PAIRINGS:

WARNINGS:

This story is dedicated to Cassie Bernall, Stephen Curnow, Corey DePooter, Kelly Fleming, Matthew Kechter, Daniel Mauser, Daniel Rohrbough, William 'Dave' Sanders, Rachel Scott, Isaiah Shoels, John Tomlin, Laura Townsend, and Kyle Velasquez. These lives were ended in violence on April 22nd in Littleton Denver, when two young men took their hate into Columbine Highschool and began to kill. It was an act of senseless brutality, but it is an act that America will hopefully learn from, and must never be allowed to happen again. To those young men and women, and to the friends and family who now shed tears of grief over their premature graves....this is for you.

Constable Benton Fraser, RCMP, almost sighed aloud with relief as he answered the last question. It was over, and not a moment too soon.

The Mountie was a patient man, and very polite (almost ad nauseum in many people's opinions). They were traits he was rather proud of, having carefully cultivated them since he was a small boy, and usually, they served him well. This time though, they had only served to get him noticed.

Noticed by a nameless Ottawa bureaucrat who had seen Fraser's file, his long list of cases solved jointly with the American police, and even the FBI. His reviews indicated an officer who was impeccably behaved, conducting himself as the very epitome of all the RCMP stood for. He clearly got along well with the Americans, and even lived right in the middle of an American city. In short, he was the perfect Chicago Ambassador for the new project that RCMP headquarters had dreamed up, the Meet The Mounties public relations campaign.

Thus, over the last two weeks, Benton Fraser had been to thirteen embassies, one opera, two cocktail parties, and eleven schools. He had donned the red serge dress uniform and answered questions, finger-painted with children, danced with Ambassador's wives, and listened to ear-shattering sopranos. There had been moments when he would have given absolutely anything to be up in the Territories again. To be alone with Diefenbaker in his father's cabin, and far, far, far away from anyone who had questions about the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

The schools had been the worst. The elementary schools had been bad, the questions having centered to an alarming degree on bodily functions, and Dief having been subjected to 'petting' that strongly resembled the tortures of the Spanish Inquisition. The middle schools had been better, with children old enough to ask intelligent, informed questions, but still young enough to be curious and interested in the answers. But the highschools....

Fraser was glad that this was the very last highschool he would be speaking at. Quite a few of the girls had displayed behavior that was truly disturbing to the Mountie, considering the degree of open seduction being attempted by girls as young as fourteen. Few of the boys had done much else other than mock his mannerly attitude, the concept of chivalry clearly far from their minds. Many questions had shown a dismaying degree of disrespect, a disrespect that Fraser suspected was partially due to what he had seen of the American opinion of law in general. There had, however, thankfully been a handful of truly attentive, eager students, and for that he was grateful.

Still, he wanted to get home. He was tired, the red serge was feeling rather warm in the late April heat, and Diefenbaker needed to have the gum bestowed by Mrs. Giordino's third graders cut out of his coat. Still, he was careful to be sure that no one would notice his relief, smiling and nodding as the teacher blithely thanked him for taking the time to speak to them. He touched the brim of his Stetson in return, "Thank you kindly for letting me -"

His words were cut off by a scream.

It was faint, clearly issuing from some distant point in the school, but it was unmistakably a scream. There was a heartbeat of silence, then another noise, a sharp 'rat-a-tat-tat' that echoed like firecrackers. Gunfire. Accompanied by more screaming and the sound of people running for their lives.

Almost as one, the students panicked. Most leapt up from their desks and ran for the doors, ignoring Fraser and their teacher as they were urged to stay put and remain calm. Others ducked under the furniture, putting their hands over their heads and curling into tight balls. The cries and gunfire continued. By Fraser's calculations, there was only one gunman, using a semi-automatic weapon. Still able to cause plenty of damage.

Fraser caught hold of the teacher's arm, looking her straight in the eye. "Keep the children in here. If you hear the gunfire getting closer, take them out, but please attempt to keep them calm. I will be attempting to rectify this situation." Her large eyes, an unnatural violet thanks to contact lenses, were wide with terror, but she nodded. "Yes, sir."

He nodded, "Thank you kindly," then slipped out into the hall.

It was as though he was swimming against the current of a very strong river, and in a way, he was. The river of students poured past him, a frightened, stampeding mass of tears and screams and scattered bookbags. His blue eyes swept the teenagers for the gunman, looking for the telltale bulge of a firearm beneath a varsity jacket, the silver glint of a gun's barrel protruding from a backpack. A face that didn't display fear. But the fear was there on every face. Tears streaked mascara down the cheeks of terrified girls. Boys as pale as sheets clutched their girlfriends close, trying not to let their fear be seen.

Fraser forced himself to shut it out. He had to ignore their fear. He had to find the one responsible for it.

Soon, the tide of students ebbed, then ceased all together, and the halls of the school took on an eerie feel of desertion. Discarded papers wafted slowly to the floor from open lockers. Someone's books were scattered across the tile, the pages ripped from their spines by panicked feet. The beads of a girl's broken necklace still rolled loosely. Bright red drops of blood stood out starkly against the dirty white of the floor.

Tuning out the sounds of the exodus behind him, Fraser could hear what everyone had been fleeing. Suppressed sobs and choked cries of fear were mixed with a girl's shrill screams of absolute terror, and the sneering, taunting tones of a young man. Caucasian. Educated. His words were a little slurred, as if he had been drinking.

"What do you think now, bitch? Do you want to live? Huh?!! You want to live so that goddamn jock can fuck you again? Huh? Or do you want do die like the slut you are? You want to die, bitch?!!!" His voice had risen to a hysterical pitch, as the screams of his victim began to fade away into desperate gulps for air.

Slowly, Fraser eased down the hall, Dief by his side. The entire thing was occurring right around the next corner, only about ten meters of flimsy lockers and school spirit posters separating them. Careful not to make any noise that might alert the criminal, he reached down, easing his knife from its holster in his boot. The shiny surface served as a perfect mirror as he held it around the corner, and he felt his throat go dry at what it revealed.

The young girl he had heard screaming was there, pressed face-first against a locker. Her long strawberry-blonde hair was twisted into the fist of the boy who was holding here there, pressing the barrel of a semi-automatic Ruger rifle into the back of her head. The cold metal had snapped the wings off the delicate butterfly barrette she had been wearing. Both the pale pink of her tee-shirt and the freckled skin of her arms were streaked with blood.

The boy was about seventeen years old, with long, dirty brown hair, and skin that seemed sallow and pimply beneath it's coating of black greasepaint. A black bandanna was tied around his head, and he was dressed in army fatigues. Two old-fashioned ammunition belts were draped bandit-style across his torso, although Fraser knew that the real ammunition was in the three clips on his belt. His feet were clad in blood spattered hiking boots. His face bore an expression that made Fraser's blood run cold. He was enjoying this, his lips quirked up into a demented smile, but his hazel eyes bearing no expression whatsoever.

Around the young gunman and his victim, eight other students were cowering as far back against their lockers as they could, trying not to move lest they attract attention. At least three of those were wounded, and one Asian boy wearing a varsity jacket could not stop himself from crying aloud at the pain of the bullet that had shattered his shoulder.

Fraser could also see three others lying on the floor. They were unmoving, blood pooled beneath their bodies. Dead.

The girl was pleading for her life now, begging him not to shoot her. She received no answer, and the gunman's face twisted into an expression of cruel amusement as he slowly turned the weapon against the butterfly clip, reminding her of its presence.

Fraser resheathed the knife as he slid back against the wall, trying to decide what to do now. If he appeared too suddenly, if he tried to interfere, the boy might kill her. If he did nothing....

No.

Nothing was not an option.

As he considered his options, a bookbag that had been left on top of one of the lockers began to slide. Fraser's blue eyes widened in horror as he watched it slip more and more off balance, knowing he couldn't move to catch it without being seen, but afraid of what the sudden noise would cause. Soon, it did indeed fall, the textbooks scattering with a resounding crash.

Fraser closed his eyes, holding his breath, but there was no answering tattoo of bullets. Instead, there was a moment of silence, then the boy's voice rang out. "Who's there?!"

He remained quiet.

"Are you the cops?! Show yourselves right now, or I put a bullet up the bitch's ass!"

Cautiously, his hands spread to show he was unarmed, Fraser stepped out into the gunman's view. A quick look ordered Diefenbaker to stay put. Thankfully, the wolf chose that time to be obedient. Fraser was painfully aware of the suddenly hopeful looks on the teenagers faces as he emerged. They were all expecting him to save them. The question was, could he?

The gunman tilted his head oddly, his hands stroking the weapon like a lover. "Well, isn't this nice. Cops send us Dudley Do-right. What is this, punk...Halloween?" He sniggered at his joke, but Fraser remained calm and unthreatening, his hands still raised.

"My name is Benton Fraser." He omitted his title, not wanting to provoke the young man with his law-enforcement status.

"Benton Fraser", the boy mocked. "I'm Up Yours." His eyes narrowed. "Are you serious about that monkey suit?"

"Well...yes."

"So you're really one of those goddamn Mountie pricks."

"I am an RCMP. officer, yes."

"Good." The boy's face lit up in a truly delighted expression. "Even more fun than a cop. So tell me, Dudley," Abruptly, he swung the barrel of the weapon back to the head of the blonde girl, still trembling with her face pressed to the locker, "should I kill her? This is the football captain's whore...should I kill the bitch, Dudley?"

Fraser felt almost physically ill at what he was watching, but he forced his voice to remain calm and neutral. "No, I don't really think so."

"Ok." The reply was flip, sing-song almost. Then the barrel swung to the next student, who had clearly been shot once already, his knee a battered mess. "What about this son of a bitch? President of the whole goddamn student body. Should he die, Dudley? Or should it be this one, the nigger? Or this one? Or this one?" The weapon veered from one cowering teen to the next, as the assailant's voice rose to fever pitch. "Who dies, Dudley?!! Your call!!"

There was a moment's pause, then the youth's eyes gleamed, and the gun swung to point directly at Fraser himself. "How about you?"

Without a moment's warning, Diefenbaker sprang from behind the lockers, the thin veneer of donut-stealing civilization vanishing in a terrifying exhibition of his wild ancestry. His lips pulled back, exposing long, sharp fangs, and the fur of his ruff stood up like some sort of savage halo. The young gunman stopped his tirade, looking in frightened fascination at the huge beast hurtling at him, a deep, menacing growl announcing his intent. He started to raise the barrel of his gun again, but Diefenbaker's jaws clamped firmly onto his wrist, causing his fingers to release and send the weapon hurtling down the hall.

Relief flooded through Fraser at the sudden defusing of the situation by his lupine friend. He started to run forward, wanting to complete the job of immobilizing the gunman until the police sirens he now heard wailing in the distance could arrive. The Mountie was only two paces away when Diefenbaker's fierce growls suddenly ascended into a childlike yelp of pain. The wolf fell back, and Fraser stopped dead in his tracks, transfixed in shock at the sight of the knife in the young man's hand.

Scarlet blood had soaked the creamy fur of the wolf's abdomen, and his legs were pedaling spasmodically, streaking more of the red fluid across the tile of the hall. His brown eyes looked up at Fraser, hurting, pleading, and the Constable almost missed the movement of the gunman.

His wrist was bleeding from the wolf's bite, but he was reaching for his lost weapon, knowing that the students still clinging to the walls were too frightened to do anything. Fraser felt something within him grow cold and hard, a feeling he had experienced only once before, when facing his father's murderer. This boy had already killed at least three other children, and may well have murdered Diefenbaker as well. If he got hold of that weapon, he would kill again, and what's more, Deif's sacrifice would have been in vain.

Desperately, he hurled himself across the two meters. He tackled the young man only a split second before his fingers would have closed on the stock of the rifle. Their eyes met, and Fraser shivered as he recognized the glassy expression. Hate and drugs. A combination that would turn an ordinary boy into a berserker, incapable of feeling remorse or pain.

The youth's sinewy form was surprisingly strong and flexible, and it reminded the Mountie of attempting to restrain an octopus. He could see the hilt of a second knife lodged in the boy's belt, and he knew that he couldn't let him reach it. Fraser was engaged in a deadly waltz up and down the hall. Here a twist, there a dip, one, two, three, one, two, three. Misstep and a lot of innocent people die.

They were close to a window, and Fraser could see that a large number of Chicago PD squad cars had gathered on the street below, along with a distinctive green Riviera. He began to maneuver the boy closer to the window, trying to give a clear shot to one of the snipers he knew was there. Fraser prayed they could tell the difference between RCMP. scarlet and the mottled greens and tawny shades of camouflage.

No shot rang out to end the dance, but Fraser finally managed to get the upper hand, pinning the boy's arms behind his back in a macabre embrace. The youth continued to struggle, but Fraser knew it was mostly over now. He had him. He took a small step closer to the window, intending to signal his capture, but his boot abruptly met with a slick pool of blood on the floor, blood spilt from the first student shot.

Irrelevantly, Fraser's memory recalled that her name had been Rebecca Leiberman, and that she had asked him if all the police in Canada were Mounties. A nice girl. Dead now. Really quite a shame.

This all went through his mind in the split second that his footing flew out from under him. He crashed headlong into the window, still locked together with the gunman, and he felt the glass shatter beneath their weight. There was a moment of suspended time as they plummeted to the ground from the second story, until they slammed harshly into the concrete basketball court below.

Light and pain exploded through Fraser's skull, a display of agony a thousand times brighter than the Canada Day fireworks he had seen as a boy. Some nagging instinct tried to rise itself, insisting that he had a criminal to deal with. He tried to get up, but the fireworks intensified, and he felt the world twist and sway around a body that suddenly refused to obey his commands. The fireworks reached a spectacular crescendo, and he could not hear the gasp of pain that escaped his lips as he collapsed completely.

Then there was nothing but darkness.

***

"Of all the goddamn schools!" Ray Vecchio looked up at the window to double-check what he'd seen, then turned, slamming a kick into the tire of the Riv. Benny would have to be here. Here, in THIS school, at the EXACT time that some kid had decided to go shoot the place up. It figured.

It wasn't even as though it could be case of mistaken identity. After all, there weren't too many men who ran around Chicago in bright red jackets and Stetsons and had enough of a hero complex to jump kids with guns. No. Benton Fraser was up there all right.

Ray sighed as he watched the officers and detectives milling around. Fraser's sudden action had thrown off all their plans, and he could see the anxiety on their faces. It wasn't just a scene that had gone wrong. This was their friend. Most of the guys in the 27th had worked with the Canadian at least once. For all his oddities, the Mountie tended to be pretty damned likable. It had gotten to the point where almost everyone considered him something of an honorary cop.

He spotted Detective Jack Huey moving towards him. "Ray!"

"Whaddya need, Jack?" Ray looked more or less in the direction of his co-worker, but part of his attention never left the window.

"The kids are saying he's got the wolf in there."

This got Ray's full attention. "Dief?"

"Yeah. The SWAT team wants to know if he can - " The question was cut off by the sound of shattering glass. All eyes looked up, and to Ray, it seemed as if time slowed to a crawl. Benny was locked in combat with the creep who'd been doing the shooting, and they never separated an inch, even as they fell through the window. The two figures fell headfirst, the youth's head striking the concrete first, followed by Benny's head and shoulder. Neither man made a sound as they smashed into the earth.

Ray imagined he could hear bones snap, even though he was almost twenty meters away. Oddly, the first thing he noticed was that Benny's hat was pretty well crushed. Benny was so fastidious about the hat...he'd really hate that. He continued to watch with the same feeling of detachment as the Mountie slowly released his hold on the kid and sagged over onto his back. There he lay, completely limp and unmoving.

Shaking off the spell of shock, Ray began to run towards his friend, but found Huey's strong arms holding him back. "What the hell's the matter with you?!", he shouted. "Fraser's been hurt!"

"And the EMTs can handle that just fine." Huey looked sternly at the wiry Italian. "Look, Ray, he's my friend too. But there's nothing we can do right now, and we've got a hell of a crime scene up there."

Ray kept his eyes glued on his brown wingtips as he walked into the school, unable to look towards where Benny's motionless form had been surrounded by medics. He didn't want to know, because if it was bad news, he knew he wouldn't be able to continue with his job. As they went into the school, he could hear the snapping of cameras behind him. They were both police and media, and he knew that this was going to be all over the front page by the next morning. He didn't care. As long as the headlines didn't say anything about dead Mounties.

Deliberately, Ray let himself go to autopilot. This was just another scene. Just another dead kid, another nasty example of Chicago's dark side. He tried to ignore the little details that hurt. The lipstick on the dead boy's mouth that said he'd been kissing his girlfriend just before he was killed. The dog-eared picture of a prom dress, lovingly cut from a magazine but soaked with blood. The straight-A report card trampled in the hall.

He couldn't shut it all out, though. It was part of being a cop. He had to look at all the details. Every spent shell. Every scattered paper. Every drop of blood, whether it was a splatter, a bootprint, or a.... Ray's eyes traveled along a trail of blood on the tile floor. It collected in a thick pool, then streaked off, as though a body had been dragged. He motioned to Huey. "Jack, look at this. I think we might have another wounded kid."

Part of him heard Huey radioing for more medics, but Ray concentrated on the trail of blood, following it around the corner and over to where the door of the stairwell was wedged partly open. Ray felt himself pale when he saw that it wasn't a pair of tennis shoes or a backpack that held it open. It was a paw. A white paw darkened with blood. "Dief! Dammit, Jack, it's Deifenbaker!"

The big man rushed over, his eyes widening as he saw the wolf. "Son of a bitch!" Ray could hear the catch in Huey's voice, but he didn't fault him. The animal was only just breathing, his ribs rising and falling in barely perceptible motions. Creamy white fur was streaked with red, and the poor creature's abdomen looked like something off a coroner's slab. "Ten to one this happened when he was trying to help the Mountie," Huey said quietly. There was no argument. They both knew it was true.

Detective Huey bent to gather him up, but Ray shook his head. "Let me."

Ray took off his coat, pushing aside all thoughts of how much it had cost as he gently wrapped the wounded animal in it. Ever so carefully, he eased the bundle into his arms, feeling the warm, sticky blood soaking through the fabric. Damn. The wolf was still bleeding. Ray set his jaw in determination as he headed down the stairs.

Diefenbaker was not going to die. Benny was not going to die.

He wouldn't let them.

Carefully, Ray picked his way across the confusion gathered on the school's lawn, headed towards the Riv. Elaine would know of the nearest vet, and Dief sure as hell needed one of those. The wolf whined softly as he was settled into the back seat of the big car, and Ray couldn't help wincing slightly as he imagined having to get blood out of the upholstery. "Listen, you," he ordered, "stop bleeding this minute. I am NOT going to explain to that Mountie of yours why I let you bleed out in the back of the Riv."

He paused a moment, looking at the wounded animal. Diefenbaker could be annoying as hell sometimes, and he'd stolen enough donuts to feed an entire army of cops, but he wasn't so bad, really. Kind of like Benny. You just got used to him, and then...the thought of either of them just not being there anymore was unfathomable.

Shaking his head to dispel thoughts of RCMP funerals, Ray grabbed his keys out of his pocket and opened the driver's side door. He was stopped, awkwardly half in-half out of the car, by the sound of someone calling his name. It was a young female medic, the name "C. Showalter" clearly printed on her name tag.

"Detective Vecchio?"

"Yeah, that's me." Diefenbaker whined again, and Ray drummed his fingers impatiently, shooting an annoyed glare at the girl. "Whaddya need?"

"I'm Paramedic Showalter. Your friend is in serious condition. He's got a severe head injury and we think he's got some possible neck injuries. He looks pretty banged up right now." The medic's blue eyes were calm as she looked at Ray, but it was the color, not the expression that bothered the Detective. Blue eyes. They send someone over to tell him his best friend is dying, and she's got Benny's eyes. Ray tried to look over the medic, but she somehow managed to stay in his way in spite of the fact she was a foot shorter than he was.

"Detective," she said quietly, "the Mountie..."

"His name's Benton. Benton Fraser." Ray said it perhaps a bit more sharply than he might have otherwise, but he didn't care. He had every right to snap.

"Benton. He's...well, he's not quite himself, Detective. You need to be prepared for that. Patients with head injuries often display emotional shifts that don't seem anything like -" She was cut off as a struggle suddenly erupted from where the paramedics were preparing to load Benny into the ambulance. Ray abruptly forgot courtesy and shoved past Showalter, hurrying over.

His jaw dropped as the sight before him literally stopped him dead in his tracks. Benny was strapped down, thick bands of nylon webbing holding him to a backboard as his head and neck were immobilized in a blocky foam structure. His blue eyes were wide and disoriented, like a child's, and his entire face resembled a mummy, swathed in gauze. The red serge uniform he prized so highly had been cut away and stuffed in a bag somewhere, only a blanket covering him. An IV line snaked into one arm, and one of the medics was busily taping that down so that the Mountie's struggles would not dislodge the vital lifeline.

Then Showalter was at Ray's side again. "Detective, you shove me out of the way again and I will deck you, got it? Ray turned to answer the medic, but at that moment, Benny started screaming incoherently.

Ray started and looked back at his best friend. This wasn't Benny. Benny wouldn't do this. Benny wouldn't be screaming uncontrollably. Benny wouldn't let them cut his uniform off. Ray took a step back, his mind reeling. No, that wasn't Benny.

He looked down at the paramedic to tell her that she had made a mistake. As he started to speak, the anger in Showalter's eyes cleared and was replaced by something else. Compassion? She put a hand on Ray's arm. "Talk to him. He might recognize your voice."

"I can't." Ray replied, "That's not Benny. He wouldn't lose control like this. You just don't know him." the screams seemed thankfully to be fading again. Wait. Was that good? Was it bad? Ray didn't want to look, afraid of what he might see.

Paramedic Showalter took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. "Detective...Ray, listen to me. This is your friend over here. He is the same guy he was an hour ago. He's just hurt and scared. Now, I am not going to make you talk to him. But I think it would really help both him and you, okay?" At Ray's shaky nod of affirmation, she gently took him by the arm and walked him over to the Mountie.

Taking a deep breath, he leaned over his friend, looking down on a man who, though completely opposite in every conceivable way, was like a brother to him. "Hey, Benny."

The Mountie's eyes darted wildly, then a small smile quirked his lips. For a moment, Ray felt a surge of relief, then Fraser spoke. "Dad?" The younger man struggled to sit up, clearly seeing the image of his father standing approximately where Ray was. Inadvertently, the cop glanced around. Obviously, there were no other Mounties to be found. Dead or otherwise.

"Naw, Benny, it's me. Ray. Ray Vecchio. The guy who's gonna stick you with the bill for cleaning your wolf's guts off my Riv when we get done with this mess." He forced a light chuckle. "Geez, Benny...what is it with you and windows?"

The strange smile vanished from Benton's bandaged face, and fear appeared in his eyes. "Window?"

"Window. You and the kid fell out the window."

Now the blue eyes became panicked, and he began to fight more furiously against his restraints, issuing an incoherent stream of protest. Ray caught the occasional "no" and "lemme go", but most of it seemed to be something strange about flying otters, gasoline, boomerangs, and a Stetson with the back cut off. One of the EMT's looked up at the cop, and he shrugged. "He's Canadian."

"Oh."

They started to lift Benny into the back of the waiting ambulance, and Ray forced himself to turn away from his ranting friend. If the guy was going to die, that was not the way Ray wanted to remember him. He wanted to remember him as the guy he sometimes thought was insane, like when he sniffed dog piddle or smeared himself with meat. Not as someone who actually was insane because he'd played hero one too many times.

He had taken only one step away when he heard it. Benny's voice was crystal clear, the word perfectly enunciated. "Ray?"

Quickly turning, he saw the doors of the ambulance beginning to close, and he quickly shouted back, hoping he could still be heard. "Yeah?"

"Dief." Ray didn't think he'd ever heard such complexity in the tone of a single word. It was an expression of thanks and love towards the animal himself, of concern for his injuries, and hope for his recovery. At the same time it had seemed to demand something. Benny had been handing Dief over to him.

Ray felt his throat constrict, and he sprinted back towards the Riv, keys jamming into the ignition as he hurled himself into the driver's seat. The tires screeched as he pulled out of the school parking lot, leaving twin streaks of rubber on the asphalt. He grabbed up the microphone, thumbing down the key. "Elaine, where's the best vet in this city?"

The voice of Elaine Besbriss was rather confused. "You want a *vet*, Vecchio?"

"Vet. V. E. T." The detective bit off the letters, aware that the wolf hadn't made a single sound since they'd left.

"Why would you..." She paused, then he heard her gasp. "Dief!"

"Yeah. He and Benny were involved in that highschool shooting that just went down."

"Oh my God! Is Fraser--?"

"He's gonna be fine. Now where's the vet, Elaine?!"

"I'm getting it as fast as I can!" She fired back. Within moments, she had the address, and Ray was relieved to hear it was actually quite close.

In less than five minutes, Ray had pulled up in front of the clinic, abandoning the Riv without a second thought to carry the injured animal into the office. Panting slightly, he hurried up the steps. "You have gotta lay off the donuts" he commented, reaching out with one elbow to hook the door open, "you're getting heavy!"

Almost the moment they cleared the door, they were descended upon by veterinarians. The first, a rather chubby gentleman in his late forties, looked up at Ray through thick glasses. "This is the deaf police wolf they called us about?"

"Yeah. I think he's been stabbed."

"You think?"

"I wasn't there, ok? The guy who owns this wolf is on his way to the hospital. I'm taking care of the wolf. Capiche?" Diefenbaker had already been transferred to a smaller version of the gurney that had carried Benny off. Ray fought the urge to follow it as it was wheeled further into the clinic by two young assistants. With a deep sigh, Ray turned back to the heavyset vet. "Look, if you need me for something...for anything, here's my number." He fished a wadded scrap of paper from one pocket, the vet wordlessly supplying a pen. "I've got to go to the hospital and check on Bent - on his owner - and I've got to tell..." His eyes widened, "oh God, I've got to tell Frannie!"

***

Ray pulled into his driveway like a whirlwind, throwing open the car door almost before it had come to a complete stop. He didn't want to do this, but he knew he didn't have a choice. It really wouldn't be fair for them to all read it in the papers. Especially since Ray had been on enough cases to know that the papers didn't always print the truth...they printed the truth through the eyes of the reporter.

Tony was asleep on the porch, a newspaper draped over his face, and Ray kicked the lawn chair that the other man was laying on, startling him awake. "What the hell - " Tony cried in alarm, then was cut short as Ray tossed him the keys of the Riv.

"There's blood in the car. Get it cleaned up."

"But Ray - "

The detective didn't s stop a moment as he stormed across the porch and into the house. "Just get it done!"

Slamming the front door behind him, Ray hurried towards the stairs. He couldn't let Ma or Frannie see him like this...not all disheveled and covered in blood. He'd take a quick shower, grab a clean suit, then go down and tell them what had happened. All neat and professional, like they were someone else's family.

Ray quickly went up the staircase and down the hall, but as he rounded a corner, he didn't look where he was going. Something hit him hard in the stomach, winding him and knocking him back. Startled, he looked up, only to find Frannie standing there with a basket of laundry in her hands. The edge of the basket was what he had hit, and a little of the moist blood had tinted the wicker a dull red. Frannie's dark eyes flew wide, and she dropped the laundry as her hands went to her mouth.

Seeing what was about to happen, Ray jumped up, grabbing her and shoving a hand over her mouth in time to prevent her scream from being any more than a small squeak. Her Mountie-red fingernails dug into his arm as she tried to pry his hand away, but he didn't care. Abandoning the laundry, he pulled his sister into the bedroom and shut the door with his foot.

Twisting so that he could look her straight in the eyes, Ray kept his hand firmly over her mouth. "Number one," he said firmly, "this is not my blood. This is Deif's blood, but he's at a vet now. He'll be fine. Number two, there's been a shooting at a highschool here in the city. Benny was there." Her carefully lined eyes grew even wider at that news, and Ray saw them begin to glisten with tears. "He wasn't shot," the cop amended quickly. "But he was hurt. He's at the hospital now. Number three - and this is very important - I'm going to take my hand off your mouth now, but if you scream, or if you do anything else to upset Ma, I'll kill you. Understand?"

She nodded, and he slowly released her mouth. There was a moment of stunned silence, then she slowly asked, "Benny...he's not hurt badly, is he? I mean, he's gonna be all right." Her voice quavered, and Ray could see she was on the edge of an all-out breakdown.

"Naw," Ray forced a smile to his lips and an edge of levity to his voice, "he fell out a second-story window and landed on his head...which, as we all know, is the hardest part of Benny's body."

She slapped him. Hard and fast, leaving a livid red print on the side of his face. Her eyes blazed, and her compact body was trembling. "How dare you! How DARE you, Raymond Vecchio!"

"Hey," he protested, "I was just..."

"I don't care what you were 'just'! Benny's hurt!! He's hurt, and I have to go see him! I've got to make sure he's not...that he won't...he can't..." Her shouted tirade collapsed into harsh sobs, and she fell forward into her brother's arms, crying uncontrollably.

Awkwardly, Ray wrapped his arms around her, gently rubbing her back in a soothing circular motion. "It's ok, Frannie." His throat felt thick, and the words came only with difficulty as he comforted her. One should be able to protect one's kid sister from things, from all the ugliness in life. People like Benny shouldn't have to worry about getting smeared across Chicago. But if there was one lesson that life had taught Raymond Vecchio, it was that life was never fair.

***

"Hey, Ma!"

Freshly showered and dressed in a clean suit, Ray stepped into the kitchen. The smells of red wine and basil enveloped him, and despite all that had happened, he grinned as he saw the tomatoes on the counter, and the huge pot simmering on the stove. Spaghetti sauce. Fresh spaghetti sauce.

Ma Vecchio turned and smiled as she saw Ray and Frannie standing in the doorway. "Come in! Come in!" Her apron was splashed with the thick red sauce, and she reached for a brown paper bag sitting on the counter. "Raymondo," she instructed, handing him the bag, "take this to Benton. Poor thing...all alone in that terrible apartment." She waved a spoon for emphasis, and Frannie deftly sidestepped the flying sauce that sprayed off the utensil before it was returned to the pot. "Have you seen how skinny he is, Francesca? Poor man has nothing decent to eat. Did you know the other day he tells me he ate caribou? Caribou! Do you know how many caribou there are in Chicago? Not one, cara mia! He's going to starve to death, I tell you!"

The two younger Vecchios looked at one another awkwardly. Finally, Frannie took the initiative, grinding the heel of her shoe into Ray's toe. He yelped in pain and jumped back, and Ma Vecchio looked over her shoulder from where she had been stirring the sauce. "Raymondo? Is something the matter?"

Ray flashed an aggravated look at his sister, then forced what he hoped look like an innocent smile. At least he could lie decently, unlike the Mountie. "Nah. Frannie and I were actually on our way to see him right now anyway. Anything you wanted us to tell him for you, Ma?"

"Just to take care of himself!" The admonishment was accompanied by more gesticulating with the spoon, then she turned back to her work, humming cheerily.

Ray felt like something that crawled out of a dumpster as he headed out of the house. They were taking Frannie's car, the Riv currently having been taken by Tony for de-Deifing. As he opened the door, he caught his sister's eye, and his eyebrows shot up in indignation . "Hey! Whatcha looking at me like that for? You couldn't tell her either!"

Frannie's mouth opened, then shut. Finally, she just fastened her seatbelt and pointed firmly out the windshield. "Hospital. Benny. NOW."

"Yes, ma'am!"

***

Flashbulbs exploded the moment Ray opened the door of the car in the hospital parking lot. The media was there in force, reacting to the tragedy the way they usually did...by acting like a school of sharks after the sinking of a hemophiliac's cruise ship.

He wasn't surprised to see them, knowing that after being shooed off the scene of something bloody, the news hounds typically camped out at the hospital. Each TV channel, newspaper, and wire service wanted to be first to know who had lived and who would be worm food. The assault on the car didn't surprise him, either. The moment one reporter had spotted his face and recognized him from the scene, he had waved his arm like someone spotting the fox on a hunt, and they had descended.

Ray ignored the popping of cameras and the jostling for position, tuning out the shouted questions with the practiced ear of a cop. He'd been on enough scenes that turned into media frenzies like this. He knew all you could do was keep your mouth shut, and although they wouldn't go away, they'd also have nothing to print that could get you in trouble.

Shoving his way around the car, he found Frannie still halfway in her seat. Her legs were swung out onto the pavement, but she was sitting and staring at the cameras with a childish fascination. Ray grabbed her arm and pulled her upright, still ignoring the reporter's questions.

"Do you know what happened in the - ?"

"Does the police department wish to make a statement about - ?"

"What was the relationship between you and the Mountie?"

"Do you know when we'll be able to - ?"

"Did the police department know anything about - ?"

"What kind of dog was - ?"

"What can you tell us about the Mountie?"

To Ray's horror, he felt Frannie stop at the last question. Turning, he saw she was smiling at the cameras, clearly suffering the civilian condition of camerus irresistablus...the inability to pass up a chance at being on TV. Seeing an easy mark, the sharks closed in.

"Did you know the Mountie, Miss...?"

"Vecchio. And yes, although not as well as I'd have liked to." She flashed a brief, wicked smile, but lowered her mascaraed eyelashes demurely. Several reporters chuckled, but the response was quickly immortalized on a thousand recording devices.

"Miss Vecchio...can you tell us a little about him?"

"Well, Benny...he's Canadian, you know? He does these things...kittens in trees, old ladies across streets. And he's got this way of being brilliant and clueless at the same time that's really quite - RAY!" The last word was a squawk of protest as her brother almost ripped her arm out of the socket, dragging her away from her fifteen minutes of fame.

The moment they reached the relative quiet of the hospital, Ray whirled on her, grabbing her by both shoulders and fighting the urge to shake her until her teeth rattled. "What the hell were you thinking out there?! Didn't I tell you to keep your mouth shut?!!"

"It wasn't as if they were asking for state secrets!", she protested, wrenching away from his grasp. Primly, she smoothed her wrinkled shoulders. "They just wanted to know a little about Benny."

"Yeah. And now they've got 'a little about Benny'! You gave them enough that any first grader could twist it!" Ray stopped, forcing himself to take a deep, calming breath. Frannie really hadn't known any better. She'd never been on cases where something as simple as telling the media the suspect's name had been turned into 'the police think he's guilty'. She'd never watched a hapless witness filleted by the papers until they were unusable in court. She didn't know. It was too late to tell her now.

Ray sighed and began to move resignedly across the lobby towards the desk. "At least you didn't tell them the bit about the squirrel. But don't let it happen again, ok?!"

"Ok!" Frannie snapped the word sharply, her cheeks gaining a redness that owed nothing to cosmetics.

As they moved through the drunks, patient's family members, and street people that crowded the lobby, Ray heard a familiar voice begin to rise above the babble. He stopped, looking upward as if the fluorescent lights would offer him strength to deal with this. This really shouldn't come as a surprise. After all, no matter how much he personally wished she would go back where she came from and get eaten by something, Inspector Margaret Thatcher WAS Benny's direct superior.

She leaned over the receptionist's desk in full, outraged glory, more than earning her nickname 'The Dragon Lady.' "Listen," Thatcher growled, "Constable Fraser is an officer of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. As such, he falls under my authority and responsibility. And I demand to see him!"

Any mortal human being would have turned to ashes beneath the Inspector's blazing stare, but the receptionist had worked there long enough to have been petrified by the hospital coffee. "Look, lady," she explained, pointing a brightly manicured fingernail at Thatcher, "I don't care if you're an Inspector, an Inquisitor, or the Pope himself. No one's getting in until the Docs let them in. Now, if you want, I can ring them for you."

"Do that."

With a martyred sigh, she tapped down a button on the phone. "Cheryl, how long before the Mountie can have visitors?"

The voice that responded bore the distinctive nasal intonation that spoke of a Brooklyn upbringing. "He's in OR right now...five hours min."

"Thanks. Say, how's Donald?"

"Pain in the ass, as usual. Thanks for asking."

Deactivating the line, the receptionist looked back at Thatcher, "Five hours. He's in surgery now. If you want, there's private waiting rooms through that door." Nodding a curt thank you, Thatcher started towards the door, but the receptionist's voice stopped her.

