due South Fanfic: The Wrong Way

[andraste]

Rating: PG-13

Summary: Victoria's Secret ended differently.

Author's Notes: It is far, far too early in this relationship for me to be writing fanfiction. But they would not shut up. I even googled '1971 Buick Riviera' today.

I'm certain someone has done this idea before, since it's such an obvious scenario, but I'm not actually ripping anyone off. Just new and ignorant and with a head full of noisy muses *g*.



The Wrong Way

By Andraste

"This isn't the way to Canada."

Ray Vecchio's hands tightened on the steering wheel. "I know where I'm going, Fraser."

Outside, it was a warm spring night. There were still plenty of people on the streets, and Ray automatically noted the ones who were probably up to no good. He deliberately drove past what looked like a drug deal without slowing down.

"You should have turned right at Lake Street - if you keep going like this, we'll end up heading east instead of west."

Every time he put his foot on the clutch, he remembered that this wasn't his Riv. Oh, it was a Riviera, alright, and maybe he'd get used to it in time, but it was never going to be the same as the one they'd blown up.

"I'm not going to Canada, OK?"

Ray stopped resisting the temptation to turn his head and look at the passenger seat, and found that Fraser was wearing that expression he got when someone used slang he didn't recognise. "Where else would we be going?"

"New York."

The look on Fraser's face changed, almost imperceptibly. "I don't think that's a very good idea, Ray."

He almost replied that Fraser seemed keen enough to get there a few days ago, but bit the words back just in time. "I need to do something."

There was a longer than usual silence from the other side of the car.

"I consider it highly unlikely that she's still in New York, or even still on this continent. The NYPD and Interpol -"

"They don't have my unique motivation."

"You don't have to do this, Ray."

He turned his head to look at Fraser again. He seemed concerned, tense but ... not crazy, not like he was before. Maybe he had some perspective now – more perspective than Ray, anyway.

"After what she did, you expect me to just, what, let her go? It was her fault, Fraser."

"If you actually believed that, I don't think you'd be heading for New York."

It was the closest Fraser has come to blaming him, and Ray felt something twisting in his guts. "You think that's why I'm doing this?" This is all he needs, to be psychoanalysed by a Mountie.

"I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't. As a favour to me."

"Nobody said you had to come with me. Go to Canada if you want."

"That's just silly, Ray. How would I get there? I can hardly walk all the way to the Yukon."

Ray laughed, and for whatever reason, that was what set him off. Suddenly he was scrubbing at his eyes with the back of his hand. He needed to pull over. There was a gas station up ahead, and the car could use a refill before the serious driving started, anyway.

There were no other customers this time of night, and for a moment Ray just leaned forward and rested his head on the steering wheel. He felt Fraser's hand touch his back, rest there for a moment, then move away.

"Benny –"

He turned his head, but there was nobody there, except the wolf on the back seat, head up and ears pricked. Ray sighed heavily and got out of the car.

He opened the other door so that Diefenbaker could get out, filled the car up and cleaned the windshield, aware that he was just delaying the inevitable. When he went inside to pay, the clerk was glaring at him.

"Is that your dog?"

Ray turned around, and there was Dief standing in the aisle, with a packet of chips in his mouth and a pleading expression.

"He ..." Ray shook his head. "Yeah, sure, whatever."

"Then I hope you're going to pay for those."

Ray scowled at the clerk and put down another bill on the counter, barely waited long enough to scoop up his change. Outside, he opened the door and watched as Dief managed to scramble past him into the passenger seat.

"You are not sitting there. You get in the back like a good wolf."

He pointed, but Diefbaker just dropped his chips and whined.

"Oh no, not you too. We're going to New York."

Dief made it clear that chasing an elusive escaped criminal, impaired by a gunshot wound and an unbalanced cop, was not his idea of a good plan. Ray got in, giving up on the idea of getting Diefenbaker to go anywhere he didn't want to go.

"I thought you'd have wanted to catch her as much as I do – she did shoot you in the first place."

The wolf just looked at him silently and flattened his ears.

"No, I am not running away. I'm pursuing a felon. Big difference."

Dief leaned over, stiffly because of the bandages, and rested his head on Ray's knee. He'd never done anything like that before – it's not like he was a lapdog, or any kind of house pet.

Fuck it, he was running away. Who would blame him? The idea of sitting through the service, seeing everyone, seeing Frannie, was unbearable.

But he'd been outvoted, two to one. As the driver, Ray felt that his vote should count for more than those of a wolf and a dead man, but this was what he deserved for listening to their opinions. Some of what Benny was always saying about duty and responsibility must have rubbed off somehow. If Ray's aim had been better -

"Come on, Dief. We have a funeral to get to."

He swallowed hard and turned the car west.

The End