Author:
Title: Let Every Woman Melt Her Own Snow
Author: viciouswishes
Beta: sandy_s and lornelover
Fandom: Buffyverse/due South
Pairing: Buffy and Fraser, gen (mentions Buffy/Spike, Fraser/Victoria, and Fraser/RayK)
Setting: Post-"Chosen" and Post-"Call of the Wild"
Rating: G
Words: 4,082
Summary: Buffy ends up in Inuvik hunting down a new Slayer with the help of Benton Fraser.
Every time Buffy closes her eyes, she sees Spike burning and she wants to scream. It's been months, and she's been to Mexico, Alabama, Paris, and Russia, riding in an endless series of planes, trains, and a variety of personal transport vehicles. Her therapist's office sits between the Cleveland Watcher's Council and a FedEx postage store. She only goes when she's in town, which means her visits are about Faith, not the flames that haunt her mind. Faith's Cleveland's head Slayer, and she's gotten into a nasty habit of trying to boss Buffy around. Buffy told Giles once, and she'll tell him again, she never throws the first punch.
Willow locates a Slayer in the Northwest Territories and Buffy volunteers to meet-and-greet the girl. Buffy's sweating in the record Midwest heat wave, and the Artic circle sounds like the perfect escape from the never-ending summer. She buys tall winter boots in the Edmonton airport. Her flight from Cleveland to Inuvik takes 18 hours including layovers.
Buffy really wants a bed and a maneuverable jacket. She feels like the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Woman, only slightly more stylish. October is colder than she expected, even for the end of the world. She flips through the Visitor's Guide, trying to find a map. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police Inuvik Headquarters is the first location marked on it. Apparently, she still has another eight miles to Inuvik and is thankful that Giles has arranged a car for her.
As Buffy tosses her luggage in the back of a Range Rover and looks at the piles of snow contrasting with the cement, she hopes that it doesn't try to snow anytime soon. Otherwise, she's royally screwed. She turns on the heater, only to find that the blast of warm air reminds her too much of what she's leaving. She resolves to drive with only the few short hours of sunlight warming her.
*****
Inuvik's buildings are mostly brown and spaced rather far apart. She counts at least three churches on the way and squints to see the oddly shaped statue in front of the visitor's center. Buffy turns down Distributor Street to the RCMP where her contact, Rachel Applewhite, works as one of the two support staff for the 13-person detachment. Giles' information is nothing if not detailed.
"Welcome to Inuvik," says the woman at the front desk. "You must be Buffy. We don't get a lot of visitors up here. Plus, Bill at the airport called to say you'd made it."
Buffy's nose wrinkles. "Rachel?"
"The one and only." Rachel explains that tomorrow they will head toward the new Slayer's home and not to worry that she'll be right on schedule. "You'll be staying at the Mackenzie Hotel just down the street. Executive suite. That's larger than most houses around here, and per Council orders, the kitchen's fully stocked." She takes Buffy's map and circles the hotel, which seems pointless when it's about four blocks down the road.
"Thanks, Rachel." Buffy smiles, glad that Xander's jokes about Canadian bureaucracy being slow haven't panned out. Rachel seems efficient and on schedule, if only a touch too worried about the America tourist losing herself in a one-horse town. She yawns. "I think I need a nap."
"I hear there's a large bed and a Jacuzzi tub in your suite."
*****
The Jacuzzi tub is indeed nice. Better than nice. Buffy's eyes close.
"One hundred and forty-seven days I waited for you, Buffy," Spike says, holding her hands.
Her hands are torn and bleed from crawling out of her own grave. Her friends were too stupid, too concentrated on their lives to consider that.
"And you didn't wait for me," he continues. A spark lights between them, scorching her hands, and they both scream.
Buffy wakes and bolts out of the Jacuzzi. She considers jumping out into the snow bank from her suite to cool the heat. Instead, she opens a window. The cold re-freezes her wounds. She looks up as it starts to snow. Maybe she'll see the Northern Lights or another one of those crazy natural phenomena that would normally make her swear and long for mission with cabana boys and drinks served in coconuts.