"Inspector!"

Thatcher turned, a quizzical expression on her face, and the receptionist smiled. "Don't blame you for being so eager about this...gossip has it that he's absolutely darling. A real heart-breaker."

Ray grinned as the Dragon Lady turned almost the same color as her Mountie tunic, then nodded his head towards the door to the waiting rooms. "You heard the lady, Frannie. Five hours. I don't know about you, but I've got no intention of waiting around in this zoo."

***

The waiting room was small but comfortable. Several well-cushioned chairs sat at intervals around the room, and a couch was also provided, old and slightly sagging, but still good enough. Magazines were scattered over the coffee tables and stacked in little bins on the sides, the newest among them a dog-eared six months old. A television was suspended in one corner near the ceiling, the screen displaying a teary-eyed starlet on a muted soap opera. Vending machines dispensing coffee, soft drinks, and snacks hummed quietly, their soft sound almost deafening in the quiet room.

Ray sat stiffly on the edge of one of the seats, thumbing through a copy of Field And Stream from 1990. He couldn't force himself to feign interest in the outdated adds for fishing flies and deer musk, and he soon dropped it again. This was maddening. Nothing to do but wait, and waiting was something he wasn't very good at under the best of circumstances.

This was not the best of circumstances. He was stuck in this damned sterile waiting room, and he couldn't even pace, kick the vending machines, or rain down curses on the young punk that had done this to his friend in the first place. It wasn't that Frannie was there. Hell, the Vecchio clan regularly attempted to one-up each other in displays of temper. It was the Dragon Lady.

She had chosen one of the two hard plastic chairs in the room, and she sat in it as stiffly as if she was on guard in front of the consulate. Her hazel eyes never wavered from Vecchio, and something in her cold stare was intensely unnerving. It was as if she blamed him.

After five minutes, Ray's resolve cracked. He got to his feet, fumbling around in his pockets and muttering something about having to make some phone calls. It was true, wasn't it? It wasn't like he was making an excuse to get out of there or anything. He just had to call the vet and check on Dief, and he had to call Ma. With a wait of five hours just to see Benny, there was no way that he was going to be able to maintain the ruse.

Quickly locating a payphone in a niche about ten meters down the hall, Ray slipped a quarter into the slot and dialed the number of the veterinary clinic. A young girl answered, sounding almost as tired as Ray felt. "Pet Keepers Animal Hospital, Joanna speaking. How may I help you?"

"Yeah, this is Detective Vecchio, Chicago PD. I brought in a wolf about an hour and a half ago. Name was Diefenbaker. How's he doing?"

There was a short pause, and Ray could hear her talking with someone on the other end. Then a man's voice came on, the voice of the heavyset vet he'd given his phone number to. "Detective Vecchio...I was just about to call you. I've examined your wolf, and I'm not going to lie to you. His condition is very, very serious. The stab wound has perforated the peritoneum and incised a section of bowel. We're looking at a very painful injury with a high probability of infection. You might want to consider having him put to sleep."

Ray stared at the receiver in disbelief. Put Diefenbaker to sleep? The wolf was the only living thing Benny had left in the world. He'd never be able to look his friend in the eye if he did that. His expression darkened, and he nearly deafened the poor vet with his reply. "Like hell I will! Listen, buddy, you are NOT giving up on that animal. I don't care what you have to do! Surgery, experimental drugs...hell, even call in a witch doctor if you think it will help. I'm sure his owner could recommend several reputable Inuit ones! But do not, and I repeat, DO NOT kill that wolf, or your ass is MINE!"

He slammed down the receiver, causing a nearby nurse to nearly leap out of her tennis shoes at the loud crash. Ray didn't care. "Damn it!," he hissed, clenching his fists until even his practically non-existent clipped fingernails were cutting deeply into the skin of his palms. "The son of a bitch!" Ray sagged back against the wall, trying to pull himself together enough to call Ma.

Call Ma.

"And say what?," he queried aloud. "Hey, Ma, how's the spaghetti sauce? Oh, by the way, Benny's in surgery at the hospital, and Diefenbaker might have to be put to sleep. I'm afraid I'll have to be a little late for dinner." No, he'd definitely need to rephrase that.

Closing his eyes and taking a deep breath, Ray dialed the seven digits, then waited as the phone rang. Ma answered cheerily, "Vecchio residence...what can I do for you?"

"Ma..."

"Raymondo! How's Benny? Is Francesca behaving herself?"

Ray felt something cold and slimy seem to slither through him, and his voice cracked as he spoke, despite his best efforts to keep it steady. "Ma, there's something I have to tell you."

***

Ma Vecchio's weathered hands ran over the beads of her rosary for the thousandth time, the familiar prayers chanted in her warmly accented voice. There was something comforting about it to Ray, and right now, he wasn't afraid to admit that comfort was something he could use a little of. It had been three hours since he had gone to get Ma, and still there had been no word on Benny.

Giving up on what the Dragon Lady thought, he stood and began to pace. Three steps to the soda machine, six to the door. Nine steps back. Frannie had gone through another crying session with Ma, but now she was curled on the swaybacked couch, fast asleep. He wished he could do that, but despite the exhausting day, he was wide awake.

He cast another quick glance at Thatcher. She was still sitting in that hard plastic chair, her posture still ramrod straight. The only concession she had made to the passage of time was to pick up an old People magazine. The issue sat open on her lap, but Ray noted that she hadn't turned a page in half an hour. He wondered how she could do it, how she could be so cold, so -

"Hello, my name is Doctor Doxtetter."

Ray whirled, only to nearly collide with a man who had just entered the room. He was in his early forties, tall and thin, with red hair that was all but gone now. Green surgical scrubs draped awkwardly off his bony frame, but his smile was warm and genuine. Hearing him enter, Frannie sat up, blinking drowsily, and Ma clutched her rosary tighter, worry etched on her round features.

The Doctor's eyes wandered questioningly over the group. "Are you here with Mr. Fraser?"

Thatcher stood, smoothing the non-existent wrinkles out of her light gray suit's skirt. "Inspector Margaret Thatcher, RCMP. I'm the Constable's commanding officer. How is he?"

Doxtetter pulled one of the chairs towards the center of the room, sitting where he could look at all of them. "I've got good news and bad news regarding his condition. Which would you like to hear first?"

"Bad news!", Frannie blurted.

"Bad news it is. Constable Fraser has suffered an intercranial hemorrhage. That's when a blow to the head causes bleeding inside the brain. There's not much we can do for that surgically, but we've inserted something into his head called an ICP bolt. It's a device that measures the pressure of the fluids inside the brain, and it will allow us to follow his condition. We've also had to use drugs known as barbiturates to induce an artificial coma as well as temporary artificial paralysis. That will give his brain a chance to heal." His tone was gentle, but that didn't lessen the effect of the words.

Ray licked his lips, his mouth suddenly as dry as the Sahara in August. "What's his prognosis, Doc?"

"He's very, very badly hurt. We still know very little about the brain, so I can't give you exact figures, but based on my experience, I'd say he's got maybe a fifty-fifty shot at surviving this. Maybe a ten percent shot at surviving it without any permanent brain damage or loss of function. There is almost guaranteed memory loss. How much, I can't say. Maybe hours, maybe days...maybe years. I'm sorry." He tried a soothing smile. "But from the looks of the scars I saw on the rest of his body, your friend's a very lucky guy. He might have a chance at pulling through yet."

There was a long silence, then suddenly, Ma stood up. Her dark eyes were bright with tears as she pointed a shaking finger at the Doctor. "Benton non solo un amico!", she shouted, the force of her emotions causing her to revert to her native Italian. "E' uno di famiglia...un fratello, un figlio! La Madonna si prender cura di lui, perch io sto pregando per lui come se fosse mio figlio. Benton non morir!"

Doxtetter's expression was compassionate, but confused. "What did she say?"

Frannie's voice was trembling as she translated. "She says that Benny isn't just a friend. He's one of the family...a brother or a son. She says that the Holy Mother will watch him, because she has been praying for him like one of her own children. She says that Benny will not die."

The Doctor smiled again and reached out, gently patting Ma on the knee. "I'm glad to hear you're praying for him, Mrs. Vecchio. It certainly wouldn't hurt him to have a few angels on his side."

"What about the good news?", Thatcher interrupted, "You said there was some of that."

"Yes, there is," Doxtetter agreed, "for one thing, we couldn't ask for a better baseline to work from. He's young and strong, in excellent physical health. The scars we saw indicate remarkable healing capacity. Also, the bleed doesn't seem to be spreading, nor is it near a major artery. We think it has a good chance of healing on it's own. He's even shown responses to stimulus and good reflex action all the way down to the tips of his toes. We doubt there will be any permanent paralysis."

Ray leaned against the wall, folding his arms across his chest. "When do we get to see him?"

"About two hours. He's recovering from having the ICP put in right now, and we need a while to get a baseline for it's readings. I suggest you go to his house or apartment and gather a few personal items. It will probably be a while before he wakes up, but it's good for a patient to have something familiar when he does."

Almost as if choreographed, Ray and Thatcher announced, "I'll go." It was in perfect unison, and as one, they turned to glare at each other.

"I'm his best friend." Ray pointed out.

"And I'm his CO."

"Why don't you both go?" Ray nearly choked as Ma made the suggestion, although the tone of her voice indicated that it was more an order than anything else. He tried to come up with a reason to refuse, but he wasn't about to back down, and 'I can barely stand to occupy the same planet as that woman' would sound rather petty.

He could see that Thatcher wasn't exactly thrilled with the prospect either, but apparently, she was having just as much problem coming up with a sensible way to refuse. So, having no other choice, they both went.

***

After again running the gauntlet of press assembled on the front walk of the hospital, the ride to Benny's apartment had been an exercise in tense silence. She seemed to truly enjoy Ray's discomfort, and he thought he had caught a glimpse of an evil smile playing about her lips once or twice. He could have sworn it was there, but the expression vanished like a mirage if he turned to look at her.

Now, as they pulled up in front of Benny's apartment building, Ray couldn't contain a grin of perverse pleasure as he saw Thatcher's expression. This was no mirage. Her eyes were wide as she looked at the dilapidated construction. "Constable Fraser lives here?" The Inspector's voice was incredulous and a little angry, as though she expected the tall Italian to be playing a joke on her.

Ray gave her an innocent look. "You don't know where your Mounties are? I mean when they aren't being doormen or picking up laundry, of course."

That comment seemed to hit home, and Thatcher quickly looked away, opening the car door and striding quickly towards the building. Ray cursed under his breath as he jogged after her, wondering how she managed to move so fast in those heels.

They reached the bottom of the stairwell at about the same time, and he noticed that she was carefully avoiding actually having to touch the flaking, dirty paint of the railing. Or anything else for that matter. She looked up the stairs. "Which one is his?"

"Three J." Ray deliberately crunched his shoe onto a cockroach, making sure that she noted the insect's demise.

She shuddered slightly, then noticed the pleasure dancing in the Detective's eyes. Something in her own expression hardened, and her posture stiffened. Looking at Ray with a slight, defiant smile, she took firm hold of the railing and started up the stairs. Thatcher moved quickly, and they soon reached the third floor. The hallway stretched in front of them, and Ray pointed to the correct door. "That one's his."

"Do you have the key, Mr. Vecchio?"

"Don't need one. Benny never locks it."

This clearly caught the Inspector by surprise. "In this neighborhood? What about -"

"Thieves?" Ray finished. He opened the door to the Mountie's apartment, waving a hand around the spartan interior. "Nah. What would they take?"

Thatcher's jaw did not literally drop, but it was close. Slowly, as if in a trance, she moved around the sparse apartment. Opening one of the kitchen cabinets, she withdrew the metal plate from his mess kit, turning it over in her hands. "I know the RCMP doesn't exactly pay millions, but surely he can afford..."

Ray shrugged. "I know. I don't have a clue why he camps out like this instead of getting a decent place. Figured it was just one of those Canadian things."

"It's not a Canadian thing, Detective. Not everything Benton Fraser does can be explained by 'it's a Canadian thing.'" Her voice was cold, reproachful. Almost harshly, she pushed the plate back into the cupboard and closed the door, turning to face the rest of the apartment. "So we need to bring back something. Something special." Her hazel eyes scanned the room, then she went and picked something up in one corner. "Not much here...how about this?"

It was Deif's dish. A flush of anger went through the Detective, and he reached out, snatching it away from her almost savagely. "No." Carefully, he replaced the bowl exactly where it had been, noticing how the interior was clean enough to have been sterilized. He almost laughed - knowing Benny, he might well have done exactly that. Ray ran a finger over the edge of the bowl. On the other hand, it was quite possible Dief had licked it that clean. The wolf had an appetite that 'insatiable' wouldn't even begin to cover.

Ray went to stand, but something white caught his eye. It was a small cluster of hair, trapped by a splinter on the wooden wall. Dief probably hadn't even felt the snag through his thick coat, leaving the little clump of fur there as casually as he shed over everything else. Impulsively, Ray took out his wallet, tucking the tuft of white in one of the smaller slots. He'd have Frannie put a ribbon or something to keep it all together, then he'd give it to Benny. At least he'd be able to have a little bit of the wolf with him.

He closed his eyes for a moment, a memory surging to the surface with unexpected intensity. Diefenbaker, running across a field that was sparsely patched with snow, chasing after his American girlfriend, a husky named Maggie. He remembered Fraser raising his father's rifle, thinking he was going to have to shoot his friend. He remembered the pain in the blue eyes, but how the barrel of the rifle had never wavered. Benny was an expert marksman...he would have killed Dief with the first shot. But at what cost? The Mountie would have been left completely alone.

"Vecchio?" Thatcher's voice invaded on his thoughts, and he turned, hoping that his face didn't betray his emotions.

"What?"

"What about this?" Seeing what she was holding, Ray smiled. Benny's other red uniform hung neatly from its hanger. The shoulders were squared, every crease perfectly pressed, the bright fabric almost glowing in the plain surroundings. The brass buttons were brightly polished, the dark blue trousers with their yellow stripe neatly draped over a second hanger. The care bestowed upon the uniform was obvious, and Ray knew how much it meant to his friend. It was a symbol of everything he believed in, everything he stood for.

"Perfect."

***

"Oh my God!" Frannie's voice choked off, and she turned away from the doorway, burying her head in her brother's shoulder. Thatcher looked like a stone statue of an RCMP Inspector, her face alarmingly white although there was no other sign of emotion visible. Ma had rushed to his side, stroking his hand as she crooned something soft and maternal.

Ray could only stand. And look.

He remembered someone he had accused of being Scotchguarded at birth, who could slither through a sewer and come out neat as a pin. He remembered a man who had a wide-eyed innocent look that seemed half genuine naivet, and half boyish mischief. He remembered a man who knew facts too obscure for the encyclopedia Brittanica, and could track men by the dirt on their shoes.

He remembered a man who was annoyingly healthy. A guy who could eat mud and never get sick, who could chase a criminal on foot for hours and hardly be winded. Someone who could climb, dangle, and contort himself like a circus acrobat.

The figure before him was a pale shadow of that man.

Benny lay in the hospital bed, his body paralyzed and his mind locked in the secret purgatory of a coma. A quarter-sized patch of his dark hair had been shaven off, the ICP bolt protruding from his scalp and ringed by a cluster of spider-like stitches. It looked perversely like the pop-up timers that came on Thanksgiving turkeys. A long wire lead trailed up from the implant, tracing a path to a small machine that faithfully recorded everything occurring within Benny's skull. More machines were affixed to the patches of the EKG monitors on his chest, and an IV line trailed into his arm, with a second one affixed right above the hollow of his collarbone. A thick tube of transparent plastic was secured over his mouth, allowing a respirator to artificially inflate his lungs in a steady, hissing rhythm.

Only the blanket covered him, and the bare skin of his chest and arms was as white as the crisp sheets he lay on. His face was similarly ashen, causing the crusted abrasions and cuts that criss-crossed his boyish features to stand out in brutal contrast. His eyes were closed, his expression strangely peaceful, and Ray wondered if people dreamed in comas. There was no movement of the blue eyes under the closed lids, no fluttering of the dark eyelashes, but still he wondered.

Frannie still clutched his arm tightly as Ray stepped further into the hospital room. Her tears had caused her mascara to run in dark streaks almost all the way down to her chin, but Ray didn't find it amusing as he usually would have. As he approached the Mountie's bed, it was as if the entire world dropped away, leaving only him and his best friend.

Friend. No, Ma had been right. Benny had stopped being a mere family friend long ago. He was a brother. Ray settled into one of the chairs at the side of the bed, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees. "Hey, Benny," he said conversationally, "you look rotten." Ray paused, half-hoping that Benny would open his eyes and point out that he was not decomposing, and thus, 'you look rotten' was technically not true.

Nothing.

Nothing at all.

***

Ray felt like a complete coward as he parked in front of the 27^th precinct. He'd run out on them. Only five minutes in the same room as...as...God, he couldn't even think of that thing as Fraser! Only five minutes, and he'd chickened out, leaving Ma and Frannie to sit with the injured Mountie while he cooked up some lame excuse about paperwork.

His only consolation had been that Thatcher had lasted even less time than he had. She had stayed there only long enough to collect Benny's personal effects from the Doctor, then she had left, offering an even lamer excuse about calling someone in Ottawa.

Climbing out of the car, Ray reminded himself that there actually was a lot of paperwork to do. Three kids had been killed and eleven others wounded before Benny had intervened, and the investigation was just beginning. Reports would have to be written, passed on, archived, re-written, revised, and signed. Evidence would have to be examined and cataloged. Witnesses would have to be interviewed. Enough work to keep the entire Chicago police department busy for a thousand lifetimes.

Surely that would be enough to keep one cop busy while a Mountie fought for his life?

Wouldn't it?

Ray checked his reflection in the car window before he closed the door. Everything seemed to be in place. No one should be able to tell where he'd been or what he'd been doing. Good. It was none of their business.

"Hey, guys, how's it coming with the -" He walked into the bullpen, shouting to make himself heard over the noise that always pervaded the busy area. His words died as he realized that it was strangely quiet. No one was saying a word, every eye fastened on the TV in the corner of the bullpen. At his brusque entrance, they all turned to look at him as he stood in the doorway, feeling hideously awkward. The mood was somber, and he was stricken with the feeling that he had walked in on someone's last rights.

The only sound was the voice of a news anchor, his tone simultaneously proud and sorrowful. The 'fallen hero' voice that no cop likes to hear. "...visible through an upper window. Even as SWAT teams were taking up position to enter the building, an individual who appears to have been a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police was engaged in hand-to-hand combat with the gunman. We have taped footage of this event, brought to you by our own News 10 On The Scene mobile camera crew. We warn you, this segment may be inappropriate for children."

Ray watched numbly as the news room quickly switched to a segment of film obviously shot by a hand-held camera. Even with the shaky image and occasionally blurry focus, though, the two figures were clearly visible, Benny's bright red tunic contrasting with the boy's fatigues. As the anchorman narrated, Ray watched again as the Mountie abruptly pitched forward, seeming to trip or slide on something and crashing into the glass. Played in slow-motion, it actually seemed as though the window would withstand the impact for a moment, but then a spider's web of lines appeared, and the large pane shattered. Benny fell through, and Ray dimly heard the anchorman express wonder at how even then, he never let the suspect go.

Then they hit. With the slowed footage, it was clear that the youth's head had struck first, slamming into the concrete from behind. His skull flattened slightly under the force of the blow, blood exploding in a starburst beneath him, and Ray knew at that moment that there was no way the gunman could have survived.

Benny followed a fraction of a second later. His shoulder impacted only a millisecond before the brim of the Stetson was crushed, the side of his head smashing into the basketball court, his face skidding on the harsh surface. Only a heartbeat of time passed, seeming to last an eon, then miraculously, Benny seemed to rally himself from the devastating impact. He pushed up on his forearms as if to rise, then his strength deserted him, and he sagged back to the concrete, rolling almost lazily away from the boy's body to lie on his back.

The camera moved in on the scene, and Elaine turned away, tears pouring down her dark cheeks as she covered her mouth with her hands, clearly fighting back a wave of nausea. Ray heard Gardino gasp in shock, and even Welsh seemed to pale at the sight. Then the segment ended, and it was back to the inane words of the anchorman praising the mystery Mountie's heroism.

Welsh reached forward and turned off the set. There was a moment of complete silence, then the air seemed to explode with sound. Some were expressing their disgust with the media, with their insistence on showing tragedy with slow motion and living color. A few others were speculating on what was going to happen now, or why the kid had committed such a heinous crime in the first place. Most of the officers there were asking questions, and most of those questions were directed at Detective Raymond Vecchio.

"Have you seen him, Ray?"

"Hey, Vecchio, is the Mountie gonna be okay?"

"Is he still alive?"

"Damn, I bet Canada's going ape over this one! Have you talked to the Dragon Lady yet?"

"When's Fraser getting out of the hospital?"

"Do the Doc's think he'll come out of this in one piece?"

"Was Fraser awake when you were there?"

The babble of voices reminded Ray of the reporters that had gone after him and Frannie outside the hospital, and he felt a boiling rage beginning to build inside him. "OK!" He roared the word at the top of his lungs, managing to silence the onslaught. "I went to see Benny," he acknowledged. Ray was aware that he was still shouting, and that Welsh was looking at him in a very dangerous way, but he didn't care. "The Docs had to put him in a coma...he's bleeding inside his brain. They say he's got a fifty-fifty chance of making it." His voice dropped suddenly as his throat suddenly felt thick. "Ninety percent chance there's going to be permanent damage. That's all."

Ray took advantage of the stunned silence to grab a handful of papers off his desk and start towards one of the interrogation rooms. He was still several steps away from the door when the spell broke and complete bedlam erupted. He could hear Welsh and several others calling his name, but he ignored them as he left the bullpen and went into the nearest interrogation room. Locking the door behind him, he dropped the papers on the desk and began to work.

***

THE NEXT MORNING

DAY TWO

***

The knock came again. Ray had ignored it the first several times, but now he hauled himself up from the chair, feeling his joints pop. He winced. How long had he been there? Two hours? Three?

Opening the door of the interrogation room, he saw Elaine standing there with a slightly bemused expression and a cup of coffee. "Good morning, Detective."

"Morning?"

"Six thirty, to be exact. You've been in there all night." Startled, Ray looked at his watch. The Civilian Aide was right! Taking the coffee, he drank most of the cup in one gulp, making a face at the taste. His expression prompted a smile from Elaine. "Something wrong with the standard swill, Vecchio?"

"Revolting as usual, thank you." He handed her the empty styrofoam cup, running one hand through his thinning, close-cropped hair.

At first, she turned as if to go, then stopped. "Ray...."

"Yeah?"

"I'm...Huey is...we're all..." She licked her lips, looking down as if suddenly fascinated with the laces of her shoes. "We were wondering if there was anything we could do for Fraser."

Ray shook his head. "The Doctors said either he lives or he doesn't. There's nothing anyone can do to help. But if you want to go see him, they say that he can have people there twenty-four hours a day if they want to come."

Elaine smiled. "I think I will, Vecchio. Thanks." Tossing the cup into a nearby trash can, she headed back to the bullpen. He watched her go, then turned back and picked up his coat from where he had draped it over a chair. Gathering up the files he had been working on, he tucked them under one arm, endeavoring to twist himself into the coat using only his teeth and other hand. Finally, he gave up, dropping the files back on the table until the coat was secured.

By six thirty-seven he had given the files to Elaine for distribution, grabbed another cup of rotten coffee and two donuts, and ripped up the parking ticket he had found affixed to his windshield. He found that destroying the paper was surprisingly unsatisfying without a Mountie nearby to be scandalized by it, and for the first time in his life, resolved to actually pay the damned thing. Later.

He had learned from his experiences with the press the day before, so he drove Frannie's car to an alley a block from the hospital, parking it legally for Benny's sake. Ray mentally chastised himself as he strode towards the hospital, kicking at every leaf and bit of stray litter that he found along the way. How could he have been as stupid as to spend all night at the precinct?!

Poor Ma and Frannie had been left in that cold hellhole of a hospital room, sitting with a man who looked for all practical purposes like a corpse. Ray only hoped that Frannie would show mercy on him when he finally did show up. True, she had hinted many times that she wanted to spend the night with Benny, but Ray had a feeling that she hadn't planned on him being in a coma. He chuckled at the thought of her showing off black lingerie to the Mountie's unconscious form, then his eye caught a flash of a familiar face as he passed a newsstand.

The headlines jumped out at him from a dozen magazines and newspapers. "Mystery Mountie Stops Massacre", "Savior In Scarlet", "Unknown Hero Saves Schoolchildren", "Redcoat Rescue", "Deadly Shootout At Highschool Stopped", "Canadian Becomes American Hero". Ray smiled at the headlines...Benny would be the same color as his tunic right about now.

Photographs of Benny were emblazoned on every front page. Some were in color, some black and white, and they were taken from every conceivable angle. Ray noticed with detachment that the papers tended to favor dramatic shots of the fall from the window. The magazines preferred photos of him lying battered and bloody on the ground next to the young gunman. One magazine had even searched out an old photo from Fraser's RCMP file. The picture was black and white. From the blurry quality of the image, it was clearly taken from a group shot. Ray guessed it was his RCMP graduation photo, as Benny's youthful features looked downright babyish. He couldn't have been more than twenty-one at most, the very image of fresh-faced idealism.

Just like every other photo, it turned Ray's stomach. It was exploitation, pure, unadulterated exploitation. Benny was fighting merely to survive, and these people were using the image of his innocent face and the story of his courageous actions to sell their damned newspapers! Fighting back the urge to destroy the newsstand, he jammed his fists in his pockets and hurried on towards the hospital.

He managed to slip in unseen through a side door, and found both Ma and Frannie fast asleep in Benny's room. Much to his surprise, neither of them was angry at him, and he was eternally grateful for that fact as they walked back to the car. His feet felt like they were locked in lead boots, and despite the strong coffee, he had to fight to remain awake. Ray hadn't slept since the shooting, and the emotional and physical turmoil of the past 36 hours was beginning to weigh heavily on him.

It was only by the barest of margins that he managed to make his way home, and he hoped that Frannie and Ma would remember to call Welsh and tell him what had happened. Because within thirty seconds of landing on the couch, Ray Vecchio was dead asleep.

***

Kate and Stuart Pittman were the image of suburban Americana. Comfortable but not wealthy, neat but not fastidious, they were the kind of Ozzie and Harriet people that the demographic just ate up. It was almost a shame that their son, Jason, had gone and shot up that school.

Francis Parker opened his notebook, making several brief notations about their behavior, their body language, the white frame house they lived in. He knew the pundits back in the news station would have their opinions, but he still liked to keep his own notes. Parker was one of the few who still used pen and paper instead of pounding away at one of those tiny Japanese laptops.

"We aren't making excuses for him. What he did was so terribly, terribly wrong." Mrs. Pittman's voice trembled as she leaned close to the microphone, speaking loudly as though the multitudes of reporters gathered on her front lawn weren't straining for every whisper. Her dark eyes were red-rimmed, and she dabbed at them with a rumpled Kleenex. "I don't know why he would do such a thing...he never seemed like anything bothered him. He was so..." She stopped, her face contorting as she attempted to choke back sobs.

Her husband clutched her supportively. "We've gone over everything," Mr. Pittman confessed, "his room, his friends, his music. None of this makes sense. And we aren't asking you to forgive him. He killed Rebecca, Keith, and Emmanuel, and we express only the deepest remorse towards their families." Something about his manner seemed to stiffen, and he looked out at the camera's beseechingly. "But we lost a child, too. That's something no parent should have to suffer, and it's certainly something that shouldn't be ignored."

Having managed to regain some emotional control, Mrs. Pittman opened her purse and withdrew a folded piece of paper. As she opened it, Parker saw that it was the cover of Time magazine, with the bloodied face of the Mountie printed above the words "American Hero." Mrs. Pittman's dark eyes flashed with a moment of anger, and Parker leaned in closer, wondering if what he hoped for was actually going to happen.

"I've read a lot in the papers and magazines since Jason did...did what he did. And I've read a lot about this man, Constable Benton Fraser. You tell me that he's a brave man, that he should receive a medal or something for what he did." She took a deep breath and jammed the cover back in her purse. "I don't doubt he's a brave man, but he doesn't deserve any medals. Mr. Fraser killed my son."

A murmur went through the assembled reporters, and a thousand cell phones were flipped open, fingers poised to dial editors and TV stations as the hoard watched to see what would happen next. "I don't know everything about what happened," Mr. Pittman admitted, "And I think Kate may have been a little hasty in saying that Constable Fraser actively killed Jason. We've all seen the footage...that fall was clearly an accident. But it was an accident that never should have happened. Constable Fraser took it upon himself to enter that situation. I'm sure he had nothing but good intentions, but he's not a hostage negotiator. He's not a psychologist. He's not a SWAT team member. He knows nothing about dealing with troubled youth. He's not even an American police officer. And because he came charging to the rescue, he is now in critical condition in the hospital, and Jason is dead."

It took every ounce of control that Francis Parker had developed over forty years of journalism not to jump up and down with excitement. This was it. This was perfect. It couldn't have been better if he had scripted it himself.

The story had seemed very simple. Kid shoots up school. Cop stops kid. Cop is hurt. Kid is dead. Then he had started doing research, and Constable Benton Fraser had started to smell decidedly fishy. Everyone who knew him said the same thing...that compared to Fraser, the boy scouts had the ethics of a Mafia godfather. He was trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent.

He was hiding something.

Parker knew he had to be hiding something. Something deep and dark. Something so repugnant that he had been forced to concoct this saccharine exterior to keep it concealed. He had been certain of that fact from square one, but the station manager had laughed off his theories, calling him paranoid and reminding him that this was a Mountie, after all. Parker didn't care if he was the Pope, but the public did.

So he had read the copy touting the wonderful heroism of this courageous Canadian. He had smiled at every one of his co-worker's bad Dudley Do-Right jokes. And he had waited. All that day and all this second morning, he had discreetly compiled information on this Mountie, waiting for the opportunity to blow his upright image to hell.

Now, thanks to Mr. And Mrs. Pittman, he had that chance. At six o'clock that night, on national television, Constable Benton Fraser would be shown for the scum he was.

***

Ray was startled awake by the sound of loud pounding. Jolting upright, he saw his mother pounding a wooden spoon viciously against the top of the television set, cursing at the top of her lungs in both Italian and English. Before he was even fully awake, he got to his feet, pulling the spoon away from her to protect the Sacred Shrine Of Broadcast Basketball.

"Hey! What do you think you are doing!" Ray waved the spoon at her reproachfully. "You could hurt it!"

"How dare they!" Ma's eyes blazed in fury, but she was clearly on the verge of tears. "How dare they say that about Benton! Bastardi!"

Something cold gripped Ray's stomach, and he sank down onto the couch again, listening in growing disbelief as Ma explained the details of the press conference she had just watched. It had been held by Stuart and Kate Pittman, the parents of the young gunman. They had talked for almost a full hour. Ray wished he could have seen the full conference, but what Ma told him was more than enough.

Moaning softly, he sagged forward, burying his head in his hands. "Benny is in deep, deep shit."

***

"Yes, Mrs. Pomputis....uh huh...we charge seventeen dollars for a three line ad...yes, that covers one week...yes, ma'am." Chad Howell clamped the phone between his ear and shoulder as he opened Word Processor on his PC. "I'll need exact phrasing." His fingers moved swiftly over the keys with the dictation, then he read it back. "Wanted to replace dearly departed pet, one Pekinese dog, female, must be affectionate and well-trained."

His tone was efficient and courteous as he typed out the classified and pasted it to inter-office email. Chad assured the elderly woman that a replacement puppy would soon be scampering her way thanks to the remarkable powers of a newspaper classified add. "Thank you for placing your trust in the Chronicle, the paper for the people."

The moment the email had been sent to the printer and Mrs. Pomputis dispatched, Chad pushed back from his desk, sending his chair rolling back to the far wall of the cubicle as he slung his feet up on his desk. A cheap pen twirled quickly between his fingers as he stared up at the ceiling. "This sucks." He announced it to no one in particular, then flipped the pen at the coffee cup by his computer. "This really, really sucks."

He wasn't supposed to be here. Here in the living hell of classified ads, blithely recording people selling and buying all manner of strange things. In the six months since he had graduated college, he had accepted ads for everything from eight dozen slightly used innertubes to a collection of books on the art of tatting. He had not covered one single real story.

Chad wrinkled his nose in disgust, rolling the chair forward to pick the pen out of the stale coffee. "A", he muttered. "I graduate with a damned A average, and the Chronicle takes me...as a freaking secretary!!" It wasn't fair. He'd been the star reporter of his highschool paper, gotten the dirt on the prom queen's boob job and the wrestling captain's drug habit. He'd gone to college and gotten his degree in journalism. He'd even landed a job at one of Chicago's biggest newspapers...things should have been falling into place for him.

Instead, he had been relegated to the classifieds section, tucked away from the bright lights of the front page and the big stories. They had called it an internship. Chad called it indentured servitude. How was he supposed to get experience this way? How was he supposed to prove himself if they never gave him a chance?

Angrily, he snatched up a copy of that day's paper from where he'd thrown it on the floor. The headline shouted up at him as brightly as the red bellboy suit on the guy in the picture. A Mountie - a real-live honest-to-God Mountie - was running around Chicago saving kids from crazed gunmen, and he was stuck in classifieds. This was not acceptable.

Chad skimmed the article, noting the man's name. 'Benton Fraser'. Involuntarily, the young man grinned, the name reminding him of the nerd herd that he had employed for the highschool paper. They'd all had names like that, 'Benton', or 'Prescott', or 'Reginald', or some other oddball moniker. This guy looked to be just that type, with his red coat, strange cowboy hat, and ridiculous striped pants. Chad was convinced that anyone who'd wear that had a screw or two loose, uniform or no uniform.

His brown eyes narrowed...from the looks of things, the Mountie lived right here in Chicago. It wouldn't be too hard for a tenacious and talented young reporter to locate where he lived. Scope the place out, talk to the neighbors, maybe even talk his way inside if he was lucky. With the Mountie in the hospital and not talking to anyone, the story was red-hot, and he was eager to get in on it.

If he could find out about how and where the Mountie lived, he'd have an angle no one else could touch. He grinned as he grabbed his gum off the side of the phone where he'd stuck it while talking to Mrs. Pomputis. "Front page, here I come!"

***

Inspector Margaret Thatcher had never considered herself a timid woman. Now, however, with brilliant lights making her eyes tear, dress reds making her itchy and uncomfortable, and a thousand microphones shoved in her face, she was feeling just that. She wanted to go back inside the consulate and shut the door, but she knew what she would find there.

Ringing phones and Constable Turnbull.

She wasn't sure which of these hells was worse. Was it the hell of dealing with the RCMP superiors and Canadian politicians for whom she had recited the entire litany of incident, accident, and prognosis a thousand times already? Was it the hell of trying to handle Turnbull, who was near open hysteria due to the condition of his beloved idol and mentor? Was it the hell of the American media?

The media, she decided, definitely the media. America's loudest, most obnoxious people armed with microphones and cameras. The only one missing from this herd is that damned Detective Vecchio. Though she forced herself to stare right into the blinding lights, Thatcher was not able to bring up a smile. To the reporters, it looked as though the lovely Canadian was in severe pain. Desperately, she tried to keep up with the barrage of questions pounding against her.

"Constable Fraser is in critical condition at the moment. He's suffered a severe head injury, and has been placed in a coma to allow healing...yes, the Canadian government has been informed...no, we do not know if he is going to survive...yes, the RCMP is very proud of his actions...medals? No, not that I am aware of. He was there for a public relations function...no, the dog is not connected to the RCMP..no, he's not a husky, he's a wolf."

She winced at the frenzied reactions that this brought, and she waved her hands for silence. "He's perfectly safe. His name is Diefenbaker, and he is Constable Fraser's personal pet....no, I frankly do not know what he was doing in that school." Her voice was becoming snappish, but Thatcher didn't care. "The wolf goes everywhere...they're practically Siamese twins." The mob pressed even closer, more questions thundering in her ears, and she knew she had to regain control of this situation.

