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      	  Requiescat IV: Greater Love Hath None 
 by Blue Champagne  

 Disclaimer: I own diddly squat. No money.

 Author's Notes: Good Luck. I give up. Here's the story. Next one will be
the last of the series.

 Story Notes: Why did I decide to do this?

 SequelTo: Requiescat III: And Peace Attend Thee

 

 Requiescat IV: Greater Love Hath None

 The chili chapatis were quite good; the inspector had, as promised, a
choice of condiments on hand, including unspicy east Indian dips, lowfat
sour cream, and yogurt, his personal favorites. She also wasn't lying when
she said there was plenty because she cooked by the numbers and couldn't
downsize recipes; he got up at one point to fetch another eight-ounce
container of sour cream, and discovered her entire crisper drawer was full
of disposable tupperware filled with chili.

 As they ate, he realized he must, indeed, not be very well off, because
he never would have thought he could even face the idea of eating a casual
meal with the Inspector in her home, out of uniform, the Inspector in a
bathrobe, neither of them speaking much, and not feel *anything* but more
tired than he thought he'd ever been in his life. Tired enough not to care
about how inappropriate it was to show up on your *commanding* *officer's*
*doorstep*. Tired enough to die and not even realize it. 

 Just tired. Of everything.

 He was amazed, however, how much better he felt--physically, and at least
somewhat emotionally--with a stomach stuffed full of gastrointestinally
gentle chili, and chapati bread, washed down with milk. 

 They finished the meal, and both of them sat, picking around at their
plates and sipping their respective beverages; the inspector said "I'll
clear up. Why don't you have a seat in the living room? There's a DVD in
the machine that I like to play while I read in there; turn it on, if
you'd be so kind." It wasn't a request, and he didn't protest with offers
of help with the straightening. He simply did as she said.

 The DVD was one of those landscape-overfly relaxation views, with sped-up
shots of clouds flowing through natural corridors of temperature change in
mountainous lands, through the valleys and around the peaks, near dawn,
while the clouds still mostly hovered at ground level, the speed of
playback increased enough so that one could follow the patterns of flowing
mist as though it were water. Flocks of birds soared through sunset light
now and then, Canada geese, snow geese. A closeup of a raven's eye, then
its taking off into the air heralded the introduction of a desert
sequence, the camera traveling low and fast over the complicated
wind-patterns on the sand dunes under a deep pink dawn sky. He watched,
and listened to the understated music; organic new-age, blended aboriginal
instruments and rhythm patterns of kinds he was not really interested in
recognizing and naming now. Pleasantly, it wasn't synthesized music, as
near as he could tell.

 She joined him in a few moments. He neither moved nor glanced away from
the TV screen to acknowledge her as she situated herself on the other
couch, which was pale cream-colored, with a soft, swirl-patterned nap,
matching the shorter couch he was sitting on. 

 He didn't like the word "loveseat".

 "Are you ready for some rest, Constable?" she asked quietly.

 "Yes," he said, and pushed up a sleeve, then laid his arm on the broad,
faux-marble endtable that formed the right-angle connection between the
couch she sat on and the one he did.

 She looked a brief moment, then moved to pull her glasses from her robe
pocket and set them on her nose, holding them in place with one hand. He
had forgotten that she wore glasses, probably because she'd switched to
contacts at some point. She must not have them in right now.

 "I see," she said, speculatively, after examining his arm under the
direct light of the low-watt, soft-white incandescent bulb in the
pastel-shaded lamp on the table. "Yes, I see." She sat back, removing the
glasses again and putting them back in her pocket. "I imagine the inside
is much worse."

 He nodded.

 "They don't know."

 He nodded again.

 "And, unfortunately, you can't continue on your course, now, without
their finding out, one way or another."

 He didn't bother to move or respond this time. 

 "How badly are you damaged emotionally, Constable?"

 "Quite badly, sir. I would have to say the damage has intruded into the
realm of 'mental'-- at least as that term is recognized by the laity
rather than professionals--by now."

 "Ah." She nodded, looking thoughtful. "But you constitute no danger to
anyone around you." This was a statement, not a question.

 He nodded. "Rather the opposite, sir."

 "Yes, I thought as much. I take it a leave would make little difference
in your predicament--long-term difference, that is."

 "That's correct, sir. And I have...nowhere to go, in any case."

 "You have family back home," she essayed.

 "They don't like me, sir. They never have. And now..." he shrugged. "My
sisters have been 'born again' and are more than simply uncomfortable with
my being..."

 "Bisexual, to my observations," she said.

 "To save time, that word will do. Also, I am not a Christian; we were
raised Methodist by parents who were, really, indifferent to religion; it
was simply a socially expected activity."

 "But they have become 'true believers'."

 A smirk found its way onto his face. "One might say that. However, while
they are married and faithful, I happen to know that at least two of them
enjoy reading homosexual erotica. Though they have experimented with
homosexual activity themselves in their younger years, and have admitted
feelings of attraction towards other women, they condemn it publicly, and
do not want me near their children unsupervised because I will not promise
to lie to my nieces if asked any direct questions about my religion or
whom I may or may not find attractive. My sisters would be scandalized if
they knew I had told the truth, despite the fact that my nieces are all in
their late teens by this time. And they do not accept my sexuality in
*me*. Even if one has those feelings, even if one does not reject them in
oneself--as they apparently do not--one must *pretend* to reject them in
oneself. They are also bisexual, and since they're married, they can
easily pass, and expect me to follow their example. Not doing so is just
childish rebelliousness, in their opinion. Same-sex activity is fine to
read for titillating entertainment provided no one but other aficionados
know of it, of course. It's fine to accept it in oneself--though *not* in
one's children---as long as one never speaks of it or acts on it, and
continues to condemn it outwardly. 

 "They've also stated they are against the idea of legalized same-sex
marriage--though generally speaking, they do not *say* much of anything
about anything of any importance. They simply say and do whatever is most
beneficial for them in any given situation, without regard to any
previously stated beliefs, or avoiding doing anything they may have taken
*me* to task for in the past; it's *always* different when *they* do it,
whatever it is. They simply rationalize whatever is easiest and most
convenient for them as being the 'right' thing to do. I could not make
myself over into whatever they would rather have me be, even if I tried,
because in order to cater to their constantly shifting needs, I would have
to be both clairvoyant and telepathic, and possibly omniscient. You see,
their 'born again' status makes them always, and inarguably, *right* about
everything, no matter how objectively irrational."

 "You consider this behavior to be hypocritical." Her eyebrows were
raised, probably at the length and bitter tone of his speech, he figured,
and he nearly laughed.

 "I do," he said.

 "And unless you cater to their...rather convoluted worldview, you are not
welcome among them."

 "Even if I *do* try to do so, I am not entirely welcome among them. This
includes my father, by the way. I am, by this late date, irredeemable, you
see, in their view. They would prefer that I simply kept my distance until
and unless I 'learn how to behave', and even then kept my head down,
accepting their constant judgement of me, and allow their accusing me of
'having a chip on my shoulder' or 'being childish' if I don't agree with
and do everything they tell me to."

 She coughed. He wasn't sure why; it sounded like perhaps a bit of chili
spice had gone down wrong, but the chili hadn't been very hot. She cleared
her throat and said "I would say, just as an aside, that it would be
difficult to find anyone who better 'knew how to behave' than you do. So,
then...your parents? You mentioned your father..."

 "My mother is dead. A year ago. I had not seen her for years, but she was
careful that no information should reach me about how serious her
condition was lest I should pray for her or cast spells for her health. I
finally received a call from one of my sisters telling me to 'get home
*now*'; then a call about six hours later telling me not to rush." He
shrugged. "I was on time for the funeral, in any case. She was also 'born
again' and did not accept me as I was. She *was* the only member of my
family who was always willing to listen to me; after all, I was her child.
But there was a price to be paid for it." His mouth quirked, but he
thought it best not to specify. "When I say she didn't accept me, I meant
anything about me, that is; not just the fact that I am not a totally
conventional, mainstream person in all respects. No, only my sisters are
that specific in their resentment of me. My mother was more resentful
because she thought I 'insisted' on taking after my father in certain
ways, as if *that* would ever cross my mind."

 "Your sisters. They've said as much as you just did, in terms of what
they don't accept about you?" Her tone wasn't indicative of a "Come on,
did they really *say* that?" attitude---it was simply a request as to
whether this was a family-brouhaha level of unacceptance, or a
nice-middle-class frozen sort. 

 He answered it as such. "*Saying* anything would be gauche. One simply
pretends these things don't exist. In fact, that's their main quarrel. I
will not accept that who they are, how they feel, what they think, and
what they do may be discussed and otherwise treated openly, but absolutely
*none* of those things may be treated openly where *I* am concerned. My
insistence on speaking the truth about myself, even in a contained and
polite fashion; on being who I am--even in the same fashion--all this is
selfish and not to be tolerated. *I*--what I think, who I am, how I
feel--*everything*--must be treated like a filthy secret. That is the
*adult* way to behave."

 "I see. And your father?" 

 "My father is not sane, by any reasonable terms. He has the temper and
coping mechanisms of a six-year-old, and enjoys using the power he has
over me to hurt me. In his opinion, there is nothing wrong with me that
could not be fixed if I were simply hurt more. There is not enough hurt in
the world for me to suffer, in his opinion. That has always been his
opinion. Since I was born, as near as I can remember. And he has acted on
that opinion, ever since that time, as well."

 She drummed her fingers on the sofa arm. "You have my sympathy,
Constable."

 "Thank you, sir."

 "And you have no one else; that was made clear by constable Fraser, and
by your arrival here. Don't apologize; I would far rather have you here
than believing you have absolutely nowhere to turn in difficulty as great
as you obviously find yourself."

 "I appreciate that, sir."

 "The cutting scars. You have them elsewhere?"

 "Not as many elsewhere, but over most of my skin surface, to some degree,
yes, sir."

 "Fraser and Ray haven't seen them?"

 "No, sir."

 "I was under the impression..."

 He finally glanced up at her. "They have had many opportunities to see my
scars, sir, both internal and external. They've taken no note of the
external ones. I believe they do suspect--believe in, to some degree--the
internal ones, though they can't see them well enough to put solid names
to. Between them, they do a fair job of understanding. In general,
however, it is my experience that people see what they want to."

 She nodded. "It's true I rarely see you out of uniform, but I will assume
that what you mean is, you had to *show* me these scars before I could see
them, and tell me the very specific things you've told me, which I will
assume you have not told Fraser and Ray--before I could see *them*."

 He looked away from her, and nodded. "To be fair, I do not encourage
questions, because..."

 "You feel the true answers would drive them away, but to lie to them
would ruin your relationship with them."

 "Yes." His head fell. "You're perhaps too good at this, sir."

 "Then...they don't wish to know these things about you."

 "I don't know about that, sir. I haven't given them the opportunity to
find them out and cast me off. You see, my sense of self is reduced to
something that could easily be washed away by even a minor rejection of
who I actually am, by this point. If they decided that anyone as deformed
and destroyed as I am were no one they wanted in their lives, it would
more than finish that job."

 She nodded. "So you must leave before they can do so...but doing that
might very well accomplish the same end."

 He nodded.

 "You do love them, then. It's their love for you which is in question."

 "I love, and have loved, many, many people in my life, starting with my
family. I have been loved only once or twice, and wasted that love because
I was so crippled that I couldn't respond properly to it. Their love for
me...is not in question. It doesn't exist, because they don't know me, and
if they did, they would realize that they have been laboring under a
misapprehension for our entire association."

 "They could not want you, if they knew you."

 "Correct, sir."

 "You're sure of this?"

 "They believe there is nothing about me that could be so bad that they
would not be able to love me. They simply don't realize what an enormous
amount of work it would be to deal with the real me, considering the
destruction of my matrix of self when I was far too small to have any way
to defend myself against it--and in any case, it is maximally effective,
beyond the possibility of 'learning trust again', because it was
perpetrated not only by everyone around me, but those I was supposed to be
able to trust above all others--my parents and the rest of my family." He
didn't say these words with a trace of self-pity. It was merely a dry
recitation of facts. 

 "And you believe they would grow impatient with the constant weight of
dealing with what you have been rendered."

 "That is the case, sir."

 "Hm." She considered briefly. "Have you told them this?"

 "No. I'm afraid what's left of...of me would be..."

 "...rendered nonfunctional?" 

 He appreciated her providing him with something to say other than
"destroyed". All that practice in diplomacy was doing them both a world of
good in this conversation. They could dish it and understand it, both. 

 "Yes, rendered nonfunctional by their knowing this about me. Even if they
did know it, they might at first protest my error, then find, later, as it
began to weigh on them, that I was right--and I am right."

 She nodded. "I understand. And this relationship you have with them--it
has become so crucial, as I believe we've established, that losing it by
leaving them could bring about the same result as their leaving you, even
if there were a slightly better chance of your survival if you were the
one to end things."

 "Yes, sir."

 "I see. Well, Constable, I believe it is time for you to sleep. I will
ponder this matter, and perhaps we can come up with some solution that
will not leave you with nothing but...Hobson's choice."

 He blinked, glanced up, actually seeing her for the first time in a
while. She would ponder the matter? "Sir?"

 "Brush your teeth and such. I'll see about that sedative--and it is only
a sedative, not a knockout pill; don't worry about that. But you need some
genuine rest, and you won't get it tonight, not without something to make
you too tired to lie there and...well, there's no need to go into that.
Trust me and do as I say, Constable."

 "Sir, if I may ask...your own family...did they--"

 "My family are dead," she said shortly. "I'll meet you back out here to
give you the sedative. You may have the hallway bathroom for your use;
distribute your kit there as you like. I have a bathroom adjoining the
master bedroom." She got up and went away, leaving the CD running. 

 ***

 "I wonder where he is..." Fraser barely whispered, staring down at the
two sets of sandwich fixings on the cutting board under his hands. He
stood there, holding the head of lettuce in both hands, then finally,
decisively, set it down, turned back to the refrigerator and opened it,
rummaging again for the ingredients he'd just put away. 

 "He's there without us, that's all I know. And your bi--"

 "Ray."

 "--your obnoxious pain of a boss wouldn't tell us--how'd you know what I
was gonna say, anyway? Don't be jumping to conclusions--and I *know* she
knows 'cause I know he at least *was* there." Ray sighed. "She was awfully
damn cool for somebody who was really hidin' someone though. I...just
couldn't tell for sure. And, and I just wonder why he could go to
her...even for a little while, but..."

 "I believe we discussed this. She cares. Just not *too* much, for what he
needs right now."

 "It's not supposed to work that way!" Ray snapped, smacking his hand
palm-down on the countertop. "He can come to us with *anything*! Anything,
that's the way this works! He could say 'Ray, I hate your hair that way,
quit gelling it' and I'd at least *talk* about it, there's nothing he
can't tell me! And definitely nothing he can't tell *you*, the most
perceptive guy on the planet."

 "I believe you've commented, at times, on just how oblivious I can be
when it comes to other humans. And I think you've made the same sorts of
comments about yourself." Fraser stood back up, tugged the dark blue
sweatpants that were apparently all he wore into place again--they looked
ironed and Ray didn't want to know, though he supposed he was going to be
finding out soon anyway, what with the last of Fraser's stuff permanently
installed over here--with his arms full of bread, cold cuts, and
condiments, which he deposited back onto the counter with a defiant clunk
and clatter, beginning to precisely set out the preliminaries for a third
sandwich next to the two still unassembled on the cutting board. "Would
you check the soup? It should be simmering--bubbles rising, but the
surface shouldn't be undulating."

 "I was just kickin' myself, when I said that, things like that. Or
kicking you. People say shit like that when they fuck up. That doesn't
apply to anything as important as this. I ask him if he wants to get a
place together and he packs his admittedly scarce shit and *runs*? With no
warning?"

 "I believe he's given us plenty of warning, as I tried to tell you
earlier."

 "Then maybe you could have let me in a little on this, huh? Maybe you
could have enlightened the poor idiot who doesn't understand the ways of
you super-repressed Canadian mounties, huh?"

 "You're right, Ray. I apologize."

 Ray screeched to a halt; he thought he could smell burning rubber, a
stinging haze floating in the apartment. His brain had tracks burned into
it. He knew this because he could feel the goddamn things, and they hurt
like a bitch. Enough to notice through the general miasm of hurting.

 "As I said," Fraser said without turning around, evidently taking Ray's
silence as encouragement to continue speaking, "I *was* aware that
Turnbull was keeping things from us, just as you were; but I knew the
problem was worse than you thought. I didn't tell you that. I didn't ask
him about it, or ask you to ask him about it. I knew how...fragile the
connection we had was, though at first glance it certainly didn't seem
that way--he loves us so much..." 

 "...he loves us more than...fuck," Ray said, the word "life" hanging
there, fat and morbid, dripping ichor, unspoken in the kitchen, as they
both remembered their conversation of earlier, about how far Turnbull
might be willing to go--for *their* sake, as well as his own. 

 "More than himself, by a very good margin," Fraser went on, shouldering
his way around the fat drippy word to check the soup himself. It was
starting to mutate. The word, that was. The soup, apparently, was fine,
and Fraser put the lid back on it, tilted just slightly to let a little
steam out, and returned to where he was quickly, deftly, defiantly making
three Dagwoods, his superfast Fraser-fingerdness in full flower.

 "What did we do?" Ray finally wondered faintly, and Fraser turned to see
that all the fight had gone out of Ray's eyes suddenly, that the word was
developing an ichor dribble in one of the spots it was changing shape, and
that Dief had gotten up to get out from under it and sit with Ray by the
counter, leaning against his leg. Ray's voice was rough but thin, low but
imploring. "What did we *do* that he can't...trust us?" His eyes
shimmered.

 "We didn't do anything," Fraser said, going to Ray and taking his
shoulders. "We didn't do anything. A lot of other people have done things
to Turnbull that he never deserved, and it turned him into something he
thinks is too hideous to live." There was a squelch from the word and
Fraser's mouth quirked in annoyance, but he just went on "You may...feel
him, sense feeling the way he does, feel the things he does, but you could
have had no way of knowing. He hides things too well--he's had a
*lifetime* of practice at lying and hiding--from the time he could first
form cogent words he's had to modify them, change the truth, make sure who
he was and what he showed was always all right, every breath he took,
every word he said, every thought he expressed or question he asked had to
*already* be perfectly acceptable. It was much, much worse in Turnbull's
case, but *I* know that when I see it, too. I was able to get out of it to
a degree--I'm able to--well, let's just say there are things I can do now
that I couldn't have done ten or even five--some things, even one--year
ago, and Turnbull is more than ten years younger than I am and starting
with a far more gigantic handicap. I recognized it in him, finally--yes,
it took time, I *do* rather define self-absorbed, just as he can, since we
had to make certain we were, at all times, a dozen other people's
different ideas of perfect; that will certainly put one's focus on
oneself--and when I finally did so, I went from thinking him some kind of
demented, fatuous, bizarre nelly that was transferred here to get him the
hell out of Canada altogether, to seeing the man I could have been if
things had been just a little worse for me. Just a little worse, Ray. If
he weren't so strong..." He paused, sighing, releasing the wide-eyed Ray's
shoulders. "Ray, we didn't do anything. You simply don't have the system
of logic running in your head that Turnbull does, and that I did, and that
we still operate under a version of, so there was no way you could predict
what he'd do. You could feel his love, love so deep and powerful--so
strong--"

 "River deep, mountain high," Ray murmured, but he wasn't joking.

 "Yes. You were so swamped in that there's no way you could have known he
would react that way. That's why I exploded at you when you didn't...ask
me first, before you asked *us*, if you follow. And yes, I know that makes
no sense--the way I was behaving *didn't* make any sense. I knew I was
keeping something from you that you might need to know because of my own
fear, that Turnbull was keeping it from you because he didn't want to hurt
you or lose you, and when disaster struck because I did what I did, I
wanted to blame you, when it was my fault, not yours. Don't ask what we
did, Ray, or at least not what you did. You didn't do anything. You're the
only one involved who's wholly innocent of wrongdoing here."

 "What you didn't tell me, or make him talk about--that he was hiding a
load of shit like yours, but way big-ass worse than yours--it was because
you'd have had to talk about your own load of shit in order to explain how
you knew, and why you knew it could be a problem, isn't it."

 "Well, yes, obviously. I was protecting my own insecurity instead of
doing the right thing. I've apologized for that, but if you want me to do
it again, I will, if it will help."

 "Fraser, no, just getting it straight..." Ray folded him close, resting
his close-shaven face on Fraser's bare shoulder. "I love you."

 "I love you, too."

 "You can stop beating yourself up, and I'll stop beating you up. I didn't
realize how hard you were taking your part of it. I just saw you dragging
me away from Thatcher's door, telling me to leave it alone...made me
crazy, okay, it made me *nuts*--"

 "Of course it did, and of course it would, I know that--"

 "--and I stopped thinking and just blamed you, now that I had somebody to
blame. So I'm no better than you. What did we do? You're right, we didn't
do what made him do this. Other people did that. I just hate...that we're
not the people who can make him okay enough to come back to us."

 "Only he can do that now, Ray."

 "Okay, psych 101 degree earned, fine, but we're not the people who can
*help* him while he does it, either! Thatcher, fucking *Thatcher* is!" Ray
kicked a lower cabinet door sharply with his heel.

 "Ray. Would you be so angry about that if Meg were a sixty-eight year old
woman who weighed two hundred pounds and had blue hair?"

 There was silence from Fraser's shoulder for a moment.

 "Okay. No," Ray sighed. "I'd still be upset. But maybe not as upset.
Maybe not as upset if it weren't the only woman I've ever met who can
crank my goodstuff engine, burn my muffins to a crisp and clean my clock
with one hand."

 "Are you jealous of her?"

 There was a pause, then Ray lifted his head, looking honestly puzzled.
"Of what? In particular, I mean."

 "Sorry, I meant 'Do you think he might find her more attractive than he
does us'?"

 "Uh, Fraser, he loves *us*. We could look like roadkill and she could
look like...her, and he wouldn't be *more* attracted to her. I just
mean...well, *we're* the ones he loves. Why can't he come to us? Why does
he have to go to the head Super Mountie of all *fucking* people? To his
*boss*?"

 "Ah--it's partly the fact that she's his work superior in both rank and
posting position, and yet he went to her with an emotional problem
*instead* of coming to us, that bothers you." 

 "If she were this cushy old-lady grandmothery type like you said, I could
maybe get it. Maybe he needed to cry to his mother. Or somebody who could
be a better mother to him than he got, or something. But Thatcher?! That's
like taking your floundering business to a loan shark to get it out of the
red."

 "I think that may be where the confusion is--I don't think Turnbull is
after cuddles and pats in order to deal with this. He *wants* cuddles and
pats to help him deal with this, somewhere, deep down, where the very
essence of his self lives; but at this point, he simply wouldn't know what
to do with them. They wouldn't help his problem, because he's never had
any. Until fairly late in his life to date, he's only ever been attacked
when he showed emotional need. He wants someone to treat his problem like
a *treatable problem*, like a puzzle or an exercise in a particular system
of logic. Meg--"

 "She's Meg now?"

 "Right at the moment she is, to me. Meg cares about him, enough to go to
considerable lengths, if she must, to help him. But she will not flood him
with sympathy that he wouldn't understand or have any use for--the kind of
comfort most people would be in search of would be wasted on him; he
hasn't any of the proper human mechanisms left in place to accept it. His
were all destroyed by being underused and undermined, every second of
every day, until they were gone. He needs someone who can keep her cool,
is intelligent, caring--about him, specifically--and insightful. You can't
possibly doubt she has any of those qualities, except possibly the caring
and insightfulness--"

 "No. She threw me into the wall defending him. And she knew about the
three of us, and I know he didn't just tell her. If she'd only just found
out, her jaw would still have been on the floor when we got to her place.
She figured it out a while back." He smiled a little, pink lips barely
curving. "She's also weird, like you and Turnbull, which I like. I
remember that comment about your tunics."

 Fraser smiled. "Yes, so do I. I also remember you calling us all weird,
but this is the first you've said you like it."

 "She's got a good ass too, you ever notice?"

 "I sometimes have a poker inappropriately placed somewhere roundabout my
anatomy, Ray, but I'm not dead. She rides, as well, you know."

 "So all the Mounties in Chicago really are Horsemen. Or whatever you'd
call Meg. Uh, Thatcher. I'd probably better not call her Meg."

 "The three of us usually aren't all the Mounties in Chicago; and that's
probably a good idea, Ray." Fraser kissed him on the mouth, let him go,
and returned to the sandwiches, ducking around the word again, which had
almost completely finished mutating.

 Ray looked at the bloated, disease-colored word, which had started out as
"life" and now said "death", its own logical conclusion considering the
sentence it had been cut out of (and why), in turgid, misshapen-looking
letters. "Who do we call to get that removed?"

 "I think you just have to wait until they fade. Try not to leave any more
of them around, all right? No matter how bad a pun it is, or how
mistakenly inappropriate a thing to say, if you start to say something
like that before you realize it, just go ahead and say it. Or you do get
that sort of thing." Fraser thrust a thumb over his shoulder, then
finished the last sandwich, placing a thick, lowfat-herb-mayonnaised slice
of whole-multi-grain bread fresh from the bakery downstairs on top. "Could
you check the soup?"

 The phone on the counter rang. Ray was much closer and didn't have to
duck around the word, so he grabbed it easily ahead of Fraser. "Yeah!
What! Uh, hello, Ray Vecchio--yeah. Yeah. Um...yeah. Okay. Okay. What?!
All wee--no. No, no, no, I'm not saying that. And we won't. Yes. Yes.
Well, you know Fraser does. Um...yeah. I do, too. No, I mean it. Even if I
didn't, I've kinda got to, you know? Yeah...no, I will not do that. I
swear on how much I love Turnbull that I will not do that, is that good
enough for you? Well, thanks. Besides, you and Turnbull know you can trust
Fraser, and if you really think I could successfully skip on Fraser and
Dief, you're smoking crack...uh, yeah. We will. Yeah, or my cell'll always
get me, I'll shower with it, I'll take a shit with it. Uh. Bring it with
me, I mean. Yeah. Okay. We'll be waiting...um. Thank you. No, I mean it, I
really, really do--thanks." Ray hung up, stood there quietly a second,
then turned to Fraser. "I guess you caught that?"

 "Most of it, I think." Fraser was stirring the soup, smiling a bit now,
which told Ray he'd heard at least part of the end. "Especially the part
where--despite her lack of enthusiasm about your descriptive imagery--she
told you that he said to her that he loves us. As for the rest, Turnbull
is currently safe and well in physically comfortable surroundings. He
wishes us to know that for now, he has no immediate plans to leave those
surroundings; in fact, we won't be seeing him at least until Monday. He
still does not wish Meg to disclose his location, nor for us to attempt to
find him ourselves--nor attempt even to verify guesses by shadowing Meg;
in fact, we're to stay as far away from her and her movements as possible,
including staying away from the Consulate and her apartment--except with
respect to essential drop-offs and pickups at the consulate, of course--so
that we can't observe her directions of travel, to or from, either place.
We aren't to try to call her at any of her numbers unless its
work-related, and we should use her cell in that case; she will call us at
least every day, probably twice, and immediately if any abrupt changes
occur in the situation in terms of his physical comfort and safety, so we
are not to rip our hair out with worry. She will call here first to avoid
tying up your cellphone, but if she gets your machine, rather than leave a
message, she'll call your cell, so you need not remain glued to your
kitchen counter. Did I miss anything?"

