Title: Unvarnished
Author: Sage
Fandom: Due South
Rating: PG
Length: 1030~ words
Content notes: Reference to offscreen child abuse.
Author notes: Thanks to Petra & Mergatrude for the helpful suggestions!
Summary: Wherein Bob gets his man and hates it, Buck is devious, and Caroline is present in absentia.

November 13, 1958
Yellowknife, NWT

My darling Caroline,

I hope you're well and that you're seeing more of the neighbors now that the lake has frozen up. Buck and I are back in the big city but will be setting out again soon. As usual, it can't happen soon enough, though not merely because of my feelings about this town, which you know only too well. We've spent a week on the trail of a miscreant named "Oddball" Mathers from down near Nahanni Butte.

Bob put down his pen. He could try to spin Caroline an amusing tale about chasing Oddball across tundra and frozen lakes only to have to save him from falling headlong into a deep ravine – or from freezing to death, as it happened. Bob could try to make having no rations and nearly no firewood for miles around sound funny. He could tell her about burning all the dried moose dung they could find for heat, and how it was only Buck's timely arrival with a sled and skis that saved them.

Not a great story, to be sure. Not a rollicking adventure or a sidesplitting yarn like the one he'd written her last month about helping Penelope Burns throw her brother Dory into a snow bank to sober him up and teach him some manners.

He had no wish to inflict on Caroline the ugly truth of what Oddball had been doing in his cabin overlooking the river. Of what a brave handful of young girls and boys had told him Oddball had done to them and their siblings once the strange, sickly sweet drink had taken hold. Of what the Slavey women had finally confirmed, despite their narrow-eyed suspicion of white men in red serge offering help. Of the photographs he and Buck found in the cabin once they'd upturned its contents. Of Oddball's repugnant self-portraits.

A steaming hot toddy slid onto the table in front of him. Buck rubbed a warm hand across Bob's back, and then dropped heavily into the chair opposite with his own drink. "You done?"

"Mm-mm." Bob shook his head, and Buck grunted and let him alone. Bob swirled his drink and took a first sip. Rum, brandy, tea, some lemon and spice, something else he could only guess at. He closed his eyes and tried to envision Caroline: her smile, her laugh, the way she folded her arms when she was cross at him, the way she hid her wifely exasperation from his mother.

He opened his eyes and stole a long look at Buck, his blond hair bright with pomade, his long legs propped up on a chair as he polished his boots with a damp rag. Socks created by Caroline's hands, a gift that almost brought her into this very room with them. Bob drank again, absently noting the size of Buck's feet, and picked up his pen.

He led us on quite a chase, but Buck and I brought him in and saw him booked on charges too despicable to mention. I honestly don't know how he failed to plummet into a handy crevasse before I caught him. It shames me to entertain that thought, and yet this land takes so many good men. Why not take a bad one off our hands?

For better or worse, he's behind bars now, safe and sound. Alas, the victims are all Indians, and we know how that goes. At least there's photographic proof. Maybe this time it won't come down to a judge refusing to accept the honest testimony of aboriginal women and children against the word of a no account, deceitful white miner.

I should tell you that Buck is at this moment wearing the grey socks you knitted him, which are a poor substitute for your company but an excellent memento of your charms. Looking at his feet, I can see your hands. And that is as preposterous a statement as I've ever made. This case has surely made me sick.

Bob tipped a little more of his drink down his throat. No, he wouldn't send this letter at all. He wouldn't even keep this page for his journal. Tomorrow he would find something entertaining to write her, probably about Buck. Stories about Buck always made her smile. He ripped the sheet out of his journal, threw the crumpled ball into the wood stove, and sat back with a heavy sigh.

"Don't forget we got him." Buck's eyes were a clear and steady blue in the lamplight and his voice a warm rumble. He reached across the table and covered Bob's hand with his own, squeezing.

"I know that." Bob scowled down, his gaze falling on the table, on their drinks, on the weathered back of Buck's hand. "Of course I know that, but you know how judges can be. You remember the Melvin Fisher case."

Buck hummed in agreement. "Ugly business," he said. Buck didn't lift his hand and his thumb began to stroke Bob's wrist. "Fine. I'll tell you what we'll do: we'll spread word all across the North, from Inuvik to Alert. We'll tell the missionaries, the traders, and the bush pilots, and the gossips will tell it from Vancouver to Halifax. Every Mountie in Canada will be watching for him, so even if he doesn't go to prison this time, Oddball still won't have a moment's peace." Buck's face was stone steady and serious as a heart attack. "How does that sound?"

Bob turned his hand over and gripped hard. "All right," he said after a minute. "If the law won't maintain the right, then we'll do it ourselves. We have a duty to protect them, too, for God's sake."

"That's exactly right," Buck said, "and that's what we'll do."

Bob nodded and didn't move, marveling for a moment at this hidden, devious side of Buck as he waited for Buck to let go his hand. Any second Buck would sit back with a final nod, or suggest they turn in for the night, or go out to check on the dogs; only, he didn't. Instead, the moment stretched and Buck held on, held him fast. Bob was glad to let him.

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