The Card	The Card

 by Kiki Cabou

  

 Author's Website: 

 Disclaimer: I don't own any of these people. Hmm. How sad.

 Author's Notes: I usually like to write comedy/action/romance kind of
stuff, and I never really planned on writing an angst piece, but this sort
of popped into my head a few days ago and wouldn't leave me alone. Fear
not if you hate it --- this is a one-time deal. Promise. :-)

 Story Notes: Teeny spoilers for the Pilot and North. I think that's it.

 

 

 Hell of a day for a funeral. It was mid-March, about the time the weather
turned unpredictable in Chicago. This year it was gritty and gray. The
rain tapped lightly on the stained glass windows, covering the green grass
outside in mist. It was much lighter inside, however. The small hall was
lit with thousands of candles, flickering from the combined breath of
everyone seated in the hard pews. The benches and head altar, both from
the same sepia wood, glowed warm and honey-colored in the light. The
candles had been Mrs. Vecchio's idea --- the situation, nobody's. 

 Mrs. Vecchio, dressed in her best black in the second row, sat heavily, a
defeated lump of a woman, feeling older than ever, and shaking as she held
her rosary beads. One by one, the tears began to roll down her cheeks. The
service hadn't even started yet, but she couldn't help it --- one of her
sons was gone. Of course, she knew she only had one, technically, but that
didn't change anything. She wanted to wail, howl out the injustice to God
and all the angels, but she knew this wouldn't help anyone, and so she
sat, still and silent, and waited for the service to begin. Frannie,
sitting next to her, put an arm around her mother and nodded at someone
across the aisle. 

 Slowly, Ray stood up, feeling everyone's eyes on him. Ray was tall and
thin, but couldn't, wouldn't stand up straight today and show that off. He
glanced around the half-empty chapel, populated by about ten cops, a few
Mounties, and two of the deceased's neighbors, and caught sight of Stan
and Stella sitting a few rows behind his mother, holding hands and looking
at him with solemn eyes. Lieutenant Welsh was sitting in the sixth row
next to Buck Frobisher. Both looked resigned and tired. 

 Inspector Margaret "Meg" Thatcher was practically by herself, in the
next-to-last pew, close to the door. She was neatly groomed and in
uniform, black armband and all, the bright colors making the fact that she
was frantic even more noticeable. Constable Maggie MacKenzie was seated
next to her, also in uniform, the black armband contrasting jarringly with
her red serge. By the placement of her arms, it looked as though she was
trying to physically hold the other woman down to keep her from running.
Her own ice-blue eyes were wet --- she nodded at Ray. 

 Ray returned the sign and walked up to the main altar, passing behind the
complimentary flower tree that Cradling Hills cemetery had provided. He
stood at the small podium and surveyed the small room briefly before he
cleared his throat and began. 

 "Everybody, we are gathered here today to pay tribute to someone we all
knew very well. He was a superb investigator, an exemplary human being,
and a very intrepid explorer, as I would like to talk about in a minute.
But, before I go on, I would like to ask, from all of you, a moment of
silence for the deceased: Constable Benton Fraser of the Royal Canadian
Mounted Police." 

 The moment of silence was anything but. Ray had used Fraser's title as a
mere formality, but it struck a chord with someone in the next-to-last pew
and a small wail escaped from the back of the room. Mrs. Vecchio sniffed
loudly. Turnbull, seated next to Frannie, blew his nose with a honk that
would have made a goose proud. Buck Frobisher leaned forward to rest his
hands on the pew in front of him and made a deafening creak by shifting on
the seat. 

 "Okay," muttered Ray, rolling his eyes and staring at his watch. "Moment
over." 

 "Ladies and gentlemen," he began again. "As you know, this is a merely a
memorial service. There is no body. Contrary to the rumors that someone
has been spreading," and here he glared at Turnbull, "The body has not
been lost." 

 Frannie followed Ray's line of vision to Turnbull and smacked him. He
cringed. 

 "There will be no burial," Ray continued, and looked at the room.
Everyone was a bit confused and starting to mumble things to each other.
"I'll explain in a minute. I would also like to say that once I'm done
with my, uh, my thing, anybody who wants to get up here and say something
is welcome to." 

 "Except Turnbull!" Meg shouted from the back, the tears rolling down her
cheeks. She may have been greiving and crying, but she was NOT going to
let her remaining idiotic subordinate ruin the memorial service of her
former idiotic subordinate. 