Drawing herself up so that her spine was perfectly straight, she speared them with the glare that Ray Vecchio had once accused of being the sole reason for Canada's frigid climate. "That will be all, ladies and gentlemen. The RCMP is very proud of Constable Fraser's heroic actions. Of course we are saddened by his injuries, but every officer of our police force understands that risk comes with the uniform, just like in America. The Canadian government and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police have nothing more to say at this time."

Fighting the urge to run for her life, she made a crisp about face and climbed the stairs back into the consulate. Thatcher could hear the snapping of cameras at her back, the additional shouted questions, but she ignored them. As the consulate doors closed behind her, she could not contain a sigh of relief. She removed her hat, running her hand over the sheen of sweat that had collected under the band. She needed a cup of tea.

For a moment, she almost called Fraser, but the summons died in her throat as she remembered. Suddenly, she needed the soothing effects of that tea more than ever. "Constable Turnbull!," she bellowed.

Within moments, the young Mountie had dashed over, his face a strained mask of valiant composure. "Yes, sir?"

"I'll be in my office...could you bring me a cup of tea?"

"Yes, sir!" He started to turn, then stopped for a moment as though he had something to say. Turnbull's lower lip trembled a moment, then he seemed to pull himself together as he left to get the tea.

Feeling the growing pressure of a headache building, Thatcher started for her office. She was going to lock herself in and take the phone off the hook...let the damned bureaucrats hear the busy signal and think that she was talking to one of them.

All she wanted to do was go back to Canada, far, far away from anything American or anything remotely related to Constable Fraser. That man had been nothing but trouble since she had first set foot in Chicago, always getting into cases that defied belief, always playing the hero.

As she passed the door of Fraser's tiny office, a flicker of movement caught the corner of her eye. Before she even thought about what she was doing, she quickly crossed the few steps to the door and pushed it open. The Constable's dark blue overcoat hung neatly on a hatstand, a small ventilation grate in the floor beneath it causing the scarlet lining to ripple and flutter. Thatcher's hazel eyes swept the room, almost as if she was expecting Fraser to suddenly appear, apologizing profusely for the inconvenience and producing some fabulous explanation of how it had all been a ruse connected to one of his insane cases.

The room was neat as a pin, as usual. Every paper was neatly stacked, every pencil sharpened, every paper clip in place. She knew that should she run a white-gloved finger along the underside of any piece of furniture, it would come away sparklingly clean. It was an environment that seemed too sterile to belong to any human being, but it did. It belonged to Constable Benton Fraser of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police...a man who she was supposed to supervise and protect.

Now, he might die on her watch.

Slowly, almost as if she was afraid to disturb the museum-like office, Thatcher closed the door. For a moment, she leaned against it, eyes closed, then she turned back towards her office. "Where the hell is that tea, Turnbull?!"

***

Elaine Besbriss stepped gingerly into the hospital room, clutching the small stuffed animal she was carrying as though it were a lifeline. It was a white plush wolf she had spotted at the toy store just after Christmas, and she nervously stroked it's soft fur. She'd bought it for Benny, reasoning that he had few people who ever gave him presents, but it had been stashed in her dresser drawer and forgotten until now.

"Hey, Fraser." Her voice was higher than usual, tight and nervous, and she was glad that no one else was there to see what a fool she was making of herself. She felt almost as though she had invaded on the Mountie while he was sleeping, though the myriad lines and needles imbedded in his body belied the serene expression on his face. The heart monitor beeped a steady rhythm, and Elaine found it soothing, a reminder that he was still alive.

Still holding tightly to the stuffed wolf, she settled into the chair by his bedside. "I...uh...well..." The Civilian Aide cleared her throat, then began again. "You see..." She paused again, then suddenly burst out laughing. "This is so ridiculous! I mean, here I am worrying about saying the right thing, and you have no idea I'm even here."

Elaine got up, turning to face the window. Somehow it was easier to talk to him when she didn't have to look at him. Especially when he looked dead like that. "Of course, being totally oblivious like this is extremely strange for you, being Mr. Observant and all. Ray's told me some really wild ones about things you've pegged...stuff no human being should be able to recognize. Things like the taste of mud." She giggled. "That's become a favorite of his. He tells everyone that when he's hauling out the list of Weird Mountie Stories. That and the time you wrapped him in steak."

Outside the window, the sunset was just fading, the last streaks of color just tinting the skyline between the tall buildings. Absently, she traced the horizon with her fingertip. "You've sure kept things interesting around the precinct. No one ever knows what you're going to do next, and I think that's really part of why you're so easy to like, Fraser. You're one of a kind, a breath of fresh air for us city slickers."

She paused, blushing as she looked at the reflection of Fraser's bed in the glass of the window. "Of course, we ladies have our own reasons. I'm not going to deny that. You could have half the women in Chicago, Fraser, we all know that...but you don't do it." Elaine sighed, tossing her hands up in exasperation as she turned to face him again. "I don't know if you're really oblivious to how women look at you, or if it's all an act, but whatever it is, I like it." Her voice softened. "I like that you're not like every other bastard with a pretty face and a nice bod, leaping into bed with every willing skirt that crosses your path. You're different."

Without realizing it, she had been slowly moving across the hospital room as she spoke, and she now stood within inches of Fraser's bed. "You're a gentleman, Benton Fraser." Gently, she tucked the little stuffed wolf in beside him. "That shouldn't be unusual, I know, but it is. I remember the first time I gave you a file and you thanked me. Not just 'yeah thanks, Elaine, whatevah.'" Tossing her head sarcastically, she mimicked Vecchio's nasal tones as she dropped casually into the chair, her awkwardness vanished. "Not the way Ray and the boys do it. You looked me right in the eyes and did that 'thank you kindly' line of yours. And you really meant it. That was like...whoa. This guy is special."

His hand was lying on the bed close to her, and it was the most natural thing in the world to just reach forward and pick it up. It was completely limp in her grasp and shockingly cold, the fingernails vaguely gray-tinged. Still, she stroked it almost unconsciously while she talked. "You're more than a gentleman. You've resurrected my belief that nice guys do actually exist out there. You've done that for a lot of people."

Elaine squeezed his hand tightly, trying to ignore the tightness building in her throat. "You are not going to die, all right? Not unless you can find this world a replacement, and THAT is simply not going to happen."

***

"Look at you!"

"I'm fine!"

"No you're not." Ray moved in front of the door, spreading his long arms against the doorjamb to physically block his sister. "Listen to me, Frannie...you can't do this. You've been taking over for Ma here during the days and staying up with Benny nights. It's not even three days since he got blasted, and you already look like the living dead!"

"Who are you to talk!?" Frannie tried to squirm past him, but he managed to block her every move. Frustrated, she looked up at him, rage gleaming through the exhaustion in her red-rimmed eyes. This close to her, Ray could see the heavy coats of concealer and powder she had tried to use to hide the dark circles beneath her eyes. "You've not exactly been sleeping in yourself." she accused bitterly.

"I'm a cop. I'm on the case from hell, and after that press conference fiasco this morning, God only knows what's going to happen now. But the point is, I run on coffee. You're my kid sister. You're not a cop, you don't have any cases, and you shouldn't have to run on coffee."

"That's sexist bullshit."

"Too bad! You're staying home tonight, or you're getting some sleep tomorrow. Your choice."

She frowned, one hand planted on her hip at a petulant angle. "I'm not leaving Benny alone at night, and with Ma gone, they need me here during the day. Maria needs help..."

"Then tell her to get Tony off his ass for once," Ray yelled, "I'm not letting you do this, Frannie!" He folded his arms. "I won't drive you!"

A wicked grin lit the young woman's face at this, and before he was even sure how he'd lost, Ray knew it was over. With remarkable speed, one manicured hand shot in and out of the pocket of Ray's sports coat, and the keys to the Riv were in Frannie's possession. Shocked, the Detective lunged for them. "What the hell do you think you're - "

Tired eyes sparkling at her triumph, Frannie slipped out of her brother's grasp with the elusiveness of a greased eel. She dashed out the door, jingling the keys loudly as she high-tailed it for the car. Ray was calling for her to stop, but she ignored him, and within moments he was watching the retreating taillights of the vehicle.

He stood there in the road for several seconds, then sighed in defeat and turned back towards the house. "You'd better take care of yourself," he muttered, "I really don't need two people in the hospital."

***

With ease born of years of practice, Francis Parker kept his face perfectly still and relaxed as his dark eyes skimmed over the script in front of him. Collette Demareste, the News 10 makeup girl, was busily smoothing the chocolate-colored pancake makeup over his face and neck, then packing on powder to prevent his skin from shining under the harsh lights. It was a familiar ritual, and she no longer even needed to remind him to turn his head at the proper times.

"You've got ten minutes, Parker!" Tony Marciolla, the bear-like Italian Floor Director stuck his head into the small makeup room. Parker's eyes met Collette's questioningly in the mirror, and she smiled.

"Have I ever made you late?" She swiped a clean sponge over his jawline, blending the makeup, then carefully lifted his toupee from its styrofoam head. It had been made for him at no small expense, and the expert work blended perfectly with his own close-cropped, conservative style. He disliked wearing it, as it was hot and itchy and felt almost intolerably unnatural, but he put up with it anyway. It was like the contact lenses that they had made him wear instead of his reading glasses. All part of the image.

Finally, Collette had adjusted everything to her satisfaction, and she whisked away the cloth that had protected his expensive dress shirt. "See," she said brightly, "Four minutes to spare."

Parker nodded a quick thank you, checking his reflection in the mirror before he left. The shirt was clean and crisply pressed, as were the trousers, not a wrinkle in sight. He had purposely loosened his simple burgundy tie and rolled up his sleeves, even going so far as to unbutton the top button of his shirt. It gave him the look of a conscientious professional who was hard at work, and that was exactly what the people wanted to see in the news promos. Their trusted News Ten anchor, hard at work, nose to the grindstone to deliver the six o'clock news on time, but taking a moment to update the people on how things were going.

Grabbing his script off the makeup counter, he hurried off towards the set. They wouldn't be using the big news desk set for this one. It would be the news room set, the tiny canvas and plywood backdrop that was painted to resemble a hard-working office. The eyes and ears of Chicago.

Unlike the larger set, this one was mostly automated, capable of delivering the footage with only Parker to sit in front of the camera, and Ronnie Chu, the director, to sit behind it. Everything was remote control: the lights, the one small camera known as the flashcam, and the blue screen of the TelePrompTer above. Like most of the news, this would be done live, the thirty second spot persuading viewers to turn on their televisions at six for the vital information he had to impart to them. He'd hit the top three stories, the sensational ones, and leave the fluff bits for the news itself.

Parker slid into his chair and clipped on his lapel mike, repeating his name into it until Chu gave him the thumbs up to tell him it was working. Satisfied that was in order, he inserted the tiny black earpiece into his right ear, being sure to run the wire behind his ear and out of sight. Looking directly into the camera's lens, he smiled, pulling his professional persona smoothly into place.

He was your friend, your trusted companion, the man who knew everything and wanted to make sure you were kept on top of it for your own well-being. After twenty years on television, the expression of calm trustworthiness was second nature, and no sense of stage fright or jitters gripped him as Chu counted down. Thirty seconds to air. He skimmed his script again, assuring himself that he had the brief blurb committed to memory.

Twenty seconds. Ten. Five...four...three...two...one...Chu stabbed a finger at Parker, and he began, his smooth bass resonant. "Tidal waves decimate Chilean coast line as rescue workers fight against the floods." He watched the monitor over the camera, seeing the dramatic footage of a rampaging wall of water as he narrated. "Cancer...does your Doctor *really* know your risks?" A quick series of images, a woman getting an MRI, a concerned patient talking to their physician, a child being injected. "And the latest on the highschool shooting investigation...a young man's parents suggest this tragedy could have been averted." More images...students laying flowers at the doors of the highschool, the Mountie being lifted into an ambulance, Kate and Stuart Pittman clutching one another and weeping.

Then the camera was back to him, and Parker looked into it intensely. *See how important this is*? His face seemed to say, *I'm working hard, and I'll be soon be ready to tell you all about it.* "Full coverage at six o'clock, here on News Ten, Chicago On Your Side."

Another moment of earnest eye contact, and the blurb was over. Chu smiled as she stepped out from behind the camera, pushing her headset back from her ears to let it hang around her neck. "OK, Parker, thanks. Oh, and by the way, Douwd wants to see you in his office about that story you wanted to pitch. He says if you've done your homework he might be able to talk to Sydney Omarr and get it written up in time for the six o'clock."

Parker nodded, unable to contain a smile. "Thanks. I'm on my way." Had he done his homework? He was from the generation that came before the Internet and fax lines, raised on radio and the sound of Walter Kronkite's reassuring voice. Journalism was going out and getting your story, having ink on your hands and mud on your shoes. Oh, yes, he did his homework, probably more than the rest of the point-and-click generation reporters and the supermodel anchors combined.

Certainly more than enough to land his story on the air at six.

***

Chad Howell grabbed his Starbucks mug and flipped the switch to shut down his computer. Five o'clock precisely, and he wasn't going to hang around this place a moment longer than he absolutely had to. He took a last swig to empty the mug, resolving to swing by and grab a refill before he got down to the serious business of investigating this Fraser character. He'd need the energy.

As he left his cubicle, he nearly ran into an elderly woman. She backed up quickly, startled, and Chad got a good look at her. She was about seventy years old or so, short, dressed in a floral housecoat and...oh God, was that actually a bathrobe?! It was. "I'm so sorry, young man," she blushed, clearly embarrassed by the near-collision, "you see, I was told I could come by here and pay for my ad so it could start running tomorrow. I know I'm a few minutes late, but do you think..."

With a deep sigh, Chad turned back into the cubicle and flicked the computer on again. "Sure, lady, go ahead. Which ad was yours?"

"Mrs. Pomputis. I was placing an ad for a little Pekinese." As the young journalist looked through his files, she began to pace the room, her hands fluttering in quick little motions like nervous birds. "I miss my dear little Trixie so much, and I have just got to get another special little pookie to replace her...you know how that is. And a Pekinese is just the only thing there is, really. They're such sweet little dogs. Have you ever had one?"

The Pentium processor in the computer seemed to have been replaced by small dyslexics using abacuses. At least, it seemed that way to Chad as the computer ground slowly through its operations and left him at the woman's mercy. He realized that she had asked him a question, and was glad he was facing away from her so she couldn't see his eyes roll. "A Peke? Or a dog in general?"

"Either, I suppose."

"No Peke. Yes dog. Labrador."

She cocked her head pensively. "Oh, I don't like big doggies at all. I'm convinced one ate my Trixie, you know. Well, I guess he wasn't a dog, really, he was a wolf, but that doesn't matter much, does it? No, it doesn't. It really was a shame, too, because the young man who owns him is so clean and polite...not like most young men these days. But he just doesn't understand about big doggies. Maybe it's because he's Canadian. He does a lot of funny things because he's Canadian."

Chad spun his chair around so hard that he nearly fell over. His mind was racing, his eyes wide. What were the odds that there would be two wolf-owning Canadians living in Chicago?! Suddenly, it was all he could do not to kiss Mrs. Pomputis right then and there. The woman knew Fraser!

Immediately, the reporter was all charm and smiles. "Considering your loss, ma'am, I think the Chronicle should really extend this advertisement to you free of charge."

Her gray eyes widened behind her glasses. "Really? How sweet of you."

He nodded, doing his best to seem ever so sympathetic. "Really. I agree with you...it's very dangerous to have a wolf running around Chicago. What if your Trixie wasn't the only pet he's harmed?"

Mrs. Pomputis's hands fluttered again, "True, true. They tell us it was all some bad dogcatcher who was selling our pets to a lab, but I can't imagine any person ever trying to hurt Trixie. It would have to be a wild animal."

It took a great deal of restraint for him not to comment that there were many people, himself included, who couldn't stand the Pekinese breed and would happily sell every one to labs. "It would have to be." He snapped his fingers, looking at her wide-eyed as though a thought had just occurred to him. "You know, maybe the Chronicle should do a story on this? I'll talk to this man with the wolf, and we'll see if we can't work something out."

Her wrinkled face lit up with a bright smile. "Wonderful! I'll tell you where he lives!"

Quickly, he grabbed a piece of paper and a pencil, but as she recited the address, he felt his heart sink. The apartment building she had indicated was located in one of the worst neighborhoods in town. No one in his right mind, Chad Howell included, would even remotely consider going there after dusk without the assistance of something very large caliber. Still, he finished noting the address and jammed the paper in the pocket of his loose jeans.

After thanking Mrs. Pomputis again and sending her on his way, he pulled the paper out again and leaned against the cubicle wall. He absently blew a large bubble with his gum, snapping it loudly as he examined the address. Definitely not a good neighborhood. He'd have to wait and go in the morning.

***

Slowly, Benton Fraser walked down the empty hallway towards his apartment. He could hear singing, and his smooth brow furrowed in curiosity. Fraser was quite certain that he lived alone, and Diefenbaker certainly wouldn't be singing. Cautiously, he pushed open the door, then sighed at what he found there.

"I thought I told you I had him on a diet, Dad." Robert Fraser looked up from where he had been kneeling by the table, not the slightest guilt showing on his face at being caught feeding the wolf candy. Smarties, from the box open on the table.

Ruffling the animal's fur briefly, the elder Fraser stood to face Benton. "That's not what I'd be worried about, if I were you, son."

"You're corrupting my wolf." He gestured sharply to where Dief had begun nosing the box. "I have no idea how I am supposed to formulate basic morality in him as long as you insist on undermining my efforts!"

His father looked at him with a rather disappointed air. "Maybe you are losing your edge after all."

"I fail to see how not wanting Diefenbaker to glut himself on sweets is construed as 'losing my -" The younger Mountie suddenly stopped, his face paling. "Dief can see you. I thought only I could - well, Buck Frobisher could also, but Dief could certainly never...."

Robert Fraser beamed, pulling out a chair and sitting down, one leg crossed casually over the other. "A little slow getting there, but you seem to be catching on."

"And the chair...Dad, you can't manipulate objects, you're DEAD!" Even as he spoke, Benton felt an edge of worry about Mr. Mustafi. If he were overhearing this conversation, it would be decidedly difficult to explain. Of course, his entire current situation was rather difficult to explain, unless... "Oh dear."

Now it was Benton's turn to sit. "Dad, may I ask you a personal question?" He paused. "Well, actually it's not entirely personal, as the outcome would certainly have an effect on my professional life as well."

His father leaned back in the chair, arms crossed casually behind his head. "Fire away, son."

"Are Diefenbaker and I dead?"

There was a moment of contemplation, then the answer. "Technically, no."

"Technically?"

"You're in a coma, son. As for Diefenbaker," He tossed the wolf several more candies, not one of which ever touched the ground. "he's experiencing an extremely high fever brought on by massive infections. For him, these are hallucinations. Fever dreams. For you...ah, who can say?"

Benton sank slowly forward, his elbows resting on the table and his head in his hands. "I'm in a coma? How did I get in a coma? I don't remember doing anything to get myself in a coma."

"You've done plenty of things to get yourself in a coma!" Fraser Sr. laughed, "They just haven't worked until now!" He leaned across the table, lowering his head until he was looking at the top of his son's Stetson, where his eyes would be were he looking up instead of at the table top. "Oh, buck up, boy! You've got -"

"What, Dad?" At this, Benton did look up, a brief flash in his blue eyes that was almost anger. "I've got to get my man? How many times do I have to tell you, Dad, that is NOT our motto! The last time I let you talk me into that, I had a concussion. I was blind and temporarily paraplegic due to a subdeural hematoma that also grossly impaired my mental function and had me traipsing over Canada following a motto that wasn't even our motto! I admit that I am more than likely concussed again if, as you say, I am comatose, but I am not going to do this again."

"Fine then." The older man stood, circling around to lean over his son's shoulder. "But this time, I'm not asking you to go anywhere."

"A good thing," Benton pointed out, "because I am likely in fairly precarious physical condition."

"I'm ordering you."

"Ordering me?"

"As your father, and as a ranking officer of the RCMP who has over twenty years seniority."

"What are you ordering me to do, Dad?"

"Fight, son."

"Fight?"

Both men were by now completely ignoring Dief, who had taken the entire box of Smarties and was busily consuming them in a fever dream that had his corporeal mouth watering. Benton's father placed both hands on his son's shoulders, and two sets of eyes met with the intensity of a summer lightning storm. Robert Fraser's voice dropped. For a moment, there was more warmth, more genuine paternal love and concern than Benton had ever heard before. "You are going to fight, and you are going to win, because there is a terrible injustice occurring out there. If you are going to right it, you are going to have to fight and survive. Maintain the right, son, maintain the right."

***

"It's ugly."

"Very ugly."

Detectives Jack Huey and Louis Gardino looked over the bags of evidence spread out over the table. There were literally hundreds of them, and every one of them held clues that could be vital to finding out what happened up in that hallway. Huey reached out with one latex-gloved hand and picked up the nearest. It contained an algebra textbook pierced by a bullet.

Gardino was unable to contain a black chuckle. "That one was in a kid's backpack. Found out when he got outside that math had saved his life...damnedest thing too, cuz he said he was this close to failing the course."

Almost reverently, Huey's big hands lifted the damaged text and carefully opened it, trying to see how far the bullet had penetrated. That would tell him how fast it had been going when it hit. Page 56. That meant...his dark features crinkled into a frown. "Damn, I wish the Mountie were here."

"Yeah," Gardino's brash tones abruptly subdued, "he'd probably be able to look at that and tell us what the son of a bitch ate for breakfast."

There was a long pause, the book forgotten. "He's a good cop, you know, Louis? I mean, sure, the guy's a bit of a nut case - "

"He hangs out with Vecchio of his own free will, this goes without saying."

Huey couldn't contain a smile at that. "I was going to chalk that one to spending God knows how long up there with the moose."

Gardino grinned back, "Now you are saying that Vecchio is preferable company to a moose?"

"Now...hell no, the guy's been a royal pain in the ass since the Mountie got hurt." He shrugged. "But before that...marginally. The moose definitely gets my vote as less annoying, but Vecchio's got a better looking sister."

"This is true."

The book was replaced among the pile of bagged evidence. Both men began to silently paw through the heap, their experienced eyes attempting to piece the mess into a crime scene. "So, about the Mountie..." Gardino attempted to keep his voice casual, but the Italian's tone still betrayed clear concern.

"Yeah?"

"You heard anything about him lately? I mean, how's he doing?"

For a moment, Huey almost looked up, then decided to keep his eyes focused on his work. "Elaine went to see him. The Docs are saying he's doing okay, but she says he's looking pretty sick. Hooked up to half the damn hospital and real pale, even for as white a white guy as Fraser normally is." The joke fell flat, and both men knew it. Neither was willing to look up, to meet the other's eyes.

"Doesn't sound good, Jack."

"He'll be okay." Huey's burly hands fingered a bead from a girl's necklace with a surprisingly gentle touch. "He's a tough cop."

"My grandmother isn't even that polite." There was a pause, then the Italian lifted another bag from the pile. It was a brass button that the tag indicated had been found in the hallway. Its surface was highly polished, engraved with a tiny crest. Three scarlet threads still trailed from the back, indicating it had been ripped away. For a long moment, Louis just looked at the button, then he opened the bag and took it out, clasping it tightly in his fist. "But he is a tough cop," he admitted, "a hell of a tough cop."

***

"And that's it for tonight's sports coverage. Back to you, Shannon."

Shannon O'Donell, anchorwoman on News Ten at Six, smiled warmly at the wall beside her. To the viewing public, it looked as though her model's smile was being directed at Phil Delong, the sportscaster, but the 'screen' he appeared on in reality did not exist. It was a figment of the control room, part of the magic of television. "Thank you, Phil," she said smoothly to nothing.

"Head on O'Donell." Tony Marciolla whispered the directive to the cameraman through his headset, and the image shifted to show only the woman's head and shoulders. She was a classical Irish beauty, from her blazing red hair to her porcelain skin and the brilliant blue of her eyes. A former model and dancer, she was the newest member of the News Ten anchor team, but already beloved. Ratings had jumped several full points since her arrival.

"Next on News Ten at Six:" Before the words were out of her mouth, a tape had been cued in the control room, and the latter half of her sentence was accompanied by footage of hands exchanging money at a cash register, a scale weighing a bunch of bananas, and change being counted out of a cash drawer. "Is your grocer cheating you?"

Tony gestured to the young man at camera two, "Head on Parker."

The dark, trusted face of Francis Parker filled the screen. "Additional evidence on the recent school shooting," More footage, the funeral of Rebecca Lieberman, her mother dressed in black and dabbing at her eyes, Mr. and Mrs. Pittman clutching each other at the conference, and the TIME photo of the Mountie's face, harshly cut in to look almost like a mug shot. "Is there more to the Mountie than meets the eye?"

A quick gesture to camera three, and Tony didn't really need to whisper. "And two," to bring the picture on the screen to show most of the news desk, with the team of Parker and O'Donell ready and waiting to bring the truth to Chicago.

"All this and more when we return with more News Ten at Six." Parker finished, then Ronnie Chu waved her arm to indicate the cut to commercials. The on air monitor that showed them what Chicago was viewing in their living rooms changed from the news desk to a trio of inebriated frogs, and the atmosphere in the studio relaxed slightly.

Collette Demareste rushed forward to quickly spray back a wayward curl from O'Donell's carefully crafted hairstyle, and Parker sipped at a glass of water from beneath the desk. He caught Chu's brilliant smile from off camera, and couldn't help a slight one of his own. Sydney Omarr was a hell of a writer to get moving, but when he did move, his stuff was great, and Parker had thankfully been able to get him moving in time for the six. The story was good to go, and it was going to shake Chicago to its shoes.

Tony's voice crackled in Parker's earpiece, and Collette scurried away as the last commercial ended and the News Ten logo gave way to another two shot. "Pan for box," came the whisper to camera one, and the screen moved a bit to the left to allow room over Parker's right shoulder for a box containing a bold montage graphic of the highschool's exterior, an RCMP tunic, and a gun, all slashed over with yellow police tape.

Parker glanced only for a moment at his notes, then began. "Only a few days ago, this nation was stunned with the tragic news that violence had again broken out in our schools. Three young lives were taken, and another eleven students wounded when seventeen year old Jason Pittman began firing into the halls of his highschool. As in every such case, parents and teachers have been searching desperately for answers."

Roll tape. Mrs. Pittman, that morning, a crawl across the bottom of the screen showing her name, and citing her occupation as pediatrician. "We aren't making excuses for him. What he did was so terribly, terribly wrong." She stood before the cameras bravely, the very picture of wounded motherhood. "I don't know why he would do such a thing...he never seemed like anything bothered him. He was so..." The break for tears, every female viewer feeling instant sympathy with this heartbroken woman.

"We've gone over everything," Mr. Pittman spoke now, the crawl shifting to remind people that he was a stockbroker. "his room, his friends, his music. None of this makes sense. And we aren't asking you to forgive him. He killed Rebecca, Keith, and Emmanuel, and we express only the deepest remorse towards their families."

Parker's voice again, overlaid over the change of footage, "Those families have begun to speak now, and despite their own devastating losses, they display only compassion towards the Pittman family." More tape came up, this of Mrs. Montoya, whose son Emmanuel had been one of those killed. She spoke in broken, thickly accented English. "His mother, his father, they not who killed my boy. I very angry about losing Emmanuel. I loved him more than I know words for saying. But I am not angry at them. I do not know who I am angry to."

"It was an accident that never should have happened." Mr. Pittman again, looking with pain-filled eyes into the camera, then another cut.

Now it was Parker himself on screen, talking to a non-existent screen just as O'Donell had been doing. On that screen was a man dressed in a police officer's uniform. "I'm talking now with Captain LeMatt of the Chicago Police Department SWAT team. Captain LeMatt, why didn't the SWAT team handle this situation?"

"We didn't have time, it's as simple as that." He looked slightly uncomfortable with being on TV, but Parker didn't mind. He didn't like them too smooth, they looked like actors then. "We'd just gotten there, and we never want to rush a situation. It's hard, especially when there's kids involved like this, but if you rush in without thinking, people could die. My team was just preparing to enter the building when we saw Constable Fraser take the initiative."

"Thank you, Captain." Parker nodded sagely, then the last tape bit played, Mr. Pittman again.

"I'm sure he had nothing but good intentions, but he's not a hostage negotiator. He's not a psychologist. He's not a SWAT team member. He knows nothing about dealing with troubled youth. He's not even an American police officer. And because he came charging to the rescue, he is now in critical condition in the hospital, and Jason is dead."

Those words were left ringing in the ears and hearts of Chicago.

***

"I don't think it's asking that much. I don't know how it is here in the United States, but up in Canada, there are certain things we expect of doctors. We expect them to tell us what's wrong. We expect them to try their damnedest to fix it. And we certainly expect them to tell us what the hell is going on."

Doctor Doxtetter sighed and leaned back against the wall of the hospital corridor. He'd always thought of Canadians as quiet, polite people. This woman, however - this Margaret Thatcher - was not. She was abrasive and demanding, as fiery as any American woman he'd ever had the misfortune of meeting. Maybe he should check her citizenship. "Look, Inspector," he explained, "I'd be happy to tell you. But I really haven't the slightest idea myself."

"Then what's that?" The petite, dark-haired woman crossed her arms over her chest and nodded towards the thick sheaf of papers he was holding. "That file is marked with the Constable's name."

He thumbed through the papers so she could see. "That's because it's his...Fraser, Benton T. Nurses' reports. Test results. Printouts from his monitors. Drug records. Medical history. Your basic med file."

"Which is supposed to include a prognosis."

"You want a prognosis, lady?" Doxtetter knew he was going to regret this, but he was tired, and this woman was truly grating on his nerves. "Fine. All the tests and readouts say the same thing, and that's that right now, everything is ticking along. Heart's pumping, blood's circulating, major organs doing their job, lungs respiring efficiently. But his brain is in neutral...and it's going to stay that way until one of two things happens. Either the intercranial pressure abates enough for us to bring him up to consciousness again so that we can see how badly things have been damaged, or..." He shifted uncomfortably, and the Inspector's eyes flashed. She pounced.

"Or?"

"Or the pressure may spike drastically, and he may die."

"And what are the odds of that happening?"

"We aren't sure." The look in her eyes was positively venomous, and Doxtetter winced. Just as he was ready to run for his life, his beeper went off, and he practically fell over his own feet as he excused himself and headed down to the ER. He could feel her gaze burning into his back as he left, but he didn't care. She was another doctor's problem now, thank God.

***

Ma Vecchio stood in the doorway of Fraser's room, a sad smile on her face as she watched the exchange between the Inspector and Dr. Doxtetter. The younger woman was so tense, so angry all the time. It really wasn't fair for her to go after the Doctor like that...he'd been doing everything he could for Fraser. Didn't she understand that there are times you simply have to sit back and let destiny take its course?

Quietly, she stepped out into the hallway, walking up to Thatcher. Her voice was warm and gentle, "So much anger, Margaret." Thatcher whirled around, and Mrs. Vecchio laughed. "That face! Don't you know that you'll put wrinkles around those pretty eyes with faces like that?"

A veil descended over the Inspector's features, a carefully crafted mask of professional control. It didn't fool Mrs. Vecchio for a moment, but she understood what it meant. Without saying a word, she turned and went back into Fraser's room, leaving the door open behind her. She knew that Thatcher would follow, and had to hide a small smile when she heard the click of the high-heeled shoes that entered shortly after she did. The Italian woman didn't acknowledge the entrance directly, but instead walked up to Fraser's bedside.

Leaning over him, she smoothed a hand over one pale cheek, careful not to touch the still-healing cuts. "Always an inside man." Her tone was quiet, musing, and she knew it would rouse the Inspector's curiosity.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Still, Mrs. Vecchio did not look at Thatcher, keeping her dark eyes focused on the injured Mountie. "Always keeping everything on the inside, never wanting anyone else to worry about him, always so busy making other people happy and safe. No one was supposed to be able to see that he was all alone." She smiled, "But a mother sees. Maybe I'm not his mother, but I see. I see that he is like a loaf of bread...smooth and tender and so perfect on the outside, but on the inside, it is easily torn, and there is much emptiness."

"That's nice." Finally, Mrs. Vecchio turned. Thatcher looked distinctly uncomfortable with the conversation, exactly as anticipated. It was as she had thought...masks were something that she knew too well. Talking about the weaknesses, the humanity of others would not be easy for this woman, but especially not Fraser's weaknesses. This woman wanted to see Fraser as a tin soldier, solid and dependable to serve her without question. But he mustn't have feelings.

Pretending not to have noticed her discomfort, Mrs. Vecchio looked back down towards Fraser again. "Forgive me...I am a sentimental old woman." She chuckled, glancing back up at Thatcher with a merry twinkle in her eyes. "But I still know that you will get wrinkles on your face if you keep looking at doctors that way, bambina."

Thatcher folded her arms with a small, derisive snort. "I've had a stressful couple of days."

The Italian frowned. "Canada is angered?"

"They want information. Everyone wants information, and I'm supposed to be the one who has it. I can't even go to the bathroom without my phone ringing two or three times. Newspapers. Television stations. Radio stations. Police. FBI. RCMP" She tossed her head in exasperation. "I've even gotten two phone calls from the Commissioner himself!"

A thick, work-weathered hand closed over a dainty, manicured one. "Mia cara bambina, listen to me. It is the way of responsibility. You do your job...you tell them what you do know and what it is that you do not know yet, and no one will be able to speak badly of you."

Thatcher smiled bitterly. "You have no idea."

"So what will you do, bambina? Lie to them and say you know when you do not? Bite the heads off more doctors who are trying to save this man's life? Or will you just be angry at everyone who might see that you are also bread?"

"What?!" Thatcher jerked back, here eyes wide. "That's ridiculous! I am not some hermit like..."

"You make a crust of anger, making others fear you so that they cannot see your fear."

The hazel eyes were cold now, and Thatcher took a step back, smoothing down her jacket as she looked at the older woman with cool detachment, and a bit of warning. "Mrs. Vecchio, I appreciate your attempts to play amateur psychiatrist, but you quite frankly don't know what you're talking about, and I would appreciate it if you would keep out of my personal business."

"If you wish, bambina."

"I wish, and it's 'Inspector,' thank you."

"Inspector, then." Her own voice had taken on a hard edge as well, "I won't say anymore. But know that God still sees."

Deliberately, she turned her back again. All of her attention was now focused on Fraser's serene face. It was as though Thatcher did not even exist as she settled into her chair and began to rock smoothly back and forth, stroking his hand. She hummed quietly as she did so, then words began to slowly seep in to the melody.

"That's beautiful...what does it mean?" Thatcher's voice was hushed.

"It's an old lullaby for sick children. My mother sang it to me and my brothers and sisters when I was sick. Her mother sang it to her family. I sing it to mine."

"Oh."

Smiling softly, she began again, this time singing in English for the Inspector's benefit.

Tears built in her eyes and tightened her throat, choking off the last words of the song into unrecognizable murmurs. She had sung this song many times over her own babies. Perhaps she had not been the one to give birth to Benton Fraser, but she felt she was well within her rights to watch over him before the Virgin Mary, to light candles and offer prayers for his recovery.

"Ah, mio picollo Benton," she whispered. "You will live. Such a big, kind heart...you will live." Tenderly, she kissed him on his forehead, not caring if Thatcher was still there or not. "You do not see how many weep for you...and how many are only weeping on the inside."

There was a long moment of complete silence, then the sound of heels on tile, and the opening and closing of the door. Inspector Thatcher was gone. When the latch clicked, she leaned down to whisper conspiratorially in the young Constable's ear. "Your Margaret, Benton...she is on the inside."

Pulling back, she studied his peaceful features, then collected her needlework from her bag by the chair. It would be another long day of vigil, but she was grateful for the peace. "Poor Margaret," she murmured, "you have no peace."

***

THE NEXT MORNING

DAY THREE

***

Francis Parker nodded politely to the taxi driver, offering the man a slightly higher tip than would usually be given for the distance they had traveled. After all, Parker figured, the driver needed something to acknowledge the courage it had taken to drive out here.

Looking around, he experienced an eerie feeling of dj vu. The dilapidated buildings, the boarded-up windows and broken glass, the laundry hanging from sagging lines above the narrow, litter-strewn alleys...it was like coming home. Only this time, instead of looking at this segment of America from the viewpoint of a ten-year old boy on a rusty bicycle, he was seeing it through different eyes altogether.

