Disclaimer: No. Not mine. I own the plot but nothing else.

Author's Notes: Beta by the wonderful Janne, who totally rocks *g*

Story Notes: dark and multiple character deaths, BUT the ending is reasonably happy so don't let the little death thing put you off.

She was as beautiful as she'd ever been. As beautiful and as deadly.

But Ben no longer felt anything for her. After what she'd done he should hate her, but he felt nothing. Nothing but black, cold emptiness.

"Ben," she crooned, leaning over him. Her breasts, unsupported beneath her black silk negligee, brushed his bare chest.

He closed his eyes, turned his head away, and gritted his teeth.

"Ben, look at me." Her voice was whisper-soft, but her hand as she grasped his face and forced him to look at her was not. Long, sharp, black-painted nails pierced his flesh.

"Tell me you love me," She begged.

Ben made himself focus on her face and swallowed back bile.

"Tell me you love me." Her voice was losing its soft edge and her nails were biting down harder.

His eyes fell shut and he thought of warmth, of his mother, of Ray. Ray who had lain in this bed with Ben less than a week ago, both safe in each other's arms. Ray who had lain here three nights ago, while Ben was on patrol and Victoria slowly drained the life from his body.

The sheets had been stained with Ray's lifeblood. It had made Ben want to vomit. But then Victoria had carefully and methodically replaced the soiled sheets with crisp, white ones, and Ben had felt a physical ache at the loss of his last connection to Ray. His last proof that Ray had once been a living, breathing, vibrating entity in his life.

A cold, sharp blade pressed against Ben's throat, forcing him to look up once more. Victoria was directly above him, her eyes hard as steel, her mouth set, her incongruously soft breasts swinging at the very bottom of his peripheral vision. "Tell me you love me, Ben."

Ben closed his eyes again, saw a flash of memory. Teaching Ray to drive the dog sled, the flush of excitement on Ray's weather-browned face as the dogs finally did what he told them without deferring to Ben. Knowing that Diefenbaker was keeping them in line, and knowing that Ray didn't know that.

Ben didn't know where Diefenbaker was. He hadn't entered the cabin with Ben that night, the night before last, when Ben had come home to find his world destroyed and Victoria enthroned at the centre of the cataclysm. He supposed Dief had gone for help, but Ben didn't know whether to wish for its arrival or pray it would never arrive. He wouldn't live without Ray, but he didn't know if it would be better to die at Victoria's hand or his own.

He felt the mattress give as she straddled him, her knees planted on either side of his chest, the black skirt of her negligee billowing out to cover their lower bodies like a shroud. She wore no underwear and he could feel her, hot and moist, against his flaccid penis.

"Make love to me, Ben." She pleaded rolling her hips.

He shook his head, "I can't. I don't love you."

He felt the blade slice through the first few layers of the soft flesh at his throat, and prayed she'd end it now.

Something hot and wet trickled down his throat and he thought for a moment it was tears. Tears like those he had not yet cried for Ray. But no, not tears, blood. His blood.

His vision was becoming hazy; he felt faint. Victoria relaxed the pressure against his throat, lowered the blade and repeated the process. Cutting but not killing.

"Fucking bitch." He heard the words as clearly as he heard his own laboured breathing and his eyes snapped open.

"Ray?" His lips began to form the words, but then there was no need to ask. He had confirmation. Ray stood on the bed behind Victoria, making futile attempts to kick her in the head. Futile because his foot kept passing through her skull.

"Ray?" Ben croaked.

Victoria stopped what she was doing, but didn't remove the knife. "He's dead, Ben." She sneered. "Remember? He died so we could be together."

Ray's ghost snorted, "Yeah, really fucking selfless, that's me."

Ben almost smiled, but the weight of the woman on his lap, and the smell of his blood and her arousal made it fade from his lips.

"Remember Ben?" She purred, rocking forward and brushing her lips against his.

Ben made himself focus on Ray's face behind her shoulder. Ray's expression was set and his eyes burned, furious and almost alive.

Victoria was speaking, saying something, low and silky and obviously designed to be seductive, but Ben didn't know what. His attention had been caught by other voices. One very familiar, one he had only ever heard in bittersweet dreams of his childhood.

"Oh Ben, darling. That dreadful woman. Just close your eyes sweetheart. It's okay."

"That woman's hurt you enough, son. It's time to let go."

Then hands were cupping his face, rough and calloused not soft and manicured as hers were, yet soothing the hurt hers had left.

Ben thrust himself upward, felt the blade slice his jugular, heard Victoria scream - not in fear, but in anger - and then he seemed to be sliding. He slipped away from the pain and the cold and the blood, toward a muted golden glow and Ray's fierce, surprisingly solid, embrace.