TYK to Kira, my beta-reader (whose editorial style includes drawing singing pigs on my drafts) and Jo P-K, who found me a handy medical condition to use despite the fact that I most unreasonably rejected her initial suggestion of African viral haemorrhagic fever. All the usual disclaimers etc.
Nik -------
Any day that had her in an emergency room with pieces of collarbone grating splintered ends against each other whenever she breathed was not a good one. Bad days were not improved by having some strange doctor try to push the fragments back into place, even if he did give her a local anaesthetic. And she knew the day had gone completely to hell when, after enduring all of that, the doctor told her it hadn't worked and that she'd have to be admitted to hospital for a few days so they could do an operation to pin the collarbone together.
Fraser was eyeing her with wary concern; her temper had snapped with her collarbone, and he and Ray had born the brunt of her ill-humour during the drive to the hospital. The wolf was somewhere about the place, she knew that, but unlike his master, Diefenbaker had enough sense to make himself scarce when she was in one of her moods.
The medical student finished tying the sling that he assured her would immobilise the fracture. The doctor smiled encouragingly, and she stood... and gave a strangled yelp as bones grated again. Fighting hard the urge to swear, she gave a brilliant smile that had Fraser tensing for trouble. "That hurt."
"Oh." The med student looked stricken, turning to the doctor. "I did it how it was in the book."
"How many times did you read the book?" Meg asked him tightly. He glanced involuntarily at her, and then at the chart on the bed, not answering.
"How many times?" the doctor repeated, amused.
"Well... I didn't really read it... I looked at the pictures - see," he turned to the doctor, earnestly. "We did slings in first aid; I thought it'd be the same."
"For a start, you do a figure-of-eight to stabilise a fractured clavicle..."
"I don't see what the difference is..."
"He did the wrong sling badly and you let him?" Meg stared at the doctor in disbelief. "I am in a little bit of pain here..."
"Ma'am," Fraser interjected quickly. She glanced at him, caught the look in his eyes, and sighed heavily, trying for patience and courtesy. "Doctor, if you could retie the sling for me..."
The doctor obliged, and she was forced to shut her eyes to keep from getting poked in them when the med student helped. At last, I have met someone more incompetent than Turnbull. I can't say it was ever an ambition of mine, but I achieved it anyway.
"...we're going to put you on the lists for open fixation," the doctor was saying, and she snapped back to attention. "We'll try to arrange it for tomorrow; you should be out the day after that. I'll get David to find you a ward. And that's it for us." He let the chart fall closed and smiled at her. "Try not to get beaten up by angry gun-runners again for about another month."
There was the barest trace of condescension and disbelief in his voice, just enough to have her bridling. She smiled back at him with bared teeth. "I hospitalised the one I was fighting."
"Actually, she did," Fraser asserted, managing as only he could to sound at once proud of her skill, and concerned for her opponent.
"I'm sure she did," the doctor said soothingly. "A very competent lady." He gave them both a benevolent, avuncular smile as he got up to leave. "Look after her, now, son."
Fractured collarbone or no, she wanted to break his teeth, but a moment later felt much better when Ray Vecchio bounded in, looking grudgingly impressed, and announced, "Hey, Inspector, that guy you went up against is still out cold. You maybe want to take off your ring before punching someone next time, because there's this nasty mark on his jaw..."
The doctor blinked in surprise as he left, otherwise refusing to respond, but the med student just gaped. "That big guy in no. 3? You took him out?"
"All part of the training," she told him with a suitably modest - and faintly threatening - smile. He backed out nervously, the memory of the botched sling fresh in his mind. Remind me to say something nice to Vecchio, she thought to herself gleefully, some time when he's least expecting it and when it will throw him completely off-balance, of course.
They re-acquired the wolf somewhere along the way to her new room, afternoon tea being his primary concern. Against Fraser's advice, she gave him the fruit bun - "I need a food tester in this place," she insisted - and threw the tea in the sink. "Fraser, can you bring me in the itinerary for the foreign minister's visit? And my laptop."
"I really think you should rest, ma'am."
"I'm not tired, Fraser, and I will die of boredom here."
Ray was about to say something, but both Mounties, anticipating his comment, gave him a warning look. He subsided and amended it to: "Fraser, I gotta be back at the precinct soon."