Buffy curls up in bed with the television on until the screen turns to static. A black-and-white snowfield to match the one outside that hasn't stopped since her bath. Anything to distract her thoughts from drifting back to the dream. She falls asleep in her own frozen world.
*****
Snow blankets the landscape and the man at the counter laughs when she insists on the going to the RCMP building. "It's only down the street." Her hand gestures toward the window. Apparently, not even the citizens of Inuvik dared to venture out in the three feet and counting of fresh snow. "How about renting snow shoes?" Buffy asks.
So Buffy snowshoes her way, leaving a fresh track down the street. Her wool socks itch against her ankles as she lifts one foot after the other. Swinging her foot in an arc-like pattern, just like the man behind the counter had said, one shoe hooked in the other and she fell over. Buffy spits out a mouthful of snow and half her pride.
Her hands sink in the snow as she tries to stand back up. "Shit." Eventually, her Slayer grace, or whatever it is, helps her stand back up and she starts on her way again. There's probably a caribou mocking her.
Soon enough, Buffy's shoes hit the RCMP's door, and she leans forward to knock on the locked door. "Rachel!"
Thankfully, it is Rachel who opens the door. Her hair looks like she slept at her desk. "Buffy?" She starts laughing. "Why are you here? The whole town's shut down. I was here all night after we got snowed in."
"So I take it we're not going to get that Slayer today?" Buffy's eyes travel down to her feet. Snowflakes stick on her eyelashes. "Mind helping me take these things off?"
Rachel's smile is somewhere between 'stupid American' and 'I'm a helpful Canadian. Ask me how" as she leans down to undo the bindings. "Why don't you warm up?"
Buffy gladly takes the cup of coffee Rachel hands her and sits on the brown couch that Rachel refers to as a chesterfield. "Are you sure we're not going?"
"The Hatchard family live farther out than the airport. No one dares to go in this." Rachel picks up the ringing phone and assures some citizen that indeed the schools are shut down today. She also says that the roads will be plowed by tomorrow.
Setting her coffee down, Buffy unzips her jacket. The heat's building itself up again, and her trip is pushed back another day thanks to Mother Nature.
"You know, Buffy," Rachel says, "there is one person who would take you out there. Right now, he's probably saving a kitten stuck in a tree." She laughs again and tells Buffy about Constable Benton Fraser who is apparently crazy, but good hearted, and some sort of survivalist mountain man. "He's good with those from the States because while on the trail of the killers of his father and for reasons that don't need exploring at this juncture, he remained, attached as liaison with the Canadian Consulate for a few years until he came back to Canada."
"Do I just wait?" Buffy asks. She finishes off her coffee and fears the crossword puzzle book on the coffee table will be her only entertainment for the next several hours as Rachel's phone rings again.
*****
The door swings open, revealing a man wearing a wide brimmed hat. He's carrying another man over his shoulders. Snow flurries in behind him as if announcing the almost mythical status of the man Buffy figures to be Constable Fraser.
"I see you got your man, Constable," Rachel says, looking up from her computer.
Fraser nods and sets the man down on a chair. "Yes, Ms. Applewhite. I believe that you can take his booking from here."
Rachel watches as Fraser handcuffs the man. "No problem, Constable. We do have someone waiting for you. She needs to be taken to Hatchard's."
"Well, Diefenbaker has been looking forward to the first blizzard of the year." Fraser moves toward the couch where Buffy now stands.
"You must be Fraser." Buffy extends her hand and immediately regrets it when Fraser's chilled hand touches hers. "I'm Buffy Summers." She goes into the civilian explanation of where she needs to be and how Rachel said that Fraser could take her anywhere she needed.
Fraser nods, and he gives her the look, which says he figures her for another pushy American. The same one that the pilot, the car rental clerk, and about every other Canadian she's met has given her. But then Fraser smiles, and Buffy starts to think that maybe he really does like Americans.
Buffy quickly explains her situation and Fraser mumbles in agreement. He reminds her of Giles, in that he is half-listening and half-planning on how to respond to her crazy ideas. Well, if Giles was hot. Fraser strips off his winter clothing, revealing a toned body, in addition to his already melt-y eyes and lips.
