Title:
Perchance to Dream
Rating:
PG
Pairing:
None
Setting:
Post COTW
Spoiler:
COTW
Disclaimer: Alliance owns the copyrights to Due South, its characters and
situations; i own only this plot; yada
yada yada...
*****
I am
running, running frantically in the dark. The only light comes from strobe
flashes of red that pop off first here, then there. It disorients me, makes it
hard to know which way to go. No matter how fast I run I barely gain any
ground. This darkness is like a living thing; it reaches, grasps at me, wraps itself around me. I am running through it, struggling
against it, my breath ragged, wheezing. My legs are at the point of collapse;
it is tempting to give up, to fall into the darkness and surrender, but I can’t
stop. Can’t stop; I have to push through the red-lit darkness, get to Muldoon.
Get
to Muldoon before the arms dealer hurts Benny.
Almost
there.
Just
up ahead... Gunshots. Screams.
More shots; now I see gunpowder flashes. I have to keep running. Almost there. I’ve come too far, been gone too long, only to
have Benny taken away from me now.
I see
Muldoon spotlighted in front of a toy store. He holds
a weapon in the classic two-handed firing position, his back to me. Now I see
Benny, standing straight as a firing-range target. Muldoon,
intent on the bright red target, doesn’t know I am near. Benny speaks but I can’t hear him; my heart
beat drowns out all other sounds. Just a little closer now... Almost there...
Benny
sees me, spots me inching towards Muldoon. He
smiles, waves and calls to me. Gotta get closer. Now I can hear the words: they’re my name. Benny
shouts my name over and over and waves at me.
Muldoon swirls around takes aim at me and
fires. I can hear the shots, am blinded by the gunpowder flashes.
The
world changes.
Wind
screams at me now. It howls, wails, sounds like a wolf. I turn, look
everywhere, but all I can see is white. Shining, blazing white, and cold. Snow. I know I’m in a snow field, somewhere. I know where I
am: I’m in Canada. I can’t see; the dazzle of sun on snow burns my eyes, blinds
me. I can’t move; snow like quicksand pulls at me, slows me down. Snow swirls
madly like flakes in a shaken snow globe. The crystal flakes have razor-keen
edges. They sting me, cut my face and bare hands. I hold my hands in front of
my eyes and lean into the wolf wind and free myself from the snow bank. Bright
red crystals fall from my hands, marking my path through the snow. After a
while I see a shape, dark against the whiteness, coming towards me. The shape
becomes a man, a man holding a gun. I can see the barrel, shining through the
stinging snow. The barrel is pointed at me. I see the gunman clearly now and
call out to him.
“Benny!”
Benny
is still in his dress reds. Diefenbaker comes from
out of nowhere and stands by his side. Benny laughs, Dief
howls. The two sounds mix together; mix with the screaming winds and swirling
snow. The gun is still pointed at me; I can see Benny’s finger slowly squeezing
the trigger.
“Benny!
It’s me! It’s Ray!” I scream at him over the wind. Benny’s finger, still on the
trigger, tightens again. “Benny! It’s Ray Vecchio! I’ve come back!” Benny’s
mouth opens, moves, but all I can hear is howling wolf laughter and wind and my
own heart thudding and thudding and thudding. Benny’s arm drops to his side,
the gun dangling loose. He laughs.
I’ve
never been this scared before in my life.
Then Dief runs towards me, snarling, fangs bared.
The wolf leaps as I yell his name, yell Benny’s name; I throw my hands up defensively. I hear
Benny’s laughter as Dief hits my chest, slamming me
into the snow. I can’t breathe. Hitting the ground and the wolf’s
weight upon my chest steal my breath . Dief is growling and I can feel
his breath on my hands, my face. A wind-sharp whistle from Benny and Dief leaps off, returning to Benny’s side.
I
push myself up, try to get back on my feet. As I stand
a flash catches my eye: light, bouncing off the gun barrel as Benny whips the
weapon up and aims it at me again. I see gunpowder flashes, hear the reports.
Round after round slams into me, sends me jerking and spinning in the snow.
