Ties

m/m relationship A Due South story, rated PG for language. No copyright infringement intended by my borrowing these delightful characters. Enjoy!

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Now she knew where he lived.

He was hers. Hers to do with as she wished.

Hers to kill.

Vengeance. For the other half of her soul.

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"I dunno about this, Benny. I mean, things seem to be going okay, the Dragon Lady finally decided to back off 'though I have to admit I really, really didn't expect you'd ever grab me in your own office and kiss the stuffing outta me-"

"Desperate times call for desperate measures, Ray."

"-not that I didn't enjoy it, cuz I did ... what was that?"

"I have the utmost respect for Inspector Thatcher, and she is a lovely woman. But I had to make it clear to her that there was no chance of she and I ever having a relationship of a personal sort. Under other circumstances, I might well have reciprocated her apparent affection, Ray."

Ray Vecchio stared hard at his partner. "Oh?"

Swinging his head around from the zucchini he was dicing, Constable Ben Fraser fixed his gaze on the single most important person in his life. "But it's a moot point, Ray. I'm in love with you." Calmly, rationally. Diffusing any explosion before it could take place. Mollified, Ray threw him a lopsided grin.

"That's okay, then. Just as long as she doesn't go poachin' on my turf."

Ben bit back a smile at the mangled metaphor, deciding that the mix of Yukon and Chicago in the statement was a perfect reflection of the relationship he enjoyed with the detective. As he scooped the chopped vegetables into the pan to simmer, he allowed the smile to bloom. For once, for perhaps the first time, he could admit that he was truly happy. Ray came up behind him and drew him into a fierce hug.

"What's mine I keep, Benny." The tenderness underlying the declaration undid Fraser completely, and the Mountie let his head fall back to rest lightly on the wiry shoulder behind him.

"I wouldn't have it any other way."

***************************************

She stared up at the single lighted window, mentally planning her route. In her black jeans and jacket, a ball cap pulled over her sable brown hair, she nearly blended into the shadows in the alley. The fire escape would make it so much easier. Now for the rest of the plan ... to get rid of the complication. She mentally reviewed the information she had beaten out of a street source and drew the cellular phone from the inside of her jacket. Dialed a number she had memorized earlier. Two quick rings, and an irritated voice with a strong Chicago twang growled in her ear.

"This better be good!" In the background she could hear the clink of dishes. So domestic. For an instant, pure hatred flashed behind her eyes, then she spoke gruffly into the phone.

"Vecchio. This is Midget. I got something for you."

A heartfelt sigh, then the voice again, if possible even more irritated. "How important is this *something*, Midge? I'm in the middle of a little somethin' myself here, and I'm really not in the mood to play games with the likes of you."

"Hit goin' down. Target's the Mountie yer always hangin' with. Interested?" She could visualize the quick, concerned glance the cop would throw at his lover, the decision to follow through. "You gotta come alone, though."

"When and where, Midge? And if you're yankin' my chain I'll bust your head." She grinned maliciously. He had *no* idea.

"Fifth and Columbus. Fifteen minutes." She heard quiet cursing and a concerned query from somewhere else in the room, followed closely by the detective reassuring the other man.

"Just a snitch I gotta go see, Benny. Shouldn't take very long." Just long enough, she smiled ferally at the thought. "Okay, I'm there," she heard in her ear, and she cut the connection. Less than three minutes later a tall, slender figure in a flapping gray trench coat flew down the front steps of the building. Her smile widened, and she leapt nimbly to pull herself onto the lowest platform of the fire escape. Within moments, she was at his window.

"If Ray had wanted us to go along, Diefenbaker, he would have invited us. I know you feel uncomfortable just letting him go. Don't you think I feel the same?" As he kept up a running monologue with the wolf, the Mountie was efficiently scraping and stacking dishes in the sink. "But Ray is an adult, and a very proficient policeman in his own right, and if he believes that his informant will only be open wit-"

The wolf saw the face at his window and lunged, recognizing

a threat immediately. She fired through the open window,

kicking in the bottom of the frame immediately afterward. Diefenbaker fell with a thud to the floor, whimpering, as blood began to soak his chest. Fraser had dropped flat to the floor upon hearing the report of the gun, and now stared in horror at Dief. He looked up to see a woman standing over him, a complete stranger. Before he could form the words to question her identity, the handgun spat again, and fire spread through his midriff, stealing his breath.