The cardboard boxes were no longer places to play fort, they were places where winos sheltered. The gang members hanging out on the corners were not the simple delinquents of the fifties anymore...now, they were the kings in the kingdom of the ghetto. Their scepter was drugs, their knights the bands of gun-toting thugs who ruled over the peasants with an iron fist and a flashing switchblade. It was a neighborhood without life or hope, the sort of place where a decent man would be crushed like a fragile spring blossom growing between train tracks.

Which was why Parker had left. He had clawed his way up and out, doggedly using every advantage and edge he could find to escape this world. It had begun with a childhood fascination with the voices on his mother's radio, the brave journalists who would travel to all corners of the globe to tell the world what was happening there. Using a tiny crystal radio ordered by saving cereal boxtops for months, he had sat in his room at night, 'reporting' everything he saw happening outside his windows.

Three jobs and little sleep had lead him to college, where he had majored in journalism, riding the wave of civil rights activism to become the token black reporter for a small liberal campus paper. He had known that he was nothing more than a political statement, but so be it. Parker was as good, if not better, than anyone else, and if that was what had to be done to get where he wanted to go, then he could live with that.

He had lived with it. He had not only lived with it, but he had climbed the ladder steadily over the years until he had achieved his current position. One of the best-known news personalities in the nation. Anchorman on Chicago's top-rated television news program. Finally doing what he had dreamed of, digging out the stories and telling them to the world, even in an environment that was rapidly changing to be all sensationalism and spin rather than real journalism. Smiling at his successes in the forty years since he had last set foot in an area like this, Parker walked confidently down the alley towards 221 West Racine.

All the theories he had been formulating were reinforced by what he saw around him. If this was indeed where the Mountie lived, then to use an old phrase, 'what's wrong with this picture'? He'd looked into the RCMP salary scale, and even with the adjustment for the abysmal exchange rate, Fraser was making more than enough money to live someplace much better than this. For a man to choose to live in such an environment, there had to be a reason, and he had a strong suspicion that reason did not fall within the bounds of legal behavior.

As he entered the dark building, his nose wrinkled. The years had dulled his memory of how these places smelled. It was a permeating stench of mildew, rat droppings, rust, spilt alcohol, and the faint chemical smell of peeling paint. Trying not to let the fabric of his expensive suit touch anything he passed, Parker climbed the stairs to the third floor.

He wasn't sure what he had expected, but this was not it. A young man was loitering at the end of the hall, trying so hard to look non-chalant that he was terribly obvious about it. He was dressed in loose blue jeans and a sleeveless white muscle shirt with a beer logo. It wasn't showing much muscle, but it was showing the beads of nervous perspiration that had broken out on the youth's pale skin. Parker cleared his throat, and the boy jumped a mile. On seeing that Parker was not some inner-city ogre, he let out a nervous, twittering laugh, smoothing back the strands of longish brown hair that had fallen into his eyes.

"Hey...I, I know you!" The boy's eyes widened. "You're that guy on News 10! Parker, right?" He sighed in relief, then paused, thought a moment, and cocked his head like a curious puppy. "So, what are you doing here?"

"The same thing as you." Parker said calmly. "Although it appears that we've chosen different forms of the same media. I'm with News 10 at 6, while you, on the other hand, are in the employ of the Chicago Chronicle."

"How...how the hell...?"

It was all Parker could do not to grin. No matter how many times he did this, it was always fun. A childhood spent reading Arthur Conan Doyle, and a few years of his youth spent in the forensics labs of New York had done wonders for his observational skills. The fun of watching someone's jaw drop as he deduced them never faded. "The way your wrists hang tell me that you spend long hours at the computer. There is a stain on your left hand that could only come from changing the color cartridge on an industrial printer. The pads of your fingers and palm are vaguely gray-tinged...you've handled so much newsprint that the ink won't come out with simple soap and water any more. As for WHICH paper you work at...the notepad in your back pocket is Chicago Chronicle stationary."

The boy laughed and held out his hand. "Chad Howell. That is so cool! Where did you learn that trick?"

Parker sighed. "Just something I picked up." What he hadn't told Howell was that he had also pegged him in a couple of other ways. Howell was an ambitious slacker, the kind who figured that the world owed him a living, and that someone with his 'talent' should be rich and famous with a minimum of work. He hated those types. Yet at the same time, Parker knew it would be worth it to have Howell on his side. He already had several friends in the print media, but they were the big shots, the ones too bound by ethics to share the inside info Parker so needed. This boy was the type who would tell him anything in a heartbeat. The type he wanted.

Shaking Howell's hand warmly, he brought out his best 'so great to meet you' smile. "Not many people would have been able to find this place, Chad. Took me quite a bit of digging around. How'd you find it?"

"I...uh..." Howell shifted nervously, kicking at a dustbunny with the toe of his sneaker. "I've got my sources."

Translation: It wasn't exactly ethical.

Parker nodded sagely, as if 'sources' were something all newsmen understood. In truth, it had just confirmed that Howell was someone who could really work. The boy was ambitious enough to get fuzzy with the fine points of the law. "What brought you here, Chad? What's your view on this story?"

An attempt at hyper-pro delivery was somewhat hampered by the large wad of gum in Howell's jaws. "Well, this is the big story, you know. Shooting, gun control, keeping an eye on kids, what cops should and shouldn't do about the stuff, the Canuk angle...everyone's going for that. But I don't see anyone going after the Mountie himself. Where he lives, who he hangs with, who he's going out with, that kind of stuff. I figured I could be the first."

"That's -" He cut off as the door to 3J opened. A young woman stepped out, and Parker could almost literally see Howell's youthful hormones leap to attention. She was about nineteen, a Hispanic beauty with a figure so curvaceous that it could only be categorized as 'hour-and-a-half glass'. Her bleached cut-off blue jean shorts and white halter top emphasized her dusky coloring, and even Parker felt his heart skip a beat when she turned to look at the two strange men.

"Are you here to see Benton?" Her English was good, the accent quite light.

"In a way," Parker replied, "are you a friend of his, Miss...?"

She laughed. "Garcia. No, not really. He watches over my cousins sometimes...my Aunt lives here, but I just visit. I don't know him that well."

"Then what were you doing in his apartment?", Howell questioned.

"My Aunt told me about his accident...I was just making sure things were all in place. He keeps it so tidy. Not like most of the chingatos who live here." Her voice twisted bitterly as she spat out the curse. Clearly, she did not think much of her Aunt's neighborhood.

Many years in the news business had taught Parker to be discreet, and he knew this was the time. It didn't take Sherlock Holmes to figure out that there was likely more between this Latin vixen and the handsome Constable than babysitting, but this wasn't the time. Parker simply filed it away as yet another interesting tidbit on Fraser. "Do you think it would be all right if we look around, Miss Garcia?"

She paused a moment, drumming her fingers on the edge of the doorframe in thought. "He never locks his door...he's a very trusting man. But I don't think he'd want people poking around. He's private, too. Mr. Mustafi has taken up a collection to buy him a lock for while he's in the hospital."

Parker smiled charmingly. "It's all right, Miss Garcia. We aren't thieves. I'm Francis Parker from News 10 at 6, and this gentleman is Mr. Chad Howell from the Chicago Chronicle. We're here regarding the Constable's recent heroism. Trying to get inside him, find out what makes someone like that tick."

A tiny, sad smile appeared on the girl's full mouth. "A good heart makes him tick." She paused, then decided. "I'll let you in, but I go with you, and you don't take anything, you don't move anything. Comprende?" Both Parker and Howell nodded, and she opened the door, motioning the two men past her.

The first thing that struck him was that the Mountie's apartment smelled different. It smelled clean. There was no hint of the rodent droppings or mildew, and there was a faint odor of cleaning fluid and soap. The tiny window was sparkling clean, every surface immaculate. There was not so much as a speck of dust anywhere to be seen, and Parker couldn't help reflecting that with this level of cleanliness, even this hole-in-the-wall was halfway livable.

It could be, that is.

The room had the spartan feel of a prison cell. The only furniture was a bed, a small bedside table, a dining table by the window with two chairs, and a large trunk that rested along one wall. All the furniture was as simple as possible, few decorative touches visible anywhere. There wasn't a single knicknack, a single photograph. No curtains hung on the windows, only a single utilitarian rug warmed the cold floor. There were no electric appliances beyond a small thrift-store lamp. No radio, no television, no computer, no telephone.

Yet as his keen eye surveyed the room, Parker spotted a few hints that someone lived there. A stainless steel dog dish sat in one corner near a thick, folded blanket that clearly served as the animal's bed. A single book rested near the lamp. Examining it, he saw that it was not some fashionable paperback best-seller. It was an old cloth-bound volume, gold letters clearly embossed on the burgundy cover. "Watermarks Of North American Currency 1800-1950". Parker thumbed through it, finding that much to his surprise, it was exactly that. A book on currency watermarks, with page 153 neatly bookmarked with one of the simple paper strips the library provided.

His closet was barely large enough for the simple wardrobe it contained. There were two brown serge uniforms, three plaid flannel shirts, two pairs of jeans (Parker noted that he had never before seen anyone else put blue jeans on a hanger), a few sweaters, a brown leather jacket, a dark gray suit, a blue shirt, and a pair of red longjohns. Clearly, he was more interested in function than fashion, though all the clothing was well cared for and clean.

The puzzle was compounded when he looked in Fraser's cupboards. Rice, flour, sugar, chamomile tea, canned chicken noodle and tomato soups, crackers, some kind of dried beef jerky, canned peaches. His refrigerator was equally barren. A simple selection of fresh fruits and vegetables, whole-wheat bread, butter, eggs, milk, a half-pound of hamburger meat, and a large butcher's parcel of meat scraps that was clearly intended for the dog. Parker's dark face furrowed in puzzlement. Prisoners got more variety than this. Was Fraser some kind of minimalist freak, or was the money going somewhere else, leaving him with only enough for staples?

His curiosity rising, Parker tugged at the lid on Fraser's trunk. It was locked. Howell wandered over and looked over his shoulder. "What's with this guy? Is he like, a monk or something?"

"I don't think so," the older man muttered, "try this lid."

"Locked." Howell's eyebrows shot up as the significance of that registered. "Hey, that's where all his secret stuff must be stashed. I mean, why else would the guy lock the box if he won't even lock the door."

"Good question." Without elaborating further, he stood and turned to where Miss Garcia was still leaning casually against the doorframe, where she had been watching them for the last five minutes. "Thank you very much, Miss."

Parker said his good-bye's to the young lady, but remained silent as they walked down the stairs and out of the building. He knew Howell was chattering questions and commentary at him, but he wasn't listening, he was theorizing.

Fraser's manner of living was odd to say the least, but Parker believed he had found the answer for the Canadian's strange ways. It had come as something of an epiphany in the spartan apartment, and once he had lit upon that solution, everything about Fraser had come together in a neat package, every loose end well tied up.

This one theory explained why a man who was making over $50,000 (even though that number was in Canadian funds) a year was living in a $300 a month hellhole. It explained why he lived in the low-class crime hub of Chicago. It explained why his food was limited to the essentials and he didn't appear to have bought a single new item of clothing since coming to America. It explained where the money went. It explained the open door but the locked trunk. It also explained why everyone who knew him seemed to describe him as "nice but odd" or "a little clueless".

Constable Benton Fraser, RCMP, had a drug habit.

***

"Oh, damn!" Frannie cursed as she threw open the oven door, a thick cloud of smoke billowing out to envelop her in the ominous smell of cremated chocolate chip cookies. She reached for the cookie sheet, but at the last minute remembered an oven mitt. Leaving the oven door open, she began to search through the drawers and cabinets.

"Frannie!" Maria's voice sounded panicked, so she abandoned her search. Taking only a moment to shut off the oven and kick the door closed, she rushed out into the living room. Maria was standing there holding the baby, who was covered from head to toe in what appeared to be blue magic marker. More marker was scrawled over a good portion of the wall, and Frannie winced as she recognized the faint smell that was noticeable over the stronger aroma of burnt cookie. Indelible marker. This was just wonderful.

Rubbing despairingly at her daughter's cheek with the corner of a tissue, Maria looked at her sister with pleading eyes. "Frannie, could you watch the other kids for me while I give her a bath? Please?"

"What about..." Frannie looked back at the kitchen, then cringed and put her hands over her ears as the smoke alarm began to wail. It was followed almost immediately by the baby, who didn't find the loud, high-pitched noise at all to her liking. "What about Tony?" she shouted over the din.

As the alarm continued to screech, she ran back into the kitchen, fishing around in the pantry until she could find a broom. Trying to ignore the headache that was not being helped by the blaring alarm, she jabbed at the smoke detector with the handle of the broom until the batteries dropped loose and the screeching stopped. The baby's cries, however, did not, and Frannie wished that nieces came with batteries as well.

Maria bounced the baby gently, trying to soothe her. "The game's on," she explained, "so you know how useful Tony is right now...the kids could lose limbs and he wouldn't notice. Come on, Frannie...I've got to wash her before this sets up."

"Ok!" Frannie yelled, "Just send him in here." Having spotted the oven mitt hanging on a hook, she snatched it up and turned back to the oven as Maria left. Smoke enveloped her, and she coughed harshly as she carried the cookies to the sink at arm's length. Dropping them in, she ran water over them until they stopped smoking, then looked in despair at the blackened, charred mess adhered eternally to the cookie sheet.

She had just reached for the scrub brush when she heard the sounds of little feet running into the kitchen. Running. Bad. Shouting a warning, she whirled just in time to see her nephew skid off balance on the floor she had waxed just that morning. His Ninja-Turtle sneakered feet flew out from under him, and he landed hard, smacking his head against the leg of the kitchen table. There was a moment of stunned silence, then he began to scream.

Frannie saw the growing lump on his head, and grabbed a dishtowel, soaking it in cool water and squeezing it out. "It's ok, sweetie," she cooed, "Aunt Frannie's coming."

She threw open the freezer and reached for a handful of ice cubes to wrap in the cool rag, but in her haste, she knocked against a large container of not-quite-frozen-yet chicken broth. The icy liquid surged out as the top popped off the container, soaking everything on the shelves below it and spilling onto the floor. Frannie reached to grab it, but only succeeded in sending three pounds of frozen peas to join the mess, bouncing on the kitchen floor like little green marbles.

As she finally got the ice and wrapped it in the cloth, the kitchen door opened. Tony surveyed the pall of smoke, the disaster in the freezer, the charred cookies...and his son, sitting on the floor and screaming bloody murder as he clutched a rapidly purpling lump on his head. He quickly scooped the boy up, who stopped his shrieking only long enough to hiccup, look pitifully at his father...and start again louder.

"What the hell is going on, Frannie?" Tony demanded.

She tossed him the ice pack, "He fell, use this." Frannie tried to tune out the screaming that was eating away at what was left of her sanity in concert with a truly murderous headache. Chicken broth was still spreading, and she grabbed containers of frozen leftovers to try and form little levees to stop the flow. It wasn't working.

The boy kept screaming.

Tony demanded again to know exactly how his son had fallen.

The chicken broth continued to spread.

The smoke set off another alarm in the living room.

Maria came downstairs, carrying the baby and asking Frannie to find the vinegar so she could try it on the stains.

The phone rang.

Her headache continued to pound.

Francesca Vecchio snapped.

Throwing down the rag she had been using to sop up the broth, she whirled to face everyone. "I can't do it!!" She was hysterical, screaming so loudly that both small children stopped their own cries in sheer amazement at her lung power. "I can't watch all the kids for you, Maria, and get beer for Tony, and worry about Benny and Dief, and keep up with Ray, and keep the house clean, and cook, and bake, and...and...and...I just..."

Her words choked off, and she flopped to the floor in the middle of the peas and half-frozen broth. Sobbing, she pulled her knees up to her chest in a fetal position. She was crying freely now, not caring about what anyone thought as she pressed her knuckles against her eyes, her shoulders heaving violently with each sob. "I just can't be Ma!"

***

"Turnbull!" In response to the Inspector's bellowed summons, Constable Renfield Turnbull leapt up from the desk, accidentally barking his shins on the filing drawer he had been rummaging in. Biting back a yelp in response to the pain, he hopped out from behind the desk, managing to limp to Thatcher's office in record time.

"Sir!" The Inspector looked up from her computer screen, her expression clearly stating that his promptness wasn't nearly enough to save his life. She was in the mood to verbally decapitate a Mountie. With Fraser in the hospital, he was the only remaining target. He tried to pull himself more to attention, but he knew that it wasn't quite regulation to be standing on one leg like a red-suited flamingo.

"Constable," she snapped, "I have just gotten of the phone with the Commissioner. Get me every piece of paper in this consulate that refers even once to Constable Fraser. I want it within the hour, Turnbull, because the Commissioner wants it yesterday. If I can't get it to him, I'm going to have to content myself with giving him your head on a platter. Do you understand me?"

He nodded quickly. "Absolutely, sir. Everything." She returned to her computer screen, and he took that as his cue to leave. Preferably before she could threaten him with any further bodily harm. Or act on those threats.

It took only a few minutes to assemble the files regarding Fraser from the filing drawers in his desk. He assumed that the Inspector already had those from her office, and to search the big room where most of the files were kept would be a long task indeed. That meant the next logical place to look would be in Fraser's office.

Carefully maintaining a brisk, all-business demeanor, Turnbull stepped into his superior's office and knelt by the desk. Opening the first drawer, he reached to thumb through the files, then stopped. He really shouldn't be doing this. It wasn't his desk. These were Constable Fraser's private files, in his private office. Then he reminded himself of the look on Thatcher's face. That was all it took to dispose of the hesitation.

He reached in and pulled out the first handful of files. Each one was neatly typed and double-spaced, making it easy to locate which were the ones he was looking for. Turnbull smiled wistfully as he skimmed over the reports. Fraser had so many adventures, tracking down ruthless criminals and bringing them to justice, hand in hand with the Americans. It was so exciting to work with a man like that, someone he could really look up to as a model of what it meant to be a Mountie.

Suddenly, the smile vanished as he remembered the image on the front page of the paper that morning. His friend, his mentor, hurtling out a second-story window, locked together with an American criminal. Sometimes he felt that the Americans didn't know how lucky they were to have Fraser. A man who was so dedicated to justice that he would risk his life for anyone, no matter what nationality.

Yes, the Americans were lucky, but he would be even luckier to survive if he didn't start working on getting these files together. He took another handful from the drawer, checking each tab to make sure it was a reference to one of Fraser's cases. As he did so, something out of the corner of his eye caught his attention. Someone was standing in the corner of the office in an RCMP overcoat. Turnbull jumped to his feet, wide-eyed. "Constable! I'm so glad to-"

He stopped, feeling himself blush. It was only Fraser's empty overcoat, hanging off the skeletal structure of the hatstand in the corner. "I'm sorry," he babbled, "I thought you were Constable Fraser! I mean, I know you're not, because he's in the hospital right now. Actually, you're not anyone. You're a coat." He started to sit back down, then an odd whim came over him, and he turned back, pulling out Fraser's chair so that he could sit facing that hatstand.

"Now, I know you're not Constable Fraser," he admitted, "but I was wondering if you could act as sort of Fraser-by-proxy. Or by coat, as it happens to be, as you are one of his belongings, if not the actual person." Turnbull paused a moment, then sighed. "Actually, you're just something to talk to. I was wondering if you wouldn't mind filling in for him in that respect. Just pretending for now, that you are Fraser, and I....well, that I am me, I guess."

The coat made no objection. Pleased, Turnbull went on, motioning to the files he had removed. "I'm really sorry for this, sir. I know that you have a way you like your things arranged, and I don't mean to be snooping. But, well, since you're indisposed at the moment, the Inspector has asked me to retrieve your files. You do understand, don't you, sir? Of course you do. You're a very understanding person."

He smiled, leaning forward eagerly as he began to relax. "I don't mean to embarrass you, sir, but that's one of the things that I must admit I have really begun to miss around here. As much as you spend time with Mr. Vecchio and his family, you and I still have our fun, don't we, sir? Watching the curling matches and the hockey games, talking about home...." That last word seemed almost to stick in his throat, and he quickly continued. "Anyway, you're the only one I can do that with, sir. Mano a mano, Canadian to Canadian, if you understand me. No one else seems to have any inclinations to spend time with me off-duty."

Turnbull ran a hand through his short, sandy blonde hair. These last four days had been rather lonely without Constable Fraser. He thought back, trying to remember if he had spent leisure time with anyone else since coming to Chicago. No, he hadn't. In fact, Fraser had been his only friend since the accident.

It had been a little more than a year now since that accident. He had been a member of the Musical Ride, given that vaunted position as a reward for his exemplary record. Among the top three scholars in his class. Medals and commendations for his work in the field. A bright manner and eager attitude that had served him well with the ranking officers. Then one day, during rehearsal, a friend's horse had spooked and bolted. Turnbull had given chase, finally leaping from his mount to halt the frenzied animal and save the young rider's life. Unfortunately, though successful, he had been kicked in the head rather severely during the rescue.

Shortly after being released from the hospital, Turnbull had been re-evaluated and sent down to Chicago, where they had promised he would 'fit right in'. On reflection, he supposed he had fit right in with Fraser. It was the Americans and Inspector Thatcher that seemed to become sharp with him at a moment's notice. He didn't quite understand why, but he continued to do his best to please them, being as loyal and devoted as possible to his nation and the RCMP.

Fraser understood that. Fraser was the only person who really did, who really knew what it meant to wear the uniform, to see the red and white flag snapping in the wind and feel deep pride for a nation that the Americans tended to dismiss as 'quaint'. untie himself. "I...I really do miss you, sir," he admitted. "I'm hoping you'll come back soon."

He took a deep breath. His throat was tightening, and he was at a sudden loss for words. "I just...I just want you to recover quickly. To just...just..."

It was as though he had been physically punched. Ever since the accident, he had been operating off the assumption that Fraser was going to make it. Fraser always made it. He could do anything. Now, a tiny voice had slipped through, and that tiny voice had asked a treasonous question. But what if he doesn't. That possibility brought everything crashing down around Turnbull in a hail of shattered illusions.

What if he didn't make it? What would happen? They'd bring in another Mountie, but would he be like Fraser? No, he couldn't be. Then Turnbull would be alone. Not for one day, not for four days, not for a few weeks or months. Forever.

"Just don't die." The words bled out in a hoarse whisper, and something inside the young Mountie cracked. He slumped forward in the chair, resting his elbows on his knees and burying his head in his hands. "Don't die."

***

Lieutenant Harding Welsh parted the slats of the venetian blinds on the glass walls of his office. He had a pretty clear view of the entire squadroom, and it was more than enough for his needs. Sipping at his coffee, he contemplated what to do about what he saw. Welsh had his 'suggestion' from his supervisor, but at this point, he could either take it or leave it.

If he chose to take it, a certain Detective Ray Vecchio would be exceedingly annoyed. When that particular member of the Chicago PD was exceedingly annoyed, everyone within twenty miles or so knew it. This was not the best of options. On the other hand, what he was watching was just the tip of the iceberg if he chose to leave it.

The usual maniac action of the station's 'bullpen' as it was called, had roughly doubled since the shooting. Not only was there a triple homicide to contend with, but this was rapidly turning into a very sticky international mess. A mess that was not benefiting from having Vecchio in the middle of it.

Already he was acting like a bull in a china shop. He had practically bitten Elaine's head off when the coffee was its standard level of repulsiveness, literally thrown a bag of evidence at Huey, and generally struck fear (or at least aggravation) into everyone within earshot. Welsh cringed when he imagined what the man would do if faced with a reporter. He really didn't need another homicide.

Decision made. Opening the door, he stuck his head out into the din. "Vecchio! My office!"

The wiry Italian tried to wave him off, "Just a second, sir, I'm -- "

"Now, Detective." For a moment, Vecchio looked about to consider arguing, but Welsh speared him with a look that immediately informed him of the utter foolishness of such an action. Dropping the stack of reports he had been holding with a loud thud, the Detective gave a martyred sigh and trudged towards the Lieutenant's office.

Welsh shut the door behind him, then took another sip of his coffee as he looked at his subordinate. The man was an explosion waiting to happen. He stood there tensely, long arms laced tightly over his chest, green eyes daring anyone to come between him and his injured partner. The Lieutenant reflected that it was a pleasant change to see the cop so fiercely loyal about anyone, even if it was that odd Mountie. Unfortunately, that bond that fostered such loyalty was posing problems right now.

He sipped again from the styrofoam cup, then set it on his desk. "I imagine you want to know why I called you here."

"Yes, sir." The words were terse, clipped. In those two syllables, Vecchio had clearly revealed his tightly bottled rage and frustration, and unknowingly cemented Welsh's choice.

"I've been talking to the head office about this case. I don't have to tell you that this is a hell of a mess, Detective, or that when the manure impacts the windmill, we are going to be standing right there to get it." He circled behind his desk. "When this happens, every officer on this case is going to be stalked by so many paparazzi it'll make Princess Di look lonely. Do you understand that, Vecchio?"

The Italian shrugged. "Yeah, so, happens all the time. Look, I'm no rookie, sir. I know what you do...'no comment', 'no comment'," he spoke the words in a mocking tone, then paused and grinned devilishly, "and if they keep it up, they eat the mike."

Welsh sighed and ran a hand over his receding hair. There was no delicate or easy way to do this. "That's why I'm pulling you from this case."

There was a moment of stunned silence. Vecchio's jaw dropped. He blinked twice. Then he exploded. Gesticulating furiously, he advanced on the desk. "You're WHAT?!! Like hell I'm getting off this case! Those sons of bitches are getting ready to feed the public a load of shit on MY partner, and you expect me to sit around and issue jaywalking tickets? No sir! This is MY partner, MY friend, MY case!"

The Lieutenant simply rode it out, waiting until Vecchio was finished. When the storm seemed to have passed, he leaned close to the Detective, looking at him sympathetically. "Listen, Ray, I know the Mountie's your friend. We all like him. But you are not going to help him by going out and busting heads, or by making the rest of this department miserable." He stood up again, "Now, the rest of Chicago has not conveniently stopped committing crimes because we happen to be a bit busy. I've got a nice juicy liquor store knock-down for you, the whole thing's on tape."

"You want me to take a robbery, sir?" Vecchio's tone was cool now, but his eyes still burned.

"I really don't care what you take. You're off this case. Don't make me take you off the force."

There was a long pause, then a simple nod. "Yes, sir."

Welsh clapped the other cop on the shoulder. "Good man. Elaine's got the robbery info for you. You can give Gardino what you've got done on the shooting." Vecchio did not reply, he just shrugged off the big hand and turned, walking back out into the squadroom like a man on the way to his own funeral. Or perhaps the funeral of his best friend.

***

Ray felt destructive. He felt damned destructive. If he had his way, he would systematically demolish every square inch of the goddamned bureaucratic police station. After that, he would then locate the nearest member of the news media and force him to perform painful and unnatural acts with his microphone. One lanky arm lashed out, smashing into the tiny Statue Of Liberty figurine on his desk. Lady Liberty flew into the wall and shattered. Her severed arm and torch rolled lazily back to settle near the foot of the desk.

For a moment, Ray half expected a white nose to poke out from under the footwell, curiously inspecting the broken plastic for chocolate or cream filling. As he realized that was not going to happen, nor was there a man sitting nearby in immaculate red, ready to gently chastise him for his temper, the Detective felt something twist inside him.

How could Welsh do this to him? Didn't the bastard understand...he needed this case! He had to do something to avenge Benny, to fight for him somehow. Ray was no idiot. He knew he could do little against the vast machinations of the Chicago PD, the FBI, the RCMP, and the international media. Still, he could at least offer himself the comforting illusion of some small contribution.

He wasn't like Ma or Frannie...he couldn't just sit there hour after hour, staring helplessly at his friend as Benny hovered on the threshold between life and death. This wasn't like the last vigil he'd spent at the Mountie's bedside. To Ray's surprise, he actually found himself longing for that time, painful though it might have been. A bullet in the back was so simple, a straightforward matter of surgery and recovery. It wasn't all this brain shit, this uncertainty, this terrible, mind-twisting waiting.

A coffee mug joined Lady Liberty, and Ray felt the anger build. He swept up the files in one furious gesture, stalking a few paces across the bull pen to slam the documents down on Gardino's desk. The other Detective looked up at him in surprise and irritation. "What the hell do you think you're doing, Vecchio!?"

"Your case." The rage and frustration dripped from the words like acid.

Confused, the curly-haired Italian opened the first folder, his eyebrows raising in surprise at what he saw. " Hey, isn't this the Mountie case....?"

"Always the observer, aren't you, Louie." Ray was already back at his desk, pulling his coat from the back of his chair.

"What am I supposed to do with it?"

Thrusting his arms into the sleeves of his coat almost violently, he kept his back turned to the other man. "Shove it up your ass for all I care. It's not my case any more." His long fingers fumbled with the buttons, and he cursed as he realized how badly his hands were shaking. God, he was a mess.

He ignored Gardino's questions, trying to pull himself together. Dammit, he was a cop! Benny was a cop! These things happened in their line of work. Ray forced himself to think of all the men and women he knew on the force. Welsh, Huey, Gardino, Besbriss, his old Lieutenant, Kelly, and dozens of others. They were good people, all of them.

His green eyes closed, and he imagined them lying bloodied on the hard concrete of a school basketball court, just like Benny. It could happen to any of them. They were all cops. They had all taken the same oath. They had understood the risks and chosen the life. Benny wasn't exempt any more than he was. There was nothing that made him special or different, deserving of some cosmic shield against ill.

Bull.

Benny was different. There was something about him, an innocence that shined in the dark, gritty world of the inner city. It often exasperated the Detective. He often wondered how a man could so shrewdly second-guess the workings of a twisted mind one moment, then show such sincere shock when a citizen littered. At the same time, though, it also endeared the Mountie to him. He felt like a big brother, guiding Benny through the jungle of Chicago's streets, trying to protect him from his own trusting heart.

Taking a deep breath, he opened his eyes again, looking at the folder remaining at his desk for several seconds before recognizing it. It was the robbery. It was his new case.

Almost as though he was watching the actions of another man, Ray reached for the manila folder. His hand had not even touched the paper when he was interrupted by the ringing of his telephone. He picked up the receiver, cradling it in the crook of his neck. "Vecchio."

The voice on the other end was laden with sadness. "Detective Vecchio, this is Doctor Von Trott. I've been taking care of your wolf at Noah's Ark Animal Hospital."

Ray's mouth was suddenly drier than week-old bread. "How is he?"

"Not well, I'm afraid. You recall I informed you of his perforated bowel in our earlier conversation..."

"Didn't you fix that?"

"Well, yes, Mr. Vecchio, but I'm afraid that closing the perforation did not remove the contaminants that had already escaped. Your wolf has developed a massive infection in his abdominal cavity. We're doing everything we can, but I have to tell you that there's a very low chance of survival with something of this magnitude. We're already seeing a very high fever, as well as several other complications." His voice softened. "He's in a lot of pain, Detective. Perhaps you might want to think about...."

"I said I'm not going to kill him." His voice surprised him with its cold steadiness.

"Don't think of it as killing him, Mr. Vecchio. It's really an act of mercy, considering..."

"No means no." Without waiting for the vet to continue his murderous suggestions, Ray dropped the phone on the cradle, strangely satisfied by hanging up on the man. He stared at the telephone for several seconds, then turned and walked out of the station.

Benny was dying. He couldn't do anything about that. Dief was dying. He couldn't do anything about that, either. No matter how much he wanted it, he was helpless to heal their bodies. Yet while they lay in the sterile world of a hospital, their names and reputations were being dragged through the mud. That he could do something about. He resolved that he, Detective First Grade Raymond Antonio Vecchio of the Chicago Police Department, was going to do anything he had to do to get back on this case.

Even if he had to cross the 49th parallel.

The young man leaned back in his chair, twirling the spear of dill pickle between his fingers like a majorette's baton. He had yet to touch the thick ham sandwich that lay on his plate, heavy gobs of melted cheese oozing languorously out from beneath the soft, fresh bread. Grabbing his soda, he took a long gulp as he considered his position. He looked to all the world like a highschool kid, unkempt and misplaced in the high-class lunch spot. "Junkie, huh?"

"Possibly." Francis Parker raised his napkin, dabbing his chin clean from a drip of his Ruben's thousand island dressing. "Obviously, there is some sort of financial output that we can't account for. A first-class Constable like Fraser could afford far better, that goes without saying. For him to live there, that means the money is going somewhere else...and that so much of it is being expended that he feels it is worth his life."

Chad Howell's eyes widened. "His life?" The younger man took a chomp out of the pickle, his next words muffled around the mouthful. "What do you mean?"

The anchorman smiled slightly, but it was a cool, almost contemptuous expression. "Maybe you didn't notice, Mr. Howell, but I can assure you that the Constable's neighborhood is not the most conducive to long life and good health for white law-enforcement officials." He paused, taking a sip of his drink. "Unless you're playing ball with them somehow."

Howell's face lit up with understanding. "Like buying their drugs."

"As I said, that's one possibility. I'll be going to the hospital after we're finished here. If Fraser was taking anything, it will show up on his blood tests."

"But aren't those confidential?"

"To most people, yes." His tone made it clear that this was not a matter he was willing to elaborate on, and for all his headstrong brashness, Howell understood that. Parker saw that, and felt a small spark of hope. Perhaps this boy wasn't a complete waste after all. He was arrogant and whiny. He had all the journalistic finesse of a sledgehammer. Yet he did have connections in the business, and if he respected his senior journalist, Parker might just be able to use him. He smiled again, allowing a bit more warmth. "I was curious about your theories...what brought you to the apartment?"

Howell picked up his sandwich, opening the bread to stick a finger in the stone-ground mustard spread over the thinly sliced ham. "This mustard has chunks."

"They're mustard seeds. Just eat them."

The boy looked suspiciously at the condiment for a few more seconds, then apparently decided that Parker was not out to poison him. Dropping the bread down on the meat again, he took a large bite. A look of pleasant surprise came over his face. "This is good!"

Parker's dark eyes flickered with a light spark of mischief. "It should be. That's homemade bread...thirteen hand-ground grains, honey, and herbs. The ham there is Smithfield, a Virginia ham that has been famous for over three hundred years. The cheese is imported Havarti. And the 'chunky' mustard is a German import, produced from a centuries-old recipe."

Howell's face registered shock, and he looked at the food with a new respect, as if afraid to take another bite. "Damn. How much did this cost?"

"Don't worry about that. This is a business luncheon, a write-off for me." The anchorman waved a hand to encompass the caf's upscale clientele. "This is where the big boys play, Chad. You're going to have to get used to things like chunky mustard and funny leaves in your salad if you want to go anywhere. And you are also going to have to do something about your table manners."

The young man's face darkened. "Hey, Dad, I appreciate the lunch, but I don't need a lecture about my elbows being on the table. I'll play ball with you, and I think we could really land a great story if we go this together, but I'm not your kid, your trainee, or your dog." His brown eyes met Parker's directly, unintimidated and angry.

Parker nodded. So, the boy wasn't a pushover. He had his pride, a line he wouldn't allow himself to be pushed past. Good. The comment had been deliberately patronizing, deliberately provoking, and it had told him exactly what he needed to further calculate exactly what young Mr. Howell could do for him. "Fine. You want to be treated like a pro, I need professional-level help from you. Why were you at the apartment?"

There was a long pause, then finally, Howell seemed to decide that his pride was not mortally wounded, and that he had earned the older man's respect. "I work the classifieds down at the Chronicle. Lady came to me yesterday...Mrs. Pomputis, her name was. She wanted to post an ad for a dog, a Peke. Seems hers was Alpo for some bigger mutt a couple of months ago." He took another bite and continued, talking past it. "I didn't pick up on the link until she said it was a wolf, and I was like, hey, wasn't the dog that got stabbed in that school thing a wolf? Then she said the guy who owned him was a Mountie, and it all just popped into place. I sweet-talked her, told her I didn't want to see some other little ankle-biter whacked, and she gave me the address."

Parker had lost all interest in his lunch, looking intensely at Howell. "You're telling me Constable Fraser's animal has been previously suspected of attacking another pet?"