"I once traveled as far as Tuktoyaktak in a blizzard. You see, Delia Featherhorn had gone into labor two weeks before her due date and..."
"So you can get there?" Buffy interrupts him. She doesn't want waste the day and everyone in Canada seems to have stories. Very long stories. "How about we finish the story on the way?"
"As you wish, Ms. Summers. Have you ever ridden on a dog sled?"
*****
Buffy immediately falls in love with the dogs. Diefenbaker licks her face much to Fraser's disgust. Apparently, Diefenbaker is a sucker for blondes. She can't help but wonder if his owner is, too. Buffy laughs even as the half-wolf tries to root in her pocket. She doesn't know what he wants with a power bar and chapstick.
Fraser comments on being satisfied that the blizzard seems to have died down for the moment; Buffy can't tell when she feels like the winds will knock her over.
Fraser graciously allows her to ride sitting on the sled. But she doesn't think that it's charity when the snow starts flying in her face and all she can see for miles is snow and dog butts.
The snow reflects as only cold and white to Buffy's Californian senses, but Fraser seems to see curves and colors, trails and landmarks; Buffy bets that a drift in a snow bank is a marker to him like a 7-11 would be for her.
"We should make it to the Hatchard's before dark," Fraser says. He doesn't continue his story and Buffy doesn’t remind him to.
*****
Buffy knows they're lost. She doesn't care how well Fraser knows the forest; she knows when someone's lost and refusing to ask for help. "You don't know where we are."
"Of course, I do." Fraser looks to his left and then his right as if he's trying to recreate the landscape through the rapidly falling snow. "I've navigated through more severe weather than this. Once I..." He stops himself as she's sure he's remembering how she doesn't want to hear his stories.
"But have the other people survived?" Buffy mutters.
Fraser avoids her eyes.
*****
When the sun's dipping below the horizon, Fraser stops the sled. Because Buffy doesn't see anything resembling civilization, she figures that he's finally going to admit he's lost or that they ended up in Russia. Dusk makes the snow glow like a living, moving creature, and Buffy rechecks for the stake under the many layers of her clothing.
"We're going to have to make camp," Fraser says. He licks his lips before going to unhook the dogs. Buffy tries not to stare.
The wind blows the tent everywhere. Buffy holds steadily to the stakes as Fraser fixes the material. She can't believe it's staying up, and Buffy starts again to believe in the myth of Benton Fraser.
He even manages a fire now that the storm's let up. The warm, roaring flames excite Buffy at first. She swears that her toes are frozen, and she holds her hands as close as she can to the fire.
Under the warmth of the fire, Benton starts telling a story, and Buffy finds herself okay with that. He seems to be telling a parable about the Inuit and fishing. Buffy finds solace in his voice, the rise and fall of it. Her mother also knew that tone.
And so had Spike.
Buffy moves back from the fire. Too hot. Her short lived solace melts her all around like a drippy popsicle.
*****
She feels warm twice while traveling: in front of the fire and curled up next to Fraser in the tent. The man's like a furnace, and she wonders if she's just used to curling up next to a vampire. She rolls away on her side.
"Are you alright?" Fraser asks. He either has problems sleeping himself or is an extremely sensitive sleeper.
Buffy tugs her sleeping bag tighter around herself, creating a literal barrier around herself and Fraser. He hasn't been anything but gentlemanly; she just doesn't want to get too close. "Yes. I'll be fine. Just a little warm."
"Very well." Fraser shifts, rustling the tent just enough to cause one of the dogs to whine from outside. "Goodnight, Buffy."
"Night, Fraser." Buffy, however, doesn't fall asleep. Instead, she focuses on how the cold freezes her, starting from a tingle in her nose and a jagged brush through her cheeks. She doesn't need to dream of the snowy land any longer; she can experience it.
She stares at the nylon tent, lying on top of frozen ground. Buffy doesn't roll towards Fraser, but she isn't sure that he's sleeping either.
*****
Fraser tells her the next morning that they aren't going anywhere. The storm's picked up again, and she smells dog in the tent. Maybe it's even too cold for them. Buffy never had pets; she still remembers all the goldfish she killed.
