mouse10    

This is part of a series relating the adventures of Fraser and Thatcher on
a training tour in Disney World. The due South characters belong to
Alliance, not me. Disney World belongs to some huge publicly owned
conglomerate, not me.  

This series assumes that season 3/4 did not take place; that Ray and the
Riv are still around; that Thatcher never cut her hair or got as strange
as she did toward the end, but that Fraser's apartment was burned down and
he did live for a while at the Consulate.  

Thanks to Jo March & MagsyB for editorial and emotional support. 

PAIRINGS: Fraser/Thatcher 

RATING: R  

Spoilers: We re the Eggmen, All The Queens Horses 

Comments should be directed to tomato_3@email.com 

 

Adventures in Mouseland - The Breakfast of Champions  

Tuesday - Day 2 - by Pin 

 

She heard him leave. 

~ GOOD, he's gone out! This buys you a little time, Margaret, to figure
out how you are going to face him this morning, after virtually seducing
him last night! ~ 

Mortified anew at her actions of the previous evening, Meg rolled over on
her stomach and buried her head under her pillow, wishing with all her
might that she could undo her actions from the night before.
Unfortunately, intermixed with her mortification and adding to her misery
was the memory of how his lips captured hers, the feel of his arms around
her, the taste of him on her tongue.  

She hadn't felt this wretched since that time in college when she'd had
about four too many Tequila Sunrises at a dorm party and decided that it
would be a good idea to kiss every guy in the room at least once. She had
not come out of her dorm room for two days after that, between throwing up
and wanting to die of embarrassment. She had briefly toyed with trying to
complete the remainder of the semester by correspondence, from her dorm
room. Her room mate had finally convinced Meg that holing up in their room
like some kind of wounded sloth was cramping Peggy's social life, and
since she had the Nelson Twins coming over to 'study' that night, Meg had
better make herself scarce. Where was Peggy when she needed her now??? 

~ Oh God, this is so much worse than the train. Oh, Meg, how could you do
this to yourself! How could you throw yourself at him like that! ~ 

She burrowed further down in her bed, now only a quivering mound under the
pale pink quilt decorated with little Jane Porter parasols. If she could
have gone into some womb - any womb - she would have done it in a heart
beat. She couldn't even excuse her behavior by saying she had been
drinking. No, it was nothing more than the powerful aphrodisiac of being
in Benton Fraser's presence on a hot summer night with no distractions and
no escape.  

~ God, I have no willpower where that man is concerned. Heaven only knows
what he thinks about what happened last night. He didn't say anything, but
I suspect that this is not exactly his regular kind of activity. I hope he
doesn't think I do this kind of thing all the time, either. Well, Meg, you
have managed to royally screw things up in only one day. What can you do
for an encore? Strip naked on a tabletop and throw yourself on him in the
middle of lunch? ~  

Moaning, she burrowed down even further in the bed, discovering that if
you stuck your head down in the covers at the foot of the bed, you
couldn't see any daylight and could pretend that the night would never
end. Unfortunately, you also couldn't breathe after about five minutes.
Finally, she came up for air, driven by the horrifying picture of Fraser
ripping the covers from her unconscious body. 

~ Why him? Rationally, you didn't do anything all that horrible. So, why
are you mortified done to the marrow of your being? Why does it matter so
much that you let go of yourself with him? ~ 

Pausing in her frantic effort to hide from herself, Meg let that thought
percolate to the top of her awareness.	

Meg had her share of one-night stands lurking in her past. That was before
AIDS, of course. Once the virus hit, she would have been a fool to be
quite so abandoned as she had been in college. Early in her career in the
RCMP there had been a couple of involvements with fellow officers. She'd
been in her early twenties, at the start of her career, and it wasn't
unusual to date people one met through work. Her rapid promotions through
the ranks had, however, distanced her from her cohort. She quickly
realized that becoming involved with one of her peers could lead to
unwanted attention and criticism. So, she had dated men outside of the
RCMP, when she had dated at all. Coming to Chicago had seemed like
liberation after the constraints and hostility of Ottawa. At first she had
gone a little wild, flirting with strange men as the opportunity arose.
That had tapered off for a variety of reasons, one of which she was trying
desperately to not think about right now. 