"You never should have taken my Nicky," he thought he heard her say, then the weapon fired a third time and the world went black.

************************************************

Ray swerved the Riviera expertly through the heavy traffic, cursing absently under his breath as he headed for the meeting place. Overriding the inconvenience and irritation at leaving an intimate dinner with his love for street business was the gathering fear of the possibility that the snitch might actually have something, and that his Benny's life might be in danger. He turned the possibilities over in his mind as he drew nearer to Fifth. It just didn't make sense.

Ben Fraser had done more for the people he met than any one person Ray could even imagine. His neighborhood, one of the toughest in a very tough city, had uniformly adopted him. The perps they brought in together actually seemed to like the Mountie, almost as much as they hated him. So, maybe this hit on the Canadian was actually aimed at him. While their relationship wasn't broadcast, it also wasn't hidden, and aside from some envious looks from both women and men at the station house, no one had made a big deal about it. But if it really was targeted at Fraser, why would Midge know about it? She was small potatoes. She didn't even-

His train of thought was derailed abruptly. There was Midget. Standing at the corner of Second and Columbus. Headed away from Fifth. As he slowed, she looked at him, then quickly away. There was a rainbow of bruises decorating her pudgy face. The vague suspicion in his gut solidified, and he pulled an illegal U-turn in the middle of the block and, cutting off four cars, a truck and a taxi, screamed back in the direction he'd just left.

The voice. It hadn't sounded right.

He'd been set up.

Benny. Oh. Shit. Benny.

The flashing lights greeted him as he rounded the corner and screeched to a stop half on the curb in front of the rat trap where Benny lived. Barely remembering to pull the badge from his pocket, he pushed his way through the gawkers and patrolmen, bursting through the open door to the apartment. The sight made his stomach clench.

Blood. Looked like it was everywhere. A limp bundle of white fur laced with red, almost imperceptibly moving up and down in uneven rhythm as the wolf struggled for breath. And sprawled by the sink, shattered crockery behind him and blood all over the front of him ... his Mountie. The hair on the back on his neck stood straight out, and only the force of anger so deep it was eating him from the inside kept him from howling in pain.

The paramedics were tending to the unconscious Benny, and Ray scooped up towels from beside the table and rushed to Diefenbaker's side. The intelligent eyes were dull, glazed with pain and defeat. Ray began to curse steadily under his breath, Italian phrases learned at his father's knee, usually when his father was drunk off his ass. Pressing the bandage firmly against the wolf's chest, he glanced up to see Mr. Mustafi, staring at the scene in horror.

"I called the police, as soon as I heard-"

"Mr. Mustafi," Ray cut him off unceremoniously, "Do you know Doctor Anita Cooper over at the South Main Animal Hospital?" At the older man's anxious nod, Ray handed his precious bundle to him. "Please, please take care of Dief. I gotta go to the hospital."

A thin boy with huge brown eyes reached around the small crowd to lay a hand on Ray's arm. "He'll be okay. We'll see to it." Ray looked down and managed a tense smile.

"Thanks, Willie."

"No problem, man. You take care of the Mountie."

Ray nodded tersely and followed the stretcher out the door. He looked so ... pale, lying there. His thoughts were chasing themselves. So helpless. So ... still. Too damned still. No life at all. The thought frightened him, and he deliberately closed off that avenue before it could paralyze him. Benny had to make it. He just had to.

The alternative was unthinkable.

************************************************

Nine hours of surgery, twenty cups of cold coffee emptied by a concerned Frannie after he ignored them, seven trips by Mama to the nurses' station (each successively more heated),

three visits from Elaine and one long talk from Lieutenant

Welsh later, and the doctor finally came out of the surgery hallway. Ray didn't even realize he'd pushed past Elaine, still speaking, since he hadn't heard anything she'd said anyway. His eyes were fixed on the exhausted face of the doctor.

"Are you Ray?" the man asked, and Ray nodded, unable to say a word. His eyes asked all the important questions. Will he live? Did you save him? Did I lose the center of my life in there or will he make it?