Howell shrugged. "That's what she says. The cops told her it was some nutcase psycho dog catcher, but she's pretty sure it was White Fang in the apartment next door. Why...you think we can run with that?"

He nodded. "I want you to go down to City Hall while I'm looking into the blood test reports at the hospital. See if there are any priors on this animal. I want to know if he's even peed on a public fire hydrant. If he has, I want copies of everything...every memo, every judicial order, transcripts of the court proceedings...all of it. Do you think you can do that?"

"Sure." Finishing the first half of the large sandwich, Howell licked a lingering spot of mustard from one finger. "What about you? I mean, if the junkie thing falls through, how do we explain where the money's going?"

Parker shrugged, unconcerned. "I've got several theories."

"Like what?"

"Like a handsome young Mountie who was stationed up in the Northwest Territories, secluded in the armpit of civilization for years at a time. Some Eskimo girl knocks on his cabin door one day, and to him, she looks better than a Playboy centerfold. Nine months later, he has himself child support to pay, or he gets his precious Dudley Do-Right image shattered." Parker swirled one of the crisp, sweet-potato french fries into the sauce from his Ruben.

Howell considered the scenario. "So you think he's got a kid stashed someplace?"

"Perhaps. If it's not drugs, it's almost certainly blackmail of some kind. Maybe not a child, but someone has something they are holding over him, whether it's an addiction or a secret. It's up to us to find out what that something is."

***

"Yes, sir. Of course...I understand completely...no, sir, that won't be a problem." Inspector Thatcher cradled the phone in the crook of her neck, her hands busily tapping at a computer keyboard. It was the position she had spent most of the past four days in, and her body was shrieking its protest. To the man on the other end of the telephone, however, she seemed efficient and fresh, ready to follow his orders without the slightest hesitation.

The man on the telephone was no ordinary superior, this was the Prime Minister. Charming but hard, and effortlessly aware of his great power, he had personally called the Canadian Consulate in Chicago, emphasizing the importance of the call. When Turnbull had told her who was calling, the exhausted woman had nearly crawled under her desk and cried. However, she had forced herself to pick up the telephone, sounding cool and completely in control of the situation.

He was calling, like all the others, to talk to her about Fraser. The Prime Minister congratulated her on her handling of the situation thus far. He then expressed sympathy about her unprepared encounters with the American media, assuring her that she had dealt with them as well as could be expected. Then he had grown more serious, making it clear that she was not to say another word to them that had not been screened and prepared by the RCMP.

Their public relations situation with this was dicey to say the least. The Mounties were Canada's single most recognizable symbol apart from the flag itself. The news that one of their officers had been accused of recklessly endangering the lives of American children had given their PR people a collective chest pain. He had asked Thatcher to please send him copies of all the cases that Fraser had been involved with since he had come to Chicago, also her personal observations of the officer.

Her personal observations were confused to say the least. She had only met the man a little more that three weeks prior, and she wasn't sure exactly what he was. He was the most handsome man she had ever met, but that wasn't something that the Prime Minister was particularly interested into, and that had absolutely nothing to do with his work, after all. What he wanted to know was what made the Constable's mind tick. All she could tell him there was that he seemed to function by a code of honor that most people had abandoned with the round table and damsels in distress. He was willing to stand up to authority for the strangest things, but most of the time, he was respectful to the point of being servile. The methods he used to fight crime walked an incomprehensible line between precise obedience to the RCMP manual and wild, unbelievable tactics, such as his habit of chasing suspects across rooftops, or tasting just about anything to find a clue.

In short, all she could tell him about the inner workings of the Constable's mind was that she had no possible clue as to the inner workings of the Constable's mind.

As she spoke, she was typing a report to the Commissioner General, explaining the status of her current dealings with the American and international media. What she wanted to type was that they were camped outside her door and wouldn't leave her the hell alone, but she didn't think that was quite what he wanted to hear. So she sugar coated her words in bureaucratic metaphor, both to the Prime Minister and the Commissioner, hiding that she was this close to abandoning her commission and running away to Tahiti.

Finally, the Prime Minister was satisfied, and he thanked her with politician's sincerity before hanging up. Slowly, Thatcher lowered the phone to its cradle, staring at it as though it were a fearsome beast that might any minute leap from her desk and attack her. It wasn't too far from the truth.

She hadn't left her office for over fourteen hours, the evening, night, and morning blurring into one long haze of coffee and telephone calls. Damn Canada with its six time zones...no matter what time it was in Chicago, she was practically guaranteed that someone somewhere in her home nation would consider it a reasonable time to call. She would answer. Thatcher had been on the phone and computer practically non-stop, helping the RCMP do what it could to prepare for the nightmare descending upon them.

Her neatly tailored navy blue suit was badly wrinkled, a splatter of white-out staining the lapel. She felt grimy and disheveled, unfortunately aware that her makeup had long since migrated south, her dark hair fallen flat. Her eyes felt dry and bleary from the hours staring at a computer screen. Her back and knees were sore from sitting, and her head was obstinately refusing to commit a supreme act of mercy and simply fall off. Needless to say, she was not in the best of moods.

Slowly, Thatcher lowered her pounding head into her hands, her precisely manicured fingers massaging slow circles at her temples. Her feelings about Constable Fraser were beginning to become quite clear. She hated the man. Hated him with every aching fiber of her body, hated him for being so damned obsessed with his fairy-tale ideals of law and order that he had gotten them into this mess.

She reached for her coffee mug, taking a long sip of the lukewarm liquid. The brew was burnt and bitter, and she winced at the taste. One thing she did miss about Fraser was his skill with a coffee maker. This stuff that Turnbull had concocted could strip paint. Nevertheless, she made a face and finished the contents, knowing that she needed the caffeine. As she began to set the empty mug down on her desk, the door suddenly slammed open, causing her to startle and drop the mug.

Angry, she looked up, ready to nail Turnbull's idiot ass to the wall. Only it wasn't Turnbull standing in front of her desk, tall body tensed and clearly ready for a fight. It was Detective Ray Vecchio, Chicago PD.

Thatcher's eyes narrowed dangerously. She had been ready to eviscerate the next American she saw. At the moment, Vecchio was looking like an extremely good candidate. Her voice was cold as a Yukon winter's night as she stood, looking frighteningly regal and authoritative despite her exhaustion. "May I help you, Detective?"

He leaned forward, planting his hands on her desk to look her square in the eye. "Yeah, you can. I need something." His tone was insistent, tinged with an anger bordering on desperation.

"I'm assuming what you need is help with your manners, Detective."

Vecchio took a step back, his green eyes flashing at her sarcasm. He matched it in his own harsh Chicago accent. "No, actually I was coming over to borrow a bottle of maple syrup."

She sat down again, retrieving her mug and wincing at the small stain on the carpet. "Sorry, Detective, we're all out. I suggest the Shop N Save."

"Oh, I've been there," he replied sardonically, "they're fresh out, too. Seems to be something of a shortage of anything Canadian in this city recently. Maple syrup, deaf wolves, guys in red suits...."

"Is there a point to this, Detective, or have you just come here to annoy me?"

"Yeah, there's a point. The point is that in case you haven't noticed, Inspector, Benny's getting his ass chewed off in the news lately. In the last twenty-four hours, he's gone from Superman to Ted Bundy. In another twenty-four, there's gonna be a mob outside that hospital, wanting him tarred, feathered, and shipped back up to Tukeeyaktak, or wherever the hell he's from!" Rather than growing louder, his voice had lowered, his eyes meeting hers belligerently.

She met him with equal intensity. "As a matter of fact, I have noticed. I simply fail to understand why you're here, Detective. The Chicago PD has received all the information they needed concerning the Constable, though frankly I don't see why you would need it. In nearly every single case, you were his partner in crime. It's your country, Vecchio, your media. I don't see how I can help you."

"You can let me on this case."

Thatcher stood, stepping around her desk to stand nearly toe-to-toe with the cop. "There is no case. Not for us. American crime. American victims. American soil. American media. Under the jurisdiction of - at last count - four American police precincts, the American FBI, and the American Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. You're an American, Vecchio, you don't need help from me."

"And Benny's Canadian." He leaned close, "So are you, although I can't understand how the two of you could have come from the same country."

"That makes it our public relations mess, but it doesn't make it our crime. I would have thought as a cop, you would know a thing or two about jurisdiction. It's your case, so why the hell are you here? I want it straight, Vecchio. No maple syrup, or any of your other bull."

"You want it, I'll give it to you. Welsh has pulled me from the case. I want in on the Canuk angle."

She rolled her eyes, "With your sparkling personality and infinite tact, I can't imagine why he wouldn't want you on such a delicate case."

The Italian grew angrier, stabbing a finger at her. "I'm not one of your coffee boys, Inspector. I don't have to take any of your crap. I came here to ask you to help me save Benny's ass, but if you don't want to do anything about that, fine. I can do this alone if I have to."

Thatcher grabbed a notepad that lay on the desk, thrusting the note-covered paper at Vecchio. "My life has been a living hell the past four days. I have drunk gallons of crappy coffee, pulled twenty-hour shifts, and eaten so much cheap take-out Chinese that I am in danger of turning into a lo mein noodle. I have every member of the Canadian government, up to and including the Prime Minister after me. I am being harassed twenty-six hours a day by your damned media. In short, Detective, I am doing everything I can to help Constable Fraser and the RCMP regain their reputation."

He pushed the paper aside. "You're fetching papers and passing the PR shit that the big guns feed you. Somebody has to go out there and pound pavement, kick some heads in to find out the real deal. I can do that. But I need somebody with connections, somebody who can tell me what the hell is happening before I have to go out and read it in the damned news."

"I can't do that, Detective, and you know it! I'm under orders as an officer of the law, and I-"

"How convenient!" Vecchio pushed forward, his prominent nose nearly pressed against hers. "Listen, I know how things are with you and Benny. He's a damned good-looking guy, and you're not half bad yourself. You've been busting his ass since you got here, and because he doesn't have the guts to tell you when you're being a bitch, you've gotten away with it. He has fetched and carried for you, but now that he needs your help, you're going to hide behind the skirts of the RCMP. You're terrified that someone might think that you were helping him because there's a woman somewhere under that chunk of ice you pass off as a heart! You're willing to watch him get fucked while you sit here, all safe and sound with your rules and regulations!"

Lightning-quick, her hand flashed out, striking Vecchio across the cheek with an open-palmed slap that resounded through the office. "You're WAY out of line, Detective!"

He rubbed at the mark, smirking. "Hitting close to home, Inspector?"

"Shove it."

"Tsk, tsk, how un-Canadian."

Thatcher almost hit him again, but she stopped herself. "Listen, Constable Fraser is a fellow officer. I don't want to see him go down any more than you do, but I am not about to jeopardize my career over this. I have worked too damn hard to get where I am!"

The cop looked at her as he might something off the bottom of his shoe, then turned and walked to the door. Placing one hand on the knob, he looked back at her. "I just hope it's worth it."

She almost let him go, but at the last moment called out. "There is no case."

"So you told me." His words were harsh, biting.

"That doesn't mean that you can't be granted access to Canadian resources as a gesture of cooperation with your country."

He stopped, looking slowly back at her. "Is that Canadian for 'I'll help you'?"

"It's exactly what I said." She held his gaze for several seconds, then a small smile lifted one corner of the cop's mouth.

"Don't worry, Inspector, I won't tell."

Thatcher frowned. "Tell what?"

"That there really is a heart in there."

***

Frannie sipped slowly at the hot chocolate, careful not to burn her mouth on the steaming liquid. A froth of whipped cream left a soft white mustache on her upper lip, and she smiled as she wiped it away. She snuggled deeper in the afghan wrapped around her shoulders. Tucking her legs underneath her body, she looked at her older sister. "You didn't have to do this, you know, Maria."

Maria reached out and ruffled the younger woman's hair teasingly, grinning. "Hey, you deserve it, kiddo. Besides, I don't think I've ever seen Tony move that fast."

Both women laughed at the remembrance. After Frannie's bout of hysteria, Maria had lowered the boom on her husband, insisting that he pull his weight with the household chores. They had left him in the kitchen, scrubbing forlornly at the burnt cookies still adhered to the baking sheet. He had been a truly incongruous sight, standing at the sink in nothing more than his underwear, an old tee shirt, and one of Ma's floral aprons. It was a sight that Frannie had never imagined seeing, and it was almost worth all she had gone through.

She dipped one finger in the cloud of whipped cream and touched it to her sister's nose. "Maria, do you remember when we..."

Maria laughed. "God, Frannie, how could I forget! I thought Ma was going to kill us for it!"

"Or Ray."

"Poor guy, wrong time, wrong place."

"Wrong suit!"

Frannie's breaths were coming in desperate gasps between her laughter now. "He couldn't have known...poor Ray...on his way to his first date and he walks in on the whipped-cream fight of the century! The look on his face when I...Oh, Lord, I hit him right in the...." Her words were lost in another attack of hysterical giggles, and she only managed to wave a hand, indicating the area where her unwittingly well aimed jet of whipped cream had impacted her older brother.

She scooped up a dollop of cream, flicking it at her sister, who only barely ducked to avoid it. The white blob flew past Maria, splattering against the mirror. Frannie poked a finger at her sister crossly. "Look what you made me do!"

"What I made you do?! YOU threw it!"

"And you ducked!"

Shaking her head in exasperation, Frannie pushed the blanket aside and walked over to the mirror. The cream would come off easily enough with a little glass cleaner, but she carefully pulled off a small picture that had been taped in one corner of the glass. She looked at it wistfully, gently using the tip of one finger to wipe away a tiny droplet of whipped cream that had spattered on it.

It was a picture of Benny, one that she had snapped unawares while he was talking to her brother. She had tried getting pictures of him before, but he was always so stiff in front of a camera, looking at the lens like most men would peer into the barrel of a gun. This photo had captured him as he really was, standing in a pool of bright sunlight that made his blue eyes shine with kindness and intelligence. His handsome face was animated, in the middle of one of the Inuit stories he so enjoyed telling, and a rare smile had brought dimples to his cheeks.

Her fingertip traced the outline of his face, and she impulsively brought the photo up to her lips, kissing it lightly. Lipstick left a print on the glossy surface of the photo, but she didn't care. Frannie felt her sister's hand on her shoulder as Maria assessed the image. "He is a handsome son of a bitch, isn't he?"

She tried to smile. Somehow, though, the expression wouldn't come. "I guess so."

Maria snorted. "You guess so! I'm not blind, Frannie...you've been swooning at his polished little Mountie boots ever since he got here! Every time he comes over here, you're 'can I get you a drink, Benton,' 'can I peel you a grape, Benton,' 'can I get you in bed, Benton.'" She heard her younger sister gasp, and rolled her eyes. "Don't think I don't know all about your little stunt with the lingerie, either. Damn that was brazen! You've got it bad, Francesca Carlotta Vecchio...you've got it really bad."

Frannie turned away, biting her lip, her dark eyes burning angrily. Her sister's tone softened, and she came around in front of the younger woman, gently lifting her chin to look into her eyes. "Hey, I didn't mean to upset you. You've got a guy who's almost worth it for once, baby, I don't blame you for going for him." Seeing the tears begin to form in Frannie's eyes, Maria pulled her close, wrapping her arms around her in a protective embrace. "It's ok, kiddo...go ahead and cry..."

Cry she did. Loud, heartbroken wails and hiccuping gulps for air soon left the front of Maria's blouse a sodden mess. She didn't protest, though, just smoothed Frannie's dark hair, rocking slowly back and forth. "God, I'm sorry about this, Frannie. Just once, you deserve a decent guy."

"Benny..."

The word was muffled, but Maria understood. "Yeah, I know. Benny's a decent guy...even a great guy.But he's not your guy. He's Country Mouse, you're City Mouse. You'd die without someplace to plug in your hot rollers, and he thinks that dinner means something you slaughtered with your own teeth." She sighed and looked up at the ceiling. "Break my sister's heart, then jump out a window. Great going, Fraser."

Frannie pulled back angrily. "It's not his fault he got hurt!"

"Hey, I know that. He just does that kinda thing a lot. You don't need that. You need a guy who's got a stable job with a low mortality rate. A doctor or something...then you can keep Benny as a friend, and your husband can put him back together."

This brought a tiny smile to the younger Vecchio's face. "Or I can marry Benny and get a doctor as a friend."

Maria laughed. "You haven't listened to a word I said!"

"Nope." Frannie blithely agreed to her complete lack of attention. Then her eyes fell on the picture, and a sadness came over her again. "Do you think he's gonna be ok?"

"Hell, yeah." Maria waved her hand dismissively. "The guy's like Superman. Leaps out of tall buildings in a single bound. He'll bounce back from this in no time."

Frannie started to answer, but was interrupted by the ringing of the telephone. Holding up a hand to pause her, Maria picked up the receiver. "Vecchio." There was a pause, and she frowned, "Slow down, Ma, I can't understand a word you're saying!"

The sound of Ma Vecchio's panicked voice was clear to Frannie even from across the room, and she felt her heart clutch as Maria's olive skin turned a sickly shade of white. Her hand went to her mouth, and she began trembling, watching in horror as her sister spoke with the hysterical woman on the other end of the line. Maria's voice was soft, her eyes wide. Clearly, the news was something terrible, something that had shaken her badly. Frannie felt as though the room was closing in around her. The air itself had become a heavy, crushing thing.

"Ma, is he...can they....no, no, of course not....I wouldn't...yes, Ma...we'll be there...we're on our way." Numbly, Maria lay the phone back down on the cradle, then turned to face her.

Seeing the look on her sister's face, Frannie nearly screamed, but could only manage a weak whisper. "Oh God, it's Fraser, isn't it?"

She nodded, her body beginning to shake so violently she had to sit down. "That was Ma," she whispered. "Benny's dead."

***

Ray burst from the elevator doors at top speed, nearly knocking over a young nurse as he ran towards room L13 in the ICU ward. He cursed Thatcher for her cowardice in electing to stay at the consulate, even as he envied her position. She would get the confirmation of the Mountie's death as a phone call. He would have to be there, see the cold, still face with his own eyes, know that this was forever.

As he turned the corner into the hallway that Benny's room branched off, he saw doctors and nurses moving in and out of the doorway, urgent, tense looks on their faces. Ma was nowhere to be seen, and he threaded his way through the carts and traffic towards the door.

He started to slip through the door, but a tiny nurse grabbed his arm as he went past, her light, almost angelic voice surprisingly firm. "I'm sorry, sir, you can't go in there right now."

"I'm his partner!"

The girl raised an eyebrow. "Then as...partners, you're Mr. Fraser's legal next of kin?"

Something about the way she said it made Ray realize how his statement had been mis-interpreted. "Not like that! We're cops! I'm his best friend, dammit, let me see him!"

The grip on his arm didn't budge, though Ray knew that if he had to, he could shake off this little sprite without a problem. "I'm very sorry, sir. You need to stay out here for now...I'll let you in to see your friend as soon as I can. I promise."

He started to protest again. Benny was dead already, what was the big deal about letting him see the guy one last time? Then a doctor's shouted order from within the room caught his ear, and he stopped, feeling a surge of hope. The Doc had been asking for some kind of drug. Ray couldn't even begin to pronounce the name, nor did he have any idea what it was for, but one generally did not give drugs to a corpse. There still must be some flicker of life in the Mountie, a thin thread of possibility that they were trying to grasp.

Suddenly, he remembered something, and turned to the young woman. "Where's my mother?"

The pale skin between her eyes creased in confusion. "Your mother?"

"The woman who was in there with Fraser."

Understanding dawned in the nurse's eyes, and she let go of his arm, motioning him down the hall. "She's down there, in the waiting room. You might want to talk to her...she was there when he arrested."

Nodding quickly, Ray strode quickly down to the open door of the waiting room. It was a near-mirror of the one in which they had first waited to hear news of Benny's injury. The only difference he could see was the addition of a middle-aged black man sprawled in one of the plastic chairs. His filthy clothes reeked of cheap alcohol as he slumbered, hat pulled down over his eyes and limbs tossed loosely to all sides. Ray shivered. This was not a place he had wanted to revisit any time soon.

Ma had been pacing from one side to the other, a rumpled, tear-sodden handkerchief clutched to her mouth. When he appeared in the doorway, she stopped and ran to him, wrapping him in a desperate embrace. "Raymondo, you're here!"

He hugged her back tightly, then stepped back, putting his hands on her shoulders to look her in the eyes. "What happened, Ma?"

She turned away, twisting the handkerchief in her hands as if she was trying to wring away the hurt. "I was talking to him...just sitting there, watching him sleep, telling him stories...I know how much he loves stories. The doctor had come in a little bit before and given him some medicine," her eyes flashed angrily, "he said Benton was doing better. He said they could wake him up soon! But I was watching him, and the machine that watches his heart suddenly stopped going beep-beep-beep." Her hands mimed the regular pattern of a healthy EKG readout. "It started just going crazy...be-be-be-be-be-be-be!" Fingers fluttered crazily, showing a pattern that seemed almost a vibration rather than a heartbeat.

"Did you call the doctors?"

"Of course I called the doctors! I called them all right away!" She seemed offended at his question. "They came, and they were all running around him, but the beeping had stopped - it was just a line- and he was turning blue! Santa Dio, Raymondo, he was turning blue!" The handkerchief came back up to her face again, and she started to sob, her round shoulders shaking. "They made me leave, but I heard them! They said his heart had stopped, that his brain was failing! He's dead, Raymondo, I know it!"

"Oh, Ma..." He wrapped his arms around her, guiding her gently to the couch. His chest felt tight, and he clung to the thin hope he had heard in the hallway. Benny had to live, and he had to be ok. Ray closed his eyes, and for the first time in years, the hard-bitten, cynical Detective prayed. Not simply repeating words at Mass, not an 'Oh God' uttered under the heat of a gunfight. True prayer. He prayed that he hadn't heard a last-ditch attempt to save a man already gone. He prayed that if by some miracle, his friend did survive, that he would still be the man he knew. He would almost rather the Mountie die outright than live with severe brain damage that could dim that brilliant mind or twist that optimistic personality.

"Ray?" The voice was thin and frightened, and he looked up. Frannie and Maria stood just inside the door. Frannie's pretty face was tear-stained, but she seemed beyond tears now, pale and trembling. His older sister looked little better, though she was clearly putting every ounce of her strength into appearing strong for their younger sibling.

Pushing aside his own fear and worry, Ray forced himself into action, caring for his family. A feeling of deja-vu assailed him, the painful memories of nights when his father had come home drunk and angry, lashing out against his family in his alcoholic haze. It had been too much like this. Holding his feelings inside, being the brave one, the man of the family. Wiping his sister's face, consoling his mother, getting them coffee and cocoa and promising that everything would work out in the end. Strong words battling stronger helplessness. The omnipresent smell of alcohol from the drunk in the corner compounded the intensity of the memories. Finally, it was too much for the cop to handle.

"I'm gonna go check on Benny." The lie came smoothly, and he managed to keep everything calm and together until he was out of the waiting room and around the corner out of sight.

Then everything dissolved, and he stumbled towards the men's room, his tall form shaking violently. He barely made it in, falling to his knees in front of the toilet. His body heaved as he threw up the three cups of coffee and two donuts that had been all he had consumed that day. Even after his stomach was empty, he continued to retch, the nausea washing over him in thick waves. He couldn't do this. He just couldn't do this again.

Ray didn't know how long he knelt there, but it seemed like an eternity before he could pull himself unsteadily to his feet. Walking with the uncertain steps of a young child, he headed to the sink and ran the cold water. He pulled a handful of paper towels from the dispenser, dampening them under the frigid tap and wiping the sweat from his face. Cupping his hands, he gulped a mouthful of water and spat it out to rinse the foul taste from his mouth, then looked at his face in the mirror.

It was the face of a man who was beyond exhaustion, dark bags sagging beneath the large green eyes, two days of stubble darkening his cheeks and chin. The eyes that looked back at him were haunted, darkened with a sense of foreboding.

Only four days ago, his world had been a fairly stable place. Then three days ago a young man had gone on a rampage. A brave Canadian had placed himself in the line of fire to save the lives of eight children. A pane of glass had shattered, and events had begun an unstoppable spiral towards hell. It seemed incomprehensible that so much could have occurred in the space of a mere three days. Seventy-two short hours. Benny could probably even rattle off how many seconds.

Taking a deep breath, Ray splashed another handful of water on his face and grabbed some more towels to dry the cool droplets from his skin. Ma and the girls would be starting to worry now. He had to go back.

By the time he walked back into the waiting room, Ray was the picture of composure, no hint of his inner struggle visible in his eyes or face. He was surprised to find a fifth individual in the room, a tall black man in green medical scrubs who was talking to Ma and his sisters. Frannie looked up as her brother entered. She was smiling, but it was a tight smile, the smile of a woman reaching desperately to find anything funny about a terrible situation. "Ray, this is Benny's doctor...you'll never guess who!"

Pulling up a chair, the Detective took a closer look at the doctor who had come to talk to them. He was trim but not skinny, with an average-looking face and a thick goatee that showed no sign of gray. His dark eyes were humorless, suggesting a man who was not just delivering bad news, but would be hard pressed to smile under any circumstances. A stethoscope was draped over his neck, and he met Ray's gaze unflinchingly, clearly not at all intimidated by the cop's brusque manner. This man was confident, and Ray liked that. The Italian leaned back in his chair, lacing his long fingers behind his head. "Dr. Kevorkian?"

Maria smacked him lightly on the shoulder in annoyance. "Dr. Benton."

The name didn't seem as much amusing as morbid to Ray, but he forced his mouth to curve upward slightly on Frannie's behalf. "Cute."

Dr. Benton opened Benny's file, shuffling through several papers. "Dr. Doxtetter is off today. He asked me to take his case load as a personal favor."

"We thank you, Doctor," Ma assured him.

"So...he, uh, didn't make it." Ray confirmed, his voice flat.

"Actually, he's stable for now..." the doctor began.

Frannie screamed. The sound made both Ray and Dr. Benton wince, but Ma and Maria seemed close to the same reaction themselves, hands tightly pressed to their mouths and eyes bright with thankful tears. The drunk simply snorted, changed position, and resumed his cacophonous snoring. Ma waved her hands eagerly. "Tell us! Tell us!"

"According to his charts, his intercranial pressure had been steadily declining over the past twenty-four hours. Looks like Dr. Doxtetter had decided to try and bring him up. They'd eased up on his meds, added a mild stimulant. His brain just wasn't ready yet. Activity did increase, but the additional pressure re-started the bleed. It was a chain reaction...more bleeding, higher pressure...higher pressure, more bleeding."

Ray frowned. "That caused the heart attack?"

Dr. Benton nodded. "His brain was sending irregular signals to the autonomic nervous system. Put him into V-fib."

"V-fib?" Maria questioned.

There was a pause, and Ray got the impression that this was the least-favorite part of Dr. Benton's job, and that he wasn't at all comfortable translating medicalese into layman's terms. "His heart is supposed to pump. Squeeze, release, squeeze, release. V-fib is short for ventricular fibrillation. The heart is quivering, thousands of little tremors every second, but no actual contractions. The blood can't circulate. After a while, it stops. The patient dies. Thankfully, we were able to put the heart back in it's normal rhythm."

Frannie looked over the tall doctor's shoulder towards the hallway. "Is he awake now?"

"No. Like I said, his brain isn't ready. Because of this attack, I've had to actually put him further under." He skimmed over several notations on Benny's chart. "Higher dosages of most of his meds, including the paralytics and barbiturates that are keeping him comatose. That should give him a chance to heal from the initial injury, as well as from this incident."

"So he's gonna be ok?"

"Maybe. The meds should prevent this from happening again, but they're very hard on the patient. The side effects can be fatal if they're used for too long at too high a dosage."

Ma gasped. "Fatal!"

Dr. Benton sighed. "We aren't going to go that far, Mrs. Vecchio. He's got ten days. In ten days, he should be healed enough for us to bring him up slowly."

Ray's eyes narrowed. "And if he's not?"

"Then we'll have to bring him up anyway. More than ten days, and the drugs will start to cause brain damage on their own."

A babble of questions erupted from the Vecchio family, and Dr. Benton fielded each of them professionally and completely, although with a definite air of exasperation. In the corner of the room, beneath the filthy and ragged clothes of the old wino, his mind sober and sharp despite the pall of cheap bourbon that hung on his body, Francis Parker listened.

***

ONE WEEK LATER

DAY 10

***

Chicago Chronicle:

"Mountie's Actions: Heroism Or Homicide"?

New York Times:

"Investigators Question Mountie's Motives"

Washington Post:

"Senate Questions RCMP Regarding Chicago Shooting"

Miami Herald:

"Questions Mount In Shooting Investigation"

***

The expert laced his fingers together and shook his head sadly as he looked at the camera. "It's a throwback to the kindergartner who leaps out the window playing Batman. They think they can fly...their motives are good. Even heroic. But they don't have a plane, so they fall, and they get hurt. This man did not have the training for that situation, and his good intentions didn't help Jason Pittman any more than a bathtowel cape helps that child to fly."

The talk show host nodded her agreement. "Thank you, Professor. Now, let's see what our audience has to say." She held the microphone towards the first member of the audience who looked like he might have something interesting to say, and he leapt to his feet, beaming with self-importance at being chosen.

Leaning over the microphone, he bellowed his opinion. "I think that Mountie was way out of line! He's Canadian, and he had no business thinking he knew better than American cops what was good for American children in an American city!" The audience cheered their approval.

***

"I don't like to see people get shot either," the talk radio star leaned back in his chair, "but suppose someone starts pumping lead here in the studio? I'm not going to go running out there, I'm going to call the cops! If my wife gets cancer, I'm not going to get out the Ginsu knives and start operating on her...I'm going to call a doctor! There are some things that you leave to the pros, and life-and-death hostage situations are one of those things."

***

"And more on the ongoing investigation into Constable Fraser...come with us as we talk to those who knew this unusual individual." Brief, soundless clips from the interviews that had been conducted with Mr. Mustafi, Mrs. Garcia, and Mrs. Pomputis. Then back to the studio and Parker's trustworthy face.

Parker held the camera's gaze for that one last, crucial second, then the nightly news promo was over. He had another half hour before he was on camera for the six o'clock, and he hoped to get a hold of Howell. They'd been thinking about the possibility of bringing Vecchio into this, and Parker liked the idea. It might not fit directly with the school shooting, but Vecchio was the Mountie's unofficial partner, and he smelled just as bad. A dirty cop always sold with the producers.

Tonight they were blowing the lid on the wolf. It had taken a while, but careful digging and judicious compensation of a number of underpaid civic employees had revealed the truth. Not only had the animal been suspected of attacking and killing Mrs. Pomputis's pet, but several other neighborhood animals as well, not all of whom had been recovered with the crooked Animal Control officer. Then there was the matter of the court record, which revealed that he had previously killed at least one other animal and attacked an unknown number of humans. Not to mention the hospital record of his owner receiving four stitches for a 'dog bite' shortly after the animal was ordered destroyed as 'vicious'. An order that was never carried out.

What would Chicago have to say about this animal in their schools with their children?

***

Chad Howell kicked up his heels on his new desk and grinned at the new nameplate he held in his hands. He was still in a cubicle, still down with all the little worker bees, but he was moving up in the world. Classifieds were a thing of the past, a bad memory to be forgotten in the light of his new fame. This story had moved him onto page A-3, with the editor promising front page coverage and his own column if he kept it up.

He pulled a coin out of his pocket and tossed it in the air, smiling at the way it reflected the light as it spun. It was a Canadian quarter with a Mountie on horseback on the reverse side. Given to him by a college pal, he had kept it for luck. He believed his friend when he told Chad that it was lucky to always carry something from another country...impresses the ladies, he had said, because it makes you project worldly vibes.

Bull. He knew know why the quarter was lucky. It was lucky because it had a Mountie on it, and the Mounties - the prim-and-proper, dirty-as-hell Mounties - were his ticket to the top.

***

THE NEXT MORNING

DAY 11

***

He'd almost gotten used to it.

At first, visiting Fraser had bothered him deeply. The sickly pale skin and the implanted lines and wires reminded him a little too much of the Frankenstien movies that had frightened him as a boy in Winnipeg. Renfield Turnbull remembered the first time he had come to see his superior, how he had to leave the room after only five minutes, shaking and nauseous. Over time, he had learned to focus on the things that were familiar, to allow his imagination to project a face that was full and rosy with health upon this sunken white shadow. Even the grotesque projection of the ICP bolt and the myriad invading needles could be overlooked now, and he had begun to visit more and more often.

Strangely, it was almost easier to talk to him this way. He didn't have to worry about what Fraser thought, about whether or not it would seem professional to talk to him as a friend. During the past week, the young Mountie had spent at least an hour every day in Fraser's room. They had 'conversed' about everything from the weather in Alberta to the new Zamboni purchased by the Toronto Maple Leaves.

Here, in the safety of the hospital room, Turnbull had been free to be himself, even confiding that his friends in the Academy had called him simply "Rennie". He had shared the Yukon jokes that he had learned for Fraser but been afraid to tell before. He had admitted his anger with the press, confessing to twice 'accidentally' disconnecting a reporter. He had laughed many times, and once, he had even cried. For once, he could be a young man like any other, confiding in a buddy, ignoring the iron constraints of the red serge that bound his words and deeds every other moment of his life.

Many times during those long chats, he had almost felt as if Fraser were listening. As if he understood what it was like to be judged so quickly by others. Just because they tried to be courteous and helpful, people considered them to be easy marks. Almost as though having manners meant trading in feelings.

Despite that, Rennie wasn't completely ignorant of the reasons behind people's contempt of him. He knew that something was different since the accident. He couldn't put his finger on it, but it was harder to concentrate. To focus on a task, he had to focus completely, excluding any other thoughts or distractions. Once, he had been the show-off of the Musical Ride, the man always tossing a few trick riding maneuvers into practice. Now, his balance was often unpredictable, and he occasionally tripped and fell over his own feet. Emotions that he had once been able to hold in check without a moment's thought now burst free beyond his control.

Still, he had done all he could to overcome that. He had spent hours in therapy, finally being allowed back onto the force. Every day, he struggled to be friendly and to fulfill his duties beyond expectations. He smiled and nodded. He fetched coffee and files. He turned a deaf ear to the people laughing behind his back...and treasured each time that Fraser offered him that kind, genuine smile for a job well done.

Holding his Stetson in his hands, Rennie settled into the chair at Fraser's bedside. "I talked to the doctor again today, sir. He said they'll be waking you up in the next few days, and then they can take a look-see and tell how you're doing. Isn't that wonderful, sir?"

He paused, then looked both ways and leaned forward conspiratorially. "They say there might be brain damage, but I personally don't believe a word of it. I know how it is to get a little bump on the head myself. They didn't think I would even live, and here I am." Rennie chuckled. "Doctors. Nice enough fellows as a whole, but oh, sir, those prognosis of theirs are a hoot."

Smiling warmly, he lightly patted Fraser's shoulder. "You're going to do just fine. You'll wake up, get all the kinks straightened out, and be back at work in no time."

The only answer to his boisterous words was the steady beeping of the heart monitor and the hissing of the respirator. Slowly, the smile began to fade from Rennie's face. It seeped out of his eyes first, then drained away until he sat slumped by the bed, looking at his boots with a shame-faced blush. "Yes, sir, I *do* know better. After all, not everyone does bounce back from these things. Nothing to do with whether you're a good Mountie or not..." A glow of hero-worship flickered in his eyes, and he stole a glance upward for a moment. "If that were the case, this never would have happened. You're the best I've ever worked with, sir. And I don't say that lightly."

His fingers twisted at the hat's stiff brim. "I've actually been getting through this by being you, sir. I know that probably sounds a little silly, and I guess it is. It's just that the Inspector is a tad stressed by all this, and she and your friend Mr. Vecchio get into these long, loud disagreements all the time. You always know what to do when that kind of thing happens...so I've tried to kind of step into your boots, so to speak."

A genuine smile teased at one side of his mouth. "Detective Vecchio asked me for my identification this morning when I mediated their little bagel dispute. Who would ever have thought things could get that heated over lox, eh?" His head rose, and Rennie looked right at Fraser's closed eyes, his own shining with pride. "He said that I was 'freaking him out' because I was acting so much like you, sir. I think that's the biggest compliment anyone's ever given me."