 "Nope. You got it. Except her yucked-out tone of voice near the end."

 "I don't think I can ever hope to imitate that. How hungry are you, Ray?"

 Ray noticed there were three bowls sitting on plates on the kitchen
table. Fraser was sawing one of the Dagwoods in half with the meat cleaver
from the steak knife block.

 "I don't think you can get hungry enough for it to make your ass grow two
chairs wide, Frase; Dief is going to have to take that other bowl."

 Dief stood up and barked his readiness to come to their aid in the
matter. 

 Fraser sighed. "Thank you for giving him the idea, Ray."

 "I think we should get him a high chair. Don't you think he should have a
high chair at least? It'd keep him from slopping on the table and he could
still sit with us."

 Dief looked up at Ray and muttered something. 

 Ray, looking down at him, went on "Uh, though I think he doesn't think
they make them that big. Or something. I get kind of an impression of a
high chair with something white and grey and brown and fuzzy hanging out
of it all over the place."

 Fraser turned and gazed at him. "That's just what he said."

 "You...got that impression, too?"

 "No, no--he said 'Ray, I'd never fit in a high chair'. You must have seen
his mental picture of trying, or something."

 "Oh. Huh. Damn it." He'd walked facefirst into the word, which gooshed
ichor onto the floor. He stepped backward hastily, wiping at his face with
the back of one arm and hand. "Fraser! Can't you do something?"

 "It's your word, Ray. *You* left it hanging."

 "Well I don't *know* what to--you're the one with the Inuit stories and
native lore and--wait a minute. That spell bag in the bedroom, didn't baby
say it was for protection?"

 Fraser frowned. "Ah...yes, but I believe specific to a purpose. I'm
willing to say that wouldn't matter as far as the herbs simply contained
in the bag, but his intention and other preparation when he made the
bag--"

 "We'll warm-start it. Reinitialize. Go get it?" Ray paper-toweled his
face. "I got gook."

 Fraser raised an eyebrow but turned and went, coming back in a moment
with the bag, which he handed to Ray. "Here you are. Whatever you intend
to do with it."

 "Um." Ray turned and went to the altar in the corner, bent and picked up
the lighter, and lit the candle. He took a deep breath and let it out.
"Alakazam and mumbo-jumbo. Not to be an asswipe; I'm serious here. This is
a bag of protective and cleansing type herbs, like." He held up the bag,
over the altar, flat on his palm. "Fraser, get Semmy and come here? Dief,
you too."

 Everybody arrived in short order. "Have a sniff, Semmy." Semimodo,
sitting on the altar, peering sleepily about, opened his little beaky
mouth and sort of gummed the packet; finding it not food, he ceased
gumming and began making his careful way about the things on the altar,
which he sometimes bumped, but never knocked over. 

 "I kinda left a bad thought dangling in the kitchen," Ray said--

 "--in the form of an unfinished sentence," Fraser added. "Since...it took
us to an unhappy mental place."

 Ray looked sideways at him and then continued "--and since Turnbull knows
herbs for this and I don't, I'd like to use his herb bag to get rid of
it--he wouldn't mind, I know him; he told me he made it in just a few
minutes, and he can make another one. If it were near and dear, he'd have
packed it with the other stuff he took to wherever he's hiding out. He
also said I could use this." Ray picked up the dagger with the black
spiral hilt that Turnbull had formerly used as a ritual knife, and now
kept at Ray's for that purpose so there would be one there that felt
comfortable about being there, with Ray's vibes, as Ray had put it. Ray
put the packet in front of the statue that held the candle. "Holy whoever
you are for the moment, please infuse the herbs in this bag with the power
to give that stupid thought the boot." He took Fraser's hand; Fraser
touched Dief's head, and Semmy had wandered over to the bag, leaving damp
spots, resting on it as though it were a pillow. Ray touched the point of
the dagger to the herb bag.

 "We hereby declare this bag a bag of stupid-word-in-the-kitchen-removal
herbs," Ray said. "Protect us from the dumb thing I nearly said. Shazam!"

 "So mote it be!" said Fraser.

 Dief barked.

 Semmy gummed.

 Ray let go of Fraser and put the dagger down. "Thanks. Nice talking to
you," Ray said. 

 "Thank you kindly," Fraser added. "We appreciate your attention and help.
We're quite novices at this, you see, though Ray appears to have some
native ability, discovered during a case during which we met a Voudun
priest--"

 "Frase."

 Fraser cleared his throat and shut up. Ray gave the dark, stark,
candleholding statue a solemn nod and blew the candle out, then gently
removed Semmy from the bag and picked it up. "Look after Semmy a minute,
would you, Frase?"

 "Certainly. He seems comfortable on the altar for the moment; I'll make
sure he doesn't fall."

 Ray--and Dief, who came along tail wagging, nearly hopping with
interest--went back to the kitchen, where the word leered at Ray under the
ceiling lamp. 

 "Hey. You. Stupid word. Stupid thought. Guess what. We don't like you. So
FUCK OFF!" At the last two words, he ripped the thread closing the bag
free and flung the leafy, twiggy, powdery contents at the word.

 It made a squeal like a balloon with the air being slowly let out, then
the spitting sound the balloon makes when you let go of it and it zips
around the room farting until it lands empty in the corner, as the word
rapidly shriveled to nothing, its icky ichor disappearing along with it. 

 "Now I just gotta sweep up the herb stuff," Ray said. "Couldn't he have
left us some kind of instruction book?"

 "You don't appear to need one," Fraser said, sounding amused, and Ray
turned to see Fraser standing by the altar with his arms in kind of a
choirboy pose, perfectly showing off those beautiful appendages, as well
as his shoulders and chest (Fraser, he noticed again, was one of the few
very masculine men around with truly, astonishingly pretty tits); Ray
realized he was standing like that because he was holding Semmy gently in
both broad hands. 

 "Neither do you," Ray said. "'So mote it be'? Baby teach you that?"

 Fraser smiled. "He asked me what it meant, or at least the word 'mote' in
that context. He'd read it all meant 'so must it be', but doubted that,
and I told him I did, too. If mote *was* indeed an old English word that
meant anything besides 'tiny fragment', it was most likely to be from the
French 'mot' for 'word', as there were massive influxes of French speakers
into England at certain key points in the evolution of the language; and
there is a great deal of French at the basis of English as we speak it
today. That would translate that phrase as something like either 'So it is
spoken'--which is a lot like what 'amen' means, by the way; 'it has been
spoken' in the sense of 'it is done being spoken'--"

 "That's what 'amen' means? 'We're done' or 'That's it'?"

 "At root, yes. Probably a more formal way of acknowledging that."

 "Huh. So what else might the mote mean?"

 "The phrase might easily be seen as meaning 'It shall be as it has been
spoken', through 'So', as in 'this way'; 'mote' as in 'word'; 'it' as in
the situation concerned; and 'be' as in manifesting the desired result in
said situation. But 'mote' is unlikely to mean 'must', either way."

 "Well, the second one sounds like what you'd want to mean at the end of
something like that, anyway, so I guess it's cool."

 "Did you get any of that herb powder on the sandwiches?" Fraser asked,
moving to return Semmy to his tank. (Ray had worried that Semmy's relative
quietude in the tank and mobility and general interest in the world out of
it meant that he felt horribly trapped in there amongst his sunning rock
and pond and toys and sand and plants and mud-making dirt--Ray was always
buying different kinds of turtle treat and pond base sand and things to
keep him entertained. He still did, but was comforted by the fact that
Fraser said Dief was of the opinion that Ray needed to remember that
turtles didn't think like humans and Semmy was trying to *find* his damn
tank when he was removed from it. "Damn it, where's everything I could
possibly need?!" Being a turtle, he wasn't either bright enough or
sharp-eyed enough to have much luck looking, and so found other things to
occupy his time 'til one of the Big Warm Soft Flying Riding Things came
and took him home again. Fraser had found Dief's assumption of what a hand
was like to Semmy to be amusing. Ray had snarled at him (Dief) not to be
so condescending.)

 Fraser finished "I don't recall what all the herbs were; I remember that
none of them are poisonous, but I can't vouch for the taste. I believe the
fumitory herb--what Turnbull called 'earth smoke'--was in small twig form,
which I'm fairly sure you wouldn't care for. Plus they've been in that
pouch a while; there may be mold spores and such to consider, not that
that's much of a threat in our case."

 "No, I kept it off the sandwiches. Good thing the word didn't squirt gunk
on 'em, either. Fraser, could I get you to walk around without a shirt
more often? I mean, I know you're not really accustomed to going half
naked, it was chilly where you're from and your boss might've been working
late in the place where you lived for a while, but God above, you are so
fucking beautiful. I could cream my pants and die sometimes just lookin'
at you."

 He said these last words to Fraser's back; Fraser's head dropped for a
moment, and Ray smiled, knowing the other man's face was pinking. He
admired the play of muscle in the beautiful taper of Fraser's
utterly--geez, this word came up a lot around Fraser, but it was *true*,
damn it--perfect shoulders down to his hips, and let his gaze rest happily
on the navy-clad ass while Fraser, rearranging Semmy and making sure his
light and all were properly repositioned, replied "I think sometimes I
could be convinced, if I can ask the same of you. Unless you're cold." He
turned from the tank, now moving--to someone who knew him well enough to
tell--with a little bit of self-consciousness. "As long as you're warm
enough...? And maybe you could wear those black muscle shirts more often.
I know, you were wearing one the night Turnbull...told us not to say we
loved him, so maybe you'd rather not, I'd under--"

 "The shirt didn't say it. If you like it, I don't mind. Especially if
it'd help. Right, uh, now. I won't be looking at myself, anyway, if you're
half naked. Come here and fuck me on the counter."

 Already heading his way, Fraser stopped and burst out laughing, then
managed "Can we eat first?"

 Dief barked agreement.

 "Yeah, we can eat first. You slaved over a hot cutting board. And a stove
too, come to think of it. Is the soup done? I love you."

 "The soup is done, and I love you too--" Fraser was close enough now that
he just reached right out and pulled Ray in when Ray's face screwed up,
and a whimper-growl-wail of worry and grief and frustration that would
have been loud enough to rattle the windows was at least partly muffled in
Fraser's neck. "Hang on, Ray, just hang on...it'll be fine...he'll come
home...he loves us, he just needs some help from someone who has more
perspective than we do, for a while...think of it as his seeing a
psychologist, or going on a meditation retreat...I'm so sorry I frightened
you with the things I said earlier, I shouldn't have--"

 Ray sobbed louder, just for a moment, then quieted some; the realization
that Fraser had once tried to kill himself, and that if it hadn't been for
Diefenbaker...

 "...but I'd gone too long without telling the truth, without saying
everything I knew that might be of import. And that could have brought
about--well, perhaps did help bring about--this...so I was afraid, and I
said...maybe too much, for right now. Ray--remember all the times he *has*
said he loves you, and the times he's smiled at you and been happy about
it when you've said you love him. Remember *those* times, all right? Don't
worry, right now, about what happened later, that's an anomaly, it'll be
dealt with, it *is* being dealt with, it may take time--just remember,
he's safe. And he loves us."

 Ray made a loud, grieving, strangled noise, clutching at Fraser's
shoulders with both hands. 

 "Bite," Fraser said, quietly, and Ray opened his mouth and bit, at
Fraser's shoulder just under the collarbone, not really any harder than he
might when they were having sex, but for a whole different reason, and the
slight, sharp pain went to Fraser's heart, not another location in his
body where it would have gone if Ray were biting in loving passion.

 Finally Ray let loose the mouthful, and began to cry more softly, the
worst of it broken--from a huge, crashing wave into a collection of
smaller rocking ones, as Ray sobbed quietly, letting Fraser rock him with
the waves. 

 "I want him back," he whimpered. "He'll come back? You think? I think. I
think he'll come back..."

 "He'll come back," Fraser said, and reached to wipe the tears trailing
down his own cheeks. "I want him back too. I miss him, too. I miss
him...he's hardly been gone a day, I see him all the time, but I *miss*
him. It's ridiculous that I should..." He lowered his forehead to Ray's
shoulder and sobbed almost silently, just breaths, dripping a bit, and
finally sighing himself back under control. "I think--I think I've been
missing him for months. Ever since..."

 "The bad feet weekend. Yeah. Yeah," Ray said, and wiped at his face and
Fraser's chest and got nowhere, and grabbed the paper towels and pulled
off a couple of handfuls, one of which he handed to Fraser. "Ever since we
realized just how much we wanted him...close. Here. I'm sorry."

 "I told you to. I'd rather you bit me than yourself; you bite too hard
when you bite the edge of your own hand."

 "It works," Ray shrugged, uncaring.

 "You should never draw blood with your teeth. It's dangerous. Human
saliva has elements in it that can be poisonous if inserted directly into
the bloodstream. You never bite me or Turnbull that hard. And all three
things are better than hitting the walls. I don't want to have to take you
to the emergency room for that again."

 "If that was a warning, I heard you the first time."

 The remains of the cloud of protective herbs floated about in the light,
glittering. They breathed. They calmed.

 On Fraser's shoulder there were only white indentations; the area might
turn red for a while, but only because Fraser was so pale. It probably
wouldn't bruise at all. 

 "I feel like I got PMS," Ray muttered, and Fraser, trying to blow his
nose into a paper towel, made a weird honk, paused getting his control of
his nasopharyngeal situation back, and blew again; while wiping, he said
"I should probably scold you for saying that, but from the descriptions
I've heard about it from female friends who do suffer from the emotional
symptoms of it, I'll have to just say--yeah, I think I feel like that,
too."

 "Can we actually fuck later? I mean, are you up to it?"

 "I could use the comfort as well, Ray."

 ***

 "'Listen to the words of the Great Mother, Who of old was called Artemis,
Astarte, Dione, Melusine, Aphrodite, Ceridwen, Diana, Arionrhod, Brigid,
and by many other names...'"

 "The woman knew some mythology. Go on."

 "This is a more modern priestess's version, but mostly it's the same.
'Whenever you have need of anything, once in the month, and better it be
when the moon is full, you shall assemble in some secret place and adore
the spirit of Me Who is Queen of all the Wise."

 Thatcher's brow furrowed a little. "It's that Charles Leland?"

 Turnbull blinked. "Yes. Doreen took material from many sources, and added
her own. She talks about the sources in her books. But ignore most of the
history if you should read 'Witchcraft For Tomorrow'. It's a bit on the
embarrassingly inaccurate side."

 Thatcher nodded. "I shall, then. Please, continue."

 "'You shall be free from slavery, and as a sign that you be truly free
you shall be naked in your rites. Sing, feast, dance, make music and love,
all in My Presence, for Mine is the ecstasy of the spirit and Mine also is
joy on earth. My law is love is unto all beings. Mine is the secret that
opens the door of youth, and Mine is the cup of wine of life that is the
cauldron of Ceridwen, that is the holy grail of immortality."

 "That sounds like Leland too."

 "Some of it. The naked in the rites part, particularly. Though I tend to
think that at the time she wrote or decided to keep that portion, Doreen
was Gerald Gardner's High Priestess; and *he* was all for both nakedness
and knives--which strikes me as a rather dangerous combination--before he
became involved with the occult."

 "You don't have many illusions about your religion, do you?"

 He smiled. "We don't need any. The universe *is* a miracle. It's sacred,
the way it is. We don't need to do anything but...be aware of our own
selves, or even a little of the universe outside ourselves, to feel...awe.
We feel that way, we can't *help* feeling that way--and that's what makes
us witches, rather than the other way around. We don't need...we don't
need to believe that the people who brought it out of seclusion and made
it known and accessible were anything but humans who'd decided to do so,
not that they were...inspired by God or anything. We don't
need...showmanship, exaggeration. Though there is some of that in every
religion, and you'll find it in ours, certainly. Mostly in our use of
symbolism. Overexpansive liturgical displays. That kind of thing."

 "I understand."

 He went on. "'I give the knowledge of the spirit eternal, and beyond
death I give peace and freedom and reunion with those that have gone
before. Nor do I demand aught of sacrifice, for I am the Mother of all
things, and My love is poured out upon the earth."

 "Is the language to provide a particular mindset? The pseudo-archaic
nature of it, I mean. Part of the 'symbolism'?"

 "Yes, I think so. It was believed that we automatically enter a different
and more reverent mindset when we heard and used language like that, since
that was what we were used to in such situations; and it was thought the
fact could be used to our advantage, to simplify things in terms of
creating sacred space--rather, becoming aware of the sacredness of the
space we're part of--and attaining certain mental states."

 "Actually, that's a psychologically sound notion. Go on."

 "The Star Goddess's part is next. 'Hear the words of the Star Goddess,
whose body is the universe: I Who am the beauty of the green earth and the
white moon among the stars, and the mysteries of the waters, I call upon
your soul to arise and come to me; for I am the soul of nature that gives
life to all the universe. From Me all things proceed, and unto Me they
must return. Let My worship be in the heart that rejoices, for all acts of
love and kind pleasure are My rituals. Let there be beauty and strength,
power and compassion, honor and humility, mirth and reverence, within you.
And you who seek to know Me, know that all your seeking and yearning will
avail you naught, unless you know the Mystery: If that which you seek you
find not within yourself, then you will never find it without--for
understand this: I have been with you from the beginning, and I Am that
which is attained at the end of desire.'"

 Thatcher had sat on the bed quietly, not moving, while he spoke in his
soft, pleasant voice; she looked away out the window when he was done,
obviously in thought. Then she looked back at him and said "That's very
beautiful. It reminds me of the Desiderata, in a way, as I just quoted to
constable Fraser, as in its...its very accessibility and brevity, there is
great profundity."

 He smiled a little, and whispered "I always thought so. It's odd that you
should mention the Desiderata..." he could feel tears welling up in his
eyes, and turned his head away, but she only pointed firmly with her
flannel-pajama-clad arm toward the box of tissues on the bedside table.

 "Cry if you need to, Constable; we cry for good evolutionary reasons.
Hysteria is one thing, but crying is a very poorly understood and useful
method of *maintaining* one's equilibrium, one's ability to think and
plan. *Unless* one suppresses it until an emotional storm bursts out,
which may involve crying and may not. So cry when the impulse strikes. I
will think no less of you. Now, you mentioned the Desiderata. Would you
care to tell me about that?"

 "There's...I assume you're familiar with it..."

 "I don't have it memorized, but yes, I know it as someone who appreciates
its wisdom."

 "The line...'You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and
the stars. You have a right to be here.'..." He sobbed, and hid his face
in tissues for a bit, weeping quietly. She only waited, curled comfortably
in her flannel pjs that were actually rather similar to the ones he had
on--blue plaid of different kinds, with some green in hers, and no collar
on his. Neither of them had footies. The thought made her smile, and she
wiggled her toes a little under the afghan. They both had on thick socks. 

 They were waiting for Turnbull to feel like sleeping. She had decided,
having given him his sleeping pill about fifteen minutes ago, that perhaps
she should not simply lock him in the spare room and ignore him for the
night; so she'd brought cocoa and the afghan and asked if he'd like to sit
a bit while the medicine relaxed him. She didn't think too much about how
close to dead already he looked, though feeding him had at least brought
some color to him. Whatever had happened to him, it had happened suddenly
and horribly, and the look in his eyes was genuinely concerning for anyone
who knew him at all. That it was a look she'd never seen and would never
have expected to see in him was bad enough, but looking like that and
*not* fainting was what concerned her most. If he'd fainted, he'd likely
simply have been overcome by something shocking, but not...killing, as
this looked to be. She had honestly never seen him look so bad.

 Then she wondered how honestly she had ever seen him. Turnbull didn't
seem *not* to feel at home in this state of death-in-life. In fact, he
seemed more relaxed now than she'd ever seen him, no matter how bad off he
might be otherwise. He seemed in his element. Perhaps he was simply very
good at hiding it.

 Perhaps he'd always hid it. 

 As in...it was always there?

 He was saying "I read the poem in high school, and...I think it saved my
life. That line...the idea...that I had as much right to be here--just me,
the way I was--as everything else that *is*, in the universe...the same as
the trees, and the stars, *I* had a *right* to exist. It was the first
time I had seen myself as having the right to exist."

 "That's terrible. No, not that you came to that realization, but that you
were raised by all the factors in your upbringing such that you had to
*come* to it. However, I'm afraid I'm not surprised, after what you've
told me and shown me. I'm very sorry."

 She said it, and he nodded, and her sympathy was acknowledged; the end,
for now, at least. No need for any great carryings-on about it every
single time a new, nasty thing came to light. They understood. It sucked
*bad*, death-is-your-friend bad; no need to make the point anew every
time, not between them. She liked that with him. He had come to her
because he had a severe personal problem, or problems--severe enough, she
thought, after hearing what she had so far of his story and seeing his
cutting scars, that he had some serious decision to make--possibly about
whether to continue his life. But he didn't want to wallow. He didn't want
to *be* "saved". *He* wanted to work on it. He wanted to take time out, as
much as was necessary, and *deal*, and decide what to do, and he knew he
was in no shape to do that effectively alone. He needed help. If he hadn't
wanted to take responsibility for what he would do now, she would have
been unable to help him; she could not accept his burden for him. But he
didn't want to give it to her. He just wanted a little assistance with it
while he worked it out...and maybe a place to stay where his
broken-hearted lovers couldn't ruin it for all three of them with their
fear and worry. 

 Explained in spades why he couldn't have simply been honest with Fraser
and Ray. They would have had him wrapped in cotton batting before you
could say "Don't leave me". Their love removed them from the realm of the
personal-agendaless.

 Ray especially, she knew, would have tried to make it "their problem",
something they all had to work out with themselves, but Turnbull was human
reject enough to know that when he had a problem, hey, buddy, it was his
problem. It had been that way since he was born. Even his parents hadn't
wanted anything to do with any problems he had, even as a small child. So,
he knew it for *bad* reasons, for the *wrong* reasons; no argument. It was
only that in this *particular* case, he happened to be right. It *was*
something he must do alone, in terms of the rest of his..."marriage", she
could reasonably call it, she supposed. His "family" might be even better.
From what she could tell, Ray and Fraser were much more his family than
any he'd had so far by birth--hell, even she was more decent family to
him; perhaps an older cousin, or younger aunt. Aunt Inspector; she smiled
a little, hiding it with a sip of cocoa. In any case, he was more than
willing to deal with his own shit, thank you very much... 

 ...with a little help, from someone he could trust not to try to help
*too* much.

 "This is good," he said, looking quietly into his mug. 

 "It's instant, I'm afraid, with a few additions and supplementations of
my own."

 "It's very nice." He had another long sip, closing his eyes against the
heat.

 "Does your religion have anything to say about suicide?"

 "Well, the religion itself doesn't have a stand on it. There are too many
traditions, really; one might say that "Christianity" has a stand on
something, but it would have to be a very broad generalization."

 "I see what you mean."

 "On the other hand, I believe the usual stand of those who believe in
reincarnation is that killing yourself is a bad idea, because you'll just
have to do whatever it is you're escaping in another life anyway; but I
think that's rather shortsighted. It could easily be that the purpose of
it, in a given life, is to show you that there *are* worse things than
simply dying, and that the most basic instinct we have, to remain alive as
long as possible, is only that--an instinct. And that--while working with
our instincts instead of fighting them is always the way to make progress,
of course--one must remember what *is* instinct, programmed, and what is
real, as in thought-out and decided. There are many reasons one might need
to go through not only considering suicide, but the experience of carrying
it out, as part of a learning experience, in the course of one's
evolution." He sighed. "Of course, I don't believe in reincarnation. I
don't believe in an afterlife at all."

 She blinked. "You...are an ardent adherent of this religion, but don't
believe in it on such an important point?"

 "Reincarnation is a belief of nearly every religion when said religion is
in its infancy--concepts like heaven and hell are usually purgatory-like
places between lives, intended to reflect the way one has lived one's
latest life, or provide perspective one will need in the next. That
includes Christianity; it's not an unusual idea. I think it appeals to
witches because of the idea of "fairness", and maybe of becoming....more
than we are, some way. But we are what we are, and fairness is only an
idea we've invented so we can get along with each other. The idea of
reincarnation or of any afterlife also appeals because of the very same
instinct I was talking about earlier, the one that overrides nearly
everything--the fear of death. We are animals with a profound survival
instinct, a dread terror of death that works well for keeping the species
going. For our ancestors, the more one feared death, the more one was
likely to do in order to avoid it and so remain around long enough to
reproduce and raise one's offspring to viability. Evolution does not care
about our comfort or happiness, not beyond its bearing on our survival
rate as a group. So we are left with an unbelievably powerful fear of
death, and, unlike most of the people on the planet, we are left also with
the sure and certain knowledge that we *will* die, and that there is no
avoiding it. An irreconcilable conundrum."

 "I suppose I'd never looked at it that way," she murmured. "Taken on a
species-wide scale, that would truly *be* a horrible conundrum if the
species didn't..."

 He made a kind of "no shit, you got it" face and finished for her "...if
the species couldn't adapt to the development of sentience that brings
with it knowledge of inevitable personal death. But...that same sentience
gives us the capacity to rationalize to an amazing degree."

 "That much I *had* noticed," she said, nodding sideways.

 "I can imagine. So, as a species, we come up with religion, no matter
where we are on the planet, how disconnected from each other--we all come
up with *something*. The complexity of the religion evolves with the
complexity of the culture. For we *must* invent the afterlife, in order to
simply go on with life day to day. Face it, there's no *rational* reason
to believe in such a thing. Just...none. But we must; otherwise the
depression and anxiety would destroy us. We're all born under sentence of
death; how would we be able to function with our thoughts always turned
toward trying to escape the inescapable? And there's always the question
of whether it matters--if we're going to die anyway, why should we bother
living through years of horror of it before dying? Wouldn't it be more
merciful just to die at once, since living will only be saturated with
fear?"

 "You're going Hamlet."

 "Yes, I'm afraid so." He smirked at his cocoa. "That's why it's *only*
utter and total hopelessness that can overcome that--aside from pain so
extreme that we are willing to do anything to stop it, even die, because
in pain that severe we can't truly be said to be *thinking* at all; we
simply home in on whatever might stop it, obeying our instinct to avoid
pain--to keep alive--in such a way that it actually kills us. But in usual
circumstances...well, we do know we will die--but we have our various
trumped-up mechanisms of dealing with that. So, it's only when we realize
that there is *no hope at all* that we will ever escape whatever it is we
cannot bear--when that becomes, in our deepest place of belief in the
mind, a solid realization--*that* is the time we can overcome that
survival instinct and kill ourselves."

 "Yes, that's logical enough. I never have been fond of those who blame
suicides. My feeling is always to wonder where the hell they were when
that person was still alive and needed help so badly they could be driven
to overcome the most powerful instinct human beings have."