Bright red blood arches gracefully from wherever a bullet strikes, making
delicate, feathery swirls in the snow.
I
collapse like an abandoned toy, no longer needed or wanted.
Everything
grows hazy, grows dark red. I hear footsteps crunching in the snow, coming
towards me. The steps pace in time with my heartbeat, growing
slower and slower and slower. I look up, barely
see Benny through the red haze. Benny bends over me,
says something to me. Again, I can hear the words...”Too late, buddy. You’re
just too damn late.” Then, carefully, Benny raises the gun and aims it at my
face, only inches away from my eyes, and squeezes the trigger one more time....
*****
Ray sat
up in bed, eyes wild, breath ragged, sweat drenching
his body. He looked at the clock's
glowing digital numbers: 4:05 a.m. God, that dream. It was always the same,
night after night. Sometimes, two or three times in a night.
To sleep, perchance to dream….
He
remembered that from Sister Helen’s twelfth grade English class: Shakespeare.
Who was it? Hamlet, yeah, talking about dreams... but meaning he was thinking about
killing himself. In high school, Ray really hadn’t gotten the point: life being
so bad that you wanted to kill yourself, but you were scared you'd have bad
dreams for eternity? Get real.
It had
gotten terribly real for Ray Vecchio.
He spent
tons of time with the shrinks since coming back. The P.D.'s,
the F.B.I.'s, almost any kind of governmental agency
that had been involved with this assignment and that had social workers and
psychologists and counselors and psychiatrists. The shrinks looked at him,
encouraged him to talk, to express his feelings. So, he did. Then they told him
that what he felt, thought, feared, was all normal, all healthy, after
what he'd been through. Then they listened some more, then looked at clocks or
watches and told him that he was making excellent progress, all things
considered.
All
things considered?
Did they
mean, considering the fact that he hadn’t eaten his service weapon yet?
He
buried his head in his hands, fighting to calm down, to control himself. They
-- all of them, the doctors, the lawyers, the Feds, all the ones who made these
decisions -- hadn't considered one damn thing about this assignment
except busting the Iguanas. Nobody considered the effect of being suddenly
pulled away from his family, his friends, his life itself, and knowing that the
chances for recovering any of them slim. Nobody considered the strain of being
on guard every day, every damn day and night, of having to think like a
criminal, to be a criminal himself, in order to do the damn job and stay alive,
aware that any move he made, everything he said or looked at or laughed at or
even got upset about, could possibly get him killed. Not any goddamn one of
them considered any of this, damn them all to hell.
OK. He had
been given what they called orientation. Continual drill upon
the names, the faces, the facts, the figures. Told him that yeah, this
could happen, that might happen, and if it did, well, chalk it up to the wreck
and tell anyone who might notice, hey, I'm lucky to be alive, much less
functioning, so don’t sweat the small stuff, right? The Bookman was back, baby,
and ready for action! Who do we whack today, guys?
Sweet
dreams ain’t made of these.
Ray
wrapped his arms around himself tightly, chilled from the sweat...and
other reasons. He drew a ragged, shuddering breath and stared at what scattered
moonlight showed: his bedroom, in his house; once a familiar, comfortable
place. His bed. His dresser. His stuff. His space. His place?
He was
no longer sure where his place was.
A
problem, that: where, exactly, did Ray Vecchio belong? No way he could go
back undercover, even if he wanted to (and he sure as hell didn’t want
to). Nope; Armondo Langoustini
might have had nine lives, but the last eight were used up trying to get Muldoon and Cyrus Bolt. No more miraculous survival stories
could be written for the Bookman.
Any
miracles left for Ray Vecchio?
Hell,
any life left?
Ray's
life, it seemed, had gotten along quite nicely without him, thank you very
much. The earth didn’t stop revolving, the sun still rose and set each day,
Chicago didn’t disappear off the face of the map even with him gone. His family
was fine, the house had been torched but rebuilt even
better than it was. The 27th still battled crime and criminals and showed a
pretty good arrest record, too. The guy they brought in to keep his cover
going, Kowalski, was a good cop, a good guy. Must be; Fraser worked with him,
liked him, trusted him. The guy did a good job with Ray’s life, Ray’s career. Probably better than when Ray lived it himself.
