Title: "Theodicy"
Author: Katherine F.
Pairing: F/K (what else?), though this is on the gen end of the 
spectrum, oddly enough; don't pant for a sequel, either, cos there ain't
gonna be one. Unless one of *you* wants to write it...

Summary: It's Christmas Eve, and the boys do some thinking. Post-GFtS.

Notes: This story contains serious discussion of religious issues and
a certain number of almost-but-not-quite-completely unfounded 
assumptions about the affiliations of our heroes. Just so's you know,
I don't for a minute claim these as the definitive answers to the question
of what the boys believe, nor do the religious opinions expressed in
this story necessarily correspond to my own.
I'm assuming here that the 27th District Christmas party took place on
Christmas Eve. No particular reason, it just felt right.

	"Theodicy"
	by Katherine F.

	"...a vindication of the divine attributes, esp. justice and 
holiness, in respect to the existence of evil; a writing, doctrine or
theory intended to 'justify the ways of God to men'."

	-- (Definition of "theodicy", _The Shorter Oxford English 
Dictionary_, edition of 1964)

He had pondered whether he should go or not, and if he did go, whether
he should mention it or just slip away discreetly as the party was tailing
off; but when the Inspector asked him, more gently than 
usual, to give the Consulate a quick once-over with a vacuum cleaner
(Turnbull having left for (literally) greener pastures) he found he couldn't
refuse. By the time he was finished it was half-past eleven. 

Nonetheless, he left the Consulate, wandering through the streets with
no particular aim, turning now left, now right, his hands in his pockets
and his mind thoroughly occupied. At some level he registered his changes
in direction, the sludgy snow on the sidewalks, the few people he passed
by; external things, unrelated to the events of the past few days or
the endless churning of his own thoughts.

He was almost surprised when his feet brought him to the church he'd
passed by a week before. The lights were on, and he could hear the sound
of the organ through the half-open doors. Did he dare go in, now that
the Mass had already started? 

The congregation began singing, and his heart swelled painfully. He stepped
forward, scarcely aware of what he was doing; blessed himself at the
font, moved past the notice boards and the rows of dribbly candles like
the ones he'd lit for his mother as a boy, even past the pews at the
back where the latecomers sat. He genuflected some ten pews in, ignoring
the twinge in his back that the gesture brought on. Once a year, he could
do things right despite his pain. Once a year, at least.

When he'd established himself there, it scarcely mattered what the priest
said, although so much of the liturgy was burned into his brain by many
repetitions. The words washed over him, as they always did, as he hoped
they always would; a comfort, an acknowledgement, a warm embrace, all
at once. There was nothing in the world like it. And the music! dear
God, the music!

*Ay, and therefore be merry!
Rejoice and be merry!
Set sorrow aside!
Our saviour Christ Jesus was born at this tide!*

It was not until the time came for the Sign of Peace that he came out
of himself once more. He looked around for someone's hand to shake and
saw that the closest person was two pews to the front of him.

As he walked as quickly as possible towards the man, he felt his stomach
flutter. It couldn't be -- 

Ray looked up at him, startled, then offered his hand. Fraser took it.
"Peace be with you," they murmured in unison.

The rest of the service was difficult to endure. Ray was fidgety, though
Fraser suspected that was at least partly due to embarrassment. He felt
a trifle embarrassed himself, though knowing it was foolish. He had nothing
to feel bad about. It was no sin -- quite the contrary -- to come to
Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve. And yet...

The last strains of the *Adeste* had not quite faded when the 
congregation (a small one, doubtless on account of the cold) began to
leave the church. He and Ray stood on the sidewalk outside for a most
uncomfortable interlude before Ray stamped his feet and rubbed his hands
together theatrically.

"Damn, it's cold! I just hope the heating's still working."

"Do you have reason to believe it isn't? That could be a serious
problem."

"Nah, nah, just covering all the angles. So, uh, you want a lift? I got
my car parked just around the corner."

Car. Ray had driven here. Had he wandered aimlessly, as Fraser had, or
had he known all along where he was going?

"I think -- yes. Yes, I would like a lift. If it's not too much 
trouble."

"No, no, no trouble, Fraser, not at all." For a moment he stood there,
rubbing his hands, as if there was something more he wanted to say. But
he said nothing, turning abruptly and walking past Fraser, his hands
in his pockets.

He wasn't wearing gloves. Fraser felt his own hands growing cold in sympathy.

It wasn't until Ray had got the car started -- with difficulty -- that
he spoke again.

"I never knew you were Catholic, Fraser," he said, his voice aiming for
evenness and missing by a millimetre. 

The inevitable question. And how to answer it, and answer it honestly?
For anyone else he could concoct a facile and basically true 
explanation that would skirt expertly around the emotional heart of his
belief. Or unbelief. They were becoming harder to distinguish with the
passage of time.

Ray was staring at him now. Fraser felt inclined to chide him for not
watching the road, which would have been a distraction as well; but the
road was as close to empty as it ever was, and Ray knew that, and he
knew that, and Ray knew that he knew that.

He looked out the window. It would be easier that way. "In the 
strictest sense of the word, Ray, I'm actually not. My -- well, as you
know, I was mostly raised by my grandparents, and they were atheists.
My father was less...dogmatic than they were, but he wasn't religious.
So I wasn't baptised or raised in any religion."