The wind's too strong to cook, so Fraser gives her something called pemmican. Pemmican looks like beef jerky, but definitely isn't honey-roasted or pepperoni flavored.
"Have you been in storms like this?" Buffy asks between chews. The stuff's stringy.
"Yes," Fraser says, "storms worse than this." His eyes move away from her like he's remembering something he doesn't want her to know. "When I was a child, it snowed for three months and my grandmother sealed us in our home. She told me that we were like the grizzly bear hibernating for the winter. We were snowed in for so long that we almost ran out of food. My grandmother was quite the canner and had survived many harsh winters so this was no easy accomplishment."
"What would your grandma do now?"
"Exactly what we're doing: buttoning down the hatches and keeping warm and well fed." Fraser's eyes are still sad.
Buffy reaches over and pets Diefenbaker. He's snuggled up to her thigh, and she's thankful for some doggie comfort. It makes her long for a pet of her own. One might be nice when she goes back to Rome. But a large dog like Diefenbaker would never fit into her apartment, nor would he enjoy it very much. "How long have you have Diefenbaker?"
"Since he was a puppy. He saved my life once and never let's me forget that," Fraser says and Diefenbaker whines at him. "Perhaps if you did not grow so attached to doughnuts and fast food, you could be outside with the other dogs."
"I don't mind." Buffy smiles when Diefenbaker rubs his wet nose against her hand. "I bet he was a cute puppy. Maybe I'll get a puppy when I go home."
"Where's home?"
"Rome." A place that really only stores Buffy's things. Her new things as the important ones fell in the giant hole formerly known as Sunnydale. And Dawn and Andrew, who didn't fall in the hole, but seem to have even busier lives than Buffy. "I live with my sister and a friend of the family, who's really more like the annoying younger brother I never had."
Fraser chuckles at this. "It's been a while since I've shared a place with anyone but Dief."
"Well, I was supposed to be an only child." Buffy catches herself before she goes further. Dawn's origins are still something that they keep under wraps. "My parents only planned to have one, but you know how those things go."
"Of course."
"How long do you think we'll be here?"
"At least until tomorrow morning. It might lighten up enough to start a fire later."
Buffy nods. "I'm really not that cold." It's true. For once, Buffy's comfortable.
*****
"Are you single?" Buffy asks Fraser. It's nearly dusk and she's already asked him every sort of shallow question that she could think of. She knows that Fraser's favorite ice cream is vanilla with strawberry swirl and that he learned to play the guitar when he was seven.
"I think so."
"You think so?" Buffy raises an eyebrow. It's not much of an answer. Really it's quite the non-answer.
"My someone went back to the States." Fraser is now the one petting Diefenbaker and the half-wolf sighs. "It was probably for best. He missed Chicago and his family and friends."
"Mine died," Buffy blurts. She's trying to give Fraser some sort of understanding, but then realizes that it just makes it sound like she's in some bizarre pain-a-thon with him. "He burned to death saving my life and a group of my friends and family."
"I'm sorry." It's strange to think that Fraser's the only one who's ever said that to her about Spike. The others still didn't trust him enough to acknowledge her loss or they simply didn't know how to.
"Thanks." Buffy zips up her jacket. "It's hard. But I just keep getting up every morning and doing my job, you know?" She suddenly starts to feel the cold and thinks about calling Diefenbaker over so she can snuggle with him. "I hope you find him, your someone." She places her hand over Fraser's.
"Me too."
Buffy squeezes his hand before smiling and asking if they could please start a fire now. Fraser laughs.
*****
The weather's cleared or at least halted by the time they pack up the next morning. But even the sun cannot penetrate the October snow. "It looks like we'll be able to make it to the Hatchard's without further delay," Fraser says as he hooks the dogs up to the sled.
Buffy nods and climbs onto the sleigh. The trip is as swift as Fraser's promises. If he knows nothing else, it's how tell the differences between snow and more snow. She considers offering him a job with the Council. Giles would, no doubt, be thrilled to have someone to send on the missions to the end of the world or lecture young Slayers with Inuit stories.
But part of Buffy wonders if it would be cruel to yank Fraser from the Territories and put him in rainy, old England with a bunch of girls cooing over Orlando Bloom and complaining that they were once again out of tampons. Buffy imagines that Fraser would politely avert his eyes, a lot.
