User Name/Nick: Claire
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bob_fraser_rcmpAIM/IM: Si Barone OW
E-mail: biffingprincess@yahoo.ie
Other Characters: Omega, General Chang, Slater, Seven of Nine.
Character Name: Bob Fraser
Series: Due South
Age: 57
From When?: Post COTW.
Inmate/Warden: Warden.
The Admiral never forgets his flock, so to speak. Bob has been there and done that and is good with anyone through the miracle of seeming slightly mad but just when you think that this is all an act, he proves you wrong.
He is excessively non-judgemental regardless of type of criminal and has believed strongly in rehabilitation long before he ever became an inmate.
He's also an incredibly determined man who doesn't quit even, or perhaps, especially, when it is better for him to do so. Frequently known as the man who brings them in alive, he braves freezing conditions, sheer cliffs and even the criminals' own unwillingness to come in without regard for his own life.
The most obvious example of his belief in redemption is the incident with the dam. Instead of simply arresting Gerard, he offered him a chance to redeem himself by telling him he was going to turn him in. This ended up getting him killed and while he did admit to being somewhat bitter about that, when he met Gerard again as a ghost, he did offer him his helping hand when Gerard was hanging off a building, forgetting that his hand was insubstantial, citing that 'Well, still, I had to offer it, son. Whether [Gerard] deserved it or not'.
Bob's struggles to graduate and the trials and concerns when it came to his own wardens will give him a valuable insight into what it is like to be stuck on the Barge, apparently reliant upon wardens who have flaked or disappear. He'll be able to empathise more easily than a completely newly minted warden.
Item: A wallet (made by Benton).
Abilities/Powers: He has hearing and stamina beyond his years due to his work and lifestyle.
He is an expert in survival in the conditions of the harshest Northern weather and in tracking in all conditions.
He's a crack shot but needs glasses to read.
He's also generally unfazed by what the Barge can throw at him.
His primary ability is making sensible people terribly, terribly confused.
He's very intelligent indeed, able to pick up languages quite easily and has a range of information on a lot of subjects and is always expanding on that knowledge by reading.
Bit iffy on mnemonics though, squirrels and knots evidently don't mix.
Personality: Bob was considered the last of a stereotype of Mountie. All those romantic notions you might have about the RCMP, he personifies. Or at least he tries to. He's brave to the point of recklessness, fiercely determined and works hard to 'always bring his man in alive', having believed this to be the RCMP motto, which is, incidentally, 'Maintain the Right'. He's since decided that the fake motto is still better.
That this means is that he's likely to risk his own life than let a man, whether murderer or worse, under his care to die. Given that his remit in the RCMP was in the unforgiving wilds of the Northern Territories and Yukon, this moral code has been tested a lot and he has only failed to live up to it once, with the man who killed his wife.
As that suggests, duty is an extremely important element to his character. Duty to his work, duty to his family, duty to the people. His heart is where his duty lies. There is really only one thing that'll get between his loyalty to the RCMP and his duty and that's his loyalty to the land and the people of that land in which he makes his home.
He's used to be an outsider, so he can take himself out of a situation and mediate disputes with all types of people, from hunters to tribal elders. Rough or thoughtful, he'll listen intently and rely on his own experience and books he's read on philosophy to allow both sides to come to an amicable conclusion. If through no other means than his ability to think so completely outside of the box that he'd be lucky to even find it again.
He cares little about what his contempories think of him, as far as he's concerned, his way is the right way and has worked for him very well. He's spent most of his career fairly isolated, making few close friends. One was Buck, his partner and the other was Gerard, who was far more practical than either of them.
Though he doesn't acknowledge it, he has realised that most of the RCMP, those who don't outright hero worship him, think he's some kind of a kook, as a result, he's more at home with the Northern tribal peoples, than his own. This is his 'excuse' for not getting close to others. Neither view shows any insight into his true character and often are difficult to overcome. Despite this, he is still a social creature, he just keeps people away from his more vulnerable feelings.
He's had friends betray him in the past, Muldoon and Gerard being the most important, and his tendancy to give them every possibly chance is to the point where it costs him, his wife and his life, respectively. While most people would decide that 'once bitten, twice shy' would be a logical conclusion, when push comes to shove, Bob would return to form and continue to be a friend, albeit with much griping and moaning about it. He is human, even if he sometimes wishes he wasn't.
He is, at heart, a decent man. Who would work as hard for a stranger or an enemy as he would for a friend. Once he feels obligated to someone, he's nigh on impossible to shake off, even if said stranger or enemy would rather he left them be. If they need him, he'll be there, logic be damned.
On the romantic front, he's a man at sea. He'll mean perfectly well, but his version of romance was born where there was little food or supplies and only the dramatic landscape as a backdrop. Caroline baffled him on many an occasion and he still has no idea how he managed to convince her to marry him, let alone have a child. Even after his death, Caroline is a mischievous but well-loved figure. He rarely gets vocal about how he feels about her, but whenever she is mentioned, one is generally left with the impression that he holds a great deal of affection for her and that she's a strong-willed woman with a great sense of humour and oodles of patience, even if it does run out from time to time.
