Benton Fraser stood blankly. Bleakly. He'd give his left High Brown to hallucinate a manhole cover in his present perception of the world. As it was, he'd already lost his Stetson to what he could only assume was reality, so it was saying really a lot that he'd sacrifice one of his boots. Everything was so far away. He was accustomed to finding shortcuts.

"We should start walking, Benton. Your Borderlands are giving me a headache. Air needs trees to breathe, you know. Should have thought of that, you know, before you went about creating..." Bob Fraser gestured at nothing in particular, "this."

"I'm sorry to have inconvenienced you, Dad, b—" He gawked at the older man, who stared at him, expressionless. "You have a headache? Ha. You have a…"

"Well, no, not really. I was making a point." Bob frowned as Ben began to laugh harder, his eyes shut tight, wheezing for air.

"You… headache…" he gasped in a high-pitched laugh, doubled over.

"It wasn't that amusing, Benton."

"No…" came out the weak reply as Ben grabbed onto his father's tunic and caught his breath before continuing. When he looked up, he had tears running down his cheeks. "I," he pointed to himself drunkenly with a bloody hand, maintaining eye contact, "have a knife… in me, and you–. You," He raised his voice in disbelief, "have a headache?"

"Oh, I do see your point."

"Do you? Do you, Dad?" Bob put his arm around his son's back and pulled him back to a standing position.

"I do, son, but that crazed psychopathic look in your eyes is unseemly of a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police."

Ben fought another wave of agonizing pain that nearly floored him. He'd given up seemliness awhile back. He assumed since the pain was so intense and that there was a continuous gnawing ache that felt as if someone was still twisting the knife, he'd been denied pain killers and had yet to be anesthetized. Or he was in hell or purgatory and his father was there to keep up an illusion. Of course, that would mean that Victoria would appear soon, so there was that toward which to look forward.

And, oh, he did long for it. Perhaps that was the gnawing. The ineffable ache that seemed to radiate through his bones.

Shivering as invisible snowflakes seemed to penetrate his skin, Ben looked toward the tenements in the far distance. It was with some comfort he came to the conclusion that they were in the same place. Of course, he had nothing definitive by which to qualify this judgment. Someone had borrowed his compass, and it wasn't as if sextants grew on trees; and he didn't quite trust that the dead things posing as tall, herbaceous plants were made of wood at all.

"Well, no sense in standing around, then, right, Dad?"

"True enough, son. You might startle the natives." A rat scurried past them toward the horizon. "And you have an appointment."

"With whom?"

"Heaven knows, son. But I think you'd better be on time to this one. It's your duty."

"You just make things up as you go along, don't you?" Ben's teeth chattered as he spoke. The action jarred him. How long had it been? Was time different here than in real life?

"It's worked for me so far."

"What has?"

Bob looked at his son with layers of concern no longer hidden, like strata chipped away each time he saw Ben grimace. Even watching him become this distractible was breaking Bob's façade. He had to help find a way out. But which way was out? Things were rarely physical in the Borderland. And this was one wacky Borderland.

"What, Dad?" Ben licked his lip, shutting his eyes briefly, sweat now trickling down his face.

"Never mind. We'd better get a move on. You don't look well." Bob expeditiously, but carefully wiped the sweat from his son's forehead with the soft fur lining of his arctic glove, which was buttoned up toward his wrist. Ben simply nodded in acknowledgement, and began to stumble forward, gaining momentum with each step.

They traveled in silence; Bob staring toward the grimy looking apartments, their agreed-upon destination; and Ben gazing blearily about one foot in front of his boots at the oil-stained asphalt. The younger Fraser grunted as he stumbled and his father caught him every so often, or Ben would stop for a moment grabbing onto his stomach around the hilt which still taunted him as the blade felt as though, at intervals, someone still stabbed then twisted and tore at him until he was forced to stop fighting.

The gnawing suddenly overwhelmed everything else, and Ben grabbed at what he could as he fell. His fist latched onto the sleeve of Bob's tunic and his father instinctively caught him as he dropped.

"What is it, Benton? Talk to me, son."

Tendrils polished like the most beautifully flintnapped obsidian wrapped themselves around his body like smoke. Dark tendrils like Victoria's hair… The loveliest hair he'd ever seen. He took in a shaky breath and held the smoke in his lungs, letting it burn inside him before exhaling. She'd even smelled of smoke, of candles. Of every candle he owned all lit at once. Wax dripping down his fingers as he lit them fifty, maybe one hundred at once, each sting of melted paraffin igniting a passion in him he'd suppressed since he'd first met her. And then the sharp throb of black soot branding each of his fingertips as he snuffed the candles out one at a time, each little sizzle burning a little deeper until tears began to drip freely down his face from the smoke. Perhaps from Victoria snuffing out his life force. Alone, he had pulled a soot-stained hand over his eyes and wept. In his halfway-lit apartment, he'd stood at his window and wept, his erect form backlit by the anxiously dancing light of untended wicks and cheap candles having been burned for too many hours. He was now haunted by snow, dark hair, melted candle wax, and smoke. The rest of the memories were obnoxiously painful. These were poignant, he supposed.

