"We'll be fine, Ray." Ben squeezed Abby's shoulder as she clung to his leg. "Go on and have a good time."

"At a police convention?" Ray shook his head, then leaned forward and kissed his partner. "Now, you've got the phone numbers of the convention center and the hotel where I'll be staying, and of course my cell phone.  You know where all the emergency numbers are--"

"Ray--"

"And Abby's cold medicine is in the cabinet by the kitchen sink, she gets two teaspoons every 8 hours, and if you have to go back to the doctor's, she saw Dr. Rossi last time."

"Ray, I do live here."

Ray halted in mid-speech. "I know. I know that.  It's just, you know, first big trip since I started the new job, and I reserve the right to fuss."  

"Go.  We'll be fine."

"I'm going, I'm going. Call me if--"

"I will."

"All right." Ray sighed. "Bye, sweetie. See you tomorrow night."

"Bye, Daddy." Abby held out her arms to her father and received a bear hug, then returned to her other father's arms.

"You be good," Ray admonished, and she nodded solemnly. "OK. I love you."

"Luv you."

"You too, Benny." He leaned in for another kiss goodbye.

"Have a safe trip, Ray. Now get going, you don't want to be late."

Ray smiled faintly. Ben still had trouble saying the words I love you, but they were implicit in everything he did say. "K. Bye." At long last, he made it out the door, leaving the Mountie and the little girl alone together.

Glancing out the window at the dreary grey sky, then down at his daughter, Ben mentally scratched his head. "Ah... so, what would you like to do today?"

Abby considered this, then brightened suddenly. "Can we watch a movie?"

"A movie? Ah, well, I suppose so... is there one in particular that you'd like to see?"

She shook her head. "You have to go to the movie store." Fathers could be so dense.

"Oh. Well, why don't you go get dressed, and we'll go pick out a movie together."

She nodded eagerly and raced off in anticipation of her treat. Daddy almost never let her watch movies.

Half an hour later, she skipped into Movie Heaven holding tight to Ben's hand. She led him directly to the children's section and began running quick fingers along the rows of bright covers.

"Look, don't touch," Ben admonished. He scanned the titles, picking up a few nature documentaries from the educational shelf.

"This one," Abby announced, tugging at his hand. He picked up the box at which she was pointing.

"Bambi?" He frowned slightly, glancing at his own selections. "Are you sure? Did you see these--"

"That one," she repeated firmly. He hesitated. "Please?" she begged, fixing him with a green-eyed version of his own patented winsome gaze. He sighed inwardly and put down his wolves, and with Bambi in hand, they headed for the rental counter.

Back home, they settled comfortably onto the couch with bowls of strawberries and yogurt and started the tape. Once Abby was thoroughly involved, Ben picked up his book and drifted off into the world of art and physics.

He was jerked roughly back to reality by the sound of a gunshot and his daughters shriek. The book hit the floor and his arms were around her in the space of a heartbeat, assuring himself that she was all right as he checked for danger, feeling a bit foolish a second later when he traced the shot to the television. He tried to let go, but she clutched at his arm.

"They shot his mommy!" A glance at the screen confirmed the tragedy, and his arms tightened briefly, sympathetically.

"Why? Why did that nasty old hunter shoot her?" Ben was silent, hoping that the question was rhetorical, but it sounded like she really wanted an answer. He stopped the movie and sat back, wishing Ray were home to help him explain.

"The hunter isn't necessarily bad, Abby. He's just doing his job."

"He didn't have to kill her!"

"He had to feed his family," Ben offered helplessly. For him, death had been a part of life from his earliest childhood, and he had no idea how to explain it to his city-born daughter.

"What about Bambi's family?"

"Um... I'm sure he'll be all right. Sometimes that's just the way things are, Abby. Something dies so that something else can live."

"Why?"

"Because... well, because... have you ever heard of population ecology?"

She gave him her best 'Dad, I'm six' stare, long since perfected on this particular father. He smiled wryly.

"No, I don't suppose you have. Ok, ah... you know everything has to eat to live. Some animals eat plants, and some animals, and people, eat other animals. That's just what's right for them."

"But what's going to happen to Bambi?"

"Why don't we watch the rest of the movie and find out?" Much to his relief, she nodded, and he was able to push Play and return to his book.

All too soon, the movie ended and the questions began again. "Dad, why don't I have a mommy?"

He jumped and sent out a frantic mental SOS to his absent partner. "Um... because you have two dads instead."

"Some of the other kids at school have two dads, but they all have a mommy."

"Well... all families are different. Some have a dad and a mom, some have two dads and a mom, some have two moms, and you have two dads."

"Why?"

"Because that's the way things are."

"Oh." She digested this information for about half a minute. "Dad, where do babies come from?"

