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icepixieIt's done! It's really, really done! And it's so big I had to split it into two parts! *shock* This has never happened before.
Title: Two Musketeers and a Dead Guy
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
icepixie
Characters/Pairing: Fraser/Thatcher
Rating: PG
Genre: Adventure/Romance/Comedy
Spoilers: Through "Call of the Wild," with particular references to "We Are the Eggmen" and "All the Queen's Horses."
Summary: "You know, it's funny," she said. "I think right now, on this trip, dragging a dead man around the Arctic, is the first time I've felt like myself in...I can't remember how long."
Notes: This fic presumes that the extra few seconds of COTW which aired in Canada are canon. If you don't know what this refers to, you'll find out pretty quickly. ;)
Fans of Northern Exposure will probably recognize the basic premise of this from the third season episode "The Three Amigos." They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, right?
And finally, my research, while thorough, can only go so far. I've never been on a dogsled or in Canada, so take the technical details with a grain of salt. ;)
* * *
1
* * *
Nine days of debriefings, reports, and assorted other paperwork after her arrival back in Ottawa, she was finally released from stuffy Canadian Security Intelligence Service offices into the wider world for a full month's leave. Though the April air was cool, the sun on her face was warm and welcomed as she left the building for what she dearly hoped was the last time.
Her stomach growled, and she realized that at nearly three o'clock, it was well past lunch time. She would find a cafe or sandwich shop, she decided, and then sit down and figure out what she was going to do with herself for the next four weeks. Lost in thought, she turned left, remembering that a deli she'd eaten at several days ago was only a few blocks away.
"Inspector!" a voice called from a few feet away.
Meg stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. Surely it couldn't be... She turned around and found that it was. He stood in front of her, dressed in jeans and a leather jacket that was open to the chilly breeze. Two years, and he looked no different.
She finally got her mouth to work. "Fraser," she said in wonder.
He wore a grin borne of ill-contained excitement. "It's good to see you, ma'am. It's been a long time."
"That it has. What are you doing here?" She winced. Surely she could've phrased that differently. "I mean, I thought you were still in the north..."
"Oh, I am. I mean, I've been stationed in the Northwest Territories for the past thirteen months. Currently I'm on a leave of absence." At least he seemed as flustered as she was.
"So you came to Ottawa?" That was weird. Personally, the last time she'd been assigned to the capitol, she'd gotten away from it every time she had longer than a weekend off. She couldn't imagine why Fraser would be there.
"I had an acquaintance in the CSIS notify me when you'd returned to the country. I have...something I need to discuss with you."
Her heart fluttered for just a moment. "What is it?"
He looked as if he were steeling himself against confrontation. "Something that will take a while to explain. Perhaps we could talk over lunch?"
Thoroughly intrigued now, she agreed.
* * *
Ten minutes later, they were ensconced in a booth in the deli Meg had been thinking of, sandwiches and cups of soup before them. She sipped the chicken noodle from her spoon gratefully. "It's been a while since I've been anywhere where it's not too hot for soup," she commented.
"Ah," he said. "I'd heard you were in the Middle East, but of course no one could tell me exactly where."
She paused, her sandwich halfway to her mouth. "You asked?"
The faintest blush shaded his cheeks. "When I came to Ottawa for reinstatement after Ray and I returned from our expedition, I inquired if you were in the area. That was when I learned of your reassignment to the intelligence service."
"I see." Meg contemplated the table linoleum for a moment. "Did you find it? The Hand of Franklin, I mean. The reaching-out one."
He shrugged. "Not exactly."
"Ah."
Uneasy silence descended over their table, broken only by the sipping of soup. Every interaction between them had always been so strained, Meg reflected, except for those times when they were working together to catch a criminal. She supposed she hadn't exactly started them off on the best foot, firing him on his first day back and all, but she had so desperately wanted to do a good job, a *competent* job, at that posting, and at the time it seemed impossible for his quirks and his almost-but-not-quite-insubordination to do anything but get in her way.
Well, perhaps this was a chance to make things a bit easier between them. She flashed a genuine, interested smile, and asked, "So, what's this all about?"
Fraser pulled several folded pieces of paper from his pocket and smoothed them out on the table. They were covered in typed text. She couldn't read it; not only was it upside down from her perspective, but she wasn't wearing her reading glasses.
"I don't imagine you've heard," he said. "Sergeant Frobisher passed away two weeks ago. Food poisoning."
She nearly dropped her spoon. "Oh, God. I'm--I'm so sorry." She almost started to reach for his hand, and then thought better of it, placing her hand in her lap, where she began to twist her napkin into an ever-smaller wad. "I know you were close to him."
He nodded, his lips a tight line. "More my father and he, but yes, I'd known him all my life." He smoothed out the papers again. "The sergeant had an...unusual request in his will." Meg noticed that Fraser looked almost nervous. "He requested that he be buried at Nameless Point, which is a considerable distance from, well, just about anywhere, really, and certainly from any sort of population center in the Territories. He also specified that I should be the one to bury him there."
Meg furrowed her brow. "That all seems...remarkably like Sergeant Frobisher. But I'm afraid I don't see how it concerns me."
Fraser definitely looked nervous. "He specifically requested that you come with me, ma'am."
She blinked. And then again, trying to process that sentence. "Me?"
"Yes, ma'am."
Images of that horrible four hours in a dogsled while they were chasing after Muldoon flashed before her eyes. It had been cold, and windy, and she could feel every bump in the ice, and every bit of snow that came flying up from under the dogs' paws seemed to catch her right in the face. She had tried mightily to excise that memory from her brain, but apparently it had remained.
"*Why*?"
He shrugged. "I'm not quite sure, sir. You must have made an impression on him when you worked together to capture Muldoon, and...on the train."
Ah, yes. The train. That also brought up things she didn't want to think about, but for an entirely different reason. She cleared her throat. "He was quite clear that he wanted me to go with you?"
Ben pushed the papers over to her. "Just there." He pointed at a line of text. She squinted, and could just make out the "I wish him to be accompanied by Inspector Margaret Thatcher, should she be available."
That was that. Meg groaned. "How far is this place from the nearest town?"
The only visible sign of surprise Fraser showed was a slight widening of his eyes. "It's approximately six days from my current posting by sled. Fewer coming back, of course, without the body."
She groaned again. "How do I let myself be dragged into these things?" she murmured.
She hadn't meant for him to hear her, but of course his bat-like auditory sense had picked it up. "I'm sure Sergeant Frobisher would have understood, ma'am, that you've just returned to the country and--"
"No, I'm not trying to avoid it," she interrupted. *Although now I wish Mowbrey had waited just a few more weeks to rat me out,* she couldn't help thinking. "I can't very well refuse a dead man's last request."
"I suppose not, sir." He wore the tiniest of smiles on his face. Only because he was Fraser could she be sure that he wasn't laughing at her.
Resigning herself to the concept of spending half of her leave behind a team of dogs, Meg said, "When do we leave?"
"There's a flight out tomorrow morning at seven."
*Oh, God.* "I'll be there."
* * *
2
* * *
The early flight to Edmonton was sparsely populated and quiet except for the thrum of the jet engines. It was a cramped commuter plane; Meg had taken the window seat to allow Ben a little more room in the aisle for his longer legs.
She had forgotten how *solid* his presence was. Even while she was looking out the window and could see him only in her peripheral vision, she could feel him next to her, though he was careful to always keep his leg and arm a proper distance from hers despite the packed conditions.
There had been few such people over the past two years. In the political circles she had moved in while she was in Iraq, people lived or died, often literally, by how quickly they could change their opinions and morals. Sometimes even when they had said and done the right things, they might still suddenly disappear overnight.
She'd had to spin her own lies as well; in that, it wasn't completely different from her work at the consulate. The pressure was, though. The constant tension of hiding her true identity had been the cause of more gray hairs than she was willing to admit. Add to that the knowledge that any wrong word or move on her part might endanger not only her life but those of other operatives in the area, and, well, she'd really wished for someone like Fraser to be with her.
Fraser, who never told a lie, although he did know to the millimeter how finely a hair could be split. Fraser, who could always be depended on to be punctual, and to have all his paperwork completed before the deadline--barring, of course, extenuating circumstances. Usually brought about by association with one of those American detectives. Fraser, whose unwavering dedication to justice truly was a model of policemanship. Fraser, who had kissed her goodbye in the barren wilderness they were now heading to, and whom she had thought she'd never see again.
