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icepixiePart One
* * *
5
* * *
After several days spent almost entirely in each others' presence, the easing of their relationship that Meg had hoped for came naturally. Over meals or in the tent after dark, Ben told her anecdotes from his past year up north, or from his expedition with Ray. Apparently it had ended after eleven months, Hand of Franklin-less (although really, they had been chasing an idea more than a hand) when they had run into Ben's sister, Maggie, while she was on patrol. Ray had decided that while quests were all well and good, it was high time he got to know her a lot better. Ben was alternately dismayed and delighted by their burgeoning relationship.
Meg responded with childhood tales, or sometimes with a scrap of reminiscence about someone she'd met or a place she'd gone in the Middle East, although so much of her past two years was in folders marked "Top Secret" back in Ottawa that she could hardly rely on it as a consistent topic of conversation. Besides, there was little about that time she wanted to relive.
Sometimes their conversations extended even past the point where they'd blown out the lamp and were ostensibly trying to fall asleep. One night, Ben started talking about his mother, of whom Meg had previously heard almost nothing. He was describing the small garden they had planted and tended the summer before she died. She heard the slight hitch in his voice as he spoke about harvesting the tiny vegetables that had managed to spring forth in the short northern summer, and without thinking, she reached out and curled her fingers around his. He squeezed it gratefully. They fell asleep soon after, still holding on to each other, one human connection in a vast and empty darkness.
And so for five days, they traced their really rather quite chilly line through a land that was not so much wild and savage as endless and supremely uncaring. On the fifth day, around lunch time, Meg could stand it no longer.
"How do you do it?" she asked.
Fraser furrowed his brow. "Do what?"
"Live here." He still looked confused. She tried to explain. "It just seems so barren."
Fraser cocked his head. He looked out at the blank whiteness surrounding them, broken only by the occasional evergreen and, in the distance, low mountains. He pointed suddenly at some indentations in the snow about three feet away.
"Do you see that? A fox passed by here a few hours ago." He turned slightly and took a few steps away from her. "And over here--a moose came though within the past day."
Meg followed him and stared dubiously at the ground. At first she saw nothing but snow, but sure enough, so faint that she would certainly have missed them without someone there to point them out, there were the twin teardrop impressions of moose hooves, heading south.
As if on cue, with a great flapping of wings, a white-feathered ptarmigan passed over their heads, soaring high into the pale sky. She frowned.
Within just a few feet of their stopping place, Ben pointed out other signs of habitation: spoor from the moose, twigs broken by the passing of a fox or hare, a feather dropped by a gyrfalcon.
Meg held the feather between her thumb and mitted fingers, studying it closely. "Hmm," she said.
Before they started back on their journey, Ben mentioned that if they kept up the pace, they would be able to make Nameless Point by the next evening.
* * *
When they stopped for the night, they each took up the usual roles they had fallen into, which had made the last several days run like clockwork; Fraser built the fire, and Thatcher put up the tent. Usually she finished before he did, but on this night, he found that she lagged behind him. Worried, he crossed the few steps to help her with the tent construction, and took a good look at her while doing so. She looked exhausted: dark half-moons lingered under her eyes, and she seemed to be moving as if through water. He took the tent pole from her hand.
"I'll finish this," he said.
"I can do it," she protested, but it was half-hearted at best.
"Are you ill?" he asked, dropping the pole and removing his glove to press a bare hand against her forehead. It was cool to the touch.
"No." She waved him off. "Just tired, I suppose."
He felt a tightening in his chest. Of course she was tired. They'd traversed some of the most difficult terrain yet on their trip today--many steep upward slopes where they'd had to run beside the sleds for the dogs to even make it up the incline, and also gauntlets of trees and boulders, requiring a steady hand and precision handling of the sleds. Not to mention that he'd all but guilt-tripped her into coming on this trip in the first place, just days after she'd returned from two years spying in the Middle East. He should have insisted that her needs came first, despite this being Frobisher's last wish. Of *course* she was tired.
He led her to a seat in front of the fire and told her to rest. She nodded, holding her hands out to be warmed by the flames.
He wondered also if today's sudden acknowledgement of exhaustion had anything to do with the previous night. He had been woken--his internal clock told him around three AM--by Meg thrashing around in the tight confines of her sleeping bag, presumably in the throes of some nightmare. When he had reached out a questing hand to wake her, finally bumping his fingers against her shoulder, she had stilled immediately, and he had decided to leave her sleeping. She hadn't mentioned anything about a nightmare in the morning, and he had let it go, assuming she didn't remember.
She might not remember it, but it gnawed at him. The idea of strong, capable Margaret Thatcher being frightened by anything, even in a dream, was completely outside of his worldview. She had spoken so little about her time in the Middle East; could it be something from the past two years which haunted her? As he finished setting up the tent and set a thick stew to bubbling over the fire, he resolved to ask her.
It took him until they were almost through with dinner to decide that the best way was also the most direct one. They had spoken little throughout the meal, and his question came after long minutes of silence.
"Meg," he said. He'd grown more comfortable using her name over the past several days, to the point where it came quite naturally. She looked up from her bowl. "You've never--that is, you haven't said much about your time away. I thought--perhaps--if you wanted, or, or needed to talk..."
*That went well,* a sarcastic voice in his mind commented. The voice bore more than a passing resemblance to that of his father, which, frankly, was a little disturbing, but he let the thought pass.
Meg's face had twisted up in a grimace. She set her bowl on the ground. "I suppose I haven't," she finally said. "There isn't much to say. I was mostly useful because men would say more around me, thinking that because I was a woman, I wouldn't understand or couldn't be working against their government. There was a lot of pretending to be servile and stupid when all I really wanted to do was punch someone in the mouth." Fraser stifled a laugh at this image. He could well imagine her blood steaming underneath an icy exterior.
"It was probably a good thing that the nephew of one of the directors of the CSIS"--she rolled her eyes here--"broke my cover less than a month after he got there. I was getting...lost."
Fraser quirked an eyebrow. "Lost?"
She shrugged. "It wasn't like I thought it would be when Superintendent Franks suggested I take the position. There was too much..." she trailed off, moving her hands in the air, futilely trying to find a word to encompass the subterfuge, the fear, and the need to stay quiet about so many small injustices so that the big ones could, eventually, be brought to rights.