 He nodded, watching her appraisingly, then licked his lips and continued
"If we were immortal, say, unless we were killed, there would *nearly*
always be hope. Forever is long enough to bring about almost any change
you need, and still leave you time to enjoy it. Since we are not...if we
know that there will be, in our experience, *only*, first, utter,
unrelieved, *misery*--with NO hope of *anything* else--and then death, why
*not* just skip directly to death? And I agree with you about those who
blame suicides, by the way. It isn't cowardice that causes people to kill
themselves; a coward could never manage suicide. A coward could never use
their sentience to overcome an instinct that powerful long enough to get
the job done; the instinct, the fear, would always win out."

 She sipped from her cup and nodded slowly. "I know a man who does hostage
negotiation, and he was called one night to try to get a man with a gun
taped to his hand to come down from the bridge where this man was sitting,
intent on killing himself, only working up the nerve--and my friend said
that he didn't know what to say or do, though he did the best he could, of
course. As you know, when the gun is taped to the suicide's hand..."

 "It generally means things," Turnbull said quietly, "yes."

 "It did. This man was going to be in pain the rest of his life. He was
never going to be able to *have* a life again, on account of this pain,
everything had been taken from him because of it, his job, his hope for a
pension, everyone had left him, ultimately, because of this
disability--whether directly or indirectly, but still, because of it...and
now there was only him and the pain, which would be with him for the rest
of his life, with no decent relief--nor even decent care, as he, like most
in this country, had no health insurance without his job. My friend
honestly did not feel like he had any right to tell this man not to kill
himself. He could say "I wish you wouldn't do it," but he couldn't say
"it's not as bad as you think" or any such, because being in a place that
bad was something he had no personal experience with, and he couldn't
guarantee, himself, that he wouldn't take whatever sort of action seemed
necessary, couldn't guarantee he'd never kill himself under the worst
circumstances he could imagine, and unending pain and the loss of
everything that ever mattered to you is very nearly as bad as it gets. And
that question...it's the sort of circumstance in which you can't say for a
fact what you'd do--*if* you're being honest with yourself--unless you
actually find yourself in such a way. He didn't feel he had the right to
judge."

 "Did the man kill himself?"

 "Yes."

 Turnbull nodded. "Good. Oh, not that I don't think it wouldn't have been
better if he could have found some reason to live, though, unlike what
most people think, suicides generally *have* exhausted every single
possibility before they get to that point. It isn't *ever* the *first*
think anyone tries. But it sounds quite like this man would have,
eventually, one way or another; and this way, at least he didn't have to
do it alone, even if it was only police and hostage negotiators who were
with him. He could at least fool himself, for a little while, even knowing
that was what he was doing...that someone cared whether he lived or died.
Even that's better than nothing."

 "I...suppose I hadn't thought of that factor."

 "It's definitely a factor. When loneliness is a large part of what one
must escape--perhaps the only thing one must escape so badly that death is
preferable to it, death is literally less frightening a prospect than
living with such an abyss of loneliness without any scrap of hope that
things might change--sometimes the only thing that keeps one from suicide
is the loneliness inherent in dying alone. It's my opinion that many of
the people who kill themselves--or try--in such a way that there are at
least medical personnel around them in their final moments are not making
a 'cry for help'. They're trying to die. They simply can't bear the
thought of dying alone. It's too...too lonely to face."

 "You may...you probably are right, Constable," she said, with a pensive
look on her face. "Never having been to that point of despair, I hadn't
considered it. I know now that you have been there; perhaps are close to
it right now. Am I here *only* to keep you company should you decide that
now is the time to end it? I don't ask because I intend to call the
paramedics, no matter what answer you give me. I just want to know."

 "You have the right to know. No, I'm here because you were the only
alternative to dying as far as I could see. I'm here because...if I can, I
want to live. This is the only way to find out, but don't think I don't
appreciate it..."

 "I want you to live as well, Turnbull." She set a hand on his arm,
squeezing lightly. "And I'm glad I can help you to that end."

 "I want to thank you for not insisting I check myself into a hospital."

 "Under the circumstances...how shall I put this...I think that would
simply prove to you that you had no choice but death; that you *were*
truly alone; that it was true, and not a self-pitying illusion, that no
one understood, *if* your last hope did something so self-serving as to
avoid dealing with the problem herself in that fashion, or responded with
such a knee-jerk reflex that it was obvious she did not care enough about
you to see you or hear what you were saying. I think by letting you have
your options and being willing not to judge you for them--or put another
agenda--namely "stop a suicide at all costs", one that would ensure that I
would be considered blameless, no matter what happened--as being higher
than your own agenda, on the subject of your own life...in this way, I
may...be able to give you the hope you were talking about. Hope that
someone *is* willing to listen without prejudice. Enough that you'll keep
suicide in the place where it is now--possible, but the last resort."

 He looked up at her. "I'm afraid I'd forgotten you'd had considerable
training in the area of hostage negotiation, too."

 She smiled a little. "Psychology was one of my best subjects in school.
Largely because I recognized myself as suffering from a number of the
neuroses described in the texts."

 He made a small noise into his cup that might have been a snort. "I
recognized myself in those classes, too."

 "Did it worry you?"

 "Not unduly. After all, I had far larger problems. And the authors of the
books were undoubtedly suffering from a number of those symptoms and
ailments without even realizing it."

 "I felt the same way about it, I think. Perhaps with more of a 'What
can't be cured must be endured' emphasis. Or, frequently, I also felt the
text, and the instructor, were sadly ignorant on the topics for lack of
personal experience with them, and so didn't concern myself with what the
book or the teacher had to say about it beyond passing the class." 

 He made a face. "Yes. Sadly ignorant on the topic, yet considered
'experts'. It's a morbid joke, isn't it."

 "I might have to agree with you on that. How do you feel?"

 "Relaxed. Suffering less from the effects of the fight-or-flight
inundation of my system. Tired. The Klonopin is working."

 "Would you like to lie down now?"

 "I would. But...sir, do you have a queen-sized bed, and if I asked you if
I could share it with you tonight, would you feel pressured to say yes?
Because if you would feel pressured, I won't ask."

 "I do have a queen-size. And I would not feel pressured. If I thought it
was a bad idea or simply too intrusive, I would say no."

 "Then I wonder if I might sleep with you this night, sir. Not all the
nights of my stay, but...this one night."

 "This one night, yes, you may. As for further nights, we'll see how it
goes. You may need the immediate presence of another. It's very grounding,
psychologically; it gives one's perspective an anchor. And after this
conversation, my perspective may need one, too." She smirked at herself,
looking away somewhere. "Which is my self-removed way of saying that I
don't want to be alone right now, either, propriety be damned."

 "It's very grounding in other ways, too. I thank you very...very much,
sir." He was staring into his cup. "It's quite beyond the bonds of duty,
or even what most people in our society would call friendship."

 "Not to me. I know what you're asking me, and why; I don't expect either
of us will have as much trouble sleeping if we're both there to help
maintain the idea that *everything* can wait until after you've slept, and
have a clearer brain to think with. You mustn't believe anything it tells
you right now, you know. You're fatigued and in deep depression, caused by
the sudden onslaught of an anxiety state that seems to have cracked some
sort of barrier..."

 "It did. It's called the wall of reality."

 "Listen, Constable. Remember, when your brain starts saying things like
that to you, things that keep you awake and miserable--that you can't
trust your brain. It's lying to you right now. Wait to listen to it until
it can be trusted again."

 He looked up at her and smiled. "I do that frequently, sir. Do you?"

 "Yes, though over...far more regular and smaller matters. I'm glad you're
familiar with the technique. Bring what you'd like, then; Heathcliff, any
of those spell sachets you mentioned, or your..." she gestured to the
little bag that held his four primary tools, among a few other things.
"Your religious things. They might be a comfort as well, despite the fact
your religion is more a working metaphor for life, than an assurance of
the nonexistence of death. You can leave everything else and you may just
consider this your room, for the nonce, your place to withdraw if you need
one. You can sleep here when you wish, or with me when you wish. I sleep
heavily. You won't disturb me. And if I'm not sleeping heavily, it's
probably for some reason that would cause me to welcome your presence."

 "I think I'll be fine with you and Heathcliff, knowing my other things
are right in here. Thank you again, sir."

 "Here, I'll carry the quilt and the mugs; you can carry Heathcliff and
your robe." He followed her--like a gosling, he thought--through the
apartment, across the front room and toward her bedroom. She added "I do
request that you use the hall bathroom, if you need to in the night. The
toilet flushing in mine has always awakened me when I've had guests
sleeping with me before."

 "Oh, that's no problem at all, sir. I'll just...might we leave a lamp on
in the front room?"

 "I usually leave one on, and just shut my bedroom door against the light.
It's handy to have a light already on in case of nighttime emergencies.
Just leave that little one with the glass shade on."

 He turned the switch of the littler lamp, a forty-watt bulb in a small,
Tiffany-like lamp made of a silvery framework with multicolored glass to
fill. "It's pretty," he noted simply, and turned the other lights off.

 "Yes, I liked it. I saw it in a junk shop window."

 "Really? I'd have thought..."

 "Department stores--or, even more likely, specialty stores--only, for me?
No, I do like to go junking. Or 'antiquing', as it's sometimes called.
Call a spade a spade, though, I say, because there are too many times in
life where that's impossible."

 He smiled. She closed the door behind them and hung her robe on a hook on
the door. "There's another hook here."

 "Thank you." He hung his own robe there, and followed her to the bed,
turning down the near side when she went around to the opposite. When
they'd gotten under the covers in their flannel pj's, she handed him his
mug again. They both finished their cocoa, almost in unison, set down
their mugs, and she reached for the chain of the little bedside lamp on
her side. "Goodnight, Constable. Wake me if you feel there's need."

 "I thought you didn't..."

 She rolled her eyes. "I don't want to be wakened if the *toilet* feels
there's need; you're a different matter. And I don't want you to be stoic
about it. If you need someone to touch...here, this might help..." she
turned facing him so her left hand lay palm-up on the sheet, the arm
stretched loosely before her, fingers curling a bit. "Here's a hand. If I
move so that it's not available, just grab whatever you can find, or move
closer to me so that you can sense my presence better, if you would find
that soothing."

 "I have to say this once, sir, and then I'll stop. You...I didn't
expect...this. When you invited me in, I only wanted..."

 "I remember what you said, Turnbull, there's no need to put yourself back
in the headspace you were at when you first arrived here."

 "Of course, sir. It's just that...you're being so very kind, most people
wouldn't have been so kind--well, perhaps what I mean, specifically, is
'understanding'. Are you sure you've never..."

 "I've...been in bad places, Constable. Emotionally speaking. I know what
treatment--primarily involving respect for my ownership of my life, in all
senses, and my right to make my own choices--that I would have wanted,
then. I would not have wanted my last hope to spout platitudes at me. In
short, I'm simply doing for you what I would want done for me."

 He nodded and turned his light off, then lay down, rolled to his right
side and let his left hand lie in hers, without squeezing; just resting it
there, as their fingers curled around each other in the typical postural
response. 

 "That's...nice," she said, sounding like it hadn't been the most natural
thing for her to say, but sincere all the same. "Just so there's no
misunderstanding, I'll tell you that while I'm concerned for you, I find
I'm enjoying your presence here. Right here, I mean, in bed.
You're...relaxing."

 "Thank you for letting me know how you feel about it." He squeezed her
hand a little, then relaxed his. "I...oh, dear..."

 "It's all right, I know you appreciate--"

 "I love you, sir." He sighed. "I'm sorry. That happens sometimes."

 There was a pause, and her hand squeezed his, harder and longer than his
squeeze had been. "I appreciate that sentiment, Turnbull. Just remember
what I said about your brain."

 "I *have* been fond of you for a very long time. It's not only my brain.
You just don't feel the need for...much in the way of emotional
demonstration; it doesn't mean you don't feel emotion. I...it's nice to
have another friend. Even if we can only be friends when one or both of us
are off duty. You're...the only friend quite like you that I have."

 "I'm content in being your friend, Constable," she said gently. "I think
we do pretty well as...well, a sort of friends, at least, even when we
*are* both on duty, usually. And I love you, too, in the sense you mean.
Whatever else may happen, whatever you decide, let nothing persuade you to
forget that; do whatever you do in the knowledge that *nothing* you do
could cost you my friendship. You can aggravate the hell out of me, but
you can never lose my friendship. Rest now."

 "Yes...rest..." he pulled Heathcliff close to his chest and was quiet.
Heathcliff's glass eyes, unseen by either of the other two, were no longer
quite so sad, and they had sparkles dancing in them.

 "Sir?"

 "Yes?"

 "Did you only say that so that I would believe I don't have to die now?"

 "No." She left it there. He would have to decide if he knew her well
enough to believe that.

 He let out a relieved breath, a soft whoosh of air. "I knew it."

 "Relieved?"

 "Yes. I don't want to die alone, as you may have gathered, and while I
suspect you might have been up to the task of seeing me to the last, I
wouldn't have put you through it. And there is no one else...I mean, I
certainly couldn't do that to..."

 "No, neither Fraser nor Ray would be likely to have been much help.
They'd never have stopped trying to convince you not to, and I suspect you
simply couldn't have made yourself do it with them in attendance, in any
case. I suppose you would have used your gun?"

 "Yes; while there are many methods I've pondered, it usually comes back
to that. Back of the neck, between the appropriate vertebrae,
execution-style. I'd leave no room for error."

 "If I were going to take a step that drastic, I wouldn't do it halfway,
either."

 "Then--just out of curiosity--do you believe in assisted suicide, sir?"

 She sighed then, and said "I'd have to take that on a case-by-case basis.
I won't allow the 'mental competency' argument, because if that's allowed,
those who oppose suicide absolutely because of their religious beliefs
would always argue that a suicidal person was mentally incompetent to make
such a choice by virtue of their being suicidal. A circular argument, but
one which a conservative judge might just actually buy, at least in this
country. Especially south of the...what do they call it...when they fought
their civil war."

 "The Mason-Dixon line?"

 "Yes, that. I understand judges have an astonishing degree of latitude in
such determinations down there. In any event, I suppose I do believe in it
under some circumstances. In this case, all I can say is...is that I'm
very glad you came here, Turnbull. I..." she made a soft noise, and he
felt an odd sensation, and realized she'd shivered a couple of times.
"...I would have missed you, if...anything had happened. Remember that,
when I'm chastising you for one thing or another. I would have missed
you."

 He lifted up on his elbow, one hand still lying on hers. "Sir? Are you
all right?"

 "You can call me 'Meg', you know, while you're staying here--if you're
comfortable with that, of course."

 "You wouldn't take it as an insult if I continued..."

 She made another odd noise, this one sounding almost like a giggle, but,
well, somewhat mucous-laden. "...if you continued to call me 'sir'? No, I
wouldn't take it as an insult. A reality check, perhaps, but not an
insult."

 "Reality check?" Now he was really getting puzzled.

 "Never mind, Turnbull; it's quite all right. Just lie down and get some
rest."

 "Yes, sir." He fell back to his pillow. "Sleep well, sir."

 "You too, Turnbull." He squeezed her hand just as she squeezed his, and
they both held the squeeze a moment in startlement, and then Turnbull felt
the bed shift, and then he was lying there, thinking how she'd leaned over
and kissed his cheek and lain back down before he could let go, and he
wasn't sure what to say. 

 What he finally heard himself saying was "Have I upset you, sir?" Noting
the plaintive note in his own voice, he swore at himself internally. He
should have known. She was strong, but she was human. This conversation
had to have brought up some upsetting thoughts for her, or she never could
have been so "understanding", as she had all but admitted a few moments
ago. "Oh, dear, oh--oh sir, I'm very sor--"

 "Shh." Startling the hell out of him, she kissed him again, on the
temple. "I'm fine. And you will be, too. That's an order. On both counts."

 "Yes, sir, Inspector sir." All felt right with the world--just for this
little tiny island in the greater temporal stream. He knew she could feel
him smiling, as she'd pressed her cheek briefly to his. 

 "Stand down and sleep, Constable."

 "Yes sir. Oh, one more thing--we may be getting a...a visit here tomorrow
from a...a go-between, if you will--"

 She sighed. "The wolf?"

 "Why... yes...possibly..."

 "If Fraser is involved, the wolf is probably a crucial element somewhere.
He'll be welcomed with cold cuts if he's your guest, Turnbull."

 "Oh, thank you, sir."

 "Think nothing of it. The doormen know him; I'll call down in the morning
with a message to have him admitted and escorted on the elevator if he
should make an appearance. Now shut up and go to sleep already."

 "Yessir," he murmured.

 She made the mucousy cutoff-laugh-noise again, and then all was quiet. 

 'Where are you?' he thought at the surrounding darkness.

 *here* *of course* *heathcliff*

 'Is she all right? Have I upset her too much?'

 *she is all right* *she wants to sleep* *you should too*

 'Does...does she really love me? In the sense she meant, of course?'

 *you know she does* *or you wouldn't be here* *you have sensed her love*
*for a long time now* *it simply wasn't conscious before*

 'Why not?'

 *there was no reason* *for it to be* *it had no focus* *to bring it into
the light*

 Which was true, he knew. He thanked Heathcliff; then he began to inhale
and exhale in a certain controlled and, under the circumstances, silent
fashion, and this exercise, along with the lassitude both his exhaustion
and the pill had brought about--and the oddness of the whole
situation--combined to make him drop off surprisingly quickly. 

 ***

 "I was...Ray, do we really have to talk about this?"

 "Fraser. I find out you tried to kill yourself and you think I--I'm
sorry. I know it can't be any fun to talk about it. But I can't love you
and leave it. I can't feel like this about you and not know. I just can't.
It doesn't work that way."

 Fraser sighed. "You're quite right, of course." He reached up and began
to pet Ray's bare chest slowly, an absent gesture, comforting himself and
Ray both, as he thought. "I suppose...it was the same reason anyone does.
It seems that there is no hope."

 "What...made you feel that way? I mean, I know it must've been a
combination of things, but what was the breaker? What...made you see it?"

 "That's surprisingly...insightful, for someone who's never been in that
position, Ray."

 "Yeah, well. Stella..." Ray sighed heavily. "People...just don't ever
know each other as well as they think they do, Frase. I know that, you
know that. Some people don't know that, but we do."

 "By which you mean to say that you have had some ghost, at least, of
these feelings yourself."

 "Yeah. A really stinking, fucking *drunk* ghost." He smiled in the faint
moonlight from the window. "One of those recurrent ones. A real haunting."

 "Then..."

 "Nah. I'd never have. I've...I admit, I've gone as far as getting the gun
out. I've been bad off. Cops go through shit...well, you know the kind of
shit I mean, some jobs just let you know within a few years if the job is
for you, or it isn't. Sometimes it only takes one thing. One instance, one
situation. One case that has that one thing that you didn't know would cut
your legs out from under you completely, but it does, and you realize
you'd better be thinking community college or something, assuming you
survive the realization. I've always made it over humps like that, and I
knew, in the deep-down deep down, that I'd make it through Stella leaving.
Thing was...I didn't *want* to make it through Stella leaving. I *wanted*
it to break me, to keep me from having to feel at least some tiny part of
it, if I could...could make it so *nothing* mattered, then that wouldn't
matter, too. But I knew that for me, Stella leaving was not going to be
it. I don't even know if I have an 'it'--some people don't, and some
people do but never know what it is, and I guess that Spock was right--"

 "Spock?"

 "Something he used to say to McCoy, or did at least once. 'A difference
which *makes* no difference *is* no difference." And he's right. It
doesn't matter if you have something that'll push you over whatever kind
of edge and just never find out what it is, or don't have one at all."

 "I suppose I hadn't thought of it like that. Anyway, you say you *have*
experienced something to make you believe you could understand--at least
part of it..."

 "Yeah. Where you were, inside, when something did click for you,
something did fall into place and finish the puzzle and *that* was the
only answer--at least that moment, it was. That it's different every time,
every situation, I...can get that, even though it's never completely
happened for me. I get how it happens, because...I got that close. Not
close enough for it to happen, but I could *see* it." He smiled. "Like,
this ain't hell, but you can see it from here. Looking at it from more
distance, far enough I...could still see the things around it, connected
to it; so I still had choices, and chose to live with it, even though it'd
mean more pain. Like I said, I actually wished I was either a lot less
miserable, or just enough *more* miserable to save me from having to live
with the misery for who knew how long. It was...a really shitty in-between
place."

 "Yes...I see what you mean."

 "So if I sound like I have a clue, it's because I have one. Like I said,
we don't ever know, as well as we think, even the people we know best,
even the people we know well enough to love. Even..." he rubbed his face
against Fraser's skin. "Even like us--even the ones we know well enough to
know we can love them forever, because even as we change, we'll be able
to...keep up with each other, stay around each other's places inside,
since we both want to; and we're close enough to each other inside that
the effort won't be more than the reward is worth--" 

 And he had to stop while Fraser kissed him, having rolled over and gotten
an elbow on Ray's other side. He returned the kiss wholeheartedly, and
when it got passionate, he wasn't surprised when it wasn't sex-passionate,
but tender-passionate, friend-love passionate, which made him sigh and
moan and clutch at Fraser, saying the things there weren't words for, and
Fraser clutched back, cradling him, sighing into his mouth, pulling back a
little, but never all the way, as they shared breath. 

 "I think I know how he feels sometimes," Fraser whispered, still feeling
urgent, holding tight against Ray, and--even though he was hard--still not
sex-urgent, but a kind of love-urgent, of *I understand you*, and *I am
like you*; of the urgency of communicating those things. Ray gave it back
to him, in his mouth, his hands, the movements of his body, the unafraid
meeting of their eyes. The bad and the good, it seemed to say. Don't keep
the bad from me. I won't call it weak. It isn't weak to feel it, express
it, share it, don't hide it from me, don't hide from me...I love it too,
as much as the rest... "There's nothing closer than this," Ray murmured,
partly wondering, partly amazed and grateful, partly saddened at the
realization. He *wanted* closer. "Oh God. That's what it is. At least part
of it. He wants closer than this. He *needs* closer than this. And he
can't have it, and he knows it, because nobody can have it, it isn't there
to have."

 Fraser's eyes filled, suddenly and without any warning to him, either,
judging by the shocked look he got on his face less about a millisecond
after it happened, and a tear dropped right in Ray's own eye, making him
blink rapidly, startled.

 "I'm sorry." Fraser reached and came back with a tissue, but when he
closed his eyes, the remaining tears in them ran and rained all over Ray's
face. "Oh, hell--"

 "No--" Ray stopped the hand Fraser was trying to use to blot Ray's face.
"They'll dry. That felt...really wild." Suddenly he was biting his lip,
and tears welled up in his own eyes. "Didn't know you could pass that
along. Like yawns." He essayed a wan smile. "They're not bad, Fraser.
They're not bad tears, not pain tears. Or not mostly. Your eyes are
stormcloud blue." His smile broadened into a grin. "And they rained on me.
It's cool. Better than real rain. Yours are warm. And a real raindrop in
my eye would have hurt, but that didn't."

 "You have the soul of a poet, Ray. Also, you're a freak."

 Ray laughed, and then Fraser did too, and they lay there a moment, the
tears getting smeared all over, little drops like drops of crystal that
caught the low light, leaving quickly-vanishing trails of gleam on Ray's
skin and a little on Fraser's, as they laughed in each other's arms. 

 "You're so beautiful," Fraser sighed, and began to kiss him again,
softly, with nuzzles and nibbles. "Mmm..."

 "So are you. Beautiful. Milk and honey..." he drew his finger lightly
along the planes of the bones of Fraser's face as the turning and moving
of his head brought them within Ray's reach. "I can say things to you and
baby that I'd never even say in my own *head* without feeling like a
smarmy dork of the first magnitude, and if that ain't love somebody better
get out the Webster because I don't know what is."

 "That's love, Ray. When you do things that would make you physically ill
under any other circumstances." Fraser stopped nuzzling long enough to
smile into Ray's eyes.

 "Yeah, I guess you're right. Looking back, and all." He sighed. "Okay,
you ready to tell me about it now?"

 Fraser made a face, sort of a "fair caught" expression, nodding his head
a little to the side. "I suppose. Some of it. I...don't think it would
work if I tried to do it all in one sitting."

 "That's okay. We got time."

 "Yes. Now that we know...when I suddenly realized that we *didn't* have
forever, that the things I was feeling...if they were going to come out, I
was going to have to...open channels that are uncomfortable for men to
open, to take risks..."

 "The bad feet weekend."

 "Yes. But now that we do know...even if we never get all of it
out...perhaps that's what life's about, Ray, deciding what is most
important, what truly has to be said, and it be certain that all parties
know--and what can wait, because if anything happens, the most basic,
relevant things have been made known...now that we know, it's...it's so
much more all right."

 "I love you. And you're right." He squeezed the big, rounded, beautiful
shoulders he was holding. "That's the most important thing to make sure
of, when it comes to knowing. But, back to Prince Rupert Sound...whatever
you think you can handle right now."

 "Was that some kind of dare?"

 "Frase, I'll manipulate you without a fucking shred of shame, ordinarily,
*if* I think I have a hope in hell of getting away with it, but not about
this. It wasn't a dare. I mean it--however much you want to take at once.
However you want to do it. I just can't know that you...you did
try...that, and all that saved me from never meeting you and having you in
my life was Dief--and not know more about it. That's just too important."

 Fraser sighed, letting his head hang. "You're right, of course.
Well...it's actually rather...anticlimactic. There wasn't any one horrible
disaster, there wasn't..."

 "I'm not expecting a middle-ages tragedy-type thing, Frase honey. It
isn't always 'my woman she done lef' me an' ah is gon' jump into de ribba
an' drown'. It's sometimes...a lot harder to see, a lot harder to have
imagined, than that, because no one can be as aware of somebody else as
they'd have to be to put the pieces together. I won't say 'That's a stupid
thing to kill yourself over'. I won't do that. I promise, I won't.
Especially not to you, *you* aren't the kind--you'd see it as...abandoning
your post, failing in your duty. It'd take something pretty damn major to
make you do that."

 "It won't seem that way when I say it." Fraser was quiet a few moments,
thinking. Then he moved, shifting off Ray, lying down to Ray's left; he
pulled Ray up to face him, and they lay with Ray tucking one arm under the
pillow beneath his head, the other hand stroking Fraser, squeezing his
hand, running down his milky-smooth side, carding through the dense silk
of his hair. He'd pause to rest the arm occasionally as Fraser talked,
holding the other man's hand, then let it begin lightly love around on
Fraser while Ray listened to his voice, and the things it said.

 "I remember...that the posting the orders contained seemed, combined with
a number of other things...an insult, a...deliberate way to inform me that
I was considered a troublemaker, and was being disposed of, in a
metaphorical oubliette. The worst was, I couldn't point to it and say so,
because it was no secret I did prefer the northern postings, the
wilderness areas. I was already in one, in fact; that was, in a manner of
speaking, the point, but this one was over a thousand miles to the east.
Their usual method of punishment assignments didn't work on me, so they
had to come up with something truly...original."

