Title: Perchance to Dream
Author: AJ Dannehl
Rating: PG
Pairing: None
Setting: Post COTW
Spoiler: COTW
Disclaimer: Alliance owns the copyrights to Due South, its characters and situations; i own only this plot; yada yada yada...


*****


I am running, running frantically in the dark. The only light comes from strobe flashes of red that pop off first here, then there. It disorients me, makes it hard to know which way to go. No matter how fast I run I barely gain any ground. This darkness is like a living thing; it reaches, grasps at me, wraps itself around me. I am running through it, struggling against it, my breath ragged, wheezing. My legs are at the point of collapse; it is tempting to give up, to fall into the darkness and surrender, but I can't stop. Can't stop; I have to push through the red-lit darkness, get to Muldoon.

Get to Muldoon before the arms dealer hurts Benny.

Just up ahead... Gunshots. Screams. More shots; now I see gunpowder flashes. I have to keep running. Almost there. I've come too far, been gone too long, only to have Benny taken away from me now.

I see Muldoon spotlighted in front of a toy store. He holds a weapon in the classic two-handed firing position, his back to me. Now I see Benny, standing straight as a firing-range target. Muldoon, intent on the bright red target, doesn't know I am near. Benny speaks but I can't hear him; my heart beat drowns out all other sounds. Just a little closer now... Almost there...

Benny sees me, spots me inching towards Muldoon. Benny smiles, waves and calls to me. Now I can hear the words: they're my name. Benny shouts my name over and over and waves at me.

Muldoon swirls around, takes aim at me and fires. I can hear the shots, am blinded by the gunpowder flashes.

The world changes.

Wind screams at me now. It howls, wails, sounds like a wolf. I turn, look everywhere, but all I can see is white. Shining, blazing white, and cold. Snow. I know I'm in a snow field, somewhere. I know where I am: I'm in Canada. I can't see; the dazzle of sun on snow burns my eyes, blinds me. I can't move; snow like quicksand pulls at me, slows me down. Snow swirls madly like flakes in a shaken snowglobe. The crystal flakes have razor-keen edges. They sting me, cut my face and bare hands. I hold my hands in front of my eyes and lean into the wolf wind and free myself from the snow bank. Bright red crystals fall from my hands, marking my path through the snow. After a while I see a shape, dark against the whiteness, coming towards me. The shape becomes a man, a man holding a gun. I can see the barrel, shining through the stinging snow. The barrel is pointed at me. I see the gunman clearly now and call out to him.

"Benny!"

Benny is still in his dress reds. Diefenbaker comes from out of nowhere and stands by his side. Benny laughs, Dief howls. The two sounds mix together, mix with the screaming winds and swirling snow. The gun is still pointed at me; I can see Benny's finger slowly squeezing the trigger.

"Benny! It's me! It's Ray!" I scream at him over the wind. Benny's finger, still on the trigger, tightens again. "Benny! It's Ray Vecchio! I've come back!" Benny's mouth opens, moves, but all I can hear is howling wolf laughter and wind and my own heart thudding and thudding and thudding. Benny's arm drops to his side, the gun dangling loose. He laughs.

I've never been this scared before in my life.

Then Dief runs towards me, snarling, fangs bared. The wolf leaps as I yell his name, yell Benny's name; I throw my hands up defensively. I hear Benny's laughter as Dief hits my chest, slamming me into the snow. I can't breathe, both hitting the ground and from the wolf's weight upon my chest. Dief is growling and I can feel his breath on my hands, my face. A wind-sharp whistle from Benny and Dief leaps off, returning to Benny's side.

I push myself up, try to get back on my feet. As I stand a flash catches my eye. It's light, bouncing off the gun barrel as Benny whips the weapon up and aims it at me again. I see gunpowder flashes, hear the reports. Round after round slams into me, sends me jerking and spinning in the snow. Bright red blood arches gracefully from wherever a bullet strikes, making delicate, feathery swirls in the snow.