"I didn't like the person I had to be." She sighed. "To be entirely honest, I haven't really liked the person I've been for quite a while now." She rolled her eyes at his quizzical look. "Come on, Fraser, don't tell me you didn't notice."
"Notice what?"
"The way I treated you. And Turnbull and Ovitz," she added, almost as an afterthought.
No, being relegated picking up her dry cleaning had certainly not gone unnoticed, although many of the regular consulate duties were hardly a better use of his skills.
Meg seemed to be interested in baring her soul, or at least some part of it. "You know what happened before, with Henri"--she nearly spat the name--"and others like him. When I came to Chicago, I wanted to make sure everyone knew I was in charge. Unfortunately, that desire came out in a...rather ugly way."
"I never resented it." he said. She just looked at him, and he knew she saw right through him. Just like his mother had. "Well, I may have once or twice--but never deeply." That was true. He had at first been confused by her cold and authoritarian--and sometimes capricious and petty--manner, but as long as he completed whatever tasks she required of him, she didn't make an issue of his extracurricular policing, and that was all that really mattered to him.
"But I understand why you felt the need to act as you did."
"How can you?" she whispered. He was a man, following his father's career path into the old boys' club of the RCMP. He couldn't have faced the patronizing superiors, the battles to get put on more dangerous details against those who thought women shouldn't be in the field, the constant need to be twice as good as everyone else to even get noticed.
"It's rather difficult to get others to take you seriously, even in small settlements, when every personal anecdote begins with 'Among the Inuit.'"
She seemed surprised, even shocked. Perhaps she hadn't thought he knew what the effect of his naive, backwoods persona was on others. Then she smiled, nodding a couple times.
"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."
Ben was silent for a moment. Meg stared into the fire. Then Fraser stood and walked over to Meg's sled, the one which carried their supplies. The bags were significantly lighter now after five days on the trail; he didn't have to rummage far to find what he was looking for. When he came back, he deposited one of two small, foil-wrapped slabs in her hand.
"Chocolate?" she asked, reading the label in the dim light.
"You may want to warm it over the fire for a bit," he said.
Her brow furrowed, she unwrapped the small chocolate bar. "What's this for?"
He shrugged, smiling a little. "We're almost there. I thought we should celebrate."
"I see." She attempted to break off a corner of the bar, realizing when it didn't budge that Fraser's advice about defrosting it was sound. "Well, then. Cheers." She looked over at Fraser's sled, still heavy with Frobisher's coffin. "To you too, Sergeant," she said, a hint of amusement in her tone. Fraser kept smiling.
* * *
The next morning was bright and cold. It was the day they would reach Nameless Point, and finally unload the macabre cargo they'd carried for a hundred and fifty kilometers. The dogs ran surely and swiftly, and they made good time.
Fraser sighted the point just as the sun was beginning to hide behind the western mountains. The point was actually a cliff that looked over a river valley, one made by a tributary of the mighty Mackenzie several hundred feet wide. Its vastness would have engendered settlements and bridges in other places; here, it didn't even merit a name.
Ben and Meg braked the sleds about thirty meters from the cliff edge, and made camp on the lee side of a large rock formation. Both were filled with the renewed energy of reaching a destination, and they walked lightfooted through the deep snow to see over the edge.
Sergeant Frobisher's resting place had a fine view in all seasons--the iced-over water and miles of pure white snow in winter, and the full, colorful glory of brief northern summers and autumns. In May, someone standing at the point could hear the ice on the river thundering as it broke up, and watch the slow greening of the land.
At the moment, everything was still under white snow, which shone in the setting sun. Three caribou walked along the bank of the river, foraging in the snow for food. Meg wondered if everything in this place looked like a painting come to life.
"I can see why he wanted to spend eternity here," she said.
"Sergeant Frobisher and my father came here on one of their first hunting trips together. It became something of a special place for them; they kept returning when they got a chance, every few years or so. My father took me along sometimes, when he had enough time to come by wherever my grandparents and I were living first." Meg got the impression that that hadn't been very often. "Wanting to be laid to rest here was unexpected, though. Although Julie, his daughter, did say she'd thought we might find something unusual in his will." Meg wasn't surprised at that.
With little to say, they stood there, two small figures against a vast wilderness, a thousand miles from anywhere, watching the sun set over the valley.
* * *
6
* * *
Frobisher's interment the following day was a slow process. Winter being what it was that far north, actual burial was out of the question. Only a backhoe could penetrate the frozen ground. Instead, they modified Inuit tradition. Working together, they managed to wrestle Frobisher's coffin into a perfectly-sized hollow in the rocks near which they had camped. As the shadows grew longer, they piled smaller stones, some of them rather far-flung from the site, into the narrow crevice's opening. With rocks masking the hole entirely, no opportunistic scavenger could come across the body and interrupt its slow decomposition. Dief tried to help, rolling stones over to them with his nose, but more often than not this created a snowball with a rock in the middle of it, and he soon gave it up in favor of following Meg around, staring intently at her. "What are you doing?" she finally asked him, feeling silly for expecting an answer. Then again, Fraser did seem to have conversations with him all the time....
Of course, Diefenbaker remained completely silent, and continued to stare at her.
Fraser laid the last stone in place and took several steps back. Meg joined him, standing near but not too near, and they surveyed their work. Frobisher's grave would certainly be well-marked, she thought, taking in the massive rock formation under which he laid.
Apparently satisfied, Fraser removed his ever-present Stetson. Meg removed her hat as well, determined to pay Frobisher the respect he deserved as a fine and decorated officer no matter how strange the situation was.
"Goodbye, sir," Fraser said, and saluted smartly. Meg followed his lead, and while raising her hand to her brow, wished Frobisher well, wherever he might be.
* * *
There were still a few hours of daylight left, what with the sun setting after nine o'clock. They spent some time redistributing weight between the sleds, and had an early supper. Afterwards, Ben suggested a short walk, far enough to see a bit more of the amazing scenery, but still close enough to the dogs and sleds should trouble arise.
Meg chose not to ask what "trouble" might mean in the context of an Artic wilderness which contained some not-particularly-friendly predators.