On the Barge, he had been perfectly happy to help people who were in need and confuse his enemies, including the Master. He showed no fear to anyone who threatened him. He made friends very easily, most of whom expressing wonder that he was an inmate at all, given his helpful nature and open mind.
The fact that he had come on board as an inmate eventually got to him, however, as he suffered from claustrophobia from being cooped up because he didn't enjoy having to go to a warden every time he wanted a bit of fresh air and his wardens kept disappearing on him. It made him slightly bitter and angry and when he did finally graduate he didn't feel particularly grateful, finding the fact of his graduation anti-climatic and pretty insulting.
He's in a better position now to return, having had reconnected not only with his son, but having discovered he'd also had a daughter and having been reunited with his wife. He's pretty much gotten all he's ever needed and the fact that he knows it'll be there, waiting for him, brings him a calmness that he couldn't have gotten while serving as an inmate.
Being a warden will provide him with a certain amount of freedom, too, at the very least, he'll be able to go wandering in the wilderness whenever he chooses and not have to bother or consult anyone else to do so. Also he'll be able to be a part of the warden's efforts to make the Barge a safer place, rather than having people question why an inmate has any business rescuing people or solving crimes.
He'll be as likely to make friends regardless of their inmate/warden status but will not be interested in what others would think of his wardening skills should they find reason to doubt them. He'll be treating the other wardens as his colleagues, and like his colleagues, he doesn't expect nor need their understanding. He has faith in his techniques and experience.
He'll likely draw on his storytelling and survival abilities to connect with his inmate as that's his home base. The story he tells may end up a bit odd, but they'll have morals alongside them, and would be drawn from incidents that happened to him (hence why they'd be odd), drawing parallels with what happened then with what would be happening at the time. He'll also likely get his inmate 'out' into the CES a lot, possibly with camping trips, teaching them to survive and bonding with them alone and without the Barge politics weighing them down.
He'll work best with those who try to provoke a reaction as he's not likely to allow himself to be suckered in, but also those with trust issues as he takes his job with perhaps surprising seriousness. He'll give up his life for his inmate without considering it a question and as he was hurt by the fact that his own wardens had been largely flakes, he'll consider being with them a point of honour.
History:Bob Fraser was born to Martha and George Fraser, who worked together as travelling librarians. Their remit was to ensure literacy among the Northern Tribes, which involved a lot of travelling in the Arctic circle and even led them as far afield as China.
This itinerant and even wild existence left Bob with little sense of a home base, which would persist through to his adult life. However, it also gave him a grounding in how to survive harsh and unyielding conditions and how to make people trust him quickly.
Martha was a particularly strong presence in his life and she made certain that she instilled the boy with high, not to mention nigh-on unachievable, moral values, so his ability to get people to trust him was not abused.
It was the combination of these that led Bob to the Mounties and he soon established himself as a Mountie to be admired and trusted, gaining lots of friends, including his best one, one Duncan ‘Buck’ Frobisher, his partner in the Mounties.
The two of them had a somewhat competitive relationship, including the courtship of Caroline Pinsent. This little dispute was fortunately solved by the holding hostage of the fair lady and the two men being in the equal position of having the shoot the miscreant. Buck missed and Bob fired what would later be known between the two of them as ‘The Great Yukon, Douglas Fir, Telescoping, Bank Shot’, which won her heart. Truthfully, though Bob didn’t admit this to Buck, Bob had shut his eyes at the last minute and it was a matter of luck. Buck would later protest that, in fact, he knew that Caroline had already chosen Bob and he let him win. Given what we know of Caroline’s character, it seems likely that her decision didn’t come down to who was the better shot.
Caroline and Bob married and she had the unfortunate duty of following him to places such as Fort Nelson, which had a three sixty view of the strip mine, and The Rat River, that name alone driving her crazy.
They eventually had a son, who they named Benton, and Caroline settled down in one place to provide the boy some stability. This meant though that Bob was gone for most of the year, staying with his family for only about four months, before heading back out. Even on these occasions, he would often elect to stay outside.
Truth was, he was rather overwhelmed by the idea of a son, and admired the boy greatly, but was unable to tell him so.
Their little family was destroyed one day when Bob, realising that his friend, a trapper and guide by the name of Holloway Muldoon, was dealing in endangered species and that he had to stop him. Muldoon fled, but not before shooting Caroline, who, in his own words spoken to Benton, ‘fell like a sack of potatoes’. Bob was enraged and spent an epic amount of time tracking him down, a year and half. He sent him down into Fortitude Pass, presuming him to be dead.
When he returned home to find his son waiting for him, he stopped living. Guilt and grief gnawed at him, and he couldn’t find the strength to look after himself, let alone a six year old boy.
He eventually snapped out of it, shaving and putting breakfast on the table and immediately set about arranging for Benton to stay and be reared by his parents while he went back to the RCMP.