~ So why, ~ She asked herself, clutching her pillow like a life preserver,
~ Why at 35 years of age with your career moving forward, are you suddenly
ready to throw yourself off a professional cliff because of some bizarre,
inexplicable thing you seem to have for Constable Benton Fraser? Why, are
you suddenly unable to handle yourself around this man? Where are these
crazed impulses coming from? And why, having given into such an impulse,
do you feel like such absolute shit right now?? ~ 

She wondered for a moment if she was going into early menopause and that
all of this might be due to hormone storms. She didn't like to think that
this was her biological alarm clock ringing, trying to tell her to go
after the nearest Alpha Male she could find in the pack. 

Deep down, in those places where you don't try to kid yourself, she knew
why it mattered so much. Because Benton Fraser's opinion of her mattered
to her. Meg held Ben Fraser in high regard as both a police officer and a
man. She wanted him to hold her in a similar regard. She thought that he
might. He at least acted as though he respected her, unlike some of the
other men in the RCMP. She shivered at the recollection of that repellent
toad, Henri Clothier. Meg also recalled how Fraser supported her when
she'd used him as an excuse to escape Clothier. Even when he hadn't
understood her motives, he had tried to help. She knew that was when she
started to have real feelings for him.	

~ So, you demonstrate your great respect for him by daring him to kiss you
in a public place! Way to go, Meg. The question is, did he kiss you
because you are his commanding office or in spite of it? ~  

Of course the larger question was whether she would be able to figure any
of this out without actually talking to him, since she couldn't conceive
of carrying on such a conversation. She was well and truly stuck.  

She also had to face the fact that she no longer knew how to act around
him. Should she act as Inspector Thatcher RCMP, currently assigned to an
off-site training assignment and reluctantly forced to associate with a
subordinate with whom she felt less than comfortable? OR, should she
continue to act as she had yesterday, as Meg Thatcher, assigned to attend
a training seminar with a valued associate, who together were supposed to
create a new and improved working relationship based on a better
understanding of each other? 

Inspector Thatcher knew how to act: take command of the situation,
maintain business-like protocols and minimize all out of class
interactions. Meg knew that course of action was patently impossible, now.
She couldn't pretend that last night hadn't happened, or at least not
convincingly. But, Meg Thatcher could make sure that she didn't do
anything stupid like that again. She would resist; she would be vigilant
and avoid dangerous situations.  

She could also pray that teleportation would suddenly be possible and that
she could disappear to a mountaintop in Tibet. Otherwise, she'd have to
face him this morning, and she didn't know what in the Hell she was going
to do!!! 

~ There's just no way around it. You are going to have to just gut it
through this morning. I mean, what more could happen? You are on your
guard now. You will not give into these dangerous impulses. You will treat
him with detachment. You can do this. You have had to do harder things in
your life. ~  

She thought the last bordered on extreme delusion. She could not think of
anything in her past that approached the degree of difficulty she seemed
to have in dealing with Benton Fraser. Perhaps, reincarnation was the
explanation. But God only knew what she could have done in a previous life
to merit this kind of emotional confusion.  

 In the long run, she hoped that the intensity of her memories of their
time together in the cable car would gradually erode like a pebble on a
storm tossed beach. Of course, it had taken her months before she stopped
waking up in the middle of the night, shaking with the emotional residue
left by another dream of Fraser kissing her, and that had been after one
measly (compared to last night) kiss on the top of a train! Last night, by
her reckoning, they'd kissed, caressed, sort of fondled each other for
close to 50 minutes!!!	

~ I'll need a lobotomy to erase the memory of last night! Fry my brain
until I have the intellect of a carrot. Anything less and I'll be flashing
back to that cable car every night for the next year. ~ 

Deciding that she'd better get a move on if she wasn't going to get caught
in her bedroom when he came back - cowering like a frightened mouse - she
finally crawled out of bed. However, instead of getting into the shower,
she stepped out onto her balcony. The morning was comfortably cool and she
could try to deny that by 1:00 p.m. she would feel as though she was a
steamed chicken.  

The balcony reached into the trees surrounding the building and for one
moment, she wanted to be able to pretend that she wasn't here; that she
was really at some Caribbean resort, alone and not guilty. Looking down
through the trees, she could see the pool, partially shrouded in the
jungle of trees surrounding it. Someone was swimming. Looking at the
figure in the pool, she somehow knew that it was Fraser. 

