tongue.

"Yeah, well, you don't look fine from where I'm standing. Come on, let's get you inside."

Ben felt a little embarrassed that Ray thought he needed help to walk to the other side of the car - and even more embarrassed a moment later when Ray pulled his wool scarf off the passenger seat and used it to brush off the snow that had collected on Ben's shoulders and head while he'd been waiting.

"Can't believe I left you out here without your hat. I guess I forgot I had it on," Ray muttered. "Okay, in you go."

Once more, Ray put his hand on Ben's head - this time as he helped him settle into the front seat - then closed the door and walked around the car.

The heat had been turned to its maximum setting, and the car was so warm that Ben almost drifted off to sleep before Ray opened the driver's side door.

"So...here's what I was thinking," Ray said as he switched on the ignition. "If you and the wolf don't got any other late-night plans, how about...um...coming over to my place? Mom had Aunt Sophie make up a care package for me, so there's food. And...okay, at the party it sounded like you kind of wanted a traditional Christmas, so maybe we could just sit in front of the fire and listen to crappy Christmas carols on the radio and...I don't know...bicker or some other traditional holiday activity. If you squint, the chili lights look a little like...."

"Ray."

"Yeah?"

"You don't have a fireplace."

He laughed. "True enough, Fraser. But I do have a ninety minute Burning Yule Log video." Ray turned to face Ben, the smile gone from his face. "Look, I know you said it didn't matter, but I never should've let you go up against Warfield on your own this week, and...I don't want you to be on your own tonight."

"Ray, I...."

"Plus, I'm not driving you anywhere else, so you might as well forget about arguing and just say,'Ray, I'd be happy to come over and listen to crappy Christmas carols on the radio.'"

"I wasn't going to argue, Ray. I just wanted to say...thank you."

Ray smiled, then sniffed and looked out the front windscreen. "What about listening to crappy Christmas carols?"

"Is that one of the Ray Kowalski Christmas traditions?"

"Could be," Ray said and looked back at Ben. "It could be from now on."

Ben nodded. "I'd like that, Ray."

"Good." Ray let his hand rest on Ben's shoulder for a second before taking it away to put the car into gear. "Let's go home."

End Sparks by Beth H.: beth-h@mrks.org

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