"Understood, Ray." Fraser turned back to his superior officer, who was assiduously ignoring the hospital bed. "Can I get you anything, Inspector?"
"You can get me out." She shrugged, and winced as bones shifted. "Files, Fraser. Something to do. I hate hospitals."
"A number of people find them frightening..."
Ray doubted that anything frightened the inspector; certainly not hospitals. She confirmed it, with an amused look at Fraser. "It's the boredom. There's nothing to do, and the only people to talk to are nurses who just want to get back to the magazine they left at the nurses' station, and the occasional delusional patient who wanders by to chat because they think you're the Pope."
"I think he visited me last time I was here," Ray said reflectively.
* * * * *
Sleep was impossible. She couldn't find a way to settle down without adding a searing pain to the throbbing, and ended up lying as though she had frozen at attention and fallen over. The nurses had turned off the lights, insisting that even if she couldn't sleep, she could rest. Deprived of stimulus, her brain went into overdrive, turning over the events of the past day.
To her intense frustration, she wasn't reliving the part where she found out what her deputy was up to, where she tore strips off him and the detective and still managed to be coerced into helping them, or the stake-out, or the chase. The image that replayed itself, in an endless loop, was the look on Fraser's face when the fifth gun-runner appeared out of nowhere and threw her against the railing, shattering her collar bone.
That's it. She got out of bed, carefully, struggling into a robe, and set off on a walk. She welcomed the late-night chill of the linoleum floor against her bare feet, distracting her mind. Soft pools of light collected around the nurses' stations; moving beams marked the nurses doing ward rounds. From time to time, there would be a stifled cry from one of the rooms, or a machine beeping.
He was never one for showing much emotion. Only those who knew him would have been able to look into that set face and understand the intensity of what he was feeling.
I don't want to think about this, she told herself fiercely. The corridor, the one that led to the next ward, was lined on one side by windows. She looked out into the darkness and, as her eyes adjusted, could make out vague silhouettes of bushes, black against black. The glass was cold to the touch of her hand; she leaned her forehead against it, gratefully.
Rage and fear had been the dominant emotions. Rage at her assailant, rage at his inability prevent her injury, fear that she had been badly hurt. She had been as stunned at his expression as at the pain, and didn't move as he dealt with the suspect.
Vecchio had seen Fraser's face; his own expression had told her that. And then she had looked away from both of them, and snapped at them, because...
A nurse, carefully shining her torch down on the floor, approached her. "You should be in bed."
"I can't sleep."
"I can give you something for the pain if you want."
"No, thank you. I'll be fine."
"Well, you can't walk around like this."
Why not? But the nurse's tone was firm, brooking no argument, and she escorted Meg back to her room. "Try to get some rest, dear, even if you can't sleep," she told her; the litany of nursing.
Meg sighed; she was doing a lot of that recently. She curled up in the visitor's chair, wishing for a book, a newspaper, anything. According to her watch, it was only just midnight.
She had seen that look before, on the train. As their carriages disconnected and his pulled away, she watched him recede, his jaw set so hard teeth should have broken, as he was forced to stand by while terrorists held a gun to her head. There was something in his face that unsettled her; his intensity had shaken her.
And he had come after her and she had told him, quite properly, that nothing could happen between them, and he had accepted it calmly. That had hurt, but she was the one who had set the limit, and it was the appropriate thing to do in her position. It was unforgivable for a superior officer to force their attentions on a subordinate; she of all people knew that.
But he wanted it. She tried to ignore the voice within her, got up to pour herself some water. It doesn't matter, she told herself. It's not right. It's not fair to him.
The water was warm, nauseous. She tipped it down the sink and ran her wrist under the cold water tap, but it didn't help. Her collarbone felt as though it were burning, and... He was so calm about it, he just let it go, and that woman... all those women throwing themselves at him... He hadn't encouraged any of them; in fact, as politely as possible, he fled from them, she knew that, but it still rankled. You told him nothing could happen, and he believed you, because you're his superior officer. So what do you want from him?
"Can't you sleep, dear?"
Meg looked around and found a nurse watching her, concerned. She shook her head. "I can give you something, if you'd like."
The prospect of staying up all night, thinking too much about him, almost weakened her resolve. "No, thank you."
"Well, even if you can't sleep, you should try to get some rest." I want... but she couldn't admit it, even to herself. I want to kill the next person who says that to me.