She'd missed him more than she'd realized. A sudden longing for the Chicago consulate pricked at her mind. She stared out the window at the grid of farm fields passing underneath them.
Somewhere over Manitoba, she heard him say, "Inspector?"
She turned to him, feeling slightly irritated. She hadn't been an Inspector for two years, and she wasn't going to have the term used as a continual reminder of the uncomfortable distance between them. "Fraser, I'm still technically a member of the CSIS, not the RCMP, at least until the middle of next month. And we are going to be spending a lot of time with each other. 'Meg' will do."
He was completely still for a moment. Then he nodded once. "If you'll call me Ben," he replied.
"All right...Ben." That felt weird. That was weird. She had used that shortened form of his given name only once, when she was trying to get Henri Cloutier off her back.
And that was yet another thing she didn't want to dwell on. "What were you going to say?" she asked.
There was that familiar deer-in-headlights expression. "I've forgotten," he said.
"Oh." They looked away from each other. *Damn,* Meg thought. She'd only made things more awkward between them. Two weeks suddenly seemed interminable.
* * *
At Edmonton, they switched to a bush plane headed for Hay River, then one to Fort MacRae, where Fraser was posted. It was another twenty kilometers by snowmobile to his actual home, which Meg was unsurprised to see was a cabin on a mountainside near a stand of hemlock. Their branches were heavy with snow, and the roof of the cabin was covered in a thick layer of it. The only manmade object to be seen against the granite backdrop of the mountains, it was, she thought, unutterably lonely.
They had shared one machine on the way over, Meg sitting behind Ben with her arms wrapped around his middle for balance...just as she had ridden behind him on the horse after they had foiled Randall Bolt's attempt to take over the train carrying the Musical Ride. Would *everything* remind her of things she had tried to drive from her mind? she thought irritably. In Iraq, she'd gone months without thinking of him, almost the whole of the previous year, in fact. Surely she could get through this without constantly recalling the few, admittedly treasured, moments of, well, "contact" between them at every possible instance.
After all, she was a Mountie.
She followed Ben up the steps onto the tiny, sheltered porch. He opened the door--typically, it had been left unlocked--and motioned for her to precede him. She stepped into his home, wondering what she might find.
Like the exterior, the rooms of the cabin were neat and tidy. The front door opened into a large living area, with a small kitchen at the rear. Down a short hallway, she could see doors leading to what she assumed were a bedroom and bathroom. Not an object was out of place, except for one thing: on the kitchen table, and spilling onto the floor, was an amorphous pile of fur, leather, and nylon.
Fraser saw it at the same time she did. "Oh, good, Pete dropped off your supplies." He looked at her. "Pete Quahon is a trapper who lives a few kilometers further out. His wife is about your size. We thought the outerwear would fit, anyway." That was useful, she realized; she'd had to wear three layers for the snowmobile ride over. She'd sold or given away much of her heaviest clothing before heading to the Middle East so that she would have less to store.
Ben crossed the room and began sorting through the pile. Meg trailed behind him. "They also loaned us a sleeping bag and some blankets, and a pair of snowshoes that should fit you."
His words gave Meg pause. "How were you so sure I was going to come with you?" she asked.
His face, when he looked up at her, was completely honest. "I very much hoped you would," he said.
How was she supposed to avoid the thoughts she wasn't supposed to think about when he said something like that, and made her heart seize and her stomach flip over? "I see," was all she could manage.
She turned away, pretending to look at the rest of the cabin while she collected herself. In doing so, she spied the back door, and remembered the reason she was there. "Is he...?" she asked, indicating the vast freezer that lay beyond the door.
"Is who...oh. Yes." Ben nodded. Now that she looked more closely, she could just glimpse the corner of a wooden coffin through the window next to the door. She shivered slightly, and not because of the cold.
Fraser had apparently finished going through the borrowed gear, and he headed for the back door. "I hope Pete put the..." The rest of his words were drowned out by an avalanche of barking that started when he opened the door.
There had to be more than a dozen dogs out in the back. Their arrival--and most likely the impending arrival of dinner--had stirred them into a frenzy. Meg followed Fraser out the door, carefully not looking at the nearby coffin. "Are you running a kennel?" she asked, shouting to be heard over the collected canine excitement.
"Six of them are your team," he called back.
"My *what*?"
Fraser had an expression that screamed "I am being eminently reasonable; please don't yell at me." She'd seen it often. He was wearing it now. "Eight dogs can really only pull a sled and two adults. Add any more dogs and the whole operation becomes unwieldy, particularly in the type of terrain we're going to be covering. With Sergeant Frobisher's remains, of course, we have the equivalent of three adults, and so we need two teams."
"Fraser, you realize I've never done this before, right?" Panic was beginning to color her tone. Going to Frobisher's outpost on the trail of Muldoon had been bad enough, and there she'd only been a passenger while Turnbull, who'd apparently had some experience at that kind of thing--though it hardly showed--drove.
Ben nodded. "I can teach you what you need to know tomorrow. It's really not all that difficult."
Not all that...? Was he insane? She gaped as he went into the wooden shed and began dishing out dog food. He well knew that the last dog she'd had was a dachshund. Harry, chubby though he was, had only ever reached sixteen pounds at his heaviest. Surely he didn't expect her to be able to control six sled dogs after a day of training!
She was still standing there dumbstruck when he returned from feeding the dogs. Seeing her expression, he carefully reached out and touched her arm. "You'll be fine, ma--Meg. I promise," he said.
Those American detectives had been right. Clearly, Fraser was out of his mind.
* * *
3
* * *
The next morning, Meg was awakened by the cold and slimy nose of one half-wolf. The nose was followed by a rough, pink tongue on her face, which only stopped when she squirmed beneath the blankets with a groan.
"Ben, I think your wolf is trying to have me for breakfast," she called. Dief was still snuffling at the blankets, trying to get at her through the thick layers of fabric.
Fraser had insisted she take his bed while he slept on the couch, and while she'd put up a token protest, she knew she'd never get him to change his mind over a matter of chivalry. Besides, she'd been exhausted, and after a quick dinner of stew prepared with some kind of northern game animal--she wasn't sure she wanted to know the exact species--a bed had sounded fantastic.
However, sleep had cruelly eluded her for the better part of the night. The problem was that the sheets, the blankets, and the pillow all smelled like him: soap and pine and clean northern air. She'd sternly reminded herself that she didn't care, that it meant nothing to her, but still she laid awake, tossing and turning, frustrated and angry at herself.
And now, what felt like minutes after she'd finally dropped off, here she was fending off a wolf who apparently wanted to lick her to death.
She heard Fraser come into the room then, and she risked uncovering one eye to see him. He was looking at Diefenbaker with that combination of disappointment and frustration she'd seen on his face before. "Dief!" he said sternly, and the wolf finally transferred his attention from her. "Get down right now," Fraser said slowly and carefully, so that the lip-reading wolf wouldn't be able to fall back on his selective deafness to avoid the command. With a whine, the animal jumped from the bed and trotted over to Fraser.
Ben looked at her. "I apologize for him," he said. "He's not usually like this."
"Yes, I know," she replied. In Chicago, Dief had appeared to barely notice her. Why he suddenly seemed so fascinated was a mystery.
"Well, I'm sure he won't do it again. Will you, Dief?" Fraser asked pointedly. Dief gave him the most pitiful look he could muster before ducking his head and huffing once.
"Speaking of breakfast," Fraser continued, "I've prepared some for us. We should probably get started soon."
"I'll be ready in a minute," Meg replied.
At the table, Ben began to explain some of the key concepts of dogsledding. Well, one concept, really. The overarching one. Between mouthfuls of oatmeal, he said, "The most important thing to remember is to never let go of the sled. These dogs were bred to run, and they won't stop just because you're not on the sled anymore. Let go, and you may never find them again."
*And then frozen death awaits. Got that already, thanks,* Meg thought, but only said, "All right."
They finished breakfast quickly. Once the dishes were washed, Meg tried on Linda Quahon's thick, furry coat. It was large in the shoulders and a bit long, but it buttoned snugly, and would keep her well-insulated against the Arctic chill. That she happened to look rather like an elongated beaver, particularly once she got the hat on, was unfortunate, but couldn't be helped.