She watched him swimming lap after lap, like a machine. The steady rhythm
of his arms cutting the water mesmerized her. She could see his dark head
moving to the side as he took a breath once every five strokes, the smooth
line of his shoulder and back blending into the steady rhythm of his legs
propelling him through the water. The sun glistened on his wet shoulders
and back, making it seem for a moment as if he'd been painted with
diamonds. Tactile memories swept over her. Her whole body seemed to
remember the feel of his shoulders as she ran her hands over them . . .
the tips of her fingers running through the thick silky mass of his hair .
. . the shape of his neck under her palm . . . the contours of his tongue
as it curled around hers. She sagged under the impact of her recollection.


~ A Shower! A long, cold shower. I will feel like a new person after I
have brushed my teeth and taken a shower. All of this will seem like a
dream and I will be able to face my day and Benton Fraser with calm and
detachment. Oh God, what I wouldn't give for a bottle of Prozac! ~  

With a firm air composed of equal parts of commitment and denial, Meg went
to prepare for her day. 

 XOXOXOXOXOXXOXOXOXOX 

Fraser, while not flagellating himself like Meg, was not without concerns
regarding the events of the previous evening. Rosy-fingered Dawn had
clawed her way over the horizon only to find him, once again, staring at
the ceiling mentally wrestling with himself.  

Try as he might, he could not stop thinking about what had happened last
night, about what he had done. . .about what he had done with Meg. . .
about what he really wanted to do with Meg. He lay there in the predawn
darkness, reliving the wild abandon with which he had kissed his
commanding officer. Deep in his heart he knew that he hadn't been kissing
Inspector Thatcher, he had been kissing Meg. The Meg that he was only now
glimpsing. This beautiful woman who was suddenly not only approachable but
also accessible, who he could reach out and touch. And he wanted to touch
her. His problem was that he wanted to touch her a lot, in fact her he
wanted to do a whole lot more than just touch her. Before, he had felt
some inexplicable attraction to her, an attraction that seemed to be
molecular. He realized that was actually quite mild compared to how he
felt about her now. And he had no idea what to do about it. 

Until now, he had never felt that his heightened sensory sensitivity was a
problem. He could marshal his ability to see, hear, taste, smell and touch
as needed and dismiss those abilities pretty much at will. In bed this
morning, however, the full sensory load from last night surfaced like
Godzilla in the Tokyo surf and would not be ignored. Lying there in the
quiet of the morning, he once more experienced the sensation of the
rose-petal softness of her lips first on his lips, then moving to discover
his ear, her teeth biting his earlobe as gently as Diefenbaker might hold
a child's wrist in his mouth.  

Determined to resist the temptation to remember all of the vivid details -
and failing miserably, Ben once more felt her body pressed against his,
the weight of her on his lap, pressing against him in the most amazing
ways. Trying to blank out the recollections, he turned on his side to
stare out the window. It was no help, he could still hear the small soft
moans that escaped from deep in her throat as he held her tightly and
kissed her until he felt dizzy with oxygen depletion. He still tasted her
on his lips, and worse yet, he craved her even more.  

Groaning, he realized that once again, the intensity of his memories had
aroused him to the point where he could not lie still any longer or he
would go absolutely crazy with wanting her! 

~ Exercise! That's what I need to do. I'm just loosing my edge because of
the environmental conditions and lack of exercise. Swimming! I'll swim
before breakfast and clear out my sinuses and all of this will be put back
in appropriate perspective once more. And you will be able to be in the
same room with her and will be able to resist running your fingertips down
the curve of her neck, to once more experience how her head turns toward
you and her shoulder curves into your touch. Oh, God . . . .~  

Having adopted a strategy for dealing with what he now decided was a
runaway libido, Fraser leaped out of bed and got ready to exhaust himself.


Unable to detect any movement from Meg's room, he left as soon as he'd
showered and shaved. Just to make sure, (that he wasn't disturbing her he
told himself) he stood for five minutes with his ear pressed to the wall
in his bathroom, trying to detect any sound from her room. Other than what
he thought might be faint moans, he'd been unable to identify any sounds
of her moving around. Taking advantage of the fact that she still seemed
to be sleeping, he'd bolted for the relative inaccessibility of the
swimming pool. 

