Disclaimer - Don't own it.
Part 2 - In which Benton Fraser contemplates losing more than he can afford.
In many ways you are difficult for most people to understand, but in one aspect you are transparent enough for Warfield to comprehend you utterly. There is no hesitation when you run into the alleyway behind his club to help the screaming girl, even though the odds point to a setup. There's no way you'll gamble on an innocent woman's safety. That guarantees the success of Warfield's trap. He has used the integrity he saw in you to bring you to your knees.
That there are five of them is a grim metaphor for the odds you face going after Warfield. And yet, you dare hope- two of them block the alley behind you, three in front, but there's a parked car as well, and you nearly make it up over the car, past the three. A bruising blow from a length of pipe brings you crashing down, and that's the end of any chance you had. It is during the gleeful pummeling that you see that the whole thing is over. You've lost. Ray was right, you can't fight Warfield. Not alone. When they leave you gasping on the ground it takes a few moments before you can even be bothered trying to stand up.
The bouncer isn't unkind when he asks the name of the cop you'd been with. It's just business to him. He is brief and dry on his phone, telling Ray to come get you, that you aren't in a fit state to make your own way home.
You can tell that Ray wants you to say something to show that you're bearing up, but now is not the time for you to have to look into those glittering, expressive eyes and find another piece of yourself to give away. Can't he see that you've reached your limit? You feel physically compromised, frail, which is normal given that you were just assaulted violently, but you wouldn't usually let it affect you this way.
It's not being punished for trying to do a good deed that hurts so much. That rolls off your back, an old familiar sensation. Knowing that you aren't strong enough to keep fighting, that you'll back down this time and let an evil man prosper, well. That's a whole new world of pain. "All it takes for evil to flourish, is for good men to do nothing." You strive to be a good person, but you have to face that you're not able to meet every one of your high standards.
All you want is to be alone. That's why you refused to go to the hospital, but to your distress, Ray's headed to the one place you'd rather avoid. Now that you've been taught your lesson, the people who count themselves your friends won't let you hide and lick your wounds in private. They'll suck the rest of your strength out of you, as if asking if it hurts and hovering anxiously until you muster a convincing negative is what it takes to fix everything. But where else can Ray take you? You momentarily contemplate opening the car door at the next light and stumbling out, but that would make Ray worry more, and he'd come after you.
At least Ray understands you well enough, and has the generosity of spirit to be quiet and not vocalize his need for comfort from you. You really don't want him to feel guilty or upset, but you can't help yourself right now, let alone anyone else.
Because of your extraordinary faith in humanity, the easy trust you put in strangers to do the right thing, people often take you for a fool. But you're not stupid, not by any measure. You see all the angles, see that if you walk this solitary road you will end up dead. Warfield made that clear, for all your bravado in the face of his threats. The assault was just to underline it, get your attention focussed. You're not afraid, but Warfield made sure you know that he will back up his words with action if you don't stop.
For all that you want to see justice done, it would be both reckless and pointless to martyr yourself. Besides, Warfield's depressing arrest record and Stella Kowalski's attitude to pressing charges against him tell you it'd be entirely in vain, just another minor legal problem that Warfield would slide out of.
Warfield saw all that when he gloated in your face. He's strong-armed enough people to recognize your shamed capitulation. You don't disagree with his analysis; in this situation you are nothing but a loser.
If you were a different kind of man, you'd take some vigilante justice to Warfield, but for you, running out of legal options to deal with him is the end of the line. There will be no visit to him in the middle of the night with a loaded weapon, no waiting in a dark alley for revenge. You can see how people succumb to that sort of temptation, but that would be even worse than the current disastrous state of your moral backbone.
The branch that cannot bend must break. That's what your dad said. The aching in your head isn't just from having it pushed through a car window. You are agonizingly unclear on one point: did you bend, or did Warfield break you?
You can feel Ray looking at you. His driving is more erratic than usual. You hate for anyone to see you like this, but if it has to happen, better your partner and friend than anyone else. But you still don't lift your head. You feel like you have a thousand pound weight pressing you down. Ray has seen too much already. If you try to talk, even to offer him simple words of comfort, you don't trust yourself not to make a scene, and that would be unbearable on top of the state of disgrace in which you find yourself. Your instinct when you're hurting is to shut down, and you're doing that very effectively.
There is only so much time before you'll be at the station, and by then it is imperative that you have mustered your remaining small amount of dignity. You need to walk in there and make them all believe that you are only damaged physically. Whatever Ray's feeling that keeps his eyes burning into you, it's not pity. But if you let the others see this raw pain, you might as well be naked in front of them.