Fraser, also dressed in furs but somehow managing to look completely human in them, opened the back door, and motioned for her to precede him into the snow. Diefenbaker bounded out behind her.
* * *
He showed her how to put her loaner dogs in the traces, and they then spent most of the morning on the back of the same sled, him teaching her what to say and do to make the dogs go where she wanted.
Somewhere around the time she finally got the right tone of voice for "haw" to make the dogs pay attention and turn left, she realized that she was entirely in his world now. She was going to be dependent on Fraser's experiences in the wilderness, on his knowledge of this land, for her very survival.
It was terrifying.
It was no secret that Margaret Thatcher liked to be in control of everything that happened to her and around her. She'd made the grade one playground her kingdom, and had gotten into several memorable fights when other children tried to stage coups. Things had proceeded rather logically from there.
From the back of a dogsled, standing on one runner and hanging on not quite for dear life, Meg stared at the blank whiteness of the tundra, its very barrenness an open challenge. How did Fraser stand it, she wondered. She glanced at him, standing straight and tall beside her. A contented smile was settled on his face.
After two years of the shifting sands of the Middle East, she had been looking forward to being where she knew the terrain, metaphorically, or even literally. At least, she supposed, if she had to be thrust into this alien landscape on a harebrained adventure, Benton Fraser was probably the best man she could hope for as a guide.
Late in the afternoon, Ben climbed into her sled, and Meg was on her own with her dogs. Before getting started, she talked to them briefly while she put them in the traces, encouraging them not to, say, pull the sled out from under her and leave her face down in the snow.
Fraser's dogs, as was his custom, were named after prime ministers. Hers, on the other hand, had been named by Pete and Linda's kids, both girls.
"All right, Rainbow, you'll be a good girl, won't you? You, too, Fluffy? Sunshine?"
Hoping her little chat would work, Meg traipsed to the back of the sled. She took a deep breath. *Oh, god, oh god, oh god...*
"Hike!" she finally shouted, and the eager dogs were off. She ran behind for a few steps, then hopped nimbly on the runners.
She'd learned well. The dogs followed her directions almost before she gave them, and she balanced herself perfectly on the back of the sled as it went around corners and up and down hills. It was even, she thought, feeling the wind rush past her face and watching the landscape speed by, rather exhilarating to be the sole person directing the sled's motion. It was much better than sitting in the basket, hoping it would all be over soon.
When they returned from her practice run, Fraser congratulated her, sincere pride in his big grin. She grinned back.
After some time smiling at each other like two dolts, they each awkwardly looked away and began unhooking the dogs from the traces.
* * *
"Wow."
Meg had just taken a step back from the growing mountain of supplies in the middle of Fraser's kitchen. It was truly a magnificent pile. She had not imagined needing so much *stuff* for a two-week trip. There was a tent, of course, and food for both them and the dogs, and fluffy coats and blankets, and assorted other items, like a cooking pan, cups and plates, oh, and of course Frobisher's body, which was chilling outside and thus didn't yet add its bulk to the pile. That was okay. It was big enough on its own.
"It is rather impressive, isn't it?" Fraser said, also surveying the results of the evening's labor. They had whittled everything down to the barest of necessities, but having to bring one's own food and shelter, as well as clothing--thick, puffy clothing at that--on a trip did tend to make for a lot of luggage.
They began lugging said luggage out to the sleds in great armfuls, each having to make two tottering trips over the packed-down snow to the shed. They had secured Frobisher's coffin in Ben's sled earlier that evening, tying it down with rope. It all seemed rather undignified to Meg, but she thought that Frobisher probably would've gotten a kick out of it. He had asked for this, after all.
On the way back inside for the last time, Meg shivered and felt her teeth begin to chatter. "I'll be glad of that coat tomorrow, I'm su--oh." She stared at the sky, entranced. Above them, the heavens were colored in blue, pink and green as sheets of light danced across the dome of the sky. Waves of color skittered in all directions, doubling back on themselves, colliding with each other, hiding and revealing stars.
"They're beautiful," Meg breathed. She forgot about the cold, forgot about Frobisher's corpse waiting in the sled, forgot even about Fraser standing beside her, until he murmured, "It's almost the end of the season. I'd hoped you would be able to them at least once."
She shivered again, this time not from the cold at all. She kept her eyes on the flickering northern lights and tried not to think about what Fraser's voice, when he spoke in that low, rough register, did to her insides.
For a long time, they stood side-by-side, taking in the mutable sky.
* * *
Ben woke before the sun the next morning. The cabin was dark and quiet at five AM; Meg wasn't awake yet. He'd insisted that she take the bed again; not only would his grandmother spin in her grave if he didn't, but he knew she'd be sore from the unfamiliar exertions of yesterday, and he wanted her to be as comfortable as possible.
He flipped on a light and dressed quickly. Dief whined softly at the early wakeup. "You'll like it once you're out there," Ben whispered, patting Dief's head. "You love to run, remember?"
Dief made a noise which indicated he remembered no such thing.
After feeding the dogs, Ben worked quietly in the kitchen, preparing breakfast and mentally going over last-minute preparations that would need to be made for their journey. They had packed just about everything onto the sleds yesterday; all that remained were really just toothbrushes and that night's long underwear.
After he'd set two teabags to steeping, he walked down the hall and rapped gently on the bedroom door. "Meg?" he called. He still hesitated ever so slightly before using her given name. The formality of the RCMP and the Chicago Consulate seemed to linger even thousands of kilometers away.
She didn't respond, and he was about to knock again, but the door swung open as he was raising his hand. Inspector Thatcher was fully dressed, although she looked like she could use some caffeine. "Good morning," she said.
At the table, she gratefully opened the bottle of aspirin he had placed beside her cup and shook two into her palm. Breakfast was nearly silent, each of them consumed with thoughts and speculation about the days to come.
"Are you ready to go?" he asked, after the dishes had been washed, dried, and put away, and last-minute things had been stuffed into their packs.
Meg, covered head to foot in fur, hoisted her pack and nodded. Fraser swept the room with a last glance and doused the light. They were setting out.
Outside, the sun peeked over the tops of the mountains in the east, and the sky, still violet in the west, surrounded it in pale pink. The colors bounced off the snowcaps and made the world look like a Bierstadt painting, so huge and brawny and colorful as to be almost unreal. A small part of Meg wondered if it all might be just a dream.
The dogs had known since the previous night, when they'd packed their provisions and Frobisher's coffin in the sleds, that they were going to leave soon, and seeing the humans come out carrying yet more bundles only confirmed it. They bounced over and on top of each other in their excitement, whining and yipping.
Diefenbaker, as Ben had known he would, quickly remembered that yes, actually, he *did* love to run, and it definitely looked like he was going to get to run today, and that knowledge made him almost dance across the snow to the humans. Meg set her pack down when he approached her and reached out to pat his head.
Dief sped the last few feet toward her, and in the end, his excitement toppled her over into the snow. The wolf stood with his front paws on her chest, panting happily. Meg was completely silent.
*Ah, Dief, you're in for it now,* Ben thought, assuming that the utter lack of sound or motion from her supine body meant an explosion was imminent. But to his surprise, instead of yelling at the animal, she began to laugh. Her deep chuckle hadn't changed since Chicago; he had heard that laugh on two separate occasions while assigned to the consulate, and remembered each instance with perfect clarity.
He watched in a kind of wonder as Meg ruffled Dief's fur and submitted to a thorough face-licking. After several long moments, she finally lifted his paws off her chest and set them on the ground so that she could sit up.
Ben was there with an outstretched hand to help her up. "I really don't know what's come over him," he said, gently brushing the snow off her coat.
"He's excited," she said. "This is sort of thrilling, really. It's an adventure." She was also brushing the snow from her coat, and inevitably, their gloved hands touched. Ben immediately dropped his arms back down to his sides. Meg kept her eyes focused on her coat, and after a brief pause, she wiped the remaining ice crystals from the fur.
They checked over the contents of their sleds on last time, and put the dogs in the traces. As she harnessed them, Meg greeted each of hers by name and softly urged them to behave themselves out on the open tundra. The excitement of an adventure was all well and good, but at the same time, when one depended on rather mischievous animals for one's transportation and, thus, survival, there was also more than a little creeping terror to go along with it.