 "Wait--this was before your father, right?"

 "Ray, there wouldn't have been such a major reaction against my turning
in the men who'd killed my *own father*, no matter who they were, if there
wasn't already some bad feeling happening. You see...I take my duty
seriously...but there are always those who try to get by with the minimum
standard that they can, and take it for given that if anything goes wrong,
their title or position or relatives or friends or past service or other
nepotistic factors will let them get away with it, and they also bank,
career-wise, on *everyone* doing the same. If someone shows up to throw
off the curve..." 

 "You were doing your job so well, in your other postings, that it was
showing up the places where they hadn't been doing theirs, or the people
now posted there hadn't been doing theirs, and they'd been getting away
with it because their superiors didn't wanna fuck with it either and
*they* could get away with it too...you were just makin' everybody look
bad because how well you did do, showing what *could* be done, kept
shining light in dirty corners where nobody wanted it shined--even though
*you* didn't name names or anything, everybody knew who they were
personally. And all it took was a look at who was assigned where, when,
for more than just *they* to know who they were, if anybody just bothered
to take a look and add up a few easy numbers."

 "Yes, you've got it. Though it took a very long time for me to understand
that there was simply no way for certain people to come out looking
anything but bad for what I thought of, then, as my help and willingness
to do the hard jobs, which I mistakenly thought would make me a...a useful
commodity. I was told...just before I left home for the second time, at
the end of Gerard's trial...that some had said that my father was the last
of a breed, and that this was a mistaken assumption--that *I* was the last
of that breed. I understood what that meant at once, because I had had
that realization before. It was what had made me..."

 "Made you suicide. Indirectly, I'm guessing, somehow or other."

 "No, you're quite right. Something...happened..."

 "Whenever's fine, for details." Ray cupped Fraser's jaw, stroking a thumb
over his cheek. "Whenever, honey." He stroked Fraser's lips lightly with
the tip of his finger and went back to the gentle, all-over petting. 

 "Well...I thought I was doing, in my work...what I was born to do--I
*was* doing what I was born to do--but I believed in it--still believe in
it--in a way that...that almost everyone else, save people like Turnbull,
and--at times, when circumstances are truly crucial as she sees
them--inspector Thatcher, and some others I could mention..." he sighed.
"Most in the organization, these days, have a focus that has shifted with
the times. The means have become the ends. Or perhaps I should say, the
means have become more *important* than the ends. Now, intellectually, I'm
aware that this happens in every organization that gets old enough and
grows large enough. Why I thought the RCMP had to be different--simply had
to be...I don't know, I have no excuse for such deliberate blindness. But
now, the way one goes about doing a thing is more important than the
thing. A thousand political factors must be taken into consideration for
every decision made and every action taken. I...will never, ever be able
to do that, but *that* ability is becoming more and more important in the
RCMP, so important that the things that used to matter--the very purpose
and motto, the meaning itself, of the organization--is merely a front now,
a polite fiction. Everything that's truly important happens under the
table, and nothing that happens above the table that's of any importance
is done for the reasons that are put forth as such. It's true
*everywhere*, Ray, and I never thought I could become so cynical, to see
this, and believe it...my...my 'breed', people who saw things the way I
did and did things for the reasons that I do them, such people used to be
the backbone of the RCMP. Now...we're...the *kindest* word, Ray, is
'anachronisms', and most people in positions of power in the organization
who don't have the natural creativity to see how we can be used to
advantage, even in the new order of things, call us far worse than that."

 "I'm glad you know that it ain't just the RCMP that that's happening in.
That...that we all join up with stars in our eyes and they get burnt out
before training's even finished, for some of us--and not too far into the
rookie years for the rest of us, you know?"

 "Yes; I am worldly enough to realize that, Ray."

 "I know. I just wanted you to know..."

 "That you understood. Yes." Frase sighed. "Well. To make a long story
short...for the time being, at least...you see, it may be all over the
world, and in all larger Western-world lawmaking, law-enforcing, and other
such organizations that the ideals that used to be so important are
disappearing in, but...somehow, on some level, I'd always managed to
convince myself that the RCMP was different. To some degree it is,
Ray--don't laugh; it's one of the differences between Canada and the
States, I think, that such changes haven't progressed quite so far in my
home."

 "I'm not laughing. The almighty dollar--or whatever you've got--talks
louder here than anywhere else in the world; capitalism isn't just
practiced here, it's literally worshiped, and I'm not under any illusions
about that. I'm also not making any comments on it. Go on."

 "Deep down, I still had...I had illusions, Ray. About the RCMP, in that
way. My father's murder may have finished the last of them off, but they
were there, and strong--if you think I'm intolerably boy-scoutish now, you
should have known me then, Ray. We never would have been friends."

 "Then I'm glad I didn't know you then. I wouldn't have wanted to get
impressions that might've kept us from being friends later, after we both
grew a little more, to a place where we were close enough to connect. And
you may think you're...fallen and dirty and corrupt and 'worldly'--God,
what a word--from who you used to be, but you're *my* shining star, you're
that to a lot of people, Frase." Ray didn't say it with a trace of irony,
or even, apparently, any notice that it was a very gushy thing to say. He
meant it, simply and plainly. "I want you to believe that. Just by being
who you are. You don't have to live up to it, or feel pressured. You could
never be anything but what you are. We all stumble. The important thing is
you don't let a stumble define the rest of your life, define *you*. So. Go
on--you still had illusions...but something happened? And those
illusions..."

 "They took the things I thought, at the time--and I may have been
right--nothing has ever looked quite the same, since--and simply...ripped
them apart, Ray, just ripped them..." he pressed his lips together, his
eyes squinching shut.

 Ray whispered "Ssh, take your time, honey," and Fraser took a few deep
breaths, opened his eyes, and continued. 

 "As you know, I've had very few...practically no intimate relationships
in my life, and the ones I've had have been disasters, mostly. Some ended
on a gentle note, but those were usually with men, where friendship, and
mutual relief of physical desire, were the main points. They were pleasant
enough, and I even still exchange the occasional letter or phone call with
some of them. Like Innusiq--such an old friend I can't imagine simply not
*sleeping* with him any more to be a reason not to *care* about him any
longer."

 Ray nodded. "But nothing...no one really...deep, not like this, no one
to..."

 "No one who would have been willing to *be* my reason to live, to believe
in the point of living, for even a while. I can understand no one wanting
to be in a position like that permanently, and it *wouldn't* be right,
permanently...but most people...don't understand that it can be a
temporary thing, too, being someone's reason to live. Long enough
for...for their *real* reasons, for their *self*, their sense of self, of
being, to come back to them when it gets the rug yanked from under it,
gets blown clear out of the water, out of the sky, just
destroyed--especially if it's fragile to begin with, as mine was, then. As
Turnbull's still is. But he's young, and his sense of self was never
properly nurtured, never given what it needed to grow healthy. He has to
do all that himself, now...but he has us."

 "And the ice queen." Ray smiled a little.

 "Yes, and her." Fraser smiled back, taking Ray's caressing hand a moment
to squeeze and kiss it, as if to say "Good Ray", like a pat on the head,
and Ray grinned. 

 Fraser released the hand and went on. "What happened, as I said somewhere
back there, was that I received a transfer--I'll actually try to make it
short now, I promise--and the reason for the transfer distilled with a
horrible, hard clarity in my mind. I can still remember the feeling
of...unreality that settled over me, of 'this can't happen, can't be
happening, can't be real' such as even hearing the news of my father's
death didn't do to me. 

 "I realized that their reasons were these: I couldn't be trusted *not* to
do the right thing, in what was going to be happening there. There was
going to be drilling, in a formerly pristine area, and there would
doubtless be corners cut and regulations ignored or gotten around, and
First Nation workers worked and paid illegally, and conservation and
environmental regulations and statutes given only token notice and
by-letter observation, totally ignoring spirit via convenient
loopholes--or else just outright ignored--and they couldn't have someone
of the "old breed" around when they came out and began all that, because a
member of the "old breed" couldn't be bought off. My knowledge, skills,
and specific knowledge of the area and the peoples and animal populations
would have been truly invaluable to their operation if I'd been willing to
use them for such, but I could not be trusted to 'play along', so even
giving me a promotion straight to first stripe sergeant, or raises in pay,
being put in the groups being considered for special training or special
tracks, with special retirement benefits--they knew, up there in the
echelons where the decisions for all the RCMP are made, that I could not
be bought. And so I was to be transferred far enough away that I could
make no conceivable trouble. And in the wording of the orders, it was made
clear that if I so much as protested, there were several choices of types
of discharge with airtight trails of apparently valid cause, thanks to my
maverick style, backed up carefully with the help of expert evaluators,
available for me. I would have the option of taking one which would leave
me in good standing to find another career to my liking--outside any Crown
law enforcement agencies--or I could have one forced upon me which might
involve the equivalent of a court-martial. Or...I could simply accept the
transfer. 

 "The worst thing about that part, Ray--the worst thing--was that I didn't
have to have all that explained to me. I had become a part of the 'new
breed' to the point that I could see all of that, read between the lines,
as plain as day, as if it were written flat out on the orders in my hand.
I *spoke the language*. And believe me, I knew what it said about me, that
I understood. And even if I didn't, it was of no moment to them--I would
have bucked the transfer and simply received one of the less palatable
forms of discharge I mentioned. I think they were actually hoping for
that. Considered it regrettable, perhaps, due to how useful they found me
for certain types of job, but still the best thing for them and for the
new order, in the long run."

 He was quiet for so long after that, Ray hazarded a guess. "You couldn't
decide where your duty was."

 "I...yes. I couldn't see...what would uphold the standards I had
dedicated my life to upholding. Doing as my superiors thought was best,
being a good soldier? A good soldier doesn't think, Ray, nor worry about
right or wrong. A good soldier is as mindless as a good dog--Diefenbaker
being a definite exception--mindless, ever obedient, carrying out orders
absolutely and literally. In the rank and file, where I am, that is the
*definition* of a good soldier; creativity in interpretation or execution
is actively discouraged at my level; and though we are not soldiers, but
law enforcement officers, carrying out our duties amongst our own people,
that principle is the same. It's the same even amidst organizations where
the handling of guns, and various kinds of quasi-militaristic functions,
are no part of the organization's purpose. 

 "I couldn't see any way to...carry out my assigned duty in this instance.
I couldn't find any way to reconcile the things that would have to be
reconciled before I could take *any* action. It wasn't only that I knew
that the reason I was being removed from the scene of what would be the
crime--and keep in mind, Ray, this was not anything unusual; it was just a
drilling operation like hundreds in the north; and yet I was seen as being
enough of a threat to the new RCMP way--the new way of the *world*--that I
had to be taken out of the road before anything could begin. I suppose one
could see it as a kind of flattery. They knew my capabilities. They knew I
could have done a lot more than simply make a bit of trouble."

 "They were right. Look at the way you took down that dam operation with
no help but a hand from a friend who should've been in the hospital."

 "And a hunter whose name I still don't know, but whom I...you could say I
pray for, I suppose. Yes."

 "I do, too. Whoever he was, he saved your life. But keep going. How'd you
end up...you know."

 "As I said, they knew what I could do. Some of the postings I'd had--I'd
thought they were simply trying to get me out of the way, but they were
tests. Someone had noticed me, and brought me to the notice of others. My
father's son...in any case, I was now regarded as a threat. Not an asset,
Ray. I wasn't a hero for managing the things that I'd done to that point.
I was a *threat*. Not at the lower levels, no, which is another reason, I
suspect, I'm still a constable. But there are people at the *highest*
levels who know that I'm a threat to their standard operating procedures.
To their status quo. And what makes me a threat is what might have made me
a candidate for...for--"

 "Chief Mountie Supreme, back in the day, back when your breed was *the*
breed and your shit was *the* shit. But that time is done and gone, and it
ain't coming back. I get you."

 "And I didn't...if I couldn't...I...I don't drink much, Ray..."

 "But you did," Ray said softly.

 "Yes. I'm not used to it, to...the way it can...make things look."

 "How it can blow things out of proportion over here and make something
else over here look so small you can't even see it. Yeah. I've drunk
plenty; I know it does that. Among other things. I drank it for the other
things, though, like all of us do who drink it."

 "Mm. But I didn't. I didn't understand that it could do those things,
instead of simply numbing me, instead of simply...making it all go away
for a while...that was what my acquaintances in my various postings and
training stints had done, and closer friends--when they drank out of
upset, it was to make it all go away for a while--at least, it seemed to
be, and when I asked, once or twice, that was the essence of the answers I
got. I didn't know...that to someone who wasn't used to it..."

 Ray shook his head. "Don't feel bad, Frase, sometimes even those of us
who are lucky, or unlucky, whichever you think, enough to be used to it
can still get that shit sprung on them and end up in a sobbing, maudlin
heap, or even really, really ready to do something truly stupid. Usually
it's only being too bombed to move or talk that saves us, and if we manage
to move or talk anyway and do something truly stupid, Christ, do we regret
it. And unfortunately, you had something stupid right outside your door."

 Fraser dropped his eyes, and nodded. "I don't know...I still don't know
if I...the important thing is, I understand being in a position like
Turnbull's. Where it seems...there are no answers, there is no way, every
road is blocked and there is no way out, no reason for your existence,
everything you've based your life on has crumbled to nothing and you don't
have the faintest idea how to be or do anything else, and there's no need
for you, all you know is of no use, and you haven't learned anything else,
you know you *can't* learn anything else because of who you are, what you
are, it isn't your choice, you'd change in a minute, if it were up to
you...and so the only alternatives there are, are...unthinkable. Literally
*unthinkable*, *past* unbearable."

 "An' literally you feel like you need to be dead, before it gets worse."

 "I don't know what would have happened if I hadn't had those four
beers--"

 "Four beers?!" Ray's eyes widened like pale blue marbles. "Only four
beers?"

 "Please remember that both my body and my mind were unused to the effects
of alcohol, Ray--"

 "Four beers--okay, even if they are Canadian beers, and probably
somebody's homebrew, where you were--that'd get you good and drunk, yeah.
But it would *not* be enough to tip you over the edge of suicide unless
you were already so close you might have found the way there on your own."
Ray suddenly sucked a breath. "Oh, man. I was all ready to blame the
booze. But it wasn't. The booze didn't *help*, and maybe you wouldn't have
tried *that night* without it, but you were bad off enough that
*eventually*...shit. Oh, Frase." He pulled Fraser down to him, tight. "I
*love* you."

 "I hear you. I know." Fraser squeezed him tight.

 "You're alive, you're here, you're alive, you're here...I'm okay...you're
here..."

 "I'm here," Fraser purred into his ear. "And I think I've explained all
that needs it right now; you know what happened, and why, and that Dief
pulled me out and back inside; I'd left the door open. He shut it. I was
warm enough to keep breathing until I came around. So...can I demonstrate
my truly, honestly being here in a more succinct fashion?" He slid down
Ray's body and Ray nearly left the bed straight up as Fraser slurped Ray's
entire soft cock into his mouth. 

 "Oh my God--" Somewhere in the back of his mind, Ray knew Fraser was
doing this not just to help him deal with the horror of what Fraser had
just told him, but partly as a distraction from worrying about Turnbull,
and where he might be, and what might be going on with him; but if
*Fraser* was worried that Turnbull was in danger, he wouldn't have been
trying to distract Ray. He would have been finding Turnbull. Which meant
that Fraser wasn't afraid for Turnbull's bodily integrity or any such
thing right now; he knew the ice queen and he trusted her this much.
Fraser, for all his problems with blind faith, still knew who to trust
with what, how far, and partially it was because he was the kind of person
whose faith made things happen. 

 Turnbull was okay for now.

 And God, Ray needed this.

 Fraser was here. He was alive. He was Ray's lover, his partner, his
friend, he was here. He was his honey ice-cream sundae.

 "Yeah," he whispered, as he felt himself growing huge fast in Fraser's
mouth, felt Fraser's deep murmurs, low in the throat, of pleasure at the
fact--though he did have to pull back twice--felt Fraser's hands all over
him, stroking and petting, fingers slipping between his legs to roll his
balls gently in their sac of flesh. Ray moved the leg opposite Fraser away
from his body and bent the knee, letting him touch. "Yeah...yeah..." he
begged softly, steadily, as Fraser reached down to firmly rub and stroke
Ray's hole, not trying to penetrate, Ray needed a little bit of lube for
that. Ray's hands roved in Fraser's hair and around his shoulders, his
face, squeezing the hand Fraser gave him to hold. "Ohhh...fuck me...?"

 "Mm-hmmmm," Fraser agreed--foregone conclusion, really, as much as Ray
liked that particular activity and as badly as he needed both distraction
and comfort; of course he'd want his personal favorite thing, and it
wasn't as though it was exactly a chore for Fraser. Fraser was just
letting him know he'd get there before it was too late, when he'd had a
bit more of doing his own personal favorite thing.

 Which wasn't what you could call a chore for Ray, either. 

 Fraser finally managed to kiss Ray's cock goodbye for the moment, though
it obviously wasn't easy for him--he loved to suck Ray and Turnbull to
orgasm more than anything else, and was making an enjoyable game of
learning to come without touching himself since the first time had
surprised him with the very possibility--and as he elbow-crawled to the
bedtable to get a condom and the lube bottle, and see if there was a
convenient towel or other usable cloth handy, he asked "How would you like
it? On your belly?" Ray liked it any old way, but when he needed
reassurance, he often liked it on his belly, for the hug factor.

 "Mm...on my back. Pound me through the mattress. Nmmmg..." He wriggled,
aroused by his own words. "Oh, fuck yeah, hurry..."

 "I think I can do that for you," Fraser whispered to him, moving into
place over him and slipping two fingers inside. "You feel ready?"

 "Yeah, I cleaned up earlier. Though I didn't...I wasn't sure..."

 "It's all right, Ray. Nothing wrong with proper preparation."

 "Five P's...ohhhh..." Ray's eyes rolled back in his head and he moaned
again as Fraser, having got the condom on and pushed in a little, paused,
letting Ray relax and adjust, and helped get his legs situated in his
preferred less strenuous spots.

 "There...all right?"

 "Go, more...yeah...mmf--okay, yeah...oh. Yeah. Right. There. Go. Now."
Ray lifted both hands over his head and gripped the headboard. "Do it. Do
it hard."

 Fraser got his balance situated, and said "Just tell me," then proceeded
to pull out and then shove back in with a lube-assisted slap heard 'round
the world, or at least Ray thought it must've been. "God, *yeah*! *Do*
it!"

 Fraser did, he just cut right loose, and Ray lifted his legs and hooked
his wrists over his own ankles, grabbing the headboard again, making it
possible for Fraser to lie full-length along him, rubbing his cock and
balls with each fast and furious stroke. Neither of them was worried about
the possibility of Ray cramping badly because this was *not* going to take
long. 

 And it didn't. Fraser did manage to lean down and get a couple of deep,
wet, tonguey kisses, but Ray was bent double to the point that Fraser was
on his elbows, and he knew that Ray had a tendency to get so caught up he
didn't realize that even if he felt no strain and was otherwise better
than fabulous just *now*, he was going to end up walking damn funny if he
didn't unclench a little. So, even though Ray, if given his choice, would
have made Fraser use that fantastic self-control that would have made him
a prime candidate for training in tantric sex if he could have stood the
instruction without literally dying of embarrassment until Ray was fucked
out for the rest of the *year*, Fraser instead used his knowledge of Ray's
specific internal anatomy to stroke the areas inside that would send him
through the ceiling the fastest, and he sped up like a jackhammer until
Ray was damn near actually screaming--more hoarse yelling, in time with
his panting, a yell with each thrust--and then Fraser reached between them
and took Ray's thick, rigid cock in his hand and squeezed and gave one
pump, and that was it, Ray was coming; Fraser kept squeezing and pumping
and Ray came his *head* off, squirting like jiz was going out of style and
he had a major surplus to move, and Fraser didn't slow down, thrusting
*or* pumping, until finally Ray actually had to ask him to let go of his
cock now via flapping his hand in that area before grabbing the headboard
again, and then Fraser let go of his dick and bore down and *pounded* and
Ray found himself groaning with aftershocks of orgasm he didn't know he
still had left in him, and Fraser was whimpering and moaning and *coming*,
*God God God God, oh Ray oh God oh fuck*, and then he collapsed, panting
hard and still whimpering faintly. 

 Ray carefully unfolded himself and got his legs down, first one, then the
other, on either side of Fraser without the other man having to move; he
wrapped Fraser in his arms and legs and held him tight, and Fraser groaned
in response, clutching at careful palmfuls of Ray's chest and shoulders,
until Ray said "Better do it," and Fraser made a sad, resigned mewl but
reached between them, lifting his ass enough, and met Ray's eyes for the
okay, and pulled carefully out. 

 He got rid of the condom in the lined trash can and came back with the
cloth item he'd found, one of the towels that they'd both forgotten they
now kept next to the lined trash can on a wicker bathroom-type towel
stand. What the hell, it wasn't as though anybody came in here but the
three of them. Fraser perfunctorily dried himself, then slipped the towel
under Ray's ass and helped him sit--Ray said that for him, at least,
cleanup halfway did itself that way. There was only lube to worry about
when you used condoms, anyway, and Ray didn't need much. They only used as
much as they usually did because Turnbull and Fraser refused to use less.
Ray could see their point. Both mounties were pretty darn sizeable, though
Ray wasn't exactly a slouch in that department, either.

 They sat in the middle of a puddle of moonlight, holding each other and
panting, until their heart rates had slowed toward normal. Then Ray lifted
his head and gazed at the ceiling. "Frase. Think about baby with me."

 "Um...all right. What shall I think?"

 "Think about what we just did, and think about him." 

 "I...think I see what you're doing." Fraser smiled and closed his eyes.
"All right."

 "Turnbull? Wherever you are, we're here, and that one was for you, baby.
That one's for you, 'cause we love you and we miss you and we want you to
come home as soon as you can, okay? Feel it with us; I love you. *Love*
you, baby."

 "I love you, Turnbull," Fraser murmured, squeezing Ray close. "Come home,
as soon as you feel you can. We'll wait for you. As long as we have to."

 Startling them both, out in the hall, Dief gave a brief, faint sound like
a quiet version of a howl.

 "Mangey mutt," Ray mumbled. 

 "Now, Ray. He misses Turnbull too. He just wanted to add his message."

 "Semmy's probably gumming that piece of rose quartz Turnbull put in his
tank."

 Fraser smiled. "He probably is."

 Suddenly, Ray froze in Fraser's arms. "Did you see that?"

 "See what?" Fraser immediately went to all-senses-alert mode.

 "No, it's okay, come down off red alert. I just...thought I
saw...sparkles. Little lights."

 "Little lights?"

 "Yeah. Little fairy lights?" Ray chuckled. "I think I'm getting too old
to come that hard. It's starting to mess with my brain."

 "Where were they?"

 "Swirling around kinda, under the bed, and then under the door and gone."

 "Unless one of Turnbull's incorporeal friends carried them, they weren't
fairy lights, I don't think. I think they were...our message. To
Turnbull." They were rocking back and forth now, holding each other,
slowly, moving a little in the moonlight. "After all, you did a good job
of getting rid of that word."

 "We did. We all did."

 "We did. But you hung it there in the first place. All of which reminds
me, I think I'm going to have to introduce you to my father."

 "Is *that* who you're talking to when you talk to yourself and it isn't
Dief?"

 Fraser paused. "Um...yes. Is it that obvious?"

 "Pretty obvious. But I'm with you all the damn time. Turnbull probably
knows about it. Hell, Turnbull probably knows who it *is*."

 "Now that you mention it, he might. My father likes Turnbull, though I'm
not clear on whether he--my father--knows that Turnbull is my lover. And
would be my husband, if there were legally formalized family joinings of
the kind the three of us have."

 Ray was quiet a moment, then said in a very tiny voice "Me, too?"

 "Oh, Ray, yes, you too, my--my love," Fraser whispered the last two
words, head down, as though expecting some horrible reaction, from what
quarter Ray couldn't imagine; then Fraser took a breath and lifted his
head again. "I love you, Ray. You're my friend and my partner and my
confidante. I work better with you, I feel better, I *am* better. You've
made me happier than I can ever remember being, you and Turnbull. I
mean...happy. I never expected to be happy, I didn't even know what happy
was, I even thought of expecting happiness as...childish. But--" he let
out a huge, pained sigh. "I think I see why such happiness is so rare.
It's fraught with horrible, horrible dangers...people you love this
way--this way that's so...different, I can't explain how, I'm very...very
poor with such things--those people that make you so ecstatically happy
can be...hurt, and sick...and then, what could ever compare, if you lost
them? What could ever be reason to live, after that?"

 "Yeah. Just like one of the people that even thinking about 'em sends you
into total rapturous, uh, rapture, turning out to be so miserable you're
worried he might not even live through it. Though I know better now. I
don't think the ice queen will let anything happen to him."

 "I know she won't, Ray. I think she really loves him, though more the way
one might love a child than the way we love him--despite the fact she
obviously appreciates his physical assets."

 "Good syllable on the end there, Frase." Ray grinned.

 Fraser smiled back, finishing "They...take care of each other, in a way."

 "He takes care of her like secretaries do their bosses--the ones that
have really good relationships, I mean--and she keeps all the bad stuff
away from his door and out from under his bed."

 Fraser chuckled. "That's disrespectful, Ray."

 "Hm. *I* was just thinkin' it was sweet."

 "You *were* very resentful of his taking his pain and need for assistance
to her, rather than to us, only a short while ago."

 "Well...it was kinda *about* us, and...I think I understand better now. I
think getting laid by the most beautiful man in the world really helps my
perspective. On everything."

 Fraser chuckled again. "There have actually been studies done in such
areas."

 "And?"

 "And, usually, you were found to be right." 

 Ray eyed him, half-smiling. "You didn't even hear the part of that
sentence where I said you were the most beautiful man in the world, did
you?"

 "What?" Fraser pulled up short, his eyes widening.

 Ray shook his head slowly. "You didn't. I'd yank you for that,
ordinarily, but right now I'm not feeling like it's so funny. I'm feeling
like bashing some heads in for making you so unable to handle that stuff
you just edited it right out."

 "Ray...we're feeling better. And we just sent Turnbull an unmistakable
message of love. Let's not mess it up thinking angry things--for a little
while, all right?"

 Ray looked down, then smiled and peeked back up, kind of playfully.
"Okay. Wanna play 'pet to sleep'?"

 "Oh, you'd win, I think."

 "I never win. Your hands are magic." Ray picked up Fraser's hands and
kissed one, then the other, his lips plump and moist and soft, on the
delicate skin between Fraser's knuckles, what with all the kissing action
Ray's mouth had just been seeing. "Incredible. Square as a
box--bricklayer's hands, covered in angel skin, I love these things. Let's
curl up and pet."

 "That sounds lovely. But if at any time you feel like falling to sleep,
feel free. I'll just soothe myself by petting you until I sleep, too."