 "Except Turnbull," Ray agreed, and then took out a small piece of paper
from his pocket and placed it on the podium. He stared hard at it for a
few seconds, then put it away. 

 "Okay," he said. "Here goes nothing." 

 "We are here today to honor not Constable Fraser of the Royal Canadian
Mounted Police, ... but Benny. That's who he was to me. I mean, sure, when
I was mad, I called him Fraser, and a couple of other things I shouldn't
have, ... but mostly, he was just Benny. When I met him five years ago,
... I'll never forget it. He got me busted in lock-up by calling me
Detective Armani in front of a suspect I was trying to question
undercover. Almost got me killed." He laughed. "I apologized to him later
when I found out about the whole political/Internal Affairs intrigue thing
behind it. He'd saved my butt. And that was by no means the last time. 

 Benny was a good guy, in every sense of the word. I mean sure, he had a
pretty bad haircut and a tendency to lick things other people wouldn't
even look at, but that was part of what made him ... I dunno. Interesting,
I guess you could say. But I gotta tell 'ya --- all joking aside, I never
worked with a more well-informed person in my life. And that's the truth.
The guy knew everything about everything. He could tell you what a
woodchuck had eaten for breakfast and how it related to Proust and
Avogadro's number in the same breath. But he didn't flaunt it, just pulled
his knowledge out when it was necessary. 

 Like when the two of us got stranded in Canada. I mean, after our plane
crashed, this guy ended up temporarily blind and unable to walk. Unable to
WALK! He was so screwed up he could barely form a correct sentence. It
didn't help that he called me Steve, either, but that's beside the point
... which is, that he didn't let it faze him. He just guided me through.
He helped me just enough so that I could figure out how to do things on my
own and get us to water. And I guess it's safe to say now, but I don't
think I would have survived if he hadn't been there. Seriously. Between
the endless Inuit stories and malfunctioning bolas and eating bugs, and
him slung over my shoulder singing Beethoven at the top of his voice and
totally off-key ... even with all of that, I wouldn't have taken that walk
in the woods with anyone else." 

 He paused and took a sip of water from the glass on the podium. 

 "You know, for a long time, everybody thought Benny was gay. I would like
to clarify that. Was he alone a lot? Sure. Did he hang out with a lot of
guys? Yeah. Gay? Hell, no. Not that I would have any problem if he were,
mind you, but he wasn't. The love of his life was a FEMALE robber who
almost got him killed, ... not that it matters now ... but he bounced back
and found somebody new. And I know that she loved him very much." 

 Ray felt his voice choke and looked down at the podium. He didn't look to
the back of the chapel or continue in that vein, but Meg went very red and
looked down at the floor. 

 "Anyway." He cleared his throat. "Lessee ... what else is there? Hmm. Oh,
yeah. Brave. He was really, really, extraordinarily brave. He always stood
up for his beliefs, even if it was in a quiet way. 

 As you all know, Benny's dad got murdered, and when he caught the guy, it
turned out to be some big mucky-muck in the RCMP. Now, Benny was a
stubborn sonofabitch, but I got no argument with what he did. Because
instead of backing off and finding someone else to blame just to please
the authorities, he got the murderer imprisoned and chose exile from his
home country and a humiliating job as a glorified doorman. I think that's
pretty damn courageous. 

 He was a bit of an explorer, too. When he got here, he couldn't get a
cab. I never did figure out why --- he never told me --- but he just
walked right into the city and wandered around until he found my precinct.
He wasn't afraid to try new things. I remember, about three months into
our partnership, I bought an ice cream cone and he looked at me like I was
about to eat a brick." A few people laughed. "He had no idea what it was.
I told him it was ice cream, and handed him the cone so he could have a
taste, and he looked a bit unsure, but tried it anyway. He actually closed
his eyes, and looked ... I dunno, blissful. I'd never seen him like that
before. It cracked me up. I don't know why." Ray sighed. "He liked the
pizza, too. And hot dogs, and all kinds of stuff that he'd never had up in
Tuktoyaktuk." He sniggered at the name. "Like, you know, indoor plumbing,
and things like that. 