They lined up the teams and sleds parallel to each other, a little over a meter apart. Meg's sled held most of the provisions; Ben's carried Frobisher in his wooden box. He looked at her and met her eyes. She nodded.
With twin shouts of "Hike!" they shot off across the snow.
* * *
4
* * *
They covered fifteen kilometers before stopping for lunch, and another six in the two hours after. They stayed close to each other, Ben always just ahead and frequently looking back to check that she was still behind him. The previous day, they had come up with hand signals to indicate when one wanted to stop for a break or had a problem, and these had worked well so far.
When the sun was neither directly overhead nor yet tilting at the horizon, Meg's lead dog, Lollipop, apparently spied something interesting in the distance. She sped the other dogs on with her barking, and soon all six were running flat out and taking Meg along for the ride.
She slammed down the sled brake. "Whoa! Easy!" she shouted, but the dogs were having none of that. If anything, they started going even faster. "Slow down, dammit!" Yep. Definitely having none of it.
Meg held on for dear life. She heard Fraser calling her name from far behind, and hoped he could reach her in time to do...something. Something that would stop these hounds from hell.
Just then, the sled went over a rock that had been hidden in the snow. Everything seemed to slow down as she felt one foot slip off the sled runner, dragging behind in the snow. The powdery snow seemed to want to take her whole body to its proverbial bosom; her other foot quickly slipped from its runner, and she was hanging on with only her mitted hands.
Quite soon thereafter, she wasn't hanging on at all.
Snow was rather a lot like sand, she decided. And she currently considered herself an expert on snow now that she was laying face down in the stuff. It got in places that it really ought not to be able to get into, such as under one's goggles, and into one's pants. Of course, instead of itching, it just melted. Coldly.
She heard Fraser's team kicking up the snow, and the hiss of his sled's runners cutting through it. Naturally, his dogs stopped on command, although not before they and the sled had half-covered her with sprayed-up snow.
She felt his hands on her back, clearing the snow off and subtly checking for injuries. She tilted her head so she could look at him.
He had a twinkle in his eyes and was having trouble suppressing a grin. "You let go of the sled," he said.
"I let go of the sled," she agreed. "Where are the dogs? Long gone?"
He extended an arm, and she gratefully took it and let him haul her out of the depression she'd created. "Look for yourself," he said when she was upright.
She looked. About sixty meters in front of them, her team was resting in the snow, tongues lolling. They looked insufferably smug. She saw that her sled had tipped over on its side, probably about the time she'd let go of it. Their supplies were scattered in a rough line for about twenty meters behind the overturned sled.
Meg groaned and rested her forehead on Ben's shoulder. "Tell me again why I'm doing this, Fraser," she said.
"Your respect for a fine officer who served more than thirty-five years on the force?" he replied.
"Ah. Yes. That." She lifted her head. "I'll get started repacking everything." *And then I'll throttle each and every one of those dogs.*
* * *
The rest of the afternoon passed without further incident. They pulled up near a small stream when the sky began to turn the oranges and pinks of a northern sunset. They made camp quickly; their tent went up with a minimum of fuss, and the fire started quickly. The dogs were removed from their traces, fed, and tied to stakes. As the last remnant of the long day traded places with night, stew bubbled over the fire.
They ate mostly in silence, warming themselves and drying their clothes by the crackling fire, which cast flicking shadows on snowdrifts and trees, and made the ice crystals sparkle. Meg's vitriol over her runaway team had died by the time it came to unhitch them, but a twinge in the shoulder she had struck falling from the sled remained. As she leaned over to get more stew and felt it flare up again, she must have made some kind of noise or other indication that she was in pain, because wordlessly, Fraser reached over and began to massage her aching shoulder with deep, deft strokes.
Meg nearly dropped her bowl at her feet. She let out a half-gasp, half-hiss. Fraser's hand stopped moving. "Did I hurt you?" he asked.
"No," Meg said, recovering quickly. "I was just surprised."
"Ah." He began to knead at her shoulder again. "I noticed you seemed to be favoring this shoulder. Ray took a fall very much like yours on his second try at mushing the sled. This seemed to help him."
Was that *jealousy* she felt? Jealousy that this closeness was not something she alone shared with Fraser?
*Grow up,* she told her inner teenager disgustedly. Her inner teenager stuck its tongue out at her.
Still, she relaxed into Ben's touch, and his fingers chased the twinge out of her muscles.
* * *
It was soon time to turn in for the night, for they planned to make a very early start in the morning. The dogs had dug themselves little hollows and burrows in the snow to keep warm, and were already asleep. Not having fur, Meg and Ben made do with long underwear, heavy-duty sleeping bags, and the tent.
The *one* tent. She'd known from the start that they only had the one, of course, because carrying two would have been ridiculous when they could both fit into one, albeit snugly. And yet, the reality of it only became totally clear when she watched Fraser duck through the flap, carrying their kerosene lamp, and knew that she would have to follow.
*I can do this,* she told herself, standing just outside the tent. *I am a grownup. I am a *Mountie*.* Thus momentarily courageous, she ducked inside.
She nearly tripped over Ben, who was difficult to see in the flickering lamplight. The tent was not just snug; it was damn near claustrophobic. Meg consoled herself with the thought that at least it might be a bit warmer than it could have been otherwise.
Fraser was already in his sleeping bag, on his side facing the tent wall. She could hear him breathing in a too-regular pattern that meant he wasn't asleep, but was pretending for her benefit, so that she could strip down to her thermals and get in her sleeping bag without having to worry about him seeing something he shouldn't. Not that he wouldn't be more embarrassed than her if he did, she thought, folding her clothes into a pile at the foot of her sleeping bag and squirming inside as quickly as she could. She still remembered the look in his face when, during the egg incident, she had ordered him to take off his tunic without explaining that she was after the bit of wire in his collar. Even now, it aroused a certain amused fondness in her. She wondered what he could have been thinking to make his face become so pale.
She turned over on her stomach and leaned into the tiny amount of space between the head of her sleeping bag and the tent wall. Cupping her hand behind the lamp that sat there, she blew out its cheerful flame, plunging the tent into sudden and utter darkness.
Meg held her breath, feeling almost as if with the extinguishing of the lamp, the world had also ceased to exist. There was no hall light coming under a door, no yellow sodium glow of a streetlamp through the window. There was only blackness and cold.
It was only when she heard Fraser stir that she let her breath out. Other sounds began to filter into her ears: the wind soughing through branches of spruce and fir, one of the dogs yipping at something in a dream.
"Goodnight," she said, needing to pit something human against the alien darkness.
"Goodnight," Fraser returned softly, his mouth barely six inches from her face. She could have reached out and touched his cheek or his lips. Instead, she rolled over and tried to will herself to sleep.
* * *
Ben woke to the sound of nylon sliding against nylon, the metallic chirping of zippers, and cotton skimming over skin. For a moment unsure of where he was, he opened his eyes.
Upon spying quite a bit more of Margaret Thatcher than he had ever expected to see, he slammed them shut again and twisted to face away from her. The rustling of fabric stopped abruptly.
Ben cursed himself for his reaction. Now she knew exactly what he'd seen, and he knew what he'd seen and...the whole thing was entirely too awkward. Sharing a tent with Meg--with *Inspector Thatcher*, he reminded himself, because despite her insistence on first names, it wouldn't do to get too comfortable--was an altogether different experience than sharing one with Ray had been. The air seemed constantly charged, just on the verge of giving him a good shock if he moved the wrong way. The scent that was uniquely hers filled the air and permeated the fabric, or maybe just his distracted mind. The way his tongue twisted up on itself when all he wanted to do was...
"Don't worry, I won't hold it against you," Meg suddenly said. She sounded amused. "I can see from over here that you're as red as a fire engine."
He wondered if, perhaps, he could melt into the frozen ground below. His face (and ears, and neck, and scalp) certainly felt hot enough. "I'm sorry," he said, feeling as if the image of her slipping the thermal undershirt on over bare skin, lit from behind by lamplight and dawn, would be forever printed on the backs of his eyelids.
"Don't be," she answered. His eyes shot open again, and he wondered if he'd heard her correctly. "I'll go feed the dogs and start breakfast while you get dressed."
She slipped out of the tent, leaving him wondering how on earth he was going to look her in the eye for the rest of the trip.
When he finally did emerge, they ate their simple breakfast and harnessed the dogs. Meg was as quick and efficient at it as he now, and they were soon on their way.
