This story is written for the private entertainment of fans. No infringement of any copyrights held by Due South c/o Alliance is intended. This story is not published for profit, and the author does not give permission for this story to be reproduced for profit. The author makes no claims on the characters or their portrayal by the creation of this story.

Rated PG

Of Fairy Tales and Ways Out
(by Catalina Dudka - Copyright 1996)

It is peaceful, really, all that snow. Miles and miles, Never-ending and never-beginning. Even the impressions left by my passage lasted no more than a breath or two. The flakes fell and fell, and the cold wind blew, at least, I suppose it must be cold, because I can't tell anymore.

Propping myself up against the cliff at my back, I close my eyes and listen to the slowing beat of my heart. To drown the sorry sound, I begin to hum, a toneless tune that sounds even sorrier. A bitter laugh startles me, until I realize it had come from my own throat, which makes me laugh all over again.

I know I am dying, had known it from the moment my feet had turned to stone. Whatever hope I had harboured after surviving the plane crash had dissipated slowly, carried away by the falling snow. I fought it at first, the hopelessness, but an eternity of trudging through this white emptiness while your body shut down by degrees ... Well, it didn't do much for your enthusiasm.

Laughter at the irony of it all chokes me once more. I had always believed myself a survivor, doing whatever was necessary to keep going, to live. You got that way when you grew up between foster homes and the streets. First you learn to be quiet and hide (because you are small enough to hide), then to be quiet and take it (because you are big enough to take it, and someone smaller needed your hiding place).

The day I met Jolly I thought I had found a way out. He had known just what to say, just what to do. He treated me like no one had before. So what if when he had a bit to drink he slapped me around, so what. Most of the time he treated me like a Queen. We had money to spend, a nice place to live. So what if his friends were no better than the people I'd known before, so what. I'd have done anything for him, anything, and one day I did.

How long ago now? It couldn't have been that long. Though I feel as ancient as the rock behind me, as timeless as the vastness surrounding me, I know I'm only twenty-two. Licking my chapped lips, so sharp they cut my tongue, I let my self remember.

The job was simple, Jolly said. Les, the driver, had gotten in a bar fight and was in no shape to take the wheel that day. There was no time to find anyone else. It had taken weeks to plan this heist and if it wasn't done now ... How could I refuse him? It wasn't like I had to do much, just wait in the car outside the bank. Well, that had been three days (or was it years?) ago, and look at me now.

In a way, I guess, Jolly had been my ticket out, out of life that is. I feel the laughter rise up again and let it erupt from my mouth, like bile. It burns me, like acid, like the cold. At least it feels like something and I am grateful to feel anything one more time. What? What was that?!? It seems even the wind mocks me by pretending to be human.

I let my eyes unfocus on the space between snowflakes and allow my imagination free reign, like when I was little. I pretend, real hard, that a handsome prince was on his way to rescue me. See how easy it is? There! There, you can just make out his shape behind the snow. Funny, he's walking, maybe his horse didn't like snow. Now that I think of it, he isn't dressed like a prince, more like a hunter. Oh well, that's OK, a hunter saved Little Red Riding Hood, right? Man, he sure is good to look at though. Check out that strong jaw, and those are the bluest eyes I have ever seen.

My lids feel heavy and the effort to keep them up is almost too much. Suddenly I feel a warmth. He has my fingers in his mouth!

"Oh my...," I whisper through a stone throat.

"Ma'am. Stay awake Ma'am!" he rasps.

"I'm not Ma'am ... My name is Victoria."

"I know."

He answers while somehow building a shelter around us so that I can't see the snow anymore. That is good.

"Who are you?" I manage to murmur.

"Constable Benton Fraser."

I hear just as the blackness floods in.

The End
(... and the rest, as they say, is history.)

Cat (cdudka@direct.ca)