Application for Victoria Metcalf (Due South)
((Done with permission from the relevant DS-muns.))
( Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here/Buckle! And the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion/Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!/No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion/Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,/Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermilion. )
( Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here/Buckle! And the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion/Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!/No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion/Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,/Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermilion. )
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Victoria stared, lips parted slightly, wonderment and hurt and so much past flickering across her eyes before it was gone and it was just her. Looking back at Fraser as if he'd suddenly just given her warmth in the middle of a storm, hope when everything was gone.
One step forward, then, one tiny step and she smiled at him. Small, fragile, and all of her breath caught somewhere in her lungs.
"Ben."
Her Ben.
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It had been so long since he'd last seen her, and so much had happened since then, but all that time and distance meant nothing. The sight of her erased everything that had happened since their last moments together and instantly he was not in the Sorting Room, not in Scotland, but shivering on a train platform, staring at the stars and the non-existent snow and feeling the icy hand of death dragging at him. He felt the bullet in his back twinge and swallowed.
"I--" he tried again, his voice wavering. "You found me." When he hadn't died and she still hadn't come back, he'd had to find a way to go on without her; and over time, the thought that she might return had slowly faded. That she would find him here, after he'd spent all that time in Chicago, was absurd, but she had found him, and that was all that mattered.
What they would do now that she had was another question entirely.
((I totally failed in the last tag -- that "two years" is supposed to be "three years." Whoops. Fraser's not the only one who forgot how long it's ( ... )
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Another step forward and then none of the steps between mattered. The only space that ever was between them was space they put there themselves, space she could take away with a gesture, space he could erase with word. She wanted to reach out for him, but her hand fell short; fingers curling back as she caught her lip between her teeth.
"I thought you were dead."
She'd assumed. Never found out because confirming it would mean it was true, and though Victoria needed to know everything, needed to stay a hundred steps ahead, that one thing she couldn't bear. Because what would be the point, if Fraser was gone?
Who would pull her from the snow if he really was gone"Ben." His name again, this time softer. A question and a reprimand and a plea all at once. Diamonds spilled on the ground and him falling from her arms and it ( ... )
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What was going to happen now?
"No, Victoria, I--" He still couldn't get it out. His eyes fell to her hands, back up to the catch of her teeth on her mouth, up to her eyes.
Out of nowhere, he felt an irrational surge of anger. She was lying. She had to be lying. What was that line? Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world-- but this couldn't just be coincidence. She had come for him, and now she was covering it up, and why? To pick up where she'd left off? To finish the job ( ... )
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With her, he was angry, and Victoria just stared up at him for a second, wide-eyed. Then her hands went up to hold his and with just a small movement forward she turned a grasp into almost an embrace.
There were tears in her eyes as she studied Fraser's face; only he could make her cry. Ten years in prison, all those years being made hard, being made numb, always cold, and only Ben could make her feel enough to cry.
"I came to pull a job," she admitted in a miserable little sigh, voice cracking a little. But she didn't look away. "After--"
Well, after. The train. The end.
"What else was I going to do? I was dead, Ben; I couldn't get work, I couldn't..." Closing her eyes briefly, she shook her head again. Almost looking ashamed. "I'm here to pull a job. I didn't know--"
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A job: she was here to rob the place.
He closed his eyes and breathed in deeply, fighting back the swell of emotion. "A job," he echoed woodenly. He ought to arrest her, right here, right now. He was on leave, he had no jurisdiction here, he didn't even have handcuffs or his lanyard, but he ought to do... something. He shouldn't have let her go at all -- although he hadn't had much of a choice at the time with a bullet in him -- but now, here was his second chance. His third chance. It was more than he deserved, and he shouldn't waste it.
He didn't move.
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A quick, desperate smile crossed Victoria's face and she moved another half-step in. Now they were pressed against each other, she could feel his body warming hers, like he had before, like he was meant to do. "But you're here, now, Ben."
One hand left his to go up and brush cold fingers across his cheek. Just the barest ghost of a touch. "Aren't you?"
Because he could walk away again. He had before. He'd chosen a thousand things over her, had let her go despite everything she'd done to keep him. Victoria loved him. Of course she loved him. She hated him, she loved him, but no matter what, she needed him. And if Fraser was there, then it could be all right. Then somehow, she could make it all right.
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How was it that he was the police officer, yet she was the one who had him trapped? He had to get out -- had to escape, get help -- he had to put her where she belonged, back into prison. But he couldn't move, not when she was staring at him like that. He'd nearly left with her, and the first thing she'd done was remind him why. They'd only been reunited for a matter of minutes and already his entire world was turned on its end.
Still, he struggled to pull away. "You know I can't just let you," he whispered. "You know I can't." Saying it aloud somehow gave him a renewed sense of power. He shook his head and took a step back, reaching up to circle her wrists with his hands. Gently, but quite firmly, he pried her hands away and ( ... )
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Fraser did two things exceptionally well. He saved her and he turned her in. For one she loved him, was consumed by him. For the other she quite simply hated him. Since he'd died, since she had watched him fall from her arms onto the train station platform, since she'd turned the corner and lost him, Victoria had been trapped in a storm. Without path markers, without supplies, hopelessly lost.
And now, here was Fraser. Her Ben. So it was with hope and fear and love that she whispered, "Save me, Ben." Because he could. Only he could.
And because maybe, this time, he'd let her go.
Maybe, this time, he'd come with her.
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He hadn't, once, and regretted it-- and he had once and regretted it-- and what else was there? He knew he couldn't turn her in this time, not really. Her only future here would be Azkaban, and the Dementors, and that was... unthinkable. And he couldn't just let her go and turn a blind eye while she robbed the school, while she--
While she did what he had done. Whatever blood was left in his face drained away, his heart thumping hard in his chest. "Oh God," he said, more to himself than to her, his eyes going glassy and unfocused. His hands left her wrists and moved up, loosely gripping the arms of her coat ( ... )
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That didn't stop him from swaying forward as she touched him, leaning into the contact. He couldn't not, any more than he could have stopped an avalanche. But the distress was clear on his face, and at her question he shook his head. "I can't save anyone," he explained.
He wasn't a Mountie; he was a man. A criminal, himself. How could he save her when he'd already done what she'd come here to do? He still remembered stalking these very halls, breaking locks, walking away with gold and silver... And he remembered running after a train. He remembered that he was going to go with her, once, and he hadn't been hexed then. So who was he to fix anything? Who was he to declare that he could save her? The only reason he didn't have a record was ( ... )
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She huffed out a little incredulous laugh and shook her head. "Ben, please, look at me." She ducked her head, a tiny smile growing as she studied his face. One finger went to trace, feather light, around his lips and Victoria sighed. "Fine. Don't save me," she said this with a rueful little tilt of her eyebrow, almost teasing him. "Why don't we try something different this time? How about," Victoria moved closer, wrapping her arms around his waist, "I save you? And then, you can save me, too. How about we just save each other, Ben?"
The smile cracked slightly, vulnerability only he could pull out showing through. "God, I missed you."
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His back was stiff, his posture rigid when she embraced him, but his hands slid up to rest on her shoulders despite himself. He stared at the lopsided smile on her lips, and then made himself look away.
"You're telling me you'd change just like that -- just because I'm here? You'd give it all up?" He smiled too, bitterly, and shook his head. "I know you, Victoria."
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"I did it for you," she finally admitted in a quiet voice. Head bowed, lashes brushing her cheeks. "Because I need you. Because I wanted to be with you."
And it was true. She wasn't a thief. She wasn't a murderer. She'd done what she had to because she loved him. Because all Victoria wanted was for them to be together.
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