Part Two
Title: Two Musketeers and a Dead Guy
Author:
icepixieCharacters/Pairing: Fraser/Thatcher
Rating: PG
Genre: Adventure/Romance/Comedy
Spoilers: Through "Call of the Wild," with particular references to "We Are the Eggmen" and "All the Queen's Horses."
Summary: "You know, it's funny," she said. "I think right now, on this trip, dragging a dead man around the Arctic, is the first time I've felt like myself in...I can't remember how long."
Notes: This fic presumes that the extra few seconds of COTW which aired in Canada are canon. If you don't know what this refers to, you'll find out pretty quickly. ;)
Fans of Northern Exposure will probably recognize the basic premise of this from the third season episode "The Three Amigos." They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, right?
And finally, my research, while thorough, can only go so far. I've never been on a dogsled or in Canada, so take the technical details with a grain of salt. ;)
1
* * *
Nine days of debriefings, reports, and assorted other paperwork after her arrival back in Ottawa, she was finally released from stuffy Canadian Security Intelligence Service offices into the wider world for a full month's leave. Though the April air was cool, the sun on her face was warm and welcomed as she left the building for what she dearly hoped was the last time.
Her stomach growled, and she realized that at nearly three o'clock, it was well past lunch time. She would find a cafe or sandwich shop, she decided, and then sit down and figure out what she was going to do with herself for the next four weeks. Lost in thought, she turned left, remembering that a deli she'd eaten at several days ago was only a few blocks away.
"Inspector!" a voice called from a few feet away.
Meg stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. Surely it couldn't be... She turned around and found that it was. He stood in front of her, dressed in jeans and a leather jacket that was open to the chilly breeze. Two years, and he looked no different.
She finally got her mouth to work. "Fraser," she said in wonder.
He wore a grin borne of ill-contained excitement. "It's good to see you, ma'am. It's been a long time."
"That it has. What are you doing here?" She winced. Surely she could've phrased that differently. "I mean, I thought you were still in the north..."
"Oh, I am. I mean, I've been stationed in the Northwest Territories for the past thirteen months. Currently I'm on a leave of absence." At least he seemed as flustered as she was.
"So you came to Ottawa?" That was weird. Personally, the last time she'd been assigned to the capitol, she'd gotten away from it every time she had longer than a weekend off. She couldn't imagine why Fraser would be there.
"I had an acquaintance in the CSIS notify me when you'd returned to the country. I have...something I need to discuss with you."
Her heart fluttered for just a moment. "What is it?"
He looked as if he were steeling himself against confrontation. "Something that will take a while to explain. Perhaps we could talk over lunch?"
Thoroughly intrigued now, she agreed.
* * *
Ten minutes later, they were ensconced in a booth in the deli Meg had been thinking of, sandwiches and cups of soup before them. She sipped the chicken noodle from her spoon gratefully. "It's been a while since I've been anywhere where it's not too hot for soup," she commented.
"Ah," he said. "I'd heard you were in the Middle East, but of course no one could tell me exactly where."
She paused, her sandwich halfway to her mouth. "You asked?"
The faintest blush shaded his cheeks. "When I came to Ottawa for reinstatement after Ray and I returned from our expedition, I inquired if you were in the area. That was when I learned of your reassignment to the intelligence service."
"I see." Meg contemplated the table linoleum for a moment. "Did you find it? The Hand of Franklin, I mean. The reaching-out one."
He shrugged. "Not exactly."
"Ah."
Uneasy silence descended over their table, broken only by the sipping of soup. Every interaction between them had always been so strained, Meg reflected, except for those times when they were working together to catch a criminal. She supposed she hadn't exactly started them off on the best foot, firing him on his first day back and all, but she had so desperately wanted to do a good job, a *competent* job, at that posting, and at the time it seemed impossible for his quirks and his almost-but-not-quite-insubordination to do anything but get in her way.
Well, perhaps this was a chance to make things a bit easier between them. She flashed a genuine, interested smile, and asked, "So, what's this all about?"
Fraser pulled several folded pieces of paper from his pocket and smoothed them out on the table. They were covered in typed text. She couldn't read it; not only was it upside down from her perspective, but she wasn't wearing her reading glasses.
"I don't imagine you've heard," he said. "Sergeant Frobisher passed away two weeks ago. Food poisoning."
She nearly dropped her spoon. "Oh, God. I'm--I'm so sorry." She almost started to reach for his hand, and then thought better of it, placing her hand in her lap, where she began to twist her napkin into an ever-smaller wad. "I know you were close to him."
He nodded, his lips a tight line. "More my father and he, but yes, I'd known him all my life." He smoothed out the papers again. "The sergeant had an...unusual request in his will." Meg noticed that Fraser looked almost nervous. "He requested that he be buried at Nameless Point, which is a considerable distance from, well, just about anywhere, really, and certainly from any sort of population center in the Territories. He also specified that I should be the one to bury him there."
Meg furrowed her brow. "That all seems...remarkably like Sergeant Frobisher. But I'm afraid I don't see how it concerns me."
Fraser definitely looked nervous. "He specifically requested that you come with me, ma'am."
She blinked. And then again, trying to process that sentence. "Me?"
"Yes, ma'am."
Images of that horrible four hours in a dogsled while they were chasing after Muldoon flashed before her eyes. It had been cold, and windy, and she could feel every bump in the ice, and every bit of snow that came flying up from under the dogs' paws seemed to catch her right in the face. She had tried mightily to excise that memory from her brain, but apparently it had remained.
"*Why*?"
He shrugged. "I'm not quite sure, sir. You must have made an impression on him when you worked together to capture Muldoon, and...on the train."
Ah, yes. The train. That also brought up things she didn't want to think about, but for an entirely different reason. She cleared her throat. "He was quite clear that he wanted me to go with you?"
Ben pushed the papers over to her. "Just there." He pointed at a line of text. She squinted, and could just make out the "I wish him to be accompanied by Inspector Margaret Thatcher, should she be available."
That was that. Meg groaned. "How far is this place from the nearest town?"
The only visible sign of surprise Fraser showed was a slight widening of his eyes. "It's approximately six days from my current posting by sled. Fewer coming back, of course, without the body."
She groaned again. "How do I let myself be dragged into these things?" she murmured.
She hadn't meant for him to hear her, but of course his bat-like auditory sense had picked it up. "I'm sure Sergeant Frobisher would have understood, ma'am, that you've just returned to the country and--"
"No, I'm not trying to avoid it," she interrupted. *Although now I wish Mowbrey had waited just a few more weeks to rat me out,* she couldn't help thinking. "I can't very well refuse a dead man's last request."
"I suppose not, sir." He wore the tiniest of smiles on his face. Only because he was Fraser could she be sure that he wasn't laughing at her.
Resigning herself to the concept of spending half of her leave behind a team of dogs, Meg said, "When do we leave?"
"There's a flight out tomorrow morning at seven."
*Oh, God.* "I'll be there."
2
* * *
The early flight to Edmonton was sparsely populated and quiet except for the thrum of the jet engines. It was a cramped commuter plane; Meg had taken the window seat to allow Ben a little more room in the aisle for his longer legs.
She had forgotten how *solid* his presence was. Even while she was looking out the window and could see him only in her peripheral vision, she could feel him next to her, though he was careful to always keep his leg and arm a proper distance from hers despite the packed conditions.
There had been few such people over the past two years. In the political circles she had moved in while she was in Iraq, people lived or died, often literally, by how quickly they could change their opinions and morals. Sometimes even when they had said and done the right things, they might still suddenly disappear overnight.
She'd had to spin her own lies as well; in that, it wasn't completely different from her work at the consulate. The pressure was, though. The constant tension of hiding her true identity had been the cause of more gray hairs than she was willing to admit. Add to that the knowledge that any wrong word or move on her part might endanger not only her life but those of other operatives in the area, and, well, she'd really wished for someone like Fraser to be with her.
Fraser, who never told a lie, although he did know to the millimeter how finely a hair could be split. Fraser, who could always be depended on to be punctual, and to have all his paperwork completed before the deadline--barring, of course, extenuating circumstances. Usually brought about by association with one of those American detectives. Fraser, whose unwavering dedication to justice truly was a model of policemanship. Fraser, who had kissed her goodbye in the barren wilderness they were now heading to, and whom she had thought she'd never see again.
