catyoung-keeping_score.html Keeping Score
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Keeping Score
by Cat Young

"Like this makes a difference?"
-- Ray Vecchio, upon being paid back in `Victoria's Secret.'

Even Steven? That's it? Since when has our relationship ever been about fair? I drive you wherever you need to go. I wait for you while you wait for the damned clock to strike, like two minutes make a difference. I took you home when you didn't have a home to go to. I take time out from my work and family to help you with your feelgood charity cases-- how often do you actually get involved in what I'm working on, huh? Or do you just give me that look and try to make me feel guilty that I've got a triple homicide on my hands and can't serve punch at the orphans' ball?

So now you're feeling betrayed and angry and hurt. If you put it all on yourself you'll self-destruct, and you can't blame it all on her, so I guess I'm elected. Fair enough. I did shoot you, after all, even if I didn't mean to. And I did know you were headed for trouble, even if I didn't know how much, so I guess you could say it was partly my fault for not interfering sooner. So I thought, OK, go ahead. You do what you need to do. You're a smart guy-- give it a little time and you'll realize that it wasn't about the money, or about me being jealous. You'd been knocked for a major loop and weren't thinking straight, and I was just trying to keep you from making a big mistake. No thanks necessary.

But this-- this stings. I get shot saving you from a situation you shouldn't have been in, that you were in a position to get yourself into thanks to another situation you shouldn't have been in, from which I essentially saved you even if you are currently blaming me for it, and this somehow makes us "even"? I don't know which is stranger, your idea of justice or your idea of friendship, but you need help. You really, really, really need help.

 

 

letter_to_ray.html Letter to Ray
notes/disclaimers

Letter to Ray
by Cat Young

~
Det. Raymond Vecchio
c/o Precinct 27, Chicago Police Department Chicago, IL, 60607
USA
Please Forward
~

Dear Ray,

It is unknown when we will next encounter a post office, so I am leaving this letter with Sgt. Frobisher to send to you. I feel I must apologise for the way I left things between us. I owe you an explanation as to why I left.

You and I were-- are-- closer than I have ever been to anyone. I would like to quote to you a passage from one of our Canadian authors. I can hear your voice objecting even now: "Hey, Fraser, you got to have a story for everything?" but you aren't here to cut me off, so I am going to write it anyway. I'm standing up for myself, as you so often insisted that I should.

"There was no other wanderer on that road, yet I was not alone, for his tracks went with me, [...] as familiar as the print of my own hand. I followed them, and I knew each thing that he had done, each move that he had made, each thought that had been his; for so it is with two who live one life together." -- Farley Mowat

That is how I feel about you, Ray. We know each other so completely. In police work, that kind of bond was a great help in solving cases. The force was directed outward, so to speak. But now? You have been honorably discharged from the force, and as your unofficial partner, so have I. If we were to remain together now, without that outlet, our bond would be...

We have, as you might say, chemistry. If the energy generated in a chemical reaction has a place to go, you have a power plant. If you try to keep it bottled up, it explodes and that's something else entirely and there you are.

I will always be with you, Ray. Just as you will always be with me, no matter how many miles are between us, whether either of us wants it that way or not. It is like I told Ray-- Stan, I mean-- soon after you returned to Chicago. No matter how far apart we are, we always know that we are partners.

It is different with him. We are friends, and right now he needs me. We enjoy each other's company, but when this trip is over we will go our separate ways, perhaps to keep in touch, perhaps not. He and I are not, and could never be, what you and I were. What we are.

I carry you inside me, Ray. And that is why I had to leave. I hope you understand.

-Sincerely-
-Yours-TrulyLove,

-Benton-Fraser,-RCMPBenny