And now the smoky tendrils of her hair stung at his nose and icy snowflakes sliced at his flesh like the smoky obsidian he knew they were as well. He wanted to open his eyes, to see her. His Victoria. His ice floe. His poison. The only woman whom he'd ever loved. A violent, tumultuous, thieving murderess. She surely would have turned him into a different person had he successfully left with her on the train that night. Perhaps he would have become her partner in crime as well as love…

Then come with me!

Come with me!

You're gonna regret it if you don't.

He had regretted it… But he thought he'd moved on. But here, now, he'd let her find him. Wanted her to find him. He opened his eyes.

She was more beautiful than he remembered. The soft scent of lilacs and vanilla twisted themselves into a ribbon of incense with the now light ringlets of smoke encircling her pale, bare shoulders and glowing curls of hair. Her eyes were bright with life, with energy. She placed a warm finger over his mouth, which startled him. Still, after all these years, he thought of her fingers as the frozen cold fingers he'd put in his mouth as he tried to warm her at Fortitude Pass—she his prisoner, he her captor, each trying to stay alive through the blizzard. To keep one another alive. His first and only love.

I caught this morning morning's minion, kingdom of daylight's dauphin, dapple-dawn-draw Falcon in his riding...

After she served her time, she'd come back and used him. And her fingers had been cold again at the railroad platform when she'd begged him to come with her. As she'd reached out and touched his hand, smiling. Excited. About to embark on an adventure. One that would probably kill his soul, if not him. He'd lost hold of her in seconds as he was shot. Her face was cold then, too. Was it disappointment?

Not Victoria. Cold because she'd brought the snow back. Others may not have seen the snow, but she'd brought that snow back to him. Brought him back to the snow. Made him remember that poem she recited to him all night to keep him alive while he kept her warm.

Of the rolling underneath him steady air, and striding high there how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing...

And now she had warm hands. He fought the urge to open his mouth and taste her fingers once again. To feel her life, to feel that energy. So he stared at her mouth. She smiled and spoke...

"Come with me, Ben…" Sotto voce. So, so soft.

Victoria was lying on top of him, pinning him to the ground with that horrible ache, sharp snowflakes cutting into his skin; smoke, though sweet and floral, began to make him cough painfully. It was too much. She was too much. He tried to reach out to her. Perhaps if she gave him a little space…

…

"Victoria, I… I'm sorry." Ben tried to move, but he was getting colder and colder. "Victoria, please move." He had to push her away again.

Her image flickered.

…shéer plód makes plough down sillion shine…

"I'm in hell…" Ben coughed and tried to move his head, but it was getting harder and harder to move.

And blue-bleak embers, ah my dear…

"You sent me there. It's only fair. I need you, Ben."

"You never needed me, Victoria…" A tear slid down his face. It was true. He needed her, but she only used him out of convenience and lust.

Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold vermilion.

"Son, will you get a grip!" Bob's face replaced Victoria's—which was disconcerting—with another flicker and a filmy haze Ben had to blink to clear.

"I should be with her."

"Oh, son…" Bob looked down at his son sadly. He'd been at the railway platform that night. He knew Ben didn't know his father was there. The boy had just been shot in the back and was in shock, but Bob had appeared immediately and placed a reassuring hand on his son's chest. He'd been there and he'd heard Ben say those exact words when Victoria had left with the train. When he was lying there, bleeding, and Bob could do nothing. I should be with her.

"Dad…" On the ground, the younger Mountie struggled in pain. "Dad, I should be with her. What have I done?"

"You used your head, son. You used your head. That woman nearly got you killed, and I think she could probably kill you here too." Bob shook his head and repeated the gesture of which his boy had seemed not to have been aware on the platform that night. He placed his hand on Ben's chest and looked at him knowingly.

"Understood." There was a long pause before he spoke again. "Dad, am I in hell?"

"You know what your grandmother always said?"

"Wash behind your ears?"

"Don't you have a filter, son?" Bob looked at his son in bemusement. "She also said 'If you're in hell, keep going.'"

Ben coughed. "That." he grabbed his father's hand and gestured that he'd appreciate some help sitting up. "Was Winston. Churchill," he grunted.

Bob Fraser smiled.

Ben looked down. The knife was gone. In its place was even more blood. The sharp pain was easing, and he was starting to feel more shaky and confused.

"Hell is empty and all the devils are here…" Ben stared in front of them as he was helped to his feet.

"Your grandmother said that?" Bob knew when someone was pulling the reindeer pelt over his eyes, but he humored his son because he was starting to look extremely pale all of a sudden.

"No…" Ben trailed off, his eyes darting all around the place. "Shakespeare. And I think 'here' meant 'here.'"