The Hatchard's house is a dull gray that seems to shimmer among the white. Buffy always thought that houses were boring colors, until now. A steady stream of smoke comes up from the chimney, and Buffy realizes just how cold she's let herself become.
Much like the appearance of their house, the Hatchards are warm and welcoming. They don't seem to mind that Buffy is an American; though she does wonder if that makes them more worried that she wouldn't survive the blizzard. Buffy can tell that they think she and Fraser are crazy for heading through a snowstorm in October.
Julie, the newly-called Slayer, is a head taller than Buffy, and her limbs are long and lanky. Her jet-black hair is pulled into a ponytail, and she nods through Buffy's demons-are-real-and-you-are-a-Slayer speech like Buffy did through 10th grade chemistry.
"We do have demons here," Mrs. Hatchard says, interrupting Buffy's monologue about the Watcher's Council and its training and education of Slayers. "And have been wondering for quite some time if someone was going to collect Julie. She has a choice, yes?"
"Of course." Buffy remembers when she didn't have a choice and the splinters she picked from her hands those first few nights of patrol. She'd been two years younger than Julie and bound for hanging out at the mall on Saturdays. "While the Council would like all Slayers to at least come to England for basic training, it's not required."
Buffy knows that she sounds like an automated teller when she gives this speech. She's only made it, oh, a hundred or so times. Sometimes, she thinks that they should dig up the bot and send it off instead.
For the first time since entering the house, Buffy looks over at Fraser. He too seems unmoved to find out about vampires and demons. It must be something about living in the north. Maybe Giles was right when he blamed Sunnydale's ignorance on the sun causing everyone to shove their heads up their asses. Of course, Giles had said that in a nicer, but still insulting, way.
"I think I'll be staying here," Julie says. She glances at her parents, who both appear very happy with her decision. "I'm sorry to have wasted your time. I should've sent you an e-mail."
"Don't worry about it." Buffy smiles her best representation of the Californian sun, and Mrs. Hatchard offers to make them lunch. With clear skies, Fraser is sure that they'll make back to the RCMP headquarters before nightfall.
*****
In a house full of Slayers, there isn't room for quiet, for thinking and contemplating, like there is in Inuvik. Buffy spends her time traveling the world, living out of a suitcase and trying to sleep in an upright position on airplanes with Spike always burning her on the edges of her mind. But here in the snow, it's quiet and cold. Here she can say goodbye in silence.
Buffy tries not to think of the significance of trying to freeze Spike out and how she wanted to wash Angel away a lifetime ago.
Here she can let the burning go into the chilly wind that hits the tip of her nose. Buffy feels like shouting, but she doesn't want to scare Fraser or the dogs. She's not sure how well sleds survive crashes due to stupid Slayers, and she doesn't want to test it out and spend another night on top of the frozen tundra. But something must've come out of her mouth because Fraser's asking if she's okay.
"Just thinking too loudly," Buffy says. She pulls the blanket tighter around her, now that she's more afraid of frostbite than feeling warm inside.
Fraser makes a grunting sound and veers the dogs to the left. "The long winters provide many opportunities for reflection."
"It's kind of nice. If only I wasn't so worried about my toes freezing off or if I'm going to be able to drive myself to the airport." Buffy looks ahead at the dogs, and she wonders if they ever get tired of seeing each other's butts. Probably not, considering that they were dogs and greeted each other with a good butt sniff. "You know, this wasn't exactly what I expected. I definitely figured that Julie would've had a wiggins over the whole Slayer thing. I know I did."
"How old where you when you were called?"
"I was 15." Fifteen seems like so long ago. So many apocalypses and dead monsters later that Buffy's finally escaped, to find herself out on the snow with a Mountie. Her 15-year-old self would've curled her nose up at that. "This sled riding isn't so bad once you get used to the wind and the dog butts."
Buffy swears that she hears Fraser chuckle at that. "My grandmother used to say that sometimes the journey is more important than the ending."
"You know, Fraser," Buffy says, "I'm glad I met you." They settle back into silence as the dogs hurry toward the town reflecting off the horizon.