Sure
seemed like everyone else thought so.
OK. That
was self-pity, pure and simple. Maybe he was wrong, about Fraser, about
everybody. Maybe he wasn’t being fair, especially about the Mountie.
Life, as
they say, ain’t fair. Then why did he have to fair?
Why should he?
Because
of Benny.
Because
Benny thought he could be. Because Benny had always believed in Ray Vecchio and
trusted Ray Vecchio and knew that, come what may,
despite all the bitching and whining, Ray Vecchio would do the right thing.
Then
where the hell was Benny?
It
wasn’t Ray’s fault that he left like he did. The Feds said they'd do stuff to
his family, to his mother... his mother, for Christ's sake. They had stuff,
evidence, papers and shit, connecting Pop to the Mob. Said they'd make it look
like Ma knew about the criminal activites, make life
for all the Vecchios a living hell. God, what else
could he do? Nothing.
Not one
damn thing.
He’d
fought like hell to make even that one lousy call. All the Feds nearly had a
heart attack when Ray told 'em he was gonna make the call anyway, no matter what they said or
did.
So he’d
made his call... and found that there wasn't a whole lot he could say. What
could he say? Nothing. Not over a phone or any other
way. It was too dangerous, he knew that. Too dangerous for
him. For Benny, too, if only Benny thought about it. That’s why he
couldn’t get in touch with Benny at all, except for that one lousy postcard. If
anyone had even got a whiff, just a hint, of the possibility that the Mountie knew more than he was letting on, well, God alone
knows what would have happened.
Make
that God, the Mob, and Armondo, the man formerly
known as Detective Ray Vecchio. Ray knew exactly what would have happened, ‘cause he’d seen it done to someone else and that person’s
friend. Just thinking about it made his skin crawl. Dear God, the screams...and
the blood...
No way he could let that happen to Benny.
Benny
seemed happy enough when he first saw Ray at the Hotel California. That goofy smile, and those blue eyes shining like a kid at Christmas.
Trust Benny to be himself and nearly get them all killed with honesty. Trust
Benny again to trust Ray enough to follow his lead and get them out of
it. And trust Benny again to say that Ray and Kowalski would get along fine.
Who wouldn’t take a bullet, again, for a friend like that? Absently mindedly,
he rubbed the scars. They still hurt, sometimes. Benny and he sure had scarred
each other up quite a bit, inside and out.
Maybe
Benny's scars still hurt, too.
Ray
knew, none better, that Benton Fraser was no plaster saint. Fraser’d
admitted to feeling a bit of satisfaction the first time Ray’d
caught a bullet meant for the Mountie. Ray could only
wonder if, maybe, Fraser might’ve felt the same this second time. Ray would
never know for sure, because Benny and he weren't able to talk just then. Hell,
there'd been no time to talk, to explain and to listen, to understand
and be understood. He'd been so damned overwhelmed, returning like that, seeing
Benny and everyone at the precinct, but still having to concentrate on
finishing the damn job. No time to reconnect, to make things right. So much was
left unresolved. Was that why Benny took off to the armpit of the frozen
north... with Kowalski?
A hit; a most palatable hit...They
bleed on both sides.
Sighing,
Ray looked at the clock. 4:45. He settled back against his pillow and rubbed
his eyes so hard that he could see white sparks behind his eyelids. He pulled
the dark green comforter up and clutched it like a life-line. Forget sleep, ‘cause it was too late. Ignore the dreams... if he could.
Forget that he was going back to a life not really his anymore. Ignore the fact
that everyone still seemed a bit uncomfortable around him, didn’t seem to know
what to do around him. Forget that the best friend he ever had in his life
wasn’t there for him anymore.
He only
had himself, now.
Maybe
his old man had been right; just worry about number one. But when the hell had
his old man ever been right about anything? And how the hell long had it been
since he, himself, had been right, or
even knew what was right? Ray no longer knew anymore.
He no
longer got a full night’s sleep.
He no
longer knew who or what he was.
He no
longer kept his service weapon loaded or so close in his nightstand.
The end.