The surgeon nodded, recognizing the agony in the man before him. He kept the report brief and to the point. "The next twenty four hours are critical. He lost a lot of blood, but he came through the surgery very well. He's a strong man, and he's in excellent condition. I wont give you any false hope -- he sustained a lot of trauma, and he's going to have a long period of healing to go through before he's healthy again. But his chances are good. If he gets through the next day without any major complications he should be all right."

Ray's eyes closed with relief. He didn't remember anything immediately after that. He was too busy saying a silent prayer of thanks that his Benny had been spared. Taking a deep breath, he swung around to face the doctor again. Interrupting his conversation with Mama Vecchio, a breach of manners she was quite willing to overlook given the state of her son's mental health and her own relief that her boy Ben was going to be okay, Ray begged, "Can I see him?"

The doctor smiled up at him. "He's in recovery now. When they've settled him into his room you can go right in." He swung around to face the other anxious people waiting for the same thing. "But I have to limit his visitors to immediate family only. He's very weak, and he can't be seeing too many people. Besides," he added parenthetically, "he's asleep, so there wont be much to see anyway."

Ray badgered the nurse at the desk until she found out the room number, then kissed his mother one more time and shooed them all home. He would stay with Ben, they could go and get some rest. Mama Vecchio left, muttering about the different dishes she would be cooking to feed her Ben back to health, while Frannie was verbally sorting through the various vitamins she could force down him to speed the healing process. Elaine gave him a sympathetic look, and he smiled wearily back before heading directly to Fraser's bedside.

He sat, slumped in the uncomfortable vinyl chair, staring at the tubes and wires attached to every part of Fraser that wasn't covered in bandages. As he watched his partner, the anger began to burn again. Someone had done this to his Benny. Someone was going to pay. He'd find the bastard, and he'd take every ounce of Benny's pain out of his skin. Settling deeper into the chair, he pulled out his cellular and called the veterinarian's office. The animal hospital had taken care of Dief in the past, and besides having a doctor he trusted, it had a night emergency number. Anita lived in an small apartment above the public area, so she was available. He sent another small, heartfelt thank you skyward when she confirmed that the wolf was going to pull through. Ray flipped the phone shut and scooted the chair closer to Ben's bedside, until he could slide his hand between the bars on the side rail and fold the long, cold fingers in his own warm hand. He leaned his chin against the top rail and stared at his Ben. He was going to be okay. He had to be.

Throughout the silent hours of the night, interrupted only briefly by the brisk movements of the nurses changing the iv bag, checking Fraser's vitals, looking wisely at all the machines making their little clicks and whistles, Ray kept vigil and thought furiously. By a little after six the next morning, when Benny finally opened glazed blue eyes to stare unerringly at his Ray, the detective had narrowed the list to four. Men whom he had put away, who were out and might be looking for payback. Fraser's first words blew his carefully constructed suspect list to shreds.

"She knew me, Ray," he whispered, throat dry from the oxygen and the anesthesia. Ben tightened his fingers around his partner's hand. Ray instinctively returned the pressure, then spooned some ice chips into Ben's mouth, easing the dryness somewhat.

"She, Fraser?" His tone was incredulous. Then he stopped abruptly. Made sense. Somebody had to imitate Midge's voice on the phone. "Who was she?"

The Mountie looked helplessly confused, not a standard expression for him. "I haven't the faintest idea, Ray. I'd never seen her before in my life."

"Why the hell would a perfect stranger go to all this trouble, Benny?" Urgency leant harshness to his words. "Did she give

you any clue why she might be out huntin' Canucks?"

Ben bit his lip lightly, eyes narrowing as he forced himself to remember the rush of events leading to his shooting. At a stray thought, he tried to bolt upright, only the wires and tubes keeping him in bed. In a flash, Ray was at his side, gently pushing him back into bed.

"Whoa, there, Mountie, you're not goin' anywhere!" He held Ben gently down, avoiding the bandages, stroking him softly, as if he was gentling a wild animal.

"Dief! She shot Dief, Ray." The pain in his eyes hurt his partner clear to his soul. He hated to see his Benny in pain.

