I Wish I Could Help You
A/N: This is my first Due South fic and I've only been watching the show for a couple of weeks, so if the characters are OOC I'm really sorry. Oh yes and the Ray I'll be using is Ray K. I love them both, but my sister loves Ray K more, so I used him for that reason. He's gonna say his name is Ray Vecchio because of the undercover thing, but you all knew that. Oh and all is not as it seems... I don't kill off main characters, especially my favorite. This is for my sister, who made me love the show... and Benny.
My sister was supposed to beta this, but I got impatient.
This takes part after Fraser finds out about his sister, but before the CotW. Maggie is in this fic, she's going to help Ray and such. :-)
P.S. I know it's the original Ray Vecchio that occasionally calls Fraser Benny, but I love it so much I put it in. Also I thought Ray K might use the name just considering the situation he's using it in.
Please R&R!
Chapter One: Too Late
Ray looked out the window of his apartment for a moment, staring at the expanse of dark blue sky. He thought he'd heard something out there, but apparently not. The sound came again and he paused, before moving his gaze down to the street. Diefenbaker was sitting in the middle of the road now, howling.
Muttering to himself, he made his way to the front door of the building, half expecting Fraser to knock before he made it there, but for some reason, the knock never came. He opened the door and looked out at Diefenbaker, "Dief!" He knew it was kind of fruitless to call to the wolf, but he did anyways. Diefenbaker chose that moment to look at him and bounded over. Ray bent down and rubbed the wolf's neck, "Dief, what are you doing here? Where the hell's Fraser?"
Dief just whined softly, nuzzling his nose into Ray's hand, before looking up at him. "I know you're trying to tell me something...but I don't speak wolf. That's Fraser's job."
Dief whined again when he saw Ray's mouth move in the familiar way of speaking the constable's name.
"Oh come on, I'll drive ya to the Consulate," Ray muttered goodnaturedly, giving Dief another pat on the head, "You shouldn't sneak off on him though."
He opened the door and let Diefenbaker climb into the car, before getting in himself. He started it up and began to drive. He looked back for a moment, "Why did you come here Dief," he murmured quietly. The oddity of the situation hitting him. As he approached a turn, Dief gave a loud 'woof'.
"Okay, I'm turning," Ray told the wolf and started to wonder if he was crazy. Here he was, taking directions from a wolf, and a deaf one for that matter. It was at a smokey warehouse that Dief barked at him to stop. "Dief..." he trailed off, seeing the smoke billowing from the building, "Please don't tell me Fraser's in there."
Dief gave another 'woof', circling on the seat anxiously to answer Ray's question.
"Well shit," Ray voiced angrily, jumping quickly out of the vehicle and Dief followed him. He kicked open the door to the building, coughing hard when the smoke assailed him. In the middle of the room, lay a charred mess of a red clad body.
He fought his way through the heat, "Fraser?!" He called, before bursting into another coughing fit, "Fraser?!" The charred mess moved slightly, an odd rasping noise shaking from it's throat. "Oh shit!" He rushed over to his friend, "Frase? Fraser can you hear me?" He looked at his face, seeing nothing but black and red charred skin. It wasn't recognizable as the man he called his partner. "I'm going to get you out of here Benny," He whispered softly, lifting him into his arms and once again fighting through the smoke as he felt his strength begin to fail him.
He could barely hear sirens, but the sound grew louder with every passing second. When he got out of the warehouse, the fresh air gave him a new energy, he lay his friend gently on the ground and clasping his burnt hand gently, "Benny? Benny? Stay with me man."
A rasp came from Fraser's throat, gurgling something incomprehensible.
"Stay with me Benny. Help's on the way, I can hear the sirens." Ray comforted gently, an odd feeling build up in his throat. It was the unconsolable knowledge that his friend was about to die. "It's going to be okay Benny. I promise."
Dief was running around whining, unable to stay still, as if he knew something that Ray didn't. The wolf stopped, before whining softly, laying down beside Benny, but not daring to touch him. It looked as though Diefenbaker was afraid if he did, he would hurt him.
Another rasped escaped and his head raised over so slightly, trying desperately to make out the word, "N...ot..."
"Not what Benny?" Ray leaned closer to his friend straining to hear.
"N...o...o...t..." the rasp repeated itself and his head fell back to the ground, the strength he'd found disappearing.
"Benny?" Ray clutched his hand tighter, "Come on Frase talk to me. Keep talking. Hang on."
"...n..." was all he could make out and the hand went completely limp. No more desperate rasps came from Constable Benton Fraser, not even one single breath.
"No, Frase... no," he let go of his friend's burnt hand, leaning back in horror, "I was too late," he managed to whisper as the fire trucks and an ambulance finally arrived. A few hands took his arms and pulled him away from the body, "I was too late."
"Ray, what happened here?" A detective from his precinct asked him gently, "Do you know what happened?"
"The wolf came and got me," Ray told him, watching as someone lightly checked Fraser for a pulse, before motioning for a thin white sheet to be laid over the body. "We came here... and I went in. When I found him... when I found Fraser... I carried him out. Then he-" he stopped shaking his head.
"Then he what?" Detective Harras probed further.
"Then he tried to tell me something, but he died before he could finish, okay?!" Ray yelled at him, before turning away from Harras and swiping at his eyes. There were no tears, but they were red and puffy, as if there had been.