Dief, of course, came along with them, as did Lollipop, Meg's lead dog. Over the intervening six days, Meg had not only gotten over any latent animosity from Lolly's antics of the first afternoon, but had grown quite fond of the blue-eyed female. Ben privately thought that it might have something to do with the way Lolly kept the other members of the team in line with an iron paw--sudden desperate desires to chase something notwithstanding. He thought, perhaps, that Thatcher felt a certain kinship with this dog.
They walked slowly, watching as the declining angle of light transfigured elements of the landscape. As they strolled--well, strolled as best one could do while trudging through deep snow--Fraser attempted to determine the source of the nervous energy that seemed to be flooding every vein.
It had gone quite well, all things considered. They had brought Frobisher all the way out to this remote spot, had covered his body with stones, had provided what ceremony they could. They had discharged their duty. So why did it feel like he had left something unfinished?
His father had told him once, when he wasn't sure what to do about Ray during the trouble with Damon Cahill, "Your heart is where your duty lies." Sometimes he still felt like his father was just behind him, invisible, calling unbidden to his mind things he had once said. Ben wondered what that could mean in this situation, and why, of all possible responses to his feeling of incompleteness, those words had been the ones to run through his mind.
* * *
Dusk crept in with all the slow silence of wolf paws in the snow. They found their way back to the point to watch the last of it.
At the moment, Meg reflected, it was almost ridiculously easy to see the beauty of the vast, wild land. She had been wrong; it was far from barren and empty. Northern sunlight penetrated every crack and crevice. Evidence of life was everywhere, obvious once she knew what to look for.
And of course, the most tangible life was standing beside her, opening his mouth to ask what was on her mind.
She didn't give him the chance.
She kissed him, and after a shocked second, he kissed her back. It wasn't the desperate, adrenaline-fueled rush of their impulsive encounter on the train. Nor was it the soft brush of lips of their last trip up this way, full of regret for what might have been. Instead, in this kiss was all the welcome, joy, and relief Meg had wanted to feel upon finally coming home.
However, the practicality she prided herself on soon intruded. Awareness of her surroundings came slowly back to her, and with it the eminently reasonable assumption that her impulsive action had been inspired solely by the overly romantic scenery that surrounded them and the circumstances they found themselves in. It had to be due to the enforced togetherness of the past several days, the bracing northern air, the heavy emotion of the funereal day. Heat spread across her cheeks, and she tore her mouth from Ben's.
He was, of course, wearing that perfect little-boy-betrayed expression, and if possible, she felt her cheeks flush even redder.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, stricken, and ran back to their camp.
It was a long time before Fraser followed her into the tent. She wasn't asleep, of course, but she feigned it to avoid awkward conversation. She hoped that in the morning, he would remain true to form and keep his own counsel on the subject of what had happened that evening.
* * *
7
* * *
The morning was cold in more ways than one. But both of them were adept at avoidance, and they packed up and started out with a minimum of conversation. With the load on their sleds lightened so considerably, they stood to make excellent time on the journey back.
After a day off, Meg's dogs were ready to run, and she was ready to let them go as fast as they wanted. They fairly flew over the snow. The wind sang past the little exposed skin on her face, leaving it raw, but she welcomed the pain as a distraction from unpleasanter thoughts. Well, not that the memory of her latest incident with Benton Fraser was entirely unpleasant, of course, it was just that left to come to their natural conclusion, the consequences of her actions--of their actions; after all, he had been rather willing about the whole thing--would, probably sooner rather than later, become troublesome. Wouldn't they?
If she'd had a free hand, she would have pinched the bridge of her nose in hopes of making the impending headache go away. But all her efforts had to go into handling the sled as it skimmed over the snow, and soon she lost herself in the sensation of near-flight.
They covered twenty-two kilometers before stopping for the evening. Meg noticed while they made camp that Fraser appeared to have regained his equanimity. He whistled cheerfully as he started the fire. He gave her a quick smile when he caught her staring at him, puzzled. He seemed, in fact, to have forgotten all about their kiss.
*This is a good thing,* Meg told herself, noting with displeasure that even her own inner voice sounded doubtful. *We can put any awkwardness behind us and part as friends.*
Her inner teenager appeared then, and implied quite forcefully that the last thing she wanted to be to Fraser was just "friends."
Meg decided that if it were only possible, she would cheerfully strangle her inner teenager.
But as she found during supper, Fraser had not forgotten their most recent "contact." Halfway through the meal, he asked, out of the blue, "Yesterday, why did you apologize?"
As she dropped her metal camp plate face down on the ground, Meg silently cursed his propensity for asking startling questions during meals. In the ensuing production--both of them nearly knocking heads while trying to pick up the plate, Ben offering her the rest of his meal, her declining out of professed lack of hunger--she hoped he might forget his original question. But of course, this was Fraser, who was as tenacious as the average terrier.
"Forgive me, but you did say that you weren't, as of this moment, a member of the RCMP. I don't believe that we were engaging in any activity that might be frowned upon."
She stared at him. Did he really not understand? Well, she could hardly blame him, she supposed, since she herself couldn't make heads or tails of half the emotions that were flitting around her brain, getting tangled in carefully constructed nets of logic and reason. She hadn't been this confused since that day on the train, when the sudden punch of grief she felt over Fraser's apparent death had completely blindsided her.
As so often happened when Fraser disoriented her, she responded with anger. "It shouldn't have happened," she snapped. The sharpness of command had come back into her voice, and she could see where Fraser practically had to restrain himself from standing at attention. *Damn,* she thought. He didn't deserve her anger, but further apologies stuck in her throat, only irritating her more. She said a curt "Good night," and stalked into the tent.
What she needed right now, she thought as she viciously unzipped, unfastened, and untied her various outer layers, was a pity party, complete with ice cream and a black and white movie on TV. But the nearest supermarket was probably a thousand miles away, and cable seemed an unlikely amenity in her current abode.
You would think, she told herself, that after two earlier mistakes, she would be better able to control her actions around Ben Fraser. Their last kiss, when they were saying goodbye, was excusable; when she thought she'd never have the chance to do it again, why not? And the train, well, she could hardly have been expected not to have shown *some* kind of emotion after seeing him return from the dead--at least before she knew it was a semi-regular occurrence where Fraser was concerned--and anyway, as she recalled, *he* had been the first one to step forward and lean in, a fact which had caused her considerable delight for quite some time.