~ I am not actually avoiding her. Rather, I am choosing to exercise the
option of partaking of the swimming facilities at the earliest available
hour. ~ He told himself as he trotted down the path to the pool. 

Actually, he was more than a little concerned about how she'd feel toward
him this morning. Depending on her frame of mind, she might decide to act
as if nothing had happened (Option A) or she might try to bulldoze him
into denying that anything had happened (Option B).  

From Fraser's observation, primarily based on their 'contact' on the
train, Meg tended to try to deny any personal action she took which could
jeopardize her feeling of security. It wasn't that she was irresponsible.
Rather, she seemed to fear exposing her feelings to others. In the more
than two years that they had worked together, Fraser had repeatedly
observed that she would take one step forward in opening up with him, and
then immediately take two steps back, trying to shut the door as quickly
as she could. 

While Option A was unfortunate and tended to be discouraging, Option B was
far worse. With Option B, Meg usually reverted to the more dominating
aspects of her personality. While she was able to exercise those behaviors
quite effectively while on duty at the consulate, it would be extremely
unfortunate should she revert to them in this situation. Fraser hoped that
she was not so unnerved by the events of the previous evening that she
went that far. Option B was how he characterized her reaction to the Train
Contact. 

Diving into the cool pool, Fraser started swimming as if he were training
for a marathon. Back and forth, lap after lap, his attention was totally
engaged with pondering the complexities of the situation. It was,
therefore, with a touch of alarm that he noticed a shape floating beside
him in the pool. Stilling his forward motion he looked up to find his
father, contentedly paddling a canoe beside him.  

Today, apparently in keeping with the mood of the moment, he wore some
type of deep purple sports shirt, accompanied by a quite dashing Panama
Planter's hat. Peering more closely at his father's apparel, Fraser
detected what appeared to be dozens of tiny pairs of figures. Closer
inspection revealed Donald Duck running around Daisy Duck who seemed to be
tied to a stake. Benton could not image where his father had come up with
such an image. And, he would absolutely deny the possibility that he was
responsible for how his father looked and when his father appeared, based
on this morning's apparition alone.  

"Good morning, son. Lovely morning for a swim. Glad to see you are getting
some exercise. You know, after a certain age men can get a little paunchy.
Need to stay on top of it or you will run into trouble and one day there
will be hell to pay when you go to put on the serge. I've seen it happen
and it can be quite nasty, my oh my, quite a nasty piece of business." The
elder Fraser always knew how to tap into the well springs of uncertainty
bubbly beneath the surface of his son's normally placid disposition. Said
son chose to ignore these observations. 

"So how is this training coming along? I must say, this is quite a change
from two weeks in Churchill for the annual polar bear run. These Yanks
sure do know how to make learning fun."  

His father actually seemed to be beaming this morning, clearly delighted
with some aspect of his universe. Given his current thoughts, Ben was sure
that this delight must emanate from somewhere in the great beyond, since
it was clearly not related to what was going on in his son's life. 

"Dad, what are you doing here?" Fraser had shifted to the backstroke in
order to continue his conversation with is father. He was determined to
keep to his exercise, as well as attempting to forestall any shift toward
certain personal topics. His efforts, as always, were hopelessly
inadequate. It is extraordinarily difficult to out fox a ghost. Robert
Fraser paddled along happily, keeping pace with his son's strokes. 

"Why I'm paddling son, that should be obvious even to you. I am sitting in
a canoe, lifting this paddle in and out of the water in order to move
forward." And here he demonstrated this maneuver, amazed that it was
needed. 

"No, I mean here in Florida. Why are you here, right now?"  

"Ah, well, that. I haven't a clue. You must have thought of something that
somehow included me, so here I am. Nothing better to do, except of course
cleaning that caribou. Can't stay too long, you know how they tend to get
when left out in the sun. I must say, it is extremely fortunate that there
are no caribou around here. It would be virtually impossible to get the
animal gutted before it would start decomposing in this heat. The vultures
would have a field day. I suppose that's why they migrated north. This
heat is quite incredible. Perhaps you think that the heat explains last
night, eh?" 