You don't blame any of them for what happened. Oh, it stings that no-one cared to support you, after everything you've- but that kind of thinking is not helpful, you must not fall into the trap of resentment. Only, why? Why does the hardest course always fall to you alone? You take a deep breath, ignoring flaring messages of discomfort from your midsection, and direct your thoughts away from your own suffering.
It doesn't take a mind-reader to figure out that Ray's sitting in the driver's seat beating himself up mentally, and if you had the energy to spare you'd tell him to stop, just stop. Ray said that in a perfect world, there'd be justice for the likes of Warfield. You believe fervently that it takes conviction and courage to get the world the little bit closer to perfect it needs to be. But the constant trickle of seediness, desolation, corruption and human misery that assails you, working law enforcement in Chicago, has corroded your faith just enough that you understand why these people, strong, admirable people like Ray, Lieutenant Welsh, shrug and go with the system. Maybe it's time for you to go home.
A stolen glance over at Ray doesn't help. This is what you're doing to your friend? If Ray can beat himself up for failing to protect you from stubbornness, you're more than capable of piling the salt into your own wounds. You'd asked more than Ray was comfortable giving, and you were frustrated by his refusal to help. But you you can't pretend you didn't understand his reasons, even if you didn't agree with him, and now you can't spare anything from your self-absorbed bubble of melancholy to reach out to him and make him see that he's not the one responsible for this mess.
Ray told you that you were being selfish, and perhaps he was right. You didn't stop to consider how your stand-off with Warfield would affect him. You'll have to find the words soon to tell him that this isn't his fault. The blame belongs first and foremost with Warfield, but then it's on your own head, no one else's. The whole thing was about making Warfield take responsibility for his own actions; it's ironic that other, good, compassionate people will now take upon themselves the guilt that belongs firmly with the gangster.
Ray parks outside the precinct building. You're not ready for the inevitable chorus of "what happened?" You already lost control of your features when Ray asked the stupid question, although you give him credit for not opening with "Are you okay?" when the answer is self evidently "No." You are nothing remotely like okay.
You will have to do better with the crowd of police officers and civilians who will gather around to gawp at your bloodied face for want of anything better to do. You catch yourself in this bitter thought. It's unbecoming. Of course it's human nature to stop and pay attention to something out of the ordinary. And no matter how lonely you felt standing up to Warfield, many of the people inside that building are your friends. It's not fair to impugn their motives just because you loathe the idea of being the center of a whirlwind of aghast attention.
You brace yourself, let Ray help you out of the car, try not to lean too heavily on him, try not to let him guess how wretched you feel. Given that he's half-carrying you, this is probably a vain effort. Francesca's the first to catch sight of you, and her shocked reaction is exactly what you feared. It's show time. Time to act normal. Reserved, polite, not revealing the tempest of emotions inside you. You let her help you out of your coat and jacket, let Ray answer the bombardment of questions for you. No matter what damage has been done between the two of you today, he's still good at being your partner and stepping in when you just can't do it any more.
Ray wants to see Warfield arrested for what he had done to you. He's back on form, giving lip to his ex-wife Stella, the State's Attorney, posturing and declaiming. It's touching, and it's a comfort compared to the guilt-laden silence of the drive over, but you are relieved when Stella Kowalski makes it completely clear that there's no point even trying. You've given up, and you just don't have the heart to let Ray battle on, to watch him try to make up for what he sees as letting you down. You could give them more information about the people who attacked you. Since when would wearing masks be enough to stop you from seeing things that could identify them? But you're glad that no-one pushes you, because what's the point of arresting Warfield's hired help? What's the point of any of it any more? There'd just be more lies, more of Warfield's lawyers, more "We're so sorry, but our hands are tied."
The voice coming out of your mouth when you tell Ray that he was right, that you can't beat the system, sounds hopeless even to you. If you want them to believe that nothing's wrong, you're doing a terrible job. You were coping when Francesca was doing most of the talking. Her chatter was easy to brush off with pat answers. And when Ray and Stella were sparring, you kept your head down and let them argue as if you weren't there. But then the Lieutenant had to speak, had to drop his usual gruffness long enough to get under your skin. No. You won't stand for hearing pity in his voice.
The probability that you can stay in the Lieutenant's office and continue breathing and not lose your self control and show them something intensely private drops to zero. They have already witnessed your shame, your failure. You cannot let them see the underlying anger that you hate even feeling, the resentment you tried so hard to push down. You have to get out. Alone. You manage a semblance of normality when you assure them you'll be fine walking home. You're putting back the pieces of your facade, even if what's inside feels shattered.
Author's Note: Again, I didn't feel like getting to the happy ending. I blame Winter. I might write a perspective on the happy ending (I'm not sure whose) if people wanted to see it. I'm glad the second person seemed to work - and thanks for the constructive feedback I got!