Title: Lying by Omission Author: vienna_waits. Rating: General. Genre: Drama. Pairings: none. Spoilers: Victoria's Secret (to some extent), Letting Go. Dedication: To Moo, who never fails to inspire. Disclaimer: None of these characters belong to me. I am not making any money from them, 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: Written for the Live Journal ds_flashfiction "Lie or Lay" challenge. The more I watched this scene on DVD, the better my explanation for it seemed. Just watch the way Vecchio's eyes freeze up! Summary: An alternative take on a key scene from "Letting Go." Dates Written: Early March 2005, posted to ds_flashfiction on March 9, 2005. The first time they let me go in and see him at the hospital, after...you know, after Victoria...I didn't feel anything, couldn't feel anything but numb. My eyes bounced around and hung on the stupid little details so they wouldn't have to see the big picture: his fingernails looked blue. There were five pillows at the head of the bed. The monitor beeped loudly, and it was just the right tone and tempo to sing "That's Amor" to. One of the floor tiles, if you looked at it just right, had a faint speckly outline of an igloo in it. And my shoes still had tiny rust-colored flecks on them. The second time I saw him, my eyes kept blurring. Without the red uniform and the hat, he looked so...not larger-than-life, so un-Super-Mountie-like lying there. So fragile. Hell, the sheets looked rosy compared to him. It was like the trauma had just sucked the life out of him, shrunken him somehow. The doctors were still hedging about whether he'd be okay. I said every prayer I ever knew, I made threats, I bargained. I would have given anything for him to open his eyes, anything. And I never felt more helpless in my life. The stupid shooting team finally cleared me, and I told Ma I needed to get away for a few days. As it happened, my Aunt Dolores was so upset by Ma's recent non-talking visit that she needed a real vacation, so she was in Phoenix. Meaning I could go down to Florida and stay at her place. Fine by me. I asked Welsh if I could go to Florida for a few days, and he just looked me up and down and said, "I've seen stiffs in better shape than you. Am-scray, and I expect to see a tan when you get back." I lied to them. I felt bad at how easy it was. All I had to do was go to a tanning place before I went back to the 2-7. At least Fraser was going to be okay...eventually. But I'd have to lie to him too, and I didn't think I could go through with it. After what I'd done to him, the thought of not being straight with him tore me up inside. But I knew telling him the truth would be even worse. It would open an even uglier can of worms, if that was even possible. A rock and a hard place if ever there was one. I spent a long time getting to know every speck and squiggle in the linoleum floor as I turned things over and over in my head, looking at all the angles and not liking any of them, and then it finally came to me: don't *lie* to him, don't tell him anything that's not true--just leave some stuff out. But make sure that everything that comes out of your mouth is the truth. Lying by omission. That's not so bad. I could almost live with myself. A few days later, Benny was finally kind of alert. He was also pretty surly and still so under-the-surface mad at me that I wanted to go home and crawl under the bed, but if I waited until later, he'd be too sharp, he'd ask too many questions, and I'd be toast. I argued with him a little--to keep up appearances--but the whole time, I was really sizing him up, the way you can be rapid-fire questioning a suspect while a whole different track in your head is thinking, "Hmm, he's scared, and if you push this button, or offer that carrot, he'll give you what you want." That's what I was doing with Fraser. And...okay, maybe I was also trying to work up the nerve to go through with it, stalling a little. "...They like him, he likes them. He eats better than I do..." Fraser was taking out some of his frustration on Dief. Hey, better him than me. And Dief has a thick skin anyway. He can take it. "...I think he's even happier here...Ingrate." The tortilla chips tasted like sawdust, and my mouth was so dry I didn't even want to think about eating another one. I tossed it back in the bag and leaned back in the chair, staring down at the linoleum I had grown so intimate with, and began. "They haven't found her, you know." True. And hopefully they never would. I had been very careful. I waited, afraid to even breathe, and the silence was deafening. Keep your eyes down, I reminded myself. Windows to the soul, and all that. But the silence stretched out, and I couldn't help flicking a glance over at Fraser. What was he thinking? How would he react? His head turned toward me a little, and he went absolutely rigid, as though he were lying on a bed of nails. His eyes grew hard. I thought he was going to stare a hole in the ceiling. His voice--he was trying so hard to sound brusque, matter-of-fact, composed--could barely conceal the pain. "The investigation?" was all he could manage to get out. I gave a little shrug, an unspoken "Well, whaddya gonna do?" of feigned resignation. "Officially, it's still open; unofficially, it's on the back burner." True. The huge bank job and the triple drive-by a week later had helped people move on and forget about Victoria Metcalf. She wasn't a local, and had no local ties. Most importantly, there were no living victims to put the pressure on Welsh or his higher-ups to get her off the streets. It would be weeks before anyone even missed her. A cynical, horrible thought, but it was true. I had to press on. If I didn't keep going, he might ask a question, and although it would be something strange and seemingly innocent like "Did anyone happen to notice the color of the bag she removed from the storage locker?", it would inevitably lead to my doom. I looked down at the beige linoleum that had stood me in such good stead so far and took a breath. "The diamonds were recovered, and the murder victim..." Another tiny shrug. "...he was a convicted felon." All true. Also two perfectly valid reasons why the Chicago PD was not going to put major resources on this case. It would just fade away. Fraser seemed to be too depressed to do his usual verbal poking and prodding, at least for the moment. He was still staring hard at the ceiling. I realized with a shock that I might actually pull this off! I glanced up at him before pulling my eyes back down to the floor, gave a bigger, meatier shrug, and then this is where I kind of screwed up. I guess I just got a little cocky that I might actually be able to put one over on Fraser. "For all we know, she can be in Afghanistan." I winced inside. Afghanistan was actually pretty damn unlikely. Was Afghanistan even near an ocean? I couldn't remember. He blinked twice, and his jaw clenched and unclenched, the way it did when he was trying to keep it together, and then he turned his head toward me and looked me right in the eye. Jesus, I thought, the jig is up! He knows what I'm trying to pull, he's known the whole time, and now he's going to drag it out of me and then he'll have to arrest me and then I can kiss my life good-bye! I could almost hear the figurative fat lady opening her mouth and taking a huge breath. But then he spoke, and what he said scared me to death. "I still see her." I was so shocked, my face just froze. Not a muscle moved. I couldn't blink. I think my eyes tried to widen, but they couldn't. Dear God, had she somehow survived...and come all the way back here? For treatment, maybe? And lived?! It wasn't possible! It couldn't be! My eyes slid back to the floor. I was utterly terrified. "I'm not sure what I see, actually." There was doubt and sheepishness and confusion there, and I realized with a start that he had not just unmasked me, and now he was leaning away from me, and, thanks to the flimsy construction of your average hospital gown, unintentionally showing me more of him than I really cared to see. What was he doing? Then I heard the clickety-click of pills in a cup, and everything clickety-clicked in my head, too. He was on some pretty major drugs, and he was seeing things that weren't there--he was hallucinating, having vivid dreams, that kind of thing! Oh, thank God! I was so relieved I was more or less on auto-pilot for the rest of the conversation, but the sullen veiled anger in Fraser's parting remark stung: "...you've done more than enough already." Yes, Benny, I thought as I walked out of the room, I have. I've done more for you than you'll ever know.