Fraser was sufficiently shocked at his father's question to lose his
rhythm, resulting in an embarrassing flailing of arms and legs and gulping
of significant quantities of highly chlorinated water. Struggling to
regain his equilibrium, the younger man chose to take a break at this
point and swung himself up on the side of the pool. Tilting his head, he
proceeded to bang his hand against his ear, hoping by some strange miracle
that this procedure would make his father leave. While it did clear his
ears, it had no effect on the unwanted presence. 

"I don't think we need to discuss last night, Dad. I cannot think of any
context in which the events of last evening concern you." Fraser wanted
desperately to avoid any discussion of last night with his father and,
come to think of it, with anybody else, either. Right now, Option A was
looking very attractive all the way around. 

"Ah, a little edgy are we. Well, I can understand that, son. I know I
encouraged you to go after your girl. But really, trapping her in a
gondola suspended above an amusement park! Good God, Benton, don't you
think that was a little extreme! Heavens, son, I'm sure she would have
kissed you at some point along the line, you needn't have gone to such
lengths to have your way with her!"  

Having appropriately scolded his son, Robert Fraser proceeded to step from
the canoe onto the side of the pool.  

"I did not, as you so quaintly put it, 'have my way with her'. It was
merely a unique set of circumstances." Ben racked his brains to think of
another place he could go to be alone and think. Then he realized that
escape from his father was impossible. Instead, bowing to the inevitable,
he decided that perhaps it would help to have a sounding board. He chose
for the moment to forget that most of the previous discussions of his love
life that he had held with his father had tended to end in frustration and
confusion.  

"Well, if you didn't have your way with her, was it because she wasn't
interested? Or was it because you. . . ." Here his father appeared to
think that waving his hand around the horizontal plane of the ecliptic and
wiggling his shoulders was some meaningful form of communication. 

"I don't know what you mean by -" and here Benton imitated his father's
strange combination of gestures. "But it was not a case of failure so much
as a recognition that there are times and places for everything, and we
had run out of time and that was not the place to continue --- ." Since
the apple does not necessarily fall very far from the tree, Benton too
appeared to think some strange combination of hand gestures was effective
communication. Regardless of how it might appear to mere mortals, Father
and Son seemed to understand each other. 

"Ah, of course. Well, that puts everything in a different light. I must
say, however, I thought that was a very fine spot for an assignation, if I
do say so. I particularly liked the way the fireworks seemed to glow
behind your heads, not that you paid any notice. You really must try to
pay attention next time you are at one of the parks at night. The laser
lights are quite stunning. Not the Aurora Borealis, mind you, but quite
attractive nonetheless". 

Ben didn't quite know how to react to the knowledge that his father had
been observing them.  

"In the future, could you forgo your voyeuristic proclivities?" Ben
requested as he watched his father lift the canoe out of the water in a
single smooth movement and lean the dripping vessel against the life guard
platform. 

"I was merely reconnoitering the area to determine if you and your
Margaret were safe. Gondolas can be damn dangerous. Why I remember the
time Buck and I were ---"  

"Don't! Don't remember and don't talk about when you and Buck were stuck
somewhere. I really would rather not hear about that right now. And
another thing - as I have told you before - she is not 'My Margaret'! She
is her own person. I have no desire to own her, as that term would tend to
indicate."  

Ben picked up his towel and slinging over his shoulders he started walking
down one of the paths that snaked around the swimming area. His father
shrugged and proceeded to follow. Benton could get huffy just like
Caroline had on occasion. Robert recalled that there was usually something
behind the huffiness, so he must be close to pay dirt. 

He hadn't meant to intrude on his son, he had come upon them somewhat
unexpectedly. However, once there, he had decided to observe quietly, to
see where things would lead, so to speak. Perching on the bench recently
vacated by Benton, Robert was frankly quite surprised that his son failed
to notice him. Benton, to give him credit, seemed to be completely
engrossed in the situation at hand. The older man had to admit that he had
blushed a little when he had actually figured out where all of those hands
were. The lighting was poor and visibility was impaired, but once the
fireworks started, well there had certainly been more going on then just
red, white and blue starbursts. He was pleased that Benton was finally
showing his feelings for Margaret. Robert also thought that Margaret was a
fine figure of a woman, but he felt that out of concern for his son's
sense of propriety, he would forego making that observation. 