She'd missed him more than she'd realized. A sudden longing for the Chicago consulate pricked at her mind. She stared out the window at the grid of farm fields passing underneath them.
Somewhere over Manitoba, she heard him say, "Inspector?"
She turned to him, feeling slightly irritated. She hadn't been an Inspector for two years, and she wasn't going to have the term used as a continual reminder of the uncomfortable distance between them. "Fraser, I'm still technically a member of the CSIS, not the RCMP, at least until the middle of next month. And we are going to be spending a lot of time with each other. 'Meg' will do."
He was completely still for a moment. Then he nodded once. "If you'll call me Ben," he replied.
"All right...Ben." That felt weird. That was weird. She had used that shortened form of his given name only once, when she was trying to get Henri Cloutier off her back.
And that was yet another thing she didn't want to dwell on. "What were you going to say?" she asked.
There was that familiar deer-in-headlights expression. "I've forgotten," he said.
"Oh." They looked away from each other. *Damn,* Meg thought. She'd only made things more awkward between them. Two weeks suddenly seemed interminable.
* * *
At Edmonton, they switched to a bush plane headed for Hay River, then one to Fort MacRae, where Fraser was posted. It was another twenty kilometers by snowmobile to his actual home, which Meg was unsurprised to see was a cabin on a mountainside near a stand of hemlock. Their branches were heavy with snow, and the roof of the cabin was covered in a thick layer of it. The only manmade object to be seen against the granite backdrop of the mountains, it was, she thought, unutterably lonely.
They had shared one machine on the way over, Meg sitting behind Ben with her arms wrapped around his middle for balance...just as she had ridden behind him on the horse after they had foiled Randall Bolt's attempt to take over the train carrying the Musical Ride. Would *everything* remind her of things she had tried to drive from her mind? she thought irritably. In Iraq, she'd gone months without thinking of him, almost the whole of the previous year, in fact. Surely she could get through this without constantly recalling the few, admittedly treasured, moments of, well, "contact" between them at every possible instance.
After all, she was a Mountie.
She followed Ben up the steps onto the tiny, sheltered porch. He opened the door--typically, it had been left unlocked--and motioned for her to precede him. She stepped into his home, wondering what she might find.
Like the exterior, the rooms of the cabin were neat and tidy. The front door opened into a large living area, with a small kitchen at the rear. Down a short hallway, she could see doors leading to what she assumed were a bedroom and bathroom. Not an object was out of place, except for one thing: on the kitchen table, and spilling onto the floor, was an amorphous pile of fur, leather, and nylon.
Fraser saw it at the same time she did. "Oh, good, Pete dropped off your supplies." He looked at her. "Pete Quahon is a trapper who lives a few kilometers further out. His wife is about your size. We thought the outerwear would fit, anyway." That was useful, she realized; she'd had to wear three layers for the snowmobile ride over. She'd sold or given away much of her heaviest clothing before heading to the Middle East so that she would have less to store.
Ben crossed the room and began sorting through the pile. Meg trailed behind him. "They also loaned us a sleeping bag and some blankets, and a pair of snowshoes that should fit you."
His words gave Meg pause. "How were you so sure I was going to come with you?" she asked.
His face, when he looked up at her, was completely honest. "I very much hoped you would," he said.
How was she supposed to avoid the thoughts she wasn't supposed to think about when he said something like that, and made her heart seize and her stomach flip over? "I see," was all she could manage.
She turned away, pretending to look at the rest of the cabin while she collected herself. In doing so, she spied the back door, and remembered the reason she was there. "Is he...?" she asked, indicating the vast freezer that lay beyond the door.
"Is who...oh. Yes." Ben nodded. Now that she looked more closely, she could just glimpse the corner of a wooden coffin through the window next to the door. She shivered slightly, and not because of the cold.
Fraser had apparently finished going through the borrowed gear, and he headed for the back door. "I hope Pete put the..." The rest of his words were drowned out by an avalanche of barking that started when he opened the door.
There had to be more than a dozen dogs out in the back. Their arrival--and most likely the impending arrival of dinner--had stirred them into a frenzy. Meg followed Fraser out the door, carefully not looking at the nearby coffin. "Are you running a kennel?" she asked, shouting to be heard over the collected canine excitement.
"Six of them are your team," he called back.
"My *what*?"
Fraser had an expression that screamed "I am being eminently reasonable; please don't yell at me." She'd seen it often. He was wearing it now. "Eight dogs can really only pull a sled and two adults. Add any more dogs and the whole operation becomes unwieldy, particularly in the type of terrain we're going to be covering. With Sergeant Frobisher's remains, of course, we have the equivalent of three adults, and so we need two teams."
"Fraser, you realize I've never done this before, right?" Panic was beginning to color her tone. Going to Frobisher's outpost on the trail of Muldoon had been bad enough, and there she'd only been a passenger while Turnbull, who'd apparently had some experience at that kind of thing--though it hardly showed--drove.
Ben nodded. "I can teach you what you need to know tomorrow. It's really not all that difficult."
Not all that...? Was he insane? She gaped as he went into the wooden shed and began dishing out dog food. He well knew that the last dog she'd had was a dachshund. Harry, chubby though he was, had only ever reached sixteen pounds at his heaviest. Surely he didn't expect her to be able to control six sled dogs after a day of training!
She was still standing there dumbstruck when he returned from feeding the dogs. Seeing her expression, he carefully reached out and touched her arm. "You'll be fine, ma--Meg. I promise," he said.
Those American detectives had been right. Clearly, Fraser was out of his mind.
3
* * *
The next morning, Meg was awakened by the cold and slimy nose of one half-wolf. The nose was followed by a rough, pink tongue on her face, which only stopped when she squirmed beneath the blankets with a groan.
"Ben, I think your wolf is trying to have me for breakfast," she called. Dief was still snuffling at the blankets, trying to get at her through the thick layers of fabric.
Fraser had insisted she take his bed while he slept on the couch, and while she'd put up a token protest, she knew she'd never get him to change his mind over a matter of chivalry. Besides, she'd been exhausted, and after a quick dinner of stew prepared with some kind of northern game animal--she wasn't sure she wanted to know the exact species--a bed had sounded fantastic.
However, sleep had cruelly eluded her for the better part of the night. The problem was that the sheets, the blankets, and the pillow all smelled like him: soap and pine and clean northern air. She'd sternly reminded herself that she didn't care, that it meant nothing to her, but still she laid awake, tossing and turning, frustrated and angry at herself.
And now, what felt like minutes after she'd finally dropped off, here she was fending off a wolf who apparently wanted to lick her to death.
She heard Fraser come into the room then, and she risked uncovering one eye to see him. He was looking at Diefenbaker with that combination of disappointment and frustration she'd seen on his face before. "Dief!" he said sternly, and the wolf finally transferred his attention from her. "Get down right now," Fraser said slowly and carefully, so that the lip-reading wolf wouldn't be able to fall back on his selective deafness to avoid the command. With a whine, the animal jumped from the bed and trotted over to Fraser.
Ben looked at her. "I apologize for him," he said. "He's not usually like this."
"Yes, I know," she replied. In Chicago, Dief had appeared to barely notice her. Why he suddenly seemed so fascinated was a mystery.
"Well, I'm sure he won't do it again. Will you, Dief?" Fraser asked pointedly. Dief gave him the most pitiful look he could muster before ducking his head and huffing once.
"Speaking of breakfast," Fraser continued, "I've prepared some for us. We should probably get started soon."
"I'll be ready in a minute," Meg replied.
At the table, Ben began to explain some of the key concepts of dogsledding. Well, one concept, really. The overarching one. Between mouthfuls of oatmeal, he said, "The most important thing to remember is to never let go of the sled. These dogs were bred to run, and they won't stop just because you're not on the sled anymore. Let go, and you may never find them again."
*And then frozen death awaits. Got that already, thanks,* Meg thought, but only said, "All right."
They finished breakfast quickly. Once the dishes were washed, Meg tried on Linda Quahon's thick, furry coat. It was large in the shoulders and a bit long, but it buttoned snugly, and would keep her well-insulated against the Arctic chill. That she happened to look rather like an elongated beaver, particularly once she got the hat on, was unfortunate, but couldn't be helped.
Fraser, also dressed in furs but somehow managing to look completely human in them, opened the back door, and motioned for her to precede him into the snow. Diefenbaker bounded out behind her.
