Disclaimer: dueSouth characters and concepts shall never be mine, alas.

One Day

by Raine Wynd

He doesn't talk about the near-misses, or the way, late at night, his body reminds him he's not a young man anymore. He doesn't like to admit he will ever be less than perfect in his work. He wishes Ray would see it, that he's screwing up by not doing his job, the real one, the one for which he receives a salary and medical benefits. Late at night, when the trains rattle his windows and he can hear every drip-drip-drip of the faucet down the hall because seven-year-old Kelly in 10C never remembers to turn it off, Fraser remembers every detail of how he grabbed the wrong forms for processing Mr. Sanofi's passport request and had to type the whole thing over, in triplicate, in the semi-darkness so no one would know someone was at the consulate at one AM.

There are twenty-three other mistakes: 10 of them resulting in minor injuries to himself, and 5 to Ray, one for every day he's spent this month chasing the lower denizens of Chicago, and he knows it's a matter of time before he slips. He's afraid of what Ray will say if he ever does slip (not that he's afraid of the words per se, just not willing to hear them), terrified of having to decide to be someone other than a Mountie (because it's all he's ever been.) So he runs through every scenario in his mind as he lays on the narrow cot, ignoring Dief's snoring and trying to figure out how he can avoid being so careless, and doesn't answer when Ray snaps at him the next day, "What's wrong with you, Benny? You got a screw loose in there or something?"

One day, he might just answer "yes".

One day, he might just not show up.

And one day, he might just tell Ray about the mistake he made with a prisoner....

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Written for the "Fraser F*ks Up" ds_flashfiction challenge, and posted July 20, 2004