notes/disclaimers
He was running for the train platform. He had to get
there. Now. Benny had gone after Victoria, alone and
unarmed. Ray wouldn’t put it past that psycho bitch
to kill Benny.
As he emerged onto the platform, he saw a train
pulling out of the station, with Victoria aboard.
Part of him filled with rage. She was getting away!
No way in Hell would he let her escape after what she
had done. She needed to be punished for what she had
done to him; and more importantly for what she had
done to Benny.
But another part of him felt relief. ‘Good, go.
Get out of our lives. Go and don’t ever come back.
Good riddance.’
Then, to his horror, Ray noticed that Benny was
running after the train. He was running after the
train, and it certainly didn’t look like he was trying
to stop Victoria. He was... he couldn’t be... but he
was. He was going to go with her!
Ray wanted to scream in pain. He wanted to cry. He
watched Benny running after the train, and away from
everything else in his life- away from him- and he
couldn’t believe it. He wanted to call out to Benny,
to try to make him see. ‘She doesn’t love you, Benny.
She isn’t capable of the kind of love you deserve.
She could never love you like I want to.’
He said nothing, however, he just kept running. He
knew that Victoria didn’t love Benny. She hated him
for what he had done; she wanted to destroy him. If
Benny left with her, she would be successful in that
mission. He couldn’t let Benny go with her.
Victoria reached her hand out towards Benny, and Ray
saw a gun. His heart nearly stopped. She wanted to
destroy Benny... No! She wasn’t going to do it. She
wasn’t going to win. Benny might hate him for the
rest of his life, but at least he would be alive to
hate him. Ray pulled his gun, took careful aim, and
pulled the trigger.
What happened next seemed to happen in slow motion,
like a bad movie. Just as he pulled the trigger,
Fraser leapt onto the train. There was one moment of
frozen motion, then Ray watched in helpless horror as
Fraser fell to the platform and lay there unmoving.
No. No. Oh, God, no...
Benny jerked awake at the sound of a loud cry. Ray
was sitting up in the bed next to him, breathing
heavily. Ben turned on the light and sat up. “Ray?”
Ray didn’t answer, he squeezed his eyes shut and shook
his head. Benny noticed that he was shaking and
sweating, and he touched him lightly on the shoulder.
“Ray, it’s okay. It was just a nightmare.”
Ray looked over at him, and Benny saw the look of pain
and guilt in his eyes; and his heart sank. He knew
exactly what nightmare Ray had just had. He still had
it occasionally, even after so much time had passed.
Ben felt his own wave of pain and guilt. He had
forgiven Victoria for what she had done to him, but he
would never be able to forgive her for what she had
done to Ray. For that matter, he would never be able
to forgive himself for what he had done to Ray.
He took Ray into his arms and lay back down, cradling
Ray against his chest. He stroked Ray’s arm and his
back until his trembling stopped and he lay still and
quiet in his arms.
“Ray,” Benny said quietly, “do you have any idea how
much I love you?”
“Benny...”
“Can you even begin to comprehend it? I am so deeply
and completely in love with you. My life is all
tangled up in yours now. I don’t think I could even
begin to separate them, and I don’t want to try.”
“Benny.” Ray pushed himself up onto one elbow so he
could look into Ben’s face. Ray looked much calmer
than he had after first waking up, but there was still
emotion churning in his eyes. “I love you, too. I
do. I love you so much.”
“I know that, Ray,” Ben smiled. “I don’t just believe
that, I know it. And when you tell me you
love me,
it means just that. You’re not saying those words to
try to make me feel guilty or manipulate me.”
“I would never do that, Benny,” Ray whispered.
“I know that, too,” Ben said. He reached up and
stroked Ray’s face. “I learned so much from you, Ray.
Before you, I thought I knew what love was; but I was
just flattering myself. I didn’t know how to give
love, and I certainly didn’t know how to receive it.”
“Oh, Benny, I don’t think that’s true,” Ray protested.
“Yes, it is. I learned so much from you, Ray.”
“Yeah?” Ray looked pleased and skeptical at the same
time.
“Yes. I learned that I don’t always have to be the
perfect Mountie, the perfect man, that I could relax
and be myself. That it was okay to make a mistake
once in awhile; and that when I did, it would be
understood and accepted and I would be forgiven.
“And I learned that it was safe to open my heart and
my life to you. That my love would be accepted,
treasured even, and that my love would be returned. I
learned that I could be happy in love.”
“Oh, Benny,” Ray whispered. Ray appreciated what Ben
was saying, very much, but the emotion in the room was
getting very heavy, and he felt a need to lighten
things up. “I’ve learned a lot from you too, you
know.”
“You have?”
“Mmm hmm. For example, I learned how to speak
Canadian.”
“Oh, you did?”
“Sure. Well, not Canadian so much as I learned how to
speak Fraser.”
“Indeed.”
“Yes. I learned that ‘I’m terribly sorry, Ray.’
Actually means ‘You’ll have to buy a new suit, or at
the very least pay an exorbitant dry cleaning bill to
have this one repaired.’”
“Hmm,” Ben said, trying his hardest to look offended
and failing utterly.
“And ‘Thank you kindly, Ray.’ Means ‘I’ve manipulated
you into doing exactly what I want.’ Which is a bunch
of crap, by the way. I always know what you’re doing
the entire time you’re doing it.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes, that’s so,” Ray said, looking terribly pleased
with himself.
“Well,” Benny said, “can you tell me what this means?”
He took Ray’s chin into his hand and pulled him into
a kiss.
Ray responded to the kiss, meeting Benny’s tongue with
his own as it entered his mouth. When the kiss had
ended, he smiled at Benny. “That means ‘Ray Vecchio,
you are the luckiest man in the world.’”
Ben shook his head sadly. “You see, Ray? I’m afraid
that you’re not as fluent in Fraser as you thought.
What that actually means is ‘Benton Fraser, you are
the luckiest man in the world.’”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m positive.”
Ray looked at Benny thoughtfully. “There’s only one
way to really be sure,” he said, and pulled Benny into
another kiss.
THE END