Fortitude Past
 

 Fortitude Past
  By Katherine Gilbert

   It had been a long week.  What with the North American trade 
conference; a would-be assasin who chose him as an ally; asking
(and achieving) a cup of coffee with his immediate supervisor (an awkard
affair -- they had mostly stared at each other and then
argued over RCMP regulations regarding superior and inferior officers
fraternizing); and several mistakes on his part, Constable Benton Fraser
was only beginning to feel centered again as the week came to its close.
   Fraser had been happy for the few slow days at the consulate
after the conference, and he was now looking forward to 
spending the weekend Thatcher had given him off regathering his 
thoughts.  He only wished, now, that he could find both his hat and
Diefenbaker,
both of whom seemed to have wandered off again.
   Fraser returned to his apartment on Friday evening determined
not to worry about either his hat or Dief -- they both seemed to wander
back when they wanted to -- and hoping to get a bit of
rest.  As he opened his apartment door, however, he knew something was
wrong; he felt it.  "Well, at least some of my senses seem to be
returning,"
he thought.  He closed the door behind him as he 
entered cautiously.

   The room was dark, as he walked in, except for a kerosene lamp he
knew he hadn't left lit.  Then it happened; he saw her.  "Hello, Fraser,"
she said.

   "Victoria" was all he could manage to whisper.  He felt as though
he'd been punched in the stomach.  He fought a sensation of being short
of breath and was unsure whether he should run, physically
restrain her and take her to the police, or take her in his arms
and kiss her passionately.  Unable to decide, he stood there, looking
shellshocked.

   "Nice to know my presumption of your death was greatly exagerrated,"
she said quietly, still sitting on the edge of his bed.
   "How did you get in?" Fraser finally managed to say.  He
knew his attempt to keep on his unemotional mask was failing; he could
feel every emotion of his life showing in his eyes.

   Victoria smiled slightly.  "It wasn't very hard.  It's not like you
have a lock."

   An overwhelming feeling of sadness gripped Fraser.  He wasn't sure
he would even have the strength to continue standing.  "Why are you here?"
He paused, looking at her.  "Have you come to kill me?"

   The beginnings of the smile Victoria had had faded, and she looked
away, upset.  "Is that what you think it was all about?" she asked him.

   Fraser closed his eyes for a second, trying to keep control of himself.
He opened them again, and looked at her.  "Victoria . . .," he began;
even speaking her name was painful.  "I'm not sure I
understand what any of it was about . . . It took me months after you
left before I realized I had a reason to live."  He stopped, deciding
he had probably said too much.

   Victoria looked back at him.  "God, his eyes," she thought.	"I could
get lost forever in them."  Audibly, however, she said, "Don't you think
this conversation would be easier if you sat down?"

   Fraser wanted to say "yes"; all of his strength had fled at the sight
of her, but his self-preservation instincts won out.  "No," he said
simply,
but, after a minute, he decided to lean against the wall, which would
provide some support while still -- hopefully -- allowing him to flee
easily if need be.
   "You never did answer my question," she said.
   "I thought I just did," he replied.

   "Not that one," Victoria went on, "the one I asked you when I came
back to your apartment that first night:  Why did you do it?  How could
you turn me in?"

   Fraser could feel tears building and was praying they wouldn't show.
He looked down at the floor, with his arms folded.  "Do you know how
many times I've asked myself that?" he replied.  "It's . . . it's what
I was trained to do."  He looked back up at her.  "I had only been on
the force a few years, when your plane went down.  My father, my
commanding
officers, everyone told me to just bring in the people who were wanted,
that the trials and punishments weren't my job, that I wasn't the judge
or jury . . . I just did what I was told."

   Victoria was growing angry, while tears began to run down her cheeks.
"Do you even remember?" she cried.  "Do you even remember Fortitude Pass?
What we said . . . what we meant to each other?" 
   Now it was Fraser who was angry.  He wanted to go across to her, but
he knew better.  He planted himself firmly in his corner, while his tears
began to fall.	"*Remember?*" he said angrily.	"How do you think I could
ever forget? . . . I felt you, Victoria. I felt you there in my arms
for years afterward.  I still heard your voice;
it tormented me, as I tried to sleep . . . You took part of me with you,
when you went to prison.  I half wanted to break you out myself, anything
to be with you again."	He paused, shaking his head, and spoke more
softly.
"I could die dozens of time . . . live a hundred lifetimes -- you would
still be with me."  He looked deeply into her eyes with a look which
combined both fierocity and the deepest sort of tenderness.