* * * * *
By 6am, no one wanted to speak to her. The hospital grapevine was quite effective, and the day shift staff were yet to enter the same room as her. She came back from the bathroom to find two surprises; a breakfast tray delivered in her absence, and people in her room.
Constable Fraser, Detective Vecchio and the white wolf stood in a row just inside her door, and of the three, only Fraser looked like he didn't resent being there. "Good morning, Inspector. How do you feel?"
"Fine, thank you, Fraser," she told him shortly, unable to meet his eye as she stalked to the table. Dief whimpered as she prodded unenthusiastically at the food, but Fraser silenced him with a stern look. "So what are you doing here? - oh, god." She pulled a face at the smell emanating from the coffee cup, and carried it at arm's length to the sink. "Vecchio, you're supposed to be a cop. Arrest these people. Violation of health regulations. Cruel and unusual. Attempted murder."
"You're spoilt, Inspector. Down at the precinct, that'd be premium grade."
"Well, I'm used to better."
"Yeah, 'cos you get Fraser to make it for you all the time."
Meg glared at him; stung because it used to be true, stung because it wasn't any more. She tossed out the coffee, imagining the detective's face where the scalding liquid - okay, slightly tepid liquid, but Fraser would point out that the kitchen staff did try - splashed. She felt a lupine gaze on her, and turned to face the mournful eyes of the wolf.
"Ma'am, please don't..."
She ignored the constable, and handed the wolf some toast, barely getting her fingers clear in time.
"You shouldn't encourage him, Inspector," Fraser told her with as much reproach as he could direct at a superior officer.
"Hey, he's doing me a favour." She rummaged around under the bed, one-handed, and pulled out a sign. "See? 'Nil by mouth'. I assume it refers to me; some intern threw it at me this morning." She tossed it on the bed, restlessly pacing. "Did you bring the files, Fraser?"
"No, ma'am."
Why are simple requests never simple with him? "Fraser, I do remember asking you to. I thought I explained that I needed something to do."
He inclined his head, meticulously checking his memory. "Well, yes, ma'am, you did, and I did think about it, which is why I brought you this."
He held something out to her, and after a startled moment, she took it, turning the pocket-knife over in her hands. Ray craned his head, curious to get a look.
"A knife? You're giving her a knife? I thought you liked the nurses."
She stared back at the other Canadian, finally looking directly at him, ignoring Ray. "You brought me a knife?"
"Oh, and these." He placed sticks of wood on the bedside table as though they would explain everything. She blinked at him, still completely at sea, and he hastened to explain. "Whittling, ma'am. I find that whittling helps pass the time, and is also quite useful in relieving tension."
"Whittling." Sarcastic from lack of sleep, she pointed out, "I have one arm in a sling, and I'm supposed to whittle?" She regretted it immediately, of course, like half the things she said to him, but he was already studying the impeccable shine on his boots, looking sheepish, self-conscious.
"Well, yes... that difficulty had occurred to me, but I haven't come up with a way around that yet..."
She interrupted him hastily to apologise, getting in before he did. "No, I'm sorry, Fraser. Really." She extracted the blade one-handed, a practised skill that had Ray eyeing her suspiciously. It was carefully oiled to prevent rusting, and the wooden handle had a rich hue, like the body of a cello. It wasn't new, but it had been well cared-for. Suddenly, her face was burning, and she felt gauche, yet again, in his presence. Her thanks came out sounding as uncomfortable as she felt.
Fraser half-nodded, half-shrugged, embarrassed, but Meg had taken refuge behind a dark curtain of hair and only Ray saw the matching flush on both their cheeks. He gave them a moment to act, to actually do something, but Dief's exasperated yowl brought him back to reality.
"Come on, Benny. We gotta go - and you've got twice as much work to do now she's in here." He managed a fake grin at Meg. "Enjoy your operation, Inspector."
"More than I do your company," she smiled back with supernova brilliance. The smile faltered for the briefest time as she turned to her deputy. "Thank you again, Constable."
"You're welcome, ma'am. I'm sure it will go well."
They left her alone again, and she looked back down at the knife, his knife. Meg, you are truly, utterly pathetic.
* * * * *
...and then a searing flash of bright light, and she cried out, throwing her arms up to cover her face...