"I'm sorry Ray," Detective Harras put a hand on the other man's shoulder for a moment, giving it a squeeze, "I know you and Fraser were close. I- well I'm sorry."
"Yeah, me too," Ray muttered, kneeling down and throwing an arm around Dief's neck, "me too." Diefenbaker whined softly and licked Ray's face once, as if trying to comfort him, "Thanks Dief, but I don't think that's gonna cut it this time."
----------------
"May I inquire to why I am here?" Fraser spoke softly, head turning one way, then the other, trying to take in his surroundings. His hands had been handcuffed securely behind him around what seemed to be a metal pole. Two men were talking quickly and quietly a few feet in front of where he was seated on the floor.
One looked his way for a moment, answering with a curt, "No," before turning back to his partner and continuing their conversation.
He had been taking a late night walk with Diefenbaker, that was all he really remembered. Just him and his wolf, strolling down the streets of Chicago on a clear night. He didn't remember seeing anyone and he suspected that they had probably come up behind him. "Where's Diefenbaker?"
"Shut up," was the only reply he recieved, from the same man who'd spoken before.
He tugged lightly at the handcuffs, finding no give. Something was definetly going on here, which was obvious from his current predicament. The only problem was there seemed to be no way for him to get out of it himself, unless these two men made some kind of mistake, or the police found him, "You must realize the police will be looking for me. It would be in your best interest to uncuff me and let me walk out of here."
"You're dead, Mountie," the man, who seemed to be the only one speaking to him, told him with a grin, "To the police, to the RCMP, to your dear friend Detective Raymond Vecchio. No one's going to be looking for you Mountie."
"If that's the case, they will certainly be looking for my killer," Fraser told him seriously, although the sentence sounded odd coming out of his mouth.
"No, that will be handed to them as well," the man's grin reached his ears, "No one will understand why Ray shot his friend and partner, then let him burn, but the evidence will surely support it."
Fraser shook his head, "They won't believe that," he said simply, "They know Ray, they'll believe him."
"We'll see about that, Mountie," he replied softly, "Either way he's going to be pretty distraught, finding your body and all."
"I'm not dead, there is no plausible way he could have found my body," Fraser shook his head again, looking up at the man. He wasn't particularly afraid, it was more of an uneasy feeling that was growing in his stomach.
"But someone else is dead and dressed in your uniform. The body is charred beyond recognition and I had a few good friends of mine switch that man's prints, dental records and DNA files, with yours. One of them is quite the hacker you see," he grinned again as he knelt down in front of the mountie, "So yes, to the rest of the world, you are dead."
"You underestimate the Chicago PD and the RCMP," Fraser told him firmly, believing every word he spoke, "They will realize something is amiss, and they will come to my aid."
The man ruffled his hair and Fraser winced the tiniest despite his efforts not to, "You keep telling yourself that Mountie. It's always a good thing to keep in high hopes, even if said hopes are hopeless."
He turned away from Fraser and continued speaking with his partner, each of them throwing looks his way every now and then.
Fraser pulled again at the handcuffs, even though he knew it was useless. He didn't understand why he was here. If they just wanted to frame Ray, they would have simply killed him, not kidnapped him. They must want or need him for some reason. It could be possible that the only reason they were framing Ray was to keep the police from looking for his killer, but they could have chosen any one person who lived in Chicago, why choose his friend? Perhaps, they needed him for something, and framing Ray was an added perk? None of it made sense to him, but something told him it would.
"Well it looks like you've gotten yourself into an interesting mess this time," a voice told him.
Fraser looked over beside him and sighed, "Dad..." His father was sitting beside him, dressed in his mountie uniform.
"What? You have, haven't you?" His father asked with a shrug, "How do you suppose you're going to get out of it?"
"I don't know," he said, trying to control the frustration, "I'm thinking about it. You have any suggestions?"
"No, I'm dead, what could I possibly do to help," he said, shrugging again, "Other than make you look a little crazy."
Fraser stopped talking to his father, before looking over at the two men. Both of them were staring at him as if he had two heads. "Who were you talking to?" The man asked seriously, glaring at the Constable.
"Nobody," Fraser told him just as seriously.
"Nobody? Son... since when is your father 'nobody'?" His father actually sounded offended.
"Dad can you please be quiet," he hissed quietly to his side, before looking at the man, "There's no one here for me to talk to, other than you and your partner."
"And apparently your father," the man smirked and Fraser merely shrugged, "What are you? Some crazy mountie? I heard your father was dead."
"He is," Fraser answered him simply. "It was the reason I came to Chicago. I came to Chicago on the trail of my father's killer and for reasons that don't need explaining at this junctur-"
"I know," he cut him off, holding up a hand, "I don't need the whole speech. As a matter of fact, I'm getting tired of hearing your voice." He walked over to a table on one side of the room and picked up a roll of duct tape. He approached the mountie and tore off a strip, "So I think I'll shut you up."
Fraser moved his head and shifted his body, trying awkwardly to avoid having the tape pressed over his mouth. The movement made it a little more difficult, but the man was able to slap it on firmly anyways.
"There we go," he smiled, "And now on with the plan."
-------------------------------
The first chapter of my first Due South fanfic. I tried my hardest to keep the characters in character, but if it didn't work, suggestions on helping me do just that are gratefully accepted.