"Willie and Mr. Mustafi took him to see Doc Anita, and she says he's gonna be fine, Benny. Now, would you please lay down and calm down before Attila the Nurse comes in and tosses me out on my keister for gettin' you all excited?" He tried to look stern. As usual, it failed. Ben smiled lopsidedly up at him.

"You always do, Ray." While the cop was trying to recover from this completely unexpected compliment, Fraser turned serious. "She said something about a Nick, or Nicky. I think ... I believe she may have been referring to someone she cared about whom I arrested. She had a slight accent, a combination of stresses that lead me to speculate that she came from Montreal-" A dry cough broke his voice, and Ray fed him some more ice chips. Ben was looking exhausted, dark shadows under his eyes like bruises.

"I'll look into it, Benny. Your job is to stay here and get well." He leaned over and kissed him gently, wordlessly expressing his relief and love. Ben returned the love full measure, and settled into his pillow, almost asleep already.

"Please ... be careful, Ray." His eyes pleaded with the detective to watch his back. If this woman was determined to hurt him, his partner could very well be a target. Dark, expressive eyes registered the warning and flashed reassurance, before the other man turned and walked from the room. Ben watched the doorway for a long moment, missing him already.

"You're a lucky man, son."

Just what he needed. "I thought you didn't like Ray, Dad."

"Well, I admit I'd rather have seen you with that lovely Inspector, Benton, but a man can't dictate some things. No matter how much he might like to." Fraser grinned ruefully at the slightly disgruntled tone of the ghost's voice. "And he's a good man to have on your side, in a situation like this."

The live Mountie turned his head rather painfully to look directly at the dead Mountie. "Is there something you'd like to tell me, Dad?"

His father's shade looked seriously at him. "Been awhile, son. Think fallen angels and innocence lost." With that, he disappeared, leaving Fraser to stare blankly at the wall.

"Now, *that's* a great deal of help!" he groused before falling into a healing sleep.

The next three days were a whirlwind of activity that left them just exactly where they began. Nowhere.

"Are you sure these are *all* of 'em, Inspector?!"

Meg Thatcher looked at the drawn features in front of her and bit back the sarcastic response hovering on the tip of her tongue. Ben Fraser was important to her, too, and she wanted to find the person responsible for hurting him almost as badly as the man opposite of her. Instead of snapping at him, she took a deep breath and stared at the huge pile of neatly typed reports covering her desk.

"Detective Vecchio, Constable Fraser has been a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police for sixteen years. During that time he has made a practice of keeping detailed, precise reports of every case he has worked. This. Is. All. There. Is." She punctuated each word with a sharp rap of her index finger on the top file. Silence greeted her pronouncement. She took another breath and lifted her eyes to meet Ray's. He stared at her for a long moment, his usually mobile face completely still, then bit his lip.

"I'm sorry. I'm just ..." his voice trailed off, and she nodded.

"Understood."

His eyes widened. "Is that a Canadian thing?" At her uncomprehending look, he shrugged it off. "Doesn't matter. Let's go through these again. There's gotta be a Nick in there someplace who isn't dead or in lock up."

**************************************************

Ben shifted uneasily in his sleep. The dreams had been coming more frequently, a kaleidoscope of images mixing Inuit mythology and memories of the Yukon with fleeting glimpses of Ray and symbols of Christian angels, all tumbling together and making no sense whatsoever. What did come through clearly was a sense of urgency, a need to protect himself, to finish it now, before whatever it was that was chasing him through the maze of his subconscious caught up with him

and destroyed him. Surfacing slowly through the haze of

exhaustion, pain, and drugs, one face floated to the forefront of his mind.

Michel.

Michael.

Mickey. Not Nicky. Mickey.

The name brought him to full consciousness, reaching for the phone as a strong, feminine hand caught his wrist and bent it backward. He gasped at the pain as the needle from his iv tube was wrenched from his arm.

"I see you finally remember him," she said clearly, enunciating so that he could understand her words, so that he would know why he had to die. She had never thought herself capable of killing anyone. But now it seemed such a simple thing to do. She looked into his pain-dulled blue eyes, finding herself hating him all over again, for being so beautiful and doing such an evil thing, for using his damned duty as an excuse for hurting people, for being alive when her twin, her other half, was dead.

