Main fanfic page

Title: Take me out of this frozen season
Fandom: due South
Pairing: Stella/Vecchio
Rating: PG
Word count: 1,131
Summary: Her first day back at work she couldn't find her gloves, and her car was in the garage being winterized so she took the El to the courthouse. She would have taken it home, too, but Ray offered to pick her up and she was nervous enough that she agreed.
Author's Notes: This started out as a snippet for the ds_snippets prompt "gloves." Then it got a little out of control. mrs_laugh_track helped me figure out what Vegas smelled like. snoopypez beta'd and provided title help.
Disclaimer: These characters are not mine, and I am making no money off this.

###

Stella hadn't wanted to come back to Chicago. But every time Ray walked into someplace from outside in Florida, he got this look on his face, this angry pinched look. Finally she asked about it. "Ah, it's nothing," he told her. "It smells like air conditioning and old people in here, that's all."

It had taken her weeks to figure that one out. It had taken a Travel Channel documentary on gambling, actually--but one pan of a casino filled with desperate looking seniors and Stella had realized he meant, It smells like Las Vegas in here. Still, in November, when he'd suggested moving back to Chicago, she'd wanted to say, Can't we wait until spring? No one's using their air conditioning any more. But that would have been unkind, and besides, she didn't like Florida either. She was just afraid of going back to Chicago--and afraid that it wasn't Chicago Ray wanted to go back to, it was Constable Fraser. To lose one husband to a Mountie may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose two looks like carelessness, she thought. It was a joke whose origin neither Ray nor Ray would have recognized. She suspected Constable Fraser would know it instantly, and for some reason that just made her more uneasy.

"The winter in Chicago won't be so bad when you've got somebody to keep you warm," Ray said with a leer. Stella winced. Ray had used that line on her, begged her not to leave him till the spring: C'mon, Stella, who'll keep your feet warm?

So I'll wear two pairs of socks, she'd snapped, and all winter she'd longed for his heat.

They went back, though, and she got her winter clothes out of storage and made the best of it. Her first day back at work she couldn't find her gloves, and her car was in the garage being winterized so she took the El to the courthouse. She would have taken it home, too, but Ray offered to pick her up and she was nervous enough that she agreed, even though she knew he'd probably stand her up--she hadn't forgotten what it was like being married to a cop.

When she got downstairs at 5:30, he wasn't there, and after a few minutes standing outside her toes had gone nearly numb. She walked around the block. Once she was moving the cold wasn't so bad--she'd forgotten how the wind sent all the blood rushing tingling to the surface and made you feel alive. And she still knew exactly how to walk on the icy sidewalk so she didn't slip in her heels. She knew Chicago, and it felt good using all the tiny skills you'd never think about in Florida. It had felt good, today, taking a deposition from a nervous witness, coaxing all the information out, seeing the case structure itself in her mind. When she got back to the courthouse doors, Ray was waiting, leaning against the side of his car. When he saw her he smiled, pulling his hands out of his pockets and shoving off the car. He was wearing black leather driving gloves.

Oh. Oh. She'd forgotten how much she liked driving gloves. She smiled at him and leaned forward for a kiss, looping her hands together at the back of his neck.

"Jesus!" he yelped. "Your hands are freezing. Don't you know better than to go outside in the winter without gloves?"

"I couldn't find them," she said shortly, pulling back.

He rolled his eyes. "Here, take mine." He peeled them off and handed them to her, his warm, dry fingers brushing hers. She slipped them on. They were fur-lined and still warm. She was reminded, suddenly, of how new and how fragile their relationship was, that she could still get this big a zing just from sharing clothing. "Won't your hands be cold? You're driving."

"So I'll turn the heat on. Anyway, if one of has to have cold hands, it might as well be me."

She didn't argue. "How was your day?"

He shrugged. "You know Welsh. Hey, do you mind if we do an early dinner? I promised Benny I'd take him apartment hunting tonight. You know he's living in the Consulate again? I can't believe--" He broke off.

"You can say Ray's name in front of me," she said sharply, feeling lonely and unreasonable and angry.

"I can't believe Kowalski let him get away with it," Ray snapped. "It's obviously a cry for help."

She huddled further into her coat. "I'm surprised they aren't living together," she said, and then wished it hadn't come out so bitterly.

Ray looked at her. "Yeah, me too," he said after a second. "Maybe they aren't sleeping together after all. Do you know?"

"No." Mrs. Kowalski didn't, so Stella didn't. That was what she really blamed Constable Fraser for; it was almost certainly ridiculous, but she couldn't help feeling that he was the reason she and Ray weren't friends. It was better than thinking Ray just didn't miss anything about her but the sex, anyway.

"Well, I'll see if I can get it out of him tonight," Ray said.

"You just spent all day with him," she said. "You couldn't have asked then?"

"Okay, what is with you?" he demanded. "And no, I did not spend all day with him. He and Kowalski are partners, and believe me, I do not want to get sucked into that insanity. Welsh said I could go solo again."

"I'm sorry," she said, feeling relieved and guilty. "I just--I don't know what." She did know what. Shit, she needed to make some friends. She'd never thought she needed any when she had Ray, and now she was turning into one of those clingy, jealous people who didn't want their spouses to spend time with anyone else.

"Stella," he said after a minute. "It's not--just, me and Fraser kind of have this history of ignoring each other when we're in love, you know? And I don't want that to happen again. He's the only best friend I got, okay?"

In love. He'd said it before. They both had, but it still--she turned her hands over, looked at the worn palms of his gloves. "You were right," she said.

"Really?"

She smiled. He sounded so surprised. "Yeah. Winter in Chicago really isn't so bad with someone to keep me warm."

He grinned at her, looking relieved and smug and happy, and she lunged at him, wrapping her arms around him and kissing him and knowing without a doubt that she wouldn't slip on the ice.