Title: Question
Fandom: due South
Author: bghost
Characters: Benton Fraser, Bob Fraser, Ray Kowalski
Rating: G
Word Count: 592
Content Notes: None needed.
Summary: Bob asks Fraser a question.
Written For: Challenge #93: Amnesty, using Challenge: Question

AN: Written at speed, (under half an hour) first offering here for many many months. Yay!!!!

“I first came to Chicago on the trail of the killers of –”

My father interrupts. “When did I first become just a story you tell people?”

I realise that my mouth is hanging open, and that the woman I was informing of my background is staring at me perplexed. More perplexed than usual. I have that effect on people.

My father is glaring at me. I stutter, and try to continue speaking. “That’s not important right now. What is important –”

“Oh, so now I’m not even important as an anecdote? That’s very reassuring, Son.”

“Fraser?” Ray’s looking at me closely, as though he can see something is amiss. He’s right. Something is wrong – very wrong. I’m trying to question a witness, and my father is distracting me even more than usual. So much so, that I’m falling apart and unable to continue my duty.

“Excuse me.” I nod my apologies to the witness, and duck past Ray, escaping the confines of the woman’s yarn shop. I lean back against the wall, take off my hat, and stare up at the sky.

“So,” Dad is next to me again. “You didn’t answer my question. When did I turn into just a story?”

“I don’t know what you mean.” I turn the hat round and round in my hands, twisting the brim.

“Of course you do. Most people, you ask them about their father, they don’t go off into some long spiel that’s the same every single damn time. When did I turn into nothing but a story to you? Something you could rattle off by heart?”

I close my eyes against the too bright sky, and turn my face away. The brick is rough against my cheek.

I had never thought how my little speech, so often repeated, would look from my father’s point of view.

“I don’t know,” I tell him, though it’s a lie.

“You must have some idea.”

I do, but I’m not telling him.

“Fraser?” Ray’s voice cuts in on my thoughts, and when I open my eyes, my father has gone. I breathe a sigh of relief. “What happened in there?”

“Momentary dizzy spell, or something.”

“Or something.” Ray gives me his full attention – something which really does make me dizzy at times. It does so now. I stagger, and he puts his arm out to steady me.

“You wanna talk about it?” I say nothing, but he carries on. “It’s okay. We’ll talk to the witness later. But you’re upset, I can see that.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine.” My lie obviously irritates him, but his expression softens. “Because, you know, I get it – I mean, I think I do. You were talking about your Dad –”

“Yes,” I admit. “I was talking about my Dad.”

“You wanna – tell me about him? We got time.”

I think about it. Seriously think about telling him everything – the ghost, everything.

I can’t do that. He already thinks I’m crazy – that would just confirm it.

So, I tell him the only truth I can. More than I ever told anyone before, even myself.

“Yes, I can talk to you about my Dad. I can tell you a thousand stories about him.” I lift a shoulder, and smile at the empty air, where my father isn’t. “That’s the problem.”

Ray’s forehead crinkles, puzzled. “I don’t get… What do you mean, Frase?”

I look away, and tell him my worst truth.

“I loved him. I loved him so much. But he was only ever a story my mother told me.”