But as nice as "contact" with her former subordinate was, to allow it to continue would only lead to a bad ending, she thought as she settled into her sleeping bag. She still had at least one more promotion in her, she hoped, and being posted to the northernmost point of the back of beyond would do her career no favors. Fraser, she knew, would never be truly happy in Toronto or Montreal or any other big eastern city.
Something rustled the tent flaps, and she jumped. But it was only Dief, who had come in apparently with the express purpose of sitting and staring at her.
"What?" she asked. The wolf's weird attitude had begun to irritate her after more than a week.
Dief gave her a look she could only interpret as reproachful.
"You think I should apologize to him."
Dief whined.
Meg grimaced. "Well, you're probably right there. I shouldn't have snapped at him. I shouldn't have *kissed* him, either."
The wolf's whine took on an inquisitive air.
"Oh, come on. Even you should know why."
His answer was not--quite--a growl.
"I have to go back. He has to stay here. Surely you've seen *Casablanca*."
She thought she saw Dief roll his eyes.
"All right, I suppose I'm not exactly Ingrid Bergman." She looked around the tent. It was hardly the Cafe Americain. "After all, I am sitting here talking to a dog." Dief objected to this characterization. "All right, *wolf*." He subsided.
Meg was silent for a while. Dief continued to stare at her, his dark eyes glistening in the light from the kerosene lamp.
She cracked first. The humans always did. "What *now*?"
He looked at her like she ought to know. To be fair, she did.
"All right. All right! I'll talk to him. Happy?" *You realize you just let a *dog* talk you into something,* she told herself. *And the dog doesn't even talk.*
Dief actually seemed to nod. He stood up and left the tent.
Meg wondered what she would say, how she could lead Fraser through the dense thicket of impulsive emotion and cold reason she didn't quite know how to navigate herself. But she fell asleep before he came into the tent, and in the morning the moment was lost.
* * *
The next two days flew by as they sped across the snow. Meg was determined to enjoy every remaining moment before she went back to Ottawa for reassignment, and from there to a probably very nice position behind a large executive desk, where her professional life would in all likelihood consist of paperwork, strategic attendance at diplomatic events, paperwork, the occasional dressing down of a subordinate or three, and oh, yes, paperwork. It made her tired just thinking about it.
Out here, the feeling of being part of the powerful dog team seemed to give her energy reserves she'd never known she had. With each breath, she filled her lungs with clean northern air. Even though she did long for certain urban conveniences, she would miss it all back in the city, when she was trudging down sidewalks clogged with people, hemmed in by tall buildings and dull gray skies.
On their last night out, they kept running well into dusk so that they could cover the remaining kilometers to Fraser's cabin the following day before evening fell. Because of the irregular schedule the bush plane to Hay River kept, she would stay with him another two days. Meg's muscles sang with the exertion of the day, and she gratefully took a seat for dinner.
Some of the former distance between them had returned, but not all of it, and the conversation was easy. During the meal, Ben teased her about her ravenous appetite, and she punched him lightly in the arm before stealing the last of his pemmican.
But when they were finished, he turned quiet and pensive. She offered a penny for his thoughts.
He was silent for a long moment. "Where do you think you'll go when we get back?" he finally asked, his tone light as anything. He was carefully not looking at her, focusing all his attention on the fire.
She felt a twist in her guts. They had so little time left together on this trip; she'd hoped they could put off talking about its end for at least another day.
"I'm not sure," she answered, attempting to keep her tone as light as his. "Wherever I'm sent, I suppose. Toronto or Ottawa, most likely."
He looked up, catching her gaze in the firelight. He didn't let go, and for a second she contemplated how very blue his eyes were. "You could stay here," he almost whispered.
She knew her mouth had dropped open because of the cold air on her tongue. To say the suggestion--and the implied desire--had broadsided her was an understatement of gigantic enough proportions that it fit right into this outsized country. *How am I supposed to answer this?* she wondered. "I..." she stuttered.
She could tell the instant he began to regret his words and start putting up the impenetrable mask he had worn so often with her before this trip. She knew only one thing, and it was that she couldn't let that happen.
Before he could speak, she blurted, "Only if I can get to a real grocery store at least once a month." She could've kicked herself for saying something so inane.
Time hung suspended in the clear Arctic night, and she felt her heart pause. Ben was so completely expressionless for so long that she thought, she thought...but then a smile slowly broke over his face, like dawn over the tundra. "There are lots of places like that up here," he said.
Her heart began to beat again.
* * *
After their conversation, it seemed only natural that he should kiss her. She saw no reason not to respond. Unwilling to waste any more time after more than four years, they all but ran into the tent, and began tugging at clothing in between kisses. Ben paused when he got down to her underwear.
"Red suits you," he said, taking in her wooly thermals with an amused smile.
She rolled her eyes. "They're hardly attractive," she said.
"They look fantastic on you," he insisted. "Of course, they'd look even better *off* you," he continued. Meg grinned, and when he grasped the hem of her shirt, she eagerly lifted her arms so he could pull it off.
They were interrupted by Diefenbaker, who had slipped inside the tent without a sound and who now pressed his cold, wet nose against the bare skin of back. Meg shrieked. Briefly.
"What *is* it with you?" she asked the animal. Dief only wagged his tail happily.
Ben cocked his head. "Wolves are quite demonstrative among those with whom they feel comfortable." Dief nuzzled him, as if to prove a point. "I think he considers you part of his pack. He's trying to let you know that you're...well, family, basically."
Meg turned that thought over for a moment. She'd never expected a wolf to care one way or another about her, but she knew from experience to expect the unexpected around Benton Fraser. She'd best get used to it.
"Thank you for the welcome, Dief," she said, ruffling the fur behind his ears. She glanced at Ben. "But I think it's time you learned there are some things even family member wolves don't need to share." She and Ben gently shooed Dief out of the tent, making sure the flaps were secure this time before returning their attentions to each other.
* * *
Far away, nearly invisible in the twilight, an old man in a red uniform smiled. A promise extracted long ago by a dear friend fulfilled, he looked fondly at the couple in the distance for a moment before turning and walking away, becoming increasingly transparent with each step.
5
* * *
After several days spent almost entirely in each others' presence, the easing of their relationship that Meg had hoped for came naturally. Over meals or in the tent after dark, Ben told her anecdotes from his past year up north, or from his expedition with Ray. Apparently it had ended after eleven months, Hand of Franklin-less (although really, they had been chasing an idea more than a hand) when they had run into Ben's sister, Maggie, while she was on patrol. Ray had decided that while quests were all well and good, it was high time he got to know her a lot better. Ben was alternately dismayed and delighted by their burgeoning relationship.