"Ah, well, son. Perhaps own is too strong a word. Perhaps possess, or
have, or there's that new term that I hear empower. I don't really
understand what they mean by that, but perhaps that's what you want - to
be empowered. I like the ring of that."  

Fraser turned to stare at his father, as the older man seemed to test the
way the word rolled off the tongue, noting the added gesture of the right
hook. Ben had no idea what tangent the man was on, but hoped that it would
take him back to his butchered caribou. Shaking his head he tried to
ignore his father as the two continued down the path. 

"Regardless of all that, you are going to have to woo your Margaret in
order to get her, if that's what you want. And from what I can see, you
have your task cut out for yourself."  

"WOO! Dad, men don't woo women anymore. I'm not even sure what the word
means in today's parlance. Did you woo Mother?"  

Ben had always been a little curious about how his father had actually
gotten his mother to marry him. Since his father insisted on having these
little chats, Ben thought it might be useful opportunity to get some of
his questions answered.  

"Ah, well, humph. Times were different then, son. Although I do recall
your mother liked bittersweet orange peels." Robert smiled fondly at the
recollection. Turning once more to his son, he continued to impart the
wisdom of the ages. 

"I remember it as if it were yesterday. I had to convince your mother that
marrying me was worth the risk. Her parents were dead set against it, mind
you. They thought she should marry someone better. She had to stand
against her own people when she went with me. It was no easy thing,
especially when she found out some of the places where we could be
assigned. It was very hard on her and I loved her dearly for putting up
with it." The memory danced through his thoughts as he remembered their
early struggles as a young couple in the Yukon. 

"I think the trick was to get your mother to see me as a man, not a
Mountie. Of course, you could also just view your Margaret as a target to
be hunted down and brought in. As you said, she does have a mind of her
own. You might want to view her as a friendly fugitive. I seem to recall
you saying one time that you never give up. Now might be a good time to
think along those lines."  

Robert having said his piece, proceeded down the tangential path of his
memories, recalling to himself - 

"All in all it finally came down to a single shot. It was a near thing as
to who your mother would marry. Why if I hadn't been lucky that day, your
father could have been Buck Frobisher. Yes, a very near thing. Why I don't
know what your mother would have done if we'd told her that Buck had won
the shot. She might have been quite upset with me. And your mother had
quite a temper when she got upset. My oh my, I remember . . . . " and so
he wandered off, for now. 

Perhaps his father had a point. Perseverance could be applied to a number
of situations. . . . 

 XOXOXOXOXOXOXOX 

 Fishing his key out of the velcroed pocket of his trunks, Ben quietly
opened the door to the apartment, unsure of what lay beyond. Anger, fear,
rejection? Whistling! 

Stepping fully inside, he discovered Meg Thatcher standing at the sink,
whistling to herself as she washed the apples and grapes they had
purchased their first night in town. Without turning around she proceeded
to place them in the bowl she'd set out for that purpose. He stood for a
moment, captivated by her. The early morning sun beaming in through the
window over the sink caught the mahogany highlights of her hair, held back
today in a yellow headband. The deep yellow slacks and a softly tailored
matching flowered blouse reminded him of a garden full of tulips. As
always, she looked beautiful even before she turned around. 

"Good Morning. We can eat whenever you're ready. I just ---" She turned to
put the bowl on the table and seemed to choke for a moment staring at him,
her eyes huge, her mouth slightly ajar. 

"I'll be ready in a moment. Let me just go and get on some clothes." She
nodded mutely.	

Smiling and mentally crossing his fingers he headed for his bedroom
anxious to keep moving should the wind suddenly change. 

~ Alright, alright, you did pretty well there, Meg. It was just a little
stumble. You weren't expecting to turn around and find him standing there
practically naked. Okay, so he did look awfully good, with his hair still
damp and curling like that. And yes, he is starting to get a little tan,
so he doesn't look like he's lived in a cave all of his life. Just
remember friendly neutrality. You can do it. You are a Mountie! ~ The only
problem was that her hands seemed to have an independent need to have
first hand knowledge of the expanses of skin she had just glimpsed. 

