dS short fic: "Words on Paper Spill Into the Air" (Frannie and Maggie, PG)

[hsavinien]

Title: Words on Paper Spill Into the Air
Author: H. Savinien
Disclaimer: due South belongs to Canada!
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 2785
Author's note: My due South Seekrit Santa fic for omens, copied over from my Ao3 account.
Summary: Frannie's taking a vacation. In Canada. Hey, nobody ever said she wasn't a little bit adventurous. Happy holidays, omens!

***

Dear Maggie,

It's really great to hear from you.  I'm doing well and the new gloves are nice and warm, thanks.  Ma sends her best wishes and next time you're in Chicago you gotta stop by and meet the whole family.  She says you can't hit the U.S. again and not try some real homemade pasta fresca and do you like tortiglioni or farfelle better.  Ray (the actually-my-brother-one, not the blond one), was visiting too for Thanksgiving with his new wife Stella (the Ray-you-met's ex-wife) and they send their regards.  Ray wants to know if the Mountie thing is genetic and I told him it kind of was, so he really wants to meet you but wants to know if it can be somewhere not near water or anything explosive please.

Dief whined at me when I started writing this so he and Fraser probably send their love too.  Dief really likes you, huh?  Ray-you-met is complaining about the cold but he said to say hi for him and wants to know if you've got any cases on right now.  I told him I'd ask, so you should probably work up some stories for him.  If they involve Inuit history or anything, he's gonna fall asleep, I warn you.  It's totally a subconscious trigger or something like that.  Inuit legend=lights out.  I think that's probably Fraser's fault.  I don't think he's the best at figuring out how to tell stories to other people besides himself.  You've gotta suit the telling to the person, you know?

I read this really interesting book about stories last week.  Not a storybook, but a book about how stories work in people's heads.  It's really funny.  (Funny weird, not funny haha.)  It makes a lot of sense, reading the papers and watching tv after reading that book.  People set somebody up to be the villain, and somebody up to be the hero, and when that doesn't work out, because mostly things are more complicated than that, or say a woman doesn't act like they think she should even if she doesn't do anything wrong, then all of a sudden they come down on her like a ton of bricks.  It's really sad, I guess.  Sorry, that got depressing.  I was just thinking about that Jeanne Moritza case you had.  Because she left that scuzz-muffin she was married to and went to Alberta but she was supposed to start dressing like a boring secretary just because she got smacked around?  She didn't deserve to get hit because she wore a cute top and lipstick!  I know it's more complicated than that, but that's what the news stations make it sound like and I only know different because you talked about it. Anyway, it's an interesting book.  I'll bring it with and you can borrow it if you want.

Well, I guess that's all.  I'll be giving this to you in person since I'll be there before the mail would be.  I'm looking forward to seeing your house, especially since you're the girl kind of Mountie-crazy and so I'm pretty sure I can trust you to have an indoor bathroom.  Fraser has an OUTHOUSE and I mean it's clean because it's Fraser, but still.

Love,
Francesca

"Okay, I did not know you lived in a trailer," Francesca said, tiptoeing around the slush piles on the gravel drive.

"Really?  I thought Benton would have mentioned it."  Maggie held out a hand and Frannie grabbed it for balance.  She'd worn her best going-to-the-wilds-of-Canada shoes, so they were flats, but they still weren't watertight and her toes were damp already even though she was doing her best soft-shoe around the worst of it.

"Nope.  I pictured maybe a log cabin like Fraser's or maybe a little regular house."  Frannie looked it over when she paused to catch her balance.  It looked pretty sturdy for a trailer, with a solid foundation and a wood-plank addition built on the back.  Definitely not something you could hitch to the back of a truck and move anywhere soon.

Maggie steered her around a puddle.  "It was my mom's place.  I grew up here and she passed it to me when she died."

Frannie winced.  "When was that?"

"Shortly after I entered Depot," Maggie said, looking at her front door a little wistfully.  "Stomach cancer."

"Oh, geez.  Sorry for your loss."  Francesca patted the arm steadying her.  "It was just you two, then?"  She followed Maggie inside and toed off her shoes on the mat beside the door.  The main area sported a little orange and brown plaid couch, a comfy-looking matching chair, and two bookcases stuffed with books.  The hall leading to the other two-thirds of the house apparently doubled as the kitchen, and Frannie could see a dining table with two chairs beyond it.  Everything was cosy-looking, all browns and golds in the curtains and the rag rug in front of the chair.

"That's right."  Maggie smiled.  "She taught me almost everything I know - how to spot a liar, tan a hide, shoot a gun, bake bread, knit a sock.  Can I get you something to drink?"

"Sure, what've you got?" Frannie said absently.  "All that, geez.  They do make 'em different in Canada.  I mean, my Ma taught me how to cook, and crochet a little, and put on lipstick without looking like a clown, but nothing like that."  She dropped her suitcase beside the door, settled on the couch and tucked her feet up underneath herself to warm them up.