Meg responded with childhood tales, or sometimes with a scrap of reminiscence about someone she'd met or a place she'd gone in the Middle East, although so much of her past two years was in folders marked "Top Secret" back in Ottawa that she could hardly rely on it as a consistent topic of conversation. Besides, there was little about that time she wanted to relive.
Sometimes their conversations extended even past the point where they'd blown out the lamp and were ostensibly trying to fall asleep. One night, Ben started talking about his mother, of whom Meg had previously heard almost nothing. He was describing the small garden they had planted and tended the summer before she died. She heard the slight hitch in his voice as he spoke about harvesting the tiny vegetables that had managed to spring forth in the short northern summer, and without thinking, she reached out and curled her fingers around his. He squeezed it gratefully. They fell asleep soon after, still holding on to each other, one human connection in a vast and empty darkness.
And so for five days, they traced their really rather quite chilly line through a land that was not so much wild and savage as endless and supremely uncaring. On the fifth day, around lunch time, Meg could stand it no longer.
"How do you do it?" she asked.
Fraser furrowed his brow. "Do what?"
"Live here." He still looked confused. She tried to explain. "It just seems so barren."
Fraser cocked his head. He looked out at the blank whiteness surrounding them, broken only by the occasional evergreen and, in the distance, low mountains. He pointed suddenly at some indentations in the snow about three feet away.
"Do you see that? A fox passed by here a few hours ago." He turned slightly and took a few steps away from her. "And over here--a moose came though within the past day."
Meg followed him and stared dubiously at the ground. At first she saw nothing but snow, but sure enough, so faint that she would certainly have missed them without someone there to point them out, there were the twin teardrop impressions of moose hooves, heading south.
As if on cue, with a great flapping of wings, a white-feathered ptarmigan passed over their heads, soaring high into the pale sky. She frowned.
Within just a few feet of their stopping place, Ben pointed out other signs of habitation: spoor from the moose, twigs broken by the passing of a fox or hare, a feather dropped by a gyrfalcon.
Meg held the feather between her thumb and mitted fingers, studying it closely. "Hmm," she said.
Before they started back on their journey, Ben mentioned that if they kept up the pace, they would be able to make Nameless Point by the next evening.
* * *
When they stopped for the night, they each took up the usual roles they had fallen into, which had made the last several days run like clockwork; Fraser built the fire, and Thatcher put up the tent. Usually she finished before he did, but on this night, he found that she lagged behind him. Worried, he crossed the few steps to help her with the tent construction, and took a good look at her while doing so. She looked exhausted: dark half-moons lingered under her eyes, and she seemed to be moving as if through water. He took the tent pole from her hand.
"I'll finish this," he said.
"I can do it," she protested, but it was half-hearted at best.
"Are you ill?" he asked, dropping the pole and removing his glove to press a bare hand against her forehead. It was cool to the touch.
"No." She waved him off. "Just tired, I suppose."
He felt a tightening in his chest. Of course she was tired. They'd traversed some of the most difficult terrain yet on their trip today--many steep upward slopes where they'd had to run beside the sleds for the dogs to even make it up the incline, and also gauntlets of trees and boulders, requiring a steady hand and precision handling of the sleds. Not to mention that he'd all but guilt-tripped her into coming on this trip in the first place, just days after she'd returned from two years spying in the Middle East. He should have insisted that her needs came first, despite this being Frobisher's last wish. Of *course* she was tired.
He led her to a seat in front of the fire and told her to rest. She nodded, holding her hands out to be warmed by the flames.
He wondered also if today's sudden acknowledgement of exhaustion had anything to do with the previous night. He had been woken--his internal clock told him around three AM--by Meg thrashing around in the tight confines of her sleeping bag, presumably in the throes of some nightmare. When he had reached out a questing hand to wake her, finally bumping his fingers against her shoulder, she had stilled immediately, and he had decided to leave her sleeping. She hadn't mentioned anything about a nightmare in the morning, and he had let it go, assuming she didn't remember.
She might not remember it, but it gnawed at him. The idea of strong, capable Margaret Thatcher being frightened by anything, even in a dream, was completely outside of his worldview. She had spoken so little about her time in the Middle East; could it be something from the past two years which haunted her? As he finished setting up the tent and set a thick stew to bubbling over the fire, he resolved to ask her.
It took him until they were almost through with dinner to decide that the best way was also the most direct one. They had spoken little throughout the meal, and his question came after long minutes of silence.
"Meg," he said. He'd grown more comfortable using her name over the past several days, to the point where it came quite naturally. She looked up from her bowl. "You've never--that is, you haven't said much about your time away. I thought--perhaps--if you wanted, or, or needed to talk..."
*That went well,* a sarcastic voice in his mind commented. The voice bore more than a passing resemblance to that of his father, which, frankly, was a little disturbing, but he let the thought pass.
Meg's face had twisted up in a grimace. She set her bowl on the ground. "I suppose I haven't," she finally said. "There isn't much to say. I was mostly useful because men would say more around me, thinking that because I was a woman, I wouldn't understand or couldn't be working against their government. There was a lot of pretending to be servile and stupid when all I really wanted to do was punch someone in the mouth." Fraser stifled a laugh at this image. He could well imagine her blood steaming underneath an icy exterior.
"It was probably a good thing that the nephew of one of the directors of the CSIS"--she rolled her eyes here--"broke my cover less than a month after he got there. I was getting...lost."
Fraser quirked an eyebrow. "Lost?"
She shrugged. "It wasn't like I thought it would be when Superintendent Franks suggested I take the position. There was too much..." she trailed off, moving her hands in the air, futilely trying to find a word to encompass the subterfuge, the fear, and the need to stay quiet about so many small injustices so that the big ones could, eventually, be brought to rights.
"I didn't like the person I had to be." She sighed. "To be entirely honest, I haven't really liked the person I've been for quite a while now." She rolled her eyes at his quizzical look. "Come on, Fraser, don't tell me you didn't notice."
"Notice what?"
"The way I treated you. And Turnbull and Ovitz," she added, almost as an afterthought.