And then pain, an acute, excruciating jolt in her shoulder, and the whole dream resolved itself into reality. She was awake; she had just opened her eyes.
"If you say 'where am I?', I'll be very disappointed in you, you realise."
Something familiar about the voice bothered her. She had to wait until her eyes had adjusted to the light before she could see the speaker. "Vecchio?"
"Yes, Inspector."
She sat up, her muscles not quite back under her control, and recent memory came flooding back. "Vecchio, what on earth are you doing here?"
"Visiting, Inspector." He didn't looked particularly enthused about it, but tried to smile pleasantly. "Fraser had to go back to the consulate for a bit, and he asked me to sit with you."
She frowned, thinking that over. "Really. How odd of him."
"Yeah," Ray agreed, with more fervour than civility. "So, uh, how are you?"
"Oh, fine, thanks... you?"
"Oh, pretty good..." The conversation, never healthy, died then and there. They both looked away for an awkward moment that threatened to go on, and Meg tried a desperate salvage.
"So... you know, you don't have to stay."
"Fraser asked me to," he replied shortly, and something in his tone suggested that Fraser had done a lot more than simply ask.
"You can tell him I sent you home."
"Yeah, like he'd fall for that? He knows I wouldn't do anything you told me to."
His unexpected frankness made her laugh, but it didn't last. They lapsed into another uncomfortable silence. Ray looked around the room, tapping his forefinger on the arm of the chair. Meg knew she was bored when she caught herself checking her hair for split ends. "So... did Fraser say what you were supposed to do?"
"He said to sit with you. He didn't say anything about you regaining consciousness."
"You're getting quite a mouth on you, Detective," she snapped at him, and he grinned back, unrepentant.
"I figure if you report me, I can say you were hallucinating from the anaesthetic. This could be fun."
"Yeah, well, I guess you have to get your kicks somehow, Vecchio."
He ignored her, looking gleeful as he considered the possibilities of the situation. "Now I've got the upper hand. I think we should have a chat. There are some things I really want to know."
Some premonition flickered deep within her, and she reminded him tersely, "Detective, I've just come to after surgery; I hardly think this is the time for major..."
"On the contrary, Inspector, I think it's just the moment. Seize the day and all that." He settled in one of the visitors' chairs and smiled expansively at her. "So. About Fraser."
That does it. Schooling her face into an discouraging, unreadable mask, she sat up, pausing to let her head clear. She grabbed some clothes from the locker and walked carefully to the bathroom to change.
"You running away now, Inspector?"
"Am I allowed to get dressed?" she demanded tartly through the door.
"Please. I'd prefer it."
A nurse - a pretty one, Ray noted appreciatively - stuck her head around the door apprehensively. "Where is she?" she hissed.
"In the bathroom. She's conscious."
"Damn." She pulled a face and disappeared. Ray shrugged, bemused; obviously the inspector was doing her bear-with-a-sore-foot impersonation for the nurses as well. The inspector herself finally emerged from the bathroom, impeccably dressed despite the bandage, her expression glacier-like in warmth and approachability.
"Fraser's a nice guy, huh?" he said encouragingly, watching for a reaction.
She was determined to give him none. "Yes, I suppose he is."
"So why have you been such a bitch to him recently?"
"What?" But she knew she'd been treating him badly.
"Yeah, you know what I mean. God forbid you should ever admit that you care about him, huh." Something on the bedside table caught his eye, and he reached over. "What's this?"
"A stick."
He pulled a 'very funny' face at her. "You've been whittling? ...it's lopsided."
"I've got one arm." She forced a smile. "Keep it. I made it especially for you."
"What is it?"
"A stick."
He raised an eyebrow, but left the whole subject alone, returning inexorably to Fraser. "It's not fair to him, you know. As long as you don't give him a straight answer, what's he supposed to do?"
"Straight answer about what?"
"Oh, please. I know you're interested in him."
"What could possibly give you that impression?" she said at her most dampening.
"Well, you kissed him on top of the train, didn't you?"
"How..." She tightened her jaw, regretting the word as soon as it was out.
Ray gloated, doubling over in a caricature of amusement. "I can't believe you fell for that!"
"Hey, I'm just a little woozy here," she snarled at him, but more annoyed with herself. She got up and stalked to the window, and spun around again, edgy. "What is your big concern here, anyway, Vecchio? It's not even as if you like me."