"But you go to Mass anyway?" said Ray, his eyebrow twitching.

"Not regularly, no. Though when I was younger -- I mean, before I joined
the Academy -- I went every chance I got."

"Why'd you stop?"

Ray's voice was muted, almost as if he hadn't meant to speak aloud. Fraser
glanced across at him; he was looking at the road. "I'm not sure. I'm
not even sure why I started in the first place, except that I felt something
missing, something...You see, after my mother died, I could...feel her
presence. It wasn't something I could articulate, or explain; it didn't
fit in with what I'd been taught. It was an 
anomaly."

"*You're* an anomaly, Fraser." This said with a slight lopsided grin.

"Of course."

"I'm not being funny, Fraser. Don't tell me you haven't noticed." 

"I've noticed." Softer than he'd meant to say it, so that Ray shot an
uneasy glance in his direction, which made him feel bad; he hadn't meant
it as a jibe. The events of the past week had hurt him badly, and Ray
had been the one to bathe his wounds, although perhaps Ray didn't see
it that way.

Ray cleared his throat, something Fraser had noticed was his way of signalling
a subject change. "Myself, I got the whole nine yards as a kid. Baptism,
Confirmation, all of that. I was never an altar boy, but apart from that,
I was pretty much soaked in the stuff. All the way, until..."

"Until?"

"Until I went to college. Then everything changed."

"How? How did everything change?" Fraser found himself staring, and every
reason he could think of to look away seemed trivial and petty. 

Ray was silent for a long moment. "I met new people," he said finally,
"and they didn't believe what I believed." A snort, as if the 
simplicity of it baffled him. "That was enough. Because I'd never really
questioned any of it. I just took it all for granted, and then suddenly
I *couldn't* take it for granted any more, and I had all these questions
that there was no answer for, and...It's like a house of cards, you know?
All the rituals and the beliefs and the weird little rules, they're piled
up together so that if you pick at one card, one single solitary card,
the whole thing falls apart."

Fraser felt a lump rising in his throat as Ray spoke. What must it be
like for Ray, who had always had that comforting faith behind him, from
his earliest childhood, to leave it behind? To go it alone in a cold
and Godless world? It was hard enough for him, and he'd had precious
little of that warmth in his life.

Yet there was something he needed to know. A question still 
unanswered. He cleared his throat. "So, why tonight?"

"Why...oh. Well, it's Christmas."

"That's all?"

"It's all I need. See..." He twisted his neck in that endearing little
gesture of his, and Fraser felt a smile rising in spite of himself. "This
time of year, I feel like...like everything is telling me I was wrong.
That the house of cards is still standing. I love Christmas, ya know?
The lights and the tinsel and all the...the bustle, it's...it's like
the city dressing itself up for a party. And I remember, every time I
see a manger or a Santa Claus or a Christmas tree or 
*whatever*, I remember what it's all really about. And, this time of
year, it makes sense.

"Now, I know that by the 28th or so, I'll remember all the questions
I never got answered, and all the pain and ugliness and shit, pardon
my language, that there is in the world and that God never did a damn
thing about. But tonight, none of it matters."

Ray fell silent, and Fraser was grateful; he surely would have begun
to weep if Ray had continued. Suddenly he knew, *knew*, as he had never
known before, that he was not alone, that there was someone in the world
who thought the same way he did.

"Theodicy," he said, and Ray turned his head sharply; but there was no
annoyance on his face, only recognition, and a sort of dawning light,
as if things were making sense to him that had never made sense before.

"That's it," he said. "Christmas is theodicy. Its very own theodicy."

"God's in his heaven, all's right with the world."

"Exactly." A pause. Fraser felt himself gradually returning to his usual
state of hyper-awareness, as if waking up from a half-sleep. When had
the car stopped? When had Ray turned it towards his own apartment building
instead of the Consulate?

Ray seemed to regain awareness of his surroundings at the same time,
as if their two minds were bonded -- which Fraser sometimes thought they
were. "Hey, Fraser...Uh, you wanna come up to my place, maybe drink some
eggnog, watch some bad TV?"

"I don't want to impose." And how false that courtesy seemed, after all
their heart-scouring; not just of this night, but of all the days and
nights that went before. What was the use in trying to hide the fact
that they were closer than partners, closer than friends, closer than...than
anything?

"Fraser, you're not imposing. You'd be doing me a favour. Look, if you
don't come...I'm going home alone. This is no time of year to be going
home alone."

Unspoken: *you'll be going home alone, too, so let me ease your 
loneliness while you ease mine*. So typical of Ray -- such a 
thoughtless act of kindness -- to expose his own vulnerability without
doing the same to Fraser. Not in words, anyway.

But Fraser knew that Ray would think less of him, would draw back from
their closeness and hide behind his own masks, unless he did what Ray
was refusing to do for him.

"I'd like that," he said, breathing carefully to keep his voice even.
"I don't...I'd rather not be alone, either."

Ray smiled then -- and what a smile! Fraser knew that for such a smile
he would mine for gold and climb mountains and walk barefoot over ice
-- or spend another year in a city that was smothering him by inches.

But he could worry about that tomorrow. Tomorrow, or the day after, or
the day after that. Tonight there was Christmas, and there was Ray, and
all was well with the world. 

And one day there would be more...

[end]