No, being relegated picking up her dry cleaning had certainly not gone unnoticed, although many of the regular consulate duties were hardly a better use of his skills.
Meg seemed to be interested in baring her soul, or at least some part of it. "You know what happened before, with Henri"--she nearly spat the name--"and others like him. When I came to Chicago, I wanted to make sure everyone knew I was in charge. Unfortunately, that desire came out in a...rather ugly way."
"I never resented it." he said. She just looked at him, and he knew she saw right through him. Just like his mother had. "Well, I may have once or twice--but never deeply." That was true. He had at first been confused by her cold and authoritarian--and sometimes capricious and petty--manner, but as long as he completed whatever tasks she required of him, she didn't make an issue of his extracurricular policing, and that was all that really mattered to him.
"But I understand why you felt the need to act as you did."
"How can you?" she whispered. He was a man, following his father's career path into the old boys' club of the RCMP. He couldn't have faced the patronizing superiors, the battles to get put on more dangerous details against those who thought women shouldn't be in the field, the constant need to be twice as good as everyone else to even get noticed.
"It's rather difficult to get others to take you seriously, even in small settlements, when every personal anecdote begins with 'Among the Inuit.'"
She seemed surprised, even shocked. Perhaps she hadn't thought he knew what the effect of his naive, backwoods persona was on others. Then she smiled, nodding a couple times.
"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."
Ben was silent for a moment. Meg stared into the fire. Then Fraser stood and walked over to Meg's sled, the one which carried their supplies. The bags were significantly lighter now after five days on the trail; he didn't have to rummage far to find what he was looking for. When he came back, he deposited one of two small, foil-wrapped slabs in her hand.
"Chocolate?" she asked, reading the label in the dim light.
"You may want to warm it over the fire for a bit," he said.
Her brow furrowed, she unwrapped the small chocolate bar. "What's this for?"
He shrugged, smiling a little. "We're almost there. I thought we should celebrate."
"I see." She attempted to break off a corner of the bar, realizing when it didn't budge that Fraser's advice about defrosting it was sound. "Well, then. Cheers." She looked over at Fraser's sled, still heavy with Frobisher's coffin. "To you too, Sergeant," she said, a hint of amusement in her tone. Fraser kept smiling.
* * *
The next morning was bright and cold. It was the day they would reach Nameless Point, and finally unload the macabre cargo they'd carried for a hundred and fifty kilometers. The dogs ran surely and swiftly, and they made good time.
Fraser sighted the point just as the sun was beginning to hide behind the western mountains. The point was actually a cliff that looked over a river valley, one made by a tributary of the mighty Mackenzie several hundred feet wide. Its vastness would have engendered settlements and bridges in other places; here, it didn't even merit a name.
Ben and Meg braked the sleds about thirty meters from the cliff edge, and made camp on the lee side of a large rock formation. Both were filled with the renewed energy of reaching a destination, and they walked lightfooted through the deep snow to see over the edge.
Sergeant Frobisher's resting place had a fine view in all seasons--the iced-over water and miles of pure white snow in winter, and the full, colorful glory of brief northern summers and autumns. In May, someone standing at the point could hear the ice on the river thundering as it broke up, and watch the slow greening of the land.
At the moment, everything was still under white snow, which shone in the setting sun. Three caribou walked along the bank of the river, foraging in the snow for food. Meg wondered if everything in this place looked like a painting come to life.
"I can see why he wanted to spend eternity here," she said.
"Sergeant Frobisher and my father came here on one of their first hunting trips together. It became something of a special place for them; they kept returning when they got a chance, every few years or so. My father took me along sometimes, when he had enough time to come by wherever my grandparents and I were living first." Meg got the impression that that hadn't been very often. "Wanting to be laid to rest here was unexpected, though. Although Julie, his daughter, did say she'd thought we might find something unusual in his will." Meg wasn't surprised at that.
With little to say, they stood there, two small figures against a vast wilderness, a thousand miles from anywhere, watching the sun set over the valley.
6
* * *
Frobisher's interment the following day was a slow process. Winter being what it was that far north, actual burial was out of the question. Only a backhoe could penetrate the frozen ground. Instead, they modified Inuit tradition. Working together, they managed to wrestle Frobisher's coffin into a perfectly-sized hollow in the rocks near which they had camped. As the shadows grew longer, they piled smaller stones, some of them rather far-flung from the site, into the narrow crevice's opening. With rocks masking the hole entirely, no opportunistic scavenger could come across the body and interrupt its slow decomposition. Dief tried to help, rolling stones over to them with his nose, but more often than not this created a snowball with a rock in the middle of it, and he soon gave it up in favor of following Meg around, staring intently at her. "What are you doing?" she finally asked him, feeling silly for expecting an answer. Then again, Fraser did seem to have conversations with him all the time....
Of course, Diefenbaker remained completely silent, and continued to stare at her.
Fraser laid the last stone in place and took several steps back. Meg joined him, standing near but not too near, and they surveyed their work. Frobisher's grave would certainly be well-marked, she thought, taking in the massive rock formation under which he laid.
Apparently satisfied, Fraser removed his ever-present Stetson. Meg removed her hat as well, determined to pay Frobisher the respect he deserved as a fine and decorated officer no matter how strange the situation was.
"Goodbye, sir," Fraser said, and saluted smartly. Meg followed his lead, and while raising her hand to her brow, wished Frobisher well, wherever he might be.
* * *
There were still a few hours of daylight left, what with the sun setting after nine o'clock. They spent some time redistributing weight between the sleds, and had an early supper. Afterwards, Ben suggested a short walk, far enough to see a bit more of the amazing scenery, but still close enough to the dogs and sleds should trouble arise.
Meg chose not to ask what "trouble" might mean in the context of an Artic wilderness which contained some not-particularly-friendly predators.
Dief, of course, came along with them, as did Lollipop, Meg's lead dog. Over the intervening six days, Meg had not only gotten over any latent animosity from Lolly's antics of the first afternoon, but had grown quite fond of the blue-eyed female. Ben privately thought that it might have something to do with the way Lolly kept the other members of the team in line with an iron paw--sudden desperate desires to chase something notwithstanding. He thought, perhaps, that Thatcher felt a certain kinship with this dog.