"That's not exactly true. And it's not important."
She stared at him in disbelief. "You think your friend is interested in someone you 'don't exactly like', and it's not important to you?"
Ray met her eyes, his own gaze very direct, level. "How many things has Benny ever wanted in his life?"
Meg laughed, dryly. "I thought you'd know more than me. Peace and goodwill on earth, kindness to small children and animals, no parking near fire hydrants..."
"No." He shook his head, deadly serious. "I mean for himself. A purely selfish want."
She felt a chill wash over her, and looked away, suddenly as serious as the detective. I don't want to think about his. I don't want to talk about it. He was watching her, studying her intently, she could feel it, but didn't want to look at him. Just what does he want me to do, make it up to Fraser on behalf of the cruel world?
"That's why I care. Because he's a decent guy and he's my friend, because whether I like you or not, Benny thinks he'd be happier with you."
"And everything else is incidental to that?" She was getting defensive, which meant she was getting rattled, and she hated that more than anything. "I mean, even if we pretend for the briefest moment that your wild assumptions are vaguely near the mark..."
"Oh, come on, Inspector!"
"...you think that's all that matters? I am his commanding officer - just what do you expect me to say to him? 'Your desk or mine?' Or should I just accost him while he's on sentry duty?"
"How about the clichd and yet still popular 'would you like to see a movie'?" He set aside the stick to concentrate on her fully. "To be brutally honest, I don't care either way. I just want you to decide for once and for all, and stop stringing him along like this."
"Stringing him along...!" She was outraged.
"Don't get coy. And don't mess around with him, because you know just as well as I do that he deserves a hell of a lot more than that. You hurt him, and I'll kill you." He smiled at her with some vestige of politeness. "With all due respect, of course, Inspector."
She stared back at him, caught up in a turmoil of emotions. Her first instinct was to punch him, hard, and following close behind was the urge to break something. I can't do anything. I couldn't have done anything, and I am not 'stringing him along'. But something in his words hit home despite her protests. Suddenly very tired, she went back to the chair, too listless to be angry with the detective.
Watching her, Ray was beginning to regret whatever demon had prompted him to confrontation. Her continued, stricken silence made him uncomfortably aware that this was not what Fraser had asked him to do. "You know, uh..." He indicated the door, uneasily, trying to come up with an excuse to leave. "I think I'll go see if there's any decent caffeine in this place, okay?"
She nodded wordlessly at him, not looking up as he left. Her shoulder was stiff, sore, and she shifted it tentatively, trying to ease the discomfort. I should have dealt with this when it first came up, but... She sighed, overwhelmed, and rubbed at her forehead. I never intended to hurt him, I just wanted...
"Detective Vecchio?"
She turned her head at the dulcet voice, as one of the nurses checked the room hopefully. The young woman's sunny smile dropped away when she caught sight of Meg alone. "He's not here, then?" the nurse demanded irritably, and stalked off without waiting for a reply.
Meg blinked at her back, surprised. So they hate me, but Vecchio's wonderful? She was puzzling out the peculiarities of the nursing staff when a familiar figure took the nurse's place in the doorway. Still bemused, she shook her head slightly, as though to clear it. "Fraser?"
"Good afternoon, ma'am. How are you?"
"Oh, fine..."
The constable was looking around, and she was conscious of a disapproving cast to his features. "Where's Detective Vecchio?"
The mention of his name brought back their recent conversation in unwanted detail, and she looked away, muttering something about nurses.
"That's rather inconsiderate... the nurses made it quite clear that unless..." He stopped, remembering her presence, and reconsidered his words. "Here, ma'am." He held out a covered Styrofoam cup. "Turnbull made you some coffee."
Meg stared at the cup, valiantly trying not to look alarmed or ungrateful. "Ah... you know, Constable, I don't..."
"I hope you don't mind," he interrupted her mildly, "but I took the liberty of emptying it into one of the plants when he wasn't looking, and stopping off at a coffee shop on my way here." He paused, and his expression grew penitent. "I had no idea about the plant, I'm terribly sorry..."
"No, that's, ah..." She frowned, unaccountably distracted, and reached for the cup to hide it. "Thank you, Fraser..."