* * *
He showed her how to put her loaner dogs in the traces, and they then spent most of the morning on the back of the same sled, him teaching her what to say and do to make the dogs go where she wanted.
Somewhere around the time she finally got the right tone of voice for "haw" to make the dogs pay attention and turn left, she realized that she was entirely in his world now. She was going to be dependent on Fraser's experiences in the wilderness, on his knowledge of this land, for her very survival.
It was terrifying.
It was no secret that Margaret Thatcher liked to be in control of everything that happened to her and around her. She'd made the grade one playground her kingdom, and had gotten into several memorable fights when other children tried to stage coups. Things had proceeded rather logically from there.
From the back of a dogsled, standing on one runner and hanging on not quite for dear life, Meg stared at the blank whiteness of the tundra, its very barrenness an open challenge. How did Fraser stand it, she wondered. She glanced at him, standing straight and tall beside her. A contented smile was settled on his face.
After two years of the shifting sands of the Middle East, she had been looking forward to being where she knew the terrain, metaphorically, or even literally. At least, she supposed, if she had to be thrust into this alien landscape on a harebrained adventure, Benton Fraser was probably the best man she could hope for as a guide.
Late in the afternoon, Ben climbed into her sled, and Meg was on her own with her dogs. Before getting started, she talked to them briefly while she put them in the traces, encouraging them not to, say, pull the sled out from under her and leave her face down in the snow.
Fraser's dogs, as was his custom, were named after prime ministers. Hers, on the other hand, had been named by Pete and Linda's kids, both girls.
"All right, Rainbow, you'll be a good girl, won't you? You, too, Fluffy? Sunshine?"
Hoping her little chat would work, Meg traipsed to the back of the sled. She took a deep breath. *Oh, god, oh god, oh god...*
"Hike!" she finally shouted, and the eager dogs were off. She ran behind for a few steps, then hopped nimbly on the runners.
She'd learned well. The dogs followed her directions almost before she gave them, and she balanced herself perfectly on the back of the sled as it went around corners and up and down hills. It was even, she thought, feeling the wind rush past her face and watching the landscape speed by, rather exhilarating to be the sole person directing the sled's motion. It was much better than sitting in the basket, hoping it would all be over soon.
When they returned from her practice run, Fraser congratulated her, sincere pride in his big grin. She grinned back.
After some time smiling at each other like two dolts, they each awkwardly looked away and began unhooking the dogs from the traces.
* * *
"Wow."
Meg had just taken a step back from the growing mountain of supplies in the middle of Fraser's kitchen. It was truly a magnificent pile. She had not imagined needing so much *stuff* for a two-week trip. There was a tent, of course, and food for both them and the dogs, and fluffy coats and blankets, and assorted other items, like a cooking pan, cups and plates, oh, and of course Frobisher's body, which was chilling outside and thus didn't yet add its bulk to the pile. That was okay. It was big enough on its own.
"It is rather impressive, isn't it?" Fraser said, also surveying the results of the evening's labor. They had whittled everything down to the barest of necessities, but having to bring one's own food and shelter, as well as clothing--thick, puffy clothing at that--on a trip did tend to make for a lot of luggage.
They began lugging said luggage out to the sleds in great armfuls, each having to make two tottering trips over the packed-down snow to the shed. They had secured Frobisher's coffin in Ben's sled earlier that evening, tying it down with rope. It all seemed rather undignified to Meg, but she thought that Frobisher probably would've gotten a kick out of it. He had asked for this, after all.
On the way back inside for the last time, Meg shivered and felt her teeth begin to chatter. "I'll be glad of that coat tomorrow, I'm su--oh." She stared at the sky, entranced. Above them, the heavens were colored in blue, pink and green as sheets of light danced across the dome of the sky. Waves of color skittered in all directions, doubling back on themselves, colliding with each other, hiding and revealing stars.
"They're beautiful," Meg breathed. She forgot about the cold, forgot about Frobisher's corpse waiting in the sled, forgot even about Fraser standing beside her, until he murmured, "It's almost the end of the season. I'd hoped you would be able to them at least once."
She shivered again, this time not from the cold at all. She kept her eyes on the flickering northern lights and tried not to think about what Fraser's voice, when he spoke in that low, rough register, did to her insides.
For a long time, they stood side-by-side, taking in the mutable sky.
* * *
Ben woke before the sun the next morning. The cabin was dark and quiet at five AM; Meg wasn't awake yet. He'd insisted that she take the bed again; not only would his grandmother spin in her grave if he didn't, but he knew she'd be sore from the unfamiliar exertions of yesterday, and he wanted her to be as comfortable as possible.
He flipped on a light and dressed quickly. Dief whined softly at the early wakeup. "You'll like it once you're out there," Ben whispered, patting Dief's head. "You love to run, remember?"
Dief made a noise which indicated he remembered no such thing.
After feeding the dogs, Ben worked quietly in the kitchen, preparing breakfast and mentally going over last-minute preparations that would need to be made for their journey. They had packed just about everything onto the sleds yesterday; all that remained were really just toothbrushes and that night's long underwear.
After he'd set two teabags to steeping, he walked down the hall and rapped gently on the bedroom door. "Meg?" he called. He still hesitated ever so slightly before using her given name. The formality of the RCMP and the Chicago Consulate seemed to linger even thousands of kilometers away.
She didn't respond, and he was about to knock again, but the door swung open as he was raising his hand. Inspector Thatcher was fully dressed, although she looked like she could use some caffeine. "Good morning," she said.
At the table, she gratefully opened the bottle of aspirin he had placed beside her cup and shook two into her palm. Breakfast was nearly silent, each of them consumed with thoughts and speculation about the days to come.
"Are you ready to go?" he asked, after the dishes had been washed, dried, and put away, and last-minute things had been stuffed into their packs.
Meg, covered head to foot in fur, hoisted her pack and nodded. Fraser swept the room with a last glance and doused the light. They were setting out.
Outside, the sun peeked over the tops of the mountains in the east, and the sky, still violet in the west, surrounded it in pale pink. The colors bounced off the snowcaps and made the world look like a Bierstadt painting, so huge and brawny and colorful as to be almost unreal. A small part of Meg wondered if it all might be just a dream.
The dogs had known since the previous night, when they'd packed their provisions and Frobisher's coffin in the sleds, that they were going to leave soon, and seeing the humans come out carrying yet more bundles only confirmed it. They bounced over and on top of each other in their excitement, whining and yipping.
Diefenbaker, as Ben had known he would, quickly remembered that yes, actually, he *did* love to run, and it definitely looked like he was going to get to run today, and that knowledge made him almost dance across the snow to the humans. Meg set her pack down when he approached her and reached out to pat his head.
Dief sped the last few feet toward her, and in the end, his excitement toppled her over into the snow. The wolf stood with his front paws on her chest, panting happily. Meg was completely silent.
*Ah, Dief, you're in for it now,* Ben thought, assuming that the utter lack of sound or motion from her supine body meant an explosion was imminent. But to his surprise, instead of yelling at the animal, she began to laugh. Her deep chuckle hadn't changed since Chicago; he had heard that laugh on two separate occasions while assigned to the consulate, and remembered each instance with perfect clarity.
He watched in a kind of wonder as Meg ruffled Dief's fur and submitted to a thorough face-licking. After several long moments, she finally lifted his paws off her chest and set them on the ground so that she could sit up.
Ben was there with an outstretched hand to help her up. "I really don't know what's come over him," he said, gently brushing the snow off her coat.
"He's excited," she said. "This is sort of thrilling, really. It's an adventure." She was also brushing the snow from her coat, and inevitably, their gloved hands touched. Ben immediately dropped his arms back down to his sides. Meg kept her eyes focused on her coat, and after a brief pause, she wiped the remaining ice crystals from the fur.
They checked over the contents of their sleds on last time, and put the dogs in the traces. As she harnessed them, Meg greeted each of hers by name and softly urged them to behave themselves out on the open tundra. The excitement of an adventure was all well and good, but at the same time, when one depended on rather mischievous animals for one's transportation and, thus, survival, there was also more than a little creeping terror to go along with it.
They lined up the teams and sleds parallel to each other, a little over a meter apart. Meg's sled held most of the provisions; Ben's carried Frobisher in his wooden box. He looked at her and met her eyes. She nodded.
