CHAPTER FOUR

Darkness had fallen when Ben woke and he found Meg gone. Panicking he searched the room with his eyes worried that she may have left him again, until he saw her standing at the balcony edge starring off into space. The breeze was light and her face was upturned enjoying the feeling of it moving across her skin the city light reflected in her eyes.

She did not move as he came to stand next to her. Her only reaction to his presence was her voice, it sounded so lost and confused. "Ben who am I? I am going to have a child that I am not sure if I want, but I can't end its life before it has a chance to live. What did he or she ever do to deserve that? How could I punish someone innocent for my choices." Her hands covered her eyes as though she couldn't bare to think about it.

Reaching up Ben gently pried them away from her face and kissed each one. "I know you will make the right decision. I've told you before that you are strong and you are. Meg, I'm here and I always will be."

She leaned closer to him and they were touching side to side. Her voice was quiet. "Will you? How do you know that I won't push you away gain? I don't want to be alone anymore, but the only person I know is you and what are we? You say that it was complicated but the truth was I was this scared little person who hid behind my Inspector title and did not live. I hid behind the regulations." She turned away looking out at the lights.

"If I truly loved you I would have acted, nothing would have stopped me. What would they really have done to us? They would not have asked us to leave the RCMP, there was not impropriety or coercion. We loved each other, at least I love you. Why did I walk away?" Suddenly she turned and grabbed his arms, her grip was tight almost painful.

Ben wanted to interrupt and explain if he could but he knew she needed to understand her actions on her own to try and gather her thought before he add his opinion of what happened. "Meg, how can I explain who I was then as well? My mother was murdered when I was six. I went to live with my grandparents because my dad was grieving so much he could not look at me. They raised me and dad came to visit when he could but it was not often. I lived all over northern Canada and I was alone but not lonely." He pulled away from her and began to pace. He had too much energy, too much pain and not enough.....

Stopping her turned to her again, "Then I came here and I felt loneliness for the first time. Everything that I knew or learned no longer mattered. I drew myself in and hid how I felt. That was why Victoria almost destroyed me, she was a piece of home. The guilt I felt about her allowed her to pull me in to her web. Ray and some of the other people I knew there thought I was some kind of superman. Then you arrived and I saw myself reflected in your eyes." Reaching up he touched her face hoping that she wouldn't reject his touch, reject him. His eyes closed and she turned into his hand and kissed his palm.

Taking a shuddering breath he continued. "Both of us hid behind our titles. We were two lost souls who did not have the courage to act. We had been hurt by people we loved and by the RCMP. You never said why you were sent here, but I took it was some sort of punishment. You never talked about your life so I can't tell you anything about that part of you. You asked who you are? You are Margaret Thatcher. She is one of the strongest, beautiful, most capable people I know. Meg, you knew what you wanted out of life and to get that you had to leave me."

Ben turned away and Meg watched the emotions play across his face. It had been that same when they were on the horse when she told him that their contact could not happen again unless the same circumstances were to happen again and again at the campsite the night before he caught Muldoon.

She had pushed him away, not giving him a choice but instead locking both of them in an emotional cage. He was waiting for her, always for her to change her mind, to tell him it was okay to feel as he did, and now he waited for her memory, but she did not want him to wait. Meg had changed her mind about what she wanted, her career was no longer her life, she wanted Ben to take that spot, "Ben have you ever thought that what I thought I wanted was not what I really wanted? Do you think that in these years since I left you that I might have changed my mind about what I wanted?"

Meg remembered the fear she felt when ever Ben came too close to her heart. A fear that he did not love her enough or she him to find a compromise. She had let him go rather then destroy themselves and their love. So she had ran to CSIS hoping to forget him and she had but was it worth the cost? Now she would give almost anything to remember everything.

Meg laid her cheek against his back wrapping her arms around him, "Ben, in your office today you backed away from me because you think my feelings are not genuine, that they are a result of you being the only person I remember, but its not. I remember my feelings, Ben I loved you then and I love you more today. I was afraid of how you made me feel but not now. I need you Ben, I need you in my life and by my side. I would like you to help me raise this child. I know it is not yours but could you stand by me and give this beautiful gift a home. Sometimes all you need it a second chance, and here you are. Ben, please."

Ben stiffened at her words. Could it be true, she had loved him all along, but was it really love or just someone to latch on to now when she was terrified with no memory? What if there was someone else, someone she did not remember. Ben turned in her arms, he was so close to her, and asked her the same question that ran through her mind.

Meg shook her head, "There was no one else. There never was, only distractions since you stood there and told me that you did not care what I thought about you or your uniform. You had your rights and you were going to exercise them. Ben do you realize that you are the first person who stood his ground with me in a long time? I was so used to me cowering at my every word and you made me love you. Do you hear me Ben I love you. You, Benton Fraser, every man I went out with from that moment on was only a shadow compared to you."

Ben looked into her eyes and studied them for a moment, and saw what he was looking for. He bent down and touched his lips to hers and it was like coming home for the both of them.

Suddenly it all came back to her, like a flood. Meg's life ran before her until the moment Ben knelt before her in the Displaced Persons camp.

Tears began to flow. She remembered the good times they had. The night they went out for coffee. The day she shoved that Mexican agent out to the way and cleaned Ben's neck herself. The moment in the incubator just before Ben opened the door. On the Bounty when she told him he did not have to fill out his missing report.

Meg pulled away, "I remember. Its all back. Ben I am so sorry for what I did to you and me. I never gave us a chance and I never asked you what you wanted. Instead I pulled rank. Can we begin again? I need you, once I left you I only existed, I never lived. There were some days when I just wanted to die it hurt so much, but I could not come after you. I had left and would you even want me? My pride prevented me, Ben can you forgive me?"

"No," Ben reached up and touched her tears, "There is nothing to forgive. I could have come after you but my own pride prevented me. Margret Thatcher we are the same, and we would have let our fear and pride destroy our lives. We have been given a gift in a second chance and a new life. Marry me Meg, make me the happiest man in the world."

By now Ben was crying too Meg reached up and touched his tears, "Yes, Ben I will be Mrs. Fraser." He sighed and pulled her into his arms and spun her around and then he kissed her. They stayed that way dancing to no music until there was a pounding on the door, "Hey Benny are we going to dinner or what? I am starving and Stan here is too. Let's go, Ma has cooked up a storm."

Ben looked at Meg, "Shall we, or do you want to stay here?"

She shook her head, "No let's go and eat with them. We can tell them about the wedding and begin to make plans. Let's get married at the consulate before we head north again."

He pulled her tighter, "Yes sir."