Damn, she was getting rattled again. He was too close, he was being too considerate, and he was wearing the brown uniform, the one that brought out the colour of his hair. She could still remember the texture of his hair under her fingers, when she slipped her arm around his neck. Still? She had relived that frozen moment on the train so many times she never had the chance to forget it. The heat of his body against hers, his lips... his scent...
Suddenly, almost helplessly hysterical, she began to laugh. Fraser looked at her quizzically, ever so slightly alarmed at this uncharacteristic behaviour. "What is it, sir?" He repeated the question when he got no response.
Eventually, turning away from him to help focus herself, she managed to say, with a remarkable lack of clarity, "Passion Flower."
He raised an eyebrow at her; alarm was growing, and she could almost see him running through the list of anaesthetic side-effects in an attempt to understand her. "Inspector?"
"Don't you ever wonder how you end up in such amazingly implausible situations, Fraser?" she asked him, light-headed from too much laughing. She felt very relaxed, very free - too much medication, Meg - but she couldn't dredge up the energy to care.
"Ma'am?"
"I suppose not... I mean, taken as individual actions, all your decisions have a perverse kind of logic to them, but they take you down the most preposterous paths."
"Inspector?"
"Does it ever worry you that you nearly drowned in a bank vault? Or that you and I..." but all those examples led to things she didn't want to think about. "You locked yourself - and your friend - in an airtight vault and set off the sprinklers."
"We had to apprehend the criminals, Inspector," Fraser reminded her, his brow furrowing in confusion.
"What did you do, disable your sense of the ridiculous? Could you at least explain to me how we ended up on that bungee tower with your wolf?"
"Well, if you'll recall, ma'am, after you landed the helicopter..."
"Oh, the helicopter!" She brightened, grinning like an idiot; she'd forgotten, in the fight and the pain of injury and the vexation of talking to Vecchio, that there had been a helicopter. "I loved that helicopter."
Ray, strolling in with a nurse in tow, groaned dramatically. "Enough with that stupid helicopter!"
But no even he could dampen her enthusiasm - way too much medication, Meg - and she shook her head at him, reproachfully. "It wasn't just any helicopter, Vecchio. It was an AH-64 Apache. They have a maximum speed of nearly 300 kilometres an hour, you know."
"Yeah, Inspector, I'm just as interested now as I was all the other twenty-eight times you told us."
"If you don't mind my asking, ma'am, when did you learn to fly?"
"As I recall, it was right about when we were plummeting into Lake Michigan."
"Hey, Vecchio, did I pull up or not? I was just a little rusty. My uncle taught me years ago, though of course I've never flown an Apache before."
"Yeah, it shows."
"Your uncle had a helicopter, then?"
"Yes, a Huey, but it wasn't nearly as much fun as an Apache. I always meant to get a license, but just never got around to it..."
Ray watched in disbelief as Fraser and the inspector, her face as animated as he'd ever seen it, launched into a normal, for them, conversation. He caught a similar expression of astonishment on the nurse's face and leaned over to her, whispering. "Whatever you guys have got her on, can she get a regular prescription?"
The nurse smiled, a little guiltily. "She does kind of need it, doesn't she?" She lowered her voice in conspiracy. "How do you stand her?"
Ray struck a valiant pose. "It's tough, I grant you, but we're trained for tough situations." The nurse smiled again, invitingly, as she left the room. He glanced back at Fraser and Inspector Thatcher, engrossed in a discussion of the effect of rotor blade aspect ratio on aerodynamic lift, and followed the nurse, grinning to himself. Two birds with one stone.
* * * * *
The nurses had, quite tactfully under the circumstances, suggested that she not jeopardise their tenuous truce on this last day by staying in the same building as them. It was the first medical advice she'd heard since admission that struck her as sensible, so she decided to follow it, taking herself and a book into the garden to read.
But there was something eminently more satisfying about slicing her pocket-knife through the wood of the bench she was on, feeling it snag and watching a shaving of paint and wood curl off the blade. I will talk to him today, I will. I just don't know what to say. She pressed the tip of the knife in as hard as she could, to see how deep a cut she could leave, and thought of Vecchio. If I knew what to say or do, doesn't he think I would have done it already?
She lifted her thumb off the blade and watched the blood flow back into the flesh. She tried to plan the scene in her head, but every approach she came up with had her cringing, and she stabbed the knife into the wood. Just how important is this, anyway? but she had her answer almost immediately. Okay. So I'll do it. I will. A flick of her wrist and another piece of the bench went flying.
