due South snippet: "Comfort"

[luzula]

Title: Comfort
Characters: Stella Kowalski, Barbara Kowalski
Rating: G
Length: 300 words
Prompt: laundry
Summary: Stella gets a phone call after "Strange Bedfellows."
Notes: Just a quick little Sunday-night snippet. I couldn't recall any fic about Stella and Barbara, even though they're canonically close, so I had to write one...

Stella had just gotten home from work and sunk into the couch with a sigh when the phone rang. For a moment, she considered just letting it ring. It had been a long day, and that was on top of Orsini, Ray, the bomb...and she should get something to eat, and the laundry needed doing. God.

But she dragged herself up with a groan. "Stella here."

She could think of several people she emphatically did not want to talk with.

"Hi, dear."

Stella let out her breath in relief. "Barb, hi. I'm so glad you're not--well, it doesn't matter."

"Did you have a hard day?"

"Yeah. Well, work isn't so bad, I suppose, but..."

"Things not going well with that new man you're seeing?"

"Oh God. Yeah." Stella poured her heart out to Barbara the way she'd never been able to with her own mom. She remembered sitting in the Kowalski's kitchen in junior high, doing homework with Ray, with Barbara feeding them both pierogies. It had been a living, bustling home the way her own childhood mansion never had been.

"Oh honey, I'm so sorry," Barbara said when she'd finished.

"Thanks. Honestly, I should've seen it--I'm not usually such a bad judge of character."

"Maybe you're still on the rebound? It can't be easy."

Stella sighed. "Yeah, I think so. And Ray--I know he really annoys me sometimes, but I know he cares. It's just that--"

"You don't have to justify yourself to me," Barbara said gently. She had never taken Ray's side in the divorce, nor Stella's, either, and Stella was so grateful for that.

"Yeah, I know. Thanks. So, tell me what's going on with you?" Stella leaned back into the couch, listening to the comforting stream of Barbara's voice in her ear.

Comments

[desireearmfeldt]

I've been wanting to see some fic that explores this relationship! All sorts of interesting possibilities there, and I'm fond of both characters despite their (in Barbara's case, exceedingly) limited canon screen time. I'd love to see you do more about them.

[luzula]

Barbara never does seem to be very fleshed out in fic, does she? I mean, mostly she gets to feed people and mother Ray. My theory is that she and Stella bonded because Barbara didn't have a daughter and wished she'd had one, and because Stella didn't have a very close relationship with her own mother. And it's pretty cool that they stayed friends after Ray and Stella's divorce. And yeah, I'd love to read more about them, though I don't have more in my head myself right now...

[desireearmfeldt]

Probably because there's really zero canon info to work with; Ma Vecchio is more popular but often not all that fleshed out either, for much the same reason (and she gets *mentioned* in canon a little more often than Barbara, though she appears on screen much less than I would have expected from the frequency with which she appears in fic :) ).

It's next door to writing an original character, so unless that character is the main focus of the story *and* it's a fairly in-depth story, she tends to remain sketchy. I think I've read some fics where Barbara got some details/personality, though her role in the story was still being-Ray's-mother.

(I have a little Barbara 5-things fic half-written & waiting for a fan-flashworks amnesty round, or a flash of inspiration, or both. It is very much being-Ray's-mother-ish, but she gets a little personality, I hope. :) )