"Idle hands are the devil's playthings." She muttered to herself, dredging
up this truism from some dank hole in her memory.  

Turning back to the sink, she finished putting the cinnamon buns in the
toaster oven to warm. Juice, tea, buns and fruit - breakfast without fire.
It could be done and she could do it! Feeling better with her contribution
to their continued sustainment, Meg looked around for something to keep
herself occupied until Fraser emerged from his bedroom. 

~ Do not think about him dressing in there. Do not imagine him pulling a
shirt over his head, or combing his hair. There is a world of information
out there. Find it!!! ~  

If she had been alone, she would have had CNN going nonstop, falling
asleep to it at night after having turned her brain to pudding watching
the all Romance movie channel. That was the way she operated when she was
alone. Somehow, she just couldn't imagine turning the television on around
Benton Fraser. There was something about him that just didn't seem to fit
with the jangling glare of modern media.  

Finally, her eye settled on the model of the Parliament Building. Sitting
down at the coffee table she took out of the box what looked like hundreds
of model pieces and 5 pages of diagrams. Putting on her glasses, she
studied the intricate assembly directions. She was still doing this when
she felt a presence. Surprised, she almost jumped through her skin.  

"How does it look? Do you think we will have any difficulty assembling
it?"  

Ben asked quietly. He didn't attempt to get any closer to her, standing
instead on the other side of the coffee table. He still wasn't sure how to
read her mood. She was not reacting as he had come to expect. Once more,
she was surprising him. For a person that relied on his ability to
interpret people's actions, this was all very disconcerting.  

He'd come out of the bedroom to see the breakfast table already set and
Meg sitting on the couch studying the diagrams. He was glad that she had
given up trying to pretend that she didn't wear glasses. Although she
would have scoffed, he thought she look just as attractive with them on as
off. Of course, he had yet to find a situation in which he did not think
she looked beautiful, so perhaps he was not the most critical judge in
these matters. He had, of course, never confessed to her that he found her
beautiful. It would have been most inappropriate.  

"Oh I think we can do it, but we may have terminal eyestrain by the time
we are done. We will probably need to buy some tweezers to hold the
smaller parts. I think we should try to start working on it tonight, if
possible."  

Taking off her glasses, she smiled a little uncertainly at him as she
walked back to the kitchen. She was proud of herself for having been able
to get through these initial interchanges without falling apart, or doing
what she typically did when she was uncomfortable with Fraser - going into
hostile denial. Perhaps they would be able to get away with pretending
that nothing had happened the previous night. They were adults, this could
work if both were willing to entertain a certain degree of self deception.


"As I recall from the schedule, I believe we have an evening event
tonight, the "All American Barbecue."  

"I'm not sure I am ready to consider what that might entail. " She said
with a grimace.  

Following Meg into the kitchen, Ben too, was beginning to think that they
might get through this morning without running into any rapids. It
appeared that she was adopting a modified Option A response - pretend
nothing had happened without being obvious about it. Although some part of
him did want to pursue the issue, he was determined to let her set the
pace of their interactions. 

Everything would have probably worked as they intended if it weren't for
the rug. Ben and Meg had each headed to the sink to get one last item for
breakfast. She headed for the toaster oven to get the cinnamon buns she'd
left to warm. He went for a glass of water. Preoccupied with thoughts of
avoidance and denial, each lost track of where the other was in the small
area. (They were both more than a little distracted, each obsessing on
acting normal. If only they could figure out what that was . . . .) 

Turning at the same time, they discovered that they were within inches of
each other. The scatter rug on which they both stood shifted and twisted
under them as they dodged out of each other's way. Meg tried to save the
buns while Ben reached for her, trying to forestall her crashing into him.
Water flew in one direction, buns in the other.  

"Oh Dear!" They said in unison. 

Suddenly, Meg found herself once more in the solid embrace of Benton
Fraser. Snuggled up close to his chest, his arms wrapped securely around
her; her arms draped over his shoulders, with the plate still held in her
hand. All they could do was stare at each other, unprepared to find
themselves in such intimate contact after their individual struggles of
the morning. For a moment, it seemed as though the world stopped, their
faces inches from each other. 