"Should you be doing that, ma'am?"
Only her police training kept her from dropping the knife, and she scowled as she looked up into the puzzled face of her subordinate. "Fraser. I didn't hear you coming." Damn, her voice was terse again.
"No, ma'am," he agreed unnecessarily. He waited for a moment, but the inspector made no move to speak again, or leave. "Uh... are you all right, ma'am?"
"Yes, I'm fine. Thank you. But I want to talk to you," she said, and winced at her tone. Great, Meg, do you want him to date you or salute you?
Fraser was obviously convinced it was the latter, and he stood, not quite at attention, but at military ease that lacked everything required of relaxation. Inwardly, Meg quailed; this was bad even for her imagined scenarios. But Vecchio's words still rang in her mind, and she plunged in recklessly.
"You see, the thing is... well, that is..." she stopped, took a breath, and started again, her lucidity not having benefited noticeably from the pause. "There are things... which I've been trying to disregard, because of the very obvious complications. And while for the most part I've been successful, if you discount one or two... all right, the occasional lapse in concentration - it seems that in moments of great stress or crisis, my focus has slipped somewhat and my behaviour to you has been... well, inappropriate, given the defined boundaries of our relationship."
She didn't look at him as she spoke, intent on saying her piece and knowing that one glance at him would defeat her courage. "I admit that I've been avoiding the whole issue, and I apologise for that. The thing is, you see, that... well, as I see it, there are two options for dealing with this situation. And... I'm an inspector, I'm doing well in my chosen career - I love the RCMP - and it's not something I want to just give up."
She looked up automatically to gauge his reaction, and quickly realised the mistake of meeting his eyes. She glanced away before her nerve completely vanished. "Well.." she cleared her throat, and plunged back into her monologue. "Anyway, I don't want to give that up. But by the same token, I... well... I hope you understand that I wouldn't be saying this had it not been for the incident on the train... I don't want you to be coerced into anything; there will of course be no repercussions if... but... you see, the train, and so... In spite of the inevitable difficulties, I would like to try... that is, if you... Although I may be completely misinterpreting your... in which case..."
She stopped, acutely conscious that as far as declarations of love went, there would never be a great romantic film made of the speech she had just given. You total git, Meg. 'Your desk or mine' would have at least been to the point.
Fraser stood as he had the whole while she was speaking, posture-perfect, hands behind his back, eyes narrowed slightly as he studied her, cautious and faintly quizzical. Eventually, he asked her, "Are you on any medication?"
Her heart sank; it was worse than she had thought. She shook her head, wordlessly.
He nodded slowly, absorbing the information. Head tilted to one side, he fixed her with a measuring gaze, gesturing with one hand as he asked, "You feel quite fine, then - no residual effects of the anaesthetic?"
Tired as well as disappointed, she nevertheless kept her voice clear, steady; Inspector Thatcher will not fall apart over some stupid miscalculation. "No. I'm fine, thank you."
He nodded again, considering it all, while she sat on the mutilated bench, mortified, but determined not to show it. And then, unexpectedly, he smiled at her. "Good."
She stared back, thrown off-balance. "Good?"
"Good."
"Oh."
Both a little shell-shocked, Fraser sat down beside her while they tried to absorb this turn of events. "That bush needs watering," Meg observed; irrationally, but the non-sequitur was only one of many disjointed thoughts racing through his head, and he merely nodded.
The enormity of what she'd just done was starting to sink in, and she backed on to familiar ground; planning and organising. She cleared her throat, brisk and business-like. "We're going to have to discuss this, of course."
"Of course," Fraser agreed mildly.
"There are a lot of issues to consider, after all, and..."
"Of course," he repeated again, "but perhaps we should arrange for your discharge first? And discuss this over lunch?"
"Lunch?" She blinked at him, quailing. Oh, god, what are we getting ourselves into? I don't even understand the bungee tower yet.
"Yes, lunch. I don't believe you've eaten in three days." He stood and held out a hand to help her up, smiling at her through his blue eyes. The smile settled it for her, and she took his hand firmly. What the hell...
Nicola Heiser
"It's a curious thing, reality, isn't it?" - Benton Fraser, due South
Nicola Heiser died on 24th October 1997, and is greatly missed by her friends and fans of her writing.