 The game they referred to had started with the fact that all three of
them had the irresistible compulsion to run their hands gently and
thoroughly all over as much of the other two as they could comfortably
reach whenever they cuddled and relaxed. Sometimes two of them would
concentrate their attentions on the one who seemed to be most tense and in
need of the attention, and they'd simply, literally, stroke and caress
that person to sleep. Sometimes they just did it randomly until they
dropped off, one by one; sometimes they played it as a no-losers game, in
which whoever managed to stay awake longest and be the last one petting
won, but the other two could hardly be said to have lost anything worth
talking about. 

 "Your skin," Ray sighed. "I'd let out my inner poet, but even he's
stumped by your skin. I've never felt anything so beautiful. It feels like
ice cream would feel if it were skin. And you taste...so good..."

 "Feel free to indulge," Fraser invited, pulling Ray closer to him. "And
think of Turnbull...maybe he'll be able to feel it, too. Do you call him
'baby' for any reason besides his age?"

 "Um...no. I just...that's what I feel like calling him. I don't mean it
condescending or anything. I just want to...protect him. Which I know is
nuts way to be feeling about a guy as big and strong as he is, and skilled
to boot. Have you seen him with a distance rifle?"

 "I haven't seen him with one, but I know his scores. He's quite an
accomplished marksman. The only reason, I believe, that he doesn't have
the same patch on his sleeve that I do is that he has a bit of an anxiety
problem with tests, if he knows they're for anything he considers
important."

 "Got the material backward and forward, then has a panic attack on test
day and biffs the class?"

 "Uh, something like that, if it means what it sounds like."

 "God. Somebody has a hell of a lot to answer for where he's concerned."

 "Yes. And I'd gladly hold the perpetrators while you beat them to death
with the butt end of your gun, Ray, except that it would only break
Turnbull's heart, and be no help to him now, in any case."

 Ray was silent a moment, then muttered, sounding defeated "You're right.
If there's any confronting that he thinks needs doing, he needs to do it.
Though I'd be glad to stand behind him and glower to make sure he was
allowed to get his say in."

 "Yeah, we'd both be glad for that chance, I think."

 "He's a big, beautiful, powerful, handsome guy. He's healthy, as far as
anyone knows. He's intelligent. He as to be, to do what he does, to have
gotten through the academy, the Depot. Besides, I know him and he's
intelligent. He's so loving. He's so...sweet...and somebody took that and
screwed with it and hurt it and fucked it up to the point he can't find
his ass in a hall of mirrors at high noon some days, even though he still
manages to get his job done. He'd be out on his ass otherwise. And he...he
doesn't like himself to the point he can't stand hearing anyone tell him
they love him. And to the point he thinks the world wouldn't miss him,
would be better off without him, that he ought to *die*. It's so fucking
wrong, Frase, it's so fucking, fucking wrong."

 Fraser held him close. "It is. I agree. And I want vengeance, in my
weaker moments, too. But everyone wants vengeance in their weaker moments.
You've been ill-treated and hurt, and so have I. None of us like the
parties responsible, for those who hurt us or hurt each other. That's
why--one reason--we're here for each other now. To help each other
understand that we were raised believing a lot of malicious nonsense that
we have to learn to believe *was* nonsense, no matter what our gut
feelings are trying to tell us. And it will take time, and work, and he's
younger than we are, still young enough that it makes a difference."

 "I wanna be here for him. But he goes away..."

 "To someone who has what he needs for right now. We can't help him. We
should love Meg for giving him what we can't, not be angry that she can
help him. Do you think he loves you any less?"

 "No. Never."

 "Then Meg's helping him is no different than my helping him, when it
comes to his relationship with you. She is competent. Frighteningly so
sometimes. She'll take care of him, and she won't let him lose
perspective."

 "I know. I know. I just miss him, that's all."

 "Yes...as I said before, he's barely been gone, and I miss him. I love
him too, Ray."

 "I know, I know you do, I didn't mean..." he kissed Fraser, and they
began to kiss, softly, then more deeply. 

 "We had one for Turnbull," Fraser said. "Shall we have one for us, now?"

 "I still want it to send good vibes to him."

 "So send them. I'll help. What would you like?"

 "I had my favorite. Maybe...suck me? And see if, maybe, you can...you
know. And if not, you can always fuck me again." Ray grinned.

 "Ray, I know how much you like it, but you should be careful. There are
repercussions that come with too-frequent receiving."

 "What, like singing show tunes in the shower?" He warded off Fraser's
mock glare, grinning, then said, more soberly, "I know all about it,
Fraser. There are other ways for my prostate to get its kicks than via
dicks. If there are any signs of anything, you'll be the first to know.
After me, or Turnbull, if he happens to be around when I first notice. And
every kiss and touch you give me, we'll hereby dedicate it to him. I know
it's pretty stupid for grown men to be...well..."

 "There's nothing stupid about love. Even if it makes you act silly. Love
has a very, very long history of making people behave like that. You're
not the first."

 "Yeah, you're right. And here I'm supposed to be this great romantic.
Anyway, the thing I said, I like to think of it that way. It makes him
seem more here, kind of, in a little way. Just a little way, but still..."

 "I know what you mean, and I'd love to. Get comfortable..." he slid down
Ray's body, kissing and stroking, licking and nibbling, and Ray fell
fluidly onto his back, wrapping his legs around Fraser and resting them
easily over his back, giving him access to everything he wanted to touch. 

 "Mm..." Ray squirmed in the sheets. "You make me feel...hot...like *I*
am, I mean, like I can tell how *you* think I am..."

 "I do think you are--you are, so very...sexy..." he took Ray's half-hard
cock in his mouth and further speech was dumped by the wayside. On
Fraser's part, at least. Ray had a tendency to talkiness if his mouth
wasn't occupied, or at least of noisiness, if he couldn't manage words.

 Before long, Fraser was holding him, arms cradled around Ray's pelvis,
making sounds he was probably totally unaware of as he devoured Ray, he'd
come once, but so had Fraser. If Fraser was going to get what he was
trying for--namely, coming just from the enormous satisfaction he got from
orally stimulating him in whatever way(s), Ray had better try and get a
little zen about this, while still providing sufficient cues to let Fraser
know when he was doing the right things. 

 And he did try-- ("Oh, yeah, there--more, faster--kind of around...yeah,
like that"). But finally he dissolved in babbles, about how he felt so
loved and cherished and *wonderful*, about how he needed Fraser, loved
him, needed this right now, needed it so bad, or he'd lose his mind, he
just knew it, but Fraser was so good, so sweet, *ah ah ah* just like that,
please, more, God, Fraser was so hot, he looked so hot like that, sucking
Ray and loving it, loving the feel of Ray sliding in and out of his mouth,
loving the taste like Ray knew he did, it was so fucking hot, Fraser was
so beautiful that way, his lips shining around Ray's dick, moaning and
grunting softly, low in his throat, and the vibrations, God, the
*vibrations*, where had he learned, how did he know, he didn't even know,
he just loved it that much, and that was the hottest fucking thing Ray had
ever, ever, ever seen--touch him, use his hands, touch him anywhere, he
loved it, loved this, wanted Fraser to love it, to want it as much as Ray
did (yes, like that, touch him, touch his ass, sink his fingers in, just
not the hot spot, don't, Ray didn't want to come yet), he wanted to see
Fraser like this, wanted to see it, feel it, he loved it, he loved Fraser,
he wanted to see Fraser come so bad, he loved to see Fraser like that,
contorted, his face shining with sweat, his muscles trembling, body
jerking, and the sounds he made, the sounds he made as he met Ray's eyes
and knew that Ray was feeling it with him, that there was nothing in the
world sexier or more beautiful than Fraser when Ray came with his dick
wrapped in Fraser's mouth and Fraser loving it so much he just shot
right--

 Fraser pulled off with a groan and his face was buried in Ray's groin as
he shuddered and shouted, short, sharp yells, muffled by Ray's pubes,
Fraser's mouth pressed to his balls, into the join of thigh and body, as
he curled in on himself, Ray somehow managing to quickly rewrap his legs
to hold Fraser through it, give Fraser something to cling to, to come
*against* even if his dick wasn't touching anything--and he kept on, and
kept on, and suddenly his whole body bowed backward as he gave a strangled
shout and Ray realized that Fraser was coming *again*, and he sat up like
a shot and engulfed Fraser's soaking, sticky penis in his hand and Fraser
practically screamed, coming again, and Ray was shouting too, his hand on
his own cock, the rhythm he gave Fraser that of his own climax.

 The next thing he could understand completely clearly was that Fraser was
unconscious.

 "Frase!" When Fraser's eyebrows fluttered and his head stirred, Ray
moaned in relief and sank down with him, hell with the mess, and they were
kissing, kissing completely. Ray wasn't sure what he meant by that, but he
knew he hadn't understood complete kissing until right now.

 "You're perfect," he told Fraser, and Fraser managed to smile at him, and
put his face in Ray's neck, and whispered things about how perfect Ray
was, and why. 

 And they both thought of Turnbull, and thought of sending everything they
felt to him, too. There was nothing else in their minds. They were both
clearly and completely focused. On each other, and on Turnbull, wherever
he was, whatever he was doing, they were here; and always here for him. 

 ***

 Turnbull woke smiling, moaning, twisting a little. 

 Oh, my. 

 'Where are you'

 *Heathcliff*

 'Did they send me that'

 *you know they did*

 'I love them'

 *Send them that*

 And Turnbull closed his eyes again, sighing; and, grounding, centering,
and focusing on his intent, he entered what he thought of as his
inside-seeing mind and sent how much he loved them back along the channel
they were providing to him. He knew they could feel him, too, just as they
knew he could feel them.

 'I wish they could know me and still love me like this'

 *you won't know until you let them in if that's possible*

 "I know," he hissed, and felt himself fall out of inside-seeing, and
sighed. 

 "Mph?" The inspector was stirring to his right. His hand was still
clasped in hers, and at some point, he had slid his other one under their
clasp and was holding her hand in both of his large ones. She was smiling
in her sleep, in the light from the windows. "Mmm..."

 Good dream, sounded like. *Very* good, one of *those* dreams. He
smirked...and realized that it was probably Ray and Fraser's morning sex,
which they had decided to try and see if they could let him in on, passing
through him, that was giving her the dream. It seemed rude to stop now, so
he lay down and closed his eyes, still holding her hand.

 She came in her sleep, and he could feel it, though there wasn't much to
see from the outside, except her hips did move, a steady forth-and-back
rocking for a while, straining for completion, that finally came, the
lighter contractions of a woman's nocturnal orgasm waking her, making her
murmur in confusion, not quite awake.

 He almost closed his eyes and pretended to be asleep, but realized what
she might end up thinking of herself if he did that--that she had been
given an erotic dream that resulted in orgasm because of his presence
alone, and it wasn't fair to let her think that; she probably wouldn't
like herself much for it, considering the reason she had him in bed with
her in the first place--to protect him from his own fears and miseries,
his own resignation. Being a person of conscience, she was likely to think
ill of herself for that, just as Turnbull probably would, whether it was
"right" or not.

 'Should I tell her'

 *as much as you need to* *she'll tell you when to stop explaining*

 True enough.

 As her eyes opened, he tightened his hands on the one of hers he held.
"Good morning, sir."

 "Uh...um..." she blinked, and he remembered she was a coffee drinker;
perhaps not like Ray, but while she drank tea at work, she drank flavored
coffees at home in the morning, particularly mochas. 

 "Shall I get you a mocha?" he volunteered, squeezing her hand. 

 "Uh..."

 "I'll do that, shall I?" he concluded, letting go of her hand with a
gentle pat to the top, and slithering out of the bed. His pjs had probably
hid the worst of the mess, but the smell would be impossible to hide
completely from a nose as acute as hers; like most people, she was
probably inured to her own smells, so his wouldn't be masked by what she'd
just done--and which he could smell himself. 

 It smelled good. Rather like...fruit. None of the acridness associated
with some people's...um...anyway.

 Leaving Heathcliff on the pillow, he got his duffel from his room for
clothes and shut the door behind him in the hall bathroom; he cleaned up
perfunctorily, making sure to rinse everything--he just stuffed his pjs
into the sink in their entirety to avoid playing up any particular
locations that might need extra attention--and washed what needed it, then
slipped on some sweatpants and a T-shirt and headed for the kitchen.

 She hadn't emerged, but he could hear activity taking place in the master
bathroom. She was probably doing exactly what he'd done. He wondered if
she usually had nocturnal orgasms--a good number of women did--or if this
was her first, in which case she was likely in something of a mental
muddle at the moment. He'd just have to wait and see how she reacted when
she emerged.

 It wasn't difficult to locate all the equipment and ingredients necessary
for a mocha cafe latte. He also discovered a can of chocolate Quick at the
back of the beverage cupboard and suspected he knew what had happened when
she arrived at the consulate slightly later than usual and strangely
wild-eyed. He went about industriously preparing one and by the time she
emerged, looking confused, fully dressed, from the bedroom, he was setting
out plates and utensils for breakfast; he knew her preferred breakfast
foods, of course, and how to make them--he'd often done so at the
consulate when she'd been forced to come in early, and he couldn't have
her skipping a proper breakfast. It affected the neurotransmitters, and
she needed to be able to do her best work on many of those days. Today,
though, something quick was called for. She would probably be wanting to
leave as soon as possible.

 She looked at the table, then looked up at him. "Ah...thank you,
Turnbull, I appreciate your putting together something fast and
nutritious." She couldn't keep her hand from the latte and actually picked
it up, though he wasn't sure she was aware she had. "But I'm afraid...I,
ah, I have something to confess...I wouldn't bother you with it, as I
don't want to give you cause to..." she cleared her throat, one hand
tapping the chair back in front of her, the other fiddling with the string
of iron-grey hematite beads that ran beneath her shirt collar and down
across her chest, fastened with a silver clasp; "...to worry that you have
to...be on your guard, but it seems only fair, since you would be sleeping
with me, possibly, while you're here, and you might want to have the
information to consider, as it's of a rather--"

 "I had a...well." He looked away, feeling himself turn red. "One of what
you're talking about. I had one too."

 He managed to look at her to see how she was taking the news, and was
greeted with a dropjawed stare. "How'd you know what I was going to say?!"
she demanded, not in anger, but confusion. It apparently never occurred to
her to doubt him, or to prevaricate, in this instance, even for diplomatic
reasons.

 "That was...it was my...my Ray and Fraser. They...shared it with me.
And...you were close by, and we had an emotional bond being strongly felt,
and it...must have sort of...sloshed over. A bit. I'm terribly sorry, sir.
I hope...I hope it won't make you think less of me. I...certainly wouldn't
have...done anything that you...didn't...I just couldn't have."

 "What? Good Lord, Turnbull, of course you wouldn't. That would be like
mother Theresa snatching food away from a starving child. Don't be
ridiculous." She sat down in her chair with a plunk.
"You...they...were...and you could tell?"

 "They wanted me to tell, sir. They...the, um, s-word is a very powerful
thing to humans, which is why it figures so largely in some magical
systems. Not all, of course, nor with all individuals by any stretch of
the imagination, but it's a theme that shows up all over the globe. World.
Um." He sat down too, picking up his spoon, and poured milk on his cereal.
He pushed the milk at her and she took it automatically, pouring it over
her own cereal and fruit, and suddenly sniffed and noticed the large mug
sitting steaming with her fingers on the handle. 

 "Oh, thank you God. Or you, more--" she gulped, burned herself, took a
slug of cereal mixture off her spoon, waited for the burn to go away, and
continued, before sipping more carefully at the mug, "--more immediately,
of course, for the latte. Oh, quite tasty. As always, Turnbull, thank
you."

 "No problem at all, sir. Anything else I can get you?"

 "No, I was a slugabed this morning...um...for obvious reasons, I guess,
who the hell am I kidding. So...your...family partners, they...sent you
a...message of love, shall we say, and your experiencing of it was
simply...picked up by my antennae, as it were."

 "I believe it was something like that, sir. I hope it wasn't unpleasant
for you. I would *never*--"

 "Turnbull, I know you, I know you would never. That's not the point. The
point is...uh...I don't know what the point is. Except perhaps that
it...may be the oddest route to that sort of good time that I've ever
experienced." 

 "Then it *was* good?" he asked anxiously, heard himself, and blushed even
harder. "Oh, dear. I'm sorry. I certainly didn't mean to--"

 "I'm not upset, not the way you mean, Turnbull, please calm down, for
God's sake. I've had nocturnal orgasms before. They usually wake me up, so
this is no different."

 "Yes, me too," Turnbull said almost inaudibly, and scooped in some cereal
mixture.

 "I don't know too many other women who have them--let me rephrase; I
don't know too many other women whom I would know such a thing about who
have them. For all I know, every woman I've ever met has had them except
the ones who've actually told me that they haven't. In any case, I do,
and, um, the only really disturbing thing was, well..."

 "I know what you mean. My pajamas are in the bathroom sink. I was
embarrassed too, sir."

 "And still are, judging by the color of your face. Well, I'm a
bit...discomfited as well, but I'm sure we'll get over it." She smiled.
"Rather a nice way to wake up, actually, all things considered."

 "Yes," he smiled down at his cereal. "It was."

 They ate concentratedly until their food was consumed and Thatcher was
finishing her latte a careful sip at a time as Turnbull cleared and
cleaned. "Turnbull, you aren't to consider yourself my maid while you're
staying here. I'm having you here...as a friend, staying over for a bit.
Not as a junior officer here to act as a domestic."

 "I don't mind, sir."

 "I know you don't. You'd pay people to *let* you clean their houses. I
just needed to say it, so that it would be understood that any cleaning
and cooking and such that you do while you're here, you're doing to make
yourself happy and by your own will. I won't be asking for any, or
expecting any as of right."

 "So noted, sir."

 "By the way, odd awakening aside, I slept very well last night." He voice
softened. "You *are* a comforting presence. And I'm glad if I could do the
same for you."

 He paused in what he was doing, then quickly put the last of the dishes
in the dishwasher and closed it, though he didn't turn it on--he could do
that after she left--and washed his hands carefully before rolling his
sleeves back down and going to where she was just standing up to bring her
latte mug to the sink. 

 He very carefully and lightly put his arms around her, and said "Your
presence was much more than comforting. It...it saved my life. I am
honored you let me sleep in your personal sleeping space, sir. It means
more to me than I know how to express." Which was probably obvious.
Personal sleeping space?

 She was still a moment, then responded by putting her arms around him and
resting against him, carefully so that her work clothes, hair, and makeup
wouldn't be mussed, but he understood that. "I think you just expressed it
very well, Turnbull," she said gently. "And you're welcome to share it
again tonight, or as many nights of your stay as you feel the need. I
would kiss your cheek, but then I'd have to redo my face, so simply
consider it done, if you would."

 He smiled. "I do, sir. Thank you. I'd do the same, but will refrain for
similar reasons."

 "Understood. I'll be at the consulate all day today, except for a lunch
meeting with the consuls of several of the other countries maintaining
consulates and embassies in Chicago. I'll be back at the consulate by two,
and home by six. Nothing of exceptional import is taking place today, to
my knowledge. You can reach me any time--any time at all--by pager. You
can especially reach me during the lunch meeting. If you were to feel the
need for a sympathetic ear during the lunch meeting, you would definitely
get one. And the gratitude of a fellow officer in need."

 He grinned. "I'll keep in mind that the hours of eleven-thirty to
one-thirty would be an especially good time to feel a dearth of friendly
support." 

 "Excellent." She let go of him, taking a step back, and said "Also, if
the therapeutic value is simply inarguable, you may clean whatever you
think would provide you the greatest relief. But I hope the tile isn't
grouted or some such when I get home."

 "I'll try to exercise restraint, sir."

 "Good. Until this evening, then. Thank you for breakfast. And...for the
pleasant awakening." She gave him what he would have sworn was an impish
smile before turning to head for the front door. Once there, she paused
and turned. "Remember, Constable. Any time. You know my pager number."

 "Yes sir, I do. I'll keep it in mind."

 "Good. As I mentioned before, I have no particular respect for
*overweening* stoicism." She nodded briskly to him and turned, the
automatic lock clicking shut behind her.

 "I love you," he said softly.

 In the hallway, her footsteps stopped. He couldn't quite make out her
mutter, but he knew from the cadence of the words what it had to be, and
smiled a little, his eyes tearing up. Then the footsteps continued along
the carpeted hall toward the elevator.

 *She cares for you*

 "I know. I'm--I'm so glad...glad I took the chance that she...that she
might help...I honestly wasn't certain, she isn't very forthcoming, and
she's so good at shields and walls and I really didn't know, but she..."
he sobbed softly, then went into "his" room and sat down on the bed where
Heathcliff was, and a box of tissues was next to the bed, and he cried for
a little while, softly, not a cracking in the floodgates, but a quiet
expression of relief. 

 "I really didn't want to have to die. But it looked like the only way..."

 *most who kill themselves do not want to die* *simply to escape the
unendurable* *and in too many cases* *that is the only way* *that is why
you tried here*

 "That, and the fact that I literally had nothing to lose by trying."

 *also true*

 "I've never asked you this, but I think I'm going to now. Why won't you
let me make you my reason for living? Why would it be better for me to die
than to live only for you?"

 *because it would not be enough* *you would find this out* *and then
there might be no convincing you* *that there were other things that you
could have* *that were worth living for*

 "You *rejected* me that way...for *my* sake?" he said incredulously.

 *yes* *I hated hurting you so* *I hate your pain* *your fear*

 "That's why you'll never join with the popular chorus and reject the
notion of suicide absolutely. You know..."

 *how badly it would frighten you* *you could not feel safe even with me
then* *because you would fear my taking it from you* *as she said*
*putting my agenda* *ahead of yours* *even about something as personal*
*as YOUR life* *selfish* *cruel* *uncaring* *"knee-jerk"* *I love you* *I
would not force you to life* *just because it made ME feel better* *I
could never give you cause* *to fear me*

 "Will you tell me, now, if you're me? If I'm...really crazy? Talking to
myself?"

 *no* *I can't tell you that*

 "Why NOT, mother preserve us?!"

 *because I don't know*

 "Do you have sentience? Can you think? Are you there?"

 *yes*

 "Then, I'm a god?" he scoffed. "I can create life?"

 *it's possible*

 Turnbull was silent, then, for a long time. Finally he got into his
duffel and found a black candle, an incense stick, and his little chaplet.
He'd made the chaplet himself from an old rosary, with a pair of
needle-nose pliers. It was made of hematite for the main beads,
distinctive in shape, and clear, faceted plastic beads of a rounder shape
for markers, three sets of nine hematite beads and one marker bead for
each, with some extra chain links to each side of them. Three times three,
times three. Twenty-seven; with the marker beads, thirty in all. A small,
light pentacle of silver dangled from one of the rings that held a marker
bead.

 "Arionrhod is lady of the silver wheel--the stars that circle," he
murmured. "Her husband is Nwyvre, the space between them. Peace,
non-action, is the space between one event and another. Perspective on an
act is found between one act and another. Silence is between one word and
another, to distinguish them. The hawk's flight is bright against an empty
sky. The stillness between. Xeno postulated that it was infinite, because
the distance between could always be halved, and then halved again, and
then halved again, infinitely...the stillness, between." Having located
what he wanted, he closed his eyes and began to chant, his large fingers
moving delicately as a careful child's over the gleaming hematite beads.
"The stillness between. The stillness between. The stillness between. The
stillness between..."

 ***

 He'd been napping when he heard her footsteps along the hallway, and he
inhaled hugely, opened his eyes and sat up slowly. He wondered how she'd
react to the way she found him. He got up, carefully, testing all his
limbs, and made his way slowly, trepidatiously in more ways than one, out
into the front room. 

 She had come in and was leaning, her back against the front door, with
her briefcase held by the handle in the fingers of both hands. There was a
sardonic half-smile on your face. "Couldn't you have had a crisis or
something during the mee..." she straightened up from the door, and
crossed the room quickly to him. "Sit down, here, quickly. What's the
matter? How do you feel?"

 "I'm fine, I'm fine, sir, really, I'm fine--"

 "I'll get you some water--"

 "Thank you." He could use some water. He also needed to pee bad, but he
could hold out for just another minute or two.

 She brought the water and he took a token sip--all he could make himself
swallow until he peed--but it was enough to make it easier to talk. 

 "I trance journeyed," he explained as she sat down beside him, "and I
need to urinate rather desperately. If I may...?"

 "Uh? Oh, uh, certainly, yes, by all means," she said, standing again to
let him pass and gesturing in the direction of the hall bathroom. He left
the glass on a coaster on the coffee table and went

 When he came back, feeling like a whole new, slightly smaller man, she
was looking at him, head atilt. "You haven't showered. Did you go back to
bed?"

 "In a manner of speaking. As I said, I trance journeyed. I...apparently,
I stayed with you. I hope you don't mind."

 "I had a feeling...uh...what did you do, exactly?"

 "Um..." he sat down on the long couch with her again. "*Exactly*, I can't
tell you, because I don't know. But I didn't want to be without you all
day, and..." that had come out sounding somewhat other than he'd intended.
"I, I don't mean to say that I'll never--that I'll always--"

 "Hush, Turnbull. You're here because you need a friend to help you right
now. There's nothing wrong with that, as I believe we've established.
But...were you...floating around next to me all day, or inside my head,
or...what?"

 "Oh, it's nothing like that, what I did, not so clear, not so precise."

 "What I said was 'clear' and 'precise'?" she muttered, almost too softly
to hear, so he just talked over it.

 "But I was...aware of you. I did sleep, some. My focus changed to Fraser
sometimes, and to Ray; and they seem to be all right, as well, though
worried, and missing each other, and me...we're all still in the honeymoon
phase, I suppose you could call it, and hate being separated for any
significant length of time. We..." he felt his face reddening, and
stopped.

 "You seem to be very much in love, the three of you," she said for him,
patting his knee. "It's hardly unusual that you dislike being separated.
Even when it's voluntary, and honestly necessary, and you all accept
that."

 He gazed at her, still blinking dizzily, still out of it. "You're really
quite a beautiful person. Beyond your face and your body being so lovely,
I mean--" he cast those aside as though the words barely meant anything.
"I wonder why more people don't see that."

 "Ah. Uh. Yes. Well, ahm, thank you." She flustered about with her hands,
checking an earring and fiddling with her watch, and he reached up and
closed his own large, still blanket-warm hands over hers, pulling them
gently up and kissing them in what was apparently meant as a soothing
fashion, eyes closed, still sort of sleepy, so he didn't see her already
large eyes widening to saucerlike proportions.

 "You're...ah...still *there*, a bit, aren't you," she said, gazing at
him, slightly wonderingly, slightly with curiosity, slightly with
trepidation. "A sort of...shamanic perception."

 "Mm, a bit," he said, smiling, and blinking. He hadn't let go of her
hands, and brought them up to kiss again, and unfolded the left one and
pressed his cheek into the palm, closing his eyes. "Mmmm...could you feel
me? Is that how you knew so quickly that I'd been with you today?"

 "I...could feel something, and though it's perfectly natural I'd be
thinking of you today, I'd think of--something odd--I'd notice something I
never would have noticed before, like how the shape of some branches in a
grove of trees, seen at just the angle that the car stopped at,
made...certain shapes. I recognized them as being...I thought they were
something I used to know and had forgotten, or something..."