Maggie shrugged.  "Different environments call for different skill sets."  She went to the cupboard and rummaged around.  "There's instant coffee, cocoa, tea..."

Frannie nobly ignored the idea of instant coffee as an actual drinkable substance.  She hadn't had an espresso since she left Winnipeg.  "What kinds of tea?"

"Well, there's a special bark tea that my mother made," Maggie said, looking back over her shoulder.  "It takes some getting used to."  Her eyes twinkled.

"Okay, sorry, no.  No making me feel sorry for you to get me to drink that stuff.  I tried it for Fraser's sake once," Frannie groused.  "Never again.  Not ever.  You got any regular old Earl Grey or something?"

"Sure."  Maggie grinned.  She filled a kettle and put it on the range, then leaned in the doorway.  No, actually she was doing that parade rest thing.  If she were a normal person, she'd be leaning.

"Are you guys, Mounties, all like that?" Frannie asked.

Maggie cocked an eyebrow.

"With the standing at attention thing instead of relaxing like normal people," Francesca explained.  "I mean, come on, it's not like I'm an important visitor to the Queen or something."

"Oh."  Maggie looked startled.  "I didn't realize I was doing it, sorry.  Does it bother you?"

Frannie flapped a hand dismissively.  "No, no, just...relax already, okay?  I feel like I'm making you uncomfortable in your own house."

"Oh no, I don't mean to give that impression," Maggie said, sitting next to her.  "I'm sorry.  I'm very happy to have you here; it's a great treat."

"Well, all right," Francesca said.  "Oh, hey, I've got a letter for you.  Let me go use your bathroom and you can read it and then we'll be all caught up!"  She pulled the envelope out of her purse and handed it over, made the 'this way, right?' face and pointed through the kitchen.

Maggie nodded and hooked her thumb to the right.  "All right."  She sounded amused.

Frannie grinned and went through to the bathroom, only snooping a little in the toiletries cupboard.  Hey, with smooth, pretty hair like Maggie's, Frannie had to check out her shampoos.

There weren't any.  Frannie stared in mild horror at the plain white bars of soap that seemed to be the only thing in there for washing anything.  God, Maggie and Fraser both had super genes.  Some people had all the luck.  She sighed and mournfully checked her reflection in the mirror as she washed her hands.  Not bad for an eight hour flight in the tiniest plane she'd ever seen in her life.

When she got out, there was a cup of tea steaming on top of a piece of paper on the coffee table, set neatly between a squared stack of books and a carved wooden...something.  Maybe a walrus.  Maggie was nowhere to be seen.  Frannie picked up the mug and took a sip, scalding the tip of her tongue, ow.  The paper underneath turned out to be a note.

It said:

Dear Francesca,

I'd love to visit your family the next time I'm in Chicago.  Your mother's farfelle sounds like a great treat.  I haven't had many home-cooked meals that I haven't made myself since my husband died.  Casey was a good cook, but neither of us ever had the courage to try making pasta ourselves.  I'll have to bring some homemade preserves with me as a thank you to her.  I've heard a lot about your brother from Benton; it sounds like Ray was a good friend to him when he first arrived in Chicago and I'd like to thank him and discuss some of their cases together.  Is it true that they spent some time in a psychiatric institution?  I can't imagine why anyone would think Benton belonged there.  He's one of the most sensible people I've ever met.  The only odd thing about him is his relationship with our father and I can't think that's so uncommon, even in the states.

I hope to see Diefenbaker, Ray Kowalski, and Benton again in the spring. I have promised Ray on more than one occasion that I will not tell him Inuit legends. He does seem to have an odd reaction to them.

Your book sounds interesting and I'd be happy to borrow it.  I can't promise I'll have time to get to it before you leave, so I hope you don't mind losing it for the six months it will probably take before we get to see each other again.  Ms. Moritza got justice in the end, so the truth won out over a story this time.  I hope that can be the case more often than not.  Women suffer from the role we are given in stories more than we should.

Have you considered writing stories yourself?  I've enjoyed our letters over the past months.  Your writing is entertaining and you have a strong imagination.  You've worked as a police liaison for how long - a year and a half?  Surely you could pull some incidents from that to fictionalize.  I hope you think about it.

I trust the washroom lived up to your expectations?  I've gone outside to take care of a few chores.  Feel free to come out and lend a hand.  I left an extra pair of boots by the door if you need them.  My apologies for the short note, but I need to get to the chores before I lose the light entirely.

Regards,
Maggie

Francesca checked.  There were boots by the door that looked like they'd fit if she put on her wool socks (a gift from her Ma when she announced her impending trip to Canada).  She shrugged, stuck the letter carefully in her handbag and bundled up again.  Grabbing the mug, she wandered outside around the back of the trailer.  The tea warmed her hands and her face when she sipped carefully, trying not to scald her tongue more.  Maggie was out back, piling cut wood onto a wagon from a stack mostly covered by a tarp.