"Marielle Lambent. You were ... at his trial."

She smiled at him, smoothing his hair back with a travesty of gentleness before clenching her fist in the thickness at the crown of his head and pulling his face close to hers. She kissed him lightly, a chaste, closed kiss, like a final benediction, and bent to whisper to him.

"You were his executioner. For that, you will join him."

************************************************

Ray had been getting progressively antsier as the morning wore on. Meg continued to scan the records as quickly and thoroughly as possible, but she finally couldn't stand his bouncing anymore and had to call him on it.

"Detective ... Ray -- are you all right?"

He stared at her for a moment as if he didn't recognize her, then his eyes cleared. Grabbing her arm, he pulled her to her feet. Ignoring her strangled squawk of protest, he headed for the door at top speed, towing her along behind him.

"Something's wrong, Meg. We gotta get to Benny."

Deciding to trust his instincts, she stopped protesting and joined him at a near run to the Riv.

***********************************************

Fraser knew he'd not be able to fight her off. The combination of pain medication and his injuries had weakened him, and her hatred was fueling an adrenaline rush that was making her unusually strong. He had to try to reason with her, but he wasn't sure just how much reasoning she would hear. He glanced in some despair at the door. She had shoved a chair under the handle. Even if he could have reached his call button, no one could come in, and he wasn't sure he'd want them to. If she was going to become violent, he wouldn't want any civilians to get hurt.

"Miss Lambent. Marielle. Please. Tell me what's going on. If you're determined to kill me I'd really like to know why."

"You remember my brother." At his tentative nod, she unwound her fingers from his hair and began absently patting it down. At the same time, her other hand slid up the front of his hospital gown to come to rest at the base of his throat. "You put him in prison."

"He was convicted of robbery, Marielle." He kept his voice soft, soothing. She bent over him again.

"It was not a thing to die for."

**********************************************

Meg held on to the dashboard as Ray gunned the car, swerving through traffic with one hand clenching the wheel and the other punching numbers on his cell phone. The third time they narrowly escaped a head-on collision with another car she gave up any pretense of bravery and shut her eyes. If he was going to kill her she didn't want to know about it in advance. Her attention was caught by his voice barking into the phone.

"No! Don't knock on the door, and don't try to force it. Since it's blocked from inside we can assume that she's in there with Fraser. Get the cops there but *don't* let them go blowing their way in until I get there. You understand me?"

She fetched up sharply against the door as Ray swung the Riv into the emergency entrance driveway, stopping halfway onto the sidewalk.

"Leaving room for the ambulance, I see. How thoughtful," she muttered, but he didn't hear her, still snarling at the person on the other end of the line.

"We're here now. Be there in two." He flipped the phone shut and flew out the door, reaching for his gun with the other hand. She was right on his heels, wishing, not for the first time, that she was authorized to carry her own weapon. Going into a situation like this without it felt very much like walking into work without any clothes. So much for a diplomatic mission. Since meeting Benton Fraser and his unusual friend, she was spending more time on police work than she ever expected to, being posted to a Consulate. Her pingponging thoughts were interrupted as Ray slid to a stop

outside an ominously closed door.

Ray took up a position with one ear clamped to the door, a finger in his other ear. He could just make out a one-sided conversation, and the timbre of the voice brought him up short. It was the woman. And from the way she was talking, it wasn't looking good for Benny. He looked around somewhat wildly for a way to get in, any way to get in, when Thatcher's hand on his forearm stopped him. He narrowed his eyes at her, and she pointed at the hinges along the door frame. Before he could stop to think, she handed him a rather wicked looking pocket knife and he began to pry the hinge out, as quietly as possible, and as fast as he could. He felt a body by his knees, and looked down to see Meg digging at the lower hinge with a flat screwdriver. He smiled grimly and bent to his task. They had to be in time. They just had to.

