Title: Smile for the Camera
Challenge #59: Photo
Fandom: due South
Rating: T (Mentions of domestic violence and child abuse)
Length: 300 words
Summary: Pictures tell a thousand words - most of them lies.
Author's Note: thank you ride_4ever for your swift beta!

Seems like the fire was a good thing – Ray sat on Ma’s new couch, fidgeting, and stared around the living room. Kowalski had filled in all the paperwork, got a great settlement on the insurance, and Ma went wild, decorating the house from top to bottom, the way she’d always dreamed.

So, the house was the same, but different. You’d have thought it would be differences that got him, but it was the family photos. He’d never liked them, but here they still were. Ma musta got in touch with every relative from here to Palermo to find all these. Some of the faces he barely knew, ancestors long gone. But the wedding photos, the christening photos – all those posed, poised perfect moments –

Every single one of them told lies. Ma and Pa dancing at their wedding, not a fist or angry word implied. Frannie’s communion picture, her face turned slightly away from the camera to hide the bruise on her cheek.

Today, they had finally cracked the Lancaster case. The whole bullpen applauded – it was about damn time. Stupid bastard had left a file open on his work computer. A photo. Little kid. Not just any little kid – his little kid. She was smiling at the camera – another lie.  One of those poised, perfect smiles that didn’t reach the eyes. The kind of smile that paedophiles wanted from their victims, so they could pretend like the kid was enjoying it.

Ma was coming into the living room now, bearing more photos. Ray forced his own smile, and shifted up the couch to give her room. Enthusiastically she opened the album on his lap, and started pointing out the recent additions to the extended family.

Ray stared at the children, and tried not to see Sally Lancaster.

He hated photographs.