He went from being a model Mountie to a legendary one and advanced in rank as far as Sergeant, all the while only visiting his son sporadically.
Even when Benton followed in his footsteps, Bob didn’t engage with him, not even for Christmas Dinner. The last time he spoke to him had been months before his death.
When retirement loomed, and Bob faced a future with nothing but a small cabin and the patch of land it was on, his priorities were weakened.
When the government built a dam for the generation of electricity for millions of homes, not to mention the job provided to the area, they found the dam to be inadequate for the job and would have to let a ‘little’ out every now and again. They turned to pay off Gerard, who was the head Mountie of the area, and his friend, Bob, who was considered to be the one who was most likely to try something.
Bob, feeling the pinch, and hoping they
meant a little, put his doubts aside and agreed to the payment, although he didn’t have the heart to show up at the bank where it was deposited let alone spend any of the money. As he feared, his deal with the devil quickly deteriorated. The local fauna was starting to die.
Hurting the environment is a sore point with Bob because he saw himself as protector of the land and its creatures as much as the people who lived there and, now with the caribou dying, he had to face the fact that he'd betrayed his duty.
He resolved to bring them to justice, starting with his friend, Gerard. He felt he owed Gerard the opportunity to surrender himself and so he told him of his plans to turn himself in. However, Gerard wasn’t keen on the idea and hired a killer. The killer, Francis Drake, killed Bob.
But that was not the end of the story. He ended up on the Barge, confused to how he'd gotten there. It wasn't long before the Barge crashed on Master's world. Thinking out of the box, Bob immediately set up traps in order to repel the invading forces. They successfully pulled it off with his help.
He made friends with Claire and Damon, though the latter being a vampire, it wasn't sustainable. He also began an awkward relationship with Gillert Grindlewald who reminded him a little of Gerard. He investigated Una Persson's death, which ended up with him filing a reprimand against himself and providing copies to both his warden at the time, Ned, and Howie.
During the amnesia port, he found himself suicidal after he had realised he'd forgotten his son and came to conclusion that he had died. The Doctor prevented him from doing so but it left him unsettled when he returned to normal. He eventually recovered before getting the plague.
Then his first warden left, to replaced by Trip. During this time, he subdued Shinzon after an attack on his warden Kahlan. Then Trip vanished and his warden briefly was Shawn Spencer, who didn't last long at all. His final warden was actually Ray Kowalski, briefly Vecchio, who pushed him over the edge.
Bob left somewhat disgruntled and decided his course should be to make up to his son. He didn't want to interfere in his life really, or be alive, so decided becoming a ghost would be the best course of action, much to his son's chagrin.
He eventually made up for the times he'd lost, forming an actual relationship with his son when Holloway Muldoon showed up again. He was surprised as anyone, realising that his inmate-ness really was an internal thing and confessed his part to Benton. When he had the opportunity to kill Muldoon again, he decided to punch him out instead, thus granting him his last wish, to see his wife again.
He and Caroline walked off into the afterlife together.
When Bob realised that Benton was going to be on the ship, he and Caroline discussed it, and decided that he should go and become a warden. That's why he's back.
Sample Journal Entry: from
here To be lost, it can mean so many things, can't it? It instills a kind of fear in all of us, a deep uncertainty, that sometimes leads us to head off in some direction, even if that way only makes us lose ourselves even more, often sending us trailing in circles.
The Canadian government advises that anyone who gets lost stays in one place, by their off road vehicle or perhaps their downed plane, the better for a Mountie to find you.
Recently we got lost in the most profound of ways, in our own minds. Certainly, we were all familiar with the shape of the landscape, the mountains and valleys of our emotions, but we lost our map and compass.
Some of us remained where they were, however alone and frightened that made them feel, hoping that rescue would come. Others, continued walking aimlessly, finding others and huddled close for warmth. And there were those who cried out and walked in circles, weeping and grinding their teeth, disappearing into the darkness of the woods.
A man can lose his job, his house and even, apparently, his life, and be devestated. But lose yourself, with or without a map or compass, you have nothing.
Sample RP: Bob Fraser took a deep breath. He was in the CES, this time of his own choosing and ability to let himself in. A lot of people had come and gone since he last been here, but at least he could take in the air whenever he needed it.
He walked down some rocks before half-smiling. "I miss you already, Caroline," he confessed quietly.
It did gnaw at him a bit. His son, the same place that he was an inmate, particularly given how he'd suffered here. He'd had fun too, did his duty and people would speak fondly of him, that he felt for sure, but still. Benton shouldn't have to put up with this.
Being a Mountie, following him here, he might have wondered if it had been done on purpose, but of course, Benton hadn't known he'd been here, so it was purely a product of him being so similar to his father.
He had mixed feelings about that. If he was to be honest. Which he wasn't. Not about his feelings at any rate, and certainly not to his son. He couldn't get away from the idea that his feelings were sentimental dangers that he could ill-afford.
"Well," he sighed to himself. "That's a different story, so there you are."
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