They walked slowly, watching as the declining angle of light transfigured elements of the landscape. As they strolled--well, strolled as best one could do while trudging through deep snow--Fraser attempted to determine the source of the nervous energy that seemed to be flooding every vein.
It had gone quite well, all things considered. They had brought Frobisher all the way out to this remote spot, had covered his body with stones, had provided what ceremony they could. They had discharged their duty. So why did it feel like he had left something unfinished?
His father had told him once, when he wasn't sure what to do about Ray during the trouble with Damon Cahill, "Your heart is where your duty lies." Sometimes he still felt like his father was just behind him, invisible, calling unbidden to his mind things he had once said. Ben wondered what that could mean in this situation, and why, of all possible responses to his feeling of incompleteness, those words had been the ones to run through his mind.
* * *
Dusk crept in with all the slow silence of wolf paws in the snow. They found their way back to the point to watch the last of it.
At the moment, Meg reflected, it was almost ridiculously easy to see the beauty of the vast, wild land. She had been wrong; it was far from barren and empty. Northern sunlight penetrated every crack and crevice. Evidence of life was everywhere, obvious once she knew what to look for.
And of course, the most tangible life was standing beside her, opening his mouth to ask what was on her mind.
She didn't give him the chance.
She kissed him, and after a shocked second, he kissed her back. It wasn't the desperate, adrenaline-fueled rush of their impulsive encounter on the train. Nor was it the soft brush of lips of their last trip up this way, full of regret for what might have been. Instead, in this kiss was all the welcome, joy, and relief Meg had wanted to feel upon finally coming home.
However, the practicality she prided herself on soon intruded. Awareness of her surroundings came slowly back to her, and with it the eminently reasonable assumption that her impulsive action had been inspired solely by the overly romantic scenery that surrounded them and the circumstances they found themselves in. It had to be due to the enforced togetherness of the past several days, the bracing northern air, the heavy emotion of the funereal day. Heat spread across her cheeks, and she tore her mouth from Ben's.
He was, of course, wearing that perfect little-boy-betrayed expression, and if possible, she felt her cheeks flush even redder.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, stricken, and ran back to their camp.
It was a long time before Fraser followed her into the tent. She wasn't asleep, of course, but she feigned it to avoid awkward conversation. She hoped that in the morning, he would remain true to form and keep his own counsel on the subject of what had happened that evening.
7
* * *
The morning was cold in more ways than one. But both of them were adept at avoidance, and they packed up and started out with a minimum of conversation. With the load on their sleds lightened so considerably, they stood to make excellent time on the journey back.
After a day off, Meg's dogs were ready to run, and she was ready to let them go as fast as they wanted. They fairly flew over the snow. The wind sang past the little exposed skin on her face, leaving it raw, but she welcomed the pain as a distraction from unpleasanter thoughts. Well, not that the memory of her latest incident with Benton Fraser was entirely unpleasant, of course, it was just that left to come to their natural conclusion, the consequences of her actions--of their actions; after all, he had been rather willing about the whole thing--would, probably sooner rather than later, become troublesome. Wouldn't they?
If she'd had a free hand, she would have pinched the bridge of her nose in hopes of making the impending headache go away. But all her efforts had to go into handling the sled as it skimmed over the snow, and soon she lost herself in the sensation of near-flight.
They covered twenty-two kilometers before stopping for the evening. Meg noticed while they made camp that Fraser appeared to have regained his equanimity. He whistled cheerfully as he started the fire. He gave her a quick smile when he caught her staring at him, puzzled. He seemed, in fact, to have forgotten all about their kiss.
*This is a good thing,* Meg told herself, noting with displeasure that even her own inner voice sounded doubtful. *We can put any awkwardness behind us and part as friends.*
Her inner teenager appeared then, and implied quite forcefully that the last thing she wanted to be to Fraser was just "friends."
Meg decided that if it were only possible, she would cheerfully strangle her inner teenager.
But as she found during supper, Fraser had not forgotten their most recent "contact." Halfway through the meal, he asked, out of the blue, "Yesterday, why did you apologize?"
As she dropped her metal camp plate face down on the ground, Meg silently cursed his propensity for asking startling questions during meals. In the ensuing production--both of them nearly knocking heads while trying to pick up the plate, Ben offering her the rest of his meal, her declining out of professed lack of hunger--she hoped he might forget his original question. But of course, this was Fraser, who was as tenacious as the average terrier.
"Forgive me, but you did say that you weren't, as of this moment, a member of the RCMP. I don't believe that we were engaging in any activity that might be frowned upon."
She stared at him. Did he really not understand? Well, she could hardly blame him, she supposed, since she herself couldn't make heads or tails of half the emotions that were flitting around her brain, getting tangled in carefully constructed nets of logic and reason. She hadn't been this confused since that day on the train, when the sudden punch of grief she felt over Fraser's apparent death had completely blindsided her.
As so often happened when Fraser disoriented her, she responded with anger. "It shouldn't have happened," she snapped. The sharpness of command had come back into her voice, and she could see where Fraser practically had to restrain himself from standing at attention. *Damn,* she thought. He didn't deserve her anger, but further apologies stuck in her throat, only irritating her more. She said a curt "Good night," and stalked into the tent.
What she needed right now, she thought as she viciously unzipped, unfastened, and untied her various outer layers, was a pity party, complete with ice cream and a black and white movie on TV. But the nearest supermarket was probably a thousand miles away, and cable seemed an unlikely amenity in her current abode.
You would think, she told herself, that after two earlier mistakes, she would be better able to control her actions around Ben Fraser. Their last kiss, when they were saying goodbye, was excusable; when she thought she'd never have the chance to do it again, why not? And the train, well, she could hardly have been expected not to have shown *some* kind of emotion after seeing him return from the dead--at least before she knew it was a semi-regular occurrence where Fraser was concerned--and anyway, as she recalled, *he* had been the first one to step forward and lean in, a fact which had caused her considerable delight for quite some time.
But as nice as "contact" with her former subordinate was, to allow it to continue would only lead to a bad ending, she thought as she settled into her sleeping bag. She still had at least one more promotion in her, she hoped, and being posted to the northernmost point of the back of beyond would do her career no favors. Fraser, she knew, would never be truly happy in Toronto or Montreal or any other big eastern city.
Something rustled the tent flaps, and she jumped. But it was only Dief, who had come in apparently with the express purpose of sitting and staring at her.