I collapse like an abandoned toy, no longer needed or wanted.

Everything grows hazy, grows dark red. I hear footsteps crunching in the snow, coming towards me. The steps pace in time with my heartbeat, growing slower and slower and slower. I look up, barely see Benny through the red haze. Benny bends over me, says something to me. Again, I can hear the words..."Too late, buddy. You're just too damn late." Then, carefully, Benny raises the gun and aims it at my face, only inches away from my eyes, and squeezes the trigger one more time....



*****
Ray sat up in bed, eyes wild, breath ragged, sweat drenching his body. He looked at the clock's glowing digital numbers: 4:05 a.m. God, that dream. It was always the same, night after night. Sometimes, two or three times in a night.

"To sleep, perchance to dream..." he remembered that from Sister Helen's twelfth grade English class. Shakespeare. Who was it? Hamlet, yeah... wasn't Hamlet thinking about killing himself? In high school, Ray really hadn't gotten the point: life being so bad that you wanted to kill yourself, but you were scared you'd have bad dreams for eternity? Get real.

It had gotten terribly real for Ray Vecchio.

He spent tons of time with the shrinks since coming back. The P.D.'s, the F.B.I.'s, almost any kind of governmental agency that had been involved with this assignment and that had social workers and psychologists and counselors and psychiatrists. The shrinks looked at him, encouraged him to talk, to express his feelings. So, he did. Then they told him that what he felt, thought, feared, was all normal, all healthy, after what he'd been through. Then they listened some more, then looked at clocks or watches and told him that he was making excellent progress, all things considered.

All things considered?

Did they mean, considering the fact that he hadn't eaten his service weapon yet?

He buried his head in his hands, fighting to calm down, to control himself. They -- all of them, the doctors, the lawyers, the Feds, all the ones who made these decisions -- hadn't considered one damn thing about this assignment except busting the Iguanas. Nobody considered the effect of being suddenly pulled away from his family, his friends, his life itself, and knowing that the chances for recovering any of them slim. Nobody considered the strain of being on guard every day, every damn day and night, of having to think like a criminal, to be a criminal himself, in order to do the damn job and stay alive, aware that any move he made, everything he said or looked at or laughed at or even got upset about, could possibly get him killed. Not any goddamn one of them considered any of this, damn them all to hell.

OK. He had been given what they called orientation. Continual drill upon the names, the faces, the facts, the figures. Told him that yeah, this could happen, that might happen, and if it did, well, chalk it up to the wreck and tell anyone who might notice, hey, I'm lucky to be alive, much less functioning, so don't sweat the small stuff, right? The Bookman was back, baby, and ready for action! Who do we whack today, guys?

Sweet dreams ain't made of these.

Ray wrapped his arms around himself tightly, chilled from the sweat...and other reasons. He drew a ragged, shuddering breath and stared at what scattered moonlight showed: his bedroom, in his house; once a familiar, comfortable place. His bed. His dresser. His stuff. His space. His place?

He was no longer sure where his place was.

A problem, that: where, exactly, did Ray Vecchio belong? No way he could go back undercover, even if he wanted to (and he sure as hell didn't want to). Nope; Armondo Langoustini might have had nine lives, but the last eight were used up trying to get Muldoon and Cyrus Bolt. No more miraculous survival stories could be written for the Bookman.

Any miracles left for Ray Vecchio?

Hell, any life left?

Ray's life, it seemed, had gotten along quite nicely without him, thank you very much. The earth didn't stop revolving, the sun still rose and set each day, Chicago didn't disappear off the face of the map even with him gone. His family was fine, the house had been tourched but rebuilt even better than it was. The 27th still battled crime and criminals and showed a pretty good arrest record, too. The guy they brought in to keep his cover going, Kowalski, was a good cop, a good guy. Must be; Fraser worked with him, liked him, trusted him. The guy did a good job with Ray's life, Ray's career. Probably better than when Ray lived it himself.

