Author: Lilith (aka neversaynever)
Email: fairiesbite@yahoo.com
Character/Pairing: implied Fraser/Vecchio, Fraser/Kowalski
Summary: Set after “Call of the Wild.” Fraser remembers Ray.
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: If they belonged to me, well, Vecchio wouldn’t have been brushed
aside like that, and . . . ah, but these are pipe dreams. They don’t. Belong
to me, that is.
Distribution: ffn(?), ds_notebook, my site. If anyone else wants it, ask.
Notes: Shares its title with a bittersweet little A. E. Housman poem, reproduced
below. Be warned: here there be quite a bit of sentimentality. (More
rambling author's notes at the bottom.)
Stars, I Have Seen Them Fall
*****
Stars, I have seen them fall,
But when they drop and die
No star is lost at all
From all the star-sown sky.
The toil of all that be
Helps not the primal fault
It rains into the sea
And still the sea is salt.
-A. E. Housman, 1936
*****
Paper crinkled softly between Benton
Fraser’s gloved fingertips. He stamped a booted foot against the snowy ground to
keep his circulation going, and gazed up at the northern sky, his breath misting
in the icy nighttime air.
Far above him stretched a breathtaking panorama of twinkling lights, extending
on seemingly until forever. They were so very clear in the uncontaminated
atmosphere that it almost seemed possible to cut oneself on a ray of starlight,
filtered down to an edge between the boughs of the nearby trees. Fraser closed
his eyes for a moment and just breathed, savoring the long-missed feeling of
Home.
In the heart of the city, you could never see the stars. The empty sky, hazy and
soiled by countless pollutants, had always weighed heavily on Fraser's spirits.
Though he tried to make the best of the situation, it often felt as though he
was being strangled, slowly. He would gaze upwards and feel the consummate
exile, stranded in a vast wasteland of pervasive . . . wrongness. Yes, every bit
that melodramatic.
Or at least, he had been. For nearly the entirety of his first year in Chicago.
Not long after he and Ray Vecchio ("the real Ray Vecchio," a familiar
voice intoned in the back of his mind) had returned from their rather eventful
"vacation" up North, he had had another bout of melancholy. It had, in fact,
been the night that Inspector Thatcher had "fired" him, and he was feeling more
than discouraged. Pinned down yet again by the complicated problems of the urban
world to which he did not belong, he had pined for the clear, starry skies and
unmarred natural beauty that he had recently tasted once more, if fleetingly.
He might have something more to offer these people, but what had they to offer
him in return? Such self-centered thoughts only bothered him further, as they
proved that he still wasn't feeling quite like himself.
Unable to sleep under the roof of his dilapidated apartment complex, he'd
wandered the streets of Chicago for awhile, only to come home to home to find
his partner waiting for him by his apartment door. Apparently Ray had been
driving on an errand for his sister when he'd seen Fraser's despondent form
passing on a nearby sidewalk, and had decided to see if he couldn't cheer him
up. Fraser had tried to bluster his way past Ray's concern, thinking that the
man had already dealt with more than his share of Mountie mood swings. However,
one look into the other's eyes had told him that for once, the Italian was not
to be budged by love nor money. So he had thanked Ray kindly, and asked what his
friend had in mind.
Apparently Fraser had mentioned something about his discomfort with the urban
sky earlier that day; he didn't remember doing so precisely, but Ray seemed to
know. Fraser was surprised enough that his friend would have remembered a
comment like that; it was remarkably considerate of him. Not that Ray wasn't
considerate: he simply didn't always pay such close attention to any one thing.
So as it turned out, Ray had the tallest building in the world on his mind that
night. Fraser's eyebrows had shot up as the Riv pulled up to the curb beside the
Sears Tower, which was clearly closed: it was quite late by that time, nearly
midnight in fact. However, a few words with the security guard and his friend
was leading him, actually taking him by the hand and leading him down some
stairs and through an empty waiting area to the elevator. Apparently one of
Ray's "inside contacts" had actually panned out for once. Granted, this wasn 't
some crucial turning point in a case, nor would it save Diefenbaker from an
undeserved death, but it was still a minor miracle.
Refusing to answer any of Fraser's somewhat consternated inquiries, Ray had
pressed some buttons and then they were rising up, up, up. One hundred and ten
stories up. Fraser, used to heights from his time spent in the mountains,
adjusted to the rising altitude relatively well, and though Ray obviously
suffered some discomfort, he overcame it without a word. His eyes were fixed
straight in front of him; his face a mask of a determination unlike any emotion
Fraser had seen sitting on those features previously.
At last, with a little ding, the elevator doors had slid open. Ray strode
out, and Fraser followed him onto the darkened viewing deck. They reached the
railing and looked out over the city. Fraser stared.