"What?" she asked. The wolf's weird attitude had begun to irritate her after more than a week.
Dief gave her a look she could only interpret as reproachful.
"You think I should apologize to him."
Dief whined.
Meg grimaced. "Well, you're probably right there. I shouldn't have snapped at him. I shouldn't have *kissed* him, either."
The wolf's whine took on an inquisitive air.
"Oh, come on. Even you should know why."
His answer was not--quite--a growl.
"I have to go back. He has to stay here. Surely you've seen *Casablanca*."
She thought she saw Dief roll his eyes.
"All right, I suppose I'm not exactly Ingrid Bergman." She looked around the tent. It was hardly the Cafe Americain. "After all, I am sitting here talking to a dog." Dief objected to this characterization. "All right, *wolf*." He subsided.
Meg was silent for a while. Dief continued to stare at her, his dark eyes glistening in the light from the kerosene lamp.
She cracked first. The humans always did. "What *now*?"
He looked at her like she ought to know. To be fair, she did.
"All right. All right! I'll talk to him. Happy?" *You realize you just let a *dog* talk you into something,* she told herself. *And the dog doesn't even talk.*
Dief actually seemed to nod. He stood up and left the tent.
Meg wondered what she would say, how she could lead Fraser through the dense thicket of impulsive emotion and cold reason she didn't quite know how to navigate herself. But she fell asleep before he came into the tent, and in the morning the moment was lost.
* * *
The next two days flew by as they sped across the snow. Meg was determined to enjoy every remaining moment before she went back to Ottawa for reassignment, and from there to a probably very nice position behind a large executive desk, where her professional life would in all likelihood consist of paperwork, strategic attendance at diplomatic events, paperwork, the occasional dressing down of a subordinate or three, and oh, yes, paperwork. It made her tired just thinking about it.
Out here, the feeling of being part of the powerful dog team seemed to give her energy reserves she'd never known she had. With each breath, she filled her lungs with clean northern air. Even though she did long for certain urban conveniences, she would miss it all back in the city, when she was trudging down sidewalks clogged with people, hemmed in by tall buildings and dull gray skies.
On their last night out, they kept running well into dusk so that they could cover the remaining kilometers to Fraser's cabin the following day before evening fell. Because of the irregular schedule the bush plane to Hay River kept, she would stay with him another two days. Meg's muscles sang with the exertion of the day, and she gratefully took a seat for dinner.
Some of the former distance between them had returned, but not all of it, and the conversation was easy. During the meal, Ben teased her about her ravenous appetite, and she punched him lightly in the arm before stealing the last of his pemmican.
But when they were finished, he turned quiet and pensive. She offered a penny for his thoughts.
He was silent for a long moment. "Where do you think you'll go when we get back?" he finally asked, his tone light as anything. He was carefully not looking at her, focusing all his attention on the fire.
She felt a twist in her guts. They had so little time left together on this trip; she'd hoped they could put off talking about its end for at least another day.
"I'm not sure," she answered, attempting to keep her tone as light as his. "Wherever I'm sent, I suppose. Toronto or Ottawa, most likely."
He looked up, catching her gaze in the firelight. He didn't let go, and for a second she contemplated how very blue his eyes were. "You could stay here," he almost whispered.
She knew her mouth had dropped open because of the cold air on her tongue. To say the suggestion--and the implied desire--had broadsided her was an understatement of gigantic enough proportions that it fit right into this outsized country. *How am I supposed to answer this?* she wondered. "I..." she stuttered.
She could tell the instant he began to regret his words and start putting up the impenetrable mask he had worn so often with her before this trip. She knew only one thing, and it was that she couldn't let that happen.
Before he could speak, she blurted, "Only if I can get to a real grocery store at least once a month." She could've kicked herself for saying something so inane.
Time hung suspended in the clear Arctic night, and she felt her heart pause. Ben was so completely expressionless for so long that she thought, she thought...but then a smile slowly broke over his face, like dawn over the tundra. "There are lots of places like that up here," he said.
Her heart began to beat again.
* * *
After their conversation, it seemed only natural that he should kiss her. She saw no reason not to respond. Unwilling to waste any more time after more than four years, they all but ran into the tent, and began tugging at clothing in between kisses. Ben paused when he got down to her underwear.
"Red suits you," he said, taking in her wooly thermals with an amused smile.
She rolled her eyes. "They're hardly attractive," she said.
"They look fantastic on you," he insisted. "Of course, they'd look even better *off* you," he continued. Meg grinned, and when he grasped the hem of her shirt, she eagerly lifted her arms so he could pull it off.
They were interrupted by Diefenbaker, who had slipped inside the tent without a sound and who now pressed his cold, wet nose against the bare skin of back. Meg shrieked. Briefly.
"What *is* it with you?" she asked the animal. Dief only wagged his tail happily.
Ben cocked his head. "Wolves are quite demonstrative among those with whom they feel comfortable." Dief nuzzled him, as if to prove a point. "I think he considers you part of his pack. He's trying to let you know that you're...well, family, basically."
Meg turned that thought over for a moment. She'd never expected a wolf to care one way or another about her, but she knew from experience to expect the unexpected around Benton Fraser. She'd best get used to it.
"Thank you for the welcome, Dief," she said, ruffling the fur behind his ears. She glanced at Ben. "But I think it's time you learned there are some things even family member wolves don't need to share." She and Ben gently shooed Dief out of the tent, making sure the flaps were secure this time before returning their attentions to each other.
* * *
Far away, nearly invisible in the twilight, an old man in a red uniform smiled. A promise extracted long ago by a dear friend fulfilled, he looked fondly at the couple in the distance for a moment before turning and walking away, becoming increasingly transparent with each step.
no subject
Date: 2007-06-29 11:31 pm (UTC)Wheeeee!
That was a very fun read, my dear! I still have a smile on my face, and I finished it about ten minutes ago now. :D
Awww, thank you!
I think I made the Fraser/Thatcher thing work by...trying to forget the third season existed, kind of? Not out of dislike for it, but just because the changes in it do seem to make them having any kind of relationship more of a dream than a possibility. Although I think it also helped that I set it two years after COTW, because I had more of a blank slate to work with, particularly with Meg having come back from spying in Iraq.
The Dief conversation was one of my favorite parts to write. :D