Written for the Due South 2016 Create-a-Thon on AO3.
Meg's exhausted from a long, long week of death by minutiae.
But the consulate after hours is quiet, blissfully free of the constant phones ringing. The air always feels unnaturally still, as though the quiet is settling into the walls themselves. She much prefers it this way. Far easier to get things done. Or just to think.
She's headed for the kitchen, expense reports in hand, intent on something to drink - maybe just one more cup of tea? - when she hears something.
Music?
It's not the overly-smooth sound of a recording, though. It's the piano in the ballroom.
Who on earth -
When she leans into the ballroom, Meg sees Fraser. He's seated at the piano, concentrating on whatever it is he's playing, looking utterly at ease. It's one of only a handful of times she's seen his collar unbuttoned, the brown jacket draped neatly over a chair beside him, his tie on top of it.
She stands there motionless in the doorway, unwilling to break the bubble of utter peace. The music is something she vaguely remembers, but can't place. Whatever he's playing is soft and dreamy, gossamer in the half-darkness, and it's the calmest she's felt all week.
"Sir?"
Meg blinks. Fraser's stopped playing, and is looking up at her with his usual blank expression, hands folded in his lap. "I'm sorry, Inspector. I hadn't realized you were still here. Did you need something?"
"Did – no. No, it's – I didn't know who was playing."
"If I'm bothering you, sir, I'll stop. I just thought I'd try it out, since the tuner came in yesterday."
"No, no." She feels clumsy around him, too loud, too metropolitan, too much of everything around a man who seems to live his whole life in a snowglobe. "It's nice. You're very good."
"Thank you, Inspector."
"What were you just playing?"
"Reverie, by Claude Debussy." He runs this thumb over the edge of the keys absently. "It's been some years since I learned it. I'm surprised I remember it so well."
She's never quite sure what to make of this strange, handsome, baffling man, an inexplicable mix of every culture she's ever heard of, wild and refined, rugged and erudite. One moment he's oblivious to every social signal imaginable; the next, he's reading an entire story in the angle of a blade of grass.
"It was beautiful."
Fraser nods. "I've always enjoyed French music. The colors and texture are so subtle and complex, and the expressive power in the slightest note - it's extraordinary."
Meg still has a folder full of expense reports to fill out, but suddenly, her original plan of a cup of tea in a silent, lonely kitchen is looking less and less appealing.
"Would you mind if I just - listened? For a while?"
"Of course not." He gives her the faintest shadow of a smile, just a hint of curve at the corner of his lips. "I don't have the widest repertoire, but if I know it, I'm happy to take a request."
She shakes her head. "Whatever you want to play."
"Very good, sir."
Fraser turns back to the keyboard, his fingers hovering above the keys before he drifts into something soft and lyrical. Meg settles at a table nearby, pen poised above the page as she watches him play.
She wonders what other surprises he has to offer.