With twin shouts of "Hike!" they shot off across the snow.
4
* * *
They covered fifteen kilometers before stopping for lunch, and another six in the two hours after. They stayed close to each other, Ben always just ahead and frequently looking back to check that she was still behind him. The previous day, they had come up with hand signals to indicate when one wanted to stop for a break or had a problem, and these had worked well so far.
When the sun was neither directly overhead nor yet tilting at the horizon, Meg's lead dog, Lollipop, apparently spied something interesting in the distance. She sped the other dogs on with her barking, and soon all six were running flat out and taking Meg along for the ride.
She slammed down the sled brake. "Whoa! Easy!" she shouted, but the dogs were having none of that. If anything, they started going even faster. "Slow down, dammit!" Yep. Definitely having none of it.
Meg held on for dear life. She heard Fraser calling her name from far behind, and hoped he could reach her in time to do...something. Something that would stop these hounds from hell.
Just then, the sled went over a rock that had been hidden in the snow. Everything seemed to slow down as she felt one foot slip off the sled runner, dragging behind in the snow. The powdery snow seemed to want to take her whole body to its proverbial bosom; her other foot quickly slipped from its runner, and she was hanging on with only her mitted hands.
Quite soon thereafter, she wasn't hanging on at all.
Snow was rather a lot like sand, she decided. And she currently considered herself an expert on snow now that she was laying face down in the stuff. It got in places that it really ought not to be able to get into, such as under one's goggles, and into one's pants. Of course, instead of itching, it just melted. Coldly.
She heard Fraser's team kicking up the snow, and the hiss of his sled's runners cutting through it. Naturally, his dogs stopped on command, although not before they and the sled had half-covered her with sprayed-up snow.
She felt his hands on her back, clearing the snow off and subtly checking for injuries. She tilted her head so she could look at him.
He had a twinkle in his eyes and was having trouble suppressing a grin. "You let go of the sled," he said.
"I let go of the sled," she agreed. "Where are the dogs? Long gone?"
He extended an arm, and she gratefully took it and let him haul her out of the depression she'd created. "Look for yourself," he said when she was upright.
She looked. About sixty meters in front of them, her team was resting in the snow, tongues lolling. They looked insufferably smug. She saw that her sled had tipped over on its side, probably about the time she'd let go of it. Their supplies were scattered in a rough line for about twenty meters behind the overturned sled.
Meg groaned and rested her forehead on Ben's shoulder. "Tell me again why I'm doing this, Fraser," she said.
"Your respect for a fine officer who served more than thirty-five years on the force?" he replied.
"Ah. Yes. That." She lifted her head. "I'll get started repacking everything." *And then I'll throttle each and every one of those dogs.*
* * *
The rest of the afternoon passed without further incident. They pulled up near a small stream when the sky began to turn the oranges and pinks of a northern sunset. They made camp quickly; their tent went up with a minimum of fuss, and the fire started quickly. The dogs were removed from their traces, fed, and tied to stakes. As the last remnant of the long day traded places with night, stew bubbled over the fire.
They ate mostly in silence, warming themselves and drying their clothes by the crackling fire, which cast flicking shadows on snowdrifts and trees, and made the ice crystals sparkle. Meg's vitriol over her runaway team had died by the time it came to unhitch them, but a twinge in the shoulder she had struck falling from the sled remained. As she leaned over to get more stew and felt it flare up again, she must have made some kind of noise or other indication that she was in pain, because wordlessly, Fraser reached over and began to massage her aching shoulder with deep, deft strokes.
Meg nearly dropped her bowl at her feet. She let out a half-gasp, half-hiss. Fraser's hand stopped moving. "Did I hurt you?" he asked.
"No," Meg said, recovering quickly. "I was just surprised."
"Ah." He began to knead at her shoulder again. "I noticed you seemed to be favoring this shoulder. Ray took a fall very much like yours on his second try at mushing the sled. This seemed to help him."
Was that *jealousy* she felt? Jealousy that this closeness was not something she alone shared with Fraser?
*Grow up,* she told her inner teenager disgustedly. Her inner teenager stuck its tongue out at her.
Still, she relaxed into Ben's touch, and his fingers chased the twinge out of her muscles.
* * *
It was soon time to turn in for the night, for they planned to make a very early start in the morning. The dogs had dug themselves little hollows and burrows in the snow to keep warm, and were already asleep. Not having fur, Meg and Ben made do with long underwear, heavy-duty sleeping bags, and the tent.
The *one* tent. She'd known from the start that they only had the one, of course, because carrying two would have been ridiculous when they could both fit into one, albeit snugly. And yet, the reality of it only became totally clear when she watched Fraser duck through the flap, carrying their kerosene lamp, and knew that she would have to follow.
*I can do this,* she told herself, standing just outside the tent. *I am a grownup. I am a *Mountie*.* Thus momentarily courageous, she ducked inside.
She nearly tripped over Ben, who was difficult to see in the flickering lamplight. The tent was not just snug; it was damn near claustrophobic. Meg consoled herself with the thought that at least it might be a bit warmer than it could have been otherwise.
Fraser was already in his sleeping bag, on his side facing the tent wall. She could hear him breathing in a too-regular pattern that meant he wasn't asleep, but was pretending for her benefit, so that she could strip down to her thermals and get in her sleeping bag without having to worry about him seeing something he shouldn't. Not that he wouldn't be more embarrassed than her if he did, she thought, folding her clothes into a pile at the foot of her sleeping bag and squirming inside as quickly as she could. She still remembered the look in his face when, during the egg incident, she had ordered him to take off his tunic without explaining that she was after the bit of wire in his collar. Even now, it aroused a certain amused fondness in her. She wondered what he could have been thinking to make his face become so pale.
She turned over on her stomach and leaned into the tiny amount of space between the head of her sleeping bag and the tent wall. Cupping her hand behind the lamp that sat there, she blew out its cheerful flame, plunging the tent into sudden and utter darkness.
Meg held her breath, feeling almost as if with the extinguishing of the lamp, the world had also ceased to exist. There was no hall light coming under a door, no yellow sodium glow of a streetlamp through the window. There was only blackness and cold.
It was only when she heard Fraser stir that she let her breath out. Other sounds began to filter into her ears: the wind soughing through branches of spruce and fir, one of the dogs yipping at something in a dream.
"Goodnight," she said, needing to pit something human against the alien darkness.
"Goodnight," Fraser returned softly, his mouth barely six inches from her face. She could have reached out and touched his cheek or his lips. Instead, she rolled over and tried to will herself to sleep.
* * *
Ben woke to the sound of nylon sliding against nylon, the metallic chirping of zippers, and cotton skimming over skin. For a moment unsure of where he was, he opened his eyes.
Upon spying quite a bit more of Margaret Thatcher than he had ever expected to see, he slammed them shut again and twisted to face away from her. The rustling of fabric stopped abruptly.
Ben cursed himself for his reaction. Now she knew exactly what he'd seen, and he knew what he'd seen and...the whole thing was entirely too awkward. Sharing a tent with Meg--with *Inspector Thatcher*, he reminded himself, because despite her insistence on first names, it wouldn't do to get too comfortable--was an altogether different experience than sharing one with Ray had been. The air seemed constantly charged, just on the verge of giving him a good shock if he moved the wrong way. The scent that was uniquely hers filled the air and permeated the fabric, or maybe just his distracted mind. The way his tongue twisted up on itself when all he wanted to do was...
"Don't worry, I won't hold it against you," Meg suddenly said. She sounded amused. "I can see from over here that you're as red as a fire engine."
He wondered if, perhaps, he could melt into the frozen ground below. His face (and ears, and neck, and scalp) certainly felt hot enough. "I'm sorry," he said, feeling as if the image of her slipping the thermal undershirt on over bare skin, lit from behind by lamplight and dawn, would be forever printed on the backs of his eyelids.
"Don't be," she answered. His eyes shot open again, and he wondered if he'd heard her correctly. "I'll go feed the dogs and start breakfast while you get dressed."
She slipped out of the tent, leaving him wondering how on earth he was going to look her in the eye for the rest of the trip.
When he finally did emerge, they ate their simple breakfast and harnessed the dogs. Meg was as quick and efficient at it as he now, and they were soon on their way.
Part Two
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Date: 2007-07-02 06:50 pm (UTC)I'm really enjoying this story!
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