   Victoria was weeping openly now, though still trying to keep herself
in control.  "Duty isn't good enough," she said finally.  "It's a flimsy
excuse for turning me in."

   "I know that now," he responded, "but I believed then, I really
believed,"
he wiped away his tears with the back of his index finger, "that what
I was doing was right . . . I thought, once they knew your story, and
knew that you had no choice in the robbery, that they would let you go
or give you a much lighter sentence.  I didn't 
expect ten years."

   "But you didn't do anything about it," she said passionately.  "You
just let them put me away.  The last I saw of you before those years
in jail was in that courtroom, letting them handcuff me, just *watching*
while my life was short circuited.  Didn't you care?"
   Fraser took in a deep breath and let it out, as he rolled his
eyes.  "Yes!" he emphasized, "I cared deeply," ("God help me," he thought,
"I still do.") "but I couldn't *do* anything.  I protested. I tried,
but I was just some rookie officer.  I had no standing . . . I'm sorry,"
he continued.  "I'm sorry about everything.  If I had it to do again,
I would let you go.  I would keep you from paying for Jolly's mistakes."

   Victoria wiped her eyes, but then said, "Why did it take you so long
to tell me?"
   Fraser finally cracked a smile and shook his head.  "Well, I 
did tell you at the train station.  Otherwise, I didn't get too much
of a chance, since you were busy setting me up on murder and robbery
charges."  
   "I had to," she responded.
   "Why?" he asked angrily, the smile having faded completely.	
"To make up for the pain I'd caused you by inflicting it on me?  By
turning
the tables? . . . Or," he whispered, "were you just 
so overwhelmed by pain that you decided you should destroy 
me as well as yourself?"
   Victoria shook her head.  "You still don't get it, do you?  I
*loved* you . . . I still do."	She looked at him.
   "You have a strange way of showing it," he replied.

   "No stranger than yours," she said.	"We've both betrayed each other
now."
   "So it was revenge," Fraser said.

   "No!" Victoria said again.  "Fraser, if I hadn't loved you so much,
I wouldn't have spent nine of my years in prison trying to come up with
a plan to get you back, even if it only came together once I got out,
when my sister died. . . If I had come to you after my 
release without the plan, would you have given up everything and left
with me?  Would you have either run for the rest of your life or have
killed Jolly for me?"  She laughed slightly.  "No, you wouldn't have.
The only way I could have you was to make sure that you had nothing to
return to."

   Fraser closed his eyes, hung his head, and said, "Victoria, I'd have
given my soul for you then.  We could have made sure Jolly
kept away from you."  He opened his eyes again and looked at her. "We
could have been together -- forever."

   Victoria laughed.  "Right, I can see it now, you introducing me at
consulate affairs, `This is my wife, Victoria.	I arrested her for armed
robbery once.'	C'mon, Ben, can you really see me spending the rest of
my life sitting around raising kids, waiting for you to get home?"

   "It didn't have to be that way," Fraser replied.  "I wouldn't have
asked you to just sit around -- to suspend yourself to live for me. 
You could have had a life here -- with me."
   "No, no I couldn't, Ben," Victoria said.  "There'd have been 
too many memories always seeing you in that uniform.  I'd have been an
embarrassment.	The only way for us to have been together, the only way
for us to be together, is to go away."

   Reality dawned on Fraser.  "That's why you've returned," he said.
He looked a little frightened.

   "Yes," she paused for a second and began staring at the bedspread.
"Ben, I thought you were dead, when I left.  I was shattered.  My soul
. . . broke. . . I need you," she continued, looking back up at him.
"I decided, when I could think again, to go to a library, to get some
back issues of a Chicago newspaper and read about
your funeral, your death.  I had to see.  I had to know . . . When I'd
been through several weeks worth, and I couldn't find anything about
you, I knew -- I hoped -- you were still alive. . . There's no one else,
Ben.  I don't have any family now; my friends are mostly dead. . . You're
what I've got left."
   Fraser thought for a few minutes.  "God help me," he thought,
"I still want to go with her."	
   "No," Fraser said finally, quietly, looking at the floor.  
"Victoria, how, after all the pain, all the betrayal, all the rage and
distrust, could we possibly live together?"  He then looked up suddenly.
"What have you done this time?	Is it Ray?  Have you set him up again?"
He looked as though he was ready to bolt out the door.