Though it wasn't by any stretch as clear a night as one might have expected in
the Territories, the visibility had been particularly good for Chicago. Far
below where they stood, two tiny men alone in a dark glass room, the city
stretched out. No longer the ugly, dirty, noisy mess that Fraser regarded it as
in his less enthusiastic moments, Chicago had been transformed into a dazzling
blanket of many individual lights, studding each building and street like tiny
diamonds. Fraser stood transfixed as he watched the colorful sparkle of lights
on the Navy Pier Ferris Wheel turning in the distance--and the little glimmering
headlights moving to and fro along Lakeshore drive--utterly breathless with awe.
He had never suspected the city of concealing such a beautiful secret.
He had of course realized that there were lights; he'd seen pieces of the
skyline from his window, or when he was out on a nighttime jaunt with Ray. What
he'd never known was that once one pulled back a little, it became obvious that
the stars weren't so much absent from Chicago . . . as they were too close to
home for the eye to encompass.
After a few long, still moments of just standing by Fraser's side, his arms
braced against the railing, Ray had turned his gaze from the stunning vista of
Chicago at night to throw his Mountie friend a suddenly anxious look. "Well . .
. d'you like it, Benny?" His voice had been pitched low, tentative.
Fraser had given a rapt nod, and all at once had turned and enveloped his friend
in a bone-crushing hug. He had missed the stars, so Ray had given them back to
him in a whole new way. He couldn't find the words to express his appreciation
for such a gift, so unexpected and sweet that it stole his breath away.
Fortunately, no words were needed; Ray had returned the gesture in affectionate
kind, after just a split-second of tension.
After they broke apart, the two men had stayed there for a long time in
companionable silence, feeling as though they stood, all alone together, at the
very top of the world.
--with a start, Fraser came back to himself. He wasn't standing atop a sky
scraper anymore: instead, he was in the middle of a large clearing in a much
larger Canadian forest, gazing up at a universe that now seemed to eclipse
entirely any feeble imitation by the modern world. It had been a long couple of
years since he and his former partner had shared that space in the sky. However,
the magic of the memory was still with him. Noticing that one of his cheeks was
a little damp, he removed a glove, touching his finger first to his face and
then to his tongue in his methodical way. He'd thought it would be a stray
snowflake, but wasn't terribly surprised to find that it tasted of salt.
Fraser smiled to himself. He'd almost expected that when he at last returned,
the stars and forests of the north would appear as different from before as he
himself now did inside . . . but, everything looked just the way it always had.
He reflected that the situation in Chicago was probably quite similar: the
absence of Constable Benton Fraser, RCMP, would hardly have made much of a
difference to that far-away galaxy of twinkling, artificial lights and
multitudinous humanity. Nor for that matter would the retirement and likely
departure of former Detective First-Class Raymond Vecchio, who had once graced
its streets with a loyal, deeply principled core masked by his loud, blustery
Italian bravado. Small, incidental elements such as individual people could come
and go, changing as drastically as they would: the overall landscape would
always remain essentially the same, whether urban or wilderness.
But those incidental people could make a difference to each other, and shake the
inner landscapes that they carried around within themselves. Whole
constellations could be altered by a single person, and possibly for worse--but
almost definitely for better--Fraser's own entire night sky looked as different
now from the way it once had, as the one above him looked the same as ever.
Paper crinkled softly between his bare fingertips, growing cold now without
protection. Just then, the door of the cabin some feet behind him creaked open,
spilling warm golden light out onto the snow. The voice of a very different Ray
called out from the comfortable depths of the house, inviting him back to the
hearth and home of their companionship. Calling back an affirmative response,
Fraser shook the last cobwebs of memory from his mind. He smoothed the paper of
the wedding invitation, slightly crumpled in his loose grip, folded it
carefully, and tucked it into his breast pocket. As he turned, he caught sight
of a falling star far off beyond the lazy rise of smoke from the cabin's
chimney. He made a wish, then headed inside, pulling the door shut behind
himself.
*****
Author's Ramblings: Despite the fact that this story is set after the end of the
show, I haven't quite finished the first two seasons yet. I'm a Fraser/Vecchio
'shipper and likely to remain so--I'm very taken with the loudmouthed Italian in
particular--and I've been looking at the approach of the third season (which my
partner in crime fandom, Bastet, and I will probably be
starting in on as soon as it comes out on DVD) with growing consternation. But
after some really silly character angst, I decided that I wanted to be the kind
of Benny/Ray 'shipper that wasn't at total odds with most of the rest of the
fandom. And, I think I'll probably like Kowalski, though it'd be hard to like
another character as much as I like Vecchio. I have a lot of fandoms and a lot
of favorite characters, but for some reason I'm experiencing an unusually strong
level of attachment to him.
I wrote this fic as kind of a cathartic exercise. As such, it's sappy as all
hell, and possibly overwritten, but I thought I'd share. I don't write fic much,
so I ought to make the most of the impulse, when I can. :)
This is where I say: "this isn't my best work." Because it isn't. I haven't
written my best work yet, I think, so I should probably stop saying that.