She could feel his heart pounding through the thin layers of their
clothing. Déjà vu flashing through her brain, Meg was swept back to the
time when they were handcuffed together. They had stood then as they stood
now, their arms wrapped around each other, each trying not to respond to
the proximity of each other. Only before, they hadn't kissed even once.
They hadn't experienced the electric intensity discovered the previous
evening. Now, the thin veneer of restraint was threadbare.  

Meg's eyes were huge with surprise and something else Ben couldn't name.
Ben found himself drawn into them like deep chocolate whirlpools,
fascinated as she briefly chewed her lip, a habit she had when she was
unsure of herself. He doubted she knew what that told him, but it
communicated a lot. Now, he was surprised to discover how petite she felt
in his arms. He had held her like this on the train but the circumstances
had been so distracting that he hadn't registered all he was able to sense
now. Then it had been her scent. Last night it had been the feel of her
hair in his hands, thick masses of soft hair that sent tingles all through
him as it brushed against his skin. Now it was the shape and size of her
body. Before he knew how to stop, he felt himself respond to her nearness,
to the presence of her body pressed against his. 

She could feel the heat radiating off him like a manhole cover in the
center of Main Street at noon. She could feel other things, too. Meg
realized that his quick reflexes did not stop with his hands, he responded
quite rapidly to a variety of situations. She swallowed audibly,
desperately trying to gather her wits, which seemed to be dribbling away
like marbles. She was torn with knowing that she should extricate herself
from his embrace, and wanting nothing more than to press her body against
his to feel him respond even more than she was feeling right now. She was
losing herself in the thought of feeling his lips once more . . . . 

Ben held is breath. He didn't want to let her go, but if he didn't and
soon something would happen. He was trying to breathe normally, but had
forgotten how. 

Finally, she summoned the shreds of thought and was able to piece together
something to say. 

"We should . . . ." Gone. The thought left her head as she stared into Ben
eyes, now the deep blue of the ocean. Meg was floating away on those eyes.
Did the warmth of his body have some strange effect on her intellectual
processes? She could feel his breath on her face, his hand moving up her
back. All she could think of was how he had kissed her last night. Showers
of gentle kisses all down her neck, caressing her head as he was doing
now. She felt dizzy and a little weak in the knees. Her heart was
pounding. She could feel her hands shaking with reaction to being this
close to him.  

"We should . . . ." He, repeated, and also lost all contact with the rest
of the sentence. He knew logically that he should try to change the
direction of whatever was happening. The thing was, Ben just couldn't
think of any place he would rather be at the moment. Without thinking
about it, his hand reached up to cup her head, once more captured by the
sensation of her hair brushing across his skin. All he could think about
was kissing her, right here, right now. Kissing her until she knew that
making love was the only thing left for them. He was besotted and he
didn't care. He barely realized that his had was bending toward hers,
ready to capture those lips once more. 

They probably would still be there, locked in an embrace, balanced like a
gyroscope on a glass rim. Or their concerned classmates could have found
them sometime later, awash in a pool of passion on the kitchen floor. It
was Meg's loss of muscle control that turned the tide and saved them from
their rampaging drives.  

Focused as she was on the feel of his arms around her, the way an errant
sunbeam illuminated the depths of his eyes, the warmth of his body pulsing
against hers, the memory of his kisses which had stolen her reason last
night and would surely do it again if his lips were to touch hers for the
barest fraction of a moment . . . she forgot about the dinner plate that
she was holding. It was, therefore, something of a shock to both of them
when she dropped it. 

"Sorry." 

"Pardon me." 

They stood for a moment more, trapped in the mutual realization that they
did not want to move. Finally, reluctantly, they tore themselves out of
each other's arms. Thinking with what seemed to be a single mind, they
both stooped to pick up the pieces of the shattered plate. This was more
than a little dangerous since both of them were shaking like birches in a
spring breeze. Adrenaline surges will do that to you. Add sleep
deprivation and emotional overloads, and it is a wonder that either of
them avoided slicing an artery with a chunk of ironstone. 

Finally, the intrepid pair were able to sit down together to eat. They
were too worn out by the emotional slalom course they had already traveled
since waking to be tense with each other. In that regard, the events of
the morning had probably been constructive.  

On the other had, such a workout does not set one up very well for the
rest of the day.