He paused, and when he realized that he had again begun to fidget with the hat, he placed it on the bedside table. The Mountie knew that he had to tell Fraser what he came here to tell him, and beating around the bush like this wasn't helping anything. Taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes. "Of course, I really don't think it was the lox that had the Inspector so distressed. It was probably the phone call she got this morning."

Rennie looked at his comatose superior in indignation. "I most certainly did NOT eavesdrop, sir! There wasn't really a need to, actually. The Inspector was rather loud about the matter. It seems that headquarters are sending us another Constable to take your place. Constable John L. Grushka if I recall, sir. She asked me to look up his file." He stood, walking a few steps away from the bed to look out the window.

"He seems to be a nice enough gentleman, sir. Rather plain, though. I remember when I first read your file, before my posting to Chicago." His eyes danced, "It was so exciting. First in your class. Medals and commendations everywhere. Tracking dangerous criminals through Yukon blizzards, intricately planned stakeouts, adventures with the FBI...even the case surrounding your father's murder, if you'll pardon me, simply read like an adventure novel. It really reminded me why I joined the RCMP."

Sighing, Rennie leaned against the glass, staring out at the city skyline. "Constable Grushka graduated eleventh in his class....which I know isn't anything to be ashamed of. In fact, it's quite the accomplishment. He's spent eight years as an urban crime investigator in Regina, six as an administrative assistant in Ottawa. I suppose that's a very nice rsum for a Deputy Liaison Officer to have, but...."

For a long moment, he just stared at the city through the window, then abruptly turned, having gathered the courage he needed to defy the RCMP's choice, even if only privately. "I don't like it, sir. If they bring in someone else to replace you, then what happens when you get better? Someone will already have your slot, and they might send you away." His boyish face darkened. "Detective Vecchio said that was the whole idea. That with all this media nonsense, they wanted to 'sweep him under the rug'. They wouldn't do that, though, would they?"

The continued rhythms of the life-support equipment were his only reply, but he didn't need one. He knew it was true. He knew the RCMP would sweep Fraser under the rug, because Rennie knew in his heart that they had swept him under the rug. Constable Grushka would come in. Fraser - if he recovered enough to remain with the force - would be sent someplace solitary and remote, and life would continue in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

Continue for everyone else, perhaps. He knew that they could never seamlessly replace Fraser. Even if, by some miracle, this new Constable was every bit the crime fighter...even if he was every bit as kind and understanding of Rennie...even if he worked as well with the Americans, and possessed that special talent of Fraser's for calming the Inspector...even then it wouldn't be the same. It would never be the same, because Rennie would know. He would know that while Grushka sat at Fraser's desk, a good man had been destroyed for an act of heroism. He would know, and he would never be able to forget. Or completely forgive.

His eyes burned with urgency as he approached the bed again. This time, he didn't sit in the chair again, but rather knelt beside it, crouching so that his face was level with Fraser's. "Please, sir, you can't let them do this. You have got to get better quickly. Please."

Just like all the times before, Fraser made no move to reply. Not so much as an eyelash flickered. Yet at the same time, Rennie felt as though he had answered. As though a quiet voice had whispered directly to his heart that everything would work out.

The young man smiled and rose, picking up his hat from the side table. "Thank you, sir." He whispered.

He started to leave, but at the last, moment, he stopped and turned back to face the room. It looked like an indoor jungle. Plants and flowers had been tucked into every nook and cranny. They ranged from the tiny home-grown geranium that one of the hostages had given, to the vast bouquet sent by the school board that must have cost hundreds of dollars. There were balloons, baskets, cards, and even a few stuffed animals. Every possible expression of floral goodwill that could be imagined was represented in the confines of that tiny hospital room.

Rennie looked inside his Stetson, suddenly feeling foolish for what he had brought. It wasn't anything compared to all of these other things, and he doubted that Fraser would ever even notice it. Still, he had brought it to give to the Constable, and he supposed that if it was lost in the jungle, it wouldn't really matter. He would still have made the gesture.

Carefully, the Mountie eased the tiny bit of foliage from the inside of his hatband. It was dry and brittle, lovingly encased in an envelope of waxed paper to preserve it. He had received it from his father on the day he had graduated the Academy, and he smiled fondly as he looked at it. Rennie was certain that of all people, his father would surely approve of him giving it to Benton Fraser.

He searched the room for a place to put it, and was near despair when his gaze landed upon the perfect location. With the utmost delicacy, he eased the gift from its paper sanctuary, then raised it to the light. It was thin as tissue, but still perfectly preserved, it's color still rich and vibrant, it's shape still flawless. With a final proud smile at his mentor and friend, Rennie tucked it into the band of Fraser's Stetson and left for the afternoon shift at the consulate.

***

Inside the hospital room, Robert Fraser stood by the foot of his son's bed. He had watched many visitors come and go, seen and critiqued every gift brought. Most he had scorned, knowing that the expensive floral arrangements were the giver's way of absolving themselves of any further loyalty to the boy. Some he had smiled at, such as the hand-picked bouquet from one of the nurses. None had touched him like this last, simple act.

One perfect red maple leaf, tucked carefully into a hatband.

***

"Heeeeeere comes the choo-choo train...into the tunnel. Open up, sweetie, c'mon." The baby's lips remained firmly closed, and Frannie looked again at the spoonful of strained peas. She had been a train, a boat, a plane, and a helicopter in the attempt to get those peas into her niece, and nothing was working. She decided a more direct approach was needed. "Look, honey," she explained, "Your Aunt Francesca has much better things to do than spend an hour trying to get this jar of mush into you so that you don't wail to your mother that I let you starve. Now, you either eat this, or I'll call Uncle Ray and let him do it."

The child opened her mouth immediately. Satisfied that she had finally found the proper motivational tool, Frannie fed her the peas, then reached for the jar to get another spoonful. The doorbell interrupted her. Whisking the rag off her lap that was protecting her clothes from returned food, she stood. "I'll be right back," she informed the baby.

After the accident with Benny, she had gotten into the habit of checking the door before she opened it. If the person had a TV camera anywhere in the immediate vicinity, they were out of luck. This time, though, the visitor appeared fairly harmless. He was a young man in his early twenties, his longish dark hair streaked with blonde and his clothes a number of sizes too large. Cute enough, Frannie decided, but nothing special. She opened the door. "Can I help you?"

The stranger smiled. "Are you Francesca Vecchio?"

"Yeah, that's me." She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. "Whaddya need?"

"My name is Chad Howell, and I'm from the Chicago Chronicle. I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions about..."

Howell. She knew that name. This was the hotshot reporter that had been writing all that crap about Benny. Feeling her Italian temper flare, Frannie barely managed to resist the urge to kick the bastard where it would really hurt. Instead, she stepped outside the door, jabbing her brightly painted fingernail into his chest like a dagger. "Listen, you son of a bitch, you'll have to go somewhere else if you're looking for more bullshit for your damned column. I have nothing to say about Benton Fraser except that he is the kindest, sweetest, most decent man I have ever met, and that scum like you obviously wouldn't know honesty if it bit you in the balls!"

With that, she turned on her heel and stalked back inside, cutting off his response with the slam of the door. Once inside, she immediately locked the door, then looked out the window at him. He was looking back with a rather stunned expression on his face, and she grinned, said one more thing, then dropped the blinds. She only hoped he could read lips.

***

Parker didn't even look up as Howell sat down across from him. Actually, he realized, 'sat' was perhaps not the best term. To sit implied lowering one's self to a chair. Howell had come in for a landing, his body language screaming frustration louder than a toddler in a grocery store. The anchorman skimmed the last spoonful of soup from his bowl. "I ordered for you."

The young reporter looked at his plate oddly, poking at the small, golden brown bird that lay in the center of a mound of rice-like grains. "Chicken?"

Sighing, Parker reached over with his fork, pointing out the various food items on the dish. "Broiled marinated quail on a bed of bulgar with currants, scallions, coulee of roasted baby carrots, and a garnish of gingered leeks." He smiled at Howell's look of slightly nauseated awe. "I thought it was time for you to branch out beyond McNuggets."

Suspiciously, the young man eyed Parker's selection. "What are you having?"

"Pan seared salmon with a sweet corn chutney and shiitake mushrooms, as well as a side of wild greens in a raspberry balsam vinaigrette." He cut a bite of the succulent fish with the side of his fork, pointing it towards the dark contents of his wine glass. "I have a medium-weight Bordeaux, 1988 vintage. I believe you've chosen a vintage 1996 Pepsi."

Howell stopped mid-motion where he had been ripping one wing off the aromatic poultry. His hazel eyes flashed angrily, and he waved his fork at the anchorman, ignoring the bit of bulgar impaled on one tine. "Don't start that with me again, Dad. Just because I don't go for all your gourmet crap doesn't mean I'm not every bit as good as you are."

Realizing that he had allowed himself to alienate his partner, Parker bit back a sharp retort. He didn't like the younger man at all. Howell was arrogant and ignorant at the same time, a combination that Parker found intolerable. He himself had worked hard on his education, damned hard. It angered him to see someone who had sailed through college squander it that way, not caring to broaden his horizons or elevate himself in society. "You're right, let's not start that argument again. Do you want your 'chicken' or not?"

With a slightly pouting expression, Howell grabbed his knife and began to saw at the breast. "Yeah, sure."

For a few moments, they ate in silence, then Parker asked, "Did you do it?"

"Of course." The reply was muffled by a mouthful of carrots and quail, but his tone sounded vaguely hurt.

"And...?"

Howell speared a leek, licked it, and made a face. "This tastes weird."

Shooting him an impatient glare, Parker sipped at his wine. "Would you rather I flag you down a hot dog from one of the vendors outside?"

"I'd 'rather' you stop treating me like I'm beneath you." The young face twisted angrily. "Do you want the info or not?," he sneered.

Remembering the volatile nature of the other man's ego, Parker forced his tone to be contrite. "My apologies. Please, go ahead."

"I checked out his neighborhood again." Howell shook his head ruefully. "Damn, that place gives me the creeps...I've never seen so many losers in one place."

"They aren't all losers. Most of them don't have a choice." His voice was quiet, but there was a tinge of danger. Had the newspaperman been listening, he would have realized he was treading on thin ice.

He wasn't listening, however, and he waved his fork casually, a bit of quail skin flying out from between the tines and landing on the damask table cloth. "Hey, man, it's a choice to move to a dump like that."

"But it's not a choice if you're born there, or if you can't afford any better."

"What about welfare...?"

"Welfare isn't Aladdin's lamp. You can't rub a food stamp and make three wishes, kid. That's not how it works." There was a surprising sharpness to Parker's tone, and it took the other man off guard.

"Lay off, will ya? I didn't mean it like that." He took a large bite of the bulgar, staring at Parker through narrowed eyes as he chewed. "Geez...why are we so sensitive all of a sudden?"

"Perhaps it's because you were raised in a three bedroom, Leave-It-To-Beaver house at 556 Courthouse Lane, Red River Falls, Iowa. I, on the other hand was raised in a one-bedroom apartment in the 'losers' district of Atlanta." The reply was quiet and matter-of-fact, which only emphasized its power.

Howell dropped his fork in shock, ignoring it as it clattered to the floor. "How the hell did you know all that about where I was raised?"

"I look into my partners. Maybe you should do the same."

Avoiding Parker's eyes, the young man reached down and retrieved his fork. He wiped it off on the corner of the tablecloth, blushing. "Oh."

"'Oh' is right. What if I had been a source, Howell? What if I had been your only source, and your idiot mouthing-off about the 'losers' of West Racine had made me decide you weren't worth talking to? What if I had known one of those 'losers', and informed them of your opinion? How many more 'losers' do you think you'd get to talk to after that?" His voice had begun to raise, a rare hint of emotion seeping through his tight control. Parker leaned forward slightly, his dark eyes like embers in the oaken face.

Howell reared back, raising his napkin like a shield. "Ok, ok, I get the point! I'm sorry!" He held Parker's gaze for a long moment, waiting until the older man had calmed down a bit. Clearing his throat nervously, he picked at his food, trying to change the subject. "Anyway, I talked to some street people in his neighborhood, and a couple of the prostitutes that work that part of town. Seems ol' Ben's got quite a reputation."

Parker's thick eyebrows rose. "As a john?"

"No...well, they didn't say exactly that he wasn't, either."

"What did they say?"

Shrugging, Howell gave a disgusted snort. "The street guys musta been reading off the same PR script as damn near everyone else we've talked to. The old boy scout routine...nearest thing to a saint that Chicago's seen in years. I hit gold with one old guy, though."

"How?"

"I picked him out because he had new stuff in his shopping cart. New boots, new coat. Only they weren't like the Salvation Army handout stuff. This was more Eskimo crap, with the leather and the fur and all. Guy said his name was Jerome, and confirmed that the Eskimo clothes had come from our Mountie friend. Here's the interesting part, though...he said he'd tried to beg money from Fraser, and instead of just popping him a buck or two, the Mountie took him to lunch and started chatting him up. Told him all kinds of fables and junk. Jerome says he spilled that he just wanted the cash for clothes and drugs, and Sergeant Preston gave him a hell of a lecture. Finally Jerome gave him the names of his drug suppliers and promised to lay off the stuff for a while, and Fraser gave him the Eskimo duds. 'Course, the bum was lying through his teeth about going clean, but it worked."

Parker nodded, contemplating this as he swirled the last bite of salmon in the dressing from the greens. "Interesting. And the prostitutes?"

"They've all seen him around enough. Talked to one girl, went by Aphrodite, who said she'd propositioned him. She hadn't seen anyone going in or out of his apartment except him and the cop who took him to work in the mornings. She figured that even if he didn't go for girls, he didn't have anything going with the cop because he wasn't in there long enough for anything to happen. Miss Aphrodite put two and two together and worked out the Mountie was a bachelor, and that although he was, as she put it, 'obscenely attractive', he wasn't getting much in the way of the horizontal mambo."

"Really?"

Howell grinned at the tone of Parker's voice. "Something surprise you, Dad?"

He shrugged. "Frankly I was expecting the opposite. He is, as the young lady said, 'obscenely attractive', and a 'helping' profession - coupled with the romantic mystique of the RCMP and his pure as the driven snow persona - should attract women like mad. I would have thought there would have been a fairly brisk procession of one-night stands, considering we've determined that he isn't currently committed."

Pushing a pile of bulgar to one side of his plate, the reporter scooped it onto a bit of roll and shoved the entire package into his mouth. "Hey, me too. I'd explode if I went sixteen months as a monk. But I don't think he has."

"Then he accepted Aphrodite's proposition."

"She said he didn't, but then she said he did."

His napkin half-raised to his lips, Parker frowned. "Come again?"

"She said he took her up to the apartment, but he didn't ask for anything. He cooked her dinner, wrapped a blanket around her, started talking her up like he had the old bum...fables again. She thought, hey, maybe he's one of those guys who gets off on thinking he's romancing a girl before he gets the goods and pays up, so she went with it. He gave her two hundred. Canadian, but big whoop. That still works to over a hundred bucks here in the US of A." Howell leered suggestively, a raised eyebrow indicating exactly the type of things such a bankroll could purchase.

"Did he ask her to perform any sexual acts for the money?" The question was blunt, clearly delineating that he wasn't interested in juvenile games of innuendo.

"Here's where she did that confess but not confess thing. Really weird for a girl who makes her living at this crap. She claimed that she pocketed the dough, then got down on her knees and started unbuttoning his pants." Howell gave a lop-sided grin of amusement. "He freaked...jumped back, buttoned those things up again tighter than my uncle's wallet. So she offered him a lap dance. Wouldn't take that either, or anything else on her menu. Finally, she says she got him to accept a 'back rub' as a 'gesture of gratitude'. Seems she'd noticed he was a little stiff, and turns out the guy makes his living imitating a statue outside the consulate. So she 'rubbed his back'."

Again, he refused to respond to the heavy double-entendre, keeping his tone cold and clinical. "Interesting euphemism."

The young reporter didn't pick up on his disapproval and continued, still with that lascivious twinkle to his eye. "I thought so. Little strange, though...I've never seen a whore cover for a john like that."

Smirking slightly, Parker met the young man's eyes. "A little extra money, Howell, and they would do damn near anything short of jump off the Sears tower. Is that all you got today?"

A mischievous smile of triumph lit his face, and Howell leaned back contentedly in his chair. "Nah, I was just saving the best for last."

"This 'best' is what had you thrown out of the Vecchio house?"

The young man's jaw dropped nearly to the tabletop. "How the hell did you know I'd been there?"

Casually, Parker gestured beneath the table. "There's a fleck of paint on your right sneaker. It matches the spot on the right side of their third front porch step where the paint is peeling. The fiber trapped beneath the sole and canvas of your left sneaker matches their welcome mat...I would assume that you were grinding your feet on the mat while waiting for them to answer the door." Ignoring the widening hazel eyes in front of him, he waved a hand upwards. "Also, there is a petunia sepal in your hair. The Vecchios put up hanging baskets of petunias by their front door three days ago. They were in full bloom at the time, so they would just now be beginning to drop sepals."

Loose strands of hair fell into Howell's face as he shook his head incredulously. "But how'd you know I'd been kicked out? Did that bitch leave marks from her tongue-lashing? Were there insults caught in my nose hairs?"

A small, smug smile teased at the anchorman's eyes without touching his mouth. "No. I just know that the Vecchios aren't too keen on any member of the press right now. Coupled with your lousy attitude when you arrived, it wasn't too hard to guess."

Trying to appear unimpressed with the feat of deduction, Howell took another large bite of the bulgar and nodded casually. "Fine. So you know that his slutty sister kicked me out. Can you deduce why?"

"Honestly, no." He smiled. "But I have a feeling you're going to tell me."

"Yeah. After I finished with Aphrodite, I talked to some of her friends. Most of them had a similar story. Fraser had picked them up, taken them to his place, given them dinner, a lecture, and cash, and sent them back out. That's what they said, anyway. I hit paydirt with a girl called 'Kitty.' It was about seven months ago. Fraser'd gotten in trouble with some mob guy, Frankie Zuko. His goons had worked the Mountie over pretty good, and Kitty'd seen him headed home. Black and blue, face all cut up." He winced sympathetically. "She went up to see if she could do anything for him, but there was another girl coming out of his place. Kitty didn't recognize her, but she was wearing nothing but this little black leather and lace number under her coat. She gave me a description..."

"And it was Vecchio's sister."

Howell nodded. "Bingo. I tried to talk to her about it, but she wasn't feeling too talkative."

"I can imagine."

Both men shared a smile at this, knowing how they were viewed by that particular family. Howell finished the last of his dinner, then pushed his plate aside. "So, think you can use any of this?"

Parker contemplated the issue for a moment, swirling the last mouthful of wine in his glass. "I'll see if the women are willing to talk on tape. It'll depend on what they say, though. You and I both know that the chances that he's paying these women for nothing are about the same chances as the Cubs winning back-to-back pennants, but we can't have it come across like he's just giving them a hand up."

Nodding in feigned professional sympathy, Howell spread his hands invitingly towards the more experienced journalist. "Well, I've been out there digging up a truckload of dirt. What has my esteemed and mighty companion been doing, other than ordering his seared salmon?"

"Finding out about Fraser's arrest record."

The hazel eyes in the boyish face blinked twice incredulously. "You're kidding me. They've actually booked him?"

"Twice."

The expression was half grin of excitement, half gape of disbelief. "Come on! For what?"

Parker allowed a slight smile, knowing that all of his hard work was about to pay off. "The first one is good, but we can't use it. He was picked up during a raid at the House Of Detention, a S&M leather bar downtown. Apparently, he was even in full uniform...of course, in that place, a cop's uniform just means that you want to be the one on the other end of the dog collar and chains."

"Wow! That's totally perverted. Why can't we spill?"

He sighed in frustration. "Because he was arrested in the company of a minor. It seems Constable Fraser's taste in dates runs towards sixteen year old girls."

Howell whistled. "Damn, that's like, half his age."

For once, Parker's dark eyes showed agreement. "A little less than half, technically. He's thirty-five."

The young man made a face. "God, my sister is sixteen. Sick."

"I agree. Unfortunately, the young lady is the daughter of a prominent Canadian trade official. He had the entire thing dismissed." The older newsman shook his head helplessly. "Even I know better than to mess with that."

"Why not nail him too, for cover-up."

"Because the case was dismissed, I technically had no right to have found out about it. Also, he can claim diplomatic immunity, and bring up a harassment issue over his daughter because of her minor status."

Clearly pouting, Howell slumped down in his chair, his chin on his chest. "That sucks."

"Not really."

Howell's head jerked up. "What?! You nail the Mountie in some sicko leather bar with a little girl, we can't use it, and you don't think that sucks? What are you on, Dad?"

"Nothing. I just have something better."

"This I've got to hear."

Reaching into the inside pocket of his suit jacket, Parker withdrew a manila envelope. He thumbed through the contents for a few moments, then took out a glossy photograph and pushed it across the table. "Look at this woman and tell me what you think."

She was in her early twenties, her dark, curly hair pulled back into a loose ponytail but still clearly long. Her face was cold but beautiful, with green eyes that seemed to shine with a hypnotic light beneath thick, dark eyebrows. She seemed to be of Mediterranean descent, most likely Greek, her slim body standing about five foot one against the harsh lines of the background. Howell whistled in appreciation. "Good-looking chick. But this is a mug shot...what did she do?"

More papers came out of the packet. The printout of her rap sheet, plus a small clipped section of newsprint that was yellowed with age. The clipping referred to a bank robbery outside Skagway. "Her name is Metcalf. Victoria Metcalf. She and two accomplices robbed a bank in Alaska eleven years ago. One of the men died on the scene, one fled to the States and was captured by InterPol, and Fraser was the arresting officer for her. He tracked her into a blizzard, kept her alive for several days while they were snowed in, then turned her over to the RCMP. She got ten years."

"Then she's out."

He nodded, indicating an entry in her file that noted she was a fugitive. "Out and at large. Almost six months ago, she showed up here in Chicago again to check on an old friend."

The young man's eyes took on a knowing look. "Fraser?"

"Exactly. Seems the two of them had come to an 'understanding' during that snow storm. Fraser had picked up the money for her while she was in jail...$10,000 in cash from the robbery was found in a metal box under the floor of his father's cabin. It started showing up in Chicago, passed every time by either Fraser or his buddy Vecchio. Things probably never would have been noticed if her accomplice hadn't reappeared."

"Thought you said InterPol got him."

"He escaped. His real name was Julian Chardeux, but he was known as Jolly... the most dangerous of the three by far. Fraser claimed he made an attempt on Victoria's life while she was at his apartment, but neither Jolly's prints nor hers were found, though he also claimed she had been there for three days. Another 'attempt' on her life was supposedly made at the Chicago Zoo. This one is a bit more substantiated...several witnesses saw him chasing her, Fraser pursuing them both. There seems to have been a struggle. Fraser received a cut to his hand, and Jolly was shot in the head at point-blank range by an RCMP issue .38."

"Whoa. So Fraser whacked the guy?"

"He told the State's Attorney that she had confessed the murder to him and claimed self-defense. He even insisted that she would come in and confess to the crime."

A dark chuckle. "Fat chance of that one."

"Right. She never showed up. According to Fraser and Vecchio's testimony, she went on to attempt to frame them for a number of crimes, including possession of a large sum of stolen money and the murder of Jolly. The Mountie was even arrested on a Murder One charge for Jolly's death, but Vecchio made bail for him. Quite a substantial sum, if I recall..." He donned his reading glasses, examining the printout. "Ah. Here it is. $150,000."

"Where would a flatfoot get that kind of cash?"

"Mortgaged his house, I believe. Soon after his release on bail, Fraser went to the Vecchio house and proceeded to vandalize the entire property. He claims that Metcalf had hidden incriminating evidence and given him a deadline to find it."

"Did he?"

"Apparently so. But rather than turning it in to the police, he seems to have agreed to her 'blackmail' and laundered a large sum of the robbery cash into gems. He then followed her to the train station and proceeded to attempt to jump bail and flee with her. The only thing that prevented that was 'friendly fire' from Vecchio." Parker finished his tale and gathered the papers up again, slipping them back into the envelope as he looked at the stunned face across the table.

Finally, Howell regained his voice, though it remained a hoarse whisper. "Shit! What the fuck is this guy doing on the force after all that?"

Parker's weathered face twisted bitterly. "Officially, he was exonerated. They decided he was framed for the possession of stolen money and the Murder One charge, and that the others were justified by mitigating circumstances."

Sighing, Howell let his head flop back in frustration, closing his eyes. "So this one's useless too."

"Not exactly. There are things that don't add up in the official record. For example, in the testimony that resulted in Fraser being cleared of the bail-jumping charge, Vecchio says that the Mountie was pursuing Metcalf with the intent to capture. Two other Detectives, Huey and Gardino, as well as a Lieutenant Welsh, back this up."

One eye opened curiously. "Then what doesn't match?"

A truly vicious cast came to the dark face. "When the incident was investigated, Fraser was found to have been in possession of Metcalf's gun at the time he was shot. At the point that Fraser and Metcalf went onto the train platform, several outside witnesses confirmed that the gun was in her possession, and that he was several strides behind her in pursuit. The only way he would have the gun afterward was if he had caught her once already. By the time Vecchio and the others arrived, she was already on the train and it was leaving the station, requiring Fraser to pursue it at a sprint."

Howell's face lit up with enlightenment. "Which means, like, he was going with her, because if he had wanted to stop her from going, he could have done it when he took the gun."

"Exactly."

With a crow of triumph, Howell slapped the table, jumping to his feet and ignoring the shocked expressions on the faces of the other diners. "Looks like he's Dudley Dead-Meat after all!"

Parker just watched the younger man's excitement quietly. He understood the feeling, but time had tempered his own enthusiasm with reality.

Every ounce of his being wanted Fraser to go down, and go down hard. Nothing angered him more than this kind of deception. The Mountie was like a master ventriloquist with dozens of people as his dummies. Each of them mindlessly said what he wanted them to say without a single question, but no one saw him pulling the strings. He had shimmied through the cracks and crevices of the law without a moment's hesitation, and no one questioned it. Everyone who had met him repeated the same spiel, identical to the point of being frightening. Whether through blackmail, charisma, fast talking, or simply some form of magic, he had maintained an image as pure as new fallen snow over a heart as hard and cold as ice.

The worst part was that this wasn't the first time he had seen something like this. Over his four decades in journalism, Parker had witnessed this duplicity too many times to count. They were always young, always handsome and sweet-looking, almost always white. On the outside, they were perfectly virtuous, welcoming him into their midst as a valued colleague. Then there would be the 'accidental' collision in the hallway. The moment's look of utter contempt. The innocent words dropped here and there that would make the boss second-guess him. The darkness, the hate in the eyes.

He had to let them get away with it. Let them think that he didn't know what they were. He had climbed stolidly onward, ignoring the needles of hate they had tried to slip under his fingernails. Now he had made it to the top, and now he had a chance to bring just such a two-faced individual down. He could rip away the mask Benton Fraser had constructed and expose his true self to the world.

Nothing could stop him now.

***

An umbrella. Why hadn't she brought a stupid umbrella?

Civilian Aide Elaine Besbriss cursed in a most unladylike manner as the gray skies seemed to open, letting loose a torrent of water that would have sent Noah running for cover. The same skies had been blue that morning, as clear as she had ever seen above the eternal pall of haze produced by the city. Even the weatherman had been duped by it, assuring her that the front forming over the Great Lakes wouldn't touch the Windy City until the next morning. With what she now felt was extreme stupidity, as she had believed him.

She had believed him, and now she was standing in the torrential rains outside the 27^th, waiting for a taxi. One of the blessed yellow vehicles pulled to the curb, and she gave a sigh of relief as she dashed for it. Elaine was only a few steps away when someone else slipped between her and the cab, stealing her escape route. The face through the rain-spattered window belonged to one of the cops who worked the evidence room, and she offered him a one-fingered salute as the cab pulled away.

Her blue shirt was soaked through now, the thin windbreaker she had thrown over it to combat the early May breezes providing pitiful resistance. Miserably, she took hold of a handful of the windbreaker, squeezing out the excess water. Fraser would have held that cab for her. Hell, from the stories Vecchio told about the Mountie, he might even have chased it down the street and leapt on the roof to secure it for her. He was a gentleman. Gentlemen did those kinds of things. Elaine was beginning to suspect that he was, in fact, the last gentleman that existed on the planet.

A look up and down the street revealed no other empty cabs, and Elaine decided that there was really no reason to stand there and get any more soaked. Better to wait a while. After the five o'clock rush, taxis would be more readily available, and she would only have to make a single quick rush to the curb.

As she jogged across the street towards the small caf that the precinct's denizens favored, the prospect seemed even more appealing. Hot coffee, a chance to unwind a little, talk to the guys without the words 'file' or 'search' ever entering the conversation. Hell, she might even indulge in a donut. She had lost three pounds over the last twelve days just because of the amount of coffee she had been drinking to handle the precinct's frenetic pace. It wasn't as though she couldn't afford the calories. Definitely a donut. With chocolate icing, she decided defiantly. Maybe even sprinkles.

She breathed a sigh of relief as she pulled open the door, the jingle of the bell sounding like the music of angels to her dripping ears. The scent of coffee and the diner staples of hamburgers, fries, and pizza wafted warmly through the air, and she breathed deeply. Eager to shed the sodden windbreaker, she took hold of her zipper and began to remove the dripping garment. The jacket came open exactly six inches before she promptly zipped it up to her chin again. Her wet shirt had taken on a remarkable degree of transparency, and she didn't think that the guys needed to know what brand of brassier she wore.

Thankful that her dark complexion would hide her embarrassed blush, she quickly slid into a seat at the counter. The attendant had enough hair showing at the collar of his tee-shirt to qualify him as the missing link, but a surprising lack of the same on his scalp. Not the most appetizing sight she had ever seen, but she was too wet to care. He winced sympathetically as he looked at her. "Cuppa coffee?"

Elaine nodded. "Thanks. Do you have real milk?"

He grinned, a gold-capped front tooth catching the fluorescent light. "None of that powdered crap here, Miss..."

"Besbriss."

"Non-dairy substitute not good enough for you, Elaine? What's next, cappuccino?" Hearing the familiar voice behind her, she turned on the stool and slapped Louis Gardino lightly in the chest.

"I'm not that bad, Louie." She smiled at the gaudily dressed Italian, then noticed that both he and his partner were completely dry. Apparently, unlike her, they hadn't been forced into the diner for refuge. "What are you two doing here? I thought you preferred that deli up the road."

Huey shrugged. "Hey, this is Louis's idea."

"Gardino?" Taking the stool next to hers, the Detective leaned over in a conspiratorial manner, resting his elbows on the counter.

"Better entertainment here."

She frowned. "Entertainment?" Gardino's curly head nodded towards the booth in the corner, and she looked where he indicated, curious as to what kind of band or comedian would be desperate enough to play a corner diner for a bunch of exhausted cops.

The booth did not contain so much as a sidewalk musician, however. Instead, all she saw was the top of Detective Vecchio's thinning head over the back of the seat. He seemed to be in animated conversation with someone. Occasionally, his voice would rise in irritation over the babble of voices from the rain-swelled clientele of the establishment.

Curious, Elaine gestured towards the corner. "New date not going well?"

Huey and Gardino exchanged a positively evil grin. "You could say that." The two men motioned her down the line of stools, and she followed, hoping the attendant would see her change of location. She needn't have worried, as he simply slid the cup and saucer down to her new seat. Elaine wrapped her hands around the warm cup and reached to raise it to her mouth, but something on the surface of the brown liquid caught her eye, and she laughed.

Gardino looked curiously over her shoulder. "Something funny?"

"Happy face!" With the delighted grin of a little girl, she pointed at the coffee. There, on top, three small jets of whipped cream had been strategically placed. Two dots and a line. Her coffee was smiling. Gardino's face registered something akin to disappointment, and her dark eyes glittered. "What's wrong, Detective? Did you never get a happy face?"

He started to answer, but just then all three cop's attention was diverted from the whipped cream art. Vecchio's voice had risen loud enough to effortlessly overpower the other conversation. "Oh, and if we ask them nicely, they'll just give it to us?!"

Vecchio's ire seemed to be directed at the dark-haired woman sitting across from him. She had previously been obscured by the booth's high back, but now Elaine could see her clearly. The woman looked to be in her early thirties, her attractive face conservatively made-up, a taste reflected in her tailored, heather-gray business suit. She was slender and seemed petite, though not short, and Elaine reflected that if she were Vecchio, she wouldn't yell at a date like that.

On the other hand, her hazel eyes seemed to snap fire at the Detective, a fire that scorched across the room to make the Aide wince, though she wasn't the target. As Elaine took a better look at Vecchio's date, she began to seem familiar. She prodded Huey in the side, leaning close to whisper, "Hey, isn't that..."

"Fraser's new boss," he confirmed. "Vecchio calls her the Dragon Lady. Her name's Thatcher. Inspector Thatcher." The big Detective put a bitter emphasis on the rank, and she got the feeling that he didn't like her any more than the other man did.

The 'discussion' between Thatcher and Vecchio seemed to be growing in intensity, and Elaine watched in morbid interest. Huey had been right. This was the most interesting entertainment she had seen in a while. Thatcher clearly wasn't intimidated by Vecchio's impressive displays of temper, and she seemed to be matching him without hesitation. It was like watching a verbal fencing match...thrust, parry, thrust again.

Of course, Vecchio seemed to be using a pole ax to the Canadian's epee, but the effect was the same. The volume of both participants continued to rise, and the problem seemed to focus on a pile of papers in a file folder on the middle of the table. From the sound of things, Vecchio wanted to confront the individual discussed in the papers. 'Rough him up' until he 'coughed up exactly what he told those sons of bitches.' Thatcher was taking exception to his 'medieval American tactics', and pointing out that there was no point in interviewing the man other than to 'add to your juvenile hit list.'

Finally, Vecchio stood, lifting the files and dropping them with a resounding smack onto the formica table top. Some of the papers flew out from between the covers of the folder and wafted into the Inspector's lap. He snatched up his coat from the seat beside where he had been sitting, jamming his arms into the sleeves. Elaine winced at the look burning in his green eyes, praying that Thatcher would be smart enough to leave him alone. When he was in these moods, you just had to stand back and wait for things to cool off.

To her chagrin, Thatcher didn't seem to recognize that rule. She shoved the folder aside, crossing her arms and looking up at the tall Detective, a cold anger in her eyes. "Another tantrum, Vecchio? Why am I not surprised."

Bad move. The Italian whirled, his trenchcoat swirling behind him like a cape. Planting both hands on the table, he leaned close into the Inspector's face. "Benny's my best friend," he spat, "but right now, your whole damned country can just go screw itself!"

"No thank you." The polite words were filled with more venom than an Indian cobra farm.

"No?! Well just wait...you keep sitting on your bureaucratic asses, and someone else will do it for you!" With that parting shot, he stormed out of the diner, uncaring that he held no protection against the driving rain.

A silence settled over the patrons of the diner, a silence finally broken by a hushed observation from Detective Huey. "Things are not looking good for the home team."

***

"You know, Benton, I might actually need to thank you for this." Ma Vecchio laughed lightly as she pulled the needle through the pillowcase one last time. It was a needlepoint design she had intended to finish for over twenty-seven years. Unfortunately, there hadn't seemed to be a single spare moment since Francesca's birth, and the project had languished forgotten in the bottom of a closet. Until, that is, she had taken to spending six hours a day in a lonely hospital room, keeping vigil over her adopted son.

"I haven't had this much spare time in years, Maria has finally gotten Tony to help out around the house, and Frannie has become quite the responsible little homemaker." Ma Vecchio sighed and patted Ben lightly on the cheek, but her slight smile soon faded entirely. She slipped the finished pillowcase into her large purse and closed the flap. As she wound the remaining thread into neat skeins, she spoke quietly with the comatose Mountie.