 "I saw Ansuz," he said softly, distant as he pictured. "I saw moon horns,
and the star of the muses, such a rare thing to catch sight of, pentagrams
are much easier...yes, I remember."

 They were quiet a moment, until she freed the hand he wasn't resting his
slightly stubbled face in and stroked his hair with it. "You could have
told me you were going to do that."

 "I didn't know I was going to do it," he said softly, sounding
embarrassed, and his eyes fell, and he turned his face a little more into
her hand to hide them. "I would have said something, but I was only going
to...to do a trance journey I'm familiar with, one that takes me to places
that show me metaphors and symbols for things that are happening or that I
want to know--or only think I want to know, in some cases. Then I write
them down, the best I can remember, and look at them later, and see if
anything makes more sense than when I'm still fuddled on waking. But
I...somehow ended up, on and off, at least, spending the day with you,
instead. I'm sorry, honestly. It was wrong of me. I would have stopped it
if I'd...if I'd realized..."

 "You weren't really aware of what was happening, were you," she said,
shaking her head, with a quirk of her lips. 

 "I'm afraid not, sir. I'm sorry."

 "You can stop saying that now, Constable, I understand that you're sorry.
You should be. As it happens, I don't mind, but I might have been engaging
in more private matters today; *far* more importantly, however, it sounds
like it could have been dangerous for you, no more control than you seemed
to be exercising."

 "I'm ordinarily very *good* with these things," he said, "I didn't have
any reason to think...but I'm still sorry. There were times...when it
didn't seem quite right, and I could have come out at those times, but my
curiosity..."

 "All right, we'll call this one an accident, and forgiven, and leave it
there as far as blame and what you should have done, as long as it's
understood you'll be more careful in future, both for your own sake and
the sake of the person you decide to follow the day of. I will admit..."
she looked down. "I think I was aware of you, sometimes. And...it wasn't
an unwelcome sensation. It was...familiar, reassuring, even--much like the
awareness I have of you at work. When you're actually there, about the
consulate somewhere, I mean. When I know you're going to come in, or that
something has alarmed you and I'm going to have to go and calm you down.
Just...that sort of thing. I never thought about it until now, that's all.
I...kept looking around for you, before I realized what I was doing; but I
assumed I was simply preoccupied with you because you're in a state of
such need at the moment that you actually came to *me* to ask for help."

 He opened his eyes--they'd been closed while he listened to her, and
said, with a smile breaking slowly over his face, "You were flattered."

 She began turning pink. "I'm not proud of that, Constable. Your pain was
extreme. My thoughts should all have been for you, and believe me, almost
all of them were. But...people don't...think of me that way. As a person
to turn to in emotional need. And I...it was...all right, it was
flattering. It's...not something I'm used to. No one...has ever really
thought of me quite the way you do. As a...a friendly sort of figure.
A...mothering sort of figure. I *knew* that I was simply the only one you
had to turn to, I knew that if there'd been anyone else, you wouldn't have
chosen me, but I suppose I still--"

 "No, sir."

 She paused, gave her head a slight shake, and wondered "'No, sir'?"

 "I would have come to you even...if there had been another...it's true, I
have few...I don't really know what to say, sir. It's true that there
weren't many choices. But I still feel it would have been you, terribly
inappropriate an action as it was, professionally speaking. I...you know."

 "You love me. Yes, you've said that. And I assumed that...it was our
communal overwrought state that brought those words, and that feeling,
out, made it seem real...until this morning, when you said it after I
closed the door. You did intend for me to hear it, didn't you? You weren't
just..."

 "Yes, I intended for you to hear it. And I know you said you loved me
too, though I couldn't hear it that clearly. You must have hunted from
childhood. Your ears are very sharply trained."

 "There are other ways to get sharply trained ears. Ah, Constable, I
rather like touching you in this particular fashion, but I'll have to ask
you to shave before I get beard burn on my palm."

 "Oh--sir--I'm sorry, I didn't even notice I was--" he was hastily
releasing her hand, then catching her wrist to examine it for signs of
friction burns.

 She laughed, shaking her head, an I-cannot-believe-this expression, and
said "Go, go, go and shave, take a shower. I'll just get changed out of my
work clothes and perhaps see if we can make something for supper besides
chili."

 "I quite liked the chapati foldups," he said.

 She rolled her eyes. "They are good, but I don't want to be bloated for
weeks and a public danger on elevators. Go, shoo, wash." She waved him off
with on hand as she rose and all but ran into her bedroom. "I'll be
bringing a couple of Tupperloads to work tomorrow to dispense around. It
won't keep for as long as it would take one or two people to eat it."

 ***

 He wondered.

 Why he had come to her, he thought he knew, he thought it was obvious, he
thought it was because she was the only person left in the world whom he
could think of as remotely friendly or close enough to him to take a
personal problem to, and that was true. He had gotten past the hideous
self-disgust at his own utter aloneness a while back. His family would
never stop being disgusted with him for it--they felt he should have
friends to take his emotional troubles to; family was certainly not what
that was for, and one never bothered a family member with an upset feeling
even in the course of necessary communication. It just wasn't *done*. It
was childish, contemptible.

 But that was not what he was thinking about right now. 

 She was being so...well, all right, he admitted she hadn't done anything
*too* terribly out of character, for her, knowing her character as well as
he did, and knowing all the emotion and caring that lurked under her
sometimes harshly brazen exterior. Until...well, letting him sleep with
her, though he knew she looked at him in rather an asexual fashion, just
as he did her, though each had certainly noticed the other's
attractiveness in a purely hypothetical sense. If either--or both--of them
were truly lusting after anyone, it was Fraser, in both their cases. But
she definitely seemed to see Turnbull as an attractive man, and he could
see the beauty in her; it was just that it didn't seem to matter much,
with them; the rest of their relationship far eclipsed any vague, faint
attraction they might have for each other. Where Fraser was enough to
interfere with their ability to keep their brains out of their pants. 

 But now he knew he loved her.

 Well--he supposed that also wasn't new for him, he reflected as he rinsed
his hair under the spray. He had loved, as he'd thought about it recently,
many, many people in his life. He didn't love all people, but he saw
things in people that most never saw, and he loved some people, for some
of those things. He never, ever expected his love to be reciprocated, and
it never, ever was. Dalliances of a "romantic" nature weren't that
uncommon in his past--okay, they weren't unheard of--but he'd known what
they were, and that they'd be nothing more; knowing what more there could
be, he could never have enslaved himself to such a soulless union as such
things offered. No one had ever really loved him...

 Until Fraser and Ray. And now her. The Inspector. 

 Meg.

 He needed to know, so...

 He opened his mouth. He took a deep breath, and deliberately whispered "I
*love* you, Meg," in the warm, cloudy dimness of the shower. 

 A wave of emotion crashed into him, almost sending him to his knees,
almost making him need his knife *now*, making him need to lock himself
away and love her, speak to her, tell her, everything, everything-- 

 Gods, he loved her soul. 

 Oh, Gods, please, no. Not that. Not his Inspector. His own dear
Inspector. Don't let him love her. Don't let him lose her, not now.

 The sole exceptions to that pattern were those he'd never had, who'd
never known he even liked them at all in *any* way--and, of course, Ray
and Fraser, who must never know anything past a certain point, never get
in past a certain point, never find out past a certain point. 

 His eyes filled with tears. Could he be her personal aide any more? Would
he have to tell her that he had to transfer if it was at *all* possible
because he loved her--well, no, sir, I'm not in love with you in the
sexual sense, though I would dearly love to touch you, preferably not
sexually, in any way that brought you pleasure, or at least didn't bother
you...or, more likely, repulse you. Well, no, I'm not jealous of the men
you go out with or--since we're speaking frankly--take home to bed, though
I would like to be in your bed with you, and make love with you if it were
what you really wanted, though I truly don't need that, don't especially
want sex--I just want to be close.

 To feel you. You're beautiful inside. Real inside. *Real*.

 I'm not real. I want to touch someone real. I want to be you. I want to
be someone real. Dissolve into you until the sick, useless me-thing is
gone, only what's worth saving, only what's worth keeping around still
exists, can exist as part of you...

 God, he'd loved so many people. None of them ever loved him back, because
that would be *wrong*. He didn't *want* them to love him back, because
that would mean they weren't worth loving to begin with. Jut as he hadn't
wanted Fraser and Ray to love him, and had hit upon a way--a way to be
closer than he'd ever been able to be to people he loved, especially who
loved each other, and left him falling in love with *their* love--just
don't let them in. Not past a certain point. 

 People see what they expect. 

 People believe what they want to. 

 Just let them. 

 And it had worked. 

 It was like he could see through people, into their souls, and got insane
over them--not the vernacular use of the term, acting wild and bizarre,
but the real term. This was a quiet sort of insanity on the outside, one
that didn't affect his intelligence or use of same, or his ability to be
kind or generous, and he sank into that head--a process similar to a
shamanistic reality, as Meg had so insightfully noted earlier. A process
similar to going through the door and coming out at the center of the
earth, on top of the mountain, where he could see *everything*. Right
through it all and to the other side.

 But this thing...it was only similar to that, not identical. It did give
him the ability to see what others couldn't, but he was helpless in it,
not in control in it, the way he was in the states he entered because he
wanted to, as with Ray and Fraser--this was more like those states in
which he *had* to enter because he had no choice but to do it, and relieve
the pressure.

 It was a catch-22. If he hadn't come to the inspector, he would be dead.
Now that he had come to her, he had fully realized the love he'd managed
to keep at bay and under a layer of denial. He'd known he was doing it. He
did things like that all the time. It was called surviving. 

 Ray and Fraser didn't even know about this, that was the whole reason he
was here, the whole point of it all, and now it had happened with her. She
knew about the knife, for instance. They didn't know about the knife that
he needed so badly to keep the anguish down to a bearable level. They'd
never understand that the knife *helped*, relieved, was his soul friend,
that it made the unbearable bearable. Oh, not his current ritual knife; as
previously stated, those were difficult for use as anything other than
one, killing weapons, or two, as tools--not weapons at all, but tools used
to direct energy. He meant his real knife, a small one, a boot knife. An
all-purpose tool that he used for everything, with a three-and-a-half inch
blade, that anyone could own and even carry concealed without a permit.
His had been his athame once, and as the blood it drew was not symbolic of
death or torment but of life and relief from agony, he had never felt the
using of it for that purpose disqualified it for use as an athame. 

 The knife knew him, and was still always kind to him, lending him its
aura of protection, though he didn't cut himself any more. Its mere
presence was helpful. *It* loved him. It was all right for it to love him,
because it was wiser and kinder than humans, like nonhuman animals,
plants, rocks. Their priorities were all totally different. Their
worldviews were totally different. They could love him, and almost always
did. 

 But humans...when he loved a particular human, a real one...

 He could love unreal humans--like fictional characters, imaginary
friends, pretend creatures like that--he could love them and never need to
expunge the poison loving real people raised in him.

 Poison...when he loved a real human-- 

 --he got sick. Borderline insanity, is what humans would call it. Ray and
Fraser wanted in. They didn't know what they'd find. They didn't realize
what would happen. He couldn't cut off his relationship with them. He was
too weak. He'd have to let them leave him. And he knew that that would
kill him. He couldn't survive that again. Especially not *this*. The two
people he'd fallen for harder than he ever had for anyone, and also for
the love they had for each other, and they would get so close to him, be
so close, let him touch, let him have so much, then decide they weren't
good for him and leave him, and that would kill him. 

 The inspector knew about the scars. He would tell her the rest. He would
explain, make her understand, that he was quite functional and a minor but
useful asset to the RCMP. He had graduated very high in his class at
Depot. He did well on all the standard maintenance courses and tests, as
these were routine enough not to make him experience debilitating anxiety
that wrecked his ability to take the tests. She could see that in all his
scores. She had been in pain. She understood that. Fraser had been in the
same kind of pain; Ray had been in different pain, but still, pain. Yet
they would never be able to tolerate him if they knew. 

 But she might intervene. She might make Fraser, and Ray by extension,
understand that they didn't want to be any closer, inside, to Turnbull
than they already were, and that they could have a perfectly satisfactory
relationship without ruining it by trying for more. 

 She knew about the scars. And she apparently knew that those who cut
themselves were trying to live, not die, and that it was not as rare a
phenomenon as most people thought. It worked, and it usually timed itself
out. There was a period of time during which it worked, and then that time
ended, or something intervened to keep the cutting from being possible,
such as a different method, or methods, being found for accomplishing the
same ends; she knew all this. He could explain the details of his own
situation to her. She could help him get it across to his lovers.

 But dear Gods, now that he had lost his hold on the shield that kept his
love for *her* under control? Now that he wanted *her*? Not sexually,
just...her?

 To be close? To touch? Her? She had let him. She had slept with him, held
his hand. What if she found out how he felt?

 Would she help him? Or would she be too busy puking all over herself?

 Because there was no way to tell her all the truth that must be told to
get her help, *without* letting it out that he felt worship for her. He
didn't love her as he did his lovers, that wasn't the point. The point was
that he worshiped her, and people quite rightly were terrifically
disgusted by that. Even when a beautiful, whole, real person worshiped a
normal person, the person being worshiped was revolted. It wasn't
romantic. It wasn't beautiful. The reality of it was disgusting, pure and
simple. And when a sick, half-there thing like himself worshiped a real
person...

 She wouldn't turn him out. She'd never simply throw him out onto the
street. But she might insist he go to the hospital. She might...

 Simply put, he would lose her friendship. He didn't want to lose her
friendship. He didn't want to lose her. Did he have to lose everybody?
Couldn't he have even one human person?

 *you won't lose her*

 "You won't even let me love you! What do you care!"

 *I do let you love me* *I want you to* *I just won't let you worship me*
*or make me your reason to live* *it would be for always* *that wouldn't
work for you*

 "I'm not asking anything else of you. You don't have to do anything. But
you reject it--you have the power to reject it like no living human person
could, and you use it. Why do you even talk to me? Why should I even
believe you?"

 *because you want to believe me* *and you know that I love you*

 "Which speaks quite poorly for you right there."

 *Perhaps so* *but you must decide now* *before you turn off the water*
*whether to tell her and accept what she can do for you* *I tell you* *you
won't lose her*

 "Uh...why before I turn off the water?"

 *you shave with a straight razor*

 "Oh. Yes, of course. My mistake."

 ***

 He walked out of the bathroom in jeans and socks, holding a Henley in his
hands as if he had forgotten what it was or what to do with it. Which,
actually, for the moment, he had. 

 She was closing a datebook while simultaneously hanging up the phone; he
had listened to her voice while he dried, using it to keep him grounded
enough to get enough clothing on to appear decently in the front room,
though he hoped it was the pants one was supposed to always remember and
not the shirt. He wasn't sure right now. 

 She was wearing a loose deep-violet caftan sort of garment with a Celtic
print motif; it reached her knees. It could have been worn in public as a
casual style--if she'd been anyone else. The inspector would wear
something like this only at home to relax. The color brought out the faint
flecks of violet that she, like some few brown-eyed people had, in her
eyes. It also made her hair glow a darker reddish chestnut than usual. He
thought she was perfect. How nice, that such a perfect thing existed in
the world. Not as impossibly lovely as the two people who wanted to find
out all the worst things about him and then spurn him for them, but
wondrous all the same. 

 "Sir," he said.

 She gazed at him a moment, then surprised him by saying "I never
appreciated just how attractive you really are, Turnbull. I knew you were,
obviously, but I'd never seen you without a shirt. You're truly a gorgeous
man."

 His eyes swam tears. He wondered why. It was a nice thing to say, but it
was only a compliment to his rigorous efforts in the gym. He wasn't like
Fraser or Ray, someone who was beautiful just by being. "I'm glad you
approve of my work on the gymnastics equipment, sir." He blinked; the
tears spilled from the corner of his left eye and dripped from the
cheekbone, but only glommed up the lashes of his right eye. 

 She stared at him. "Do you feel all right? Wait--let me rephrase. What do
you feel like?"

 "What do I feel like?" He thought. "Like...I'm slowly freezing through."

 She nodded slowly. "What's happened to cause you to begin to freeze
through?"

 "I realized that I would worship you if you would let me, and that any
help or intercession I could expect because of your understanding of my
situation was lost because of that."

 She was silent for a moment, motionless, looking at him. Then she said
carefully "It isn't lost, Constable."

 "I'm afraid it is."

 "No. I'm in charge of that, of what I'm willing to do and not do, and I
say it isn't."

 "That's because you don't realize how I feel yet."

 "You said you loved me. I understand now that you meant that. Is this
something else? Some other feeling that you believe I will find so
disturbing that I'll withdraw my understanding?"

 It was such a relief to have someone to talk to about this who'd simply
talk about it, rather than getting all emotional. "Yes. I worship you. You
are a whole, real being, and I love you for it."

 She blinked, her exterior not cracking. But he could see through her; he
knew she was a mass of chaotic emotion on the inside. But her exterior
remaining intact was quite enough for him; it wasn't her fault he could
see the way he could. She said "Good."

 He actually felt something. A disturbance. Something odd. He felt it.
"Good?"

 "It's not as though I want you to hate me, Constable. What do you mean by
'worship'?"

 "The love one feels for what one perceives as a higher order of being.
Not that I perceive you as a god. I don't. I perceive you as a real human,
but you're a higher order of being than I am for that being so."

 "Ah." She nodded. "And so are Fraser and Ray."

 "Yes. But I've told you, you see. You know how I feel. They would be
appalled at the knowledge."

 "I see your dilemma. I haven't had much of a chance to ponder the
problem...come with me." She held her hand out to him.

 "With you?" He took a step forward.

 "To the bedroom. I think we should be comfortable for this."

 "'This'?"

 She smirked. "I think we've finally come to what it is I can actually do
for you, Constable. To finding out what it is, I mean. There may be crying
and other uncomfortable things happening, on either or both of our parts.
It would pay to be comfortable already."

 "If you think so." He came forward and took her hand, and she led him
into her room. 

 Once inside, she turned to push the door to behind them. "We should
probably have supper first..."

 "If you're not hungry, I'm not especially, either. I don't think I could
eat, actually."

 "Then we're in good company." She pulled the covers down on the bed, and
climbed in on the opposite side. 

 "I don't have any pajamas with me."

 "It doesn't matter, Constable." She pulled off her pantyhose, then the
caftan dress; naked, she took it to hang in the closet, then came back and
got in the bed, scooting around to get comfortable. "Join me, if you
would, Constable?"

 "Are you..." something was not right. He was feeling things. Fear,
confusion. "What are you--"

 "No sex if you don't want any, Turnbull. Don't worry. Nothing at all that
you don't want. But I...I have a feeling that something like this is what
you *do* want. Sex or not."

 She was right. Mechanically, he pulled off his jeans and boxers, and
folded them carefully before setting them on the dresser. Then he turned
back to the bed. 

 "You're so small," he said. 

 She smiled. "That's certainly not what *I* was thinking."

 He smiled, then grinned, then broke up laughing, and made it to the bed
before sitting down on the foot of it and falling over to laugh some more.


 "Yes, I've been told it's...sizeable. And my own observations would seem
to back that up."

 "You've made a lot of observations, then? And I don't mean in locker
rooms." She beckoned him up toward the pillows. 

 He crawled up, and was conscious of her eyes on him. He paused at the
point of getting under the covers and said "You really think I'm
attractive."

 "Yes. You're a very beautiful young man. Large, without being at all
awkward simply in the way you're put together. And you're beautiful. Not
to belittle your chest and shoulders, which are far more than exceptional,
but your legs are unqualifiedly superb."

 "So we're here naked, at your instigation, and you've informed me you
think I'm beautiful, and are appreciative of the fact that I'm
well-endowed. But you don't necessarily want to have sex."

 She raised an eyebrow. "Do you believe me? Now's the time to decide."

 "Of course I believe you. You never lie about anything important. I just
wanted to make sure I wasn't dreaming."

 Her face softened. "You're not dreaming, Turnbull. Repeat to me what I
said to you last night after I said that I was content in being your
friend."

 "You told me to let nothing persuade me to forget that no matter what I
did, I could not lose your friendship, and that anything I did must be
done with that in mind."

 "Now remind yourself of what you just said about what conditions I will
lie under."

 "I said you never lie about anything important."

 "So, with the stipulation that you are important, do you have anything to
fear getting in bed with me?"

 "You made the statement you made without full knowledge of the facts,
Inspector."

 "Inform me of the pertinent facts I may not have knowledge of." 

 "I qualify as insane."

 "Ah. A minor quibble." She waved the concern away with a flip of her
fingers, as though shooing away an imaginary bug. "By any reasonable
standards, constable Fraser is not sane either. Nor, on a bad day, am I.
And your other lover is *never* sane."

 Turnbull paused, blinking. "I...wasn't being flip."

 "I apologize, Turnbull; that was a poor way to handle that statement."
She sighed. "Well. You've assured me you are not a danger to anyone around
you. More the opposite, in fact, was what you said, as I recall. And I do
recall."

 "Yes, sir, quite well."

 "So come on and get in already. I've never had to work so hard to make a
man get in bed with me."

 Turnbull snorted behind one hand, then lifted the covers and slid under
them. "Can I ask about the nudity?"

 "Remember those psychology classes we've both had?"

 "Yes, sir."

 "One of the greatest points nudists make about their lifestyle is that it
removes many of the social demarcations that differentiate us from one
another, and puts us all on the same level--only our true selves, with no
armor--no class distinction, position-in-the-social-milieu distinction, or
even simply sartorial style to fall back on as an identity. A naked person
is...psychologically defenseless except via their own selfhood, in our
society. You and I don't have much in the way of sexual tension between
us, if it could be said to exist at all. I thought perhaps...it
would...help to put us on the same level, in your perceptions, in a way
pajamas might not. Besides, it *is* the way I usually sleep. I'm not from
the north, remember; and I get tangled in pajamas, though they're nothing
next to the inconvenience of nightgowns. Nightgowns are very comfortable
indeed--sometimes I wish they could be considered daywear--until one
actually lies down to sleep, at which point they instantly enmesh one in a
single Gordian knot."

 She leaned over on her pillows--they had two each--with one elbow,
resting her head on her palm, apparently no more concerned about her
nudity than if she'd been in a steam bath or some other location where
nudity was the usual mode of dress in company. Of course, for some people,
bed qualified, but not usually where the occupants didn't have some kind
of sexual relationship. "Turnbull..." she paused. "I know you need what
we've been doing, the way we've been communicating, everything else, to
keep what you're afraid of at a safe distance. But we have to speak of it
eventually. And you have to understand something; I am *here*. If
necessary, I can even physically control you. If you think otherwise, I'll
tell you this much and no more--there are things about both me and my
apartment that you are unaware of."

 "Oh. Hidden weapons?"

 "I'm not saying. Only that there's nothing you can do to harm me."

 "I'm not worried about harming you, sir..." he pressed his lips together
as tears welled again. "I'm worried about...losing your friendship."

 "Because you aren't sane. Because you worship me."

 The offhand way she said it hurt. 

 "Yes." He dropped to his pillows and curled up in a fetal position under
the covers. Some part of him knew it had not really been offhand, that
there could have been no way she could have said that without a great deal
of care and not have had it hurt, but at the moment, it didn't matter.
He'd had too much of that sort of hurt to be reasonable about it any more.


 She gently slipped the edge of the sheet and comforter under his chin and
tucked them there so he could breathe. "Turnbull...there was a time,
before I knew you so well, when your fears would have had some basis in
reality. But now...I love you too, and I'm not sure what you mean by
worship, but the thing about the word that worries me most is that you
worship me, you say, just for being human, which says quite terrible
things about how you consider yourself. Turnbull..." she slid down on her
pillows and scooted closer, so they were lying in a circle of curl-up
under the covers. "Don't be afraid. Here." She reached over and patted the
base of the lamp on her side until the light was as dim as it could get.
Then she looked pensive a second, got up and went into the bathroom. Then
she came out, patted his lamp down to dim too, and climbed back in bed
with a small glass of water. "This is a half milligram of Klonopin. It
won't put you to sleep, but it might make it easier for you to do this."

 "You seem to rely rather heavily on benzodiazepines, sir..."

 She shook her head. "If you were under a psychiatrist's care, Turnbull,
you would be on about five times as much of this one class of drug as I'm
giving you, and you'd be on others besides. I would be considered quite
remiss in my duty as your commanding officer and your friend not to have
already reported this and seen you were installed at some sort of
facility, most likely a hospital, before you could be officially relieved
of duty and sent home for evaluation. I'm hoping to avoid that."

 "So am I, sir."

 "You don't have to take the pill if you don't want it. But the dose is
low. I take a higher dose for insomnia every night and you're much larger
than I am. Judging by what we've seen so far, it won't hurt you--a bit of
sleepiness is the worst you can expect, but I doubt there'll even be
that--and it also acts as a muscle relaxant, which will make you a little
bit more comfortable. You won't feel 'drugged'. Just not so frightened and
tense. If it were enough to truly tranquilize you--like a professional
would be giving you at this point--it's my opinion that it would be
counterproductive. I think you're here because you want to deal, not be
drugged into a stupor and have your emotions, your heart and soul,
analyzed like a damn science project."

 She had a point. Several, in fact. He took the pill. She took the water
back and set it on her bedside table. "Tell me about...what it's like to
want to worship someone," she murmured.

 "It's terrible, and beautiful," he said, and was quiet a long time.
Finally, he took another deep breath and said "I don't worship everyone,
only those I see as whole, and real...that isn't all humans...anyway,
those I see that way whom I also love. When I do it...I do it alone. But I
just call it loving. It's what I got instead, you see. Other people--real
people--they just...love. They feel it and they show it. With me, it's a
good deal more complicated."

 She was quiet a few moments. Her shoulders and pectoral muscles curved
into her breast tissue with a style, especially with the nipple placement,
that reminded him, in some way, of Fraser's, who had the prettiest breasts
he'd ever seen on a man. They looked lovely on a woman, too, at least this
one. She said "What else can you tell me?"

 "I...I want to be with--and I only mean with, not with any...implied
meanings to the word--the person, somehow, some way, that they can't be
aware of me. With them...sleeping, for example."

 "Just present with them, with them unaware of your presence--perhaps
sleeping, so as to be unaware of you. That's related to your...conviction
that you're ugly, malformed inside, less than human. You don't want them
to...see you, be aware of you, though you want to be with them."

 "Yes. But the malformations are on the inside and outside, I'm afraid. I
can't...I can't bear to be seen by people I love. Can't bear for them to
be aware of me."

 She nodded. "Go on."

 "I want to tell them...everything. Everything I'd say to them, if they
could. About...what I think of them. About how I feel about them. What I'd
do for them, if they'd like me to, which I know they wouldn't. I'd have to
reassure them of that, that I know they wouldn't. Even if they couldn't
hear me."

 "And you do, when you are alone...loving them. You say those things."

