Title : Survivors Looking for a Many-Named Home
Fandoms : due South, Battlestar Galactica
Characters : Benton Fraser, Leoben Conoy
Rating : Mature Audiences
Warnings :  Fraser/RayK UST ; non-explicit implied Fraser/Leoben
Word Count : 493

Author Notes : Written for the fan_flashworks "Genre" Challenge, science fiction genre.

Summary : Leoben is looking for a message from God, and Fraser might be the messenger.

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Through many a lifetime, Leoben has been looking for God's messengers. Leoben dies and resurrects and pursues his quest again and again. He believes himself to be a part of some messenger's destiny; he yearns to be a part of some messenger's life.

Fraser has been dreaming of dazzling colors in the sky, but not the shifting and spreading colors of the NWT's aurora borealis and not even the sky as seen from Earth; he dreams of colors that coalesce around an unfamiliar sphere and he wakes to the ache of how much he misses Ray. Through the days and nights of their quest for the Hand of Franklin, there was so much time and yet it never seemed like the right time for Fraser to say what was in his heart, to say "Stay. Don't go back to Chicago. Or if you'll not stay now, say you'll return to me".

Leoben locates Fraser's cabin while Fraser and Diefenbaker are out on patrol. Fraser never locks his door, and Leoben goes right in. He sees on a wall the dreamscape painting that Fraser recently made : the colors, the sphere...Ray. Leoben is reassured by the sphere and the colors, but startled by the presence of the figure that so resembles himself...if Fraser had already encountered a Leoben, that encounter would have been known to them all. Leoben takes it as a sign that THIS messenger will be more receptive to him than was Kara Thrace.

As Leoben continues to contemplate the painting, Fraser and Dief return to the cabin. Dief gives a questioning whine at the familiar form and the unfamiliar scent. Fraser's question is one word, and the word is simply Ray's name, spoken with uncertainty as he too can both see what is familiar and sense what is not. If it weren't for his wolf's corroboration, Fraser would wonder if he had just lost some more marbles from that purported "hole in his bag of marbles".

Dief neither advances nor backs off, and Fraser does the same.

Leoben doesn't know anything about Fraser's Ray, but he knows a number of things about Fraser. Speaking the same words to Fraser as he had spoken to Kara, he says "I'm trying to help you. I only want you to see the truth of your life. The reason why you suffered, the reason why you've struggled for so long. All of your high-wire stunts have been an act. Time after time you skip to the edge of the abyss, then away again."

Fraser glances at his otherworldly painting, thinking of his recurring dream, and mixed with that, of his complicated love for Ray. When Leoben declares "You're going to hold me in your arms, you're going to embrace me, you're going to tell me that you love me. I've seen it," Fraser sees it, too, and he moves forward into Leoben's embrace...and Leoben begins to learn some things about Fraser's Ray.

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