************************************************

"I didn't know about Michel. What happened to him?" The sorrow in his voice was unfeigned. Michel Lambent had been a decent young man who had fallen into the wrong company and gotten in over his head. The robberies had been escalating, and an elderly woman had been killed in her own home, when Fraser had captured the three men responsible. Michel had been one of them. He had pleaded ignorance of the murder, and Ben had believed him, but he had been sentenced with his cohorts shortly before Fraser Senior had been murdered and Ben had relocated to Chicago. The Mountie remembered the young man as being rather quiet, dark eyes and hair falling over his forehead, a little lost, a sweetness to his face that was out of place. A fallen angel. His father's words made sense to him now. He had been unaware that anything had happened to young Lambent.

"Do you know what happens to men who look like Michel when they are sent to prison, Constable?" She could read the answer in his dismayed expression. "He tried to fight them. There were too many. And he still fought them. Until they broke him." She swallowed heavily, fighting the horror of the memory. "Do you know that there is a connection between twins, Constable? A sharing? Do you understand what such a tie is like?" She bent until her face was centimeters from his, her eyes blurring in front of his, her breath warm on his cheek. "I *knew* what they did to him. I was there, I felt every pain he did. And when it was over and they left him in his own blood, I felt him give up. I knew when he took the glass to his wrists. I knew when he died." She was crying now, her tears falling on his jaw, trailing along his throat. "They called it a suicide. It was no suicide." Her hand closed around his throat, squeezing slowly, inexorably. His hands clutched at her arm, but she was driven by more than human strength, by the memories and the pain. "You killed him. You ripped out the other half of my soul."

The world was closing in on him, alarms going off on his heart monitor as his pulse soared, his oxygen machine, even his iv regulator as it finally registered the backup from being taken from his vein. As the world went dark there was a startling crash from the side of the room.

"Freeze! Police! Get your goddamned hands off him, you bitch!"

She didn't even hear Ray's warning scream, just pressed harder. Ray saw Ben's face go slack and his finger pulled at the trigger. The first shot caught her high in the shoulder, and she jerked, but incredibly she managed to hold on. The second shot took her full in the chest. She was torn from the bedside to land against the far wall. Ray was at Fraser's side in a heart beat, as Thatcher went directly to the assailant and felt for a nonexistent pulse. The second shot had been true.

Doctors and nurses and technicians swarmed the room, separating Ray from Ben, rushing to repair the damage caused by the intruder. Ray looked blankly down at the Inspector. She stood and moved closer to him, moved by the obvious exhaustion in his stance, then drew him into a hug. He didn't hesitate, just leaned into her embrace, resting his cheek on the top of her head. He was so tired. But it was okay, it was all going to be okay. They'd got there in time. Benny was all right. He didn't realize he'd spoken aloud until he heard Meg repeat it, reassuringly.

"Yes, Ray. He's going to be all right. You're okay. It's all going to be all right."

As he watched the medical personnel working over his partner, he finally allowed himself to believe it.

*********************************************

It had been a long four months of recovery, but Fraser was inclined to believe it had been worth it, if only for the incredible welcome home dinner Mama Vecchio had prepared for them. He looked across the table at Meg Thatcher, listening bemusedly to Frannie telling her all about a new deep oil conditioning treatment that would work really well on her hair while Mama kept slipping more pasta on her plate to 'get some meat on her bones.' The Vecchio clan had found another Canadian to adopt. Meg's role in their Ben's rescue had guaranteed her a permanent place in the family. He smiled to himself and privately wondered how long it would be before they started matchmaking for her. His left hand was firmly held by Ray, who couldn't seem to let him go even long enough to eat. Not that he was complaining. He lifted another forkful of chicken marsala to his mouth and chewed contentedly. While a part of him would grieve for the waste of two lives, Ray had convinced him that it was over. And he had helped Ray through the inquiry board and the nightmares. Whether those nightmares were from shooting Marielle or from so nearly losing Ben, they worked through them together.

His eyes met Ray's and they smiled at one another, a pool of silence in the middle of a typical, rowdy Vecchio family dinner. Whatever happened, they would face it together. Marielle's heartbroken question came back to him, and he took a deep breath. Yes, he understood quite well what it was to feel connected to another, to have a soul-deep tie.

Tony's loud voice broke in, ragging on Frannie for going on and on about her shampoos. Mama passed yet another helping of polenta to Meg, who looked dazed. Ray shook his head, and Ben laughed softly. *All* of them, together.

***********finis**********************************

-- Brenda Antrim , coordinator,
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