   "No!" Victoria whispered angrily.  "Fraser, this time I haven't got
a plan.  I've just come to ask . . . I'll only hurt you if you try to
turn me in," she said, as she looked at him slightly 
dangerously.  "I just want you," she concluded.

   Fraser didn't know how to respond.  She'd never proven herself
trustworthy
before, but, in a way, neither had he.	He had turned her in for her
part in a crime she was forced to commit after 
spending days feeling closer to her than he'd ever felt to anyone. After
showing her the sort of devotion she'd never seen or felt 
before, he'd turned her in.
   "I won't go with you," Fraser said.

   "I know. . . I can tell. . . I want to be with you, Ben, but I won't
try to force you this time. . . Can't you come any closer to me?  Can't
we salvage anything?" she asked.

   "You pointed a gun at me once, Victoria," Fraser replied, "and you've
pulled the trigger before.  I still love you, . . . but I'd be a fool
to trust you."

   "Search me, then," Victoria insisted.  "Here," she threw him her bag.
"Search it."

   Fraser bent down on one knee to put the bag down and went through
its contents.  There was nothing deadly there.	He looked back up at
her.

   Victoria stood up, took off her coat, and threw it to him.  "Try this
too," she said.  Fraser did -- still nothing.

   Victoria stood with her arms out to her sides.  "Search me," she said.
"I'm not deadly, Fraser.  I didn't come here to continue a pattern."

   Fraser walked over to her cautiously and looked where she had been
sitting on the neatly made bed to check for a weapon -- nothing.  He
turned to her and decided to approach this in his most professional
manner.
He frisked her quickly from behind -- she was clean.
   Victoria put down her arms slowly and turned to him.  "I told
you.  I needed to see you again.  I wanted to see if I could 
convince you to leave with me, but I knew that it might not work. Barring
that," she continued, as she reached up to gently touch
his arm, "I want to spend one last night with you -- one last chance
to be near you before I leave forever."

   Fraser closed his eyes, as he felt her gentle touch on his arm.  More
than anything, he wanted this last night too.  He needed a final chance
to say goodbye, but he was still afraid.
   "Ben," Victoria whispered gently, "I love you." 
   Fraser felt the tears on his cheeks; he opened his eyes.  
"Victoria," he whispered.  He raised his hand up to touch her hair and
gently traced it to where it fell down her back.  Having her so close
again was what he had been wishing for -- and was what he had also prayed
would never happen.
   Victoria moved one hand behind Fraser's back to gently caress
his shoulder and to run her hand down his spine.  With the other, she
stroked his cheek and then kissed away a tear.	She kept her
face close to his, as Fraser put his arms around her and drew her into
his embrace.
   They kissed, gently.  It was different than it had been the 
first time between them.  There was no desperation to their 
passion now, no need to blend the pain of the past into their
gentleness.  The overwhelming emotion which tied into their love now
was a sorrow about the future; they both seemed to be asking for
forgiveness for ruining their chances of happiness together.

   Their kisses continued and deepened.  Fraser's tears mixed with the
sweet taste of each other.
   It was a night both would keep close to their hearts for the
rest of their lives.  They touched each other, kissed each other's bodies
in the way they wished they could for years to come.  In the end, as
they were intertwined, they felt their breath suspend
as they whispered each other's names.  They each felt the other's tears,
caused by the beauty and the pain of knowing what could 
not repeat, flow down their cheeks.
   Fraser fell asleep with Victoria in his arms.  He had never 
wanted this night to come, . . . and he was hoping it would never end.

   When Fraser awoke the next morning, Victoria was gone.  The
apartment looked like it did every other morning, as though
his life had not begun and ended there the night before.
   He had almost convinced himself it was a dream, when he 
went into the kitchen.	There, on the counter, was a postcard
of a snow-covered valley in the Northwest Territories.	On the
back was simply written, "Goodbye."

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

   When Dief returned later that day and climbed through the 
open window, Fraser was lying on his bed, staring at the ceiling. Dief
barked softly at him.
   "Don't ask," Fraser replied.  He wanted to berate himself
for not turning her in, but he couldn't.  There had been too 
much pain there already; all he could hope for was that they 
could both recover now.  If Victoria still needed to receive
justice, and maybe she did, he was convinced that it would
come to her in time.
   He wanted to go see Ray, to talk to him, but Ray would 
*not* have understood.	He would have put out another APB
on her, and the cycle would have started anew.	He couldn't
tell him; he couldn't tell anyone, including, certainly,
his superior officer.
   "I guess I just wasn't meant for a restful weekend," he
sighed.