The psychic distress signal was now almost strong enough to interfere with small aircraft radar, but no help was forthcoming.  Ben reviewed his options quickly.  There was no way he could tell her one of the many variations on the stork-and-the-cabbage-patch tale, or even the Inuit equivalent-- for all his born gift of storytelling, honesty always compelled him to admit that the tale was mere legend.  Abby would listen with rapt attention, then ask for the truth.

He remembered vividly the hours he had spent at age eight sequestered behind an armchair in the mobile library, poring over Gray's Anatomy and blushing guiltily every time he heard footsteps.  His heart had nearly stopped when an elderly lady, smelling strongly of garlic, had settled into the chair with the latest copy of Ladies' Home Journal.  After a few minutes, though, terror had turned into boredom, and he had returned to silently memorizing the structures of the reproductive system while his fragrant companion studied quilting patterns.  Maybe there was...

"Dad?" 

Forty years abruptly disappeared as he was jerked back to the present.  "Hm?  Oh, sorry.  Where were we?"

"I asked you where babies come from.  You do know, dont you?"  She eyed him suspiciously, and he could have laughed if he hadn't been at such a loss for what to say.

"Ah... yes, I know.  It's complicated."  He paused, hoping she would let it go, but she continued to watch him expectantly.  He sighed.  "Okay... ah, when a man and... when two people love each other very much..." Her eyes grew progressively wider as he explained, glossing carefully over the actual mechanics of sex.  "And then after nine months, the baby is ready to be born.  Do you understand?"

"She nodded.  So what happened to my mommy?  Is she dead?"

Ben hesitated, torn between truth and safety.  The serious talks and wise decisions of six years before suddenly seemed very different when faced with bright green eyes and a worried expression.  Safety won out.  "Ah... yes."

"Did somebody shoot her?" Abby asked sadly.

"No!"  Ben answered quickly, remembering another six-year-old who had once had this same conversation with his father.  It really had been a gun, that time, though it wasn't until thirty years later that he'd learned the truth.  "She... she died soon after you were born."  It wasn't a complete lie, he told himself.  The person he had been for that year, the person who had given birth to Abby and fed her at his breast, had ceased to exist when they'd returned to Chicago.  Since then, hed been Abby's father, never her mother.

"Oh.  Was she pretty?"

How was he supposed to answer that one?  "Ray thought so."

"What about you?"

"Um... yes.  Very pretty."

"What was her name?"

He swallowed hard.  "Jennifer."

She fell silent, lips pursed in concentration, and he braced himself for the next question.  "Can we go for a walk?"

Ben sighed with relief, then glanced at the window, where the drizzle had turned to an all-out cloudburst.  "It's raining."

"I know."

He bit back a smile.  Abby loved the rain as much as Ray hated it.  "All right.  Boots and raincoat."

"Dad..."

"You've been sick."

She headed off in reluctant obedience to don her rain gear, and he took a moment to let his head fall back against the sofa and his eyes drift closed.  Then he stood up and put on his own jacket and hat, took his daughter's hand, and headed out into the rain.

*****

"She asked that?"  Ray laughed as he tied up his pajama bottoms.  "What did you tell her?"

Bens fingers plucked at the bedspread.  "I explained the process of fertilization and development.  Upon which she then proceeded to ask whether someone had shot her mother, I presume because we had just watched Bambi,--"

"Ah, the dreaded 'Why'd They Shoot Bambi's Mother' talk.  Wow, you just got all the good ones, didn't you?"

"It was quite a day."

"I bet.  And to think, I was stuck listening to some retired police chief drone on about the importance of reading a suspect their Miranda rights."

"I think I would have preferred the lecture."

"Hm.  You weren't there."  Ray finished buttoning his top and slid between the sheets.  "So what'd you tell her about her mother?"

"That she died when she was a baby," he glanced at Ray, who nodded seriously, "that her name was Jennifer, and that she was very pretty."  Ray cracked up again, quickly muffling the sound so as not to wake Abby.  Ben looked slightly miffed.  "What?  You yourself said that I was, and I quote, not a bad-looking woman."

"I did not."

"You did so."

"Okay, maybe you weren't exactly ugly, but I wouldn't say you were exactly my type, either."

"Aha!  That's what you said last time!"

"You're imagining things."

"I am not."

"Hmph.  Well, maybe you were a reasonably attractive woman, but don't you dare go dressing up in drag again."

"Now, that's just silly, Ray.  What possible motivation could I have?"

"None."  He yawned contentedly and snuggled into Ben's side, smiling when Ben's arms wrapped around him and warm lips were pressed to the top of his head.  "I missed this.  That hotel mattress was lumpy."

"I'll trade you.  I'll take the lumpy mattress and boring speaker if you'll take the curious six-year-old."

"No deal.  How about we stick to this mattress, forget the speaker and share the six-year-old?"

He felt Ben's smile against his scalp.  "That sounds about right."

END