Title: Forgiven Author: vienna_waits. Rating: General. Genre: Drama. Pairings: none. Spoilers: none. Disclaimer: Benton Fraser does not belong to me. I am not making any money from him, just having a little fun. Honest! Distribution: Please ask first. Feedback: E-mail me at v dot waits at gmail dot com. Thank you kindly! Personal notes: My shortest fic ever, clocking in at just under 600 words. This story literally ambushed me one evening as I was working late. Written for the LiveJournal ds_flashfiction "Dirty" challenge and it deals with the death of a secondary character. Summary: Fraser digs a hole. Dates Written: April 25, 2005. The heat of August in Chicago had done its work on him. His once-pristine white Henley had long since become scarred with splotches of mud. It also sported unattractive, supremely human circles of sweat ringing the underarms. He could feel where the sweat had mixed with the dirt on his face to create a gritty, palpable mask, and where it had trickled behind an ear or over the jut of his chin, leaving curved trails through the dust as it sought the earth beneath his feet. He tasted a salty tang as his tongue flicked across his upper lip. His hair bunched into a damp, unruly mass on the back of his neck, providing a hint of coolness when the sultry air occasionally stirred. His hands were a mottled dark brown, fresh blisters beginning to rise from the work of the shovel, and his fingernails would have prompted a strangled cry of horror from his grandmother. Yet he felt unburdened and, in a strange way, clean. The blazing ball of orange beating down on him had taken the heat, the fury boiling inside him and drawn it out of him, stealthily, quietly, shovel by shovel. The rage had ebbed away from him so gradually as he dug that he hadn't really noticed until this moment how much lighter its absence made him. The sun had softened him, made him malleable again. He blinked and surveyed the scene: the hole was quite a bit deeper than it needed to be, and shovelfuls of dirt lay chaotically piled in every direction like corpses on a battlefield. "Oh dear," he noted absently. Well, there was nothing to be done for it now, and he could probably manage to get most of the dirt back into the hole. He walked a few meters into the shade, where the birch sapling leaned on the sturdy trunk of a maple, and gathered the young tree almost lovingly into his arms, comforted by the feel of the rough burlap around the rootball against his palms. A hint of a smile played on his lips as he recalled what the birch symbolized: new beginnings, healing and rebirth. He carefully positioned the sapling in the hole he had dug, feeling drained and empty, the white-hot anger no longer there to goad him onward. He began to shovel the dirt back into the hole, settling into a slow, stately rhythm: push, lift, turn, drop, tamp. Push, lift, turn, drop, tamp. Again and again, until he found himself silently chanting in time, Can-you-for-give-me? Push-lift-turn-drop-tamp. Can-you-for-give-me? He fell into it, the question gaining rather than losing power in repetition, until the world narrowed to the rhythm of his motions and his earnest, almost prayerful plea. The first splats of rain on the back of his neck and the faint rumble of thunder tore him from his meditation. He finished the last few shovelfuls a bit more hurriedly as the rain fell harder and surveyed his work. He felt at peace for the first time in weeks. With a sigh, he allowed himself to look past the newly planted sapling to the fresh grave it would someday provide shade for. The grave was marked with a simple painted wooden cross until the marble tombstone arrived: "Lt. Harding Welsh." "I just wasn't fast enough...I'm sorry, Lieutenant." The words were barely above a whisper, quiet yet controlled. Thunder cracked across the cemetery, rumbling like a train as it faded into the distance. "Thank you, sir." He picked up his shovel and turned toward home, the rain sloughing the grime from him, and knew he had been forgiven.