 "Yes. And I...cry. Carefully. Not enough to break the dam and...and let
Gods know what happen. I don't even know...but I know it wouldn't be good.
I..." his head dropped so that his face was hidden in the sheet. "I kiss
them. Very gently. No...no tongue or anything. That would be...invasive.
Not that being that close to them when they were sleeping or unaware of me
wouldn't be invasive anyway, but there are things I can't even bring
myself to imagine."

 "I understand."

 "I touch them. But nowhere...well. Nowhere...you know. Inappropriate. A
stroking, petting kind of touch."

 "Caressing. A gentle touch."

 "Yes. Fraser..." he smiled a little. "I love to stroke Fraser's hair,
because I know how it feels, now, and it feels as good as I thought it
would."

 She smiled a little. "And you do it when you love him at home, too. When
you say the things to him you couldn't say, if he could hear."

 "Yes." He nodded. This wasn't as hard as he'd been expecting. In fact, it
was even beginning to sound rather innocent, compared to how terribly
invasive and violating he'd been imagining it was. 

 "What else do you do?"

 "I thank them. For...whatever I'm doing right then. For their letting me
do it, even though they wouldn't have been letting me--they would have
been unaware, unable to let me, but I'd thank them anyway. For being. Just
for being. And for how kind they'd been to me, if they'd ever spoken to
me." He sniffed softly.

 "It hurts, doesn't it? Doing that, even though the things you've told
me...don't sound so terrible. But it still hurts?"

 "Yes. Horribly. But...but it's good, too, because it's...connection.
It's...better than nothing, it's...what I got instead. Most people just
get...love. I got mine with pain. I can't explain why. Perhaps that's the
other reason I can't bear the thought of their being aware of me. Because
they'd ask me what was wrong...and all I could say was that I loved them.
Sometimes...I just love so *much*..." he curled in tighter on himself,
with his arms crossed over his chest inside the wall of his tucked-up
legs. "I want it...I can feel it, you see--it's in here, and I want it to
come out--out of me, and into them, so they'd...know, directly, they'd..."
his legs slid down a little, and his arms extended outward slightly.
"...have my heart. Inside them. And this great hollow place, inside my
chest...that I got instead of a heart...in a real person, it would be
love. It would feel like love. And they could have it, and it would be
something good in them, instead of what it is in me..." he trailed off for
a moment, then continued "And...I...the good parts... could be part of
them...all the dross gone and...washed away." A dead calm had settled over
him. None of this was real. Nothing mattered now. There was no future or
past. 

 "When you used to cut. Did you do it, sometimes, while you were loving
the people you loved?"

 "Yes. That...was when. Or...when I was lonely. So lonely, my insides were
so hollow, and it hurt--it's a hard pain...a hard ache. Like an ache from
a very bad bone bruise, right in the breastbone, a few days after, when
it's just getting at its worst...and this pain spreads, down my arms, into
my hands...and aches...it aches..."

 Her hand fluttered up next to her face for a moment, but he hardly
noticed. 

 "That's the physical part of the pain, anyway. It...releases that, to a
degree, makes it go away, like the pain drains out with the blood. And
then...I needed the blood, so I wouldn't be so alone. It kept me...kept me
warm. It's friendly, you know, warm. *Alive*. It's so alive and
warm...mine is, I mean. Nobody else's would be, that would be..." He shook
his head. "It would be *theirs*, not mine. It wouldn't be *my* friend. It
would be...alien. 

 "But otherwise...I made the cuts when I was loving someone. Or more than
one someone. I've loved so many people. Really, honestly loved them. When
no one ever loves you back, there's nothing to stop you from loving as
many people as you feel love for, because you don't have to worry about
time to love them all. You have plenty. If they never love you back, it's
not an issue...I cut...I made the cuts then, usually."

 "Because the blood was...warm? Friendly?" she whispered. 

 His head shook slowly. "No. Not then. I'm not sure why I did it, then...I
would say, to the person I was loving, 'I'm sorry, I'm sorry'--" he
inhaled shakily, but his eyes felt dry, dried out. "--'I'm sorry'. Over,
and over...apologizing for being, the same way I would *thank* *them* for
being. Over and over...but for loving them, too, though."

 "Why did you apologize to them for loving them? Because you felt it was
invasive? What did you call it--violating?"

 "Some for that. Yes, I think, some for...that...but mostly because my
love is a burden. I have nothing to offer. It's a white elephant. A
supposedly valuable gift, and it's insulting to turn it down--but no one
wants it, no one can support it, it contributes nothing to its own upkeep,
and...you know, maybe...the blood was a gift, to apologize for the first
gift. Recompense. You know...blood is an...an archetypically good thing, a
valuable thing, but an archetypal thing that's *here*, that you can hold
in your hands. My blood carries my life, all my cells' food and oxygen,
all the repair cells and substances that keep my body healthy, phagocytes
and T-cells and all the other engines of removal and repair and things
that neutralize and remove toxins and keep all my balances correct, and
just *cares* for all of my body, in too many ways to count. They used to
say 'The blood is the life'. It's true, in a way. The cutting wasn't ever
punishment--except once--I mean, I hate pain as much as anybody else,
there was nothing good about that part, I *hated* that part, it
wasn't...as though I felt I deserved to be *injured*. If I felt I deserved
that, I own a snowmobile and I already broke an arm on it once, one good
wipe out...I have a gun. A bullet through the femur...if that was what I
wanted, I could do it much better. But it wasn't about punishment. It was
the *blood*, giving the blood...even though my *mind* knows--the usual
part of it, that is--that the people I love can have no use for my
blood--not that way, at least. It was as close as I could get...to giving
them *myself*. I mean, the *good* parts of myself. Like I said, the useful
parts. And then the rest could...just go away."

 She was silent a long while, and his eyes closed. His breathing evened.
He was suspended in a dim, warm place, where nothing had any connection
with anything else. He was clean and comfortable, wrapped in warmth. The
pain inside him was familiar, his anguish and longing a friend by now. It
hurt no less, but he feared it much less, no matter how badly it hurt him.

 Someone was there, someone strong and trustworthy. Someone who wouldn't
push at him and try to make him be "right". Someone who didn't care enough
to try to make him be "right", but cared enough to protect him from
anything bad from outside happening to him. He heard her voice, presently;
she said "*I* love you, Turnbull."

 He blinked, and his eyes opened a bit; it was dim and quiet in the room;
soft tonal music from the relaxation CD they'd forgotten to turn off in
the living room filtered through the door. 

 "Do you love me?" She sounded a bit odd. 

 "Do you have a cold coming on, sir?" he asked. 

 "Call me Meg," she said, very gently.

 "Oh," he said, and gasped, and what he'd been thinking in the shower hit
him, and he listened to the things he'd been saying to her. "Oh no," he
whispered.

 She reached out toward him, and he flinched, and he saw her eyes fill. 

 "No--sir, you can't, you mustn't upset yourself, it's not right," he
said. 

 "I'm not upsetting myself," she said quietly. "A couple of rotten shits
who had a child and decided that since they didn't like the one they got,
they had no obligation to back it like you back a kid, decently, are
upsetting me. You and I have nothing to do with why I'm upset. Turnbull?
Do you love me?"

 "Sir," he whispered, drawing his arm back, "it doesn't matter. I've loved
a great many people. It doesn't *matter*. Don't worry about it. I
think...I think I should sleep...oh, dear." He'd forgotten he was naked.
So was she. He'd been going to sleep in the guest room, because he felt a
sudden, sharp, horrible need to love her, and he had to get away from her,
get private, to do it. Why did he have to have that revelation in the
shower? Why did all his revelations happen in showers? Why? Just *why*,
damn it?

 "I want you to sleep here," she said, "and I want...I want you to love
me. You said you loved me. If you do, then I want you to. Just like you
would...if I wasn't here."

 He physically recoiled, almost falling off the bed.

 "My God," she murmured, staring at him; he could only imagine the look on
his face. "Turnbull, it can't be that bad."

 He shook his head slowly. "It's *pathetic*, sir. My love is a very, very
ugly thing. Why do you think I would go through such elaborate fantasies
of being with someone I loved and not even having sex of the mildest kind
with them, making them unaware even of my *presence*, even in a *fantasy*
of it?"

 "Because you have an overblown idea of your own repulsiveness."

 "It isn't overblown. Everyone I've ever known since I was born--well,
unless they were even more repulsive than I am or something--they can't
*all* be wrong."

 "No, but they could all be shits."

 He stared. "Sir?"

 "I'm going to lie quietly and you're going to do exactly what you do when
you go to your own apartment to love your partners, except it'll be me,
and I'll be here. Do what you want to do. Say what you want to say.
Anything, everything. I will not be repelled, Turnbull. Do you understand?
I will not let you down. Do you believe I could let you down?"

 "I believe you would do whatever it took to make me believe you were
perfectly all right with whatever I'd done, and then find some way to make
sure I never, ever did it with Ray or Fraser because they would leave me
so fast there'd be a sonic boom, and you would not want the responsibility
for that. You would also find some way, come hell or high water, to get
another clerical aide. I believe you care for me. I don't believe you love
me."

 "I...mean love in the context we've both been using. As people, as--"

 "No."

 She stared at him a moment; he shrugged. "I'm sorry. But I won't lie, and
belief can't be forced. You know that."

 "Is there any way I can prove it, or is it unprovable in your mind?"

 "I think it's unprovable. After all, I ought to believe it. You've taken
me in. You're taking care of me. You're in bed with me, naked, and not
worried about it. Though I think that just reflects on your views of me as
essentially asexual."

 "I know you're bisexual, Turnbull. You have two lovers."

 "But with you, I'm just...not. It's not there."

 "Do you necessarily feel a sexual desire for everyone you love, and want
to love...privately, as it were?"

 "That's...hard to say. I suppose I don't, but I don't know if that's from
turning away from the idea in horror, that I can't violate them even in my
mind so badly, or that the idea isn't there to begin with. I can't tell,
but I do know I don't ever want to...love anyone that it would be
inappropriate to have those feelings for...children, or anything like
that. That would seem to imply something, though I don't know what. I
suppose...I don't...I *do* desire Ray and Fraser. Obviously. And I
still..."

 "Love them in private."

 "Yes."

 "Well...why don't we treat the question as immaterial. You never touch
the people you're loving sexually, in these...waking dreams. Just do what
you feel like doing, then. You don't have to do...everything you'd do,
everything you dream of doing."

 "Good. Sometimes it involves making deep cuts to let my blood pour out
onto the person I'm loving."

 She stared.

 "As a gift, you see, given in apology. As I said before. How did you
imagine I did it? In a perfume decanter?" He retreated, shuffling backward
in the covers, curling into a ball.

 "Turnbull, wait--I understand now. Is there anything else that would
frighten the person you were loving?"

 He shrugged. "The things I say. No one wants to hear 'I love you' out of
my mouth. And no one wants to hear someone like me go on at length about
how wonderful they are, how whole..."

 "Forget, for a moment, that it's you. Don't count the fact that it's you
saying it, that it's your love being given, love nobody could want. Is
there anything else that is *generally* frightening, like dripping the
blood onto them?"

 "I'm not sure, sir. I'm really not sure. Most people aren't comfortable
with the level of *openness* I seem to be designed to need. I don't know.
I do cry when I choose to let that out. Sometimes. Sometimes a lot.
Hysterically, sometimes. Some people might be alarmed by that."

 "Anything else?"

 "Not that I can think of, with the stipulations you've placed."

 "Then, with the exception of making any cuts in your skin deeper than
light scratches, I still want you to. You never have done it, with anyone
you've loved, correct?"

 "No. Never. I...tried once. A little. It was...misinterpreted. As a
sexual thing. He...was aroused by it. He didn't understand it. But with
that particular person, I should have known far better."

 She nodded, but her eyes were like steel, and he didn't like to think
what she'd do to that individual if she ever found him within reach of her
hands. "I see. All right, so, largely, no; the only attempt was partial
and slight, and misunderstood. I want you to *do* it, to see what it's
like for you. With the exception of the cutting."

 "Of course, blood everywhere won't do," he muttered, shrugging. "But I'm
afraid I...need to be in the mood. I need to want it, to feel a deep need,
or...it just doesn't happen."

 "Then, when you do feel such a need. Tell me."

 "You're offering to be my guinea pig?"

 "I'm offering to let you find out what it might really feel like, with
someone who does understand. I know that properly I should be unaware, but
I don't think we're going to be able to arrange that. I'll never regard
you as...repulsive, Turnbull. I won't. I know you."

 "There may be a great deal of crying. Violent, hysterical crying. Or
there may not."

 "If there is, I'll cope."

 "I may say things about myself that you feel you have to object to." 

 "For the purpose of what we're trying to accomplish, I can control
myself. Oh, Turnbull..." she sighed and shook her head. "I want to touch
you. I want to say I love you. I want...a number of things."

 "It's frustrating, isn't it?" he said, irony thick in his tone.

 She was quiet a moment, then just said "Yes. You're right. It's quite
frustrating. Horrible, in fact," she finished softly. There was a pause,
and she went on "If we put on pajamas, would you let me hold you for a
while?"

 "Underwear would do."

 She nodded. "Underwear it is, then."

 They got up and located appropriate undergarments, then got back in bed;
she held out her arms to him in the dimness left from the single lamp, at
its lowest setting, after she touched her own all the way off. The faint,
soft sounds of the soothing tonal piece still came through the door, but
neither of them seemed to want to get up and go deal with it, so he
supposed it would just be near-inaudible background noise unless it
bothered one of them to the point of moving their ass in to do something
about it.

 He hesitantly reached out--she was so small, and he was so close to her
at work every day, but she was never small there, she just wasn't small,
it wasn't that she didn't seem small, she *wasn't* small--but now she was
small, and she was in nothing but her undershorts. He slid a little
closer, then put his arms around her carefully.

 She slid hers around his waist and squeezed close. He responded by
letting his own arms close to the point she'd pulled the two of them to.
She lifted a hand and used it to stroke his shoulder.

 "I love you," she said softly. "I think about you sometimes, especially
if I've upbraided you for some infraction or other that day...I wonder if
I could have been less harsh. I wonder what you enjoy doing. I like to
hear about your weekends. I like it when you help me on with my coat, and
such things. I think about the way people look at us when they see us
walking together, and we're not in uniform; I realized a while ago it was
a flattering thought, when people assumed you were with me as a friend, or
more. You're young, and attractive, and it made me feel young, too."

 "You are young, sir..." her skin was so soft. She was as soft as Fraser,
and he didn't think anybody could be that soft. The side of her breast
rested heavily against the inside of his wrist; she didn't seem to notice,
or mind. 

 "I'm forty-one, Turnbull."

 "I know, but...but you..."

 "Don't worry about it. I know I don't look that old." She sighed. Her arm
slid up to curve around his neck, turning her to press more firmly against
him. Her shoulder and back muscles flexed in powerful, small bands of
strength over her, under his hands and arms. Her ribcage lifted, and her
breasts pressed more firmly against him. "I wonder how you can be so
cheerful, all the time, even in...times when no one else...not even
Fraser...and you certainly aren't stupid, it's not as though you're just
too stupid to be upset when upsetting things happen..."

 "I get upset."

 "I know that now. But I meant at work; there, it's only with great
provocation. But I suppose that's all a front, isn't it? Or not a front,
but...the only side of you you'll let us see. The pain and need is always
hidden...you were forced to hide it, weren't you?"

 "Yes. Of course. That can't be hard to figure out."

 "No, no...it isn't..." she rested her head on his shoulder. "Lie down
with me."

 There were a couple of moments of reshuffling, and he found himself being
very careful. She wasn't fragile. But he wanted to hold her, protect her,
like he did with his lovers, like he did with...the people he loved who
never knew...

 "You feel good. Honestly, very, very good..." he stroked one large hand
down her, from her shoulder and collarbone, over one breast and that side
of her ribs, down over her hip and the strip of cotton underwear to her
thigh. "So soft. As soft as Fraser."

 She smiled. "I'm flattered. His skin is the envy of every woman who sees
it. Well, that and other things. Men, too, likely, but they have to
pretend they don't care about the state of their skin so long as it's not
diseased in any way." She touched his cheek. "Your skin is very smooth,
too, Turnbull. I've always thought, when I touch them in passing, that
your hands were very soft. Except for the calluses, of course." She let
her hand run down his neck gently, to his chest, down to his waist, and
over his boxers, to his thigh, where he'd touched her. "Incredibly trim,
muscular, beautifully proportioned...you're a very beautiful young man,
Turnbull. I've wanted to say that. Thank you for finally letting me."

 "You've...wanted to?"

 "I *have* seen you in less than your dress reds, you know. You're
beautiful. And your eyes..." her deep brown ones flicked up to meet his.
He gazed back, half-puzzled, not knowing what to think. "Such sweetness,
in your eyes...baby blue. So earnest." She laid a hand alongside his face.
"You will have to get used to the fact that there are people who find you
beautiful. You don't disbelieve your lovers, do you?"

 "No, but...they love me. Or think they do."

 "I love you. And I know what they don't."

 "But..." he looked away.

 "You see, it's not easy for *anyone* to be complimented to what they feel
is excess. That's part of why the people you need to go home and be alone
to love, including your lovers, can't handle what you want to give them.
No one knows what to do with such effusive...effusiveness."

 "Do you think I don't know that? Do you think I'm not aware that people
are repelled by anyone...just...just slavering over them that way? Do you
think I don't know it's disgusting and that I'm repugnant for needing it
so badly?"

 She covered his hand with her mouth. "*That* certainly backfired. I'm
sorry, Turnbull. Perhaps I...should just stop talking. Perhaps that
would...be for the best." She dropped her head to his shoulder, moving her
hand away, and sighed. 

 Now she felt bad. "No, sir, I didn't...I don't mean...you were trying to
help. I shouldn't have snapped at you. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You've been
so kind, and I took your head off--"

 "No. No beating yourself up. Just *no*." She stared up at him,
unwavering.

 He closed his mouth and nodded.

 "No doing it quietly to yourself, either. Even where I can't hear it.
Just don't."

 "I'll try, sir, but...it's hard..."

 "I know it must be. It's been trained into you from infancy. But...try.
Look at us, here, Turnbull. Would I go this far for pity? For anyone at
all? Me?"

 He considered the question. "No. You wouldn't."

 "Just try to remember that."

 ***

 "All right, now, Constable," she whispered, as they came to a halt next
to the bed, her in her robe and him in sweatpants and a T-shirt. "If this
is going to be of any help, you need to...smile, cringe, cry, sob, laugh,
wail, anything, everything, simply as it comes. Don't try to change
anything, hide anything, or modify anything so that you think I, or anyone
else, will like it better. That's what *they* insisted on, and your lovers
are not your father, nor any other member of your family, nor anyone else
of the world who rejected you, your being yourself, because reality didn't
agree with their preferences. Show everything that wants to show itself.
Also, just for now--remember who you're with--me. Not Ray, not Fraser, not
anyone you have to worry you're destroying anything with by being
yourself. You are free, safe. Understand that, and do as I say, all right?
I won't let anything too bad happen, though some things may certainly be
quite uncomfortable. I'll be with you through that, though, remember.
You're not to imagine you're alone, not now."

 "I'm dreaming," he said, and smiled. "Your nightgown is nice. Is it one
you really own, or do I know that?"

 "I own it. You've seen it while you were washing my things when I was
sick."

 "Ah, now I remember." He tried to keep his tone strong, but he couldn't;
he tried not to think about what she'd just said and why they were there,
but he couldn't; he tried not to think about the fact that one way or
another, he was dreaming, not in normal consciousness; he could be asleep,
or this could really be happening in some way, or he could be thrashing
about the bed while she tried to wake him. If so, he should find out
shortly.

 He gazed at her, his breath coming more heavily, and tears broke from his
eyes, trickling down his face; he ignored them, as he swallowed hard and
said "Understood sir. May I say that I love you?"

 "You may say anything at all. In fact, I demand that you say absolutely
everything that comes to your mouth desiring to be said. You're to censor
none of it. Say and do everything you wish. If you're thinking of someone,
and you think I should know--so that I'll understand your situation
better, I mean, not because you think I'll be upset by that; I certainly
won't--you may tell me, but you do *not* need to if you don't *want* to.
Remember, this is for *you*, to be able to do as you most honestly--as in
honesty with yourself--wish. And I've chosen that it be that way, and I
want it that way. There; now, no matter what you believe about whether
I'll like you, or this experience, there is no way for there to be *blame*
to you, of any sort, no matter what you do."

 "Sir--" he had to break off and sob a few times, and put his hands to his
face, wiping at it, doing his best to let the sobs out without letting
them take over, because he didn't want them to right now. Perhaps another
time. "Sir, I'm sorry--no, I mean...I feel--I'm---"

 "You're shocked, Constable, that's all. You see...I'm sympathetic to your
situation for personal reasons. I should probably keep reminding you of
the fact that I love you, though not, of course, in the way you mean when
you say you love Fraser or Ray. More as you love me, but...from the other
end of things. Now then. Remember: I've taken it on myself to help you
with this, and I don't do things halfway. I believe you need this; and
that it will be much harder for you than for me. I want you to understand
that it won't change my opinion of you as an officer, nor do I see any
need for it to impact our working relationship. After all, this is not the
sort of thing that ever comes up at work."

 "That's an excellent point, sir."

 "Also, you've already demonstrated yourself to be able to work
efficiently without anything, even this sort of thing, that goes on
off-duty, disrupting it. I have no doubts, when it comes to you, that I'll
have no trouble separating our off-duty friendship from our on-duty work
relationship." She took a brisk, clearing breath and finished "So, then.
Do you feel more comfortable now with the idea of what we're doing
here--this...trial run, as it were?"

 "Yes, sir, thank you. You're probably Heathcliff, if you aren't me, and
know everything necessary; so a dreaming trial run is probably a good
idea. Thank you for going through my various worries and excuses. And
since you've given me permission--I love you, very much. I have loved
you--I don't know why--nearly from our first meeting. I'm told...sometimes
I have a way of...perceiving things others don't. Sometimes...I've wanted
to lock your office door and--and--"

 "If it needs to be said, Constable, you're to say it, remember."

 "I remember. And--take you in my arms and let you cry on me for as long
as you need to--though I have no idea, when I have those feelings, why I
do. You don't exhibit any outward signs of distress, or anything else that
might make me think you'd...in any case, judging by past experience, I
don't believe I'll have any trouble separating the two types of
relationship, either. I find this frankness...very refreshing, by the way.
I have had to spend so much energy, for so long,
hiding...everything...less with Ray and Fraser, but still, even with
them--if I don't want to...drive them away--"

 "I believe our usual mannerisms together are the best mode of
communication for this. It allows you to say precisely what needs to be
said, and to see clearly, without spiraling emotions of whatever
particular caliber distracting and confusing you; yet, you *are* still
dealing with the emotions, in the only way that allows you to control them
and not let them control *you*. You'll still be able to communicate, no
matter how distraught you may become. It won't be quite so easy during the
real attempt, of course. I *am* only human; I'll be emotionally affected
more than I am now. Or you are now, however you wish to term it." 

 "You are insightful. And very beautiful inside, as well as out."

 "I appreciate that, Constable." She nodded briefly. 

 His hands came up, stroked her face, held it gently, and he leaned
forward and kissed her forehead, her cheekbones, and her mouth, all very
softly. It might have seemed like a gentling gesture, or even a
condescending one, but it wasn't; it was worshipful, entreating. "I
honestly *am* having difficulty...believing my good fortune. Offers like
this...don't come my way, really. Any more than people like Benton and
Ray. Or you."

 She smiled a little. "I assure you, when you wake, you'll find I've
chosen to be here for you, and I don't regret the choice; I don't
anticipate any need to regret it, either. That some other people might
find what we're doing, and the way we're doing it, to be truly bizarre, is
of no moment to me. I did not get where I am in the RCMP by worrying
excessively about what other people thought. You see--when one is
functioning under a handicap, as we both are, in our respective ways; and
one does what's 'expected', one always finds that *someone* has done "the
expected" ahead of one--and, more than likely, done it better than we
could ever hope to, as *they* are not functioning under our handicaps.
Those like us are more likely to succeed, and make a useful difference in
the world, by doing the *un*expected--the unusual, namely what we would
simply do naturally. The--for want of another word--'bizarre'. In short,
if you're weird, seize upon it as a modus operendi. You won't be able to
be 'normal' as well as 'normal' people, ever; but you are the only one who
will be able to be 'weird' in your particular way. So, this manner of
dealing is probably the right one for you. And me."

 He looked like he was going to speak, then stopped, smiling a little. "I
may repeat some things a great deal. Like the thing I was just about to. I
hope you won't find it boring."

 She shrugged. "Irrelevant. If repetition is part of what needs to happen,
to you and for you, then it's part of why we're here."

 "I love you." He kissed her mouth again. "I *love* you."

 "I love you, too. And yes, I know I don't have to say that back to you
every time you say it." She chuckled as he gave a watery smile. "Shall we
lie down, Constable? Find a good spot and be comfortable, what do you
think?"

 "Yes, sir, I think...that would be an excellent idea."

 They climbed onto the bed. "Come here a moment...there." He was lying
half-on her, with his face buried in her neck. He slid his arms around her
and tightened them. She was so small, yet he had no fear of hurting her.
She was strong, so beautifully strong, stronger than he was. It was a
dream, of course. 

 "Something I need to get you clear on *before* it comes about,
Constable..."

 He looked up at her expectantly, blinking away tears. 

 "When it happens, now or when you wake, parts of this are going to
be...very uncomfortable for you, and I may cry or some such thing, in
sympathy with you. Don't let that stop you from doing what needs to be
done. Remember, I chose to be here, and I can tolerate whatever is
required. But don't think I'm merely 'tolerating' *you*; I want to be here
with you. You are not being condescended to in any fashion, nor will I put
up with any hiding from what must be done on your part, so don't try using
possible upset to me as an excuse to avoid anything. That's exactly what
we're trying to stop. Understood?"

 "Understood, sir." He rolled up a little closer, and she tightened her
arms, patting his back, then letting it turn to a light, back-and-forth
stroke, down and up his lower ribs.

 He sighed. Then..."...oh," he murmured in a small, embarrassed voice.
He'd found himself moving his hips against her, a firming erection growing
between them, one thrust, then two, against her body. "I didn't anticipate
this, sir, not...not at all." He was honestly puzzled, and was pretty sure
it was evident in his voice.

 "Hm. I didn't, either, but actually, it might be the best thing--we'll
get the edge off your sexual urge right away, and then it won't be a
further hindrance, or cloud the real issues that need expressing." She
patted him and sat away, still loosely in his arms, though they rested
around her waist, and began to pull her robe open; with a little hop she
had it off. She was wearing a short spin slip and hipster nylon underwear,
which she removed just as easily and matter-of-factly. Then she looked at
him with an eyebrow raised, as if to say "Well?"

 He cleared his throat, licked his lips nervously and pulled off his
T-shirt; then, after a hesitant moment, his sweatpants and shorts
together. Following her example, he folded everything neatly and laid it
down at the bottom corner of the bed.

 While they were busy trying not to be too obviously impressed by each
other, he cleared his throat again and managed "Ahm...what...what would
you like?"