 He was also a really big help on a lot of our cases. I remember once that
he said to me, 'Ray, you and this car [my Riv] have some kind of a bond. I
don't understand it, but I do respect it.' Well, that's the way it was
with me and his, uh, 'investigational techniques.' I mean, this guy ...
man. He would put anything in his mouth. ANYTHING. Totally fearless. Come
to think of it, that's probably why he tried the ice cream. We'd be
following a suspect and he would just STOP, right on one spot, usually
while I kept going. I was always back-tracking to find him ... and he'd
kneel down, pick some crap up off the ground and smell it, eye it, lick
it, whatever. And magically, a trail would appear for him (with me in tow)
to follow. It was amazing. And basically accurate, like 98% of the time.
I'd never seen anything like it. I never told him, though. I was too much
of an idiot, too proud to tell him. I wish I had. 

 He probably would have waved me off, though. He always was quiet that
way. I know I'm going to miss him a lot, like everyone else here." 

 Suddenly it hit him that he'd been crying, so he pulled out a tissue and
wiped his eyes. 

 "Which brings me to the last part of my little speech. Why there is no
body. I'll tell you why." 

 It was becoming hard to talk, now. Most of the assembled were crying. Ray
cleared his throat. 

 "The reason there is no body is because Benny is a hero. That's the
simple answer. 

 The less simple answer is that five days ago, a tenement was burning in
South Central. Fraze happened to be nearby and the fire department and the
police were there, trying to put out the flames and get people out.
Someone on the scene told me Fraser saw a little girl trapped on the top
floor, banging on the window. He ran for the fire chief and asked them to
get a ladder. They said they didn't have one to spare. So, he ran in. 

 He just ... ran, headlong, into a burning building. I'm still having a
problem wrapping my brain around it. Probably figured his serge was
fire-proof. All the firefighters there were really pissed, but he just ran
on, up the stairs that were teetering from being burnt. Anyway, he managed
to make it to the top floor and get the little girl out of the apartment.
The building was full of smoke, but someone said they saw him down all the
flights of stairs, except the last one, which had been burnt away. The
fires were out, so everyone thought it was calming down a little bit. A
paramedic said Fraze dropped the little girl down to him, and two
firefighters were waiting to catch him, and he jumped, but that was when a
section of the ceiling above collapsed. 

 By the time the paramedics fished Benny and the two firefighters out, one
of the firefighters was already dead, and the other and Benny were barely
hanging on. The remaining firefighter was a mess, and Fraser ... a beam. A
beam hit him in the head. I got the call as next of kin." 

 He cleared his throat and had to pause for a moment. 

 "I got to the emergency room, and an ER doctor came out and told me my
best friend had suffered extreme head trauma and was officially ... ahem
was officially brain dead." 

 The hall was still. 

 "And then she showed me this." 

 Ray withdrew the small rectangle of paper from his pocket again and
showed it to the assembled. It was small, nothing special, laminated with
plastic. There was a small picture of Fraser on the front, along with his
information. 

 "It's Benny's Illinois State ID," Ray explained. "I don't know if any of
you can see, but it has a small pink dot on it, right ... here," he said,
and pointed at a spot on it with his finger. "The dot says, 'SEE CARD.'" 

 "So I saw the card. It was in his wallet behind the ID. I was scared when
I looked at it, but then I realized what he had done. I disagreed with
him, but I couldn't remember ever being so proud of him, and I signed off
on the Doctor's order. What Benny had in his wallet was a donor card." 

 There was a slight gasp from a few of the assembled. 

 "That's why he's a hero. Yes, what he did, saving that child, saving,
heck, half of Chicago at one time or another ... that was heroic. But this
says more. He donated all of his organs to transplant, and the rest of his
body to the University of Chicago Medical School. 

 His lungs will go to someone who needs them. His heart, which he took
good care of, will go to someone else. His liver? Perfectly healthy. He
didn't drink. That will save someone. Medical students at the U of Chicago
will end up examining the rest of him to learn about the human body so
that one day, when they're doctors, they'll know how to set a bone
properly, or learn something else from him that will help them save lives.


 He died the way he lived, selflessly and courageously. I think we should
remember him this way. He ... was our hero. And now it's time for him to
be someone else's." 

 Stan bowed his head. Meg began to sob uncontrollably, and so did Maggie.
Turnbull pulled Frannie close, and Buck Frobisher stared straight ahead at
the wall behind Ray, his eyes steely and bright with tears, and nodded
with agreement and pride. Nobody had anything else to say. 

End