"I didn't know you could put a wood stove in a trailer," Frannie said.

Maggie smiled and wiped a strand of blonde hair out of her eyes with the back of her glove.  "They aren't standard issue, but my Mom installed it when I was a kid.  She owned the land and wanted to put down roots, so she built onto the trailer all the things she would have wanted in a house."

Frannie nodded at the addition on the back.  "She built that?"

"That's right."  Maggie gestured at it.  "It's a work-room and it holds the stove.  I pipe hot air from the stove under the house.  I need to build the fire up before night hits though.  Mind helping me load more wood?"

"Sure, I can do that."  She set her mug carefully on a stump and joined Maggie by the woodpile, only slipping once in the slushy snow.  "It's really great you can do all these things for yourself, you know?  I've never done any of the roughing-it stuff, lived anywhere that wasn't electric or gas-heated.  Fraser promised to teach me how to build a fire but I told him he didn't need to because I'd rather get you to show me.  Not rely on guys so much, you know?"  She found some chunks of wood about the same size as the ones Maggie was choosing and added them carefully to the stack in the wagon.

"Sure, I'd be happy to."  Maggie grinned at her.  "I'd show you now, but I don't let the stove go out when I'm home."

They chatted companionably while they worked.  Frannie's gloves got filthy and her jeans got soaked through up to her knees when she slipped and actually went down.  The little back room turned out to be warm and comfy, two layers of boards with insulation in between, Maggie said.  Francesca suspected that the insulation was made of moss and not that bright pink stuff that she was used to, but whatever it was, it worked.  Maggie showed her how to build onto the fire that was already burning in the stove.  She only knocked the logs out of place twice putting new ones in and Maggie said that was pretty normal for a beginner.

By the time they were finished, with most of the wood they'd brought in piled in a bin along one wall, Frannie was pretty beat and her stomach was gurgling hopefully.

"Dinner should be ready about now," Maggie said.  Mounties had really great timing sometimes, Frannie had always said so.

Dinner was a really great moose and barley stew with vegetables in it that had apparently been simmering on the stove all day.  Frannie got Maggie to write the recipe down to take home and made a copy to send to Fraser.  He'd probably put weird roots in it or something, but knowing him, it'd taste fine anyway.

They talked more, about Maggie's current cases - two burglaries and something to do with drugs - and Frannie's latest night class - American Sign Language.  Francesca managed to show Maggie the whole alphabet without screwing any of the signs up and also the one that meant banana, because that one was her favorite.  "It just makes so much sense," she confided.  "Some of the other ones are harder to remember.  I always mix up the signs for mother and father."

Maggie nodded. "Languages are a challenge.  I know that my French is certainly never going to be as good as my English or Denesuline."  She sipped her horrible bark tea and snuggled deeper into the couch, head drooping slightly.  Francesca was feeling pretty beat herself.  The exercise had helped get the kinks of the long flight out, but she'd still been awake for a long time.

"So hey, it's getting late, I should put on my PJs.  I'm sleeping on the couch?" Frannie asked.

Maggie jerked upright.  "No, certainly not!  You're sleeping in my bed, of course.  I'll put out my bedroll."

"Nuh-uh.  No way.  I am not putting you out of your bed.  What kinda guest would that make me?"

"I wouldn't be a very good host if I let you sleep anywhere else!" Maggie insisted.  "I really don't mind the bedroll at all.  The firmness is good for my back."

Frannie sighed.  "Okay, this is gonna be a long night.  Or...hey, your bed's big enough for two, right?"

Maggie nodded.

"That's fine, then.  We'll share, if it doesn't bug you any.  It'll be just like sleepovers with Anne Louise when I was in the eighth grade."

Maggie blinked.  "Oh, yes, I suppose that would work.  I never really had that.  Most of the other students at my school were either boys or really disparate in age, so I didn't have any girl friends my age growing up."

Frannie nodded wisely.  "Well, you missed out.  We'll make up for it now, though.  Heck, we've already been pen pals for six months."

"I suppose we have."  Maggie smiled at her, happy and surprised and Frannie was somehow so fond of her it hurt.  She hadn't had a best friend in a while.  It was good.

***

End Notes:
The story of Jeanne Moritza is entirely from my own head, though with a heaping helping of inspiration from similar situations. I don't want to fictionalize a particular person's domestic abuse, as that seems insensitive.

For interested parties, the layout of Maggie's mobile home: http://i.imgur.com/pBz5Rkv.jpg. The work-room her mother built is attached to the "Bonus Room".

The ASL alphabet: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ABC_pict.png. ASL for "banana": http://www.signingsavvy.com/sign/BANANA/958/1.

Denesuline, also called Chipewyan, is one of the Northern Athabaskan languages spoken by First Nations people in Northern Saskatchewan and Alberta and the Southern edge of the NWT.