"But Raymondo...oh, Benton, poor Raymondo. He's so worried about you. It makes him angry at everyone, because there's nothing else he can do." She shook her head sadly. "He was like this after he shot you, too. I know you probably didn't notice...you were hurt, and that horrible woman had broken your heart. He came home that first night, and he cried, Benton, he really did. Locked the door so I wouldn't know, but I've kept a key to his room ever since he was sixteen and tried to sneak Irene Zuko in through his window. I went in, and he told me he thought he'd killed you."

Ma took his hand in her own, smiling sadly. Like her son, this was a boy who had known hardship before. "He had a bottle. I took it away, but I was so afraid. I knew if you died from that bullet, it would be just like his father, hiding everything at the bottom of the bottle. When Mr. Zuko moved into town, our business failed, and from then on it was all Finnelli's and drink for my husband, trying to pretend he still was somebody."

Her voice swelled with pride and sorrow in equal measures. "My little Raymondo had to be a big man so soon. He's a hard worker, Benton. Did you know he got his first job when he was ten? He shined shoes on Michigan Avenue after school. That horrible Zuko boy, Frankie, would always come by and ask Raymondo to give him a shine, and always showing off brand new shoes. Raymondo would do it...he was a good worker, but he would never take the money. Never take Zuko money." She smiled softly. "That was when he started watching the cops. His father hated them, but my boy saw that they did something against the Zukos that his father never could."

Ever so gently, she turned his hand over in her own, running her blunt fingers over each line and callus. "He admires you, Benton. He'll never say it, but he admires you...and he's a little jealous, too. He's jealous of your father." She paused, shrugging in admittance, "I know, I know...he was never there. Left you and your mother up there with the moose. I tell you, your mother was a saint. I'd have shot the man and moved to Florida the first winter."

Her voice softened again. "But he gave you a path to follow. You had somebody to look at and say 'that is what I want to do. That is the man I want to be like.' Raymondo didn't have footsteps to follow. He had to go his own way, and that is never an easy thing to do. He's jealous that you had a path laid out, and he admires how you followed it. The way you can look at people and know their hearts, but not let the bad things in them touch you. The way you never lose your temper, never doubt what is right and what is not."

Ma's dark eyes shone as she leaned over and kissed him lightly in the center of his forehead. "Don't worry, I won't tell him you're just another man. I know, Benton, I know you have doubts. I see them sometimes in those pretty eyes of yours. Times when Chicago is so very big, and you think you are all by yourself here." She straightened up, her tone becoming a bit reproachful.

"You're not. Never, never, never. You can always come to us, Benton. Always. You're my son now, and I will never close my door to you. If you need a place to stay, something to eat, someone to talk to..." A mischievous grin appeared, crinkling the skin around her eyes. "And if you ever are feeling that you need a wife, my Francesca is very willing. If you ever so much as smile at her - and I mean a real smile, where she can see those adorable dimples that I know you have - she will be down on her knees proposing to you!"

She laughed, but the mirth was short-lived. The atmosphere was too solemn, too inured with fear and uncertainty to allow it to last for long. Ever since the close call a week before, Ma had waited at his bedside in a vigil of fear, always expecting it to happen again. Any slight fluctuation in the rhythm of his breathing or heartbeat sent her running to the doctors, and she had even brought a small crucifix to hang over his bed. Ma wasn't entirely sure Benton was Christian, but she figured that it couldn't hurt.

There had been no further scares like the last one, but the doctors had been a little too reserved in their prognosis for her tastes. She had the feeling they were holding something back, and she wanted to know what that something was. More importantly, she wanted to know how that something might affect her Benton. Reaching into her bag for her glasses, she scrutinized the pale form in the bed, trying to see if anything had changed since the day before.

He hadn't moved, but she thought that perhaps his color was a little better. At least he wasn't blue any more. Even the improvement she thought she saw was very little, though, and the smooth, little-boy face was looking dreadfully gaunt. She felt along his side, and was horrified to realize that she could make out ribs through the cloth gown. Ma resolved to speak to the doctors about that. The poor man came close enough to starving himself when he was awake. He kept practically nothing in his refrigerator and never took seconds when he came to dinner . She wasn't going to have them finish the job at the hospital.

Still, she decided to count her blessings. He was still alive, and the doctors said that his chances of surviving improved every day. For that, she was very grateful.

Hearing the door open, she turned to see who had come to visit. She hoped it was that other young Mountie...Renfield, his name had been. He was a kind boy, every bit as gentlemanly as Benton, and she enjoyed the conversations they had held.

This time, though, it wasn't him, but a nurse. Ma smiled warmly at her. She hadn't met this woman before, but recognized her from Frannie's descriptions as a familiar face on the night shift. It wasn't hard to pick her out. The woman was every bit as tall as Raymondo, and a good deal heavier. Her hair had been dyed to a rich coal black in defiance of the gray imparted by the same years that had etched lines into her face. That face seemed set in a permanent scowl, and Ma got the feeling that very few patients ever argued with this woman.

As she bustled into the room, pushing a small cart of supplies, Ma got a look at her nametag. 'L. Callard.' Mrs. Callard seemed quite shaken by something, anger, resentment, and hurt visible in equal measures in her brown eyes. A sudden wave of fear swept over her, and Ma suddenly wondered if there was bad news. "Is there something wrong?"

"Just more of those damned reporters," Callard snapped. "I got rid of them, don't worry." With brusque, efficient movements that told of years of experience, she began to change Benton's IV bag.

"Thank you," Ma said, moving back to allow the nurse to come around to her side of the bed and check the various equipment attached to the Mountie. "I don't like those people poking around here."

This seemed to strike a cord with the nurse, and a strange burst of mixed emotion flashed across her face, but was gone as quickly as it had appeared. "I can't stand those sons of bitches. Always skulking around, trying to take advantage of people when they're hurt and vulnerable. I hope..." Her voice trailed off, and she shook her head sharply. "Never mind."

The silence hung tensely between the two women for several more seconds, then Callard awkwardly asked, "So, is this your son?"

"Not exactly," Ma smiled, brushing back one dark curl that had fallen over Benton's forehead. In the two weeks since the accident, he hadn't received a haircut, and his carefully cropped hair had lengthened enough that it was beginning to form ringlets. Personally, she thought it looked charming, but she knew it would be far too unkempt for his tastes. "His family is all dead. My son's a policemen, and they're partners...we've adopted him in a manner of speaking." She looked up, meeting the other woman's eyes. "I do love him, though."

"Ah." Finished with her tasks, Callard placed the empty IV bags on her cart and wheeled it back towards the door. Her hand was on the knob when she suddenly turned back, almost desperate curiosity visible in her expression. "Mrs..."

"Vecchio."

"Mrs. Vecchio. Are..." The nurse blushed and looked away, "this is probably going to sound ridiculous, but what color are Mr. Fraser's eyes?"

"Blue." Ma cocked her head and stood up, trying to read the other woman. "Why do you ask?"

"Blue." Callard repeated the word softly, her eyes no longer seeing the room or Ma, but focused completely on Benton. "Is it a very light blue?"

"No," She replied slowly, "more of a royal blue."

"Yes. Royal blue...and when the light shines on them a certain way, they can be almost gray, or almost turquoise, but they are always bright. He's always smiling." Something told Ma that Callard was no longer talking about Benton, and she stood, walking to stand beside the nurse.

"Not often." Ma corrected quietly. "I think it's because he's lonely here. He's from Canada, you know."

"Always smiling and laughing. And singing...he had a band, and he thought he could make something of himself. He had a beautiful voice. You would listen to him forever, and he could talk a snake into buying shoes. But he was so kind. So kind and so brave." Callard's eyes gleamed with tears in the harsh hospital lighting, and Ma gently lay one hand on her massive arm.

"Your son?"

"Benjamin." She smiled ruefully, swiping at her eyes almost harshly. "Ironic, isn't it? Another Ben. Maybe the name is cursed."

"He died, didn't he?"

"Vietnam. Twenty years ago." Callard shut her eyes tightly, her face crumpling in pain. "I can still see him. He looked...he looked so much like this. Like an angel. His hair was almost black, it was so dark, but his skin was so fair...I could never keep sunscreen on him, and he burned so easily. I...I sent him off to Vietnam with thirty bottles, but I doubt he used one. And blue eyes. Such beautiful blue eyes. Royal blue."

Ma wrapped her arms around the larger woman, her own throat thick with sympathy. "I'm so sorry."

Callard's voice became defensive suddenly, and Ma felt her tense. "He wanted to go. He wasn't like so many of those other boys, out there burning draft cards and flags and everything. Benjamin was so patriotic. He believed it, really BELIEVED that he was doing a wonderful thing for the free world. He went, and three months later they called me."

"To say he was dead."

"No." Her tone was bitter. "Missing in action. I didn't know he was dead for another two months. I was on the El, and there was a man standing there holding a poster. I almost passed it, but then I stopped and looked. It was a picture, a black and white picture of a dead boy in the jungle. They had to put a black box over half his face to hide where it had all been burned up, but it was Ben. My son." Her voice choked off, and she shook her head, unable to continue.

"My boy is a policeman." Ma spoke quietly. "Every day he goes out, I am afraid he won't come back. I listen to the scanner, and when I hear there is an officer down, I think my heart is going to stop. Raymondo's even been shot...twice. Hurt many times more than that. Each time, I don't think I'll be able to let him go out again, but I know he has to. Someone has to, and if it's not my son, it will be someone else's son. If I ever lost him, though...." She shuddered. "I can't imagine."

"You feel like someone has reached inside you and torn out everything. There's nothing left." Her voice was hollow. "The worst part about it was that it was an anti-war poster. Ben had gone out and laid down his life for his country, but those people were using him for something else entirely. Just because of that angel face, they were using him to defy the country he gave everything for."

"And you're not going to let that happen again."

"Never! They want to take his picture while he's helpless like this." She moved to the foot of Benton's bed, looking at him with maternal protective instinct blazing from her. "They want to use those pictures to help destroy him." She paused, then continued again, her voice trembling. "I don't know if what they're saying is true or not. I don't know this man. But I know I'm not going to let them do what they did to my boy. They'll have to kill me first."

Gently, Ma smiled, "That's a little extreme, don't you think?"

"No."

***

THE NEXT AFTERNOON

DAY 12

***

They still hadn't replaced the window.

Ray looked up through the windshield of the Riv as he pulled into the school parking lot. The jagged edges of the glass were still there in the frame. The hole itself had been crossed with yellow police tape in a futile attempt to muzzle the sharp-toothed maw that had taken his friend. His motions were automatic as he parked the car, his attention completely focused on the wounded building.

It would be at least another month before the cops cleared out. In the meantime, most of the students had traded in the three R's for the three S's. Shrinks, screams, and shattered innocence. Their frightened faces were burned into Ray's memory. The sight of the bullish linebacker - who would have easily been able to snap the Detective in two - sobbing freely as he carried the team's wounded waterboy. The shy, freckled girl who had never been known to speak three words together...until she led her entire class to crawl under the tables to the cafeteria kitchen and out a maintenance entrance. The reed-thin boy who needed three men to hold him back because his brother was still in there. Even to a hardened cop, it was the stuff of nightmares.

Squad cars and Detective's private vehicles choked the parking lot as Ray walked towards the school. He flashed his badge briefly at the rookie flatfoot guarding the perimeter, then stepped into the place where the ordeal had begun.

The cops, with their tweezers and cameras and forensic experts all seemed to vanish. He could hear the sirens again, the terrified screams and hollow reassurances of the students, the shouted orders of the cops. Standing on the basketball court, looking up towards the window, the yellow tape seemed to vanish. The window was whole again, and behind it he could see Benny, strong and healthy, grappling with a demon in camouflage. The ghostly images of his memory played back their struggle, then the sudden, gut-wrenching lurch, the sound of a life shattering with the glass. Then the impact.

Ray involuntarily looked towards the foul line, where Benny had landed. Only the outlines were there now, white lines on dark concrete. Wandering over, he stared in macabre fascination at the tracings. The one on the left had to be Benny, but the artist had it wrong. The Mountie was a little taller than the line drawing suggested, a little broader across the shoulders - as Ray had learned on one occasion when it had taken him a full box of Kleenex to get the red serge to even nominally fit him. Oddly, he smiled at the memory. After all the ribbing he'd given his sister over the years, if Frannie ever found out that he had stuffed a shirt with tissues...

"Hey, you're Vecchio, right?" The voice intruded on Ray's thoughts, and he turned. The man who had spoken was leaning against the basketball pole, hands in his pockets. Unlike the sharply dressed Italian, this man displayed the fashion sensibilities of a rebellious teen. Faded blue jeans and a gray tee-shirt were tight against a build that was slim to the point of being skinny, yet not sickly, as the arms were corded with wiry muscles. A leather jacket was slung over one shoulder, and even his hair seemed to have gotten into the rebel-without-a-cause look, gelled and sprayed to blond spikes. The only flaw in this image was the thick, dark-framed glasses that seemed too large for the angular face, rimming the blue-gray eyes with Clark Kent incongruity.

Having caught Ray's attention, the man left the pole and began to walk over, withdrawing a hand from his pocket to remove the glasses. Slipping them in the neckline of his tee-shirt, he extended the hand to Ray. "I'm Detective Kowalski, 54^th. The, uh, the guys are tellin' me you worked with the Mountie. Partners, sorta." A lop-sided grin appeared on Kowalski's face, and Ray wondered what exactly 'the guys' had been saying.

Shaking the smaller man's hand firmly, Ray nodded, forcing down the melancholy attitude that had been forming. "Yeah." He looked around curiously, noting for the first time how few of the cops he recognized. "They bring a lot of you guys over?"

Kowalski shrugged. "Dozen, I guess. Pulled 'em from a couple of shifts. I hear they did it at the 33^rd and the 14^th, too."

Impressed, Ray realized that there were probably twenty officers on the scene. Clearly, the city of Chicago did not want to appear to be putting anything less than the maximum into an already horrific crime that had developed into a major international mess. Yet pulling that many from any one precinct - including the 27^th - during any one shift would break the back of the work force, leaving them nothing to handle their own problems. "Found anything yet?"

"You mean about the kid? Yeah. Lotsa stuff. Not so much on the Mountie yet. Wanna go look?" The other Detective nodded his head towards the school.

For a moment, Ray almost turned him down. He didn't want to go in there. Never again. He didn't think it would be possible to scrub a place like that clean again. He knew that no matter how much bleach had been used, he would always see the red smears on the tile and walls. Still, he knew that he needed to go up there. He'd called things off with the Dragon Lady, and with Welsh banning him from the investigation from that end, this was the only way he could get anything done. "Sure."

Each one of Kowalski's movements seemed like a controlled explosion as he led the way into the school, barely contained energy bubbling from him in palpable waves. Wryly, Ray thought that if Benny were here, this guy would exhaust him inside of ten minutes. It had taken the Canadian long enough to adjust to his own expressive nature. Mr. James Dean here would be enough to cause the ultra-reserved Mountie to completely decompensate.

Both men had to flash their badges a second time to gain entry into the building, and Kowalski began to narrate the sights they passed. "First shots fired here. Stitched a line of lockers, hit three kids. Single burst, he had it in automatic. Blood spatter and witnesses say he held them there for a couple seconds. Screamin' all this shit about lookin' for his girl. Seems he was dating this girl, but he wanted to go farther than she did, and she dumped him for this football jock." Something about Kowalski's tone suggested that female rejection was a familiar situation, and in a flash of inspiration, Ray suddenly wondered if State's Attorney Stella Kowalski had ever been married to this guy. He knew she was divorced, but despite being a serious babe, she had a definite thing against cops.

Ray decided not to pursue it, however, and put his attention back to following Kowalski's narration. "Held a gun to one kid's head, and he told the creep where he'd last seen the chick...Kim. Kim Weaver, I think. Anyway, he sets off, and she's not where the kid had said. Boom, boom, boom." He pointed to a row of bullet holes that had devastated the trophy case. "Still on automatic. Takes out the trophies, then turns on the others again. Same story; where's Kim. He downs four more, and promises to kill everyone if anyone moves, or if they've lied. Puts a bomb up here." Kowalski thumped the top of a locker.

Frowning, Ray thought back to the day of the massacre. "I don't remember a bomb."

"Wasn't a threat for long. One of the boys there had the guts to check it out after Mr. Psycho was gone. For all his ammo, he couldn't follow instructions, apparently. He'd botched the detonator, and the whole shebang was disarmed in five minutes by a freshman who was pulling C's in shop." The two cops shared a small smile at the strange and morbid twists of fate that so often disrupted criminal endeavors.

The tour led them to a bend in the hallway, and Kowalski's focus shifted to the floor. "We found prints in the blood. Your Mountie stopped here," he pointed to a place just behind where the hall bent towards the window, "right around the corner. Stayed a while...minute and a half, we guess. The forensic people say they can tell by how much the blood congealed under his boots. Our gunman is around that corner at the end of the hall. He's got Kim up against the jock's locker, tellin' her he wants the ring back, but he's already gone and killed three, plus plugged another four. Still on full automatic. Just sprayed the whole bunch as they tried to run, then kept the wounded, Kim, and a couple others as hostages."

Crouching, Ray examined the tile where Benny had waited, looking around from that vantage. There was no way the Canadian could have seen what was happening around the corner from his position. That seemed to support the press's argument that he had rushed blindly into the situation, but the wait, on the other hand, indicated otherwise. He tried to put himself into his friend's shoes -- or boots, as the case might be. If he were Benny, what would he have done?

The answer did not come easily. On one hand, the Mountie could be almost fanatical about protocol and caution at times. More occasions than he cared to think of, the Detective had been held back from some rash action by the sensible words and firm hand of his friend. On the other hand, however, Benny had been known to pull a few pretty crazy stunts himself. A memory came to mind of an incident where he had played what appeared to the cop to be a game of Russian roulette with a hysterical bank robber who was holding a gun to Ray's own head. It had come out well, but what if she hadn't responded as Benny had calculated she would? People could do crazy things sometimes. What if her bullet had passed a half-inch lower? Then a perforated hat would have been the least of his friend's worries.

He was thinking like the press! Ray cursed as he stood, shaking his head as if to dispel the treasonous thoughts. Benny was just not the kind of guy who would endanger a bunch of kids with reckless behavior. Himself, sure. His partner, sometimes. Kids? Never. He moved briskly around the corner, not really caring if his 'guide' followed.

Ray stopped short as he rounded the corner. The window gaped before him at the end of the hall. Again, the memory invaded his mind...the crash of the shattering pane, the almost slow-motion appearance of the two bodies, locked together as they fell. The impact that had crushed the boy's skull in a burst of bright red blood. Benny's face, reddened with abrasions as he tried for that split second to rise, then fallen helplessly back to the asphalt. The cop closed his eyes, trying to shut it all out.

"You ok?" It was Kowalski. Taking a deep breath, Ray opened his eyes, forcing a weak smile as he turned to look at the other Detective.

"Yeah, fine."

Kowalski held Ray's gaze for an awkward moment, then both men looked away. "That's...uh, that's the window." His voice was tight, unsure of what to say. It was a tone Ray knew well from the last several days. When a man's partner was dead, everyone knew what to do. When he was simply wounded, protocol was likewise quite simple. When he was hovering on a strange threshold between the two, and all on live TV...there weren't any rules for that.

"That is the window." A long silence hung in the air for several seconds, so oppressive that a young cop who had been coming their way abruptly reconsidered, turned, and left.

Finally, it was too much. "So, from here we've got a pretty good picture." There was a forced brusqueness to Kowalski's tone, as he tried to ignore the solemnity of their surroundings and get down to business. "The kids say that there was this crash from the hall, and the creep called for whoever it was to show. The Mountie stepped out, and he seemed to get a real kick out of that. Callin' him Dudley Do-Right, trying to force him to choose which hostage would die first. Then he pointed the gun at the Mountie, and the kids swear that a wolf jumped out from around the corner there."

"Half-wolf, actually. His name is Diefenbaker."

"No kidding?" Kowalski's head cocked curiously. "Wow. I thought we were just talkin' big puppy here." There was a pause, then the lanky Detective continued. "So Diefenbaker jumps him, and gets knifed up pretty bad. Drops the gun though, and that gives your guy the chance to tackle him. They rumble a bit, then..." His voice trailed off, his eyes wandering towards the window.

"Then Fraser slipped on something..."

"Blood." Kowalski offered.

"Blood. And they went out the window."

"Yeah. 'Bout like that." Both men were now standing at the broken window, looking out onto the busy scene below. Neither looked directly down, ignoring the basketball court that lay there.

A scuffle erupted near the break in the yellow perimeter tape where the cops went in and out of the scene, catching the attention of the two cops in the window. A woman with a bulky camera hanging around her neck was trying to get in, and the rookie who had checked Ray's badge was trying to keep her out. Ray heard Kowalski snort in disgust. "They've been tryin' to get in here from day one. This one probably says she's got a signed permission slip from the Queen or something."

"Press?" It was really an unnecessary question.

"Who else?" Suddenly, Kowalski turned away from the opening, slamming one fist into his other hand in an explosive gesture of anger. "Damn!" Ray just watched as the smaller man stalked from one side of the narrow hallway to the other. He stopped, bracing himself against one of the lockers, getting control over what was clearly a formidable temper. When he spoke again, his voice was tight, the anger bubbling just under the surface.

"I, uh, I was on a scene like this a while ago. Little kid being held hostage in this warehouse down by the docks. I kinda got on the wrong side of a bullet, and when I got out of the hospital, they hadn't even spelled my damn name right in the papers." He shook his head in disgust. "Man, if that was my partner, I don't care if he was from Mars, I'd be out there kickin' some heads, findin' out what the hell happened."

Ray felt like telling this young punk exactly what he'd been doing. Putting up with the Dragon Lady and her ridiculous Canadian bureaucracy. Trying to weasel his way around Welsh's ban, pulling in every favor he was ever owed to try and find out information that he normally wouldn't even have to ask for. His own temper began to heat, riled by the audacity of this cop trying to tell him that he wasn't doing enough. "Hey," he warned, "Fraser's my partner. I'm doing everything..."

"Then how come none of us have seen you around here?"

"Maybe because my Lieutenant pulled me from the case because I was kickin' heads?!" Ray's tone was intense, challenging as he stared fiercely into the blue eyes.

The look was held for a long moment, then Kowalski looked away. "Oh." He rubbed at his ear in a gesture that suddenly and powerfully reminded Ray of his Canadian partner. That gesture was so typical of the Mountie that he often wondered how it was Benny had an ear or an eyebrow left on that side. "So, I guess your thing here isn't, y'know, totally official."

"You mean that Welsh would bust my ass if he knew? Yeah." A brief grin flashed between the two cops, a shared acceptance that sometimes you had to break the rules to play the game.

They began to make their way back out of the school, walking in silence most of the way. As they reached the stairwell, Ray suddenly remembered what he had found there and stopped short. He couldn't go that way. Thankfully, Kowalski didn't question his sudden course change. The smaller man nearly had to jog to follow the long, rapid strides, but Ray didn't really care. Finally, Kowalski gave in and did jog a few steps, pulling him alongside. "So, the Mountie...does he really, y'know, eat mud and all? The guys were talking..."

One side of Ray's mouth twitched up in a half-smile. Apparently, he and Benny were getting quite the reputation. "Licks it, yeah. He'll put damned near anything in his mouth."

"That's disgusting!"

"He's Canadian."

Kowalski seemed to accept this explanation. "You and the Mountie...you guys work together long?"

"'Bout a year. I helped him with a case when he first showed up down here, though." Ray reached the doors that would lead out of this hall of nightmares, but stopped. Turning to Kowalski, he fished a card out of his wallet and handed it to him. "I'm not on this case officially, but if you've got anything that you just have got to get off your chest..."

He let the words hang in the air, and the other Detective grinned in understanding. "Unofficially, of course."

"Of course. You could call me if anything like that came up."

"On one condition."

"What's that?"

Kowalski shoved the card into a pocket of his blue jeans. "You find the jerks who are screwing your partner in the papers, you kick them in the head for me."

"No problem."

***

"He can't see me." Constable Benton Fraser leaned down again, waving a hand in front of the Riv's windshield. Inside the car, Ray's face displayed no reaction, as the Mountie had assumed it would have had he seen a hand and red-serge-clad arm reach down from the roof. He tried knocking on the glass, but it had no effect. Although he could feel the windshield against his knuckles when he tapped, there was no sound.

Frustrated, he sat up again, allowing his booted feet to dangle over the edge of the Riv's roof. His father sat next to him, a smug expression on his face. "Satisfied, son?"

"Not entirely." The younger man's blue eyes displayed the unmitigated stubbornness that would have caused Ray Vecchio - or anyone else who knew him - to simply give up and let him have his way. The man sharing the roof of the Riv, however, had the same mulish streak, and matched Benton effortlessly. Blue diamond to blue diamond, neither able to scratch the other.

Finally, it was Benton who sighed and looked away. They had tried this first with Fracesca, then Ma Vecchio, then the consular staff, and now with his partner. It was painfully obvious that it was not a matter of receptiveness, conditions, or will power. He was simply invisible. As the results of that realization passed over the handsome face, his father patted him on the shoulder. "Don't take it so hard. There are advantages to a spectral state, you know."

"Such as?"

A positively impish look flashed in the Sergeant's eyes for a split second, then he stood. For a moment, Benton looked at him in confusion, then suddenly Robert Fraser stuck his arm out into traffic. His son lunged to pull him to safety, but it was too late. A large semi truck passed the Riv closely, slamming right into the Mountie's outstretched arm. It didn't seem to bother him in the slightest. The truck passed by, and he regarded the limb calmly, flexing his fingers. "Try it, son." He smiled, putting his arm out again, this time to be impacted by a young man in a pickup. "Great fun."

Benton wasn't entirely sure if he technically still had a heart, but if he did, it was racing. "Don't do that to me, Dad!"

"Do what?" A good look at his son's face told him exactly what. "Good grief, Benton, this?" He put it out lower, within range of two small sports cars.

"Yes, that!"

"Why on earth not?"

"Because..." The younger Mountie took off his Stetson, running a hand through his dark hair. "Because it's dangerous." He paused. "Well, maybe not precisely dangerous, but..."

"Disquieting?" By now, Robert Fraser seemed to have tired of passing through cars and had gone back to sitting next to the other man on the car's roof.

"As a matter of fact, yes."

"I understand. The first time I walked through a wall...well, there's nothing quite like it. Your instincts keep telling you that you're going to smack right into the bricks, then you're through, and there you are." He spread his hands amiably, clearly not seeing how his own flesh and blood could find permeability such a daunting prospect.

"You just...walk through it?" Benton's voice was skeptical.

"Just walk through it, son."

Benton almost extended his arm, but his hand had barely risen from the car roof when he stopped. His father frowned, but he examined the hand closely, not noticing the look of disapproval. "Are you certain?"

"Of course I'm certain!" He waved a hand through a stoplight post for emphasis. "Would you like me to go stand in front of the El to prove it?"

"No, that's won't be necessary. I'm simply concerned about my status."

"Your status?"

"Well, yes. I'm not precisely dead..."

"You're here with me, though."

"True."

"And most people sitting on top of a 1971 Buick Riviera traveling at thirty miles an hour would at least get their hair mussed." Sure enough, not a single iron gray nor deep brown hair was out of place.

Benton licked one finger, extending it into the air. He didn't feel even the slightest breeze, and so resorted to counting parking meters against the second hand of his wristwatch. "I think he's speeding."

"What?"

"You said thirty miles per hour. That is the posted speed limit. However, if you were to look, I think you would find that Detective Vecchio is traveling at nearly forty-five. Clearly speeding."

The elder Mountie consulted his own watch. "Great scott, son, you're right!"

"Thank you."

"You should ticket him." Reaching into his belt pouch, his father rummaged to find a ticket booklet. "You'll need your own pen. I seem to have left mine in my other coat."

"I can't."

The Sergeant looked aghast. "He's putting innocent lives at risk!"

"I'm aware of that, Dad, and I have told him on several occasions about the need to be more conscientious about his vehicular habits, but he simply will not listen to me. Besides, he can't see me." Benton thumped again on the roof for emphasis.

"Oh. True enough." He paused a moment, then seemed to remember his previous line of conversation. "But the point is, son, you're here. Enjoy it while you can. Maybe not a walk through walls, but you're more or less dead! Live it up a little! Kiss that Inspector of yours!"

Aghast, the younger Fraser turned to regard his father. "She's my superior officer!"

Robert Fraser shrugged. "Your mother was once named temporary head of the Inuvik detachment. She and Kate Frobisher had to keep watch over the whole group of us while we were in quarantine over that nasty caribou grease incident. And I did a lot more than kiss her, I tell you!"

A bright blush colored Benton's cheeks, but he didn't back down. "That was different."

"How so?"

"She was your wife, for one. Besides, the commision was temporary. Inspector Thatcher is a career officer. And even if she wasn't..." He trailed off, and his father seized on the opportunity like a wolf after a wounded arctic hare.

"What?"

"I have good reason to believe that she hates me!" The words burst out quickly, and it felt good to finally say them to someone. A feeling of bold defiance that left him almost giddy.

"You, son? Ridiculous. You've been the model officer." He shook his head and waved a dismissive hand. "No, no, she's got it bad for you. Playing hard to get. That's all. You should have seen her last night. Went home and couldn't stop talking about you, even though the only one listening was her cat."

"What exactly was she saying, Dad?"

"Oh, that she wanted you transferred to the depths of hell if you ever recovered, and that she wanted to..." He stopped, then realized perhaps he wasn't aiding his cause. "That's not important. What matters is that she was thinking of you!"

"I'm her fellow officer and direct subordinate. I'm currently very seriously injured, not to mention the cause of a rather unfortunate public relations dilemma. Of course she's thinking of me."

His father remained stubbornly fixed to his opinion. "It's love, son. Just wait."

"Oh, please." Disgusted and more than a little embarrassed, Benton hopped off the Riv and walked away. His father watched as he disappeared through traffic, still ducking the cars out of habit. As soon as the red serge was out of sight, he rolled over onto his stomach and pounded on the driver's side window. "Hey, Yank!"

The Detective looked in his direction, and his green eyes flew wide as dinner plates. Emitting a shriek that was decidedly unbecoming to a grown member of the Chicago PD, he spun the steering wheel of the Riv and threw the old car into a side alley. He had barely slammed it into park when he was out the door, gun drawn and pointing at the top of the car. The cop couldn't see Robert Fraser standing behind him as he looked around, searching for the old Mountie who had been riding his car. Finally, his shaking hands holstered the weapon, and he leaned wearily against the side of the car, muttering something about bad coffee and not enough sleep.

The ghost in question simply set off to follow his son. Best to tell the lad that coma patients apparently didn't get the full benefits package before he tried anything stupid. He just hoped Benton hadn't tried the wall thing yet.

***

Captain Peter LeMatt leaned back against the wall, his thick arms folded loosely across the broad chest that strained at his Chicago PD SWAT team tee-shirt. "Hey, I like the guy. Never said I didn't. He carries my mother's groceries every Saturday at the Shop N Save for God's sake. Nice guy." He looked around at the other cops in the lunch room. The looks he got from over the styrofoam lips of coffee mugs and the crusts of sandwiches could have frozen Vesuvius.

LeMatt was on the defensive, and he knew it. The cops here at the 27th might as well re-name themselves the Benton Fraser appreciation society. In that atmosphere, he knew his opinions were more than unpopular, but damn if it didn't feel good to get them off his chest. The truth was that he couldn't stand the Mountie. Every night, he went to bed hoping that it was all some nightmare induced by bad maple syrup, and every morning, he woke up again to find that red-coated thorn in his side again.

Didn't the idiot have his own job? Didn't he have a life? Hell, even LeMatt saw the dispatcher's and secretary's heads turning every time the Mountie passed by, so why didn't he shack up with one of them? Do anything, ANYTHING to keep him out of the 27th. Anything to keep him from being more of an embarrassment.

The last budget meeting had cemented it. For as long as he had been in command, the ex-SEAL had never had any problems obtaining funds and equipment for his team. No one ever questioned them, because they were simply the best. Hostage situation? Suicide threat? Call the SWAT team. That had always been the way it worked. The detectives and beat cops called the SWAT, they responded with their beautiful, state of the art tactics and equipment, and they resolved the situation. Even Vecchio knew that, though he had been at odds with him from day one, when LeMatt - only two hours into his new position at the Chicago PD - had put the detective on report for unprofessional conduct.

But not since Fraser. He'd had his fingers in all the wrong pies ever since the Canuk got himself transferred down to the Windy City. Within a few weeks, he'd gotten on the bad side of the FBI, suddenly deciding that a foreigner had the right to purposely interfere with an American federal agency. He'd read the reports on the whole mess with Charlie Wong. Insanity. That's all it was, pure insanity.

He hadn't gotten any better, either. LeMatt had made a point of reading all the case files that Vecchio and the Mountie turned in, and some of them curdled his blood. Hostage situations. Suicide/homicide attempts. A performance arsonist. Smuggling mob targets. They'd done them all, and all without calling the SWAT team once. He had wondered how much longer the Canadian's luck would hold, and now he had his answer. "The guy's just got a Superman complex," he shrugged, "thinks that little red coat of his makes him a superhero. I don't like to see him get hurt, but he was askin' for it, y'know?"

"No, I don't know, LeMatt." The burly SWAT captain didn't even have to turn to know who had just entered the lunchroom. "Why don't you enlighten me?"

"If it isn't Chicago's foremost second banana." He fished in his pockets for two quarters, which he dropped into the vending machine. Punching the button for a Coke, he looked casually over his shoulder at the lanky Italian. "How's the robbery case coming, Vecchio?"

The green eyes smoldered as Vecchio stepped up next to him and selected black coffee from the other machine. "None of your business." The dark brew steamed into the paper cup, and he crouched to remove the full cup from the opening, his trenchcoat fanning out like a cape behind him. Standing, he looked evenly up into the big captain's eyes. "Fraser aint none of your business either, Joe."

LeMatt's eyes narrowed at the nickname. The Detective didn't seem to realize that the man he had so offhandedly labeled 'G.I. Joe' knew dozens of ways to separate that balding head from that long, skinny neck with his bare hands. "Fraser's everyone's business, Vecchio. He's brought the heat down on all of us."

"Funny," Elaine Besbriss looked up from her crossword puzzle. "Seems cool enough to me."

"Positively frigid out there." This from Gardino.

The SWAT captain rolled his eyes in frustration. "Thank you kindly, peanut gallery. Hell, if we found out he was collecting human heads, you ass-kissers would say it was some fucking Inuit gig!"

"Hey!" Vecchio was suddenly pressed up against him, his steaming coffee held just over the other man's groin. The Detective's expression was that of a man itching to play a good game of chicken. "Watch your mouth, moron, there's ladies around."

"Ohhh," LeMatt laughed and took a step back. "Watch out everyone, Vecchio's pissed." He assumed a look of mock-contrition. "I'm sorry, did I insult your little Canuk friend? Forgive me, please. Such terrible manners." His voice lowered to a hiss. "I just get a little impolite when people nose in on my job and get kids killed."

"Like you weren't gonna go in and blow the son of a bitch's brains out!"

He drew himself up to his full, imposing height, looming over the Detective. "But we wouldn't have lost a cop in the process!"

"As if you give a shit about what happened to Benny."

""Benny?'" Putting his hands over his heart, LeMatt fluttered his eyelashes. "Oh, I forgot, he's 'Benny' to you. Your little playmate. You're sittin' in the same fucking sandbox, playing with lives the same fucking way."

Vecchio threw the coffee aside, ignoring Elaine's squeal as it nearly landed in the Civilian Aide's lap. He grabbed a hold of LeMatt's collar, drawing back his other fist. "Shut your mouth, Joe, or I'll shut it for you!"

"Touch a nerve, Vecchio?" He whispered, then loudly announced. "Looks like Frannie isn't the only Vecchio that Big Red's got wrapped around his finger." His voice dropped lower, so that only the Detective could hear him. "Or has he got you a little lower down?"

The smoldering embers in the green depths suddenly caught fire. LeMatt had known exactly what he was doing. If insulting the Italian's sister, partner, and manhood hadn't worked, Vecchio would have to be dead. Now he was going to get a chance to - if not undo the embarrassment he had suffered at the Mountie's hands - pound his partner into the ground.