 "If you enjoy what you were doing, it's fine. You should do what you most
want to; it's best to begin this as we mean to keep on."

 "I'd like to, ahm, have...um, 

 "...intercourse?" She chuckled and kissed his temple. "That sounds very
pleasant. Do you usually use condoms?"

 "We always use them. Ray and Fraser, their work..."

 "Ah. Of course. You can or not as you like, then, with me. I'm up to date
on my tests--you should know, you schedule them for me--I haven't had any
potential exposure within a time window that would require condom use on
my account, and I am infertile. So, if you'd prefer--"

 He lifted his head. "You're infertile, sir?" He knew he sounded
distressed, and tried to backpedal. "Not that I--that I--"

 "Stop it, Constable. You're already trying to edit the demonstration of
your emotions, and I believe I said that isn't allowed, haven't I?" Her
eyes were very bright.

 "You want children, sir," he said, his own eyes full of sadness. He could
feel it. 

 "Yes. I...attempted to adopt through official channels once already, but
it--was deemed that now was not the best time to put me on the waiting
list, due to my current living situation." She sighed. "I'm blessed with a
youthful appearance, Constable, but I'm no longer young, and I won't, at
my overall rate of advance in the RCMP, have the opportunity much longer
to be considered for infant placement, considering that the higher one's
rank, the less time one has for one's children. There are...too many
'average couples' also wanting children under two years, though the
overall demand is for healthy white males, specifically."

 "Where you are unconcerned about those things."

 "Unconcerned, perhaps; but I would never be considered for a special
needs child. A girl or a nonwhite child, perhaps. I am not married, nor
with any current prospects in that direction, and special needs children
are placed, usually--not always, but usually--with couples in which at
least one partner has full time to devote to the child. I tell you this
simply to get it out of the way, as I know you'll attempt to reassure me
about future possibilities..." she smiled a little, looking into the
distance. "Constable Fraser would have acted as a sperm donor for me--he
knew of my desire for a child, but not that I'm incapable of
conception--and he doesn't know that I know...he was offering to donate. I
had asked for his help, but I thought, for some reason, that he'd been
legally adopted by his grandparents--I suppose something must've got
turned around in my head--and I wasn't...specific enough."

 "I remember him mentioning that, that, ahm..."

 "Mess."

 "Yes. Sir, he still isn't aware of that. That you know what he was
offering, or that...you can't..."

 "You have my permission to tell him," she said offhandedly, "if the
subject comes up while you're discussing this with him, if you like. He is
one of few people whom I wouldn't mind having the knowledge. After
all...he *was* good enough to offer something like that, when most
men...would either be aware mostly of the possibility of...obligation, or,
conversely, resent the lack of a legal claim to the child, and he could
have had no idea which direction I would have gone with it. He was ready
to do it for me as a friend, which cannot have been an easy decision." She
smirked. "Especially the way he must've thought I was approaching it. He
was assuming...no cups involved. Just...repeated attempts until..." 

 Turnbull managed a small smile too, but had to add, quietly, "I'm sorry,
sir...so very sorry."

 "I appreciate that, but it isn't me we're here to...conduct therapy, or a
practice session, or whatever you'd call this, for. I thank you for your
sympathy." She stroked his hair, and gently laid his head back down on her
shoulder. "Your erection has softened."

 "Yes. I'm upset for you."

 "Would you rather not have intercourse?"

 "I don't know. Now I feel like...comforting you. Not that sex isn't often
quite comforting, it just doesn't really seem like what's called for,
given the nature of the problem."

 He could feel her mouth move in a quirk of irony. "I see your point.
Then, how did you feel like comforting me?" she asked, very softly.

 "By...since you don't want to cry, apparently...by touching."

 "That sounds...lovely," she said gently, and he pulled her to him,
rolling up onto his side, bringing her with him, resting her head on the
broad pad of his muscled shoulder. He lowered his head to kiss her brow,
stroking her slowly, all over within his reach--and on her, with his arm
length, that was a lot of reach--and pulling her legs close with his to
tangle them together loosely. Her legs felt very, very small and smooth,
though not much smoother than Fraser. 

 "Does it feel good? I want to know," he whispered. "I want you to tell
me, just as I'm to tell you, all right, sir?"

 "Yes, I understand." She gave a shaky sigh. "It feels wonderful. As do
you." She slid her hands up and around his body, stroking him in return,
with the same gentle soothingness.

 "I hadn't thought it possible," he said, after a while. "To...lie like
this with someone like you, that I care so much for, who's so attractive,
and find myself growing so sleepy as a result of...such touching with him,
or her," he said. 

 She chuckled softly. "Then we're a pair. I find it that soothing, too. To
me, you're...a vast, warm island of...softness, in a way, and safety.
Right now, I mean."

 "I know."

 "Kiss me, Constable?"

 "Oh, with pleasure, sir," he said, just a little eagerly, and she tilted
her head up, and they were kissing. They began to pull each other closer,
and soon were moving together, and then she reached down and began to
stroke his recurred erection in time with their motion.

 "Mm--" he broke their current kiss, with a soft gasp. "*Oh*--"

 "Turn over, Constable, let me see you." She raised up on an elbow and
used her weight to get him to roll on his back, not stopping her hand's
motion on his penis.

 "Lie on me, move against me," he whispered, and she got half up on him,
leaned down and kissed him again, let his mouth go and kissed him again,
again, open-mouthed, without tongue, making him whimper softly with
wanting it, wanting her deep in him. He reached up and captured her head
with a hand, sliding his fingers into her hair, and pressed her mouth to
his, searching for entrance with his tongue. 

 She granted it, and he moaned, working their mouths together hard,
groaning and thrusting more eagerly, feeling her riding his hip, rubbing
herself in time; they moved together and he reached down with his farther
arm, seizing her buttock and pulling, squeezing, breaking the kisses to
say "God, please--take me, fuck me, *please*---"

 She made a low, moaning, growling sound and slid easily up to straddle
him, took his erection in her hand, leaning over him; he groaned and
reached up, taking her breasts in both hands, squeezing, and she groaned
too as he began to stroke and squeeze gently, a firm, gripping massage.
"Oh, God," he whispered, and she scrambled around with her knees, moved
up, set his cock into the folds of her labia and pushed down, sinking
easily; she was wet, aroused, wanting, too. 

 He cried out, as she suddenly sat back, up, and away, her knees sliding
out to the sides, and she sank down, with a long groan, as his substantial
cock pushed in and up, filling her vagina, coming to rest with the head
buried between her cervix and the highest part of her vaginal wall. Her
expression was transcendent, her eyes closed, head tilted back. She
groaned, shuddering and breathy, long and deep, so low in her chest he
could feel the vibration of it through his erection.

 He answered the sound, his body contracting around the center they were
joined at, clinging desperately at her thighs. "Oh GOD," he all but
shouted, and his hips thrust up, carrying her weight easily. 

 It couldn't bury him any deeper, but it moved him inside her, and pressed
and rubbed her clit against him, and her eyes opened wide and she gasped,
clutching around, and he quickly took her hands, giving her something to
balance with. Then she leaned forward, groaning as the change in position
moved his body against her and inside her, and she let go of his hands to
rest them on the bed to either side of him. She lifted up, then shoved
back down hard.

 A cry burst from him, and the next time she did it, he matched the
movement, and then they were fucking, harder and faster and tooth-gritting
and groaningly intense, so intense--

 She took a deep breath and began to slow, and so he did too, blearily,
and wondering what was going on, and looked at her face for a clue, and
she said "Over, uh--I like it, like to get, on my back--I get more--I get
more. Where I need it. You know." 

 Fortunately, sex-stupid often speaks the same language. "Yes, yes, sir,
I--uh, is there room to just roll?"

 "I think so--let me--" she locked her legs as well as she was able, and
lowered herself against him, forcing him to let go of her breasts, which
he'd grabbed again; he did it with reluctance and a sad look, which she
noticed, and smiled at him. "They're not going anywhere."

 "I'll miss them anyway."

 "And they you, Constable, but they're right--" they smushed against his
chest as she lowered herself and grabbed him, which was nice, "--*here*,
anyway. Now, on three..."

 "One."

 "Two--"

 They rolled, clinging hard, and though he tried to catch himself, she
still got a little squashed when they came to a stop before he could get
rearranged.

 "Sorry--"

 "Ohhh," she said, her eyes practically rolling back in her head, "don't
be, it shoved you just right."

 "Like this?" He shoved again, experimentally.

 Her answering near-shout confirmed it, and he lowered himself over her,
as she wrapped a leg around his back and an arm around his shoulder to
help guide him. "Perfect," she gasped. "Just per--ah *God*--"

 He thrust again, again, and she was meeting him, and he wanted to kiss
her so terribly but he was too tall, so he just made sure not to suffocate
her in his chest and fucked faster instead, and that met with her obvious,
counter-fucking approval so wonderfully he supposed he could do without
kissing until they were done with this part, oh Mother, oh Gods, so good,
so "...good, so--am I--are you--"

 "Yes!" she managed to work into one of her panting vocalizations, "Yes,
perfect, right there, let me--lean--" she reached around her own back and
propped her hand back there in her lower back somehow, changing the angle
of her pelvis, and he could see how it would increase the stimulation to
her clitoris in the part of his brain that could still think, but the part
that was busy fucking only noticed how it made his cock bend a little on
its rapid way in and out of her and how unbelievably *good* that felt, and
he got onto his elbows and started bending his lower back farther with
each thrust, to smack right flat into her, and her next cry was almost
desperate and that *did* something to him and he was pumping without
thought at *all* now, yes, yes, sweet good perfect *yes*--

 "God," she was whimpering, "yes, good, perfect--" and he realized he must
have been saying at least some of that out loud, but that was good, that
was fine, he liked out loud, he liked this, in fact he thought he might do
this for the rest of his life and oh, oh, oh God, she was--

 "AAhhh--don' stop, don' stop, like that like that likethatlike*that*
like--" and she was bending, bending *inside* her, part of her squishing
and squeezing the head of his cock in an unbelievable way and the rest was
fluttering in and out like a powerfully muscular butterfly in waves and
ripples and--

 "Oh," he groaned in despair, because it was going to be over because he
was coming too, he was going to come, he could hear himself, making that
noise, that noise he always made before he came--soft and high and keening
and desperate, and she was murmuring something like yes God or Do it or
something like that, and he was *pounding* all of a sudden, pounding like
he was trying to break through a concrete wall and she had her elbows on
the bed and she had some fucking *abdominal* strength, that was for sure,
she was smacking back into him so hard his teeth got jolted together with
each impact, bang bang bang, and that must be where that particular
euphemism came from, he thought, before he couldn't think of anything at
all except *yes*, one big long drawn-out affirmation of everything in the
universe that he was aware of right now, which was mostly that he was
coming so hard he would have expected, if he could have expected anything
right now, to pass out.

 He collapsed.

 She caught him, held him, as they both groaned and heaved with
aftershocks, shoving rhythmically together in a gradually slowing tempo
until finally they were still--mostly, at least--panting hard, and he said
"Oh God I love you, sir," and squeezed her with both arms, and for once,
for right now, he didn't have to pull out right away. How nice to stay
with her like this, stay in the warmth, the warmth all around him.

 He felt her smile. "Yes--I love you too, Turnbull." It felt like they'd
just told each other they were bestest friends in the whole world, and he
smiled. 

 He seemed to remember she was female, gender not being something he
noticed much outside chivalric acts in terms of anything but direct need
to know--his idea of such being, well, actual *relations*--and, alarmed,
hastened to reassure her "Even when you're not fucking my brains out." 

 She'd been kissing his biceps and it turned into a loud snort, and she
laughed again, letting her head fall back. "Yes, I understand that.
Anyway, you see, what our mothers tell us is that if the man has *already*
come, it's all right to believe that he loves you--and the rest of the
Western World--at least for the moment."

 Turnbull blushed. "Sorry. I just..."

 "Never mind, Turnbull. You and I know what we mean." 

 "Did we land on your robe?"

 "You know..." she felt around. "We did, we certainly did. A stroke of
good fortune indeed. Terrycloth is terrycloth; a washing will put it right
as rain, and it's far less trouble to wash than the bedding." 

 "We'll hope it's an omen."

 After a breathing period, during which he softened and slipped out of her
easily--different, again--

 Something wrong, swimming through a haze of--

 Moisture, wetness, breathing, moisture of breath--and of saliva--and
sweat--

 And an odd, tonal noise in the background--

 "Oh my God," he breathed, and pulled away a little.

 She let her arm slide off, and smiled at him. "Are you awake?"

 "I wasn't supposed to--we weren't supposed to--oh, *no*--"

 "I...took advantage of you, constable. You had fallen asleep, while I
held you, and you became aroused in your sleep, as men often do--"

 "Then you did me a favor. I feel wonderful."

 "--and women too, sometimes, but in any case I really must apologize. I
should have wakened you first, but you seemed so *aware*...and you called
me by name, and said...said you loved me, which I knew, of course, but,
well, anyway, it occurred to me that it might help, if we'd already done
this, to make it easier to do...what we need to, to know if you can do, to
understand what it would be like, if it really happened, and whether that
might change its status as an ideal to you. Towel?"

 He stared at it as she handed it to him. "We have a towel?"

 "I...um. There's a bed storage box of them under the, um, here, by the
nighttable. No smirking."

 Well, a woman who had a semi-active sex life as well as the occasional
nocturnal orgasm, and was as compulsive a planner and such as the
Inspector was--it figured, he supposed. "I...dreamed I was dreaming we
were...trying...um..." embarrassed, he cleaned up with the towel and
discovered she was ready with another to place beneath them. "I--oh,
*no*--sir, are you on some sort of birth control?"

 "You could say that. I'm infertile."

 He stared "That's just what you said--in the dream--we talked
about--whether to use a condom--"

 "You asked me if we should just a bit ago, too. I said that if you always
did with Fraser and Ray, there was no need with me, currently. We talked
about constable Fraser a bit." 

 "That's...that's just what you said."

 "Then I would venture to say you dreamed something resembling what we
actually did. Not exactly, I would imagine, I'm sure it went through some
sort of consciousness filter, some kind of translation mechanism, since
the various levels don't really speak the same language. Perhaps...you
weren't actually dreaming. Perhaps it was some other...dissociated state."

 "But I saw...you had a nightgown on, sir, and I had pajamas...the lamps
were on, and the music...the music was gone..."

 "I don't know, Turnbull. I know you've been fighting very powerful states
of unusual consciousness of a kind you can't identify, and apparently, of
more than one kind. It's possible you were asleep, but aware enough of
your surroundings to incorporate them into your dream in some form. I did
that as a child, though never as an adult."

 "Yes, many of us have experience with...altered sleep states as...you're
really infertile?"

 "Turnbull, if I weren't, forty-one is a very dangerous age for a first
child in any case. It's why I didn't bother bearing my own child via an
anonymous donor, but asked constable Fraser's help when I thought he'd
been adopted, in advising me, where he could. It's just as well. My desire
for children is a selfish one anyway; I don't think I could bear to...pass
on the parenting I was given, as most of us do, one way or another,
whether it looks that way or not."

 "The desire for children is human, sir. Many humans don't desire
children, but even among those who don't, on sober thought, there is
distress on learning one is or might be infertile; it's been studied. We
feel instinctive distress at the thought of not being able to procreate or
at least raise a child to adulthood--I imagine, during our evolution, the
need for foster parents was great, so that even though we have a genetic
need, as well, to bear our *own* children--"

 "Turnbull."

 "I'm sorry. I don't know what to do here, sir. I just had a wonderful
sexual experience with you and I wasn't even technically awake. It's
insulting."

 She laughed. "It was wonderful?"

 "Oh, Gods, sir, it was amazing."

 "Then there's nothing to apologize for. I came harder than I have in a
long time, too."

 They curled up together on the towel. Oh, yes, no condom. One wanted a
nice clean towel under one's ass for a while under those circumstances. "I
feel more relaxed," she offered. "Well, than before I fell asleep."

 "I don't know how I feel," he admitted forlornly, and held her close.
"While I was asleep, I thought you might be Heath...a friend of mine. Sort
of a...spirit friend. But it was you. You didn't say all those things, did
you?"

 "Uh...I didn't say anything except for the bit about the condoms and
whether we needed them. I thought you...just wanted..." she smiled. "Your
eyes were...were teary, you hung on to me so tightly..."

 "I did want you. Very much. All that...must have been me...or my
friend...except. I didn't know you were infertile...I'm so sorry...you'd
make a good mother. You do know--" he paused.

 "Know what?"

 "What it's like not to have a good mother, so you'd know what not to do.
But you've certainly never said anything like that to me."

 "It's true as far as it goes, Turnbull. You're a witch, perhaps you were
able to discern some things through my astral self or whatever you people
use." She mopped at a slight trickle with the towel.

 He reflexively pulled her close, and sighed, getting comfortable to
sleep. 

 "Constable?"

 "Mm?"

 "Are you that tired? Perhaps the sedative I gave you is still--"

 "Oh, dear." He blinked, then deliberately lifted his head and pulled
himself up against the headboard. "I'm dreadfully sorry, it's just that we
always have...a little rest after."

 "Oh, yes--you're men. Forgive me, I didn't think. Feel free to nap. I'll
just..." she was pulled in again as he lay back down, wrapped up close in
long arms and legs. "...stay right here," she muttered to herself in an
oh-well tone, half-smiling. "You nap together, I take it."

 "Mm-hm." He pressed his face into her neck. She felt so good, so soft and
strong and good. 

 She knew the...thing. And she still let him...his Inspector. She would
fix everything...he sank into a doze.

 She then rested her face along the top of his head, noting how soft the
fuzzy buzz was, and closed her eyes. Turnbull was a very nice place to
relax, she thought, wriggling a little. He moved a bit to accommodate her,
seemingly without waking up. Well, there *were* three of them; she
supposed it would be a good habit to practice sleep-adjusting, since they
were all pretty long. It probably reduced unintended encounters, by
whoever wasn't in the middle, with the floor. 

 In about twenty minutes of a pleasant haze, she realized he was snuffling
about on her, what he could reach, and that his movements were growing
more agitated--not upset-seeming, more like he simply wasn't getting what
he was reaching for. His sleeping mind was looking for two big men, and he
was wrapped around one medium-sized woman. She thought he might appreciate
being awakened under the circumstances; this wasn't at all like the sleepy
way his hands and mouth had begun to roam gently over her skin, before.
She had rolled over, met his open eyes, and seen such love and sheer
*friendliness* there--or perhaps a better word was *trust*, yes--and
hadn't hesitated a second to meet his next kiss. She didn't know what was
inspiring him to this sudden forwardness where he'd just recently been
physically shrinking from her--more than once--but what he wanted, he was
going to get, especially since she wanted it, too, wanted to be there for
him, to to whatever would help him find his way back to his lovers, his
Ray and Fraser.

 "Constable. Con--um, Turnbull. Turnbull? Wake up, Turnbull..." she spoke
softly, grabbing his hands to hold them with one of hers and stroking his
large person, calming his confused fumblings. 

 He began to blink. "Huh? Hm. Huhm--oh. Oh, yes--oh, sir, I'm--I'm sorry,
I didn't--I didn't--" his hands began to move over her, evidently checking
for injuries, and she shook her head, finding herself quashing a laugh.
Smiling, okay; Turnbull had no problem with smiling; but God only knew
what a laugh--except at a joke--at the wrong moment, in a situation like
this, could do to somebody like Turnbull, as close to the surface as his
very soul was right now. 

 "I'm just fine, Turnbull, but you were growing agitated--you seemed to
expect to be encountering...large bodies as you moved, to be, ah,
accounting for them, and when they weren't there to support you properly,
you ended up in uncomfortable and unfamiliar positions, more than likely."

 "Oh. Dear. Yes, sir, you're--" he turned his face away and covered his
mouth politely, yawning. "Excuse me." He turned back to her. "You're
likely right, sir."

 When she moved to resettle herself, he moved to accommodate her, so she
supposed cuddling in bed was something he was used to, whether sex was in
the direct offing or not. She could easily get by without cuddling when
necessary, but it seemed a pleasant thing to do, here and now. 

 "I hope you...enjoyed yourself. To your usual standard, I mean," he
wondered quietly.

 She nearly gave him an are-you-joking look, but controlled it and said
only "Turnbull, it was great. Better than great. A little quick, okay, but
not that quick, and still great. I could have prolonged it; I chose not
to."

 "Oh, yes. Women...like to take their time with these things."

 "Most of us, yes."

 "I...haven't much experience with women."

 "Oh?" She raised an eyebrow. "Hm. You, ah, did marvelously. I wasn't your
first woman, was I? You seemed fairly familiar with the different feels
and such. And you're quite fond of..." she gestured with her head to where
his hand was resting on her breast--not moving, just covering it warmly.

 "Oh." He pulled the hand away. "I didn't notice, I'm sorry--"

 "Put it back, Turnbull, it felt very nice." Tentatively, he did so. "It's
just that you do seem to like breasts, and men don't have much in the way
of them. Well, Fraser...um, men have them, but...they're at best sparsely
endowed in that area."

 "True, sir, and no, you're not my first woman, though there've only been
three. Two were...girlfriends, lovers, I suppose. Most of my experience
has been with men." He rested his head on her shoulder, with what didn't
sound like a happy sigh.

 "Was it...unsatisfactory in some way?"

 "Oh, not with Ray and Fraser. Never with them. But...I...well.
During...certain times in my life, certain schools away from home--no
specifics here--certain...postings...well..."

 "Just say it, Turnbull."

 "There were times when it became known, among...fellow masculine-form
aficionados, that I was one, myself; and I...became somewhat...popular."

 She could imagine the size of the target that self-confident gay youths
would paint on the hunk of man younger Turnbull must have been (judging by
this one), once they found out he might be discreetly amenable to male
advances. "You're beautiful," she told him. "Very much so." She sighed.
"And very gentle. It's no wonder."

 "I learned how to 'gently' say no, eventually," he said grimly, and she
nodded. "It didn't take me long to figure out that the...encounters I
was...I was going to say sharing, but I think I'll go with 'having'--the
encounters I was *having* under such circumstances meant--very little, to
the other young men involved; it was simply considered a lucky break that
someone so..." he sighed. "Ignorant, and also physically desirable to
their way of thinking, was...also to their way of thinking, available for
their use. But I was never comfortable, I wondered why, and realized
I'd...made some assumptions at first. When the assumptions were eventually
thoroughly disabused, I realized that in *none* of the...individual's
cases was it genuinely a...an expression of friendship, or caring; and I
began to say no. Firmly. Occasionally more than firmly. I must say, a good
number of them were very hard to deter. The accommodating type must have
appealed to them."

 The leanly muscular--hell, Herculean--body, and sweet, baby's eyes filled
with faith and wonder for the world were what appealed to them, Thatcher
altered his statement in her head, but she made no comment. Hell knew how
he'd wound up with that worldview, raised the way he seemed to have been.
People didn't carve on themselves because they were *allowed* to express,
emotion, or to have actual emotional relationships, with the people who
were supposed to be supporting them and caring for them when they were
children. They did it to get the need for expression, for simply *being*,
while in connection with others--something which they'd never been taught
to do properly, or feel anything but an abysmal failure for having the the
normal, human desire for. To get the pain someplace where it didn't hurt
them so terribly badly, do them further damage *in*side. When Turnbull was
with someone, as he had put it, "real", his perceived failing ballooned to
monstrous proportions as everything he was ever told was bad and wrong
about him--which was everything--became an issue. In relationships as
close as he had with Ray and Fraser, you couldn't keep enough distance to
prevent your true self from being relevant.

 He was finishing his thought. "But at other times..." he shrugged.
"The...mutual relief was a welcome diversion from the loneliness. Not
lately, though, depending, of course, on how one defines that--well, let's
say that in...recent years, I find it to be far too horribly lonely a
thing in itself; and that...it intensifies my feelings of aloneness,
rather than alleviating them. And that can...always has...caused problems.
Such as I showed you under the lamp."

 "What causes the 'problems'--you mean sex, without genuine emotion."

 "Yes. But even if *I* care, or even if there is some degree of true
respect and friendship, the...the problems..."

 She nodded. "When you say 'problems', you don't only mean the marks, do
you? You mean the feelings--the ones that, when they reach their
crescendo, cause the breaking point...you hate yourself, and want to
apologize, and give something back to the person you care for. And the
hurt and scarring become visible, and at least a little bit *outside* of
you, even if only for your own eyes."

 "Yes," he said, very softly. "That's why it's important others not know.
I have taken very deep cuts without any permanent damage, though it took
weeks of careful tending of the wounds; and greater damage is prevented by
their use. But no one would ever believe that. I'd simply be clapped in
irons. Except you, my nonhuman friends, and...and my friends outside the
physical world. Fraser and Ray..." He shrugged; they already both knew the
problems, the reasons he was here, the reasons all of this was happening.

 She nodded a little. "I've had similar experience as far as the initial
'mutual relief' of sex, and, later, the subsequent lack of its being any
great help in staving off loneliness for any length of time...I am largely
in the same position as yours, Constable. Though I must admit to the
occasional...indiscretion." She smirked to herself. "Apparently my body
simply decides it's had enough of my heart's complaints, and takes the
opportunity to get what it wants, when it's presented with such. Wine's
frequently involved. And before you say a word, you are not to consider
yourself in that category. You are a friend." She picked up the hand that
covered her breast, kissed it, and put it back. "And we've had no wine,
anyway," she afterthoughted in a mutter.

 "Thank you, sir." He smiled into her neck.

 "Off duty, of course."

 "Of course," he said, still smiling.

 "Perhaps we should try to sleep a bit without having sex in the middle of
it," she said gently, and he smiled. 

 "Anything to postpone the inevitable."

 "Would it really be so bad? To love me? Like you want to?"

 "Love you? No. Lose you?"

 "You will not lose me."

 "And you won't break your word. But you'll never be able to control the
way you feel inside, and I will be able to discern that with ease."

 "Just one thing, then. Just one thing...if you cry..."

 He stiffened. "Yes?"

 "Let me respond to you. Hold you and kiss you. I won't speak."

 He shivered, and she could feel his throat clench. He nodded.

 "I'll try not to interfere with your expressing what you need to."

 She could hear him swallow. "Who knows. It might...be good. A good
thing."

 He seemed to be heading toward another emotional low, which would not be
surprising, but if he could sleep instead...she petted him, holding his
hand. "Let's rest some more. We can both probably use it."

 He sniffed and nodded. His eyes, which she suddenly noticed were horribly
bloodshot--or which had suddenly become horribly bloodshot--lifted to
hers. "I love you, Meg. Help me get them back." His voice was faint,
choked through a tightly controlled sob.

 "I will," she whispered back. "I am. If it can be done, I can do it,
Constable." She smiled a little. "Don't forget who you're dealing with,
here."

 He managed a small smile back and nodded, then lowered his head and
pulled her close to him, tension all through his body. The soft music,
repeating in the front room, seemed to help, as she stroked him with her
free hand, her own eyes closed; finally they both slept again, without
dreams. 

 ***

  
  

End Requiescat IV: Greater Love Hath None by Blue Champagne 

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