Sure seemed like everyone else thought so.

OK. That was self-pity, pure and simple. Maybe he was wrong, about Fraser, about everybody. Maybe he wasn't being fair, especially about the Mountie.

Life, as they say, ain't fair. Then why did he have to fair? Why should he?

Because of Benny.

Because Benny thought he could be. Because Benny had always believed in Ray Vecchio and trusted Ray Vecchio and knew that, come what may, despite all the bitching and whining, Ray Vecchio would do the right thing.

Then where the hell was Benny?

It wasn't Ray's fault that he left like he did. The Feds said they'd do stuff to his family, to his mother... his mother, for Christ's sake. They had stuff, evidence, papers and shit, connecting Pop to the Mob. Said they'd make it look like Ma knew about the criminal activites, make life for all the Vecchios a living hell. God, what else could he do? Nothing.         

Not one damn thing.

He'd fought like hell to make even that one lousy call. All the Feds nearly had a heart attack when Ray told 'em he was gonna make the call anyway, no matter what they said or did.

So he'd made his call... and found that there wasn't a whole lot he could say. What could he say? Nothing. Not over a phone or any other way. It was too dangerous, he knew that. Too dangerous for him. For Benny, too, if only Benny thought about it. That's why he couldn't get in touch with Benny at all, except for that one lousy postcard. If anyone had even got a whiff, just a hint, of the possibility that the Mountie knew more than he was letting on, well, God alone knows what would have happened.

Make that God, the Mob, and Armondo, the man formerly known as Detective Ray Vecchio. Ray knew exactly what would have happened, 'cause he'd seen it done to someone else and that person's friend. Just thinking about it made his skin crawl. Dear God, the screams...and the blood...

No way he could let that happen to Benny.

Benny seemed happy enough when he first saw Ray at the Hotel California. That goofy smile, and those blue eyes shining like a kid at Christmas. Trust Benny to be himself and nearly get them all killed with honesty. Trust Benny again to trust Ray enough to follow his lead and get them out of it. And trust Benny again to say that Ray and Kowalski would get along fine. Who wouldn't take a bullet, again, for a friend like that? Absently mindedly, he rubbed the scars. They still hurt, sometimes. Benny and he sure had scarred each other up quite a bit, inside and out.

Maybe Benny's scars still hurt, too.

Ray knew, none better, that Benton Fraser was no plaster saint. Fraser'd admitted to feeling a bit of satisfaction the first time Ray'd caught a bullet meant for the Mountie. Ray could only wonder if, maybe, Fraser might've felt the same this second time. Ray would never know for sure, because Benny and he weren't able to talk just then. Hell, there'd been no time to talk, to explain and to listen, to understand and be understood. He'd been so damned overwhelmed, returning like that, seeing Benny and everyone at the precint, but still having to concentrate on finishing the damn job. No time to reconnect, to make things right. So much was left unresolved. Was that why Benny took off to the armpit of the frozen north... with Kowalski?

"A hit; a most palatable hit...They bleed on both sides."

Sighing, Ray looked at the clock. 4:45. He settled back against his pillow and rubbed his eyes so hard that he could see white sparks behind his eyelids. He pulled the dark green comforter up and clutched it like a life-line. Forget sleep, 'cause it was too late. Ignore the dreams... if he could. Forget that he was going back to a life not really his anymore. Ignore the fact that everyone still seemed a bit uncomfortable around him, didn't seem to know what to do around him. Forget that the best friend he ever had in his life wasn't there for him anymore.

He only had himself, now.

Maybe his old man had been right; just worry about number one. But when the hell had his old man every been right about anything? And how the hell long had it been since he, himself, been right, or even knew what was right? Ray no longer knew anymore.

He no longer got a full night's sleep.

He no longer knew who or what he was.

He no longer kept his service weapon loaded or so near in his nightstand.