I've answered most reviews privately this time around, except in those cases where the review lacked a reply link. My deepest gratitude to all who took the time to let me know that they were reading. You've made me feel very welcome; I never received so much enthusiastic feedback in my days of writing Due South fanfic.

It's with a sense of trepidation and a little bit of sadness that I post this last chapter. Judging from the comments I have received in the last couple of days, I have a sneaking suspicion that this final chapter is not. . . how should I say it? It's not what you're expecting. But then, I think I've managed to catch you off-guard once or twice along the way, haven't I? If I have entertained you at all these last few weeks, please indulge me as I finish A Thermos for Valerie the way I always meant it to end.

It's not about the secret. It's not about forgiveness. It's all about the Thermos, and the question is. . . why?

ooooooo0ooooooo

Chapter 11

Silence. Darkness.

I trust her. I trust her I trust her I trust her I trust her.

Despite my frequent reassurances, I experienced a moment of blind panic when I felt the Thermos lid snap into place behind me. I wanted nothing more at that moment than to thrash around and scream, "Let me out! Let me out!"

Several months ago, Jazz made me calculate the interior volume of both the Fenton Thermos and the Fenton Weasel. She had been tutoring me in math (a hopeless cause!) and I had made the mistake of complaining that figuring out area and volume would never be relevant to my own life.

For the record: the inside of a Thermos is just a hair over 200 cubic inches–only about one-fifth the volume of the Weasel's receptacle (948 cubic inches). Having been inside both, I can honestly say that the Weasel is a luxury suite at the Ritz compared to a Thermos. Inside the Weasel I had been squashed and contorted far beyond a human body's tolerance, but I had still been me: my feet were there and my head was there and I could hear my Dad talking to me and I could talk back and he could hear me.

Being inside the Thermos was a different physical existence entirely. Still intangible, my ghostly form was compressed into a dense fog of consciousness. I imagined that I could sense the shape of my prison, my substance filling it completely from end to end, but I also knew that if the Box Ghost were to make one of his ill-timed appearances, and Valerie was feeling cocky, I just might find myself sharing my space with him. Oh, God—what would that feel like? How would we be able to… um… recognize each other? Would we each be crammed into a space half the size of my current prison, end-to-end or side-by-side, or would our intangible forms mingle?

Oh, ew!

I contemplated some of the little, physical things a person can do to relax. I'd take a deep breath if I could. I'd close my eyes, if only I had eyes to close. I'd twiddle my thumbs. . . . My thoughts drifted to the device that held me, its smooth, featureless walls, the ingenious design, the solid construction. I tried to imagine Dad fussing over the schematics, Mom's delicate hands assembling the circuitry, the two of them taking a coffee break at the work bench in the lab, trying not to get cookie crumbs in the components.

It might have been my imagination, but I thought I could just make out a sensation of motion, as if the Thermos was being carried somewhere. How long had I been in here? It may have been as little as a minute or two, but it may just as well have been hours; there was no way to measure the passage of time. What was Valerie doing out there? Were we still in the park, or was she taking me somewhere else? She could stick me on a shelf in the back of her closet or throw me into the harbor and I'd never know the difference.

I trust her, really I do.

I thought back to our conversation the previous night. "Think of the most evil human being who ever lived. Hitler, bin Laden, whoever. If you were a judge, and you had the power to sentence that person to an eternity in solitary confinement, held immobile in a prison cell smaller than a coffin, with no light, no sound, no sensation of any kind, would you do it? What kind of crime would it take, to sentence someone to exist in there forever, alone in the dark?" I hoped she would reach the only conclusion a rational human being could reach. And yet. . . and yet. . . .

And yet, somewhere in the Ghost Zone, in a fortress outside of time, he was trapped– no, I will be trapped inside a Fenton Thermos. Forever alone in the dark, by my own hand.

'It is the nature of a ghost to be obsessive,' said old Farthington-Smythe. Totally true. I had begun to recognize my own obsessive nature soon after Walker turned the people of Amity Park against me. If I don't protect this town, who will? Jazz was worried that some new obsession had taken hold of my mind, compelling me to take this extreme risk, but she couldn't possibly understand what was really driving me. I don't think anyone could truly understand.

I had met Valerie– strong, responsible, adult Valerie– amid the smoking ruins of Amity Park, ten years in the future. Still fighting. Still trying to protect the people of this city from an insane, invincible, inhuman enemy. She is the one person I can count on to be ruthless enough to do what may someday need to be done.

I trust her. And this time, she has a Thermos.

ooooooo0ooooooo

Author's Note: You know how you sit in a darkened theater during the closing credits of a film, hoping that the director has added something extra: another scene, a blooper reel, maybe a little song and dance number? Well, this may be "THE END," but I will post a short epilogue on Saturday, to answer that other question so many of you have been asking. In the mean time, I'll just say this: Danny trusts Valerie, don't you?

If you'd like to ask questions, offer contrasting theories or speculate about this chapter, I invite you to jump over to the Theories and Musings forum on this site (just click on the forums link in the upper right hand corner of the screen). I'll start a thread there about obsessiveness. Please do come, I'd love to "talk" to you some more!

Aegis: I couldn't reply to you privately, but I want to thank you for pointing out the time confusion at the beginning of chapter 10. I was referring to the thirty minutes that Danny asked for back in chapter 3, but I have changed the reference to eliminate the ambiguity.

NNF: I guess you figured out by now that there was no way I could switch POV for this chapter. I hope you weren't disappointed!