***

There was a science to the construction of a particularly good sandwich. One did not place the lettuce directly on the bread, as that would cause drops of condensation from the cold, fresh lettuce - and the lettuce truly had to be cold and fresh - to make it soggy. Likewise, one never spread mustard or mayonnaise directly on the cold cuts, as the moisture in the meat would make the condiments ooze and clump out of control. Cheese was layered on either side of the meat, tomatoes precisely in the middle. When complete, the sandwich was cut in half. Not diagonally.

Lieutenant Harding Welsh contemplated the selection before him. The honey-baked ham should definitely go below the baby swiss, but above the provolone and roast turkey. He decided to layer the strongly flavored Genoa salami in the middle with the mild cheddar, and put the sprouts in the middle with the tomato. Dipping a knife into the pot of mayonnaise, he lifted one of the two thick halves of the Kaiser roll to begin.

He never got the chance.

A sudden explosion of noise from just outside his office diverted his attention from his own gastronomic pursuits, and he quickly abandoned his spread. Yanking the napkin from his collar, he charged out from behind the desk like a bull seeing Mountie-red. The venetian blinds on his door leapt and clattered as he threw the glass portal open, his eyes narrowing as he surveyed the squad room.

The bull pen itself didn't seem to have experienced much disturbance, and the interrogation rooms were soundproof, so that meant the lunchroom. As if to confirm his deduction, the double doors hurtled open, and the remarkably nimble forms of Jack Huey and Louie Gardino scrambled out in what was clearly a mad rush towards self-preservation. The swinging doors allowed more of the auditory ambiance of the lunchroom to escape, and Welsh winced. He could hear tables and chairs being slammed into and overturned, numerous male voices encouraging someone to 'give it to' someone else, and Elaine's voice over all, a futile plea for civilized behavior.

His heavy brow furrowed deeply as he stalked towards the scene. The occupants of the bull pen - cops and criminals alike - parted before him like the Red Sea before a particularly irate Moses. Large hands slammed into the doors of the lunchroom, throwing them open and exposing exactly what was happening within. "What in hell is going on in here!" He roared the words at the top of his considerable lungs, and the action in the room came to an abrupt halt.

The lunchroom appeared to have been the victim of a freak indoor tornado. Several lunches, cups of coffee, and sodas had been relocated from the tops of the upended tables to adorn the walls, floor, and several members of the Chicago PD. The leg of a chair was impaled through the glass front of the vending machine that dispensed pre-made sandwiches and fruit. A hole had been knocked in the plaster of one wall at approximately the level of a man's head. Most of the former diners were clustered in relative safety around the edges of the room, leaving the two culprits clear.

In the middle of the carnage, Detective First Class Raymond Vecchio and SWAT Captain Peter LeMatt stood as the clear bearers of guilt. This culpability was further enhanced by the somewhat unprofessional position they had frozen in upon Welsh's entrance.

Vecchio's right eye was swollen nearly shut, his large nose pouring blood down the front of his shirt. He appeared to have taken the worst of the brawl, as the white plaster dust on the back of his head indicated, as did the fact that he was currently held in a headlock by the larger man. However, he didn't seem to be a complete victim, as LeMatt's split lip evidenced. The small-caliber handgun pressed to the SWAT captain's groin also suggested that even without Welsh's intervention, either the fortunes of the disagreement would have soon changed, or LeMatt's sex life would have taken a sudden and dramatic turn downward.

The fierce combativeness blazing in the two men's eyes soon abated as they looked at the Lieutenant that stalked up to them like an approaching storm system. "Gentlemen." His voice was like the rumble before a tsunami. "My office. Now."

Fighting to keep his disgust and anger in check, Welsh turned and left the ruined lunchroom returning to his office. He could hear Vecchio and LeMatt following him, but he did not turn, letting them see nothing more than his broad back as they made their way back to the office. As they passed through the bull pen, he could see the looks of sympathy given to the two condemned men. He knew his face must hint at the disembowelment yet to come.

He held himself back as they stepped inside, Vecchio solemnly closing the door behind them. The man apparently didn't want his death broadcast so easily. Once they were all ensconced behind the glass walls, Welsh sat behind his desk, pushing aside the luncheon fixings so that he could have a place to rest his elbows as he stared up at the two men. They squirmed in front of him like schoolboys, and for a long moment, he let them stew in their own fear.

Finally, he spoke, keeping his voice deceptively cool. "I assume you have a reason for your behavior, gentlemen - and I use the term very loosely. A reason beyond, that is, your misguided desire to bring World Champion Wrestling to the precinct lunchroom."

LeMatt and Vecchio looked at each other, neither wanting to be the first to speak. After a few seconds of silence, the Detective decided to be the first to place his neck on the chopping block. "He started it, sir."

"How original, Vecchio."

"He did, sir!"

The other man made no protest, so Welsh assumed that the Italian was telling the truth. "Go on."

"He was..." Vecchio paused, clearly trying to find a professional way to say what he was thinking. "Making insinuations."

Welsh raised one eyebrow. "Insinuations?"

"Yes, sir."

"What kind of insinuations, Vecchio."

"Well..." The Detective squirmed uncomfortably.

LeMatt rolled his eyes. "His sister, sir."

"His sister?"

"Yes, sir. It's common knowledge she's got a thing for the Mountie. I made a comment about that, and Vecchio flipped out. The guy's got a temper that's completely out of control. I've been telling you that from the beginning." LeMatt's tone was calm and placating, clearly placing him as the misunderstood party in the Lieutenant's eyes.

Or at least, that was his intention. Welsh didn't buy it for a second, especially considering that Vecchio looked ready to rip out the SWAT captain's throat with his teeth. Well, he didn't buy that LeMatt had just 'made a comment' about Frannie. He did buy that the Italian had one hell of a temper. He leaned back, folding his hands behind his head. "I know you've got a beef with Vecchio. Everybody knows you two have got a beef. That doesn't mean you can go bustin' each other's heads in the lunchroom."

"Yes sir." The two guilty parties answered almost in perfect unison.

"Vecchio's a hothead. You know that, I know that, Vecchio knows that. You've gotta be some kind of serious idiot to go after his sister. Or the Mountie."

"I never--!"

"Cut the crap, LeMatt. Short fuse or not, Vecchio's not dumb enough to risk his shield if you hadn't been pushin' his buttons. You were pushing his buttons, weren't you?" It wasn't really a question.

"I wouldn't phrase it - "

"I'll take that as a yes." Welsh lifted a pickle from the paper plate, studying the way the light of his office reflected off the juicy spear. "This is not a playground or a schoolyard, gentlemen. You are not little Pete and Ray, scrapping over what was said about your kid sister. You're officers of the law. Now, the moment I see a jungle gym in the bull pen or a slide in the lunchroom, you may act as juvenile as you want. Until then, I expect adult behavior." He turned to look at the Detective. "How are you feeling, Vecchio?"

His response was a look of shock, and a touch of the bloody nose, as if he couldn't believe Welsh's concern. "Uh...fine, sir. Just a couple bumps and bruises."

"You're sick."

"Huh?"

"Cough, cough, Vecchio. Sick. Nasty case of two-weeks-unpaid-leave-your-shield-on-my-desk-itis. Very contagious. In fact, your behavior these past two weeks has been making ME sick, understood?"

A moment's look of dismay came over Vecchio's face, then he seemed to realize he was getting off very lightly. "Yes, sir." He reached into his pocket and pulled the gold badge from it's leather wallet, dropping it onto the desk."

Welsh picked up the shield and nodded to him. "Dismissed."

Both men turned to leave, but Welsh called out to stop them. "Not you, LeMatt. You're a LOT sicker."

The big SWAT captain stopped, his broad shoulders slumping slightly as the lanky Italian slipped past him into the free world. Welsh could swear he could hear the Detective whisper something far less than complementary, but he decided to let it slide. He had a few less than complimentary things to say himself.

***

"Hey Frannie, do you need any help with -" Maria pushed open the kitchen door with a boisterous shout, but what she saw made her stop immediately. The door swung shut, knocking into her from behind and pushing her into the kitchen.

Smiling, she tip-toed over to the small table. Frannie was sitting there, slumped over into the middle of a pile of half-chopped vegetables, the paring knife hanging loosely from one hand as her head lay pillowed on one arm. Her hair was in the onions, her cheek on a tomato, but the younger woman didn't notice. Gently, Maria took the knife from her slumbering sister. "What did I tell you," she chided quietly, "You've worn yourself ragged, Frannie, and look where it's gotten you...face down in the pasta primavera. It's not even six, and you're out colder than an Eskimo's ass. Well, we can't have that."

Stopping only to put the knife in the dishwasher, she stepped back into the living room and tapped her husband on the shoulder. "I need your help with Frannie."

Tony looked up at her in confusion. "Huh?"

"Come see." Maria gestured him into the kitchen, then pointed at Frannie's limp form. "We've got to get her upstairs and into bed...she can't stay like that all night."

"Why not," He shrugged in an exaggerated fashion, "She's always mashing up fruits and vegetables for her skin anyway." Maria almost took the bait, then recognized the teasing glint in his eye and slapped him lightly on the shoulder. He laughed. "Ok, ok...bed it is."

For such a decidedly ungraceful man, he was surprisingly gentle as he extricated Frannie from the food and lifted her into his arms. She stirred for a moment, as if waking, then smiled and cuddled against him like a small child. "Mmmm," she murmured, "Benny..."

Tony rolled his eyes. "Oh great, now she thinks I'm the Mountie."

"Don't worry," Maria assured him, "If she was awake, she'd know the difference in a heartbeat. Now up the stairs."

By the time they reached the foot of the staircase, the strain was clear on Tony's face, and he stopped. "How about she sleeps on the couch?"

"How about not."

"But she's heavy!"

Teasingly, Maria squeezed a handful of her husband's waist. "Getting a little out of shape, are we?" She offered a flirtatious smile, "If you can't get up those stairs, Frannie can't get put to bed. And if you don't put Frannie to bed, I can't put YOU to bed."

He pondered this a moment, then took a deep breath and started up the stairs. Halfway up, he moaned dramatically, "She must weigh 300 pounds!"

"121...she was carping about it this morning." There was a pause, then Maria allowed a wicked smile at her little sister's expense. "The other 179 is hairspray and cosmetics."

"I believe it!"

Finally, they reached the top of the stairs, and Maria opened the door into Frannie's room. Tony followed, setting his burden on top of the feminine comforter with a loud sigh of relief. He winced as he straightened. "This has totally shot my back, you know."

Maria was busy arranging a blanket over Frannie and removing her shoes, and he soon realized that he lacked an audience. He watched as his wife tucked her sister in, then turned to him with a beautiful smile. "Thank you."

He blushed, looking down at his shoes. "Hey, no problem." Under the coverlet, Frannie turned to lay on her side, drawing her knees up into a fetal position. She sighed, and Tony winced, "Now can we get out of here before she starts calling me the Mountie again?"

***

Inspector Margaret Thatcher stood warily in the doorway of the hospital room, staring at the figure in the bed as though she expected the recumbent Mountie to suddenly leap to his feet and attack her. It wasn't a new feeling. The Constable was so unusually reserved and polite that from the moment she had met him she had suspected that somewhere inside was a chainsaw murderer begging to be set free.

The difference now wasn't so much the physical changes as it was the changes that had occurred within her own mind. For the last two weeks, she had been immersed in Fraser's life. She knew nearly everything about him that was possible to glean through research. From the name of his sixth grade teacher to his first arrest (a litterbug...Fraser had been ten, making a citizen's arrest), to the measurements of his uniform and the store where he purchased Diefenbaker's flea prevention medicine, she had managed to track down and report more details about him than she knew about anyone else in the world. Hell, some of the things she had sent to Ottawa about the Constable were things she didn't know about her own mother!

At the same time, however, she knew practically nothing about who he really was.

What about him could inspire a man like Vecchio to be so fiercely protective? The American was annoying and abrasive, with a deep, pervasive cynicism, yet he was loyal to Fraser even above his own interests. She knew that women would often follow the Constable because he was, she admitted, remarkably attractive, but something told her that was not Detective Vecchio's motivation. But what was? What was this strange magnetism that made people loyal within moments of meeting him?

Perhaps it was his chivalry. It certainly set him apart, and was, Thatcher knew, what had made her so suspicious of him. This was a man who would run out into the rain to open the door of her taxi, who had coffee waiting for her on her desk every morning, who insisted on holding her coat for her while she put it on. Not since Ricky Castilaggio in the third grade had she seen that kind of Arthurian behavior - and even that had only lasted until he got a kiss on the cheek from her and ten dollars from his cousin. Thatcher shook her head, smiling at the irony of it all. All of her life she had wanted to meet a man who was a true gentleman, but now that she had met one, she realized how out of place they were in the modern world.

Feminism had carved its path - and for that she was grateful - but very few men had kept their manners in it's wake. Those who did almost always had an ulterior motive, and that was what she had feared. That if she had begun to respond, begun to thank him, begun to like him, even just as a friend, she might turn around one day and find that he expected sex as part of the deal.

So she had tried to remedy the problem. Direct applications for transfer. Heavy suggestions towards the same. Menial tasks and harsh dressing-downs to make his life so miserable that he would want to flee Chicago at his first opportunity. It hadn't worked. Fraser had remained.

Remained, and gotten her into a hell of a mess. Thatcher groaned aloud at the mere memory of all the paperwork, all the telephone calls, all the press. It wasn't what she joined the RCMP for, and she thought belligerently that if Benton Fraser had just been a little less dedicated, things would be a whole lot simpler in her life. The man just wasn't able to walk past an injustice - real or perceived!

She sighed, leaning tiredly against the doorframe. Her imagination drifted, and a slight smile appeared on her lips as her mind conjured up a dark, musty castle, its stone walls dimly lit by clusters of flaming torches, a massive oaken table dominating the room. Camelot and the Round Table. In her version, however, Arthur was trying to decide what to do with Ye Olde Press because Sir Galahad had slain an American dragon.

The mental image of the Constable standing in front of her desk, at attention for punishment yet dressed in full armor made her inadvertently giggle. He would probably apologize to the dragon before he slayed it, and to her afterwards for breaking some obscure protocol about the slaying of dragons. Probably something like damaging more than 3.5 scales in the slaying process. In that case, of course, he would certainly apologize to the scales too. She'd never seen a man apologize as much as Benton Fraser. If you implied the need, he would apologize for the sky being blue.

Her little fantasy seemed to bring down the invisible wall that had been holding her out of the hospital room, and she took a tentative step inside. The Constable didn't leap to his feet and go for her throat. In fact, there was no motion from him whatsoever. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, chastising herself for having gotten so tense.

Clutching her purse in front of her like a shield, she took a second step into the room. Her eyes widened as she took in her surroundings. Thatcher had managed to avoid visiting for almost ten days, putting it down to a busy schedule. In truth, she simply despised hospitals. Especially the ICU wards, where the line between life and death became so thin that it was little more than a mist that pervaded every centimeter with a sense of mortality.

The room had literally blossomed in her absence. Running a finger lightly over the soft petal of a rose, she marveled at the sheer tonnage of plant life that had been crammed into the tiny space. Bouquets fought for space with potted plants, which in turn were elbowed by stuffed bears and bunches of balloons that bobbed over everything. Her sharp eye picked out a few unusual items amongst the florist's bounty. A small, hand-painted pot of geraniums. A bouquet of wildflowers tied with what looked to be a child's hair ribbon. A small stuffed wolf - white, of course - that had been given a place of honor by the Constable's pillow.

She felt suddenly awkward for having brought no gift, then shook her head sharply, reminding herself that he wasn't even awake to appreciate it. She didn't want to know when he would be, either. Thatcher had carefully avoided the doctors on the way in, dreading the possibility of one catching her and offering a prognosis. As it was, she was able to tell everyone honestly that she had no idea when he would awaken. Were that contaminated with a medical opinion, the entire world would consider it a carved in stone deadline, and there would be hell to pay if he missed it.

Her eyes flitted around the room, carefully avoiding direct contact with the man in the bed. "I don't know why I came here," she admitted aloud. "It's not as if it were to talk to you, because you're in a coma. Talking to you would, of course, actually be talking to myself, and I have no need to talk to myself. Anything I want to say to myself, I can of course say quite clearly without talking. My mother said that talking to yourself out loud was a sign of one of two things. Loneliness or insanity. I am certainly not the former, and as I am equally certainly not the latter, you shouldn't expect much in the way of conversation, Constable."

It suddenly dawned on her that she was, as she had just defined it, actually talking to herself as she explained that she wouldn't be talking to herself. Thatcher groaned, dropping into the nearest chair. She cradled her head tenderly in her hands, her delicate fingers working in slow circles at the temples. Maybe she was losing her mind.

If she was, could she really tell the difference? Maybe she was already insane, sitting straightjacketed in some asylum somewhere, ranting wildly about Mounties in armor, deaf wolves, and the very unladylike acts she would like to persuade the American media to perform upon themselves. It was actually a slightly more appealing option than the possibility that this was all real.

Unfortunately, as far as she was able to discern, she was quite sane, and all this was quite real. If nothing else, her headache was certainly real.

Why couldn't life be simple? Why couldn't she have gone into an easier and less stressful occupation...say, brain surgery or nuclear bomb inspection? Why couldn't she figure out the answer to the simple, eight-word conundrum that reporters presented to her again and again. She always responded with 'No Comment', but that didn't answer anything.

What were her personal feelings about Constable Fraser?

Sometimes, they were homicide. She had gone through moments, usually immediately after dealing with Vecchio, when she had wanted to come down to the hospital and squeeze strychnine into his IV. Sometimes, she felt sympathy as a fellow Mountie. When she read yet another scathing column in the paper, she would feel anger. When she looked into his file and read the lists of commendations, they were feelings of awe. When she looked at him now...

What was it she felt?

He looked incredibly fragile lying there, and she was reminded of when, as a girl, she had seen a majestic monarch butterfly lying on the sidewalk with broken wings. His appearance was nothing at all like the RCMP poster-boy who stood in front of her desk at ramrod attention with no apparent effort. There was dark shadow on his cheeks where the tender pink skin of newly healed abrasions had prevented the nurses from shaving him as closely as he always did. Cheekbones had once been lightly suggested against fair, rosy skin. Now, they were far more strongly outlined on a face that had become as white as the sheets he lay on, with no hint of the blush that had once so easily set his entire face crimson.

Something stirred beneath the exhaustion, a warm, almost maternal feeling. Thatcher struggled to find a name for it, and was startled when her vocabulary settled on affection. That couldn't possibly be it. With all that she had learned about him, she didn't really know any more about him than she had in the beginning, except for the loyalty he inspired in others. Yet the affection was there, and now it seemed to be reveling in its label, skipping happily forward in her mind like a child with a new party dress.

A light snort of disgust escaped her, and she mentally chided herself for being so ridiculous. Good Lord, Meg, what's wrong with you? No. I can tell you what's wrong with you. You haven't had a decent relationship in ten years. Your career is tethered to a sinking ship. You haven't gotten a good night's sleep in two weeks. You've drunk enough coffee to single-handedly support Folgers. You're reaching out for something steady, and you're letting that damn Yank mess with your mind and make you think that Constable Fraser is that something. Time for some decaf.

Still, she rationalized that maybe she had been keeping him at too far an arm's length. Certainly, she had once wanted that arm to reach all the way back to Canada, and that was more than a bit extreme, wasn't it? There was absolutely nothing wrong with caring about a fellow officer. It was caring for them that had to be avoided, and that was something she was determined to prevent at all costs.

Her eyes wandered over his motionless body, and stopped in curiosity at the hand that lay heavily on top of the thin blanket. She remembered her thoughts when she had first seen his dossier photo, the face so youthful that she wondered if this supposedly 35-year-old Constable was actually old enough to shave yet. His hands were a different story. Looking not only every bit of 35, but well beyond, she was shocked to realize how work-worn they were.

Gently, she lifted his hand from the bed, turning it over lightly in her own soft, lightly rose-scented and lotioned hands. Some tiny voice informed her that it was the first time she had actually touched the Constable, and she nearly dropped it immediately. However, she soon realized that she wasn't exactly shattering protocol and taking steps towards the abyss, and decided there was no harm in touching him after all. As long as he wasn't awake to touch back.

Her manicured fingers traced the thin line of a scar across his thick-skinned palm. It looked to her as though he had once grabbed a knife. Self defense or clumsiness? Self defense, she decided. The scar was not alone, but joined by many others. Most seemed to simply be assorted small cuts, but there were several tiny round ones that she was hard-pressed to identify. Burns, perhaps? A shower of sparks?

Something in his spirit called to her from those small white marks, and she marveled at his resilience. His file had shown her again and again how he was able to pull himself up out of impossible situations, persevering and finding justice. Scars had been left on his body many times from these ordeals, and she wondered how it was that his optimism didn't seem to have been similarly gouged. Or if it had, how he hid it so well.

She wondered if he could hide the scars this time. Oh, certainly, the one from the ICP bolt would be well hidden by his dark hair, but what about the marks this would surely leave on his spirit? Having his reputation systematically attacked like this...that had to hurt far worse than any wound.

Thatcher felt a strong sense of protectiveness well up, a desire to do anything she could to stop this from being the fatal blow to that timeless kindness that everyone spoke of. But what could she do? Her efforts through the RCMP seemed to be an exercise in futility, and she couldn't stomach any further work with Vecchio. Was there nothing she could do?

Strangely, her thoughts wandered back to her childhood, to a practice she had abandoned years ago for the more practical things of the world. It was something Mrs. Vecchio had seemed to believe in quite strongly, and had insisted helped. If nothing else, it certainly seemed to give a sense of assurance to the one who did it, as if they had covered all their bases, done everything that could be done to help. She needed that feeling.

Still, she wasn't about to do it if she couldn't do it right. Margaret Thatcher wasn't about to have the first words spoken to God in over twenty years be some stuttering, bumbling improvisation. She couldn't recall fully any of the Sunday-school recitations she had been taught, and she almost gave up on the idea entirely before she remembered something. It was something she had only heard once in her own language, but the melody and words had haunted her.

Quickly looking around to make sure no one was watching, she leaned down over the Constable's body. Her hair brushed the line of his jaw, and she slid the recalcitrant strand behind her ear. Pitching her voice as low as possible, she took a deep breath and began, knowing that quite possibly, this was the final step on the path to madness.

"Angel of God, my guardian dear,
To whom God's love commits me here.
Ever this day, remain at my side,
To watch and to love, to heal and to..."

She suddenly gasped and jerked back, her hand flying to her cheek in shock. There had been a...sensation. Like someone touching an ice cube to her face, only dry. It had lasted half a heartbeat, so swift she wasn't sure she had felt it, but it was more than enough to make the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. It had almost been like being kissed by a ghost.

"Inspector?!" Her attention was abruptly diverted by an annoyingly familiar voice at the door.

Trying not to look like a teenager caught on the couch with her blouse off, Thatcher looked up, her face flaming red under the fluorescent lights. "Detective Vecchio." She almost asked what he was doing there, then suddenly she saw. One eye looked to have been replaced by a large plum, the flesh so puffy and discolored that only the barest of white and green slits was discernible as the eye itself. His nose had been packed and bandaged in white gauze, yet he bore the satisfied smile of a winner. Of course, that might just have been from finding her. "What happened to you?"

He shrugged in exaggerated, machismo-fueled nonchalance. "Disagreement with a guy at the station. Welsh made me come here and get things checked out." Gingerly, he touched his bandaged nose. "Come to find out the son of a bitch broke it."

"I hope you feel better." She had to force the words, and they came coldly. It was polite, after all, to wish an injured person well. It would not be polite to say - hypothetically speaking - 'at last, someone had the guts to punch you right in that obnoxious face.' Not polite at all.

"I'll be fine. Came to check on Benny." A wicked grin appeared, and he leaned against the doorframe lazily. "Looks like somebody else was thinking about him, though."

Her eyes blazed, and she was satisfied to see him wince at the venom in her stare as she picked up her purse. "I was checking in on the health of my officer, Detective. Good night."

She swept past him into the hall, and for a moment, almost thought she might escape that easily. Then he called after her. "Inspector!"

Reluctantly, she stopped and turned. "Yes?"

"I still won't tell."

Her voice was cold enough to spontaneously freeze all liquid in Cook County General. "Tell what, Detective?"

He grinned, the mischievous twinkle in his one fully visible eye indicating that he knew she was too tired to physically assault him, no matter how tempted she might be to give him a matching set of eyes. "That there's a bigger heart in there."

***

THE NEXT EVENING

DAY 13

***

"There really should be an Olympic medal for this." Frannie grumbled in frustration as the glacial movement of the elevator towards the ICU ward caused her to re-adjust her load yet again. She had come to the conclusion that Marathon Mountie Monitoring was a definite sport.

It required great stamina to spend her nights practicing it while maintaining a semblance of normal life in the daytime. Great strength was needed to transport the purse required by a Vecchio female spending more than ten minutes in a stationary location. Her dedication and patience were tested nightly, and she knew that she had shed more than enough mascara to make up for a possible lack of sweat. Besides, was it her fault that those Olympic girls couldn't buy a decent antiperspirant?

Not to mention that a corporate sponsor would definitely come in handy. She'd be happy to wear a tasteful little logo somewhere in exchange for a few rolls of quarters and a commercial now and then. Or even just the quarters. The price of coffee from the hospital vending machines was just this side of armed robbery.

Finally, the elevator ground to a halt at the proper floor, the doors reluctantly parting. As soon as there was enough space, Frannie slipped through, not bothering to wait until they had opened completely. She was a veteran at this by now, and she knew that if she hurried, she could get in just as the nurse was leaving and find out the latest news on Benny's condition. The nurses on their way out from the day shift tended to be quite easy to talk to, in a pleasant mood due to the day's end. Night shift nurses, on the other hand, generally came in two varieties. The I-Am-Here-To-Do-My-Job-Not-Bond-With-People-Why-Do-You-Think-I-Took-The-Night-Shift-In-The-First-Place-You-Moron nurses, and the I-Am-Usually-A-Good-Nurse-But-I-Pissed-Someone-Off-And-Got-Stuck-On-The-Night-Shift-So-I'm-Going-To-Toe-The-Protocol-Line-And-Not-Tell-You-Anything nurses. Neither were much help to her.

Picking up her pace as much as common sense would allow in spike heels with a ten pound purse over one shoulder, Frannie hurried down the hall and around the corner to Benny's room. She was just in time, and she waved cheerily to the nurse just now pulling a cart out of the Mountie's room. The nurse was a young Asian, barely out of nursing school, but she and the bubbly young Italian woman had found themselves kindred spirits from the moment Yi Sun had commented that it was a shame the Mountie wasn't wearing a wedding ring.

"Sunny!" The nurse stopped, a wide grin breaking out on her pretty face as she turned and saw who was coming.

"Frannie! I didn't think you'd make it!" Abandoning her cart, she wrapped her friend in a quick, warm hug, then slapped her lightly on the shoulder. "Damn, girl, what kept you? I just gave him a sponge bath. I figured your sensors could pick up a handsome guy sans clothing from at least a hundred miles!"

Laughing, Frannie shook her head. "Why didn't you tell me?! You know I'm tired, Sunny, my ESP isn't what it used to be. Besides, I got this for you." Reaching into her bag, she pulled out a novel. Lines had been etched into its paper spine, proving it had been read before, but it didn't matter. The cover illustration of a technically clothed (there was at least a strategically located comet) white-skinned male and an equally technical (ah, the marvels of long hair) green-skinned female making out among the milky way proved that this was not overly deep reading matter to begin with. Neon letters over the celestial lovers spelled out "Passion's Probe."

Yi Sun squealed happily as she snatched the novel. "Oooh...Char Treusedeaux! Didn't she write 'Nocturn's Nova' also?" She raised one plucked eyebrow as she looked at Frannie. "Funny. I woulda had you pegged more for the historical than the sci-fi bedwarmers. Weren't you saying you were looking for a copy of "Sword of Desire" the other day?"

"Yeah." Frannie shrugged, then a wicked gleam lit her dark eyes. "But I had to buy this one. Check out the hero."

Curious, the nurse flipped open the book and leaned back against the wall. "Lieutenant Land, the lustiest laserman on the Anthurium, was a fading fantasy; bodacious business-boy-wonder Black was but a sudden spike in the graph of her past; and Dandy Howel, the holoartist, was but a ghost of a memory. She sighed as her nether core began to ache anew as her memories of the recent past ranged from romance through rapture to pure, unrefined raunchiness. Rolling over, she threw a long, supple leg over Betonn's..." She let out a most unladylike snort, clamping one hand over her mouth to stifle her laughter.

"See what I mean, Sunny?!" The two pairs of dark eyes met, and both women promptly lost what control had remained. Staggering almost drunkenly, they barely made it into the room and shut the door before gales of laughter burst from them both. Thankfully, Frannie had learned to use waterproof mascara before coming to the hospital, because tears were streaming from her eyes by the time she managed to breathe again.

The nurse was still doubled over, clutching her stomach and gasping for air between giggles. "Oh, God," she finally managed, "Frannie, you are one wicked, WICKED bitch! He'd DIE if he knew!" Seeing the mischief in the other woman's eyes, her own widened in shock. "No!"

Opening her purse, the Italian revealed at least three similarly lurid volumes. "I've been reading to him for the past two weeks."

"You didn't! These?!"

"Hey, I had to do something to pass the time. I don't sew worth a damn, and the Docs said that I should try to talk to him and get a reaction. The way I see it, if reading a couple of chapters of Euphorbia having herself a grand old time with ol' Betonn doesn't get a reaction from his 'pylon of passion', he's still way under." She waved a hand in the direction of the bed with that remark, but when her gaze followed, the giggly, pajama-party feel vanished faster than an abandoned Mercedes.

The air seemed to grow exponentially thicker by the nanosecond, until she felt as though she were drowning on dry land. Fighting the impulse to clutch at her throat, reminding herself that it was all psychosomatic, she cleared her throat. "How...um..." Her voice caught, but her friend understood.

Smiling gently, Yi Sun patted Frannie's arm. "He's doing much better, Frannie. They took him off the drugs this morning."

"What!?" Jerking away, Frannie stared in horror at the tiny Asian. "Dammit, Sunny, that nearly killed him last time!"

"That was over a week ago! Think, Frannie. It's been ten days since he coded. Thirteen since the accident. They had to pull the meds anyway to avoid damage." Her hand brushed lightly over the olive-skinned cheek. "Hey, he really is doing better. Mortality risk at this point is virtually zero, and the ICP bolt shows almost normal levels." A secret smile touched her lips, and she leaned towards Frannie's ear. "Doctor Doxtetter told Doctor Benton that they're expecting him to wake up on his own some time tomorrow morning."

The nurse grinned at the look of unrestrained delight on Frannie's face. She was frozen in place, and for the first time in anyone's memory, rendered speechless. Satisfied that her good news had been well received, Yi Sun went back to the door. "See you later, Frannie. I've got to finish my rounds." She made a face. "Mr. Santoro in the next room. Gangrenous diabetes on a fat dirty old man." Casting a final look on the figure in the bed - his natural blessings still evident even in his weakened state - she sighed deeply. "Guess I can't have too much fun, can I?"

As soon as the door closed, it was as though a switch had been thrown. The formerly immobile Italian was snapped out of her shock by the click of the latch, and her mouth opened and closed a few times like a landed trout. She blinked quickly, then it all registered. Benny was going to live. He was not only out of danger, but they had taken him off those horrible drugs, and he was even going to wake up tomorrow!

A cry of pure happiness burst from the tips of her painted toenails and worked its way up her petite body, exploding from between crimson-tinted lips in a sound that most resembled an Indian war whoop. She literally jumped for joy, hopping up and down in tiny little movements, her hands clapping like a castanet player on speed. Some part of Frannie was glad that her brother wasn't there to see her reaction, but the larger part didn't care. If he had been there, it wouldn't have changed a damn thing, except how embarrassed she would be afterwards.

Little noises of excitement bubbled out as though she was treading on mice as she skipped her way to Benny's bedside and grabbed his hand in both of hers. "Did you HEAR?!!! You're gonna be ok! You're gonna be ok! You're really, really gonna...gonna..." Her words choked off, and she dropped to her knees, pressing his hand against the side of her face. She hoped the mascara was as waterproof as it had claimed, because she was giving it a serious workout. "Oh, God," her voice was a barely audible whisper, too choked with relief to be coherent. "You're really gonna be ok."

She didn't know how long she knelt there, softly sobbing as she stroked his hand against her face, whispering those words over and over again like a mantra. As if the more she said it, the more it would be true. As if by repeating the good news enough times, all the bad news of the past two weeks would cease to exist.

Finally, she managed to pull herself together, rocking back on her heels and releasing his hand. Sniffling, she wiped the tears from her face on the sleeve of her electric blue top. Gently reaching out, she lay her fingertips lightly against his cheek, smiling warmly as she realized that this was probably the last night that she would be able to do that without worrying about him leaving the country in fear. "So," she said, forcing false bravery and lightness into her tone, "this is our last night, I guess."

She reached for her bag. "We...uh, we're almost to the end of 'Destiny's Sweet Desire.' I mean, there's a chance - a slim chance, I know...you've made that pretty clear - that we might, y'know, go on a date or something someday and spend other evenings together, but there's no way in hell you'd let me read you something like this again. So I s'pose we need to finish it while you're still too out to freak. And if we're gonna go out, we might as well go out with a Jenalise K. Icecat piece...take one of those back home with you, and you'd melt all that ice in a couple hours." She paused. "Which might not be a bad thing, really."

Opening the novel to the last place she'd marked, she began reading. "I awoke from the cloyingly seductive bosom of sleep to the insistent knocking on the door of my virginal sanctuary. With a soft gasp, I slipped out from under the bedclothes, and hurried to answer the summons that fate had seen fit to send at last. Rubbing from my sultry eyes the last vestiges of the dreams of desire I flung the portal of my future wide open like the soul that needed the love that I had been forever denied."

She stopped, a playful thought teasing at the back of her mind and rapidly pushing its way front and center. This was the last chance she would ever get to read sweet, passionate words of love to the man who could send her temperature off the scale with nothing more than his shadow. Why not do it right? Really right.

Standing, Frannie brushed back her hair and cleared her throat. Her voice took on a new depth and intensity, emoting every syllable as if her life depended on it. "And there he stood. Resplendent in the moonlight, Paul's celestial blue eyes shone with desire deeper than all the oceans of the world. I could see the rapid rise and fall of his magnificently muscled chest as he tried to catch his breath."

"I stood there admiring how the moonlight played over the flexing muscles of his chest. I opened my arms to him, no longer able to stand even the shortest distance between us." Every motion dripping sensuality, Frannie mirrored the actions of the fictional heroine, flinging her arms wide as if opening them to every lustful fantasy she had ever entertained. She continued to read and perform, getting more into it with each passing letter. "I needed him. No, I wanted him, like I've never wanted anything before in my life. He was a vision, no, a god bathed in the moonlight."

"'Jennie, my sweet Goddess, Jennie!' my beloved exclaimed, his heart throbbing in time with the heaving of my cleavage. Ah, the double-edged sword of desire would sweep us both away unless I stopped him, now, before I was lost in our unyielding passion." Her eyes burned as she looked down at the Mountie's still form, but she did have enough sense to know where to return to the world of narration. No matter how much she wanted Benton Fraser, she was not so desperate as to have sex with the man while he was unconscious.

"'No, Paul, wait!' I cried out, but it was in vain. In three short steps Paul crossed the threshold of my loveless prison and swept me into his arms." She shuddered as she imagined Benny's strong arms wrapped around her. Glancing at the next words on the page, she decided that acting them out wouldn't hurt. After all, it wasn't exactly ravishing the helpless to kiss him. She should at least get THAT much as a prize for her Marathon Mountie Monitoring.

Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath and lightly licked her lips. "'Kiss me, Jennie....kiss me as if we had never kissed this way or would ever again...' As I leaned closer to the wild abandonment of his perfectly shaped lips, his whisper of '...kiss me...' haunted my last waking memory....." Her lips touched his lightly. Suddenly, Frannie felt his mouth move ever-so-slightly beneath hers. Her eyes flew open.

She was staring at a pair of blue gems that looked back at her with a more than slightly disoriented expression. It took her a moment to realize exactly what she was seeing.

Benny's eyes.

Benny's open eyes!

Frannie screamed.

TO BE CONTINUED...